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'Mr Thomas Trueman of Lime-street is entered among the heroes of domestic life. • CHARLES LILLIE.'

No. 214.] Tuesday, August 22, 1710.

-Soles et aperta serena

Prospiceri et certis poteris cognoscere siguis.
Virg. Georg. i. 393.

'Tis easy to descry
Returning suns, and a serener sky. Dryden.

From my own Apartment, August 21.
In every party there are two sorts of men,
the rigid and the supple. The rigid are an
intractable race of mortals, who act upon prin-
ciple, and will not, forsooth, fall into any mea-
sures that are not consistent with their received
notions of honour. These are persons of a
stubborn unpliant morality; that sullenly ad-
here to their friends when they are disgraced,
and to their principles, though they are ex-
ploded. I shall therefore give up this stiff-
necked generation to their own obstinacy, and
turn my thoughts to the advantage of the sup.
ple, who pay their homage to places, and not
persons; and, without enslaving themselves to
any particular scheme of opinions, are as
ready to change their conduct in point of sen-
timent as of fashion. The well-disciplined part
of a court are generally so perfect at their
exercise, that you may see a whole assembly,
from front to rear, face about at once to a new
man of power, though at the same time, they
turn their backs upon him that brought them
thither. The great hardship these complaisant
members of society are under, seems to be the
want of warning upon any approaching change
or revolution; so that they are obliged in a
hurry to tack about with every wind, and stop
short in the midst of a full career, to the great
surprise and derision of their beholders.

have been thrown away, and turned to no account, merely for want of due and timely intelligence. Nay, it has been known, that a panegyric has been half printed off, when the poet, upon the removal of the minister, has been forced to altar it into a satire.

For the conduct therefore of such useful persons, as are ready to do their country service upon all occasions, I have an engine in my study, which is a sort of a Political Barometer, or, to speak more intelligibly, a State Weather glass, that by the rising and falling of a certain magical liquor, presages all changes and revolutions in government, as the common glass does those of the weather. This Weather-glass is said to have been invented by Cardan,* and given by him as a present to his great countryman and contemporary, Machiaval; which, by the way, may serve to rectify a received error in chronology, that places one of these some years after the other. How or when it came into my hands, I shall desire to be excused, if I keep to myself; but so it is, that I have walked by it for the better part of a century to my safety at least, if not to my advantage; and have among my papers a regis ter of all the changes that have happened in it from the middle of queen Elizabeth's reign.

In the time of that princess it stood long as settled fair. At the latter end of king James the First, it fell, to cloudy. It held several years after at stormy; insomuch, that at last, desparing of seeing any clear weather at home, I followed the royal exile, and some time after finding my glass rise, returned to my native country, with the rest of the loyalists. I was then in hopes to pass the remainder of my days in settled fair: but alas! during the greatest part of that reign the English nation lay in a dead calm, which, as it is usual, was followed by high winds and tempests, until of late years; in which, with unspeakable joy and satisfaction, I have seen our political weather returned to settled fair. I must only observe, that for all this last summer my glass has pointed at changeable. Upon the whole, I often apply to Fortune, Æneas's speech to the Sibyl:

-Non ulla laborum

O virgo, nova mi facies inopinave surgit :
Omnia præcepi, atque animo mecum ante peregi.
Virg. Æn. vi. 103.
-No terror to my view,

When a man forsees a decaying ministry, he bas leisure to grow a malecontent, reflect upon the present conduct, and, by gradual murmurs, fall off from his friends into a new party, by just steps and measures. For want of such notices, I have formerly known a very wellbred person refuse to return a bow of a man whom he thought in disgrace, that was next day made secretary of state; and another, who, after a long neglect of a minister, came to his levee, and made professions of zeal for his service the very day before he was turned out. This produces also unavoidable confusions and mistakes in the descriptions of great men's parts and merits. That ancient Lyric M. D'Urfey, some years ago writ a dedication to a certain Jerom Cardan, physician and an astrologer, the author lord, in which he celebrated him for the great- of ten volumes in folio, was, in the opinion of Bayle, one est poet and critic of that age, upon a misin- of the greatest geniuses of his age. This strange man, who seems to have been much under the power of superstition formation in Dyer's Letter, that his noble patron was made lord chamberlain. In short, and, at times, not seldom, insane, was born at Pavia, Sepinnumerable votes, speeches, and sermons,

No frightful face of danger can be new:
The mind foretells whatever comes to pass;
A thoughtful mind is Fortane's weather-glass.
The advantages which have accrued to those
whom I have advised in their affairs, by virtue

tember 24, 1501, and died at Rome, according to Thuanus, September 21, 1575.

