of the matron, and who, according to the order in which they sat, were Deism, Judaism, and Popery. On the left hand, as I told you, appeared Presbytery. The next to her was a figure which somewhat puzzled me: it was that of a man looking, with horror in his eyes, upon a silver bason filled with water. Observing something in his countenance that looked like lunacy, I fancied at first that he was to express that kind of distraction which the physicians call the Hydrophobia : but considering what the intention of the show was, I immediately recollected myself, and concluded it to be Anabaptism.

'The next figure was a man that sat under a most profound composure of mind: he wore an hat whose brims were exactly parallel to the horizon: his garment had neither sleeve nor skirt, nor so much as a superfluous button. What he called his cravat, was a little piece of white linen quilled with great exactness, and hanging below his chin about two inches. Seeing a book in his hand, I asked our artist what it was, who told me it was the Quaker's religion; upon which I desired a sight of it. Upon perusal, I found it to be nothing but a new-fashioned grammar, or an art of abridging ordinary discourse. The nouns were reduced to a very small number, as the light, friend, Babylon. The principal of his pronouns was thou; and as for you, ye, and yours, I found they were not looked upon as parts of speech in this grammar. All the verbs wanted the second person plural; the participles ending all in ing or ed, which were marked with a particular accent. There were no adverbs besides yea and nay. The same thrift was observed in the prepositions. The conjunctions were only hem! and

ha! and the interjections brought under the three heads of sighing, sobbing, and groaning. There was at the end of the grammar a little nomenclature, called "The Christian Man's Vocabulary," which gave new appellations, or (if you will) Christian names to almost everything in life. I replaced the book in the hand of the figure, not without admiring the simplicity of its garb, speech, and behaviour.

'Just opposite to this row of religions, there was a statue dressed in a fool's coat, with a cap of bells upon his head, laughing and pointing at the figures that stood before him. This idiot is supposed to say in his heart what David's fool did some thousands of years ago, and was therefore designed as a proper representative of those among us who are called atheists and infidels by others, and free-thinkers by themselves.

'There were many other groups of figures which I did not know the meaning of; but seeing a collection of both sexes turning their backs upon the company, and laying their heads very close together, I inquired after their religion, and found that they called themselves the Philadelphians, or the family of love.

'In the opposite corner there sat another little congregation of strange figures, opening their mouths as wide as they could gape, and distinguished by the title of 'The sweet Singers of Israel.'

'I must not omit, that in this assembly of wax there were several pieces that moved by clock-work, and gave great satisfaction to the spectators. Behind the matron there stood one of these figures, and behind Popery another, which, as the artist told us, were each of them the genius of the person they attended. That

behind Popery represented Persecution, and the other Moderation. The first of these moved by secret springs towards a great heap of dead bodies that lay piled upon one another at a considerable distance behind the principal figures. There were written on the foreheads of these dead men several hard words, as PraeAdamites, Sabbatarians, Cameronians, Muggletonians, Brownists, Independents, Masonites, Camisars, and the like. At the approach of Persecution, it was so contrived, that as she held up her bloody flag, the whole assembly of dead men, like those in the Rehearsal, started up and drew their swords. This was followed by great clashings and noise, when, in the midst of the tumult, the figure of Moderation moved gently towards this new army, which, upon her holding up a paper in her hand, inscribed, 'Liberty of Conscience,' immediately fell into a heap of carcasses, remaining in the same quiet posture that they lay at first.'

A Friend of Mankind

CHARITY is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands, says an old writer. Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence, of this virtue. A man may bestow great sums on the poor and indigent, without being charitable, and may be charitable when he is not able to bestow anything. Charity is therefore a habit of good will, or benevolence, in the soul, which disposes us to the love, assistance, and relief of mankind, especially of those who stand in need of it. The poor man who has this excellent frame of mind, is no less entitled to the reward of this virtue, than the man who founds a college. For my own part, I am charitable to an extravagance this way. I never saw an indigent person in my life without reaching out to him some of this imaginary relief. I cannot but sympathize with every one I meet that is in affliction; and if my abilities were equal to my wishes, there should be neither pain nor poverty in the world.

To give my reader a right notion of myself in this particular, I shall present him with the secret history of one of the most remarkable parts of my lifė.

I was once engaged in search of the philosopher's stone. It is frequently observed of men who have been busied in this pursuit, that though they have failed in their principal design, they have, howeyer,

made such discoveries in their way to it, as have sufficiently recompensed their inquiries. In the same manner, though I cannot boast of my success in that affair, I do not repent of my engaging in it, because it produced in my mind such an habitual exercise of charity, as made it much better than perhaps it would have been, had I never been lost in so pleasing a delusion.

As I did not question but I should soon have a new Indies in my possession, I was perpetually taken up in considering how to turn it to the benefit of mankind. In order to it I employed a whole day in walking about this great city, to find out proper places for the erection of hospitals. I had likewise entertained that project, which had since succeeded in another place, of building churches at the court end of the town, with this only difference, that instead of fifty, I intended to have built a hundred, and to have seen them all finished in less than one year.

I had with great pains and application got together a list of all the French Protestants; and by the best accounts I could come at, had calculated the value of all those estates and effects which every one of them had left in his own country for the sake of his religion, being fully determined to make it up to him, and return some of them the double of what they had lost.

As I was one day in my laboratory, my operator, who was to fill my coffers for me, and used to foot it from the other end of the town every morning, complained of a sprain in his leg, that he had met with over against St. Clement's church. This so affected me, that, as a standing mark of my gratitude to him,

1