remark on all modern ones, that there was no force of thought, nor beauty of composition, to be found in them.

An elderly gentleman, who said he had a guess at the author, prognosticated, that the paper would be used as the vehicle of a system of scepticism, and that he had very little doubt of seeing Mr Hume's posthumous works introduced in it. A short squat man, with a carbuncled face, maintained, that it was designed to propagate methodism; and said, he believed it to be the production of a disciple of Mr John Wesley. A gentleman in a gold chain differed from both; and told us he had been informed, from very good authority, that the paper was intended for political purposes.

A smart-looking young man, in green, said he was sure it would be very satirical: his companion, in scarlet, was equally certain that it would be very stupid. But with this last prediction I was not

much offended, when I discovered that its author had not read the First Number, but only enquired of Mr Creech where it was published.

A plump round figure, near the fire, who had just put on his spectacles to examine the paper, closed the debate, by observing, with a grave aspect, that as the author was anonymous, it was proper to be very cautious in talking of the performance. After glancing over the pages, he said, he could have wished they had set apart a corner for intelligence from America: but, having taken off his spectacles, wiped, and put them into their case, he said, with a tone of discovery, he had found out the reason why there was nothing of that sort in the MIRROR; it was in order to save the tax upon newspapers.

Upon getting home to my lodgings, and reflecting on what I had heard, I was for some time in doubt, whether I should

not put an end to these questions at once, by openly publishing my name and intentions to the world. But I am prevented from discovering the first, by a certain bashfulness, of which even my travels have not been able to cure me; from declaring the last, by being really unable to declare them. The complexion of my paper will depend on a thousand circumstances, which it is impossible to foresee. Besides these little changes, to which every one is liable from external circumstances, I must fairly acknowledge, that my mind is naturally much more various than my situation. The disposition of the author will not always correspond with the temper of the man: in the first character I may sometimes indulge a sportiveness to which I am a stranger in the latter, and escape from a train of very different thoughts, into the occasional gaiety of the MIRROR.

The general tendency of my lucubrations, however, I have signified in my First Number, in allusion to my title: I mean to shew the world what it is, and will sometimes endeavour to point out what it should be.

Somebody has compared the publisher of a periodical paper of this kind, to the owner of a stage-coach, who is obliged to run his vehicle with or without passengers. One might carry on the allusion through various points of similarity. I must confess to my customers, that the road we are to pass together is not a new one; that it has been travelled again and again, and that, too, in much better carriages than mine. I would only insinuate, that, though the great objects are still the same, there are certain little edifices, some beautiful, some grotesque, and some ridiculous, which people, on every side of the road, are daily building, in the prospect of which we may find some amusement.

Their fellow-passengers will sometimes be persons of high, and sometimes of low rank, as in other stage-coaches; like them too, sometimes grave, sometimes facetious; but that ladies, and men of delicacy, may not be afraid to take places, they may be assured, that no scurrilous or indecent company will ever be admitted.