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of this sort of prescience, have been very con- | searching all over the wood! we wanted you siderable. A nephew of mine, who has never at cards after dinner; but you are much better put his money into the stocks, or taken it out, employed. I have heard indeed that you are without my advice, has in a few years raised an excellent scholar. But at the same time, five hundred pounds to almost so many thou- is it not a little unkind to rob the ladies, who sands. As for myself, who look upon riches to like you so well, of the pleasure of your comconsist rather in content than possessions, and pany? But that is indeed the misfortune of measure the greatness of the mind rather by you great scholars; you are seldom so fit for its tranquillity than its ambition, I have seldom the world as those who never trouble them. used my glass to make my way in the world, selves with books. Well, I see you are taken but often to retire from it. This is a by-path up with your learning there, and I will leave to happiness, which was at first discovered to you.' Lysander says, he made him no answer, me by a most pleasing apophthegm of Pytha- but took a resolution to complain to me. goras: When the winds,' says be, rise, wor- It is a substantial affliction, when men ship the echo.' That great philosopher (whe-govern themselves by the rules of good breedther to make his doctrines the more venerable, or to gild his precepts with the beauty of imagination, or to awaken the curiosity of his disciples, for I will not suppose, what is usually said, that he did it to conceal his wisdom from the vulgar) has couched several admirable precepts in remote allusions, and mysterious sentences. By the winds in his apophthegm, are meant state hurricanes and popular tumults. When these rise,' says he,' worship the echo;' that is, withdraw yourself from the multitude into deserts, woods, solitudes, or the like retirements, which are the usual habitations of the echo.

No. 215.] Thursday, August 24, 1710.

From my own Apartment, August 23. LYSANDER has writ to me out of the country, and tells me, after many other circumstances, that he had passed a great deal of time with much pleasure and tranquillity; until his happiness was interrupted by an indiscreet flatterer, who came down into those parts to visit a relation. With the circumstances in which he represents the matter, he had no small provocation to be offended; for he attacked him in so wrong a season, that he could not have any relish of pleasure in it; though, perhaps, at another time it might have passed upon him without giving him much uneasiness. Lysander had, after a long satiety of the town, been so happy as to get to a solitude he extremely liked, and recovered a pleasure he had long discontinued, that of reading.

He was

got to the bank of a rivulet, covered by a pleasing shade, and fanned by a soft breeze; which threw his mind into that sort of composure and attention, in which a man, though with indolence, enjoys the utmost liveliness of his spirits, and the greatest strength of his mind at the same time. In this state, Lysander represents that he was reading Virgil's Georgics, when on a sudden the gentleman above-mentioned surprised him; and, without any manner of preparation, falls upon him at once: What! I have found you at last, after

