212 SUPERSTITIOUS OBSERVANCES. The church in question was that of St. Catherine Creed, which had been lately repaired. As the Bishop (it is scarcely neceffary to fay Laud) approached the western door, he joined, with his reverend affiftants, in the following fervent exclamation: "Open, ye everlasting doors, that the King of Glory may enter in." This was repeated, till the doors, opening inward, as by an invifible hand, admitted them. They then proftrated themselves; and, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghoft, pronounced it holy ground; the Bishop, in the mean time, collecting duft in his hand, fcattered it in the air. With feveral eminent doctors, he next went round the church in proceffion, repeating the nineteenth, and alfo the hundredth pfalm. Curfes were then folemnly pronounced against all those who fhould prophane the holy place; Laud devoutly bowing to the east, at the end of every curfe, and concluding each with, "Let all the people fay, Amen." Bleffings were also copiously poured forth on the builders and framers of the church, and the contributors towards its ornaments. After the fermon, our zealous Bishop proceeded to confecrate, and adminifter the facrament. He approached the communion table, alternately bending his body, and raifing his head and eyes towards Heaven. Having reached a table, on which the bread and wine stood, but covered, he made a pause, ap. parently breathing forth pious ejaculations; then making feven bows, and reading many prayers, he ventured to raise up the corner of the napkin, wherein the bread was enclosed; as foon as the vegetable production caught his eye, the cloth dropped incontinently from his hand, his countenance and geftures exhibited strong marks of awe and veneration, and, ftruck as it were by boly fear, he retired backwards many fteps. With the like forms, exactly, fcrupulously, and almost theatrically practifed, with regard to the wine, particularly the retreating backward, the facrament was at length adminiftered, and the ceremony of confecration concluded. It was lefs than two years after this prophane mockery, that another circumftance occurred, which proved, that the Bishop retained the inquifitorial difpofition, as well as the fuperifttious notions, of the church of Rome. The collegiate church of St. Edmund, in the City of Salisbury, had, with its revenues, remained in the hands of the crown, from the days of the rapacious and libidinous Henry, to the reign of James the Firft, when it was fold to a private perfon; and having fucceffively paffed through feveral hands, was at length purchased by the parishioners, who repaired it, and made it their parish church. The windows had been preferved, and were painted after the old fashion, containing, among other things, the hiftory of the creation, in which, God the Father was reprefented in the form of an old man, with compaffes in his hand. This picture offended many of the parishioners, who, in the warmth of proteftant zeal, confidered it as a remnant of the whore of Babylon. A veftry being called on the occafion, occafion, it was propofed by Mr. Henry Sherfield, Recorder of Salisbury, and one of the congrega tion of St. Edmund's, to remove the obnoxious window, which was agreed to; and the next morning, fending for a glazier, he accompanied him to the church, and pointing out, with his ftick, the glafs which was to be changed, in the heat of reform, or the careleffness of indifference, he broke feveral of the panes. This action of Sherfield was reported to Laud, by one of those good-natured friends in a neighbourhood, which few men are without; an information was exhibited against him in the Star-Chamber, he was committed to prifon, fined five hundred pounds, and removed from his post. URFACE, CHARLES, in the School for Scandal, the effects of fuch a character, held up for applaufe and admiration, injurious to the interefts of fociety.See Sheridan; obferving, that nothing in that article is meant to extend to a defence of the fentimental hypocrify of Jofeph. SUTH UTHERLAND, JAMES, Judge of the Admiralty Court at Minorca, from which he was difmiffed in an arbitrary manner by General Murray, the governor, who afterwards furrendered that ifland. For this injury, Mr. Sutherland received pecuniary fatisfaction; but it was not money that could restore tranquility to a mind endued with the highest and most delicate fenfe of honor. This unmerited difmiffion, of which his royal mafter never gave any public mark of disapprobation, inflicted a deep wound, which ne ver was healed; he confidered himself as facrificed to heat of temper and mifrepresentation, and the fame law which procured him redrefs, having helped to diminish his refources, the afflicting humiliation of poverty was added to the anguifh of a wounded spirit. After repeated appeals and petitions to the King and his minifters, which were either neglected or not received, finding it no longer in his power to struggle with the evils of his fituation; unable to dig, and ashamed to beg, he deliberately refolved to put an end