distorted. But of all the grinners, in the whole circle of grinning, recommend me to the critic professed; whether he deal forth his squibs in newspaper paragraphs, vent his spleen in a dirty pamphlet, or magisterially assume to be the dispenser of lite-rary life or death from his omnipotent throne, a review. It is really astonishing how admirably they contrive to grin, with a certain string of words in their mouth; as pathos, sensibility, exquisite, vile, dull, diction, trash, heedlessness, genius, impetuosity, orthography, grammar, sense, nonsense, &c. &c. &c. to the great emolument of themselves, and high edification of their readers. Is an epic poem shewn them? Really it is rather too Virgilian; not enough in the style of Martial. Is an epigram submitted to their inspection? What a pity it is so Ovidian; it would be much better if it had a dash of Homer's majesty. The spirit of party is productive of much grinning; not all the virtues under heaven, no benevolence, however extended, no abilities, however transcendant, no knowledge, however expanded, no qualities, however dignified, can save the aristocrat from the democrat's grin; nor can intentions the most pure, a life the most blameless, a charity the most universal, an integrity the most incorruptible, a fortitude the most unbending, a religion the most sincere, protect the popular partizan from being grinned on as a knave, and a villain, by the advocate for monopoly of power. People of the same calling, and those whose interests clash, are very apt to grin at each other; as electioneering candidates for a borough; high-bred dames contending for precedency; physicians canvassing for patients; coblers jostling against each other, that they may arrive at the dignity of heelpiecing an old shoe; grocers throwing dust into each other's eyes, that they may get off some damaged tea, &c. In a word, he who depreciates rising worth, and attempts to wither the shoots of aspiring genius, who "condemns those arts that taught himself to rise;" he who pines with envy at the prosperity of another; he who sickens at the blaze of superior talents, and, not possessing sufficient hardiness to attack openly, “but is willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike; "Just hints a fault, and hesitates dislike; he who deliberately inflicts misery on another, and then, "With hard unkindness alter'd eye, these, all these, and many more, who have been weighed in the balance of integrity, and found wanting, are the vilest and the • basest of grinners. Although I cannot, in one essay, enumerate all the instances of grinning, yet one other species I am unable to prevail on myself to omit: that is the grin arising from changing the directions of parcels, of trunks, and of portmanteaus, going to a distance by coach or by waggon; hence your very witty now amuse themselves by taking an inside place in a coach stowed with game, and altering the tickets; so that a person in London, being taught by letter from the country to expect a hare, sees some barn-door fowls; the alderman looking out and longing after a fat goose, receives a cheese; the wisher for a Turkey beholds half a dozen pigeons, and so on; all which surprise and disappointment our dealer in fun enjoys by anticipation; for the wretch will not be on the spot to see the effects of his mischievous meddling monkeyism; but this petty rascality, though, in intention, equally abominable, yet, in its consequences, is not so formidable as the more exalted and daring joke of changing the directions on trunks and portmanteaus. I remember well, many years since, that, at Salisbury, three young cantabs beguiled a vacant half-hour in this mode of grinning. They put the direction of an elderly gentleman, travelling to his country seat in the south-western part of England, on the trunk of a young country girl going up to London, in order to get into service, and carrying a recommendation to a very civil old gentlewoman, her cousin, who forty-five years before reached the metropolis, with but a scanty pittance, though now, by various changes, always for the better, she had a house of her own, where young females were kept in employment; and her direction was fastened on the worshipful squire's travelling apparatus. Mark the issue of the event; the gentleman, on opening the trunk, found, instead of some suits of apparel, some valuable papers, and nine hundred pounds in bank-notes, two coarse dowlas chemises, one white dimity petticoat, a pair of white thread stockings a little mended at the heel, a nearly new black bonnet, and a letter of recommendation, with some apples, as a present to the old harridan in London. He sent immediately express to town, and there found that the antiquated bawd had effectually secured both his property and the poor deluded girl's innocence. She swore that she had seen neither trunk nor box; that the young woman was her niece; and that if so be as how the gentleman had her relation's trunk, why, to be sure, he would never be so unhandsome as not to send it to her house. What was now to be done? By much labour and ingenuity the whole mischief was traced to the wondrous grinning feat at Salisbury, whereupon the gentleman's attorney waited on these doughty youths, and informed them, that his client, in consideration of their age, their inexperience, and, above all, their total |