To what a height of folly must a nation be arrived, when the common people are not satisfied with wholesome food at home, but must go to the remotest regions to please a vicious palate! There is a certain lane near Richmond, where beggars are often seen, in the summer season, drinking their tea. You may see laborers who are mending the roads drinking their tea; it is even drank in cinder-carts; and, what is not less absurd, sold out in cups to bay-makers. He who should be able to drive three Frenchmen before him, or she who might be a breeder of such a race of men, are to be seen sipping their tea!

"Was it the breed of such as these,

That quell'd the proud Hysperides ?"

Were they the sons of tea-sippers who won the fields of Cressy and Agincourt, or dyed the Danube's streams with Gallic blood? What will be the end of such cffeminate customs extended to those persons who must get their bread by the labors of the field!

"From the pride of imitating their betters, and the habit of drinking this deluding infusion, nurses in general, in this part of the island, contract a passion for this bitter draught, which bears down all the duties of humanity before it! Nor are these alone distempered with this canine appetite for tea; you know it to be almost literally true in many instances; every mistress of a family knows it to be true of their servants in general, especially the females, who demand your submission to this execrable custom; and and you submit as if the evil was irremediable; nay, your servants' servants, down to the very beggars, will not be satisfied unless they consume the produce of the remote country of China. They consider it as their Magna Charta, and will die by the sword or famine, rather than not follow the example of their mistresses. What would you say, if they should take it into their heads not to work without an allowance of French wine?

This would not be thought a more extravagant demand now than tea was esteemed forty years ago. Consider the tendency of these pernicious and absurd customs!

"Look into all the cellars in London, you will find men or women sipping their tea in the morning or afternoon, and very often both morning and afternoon: those will have tea who have not bread. I once took a ramble for two months, attended only by a servant: I strolled far into several parts of England, and when I was tired of riding, I walked, and, with as much decency as I could, often visited little huts, to see how the people lived. I still found the same game was playing, and misery itself had no power to banish tea, which had frequently introduced that misery. I have been told, that in some places, where the people are so poor that no one family possesses all the necessary apparatus for tea, they carry them to each other's houses, to the distance of a mile or two, and club materials for this fantastic amusement!

"What a wild infatuation is this! it took its rise from example; by example it is supported; and example alone can abolish the use of it. The suppression of this dangerous custom depends entirely on the example of ladies of rank in this country. Tea will certainly be acknowledged a bad thing as soon as you leave off drinking it. No lady's woman, or gentlewoman's chambermaid, will drink a liquor which her mistress no longer uses. Some indeed have resolution enough in their own houses, to confine the use of tea to their own table; but their number is so extremely small, amidst a numerous acquaintance, I know only of Mrs. T****, whose name ought to be written out in letters of gold."

Thus we see how fortunate some folks are. Mrs. T. is praised for confining luxury to her own table; she earns fame, and saves something in domestic expenses into the bargain! But, to be as much in earnest as Mr. Hanway himself seems to be,- this

gentleman appears more desirous of saying every thing that may be said on every subject, than of only selecting all that can be said to the purpose; and by endeavoring to obviate every doubt that might still remain with his reader, he often uses a redundancy of argument, that rather serves to tire than convince us.

When he treats of tea in his assumed medical capacity, he speaks by no means like an adept in physic; indeed, it is not to be expected, that every gentleman can be acquainted with a science that requires so much time and industry in the acquisi tion, and therefore we may forgive his errors without pointing them out; but if to be unacquainted with the medical art indicates no want of general knowledge, perhaps it argues some want of prudence, to speak of subjects to which our acquirements are not adequate.

Yet after all, why so violent an outcry against this devoted article of modern luxury? Every nation that is rich hath had, and will have, its favorite luxuries. Abridge the people in one, they generally run into another; and the reader may judge which will be most conducive to either mental or bodily health: the watery beverage of a modern fine lady, or the strong beer, and stronger waters of her great-grandmother?*

*[Dr. Johnson also wrote, in the Literary Magazine for 1756, a defence of tea against Mr. Hanway's furious attack upon that popular beverage. In reference to this work, he one day said, "Jonas acquired some reputation by travelling abroad, but lost it all by travelling at home." See Boswell, vol. iii. p. 137.]

V.-MEMOIRS OF MADAME DE MAINTENON.

[Frow the Monthly Review, 1757. Memoirs for the History of Madame de Maintenon, and of the last Age. Translated from the French, by the Author of the Female Quixote."* 12 mo. 5 vols.

UNACCOUNTABLE is the fondness of some French historians, for connecting the revolutions of an age with the Memoirs of persons who neither possessed sufficient power, nor were so deeply engaged in intrigue, as to influence any of its important events. We are at a loss in what class to place such amphibious productions; as they are generally an assemblage of truth and falsehood, in which history wears the face of romance, and romance assumes the appearance of history; where the writer's endeavors are equally exerted in rendering trifles important, and subjects of importance trifling. Who but must smile at accounts wherein some little personage, indebted to the historian, perhaps, for notice, takes the lead in a history of Europe, and connects its incidents! It brings to memory the courts of ancient kings, where a dwarf was generally employed as master of ceremonies.

The work now under view consists, in the original, of fifteen volumes; the first six of which contain Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon, regularly connected, in the manner of a history; the next ensuing eight contain this lady's epistolary Correspondence; and the last is made up of letters from the Bishop of Chartres, her spiritual director.

Fifteen volumes, relative to the history of Madame de Maintenon, who could ever have expected to see? But never was the republic of letters so copiously supplied from the press as at present: "Quo corruptior est status, eo plures sunt leges." We

* [Mrs. Charlotte Lenox; for whose comedy of the "Sister," Goldsmith wrote an excellent Epilogue. See vol. iv. p. 130.]

could with pleasure and emolument have accompanied the lady in her adventures through half a volume, or so; but to be baited with the piety of a female devotee, to be served up with the stale amours of an old monarch, battered with debauchery, through almost fifteen long volumes! The historian may persuade us to pardon the failings of his heroine, but we can never forgive his prolixity in her defence.

The author makes many professions of veracity, and informs us he has rummaged several cabinets for authentic materials; yet still it must be acknowledged, he frequently forgets the historian in the novelist; often giving us speeches which are as unlikely to be genuine, as it is improbable that the speakers or hearers should ever divulge such conversation. He frequently contradicts truth, and as frequently himself; sometimes substitutes antithesis to thought, and seems more desirous of being smart than judicious. With all these imperfections, can we expect entertainment in such a writer? Yet in spite of his defects, he certainly affords a great deal: his trifles are often made interesting, by an engaging manner; his reflections are always sprightly; and his style so peculiarly elegant (though in some places too much labored.) that we easily perceive the subject far beneath the writer's abilities, and though we see not in him much merit as an historian, he possesses many excellences as a writer. In short, such readers as like a great deal of amusement, with a little history and a little truth, will have their taste amply gratified, and their time agreeably spent upon the performance of M. Beaumelle.

*["If you have not got the new Letters and Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon, I beg I may recommend them for your summer reading. The fourth volume has persuaded me of the sincerity of her devotion; two or three letters have made me even a little jealous for my adored Madame de Sevigné."-Horace Walpole, Corresp. vol. i. p. 502.]