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 labour always-I will e'en go and divert my lordhe'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-l'gad, I am in the best humour 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 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.

SIR, Saturday, September 21, 1728. 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 54,674/. 128. in two years.

THE PARALLEL.

Cover of the book-top of the house. Blank leaves -avenue. 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. Introductionthe staircase. Bulk of the book-the 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 ancestors, 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 bedchamber: 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, or 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; phy

sic-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, wellconcerted, 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, p-g-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, chamber-maids, 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. 128. IN TWO YEARS. For my new comedy this winterThe first third night. The second third night The third third night From the printer For the dedication Ditto for my tragedy next winter For my two farces each winter. In fame for them, placed to account as value received

£. S. d.

500 0 0

150 0 0

150 0 0

105 O 0

105 0

0

1,010 0 100

0 0 0

5,000 0

0

100 0

200 0 200

For 52 papers to be sent, as the humour 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 For a scheme to prevent running of goods.

From the government for ways and means for two years.

500 0 0 200 O 0

5,000 0 C

10,000 0 0

From the owner of the lamps, for lessening their number, by inventing 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 investing an asbestenous phosphor to save the expense of oil, men's labour, &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 2001. per annum for ever, which, at 30 years' purchase,

To restore Roman eloquence and love of our

Who is so blind as he
That can-but will not see?

Saturday, August 9, 1729. As I take the following case to be of service to the ingdom in general as well as to this city in particular, 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. SIR, Dublin, August 4, 1729. 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 40007.) 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. per ton this last winter, when the Irish coals (if any could have been spared or kept in stock till winter) by our new company of adventurers were sold at 148. and 158. per ton.

The mismanagement thereof, the misapplication of that fund, the disadvantageous, hazardous situation of this new projected port, the embezzlement of both the money and coals, I shall treat of in a more particular manner hereafter.

When the city was starving all the last winter for want of coals, there was not one barrel of Irish coal to be had at any rate; and for the want of a stock the Whitehaven colliers imposed upon us what rates they pleased.

It is to be observed that all or great part of the Irish coals imported, and to be laid up for the winter season, was sold out in summer to the barracks, the customhouse, and the glass-house.

The barracks. The computation, at so many bushels of coal to each room, according to the consumption and lasting of Whitehaven coal, which was near onethird less to the poor soldier in his firing, and the slack useless.

The custom-house.-The commissioners and officers having a hank upon the Whitehaven owners, they dare not impose upon them in the price of their coals, so that they might have been spared in selling out of the public stock, for the commissioners would have been content to have a stock left for the relief of the poor in winter; but in this, as in all other cases, the public and the poor are always the last to be served.

As I conceive such a stock ought not to be delivered out till the height of winter, and to be sold out in small parcels, as half a barrel or barrel at most at any one time, still to keep a stock for the relief of the poor, and to keep down any exaction or exorbitant price laid upon coals.

As to the glass-house, the undertakers in the one and the adventurers in the other, are most of them joined in company, and these coals consumed in blowing bottles.

A NEW EXPERIMENT IN FINDING THE VACUUM.

These bottle-makers, like the children, play with soap and water, blowing up bottles in a sun-shiny day, makes various fine colours while it lasts, and like their pots hitherto, both prove alike to be-a bubble.

I am no way for discouraging the design, though as yet it has proved all in vain, but entirely against lessening the stock (designed so to be reserved for the relief of the poor, &c.) upon any account whatever.

And I find the glass-house too near to the coal-yard and to the city. As to the latter, I remember two dreadful fires occasioned by glass-houses within this city.

Now that I am upon this subject of fire and smoke, I must mention that quarter of the town where I have seen such a train of coaches, the ladies taking a tour to the Strand, and all this gaiety at once eclipsed (like the chariot of the sun) by a dark thick cloud of smoke. This glass-house has been complained of as an exceedingly great nuisance in that neighbourhood, and by the several inhabitants thereabouts; but as the design is good, let them try their hand once more, until it is brought to some perfection, and when once a right

method is found, it will be an encouragement to proceed | further therein, and carry on the work in some remote part of the town.

AS TO THE KEEPING A STOCK OF COALS.

One objection to our Irish coal, if kept for any time, is that the sulphureous matter of the coal (when dug up and torn out of its natural bed) evaporates or exhales by the sun and air, and natural causes are offered; but we know that a coal, though it may lose some of the outward, whether sulphureous or bituminous, matter, yet the inside of the coal cannot be penetrated or made worse, either by the sun, air, water, or any cause whatsoever, in one season or two.

And how easy is all this remedied, at a little expense, when a thousand of furzes, with a little dirty stable litter on it, will cover 20,000 tons of coals.

And the same furzes may be made use of again, as you break into the body and bulk of your stock of coals, with little or no cost.

I come now to lay before you the great advantage of a coal that we have within ourselves, in our own province, that exceeds any other coal whatsoever, that is, the Kilkenny coal. I appeal to all those that make use of that coal, and to all such as ever have been in that country, for a just report.

