tion: The Will. them; and after a while, having a mind to kuow M. de Rouilleres, the commandant of the maréat the punishment was, he asked his companion chaussée at St. Dennis. to open them and put him in, which being done, his trend took a book from his pocket, sauntered on, and completely forgot the judge and his situation, that e returned to Lord Dacre's. When the judge was fred, he tried, but tried in vain, to remove out of the Eocks: and asked a countryman who passed by to ease him, who said, "No, no, old gentleman; you was not set there for nothing," and left him, until he Pen, and released by some servant of the house spatched in quest of him. Some time after he ided at a trial in which a charge was brought La magistrate for false imprisonment, and for serting in the stocks. The counsel for the magistrate, his reply, made light of the whole charge, and more pecially setting in the stocks, which he said every dy knew was no punishment at all. The chief jusProse, and leaning over the bench, said, in a half per," Brother, were you ever in the stocks?" "Really, my lord, never." "Then I have," said the , and I assure you, brother, it is no such trifle * you represent." A man who knows he is to die, should take care to do every thing which his survivors can wish him to have done. We are more particularly in that situaOur intention is to prevent uneasiness to our host, as well as to lighten the labours of those whom curiosity, under pretence of form and order, will bring hither to pay us visits. LITRAORDINARY SUICIDE. Os the day before Christmas day, 1773, about even 'clock, two soldiers came to the Cross-Bow at St. Dennis, and ordered dinner. Bordeaux, e of the soldiers, went out and bought a little paper powder, and a couple of bullets, observing to the man who sold them to him, that St. Dennis seemed pleasant a place, he should not dislike to the remainder of his life there. Returning to , he and his companion passed the day together Wymerrily. On Christmas-day they again dined mely, ordered wine, and about five o'clock in ernoon, were found by the fire, on breaking door, sitting on the opposite sides of a table, were three empty champaign bottles, the will and letter, and a half-crown. They what through the head; two pistols lay 4. The noise of the pistols brought up s of the house, who immediately sent for Huniain is the bigger, and I, Bordeaux, am the lesser of the two. He is drum-major of mestre de camp des dragoons, and I am simply a dragoon of Belzunce. Death is a passage. I address to the gentleman of the law of St. Dennis (who, with his first clerk as assistant, must come hither for the sake of justice) the principle, which joined to this reflection that every thing must have an end, put these pistols into our hands, The future presents nothing to us but what is agreeable-Yet that future is short, and must end. Humain is but 24 years of age; as for me, I have not yet completed four lustres. No particular reason forces us to interrupt our career, except the disgust we feel at existing for a moment under the continual apprehension of ceasing to exist. An eternity is the point of reunion; a longing after which leads us to prevent the despotic act of fate. In fine, disgust of life is our sole inducement to quit it. If all those who are wretched would dare to divest themselves of prejudice, and to look their destruction in the face, they would see it is as easy to lay aside existence as to throw off an old coat, the colour of which displeases. The proof of this may be referred to our experience. We have enjoyed every gratification in life, even that of obliging our fellow-creatures. We could still procure to ourselves gratifications: but all gratifications must have a period. That period is our poison. We are disgusted at the perpetual sameness of the scene. The curtain is dropped; and we leave our parts to those who are weak enough to feel an inclination to play them a few hours longer. Two or three grains of powder will soon break the springs of this moving mass of flesh, which our haughty fellow-creatures stile the King of beings. Messrs. the officers of justice, our carcasses are at your discretion. We despise them too much to give ourselves any trouble about what becomes of them. As to what we shall leave behind us-for myself, Bordeaux, I give to M. de Rouilleres, commandant of the maréchaussée at St. Dennis, my steel-mounted sword. He will recollect, that, last year, about this very day, as he was conducting a recruit, he had the civility to grant me a favour for a person of the name of St. Germain, who had offended him. The maid of the inn will take my pocket and neckhanderchiefs, as well as the silk stockings which I now have on, and all my other linen whatever. The rest of our effects will be sufficient to pay the expense of the useless law proceedings of which we shall be the subject. The half-crown upon the table will pay for the last bottle of wine which we are going to drink. At St. Dennis, Christinas-day, 1773. BORDEAUX. HUMAIN. "During my residence at Guise, you honoured me. with your friendship. It is time that I thank you. You have often told me I appeared displeased with my situation. It was sincere, but not absolutely true. I have since examined myself more seriously, and acknowledge myself entirely disgusted with every state of man, the whole world, and myseif. From these discoveries a consequence should be drawn; if disgusted with the whole, renounce the whole. The calculation is not long. I have made it without the aid of geometry. In short, I am on the point of putting an end to the existence that I have possessed for near twenty years, fifteen of which it has been a burden to me; and, from the moment that I write a few grains of powder will destroy this moving mass of An Irishman fights before he reasons, a S reasons before he fights, an Englishman is ticular as to the order of