I liked my sententious companion so little, that at first I wished to shake him off, and walked quick or slow, as I thought would best serve that purpose; but he foiled me by always altering his own pace accordingly, and at length observed with some roughness, "You seem a dry one, young fellow, though I have told you, you need not be afraid of me; for I would not, I tell you, peach, even if you had robbed your master, or were running away from your own father. Masters and fathers are but rum commodities, and will never allow the world to be free."

"I don't agree with you," replied I; but struck somehow with what seemed so unusual in the man's ideas, I renounced my wish to get rid of him, and encouraged him to develop himself still more, by entering into conversation with him. When, continuing his notion of my military capacity, he asked if I had come from Windsor barracks, I said, no, from Oxford. "But pray," continued I, "as you have expressed some curiosity about me, may I ask who you are yourself?"

"I am one of the few," returned he, sternly, “who dare to think for themselves, hold that the world has all got wrong, and that it will never be to rights till

"Till what?"

"Till every thing is reversed that we see about us ; till there be no kings or queens; nor even magistrates; and of course no gibbets to hang men upon merely for attempting to get their own.”

"Attempting to get their own," cried I; "is that the way you designate robbery ? for that, I suppose, is what you mean."

"Aye! there it is," said he. "None of you smooth-faced gentlemen, who, though forced to walk on foot while others ride in their carriages, but toady those real robbers of the poor, by calling that robbery which is only justice. If you ever heard of the laws of nature, you must know that the first of them is equality as to property, and every thing else. Nay, a community of goods was originally the law of Christianity; but soon the rascally priests abolished it; after which men grew rich by robbing others of their share. Yet if one of the robbed attempt to recover part of his property, he is himself called robber, and hanged like a dog, or shot like a carrion crow. Out upon such a world!”

He said this with such emphasis, that though I believed him mad, I thought him at least sincere. He, however, went on :

"Of course, too, you soldiers (for I still believe you to be one) should all be put down; fathers, instead of being tyrants over their children till twenty-one, should have no authority after they are fifteen; for I would follow the laws of nature in every thing, and they shew, that boys are then marriageable, and marriage (if it be allowed at all) at least shews the time for emancipation."

"Allowed at all!"

"Yes. For where can we find nature speak so well as in the brutes, who in most things far excel us?

There is at least no wickedness among them, and there are no marriages among them; and children, as soon as they can provide for themselves, leave their fathers and mothers, and never know them again. Is not this unanswerable ?"

"I quite agree with you," said I, much amused, and wishing now to draw him out.

Yet, forsooth, it is all

"I don't believe you," replied he, "for just now you would not allow that masters and fathers were rum commodities; and if it was not for your knapsack and black stock, as you say you come from Oxford, I should take you for one of those black-gowned hypocrites, who, under pretence of godliness, humbug people out of their rights. Was there ever such a barefaced pillage as tithes? for our good, to enable them to pray for and instruct us; as if we could not pray for and instruct ourselves! With my good will, Oxford and Cambridge, and all such harbours for designing priests, should be burnt down; and if the priests along with them, it would not be amiss, for they have been the cause of all the miseries of the world, from Adam. Why, the very grammar paints them to the life:- Bos, fur, sus, atque sacerdos.'

“I thought,” said I, " that line had only been to denote the genders of the nouns mentioned, not the character of sacerdos."

"So those who only skim the surface think,” returned he, contemptuously. "They see not that even Lily in this intended (though he veiled it, from fear of the tyrant law) to depict the clergy in their proper

peo

colours. I am, however, translating some of these
rules, in a sort of verse, for the instruction of the
ple, and if you buy my book when it is published (it
is cheap, in order to be more widely distributed), you
will find the English run thus:-

'Bos-when among his neighbours' wives;
Fur-when gathering his tithes;

Sus-when he swills at parish feast;

Sacerdos to complete the priest."

"There can be no doubt of all this," said I, beginning, however, to wish to get rid of my new preceptor; when, looking at me with stricter scrutiny, he observed,

66

If you are sincere, perhaps you will give me a proof of it when we arrive at Reading-to which I suppose you are going-by enrolling your name in a society which I have instituted there, and at which I am to lecture this evening. The disciples are already numerous; you will have to pay twenty shillings subscription to cover expenses, and what you please to me, as lecturer and instructor in the real rights of

man."

"You are a public lecturer, then ?"

"Yes; for I look upon myself as born to renovate society, and lighten the darkness even of Europe, but of England in particular; for, from want of mere moral courage, the wisest and best spirits in it are content to be oppressed by fools and cowards. Such are the monopolizers of wealth and power. But I am setting up, and am daily more and more successful, a new code of laws, which will extinguish all abuses what

ever, being founded on the eternal rights of nature : one of which is, to have all things in common."

"Wives and all?" asked I, affecting great simplicity.

"We have not yet got to that pass," returned he, "from the inveterate prejudices that oppose us; but after a few more lectures I shall not despair of it. This evening, however, is set aside for another part of the subject, which will be worth hearing should you attend."

"Pray what?"

66

Why, you may have heard (or, as you are not an inhabitant of Reading, perhaps you have not heard) that a poor man was shot two nights ago, in the act of what was called breaking into the mayor's house ; shot by the mayor himself!"

"And was he not breaking in ?” asked I.

Why yes; if unbarring a window, merely to get what he had a right to, is breaking in."

"With what intent ?"

"Aye; that is the true question. The poor man was starving; the mayor lived in abundance. The man had a right to his share of the fruits of the earth; the mayor had too many of them. This, however, the distressed man did not well know, till he had attended my lectures, and convinced himself that he had a right to deliver himself by his own act from the injustice of the laws of property. He therefore only wished to take from the monopolist what might bring them more to the equality intended by nature. To do this, he certainly tried to get into the house in the middle