ble eras when the greatest scenes have to fly. For all which I shall not look on been transacted on the human stage.

Such histories as these do, in reality very much resemble a newspaper, which consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not. They may, likewise, be compared to a stage-coach, which performs constantly the same course, empty as well as full. The writer, indeed, seems to think himself obliged to keep even pace with Time, whose amanuensis he is; and, like his master, travels as slowly through centuries of monkish dulness, when the world seems to have been asleep, as through that bright and busy age so nobly distinguished by the excellent Latin poet.—

Ad confligendum venientibus undique pœnis,
Omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu
Horrida contremuere sub altis ætheris auris ;
In dubioque fuit sub utrorum regna cadendum
Omnibus humanis esset, terraque marique.

Of which we wish we could give our read-
er a more adequate translation than that
by Mr. Creech:

When dreadful Carthage frighted Rome with arms,
And all the world was shook with fierce alarms;
Whilst undecided yet, which part should fall,
Which nation rise the glorious lord of all.

Now, it is our purpose, in the ensuing pages, to pursue a contrary method. When any extraordinary scene presents itself, (as we trust will often be the case,) we shall spare no pains nor paper to open it at large to our reader; but if whole years should pass without producing any thing worthy his notice, we shall not be afraid of a chasm in our history, but shall hasten on to matters of consequence, and leave such periods of time totally unobserved.

myself as accountable to any court of critical jurisdiction whatever: for as I am, in reality, the founder of a new province of writing, so I am at liberty to make what laws I please therein. And these laws, my readers, whom I consider as my subjects, are bound to believe in and to obey; with which, that they may readily and cheerfully comply, I do hereby assure them, that I shall principally regard their ease and advantage in all such institutions: for I do not, like a jure divino tyrant, imagine that they are my slaves, or my commodity. I am, indeed, set over them for their own good only, and was created for their use, and not they for mine. Nor do I doubt, while I make their interest the great rule of my writings, they will unanimously concur in supporting my dignity, and in rendering me all the honour I shall deserve or desire.

CHAPTER II.

Religious cautions against showing too much favour to bastards; and a great discovery made by Mrs. Deborah Wilkins.

EIGHT months after the celebration of the nuptials between Captain Blifil and Miss Bridget Allworthy, a young lady of great beauty, merit, and fortune, was Miss Bridget, by reason of a fright, delivered of a fine boy. The child was indeed to all appearance perfect; but the midwife discovered it was born a month before its full time.

Though the birth of an heir by his beloved sister was a circumstance of great joy to Mr. Allworthy, yet it did not alienate his affections from the little foundling, to whom he had been godfather, had given his own name of Thomas, and whom he had hitherto seldom failed of visiting, at

These are indeed to be considered as blanks in the grand lottery of time. We, therefore, who are the registers of that lottery, shall imitate those sagacious persons who deal in that which is drawn at Guild-least once a day, in his nursery. hall, and who never trouble the public with the many blanks they dispose of; but, when a great prize happens to be drawn, the newspapers are presently filled with it, and the world is sure to be informed at whose office it was sold: indeed, commonly two or three different offices lay claim to the honour of having disposed of it; by which, I suppose, the adventurers are given to understand that certain brokers are in the secrets of fortune, and indeed of her cabinet council.

My reader then is not to be surprised, if, in the course of this work, he shall find some chapters very short, and others altogether as long; some that contain only the time of a single day, and others that comprise years; in a word, if my history sometimes seems to stand still, and sometimes

He told his sister, if she pleased, the newborn infant should be bred up together with little Tommy, to which she consented, though with some little reluctance: for she had truly a great complaisance for her brother; and hence she had always behaved towards the foundling with rather more kindness than ladies of rigid virtue can sometimes bring themselves to show to these children, who, however innocent, may be truly called the living monuments of incontinence.

