1$10.] Extracts From the Portfolio of a Man of Letters. 
eabalus, by all which names the sun is 
said to have been called,in Syria? 
Basnage, in his history of the Jews, 
(vi. c. 13, § 19,) says positively, that 
Zenobia was (3.) a Jewess; resting chiefly 
on a passage of Trebellius Pollio, which 
shows, that she observed the directions 
given by Moses (Leviticus xv. 19—33) 
to married women. The passage is this ; 
Cujus ea castitas fuisse dicitur, ut ne virum | 
suum quidem sciret, nisi tentatis conceptioni- 
bus; nam quum semel concubuisset, expec- 
tatis menstruis continebat se, si pragnans 
esset ; sin minus, iterum potestatem queren- 
dis liberis dabat. 
-Icontend, that she was (4.) an unita- 
rian Christian.—These are my reasons : 
I. All the Saracens, of whom Odena- 
tus was king, remained, until the time of 
Mahomet, unitarian Christians; and 
though they ackiowledged as prophets 
both Moses and Jesus, they neither 
adopted that dissectiors of deity :nto the 
Father and the Logos, which the Alexan- 
drian school, nor that further dissection 
of deity, into Father, Logos, and Spiritus 
Sanctus, which the Roman school, ima- 
gined. 
If. The Jewish manners of Zenobia 
do not prove, that she was not of the re- 
ligion of her country; for the Jewish wo- 
zien who became Christians, did, ne- 
vertheless, persevere in’ the traditional 
neatness-of their original sect. 
III, Zenobia gave the bishopric of An- 
tioch to Paul of Samosata, who was an 
avowed unitarian Christian, a follower 
of Artemon. 
The testimony of Athanasius, who 
calls her a Jewess, js perhaps resolvable 
‘into oue of those hyperboles of contro- 
versy, according to which Socinians are 
called Deists by the orthodox. 
BIRTH. ; 
Birth is of no other value than as it 
implies the advantages of education, con- 
nections, and behaviour; and these, as 
they increase the powers of usefulness, 
and add to the pleasures of the commu- 
nity, are not to. be cynically despised. 
- Yet, ifa man without birth attains its 
privileges, and is learned, courteous, and 
benevolent, has acquired honourable 
friends and public contidence (possessing 
the merit to haye gained them by his con- 
duct, without the good fortune which 
stamped them his inlieritance), he is en- 
titled to a greater share of respect than 
pedigree could have bestowed; and is 
higher in the order of moral beings, than 
the name of any father could have placed 
him; aud if ke should esteem himself 
149 
more upon his descent from an ancient 
family, than upon becoming the founder 
uf a good one, he is a disgrace to what- 
ever arms he may bear. 
Tt has been cbserved in general, that 
people who do not possess the distinc- 
tions of ancestry or rank, are apt to value 
them most ; and become so elated by any 
attentions they receive from men thus 
endowed, as to disregard all the worth 
they have witnessed, and all the kind- 
ness they have experienced, from persons 
of inferior extraction and lower order. 
If only the ignorant and undiscerning 
paid this homage to adventitious circums 
stances, it would create little wonder ; 
common minds are naturally dazzled by 
appearances, and influenced by opinions ; 
but that men of abilities should alike be 
subject to this weakness, and equally 
be flattered by adinission into the socie= 
ty of those whom high titles and here- 
ditary estates alone have set above thems 
selves, has excited the severest censures: 
of the moralist. Without meaning to de- 
fend this abatement of: intellectual dig- 
nity, perhaps some allowances may be 
made for human frailty, even in instances 
so mortifying to the pride of human rea-, 
son, Men of genius, but more particularly 
men of taste, are endowed with finer per- 
ceptions than others: they have more 
imagination, more irritability. ‘Lo such, 
coarse manners and the grossness of 
vulgar habits are peculiarly diseusting ; 
and when they gain access to circles 
where every wish is anticipated which 
delicacy could form, and every want 
supplied which fastidiousness could cre~ 
ate; where the desire to please, though 
inculcated by art, appears prompted by 
benevolence, and where the surrodnding 
scenery. is elegant and splendid; it ‘ree 
quires ascetic virtue rather than eminent 
talents, to remain unenchanted by the 
glare, and uninfluenced ‘by the delusion. 
All the arts excepting poetry, (and 
poetry of the higher order alone except. 
ed,) have a tendency to strengthen the 
impressions of the senses, aud consee 
quently to weaken the powers of the 
mind, | 
The arts are chiefly cultivated in these 
societies; and the effect of novelty add- 
ed to their bewitching nature, cannot 
but be great over men of exquisite orga. 
nization, 
Lycurgus, who meant to form an in- 
flexible national character, was so aware 
of this tendency, that he hanished the 
arts from ‘the commonwealth; and their 
high degree of culture at Athens, inters 
WOVenR 
