even good manners might have obliged me to perform. I found, however, too soon, that his lordship was a greater dunce than myself; and from that very moment my power of flattery 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, ail 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 unfit for service; I was therefore discharged; my patron at the same time being graciously pleased to observe, that he believed I was tolerably good-natured, and had not the least harm in me.

'Disappointed in ambition, I had recourse to love. A young lady, who lived Iwith 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 number; she always observed, that a man of sense would make a better husband than a fool, and I as constantly applied the observation in my own favour. She continually talked, in my company, of friendship and the beauties of the mind, and spoke of Mr. Shrimp my rival's highheeled shoes with detestation. These were circumstances which I thought strongly in my favour; so, after resolving and resolving, I had courage enough to tell her my mind. Miss heard my proposal with serenity, sceming 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 highheeled 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.

"Yet still I had friends, numerous

friends, and to them I was resolve apply. O friendship! thou fond so t of the human breast, to thee we every calamity; to thee the wretched for succour; on thee the care-tired s misery fondly relies: from thy kind a ance the unfortunate always hopes r and may be ever sure of-disappoints My first application was to a city scriva who had frequently offered to lend money, when he knew I did not wa I informed him, that now was the tin put his friendship to the test; th wanted to borrow a couple of hun for a certain occasion, and was rese to take it up from him. And pray, cried my friend, do you want all money?'-'Indeed, I never wante more,' returned I.-'I am sorry for t cries the scrivener, 'with all my he for they who want money when they c to borrow, will always want money w they should come to pay.'

From him I flew, with indignation one of the best friends I had in the wo and made the same request. 'Inde. Mr. Drybone,' cries my friend, 'I alw thought it would come to this. You kn sir, I would not advise you but for y own good; but your conduct has hithe been ridiculous in the highest degr and some of your acquaintance alw thought you a very silly fellow. Let see-you want two hundred pounds. you only want two hundred, sir, exactly

-To confess a truth,' returned I, ‘I sh want three hundred; but then, I ha another friend, from whom I can born the rest.' 'Why, then,' replied my frien if you would take my advice, (and y know I should not presume to advise y but for your own good,) I would recot mend it to you to borrow the whole sa from that other friend; and then one no will serve for all, you know.'

"Poverty now began to come fast up me; yet instead of growing more provide or cautious as I grew poor, I became eve day more indolent and simple. A frien was arrested for fifty pounds; I was unabi to extricate him, except by becoming h bail. When at liberty, he fled from hi creditors, and left me to take his place In prison I expected greater satisfaction

a I enjoyed at large. I hoped to verse with men in this new world, ple and believing like myself; but Dund them as cunning and as cautious those in the world I had left behind. ey spunged up my money while it tel, borrowed my coals and never id for them, and cheated me when I syed at cribbage. All this was done Cause they believed me to be very goodtured, and knew that I had no harm

"Upon my first entrance into this man, which is to some the abode of despair, felt no sensations different from those experienced abroad. I was now on one de the door, and those who were unconLed were on the other: this was all the ifference between us. At first, indeed, I At some uneasiness, in considering how I hould be able to provide this week for the Fans of the week ensuing; but after some I found myself sure of eating one I never troubled my head how I was e supplied another. I seized every us meal with the utmost gooda; indulged no rants of spleen at spration; never called down Heaven all the stars to behold me dining upon penny-worth of radishes; my very Bpanions were taught to believe that xed salad better than mutton. I unted myself with thinking, that all e I should either eat white bread #wn; considered that all that hapwas best; laughed when I was not , took the world as it went, and Tacitus often for want of more books company.

How long I might have continued in tarpid state of simplicity I cannot tell, I not been roused by seeing an old intance, whom I knew to be a prublockhead, preferred to a place in the mment. I now found that I had ed a wrong track, and that the true of being able to relieve others was to aim at independence myself: my eiate care, therefore, was to leave present habitation and make an entire rmation in my conduct and behaviour. afree, open, undesigning deportment, on that of closeness, prudence, and omy. One of the most heroic actions

I ever performed, and for which I shall praise myself as long as I live, was the refusing half-a-crown to an old acquaintance, at the time when he wanted it, and I had it to spare: for this alone I deserve to be decreed an ovation.

"I now therefore pursued a course of uninterrupted frugality, seldom wanted a dinner, and was consequently invited to twenty. I soon began to get the character of a saving hunks that had money, and insensibly grew into esteem. Neighbours have asked my advice in the disposal of their daughters; and I have always taken care not to give any. I have contracted a friendship with an alderman, only by observing, that if we take a farthing from a thousand pounds, it will be a thousand 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 XXVIII.

To the same.

