NUMB. LXVI. Saturday, May 1.

THERE never has been a period in which greater pretensions were made to patriotism than in the present, though perhaps there never was a pe­riod in which public spirit was so utter­ly disregarded. Every man we meet has something to say about the sufferings of his unfortunate country, though at that very moment he is doing every thing in his power to prejudice this unfor­nate country himself. In the course of my ac­quaintance I have known a man exclaim against luxury, who could not make a dinner without twelve or fourteen dishes; and have heard a woman of fashion commiserating the case of our distressed manufactures, with the very same [Page 2] breath that gave orders for the purchase of a French silk, a set of Dresden dishes, or an Indian cabinet. Contradiction is the prevailing foible of the present age; and in nothing are we more un­accountable, than in our eternal pretensions to consistency.

THE most whimsical patriot, however, whom I have met with, is Ned Scamper. This extraor­dinary character has studied the celebrated fable of the bees with the closest attention, and puts down every vice or folly which he commits to the good of his country. If he gets intoxicated, it is from a spirit of genuine patriotism. The national revenue is benefited in proportioned to the quan­tity he consumes: and if he breaks the head of an unfortunate waiter, that's another instance of public spirit. The money which he gives to make the affair up, circulates through the community, and is a cause of satisfaction to a thousand families. In short, Ned has drank, wenched, fought, and beggared himself, through an exalted solicitude for the general emolument, and is now close pent up in one of our prisons, out of a pure and disin­terested regard for the welfare of society.

YET notwithstanding the little claim which the generality of this kingdom can really have to the character of patriotism, it must nevertheless be acknowledged, that we have some people, who in opposition to the torrent of fashionable folly, consume scarcely any thing but the produce of their own country. To be sure these people cut [Page 3] but a very moderate figure in life; they seldom rise beyond the level of oyster women, common soldiers, hackney coachmen, or bricklayers' labou­rers: but what then, both their beer and their gin are manufactured within the weekly bills; and if their tobacco is not the immediate growth of Great Britain, it is at least sent us from some of the British plantations. Nay their very oaths are en­tirely of English materials — no 'Pon my honours— or let me dies, and such like despicable exclamations of foreign contexture; but a solid b — t my l — s, like a humming tankard of Calvert's entire butt, strkes us at once with admiration, and gives an equal proof both of their public spirit and under­standing.

IT is remarkable, that though these people are the best friends to the real interest of their country, they nevertheless give themselves no airs of im­portance, nor run into any insolent self-sufficiencies about their attachment to the good of the kingdom. On the contrary, they leave every arrogance of this nature to their superiors who act upon prin­ciples diametrically opposite; from which we may naturally infer, that those are always the truest patriots who make the least demands upon our gratitude for praise; and who pursue the indeviable path of national welfare, without looking upon themselves as entitled to any extraordinary merit from the steadiness of their course. It is also worthy of observation that the lower the situation of the British Plebeian, the more inflexibly rivetted [Page 4] we find him to the good of his country; the more we see him wedded to his gin and tobacco; while on the contrary, the higher we go among conse­quence and coronets, the higher encouragement we shall find given to every thing of a foreign ma­nufacture, and the higher we shall find the nostril of contempt turned up at the produce of poor old England.

IT may possibly be observed on this occasion, that notwithstanding this great superiority which I give the lowest ranks over the very first; yet if an enquiry was made into the principles of each, both might appear to bear a nearer similitude at bottom, than at present I seem inclinable to allow. It may possibly be urged, that if the poorest orders of the people were able to furnish themselves with the luxuries of life, they would run into just the same excesses for which they are continually railing at their betters; and manifest as little regard for the welfare of their country, as the most fashiona­ble man of quality in the kingdom. Why in fact, I believe they would; but this proves nothing more, than that, with all our patriotic boasting, we have not a single spark of public spirit ex­isting amongst us as a nation; and that with all our ridiculous parade of free-born Englishmen, we are the veriest slaves in the universe to the worst of tyrants — vice and affectation.

THE only way to recover our liberty from the oppressive fangs of such arbitrary rulers, is to make a proper use of our understand [...]ng. — [Page 5] We do not want either spirit or good-sense; yet through some unaccountable impulse, we act as if utterly destitute of both. — We can ridicule our follies, and be ashamed of our vices, yet never make the least effort to get the better of either; and there is scarcely a road to virtue but what we have the justice to admire, at the very instant we are giving the most unbounded loose to licentious­ness and immorality. With regard, however, to actions of a public kind, there is a patriotism of the most exalted nature, with which we have hitherto appeared totally unacquainted, notwith­standing it is of infinitely greater importance than the encouragement of commerce or manufactures. This patriotism is the practice of moral rectitude, and the desire of setting a good example to our neighbours. Now-a-days, if a legislator delivers a popular harangue in either house of parliament, we set him down as the deliciae humani generis; and upon the mere strength of this single qualification, give him an indubitable privilege to trample upon every law both of reason and morality. If he exerts himself in a strenuous opposition to Go­vernment, we are regardless how many worthy tradesmen he breaks by his dishonesty, and laugh at a violation of our wife and our daughters, where the ruffian happens to profess a real regard for the interest of his country. By this means we reconcile the whitest virtue with the most opposite vice; and imagine it possible, that a man can have the highest veneration imaginable for our rights [Page 6] and liberties, when he is bursting through the most sacred of them all.

LET us, however, be assured, that a bad man never made a real patriot. He that is insensible of what he owes to his Deity and to himself, can never be conscious of what is due to his country. The foundation of all public excellence is in pri­vate virtue; and where we find that wanting, though a combination of some peculiar circum­stances may engage a great personage to support the interest of his country, we may rest assured, that he is actuated by motives very different to the principles of patriotism; and that he only makes use of the fascinating sound to cloak the purposes of disappointed pride, and secret resentment. Where a man truly loves his country, he is tender of its minutest laws, and pays an equal regard to the morals, as he does to the temporal interests, of the public.

NUMB. LXVII. Saturday, May 8.

THOUGH I have more than once con­demned the practice of toasting as a custom diametrically opposite to every principle both of reason and politeness, there is, however, one spe­cies of it which has yet escaped my animadversion, though perhaps none of the least culpable: I in­tend therefore to make it the subject of my present [Page 7] discussion, and flatter myself that it will prove no way disagreeable to my readers.

WHEN the fashion of toasting was first of all instituted, is by no means a necessary object of enquiry; but had it been judiciously confined to the limits of a tavern, and kept sacred for the pur­poses of midnight riot, it would be infinitely less entitled to our censure and contempt. The wild and giddy headed hour of extravagance might pro­bably palliate a casual gust of folly and licentious­ness; but when in open violation of all the dicta [...]es of decency, it is carried into private families, the least extenuation becomes utterly impossible, and indignation is at a loss whether most to con­demn the ignorance or the brutality of the pro­ceeding.

IT is a just observation of a very celebrated author, that in proportion as every country is barbarous, it is addicted to inebriety. Were the people of England to be judged of by this standard, it is much to be feared, that our national cha­racter would be none of the most amiable. Not­withstanding few people can lay down better rules [...] behaviour than ourselves, there are none more unaccountably preposterous in their conduct: when we visit at one anothers houses, and propose to pass a few hours in an agreeable manner, how ab­surdly do we set out: instead of endeavouring to enjoy what Mr. Pope finely calls ‘The feast of reason and the flow of soul,’ [Page 8] we think every entertainment insipid till reason is totally banished out of company; and imagine, through some monstrous depravity of inclination, that a social emanation of soul is never to be ob­tained, but where politeness and propriety are ap­parently sacrificed, and the roar of underbred ex­cess circulated round the room at the expence both of sense and morality.

TO the indelible disgrace of this country, there is scarcely a vice or a folly of our neighbours, but what we sedulously copy, at the very moment we affect to mention the people whose manners we thus ridiculously imbibe, with the most insupe­rable disregard. Their good qualities are in fact the only things which we scorn to adopt, as if it was a derogation either from our spirit or our un­derstanding to owe a single instance of prudence or virtue to the force of example. France in par­ticular has kindly supplied us with an abundance of follies; but there is not, to my recollection, any one circumstance wherein she has given the smallest improvement to our understandings: not that France is destitute in sense, or deficient in virtue: it is we who want the wisdom of imitating her where she is really praise-worthy; and are infatuated to the lamentable degree of neglecting those actions which we ought to pursue with our highest admiration, to follow those which ought to be the objects of our highest aversion and con­tempt.

[Page 9]IN the present case, I mean their convivial en­tertainments, the French are particularly sensible and well-bred; they are all vivacity without run­ning into the least indelicacy; and can keep up the necessary life of a social meeting, without bor­rowing the smallest assistance from immorality. In the most elevated flow of spirits they never think of sending the women out of company, merely to give an unbounded loose to ribaldry and licentious­ness. On the contrary, they estimate the pleasure of the entertainment by the number of the ladies; and look upon an evening to be most wretchedly trifled away, where a party of men make an ap­pointment for a tavern. Thus their politeness prevents them from deviating either into folly or vice; and in the most intimate intercourse of fami­lies, nothing scarcely ever passes but a round of sensible freedom and unconstrained civility.

WITH us, however, the case is widely diffe­rent; if half a dozen friends meet at the house of a valuable acquaintance, instead of treating his wife, his sister, or his daughter, with a proper de­gree of respect; we all manifest an absolute dis­inclination for their company. The instant the cloth is taken away we expect, they shall retire, and look upon it as a piece of ill-breeding, if they accidentally stay a moment longer than ordinary. And for what are we so impatient to be left to ourselves? Why, for the mighty satisfaction of drinking an obscene toast, and the pleasure of in­discriminately filling a bumper to a woman of ho­nour [Page 10] and a strumpet; the friend of our bosom, and a fellow whom we consider perhaps as the greatest scoundrel in the universe.

IN a country where the women are so gene­rally remarkable for good-sense and delicate viva­city; where they also enjoy in other respects an ample share of liberty, and in a manner regulate the laws of propriety, it is not a little surprising that in the moments of convivial festivity we should treat them with so palpable a contempt. The hour in which we strive to be most happy, one would naturally imagine should be the time in which we ought most earnestly to sollicit the favour of their company: but no; it is impossible to make an Englishman happy without allowing him to run into the grossest illiberalities. The conversation of an amiable woman he thinks by no means equal to the roar of a dissolute com­panion; and it is absolutely necessary to make him gloriously drunk, as the fashionable phrase is, before he can reach the envied pinnacle of a bon vivant felicity.

THE pleasantest excuse which all our choice spirits give for this extraordinary attachment to toasting is, that without a toast, there would be no possibility of finding a sufficient fund of con­versation for the company. Why then are the ladies excluded, who could add so agreeably to the conversation? "O, because their presence would be an invincible restraint; we could not lay what we please, nor push the toast about;" that [Page 11] is, in plain English, "we could not indulge our­selves in a thousand scandalous excesses, which would disgrace the lowest plebeian of the commu­nity: we could neither destroy our constitution nor our principles; neither give a loose to obsce­nity, intemperance, and execration; ridicule the laws of our country, nor fly out against the or­dinances of our God. Alas, civilized as we think ourselves, is it an impossibility for a nation of savages to be more barbarous or absurd? The ge­neral consequence of our convivial meetings is the severest reflexion which they can undergo, for with, all our boasted understanding, is it not rather an uncommon circumstance for the most intimate ac­quaintance to break up without some broil highly prejudicial to their friendship, if not even dan­gerous to their lives?

TO remedy so great and so universal an evil; to rescue our national character from the imputa­tion of barbarism; and to establish some little claim to the reputation of a civilized people, there are but two ways left; these however are both short and effectual ones: to abolish toasting in all taverns; and at all private houses, never to make the ladies withdraw from company. By this means, in the first place, there will be no emula­tion among giddy-headed young fellows to swallow another bumper; nor any obligation for a man with a weak constitution to drink as hard as a seasoned Fox-hunter: and in the second instance, the meetings at private families by being conducted [Page 12] agreeable to the principles of politeness, will never swerve from the sentiments either of reason or virtue, but be, as they always ought, productive of social mirth and real happiness.

NUMB. LXVIII. Saturday, May 15.

NUMB. LXIX. Saturday, May 22.

NUMB. LXX. Saturday, May 29.

THOUGH it is universally allowed that we are every day arriving to a greater degree of knowledge in our theatrical entertainments, yet a number of sensible critics are continually insisting that there is a visible decay in our dramatical pro­ductions; not only our performers, but our writers are mentioned in a light of the most contemptuous comparison with their predecessors of the last half century; and it is considered by the generality of people, as an instance either of the grossest igno­rance, or the strongest presumption, to suppose any thing like an equal degree of abilities.

THE gentlemen who criticise in this accurate manner, seem, however, to pay but little attention to the original institution of the stage; they ima­gine it was entirely calculated for amusement, without having the least view to the great business of instruction, and so it could produce a ridiculous laugh, no matter what became either of our morals or our understandings. This whimsical mode of thinking, it is easy to discover, has taken it's rise from the comedies of Wycherly, Congreve, and Vanburg, who always with a culpable degree of levity, were endeavouring to say brilliant things rather than just ones; and injudiciously imagined [Page 24] that a lively flash of wit was a sufficient excuse for the rankest indecencies, or the most palpable at­tack upon the religion of their country.

THAT our dramatic writers, before the last half century, might possess a greater share of wit than their successors I shall by no means deny; but then it does not follow that this superiority in wit, should entitle them to a superiority of repu­tation. Wit, in fact, is but a secondary requisite to a dramatic poet; judgment is the first qualifi­cation; and he that wisely attends to the cultivation of the mind, is by much a preferable writer to him, who sacrifices every thing to an agreeable flip­pancy of expression, and aims at nothing more than to excite the risibility of his auditors. For these reasons, though I admire Wycherly, Congreve, and Vanburg, as men of wit, yet as dramatic au­thors, I hold them in no extraordinary estimation: on the contrary, I look upon them with the greatest contempt, for perverting the original end of the stage, and prostituting such abilities as they pos­sessed in the infamous purposes of licentiousness and immorality.

I AM well aware that upon this occasion it will be remarked, that the literary levity of these ce­lebrated writers was the vice of their age, and that in conformity to the general opinion, they were under a necessity of writing to the depravities of the people. — "If, say a number of our sagacious critics, the authors under consideration, represented human nature in a desolute light, they represented [Page 25] human nature as they found it. — Their villains and their strumpets were characters very frequently met with, and they only caught the manners as they rose to reflect them with an additional energy on the public." This argument is evidently falla­cious; and can scarce deserve a serious examina­tion: to represent human nature as they found it, would have giving no room for exception; but their great error was in representing those parts of it, in an amiable light, which were entitled to universal abhorrence and contempt. Their villains and their strumpets were set up as objects of general admiration; and vice fought under the mask of an agreeable vivacity, with a success that should make every feeling mind tremble, left so dangerous a weapon as wit, should at any future period be unhappily lodged in such desperate hands.

IT has often filled me with astonishment to hear men of good sense frequently arguing in de­fence of Wycherly, Congreve, and Vanburg, by saying that their wit should be an excuse for their licentiousness; and pleading that it was even worth our while to have vicious compositions, provided the vice was but decorated with such forcible at­tractions as these writers have given it. People who talk in this manner may indeed look down upon the corrector productions of later days, with an air of insuperable disgust. They may equally laugh at nature and instruction, and affect to ri­dicule every argument to which they find them­selves unable to reply: but the judicious enquirer, [Page 26] will consider wit when employed in the destruction of virtue, as the most infamous of all prostitutions. — It is like a man of genius, who argues against the existence of the Deity; and becomes obnoxious to society in proportion as he is cursed with abili­ties; instead therefore, of being found a justifica­tion of the writers in dispute, it becomes, in my opinion, an invincible objection to their works; and the more we are fascinated with the brilliancy of their productions, the more we see a necessity for wishing those productions had perished at their first appearance under the hands of the common executioner.

THE writers of the present times, however despised by the bigots of a dramatical heresy, have, if we may judge by their performances, an in­finitely stronger claim to our admiration, than any of their celebrated predecessors, who actuated by an illiberal thirst of fame, were led to seek it from the depravities of mankind. They sensibly recollect that the sole end of the stage is to blend amusement with instruction; and therefore never neglect the heart, through a view of bawding to the imagination; — hence, instead of finding them eternally on the sent for snip-snap and repartee, we see them studious in the discovery of manly sentiments and laudable reflexions; and observe a general endeavour, while they labour for our ap­probation as writers, to obtain our good opinion as men. This good opinion they will be always sure of obtaining, as long as they prosecute the [Page 27] exalted principles which have hitherto influenced their conduct; and it is with the greatest satis­faction I see their pieces frequently represented to crouded audiences, while the productions of a Wycherly, a Congreve, and a Vanburg are suffered to languish in the most merited contempt.

NUMB. LXXI. Saturday, June 5.

I KNOW nothing more dangerous than for a man of narrow circumstances to possess an agreeable voice, or to be master of any other re­quisite which exposes him to a continual round of company, and renders him particularly enter­taining to his acquaintance. In such a case, the general applause, with which he meets, gives him an eternal disgust to industry; and fills him with no ambition but that of being called upon for ano­ther song, or requested to relate the last frolic within the purlieus of the garden.

I WAS yesterday taking a solitary walk in the Park, when I accidently saw a figure seated on one of the benches, with the lines of whose face I found myself somewhat familiar, and in the course of half a turn recollected that it was a young fellow who had formerly been clerk to my friend Mr. Demur, a counsellor in Lincoln's-inn, and was turned away by his master, for a total neglect of business. I had been often at Mr. Demur's, and had always heard him speak of this young [Page 28] man with a particular esteem: to me he frequently recommended him on the score of uncommon ho­nesty, and extraordinary abilities; nevertheless, he at the same time observed, that he never would be worth a groat. ‘The blockhead, he used to say, sings an excellent song, and has a fund of humour that renders him infinitely entertaining; on this account he has such a number of en­gagements upon his hands, that I cannot keep him a moment at the desk; and though I love him almost as well as my own son, I must look out for some body else to supply his place.’

WHEN I came down the walk, the young fellow bowed to me, and as his appearance was uncom­monly shabby, I had either the curiosity, or the good nature to go over to him, and enquire what brought him into such a miserable plight; with the frankness that always accompanies a good heart; he told me it was his own folly; and added, that those who wantonly sported with their own felicity, ought never to be pitied in the day of distress. The manner in which these last words were delivered, struk me very sensibly; I therefore sat down with him on the bench, and requested if he could with propriety, that he would favour me with his story, assuring him, I always had a tear at the service of the unfortunate, and probably he might experience that I had something else. En­couraged by this information, he gave a bow of assent, and proceeded with the following little narrative:

[Page 29]IT is unnecessary, Sir, to tell you anything about my education or family; suffice it that though the former was not despicable, nor the latter ungenteel, yet I had nothing to depend upon but my profession; this indeed afforded me a tol­lerable probability of passing decently through life, had not an unhappy propensity to company fatally intervened, and rendered that application to bu­siness intollerable, which prudence pointed out as the only means of my support.

THIS propensity to company was increased to a considerable degree, from some trifling talents which I possessed to amuse, such as a passable song, and a mode of telling a story with tollerable suc­cess. These qualifications procured me so much regard among my friends that there never was a merry meeting appointed but Will Hargrave re­ceived an invitation, they were sure he would favour them with a joyous catch; and often these applications were made with a solicitude which tickled my vanity so highly, that I have suffered myself to be engaged a whole month without in­termission, and kept as regular a list of my various taverns, as if I had been allowed a very hand­some salary for my attendance. A custom of this nature could not be supported without a great deal of expence; a crown or half a guinea every night was rather too much for a man, who with salary and perquisites, scarcely made eighty pounds a year; the consequence of which was, that I ran [Page 30] into debt with every body that would trust me, and forfeited my reputation through an utter in­ability of discharging their demands: besides this, as I was always one of the last people who quitted company, I was generally intoxicated before I re­tired, and destroyed my constitution as much as I ruined my circumstances. A man who constantly went to bed in such a condition at four or five o'clock in the morning was but ill qualified for the necessary business of the day. After putting up with a thousand irregularities, your friend Mr. Demur, at last dismissed me, and my character be­ing pretty well known to all the gentlemen of the profession, not a soul of them would receive me into his employ. In this situation a vintner, whose house I had often filled with company, ar­rested me for a debt of fourteen pounds, threw me into jail, and kept me there till I was set at liberty by an act of grace at the end of four years. The hardships I underwent during the time of my con­finement were unspeakable; for days together I have subsisted on nothing but the common allowance of the prison, and have thought myself happy if I could get a handful of straw to sleep on at night; a shirt was luxury with which I was utterly unacquainted for eighteen months; and during the last year, my intire wardrobe consisted of an old plaid night-gown; a pair of decayed Morocco slippers of different colours, a worsted night-cap, and a black stock. I almost forgot the use of breeches and stockings, and could I dare to say have [Page 31] passed a winter in Greenland without any appre­hension from the coldness of the season or the place. Fortunately, a week or two before my re­lease, an Irish author who was just put in for libel­ling the government, happened to hear of me, and gave me an invitation to his room; I had long learned to disregard the delicacies of dress, and therefore attended him without delay; he was sensible and generous in every respect, unless his compassion to me should be reckoned an impeach­ment, either of his understanding or his munifi­cence, for before I took my leave, he made me a present of two very handsome suits of cloathes, and half a dozen ruffled shirts, together with every other necessary, such as hat and wig, shoes and stockings, so that when I equipped myself, I might have easily made my escape at the gate, as it was scarcely possible to know me in such a happy al­teration of circumstances. My benefactor's gene­rosity did not stop here; for, the morning after I was discharged, he sent me five guineas, and wish­ing me every happiness I could wish myself, ad­vised me to make a good use of what instruction I had received in the school of adversity. I in­tened to have thanked him the next day; but un­happily that evening he had a difference with a brother prisoner, about some inconsiderable subject of a political nature, in which he received the lye; this being an affront, which an Irishman never pardons, he insisted upon instant satisfaction: both parties immediately drew, and my generous friend [Page 32] by some accident happening to stumble just as his antagonist was making a lunge, he received a thrust through the body, and expired on the spot; the other gentleman was tried, but as it was proved the challenge was given by the deceased, the survivor had a verdict of man slaughter brought in against him, and suffered the punishment of being burned with a cold iron, agreeable to the customary practice.

TO return however to myself: being now quite clear with the world, and dressed in a man­ner tollerably smart, I sallied forth, and was met by some of my quondam acquaintance, who when I was perishing would not supply me with a six­pence; but who now were rejoiced at seeing me in so happy a situation; they insisted on my spend­ing the evening with them at a club, which they [...] every night in the neighbourhood of Temple- [...] and hoped I would not take it a miss if they insisted upon charging my quota to the general account, for the pleasure of my company. I was not lost to sensibility: in the meridian of my own little affluence I had done kind things to others, but never insulted their distresses. The manner of the proposal affected me, though I was under a ne­cessity of agreeing to the proposal itself; I there­fore went, and was treated with all the usual disrespect which poverty generally feels from un­derbred prosperity. I was commanded to sing by one with a look of authority; a second ordered me to tell a story, and a third cracked an insolent [Page 33] joke about my want of breeches in prison, and told me, with a loud laugh, I would have made an excellent highlander. In short, though, every body courted my conversation, yet every body treated me with contempt; and I never suffered more se­verely under the hand of insolence than when I ministered most to it's satisfaction; though I tore my lungs almost to pieces for half a dozen hours, still I was under an obligation for being treated to a two-shilling reckoning; and it even now has come to such a pass, that I am looked upon as an incumbrance to the society; not knowing where to get a bit of bread, I came here to-day, intend­ing to list myself in the guards; but being torn by a thousand different thoughts, I threw myself into this seat to ruminate a little further, when the earnestness with which you were pleased to eye me, obliged me to pull off my hat, and laid a foundation for all this insignificant garrulity.

