conform firialy to the following regulations, which his Majefty will not fuffer to be violated, with impunity; 1. It is his royal will and injunction, that all law fuits be determined IN A SHORT TIME. 2. That the name of juftice be not prophaned. 3. That all thofe who refort to the courts of law, be treated upon terms of the moft frit equality, be they princes or peafants, for in the eye of juftice all men are equals. If his Majefty fhould difcover any delinquency of the fame nature, with that which appeared in the cafe of the miller, or any violation of thefe injunctions, the judges whom he fhall find guilty of them, may expect to be punished with the utmoft rigour, &c. Given at Berlin, 11 O&tober, 1779. FREDERIC.

An Efay on Bottled Cyder. By TRISTRAM SPINTEXT. Meff'rs Printers.

of your correfpondents are fond of taking up feveral pages in your magazine with their effays and that one of them has lately CLOSED HIS CAUSE and made room for fomebody elfe-.. I beg leave to take his place and befpeak four or five pages in your magazines, for twelve months to come, while I communicate to the public fome very important hints in my own way for their entertainment and inftruction--I fay, in MY OWN WAY, because I am fuch a fort of a fellow, that if you go to put me out in telling my flory, I am obliged to begin again, and go over the whole of what I have said, before I can recover the thread of my difcourfe; and I cannot help it, it is an infirmity born with me and descended from my anceflors for feveral generations, as you may clearly fee when I come to tell you the ftory of my family, which I mean to do before I proceed to the fubject of my effay. In the mean time I muft beg your patience while I congratulate myself on the fetting up of fuch a vehicle for information in this Town, as your magazine. It is a fort of publication juft fuited to my capacity, for I am of fuch a long winded make and take fo much

time to write or rather to finish any thing that I fet about, that it generally fwells to a volume too unwieldy for publication, and I get difcouraged and throw it in the fire. This has happened to fome of my laborious productions; but now I hope as you have got into the way of printing effays by piece meal, I may have the privilege of being one of your correfpondents without the trouble of reviewing and correcting my works and letting them lie by me for months together, as I ufed to do.

My defign is to furnish you with an effay on bottled cyder, which is a very ufeful and wholefome kind of liquor and capable of great improvement. If the public will but attend to the directions which I fhall give them on the fabje&, I doubt not they will think their time weil spent in perufing my effay, and their money well laid out in purchafing those numbers of the magazine in which it will be contained. The obfervations which I fhali have the honor of communicating to the public are not wholly my own, but have defcended to me through feveral generations,each one refining and improving upon those which were handed from the generation preceeding, and I am now in the way of improving them full further, all which you may eafily fee will be for the public benefit; for as I am continually making new experiments on the fubject and correcting my own mistakes, the longer I have the matter in hand the more beneficial will my effay prove to my readers.

I told you just now,that I intended to give you fome account of my family previous to my entering directly on the fubject, and there is a particular reafon to be given for my doing it. E remember a very polite writer, but I forget his name--no matter, the thing is what I am after and not the name. I fay, I remember he fays that when a new author appears the public is always agog to know what sORT OF A MAN he is, whether tall or short, white or brown, fat or lean, who he is a kin to, what he is worth, and fuch like things which are important as matters of curiofity, and ferve when known to gratify an innocent defire

in the enquirer. Suppofing that fome of my readers may with to be gratified in this way I fhall proceed to tell them my ftory, fo far as I know it myself, and that is to begin only as far back as the Reign of Charles the fecond; for I cannot trace my ancestry any farther with precifion,the records of our family having been deftroyed in the great fire of London which hap pened in the year 1666, if we are to believe THE MONUMENT which asone of our poets fays

"Like a tall bully, lifts its head

and LIES."

Now it may lie,. for ought I know, about the caufes of the fire, for it af cribes the whole mischief to thePapifs, and the monument was erected by the Proteftants, fome of whom, as another grave author obferves," had got a fcurvy trick of lying for the truth" But as to the date I fuppofe, it may be depended on. --Well, then as I was fay og, our family records, having perfhed in that great Conflagation, Ï cannot precifely trace my pedigree, any farther than the reign of Charles the 2d, tho' I verily believe, I had ancefters before that time, and that fone traces of the family, of the SPINTEXTS, may be found in Oliver Cromwell's court, and even among the fchool divines.

The firft gentleman of the name, of whom I have any certain account, was the Rev Mr. Methulelal Spintext, who was a learned non-conformist minifter, and was ejected by the fatal uniformity act, on Bartholomew's day 1662. I cannot conceive the reafon, why, he is not mentioned in Dr. Calamy's account of the ejected minifters of that day; but that there was fuch a man, is certain, from our family records,, and I bel eve, I can give you a clue to be fat sfied, as well as myfelf. Did you never read or hear, (for it has been retailed in Joe Miller, and other laugh and he fat books,. ever fince) of a certain grave divine, who having named his text,and raised his doctrine, laid out the plan of his fermon, in eighty nine propofitions,each of which were to be fubdivided, and fo on, and that one of the audience, getting up, and go ng out of church, was afked by a perfon in the next pew, what was

