one praised my voice, another my person. "Upon my word," says the Squire's lady," he will make one of the finest actors in Europe: I say it, and I think I am something of a judge." Praise in the beginning is agreeable enough, and we receive it as a favour; but when it comes in great quantities, we regard it only as a debt, which nothing but our merit could extort: instead of thanking them, I internally applauded myself. We were desired to give our piece a second time: we obeyed; and I was applauded even more than before.

'At last we left the town, in order to be at a horse-race at some distance from thence. I shall never think of Tenterden without tears of gratitude and respect. The ladies and gentlemen there, take my word for it, are very good judges of plays and actorscome, let us drink their healths, if you please, sir. We quitted the town I say; and there was a wide difference between my coming in and going out: I entered the town a candle-snuffer, and I quitted it a hero! Such is the world: little to-day, and great to-morrow. I could say a great deal more upon that subject -something truly sublime, upon the ups and downs of fortune; but it would give us both the spleen, and so I shall pass it over.

The races were ended before we arrived at the next town, which was no small disappointment to our company; however, we were resolved to take all we could get. I played capital characters there too, and came off with my usual brilliancy. I sincerely believe I should have been the first actor in Europe, had my growing merit been properly cultivated; but there came an unkindly frost, which nipped me in the bud, and levelled me once more down to the common standard of humanity. I played Sir Harry Wildair; all the country ladies were charmed: if I but drew out my snuff-box, the whole house was in a roar of rapture; when I exercised my cudgel, I thought they would have fallen into convulsions.

"There was here a lady who had received an education of nine months in London, and this gave her pretensions to taste, which rendered her the indisputable mistress of the ceremonies wherever she came. She was informed of my merits; everybody praised me, yet she refused at first going to see me perform. She could not conceive, she said, anything but stuff from a stroller; talked something in praise of Garrick, and amazed the ladies with her skill in enunciations, tones, and cadences. She was at last, however, prevailed upon to go; and it was privately intimated to me what a judge was to be present at my next exhibition. However, in no way intimidated, I came on in Sir Harry, one hand stuck in my breeches, and the other in my bosom, as is usual at Drury-Lane; but instead of looking at me,

I perceived the whole audience had their eyes turned upon the lady who had been nine months in London; from her they expected the decision which was to secure the general's truncheon in my hand, or sink me down into a theatrical letter-carrier. I opened my snuff-box, took snuff; the lady was solemn, and so were the rest: I broke my cudgel on Alderman Smuggler's back; still gloomy, melancholy all-the lady groaned and shrugged her shoulders: I attempted, by laughing myself, to excite at least a smile; but not a cheek could I perceive wrinkled into sympathy: I found it would not do. All my good-humour now became forced; my laughter was converted into hysteric grinning; and while I pretended spirits, my eye showed the agony of my heart: in short, the lady came with an irtention to be displeased, and displeased she was; my fame expired; I am here, and the tankard is no more!'

ESSAY V.

ON THE FRAILTY OF MAN-A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR, SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY THE ORDINARY OF NEWGATE.

MAN is a most frail being, incapable of directing his steps, unacquainted with what is to happen in this life; and perhaps no man is a more manifest instance of the truth of this maxim than Mr Theophilus Cibber, just now gone out of the world. Such a variety of turns of fortune, yet such a persevering uniformity of conduct, appears in all that happened in his short span, that the whole may be looked upon as one regular confusion: every action of his life was matter of wonder and surprise, and his death was an astonishment.

This gentleman was born of creditable parents, who gave him a very good education, and a great deal of good learning, so that he could read and write before he was sixteen. However, he early discovered an inclination to follow lewd courses; he refused to take the advice of his parents, and pursued the bent of his inclination; he played at cards on Sundays; called himself a gentleman; fell out with his mother and laundress; and, even in these early days, his father was frequently heard to observe, that young The. would be hanged.

As he advanced in years, he grew more fond of pleasure; would eat an ortolan for dinner, though he begged the guinea that bought it; and was once known to give three pounds for a plate of green peas, which he had collected over-night as charity for a friend in

distress: he ran into debt with everybody that would trust him, and none could build a sconce' better than he; so that at last his creditors swore, with one accord, that The. would be hanged.

But as getting into debt by a man who had no visible means out impudence for a subsistence, is a thing that every reader is not acquainted with, I must explain this point a little, and that to his satisfaction.

There are three ways of getting into debt; first, by pushing a face: as thus, 'You, Mr Lutestring, send me home six yards of that paduasoy ; but, harkee, don't think I ever intend to

pay you for it,

At this the mercer laughs heartily, cuts off the paduasoy, and sends it home; nor is he, till too late, surprised to find the gentleman had said nothing but the truth, and kept his word.

The second method of running into debt is called fineering: which is getting goods made up in such a fashion as to be unfit for every other purchaser; and if the tradesman refuses to give them on credit, then threaten to leave them upon his hands.

But the third and best method is called, being the good customer.' The gentleman first buys some trifle, and pays for it in ready money; he comes a few days after with nothing about him but bank-bills, and buys, we will suppose, a sixpenny tweezercase; the bills are too great to be changed, so he promises to return punctually the day after and pay for what he has bought. In this promise he is punctual, and this is repeated for eight or ten times, till his face is well known, and he has got at last the character of a good customer; by this means he gets credit for something considerable, and then never pays for it.

