(67) AT [From a Paris Journal.] T laft, my dear friend, you have commenced Journalist. Your profpectus is admirable! Men who manufacture journals are like those who make revolutions; they always promise wonders. I hope that you will keep your word. The following advices point out the means of your obtaining reputation. ift. Furnish yourself with a pair of good fciffars, for fciffars are effentially neceffary for the editing of a Journal. It is by the affiftance of this ufeful inftrument that you cut up the other papers, and transfer the quinteffence of them into yours. When Horace faid Sape ftylum vertas, he meant to say, Often use your Sciffars. 2d. If you take in a Journal which has the misfortune of having but a small circulation, copy from it every day two or three columns. It will no more be noticed than if you had robbed a man in a wood. Ne. ver quote a Journal except you find in it articles which can expofe it. Thofe who permit themselves to de nounce a Journal, are in this cafe in a fimilar fituation with thofe of whom Mercier speaks, who fet fire to a houfe after having robbed it, no doubt with a view to distract the attention of the police. You thould also make arrangements with fome perfons employed about the Poft-office, as has already been done, fo that they fhall burn the other Journals, and fend you the afhes of them. But the best plan and the fureft which you can take, in my opinion, is, to get feals placed on the preffes of your rivals, and to procure an order for getting their impreffions arrefted at the Poft-office. After this do not fail immediately to fend your Paper to those who receive and diftribute the profcribed Journals. 3d. When the couriers are late in arriving, let your your imagination fupply their place. Do not trouble yourfelf too much about getting correfpondents. There is a receipt for the manufacture of news as well as for the manufacture of Champaign. For example make the Pruffians march across Bavaria, es. tablish their Marthal in lodgings, and go on to prepare cantonments for them upon the banks of the Neva. But what do I fee? You are fetting the French and Austrians at loggerheads.-Courage, valorous writer !— Do not fpare the effufion of blood! The number of your impreffions will foon be equal to the number of the dead. 4th. Diplomacy ought alfo to employ your talents. Give vaft importance to trifles, and fpeak myfteriously of what all the world knows. The following are fome fragments collected from the best Papers, and which will ferve you for models: "Letters from Vienna of the 6th of December (it is a Journalist who fpeaks) give us pofitive information that the Baron D. T. is gone for a fhort time to his country-house. Letters of a later date do not mention his return.""We hear from London that Mr. Pitt rode through the Park of St. James's in a curricle-this has given rife to many conjectures refpecting the present state of Europe." The London Papers fay, that my Lady Mayorefs of London, with all her family, drank to the fuccefs of the British Navy out at the window. The first courier will bring us certain information whether the goblet was of gold or filver."-"Every thing was in ftatu quo at Madrid when the courier departed; only fome letters mention that the Queen wore a green robe; but this news requires confirmation."" A private letter from Augsbourg fays, that Field-marshal Suwarrow has not been fhaved for eight days, which makes the Profeffor of Gottingen fear that the war will recommence with greater vigour next spring." When details of facts are exhaufted, you fhould plunge plunge into the grand chapter of conjectures. After having told what has been done, you fhould fay what ought to be done, though you may feldom know any thing either of the one or the other. If you are ignorant of what is now paffing, rival the Almanack of Liege, dive into futurity, and make predictions refpecting to-morrow. Furnish yourself with the key of every Cabinet; penetrate, in thought, into the antechamber of Ministers, and fpeak of vifits made to an Ambaffador in the dufk of the evening, and repeat what is faid to a Deputy after dinner; reveal a fecret which has escaped from a Counsellor of State, and speak of fteps taken to procure an employment. Above all, put words in the mouth of a man who has never spoken. Repeat the speeches of Buonaparte upon red flippers, give an account of the leaft nod of the head which he gives at the Luxembourgh; if any perfon of importance whispers to another, let his whisper be repeated in your Journal; above all, do not forget little anecdotes, and that the gallant fon of Maia fhould communicate to you the meffages which he carries from the gods to humble mortals. 5th. Accuftom yourself to praife with liberality, La Bruyere has said that praise would be received from all quarters. The world now resembles a fair: instead of going there with money, flattery ought to be carried to it. It is particularly necessary to have the measure of other people's vanity or felf-love. It is not fufficient merely to flatter men, you must flatter them in the manner which will be acceptable to their taste; and it is not enough that you attribute merit to them, you must be lavish in ascribing to them that which they think they poffefs. 6th. If you take a whim of criticifing upon any law, delay the exercife of your courageous talent till it is repealed. You can take upon this fubject for models the charming authors of the Vaudeville. Make a most a moft pompous eulogium on a conftitution when it is established; when it is no more, inform the world that it was nothing but a rhapsody. If you have fpoken freely of a man in place, have patience till he is dead or difgraced; then you should apoftrophize him, comparing him to the famous tyrants of antiquity. You will thus cover your boldness under the mask of learning If you wish to speak of some of the authors of our misfortunes, fpeak only of Baron Capet, from whom you have nothing more to hope or to fear. If you wish to fubject to the public indignation fome of thofe men who have applauded by turns the extravagancies of every party, and who have never appeared before the tyrants without a cenfer in their hands, you may with impunity speak of Bertrand Barrere, for all parties have given him up. You are alfo at liberty to say what you pleafe of Maximilian Robespierre; but for Heaven's fake, be cautious when you fpeak of the men who furrounded him. In a word, you may use full liberty with those who are dead, or who have not been cunning enough to retain any credit; but with regard to all others, my dear Journalist, you must be satisfied to behold them with the fame eyes that fortune does. 7th. When you have but little news you can criticise a new play which you have never feen. Say that it is bad, you are almost sure to be right. If you have almost nothing to put in your Journal, infert fome verses which nobody reads, give leffons on morality from which nobody will profit. If you have in fact nothing, announce books for fale, puff the great men of the day, and propofe candidates in the ftyle of the hand-bills which announce apartments to be let. If you fellow my counfels, Fame will open to you her temple, Fortune will be prodigal of her favours; but remember, in manufacturing your Journal, that it is a perilous bufinefs; that it begins in prifon, and commonly ends at Șinamary. Be prudent; and change, according according to circumftances, your style, and especially your lodgings. God preferve you in a good underftanding with the public and your customers! VERUS, 1 THEATRICAL SCALE OF MERIT. MR. EDITOr, BEING very much attached to theatrical amusements, and at the fame time inclined to regulate my judgment by the opinions of the beft critics, feilicet, thofe of the newspapers, I am often extremely puzzled in the laborious operation of making up my mind by the indefinite-I was going to fay almost unintelligible-terms made use of by the aforefaid judges. It appears to me to be faying next to nothing, when they say that such a performer is capital, another inferior, that one has outdone his ufual outdoings, and that another has outdone the outdoings of every body else. Such phrafes, being fo many degrees of comparison, convey no information, because they are comparisons with a fomething in the author's head, which he does not ftate in plain terms. Complaining the other day of these difficulties to my worthy friend Jonathan Lloyds, Efq. of the Stock Exchange, he put me upon a scheme which I think worth communicating to you, and I hope foor to fee it adopted, as the only infallible way to render dramatic criticifm explicit and intelligible. I fhall give it as nearly as poffible in the words of my friend, who is one of the most precise men in the world. "Your complaint, my dear Dangle, is ftri&ly just; but fo it ever will be, unlefs critics and fpeakers in general on all fubjects, will confent to adopt the terms of the confolidated funds. At our houfe no man is at a lofs to comprehend another. Were one of us to fay, that |