play-fellows, and was kicked about, hustled, tossed up, and chucked into holes; which very much battered and impaired me; but I suffered most by the pegging of tops, the marks of which I have borne about me to this day. I was in this state the unwitting cause of rapacity, strife, envy, rancour, malice and revenge, among the little apes of mankind: and became the object and the nurse of those passions which disgrace human nature, while I appeared only to engage children in innocent pastimes. At length I was dismissed from their service, by a throw with a barrow-woman for an orange.

From her it is natural to conclude I posted to the gin-shop; where, indeed, it is probable I should have immediately gone, if her husband, a footsoldier, had not wrested me from her, at the expense of a bloody nose, black eye, scratched face, and torn regimentals. By him I was carried to the Mall in St. James's Park, where I am ashamed to tell how I parted from him-let it suffice that I was soon after deposited in a night-cellar.

From hence I got into the coat-pocket of a blood, and remained there with several of my brethren for some days unnoticed. But one evening as he was reeling home from the tavern, he jerked a whole handful of us through a sash window into the dining-room of a tradesman, who, he remembered, had been so unmannerly to him the day before as to desire payment of his bill. We reposed in soft ease on a fine Turkey carpet till the next morning, when the maid swept us up; and some of us were allotted to purchase tea, some to buy snuff, and I myself was immediately

trucked away at the door for the Sweetheart's Delight.

It is not my design to enumerate every little accident that has befallen me, or to dwell upon trivial and indifferent circumstances, as is the practice of those important egotists, who write narratives, memoirs, and travels. As useless to community as my single self may appear to be, I have been the instrument of much good and evil in the intercourse of mankind; I have contributed no small sum to the revenues of the crown, by my share in each newspaper; and in the consumption of tobacco, spirituous liquors, and other taxable commodities. If I have encouraged debauchery, or supported extravagance, I have also rewarded the labours of industry, and relieved the necessities of indigence. The poor acknowledge me as their constant friend; and the rich, though they affect to slight me, and treat me with contempt, are often reduced by their follies to distresses which it is even in my power to relieve.

The present exact scrutiny into our constitution has, indeed, very much obstructed and embarrassed my travels; though I could not but rejoice in my condition last Tuesday, as I was debarred having any share in maiming, bruising, and destroying the innocent victims of vulgar barbarity; I was happy in being confined to the mock encounters with feathers and stuffed leather; a childish sport, rightly calculated to initiate tender minds in acts of cruelty, and prepare them for the exercise of inhumanity on helpless animals.

I shall conclude, sir, with informing you by what means I came to you in the condition you

A

see. A choice spirit, a member of the kill-careclub, broke a linkboy's pate with me last night, as a reward for lighting him across the kennel: the lad wasted half his tar flambeau in looking for me; but I escaped his search, being lodged snugly against a post. This morning a parish girl picked me up, and carried me with raptures to the next baker's shop to purchase a roll. The master, who was a church warden, examined me with great attention, and then gruffly threatening her with Bridewell, for putting off bad money, knocked a nail through my middle, and fastened me to the counter: but the moment the poor hungry child was gone, he whipped me up again, and, sending me away with some others in change to the next customer, gave me this opportunity of relating my adventures to you.

From the Adventurer.

THE SUPPOSED TRANSMIGRATIONS OF A MAN INTO A FLEA. AGAINST CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

I WAS sitting in my study a few nights ago, when, after long rumination, I determined to go to bed. I soon fell asleep, and imagined myself still in my study, and that I suddenly heard a small shrill voice pronounce these words: Take your pen ; I will dictate.' I immediately prepared to write, and the voice dictated the following narrative :

I was the eldest son of a country gentleman, who possessed a large estate; and, when I was about nineteen years of age, I fell with my horse as I was hunting. My neck was dislocated with the fall,

and I died immediately: but I found myself the next moment, with inexpressible grief and astonishment, existing under the shape of a mongrel puppy in the stable of an inn, that was kept by a man who had been my father's butler, and had married the cook.

I was indeed greatly caressed; but my master, in order, as he said, to increase my beauty as well as my strength, soon disencumbered me of my ears and tail. Beside the pain I suffered in the operation, I experienced the disadvantages of this mutilation in a thousand instances: this, however, was but a small part of the calamity which in this state I was appointed to suffer. My master had a son about four years old, who was a still greater favourite than myself; and his passions having been always indulged as soon as they appeared, he was encouraged to gratify his resentment against any thing, whether animate or inanimate, that had offended him, by beating me; and when he did any mischief, the father, or the mother, or the maid, was sure to chastise me in his stead.

This treatment, from persons whom I had been accustomed to regard with contempt, and command with insolence, was not long to be borne: early one morning, therefore, I departed.

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I continued my journey till the afternoon without stopping about four o'clock I passed through a village, and perceiving a heap of shavings, that were sheltered from the wet by the thatch of a house which some carpenters were repairing, I crept, as I thought, unnoticed into the corner, and laid myself down upon them. But a man, who was planing a board, observing that I was a strange

dog, and of a mongrel breed, resolved to make himself and his companions merry at my expense. For this purpose, having made a hole about two inches diameter in a piece of deal, he suddenly caught me up, and putting the remainder of my tail through this diabolical engine, he made it fast by driving in a wedge with a heavy mallet, which, crushing the bone, put me to inexpressible torment.

The moment he set me down the wretches who had been spectators of this trick, burst into immoderate laughter at the awkward motions by which I expressed my misery, and my ridiculous attempt to run away from that which I could not help carrying with me. They hooted after me till I was out of their sight: however, fear, pain, and confusion still urging me forward with involuntary speed, I ran with such force between two pales that were not far enough asunder to admit my clog, that I left it, with the remainder of my tail, behind me.

I then found myself in a farm-yard; and fearing that I should be worried by the mastiff, which I saw at a distance, I continued my flight: but some peasants who were at work in a neighbouring barn, perceiving that I ran without being pursued, that my eyes were inflamed, and that my mouth was covered with foam, imagined that I was mad, and knocked out my brains with a flail.

Soon after I had quitted this maimed and persecuted carcase, I found myself under the wings of a Bullfinch, with three others that were just hatched. I now rejoiced in the hope of soaring beyond the reach of human barbarity, and becoming, like my mother, a denizen of the sky; but