be dispensed with. They should have been supplied with more than is necessary,' cried Asem; 'and yet I contradict my own opinion but a moment before: all is doubt, perplexity, and confusion. Even the want of ingratitude is no virtue here, since they never received a favour. They have, however, another excellence yet behind; the love of their country is still, I hope, one of their darling virtues.''Peace, Asem,' replied the guardian, with a countenance not less severe than beautiful, 'nor forfeit all thy pretensions to wisdom; the same selfish motives by which we prefer our own interest to that of others, induce us to regard our country preferable to that of another. Nothing less than universal benevolence is free from vice, and that you see is practised here.' 'Strange!' cries the disappointed pilgrim, in an agony of distress; what sort of a world am I now introduced to? There is scarce a single virtue, but that of temperance, which they practise; and in that they are no way superior to the brute creation. There is scarce an amusement which they enjoy; fortitude, liberality, friendship, wisdom, conversation, and love of country, all are virtues entirely unknown here; thus it seems, that to be unacquainted with vice is not to know virtue. Take me, O my genius, back to that very world which I have despised: a world which has Alla for its contriver, is much more wisely formed than that which has been projected by Mahomet Ingratitude, contempt, and hatred, I can now suffer, for perhaps I have deserved them. When I arraigned the wisdom of Provi

dence, I only showed my own ignorance; henceforth let me keep from vice myself, and pity it in others.'

He had scarce ended, when the genius, assuming an air of terrible comp.acency, called all his thunders around him, and vanished in a whirlwind. Asem, astonished at the terror of the scene, looked for his imaginary world; when, casting his eyes around, he perceived himself in the very situation, and in the very place, where he first began to repine and despair; his right foot had been just advanced to take the fatal plunge, nor had it been yet withdrawn; so instantly did Providence strike the series of truths just imprinted on his soul. He now departed from the water-side in tranquillity, and, leaving his horrid mansion, travelled to Segestan, his native city; where he diligently applied himself to commerce, and put in practice that wisdom he had learned in solitude. The frugality of a few years soon produced opulence; the number of his domestics increased; his friends came to him from every part of the city, nor did he receive them with disdain; and a youth of misery was concluded with an old age of elegance, affluence, and ease.

A REVERIE AT THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN, IN EASTCHEAP.

THE improvements we make in mental acquirements, only render us each day more sensible of the defects of our constitution: with this in view, therefore, let

us often recur to the amusements of youth; endeavour to forget age and wisdom, and, as far as innocence goes, be as much a boy as the best of them.

Let idle declaimers mourn over the degeneracy of the age; but, in my opinion, every age is the same. This I am sure of, that man, in every season, is a poor, fretful being, with no other means to escape the calamities of the times, but by endeavouring to forget them; for if he attempts to resist, he is certainly undone. If I feel poverty and pain, I am not so hardy as to quarrel with the executioner, even while under correction: I find myself no way disposed to make fine speeches, while I am making wry faces. In a word, let me drink when the fit is on, to make me insensible; and drink when it is over, for joy that I feel pain no longer.

The character of old Falstaff, even with all his faults, gives me more consolation than the most studied efforts of wisdom: I here behold an agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and showing me the way to be young at sixty-five. Sure I am well able to be as merry, though not so comical as he. Is it not in my power to have, though not so much wit, at least as much vivacity?-Age, care, wisdom, reflection, begone!-I give you to the winds. Let's have t'other bottle: here's to the memory of Shakspeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eastcheap.

Such were the reflections that naturally arose while I sat at the Boar's head tavern, still kept at Eastcheap. Here, by a pleasant fire, in the very room where old sir John Falstaff cracked his jokes in the

very chair which was sometimes honoured by prince Heury, and sometimes polluted by his immoral, merry companions, I sat and ruminated on the follies of youth; wished to be young again; but was resolved to make the best of life while it lasted, and now and then compared past and present times together. I considered myself as the only living representative of the old knight; and transported my imagination back to the times when the prince and he gave life to the revel, and made even debauchery not disgusting. The room also conspired to throw my reflections back into antiquity: the oak floor, the Gothic windows, and the ponderous chimney-piece, had long withstood the tooth of time: the watchman had gone twelve; my companions had all stolen off, and none now remained with me but the landlord. From him I could have wished to know the history of a tavern that had such a long succession of customers: I could not help thinking that an account of this kind would be a pleasing contrast of the manners of different ages; but my landlord could give me no information. He continued to doze, and sot, and tell a tedious story, as most other landlords usually do; and though he said nothing, yet was never silent: one good joke followed another good joke, and the best joke of all was generally begun towards the end of a bottle. I found at last, however, his wine and his conversation operate by degrees; he insensibly began to alter his appearance. His cravat seemed quilled into a ruff, and his breeches swelled into a farthingale. I now fancied him changing sexes; and,

as my eyes began to close in slumber, I imagined my fat landlord actually converted into as fat a landlady. However, sleep made but few changes in my situation; the tavern, the apartment, and the table, continued as before; nothing suffered mutation but my host, who was fairly altered into a gentlewoman, whom I knew to be dame Quickly, mistress of this tavern in the days of sir John; and the liquor we were drinking, which seemed converted into sack and sugar.

'My dear Mrs. Quickly,' cried I, (for I knew her perfectly well at first sight,) 'I am heartily glad to see you. How have you left Falstaff, Pistol, and the rest of our friends below stairs? Brave and hearty, I hope?'-'In good sooth,' replied she, 'he did deserve to live for ever; but he maketh foul work on't where he hath flitted. Queen Proserpine and he have quarelled, for his attempting a rape upon her divinity; and were it not that she still had bowels of compassion, it more than seems probable he might have been now sprawling in Tartarus.'

I now found that spirits still preserve the frailties of the flesh; and that, according to the laws of criticism and dreaming, ghosts have been known to be guilty of even more than Platonic affection; wherefore, as I found her too much moved on such a topic to proceed, I was resolved to change the subject; and desiring she would pledge me in a bumper, observed with a sigh, that our sack was nothing now to what it was in former days. Ah, Mrs. Quickly, those were merry times when you drew sack for