friends might recommend me. But, fome how or other, our expectations have been always disappointed; not from any want of inclination in our friends to ferve us, as we have been repeatedly affured, but from various unforeseen accidents, to which expectations of that fort are particularly liable. In the course of thefe folicitations, I was led to engage in the political interefts of a gentleman, on whofe influence I built the strongest hopes of fuccefs in my own schemes; and I flattered myself, that, from the friendly footing on which I ftood with my neighbours, I might be of confiderable fervice to him. This, indeed, he is extremely ready to acknowledge, though he has never yet found an opportunity of returning the favour; but, in the mean time, it kept my table open to all his friends, as well as my own, and coft me, befides, a headach twice a-week during the whole period of the canvafs.

In fhort, Mr MIRROR, I find I can afford to keep myself in friends no longer. I mean to give them warning of this my resolution as fpeedily as poffible. Be fo good, therefore, as inform fuch of them as read your paper, that I

have

1.

have shut my gates, locked my cellar, turned off my cook, difpofed of my dogs, forgot my acquaintance, and am refolved henceforward, let people fay of me what they will, to be no one's friend but my own.

I am, &c.

JOHN HEARTY.

I

N° 79.

THE

world more frequent than that of your negatively good men; people who strictly conform to the laws of decency and good order in fociety, whose conduct is squared to the rules of honefty and morality, and yet who never did one virtuous or laudable action from the day of their birth. Men of this fort feem to confider life as a journey through a barba rous country, occupied by favages, and overfpread with dangers in every quarter. Their only wish is to steer the safest course, to escape any hidden snares or precipices, and to avoid exafperating the enemy; but, to win them by offices of kindness, or attach them by real fer vices, they confider as a fruitlefs waste of time,

a needlefs expence, and often a dangerous ex

periment.

It is not a little furprifing, that thefe good fort of men fhould, by the decency of their exterior deportment, fo far impose upon the world, as to glide on with ease and safety, to arrive often at riches and eminence, and, from being free of the cenfure of every species of open vice, to obtain not unfrequently the refpect which is due to virtue.

You, Mr MIRROR, like fome other rigid moralifts, feem, from the general ftrain of your writings, to require fomething more towards the formation of a good man than the mere abfence of evil, or the mere livery of goodness. It must be allowed, however, that, by a fcrupulous obfervance of certain rules of decorum, and a timely use of the vocables of virtue, the exterior and visible part of the character is to be attained, which, for moft of the ufeful purpofes of life, feems to be quite fufficient. But, as there are still a few who go a little deeper, and are scrupulous enough to require a purity of heart as well as of manners, it is pity, that those fincere good people fhould lofe all recompenfe for the facrifice they make of many comfortable gratifi

cations,

cations, while they fee the rewards of virtue as certainly attained at a much smaller expence.

From my concern for the few I have mentioned, I have been confidering whether it were not poffible to devise some means of unmasking those of the former character, fome ftandard by which the two claffes might be compared, or ftatical balance which should fhow the difference of weight and folidity of fuch objects as have a fimilar appearance. I think, Sir, I have been fuccefsful, and shall now propose to you my plan.

Imprimis, I lay it down as a rule, that men fhall not be judged of by the actions they perform, but by fuch as they do not perform. Now, Sir, as thofe ufeful chronicles of facts, called news-papers, have hitherto been only the records of what men have been daily a-doing, I propofe to publish a news-paper of a different kind, which fhall contain the daily intelligence of all fuch things as are not done.

For the benefit of fuch as chufe to encourage my undertaking, I fend you a fpecimen of the work, which I can fafely promife, and hereby engage, fhall contain more in quantity than any other periodical register whatever.

VOL. III.

D

"Saturday