modesty and diffidence, as to the success of things so unconnected, and written in extreme old age, induced him, when he gave the copy to the worthy publisher, to engage himself for the expense of the paper, lest the man of business might sustain some loss by the sale; but this man, of an uncommon spirit, declares he will accept of nothing from the author, because, as he proceeds with the work at the press, he is persuaded that it will be attended with the sale he wishes for. He is not much afraid of your finding any thing tedious or insipid; he only fears you may sometimes think him a little too alert. If you now and then see a soaring fly, or an insect rampant, take it for granted, they intend to amuse, not to offend you. If he sometimes lards his olio with a spice of the curious, or facetious, you will not think it amiss in the midst of documents, perhaps too serious for your former taste. In one of his lucubrations you will find the use of humour, on a proper occasion, justified by the holy Scriptures themselves. Pardon the writer, if in him you never meet with an account of a young lady of seventy, or seventeen, just going to elope with her own, or her father's footman.. Of all things he hates scandal, and lies, and writes at too great a distance from the world, to know what is doing any where, but in the church, and in his own chamber. It is true, he hath handled some classes of men, and one or two characters, with a little roughness; but it is only because they have laboured, under the disguise of a sacred function, to deceive you. The writer fears to go any farther with you on the. bewitching subject of scandal; but hopes, however, you will not disrelish his work the more, for being previously assured, that there is not a lie in the whole. He knows you are fond of lies, but not just because they are lies, but because they divert you; and knowing them to be such, you are not deceived by them. If truths may be as entertaining to you, permit him to believe you will like them almost as well. If, in your newspaper, you should find an advertisement, that a large estate was fallen to you in some neighbouring country, and that you had nothing to do but to take possession, on proving yourself to be the very person named in said advertisement; I can easily conceive your joy on the occasion,

your consultations with your friends about the truth of the advertisement, and the hurry you would be in to set out, on the wellattested proof of your title, for the country named in the advertisement, with every requisite testimonium of your being the person entitled. If now, in my newspapers, you should find an indubitable advertisement of a much larger estate bequeathed to you in a finer country, and on a tenure, truly for ever, I do not ask you, what you would do in regard to your claim, because I perfectly know what you ought to do.

Pardon him too for dwelling chiefly on religious subjects. Every man is in danger of speaking or writing like a fool, if not on the subject he knows best. You yourself would have a scurvy opinion of him, should you not perceive, that he hath religion more at heart than every thing else. It must, however, be owing to a gross ignorance of our religion, not to think it the sweetest of all subjects, and, by far, the most capable of affording delight, when properly exhibited to the human heart. In this particular he is drawn out of himself by his love of God and you. He knows how pernicious to you material errors, unfeeling coldness, or illdirected warmths, in religion, may prove. If in any part of this work he may hope to kindle a little warmth in hearts too cold, or in another, point the way to one already warm, he may be of more use to you than you are yet aware of, under the influence of either disposition. To know the principles of true religion, and to feel its spirit, should be, yet are not, the same thing in some minds. The candle of this writer may serve to shew the former, and to kindle up the latter. As you will read but little at once on any subject, possibly least on that of religion, a glance from a writer of this sort is better fitted for your purpose than the long and elaborate treatise of another. Let the curiosity which leads you to a common newspaper lead you to this, and fear not the consequence. not be alarmed at the thoughts of becoming a better man than you are; a worse, this will not make you. Be sure of this, that goodness and happiness are inseparably connected, as are undoubtedly their contraries. If, like the old Athenians, you are actuated by a passion for news, here are many things perfectly new and strange

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to you, perhaps, to some of you, an unknown God. Here are news, not from France, Spain, or either India, but from another world. If, as Christian soldiers, you are unprovided of arms and ammunition, here is a magazine of both, and every weapon more like the sling of David than the heavy armour of Saul. If you would look back, and make a careful research, here are materials for a most useful review, not of other men's works, but of your Men are generally made good or bad by little and little. In this work you have here a little, and there a little,' to make you a good man, that your freedom may not be forced, nor your weakness oppressed by too much at once. Your newspaper or journal is only the amusement of the day; but a day is of infinite consequence to you. A heathen poet says, carpe diem, crop the day, which, like the flower of a tuberose hyacinth, must perish at night. One of greater authority saith, to-day if you will hear the voice of God, harden not your hearts.' Pursuant to the same authority, the journal, here afforded to you, will exhort you daily to consider what you are about, where you are going, and how you are prepared to die, while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.' Without a good deal more attention than the readers of newspapers are usually blessed with, it is impossible to know the value of a day, nor what that or the next day may bring forth. Were you ever told, that your time and your life are precisely the same thing? or that your time, short as it is, will give that colour to your eternity which can never be changed? Surely any thing that would tell you these, and put you on redeeming your time, as the days of your life are evil, and at present enslaved to pernicious follies, ought to be acceptable, though it should cost you all you have in this world. There is nothing you are so much terrified at as the thought of your own death; it therefore seems very strange, that you should delight in battles, and the deaths of ten or twenty thousand in one day, as if you were to feast with the wolf and the vulture on the flesh of the slain. How can your heart be amused with carnage and slaughter? Or, have you time for mere amusements, though they were more suited to the sentiments of human nature, not to

