initiated, those, who are in the secret, know that as much common, and even refined sense, may be found in a book without them, as with them; but the secret is a secret, because it is a profitable one to the parties concerned. Avarice and vanity have occasioned the use of them, which has become so common as to have rendered the assumption of them by other persons besides ourselves frequent, of which take the following ludicrous instance: A cobler, in this metropolis, having perceived what a ready vent the addition of the Roman letters, gave to books, thought they might turn out as advantageous to the article of shoes. He therefore added to his name on the sign board the capital M. D. F. R. S. A physician, who chanced to pass that way, either struck by the oddity of the thing, or enraged at the derogation of professional honours, alighted from his chariot, and demanded of Crispin the reason of the phenomenon. "I have as much right to use those letters as any man," replied the blunt cobler, "they signify my other occupation, which is that of Drum Major of the Royal Fusileers!" In time, we should not be surprised to see a treatise on the art of picking pockets, by George Barrington, M. F. Mercurii Filius, son of the light-fingered Mercury; or an essay on fisticuffs by the Game Chicken, P. C. P. Pugnis Certationis Professor, Professor of the Art of Boxing. As a regular knowledge of those arts may be as necessary to success, as of any others, it would certainly be professional; but the additions of M. D. and D. D. to similar treatises and essays, would shock our sense of propriety, if not that of the reader. Only think of pick-pockets, and stage boxers rushing down the same stream with learned and reverend gentlemen, and exclaiming:"How we apples swim!" The Reader. If, then, you think, that there is more of pride and avarice in these literary addenda, than of utility, why have you adopted them? Author. As a severe satire upon them; but with a view of preventing a harsher one.-Our addendum is neither fictitious, nor intended as a deception on the public. F.S. M. are the initials of Fellow of the Swinish Multitude, and since that term has been settled by an apostate pensioner, as a synonime of a Commoner, we deem it a most honourable one. Having thus disclosed the intrinsic value of honorary titles, when applied to literature, and endeavoured to exculpate ourselves from an imputation of either vanity or deceit, we shall take another turn through the public garden, strewing flowers where we can, and grubbing up weeds where we find them. CHAPTER II. ON SEEING MANKIND AS THEY ARE, AND NOT AS THEY APPEAR TO BE. THE ADVANTAGES, AND DISADVANTAGES OF HYPOCRISY TO MANKIND. THE AUTHOR DEFENDS HIMSELF FROM AN INVIDIOUS CHARGE OF MISANTHROPY, AND ENTERS UPON A DELICATE ENQUIRY INTO HIS OWN VERACITY. Ir is ridiculous to apply the term of seeing life to the mere looking at mankind on the outside, as there is an inward man, as well as an outward one, in the same person: the former is the work of nature; and the latter of art, of the tailor, hair-dresser, shoe-maker, mantua-maker, and milliner. To know mankind, we should not be satisfied with looking at Kings in their royal robes; nobles in their insignia; judges in their coifs; bishops in their lawn; and lawyers, and physicians in their wigs: neither do the female trappings, however modest in appearance, al - ways cover chastity; no-we should strip them, that is, their hearts, naked, and view them as a Jew dealer scrutinizes old clothes which he is about to buy. Men, particularly those who have any designs upon the public,-and there are few, very few without them, disguise their faces, to cover their failings, as old women paint theirs to conceal the furrows of ruthless time, and, when they have once commenced the practice, they cannot leave it off, as their natural deformity would be increased by the very means they take to conceal it. They go on laying one coat of enamel upon another, until those coverings, like the slippery and treacherous glaciers of Savoy and Switzerland, cover a series of cranks, gullies, running streams, and yawning chasms, very often to the destruction of the unwary, and even of the wary traveller. We are aware that we subject ourselves to be charged with being a rigid moralist, or even a misanthrope, who would paint decorum as hypocrisy, and hypocrisy as vice; but, in return, we shall be satisfied with knowing that none will entertain such an idea, who are not themselves either fools, knaves, or demireps, and |