constructed for these polite and enlightened times, the sooner they are repealed the better, especially as they are very seldom enforced, and not even generally known.

But where vices cannot be entirely restrained, a wise politician will endeavour to make them subservient to the public benefit. On this principle, I propose to admit every body to the free use of oaths, who will take out a licence for the purpose; for which each shall pay in proportion to his fortune, profession, and education. To effectuate this, there shall be a Board of Blasphemy established in the metropolis, with subordinate Comptrollers of Cursing in every county and great town; and the celebrated declaration, nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus aut differemus, may be made the motto of this new establish

ment.

Every person shall be furnished, on taking out his licence, with a catalogue of such oaths, execrations, and exclamations, as shall be judged most suitable to his rank, abilities, &c. These alone he shall be entitled to pronounce, while a heavy penalty shall be the consequence of his exceeding them. Thus, the proper distinctions and gradations of society shall be marked even in its vices; and we shall no longer have a duke or a lord chancellor thundering out the vulgar curses of a waggoner; or hear lisped from the mouth of a sturdy ploughman, those select blasphemies, stolen, through the medium of the foot-boy, from his master's table.

"That there may be always a proper supply to answer the consumption, I would have it ordered, that all masters of colleges, tutors, &c. at Oxford and Cambridge, shall from time to time make returns of all those youths that are (in the common meaning) good for nothing. Of these, the Board shall

select such as seem to have talents for the composition of oaths, who shall be employed, in an academy to be built for the purpose, in repairing, renewing, polishing, and inventing those essential requisites to social mirth, to sound argument, and to every species of polite conversation. Much assistance in this way may be expected from those gentlemen of the army who have sworn themselves into a reputation for courage. As to the studies necessary for this occupation, any book of divinity will furnish matter for a thousand ingenious blasphemies. I have even known a young man of talents turn his Catechism to a very good account in this way. But as the public has no right to expect that the labours of these men should be gratuitous, I would have the works of each secured to him, by exclusive patent, for a certain time, before they are thrown into the common stock.

"For gentlemen of the navy and army, there might be compiled a set of sesquipedalian exclamations, none of which should consist of less than three syllables; and here, by the bye, I can't help remarking, that, as the language of oaths is extensive enough to fill a dictionary, I don't know why it should not be held considerable enough to have a grammar of its own, the arrangements of which might help to regulate the distribution I have proposed. Who knows, under due management, how susceptible it might be found of poetical sublimity? The prosody of oaths would be no very difficult thing to adjust, as the great variety and enlargement which this bold language has of late years received, afford us words of all sorts of measures; as thus:

For the support of literature and classical knowledge, all graduates of the universities shall be allowed to curse and swear ad libitum in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, together with the free use of all the names that they may find registered in Boyle's Pantheon, of which, with a little application, they may form combinations of curses in endless variety, and suited to every emergency.

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Any person who can produce undoubted evidence of his never having been detected in framing a proposition or drawing a conclusion, who can be warranted reason proof, and can make affidavit that he never has been convinced, shall have an unlimited credit at the treasury of the institution; for, without oaths, it will be difficult for him to pass for a man of humour or pleasantry; but it is fitting he should pay for them at an advanced rate, since they will be to him the only substitute for wit or knowledge, for good sense or good breeding.

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Professed story-tellers should also be supplied liberally, as so much of their success depends on the happy selection and arrangement of these expletives; and scarcely a man of anecdote but would fail in the effect of his good things, if they were not judiciously seasoned with some of this literary Cayenne.

"No man who can blush at a falsehood, or who can sit out a sermon, or who is not ashamed to be serious, or who does not fill bumpers, or compose sentiments-in short, nobody convicted, by a jury of

good and true swearers, of being an odd fellow, shall be furnished on any terms; and if he swear, it is at his peril. Such cowardly Christians swear with so ill a grace, that they bring discredit to the cause. "Pharo and hazard tables, race-meetings, boxingschools, &c. may have a licence to any extent.

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This, my dear friend, is the sketch of a plan, which, with your assistance and the public approbation, I hope soon to make more perfect. I propose also, in aid of the great design, shortly to publish a volume, which I shall entitle, The Complete Curser, or Every Man his own Swearer; and shall be happy, with his permission, to dedicate it to Mr. Olive-branch, as a small proof of the real pleasure I feel in subscribing myself his

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Obliged friend,

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N° 80. SATUKDAY, NOVEMBER 23.

Linquenda tellus et domus, et placens
Uxor; neque harum, quas colis, arborum,
Te, præter invisas cupressos,

Ulla brevem dominum sequetur.

To all prepare a sad adieu;

HORAT.

Thy house, thy farm, thy rural store;

And her, so tender and so true,

Her, too, prepare to see no more.

Nor reckon that one sylvan friend
Of all these trees thou lov'st to rear,
Except yon cypress, shall attend,

And deck, with drooping boughs, thy bier.
Sweet youth, the breeze that sighs along,
And, whisp'ring, shakes that cypress leaf,
Shall sympathise with friendship's song,
That tells in mem'ry's ear its grief.

LAST night, as is generally my custom on a fine evening, I took a solitary walk in the premises of Mr. Blunt. As the autumn comes on, I leave his fields for the groves, which, besides the shelter they afford from the winds, provide a russet kind of carpet for me to tread upon, with the leaves that fall from the trees. There are moments in which the frame of the mind is so finely conditioned, so delicately disposed, that any thing serves to put it into motion; and the slightest incident of daily occurrence gives a certain vibration to its thoughts, and a certain activity to its recollections. At these moments, how