of the best. Tears, not without dignity, stood in the of the worst.

eyes

"It is late for me," added I; "I can do little.

But I will tell this vision to the

they perhaps may do more."

younger and stouter;

"Go and tell it," answered the multitude.-But the noise was so loud, that I awoke, and found my little child crowing in my ear.

A NOVEL PARTY.

-Hic ingentem comitum affluxisse novorum

Invenio admirans numerum.

O the pleasure that attends

VIRGIL.

Such flowings in of novel friends!

Spiritual creations more real than corporeal.—A party composed of the heroes and heroines of novels.—Mr. Moses Primrose, who has resolved not to be cheated, is delighted with some information given him by Mr. Peregrine Pickle.-Conversation of the author with the celebrated Pamela.—Arrivals of the rest of the company.—The party found to consist of four smaller parties.- Characters of them.- Character of Mr. Abraham Adams.-Pamela's distress at her brother's want of breeding.—Settlement together of Lovelace and Clarissa.— Desmond's Waverley asks after the Antiquary's Waverley.His surprise at the coincidence of the adventure on the seashore. Misunderstanding between Mrs. Slipslop and Mrs. Clinker. The ladies criticized while putting on their cloaks.

WHEN people speak of the creations of poets and novelists, they are accustomed to think that they are only using a form of speech. We fancy that nothing can be created which is not visible;-that a

being must be as palpable as Dick or Thomas, before we can take him for granted; and that nobody really exists, who will not die like the rest of us, and be forgotten. But as we have no other certainty of the existence of the grossest bodies, than by their power to resist or act upon us,-as all which Hipkins has to show for his entity is his power to consume a barrel of oysters, and the only proof which Tomkins can bring of his not being a figment is his capacity of receiving a punch in the stomach,-I beg leave to ask the candid reader, how he can prove to me that all the heroes and heroines that have made him hope, fear, admire, hate, love, shed tears, and laugh till his sides were ready to burst, in novels and poems, are not in possession of as perfect credentials of their existence as the fattest of us? Common physical palpability is only a proof of mortality. The particles that crowd and club together to form such obvious compounds as Tomson and Jackson, and to be able to resist death for a little while, are fretted away by a law of their very resistance; but the immortal people in Pope and Fielding, the deathless generations in Chaucer, in Shakspeare, in Goldsmith, in Sterne, and Le Sage, and Cervantes,-acquaintances and friends who remain for ever the same, whom we meet at a thousand turns, and know as well as we do our own kindred, though we never set gross corporeal eyes on them,-what is the amount of the actual effective existence of millions of Jacksons and Tomkinses compared with theirs? Are we as

VOL. I.

H

intimate, I wish to know, with our aunt, as we are with Miss Western? Could we not speak to the character of Tom Jones in any court in Christendom? Are not scores of clergymen continually passing away in this transitory world, gone and forgotten, while Parson Adams remains as stout and hearty as ever?

But why need I waste my time in asking questions? I have lately had the pleasure of seeing a whole party of these immortal acquaintances of ours assembled at once. It was on the 15th of February in the present year. I was sitting by my fire-side; and, being in the humour to have more company than I could procure, I put on my Wishing-cap, and found myself in a new little world that hovers about England, like the Flying Island of Gulliver. The place immediately about me resembled a common drawing-room at the West end of the town, and a pretty large evening party were already assembled, waiting for more arrivals. A stranger would have taken them for masqueraders. Some of the gentlemen wore toupees, others only powder, others their own plain head of hair. Some had swords by their sides, others none. Here were beaux in the modern coat and waistcoat, or habiliments little different. There stood coats stuck out with buckram, and legs with stockings above the knees. The appearance of the ladies presented an equal variety. Some wore hoops, others plain petticoats.

were built up with prodigious

The heads of many edifices of hair and

ribbon; others had their curls flowing down their

necks; some were in common shoes, others in a kind of slippered stilts. In short, not to keep the reader any longer upon trifles, the company consisted of the immortal though familiar creatures I speak of, the heroes and heroines of the wonderful persons who have lived among us, called Novelists.

Judge of my delight when I found myself among a set of old acquaintances, whom I had never expected to see in this manner. Conceive how I felt, when I discovered that the gentleman and lady I was sitting next to, were Captain and Mrs. Booth; and that another couple on my left, very brilliant and decorous, were no less people than Sir Charles and my Lady Grandison! In the centre were Mr. and Mrs. Roderick Random; Lieutenant Thomas Bowling, of the Royal Navy; Mr. Morgan, a Welch gentleman; Mr. and Mrs. Peregrine Pickle; Mr. Fathom, a methodist (a very ill-looking fellow)— Sir George Paradyne, and Mr. Hermsprong; Mr. Desmond, with his friend Waverley, (a relation of the more famous Waverley); a young gentleman whose Christian name was Henry-(I forget the other, but Mr. Cumberland knows) and Mr., formerly Serjeant Atkinson, with his wife, who both sat next to Captain and Mrs. Booth. There were also some lords whose names I cannot immediately call to mind; a lady of rank, who had once been a Beggar-girl; and other persons too numerous to mention. In a corner, very modest and pleasing, sat Lady Harold, better known as Miss Louisa Mildmay, with her husband, Sir