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Bacchum in remotis carmina rupibus
Vidi docentem; credite, posteri.

Believe me, I say, and consider what follows as a proof of it. If about three I find the company slink off, and that I am left alone in the green, I retire to a bench, where I pull out Virgil, and read the description of Elysium till five, contemplating how the shades are entertained below with philosophy, and how they live on pure ether, amidst groves and rivulets; this done, I pay a visit to my lady-drink green tea, and to prevent the too searching quality of that piercing fluid, I call for a thin slice or two of bread and butter, and then think no more of dinner than dulness; dinner's over for that day. If at night I am deserted the same way, at the playhouse or Lucas's, I retire; solitude is the blessedest state in the world; who would bear the noise and impertinency of fops and fools? So I read a little philosophy first, then some poetry, or a little Spanish prose, and never awake out of my studies till all the house is asleep; and then it's too late to think of sending to the cook's, or going to a tavern, and so truly I e'en go to bed. I am a perfect master of the art of sleeping, and take it to be a very nourishing thing. If I am served the same way the second day, I amuse my bowels with my own works, for which, I own, I never do want bowels. If the sun shines not more favorable the third day, I write ; invention takes off all attention to everything but itself; when my brain is full, my belly is never empty; nor do I care who dines or sups, if I make and like my own verses: By wanting provisions that day, I generally provide for many days, in some epistle or dedication, and maybe I have provided that, as I shall live well, so I shall never die; and that night I dream of whole markets of meat and whole rivers of wine.

N. B. A little bread, ale, and porter, must be supposed each day in some lucid interval.

The brain being drained, on the fourth day I begin to have some little compassion for my virtuous and forbearing guts; Hang it, says I, one cannot study and labor always-I will e'en go and divert my lord-he'll rejoice to see me-I'll say my best things—so—“sans ceremony, my lord, I know the beaux esprits are always at home with your lordship-I'gad, I am in the best humor in the world, my lord - my spirits are all up, my lord—I have finished an incomparable piece, my lord- and I don't know anybody, my lord, that relishes, and therefore deserves to have good things said to him more

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than your lordship, my lord :"-so, down I sit, and eat and drink like a devil.

But pray excuse me, gentlemen, for this digression; digression seems to be the very life and soul of writing, and therefore I here present you with the parallel I promised you just now, between a book and a house, and between building, projecting, and writing.

To the Publisher of the Dublin Weekly Journal.

Nemo in sese tentat descendere. - PERS.

Saturday, September 21, 1728. SIR,-In my last I promised you a PARALLEL between a book and a house, and between building, projecting, and writing, as also a proposal for raising a sum not exceeding 54,6747. 12s. in two years.

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THE PARALLEL.

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avenue.

Cover of the book top of the house. Blank leaves Half title-page-court-yard and wall. Whole title-page-front of the house. Dedication — porter, who tells lies and flatters all day long, for the good of the family, but to the utter abuse of the person he speaks to. Preface-hall, wherein are contained guns, pikes, and bows, for the defence of the premises. Contents the mistress of the family. Introduction-the staircase. Bulk of the bookthe master of the house and furniture. Ornaments trophies, figures, similes, &c. Index-the house of office.

I might go on and show how particular sorts of writing resemble particular sorts of building, and that an epic poem is like a palace, and the panegyric its painted walls; that school divinity is like a church, where the terms of art, like the seats and pulpit, lie always in the same situation, and may be made use of very aptly for different purposes, according to the present possessors and occupiers, and serve the end of the heterodox at one time, the orthodox at another; that the law is like wooden houses of our ancesters, with wooden furniture, where you are continually offended with knots and hurt with flaws, and are very often fired out of all you have; that mathematics resemble a well-built arch; logic a castle; and romances castles in the air; divinity is like St. Paul's church at London, that will never be finished nor be liked by everybody, and that will be always decaying, repairing, and mending: sophistry is a dark entry, and

irony a vault; digression a drawing-room, history a gallery, essays a dining-room, and sermons a bed-chamber: poetry may be compared to Gresham college, where there is a variety of gewgaws and rarities, which, when you have seen, you come away, but are neither the better, wiser, nor richer for them.

