semblance to each other. The learned reader will easily guess that I mean the march of the Ogre, in the third chapter of Tom Thumb, and that of Neptune, in the thirteenth book of the Iliad. To enable my readers to draw the comparison better, I shall transcribe both.

"There the OGRE," says my author, "called for his seven leagued boots, in which he journeyed, and he put them on; and he took one, two, three steps, and at the third he came to the dark cave where little Tom was."

Of NEPTUNE's passage from Samothrace to Troy, Homer says,

Τρὶς μὲν ἐρέξατ' ἰὼν τὸ δὲ τέτρατον, ἵκεῖο τέκμως,
Alyas

From realm to realm three ample strides he took,
And at the fourth the distant Egæ shook.

"Which" says his commentator, " is pretty near a degree at each step."-But let the reader candidly examine both the passages, and make fair allowance for the unavoidable difference in sound, of "the distant Egæ," and "the dark cave where little Tom was," and I doubt not but my author will claim at least an equal share of admiration.

But it would be an endless task to point out every latent beauty, every unnoticed elegance with which these productions are interspersed. Not to enter therefore into a comparative view of the characters of Hickathrift and Achilles; to omit noticing the affecting and solemn invocation of the princess Cinderella to the Bean her counsellor, beginning “ Eear, bean, little bean, I charge thee in the name of the fairy Trufio” (which, bye the bye, justifies the

opinion of Pythagoras with regard to the reverence due to this vegetable) to omit this, I say, and other innumerable passages, equally worthy of notice, I shall hasten to inform my fellow-citizens, that in compliance with my advice, my bookseller proposes very soon substituting in the room of his present catalogue, a list of all the productions of this kind, which can be procured either at Mr. Newbery's or the bouncing B.

And I doubt not but I shall in a very short time have the satisfaction to see the generality of my fellow-citizens, running throngh them with the most eager avidity, from beginning to end-from "Once upon a time," to "lived very happy afterwards:" fully convinced, that such works as could bear a competition with the strains of Homer, would be degraded by any comparison with the silly effusions of nonsense and sentiment-convinced too, if the examples for the purposes of morality be considered, that a character which gleaned the several excellencies of all the Edwards, the Sir Harry's, and the Pamelas of novelwriters would be but a poor competitor with one that joined in itself the patience and chastity of Cinderella, the prudence of Thumb, and the heroism of Hickathrift.

B

No. 31. MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1787.

Opere in longo fas est obrepere somnum.

HORACE.

In a long work an author once may dose.-NAN.

HAVING

AVING an idle hour the other evening, and being in one of those miscellaneous humours in which our sole object is to kill time; I happened to fix on a moral essay on hu man nature, as the most effectual and expeditious means of dispatching him. As I turned over the pages, I could not but remark, how ingeniously its philanthropic author had endeavoured to put his readers out of humour with themselves, by proving to them, that in spite of their own endeavours, they must inevitably be greater fools or knaves than their grand-fathers.

From the contemplation of those weeping philosophers, my reflection naturally led me to those ingenious projectors, who with more benovelence, though if possible less effect, have devoted their literary labours to the reformation of a vicious age; and formed such sublime and comprehensive projects for reducing human nature to its primitive state of purity.

The recollection of the deep laid projects for the abolition of Christianity, the consolidation of Turks, Jews, and

Gentiles, the conversion of the grand Signior, the Pope, or the Emperor of China, was so interesting a subject that it might have kept me awake beyond my usual hour; hád I not fortunately recollected, that in the course of thirty numbers I had not had one vision. Alarmed at this idea, I was determined to go to sleep without losing a moment, and dream in full time for the press. I had no sooner put the first part of my resolution in practice, when lo! whether Morpheus is the professed patron of periodical writers, or is ambitious of removing the imputation of levity from his character, by giving a vision some kind of regularity, from whichever cause it proceeded, my dream was an cxact continuation of the subject which had so long employed my thoughts.

It was at the dead of night when some eccentric being, (whose project had I conceive been hatched long before I had fallen asleep, otherwise, gentle reader, every thing could not have been so exactly prepared,) had made ready the following conspiracy for execution. Tired of continually harassing his mind for the advantage of an ungrateful public, and vexed to the gizzard to find his predictions ridiculed by those butterflies who can so unfeelingly enjoy the happiness of the present hour, amidst luxury, faction, and all the alarming symptoms of a decay in human nature; he had laid a general plot among the orthodox adherents of roast beef and fat ale, for the total extermination of what the world term men of genius.

In consequence of this agreement, it was concerted, that the massacre should take place at the sound of a steeple bell; this in all conspiracies, real and visionary, is an absalute requisite, for the truth of which I refer my readers

to the great authority of the Parisian massacre; besides all tragedians, whose poetical variations of incursions, flourishes, alarms, murders, &c. have universally originated from the unaffected simplicity of the Bell. At this spiritstiring sound then, what inundations of countenances, to all appearance inoffensive, rushed out in character of assassins; and in what a ludicious mixture was the lean baggard eagerness of Grub-street, contrasted with the rosy independence of Cheapside. All however seemed unanimous in the resistless fury with which they persecuted the helpless objects of their vengeance. In their avidity to destroy, the innocent often fell with the guilty; and even news-paper odes on the seasons were sufficient to decide the fate of an unhappy poetaster. It had been before provided, that convivial ballads should be exempted from the common fate; as the destruction of them might materially injure the wine trade. Intermixed with those who were most active in this scene of destruction, I was struck with the figures of a number of slavish wretches, laden with fetters and instruments of torture, and every where following the conspira tors. I was informed by a byestander, that these were chiefly commentators, whose office it was to bind and torment all those who were destined to be preserved as the laughing stock of their persecutors; that the fetters were critical rules, and the instruments of torture were Diversæ lectiones occultæ allegoria, and interpretationes elegantissima, supposed to have been originally invented by the northern barbarians, those destroyers of all literature, as their etymology can scarcely be traced to any civilized language. Frequently, Sir," continued he, "these executioners seize on a victim whose amazing strength is suffi sient to baffle their utmost efforts; a Homer, a Pindar, o

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