to 'his existence, in the prefence of the Sovereign who had been fo ftrongly prejudiced against him. This purpofe he executed as the King, in his carriage, was defcending Conftitution Hill, in the Green Park, on his way to the levee, Auguft 17, 1791; when the unhappy man advanced towards him, and falling on one knee, lodged the contents of a piftol in his heart. This is not the first instance, in which the fmiles or frowns of a King, remarkable for correct conduct and mildne's of manners, have been followed by defpair, felf-accufation, or fuicide. Early in the present reign, Mr. Yorke, a younger branch of the Hardwicke family, had been prevailed on, by the immediate perfonal application of the King, to accept the feals, contrary to the most exprefs and facred promifes he had made to men, with whom he was clofely united by blood, as well as principle. On this trying occafion, our young politician, (who appears to have been by no means deficient either in intellectual endowinent or perfonal character) racter) is faid to have been expofed, for hours, to the most preffing intreaties, which he refifted with firmnefs, but with decency and respect. After a long, and apparently an ineffectual ftruggle, the royal combatant found that victory was unattainable on the fair, even ground, of equity and good faith: he therefore dexterously shifted his attack from the understanding to the paffions and feelings of his unhappy fubject. After reproach ing him, with a mixture of tenderness and anger, for his cruelty and ingratitude towards a friend who loved him, and a King, to whom he and his family must be indebted for every thing they hoped for or enjoyed, he fuddenly funk on his knees, and burst into tears. Such arguments, and fuch rhetoric, Mr. Yorke felt himself unable either to answer or oppofe :in an agonizing conflict between his loyalty and his integrity, his honour and his intereft; in a fatal, a faithless moment, he gave way. Every expedient to foothe, to heal, to reconcile, to animate, and exalt, was induftrioutly felected; he was to be the confidential friend of his mafter, not a minifterial tool, and an honourable title was to be attached to the feals. But, on his return from the King's closet, he found the door of that brother whom he had deceived, for ever hut against him. Few of my readers will with me to recite the bloody conclufion of this negociation; it may be fufficient to obferve, that he exhibited every symptom of mental anguifh and hopeless repentance, but not of deranged intellect; and that the barony of Morden was, I believe, never registered in the house of peers. The second inftance was General Carpenter, a military veteran, whofe long life, devoted to the public fervices, or the domestic offices of his Sovereign, was not fufficient to protect him from court calumny, and the arrow which flieth in the dark. He withdrew from the fervile herd, who watch the fignal to flatter or to hate; he withdrew from that countenance, which, till then, had beheld him with approbation, to the valley and fhadow of death. It is not my wifh, however obvious the inftances, however eafy the task, it is not my wish to crowd the page with examples of injured private worth, and royal ingratitude; but fhould this perishable volume, in its rapid defcent to the land of oblivion, chance to be perufed by kings, or their defcendants, in their intervals of repofe from party cabal or loose pleafure; it may ferve to remind them, that fubjects are men of like paffions and like feelings with themselves; that the wounds of injury or infult are doubly envenomed when inflicted by those who are protected by eminence, power, and wealth, from an appeal to the fword. Perfons of that exalted defcription fhould recollect, that, by tempting us from the paths of rectitude, with those rewards placed at their difpofal, for far other purposes, the mainfpring of moral conduct is effentially injured; that one vicious character rewarded, or one good man difgraced, may influence the conduct of thousands, whom fear cannot cannot awe, or precepts will not reach. Great men ought not to be disappointed if, (as was the case with David Mallet) after they have been inculcating the bafe leffons of infidelity, and lax morality towards others, their own vile maxims fhould afterwards be put in practice against themselves. The feveral inftances I have mentioned, were confidered in the light of lunacy, according to the legal judicial opinion, and in compliance with the ufeful, perhaps the amiable prejudices of mankind in favour of unfortunate relatives; yet I cannot perfuade myself to think that a refolution to commit the damnable and unpardonable crime of fuicide, alone, and not accompanied with other circumftances, is any greater proof of an absence of reafon, than the commiffion of any fin of proportionate horror and magnitude. The parricide,, plunging his knife into that bofom from which he first drew the streams of life, and the mother, dooming her ill-fated offspring to untimely death, stand in the fame predicament with the self-destroyer; they