the

grave, dumb with forrow.The musician could not witness so much affection any longer in filence: but fuch was the fenfibility of the poet, that it was fome time before he could refume his wonted gaiety.

Farewell.

LETTER

LETTER XI.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

NANCY has fixed at length on Gotham, as your birth-place.--As to that, my dear friend, I am perfectly at eafe, provided I may be allowed to be defcended from one of the wife men of that illuftrious country, the fages of which in the end appeared to have lived as happily as those of Greece, after all their fine philofophy.

Ubi Libertas ibi Patria.

I have just finished my dining-room, I fhall fall to my ftudy next, but we can difpenfe with reading, when we cannot with eating; there are few writers, I believe,that would not agree with me in this. I have ornamented it with the following pictures :-Saint Dennis looking for his head-Pluto

on

on his Trial for the Rape of Proferpine. The Graces facrificing to Cloacina, from an original, in the poffeffion of Sir Jeffry Dunftan, the present Mayor of Garrat.-A London Alderman difappointed of a Turtle Dinner. A Dutchman harpooning Dumplings. A Manager ramming an Opera with a Fiddle-stick, down the throat of an Audience.-A brace of Attornies plucking a Client.-Plan of an Hofpital for the reception of decayed Sleepers.-A fat Pluralist tickled with the tail of a Tythe Pig, &c. In addition to thefe, I have added an infcription or two in praise of temperance, faid to have been written by the late Mr. Quin, the patron of John Dory.

As foon as I could fpell I was fent to school; our little feminary had been originally a mill; hence it obtained the name of the Academy Della Crufca; the fituation was delightful beyond defcription, and invited to

study,

study, which was what my master wifhed of all things, for in his own language he loved to entice us along and to cheat us into learning: if this was the cafe perhaps with myself, you will be apt to say that fome one cheated me out of it again-no rod hung up in terrorem, no afinine feast of fow thistles fet before us—many a time I used to hear him say, that if he lived he hoped to banish the rod entirely out of the schools; at the fame time declaring that he never knew the laurel flourish that was engrafted on birch; fo bland in his manners, fuch a happy mixture of temper, I am afraid feldom falls to the lot of man. Happy was it for him that the fates had been fo kind to him in this article, for he had a wife; and, what happens but feldom, fhe had a tongue which deafened almoft every perfon that was born within the found of it(like those who live near the Nile) which exceeded the parifh-bell not

withstanding the clapper fell little fhort of a yard, to which it was ofteu compared, with this difference, that the one diffipated thunder, and the other collected it. And never did John Denis manufacture better;-by the by you know the good bishop of Campana is faid to have taken the first hint of a bell from the tongue of a termagant, as Pythagoras is faid to

* In the Italian Opera it seems it was heretofore neceffary, in order perhaps to awaken the attention of the audience, to introduce a peal or two of thunder: Mr. John Denis, of whatever memory you please, was allowed to excel in the manufacture of this article, to fuch a degree, that he was called the Jupiter Tonans of the house. It was in vain to think of rivalling him in it; every one that attempted it was fure to meet the fate of Salmoneus: at length one more daring, or at leaft more fuccefsful than the reft, furprizing the. critic in a tonitruation fo exactly like his own, that he lifted up his eyes in aftonishment, and fwore an oath that fell little fhort of the rattle, that the thunder he had just heard was his own. At present the practice is not fo frequent, as the beaux complained that the flightest shock was much more than their delicate nerves could bear.