discussion of dogmas to larger communities, who better understood cavilling.
The clerk and the schoolmaster kept an account

of the receipts and disbursements throughout the parish. These were faithfully audited by the vicar. Ten of the most considerable of the inhabitants, who acted as a committee for the rest, were called in every week to the vestry, where the books were always forth coming for general inspection.
Every other regulation for the pleasure and advantage of this happy community was proportionably wise and salutary. Thus cheerfulness smiled on their labours; content converted their pittance into plenty; health, ease, and good humour accompanied their steps, and they passed their time in the exercise of as much moral rectitude as would have immortalized them—had they been born ancient Spartans—without dreaming they did more than a common duty, for the sake of general convenience.
By this time I believe the reader begins to suspect that the vicar, however well disposed to lend a helping hand towards the regulation of this little commonwealth, as well as the clerk and the schoolmaster, who kept the account of their finances, were but subordinate actors in this performance, and here introduced, like the centinels in Hamlet and the servants in the Orphan—both of which circumstances VOLTAIRE is very angry at—only to usher in the capital

personage, who, having once made his appearance, is to receive all the applause.
It must be owned that the motions of Castlewick appeared to be as regular as those of its church clock, which clock, though any blacksmith could wind it up, and set it a going, must have required a much better mechanic to have invented it originally. If there should be a hidden first cause for this, it will be announced in its proper place. In the mean time I cannot prevail upon myself to repent my having introduced these sons of industry, insignificant as they are. The mind is often both improved and amused by the most trifling objects: the smaller the mite the more worthy the curiosity of the philosopher.


MY reader and I having passed through the rookery that received us as we left the bridge, are now within sight of the mansion of Sir Sydney Walter Roebuck, lord of the manor of Castlewick, and member of parliament for the borough of Neitherside.
The grandfather of this gentleman—for were I to trouble the reader with any thing anterior, my description would resemble a game of chess, where bishops, knights, castles, and the king and queen are continually crossing each other. Indeed I have two other reasons for not going farther back; one is, that in the course of this history Sir Sidney will talk to us a little