tend to meddle with religion in your paper. It is certainly a subject of too much dignity and importance to be treated of in essays, which seem devoted to humour and the ridicule of folly. In the name of the whole club, I am, &c. J. C. TO MR. J. C. SIR, As it will be always my ambition to stand well with the clergy, they may assure themselves that the WORLD shall have no religion in it. SIR, I am, &c. A. FITZ-ADAM. TO MR. FITZ-ADAM. I cannot help being offended at your want of correctness in a paper, which, in other respects, deserves approbation. In No. I. you say, WARN men to goodness. The verb warn is unwarrantable in this place: we are warned by or from, but not to.-The word should be incite; and so I have corrected it in my own paper. In No. III. line 2, you have the colloquial barbarism of doing a thing by a man instead of to. I cannot express how much I am hurt at so vulgar an impropriety. In No. VI. page 34, the verb display is used instead of its participle displaying. Perhaps it is only an error of the press: pray be careful for the future. I am willing to hope that these gross mistakes are only owing to inadvertency. If so, I rest, SIR, Your admirer, PHILOLOGOS. TO PHILOLOGOS. I shall be very careful of mistakes for the future; and do assure you upon my veracity, that they have hitherto proceeded from nothing but inadver tency. I am, sir, your obliged servant, TO ADAM FITZ-ADAM, ESQ. DEAR FITZ, Lord **** and I laid hold of a d- -d prig of a university fellow yesterday, and carried him to our club; where, when the claret began to mount, your paper of the WORLD happened to come upon the tapis. That same Mr. Fitz-Adam,' says he, is a very inaccurate writer; peradventure I shall take an opportunity of telling him so in a short time.' But, dear Fitz, if the prig should really send you a letter, smoke the parson and be witty. Your inaccuracies, as he calls them, are the characteristics of a polite writer: by these alone our club is sure that you are a man of fashion. Away with pedantry and the grammar! Write like a gentleman, and with Pope, in his essay upon critics, Snatch a grace beyond the reach of nature. SIR, In compliance with your advice, I shall avoid the pedantry of grammar, and be perfectly the gentleman in my future essays. I am, your most obedient, A. FITZ-ADAM. TO MR. FITZ-ADAM. SIR, I do not write to you to have the pleasure of seeing myself in print: it is only to give you a little friendly advice. Take care of novels: the town swarms with them. That foolish story of Mrs. Wilson, in your fourth and fifth papers, made me cry out that the WORLD was at an end! Yours, TOM TELL-TRUTH. SIR, TO MR. TELL-TRUTH. I thank you for the caution, and will write no more novels. Your most humble servant, A. FITZ-ADAM. SIR, TO MR. FITZ-ADAM. Your predecessor, the Spectator, did not think his labours altogether useless, which were dedicated to us women. Those elegant moral tales, which make their appearance so frequently in his works, are so many proofs of his regard for us. From the fourth and fifth numbers of the WORLD we have the pleasure of hoping that the Spectator is revived among us. The story of Mrs. Wilson is a lesson of instruction to every woman in the kingdom, and has given the author of it as many friends as he has readers among the sex. I am, sir, Your real admirer and humble servant, L. B. TO MISS L. B. MADAM, As it will be always my chief happiness to please the ladies, I shall devote my future papers entirely to novels. Your obliged and most obedient servant, A. FITZ-ADAM. SIR, TO MR. FITZ-ADAM. If a plain grave man may have leave to tell you a little truth, I must inform you, that though I like your manner very much, I have great objections to your matter. He who only skims surfaces will gather nothing but straws. If you are the philosopher you would have us think you, give us something that may rest upon the memory, and improve while it entertains. I am, &c. AMICUS. SIR, TO AMICUS. The WORLD, for the future, shall be grave and philosophical; the matter shall be regarded, and not the manner. I am, &c. A. FITZ-ADAM. A MONSIEUR FITZ-ADÁM. Je suis enchanté, mon cher monsieur, de votre Monde. Depuis deux ans que je suis à Londres, j'ai appris assez d'Anglois pour l'entendre parfaitement, mais je ne suis pas si habile que Voltaire, pour l'écrire. Vous avez saisi tout à fait l'ésprit François; tant d'enjouement, de legereté, et de vivacité !-Parbleu c'est charmant! Donnez-nous de temps en temps un vaudeville, ou quelque petite chanson à boire, et je me croirai à Paris. Le seul petit defaut que vous avez, c'est que vous sentez trop le Monde sage, il ne vous manque qu'un peu du Monde fou, pour plaire à tout le Monde, et surtout à celui qui a l'honneur d'être, monsieur, Votre très-humble et très-obeissant serviteur, A MONSIEUR DOURILLAC. Vous pouvez conter, monsieur, qu'il n'y a rien au monde que je ne fasse pour captiver la bien-veillance d'un si aimable homme. Tout ce qu'il a de gai, de volatile, et même evaporé, coulera desormais de ma plume. J'ai l'honneur d'être, monsieur, Votre très-humble et très-obeissant serviteur, I have many more letters written in the same spirit of criticism, and consequently many more opinions of my own; but as these may be thought sufficient at one time, I shall borrow an old fable, and conclude this paper. An old man and a little boy were driving an ass to the next market to sell. What a fool is this fellow (says a man upon the road) to be trudging it on foot with his son, that his ass may go light! The old man, hearing this, set his boy upon the ass, and went whistling by the side of him. Why, sirrah! (cries a second man to the boy) is it fit for you to be riding, while your poor old father is walking on foot? The father, upon this rebuke, took down his boy from the ass, and mounted himself. Do you see (says a third) how the lazy old knave rides along upon his beast, while his poor little boy is almost crippled with walking? The old man no sooner heard this, than he took up his son behind him. Pray, honest friend, (says a fourth) is that ass your own? Yes, says the man. One would not have thought so, replied the other, by your loading him so unmercifully. You and your son are better able to carry the poor beast than he you. Any thing to please, says the owner; and alighting with his son, they tied the legs of the ass together, and by the help of a pole endeavoured to carry him upon their shoulders over the bridge that led to the town. This was so entertaining a |