HERE poor Mr. Hargrave ended; I will not comment on this story, — if the relation itself is not capable of instruction, it is in vain to moralize, and in vain to talk of prudence and oeconomy; all I shall therefore mention is, that he sets out next week in a lucrative employ for one of our plantations: and I doubt not, as he is yet a very young man, but what a few years will see him in possession of a very ample fortune.

NUMB. LXXII. Saturday, June 12.

I WAS chatting yesterday evening over a dish of tea at my sister Rattle's when the amiable Kitty Harold, a distant relation of ours, happened to come in with her usual freedom, but with an ap­pearance of mingled concern and resentment; the moment she saw me she cried, ‘O, Mr. Babler, I have an admirable subject for your next paper. You must know, continued she, that in my way here I accidently called at your old acquaintance Mrs. Acid's, in Pall-Mall, and found her en­gaged with an extensive circle of company. While I staid there, one of the footmen came up and informed his lady that there was a well-dressed gentlewoman below enquiring after her health, but that hearing she was so much en­gaged, she was preparing to go away, and would take some other opportunity of paying her res­pects. Mrs. Acid you know is one of those prodigiously important people who pique them­selves upon their superior understandings, and are continually giving an air of consequence to the minutest actions: in hopes therefore of dis­playing her sagacity before her company, she sent to desire the lady would be so kind as to walk up; in consequence of which a mighty genteel woman indeed, was introduced, who came in with a very visible diffidence, and was [Page 35] with much pressing prevailed upon to sit down. Madam, says Mrs. Acid, with her customary dignity of tone and solemnity of feature, Pray what has procured me the honour of this visit? the lady with a respectful hesitation, replied, I thought, madam, I should have found you alone, or I would not have presumed — but I suppose you have quite forgot a Sally Edwards, who lived with you about seven years ago;" What, exclaimed Mrs. Acid, in an air of the greatest surprise, are you Sally Edwards who lived with me at Richmond, and had a bastard by young Mr. Barrington of Twickenham — O I remember you very well — why I hear he has since married you — well and come tell me.’ Mrs. Acid would probaby have continued this good-natured strain considerably longer, had not the poor woman's confusion got the better of her spirits, and thrown her into a fit from which she was not recovered without much difficulty; as soon however as she came to herself, she burst into tears, and making as decent a curtesy as her situation could possibly admit, went out of the room. Unmoved with her distress, the obliging Mrs. Acid called after her down stairs; ‘Dont be uneasy Sally, when you come this way again pray bring the little boy with you.’ I really could have slapt the unmerciful woman for her barbarity: but she, as if she had performed the most meritorious action in the world, turned round [Page 36] to the company, and gave us the following history of poor Sally Edwards.

"HER father was a Shropshire Clergyman of very little preferment in the church; but if a large family might be looked upon as a foundation for felicity, there was not a happier man in the coun­try, for he had fourteen children. The excellence of his character, however, made some provision for the most of them, and one friend or another gradually took the greatest number off his hands. This Sally, of all his children, was the greatest fa­vourite; he would never part with her, but brought her up with a remarkable degree of tenderness, and even pinched himself very frequently to give her an education rather superior to her fortune. His solicitude for her improvement, Mrs. Acid de­clares was not thrown away: on the contrary, she assured us that Sally was very prettily accomplish­ed; and added, in her way, that she was also not intolerably tempered, nor much unacquainted with the management of a family.

WHEN Sally had reached her twentieth year, a fever which her father had caught in attending a poor parishioner, carried him off, and the amiable orphan was obliged to look out for some tolerable family, where her servitude might furnish her with bread. Mrs. Acid at that time happened to be down at her sister's in Shropshire, near whose house Mr. Edwards had lived. At her sister's request she took Sally, being then without a maid, and in a few weeks after departed for London. From [Page 37] thence she removed to Richmond, where Sally became by some means acquainted with a very genteel young fellow, one Mr. Barrington, the son of a gentleman who possessed two thousand pounds a year. Mr. Barrington made use of num­berless arts to steal her from the paths of virtue, and even offered half the reversion of his father's estate to purchase her disgrace. These overtures Sally treated with a becoming scorn, yet she had a latent prepossession in his favour, which would not suffer her to resign the dangerous pleasure of his acquaintance. Every hour she could spare was passed with him, and he kept himself so secretly concealed, that his rank was never once suspected in the neighbourhood. Young Barrington did not want honour; he saw the goodness of his mistress's heart, notwithstanding the humility of her station, and therefore disregarding what the world might say on the occasion, very frankly proposed to mar­ry her. This proposal immediately ruined the unfortunate Sally Edwards; what formerly he could not obtain for worlds, now fell an easy sacrifice to his generosity. She confessed she loved him; but absolutely refused the honour of his hand till after the death of his father, declaring she could not sup­port the shock of creating a disturbance in his fami­ly. When a woman once owns her love for a man there is scarce a toss up between her and destruction. Every hour she is alone with him after such a con­fession, she totters on the verge of her fate; and even let the man have never so much honour, there [Page 38] are times in which the whirlwind of his passions will tear up every trace of recollection, and occasi­on more guilt in a second, than can possibly be ato­ned for in course of a whole life. In one of these times Mr. Barrington met Sally Edwards; and in about six monthsafter the consequences of this cri­minal intercourse obliged the unhappy girl to take an abrupt leave of her place. The sequel howe­ver is more fortunate than could be expected. Old Mr. Barrington died near a twelvemonth since, and his son has been married to Sally above half a year. This it seems was her first coming to town since that joyful event, and in hopes to recover the good opinion of her former mistress, she had taken the liberty of calling at Pall Mall. Mrs. Acid nevertheless embraced the opportunity to insult her in the manner I have mentioned; and so far from feeling any compunction, she told us at the end of the story, that she was always known to speak her mind, and fancied upon this occasion that she had given a tolerable hint, as she called it, to Sally Edwards."

HERE Miss Harold finished her little narrative, but the subject being dwelt upon while she staid, I shall conclude the present paper with one or two of her remarks. "I always observe, Mr. Babler, (says she) that those people who pique themselves particularly on the virtue of a rude sincerity, have seldom any other virtue in the composition of their characters. A complacency of manners though it does not always constitute humanity, nevertheless [Page 39] gives an embellishment to human nature, and often, from the very appearance of goodness, we are apt to fall in love with the reality. It would therefore be well, that people who are fond of speaking in­delicate truths to others, would reverse situations a little, and only imagine what effect it would have upon their own feelings, was an indelicate truth to be mentioned to themselves. Whenever we change situations with mankind, we are most like­ly to judge with propriety; and we may be certain of never censuring the errors of our neighbours with too great a degree of severity, if we make but a candid examination into our own."

NUMB. LXXIII. Saturday, June 19.

NUMB. LXXIV. Saturday, June 26.

THEODOSIA was the daughter of Gen­tleman in Oxfordshire, who possessed an es­tate of seven hundred pounds a year. Her edu­cation was remarkably elegant, and her person was such as procured her a croud of admirers before she was quite eighteen. Among the num­ber who declared themselves openly her lovers, a young Baronet of great fortune made his addresses, and offered settlements so extremely advantageous, that old Mr. Lestock, her father, immediately gave his concurrence, and a day was set apart for ce­lebrating their nuptials with the greatest magnifi­cence.

IT has been very judiciously observed by an able writer, that there is no time of a woman's [Page 45] life so dangerous as the interval between her con­fession of an affection for a lover, and the day of her marriage. The consciousness of being ten­derly beloved, emboldens an admirer to take liber­ties; and the man who but the moment before would have knelt down with all the respect of the profoundest veneration to request the favour of kissing her hand, will think himself sufficiently warranted, when she acknowledges that he has a share in her heart, to dwell upon her lips for an hour, and to loll upon her bosom with the most intimate fullness of familiarity. Besides this, the freedom of access which is always allowed to a man in such a situation, furnishes him with numberless opportunities of repeating his liberties; and even if he goes to indelicate lengths, he knows he can easily obtain an excuse from a fond and believing woman, who attributes his very licentiousness to the extravagance of his love.

THE truth of this observation was never more fully verified than in the unhappy subject of the present little narrative. She doated upon Sir Ed­ward Ellison with the most passionate fondness, and could scarcely be said to exist, but when he was in her company. Naturally susceptible of the softest impressions, she would even burst into a flood of tears, with an excess of tenderness when she only looked at him attentively, and more than once did she ac­tually sink under the weight of her own transports, when he squeezed her hand with any great de­great of vehemence, or gave a loose to the language [Page 46] of his love with more than an ordinary share of fervour and extasy. The misguided father of the unfortunate young Lady, so far from being con­tinually on his guard against the dangerous ten­dency of his daughter's affection, rejoiced that he had found a husband so very much to her taste; and so far from seeing the absolute necessity of ne­ver trusting her any time alone with her lover, left them frequently together after he went to bed, and permitted them to pass whole hours in the most uninterrupted exchange of mutual vows and feli­citations. One fatal Monday night however, about eleven o'clock, the two lovers were by themselves in the back parlour, making up a little quarrel which had happened between them in the begin­ning of the evening. The reciprocal concessions which this circumstance occasioned, insensibly sof­tened the bosoms of both, and as insensibly led the one to offer, and the other to permit, a still en­croaching freedom of caress; at such a crisis neither reason nor pride can prescribe a limit to the passi­ons, nor take upon them to say, "thus far will I go and no farther;" in proportion as the tide of tenderness arises, both reason and pride are ab­sorbed; and it is no wonder when we suffer such a sacrifice to be made of our understanding, that we become equally regardless of our peace and our reputation.

THE morning after this guilty intercourse, when Sir Edward came a little to his recollection, he was distracted with a variety of different opinions [Page 47] relative to Miss Lestock's behaviour; but though he really loved her as he did his own soul, he at last concluded with a degree of meanness pretty com­mon with the generality of his sex, that her weak­ness was more the effect of a natural incontinence, than the result of an excessive tenderness for him; and therefore he determined to break off all cor­respondence with her at once, as a woman utterly unworthy the honour of being his wife.

THIS resolution he had no sooner formed than he carried into execution, by dispatching a letter to the wretched Miss Lestock and her father, with the common place aukward apoligies for his be­haviour, and a repeated wish for the happiness of the lady, though he himself was taking the only step which could rob her of happiness for ever: it is as needless as it is difficult, to paint the dis­traction which this unexpected information created in Mr. Lestock's family. Poor Theodosia now loved the ungenerous baronet with an encreased affection. The guilty commerce which had passed between them, so far from diminishing her regard, had given a sharper edge than ever to her love, and mingled a sort of phrenzy with her affection, that rendered it impossible to live in a state of sepa­ration from Sir Edward Ellison; suffice it therefore that, when she heard the purport of his epistle, she fell senseless on the floor, and was conveyed by her father and some of the servants to bed, where she continued delirious for four days, in­cessantly raving on her perfidious lover, and rela­ting [Page 48] the indiscretion into which he had so unhap­pily drawn her on the preceding Monday evening. In this exigence the unhappy father wrote up to his son, who was a lieutenant in the guards, de­siring to see him immediately, as an affair had un­expectedly happened, which greatly concerned both the honour and happiness of the family. On the receipt of this letter, captain Lestock instantly set out, and reached his father's seat in a few hours after.

CAPTAIN Lestock was about Sir Edward El­lison's age, just twenty-four, but possessed of a certain elevation of sentiment to which the baronet was a stranger; he was besides, a young fellow of a temper naturally impetuous and daring, had reduced the various points of honour into an ab­solute system; and among the various points of polite education in which he excelled, he was universally allowed by his acquaintance to be one of the best swordsmen in this kingdom. A man of this cast therefore, was the most improper person in the world to be consulted in an exigence where the honour of his family and the happiness of his sister were at stake. Mr. Lestock however, was in too distracted a situation of mind to give a serious consideration to consequences: on the contrary, he rather aggravated matters than softened them; and desired his son the instant he came down, to take a ride over to Sir Edward's, to talk to him about his barbarity to Theodosia; and to persuade him, if possible, into a performance of those en­gagements, [Page 49] which formerly subsisted between him and his unfortunate daughter.

CAPTAIN LESTOCK scarcely heard his father out, than flying to his horse, he instantly set off for Sir Edward's, boiling with rage, and deter­mined to call the perfidious baronet to the severest account, unless he made the most ample satisfaction to his sister and the whole family. Fraught with sentiments of this nature he arrived at Sir Edward's house, and found him unluckily at home. At the first mention of his name, captain Lestock was ad­mitted; a few minutes however were wasted in that idle parade of an affected good-breeding, which the custom of this country has rendered absolutely necessary to be observed between the greatest ene­mies. Sir Edward was rejoiced to see captain Lestock, though he was the only man existing whom he would wish to avoid; and captain Lestock with the most obliging solicitude enquired after Sir Edward's health, though he could that moment have taken him by the throat, and sacrificed him to the manes of his sister's murdered reputation.

AT last business was proceeded upon; and the captain expressed his utmost indignation at the treatment which Theodosia had received; and hoped the man of honour which Sir Edward had always proved himself, would immediately repair the injury he had committed, and prevent the dis­agreeable necessity of forcing that person to be an enemy, who was most in the world inclined to be his friend. Captain Lestock pronounced this with a [Page 50] tone and manner which were rather a little of the most peremptory. No-body could love a sister with more tenderness than the captain; his affec­tion therefore mingled with his pride, and his re­sentment possessed a kind of dignity, which the baronet who was to the full as proud a man as him­self, could by no means allow; the superiority which young Lestock seemed to claim upon this occasion, he therefore answered with a determined air, that, though he could not pretend to justify the part he had acted to miss Lestock, he never­theless could not bear to be bullied into any con­cessions; and would by no means do that at the request of her relations, which he did not think proper to perform at her own. An answer of this nature soon produced very desperate consequences; the captain gave Sir Edward but one alternative, an immediate marriage, or an immediate duel; the baronet accepted of the latter, and in less than three minutes was left dead on his own floor.

THE news of this affair reached the unfortu­nate Theodosia, even before the captain himself returned to his father's; but though that wretched young lady exclaimed against her perfidious lover in the most violent terms, before any measure was taken for punishing him, she was now utterly un­able to bear the news of his death; the remem­brance of his crime, was totally absorbed in the recollection of his misfortune; the elegance of his person, the softness of his address, and the vehe­mence of his passion, alone rose up to her imagi­nation, [Page 51] and filled her once more with tenderness and despair. In the confusion therefore which the whole family were in about her brother's safety, she took an opportunity of stabbing herself with a penknife, and died pronouncing the name of her adored Sir Edward Ellison. The affair however did not terminate here: Captain Lestock was tried for the murder of the baronet, and with much diffi­culty acquitted, while his unhappy father had the gout thrown into his stomach, in consequence of the agitation which he suffered, and was carried off lamenting that he ever had a passionate son, or an infatuated daughter.

THE moral which I would deduce from this little story shall be contained in the following ob­servations: The generality of people, when the reputaion of a sister sustains an injury, always look upon themselves as obliged to call the spoiler to an account who has thus infamously violated her, hon­our without recollecting that the very means which he seeks to redress her, is the surest method of rendering her miserable; and that she would a thousand times sooner see a dagger plunged into the heart of the man who stands up in her defence, than see the least accident whatsoever happen to the person who has so cruelly destroyed the tran­quility of her own. Highly soever as the women rail against a perfidious lover in the whirlwind of their fury, nevertheless they experience a multi­tude of moments in which the dear deceiver be­comes, if possible more exquisitely beloved on [Page 52] account of his very perfidy, and gains an additional empire over the heart of his injured mistress, from the only circumstance in nature which should en­title him to her everlasting abhorrence and con­tempt. For these reasons therefore, I would never advise a parent or a brother to take a manual re­venge on the man who injures his daughter or his sister with her own consent: if she has been weak enough to sacrifice her honour, she will be base enough to sacrifice her family; and therefore no­thing can be more absurd than to hazard a life in vindication of a woman, who all the time wishes the person may be murdered, who generously rises in her behalf, and labours for her redress.

NUMB. LXXV. Saturday, July 3.

THE following letter is the production of a young lady, and carries so much justice and good sense, that we insert it with pleasure, and take the liberty of soliciting her future correspondence.

NUMB. LXXVI. Saturday, July 10.

IT is a fine observation of the very learned and ingenious doctor Goldsmith, in the Vicar of Wakefield, an excellent Novel, with which he has lately obliged the public, that though the [Page 56] poorer part of mankind may in this world suffer more inconveniencies than the rich, still upon their entrance into another life, the joys of here­after will be enhanced by contrast, in proportion to their afflictions here; and that consequently there can be no room to suppose the least partiality in providence, since sooner or later those who are entitled to it's benignity are certain of meeting with an equal degree of favour from it's hand.

THIS reflexion must undoubtedly be considered as a masterly vindication of that exterior disparity in the dispensations of providence, at which our modern infidels seem to triumph with so unceas­ing a satisfaction; and it must as undoubtedly yield a sublime consolation to the bosom of wretchedness to think, that if the opulent are blessed with a con­tinual round of temporal felicity, they shall at least experience some moments of so superior a rapture in the immediate presence of their God, as will fully compensate for the seeming severity of their former situations.

YET though there are a variety of calamitous circumstances in which this reflexion must admi­nister the most lively consolation, nevertheles if we make a proper enquiry into the state of human nature we shall find, that in general the justice of providence can be fully vindicated without going to this remote and delicate consideration. It does not by any means follow, that because people are contracted in their fortunes, they should be wretched in their minds; nor does it by any means [Page 57] follow, that the greatness of their opulence should be put up as a criterion of their content.

THE principal number of those hydraheaded evils with which we perpeutally torment our­selves, are the mere effect of a ridiculous pride, or a narrow understanding. Actuated by one or the other of these unfortunate causes, we are busy in creating an endless round of imaginary difficulties, as if the numberless accidents to which we are naturally exposed were not in themselves abun­dantly sufficient to imbitter the little span of our sublunary durations, and to dash the short-lived moments of satisfaction, with anxiety and distress.

THE generality of mankind when they take a survey of the world, are apt to estimate by the gradations of rank the gradations of happiness; hence next to a man with a coach and six, we think he must necessarily be the greatest object of envy who keeps a coach and four; after this we rank a chariot and pair, and think that person in­deed possesses but a little share of felicity who can­not afford an hour or two's excursion in an hum­ble hack, or take an eighteen-penny fare in occa­sional sedan.

LOOK on the other side the scene, and see how amazingly the picture is altered. The pride of coronetted pomp continually languishes for the peaceful cottage of rustic obscurity; and the man who has a hundred downy pillows at his command, imagines that repose is only to be [Page 58] met with in the peasant's solitary shed. Thus all of us discontented with the lot which we really possess, and languishing for the state with which we are utterly unacquainted, it is no wonder that many inconsiderate people endeavour by an act of suicide to throw off the severity of their own yoke, and to get free from a weight of oppressions which is constantly becoming more and more insupport­able through the folly of themselves.

YET as in the extensive round of the most elaborate investigation, we generally find the rich as discontented with their lot as the poor; we must naturally conclude, that the great author of all things has even in this world designed a pretty equal degree of happiness for his creatures, not­withstanding the evident disparity of their situa­tions. Indeed if we saw felicity in proportion to opulence, or could measure the real enjoyments of life by the standard of rank, we might reasonably imagine that the poor were not to receive their share of the divine benignity till they were going to possess it in a glorious eternity; but when we see that the meanest labourer in the street reaps as much pleasure over his underbred amusement as the first nobleman in the kingdom can possibly boast from the politest entertainment; and when we see the first make as hearty a dinner on a single shin of beef, as the latter ever enjoys at a table of fifty covers, we cannot but suppose that the com­mon lot of mankind is nearly alike; and that all the impious accusations which have arisen from [Page 59] an imaginary partiality in providence, are the mere result of an ignorant pride, or the consequence of an affectation, no less destructive to our reputation in this world, than injurious to our felicity in the next.

UPON the whole, however, if we consider that let our lot in this life be never so severe, it is still infinitely better than what we are entitled to from our own deserts; if we reflect that every blessing which is showered upon us by the hand of heaven, is a blessing which proceeds from the excess of it's own goodness, and does not arise from any im­mediate merit in us: I say, if we consider these things with a proper degree of weight, and follow the dictates of that conviction which they must instantly strike upon our minds, we shall soon see that till we deserve the favour of existing at all, we cannot deserve to have our lives rendered com­fortable in this probationary state; and that of course we ought to be thankful to the Deity for such instances of his benignity, as he may think proper to distinguish us with, instead of blasphe­mously murmuring that he does not honour us with more.

NUMB. LXXVII. Saturday, July 17.

THE term world is a word which every body uses to signify the circle of his own acquaint­ance; and which the meanest plebeian of the [Page 60] community has as frequently in his mouth as the greatest personage in the kingdom. The man of fashion confines the world entirely to the elegant card-tables, and well-bred assemblies which he frequents. The soldier to the customary licenti­ousness in which the gentlemen of the army are indulged; the lawyer to the clamour of West­minister-hall; and the merchant to the most dex­trous method of driving a bargain. Thus in fact the world is not the general state of nature, but the narrow little circle of our own connections; and thus, instead of judiciously endeavouring to extend the scanty limits of our knowledge, we mislead ourselves into an opinion that we already know every thing; and sink into an absolute ig­norance of the most essential points, from an absurd supposition of being perfectly acquainted with them all.

I REMEMBER about thirty years ago, when my old acquaintance Tom Welbank first came from the university, that there was scarcely a company which he went into for six months, but what con­sidered him as a fool or a madman. Tom lodged at an uncle's near the Hay-market, who lived in a very genteel manner, and frequently saw the best company. This uncle having no children himself, had adopted Mr. Welbank as his son; and con­ceiving from the reports which the university of Oxford gave of his nephew's erudition, a very high opinion of the young gentleman's abilities, he made a party on purpose to display the talents [Page 61] of his boy, who was previously advised to exert himself on the occasion. The company consisted of two noblemen in the ministry, an eminent di­vine, a celebrated physician, a dramatic writer of reputation, the late Mr. Pope, and lady Mary Wortley Montague.

THE time before dinner was passed in one of those unmeaning random sorts of conversation with which people generally fill up the tedious in­terval to an entertainment; but after the cloth was taken away poor Tom was singled out by lady Mary, who asked him with the elegant in­trepidity of distinction, if he did not think London a much finer place than Oxford. Tom replied, that if her ladyship meant the difference in size or magnificence of building, there could be no possibility of a comparison; but if she confined herself to the fund of knowledge which was to be acquired at either of the places, the advantage lay entirely in favour of Oxford; this reply he deli­vered in a tone confident enough, but rather ele­vated with the dignity of academical declamation; however, it would have passed tollerably, had he not endeavoured to blaze out all at once with one of those common-place eulogiums on classical lite­rature, which we are so apt to meet with in a mere scholar quite raw from an university. In this harangue upon the benefits of education, he ran back to all the celebrated authorities of antiquity, as if the company required any proof of that nature to support the justice of his argument; and did [Page 62] not conclude without repeated quotations from the Greek and Latin writers, which he recited with an air of visible satisfaction. Lady Mary could not forbear a smile at his earnestness, and turning about to Mr. Pope, ‘I think, Sir, (says she in a half suppressed whisper) Mr. Welbank is a pretty scholar, but he seems a little unacquainted with the world.’ Tom who overheard this whisper was about to make some answer, when Mr. Pope asked him, if there were any new poetical geniuses rising at Oxford. Tom upon this seemed to gain new spirits, and mentioned Dick Townly who had wrote an epigram on Chloe; Ned Frodsham who had published an ode to spring; and Harry Knowles who had actually inserted a smart copy of verses on his bedmaker's sister, in one of the weekly chronicles. Mr. Pope wheeled about with a significant look to lady Mary, and returned the whisper by saying, ‘I think indeed, madam, that Mr. Welbank does not seem to know a great deal of the world.’

