an EXTINGUISHER ready for immediate ufe. By the application of this machine to the above-mentioned purpose, I fhall have the farther satisfaction of vindicating the ladies from the unjuft imputation of bearing about them any thing useless. And as the Chinese knew gunpowder, the an cients the load-ftone, and the moderns electricity, many years before they were applied to the benefit of mankind, it will not appear ftrange if a noble ufe be at length found for the HOOP, which has, to be fure, till now, afforded mere matter of fpeculation. !

I NOW EXTINGUISH myfelf, and am, fir,

Your most humble fervant,

A. B.

P. S. IF the above project meets with your approbation, I fhali venture to communicate another of a nature not very unlike the foregoing, and in which the public is at least equally interested.

GALENICAL medicines, from the quantity with which the patient was to be drenched, have excited of late years fo univerfal a loathing, that the faculty must have loft all their practice, if they had not hit upon the method of contracting the whole force and spirit of their prescriptions into one chymical DROP or PILL.

FROM this hint I would propofe to erect a NEW CHAMBER, with powers to abridge

all

all arts and fciences, hiftory, poetry, oratory, effays, &c. into the fubftance of a maxim, apothegm, fpirit of hiftory, or epigram. And as a proof of the practicability of this project, I will make yourself the judge, whether your last paper on HEARERS may not be fully comprized in the following four lines.

Our fires kept a Fool, a poor hireling for ftate,
To enliven dull pride with his jefting and prate:
·But fashion capriciously changing its rule, [FOOL.
Now my LORD is the WIT, and his HEARER the

NUMB. 56. THURSDAY, Jan. 24, 1754.

Porrecto jugulo hiftorias, captivus ut, audit. HoR.

SIR,

To Mr. FITZ-ADAM.

CAER CARADOCK, Jan. 16, 1754.

OUR paper upon HEARERS gave me that pleasure which a series of truths must always afford, to him who can witness for every one of them.

I was born and brought up in the principality of Wales, which from time immemorial muft have been productive of the most thoroughbred, feasoned and ftanch HEARERS, fince every gentleman of that country holds and afferts his right to be a TALKER by privilege of birth. I would not have you conclude_from__what

I have

I have faid above, that I am not as good a gen→ tleman as the beft (I mean of as good a family) though poverty and ill-fortune have doomed me to be for ever a HEARER.

I was left an orphan in my earliest years; but I am not going to trouble you with the many misfortunes which conftantly attended me to the age of forty; at which time I was a schoolmafter without boys to teach, or bread to eat. At this period of my life I was advised by the parfon of our parish to go and enter myself in fome large and wealthy family to be an UNCLE; which is a known and common term in Wales, of like fignification with HEARER in England; the duties and requifite qualifications being nearly the fame, as will appear from the following fhort instructions given me by my advifer; viz. Never to open my lips, except for the well-timed utterance of, indeed!-furprizing! -prodigious!-most amazing! But thefe only to be used at the proper intervals of the TALKER'S fetching his breath, coughing, or at other pauses; and the length of the admiration to be always adapted to, and particularly never to exceed, the aforefaid intervals.

BUT in order to explain the method he took to qualify me ftill farther, and inure me to patience, I must give you a fhort history of this worthy parfon. He was truly, what he was called, a good fort of a man; if charity, friendfhip and good-humour can entitle a man to that character. I must not conceal the meanness of his education, in which he difcovered, however, as great a genius as could poffibly arife out of a stable and a kennel. He was a thorough sportsVOL. II. B

man,

man, and fo good a SHOT, that the late fquire took a fancy to him, made him his conftant companion, and gave him the living. But that he might not be loft in ftudy and fermonmaking, he contrived to marry him to the daughter of the late incumbent, who had been taught by her father latin and metaphyfics, and exercifed from twelve years old to forty in making themes and fermons. As fhe was by nature meagre and deformed, by conftitution fretful and complaining, by education conceited and difputatious, by study pale and blear eyed, and by habit talkative and loud, the friendship of the good parfon fuggefted her as the fitteft perfon in the world to exercise my patience for a few months, and inure me to the difcipline of my future function. In this station I made a vast progrefs in a little time; for I not only heard above a thousand fermons, but the ftrict obfer vance of my vow of attention having made me a favourite, I was complained to whenever any thing went amifs in the family, and often scolded at for the husband, whofe office grew into a finecure: infomuch, that if I had not known the fincerity and uprightness of his heart, I should have fufpected him of bringing me into his houfe to fupply for him all thofe duties which he wanted to be eafed of. But he had no fuch interefted views; for as foon as he found his helpmáte had transfufed into me a neceffary portion of patience and long-fuffering, he recommended me to my fortune, giving me, generous man! a coat and wig, which formerly himself, and before him the fquire, had worn for many years upon extraordinary days. Having thus equipt

3

me,

me, he refumes the duties of his family, where he officiates to this day, with true chriftian refignation.

My firft reception was at the house of a gentleman, who in the early part of his life had followed the ftudy of botany. Nature and truth are fo pleafing to the mind of man, that they never fatiate. Alas! he happened one day to tafte, by mistake, a root that had been fent him from the Indies: it was a moft fubtle poison, to which his experience in British fimples knew no antidote. Immediately upon his death, a neighbouring gentleman who had his eye upon me fome time, fent me an invitation. His difcourse was upon husbandry; and as he never deceived me in any thing but where he deceived himself, I heard Him also with pleasure.

THESE were therefore my halcyon days, on which I always reflect with regret and tears. How different were the fucceeding ones, in which I have liftened to the tales of old maids running over an endless lift of lovers they never had; of old beaux who boafted of favours from ladies they never faw; of fenators who narrated the eloquence they never spoke! giving me fuch a difguit and naufea to lies, that at length my ears, which were at that time much too quick for my office, grew unable to bear them. But prudently confidering that I muft either hear or ftarve, I invented the following expedient for qualifying a lie. While I affented by fome gefticulation, or motion of the head, eyes, or mufcles of the face, I refolved to have in reserve fome inward expreffion of diffent. Of thefe I

B 2

had