ted to beings of a fuperior fpecies; and that the conduct of nations requires and deferves the celestial powers of the Gods or of Genii. From this principle he justly concluded, that the man who prefumes to reign, fhould aspire to the perfection of the divine nature; that he fhould purify his foul from her mortal and, terreftrial part; that he fhould extinguifh his appetites, enlighten his understanding, regulate his pailions, and fubdue the wild beaft, which, according to the lively metaphor of Aristotle, feldom fails to afcend the throne of a defpot. The throne of Julian, which the death of Conftantius fixed on an independent bafis, was the feat of reafon, of virtue, and perhaps of vanity. He defpifed the honours, renounced the pleafures, and difcharged, with inceffant diligence, the duties of his exalted ftation; and there were few among his fubjects who would have confented to relieve him from the weight of the diadem, had they been obliged to fubmit their time and their actions to the rigorous laws which their philofophic emperor impofed on himself. One of his most intimate friends, who had often fhared the frugal fimplicity of his table, has remarked, that his light and fparing diet (which was ufually of the vegetable kind) left his mind and body always free and active, for the various and important bufinefs of an author, a pontiff, a magiftrate, a general, and a prince. In one and the fame day, he gave audience to feveral ambaffadors, and wrote, or dictated, a great number of letters to his generals, his civil magiftrates, his private friends, and the different cities of his dominions. He liftened to the memorials which had been received, confidered the fubject of the petitions, and figni fied his intentions more rapidly than they could be taken in fhort-hand by the diligence of his fecretaries. He poffeffed fuch flexibility of thought, and fuch firmnefs of attention, that he could employ his hand to write, his ear to liften, and his voice to dictate; and purfue at once three feveral trains of ideas, without hefitation, and without error. his minifters repofed, the prince While flew with agility from one labour to another, and, after a hafty dinner, retired into his library, till the public bufinefs, which he had appointed for the evening, fummoned him to interrupt the profecution of his ror was ftill lefs fubftantial than the ftudies. The fupper of the empeformer meal; his fleep was never clouded by the fumes of indigeftion; and, except in the fhort interval of a marriage, which was the effect of policy rather than love, the chatte Julian never shared his bed with a female companion. He was foon awakened by the enflept the preceding day; and his trance of new fecretaries, who had fervants were obliged to wait alternately, while their indefatigable mafter allowed himfelf fcarcely any other refreshments than the change of occupations. of Julian, his uncle, his brother, The predeceffors and his coufin, indulged their puerile tatte for the games of the circus, under the fpecious pretence of complying with the inclinations of the people; and they frequently remained the greatest part of the day, as idle fpectators, and as the ordinary round of twenty-four part of the fplendid fpectacle, till folemn festivals, Julian, who felt races was completely finished. On and profeffed an unfashionable diflike to thofe frivolous amufements, condefcended to appear in the cir a cus; cus; and after beftowing a careless glance on five or fix of the races, he haftily withdrew, with the impatience of a philofopher, who confidered every moment as loft, that was not devoted to the advantage of the public, or the improvement of his own mind. By this avarice of time, he seemed to protract the fhort duration of his reign; and if the dates were lefs fcarcely afcertained, we should refufe to believe, that only fixteen months elapfed between the death of Conftantius and the departure of his fucceffor for the Perfian war. The actions of Julian can only be preserved by the care of the hiftorian; but the portion of his voluminous writings, which is ftill extant, remains as a monument of the application, as well as of the genius, of the emperor. The Mifopogon, the Cæfars, feveral of his orations, and his elaborate work against the Chriftian religion, were compofed in the long nights of the two winters, the former of which he paffed at Conftantinople, and the latter at Antioch." CHARACTER of the EMPEROR JULIAN. [From the fame Work.] "THE HE generality of princes, if they were ftripped of their purple, and caft naked into the world, would immediately fink to the lowest rank of fociety, without a hope of emerging from their obfcurity. But the perfonal merit of Julian was, in fome meafure, independent of his fortune. Whatever had been his choice of life; by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intenfe application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have deferved, the highest honours of his profeffion; and Julian might have raised himself to the rank of minifter, or general, of the state in which he was born a private