'VIII. The carrying of goods from one fo- | duties as others do. And when that is done, reign country to another, is a profitable article you will send little more to France than now in trade. Our ships are often thus employed you do, and they will import into Great Britain, between Portugal, Italy, and the Levant, and ten times more than now they can. sometimes in the East Indies.

"II. As to our superfluities, it must be owned the French have occasion for some of them, as lead, tin, leather, copperas, coals, allum, and several other things of small value, as also some few of our plantation commodities; but these goods they will have whether we take any of theirs or no, because they want them. All these commodities together, that the French want from us, may amount to about two hundred thousand pounds yearly.

6

'IX. When there is a necessity to import goods which a nation cannot be without, although such goods are chiefly purchased with money, it cannot be accounted a bad trade, as our trade to Norway and other parts, from whence are imported naval stores, and materials for building.

"

'But a trade is disadvantageous to a nation: 1. Which brings in things of mere luxury and pleasure, which are entirely, or for the most part, consumed among us; and such I reckon the wine trade to be, especially when the wine is purchased with money, and not in exchange for our commodities.

2. Much worse is that trade which brings in a commodity that is not only consumed amongst us, but hinders the consumption of the like quantity of ours. As is the importa-nufactured. tion of brandy, which hinders the spending of our extracts of malt and molasses; therefore very prudently charged with excessive duties.

III. As to materials; I do not know of any one sort useful to us that ever was imported from France into England. They have indeed hemp, flax, and wool in abundance, and some raw silk; but they are too wise to let us have any, especially as long as they entertain any hopes we shall be so self-denying, as to take those materials from them after they are ma

'IV. Exchanging commodities for commodities (if for the like value on both sides) might be beneficial; but it is far from being the case between us and France. Our ships went con

'3. That trade is eminently bad, which supplies the same goods as we manufacture our-stantly in ballast (except now and then some selves, especially if we can make enough for lead) to St. Malo, Morlaix, Nantes, Rochelle, our consumption: and I take this to be the Bourdeaux, Bayonne, &c. and ever came back case of the silk manufacture; which, with full of linen, wines, brandy, and paper; and if great labour and industry, is brought to per- it was so before the revolution, when one of fection in London, Canterbury, and other places. our pounds sterling cost the French but thirteen livres, what are they like to take from us (except what they of necessity want) now that for each pound sterling they must pay us twenty livres, which enhances the price of all British commodities to the French above fifty per cent.

4. The importation upou easy terms of such manufactures as are already introduced in a country, must be of bad consequence, and check their progress; as it would undoubtedly be the ease of the linen and paper manufactures in Great Britain, (which are of late very much improved) if those commodities were suffered to be brought in without paying very high duties.

V. Goods imported to be re-exported, is certainly a national advantage; but few or no French goods are ever exported from Great

'Let us now judge of our trade with France Britain, except to our plantations, but all are by the foregoing maxims. consumed at home; therefore no benefit ean be reaped this way by the French trade.

'VI. Letting ships to freight cannot but be of some profit to a nation: but it is very rare if the French ever make use of any other ships than their own; they victual and man cheaper than we, therefore nothing is to be got from them by this article.

I. The exportation of our woollen goods to France, is so well barred against, that there is not the least hope of reaping any benefit by this article. They have their work done for half the price we pay for ours. And since they send great quantities of woollen goods to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, the Rhine, and other places, although they pay a duty upon exportation, it is a demonstration, that they have more than is sufficient for their own wear, and consequently no great occasion for any of ours. The French cannot but be so sensible of the advantage they have over us in point of cheap. wess, that I do not doubt they will give us leave to import into France not only woollen goods, but all other commodities whatsoever, upon very easy duties, provided we permit them to import into Great Britain, wines, brandies, silk, linen, and paper, upon paying the same

'VII. Things that are of absolute necessity cannot be reckoned prejudical to a nation; but France produces nothing that is necessary, or even convenient, or but which we had better be without, except claret.

"

VIII. If the importation of commodities of mere luxury, to be consumed amongst us, be a sensible disadvantage, the French trade in this particular might be highly pernicious ta this nation; for if the duties on French wines be lowered to a considerable degree, the least we can suppose would be imported into Eng

land and Scotland is eighteen thousand tons a | and they have Italian and Levant raw silk upor
year, which being most clarets, at a moderate so much easier terms than we, besides great
computation,would cost in France four hundred quantities of their own in Provence, Languedoc,
and fifty thousand pounds.
and other provinces, that in all probability half
the looms in Spitalfields would be laid down,
and our ladies be again clothed in French silks.
The loss that would accrue to the nation by so
great a mischief, cannot be valued at less than
five hundred thousand pounds a year.

