sight, that the people ran in crowds to laugh at it; till the ass, conceiving a dislike to the over-complaisance of his master, burst asunder the cords that tied him, slipt from the pole, and tumbled into the river. The poor old man made the best of his way home, ashamed and vexed that by endeavouring to please every body he had pleased nobody, and lost his ass into the bargain.

No 14. THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1753.

I Do not doubt but it is already observed that I write fewer letters to myself than any of my predecessors. It is not from being less acquainted with my own merit, but I really look upon myself as superior to such little arts of fame. Compliments, which I should be obliged to shroud under the name of a third person, have very little relish for me. If I am not considerable enough to pronounce ex cathedra, that I Adam Fitz-Adam know how to rally the follies and decide upon the customs of the world with more wit, humour, learning, and taste than any man living, I have in vain undertaken the scheme of this paper. Who would be regulated by the judgment of a man, who is not the most self-sufficient person alive? Why did all the pretty women in England, in the reign of Queen Anne, submit the government of their fans, hoods, hoops, and patches to the Spectator, but because he pronounced himself the best critic in fashions? Why did half the nation imbibe their politics from the Craftsman, but because Caleb d'Anvers assured them that he understood the maxims of government and the constitution of his country better than any minister or patriot of his time? Throned as I am in a perfect good opinion

of my own abilities, I scorn to taste the satisfaction of praise from my own pen-and (to be humble for once) I own, if there is any species of writing of which I am not perfect master, it is the epistolary. My deficience in this particular is happily common to me with the greatest men: I can even go farther, and declare that it is the fair part of the creation which excels in that province. Ease without affectation, the politest expression, the happiest art of telling news of trifles, the most engaging turns of sentiment or passion, are frequently found in letters from women, who have lived in a sphere at all above the vulgar; while on the other side orators write affectedly, ministers obscurely, poets floridly, learned men pedantically, and soldiers tolerably, when they can spell. One would not have one's daughter write like Eloisa, because one would not have one's daughter feel what she felt; yet who ever wrote so movingly, so to the heart? The amiable Madame de Sevigné is the standard of easy engaging writing; to call her the pattern of eloquent writing will not be thought an exaggeration, when I refer my readers to her accounts of the death of Marshal Turenne: some little fragments of her letters, in the appendix to Ramsay's life of that hero, give a stronger picture of him than the historian was able to do in his voluminous work. If this fair one's epistles are liable to any censure, it is for a fault in which she is not likely to be often imitated, the excess of tenderness for her daughter.

The Italians are as proud of a person of the same sex: Lucretia Gonzago was so celebrated for the eloquence of her letters and the purity of their style, that her very notes to her servants were collected and published. I have never read the collection; and indeed one or two billets that I have met with have not entirely all the delicacy of Madame de Se

vigné. In one to her footman, the Signora Gonzago reprehends him for not readily obeying Dame Lucy, her housekeeper; and in another, addressed to the same Mrs. Lucy, she says, 'If Livia will not be obedient, turn up her coats and whip her till her flesh be black and blue, and the blood run down to her heels. To be sure this sounds a little oddly to English ears, but may be very elegant, when modulated by the harmony of Italian liquids.

Several worthy persons have laid down rules for the composition of letters; but I fear it is an art which only nature can teach. I remember in one of those books (as it was written by a German) there was a strict injunction not to mention yourself before you had introduced the person of your correspondent: that is, you must not use the monosyllable I before the pronoun You. The Italians have stated expressions, to be used by different ranks of men, and know exactly when to subscribe themselves the devoted or the most devoted slave of the illustrious or most eminent persons to whom they have the honour to write. It is true, in that country, they have so clogged correspondence with forms and civilities, that they seldom make use of their own language, but generally write to one another in French.

Among many instances of beautiful letters from ladies, and of the contrary from our sex, I shall select two, which are very singular in their kind. The comparison, to be sure, is not entirely fair; but when I mention some particulars of the male author, one might expect a little more elegance, a little better orthography, a little more decorum, and a good deal less absurdity, than seem to have met in one head, which had seen so much of the world, which pretended so much to literature, and which had worn so long one of the first crowns in Europe. This personage was the Emperor Maximilian, grandfa

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ther to Charles the Fifth. His reign was long, sometimes shining, often unprosperous, very often ignominious. His fickleness, prodigality, and indigence, were notorious. The Italians called him Pochi-danari, or the pennyless; a quality no more habitual to him, than his propensity to repair his shattered fortunes by the most unbecoming means. He served under our Henry the Eighth, as a common soldier, at the siege of Terouenne, for a hundred crowns a day he was bribed to the attempt against Pisa, and bribed to give it over. In short, no potentate ever undertook to engage him in a treaty, without first offering him money. Yet this vagabond monarch, as if the annals of his reign were too glorious to be described by a plebeian pen, or as if they were worthy to be described at all, took the pains to write his own life in Dutch verse. There was another book of his composition in a different way, which does not reflect much more lustre his upon memory than his own Dutch epic; this was what he called his livre rouge, and was a register of seventeen mortifications which he had received from Louis the Twelfth of France, and which he intended to revenge on the first opportunity. After a variety of shifts, breach of promises, alliances, and treaties, he almost duped his vain contemporary Henry the Eighth, with a proposal of resigning the empire to him, while himself was meditating what he thought an accession of dignity even to the imperial diadem: in short, in the latter part of his life, Maximilian took it into his head to canvass for the papal Tiara. Several methods were agitated to compass this object of his ambition: one, and not the least ridiculous, was, to pretend that the patriarchal dignity was included in the imperial; and by virtue of that definition he really assumed the title of Pontifex Maximus, copying the pagan

lords of Rome on his way to the sovereignty of the christian church. Money he knew was the surest method, but the least at his command; it was to procure a supply of that necessary ingredient that he wrote the following letter to his daughter Margaret, duchess dowager of Savoy, and governess of the Netherlands.

Tres chiere et tres amée fylle, jè entendu l'avis que vous m'avez donné par Guyllain Pingun notre garderobes, dont avons encore mieux pensé. Et ne trouvons point pour nulle resun bon que nous nous devons franchement marier, maes avons plus avant mys notre deliberation et volanté de jamès plus hanter faem nue. Et envoyons demain Mons. de Gurce Evesque à Rome devers le pape pour trouver fachon que nous puyssuns accorder avec ly de nous prendre pour ung coadjuteur, affin que apres fa mort pouruns estre assuré de avoer le papat, et devenir prester, et apres estre saint, et que yl vous sera de necessité que apres ma mort vous serés contraint de me adorer, dont je me trouveré bien glorioes. Je envoye sur ce ung poste devers le roy d'Arogon pour ly prier qu'y nous voulle ayder pour à ce parvenir, dont il est aussy content, moynant que je resigne l'empir à nostre comun fyls Charls, de sela aussy je me suys contente. Je commance aussy practiker les Cardinaulx, dont ii C. ou iii C. mylle ducats me ferunt ung grand service, aveque la partialité qui est deja entre eos. Le roy d'Arogon à mandé a son ambaxadeur que yl veulent favouryser le papat a nous. Je vous prie, tenés cette matere empu secret, ossi bien en brieff jours je creins que yl faut que tout le monde le sache, car bien mal esti possible de pratiker ung tel sy grand matere secretement, pour laquell yl faut avoer de tant de gens et de argent, succurs et pratike, et a Diù, saet de la main de votre bon pere Maximilianus futur