culty in selection takes its rise. A man who sits down to a table where there is but one dish, will, if he is hungry, make a hearty meal of that; but if the board be laden with a profusion of different delicacies, he will, however sharp set, make some pause ere he begins to consider against which the first attack of his appetite shall be directed.

In a situation, much resembling either of the preceding which I have described, do I frequently find myself at the beginning of a paper. For either my attention, like that of the traveller, is so absorbed in the contemplation of distant images, and so distracted by the multiplicity of surrounding objects, that while I gaze at them all with undeciding admiration, I advance not a step towards the completion of my design;-or, like the gentleman at table, my appetite is solicited by so great a variety of delicacies all equally tempting, that while I am eager to taste them all, I know not on which to begin;-or (which is as applicable and expressive a simile as either of the foregoing), my mind, like the coffin of the prophet of Mecca, is so equally assailed on every side by the magnetism of surrounding attractions, that it hangs in suspense between them all, without the power to incline to either.

In almost all cases, where the judgment is unable to decide, chance, however little mankind in general may be inclined to confess it, is the best and only arbitrator. The biographer of the great La Mancha freely owns, that in all points of the road which admitted of hesitation, he did not scruple to leave it, according to the laudable custom of knights errant from time immemorial, to chance, or what is nearly the same thing, to the judgment of Rosinante. And it is related of some French judge, who was remarked throughout his whole practice for the almost infallible justice of his decrees, that whenever any extraordinary case occurred, the circumstances of which

were so perplexed as to render him incapable of giving a decided opinion in favour of either side, with satisfaction to his own conscience, he was accustomed to retire to his closet, and refer it to the final decision of the die. For my own part, so firm is my reliance on the arbitration of chance, that I can assure my readers, many is the good paper, for the subject of which they are indebted to her interference; many are the hints which she has been kind enough to throw in my way, by an accidental dip into a poetical miscellany, or an Ainsworth's dictionary; or a casual glance at a newspaper advertisement, or a pamphlet in a bookseller's shop-window. Nor indeed is it possible that chance, if trusted to, should suggest any subject, out of which something might not be gathered, capable enough of being rendered serviceable to purposes either of instruction or amusement. This I believe my readers will be ready to allow, when I assure them, that even this paper, totally unconnected as it may appear to them with any use whatever, is calculated to serve as a precept of morality. I intend it indeed as a striking instance of the folly of not confining one's attention to one particular object; as he who has many objects in view, cannot attend properly to the pursuit of any one of them. Thus there is nothing however inconsiderable, from which morality may not be derived; whether it be from the contemplation of a broomstick, or of the chubby countenances of tomb-stone cherubim. And for a text' (or a motto) says the celebrated author of Tristram Shandy-Cappadocia, Pontus, and Phrygia, will answer as well as any sentence out of any book whatever.'

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There are however other circumstances still more embarrassing in the choice of a subject. That there is nothing new under the sun,' was the no less true than lamentable complaint of some ancient philosopher. And if this want of novelty obtained in his

time, what can a poor authorling of the present day expect? when so many hungry followers have been for ages gathering up every crumb of invention which had fallen from the tables of the ancients, and picking the bones of every disputation on every topic, over and over again, with the most industrious eagerness. It could not fail, I am certain, to excite the commiseration of my readers, were I to relate how many bright ideas and brilliant expressions I have rejected, merely because they have been thought and expressed in the same manner a hundred times before; how often, after wandering in vain to find some untrodden path of original invention, I have been tempted to beat the beaten way of imitation; and to take another turn out of the threadbare topics of 'virtue and vice,' or, the return of Ulysses.'

But though to place common objects in new lights, to clothe familiar ideas in unhackneyed language, so as to give an air of novelty to conceptions with which every body is acquainted, be a labour requiring the united efforts of ingenuity and judgment; yet even when this is accomplished, the reader must have a certain coincidence of thought, a sympathy of feeling, and must peruse a paper with the same spirit with which it was written, ere he can enter fully into the ideas, and relish the sentiments of the author. Hence is it, reader, that you and I have, in all probability, frequently differed in opinion, during the course of these my lucubrations. Every paper must infallibly borrow its hue from the humour, or the accident of the moment, in which it is written. Now if it has, as it no doubt often has, so happened, that you have taken up in a merry humour, what I have written in a grave one, or vice versa, that you have been very solemn when I have been disposed to be very witty, it is ten to one, but both my wit and my gravity have been totally lost upon you: that the sprightliest sallies of the former have been un

able to derange the phlegmatic primness of your muscular economy; and that instead of receiving with due reverence the precepts of the latter, you have been wickedly inclined to treat me and my morality with most unchristian ridicule.

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Hearing the other day that a fellow-citizen of mine had exercised his genius in the composition of a tragedy, I took the liberty of inquiring the subject of it, and was informed by him, after considerable hesitation, that it was on no particular subject.' This is, I believe, nearly the predicament in which my present paper stands: for though I flatter myself I have pointed out in it what a paper ought to be, it has been rather by example than precept; by instancing in an eminent degree what it ought not to be. But as I have gone on thus far without selecting any particular subject, and as I am now too far advanced to dip for a new one, in any of the books which lie upon my table, I shall conclude my paper with a letter, in which my fellow-citizens will find such rules laid down, as will, if well observed, contribute, no doubt, to render them good and useful citizens of the greater world. And I flatter myself, my correspondent will forgive my publishing it with such a view, though contrary to his express desire. TO GREGORY GRIFFIN, Esq.

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DEAR SIR,

"Do what you are bid,”—“ come when you are called,"-" speak when you are spoken to,”—and "shut the door after you.' -Such were the precepts, Mr. Griffin, which in my earlier days I imbibed from the tongue of my grandmother; such was the path of morality chalked out for me, by following which I was to become an honour to my family, a credit to my country, and Lord Chancellor. For you must know, Sir, that from my infancy, this was the destined goal to which my course of glory was to be

directed. As I was the darling of my grandmother, to her was left the sole care and superintendence of my education. For the furtherance therefore of her projects in my favour, it was resolved, when I was eight years old, to send me to Eton. At my setting out her former maxims were reinforced by the addition of a few more equally serviceable exhortations, viz. " to be a good boy"-" mind my book"-"never to get on horseback till I could ride”- nor to venture into the water till I could swim"-and above all, "not to make myself sick by the too hasty expenditure of the sixpence, which she bestowed on me at parting."-All these maxims, Mr. Griffin, comprehensive as they are, I have carefully treasured up in my mind; and I write now, merely to ask your opinion of their efficacy to make me an honour to my family, and every thing else which her fond hopes have cut me out for. At any rate, Mr. Griffin, there are, I am confident, many of our fellow-citizens, who have far inferior precepts for their moral conduct than myself; and I must beg, therefore, that you will not take advantage of my letter, by betraying my secret assurances of success, to raise me up competitors in my progress to the Woolsack.

I am, Sir, yours,

B.'

No 33. MONDAY, JULY 2, 1787.

Aliæ, nullis hominum cogentibus, ipsæ,
Sponte suà veniunt.-VIRG.

Some without man's compulsive art,
Shoot forth self-born.

THE philosopher Xanthus, says L'Estrange, going one day, attended by his slave, Esop, to a garden near the city, was asked by its owner (who in course