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perfectly satisfied I was undone ; and yet they | ment! My first application was to a citythought it a pity for one who had not the least scrivener, who had frequently offered to lend harm in him, and was so very good-natured. me money, when he knew I did not want it. Poverty naturally begets dependence, and I informed him, that now was the time to put I was admitted as flatterer to a great man. his friendship to the test; that I wanted to At first I was surprised, that the situation of borrow a couple of hundreds for a certain oca flatterer at a great man's table could be thought casion, and was resolved to take it up from disagreeable: there was no great trouble in him. And pray, Sir, cried my friend, do you listening attentively when his lordship spoke, want all this money? Indeed I never wanted and laughing when he looked round for ap- it more, returned I. I am sorry for that, cries plause. This even good manners might have the scrivener, with all my heart; for they who obliged me to perform. I found, however, too want money when they come to borrow, will soon, that his lordship was a greater dunce than always want money when they should come to myself; and from that very moment flattery pay. was at an end. I now rather aimed at setting him right, than at receiving his absurdities with submission: to flatter those we do not know is an easy task; but to flatter our intimate acquaintances, all whose foibles are strongly in our eye, is drudgery insupportable. Every time I now opened my lips in praise, my falsehood went to my conscience; his lordship soon perceived me to be very unfit for service; I was therefore discharged; my patron at the same time being graciously pleased to observe, that he believed I was tolerably goodnatured, and had not the least harm in me.

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"From him I flew with indignation to one of the best friends I had in the world, and made the same request. Indeed, Mr Drybone, cries my friend, I always though it would come to this. You know, Sir, I would not advise you but for your good; but your con duct has hitherto been ridiculous in the highest degree, and some of your acquaintance always thought you a very silly fellow. Let me see, you want two hundred pounds. Do you only want two hundred, Sir, exactly? To confess a truth, returned I, I shall want three hundred; but then I have another friend, from whom I can borrow the rest. Why then, replied my friend, if you would take my advice, (and you know I should not presume to advise you but for your own good,) I would recommend it to you to borrow the whole sum from that other friend; and then one note will serve for all, you know.

Disappointed in ambition, I had recourse to love. A young lady, who lived with her aunt, and was possessed of a pretty fortune in her own disposal, had given me, as I fancied, some reason to expect success. The symptoms by which I was guided were striking. She had always laughed with me at her awkward acquaintance, and at her aunt among the "Poverty now began to come fast upon number; she always observed, that a man of me; yet instead of growing more provident or sense would make a better husband than a fool, cautious as I grew poor, I became every day and I as constantly applied the observation in more indolent and simple. A friend was army own favour. She continually talked, in rested for fifty pounds; I was unable to extri.. my company, of friendship, and the beauties of cate him, except by becoming his bail. When the mind, and spoke of Mr Shrimp my rival's at liberty, he fled from his creditors, and left me high-heeled shoes with detestation. These to take his place. In prison I expected greater were circumstances which I thought strongly satisfactions than I had enjoyed at large. I hopin my favour; so, after resolving, and re-re-ed to converse with men in this new world, simsolving, I had courage enough to tell her my mind. Miss heard my proposal with serenity, seeming at the same time to study the figures of her fan. Out at last it came: There was but one small objection to complete our happiness, which was no more than that she was married three months before to Mr Shrimp, with high-heeled shoes! By way of consolation, however, she observed, that, though I was disappointed in her, my addresses to her aunt would probably kindle her into sensibility; as the old lady always allowed me to be very good-natured, and not to have the least share of harm in me.

ple and believing like myself, but I found them as cunning and as cautious as those in the world I had left behind. They spunged up my money whilst it lasted, borrowed my coals, and never paid for them, and cheated me when I played at cribbage. All this was done because they believed me to be very good-natured, and knew that I had no harm in me.

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Upon my first entrance into this mansion, which is to some the abode of despair, I felt no sensations different from those I experienced abroad. I was now on one side the door, and those who were unconfined were on the other this was all the difference between us. At first, indeed, I felt some uneasiness, in considering how I should be able to provide this week for the wants of the week ensuing; but, after some time, if I found myself sure of eating one day, I never troubled my head how I was to be supplied another. I seized every precarious meal with the utmost goodhumour; indulged no rants of spleen at my

