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objects which are here apt to gratify them, they will naturally become their own tormentors, and cherish in themselves those painful habits of mind which are called in Scripture phrase "the worm which never dies." This notion of heaven and hell is so very conformable to the light of nature, that it was discovered by several of the most exalted heathens. It has been finely improved by many eminent divines of the last age, as in particular by Archbishop Tillotson and Dr. Sherlock; but there is none who has raised such noble speculations upon it as Dr. Scott, in the first book of his Christian Life, which is one of the finest and most rational schemes of divinity that is written in our tongue, or in any other. That excellent author has shown how every particular custom and habit of virtue will, in its own nature, produce the heaven, or a state of happiness, in him who shall hereafter practise it: as, on the contrary, how every custom or habit of vice will be the natural hell of him in whom it subsists.

ADDISON.

COUNTRY NEWSPAPER. (No. 452).

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"You must have observed, that men who frequent coffee-houses, and delight in news, are pleased with everything that is matter of fact, so it be what they have not heard before. A victory, or a defeat, are equally agreeable to them. The shutting of a cardinal's mouth pleases them one post, and the opening of it another. They are glad to hear the French court is removed to Marli, and are afterwards as much delighted with its return to Versailles. They read the advertisements with the same curiosity as the articles of public news; and are as pleased to hear of a piebald horse that is strayed out of a field near Islington, as of a whole troop that have been engaged in any foreign adventure. In short, they have a relish for everything that is news, let the matter of it be what it will; or, to speak more properly, they are men of a voracious appetite, but no

taste. Now, sir, since the great fountain of news, I mean the war, is very near being dried up; and since these gentlemen have contracted such an inextinguishable thirst after it; I have taken their case and my own into consideration, and have thought of a project which may turn to the advantage of us both. I have thoughts of publishing a daily paper, which shall comprehend in it all the most remarkable occurrences in every little town, village, and hamlet that lie within ten miles of London, or, in other words, within the verge of the penny-post. I have pitched upon this scene of intelligence for two reasons; first, because the carriage of letters will be very cheap; and secondly, because I may receive them every day. By this means my readers will have their news fresh and fresh, and many worthy citizens, who cannot sleep with any satisfaction at present, for want of being informed how the world goes, may go to bed contentedly, it being my design to put out my paper every night at nine o'clock precisely. I have already established correspondences in these several places, and received very good intelligence.

"By my last advices from Knightsbridge I hear, that a horse was clapped into the pound on the third instant, and that he was not released when the letters came away.

"We are informed from Pankridge,* that a dozen weddings were lately celebrated in the mother church of that place; but are referred to their next letters for the names of the parties concerned.

"Letters from Brompton advise, that the widow Blight had received several visits from John Milldew; which affords great matter of speculation in those parts.

"By a fisherman, who lately touched at Hammersmith, there is advice from Putney, that a certain person, well known in that place, is like to lose his election for churchwarden; but this being boat-news, we cannot give entire credit to it.

"Letters from Paddington bring little more than that William Squeak, the sow-gelder, passed through that place the fifth instant.

* Pancras, then famous for weddings.

"They advise from Fulham, that things remained there in the same state they were. They had intelligence, just as the letters came away, of a tub of excellent ale just set abroach at Parsons Green: but this wanted confirmation.

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I have here, sir, given you a specimen of the news with which I intend to entertain the town, and which, when drawn up regularly in the form of a newspaper, will, I doubt not, be very acceptable to many of those publicspirited readers, who take more delight in acquainting themselves with other people's business than their own. I hope a paper of this kind, which lets us know what is done near home, may be more useful to us than those which are filled with advices from Zug and Bender, and make some amends for that dearth of intelligence which we may justly apprehend from times of peace. If I find that you receive this project favourably, I will shortly trouble with one or two more; and in the mean time am, most worthy sir, with all due respect,

you

"Your most obedient, and humble servant."

ADDISON.

A DAY'S RAMBLE IN LONDON. (No. 454).

It is an inexpressible pleasure to know a little of the world, and be of no character or significancy in it.

