ing abfolutely free of impurities, and not liable to be troubled by any future commotions. The manner of making rough cy. der differs from that of the fweet, as it is neceffary to refrain drawing it off, on the firft appearance of the white bubbles, as before mentioned, but letting that crifis pafs unregarded, do it on the next tolerable feparation from the fouler and thicker lees, by which a luscious fweetnefs will be avoided. But even in rough cyder, the omiffion of one or two rackings is attended with a difagreeable coarsenefs, harfhnefs, bitternefs, fetidnefs, and fometimes with all these faults, which it can never be divefted of. Wherefore I would propofe, after racking out of the vat, to give it another clarification, at the end of Noyember or December, if made very late. There mu be care taken, after the fermentation is over, to fill every hogfhead in the cellar up to the bung, a which is to be continued once month, and without which the cyder will be apt to grow flat and heavy, and likewife to contract an ill tafte and (mell, from an engendered rancid air lodged in the cavity between the upper part of the cafk and the cyder. Vent fhould be fometimes given at a fp:le hole during the first three months after the cyder is made. Until it has done hiffing, &c. the bung-hole would be best covered with a tile, flate, or fit ftone, but when found to be perfe&ly quiet it should be clofely bunged down." on the Moika, a fream which enters the Neva, between the winter palate, and the admiralty. On the top is a gilded figure of St. John, on the fides are the pictures of our Saviour reprefented in different fituations, and within, immediately over the hole, which is cut through the ice into the water, is fufpended the picture of a dove. The pavilion is forrounded with a temporary fence of fir branches, and a broad lane from the palace is defended on each fide in a fimilar manner. This paffage, by which the proceffion advances, is covered with red cloth, the banks of the river and the adjoining freets are lined with foldiers. The Moika, in honour of the event, commemorared by this folemnity, is always dignified on the fixth of January, with the name of the river Jordan. On the prefent occafion the archbishop of Novogorod prefides, and thre the imperial chapel; the proceffion first part of the fervice is performed in mentioned to the Jordan of the day: then advances by the paffage aboveit confifts of musicians, inferior clergy, with all the ufual parade of tapers, banners, lofty mitres, and flowing robes. They range themselves within the pavilion, and are foon after joined by another proceffion of fuch of the Empress's court and family as. choose to be prefent at the folemnity; but in cafe of the Emprefs's being in ill health, it is performed without her. No parade of priefs and Levites, even in the days of Solomon, and by the banks of Shiloh, could be more magnificent. furrounding the pavilion when the ceremony is over, rufh with ungoverned tumult to wash their hands and their faces in the hallowed orifice. What pushing, and bawling, and fcolding, and fwearing, to get rid of their fins? The priests of different churches, and many other perfons, carry home with them large quantities of holy water, and believe themselves in poffeffion of a moft invaluable treafure. For they apprehend that it is not only bleffed with fpiritual energy, and is efficacious in wafhing away the fins of the foul, but is alfo a fovereign remedy against the malignant influences of evil spirits, and may be prescribed with great ad vantage againft the pains and malk. dies of the body. A lady, as the flory goes, had a child ill of a fever; many medicines were tried, but without effe&; site was, at length, prevailed with to adminifter the holy water: it was many months after the confecration; the water was fpoiled; but she did not believe it fo; for fuch water is incapable of (poiling. Be that as it may, the adminiftered a copious draught, and the child died. But having been poifoned by the waters of Jordan, The mother could not repine. On the fame principle, all infants who are baptized with the water of the facred orifice, are supposed to derive from it the moft peculiar advantages. Parents, therefore, are very eager, even at the hazard of their children's lives, to embrace the bleffed occasion. I have heard that a prieft, in immersing a child (for baptifm is performed here by immersion of the whole body) let it flip,through inattention, into the water. The child was drowned; but the holy man fuffered no confternation. Give the another, faid he, with the utmost compofure, for the Lord hath taken this to himself." The Emprefs, how. ever, having other uses for her fubje&s, and not defiring that the Lord should have any more, in that way at leaft, gave orders, that all children to be baptized in the Jordan, should henceforth be let down in a basket, Memoirs of the Life of VoL TAIRE, tranflated from the French Work, Written by bimfelf. twenty ninth of February, 1743, ARDINAL de Fleury died the at the age