a Shakespear may burst the fetters, or defy the ineffectual tortures of this race; but their violence has often maimed and utterly defaced geniusses of a more delicate texture." I was so well satisfied with this account, that my curiosity would have led me to have asked more questions? but that I found myself (as is the nature of dreams,) on a sudden transported to the centre of our little world. A select party had been detached here from the main body, and had been joined by several malecontent citizens; but by some unac countable mistake, they had directed their search to those elms so famed by faithless bards, whose affectionate veneration existed in professions alone. The spot was occupied by cricketers, whose uniform vacancy of countenance secured them from the attacks of this licentious mob. One solitary poet was reclining on the grassy bank; but upon a cross examination it was discovered, that he was composing on the pleasures of a country life; and in the course of his examination, as he betrayed other evident marks of insanity, it was thought proper to dismiss him with a gentle reprimand. In their return however to the Metropolis, this detachment intercepted an epistle from Corydon, of Little Turnstile, to Amaryllis, of Smallbury-green; it was immediately conveyed to their leader, who supposing it might contain some material information, examined the contents, but on finding a confused jargon of purling rills, grassy hills, woolly sheep, gentle sleep, &c. &c. was in doubt how to proceed, when it was sugested by one of the commentators, that it must be a counterplot, couch din allegorical terms. Their march was accordingly directed to Smallbury-green, and orders issued to seize any suspicions person or persons who were discovered within a hundred yards of any rill, ditch, gutter, canal, of the like. Many

were accordingly apprehended, and some in the very act of composing; but as it appeared they were inoffensive beings, totally incapable of design, and was moreover urged that they by no means fell under the description of men of genius, it was determined to punish the ringleaders, who should be adjudged formidable enemies in terrorem, Theocritus, Virgil, Pope, and Shenstone, as they were non-apparent, and no informer could produce their equals, were accordingly burnt in effigy. And here gentle reader, did fortune again befriend me; for perceiving that I had dreamt a paper, she thought it most adviseable to set the giddy populace to shouting at the spectacle, and by this excellent manœuvre, rouse me from my dream, as she regularly has done my predecessors.

And now, as I foresee, reader, that this is a subject which is likely to call forth thy hidden talent of being facetious, should some plain-dealing body, in the simplicity of his heart, enquire how Gregory escaped among this massacre, and shouldest thou find thyself inclined, under cover of an arch leer, to answer, that he was perfectly secure ; smother the rising joke, and learn, to the utter confusion of thy waggery, that it has been the privilege of all dreamers, from time immemorial, to be uninterested spectators of the visionary scene; except, that in dreams in and about the valley of Bagdad, the Mirzah or Abdallah of the story has usually some obsequious genie at hand to serve a double purpose; that of unfolding to him the hidden meaning of the dream, and pointing out to the reader the correctness of the author's allegory. But as my dream is neither oriental nor allegorical, I shall beg leave on this occasion to plead prerogative.

To conclude, I must entreat thee to take this and all my other naps in good part; and to reflect, that where an Addison has dosed, and a Johnson slept, it is no impeachment, even on the proverbial vigilance of a GRIFFIN, to be sometimes overtaken.

No. 32. MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1787.

Assuitur pannus,

"Tis all a Patch-work.

To

Unus et alter.

-HOR.

O a writer, and especially a periodical writer, it has justly been observed, that there is no part of his business so difficult as the selection of a subject.

That traveller will arrive sooner at his place of destination, who pushes on to the end of his journey through a strait and direct road, from whence no winding paths allure his feet, no variety of distant scenery diverts his attention; than he, whose way lies through a country diversified with a multitude of objects, which solicit his admiration; who stops to gaze at every opening prospect, to catch the sunshine of every meadow, and enjoy the coolness of every grove.

Nearly the same difference exists between the writer of volumes, who pursues one settled subject, whether of reasoning or narrative, and whose labours, when that subject is fixed, are confined to the detail of facts, or the arrangment of arguments; and the Essayist, whose periodical exertions require a desultory diligence; which unable to pursue an uninterrupted train of thought, must, to avoid a sameness of subject, occasionally adapt itself to every species of composition, and must assume a variety of styles and sentiments, such as may suit a variety of topics, and agree with the different purposes of satire, or commendation, of sprightly wit or speculative solemnity.

It is not therefore from a dearth of subjects, but from a too great abundance of them, that this difficulty in selection takes its rise. A man who sits down to a table where there is but one dish, wil, if he is hungry make a hearty meal of that; but if the board be laden with a profusion of different delicacies, he will, however sharp set, make some pause ere he begins to consider against which, the first attack of his appetite shall be directed.

In a situation, much resembling either of the preceding which I have described, do I frequently find myself at the beginning of a paper. For either my attention, like that of the traveller, is so absorbed in the contemplation of distant images, and so distracted by the multiplicity of surrounding objects, that while I gaze at them all with undeciding admiration, I advance not a step towards the completion of my design;-or, like the gentleman at table, my appetite is solicited by so great a variety of delicacies, all equally tempting, that while I am eager to taste them all, I know not on which to begin; or (which is as ap

plicable and expressive a simile as either of the foregoing,) my mind, like the coffin of the prophet of Mecca, is so equally assailed on every side by the magnetism of surrounding attractions, that it hangs in suspence between them all, without the power to incline to either.

In almost all cases, where the judgement is unable to decide, chance, however little mankind in general may be inclined to confess it, is the best and only arbitrator. The biographer of the great La Mancha, freely owns, that in all points of the road which admitted of hesitation, he did not scruple to leave it, according to the laudable custom of knights errant from time immemorial, to chance, or what is nearly the same thing, to the judgement of Rosinante. And it is related of some French judge, who was remarked throughout his whole practice for the almost infallible justice of his decrees, that whenever any extraordinary case occurred, the circumstances of which were so perplexed as to render him incapable of giving a decided opinion in favor of either side, with satisfaction to his own conscience, he was accustomed to retire to his closet, and refer it to the final decision of the die. For my own part, so firm is my reliance on the arbitration of chance, that I can assure my readers, many is the good paper, for the subject of which they are indebted to her interference; many are the hints which she has been kind enough to throw in my way, by an accidental dip into a poetical miscellany, or an Ainsworth's dictionary; or a casual glance at a newspaper advertisement, or a pamphlet in a bookseller's shop window. Nor indeed is it possible that chance, if trusted to, should suggest any subject, out of which something might not be gathered, capable enough of being rendered serviceable to purposes either of instruction