but more than one ferves only to spoil the pottageAnd now I'm afraid I have given you an unconscionable mefs without any flavour at all; for which, I fuppofe, you will beftow your benedictions upon

Your friend and fervant,

London, June 5.

J. MELFORD.

To Dr LEWIS.

DEAR LEWIS,

You

OUR fable of the monkey and the pig is what the Italians call ben trovata: But I fhall not repeat it to my apothecary, who is a proud Scotchman, very thin-skinned, and, for aught I know, may have his degree in his pocket-A right Scotchman has always two ftrings to his bow, and is in utrumque paratus-Certain it is, I have not 'fcaped a fcouring; but, I believe, by means of that fcouring, I have 'fcaped fomething worse, perhaps a tedious fit of the gout or rheumatifm; for my appetite began to flag, and I had certain croakings in the bowels which boded me no goodNay, I am not yet quite free of these remembrancers, which warn me to be gone from this centre of infection.

WHAT temptation can a man of my turn and temperament have, to live in a place where every corner teems with fresh objects of deteftation and difguft? What kind of taste and organs must thofe people have, who really prefer the adulterated enjoyments of the town to the genuine pleasures of a country retreat?Most people, I know, are originally feduced by vanity, ambition, and childish curiofity; which cannot be gratified, but in the bufy haunts of men: But, in the course of this gratification, their very organs of sense are perverted, and they become habitually loft to every relifh of what is genuine and excellent in its own na

ture.

SHALL I ftate the difference between my town grievances and my country comforts ?-At Brambletonhall,

I have elbow-room within doors, and breathe a clear, elastic, falutary air.-I enjoy refreshing fleep, which is never disturbed by horrid noise, nor interrupted, but in a morning, by the sweet twitter of the martlet at my window. I drink the virgin lymph, pure and crystalline as it gufhes from the rock, or the fparkling beverage, home-brewed from malt of my own making; or I indulge with cyder, which my own orchard affords, or with claret of the beft growth, imported for my own. ufe, by a correfpondent on whofe integrity I can depend; my bread is fweet and nourishing, made from my own wheat, ground in my own mill, and baked in my own oven; my table is, in a great meafure, furnished from my own ground; my five-year old mutton, fed on the fragrant herbage of the mountains, that might vie with venifon in juice and flavour; my delicious veal, fattened with nothing but the mother's milk, that fills the difh with gravy; my poultry from the barndoor, that never knew confinement but when they were at rooft; my rabbits panting from the warren; my game fresh from the moors; my trout and falmon struggling from the ftream; oyfters from their native banks; and herrings, with other fea-fish, I can eat in four hours after they are taken.—My fallads, roots, and pot-herbs my own garden yields in plenty and perfection, the produce of the natural foil, prepared by moderate cultivation. The fame foil affords all the different fruits which England may call her own, so that my defert is every day fresh gathered from the tree; my dairy flows with nectareous tides of milk and cream, from whence we derive abundance of excellent butter, curds, and cheese; and the refuse fattens my pigs, that are deftined for hams and bacon.-I go to bed betimes, and rife with the fun. I make shift to pass the hours without wearinefs or regret, and am not deftitute of amusements within doors, when the weather will not permit me to go abroad-I read, and chat, and play at billiards, cards, or back-gammon.-Without doors, I fuperintend my farm, and execute plans of improvement, the effects of which I enjoy with unfpeakable delight-Nor do I take lefs pleasure in feeing my tenants thrive under my aufpices, and the poor live comfortably by the employ

ment which I provide.-You know I have one or two fenfible friends, to whom I can open all my heart; a bleffing which, perhaps, I might have fought in vain among the crouded fcenes of life. There are a few others of more humble parts, whom I efteem for their integrity; and their converfation I find inoffenfive, tho' not very entertaining. Finally, I live in the midst of honeft men, and trufty dependents, who, I flatter myfelf, have a difinterested attachment to my perfon.You yourself, my dear Doctor, can vouch for the truth of these affertions.

