CG

breasts; and the priests are ordered not to admit the transgressors

of this law to confession, nor to communion; neither are they to enter the cathedrals under severe penalties.'

“These lines are faithfully copied from the nightly paper, with this title written over it, The Evening Post, from Saturday, July the 18th, to Tuesday, July the 21st.

Seeing thy lion is obeyed at this distance, we hope the foolish women in thy own country will listen to thy admonitions. Otherwise thou art desired to make him still roar, till all the beasts of the forests shall trenible. I must again repeat unto thee, friend Nestor, the whole brotherhood have great hopes of thee, and expect to see thee so inspired with the light, as thou mayest speedily become a great preacher of the word. I wish it heartily.

Thine,

In everything that is praiseworthy, Tom's Coffee-house in Birchin

Tom TREMBLE.” Lane, the 23rd day of the month called July.

It happens very oddly that the pope and I should have the same thought much about the same time. My enemies will be apt to say that we hold a correspondence together, and act by concert in this matter. Let that be as it will, I shall not be ashamed to join with his Holiness in those ticulars which are indifferent between us, especially when it is for the reformation of the finer half of mankind. We are both of us about the same age, and consider this fashion in the same view. I hope that it will not be able to resist his bull and my lion. I am only afraid that our ladies will take occasion, from hence, to show their zeal for the Protestant religion, and pretend to expose their naked bosoms only in opposition to Popery.

par

No. 117. SATURDAY, JULY 25.

Cura pii Diis sunt

Ovid. LOOKING over the late edition of Monsieur Boileau's works, I was very much pleased with the article which he has added to his notes on the translation of Longinus. He

VOL. IV.

there tells us, that the sublime in writing rises either from the nobleness of the thought, the magnificence of the words, or the harmonious and lively turn of the phrase, and that the perfect sublime arises from all these three in conjunction together. He produces an instance of this perfect sublime in four verses from the Athaliah of Monsieur Racine. When Abner, one of the chief officers of the court, represents to Joad the high priest, that the queen was incensed against him, the high priest, not in the least terrified at the news, returns this answer.

Celui qui met un frein à la fureur des flots,
Sçait aussi des mechans arrêter les complots.
Soumis avec respect à sa volonté Sainte,

Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d'autre crainte. “He who ruled the raging of the sea, knows also how to check the designs of the ungodly. I submit myself with reverence to his holy will. Ở Abner, I fear my God, and I fear none but him.” Such a thought gives no less a sublimity to human nature, than it does to good writing. This religious fear, when it is produced by just apprehensions of a Divine Power, naturally overlooks all human greatness that stands in competition with it, and extinguishes every other terror that can settle itself in the heart of man: it lessens and contracts the figure of the most exalted person; it disarms the tyrant and executioner, and represents to our minds the most enraged and the most powerful as altogether harmless and impotent. There is no true fortitude which is not founded

upon

this fear, as there is no other principle of so settled and fixed a nature. Courage that grows from constitution very

often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; and when it is only a kind of instinct in the soul, breaks out on all occasions, without judgment or discretion. That courage which proceeds from the sense of our duty, and from the fear of offending him that made us, acts always in an uniform manner, and according to the dictates of right reason.

What can the man fear, who takes care in all his actions to please a Being that is Omnipotent? a Being who is able to crush all his adversaries ? à Being that can divert any misfortune from befalling him, or turn any such misfortune to his advantage? The person who lives with this constant and habitual regard to the great Superintendent of the world,

is indeed sure that no real evil can come into his lot. Blessings may appear under the shape of pains, losses, and disappointments, but let him have patience, and he will see them in their proper figures. Dangers may threaten him, but he may rest satisfied that they will either not reach him, or that if they do, they will be the instruments of good to him. In short, he

may
look
upon

all crosses and accidents, sufferings and afflictions, as means which are made use of to bring him to happiness. This is even the worst of that man's condition whose mind is possessed with the habitual fear of which I am now speaking. But it very often happens, that those which appear evils in our own eyes, appear also as such to him who has human nature under his care, in which case they are certainly averted from the person who has made himself, by this virtue, an object of Divine favour. Histories are full of instances of this nature, where men of virtue have had extraordinary escapes out of such dangers as have enclosed them, and which have seemed inevitable.

