nerating the
most finished figure for a button, or descanting on the properties of a
button mould.

But how, sir, shall we dispose of you? The invention of a statuary is
exhausted, and Sir William is yet unprovided with a monument. America is
anxious to bestow her funeral favors upon you, and wishes to do it in
a manner that shall distinguish you from all the deceased heroes of the
last war. The Egyptian method of embalming is not known to the
present age, and hieroglyphical pageantry hath outlived the science
of deciphering it. Some other method, therefore, must be thought of to
immortalize the new knight of the windmill and post. Sir William, thanks
to his stars, is not oppressed with very delicate ideas. He has no
ambition of being wrapped up and handed about in myrrh, aloes and
cassia. Less expensive odors will suffice; and it fortunately happens
that the simple genius of America has discovered the art of preserving
bodies, and embellishing them too, with much greater frugality than
the ancients. In balmage, sir, of humble tar, you will be as secure
as Pharaoh, and in a hieroglyphic of feathers, rival in finery all the
mummies of Egypt.

As you have already made your exit from the moral world, and by
numberless acts both of passionate and deliberate injustice engraved an
"here lieth" on your deceased honor, it must be mere affectation in you
to pretend concern at the humors or opinions of mankind respecting you.
What remains of you may expire at any time. The sooner the better. For
he who survives his reputation, lives out of despite of himself, like a
man listening to his own reproach.

Thus entombed and ornamented, I leave you to the inspection of the
curious, and return to the history of your yet surviving actions. The
character of Sir William has undergone some extraordinary revolutions.
since his arrival in America. It is now fixed and known; and we
have nothing to hope from your candor or to fear from your capacity.
Indolence and inability have too large a share in your composition, ever
to suffer you to be anything more than the hero of little villainies and
unfinished adventures. That, which to some persons appeared moderation
in you at first, was not produced by any real virtue of your own, but
by a contrast of passions, dividing and holding you in perpetual
irresolution. One vice will frequently expel another, without the least
merit in the man; as powers in contrary directions reduce each other to
res