precedence, but either to accommodate his customers. - A general has said, that the best troops woL follows: an Irishman half drunk, a Scotch starved, and an Englishman with his belly fu BIPEDS. The most disagreeable two-legged animal world, is a little great, man ;, and the next, great man's factotum and friend. LET WELL ALONE. THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER. An Irishman being on a long journey in a part of the country where Mr. M'Adam's useful talents had never been exercised, at length came to a mile of excellent road. Over this he kept trotting his horse backwards and forwards, till some spectators, a little surprised at this singular mode of travelling, inquired the reason of it." Indeed," said he, "and I like to let well alone, and from what I have seen of the road, I doubt whether I will find a better bit of ground all the way." Q. What is your name? A. Hog or Swine. Q. Did God make you a log? 4. No. God made me man in his own image; the light Hon. SUBLIME BEAUTIFUL made me a Q. How did he make you a swine? 4. By muttering obscure and uncouth spells. He is a dealer in the black art. Q. Who feeds you? 4. Our drivers, the only real men in this county. How many hogs are you in all ? 4. Seven or eight millions. How many drivers ? 4 Two or three hundred thousand. With what do they feed you? 4 Generally with husks, swill, draff, malt, , and now and then with a little barley-meal ad a few potatoes, and when they have too much -milk themselves they give us some. What are the Interpreters† called? ng to the "Swinish maltitude," an epithet applied * Burate the common people of England. 4. The BLACK LETTER SISTERHOOD. Q. Why do you give the office to women? A. Because they have a fluent tongue, and a knack of scolding. Q. How are they dressed? A. In gowns and false hair. Q. What are the principal orders ? A. Three-Writers, Talkers, and Hearers, which last are also called Deciders. Q. What is their general business? A. To discuss the mutual quarrels of the hogs, and to punish their affronts to any or all of the drivers. Q. If two hogs quarrel, how do they apply to the sisterhood. 4. Each hog goes separately to a Writer. Q. What does the Writer? 4. She goes to a Talker. Q. What does the Talker. A. She goes to a Hearer (or Decider.) A. What she pleases. Q. If a hog is decided to be in the right, what is the consequence ? A. He is almost ruined. After some facetious sneers at the clergy, who are Q. What with all? A. Ten per cent. only. Q. Then you have still ninety left in the hundred? B. What becomes of the odd fifty? A. The drivers take them, partly as a small recompense for their trouble in protecting us, and partly to make money of them, for the prosecution of law-suits with the neighbouring farmers. Q. You talk very sensibly for a hog; whence had you your information? 4. From a learned Pig. The following is an answer to the question by what ceremony the hog is disenchanted, and resumes his natural shape? 4. The hog that is going to be disenchanted, grovels before the Chief Driver, who holds an iron skewer over him, and gives him a smart blow on the shoulder, to remind him at once of his former subjection and future submission. Immediately he starts up, like the Devil from Ithuriel's spear, in his proper shape, and ever after Loes about with a nick name. He then beats his hogs without mercy, and when they implore his compassion, and beg him to recollect that he was once their Fellow Swine, he denies that ever he was a hog. This curious dialogue thus concludesQ. What is the general wish of the hogs at present? A. To save their bacon. Of native blush and rosy dye, And her well-furnish'd front disdair And does to fat incline No more than what the French woul Aimable enbonpoint. Farther he: person to disclose I leave let it suffice She has few faults but what she kno She's one who looks with great conte From appetites of nature. She thinks they want or health or sens Who want an inclination, And therefore never takes offence At him who pleads his passion. Whom she refuses she treats still With so much sweet behaviour, That her refusal, thro' her skill, Looks almost like a favour. To those whom she rejects, All that her sex have done; THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER. Peculiar, therefore, is her way; But who o'er night obtain'd her grace, And stare upon the strange man's face Or thinks 'twas all a dream. Doris our thanks por asks nor needs, CONGREVE. CNA CANAL CUT BY THE SIDE OF A RIVER AT Southampton's wise sons found their river so large, | tinued, "I should prefer this kind of sponsorship, ACROSTIC. Pray tell me, says Venus, one day to the Graces, Let me know why of late I can ne'er see your faces. There's a fair one at Lincoln, so finish'd a beauty, On my life, says Dame Venus, I'll not be thus put on; Now I think on't, last night some one call'd me Miss CHARACTERS OF THE DRAMA. In a party of theatrical critics, the merits of different performers in the part of Giles, in the of discussion, and it was observed that, with one melo-drama of the Miller's Maid, formed the topic exception, all who had attempted it had "overOne of the com So they wisely determin'd to cut by its side, Would a little one have for the little cat too. IMPORTANT DISTINCTION IN ORTHOGRAPHY. A gratleman, who had not long returned from Pere, was amusing a company with the details the raperstitious ceremony he had witnessed in thestry of baptising a peal of cathedral bells, # which some members of the royal family had "For my part," he conanisted as sponsors. pany observed that this had probably arisen from a PRAISE. Praise was originally a pension paid by the world; but the moderns, fiuding the trouble and charge too great in collecting it, have lately bought ont the fee-simple; since which time the right of presentation is wholly in ourselves. In Massinger's Comedy of "A New Way to pay Old Debus." |