observe all eyes are upon him, as he advances ? how each sex gazes at his stature, aspect, address, and motion?' Pacolet only smiled and shaked his head; as leaving me to be convinced by my own further observation. We kept on our way after him until we came to Exchangealley, where the plain gentleman again came up to the other; and they stood together after the manner of eminent merchants, as if ready to receive application; but I could observe no man talk to either of them. The one was laughed at as a fop; and I heard many whispers against the other, as a whimsical sort of a fellow, and a great enemy to trade. They crossed Cornhill together, and came into the full Exchange, where some bowed, and gave themselves airs in being known to so fine a man as Verisimilis, who, they said, had great interest in all prince's courts; and the other was taken notice of by several, as one they had seen somewhere long before. One more particularly said, he had formerly been a man of consideration in the world; but was so un and contemplation. I was the old soldier who met you last summer in Chelsea-fields, and pretended that I had broken my wooden-leg, and could not get home; but I snapped it short off, on purpose that you might fall into the reflections you did on that subject, and take me into your hack. If you remember, you made yourself very merry on that fracture, and asked me whether I thought I should next winter feel cold in the toes of that leg? as is usually observed, that those who lose limbs are sensible of pains in the extreme parts, even after those limbs are cut off. However, my keeping you then in the story of the battle of the Boyne prevented an assignation, which would have led you into more disasters than I then related. 'To be short: those two persons whom you see yonder are such as I am; they are not real men, but are mere shades and figures, one is named Alethes, the other Verisimilis. Their office is to be the guardians and representatives of conscience and honour. They are now going 'to visit the several parts of the town, to see how their interests in the world decay or flou-lucky, that they who dealt with him, by some rish, and to purge themselves from the many false imputations they daily meet with in the commerce and conversation of men. You observed Verisimilis frowned when he first saw me. What he is provoked at is, that I told him one day, though he strutted and dressed with so much ostentation, if he kept himself within his own bounds, he was but a lackey, and wore only that gentleman's livery whom he is now with. This frets him to the heart; for you must know, he has pretended a long time to set up for himself, and gets among a crowd of the more unthinking part of mankind, who take him for a person of the first quality; though his introduction into the world was wholly owing to his present companion.' This encounter was very agreeable to me, and I was resolved to dog them, and desired Pacolet to accompany me. I soon perceived what he told me in the gesture of the persons; for, when they looked at each other in discourse, the well-dressed man suddenly cast down his eyes, and discovered that the other had a painful superiority over him. After some further discourse, they took leave. The plain gentleman went down towards Thames-street, in order to be present, at least, at the oaths taken at the custom-house; and the other made directly for the beart of the city. It is incredible how great a change there immediately appeared in the man of honour, when he got rid of his uneasy companion: he adjusted the cock of his hat a-new, settled bis sword-knot, and had an appearance that attracted a sudden inclination for him and his interests in all who beheld him. 'For my part,' said I to Pacolet, 'I cannot but think you are mistaken in calling this person of the lower quality; for he looks much more ike a gentleman than the other. Do not you strange infatuation or other, had a way of cutting off their own bills, and were prodigiously slow in improving their stock. But as much as I was curious to observe the reception these gentlemen met with upon the Exchange, I could not help being interrupted by one that came up towards us, to whom every body made their compliments. He was of the common height, and in his dress there seemed to be great care to appear no way particular, except in a certain exact and feat manner of behaviour and circumspection. He was wonderfully careful that his shoes and cloaths should be without the least speck upon them; and seemed to think, that on such an accident depended his very life and fortune. There was hardly a man on the Exchange who had not a note upon him; and each seemed very well satisfied that their money lay in his hands, without demanding payment. I asked Pacolet, what great merchant that was, who was so universally addressed to, yet made too familiar an appearance to command that extraordinary deference? Pacolet answered, 'This person is the demon or genius of credit; his name is Umbra. If you observe, he follows Alethes and Verisimilis at a distance; and indeed has no foundation for the figure he makes in the world, but that he is thought to keep their cash; though, at the same time, none who trust him would trust the others for a groat.' As the company rolled about, the three spectres were jumbled into one place : when they were so, and all thought there was an alliance between them, they immediately drew upon them the business of the whole Exchange. But their affairs soon increased to such an unwieldy bulk, that Alethes took his leave, and said, he would not engage further than he had an immediate fund to answer. 