lo8 "" g/eantngs of literature. July 2_j, 



the, course of an ordinary lifetime, be pofsefsed of many 

 specimens of fruitful imagination, painful investigation, 

 or light brilliant and agreeable remark or reflection, in the 

 letters of his friends, and, without impj-opriety, may render 

 them anonyjnojfsly useful to society at lafge. Retired 

 from the busy world, my own correspondence has not 

 been extensive ; yet it contains many emanations of the 

 human mind divine, that may be useful and agreeable to a 

 remote posterity, and ought not to be involved in the 

 general heretical catastrophe that generally attends the 

 letters of the vulgar. Why fhould a fine thought be 

 doomed to inclose a pound of butter, a roll of tobacco, or 

 to singe a pullet, when it might light up a brilliant flame 

 in the mind of a poet, or furnifii matter for the page of a 

 philosophical historian ? 



Having said so much, Sir, by way of apology, for offering 

 my scanty gleanings as a specimen of what I wifti to pro- 

 mote, I (hall proceed frankly to present them to your rea- 

 ders, hoping that they may hereafter call forth such as 

 may be found more worthy of their attention. I am, Sir, 

 your humble servant, Papyrjus Precursor. 



*' I met yesterday with a line of Martial that pleased 

 me much, and I will here give it as it may have escaped 

 your observation. 



" Fortuna mukls dat nlmis, nulli satis." 



*' As the goddefs has not thought proper to distlngullh 

 you or your humble servant by the first part of the line, 

 I would fain hope, that, in one of her whims, (he will give 

 us the satis. But alas ! what is that satis ? our mellifluous 

 Englifli poet, with all the aid of the philosophical Bo- 

 lingbroke, flirunk from the definition of ja/u in his bold 

 description of happinefs, while health and peace cost him 

 but a few scratches of his elegant pen ! 



