When what they foretold came to pass, they were rewarded; and, on the other hand, when, contrary to their prophecies, disaster and overthrow took place, they either perished in the general wreck, or those perished who might have called them to an account. Xenophon tells a story about one of these soothsayers, which is worth repeating: When the younger Cyrus was marching towards Babylon against his brother Artaxerxes, being exceedingly anxious about the event, he offered sacrifice and consulted the gods. Silanus, the soothsayer, who was the regular prophet or chaplain of the army, and in considerable favour, as it seems, with Cyrus himself; Silanus, we say, predicted that no engagement would take place for ten days. The distance then between the armies, and the slowness with which the huge forces of Persia were known to move, made this prophecy extremely probable; but nevertheless, Cyrus, who judged of his brother's impatience by his own, promised Silanus that in case his prediction should be verified, he would bestow on him three thousand daricks. Fortune, and the heavy sands through which they marched, favoured the prophet, and the prince rewarded him with the promised sum. Thrasyllus, a much more daring and skilful prophet than Silanus, contrived to extract large gifts even from Tiberius himself, a man whom we might have expected to find too deeply versed in the arts of knavery to be deceived by a soothsayer. Even in England, and so late as the civil war, prophesying was still a good profession; for both king and parliament used to buy up the predictions of Lily at a good price, though neither could succeed in monopolizing his gift. At present there are no prophets of any great consideration or celebrity, except the immortal Francis Moore, who still issues annually his Sibylline leaves for the benefit of the Company of Stationers, and Mr. William Cobbett, who prophecies weekly for his own benefit. Therefore, this excellent profession may be said to have suffered an almost total eclipse, though there is still hope that some emperor or prince may yet have compassion on it, and restore it to its proper dignity among men. A still surer road to riches has been discovered through voluntary vows of indigence and self-denial; for when a man takes an oath before God that he will remain in poverty, and torment himself by abstinence all his days, the world immediately experiences an inconceivable propensity to thwart his purpose, by furnishing him wherewith to live in idleness and luxury; by making him a prince, or some other preposterous piece of generosity. Thus the successor of St. Peter, originally a poor ragged beggarly priest, grew up by degrees to be the disposer of crowns, both here and hereafter, and still conceives himself entitled to talk like a prince. England itself, the country where sound thinking has been supposed to prevail more extensively than in any other, has still twenty-six princes, or peers, some of whom receive an annual income of 36,0007, for professing self-denial, and teach humility in a coach and six. Indeed, the church is at present the most flourishing profession that could be named; as a man may set up in it with very little capital, and with very great chances of an excellent return. It is really, therefore, the best field for enterprise. Next to this is the law, in which men subsist by fomenting the quarrels of others. Then follow physic and the stage :-quacks, actors, fiddlers, singers, dancers, &c., some of whom live more sumptuously than a Roman senator. We should be obliged to some patient calculator if he would inform us how much is paid annually by the English people for the pleasures of the stage, and what proportion of the money goes to eunuchs and foreigners, who carry what they get, or, at least, what they save, into other countries. The stage is undoubtedly the most elegant amusement of civilized life, and an actor, or a singer, a very respectable person. But, notwithstanding, it might perhaps be found, were inquiry made, that the gains of this class of persons were much more exorbitant than a wise people ought to approve. An opera singer refused the other day to be hired for less than 2001. per night. How many nights at this rate must she exhibit her powers in order to acquire an independence, and consequently the ability to withdraw the pleasure she can afford, from the public? For five hundred evenings she would receive 100,000l. which, at five per cent., would give her an income of 5000l. per annum. Pretty well, we think, for warbling a few songs. It is true, that all this while she must live; but she might live very handsomely for a singer, and have still 40001. per annum. It may, in general, be remarked, that as civilization advances pleasures grow more expensive. This is a curious fact. For the natural effect, we are told, of civilization is, to multiply the pleasures of life, and, in other cases, things greatly multiplied become cheap. Perhaps, however, it is only aristocratical pleasures that rise in value as mankind advance in wisdom, and that from the superior excellence of their nature. What then are the pleasures that become expensive in proportion as we advance in refinement? Those of intellect? Those of imagination? Oh, no! A man may buy Shakspeare, and so possess a treasure for life, for much less than a nobleman gives to hear a single song at the opera. If we love the arts, a few shillings will lay before us the chef-d'œuvres of antient and modern times. In many cases, we have but to walk into a public gallery to taste these pleasures gratis. A look into the Museum brings you acquainted with the genius of Egypt and Greece; there you may touch the gods of the Nile, of the Ilyssus, or of the Tiber; shake hands with Isis or Apollo, or, for variety, contemplate the combs and bodkins of a Roman lady. Were an exact scale made of all human enjoyments, showing how many are open to all those who possess competency and leisure; how many can be tasted exclusively by a noble; how many by nothing short of royalty; it would, we suspect, be discovered that the higher orders have not been able to monopolize the real delights of life, and that every thing which they alone can possess has no value but what is attributed to it by opinion. Riches are very often acquired by some intellectual or physical defect. Kings, the great stewards of Mammon in Europe, have always been accustomed to maintain, under one name or another, a fool at court, in order to enjoy the benefit of his congenial conversation. Sometimes one such personage is deemed insufficient, and half the court is formed from that family. These innocent people, however, being thus, to the great wrong and injury of the keepers of Bedlams, left at large, contrive, with all their simplicity, to extract fortunes from royal munificence, and found families in which the original virtue of the race is