the subject nearest his heart with his tongue, though his eyes spoke the language of love, clear, forcible, and impressive; but wishing to hear the sound of her voice, and to engage her in discourse, he opened with the common compliments of the morning, which he offered in a tone mellowed by tenderness. The young lady very sensible of this intonation, endeavoured to turn the discourse to subjects in which it could not easily be introduced; and seeing, and still better hearing, that the spontaneous preceptor was sound asleep, she observed with arch irony, that it was a very fortunate circumstance for persons pent up in a stage coach to meet with so wise and learned a gentleman, so very willing to communicate his stores for the public benefit. “One person,” said our hero, “receives from his lessons the impression which they are designed to make. This sleeping lady on the left hand evidently regards him with very high admiration. I think,” continued he, “there are few absurdities more laughable and humourous than one person speaking nonsense, or at least frivolity, and another listening to it as sense and wisdom.” “It is,” replied the nymph, “I believe, extremely common, sir, and, perhaps, after all, merely shews that if one person is weak, another is weaker.” Hamilton observed that he had never seen it more happily exemplified than by that great master of nature, and of life, Shakespear, in the dialogue between the grave-diggers.--He mentioned several other instances, and passed rather abruptly, though not without design, to another masterly painter of life, and quoted the celebrated instance of the attorney’s clerk, who so profoundly admired the wisdom of Mr. Partridge. Before the young lady had an opportunity of either agreeing or disagreeing with his remarks, he hurried to a very different subject and character, in the same performance, and expatiated on the charms and loveliness of Sophia Western; declaring that Fielding, in his description of that beautiful creature, exactly hit real objects in their highest perfection. Having a copy of Tom Jones in the coach, which he had taken to amuse himself, he opened the first volume, and read with a very poignant significance the account that he had mentioned, dwelling with peculiar emphasis on the exactness and delicacy of the shape, the black hair, the full and even eyebrows; he then asked the young lady if she did not think the following passage particularly striking: “Her black eyes had a lustre in them which all her softness could not extinguish; her nose was exactly regular; and her mouth, in which were two rows of ivory, exactly answered sir John Suckling’s description in these lines:-- ‘Her lips were red, and one was thin, ‘Compar’d to that was next her chin, ‘Some bee had stung it newly.’