the grievance by begging the Doctor's company to dinner.

A married lady makes affidavit to me, that she scarcely ever goes into public, but a man of fashion attacks her with indecent conversation. She complains very bitterly of this outrage upon decorum, and this cowardly assassination of virtue and modesty; but declares that she cannot be so singularly ill-bred as to take umbrage at any thing that is offered her by so fine a gentleman. This lady is yet to learn, that to be fine gentlemen we must begin with being men of honour. She has either forgotten, or never knew, that Sir Philip Sidney, who was esteemed the most accomplished cavalier in Christendom, was no less conspicuous for the spotless integrity of his life; that the same man wrote and felt elegantly on the subject of love, produced a version of the Psalms, and perished in battle at the age of thirty-two, brightening his last moments with a well-known act of Christian heroism. I would advise my fair client to improve her ideas of good breeding by some truer model than the one she has before her, and to try a little of her husband's company, who perhaps may be nearer the mark. I can assure her that the true gentleman is of much nobler metal than any of our swaggering youths about town; and, to borrow the phrase of that gallant Englishman whose name has been mentioned above, he must be distinguished by "high-erected thoughts, seated in a heart of courtesy."

"

The cheesemonger who takes it so ill that he cannot obtain a gentlemanly satisfaction of Mr. Holiday, the hatter, may apply to Sir Lucius O'Trotter, who lodges with a widow on Snow-hill, and who will be very glad to pay his bill to Mr. H. by discharging the contents of his pistol at him.

The Welsh gentleman who thinks it so hard that his jokes are never regarded, must send for a fresh pipe of Madeira, add another dish to his table, and one story more to his chin.

The young nobleman who complains that my papers are not merry enough, may interleave them with some scenes out of our latest tragedies.

The discerning part of my readers will enter into my reasons for not listening to such kind of complaints, while they cannot but applaud my design of embarking in so laudable a career as that of an avenger of wrongs. The allegations I hope to receive from different quarters, will greatly enrich my stock of temporary matter, and bring me acquainted with the various shapes of folly and infamy, as they start up with a rank and fungous luxuriance in the walks of business and pleasure.

N° 8. TUESDAY, APRIL 3.

Αναχωρήσεις αυτοις ζητέσιν, αγροικίας καὶ αιγιαλός καὶ ορη· ειωθας δε καὶ συ τα τοιαυτα μαλιςα ποθειν, όλον δε τετο ιδιωτικωτατον εσιν, εξον ἧς αν ώρας εθελησης εις εαυτον αναχωρειν. Ουδαμε γαρ ετε ἡσυχιωτερον ετε απραγμονέςερον ανθρωπος αναχωρεί, η εις τον ἑαυτε ψυχην· μάλισθ' όςις έχει ενδόν τοιαυτα, εις & εγχυψας, εν πάση ευμαρεία ευθυς γινεται· Την δε ευμάρειαν λεγω δεν άλλο η ευκοσμίαν. συνεκώς εν διδε σεαυτω ταυτην την αναχώρησιν, καὶ ανανες σεαυτον.

MARC. ANTON. iv. 3. There are those who look out for solitary retreats, such as hamlets, shores, and mountains: you yourself discover a vast inclination for such abodes. All this, however, is a vulgar resource, since in fact you carry this retreat about you, to enjoy it whenever you please; for no where will a man find a more tranquil and abstracted refuge than in the recesses of his own soul --- especially if he possess within himself a fund for that sober contemplation, which begets serenity of mind. By serenity I mean that internal repose of the spirits, which implies a certain mental equilibrium and economy. Court, as it becomes you, this true retirement, and thus renew, from time to time, your acquaintance with yourself.

LAST night, after a day's close application in my study, I resolved to give my thoughts a little stretch; and for that purpose took a walk into the fields of my neighbour Blunt. As the reader is already acquainted with the transformation that has been wrought in this gentleman's character, he will not be surprised to hear that I am at present free to range where I please over his grounds; and that he

has actually erected a seat for me in his chesnut groves, where, to do me all possible honour, he has caused two statues to be placed, the one representing Harpocrates, the god of silence, with his finger on his lip, and his two feet joined together; while the other, in the character of Fame, is blowing, a little rudely, her trumpet in his ear.

The evening, however, of yesterday was so fine and tranquil, that before I visited this consecrated spot, I amused myself, in the open fields, with contemplating the blue canopy over my head, and the soft effects of light and shadow on the waving corn. The author of the Plurality of Worlds has some pretty thoughts on this subject. "Il me semble pendant la nuit que tout soit en repos: on s'imagine que les étoiles marchent avec plus de silence que le soleil; les objets que le ciel présente, sont plus doux; la vue s'y arrête plus aisément: enfin, on rêve mieux, parcequ'on se flatte d'être alors dans toute la nature la seule personne occupée à rêver. Peut-etre aussi que le spectacle du jour est trop uniforme; ce n'est qu'un soleil et une voûte bleue: mais il se peut que la vue de toutes ces étoiles, semées confusément, et disposées au hasard en mille figures différentes, favorise la rêverie, et un certain désordre de pensées où l'on ne tombe point sans plaisir."

For my own part, I do not always feel these lastmentioned sensations; my mind is better pleased with revolving the immensity of a scheme which folds up in one mysterious order this boundless variety, which stretches through eternity, and fills up the measure of existence. Thus do I generally raise my thoughts to imagine as many entire worlds and systems as I see little stars above me; and am almost in the case of the crazy philosopher in Rasselas, who conceived that he had the care of the universe

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on his head. Last night, however, my thoughts ran chiefly on the miserable loss which those sustain, whose noisy avocations, or corrupted tastes, deny them these pleasures of contemplation, and shut them out from the knowledge of themselves, and from every opportunity of regulating and composing their thoughts by the salutary counsels of their own hearts. That δευτερον ομμα, that sort of second sight, is only to be obtained by strong habits of reflection, and severe contemplation.

To estimate the actions of others, we must look into the springs and motives of our own; and I know not how this reckoning is to be made, unless in the secret hours of repose and solitude. The commerce of company and fashion, in what is called high life, produces nothing but a beggarly confusion of ideas, and teaches only the completest methods of forgetting one's self and one's natural destination.

The difficulty of coming at the knowledge of themselves, must be necessarily greater in those illassorted classes where so many are acting parts they were never by nature designed for, and the clumsy munificence of fortune is decorating her swine with pearls-where ladies, consummated for the duties of the kitchen and the scullery, are burlesquing the follies of fashionable life; and fine gentlemen are wearing the coats they ought to have been occupied in making-where, amidst the miracles of the moral world, we see beings rising in a counter direction to their gravity, and the dross of the community sublimed into the vapour and volatility of fashion. These topsy-turvy dispositions, and this desperate disorder, has ever made me turn from fashionable life with disgust and contempt; with a mixture, however, of compassion for those of my fellow-creatures whose