the conceit with which I am poffeffed, is not unlike that of the crazy carpenter, with this difference, that whereas he fuppofed himself employed by Jupiter to construct a new globe on a superior principle, it is my humour to imagine myself deputed to hammer out a new and worthier race of mortals to inhabit it when it shall be ready for their reception.

With thefe notions in my head, I set off a few days ago for this metropolis, where I am lodged in a fhopkeeper's houfe, in which the OLIVEBRANCHES have occafionally refided for this century back, and where my great-grandfather bought his favourite tobacco-ftopper, but which has at prefent no other recommendations. They lay claim. here also to the honour of having built my mother's great chair; but as this important fact has no place in our family records, I am very much inclined to doubt its authenticity, although it is very certain, that among my landlord's curiofities, the most valuable article is a real undoubted fplinter of a walking-stick, that was many years in the poffeffion of Mr. Ifaac Olivebranch, the father of my great-grandfather, and the author of those ori

ginal obfervations which appeared in my 17th Number.

The morning after my arrival in this city, having fubftituted a pair of buckles in the place of my old ones, that favoured lefs of the middle ages, and having at once covered the family cut of my frock, and given a decent consistency to my little mummy frame, by the help of a common blue furtout coat, and all this to prevent my being pointed out as old Simon, the Northamptonshire parfon, I fallied forth with a fine fun over my head, determined to lounge away the morning in the streets of this capital. A long time had now elapfed fince my vifit to London; but as my mind has always been pretty much peopled, and my thoughts accustomed to the contemplation of crouded fcenes and active life, and turned, by a natural bias, towards the human kind, I did not experience those bewildering emotions, that confufion of ideas, that mental trouble, and that finking fenfe of comparative infignificance, which fome of the moft retired of my country neighbours have represented themselves to have felt in walking through the streets of London, after a long ruftication. It is pretty

I

certain

certain that moft men feel their perfonal confequence die away in crouded reforts, unless they themselves bear a principal part in them, or by fome means or other have extended their connecWhen we

tions over a very confiderable range.

have once raifed ourfelves, however, to this eleva tion, the very reverse of these effects will be the confequence: and the greater the crowd, the bufiness, and the ftir there is about us, the more we feel our confequence advanced, and in fuch a cafe we are never more at home than when we are abroad. Now, however little disposed my readers may be to acknowledge it, I cannot help feeling myfelf in this latter predicament; and as I walk along in this great market of human fouls, in the midst of this fermentation of bufinefs and pleafure, among fhops, and theatres, and taverns, and churches, and horfes, and houfes, and fhows, and funerals, and forums, and halls, and palaces, I confider them all as adminiftering to my undertaking, and under a kind of contribution to my plan, as well as under my efpecial control and cognizance.

I was

I was a good deal amused and surprised by the numerous changes which had taken place fince my last vifit, and which appeared in every circumstance of life; and though upon the whole the balance was much on the fide of improvement, I had not got to the end of my street, before I encountered a vast deal that was ridiculous and difcommendable. The firft obfervation I was led to make on the state of the capital, was the very promifing fymptoms of an increafing population, in the shapes of the young ladies; and I own I was much delighted to behold fo much elegance and fashion, enlisted in the cause of matrimony. I drew a plain inference from this fpectacle that was very honourable to my fellow-creatures; and I confidered it as the effect and the proof of that fanctity of morals, under which the marriage state is fure to be credited and promoted; and in the exultation of my spirits was on the point of appropriating to myself a share in this happy revolution, when, happening to call at a fashionable ladies fchool, to enquire after the health of two of Mr. Alworth's nieces, I was again difconcerted by beholding my two young friends, who were neither of them fourteen years old, in a very ma

ture state of pregnancy. Though I am spared the confusion of a blush by the olive cast of my com-. plexion, I felt a strong sensation of inward shame, at an appearance fo fufpicious, and had just made up my mind to call the young ladies afide, that I might put fuch questions to them as my age allowed me, before I carried this unwelcome news to my worthy unsuspecting friend, when a couple of French teachers entered the room, that seemed each to be within a month of bringing twins into the world, followed by the governess, who, though apparently turned of fifty, brought with her a more rampant protuberance than them all put together. I fhuddered at my own pinched-upfigure amidst this furrounding plumpnefs, and. feemed to myself almost shrunk up to nothing--till, no longer able to bear it out, I stole my hat off the peg on which it was hung, and having recommended all the company to the protection of Heaven, repaired ftrait to my landlady, to entreat a folution of this ftrange phænomenon. My landlady was unfortunately from home; and, in the mean time I took up a letter that was upon my fcrutoire, to amufe myself till her return. This letter was from my mother, and could not have. VOL. III.

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been