There is no example of this kind in Pagan history, which more pleases me, than that which is recorded in the life of Timoleon. This extraordinary man was famous for referring all his successes to Providence. Cornelius Nepos acquaints us that he had in his house a private chapel, in which he used to pay his devotions to the goddess who represented Providence among the heathens. I think no man was ever more distinguished by the deity whom he blindly worshipped, than the great person I am speaking of, in several occurrences of his life, but particularly in the following one which I shall relate out of Plutarch.

Three persons had entered into a conspiracy to assassinate Timoleon as he was offering up his devotions in a certain temple. In order to it, they took their several stands in the most convenient places for their purpose.

As they were waiting for an opportunity to put their design in execution, a stranger having observed one of the conspirators, fell upon him and slew him. Upon which the other two, thinking their plot had been discovered, threw themselves at Timoleon's feet, and confessed the whole matter. This stranger, upon examination, was found to have understood nothing of the intended assassination, but having several years before had a brother killed by the conspirator whom he here put to death, and having till now sought in vain for an opportunity

a

a

of revenge, he chanced to meet the murderer in the temple, who had planted himself there for the above-mentioned purpose. Plutarch cannot forbear, on this occasion, speaking with a kind of rapture on the schemes of Providence, which, in this particular, had so contrived it, that the stranger should, for so great a space of time, be debarred the means of doing justice to his brother, until, by the same blow that revenged the death of one innocent man, he preserved the life of another.

For my own part, I cannot wonder that a man of Timoleon's religion should have his intrepidity and firmness of mind, or that he should be distinguished by such a deliverance as I have here related.

a

No. 118. MONDAY, JULY 27.

where among

-Largitor ingenî
Venter-

PERS. I AM very well pleased to find that my lion has given such universal content to all that have seen him. He has had a greater number of visitants than any of his brotherhood in the Tower. I this morning examined his maw, much other food, I found the following delicious morsels.

To Nestor Ironside, Esq. 6. MR. GUARDIAN,

I am a daily peruser of your papers. I have read over and over your discourse concerning the tucker; as like, wise your paper of Thursday the 16th instant, in which you say it is your intention to keep a watchful eye over every part of the female sex, and to regulate them from head to foot. Now, sir, being by profession a mantua-maker, who am employed by the most fashionable ladies about town, I am admitted to them freely at all hours, and seeing them both dressed and undressed, I think there is no person better qualified than myself to serve you (if your Honour pleases)

A man of Timoleon's religion.] Ambiguously, and therefore ill expressed: for, a man of Timoleon's religion, may as well mean a pagan, as a pious man. He should have said-a man of so much religion as Timoleon, &c.

а

future papers;

in the nature of a lioness. I am in the whole secret of their fashion, and if you think fit to entertain me in this character, I will have a constant watch over them, and doubt not [ shall send you, from time to time, such private intelligence, as you will find of use to

you
in

your “Sir, this being a new proposal, I hope you will not let me lose the benefit of it: but that you will first hear me roar, before you treat with anybody else. As a sample of my intended services, I give you this timely notice of an improvement you will shortly see in the exposing of the female chest, which in defiance of your gravity is going to be uncovered yet more and more ; so that to tell you truly, Mr. Ironside, I am in some fear lest my profession should, in a little, become wholly unnecessary. 'I must here explain to you a small covering, if I may call it so, or rather an ornament, for the neck, which you have not yet taken notice of. This consists of a narrow lace, or a small skirt of fine ruffled linen, which runs along the upper part of the stays before, and crosses the breasts, without rising to the shoulders; and being, as it were, a part of the tucker, yet kept in use, is, therefore, by a particular name, called the modesty-piece. Now, sir, what I have to communicate to you at present is, that at a late meeting of the stripping ladies, in which were present several eminent toasts and beauties, it was resolved for the future to lay the modesty-piece wholly aside. It is intended, at the same time, to lower the stays considerably before, and nothing but the unsettled weather has hindered this design from being already put in execution. Some few, indeed, objected to this last improvement, but were overruled by the rest, who alleged it was their intention, as they ingeniously expressed it, to level their breast-works entirely, and to trust to no defence but their own virtue.

a

“ I am, SIR,

(if you please,) your secret servant,

LEONILLA FIGLEAF."

“ DEAR SIR,

As by name, and duty bound, I yesterday brought in a prey of paper for my patron's dinner; but, by the forwardness of his paws, he seemed ready to put it into his own mouth, which does not enough resemble its prototypes,