There are many pieces of writing like one famous building in this city. Heraldry is bedlam; church controversy, bedlam; law terms of art, bedlam; physic-terms, bedlam; journals, bedlam; advertisements, bedlam; modern political tracts, bedlam. I might, I say, pursue this subject, had I a mind, and show that the Chillingworth and Hoadleian style and writings are the true and ancient Tuscan dialects, simple, well-concerted, and put together, beautiful enough, and what will last as long as the sun shines by means of their proportion; and that they who write in defence of impositions and constraint of opinions, raise their worth in the right Gothic order, far remote from the ancient proportions and ornaments of buildings, with a pillar here of a vast massy form, and there another as slender as a pole, having capitals without any certain dimensions, and carved with thorny leaves of thistles, coleworts, and bear's-foot, so that to see them or touch them offends you, but the comfort is they will not last long.

I might go through the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, the Composite, and add the Attic order also, and show you the several authors and their writings that have resemblance to them; but I am not inclined to do it at this time, nor to show you the resemblance that several styles and kinds of writing have to the inside and furniture of buildings, whether palaces, private houses, lodges, or public buildings, as, that history puts one in mind of the housekeeper and nurse, and sometimes the good woman of the house; that poetry is the china-ware, ethics the looking-glasses; common-place books, pg-p-ts, commentaries, candles in dark lanterns, which neither see themselves nor let anything else be seen; that an epic poem is a feast; translations, hashes; miscellanies, olios; that odes are tarts and cheese-cakes; dedications whip-syllabubs; epistles, pot-luck; lampoons, table-talk, satires, tea-tables; and polyanthuses, chambermaids, that do all the business of the house, and a thousand more, which some time or other I will record in this my never-dying registry, instead of which, for the present take what follows.

A LIST OF MY PROPOSALS FOR RAISING A SUM NOT EXCEEDING 54,6747. 12s. IN TWO YEARS.

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In fame for them, placed to account as value received

For 52 papers to be sent, as the humor bites, to the printer, once a fortnight

For casual pamphlets, at a moderate computation, from the booksellers

From the government for ditto

From ditto in fame

For answering Mist's Journal

For panegyrics on four certain lords

For casual odes, familiar epistles, lampoons, satires, dedications, loose letters and verses, anagrams, mottos for rings and sign. posts, stating cases, drawing petitions, translating, correcting, giving hints, lending a thought, altering sentences, adding paragraphs; and innumerable deles, modestly speaking Hush-money of several sorts

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For a scheme to prevent running of goods
From the government for ways and means for two years.........
From the owner of the lamps, for lessening their number, by in-
venting one large one which, set on a pole 30 feet high, in the
middle, shall enlighten every the least part of the largest
street in town, so that one may read Greek by it, and by in-
venting an asbestenous phosphor to save the expense of oil,
men's labor, &c., which phosphor may remain in the lamp
without being tempered or attended, as long as the lamp holds
together; and which lamps therefore need never be removed;
and which phosphor, like the stars, will always shine when
the sun disappears; for this invention 2007. per annum for
ever, which, at 30 years' purchase, comes to
For inventing the perpetual motion

For discovering the æquator stone, which points the needle east
and west

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20,000 0 0

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To break Hawkins and his agents by abolishing the several corporations of beggars, whores, pickpockets, and rapparees.

To prevent wrinkles in any part of the body or the face.

To prevent both sexes from ever being old women.

A preservative against the involuntary loss of a maidenhead.

But pray excuse haste, gentlemen, you shall soon hear from me more fully on all these subjects. In the meantime, I am, sir, Your most humble servant,

W. B.

THREE LETTERS UPON THE USE OF IRISH COAL.

To the Publisher of the Dublin Weekly Journnl.

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SIR, — As I take the following case to be of service to the kingdom in general as well as to this city in particular, I look upon it as a duty incumbent on you to publish it in your paper. I shall make no other apology, but subscribe myself a dear friend to my country, and Yours, &c.

S. D. H.

To all the housekeepers of the city of Dublin: the case of many thousand poor inhabitants of this city, in a letter to a very worthy member of parliament, &c.

Dublin, August 4, 1729.

SIR,- Having some time ago laid before your house the case of many thousand poor families and housekeepers of the city of Dublin, concerning the extravagant rates of coals in this city, and meeting with some success, makes me now reassume this second trouble, which none but those who were eye-witnesses to the lamentable state and condition of the poor all this last hard winter can give an exact account of. In a word, the general cry throughout this city was of cold and hunger.

Looking back into the journals of your house last session, and the state of the accounts, I find a considerable sum of money (no less than £4000) allowed for the encouragement of Irish coals, i. e. for laying in a sufficient stock of our own coals to lower the extravagant price of the Whitehaven coal, &c., which coal was no less than 30s.

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