testation of the audience is worked up to the highest possible pitch; in the subsequent part of the scene, Alonzo is racked with a still farther discovery of the reasons that incited Zanga to revenge, from Zanga himself: in an agony of despair, he stabs himself, and dies: and the poet concludes the piece with endeavouring to draw a shade over the character of the Moor before he leaves him to the mercy of the spectator; and, by one speech, aims at an atonement for him in opposition to the detestation and disgust he had previously so successfully excited. Zanga approaches the body, and thus speaks:

Is this Alonzo? where's his haughty mien?

Is this the hand which smote me? Heavens! how pale!
And art thou dead? So is my enmity,

I war not with the dust: the great, the proud,
The conqueror of Afric was my foe.

A lion preys not upon carcasses.

This was the only method to subdue me;
Terror and doubt fall on me; all thy good
Now blazes; all thy guilt is in the grave.
Never had man such funeral applause;
If I lament thee, sure thy worth was great.
O vengeance! I have follow'd thee too far;
And to receive me hell blows all her fires.-

Zanga might here with propriety retort upon Young the very words which were put into his mouth in addressing Alonzo:

Christian, thou mistak'st my character.

For these symptoms of repentance and regret which he here discovers in acknowledging his having gone too great lengths in his pursuit of revenge, and that he had followed vengeance too far, are totally out of place, and unnatural : they are against the tenets of that religion which he is supposed to profess, and the practice and example of his country, which consider a contrary conduct as eminently meritori

ous.

The plain rule of Horace should, certainly, to have completed the piece, have been strictly adhered to:

Servetur ad imum

Qualis ab incepto processerit, aut sibi constet.

THE OLLA PODRIDA, No. 16, June 30, 1787.

No. CXXV.

Est natura hominum novitatis avida.

It is the nature of mankind to be desirous of novelty.

THAT with respect of news, as well as of liquors, man is a thirsty soul, we are taught in the words of my motto, at the very first entrance on our elementary studies. Curiosity is the appetite of the mind. It must be satisfied, or we perish.

Among the improvements, therefore, of modern times, there is none on which I find more reason to congratulate my countrymen, than the increase of knowledge by the multiplication of newspapers.

With what a mixture of horror and commiseration do we now look back to that period in our history, when, as it is said, a written letter came down once a week to the coffee-house, where a proper person with a clear and strong voice, was pitched upon to read it aloud to the company assembled upon the occasion! How earnestly did they listen! How greedily did they suck down every drop of intelligence that fell within their reach! Happy the man who

carried off but half a sentence! It was his employment, for the rest of the evening, to imagine what the other half might have been. In days like these, there was, indeed, (if we may use the expression)" a famine in the land;" and one wonders how people contrived to keep body and soul together.

The provision at present made for us is ample. There are morning papers for breakfast; there are evening papers for supper-I beg pardon-I mean dinner; and lest, during the interval, wind should get into the stomach, there is, I believe,-I know there was a paper published by way of luncheon, about noon. That fanaticism may not overwhelm us, and that profane learning may be duly mingled with sacred, there is also a Sunday Gazette; which removes one objection formerly urged, and surely not without reason, against the observation of the day.

Some have complained, that to read all the newspapers, and compare them accurately together, as it is necessary to do before a right judgment can be formed of the state of things in general, is grown to be a very laborious task, which, whoever performs properly can do nothing else. And why should he? Perhaps, he has nothing else to do; perhaps, if he had not

this to do, he would be in mischief.

The com

plaint springs from a criminal indolence, the child of peace and wealth. No man knows what may be done within the compass of a day till he tries. Fortune favours the brave. Let him buckle to the work, and despair of nothing. The more difficulty the more honour. The Athenians, we are told, spent their time only "in hearing or telling some new thing." Would he wish to spend his time better than the Athenians did?

It has been thought, that tradesmen and artificers may spend too much of their time in this employment, to the neglect of their own respective occupations. But this can be thought only by such as have not considered, that to an Englishman his country is every thing. Self is swallowed up, as it ought to be, in patriotism : or, to borrow ecclesiastical language, the constitution is his diocese; his own business can only be regarded in the light of a commendam, on which if he cast an eye now and then, as he happens to pass that way, it is abundantly suffi

cient.

The spirit of defamation by which a newspaper is often possessed, has now found its own remedy in the diversity of them: for though a gentleman may read, that he himself is a scoun