6 Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream, P. White's Chocolate-house, August 1. The imposition of honest names and words upon improper subjects, has made so regular a confusion among us, that we are apt to sit down with our errors, well enough satisfied with the methods we are fallen into, without attempting to deliver ourselves from the tyranny under which we are reduced by such innovations. Of all the laudable motives of human life, none have suffered so much in this kind, as love; under which revered name a brutal desire mitted; though they differ as much as a matron To an exact perfection they have brought 'How could you,' said he,' leave such a hint so coldly? How could Aspasia and Sempronia enter into your imagination at the same time, and you never declare to us the different receptions you gave them?' Verisimilis pretended, 'that though he had revenues large enough to go on his own bottom, yet it was below one of his family to condescend to trade in his own name;' therefore he also retired. I was extremely troubled to see the glorious mart of London left with no other guardian but bim of credit. But Pacolet told me, that traders had nothing to do with the honour or conscience of their correspondents, provided they supported a general behaviour in the world, which could not hurt their credit or their purses: for,' said he, you may, in this one tract of building of London and Westminster, see the imaginary motives on which the great-called lust, is frequently concealed and adest affairs move, as well as in rambling over the face of the earth. For though Alethes is the real governor, as well as legislator of mankind, he has very little business but to make up quarrels ; and is only a general referee, to whom every man pretends to appeal, but is satisfied with his determinations no further than they promote his own interest. Hence it is, that the soldier and the courtier model their actions according to Verisimilis's manner, and the merchant according to that of Umbra. Among these men, honour and credit are not valuable possessions in themselves, or pursued out of a principle of justice; but merely as they are serviceable to ambition and to commerce. But the world will never be in any manner of order or tranquillity, until men are firmly convinced that conscience, honour, and credit, are all in one interest; and that, without the concurrence of the former, the latter are but impositions upon ourselves and others. The force these delusive words have, is not seen in the transactions of the busy world only, but they have also their tyranny over the fair sex. Were you to ask the unhappy Lais, what pangs of reflection preferring the consideration of her honour to her conscience has given her? she could tell you, that it has forced her to drink up half a gallon, this winter, of Tom Dassapas's potions that she still pines away for fear of being a mother; and knows not but the moment she is such, she shall be a murderess: but if conscience had as strong a force upon the mind as honour, the first step to her un-wood-nymphs and shepherdesses, to lurk on happy condition had never been made; she had still been innocent as she is beautiful. Were men so enlightened and studious of their own good, as to act by the dictates of their reason and reflection, and not the opinion of others, conscience would be the steady ruler of human life; and the words truth, law, reason, equity, and religion, would be but synonymous terms for that only guide which makes us pass our days in our own favour and approbation.' No. 49.] Tuesday, August 2, 1709. nostri est farrago libelli. Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86. The figures which the ancient mythologists and poets put upon Love and Lust in their writings are very instructive. Love is a beauteous blind child, adorned with a quiver and a bow, which he plays with, and shoots around him, without design or direction; to intimate to us that the person beloved has no intention to give us the anxieties we meet with, but that the beauties of a. worthy object are like the charms of a lovely infant; they cannot but attract your concern and fondness, though the child so regarded is as insensible of the value you put upon it, as it is that it deserves your benevolence. On the other side, the sages figured Lust in the form of a satyr; of shape, part human, part bestial; to signify that the followers of it prostitute the reason of a man to pursue the appetites of a beast. This satyr is made to haunt the paths and coverts of the the banks of rivulets, and watch the purling From this idea of a Cupid and a Satyr, we may settle our notions of these different desires, mistress of Limberham, lives in constant torand accordingly rank their followers. Aspasia ment: her equipage is an old woman, who must, therefore, be allowed to be the first of was what Corinna is now; and an antiquated the beauteous order of Love, whose unaffected footman, who was pimp to Limberham's father; freedom, and conscious innocence, give her the and a chambermaid, who is Limberham's wench attendance of the graces in all her actions. by fits, out of a principle of politics to make That awful distance which we bear toward her her jealous and watchful of Corinna. Under in all our thoughts of her, and that cheerful this guard, and in this conversation, Corinna familiarity with which we approach her, are lives in state; the furniture of her habitation, certain instances of her being the truest object and her own gorgeous dress, make her the of love of any of her sex. In this accomplished envy of all the strolling ladies in the town; lady, love is the constant effect, because it is but Corinna knows she herself is but part of never the design. Yet, though her mein car- Limberham's household-stuff, and is as capable ries much more invitation than command, to of being disposed of elsewhere, as any other behold her is an immediate check to loose be- moveable. But while her keeper is persuaded haviour; and to love her is a liberal education; by his spies, that no enemy has been within for, it being the nature of all love to create an his doors since his last visit, no Persian prince imitation of the beloved person in the lover, a was ever so magnificently bountiful: a kind regard for Aspasia naturally produces deceney look or falling tear is worth a piece of brocade, of manners, and good conduct of life in her a sigh is a jewel, and a smile is a cupboard of admirers. If, therefore, the giggling Leucippe plate. All this is shared between Corinna and could but see her train of fops assembled, and her guard in his absence. With this great Aspasia move by them, she would be mortified economy and industry does the unhappy Limat the veneration with which she is beheld, berham purchase the constant tortures of jeaeven by Leucippe's own unthinking equipage, lousy, the favour of spending his estate, and whose passions have long taken leave of their the opportunity of enriching one by whom he understandings. knows he is hated and despised. These are the ordinary and common evils which attend keepers; and Corinna is a wench but of common size of wickedness, were you to know what passes under the roof where the fair Messalina reigns with her humble adorer. As charity is esteemed a conjunction of the good qualities necessary to a virtuous man, so love is the happy composition of all the accomplishments that make a fine gentleman. The motive of a man's life is seen in all his actions; and such as have the beauteous boy for their inspirer, have a simplicity of behaviour, and a certain evenness of desire, which burns like the lamp of life in their bosoms; while they who are instigated by the satyr, are ever tortured by jealousies of the object of their wishes; often desire what they scorn, and as often consciously and knowingly embrace where they are mutu-in painful daylight, that he may return to the ally indifferent. Messalina is the professed mistress of mankind; she has left the bed of her husband, and her beauteous 'offspring, to give a loose to want of shame and fullness of desire. Wretched Nocturnus, her feeble keeper! How the poor creature fribbles in his gait, and skuttles from place to place, to despatch his necessary affairs constant twilight preserved in that scene of Florio, the generous husband, and Limber- wantonness, Messalina's bed-chamber! How ham, the kind keeper, are noted examples of does he, while he is absent from thence, conthe different effects which these desires produce sider in his imagination the breadth of his porin the mind. Amanda, who is the wife of ter's shoulders, the spruce night-cap of his Florio, lives in the continual enjoyment of new valet, the ready attendance of his butler! any instances of her husband's friendship, and sees of all whom he knows she admits, and proit the end of all his ambition to make her life fesses to approve of. This, alas! is the galone series of pleasure and satisfaction; and lantry, this the freedom of our fine gentlemen; Amanda's relish of the goods of life is all that for this they preserve their liberty, and keep makes them pleasing to Florio: they behave clear of that bugbear, marriage. But he does themselves to each other, when present, with a not understand either vice or virtue, who will certain apparent benevolence, which transports not allow, that life without the rules of moraabove rapture; and they think of each other lity is a wayward uneasy being, with snatches in absence with a confidence unknown to the only of pleasure; but under the regulation of highest friendship: their satisfactions are dou- virtue, a reasonable and uniform habit of er bled, their sorrows lessened, by participation.joyment. I have seen, in a play of old Hay. On the other hand, Corinna, who is the woods, a speech at the end of an act, which The persons here alluded to under the names of Corinna and Limberham, were Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, junior, and Henry Cromwell, esquire. touched this point with much spirit. He makes a married man in the play, upon some endearing occasion, look at his spouse with an air of fondness, and fall into the following reflection on his condition: Oh marriage! happiest, easiest safest state; A faithful, beauteons friend? Blush not, my fair-one, that thy love applauds thee, That my full heart o'erflows in praise of thee. No. 50.] Thursday August 4, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86. --- nostri est farrago libelli. Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream, P. grateful age would otherwise have forced him Ten lustra and more are wholly past sinc Orlando first appeared in the metropolis d this island; his descent noble, his wit hu morous, his person charming. But to none of these recommendatory advantages was his title so undoubted, as that of his beauty. His com. plexion was fair, but his countenance manly; his stature of the tallest, his shape the most exact: and though in all his limbs he had a proportion as delicate as we see in the works of the most skilful statuaries, his body had a strength and firmness little inferior to the marble of which such images are formed. This made Orlando the universal flame of all the fair sex; innocent virgins sighed for him, as Adonis; experienced widows, as Hercules. Thus did this figure walk alone the pattern and ornament of our species, but of course the envy of all who had the same passions without White's Chocolate-house, August 2. bis superior merit and pretences to the favour of that enchanting creature, woman. However, THE HISTORY OF ORLANDO THE FAIR. the generous Orlando believed himself formed WHATEVER malicious men may say of our for the world, and not to be engrossed by any lucubrations, we have no design but to produce particular affection. He sighed not for Delia, unknown merit, or place in a proper light for Chloris, for Chloe, for Betty, nor my lady, the actions of our contemporaries who labour nor for the ready chamber-maid, nor distant to distinguish themselves, whether it be by baroness: woman was his mistress, and the vice or virtue. For we shall never give accounts whole sex his seraglio. His form was always to the world of any thing, but what the lives irresistible: and if we consider, that not one and endeavours of the persons, of whom we of five hundred can bear the least favour from treat, make the basis of their fame and repua lady without being exalted above himself; tation. For this reason, it is to be hoped that if also we must allow, that a smile from a sideour appearance is reputed a public benefit; box has made Jack Spruce half mad; we canand though certain persons may turn what we not think it wonderful that Orlando's repeated mean for panegyric into scandal, let it be anconquests touched his brain: so it certainly swered once for all, that if our praises are did, and Orlando became an enthusiast in love; really designed as raillery, such malevolent and in all his address contracted something persons owe their safety from it, only to their out of the ordinary course of breeding and being too inconsiderable for history. It is not civility. However, powerful as he was, he every man who deals in ratsbane, or is unseawould still add to the advantages of his person, sonably amorous, that can adorn story like that of a profession which the ladies always Esculapius; nor every stock-jobber of the favour, and immediately commenced soldier.+ India company can assume the port, and per- Thus equipped for love and honour, our hero sonate the figure of Aurengezebe. My noble seeks distant climes and adventures, and leaves ancestor, Mr. Shakspeare, who was of the race the despairing nymphs of Great Britain, to the of the Staff's was not more fond of the memocourtships of beaux and witlings till his return. rable sir John Falstaff, than I am of those worHis exploits in foreign nations and courts have thies; but the Latins have an admirable adnot been regularly enough communicated unto monition expressed in three words, to wit, Ne us, to report them with that veracity which quid nimis, which forbids my indulging myself we profess in our narrations: but after many on those delightful subjects, and calls me to feats of arms (which those who were witnesses do justice to others, who make no less figures to them have suppressed out of envy, but which in our generation; of such, the first and most we have had faithfully related from his own renowned is that eminent hero and lover, Or-mouth in our public streets) Orlando returns lando,* the handsome, whose disappointments in love, in gallantry, and in war, have banished him from public view, and made him voluntarily enter into a confinement to which the un • Robert Fielding, esq. commonly known then by the name of beau Fielding, a handsome and very comely gen tleman, much distinguished in the Annals of Gallantry' at that time. home full, but not loaded with years. Beaux born in his absence made it their business to Ten lustra amount to half a century. A lustrum was undoubtedly a period of five years complete, and an olym. piad of four. ↑ Fielding embarked in the fortunes of king James 11. who gave him the nomination of colonel, and for whom