when the hill-improver asserts that he never saw his turf burn before, and turning short, says, "Did you, cousin?" In such cases as these the answers may give a dangerous example: for if a raw whelp of a hearer should happen to give his tongue, he will be rated and corrected like a puppy.

The great duty therefore of this office is silence; and I could prove the high antiquity of it by the Tyro's of the Pythagorean school, and the ancient worship of Harpocrates, the tutelary deity of this sect. Pythagoras bequeathed to his scholars that celebrated rule, which has never yet been rightly understood, " Worship, or rather, study the echo;" evidently intending thereby to inculcate, that hearers should observe that an echo never puts in a word till the speaker comes to a pause. A great and comprehensive lesson! but being, perhaps, too concise for the instruction of vulgar minds, it may be necessary to descend more minutely into particular hints and cu tions.

A hearer must not be drowsy: for nothing perplexes a talker like the accident of sleep in the midst of his harangue: and I have known a French talker up and hold open the eyelids of a Dutch hearer with his finger and thumb.

rise

He must not squint: for no lover is so jealous as a true talker, who will be perpetually watching the motion of the eyes, and always suspecting that the attention is directed to that side of the room to which they point.

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A hearer must not be a seer of sights: he must let a hare pass as quietly as an ox; and never interrupt narration, by crying out at sight of a highwayman or a mad dog. An acquaintance of mine, who lived with a maiden aunt, lost a good legacy by the ill-timed arrival of a coach and six, which he first discovered at the end of the avenue, and announced

as a most acceptable hearing to the pride of the family but it happened unluckily to be at the very time that the lady of the house was relating the critical moment of her life, when she was in the greatest danger of breaking her vow of celibacy.

A hearer must not have a weak head: for though the talker may like he should drink with him, he does not choose he should fall under the table till himself is speechless.

He must not be a news-monger: because times past have already furnished the head of his patron with all the ideas he chuses it should be stored with.

Lastly, and principally, a hearer must not be a wit. I remember one of this profession being told by a gen tleman, who to do him justice was a very good seaman, that he had rode from Portsmouth to London in four hours, asked, "if it was by Shrewsbury clock?" It happened the person so interrogated had not read Shakspeare; which was the only reason I could assign why the adventurous querist was not immedi ately sent aboard the Stygian tender.

But here we must observe that silence, in the opinion of a talker, is not merely a suppression of the action of the tongue; it is also necessary that every muscle of the face and member of the body should receive its motion from no other sensation than that which the talker communicates through the ear.

A hearer therefore must not have the fidgets: he must not start if he hears a door clap, a gun go off, or a cry of murder. He must not snuff with his nostrils if he smell fire; because, though he should save the house by it, he will be as ill rewarded as Cassandra for her endeavours to prevent the flames of Troy, or Gulliver for extinguishing those of Lilliput.

There are many more hints which I should be desirous of communicating for the benefit of beginners, if I was not afraid of making my paper too long to be

properly read and considered within the compass of a week, in which the greatest part of every morning is necessarily dedicated to mercers, milliners, hair cutters, voters, levees, lotteries, loungers, &c. I shall therefore say a word or two to the talkers, and hasten to a conclusion.

And here it would be very impertinent, and going much out of the way, were I to interfere in the just rights which these gentlemen have over their own officers and domestics. I would only recommend to them, when they come into other company, to consider that it is expected the talk of the day should be proportioned among them in degrees, according to the acres they severally possess, or the number of stars annexed to their names in the list printed from the public funds: that hearing is an involuntary tribute, which is paid, like other taxes, with a reluctance increasing in proportion to the riches of the person taxed: that it is a false argument for a talker to say to a jaded audience he will tell a story that is true, great, or excellent; for when a man has eat of the first and second course till he is full to the throati you tempt him in vain at the third, by assuring him the plate you offer is one of the best "entremets" le Grange, ever made.

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No. LV. THURSDAY, JANUARY 17.

...Extinctus amabitur.

To Mr. Fitz-Adam.

HOR.

SIR,

I AM one of those benevolent persons, who having no land of their own, and not being free of any one corporation, like true citizens of the world,! turn all their thoughts to the good of the public, and are known by the general name of projectors. All the good I ever did or thought of, was for the public. My sole anxiety has been for the security, health, revenue and credit of the public: nor did I ever think of paying any debts in my whole life, except those of the public. This public spirit, you already suppose, has been most amply rewarded; and perhaps suspect that I am going to trouble you with an ostentatious boast of the public money I have touched; or that I am devising some artful evasion of an enquiry into the method by which I amassed it. On the contrary, I must assure you that I have carried annually the fruits of twelve months deep thought to the treasury, pay-office, and victualling-office, without having brought from any one of those places the least return of treasure, pay or victuals. At the admiralty the porters can read the longitude in my night gown, as plainly as if the plaid was worked into the letters of that word. And I have had the mortification to see a man with the dullest project in the world admitted to the board, with no other preference than that of being a stranger, while I have been kept shivering in the court.

After this short history of myself, it is time I should communicate the project I have to propose for your particular consideration.

My proposal is, that a new office be erected in this metropolis, and called the extinguishing office. In explaining the nature of this office, I shall endeavour to convince you of its extraordinary utility: and that the scope and intent of it may be perfectly understood, I beg leave to be indulged in making a few philosophical remarks.

There is no observation more just or common in experience, than that every thing excellent in nature or art, has a certain fixed point of perfection, proper to itself, which it cannot transgress without losing much of its beauty, or acquiring some blemish.

The period which time puts to all mortal things, is brought about by an imperceptible decay: and whatever is once past the crisis of maturity, affords only the melancholy prospect of being impaired hourly, and of advancing through the degrees of aggravated deformity to its dissolution.

We inconsiderately bewail a great man, whom death has taken off, as we say, in the bloom of his glory; and yet confess it would have been happier for Priam, Hannibal, Pompey, and the duke of Marlborough, if fate had put an earlier period to their lives.

Instead of quoting a multitude of Latin verses, I refer you to that part of the tenth satire of Juvenal, which treats of longevity: but I must desire particularly to remind you of the following passage;

Proviba Pompeio dederat Campania febres
Optandas.........

It is to a mature reflection on the sense of this passage that I owe the greatest thought which ever entered the brain of a projector: and I doubt not, if I could once establish the office in question, of being able to strike out from this hint a certain method of practice that would be as beneficial to mankind, as it would be new and extraordinary.