Danica Or, GENTLEMAN's Monthly Intelligencer. For JANUARY, 1775. With the following Embellishment, viz. A NEW and moft CURIOUS MAP of the RIVER THAMES, from its Source or Rife near Cirencester in Gloucestershire, to its Termination in the British Channel. Delineated from modern Surveys, and most beautifully engraved. LONDON, printed for R. BALDWIN, at No. 47, in Pater-nofter-Row. Of whom may be had complete Sets, from the Year 1732 to the prefent Time, reasy Lon and stitched, or any fingle Volume to complete Sets. Stock. Stock 149 88 88 1 89 142 149 87 884 88 143 149 88 1 89 145 Sunday 145 344 145 152 88 144 88 PRICES of STOCKS, &c. in JANUARY, 1775. India Sou. Sea. Old S. S. New S. S. 3 per C. | 3 per C. | 3 per C., 3 per C.13 per C.B. 4 P. C. 3 B. |Lo.An. In. B. Navy B. Lottery In Ann. B. 1726. 1751 Conf. 1758 જૈન-વૃક્ષાસ Stock Ann. 90 59 9290 59 92 $ 26 1/ 59 88 89 60 Sunday 157 88 881 89 90 144 88 88 1/ 88 93 81 90 1 NE SW WSW Fair SW Rain SE Rain Sunday Rye. Barley, Oats. Beans. AVERAGE PRICES of GRAIN, by the Standard WINCHESTER Bushel. Wheat. Rye. Barley. Oats. Beans. s. d. 1. d. 60 33 3 6 s. d. 2136 70 50 3 6 2 10 3 9 South Wales 6 6 ondon ork HORNSBY and PEARCE, Stock Brokers, No. 19, Pope's-Head Alley, Chornhill, London. ༄།་ ད ་ འད HORW 13 THE LONDON MAGAZINE, FOR JANUARY, 1775. For the LONDON MAGAZINE. HARLEQUIN, No. XIX. Parents have flinty bearts, and children must be wretched. SHAKESPEARE. I MADE but three skips and a round turn from Pater-nofter-row into Oxfordshire. I paufed a moment in Woodstock, and then dropped down the chimney of an old fox-hunter, not many miles from thence, I took the old finner unawares, before he had got off his boots, in a fit of paternal reflection for the first time in his life. Thus he mafed. "I have been cruel, I have been unnatural-I perfecuted Tom violently against truth, and the law of nature I killed Dick and my daughter, he is an idiot-I am a wretch, and death hurries on me before I can make reparation for my Conduct." Racked with the torment of reflection, and the perturbation of confcience, be ftarted with the horror of his deeds, and haftily rung the bell for the fervant to take off his boots. "Ah (fays 1) Mafter Hardheart, there come an hour, when death will pull off your boots, and lay you up in the gloomy bed, with an eternal good night," Thefe words from an invi will c fible agent threw the flinty father into agonies, and for a week, I am fince informed, he has repented, and means to restore his children to his favour, and their natural right of fituation. Now for his hiftory, which is not a blank. He has been the father of feven children, to whom he has only behaved like one in the begetting them; for, from the moment of their births, his hatred increased as they advanced in years; when fit to go abroad, he forced them from him into the world, without that neceffary help which every youth requires to bear him over the billows of misfortune, and the viciffitudes of life. One was hurried into the army, and died in the fervice, poffeffed of thofe happy qualities, which conftitute a fenfible and polite gentleman, and a gallant foldier. The other explored the remoteft wilds of India, where he was unhappily fhipwrecked, and ftripped of every rupee, which indefatigable industry had collected. Ruined as a mercantile feaman, he implored the affiftance of a parent in vain, and unable to A 2 purfue purfue his occupation for want of money, he was reduced to every diftrefs in life. Nature, who had been very bountiful in her gifts to Thomas, as well in perfon and conftitution, as mental abilities, now stirred fome dormant feeds, that might have for ever lain buried and feared under a clofe covering of profeffional pitch and tar, and gave his genius a fillip to fupport him in his exigencies. It is a truth, beyond any controverfial contradiction, that neceflity, in every ftate of life, is the mother of active invention, and ftimulates every man of genius from the manual mechanic to the heaven inspired poet. It fets the engrave and the painter to work, and from each it produces the finest touches of art: it makes the poet's eye glance from heaven to earth, in an inchanted phrenzy, and brings forth thofe very excellencies, which ftamp poetry in the mind of man, to be a language nearest allied to gods and godlike ideas. The first bleffing which the deity of nature can bestow upon the mind of man, is poetry. To whomfoever the celestial flath is directed, the man is a favorite of the skies; and is fuperlatively diftinguished from the rest of his fellow creatures. The poet is elevated above the common drofs of humanity, and bears on his noble front, the immediate and visible ftamp of heaven: he is given as an improver to his brethren, or a fcourge to the fons of vice; he is ordained the protector of innocence, and the lath of premeditated, fullen, wicked dullness he is formed to convince mankind of the power of the gods, and the promised blef fings of futurity; to raise mortals to the skies, or bring the angels down. Poets are the embaffadors of heaven, divine infpired meffengers; to teach virtue to mortality, and paint the uglinefs of monftrous vice; to re prefent the virtues of the good, to perpetuate the deeds of honour, to elevate or debafe kings and heroes, and to hand down from generation to generation the great, the evil, the god like, or the diabolical acts of men; to encourage virtue in her thorny path, and hock motley vice on beds of gilded down. Whim, intereft, prejudice, paffion or pride, may make prifts, but heaven alone makes bards. 