tory: epiftle to Sylla, Marius or Carbon remaining, nor yet to their wives or mistrelles. I do fuppofe, however, that there might be a few bad verfes prefented to Lucullus and Pompey; but, thank God, none of them are preferved. What a grand spectacle was it, to fee Ci. cero, the equal of Cæfar in dignity, pleading before him like an advocate in behalf of a king of Bithynia and Little Armenia, called Dejotarus, accused of having confpired against him. Cicero begins with confeffing, that he finds himself confounded in his prefence; he calls him the conqueror of the world (viciorem orbis ter arum); heflatters him, it is true: yet his adulation does not defcend to meanness; he retained fome fenfe of fame. It was with Auguftus, that no meafure firft began to be obferved. The fenate decreed him an apotheofis during his life-time. This flattery became afterwards nothing but a thing in course: no one can polibly be flattered to a greater degree, than when the greatestextravagance in the power of adulation becomes the most common.

We have not had in Europe any grand monuments of flattery until Lewis XIV; his father Lewis XIII. had very little incenfe paid to him; he is taken notice of only in one or two odes of Malherbe : he is indeed called a king, the greatest of kings, juft as the Spanish poets ftyle the king of Spain; and as the English poets laureat style the kings of England; and the greatest part of the commendations of that agewere bestowed on Cardinal Richelieu. But as for Lewis XIV. he was overwhelmed with a deluge of flattery;

yet he did not refemble the man, who as they pretend, was fmothered with the rofe leaves thrown upon him; he became the better for adulation. When flattery has fome plaufible foundations for it, perhaps it is not so pernicious, as they fay; it encourages fometimes to grand defigns; but the excels of it is certainly as vicious as an excefs in fatire. Fontaine has faid, and pretended alio to say it after Elop,

One cannot praife too much three forts of perfons,

The gods, one's mifirefs, and one's

king:

Asop said so before, I subscribe t the fame;

They are maxims always good.

Nevertheless Afop never faid any fuch thing; nor can be found to have flattered any king, or any wo man. Neither can it be fuppofed, that kings receive fatisfaction from all the flatteries heaped upon them; for the greater part never come to their knowledge. It was the height of reproach for Ovid to have flattered Augustus, in his letters dated from Pontus, where he had been fent into exile. And it is the height of ridicule to see the com pliments which court-preachers ad. drefs to the king, when they have the honour of acting before their majefties. Obferve the common direction to them, To the rew. rep. father Gaillard, preacher to the king. Ah! reverend father, are you a preacher only for the king? What, are you like a monkey at a fair, which never tumbles except for their majefties the king and queen? Derivation

Derivation of the word BLESSED, by Mr. Leibnitz; and of other old Words.

LESSED, not only in Englith, but alfo in the Scandinavian language ufed in Iceland, fignifies benedictus; but originally it fignified only fignatus, marked; that is, figned with the mark of a crofs and antiently all perfons fo marked were efteened to be benedidi. It confes from the old Gothic or German word blaffen, which means to mark; hence the marks on the faces of horfes are fill called blaefen in Germany. Blazeny alfo, in the Bohemian and Ruthian languages, fignifies benedictus. Hence the word to blazon, in heraldry, namely, to mark the arms on a fhield.

Doubtless from the fame root is derived the modern French word bleffer (to wound or burt) being the remains of the old Francic tongue. It is wonderful then, that Voltaire in his Questions fur l'Encyclopedie, fhould derive this word from the Greek blapto, to burt; and allow it to be one of thofe tranfmitted down from the Greek colony fettled at Marfeilles. To feveral other pure Francic words he gives the fame falfe origin as affrieux, which, together with its relations affright, affray, in English, come from the Gothic, and not from the Greek apbronos, Alfo agacer (to egg, or exafperate) has too much fimilitude to the English phrafe, to egg on, and edge (harpen), not to fee, that they are all relations derived from the Gothic, and not from anaxein; which, however, must be an error of the prefs for aganachein (to be in indignation). Bas (low) is the

fame word with bafe in English, and both have a Gothic origin; not from the Greek batbys. Cuiffe feems only a diminutive of cu, and not from ifchis. Fier has the fame Gothic origin with fierce, and not from any fuch word as fiaros, if there be really any fuch Greek word. Bouteille, bottle, not from bouttis, if there be fuch a word, but from the definitive of boute, bout, a bunch, in old English bote, bot; whence the old words in antient grants of houfe-bote, hedge-bote, fire-bote, &c. meaning a permiffion of cutting fuch bunches of wood as fuffice for repairing the houfes, the hedges, and for firing: hence in French bout came to mean the end, or extremity of a thing, as it often terminates in a bunch. Boot, in Englith, comes from the fame word bote; for the first boots were bunches of ftraw tied round the legs, as the first bottles were hollow bunches of leather. A Talbot, the name of a fpecies of dog, comes alfo from taille-bote; that is, a dog, whofe bunch at the tail's end is cropt, from tailler, (to cut); and perhaps hence our word tail itfelf. It is a common error, when readers meet with words in French and English, fimilar to Greek or Latin ones, to fuppofe they are all derived from thofe languages, without enquiring whether the Saxons and Francs had not the fame roots originally in their Gothic language; and that the Greeks and Romans derived thefe words from their own ancestors, who spoke a language which was a kind of dialect of the Gothic, or elfe of the Celtic; hence many roots run through almost every lan guage antient and modern. See Questions, &c. Leibnitz, p. 329,.

vol. 6.

