is a time for every thing," saith the wise man; "and doubtlefs," says pretty Mifs Pert, "the reign of that miserable fashion expired long before our day. We will no more be governed by the sage saws, than we will be laced up in the strait stays, or deformed by the enormous hoops, of our grandmothers. Nous avons changé tout cela. We have adopted the more fashionable maxim prefixed to this efsay, as infinitely more suitable to the taste of the present day. Yes, make money; by all means make money. It is none of our business to inquire how it comes: it is enough if it can be obtained. And then, you know, "light come, light go." We shall make a figure in the tonish circle, without which life is not worth enjoying." Such is the taste of the times; and wo be to him that shall attempt to resist this mighty torrent, for it exceeds the utmost extent of human powers to withstand it.

If so, I may expect that I and my efsay will be treated as a fiery youth, who was offended at the austerity of Dr. Johnson, proposed should be done with him; which was, that he and his large dictionary, and all his other works, should be tumbled down stairs together, where they might be allowed to expire, mingled pel mel, like the Russians, Austrians, Italians, and French, at the battle of Novi.

Yet who knows but that among those changes which are perpetually taking place in this miserable planet on which we crawl, a time may yet arrive when that which is so much out of fashion at present may come to be quite the ton. Solomon has said, "there is nothing new under the sun;" and our own experience

may teach us that, when any whim of ours is carried to an extravagant point of excess, there is a great probability that it will very quickly fall into disrepute. Ten years ago the Grande Monarque in France was the great object of the pride of the nation. The people thought themselves honoured in being accounted his slaves, and looked with contempt upon all other nations who had not that privilege. That whim has had its day; and the very people who then gloried in that particular, would now spit in your face were you to mention it. Two years ago the Grand Nation was the cry of the day. Nothing else was heard of; and the Directory had obtained a more despotic sway over the minds of the people than ever the grand monarque had in the utmost plenitude of his power. That whim has also had its day; and present appearances seem strongly to indicate that, before two years more shall have elapsed, the Directory will be as much out of fashion in France as the last of the Capets. Such, then, being the fleeting state of the reign of fashion at all times, let us never despair; but trust to the chapter of accidents for turning the public opinion, sooner or later, in favour of that which reason and sound. sense must always approve, how much soever it may be for the present despised.

A famous nation of antiquity cherished for a long time one of the most singular whims, our people of fashion will surely say, that ever entered the mind of man. These filthy creatures had the shocking monstrosity of preserving the bones of their ancestors with as much care as a certain kind of spiders preserve the eggs which contain the embryos of their descendants,

which they carry perpetually about with them, and will sooner part with life itself than this (to them) dear and precious burthen. Let us leave the spiders to do as they like. This seems to be no whim in them, but an immutable law of nature from which they cannot depart. "But, thank God!" says Miss Pert," that is not the case with regard to us rational creatures. We have too much trouble, God knows, with these parents of our's while they are alive, to trouble ourselves about them any more after their death. Instead of lumbering the house for ages together with their nasty bones, we have plenty of undertakers, who, for a reasonable gratuity, free the house at once from all such trumpery, and put it in as good order in an instant as if no such person had ever existed. What a horrid spectacle it must have been to a person of fashion, when invited to a banquet, to see a set of mummies, up to the tenth or twelfth generation backwards, displayed as evidences of the antiquity of the family to which they belonged! How very absurd too, to pride themselves upon that circumstance! for may we not all say with Will Honeycomb's wife, that we had ancestors as far back as the best of them, only we have forgotten their names. Besides, we know that for a few guineas, properly disposed of, a skilful genealogist may be procured who will rear up for us a stately tree springing from the body of Brute, or Tubal-cain, or any other ancestor we shall more fancy, with its branches spreading wide, containing all our predecessors upon it like so many apples, seriatim et nominatim, up to our own dear selves, who stand upon the highest pinnacle, ready to

push out new branches that shall reach in time, like Mahomet's cock, even unto the third heaven."

"Could any thing," says Ephraim the Jew," be "be more absurd than the practice of these mummyhoarders, who could not obtain a shilling without depositing, as a surety for the money borrowed, the bones of one of his ancestors? A thrifty Israelite never could have subsisted among such a people: for you are to observe, that the greybeards only had the custody of these precious relics; so that the sons, those spirited youths who bleed so freely, had it never in their power to apply for our afsistance. Besides, as the lady of the house must have been degraded to a station lower than that she formerly held, had one of these proofs. of her honour been wanting, she must have had the mortification of either foregoing her routes entirely, or walking behind some proud dame, whom she formerly used to precede. What a mortifying alternative! The lady of the house, therefore, must have been as cautious about parting with any of these relics as the master of the family; so that there was no pofsibility of getting about these old hunks. Under these circumstances, not one shilling could be had more than one's own; and persons of spirit must have been then obliged to drivel out a life of economical insipidity, without being able to make a dash in the circle of fashion, unless one had the advantage of pofsefsing a long line of frugal ancestors, who, by accumulation, had acquired funds of their own to exalt them above their competitors. Thank God, this is not the case now-a-days. A person of spirit may live like a nobleman, without having any funds of his own, if he

have but a knack at the scavoir faire, which it is well known some of us pofsefs to a nicety."

But to return from this ramble, to which, you know, I have too natural a propensity, and to be serious: whatever may be the fashion of the time, and how much soever our judgment may be perverted by the allurements of pleasure, where we ourselves are a party concerned; yet it invariably happens, that when things are viewed at a distance, that independence of spirit and dignity of mind which can spring from no other source than a judicious economy, hath at all times, and in all nations, commanded the reverential admiration of the whole human race. Hence it is that we bow with reverential awe at the very name of Aristides, who, though he had more power in Greece than any other man of his day, lived upon his own in a respectable poverty, and died without a wish to appropriate to his own use one shilling that belonged to another. Hence, too, we venerate the moderation of Timoleon, who, having disposed of kingdoms as he judged best, reserved nothing for himself but the privilege of ending his days among those whose security and independence he had insured. Hence it is that all nations pay the willing tribute of the most unfeigned respect to the name of Cincinnatus, while that of an Apicius, a Lucullus, or a Heliogabolus, who expended more money at a single entertainment than would have supported the frugal dictator honourably during the whole course of his life, are scarcely heard of among men, or are mentioned only with scorn or contempt. Hence also it is, that even in our own day all mankind concur