Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/461

 ACCOUNT OF BOOKS.

447

Thefe feem to be the main and leading articles of our unmanly winter delicacies. And as to our fummer-amuiements, they are much of the fame maie, oi.ly lighter, and, if pofuble, more /rising. As foon as the feafon is grown fo mild, as that the man of fafhion can ftir abroud, he is feen lolling in his pcji-chariot, about the purlieus of the town. The manly exercife of riding is generally difufed, as too coar'e and indelicate tor the fine gentlemarf. The metropolis growing thin as the fpring ad- vances, the lame rage of pleafure, drefs, equipsge, and dilfipacion, which in winter had chained him to the town, now drives him to the country. For as a vain and empty mind can never give enter- tainment to itfelf; fo to avoid the tadium of folitude and felf- converfe, parties of pleafure are again formed ; the fame efumina- cies, under new appearances, are aded ever again, and become the bujinefs of the feafon. There is hardly a corner of the kingdom, where a fummer Jcene of public dijjipatii.n is not now eftablifhed : Here the parties meet till the winter fets in, and the feparate focieties are once more met in London.

Thus we have attempted a {jmple delineation of the ruling manners of the times: if any thing like ri- dicule appears to mix itlelf with thii review, it arifeth not from the aggravatian, but the natural difplay o\ foUy,

It may probably be afked, why the ruling manners of our women have not been particularly deline- ated i The reafon is, becaufe they are efientially the fame with thole cf the men, and are therefore included in this Eibciate. The fexes have

now little other apparent diftinc- tion, beyond that of perfon and drefs: their peculiar and charade- riilic manners are confounded and loft ; the one fex having at once ad- vanced into beldnejsy as the other funk, into effhninacy.'^

After the manners, he examines the principles of the times, which he fhews mull be greatly influenced by them. The psinciples he confi- ders, are thofe which tend to co'.'.n- terworic the felfifh paffio.is; the principles of religion, honour, and public fpirit. As in his firft part our author endeavours to eliabliih the general predominance of fellifh manners, it follows that the princi- ples which are to counter- work themi muft be weak. He finds little re- ligion or honour in the nation, and no public fpirit.

In his facond part he difcourfes on the public efFetElof thefe manners and principles, as the;, operate on the national capacity • the national fpirit of defence ; and the naiional fpirit of union ; all which he endea- vours to ihew, they have weaken- ed and deftroyed. On the fpirit of union his remarks are juft and fir:^.

•' When the fpirit of union is checked, and divifions arife, from the variety and freedom of opinion only; cr frcni the conteited rights and privileges of the different ranks or orders of a ftate, not from the detached and felfiih views of indivi- dual,; a republic is then in its Itrength, and. gathers warmth and fire from thefe'collifions. Such w.is the llatc cf ancient Rome, in the fimpler and more difinterelled pe- riods of that republic.

But when principle is weakened and manners loll, and fadfions run high from felfifh ambition, revenue, or avarice, a republic is then on the

very