6

To sum up all, if we pay to France yearly For their wines £450,000

For their brandies

For their linen
For their paper
For their silks

'IX. As to brandy; since we have laid high duties upon it, the distilling of spirits from malt and molasses is much improved and increased, by means of which a good sum of money is yearly saved to the nation; for very little brandy hath been imported either from Italy, Portugal, or Spain, by reason that our English spirits are near as good as those countries' brandies. But as French brandy is esteemed, and is indeed very good, if the extraordinary duty on that liqour be taken off, there is no doubt but great quantities will be imported. We will suppose only three thousand tons a year, which will cost Great Britain about seventy thousand pounds yearly, and prejudice besides the extracts of our own malt spirits.

X. Linen is an article of more consequence that many people are aware of: Ireland, Scotland, and several counties in England, have made large steps towards the improvement of that useful manufacture, both in quantity and quality; and with good encouragement would doubtless, in a few years, bring it to perfection, and perhaps make sufficient for our own consumption; which besides employing great numbers of people, and improving many acres of land, would save us a good sum of money, which is yearly laid out abroad in that commodity. As the case stands at present, it improves daily; but if the duties on French linen be reduced, it is to be feared it will come over so cheap, that our looms must be laid aside, and six or seven hundred thousand pounds a year be sent over to France for that commodity. XI. The manufacture of paper is very near akin to that of linen. Since the high duties laid on foreign paper, and that none hath been imported from France, where it is cheapest, the making of it is increased to such a degree in England, that we import none of the lower sorts from abroad, and make them all ourselves; but if the French duties be taken off, undoubtedly most of the mills which are employed in the making of white paper, must leave off their work, and thirty or forty thousand pounds a year be remitted over to France for that commodity.

6

'XII. The last article concerns the silk manufacture. Since the late French wars, it is increased to a mighty degree. Spitalfields alone manufactures to the value of two millions a year, and were daily improving, till the late fears about lowering the French duties. What pity that so noble a manufacture, so extensive, and so beneficial to an infinite number of people, should run the hazard of being ruined! It is however to be feared, that if the French can import their wrought silks upon easy terms, they outdo us so much in cheapness of labour,

'And they take from us in lead, tin, leather, allum, copperas, coals, horn, plates, &c, and plantation goods to the value of

70,000

600,000

30,000

500,000

£1,650,000

<

Great Britain loses by the balance of that trade yearly

200,000

1,450,000

All which is humbly submitted to your consideration by,

"

Sir, your most humble servant,
GENEROSITY THRIFT.'

ADVERTISEMENT,

For the Protection of Honour, Truth, Virtue, and Innocence.

Mr. Ironside has ordered his amanuensis to prepare for his perusal whatever he may have gathered, from his table-talk, or otherwise, a volume to be printed in twelves, called, The Art of Defamation discovered. This piece is to consist of the true characters of all persons calumniated by the Examiner; and after such characters, the true and only method of sullying them set forth in examples from the ingenious and artificial author, the said Examiner.

N. B. To this will be added the true characters of persons he has commended, with observations to show, that panegyric is not that author's talent.

No. 171.] Saturday, September 26, 1713.

Fuit ista quondam in hâc republicâ virtus, ut viri fortes acrioribus suppliciis civem perniciosum, quàm acerbissi. mum hostem coercerent. Cicer. in Catilin.

There was once that virtue in this commenwealth, that a bad fellow-citizen was thought to deserve a severer for rection than the bitterest enemy.

I HAVE received letters of congratulation and thanks from several of the most eminent chocolate-houses and coffee-houses, upon my late gallantry and success in opposing myself to the long swords. One tells me, that whereas his rooms were too little before, now his customers can saunter up and down from corner

lodgings, they shall, (provided they bring their
swords with them) he furnished with shoulder-
belts, broad hats, red feathers, and halberts,
and be transported without farther trouble

to corner, and table to table, without any let |
or molestation. I find I bave likewise cleared
a great many alleys and by-lanes, made the
public walks about town more spacious, and
all the passages about the court and the Ex-into several courts and families of distinction,
where they may eat, and drink, and strut, at
free cost.' As this project was not communi-
cated to me for a secret, I thought might
be for the service of the abovesaid persons to
divulge it with all convenient speed; that those
who are disposed to employ their talents to the
best advantage, and to shine in the station of
life for which they seem to be born, may have
time to adorn their upper lip, by raising a
quickset beard there in the form of whiskers,
that they may pass to all intents and purposes
for true Switzers.

