who attacks the enemy in his trenches, is always victorious."

Yet, upon the whole, our clergy might employ themselves more to the benefit of fociety, by declining all controverfy, than by exhibiting even the profoundest skill in polemic difputes; their contests with each other often turn on fpeculative trifles; and their difputes with the Deifts are almost at an end, fince they can have no more than victory, and that they are already poffeffed of, as their antagonists have been driven into a confeffion of the neceffity of reve lation, or an open avowal of atheism. To continue the difpute longer would only endanger it; the fceptic is ever expert at puzzling a debate which he finds himself unable to continue;" and, like an olympic boxer, generally fights beft when undermoft."

ESSAY V

THE improvements we make in mental acquire

ments only render us each day more fenfible of the defects of our conftitution: with this in view, therefore, let us often recur to the amufements of youth; endeavour to forget age and wisdom, and as far as innocence goes, be as much a boy as the best of them.

Let idle declaimers mourn over the degeneracy of the age; but in my opinion every age is the fame. This I am fure of, that man in every feafon is a poor fretful being, with no other means to escape the calamities of the times but by endeavouring to forget them; for if he attempts to refift, he is certainly undone. If I feel poverty and pain, I am not

fo

fo hardy as to quarrel with the executioner, even while under correction: I find myfelf no way difpofed to make fine fpeeches, while I am making wry faces. In a word, let me drink when the fit is on, to make me infenfible; and drink when it is over, for joy that I feel pain no longer.

The character of old Falftaff, even with all his faults, gives me more confolation than the most studied efforts of wildom: I here behold an agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and fhowing me the way to be young at fixty-five. Sure I am well able to be as merry, though not fo comical as he-Is it not in my power to have, though not fo much wit, at leaft as much vivacity?-Age, care, wifdom, reflection, be gone-I give you to the winds. Let's have t'other bottle: here's to the memory of Shakspeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eaftcheap.

Such were the reflections that naturally arose while I fat at the Boar's head tavern, ftill kept at Eaftcheap. Here by a pleafant fire, in the very room where old Sir John Falstaff cracked his jokes, in the very chair which was fometimes honoured by prince Henry, and fometimes polluted by his immoral merry companions, I fat and ruminated on the follies of youth; wifhed to be young again; but was refolved to make the best of life while it lafted, and now and then compared past and prefent times together. I confidered myself as the only living reprefentative of the old knight, and tranfported my imagination back to the times when the prince and he gave life to the revel, and made even debauchery not difgufting The room alfo confpired to throw my reflections back into antiquity: the oak floor, the Gothic windows, and the ponderous chimneypiece, had long withftood the tooth of time; the watchman had gone twelve; my companions had all ftolen off; and none now remained with me but the landlord.

landlord. From him I could have wifhed to know the hiftory of a tavern, that had fuch a long fucceffion of cuftomers: I could not help thinking that an account of this kind would be a pleafing contraft of the manners of different ages; but my landlord could give me no information. He continued to doze and fot, and tell a tedious ftory, as moft other landlords ufually do; and, though he faid nothing, yet was never filent: one good joke followed another good joke; and the best joke of all was generally begun towards the end of a bottle. I found at laft, however, his wine and his converfation operate by degrees he infenfibly began to alter his appearance. His cravat seemed quilled into a ruff, and his breeches fwelled out into a fardingale. I now fancied him changing fexes; and as my eyes began to clofe in flumber, I imagined my fat landlord actually converted into as fat a landlady. However, fleep made but few changes in my fituation: the tavern, the apartment, and the table, continued as before; nothing fuffered mutation but my hoft, who was fairly altered into a gentlewoman, whom I knew to be dame Quickly, mistress of this tavern in the days of Sir John; and the liquor we were drinking, which feeemed converted into fack and fugar.

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My dear Mrs. Quickly," cried I (for I knew her perfectly well at firft fight)" I am heartily glad "to fee you. How have you left Falftaff, Pif"tol, and the reft of our friends below ftairs? "Brave and hearty, I hope ?" In good footh, replied fhe, he did deferve to live for ever; but he maketh foul work on't where he hath flitted. Queen Proferpine and he have quarrelled for his attempting a rape upon her divinity; and were it not that the ftill had bowels of compaffion, it more than feems probable he might have been now sprawling in Tartarus.

I now found that fpirits ftill preserve the frailties of the flesh; and that, according to the laws of criticifm and dreaming, ghofts have been known to be guilty of even more than platonic affection: wherefore, as I found her too much moved on fuch a topic to proceed, I was refolved to change the fubject; and defiring fhe would pledge me in a bumper, obferved with a figh, that our fack was nothing now to what it was in former days; "Ah, Mrs. Quickly, "those were merry times when you drew fack for $6 prince Henry: men were twice as ftrong, and twice as wife, and much braver, and ten thoufand times more charitable than now. Thofe "were the times! The battle of Agincourt was a "victory indeed! Ever fince that we have only "been degenerating; and, I have lived to fee "the day when drinking is no longer fashionable. "When men wear clean fhirts, and women show "their necks and arms, all are degenerated, Mrs. "Quickly; and we fhall probably, in another cen"tury, be frittered away into beaus or monkeys. "Had you been on earth to see what I have seen, "it would congeal all the blood in your body (your

foul, I mean.) Why, our very nobility now "have the intolerable arrogance, in fpite of what is 46 every day remonftrated from the prefs; our very "nobility, I fay, have the affurance to frequent af"femblies, and prefume to be as merry as the vul

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gar. See, my very friends have fcarcely manhood "enough to fit to it till eleven; and I only am left "to make a night on't. Pr'ythee do me the favour "to confole me a little for their abfence by the ftory "of your own adventure, or the hiftory of the tavern where we are now fitting: I fancy the nar"rative may have fomething fingular."

Obferve this apartment, interrupted my companion; of neat device and excellent workmanship

In this room I have lived, child, woman, and ghost, more than three hundred years: I am ordered by Pluto to keep an annual register of every tranfaction that paffeth here; and I have whilhom compiled three hundred tomes, which eftfoons may be fubmitted to thy regards. "None of your whilhoms or eft"foons's, Mrs. Quickly, if you please," I replied: "I know you can talk every whit as well as I can ; ❝ for, as you have lived here fo long, it is but natu"ral to fuppofe you should learn the converfation of "the company. Believe me, dame, at beft, you "have neither too much fenfe, or too much language to fpare;.fo give me both as well as you can but firft my fervice to you: old women "should water their clay a little now and then; and "now to your story."

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The story of my own adventures, replied the vifion, is but fhort and unfatisfactory; for believe me, Mr. Rigmarole, believe me, a woman with a but of fack at her elbow, is never long-lived. Sir John's death afflicted me to fuch a degree, that I fincerely believe, to drown forrow, I drank more liquor myfelf than I drew for my cuftomers: my grief was fincere, and the fack was excellent. The prior of a neighbouring convent (for our priors then had as much power as a Middlefex juftice now) he, I fay, it was who gave me a licence for keeping a diforderly houfe; upon conditions I fhould never make hard bargains with the clergy, that he fhould have a bottle of fack every morning, and the liberty of confeffing which of my girls he thought proper in private every night. I had continued for feveral years to pay this tribute; and he, it must be confeffed, continued as rigorously to exact it. I grew old infenfibly; my customers continued, however, to compliment my looks while I was by, but I could hear them fay I was wearing when my back was turned. The prior

however