rT 
wit, which he might retail as his own. 
This. gentleman had received a libera 
education, with very ample advantages 5 
had been inftruéted in all the fludies be. 
longing to the mof enli htened. of the 
learned profeffions; had Mingled not a 
little with the gay and the wife, in the 
common intercowfe of focial lite; was 
reckoned no fool, yet wanted penetration 
to difcern that Swift writes, in that trea- 
tife, but in jet; that they are not ipeci- 
mens of wit, to be imitated and repeated, 
but vulgarifms, colloquial barbarifins, in- 
ftances of grofs ignorance, indelicacy, 
falfe wit, and puerility, to be carefully 
avoided, which compofe the tiifue of Wag- 
fiaffe’s dialogues. Upon fecond thoughts, 
however, I can never more eanly excule 
this perfon, than the admirer of Dick 
Minim: for perhaps he who fhould glean 
the beauties of the mott fafhionable con- 
verfation of the prefent day, would find 
his collection very little better than that of 
Simon Wagttatfe, E(q. 
Heriot’s Bridge, Edinburgh, 
April tft, 1799- 
Super ftition 
/ ‘ 
R. H. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
SUPERSTITION OF JUSTUS LIPSIUS. 


WHE politics of Tacitus, the philofo- 
- phy of Cicero, could net pluck the 
oid woman out of the heart of this illuftri- 
ous fcholar. The modern difciple of 
Zeno was the flave of weak fuperftition. 
Ihave jut ended reading his account of 
the miracles performed by the. Virgin 
Mary, of Halle, near Bruffets, in the Ne- 
therlands. 
A fhrine and image had been there con- 
fecrated to the Holy Virgin, by a pious 
countefs of Brabant. Many votive offer- 
ings had been afterwards added. Lipfius, 
from his very infancy a devout votary of 
the Virgin, in preference to all the other 
faints, kad often, as he relates, experienc- 
ed her favour upon his ftudies ; had be- 
‘come a member of a fociety of which fhe 
was the facred patronefs; was excited by 
motives ef pious veneration and gratt- 
tude, to vifit her famous fhrine at Halle. 
While he offered his devotions before the 
facred fhrine, he felt an inward emoticn of 
extraordinary joy and piety, which prompt- 
ed him to vow to the virgin, to compofe 
2 work in her praife. An ode, the com- 
pofition of that very time, recorded, his 
vow. He fulfilled it, by writing, at his 
firft fubfequent leifure, a panegyrical ac- 
count of the origin of the fhrine and Ghe- 
pel of Haile, of the fonours which had 
been devoutly paid to them, of the mira-- 
cles which the Virgin had gracioufly per- 
~~ 
of Lipfius. 
Ce 
ee i Spies. 
[July | 
formed at the requeft oF perfons ftipulat- ~~ 
ing: votive offerings to be,-in return, dedi- 
‘gated at her fhrine at Halle. The mira- 
cles which be celebrates, sare fuch as 
thefe: the mutilation of a foldier’s nofe, 
who, coming on to the affault of the town 
of Halleina fiege, had impioufly threatened 
to cut off the nofe from the image of the 
Virgin: the reftoration of a loft hawk, at 
the prayer of the falconer by whom it had 
been loft, and whom his cruel lerd was 
about to hang for the Icfs; the preferya- 
tion of aman from perifhing by a flood 
that fuddenly filled his houfe,—who, by 
the aid of the Virgin, had been enabled to 
_ climb among the raficrs, above the reach 
of the waters, while his wife and children - 
were drowned below ; the deliverance of an 
_ innocent perfon that had been feized by 
miftake, as an accomplice with thieves ; 
the prefervation of a taylor from dying by 
his needle, which he had unwittingly {wal- 
lowed; the faving of a thievith foldier 
from death on the gallows, by the break- 
ing ot the rope on which he was fufpend- 
ed ; and others of a iimilar eaft and com- 
ptexion. ‘The narrative of Lipfius is writ- 
ten in a ftyle of admirably elegant Lati-- 
nity. Here and there he rifes into poetry, 
and imitates with great felicity the Iam- 
bics of Phadrus: he evidently wrote it coz 
amore. He concludes the whole with a pious 
prayer, and with the formal confecration . 
of a filver pen, to be, in his name, fufpend- 
ed as a votive offering, before the image 
of the Virgia, in the temple. 
Lipfius, thus celebrating as miracles, 
merely natural and ordinary incidents in 
life ; Socrates, amid the agonies of expira- 
tion, anxioufly providing a facrifice to 
Efculapius; Julian, from the heights of 
philofophy, and of political wifdom, pro- 
firating himfelf betore Jupiter, Apollo, 
and Venus; Paical, for the fake of the 
mofi abject afcetic fuperfition, deferting 
the illuftrious career of fcience, literature, - 
and aétive virtue; are among thofe in- 
ftances of mingled weaknefs and excellence, 
in which the imperfeGtion of humanity is 
the moft ftrikingly confpicuous; and 
which we cannot contemplate without 
being moved to figh over the charaéter of 
man, and with the poet to regard him as 
‘¢ The glory, jeft, and riddle of the world.” 
POPE. 
ce 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SERS 
r ‘HE whole of the ftory, relative te 
Voltaire and his book{eller, as given 
in the ** Extradts from the Port-fclio of a 
Man of Letters,” muft be unintelligible te 
the greater part of your readers, further 
i thay 
} 
: 

j 
’ 
i 
; 
