please your worship," says she, "I did not live quite forty years; and in that time brought my husband seven daughters, and made him nine thousand cheeses, and left my eldest girl with him, to look after his house in my absence, and who, I may venture to say, is as pretty a housewife as any in the country." Rhadamanthus smiled at the simplicity of the good woman, and ordered the keeper of Elysium to take her into his care. "And you, fair lady," says he," what have you been doing these five and thirty years?" "I have been doing no hurt, I assure you, sir," says she. "That is well," said he; "but what good have you been doing?" The lady was in great confusion at this question, and not knowing what to answer, the two keepers leaped out to seize her at the same time; the one took her by the hand to convey her to Elysium, the other caught hold of her to carry her away to Erebus. But Rhadamanthus observing an ingenuous modesty in her countenance and behaviour, bid them both to let her loose, and set her aside for a reexamination when he was more at leisure. An old woman, of a proud and sour look, presented herself at the bar, and being asked what she had been doing? "Truly," says she, "I have lived three score and ten years in a very wicked world, and was so angry at the behaviour of a parcel of young flirts, that I passed most of my last years in condemning the follies of the times; I was every day blaming the silly conduct of people about me, in order to deter those I conversed with from falling into the like errors and miscarriages." "Very well," says Rhadaman

thus," but did you keep the same watchful eye over your own actions?" "Why, truly," says she, "I was so taken up with publishing the faults of others, that I had no time to consider my own." "Madam," says Rhadamanthus," be pleased to file off to the left, and make room for the venerable matron that stands behind you." "Old gentlewoman,” says he, “ I think you are fourscore. You have heard the question, what have you been doing so long in the world?" "Oh, sir," says she, "I have been doing what I should not have done, but I had made a firm resolution to have changed my life, if I had not been snatched off by an untimely end." "Ma

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dam," says he, you will please to follow your leader" and spying another of the same age, interrogated her in the same form. To which the matron replied, "I have been the wife of a husband who was as dear to me in his old age as in his youth. I have been a mother, and very happy in my children, whom I endeavoured to bring up in every thing that is good. My eldest son is blessed by the poor, and beloved by every one that knows him. I lived within my own family, and left it more wealthy than I found it." Rhadamanthus, who knew the value of the old lady, smiled upon her, in such a manner, that the keeper of Elysium, who knew his office, reached out his hand to her. He no sooner touched her but the wrinkles vanished, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed with blushes, and she appeared in full bloom and beauty. A young woman observing that this officer, who conducted the happy to Elysium, was so great a beautifier,

longed to be in his hands; so that, pressing through the crowd, she was the next that appeared at the bar; and being asked what she had been doing the five and twenty years that she had passed in the world, "I have endea voured," says she, "ever since I came to years of discretion, to make myself lovely, and gain admirers. In order to do it I passed my time in bottling up May dew, inventing white washes, mixing colours, cutting out patches, consulting my glass, suiting my complexion, tearing off my tucker, sinking my stays." Rhadamanthus, without hearing her out, gave the sign to take her off. Upon the approach of the keeper of Erebus, her colour faded, her face was puckered up with wrinkles, and her whole person lost in deformity.

I was then surprised with a distant sound of a whole troop of females that came forward, laughing, singing, and dancing. I was very desirous to know the reception they would meet with, and withal was very apprehensive that Rhadamanthus would spoil their mirth: but at their nearer approach the noise grew so very great that it awakened me.

I lay some time, reflecting in myself on the oddness of this dream, and could not forbear asking my own heart what I was doing? I answered myself that I was writing Guardians. If my readers make as good a use of this work as I design they should, I hope it will never be imputed to me as a work that is vain and unprofitable.

I shall conclude this paper with recommending

to them the same short self examination. If every one of them frequently lays his hand upon his heart, and considers what he is doing, it will check him in all the idle, or what is worse, the vicious moments of life, lift up his mind when it is running on in a series of indifferent actions, and encourage him when he is engaged in those which are virtuous and laudable. In a word, it will very much alleviate that guilt which the best of men have reason to acknowledge in their daily confessions of "leaving undone those things which they ought to have done, and of doing those things which they ought not to have done."

ADDISON.

THE LAW OF AMASIS.

HERODOTUS tells us, that Amasis, king of Egypt, established a law commanding that every Egyptian should annually declare, before the governor of the province, by what means he maintained himself; which if he omitted to do, or if, on such examination, he gave not a satisfactory account of his way of living, he should be punished with death.

Happening to meet with this passage one night lately, it suggested some ideas as to the wisdom of such an institution, and I amused myself for half an hour before I went to bed with reflecting on the effects it might have, if introduced into this island. These thoughts recurred in my sleep, and produced a dream of which I shall endeavour to give some account, after pre

mising that, when I awakened in the morning it was some time before I could with certainty determine whether my imagination had transported me to Egypt, or if the objects it had presented to my view in my sleep were the consequences of the promulgation of a similar law in our country.

Upon the appointed day I fancied that I accompanied the whole inhabitants of the province to the palace of the governor. On our arrival we were shown into a hall of vast extent, at one end of which, on something like a throne, sat the governor, surrounded by clerks, whose business it was to take down the account which every person in his turn should give. Silence being proclaimed, we were directed to approach the throne one by one, in a certain order, to give an account of our way of living, and to say by what means each of us maintained himself. This summons appeared the more awful, as the law of Amasis, like many other good institutions, had been allowed to go into disuse, and, after being neglected for ages, was now revived on account of some recent enormities, which called forth the attention of government. I fancied too that the law was so far altered, that instead of death in all cases, the governor was authorized to inflict such punishment upon the delinquents as their offences should seem to merit.

The first whose lot it was to answer the awful question was a handsome young man, clothed in a garment of bright scarlet, embroidered with gold. He approached the throne with an assured countenance, and, with a look of self-approbation,