ONE of the statemen seeing Tom rather dis­concerted, kindly attempted to relieve him by ex­pressing a surprise that so many learned men as composed the university of Oxford should seem so generally disaffected to the government. He ob­served, it was strange that learning should ever lean to the side of tyranny; and hinted, that they could never fall into so gross an error, if instead of poring perpetually over the works of the an­tients, they now and then took a cursory dip into [Page 63] the history of England. There was a justice in this remark which poor Tom being unable answer, was at a considerable loss to withstand; however, thinking himself obliged to say something, he ran out in praise of all the antient historians, and con­cluded with a compliment to the good sense of the university in giving them so proper a preference to the flimsey productions of the moderns. The nobleman turned away with disgust, and it was the general opinion of the table, that Tom would make a pretty fellow when he knew a little more of the world.

THE deduction which I would make from the foregoing little narrative is, that people before they think themselves acquainted with the world should endeavour to obtain a general knowledge of men and things, instead of narrowly drawing their no­tions from any one profession, or any particular circle of acquaintance; they may perhaps laugh at all the world, but all the world will be sure of laughing at them; and the general ridicule of every body is much more alarming than the private de­rision of any one.

NUMB. LXXVIII. Saturday, July 24.

NOTHING is more commonly met with in the world than an affectation of liberality where people are notoriously narrow in disposition; and where captivated with the charms of a ge­nerous [Page 64] behaviour, they even force the natural lit­tleness of their tempers into some aukward act of reluctant benevolence.

I SUPPED last night, in consequence of a pres­sing invitation, at the house of a gentleman near Pall-mall, who is always endeavouring to establish a character for generosity, though there is scarcely a circumstance in which he does not manifestly betray the avaricious cast of his temper, and ex­pose himself to the contempt of the very person upon whom he endeavours to confer an obliga­tion.

THERE were eighteen of us at supper, but not the sign of a petticoat in company: our eatables were remarkably elegant: the table was covered with every expensive rarity of the season, and I do not suppose the expence could be less from the variety and cost of the dishes, that ten or a dozen pounds. Yet notwithstanding so much magnificence on one side of the question, our liquor consisted of no more than two bottles of sour port, a little jar of Welch ale, and a small bowl of brandy and water: as for lights, though the room was very spacious, we had no more than an humble pair of tallow eights to the pound, which were almost lost in a couple of superb candlesticks, which the master of the house with an air of negligence informed us, were a great bargain, and had cost him no more than a hundred guineas at Mr. Grimstead's, the great toyshop near St. Paul's.

[Page 65]FOR my own part, there are few people who drink less claret and burgundy than myself, or who indeed indulge themselves less in any extraor­dinary freedoms with the glass. When a young man I never considered intoxication as an ap­pendage to gentility; and now that I have ad­vanced pretty far into the vale of years, I should look upon the smallest excess to be unpardonable. A grey-headed drunkard is to me a character no less of abhorrence than contempt: since he must indeed be the worst of all profligates, who jests with the mandates of his maker, while he stands tottering on the very verge of eternity. Notwith­standing this declaration, I must acknowledge my­self extremely displeased with the mixture of pa­rade and parsimony, which was conspicuous in our entertainment. I expected at least that matters would have been of a piece; and really wished, that a little part of the profusion which appeared at supper, had been spared to furnish a tollerable bottle of wine for the conclusion of the evening.

NEXT to great art of regulating our appear­ance either at home or abroad by the standard of our circumstances, nothing is so sure of maintain­ing us on a respectable footing with the world, as a constant uniformity in our dress and enter­tainments. Should we see a knight of the garter with his ribband across a livery coat, or perceive a man in an embroidered suit of velvet with a dirty pair of worsted stockings, our ridicule would be very naturally excited, and half the boys in [Page 66] town would probably hoot after the first as a fool, or the latter as a madman. In like manner those who give fifty covers at an entertainment, should make a proportionable figure in the choice of their wines; and those for ever avoid burgundy and champaign, who treat with nothing more than a simple veal cutlet, or an humble beef stake.

ONE of the most extraordinary mixtures of parsimony and parade, whom I ever remember to have known, was poor Jack Greedy; Jack made it a constant point to take four box tickets in public company, for the late Mr. Ryan's benefit, declaring his high regard for the character of that worthy man, but always demanding the odd shilling out of the guinea. If any of his friends wanted a sum of money, he never scrupled to lend it with­out interest, though at the same time he teized them everlastingly with what it would produce in the funds. No gold did he ever give in charity, but what was considerably deficient in weight: and once when he made his borough a present of a town clock, he charged the corporation with the carriage from London. Thus doing things continually by halves, and destroying, with a per­petual attention to the merest trifles, all the merit which he gained from the distribution of large sums, he sunk into universal contempt, and squan­dered away the principal part of his fortune to procure the character of a miser.

HIS neighbour, honest Will Frankly, was a man of quite a contrary temper, though possessed [Page 67] of scarcely half his fortune by doing things with a good grace, he obtained more applause from the disposal of a shilling, than the other did from a gift of fifty pounds. There was some­thing generously unostentatious about him, that gave the smallest act of benevolence an air of dig­nity; and by never seeming to demand the ad­miration of his friends, he was always certain of enjoying it. To Mr. Greedy the village gave no­thing more than a distant bow of unwilling re­spect; but to Mr. Frankly they were officiously forward to pull off their hats, and gazed at him till he was out of sight, with an air of visible satis­faction. Upon the whole, they were two striking proofs of the wise man's observation, that he who does a good action merely for the sake of virtue is always sure of that applause from the world, which the ostentatious man constantly loses, by aiming to raise his own reputation.

NUMB. LXXIX. Saturday, July 31.

THERE is a sentiment in Mr. Coleman's comedy of the Jealous Wife, with which I am not a little pleased, as it is no less an indication of a benevolent heart than a sound understanding. Harriet reproaching young Oakley on account of his extraordinary attachment to the bottle; the lover sensibly struck with the justice of the reproof, [Page 68] exclaims that were all ladies alike attentive to the morals of their admirers, a libertine would be an uncommon character.

INDEED if we take but ever so slight a view of the sexes, we shall find the behaviour of the one to depend so entirely upon the opinion of the other, that was either to set about a reformation, the amendment of both would be easily affected, and those virtues would be immediately cultivated through the prevalence of fashion, which neither the force of conviction, the dread of temporary misfortune, nor the terrors of everlasting misery, are now sufficient to steal upon our practice, even while they engage our veneration.

AS the ladies in general are more affected by the prevalence of immorality than the men; it often surprises me, that they do not endeavour to look those vices out of countenance among our sex, which are so frequently fatal to their own tranquility. A man, through the establishment of custom, considers it as infamous to marry a pro­stitute, to connect himself with a drunkard, or to pay his addresses to a woman whose lips are con­tinually fraught with indecency or execration; though accustomed himself to the midnight excesses of the stew, yet when he fixes for life, he enquires into the character of his mistress, and prosecutes his suit in proportion as she is eminent for her virtues. Her follies he readily laughs at, but over­looks by no means the smallest want of reputation. Whereas the lady, though bred up all her life in [Page 69] the strictest delicacy, expresses no repugnance what­soever to venture with the most public betrayer of innocence, the most open enemy of mankind, and the most daring defier of his God. Nay, unless he has been in some measure remarkable for the number and blackness of his vices, she holds him in contempt, and sets him down as an absolute ideot, if he is not intimately conversant with every thing that can either lessen him as a christian, or degrade him as a man.

WHAT, however, is most extraordinary on these occasions, is the facility with which a father usually contracts his daughter to a libertine; as if because custom did not involve her in the infamy of his character, his habitual propensity to vice must not necessarily endanger her happiness. For my own part, I am shocked when I saw a parent less regardful of a daughter's felicity, than atten­tive to the welfare of a son. Is there a father who would persuade his son into a marriage with a prostitute professed? I hope not; why then is his daughter so relentlessly sacrificed to a libertine? Is there not as much danger for the one to be miserable with her husband, as the other to be wretched with his wife? And since the natural claim to paternal indulgence is equal between each, must it not be highly inequitable to treat the first with such an excess of unmerited partiality?

I AM insensibly led into this subject from a perusal of some sermons, addressed to young women, which have lately made their appearance, and were [Page 70] yesterday put into my hands by my bookseller. Who the author is I know not, but he deserves the greatest encomiums, for the perspicuity of his stile, and the energy of his arguments; he is elegant without levity, and pious without affectation. In one of his discourses, where famale virtue is the object of consideration, he gives so admirable a lesson to the sex on account of this unhappy approbation with which the very best women so frequently honour a profligate lover, that I cannot but tran­scribe it for the benefit of my amiable readers.

‘HOW common is it to see young ladies, who pass for women of reputation, admitting into their company in public places, and that with visible tokens of civility and pleasure, men, whom the moment before they saw herding with creatures of infamous name! — Gracious God, what a defiance to the laws of piety, prudence, character, decorum! what an insult, in effect, to every man and woman of virtue in the world! what a palpable encouragement to vice and dishonour! what a desperate pulling down, in appearance, and with their own hands, of the only partition that divides them from the most profligate of their sex! between the bold and the abandoned woman there may still remain, notwithstanding such behaviour, a distinction in the world's eye; but we scruple not to declare, that religion, purity, delicacy, make none.’

‘TO return from this digression, if it be one, we will allow it possible to put cases wherein no [Page 71] particular rules of discovery, no determinate modes of judgment, will enable a young woman, by her own unassisted skill, to discern the dangers that lie in her way. But can a young woman be justly excused, or can she fairly excuse her­self, if, where all is at stake, she calls not in the joint aid of wise suspicion, friendly counsel, and grave experience, together with prayers for God's protection more than ordinarily servent?’

‘BUT, methinks, I heard some of you ask with an air of earnest curiosity, Do not reformed rakes then make the best of husbands? I am sorry for the question, I am doubly sorry, whenever it is started by a virtuous woman. I will not wound the ear of modesty by drawing minutely the cha­racter of a rake: but give me leave to answer your enquiry, by asking a question or two in my turn. In the first place, we will suppose a man of this character actually reformed, so far as to treat the woman he marries with every mark of tenderness, esteem, fidelity; and that he gives up for ever his old companions, at least as to any chosen intimacy, or preference of their company to hers. We grant it possible; we rejoice when it happens. It is certainly the best atonement that can be made for his former conduct. But now let me ask you, or rather let me desire you to ask your own hearts, without any regard to the opinions of the world, which is most desira­ble on the score of sentiment, on the score of that respect which you owe to yourselves, to your [Page 72] friends, to your sex, to order, rectitude, and honour; the pure unexhausted, affection of a man who has not by intemperance and debauch­ery corrupted his principles, impaired his consti­tution, enslaved himself to appetite, submitted to share with the vilest and meanest of mankind the mercenary embraces of harlots, contributed to embolden guilt, to harden vice, to render the retreat from a life of scandal and misery more hopeless; who never laid snares for beauty, ne­ver betrayed the innocence that trusted him, ne­ver abandoned any fond creature to want and despair, never hurt the reputation of a woman, never disturbed the peace of families, or defied the laws of his country, or set at nought the pro­hibition of his God; — which, I say, is most de­sirable, the affection of such a man, or that of him who has probably done all this, who has cer­tainly done a great part of it, and who has no­thing now to offer you, but the shattered remains of his health, and of his heart? How any of you may feel on this subject, I cannot say. But if, judging as a man, I believed, what I have often heard, that the generality of women would pre­fer the latter, I know not any thing that could sink them so low in my esteem.’

‘THAT he who has been formerly a rake may after all prove a tolerable good husband, as the world goes, I have said already that I do not dis­pute. But I would ask, in the next place, is this commonly to be expected? Is there no dan­ger [Page 73] that such a man will be tempted by the power of long habit to return to his old ways; or that the insatible love of variety, which he has in­dulged so freely, will some time or other lead him astray from the finest woman in the world▪ Will not the very idea of restraint, which he could never brook while single, make him only the more impatient of it when married? Will he have the better opinion of his wife's virtue, that he has conversed chiefly with women who had none, and with men amongst whom it was a favourite system, that the sex are all alike? — But it is a painful topic. Let the women who are so connected make the best of their condition; and let us go on to something else.’

THE scanty limits of my paper will not allow me to make as large an extract from this benevo­lent writer as I could wish. But I am the more easy on that account, as I dare say the generality of my readers, from the foregoing little specimen, will look upon his works as a very valuable addi­tion to their libraries.

NUMB. LXXX. Saturday, August 7.

THOUGH I have more than once in the course of my little animadversions, endea­voured to explode the preposterous custom of toast­ing, yet I have within this week met a circum­stance which has, if possible, encreased my aversion [Page 74] to the practice, and in a manner compelled me to resume the subject, however tedious the repetition may appear to some of my bon-vivant readers.

I DINED accidently a few days ago at a well-known coffee-house in the Strand, at the pressing request of my nephew Harry, who assured me that the company would be highly to my taste, for though the most of them were young fellows, yet there were very few by whom they were surpassed either in politeness or understanding. This assu­rance, joined to the regard which I always enter­tain for my boy's conversation, induced me to give a very ready acquiescence, and it is no more than justice to acknowledge, that Harry had not over rated the merit of his friends, notwithstanding the latitude of the foregoing character.

UNHAPPILY, however, just as we were circu­lating our jokes with the utmost good-humour, two or three gentlemen belonging to the army, who were intimately acquainted with some of our company, and overheard us from an adjoining room, sent in their compliments, and begged per­mission to join us, if we were not engaged about any particular business. This request was urged in too polite a manner to be refused, and we ac­cordingly sent word how much we thought our­selves obliged by so friendly a proposition. The addition to our company scarcely took place, when one of the most manly and sensible characters I ever conversed with, made his appearance pursuant to a promise which he had given to my Harry, [Page 75] attended by two young gentlemen, his sons, the eldest of whom did not seem to be quite eighteen. As the stranger carried a considerable degree of consequence in his very looks, he was received with a suitable respect, and conversation began to circulate even with an additional share of life, when our harmony was illiberally interrupted by a toast from one of the gentlemen in red, no less offensive to good-sense, than repugnant to good manners. I started with an equal mixture of sur­prise and indignation; but there was no describing the situation of Harry's friend, or the distress of the modest youths who accompanied him. The father seemed totally abashed at the company into which he introduced his sons; and the sons utterly unaccustomed to so lice [...]ious an example, were quite unable to hold up their heads; they sunk with confusion as if they had actually given an offence, instead of having received one; till entirely at a loss how to recover themselves they sensibly with­drew, and left the grown gentlemen to indulge themselves with ill-breeding and obscenity.

AMONG the numberless absurdities which, in this happy country, are kept up among our men of sense, the custom of confining vice to the ages of discretion is one of the most extraordinary. A person now-a-days is not allowed to be a pro­fligate till he arrives at one and twenty; as if, in proportion to the encrease of his understanding, he was to act diametrically repugnant to the prin­ciples of decency and virtue. An uninformed [Page 76] stripling must by no means, either presume to swear, or talk smuttily; his father will correct him severely for the licentiousness, and he will be looked upon with contempt or abhorrence by all his acquaint­ance. The father himself however may utter the most shocking blasphemies, and ransack the stews for the reddest obscenities of a brutal imagination. He is old enough to know the profligacy of the practice; and is sensible how offensive it is both to politeness and religion, to the laws of his country, and the ordinances of his God.

I HAVE been often surprised that in a nation which values itself so justly upon the character of it's good sense, there should be still such palpable remains of barbarity; what can be a greater re­flexion either on our morals or our breeding, than the custom of driving our wives and children out of the room immediately after dinner, and telling them we are going to begin a conversation which is utterly improper for their ears. Shall men, who pretend either to manners or to virtue, enter upon such discourses as are dangerous to their children, or shocking to their wives! shall it be said that a child is not to be trusted with his own father, for fear of being corrupted; nor a woman permitted to enjoy a social hour with her own husband, for fear of some palpable affront. — Yes it must be said — yes it must be mentioned to the everlasting disgrace of the civilized people of Eng­land, that they are utterly unable to pass an even­ing without the most infamous indulgence of ob­senity [Page 77] and execration; and that the happiness of their convivial entertainments is always estimated in proportion, as they debase the dignity of their understandings, and violate the mandates of their God.

A VERY laudable association has been lately set on foot in several places of this kingdom, to raise the wages of our honest servants, and to abolish the inhospitable custom of making our friends continually pay for their entertainment. Infinitely would it be to the honour of those gentlemen who so generously exert themselves in the cause of hos­pitality, if they also stood up in defence of true politeness and real virtue. Dissipated as the pre­sent age is, a few examples would produce an uni­versal reformation; and I dare be bold enough to affirm, that the purposes of rational festivity would be much better answered, should such a regulation happily take place; when men begin to throw off decency, they soon throw off all esteem for one another; and few retain any regard for their friends, when they wantonly sacrifice every con­sideration for themselves. Whereas by an ob­servance of good-breeding we should always main­tain our friendships, and enjoy what Pope finely calls ‘The feast of reason and the flow of soul,’ Where we are now filled with disgust, or sunk into all the excesses of brutality.

NUMB. LXXXI. Saturday, August 14.

NUMB. LXXXIII. Saturday, August 28.

NUMB. LXXXIV. Saturday, September 4.

IT is a privilege with the greatest number of those people who entertain a high notion of their own wit, to rail for-ever at the only institu­tion upon which the happiness of all Society is founded; and to pour out an incessant torrent of ridicule upon poor matrimony, though they owe their own existence to the establishment of that [Page 100] sacred ordinance. The motive indeed which the generality of our Libertines assign for this aversion to marriage is, that the rite is a restraint upon all their other enjoyments, and that the moment a man devotes himself to one woman, that moment he is obliged not only to alter the former tenor of his conduct, but to put up with every petulance of the lady's temper, however unreasonable she may be in her requests, or however arbritary she may be in the exercise of her authority.

FOR my own part, though I have hitherto continued an old batchelor, I have yet seen but few women who rule with an improper authority over their husbands; nor can I entertain any high notions of the man's understanding, who once makes it a doubt whether or no he should be able to maintain that connubial pre-eminence in his own family, which he receives from the hand of reason and the custom of his country. If he pos­sesses but a dawn of sense, the object of his choice will be such as can give him no cause to appre­hend any turbulence of disposition; and if he pos­sesses but a dawn of spirit, he will always have it in his power to prevent any disagreeable exertion of it, even in case he should be unhappily deceived.

THE pleasantest argument of all, however, is the necessity which a married man is under of forsaking all those enjoyments, which while he was a batchelor created the principal part of his felicity. Yet surely if those enjoyments are repugnant to reason, the sooner he forsakes them [Page 101] the better, since it never can be too early a period to regain the paths of discretion and virtue; and if they are not opposite to the dictates of prudence, he must be a very pusillanimous fellow indeed, who could once dream of giving them up. In fact, those men are always for finding fault with the poor women, who are conscious of imperfec­tions in themselves; whereas men of sense being determined to proceed on a rational plan, are con­stantly desirous of doing justice to the merit of the ladies, and never preposterously suppose that they are destitute either of benevolence or understanding.

THE general run of our Libertines, though they are much too sensible and much too spirited to put up with any impropriety in the behaviour of a worthy woman, nevertheless submit with the greatest chearfulness imaginable to any treatment which a woman of the Town thinks proper to give them, and bless their stars with a kind of rapture that they are not husbands: — This is in plain English, they rejoice that they are not obliged by the laws of their country to bear a merited reproach from the lips of a deserving wife, though the narrowness of their minds and the baseness of their spirits, can induce them so readily to put up with the most impudent airs of a despicable strum­pet, and to crouch with an infamous servility at her feet.

SAM. SQUANDER is a melancholy proof of this assertion: Sam at the age of twenty came into an affluent fortune, and launched into all the [Page 102] licentious dissipations which generally captivate young men of opulent circumstances. Fearful that his pleasures, if folly and vice may be called pleasures, would be manacled by the silken bands of wedlock, he declared himself an early enemy to marriage, and has continued to this hour, when he is near as old a fellow as myself, without even wishing to taste the sweets of a domestic felicity. Yet though averse to an honourable connection with the sex, he could not exist without some fe­minine attachment; attentive therefore to the mere gratifications of sense, he singled out a fa­vourite nymph from the purlieus of Drury-lane, took her publicly to his house, and has cohabited with her now above thirty years. A more un­governable termagant probably never lived; yet Sam is quite happy he is not married. She has more than once been detected in an amour with his footmen; but what of that, Sam put it up, she was not his wife. If she throws a glass at his head, which is sometimes the case, or confines him within doors for a fortnight, it is no matter, Sam is still happy, and laughs at any of his ac­quaintance who go home at twelve o'clock, for fear of making their wives uneasy, by a longer absence from their families. One thing indeed makes him miserable, he has two sons by this in­famous woman, of whom he is passionately fond, and the reflexion that his estate must go into ano­ther line for want of a ligitimate offspring, is a circumstance which renders him constantly unhap­py, [Page 103] even in his fortunate state of batchelorship: so that I believe if the truth were known, Sam is secretly of opinion with me, that a good wife is the first of all the human felicities; and that the greatest of all fools is he who puts up with the numberless vices of a profligate woman, through a fear of meeting some natural imperfections in a woman of intrinsic merit and character.

NUMB. LXXXV. Saturday, September 11.

NUMB. LXXXVI. Saturday, September 18.

IT has been justly observed by a very sensible writer, that there is nothing in the world which possesses more humility than pride; and no­thing [Page 108] which induces us to make more unnecessary concessions to other people, than a desire of en­hancing the importance of ourselves. This vanity leads us into a thousand absurdities, and not sel­dom into a number of vices; to expose it therefore shall be the business of the present paper, and if I can make but one reader a little ashamed of his low-minded exaltation, I shall do more essential service than if I had employed half a century in the more elegant purposes of that delicate amusement, where sober instruction is sacrificed to a prettiness of stile, and the imagination kept perpetually alive at the total expence of the understanding.

MY nephew, Harry Rattle, called upon me yesterday, and told me, if I would pass the even­ing with him at the Cardigan Head, he did not doubt but what I should meet with a sufficient subject for a paper or two, as he was engaged in a party where there were to be some extraordinary characters. Having nothing very material on my hands, I assented to his proposal, and calling upon him about seven o'clock in a hackney coach, we went together to the tavern, where all his friends were already assembled, and good naturedly la­menting the want of his company.

THE first person who attracted my observation was a young fellow of about thirty, drest in regi­mentals, whom I found to he a Captain of Dra­goons, and who, it seems, had raised himself from the humble station of a quarter master to the command of a troop, merely by the bravery of his [Page 109] behaviour in the celebrated battle of Minden. I had not been in company many minutes before I saw this gentleman entertained the highest notions imaginable of his own importance: when he spoke it was with an air of visible superiority; he as­sumed a dignity of look, and an indifference of accent, as if he conferred a prodigious favour in in every syllable he uttered; and took care to loose no opportunity of informing us what a num­ber of the first nobility he had the honour of ranking amongst his most intimate acquaintance. If any body differed from his opinion, he had canvassed the point with lord such a thing, but the day before; and as to secrets of a political nature, no man in the kingdom knew more of the most private transactions of government. He had called upon a certain Earl in the morning, who let him into some matters of the first consequence; and dined with a noble Duke, who assured him, that there would be no change whatsoever in the ministry. In short, let the conversation turn upon what it would, he bore down all opposition with, some right honourable friend of his; and thought it an unaccountable presumption, in any person who did not allow a nobleman's name to have more weight than an absolute matter of fact in an argument.