The captain could not so easily bring himself to bear what he condemned as a fault in Mr.Allworthy. He gave him frequent hints, that to adopt the fruits of sin, was to give countenance to it. He quoted several texts, (for he was well read in scripture,) such as, He visits the sins of the father upon the chil

dren; and, the fathers have eaten sour grapes, | my reader is at present entirely unacquaintand the children's teeth are set on edge, &c. ed; and of which the economy was so rare Whence he argued the legality of punishing and extraordinary, that I fear it will shock the crime of the parent on the bastard. He the utmost credulity of many married persaid, "Though the law did not positively al-sons. low the destroying such base-born children, yet it held them to be the children of nobody; that the church considered them as the children of nobody; and that, at the best, they ought to be brought up to the lowest and vilest offices of the commonwealth.'

CHAPTER III.

The description of a domestic government, founded upon rules directly contrary to those of Aristotle.

My reader may please to remember he hath been informed, that Jenny Jones had lived some years with a certain schoolmaster, who had, at her earnest desire, instructed her in Latin, in which, to do justice to her genius, she had so improved herself, that she was become a better scholar than her master.

Indeed, though this poor man had undertaken a profession to which learning must be allowed necessary, this was the least of his commendations. He was one of the best

the same time, master of so much pleasantry and humour, that he was reputed the wit of the country; and all the neighbouring gentlemen were so desirous of his company, that, as denying was not his talent, he spent much time at their houses, which he might, with more emolument, have spent in his school.

Mr. Allworthy answered to all this, and much more, which the captain had urged on this subject, 'That, however guilty the parents might be, the children were certainly innocent; that as to the texts he had quoted, the former of them was a particular denunciation against the Jews, for the sin of idolatry, of relinquishing and hating their heavenly King; and the latter was parabolically spoken, and rather intended to denote the certain and necessary consequences of sin, than any express judgment against it. But to represent the Almighty as aveng-natured fellows in the world, and was, at ing the sins of the guilty on the innocent, was indecent, if not blasphemous, as it was to represent him acting against the first principles of natural justice, and against the original notions of right and wrong, which he himself had implanted in our minds; by which we were to judge, not only in all matters which were not revealed, but even of the truth of revelation itself. He said, he knew It may be imagined, that a gentleman so many held the same principles with the cap-qualified, and so disposed, was in no dantain on this head; but he was himself firmly ger of becoming formidable to the learned convinced to the contrary, and would pro- seminaries of Eton or Westminster. To vide in the same manner for this poor infant, speak plainly, his scholars were divided into as if a legitimate child had had the fortune two classes, in the upper of which was a to have been found in the same place.' young gentleman, the son of a neighbouring While the captain was taking all oppor-squire, who, at the age of seventeen, was tunities to press these and such like arguments, to remove the little foundling from Mr. Allworthy's, of whose fondness for him he began to be jealous, Mrs. Deborah had made a discovery, which, in its event, threat- The stipend arising hence would hardly ened at least to prove more fatal to poor have indulged the schoolmaster in the luxTommy, than all the reasonings of the cap-uries of life, had he not added to this office tain.

Whether the insatiable curiosity of this good woman had carried her on to that business, or whether she did it to confirm herself in the good graces of Mrs. Blifil, who, notwithstanding her outward behaviour to the foundling, frequently abused the infant in private, and her brother too, for his fondness to it, I will not determine; but she had now, s she conceived, fully detected the father of the foundling.

just entered into his syntaxis; and in the lower was a second son of the same gentleman, who, together with seven parishboys, was learning to read and write.

those of clerk and barber, and had not Mr. Allworthy added to the whole an annuity of ten pounds, which the poor man received every Christmas, and with which he was enabled to cheer his heart during that sacred festival.

Among his other treasures, the pedagogue had a wife, whom he had married out of Mr. Allworthy's kitchen for her fortune, viz. twenty pounds, which she had there amassed.

This woman was not very amiable in her Now, as this was a discovery of great person. Whether she sat to my friend Hoconsequence, it may be necessary to trace garth, or no, I will not determine: but she it from the fountain-head. We shall there- exactly resembled the young woman who fore very minutely lay open those previous is pouring out her mistress's tea in the third matters by which it was produced; and for picture of the Harlot's Progress. She was that purpose we shall be obliged to reveal besides, a professed follower of that noble sect all the secrets of a little family with which | founded by Xantippe of old; by means of

which she became more formidable in the school than her husband; for, to confess the truth, he was never master there, or any where else, in her presence.