say, of Christianity? Think a little. Have you time to read of duels, murders, adulteries, &c. and to tell in every company these delightful pieces of intelligence? You, who are hastening to eter→ nity? You, whose state of probation must so soon be brought to its important conclusion? The youngest among you ought keenly to consider this. This, notwithstanding, we frequently see people of both sexes reading newspapers with spectacles. Perhaps human folly never affords a sight more absurd. As the decay of sight is a warning that life is drawing towards a close, and eternity near at hand, the wise Christian should put on spectacles, that he may find those in the word of God, made by Solomon, that admirable optician, whereby it may be seen, that all things under the sun are vanity and vexation of spirit.' The wise Christian, seeing this, will turn his back on this world, and with the telescope of faith at his eye, will follow the star of Bethlehem till it guides him to that superior light which will throw his shadow towards the glimmering sun, and guide him up to the Father of Spirits. He will put on these spectacles, that he may see how 'to press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,' and that he may prepare for the grand and final emigration. For the same happy purpose the old lady will put on these spectacles, not that she may search in a newspaper for the most fashionable friseur.

After iterated supplications for your pardon, this writer peremptorily insists on your thanks, if you are still a newsmonger of the old stamp, for the many obscurities, inaccuracies, and blunders which you may find in his miscellany, thrown overboard, on set purpose, as so many empty barrels, for the philosophical whale of infidelity to play with, and for your amusement, as the captives of curiosity, to exercise your critical talent. Lest in this wood, which he shews you, it may be easy for you to miss your way, he directs you to No. 8, 10, 23, 29, 113, 114, 123, 147, 159, 168, 172, 188. These, with at least as many more, you are to thank the writer for. As to such as touch on religious subjects, he draws them from the fountain of living waters,' opened 'for sin and uncleanness;' and is convinced they will be found

harder for the infidel critic to deal with, than even the polished steel of Reid himself. On these he defies even the old dragon to fix his envenomed teeth. Now he knows if you look into his book at all, you will turn directly to the weak places he hath pointed out, as coming from himself alone; but then he is persuaded your curiosity will force you to glance on some of the rest, if it were but just to see what so odd a writer can say on subjects more serious.

If the public papers you are fond of, are fraught with infidelity, immorality, and faction, you are to blame yourselves for it, because the publishers have nothing else in view, but to accommodate themselves to your taste and humour. It is no easy matter for them to supply you with a daily sheet of such things as will please you, though nothing is to be had in greater plenty. They live by you; and if you love trash, they must sell it to you, or starve. Your love of loose principles, of vice, of faction, of scandal, are to be fed; good books must be condemned, bad ones must be applauded, a menstrual tête-a-tête, or whore and rogue, must be furnished, because you delight in the growth of wickedness, or in the ruin of characters. Were you but half as fond of virtue and piety, they would stuff their publications with instances of chastity, of conjugal fidelity, of justice and charity; nay, with prayers, hymns, meditations, and ejaculations; for such may be had, or might be contrived. But you and they are, at present, unhappily fitted for one another; insomuch that their readers may be damned at the cheap rate of a penny, or threehalfpence. There are prodigious numbers of patriots that cannot afford so high a purchase for the knowledge of politics, and are supplied with newspapers at a halfpenny a week by the hawkers, the same paper being read every day by twenty or thirty politicians. Of these, there are not a few, that give up so much of their time and attention to the interests of Europe, as wholly to neglect their own, and run themselves deeply in debt. For the benefit of these Decii, confined above stairs, the hawkers carry long slender wands, with a little slit in one end, by which they put up a paper, some times as high as a garret window, and