meanness. Thus are they alternately encouraged by each other. Avarice furnishes the means for profusion, and profusion makes avarice more necessary. "To be greedy of the property of others, and lavish of his own," were the strongest traits of Catiline's mind. In modern life, among those who are cursed with a similar disposition, no one is more remarkable than the gamester.

Cruelty and cowardice, ignorance and presumption, insolence and servility, are the general associates, yet the general opponents. They are united to harass each other; they engage, and, like Antæus, gather strength from every defeat. He who can contemplate these inconsistencies, and attempt to reconcile such absurdities to reason, may hunt for beauties in Ossian, or unalloyed purity in a Birmingham coin; or should he find such toil ineffectual, let him extract candour from a professed critic, ransack the world for an attorney of moderate peculation and tolerable honesty, or listen with credulity to the narrative of Captain Lemuel Gulliver.

How frequent are our exclamations, in a shameful spirit of studied negligence, or listless inactivity, that time is a heavy burthen to us! how loud are our complaints that we have nothing to do! Yet how inconsistent are these exclamations, and these complaints, with the declarations which truth and reason so often extort from us, that the flight of time reproaches us with our supineness, and that a day never passes without our "having left undone those things which we ought to have done!"

While we are thus capricious and contradictory in our actions and opinions, ever wishing that

completed which we ever delay to begin, lamenting over imaginary wants, neglecting to enjoy blessings we possess, grasping at the fleeting phantom of happiness, and regardless of the substantial form of it, human life appears like a patchwork of illsorted colours; like the fantastic and incongruous phantasms of a dream, or, for aught I know, like the miscellaneous ingredients of an Olla Podrida. MONRO.

No. XLIV.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1788.

A te principium, tibi desinet.- -Virg.

Of self so dear I sang in number one,
By self so dear I'll end as I've begun.

If there be any of my readers, whether inhabiting the retirements of the Isle of Muck, frequenters of the religious receptacles of St. James's or St. Giles's, or tenants of a bow-window in Shoe-lane, to whom it shall be a matter of momentary concern that they are now reading the last number of the Olla Podrida; to such I would return thanks for the patience with which they have toiled through my pages, and administer some consolation under their present disappointment. I have the satisfaction to eflect, that I take my leave of the world at a time

when it cannot be at a loss for amusement. The Isle of Muck has, no doubt, those pleasing recreations by which the gloom of a winter's evening is easily dissipated. The exercise of hot-cockles, and the agreeable diversion of blindman's-buff, has most likely found its way even to the inmost of the Hebrides, where simplicity has so firmly withstood the inroads of refinement, and where a deviation from barbarism seems to have been considered as a defection from virtue. Let me remind my friends in Shoe-lane likewise, that the cessation of this paper's appearance amongst them ought not to be considered as a calamity, while the season furnishes such a variety of entertainment: he who, from reasons which I will not pretend to inquire into, has perused with any degree of pleasure the numbers of this work, now finds his mental amusement happily diversified by "The Bellman's Address to his Masters and Mistresses all;" in which, I must add, be he poet, moralist, philosopher, or lounger, he will meet with ample subject for discussion or contemplation.

Amongst other traits of our national character, I know not that our observance of religious festivals has ever been noticed. The histories of nations furnish us with no examples of such annual enthusiasm as marks the inhabitants of Great Britain. Christmas never visits us without a train of peculiar rites and ceremonies, to which I suppose our historians have not extended their notice, because they have been unwilling to deal forth their censures upon their countrymen. How we ought to commemorate this season, every one may know; how we do commemorate it, no one is ignorant;

and there is perhaps not much distinction between the omissions of him who neglects to practise what he knows is right, and of him who is ignorant of what he ought to know. But as it is considerably to my interest to bid farewell to my readers, without leaving them in ill humour, I shall lay a restraint upon my inclination to moralize, and be very brief upon a subject which perhaps demands a more ample discussion. To the serious it is unnecessary to suggest, that the time is now present which they are called upon, by their reason and their religion, to welcome with every demonstration of rational and settled joy. These are reflections to which they are naturally led without exhortation, and which the gay might indulge without diminution of their happiness. Yet some there are, who, without taste for the enjoyment of gaiety, are never disposed to seriousness; who, from a trifling disposition, are devoted to endless insipidity, and affected mirth; or, from vicious tendencies, are willing to banish reflection, lest it should bring with it an interruption to their supposed happiness. But lest I should seem already to have forgotten my promise of restraining my inclination to moralize, I shall fill up part of my vacant page with that beautiful sonnet of Shakspeare, so well describing the natural appearance of winter. If there be any one to whom it is new, I shall be entitled to his thanks; and he, to whom it is familiar, cannot read it again without pleasure. Its simplicity I know not how sufficiently to commend.

When icicles hang by the wall,

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,

And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail;
When blood is nipt, and ways be foul;
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tu-whit, tu-whoo, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all around the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl;
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tu-whit, tu-whoo, a merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

With regard to the tendency of these pages which I here offer to the public, I know my own intentions, and am satisfied. How they are executed, it remains for them to judge. To the critics I have nothing to say. He who would shun criticism must not be a scribbler; and he who would court it must have great abilities or great folly.

MONRO.