a Hero, the necessity of proportioning his power to his work. - Laughing at such puny subsidies of water, as could be raised from springs, and wells, our illustrious Scavenger at once boldly, and bodily, wrested from its course a noble River, as an Agent alone commensurate with the portentous magnitude of the distress. Having brought his River, with all its tributary streams, under his grasp, he sent it thundering before him, at full tide, in a driving torrent of purification, through every quarter, and recess, of this grand Metropolis of Nastiness.

Although the unparalleled difficulty of effectuating this mighty mundification, rendered it almost worthy of the hand that was employed in it, we are left to suppose that the Hero was not insensible to the " sublimity," of its annoyances; for, on this only occasion, did he stipulate for the hire of his Labour. The reward he demanded was perfectly appropriate to the nature of the service, - viz. a tythe of the beasts, whom he had re-instated in the comforts of a clean house. Augeas, however, whose mind was evidently as foul as his stalls, and who seems to have had more

satisfaction in contemplating the work, than in recompensing the workman, not only flatly refused the promised perquisite, but actually banished the Heir Apparent of his Kingdom, in the person of his own son, for having disrespectfully urged him, on this occasion, to practise so expensive a virtue as honesty.

Hercules, whose talent for redressing the grievances of others we have so often admired, was not likely to be an idle spectator of his own wrongs. As soon as he had “ washed his hands" of an employment which so pressingly called for that operation, he took up his own cudgels, (we pretty well know of what sort they were,) and would, probably, have succeeded in beating a right sense of the business into his Majesty's head, if he had not, at the same time, unguardedly beaten out the brains which were necessary to the comprehension of his arguments.

As for the young Prince, whose pleas for justice had been as ill rewarded as the journeywork of his client, his troubles were of very short duration. Our Hero, having begun his dirty work by emptying a Stable for the Father, and finished it by clearing out a

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Throne for the Son, immediately beckoned the latter from his short banishment, leaving the good people of Elis to thank him for a much better King than he had taken from them.

PARALLEL.-It will be entirely the fault and the very grievous fault-of our Editor, if having taken a tainted Author under his care, he riva! not his strenuous predecessor in the great, and necessary Labour of purgation. His STABLES are too frequently found to be polluted with impurities, far more various in their names, as well as pernicious in their natures, than those which Hercules was called to wash away; - impurities, accumulated, not by goats, and oxen, only, (which are exclusively named in the Herculean Labour,) but by wolves, bears, foxes, apes, hogs, asses, and every other bestial representative of the vices, and follies, of man. He is to pour his river of reformation through every contaminated stall, and stye; and, where he may not consider himself as authorized, like his Coun

terpart, to remove the nuisance altogether, it is, at least, his urgent duty to warn the unwary foot against the foulness of the place. - In this arduous enterprize, he, like Hercules, may chance to be employed by a King;but, lest he should be discouraged by an apprehension that he may too nearly resemble the Hero by labouring for a thankless King, he shall be reminded that there is a Monarch, who is so far from being capable of witholding from his servants the well-earned reward of a distasteful labour, that he places half his glory in assisting at the work of moral purification with his own royal hands; and desires not to rest from it, till he shall have defecated all the seats of corruption, to their

remotest corners.

He, too has a Son:- but, again, my Parallel nobly fails me in its conclusion; for never shall it be the task of any modern Hercules, to visit on the head of his, and England's Father, the crime of having sent his son to banishment, for moving him to be just.

LABOUR IX.

Ir is, already, once more, my painful task to shew my Hero at a disadvantage, if I should not rather say, under actual shame. His gallantry, in both senses of that word, is in no less danger of degradation in the present Labour, than was his dignity in the last. Though we should incline to connive at his having raised his arm against a Woman, and a Queen, inasmuch as this royal Lady was an Amazon, in what manner are we to cover his conduct, in having terminated his conquest over her, by stripping her of her girdle? Would that I could plead in bar against his sentence, that he snatched it away in sportive fondness, vowing that he would for ever wear it at his throbbing heart, and thus class it with many an other such flattering robbery, committed by the modern inamorato at a ball, or during the delicious moment of mutual confessions.--Alas! it will not do:-the sturdy caitiff seized it like a plunderer as he was, and, like a slave, as he also was, laid it at the feet of his rigorous Master. Well! I have,