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and the tender pleadings of those bosom recollections which their presence must awaken in the minds of their former lovers. Scarcely had she finished, when, actuated by a common spirit, with a shout that ran along the mountains in ominous echoes, they all threw away their targets of canes, and their half-moon bucklers, and rushed out with naked breasts to meet the enemy. The novelty of the sight arrested for some moments the march of the Indians. A solemn silence prevailed; taking advantage of which, the forlorn females raised their voices, and called upon their temporary husbands, and the sons of their pleasures and their vows, repeating their names, and reminding them of the crowns of parrot's feathers, and all the pledges of their former loves.

As these Indians were originally a Peruvian colony, they had inherited a portion of that softness, and humanity of character, which distinguished that tranquil race. When they beheld the offspring of that tender rencounter, and those breasts which they had pressed so often with fond delight, their heads fell upon their bosoms, and their axes dropped from their hands; they rushed forwards, and embraced with enthusiasm their wives and their mothers, and spared for their sakes the remains of the Amazonian nation. Admonished by this event, these warrior women relinquished their bows and their spears, and resolved in future to trust more to their weakness than their strength, to their tears than their arrows, to their extended arms than to their half-moon bucklers, to their soft bosoms than their adamantine corslets: and, whatever imposing travellers may relate, there are no more such people to be found in the mountains of Guiana.

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N° 10. TUESDAY, APRIL 10.

Sir,

"Stultitia plerumque exitio est.”

"Foolery is often fatal."

To the Rev. Simon Olive-Branch.

April 2, 1792. YOUR great predecessor, the Spectator, has noticed the custom, even in his time an ancient one, of distinguishing the first day of the present month by the practice of what has always been called " making April Fools." It is his idea, that the pleasure we feel from this exercise of our understanding is nothing more than a self-satisfaction, which is excited in our bosoms by the discovery of another's disparity. Such a pride, however, one should be tender of condemning too widely, lest, on examination, it should be found, in some shape, or with some modification, at the bottom of most of our great exertions and great achievements: yet this pride, when it can triumph in the overthrow of a person unprepared, can construe simplicity into ignorance, and be content with such equivocal proofs of superiority as the successes of artifice and untruth, must be of a very ordinary and unproductive kind: in its higher degrees, it is cruel; in its lower, contemptible.

How it has happened that a particular day has long been appropriated, though by no means ex

clusively, to the exercise of this amusement, and why the first of April was destined to that purpose, I leave to the investigation of antiquaries; hazarding only one conjecture, that, at some very remote period, the worshippers of the goddess Folly, the idlers and witlings of the world, in imitation of other heathens, established this anniversary celebration of their deity; and perhaps some analogy may be traced between the sacrifices of the ancients and the offerings which Folly's votaries continue to heap before her altar on this her high festival: nay, though the heathen system of theology is long since exploded, this deity finds her power over the world by no means on the decline: and while Venus is no longer invoked by our belles, while pickpockets forget their obligations to Mercury, and Neptune is neglected even on his own element, Folly has splendid temples in every city, priests in every family; and whole hecatombs of human victims (if you allow the expression) swell the honours of her redletter day.

What led me into this train of thought was an accidental visit, which I paid yesterday, to an old acquaintance, formerly a domestic in the family of my grandfather, and by him established, above forty years ago, in a little shop, where he has found means to acquire a decent subsistence. When but a boy, as I have heard my father say, he was esteemed an oddity by all the neighbourhood, and always had a strong propensity to little mischievous exploits. He would stalk through the churchyard at night, wrapped in a tablecloth; he would hide the maid's shoes, blacken his face to frighten the children, and grease the strings of the chaplain's violin. Indeed, my grand father, though he had a regard for the boy, was at length obliged to discard him, for fasten

ing his grand-aunt Anna Maria's lappet to the chair, while she sat at dinner, to her utter confusion as soon as she attempted to quit her place.

I found him in the little apartment behind his shop, with a large book open before him, in which he seemed to have been writing; and on the back of which was lettered, not unaptly, as will appear from what follows, DAY-Book.

He observed that he had been just bringing up his accounts to the close of yesterday; but added, with a shake of the head, "How unlucky it is, it should have happened on a Sunday! I shall be below par this year. I believe I may say without vanity," said he, seeing me somewhat at a loss to understand him, "that there is not a man in the parish who makes so many fools as myself. Why, sir, I have averaged, for the last fourteen years, thirty fools per annum; and it would have been more, but for that plaguy gout which confined me last spring.--Ah! it was a great loss to me; I had not a single fool, except my apothecary's apprentice, whom I sent to the upper end of Islington to get me some genuine pantilum pulverosum;- but then, the year before was a plentiful year, a very plentiful year. Do, sir, let me read you my journal for the first of April in that year." I assented: he put on his spectacles, and read as follows.

"1st April, 1790.-Got up early this morning, to prepare for business-Sally still a-bed-Flung the watchman a shilling out of the window, to rap at my door, and cry fire-Sally started up in a fright, overturned my best wig, which stood in the passage, and ran into the street half naked-Was obliged to give her a shilling, to quiet her.

"Ten o'clock.-Sent a letter to Mr. Plume, the undertaker, telling him that my neighbour old Frank Fuz, who was married on Monday to his late wife's step-daughter, had died suddenly last night-Saw six of Plume's men go in, and heard old Fuz very loud with them.

"Invited all our club to dine at deputy Dripping's, and invited him to dine with alderman Grub, at Hampstead.-N. B. The alderman is on a visit to his son-in-law in Kent.

"Twelve o'clock.-Received an order, in the name of a customer in Essex, for six pounds of snuff, to be sent by the coach-Smoked the bite, and kicked the messenger out of the shop.N.B. Not catch old birds, &c.

"One o'clock.-Afraid Sally would play some trick upon me in dressing my dinner; so went to get a steak at a coffeehouse-Chalked the waiter's back as he gave me my change. N.B. Two bad shillings. "Asked an old woman in Cheapside, what was the matter with her hat?-She took it off; and while I was calling her April fool, a boy ran off with my handkerchief in his hand.

"Tapped a Blue-school boy on the shoulder, and asked what he had got behind him? He answered, A fool-The people laughed at this: I did not see much in it.

"Three o'clock.-Sent Sally to the Tower, to see a democrat; carried the key of the cellar with her, and spent me half-a-crown in coach-hire. "Gave Giles my shopman a glass of brandy, which he took for a glass of wine. Giles unable to attend shop the next day."

I readily prevailed on my old acquaintance to give

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