·

hostile operations: and, such additional strength soon arrived to corroborate her suspicion; for not long after, the husband and wife being at dinner, the master said to Though her countenance did not denote his maid, Damihi aliquid potum: upon much natural sweetness of temper, yet this which the poor girl smed, perhaps at the was, perhaps, somewhat soured by a cir- badness of the Latin, and, when her miscumstance which generally poisons matri- tress cast her eyes on her, blushed, possibly monial felicity; for children are rightly call- with a consciousness of having laughed at ed the pledges of love; and her husband, her master. Mrs. Partridge, upon this, though they had been married nine years, immediately fell into a fury, and discharg had given her no such pledges; a defaulted the trencher, on which she was eating, for which he had no excuse, either from age at the head of poor Jenny, crying out, or health, being not yet thirty years old, and You impudent whore, do you play tricks what they call a jolly brisk young man. with my husband before my face?" and at Hence arose another evil, which produced the same instant rose from her chair with a no little uneasiness to the poor pedagogue, knife in her hand, with which, most probaof whom she maintained so constant a jeal- bly, she would have executed very tragical ousy, that he durst hardly speak to one wo- vengeance, had not the girl taken the adman in the parish; for the least degree of vantage of being nearer the door than her civility, or even correspondence, with any mistress, and avoided her fury by running female, was sure to bring his wife upon her away: for, as to the poor husband, whether back, and his own. surprise had rendered him motionless, or fear, (which is full as probable,) had restrained him from venturing at any opposition, he sat staring and trembling in his chair; nor did he once offer to move or speak, till his wife, returning from the pursuit of Jenny, made some defensive measures ne

In order to guard herself against matrimonial injuries in her own house, as she kept one maid servant, she always took care to choose her out of that order of females, whose faces are taken as a kind of security for their virtue of which number Jenny Jones, as the reader hath been before in-cessary for his own preservation; and he formed, was one.

As the face of this young woman might be called pretty good security of the before-mentioned kind, and as her behaviour had been always extremely modest, which is the certain consequence of understanding in women, she had passed above four years at Mr. Partridge's, (for that was the schoolmaster's name,) without creating the least suspicion in her mistress. Nay, she had been treated with uncommon kindness, and her mistress had permitted Mr. Partridge to give her those instructions which have been before commemorated.

But it is with jealousy as with the gout: when such distempers are in the blood, there is never any security against their breaking out; and that often on the slightest occasions, and when least suspected.

Thus it happened to Mrs. Partridge, who had submitted four years to her husband's teaching this young woman, and had suffered her often to neglect her work in order to pursue her learning. For, passing by one day, as the girl was reading, and her master leaning over her, the girl, I know not for what reason, suddenly started up from her chair; and this was the first time that suspicion ever entered into the head of her mistress.

This did not, however, at that time, discover itself, but lay lurking in her mind, like a concealed enemy, who waits for a reinforcement of additional strength before he openly declares himself, and proceeds upon

likewise was obliged to retreat, after the example of the maid.

This good woman was, no more than
Othello, of a disposition

To make a life of jealousy,
And follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions.........
With her as well as him,

To be once in doubt,
Was once to be resolved.

She therefore ordered Jenny immediately
to pack up her alls, and begone, for she was
determined she should not sleep that night
within her walls.

Mr. Partridge had profited too much by experience to interpose in a matter of this nature. He therefore had recourse to his usual receipt of patience; for though he was not a great adept in Latin, he remembered, and well understood, the advice contained in these words:

Love fit, quod bene fertur onus.
In English,

A burden becomes lightest, when it is well borne. Which he had always in his mouth; and of which, to say the truth, he had often occasion to experience the truth.

Jenny offered to make protestations of her innocence; but the tempest was too strong for her to be heard. She then betook herself to the business of packing, for which a small quantity of brown paper sufficed; and, having received her small pittance of wages, she returned home.

