to barter the real enjoyments of life for its pageantry and impositions. Seeing a loose bit of paper and a pen on my table, the thought occurred to me of putting down certain obligations conferred upon our worthy dean in the days of our intimacy, which serve to point out the meanness from which he has emerged. As I think myself justified in keeping no measures with such a character, I authorise you to insert the following list in one of your periodical essays, if you think it worth your notice. Dec. 25, Being Christmas-day, lent to Tom Varnish a clean shirt and a sermon on the occasion. 1778. Jan. 3. - 31. March 1. April 4. A crown for a Christmas-box to Jenny. Corrected a declamation for him, by making a new one. Lent him a pair of worsted gloves during the hard frost. Paid Mr. Gangrene for the setting of his collar-bone; also his forfeits to the free-and-easy club. June 22. Paid two-thirds of the expence of Jenny's Aug. 28. Oct. 6. misfortune. Saved him from drowning, in a scheme down the river to Henley. Lent him a pair of boots, a whip, and a shilling for the turnpikes, besides paying for his horse, to enable him to ride over to his uncle the cowdoctor, who lay ill of a dropsy. March 3, Puffed him off to Sir H. O'N., by whose interest he went with the lord-lieutenant to Ireland. 1779. July 15. Made up a quarret about potatoes, which took place at the moment of his landing. Aug. 7. Saved him from a challenge from the rev. Dr. Patrick O'Bryan, by proving that he had no meaning in any thing he said. A multitude of little services have escaped my recollection; but these will be sufficient to show, that the dean of has clean forgotten Tom Varnish, and Tom Varnish's friends. Be so good as to make a memorandum of this letter; and if I perceive any future changes in this self-tormenter, I will not fail to give you some further accounts of him. Yours ever, ANTHONY TRUEMAN. I thought there was so much honesty and good sense in this letter, that I determined to make a present of it to my readers: and though the catalogue which my friend Trueman has sent me may seem to bear rather too hard upon the reverend dean, yet a pride of this sort does so eminently misbecome a teacher of Christianity, and betrays such a corruption of heart, that I cannot think the punishment improper either in kind or degree. For my part, with my sedate habits, and sober complexion, these frightful transformations of my countrymen surprise me strangely. For as, in my own family, whole generations have exactly agreed, and the father has regularly reproduced himself in the son, I am the more astonished to see a man so much at variance with himself. There must certainly have been some witchcraft in Tom Varnish's history; which puts me very much in mind of the poet's account of the metamorphosis of Atlas into a mountain: his beard and hair shot up into a huge forest; his shoulders and hands became ridges; his head supplied the place of a pinnacle; his bones were converted into rocks; then his whole person swelled out to a monstrous size, on which all the stars of heaven reposed. "Quantus erat mons factus Atlas: jam barba comæque Cicarella, in his life of Pope Sixtus Quintus, tells us, that that pontiff used frequently to please himself with jesting upon the meanness of his origin. He would say that he was domo natus perillustri; the cottage wherein he was born being so out of repair, that the sun shone through every part of it. Cicero, with more gravity, observes, Sutius est meis gestis florere quam majorum auctoritatibus inniti, et ita vivere ut sim posteris meis nobilitatis initium et virtutis exemplum. "It is more honourable for me to be dignified by my own actions, than to lean upon the authority of my ancestors; and so to live, that I may be a fountain of nobility and an example of virtue to my descendants." Our worthy dean does not appear at present to feel all the force of these laudable sentiments; but I depend upon his coming over to our party, at some period of his life. When old-age and sickness press upon him, he will look around him, perhaps in vain, for his old friend Anthony Trueman, to refresh his mind with the pleasing recollections of his youth, and to talk with him about young Jenny and the old tree. Yesterday, as I was pursuing my reflections on this subject, it occurred to me, that some good advice to such characters as I have been describing might be conveyed in the notion of à letter from a man's former self to his present self, which might run as follows: "Worshipful Sir, Though perhaps you recollect with no great cordiality or esteem the person who now takes the liberty of addressing you, I feel so much interest in your honour and happiness, that I cannot refuse myself the satisfaction of laying before you some truths which you may turn greatly to account. I own I cannot but complain bitterly of the contempt with which you treat a person born of as good a family as yourself, and bred to the same expectations; and one too whom you formerly loved better than your father or mother, and as much as your own life. If I am rightly informed, sir, you have extended this illiberal conduct to my friends, and have represented Mr. Shortland as a person of mean condition, to whom, nevertheless, you are in a great measure obliged for your present elevation. As to myself, be assured, sir, your efforts to cast oblivion and obscurity around me, will only make me the more noticed; and that, whatever comparisons shall be made, they will be to the disadvantage of yourself. I do not conceive in what circumstance you pretend to be my superior, except in the base article of wealth. You may be a greater man; but you have not so much ease, so much leisure, so much youth, so much health, so much strength, so many real friends, and so much content. I am pretty sure, too, that a certain lady, whom we have both addressed, prefers in her own breast my little farm to your fine house and your laced liveries: but I respect your happiness so much, that I would resign her to you, if you would but adopt a more amiable and rational way of thinking. "I shall never make any farther overtures towards a reconciliation; but shall always be ready to embrace you whenever you feel yourself disposed to sink this awkward distance between us. You will be most likely to find me, on such an occasion, in the poplar-groves behind your house, or on the terrace just out of the village, at the hours of nine and ten in the evening, particularly if it be moonlight. Be assured, you will never hear of me at any public places; for crowds are my abomination. I am sensible that the pride and deceit of these corrupt resorts first produced the melancholy separation that has taken place between us. "I knew what was to be my fate, from the moment that old lady Margaret Mildmay whispered in your ear the words seducing arts,' and delicate situations.' Ever since these ominous phrases, you have kept me at the most mortifying distance; but finding it rather difficult to shake me off at once, you pinched, buckram'd, and pomatum'd me up to such a degree, that I could not hold out any longer. I have often tried to meet you since our total separation; but as I have not been used to the smell of perfumes, I could never come within your atmosphere, except once indeed, when, in flying from two unmannerly catchpoles, you ran full against me in turning a corner, and did me the favour of jostling me into the kennel. "One thing however, sir, I must insist upon, which is, that you will forbear any contemptuous insinuations respecting my friend Dick Shortland's family, since you cannot boast so good a one: and as to myself, sir, you cannot be ignorant that your great-grandfather was a chimney-sweeper, as well as my own; and that, if it were not for that noble invention, for which the world is indebted to a person |