By the affiduities of fome friends, who have promised to affift me in the prefent publication, I was prevented from falling a facrifice to that languid inactivity which a depreffion of fpirits never fails to produce. Without feeming to do fo, they engaged me by degrees to divide my time between ftudy and fociety; reftoring, by that means, a relifh for both. I once more took a fhare in the bufy, and, fometimes, in the idle fcenes of life. But, a mind habituated to reflection, though it may feem occupied with the occurrences of the day (a tax which politeness exacts, which every benevolent heart cheerfully pays), will often, at the fame time, be employed in endeavouring to difcover the fprings and motives of action, which are fometimes hid from the actors themselves; to trace the progress of character through the mazes in which it is involved by education or habit; to mark thofe approaches to error into which unfufpecting innocence and integrity are too apt to be led; and, in general, to investigate thofe paffions. and affections of the mind which have the chief influence on the happiness of individuals, or of fuciety.

If the fentiments and obfervations to which this train of thinking will naturally give rife, can be exhibited in this paper, in fuch a dress and manner as to afford amusement, it will, at leaft, be an innocent one; and, though inAtruction is, perhaps, hardly to be expected from fuch defultory fketches, yet their general tendency fhall be, to cultivate taste, and improve the heart.

T

N° 2. SATURDAY, January 30, 1779.

N

O child ever heard from its nurse the

ftory of Jack the Giant Killer's cap of darkness, without envying the pleasures of invifibility; and the idea of Gyges's Ring has made, I believe, many a grave mouth water.

This power is, in some degree, poffeffed by the writer of an anonymous paper. He can at leaft exercife it for a purpose for which people would be most apt to use the privilege of being invifible, to wit, that of hearing what is faid of himself.

A few hours after the publication of my firft number, I fallied forth, with all the advantages of invifibility, to hear an account of myself and my paper. I must confefs, however, that, for fome time, I was mortified by hearing no fuch account at all; the first company I vifited being dull enough to talk of laft night's Advertiser, inftead of the Mirror; and the fecond, which confifted of ladies, to whom I ventured to mention the appearance of my Firft Number, making a fudden digreffion to

the

the price of a new-fashioned luteftring, and the colour of the trimming with which it would be proper to make it up into a gown. Nor was I more fortunate in the third place where I contrived to introduce the fubject of my publication, though it was a coffee-house, where it is actually taken in for the use of the customers; a fet of old gentlemen, at one table, throwing it afide to talk over a bargain; and a com-pany of young ones, at another, breaking off in the middle to decide a match at billiards.

་

It was not till I arrived at the place of its birth that I met with any traces of its fame. In the well-known ihop of my Editor I found it the fubject of conversation; though I must own that, even here, fome little quackery. was used for the purpose, as he had taken care to have several copies lying open on the table, befides the confpicuous appearance of the subscription-paper hung up fronting the door, with the word MIRROR a-top, printed in large capitals.

The first question I found agitated was concerning the author, that being a point within the reach of every capacity. Mr. Creech, tho' much importuned on this head, knew his bufinefs better than to fatisfy their curiofity: fo the hounds were caft off to find him, and many B'5

a dife

a different fcent they hit on. Firft, he was a Clergyman, then a Profeffor, then a Player, then a Gentleman of the Exchequer who writes plays, then a Lawyer, a Doctor of Laws, a Commissioner of the Customs, a Baron of the Exchequer, a Lord of Seffion, a Peer of the realm. A. critic, who talked much about ftyle, was positive as to the fex of the writer, and declared it to be female, ftrengthening his conjecture by the name of the paper, which, he faid, would not readily have occurred to a man. He added, that it was full of Scotticisms, which fufficiently marked it to be a home production.

This led to animadverfions on the work itfelf, which were begun by an obfervation of my own, that it feemed, from the flight perufal F had given it, to be tolerably well written. The critic above mentioned ftrenuoufly supported the contrary opinion; and concluded his ftrictures on this particular publication, with a ge neral remark on all modern ones, that there was no force of thought, nor beauty of compofition, to be found in them.

An elderly gentleman, who faid he had a guefs at the author, prognofticated, that the paper would be used as the vehicle of a fyftem of Scepticism, and that he had very little doubt of