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An old merry philosopher bequeathed to posterity a very sage piece of advice....Ride, si sapis.... which being rendered into plain vernacular language, means....Laugh, if you are wise.

Being a great admirer of this illustrious sage, I have employed some of my leisure moments to collect materials to enable my fellow citizens to follow his useful prescription, and hope they will have the very salutary effect of proving the wisdom of the reader, by impelling him to the free and unlimited use of his risible faculties.

If it be true, as Homer, or Hesiod, or Plutarch, or Phædrus, or some other ancient said, or intended to say, or ought to have said, that every time a man heaves a sigh, he drives a nail into his coffin; it may, I hope and trust, be assumed that every time he indulges in merriment he draws a nail out. This collection then, I fondly flatter myself, cannot fail to be acceptable to all my fellow citizens, except the worthy fraternity of coffin-makers and nailors, whom I most respectfully solicit to pardon me for this interference with their best interests.

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Should they find this little collection prove very injurious to the accumulation of pelf, I advise them (as a friend) to disseminate as large a number as possible of "THE MISERIES OF HUMAN LIFE," by way of counteraction.

Philadelphia, December 1, 1809.

MOMUS, JUN.

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