What will neighbouring nations, what will posterity say of us, that for so great a series of time as these collieries have been found out, the use of so great a blessing as this is should have been so long neglected? They may truly say, an ignorant, indolent, cursed, slothful people:-as, when we find a good mine, we do not know how to make use of it.

Nature affords us navigable rivers near these collieries, the Barrow, upper and lower, which falls into Ross, Waterford, and other ports: and when once our neighbouring kingdom can get a trial, finding the value of this coal for several uses, they will be glad at any rate to purchase that which we ourselves have foolishly neglected so long a time. What hardships have we undergone! What immense sums have been taken out of this kingdom! laid out for a much worse coal; the value so much inferior to this of the Kilkenny, that there is no manner of comparison in goodness, for heat

and duration.

This is the great article in draining the money out of the kingdom, without any the least return; this it is that makes silver so scarce; these colliers taking no other money over but that specie alone.

It is objected, the difficulty in lighting this coal. Do the people in that county make any difficulty in lighting their fires? and is turf so scarce here, that you will want a fire for want of turf to light it? Time and experience will tell the contrary.

In order to make your fire burn bright and clear, 'tis no more than to add a bar or two to the bottom of your grate, to give it more air, and you may have a constant, lasting, good fire, once you are accustomed to it, it will answer all the ends you propose.

As to any suffocating smell in this coal, and making people drowsy, those that are conversant with it deny the assertion, and say it is the violent heat in this more than in any other coal, which may be very easily qualified:

And a little turf, or any small quantity of coal, mixed with it, removes all objections that can be made; as the old saying, we are still more nice than wise.

Are there any people in this kingdom so free from asthmas as in the county of Kilkenny? Not only the inhabitants, but all others that resort thither, can testify, and much it is owing to their fire, free from smoke. The constant thick clouds of smoke that hang over Dublin are so nauseous, the air so corrupted, that the smell of the smoke is perceptible some

Who is there here that cannot see the cause and has not felt the effect? None but those that are inured to this fire and smoke, that has so intoxicated their brains, that they are void of all their senses, and in such a lethargy they will not seek relief.

The physicians in Dublin make it their constant practice to remove their patients to some purer air near the suburbs, out of the smoke of the city, which in winter is so thick, and cloudy enough to stifle men and beasts, so great an influence, that it affects even the blossom and bloom of the flowers in the spring.

And the chief cause of the bad air about Dublin proceeds from the great quantity of smoke in the coals used here; the best proof that can be, by your senses in seeing and smelling.

I am very well informed and assured, that the common rate of the Kilkenny coal, at the pits, is 16d. the stand; the stand is 500, one quarter weight; that 4 stand makes 1 ton 1 cwt.; and 1 ton of this coal at the pit comes to about a crown-piece, which, with the further charge by water carriage, &c., cannot exceed in the whole more than 10s, or 12s. per ton in Dublin, for Kilkenny coal; when the same coal, by land-carriage to this town, commonly costs about 208. per ton in Dublin market, and that only to be had in the summer season. Is there no distinction to be made, when I ton of this coal will outlast 3 ton of any other coal? Have you no thought now (after such dearbought experience these many years) of keeping what little money you have to circulate in your own kingdom, and lay it out among one another? CIVES, CIVES, &c.

I have been very well assured, that several of the Whitehaven owners have combined together, and have declared, that this next winter they resolve to starve you out and out by raising their coals to 40s. a ton, on account of the usage they met with from the lord mayor the last winter; then necessity will compel you to what has now been offered.

As to the new projected port-in winter it will avail little or nothing; besides the great loss to the buyer in the slack of this coal, and many other disadvantages to all but the proprietors and undertakers. The cause of lashing out in this satirical manner proceeds not from any fondness for variety, but a just flight of passion, that people should be so blind and infatuated, in point of their own interest and welfare; but no inducement can swerve me from the interest of my country. I need not, nay, cannot urge it further; and like what a worthy prelate said upon the like occasion, for the good of his country-Liberavi animam meam,-I have done my duty, and discharged my conscience. I cannot find any but who will be pleased, except money-changers and chimney-sweepers.

Even most of the bankers (those worthy members of the commonwealth) will be for it, because they can get no exchange to and fro to Whitehaven.

Must I at last (Stewart-like) address myself to the ladies, (too hard a task for an old man to undertake with pleasure,) therefore I cannot hold long upon the subject.

The ladies may lay aside their washes, &c., that destroy the complexion. This preserves it, and renders the Kilkenny beauty both pure and lasting as the Kilkenny marble.

Sir, as I have exceeded the bounds of a letter, I refer the conclusion of this to your next. And am, for the present, my country's

Most humble, &c., M. B.

To the Publisher of the Dublin Weekly Journal.

Who is so blind, as he That can-but will not see?

SIR, Saturday, August 16, 1729. I HAVE in my last given you a small sketch, hoping, the next session, you will propose, encourage, and improve the method already taken by our masters and owners of ships, in importing Kilkenny coal to this city, for immediate relief, that we may have a constant supply of coals to this city, and that a competent stock may be laid in for the relief of the poor.