WHEN Harry and I were returning home, he gave me the Captain's history in nearly the fol­lowing words. ‘The Captain, says he, though an honest and a brave man at bottom, is never­theless [Page 110] such a compound of arrogance and ser­vility, that I am often at a loss to know which he most deserves, our resentment or our contempt. Originally bred in obscurity, he conceives a sort of adoration for every man with a title; and to be admitted into the company of a Lord, is mean enough to put up with all the insolence of corona [...]ed pride, and even stoops to run on the most pitiful errands, for the satisfaction of being reckoned among the number of it's acquain­tance. Yet this assiduity to oblige the great is not sufficient to preserve him even from their ridicule; they see from what trivial motive his attachment arises, and treat him with more dis­respect than the lowest of their footmen, because they know his pride will not suffer him, on any account, to discontinue his attendance. Thus his vanity defeats it's own purposes— Instead of encreasing his consequence, it renders him ut­terly despicable, and makes him no less a jest to his superiors, than to those who are merely on a footing with himself.’

‘THAT little man of whom you took notice of in black (continued Harry) is also a dupeto his own vanity, but that vanity is intirely of a dif­ferent sort; he wants to pass upon the world as a man of prodigious understanding; and to gain this important end, he is continually com­mencing an acquaintance with every author of reputation to whom he can get introduced, from a strange supposition that his friends will [Page 111] encrease their estimation of his abilities, in proportion to the intimacy of such a con­nection. It is incredible to think with what a humility of deference he courts a man of let­ters on this account. He praises him to the skies in all companies, and repeats a poem with the most fulsome adulation, even before the face of the very author. An opinion of his own he never pretends to; nor does he once presume to have a will in the most trifling transaction — Pinning his faith entirely on the sleeves of his literary directors, he squares his religious principles by the writings of his theological friends; and regulates what con­cerns his health, by the productions of his phy­sical acquaintance. His taste he conforms to the standard which is set up by the professors of Belle Lettres — And let that standard be ne­ver so absurd, he adopts it for fear of being discarded for the insolence of a dissent. Indeed this complaisance often involves him in no trifling difficulties; for if two of the literati should happen to disagree, he is puzzled how to act; if he takes part with one, he is sure of destroying himself in the estimation of the other, and it is no easy circumstance in such a case to conciliate the good opinion of both. I once knew (proceeded Harry) when two doctors of his acquaintance were called in to attend him in a fit of the gout — Each proposed a different method of treating, his case, and [Page 112] neither would submit to the arguments of his competitor. In this dilemma he resolved to comply with the presciptions of both; therefore, lapping up his feet in a rye poultice, according to the advice of one, he took an elixer which was recommended to him by the other, and was very near being carried off by the injudi­cious application of such opposite medicines. This, however, is not all—His conscience, like his health, is sacrificed to the mandate of the theologist in company. Hence he is by turns a Protestant and a Dissenter; if there happens to be more than one sect, he is a jumble of each; and sometimes, with a party of Free­thinkers, he has no religion at all.’ From these little anecdotes (concluded Harry) we may easily see that nothing is so sure of rendering us contemptible, as a ridiculous vanity of stealing a reputation from the consequence of others, especi­ally wherea goodness of heart, and an attention to the sentiments of modest plain sense, are so certain of building up the noblest character for ourselves.

NUMB. LXXXVII. Saturday, September 25.

AS there are none of my readers for whose happiness I am more solicitous than the younger part of my female purchasers, I must now and then be excused, if I should write a pa­per wholly for their instruction; cut off from [Page 113] that general intercourse with the world, which the other sex to universally enjoy, they stand in­finitely more in need of advice, and endued with an infinitely greater share of sensibility, they are more likely to retain it than the men, who look upon the finer feelings as a kind of disgrace to their spirit, and imagine that the least regard to the sentiments of any body else is the greatest insult that can possibly be offered to their own understandings.

IT is with no little indignation, that I fre­quently hear the capacity of the ladies ridiculed by the wits of the other sex; and even find that the gravest of our modern writers look upon an enlarged education, rather as a prejudice than benefit to the most beautiful part of the human creation; for my own part, I can by no means see how cultivating the mind can be in the least prejudicial to the morals; nor discover how a woman can be rendered more unfit for the man­agement of a family, by acquiring an additional share of knowledge and discretion. I readily grant, that a famale pedant is of all pedants the most intolerable, and that nothing is so likely to dis­turb the judgment as a superficial acquaintance, either with the languages or the sciences; but a progressive and well grounded instruction in the useful parts of literature must always be produc­tive of benefit, and must always give an equal encrease of understanding to either of the sexes.

[Page 114]NOTWITHSTANDING this declaration how­ever, there is one branch of education, which even the wits themselves think the ladies cannot attain too early, that I wish with all my heart was delayed till they arrive at years of discre­tion, and began to form notions of the world with some little degree of propriety. I the more readily express this wish, because the protraction of the branch I allude to, can by no means be prejudicial, either to their interest, their morals, or their capacities. The part of education which I am here so desirous of keeping a con­siderable time from the ladies, is nothing more than the knowledge of writing: I do not know that a young woman has a greater enemy in the world than an ink-stand, and many a parent who boasts of the rapidity with which his daughter now improves in the art of writing, may in a year or two have a very lamentable motive for wishing that she never learned to write at all.

A YOUNG woman now-a-days, let her be never so homely, scarcely reaches her fifteenth or sixteenth year, but what some body takes an opportunity of pouring the fascinating lan­guage of adulation into her ear; and it rarely happens that this somebody is the person, who if a treaty of marriage was proposed, would meet with the approbation of her family: naturally credulous at so early a period, the most distant compliment is actually set down as a positive declaration, and the man is exalted into a first [Page 115] love, as it is called, for behaving with little more perhaps than an ordinary share of civility: the consequence therefore generally is that an amour ensues, and the place of personal interviews is supplied by a literary correspondence; Miss, while her doating relations suppose that she is reading some pious meditation, is most devoutly em­ployed in the composition of darts and daggers to her Strephon: and setting her imagination on fire with the thoughts of a husband, when her infatuated father believes that her very motion to use the language of the poet, blushes at itself, and is certain, that she would sink into the earth, if a man was to look her in the face with any extraordinary degree of steadiness. A girl at six­teen is most commonly as desirous of being thought a woman, as when a woman of forty, wishes to be a girl of sixteen. Attentive to nothing but the impulse either of her passion or her vanity, the dear creature of a man probably receives half a dozen letters a day, till his vanity blazes the matter about, and her deluded parents find their lovely little innocent has very vehement desires under all that specious veil of simplicity; and burns for the possession of a bed-fellow, notwith­standing all her terrors, if a man but accidently comes into her company.

IN reality a woman of this country has very few occasions for the art of writing, but to carry on a literary correspondence; and this correspon­dence is always begun so very early, and directed [Page 116] so very injudiciously, that it is generally unhappy in the end. A woman can have no occasion to correspondend with a lover, who meets the appro­bation of her family, and nothing can be more imprudent or dangerous than to correspond with a man who does not; but besides the imprudence and the danger of writing to young fellows, there is a disgrace always attending such a circumstance, which I am surprized does not more frequently deter a lady from committing the indiscretion. The men, however, just in their engagements with one another, are most commonly unjust in their connection with the other sex; the glory of being esteemed by an amiable woman is too much to be concealed; a bosom friend must be trusted with the important secret; and this bo­som friend has his confidant, with whom it must of course be deposited; so that while the unsus­pecting fair one believes her reputation is care­fully locked up in the bosom of her adorer, she is the general subject of conversation with fifty other fellows, and is profligately jested with per­haps in half the taverns of the kingdom. Many a sensible woman when she has reached two or three and twenty, has blushed for her epistles of sixteen; and sickened when she has married a man of intrinsic worth, at the bare recollection of the power which some rascal may possibly possess of exposing the weakness of her earlier years. For these reasons therefore, I cannot but think that a hasty introduction of a girl to paper and [Page 117] pens, is as injudicious a measure as a parent can fall into. She can at any time get a messenger to carry a letter, when fear or shame will prevent her from applying to any person to write one; if therefore parents would be a little more attentive in teaching their daughters to read and spell with propriety, than anxious about the goodness of their hand-writing, they would improve their minds considerably more, and keep them from a number of temptations which often prove too powerful both for their pride and their virtue.

NUMB. LXXXVIII. Saturday, October 2.

THERE is no supposition more absurd, than that which is generally made by the world in savour of learned men; a profound scholar, we imagine, must of course be a person of [...]ncommon wisdom; and the more his head is fraught with unnecessary knowledge, the mo [...]e we encrease in our veneration of his abilities. Learning however is a thing widely different from wisdom; a man may be deeply versed in all the mysteries of a classical erudition, and yet at the same time scarcely possess a grain of common understanding; whereas on the contrary, he may be master of an excel­lent judgment without knowing a single syllable of Greek or Hebrew; and be able to manage the most intricate concern, though he has never seen so much as the eight humble parts of speech in [Page 118] Lilly or Whettenal. That knowledge in fact is most useful, which is best calculated to carry us through the world with ease and reputation; and as learning itself was instituted for no other pur­poses, we must allow that it fails of attaining it's most salutary views where it is merely em­ployed in the vain pursuits of a ridiculous parade, or an idle speculation.

INDEED if there was no commerce whatso­ever to be carried on between mankind, and if there was no necessity for the scholars of an academy ever to make an essay on the great stage of life in the parts of men, it might be right enough to breed our children up in a total ignorance of all worldly affairs; but when, as I have just hinted, it is with the professed intention of enabling them to appear with a tollerable grace in this important theatre, that we give them an education, nothing surely can be more preposterous, than to employ them entirely in those studies which render such an appearance additionally difficult, and give them rather a disgust than an inclination to put on their respective characters.

THESE reflexions I have been insensibly led into by recollecting some anecdotes of my poor friend Dick Thornhill, of St. John's in the Uni­versity of Cambridge. Dick being in possession of a very pretty fortune, used to console himself prodigiously whenever he heard any body talk about the stocks, that none of his money was employed in the business of Government▪ He [Page 119] imagined, that in proportion to the encrease of these political barometers, the burden of the sub­jects were encreased; and believed, that instead of receiving so much per cent for the use of his pro­perty, he actually paid so much for having it pro­tected. In this sensible manner he still continues to go on, and laughs very heartily at the fools, as he calls them, who wantonly throw away such prodigious sums of money, merely that others may take care of those affairs, which he says, they can manage so very easily themselves.

I WAS standing a few days ago at the shop of a second-hand bookseller in a populous part of this metropolis, where I often meet with an odd volume of some antiquated author, and have sometimes the pleasure of seeing my own works rusting in all the peaceable dulness of the most perfect obscurity: The bookseller, agreeable to the practice of his trade, has his various old vo­lumes classed into different arrangements, and at the head of each the price is affixed, to avoid being pestered with the questions of occasional purchasers. My old friend Dick happening acci­dentally to come up—he made a full stand, and be­ing struck with the appearance of a thick actavo which lay under the fourpenny catalogue, he asked the man if he would take a shilling for that book, to which the conscientious shopkeeper answering in the affirmative, he marched off with an air of visible satisfaction, and I suppose thought he had met with a very tolerable bargain.

[Page 120]THE pleasantest story however, which I have heard for a long time of my old friend, was one which was mentioned to me yesterday evening at the coffee-house; Dick it seems the day before was going through Clare-market, where, acciden­tally struck with the sight of a nice shoulder of lamb, a joint of which he is particularly fond, he asked a good woman to whom it belonged, what was the price of it, she answered six groats; ‘six groats (returned Dick a little peevishly,) do you imagine, mistress, that people pick up their money in the streets? six groats indeed! at one word I will give you half a crown for it;’ well, Sir, (replied the woman) I will not haggle with a customer; so taking the half crown, she tossed the lamb into a basket, and sent it to Dick's lodgings, who plumed himself not a little upon his address as a market-man. Mr. Thornhill, notwithstanding all this, is a very excellent scholar, few young fellows ever left the University with greater credit than himself. But unhappily poring over the customs of Greece and Rome, when he ought to have made some little acquaintance with the manners of his own country, he is as much a stranger to the common transactions of life, as if he had been bred up to the present moment in a wilderness! and was now let loose upon the world for the mere entertainment of society. Unable to converse with any company but those who, like himself, are elevated on the aukward stilts of a merely classical education, he despises every body [Page 121] who is not a proficient in the dead languages; and in return, meets with nothing but the general aversion of the people whom he treats with this general contempt. Upon the whole, his very best friends pity his total ignorance of the world, and lament that so honest a fellow as he is in the main, should be such a torment to himself, such a trouble to every body else, and such a useless member of society. In short, if it were possible for him to change all his learning for the experi­ence of the barber's boy who attends him, they think he would be a considerable gainer by the bargain; though this poor fellow is the constant object of his ridicule, and one of the people whom he incessantly bandies about with significant sen­tences of Greek and Latin from some of his fa­vourite authors.

NUMB. LXXXIX. Saturday, October 9.

WALKING in the park a few mornings ago with my nephew Harry, a gentleman of a very prepossessing appearance came up, and shaking Harry with the utmost cordiality by the hand, in­sisted upon his going to dine with him, with a friendly sort of peremptoriness; and in a manner extremely polite, begged the favour of my company. As I found Harry accepted the invitation readily, I bowed my assent to it likewise, and after taking a turn or two more, we set out for the gentle­man's [Page 122] house, in the neighbourhood of Great George-street, and amused ourselves in his library, which was judiciously furnished, till the summons arrived for dinner, about four o'clock. We were then conducted to an elegant dining room, where we found an excellent family dinner, and where I had the honour of being introduced to a most ami­able young lady, whom I took to be the sister of our host, but who, upon an enquiry, I found to be unhappily no less than his daughter.

I SAY unhappily no less than his daughter, because I am pefectly of opinion with the late excellent Mr. Richardson, that a gay young fel­low of eight or nine and thirty, is a very impro­per person to be the father of a young woman of eighteen or nineteen. Full of life and levity him­self, he is unable to pay a proper attention to the felicity of his child; and if he chances to be a man of the town, like my nephew's friend, he treats her in a manner that must either excite her conti­nual detestation, or destroy that purity of principle, which only can lay a solid foundation for the estab­lishment of her future happiness and reputation.

Mr. MEDLICOAT, the gentleman with whom we dined, piques himself, as he is so juvenile a father to so grown a young lady, upon behaving to her as if she was no relation whatsoever, and is never so happy as when a stranger at any pub­lic place, seems to take him for one of her admir­ers: during the time of dinner, he enjoyed my mis­conception excessively, and heard me once or [Page 123] twice say his sister, without offering to rectify my mistake. This however I could have chearfully over-looked, had not his conversation, even before the servants, been of a nature so extremely inde­licate, that there was scarce a possibility of sitting at table. An odious round of the most palpa­ble double [...]entendre was frequently offered to our attention; the nocturnal excesses of which he had been guilty the last week, were related with an air of triumph; and he even went so far as to mention the name of some celebrated courtezans, with whom he had the honour of an acquaintance.

ALL this time the poor young lady sat in the most mortifying state of distress; cut to the very soul of her sensibility, yet unable either to retire, or to mention how greatly she was affected with this intollerable behaviour of her father. My Harry, however, took the very first opportunity of relieving her; for, the moment the cloth was removed, he begged Mr. Medlicoat would shew us the fine hunter which he had purchased a few days before, from a noted dealer in Yorkshire. Mr. Medlicoat, as proud of shewing his horse, as desirous of parading his daughter, immediately complied with the request; and the young lady retired with a look of complacency at Harry, which sufficiently testified how much he had oblig­ed her, by procuring her so fortunate a release from her father's company.

HARRY supping with me in the evening, I could not help expressing my wonder, that a young [Page 124] fellow of his good sense and delicacy, should con­tinue the least correspondence with so shameless a profligate as this Mr. Medlicoat. ‘An indecency of conversation in any man, says I, is always as sure a sign of a little understanding, as of a vulgar education: and nothing ought to give a generous mind more offence, than where we see the modesty of a virtuous moman insulted, by any of those infamous obscenities, which your bucks, and such like despicable fellows, imagine to be the criterion of spirit and viva­city; but when a libertine is so dead to all sensibility as to wound the ear of his own daughter with a grossness of this nature, we are filled with horror as well as with indigna­tion, and cannot help considering him as a monster, who would even violate her honour himself, did not a latent fear of the world re­strain the licentiousness of his shocking imagi­nation, and happily confine him to mere innu­endoes, and simple gesticulations.’

‘YOUR observation, my dear Sir, (returned Harry) is perfectly just, and I ought to blush at ever visiting such a man as Mr. Medlicoat, unless I had some other design than merely to possess his company. But you must know, that this fellow, unless he is particularly en­gaged abroad, always makes it a rule to en­gage a friend or two to dine with him every day; and if by any accident he should happen to be disappointed, he traverses the park, as [Page 125] he did this morning, to pick up an acquaint­ance for the credit of his table. By this means it often happens that poor Hortensia his daugh­ter, is exposed to the heaviest torrent of licen­tious ribaldry; and obliged to sit out many a conversation, which would appear scandalous in a Covent Garden tavern. Medlicoat piques himself upon a knowledge of the world, and treats every appearance of female delicacy; as a monstrous affectation. He has found many fools among the sex, and this has given him a preposterous opinion of the whole; therefore, to maintain his character as a knowing one, he uses his own daughter with the same disre­spect that he uses every other woman, and thinks it adds to the reputation of his understanding, to put of all appearance of necessary decorum and parental partiality. It is for common fa­thers he thinks to behave with common dis­cretion; but young fellows like him, who are acquainted with life, should be above such a weakness; as the only way he thinks to pre­serve the obedience of a daughter, is to shew your sensibility of her sex's imperfections. Hor­tensia, who has an amiable mind, and a fine understanding, is unspeakbly afflicted at this behaviour; and always rejoices when I take a dinner with them, as I constantly invent some excuse or other to set her at liberty. This is the only reason of my acting with com­mon civility to Medlicoat, as he is a man for [Page 126] whom I entertain the most sovereign contempt. Would you believe it, he keeps two women in the very same house with his daughter; and these worthy ladies often take it in their heads to find fault with Hortensia, and even complain to him that she will not treat them with a sufficient share of respect. Matters, however, if I have any penetration, cannot long go on in this manner, for Hortensia has been some time courted by a very worthy baronet of for­tune; but Medlicoat having an aversion to become a grandfather yet a while, has absolutely refused his consent; and in the most illiberal terms, accused the young lady of amorous incli­nations. Notwithstanding this, they carry on a private correspondence, as I have good grounds to believe, and perhaps the next moon-light night may see the young couple on their journey to Edinburgh. May this I say, be the case; and may every father who follow the steps of Medlicoat, be rendered equally contemptible, and become equally disappointed in his expec­tations.’

NUMB. XC. Saturday, October 16.

NUMB. XCI. Saturday, October 23.

AS happiness is the pursuit of every body, it is not a little surprising that so few of us arrive at this universal goal of human desire, and still more surprising that when we see the various quicksands upon which the expectations of others have been shipwrecked in steering to this favourite point, that we are not a little more cautious in the direction of our own course, especially as some­thing more than a temporary felicity rests upon our attention, and the transports of a future life immediately depend upon the rectitude of our con­duct in this.

THE principal reason why the generality of the world are disappointed in their search after happi­ness, seems to me to be that strange infatuation, of placing our highest felicity in objects which are either weak or vicious in themselves, and which consequently our reason upon a sober consideration must either despise or detest. — A man whose ut­most [Page 132] wishes are centered in the luxuries of a fashi­onable table, must be miserable the moment he is incapable of emptying another plate: he who has no other comfort in life than his bottle, must be robbed of his summum bonum the instant he is stretched upon the floor; and he whose desires are absorbed in still greater sensualities, must be equally unfortunate the moment those desires have been in­dulged: in fact, every pursuit of this nature is ren­dered lifeless and insipid by it's very gratification, till continual repetitions so deaden the appetite; (to say not a syllable of consequences,) that experience makes us exclaim with the wisest fool that ever existed, ‘All is vanity under the sun.’

WERE we however to make reason the guide of our actions, instead of being eternally directed by inclination, our enjoyments would always be cer­tain; and recollection would afford us the most perfect satisfaction, instead of filling us incessantly with mortification and disgust; for in reality, if we think but ever so hastily on the affair, we shall find that no object can promise us the smallest glimmer of real felicity which is repugnant to the sentiments of virtue; it is from the rectitude of our conduct only that we are to look for any hap­piness at all; and surely when we give an un­bounded loose to every depravity of inclination, it is a degree of absolute madness to expect the self-approving testimony of our own conscience to the [Page 133] very actions which that conscience cannot but highly discountenance and condemn.

THE glittering noise, and pompous bustle of the world, may for a time perhaps lull the senti­ments of reason, or cry "hush" to the pleadings of conscience, but can never entirely subdue either: in the moments of retirement the most hardened of us all are dragged up in turn before the bar of our own minds, and the deity which presides there pronounces a just though a severe sentence on every breach of morality and virtue. — Callous as we endeavour to make ourselves, that sentence screws itself in the memory; clouds the eye amidst all the splendor of the drawing room; and harrows up the very soul in the warmest sunshine of a court. Where is the man who can say he has never ac­knowledged the omnipotence of conscience? Where is he who can affirm he has not, in the strictest sense of the expression, been condemned by the deity of his own bosom, and doomed to a tempo­rary perdition in his mind? Stand out ye fashion­able denyers of another existence; come forth ye daring blasphemers of your God — from the irre­sistable something, which acquits or condemns during this life in your breasts, learn to believe that there is a sovereign disposer of all things in the next, who will decide with an equal severity and justice; and that the power of the divinity which you experience so frequently below, is no­thing but a faint resemblance of that authority, [Page 134] which at the dreadful day of account you must meet with above.

I AM very frequently amazed (abstracted from every consideration of future happiness) that the mere dictates of self concern for the felicity of the present, does not generally induce us to follow such pursuits as are certain to give us a real satis­faction while they engage us; and sure in their consequences of establishing not only an encrease of honest reputation, but a source of inconceivable content. — Was the libertine, instead of squan­dering thousands to destroy some unsuspecting in­nocent, to employ a fiftieth part of the sum in her protection — what a foundation would he lay for arriving at that goal, which his very grediness after happiness destroys in the contrary course? — Was the miser, instead of hoarding up useless mil­lions, to expend a little of his wealth in wiping away the sorrows from affliction and distress; the action would be it's own reward, and he would own that if he went to the proper market, happi­ness was to be purchased at a very reasonable price: In short, if mankind would consider that virtue and vice create their own heaven and hell even on this side the grave, the principal part of us would endeavour to act in such a manner as would enable them to look with confidence beyond it, and experience in this world some tollerable idea of that felicity which is prepared to await the righteous in the next.

NUMB. XCII. Saturday, October 30.

