nity attending her funeral was magnificent, the expenses great, and the sermon affecting. In a this pomp of grief, none seemed more affected than Cyris, or bet an exams of sierer mortë, cation. The society considered the deposition of their benefactress among them as a very great honour, and masses in abundance were promised for her safety. But what was the amazement of the whole couvent the next day, when they found the vault in which she was deposited broken open, the body mangied, her fingers on which were some rings, cut off, and all her finery carried away! Every person in the eonvent was shocked at such barbarity, and Cyrillo was one of the foremost in condemning the sacrilege. However, shortly after, on going to his cell, having occasion to examine under his mattress, he there found that he alone was the guiltiess plunderer. The convent was soon made acquainted with his misfortune; and, at the general request of the fraternity, he was removed to another monastery, where the prior had a power, by right, of coufining his conventuals. Thus debarred from doing mischief, Cyrillo led the remainder of his life in piety and peace.

ESSAY XXV.

LETTER, SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A COMMON COUNCILMAN AT THE TIME OF THE CORONATION.

SIR-I have the honour of being a commoncouncilman, and am greatly pleased with a paragraph from Southampton in yours of yesterday. There we learn that the mayor and aldermen of that loyal borough had the particular satisfaction of celebrating the royal nuptials by a magnificent turtle-feast. By this means the gentlemen had the pleasure of filling their bellies and showing their loyalty, together. I must confess it would give me pleasure to see some such method of testifying our loyalty practised in this metropolis, of which I am an unworthy member. Instead of presenting his majesty (God bless him) on every occasion with our formal addresses, we might thus sit comfortably down to dinner, and wish him prosperity in a sirloin of beef; upon our army levelling the walls of a town or besieging a fortification, we might at our city-feast imitate our brave troops, and demolish the walls of a venison pasty, or besiege the shell of a turtle, with as great a certainty of success.

At present, however, we have got into a sort of dry, unsocial manner of drawing up addresses upon every occasion; and though I have attended upon six cavalcades, and two foot-processions, in a single year, yet I came away as lean and hungry as if I had been a juryman at the Old Bailey. For my part, Mr. Printer, I don't see what is got by these processions and addresses, except an appetite; and that, thank Heaven, we have all in a pretty good degree, without ever leaving our own houses for it. It is true, our gowns of mazarine blue, edged with fur, cut a pretty figure enough, parading through the streets, and so my wife tells me.-In fact, I generally bow to all my acquaintance when thus in full dress: but, alas! as the proverb has it, fine clothes will never fill the belly.

Bat even though all this bustling, parading, and powdering, through the streets, be agreeable enough to many of us; yet, I would have my trettiren consider whether the frequent repetition of it be so agreeable to our betters above. To be introduced to court, to see the queen, to kiss hands, to smile upon lords, to ogle the ladies, and all other fine things there, may, I grant, be a perfect show to us, that view it but seldom; but it may be a troublesome business enough to those who are to settie such ceremonies as these every day. To use an instance adapted to all our apprehensions; suppose my family and I should go to Bartho komew fair. Very well, going to Bartholomew fair, the whole sight is perfect rapture to us, who are only spectators once and away; but I am of opinion, that the wire-walker and the fire-eater find no such great sport in all this; I am of opinion they had as lief remain behind the curtain, at their own pastimes, drinking beer, eating shrimps, and smoking tobacco.

Besides what can we tell his majesty in all we say on these occasions, but what he knows perfectly well already! I believe, if I were to reckon up, I could not find above five hundred disaffected in the whole kingdom; and here we are every day telling his majesty how loyal we are. Suppose the addresses of a people, for instance, should run thus:

"May it please your m―y, we are many of us worth a hundred thousand pounds, and are possessed of several other inestimable advantages. For the preservation of this money and those advantages, we are chiefly indebted to your my. We are, therefore, once more assembled, to assure your my of our fidelity. This, it is true, we have lately assured your my five or six times; but we are willing once more to repeat what can't be doubted, and to kiss your royal hand, and the queen's hand, and thus sincerely to convince you, that we shall never do anything to deprive you of one loyal subject, or any one of ourselves of one hundred thousand pounds.” Should we not, upon reading such an address, think that people a little silly, who thus made such unmeaning professions? Excuse me, Mr. Printer: no man upon earth hath a more profound respect for the abilities of the aldermen and commoncouncil than I; but I could wish they would not take up a monarch's time in these good-natured trifles, who, I am told, seldom spends a moment in vain.

The example set by the city of London would probably be followed by every other community in the British empire. Thus we shall have a new set of addresses from every little borough with but four freemen and a burgess; day after day shall we see them come up with hearts filled with gratitude, "laying the vows of a loyal people at the foot of the throne." Death! Mr. Printer, they'll hardly leave our courtiers time to scheme a single project for beating the French; and our enemies may gain upon us, while we are thus employed in telling our governor how much we intend to keep them under.

But a people by too frequent use of addresses may by this means come at last to defeat the very purpose for which they are designed. If we are thus exclaiming in raptures upon every occasion, we deprive ourselves of the powers of flattery,

when there may be a real necessity. A boy three weeks ago swimming across the Thames, was every minute crying out for his amusement, "I've got the cramp, I've got the cramp!" The boatmen pushed off once or twice, and they found it was fun; he soon after cried out in earnest, but nobody believed him, and he sunk to the bottom.

