Park. Should the fat gentleman accept this invitation, and waddle to the place appointed, he goes to inevitable slaughter. Now, upon this state of the case, might not the fat gen tleman, consistent with the rules of honour return the following answer to the invitation of the lean one?

"Sir, I find by your letter that you do me the justice to believe, that I have the true notions of honour that become a gentleman; and I hope I shall never give you reason to change your opinion. As I entertain the same opinion of you, I must suppose that you would not desire that we should meet upon unequal terms, which must be the case were we to meet to-morrow. At present I unfortunately weigh four-and-twenty stone, and I guess that you do not exceed twelve. From this circumstance singly, I am doubly the mark that you are; but, besides this, you are active, and I am unwieldy. I therefore propose to you, that, from this day forwards, we severally endeavour by all possible means, you to fatten, and I to waste, till we can meet at the medium of eighteen stone. I will lose no time on my part, being impatient to prove to you that I am not quite unworthy of the good opinion which you are pleased to express of,

"Sir, your very humble servant.

"P. S. I believe it may not be amiss for us to communicate to each other, from time to

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time, our gradations of increase or decrease, towards the desired medium, in which, I presume, two or three pounds, more or less, on either side, ought not to be considered.”

This, among many more cases that I could mention, sufficiently proves, not only the expediency, but the necessity, of restoring, revising, and perhaps adding to the practice, rules, and statutes, of single combat, as it flourished in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I grant that it would probably make the common law useless; but little, trifling, and private interests ought not to stand in the way of great, public, and national advantages.

EAR-TICKLING.

Human nature, though every where the same, is so seemingly diversified by the various habits and customs of different countries, and so blended with the early impressions we receive from our education, that they are often confounded together, and mistaken for one another. This makes us look with astonishment upon all customs that are extremely different from our own, and hardly allow those nations to be of the same nature with ourselves, if they are unlike in their manners; whereas all human actions may be traced up to those two great motives, the pursuit of pleasure, and the avoidance of pain; and, upon a strict examination, we shall often find, that those customs,

which at first view seem the most different from our own, have in reality a great analogy with them.

What more particularly suggested this thought to me, was an account which a gentleman, who was lately returned from China, gave, in a company where I happened to be present, of a pleasure held in high esteem, and extremely practised by that luxurious nation. He told us, that the tickling of the ears was one of the most exquisite sensations known in China; and that the delight administered to the whole frame through this organ, could, by an able and skilful tickler, be raised to whatever degree of ecstasy the patient should desire.

The company, struck with this novelty, expressed their surprise, as is usual on such occasions, first by a silly silence, and then by many silly questions. The account, too, coming from so far as China, raised both their wonder and their curiosity much more than if it had come from any European country, and opened a larger field for pertinent questions. Among others, the gentleman was asked, whether the Chinese ears and fingers had the least resemblance to ours; to which having answered in the affirmative, he went on thus:

"I perceive I have excited your curiosity so much by mentioning a custom so unknown to you here, that I believe it will not be disagreeable, if I give you a particular account of it.

"This pleasure, strange as it may seem to you, is in China reckoned almost equal to any that the senses afford. There is not an ear in the whole country untickled; the ticklers have, in their turn, others who tickle them, insomuch that there is a circulation of tickling throughout that vast empire. Or if, by chance, there be some few unhappy enough not to find ticklers, or some ticklers clumsy enough not to find business, they comfort themselves at least with self-titillation.

"This profession is one of the most lucrative and considerable ones in China, the most eminent performers being either handsomely requited in money, or still better rewarded by the credit and influence it gives them with the party tickled; insomuch that a man's fortune is made, as soon as he gets to be tickler to any considerable mandarin.

"The emperor, as in justice he ought, enjoys this pleasure in its highest perfection; and all the considerable people contend for the honour and advantage of this employment, the person who succeeds the best in it being always the first favourite, and chief dispenser of his imperial power. The principal mandarins are allowed to try their hands upon his majesty's sacred ears, and, according to their dexterity and agility, commonly rise to the posts of first ministers. His wives too are admitted to try their skill; and she among them, who holds him by the ear, is reckoned to have the surest

and most lasting hold. His present imperial majesty's ears, as I am informed, are by no means of a delicate texture, and consequently not quick of sensation, so that it has proved extremely difficult to nick the tone of them; the lightest and finest hands have utterly failed, and many have miscarried, who, from either fear or respect, did not treat the royal ears so roughly as was necessary. He began his reign under the hands of a bungling operator, whom for his clumsiness he soon dismissed: he was afterwards attempted by a more skilful tickler; but he sometimes failed too, and, not being able to hit the humour of his majesty's ears, his own have often suffered for it.

"In this public distress, and while his majesty laboured under the privation of auricular joys, the empress, who, by long acquaintance, and frequent little trials, judged pretty well of the texture of the royal ear, resolved to undertake it, and succeeded perfectly, by means of a much stronger friction than others durst either attempt, or could imagine would please.

"In the meantime, the skilful mandarin, far from being discouraged by the ill success he had sometimes met with in his attempts upon the emperor's ears, resolved to make himself amends upon his royal consort's: he tried, and he prevailed; he tickled her majesty's ear to ch perfection, that, as the emperor would his ear to none but the empress, she

mist hers to none but this light-fingered