the matter, why fays he, I am going home for my night cap, for I perceive we fhall not be dism ffed till morning. This very divine, was my great grand father aforefaid, he was called Methufelah, becaufe it was the fashion of the times, to give fcripture names, and his mother,during her pregnancy, dreamed, that her child would live to be an old man. It was thought, that the name was not ill beftowed, for he did live as long, as any body defired him, and fomewhat longer, for tho he was a useful man in his day, and had the honor of affifting the worthy Mr. Caryl, in his laborious and long winded commentary, on the book of Job, (and by the way, he named his fon after that good gentleman) yet poor man in his old age, he fell into a flow fever, which brought on a lethargy, and he was bed rid, for at leaf, the nine laft years of his life, and by the reafon of this very fore and grievous indifpofition of body and mind too, he not only fpent all that he had, but was obliged to run in debt for more; and fo left his heir incumbered with the payment of the doctor's and apo. thecary's bills, and other expences, which the poor man was obliged to become bound to pay, to prevent an arreft of his father's corps, as it was carrying to the grave.

According to the nature and conftitution of the family, you may be fure, that the payment of thefe charges was a work not to be performed of a fudden. My grand father, Jofeph Spintext, (for as I told you, he was named after good Mr.Cary!) having no patrimony, nor capital to begin bufinefs with, and being loth to truft to his wirs, to get a living by, for fear, that he fou'd break for want of STOCK, was obliged to go to work in a very flow, and fore way to maintain his own family, and pay his father's debts.- -The firft bu finefs that be undertook, was that of a tinker, which he chofe for two rea fons; one was that it coft but little to fet him up, for he had only a hammer and a bag, and lit le coal, and fodders ing to buy, and with thefe implements he travelled about the country, mending old kettles, and ufually accompanying his work, with repeating fome of Mr. Bunyan's poetry, which

mal fpirits, the warmth of blood, and bloom of beauty all confpire to render extatic the pleasures of this fleeting period, On the wing of appetite and expectation, untaught by experience, and undifciplined in the fcnoo! of adverfity, every diftant object of defire is view'd under the most enchanting colours, and pursued with an avi dity which itself is often the means of deftruction; but how tranfent, how momentary, how unfatisfactory, how inadequate to the expectation are the enjoyments when obtain'd! the paffi ons themselves uniefs kept under a controul which to animal nature muft be extremely mortifying, will run us into a thousand difficulties, and involve us in mifery and wretchedness from which no future caution or pru. dence may be fufficient to extricate us; on the one hand then a perpetual ftate of mortification, a continual warfare with the appetites and paffions, moft reftrain us to proper bounds, or the delirium of paffion will lead us into fatal indulgences, and be fucceeded, at the period of reafon and reflection, by the most pungent and excruciating pain. The fober judgment of riper age is the hour of reafon and reflection, which generally infcribes "vanity," and often "vexation of spirit" upon, the folies and inconfideratenefs of ear lier life. but fill the fafcination continues! deception and difappointment have been the refult of all our fanguine purfuits, but hope yet travels ou,the pleafing profpe&s of happiness in fociety are generally the motives which prompt us to forther exertion in the bufy paths of life; the (weets of friendfhip are generally highly (poken of, but who amongst a thoufand has experienced them? our confidence is often betray'd, by thofe whofe intereft it is to deceive us, but are we happy enough to be fuccefsful in the choice of a friend and confidant, should we wish to give him pain by communicating our own? furely not, and yet this communication is confidered as one of the most folacing priviledges of friendship. This is the period in which our domeftic connexions, are ufually formed and enlarged; and that the higheft happiness in the prefent ftate arifes from them, I will readily admit ;

but he must be a philofopher indeed, who does not feel his folicitudes, his anxieties increase, in the fame proportion as he feels his affections engaged and captivated; fuch is the frailty of humanity, that innumerable evils are perpetually threat'ning those whom he holds moft dear in life; a thonfand arrows are pointed at the very vitals of his peace, and the larger the mark, the greater is the danger of a wound whilft he is fondly Carefling the child on whom he doats, does he not often experience the intrufion of fome gloomy ideas, founded on the frailties of mortality, or on the uncertainty relpecting its welfare in the world? but are his anticipations realized, and does an inexorable difeafe invade the tender frame of the wife of his bofom, or the darling of his arms, what anguish of foul, what diftracting agonies take poffeffion of him the greater the degree of attachment, the fronger and more violent will be the fhock he fuftains, whilft the man of weaker paffions, and lefs fenfibilities, as being lefs fufceptible of the fofter impreffions, will be proportionably lefs diftrefs'd on fo trying an occafion; a convincing proof, that the higher our enjoyments rise, and the ftronger our attachments are to the things of the prefent fcene, the greater will be the evil of a privation of them, and the greater the (olicitude intermixed with their poffeffion. In the inftance of property, and the poffeffion of wealth, there is perhaps no more common obfervations than, that the folicitude attending them, and the perpetual fear of lofs and difappointment, are fully a balance for the many advantages that may be fuppofed to be derived from riches. And is life and health lefs precarious than wealth or is it true indeed, that we feldom feel the full force of our enjoyments whilft in poffefion, that we only learn to eftimate their value by their lofs truly this will generally be granted. If we know not the value of a thing poffefs'd but by its lofs, it follows, that poffeffion of a thing vaJuable, is attended with no very great fatisfaction, but that the lofs is attended with rea! pain. In fa&, human life evinces the affertion in ev'ry inwhen