occafions for all the good-natured offices of generofity and compaflion. A man is unfit for fuch a place of truft, who is of a four untractable nature, or has any other paflion that makes him uneafy to those who approach him. Roughnefs of temper is apt to discountenance the timorous or modeft. The proud man difcourages those from approaching him, who are of a mean condition, and who not want his affiftance. The impatient man will not give himself time to be informed of the matter that lies before him. An officer with one or more of these unbecoming qualities, is fometimes looked upon as a proper perfon to keep off impertinence and folicitation from his fuperior; but this is a kind of merit, that can never atone for the injuftice which may very often arise from it. There are two other vicious qualities, which render a man very unfit for fuch a place of truft. The firft of thefe is a dilatory temper, which commits innumerable cruelties without defign. The maxim which feveral have laid down for a man's conduct in ordinary life, fhould be inviolable with a man in office, never to think of doing that to-morrow which may be done today. A man who defers doing what ought to be done is guilty of injuftice fo long as he defers it. The difpatch of a good office is very often as beneficial to the folicitor as the good office itself. In fhort, if a man compared the inconveniencies which another fuffers by his delays, with the trifling motives and advantages which he himself may reap by fuch a delay, he would never be guilty of a fault which very often does an irreparable prejudice to the perfon who depends upon him, and which might be remedied with little trouble. to himself. But in the last place there is no man fo improper to be employed in business, as he who is in any degree capable of corruption; and fuch an one is the man, who upon any pretence whatsoever, receives more than what is the ftated and unquestioned fee of his office. Gratifications, tokens of thankfulness, dispatch money, and the like fpecious terms, are the pretences under which corruption very frequently shelters itself. An honeft man 289 will however look on all thefe methods as unjuftifiable, and will enjoy himself better in a moderate fortune that is gained with honour and reputation, than in an overgrown eftate that is cankered with the acquifitions of rapine and exaction. Were all our offices difcharged with fuch an inflexible integrity, we should not fee men in all ages who grow up to exorbitant wealth with the abilities which are to be met with in an ordinary mechanic. I cannot but think that fuch a corruption proceeds chiefly from mens employing the first that offer themfelves, or thofe who have the character of threwd worldly men, instead of searching out fuch as have had a liberal education and have been trained up in the ftudies of knowledge and virtue. It has been obferved, that men of learning who take to bufinefs, difcharge it generally with greater honefty than men of the world. The chief reafon for it I take to be as follows. A man that has fpent his youth in reading, has been used to find virtue extolled, and vice ftigmatized. A man that has paffed his time in the world, has often feen vice triumphant, and virtue difcountenanced. Extortion, rapine, and injustice, which are branded with infamy in books, often give a man a figure in the world; while several qualities which are celebrated in authors, as generofity, ingenuity and good-nature, impoverish and ruin him. This cannot but have a proportionable effect ou men, whofe tempers and principles are equally good and vicious, There would be at least this advantage in employing men of learning and parts in bufinefs, that their profperity would fit more gracefully on them, and that we fhould not fee many worthlefs perfons flot up into the greatest figures of life. C. N° 470. Friday, Auguft 29. Turpe eft difficiles habere nugas, Et fultus labor eft ineptiarum. MART. Epig. 86. 1. 2. v. 9. 'Tis folly only, and defect of fenfe, I HAVE been very often difappointed of late years, when upon examining the new edition of a claffic author, I have found above half the volume taken up with various readings. When I have expected to meet with a learned note upon a doubtful paffage in a Latin poet, I have only been informed, that fuch or fuch ancient manufcripts for an et write an ac, or of fome other notable difcovery of the like importance. Indeed, when a different reading gives us a different sense, or a new elegance in an author, the editor does very well in taking notice of it; but when he only entertains us with the feveral ways of fpelling the fame word, and gathers together the various blunders and mistakes of twenty or thirty different tranfcribers, they only take up the time of the learned reader, and puzzle the minds of the ignorant. I have often fancied with myfelf how enraged an old Latin author would be, fhould he fee the feveral abfurdities in fenfe and grammar, which are imputed to him by fome or other of these various readings. In one he speaks nonsense; in another makes ufe of a word that was never heard of: and indeed there is scarce a folecim in writing which the best author is not guilty of, if we may be at liberty to read him in the words of fome manufcript, which the laborious editor has thought fit to examine in the profecution of his work. I question not but the ladies and pretty fellows will be very curious to understand what it is that I have 291 been hitherto talking of; I fhall therefore give them a notion of this practice, by endeavouring to write after the manner of feveral perfons who make an eminent figure in the republic of letters. To this end we will fuppofe that the following fong is an old ode, which I prefent to the public in a new edition, with the feveral various readings which I find of it in former editions, and in ancient manufcripts. Those who cannot relish the various readings, will perhaps find their account in the fong, which never before appeared in print. My love was fickle once and changing, • 'Twas first a charming face enflav'd me, • But now a long and lasting anguish For Belvidera I endure: Hourly I figh and hourly languish, Nor hope to find the wonted cure. For here the falfe unconftant lover, Various readings. Stanza the first, verfe the firft, And changing.'] The and in fome manufcripts is written thus, , but that in the Cotton library writes it in three diftinét letters. Verse the second, Nor e'er would.'] Aldus reads it, ever would,' but as this would hurt the metre, we have reftored it to the genuine reading, by obferving that Synærefis which had been neglected by ignorant tranfcribers. Ibid. In my heart.') Scaliger and others, on mý • heart.' N 2 Verfe the fourth, I found a dart."] The Vatican manufcripts for I reads it; but this must have been the hallucination of the tranfcriber, who probably niistook the dash of the I for a T. Stanza the fecond, verfe the fecond, The fatal 'ftroke.'] Scioppius, Salmafius, and many others, for the read a; but I have ftuck to the usual reading. Verfe the third, Till by her wit.'] Some manuscripts have it his wit, others your, others their wit. But as I find Corinna to be the name of a woman in other authors, I cannot doubt but it should be her. Stanza the third, verfe the firft, A long and lafting anguish.'] The German manufcript reads, a lafting paffion;' but the rhyme will not admit it. Verse the fecond, For Belvidera I endure.'] Did not all the manufcripts reclaim, I should change Belvidera into Pelvidera; Pelvis being used by several of the ancient comic writers for a looking-glafs, by which means the etymology of the word is very vifible, and Pelvidera will fignify a lady, who often looks in her glafs; as indeed the had very good reafon, if he had all thofe beauties which our poet here afcribes to her. Verfe the third, Hourly I figh, and hourly languish.'] Some for the word hourly read daily, and others nightly; the last has great authorities of its fide, Verfe the fourth, The wonted cure.'] The elder Stevens reads wanted cure. Stanza the fourth, verfe the fecond, 'After a thousand beauties.'] In feveral copies we meet with a hundred beauties.' by the ufual error of the tranfcribers, who probably omitted a cypher, and had not tafte enough to know that the word thoufand was ten times a greater compliment to the poet's miftrefs than an hundred. Verse the fourth, And finds variety in one.'] Moft of the ancient manufcripts have it in two. Indeed fo many of them concur in this laft reading, that I am very much in doubt whether it ought not to take place. There are but two reafons which incline me to the reading as I have published it; firft, because the rhyme; and fecondly, because the fenfe is preferved by it. It might likewife proceed from the ofcitancy of tranfcribers, who, to difpatch their work the fooner, used to write all |