I HAVE often remarked that one half of the pleasures so eagerly prosecuted by the gene­rality of mankind, if changed in their appellations, and ranked under the denomination of labour, would be shunned with as much assiduity as they are now followed, and rendered every whit as dis­gustful to the fancy as they are now flattering and agreeable. Through some unaccountable infatu­ation we are ravished in the literary sense of the expression, with the whistling of a name, and infinitely fatigue ourselves more in the bare pursuit of our several amusements, than in the closest atten­tion to the duties of our respective vocations, though these evocations are the only means which we have of raising a necessary provision for our families.

THE truth of this position was never more evidently ascertained than in the character of poor Bob Beetle. Bob is engaged in a very extensive way of business; and is, at once, the most lazy and the most industrious fellow alive: he is fa­tigued to death if he writes a few lines to a cor­respondent, but he will ride after a pack of dogs for a dozen hours together, and call it glorious sport, when he has ventured his neck over a score or two of gates, and come home as dirty as a ducked pick-pocket, from a forty miles chace in the middle of winter. When he is in town [Page 136] he complains of it as a prodigious hardship if he rises at ten o'clock in the morning, though in the country he makes no scruple whatsoever to get up at three or four to drag a fish-pond; and will scarcely walk a street's length to receive a hundred pounds in the way of his business, though he would trudge eight or ten miles with the greatest satis­faction after a brace of partridges. I met Bob a few days ago in the city, and stopping him on the privilege of an old acquaintance, demanded what was the reason of his seeming out of temper: — ‘Seeming, (repeated he) Mr. Babler, it is more than seeming; I am half inclined to hang my­self: here in such a roasting day as this must I trundle to Change, and broil for two whole hours under the intense heat of a perpendicular sun. Damn it, Sir, I lead the life of a galley slave, and it is better not to live at all than be liable to such continual anxieties.’ I was ill-natured enough to smile at his distress; but giving him a cordial shake by the hand, I wished him a good morning and so we parted. Next day about twelve o'clock going to dine at a relations near Hammersmith, who shou [...]d I see stripped and playing at cricket in a field near Kensington, but Bob: though the weather was rather warmer than when I met him the preceding day, he was engaged in that violent exercise with all the ap­pearance of a most exquisite satisfaction, and scoured after the ball with as much agility as he could possibly use to get himself into heat on a frosty morning.

[Page 137]IF we take but ever so slight a survey of mankind, we shall find that most people are actu­ated pretty much in the same manner with my friend Bob Beetle. Looking upon that as an in­supportable toil which is most conducive to their interest, they absolutely find a pleasure in fatigue, and run into downright labour in hopes of enjoy­ing a little recreation. I would by no means be understood as an arguer against a moderate share of manly exercise or rational amusement: on the contrary, I look upon such relaxations to be es­sentially necessary, both because they add consi­derably to our health, and give us a fresh incli­nation of returning to the business of our various employments. What I am offended at is, to see men of excellent understandings in total oppo­sition to the dictates of their good sense, apply­ing themselves wholly to the prosecution of their pleasures, and creating a number af imaginary difficulties, to imbitter every moment which they set apart for the management of their most ne­cessary employments.

WERE temporal concerns, however, the only ones which we sacrifice to our idlest, nay to our most culpable, amusements, something still might be said in our defence; but our happiness here­after, as well as our interests here, is obliged to give way to the meanest dissipations; and a fox chase or a cricket ball; a hunting-match or a dice-box, are not only able to stifle every impulse of regard which we ought to entertain for our [Page 138] families, but every sentiment of adoration which we ought to entertain for our God. The duties of religion, like our domestic concerns, are utterly neglected; and even the awful business of eternity is thrown aside, for a contemptible game at whist, or a despicable pack of hounds.

THE parallel between the neglect of our tem­poral and spiritual concerns, will be found con­siderable stronger, when we recollect that where unavoidable necessity compels a momentary at­tention to either, we enter upon them with an equal degree of reluctance and ill-will. But in the consequence, however, there is the widest difference: our disinclination does not often in­terrupt the business of our callings, while we continue in opposition to the natural bent of our tempers to carry it on; many a man though he hates his profession, nevertheless by subduing his antipathy to it, and managing his affairs with discretion, makes a good fortune: but let us be never so diligent in the discharge of our religious obligations, yet if our hearts are not actually en­gaged in the service of our Creator, all our per­sonal attendance on his worship, will be so far from availing us, that it will rather encrease the enormity of our guilt, and expose us more ine­vitably to the thunders of his hand. Reluctance is an aggravation of our crime, and we become less and less excusable, the more we appear in his temple, unless we approach it with the most exalted fervency of inclination. Let us be care­ful, [Page 139] therefore, whenever we steal an hour from the elysium of our amusements, and condescend to enter a church, that we do not suffer so pre­cious a part of our time to be lost. Let us take the greatest pains we are able to prevent that hour from being an evidence against us at the dreadful day of judgment; and consider in the language of the Poet;

NUMB. XCIII. Saturday, November 6.

CONVERSING yesterday with an old acquaintance on the vanity of human wishes, we fell insensibly into a long discourse about the absurdities of mankind, even in their best actions; and particularly dwelt upon the in­solence of their very devotion, when, though they affect to submit themselves entirely to the resignation of providence, they nevertheless pre­sume to point out immediate objects for the ex­ercise of the Divine Benignity, without once re­collecting that the nature of their request may be totally opposite both to the greatness of it's wisdom, and the justice of it's laws.

THE subject of conversation possessed me so very much upon my going to bed, that it con­tinued to employ my imagination, and I dreamt how Jupiter took me up to the skies, as he was [Page 140] said to have formerly done by Menippus the phi­losopher, in order that I might be convinced the accusations so generally brought against the equity of providence, were totally without foun­dation; and that the great author of the universe, notwithstanding the impious murmurs of his crea­tures, was perfectly just, and consistent in the mi­nutest of his decrees.

HAVING taken my station, as I fancied, at the feet of the Deity, the chrystal gates of the celestial region were thrown wide open, and by a particular order of Jupiter, the softest whisper addressed to him from earth was so distinctly heard, that during the continuance of the various sup­plications, I never missed a single syllable.

THE first who offered up his prayers to Olym­pus, was a man who had been ruined by being a security in a large sum of money for a very intimate friend. ‘This, (says Jupiter, turning to me) is a fellow of unquestionable worth and integrity; through the whole course of his life he has paid so inflexible an attention to the dic­tates of virtue, that I do not believe I have any thing to charge him with, besides a human infirmity. He thinks it hard, therefore, that I should suffer him to be plunged into distress, though this distress is nothing more than the natural consequence of his own indiscretion; for instead of building his esteem upon the ho­nesty of the man by whose means he is thus unhappily stripped of his all, he founded his regard [Page 141] entirely upon the length of their acquaintance; and assisted him, not because he was a person of probity and honour, but because he was a person with whom he generally cracked a bottle in an evening, and took a sociable pipe. On this account he is justly punished for his folly; and though I intend to reward his virtues very amply in this world, yet I must permit him to be chastized below, that o [...]her worthy men may take warning by his example, and learn to shower their favours upon those only whom they know to be truly deserving.’

THE next person who offered up his petition, was a merchant in the City, who prayed devoutly for a fair wind, for a ship which he had richly laden in the river, and intended for a very valu­able market on the coast of Africa. ‘Now here (resumed Jupiter) is another very honest fellow, who will think himself particularly aggrieved if I decline to comply with his request; and yet if I was to grant it, a thousand others would inevitably be ruined, who are bound upon voyages that require quite a contrary wind. Your people of virtue imagine that they should in the minutest circumstance be the particular care of providence, and absurdly fancy that the attention of a Being, who has the whole universe to govern and support, should be entirely engrossed by themselves. The sepeo­ple must however, be informed, that I am the God of an extensive world, and not the im­mediate patron of any one man. Of course, [Page 142] therefore, I shall never invert the order of things to oblige a private person, though that person should be the very best of all my votaries; more particularly too when let his merits be what they will, my favour shall so incredibly exceed them in the end.’

AFTER the departure of the Merchant, I thought a whole kingdom came at once, and begged of Jupiter to destroy a neighbouring na­tion with whom they happened to be at war. ‘Here are precious fellows for you; (cried Ju­piter) and so I must sacrifice a country of ten or twelve millions, merely because their consci­entious votaries think proper to make the re­quest; that is in plain English, I must be their bully, and arm myself in passions, that would disgrace the meanest of themselves, for the mighty honour of executing the purposes of their revenge.’ Jupiter upon this turned his head aside with indignation, and bid me observe another body of people, rather larger than the former, who were singing hymns to his praise, and invoking his favour with all the energy of the most solemn adoration. ‘This (says he) is the nation with whom my late set of worthies are at war; and you hear they are just praying in the same manner that I would be graciously pleased to cut the throats of all their enemies. Now which of these must I oblige? Their pretensions to my regard are alike insignificant; and they are quarreling for a tract of country [Page 143] in America, to which neither of them have the smallest right. To punish therefore, both their in­justice to the poor Americans, and their insolence in thinking to make me an abettor of their in­famous contention, I shall leave them entirely to themselves, and make each by that means the scourge of the others crimes.’ Jupiter de­livered these last words in a tone so tremendous, that I awoke with affright; but recollecting the various circumstances of my dream, I thought it would make no indifferent paper, as it taught so absolute a resignation to the awful dispensations of God.

NUMB. XCIV. Saturday, November 13.

HYPOCRISY for the honour of the pre­sent age, is a crime so very little practised, that people are not at the trouble of concealing their follies or their vices, but generously run into the most palpable mistakes, or the most culpable errors in the full face of day; and even expect that we should look upon this exalted disregard of shame, as a mark of the highest candour and sincerity.

FOR my own part however, I should be glad if the generality of mankind were less ingenuous in this respect, since so open a commission of our faults must necessarily raise vice into a sort of re­putation, and establish an example to the last de­gree [Page 144] prejudicial to posterity. Hypocrisy therefore so far as it regarded a concealment of our faults, I should look upon as a sort of negative virtue, because though it did not extenuate our own errors, it nevertheless prevented us from debauching the principles of other people.

THE great misfortune of the present age is, that the universal force of example has rendered a number of the most atrocious crimes absolutely fashionable; formerly it was looked upon as in­famous to the last degree, if a man alienated the affection of an acquaintance's wife, or plunged a dagger into the bosom of a friend. Now-a-days it is impossible for a young fellow to be allowed a dawn of spirit, unless he has destroyed his woman, or killed his man, and trampled upon every in­stitute which ought to be sacred to society. Nay, to such a height are matters at present carried; that we often boast of our crimes as if they were so many virtues, and recount with an air of the most exquisite satisfaction, how many times we have been drunk within the course of the week; how many strumpets we have visited, or how many times we have endangered our lives in the mid­night disputes of a common brothel. If any body is sensible enough to decline accompanying us on these pretty expeditions, we set him down as a spiritless ignorant milksop, equally destitute of-ambition and understanding. What is more, in proportion as he manifests a repugnance to join [Page 145] in our extravagances, in proportion we turn him into a ridicule, and load him with the most in­superable contempt, where we ought to honour him with the greatest share of our admiration.

BUT what in the course of general observa­tion astonishes me most is, that a man shall claim a right to be profligate, in proportion as we allow him to be sensible; and think himself entitled to be vicious, according to the estimate which we make of his understanding. Nothing is more common now-a-days, than to praise our intimate friends in something like the following manner; Why to be sure Tom or Jack such a one is a very wicked dog, but then he's no fool; thus that very good sense which should be considered as an aggravation of his conduct, is looked upon as an extenuation at least, and we think him entirely justified in the most criminal undertakings, in proportion as he is really without the shadow of excuse.

SOME people indeed who affect to possess an extraordinary share of principle, propose a limi­tation to ther vices, and make a sort of agree­ment with their own consciences, not to be wicked above such a certain number of years. The pe­riod which they fix for the date of their reforma­tion, is generally the day of marriage; without ever reflecting on the possibility of never living to this period, they go on in an uninterrupted course of licentiousness, and imagine they may with propriety disturb the peace of every other person's family, till they have actually got a family of [Page 146] their own; nor does a parent or a guardian once suppose any of these worthy gentlemen an im­proper match for their daughters or their wards, on account of their professed profligacy; on the contrary, it is a received opinion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband, and that he is the properest companion in life for a woman of virtue and honour, who never before had an acquaint­ance with a woman of virtue or honour at all.

FROM these considerations on the prodigious encouragement which vice so incessantly receives from the force of example, I am led to be an ad­vocate for hypocrisy, and induced to wish, that those who are too wise or too spirited to be rea­soned out of their errors, would at least be humane enough to practice them with some share of cau­tion, that they may not seduce others from the sentiments of virtue, nor be instrumental in the destruction of any body but themselves.

I AM very sensible how extremely unfashionable it is for a writer to press any considerations of a future state upon the mind of an elegant reader. Now-a-days, it is indelicate to talk of eternity with any kind of weight, and repugnant to every sentiment of politeness, for a man to speak with the smallest veneration of his God. Yet surely, as long as we are sensible upon how precarious a tenure our existence depends, we should now and then think that a day of account will come; and where we are so certain of our mortality, we ought to recollect that we are sometime to die. [Page 147] It was an excellent remark of Julius Caesar's, the morning of his assassination, when Antony asked him why he talked so much on death; ‘That what might each moment happen, should em­ploy every moment of a wise man's thoughts.’ Certain indeed it is, that a frequent consideration on this awful period, is the best means of enabling us to sustain it; and as certain it is, that those are only fit to live who are always in a condition to die.

NUMB. XCV. Saturday, November 22.

NUMB. XCVI. Saturday, November 27.

NOTHING is so general a topic with all the old fellows of my acquaintance, as the de­pravity of the present times, and the visible de­generacy of manners since they themselves were at the blooming age of five and twenty, and shone away in a splendid round of the various fashion­able amusements. For my own part, though pretty far advanced in the vale of years, I am not altoge­ther so passionately attached to my juvenile days, as not to be sensible that we had as many follies and vices among us then, as the severest satirist now existing can possibly point out; nor am I so complaisant to the present period as not to see that there is the greatest room, as well as the greatest necessity, both to be ashamed and to amend. In short, the world, with regard to vice and virtue, is pretty much the same as it was five hundred years ago; and probably for five hundred years to come, it will still continue to be actuated by the same motives, however it may differ in the man­ner or the means.

GREATLY soever as we may imagine human nature to be degenerated, yet if we take but a flight survey of mankind, we shall find the principal number of our vices and follies to be rather the consequence of our inconsideration, than the effect of an absolute badness of heart. We are weak and [Page 152] vicious more through the levity of temper and the prevalence of example, than either a narrowness of understanding or a depravity of inclination; and it is by denying ourselves time to examine either the absurdity of our most favourite pursuits, or the danger of a slavish obedience to fashion, that we so generally become the objects of our own detestation or contempt. Instead of making reason the guide of our actions, we are directed by ex­ample; and instead of enquiring how far such and such a behaviour may be agreeable to the sentiments of virtue, we never ask any question, but how far it is consistent with the custom of the times; hence we drink, fight, swear, and run through the whole catalogues of vices and follies, not so much because we like drinking, fighting or swearing, as to avoid the appearance of singularity; and risque not only our happiness in this world, but our ever­lasting salvation in the next, for no other reason but to join in with the croud, and seem of the same stamp with the general run of people.

KITT HAIRBRAIN is a young fellow of many good qualities, and has a heart as ready to relieve the distresses of his fellow creatures as any man of my acquaintance; yet Kitt would look upon it as the greatest insult imaginable, if you supposed he was not at any time willing to cut the throat of his most intimate companion, and to debauch the wife or sister of his nearest friend; not but he would feel the utmost reluctance in the perpetration of either, and be sensible, that it was a very un­pardonable [Page 153] crime; but the force of example gets the better of his humanity, and he is less afraid of a laugh from a fool or a villain, than the eternal displeasure of his God.

ASK Kitt how he reconciles this behaviour, and he will answer by the force of example too — ‘Damn it, (will he reply) I am sure I am no worse than Bob Brazen, Dick Dare, Will Wildfire, and a thousand others of my acquaint­ance;’ and thus as long as he finds any body as bad or worse than himself, cries hush to every argument of his reason, and goes on in the com­mission of new follies, or the perpetration of new crimes. Sometimes he compounds matters, and opens a sort of debtor and creditor account be­tween his conscience and himself, with which he is not a little satisfied; as for instance: because he pays his debts punctually, he imagines he has no occasion ever to appear at the public worship of his creator: because he frequently relieves one poor family, he looks upon himself as justified in plunging another into the worst of distress and disgrace; and because he sometimes fulfils the du­ties of christianity, he fancies that in the general he has a right to make a jest of them all.

ALAS, how many Kitt Hairbrains might be found on an accurate inspection through the king­dom? — If the present paper should fall into any such hands, let me, if I cannot make an appeal to their reason, at least address an admonition to their pride, and advise them, if they must follow the [Page 154] example of their neighbours, to copy those actions only which are worthy of imitation and regard; since nothing but wisdom or virtue can vindicate the credit of our understandings in an imitation of any nature; and since he must be an ideot or mad­man, who treads in no other footsteps than those which are marked by the rascal or the fool.

NUMB. XCVII. Saturday, December 4.

THOUGH nothing is so common as to find every man dissatisfied with the lot in which providence has thought proper to place him, yet nothing is so certain, as that no man, take his situation all in all, would be his neighbour in­stead of being himself. The great father of the universe has graciously planted an inherent sort of pride in the breast of all his creatures, which exalts them in their own opinion, and gives them an advantage over the rest of the world in some particular point that compensates for a thousand inconveniencies, and reconciles them to the seve­rity of real or imaginary evils upon the whole.

IF we examine the frame of the human mind, we shall immediately see, that every man holds much the same opinion of himself which he en­tertains of his country; he readily acknowledges, that in some particular circumstances such and such a person has an advantage of him, but in the main he nevertheless thinks himself the superior, and [Page 155] looks down with an air of disdain on all who are hardy enough to dispute his opinion: a modern author has not described this sort of vanity un­happily.

I WAS conversing with my nephew Harry last night upon this subject, and the young rogue made an observation or two that gave me much satis­faction. I don't know how it is, Sir, says he, but though my acquaintance are everlastingly wrang­ling with themselves, I can find none of them, upon a fair examination, willing to be any body else. There's Ned Grovely, for instance, who is perpetually cursing his stars for not giving him a good estate like Dick Bumper; yet at the same time, the universe would not bribe him to make an exchange with Dick for legs. In the same manner Dick is very miserable at the clumsiness of his calves, but nevertheless hugs himself up in the recollection that he can drink as much as any man in England at a sitting, and play an ad­mirable game at all-fours.

[Page 156]YOU know Sally Bromley in Pall-Mall who visits at my mother's, and is so terribly pitted with the small pox; Sally is to the last degree unhappy on that account, and envies every woman with a tolerable face; yet I have heard her frequently declare, that a fine set of teeth was the first of all the beauties; and then observed how she turned round to receive the universal admiration with as much confidence as if she was an absolute dutchess of Hamilton. In short, let me go where I will, I can find nobody but what is the rara avis of self-imagination: neither poverty nor disease can eradicate the consequential something of the bosom that lifts us to the pinnacle of distinction, and gives us so great a pre-eminence above our neigh­bours. I have known a man with a tollerable voice refuse the acquaintance of a very deserving young fellow because he could not sing; and heard of an Oxford scholar, who when he was asked his opinion of Shakespear, came out with a pshaw of disgust, and replied, the fellow did not under­stand Greek.

WHEN we consider these various foundations for happiness, which providence has planted in the minds of all its creatures, we cannot help ad­miring the goodness of the divine Being, in mak­ing our very foibles a source of felicity, and creat­ing such fountains of satisfaction from such in­considerable means. What gratitude is there not then due to so all-sufficiently wise and beneficent a hand! Devotion itself is lost in admiration at so [Page 157] stupenduous a bounty, and scarcely knows which most to wonder or adore.

BUT notwithstanding we derive so much plea­sure from the indulgence of particular foibles, we ought always to be uncommonly careful how we take any satisfaction in the indulgence of our faults; these, though for a moment they may afford us some degree of felicity, are always pro­ductive of anxiety and wretchedness in the end. Unfashionable as the doctrine of virtue and mo­rality may appear, experience however fully con­vinces us, that nothing else can lay a solid foun­dation for happiness, and that every other basis is, literally speaking, building on the sand, and grasp­ing alone at emptiness and air.

NUMB. XCVIII. Saturday, December 11.

IT was a very sensible observation of Sir Richard Steel's, that in order to make a good fortune, it was necessary to carry the appearance of an easy one. — The generality of mankind are always ready to respect us in proportion as they think us opulent; and pay a veneration to our circum­stances which they frequently refuse to ourselves: neither the most excellent understanding, nor the most benevolent heart are ever treated with half the deference which the arrogant swell of fortune receives at our hands; and we even pause with a degree of reverence at the mention of ten thousand [Page 158] pounds, when we speak with the greatest fami­liarity of omnipotence, and jest with the awful majesty of our God.

THE most whimsical fellow of this cast with whom I ever have been acquainted, was poor Ralph Harper; Ralph had an unaccountable res­pect for rich men, though he never expected to reap a single sixpence from the happiness of their circumstances; and, though utterly out of business he would not be a day absent from change for the universe; it did him good, he affirmed, to see such a number of rich people assembled to­gether, and the surest way in the world of gain­ing his heart was, to introduce him to any body possessed of a large fortune. Whenever he met with a strange face in company, instead of asking about character, the constant question was, what is he worth? and instead of an enquiry about good sense, he never troubled himself about any thing but what his name would bring at the bottom of a piece of paper. For a man with twenty thou­sand pounds he had always a low bow; for one of fifty, a profound reverence; but if he found a person in possession of a plumb, he was ready to pay him an implicit adoration. This unaccount­able peculiarity he frequently carried to very ridi­culous extremes. One day, in particular, he met me in the city, and upon the score of an old friend­ship, insisted I should go home with him and eat a bit of mutton; I consented, but unhappily, as we came down Cheapside, he saw a sober quaker [Page 159] on the opposite side of the street, who kept a tal­low chandler's shop somewhere in the neighbour­hood of Barbican; on this gentleman he had no sooner fixed his eye, than totally forgetting that I was his guest, he broke from me with all possible haste, saying, ‘My dear Mr. Babler, you must excuse me; yonder is a person worth thirty thousand pounds, whom I would not miss speak­ing to for the world; he has asked me repeat­edly to dine with him, and I think now is as good a time as can be — God bless you, I sup­pose we shall see you at the club in the evening.’

I COULD not help laughing very heartily at Ralph's manner of behaving; and having nothing particular to do, I took it into my head to follow him as close as I conveniently could without being observed. I had not, however, gone above a hun­dred yards, before he gave an instant spring across the kennel, to a fresh face, and calling out to his little friend the Quaker, desired him to go on, for it was out of his power to dine with him that day, having some very pressing business to transact, which till then had entirely escaped his memory. I shrewdly suspected that this new acquaintance was a man of rather greater fortune than the person for whom I had been so strangely discarded; I was not deceived in my conjecture; he stoped to speak to somebody and Ralph likewise making a halt to wait for him, happened to meet my eye, and gave me a glance of no little significance. As I was passing him by, he caught hold of my hand, [Page 160] and assured me, that, that tall gentleman in black, who was standing at such a door, was one of the worthiest fellows in the kingdom; for says Ralph, ‘there is not a day he rises, but what he is master of sixty thousand pounds.’

