of being possessed of twenty pieces, all of inestimable value, which cost him only the trifling sum of 18l. 12s. 6d.

But the malady did not rest here; it is a dreadful thing, Mr Mirror, to get a taste. It ranges from "heaven above, to the earth beneath, and to the waters under the earth." Every production of nature, or of art, remarkable either for beauty or deformity, but particularly if either scarce or old, is now the object of my husband's avidity. The profits of our business, once considerable, but now daily diminishing, are expended, not only on coins, but on shells, lumps of different coloured stones, dried butterflies, old pictures, ragged books, and worm-eaten parchments.

Our house, which it was once my highest pleasure to keep in order, it would be now equally vain to attempt cleaning as the ark of Noah. The children's bed is supplied by an Indian canoe; and the poor little creatures sleep three of them in

Kites,

a hammock, slung up to the roof between a stuffed crocodile and the skeleton of a calf with two heads. Even the commodities of our shop have been turned out to make room for trash and vermin. owls, and bats, are perched upon the top of our shelves; and it was but yesterday, that, putting my hand into a glass jar that used to contain pickles, I laid hold of a large tarantula in place of a mangoe.

In the bitterness of my soul, Mr Mirror, I have been often tempted to revenge myself on the objects of my husband's phrenzy, by burning, smashing, and destroying them without mercy; but, besides that such violent procedure might have effects too dreadful upon a brain which, I fear, is already much unsettled, I could not take such a course, without being guilty of a fraud to our creditors, several of whom will, I believe, sooner or later, find it their only means of reimbursement, to take back each man his own monsters.

Meantime, Sir, as my husband constantly peruses your paper, (one instance of his taste which I cannot object to,) I have some small hopes that a good effect may be produced by giving him a fair view of himself in your moral looking-glass. If such should be the happy consequence of your publishing this letter, you shall have the sincerest thanks of a grateful heart, from your now disconsolate humble servant, *

REBECCA PRUNE.

I cannot help expressing my suspicion, that Mrs Rebecca Prune has got somebody to write her letter. If she wrote it herself, I am afraid it may be thought that the grocer's wife, who is so knowing in what she describes, and can joke so learn

* The foregoing letter was written by Mr Fraser Tytler, now Lord Woodhouselee; the rest of the paper by Mr Mackenzie.

edly on her spouse's ignorance of the three Alexanders, has not much reason to complain of her husband being a man of taste.

Her case, however, is truly distressful, and in the particular species of her husband's disorder, rather uncommon. The taste of a man in his station generally looks for some reputation from his neighbours and the world, and walks out of doors to shew itself to both.

I remember, a good many years ago, to have visited the villa of a citizen of Bath, who had made a considerable fortune by the profession of a toyman in that city. It was curious to observe how much he had carried the ideas of his trade into his house and grounds, if such might be called a kind of Gothic building, of about 18 feet by 12, and an enclosure somewhat short of an acre. The first had only a few closets within; but it made a most gallant and warlike show without. It had

turrets about the size of the king at nine pins, and battlements like the side-crust of a Christmas goose-pye. To complete the appearance of a castle, we entered by a draw-bridge, which, in construction and dimensions, exactly resembled the lid of a travelling trunk. To the right of the house was a puddle, which, however, was dignified with the name of a harbour, defended by two redoubts, under cover of which lay a vessel of the size of an ordinary bathing-tub, mounting a parcel of old toothpick-cases, fitted up into guns, and manned with some of the toyman's little family of plaything figures, with red jackets and striped trowsers, whom he had impressed into the service. The place where this vessel lay, a fat little man, whom I had met on the shore, who seemed an intimate acquaintance of the proprietor, informed me was called Spithead, and the ship's name, he told me, pointing