Reader. Proceed then in your own way. Author. You are extremely condescending, and so can we be, when it does not take us too much out of our way. Freeland, then, was like a ship of war at sea-well manned by public spirit, and well stored by public industry. Whenever she encountered her enemies, she cleared the ocean from them; but, owing to the unskilfulness of her pilots, she was so yawed about, that it was quite uncertain when she would be moored in a safe port.

It was not to be wondered at, that her political pilots were so ignorant, as they mostly set up for masters, before they had served an apprenticeship, and many of them, without ha ving even worked for the shortest time, as journeymen. Billy Vortex, indeed, was bred to the Machiavelian art, from his earliest youth, by his father, who was as able a statesman as ever Freeland, or, perhaps, any other country, could boast of. His pupil exhibited the strange phenomenon of entering upon his political career in the full vigour of mental manhood and judg ment, without any preceding state of childhood; and, by his indefatigable attention to

the public business, we have seen that he died before his genius had felt the least symptom of decay.

3

During his short political resignation, his place was filled-no, not filled-but attempted to be supplied, by Addleton; who had only superintended the political batch,―never baked himself. It was no matter of astonishment, then, that the public were over-reached in the very first bargain that he made for them, as he knew scarcely any other rule of Arithmetic than Avoirdupois, or Apothecaries' weight,grains, scruples, drachms, ounces and pounds; and their reference to hellebore, ipecacuanha, assa-foetida, and opium. He endeavoured to gild over the pill of want of practice with moderation and good faith, as many of his brethren of the faculty seek to disguise their ignorance under technical phrases. His whole administration was weak, inergetic, and uninvigorating; probably because, in his medical capacity, he had been accustomed to prefer the use of emollients, to that of strong stimulants. He also brought another rule of his physical practice in to his political one, venienti occurrite morbo;'

which signifies that it is better to prevent a disease than to remedy it.

After he had broken the patched-up peace which he had concluded, the Bantam collected a vast flotilla in one of his creeks, with a professed design of transporting troops across the moat to invade Freeland: and, because he made no secret of its pretended destination, the wisest heads concluded that he never intended to attempt it. The medical politician, however, dctermined to block them up where they lay; and, accordingly, several barges were laden with stones, whence the public termed it the stone-boat expedition, for the purpose of being sunk at the mouth of the creek to prevent the Bantam's flotilla from coming out.

Not to be behindhand with the Bantam, in moderation and good faith, Addleton as frankly confessed the design of the stone-boat expedition, as the Bantam had boasted of the destination of his flotilla.

Notwithstanding the seeming magnanimity of this open kind of warfare, there were many persons who laughed at both the Bantam and Addleton, and remarked that they were mutually

afraid, and only wanted to hector each other into another peace.

Whether the scheme was feasible or not, the Bantam did not fail to take every precaution to render it abortive. The stone-boats sailed across the moat: but there was no such thing as sinking them, and they were brought back again; which reminds us of the following old stanza:

The King of France march'd up the hill,

With thirty thousand men :

-

Oh! did he so?--What happened? — Why!

He marched them down again.

As this scheme was suggested to the steward by a bookseller, it was a pity that the latter had not accompanied it with Pope's Bathos, or Art of Sinking.

Thus an ineffectual peace, and an inefficient war, were the distinguishing traits of this stewardship of moderation and good faith. Even the old Opposition, the Brushites, taxed the household with want of energy, and declared, on every occasion, that Freeland was on the very verge of ruin, unless a new household was form

ed upon such a broad bottom, as to include all the talents of the manor ;

meaning THEMSELVES!!! They so incessantly and unblushingly made this modest and disinterested application, that they were at length nicknamedAll the talents. Finding, at length, that Addleton would not, or could not, understand them, they instantly whirled about, and joined with Vortex to turn him out. Still they could not get in; and they relapsed into their old animosity against Vortex, to which they gave vent as usual, by an unqualified abuse of himself, and all, even the best of his measures. With Vortex, energy returned, and the flotilla of the Gulls were totally destroyed by Neptune's darling son, the never-enough-to-belamented Keelson. Owing, however, to the disasters of the Gormands, Vortex had lost his popularity with numbers of the tenantry, who either blindly attributed the failure of his measures to the measures themselves, without recollecting that there is an over-ruling Power; or who foolishly hoped, that a change of men would have turned the tide of fortune. But, after his death, all disinterested men of judge