so strong, that I determined to punish it by kissing the offender, which in cool blood I should never have attempted. The satisfaction, however, which I obtained by this imprudent revenge, was much like what a man of honour feels on finding himself run through the body by the scoundrel who has offended him. My upper lip was transfixed with a large corking pin, which in the scuffle she had conveyed into her mouth; and I doubt not that I shall carry the memorem labris notam (the mark of this Judas kiss) from an old maid to the grave with me.

These misfortunes, or others of the same kind, I encounter daily but at these seasons of the year, which give a sanction to this kind of practical wit, and when every man thinks he has a right to entertain himself at his friend's expense, I live in hourly apprehensions of more mortifying adventures. No miserable dunghill cock, devoted a victim to the wanton cruelty of the mob, would be more terrified at the approach of a Shrove Tuesday, were he endued with human reason and forecast, than I am at the approach of a merry Christmas or the first of April. No longer ago than last Thursday, which was the latter of these festivals, I was pestered with mortifying presents from the ladies; obliged to pay the carriage of half a dozen oyster barrels stuffed with brickbats, and ten packets by the post containing nothing but old newspapers. But what vexed me most was the being sent fifty miles out of town, on that day, by a counterfeit express from a dying relation.

I could not help reflecting, with a sigh, on the resemblance between the imaginary grievance of poor Tom, in the tragedy of Lear, and those which I really experience. I, like him, was led through

ford and whirlpool, over bog and quagmire; and though knives were not laid under my pillow, minced horse-hair was strewed upon my sheets: like him, I was made to ride on a hard-trotting horse through the most dangerous ways, and found at the end of my journey that I had only been coursing my own shadow.

As much a sufferer as I am by the behaviour of the women in general, I must not forget to remark, that the pertness and sauciness of an old maid is particularly offensive to me. I cannot help thinking that the virginity of these ancient misses is at least as ridiculous as my own celibacy. If I am to be condemned for having never made an offer, they are as much to blame for having never accepted one. If I am to be derided for having never married, who never attempted to make a conquest, they are more properly the objects of derision who are still unmarried, after having made so many. Numberless are the proposals they have rejected, according to their own account: and they are eternally boasting of the havoc they have formerly made among the knights, baronets, and squires, at Bath, Tunbridge, and Epsom; while a tattered madrigal, perhaps a snip of hair, or the portrait of a cherry-cheeked gentleman in a milk-white periwig, are the only remaining proofs of those beauties, which are now withered, like the short-lived rose, and have only left the virgin thorn remaining.

Believe me, Mr. Town, I am almost afraid to trust you with the publication of this epistle; the ladies, whom I last mentioned, will be so exasperated on reading it, that I must expect no quarter at their hands for the future, since they are gene

rally as little inclined to forgiveness in their old age, as they were to pity and compassion in their youth. One expedient, however, is left me, which, if put in execution, will effectually screen me from their resentment.

I shall be happy, therefore, if by your means I may be permitted to inform the ladies, that as fusty an animal as they think me, it is not impossible, by a little gentler treatment than I have hitherto met with, I may be humanized into a husband. As an inducement to them to relieve me from my present uneasy circumstances, you may assure them, that I am rendered so exceedingly tractable by the very severe discipline I have undergone, that they may mould and fashion me to their minds with case; and, consequently, that by marrying me, a woman will save herself all that trouble which a wife of any spirit is obliged to take with an unruly husband, who is absurd enough to expect from her a strict performance of the marriage vow, even in the very minute article of obedience: that, so far from contradicting a lady, I shall be mighty well satisfied if she contents herself with contradicting me: that, if I happen at any time inadvertently to thwart her inclinations, I shall think myself rightly served if she boxes my ears, spits in my face, or treads upon my corns: that, if I approach her lips when she is not in a kissing humour, I shall expect she will bite me by the nose; or if I take her by the hand at an improper season, that she will instantly begin to pinch, scratch, and claw, and apply her fingers to those purposes which they were certainly intended by nature to fulfil. Add to these accomplishments, so requisite to make the married

state happy, that I am not much turned of fifty, can tie on my cravat, fasten a button, or mend a hole in my stocking without any assistance.

COWPER.

DOCTORS DIFFER.

THE doctors disagreed. According to four firstrate opinions, I groaned at one and the same time under rheumatism proper, rheumatic gout, gout proper, and an affection in the spinous process. The serious signs of one were the favourable symptoms of another, and the prescriptions of the first in direct oppugnancy to the principles of the last. To-day, I was to drink water at Buxton, tomorrow to drink water at Bath, on Wednesday I was to go to Italy, and on Thursday I had better stay at home.

The fact was, the doctors could not make out my case.

Reader, if by mischance thou art one of those unhappy persons whom the climate of our famous mother England, in punishment of thy many sins in chattering French instead of thy kindly vernacular, in giving half a guinea to Italians instead of three shillings and sixpence to Britons, in cleaving to wine and eschewing beer,-hath touched with her insular cramp in shoulders, elbows, wrists, fingers, back, loins, knees, ankles, or toes,

if such be the case, go not, I entreat thee for thy good, to any of the faculty, whether physician, surgeon, apothecary, or druggist, licensed or unlicensed; save thy good coin, gentle rheumatic, in thy purse for better merchandise and laissez aller les choses; torment not the creature with drenches

and bandages, and peradventure it will ache thee some months the less for being entertained civilly; at all events thou wilt have economized so much money, escaped so much physic, and it will go harder with thee than with any body else, if thou get not well again every whit as soon.

True it is, though I speak it to my shame, that I did, in the impatience of my heart, betake my. self to medicine for relief. It was promised to me abundantly. I am ready to communicate to any earnest inquirer twenty and five infallible prescriptions, every one of which has effected so many cures, that it is somewhat surprising that the combined action of all of them together has not, a long time ago, driven rheumatism clean out of the United Kingdom. I never met with any of these redeemed ones, but, as Sancho says, he, who told me the story, said that it was so certain and true, that I might well, whenever I told it to another, affirm and swear that I had seen them all myself. There was, indeed, no resisting the kindness of my friends; I was all things to all men and to all women; I ate this to please my cousin Lucy, and drank that to oblige my cousin Margaret; I was steamed by one, showered by another, just escaped melting by a third, and was nearly boiled to the consistency of a pudding for the love of an oblong gentleman of Ireland, who had cured so many of his tenants on a bog in Tipperary by that process, that he offered to stake his salvation upon the suc cess of the experiment. It failed, and, the article not being transferable, I forgave him the debt.

COLERIDGE.

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