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It is either Dr. South, I think, or fomebody elfe, who tells us, that there is as wide a difference betwixt the jovial delights of an honeft fellow over the bottle, and the greafy enjoyments of a glutton at his venifon, as between the folemn taciturnity of an Archimides over a problem, and the ftillness of a fow at her wash trough.

For mine own part, I never could boaft the reputation of being the ableft hand at a bottle. For lack of perfonal fervice, therefore, I hold myself bound, as in our militia enrolments, to find a fubftitute, if I mean to cut any confiderable figure. Mine fhall not be nameless long; and I affure you he was a deadly good fponge; a more fieady, perhaps, can hardly be found in the wide phalanx of Bacchus, whether for a time, conftant mufter, or tafk-work. The great Hercules himfelf was not more invincible in his way; for my hero, to do him juftice, is not reported to have been at any time intoxicated.

The fame of his enviable abilitics affembled of course many a focial athletic bibber, your two-and-threebottle men of the club he honoured, to engage with him; and of thefe, as being of ampler puiffance, he difmiffed the majority in due time, with the glory, living or dead, of having been drunk down by him. Secum bibiffe was the merited trophy of their limited warfare. The hero himfelf was well-bottomed, and generally remained mafter, having feldom left any one of the room behind him, unless it were under the table, or under the turf.

Whilft young, and ere he had found out a better employment for his time and talents, it is faid that he applied himself pretty much to books, as many other learned profeffors have done in modern times. Of what fort we are not clearly told; but he was not, that we can find, bred at either of our univerfities. In the courfe of his reading, however, he mutt have met with feveral eminent writers who fpeak

in very handfome terms of that bibical perfection in which he proved peculiarly proficient for a number of years.

"Horace," fays one of thefe writers, in various parts of his works, and particularly thofe he wrote in the prime of life and vigour of his fancy, recommends, by the most brilliant language, this generous and moft manly exercite. In one place he tells us, as a great misthe next world; in another page, he fortune, that we fhall have no wine in counfels his friend Planeus to foothe all his cares in this life with it. He advifes us in one elegant ode to drink, because it is hot weather; in another, because it is cold; and in a third, he affures us, that, if we are wife, we shall do nothing but drink; together with numberless inftances of a fimilar the fobriety of his matchlefs Fpiftles, and very lively turn. Nay, even in he promises immortality to his brother bards, upon no other condition, abfolutely, than that of drinking. He gravely informs them, that their common father the great Ennius never put file to tablet but when he was tipfey; and that even Homer hath fhewn us how little averfe he was to wine. This, indeed, is afferted to be fo true, that the fole reafon alleged for his being he could come at no drink upon earth, long and often fober is, that at times fo largely was it monopolized by his celeftial inachinery of Olympus. We. all know that, befides his facrifices and his "armiftices, which were but mere drinking-matches, and fo early as at the clofe of his firft Iliad, he makes all his gods, and goddeffes too, fo mellow, their fafeft afylum, at funfet; the very that they are forced to go to-bed, as time when fober people now-a-days only tegin their Bacchunckia; notwithstanding which unfashionable. hour, it feems they had taken fuch a dofe of nectar, that it held them all night found atleep; all but Jupiter himfelf only excepted, whofe head is fuppofed to be stronger than the rest of

his club."

Such a head appears to have been that alfo of my hero, whose history Mr. Urban fhall now have; not a poetical fiction, but plain matter of fact, juft as it was lately given me be a friend, who took from an infcription at the Bull ini

Dear

Dear Bifhofgate. Whether the fake: to which, now indeed little portrait of fo celebrated a charac- known, if you can dedicate a corter is ftill hung up there in the club ner, you will highly oblige both room, I am not qualified to fay. the publick, and your humble ferThis record of him however fhall, vant and admirer, if you pleafe, perpetuate his name, and mark his atchievement in unfading colours.

* Dignum laude virum, Mufa vetat mori !" The Spartans very piously exhibited drunken flaves before their children, to deter them from being foakers. I wish your readers to confult, as in a looking glafs, the exorbitancy of others wet or dry; and to fet and adjust their own conduct by the wholefome examples, good or bad, of all men.

"Mr. Vanhorn, a Hamborough merchant, not long fince of Broadfreet, London, was ufed to frequent the Bull inn, Bishopfgate-fireet. He continued to do fd, and prefided at a daily meeting there, for three and twenty years fucceffively. Every day of that time (two only excepted, when called off to attend family funerals), he drank in the above houfe four bottles of

red port wine, and began a fifth. In the laid term of three and twenty years, he drank," fays my informant, thir ty-Gve thoufand fix hundred and eighty eight bottles, being fifty nine pipes of red port."

