standing, in this town a great number of nobodies, service, my lord. What, Lloyd with an L! It was not described by Lord Coke. SIR LUKE LIMP makes his appearance, and after a short dialogue, enter a Servant and delivers a card to SIR LUKE. Sir Lake. [Reads.] Sir Gregory Goose desires the honour of Sir Luke Limp's company to dine. An answer is desired.' Gadso! a little unlucky; I have been engaged for these three weeks. Serj. What! I find Sir Gregory is returned for the corporation of Fleecem. Sir Luke. Is he so? Oh, oh! that alters the case. George, give my compliments to Sir Gregory, and I'll certainly come and dine there. Order Joe to run to Alderman Inkle's in Threadneedle Street; sorry can't wait upon him, but confined to bed two days with the new influenza. [Exit Servant. Char. You make light, Sir Luke, of these sort of engagements. Sir Luke. What can a man do? These fellows (when one has the misfortune to meet them) take scandalous advantage: when will you do me the honour, pray, Sir Luke, to take a bit of mutton with me? Do you name the day? They are as bad as a beggar who attacks your coach at the mounting of a hill; there is no getting rid of them without a penny to one, and a promise to t'other. It Serj. True; and then for such a time too-three weeks! I wonder they expect folks to remember. is like a retainer in Michaelmas term for the summer assizes. Sir Luke. Not but upon these occasions no man in England is more punctual than Enter a SERVANT, who gives SIR LUKE a letter. From whom? Serv. Earl of Brentford. The servant waits for an with an L, indeed, my lord. Because in your part of the world I have heard that Lloyd and Flloyd were synonymous, the very same names. Very often indeed, my lord. But you always spell yours with an L? Always. That, Mr Lloyd, is a little unlucky; for you must know I am now paying my debts alphabetically, and in four or five years you might have come in with an F; but I am afraid I can give you no hopes for your L. Ha, ha, ha! Enter a SERVANT Serv. There was no overtaking the servant. Sir Luke. That is unlucky: tell my lord I'll attend him. I'll call on Sir Gregory myself. [Exit Serv. Serj. Why, you won't leave us, Sir Luke? Sir Luke. Pardon, dear Serjeant and Charlotte; have a thousand things to do for half a million of people, positively; promised to procure a husband for Lady Cicely Sulky, and match a coach-horse for Brigadier Whip; after that, must run into the city to borrow a thousand for young At-all at Almack's; send a Cheshire cheese by the stage to Sir Timothy Tankard in Suffolk; and get at the Herald's office a coat of newly arrived; so you see I have not a moment to arms to clap on the coach of Billy Bengal, a nabob lose. Serj. True, true. Sir Luke. At your toilet to-morrow you may[Enter a Servant abruptly, and runs against Sir Luke.] Can't you see where you are running, you rascal. Serv. Sir, his grace the Duke of Sir Luke. Grace!-Where is he? Serv. In his coach at the door. If you an't better engaged, would be glad of your company to go into the city, and take a dinner at Dolly's. Where Sir Luke. In his own coach, did you say? Serv. Yes, sir. Sir Luke. With the coronets-or Serv. I believe so. Sir Luke. There's no resisting of that. Bid Joe run to Sir Gregory Goose's. Serv. He is already gone to Alderman Inkle's. I hope Sir Gregory's servant an't gone. Sere. Immediately upon receiving the answer. Sir Luke. Run after him as fast as you can-tell him quite in despair-recollect an engagement that can't in nature be missed, and return in an instant.-no-you must go to my lord's-hold, hold, no-I have it-step first to Sir Greg's, then pop in at Lord Brentford's, just as the company are going to dinner. Serv. What shall I say to Sir Gregory? Sir Luke. Anything-what I told you before. Serv. And what to my lord? [Exit Servant. Char. You see, sir, the knight must give way for my lord. Sir Luke. No, faith, it is not that, my dear Charlotte; you saw that was quite an extempore business. No, hang it, no, it is not for the title; but, to tell you the truth, Brentford has more wit than any man in the world: it is that makes me fond of his house. Char. By the choice of his company he gives an unanswerable instance of that. Sir Luke. You are right, my dear girl. But now to give you a proof of his wit: you know Brentford's finances are a little out of repair, which procures him some visits that he would very gladly excuse. Serj. What need he fear? His person is sacred; for by the tenth of William and Mary Sir Luke. He knows that well enough; but for all that Ser Indeed, by a late act of his own house (which does them infinite honour), his goods or chattels may be Sir Luke. Seized upon when they can find them; but he lives in ready furnished lodgings, and hires his coach by the month. Serj. Nay, if the sheriff return 'non inventus.' Sir Luke. A plague o' your law; you make me lose sight of my story. One morning a Welsh coachmaker came with his bill to my lord, whose name was unluckily Lloyd. My lord had the man up. You are called, I think, Mr Lloyd? At your lordship's Sir Luke. What!