Church. I now wish I had; but I wrote to live,while of you, it may be said, that you only lived to write!

Pope. That, indeed, may account for your failure; but I never imagined you were an author who must, as Boileau observes

Attendre, pour dîner, le succès d'un sonnet.

Church. It was not unfrequently my case; though I should, at the same time, acknowledge, that it was principally occasioned by extravagance.

Pope. The ordinary vice of wits and poets, and of which they appear to be not a little proud: but why a literary character must be a libertine, or why he must be improvident and careless of his fortune, I have never been able to discover.

Church. His improvidence and carelessness are studied; they are entirely the effect of vanity: he has heard that a great genius is ever inattentive to pecuniary matters,— and is, therefore, a coxcomb and a spendthrift; not by nature, but by imitation.

Pope. Truly ridiculous conduct, indeed; it manifests, moreover, a considerable want of spirit, as such men are repeatedly under the necessity of being troublesome to their friends.

Church. I can only regret, at the present day, that I weakly adopted principles so justly reprobated and contemned.

Pope. Enough of this. Let us retire, for yonder are two of our brethren.

DIALOGUE XVII.

SCENE A FIELD.

MERCURY and a SPORTSMAN.

Sportsm. TALLY ho! ho! yoics! yoics!
Merc. You seem a very happy gentleman.

Sportsm. The happiest fellow in Christendom, Sir. Do but look at my hounds. Did you ever behold a finer, a more beautiful pack?

Merc.

Lusus animo debent aliquando dari,

Ad cogitandum melior ut redeat sibi.

Sportsm. How say you, good Sir?

Merc. "The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return the better to thinking."

Sportsm. Thinking!

Merc. Yes, thinking. Pray, Sir, may one be allowed to inquire how you usually pass your time?

Sportsm. O, in the pleasantest manner imaginable. In running down foxes, laying snares for hares, bantering country bumpkins, ruining country maids, drinking bumpers, and breaking down our neighbours' fences.

Merc. A very agreeable manner, indeed! But have you nothing more in view,—nothing else of importance in pursuit ?

Sportsm. Yes. We have sometimes the deer in view; and not unfrequently pursue the stag.

Merc. You exercise the body, indeed; but have you no way of exercising the mind,—no particular studies? Sportsm. Oh! yes; we study backgammon, hunt the slipper, and all-fours; raise the devil, and play at blindman's buff. Aye, and I am a tolerable dab at them, too, I can tell you.

Merc. Delightful amusements, indeed! accomplishments, I must confess!

Charming

Sportsm. Yes, yes; but nothing like the chase

What can equal the joys of the field?

[Sings, and is going.

Merc. But have you never any fear that Death may overtake you in the chase?

Sportsm. Not I, indeed. He is a lover of cities and populous towns, and seldom shows his head among us jovial fellows.

Merc. He is often prowling, nevertheless, about the forest here and, in a little time, if I mistake not, will pay you a visit uncalled.

:

Sportsm. Well, let him come.

He will meet with his match in me. I will wrestle with him for what he dares.

Merc. It is the privilege of youth to boast. But you will assuredly get a fall.

Sportsm. Not I, indeed. I am another Hercules, I tell you, for strength; can pitch the bar, and throw the best fellow living within twenty miles.

Merc. Alas! alas! the strength of Hercules and Atlas combined, would be as a reed against the force and power of Death: he was never yet overthrown.

Sportsm. I am of a very different opinion. He attacked me several years ago, like a coward as he is, in disguise, and I beat him.

Merc. In disguise! True, he can assume as many shapes as Proteus. But how did he appear to you then? Sportsm. In the shape of a consumption. Did the wily monster think to worm me out of my life? But I gave him the slip, you see. Look at me now, and observe the effect of the physic of the fields.

Merc. You are certainly very robust; but, when a fever rages in your veins

Sportsm. Ah! mercy on me, what a pang! Help me, my friends, or I die.

Merc. O, ho! young Sir. So you begin to feel the sting of him you deride? Where are all your boastings and vapourings now?

:

Sportsm. Oh! these pangs! I now feel that I have been to blame but spare me, spare me a little longer, and I will henceforth reverence the immortal gods, whom I have so greatly offended, and whose will I have attempted to dispute.

Merc. Those offended powers comply with your request. Away! and, in proportion as your life is valuable to you, strive to mend it: but remember, and challenge not Death again; lest he should enter the lists armed with that dart, against which no mail is proof.

DIALOGUE XVIII.

SCENE THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.

FURAX meeting RAPAX.

Fur. RAPAX! Do I see aright? The youthful Rapax, whom I so lately left in the upper world, and in a state of Asiatic splendour.-Rapax, on whom both rich and poor have gazed in wonder and mute astonishment at his inordinate wealth, which was acquired by his indefatigable sire?

Rap. Wherefore your surprise at seeing me here? Do you suppose, my honest fellow, that wealth, or even youth, can be a defence against the arrow of Death?

Fur. Such were not my thoughts. I was merely reflecting on your "few brief years," and, consequently, evinced a little surprise at the unexpected stroke which has sent you to the shades. But, by the epithet honest,

which you now bestow upon me, you have surely forgotten Furax-the wretched, the unfortunate man who, in a moment of desperation and want, deprived you on the highway of a paltry sum! and whom, in the severity of your justice, you brought to the fatal tree—a sum, by the way, which, in your convivial hours, you would have bestowed on a buffoon or a parasite, however base, and unworthy of your aid.

Rap. I had, indeed, entirely forgotten you; so distant were we placed from each other by the hand of fortune when on earth.

Fur. Now, however, we are equals. I have been tried by Minos, that most equitable judge; and my virtues have been found so far to out-balance my vices, that I am admitted to the joys of the Elysian fields.

Rap. Well, then, here let all animosities subside: and as we are now equals, so let us be friends.

Fur. Resentment would certainly avail me nothing here; yet, when I reflect on your barbarity—

Rap. But why address me thus, and in a tone of indignation and reproach? He who transgresses against the laws of his country, is unquestionably amenable to them. You proceeded with a sense of the attendant danger in your affair with me: you knew the consequence which must inevitably follow, in case you were brought to trial and convicted of the offence.

Fur. I knew it, certainly, too well: but can reason be found in madness? I acknowledge, indeed, that it will sometimes appear in the arguments of the maniac; but never, I believe, is it to be seen in his actions. I was frantic and furious, from repeated wrongs. Laws, divine as well as human, were, I fear, at that time, wholly disregarded by me.

Rap. You attempt to argue from false and mistaken principles; you would awaken pity for individual sufferings, without attending to the general safety, or adverting to the public good.

Fur. Can the general safety be ensured by the