of being even perused by ladies' maids, while sitting up for their mistresses when late at a ball. I might actually be experimented upon as an agreeable companion in a postchaise; and certainly might hope for a shelf in the library of a watering-place. As it is, spite of my title, I will not despair of this yet being my fortune, for my dreams will have little of the stoic turn. In fact, I shall endeavour to teach morals more by example than precept By this I shall not only save myself a great deal of trouble (an important object with a dreamer), but probably ingratiate myself better with my readers.

My only additional remark is, that I am too little fond of melancholy scenes or views of things, to obtrude them par préférence on my readers; and though I have the greatest reverence for

"A pensive nun, devout and pure,"

I have a livelier taste for the song of the milkmaid. This and the whistle of the ploughman, or the gambols of children in a hayfield, have often detained me under a hawthorn hedge from far more important concerns. With this account of myself, dear reader, I bid thee adieu.

No. II.

DIFFERENT EFFECTS OF SPRING IN TOWN AND COUNTRY UPON A MAN OF THE TOWN, WHO IS ALSO A MAN OF MANY IMPULses.

"A day in April never came so sweet,

To show that costly summer was at hand."

SHAKSPEARE.

I HAVE said in my preface, that I am never so happy as in a country tour, after a glut of the world

in town.

Accordingly, no schoolboy ever rejoiced more at the approach of his holidays than I, when, Easter being over, the greenness of the hedges and the budding of flowers, to say nothing of the song of birds and perfume of gardens, warn all fashionable people to leave them for dust and noise and crowded streets. It was not so in older times, when my present date (the 4th of June) was the birthday of the most rational and most virtuous, as well as most just, of Britain's kings. George the Third had set the fashion of retiring to enjoy Nature where best she is to be seen, in the country. The courtiers, whether they liked it or not, felt bound in some degree to follow his example, and streets and squares began to empty, instead of filling to repletion, as they do now, about this time of the year. I am, however, for the good old fashion I have commemorated; and hence, after wandering in the green lanes that so cheer the

good citizens in the outskirts of London during the first few days of warmth and verdure, I am never easy till I am fairly off upon some country errand, which takes me twenty or thirty miles from the dissipation and turmoil that begin to thicken around me.

The signal for my annual progress is arrived. We have long "woo'd the tardy spring," which is at last come; and only more lovely for having been previously so coy.

But how strange, that in our capricious island, where sunshine is so scanty and the gifts of the seasons so uncertain, the arrival of this lovely time should be the reason for leaving the country, instead of seeking it! All the avenues to London are filled with travelling carriages, loaded above their roofs with animate and inanimate lumber. Among them I sometimes see (though rarely) Sir Francis Wronghead's "awld coach," creaking under four "portmantels" with my lady's gear, heavy Ralph, and the monkey behind, and Dolly Cook hoisted into the coach-box before, "because she ware sick."

Our squires, however, are now so refined, that this is, as I have said, but of rare occurrence; though, whether we have gained by exchanging their rough simplicity (which bordered, I allow, upon rudeness) for the refinement which now pervades all ranks, and sits very ill upon some of them, may be a question.

My friend Medlicott is a changed being. He triumphs in the return of the world (his world) to town. For he is a cordon bleu de son ordre, though,

He is

it must be owned, his ordre is but a sorry one. the prince of the ennuyés, and I must waste a few words upon him. During the commencement of the year, he dragged on a listless existence, without any object to kindle him, having worn out the few faculties he had by over-indulgence.

If, indeed, you are not a denizen of St. James's Street, it is fit I should tell you something of the life of this illustrious person. He has been a gambler on turf and at hazard, till, by shaking the dice-box, he is considerably out at elbows. He has been in Parliament, but could neither speak himself, nor listen to others. He has belonged to all the clubs, in order to make sure of a diversity of company; but finding all his companions did the same, and he met with none but the same faces, that was a failure too.

He tried marriage, but thought his wife had too much vivacity (that is, spent too much money), while she thought him dull (that is, stingy); so they separated, she to Brussels, he to his beloved St. James's Street, where his face is to be seen in eternal sameness, through the seven different windows of the seven different clubs of which he is a worthy member.

He has a fine house near the Land's End, washed by the sea; but, being at the land's end, it leads to no other place, and nobody will take the trouble of going so far, merely to be bored and come back again.

He, therefore, bestows himself at Christmas upon any body that will put up with him for the holidays, over which he generally spreads what is called a "wet

blanket:" certainly little fire can burn where he has any connection. But he is now happy; for all his dinner-giving friends (the only friends he cares for)

are come to town.

Yet he is a bad diner-out, for he is so blasé, that though he opens his mouth often enough, he never says a word. Yet he pretends to wit, and when he asked me what I was going away for, and I told him, to enjoy the fresh green of the country, he actually drawled out, that the only green he cared for was Green Street. So much for Medlicott.

I am not a little ridiculed, however, by others of a different calibre, who say I give myself airs, and set up for an original, because I presume to act for myself, and have the boldness to leave London when the best company is coming to it.

One reminds me of Will Honeycomb, in his banter of his dear Spec.:-"I suppose this will find thee picking a daisy, or smelling to a lock of hay." On the other hand, Lord Blatterthwaite, who always speaks ex cathedra (that is, from an arm-chair at Boodle's); who never comes to town till the middle of May, nor leaves it till Parliament is up, though at the end of August; who, moreover, is a remarkable good husband, having ten children by my lady (whom, with my lady herself, he keeps in excellent order in the country), declares it is always a bad sign when a single man presumes to set himself up against Custom. To this I answer, with a complete man of the world: "Custom! that result of the passions and prejudices of many, and the designs of a few! that ape of Reason,