of ninety. Never did man come to be Prime Minifter later in life, and never did Prime Minifter keep his place fo long. He began his career of good fortune at the age of feventy-three, by being King of France; and fo he continued indifputably to the day of his death, always affecting the greateft modefty, never amaffing riches, and without pomp, forming himself only to reign. He left the reputation of an artful and amiable perfon, rather than that of a man of genius, and was faid to have known the intrigues of a court, better than the affairs of Europe. Public affairs, however, went on no better fince the death of the Cardinal, than they had done during the two laft years of his life. The house of Auftria rofe from its afhes into new life; France was preffed hard by Eng land; and we had no refource left but in the King of Pruffia, who had led us into this war, and who abandoned us in our neceffity. They conceived the defign of fending me fecretly to found the intentions of this monarch, and try if he was not in a humour to prevent the form, which, foon or late, must gather at Vienna, and fall upon him, after having vifited us. A pretext was wanted for my journey toPruffia,and I feized that of a difpute I had with the Bishop of Mierepoix, who had prevented me from fucceeding to Cardinal Fleury's place in the French academy. I writ to the King of Pruffia, that I rouft take refuge with a prince who was a philofopher, to escape the faare of a Bifhop, who was a bigot. When I came to Berlin, his Majef ty would lodge me in the palace, as he had done on my former vifits. He led at Potzdam the life he had always led fince his advancement to the throne: the manner of it' deferves a defcription. N He rose at five in fummer, and fix in winter. If you with to know the royal ceremonies, what they were on Great, and what on common occafi. ops, the functions of his high Almoner, his great Chamberlain, the firft gentleman of his bed-chamber, and bis gentlemen ofhers, Laufwer, a figle lacquey came to light his fie dreis, and have him, though he partIy drelled himself aloue. Lis chamber was rather beautiful, a rich baluftrade of filver, ornamsuted with little loves, of exceeding good sculpture, feemed to form the alcove of the fate bed, the curtains of which were feen; but behind these curtajus, instead of a bed there was a library; and as to the real bed, it was a kind of folding couch of ftraw, with a flight mattrals, and hidden from the view. Marcus Aurelius and Julian, the two greatest men among the Romans, and poftles of the Stoics, lay not on a harder bed. Breakfall being over, the ftate affairs next were confidered, and his fra Minter came with a large bun. dle of papers under his arm. This fr Minifter was a Clerk, who lodged up two pair of fairs in the houre of Fudefdoff, and was the foldier, now valet de chambre and favourite, who had formerly ferved the King at Cuftrin. The Secretaries of State fent all the difpatches to the King's clerks; they made extracts, which were brought to his Majefly by this perfon, and the King writ his anfwer in the margin in two words, The whole affairs of the kingdom were thus expedited in an hour, and fel dom did the Secretaries of State, or the Minifters in office, come into his prefence; nay, there were fome to whom he had never fpoken. The King, his father, had put the finances under fuch exact regulations, all was executed in fuch a military manner, and obedience was fo blind, that four hundred leagues were governed with as much ease as a manor. About eleven o'clock, the King, booted, reviewed in his garden his regiment of guards; and at the fame hour all the Colonels did the like throughout the provinces, in the in terval of parade and dinner time. When dinner was over he retired to his cabinet, and writ verfes til! five or fix o'clock, when a young man of the name of Darget formerly Secretary to M. de Valory, the French Envoy, came and read to him. At (even he had a little concert, at which he played the fute, and as well as the best performers, His own compofitions were often among the pieces played, for there was no art he did not cultivate; and had he lived among the Greeks, he would not, like Epaminondas, have had the mortifi cation to confefs he did not underftand mufic. this Number, was felected from a manufcript Volume of Poems, written by PHILLIS PETERS, formerly PHILLIS WHEATLY--and is inferted as a Specimen of her Work: fhould this gain the Approbation of the Publick, and fufficient, encouragement be given, a Volume will be shortly Pub-lifhed, by the Printers hereof, who receive fubfcriptionsfor faid Work. Ал An Efay on Beauty. THB la fuifhing and nobleft every body is accuftomed to fpeak of as a thing inexplicable; and, in a great meafure, I believe, it is fo. We know that the foul is, but we scarce know what it is; every judge of beauty can point out grace, but no one that I know of has ever yet fixt upon a definition for it. Grace often depends on fome very little incidents in a fine face; and in actions, it confifis more