not to be seen, that I hope he will not oblige me to mix-with the vulgar wretches who have lately left the upper world; I say, if you will have the kindness just to mention this, Mr. Mercury; your judge is surely too much of a gentleman to deny a lady so very reasonable a request.

Merc. I have already, my dear Madam, informed you that there is no distinction of persons in the shades; why then will you not patiently submit to fate?

Lady. Well-but who did you say I should have for companions?

Merc. Why, Madam, the only females who have lately come over the water are from Wapping.

Lady. O, I recollect, I recollect; I shall certainly faint, Sir: my nerves are so very weak, that—

Merc. So we were informed by your husband, Madam, whom you sent to us several years ago.

Lady. Sent to you, Sir! Sir, I really do not understand, such an insinuation is not to be borne.

Merc. Nay, nay, fair lady, you may well remember when you broke your husband's head instead of Priscian's,*that it was that fatal stroke, however extraordinary you may think it, which sent him to the lower world.

Lady. You mistake; it was some natural cause.
Merc. By my deityship, 'tis true.

Lady. The blow I gave him was as gentle as a lady's hand could deal-a mere pat; nothing more, I assure

you.

Merc. Not, perhaps, unlike to one of Queen Elizabeth's boxes on the ear.

Lady. A similar action,-I vow and protest; his head must have been very soft!

Merc. Well, Madam, it is an action for which you will be tried by Rhadamanthus; and happy shall I be to find you acquitted of the murder of your lord.

abed,

For breaking Priscian's, breaks her husband's head.

Juv. SAT. 6. Dryden's Trans.

Lady. Murder! Oh! Mr. Mercury, how can you wound one's ears with such a horrible sound? (Aside.) This fellow has some of the coarsest expressions I ever heard. The best way, however, will be to soothe him a little, I believe.-You must know, Sir, for now I will declare the truth, that it was my usual practice, when any way vexed by my husband, to hit him a pat on the head with my fan; but for no other purpose, Mr. Mercury, than just to let him know that he was wrong.

Merc. A very common practice.-A fan is the weapon of a lady; and I have often seen the Queen of Heaven, when seized with a jealous fit, shiver it to pieces on Jupiter's pate.

Lady. Well, Sir, my husband having one day provoked me in a particular manner, I snatched up the poker, in mistake for my fan, and hit him—

Merc. A pat on the head. A poker in mistake for a fan! A very plausible story, indeed, which will certainly have its weight with our judge.

Lady. Of that I have not the smallest doubt;—and yet

I am sick and capable of fears;

A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;

A woman naturally born to fears.

Merc. (aside.) Yes, and naturally born to whining too; but it will scarcely serve your turn. Come, come, Madam, we must think of setting off.

Lady. I must insist on having my maid to attend me : I can never think of travelling with only a man.

Merc. A man! fair lady,-I am a god: cannot you distinguish between a god and a man ?

Lady. True, true, I had actually forgotten. Nay, then you must do just as you please: where is the woman to be found who can resist a god?

Merc. (aside.) I must keep up this vein of conversation.-I am a god, the son of Jupiter, Madam, remember that.

Lady. Yes; and, without a compliment, as pretty a piece of godship as one would wish to see: you only yield to Apollo in beauty.

Merc. Your encomiums will make me vain; but Bacchus, you should remember, has precedence of me.

Lady. Bacchus! Bacchus can never enter into competition with you on the score of beauty. That woman would be the happiest creature living who should—but, if I mistake not, your godship is married?

Merc. Married! no, no, my buxom widow, I have too much of the immortal in my composition for that. Lady. You surprise me! why I always understood that Mrs. Venus

Merc. Poh, poh, my sister. But what do you discover in my air and manner, that you should suppose me dwindled into that obsequious animal, a husband?

Lady. Why, to confess the truth, your manner is rather too gallant and degagée for such a character.

Merc. And yet I am not remarkable for love and gallantry; 'tis honour I am in search of, and, as the poet sings

Honour is like a widow, won
With brisk attempt.

Lady. Pray, Mr. Mercury, what do you mean by such an insinuation? There is not any man on earth, however "brisk his attempt," that could prevail with me. Merc. Prevail with you! No, no, it is very easy to discover that your virtue serves as an impregnable fortress to you. Danaë in her brazen tower was less secure; but, though a man has so little chance of succeeding with you, yet Mercury

Lady. Is not to be opposed; I acknowledge your power, and submit to it.

DIALOGUE VI.

SCENE THE ELYSIAN FIELDS.

GENEROSUS and PHILANTHROPOS.

Gen. How say you; that you died-perished through absolute want?

Phil. Even, so; 'tis as true as I am now an immortal spirit. Such, alas! was my body's suffering; such its miserable end.

Gen. And that too, in England, the land of plenty; and in a refined and elegant age!

Phil. You are, I perceive, a man of feeling, and, you must give me leave to add, but little acquainted with the world. The refinement and elegance you hint at, and which you think should lead to benevolence, and all the milder virtues and affections, are, in fact, their great and invariable destroyers.

Gen. Nay, you are more mistaken in the matter than myself. You, I find, allude to the affected nicety, to the glittering superficiality, of the times; while I, in speaking of the refinement and elegance of the age, am wholly intent on intellectual endowments and perfections,—and sincerely lament, that men in becoming wise, should not also become good.

Phil. Their wisdom you must allow me to doubt. I do not think, however, that all among my countrymen have been wanting, at times, in moral goodness, or in charity towards their fellows: but there is, in the major part of them, a light indifference to the complaints of others; which, however strange it may appear to you, most certainly proceeds from the largeness of their possessions, and the riot and luxury in which they live. I am a lover of mankind, and would sacrifice even my own

comforts to do them service; and thus, reflecting on the world's unkindness, and on the coolness of the great and powerful towards the deserving, causes me to feel many a severe pang.

Appear, when next you meet, as cold as great ones
When merit begs,-

says a poet of eminence; and most truly has he said. And another

Ah! little think the gay licentious proud,

Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround-
Ah! little think they, while they dance along,
How many feel, this very moment, death,

And all the sad variety of pain.

Gen. "Alas! poor hurt fowl!" It must be permitted to send forth its cries.

Has Heaven reserv'd, in pity to the poor,
No pathless waste or undiscover'd shore;
No secret island in the boundless main?-
Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore.

Feelings and wishes, like to these and which I believe were really felt by Dr. Johnson, at the moment of writing the lines-you have doubtless experienced many times.

Phil. Such, indeed, have been my wishes, not only for myself, but others; so great, so many, are the evils and miseries of life-of civilized life.

Gen. Your ill opinion of civilized life seems deeply rooted; and were you to attempt a description of the calamities incident to our terrestrial nature, not Hegesias himself, I imagine, could possibly surpass you.

Phil. Life, simply considered, or with little relation to manners, has certainly comforts and advantages for those who are mindful to seize on them. "Is it not," says the divine Euripides," a glorious thing to live and behold the light?" In speaking of the distresses of men, I allude not to the natural, but moral evils so generally found. Gen. You look on human nature, then, with nearly the same eye as the Duke de Rochefoucault, who, you