tunities of knowing, and he is now in a situation most favourable to such productions, as he lives amidst the great and the busy world, without being much occupied either by ambition or business. His compositions at college, when I first became acquainted with him, were remarkable for elegance and ingenuity; and, as I knew he still spent much of his time in reading the best writers, ancient and modern, I made no doubt of his having attained such farther improvement of style, and extension of knowledge, as would render him a very valuable contributor to the MIRROR. A few days ago, more than four months after I had sent him my letter, I received the following answer to it. MY DEAR FRIEND, London, 1st March, 1779. I am ashamed to look on the date of this letter, and to recollect that of yours. I will not, however, add the sin of hypocrisy to my other failings, by informing you, as is often done in such cases, that hurry of business, or want of health, has prevented me from answering your letter. I will frankly confess, that I have had abundance of leisure, and been perfectly well since I received it; I can add, though, perhaps, you may not so easily believe me, that I have had as much inclination as opportunity; but the truth is (you know my weakness that way), I have wished, resolved, and re-resolved to write, as I do by many other things, without the power of accomplishing it. That disease of indolence, which you and my other companions used to laugh at, grows stronger and stronger upon me; my symptoms, indeed, are mortal; for I begin now to lose the power of struggling against the malady, sometimes to shut my ears against self-admonition, and admit of it as a lawful indulgence. Your letter, acquainting me of the design of publishing a periodical paper, and asking my assistance in carrying it on, found me in one of the paroxysms of my disorder. The fit seemed to give way to the call of friendship. I got up from my easy chair, walked two or three turns through the room, read your letter again, looked at the Spectators, which stood, neatly bound and gilt, in the front of my bookpress, called for pen, ink, and paper, and sat down, in the fervour of imagination, ready to combat vice, to encourage virtue, to form the manners, and to regulate the taste of millions of my fellow-subjects. A field fruitful and unbounded lay before me; I began to speculate on the prevailing vices and reigning follies of the times, the thousand topics which might arise for declamation, satire, ridicule, and humour; the picture of manners, the shades of character, the delicacies of sentiment. I was bewildered amidst this multitude and variety of subjects, and sat dreaming over the redundancy of matter and the ease of writing, till the morning was spent, and my servant announced dinner. I arose, satisfied with having thought much on subjects proper for your paper. I dined, if you will allow me the expression, in company with those thoughts, and drank half a bottle of wine after dinner to our better acquaintance. When my man took away, I returned to my study, sat down at my writing-table, folded my paper into proper margins, wrote the word Mirror a-top, and filling my pen again, drew up the curtain, and prepared to delineate the scene before me. But I found things not quite in the situation I had left them: the groups were more confused, the figures less striking, the colours less vivid, than I had seen them before dinner. I continued, however, to look on them-I know not how long; for I was waked from a very sound nap, at half an hour past six, by Peter asking me if I chose to drink coffee. I was ashamed and vexed at the situation in which he found me. I drank my first dish rather out of humour with myself; but, during the second, I began to account for it from natural causes; and, before the third was finished, had resolved that study was improper after repletion, and concluded the evening with the adventures of one of the three Callendars, out of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. For all this arrear I drew resolutely on to-morrow, and after breakfast prepared myself accordingly. I had actually gone so far as to write three introductory sentences, all of which I burnt; and was just blacking the letter T, for the beginning of a fourth, when Peter opened the door, and announced a gentleman, an old acquaintance, whom I had not seen for a considerable time. After he had sat with me for more than an hour, he rose to go away; I pulled out my watch, and I will fairly own I was not sorry to find it within a few minutes of one; so I gave up the morning for lost, and invited myself to accompany my friend in some visits he proposed making. Our tour concluded in a dinner at a tavern, whence we repaired to the play, and did not part till midnight. I went to bed without much self-reproach, by considering that intercourse with the world fits a man for reforming it. I need not go through every day of the subsequent month, during which I remained in town, though there seldom passed one that did not remind me of what I owed to your friendship. It is enough to tell you, that during the first fortnight, I always found VOL. I. H some apology for delaying the execution of my purpose; and, during the last, contented myself with the prospect of the leisure I should soon enjoy in the country, to which I was invited by a relation to spend some time with him previous to his coming to town for the winter. I arrived at his house about the middle of December. I looked on his fields, his walks, and his woods, which the extreme mildness of the season had still left in the garb of Thomson's philosophic melancholy, as scenes full of inspiration, in which Genius might try her wings, and Wisdom meditate without interruption. But I am obliged to own, that, though I have walked there many a time; though my fancy was warmed with the scene, and shot out into a thousand excursions over the regions of romance, of melancholy, of sentiment, of humour, of criticism, and of science, she returned, like the first messenger of Noah, without having found a resting-place; and I have, at last, strolled back to the house, where I sat listless in my chamber, with the irksome consciousness of some unperformed resolution, from which I was glad to be relieved by a summons to billiards, or a call to dinner. Thus have I returned to town, as unprofitable in the moments of solitude and retirement as in those of business or society. Do not smile at the word business: what would be idleness to you is to me very serious employment: besides you know very well, that to be idle is often to be least at leisure. I am now almost hardy enough to lay aside altogether my resolution of writing in your paper; but I find that resolution a sort of bond against me, till you are good enough to cancel it, by saying you do not expect me to write. I have made a more than ordinary effort to give you this sincere account of my attempts to assist you. I have at least the consola tion of thinking that you will not need my assistance. Believe me, with all my failings, Most sincerely and affectionately yours, P. S. I have just now learned by accident, that my nephew, a lad of fifteen, who is come to town from Harrow school, and lives at present with me, having seen one of your numbers about a week ago, has already written, and intends transmitting you, a political essay, signed Aristides, a pastoral, subscribed X. Y., and an acrostic on Miss E. M., without a signature. V. No. 15. TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 1779. Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam, HOR. HOWEVER widely the thinking part of mankind may have differed as to the proper mode of conducting education, they have always been unanimous in their opinion of its importance. The outward effects of it are observed by the most inattentive. They know, that the clown and the dancing-master are the same from the hand of nature; and, although a little farther reflection is necessary to perceive the effects of culture on the internal senses, it cannot be disputed that the mind, like the body, when arrived at firm |