be raised a regiment in his native county of Warwick. decry his furniture, his dress, his manner; but | all such rivalry he suppressed (as the philosopher did the sceptic, who argued there was no such thing as motion) by only moving The beauteous Villaria,* who only was formed for his paramour, became the object of his affection. His first speech to her was as follows: MADAM, 'It is not only that nature has made us two the most accomplished of each sex, and pointed to us to obey her dictates in becoming one; but that there is also an ambition in following the mighty persons you have favoured. Where kings and heroes, as great as Alexander, or such as could personate Alexander, † have bowed, permit your general to lay his laurels.' According to Milton; The fair with conscions majesty approv❜á Fortune having now supplied Orlando with necessaries for his high taste of gallantry and pleasure, his equipage and economy had something in them more sumptuous and gallant than could be received in our degenerate age; therefore his figure, though highly graceful, appeared so exotic, that it assembled all the Britons under the age of sixteen, who saw his grandeur to follow his chariot with shouts and acclamations; which he regarded with the contempt which great minds affect in the midst of applauses. I remember, I had the honour to see him one day stop, and call the youths about him to whom he spake as follows: 'Good bastards—Go to school and do not lose your time in following my wheels: I am loth to hurt you, because I know not but you are all my own offspring: hark ye, you sirrah with the white hair, I am sure you are mine: there is half-a-crown. Tell your mother, this, with the half-crown I gave her when I got you, comes to five shillings. Thou hast cost me all that, and yet thou art good for nothing. Why, you young dogs, did you never see a man before?' Never such a one as you, noble general,' replied a truant from Westminster. Sirrah, I believe thee: there is a crown for thee. Drive on, coachman. This vehicle though sacred to love, was not adorned with doves: such a hieroglyphic denoted too languishing a passion. Orlando, therefore, gave the eagle, as being of a contitution which inclined him rather to seize bis prey with talons, than pine for it with murmurs. • Barbara, daughter and heiress to William Villiers, lord viscount Grandison of the kingdom of Ireland. ↑ An allusion to Goodman the player, who was one or the promiscuous train above-mentioned. ↑ The Fieldings give the Spread Eagle, as counts of de German empire. From my own Apartment, August 2. I have received the following letter from Mr. Powel of Bath, who, I think, runs from the point between us; which I leave the whole world to judge. To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. Bath, July 28. 'SIR, Having a great deal of more advantageous business at present on my hands, I thought to have deferred answering your Tatler of the twenty-first instant until the company was gone and season over; but, having resolved not to regard any impertinencies of your paper, except what relate particularly to me, I am the more easily induced to answer you, as I shall find time to do it. First, partly lest you should think yourself neglected, which I have reason to believe you would take heinously ill. Secondly, partly because it will increase my all the quality shall see with how much wit fame, and consequently my audience, when and raillery I show you-I do not care a farthing out books, if I do not show much learning, it for you. Thirdly, partly because being withwill not be imputed to my having none. 'I have travelled Italy, France, and Spain, artist in the world can do; yet cannot I ima and fully comprehended whatever any Germas gine why you should endeavour to disturb the repose and plenty which, though unworthy, I enjoy at this place. It cannot be, that you take offence at my prologues and epilogues, which you are pleased to miscal foolish and shall not forbear thinking that the true reason abusive. No, no, until you give a better, I of your picking a quarrel with me was, because it is more agreeable to your principles, as well to attack a governor. Mr. Isaac, Mr. Isaac, as more to the honour of your assured victory, I can see into a mill-stone as far as another, as the saying is; you are for sowing the seeds of sedition and disobedience among my puppets, and your zeal for the good old cause would make you persuade Punch to pull the string from his chops, and not move his jaw when I have a mind he should harangue. Now, I appeal to all men, if this be not contrary to that unaccountable and uncontrollable dominion, which by the laws of nature I exercise over them; for all sorts of wood and wire were made for the use and benefit of man: I have, therefore, an unquestionable right to frame, fashion, and put them together as I please; and having made them what they are, my puppets are my property, and therefore my slaves; nor is there in nature any thing more just, than the homage which is paid by a less to a more excellent being: so that by the right, therefore, of a superior genius, I am their supreme moderator, although you would insinuate, agreeably to your levelling principles, |