transmitted to the latest posterity. His Majesty of Byzantium, having much business to transact in his palace which would not very well bear to be painted by the tongue, has a particular affection for persons whom nature has deprived of that mischievous little organ. These, with the help of other imperfect beings, sow up his offending wives in sacks, and introduce them to the fishes of the Bosphorus. The same prince has likewise as many brace of Lilliputians about his person as can possibly be found in his dominions and upon all these step-children of nature he showers his bounty in profusion, as if he were commissioned to patronise imperfection. In Turkey, therefore, it is fortunate to be under two feet in stature, to be born without a tongue, or without reason-for, as the sultan patronises mutes and dwarfs, the people patronise idiots. During the brain fever produced by the Mississipi scheme among the Parisians, a poor man, who very fortunately happened to be hunch-backed, made a large fortune in a few days, by hiring out his shoulders for a desk to the speculators in the "Rue Quinquempoix." Sappho's sister-in-law was raised to the rank of queen by the beauty of her slipper; for a vulture happening one day to be flying over her garden while she was bathing, saw her slippers lying on the edge of the marble basin, and, snatching up one of them, flew with it to Memphis, and dropped it before the king. His majesty, being a connoisseur in pretty feet, was smitten with this slipper, and caused search to be made for the owner; that is, he advertised, we presume, in the 'Times' and 'Chronicle' of those days, and at length discovered the lady concerned, and married her. Among the Romans, fortune-making was a regular profession, the whole art of which consisted in knowing how to flatter and wheedle old men about to make their will. The artist, like Edmund in Lear, had very frequently to make his way through the honour or life of a beloved son or daughter; but he was not discouraged by such accidents. If people would stand in his way, and thwart him in his vocation, he could not help it; upon their own heads was the blame. He by no means wished to contend with them; he was their father's friend; and if they would suffer the good old gentleman to exercise The relationship, to be sure, was somewhat irregular, and the story is sometimes told thus :-as Rhodope was bathing in the Nile, (she was a native of Naucratis,) an eagle snatched her slipper out of the hand of one of her maids, &c. his own judgment, and choose his heir, well; if not, it was his duty, at all events, to see his patron free. Something very similar has at times prevailed in England. Priests and other pious persons have been known to wind themselves, as Goldsmith says, into their subjects, like a serpent, and, cozening them with hypocrisy, to abduct their understandings, if not their persons, and possess themselves of the property due to their children and friends. Such are some of the methods of thriving which either have prevailed or are still prevalent. We have barely glanced over them hastily, in the hope that Sir Thomas Beevor, or his oracle, may be induced to give the world a complete treatise on the subject. The thing is very much wanted: for it is quite certain that the ways and means by which money is commonly acquired, have very seldom been properly characterized or defined; and, notwithstanding the great number of books daily inflicted on the public, we perceive no symp toms of an approach to this branch of philosophy; which therefore appears to be left, by common consent, to be handled by the enlight ened and impartial historian of the Reformation! ON THE DEATH OF LORENZO MASCHERONI.' From the Italian. As when the lamp, for want of watchful care, Such was that soul refined, whose mournful doom, 1 From Tales of Chivalry and Romance, just published. IMPROVED PLANS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION. IT is the duty of periodical writers to watch the spirit of the age, to descry what new fountains of good are opening, and direct public attention to these salutary springs, so that they may be rapidly diffused over the whole surface of society. Possessing ourselves an intermediate channel between two remote quarters of the globe,-one the most capable of originating, the other most susceptible of receiving, improvement, we are at all times anxious to accelerate its genial stream to those distant regions. In compliance with this duty, we have examined some of the latest works on the all-important subject of public education; and proceed to consider the most valuable of the new principles they seem to have developed, or antient ones they have revived and more fully confirmed. More than two years ago, (in our Number for February 1824,) the Hazelwood system of education was brought to the notice of our readers. A second edition of the work then under review, improved by all the subsequent experience of its intelligent authors in the art of instruction, which in their hands has risen to the dignity of a science, and one of the most valuable of sciences, affords us an opportunity of observing the progress of this admirable system towards perfection. In the first edition, as observed in the Preface, this plan was treated rather as a subject of abstract scientific inquiry, the name of the authors, or even of the establishment, being modestly withheld, lest they should seem to be obtruding their affairs on the notice of the public. But, since that time, the voice of fame has ushered them into the world without waiting for their consent. "It would," they observe, "be affectation to attempt any concealment, after the notice of our work and its authors, in the Revue Encyclopedique,' the 'Oriental Herald,' and the Edinburgh Review,' which latter journal took the name of the school for the title of its article." We feel a just pride in having been the first among our periodical contemporaries, to call public attention to an institution whose merits needed only to be known in order to be appreciated in every quarter of the world. Among other proofs of this general approbation, we have lately learnt, that three South American youths, sons of officers who had fallen in their country's service, have been recently sent to Hazelwood, to be educated at the expense of the Buenos Ayres Government, for the purpose of forming them into teachers, intended ultimately to introduce the Hazelwood system into South America. About two years since, Mr. Rivadavia, the former President of the Buenos Ayres Government, being then in England, and desirous of placing two of his sons at the best seminary in this country for the completion of their education, was induced, chiefly by the high opinion enter 1 Plans for the Government and liberal Instruction of Boys in large Numbers, as practised at Hazelwood School. Second Edition. London, 1825. |