mouths! Phoo, phoo, phoo! What faces will you all make when old Nick nicks you? Now unto a bowl of punch I compare matrimony; there's the sweet part of it, which is the honey-moon: then there's the largest part of it, that's the most insipid, that comes after, and that's the water; then there's the strong spirits, that's the husband; then there's the sour spirit, that's the wife. But you don't mind me, no more than a dead horse does a pair of spectacles; if you did, the sweet words which I utter would be like a treacle posset to your palates. Do you know how many taylors make a man?—Why nine. How many half a man?—Why four journeymen and an apprentice. So have you all been bound 'prentices to madam Faddle, the fashion-maker; ye have served your times out, and now you set up for yourselves. My bowels and my small guts groan for you; as the cat on the house-top is caterwauling, so from the top of my voice will I

   be bawling. Put—put some money in the plate, then your abomination shall be scalded off like bristles from the hog's back, and ye shall be scalped of them all as easily as I pull off this periwig.

   My attempt you have heard to succeed the projector, And I tremblingly wait your award of this lecture; No merits I plead, but what's fit for my station, And that is the merit of your approbation. And, since for mere mirth I exhibit this plan, Condemn, if you please—but excuse, if you can.

   The vice and folly which overspread human nature first created the satirist. We should not, therefore, attribute his severity to a malignity of disposition, but to an exquisite sense of propriety, an honest indignation of depravity, and a generous desire to reform the degenerated manners of his fellow-creatures. This has been the cause of Aristophanes censuring the pedantry and superstition of Socrates; Horace, Persius, Martial, and Juvenal, the luxury and profligacy of the Romans; Boileau and Molière the levity and refinement of the French; Cervantes the romantic pride and madness of the Spanish; and Dorset, Gldharn, Swift, Addison, Churchill, Stevens, and Foote, the variety of vice, folly, and luxury, which we have imported from our extensive commerce and intercourse with other nations. We should, consequently, reverse the satirist and correct ourselves.

   We should not avoid him as the detecter, but as the friendly monitor. If he speaks severe truths, we should condemn our own conduct which gives him the power.

   It has frequently been observed, that the satirist has proved more beneficial to the correction of a state 

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