tion to observe one of your vast learning and abilities obliged to exert them in so low a sphere, when so many of your inferiors wallow in wealth and preferment.

ORDINARY. Why, it must be confessed, that there are bad men in all orders; but you should not censure too generally. I must own, I might have expected higher promotion; but I have learnt patience and resignation: and I would advise you to the same temper of mind; which if you can attain, I know you will find mercy; nay, I do now promise you, you will. It is true, you are a sinner; but your crimes are not of the blackest die: you are no murderer, nor guilty of sacrilege. And if you are guilty of theft, you make some atonement by suffering for it, which many others do not. Happy it is indeed for those few who are detected in their sins, and brought to exemplary punishment for them in this world. So far, therefore, from repining at your fate when you come to the tree, you should exult and rejoice in it and to say the truth, I question whether to a wise man, the catastrophe of many of those who die by a halter, is not more to be envied than pitied. Nothing is so sinful as sin, and murder is the greatest of all sins; it follows, that whoever commits murder is happy in suffering for it; if, therefore, a man who commits murder is so happy in dying for it, how much better must it be for you, whe have committed a less crime.

JONATHAN. All this is very true; but let us take a bottle of wine to cheer our spirits.

ORDINARY. Why wine? Let me tell you, Mr. Wild, there is nothing so deceitful as the spirits given us by wine. If you must drink, let us have a bowl of punch; a liquor I the rather prefer, as it is no where spoken against in scripture, and as it is more wholesome for the gravel, a distemper with which I am grievously afflicted.

JONATHAN. (Having called for a bowl.). I ask your pardon, doctor; I should have remembered that punch was your favourite liquor. I think you never taste wine while there is any punch remaining on the table.

ORDINARY. I confess, I look on punch to be the more eligible liquor, as well for the reasons I have before mentioned, as likewise for one other cause, viz. it is the properest for a Draught. I own I took it a little unkind or

you to mention wine, thinking you knew my palate. JONATHAN. You are in the right; and I will take a swingeing cup to your being made a bishop.

ORDINARY. And I will wish you a reprieve in as large a draught. Come, don't despair; It is yet time enough to think of dying; you have good friends, who very probably may prevail for you. I have known many a man reprieved, who had less reason to expect it.

JONATHAN. But if I should flatter myself with such hopes, and be deceived, what then would become of my soul?

ORDINARY. Pugh! Never mind your soul, leave that to me: I will render a good account of it, I warrant you. I have a sermon in my pocket, which may be of some use to you to hear. I do not value myself on the talent of preaching, since no man ought to value himself for any gift in this world:-But, perhaps, there are not many such sermons.—But to proceed, since we have nothing else to do till the punch comes.-My text is the latter part of a verse only. To the Greeks FOOLISHNESS. The occasion of these words was principally that philosophy of the Greeks, which at that time had over-run great part of the heathen world, had poisoned, and as it were, puffed up their minds with pride, so that they disregarded all kinds of doctrine in comparison of their own; and however safe, and however sound the learning of others might be, yet, if it any wise contradicted their own laws, customs, and received opinions, away with it, it is not for us. It was to the Greeks FoOLISHNESS.

In the former part, therefore, of my discourse on these words. I shall principally confine myself to the laying open and demonstrating the great emptiness and vanity of this philosophy, with which these idle and absurd sophists were so proudly blown up and elevated :

And here I shall do two things: First, I shall expose the matter: and secondly, the manner of this absurd philosophy.