citizen. If the jealous caprice of power had difappointed his expectations; if he had prudently declined the paths of greatnefs, the employments of the fame talents in ftudious folitude, would have placed, beyond the reach of kings, his present happiness, and his immortal fame. When we infpect, with minute, or perhaps malevolent attention, the portrait of Julian, fomething feems wanting to the grace and perfection of the whole figure. His genius was lefs powerful and fublime than that of Cæfar; nor did he poffefs the confummate prudence of Auguftus. The virtues of Trajan appear more fteady and natural, and the philofophy of Marcus is more fimple and confiftent. Yet Julian fuftained adverfity with firmness, and profperity with moderation. After an interval of one hundred and twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans beheld an emperor who made no diftinction between his duties and his pleafures; who laboured to relieve the diftrefs, and to revive the fpirit, of his fubjects; and who endeavoured always to connect authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction, and religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the fuperiority of his genius, in peace as well as in war; and to con confefs, with a figh, that the apoftate Julian was a lover of his country, and that he deserved the empire of the world." Some ACCOUNT of GEORGE of CAPPADOCIA, the PATRON SAINT of ENGLAND. "GE [From the fame Work.] 'EORGE, from his parents or his education; furnamed the Cappadocian, was born at Epiphania in Cicilia, in a fuller's fhop. From this obfcure and fervile origin he raifed himfelf by the talents of a parafite and the patrons, whom he affiduoufly flattered, procured for their worthlefs dependent a lucrative commiffion, or contract, to fupply the army with bacon. His employment was mean: he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the bafeft arts of fraud and corruption; but his malverfations were fo notorious, that George was compelled to efcape from the purfuits of justice. After this difgrace, in which he appears to have faved his fortune at the expence of his honour, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profeffion of Arianifm. From the love, or the oftentation, of learning, he collected a valuable library of hiftory, rhetoric, philofophy, and theology; and the choice of the prevailing faction promoted George of Cappadocia to the throne of Athanafius. The entrance of the new archbishop was that of a Barbarian conqueror; and each moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice. The Catholics of Alexandria and Egypt were abandoned to a tyrant, qualified, by nature and education, to exercife the office of perfecution; but he oppreffed with an impartial hand the various inhabitants of his extenfive diocefe. The primate of Egypt affumed the pomp and infolence of his lofty ftation; but he ftill betrayed the vices of his bafe and fervile extraction. The merchants of Alexandria were impoverifhed by the unjust, and almoft univerfal, monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, falt, paper, funerals, &c. and the fpiritual father of a great people condefcended to practife the vile and pernicious arts of an informer. The Alexandrians could never forget, nor forgive, the tax, which he fuggefted, on all the houfes of the city; under an obfolete claim, that the royal founder had conveyed to his fucceffors, the Ptolemies and the Cæfars, the perpetual property of the foil. Pagans who had been flattered with the hopes of freedom and toleration, excited his devout avarice; and the rich temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or infulted by the haughty prelate, who exclaimed, in a loud and threatening tone, "How long will thefe fepulchres be permitted to ftand?" Under the reign of Conftantius, he was expelled by the fury, or rather by the juftice, of the people; and it was not without a violent struggle, that the civil and military powers of the ftate could restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The meffenger who proclaimed at Alexandria the acceffion of Julian, announced the downfall of the archbishop. George, The with with two of his obfequious minifters, count Diodorus, and Dracontius, mafter of the mint, was ignominiou y dragged in chains to the public prifon. At the end of twentyfour da s, the prifon was forced open by the rage of a fuperftitious multitude, impatient of the tedious forms of judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under their cruel infults; the life lefs bodies of the archbishop and his affociates were carried in triumph through the streets on the back of a camel; and the inactivity of the Athanafian party was efteemed a fhining example of evangelical patience. The remains of thefe guilty wretches were thrown into the fea; and the popular leaders of the tumult declared their refolution to difappoint the devotion of the Chriftians, and to intercept the future honours of thefe martyrs, who had been punished, like their predeceffors, by the enemies of their religion. The fears of the Pagans were