offer, and of the opinion he had of his friend's discernment, that he was possessed of a very valuable curiosity; and in this he was fully confirmed, when, on shewing it to the virtuoso above-mentioned, he was immediately offered triple the sum. This too

was rejected, and the crooked coin was now judged inestimable. It would tire your patience, Mr. Mirror, to describe minutely the progress of my husband's. delirium. The neighbours soon heard of our acquisition, and flocked to be indulged with a sight of it. Others who had valuable curiosities of the same kind, but who were prudent enough not to reckon them quite beyond all price, were, by much entreaty, prevailed on by my husband to exchange them for guineas, half guineas, and crown pieces; so that, in about a month's time, he could boast of being possessed of twenty pieces, all of inestimable value, which cost him only the trifling sum of 181. 12s. 6d.

But the malady did not rest here; it is a dreadful thing, Mr. Mirror, to get a taste. It ranges from "heaven above, to the earth beneath, and to the "waters under the earth." Every production of nature, or of art, remarkable either for beauty or deformity, but particularly, if either scarce or old, `is now the object of my husband's avidity. The profits of our business, once considerable, but now daily diminishing, are expended, not only on coins, but on shells, lumps of different-coloured stones, dried butterflies, old pictures, ragged books, and wormeaten parchments.

Our house, which it was once my highest pleasure to keep in order, it would be now equally vain to attempt cleaning as the ark of Noah. The children's bed is supplied by an Indian canoe; and the poor little creatures sleep three of them in a hammock, slung up to the roof between a stuffed crocodile and the skeleton of a calf with two heads. Even the commodities of our shop have been turned out to make

room for trash and vermin. Kites, owls, and bats, are perched upon the top of our shelves; and, it was but yesterday, that, putting my hand into a glass jar that used to contain pickles, I laid hold of a large tarantula in place of a mangoe.

In the bitterness of my soul, Mr. Mirror, I have been often tempted to revenge myself on the objects of my husband's phrenzy, by burning, smashing, and destroying them without mercy; but, besides that such violent procedure might have effects too dreadful upon a brain which, I fear, is already much unsettled, I could not take such a course, without being guilty of a fraud to our creditors, several of whom will, I believe, sooner or later, find it their only means of reimbursement, to take back each man his own monsters.

Meantime, Sir, as my husband constantly peruses your paper, (one instance of his taste which I cannot object to) I have some small hopes that a good effect may be produced by giving him a fair view of himself in your moral looking-glass. If such should be the happy consequence of your publishing this letter, you shall have the sincerest thanks of a grateful heart, from your now disconsolate humble servant, REBECCA PRUNE.

I cannot help expressing my suspicion that Mrs. Rebecca Prune has got somebody to write her letter. If she wrote it herself, I am afraid it may be thought that the grocer's wife, who is so knowing in what she describes, and can joke so learnedly on her spouse's ignorance of the three Alexanders, has not much reason to complain of her husband being a man of taste.

Her case, however, is truly distressful, and, in the particular species of her husband's disorder, rather uncommon. The taste of a man in his station, generally looks for some reputation from his neigh

bours and the world, and walks out of doors to shew itself to both.

Iremember, a good many years ago, to have visited the villa of a citizen of Bath, who had made a considerable fortune by the profession of a toy man in that city. It was curious to observe how much he had carried the ideas of his trade into his house and grounds, if such might be called a kind of Gothic building, of about 18 feet by 12, and an inclosure, somewhat short of an acre. The first had only a few closets within; but it made a most gallant and warlike show without. It had turrets about the size of the king at nine pins, and battlements like the side-crust of a Christmas goose-pye. To complete the appearance of a castle, we entered by a drawbridge, which, in construction and dimensions, exactly resembled the lid of a travelling trunk. To the right of the house was a puddle, which, however, was dignified with a harbour, defended by two redoubts, under cover of which lay a vessel of the size of an ordinary bathing tub, mounting a parcel of old tooth-pick-cases, fitted up into guns, and manned with some of the toyman's little family of play-thing figures, with red jackets, and striped trowsers, whom he had impressed into the service. The place where this vessel lay, a fat little man, whom I met on the shore, who seemed an intimate acquaintance of the proprietor, informed me was called Spithead, and the ship's name, he told me, pointing to the picture on her stern, was the Victory.

This gentleman afterwards conducted me, not without some fear, across a Chinese bridge, to a pagoda, in which it was necessary to assume the posture of devotion, as there was not room to stand upright. On the sides of the great serpentine walk, as he termed it, by which we returned from this edifice, I found a device, which my Cicerone looked upon as a masterstroke of genius. The ground was shaped into the

figures of the different suits of cards; so that here was the heart walk, the diamond walk, the club walk, and the spade walk; the last of which had the additional advantage of being sure to produce a pun. On my observing how pleasant and ingenious all this was, my conductor answered, "Ay, ay, let him "alone for that; he has given them a little of every "thing, you see; and so he may, Sir, for he can 66 very well afford it."

I believe we must rest the matter here. In this land of freedom, there is no restraining the liberty of being ridiculous; I would only intreat Mr. Prune, and, indeed, many of his betters, to have some regard for their wives and families, and not to make fools of themselves, till, like the Bath toy man, they can very well afford it.

No. XVIII. SATURDAY, MARCH 27.

Laudabunt alii claram Rhodan aut Mytelenen.

HOR.

NOTHING is more amusing to a traveller than to observe the different characters of the inhabitants of the countries through which he passes; and to find, upon crossing a river or a mountain, has marked a difference in the manners, the sentiments, and the opinions of the people, as in their appearance, their dress, or their language. Thus, the easy vivacity of the French, is as opposite to the dignified gravity of the Spaniard, on the one hand, as it is to the phlegmatic dulness of the German on the other. But, though all allow that every nation has some striking feature, some distinguishing characteristic, philosophers are not agreed as to the causes of that

distinction. Montesquieu has exerted all the powers of his genius to prove, that difference of climate is the chief, or only the cause of the difference of national characters; and it is not surprising that the opinion of so great a man should have gained much ground. None of his followers has carried the matter farther than the author of Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, whose chief object seems to have been to show, that the climate of America is of such a nature, that, from its baneful influence, even the human species has degenerated in that quarter of the globe.

I must confess, however, that I have often doubted as to the justness of this opinion; and, though I do not mean to deny that climate has an influence on man, as well as on other animals, I cannot help thinking that Montesquieu, and the writers who have adopted his system, have attributed by far too much to it.

It must be allowed that man is less affected by the influence of climate than any other animal. But, of all the human race, an American savage seems to approach the nearest, in the general condition of his life, to the brute creation, and, of consequence, ought to be most subject to the power of climate. And yet, if we compare an Indian with an European peasant, or manufacturer, we shall be apt to think, that the former, considered as an individual, holds a higher rank in the scale of being than the latter.

The savage, quitting his cabin, goes to the assembly of his tribe, and there delivers his sentiments on the affairs of his little nation with a spirit, a force, and an energy, that might do honour to an European orator. Thence he goes to make war upon his foes; and, in the field, discovers a sagacity in his stratagems, a boldness in his designs, a perseverance in his operations, joined with a patience of fatigue and of suffering, that have long been objects of ad