I prefume that this capital Bibo was a Dutchman too; a worthy defcendant of Thevenot's lift. We find in your vol. XXX. p. 203, the memorial of one Gerard Vanhorn, glass bottle-maker, a bankrupt; and from his apt profeffion I muft conclude his confanguinity to our worthy hero, the bottle emptier. Yours, &c. ANTI-BONOSUS.

Mr. URBAN, Sheffield, July 14. T is not without fincere pleasure that I hear of a new edition of the joint labours of Meffrs. Gray and Mafon being foon likely to iffue from a certain Northern prefs. In the mean time, permit me, fir, through the medium of your most valuable Publication, to offer you a paper lately found in the poffeflion of my late moft highly-honoured relative and name

EDMUND C. MASON.
ANECDOTE Mr. Gray, after
having proceeded to the degree of
A. B. at Cambridge, was fuppofed
to have contracted an affection for
Mifs D-me; at the fame time
time that Mr. M. was faid to have
felt the tender paffion for Mifs
C-t-y, afterwards Mrs. H-g-m.
On Mr. M's commending the fu-
periority of his miftrefs, Mr. Gray
penned the following lines, a very
mafterly imitation of Martial:
"Fulvia formofa eft multis-mihi candida,
longa

Totum illad, formofa, nego i nam nulla ve-
Recta ett, hoc ego: sic fingula confiteor:

nuftas

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fome parishes greatly wanting, both to receive perfons ill of infectious diforders from the cottages, and alfo from the workhoufes. In fome parishes fuch receptacles are already provided under the denomination of peft-houfes; fome of which are erected in open plains, and others near the workhoufes of the parishes to which they belong. Thefe pett-houfes are kept in a conftant ftate of readiness to receive fick perfons by fome of the fteadieft of the parifh-paupers, who are placed in them for that purpofe, and the patients removed to them are provided with all neceffaries at the expence of the parishes to which they belong, and are at tended by apothecaries, who receive annual ftipends from the overfeers for adminiftering advice and medicines to the poor. This is the method of management refpecting the fick poor in many parishes, and ought to be the method in all; for none better can be devifed. Your correfpondent propofes that there fhould be a little hofpital to every village; but one hofpital in a parith is more likely to be properly attended and infpected than feveral, and every thing refpećting food, washing, and other particulars of domeftic economy can be conducted with more convenience and lefs expence in one houfe than in feveral; and the expenditure be alfo fmaller for buildings, repairs, furniture, and garden. These are not times to invent and create new eftablishments. Let us fee that the old ones do not go to decay, but that all the hofpitals, infirmaries, peft-houfes, and almfhoufes, be liberally fupported and clofely fuperintended; and that mafters and miftreffes of workhouses, and parith doctors and nurfes, do their duty. If the overfèers watch them, and juftices watch the overfeers, the evils obferved by your correfpondent can no where exift in England, as our wife laws have provided against them. It only remains, that peft-houses be erected,

and parith doctors be appointed, in thofe parifhes wherein there are not any at present.

Your exceeding fenfible correfpondent Atticus, p. 216, has made the fame remarks on the difpenfa tion of charity as "A Southern Faunift" has done in his autumnal chronicle for the year 1792. Gent. Mag. vol. LXII. p. 1176. I fhould be forry that there fhould be any limitation of charity, but certainly there ought to be judgement ufed in the diftribution of it," for otherwife it evidently promotes vice and idlenefs. The best method of beftowing charity is to find employment for the poor, and pay them liberally according to the quantity of their labour and their inclination to exert themselves; but liberal pay is what people are apt to grudge them, especially farmers and mafier-workmen, notwithftanding both forts of mafters get fo much by their men's labour. A. M.

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Mr. URBAN,

July 20. CADEMICUS, who has thrown

A the firft fione at Horace compared with the Greeks, p. 509, is not himself without error, which demands the correction of fome friendly hand. Sir George Baker, whon he calls a knight, is a baronet; and Galen, whom he dignifies with the title of father of medicine, is only the ton of Hippocrates,

between whom and Galen there are 600 years; but perhaps there is fome excufe for the fecond inftake, as Galen generally precedes Hippocrates on the boards of the apothecaries. EPIDUSIS. P. 435) for immeafurable, r. innumerable.

Mr.

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