And first, for the first of these, namely the matter. Now here we may retort the unmannerly word, which our adversaries have audaciously thrown in our faces; for what was all this mighty matter of philosophy, this heap of knowledge, which was to bring such large harvests of honour to those who sowed it, and so greatly and nobly to enrich the ground on which it fell; what was it but FOOLISHNESS? An inconsistent heap of nonsense, of absurdities and contradictions, bringing no ornament to the mind in its theory, nor exhibiting any usefulness to the body in its practice. What were all the sermons and the sayings, the fables and the morals, of all these wise men, but to use the word mentioned in my text once more, FOOLISHNESS? What was their great master Plato, or their other great light, Aristotle ? Both fools, mere quibblers and so-phists, idly and vainly attached to certain ridiculous notions of their own, founded neither on truth nor on reason.. Their whole works are a strange medley of the greatest. falsehoods, scarce covered over with the colour of truth: their precepts are neither borrowed from nature, nor guided by reason mere fictions, serving only to evince the dreadful height of human pride; in one word, FOOLISHNESS. It may be, perhaps, expected from me, that I should give some instances from their works to prove this charge; but as to transcribe every passage to my purpose, would be to transcribe their whole works, and as in such a plentiful crop, it is difficult to choose; instead of trespassing on your patience, I shall conclude this first head with asserting what I have so fully proved, and what may indeed be inferred from the text, that the philosophy of the Greeks was FOOLISHNESS.

Proceed we now in the second place, to consider the manner in which this inane and simple doctrine was propagated. And here-but here the punch, by entering, awaked Mr. Wild who was fast asleep, and put an end to

the sermon; nor could we obtain any further account of the conversation which passed at this interview.

CHAPTER XIV.

Wild proceeds to the highest consummation of human GREAT

NESS.

THE day now grew nigh, when our great man was to exemplify the last and noblest act of greatness, by which any hero can signalize himself. This was the day of execution, or consummation, or apotheosis, (for it is called by different names,) which was to give our hero an opportunity of facing death and damnation, without any fear in his heart, or, at least without betraying any symptoms of it in his countenance. A completion of greatness which is heartily to be wished to every great man; nothing being more worthy of lamentation than when fortune, like a lazy poet, winds up her catastrophe awkwardly, and bestowing too little care on her fifth act, dismisses the hero with a sneaking and private exit, who had in the former part of the drama performed such notable exploits, as must promise to every good judge among the spectators, a noble, public, and exalted end.

But she was resolved to commit no such error in this instance. Our hero was too much and too deservedly her favourite, to be neglected by her in his last moments: accordingly all efforts for a reprieve were vain, and the name of Wild stood at the head of those who were ordered for execution.

From the time he gave over all hopes of life, his conduct was truly great and admirable. Instead of showing any marks of dejection and contrition, he rather infused. more confidence and assurance in his looks. He spent most of his hours in drinking with his friends, and with the good man above commemorated. In one of these compotations, being asked whether he was afraid to die, he answered, D-n me, it is only to dance without music. Another time, when one expressed some sorrow for his misfortune, as he termed it, he said with great fierceness,

a man can die but once. Again, when one of his intimate acquaintance hinted his hopes, that he would die like a man, he cocked his hat in defiance, and cried out greatly, Zounds! who's afraid?

Happy would it have been for posterity, could we have retrieved any entire conversation which passed at this season, especially between our hero and his learned comforter; but we have searched many pasteboard records in vain.

On the eve of his apotheosis, Wild's lady desired to see him, to which he consented. This meeting was at first very tender on both sides; but it could not continue so; for unluckily some hints of former miscarriages intervening, as particularly when she asked him, how he could have used her so barbarously once, as calling her b

and whether such language became a man, much less a gentleman, Wild flew into a violent passion, and swore she was the vilest of b- -s, to upbraid him at such a season, with an unguarded word spoke long ago. She replied, with many tears, she was well enough served for her folly in visiting such a brute; but she had one comfort however, that it would be the last time he could ever treat her so; that indeed she had some obligation to him, for that his cruelty to her would reconcile her to the fate he was to-morrow to suffer; and indeed, nothing but such brutality could have made the consideration of his shameful death, (so this weak woman called hanging,) which was now inevitable, to be borne even without madness. She then proceeded to a recapitulation of his faults in an exacter order and with more perfect memory than one would have imagined her capable of; and it is probable, would have rehearsed a complete catalogue, had not our hero's patience failed him, so that with the utmost fury and violence he caught her by the hair and kicked her as heartily as his chains would suffer him, out of the room.

At length the morning came, which fortune at his birth had resolutely ordained for the consummation of our he ro's GREATNESS: he had himself indeed modestly declined