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absent man with a great deal of humour, which he has pushed to an agreeable extravagance; with the heads of it I shall conclude my present paper.

"Menalcas (says that excellent author) comes down in a morning, opens his door to go out, but shuts it again, because he perceives that he has his night-cap on; and examining himself further, finds that he is but half-shaved, that he has stuck his sword on his right side, that his stockings are about his heels, and that his shirt is over his breeches. When he is dressed he goes to court, comes into the drawing-room, and walking bolt-upright under a branch of candlesticks, his wig is caught up by one of them, and hangs dang. ling in the air. All the courtiers fall a laughing, but Menalcas laughs lourler than any of them, and looks about for the person that is the jest of the company. Coming down to the court gate he finds a coach, which, taking for his own, he whips into it; and the coachman drives off, not doubting but he carries his master. As soon as he stops, Menalcas throws him self out of the coach, crosses the court, ascends the staircase, and runs through all the chambers with the greatest familiarity; reposes himself on a couch, and fancies himself at home. The master of the house at last comes in; Menalcas rises to receive him, and de sires him to sit down; he talks, muses, and then talks again. The gentleman of the house is tired and amaz. ed: Menalcas is no less so, but is every moment in hopes that his impertinent guest will at last end his tedious visit. Night comes on, when Menalcas is hardly undeceived.

"When he is playing at backgammon, he calls for a full glass of wine and water; it is his turn to throw; he has the box in one hand, and his glass in the other; and being extremely dry, and unwilling to lose time, he swallows down both the dice, and at the same time throws his wine into the tables. He writes a letter, and flings the sand into the ink-bottle; he writes 1 second, and mistakes the superscription. A nobleman

receives one of them, and upon opening it reads as follows: I would have you, honest Jack, immediately upon the receipt of this, take in hay enough to serve me the winter.' His farmer receives the other, and is amazed to see in 'My Lord, I received your Grace commands, with an entire submission to'-If he is at an entertainment, you may see the pieces of bread continually multiplying round his plate. It is true the rest of the company want it, as well as their knives and forks, which Menalcas does not let them keep long. Sometimes in a morning he puts his whole family in a hurry, and at last goes out without being able to stay for his coach or dinner; and for that day, you may see him in every part of the town except the very place where he had appointed to be upon a business of importance. You would often take him for every thing that he is not; for a fellow quite stupid, for he hears nothing; for a fool, for he talks to him. self, and has an hundred grimaces and motions in his head, which are altogether involuntary; for a proud man, for he looks full upon you, and takes no notice of your saluting him. The truth of it is, his eyes are open, but he makes no use of them, and neither sees you, nor any man, nor any thing else. He came once from his country house, and his own footmen undertook to rob him, and succeeded. They held a flam. beau to his throat, and bid him deliver his purse; he did so, and coming home told his friends he had been robbed; they desired to know the particulars; ' ask my servants,' says Menalcas,

me'."

for they were with

X.

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HISTORY OF INKLE AND YARICO.

MR. Thomas Inkle, of London, aged twenty years,

embarked in the Downs, in the good ship called the Achilles, bound for the West Indies, on the 16th of June, 1647, in order to improve his fortune by trade and merchandise. Our adventurer was the third son of an eminent citizen, who had taken particular care to instil into his mind an early love of gain, by making him a perfect master of numbers, and consequently giving him a quick view of loss and advan tage, and preventing the natural impulses of his passions, by prepossession towards his interests. With a mind thus turned, young Inkle had a person every way agreeable, a ruddy vigour in his countenance, strength in his limbs, with ringlets of fair hair loosely flowing on his shoulders. It happened, in the course of the voyage, that the Achilles, in some distress, put into a creek on the main of America, in search of provisions: the youth, who is the hero of my story, among others, went ashore on this occasion. From their first landing they were observed by a party of Indians, who hid themselves in the woods for that purpose. The English unadvisedly marched a great distance from the shore into the country, and were intercepted by the natives, who slew the greatest nomber of them. Our adventurer escaped among others, by flying into a forest. Upon his coming into a remote and pathless part of the wood, he threw himself, tired and breathless, on a little hillock, when an Indian maid rushed from a thicket behind him. After the first surprise, they appeared mutually agreeable to each other. If the European was highly charmed with the limbs, features, and wild graces of the naked American; the American was no less taken with the dress, complexion, and shape of an European, covered from head to foot. The Indian grew immediately enamoured

of him, and consequently solicitous for his preservation: she therefore conveyed him to a cave, where she gave him a delicious repast of fruits, and led him to a stream to slake his thirst. In the midst of these good offices, she would sometimes play with his hair, and delight in the opposition of its colour to that of her fingers; then open his bosom, then laugh at him for covering it. She was, it seems, a person of distinction, for she every day came to him in a different dress, of the most beautiful shells, bugles, and bredes. She likewise brought him a great many spoils, which her other lovers had presented to her; so that his cave was richly adorned with all the spotted skins of beasts, and most party-coloured feathers of fowls, which that world afforded. To make his confinement more toler. able, she would carry him in the dusk of the evening, or by the favour of moon-light, to unfrequented groves and solitudes, and show him where to lie down in safety, and sleep amidst the falls of waters, and melody of nightingales. Her part was to watch and hold him awake in her arms, for fear of her countrymen, and wake him on occasion to consult his safety. In this manner did the lovers pass away their time, till they had learned a language of their own, in which the voyager communicated to his mistress, how happy he should be to have her in his country, where she should be clothed in such silks as his waistcoat was made of, and be carried in honses drawn by horses, without being exposed to wind or weather. All this he promised her the enjoyment of, without such fears and alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender correspondence these lovers lived for several months, when Yarico, instructed by her lover, discovered a vessel on the coast, to which she made signals; and in the night, with the utmost joy and satisfaction, accompanied him to a ship's crew of his countrymen, bound for Barbadoes. When a vessel from the main arrives in that island, it seems the planters come down to the shore, where there is an immediate market of the

Indians and other slaves, as with us of horses and

oxen.

To be short, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began seriously to reflect upon his loss of time, and to weigh with himself how many days' interest of his money he had lost during his stay with Yarico. This thought made the young man very pensive, and careful what account he should be able to give his friends of his voyage. Upon which considerations, the prudent and frugal young man sold Yarico to a Barbadian merchant; notwithstanding that the poor girl, to incliue him to commiserate her condition, told him that she was with child by him; but he only made use of that information to rise in his demands upon the purchaser. R.

DREAMS,

TOKENS OF THE GRANDEUR OF THE SOUL.

Cum prostrata sopore

Urget membra quies et mens sine pondere ludit.

PETR.

While sleep oppresses the tir'd limbs, the mind
Plays without weight, and wantons unconfin'd.

THOUGH there are many authors who have written

on dreams, they have generally considered them only as revelations of what has already happened in distant parts of the world, or as presages of what is to happen in future periods of time.

I shall consider this subject in another light, as dreams may give us some idea of the great excellency of an human soul, and some intimation of its independence on matter.

In the first place, our dreams are great instances of that activity which is natural to the human soul, and which it is not in the power of sleep to deaden or

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