situation; never called down Heaven and all usement and instruction, I could not avoid obthe stars to behold me dining upon a half-serving the great numbers of old bachelors and penny worth of radishes; my very companions maiden ladies with which this city seems to be were taught to believe that I liked salad better overrun. Sure, marriage, said I, is not sufthan mutton. I contented myself with think- ficiently encouraged, or we should never being, that all my life I should either eat white hold such crowds of battered beaux and decaybread or brown; considered that all that hap-ed coquettes, still attempting to drive a trade pened was best; laughed when I was not in they have been so long unfit for, and swarming pain, took the world as it went, and read Ta- upon the gaiety of the age. I behold an old citus often, for want of more books and com- bachelor in the most contemptible light, as an pany. animal that lives upon the common stock without contributing his share: he is a beast of prey, and the law should make use of as many stratagems and as much force, to drive the reluctant savage into the toils, as the Indians when they hunt the rhinoceros. The mob should be permitted to halloo after him, boys may play tricks on him with impunity, every well-bred company should laugh at him; and if, when turned of sixty, he offered to make love, his mistress might spit in his face, or, what would be perhaps a greater punishment, should fairly grant the favour.

"How long I might have continued in this torpid state of simplicity I cannot tell, had I not been roused by seeing an old acquaintance, whom I knew to be a prudent blockhead, preferred to a place in the government. I now found that I had pursued a wrong track, and that the true way of being able to relieve others, was first to aim at independence myself; my immediate care, therefore, was to leave my present habitation, and make an entire reformation in my conduct and behaviour. For a free, open, undesigning deportment, I put on that of closeness, prudence, and eco- As for old maids, continued I, they should nomy. One of the most heroic actions I ever not be treated with so much severity, because performed, and for which I shall praise my- I suppose none would be so if they could. No self as long as I live, was the refusing half-a- lady in her senses would choose to make a subcrown to an old acquaintance, at the time ordinate figure at christenings or lyings-in, when when he wanted it, and I had it to spare; for she might be the principal herself; nor curry this alone I deserve to be decreed an ovation. favour with a sister-in-law, when she might "I now therefore pursued a course of unin- command a husband; nor toil in preparing terrupted frugality, seldom wanted a dinner, custards, when she might lie a-bed, and give and was consequently invited to twenty. I directions how they ought to be made; nor soon began to get the character of a saving stifle all her sensations in demure formality, hunks that had money, and insensibly grew when she might, with matrimonial freedom into esteem. Neighbours have asked my ad- shake her acquaintance by the hand, and wink vice in the disposal of their daughters; and I at a double entendre. No lady could be so silly have always taken care not to give any. I as to live single, if she could help it. I consider have contracted a friendship with an alder- an unmarried lady, declining into the vale of man, only by observing, that if we take a years, as one of those charming countries borfarthing from a thousand pounds, it will be adering on China, that lies waste for want of prothousand pounds no longer. I have been invited to a pawnbroker's table, by pretending to hate gravy ; and am now actually upon treaty of marriage with a rich widow, for only having observed that the bread was rising. If ever I am asked a question, whether I know it or not, instead of answering, I only smile and look wise. If a charity is proposed, I go about with the hat, but put nothing in myself. If a wretch solicits my pity, I observe that the world is filled with impostors, and take a certain method of not being deceived, by never relieving. In short I now find the truest way of finding esteem, even from the indigent, is to give away nothing, and thus have much in our power to give."

LETTER XXVII.

TO THE SAME.

LATELY, in company with my friend in black, whose conversation is now both my am

per inhabitants. We are not to accuse the country, but the ignorance of its neighbours, who are insensible of its beauties, though at liberty to enter and cultivate the soil.

"Indeed, Sir," replied my companion," you are very little acquainted with the English ladies, to think they are old maids against their will. I dare venture to affirm, that you can hardly select one of them all, but has had frequent offers of marriage, which either pride or avarice has not made her reject. Instead of thinking it a disgrace, they take every occasion to boast of their former cruelty: a soldier does not exult more when he counts over the wounds he has received, than a female veteran when she relates the wounds she has formerly given exhaustless when she begins a narrative of the former death-dealing power of her eyes. She tells of the knight in gold lace, who died with a single frown, and never rose again till he was married to his maid; of the squire, who being cruelly denied, in a rage flew to the window and lifting up the sash, threw himself in an agony-into his armchair; of the parson, who, crossed in love, re

solutely swallowed opium, which banished the stings of despised love-by making him sleep. In short, she talks over her former losses with pleasure, and, like some tradesmen, finds consolation in the many bankruptcies she has suffered.