IN a few minutes Ralph and his friend passed me by, and the odd mortal was acquiescing to every thing he said, with such a humility of res­pect, that I thought it was wholly improbable he should find any fresh opportunity of shifting his company; notwithstanding the plausibility of ap­pearances, however, in less than five minutes, he was in full chace after a chariot that drove through St. Paul's Church-yard with the greatest rapidity, and was said to belong to a Jewish merchant, of the first eminence, well known at that time for his intimate connexion with Sir Robert Walpole.

IF the possession of a large fortune could bestow either worth or good sense, I should never be sur­prised to see the rich treated with the utmost res­pect; or had people even but a distant expectation of gaining any advantage from the opulence of their purse-proud acquaintance, something might be said in their defence; but where without a shadow of merit, or a hope of his conferring a favour, a man is next to be idolized, merely because he is master of ten or twenty thousand pounds, I own I cannot help being hurt at the little-mind­edness of his worshippers, and must inevitably tax [Page 161] them with a palpable poverty of spirit, if not a total want of understanding.

IN the dissolute reign of Charles the second, the celebrated Killigrew was one night at supper with the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Dorset, Lord Rochester, and some other noblemen of the most eminent abilities; the latter, by some means, hap­pened to turn the conversation on the great honour which Killigrew received, from the dignity of his company. The wag, who, notwithstanding the in­feriority of his rank, possessed more real sense than the whole groupe put together, took all in good part for some time; till, at last, finding matters grow a little serious, he stood up and delivered himself to the following effect. ‘And, pray my lord, whence proceeds all this mighty honour which I am thought to receive? From your dig­nity, I suppose, and your fortune? As to the first you find, by sad experience, that where there is a want of worth, this gew-gaw of title won't keep a man from contempt; a fool, or a rascal, is equally a fool and a rascal, whether he is a plain Killigrew, or a great earl of Rochester: as to the second point, your fortune; when you make me the better for it, why then it will teach me to esteem you, till then don't mention it as a matter of the least importance to me; for as long as I pay my reckoning, and receive no obliga­tions, in regard to circumstances, I am company for a Cresus, and would not suffer an emperor to treat me with the shadow of a disrespect within the walls of a tavern.’

NUMB. XCIX. Saturday, December 18.

I HAVE often delivered it as my opinion, that one of the principal indiscretions which any woman can possibly be guilty of, is to receive the addresses of a lover, whom she does not mean to en­courage. If he happens to be a worthy man, it is ungenerous as well as cruel to keep him in suspense; and he is too poor a sacrifice even for her vanity, if he happens to be a fool; but if a just considera­tion for the lover does not more commonly excite an exalted share of benevolence in the female bo­som, it is surprising that the ladies are not more generally actuated by a sensible regard for them­selves, since this indiscriminate permission which they grant to the addresses of an indifferent admirer, may very fatally injure them with the real object of their esteem; and give the man who has indeed the possession of their hearts, but too much reason for imagining that the same vanity might induce them after marriage to encourage that fascinating voice of admiration, which was found so exqui­sitely ravishing to their ears before.

IT is a mighty pleasant notion which prevails among the greatest number of our young ladies, that there is a sort of destiny in love; and that it is utterly impossible to resist the orders of their fate in the disposition of their hearts. Perhaps neither the army nor the play-house has destroyed the quiet of so many bosoms as the belief of this [Page 163] delightful predestination; for a girl now-a-days, no sooner has a hankering after a fellow, but she imagines the stars have been at work about her, and looks upon it as obeying the will of heaven to follow — the bent of her own inclinations.

ONE thing inded very remarkable in the de­cision of the stars, is, that it never lays any dis­agreeable restraints upon the mind of a young woman; on the contrary, with an unparallelled degree of good-nature, the stars always give those orders which are most certain of meeting with her own approbation, and are as tender of her repose and satisfaction, as she can possibly be herself. This excessive complaisance in the stars furnishes the designing and illiberal part of our sex with many op­portunities of gaining the most mercenary or most infamous ends; it enables us to rob a woman not only of all filial affection, but to strip her of her fortune and her honour, and puts it in our power not only to destroy all her happiness in this world, but to endanger her everlasting felicity too.

THAT my fair readers may know with cer­tainty, at what time the stars begin to influence their conduct, I shall set down some infallible rules which will serve them upon all occasions, and which, if rightly attended to, may possibly prevent a thousand inconveniencies to many indi­viduals, and a thousand anxieties to many families.

FIRST then — Whenever a young woman be­gins to make secret appointments with a man, for the mere sake of chatting with him, and taking an [Page 164] agreeable walk, she may be pretty confident that the stars are then debating about the future dispo­sition of her life, and that she is in a fair way of losing her reputation.

SECONDLY — Whenever she receives a letter upon the subject of love, and declines either pe­remptorily to forbid the addresses of the sender, or to disclose the affair to her friends, she may be satisfied that her stars are very deceitful, and that they are only tempting her to wretchedness and disgrace. The reason is obvious. A lover has no occasion to be concealed, who would make an un­exceptionable husband; and few ever require the secrecy of a mistress on this head, but those who have a design against her honour or her fortune.

THIRDLY — Whenever she is uneasy about the absence of any particular man, nettled at seeing him with any other woman, or angry at hearing any part of his conduct condemned; the symptoms strongly indicate that the stars are going to deprive her of her heart; and it behoves her to be un­commonly attentive to the principles, and merit of the person for whom she feels this partiality.

AND fourthly — But if instead of real worth, and fine understanding, the object of this partiality should be fashionable only by his vices, and eminent only for his knowledge in the superficials of behaviour, let her then if she would counteract the malignity of her destiny, and soar superior to the stars them­selves; let her exert her reason to tear the grow­ing tenderness from her heart; and above every [Page 165] thing, if her favourite has once in his life betrayed the confidence of any other woman, let her banish him instantly from her sight, and recollect, that a man who has once violated the vows of love, is too despicable ever to be loved at all.

NUMB. C. Saturday, December 25.

NUMB. CI. Saturday, January 2.

NUMB. CII. Saturday, January 8.

NUMB. CIII. Saturday, January 15.

THE high and mighty lords of the creation are for ever valuing themselves upon the su­perior dignity of their sex, and not only deny the poor women any thing like an equal share of un­derstanding with themselves, but even refuse to ratify their claim to an equal degree of principle; as if it was not sufficient to entertain a contemp­tible idea of their intellects, without establishing as mean an opinion of their hearts. Hence has the notion of female friendship particularly, been an object of constant ridicule to every fashionable writer; hence have we been a thousand times assured, that a laced cap, or an elegant pair of ruffles, was a matter consequential enough to break the strongest bonds of esteem that ever subsisted between two of the most sensible women in the universe; and hence it has been asserted, that there is no possibilily for their intercourse to sub­sist a single moment after each of them had en­tertained a favourable sentiment about the same man.

[Page 180]WITHOUT once striving to refute any of these positions, I shall only lament that the gentlemen have not endeavoured to give some testimonies in support of their own conduct, before they at­tempted in this good-natured manner to cast the first stone; because it is rather unfortunate that the charge so strongly urged against the ladies, should, at the same time, exist with infinitely more justice against themselves: let us, however, for argu­ment, suppose, that the friendship of two women, extremely worthy in every other respect, is capable of being entirely broken, by the minutest circum­stance which we can possibly conceive; still, will not a moment's examination of the other sex con­vince us, that their boasted friendships are equally liable to the strongest interruptions from causes equally trivial; and that men of the best under­standing frequently run into the most dangerous excesses, from circumstances generally more des­picable, and always as absurd.

I READILY grant that it is very ridiculous in a woman to break off all manner of connexion with an intimate acquaintance, merely because this ac­quaintance may unfortunately happen to be better dressed; but is it not to the full as ridiculous for a couple of fellows, who perhaps possess the most exalted understandings, and are besides in all pro­bability, entrusted with a part of the national wel­fare, to fall out about the niceties of a horse-match, or to disagree about the superior excellence of a game cock? Undoubtedly yes; and though I [Page 181] shall not even pretend to exculpate the ladies where they chance to be rivals, and suffer their resent­ment to transport them beyond the bounds of dis­cretion; still I think it much more excusable when they have a little scene of altercation about a worthy man, than when the lords of the creation proceed to cut one another's throats about some infamous strumpet whom they both look upon with an equal degree of contempt.

THIS being the case then; in the name of won­der whence comes it that the poor women are eternally condemned for the instability of their friendships, when this very instability is carried to excesses infinitely more criminal as well as ridicu­lous among ourselves? Are the lords of the human kind, with all the mighty superiority of their wis­dom, to be continually indulged in the commission of errors, of which the meanest driveller among the ignorant wretches of the other sex would be to the last degree ashamed? Alas! the ladies may cry out with the lion in the fable, it is well that the men are the only painters on this occasion, or the tables would be instantly reversed!

WE may blame the caprices of the women as we please, and censure their absurdities as we think proper; but our partiality will never be able to change the positive nature of things: few of their follies are ever more than ridiculous; few of our own are ever less than criminal; how heartily do we laugh, when a couple of ignorant girls, as we call them, have the least disagreement and break [Page 182] out into altercation; yet, which of ourselves would not imagine he was bound in honour to resent the most unguarded expression of vehemence in a friend, even at the hazard of his life in this world, and the risque of his eternal happiness in the next?

THE quarrels of the women, as they are ge­nerally less absurd in their beginnings, so their re­sentments are generally more sensible too: Where a lady has received an offence, she seldom does any thing more than withdraw her acquaintance, and treat the person who offers it with a proper degree of contempt. The regard she entertains for the dignity of her sex, renders it unpardonable to go further: but the lord of the creation is, by the su­perior degree of his species, allowed a right of plunging into the deadliest crimes; and by his ex­alted understanding, a privilege of committing the grossest absurdities: if he happens to meet with a slight injury, he insists upon giving his enemy an opportunity of doing him an irreparable one; and must wash away the imaginary dishonour, either with the blood of his antagonist or his own. To be sure, it is rather hard to take away the life of a friend for a casual vehemence of temper; and ra­ther strange to reduce one's self to a level with a person from whom we have received an offence. But what of that; the glorious inconsistency of manhood obliges us to act in contradiction to our reason; and the fear of a laugh from a blockhead, is infinitely more terrible than the vengeance of our God! We all of us, in short, are ready to run a [Page 183] man through the body, who calls us either a scoun­drel or a fool; though the invariable tenor of our conduct indicates the strongest ambition for both of these respectable characters; and we are infinite­ly more offended at being supposed either a rascal or an idiot, than at being absolutely the very thing itself.

NUMB. CIV. Saturday, January 22.

NUMB. CV. Saturday, January 29.

AMONG the several branches of oratory which have been lately taught by the cele­brated Mr. Sheridan, I am not a little surprised that he has struck out no species of this valuable science for the use of the bar, nor thought of the proper method of instructing a pupil how to become a shining ornament to the long robe, notwith­standing the variety of examples which he might find in this kingdom. Perhaps Mr. Sheridan may suppose a good education, a fortunate memory, and a florid delivery, the principal requisites to form an orator for the bar. If he does, he is very much mistaken; for, to the honour of the present era be it spoken, we are blest with an infinite num­ber of eminent lawyers who have become a credit to the profession without either education or me­mory, and indeed almost without any delivery at all.

NOR are the gentlemen in question more gene­rally distinguished for their genius and abilities, than remarkable for their learning and elocution; on the contrary, they are universally acknowledged to be incumbered with no great load of intellectual faculties: a happiness which they themselves seem so sensible of, that they scorn to lay a claim to any qualification besides an inflexible kind of impu­dence [Page 190] which is known under the fashionable title of the Bonfront.

AS I have paid some attention to the customary practice of these gentlemen, especially in the most material of all points, the examination of witnesses upon life and death, I shall take the liberty of lay­ing down some invariable rules for the benefit of students, a tollerable adherence to which is more likely to render them conspicuous at the Bar, than the elocution of a Cicero or the Equity of a Yorke.

IN the first place, let it be a fundamental maxim, with every student, that a lawyer (who should be a gentleman and a christian) ought upon all oc­casions, to shew a perfect contempt for decency and good manners, and maintain a laudable insensibi­lity to every tender feeling which is a credit to the human breast. — It is beyond the possibility of a doubt, if he lays this principle for the foundation of his conduct, but he must, in a little time, rise to the dignity of a silk gown, and pave a ready way to an ermin'd robe, and a title-giving perriwig.

UPON no account, let a love of justice imperti­nently intrude itself into his thoughts, or make him imagine a moment, that whatever side of the question he engages to support is not infalliably the best: —Let the robber confessed be supposed an unfortunate sufferer from malice or mistake; the catamite on record a person scandalously accused; and the hand yet reeking with the blood of inno­cence, the instrument of a justice too precipitate, or [Page 191] at most the inflicter, though of an illegal, yet an equitable revenge.

IF an evidence compelled to appear against his client gives a testimony fair and unsullied as the soul of truth, every means must be made use of to confound and perplex him; every expedient of insolence and chicanery practised to make him prevaricate; and if by some masterly stroke there should be a possibily of making him seem perjured, this violation of all law, this murder of all justice shall save the villain from the gibbet, and render the lawyer immortal.

WITH regard to evidence there are two methods of examination which must never be forgot: if the person to be examined is a poor ignorant rustic, or some aukward artizan, he must be constantly reminded that he is on his oath, and frightened into an acquiescence with some necessary circumstance, which the council shall good-naturedly make for him, to render the former part of his testimony inconsistent, and occasion the whole to be set aside; if this should not be sufficient to answer the lauda­ble purpose in view, a number of hard and diffi­cult expressions may be seasonably introduced, the lawyer may also tell him "You said so or so, Sir," (the confessions which he wanth imto make) till the poor fellow, terrified at the thoughts of his oath, and almost ignorant of what he says, either in his fear or confusion shall acknowledge that he did.

ON the contrary, when a gentleman conversant with the principles, though unacquainted with the [Page 192] infamous arts of the law, is to be called as a witness, he must be treated with scurrility and abuse; he must be called "you fellow," and asked the meanlng of every obvious word in order to rouse his indig­nation and throw him off his guard.—The mo­ment h [...]s anger appears, the council in examina­tion, must be sure to keep it up, and by convenient repetitions of the most provoking and derogatory expressions he can think of, render him incapable of giving a clear testimony, and so invalidate every thing he says.

IF it is his fortune to be on the side of the Crown, let him follow the method already laid down of examining a witness, and though the prisoner's in­nocence be apparent as the sun, take every possible means of convicting him, as it will be highly to his reputation if he can get him cast. His abilities re­ceive an additional lustre from his dexterity in the suppression of Justice, and his character will be established for life, if the guiltless unfortunate should be hanged.—Let him moreover sport with the hopes and fears of the unhappy wretch thus tottering on the verge of life, and humanely try every expedient to aggravate his misery, by occasio­nal puns and wittiscisms on such circumstances in the course of the trial, as may give him the smallest opportunity for a stroke.

THERE are no ill consequences to be apprehended by any student, and no resentment to be dreaded from the court, from this method of going on; for, now-a-days, lawyers talk before a Bench of Judges, [Page 193] the immediate representatives of GOD and the KING, with the same illiberal freedom as the res­pectable Orators of Billingsgate; and use every ar­tifice for the suppression of truth, as if it was cri­minal for justice to be satisfied, and absolutely ne­cessary for Robbers and Murderers to make a tri­umphant escape. — In slavish countries indeed, uninspired by a sentiment of liberty and honour, the man who would take upon him to brow beat an evidence, would stand a chance of losing his head, and a Judge who would suffer it, might feel something more than a public disgrace.—But in these happy regions the person insulted in the cause of justice, is the only one exposed to pu­nishment, which he has more than a probability of undergoing, should he have the insolence to com­plain of being scandalously treated, to the court.

NUMB. CVI. Saturday, January 5.

THERE is an unaccountable ambition among the generality of people, to enhance the con­sequence of their posterity, though at their own expence; and there is scarcely a father within the weekly bills, but what, if we are to judge by the mode of his behaviour, thinks his son a considerably better man than himself. I am naturally led into this consideration by a visit which I made to my landlord, an honest carpenter, at the west end of the town, a day or two ago, to talk with him about [Page 194] repairing my house, and to pay him a twelvemonth's rent.

AS it was past one o'clock before I set out, I arrived at Mr. Roof's just about dinner time, and without much ceremony sat down with the family to a leg of pork and a pease-pudding, and a couple of fine fowls with egg sauce. The company con­sisted of Mr. and Mrs. Roof, his two sons, and a young lady of about nineteen, very elegantly dres­sed, whom I took for some person that boarded in the house, but who, to my great surprize, I found was no more than my honest landlord's daughter. Mr. Roof and his wife were very plainly decorated, but the two sons had their hair done up in the ala­mode à Paris taste, and wore each a plain blue coat, and a scarlet waistcoat very richly laced with gold: Upon enquiry into the professions to which they were brought up, I found that the eldest was a sort of superintendant to his father, and that the other had, by the recommendation of a nobleman in the neighbourhood, been lately advanced to a fifty pound place in the Excise. The young gentle­men I perceived, by their conversation, looked upon themselves in a very consequential light, and so did their sister; they talked of nothing but earls and dukes, and frequently swore upon their honours; whereas their father scarcely mentioned any thing higher than the bricklayer or timber merchant, and never presumed to swear by any thing more elegant than his God.

[Page 195]DINNER was scarcely over, when the young lady and the two gentlemen got up in a careless manner, and took their leaves with a polite ele­gance, taking care to let me know, however, that they were to drink tea at a gentleman's in New Bond-street, and from thence to adjourn to Covent-Garden House to see the Maid of the Mill, having sent a person for that purpose to keep places: "Ay," says the father after their departure, ‘Suke has been teizing us a long time to see this Opera, and so Bob and Alick being disengaged this evening, they agreed to go with her, and have sent Ralph Jenkins, our youngest apprentice to keep a row for them in one of the green boxes: For my own part, my dame and I seldom go above once a year, and that is to Dick Yate's benefit; we even then sit in the two shilling gallery, and go at half after two, for the sake of getting a good place.’

‘BUT why, Mr. Roof, (says I) do not you send Ralph Jenkins to keep a place for your­self and your good woman in the boxes at the same time; it would be much more com­fortable than going so very early, and running the chance of being squeezed to death, by crouding into the two shilling gallery?’

‘WHY, Lord, Sir, (returned my honest land­lord) you do not think it would become a poor carpenter to be elbowing it among people of fashion in the boxes: No, no, I am sure you [Page 196] know a great deal better than that, and have only a mind to be a little merry with me.’

‘YOU bring your eldest son I think, Mr. Roof, up to your own business?’ ‘Yes, Sir; and a cleverer lad never stepped in shoe-leather; he shall draw a plan, or make an estimate with any carpenter in the kingdom: Nay, with Phil­lips himself, though every body must allow him to be an honour to the business: And then if he was put to it to-morrow, he could get his bread as a journeyman; why, Sir, I had him the matter of four years at the bench.’

‘WELL then, Mr. Roof, is not your son a carpenter too?’ Undoubtedly, Sir." Then ‘if it be improper for you as a carpenter, to sit in the boxes among the persons of quality, must it not of course be equally as improper for him?’

‘AY, Sir, consider he dresses in a very diffe­rent manner from me, and that you know will make it overlooked.’

‘TRUE, Mr. Roof, but do not you look upon yourself to be as good a man as your son?’

"TO be sure I do Sir."

‘WHY then, Mr. Roof, do not you dress as well as your son?’

‘WHY, because I do not think it would be­come my station.’

‘THEN give me leave to ask you Mr. Roof, why you suffer your son to run into an error which you are so sensible as to avoid it your­self? [Page 197] Young men, you know, are naturally inclined to be vain; and indulgences of this nature, where a young man is obliged to live by his industry, very often disqualify him for trade; as he dresses like a gentleman, he is ambitious of appearing like a gentleman in every respect; and will consequently aim at being equally idle and extravagant: — This is one great error which I think many tradesmen (ex­cuse me my worthy friend, for it is my friendship makes me speak) run into: As if their sons were better men than themselves, they dress them a thousand times better; and not only add by this means to their constitutional vanity, but give them an early turn to idleness and ex­pence: The circumstance of youth can be no extenuation of the conduct; because, if there be a degree of distinction any where due, it is to age, which is entitled to a much greater share of veneration and respect.’

FINDING the conversation rather aukward to my landlord, I changed the subject; but have the pleasure of informing my readers that Mr. Roof has since, with his own hands, ripped the lace off the young gentlemens' waistcoats, and has positively ordered his daughter never to appear in his sight with a sack.

NUMB. CVII. Saturday, February 12.

NUMB. CVIII. Saturday, February 19.

IF we take an accurate view of the world, and make a just observation upon the various cha­racters it abounds with, we shall find those which in general attract our greatest admiration, seldom if ever entitled to out esteem; and those which work the strongest upon our wonder, the least en­titled to our love. The glare of heroism or dig­nity only dazzles our imagination, whereas the milder virtues of domestic life never fatigue upon the sight, but on the contrary, like a beautiful landscape, supply us with everlasting charms, and encrease upon the fancy the more they are enjoyed. The reader will easily see from the following letter, which my nephew Harry (who constantly acquaints me with every thing) lately received from Charles Hastings, a young fellow of his acquaintance, how I have been led into the foregoing reflexion.

WHEN I see the immense sum which people of fortune daily squander in scearch of felicity, I am astonished to think how any man with a glimmer of understanding can think of recurring to the customary methods of obtaining it, when the secret conviction of his own heart, points out the most eligible means: What is the winning of a [Page 206] thousand battles? What is the possession of a thou­sand thrones, to the performance of a single action like this? If universal applause is our ambition, virtue leads on to the immediate possession of our wish; and while the trappings of pomp and prece­dence gain a cursory plaudit from our follies, she with the milder lustre of one meritorious circum­stance, commands an everlasting admiration from our hearts! It is in every man's power to throw the conquerors of the world at a distance in honest reputation; a humanity of temper outweighs a universe in value; and an immortality is to be purchased by a proper application of the smallest sum, which the giddy profusion of our nobility daily risque upon a single card.

NUMB. CIX. Saturday, February 26.

THOUGH no body is better pleased to see a husband place a proper degree of confidence in his wife than myself, nor wishes more ardently to have the married ladies treated with delicacy and affection; yet there is one situation in which I am frequently sorry to find them distinguished with extraordinary marks of regard, and in which I think it would be much more for the credit of our understandings rather to doubt of their discretion, than to suppose it im­possible for them to run into capital mistakes.— The situation which I here mean, is, where [Page 207] at our deaths, though we have a number of chil­dren, we rely implicitly on the tenderness of our wives, and leave our whole fortunes entirely in their power, from a preposterous opinion, that they will faithfully employ every shilling for the benefit of these children, and be actuated by no other view, than a maternal concern for their hap­piness.