all appear, from previous perturbation, and, in fome inftances, of lingering death, from fubfequent repentance, fully aware of the unnatural abominations they have been guilty of, and the certainty of punishment fooner or later overtaking them. Paffion, avarice, a fear of fhame, a dread of the world, of ridicule, of poverty, difgrace, contempt, and depreffion, equally goad them on to that precipice which they all dread at the moment they rush down. Every deviation from moral rectitude, may, perhaps, strictly fpeaking, be a fpecies of temporary madness; but if an inordinate purfuit of bad means, towards the attainment of unlawful endsif fearching for a deceitful resource against calamities and diftreffes, which, at times, have harrowed up the heart ftrings of us all, are unerring criterions of infanity; I cannot but be of opinion, that the intellects of the felon, or highwayman, are equally deranged with thofe of the devoted fuicide: and I fear that few of us have been able to fteer fo cautiously, at a certain tumultuous period of our lives, but that our conduct and convictions have at times been wretchedly at variance. The fubject of this article may be produced in fupport of my theory: educated with the nice fenfe of honour, and ftern integrity, and in habits of intimacy with men of high rank, military worth, and political fagacity; with a female family, initiated (perhaps culpably initiated, for a man whofe income was only for life, as it is not my intention to defend his conduct) in the modern forms of fashion, and elegant accomplishment:-thus fituated, and thus furrounded, he was in one moment difmiffed;-in one moment every fource of neceffary support, as well as refined indulgence was cut off; and whilft his generous spirit was ftruggling with penury, corpo ral malady was added to mental diftrefs, which, at times, tinctured his conduct, language, and manners, with incoherence, and irregularity, mistaken, long before the fatal catastrophy, for symptoms of madness. After After furveying the ground on which he stood, environed, on every fide, by precipices, and covered with the thorns of misfortune, while the trifling, the unworthy, and the infamous, were revelling on beds of rofes:-forgetting that the paths of religion, if explored, would open treasures of comfort to his afflicted foul, and that Providence, in its good time, would undoubtedly fend friendship, folace, and relief, Sutherland preferred the terrible uncertainties of death, to a life of poverty, pain, and importunity. I hope not to be fufpected of pointing out the conduct he purfued, as worthy of imitation:with all his fterling merit, and goodness of heart, he was culpa ble, in the highest degree: his tranfgreffion is, perhaps, the only one against which the gates of mercy will be everlastingly barred: he is to be ranked, however reluctantly it may be allowed, among thofe offenders who have deprived children of a father, the world of a friend, and fociety of a useful member; a perpetrator of 'murder moft vile, foul, and unnatural:'-but after confidering his treatment, fituation, and temper, I cannot think his conduct fur prizing, or that he was mad when he put an end to his life. If ftatefmen, minifters, and kings, fhall hereafter learn not to trifle with the feelings and misfortunes of diftreffed worth; a valuable man, and a meritorious officer will have been facrificed to a useful purpose. WIFT, Dr. delineated and laid SW open filth and naftiness, for the purpose of inculcating fcrupulous cleanlinefs.-See Monfey, Dr. who appears to have trod in the fame nauseating path, but on diffe. rent principles. TEA, EA, the leaf of a Chinese fhrub, which, gathered at different feafons, and prepared in various ways, often defcribed, but never clearly understood, is become an indifpenfible article of European, life; conftituting in its moft fimple and coarse form, part of the homely but unsubstantial fubfiftence of the cottager, while the refined and more expenfive preparations of it, afford a fragrant beverage to the luxurious, the fedentary, the delicate and fair. This bewitching exotic, has proved a powerful inftrument of finance, as well as a domestic favorite in Downing-street. It enabled Mr. Pitt, by a coMMUtaTION, neither equitable or fair, to put feveral millions into the exhausted treasury of the Leadenhall fovereigns; whilft the commodity in queftion, diminishing in goodnefs, as it refumed its price, his far famed act has darkened our windows, and disturbed the comforts of our breakfast. Yet after all that wit can invent, or ingenuity alledge, it cannot be denied, that the Tea Bill, with other meafures, in fome degree connected with, and following it up, has produced a vaft addition to the public revenue, and inflicted incurable wounds on contraband traffic. But it was not introduced in this place, to difcufs its political importance, or its effects on our health, though I understand it to be a point generally agreed on by medical men, that a vegetable fa generally, and almost universally in ufe, whofe infufion is swallowed by |