beasts, and most fancy-colored feathers of fowls, which that world afforded. To make his confinement more tolerable, she would carry him in the dusk of the evening, or by the favor of moonlight, to unfrequented groves and solitudes, and show him where to lie down in safety, and sleep amidst the falls of waters, and melody of nightingales. Her part was to watch and hold him awake in her arms, for fear of her countrymen, and awake him on occasion to consult his safety. In this manner did the lovers pass away their time, till they had learned a language of their own, in which the voyager communicated to his mistress how happy he should be to have her in his country, where she should be clothed in such silks as his waistcoat was made of, and be carried in houses drawn by horses without being exposed to wind or weather. All this he promised her the enjoyment of, without such fears and alarms as they were tormented with. In this tender correspondence these lovers lived for many months, when Yarico, instructed by her lover, discovered a vessel on the coast, to which she made signal; and in the night with the utmost joy and satisfaction accompanied him to a ship's crew of his countrymen bound for Barbadoes. When a vessel from the main arrives in that island, it seems the planters come down to the shore, where there is an immediate market of the Indians and other slaves, as with us of horses and oxen.

To be short, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began seriously to reflect upon his loss of time, and to weigh with himself how many days' interest of his money he had lost during his stay with Yarico. This thought made the young man very pensive, and careful what account he should be able to give his friends of his voyage. Upon which consideration, the prudent and frugal young man sold Yarico to a Barbadian merchant, notwithstanding that the poor girl, to incline him to commiserate her condition, told

him she was with child by him; but he only made use of the information to rise in his demands upon the purchaser.

A

THE FITS.

FINE town-lady was married to a country gentleman of ancient descent in one of the counties of Great Britain, who had good-humor to a weakness, and was that sort of person, of whom it is said, he is no man's enemy but his own; one, who had too much tenderness of soul to have any authority with his wife; and she too little sense to give him any authority, for that reason. His kind wife observed this temper in him, and made proper use of it. But knowing it was beneath a gentlewoman to wrangle, she resolved upon an expedient to save decorum, and wean her dear to her point at the same time. She therefore took upon her to govern him, by falling into fits whenever she was repulsed in a request, or contradicted in a discourse. It was a fish-day, when, in the midst of her husband's good-humor at table, she bethought herself to try her project. She made signs that she had swallowed a bone. The man grew pale as ashes, and ran to her assistance, calling for drink. "No, my dear," said she, recovering, "it is down, do not be frightened." This accident betrayed his fondness enough. The next day she complained, a lady's chariot, whose husband had not half his estate, had a crane-neck, and hung with twice the air that hers did. He answered, "Madam, you know my income: you know I have lost two coach-horses this spring,"-down she fell. "Hartshorn! Betty, Susan, Alice, throw water in her face." With much care and pains, she was at last brought to herself, and the vehicle in which she visited was amended in the nicest manner to prevent relapses; but they frequently

happened during that husband's whole life, which he had the good fortune to end in a few years after. The disconsolate widow soon pitched upon a very agreeable successor, whom she very prudently designed to govern by the same method. This man knew her little arts, and resolved to break through all tenderness, and be absolute master as soon as occasion offered. One day it happened that a discourse arose about furniture; he was very glad of the occasion, and fell into an invective against china, protesting, that he "would never let five pounds more of his money be laid out that way as long as he breathed." She immediately fainted. He starts up as amazed, and calls for help. The maids run to the closet. He chafes her face, bends her forward, and beats the palms of her hands; her convulsions increase; and down she stumbles on the floor, where she lies quite dead, in spite of what the whole family, from the nursery to the kitchen, could do for her relief.

While every servant was there helping or lamenting their mistress, he, fixing his cheek to hers, seemed to be following in a trance of sorrow; but secretly whispers her, " My dear, this will never do: what is within my power and fortune you may always command; but none of your artifices; you are quite in other hands than those you passed these pretty passions upon." This made her almost in the condition she pretended; her convulsions now came thicker, nor was she to be held down. The kind man doubles his care, helps the servants to throw water in her face by full quarts; and when the sinking part of the fit came again, " Well, my dear," said he, "I applaud your actions; but I must take my leave of you till you are more sincere with me; farewell forever; you shall always know where to hear of me, and want for nothing." With that he ordered her maids to keep plying her with hartshorn, while he went for a physician; he was scarce

at the stair-head when she followed, and pulling him into a closet, thanked him for her cure; which was so absolute, that she gave me this relation herself, to be communicated for the benefit of all the voluntary invalids of her sex.

Clubs of Steele and Goldsmith.

THE primary signification of the word Club, in its sense of a meeting of companions, appears to be derived from the same root as that of the massy stick, and means a consolidated body of persons large enough to amount to something substantial; something more than accidental and of no account.

A club appears formerly to have meant any such body organized for a common object. It may now be defined to be a set of persons associated for companionable enjoyment, at stated times and with a division of expenses.

Clubs of this kind are thought to be of very modern origin. We suspect they are as old as flourishing communities. Traces of them are discernible in the literature of Greece and Rome, and the East, especially in bacchanalian poetry. Indeed it would be strange if such had not been the case, considering in how many respects men are alike in all ages, and that where good cheer is to be found, they naturally flock together. We are not aware, however, of any ascertained instance of a club, earlier than the famous one at the Devil Tavern, for which Ben Jonson wrote his Latin rules; and perhaps the name, in the modern sense, is hardly appropriate even to this. It is not certain that the rules applied to an organized body of contributors to the expense, in contradistinction to a permitted range of payers. Clubs thickened in the time of the Commonwealth, and exhibited their undoubted modern character in that of Steele and Addison. The meeting of wits in Dryden's time appears to have taken place in the open coffee-room. It is in the clubs of the Tatler and Spectator, that we