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send in a particular sort of wine, the flavour of which he highly commended. An old proverbial recipe was cited to him, by a red-faced gentleman at the bottom of the table, which signifies, that a man should drink a bottle to-day, as a cure for the effects of two or three drank yesterday. 'Twas a prescription very much suited to the inclination of my friend, who declared, after having drank a bottle of it, that he never was better in all his life. Nobody mentioned the evening being a proper time for walking; so we sat till our carriages were at the door, and till we dispatched four last bottles after their arrival. The post boys, whose patience needed some cordial to maintain it, were busy in their way below; so that, when at last we got into the chaises, they were as drunk-as drunk as we were. The carriage in which another gentleman and I were placed was overturned about a mile from town; I esca

ped with a sprained ancle; but my friend had his collar-bone broke.

Now, Mr Mirror, I incline to think, that a man may find a bad dinner, and get drunk after it, just as well in town as in the country; and, in the first case, he will have the advantage of saving his bones, the chaise-hire, and the tax upon post-horses.

I am, &c.

CIVIS.

No. 61. TUESDAY, Dec. 7, 1779.

DURING the late intermission of my labours, I paid a visit of some weeks to my friend Mr Umphraville, whose benevolence and worth never fail to give me the highest pleasure; a pleasure not lessened, perhaps, by those little singularities of sentiment and manner, which, in some former papers, I have described that gentleman as possessing. At his house in the country, these appear to the greatest advantage; there they have room to shoot out at will; and, like the old yew-trees in his garden, though they do look a little odd, and now and then tempt one to smile, yet the most eccentric of them all have something venerable about them.

Some of my friend's peculiarities may

not only be discovered in his manner and his discourse, but may be traced in his house and furniture, his garden and grounds. In his house are large rooms lighted by small Gothic windows, and accessible only by dark narrow stair-cases; they are fitted up with old arras, and have ceilings loaded with the massy compartments of the last age, where the heads of bearded sages and laurelled emperors look grim and terrible through the cobwebs that surround them. In his grounds you find stiff, rectangular walks, and straight, narrow avenues. In his garden the yews and hollies still retain their primeval figures; lions and unicorns guard the corners of his parterres, and a spread-eagle, of a remarkable growth, has his wings. clipped, and his talons pared, the first Monday of every month during spring and summer.

The contempt in which, to a somewhat unreasonable degree, he holds modern re

finement, has led him to continue these antiquated particulars about him. The India-paper of some of his fashionable neighbours' drawing-rooms, has enhanced the value of his arras; his dusky Gothic windows have been contrasted to great advantage, with their Bows and Venetians; their open lawns have driven him to the gloom of his avenues; and the zig-zag twist of their walks has endeared to him the long, dull line of his hedged terraces. As he holds, however, some good old political tenets, and thinks, as I have often heard him express himself, that every country can afford a king for itself, he had almost submitted to the modern plan of gardening a few years ago, on being put in mind, that the fashion of hedges and terraces was brought in by King William.

But, exclusive of all those motives, on which his sister and I sometimes rally him, my friend, from the warmth of his heart, and the sensibility of his feelings, has a

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