formifts have been inconfiftent enough to affail with ridicule and contempt. It is clear that both are favourers of the principle of inheritance, with this immenfe difference, that the one would fend us back upon our steps, in contradiction to the order of nature, to imitate a rude inceptive government, fubfifting in rude and unlettered times; the other exhorts us to regard with fuch veneration as Nature inculcates towards individual men, the Conftitution which our ancestors have formed in a courfe of fucceffive experience. As we cannot repay this debt of gratitude to our forefathers, let us discharge our bofoms by emulating their virtue in our love to posterity, and our folicitude to fend down to our children a Constitution entire in its principles, but improved in its practice. Thus, like the ancient husbandman. in Tully's Old-age, we must answer, to those who demand for whom we are planting our oak, "For Pofterity and the Immortal Gods."

No man, whofe mind is properly conftructed, can abstain from venerating the first ftruggles of an infant people towards obtaining a correcter liberty-it is another thing to imitate their concep

operate in a course analogous to that of nature; in a course of incidental improvement; to wait the fuggeftions of time and occafion, and to advance cautiously on the leflons of experience. The fame feeds of melioration are treasured in our own Conftitution, and are not to be provoked into fudden maturity by violent applications, but must be left to the kindly influence of the feafons, and the cherishing dews of heaven.

I did not propofe to myself, in fetting out, to enter at all into the detail of the question; but one or two thoughts occur fo forcibly to my mind, that I must lay them before the Reader.

Much has been argued, by the advocates of reform, on the duty of going back to the Saxon fcheme of legiflation, as the ancient government of our forefathers, and, as fuch, entitled to be followed by their posterity. The inheritable nature of our rights and liberties has been eloquently enlarged upon by a man who, with a giant's strength, has stood between our Conftitution and its affaffins but this part of his argument our Saxon re

formifts

formifts have been inconfiftent enough to affail with ridicule and contempt. It is clear that both are favourers of the principle of inheritance, with this immenfe difference, that the one would fend us back upon our fteps, in contradiction to the order of nature, to imitate a rude inceptive government, fubfifting in rude and unlettered times; the other exhorts us to regard with such veneration as Nature inculcates towards individual men, the Conftitution which our ancestors have formed in a courfe of fucceffive experience. As we cannot repay this debt of gratitude to our forefathers, let us discharge our bofoms by emulating their virtue in our love to posterity, and our folicitude to fend down to our children a Conftitution entire in its principles, but improved in its practice. Thus, like the ancient husbandman. in Tully's Old-age, we must answer, to those who demand for whom we are planting our oak, "For Pofterity and the Immortal Gods."

No man, whofe mind is properly conftructed, can abstain from venerating the firft ftruggles of an infant people towards obtaining a correcter liberty-it is another thing to imitate their concep

N° 39.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2.

I

Intenti expectant fignum.

Eager they wait the fign.

PROMISED my

VIRGIL.

readers the conclufion of the

contribution that was fent me on the subject of Signs; they afford us a fort of information that connects itself with the hiftory of the mind, and difplays fome of its strange wanderings and capricious combinations.

"The junction of many animals, utenfils, &c. upon the fame fign, may be accounted for in dif"ferent ways. Some appear to be put together "merely for the fake of alliteration, as the Lamb "and Lark, and the Goose and Gridiron ; a figure "fo degraded by the abuse of it in modern poetry, "that at present it can hardly be dishonoured by "any application. Others have a fort of con"nexion, as the Fox and Goofe, the Dog and "Duck, and the Ship and Star. The Bolt and "Tun I take to have been a rebus upon the "owner's name; and many others, it is probable,

ແ may be accounted for in the fame manner. "The Cock and the Bottle has, I imagine, fome <connexion with the tranfactions of the Cockpit. "The Cat and Wheel is a corruption of Catherine "Wheel. The Bull and Mouth, and the Bull "and Gate, are well known to be corrupted from

Boulogne Gate and Mouth, very fashionable "figns at the time of taking that city from the "French. Many of thefe junctions, otherwife

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very unaccountable, have been occafioned by "the removal of landlords from one inn to ans"ther, who, unable to forget their local attach"ments, have frequently incorporated their new "fign with that of their old habitation, however "monstrous the union might be. Some fuch "idea as this will help us to account for the good "understanding that fubfifts in this new creation "between beings which have feldom or never met "in any other; as the Lamb and Dolphin, the "George and Blue Boar, the Cock and Rose, the "Black Lion and Three Bee-hives, and the Blue "Mare and Magpie. Of this fort likewife is the "celebrated Bell Savage inn on Ludgate Hill, the "most ancient perhaps in the city of London. This "fign has been the subject of various conjectures,

many