incline to believe, to the grandfather, of a friend of mine. I am peculiarly attentive to the exactitude of my facts; for, indeed, it is by facts alone that we can proceed to reason with assurance. It was the great

Bacon's method.'

A grave personage in black then spoke :

:-There is another circumstance respecting the last wars in Hungary, which, I must confess, does exceedingly interest my curiosity; and that is, whether General Doxat was justly condemned for yielding up a fortified city to the infidels; or whether, being an innocent man, and a protestant, he was persecuted unto death by the intrigues of the Jesuits at the court of Vienna ?'

I know nothing of General Doxy,' said the stranger, who had hitherto listened attentively; but, if he was persecuted by the Jesuits, I should suppose him to have been a very honest gentleman; for never heard any thing but ill of the people of that religion.'

You forget,' said the first physician, the quinquina, that celebrated febrifuge, which was brought into Europe by a father of that order, or, as you are pleased to express it in a French idiom, of that religion.'

That of the introduction of the quinquina into Europe by the Jesuits is a vulgar error,' said the second physician: the truth is, that the secret was communicated by the natives of South America to a humane Spanish governor, whom they loved. He told his chaplain of it; the chaplain, a German Jesuit, gave some of the bark to Dr. Helvetius, of Amsterdam, father of that Helvetius, who, having composed a book concerning matter, gave it the title of spirit.'

6

What!' cried the third physician, was that Dr.

VOL. I.

Y

46.

Helvetius who cured the Queen of France of an intermittent, the father of Helvetius the renowned philosopher? The fact is exceedingly curious; and I wonder whether it has come to the knowledge of my correspondent Dr. B

As the gentleman speaks of his campaigns,' said an officer in the army, he will probably be in a condition to inform us whether Marshal Saxe is to be credited when he tells us, in his Reveries, that the Turkish horse, after having drawn out their fire, mowed down the Imperial infantry?'

6

Perhaps we shall have some account of Petronius found at Belgrade,' said another of the company; but I suspend my inquiries until the gentleman has finished his story."

'I have listened with great pleasure,' said the stranger, and though I cannot say that I understand all the ingenious things spoken, I can see the truth of what I have often been told, that the Scots, with all their faults, are a learned nation.

In my younger days, it is true, that nothing would serve me but I must needs make a campaign against the Turks, or the Hotmen in Hungary; but my father could not afford to breed me like a gentleman, which was my own wish, and so he bound me seven years to a ship-chandler in Wapping. Just as time was out my master died, and I married the widow. What by marriages, and what by purchasing damaged stores, I got together a pretty capital. I then dealt in sailors' tickets, and I peculated, as they call it, in divers things. I am now well known about 'Change, ay, and somewhere else too,' said he, with a significant nod.

my

6

Now, gentlemen, you will judge whether my father did not choose better for me than I should have done for myself. Had I gone to the wars, I

might have lost some of my precious limbs, or have
had my tongue cut out by the Turks. But suppose
that I had returned safe to Old England, I might
indeed have been able to brag, that I was acquainted
with the laughing man of Hungary, and with Peter,
o-I can't hit on his name; and I might have learned
the way
of curing Great Bacon, and known whether
a Turkish horse mowed down Imperial infants; but
my pockets would have been empty all the while, and
I should have been put to hard shifts for a dinner.
And so you will see that my father did well in binding
me apprentice to a ship-chandler.-Here is to his
memory in a bumper of port; and success to omnium,
and the Irish tong-teing!"

I am, sir, &c.

EUTRAPELUS.

Though I early signified my resolution of declining to take any public notice of communications or letters sent me; yet there is a set of correspondents whose favours, lately received, I think myself bound to acknowledge; and this I do the more willingly as it shows the fame of my predecessors to have extended farther than even I had been apt to imagine.

The Spectator's club is well known to the literary and the fashionable of both sexes; but I confess I was not less surprised than pleased to find it familiar (much to the credit of the gentlemen who frequent such places) to the very tavern-keepers of this city; the greatest part of whom, not doubting that I was to follow so illustrious an example, in the institution of a convivial society, have severally applied to me, through the channel of my editor, to beg that they may be honoured with the reception of the Mirror club.

Like all other candidates for employment, none of

them has been at a loss for reasons why his proposal should have the preference. One describes his house as in the most public, another recommends his as in the most private, part of the town. One says, his tavern is resorted to by the politest company; another, that he only receives gentlemen of the most regular and respectable characters. One offers me the largest room of its kind; another the most quiet and commodious. I am particularly pleased with the attention of one of these gentlemen, who tells me he has provided an excellent elbow-chair for Mr. Umphraville; and that he shall take care to have no children in his house to disturb Mr. Fleetwood.

I am sorry to keep those good people in suspense; but I must inform them, for many obvious reasons, that though my friends and I visit them oftener perhaps than they are aware of, it may be a considerable time before we find it convenient to constitute a regular club, or to make known, even to the master of the house which has the honour of receiving us, where we have fixed the place of our convention.

Meantime, as all of them rest their chief pretensions on the character of the clubs who already favour them with their countenance, and as the names of most of these clubs excite my curiosity to be acquainted with their history and constitution, I must hereby request the landlords who entertain the respective societies of the capillaire, the whin-bush, the knights of the cap and feather, the tabernacle, the stoic, the poker, the hum-drum, and the antemanum, to transmit me a short account of the origin and nature of these societies;-I say the landlords, because I do not think myself entitled to desire such an account from the clubs themselves; and because it is probable that the most material transactions carried on at their meetings are perfectly well known, and, indeed, may

be said to come through the hands of the hosts and their deputies.

L.

No. 47. TUESDAY, JULY 6, 1779.

Quid minuat curas, quid te tibi reddat amicum.

HOR.

THAT false refinement and mistaken delicacy I have formerly described in my friend Mr. Fleetwood, a constant indulgence in which has rendered all his feelings so acute, as to make him be disgusted with the ordinary societies of men, not only attends him when in company, or engaged in conversation, but sometimes disturbs those pleasures, from which a mind like his ought to receive the highest enjoyment. Though endowed with the most excellent taste, and though his mind be fitted for relishing all the beauties of good composition; yet, such is the effect of that excess of sensibility he has indulged, that he hardly ever receives pleasure from any of these, which is not mixed with some degree of pain. In reading, though he can feel all the excellencies of the author, and enter into his sentiments with warmth, yet he generally meets with something to offend him. If a poem, he complains that, with all its merit, it is in some places turgid, in others languid; if a prose composition, that the style is laboured or careless, stiff or familiar, and that the matter is either trite or obscure. In his remarks there is always some