2 Poeta nafcitur, non fit. The man who is fo highly Favoured by the hand of heaven, to be infpired with a ray of genius poetic, is fo far bleffed above his fellow creatures, as his genius is lifted up above the humbleft dullness. The poet folded up within himfelf can mufe away the hours of life in a perpetual blessed incantation, improving and cherithing his own mind, while he informs and ravishes him that reads. He contemplates the various works of nature, and darts with an electrical velocity from pole to pole-he talks with all men, enjoys all nature, poffefles an elyfium of his own, and creates his own haram-he blends his nature with all the effence of creation, and doubly poffeffeth the works of the Deity-he ravishes the beauties of the earth with a glorious, furpaffing, and fubftantial rapture, and peculiar to himfelf, fublimates the fcene again, in tenfold ideal transport — he is at once the only thing mortal, that comes in comparison and competition with any thing divine and immortal. Bards and priests of old, were felected in their mature years from the community, according to their ability. Zoroafter was one of the first philofophers in the early dawn of learning, who, by a most comprehenfive mind, rofe perfect in ethicks and philofophy, taught the ufe of aftronomy to the ignorant, and informed them of the beauties of nature, and the moral improvement of the liberal arts and fciences. He led the young Perfian heroes from the academic grove, inftructed in the arts of obeying and ruling, and infpired them with the glorious love of truth and virtue. The Druids of this ifle, though unenlightened by the facred page of Scripture, and the melody of heavenly fong, were the flowers of the race of men at that very barbarous period; but, alas! as we have become improved, we have become vitiated our students are promifcuously fent to our colleges to fill the honourable function of the priesthood, without ever confidering whether they have hearts and powers equal to the divine function; by which means blockheads and profligates make their way to the pulpit, whom nature had had better calculated for the plough or the fea. But money and the interest of a parent are only confidered, which reduces the dignity of the priesthood to the contempt it is now held in: every ftripling chaplain with a fpruce round faufage head of hair, pricks up his ears at the chiming of the bells, and thinks with Whittington, that they chink-for lord mayor of Lambeth. The feminaries of learning ought to be ftocked with the very flower of our youth, and then the chancellor and profeffors fhould annually felect from each college, fuch men, whofe genius, morals, and abilities entitle them to the honour of the priesthood, and fuch as were not found capable, fhould be introduced to fuch profeffions as their talents fitted them to do juftice to, either in law, phyfic, &c. But now, as families have benefices in their gifts, in the cradle they pronounce mafier Jackey a priest, and by connexion and intereft does this unqualified thing rife by gradation till he fills the See of Lambeth, when he had made a better member of the Coterie or Savoir Viure. Now to return to the unfortunate fon of Squire Hardheart. Nature en dowed him with an excellent underftanding and great genius, which the illiterate blockheads about him call madness. Every man of wit and fancy hath been more or less accufed of madness by the dunces of his acquaintance; it is the only apology the dull fools can make for themselves, when they breathlefs lag behind in the race of fame and erudition: and Dryden hath confirmed the idea into a maxim, by saying. "Great wits to madness nearly are ally'd, [vide." And thin partitions do the bounds diSo Tom is faid to be mad, because his understanding is as much above the people of the country where he refides, as the light of the fun is to that of the moon. But misfortunes and diftreffes which perfecuted him from an unnatural parent, have driven a noble mind to the very rack and torment of defpair. Griefs and injuries will fo violently befiege the human mind, as to even invert the very first principle of nature, and disturb that understanding of the brain, which he meant to be lulled in harmonious tranquillity. Children are rarely without faults, but fhould not parents recollect and reflect, that they were children too,and even committed those very errors, for which they vehemently perfecute their progeny? It becomes children to be obedient and grateful, and it behoveth parents to be confiderate, humane, and forgiving. More fons are ruined by the neglects and unnatural conducts of their parents, than by their own innate follies: youth is an ofier, and may be bent in infancy to any form but if it is fuffered to grow to maturity, crooked, no art can make it straight: the axe alone can obliterate its deformity. 'Tis education forms the tender mind; This is obferved by the celebrated Andrew Marvell—" In his Essay on Creeds and Councils, &c." PR For the LONDON MAGAZIN E. luminous of all ages? But fo it is; and as A committee of fifteen perfons was nomi- thren |