able, till time cast over them a softening but a pensive hue. But next to Ingleton he loved Doncaster.

And wherefore did he thus like Doncaster ? For a better reason than the epigrammatist could give for not liking Dr. Fell, though perhaps many persons have no better than that epigrammatist had in this case, for most of their likings and dislikings. He liked it because he must have been a very unreasonable man if he had not been thankful that his lot had fallen there-because he was useful and respected there, contented, prosperous, happy; finally because it is a very likeable place, being one of the most comfortable towns in England: for it is clean, spacious, in a salubrious situation, well-built, well-governed, has no manufactures, few poor, a greater proportion of inhabitants who are not engaged in any trade or calling, than perhaps any other town in the kingdom, and moreover it sends no members to parliament.

INTERCHAPTER III.

THE AUTHOR QUESTIONS THE PROPRIETY OF PERSONIFYING CIRCUMSTANCE. DENIES THE UNITY AND

INDIVISIBILITY OF THE PUBLIC, AND MAY EVEN BE SUSPECTED OF DOUBTING ITS OMNISCIENCE AND

ITS INFALLIBILITY.

Ha forse

Testa la plebe, ove si chiuda in vece

Di senno,

altro che nebbia? o forma voce Chi sta più saggia, che un bebù d'armento?

CHIABRERA.

"WHAT a kind of Being is circumstance!" says Horace Walpole in his atrocious tragedy of the Mysterious Mother.-A very odd kind of Being indeed. In the course of my reading I remember but three Beings equally remarkable,-as personified in prose and verse. Social-Tie was one; Catastrophe another; and Inoculation, heavenly Maid! the third.

And

But of all ideal Beings the most extraordinary is that which we call the Public. The Public and Transubstantiation I hold to be the two greatest mysteries in, or out of nature. there are certain points of resemblance between them.-For as the Priest creates the one mystery, so the author, or other appellant to the said Public, creates the other, and both bow down in worship, real or simulated, before the Idol of their own creation. And as every fragment of the wafer break it into as many as you may, contains in itself the whole entire mystery of Transubstantiation, just in the same manner every fractional part of the Public assumes to itself the powers, privileges and prerogatives of the whole, as virtually, potentially and indefeasably its own. Nay, every individual who deems himself a constituent member of the said Public arrogates them also, and when he professes to be acting pro bono publico, the words mean with him all the good he can possibly get for himself.

The old and famous illustration of Hermes may be in part applied to the Public; it is a circle of which the centre is every where: in part I

say, for its circumference is defined. It is bounded by language, and has many intercircles. It is indeed a confused multiplicity of circles intersecting each other, perpetually in motion and in change. Every man is the centre of some circle, and yet involved in others; he who is not sometimes made giddy by their movements, has a strong head; and he who is not sometimes thrown off his balance by them, stands well upon his legs.

Again, the Public is like a nest of patent coffins packed for exportation, one within another. There are Publics of all sizes, from the genus generalissimum, the great general universal Public, whom London is not large enough to hold, to the species specialissima, the little Thinking Public, which may find room in a nutshell.

There is the Fashionable Public, and the Religious Public, and the Play-going Public, and the Sporting Public, and the Commercial Public, and the Literary Public, and the Reading Public, and Heaven knows how many Publics more. They call themselves Worlds sometimes,—as if a certain number of worldlings made a World!

He who pays his homage to any or all of these Publics, is a Publican and a Sinner.

Nunquam alui populo placere; nam quæ ego scio non probat populus; quæ probat populus, ego nescio.*"

"Bene et ille, quisquis fuit, (ambigitur enim de auctore,) cum quæreretur ab illo, quo tanta diligentia artis spectaret ad paucissinos perventure? Satis sunt, inquit, mihi pauci; satis est unus: satis est nullus."†