To the AUTHOR of the MIRROR.

SIR,

AM one of a family of young ladies who read your paper, with which we have been hitherto tolerably well pleased, though we could wish it were not quite fo grave, and had a little more love in it. But we have found out, of late, that it is none of your own, but mostly borrowed from other people. A coufin of ours, who is himself a fine fcholar, and has a great acquaintance among the critics, fhewed us many different inftances of this. Your first paper, he told us, was copied from the first paper of the Spectator; and, upon looking into both, we found them exactly the fame, all about the author and the work from beginning to end. Your Umphraville, he faid, was just Sir Roger de Coverley; which we perfectly agreed in, except that my fifter Betfey obferved, Umphraville wanted the Widow, which all of us think the very best part of Sir Roger. Your Bobby Button, he affured us, was borrowed from N° 13. of the True Patriot, published by Mr. Fielding, who wrote Tom Jones; and there, indeed, we found there was a ftory of a young gentleman who liked French wine better than his country, just like Sir Bobby. N° 72. which

we

we thought a very fweet paper, he informed us was taken from the Night Thoughts; and, indeed, though we don't understand Latin, we faw plainly that the mottos were the fame to a T. All this, however, we might have overlooked, had not a gentleman, who called here this morning, who used formerly to be a great advocate for the MIRROR, confeffed to us, that our coufin's intelligence was literally true; and, more than all that, he told us, that your very laft Number was to be found, every word of it, in Johnson's Dictionary.

We send you therefore notice, Sir, that unless you can contrive to give us fomething new for the future, we fhall be obliged to countermand our fubfcription for the MIRROR. We can have a reading of a fresh Novel every morning for the money, with a fpick and fpan new ftory in it, fuch as none of us ever read or heard of in all our lives before.

Yours, &c,

V

EVELIN A.

N° 97. TUESDAY, April 11, 1780.

To the AUTHOR of the MIRROR.

SIR,

You

OUR correfpondent K. B. has well described the calamitous condition of a private tutor, without money or friends. Perhaps it will afford him fome confolation, to hear of one who needlefsly entangled himself in difficulties of a like nature.

My father bred me to the ftudy of letters, and, at his death, left me in poffeffion of a fortune, not fufficient to check my industry in the purfuit of knowledge, but more than fufficient to fecure me from fervile dependence.

Through the interest of his friends, I obtained an honourable and lucrative office; but there were certain arrangements to be made, which delayed my admiffion to it for a twelvemonth. While I was confidering in what way I might beft fill up this interval of life, an acquaintance of mine requested, as a particular favour, that I would beftow the year which I could call mine, in reading with the only fon of the rich Mr. Flint. The conditions offered were

ur.com

uncommonly advantageous, and fuch as indeed flattered the vanity of a young man.

For understanding my story, it is fit that you fhould be informed of the characters of that family into which I was received with so many

marks of favour and distinction.

Rowland Flint, Efq; was born of poor but honeft parents; they made a hard fhift to have him inftructed in reading, and even in writing and arithmetic, and then they left him to find his way through the world as he beft could. The young man, like a philofopher, carried about with him all that was truly his own, his quill and his ink-holder; he attached himself to one of the fubordinate departments of the law, in which his drudgery was great and his profits scanty. After having toiled for many years in this humble, contented, and happy vocation, he was fuddenly raifed to opulence by the death of an uncle.

This uncle went abroad at a very early period of life, with the fixed refolution of acquiring a competency, and then of enjoying it at home. But that competency, which filled up the meafure of the ambition of a bare Scotch lad, proved far fhort of the defires of an eminent foreign merchant. He imperceptibly became "in "eafy circumftances, well in the world, of

great credit, a man to be relied on, and to

"be

❝ be advised with, and even one fuperior to all "fhocks, calls, and runs."

: While engaged in making his fortune, he thought it needlefs to enquire after his poor relations, whom he could not affift; and, after he had made his fortune, he thought it equally needlefs, as he was to fee them fo foon in Scotland. Yet a multitude of unforeseen obftacles retarded his return: fome new mortgage was to be fettled, fome company concerns to be wound up, or fome bottomry-accompt to be adjusted; and thus year glided along after year, till at length death furprised him at the age of threescore and ten. 1

Bufied in making money, he had never beftowed a thought on providing an heir to it that he left to the impartial determination of the laws of his country; and, dying inteftate, he was fucceeded by his nephew Rowland Flint.

This gentleman, on his becoming rich, discovered himself to be eminently fkilled in the fcience of law, the ftudy, as he boafted, of his earlier years; and this knowledge engaged him in three or four law-fuits, which the court uniformly determined against him, with costs.

But of every other science he honestly avowed his want of knowledge; and he did not even pretend to understand painting or politics; but he had a mighty veneration for literature, and