under the agony of an unutterable forrow, 'till conducted from our fight by her attendants. That commanding awe, which accompanies the grief of great minds, reftrained the multitude while in her prefence; but as foon as she retired they gave way to their distraction, and all the islanders called upon their deceased hero. To him, methought, they cried out, as to a guardian being; and I gathered from their broken accents, that it was he who had the empire over the ocean and its powers, by which he had long protected the island from shipwreck and invafion. They now give a loose to their moan, and think themselves exposed without hopes of human or divine affistance. While the people ran wild, and expressed all the different forms of lamentation, methought a fable cloud overshadowed the whole land, and covered its inhabitants with darkness: no glimpfe of light appeared, except one ray from heaven upon the place in which the heroine now fecluded herself from the world, with her eyes fixed on those abodes to which her confort was afcended. Methought a long period of time had passed away in mourning and in darkness, when a twilight began by degrees to enlighten the hemisphere, and looking round me, I faw a boat rowed towards the shore, in which fat a perfonage adorned with warlike trophies, bearing on his left arm a fhield, on which was engraven the image of victory, and in his right hand a branch of olive. His vifage was at once fo winning and fo awful, that the shield and the olive feemed equally fuitable to his genius.

When this illustrious perfon touched on the shore, he was received by the acclamations of the people, and followed to the palace of the heroine. No pleasure in the glory of her arms or the acclamations of her applauding subjects, were ever capable to fufpend her forrow for one moment, till she faw the olive-branch in the hand of that aufpicious meffenger. At that fight, as heaven bestows its bleffings on the wants and importunities of mortals out of its native bounty, and not to increase its own power or honour, in compaffion to the world, the celestial mourner was then firft feen to turn her regard to things below; and taking the branch out of the

warrior's hand, looked at it with much fatisfaction, and spoke of the bleffings of peace with a voice and accent fuch as that in which guardian fpirits whisper to dying penitents affurances of happiness. The air was hufhed, the multitude attentive, and all nature in a paufe, while fhe was fpeaking. But as foon as the messenger of peace had made fome low reply, in which methought I heard the word Iberia, the heroine, affuming a more fevere air, but fuch as spoke refolution without rage, returned him the olive, and again veiled her face. Loud cries and clashing of arms immediately followed, which forced me from my charming vifion, and drove me back to thefe mansions of care and forrow.

Quafitam meritis fume fuperbiam.

HOR. 3 OD. XXX. 13. Affume the pride, the purchase of your merit.

HE whole creation preys upon itself; every living creature is inhabited. A flea has a thousand invifible infects that teaze him as he jumps from place to place, and revenge our quarrels upon him. A very ordinary microscope fhews us that a l-fe is itself a very 1-fy creature. A whale, befides those feas and oceans in the feveral veffels of his body, which are filled with innumerable fhoals of little animals, carries about it a whole world of inhabitants, infomuch that if we believe the calculations fome have made, there are more living creatures which are too fmall for the naked eye to behold about the leviathan, than there are of visible creatures upon the face of the whole earth. Thus every nobler creature is, as it were, the bafis and fupport of multitudes that are his inferiors.

This confideration very much comforts me when I think on thofe numberlefs vermin that feed upon this paper, and find their fuftenance out of it-I mean the fmall wits and fcribblers that every day turn a penny by nibbling at my lucubrations. This has been fo advantageous to this little fpecies of writers, that, if they do me justice, I may expect to have my statue erected in Grub Street, as being a common benefactor to that quarter.

They fay, when a fox is very much troubled with fleas, he goes into the next pool with a little lock of wool in his mouth, and keeps his body under water till the vermin get into it, after which he quits the wool, and diving, leaves his tormentors to shift for themselves, and get their livelihood where they can. I would have these gentlemen take care that I do not serve them after the fame manner; for though I have hitherto kept my temper pretty well, it is not impossible but I may fome time or other disappear, and what will then become of them? Should I lay down my paper, what a famine would there be among the hawkers, printers, bookfellers, and authors. It would be like Dr. Burgess's dropping his cloak, with the whole congregation hanging upon the skirts of it. To enumerate fome of these my doughty antagonists, I was threatened to be answered weekly Tit for Tat;' I was undermined by the Whisperer, haunted by Tom Brown's Ghoft, fcolded at by a Female Tatler, and slandered by another of the fame character, under the title of Atalantis. I have been annotated, retattled, examined, and condoled; but, it being my standing maxim never to speak ill of the dead, I fhall let these authors reft in peace, and take great pleasure in thinking that I have fometimes been the means of their getting a belly-full. When I see myself thus furrounded by fuch formidable enemies, I often think of the knight of the Red Cross in Spencer's "Den of Error," who, after he has cut off the dragon's head, and left it wallowing in a flood of ink, fees a thousand monstrous reptiles making their attempts upon him, one with many heads, another with none, and all of them without eyes.

The fame fo fore annoyed has the knight,

That, well nigh choked with the deadly ftink,
His forces fail, he can no longer fight;
Whofe courage when the fiend perceiv'd to shrink,
She poured forth out of her hellish fink
Her fruitful curfed fpawn of ferpents small,
Deformed monsters, foul, and black as ink;
Which fwarming all about his legs did crawl,
And him encumber'd fore, but could not hurt at all.

As gentle fhepherd in fweet eventide,
When ruddy Phoebus gins to welk in west,
High on a hill, his flock to viewen wide,
Marks which do bite their haly fupper beft;
A cloud of cumbrous gnats do him moleft,
All friving to infix their feeble ftings,
That from their 'noyance he no where can reft;
But with his clownish hands their tender wings
He brusheth oft, and oft doth mar their murmurings.

If ever I should want fuch a fry of little authors to attend me, I shall think my paper in a very decaying condition. They are like ivy about an oak, which adorns the tree at the fame time that it eats into it; or like a great man's equipage, that do honour to the perfon on whom they feed. For my part, when I see myself thus attacked, I do not confider my antagonists as malicious, but hungry, and therefore am resolved never to take any notice of them.

As for those who detract from my labours without being prompted to it by an empty ftomach, in return to their cenfures I fhall take pains to excel, and never fail to persuade myself that their enmity is nothing but their envy or ignorance.

Give me leave to conclude, like an old man and a moralist, with a fable:

The owls, bats, and several other birds of night were one day got together in a thick fhade, where they abused their neighbours in a very fociable manner. Their fatire at last fell upon the fun, whom they all agreed to be very troublesome, impertinent, and inquifitive. Upon which the fun, who overheard them, spoke to them after this manner: 'Gentlemen, I wonder how you dare abuse one that, you know, could in an inftant fcorch you up, and burn every mother's fon of you. But the only answer I fhall give you, or the revenge I shall take of you is, to shine on.'