perty of my charge to my own account; I imparted these suggestions to my unhappy wife, who is now at her account; let me do her justice to confess she withstood them firmly for a time; still fortune frowned upon me, and I was sinking in my credit every hour; ruin stared me in the face, and nothing stood between me and immediate disgrace, but this infamous expedient.

• At last, persuasion, menaces, and the impending pressure of necessity conquered her virtue, and she acceded to the fraud. We agreed to adopt the infant as the orphan son of a distant relation of our own name; I maintained a correspondence with his father, by letters pretending to be written by the son, and I supported my family in a splendid extravagance by the assignments i received from the Brazils. At length, the father of Don Juan died, and by will bequeathed his fortune to me in failure of his son and his heirs. I had already advanced so far in guilt, that the temptation of this contingency met no resistance in my mind, and I determined upon removing this bar to my ambition, and proposed to my wife to secure the prize that fortune had hung within our reach, by the assassination of the heir. She revolted from the idea with horror, and for some time her thoughts remained in so disturbed a state, that I did not think it prudent to renew the attack: after some time the agent of the deceased arrived in Lisbon from the Brazils, and as he was privy to my correspondence, it became necessary for me to discover to Don Juan who he was, and also what fortune he was entitled to. In this crisis, threatened with shame and detection on one hand, and tempted by avarice, pride, and the devil on the other, I won over my reluctant wife to a participation of my crime, and we mixed that dose with poison, which we believed was intended

for Don Juan, but which, in fact, was destined for our only child : she took it; heaven discharged its vengeance on our heads, and we saw our daughter expire in agonies before our eyes, with the bitter aggravation of a double murder, for the child was alive within her. Are there words in language to express our lamentations? Are there tortures in the reach of even your invention to compare with those we felt? Wonderful were the struggles of nature in the heart of our expiring child: she bewailed us ; she consoled, nay, she even forgave us. To Don Juan we made immediate confession of our guilt, and conjured him to inflict that punishment upon us, which justice demanded, and our crimes deserved. It was in this dreadful moment that our daughter, with her last breath, by the most solemn adjurations, exacted and obtained a promise from Don Juan not to expose her parents to a public execution by disclosing what had passed. Alas! alas! we see too plainly how he kept his word: Behold, he dies a martyr to honour! your infernal tortures have destroyed him

No sooner had the monk pronounced these words in a loud and furious tone, than the wretched Don Juan drew a sigh ; a second would have followed, but heaven no longer could tolerate the agonies of innocence, and stopped his heart for ever.

The monk had fixed his eyes upon him, ghastly with terror, and as he stretched out his mangled limbs at life's last gasp-Accursed monsters!' he exclaimed, may God requite his murder on your souls at the great day of judgment! His blood be on your heads, ye ministers of darkness! For mc, if heavenly vengeance is not yet appeased by my contrition, in the midst of flames my aggrieved soul will find some consolation in the thought, that you partake its torments.'

Having uttered this in a voice scarce human, he plunged a knife to his heart, and whilst his blood spouted on the pavement, dropped dead upon the body of Don Juan, and expired without a groan.

NUMBER XX.

Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?

I THINK it much to be lamented that our English newspapers have such an extensive circulation through Europe, unless proper means could be taken to restrain their excessive licentiousness. As few foreigners will believe any government so void of resource in this particular, they can no otherwise account for our not correcting these abuses of the press, but because we want the will and not the power. Amongst the causes that have lately operated to increase their circulation and success, I hope, for the honour of human nature, their licentiousness is not one; and yet it appears as if their encouragement had kept pace with their malignancy. If I had not experienced the bad effects they have upon the minds of people in other countries, I should not have thought such publications capable of such mischief. Though the conductors of them seem careless about consequences, I will not believe it was in their minds to do a deliberate injury to their country; but as they are not disposed to put a bridle on themselves, it were to be wished some prudent hand would do the office for them;

though I see the difficulty of finding such a curb as shall not gall the mouth of Freedom.

I am not at present disposed to be any longer serious on this subject, and therefore waving all the weightier matters of my charge, I shall take notice only of one ridiculous circumstance in which they abound, vulgarly called puffing.

I have been turning over some papers to find out the chief professors of this art, which I believe is now carried to its highest state of improvement: truth compels me to say, that with regret I have discovered several amongst them, who ought to have understood themselves better, but whilst there is hope they will amend, I am contented they should escape; at least I shall pass them over in silence, regarding them for the present as persons surprised into bad company, and chargeable with indiscretion rather than depravity.

Our advertising quacks or empirics are an ancient and numerous class of Puffers. A collision of rival interests occasions these gentlemen to run foul of each other in their general'undertakings, and betrays their natural modesty into a warmer style of colouring their own merits, than the liberal study of physic and the public spirited principle on which they pretend to act, would otherwise warrant: If the candid reader can find an excuse for them in their zeal and anxiety to recommend the blessings which they offer to mankind, I will not impede the plea. A foolish partiality some people still have for physicians regularly bred, and a squeamish unwillingness to repair to back-doors and blind alleys for relief, oblige them to use strong words to combat strong prejudices. But though they are at some pains to convince us that our bills of natural deaths might be all comprised under the single article of old age, there is yet here and there an

obstinate man, who will die felo de se before the age of threescore years and ten.

Whilst the sages are puffing off our distempers in one page, the auctioneers are puffing off our property in another. If this island of ours is to be credited for their description of it, it must pass for a terrestrial paradise; it makes an English ear tingle to hear of the boundless variety of lawns, groves, and parks; lakes, rivers, and rivulets; decorated farms and fruitful gardens; superb and matchless collections of pictures, jewels, plate, furniture, and equipages; town-houses and country-houses; hothouses and ice-houses; observatories and conservatories; offices attached and detached: with all the numerous etceteras that glitter down the columns of our public prints. Numerous as these are, it is less a matter of surprise with me where purchasers are found, than why any one, whose necessities are not his reason, will be a vender of such enchanting possessions. Though a man's caprice may be tired of a beautiful object long enjoyed, yet when he sees an old acquaintance dressed out in new colours, and glowing in the flowery description of these luxuriant writers, I should expect that his affection would revive, and that he would recall the cruel sentence of alienation. Pliny never so described his villa, as these puffers will set forth the cast-off mansion of a weary owner. Put a vicious, lame, and stumbling horse into their hands, and he comes out safe and sound the next morning, and is fit to carry the first lady in the land: weed your collections of their copies and counterfeits, by the help of a persuasive tongue, quick eye, and energetic hammer, they are knocked down for originals and antiques, and the happy buyer bears them off delighted with his bargain. What is the harp of

an