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 generally 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 resent

ment.

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 but by a little gentler treatment than I have hithero 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 exceeding tractable by the very severe discipline I have undergone, that they may mould and fashion me to their minds with ease; 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 satis. fied 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 in an improper season, that she will instantly begin to pinch, scratch and claw, and apply her fin

gers 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 an hole in my stocking without any assistance.

I am, SIR, your humble servant,

CHRISTOPHER IKONSIDE.

No. CXVI. THURSDAY, APRIL 15.

Despicere unde queas alios, passimque videre
Errare, atque viam palantes quaerere vitae.

Here each profession, and its tribe we view ;
Some toiling in the old, and some inventing new.

LUCRET.

THOSE parents who are unable to give their sons an estate, regard the educating them to one of the three great Professions of Law, Physic and Divinity, as putting them in the high road to acquire one. Hence it happens, that nineteen parts out of twenty of our young men are brought up with a view to Lambeth, the Seals, or Warwick-Lane. But alas! their hopes and expectations of rising by their professions are often frustrated; and the surprising numbers engaged in running the same race, necessarily justle one another. For though the courts of justice are tolerably supplied with matters of litigation; though there are many invalids and valetudinarians; and though great part of England is laid out in church-preferments; yet there is not in all the kingdom sufficient matter for legal contention, to employ a tenth part of those who have been trained

.

to engross deeds in their chambers, or to harangue at the bar: the number of patients bears no proportion to the swarms of the faculty, nor would it, though a consultation were to sit on every sick man, like carrion-flies upon a carcase: and the prodigious number of reverend divines infinitely exceeds that of those bishoprics, deaneries, prebends, rectories, , vicarages, &c. which when they are ordained, they conceive it to be part of their holy office to fill. From these frequent failures in each of the professions, the younger sons of great men often wish that they had been permitted to disgrace the family by some mercantile, or more plebeian occupation; while the son of the mechanic curses the pride of his father, who, instead of securing him a livelihood in his own business, has condemned him to starve in puddingsleeves, that he may do honour to his relations by being a gentleman.

The Three Professions being thus crowded with more candidates for business and preferment than can possibly be employed or promoted, has occasioned several irregularities in the conduct of the followers of each of them. The utter impossibility of supporting themselves in the usual method of practising Law, Physic, or Divinity, without clients, patients, or parishioners, has induced the labourers in each of those vocations to seek out new veins and branches. The young Solicitor, who finds he has nothing to do now he is out of his clerkship, offers his assistance in the transaction of all law affairs, by the public papers, and, like the advertising taylors, promises to work cheaper than any of his brethren; while the young Barrister, after having exhibited his tye-wig in Westminster-Hall during several terms, to no purpose, is obliged to forego the hope of rivalling Murray and Coke, and content himself with being the oracle of the courts of Carolina or Jamaica. The Graduate in Medicine, finding himself unsoli

cited for prescription or advice, and likely to starve by practising physic secundum artem, flies in the face of the college, and professes to cure all diseases by nostrums unmentioned in the dispensatory. He commences a thriving quack, and soon makes his way through the important medical degrees of walking on foot, riding on horseback, dispensing his drugs from a one-horse chaise, and, lastly, lolling in a chariot. The Divine, without living, cure, or lectureship, may perhaps incur transportation for illegal marriages, set up a theatrical-oratorical-Billingsgate chapel under the shelter of the toleration-act and the butchers of Clare-Market, or kindle the inward light in the bosoms of the Saints of Moorfields, and the Magdalens of Broad St. Giles's.

But notwithstanding these shoots, ingrafted as it were into the main body of the professions, it is still impossible for the vast multitude of Divines, Lawyers, and Physicians to maintain themselves, at any rate, within the pale of their respective employments. They have often been compelled, at least, to call in adventitious ones; and have sometimes totally abandoned their original undertakings. They have frequently made natural transitions into the occupations of each other, or have perhaps embraced other employments; which, though distinct from all three, and not usually dignified with the title of Professions, may fairly be considered in that light; since they are the sole means of support to many thousands, who toiled in vain for a subsistence in the three capital ones. On these professions, and their various followers, I shall here make some observations.

The first of these Professions is an author. The mart of literature is, indeed, one of the chief resorts of unbeneficed Divines, and Lawyers, and Physici ans without practice. There are at present in the world of Authors, Doctors of Physic, who (to use

the phrase of one of them) have no great fatigue from the business of their profession : many Clergymen, whose sermons are the most inconsiderable part of their compositions: and several Gentlemen of the Inns of Court who, instead of driving the quill over skins of parchment, lead it through all the mazes of modern novels, critiques, and pamphlets. Many likewise have embraced this profession, who were never bred to any other; and I might also mention the many bankrupt tradesmen and broken artificers, who daily enter into this new way of business, if by pursuing it in the same mechanical manner as their former occupations, they might not rather be regarded as following a trade than a profession.

The second of these professions is a Player. The ingenious gentlemen who assume the persons of the Drama, are composed of as great a variety of characters as those they represent. The history of the stage might afford many instances of those, who in the trade of death might have slain men, have yet condescended to deal counterfeit slaughters from their right hands, and administer harmless phials and bowls of poison. We might read also of persons, whose fists were intended to beat the "drum ecclesiastic," who have, with unexpected spirit become theatrical volunteers. In regard to the Law, many, who were originally designed to manifest their talents for elocution in Westminster-hall, have displayed them in Drury-Lane; and, it may be added, on theatrical authority, that

Not e'en Attorneys have this rage withstood,

But chang'd their pens for truncheons, ink for blood,
And, strange reverse!...died for their country's good.

I will not so far affront those gentlemen who were ever engaged in the study of the three honourable Professions of Law, Physic, and Divinity, as to sup