bespierre, and by that mean to procure his own difcharge from prifon. How comes it then, that the Doctor fhould admire the principles of the one, and pretend to anfver thofe of the other?

He very artfully cries off all acquaintance with Voltaire, Rouffeau, and Gibbon; but he knows they are in a place whence they cannot anfwer him.However, Gibbon left him a letter that he ought not to have forgotten fo foon.The Doctor, having no wonderful discovery upon his hands, wrote to Mr. Gibbon, not long before the death of the latter, challenging him to combat. This Mr. Gibbon very politely declined, by faying, that he could never bring himself to dispute with a perfon from whofe writings he had, in a great meafure, imbibed his principles; adding, that, if the Doctor was really become a convert to Chriftianity, fince he had received the laft anfwer from Doctor Horfley, he thought the probable remainder of his life was by no means too long to repair the injury the former part of it had done; and, therefore, advised him not to lofe his time in vain and unprofitable difpute. If the Doctor had followed this falutary advice, we should have been spared the pain of feeing an old man turned of fixty, amufing himself and the world with a sham answer to the wild incoherent blafphemy of a poor unhappy wretch, whom difappointment and hunger had driven to despair, and who would have turned Turk, Jew, or even Eunuch, for an extraordinary bifcuit or a bundle of ftraw*.

The Doctor boafts of his having been elected a deputy of the National Convention, and styles himfelf their "" highly honoured fellow-citizen." It is a fubject both of wonder and regret, that he did not

* When we reflect on the degradation of this quondam legifla tor, it is fome confolation that he is an Englifliman.

prefer France to America; he was preffed to go there, which he never was to come here; there he would have done no harm, here he may. If he had gone to his adopted country, and accompanied his colleague, Paine, in his legislative career, he might have had an opportunity of anfwering him by word of mouth. The bottom of a dungeon would have been a very fit place for them to debate, like Milton's fallen Angels, on the fureft means of fowing difcord among mankind, and feducing them from their Maker.

One obfervation more on this Answer to Paine, and 1 difmifs it for ever.

The zealous Anfwerer boafts of his freedom as an American, at the fame time that be calls himfelf citizen of France and a fellow of the Royal Society of London! This is being, literally, "all things to all men.' With the English he is a royalift, with the Americans a republican, and with the French a carmagnole. Thus the triple Goddefs (under whofe influence, Doctor Harrington fwears, he acts) is called Luna in Heaven, Diana on Earth, and Hecate in Hell.

Before I bid the Doctor adieu, I fhould be glad to afk him how he finds himself in his "afylum."It is faid, he has declared that the duplicity of our land-jobbers is more to be feared than the outrages of a Birmingham mob; and indeed, if all his complaints had had the fame appearance of being wellfounded, the public would never have been troubled with thefe Obfervations; for there is little doubt of his having been moft cruelly fleeced. This honest profeffion, vulgarly called land-jobbing, a member of Congrefs very juftly ftyled "fwindling upon a broad fcale;" it is, in fact, a South-Sea bubble upon terra firma, as hundreds and thousands of ruined foreigners, befides Doctor Priestley, can testify.

It is to be hoped that the Doctor's anger against his country is by this time nearly affuaged; dearbought experience has at laft taught him, that an Utopia never exifted any where but in a delirious brain. He thought, like too many others, to find America a terreftrial Paradife; a Land of Canaan, where he would have nothing to do, but to open his mouth to fwallow the milk and honey: but, alas! he is now convinced, I believe, that those who cultivate the fertile Leafowes of Warwickshire,

"Where all around the gentleft breezes play,
"Where gentle mufic melts on every spray,"

have little reason to envy his rocks and his fwamps, the mufic of his bull-frogs and the ftings of his mufquitoes.

In the preface, fo often mentioned, the Doctor expreffes a defire of one day returning to the land "that gave him birth ;" and, no offence to the New-York addreffers, I think we ought to with that this defire may be very foon accomplished.He is a bird of paffage, that has vifited us, only to avoid the rigour of an inclement feafon: when the reanimating funfhine of revolution fhall burft forth on his native clime, we may hope to fee him prune his wings, aud take his flight from the dreary banks of the Sufquehannah to thofe of the Thames or the Avon.

THE SHORT

BUT COMPREHENSIVE STORY

OF A

FARMER'S BULL.

A CERTAIN troublesome fellow, who turned his back upon the church, having occafion to pass through a large farm-yard in his way to a meetinghouse, met with a fine majestic venerable old Bull lying down at his ease, and basking in the funfhine,

This Bull was at times the tameft creature in the world; he would fuffer the curs to yelp at him, the flies to tease him, and even some of the mischievous fellows to pull him by the horns. He was at this very moment in one of his gentleft humours ruminating upon paft and prefent fcenes of delight; contemplating the neighbouring dairy and the farm-yard, where the milch cows had all their bags diftended till they were nearly running over; the calves, and the pigs, and the poultry, were frifking, and grunting, and crowing on every dunghill; the granaries were full, and the barns ready to burft; there was, befides, many a goodly rick of wheat, and barley, and oats, and peas, and beans, and hay, and ryegrafs and clover. The dairy was full of curds, and cream, and butter, and cheese of every kind. kind. To be fure, there was plenty for the mafter and his fa

mily, and all the fervants, and every body belonging to the farm. Nay, thofe that were poor and needy, and idle, and lazy, and fick, and proud, and faucy, and old, and infirm, and filly, were freely · fupplied; and even this troublefome fellow himself, notwithstanding he had long fince quarrelled with the head farmer and all his befi friends, and an old grudge was ftill fubfifting betwixt them, yet, upon making at any time a folemn promife to do no mifchief, had free ingrefs, egrefs, and regrefs, in every part of the farm and the dairy, and was at liberty to help himself wherever he liked. In fhort, he was allowed to do any thing but kim the cream, and fet his own mark upon the butter.

Now, because the Bull had happened to place himself across his favourite foot-path, although there was plenty of room to the right and to the left, nothing would fatisfy this impudent fellow but he muft kick Old John, for that was the Bull's name, out of his way and all the world agrees that John fuffered him to kick a long while, before he fhowed the leaft inclination to rise and resent the affront. At laft, however, he got upon his legs, and began to look round him, but ftill it was a look of contempt only, which the foolish fellow mistook for the marks of fear; and now, growing bolder and bolder, and hallooing the curs, and calling all his comrades to prick and goad him in the tenderest parts of his body, the Bull began to threaten and roar; this was on the 14th of July, one of the hotteft days in the fummer, when fomebody threw a fiery flick under his tail, at the very moment that a parcel of impudent half-witted fellows were trying to flourish a French flambeau (lighted and blazing at both ends) full in his face. No wonder that the Bull fhould fet off with a vengeance in the fireet :-down went the gingerbreadftalls, and the hardware-shops, buckle-menders, and the razor-grinders, and the dagger-makers: he even

got