"For this reason, whenever I see a superannuated beauty still unmarried, I tacitly accuse her either of pride, avarice, coquetry, or affectation. There's Miss Jenny Tinder-box, I once remember her to have had some beauty, and a moderate fortune. Her elder sister happened to marry a man of quality, and this seemed as a statute of virginity against poor Jane. Because there was one lucky hit in the family, she was resolved not to disgrace it by introducing a tradesman. By thus rejecting ber equals, and neglected or despised by her superiors, she now acts in the capacity of tutoress to her sister's children, and undergoes the drudgery of three servants, without receiving the wages of one.

one good feature in her face, she talks incessantly of the beauties of the mind."- Fare well.

LETTER XXVIII.

FROM THE SAME.

WERE we to estimate the learning of the English by the number of books that are every day published among them, perhaps no coun try, not even China itself, could equal them in this particular. I have reckoned not less than twenty-three new books published in one day, which, upon computation, makes eight thousand three hundred and ninety-five in one year. Most of these are not confined to one single science, but embrace the whole circle. History, politics, poetry, mathematics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of nature, are "Miss Squeeze was a pawnbroker's daugh- all comprised in a manual not larger than that ter; her father had early taught her that mo- in which our children are taught the letters. ney was a very good thing, and left her a moder- If, then, we suppose the learned of England ate fortune at his death. She was so perfect- to read but an eighth part of the works which ly sensible of the value of what she had got, daily come from the press, (and surely none that she was resolved never to part with a can pretend to learning upon less easy terms), farthing without an equality on the part of her at this rate every scholar will read a thousand suitor she thus refused several offers made books in one year.-From such a calculation, her by people who wanted to better them- you may conjecture what an amazing fund of selves, as the saying is; and grew old and ill-literature a man must be possessed of, who natured, without ever considering that she should have made an abatement in her pretensions, from her face being pale, and marked with the small-pox.

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:

Lady Betty Tempest, on the contrary, had beauty, with fortune and family. But fond of conquest, she passed from triumph to triumph she had read plays and romances, and there had learned, that a plain man of common sense was no better than a fool; such she refused, and sighed only for the gay, giddy, inconstant, and thoughtless; after she had thus rejected hundreds who liked her, and sighed for hundreds who despised her, she found herself insensibly deserted: at present she is company only for her aunts and cousins, and sometimes makes one in a country-dance, with only one of the chairs for a partner, casts off round a joint-stool, and sets to a corner cupboard. In a word, she is treated with civil contempt from every quarter, and placed, like a piece of old-fashioned lumber, merely to fill up a corner.

“But Sophronia, the sagacious Sophronia, how shall I mention her? She was taught to love Greek, and hate the men from her very infancy she has rejected fine gentlemen be cause they were not pedants, and pedants, because they were not fine gentlemen; her exquisite sensibility has taught her to discover every fault in every lover, and her inflexible Justice has prevented her pardoning them: thus she rejected several offers, till the wrinkles of age had overtaken her; and now, without

thus reads three new books every day, not one of which but contains all the good things that ever were said or written.

And yet I know not how it happens, but the English are not, in reality, so learned as would seem from this calculation. We meet but few who know all arts and sciences to perfection; whether it is that the generality are incapable of such extensive knowledge, or that the authors of those books are not adequate instructors. In China, the emperor himself takes cognizance of all the doctors in the kingdom who profess authorship. In England, every man may be an author, that can write; for they have by law a liberty not only of saying what they please, but of being also as dull as they please.

Yesterday, I testified my surprise to the man in black, where writers could be found in sufficient number to throw off the books I daily saw crowding from. the press. I at first im. agined that their learned seminaries might take this method of instructing the world. But to obviate this objection, my companion assured me, that the doctors of colleges never wrote, and that some of them had actually forgot their reading; but if you desire, continued he, to see a collection of authors, I fancy I can introduce you this evening to a club, which assemble every Saturday at seven, at the sign of the Broom near Islington, to talk over the business of the last, and the entertainment of the week ensuing. I accepted this invitation ; we walked together, and entered the house

"Where the Red Lion flaring o'er the way,
Invites each passing stranger that can pay;
Where Calvert's butt, and Parson's black champagne,
Regale the drabs and bloods of Drury-lane;
There in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,

The muse found Scroggen stretch'd beneath a rug;
A window patch'd with paper lent a ray,
That dimly show'd the state in which he lay;
The sanded floor, that grits beneath the tread;
The humid wall with paltry pictures spread;
The royal game of goose was there in view
And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew;
The seasons, fram'd with listing, found a place,
And brave Prince William showed his lamp black face.
The morn was cold, he views with keen desire
The rusty grate, unconscious of a fire;

With beer and milk arrears the frieze was scor'd,
And five cracked tea-cups dress'd the chimney board;
A night-cap deck'd his brows instead of bay,
A cap by night— a stocking all the day!"

to furnish us with a new topic of abuse, I shall resume my old business of working at the press, instead of finding it employment."

