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thod of bringing my friends up to me, or of letting myself down to them, you will much oblige

"Yours, &c.

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"SIR,

"As you are very successful in delineating the manners of modern times, it might add, perhaps, to the effect of your pictures, if you sometimes gave a view of former manners. The contrast would be agreeable; and, if I may use the expression, would give a certain relief to your other delineations. I offer you a small sketch of an incident, supposed to have happened in the times of our forefathers. I flatter myself you have no objection to it on account of its being in verse. It is merely an outline; yet, I hope, it is so marked, as that concomitant circumstances, though not expressed, may readily be conceived.

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Sudden from the bridal feast,

By impetuous ire possess'd,
Fury flashing in their eyes,
Kinsmen against kinsmen rise;
And, issuing to the fatal field,
Bend the bow, the falchion wield.-

From her eyry, with dismay,

The tow'ring eagle soars away.

The wild-deer, from their close retreat,
Start with terror and amaze,

Down on the furious conflict gaze,

Then to deep forests bend their nimble feet.

II.

Ah! that reckless speech should fire
Kinsmen with inhuman ire!-
Goaded by vindictive rage,
Lo! the martial clans engage.
Now the feather'd arrows sing;
Now the bossy targets ring.

With rav'ning swords the sudden foes
Now in fierce encounter close.
Lo! the blade horrific gleams;
And now the purple torrent streams:
The torrent streams from Eval's side,
Tinging with his flowing gore

The white foam on the sea-beat shore.-
Ah! who will succour his afflicted bride?

III.

Lo! she flies with headlong speed;
'Bloody, bloody was the deed!'
Wild, with piteous wail, she cries,
Tresses torn and streaming eyes –
'Lift, O gently lift his head;
Lay him on the bridal bed!

My kinsmen!-cruel kinsmen, ye!
These your kindliest deeds to me! -
Yes, the clay-cold bed prepare,

The willing bride and bridegroom there
Will tarry; will for ever dwell.

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Now, inhuman men, depart!
Go, triumph in my broken heart!'

She said, she sigh'd, a breathless corse she fell

VOL. XXIX.

TO THE AUTHOR OF THE MIRROR.

SIR,

"I AM one of a family of young ladies who read your paper, with which we have been hitherto tolerably well pleased, though we could wish it were not quite so grave, and had a little more love in it. But we have found out, of late, that it is none of your own, but mostly borrowed from other people. A cousin of ours, who is himself a fine scholar, and has a great acquaintance among the critics, showed us many different instances of this. Your first paper, he told us, was copied from the first paper of the Spectator; and, upon looking into both, we found them exactly the same, all about the author and the work from beginning to end. Your Umphraville, he said, was just Sir Roger de Coverley, which we perfectly agreed in, except that my sister Betsey observed, Umphraville wanted the Widow, which all of us think the very best part of Sir Roger. Your Bobby Button, he assured us, was borrowed from No. 13. of the True Patriot, published by Mr. Fielding, who wrote Tom Jones; and there, indeed, we found there was a story of a young gentleman, who liked French wine better than his country, just like Sir Bobby. No. 72. which we thought a very sweet paper, he informed us, was taken from the Night Thoughts; and, indeed, though we don't understand Latin, we saw plainly that the mottoes were the same to a T. All this, however, we might have overlooked, had not a gentleman, who called here this morning, who used formerly to be a great advocate for the MIRROR, Confessed to us, that our cousin's intelligence was literally true; and, more than all that, he told us, that your very last number was to be found, every word of it, in Johnson's Dictionary.

"We send you, therefore, notice, Sir, that unless you can contrive to give us something new for the future, we shall be obliged to countermand our subscription for the MIRROR. We can have a reading of a fresh Novel every morning for the money, with a spick and span new story in it, such as none of us ever read or heard of in all our lives before.

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"YOUR correspondent K. B. has well described the calamitous condition of a private tutor without money or friends. Perhaps it will afford him some consolation, to hear of one who needlessly entangled himself in difficulties of a like nature.

"My father bred me to the study of letters, and, at his death, left me in possession of a fortune, not sufficient to check my industry in the pursuit of knowledge, but more than sufficient to secure me from servile dependence.

"Through the interest of his friends, I obtained an honourable and lucrative office; but there were certain arrangements to be made, which delayed my admission to it for a twelvemonth. While I was considering in what way I might best fill up this interval of life, an acquaintance of mine requested, as a

particular favour, that I would bestow the year which I could call mine, in reading with the only son of the rich Mr. Flint. The conditions offered were uncommonly advantageous, and such as indeed flattered the vanity of a young man.

"For understanding my story, it is fit that you should be informed of the characters of that family, into which I was received with so many marks of favour and distinction.

"Rowland Flint, Esq. was born of poor but honest parents: they made a hard shift to have him instructed in reading, and even in writing and arithmetic; and then they left him to find his way through the world as he best could. The young man, like a philosopher, carried about with him all that was truly his own, his quill and his ink-holder; he attached himself to one of the subordinate departments of the law, in which his drudgery was great and his profits scanty. After having toiled for many years in this humble, contented, and happy, vocation, he was suddenly raised to opulence by the death of an uncle.

"This uncle went abroad at a very early period of life, with the fixed resolution of acquiring a competency, and then of enjoying it at home. But that competency, which filled up the measure of the ambition of a bare Scotch lad, proved far short of the desires of an eminent foreign merchant. He imperceptibly became, in easy circumstances, well in the world, of great credit, a man to be relied on, and to be advised with, and even one superior to all shocks, calls, and runs.'

"While engaged in making his fortune, he thought it needless to inquire after his poor relations, whom he could not assist; and, after he made his fortune, he thought it equally needless, as he was to see them so soon in Scotland. Yet a multitude of unforeseen

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