to the stream,
some deity commanded it to be dry, and the dark earth appeared at his
feet. Around him lofty trees spread their fruits to view; the pear, the
pomegranate and the apple, the green olive and the luscious fig quivered
before him, which, whenever he extended his hand to seize them, were
snatched by the winds into clouds and obscurity."

This image of misery was perhaps originally suggested to some poet by
the conduct of his patron, by the daily contemplation of splendour which
he never must partake, by fruitless attempts to catch at interdicted
happiness, and by the sudden evanescence of his reward, when he thought
his labours almost at an end. To groan with poverty, when all about him
was opulence, riot, and superfluity, and to find the favours which he
had long been encouraged to hope, and had long endeavoured to deserve,
squandered at last on nameless ignorance, was to thirst with water
flowing before him, and to see the fruits, to which his hunger was
hastening, scattered by the wind. Nor can my correspondent, whatever he
may have suffered, express with more justness or force the vexations of
dependance.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I am one of those mortals who have been courted and envied as the
favourites of the great. Having often gained the prize of composition at
the university, I began to hope that I should obtain the same
distinction in every other place, and determined to forsake the
profession to which I was destined by my parents, and in which the
interest of my family would have procured me a very advantageous
settlement. The pride of wit fluttered in my heart, and when I prepared
to leave the college, nothing entered my imagination but honours,
caresses, and rewards, riches without labour, and luxury without
expense.

I however delayed my departure for a time, to finish the performance by
which I was to draw the first notice of mankind upon me. When it was
completed I hurried to London, and considered every moment that passed
before its publication, as lost in a kind of neutral existence, and cut
off from the golden hours of happiness and fame. The piece was at last
printed and disseminated by a rapid sale; I wandered from one place of
concourse to another, feasted from morning to night on the repetition of
my own praises, and enjoyed the various conjectures of criticks, the
mistaken candour of my friends, and the impotent malice of my enemies.
Some had read the manuscript, and rectified i