LATELY, in company with my friend in black, whose conversation is now both my amusement and instruction, I could not avoid observing the great numbers of old bachelors and maiden ladies with which this city seems to be overrun. Sure, marriage," said I, "is not sufficiently encouraged, or we should never behold such crowds of battered beaux and decayed coquettes, still attempting to drive a trade they have been so long unfit for, and swarming upon the gaiety of the age. behold an old bachelor in the most contemptible light, as an animal that lives upon the common stock without contri

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buting his share: he is a beast of prey, and the laws 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 hyæna or the rhinoceros. The mob should be permitted after him, boys might 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.

"As for old maids,” continued I, “they should not be treated with so much severity, because I suppose none would be so if they could. No lady in her senses would choose to make a subordinate figure at christenings or lyings-in, when she might be the principal herself; nor curry favour with a sister-in-law, when she might command a husband; nor toil in preparing custards, when she might lie a-bed, and give directions how they ought to be made; nor stifle all her sensations in demure formality, when she might, with matrimonial freedom, shake her acquaintance by the hand, and wink at a double entendre. No lady could be so very silly as to live single, if she could help it. I consider an unmarried lady, declining into the vale of years, as one of those charming countries bordering on China, that lies waste for want of proper 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 w single frown, and never rose again | he was married to his maid; of the s who, being cruelly denied, in a rage fl the window, and lifting up the sash, t himself, in an agony-into his arm-d of the parson, who, crossed in love, lutely swallowed opium, which bani the stings of despised love by-ma him sleep. In short, she talks over former losses with pleasure, and, some tradesmen, finds consolation in many bankruptcies she has suffered.

"For this reason, whenever I see a st annuated beauty still unmarried, I ta accuse her either of pride, avarice,coqu or affectation. There's Miss Jenny derbox, I once remember her to have some beauty and a moderate fort Her elder sister happened to marry a of quality, and this seemed as a statu virginity against poor Jane. Because t was one lucky hit in the family, she resolved not to disgrace it by introdu a tradesman. By thus rejecting her equ and neglected or despised by her superi she now acts in the capacity of tuto to her sister's children, and underg the drudgery of three servants, with receiving the wages of one.

Miss Squeeze was a pawnbrok daughter; her father had early taught that money was a very good thing, left her a moderate fortune at his der She was so perfectly sensible of the va of what she had got, that she was resol never to part with a farthing without equality on the part of her suitor:: thus refused several offers made her people who wanted to better themsely as the saying is, and grew old and natured, without ever considering that should have made an abatement in pretensions, from her face being pale, # marked with the small-pox.

"Lady Betty Tempest, on the contra had beauty, with fortune and family. B fond of conquest, she passed from trium to triumph: she had read plays and mances, and there had learned, that a pl man of common sense was no better tha fool; such she refused, and sighed only the gay, giddy, inconstant, and thoughai After she had thus rejected hundreds

ked her, and sighed for hundreds who espised her, she found herself insensibly eserted: at present she is company only or her aunts and cousins, and sometimes nakes one in a country-dance, with only one of the chairs for a partner, casts off ocad a joint-stool, and sets to a corner pboard. In a word, she is treated with d contempt from every quarter, and placed, like a piece of old-fashioned er, merely to fill up a corner.

But Sophronia, the sagacious Sophronia, how shall I mention her? She was taght to love Greek and hate the men fr her very infancy; she has rejected fie geatlemen because they were not pedants, and pedants because they were not fre garlemen; her exquisite sensibility has taught her to discover every fault in every lover, and her inflexible justice has Frevented her pardoning them: thus she cted several offers, till the wrinkles of gehad overtaken her; and now, without good feature in her face, she talks tantly of the beauties of the mind."Frewell

LETTER XXIX. To the same.

TERE we to estimate the learning of the glish by the number of books that are Pery day published among them, perhaps country, not even China itself, could al them in this particular. I have koned not less than twenty-three new 1ks published in one day, which, upon putation, makes eight thousand three dred and ninety-five in one year. st of these are not confined to one Angle science, but embrace the whole History, politics, poetry, mathetes, metaphysics, and the philosophy nature, are all comprised in a manual larger than that in which our children e taught the letters. If, then, we supse the learned of England to read but s eighth part of the works which daily me from the press, (and sure none can xtend to learning upon less easy terms,) this rate every scholar will read a ousand books in one year. From such calculation you may conjecture what an 1azing fund of literature a man must be ssessed of, who 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 imagined 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 assembles 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 his invitation: we walked together, and entered the house some time before the usual hour for the company assembling.

66

My friend took this opportunity of letting me into the characters of the principal members of the club, not even the host excepted, who, it seems, was once an author himself, but preferred by a bookseller to this situation as a reward for his former services.

"The first person," said he, "of our society is Doctor Nonentity, a metaphysician. Most people think him a profound scholar; but, as he seldom speaks, I cannot be positive in that particular: he generally spreads himself before the fire, sucks his pipe, talks little, drinks much, and is reckoned very good company. I'm