Nor have your exploits on the turf rendered you less famous. Let the annals of Pond and Heber deliver down to posterity the glorious account of what plates you have won, what matches you made, and how often the Knowing Ones have been taken in ; when, for private reasons, you have found it necessary that your horse should run on the wrong side of the post, or be distanced after winning the first heat. I need not mention your own skill in Horsemanship, and in how many matches you have condescended to ride yourself; for in this particular, it must be acknowledged, you cannot be outdone, even by your groom or jockey.

All the world will witness the many instances of your courage, which has often been tried and exerted in Hyde-Park, and behind Montague House: nay, you have sometimes been known to draw your sword most heroically at the opera, the play, and even at private routes and assemblies. How often have you put to flight a whole army of watchmen, constables, and beadles, with the justices at their head! You have cleared a whole bawdy-house before you, and taken many a tavern by storm: you have pinned a waiter to the ground; and have, besides, proved yourself an excellent marksman, by shooting a post-boy flying. With so much valour and firmness, it is not to be doubted but that you would behave with the same intrepidity, if occasion called, upon HounslowHeath, or in Maidenhead Thicket: and, if it were necessary, you would as boldly resign yourself up to the hands of Jack Ketch, and swing as genteelly as Maclean or Gentleman Harry. The same noble spirit would likewise enable you to aim the pistol at your own head, and go out of the world like a man of honour and a gentleman.

But your courage has not rendered you insusceptible of the softer passions, to which your heart has been ever inclined. To say nothing of your gallan

tries with women of fashion, your intrigues with milliners and mantua-makers, or seducing raw country girls and innocent tradesmen's daughters, you have formerly been so constant in your devoirs to Mrs. Douglas, and the whole sisterhood, that you sacrificed your health and constitution in their service. But above all, witness that sweet delicate creature, whom you have now in keeping, and for whom you entertain such a strong and faithful passion, that for her sake, you have tenderly and affectionately deserted your wife and family.

Though, from your elegant taste for pleasures, you appear made for the gay world; yet these polite amusements have not called off your attention from the more serious studies of Politics and Religion. In Politics you have made such a wonderful proficiency, both in theory and practice, that you have discovered the good of your country to be a mere joke, and con, firmed your own interest, as well as established your consequence, in the proper place, by securing half a dozen boroughs. As to Religion, you soon unravelled every mystery of that; and not only know the Bible to be as romantic as the Alcoran, but have also written several volumes, to make your discoveries plainer to meaner capacities. The ridiculous prejudices of a foolish world unhappily prevent your publishing them at present; but you have wisely provided, that they shall one day see the light; when, I doubt not, they will be deemed invaluable, and be as universally admired as the posthumous works of Lord Bolingbroke.

I am,

May it please your Grace!

or, My Lord! or, Sir!

in humble admiration of your excellencies,

&c. &c. &c.

No. CXXIII. THURSDAY, JUNE 3.

Quo patre sit natus, num ignota matre inhonestus?

Say, who can claim the Foundling for their Son?
My Lord and Molly? or her Grace and John?

HOR.

THE notices in the public papers that the Foundling Hospital will be open for the reception of infants in general under a certain age, have, I find, given universal satisfaction. The consequences of a big belly do not appear so dreadful as heretofore; and it was but yesterday that a young fellow of intrigue told me, he was happy that his children would no longer be thrown out of the Hospital, as he himself had been out of Arthur's, by black balls. For my part, though I have no lady in keeping, no child by my house-keeper, nor any other affair of gallantry on my hands, which makes me wish to swell the number of infants maintained by that charity, I must own myself to be exceedingly rejoiced at the extension of so benevolent a design. I look upon it as the certain preservation of many hundreds in embryo: nor shall we now hear of so many helpless babes birth strangled in a necessary, or smothered by the ditch-delivered drab.' As a bastard is accounted in law quasi nullius filius, the child of nobody, and related to nobody, and yet is blessed with as fair proportions, and capable of an equal degree of perfection with honest madam's issue,' it is surely an act of great humanity thus to rescue them from untimely deaths and other miseries, which they do not merit, whatever may be the guilt of their parents.

Though it is obvious that this Hospital will be made the receptacle of many legitimate children, it

is no less certain that the rich, as well as the poor will often send their base-born bantlings to this ge-. neral nursery. The wealthy man of quality, or substantial cit, may have their private family-reasons for not owning the fruits of their secret amours, and be glad to put the little living witness of their intrigues out of the way. For this reason, an history of the Foundlings received there would be very curious and entertaining, as it would contain many anecdotes, not to be learned from any parish register. The reflections that passed in my mind on this subject, gave occasion the other evening to the following dream :....

Methought, as I was standing at the private door of the Hospital, where a crowd of females (each of them with a child in her arms) were pressing to get in, an elderly gentleman, whom from his white staff I took to be a governor of the charity, very courteously invited me to come in. I accepted his offer; and having seated myself near him, ' Mr. Town, says he, I am conscious that you look upon 'most of these little infants as the offspring of so 6 many unmarried fathers and maiden mothers which have been clandestinely smuggled into the world. Know then, that I am one of those guardian Genii, appointed to superintend the fortunes of Bastards therefore, as this Hospital is more immedi'ately under my tuition, I have put on this disguise; and, if you please, will let you into the secret history of those babes who are my wards, and their parents.'

I assured him, his intelligence would be highly agreeable; and several now coming up to offer their children, he resumed his discourse. Observe, 'said he, that jolly little rogue, with plump cheeks, 'a florid complexion, blue eyes, and sandy locks. We have here already several of his brethren by the mother's side; some fair, some brown, and

some black and yet they are all supposed to have come by the same father. The mother has for many years been housekeeper to a gentleman, who cannot see that her children bear the marks ' of his own servants, and that this very brat is the ' exact resemblance of his coachman.

That puling whining infant there, with a pale face, emaciated body, and distorted limbs, is the 'forced product of viper-broth and cantharides. It is the offspring of a worn-out buck of quality, who, at the same time he debauched the mother, ruined her constitution by a filthy disease, in consequence of which, she, with much difficulty, 'brought forth this just image of himself in minia

ture.

The next that offers, is the issue of a careful 'cit; who, as he keeps an horse for his own riding " on Sundays, which he lets out all the rest of the week, keeps also a mistress for his recreation " on the seventh day, who lets herself out on the other six. That other babe owes his birth likewise to the city; but is the joint product, as we may 6 say, of two fathers; who being great economists in their pleasures as well as in their business, have 'set up a whore and an one-horse chair in partnership together.

That pert young baggage there, who so boldly · presses forward with her brat, is not the mother of 'it, but is maid to a single lady of the strictest 'honour and unblemished reputation. About a ' twelvemonth ago, her mistress went to Bath for the benefit of her health; and ten months after 'she travelled into North Wales to see a relation; 'from whence she is just returned. We may sup" pose, that she took a fancy to that pretty babe, while in the country, and brought it up to town with her, in order to place it here as she did a 'few years ago to another charming boy; which