In short, sir, I am quite displeased with any unnecessary cavalcade whatever. I hope we shall soon have occasion to triumph, and then I shall be ready myself either to eat at a turtle feast, or to shout at a bonfire and will either lend my faggot at the fire, or flourish my hat at every loyal health that may be proposed.

ESSAY XXVI.

I am, sir, &c.

SECOND LETTER, SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY A COMMONCOUNCILMAN, DESCRIBING THE CORONATION.

:

SIR,-I am the same common-councilman who troubled you some days ago. To whom can I complain but to you? for you have many a dismal correspondent in this time of joy my wife does not choose to hear me, because, she says, I'mı always melancholy when she's in spirits. I have been to see the coronation, and a fine sight it was, as I am told, to those who had the pleasure of being near spectators. The diamonds, I am told, were as thick as Bristol stones in a show-glass; the ladies and gentlemen walked along, one foot before another, and threw their eyes about them, on this side and that, perfectly like clock-work. O! Mr. Printer, it had been a fine sight indeed, if there was but a little more eating.

Instead of that, there we sat, penned up in our scaffolding, like sheep, upon a market day in Smithfield; but the devil a thing could I get to eat (God pardon me for swearing) except the fragments of a plum-cake, that was all squeezed into crumbs in my wife's pocket, as she came through the crowd. You must know, sir, that in order to do the thing genteelly, and that all my family might be amused at the same time, my wife, my daughter, and I, took two-guinea places for the coronation, and I gave my two eldest boys (who by-the-by, are twins, fine children) eighteen-pence apiece to go to Sudrick fair, to see the court of the Black King of Morocco, which will serve to please children well enough.

That we might have good places on the scaffolding, my wife insisted upon going at seven o'clock in the evening before the coronation, for she said she would not lose a full prospect for the world. This resolution, I own, shocked me. "Grizzle," said I to her, "Grizzle, my dear, consider that you are but weakly, always ailing, and will never bear sitting all night upon the scaffold. You remember what a cold you got the last fast-day by rising but half an hour before your time to go to church, and how I was scolded as the cause of it. Besides, my dear, our daughter Anna Amelia Wilhelmina Carolina will look like a perfect fright if she sits up and you know the girl's face is something at her time of life, considering her fortune is but small."-" Mr. Grogan," replied my wife, "Mr. Grogan, this is always the case, when you find me in spirits; I don't want to go, not I, nor I don't care whether I go at all; it is seldom

that I am in spirits, but this is always the case !" In short Mr. Printer, what will you have on't? to the coronation we went.

What difficulties we had in getting a coach; how we were shoved about in the mob; how I had my pocket picked of the last new almanack, and my steel tobacco-box; how my daughter lost half an eye-brow, and her laced shoe in a gutter; my wife's lamentation upon this, with the adventures of a crumbled plum-cake; relate all these; we suffered this and ten times more before we got to our places.

At last, however, we were seated. My wife is certainly a heart of oak; I thought sitting up in the damp night-air would have killed her; I have known her for two months take possession of our easy chair, mobbed up in flannel night-caps, and trembling at a breath of air; but she now bore the night as merrily as if she had sat up at a christening. My daughter and she did not seem to value it a farthing. She told me two or three stories that she knows will always make me laugh, and my daughter sung me "The Noontide Air," towards one o'clock in the morning. However, with all their endeavours, I was as cold and as dismal as ever I remember. If this be the pleasure of a coronation, cried I to myself, had rather see the Court of King Solomon in all his Glory, at my ease in Bartholomew fair.

Towards morning, sleep began to come fast upon me: and the sun rising and warming the air, still inclined me to rest a little. You must know, sir, that I am naturally of a sleepy constitution; I have often sat up at table with my eyes open, and have been asleep all the while. What will you have on't? just about eight o'clock in the morning I fell asleep. I fell into the most pleasing dream in the world. I shall never forget it; I dreamed that I was at my lord mayor's feast, and had scaled the crust of a venison pasty; I kept eating and eating, in my sleep, and thought I could never have enough. After some time the pasty methought was taken away, and the dessert was brought in its room. Thought I to myself, if I have not got enough of venison, I am resolved to make it up by the largest snap at the sweetmeats. Accordingly I grasped a whole pyramid; the rest of the guests seeing me with so much, one gave me a snap, the other gave me a snap; I was pulled this way by my neighbour on my right hand, and that way by my neighbour on the left, but still kept my ground without flinching, and continued eating and pocketing as fast as I could. I never was so pulled and handled in my whole life. At length, however, going to smell to a lobster that lay before me, methought it caught me with its claws fast by the nose. The pain I felt upon this oocasion is inexpressible; in fact, it broke my dream; when, awaking, I found my wife and daughter applying a smelling-bottle to my nose, and telling me it was time to go home; they assured me every means had been tried to awake me, while the procession was going forward, but that I still continued to sleep till the whole ceremony was over. Mr. Printer, this is a hard case, and as I read your most ingenious work, it will be some comfort, when I see this inserted, to find that--I write for it too.

I am, sir, your most distressed humble servant, L. GROGAN.