in the manner of doing things, than in the things ,themfelves. It is perpetually vary. ing its appearances; and is therefore much more difficult to be confidered, than any thing fixt and fleady. While you look upon one, it fleals from under the eye of the Obferver; and is fucceeded perhaps by another, that flees away as foon, and as imperceptibly. It is on this account that grace is better to be ftudied in Corregio's, Guido's, and Raphael's pictures, than in real life. Thus, for inftance, if I wanted to difcover what it is that makes anger graceful, in a fet of features full of the greateft fweetness; I fhould rather endeavour to find it out in Guido's St. Michael, than in Mrs. Te's face, if that ever had any anger in it: Because, in the pictured angel, one has full leifure to confider it; but, in the living one, it would be too tranfient and changeable to be the fubject of any feady observation. But though one cannot pun&ually fay what Grace is, we may point out the parts and things in which it is soft apt to appear. The chief dwelling place of Grace is about the mouth; though, at times it may vifit every limb or part of the body. But the mouth is the chief feat of Grace; as much as the chief feat for the beauty of the paffions is in the eyes. In a very graceful face, by which I do not fo much mean a majestic, as a foft and pleasing one, there is nowand-then (for no part of beauty is either lo engaging, or fo uncommon) a certain delicioufnels that almoft al ways lives about the mouth, in fome. thing not quite enough to be called a fmile, but rather an approach toward one; which varies gently about the different lines there, like a little Auttering Cupid; and perhaps fometimes difcovers a little dimple, that after juft lightening upon you difappears, and appears again by fits. This I take to be one of the moft pleafing forts of Grace of any; but you will understand what I mean by your own memory, better than by any expreffions I could poffibly ufe to defcribe it. The grace of attitudes may belong to the pofition of each part, as well as to the carriage or difpofition of the whole body but how much more it belongs to the head, than to any other part, may be seen in the pieces of the mo celebrated painters; and particularly, in thofe of Guido: who indeed has been rather too lavish in beflowing this beauty on almoft all his fine women, whereas nature has given it info high a degree but to very few. The turns of the neck are extremely capable of Grace; and are very eafy to be observed, and very difficult to be accounted for. How much of this Grace may belong to the arms and feet, as well as to the neck and head, may be feen in dancing But it is not only in genteel motions, that a very pretty woman will be graceful; and Ovid (who was fo great a mafter in all the parts of beauty) had very good reason for faying, That when Venus, to please her gallant, imitated the hobbling gait of her husband, her very lamenefs had a great deal of prettiness and grace in it. 66 Every motion of a graceful wo man (fays another writer of the fame age) is full of grace." She defigns nothing by it perhaps, and may even not be fenfible of it herfelf; and indeed the fhould not be fo too much for the moment that any gefture or aclion appears to be affected, it ceafes to be graceful. Horace and Virgil feem to extend grace fo far, as to the flowing of the hair; and Tibullus, even to the dress of his miftaels; but then he affigns it mora more to her manner of putting on, and appearing in whatever the wears, than to the refs itfelf. It is true, there is another wicked poet, who has faid (with much lefs decency) "that drefs is the better half of the woman." There are two very diftin& (and as it were oppofite) forts of grace; the "majeftic, and the familiar: I should have called the latter by the name of pleafing, had not I been afraid of a tautology; for grace is pleafingnefs itself. The former belongs chiefly to the very fine women; and the latter, to the very pretty ones that is the more commanding; and this the more delightful and engaging. The "Grecian painters and fculptors ufed to exprefs the former "moft ftrongly in the looks and attitudes of their Minerva's; and the latter, in thofe of Venus. Xenophon, in his choice of Hercules (or, at leaft, the excellent tranf lator of that piece) has made juft the Tame diftin&ion in the perfonages of wifdom and pleafure; the former of which he defcribes as moving on to that young Hero, with the majeftic fort of grace; and the latter, with the familiar. The firft is: "That there is no Grace, without motion;" by which I mean, without fome genteel or pleafing motion, either of the whole body, or of fome limb, or, at leaf, of fome feature. And it may be hence, that Lord Bacon (and, perhaps, Horace) calls grace by the name of decent motion, juft as if they were equivalent terms. Virgil in one place points out the majefty of Juno, and in another the graceful air of Apollo, by only faying that they move; and poffibly he means no-more, when he makes the motion |