 a sort of paternal authority
over this irritable tribe.
    The most learned philosopher of the whole collection, who had been expelled
the university for atheism, has made great progress in a refutation of lord
Bolingbroke's metaphysical works, which is said to be equally ingenious and
orthodox; but, in the mean time, he has been presented to the grand jury as a
public nuisance, for having blasphemed in an alehouse on the Lord's day. The
Scotchman gives lectures on the pronunciation of the English language, which he
is now publishing by subscription.
    The Irishman is a political writer, and goes by the name of my Lord Potatoe.
He wrote a pamphlet in vindication of a minister, hoping his zeal would be
rewarded with some place or pension; but finding himself neglected in that
quarter, he whispered about, that the pamphlet was written by the minister
himself, and he published an answer to his own production. In this he addressed
the author under the title of your lordship with such solemnity that the public
swallowed the deceit, and bought up the whole impression. The wise politicians
of the metropolis declared they were both masterly performances, and chuckled
over the flimsy reveries of an ignorant garretteer, as the profound speculations
of a veteran statesman, acquainted with all the secrets of the cabinet. The
imposture was detected in the sequel, and our Hibernian pamphleteer retains no
part of his assumed importance, but the bare title of my lord, and the upper
part of the table at the potatoe-ordinary in Shoe-lane.
    Opposite to me sat a Piedmontese, who had obliged the public with a humorous
satire, intituled, The Balance of the English Poets, a performance which evinced
the great modesty and taste of the author, and, in particular, his intimacy with
the elegancies of the English language. The sage, who laboured under the
agropobia or horror of green fields, had just finished a treatise on practical
agriculture, though, in fact, he had never seen corn growing in his life, and
was so ignorant of grain, that our entertainer, in the face of the whole
company, made him own, that a plate of hominy was the best rice pudding he had
ever eat.
    The stutterer had almost finished his travels through Europe and part of
Asia, without ever budging beyond the liberties of the King's Bench, except in
term-time, with a tipstaff for his companion; and as for little Tim Cropdale,
the most facetious member of the whole society, he had happily wound up the
catastrophe of a virgin tragedy, from the exhibition of which he promised
himself a