The whole club seemed to join in condemning the season, as one of the worst that had come for some time: a gentleman particularly observed that the nobility were never known to subscribe worse than at present. "I know not how it happens," said he, "though I follow them up as close as possible, yet I can hardly get a single subscription in a week. The houses of the great are as inaccessible as a frontier garrison at midnight. I never see a nobleman's door half-opened, that some surly porter or footman does not stand full in the breach. I was yesWith this last line he seemed so much elated terday to wait with a subscription-proposal that he was unable to proceed. "There, gentle-ed myself at his door the whole morning, and upon my Lord Squash the Creolin. I had postmen,” cries he, “there is a description for you; just as he was getting into his coach, thrust Rabelais's bed-chamber is but a fool to it. my proposal snug into his hand, folded up in the form of a letter from myself. He just glanced at the superscription, and not knowing the hand, consigned it to his valet-de-chambre this respectable personage treated it as his master, and put it into the hands of the porter; the porter grasped my proposal frowning; and measuring my figure from top to toe, put it back into my own hands unopened."

A cap by night—a stocking all the day!

There is sound, and sense, and truth, and nature in the trifling compass of ten syllables."

He was too much employed in self-admiration to observe the company; who, by nods, winks, shrugs, and stifled laughter, testified every mark of contempt. He turned severally to each for their opinion, and found all, however, ready to applaud. One swore it was inimitable; another said it was damn'd fine; and a third cried out in a rapture, Carissimo. At last, addressing himself to the president, "and pray, Mr Squint," says he, "let us have your opinion." "Mine!" answered the president, (taking the manuscript out of the author's hand), "May this glass suffocate me, but I think it equal to any thing I have seen; and I fancy (continued he, doubling up the poem and forcing it into the author's pocket), that you will get great honour when it comes out; so I shall beg leave to put it in. We will not intrude upon your good-nature, in desiring to hear more of it at present; ex ungue Herculem, we are satisfied, perfectly satisfied." The author made two or three attempts to pull it out a second time, and the president made as many to prevent him. Thus, though with reluctance, he was at last obliged to sit down, contented with the commendations for which he had paid.

When this tempest of poetry and praise was blown over, one of the company changed the subject, by wondering how any man could be so dull as to write poetry at present, since prose itself would hardly pay. "Would you think it, gentlemen," continued he, "I have actually written last week sixteen prayers, twelve bawdy jests, and three sermons, all at the rate of sixpence a-piece; and what is still more extraordinary, the bookseller has lost by the bargain. Such sermons would once have gained me a prebend's stall; but now, alas, we have neither piety, taste, or humour, among us. Positively, if this season does not turn out better than it has begun, unless the ministry commit some blunders

In

;

"To the devil I pitch all the nobility," cries a little man, in a peculiar accent, "I am sure they have of late used me most scurvily. You must know, gentlemen, some time ago, upon the arrival of a certain noble duke from his travels, I sat myself down, and vamped up a fine flaunting poetical panegyric, which I had written in such a strain, that I fancied it would have even wheedled milk from a mouse. this I represented the whole kingdom welcoming his grace to his native soil, not forgetting the loss France and Italy would sustain in their arts by his departure. I expected to touch for a bank-bill at least; so folding up my verses in gilt paper, I gave my last half-crown to a genteel servant to be the bearer. My letter was safely conveyed to his grace, and the servant, after four hours' absence, during which time I led the life of a fiend, returned with a letter four times as big as mine. Guess my ecstacy at the prospect of so fine a return. I eagerly took the packet into my hands, that trembled to receive it. I kept it some time unopened before me, brooding over the expected treasure it contained; when opening it, as I hope to be saved, gentlemen, his grace had sent me in payment for my poem, no bankbills, but six copies of verses, each longer than mine, addressed to him upon the same occason."

"A nobleman," cries a member, who had hitherto been silent, "is created as much for the confusion of us authors, as the catch-pole. I'll tell you a story, gentlemen, which is as true as that this pipe is made of clay. - When I was delivered of my first book, I owed my tailor for a suit of clothes; but that is nothing new, you know, and may be any man's case as