to depreciate, as to think themselves particularly pointed at, in that sentence, where I complained of the unmerited contempt with which the objects of my intended recommendation are treated; and have sent me the most affecting assurances of better behaviour for the future. Historiophilus cannot help being surprized that I should know he had never 66 read his bible," which he doubts not is the book to which I propose calling his attention; but he promises me faithfully henceforward to read a chapter of it every night going to bed, and never to devour at most above three novels in a month. Latinus's conscience has been equally busy in informing him, that the books I mean for his pe rusal can be no other than the Classics, to which, though, he owns, he has hitherto neglected them, to gratify his taste for sentiment, he has how determined, in compliance with my advice, to give the most ardent attention; and as an earnest of his amendment, he tells me, he has already struck out his name from the list of subscribers to the circulating library; for which he adds, rather archly, my bookseller, he believes, will not consider himself under any great obligation to me.

Though I must assure these gentlemen, that all their sup positions are very erroneous, I cannot but confess myself very much pleased, at the above-mentioned salutary, and I will add unforeseen effects of my censorial exertions. Not but I am a little surprized, that any of my correspondents could for a moment suppose me so devoid of delicacy, as to propose, as a substitute for sentiment, the dull perusal of the unpolished ancients, and a study so unfashionable as religion.

There are besides those already mentioned, another set of

Correspondents, of whom I must take some notice, before I proceed to the discovery of my purpose. These are some who have continued to send me frequent assurances of the little credit they give to my professions of disinterestedness; and who resolve, in spite of my declarations to the contrary, to persevere in believing the studies, to which I wish them to give so much application, to be no other than my own lucubrations. One gentleman in particular, has taken the trouble to be extremely witty on the subject; and has Bad the art, by a course of the most apt and pointed observations, to turn my own declaration against me. He adduces the example of a highwayman, with great success ; and tells an interesting and affecting story, (but rather of the longest) extracted as it seems from the "Newgate Calendar, or Malefactors Bloody Register," by which it appears, that the highwayman " denied this murder before he was accused of it, and so got himself found out." This my gentleman considers as exactly a case in point, and proceeds accordingly through a long series of logical divisions, and some very nice and subtle distinctions of " whys" and "wherefores" to argue, that my disavowal of any sinister view to my own advantage, could have been derived from nothing, but a perfect consciousness of the same; and consequently must be ascribed to precisely the same motives, as the unsolicited protestations of his hero the highway

man.

Ingenious as are the arguments, and conclusive as are the inferences of my worthy correspondent, I must beg leave to differ from him very decidedly on the present question; and however sure the grounds of the indictment preferred against me, may appear to him at present, I doubt not, but the very material evidence which I shall produce on

my part, will, ere long, induce him to alter his opinion, and to give a verdict in favour of my disinterestedness.

I shall now therefore no longer delay to bring forward, as substantial and satisfactory witnesses of my disinterestedness, the books, which I think so fully capable of supplying the place of those studies which usually engross the attention of our novel-readers; and these are no other than the instructive and entertaining histories of Mr. THOMAS THUMB, Mr. JOHN HICKATHRIFT, and sundry other celebrated worthics; a true and faithful account of whose adventures and atchievements, may be had by the curious, and public in general, price two-pence gilt, at Mr. Newbery's, St. Paul's Churchyard, and at some other Gentleman's whose name I do not now recollect, the Bouncing B. Shoe-lane.

I am well aware that full many are the opinions I shall have to combat against in behalf of my recommendation. Many there will be who will ungenorously cavil at the size of my protegés; armed with a sort of cowardly criticism, which though it dares not venture any strictures on a bulky folio, or scan the merits of even a tolerable corpulent quarto, yet thinks itself fully competent to give a decided opinion on so small an offspring of literature, and to persecute an unprotected 16mo with the most unrelenting seve rity,

To shew however the very high estimation, in which I am confident, they deserve to be held by the literary world, I shall not condescend to compare them with those precious farragos, in the room of which I intend introducing them to my fellow-citizens. Far higher are my ideas of the comparative excellence of Mr. Newbery's little books

and more especially of the two to which I have before als Juded. In the heroes of these, a candid and impartial critic will readily agree with me, that we find a very strong resemblance to those who are immortalized in Homeric song; that in Hickathrift we see pourtrayed the spirit, the prowess, and every great quality of Achilles; and in Thumb, the prudence, the caution, the patience, the perseverance of Ulysses. There is however, one peculiar advantage, which the histories of the modern worthies enjoy over their ancient originals, which is that of uniting the great and subTime of epic grandeur, with the little and the low of common life; and of tempering the fiercer and more glaring colours of the marvellous and the terrible, with the softer shades of the domestic and the familiar. Where, in either of the great originals, shall we find so pleasing an assemblage of tender ideas, so interesting a picture of domestic employments, as the following sketch of the night preceding that in which Tom Thumb and his brethren were to be purposely lost in the wood?

"Now it was nine o'clock, and all the children, after eating a piece of bread and butter, were put to bed. But little Tom did not eat his-but put it in his pocket. And now all the children were fast asleep in their beds-but little Tom could not sleep for thinking of what he had heard the night before-so he got up, and put on his shoes and stockings, &c."

How forcibly does this passage bring to the mind of every classical reader, the picture which Homer draws of Agamennon, in the 10th book of the Iliad.

Αλλ' εκ Ατρείδην Αγαμέμνονα, ποιμενὰ λαῶν,

Υπνος εχε γλυκερος, πολλά φρεσιν ορμαινονία, &c.

The Chiefs before their vessels lay,

And left in sleep the labours of the day :

All but the king; with various thoughts opprest,
His country's cares lay rolling in his breast, &c.
He rose

And on his feet the shining sandals bound, &c.

This vigilant conduct in brooding a sleepless night over embryo expeditions, and cautiously providing against future necessities by the pocketing of his bread and butter, is at least equal to any trait in the character of Ulysses.Nor is it in point of character only, that the resemblance between this work and the two great poems of antiquity is discernible. Here we find also in their fullest perfection

Speciosa-Miracula rerum,

Antiphaten, Scyllamque, el cum cyclope Charybdin.

Antiphates his hideous feast devours, &c.

FRANCIS.

To say nothing of the form of the Ogre, which is painted in a style infinitely beyond the Polypheme of Homer-to pass over the terrible poetic imagery with which his first speech of fee, faw, fum, is replete-it must I think be readily allowed, the stratagem by which Tom releases himself and his brethren from the monster's power, (by taking "the crowns of gold from the heads of the little Ogres and Ogresses, and putting them on their own: whereby the giant comes and kills his own children)" is far more poetical, far more noble, than the pitiful escape of Ulysses and his companions, under the sheeps' bellies, and the paltry contrivance of Ovdes. But there is another circumstance where the fictions of the two poets bear a still nearer re VOL. II.

G