ADVERTISEMENT.

WITHOUT meaning to encroach on the literary rights of any other writer in the Mirror and Lounger, I have been obliged, in a few instances, to publish in this edition parts of papers written by others, in order to introduce, or to render intelligible, other parts composed by me. I have not thought it necessary to give all the smaller articles, which, as conductor of those two periodical publications, I was often obliged to add, to interpolate, or materially to alter. They would indeed, I am afraid, in some instances, have done me little credit : the conductor of such periodical works necessarily writes under great disadvantage; his friends or contributors may write, but, when the day of publication arrives, he must write; must write frequently with a haste that destroys correctness, and in circumstances very unfavourable to composition ; must sometimes assume a gaiety of subject, and a vivacity of

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stile, foreign to his immediate situation, or to the actual state of his mind. To borrow a simile often applied to his undertaking, he is the conductor of a stage vehicle, which must run in all weathers, and in all states of the road; and it is not much to he wondered at if he should sometimes be dull or careless by the way.

PAPERS

FROM

THE MIRROR.

No. 2. SATURDAY, January 30, 1779.

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No child ever heard from its nurse the story of Jack the Giant-Killer's cap of darkness, without envying the pleasures of invisibility; and the idea of Gyges's Ring has made, I believe, many a grave mouth water.

This power is, in some degree, possessed by the writer of an anonymous paper. He can at least exercise it for a purpose, for which people would be most apt to

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use the privilege of being invisible, to wit, that of hearing what is said of himself.

A few hours after the publication of my First Number, I sallied forth with all the advantages of invisibility, to hear an account of myself and my paper.

I must confess, however, that, for some time, I was mortified by hearing no such account at all; the first company I visited, being dull enough to talk about last night's Advertiser, instead of the Mirror; and the second, which consisted of ladies, to whom I ventured to mention the appearance of my First Number, making a sudden digression to the price of a new-fashioned lustring, and the colour of the trimming with which it would be proper to make it

up into a gown. Nor was I more fortunate in the third place, where I contrived to introduce the subject of my publication, though it was a coffee-house, where it is actually taken in for the use of the customers; a set of old gentlemen,

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at one table, throwing it aside to talk over a bargain ; and a company of

young ones, at another, breaking off in the middle to decide a match at billiards.

It was not till I arrived at the place of its birth, that I met with any traces of its fame. In the well-known shop of my Editor I found it the subject of conversation; though I must own that, even here, some little quackery was used for the purpose; as he had taken care to have several copies lying open on the table, besides the conspicuous appearance of the subscription-paper hung up fronting the door, with the word MIRROR a-top, printed in large capitals.

The first question I found agitated was concerning the author, that being a point within the reach of every capacity. Mr Creech, though much importuned on this head, knew his business better than to satisfy their curiosity: so the hounds were cast off to find him, and many a different