• INDEFATIGABLE NESTOR,

change more free and open. Several of my
female wards have sent me the kindest billets
upon this occasion, in which they tell me, that
I have saved them some pounds in the year,
by freeing their furbelows, flounces, and hoops,
from the annoyance both of hilt and point.
A scout whom I sent abroad to observe the
posture, and to pry into the intentions of the
enemy, brings me word, that the Terrible club
is quite blown up, and that I have totally routed
the men that seemed to delight in arms. My
lion, whose jaws are at all hours open to intel-
ligence, informs me, that there are a few enor-
mous weapons still in being; but that they
are to be met with only in gaming-houses, and
some of the obscure retreats of lovers in and
about Drury-lane and Covent-garden.
nighly delighted with an adventure that befell
my witty antagonist, Tom Swagger, captain of
the band of long swords. He had the misfor-liking to your lion. His roarings are the joy
tune three days ago to fall into company with
a master of the noble science of defence, who
taking Mr. Swagger by his habit, and the
airs he gave himself, to be one of the profes-
sion, gave him a fair invitation to Mary-le-
bone, to exercise at the usual weapons. The
captain thought this so foul a disgrace to a
gentleman, that he slunk away in the greatest
confusion, and has never been seen since at the
Tilt-yard coffee-house, nor in any of his usual

I am

Give me leave to thank you, in behalf of myself and my whole family, for the daily diver sion and improvement we receive from your labours. At the same time I must acquaint you, that we have all of us taken a mighty

haunts.

As there is nothing made in vain, and as every plant and every animal, though never so noisome, has its use in the creation; so these men of terror may be disposed of, so as to make a figure in the polite world. It was in this view, that I received a visit last night from a person, who pretends to be employed here from several foreign princes in negotiating matters of less importance. He tells me, that the continual wars in Europe have in a manner quite drained the cantons of Switzerland of their supernumerary subjects, and that he forsees there will be a great scarcity of them to serve at the entrance of courts, and the palaces of great men. He is of opinion this want may very seasonably be supplied out of the great numbers of such gentlemen, as I have given notive of in my paper of the twenty-fifth past, and that his design is in a few weeks, when the town fills, to put out public advertisements to this effect, not questioning but it may turn to a good account: That if any person of good stature and fierce demeanor, as well members of the Terrible club, as others of the like exterior ferocity, whose ambition is to cock and look big, without exposing themselves to any bodily danger, will repair to his

6

of my heart, and I have a little boy, not three
years old, that talks of nothing else, and who,

hope, will be more afraid of him as he grows
up. That your animal may be kept in good
plight, and not roar for want of prey, I shall,
out of my esteem and affection for you, contri-
bute what I can towards his sustenance; "Love
me, love my lion," says the proverb. I will not
pretend, at any time, to furnish out a full meal
for him; but I shall now and then send him
a savory morsel, a tid bit. You must know,
I am but a kind of holiday writer, and never
could find in my heart to set my pen to a work
of above five or six periods long. My friends
tell me my performances are little and pretty.
As they have no manner of connexion one
with the other, I write them upon loose pieces
of paper, and throw them into a drawer by
themselves; this drawer I call the lion's pantry.
I give you my word, I put nothing into it but

what is clean and wholesome nourriture.
Therefore remember me to the lion, and let
him know, that I shall always pick and cull
the pantry for him; and there are morsels in
it, I can assure you, will make his chaps to
water.

'I a

with the greatest respect, Sir,
am,
your most obedient servant,

" and most assiduous reader."

I must ask pardon of Mrs. Dorothy Care, that I have suffered her billet to lie by me these three weeks without taking the least notice of it. But I believe the kind warning in it, to our sex, will not be now too late.

GOOD MR. IRONSIDE,

·

I have waited with impatience for that same unicorn you promised should be erected

for the fair sex. My business is, before winter
comes on, to desire you would precaution your
own sex against being Adamites, by exposing
their bare breasts to the rigour of the season.
It was this practice amongst the fellows, which
at first encouraged our sex to show so much of
their necks. The downy dock-leaves you speak
of would make good stomachers for the beaux.
In a word, good Nestor, so long as the men
take a pride in showing their hairy skins, we
may with a much better grace set out our
snowy chests to view. We are, we own, the
weaker, but at the same time, you must own,
much the more beautiful sex.
'I am, Sir,

•

your humble reader,

'DOROTHY CARE.'

No. 172.] Monday, September 28, 1713.

-Vitam excolnere per artes. Virg. En. vi. 663.
They grac'd their age with new invented arts.

Dryden.

'MR. IRONSide,

I HAVE been a long time in expectation of something from you on the subject of speech and letters. I believe the world might be as agreeably entertained on that subject, as with any thing that ever came into the lion's mouth. For this end I send you the following sketch; and am, yours,

Have any of any school of painters gotten themselves an immortal name, by drawing a face, or painting a landscape; by laying down on a piece of canvass a representation only of what nature had given them originals? What applauses will he merit, who first made his ideas sit to his pencil, and drew to his eye the picture of his mind! Painting represents the outward man, or the shell; but cannot reach the inhabitant within, or the very organ by which the inhabitant is revealed. This art may reach to represent a face, but cannot paint a voice. Kneller can draw the majesty of the queen's person; Kneller can draw her sublime air, and paint her bestowing hand as fair as the lily: but the historian must inform posterity, that she has one peculiar excellence above all other mortals, that her ordinary speech is more charming than song.

'But to drop the comparison of this art with any other, let us see the benefit of it in itself. By it the English trader may hold commerce with the inhabitants of the East or West Indies, without the trouble of a journey. Astronomers seated at a distance of the earth's diameter asunder, may confer; what is spoken and thought at one pole, may be heard and understood at the other. The philosopher who wished he had a window in his breast, to lay open his heart to all the world, might as easily have revealed the secrets of it this way, and as easily left them to the world, as wished it. This silent art of speaking by letters, remedies the inconvenience arising from pos-distance of time, as well as place; and is much beyond that of the Egyptians, who could preserve their mummies for ten centuries. This preserves the works of the immortal part of men, so as to make the dead still useful to the living. To this we are beholden for the works of Demosthenes and Cicero, of Seneca and Plato; without it the Iliad of Homer, and Eneid of Virgil, had died with their authors;

'But be the difficulty of the invention as great as it will, the use of it is manifest, particularly in the advantage it has above the method of conveying our thoughts by words or sounds, because this way we are confined to narrow limits of place and time: whereas we may have occasion to correspond with a friend at a distance; or a desire,upon a particular occasion, to take the opinion of an honest gentleman who has been dead this thousand years. Both which defects are supplied by the noble invention of letters. By this means we materialize our ideas, and make them as lasting as the ink and paper, their vehicles. This making our thoughts by art visible to the eye, which nature had made intelligible only by the ear, is next to the adding a sixth sense, as it is a supply in case of the defect of one of the five nature gave us, namely, hearing, by making the voice become visible.

"

'PHILOGRAM.

Upon taking a view of the several species
of living creatures our earth is stocked with,
we may easily observe, that the lower orders
of them, such as insects and fishes, are wholly
without a power of making known their wants
and calamities. Others, which are conversant
with man, have some few ways of expressing
the pleasure and pain they undergo by certain
sounds and gestures; but man has articulate
sounds whereby to make know his inward sen-
timents and affections, though his organs of
speech are no other than what he has in com-
mon with many other less perfect animals.
But the use of letters, as significative of these
sounds, is such an additional improvement to
them, that I know not whether we ought not
to attribute the invention of them to the as-
sistance of a power more than human.

'There is this great difficulty which could
not but attend the first invention of letters,
to wit, that all the world must conspire in
affixing steadily the same signs to their sounds,
which affixing was at first as arbitrary as
sible; there being no more connexion between
the letters and the sounds they are expressive
of, than there is between those sounds and the
ideas of the mind they immediately stand for.
Notwithstanding which difficulty, and the
variety of languages, the powers of the letters
in each are very nearly the same, being in all
places about twenty-four.

but by this art those excellent men still speak

to us.

'I shall be glad if what I have said on this art, gives you any new hints for the more useful or agreeable application of it.

'I am, Sir, &c.'

•

|

I shall conclude this paper with an extract from a poem in praise of the invention of writing, written by a lady.' I am glad of such a quotation, which is not only another instance how much the world is obliged to this art, but also a shining example of what I have heretofore asserted, that the fair sex are as capable as men of the liberal sciences; and indeed there is no very good argument against the frequent instruction of females of condition this way, but that they are but too powerful without that advantage. The verses of the charming author are as follow:

Blest be the man! his memory at least,
Who found the art thus to unfold his breast
And taught succeeding times an easy way
Their secret thoughts by letters to convey,
To baffle absence, and secure delight,
Which till that time was limited to sight.
The parting farewel spoke, the last anien,
The less'ning distance past, then loss of view,
The friend was gone which some kind moments gave,
And absence separated, like the grave.
When for a wife the youthful patriarch sent.
The camels, jewels, and the steward went,
And wealthy equipage, though grave and slow,
But not a line that might the lover show.
The ring and bracelets woo'd her hands and arms,
But had she known of melting words the charms
That under secret seals in ambush lie,

To catch the sonl, when drawn into the eye;
The fair Asyrian had not took his guide,
Nor her soft heart in chains of pearl been ty'd.'

No. 173.] Tuesday, September 29, 1713.

Nec sera comantem

Narcissum, aut flexi tacnissem vimen acanthi,
Pallentesque hederas, et amantes littora myrtor.
Virg. Georg. iv. 122.
The late narcissus, and the winding trail
Of bear's-foot, myrtles green, and ivy pale.

Dryden.

I LATELY took a particular friend of mine to my house in the country, not without some apprehension that it could afford little entertainment to a man of his polite taste, particularly in architecture and gardening, who had so long been conversant with all that is beautiful and great in either. But it was a pleasant surprise to me, to bear him often declare, he had found in my little retirement that beauty which he always thought wanting in the most celebrated seats, or, if you will, villas, of the nation. This he described to me in those verses, with which Martial begins one of bis epigrams:

Daiana nostri villa, Basse, Faustini,
Non otiosis ordinata myrtetis,
Viduaque platano, tonsilique buxeto,
Ingrata lati spatia detinet campi;

Sed rure vero barbaroque lætatur.' Lib. i. Ep. 58.

There is certainly something in the amiable simplicity of unadorned nature that spreads over the mind a more noble sort of tranquillity, and a loftier sensation of pleasure, that can be raised from the nicer scenes of art.

This was the taste of the ancients in their gardens, as we may discover from the descriptions extant of them. The two most celebrated wits of the world have each of them left us a particular picture of a garden; wherein those great masters, being wholly unconfined, and painting at pleasure, may be thought to have given a full idea of what they esteemed most excellent in this way. These (one may observe) consist entirely of the useful part of horticul ture, fruit-trees, herbs, water, &c. The pieces I am speaking of, are Virgil's account of the garden of the old Corycian, and Homer's of that of Alcinous. The first of these is already known to the English reader, by the excellent versions of Mr. Dryden and Mr. Addison. The other having never been attempted in our language with any elegance, and being the most beautiful plan of this sort that can be imagined, I shall here present the reader with a translation of it.

The Garden of Alcinous, from Homer's Odyssey,
Book 7.

Close to the gates a spacious garden lies,
From storms defended and inclement skies;
Four acres was the allotted space of ground,
Fenc'd with a green inclosure all around.
Tall thriving trees confess the fruitful mould;
The redd'ning apple ripens here to gold;
Here the blue fig with luscious jnice o'erflows,
With deeper red the full pomegranate glows:
The branch here bends beneath the weighty pear,
And verdant olives flourish round the year.
The balmy spirit of the western gale
Eternal breathes on fruits antaught to fail:
Each dropping pear a following pear supplies,
On apples apples, figs on figs arise;

The same mild season gives the blooms to blow
The buds to harden, and the fruits to grow.

Here order'd vines in equal ranks appear
With all the united labours of the year.
Some to unload the fertile branches run,
Some dry the black'ning clusters in the sun.
Others to tread the liquid harvest join,
The groaning presses foam with floods of wine.
Here are the vines in early flow'r descry'd,
Here grapes discolour'd on the sunny side,
And there in Autumn's richest purple dy❜d.

Beds of all various herbs for ever green,
In beauteous order terminate the scene.

Two plenteous fountains the whole prospect crownd;
This throngh the gardens leads its streams around,
Visits each plant, and waters all the ground:
While that in pipes beneath the palace flows,
And thence its current on the town bestows;
To various use their various streams they bring,
The people one, and one supplies the king.

.