Now, mark the contraft at London-I am pent up in frowzy lodgings, where there is not room enough to fwing a cat, and I breathe the steams of endless putrefaction; and thefe would, undoubtedly, produce a peftilence, if they were not qualified by the grofs acid of fea-coal, which is itself a pernicious nuisance to lungs of any delicacy of texture: But even this boafted corrector cannot prevent those languid fallow looks, that distinguish the inhabitants of London from those ruddy fwains that lead a country life.—I go to bed after midnight, jaded and reftlefs from the diffipations of the day I start every hour from my fleep, at the horrid noife of the watchmen bawling the hour through every street, and thundering at every door; a set of useless fellows, who ferve no other purpose but that of disturbing the repose of the inhabitants; and, by five o'clock, I start out of bed, in confequence of the still more dreadful alarm made by the country carts, and noify ruftics bellowing green peafe under my window. If I would drink water, I muft quaff the maukish contents of an open aqueduct, expofed to all manner of defilement, or fwallow that which comes from the river Thames, impregnated with all the filth of London and Westminfter. Human excrement is the leaft offenfive part of the concrete, which is compofed of all the drugs, mi.. nerals, and poifons, ufed in mechanics and manufactures, enriched with the putrefying carcases of beasts and men, and mixed with the fcowrings of all the washtubs, kennels, and common sewers within the bills of mortality.

THIS is the agreeable potation extolled by the Londoners as the finest water in the universe.-As to the intoxicating potion fold for wine, it is a vile, unpalatable, and pernicious fophiftication, balderdafhed with cyder, corn-fpirit, and the juice of floes. In an action at law, laid against a carman for having ftaved a cask of port, it appeared, from the evidence of the cooper, that there were not above five gallons of real wine in the whole pipe, which held above an hundred, and even that had been brewed and adulterated by the merchant at Oporto. The bread I eat in London is a deleterious paste, mixed up with chalk, alum, and bone-afhes, infipid to the tafte, and deftructive to the conftitution. The good people are not ignorant of this adulteration; but they prefer it to wholefome bread, because it is whiter than the meal of corn. Thus they facrifice their taste and their health, and the lives of their tender infants, to a moft abfurd gratification of a misjudging eye; and the miller or the baker is obliged to poison them and their families, .in order to live by his profeffion. The same monftrous depravity appears in their veal, which is bleached by repeated bleedings, and other villainous arts, till there is not a drop of juice left in the body, and the poor animal is paralytic before it dies; fo void of all tafte, nourishment, and favour, that a man might dine as comfortably on a white fricaffee of kid-fkin gloves, or chip-hats from Leghorn.

As they have discharged the natural colour from their bread, their butchers meat, and poultry, their cutlets, ragouts, fricaffees, and fauces of all kinds-fo they infift upon having the complexion of their pot-herbs mended, even at the hazard of their lives. Perhaps, you will hardly believe they can be fo mad as to boil their greens with brafs halfpence, in order to improve their colour; and yet nothing is more true-Indeed, without this improvement in the colour, they have no perfonal merit. They are produced in an artificial foil, and taste of nothing but the dunghills from whence they fpring. My cabbage, cauliflower, and 'fparagus in the country, are as much fuperior in flavour to those that are fold in Covent-Garden, as my heath mutton is to that of St James's market, which, in fact, is neither

lamb nor mutton, but fomething betwixt the two, gorged in the rank fens of Lincoln and Effex, pale, coarfe, and frowzy. As for the pork, it is an abominable carnivorous animal, fed with horfe flesh and distillers grains; and the poultry is all rotten, in confequence of a fever, occafioned by the infamous practice of fewing up the gut, that they may be the fooner fattened in coops, in confequence of this cruel retention.

Of the fifh I need fay nothing in this hot weather, but that it comes fixty, feventy, fourfcore, and a hundred miles by land-carriage; a circumftance fufficient, without any comment, to turn a Dutchman's stomach, even if his nofe was not faluted in every alley with the fweet flavour of fresh mackarel, felling by retail.-This is not the feafon for oyfters; nevertheless, it may not be amifs to mention, that the right Colchester are kept in flime pits, occafionally overflowed by the fea; and that the green colour, fo much admired by the voluptuaries of this metropolis, is occafioned by the vitriolic fcum, which rifes on the furface of the ftagnant and stinking water. Our rabbits are bred and fed in the poulterer's cellar, where they have neither air nor exercife; confequently they must be firm in flesh, and delicious in flavour; and there is no game to be had for love or money.

IT must be owned, that Covent Garden affords fome good fruit; which, however, is always engroffed by a few individuals of overgrown fortune, at an exorbitant price; fo that little elfe than the refuse of the market falls to the share of the community-and that is distributed by fuch filthy hands, as I cannot look at without loathing. It was but yesterday that I faw a dirty barrow-bunter in the street, cleaning her dufty fruit with her own fpittle; and who knows but fome fine lady of St James's parifh might admit into her delicate mouth thofe very cherries, which had been rolled and moiftened between the filthy, and perhaps ulcerated chops of a St Giles's huckster.-I need not dwell upon the pallid contaminated mash which they call ftrawberries, foiled and toffed by greafy paws through twenty baskets crufted with dirt; and then presented with the worft milk, thickened with the worft flour, into a bad likeness of