IT is true when we consider the natural softness of the female character and recollect with what an aching intenseness of sensiblity, a mother general­ly beholds her own offspring; when we see a woman's life apparently depending on a child, and have beside for a long series of years experien­ced in her fidelity, every possible proof of a worthy heart, and a clear understanding; it appears unac­countable that we should entertain any doubts of her tenderness, in those last important moments, where all her feelings must be tremblingly alive for the loss of a worthy husband, and where the unprotected situation of her little orphans, demands a double share of her affection.—Experience, how­ever, fatally convinces us, that we cannot rely with any tolerable certainty upon the conduct of the ladies in general:—Neither their esteem for the memory of a man whom they once idolized; nor their fondness for the very children in whom they seemed only to exist, are sufficient to preserve them from sacrificing every thing which ought to be dear to a woman of sense and humanity; the mo­ment their tears are a little dried up, their hearts [Page 208] become susceptible of second impressions; and their unfortunate poor innocents are infamously plun­dered, to obtain the possession of some insidious ad­mirer whom they have not known perhaps a week and whose principal adoration was excited by their fortunes,

I am insensibly led into this subject by an ap­plication which was made to me for charity yes­terday morning, from a woman once the wife of my old acquaintance Tom Easy Tom was bred at Oxford, in the neighbourhood of which city, he fell accidentally in company with this lady, the daughter of an obscure clergyman, and being smit­ten with her person married her at once, not re­garding in the least her utter want of fortune;— happily for Tom, his father, who was a merchant in London, died before this marriage was dis­covered, otherwise it might have greatly endan­gered his inheritance; however on taking possession of the old gentleman's estate, which consisted of money in the funds to a very large amount, he brought Mrs. Easy to town, set up an elegant equi­page, and lived away in a manner entirely suitable to the affluence of his circumstances. I have dined more than once at his house, and never beheld a more affectionate husband.—His whole study was to guard his wife from the uneasiness even of a wish, and three charming little prattlers, with which she blest him, so absolutely rivetted her em­pire over his heart, that he often broke out into tears of exquisite tenderness, if he gazed at her [Page 209] with any extraordinary share of attention.—Un­common as these marks of regard might be con­sidered, Mrs. Easy, nevertheless seemed to merit them all; during the whole seventeen years of her marriage, she never knew a will but her husband's, nor ever passed a moment in the most fashionable places of pleasure, with a fiftieth part of that satis­faction, which she received at home from her little family.—During Tom's last illness she sat up with him for seven weeks, and when, through the in­credible distresses of her mind and the excessive fa­tigues of her person, she was at last rendered una­ble to move across the room, she had a mattrass brought to her husband's bedside, where she con­stantly echoed to his groans, and answered in a perpetual unison to these sorrows which she could no longer attend upon, with the medicines of relief.

SUCH unexampled proofs of conjugal attachment deserved every mark of the most grateful acknow­ledgment, and Mr. Easy accordingly rewarded it with every shilling he was worth in the world, and died perfectly satisfied that so excellent a woman could never deviate in the least from the just regard which was due to her children.—But alas, poor Tom was not buried ten weeks before this very woman gave her person and fortune to an Irish gambler; and threw both herself and her children entirely upon the capricious bounty of a rascal who was as totally lost to shame, as he was destitute of humanity; the consequence of this unpardonable step will be easily conceived by the reader of ima­gination; [Page 210] in less than six months Mr. Easy's three children were turned out of doors by the merci­less step-father.—A subscription was however raised among some friends for their support, and they were all put out to professions, in which they have a genteel expectation of earning their own bread.— But as to the wreched mother, she was marked out for a fate of much greater severity; after the barbarous expulsion of her children, her hopeful husband, gave her the modest alternative, either of going about her business also, or of waiting upon a strumpet in her own house, with whom he had been many years connected.—The latter part of this proposal, incredible as it may seem, she rather chose to accept, than to part entirely with the com­pany of a villain, who had brought such destruction on her family:—Though he was detestable to her justice, he was nevertheless dear to her heart, and she thought it better to undergo every shame and every mortification, than to be totally banished from his sight.—A woman who could act as she did, de­serv'd to be treated as she was; for three whole years she lived the most miserable of all slaves to her husband's mistress; underwent all the various rounds of insult, which could possibly be thrown upon her by the brutality of his profligate com­panions—till at last the Hibernian's death, in a duel, which was occasioned by a reflexion upon his honour, at the moment he was detected in cog­ging a die set her free; but left her wholly with­out suport; for her fortunate rival, the moment [Page 211] she heard of his death, seized upon all his money and papers, sold off the house and furniture by vir­tue of a will, which she had for some time in her possession, and ran away with another Irish gambler, before the unfortunate wretch who was best enti­tled to every thing, could take any steps in her own defence, or even recover from that extrava­gance of grief in which she was plunged, by the loss of a villain, so utterly unworthy of her affection.

IS it necessary to argue with a sensible man, about trusting his fortune entirely to a wife, after I have told him the foregoing story? If it is, I must pity the weakness of his understanding, or he must tax me with a total want of abilities.

NUMB. CX. Saturday, March 5.

THE subject of my last number has brought me the following letter from a reader, who seems a young fellow of so much merit and good sense, that I am doubly sensible of his misfortunes.

NUMB. CXI. Saturday, March 12.

NUMB. CXII. Saturday, March 19.

NUMB. CXIII. Saturday, March 26.

LOOKING over Dodsley's collection of poems a day or two ago, I met with the fol­lowing little ode, which, though there is nothing more than a prettiness in the versification, never­theless contains such an uncommon degree of be­nignity in the sentiment, as must fill every reader with the highest admiration for the excellence of the writer's heart; if he should even conceive but a slender idea of his poetical abilities.

NOTHING is more customary with most people, than when they themselves have made an injudi­cious choice either in friendship or in love, to ex­claim at once against the world; and to declare that no consideration shall ever induce them to honour any body with their good opinion, a second time; in pursuance of this strange resolution, they act as if every body was unworthy of a place in their esteem; and make the behaviour of a single individual an invariable standard for the integrity of the whole universe. Hence they are continually tortured with the severest pangs of anxiety and suspicion: wear away their existence in an open warfare with society; and die as unlamented as they have lived unbeloved.

A SENSIBLE mind should, however, consider that the tempers of mankind are not less opposite than their various complexions; and that nothing can be a greater act of injustice, than to entertain an ungenerous apprehension of our whole acquaint­ance, merely because we have been deceived by any particular one. If we examine into the ge­neral course of our connexions, whether they are founded upon friendship or established upon love, [Page 227] we shall find that so far from having any right to quarrel with the world, the world will upon the whole appear not a little entitled to our regard, since in the general, we meet with a much greater share of sincerity both in friendship and in love, than what from the ridiculous nature of our at­tachments, we have any probable reason to expect.

NOW a days what is it which forms the foun­dation of our friendships or constitutes the basis of our loves? Is it a similarity in our manners or an agreement in our pursuits; a conformity in our virtues, or a resemblance in our crimes? Alas these questions if candidly answered, must load us with confusion and reproach. In the choice of our friends it is not an excellence of understanding or a benignity of heart, which produces our intimacy, or attracts our esteem. It is not the suggestion of our virtues which is consulted in the choice of our friends, but the depravity of our inclinations: does a man drink a bottle more than the generality of our companions — good — that man is a very honest fellow — and very proper to be set down as a friend: does another tell a story, sing a song — or spend the substance of other people with an un­common degree of spirit? Better and better, — there can be no doubt of his worth; and we clap him in our hearts core, as Hamlet has it, In our heart of hearts: or has a third butchered his neighbour in some scandalous quarrel, arising from the outragious excess of midnight profligacy? Best of all — Such a friend is inestimable — An intimacy with him is [Page 228] not more flattering to our pride than agreeable to our wishes; we mention his heroism upon every occasion and in proportion to the closeness of our acquaintance, we constantly claim a share in the lustre of his reputation.

IN like manner where we form a still nearer connexion than friendship is capable of admitting; when we absolutely look about for wives; by what salutary standard do we regulate our inclina­tions? Will not a tolerable face have more weight with us than the most exalted understanding; and will not a tollerable fortune appear of more con­sequence than the united recommendation of all the mental accomplishments? When these things are notoriously so, what are we to expect but shame and disappointment; but mortification and regret? At a situation like this, who are we to find fault with but ourselves? If we trust our property to the hands of a robber, can we expect it to be safe? And if we lodge our confidence or our felicity in the bosoms of the worthless, what greater security can we possibly hope to find, either for the prodigal deposit of our friendships, or the frantic repose of our affections? Instead therefore of quarrelling with the world for deceiving us so often, we should acknowledge ourselves obliged that we are not deceived still oftener; our connexions for the most part are injudicious, and consequently should be for the most part unfortunate; yet, for the ho­nour of human nature, be it mentioned, the world is not so ready to deceive as we are to let it; nor [Page 229] are our acquaintance half so much disposed to be villains as we are disposed to be fools. Let us not therefore, because we ourselves are profligate or ridiculous, impeach the integrity of other people; if we have a mind to be fortunate in our friend­ships, or happy in our loves; let us not form at­tachments according to the advice of our passions, but according to the direction of our reason; the wise and the virtuous are those which will stand the test of the closest examination; and these are the only people whom reason will ever point out as entitled in the least to our esteem or our affection.

NUMB. CXIV. Saturday, April 2.

NUMB. CXV. Saturday, April 9.

THE character of an author is what such numbers are ambitious of obtaining, that every day produces some addition to the republic of letters, and shews us a great many honest gen­tlemen who imagine, that the publication of a book, let it be never so useless or despicable, must raise them in the estimation of the world, as if the surest way to establish an idea of the understandings, was to prove themselves triflers or fools. For my own part, great a partiality as I may feel for the productions of the press, I set but a very small value on those works which are not likely to be of service to society. The most ingenious treatise on the wing of a butter-fly, has but very little merit in my opinion; and my ridicule is much more easily moved where a man of real talents takes an infinite deal of pains to prove some hypothesis, which, when it is proved, does not signify a sixpence to the world, than where I see a writer setting out to gain some point which will be really advantageous to mankind, but failing through an obvious want of abilities, in the attainment of his end.

THERE is, however, no part of literature in which men of genius are so apt to trifle, or in which blockheads are so apt to be insufferable, as in poetry. Who, for instance, that reads Mr. Pope's Rape of the Lock, can forbear lamenting to find [Page 234] so much sterling fancy and exquisite versification thrown away upon a subject which cannot possibly be of the smallest benefit to the reader. Perhaps of all the pieces which this great man ever pub­lished the Rape of the Lock is the most finished and poetical; yet must it not grieve a considerate mind to recollect, that the Rape of the Lock is at best but a glittering toy; an elevated gewgaw, merely capable of amusing the fancy, but no way calcu­lated to enlarge the understanding. Must it not grieve a considerate mind to see those astonishing abilities prodigally squandered on such despicable objects, when the choice of subjects suited to their natural dignity would have afforded the world a still greater degree of entertainment, and given it besides the most ample and salutary sources of in­struction.

IT is a very absurd opinion which a great many people adopt in regard to the end of poetry. So it amuses the fancy, they imagine it may neglect the heart; and so it tickles the ear in an agreeable manner, they never once trouble themselves about the effect which it is likely to have upon the un­derstanding: thus they conclude, that the most exalted walk of all literature is to be the least use­ful to the world, and set down men of inferior ta­lents only as the proper instructors of society. Ab­surd as this opinion is, it has nevertheless a prodi­gious number of advocates; and the generality of our modern poets seem to be so perfectly satisfied of it's justice, that one half of our compositions [Page 235] are nothing more than elegies on linnets or black-birds—Descriptions of a river or a meadow—verses to the spring — and ballads about milliners girls and mantua-makers apprentices.

DID these worthy gentlemen, however, consider, that poetry is to the full as capable of improving the mind, as of amusing the imagination, perhaps they would endeavour to give us some gleams of common sense in their productions—Did they con­sider, that the principal number of our celebrated poets, while they entertained us with the finest ebullitions of genius, have given us also the sound­est lessons of morality; and did they consider, that the harmony of numbers is almost entirely calcu­lated to enforce the sentiments of virtue more strongly on our bosoms, they might be kindly led to mix a little reason now and then with their rhyme, and induced to believe, that the most polished ver­sification is but a poor apology for dullness and in­sipidity.

THE herd of modern versifiers unfortunately copy nothing but the defects of our celebrated writers. Instead of endeavouring to imitate the exalted flights of a Pope, they only follow him where he evidently descends; and because he, or because other great men like Scipio and Laelius, have employed themselves in skimming some little poe­tical pebbles on the surface of genius, they claim an everlasting privilege to trifle also, and run con­tinually into their faults without once spiritedly at­tempting to reach the least of their perfections.

[Page 236]IT is in reality surprising, when the main end of literature is to make mankind wiser and better, that the press is unceasingly teeming with produc­tions which often want even the negative merit, of having no harm to countenance the grossness of their stupidity. Whoever is desirous of being an author should always carefully attend to this mate­rial circumance, the instruction of his reader; he should judiciously consider with himself, whether the publication, which he is about to make, is such as can either be serviceable to the judgment or the heart; advantageous to the cause of good sense, or beneficial to the interests of morality: unless it an­swers one of these ends, he never can promise him­self either profit or reputation, and it will be much more for his credit to continue in his usual state of obscurity, than to call for the attention of the world to shew himself a weak or a worthless member of the community.

NUMB. CXVI. Saturday, April 16.

IT sometimes happens that men, who make the most dangerous deviations from the laws of so­ciety, and the principles of virtue, in a great mea­sure, owe their crimes to the very benevolence of their hearts; and that in the midst of all their guilt we find a dignity of soul which commands our highest admiration.

[Page 237]FRANK LEESON, was the son of a country gentleman in Ireland, who possessed a little estate of about 300 pounds a year, but who, with that liberality of sentiment, so particularly the charac­terestic of his nation, gave into an hospitality ra­ther beyond the power of his circumstances, and in promoting the happiness of his friends, too frequently forgot a necessary attention to his own; the consequence may be easily foreseen by the intelligent reader; old Mr. Leeson was involved in perpetual difficulties, and was upon the eve of being thrown into prison, when he was saved from a disgrace of that nature by the extraordinary piety of his son; Frank to a very excellent understand­ing, joined a very amiable person; on which ac­count, a young lady with an independent fortune of 8000l. had long beheld him with a favourable eye; but Frank being attached to another whose beau­ty and merit were her only recommendations, had hitherto declined to profit by this lady's partiality; however, when he saw there was no other method of saving an infirm father and mother from po­verty and bondage, the force of his filial affection got the better of his love; he tore himself from the woman of his soul, and married the eight thousand pounds: with this money, he paid off all the old gentleman's debts, and entered the world with a degree of reputation, considerably superior to the generality of his acquaintance.

AS nothing could seperate Frank and his fa­ther, the old couple and the young lived for some [Page 238] time in the most perfect state of harmony under the same roof; and the severity of their former situa­tion producing a necessary regulation in their ex­pences, they were every day rising no less in opu­lence than in felicity, when an unexpected mis­fortune left them in the moment of their utmost security without shelter and without bread: old Mr. Leeson, finding his health very much impair­ed, and conceiving a disgust moreover at the part in which he resided, because his friends had not formerly been so ready to assist him in his necessi­ties, as he had reason to expect; resolved with the concurrence of his son to dispose of his estate, and to make an adequate purchase in the neighbour­hood of Dublin, where he might have an oppor­tunity of consulting the best Physicians, and esta­blishing a more agreeable circle of acquaintance: pursuant to this plan, he sold every acre he pos­sessed, had the purchase money home in bills, and was preparing to set off for another part of the king­dom in a day or two, when an accidental fire reduced his habitation to an heap of ashes, de­stroyed all his effects, and gave him scarcely a moment more than was absolutely necessary for the preservation of his family: Frank, whose whole property was also in bills, and packed up ready for the intended departure, lost all in the general ca­lamity, and was obliged together with his father, his mother and his wife, to take refuge at a neigh­bouring gentleman's for a few days, till they were in a capacity of reaching the metropolis, [Page 239] where Frank expected from some letters which he obtained to the lord Lieutenant, to procure a little establishment either in the army or the public offices.

ON the arrival of our unfortunate family in town, young Mr. Leeson applied himself indus­triously to profit by his recommendations; but alas, though he met with civility, he could obtain no relief; every fresh application gave him nothing but fresh occasion to lament the miserable prospect before him; and while he was continually cheer­ing every bosom at home with the speedy expecta­tion of halcyon days, he had nothing but despair in his own. At length, destruction became too evident to be concealed; his father who was now confined to his bed, had been a whole day without sustenance, and young Mrs. Leeson was every hour trembling, lest the pains of parturiency should oblige her to solicit the charitable assistance of the public; thus situated, torn with a thousand pangs, for a wife who possessed his highest esteem; for a father whom he almost worshipped, and a mother whom he tenderly loved; Frank sallied out one evening into the streets and stopping a gentleman, whose appearance indicated opulence, he demand­ed his money with such a wildness of accent, that the gentleman terrified out of his wits, immedi­ately gave him a purse of fifty guineas, and Frank eagerly retreated to his lodgings, depositing the money with his father, and telling him he had re­ceived it from the lord Lieutenant's order, as an [Page 240] earnest only of future obligations; the family at home not doubting the truth of this relation, poured out their whole souls in acknowledgment of the viceroy's goodness, and once more refreshed them­selves with a comfortable repast.

NEXT morning, however, the robbery became noised abroad, and to the great surprize of every body a merchant of the first character and fortune was apprehended for the fact and lodged in Newgate; on the earliest knowledge of this circumstance, Frank immediately wrote to the innocent gentle­man, desiring him to be under no apprehension, for if he was not honourably acquitted, the person actually guilty would on the day of trial appear in court, acknowledge his crime, and surrender him­self to the violated laws of his country; the gen­tleman naturally read his letter to every body, but though such as were his friends, talked of it as a most extraordinary affair, the generality of people, considered it as a despicable artifice calculated to impose on the credulity of the public; however, the day of trial at last came; and notwithstanding the merchant's character appeared irreproachable before this unfortunate stain; notwithstanding several personages of the highest figure, proved him a man remarkably nice in his principles and opulent in his circumstances; the prosecutor was so positive in his charge, and a number of circum­stances so surprisingly concurred, that he was actu­ally convicted; and the judge proceeding to sentence, when a loud noise of make way ran through the [Page 241] and young Mr. Leeson, with a manly, yet, modest countenance, rushing forward, demanded to be heard, and delivered himself to the following effect:

‘YOU see before you, my Lord, an unhappy young man, who once little thought of violating the laws of his country, and who wished rather to be the friend, than the enemy of Society; but who knows to what he may be urged in the hour of a piercing calamity; to what he may be wrought when destitute of friends and destitute of bread? I my lord, was born a gentleman and bred one; six months ago I was master of an easy fortune, but an accidental fire in a moment redu­ced me to beggery, and what still more distressed me, reduced also an infirm and excellent father, an aged and tender mother, together with the best of women and the best of wives to the same lamentable situation; encouraged by some recom­mendations to the great, we came up to town, and expected a decent means of procuring a subsistance; but alas, my Lord, those who want compassion most, are those who are most commonly disregard­ed; instead of assistance we received compliments, and met with the bow of a frigid politeness, where we looked for the bounteous hand of relief; so that in a little time, our all was totally ex­hausted; and my unhappy father with the vener­able partner of his youth were above a day with­out any sustenance whatsoever, when unable to see them expiring for food, I rushed forth; and com­mitted [Page 242] the robbery, for which this gentleman now prisoner at the bar has been condemned.’

‘THIS was not the whole of my affliction; a fond deserving wife, who had brought me a plen­tiful fortune, lay also perishing with hunger, and that too in a situation which demanded the ten­derest attention, and the most immediate regard: such, my Lord, were my motives for that un­justifiable action. Had the gentleman con­demned, been happily acquitted, I had not made this public acknowledgment of my guilt: heaven only knows what I have suffered during his con­finement; but the empire of the universe would not bribe me to injure him farther; nor tempt me by an infamous sacrifice of his life, to consult the safety of my own. Here then, my Lord, I claim his sentence, and demand his bonds. Provi­dence will, I doubt not, now take care of my innocent family, who are equally ignorant of my crime, and my self-accusation. For my own part, I am resigned; and I feel nothing in consequence of my approaching fate, but from what I am sensible my miserable friends must suffer on my account.’

HERE Mr. Leeson ended, and the whole court was lost in approbation and tears—He was, how­ever condemned, but pardoned the same day; and his character suffered so little upon this occasion, that the Lord Lieutenant gave him, with his life, a place of seven hundred pounds a year, while the [Page 243] merchant, who had been accused from resembling him excessively, dying sometime after without issue left him his whole fortune, as a reward for so ex­emplary an act of justice and generosity.

NUMB. CXVII. Saturday, April 23.

AS the managers of our threatres are, I am sa­tisfied, gentlemen of too much understanding to be offended with any body for pointing out such casual improprieties as in the great multiplicity of their business, may possibly escape their own ob­servation; I shall employ the present paper in ac­quainting them with a circumstance or two, which may be altered much to the satisfaction of the pub­lic, without exposing themselves to the smallest inconvenience, or the minutest expence.

AS I am very fond of a play and generally take my station in the Pitt, I am frequently offended at the constant interruptions which the performance meets with from the restless dispositions of the music, who the moment an act is begun, always get up stare about perhaps with an idle gape of stupidity, and then withdraw, though conscious that their presence is indispensibly requisite in half an hour at the farthest — when the prompter touches his bell towards the close of the act, the audience is again disturbed by their entrance, and this entrance, is made with so little caution that the actors are absolutely impeded in the prosecution of their parts, [Page 244] and the attention of the spectators very frequently called from the most interesting passages of the play. Sometimes these considerate gentlemen will even tune their various instruments while the per­former is actually speaking, and I have more than once heard Lear exclaiming against the unnatural hags his daughters, to the disjointed squeak of a hautboy, the impertinent sharp of a fiddle, or the drowsy hum of a bassoon. In every play we are sure of being disturbed ten times, by the very people who are paid to encrease our entertain­ment; and who surely should from motives of in­terest, if not from principles of gratitude, seize every opportunity of adding to our satisfaction.

WHAT kind of corporeal qualities may go to the composition of a fiddler I neither know, nor am I very solicitous of being informed. I cannot however help thinking, but what they might sit as quietly in their seats, as their paymasters the public. During the course of an evening's enter­tainment not one in a hundred of the auditors find it necessary to go out. Why therefore the whole band of music, should have occasion to interrupt us regularly every half hour is somewhat extraor­dinary. A little common-sense cannot surely pre­judice the nicety of their ears, or the expertness of their fingers; and if not, what excuse can they possibly assign for a behaviour so generally dis­agreeable to the town, and so palpably below the practice of any men who pretended in the least ei­ther to manners or to modesty?

[Page 245]IT is a circumstance mentioned highly to the ho­nour of the late prince of Wales his majesty's father, that having by some unavoidable accident outstaid his time one evening when he had commanded a play, he was no sooner informed that the audience had been obliged to wait in consequence of his delay, then he pulled out his watch in the full face of the house, as if he had recognized his error, and bowed with such an acknowledgment of gracious condescension, as rendered him inconceivably ami­able from his little mistake. With all possible deference to the gentlemen of the catgut, and the professors of the pipe, I think the prince of Wales a personage of as much consequence as the best of them; and therefore if an apology was amiable in him for detaining an audience some minutes from a favourite entertainment, it must be thought a little presumptuous in them to be perpetually disturbing it. It is not however the members of the band to whom I address myself; it is to their immediate masters, and I flatter myself after what I have here said, I shall have but little occasion to expatiate on the subject for the future, as the ma­nagers have good-sense, and the public have re­collection.

THE next abuse which I think wants refor­mation in our theatres, is the practice which some of the capital performers have of raising the price of the Pitt at their benefits. This of all the acts of presumption, which I ever remember in the pro­fessors of the stage is by much the most glaring [Page 246] and unpardonable; and if it should be tolerated but a few seasons longer, there is no knowing to what lengths the temerity may be carried. I am far from being an enemy to the drama; on the contrary, I wish particularly well to the actors; and am never better pleased than when I see their merits properly rewarded, by the munificence of the public. But I think there is none of our per­formers who ought not to be very thankful for a clear benefit of two hundred pounds. This, either of the theatres will afford them at the common prices; and one should surely imagine that they ought to testify their acknowledgments for the an­nual company of their friends, rather than make use of that very esteem which the town entertains for them, to load it with an additional charge— what they may think of the affair I know not; but of this I am fully persuaded, that the man who would not think himself highly obliged by a clear benefit of two hundred pounds, never deserves to have a benefit at all.

