As for the liberty of the prefs, like every other privilege, it must be restrained within certain bounds; for if it is carried to a breach of law, religion, and charity, it becomes one of the greatest evils that ever annoyed the community. If the loweft ruffian may ftab your good name with impunity in England, will you be fo uncandid as to exclaim against Italy for the practice of common affaffination? To what purpose is our property fecured, if our moral character is left defenceless ?People thus baited, grow defperate; and the defpair of being able to preferve one's character untainted by fuch vermin, produces a total neglect of fame; fo that one of the chief incitements to the practice of virtue is effectually destroyed.

MR BARTON's laft confideration, refpecting the ftamp-duty, is equally wife and laudable with another maxim which has been long adopted by our financiers, namely, to connive at drunkenness, riot, and diffipation, because they enhance the receipt of the excife; not reflecting, that, in providing this temporary convenience, they are destroying the morals, health, and industry of the people-Notwithstanding my contempt for those who flatter a minifter, I think there is fomething still more despicable in flattering a mob-When I fee a man of birth, education, and fortune, put himself on a level with the dregs of the people, mingle with low mechanics, feed with them at the fame board, and drink with them in the fame cup, flatter their prejudices, harangue in praise of their virtues, expofe themselves to the belchings of their beer, the fumes of their tobacco, the groffnefs of their familiarity, and the impertinence of their converfation, I cannot help defpifing him, as a man guilty of the vileft prostitution, in order to effect a purpofe equally felfifh and illiberal.

I SHOULD renounce politics the more willingly, if I could find other topics of converfation difcuffed with more modefty and candour: But the dæmon of party feems to have ufurped every department of life. Even the world of literature and tafte is divided into the most virulent factions, which revile, decry, and traduce the works of one another. Yefterday I went to return an afternoon's vifit to a gentleman of my acquaintance, at

whofe house I found one of the authors of the prefent age, who has written with fome fuccefs-As I had read one or two of his performances, which gave me pleafure, I was glad of this opportunity to know his perfon: But his difcourfe and deportment deftroyed all the impreffions which his writings had made in his favour. He took upon him to decide dogmatically upon every fubject, without deigning to fhew the leaft caufe for his differing from the general opinions of mankind, as if it had been our duty to acquiefce in the ipfe dixit of this new Pythagoras. He rejudged the characters of all the principal authors, who had died within a century of the prefent time; and, in this revifion, paid no fort of regard to the reputation they had acquired-Milton was harth and profaic; Dryden, languid and verbose; Butler and Swift, without humour; Congreve, without wit; and Pope, deftitute of any fort of poetical merit-As for his cotemporaries, he could not bear to hear one of them mentioned with any degree of applaufe: They were all dunces, pedants, plagiaries, quacks, and impoftors; and you could not name a fingle performance, but what was tame, ftupid, and infipid. It must be owned, that this writer had nothing to charge his confcience with on the fide of flattery; for, I understand, he was never known to praise one line that was written even by those with whom he lived on terms of good fellowship. This arrogance and presumption, in depre. ciating authors, for whofe reputation the company may be interested, is fuch an infult upon the understanding, as I could not bear without wincing.

I DESIRED to know his reafons for decrying fome works, which had afforded me uncommon pleasure; and, as demonstration did not feem to be his talent, I diffented from his opinion with great freedom. Having been spoiled by the deference and humility of his hearers, he did not bear contradiction with much temper; and the dispute might have grown warm, had it not been interrupted by the entrance of a rival bard, at whofe appearance he always quits the place-They are of different cabals, and have been at open war these twenty years-If the other was dogmatical, this genius was declamatory; he did not discourse, but harangue; and his

orations were equally tedious and turgid. He too pronounced ex cathedra upon the characters of his cotemporaries; and though he fcruples not to deal out praise, even lavishly, to the lowest reptile in Grub-street, who will either flatter him in private, or mount the public roftrum as his panegyrift, he damns all the other writers of the age with the utmost infolence and rancourOne is a blunderbufs, as being a native of Ireland; another a half-ftarved loufe of literature, from the banks of the Tweed; a third, an afs, because he enjoys a penfion from government; a fourth, the very angel of dullnefs, because he fucceeded in a fpecies of writing in which this Ariftarchus had failed; a fifth, who prefumed to make ftrictures upon one of his performances, he holds as a bug in criticism, whofe ftench is more offensive than his sting-In fhort, except himself and his myrmidons, there is not a man of learning or genius in the three kingdoms. As for the fuccefs, of those who have written without the pale of this confederacy, he imputes it entirely to want of taste in the public; not confidering, that to the approbation of that very tastelefs public, he himself owes all the confequence he has in life.

