between Chatterers and Monkeys, and Praters and Parrots, is too obvious not to occur at once: Grunters and Growlers may be justly compared to Hogs: Snarlers are Curs; and the Spitfire Passionate are a sort of wild Cats, that will not bear stroking; but will pur when they are pleased. Complainers are Screech-Owls and Story-tellers, always repeating the same dull note, are Cuckows. Poets, that prick up their ears at their own hideous braying, are no better than Asses: Critics in general are venomous Serpents, that delight in hissing; and some of them who have got by heart a few technical terms without knowing their meaning, are no other than magpies. I myself, who have crowed to the whole town for near three years past, may perhaps put my readers in mind of a Dunghill-Cock: but as I must acquaint them that they will hear the last of me on this day fortnight, I hope they will then consider me as a Swan, who is supposed to sing sweetly at his dying moments.

W

No. CXXXIX. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23.

Sume seperbiam

Quaesitam meritis.

Now to the utmost all your labours charge,
And shew your mighty consequence at large.

HOR

I WROTE to my Cousin Village, informing him of my design to finish with the next number; and have received the following answer from him, which I shall lay before my readers:

DEAR COUSIN,

IT was not without some regret that I received advice of your intentions to bid adieu to the public; for as you had been so kind as to introduce me to their notice, I begun to indulge all the weakness and vanity of a young author; and had almost persuad, ed myself that I was the principal support of your papers. Conscious of my own importance, I expect that you will do me the justice to acknowledge how much you are indebted to the assistance of your very ingenious Cousin; and I care not how many compliments you pay me on my wit and learning: but at the same time I must beg leave to put in a caveat against your disposing of me in what manner you yourself please. Writers of Essays think themselves at liberty to do what they will with the characters they have introduced into their works; as writers of tragedy, in order to heighten the plot, have often brought their heroes to an untimely end, when they have died quietly many years before in their beds; or as our chronicles of daily occurrences, put a duke to death, give away an heiress in marriage, or shoot off an admiral's leg, whenever they please. Mr. Addison, while he was carrying on the Spectator, said, he would kill Sir Roger de Coverley, that no

body else might murder him.' In like manner, my dear Cousin, you may perhaps take it into your head to cut me off: you may make an end of me by a cold caught in patridge-shooting, or break my neck in a stag-hunt. Or you may rather chuse to settle me perhaps with a rich old country-dowager, or press me into the army, or clap me on board of a man of war. But I desire that you will not get rid of me by any of these means; but permit me to assure your readers, that I am alive and merry; and this is to let them know, that I am in good health at this present writing.

Your papers, I assure you, have made a great noise in the country; and the most intelligent among us read you with as much satisfaction as the Evening Post, or the Weekly journals. I know more than one 'squire, who takes them in constantly with the Magazines; and I was told by the postmaster of a certain town, that they came down every week, under cover, to the butler of a member of parliament. There is a club of country parsons, who meet every Saturday at a neighbouring market-town, to be shaved and exchange sermons: they have a subscription for books and pamphlets; and the only periodical works ordered in by them are the Connoisseur, and the Critical and Monthly Reviews. I was lately introduced to this society, when the conversation happened to turn upon Mr. Town. A young curate, just come from Oxford, said he knew you very well at Christ-Church, and that you was a comical dog: but a Cantab. declared, no less positively, that you was either a pensioner of Trinity, or a fellow of Bennet college. People, indeed, are very much perplexed about the real author: some affirm, that you are a nobleman; and others will have it, that you are an actor; some say you are a young lawyer, some a physician, some a parson, and some an old woman.

The subjects of your papers have often been wrest

ed, to various interpretations by our penetrating geniuses; and you have hardly drawn a character that has not been fixed on one or other of the greatest personages in the nation. I once heard a countryjustice express his wonder that you was not taken up, and set on the pillory; and I myself, by some of my rural intelligence, have brought upon you the resentment of several honest 'squires, who long to horsewhip the scoundrel for putting them in print. Others again are quite at a loss how to pick out your meaning, and in vain turn over their Bailey's Dictionary for an explanation of several fashionable phrases; which, though they have enriched the town language, have not yet made their way into the dialect of the country. Many exquisite strokes of humour are also lost upon us, on account of our distance from the scene of action; and that wit which very brisk and lively upon the spot, often loses mach of its spirit in the carriage, and sometimes wholly evaporates in the post-bag.

moralists are very apt to flatter yourselves that You are doing a vast deal of good by your labours; but whatever reformation you may have worked in town, give me leave to tell you, that you have sometimes done us harm in the country, by the bare mention of the vices and follies now in vogue. From your intelligence, some of our most polite ladies have learned that it is highly genteel to have a onte; and some have copied the fashion so exactly,

play at cards on Sundays. Your papers upon dress set all our belles at work in following the mode you no sooner took notice of the cocked hats, but every hat in the parish was turned up be hind and before; and when you told us that the town beauties went naked, our rural damsels immediately began to throw off their clothes. Our gentlemen have been also taught by you all the new arts of betting and gaming: and the only coffee-house in

one little town, where the most topping inhabitants are used to meet to play at draughts and backgammon, has, from the great increase of gamesters who resort to it, been elegantly christened by the name of White's.

As to the small share which I myself have had in your work, you may be sure every body here is hugely delighted with it; at least you may be sure, that I will say nothing to the contrary. I have done my best to contribute to the entertainment of your readers; and, as the name of Steele is not forgotten in the Spectator, though Addison has run away with almost all the honour, I am in hopes, that whenever the great Mr. Town is mentioned, they may possibly think at the same time on

Your affectionate Cousin and Coadjutor,

VILLAGE.

After this account, which my Cousin has sent me, of the reception I have met with in the country, it will be proper to say smething of my reception here: in town. I shall therefore consider myself in the threefold capacity of Connoisseur, Critic, and Cénsor-General. As a Connoisseur, in the confined sense of the word, I must own I have met with several mortifications. I have neither been made F. R. S. nor even a member of the Academy of Bourdeaux or Petersburg. They have left me out of the list of of Trustees to the British Museum; and his Majes ty of Naples, though he presented an "Account of

of the Curiosities found in Herculaneum" to each of the universities, never sent one to me. I have not been celebrated in the Philosophical Transactions, or in any of our Magazines of Arts and Sciences; nor have I been styled tres illustre or tres scavant in any of the foreign Mercuries or Journals Literaires. Once, indeed, I soothed myself in the vain thoughts of having been distinguished by the