to encrease considerably: And it is impossible to conceive the slaughter, that is made among the poultry and the hogs in different parts of the country, to furnish the prodigious number of turkeys and chines, and collars of brawn, that travel up, as presents, to the metropolis on this occasion. The jolly cit looks upon this joyous time of feasting, with as much pleasure as on the treat of a new-elected alderman, or a lordmayor's day. Nor can the country farmer rail more against the game-act, than many worthy citizens, who have ever since been debarred of their annual hare; while their ladies can never enough regret their loss of the opportunity of displaying their skill, in making a most excellent pudding in the belly. But these notable housewives have still the consolation of hearing their guests commend the mince-pies without meat, which we are assured were made at home, and not like the ordinary heavy things from the pastry-cooks. These good people would, indeed, look upon the absence of mince pies as the highest violation of Christmas; and have remarked with concern the disregard, that has been shewn of late years to that old English repast: for this excellent British olio is as essential to Christmas, as pancake to Shrove Tuesday, tansy to Easter, furmity to Midlent Sunday, or goose to Michaelmas day. And they think it no wonder, that our finical gentry should be so loose in their principles, as well as weak in their bodies, when the solid, substantial, Protestant mince-pie has given place among them to the Roman Catholic aumlets, and the light, puffy, heterodox pets de religieuses. As this season used formerly to be welcomed in with more than usual jollity in the country, it is probable that the Christmas remembrances, with which the waggons and stage-coaches are at this time loaded, first took their rise from the laudable custoin of distributing provisions at this severe quarter of the year to the poor. But these presents are now seldom sent to those, who are really in want of them, but are designed as compliments to the great from their inferiors, and come chiefly from the tenant to his rich landlord, or from the rector of a fat living, as a kind of tythe, to his patron. Nor is the old hospitable English custom, of keeping open house for the poor neighbourhood, any longer regarded. We might as soon expect to see plum-porridge fill a tureen at the ordinary at White's, as that the lord of the manor should assemble his poor tenants to make merry at the great house. The servants now swill the Christmas ale by themselves in the hall, while the squire gets drunk with his brother foxhunters in the smoking-room. ap There is no rank of people so heartily rejoiced at the arrival of this joyful season, as the order of servants, journeymen, and apprentices, and the lower sort of people in general. No master or mistress is so rigid as to refuse them an holiday; and by remarkable good luck the same circumstance, which gives them an opportunity of diverting themselves, procures them money to support it, by the tax which custom has imposed upon us in the article of Christmas boxes. The butcher and the baker send their journeymen and prentices to levy contributions on their customers, which are paid back again in the usual fees to Mr. John and Mrs. Mary. This serves the tradesman as a pretence to lengthen out his bill, and the master and mistress to lower the wages on account of the vails. The Christmas box was formerly the bounty of welldisposed people, who were willing to contribute something towards rewarding the industrious, and supplying them with necessaries. But the gift is now almost demanded as a right; and our journeymen, apprentices, &c. are grown so polite, that instead of reserving their Christmas box for it's original use, their ready cash serves them only for present pocket-money; 1 THE CONNOISSEUR. BY MR. TOWN, CRITIC AND CENSOR GENERAL. N° 47. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1754. Hic mecum licet, hic, Juvence, quicquid In buccam tibi venerit, loquaris. ᎷᎪᎡᎢ . Here, witlings, here with Macklin talk your fill, IT has hitherto been imagined, that though we have equalled, if not surpassed, the ancients in other liberal. arts, we have not yet been able to arrive at that height of Eloquence, which was possessed in so amazing a manner by the Grecian and Roman orators. Whether this has been owing to any peculiar organization of our tongues, or whether it has proceeded from our national love of taciturnity, I shall not take upon me to determine: but I will now venture to affirm, that the present times might furnish us with a more surprising number of fine speakers, than have been set down by Tully in his treatise De Claris Oratoribus, Foreigners can no longer object to us, that the northern coldness of our climate has (as it were) pursed up our lips, and that we are afraid to open our mouths: The charm is at length dissolved; and our people, who before affected the gravity and silence of the Spaniards, have adopted and naturalized the volubility of speech, as well as the gay manners, of the French This change has been brought about by the publicspirited attempts of those elevated geniuses, who have instituted certain schools for the cultivation of eloquence in all it's branches. Hence it is, that instead of languid discourses from the pulpit, several tabernacles and meeting-houses have been set up, where lay-preachers may display all the powers of oratory in sighs and and emulate a Whitfield or a Wesley groans, in all the figures of rhetoric. And not only the enthusiast has his conventicles, but even the free thinker boasts his societies, where he may hold forth against religion in tropes, metaphors, and similes. The declamations weekly thundered out at Clare-market, and the subtle argumentations at the Robin Hood, I have formerly celebrated: It now remains to pay my respects to the Martin Luther of the age, (as he frequently calls himself) the great orator Macklin: who, by declaiming himself, and opening a school for the disputations of others, has joined both the above plans together, and formed the British Inquisition. Here, whatever concerns the world of taste and literature, is debated: Our rakes and bloods, who had been used to frequent Covent-Garden merely for the sake of whoring and drinking, now resort thither for reason and argument; and the piazza begins to vie with the ancient portico, where Socrates disputed. But what pleases me most in Mr. Macklin's institution is, that he has allowed the tongues of my fair country-women their full play. Their natural talents for oratory are so excellent and numerous, that it seems more owing to the envy than prudence of the |