Exchange, going to lend our money, going to keep a mistress, and even it might be proper to attend to the hint when we are going to be married. It would, in all these cases, afford us the opportunity to measure present advantages against future possibilities, to set a value on those things that are blessings in possession, and to know the true value of expectation, which is a promise to us almost always kept when we seek what is truly reasonable, and really good for us. It is only the vain idle phantoms of pride or ambition, that deceive us as an ignis fatuus in our journey through life; and thus it is, that the same man who might have enjoyed his family fire side in peace and comfort, is, perhaps, become the inhabitant of a prison for the debts contracted for the materials of the building of pride or ambition which his disordered fancy had planned. It is then that he is sorry that he had not listened to the admonition of cui bono, even with relation to the success of his scheme, and the probable danger of failing; for it happens constantly, that in these arduous attempts to have more than is necessary to our happiness, le jeu ne vaut pas le chandelle; and we fatigue ourselves in a career that is frequently stopt by disappointment, and at most finds its end nearly with the acquisition, by what we know to be the ultimatum of our advantages and misfortunes, a certainty which raises the value of reasonable present enjoyments which we can keep, infinitely above those which we must wait for, never may obtain, or if we should obtain, must part with so soon.

No man has more occasion for the use of the caution, cui bono, than the good-natured man, which character has been falsely denominated a fool; when the fact is, that the good-natured man acts from the most just principles of charity, that would never dishonour him if it were not for the stratagems of the world, that despoil the nature of generosity; he does not want wisdom for it is wise to help our neighbour, but he wants cunning, a contemptible article only made necessary by the achievements of knaves over the kind and generous, Cui bono is therefore an excellent adviser to such a man; for if any applications are made to his philanthropy, he has only to consider the real service he can do his friend, and if upon a candid explanation of his situation he may find that he can assist, let him do it freely; but if it is merely to support extravagance, false appearances, or the folly of concealing a little longer, growing and weighty embarrassments, cui bono will be a prudent query, and if his friend may fall, will leave him something to alleviate his real distress, instead of sinking also by the adhesion to ruinous circumstance. Cui bono will also protect him from the swindler, and the man of elegant address; he may apply the French saying to advantage, what is there dans ses beaux yeux, that I should do this for him? Cui bono would also deter many a man from going to the gaming table, as it would induce the reflection that experience affords us of the ruin attendant upon play, and to speak in the gamester's own terms, the great odds against the man who opposes himself to the skilfuļ

professors of the science, what good can be expected from trusting ourselves with more expert and allowed pickpockets than was ever the unfortunate Barrington.

Our friend cui bono would, on the other side, inform us of many happy and pleasant situations in life, which we pass by and are totally regardless of; he would teach us, that having the ambition not to rise, is the most safe and easy way to contentment; that temperance will bestow the real good, of good health; that the abstinence from luxury and debauchery will preserve the mind; that every thing that is honest and virtuous is pleasant and advantageous; and that the cui bono which charity, truth, and justice bestow, is the great first blessing upon earth-PEACE.

Being engaged in perusing a very curious and novel correspondence which has recently taken place, I was deprived the gratification of attending to the performance of the new historical drama, entitled "The English Fleet;" written, as report says, by Mr. Dibdin. I therefore subjoin a novel species of criticism, offered me by an honest tar, who was there, and who gives his opinion freely and candidly of the representation.

Hazy weather, with sleet, London, Dec. 14, 1803.

MR. MAN IN THE MOON,

"As how you being a friend of Bob Binnacle's, I hope, you see, that you won't be offended with a bit of

a forecastle story, to pass away your watch in the Moon. You must know, that yesterday, being in London to receive some prize money, I steered to Covent-garden, with Sal Saucyface, from Gosport, under my arm, to look in at the play. You never saw anybody so toss'd off as Sal, with a watch by her side as big as one of the compasses in our binnacle a'board the Eggs-and-bacon*, at Spithead. Well, you see, by making several tacks in-shore we, at last, weathered the gallery, and brought up in a good roadsted; at last, the player-men clewed up the mainsail, and begun a great deal of scrimidging, or fighting like Tom Cox's Traverse, up one hatchway and down another, which neither I nor Sal understood any thing about, or indeed, any of their gammon, only one of them, who seemed a bit of a sailor, if he hadn't now and then veered out some ward-room jaw, which we don't know nothing about. There was rather too much sing song for me; but it pleased Sal, and I doesn't mind a bit of a squal now and then, though I had rather hear Tom Midship sing" Why, how now, messmate Jack," than all your uproar singing put together. There was a fine lady too, made a speech as long as the jib sheet, and seemed to spout as well as Mr. Nipcheese, our purser, who I have listened to many a watch down the skylight, when I was quarter-master of the Tartar. Well, Sal wished to splice the main brace, so I stood away for the brandy shop; when a damn'd lubber, who was in everybody's mess, and nobody's watch, (a loblolly boy, I suppose) came to anchor in my birth, along

* A cant name among sailors for the Agamemnon.

side Sal. Dam'ee, I luffed up to him presently, just as he was talking about the companionment to the singing, and I made him cut his cable, and so he went adrift ever so far astern. As for the matter of the plot, they seemed for the world as if they were hustling the corporal, at last, however, the big guns fired, and the English fleet came to anchor, when they cleared the decks presently of all the French swaddies, and so they sung God Save the King, and that's all. "Your's at command,

St. Catharine's Lane, Wapping.

"TOM TIMBERHEAD.”

<< MR. MAN IN THE MOON.

"As I sees all your letter writers stiles you, Mr. Man in the Moon, I thinks proper to do as my nighboars does, and thinks as how. I will write to you myself, and as you are a gemman of high degree, not like our little great men on this side of the sky, I takes the liberty to introduce myself to your favour. It was but last knight I defended you mortal strong against a fellow who presumed to say as how that our great stronomers and strologers have made a confounded mistake, and that the mountain of St. Catharine, as they call it, is nothing else but your nose, and that you are a mortal great drinker; and that this said mountain, instead of being covered with brakes and bushes, is covered with carbuncles. You must know, I had a mortal inclination to knock him down then; but, Sir, my wife has been on a visit to a cousin of hers these three weeks, and I have been reserving my un