• Tida Tidu Tidum,'-cries my lord.

However, gentlemen,' cries the doctor, you have the least pretension to that name, I beg you will put an end to your frolic; since you see it gives so much uneasiness to the lady. Nay, I intreat you for your own sakes; for here is one coming, who will talk to you in a very diffe

rent style from ours.'

One coming!' cries my lord 'what care I "who is coming?'

I suppose it is the devil,' cries Jack; are two of his livery servants already.'

for here

'Let the devil come as soon as he will,' cries my lord,d-n me if I have not a kiss.'

Amelia now fell a trembling; and her children, perceiving her fright, both hung on her, and began to cry when Booth and captain Trent both came up.

Booth, seeing his wife disordered, asked eagerly, what was the matter? At the same time, the lord and his companion seeing captain Trent, whom they well knew, said both together, What,

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doth this company belong to you?' When the doctor, with great presence of mind, as he was apprehensive of some fatal consequence if Booth should know what had passed, said, So, Mr. Booth, I am ' glad you are returned; your poor lady here began to be frightened out of her wits. But now you have him again,' said he to Amelia, I hope you • will be easy.

Amelia, frightened as she was, presently took the hint, and greatly chid her husband for leaving her. But the little boy was not so quick-sighted, and eried- Indeed, papa, those naughty men there have frighted my mamma out of her wits.'

How!' cries Booth, a little moved; frightened! Hath any one frightened you, my dear?'

No, my love,' answered she, nothing. I

know not what the child means. Every thing is well, now I see you safe.'

Trent had been all the while talking aside with the young sparks; and now addressing himself to Booth, said, Here hath been some little mistake; I be'lieve my lord mistook Mrs. Booth for some other 'lady.'

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It is impossible,' cries my lord, to know every one. I am sure, if I had known the lady • to be a woman of fashion, and an acquaintance of captain Trent, I should have said nothing disagreeable to her; but, if I have, I ask her pardon, • and the company's.'

'I am in the dark,' cries Booth. Pray what is all this matter?'

Nothing of any consequence,' cries the doctor, nor worth your inquiring into-You hear it was a mistake of the person, and I really believe 'his lordship, that all proceeded from his not knowing to whom the lady belonged.'

Come, come,' says Trent, there is nothing in the matter, I assure you. I will tell you the whole another time.'

Very well; since you say so,' cries Booth, I am contented.' So ended the affair, and the two sparks made their congee, and sneaked off.

Now they are gone,' said the young gentleman, I must say, I never saw two worse-bred jackanapes, 6 -nor fellows that deserved to be kicked more., If I had had them in another place, I would have taught them a little more respect to the church.'

You took rather a better way,' answered the doctor, to teach them that respect.'

Booth now desired his friend Trent to sit down with them, and proposed to call for a fresh bottle of wine; but Amelia's spirits were too much disconcerted to give her any prospect of pleasure that evening. She therefore laid hold of the pretence of her children, for whom she said the hour was

already too late; with which the doctor agreed. So they paid their reckoning and departed; leaving to the two rakes the triumph of having totally dissipated the mirth of this little innocent company, who were before enjoying complete satisfaction.

A curious Conversation between the Doctor, the young Clergyman, and the young Clergyman's Father.

THE next morning, when the doctor and his two friends were at breakfast, the young clergyman, in whose mind the injurious treatment he had received the evening before was very deeply impressed, renewed the conversation on that subject.

It is a scandal,' said he, to the government, that they do not preserve more respect to the clergy, by punishing all rudeness to them with the utmost severity. It was very justly observed of you, sir,' said he to the doctor, that the lowest clergyman in England is in real dignity superior to the highest nobleman. What then can be so 'shocking, as to see that gown, which ought to entitle us to the veneration of all we meet, treated with contempt and ridicule? Are we not, in fact, émbassadors from heaven to the world; and do they not, therefore, in denying us our due respect, deny it in reality to him that sent us?'

If that be the case,' says the doctor,it behoves them to look to themselves; for he who sent us, is able to exact most severe vengeance • for the ill treatment of his ministers.'

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and I

Very true, sir,' cries the young one; heartily hope he will; but those punishments are at too great a distance to infuse terror into wicked

' minds. The government ought to interfere with • its immediate censures. Fines and imprisonments ⚫ and corporal punishments operate more forcibly on the human mind, than all the fears of dam• nation.'

'Do you think so?' cries the doctor; then 1 • am afraid men are very little in earnest in those • fears.'

Most justly observed,' says the old gentleman. 'Indeed, I am afraid that is too much the case.'

In that,' said the son, the government is to 'blame. Are not books of infidelity, treating our holy religion as a mere imposture, nay some'times, as a mere jest, published daily, and spread ' abroad amongst the people with perfect impunity?' You are certainly in the right,' says the doctor; there is a most blameable remissness with regard " to these matters; but the whole blame doth not lie there; some little share of the fault is, I am afraid, to be imputed to the clergy themselves.'

Indeed, sir,' cries the young one, I did not expect that charge from a gentleman of your cloth. Do the clergy give any encouragement to such books? Do they not, on the contrary, cry loudly out against the suffering them? This is the invidious aspersion of the laity; and I did not expect to hear it confirmed by one of our own cloth.'

Be not too impatient, young gentleman,' said the doctor. 'I do not absolutely confirm the charge of the laity; it is much too general, ' and too severe; but even the laity themselves do 'not attack them in that part to which you have applied your defence. They are not supposed such fools as to attack that religion to which they owe their temporal welfare. They are not taxed with giving any other support to infidelity, than what it draws from the ill examples of their lives; I mean of the lives of some of them. Here too the laity carry their censures too far; for there

are very few or none of the clergy, whose lives, if compared with those of the laity, can be called profligate; but such, indeed, is the perfect purity of our religion, such is the innocence and virtue ' which it exacts to entitle us to its glorious rewards, and to screen us from its dreadful punishments, that he must be a very good man indeed who lives up to it. Thus then these persons argue. This man is educated in a perfect knowledge of religion, is learned in its laws, and is by his profession obliged, in a manner, to have them always • before his eyes. The rewards which it promises to the obedience of these laws are so great, and 'the punishments threatened on disobedience so dreadful, that it is impossible but all men must fearfully fly from the one, and as eagerly pursue the other. If, therefore, such a person lives in direct opposition to, and in a constant breach of these laws, the inference is obvious. There is a pleasant story in Matthew Paris, which I will tell you as well as I can remember it. Two young gentlemen, I think they were priests, agreed together, that whosoever died first, should return and acquaint his friend with the secrets of the other world. One of them died soon after, and fulfilled his promise. The whole relation he gave is not very material; but, among other things, 'he produced one of his hands, which Satan had made use of to write upon, as the moderns do on a card, and had sent his compliments to the priests, for the number of souls which the wicked examples of their lives daily sent to hell. This story is the more remarkable, as it was written by a priest, and a great favourer of his order.' Excellent,' cried the old gentleman, memory you have!'

what a

But, sir,' cries the young one, a clergyman is a man as well as another; and, if such perfect purity be expected-'