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may, for aught we can tell to the contrary, be made of a green cheese. I have a new theory of optics; demonstrating that darkness is caused by certain tenebrificous rays oppugning, obtunding, sheathing, and absorbing the rays of light. I have resolved the phenomena of electricity and magnetism; and have made many surprising improvements in all the arts and sciences. These, I fear, will be carried off by some German professor, who will thence claim the merit to himself, and the honour of the discovery will be attributed to his nation.

"Those who are fond of displaying their talents in religious disputes, will find in my auction sufficient matter for their various altercations; whether they are Atheists, Deists, or distinguished by the modest appellation of Freethinkers. There is scarce a sect among the many hundreds whom I have not defended or attacked: but it must not be concluded from thence, that I have been biased more towards one than the other; as you know the faith of an author is out of the question, and he only writes pro or con, as the several opinions are more or less embraced or exploded in the world. I have got, indeed, some infallible arguments against the Pope's infallibility; and some probable conjectures that there never was such a person as Mahomet; both which, I don't doubt, will be bought up by the emissaries of Rome and Constantinople."

Here I interrupted my friend by asking him, if he had not something likewise against the Patriarch of the Greek church; or a serious admonition against the growth of Hottentotism among us. He answered very calmly, "I should see in the catalogue," and proceeded.

"The emissaries of Constantinople-Well-My stock in the Belles Lettres is almost inexhaustible. I have a complete set of criticisms on all the ancient

authors, and a large store of conjectural emendations on the old English classics: I have several new essays in modern wit and humour; and a long string of papers, both serious and diverting, for periodical lucubrations; I have I know not how many original entertaining novels, as well as elegant translations from the French; with a heap of single pamphlets on the most popular and interesting subjects. My poetry will consist of every article, whether tragedies, comedies, farces, masques, operas, sonnets, cantatas, songs, pastorals, satires, odes, elegies, or epithalamiums: and then, such a load of epigrams, anagrams, rebusses, riddles, acrostics, conundrums! which you know will fetch a high price from the witlings, and the proprietors of monthly magazines. To wind up the whole, there shall be several distinct lots of title pages, and mottos, and dedications, and prefaces, and plans for books.

"Thus, my dear friend, have I opened to you the main drift of my design; and, I believe, at a moderate computation-let me see-ay, after I have cleared myself in the world, I shall be able to retire into the country, let me tell you, with a pretty fortune in my pocket. But before I begin my sale, if you can find any thing that will suit your Adventurer, as you are an old acquaintance, you shall have it at your own price."

I thanked Mr. Spinbrain for his genteel offer, and heartily congratulated him on the prospect of his pretty fortune: but I could not help inquiring where all these immense stores of literature were lodged, as I never had observed any thing but loose scraps of paper scattered about his room, and one book of "loci communes," or "hints," as he called them, placed upon the chimneypiece. "Ha!" says he, "that's true; I forgot to mention that; why, indeed, they are none of them quite finished as yet;

but I have got the rough draughts of most somewhere: besides I have it all here," pointing to his forehead. I advised him to set about it directly; and in the evening, when we parted, he resolved not to go to bed till he had perfected his scheme. Yesterday morning I received a note from him acquainting me that he had laid aside all thoughts of his auction; because, as he imagined, the maid had inadvertently lighted his fire with the best of his materials.

The restlessness of my friend's chimerical genius will not, however, let him entirely give up the point: and though he has been disappointed in this mighty project, yet he informs me he has hit upon a scheme equally advantageous, which shall monopolize the whole business of scribbling, and he offers to take me into partnership with him. "Ah," says he, 66 we shall humble those fellows-We need not care a farthing for Mr. Bibliopola."-His design is to open a New Literary Warehouse, or Universal Register Office for Wit and Learning. The particulars he has promised to communicate to me tomorrow in the meantime he desires me to advance him a trifle, to buy paper for a poem on the late theatrical disputes.

A.

No. 7. TUESDAY, NOV. 28, 1752.

Sit mihi fas audita loqui—

What I have heard permit me to relate.

VIRG.

I RECEIVED, a few weeks ago, an account of the death of a lady whose name is known to many, but the "eventful history" of whose life has been com

municated to few: to me it has been often related during a long and intimate acquaintance; and as there is not a single person living, upon whom the making it public can reflect unmerited dishonour, or whose delicacy or virtue can suffer by the relation, I think I owe to mankind a series of events from which the wretched may derive comfort, and the most forlorn may be encouraged to hope; as misery is alleviated by the contemplation of yet deeper distress, and the mind fortified against despair by instances of unexpected relief.

The father of Melissa was the younger son of a country gentleman, who possessed an estate of about five hundred a year; but as this was to be the inheritance of the elder brother, and as there were three sisters to be provided for, he was at about sixteen taken from Eton school, and apprenticed to a considerable merchant at Bristol. The young gentleman, whose imagination had been fired by the exploits of heroes, the victories gained by magnanimous presumption, and the wonders discovered by daring curiosity, was not disposed to consider the acquisition of wealth as the limit of his ambition, or the repute of honest industry as the total of his fame. He regarded his situation as servile and ignominious, as the degradation of his genius and the preclusion of his hopes; and, longing to go in search of adventures, he neglected his business as unworthy of his attention, heard the remonstrances of his master with a kind of sullen disdain, and after two years' legal slavery made his escape, and at the next town enlisted himself as a soldier; not doubting but that, by his military merit and the fortune of war, he should return a general officer, to the confusion of those who would have buried him in the obscurity of a counting house. He found means effectually to elude the inquiries of his friends, as it was of

the utmost importance to prevent their officious endeavours to ruin his project and obstruct his ad

vancement.

He was sent with other recruits to London, and soon after quartered with the rest of his company in a part of the country which was so remote from all with whom he had any connexion that he no longer dreaded a discovery.

It happened that he went one day to the house of a neighbouring gentleman with his comrade, who was become acquainted with the chambermaid, and by her interest admitted into the kitchen. This gentleman, whose age was something more than sixty, had been about two years married to a second wife, a young woman who had been well educated, and lived in the polite world, but had no fortune. By his first wife, who had been dead about ten years, he had several children; the youngest was a daughter who had just entered her seventeenth year; she was very tall for her age, had a fine complexion, good features, and was well shaped; but her father, whose affection for her was mere instinct, as much as that of a brute for its young, utterly neglected her education. It was impossible for him, he said, to live without her; and as he could not afford to have her attended by a governess and proper masters in a place so remote from London, she was suffered to continue illiterate and unpolished; she knew no entertainment higher than a game at romps with the servants; she became their confident, and trusted them in return, nor did she think herself happy any where but in the kitchen.

As the capricious fondness of her father had never conciliated her affection, she perceived it abate upon his marriage without regret. She suffered no new restraint from her new mother, who observed, with a secret satisfaction, that Miss had been used to

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