juit, and their precautions ineffectual. The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of his life. The rival of Athanafius was dear and facred to the Arians, and the feeming converfion of thofe fectaries introduced his worship into the bofom of the Ca tholic church. The odious ftranger, difguifing every circumftance of time and place, affumed the mafk of a martyr, a faint, and a Chriftian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the Gar ter.' confiderable learning; a Dictionary in Latin and English, which he compofed for the ufe of schools, being ftill exifting in MS. He married in London, and our hero and his fifters, Mary and Anne, are believed to have been the only product of the marriage. Some PARTICULARS concerning Mr. HOGARTH. [From Mr. NICHOLS's Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth.] HIS great and original Genius a corrector of the prefs, and apbeen the defcendant of a family originally from Kirkby Thore, in Weftmoreland. And I am affured, that his grandfather was a plain yeoman, who poffeffed a fmall tenement in the vale of Bampton, a village about 15 miles north of Kendal, in that county. He had three fons. The eldeft affifted his father in farming, and fucceeded to his little freehold. The fecond fettled in Troutbeck, a village eight miles north-west of . Kendal, and was remarkable for his talent at provincial poetry. The third, who had been a fchoolmaster in the fame county, went early to London, where he was employed as "William Hogarth was born in 1698, in the parish of St. Bartholo mew, London, to which he was afterwards, as far as lay in his power, a benefactor. The outfet of his life, however, was unpromifing. "He was bound, fays Mr. Walpole, to a mean engraver of arms on plate." Hogarth probably chofe this occu pation, was pation, as it required fome skill in drawing, to which his genius was particularly turned, and which he contrived affiduoufly to cultivate. His mafter, it fince appears, Mr. Gamble, a filver-fmith of eminence, who refided on or near Snowhill. In this profeffion it is not unufual to bind apprentices to the fingle branch of engraving arms and cyphers on every fpecies of, metal; and in that particular department of the bufinefs young Hogarth was placed; "but, before his time was expired, he felt the impulfe of genius, and that it directed him to painting." "During his apprenticeship, he fet out one Sunday, with two or three companions, on an excurfion to Highgate. The weather being hot, they went into a public-houfe, where they had not been long before a quarrel arofe between fome perfons in the fame room, in which one of the difputants ftruck the other on the head with a quart pot, and cut him very much. The blood running down the man's face, with the agony of the wound, which had distorted his features into a moft hideous grin, prefented Hogarth, who fhewed himself thus early" apprifed of the mode Nature had intended he fhould purfue," with too laughable a fubject to efcape the powerful efforts of his genius. He drew out his pencil, and produced on the fpot one of the moft ludicrous figures that ever was feen. What rendered this piece the more pleafing was, that it exhibited an exact likeness of the man, with the portrait of his antagonist, and the figures in caricature of the principal perfons gathered round him. "From the date of the earlieft plate that can be afcertained to be the work of Hogarth, it may be 17816 prefumed that he began bufinefs, on his own account, at least as early as the year 1720. "His firft employment seems to, have been the engraving of arms and fhop-bills. The next step was to defign and engrave for bookfellers; and here we are fortunately fupplied with dates. Twelve folio prints, with his name to each appeared in Aubry de la Motraye's Travels, in 1723; feven fmall prints (two of them characteristically his own) for Apuleius' Golden Afs, in 1724; thirteen head pieces to Beaver's Military Punishments of the Ancients, and five fmall prints for the tranflation of Caffandra, in 17253 feventeen for a duodecimo edition of Hudibras (with Butler's head), in 1726: two for Perfeus, and Andromeda, in 1730; two for Milton, 1732; and a variety of frontifpieces between 1726 and 1733. "Mr. Bowles, at the Black Horfe in Cornhill, was one of his earliest patrons; and is faid to have bought many a plate from Hogarth by the weight of the copper. His next friend in that line was Mr. John Overton, oppofite Fetter-lane, in Flect-ftreet, who paid him a fomewhat better price for his labour and ingenuity. "A gentleman ftill living informs me, that being once with Mr. Hogarth at the Bedford Coffee-house, he obferved him to draw fomething with a pencil on his nail. Enquir ing what had been his employment, he was fhewn the countenance (a whimsical one) of a perfon who was then fitting in fight." "Mr. Walpole has obferved, that if our artist "indulged his fpirit of ridicule in perfonalities, it never proeeeded beyond fketches and drawings," and wonders" that he never without intention, delivered the very features of any identical perfon." But |