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" SIR,

To ATTALUS.

"HAVING been informed of your intention to publish the interesting Essays with which you lately favoured me, in the form of a Pamphlet, I take this opportunity of forwarding, for your perusal, a curious MS. which I received from an anonymous Correspondent, in the month of October last. It was intended for insertion, but owing to the occurrence of some unforeseen circumstances it was mislaid, and not recovered till a change had taken place in the property of our Paper. The MS. was then left at the office for the author, (according to his request) but not having been demanded, there can be no objection to your publishing it, if you think proper, as an appendix to your Tract. As a Jeu d' Esprit, it will immediately be understood, and doubtless relished by the readers of Boswell's "Life of Johnson.”

"I am, SIR,

"Your very humble Servant,

Southampton Street,
Dec. 31, 1801.

}

"Editor of the Porcupine."

BETWEEN

BOSWELL and JOHNSON,

IN THE SHADES.

[As they meet, Poz, after an indignant scowl, turns from Boz, and unwieldily endeavours to run away from him. Boz pursues, and soon overtakes him.]

Box. WHY, my dear Doctor, surely you do not know me again, or I can hardly imagine you would shun me so eagerly.

Poz. Why, Sir, I did know you, and therefore avoided you.

Boz. Rather than believe this, may I not be indulged in supposing that you were thinking of the meeting between Ajax and Ulysses in the shades, as it is described in the Odyssey; and that

Poz. Sir, whatever of Ajax you may find in me, I can discover in you nothing of Ulysses.

Boz. Yes, Sir; as I have overtaken you so readily, you will grant, at least, that I resemble him in swiftness of foot?

Poz.

Poz. Why yes, Sir;-but remember, that of all the parts of the body, the feet and the head are the widest asunder.

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Box. I see, Sir, that your mind. has suffered nothing by the loss of your body; and I am as little able as ever to cope with you in argument. But may I ask, Sir, to what I am to attribute this unusual flow of spleen against me?-After so long an absence, and give me leave to add, after such indefatigable pains as I have bestowed on your memory, I should have hoped

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Poz. Peace, blockhead! nor dare pollute my ears with the mention of those two quarto monuments of ignominy, wherein you have embalmed the follies of the hero and historian together. Those literary-demiculverins, with which, under the guise of sounding a salute, you have blown my glory to atoms. Little did I surmise, while I was permitting you familiarly to dangle at my lips, and catch my crudities as they fell, that I was inditing to an Amanuensis, and fulminating posthumous anathemas against myself.

Boz. Stay an instant, my illustrious friend, while I step to one of Rhadamanthus's

clerks

clerks for a pen and ink, to take down that last luminous sentence.

Poz. No, Sir. In the first place, you have no longer a hand wherewith to write; and in the next, you might as well. have sought for a tree in Scotland, as for a quill in the shades. Were it not for these incorporeal disqualifications, I would not by opening my lips, have hazarded a second assassination from your pen., We should have had you undertaking to chronicle the tattle of Tartarus, and might have expected from you the Biography, or rather Thanatography, of the ghosts.

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Boz. [after a pause.] I am half afraid, Sir, to speak what is at my tongue's end.

Poz. Nay, Sir, be bold: you have nothing to dread from the fist of a phantom.

Boz. Why then, Sir, I would have said that you have already figured in the other world in a piece with such a title as you mention do you remember who wrote "The Ghost ?"

Poz. Aye, aye, Parson Churchill:the dog believed the story though, I have no doubt; but he had satirical reasons for his incredulity: had he accepted the ghost, he must have resigned Pomposo:he disbelieved for bread and fame.

Boz.

Box. That poem, and Lexiphanes, I think, Doctor, were the only very violent attacks of which you had to complain during your life; and, since your death you have fared better than ever.

Poz. No, Sir; worse beyond computation:-I was strenously climbing up the steep of Fame, and when I had nearly gained the summit, you officiously thrust out a helping hand, and struck me to the bottom.

Boz. Why, dear Sir; the "Life" has already galloped through two editions:never was book so greedily read.

Poz. Sir, who shall doubt it? When is such a crowd assembled as at Tyburn on hanging-day? Had you only told my life, or suppressed the idle or uncourteous parts of my conversation, your work had gone to the trunk-makers. The same throng which is gathered round the gallows by an execution, is dispersed by a reprieve. Sir, when a putrid carcase is envied for the worms it draws, I shall begin to count the editions of

among my trophies.

your book

Box. Why, good Sir, what would you

have had me do?

Poz.

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