chafe of a small lot, took me from my station in the window, and inferted, with great deliberation, a memorandum of the articles; and being one of thofe mortals who do not willingly part from their very beards till they become too bushy to be borne, he carefully wrapped me up in a flip of paper, and depofited me in his pocket. From hence I was removed to enter upon a fresh occupation, as I was now in the fervice of a man of uncommon business, whom I after. wards found to be a money broker. It was my first bufinefs to adjust the articles between my mafter and a young officer of the guards, with whom he had made a clandeftine contract for his commission, for no other purpose than to fupply the exigencies of his mistress. My next tranfaction was to draw up conveyances and difpofe of the rever. fions of feveral eftates, and often to lend out parcels of money at a premium that in a hort time exceeded the jum that was borrowed. I was made allo fubfervient to practices the most horrid in nature, and condemned to see the most dread. ful instances of avarice and prodigality. There was not an hour in the day in which I was unemployed: every moment was I compelled to promote profufion by affording a fecret fupply, and every minute did I delude the innocent; till I was one day put into the hand of a perfon who was glittering in the last guinea of a large, but exhaufled, eftate, to fign (in the prefence of my mafter) a contract, whereby he had barbarously agreed to difpofe of an annuity, which he had just extorted from his wife. The flavery I underwent with this monster of a moneydealer was, methought, lefs tolerable than any I had hitherto experienced, and I was just about to with that I could drown myself in my own ink, rather than any longer be the companion of a wretch who fported with the calamities of mankind, when I was indebted (by an accident) for my relief to the alliance of a creature as defperate os myseƒ. It happened that a man came pretty late one evening into the office of my matter, with all the appearance of agony and difirefs in his countenance. His fecurity, however, was disapproved, and the dilappointment almolt drove him to phrenzy, but when the main point was in the least degree doubtful, or infecure, my tyrant was not to be foftened by the pleadings of a figh or a tear. The peti, tioner was labouring at his laft refource, and was alfo overburthened in the embarraffments of debt. Finding, therefore, his only hopes ineffectual, he threw his eyes for fome time about the room, while his attention roved from one object to another, till having worked up his imagination to a full fenfe of his fituation, he seized my mafter by the collar, then threw him off, and then ruminated again; till at last he twitched me from my ftand in a fort of delirium, and gnathing me between his teeth in a diftradled manner, fanned his hand upon his forehead, mattered out a curfe, and withdrew. He had almost champed me into atoms as he dived with me into a cellar, after having winded through half the alleys and by paffages in Wapping. As foon as he had defcended this epitome of Erebus, he flung himself diforderly into a chair, and, as if he now fuppofed himself ir emediably defolate, wrung bis hands in an agony, and burst into tears. The guth of nature, however, was a timely relief, for fome vifible gleams of confolation fucceeded her shower. A thought truck him with with a degree of pleasure, for his eyes brightened when he faw me at his feet (mangled as I was), and he fnatched me from the ground where I had fallen under dreadful lacerations. Having leveral times read a paper which he took from his bofom, and at the contents of which he seemed mad with remorie, he at length endeavoured to compote himfelf to write with me a last epiltle to one whom he had brought even to the avant of breed by his paffion for play, But his fpirits were too much heated, and his fancy too wild, to perform a task of fo gentie and delicate a nature; indeed he appeared to think himself too infamous to addrefs himself to the excellence and beauty he had to often injured, and his intention of excufing himself to his wife was foon changed into the bitterelt execrations on himfelf, on the villains who had feduced him, and, lafly, on his own bands, that for their mere and infamous amusement could deftroy at once his felicity, his family, and his fame. How horrid, be yond the possibility of painting, Sir, are the refolutions of a man in abfolute depir? Finding I could not at that time affift him, he put me in his pocket, and that very night, (Oh dreadful necelfity! Hear it, ye gamelters! and trem. ble,) that very night, I was aiding and abetting abetting in no less than eleven robberies; for the unfortunate man had now equipped himself for the Road, and then prefented, for the first time, the inftrument of death to the breast of the tra. veller. The last effay of that dreadful evening was fatal; for flufhed with fuccefs, and again able to rattle the dice-box, he was going towards his fubterraneous manfion, when one of the numerous machines palling from the country to the metropolis gave him hopes of another booty. Our adventurer rode boldly up to the fide of the coach, and prefenting a pistol at the window, (which was reflected visibly back by almolt a full moon,) demanded their money. But his intrepidity foon forfook him; for his hand hook, his teeth chattered, and his voice broke, as he arrested the vehicle. One of the traveliers was a feaman, who had the day before received his pay at Plymouth, and was poiting away to town, to spend it according to his own taste, but was refolved not to fuffer it to be extorted by a thief, and (wrenching the pitol from my master's grafp) he truck him violently on the temples with a bludgeon, which funk him at the wheels of the machine. All the paffengers within and without (finding the danger was over) fucked about him; and the tar declaring that a dead man was lawful prize, began to plunder the prisoner. DIONYSIUS. (To be concluded in our next.) LITERARY GLIMPSES; or, SHORT RE. (Continued from page 23.) XXXVII. It is impoffible for us to have known the value of health fo well, or at leaft in the fame way, as we do, had we never experienced difeafe; or the true pleafures of fpring, had we not fuffered the feverities of winter. And per. haps it may be requifite to the full enjoyment of any thing good, that it should be contrated with a correfpondent evil. Granting this to be the cafe, though we cannot on every account fee how moral and natural evil have a fit or neceffary existence in the world, yet it is eafy to conceive, on this fingle