Mr. Ferguson's Defcription of the Devil's Cave at Caftletown, in the Peak of Derbyshire.

H

AVING heard much of this wonderful curiosity in Nature, I was long ago defirous of feeing it, but never had the wifhedfor opportunity till in the begin ning of October, when my bufinefs led me through that part of the country where it is; and the following account is the best I can give from fhort notes taken down in the different parts of it, as my conductor or guide informed me, who feemed to be very intelligent, and behaved with the greateft de"gree of civility.

The entrance into this complicated cavern is through an almost regular arch, 12 yards high, formed by nature at the bottom of a rock, whofe height is 87 yards. Immediately within this arch is a cavern of the fame height, 40 yards wide, and above 100 in length. The roof of this place is flattich, all of folid rock, and looks dreadful over head, because it has nothing but the natural fide-walls to fupport it. A packthread manufactory is therein carried on by poor people, by the light that comes through the arch.

Toward the further end from the entrance, the roof comes down with a gradual flope to about two feet from the furface of a water 14 yards over, the rock, in that place, forming a kind of arch, under which I was pushed by my guide, acrofs the water in a long oval tub, as I lay on my back in straw with a candle in my hand, and was for the greatest part of the way on the

river, fo near the arched roof, that it touched my hat, if I raised my head but two inches from the ftraw on which I lay in the tub (called the boat); which, I believe, was not above a foot in depth.

When landed on the further fide of this water, and helped out of the boat by my guide, I was conducted through a low place into a cavern 70 yards wide, and 40 yards high, in the top of which are feveral openings upwards, reaching fo high, that I could not fee to their tops. On one fide of this place I faw feveral young lads, with candles in their hands, clambering up a very rough stony afcent, and they difappeared when about half way up. I asked my guide who they were, and he told me they were the fingers, and that I would foon fee them again, for they were going through an opening that led into the next cavern,

At 87 yards from the first water, I came to a fecond, ‹ yards and a half broad, over which my guide carried me on his back. I then went under three natural arches, at fome distance from one another, and all of them pretty regular; then entered a third cavern, called Roger Rain's houfe, because there is a continual dropping at one fide of it, like a moderate rain. I no fooner entered that cavern than I was agreeably furprized by a melodious finging, which feemed to echo from all fides; and on looking back, I faw the above mentioned lads, in a large round opening called the chancel, 19 yards above the bottom where I ftood. They fing for what the visitors pleafe to give them as they return. At the top of a steep, rugged,

ftony

lite arts, is to excite pleafing fenfations in the mind; and of doing this, mufic is greatly capable, The tones are alone fufficient to affect the heart with the fenfations of joy, tenderness, love, grief, rage, and defpair. In order to do this, it is neceflary to invent fome fimple melody, that is proper to exprefs each pathon or fentiment; to fuftain that kind of language throughout the whole piece; to prepare the hearers by degrees for the principal action; and, laftly, to labour to give that principal action all the art and all the force of which it is fufceptible.

It is eafy, for example, to comprehend a compofer's meaning, when he begins a piece of inftrumental music with a quick unifon, which is followed by a tumultuous pattage performed principally by the bafs, and which, in the midit of the greatest tumult, is fometimes fuddenly interrupted by a general paufe; and the whole picce perhaps ends abruptly, when it was leaft expected. It is eafy to perceive, that he there means to exprefs the paffion of rage. The pleafing fentiments are ftill more eafily expreffed, and more readily conveyed to the human heart. They who attend to the effects of a concert, and are capable of difcerning, may ealily difcover, from the looks of the fenfible part of the audience, the effects of the inte rior fenfations, All this is meant of infrumental mufic alone. When the compofer has words to exprefs, it is fill more eafy to produce the proper tones. Examples are frequently moreinftructive than precepts. We hall propofe thofe of one mafter only. All the fonata's and other pieces of Corelli, are

chef-d'reuvres and models; every compafer, who fhall carefully ftudy them, will find them of infinite utility, and by them may form his tafe. It is not in performing difficulties that the beautiful confits; it is fentiment or paffion that the compofer fhould at all times confult, whether it be a concert, fonata, trio, or any piece whatever that he compofes for an inftrument. Each inftrument moreover, has its bounds, its excellencies, and defects, which are likewife to be confulted. A flute, for example, is a rural inftrument that is not capable of rendering paffages in the manner of the violin, and it is ftriving against nature to attempt it. As each inftrument, therefore, has its peculiar beauties, the compofer fhould know them, and endeavour to afford opportunities in which they may be displayed.

It is therefore perfectly obvious, that mufic ought to addrefs itfelf to the affections and paffions; and that it ought never to be degraded to express difficulties. That mufic has little merit, where we only admire the execution of the per former.

MUSIDOR.