country and the brightest of literature we daily hear of of failures and they are trifling which from their excite but little astonishment or sympathy but it is not often that we hear of a man s letting immortality slip through his fingers and when he does meet with such a misfortune who would deny him the comfort of his calamity next to the laid upon our commerce the greatest public annoyance is the laid upon our work in consequence whim and opinions of which the produce of my wits like that of my country must remain at home and m y ideas hke so many in port or in the away in the mud of my own brain i know of few things in this world more than co be interrupted in the middle of a favourite story at the most interesting part where one expects to shine or to have a conversation broken off just when you are about coming out with a score of jokes not one of which but was good enough to make every figure in literally split her sides with laughter � in some such am i placed at present and i do protest to you my good looking and well beloved readers by the chop sticks of the immortal i was on the very brink of treating you with a full of the most ingenious and instructive essays that your precious were ever with in the first place i had with infinite labour and pains and by consulting the divine sir john and others fully of esq all those wild theories respecting the first settlement of our country and proved beyond contradiction that america so far from being as the writers of europe it the new world is at least as old as any in existence not excepting egypt china or even the land of the which according to the traditions of that ancient people has already assisted at the of thirteen and four hundred and seventy thousand i had likewise written a long on certain discovered on those fragments of the moon which have lately fallen with singular propriety in a neighbouring state and have thrown considerable light on the state of literature and the arts in that planet � showing that the universal language which there is high dutch thereby proving it to be the most ancient and original tongue and the opinion of a celebrated poet that it is the language in which the serpent tempted our grandmother eve to support the department i had several very ready written whim and opinions wherein no quarter was shown either to authors or actors and i was only waiting to determine at what plays or performances they should be as to the grand spectacle of which is to be represented this season i had given it a most showing that it was neither tragedy comedy nor farce � that the incidents were highly improbable � that the prince played hke a perfect � that the white were merely powdered for the occasion � and that the new moon had a most outrageous copper nose but my most profound and essay in is an review of these which i had written partly in revenge for the many jokes played off against me by my and partly for the purpose of saving much invaluable labour to the and of the age by and exposing all the etc etc which occur in this work i hold it downright for any of esq author to write or even to think in the same manner with any other writer that either did doth or may exist it is a sage of law � � � � and the same has been extended to literature so that if an author shall publish an idea that has been ever hinted by another it shall be no for him to plead ignorance of the feet all therefore that i had to do was to take a good pair of spectacles or a glass and with in hand and a table full of books before me to mouse over them alternately in a comer of library carefully comparing and all odd ends and fragments of sentences little did honest suspect when he sat lounging and in his elbow chair with no other to draw upon than his own brain and no other authority to consult than the sage � little did he think that his careless would receive such scrupulous investigation by laborious and patiently words where sentences and ideas did not correspond i have detected sundry sly whim opinions and of which tu be bound himself is ignorant thus for instance � the little man in black is t no less a personage than old or something from the spectator who her from s � wrinkled with age grown � my friend has taken the honest old woman dressed her up in the cast off suit worn by in and endeavoured to palm the upon the enlightened inhabitants of � proof of the fact need be given than that was taken for a witch and the man in black for a and that they both in villages the inhabitants of which were distinguished by a most respectful of and � to be sure the astonishing ends here but surely that is enough to prove that the man in black is no other than in the disguise of a white witch thus also the sage in a for a of studying may pretend to originality of idea op esq and to a familiar acquaintance with the of the east � but this trick will not pass here � i refer those who wish to detect his to one of those or of science which like a tailor s or a pie are for scientific fragments of all sorts and sizes the reader learned in dictionary studies will at once perceive i mean an there under the title of cards or i 