readers will excuse us for not inserting any. The law which prohibits
paying debts when a person has no money will apply in this case." Next
we have a very arch dissertation "On Industry": "It has somewhere been
remarked that an Author does not write the worse for knowing little or
nothing of his subject. We hope the truth of this saying will be
manifest in the present article. With the benefits of Industry we are
not personally acquainted." The desperate editor winds up his week's
budget with a warning to all persons who may be displeased by
observations in the Spectator, that he is going to take fencing lessons
and practise shooting at a mark. "We also," he adds, "think it advisable
to procure a stout oaken cudgel to be the constant companion of our
peregrinations." The assumption of idleness in the essay on Industry,
just quoted, breaks down entirely in a later number, when the editor--
in apologizing for inaccuracies in the printing of his paper--enumerates
his different occupations: "In the first place we study Latin and Greek.
Secondly we write in the employment of William Manning Esq., [at that
time proprietor of an extensive line of stagecoaches]. Thirdly, we are
Secretary, Treasurer, and Manager of the 'Pin Society'; Fourthly, we are
editor of the Spectator; fifthly, sixthly, and lastly, our own Printers,
Printing Press and Types." But the young journalist carried on his
labors unabatedly, for the term of some five weeks, and managed to make
himself very entertaining. I take from an essay "On Benevolence" a
fragment which has a touch of poetry out of his own life. Benevolence,
he says, is "to protect the fatherless, and to make the Widow's heart
sing for joy." One of the most cherishable effusions is that "On
Wealth," in which the venerable writer drops into a charmingly
confidential and reminiscent vein. "All men," he begins, "from the
highest to the lowest, desire to pursue wealth.... In process of time if
we obtain possession" of a sum at first fixed as the ultimatum, "we
generally find ourselves as far from being contented as at first....