Love. My dear, common charity will not suffer you to do that.

Host. Common charity, indeed! Common charity teaches us to provide for ourselves and our families, and I and mine are not to be ruined by your charities, I assure you. Love. Well, my dear, do as you will, you know I never contradict you.

(Enter Surgeon.)

Surgeon. I come to acquaint you that your guest is in such extreme danger, that I can scarcely see any hopes of his recovery.

Host. Here's a pretty kettle of fish you have brought upon us! We are like to have a funeral at our own ex

pense.

Love. My dear, I am not to blame. He was brought hither by the stage coach, and Betty had taken him in before I was stirring.

Host. And what induced Tom Whipwell to bring such guests to my house, when there are so many ale-houses on the road, proper for their reception.

(Enter Betty.)

Betty. The wounded man begs you for mercy-sake to let him have a little tea.

Host. Tea, indeed! Nothing will serve his delicate stomach, then, but tea. Tea costs money, tell him. But there is a carriage at the door. Run, Lovepoor, and lead them into the best parlor. La! how neglectful you are, Mr. Lovepoor. Here is the gentleman now.

(Enter a Stranger, in a cloak.)

Betty, go and tell the murdered man to pack up and be off, and make something ready for this gentleman's sup

per.

Stranger. What murdered man do you speak of?

Host. O, sir, only a poor wretch who was knocked down and robbed on the high road a few hours ago. Stran. Are there no hopes of his recovery?

Sur. I defy all the surgeons in London to do him any good.

Stran. Pray, sir, what are his wounds?

Sur.

Why, do you know any thing of wounds?

Stran. Sir, I have a slight acquaintance with surgery. Sur. A slight acquaintance-ha! ha! ha! I believe it is a slight one, indeed. I suppose, sir, you have traveled? Stran. No, sir.

Sur. Have practiced in the hospitals, perhaps?
Stran. No, sir.

Sur. Whence, then, sir, if I may be so bold as to inquire, have you got your knowledge in surgery?

Stran. Sir, I do not pretend to much, but the little I know I have acquired from books.

Sur. Books! I suppose, then, you have read Galen and Hippocrates.

Stran. No, sir, neither.

Sur. How, understand surgery and not read Galen and Hippocrates!

Stran. Sir, I believe there are many surgeons who have never read these authors.

Sur: I believe so too, more shame for them. But thanks to my education, I have them by heart and very seldom go without them both in my pocket.

Stran. They are pretty large books, though, to carry in the pocket.

Sur. Ay, I presume I know how large they are, better than you do. I suppose you understand physic too, as well as surgery. (A general laugh.)

Stran. Rather better.

Sur. Ay, like enough. (Winking.) Why, I know a little of physic too.

Love. I wish I knew half as much. I'd never wear an apron again.

Sur. Why, I believe, landlord, there are few men, though I say it, who handle a fever better.

Stran. I am thoroughly convinced, sir, of your great learning and skill, but I will thank you to let me know your opinion of the patient's case, above stairs.

Sur. Sir, (with great solemnity,) his case is that of a dead man. The contusion on his head has perforated the internal membrane of the occiput, and divellicated that

radical, small, minute, invisible nerve, which coheres to the pericranium

Stran. That will do, sir. You have convinced me that

you are

Sur. Are what, sir?

Stran. A quack, whose aim it is to impose upon the ignorant and unfortunate.

Sur. And what are you, sir?

Stran. Dr. Bland, president of the college of physicians, and surgeon to Lord Dixby, who has just been robbed, and lies ill in this house. One of his servants, who escaped when the robbery was committed, brought me the information. Your servant, sir. (Speaking to the Surgeon, who is making toward the door.) Now, landlord, conduct me to your guest. (Exit with landlord.)

all you.

Host. Betty, John, Samuel, where are you all? Have you no ears or no consciences, not to tend the sick better? See what the gentleman wants. But any one may die for You have no more feeling than my husband. If a man lived a fortnight in his house without spending a penny, he would never put him in mind of it. See whether the gentleman drinks tea or coffee for supper. (Exit servant.) (Enter Mr. Lovepoor.)