THOSE originals are not fit for converfation. If they would maintain the advantage they have gained by their writing, they should never appear but upon paper-For my part, I am fhocked to find a man have fublime ideas in his head, and nothing but illiberal fentiments in his heart. The human foul will be generally found most defective in the article of candour-I am inclined to think, no mind was ever wholly exempt from envy; which, perhaps, may have been implanted, as an instinct effential to our nature. I am afraid we fometimes palliate this vice, under the fpecious name of emulation. I have known a perfon remarkably generous, humane, moderate, and apparently felf-denying, who could not hear even a friend commended, without betraying marks of uneafinefs; as if that commendation had implied an odious comparison to his prejudice, and every wreath of praise added to the other's character, was a garland plucked from his own temples. This is a malignant fpecies of jealoufy, of which I ftand acquitted

in my own confcience-Whether it is a vice, or an infirmity, I leave you to enquire.

THERE is another point, which I would much rather fee determined; whether the world was always as contemptible as it appears to me at prefent?-If the morals of mankind have not contracted an extraordinary degree of depravity within thefe thirty years, then muft I be infected with the common vice of old men, difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti; or, which is more probable, the impetuous pursuits and avocations of youth have formerly hindered me from obferving those rotten parts of human nature, which now appear fo offenfively to my obfervation.

WE have been at court, and 'change, and every where; and every where we find food for fpleen, and fubject for ridicule-My new fervant, Humphry Clinker, turns out a great original; and Tabby is a changed creature-She has parted with Chowder; and does nothing but fmile, like Malvolio in the play-I'll be hanged if the is not acting a part which is not natural to her difpofition, for fome purpose which I have not yet difcovered.

WITH refpect to the characters of mankind, my curiofity is quite fatisfied: I have done with the fcience of men, and must now endeavour to amuse myself with the novelty of things. I am, at present, by a violent effort of the mind, forced from my natural bias; but this power ceafing to act, I fhall return to my folitude with redoubled velocity. Every thing I fee, and hear, and feel, in this great refervoir of folly, knavery, and fophistication, contributes to enhance the value of a country life, in the fentiments of

Yours always,

London, June 2.

MATT. BRAMBLE.

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To Mrs MARY JONES, at Brambletonhall.

DEAR MARY JONES,

ADY GRISKIN's botler, Mr Crumb, having got Squire Barton to frank me a kiver, I would not neglect to let you know how it is with me, and the rest of the family.

I could not rite by John Thomas, for because he went away in a huff, at a minute's warning. He and Chowder could not agree, and fo they fitt upon the road, and Chowder bit his thumb, and he swore he would do him a mischief, and he spoke faucy to mistress, whereby the fquire turned him off in gudgeon; and by God's providence we picked up another footman, called Umphry Klinker; a good fole as ever broke bread; which fhews, that a fcalded cat may prove a good moufer, and a hound be ftanch, thof he has got narro hare on his buttocks; but the proudeft nofe may be bro't baor to the grinestone by sickness and misfortunes.

O MOLLY! what fhall I fay of London? All the towns that ever I beheld in my born-days are no more than Welsh barrows and crumlecks to this wonderful fitty! Even Bath itfelf is but a fillitch, in the naam of God One would think there's no end of the streets, but the Land's End. Then there's fuch a power of people, going hurry fkurry! Such a racket of coxes! Such a noife and hali-balloo! So many strange fites to be seen! O gracious! my poor Welsh brain has been fpinning like a top ever fince I came hither! And I have feen the Park, and the Paleafs of Saint Gimfes, and the king's and the queen's magifterial purfing, and the fweet young princes, and the hillyfents, and pye bald afs, and all the rest of the royal family.

LAST week I went with mistress to the Tower, to fee the crowns and wild beaftis; and there was a monftracious lion, with teeth half a quarter long; and a gentleman bid me not go near him, if I wasn't a maid; being as how he would roar, and tear, and play the dickens-Now I had no mind to go near him; for I cannot

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