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ing, that by the very force of them they are subjected to the insolence of those, who either never will, or never can, understand them. The superficial part of mankind form to themselves little measures of behaviour from the outside of things. By the force of these narrow conceptions, they act among themselves with applause; and do not apprehend they are contemptible to those of higher understanding, who are restrained by decencies above their knowledge from showing a dislike. Hence it is, that because complaisance is a good quality in conversation, one impertinent takes upon him on all occasions to commend; and because mirth is agreeable, another thinks fit eternally to jest. I have of late received many packets of letters, complaining of these spreading evils. A lady who is lately arrived at the Bath acquaints me, there were in the stage-coach wherein she went down a common flatterer, and a common jester. These gentlemen were, she tells me, rivals in her favour; and adds, if there ever happened a case wherein of two persons one was not liked more than another, it was in that journey. They differed only in proportion to the degree of dislike between the nauseous and the insipid. Both these characters of men are born out of a barrenness of imagination. They are never fools by nature; but become such out of an impotent ambition of being, what she never intended them, men of wit and conversation. I therefore think fit to declare, that according to the known laws of this land, a man may be a very honest gentleman, and enjoy himself and his friend, without being a wit; and I absolve all men from taking pains to be such for the future. As the present case stands, is it not very unhappy that Lysander must be attacked and applauded in a wood, and Corrina jolted and commended in a stage-coach; and this for no manner of reason, but because other people have a mind to show their parts? I grant indeed, if these people, as they have understanding enough for it, would confine their accomplishments to those of their own degree of talents, it were to be tolerated; but when they are so insolent as to interrupt the meditations

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of the wise, the conversations of the agreeable, and the whole behaviour of the modest, it becomes a grievance naturally in my jurisdiction. Among themselves, I cannot only overlook, but approve it. I was present the other day at a conversation, where a man of this height of breeding and sense told a young woman of the same form, To be sure, madam, every thing must please that comes from a lady.' She answered, I know, sir, you are so much a gentleman, that you think so.' Why this was very well on both sides; and it is impossible that such a gentleman and lady should do otherwise than think well of one another. These are but loose hints of the disturbances in human society, for which there is yet no remedy; but I shall in a little time publish tables of respect and civility, by which persons may be instructed in the proper times and seasons, as well as at what degree of intimacy a man may be allowed to commend or rally his companions; the promiscuous licence of which is, at present, far from being among the small errors in conversation.

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SHEWETHI,

That there has of late prevailed among the ladies so great an affectation of nakedness, that they have not only left the bosom wholly bare, but lowered their stays some inches below the former mode.

'That, in particular, Mrs. Arabella Overdo has not the least appearance of linen; and our best customers show but little above the small of their backs.

'That by this means your Petitioners are in danger of losing the advantage of covering a ninth part of every woman of quality in Great Britain.

Your Petitioners humbly offer the premises to your Indulgence's consideration, and shall ever, &c.'

Before I answer this Petition, I am inclined to examine the offenders myself.

P. S. The following letter was left, with a request to be immediately answered, lest the artifices used against a lady in distress may No. 216.] Saturday, August 26, 1710. come into common practice.

'SIR,

'My eldest sister buried her husband about six months ago; and at his funeral, a gentleman of more art than honesty, on the night of his interment, while she was not herself, but in the utmost agony of her grief, spoke to her of the subject of love. In that weakness and distraction which my sister was in, as one ready to fall is apt to lean on any body, he obtained her promise of marriage, which was accordingly consummated eleven weeks after. There is no affliction comes alone, but one brings another. My sister is now ready to lie in. She humbly asks of you, as you are a friend to the sex, to let her know, who is the lawful father of this child, or whether she may not be relieved from this second marriage; considering it was promised under such circumstances as one may very well suppose she did not what she did voluntarily, but because she was helpless otherwise. She is advised something about engagements made in gaol, which she thinks the same, as to the reason of the thing. But, dear sir, she relies upon your advice, and gives you her service; as does your humble servant,

REBECCA MIDRIFFE.'

The case is very hard; and I fear the plea she is advised to make, from the similitude of a man who is in duresse, will not prevail. But though I despair of remedy as to the mother, the law gives the child his choice of his father where the birth is thus legally ambiguous.

Nugis addere pondus. Hor. 1 Ep. i. 42.
Weight and importance some to trifles give.
R. Wynne.

