To the RAMBLER.
DEAR SIR,
THOUGH, as my mamma tells me, I am too young to talk at the table, I have great pleasure in listening to the conversation of learned men, especially when they discourse of things which I do not understand; and have, therefore, been of late particularly delighted with many disputes about the alteration of the stile, which, they say, is to be made by act of parliament.
One day when my mamma was gone out of the room, I asked a very great scholar what the style was? He told me, he was afraid, I should hardly understand him when he informed me, that it was the stated and established method of computing time. It was not indeed likely that I should understand him: for I never yet knew time computed in my life, nor can imagine why we should be at so much trouble to count what we cannot keep. He did not tell me whether we are to count the time past, or the time to come; but I have considered them both by myself, and think it as foolish to count time that is gone, as money that is spent; and as for the time which is to come, it only seems further off by counting; and therefore when any pleasure is promised me, I always think of the time as little as I can.
I have since listened very attentively to every one that talked upon this subject, of whom the greater part seem not to understand it better than myself; for though they often hint how much the nation has been mistaken, and rejoice that we are at last growing wiser than our ancestors, I have never been able
