the debt was too
considerable for payment or bail: I, therefore, suffered myself to be
immediately conducted to gaol.

_Vestibulum ante ipsum, primisque in faucibus Orci,
Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae:
Pallentesque habitant morbi, tristisque senectus,
Et metus, et malesuada fames, et turpis egestas._ VIRG. Aen. vi. 273.

Just in the gate and in the jaws of hell,
Revengeful cares and sullen sorrows dwell;
And pale diseases, and repining age;
Want, fear, and famine's unresisted rage. DRYDEN.

Confinement of any kind is dreadful; a prison is sometimes able to shock
those, who endure it in a good cause: let your imagination, therefore,
acquaint you with what I have not words to express, and conceive, if
possible, the horrours of imprisonment attended with reproach and
ignominy, of involuntary association with the refuse of mankind, with
wretches who were before too abandoned for society, but, being now freed
from shame or fear, are hourly improving their vices by consorting with
each other.

There are, however, a few, whom, like myself, imprisonment has rather
mortified than hardened: with these only I converse; and of these you
may, perhaps, hereafter receive some account from

Your humble servant, MISARGYRUS.

No. 45. TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1753

_Nulla fides regni sociis, omnisque potestas
Impatiens consortis erit._--LUCAN. Lib. i. 92.

No faith of partnership dominion owns:
Still discord hovers o'er divided thrones.

It is well known, that many things appear plausible in speculation,
which can never be reduced to practice; and that of the numberless
projects that have flattered mankind with theoretical speciousness, few
have served any other purpose than to show the ingenuity of their
contrivers. A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the
scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better
understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the
last century, who began to dote upon their glossy plumes, and fluttered
with impatience for the hour of their departure:

--_Pereunt vestigia mille
Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum._

Hills, vales and floods appear already crost;
And, ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost. POPE.

Among the fallacies which only experience can detect, there are some, of
which scarcely experience itself can destroy the influence; some which,
by a captivating show o