confi. deration, that the thing is poffible. And (without recurring to other or deeper arguments) fhould it not then, at once, fet our minds at eafe on this celebrated topic, refting the matter wholly in the bofom of Him whofe ways are truly pat finding out, but who, we may be affured, does nothing but for the wifeft and molt merciful purpofes? Happiness is doubtlefs the with and aim of all, but could this have been rendered complete, infinitely complete, to us, without fome previous tate of mifery? To fecure its perfection, therefore, in a future ftate, the evil in question may in part be fuppofed to be permitted to exift in the prefent one. Every thing in our nature feems to indicate that there is fome truth in the idea. And we know it is faid, on the higheft authority, that whom the Lord loveth be chasteneth; which may not only mean, maketh better, in order to merit a better reward, but, in fome fort, to give that reward, from comparifon, a higher relish. XXXVIII. When we infer a God from the works of the creation, it is not required that those works be confidered either very deeply or very philofophi cally. The illation has nothing to do with effences, abtractions, and other nice deductions. It only requires that beauty and fitness, means and ends, he recognized with that degree of perception which is in the reach of commer fenje. On this account, as the prof may be feen by all, the belief of God's existence is expected of all. And we may add, that the kind of belief in question is that which is essential to religion in all it teaches and reveals; for though not perfectly accurate in its difcriminations, where the mind is right, it may be fufficiently fo for conviction. And conviction is conviction, however it be obtained. This being to, however, does not, on thofe topics, preclude the deepet refearches of the leaned and inquifitive theclogit. For who can know too much of truths that will charm through all eternity? And how can that study fail of reward, which naturally tends to enliven piety while it enlarges the understanding. XXXIX. Aristotle contends, that a man of good fenfe and found underbanding cannot be a joe'; and fays, that Marcus, a cuti zen zen of Syracufe, was a better poet after he had loft his fenfes; and that, as he recovered, his talent of making verfes declined. This obfervation, though a good deal farcastic, is not without a portion of truth; for the alliance of great wits to madness is almost become a proverbial faying. Poetry is certainly, a kind of writing which applies more to the imagination than to reafon, and fi om its productions (if they are governed by a certain degree of tale, and duly touch the fancy and affections,) we do not expect any great difplay of fcrupu lous accuracy. Hence, whatever has a tendency to raise or give a ftimulus to the imagination may chance to be of fervice to the poet, just as it might chance proportionably to injure the philofopher But though fuch a ftimulus, or ingredient of true genius, may be benefitted by a diforder of the mind, which, when it verges on excefs, has doubtless a tendency to destroy our rational powers, yet fill a bright imagination ftands high in the fcale of mental endowments; and whatever contributes to its brilliancy, or may be deftined, in the course of things, to invigorate its conceptions; whether it be phrenzy, bodily illness, or merely a rapid pulje, it can fuffer no difparagement from that circumftance, any more than the foundness of St. Paul's faith from the natural vehemence of his temper. Conchide we, then, that the most candid inference which can be drawn from fuch a fact is, that man, in every refpect, is fearfully and wonderfully made, and that it is easier to appreciate his works than to analyfe his brain. XL. When a person who is an enemy to another not very well known to us, and with which other we are entering into fome engagement of confequence, intimates, or plainly expreffes, fomething unfavourable to his character, we ought not always to pafs over the intelligence as the invention of ill will, or as proceeding from fome felfith defign; but rather infer, that indead of milleading our judgment, thofe flight intimations poffibly were intended to enable us to form a true opinion of the man; fince it is too often the cafe, that there are fufficient grounds in truth for thefe fuppofed afperfions, and fince, alfo, friends may be tempted to conceal too much, as well as enemies divulge too much. More particularly perfons of but short acquaintance entering upon a treaty of marriage, fhould, pay a due regard to this obfervation,, For this alliance is a cafe of fuch delicacy, that the nearest friends of one party, poffeffed of the most authentic information, often dare only give a Lint of difparagement refpecting the character of the other party, when perhaps the whole neighbourhood is ringing with tales of its notorious worthleffness or deficiency. XLI. Though the aged, on account of the diftrufts arising from experience, and a fimilitude of infirmities, may not much love what is aged, and thus out-grow the grounds of feveral focial attachments; yet, it is obferved, they have a great partiality for what is young; partly, perhaps, as exhibiting the pleating years of innocence, but more from reviving in them the remembrance of their own juvenescence. It is on a principle like this, that old maids, and those who neither have children of their own, nor are nearly related to any that are under their eye, feel the first inclination for lap-dogs, birds, and other small animals, and which from that qua lity (if from no other) fuggeft the ideas of youth. The fecond cause of their attachment is more rational, and founded merely on acquaintance, and the power of the fuperior faithfulness and attention, which is not only admirable in itself, but never leffened or destroyed by that perpetually-alienating mem ber, a busy tongue. We may hence easily fee, why old people are fonder of their grand-children than they were of their own. But as extreme fondnefs is an impediment in the way of all due difcipline, parents fhould be very cautious never to let their children be nurtured under an affection which may be faid to be verging upon fomething too outre and doating to be justly natural and thoroughly discreet. XLII. Objections have been made to the ftudy of physiognomy, that it is conjectural, dubious, and can never be reduced to the principles of trist fcience. All this may be allowed, and yet there may be fome truth in the pretenfion. That character of mind of which the vifage is faid to be the index, we can only difcover at laft through mediums that are often equi |