evil of this world, transient and momentary as it is, stands connected with the good and evil of the next, which is perpetual, it is dangerous to trifle with it, as they are tempted to do, who address themselves only to the passions of men, without having any principles of truth and justice to restrain them.

I do not say, that you should abstain from all fiction, as such; for there is much profitable fiction. I could name several things which you may read in this way with safety and improvement: Gil Blas is a romance of the first class, in excellent French, distinguished by many capital strokes of good sense and original wit; the narrative of Rolando, the captain of the robbers, when we consider the character and profession of the person who delivers it, is one of the highest-wrought satires upon the follies of parental indulgence in education that is any where to be met with. I mean therefore to give you warning, that as fiction is now managed in plays and novels, it is proper to be upon your guard against it. And let me caution you against all productions of wit as make too free with religion, even with the errors of it; the mind by sporting with great subjects, will be accustomed to make dishonourable associations, and to lose much of that seriousness and veneration which is due to things of eternal moment. I question whether any man can read Swift's Tale of a Tub, or Don Quevedo's Visions, without finding himself the worse for it. In regard to all such indiscreet applications of wit, every young student may guard his mind and rectify his judgment, by reading Mr. Collier's View of the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage: a book which brought Dryden himself to repentance, and does indeed beggar every work upon the same argument; it is the triumph of

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wit over scurrility; of piety over prophaneness; of learning over ignorance; and of Christianity over atheism.

There is a practice common with our fabulists, moralists, and romance writers, which is contrary to fact and nature, and therefore is absurd in itself, while it is disrespectful and injurious to true religion, though it wonderfully captivates the fancy of some people, who admire what is exotic, without considering whether it is reasonable. Our writers have a favourite practice of recommending wisdom and morality, and many admirable virtues, to Christian readers, in a Turkish dress; but is it not dishonest to give to the Koran the honour of those sentiments, and that illumination, which the author himself derived from a higher source? It ought to raise our indignation to see the imagery, eloquence, and purity of the Scripture, giving dignity to the antichristian spirit of Mahometan infidels. This is an offence of the same kind with what some learned critics have supposed to have been prohibited under the terms of the third commandment, "thou shalt not apply the name of God to a vanity, that is, to a heathen idol." For it seems not much less injurious, to take the pure and exalted doctrines of the Christian philosophy, and put them into the mouths of narrow-minded, barbarous, bigoted, malicious, illiterate Mussulmen, by supposing them to talk and moralize in the superior strain of a well-informed Christian; and to invigorate their speech with the powers of learning, like classical scholars who have studied oratory and elegance all their lives; though the Turk is a professed enemy to literature. This plan exposes us to another inconvenience; that if we speak in character, we must speak with veneration of the religion of Mahomet,

and call it our most holy faith; and the impostor who invented it must be our holy prophet; which though it is but fiction, yet such is the weakness of the human mind, and the force of custom, that we may tell lies, or hear them told, till we believe them; and speak respectfully of Mahomet, till we think but meanly of the Gospel. The Adventurer has great merit as a work of moral instruction and entertainment, and may be read with great advantage by young persons who would be aware of the ways of the world, and the snares that are laid to ruin innocence in many respects the Adventurer is superior to the Spectator, and the author seems to have written with an excellent intention: but he has too

frequently indulged that idle humour of laying his scenes upon Turkish ground, and conveying his precepts in Turkish attire.

The lives of men famous in their generation, as saints, martyrs, scholars, philosophers, soldiers; and of those who were singularly infamous, as impostors, thieves, murderers, tyrants, usurpers, &c. if faithfully represented, will instruct while they entertain, and exhibit good and evil in their true colours, to much better effect than the thin-spun long-winded letters of Richardson, the incoherent ramblings of Stern, or the low scenes of Smollet, &c. which leave behind them but little worth retaining.

LETTER VI.

ON THE USE OF MATHEMATICAL LEARNING.

A YOUNG member of the university of Oxford being directed by his tutor to the study of Euclid's Elements with the rest of his class, remonstrated against it to his companions as a useless undertaking: "What," said he, "does the man think my father intends me for a carpenter?" Many other scholars of more wit than experience are under the same mistake: they think the mathematical sciences are of no benefit, but to those who are to make either a practical or a professional use of them. It must be owned that their application to the business of life is chiefly in mechanics, astronomy, navigation, perspective, the military arts of fortifying and attacking of places, surveying of land, and the like. And where would be the harm, if a gentleman of fortune who has leisure to know every thing, should know some of these things? But the use of mathematical learning is by no means confined to practical arts and necessary computations; it is eminently serviceable to improve and strengthen the intellectual faculties, and render them more fit for every kind of speculation. Geometry is a sort of logic, wherein quantities are the objects of argumentation: and the method of arguing is so strict, that the order of a demonstration cannot be followed without that unremitting attention, which when it once becomes habitual to the mind, will be transferred to all other subjects. The memory will be better able on every occasion to assist the judgment in comparing what

went before with what comes after, and thence deducing a conclusion with precision. Logic teaches the art of deducing some third proposition from the comparison of two others in a syllogism: but a geometrical demonstration being frequently a series of such syllogisms, habituates the understanding to a more orderly arrangement of complicated ideas; for if the order is broken the proof is deficient. Method is of the first importance in all subjects, to give a discourse the two excellencies of force and perspicuity; and no practice is so proper to communicate this art of methodizing, as the forms of reasoning in geometry. We have a remarkable instance of the efficacy of this practice in the theological writings of Dr. Barrow, to whose skill in geometry it may be imputed in great measure, that he has divided and disposed his subjects with so much art and judgment, as to exhaust their matter, and render them intelligible in every part.

But even to omit this analogical use of geometry, the science is necessary in itself to give an understanding of many things, which ought to be known. by men of a liberal education. Geography can be understood but very imperfectly without it: and the arts of projection, which teach us how to represent the face of the world in perspective, are as entertaining as they are useful. Every curious mind must be delighted with the operations of trigonometry; which enables us to measure with certainty such quantities and distances as are inaccessible: which to an ignorant person seems impossible, as if there were some magic in the work: but it is the general object of all mathematical reasoning, from known quantities to find others that are unknown, by means of certain relations subsisting between them.