LET us however examine a little into the general excuse which the gentlemen of the theatres think proper to urge in extenuation of this extraordinary behaviour; whenever they are reprehended on this account their constant plea is, that they raise their price in order to oblige their friends, and that as nobody is forced to come, nobody can complain of an injury. This excuse scarcely merits a re­ply; yet let me ask the people who urge it, whether the theatre is not entirely a public entertainment; [Page 247] and whether they can properly dispose of those places to any particular individuals, which are equally appointed for the indifferent reception of all — Custom has for a long time authorized the letting of places in the boxes; but custom has never authorized an addition to the regular price — Why therefore the frequenters of the Pitt should be excluded from their usual seats without the payment of two shillings extraordinary is a circum­stance which surprises me much. What have the Pitt part of the audience done that they should be singled out to bear the imposition of some arrogant favourite, whom they themselves have probably raised into reputation? If an addition must be made to the price of tickets on benefit nights; let the tax become general; let the Boxes and the Galle­ries come in for their portion of the burden, and let not the people of the Pitt be the only person destined to bear the scourge of theatrical avarice and temerity — If an actor's friends want to put a sum of money in his pocket, let them give double or treble the value for their own tickets; but let not the indifferent part of the public be obliged to pay for friendships in which they have no manner of connexion. The buildings which formerly dis­graced the stage on benefit nights have been judi­ciously removed by the good-sense of the managers; it is therefore to be hoped that they will shew as much readiness in the suppression of a palpable in­justice as in the suppression of a mere inconveni­ence; and that they will not suffer their performers [Page 248] to take a liberty with the public, which they dare not take themselves.

THE last thing which I shall recommend to the managers, is to consult the propriety of places, and to pay a little attention to the rank of their characters. — What business has a party of the English foot guards to attend upon a Persian em­peror? Or is it a reason that a prince should not be habited like a prince, because the actor who appears in the character has but thirty shillings a week: — It is inconceivable how these little things affect an accurate observer — who can bear to see the duke of Cornwall's gentleman drest better than the duke of Cornwall himself — or endure with patience to see the persons of one single family drest in the manner of half a dozen different coun­tries? The probability of the fiction becomes de­stroyed by means of these slovenly inattentions, and Drury-lane or Covent-garden, stare us conti­nually in the face, when we want to be in Spain or in France, in Italy or Illyria.

NUMB. CXVIII. Saturday, April 30.

NUMB. CXIX. Saturday, May 7.

NUMB. CXX. Saturday, May 14.

IN one of my papers, some time ago, I threw out a hint relative to a passion, which my young rogue Harry had conceived for Miss Cornelia Marchmont, whom I mentioned as the very ab­stract of every mental perfection, and every personal accomplishment; my conjecture for a considerable while was acquiring fresh foundation, but as my nephew said nothing of the matter to me, I took no notice of it to him, though I could not help smiling at the belief, which he entertained, that I was totally ignorant in regard to the object of his affections—Last monday sevennight however, he came to me with an air of the greatest transport, and after apologizing for not having made me acquainted with the business a little sooner, inform­ed me, that Miss Marchmont had blest him that morning with the acknowledgment of a reciprocal esteem, and that I was the person whom she had pitched upon to open a negotiation between the two families.

[Page 258]AS I do not know any young lady existing, who possesses a greater share of my esteem, than Miss Marchmont; nor ever saw a person so immediately calculated to make my boy happy, I shook him cordially by the hand, wished him joy from the bottom of my heart, and instantly set out to my sister Rattle, who is a very worthy woman, though she sometimes will argue with me about a point of philosophy; and is a very sensible one too, though she has within these three months found fault with one or two of my Bablers: — Luckily on my en­trance, I found Mr. Marchmont, Cornelia's father, chatting with her at the parlour fire, and as he and I have been intimately acquainted above thirty years, I opened the business of my errand without any ce­remony, and this the more especially, because I knew neither could have any reasonable objection to the match; every thing turned out as I expected, both were rejoiced at the affection between the young people; and there being no mighty mat­ters of law to retard the celebration of the nuptials, I thought it best to make short work of the affair, and accordingly fixed the wedding for the follow­ing Saturday. The proposition being approved by the parent of each, I retired to make Harry happy with the intelligence, and in pursuance of the agreement I saw him blest with one of the worthiest, as well as sweetest girls in the universe, with ten thousand pounds in her pocket last Satur­day morning; — Harry has fifteen hundred a year [Page 259] himself, and my sister who has a very good join­ture, is I fancy making a purse for him into the bargain; — so that between what he must have upon her decease; and upon the decease of ano­ther person who shall be nameless — there will be ample provision for a rising family.

AS I look upon a wedding-day, to be one of the most important calls which either of the sexes have in their whole lives, for the exertion of an extraordinary delicacy I was not a little attentive to the behaviour of my two favourites, and it gave me infinite pleasure to observe upon the whole, that Harry's behaviour was manly, tender and respectful, without deviating into that fulsome disagraeable fondness; of which, even men of the best sense are often guilty, when they have just obtained the wo­man of their heart: As to Cornelia, I never saw a young creature in her situation, conduct herself with more propriety — to all the dignity of conscious virtue, she joined all the ineffable sweetness of an engaging timidity; and though she seemed proud of the man whom she had thus preferred to all the world, yet she had too much sensibility not to feel some amiable terrors, at so awful an alteration of her circumstances.

AFTER the performance of the ceremony we all retired to Mr. Marchmont's, and there being a large company of us, Harry judiciously proposed an unremitting round of amusements both before din­ner and after, which entirely employed the atten­tion even of the most volatile, and prevented the [Page 260] circulation of those indelicate ambiguities with which the generality of wedding-days are frequent­ly disgraced. So that our mirth was as it ought to be; mingled with good sense and manners; and of course the harmony of a day could be little liable to interruption while that harmony was regulated by reason and civility.

I HAVE been often shocked at the solemnization of a marriage, to see the ridiculous, I had almost said the profligate, levity with which people have approached the altar of the divine being, and jested with one another at the instant of supplicating a blessing from his hand: nay I have been many times present where the clergyman who read the service has considered the affair as a matter of the greatest merriment, and even winked with a pecu­liar degree of archness at the bride, when he came to mention the procreation of children.

ONE would imagine on a wedding day, that, if the friends of the married couple had even no vene­ration for the Deity, they would at least have some little share of politeness; and be actuated by a ten­der concern for the feelings of the lady, if they even felt no awe whatsoever in the presence of their God. A woman of any sensibility on her wed­ding-day, must naturally be in circumstances suf­ficiently embarrassed, without hearing any illiberal pleasantries from the company, to enhance the difficulties of her situation. When she considers that the happiness or misery of her life materially depends upon the choice which she has then made, [Page 261] she has cause enough for terror: and when she considers the privilege which is shortly to be claimed by the object of that choice, when she con­siders that the delicate reserve, in which she has all her life been brought up, is in an instant to be sacri­ficed to his inclination; I say, when all these things are considered, nothing can be more insolent or indeed more cruel than to aggravate her di­stress, by the practice of any improper jocularities. People I am sensible are strangely attached to old customs, but every custom should be abolished, which is in the least repugnant to reason and civi­lity; on which account, I flatter myself the reader will give a proper attention to this subject, and cor­rect the error I have here been speaking of as far as he is able, in the circuit of his acquaintance.

NUMB. CXXI. Saturday, May 21.

DURING the time of the celebrated Thamas Kouli Kahn, it was a common amusement with him and his officers, to take a number of asses, and try who could make the deepest inci­sion, in the backs of those unfortunate animals with a sabre; he that cut farthest was allow­ed the reputation of the strongest man; and frequently it happened, that one of the miser­able creatures was entirely divided asunder by the force of a single stroke: this anecdote was men­tioned at a club, to which I have the honour [Page 262] of belonging, by a gentleman of unquestionable veracity and good sense, who was many years a resident in Persia, and was an occasional spectator at several of these inhuman diversions; the whole company to their honour, it must be mentioned, expressed an honest abhorrence at such barbarous relaxations, and we all congratulated ourselves upon living in a country, where it would be scan­dalous, for the very first orders to imitate the Persian hero in his brutal exercises.

WHEN I got home, however, I could not help reflecting, that notwithstanding the conscious pride of heart, which we all possessed in the moment of self-congratulation, a number of amusements could be pointed out in this kingdom considerably more barbarous, than the practice of hewing an ass to pieces, though this appeared so justly shocking to our imaginations: nay, what is still worse, the enjoyment of several barbarities is particularly re­served for people of the first figure and under­standing, as if those, whose feeling should be un­commonly tender, had an additional title to the commission of cruelties; and as if a violent outrage upon every sentiment of humanity, should be the peculiar privilege of birth and fortune:—My readers may be surprised at this observation, upon the peo­ple of England; yet let me ask if it be more cruel to torture an ass, than to torture a stag; or whe­ther it is not even more compassionate to dispatch the first at a blow, than to pursue the latter for a number of hours, encreasing the wretched animal's [Page 263] agony at every step, and yielding it up at last, to a death that must harrow up the bosom of any good natured man, who allows himself a moment's space for reflexion.

THE more in reality that we consider this point, the more we shall find it necessary, to condemn the inhabitants of this civilized, this benevolent, country; the Persian when he dispatches the unfor­tunate ass, commits no trespass upon the property of his neighbour, nor manifests any disregard to the distresses of a friend: the animal whom he de­stroys is his own, it is confined to a particular spot: and nobody can suffer in it's death but himself; whereas in the prosecution of the chace with us, we trample inconsiderately through half a county, perhaps, over the corn grounds and inclosures, which the industrious farmer has cultivated, or planted, at a very great expence; and if the per­son whom we thus injure expresses any resentment at our conduct, we possibly horsewhip him for his insolence, and send him home with the reparation of a bleeding head, to comfort his wife and chil­dren. This is not all, in the phrenzy of a hunting match, as well as being sensible to the wrongs which we offer to others, we become wholly un­mindful of the prejudice, which we do ourselves; for let our lives be of never such consequence to our families, we become regardless of danger; we never hesitate at leaps that are manifestly big with destruction; and even, if the brother of our breast, should meet with any accident in this mad-headed [Page 264] course, so far from stopping to assist him, we make an absolute jest of his misfortune, and express a sense of pleasure in proportion as we find him in­volved in distress; if he dislocates a leg or an arm by a fall from his horse, he affords us an exquisite entertainment; but, if he actually fractures his skull, our mirth becomes extravagant, and we con­tinue wild with delight, till happiness is totally effaced by intoxication.

THE civilized nations of Europe, are extremely ready upon all occasions, to stigmatize every other part of the world with the epithet of barbarians, though the appellation might with infinitely more propriety be conferred upon themselves; among the politest of our neighbours, there are a thousand customs kept up, which would fill the most unculti­vated savage with horror, and give him if possible, a still more contemptible idea of christianity; an Indian Brachmin, for instance, will frequently go to the sea-side, while the fishermen are drawing their nets, and purchase a whole boat full of fish for the humane satisfaction of restoring the expiring creatures to their natural element, and snatching them from death; — nay, the tenderness of the Brachmins is so excessive, with regard to the ani­mal creation, that they have been known to pur­chase cattle at an extraordinary price, merely to save them from slaughter; compassionately think­ing, the lowing heifer, or the bleating lamb, an equal, though an humbler heir of existence, with themselves: what then, would men of this exalted [Page 265] benevolence, think of the British nation, were they to see with what solemnity the right of murdering an innocent Partridge, or a harmless Hare, is settled by the legislative power of the kingdom? Were they to see the armies, which at particular seasons, issue forth, to destroy the warbling inhabitants of air, for actual diversion; the sportive tenants of the river for idle recreation? But above all, what would they feel to see a generous domestic little bird, scandalously tied to the stake, and denied the smallest chance of life, at the eve of a sacred-fast, set apart by our holy religion, for the purposes of extraordinary sanctity, and the business of unusual mortification; — it is impossible to imagine what they would feel, when there are even Christians to be found, who cannot see the practice without horror, nor think of it without tears.

I AM far from carrying my notions of tenderness to the animal creation, beyond the bounds of rea­son, as the Brachmins do, who think it irreligious to feed upon any thing which has been ever endued with life; because I believe, the great Author of all things, designed these animals principally for the use and sustenance of man: yet at the same time, that I suppose they were formed by the Deity for the relief of our necessities, I cannot imagine he ever intended, they should be tortured through wantonness, or destroyed for diversion; nor can I imagine, but what even the superstitious forbearance of the Brachmins, is infinitely more pleasing in his sight, than the inconsiderate cruelty of those who [Page 266] profess an immediate obedience to his word: a God All-mercy, never takes delight in the unnecessary agony of a creature, whom he has been pleased to endue with existence; we therefore offer an insult to him, when we give a needless pang to the mean­est of his creatures, and absolutely pervert the de­sign of his Providence, whenever we sacrifice those animals to our amusements, which he has consti­tuted entirely for the relief of our wants.

I HAVE thrown out these reflexions with a bene­volent purpose, as such numbers of the ignorant and the thoughtless, are apt to promote their amuse­ments at the expence of their humanity; should, what I have here offered, be attended with the refor­mation but of an individual, I shall think my time well employed; ridicule I must naturally expect from numbers, for daring to combat with favourite preju­dices; but it is my consolation, that no witticism whatever, which may be aimed at me as a writer, can, on the present subject of animadversion, do me the minutest injury as a man.

NUMB. CXXII. Saturday, May 28.

WE are told by Plutarch, that whenever the celebrated Phocion stood up in the senate to speak upon the business of the nation, De­mosthenes, who generally espoused a different system of politics, would whisper the person who sat next [Page 267] him, and say, here comes the pruning book of my pe­riods. For my own part, greatly as I myself may fall under the common censure with the generality of my brother scriblers, I could nevertheless wish that the present age had some salutary pruning hook, to lop off the redundancies of expression in literary composition; that the reader might not be put to the trouble of going over an unnecessary number of words, which, instead of helping out a writer's sense, most commonly have quite a con­trary effect, and only serve to obscure the tendency of his arguments.

IN the Prosaic productions of the press, our modern writers, instead of aiming at conciseness and perspicuity, are too apt to study what is called, a rotundity of period; and too ready to trespass upon propriety, for the mere consideration of em­bellishment; thus to make a sentence roll floridly on the ear, they often run into the most tedious repetitions; and use double the requisite quantity of words from an unaccountable supposition, that an elegance of stile is constituted by an absolute prolixity: whereas a moment's recollection must satisfy a sensible mind, that the sooner we discover our meanings, the more masterly our pens must be naturally esteemed; and the sooner we inform the understanding of a reader, the more capable we are to answer the important designs of his in­struction.

IN poetical composition there is nothing more frequent than the practice of clogging a line with [Page 268] a load of useless epithet or unmeaning pleonasm, merely to fill out the necessary quantity of syllables: to point out what I mean more strongly, I shall give the reader an example from a man of no less consequence than Addison. The following ill-written simile in Cato has been greatly admired, and even in the Guardian it is quoted as one of the principal beauties which excites the admiration of lady Lizard and her family:

In the four first lines of this simile the judicious reader will immediately perceive, that the poet has done little more than called a spade a spade; that is, made use of synonimous epithets or meanings entirely similar; the epithet pure is just the same as limpid; and we all know that when a stream is fouled, it must be stained of course: in like man­ner to work itself clear, it must refine as it runs; and consequently refining only as it runs, it's shining must be gradual. To be serious, the poet might as well repeat the term pure, as follow it with the term limpid; and he might with just the same ele­gance tell us, that the stream wastained with stains, as use a word of just the same signification. Mr. Addison, however highly entitled to our admi­ration [Page 269] as a prose-writer, has, as a versifier, but small pretensions to our applause; it is not there­fore so much to censure him that I have pointed out the present imperfection, as to warn my poe­tical purchasers from copying the mistake. In poetry our epithets should never be forced—pro­perly used they have a fine effect; but when they are visibly dragged in to spin out the measure of a line, and are moreover bald repetitions of the same idea, they become abominable. Nothing contributes more to their beauty than variety; and nothing is easier than to render them various. A stream, for instance, has more qualities than one; it may be smooth as well as limpid; and a rose besides it's colour, has fragrance to distinguish it. When, therefore, our objects have qualities enough to supply us with a diversity of epithets, it must be a strange forgetfulness indeed to pick out a synonim, and to tell the world that what is ex­cellent is excellent.

THE great art of all stile is for a writer never to throw away his words; never to introduce any thing into his piece but what is really neces­sary for the main purpose of his design. It is not because he has a pompous period of prose to display, or has a mind to parade with a particular blaze of poetical fancy, that he should overleap the bounds of propriety; no composition can have merit but in proportion as it is founded upon good sense; and good sense must always feel an injury where a stab is directed at propriety. For these [Page 270] reasons an author should always aim at saying pertinent things, in preference to fine ones; and when his partiality for some new sentiment is run­ning away with his judgment, he ought to consider that the eye of the world is much more inclined to kindle with disdain, than to sparkle with admi­ration; he ought to consider that an indifferent reader may look with the greatest contempt upon the very passage which he himself views with so exquisite a degree of satisfaction; and he ought also to consider, that the noblest flight of genius improperly brought in, is at best but a shining ab­surdity.

FOR these reasons therefore, when a writer sits down to work upon a subject which he imagines of consequence to mankind, let him by all means prefer the substantial advantages of intrinsic use, to the flimsey fripperies of outside ornament; let him endeavour to be clear before he strives to be florid; and let him, where he aims at a floridity of stile, take care that he is not in danger of striking on the quicksands of a dull repetition, or a lifeless prolixity. Stile is but a very insignificant circumstance, unless it has actual matter to embellish; and it must ren­der a man truly ridiculous indeed, who takes a world of pains in the formation of a sentence, which cannot possibly answer the most inconsiderable end. Upon the whole, if we cannot attain a stile in literary composition without tediousness or tau­toligy; if we are forced to load every period with an unnecessary weight of words, merely to give [Page 271] our sentiments a little air of smoothness and order, I think it would in general be adviseable if we avoided an acquaintance with pen and ink; though at any rate a plain little frock will become us infi­nitely better than a tawdry fantastic coat covered entirely with tinsel, and marking us out to the world as a ridiculous compound of affectation and inability.

NUMB. CXXIII. Saturday, June 5.

IT is now above four years since the Babler first presumed to solicit the attention of the Public, and during that period he has been happily favour­ed with a reception, which while it does the highest honour to the generosity of his readers, impresses the most lively sense of gratitude upon his heart; yet this encouragement he has not va­nity to ascribe even by implication, to the account of superior abilities; on the contrary, he is hum­ble enough to confess a consciousness, that the rec­titude of his intentions in the cause of virtue has been the principal basis of his success; and is satis­fied that he owes his little reputation more to the uprightness of his design, than to the extent of his understanding; yet upon recollection, he is not sure but he betrays a greater share of self-sufficience even in his humility, than if he had laid the most arrogant pretension to parts: the world however has it's forms, and those forms should be constantly com­plied [Page 272] with, where they are neither ridiculous nor criminal; therefore, though a well-meaning mind may be reckoned among the first of all the human qualifications, still as it is a qualification which every body has it in his power to possess, a man cannot be said to raise himself insolently above his neighbours, when he claims no more than what he willingly allows to the meanest of them all.

THE kindness of the Public having now put it into my power, to make a tolerable Selection from my various Papers, and the marriage of my nephew, with whom I reside, having considerably lessened the necessary time which should be devoted to the conduct of a Weekly Essay; I purpose taking leave of my readers in the present number, with an ob­servation or two upon the nature of periodical pub­lication, and an excuse for the evident disparity which must be constantly expected in productions of this kind—The generality of writers when they undertake to amuse the world upon a plan of this nature, imagine, that because a paper or two may be struck off with a happy facility, a thousand may be composed with an equal degree of readiness; and never once doubt, while the world continues in good humour with these works, but what they will be able to go on with an unceasing variety of subjects, and an unabating fervor of inclination; the novelty of the undertaking, however is scarcely worn off, before the mind, with that lassitude which it feels in a constant application to all it's other pursuits, flags under the weight of study [Page 273] and fatigue, and anxiously wishes to be disen­gaged; it sickens at the oppressive tax which it has thus laid upon it's own enjoyments; and was it not for a secret fear that the discontinuance of it's toil, would be attributed not to an impatience of con­straint, but to a want of abilities, many of our most celebrated Essayists would have soon relin­quished their task, and consulted their convenience even before the instruction of the world, and the establishment of their reputations.

THERE is scarcely a walk of literature, which is reckoned so easy, or which in fact is so difficult as this species of periodical publication; in every other stile of composition, a writer may display his abi­lities on that particular subject with which he is most intimately acquainted; and may raise a con­siderable share of character by expatiating on such topics as are most immediately agreeable to his imagination; besides this, he may allow himself what time he thinks proper for the perfection of his works; and is never confined by a want of room from delivering himself fully upon the mi­nutest point of speculation: but the case is far other wise with the unfortunate Essayist: the miscel­laneous nature of his undertaking, forces him to furnish a variety of subjects, and obliges him to enter upon numberless discussions, which require not only a general knowledge of the world, but are often repugnant to his inclination: nor do the in­conveniencies under which he labours rest here; under an indispensible necessity of publishing on a [Page 274] particular day, whether he is either at leisure or in health; unembarrassed in his situation or undis­turbed in his mind; he must go on, and even com­prise his thoughts within such a compass as may suit the convenience of his Printer: before he can well begin, the scanty limits of his Paper renders it necessary to conclude; and his whole Essay must be contained in a quantity of words, which is scarcely sufficient to serve it for an introduction.

I DO not mention these matters by any means to enhance the merit of my performance, but to apo­logize in reality for it's faults; a reader who does not consider how an Essayist is circumstanced, will often have opportunity to animadvert upon his pro­ductions with the greatest severity; he will find many subjects handled with little knowledge and others discussed with less force; his good nature must therefore mitigate the harshness of his criti­cism, and he must never pronounce upon the work without considering the situation of the Author. When I first began to make a Selection from the various Papers which have appeared under the title of the BABLER, I was in reality astonished at the intollerable dulness of a number which I committed to the flames, and could not help admiring the goodness of the world, which for the sake of a few, I hope not altogether unworthy the regard of a good man, could patiently put up with such heaps of stupidity; the more I considered the generosity of the Public, the more I was encouraged to go on with my Selection; the same candour which I [Page 275] experienced, when I appeared periodically, I flat­tered myself would attend the publication of a vo­lume or two; especially when by weeding out the most insufferable papers, I had in some measure rendered myself less undeserving of the general pro­tection: such of my readers therefore, as may not be ashamed to see me in their libraries, have now an opportunity of buying me in volumes. Yet greatly as I have been encouraged by the Public, the purchasers of ‘OWEN's WEEKLY CHRONICLE’ will have occasion to be pleased at my declining to labour any longer in their service, as a gentleman of real genius, is to fill up the column which I have enjoyed in that Paper, with an Essay entitled, ‘THE WISDOM OF THE WEEK; OR, A REGISTER OF PUBLIC ABSURDITIES:’ in which, I doubt not, but they will find infinitely more entertainment; occasionally, I shall request the author to favour me with a place, for though my engagements will not allow me to write without intermission, I shall embrace every opportunity of assuring the Ladies and Gentlemen, who have hitherto honoured me with their protection, that I am,