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'I leave you, Mr. Fitz-Adam, to make your moral reflections on these several stories; but I cannot conclude my letter without giving you an account of the only duel in which my poor dear husband, Mr. Solomon Muzzy, was engaged; if a man may be said to be engaged who was scarce ever awake.

'Mr. Muzzy was very fat, and extremely lethargic.. To be sure, he had courage sufficient for a majorgeneral; but he was not only unwieldy, but so lethargically stupid, that he fell asleep even in musical assemblies, and snored in the playhouse, as bad, poor man! as he used to snore in his bed. However, having received many taunts and reproaches from my grandfather (who was become by age very tart and peevish), he resolved to challenge his own cousin-german by the mother's side, Brigadier Truncheon of Soho-square. It seems the person challenged fixes upon the place and weapons. Truncheon, a deep-sighted man, chose Primrosehill for the field of battle, and swords for the weapons of defence. To avoid suspicion, and to prevent discovery, they were to walk together from Piccadilly, where we then lived, to the summit of Primrose-hill. Truncheon's scheme took effect. Muzzy was much fatigued and out of breath with the walk. However, he drew his sword; and, as he assured me himself, began to attack his cousin Truncheon with a valour which must have charmed my grandfather, had he been present. The brigadier went back; Mr. Muzzy pursued; but not having his adversary's alacrity, he stopped a little to take breath. He stopped, alas! too long: his lethargy came on with more than ordinary violence: he first dozed, as he stood upon his legs, and then beginning to nod forwards, dropt by degrees upon his face in a most profound sleep. Truncheon, base

Mr.

as he lay snoring on the ground; and he had the cunning to direct his stab in such a manner, as to make it supposed that Mr. Muzzy had fled, and in his flight had received a wound in the most ignominious part of his body. You will ask what became of the seconds? they were both killed upon the spot; but being only two servants, the one a butler, the other a cook, they were buried the same night; and by the power of a little money properly applied, no farther inquiry was ever made about them.

'Mr. Muzzy, wounded as he was (the blood trickling from him in great abundance) might probably have slept upon that spot for many hours, had he not been awakened by the cruel bites of a mastiff. The dog began first to lick his blood, and then tearing his clothes, fell upon the wounded part as if it had been carrion. My poor husband was thoroughly awakened by the new hurt he had received; and indeed it was impossible to have slept, while he was losing whole collops of the fattest and most pulpy part of his flesh! so that he was brought home to me much more wounded, Mr. Fitz-Adam, by the teeth of the mastiff, than by the sword of his cousin Truncheon.

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This, Sir, is the real fact, as it happened; although I well know that the Truncheon family take the liberty of telling a very different story, much to the dishonour of my husband's memory. Permit ine, Mr. Fitz-Adam, by your means, to do public justice to Mr. Muzzy's character, and at the same time to assure you that I am, Sir,

Your most obliged and obedient
humble servant,
MARY MUZZY.'

N° 69. THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1754.

For the entertainment of those of my readers who love variety, and to oblige those of my correspondents whose epistles to me are too short to be published singly, I have set apart this paper for miscellaneous productions.

'If

'SIR,

"To Mr. FITZ-ADAM.

you are a strong-bodied man, be so kind as to open your arms to your fair readers, and lift them down safely from their high-heeled shoes. I am really in pain when I see a pretty woman tottering along, uncertain at every step she takes whether she shall stand or fall. If the ladies intend by this fashion to display the leg to greater advantage, to be sure we are obliged to them: but I cannot help being of opinion, that the shortness of the modern petticoat might fully answer this desirable purpose.

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Pray, Mr. Fitz-Adam, favour us with your thoughts upon this matter; and if you can reduce this enormity, and take the ladies down (I will not say in their wedding only, but) in all their shoes, you will oblige every husband and father, whose wife and daughters may be liable from walking in stilts, to make false steps. I am, &c. T. H.'

'SIR,

'As almost every session convinces us that it is not beneath the wisdom of parliament to spend much time and consideration in the enacting and amending laws for the preservation of the game, and to de

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butcher or poulterer in the fields; it is much to be wondered at, that the same vigilant care has not extended to the employment of leisure and opulence in town; and to determine what estate or place should qualify a man to play at cards or dice; how much he must be possessed of to sit down to a game of allfours: how much more to cut in at whist, or to make one at a party of brag: or how much more still to punt at faro, or to sit down at a hazard-table: always reserving to privy-counsellors, and members of either house, an exclusive privilege of ruining themselves at any game they shall think proper to play at.

'I dare say, Mr. Fitz-Adam, a bare hint of this will be sufficient to get it carried into a law; especially if it be added, that till such a law is made, my lord and the chairmen are upon a level in their amusements; except that his lordship is losing his estate with great temper and good-breeding at White's, and the chairman beggaring his family with oaths and curses in a night-cellar. I am, Sir, Your humble servant,

SIR,

W. X.'

'Your paper upon servants put me in mind of a passage in the life of the Marquis (afterward Duke) of Ormond, which I believe will not be unentertaining to your readers.

The marquis having been invited by a French nobleman to pass some days at his house in St. Germain en laye, in compliance with an inconvenient English custom, at his coming away, left with the maître d'hôtel ten pistoles, to be distributed amongst the servants. It was all the money he had, nor did he know how to get credit for more when he reached Paris. As he was on the road ruminating on this melancholy circumstance, and contriving how to rai ⚫ small supply for present use, he was surprised

at being told by his servant, that the nobleman at whose house he had been entertained, was behind, driving furiously, as if he was desirous of overtaking him.

'The marquis, it seems, had scarce left St. Germain, when the distribution of the money he had given caused a great disturbance amongst the servants; who, exalting their own service and attendance, complained of the maître d'hôtel's partiality. The nobleman, hearing an unusual noise in his family, and, upon inquiry into the matter, finding what it was, took the ten pistoles, and causing horses to be put to his chariot, made all the haste that was possible after the Marquis of Ormond. The marquis, upon notice of his approach, got off his horse as the other quitted his chariot, and advanced to embrace him with great affection and respect; but was strangely surprised to find a coldness in the noblemen, which forbade all embraces till he had received satisfaction in a point which had given him great offence. He asked the marquis if he had reason to complain of any disrespect or defect which he met with in the too mean, but very friendly entertainment, which his house afforded and being answered by the marquis, that his treatment had been full of civility; that he had never passed so many days more agreeably in his life, and could not but wonder that the other should suspect the contrary the nobleman then told him, : the leaving ten pistoles to be distributed amongst the servants, was treating his house as an inn, and was the greatest affront that could be offered to a man of quality that he paid his own servants well, and hired them to wait on his friends as well as himself: that he considered him as a stranger who might be unacquainted with the customs of France, and err through some practice deemed less dishonourable in his own country; otherwise his resentment should

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