ling and swelling, and aptly compared to a puddle in a storm.

I have lived to see generals who once had crowds hallooing after them wherever they went, who were bepraised by newspapers and magazines, those echoes of the voice of the vulgar, and yet they have long sunk into merited obscurity, with scarce even an epitaph left to flatter. A few years ago the herring-fishery employed all Grub-street; it was the topic in every coffee-house, and the burden of every ballad. We were to drag up oceans of gold from the bottom of the sea; we were to supply all Europe with herrings upon our own terms. At present, we hear no more of all this. We have fished up very little gold that I can learn; nor do we furnish the world with her. rings, as was expected. Let us wait but a few years longer, and we shall find all our expectations an herring-fishery. Goldsmith.

THE BASKET-MAKER.

IN the centre of those islands, situated in the midst of the South Sea, lies one distant from the rest, and large beyond proportion. A descendant of one of the great men of this island, becoming a gentleman to so improved a degree as to despise the good qualities which had originally ennobled his family, thought of nothing but how to support and distinguish his dignity by the pride of an ignorant mind, and a disposition abandoned to pleaHe had a house on the sea-side, where he spent great part of his time in hunting and fishing;

sure.

but he found himself at a loss in the pursuit of these important diversions, by means of a long slip of marsh land, overgrown with high reeds, that lay between his house and the sea.-Resolving at length, that it became not a man of his quality to submit to restraints in his pleasure for the ease and convenience of an obstinate mechanic; and having often endeavoured in vain to buy out the owner, who was an honest poor basket-maker, and whose livelihood depended on working up the flags of those reeds, in a manner peculiar to himself, the gentleman took advantage of a very high wind, and commanded his servant to burn down the barrier.

The basket-maker, who saw himself undone, complained of the oppression, in terms more suited to his sense of the injury, than the respect due to the rank of the offender: and the reward this imprudence procured him was the additional injustice of blows and reproaches, and all kinds of insult and indignity.

There was but one way to a remedy, and he took it. For going to the capital with the marks of his hard usage upon him, he threw himself at the feet of the king, and procured a citation for his oppressor's appearance; who, confessing the charge, proceeded to justify his behaviour by the poor man's unmindfulness of the submission due from the vulgar to gentlemen of rank and distinction.

'But pray,' replied the king, 'what distinction of rank had the grandfather of your father, when, being a cleaver of wood in the palace of my ancestors, he was raised from among those vulgar you speak of with such contempt, in reward of an

instance he gave of his courage and loyalty in defence of his master? yet his distinction was nobler than yours; it was the distinction of soul, not of birth; the superiority of worth not of fortune. I am sorry I have a gentleman in my kingdom who is base enough to be ignorant, that ease and distinction of fortune were bestowed on him but to this end, that, being at rest from all cares of providing for himself, he might apply his heart, head, and hands, for the public advantage of others.'

Here the king, discontinuing his speech, fixed an eye of indignation on a sullen resentment of mien which he observed in the haughty offender, who muttered out his dislike of the encouragement this way of thinking must give to the commonalty, who, he said, were to be considered as persons of no consequence, in comparison of men who were born to be honoured. Where reflection is wanting,' replied the king with a smile of disdain, men must find their defects in the pain of their sufferings.' Yanhumo,' added he, turning to a captain of his galleys, strip the injured and the injurer, and, conveying them to one of the most barbarous and remote of the islands, set them ashore in the night, and leave them both to their fortune.'

The place in which they were landed was a marsh, under cover of whose flags the gentleman was in hopes to conceal himself, and give the slip to his companion, whom he thought it a disgrace to be found with. But the lights in the galley having given an alarm to the savages, a considerable body of them came down, and discovered in the morning the two strangers in their hiding

place. Setting up a dismal yell, they surrounded them, and, advancing nearer and nearer with a kind of clubs, seemed determined to dispatch them, without sense of hospitality or mercy.

Here the gentleman began to discover, that the superiority of his blood was imaginary; for, between a consciousness of shame and cold, under the nakedness he had never been used to, a fear of the event from the fierceness of the savages' approach, and the want of an idea whereby to soften or divert their asperity, he fell behind the poor sharer of his calamity; and with an unsinewed, apprehensive, unmanly sneakingness of mien, gave up the post of honour, and made a leader of the very man whom he had thought it a disgrace to consider as a companion.

The basket-maker, on the contrary, to whom the poverty of his condition had made nakedness habitual, to whom a life of pain and mortification represented death as not dreadful, and whose remembrance of his skill in arts, of which these savages were ignorant, gave him hopes of becoming safe, from demonstrating that he could be useful, moved with bolder and more open freedom; and having plucked a handful of flags, sat down without emotion, and making signs he would show them something worthy their attention, fell to work, with smiles and noddings, while the savages drew near and gazed in expectation of the consequence.

It was not long before he had wreathed a kind of coronet of pretty workmanship, and, rising, with respect approached the savage, who appeared the chief, and placed it gently on his head; whose

figure under this new ornament so charmed his followers, that they threw down their clubs, and formed a dance of welcome and congratulation.

There was not one but showed the marks of his impatience to be made as fine as his captain; so that the poor basket-maker had his hands full of employment: and the savages observing one quite idle, while the other was so busy in their service, took up arms in behalf of natural justice, and began to beat him.

The basket-maker's pity now effaced the remembrance of his sufferings. He arose, and rescued his oppressor, by making signs that he was ignorant of the art; but might, if they thought fit, be usefully employed in waiting on the work, and fetching flags to his supply as fast as he should want them.

This proposition luckily fell in with a desire the savages expressed to keep themselves at leisure, that they might crowd round, and mark the progress of a work they took such pleasure in. They left the gentleman therefore to his duty in the basket-maker's service, considering him, from that time forward, as one who was, and ought to be treated as inferior to the artist.

Men, women and children, from all corners of the island, came in droves for coronets; and setting the gentleman to work to gather boughs and poles, they made a fine hut to lodge the basketmaker; and brought down daily from the country such provisions as they lived upon themselves ; but never offered the imagined servant any thing till his master had done eating.

Three months' reflection in this mortified con