tired of your own timidity in paring the paper too little, as to spoil all by one rash sliver.

36. (S.)

Rubbing Indian ink, or cake colours, in a very smooth saucer. (Or, what is far worse than this--nay is, perhaps, the very mightiest of all the mighty Miseries we are now recording, or shall ever record-)

37. (S.)

As you draw-to be maddened, through your whole work, with inveterate greasiness in your pencils, colours, or paper (you cannot possibly discover which); so that what you have taken up with your brush keeps coyly flying from the spot to which you would apply it.

Ned Tes.

66 nec color

HOR.

Certâ sede manet."

Tes. So much for the Fine Arts!-one Misery more, and I have done, for the present.

38. (T.)

Exhausting your faculties, for a whole evening together, in vain endeavours to guess at a riddle,

conundrum, &c. though you are assured, all the time, that it is as easy as the a, b, c.

Tes. For my own part, the confounded riddle, with which I have just wound up my accounts, has considerably shortened my search after other torments; for ever since it was proposed to me (a full month ago), I have lost both my rest and my appetite, and neglected almost every other concern, in trying to find it out-all to no purpose.

Sen. Nay, let it pass;-you and I have neither time nor tranquillity for studying riddles besides, Sir, life itself, according to our views of it, is one great enigma; and, like the other famous enigma of old, is guarded by -not one, but a thousand Sphinxes, in the shape of "Miseries," which, like their predecessor, keep tearing us to pieces, all the time that we are labouring in vain for the solution. -Be quiet, then, for a moment, while I shape out other employment for us.-It will not be denied, I trust, that we have now given the cause of the Country a fair hearing;—but the Town, remember, will be thought to have at least an equal right to be put upon its trial;

and the rather, as men, having made it themselves, will be naturally interested by the vanity of workmen, in its defence. Our precious affairs among the fields and trees are pretty well settled; and as our return to London will take place nearly at the same time, we can meet at a coffee-house, and, by favour of the delightful privacy of a box, cut off by a silk curtain from twenty listeners close at our backs, we may discuss in comfort, you know.

Tes. O, yes! I understand you-a dry rot take the house, and all that belongs to it!— there, however, we must meet, I suppose, or we should not think ourselves in London; and so I will attend your summons ;—if, indeed, I should retain my senses, by the time I shall have employed them in collecting matter enough to equip me for the conference. In the mean time, I must go back to the harness.

Sen. The harness!-how?

Tes. How! why to have another pull at the rascally riddle. Your servant. Holla! Sensitive! Another country comfort, which how

I came to forget, I cannot very well

say; as I enjoyed it no longer ago than last night.

39. (T.)

Going to see a party of strolling players, on the strength of an encouraging report that they are execrable; but finding them so intolerably tolerable, that even the most heart-breaking scenes of their tragedy scarcely afford you one hearty laugh.

That's all-I'm off.

DIALOGUE THE FOURTH.

MISERIES OF LONDON.

Testy, Senior and Junior. Sensitive. (At a Coffee-house.)

WE

Testy.

ELCOME to London, friend Sensitive!and still more welcome to this quiet room→ hear me?

can you

Sen. If I cannot, this constant and cheerful noise of carts and coaches, which is said by some to favour conversation, will help me out, I suppose.

Tes. Nay, if a man must be stunned before he can hear, the deaf should lose no time in coming up to London!- but how long have you been in this elysium of brick and mortar? and what have you seen?