As we are very far from believing in any such heathen goddess, or from encouraging any superstition, so we wish Mr. John Fr, or some other such philosopher, would bestir himself a little, in order to find out the real cause of this sudden transition from good to bad fortune, which hath been so often remarked, and of which we shall proceed to give an instance; for it is our province to relate facts, and we shall leave causes to persons of much higher genius.

The schoolmaster and his consort passed | esis, a deity who was thought by them to their time unpleasantly enough that even-look with an invidious eye on human feliciing; but something or other happened be- ty, and to have a peculiar delight in overfore the next morning, which a little abated turning it. the fury of Mrs. Partridge; and she at length admitted her husband to make his excuses. To which she gave the readier belief, as he had, instead of desiring her to recal Jenny, professed a satisfaction in her being dismissed, saying, she was grown of little use as a servant, spending all her time in reading, and was become, moreover, very pert and obstinate: for, indeed, she and her master had lately had frequent disputes in literature; in which, as hath been said, she was become greatly his superior. This, however, he would by no means allow; and, as he called her persisting in the right, obstinacy, he began to hate her with no small inveteracy.

CHAPTER IV.

Containing one of the most bloody battles, or rather duels, that were ever recorded in domestic history.

Mankind have always taken great delight in knowing and descanting on the actions of others. Hence there have been, in all ages and nations, certain places set apart for public rendezvous, where the curious might meet and satisfy their mutual curiosity. Among these the barbers' shops have justly borne the pre-eminence. Among the Greeks, barbers' news was a proverbial expression; and Horace, in one of his epistles, makes honourable mention of the Roman barbers in the same light.

For the reasons mentioned in the pre- Those of England are known to be no ceding chapter, and from some other matri- wise inferior to their Greek or Roman predemonial concessions, well known to most cessors. You there see foreign affairs dishusbands, and which like the secrets of cussed in a manner little inferior to that free-masonry, should be divulged to none with which they are handled in the coffeewho are not members of that honourable house; and domestic occurrences are more fraternity, Mrs. Partridge was pretty well largely and freely treated in the former satisfied that she had condemned her hus- than in the latter. But this serves only for band without cause, and endeavoured by the men. Now, whereas the females of acts of kindness to make him amends for this country, especially those of the lower her false suspicion. Her passions were in- order, do associate themselves much more deed equally violent, whichever way they than those of other nations, our polity inclined for as she could be extremely an- would be highly deficient, if they had not gry, so could she be altogether as fond. some place set apart likewise for the indulBut though these passions ordinarily suc-gence of their curiosity, seeing they are in ceeds each other, and scarce twenty-four this no way inferior to the other half of the hours ever passed in which the pedagogue was not, in some degree, the object of both; yet, on extraordinary occasions, when the passion of anger had raised very high, the remission was usually longer; and so was the case at present; for she continued longer in a state of affability, after this fit of jealousy was ended, than her husband had ever known before; and, had it not been for some little exercises, which all the followers of Xantippe are obliged to perform daily, Mr. Partridge would have enjoyed a perfect serenity of several months.

species.

In enjoying, therefore, such place of rendezvous, the British fair ought to esteem themselves more happy than any of their foreign sisters; as I do not remember either to have read in history, or to have seen in my travels, any thing of the like kind.

This place, then, is no other than the chandler's shop, the known seat of all the news; or, as it is vulgarly called, gossiping, in every parish in England.

Mrs. Partridge being one day at this assembly of females, was asked by one of her Perfect calms at sea are always suspect- neighbours, if she had heard no news lately ed by the experienced mariner to be the of Jenny Jones? To which she answered in forerunners of a storm; and I know some the negative. Upon this the other replied, persons, who, without being generally the with a smile, that the parish was very much devotees of superstition, are apt to appre-obliged to her for having turned Jenny hend, that great and unusual peace or tran- away as she did. quillity will be attended with its opposite. For which reason the ancients used, on such occasions, to sacrifice to the goddess Nem

Mrs. Partridge, whose jealousy, as the reader well knows, was long since cured, and who had no other quarrel to her maid,

answered boldly, She did not know any ob- | head; her stays likewise, which were laced ligation the parish had to her on that ac- through one single hole at the bottom, burst count; for she believed Jenny had scarce left her equal behind her.