In all this, the young man who is the unhappy subject of our present reflections was very expert; and could face, fineer, and bring custom to a shop with any man in England: none of his companions could exceed him in this; and his very companions at last said, that The. would be hanged.

As he grew old, he grew never the better: he loved ortolans and green peas as before: he drank gravy soup when he could get it, and always thought his oysters tasted best when he got them for nothing, or, which was just the same, when he bought them upon tick: thus the old man kept up the vices of the youth, and what he wanted in power, he made up by inclination; so that all the world thought that old The. would be hanged.

And now, reader, I have brought him to his last scene-a scene where, perhaps, my duty should have obliged me to assist You expect, perhaps, his dying words, and the tender farewell he took of his wife and children; you expect an account of his coffin and white gloves, his pious ejaculations, and the papers he left behind

him. In this I cannot indulge your curiosity; for, oh! the mys teries of Fate, The. was drowned!

'Reader,' as Hervey saith, 'pause and ponder, and ponder and pause; who knows what thy own end may be !'

ESSAY VI.

FEMALE WARRIORS.

I HAVE spent the greater part of my life in making observations on men and things, and in projecting schemes for the advantage of my country; and though my labours meet with an ungrateful return, I will still persist in my endeavours for its service, like that venerable, unshaken, and neglected patriot, Mr Jacob Henriquez, who, though of the Hebrew nation, hath exhibited a shining example of Christian fortitude and perseverance. And here my conscience urges me to confess, that the hint upon which the following proposals are built, was taken from an advertisement of the said patriot Henriquez, in which he gave the public to understand, that Heaven had indulged him with 'seven blessed daughters. Blessed they are, no doubt, on account of their own and their father's virtues; but more blessed may they be, if the scheme I offer should be adopted by the legislature.

The proportion which the number of females born in these king doms bears to the male children is, I think, supposed to be as thirteen to fourteen; but as women are not so subject as the other sex to accidents and intemperance, in numbering adults we shall find the balance on the female side. If, in calculating the numbers of the people, we take in the multitudes that emigrate to the plantations, whence they never return; those that die at sea, and make their exit at Tyburn; together with the consumption of the present war, by sea and land, in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, in the German and Indian Oceans, in Old France, New France, North America, the Leeward Islands, Germany, Africa, and Asia, we may fairly state the loss of men during the war at one hundred thousand. If this be the case, there must be a superplus of the other sex, amounting to the same number, and this superplus will consist of women able to bear arms; as I take it for granted, that all those who are fit to bear children are likewise fit to bear arms. Now, as we have seen the nation governed by old women, I hope to make it appear, that it may be defended by young women; and surely this scheme will not be rejected as unnecessary at such a juncture, when our armies, in the four quarters of the globe, are

in want of recruits; when we find ourselves entangled in a new war with Spain, on the eve of a rupture in Italy, and, indeed, in a fair way of being obliged to make head against all the great potentates of Europe.

But, before I unfold my design, it may be necessary to obviate, from experience, as well as argument, the objections which may be made to the delicate frame and tender disposition of the female sex, rendering them incapable of the toils, and insuperably averse to the horrors, of war. All the world has heard of the nation of Amazons, who inhabited the banks of the river Thermodon, in Cappadocia, who expelled their men by force of arms, defended themselves by their own prowess, managed the reins of government, prosecuted the operations of war, and held the other sex in the utmost contempt. We are informed by Homer, that Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, acted as auxiliary to Priam, and fell, valiantly fighting in his cause before the walls of Troy. Quintus Curtius tells us, that Thalestris brought one hundred armed Amazons in a present to Alexander the Great. Diodorus Siculus expressly says, there was a nation of female warriors in Africa, who fought against the Libyan Hercules. We read in the voyages of Columbus, that one of the Caribbee Islands was possessed by a tribe of female warriors who kept all the neighbouring Indians in awe; but we need not go further than our own age and country to prove that the spirit and constitution of the fair sex are equal to the dangers and fatigues of war. Every novice who has read the authentic and impartial History of the Pirates is well acquainted with the exploits of two heroines, called Mary Read and Anne Bonny. I myself have had the honour to drink with Anne Cassier, alias Mother Wade, who had distinguished herself among the Buccaneers of America, and in her old age kept a punchhouse, in Port Royal, of Jamaica. I have likewise conversed with Moll Davis, who had served as a dragoon in all Queen Anne's wars, and was admitted on the pension of Chelsea. The late war with Spain, and even the present, hath produced instances of females enlisting both in the land and sea service, and behaving with remarkable bravery in the disguise of the other sex. And who has not heard of the celebrated Jenny Cameron, and some other enterprising ladies of North Britain, who attended a certain Adventurer in all his expeditions, and headed their respective clans in a military character? That strength of body is often equal to the courage of mind implanted in the fair sex, will not be denied by those who have seen the waterwomen of Plymouth; the female dredgers of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland; the fishwomen of Billingsgate; the weeders, podders, and hoopers, who swarm in the fields; and the bunters who swagger in the streets