I pray and wish (for I have nothing more at heart, no other view, than the service of the public) that this scheme in particular serving the city of Dublin and the kingdom in general may and will be improved. For my part, I can think of no other surer way than the encouragement of importing the coals aforesaid.

I am, sir, your most humble servant, M.B. N.B. The reason of writing and communicating this affair so early before the session, is that no time should be lost, that now in summer the coals may be dug up (I mean in great quantities) and drawn from the pits to the water side.

Now the way is paved, and a clear road, without any let or trouble in bringing them.

This will employ the poor and a great many hands, and this is the time for encouraging and carrying on the work, as the city, the head of this weak, poor, feeble nation is grown so monstrous great (a head too big for the body), so in proportion it will require and take an exceedingly great quantity of coals to serve it with firing.

But when you consider the difference, as I shall hereafter show and demonstrate the lasting of this coal, that in a great measure will lessen the quantity of coals to supply and answer this great call, and save you above one-third in the charge of your firing. It will save immense sums that are now drawn from you every year by the Whitehaven and other colliers, in this so great an article and charge of firing, and when the poorer sort cannot lay in a stock in the proper season. Upon many accounts, as embargos and many other accidents, the rates and price of coals continually advance and grow more and more. The making use of your own fuel, of what sort soever, it is like the poor man's case, who, when he has a garden of his own well planted, and can dig up his own potatoes, can have no occasion then to buy potatoes from his neighbours.

POSTSCRIPT.

Since I received this former account, I sent for one hundred weight of Kilkenny coal, which cost 1s., and weighed one-quarter of the hundred of this coal, one quarter of the Whitehaven, and a quarter of a hundred of the Irish coal,—so ordered, for an experiment or trial, three separate fires to be made. The latter consumed away very swift, in a blaze, lasted but between two and three hours (from the time the fire was full lighted) leaving little or no cinders, but all ashes.

The Whitehaven coal lasted between four and five hours, and left a small heap of cinders, with some slates, and I find it to abound with slates, and very slaty coal, that flies and crackles in the fire. The Kilkenny fire held good and clear above nine hours, with a great heat. Afterwards my fire-maker washed the cinders thereof, and made as good a fire as before, and so continued the same, which convinced me of the extraordinary goodness of this coal, preferable to all the coals that I ever saw, for several uses the most bene

ficial coal that I ever yet read or heard of in these kingdoms or in all Europe.

Is it not very surprising? or can any sensible man say that we are in our senses, to encourage and send abroad for coals when we have so good a coal of our own at home, far better than the coal which we pay so much ready money for, and so little to share in the kingdom. Now I may venture to say and affirm it to be the very best coal in the world.

Look at your prisons, behold the vast number of poor debtors, and with pity look upon the poor starving in your streets, while the rich and estated men live in pomp and innate folly and prodigality abroad, draining this poor country of their wealth.

And when many poor farmers and other manufacturers, for want of due encouragement, are running away and transporting themselves to the plantations abroad; see the decay of trade in general, and all other the misfortunes that surround you, that which was formerly called the island of Saints, the plentiful island, so swarmed with the poorer sort that it is now almost an island of beggars.

The curious, upon inquiry, may have a full account of these coals by the masters and owners of ships at Aston's Quay, Dublin.

Some papers have been brought here, as proposals, in relation to some new discoveries of more coal mines, and the more the better, but at first sight they seem to savour too much of self-interest.

Till these projectors bring specimens, and to such a bearing as the Whitehaven, and till there be a security for the ships, where the proposalists call for 10,000%, though, as I am informed, with a great uncertainty of performance, and another call by way of subscription for above 20,000. But where and how the money will be raised here, and upon what security, will be another question.

I must be so free with those gentlemen projectors, that at this time a much less sum than either would be better laid out for the relief of the poor; and since I can have no other view (no manner of interest there) than serving the public, entitled, without any apology, to a much greater freedom in this city, than poor projectors begging subscriptions to carry on their own works, in the manner and way they have heretofore proposed.

That it is most natural to begin with the coals you have nearest at hand, lying in your own province, and so far preferable, that no other coal here can sink the established credit of the Whitehaven; and the first point that ought to be cleared up, besides the advantage in bringing them up, both by land and by sea, in great quantities to Dublin. And if the Irish coal be rated from 148. to 17s. per ton, and Whitehaven from 178. to 20s., and the Kilkenny coal, which is three times a more lasting and better coal, and may serve for an alloy to the former, can be brought at a less price by water-carriage, as before mentioned, and as by some persons that made trial and freighted ships from thence at their own expense have found out, why we should not choose the latter seems very strange. And further, that there are several other coal mines lately discovered there, and those collieries daily improving, that will answer all purposes; and I am sure I can depend upon the credit of so many worthy gentlemen that make a report thereof, and which in a proper time and place you will hear further of.

Excuse haste. I am, with great affection as well as freedom, your most humble, &c.

M. B.

N.B. This letter (for the benefit of the curious) is to be sold by Christopher Dixon, printer, at the postoffice, Dublin. Printed alone, for the conveniency of sending them to the country.