when they are young. The fame remark may be extended to fruit, particularly pines, melons, and peaches. A very good fized pine may now be purchafed for fifteen fhillings, and is a moft delicious fruit. But I must confefs, that I would not have the poor to indulge too much in these articles, unless they are plenty, and the warmth of the weather requires a vegetable regimen.

It may be expected I fhould fay fomething of liquors with regard to them I have, however, only to remark, that gin is a very unwholefome liquor, and is lately rifen in price. Wine is much more to be preferred; but in order to drink it pure, it fhould be purchafed in the pipe, and kept for fome time before it is bottled.-Experto crede.-I think that, in the present ftate of affairs, French wines may be difpenfed with by the poor.

Having thus difcharged a duty to them, and to the public at large, I am, Sir,

Your moft obedient fervant,

[Telegraph.]

MAZARINE MUNCHET.

COSMOGUNIA.

The following elegant Dialogue, faid to be the production of an eminent female writer, is copied from the Monthly Magazine for February 1796.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN MADAM COSMOGUNIA, AND A PHILOSOPHICAL ENQUIRER OF THE 18TH CENTURY.

REJOICE, my good Madam, to fee you. You bear your years extremely well. You really look as fresh and blooming this morning as if you were but juft out of your leading-ftrings, and yet you haveI forget how many centuries upon your shoulders.

C. Do

C. Do not you know, Son, that people of my standing are by no means fond of being too nicely queftioned about their years? Befides, my age is a point by no means agreed upon.

E. I thought it was fet down in the church-register? C. That is true; but every body does not go by your regifter. The people who live eastward of us, and have fold tea, time out of mind, by the great wall, fay I am older by a vaft deal; and that, long before the time when your people pretend I was born I had near as much wisdom and learning as I have now.

E. I do not know how that matter might be; one thing I am certain of, that you did not know your letters then; and every body knows that these tea-dealers, who are very vain, and want to go higher than any body elfe for the antiquity of their family, are noted for lying.

C. On the other hand, old Ifaac, the great chronicler, who was fo famous for cafting a figure, used to fay that the register itself had been altered, and that he could prove I was much younger than you have usually reckoned me to be. It may be fo; for my part, I cannot be supposed to remember fo far back. I could not write in my early youth, and it was a long time before I had a pocket-almanac to fet down all occurrences in, and the ages of my children, as I do now.

E. Well, your exact age is not fo material; but there is one point which I confess I wish much to afcertain: I have often heard it afferted, that, as you increase in years, you grow wifer and better; and that you are at this moment, more candid, more liberal, a better manager of your affairs, and, in short, more amiable in every refpect than ever you were in the whole course of your life: and others you will excufe me, Madam,-pretend that you are almoft in your dotage; that you grow more intolerable

every year you live, and that, whereas in your childhood you were a fprightly, innocent young creature, that rofe with the lark, lay down with the lamb, and thought or faid no

harm

harm of any one, you are become fufpicious, felfish, interested, fond of nothing but indulging your appetites, and continually fetting your own children together by the ears for ftraws. Now I fhould like to know where the truth lies.

C. As to that, I am, perhaps, too nearly concerned to answer you properly. I will, therefore, only obferve that I do not remember the time when I have not heard exactly the fame contradictory aflertions.

E. I believe the best way to determine the queftion will be by facts. Pray be fo good as to tell me how you have employed yourfelf in the different periods of your life; from the earliest time you can remember, for inftance?

C. I have a very confused remembrance of living in a pleafant garden, full of fruit, and of being turned out because I had not minded the injunctions that were laid upon me. After that I became fo very naughty that I got a fevere ducking, and was in great danger of being drowned.

E. A hopeful beginning, I must allow ! Pray what was the first piece of work you recollect being engaged in?

C. I remember fetting myself to build a prodigious high houfe of cards, which I childishly thought I could raife up to the very skies. I piled them up very high, and at laft left off in the middle, and had my tongue flit for being fo felf-conceited. Afterwards, I baked dirt in the fun, and refolved to make fomething very magnificent, I hardly knew what : fo I built a great many mounds in the form of fugar-loaves, very broad at bottom, and pointed at top-they took me a great many years to make, and were fit for no earthly purpose when they were done. They are ftill to be feen, if you choose to take the trouble of going fo far. Tra vellers call them my folly.

E. Pray what ftudies took your attention when you firft began to learn?

C. At

C. At first I amused myself, as all children do, with pictures; and drew, or rather attempted to draw, figures of lions and ferpents, and men with the heads of animals, and women with fishes' tails; to all which I affixed a meaning, often whimsical enough. Many of thefe my first scratches are still to be feen upon old walls and ftones, and have greatly exercifed the ingenuity of the curious to find out what I could poffibly mean by them. Afterwards, when I had learned to read, I was wonderfully entertained with ftories of giants, griffins, and mermaids, and men and women turned into trees, and horfes that spoke, and of an old man that used to eat up his children, till his wife deceived him by giving him a ftone to eat inftead of one of them, and of a conjurer that tied up the wind in bags, and

E. Hold, hold, my good Madam; you have given me a very fufficient proof of that propenfity to the marvellous which I have always remarked in you. I fuppofe, however, you foon grew too old for fuch nurfery ftories as these.

C. On the contrary, I amufed myself with putting them into verse, and had them fung to me on holidays; and, at this very day, I make a point of teaching them to all my children, in whofe education I take any pains.

E. I think I fhould rather whip them for employing their time fo idly: I hope, at least, these pretty stories kept you out of mischief?

C. I cannot fay they did; I never was without a fcratched face, or a bloody nose, at any period I can

remember.

E. Very promifing difpofitions, truly!

C. My amufements were not all fo mifchlevous. I was very fond of ftar-gazing, and telling fortunes, and trying a thoufand tricks for good luck, many of whichhave made fuch an impreffion on my mind, that I remember them even to this day.

E. I hope, however, your reading was not all of the kind you have mentioned, G. No:

C. No. It was at fome very famous races, which were held every four years for my diverfion, and which I always made a point to be at, that a man once came upon the race-ground, and read a hiftory-book aloud to the whole company: there were, to be fure, a number of ftories in it not greatly better than thofe I have been telling you; however, from that time, I began to take to more ferious learning, and likewise to reckon and date all my accounts by these races, which, as I told you, I was very

fond of..

E. I think you afterwards went to school, and learnt philofophy and mathematics?

C. I did fo: I had a great many famous mafters.
E. Were you a teachable fcholar?

C. One of my mafters ufed always to weep when he faw me; another used always to burst into a fit of laughter. I leave you to guess what they thought of me.

E. Pray what did you do when you were in middle age? That is ufually esteemed the most valuable part of life.

C. I fomehow got fhut up in a dark cell, where I took a long nap.

E. And after you awaked

C. I fell a difputing with all my might.

E. What were the fubjects that interested you fo

much?

C. Several.

E. Pray let us have a specimen?

C. Whether the light of Tabor was created or uncreated? whether one be a number? whether men should cross themselves with two fingers or with three? whether the creation was finished in fix days, because it is the most perfect number; or whether fix is the most perfect number, because the creation was finished in fix days? whether two and one make three, or only one? E. And pray what may be your opinion of the laft propofition, particularly?

C. I have