-Why, tell him that my uncle from Epsom-no-that won't do, for he knows I don't care a farthing for him-hey! Why, tell him-hold, I have it. Tell him that as I was going into my chair to obey his commands, I was arrested by a couple of bailiffs, forced into a hackney coach, and carried into the Pied Bull in the borough; I beg ten thousand pardons for making his grace wait, but his grace knows my misfor- [Exeunt Sir Luke and Serv. Char. Well, sir, what d'ye think of the proofs? I flatter myself I have pretty well established my case. Serj. Why, hussy, you have hit upon points; but then they are but trifling flaws, they don't vitiate the title; that stands unimpeached. The popularity of The Beggar's Opera' being partly owing to the excellent music which accompanied the piece, we find in this period a number of comic operas, in which songs and dialogue alternate. Sheridan's unexampled success has been already mentioned. The Devil to Pay, by C. COFFEY, was long a favourite, chiefly for the female character, Nell, which made the fortune of several actresses; and among the best pieces of this description are those by ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, whose operas, The Padlock, Love in a Village, Lionel Clarissa, &c., present a pleasing union of lyrical charms with those of dramatic incident and dialogue. CHARLES DIBDIN was author and composer of a multitude of musical operas and other dramatic trifles: his Quaker, produced in 1777, is distinguished for its excellent music. PERIODICAL ESSAYISTS. An attempt was made at this period to revive the style of periodical literature, which had proved so successful in the hands of Addison and Steele. After the cessation of The Guardian,' there was a long interval, during which periodical writing was confined to party politics. An effort was made to connect it again with literature by Dr Johnson, who published the first paper of The Rambler on the 20th of March 1750, and it was continued twice a-week, without interruption, till the 14th of March 1752. Johnson received only four contributions (one from Richardson the novelist) during the whole course of the publication, and, consequently, the work bore the stamp of but one mind, and that mind cast in a peculiar mould. The light graces and genialities of Steele were wanting, and sketches of the fashions and frivolities of the times, which had contributed so much to the popularity of the former essayists, found no place in the grave and gloomy pages of The Rambler.' The serious and somewhat pedantic style of the work was ill-calculated for general readers, and it was no favourite with the public. Johnson, when he collected these essays, revised and corrected them with great care, but even then they appeared heavy and cumbrous; his attempts at humour were not happy, and the female characters introduced were all, as Garrick remarked, Johnsons in petticoats. They all speak the same measured lofty style, and resemble figures in sculpture rather than real life. The author's use of hard words was a common complaint; but it is somewhat curious to find, among the words objected to in The Rambler,' resuscitation, narcotic, fatuity, and germination, which have now become of daily use, and carry with them no appearance of pedantry. The turgid style of Johnson, however, often rose into passages of grandeur and beauty; his imagery is striking and original, and his inculcation of moral and religious duty was earnest and impressive. Goldsmith declared that a system of morals might be drawn from these essays. No other English writer of that day could have moralised in such a dignified strain as in the following passages: tender officiousness; and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained. Kindness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures; but such benefits only can be bestowed as others are capable to receive, and such pleasures only imparted as others are qualified to enjoy. By this descent from the pinnacles of art, no honour will be lost; for the condescensions of learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things, appears, to use the simile of Longinus, like the sun in his evening declination; he remits his splendour but retains his magnitude, and pleases more though he dazzles less.' On revenge:-A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. He that willingly suffers the corrosions of inveterate hatred, and gives up his days and nights to the gloom and malice and perturbations of stratagem, cannot surely be