faid I-my bones have been shaken from one end of EUROPE to the other, in fuch a variety of strange vehicles, that I have in truth no curiofity to be tempted by the novelty of this.-So order your horses. Sir, continues he, you will be pleafed to wait a little-the gentleman is stepped out to call on an acquaintance he has in town, but will return prefently. Why then order me a pot of coffee. THE. THE CONJECTURE. THE mind is often ingenious enough to puzzle itself about a trifle, which a plain question could determine. Who, cries CURIOSITY, can this intended companion of mine be?indeed I might have afked the landlord this when he brought in the coffee-psha !—what does it fignify? -perhaps fome inquifitive traveller, like thyfelf; or a highwayman, fays CAUTION; or a methodist preacher, quoth PRUDERY ;-or a Jew mountebank, fays PRIDE;-or a ftrolling player, fays MEANNESS;-or one that will leave thee to pay the whole chaife, quoth AVARICE. -And why not, exclaims BENEVO- LENCE, as honeft a man as thyfelf?— thou art fummoning every dirty paffion to fit in judgment on a poor Stranger thou haft never seen, who may poffibly be a far more amiable being than thyfelf—and whom, shouldst thou chance to diflike, at the end of fixteen miles thou may'ft bid adieu to for ever. I felt the keennefs of the reproach, -fo poured out my coffee with fome degree of fhame, and endeavoured to chafe away the contemptible mean ideas that were warping my heart, by filling it, my dear JENNY, with thy image. THE THE FOUNTAIN. MAN must have something for his affections to anchor on!There is no getting forward pleasantly in the journey of life, without having certain pre-eminent objects to which the thoughts may recur, whenever we grow languid by the way, or our path becomes rugged and perplexed. of The past appertains to the dominion memory;—the future is the inheritance of hope; and the prefent, which is only our own, by that property of the mind which we term imagination, may be pushed afide to make way for its own illufions, when the wishes to enliven the profpect, and spread a funfhine which the prefent does not offer. Sweet de Sweet illufions! - amiable ceivers!-how chearfully have ye led my eager steps thro' the state of youth, and folaced me as I journeyed forward with a thousand vifionary fcenes from the claffic page!-Having gained the afcent of life, and shut up my books to read the more complicated volume of the world-when I have found hope difappointed,confidence betrayed,-kindness forgotten, and feen around me characters that convinced me vice was not fiction; then have ye been as a lantern to my feet, diffipated the gloom that darkened my courfe, by lighting me onward to new objects of pleasure, glowing with the alluring graces of undiffembled virtue. Bounteous IMAGINATION! be ftill my guide, my companion, my friend, VOL. I. D -thy |