From my own Apartment, August 25.
standing miracle, and endowed with such qua-
NATURE is full of wonders; every atom is a
lities, as could not be impressed on it by a
power and wisdom less than infinite. For this
reason, I would not discourage any searches
that are made into the most minute and trivial
However, since the
parts of the creation.
world abounds in the noblest fields of specu-
lation, it is, methinks, the mark of a little ge-
nius, to be wholly conversant among insects,
that furnish out the apartment of a virtuoso.
reptiles, animalcules, and those trifling rarities

There are some men whose heads are so

oddly turned this way, that though they are life, they are able to discover the sex of a utter strangers to the common occurrences of cockle, or describe the generation of a mite, versed in the world, that they scarce know a They are so little horse from an ox; but, at the same time, will tell you with a great deal of gravity, that a flea is a rhinoceros, and a snail a hermaphro

in all its circumstances.

dite. I have known one of these whimsical philosophers, who has set a greater value upon a collection of spiders than he would upon a flock of sheep, and has sold his coat off his back to purchase a tarantula.

I would not have a scholar wholly unac quainted with these secrets and curiosities of nature; but certainly the mind of man, that

is capable of so much bigher contemplations, should not be altogether fixed upon such mean and disproportioned objects. Observations of this kind are apt to alienate us too much from the knowledge of the world, and to make us serious upon trifles; by which means they expose philosophy to the ridicule of the witty, and contempt of the ignorant. In short, studies of this nature should be the diversions, relaxations, and amusements; not the care, business, and concern of life.

It is indeed wonderful to consider, that there should be a sort of learned men, who are wholly employed in gathering together the refuse of nature, if I may call it so, and hoarding up in their chests and cabinets such creatures as others industriously avoid the sight of. One does not know how to mention some of the most precious parts of their treasure, without a kind of an apology for it. I have been shown a beetle valued at twenty crowns, and a toad

at a hundred but we must take this for a

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Item, To my learned and worthy friend doctor Johannes Elserickius, professor in anatomy, and my associate in the studies of nature, as an eternal monument of my affection and friendship for him, I bequeath My rat's testicles, and Whale's pizzle,

to him and his issue male; and in default of such issue in the said doctor Elscrickius, then to return to my executor and his heirs for ever.

Having fully provided for my nephew Isaac, by making over to him some years since, A horned Scarabæus,

The skin of a rattle-snake, and The mummy of an Egyptian king, make no further provision for him in this my will.

My eldest son John, having spoke disrespect. fully of his little sister, whom I keep by me in spirits of wine, and in many other instances behaved himself undutifully towards me, I do disinherit, and wholly cut off from any part of this my personal estate, by giving him a single

cockle shell.

To my second son Charles I give and bequeath all my flowers, plants, minerals, mosses, shells, pebbles, fossils, beetles, butterflies, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and vermin, not above specified; as also all my monsters, both wet and dry; making the said Charles whole and sole executor of this my last will and testament: he paying, or causing to be paid, the aforesaid legacies within the space of six months after my decease. And I do hereby revoke all other wills whatsoever by me formerly

I, Nicholas Gimcrack, being in sound health of mind, but in great weakness of body, do by this my last will and testament bestow my worldly goods and chattels in manner follow-made. ing:

Imprimis, To my dear wife,

One box of butterflies,

One drawer of shells,

A female skeleton,

A dried cockatrice.

Item, To my daughter Elizabeth,
My receipt for preserving dead

lars,

ADVERTISEMENT.

Whereas an ignorant upstart in astrology has publicly endeavoured to persuade the world, that he is the late John Partridge, who died the twenty-eighth of March, 1708: These are to certify all whom it may concern, that the caterpil-time, but continues so to this present day. true John Partridge was not only dead at that

As also my preparations of winter May-
dew, and embryo-pickle.

Item, To my little daughter Fanny,
Three crocodile s eggs,

And upon the birth of her first child, if she marries with her mother's consent,

The nest of a bumming-bird.

Item, To my eldest brother, as an acknowledgment for the lands he has vested in my son Charles, I bequeath

My last year's collection of grasshoppers. Item, To his daughter Susanna, being his only child, I bequeath my

English weeds pasted on royal paper,
With my large folio of Indian cabbage.

Beware of counterfeits, for such are abroad.