Love. My dear, this wounded traveler must be a greater man than we took him for. Some servants in livery have just arrived, and inquired for him.

Host. God forbid that I should not discharge the duty of a Christian, since the poor gentleman is brought to our house. I have a natural antipathy to vagabonds, but can pity the misfortunes of a Christian as soon as another.

Love. If the traveler be a gentleman, though he have no money about him now, we shall most likely be paid hereafter. So you may begin to score as soon as you please.

Host. Hold your simple tongue, and don't pretend to instruct me in my business. I am sure I am sorry for the gentleman's misfortune with all my heart, and I hope the villains who have used him so barbarously, will be hanged. Let us go and see what he wants. God forbid he should want any thing in my house. (Exeunt.)

CCLXXX.-ON A SYSTEM OF FINANCE.

THIS is an extract from one of the best speeches of Mirabeau, a member of the French Assembly, upon a bill to save the nation from bankruptcy.

WE have heard a great many violent speeches. I shall endeavor to direct your attention to a few simple questions, and earnestly entreat you to listen to them. Has not the minister of finances drawn a most alarming picture of our present situation? Has he not told you that delay must aggravate the evil, that a day, an hour, a moment, may render it irrémediable? Have we any other plan to substitute for the one he proposes? One of this assembly answers, Yes! I conjure that member to recollect that his plan is unknown, that it would require time to explain and examine it, that were it now in discussion, its author may perhaps be mistaken; or if not, that we may think he is, and that, without the concurrence of public opinion, the greatest possible talents would be of no avail in the present circumstances.

I, too, am far from thinking that Mr. Neckar has proposed the best possible ways and means. But God forbid that at this critical moment I should place my views in opposition to his. However preferable I may think them, I know that it is in vain for me to pretend to his prodigious popularity, to his long experience, to his reputation of the first financier in Europe; or to the singular and unprecedented good fortune which has marked his career.

We must therefore come back to the plan of Mr. Neckar. But why adopt it without deliberation? Do you think, then, that we have time to examine it in detail, to discuss the principles, and go over all the calculations? No, no, a thousand times no. We can only propose insignificant questions and superficial conjectures. What, then, shall we do by deliberating? Lose the decisive moment, involve ourselves in disputes about the details of a scheme, which we really do not understand, diminish, by our idle meddlings, the minister's credit, which is and ought to be greater than

our own.

This course is both impolitic and dishonest. I would ask those, who seem to be accustoming themselves to the idea of bankruptcy, in preference to excessive taxes, whether a NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY is not itself the most cruel, the most unjust, the most ruinous of all possible taxes? Two centuries of misgovernment have opened a gulf of ruin, which threatens immediate destruction to the monarchy. This gulf MUST BE CLOSED.

I exhort you, then, most earnestly to vote these extraordinary supplies, and God grant they may prove sufficient. Vote them I beseech you. Vote them at once. The crisis does not admit of delay. If it occurs, we must be responsible for the consequences. Bankruptcy, national bankruptcy is before you. It threatens to swallow up your persons, your property, your honor,-and YET YOU DELIBERATE. FROM MIRABEAU.

CCLXXXI.-HYDER ALI.

CARNATIC; a portion of Southern India.

AMONG the victims to the magnificent plan of universal plunder pursued by the East India Company, so worthy of the heroic avarice of the projectors, you have all heard of an Indian Chief called Hyder Ali Khan. It was among the leading measures in the design of this company, (according to their own emphatic language,) to extirpate this Hyder Ali. But their victim was not of the passive kind. They were soon obliged to conclude a treaty of peace and close alliance with this rebel, at the gates of Madras.

From that time forward, however, a continued plot was carried on for the destruction of Hyder Ali. When at length he found that he had to do with men whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he resolved to make the country, possessed by these incorrigible criminals, a memorable example to mankind. He determined, in the gloomy recesses of a mind, capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance,