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consideration of all who have the instruction of youth, which of the two is the more inexcusable, he who does every thing by the mere force of his impudence, or he who performs nothing through the oppression of his modesty? In a word, it is a weakness not to be able to attempt what a man thinks he ought, and there is no modesty, but in self-denial.

From my own Apartment, May 8. THE summer season now approaching, several of our family have invited me to pass away a month or two in the country; and indeed nothing could be more agreeable to me than such a recess, did I not consider that I am by two quarts a worse companion than when I was last among my relations; and I am ad

P. S. Upon my coming home, I received the monished by some of our club, who lately visited following petition and letter.

The humble petition of Sarah Lately;

'SHEWETH,

Staffordshire, that they drink at a greater rate than they did at that time. As every soil does not produce every fruit or tree, so every vice is not the growth of every kind of life; and I have, ever since I could think, been astonished, that drinking should be the vice of the country. If it were possible to add to all our senses, as we do to that of sight by perspectives, we should, methinks, more particularly labour to improve them in the midst of the variety of beauteous objects, which nature has produced that place destroy the use of what organs we to entertain us in the country; and do we in have? As for my part, I cannot but lament 'Your petitioner most humbly prays, the destruction that has been made of the wild that in the lottery for the Bass-viol beasts of the field, when I see large tracks of she may have four tickets, in consi-earth possessed by men who take no advantage deration that her single life has been of their being rational, but lead mere animal occasioned by the inconstancy of her lives; making it their whole endeavour to kill lovers, and not through the cruelty in themselves all they have above beasts, to or frowardness of your petitioner. wit, the use of reason, and taste of society. It And your petitioner shall, &c.' is frequently boasted in the writings of orators and poets, that it is to eloquence and poesy we owe that we are drawn out of woods and soli

'That your petitioner has been one of those ladies who has had fine things constantly spoken to her in general terms, and lived, during her most blooming years, in daily expectation of declarations of marriage, but never had one made to her.

'That she is now in her grand climacteric;

which being above the space of four virginities,

accounting at fifteen years each;

MR. BICKERSTAFF,
May 3, 1710.
According to my fancy, you took a much
better way to dispose of a Bass-viol in yester-
day's paper, than you did in your Table of
Marriage. I desire the benefit of a lottery for
myself too-The manner of it I leave to
your own discretion: only if you can allow
the tickets at above five farthings a piece. Pray
accept of one ticket for your trouble; and I wish
you may be the fortunate man that wins.

Your very humble servant until then,
ISABELLA KIT.

I must own the request of the aged petitioner to be founded upon a very undeserved distress; and since she might, had she had justice done her, been mother of many pretenders to this prize, instead of being one herself, I do readily grant her demand; but as for the proposal of Mrs. Isabella Kit, I cannot project a lottery for her, until I have security she will surrender

herself to the winner.

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tudes into towns and cities, and from a wild and savage being become acquainted with the laws of humanity and civility. If we are obliged to these arts for so great service, I could wish they were employed to give us a second turn; that as they have brought us to dwell in society, a blessing which no other creatures know, so they would persuade us, now they have settled us, to lay out all our thoughts in surpassing each other in those faculties in which only we excel other creatures. But it is at present so far otherwise, that the contention seems to be, who shall be most eminent in performances wherein beasts enjoy greater abilities than we have. I will undertake, were the butler and swineherd, at any true esquire's in Great Britain, to keep and compare accounts of what wash is drunk up in so many hours in the parlour and the pig-stye, it would appear, the gen tleman of the house gives much more to his friends than his hogs.

This, with many other evils, arises from an error in men's judgments, and not making true distinctious between persons and things. It is usually thought, that a few sheets of parchment, made before a male and a female of wealthy houses come together, give the heirs and descendants of that marriage possession of lands and tenements; but the truth is, here is no man who can be said to be propritor of an

'SIR,

estate, but he who knows how to enjoy it. I carry into the country a knowledge of the Nay, it shall never be allowed, that the land is world as well as of nature. The leisure of such not a waste, when the master is uncultivated. persons is endeared and refined by reflection Therefore, to avoid confusion, it is to be noted, upon cares and inquietudes. The absence of that a peasant with a great estate is but an in- past labours doubles present pleasures, which is cumbent, and that he must be a gentleman to still augmented, if the person in solitude has the be a landlord. A landlord enjoys what he has happiness of being addicted to letters. My cousin with his heart, an incumbent with his stomach. Frank Bickerstaff gives me a very good notion Gluttony, drunkenness, and riot, are the en- of this sort of felicity in the following letter: tertainments of an incumbent; benevolence, civility, social and human virtues, the accomplishments of a landlord. Who, that has any passion for his native country, does not think it worse than conquered, when so large dimensions of it are in the hands of savages, that know no use of property, but to be tyrants; or liberty, but to be unmannerly? A gentleman in a country-life enjoys paradise with a temper fit for it; a clown is cursed in it with all the cutting and unruly passions man could be tormented with when he was expelled from it.

There is no character more deservedly esteemed than that of a country gentleman, who understands the station in which heaven and

'I write this to communicate to you the happiness I have in the neighbourhood and conversation of the noble lord, whose health you enquired after in your last. I have bought that little hovel which borders upon his royalty; but am so far from being oppressed by his greatness, that I, who know no envy, and he, who is above pride, mutually recommend ourselves to each other by the difference of our fortunes. He esteems me for being so well pleased with a little, and I admire him for enjoying so handsomely a great deal. He has not the little taste of observing the colour of a tulip, or the edging of a leaf of box; but rejoices in open views, the regularity of this plan. tation, and the wildness of another, as well as the fall of a river, the rising of a promontory, and all other objects fit to entertain a mind like his, that has been long versed in great and public amusements. The make of the soul is

nature have placed him. He is father to his tenants, and patron to his neighbours, and is more superior to those of lower fortune by his benevolence than his possessions. He justly divides his time between solitude and company, so as to use the one for the other. His life is spent in the good offices of an advocate, a referee, a companion, a mediator, and a friend. His counsel and knowledge are a guard to the simplicity and innocence of those of lower talents, and the entertainment and happiness of those of equal. When a man in a country-life has this turn, as it is hoped thousands have, he lives in a more happy condition than any that is described in the pastoral descriptions of poets, or the vain-glorious solitudes recorded by philo-in which he has an eye to his neighbour's satissophers.

as much seen in leisure as in business. He has long lived in courts, and been admired in assemblies; so that he has added to experience a most charming eloquence, by which he communicates to me the ideas of my own mind upon the objects we meet with so agreeably, that with his company in the fields, I at once enjoy the country, and a landscape of it. He is now altering the course of canals and rivulets,

faction, as well as his own. He often makes me presents by turning the water into my grounds, and sends me fish by their own streams. To avoid my thanks, he makes nature the instrument of his bounty, and does all good offices so much with the air of a companion, that his frankness hides his own condescension, as well as my gratitude. Leave the world to itself, and come see us.

To a thinking man it would seem prodigious, that the very situation in a country-life does not incline men to a scorn of the mean gratifications some take in it. To stand by a stream, naturally lulls the mind into composure and reverence; to walk in shades, diversifies that pleasure; and a bright sunshine makes a man consider all nature in gladness, and himself the happiest being in it, as he is the most conscious of her gifts and enjoyments. It would be the most impertinent piece of pedantry imaginable to form our pleasures by imi- No. 170.] Thursday, May 11, 1710.

tation of others. I will not therefore mention Scipio and Lælius, who are generally produced on this subject as authorities for the charms of a rural life. He that does not feel the force of agreeable views and situations in his own mind, will hardly arrive at the satisfactions they bring from the reflections of others. However, they who have a taste that way, are more particuJarly inflamed with desire, when they see others in the enjoyment of it, especially when men

་ Your affectionate cousin,
'FRANCIS BICKERSTAFF.'

Fortuna sævo læta negotio, et
Ludum insolentem ludere pertinax
Transmutat incertos honores,
Nunc mihi, nunc alio benigna.
Hor. 3. Od. xxix. 49.

But Fortune, ever-changing damne,
Indulges her malicious joy,
And constant plays her haughty game,
Proud of her office to destroy;
To-day to me her bounty flows,

And now to others she the bliss bestows.

Francis.

From my own Apartment, May 10. HAVING this morning spent some time in reading on the subject of the vicissitude of human life, I laid aside my book, and began to ruminate on the discourse which raised in me those reflections. I believed it a very good office to the world, to sit down and show others the road, in which I am experienced by my wanderings and errors. This is Seneca's way of thinking, and he had half convinced me, how dangerous it is to our true happiness and tranquillity, to fix our minds upon any thing which is in the power of fortune. It is excusable only in animals who have not the use of reason, to be catched by hooks and baits. Wealth, glory, and power, which the ordinary people look up at with admiration, the learned and wise know to be only so many snares laid to enslave them. There is nothing farther to be sought for with earnestness, than what will clothe and feed us. If we pamper ourselves in our diet, or give our imaginations a loose in our desires, the body will no longer obey the mind. Let us think no further than to defend ourselves against hunger, thirst, and cold. We are to remember that every thing else is despicable, and not worth our care. To want little is true grandeur, and very few things are great, to a great mind. Those who form their thoughts in this manner, and abstract themselves from the world, are out of the way of fortune, and can look with contempt both on her favours and her frowns. At the same time, they who separate themselves from the immediate commerce with the busy part of mankind, are still beneficial to them, while, by their studies and writings, they recommend to them the small value which ought to be put upon what they pursue with so much labour and disquiet. Whilst such men are thought the most idle, they are the most usefully employed. They have all things, both human and divine, under consideration. To be perfectly free from the insults of fortune, we should arm ourselves with their reflections. We should learn, that none but intellectual posses. sions are what we can properly call our own. -All things from without are but borrowed. What fortune gives us, is not ours; and whatever she gives, she can take away.

It is a common imputation to Seneca, that though he declaimed with so much strength of reason, and a stoical contempt of riches and power, he was at the same time one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome. I know no instance of his being insolent in that fortune, and can therefore read his thoughts on those subjects with the more deference. I will not give philosophy so poor a look as to say it cannot live in courts; but I am of opinion, that it is there in the greatest eminence, when, amilst the affluence of all the world can bestow, and the addresses of a crowd who follow him for that reason, a man can think both of him

self and those about him, abstracted from these circumstanees. Such a philosopher is as much above an anchorite, as a wise matron, who passes through the world with innocence, is preferable to the nun who locks herself up from it.

Full of these thoughts, I left my lodging, and took a walk to the court-end of the town; and the hurry and busy faces I met with about Whitehall, made me form to myself ideas of the different prospects of all I saw, from the turn and cast of their countenances. All, methought, had the same thing in view; but prosecuted their hopes with a different air. Some showed an unbecoming eagerness, some a surly impatience, some a winning deference; but the generality a servile complaisance.

I could not but observe, as I roved about the offices, that all who were still but in expectation, murmured at Fortune; and all who had obtained their wishes, immediately began to say, there was no such being. Each believed it an act of blind chance that any other man was preferred, but owed only to service and merit what he had obtained himself. It is the fault of studious men to appear in public with too contemplative a carriage: and I began to observe, that my figure, age, and dress, made me particular; for which reason, I thought it better to remove a studious countenance from among busy ones, and take a turn with a friend in the Privy-garden.

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When my friend was alone with me there, Isaac,' said he, I know you come abroad only to moralize and make observations; and I will carry you hard by, where you shall see all that you have yourself considered or read in authors, or collected from experience, concerning blind Fortune and irresistible Destiny, illustrated in real persous, and proper mechanisms. The graces, the muses, the fates, all the beings which have a good or ill influence upon human life, are, you will say, very justly figured in the persons of women; and where I am carrying you, you will see enough of that sex together, in an employment which will have so important an effect upon those who are to receive their manufacture, as will make them be respectively called deities or furies, as their labour shall prove disadvantageous or successful to their votaries.' Without waiting for my answer, he carried me to an apartment contiguous to the Banquetinghouse, where there were placed at two long tables a large company of young women, in decent and agreeable habits, making up tickets for the lottery appointed by the government. There walked between the tables a person who presided over the work. This gentlewoman seemed an emblem of fortune; she commanded, as if unconcerned in their business; and though every thing was performed by her direction, she did not visibly interpose in particulars.

She seemed in pain at our near approach to ber, and most to approve us when we made her no advances. Her height, her mien, her gesture, her shape, and her countenance, had something that spoke familiarity and dignity. She therefore appeared to be not only a picture of fortune, but of fortune as I liked her; which made me break out in the following words:

MADAM,

'I am very glad to see the fate of the many, who now languish in expectation of what will be the event of your labours, in the hands of one who can act with so impartial an indifference. Pardon me, that have often seen you before, and have lost you for want of the respect due to you. Let me beg of you, who have both the furnishing and turning of that wheel of lots, to be unlike the rest of your sex ; repulse the forward and the bold, and favour the modest and the humble. I know you fly the importunate; but smile no more on the careless. Add not to the coffers of the usurer; but give the power of bestowing to the generous. Continue his wants, who cannot enjoy or communicate plenty; but turn away his poverty, who can bear it with more ease than he can see it in another.'

ADVERTISEMENT.

Whereas Philander signified to Clarinda, by letter bearing date Thursday twelve o'clock, that he had lost his heart by a shot from her eyes, and desired she would condescend to meet him the same day at eight in the evening at Rosamond's-pond; faithfully protesting, that in case she would not do him that honour, she might see the body of the said Philander the next day floating on the said lake of love, and that he desired only three sighs upon view of his said body: It is desired, if he has not made away with himself accordingly, that he would forthwith show himself to the coroner of the city of Westminster; or Clarinda, being an old offender, will be found guilty of wilful murder.

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some discourse gave the company to understand, that in those ages which first degenerated from the simplicity of life and natural justice, the wise among them thought it necessary to inspire men with the love of virtue, by giving those who adhered to the interests of innocence and truth some distinguishing name to raise them above the common level of mankind. This way of fixing appellations of credit upon eminent merit, was what gave being to titles and terms of honour. 'Such a name,' continued he, without the qualities which should give a man pretence to be exalted above others, does but turn him to jest and ridicule. Should one see another cudgelled, or scurvily treated, do you think a man so used would take it kindly to be called Hector or Alexander ? Every thing must bear a proportion with the outward value that is set upon it; or, instead of being long had in veneration, that very term of esteem will become a word of reproach.' When Timoleon had done speaking, Urbanus pursued the same purpose, by giving an account of the manner in which the Indian kings, who were lately in Great Britain, did honour to the person where they lodged. They were placed,' said he, in a handsome apartment at an upholsterer's in King-street, Covent-garden. The man of the house, it seems, had been very observant of them, and ready in their service. These just and generous princes, who act according to the dictates of natural justice, thought it proper to confer some dignity upon their landlord before they left his house. One of them had been sick during his residence there, and having never before been in a bed, had a very great veneration for him who made that engine of repose, so useful and so necessary in his distress. It was consulted among the four princes, by what name to dignify his great merit and services. The emperor of the Mohocks and the other three kings stood up, and in that posture recounted the civilities they had received; and particularly repeated the care which was taken of their sick brother. This, in their imagination, who are used to know the injuries of weather, and the vicissitudes of cold and heat, gave them very great impressions of a skilful upholsterer, whose furniture was so well contrived for their protection on such occasions. It is with these less in structed, I will not say less knowing people, the manner of doing honour, to impose some name significant of the qualities of the person they distinguish, and the good offices received from him. It was therefore resolved to call their landlord Cadaroque, which is the name

IT hath happened to be for some days the deliberation at the learnedest board in this house, whence honour and title had its first original. Timoleon, who is very particular in his opinion, but is thought particular for no other cause but that he acts against depraved custom by between New-England and the French settlements in Cathe rules of nature and reason, in a very haud

About a month before the date of this paper, the four Indian kings here spoken of, came into England with the West-India fleet, in behalf of the six Indian nations, who at that time inhabited the back-country of North-America,

nad 1.

of the strongest fort in their part of the world. | Pimlico at the end of St. James's-park, and When they had agreed upon the name, they the crossing from Chelsea by Earl's-court, he sent for their landlord; and as he entered into would stand to it, that it was full four miles. their presence, the emperor of the Mohocks, But Minucio replied with great vehemence, taking him by the hand, called him Cadaroque, and seemed so much to have the better of the After which the other three princes repeated dispute, that his adversary quitted the field, as the same word and ceremony.' well as the other. I sat until I saw the table almost all vanished; when, for want of discourse, Minucio asked me, 'How I did? to which I answered, 'Very well.' That is very much,' said he ; I assure you, you look paler than ordinary.' Nay, thought I, if he will not allow me to know whether I am well or not, there is no staying for me neither. Upon which I took my leave, pondering, as I went home, at this strange poverty of imagination, which makes men run into the fault of giving contradiction. They want in their minds entertainment for themselves or their company, and therefore build all they speak upon what is started by others; and since they cannot

6

Timoleon appeared much satisfied with this account; and, having a philosophic turn, began to argue against the modes and manners of those nations which we esteem polite, and to express himself with disdain at our usual method of calling such as are strangers to our innovations barbarous. 'I have,' says he, so great a difference for the distinction given by these princes, that Cadaroque shall be my upholsterer. He was going on; but the intended discourse was interrupted by Minucio, who sat near him, a small philosopher, who is also somewhat of a politician; one of those who sets up for knowledge by doubting, and has no other way of making himself consider-improve that foundation, they strive to destroy able, but by contradicting all he hears said. He has, besides much doubt and spirit of contradiction, a constant suspicion as to state affairs. This accomplished gentleman, with a very awful brow, and a countenance full of weight, told Timoleon, that it was a great misfortune men of letters seldom looked into the bottom of things. Will any man,' continued he, persuade me, that this was not, from the beginning to the end, a concerted affair? Who can convince the world, that four kings shall come over here, and lie at the two Crowns and Cushion, and one of them fall sick, and the place be called King-street, and all this by mere accident? No, no. To a man of very small penetration it appears, that Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, emperor of the Mohocks, was prepared for this adventure beforehand. I do not care to contradict any gentleman in his discourse; but I must say, however Sa Ga N. B. All false buyers at auctions being emYeath Rua Geth Ton and E Tow Oh Koam ployed only to hide others, are from this day might be surprised in this matter; neverthe-forward to be known in Mr. Bickerstaff's wriless, Ho Nec Yeth Taw No Row knew it be- tings by the word Screens. fore he set foot on the English shore.'

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Timoleon looked stedfastly at him for some

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it. The only way of dealing with these people is to answer in monosyllables, or by way of question. When one of them tells you a thing that he thinks extraordinary, I go no farther than, 'Say you so, Sir? Indeed! Heyday!" or, Is it come to that?' These little rules, which appear but silly in the repetition, have brought me with great tranquillity to this age. And I have made it an observation, that as assent is more agreeable than flattery, so contradiction is more odious than calumny.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Mr. Bickerstaff's aërial messenger has brought him a report of what passed at the auction of pictures, which was in Somersethouse yard on Monday last; and finds there were no screens present, but all transacted with great justice.

time; then shaked his head, paid for his tea, No. 172.] Tuesday, May 16, 1710.

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and marched off. Several others, who sat round him, were in their turns attacked by this ready disputant. A gentleman, who was at some distance, happened in discourse to say it was four miles to Hammersmith. I must beg your pardon,' says Minucio; when we say a place is so far off, we do not mean exactly from the very spot of earth we are in, but from the town where we are; so that you must begin your account from the end of Piccadilly; and if you do so, I will lay any man ten to one, it is not above three good miles off.' Another, about Minucio's level of understanding, began to take him up in this important argument; and maintained, that, considering the way from

Quod quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis
Cautum est in horas.
Hor. 2. Od. xiii. 13.

No man can tell the dangers of each hour,
Nor is prepar'd to meet them.-

From my own Apartment, May 15. WHEN a man is in a serious mood, and pon ders upon his own make, with a retrospect to the actions of his life, and the many fatal miscarriages in it, which he owes to ungoverned passions, he is then apt to say to himself, that experience has guarded him against such errors for the future: but nature often recurs in spite of his best resolutions; and it is to the very

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