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the fair sex, which is distinguished by the term Scolds. The generality of women are by nature loquacious; therefore mere volubility of speech is not to be imputed to them, but should be considered with pleasure when it is used to express such passions as tend to sweeten or adorn conversation: but when through rage, females are vehement in their eloquence, nothing in the world has so ill an effect upon the features; for, by the force of it, I have seen the most amiable become the most deformed; and she that appeared one of the graces, immediately turned into one of the furies. I humbly conceive, the great cause of this evil may proceed from a false notion the ladies have of, what we call, a modest woman. They have too narrow a conception of this lovely character; and believe they have not at all forfeited their pretensions to it, provided they have no imputations on their chastity. But, alas! the young fellows know they pick out better women in the side-boxes, than many of those who pass upon the world and themselves for modest.

other than exercises of their own lungs and their husbands' patience, gain by the force of being resisted, and flame with open fury, which is no way to be opposed but by being neglected; though at the same time human frailty makes it very hard, to relish the philosophy of con temning even frivolous reproach. There is a very pretty instance of this infirmity in the man of the best sense that ever was, no less a person than Adam himself. According to Milton's description of the first couple, as soon as they had fallen, and the turbulent passions of anger, hatred, and jealousy, first entered their breasts; Adam grew moody, and talked to his wife, as you may find it in the three hundred and fifty-ninth page, and ninth book of Paradise Lost, in the octavo edition, which, out of heroics, and put into domestic style, would run thus:

'Madam, if my advices had been of any authority with you, when that strange desire of gadding possessed you this morning, we had still been happy; but your cursed vanity and opinion of your own conduct, which is certainly very wavering when it seeks occasions of being proved, has ruined both yourself and me, who trusted you.'

Eve had no fan in her hand to ruffle, or tucker to pull down; but with a reproachful air she answered:

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Sir, do you impute that to my desire of gadding, which might have happened to yourself, with all your wisdom and gravity? The serpent spoke so excellently, and with so good a grace, that--Besides, what harm had I ever done him, that he should design me any? Was I to have been always at your side, I might as well have continued there, and been but your rib still: but if I was so weak a creature as you thought me, why did you not interpose your sage authority more absolutely? You denied me going as faintly, as you say I re

Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill-treated, it pines, it beseeches, it languishes. The neighbour I mention is one of your common modest women, that is to say, those who are ordinarily reckoned such. Her husband knows every pain in life with her but jealousy. Now, because she is clear in this particular, the man cannot say his soul is his own, but she cries: No modest woman is respected now-a-days.' What adds to the comedy in this case is, that it is very ordinary with this sort of women to talk in the language of distress; they will complain of the forlorn wretchedness of their condition, and then the poor helpless creatures shall throw the next thing they can lay their hands on at the person who offends them. Our neighbour was only saying to his wife, she went a little too fine,' when she immediately pulled his periwig off, and stamping it under her feet, wrung hersisted the serpent. Had not you been too easy, hands, and said: Never modest woman was so used.' These ladies of irresistible modesty are those who make virtue unamiable; not that they can be said to be virtuous, but as they live without scandal; and being under the common denomination of being such, men fear to meet their faults in those who are as agreeable as they are innocent.

I take the Bully among men, and the Scold among women, to draw the foundation of their actions from the same defect in the mind. A Bully thinks honour consists wholly in being brave; and therefore has regard to no one rule of life if he preserves himself from the accusation of cowardice. The froward woman knows chastity to be the first merit in a woman; and therefore, since no one can call her one ugly name, she calls all mankind all the rest.

These ladies, where their companions are so imprudent as to take their speeches for any

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neither you nor I had now transgressed.' Adam
replied, Why, Eve, bast thou the impudence
to upbraid me as the cause of thy transgression
for my indulgence to thee? Thus will it ever
be with him, who trusts too much to woman.
At the same time that she refuses to be go-
verned, if she suffers by her obstinacy, she will
accuse the man that shall leave her to herself.'

Thus they in mutnal accusation spent
The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning;
And of their vain contest appear'd no end.

This, to the modern, will appear but a very faint piece of conjugal enmity: but you are to consider, that they were but just begun to be angry,and they wanted new words for expressing their new passions; but by her accusing him of letting her go, and telling him how good a speaker, and how fine a gentleman the devil was, we must reckon, allowing for the improvements of time, that she gave him the

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