stream! They hoped, however, that a check was put to the trampling upon their private honour and happiness, as the fear of punishment will very often bind those to their good behaviour, whom honour cannot.

Honour!-aye honour;-not in that false, hackneyed, and prostituted sense in which that word is miserably misapplied; but that honour of which Seneca speaks, when he says, "that were there no God to see or punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of so mean, so base, and so vile a nature;"-we mean not that honour which deems it more honourable to revenge a lye given, than to desist from telling it; not that kind of honour which is ever ready to defend reputation by risking life, but pays not the least attention to the establishment of it on the basis of virtue; not that kind of honour which takes away the life of a brother who demands reparation for the seduction of a beloved sister; not that kind of honour which braves the vengeance of an injured husband and hospitable entertainer, and scruples not to violate his bed under his own roof; no, we would be understood to mean that kind of honour,-the only genuine

VOL. II.

one, which is a stimulus to great, good, and virtuous actions; which is ever ready to contribute to the ease, happiness and enjoyments of our fellow creatures; which will not suffer its own dignity to be trodden under foot, nor will undermine that of others; in a word, that honour―

-which is its own reward and end,

And, satisfied within, cannot descend
To beg the suffrage of a vulgar tongue,
Which by commending virtue does it wrong."

This honour is of so fine and delicate a nature that it can only exist in minds naturally noble

"Twas all a mystery to the Squire, who had been stunned by the contact of the tailor's goose!

The tenants had not, however, the satisfaction of finding, that the Squire had changed his taste for extravagance; on the contrary, it seemed to increase with unabating furor. The new apartments at Snarldown-house were announced to have been opened in all the style of eastern magnificence, and consequently at five times the expence which an eastern monarch would have paid for it, as every article was imported from

the east at that advance in price. This intelligence must have afforded the tenants great consolation under the new taxes which were about to be levied upon them!

Moreover, that very valiant Squire who, only a short time before, when the boasting Bantam threatened to invade Freeland, affected to be roused up as if

"His martial blood began to warm apace,
And boil'd and flush'd into his kindling face,
And much he long'd to strive in glory's race;"-

-Tuat very Squire who asked to lead the re nowned Freeland warriors to pour down their vengeance on the heads of an arrogant, insulting, and invading enemy; and to set them the example of enduring all the hardships and toils of war and camps for the glory of their country; -that very Squire put the tenants to the expence of thousands of livres for a down-bed to rest his silken limbs upon. He also purchased a shawl at the price of one-hundred pieces of gold, to make a dressing-gown soft enough, and gave fifty pieces more for another shawl to line and make it warm enough for those armour

bearing limbs! What OMPHALE had put her distaff into the hands of this would-be Hercules! -Tut, man! Do thyself more justice, and, as Shakspeare says,

66

Hang a calf's-skin on thy recreant limbs."

The tenants now began to see the folly of giving way, in the two first instances, to the payment of exorbitant debts, which there was no call upon them, either in reason or justice, to discharge. If the pipers had been convinced that no one would pay them but those who actually danced, there would have been less piping, and consequently, less to pay.

The Reader. Why, surely, there was nothing more to pay?

The Author. Nothing! It may be aothing to some folks; but our authority thought it a dreadful reckoning. It was whispered about, previously to the meeting of the Common-Hall, (as was usually practised by the steward when any disagreeable tidings were to be announced to the people, in order that they might be prepared for them, and have time to chew the cud of resentment and swallow it again) that another ap

plication was to be made for the discharge of a new arrear of the Squire's debts, amounting to nearly a million of livres!!!

The Reader. Could there be found a man so dead to all sense of shame as to propose such a measure; or many of a similar complexion to support it?

The Author. What has been, says the old saying, may be again. If a steward, who is himself bound by the ipse dixit of his master, or certain to be turned out of his place for disobedience, prefers his place to his honour and the esteem of the tenants, acquiesces in bringing forward such a measure, the whole of his party, who have found their way into the Common Hall through the gates of corruption, are obliged, and they are base enough to think it no hardship to follow their will-o'th'-whisp leader through the most crooked, and foul lanes and bye-ways. The man, who is taken into the steward's service, (as I have heard him described) must, from that moment, become an absolute creature to his will, and stick at nothing to carry on his designs, since it was upon that account only, that he was preferred before men