To be ever unconcerned and ever looking on new objects with an endless curiosity, is a delight known only to those who are turned for speculation. I lay one night last week at Richmond; and being restless, not out of dissatisfaction, but a certain busy inclination one sometimes has, I rose at four in the morning, and took boat for London, with a resolution to rove by boat and coach for the next four-andtwenty hours, till the many different objects I must needs meet with should tire my imagination, and give me an inclination to a repose more profound than I was at that time capable of.

The hours of the day and night are taken up in the cities of London and Westminster, by people as different from

each other as those who are born in different centuries. Men of six o'clock give way to those of nine, they of nine to the generation of twelve, and they of twelve disappear, and make room for the fashionable world who have made two o'clock the noon of the day.

When we first put off from shore, we soon fell in with a fleet of gardeners bound for the several market-ports of London; and it was the most pleasing scene imaginable to see the cheerfulness with which those industrious people plied their way to a certain sale of their goods. The banks on each side are as well peopled, and beautified with as agreeable plantations, as any spot on the earth; but the Thames itself, loaded with the product of each shore, added very much to the landscape. It was very easy to observe by their sailing, and the countenances of the ruddy virgins who were supercargoes, the part of the town to which they were bound. There was an air in the purveyors for Covent-Garden, who frequently converse with morning rakes, very unlike the seeming sobriety of those bound for Stocks-Market.

Nothing remarkable happened in our voyage; but I landed with ten sail of apricot-boats at Strand-Bridge, after having put in at Nine Elms, and taken in melons, consigned by Mr. Cuffe, of that place, to Sarah Sewell and Company, at their stall in Covent-Garden. We arrived at StrandBridge at six of the clock, and were unloading, when the hackney-coachmen of the foregoing night took their leave of each other at the Dark-House, to go to bed before the day was too far spent. Chimney-sweepers passed by us as we went to market, and some raillery happened, between one of the fruit-wenches and those black men, about the Devil and Eve, with allusion to their several professions. I could not believe any place more entertaining than CoventGarden, where I strolled from one fruit-shop to another, with crowds of agreeable young women around me, who were purchasing fruit for their respective families. It was almost eight of the clock before I could leave that variety of objects. I took coach and followed a young lady, who tripped into another just before me, attended by her maid.

I saw immediately she was of the family of the Vain-loves. There are a set of these who of all things affect the play of blindman's buff, and leading men into love for they know not whom, who are fled they know not where. This sort of woman is usually a janty slattern; she hangs on her clothes, plays her head, varies her posture, and changes places incessantly, and all with an appearance of striving at the same time to hide herself, and yet give you to understand she is in humour to laugh at you. You must have often seen the coachmen make signs with their fingers as they drive by each other, to intimate how much they have got that day. They can carry on that language to give intelligence where they are driving. In an instant my coachman took the wink to pursue, and the lady's driver gave the hint that he was going through Long-Acre, towards St. James's: while he whipped up James-Street, we drove for King-Street, to save the pass at St. Martin's Lane. The coachmen took care to meet, jostle, and threaten each other for way, and be entangled at the end of Newport-Street and Long-Acre. The fright, you must believe, brought down the lady's coach-door, and obliged her, with her mask off, to inquire into the bustle-when she sees the man she would avoid. The tackle of the coach-window is so bad she cannot draw it up again, and she drives on sometimes wholly discovered, and sometimes half escaped, according to the accident of carriages in her way. One of these ladies keeps her seat in a hackney-coach as well as the best rider does on a managed horse. The laced shoe on her left foot, with a careless gesture, just appearing on the opposite cushion, held her both firm and in a proper attitude to receive the next jolt.

As she was an excellent coachwoman, many were the glances at each other which we had for an hour and a half in all parts of the town, by the skill of our drivers; till at last my lady was conveniently lost with notice from her coachman to ours to make off, and he should hear where she went. This chase was now at an end, and the fellow who drove her came to us, and discovered that he was ordered to come again in an hour, for that she was a silkI was surprised with this phrase, but found it was

worm.

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