however, when my shield is worn out, I believe I must imitate your example, and brandish a cudgel And so I leave you.

Tes. Aye, to dress for Company, as I must-like two bulls tricked out for sacrifice: let them take care, though, that we don't break our cords, and take to tossing that's all.

DIALOGUE THE SEVENTH.

MISERIES OF SOCIAL LIFE.

TESTY, SENIOR AND JUNIOR.-SENSITIVE.

Testy.

ROBINSON CRUSOE,indeed! No, no Timon or Diogenes, if you will-these are the Recluses for me:-the privilege of storming and railing is all I have purchased by making my bow in the drawing rooms; and I won't part with it for a trifle.I have got safe through it, though; and so ladies and gentle men, your humble servant!-tomorrow morning, I sell my house, and buy a hermitage.

Sen. Nay, my good friend, what have I done? Let our doors be still open to each other, at least; if only for the satisfaction of groaning in concert over the evils of good company; in which I mean to include, not merely the voluntary outrages we have been incessantly suffering from our companions themselves, but likewise the thwarting accidents, the perverse perplexities, the unexpected contretems, with which Fortune herself, in pure malignity, delights to strew the carpet of social intercourse. I will open with one from this last mentioned class of distractions ;-(pro

ducing his list) for excuse me, my friend-I cannot converse;" the genial current of my soul" is "frozen up my animal spirits are poisoned at the fountain-and I am dead to every faculty, or desire, but those of pouring out the gathered gall that frets with

"the grief that does not speak,

Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break."

Tes. Come, then "give sorrow words."-This is your day, Sensitive:-I, who, you know, am almost all bone and body, as the jockies say, can have little to throw into the horde of spiritual solicitudes. However, you may judge from the fury, in which you found me just now, that I am not quite so raw as you may fancy even in this branch of our business

"Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora."

And as to your second division of company comforts, of a more mechanical kind, I have revelled in them from morning till night-so much so, indeed, that, to tell you the truth, I have been little in a humour for the tranquil drudgery of noting them down in my tablets;-I have funded a few loose agonies, however, of both sorts; and so as they are but a few, perhaps I might as well produce them at once; after which, I'll give you your head during the rest of our way.

Sen. Begin, Sir, by all means; and while I attend to you, I will endeavour to rouse my courage for the severer retrospect to which I am doomed; yet which, (by one of those exquisite paradoxes in feeling, where

I

with the texture of my fibres is so mystically intertissued,) I at the same time, long.........

Tes. Whew!-upon my soul, you are a very fine sort of a-what must I call you ?-gentleman angel, Į believe you put my poor stock of straight forward phraseology quite upon the stretch to reach after you!-and so now, if your etheriality can condescend to take any interest in such earthly stuff as I have been able to rake together, I will go over a few of "the ills that flesh is heir to"- -as I have lately found

to my cost:

GROAN 1. (T.)

In attempting to take up the poker softly, (an invalid asleep in the room) throwing it violently down, sociably accompanied by the tongs and shovel in its fall.

2.

(T.)

Briskly stooping to pick up a lady's fan at, the same moment when two other gentlemen are doing the same, and so making a cannon with your head against both of theirs-and this without being the happy man, after all.

3. (S.).

On entering the room, to join an evening party composed of remarkably grave, strict, and precise persons, suddenly finding out that you are drunk; and (what is still worse) that the company has shared with you in the discovery-though you thought you were, and fully intended to be rigidly sober. 4. (S.)

A perpetual blister-alias, a sociable next door neighbour, who has taken a violent affection for you, in return for your no less violent antipathy to him.

Mrs. Tes. To her, if you please:-I am sure that odious Mrs. M'Call will fairly worry me out of

my life, if she stays in our neighbourhood three

months longer.

Ned Tes.

"Væ miseræ nimium vicina !"

5. (S.)

Virg.

A fellow, who, after having obliquely applied to you for instruction upon any subject, keeps shewing a restless anxiety to seem already fully informed upon it; perpetually interrupting your answer with" Yes, Sir-Yes, yes, I know-true, I am perfectly aware of that-O, of course !"-&c. &c. &c. 6. (T.)

Visiting a remarkably nice Lady, who lets you discover, by the ill suppressed convulsion of her features and motions, that she considers your shoes as not sufficiently wiped, (in your passage over at least twenty mats)-that you stand too near to a darling jar-lean rather too emphatically against the back of your chair-are in danger of waking Shock, by speaking in too high a key, &c. &c.-till you begin to envy the situation of real prisoners.

7. (T.)

Tearing your throat to rags in abortive efforts to call back a person who has just left you, and with whom you have forgotten to touch on one of the most important subjects which you met to discuss.

After having been accidentally detained on a water excursion far beyond the time you have to spare, rowing homeward, against wind and tide, with an appointment of the utmost consequence before you, which, you know, will soon be-behind you. Then, in plucking out your watch to see how much too late you shall be, jerking it over the side of the boat, and seeing it founder in an instant.

There, Sir; I have done; it is but a scanty budget of disasters, you'll say ;-but, to go back to our