the opinion of those who are of leading characters in the assembly. I will not pretend so much as to mention that chart on which is drawn the appearance of our blessed Lord after His Resurrection. Present authority, late suffering, humility and majesty, despotic command, and divine love, are at once seated in His celestial aspect. The figures of the eleven apostles are all in the same passion of admiration, but discover it differently according to their characters. Peter receives his Master's orders on his knees with an admiration mixed with a more particular attention: the two next with a more open ecstasy, though still constrained by the awe of the Divine Presence: the beloved disciple, whom I take to be the right of the two first figures, has in his countenance wonder drowned in love; and the last personage, whose back is towards the spectators, and his side towards the Presence, one would fancy to be St. Thomas, as abashed by the conscience of his former diffidence ; which perplexed concern it is possible Raphael thought too hard a task to draw but by this acknowledgment of the difficulty to describe it.

The whole work is an exercise of the highest piety in the painter; and all the touches of a religious mind are expressed in a manner much more forcible than can possibly be performed by the most moving eloquence. These invaluable pieces are very justly in the hands of the greatest and most pious sovereign in the world; and cannot be the frequent object of every one at their own leisure but as an engraver is to the painter what a printer is to an author, it is worthy her Majesty's name, that she has encouraged that noble artist, Monsieur Dorigny, to publish these works

of Raphael. We have of this gentleman a piece of the Transfiguration, which, I think, is held a work second to none in the world.

Methinks it would be ridiculous in our people of condition, after their large bounties to foreigners of no name or merit, should they overlook this occasion of having, for a trifling subscription, a work which it is impossible for a man of sense to behold, without being warmed with the noblest sentiments that can be inspired by love, admiration, compassion, contempt of this world, and expectation of a better.

It is certainly the greatest honour we can do our country, to distinguish strangers of merit who apply to us with modesty and diffidence, which generally accompanies merit. No opportunity of this kind ought to be neglected; and a modest behaviour should alarm us to examine whether we do not lose something excellent under that disadvantage in the possessor of that quality. My skill in paintings, where one is not directed by the passion of the pictures, is so inconsiderable, that I am in very great perplexity when I offer to speak of any performances of painters of landscapes, buildings, or single figures. This makes me at a loss how to mention the pieces which Mr. Boul exposes to sale by auction on Wednesday next in Chandos Street: but having heard him commended by those who have bought of him heretofore for great integrity in his dealing, and overheard him himself (though a laudable painter) say, nothing of his own was fit to come into the room with those he had to sell, I feared I should lose an occasion of serving a man of worth, in omitting to speak of his [Spectator, No. 226.

auction.

Misdirected Education

WHEN I first began to learn to push, this last winter, my master had a great deal of work upon his hands to make me unlearn the postures and motions which I had got, by having in my younger years practised back-sword, with a little eye to the single falchion. Knock down, was the word in the civil wars; and we generally added to this skill the knowledge of the Cornish hug, as well as the grapple, to play with hand and foot. By this means, I was for defending my head when the French gentleman was making a full pass at my bosom; insomuch, that he told me I was fairly killed seven times in one morning, without having done my master any other mischief than one knock on the pate. This was a great misfortune to me; and I believe I may say, without vanity, I am the first who ever pushed so erroneously, and yet conquered the prejudice of education so well, as to make my passes so clear, and recover hand and foot with that agility as I do at this day. The truth of it is, the first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by most parents, as much with relation to the more important concerns of the mind, as in the gestures of the body. Whatever children are designed for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed the same way; and

Horace and Virgil must be thumbed by a boy, as well before he goes to an apprenticeship, as to the university. This ridiculous way of treating the underaged of this island has very often raised both my spleen and mirth, but I think never both at once so much as to-day. A good mother of our neighbourhood made me a visit with her son and heir; a lad somewhat above five feet, and wants but little of the height and strength of a good musketeer in any regiment in the service. Her business was to desire I would examine him; for he was far gone in a book, the first letters of which she often saw in my papers. The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace.

It

was very easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth ode of the first book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author, as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt. In the first place I asked him, ‘Who this same Pyrrha was?' He answered very readily, 'She was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains.' I lifted up my hands. The mother curtsies-'Nay,' says she, 'I knew you would stand in admiration—I assure you,' continued she, 'for all he looks so tall, he is but very young. Pray ask him some more; never spare him.' With that I took the liberty to ask him, 'What was the character of this gentlewoman?' He read the three first verses:

Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus
Grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?

And very gravely told me, she lived at the sign of The Rose, in a cellar. I took care to be very much astonished at the lad's improvements; but withal advised her, as soon as possible, to take him from school, for he could learn no more there. This very silly dialogue was a lively image of the impertinent method used in breeding boys without genius or spirit to the reading things for which their heads were never framed. But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of parents; who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding their children to accomplishments, which they believe nothing, but want of the same care in their own fathers, prevented them from being masters of. Thus it is, that the part of life most fit for improvement is generally employed in a method against the bent of nature; and a lad of such parts as are fit for an occupation, where there can be no calls out of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in knowing, how well Ovid's mistress became such a dress; how such a nymph for her cruelty was changed into such an animal; and how it is made generous in Æneas to put Turnus to death: gallantries that can no more come within the occurrences of the lives of ordinary men, than they can be relished by their imaginations. However, still the humour goes on from one generation to another; and the pastry-cook here in the lane, the other night, told me, 'he would not yet take away his son from his learning; but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler.' These wrong beginnings. determine our success in the world: and when our thoughts are originally falsely biassed, their agility