said to consult his ease. Resentment is a union of sorrow with malignity; a combination of a passion which all endeavour to avoid, with a passion which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate mischief, and to exasperate his own rage; whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress and contrivances of ruin; whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own sufferings, but to indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be numbered among the most miserable of human beings, among those who are guilty without reward, who have neither the gladness of prosperity nor the calm of innocence. Whoever considers the weakness both of himself and others, will not long want persuasives to forgiveness. We know not to what degree of malignity any injury is to be imputed; or how much its guilt, if we were to inspect the mind of him that committed it, would be extenuated by mistake, precipitance, or negligence; we cannot be certain how much more we feel than was intended to be inflicted, or how much we increase the mischief to ourselves by voluntary aggravations. We may charge to design the effects of accident; we may think the blow violent only because we have made ourselves delicate and tender; we are on every side in danger of error and of guilt, which we are certain to avoid only by speedy forgiveness. From this pacific and harmless temper, thus propitious to others and ourselves, to domestic tranquillity and to social happiness, no man is withheld but by pride, by the fear of being insulted by his adversary, or despised by the world. It may be laid down as an unfailing and universal axiom, that “all pride is abject and mean." It is always an ignorant, lazy, or cowardly acquiescence in a false appearance of excellence, and proceeds not from consciousness of our attainments, but insensibility of our wants. On useful knowledge:- To lessen that disdain with which scholars are inclined to look on the common business of the world, and the unwillingness with which they condescend to learn what is not to be found in any system of philosophy, it may be necessary to consider, that though admiration is excited by abstruse researches and remote discoveries, yet pleasure is not given, nor affection conciliated, but by softer accomplishments, and qualities more easily communicable to those about us. He that can only converse upon questions about which only a small part of mankind has knowledge sufficient to make them curious, must lose his days in unsocial silence, and live in the crowd of life without a companion. He that can only be useful on great occasions may die without exercising his abilities, and stand a helpless spectator of a thousand vexations The utmost excellence at which humanity can which fret away happiness, and which nothing is re-arrive is a constant and determinate pursuit of quired to remove but a little dexterity of conduct and readiness of expedients. No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and Nothing can be great which is not right. Nothing which reason condemns can be suitable to the dignity of the human mind. To be driven by external motives from the path which our own heart approves, to give way to anything but conviction, to suffer the opinion of others to rule our choice or overpower our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most ignominious slavery, and to resign the right of directing our own lives. virtue without regard to present dangers or advantages; a continual reference of every action to the divine will; a habitual appeal to everlasting justice; and an unvaried elevation of the intellectual eye to the reward which perseverance only can ob tain. But that pride which many, who presume to boast of generous sentiments, allow to regulate their measures, has nothing nobler in view than the approbation of men; of beings whose superiority we are under no obligation to acknowledge, and who, when we have courted them with the utmost assiduity, can confer no valuable or permanent reward; of beings who ignorantly judge of what they do not understand, or partially determine what they have never examined; and whose sentence is therefore of no weight, till it has received the ratification of our own conscience. He that can descend to bribe suffrages like these at the price of his innocence; he that can suffer the delight of such acclamations to withhold his attention from the commands of the universal sovereign, has little reason to congratulate himself upon the greatness of his mind; whenever he awakes to seriousness and reflection, he must become despicable in his own eyes, and shrink with shame from the remembrance of his cowardice and folly. Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is therefore superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended; and to him that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.' A still finer specimen of Johnson's style is afforded in an essay on retirement from the world: to his attention from wounds or diseases. But the negative infelicity which proceeds, not from the pressure of sufferings, but the absence of enjoyments, will always yield to the remedies of reason. One of the great arts of escaping superfluous uneasiness, is to free our minds from the habit of comparing our condition with that of others on whom the blessings of life are more bountifully bestowed, or with imaginary states of delight and security, perhaps unattainable by mortals. Few are placed in a situation so gloomy and distressful as not to see every day beings yet more forlorn and miserable, from whom they may learn to rejoice in their own lot. No inconvenience is less superable by art or diligence than the inclemency of climates, and therefore none affords more proper exercise for this philosophical abstraction. A native of England, pinched with the frosts of December, may lessen his affection for his own country by suffering his imagination to wander in the vales of Asia, and sport among woods that are always green, and streams that always murmur; but if he turns his thoughts towards the polar regions, and considers the nations to whom a great portion of the year is darkness, and who are condemned to pass weeks and months amidst mountains of snow, he will soon recover his tranquillity; and while he stirs his fire, or throws his cloak about him, reflect how much he owes to providence that he is not placed in Greenland or Siberia. On him,' says the moralist, 'that appears The barrenness of the earth, and the severity of the pass through things temporal with no other care skies in these dreary countries, are such as might be than not to lose finally the things eternal, I look expected to confine the mind wholly to the contemplawith such veneration as inclines me to approve his tion of necessity and distress, so that the care of escapconduct in the whole, without a minute examina-ing death from cold and hunger should leave no room tion of its parts; yet I could never forbear to wish, for those passions which, in lands of plenty, influence that while Vice is every day multiplying seduce- conduct, or diversify characters; the summer should ments, and stalking forth with more hardened effron-be spent only in providing for the winter, and the wintery, Virtue would not withdraw the influence of ter in longing for the summer. her presence, or forbear to assert her natural dignity by open and undaunted perseverance in the right. Piety practised in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and, however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendour of beneficence.' These sentences show the stately artificial style of Johnson, which, when supported by profound thought, or pointed morality, as in the foregoing extracts, appears to great advantage, but is unsuited to ordinary topics of life and conversation. Hence, he shines more in his colloquial displays, as recorded by Boswell, where much of this extraneous pomp was left off, while all the point and vigour of his understanding, and the powers of wit and imagination, were retained. He is, in fact, a greater man in the pages of his biographer than in his own works: the intellectual gladiator of the club evinced a more powerful, ready, and various mind, than he could embody in his deliberate writings in the closet. Goldsmith was directly the reverse: he could argue best, as he said, with the pen in his hand. [Tale of Anningait and Ajut.] [From The Rambler."] Of the happiness and misery of our present state, part arises from our sensations, and part from our opinions; part is distributed by nature, and part is in a great measure apportioned by ourselves. Positive pleasure we cannot always obtain, and positive pain we often cannot remove. No man can give to his own plantations the fragrance of the Indian groves; nor will any precepts of philosophy enable him to withdraw way into those abodes of poverty and gloom : Lapland Yet learned curiosity is known to have found its and Iceland have their historians, their critics, and their poets; and Love, that extends his dominion wherever humanity can be found, perhaps exerts the same power in the Greenlander's hut as in the palaces of eastern monarchs. Greenland retire together, to pass the cold months, In one of the large caves to which the families of and which may be termed their villages or cities, a youth and maid, who came from different parts of the country, were so much distinguished for their beauty, that they were called by the rest of the inhabitants, Anningait and Ajut, from a supposed resemblance to their ancestors of the same names, who