on Sunday evenings; and I cannot help wondering, that the custom did not continue. It must have been very convenient to pass away the time there, till the hour of meeting at the card-table; and it was certainly more decent to fix assignations there than at church. Going to church may, indeed, be reckoned among our Sunday amusements, as it is made a mere matter of diversion among many well-meaning people, who are induced to appear in a place of worship from the same motives that they frequent other public places. To some it answers all the purposes of a rout or assembly, to see and to be seen by their acquaintance; and from their bows, nods, courtesies, and loud conversation, one might conclude, that they imagined themselves in a drawing-room. To others it affords the cheap opportunity of showing their taste for dress. Not a few, I believe, are drawn together in our cathedrals and larger churches, by the influence of the music rather than the prayers; and are kept awake by a jig from the organ-loft, though they are lulled to sleep by the harangue from the pulpit. A well-disposed Christian will go a mile from his own house to the Temple Church, not because a Sherlock is to preach, but to hear a solo from Stanley. But, though going to church may be deemed a kind of amusement, yet, upon modern principles, it appears such a very odd one, that I am at a loss to account for the reasons which induced our ancestors to give into that method of passing their Sunday. At least, it is so wholly incompatible with the polite system of life, that a person of fashion, as affairs are now managed, finds it absolutely impossible to comply with this practice. Then, again, the service always begins at such unfashionable hours, that, in the morning, a man must huddle on his clothes, like a boy to run to school, and, in an afternoon, must inevitably go without his dinner. In order to remove all these objections, and that some ritual may be established in this kingdom, agreeable to our inclinations, and consistent with our practice, the following scheme has been lately sent me, in order to submit it to the serious consideration of the public. Imprimis, It is humbly proposed, that Christianity be entirely abolished by Act of Parliament, and that no other religion be imposed on us in its stead; but, as the age grows daily more and more enlightened, we may at last be quite delivered from the influence of superstition and bigotry. Secondly, That in order to prevent our ever relapsing into pious errors, and that the common people may not lose their holiday, every Sunday be set apart to commemorate our victory over all religion: that the churches be turned into free-thinking meeting houses, and discourses read in them to confute the doctrine of a future state, the immortality of the soul, and other absurd notions, which some people now regard as objects of belief. Thirdly, That a ritual be compiled exactly opposite to our present liturgy; and that, instead of reading portions of Scripture, the first and second lessons shall consist of a section of the Posthumous Works of lord Bolingbroke, or a few pages from the writings of Spinoza, Chubb, Maundeville, Hobbes, Collins, Tindal, &c. from which writers the preachers shall also take their text. Fourthly, That the usual feasts and fasts, viz. Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, Trinity Sunday, &c. be still preserved; but that, on those days, discourses be delivered suitable to the occasion, containing a refutation of the Nativity, the Resurrection, the Trinity, &c. Fifthly, That instead of the vile melody of a clerk bawling out two staves of Sternhold and Hopkins, or a cathedral choir singing anthems from the psalter, some of the most fashionable cantatas, opera airs, songs, or catches, be performed by the best voices for the entertainment of the company. Lastly, That the whole service be conducted with such taste and elegance, as may render these free-thinking meeting-houses as agreeable as the theatres; and that they may be even more judiciously calculated for the propagation of atheism and infidelity, than the Robin Hood Society, or the Oratory in Clare Market. T No. 27. THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 1754. Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton. Words full of sound, but quite devoid of sense. Ir is a heavy tax upon authors, that they should always be expected to write sense. Some few, indeed, who are rich in sentiment, pay this tax very cheerfully; but the generality endeavour one way or another to elude it. For this purpose some have moulded their pieces into the form of wings, axes, eggs, and altars; while others have laced down the side of a copy of verses with the letters of their mistresses' name, and called it an acrostic: not to mention the curious inventions of rebuses and anagrams. For the same reasons, the modern songwriters for our public gardens, who are our prin cipal love-poets at present, entertain us with sonnets and madrigals in Crambo. Authors who promise wit, pay us off with puns and quibbles; and, with our writers of comedy, long swords, short jerkins, and tables with carpets over them, pass for *incident and humour. But no artifice of this sort has been so often and so successfully practised, as the immoderate use of uncouth terms and expressions. Words that mean nothing, provided they sound big, and fill the ear, are the best succedaneum for sense. Nothing so effectually answers Mr. Bayes's endeavour to elevate and surprise; and the reader, though he sees nothing but straws float on the surface, candidly supposes, that there are pearls and diamonds at the bottom. Several dull authors, by availing themselves of this secret, have passed for very deep writers; and arrant nonsense has as often laid snugly beneath hard words, as a shallow pate beneath the solemn appearance of a full-bottomed periwig. Those who are employed in what they call abstract speculations, most commonly have recourse to this method. Their dissertations are naturally expected to illustrate and explain; but this is sometimes a task above their abilities; and when they have led the reader into a maze, from which they cannot deliver him, they very wisely bewilder him the more. This is the case with those profound writers, who have treated concerning the essence of matter, who talk very gravely of cuppeity, tableity, tallow-candleity, and twenty other things with as much sound and as little signification. Öf these we may very well say with the poet, Such labour'd nothings in so strange a style, No mode of expression throws such an impenetrable mist over a work, as an unnecessary profusion of technical terms. This will appear very plainly to those who will turn over a few pages of any modern collection of voyages. Descriptions of a storm make some of the finest and most striking passages in the best poets; and it is for these in particular, that Longinus admires the Odyssey. The real circumstances of a storm are in themselves, without the aid of poetical ornaments, very affecting; yet whoever reads an account of them in any of our writers of voyages, will be so puzzled and perplexed with starboard, and larboard, the mainmast and mizen-mast, and a multitude of sea-terms, that he will not be the least moved at the distress of the ship's crew. The absurdity of this did not escape Swift, who has ridiculed it by a mock description of the same kind in his Gulliver. Those who treat military subjects, are equally ridiculous: they overwhelm you with counterscarps, palisades, bastions, etc. and so fortify their no-meaning with hard words, that it is absolutely impossible to beat them out of their intrenchments. Such writers, who abound in technical terms, always put me in mind of Ignoramus in the play, who courts his mistress out of the law-dictionary, runs over a long catalogue of the messuages, lands, tenements, barns, outhouses, etc. of which he will put her in possession, if she will join issue with him, and manifests his passion in the same manner that he would draw up a lease. This affectation is never more offensive than when it gets into the pulpit. The greater part of almost every audience that sits under our preachers, are ignorant and illiterate, and should therefore have every thing delivered to them in as plain, simple, and intelligible a manner as possible. Hard words, |