tressing case than that of a poor fellow lingering on in a
consumption till the period of his freedom is almost in sight, and
then finding himself going with a velocity which makes it doubtful
whether he shall be entitled to his funeral honors: his quota to
which he nevertheless squeezes out, to the diminution of the comforts
which sickness demands. I think, in such cases, some of the
contribution money ought to revert. With some such modifications,
which might easily be introduced, I see nothing in these Proposals of
Mr. Middleton which is not strictly fair and genteel; and heartily
recommend them to all persons of moderate incomes, in either sex, who
are willing that this perishable part of them should quit the scene
of its mortal activities with as handsome circumstances as possible.

Before I quit the subject, I must guard my readers against a scandal,
which they may be apt to take at the place whence these Proposals
purport to be issued. From the sign of the _First_ and the _Last_,
they may conclude that Mr. Middleton is some publican, who, in
assembling a club of this description at his house, may have a
sinister end of his own, altogether foreign to the solemn purpose for
which the club is pretended to be instituted. I must set them right
by informing them that the issuer of these Proposals is no publican,
though he hangs out a sign, but an honest superintendent of funerals,
who, by the device of a Cradle and a Coffin, connecting both ends of
human existence together, has most ingeniously contrived to
insinuate, that the framers of these _first_ and _last_ receptacles
of mankind divide this our life betwixt them, and that all that
passes from the midwife to the undertaker may, in strict propriety,
_go for nothing_: an awful and instructive lesson to human vanity.

Looking over some papers lately that fell into my hands by chance,
and appear to have been written about the beginning of the last
century, I stumbled, among the rest, upon the following short Essay,
which the writer calls, "_The Character of an Undertaker_." It is
written with some stiffness and peculiarities of style, but some
parts of it, I think, not unaptly characterize the profession to
which Mr. Middleton has the honor to belong. The writer doubtless had
in his mind the entertaining character of _Sable_, in Steele's
excellent comedy of _The Funeral_.

CHARACTER OF AN UNDERTAKER.

"He is master of the ceremonies at burials and mourning assem