had been transformed of old into the sun and moon. Anningait for some time heard the praises of Ajut with little emotion, but at last, by frequent interviews, became sensible of her charms, and first made a discovery of his affection by inviting her with her parents to a feast, where he placed before Ajut the tail of a whale. Ajut seemed not much delighted by this gallantry; yet, however, from that time was observed rarely to appear but in a vest made of the skin of a white deer; she used frequently to renew the black dye upon her hands and forehead, to adorn her sleeves with coral and shells, and to braid her hair with great exactness. The elegance of her dress, and the judicious disposition of her ornaments, had such an effect upon Anningait that he could no longer be restrained from a declaration of his love. He therefore composed a poem in her praise, in which, among other heroic and tender sentiments, he protested that 'She was beautiful as the vernal willow, and fragrant as thyme upon the mountains; that her fingers were white as the teeth of the morse, and her smile grateful as the dissolution of the ice; that he would pursue her, though she should pass the snows of the midland cliffs, or seek shelter in the caves of the eastern cannibals; that he would tear her from the embraces of the genius of the rocks, snatch her from the paws of Amaroc, and rescue her from the ravine of Hafgufa.' He concluded with a wish, that, 'whoever shall attempt to hinder his union with Ajut, might be buried without his bow, and that in the land of souls his skull might serve for no other use than to catch the droppings of the starry lamps.' This ode being universally applauded, it was expected that Ajut would soon yield to such fervour and accomplishments; but Ajut, with the natural haughtiness of beauty, expected all the forms of courtship; and before she would confess herself conquered, the sun returned, the ice broke, and the season of labour called all to their employments. Anningait and Ajut for a time always went out in the same boat, and divided whatever was caught. Anningait, in the sight of his mistress, lost no opportunity of signalising his courage; he attacked the sea-horses on the ice; pursued the seals into the water; and leaped upon the back of the whale while he was yet struggling with the remains of life. Nor was his diligence less to accumulate all that could be necessary to make winter comfortable; he dried the roe of fishes, and the flesh of seals; he entrapped deer and foxes, and dressed their skins to adorn his bride ; he feasted her with eggs from the rocks, and strewed her tent with flowers. It happened that a tempest drove the fish to a distant part of the coast before Anningait had completed his store; he therefore intreated Ajut that she would at last grant him her hand, and accompany him to that part of the country whither he was now summoned by necessity. Ajut thought him not yet entitled to such condescension, but proposed, as a trial of his constancy, that he should return at the end of summer to the cavern where their acquaintance commenced, and there expect the reward of his assiduities. "O virgin, beautiful as the sun shining on the water, consider,' said Anningait, what thou hast required. How easily may my return be precluded by a sudden frost or unexpected fogs; then must the night be passed without my Ajut. We live not, my fair, in those fabled countries which lying strangers so wantonly describe; where the whole year is divided into short days and nights; where the same habitation serves for summer and winter; where they raise houses in rows above the ground, dwell together from year to year, with flocks of tame animals grazing in the fields about them; can travel at any time from one place to another, through ways inclosed with trees, or over walls raised upon the inland waters; and direct their course through wide countries, by the sight of green hills or scattered buildings. Even in summer we have no means of crossing the mountains, whose snows are never dissolved; nor can remove to any distant residence, but in our boats coasting the bays. Consider, Ajut; a few summer days and a few winter-nights and the life of man is at an end. Night is the time of ease and festivity, of revels and gaiety; but what will be the flaming lamp, the delicious seal, or the soft oil, without the smile of Ajut!' The eloquence of Anningait was vain; the maid continued inexorable, and they parted with ardent promises to meet again before the night of winter. Anningait, however discomposed by the dilatory coyness of Ajut, was yet resolved to omit no tokens of amorous respect; and therefore presented her at his departure with the skins of seven white fawns, of five swans, and eleven seals, with three marble lamps, ten vessels