know but it will be very well worth while to take a journey to Rome, on purpose to consult that of the Vatican; but I am a little too much confined at present. I therefore beg the assistance of the learned of both our universities, and hope they will be so good to communicate whatever discoveries they may have made upon this subject, in the course of their reading; and as I should be glad to enrich this paper with the choicest flowers of antiquity, I intend to publish them here. It is a subject, well handled, that must give great satisfaction to the curious; nay, I could wish the world was but well informed of some late truths concerning kicking: I fancy it would contribute towards curing the spleen of the whole nation.

The stage is the representation of the world, and certainly a man may know the humours and inclinations of the people, by what is liked or disliked upon the stage; and I have often observed a kicking to be the most diverting scene in a modern comedy. We have had several poets of our own nation who have succeeded very well this way. There is a kicking betwixt Sir Harry Wildair, and Alderman Smuggler, in the comedy called the "Trip to the Jubilee ; which is allowed by the ablest critics to be a master-piece of good writing:

there is also a kicking in the "Old Bachelor," and another in the "Squire of Alsatia," which are excellently well penned.

Of all the comedians who have appeared upon the stage within my memory, no one has taken a kicking with so much humour as our present most excellent Laureat, and I am informed his son does not fall much short of him in this excellence; I am very glad of it, for as I have a kindness for the young man, I hope to see him as well kicked as his father was before him.

Hitherto, indeed, these kickings have been only the support and ornament of the comie scene: I wish with all my heart some poet of a sublime genius would venture to write a kicking in a tragedy. I am very well persuaded, if an author was to introduce a king kicking a first minister, it would have a very good effect. Such an incident must certainly give great pleasure to the audience, and contribute very much to the success of the play.

But to come nearer to my present purpose:I have taken no small pains in examining authors, to find out when this custom of kicking first began in the world. I am sorry the writers of history have not been a little more par

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ticular in a matter of so great importance to mankind.

Some of the Roman emperors, as Nero, Domitian, and Caligula, were given to kicking: so indeed was our Henry the Eighth; he made nothing of kicking the House of Commons. There is a box on the ear recorded of Queen Elizabeth; it was a sudden sally of jealous love; it was but a kind of aigre douceur; and it does not appear that it was the fashion of her court. The action of kicking might be thought a little too robust for the delicacy of her sex, it might have exposed the royal legs, et cetera, to the sneers of the young fellows of the court, therefore she modestly turned it into a box on the

ear.

As no man can account how fashions rise and fall, who knows but the practice of kicking upon every trifling occasion may become a fashion in this kingdom. One of the greatest wits of our nation has placed the seat of honour in a certain part of the body that I don't well know how to describe. It is the part which we must not name in well-bred company, yet happy is the fair maid who shall rise with that part uppermost in a morning; good luck shall attend her, her lover shall be kind, and all the wishes of that day shall be crowned with suc

cess: but if I must describe it still plainer, it is the part where school-boys are punished for false concords, and for playing truant. If it should, I say, become a fashion, you would see a fellow at court, who had just received a most gracious kick on that part, return as proud as a citizen from being knighted; and why may not the honour of knighthood be conferred this way, as well as by the sword? And, indeed, why might not all titles be conferred this way.

And again, if you should happen to see a crowd of slaves running to the levee of some court favourite in a morning, and any body. should ask how comes this man to be so courted or so followed, the natural answer would be, he has lately been kicked into preferment.

It might be turned to excellent use towards carrying on the designs of ministers of state, in case they should happen to be pursuing measures apparently destructive of the liberties of their country; for in this case, they must for their own safety, be obliged to bribe the representatives of the people; and as they would certainly bribe with the people's money, not with their own, and as I should think it a very right thing to save the public money, I should for that reason humbly propose, that kicking might be introduced into public business, instead of

bribing; I don't doubt but it might answer all the same purposes; for I am firmly of opinion, that whoever will take a bribe will take a kicking.

I believe some examples may be brought where it has been made use of with success; men, I say, have been kicked as well as bribed into measures against their country, and therefore it is not at all improbable but it may some time or other become a method of carrying on state affairs. If we should live to see that day, young princes, instead of riding, fencing, and dancing, would have proper masters provided to instruct them in kicking; and as he that undertook to eat a sword, began by eating a dagger, so a young adept should begin by kicking his hat, before he was put to kick a

man.

As to the young nobility and gentry, instead of wasting their youth in studying to understand Horace and Virgil, they might be instructed to take a kicking with a good grace; by which means you would see a polite nobility, a valiant gentry, a most pious dignified clergy, and a court that would be a constellation of the most illustrious personages in the kingdom.

There is a court of honour in all the countries of Europe: in France, the mareschals or