ed deceits without number; in a word, the whole behaviour was a monstrous compound of fear and of cruelty, of hypocrisy and of apparent morality, of lies and of fawning, of ignorance and of self-sufficient impertinence. But now, at college, I saw the most abject slavery combined with the most indomitable spirit of defiance and of hardihood; an astonishing frequency of public and private worship, with swearing, and cursing, and lying, and stealing, and every scandalous immorality; a dissipation and extravagance unbounded, with a generosity as wild and undiscriminating as its objects were often worthless; as a proof of which, I shall relate the following anecdote. Ini the summer, when we were on ............... .................” the resort of the

on Tuesdays and Thursdays, some of us,. for I was one of the little party, strolling round and conversing in the full and injudicious openness of our hearts, saw an old man, deeply marked with the small-pox, short, stout, and rather inclined to be fat;. he groaned piteously. We asked him with countenances most earnestly tender, inquir

ing and compassionate, the reason of his being there, what was his distress, whether we could relieve him, &c.? He told us, he was a farmer at had been

bound in a large sum for his brother, who had run away; that the money was more than he could raise; that he was very faint, having eaten nothing for three whole days ; that, if he could get any support, he meant to go to London, where he had some friends who would assist him. In a moment every heart was ready, and every hand was prepared to relieve this most distressed, and pitiable, and hardly-used object; water, and pies, and sugar-plumbs, and gingerbread, and peaches, and sweet-meats, were obtained from the neighbouring river, in hats, and from the adjacent village of....... The old man, with many expres

sions of thankfulness, said, he was much revived, and would endeavour to crawl on his way; nearly all the college boys were' now assembled round him, and they unanimously declared that he should go home with them to the college, where he should receive provision in plenty, and all the money they could muster. This propos al was

1

assented to; the cavalcade proceeded along the banks of the river; they stopped at the little hut,

are

........................... ............. ............................, where their favourite wharf-man resided with his newly married bride. The honest coal-worker was presently made acquainted with the tale, and because he shook his head, and doubted the truth of the story of the old man, whom he declared he knew to. be no better than he should be, would certainly have been ducked in the river, had not the interference of his spouse saved him. The not devoid of gallantry, and a female seldom pleads in vain to them, even in the moments of their wildest phrensy, To the college they came, the old man was loaded with great quantities of meat, and eight large plum-puddings, which were intended for the boys' dinners, but which they readily parted with in order to assist a distressed fellow-creature; all the money in our pockets, to the amount of several pounds, was also given him, and he departed, as we supposed, on his way to London. I make

H

no comment on this transaction, the text explains itself; it shews, in the strongest light, the wild generosity, the credulity, the want of discernment, of judgment, of penetration, the impetuosity of the collegians. Two months afterwards, one of our schoolfellows, passing through Salisbury, met, leading to execution, a person whose countenance he remembered to have lately seen; he enquired, and found that it was our old ................ friend, who, when he amused us with his tale, had then actually murdered his wife, with circumstances of the most shocking barbarity, and was then endeavouring to fly from the officers of justice. He was taken up soon after he left us, near Salisbury, where he was tried, found guilty, condemned, and hanged."

ESSAY XII.

PARALLELISM OF MODERN MANNERS WITH

THOSE OF THE ROMANS, AS DESCRIBED BY JUVENAL.

IN this, and some few succeeding essays, I mean to give a parallel of modern manners with those of the Romans, as we find them depicted in the satires of Juvenal, of which the first and second, at least, I mean to review, and endeavour to judge impartially to whom the meed of excellence appertains, whether to us or to the Romans. As for the exordium of the first satire, I shall pass it over, not having any pretensions to the title of satirist, and still less to that of a poet. To be sure, we have not now, as far as I can learn, any professed Senesinos, who enter into the marriage contract; but, I believe, many women can inform us, that they know of not a few, who, though not nominally, are essentially Senesinos. But this is too delicate a subject to discuss more minutely; it is, like the coat of a beau, or