o fall into. Simplicity passes for
dulness when it is not accompanied with great elegance and propriety.
On the contrary, there is something surprising in a blaze of wit
and conceit. Ordinary readers are mightily struck with it, and
falsely imagine it to be the most difficult, as well as most
excellent way of writing. Seneca abounds with agreeable faults, says
Quinctilian--_abundat dulcibus vitiis_; and for that reason is the more
dangerous and the more apt to pervert the taste of the young and
inconsiderate.

I shall add, that the excess of refinement is now more to be guarded
against than ever; because it is the extreme which men are the most apt
to fall into, after learning has made great progress, and after eminent
writers have appeared in every species of composition. The endeavour to
please by novelty leads men wide of simplicity and nature, and fills
their writings with affectation and conceit. It was thus that the age of
Claudius and Nero became so much inferior to that of Augustus in taste
and genius; and perhaps there are at present some symptoms of a like
degeneracy of taste, in France as well as in England.

HUME.

* * * * *

JOHN HAMPDEN.

The celebrated patriot, John Hampden, was descended from an ancient
family in Buckinghamshire, where he was born in 1594. On leaving the
University, he entered the inns of court, where he made considerable
progress in the study of the law. He was chosen to serve in the
Parliament which assembled at Westminster, February, 1626, and served in
all the succeeding Parliaments in the reign of Charles I. That Monarch
having quarrelled with his Parliament, was obliged to have recourse to
the open exercise of his prerogative in order to supply himself with
money. From the nobility he desired assistance; from the City of London
he required a loan of L100,000. The former contributed but slowly; the
latter at length gave a flat denial. To equip a fleet, an apportionment
was made, by order of the Council, amongst all the maritime towns, each
of which was required, with the assistance of the adjoining counties, to
furnish a certain number of vessels or amount of shipping. The City of
London was rated at twenty ships. And this was the first appearance in
the present reign of ship-money--a taxation which had once been imposed
by Elizabeth, on a great emergency, but which, revived and carried
further by Charles, produced the most violent discon