of seal oil, and a large kettle of brass, which he had purchased from a ship at the price of half a whale and two horns of sea-unicorns. Ajut was so much affected by the fondness of her lover, or so much overpowered by his magnificence, that she followed him to the sea-side; and when she saw him enter the boat, wished aloud that he might| return with plenty of skins and oil; that neither the mermaids might snatch him into the deeps, nor the spirits of the rocks confine him in their caverns. She stood a while to gaze upon the departing vessel, and then returning to her hut, silent and dejected, laid aside from that hour her white deer skin, suffered her hair to spread unbraided on her shoulders, and forbore to mix in the dances of the maidens. She endeavoured to divert her thought by continual application to feminine employments, gathered moss for the winter lamps, and dried grass to line the boots of Anningait. Of the skins which he had bestowed upon her, she made a fishing-coat, a small boat, and tent, all of exquisite manufacture; and while she was thus busied, solaced her labours with a song, in which she prayed that her lover might have hands stronger than the paws of the bear, and feet swifter than the feet of the rein-deer; that his dart might never err, and that his boat might never leak; that he might never stumble on the ice, nor faint in the water; that the seal might rush on his harpoon, and the wounded whale might dash the waves, in vain.' The large boats in which the Greenlanders transport their families are always rowed by women; for a man will not debase himself by work which requires neither skill nor courage. Anningait was therefore exposed by idleness to the ravages of passion. He went thrice to the stern of the boat with an intent to leap into the water and swim back to his mistress: but recollecting the misery which they must endure in the winter, without oil for the lamp, or skins for the bed, he resolved to employ the weeks of absence in provi-1 sion for a night of plenty and felicity. He then composed his emotions as he could, and expressed in wild numbers and uncouth images his hopes, his sorrows, and his fears. O life,' says he, 'frail and uncertain! where shall wretched man find thy resemblance but in ice floating on the ocean? It towers on high, it sparkles from afar, while the storms drive and the waters beat it, the sun melts it above and the rocks shatter it below. What art thou, deceitful pleasure! but a sudden blaze streaming from the north, which plays a moment on the eye, mocks the traveller with the hopes of light, and then vanishes for ever? What, love, art thou but a whirlpool, which we approach without knowledge of our danger, drawn on by imperceptible degrees till we have lost all power of resistance and escape? Till I fixed my eyes on the graces of Ajut, while I had yet not called her to the banquet, I was careless as the sleeping morse, I was merry as the singers in the stars. Why, Ajut, did I gaze upon thy graces? Why, my fair, did I call thee to the banquet? Yet, be faithful, my love, remember Anningait, and meet my return with the smile of virginity. I will chase the deer, I will subdue the whale, resistless as the frost of darkness, and unwearied as the summer sun. In a few weeks I shall return prosperous and wealthy; then shall the roe-fish and the porpoise feast thy kindred; the fox and hare shall cover thy couch; the tough hide of the scal shall shelter thee from cold; and the fat of the whale illuminate thy dwelling.' Anningait having with these sentiments consoled his grief and animated his industry, found that they had now coasted the headland, and saw the whales spouting at a distance. He therefore placed himself in his fishing-boat, called his associates to their seve ral employments, plied his oar and harpoon with incredible courage and dexterity; and, by dividing his time between the chase and fishery, suspended the miseries of absence and suspicion. Ajut, in the meantime, notwithstanding her neglected dress, happened, as she was drying some skins in the sun, to catch the eye of Norngsuk, on his return from hunting. Norngsuk was of birth truly illustrious. His mother had died in childbirth, and his father, the most expert fisher of Greenland, had perished by too close pursuit of the whale. His dignity was equalled by his riches; he was master of four men's and two women's boats, had ninety tubs of oil in his winter habitation, and five-and-twenty seals buried in the snow against the season of darkness. When he saw the beauty of Ajut, he immediately threw over her the skin of a deer that he had taken, and soon after presented her with a branch of coral. Ajut refused his gifts, and determined to admit no lover in the place of Anningait. Norngsuk, thus rejected, had recourse