which means, duly distinguishing and adapting their talents, they might produce admirable instruments. for the several offices in a state civil, and

military, proceeding in such methods as I shall here humbly propose. And I hope the gentle reader will give some allowance to my great solicitude in this important affair, upon account of the high esteem I have borne that honourable society, whereof I had some time the happiness to be an unworthy member. Is any student tearing his straw in piecemeal, swearing and blaspheming, biting his grate, foaming at the mouth, and emptying his foul water in the spectators' faces, let the Right Worshipful the Commissioners of Inspection give him a regiment of dragoons, and send him into Flanders among the rest. Is another eternally talking, sputtering, gaping, bawling, in a sound without period or article? What wonderful talents are here mislaid! Let him be furnished immediately with a green bag and papers, and threepence† in his pocket, and away with him to Westminster Hall. You will find a third gravely taking the dimensions of his kennel, a person of foresight and insight, though kept quite in the dark; for why, like Moses, ecce cornuta erat ejus facies. He walks duly in pace; entreats your penny

Ecclesiastical. -Hawkes.

+ A lawyer's coach-hire, when four together, from any of the inns of court to Westminster.

Cornutus is either horned or shining; and by this term Moses is described in the vulgar Latin of the Bible.

with due gravity and ceremony; talks much of hard times, and taxes, and the harlot of Babylon; bars up the wooden window of his cell constantly at eight o'clock; dreams of fire and shop-lifters, and courtcustomers and privileged places. Now, what a figure would all these acquirements amount to, if the owner were sent into the city among his brethren! Behold a fourth, in much and deep conversation with himself, biting his thumbs at proper junctures; his countenance chequered with business and design; sometimes walking very fast, with his eyes nailed to a paper that he holds in his hands; a great saver of time; somewhat thick of hearing: very short of sight, but more of memory; a man ever in haste, a great hatcher and breeder of business, and excellent at the famous art of whispering nothing: a huge idolater of monosyllables and procrastination; so ready to give his word to everybody, that he never keeps it; one that has got the common meaning of words, but an admirable retainer of the sound; extremely subject to the looseness, for his occasions are perpetually calling him away. If you approach his grate in his familiar intervals, "Sir," says he, "give me a penny, and I'll sing you a song; but give me the penny first.” (Hence comes the common saying, and commoner practice, of parting with money for a song.) What a complete system of court-skill is here described in every branch of it, and all utterly lost with wrong application! Accost the hole of another kennel

(first stopping your nose), you will behold a surly, gloomy, nasty, slovenly mortal, raking in filth and ordure. His complexion is of a dirty yellow, with a thin scattered beard, exactly agreeable to his filthy occupation; like other insects, who, having their birth and education in an excrement, from thence borrow their colour and their smell. The student of this apartment is very sparing of his words, but somewhat over-liberal of his breath: he holds his hand out ready to receive your penny, and immediately upon receipt withdraws to his former occupations. Now, is it not amazing to think the society of Warwick Lane should have no more concern for the recovery of so useful a member, who, if one may judge from these appearances, would become the greatest ornament to that illustrious body? Another student struts up fiercely to your teeth, puffing with his lips, half squeezing out his eyes, and very graciously holds you out his hand to kiss. The keeper desires you not to be afraid of this professor, for he will do you no hurt. To him alone is allowed the liberty of the antechamber, and the orator of the place gives you to understand that this solemn person is a tailor run mad with pride. This considerable student is adorned with many other qualities, upon which at present I shall not further enlargeHark in your ear

I am strangely mistaken.

* I cannot conjecture what the author means here, or how this chasm could be filled, though it is capable of more than one interpretation.

if all his address, his motions, and his airs, would not then be very natural, and in their proper element.

I shall not descend so minutely as to insist upon the vast number of beaux, fiddlers, poets, and politicians, that the world might recover by such a reformation. But what is more material, besides the clear gain redounding to the commonwealth, by so large an acquisition of persons to employ, whose talents. and acquirements, if I may be so bold to affirm it, are now buried, or at least misapplied, it would be a mighty advantage accruing to the public from this inquiry, that all these would very much excel and arrive at great perfection in their several kinds; which I think is manifest from what I have already shown, and shall enforce by this one plain instance, that even I myself, the author of these momentous truths, am a person whose imaginations are hardmouthed, and exceedingly disposed to run away with his reason, which I have observed, from long experience, to be a very light rider, and easily shaken off: upon which account my friends will never trust me alone, without a solemn promise to vent my speculations in this or the like manner for the universal benefit of human kind, which perhaps the gentle, courteous, and candid reader, brimful of that modern charity and tenderness usually annexed to his office, will be very hardly persuaded to believe.

SECTION X.

A FURTHER DIGRESSION.*

IT is an unanswerable argument of a very refined age, the wonderful civilities that have passed of late years between the nation of authors and that of readers. There can hardly pop out a play, a pamphlet, or a poem, without a preface full of acknowledgment to the world for the general reception and applause they have given it, which the Lord knows where, or when, or how, or from whom it received. In due deference to so laudable a custom, I do here return my humble thanks to his Majesty, and both Houses of Parliament; to the Lords of the King's Most Honourable Privy Council; to the reverend the judges; to the clergy and gentry and

* This section has in former editions been entitled A Tale of a Tub; but the tale not being continued till Section XI., and this being only a further digression, no apology can be thought necessary for making the title correspond with the contents.-Hawkes.

This is literally true, as we may observe in the prefaces to most plays, poems, &c.