to stratagem. He knew that Ajut would consult an Angekkok, or diviner, concerning the fate of her lover, and the felicity of her future life. He therefore applied himself to the most celebrated Angekkok of that part of the country, and by a present of two seals and a marble kettle, obtained a promise that when Ajut should consult him, he would declare that her lover was in the land of souls. Ajut, in a short time, brought him a coat made by herself, and inquired what events were to befall her, with assurances of a much larger reward at the return of Anningait if the prediction should flatter her desires. The Angekkok knew the way to riches, and foretold that Anningait, having already caught two whales, would soon return home with a large boat laden with provisions. This prognostication she was ordered to keep secret; and Norngsuk, depending upon his artifice, renewed his addresses with greater confidence; but finding his suit still unsuccessful, applied himself to her parents with gifts and promises. The wealth of Greenland is too powerful for the virtue of a Greenlander; they forgot the merit and the presents of Anningait, and decreed Ajut to the embraces of Norngsuk. She entreated; she remonstrated; she wept and raved; but finding riches irresistible, fled away into the uplands, and lived in a cave upon such berries as she could gather, and the birds or hares which she had the fortune to insnare, taking care, at an hour when she was not likely to be found, to view the sea every day, that her lover might not miss her at his re turn. At last she saw the great boat in which Anningait had departed, stealing slow and heavy laden along the coast. She ran with all the impatience of affection to catch her lover in her arms, and relate her constancy and sufferings. When the company reached the land, they informed her that Anningait, after the fishery was ended, being unable to support the slow passage of the vessel of carriage, had set out before them in his fishing-boat, and they expected at their arrival to have found him on shore. Ajut, distracted at this intelligence, was about to fly into the hills, without knowing why, though she was now in the hands of her parents, who forced her back to their own hut, and endeavoured to comfort her; but when at last they retired to rest, Ajut went down to the beach, where, finding a fishing-boat, she entered it without hesitation, and telling those who wondered at her rashness that she was going in search of Anningait, rowed away with great swiftness, and was seen Do more. The fate of these lovers gave occasion to various fictions and conjectures. Some are of opinion that they were changed into stars; others imagine that Anningait was seized in his passage by the genius of the rocks, and that Ajut was transformed into a mermaid, and still continues to seek her lover in the deserts of the sea. But the general persuasion is, that they are both in that part of the land of souls where the sun never sets, where oil is always fresh, and provisions always warm. The virgins sometimes throw a thimble and a needle into the bay from which the hapless maid departed; and when a Greenlander would praise any couple for virtuous affection, he declares that they love like Anningait and Ajut. The Adventurer, by Dr Hawkesworth, succeeded 'The Rambler,' and was published twice a-week from 1752 to 1754. JOHN HAWKESWORTH (1715-1773) rose from being a watchmaker to considerable literary eminence by his talents and learning. He was employed to write the narrative of Captain Cook's discoveries in the Pacific ocean, by which he realised a large sum of money, and he made an excellent translation of Telemachus. With the aid of Dr Johnson, Warton, and others, he carried on "The Adventurer' with considerable success. It was more various than The Rambler'-more in the style of light reading. Hawkesworth, however, was an imitator of Johnson, and the conclusion of "The Adventurer' has the Johnsonian swell and cast of imagination: 'The hour is hastening in which whatever praise or censure I have acquired by these compositions, if they are remembered at all, will be remembered with equal indifference, and the tenor of them only will afford me comfort. Time, who is impatient to date my last paper, will shortly moulder the hand that is now writing it in the dust, and still this breast that now throbs at the reflection: but let not this be read as something that relates only to another; for a few years only can divide the eye that is now reading from the hand that has written. This awful truth, however obvious, and however reiterated, is yet frequently forgotten; for surely, if we did not lose our remembrance, or at least our sensibility, that view would always predominate in our lives which alone can afford us comfort when we die.' |