utter ruin, except there be a remainder ample enough, after the discharge of his creditors, to bear also the expense of rewarding those by whose means the effect of all his labours was transferred trom him. The man is to look on and see others giving directions upon what terms and conditions his goods are to be purchased; and all this usually done, not with an air of trustees to dispose of his effects, but destroyers to divide and tear them to pieces.

There is something sacred in misery to great and good minds; for this reason all wise lawgivers have been extremely tender how they let loose even the man who has right on his side, to act with any mixture of resentment against the defendant. Virtuous and modest men, though they be used with some artifice, and have it in their power to avenge themselves, are slow in the application of that power, and are ever constrained to go into rigorous measures. They are careful to demonstrate themselves not only persons injured, but also that to bear it no longer would be a means to make the offender injure others, before they proceed. Such men clap their hands upon their hearts, and consider what it is to have at their mercy the life of a citizen. Such would have it to say to their own souls, if possible, that they were merciful when they could have destroyed, rather than when it was in their power to have spared a man, they destroyed. This is due to the common calamitv of human life, due in some measure to our very enemies. They who scruple doing the least injury, are cautious of exacting the utmost justice.

Let any one who is conversant in the variety of human life reflect upon it, and he will find the man who wants mercy has a taste of no enjoyment of any kind. There is a natural disrelish of every thing which is good in his very nature, and he is bom an enemv to the world. He is ever extremely partial to himself in all his actions, and has no sense of iniquity but from the punishment which shall attend it. The law of the land is his gospel, and all his cases of conscience are determined by his attorney. Such men know not what it'is to gladden the heart of a miserable man, that riches are the instruments of serving the purposes of heaven or hell, according to the disposition of the possessor. The wealthy can torment or gratify all who are in their power, and choose to do one or other, a,s they are affected with love or hatred to mankind. As for such who are insensible of the concerns of others, but merely as they affect themselves, these men are to be valued only for their mortality, and as we hope better things from their heirs. I could not but read with great delight a letter from an eminent citizen, who has failed, to one who was intimate with him in his better fortune, and able by his countenauco to retrieve his lost condition.

VOL. III.

No. 457. THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1712.

Multa et pnrclara minantis. Hon. SAT. III. 2, 9.

Seeming to promise something wondrous great.

I Shall this day lay before my readers a letter written by the same hand with that of last Friday,* which contained proposals for a printed newspaper that should take in the whole circle of the penny post.

"sir,

" The kind reception you pave my last Friday's letter, in which I broached my project of a newspaper, encourages me to lay before you two or three more; for you must know, Sir, that we look upon you to be the Lowndesf of the learned world, and cannot think any scheme practicable or rational before you have approved of it, though all the money we raise by it is in our own funds, and for our private use.

"1 ha-ve often thought that a news-letter of whispers, written every post, and sent about the kingdom, after the same manner as that of Mr. Dyer, Mr. Dawkes, or any other epistolary historian, might be highly gratifying to the public, as well as beneficial to the author. By whispers I mean those pieces of news which are communicated as secrets, and which bring a double pleasure to the hearer; first, as they are private history; and, in the next place, ss they have always in them a dash of scandal. These are the two chief qualifications in an article of news, which recommend it, in « more than ordinary manner, to the ears of the curious. Sickness of persons in high posts, twilight visits paid and received by ministers of state, clandestine courtships and marriages, seeret amours, losses at play, applications for places, with their respective successes and repulses, are the materials in which I chiefly intend lo deal. I have two persons, that are each of them the representative of a species, who are to furnish ine with those whispers which 1 intend to convey to my correspondents. The first of these is Peter Hush, descended from the ancient family of the Hushes. The other is the old Lady Blast, who has a very numerous tribe of daughters in the two great cities of London and Westminster. Peter Hush has a whispering-hole in most of the great coffeehouses about town. If you are alone with him in a wide room, he dairies you up into a corner of it, and speaks in your ear I have

• No. 452.

+ At that time secretary of the treasury, and director of the mint.

seen Peter seat himself in a company of seven or eight persons whom he never 9aw before in his life; ancl, after having \oo\ei about to see there was no one that overheard him, has communi cated to them in a low voice, and under the seal of secrecy, tbi death of a great man in the country, who was, perhaps, a fox hunting the very moment this account was given of him. If upoi your entering into a coffee-house you see a circle of heads bendinf over the table, and lying close by one another, it is ten to one bu my friend Peter is among them. I have known Peter publishiu; the whisper of the day by eight o'clock in the morning & Garraway's, by twelve at Will's, and before two at the Smyrna When Peter has thus effectually launched a secret, I have lieoi very well pleased to hear people whispering it to one another a second hand, and spreading it about as their own ; for you mu-kuow, Sir, the great incentive to whispering iB the ambition wbid every one has of being thought in the secret, and being looke upon as a man who has access to greater people than one woul imagine. After having given you this account of Peter Hush, proceed to that virtuous lady, the old Lady Blast, who is to con municate to me the private transactions of the crimp-table, with a the arcana of the fair sex. The Lady Blast, you must understaiu has such a particular malignity in her whisper, that it blights lik an easterly wind, and withers every reputation that it breathe upon. She has a particular knack at making private wedding1 and last winter married about five women of quality to the: footmen. Her whisper can make an innocent young woman bi with child, or fill an healthful young fellow with distempers tbi are not to be named. She can turn a visit into an intrigue, and distant salute into an assignation. She can beggar the wealth; and degrade the noble. In short, she can whisper men base ( foolish, jealous or ill natured; or, if occasion requires, can tell To the slips of their great grandmothers, and traduce the memory i honest coachmen that have been in their graves above the* hundred years. By these and the like helps, I question not but shall furnish out a very handsome news-letter If you appro' my project, I shall begin to whisper by the very next post, ai question not every one of my customers will be very well plea« with me, when ho considers that every piece of news I send liim a word in his car, and lets him into a secret.

" Having given you a sketch of this project, I shall, in the ne place, suggest to you another for a monthly pamphlet, which shall likewise submit to your spectatorial wisdom. I need not u you, Sir, that there are several authors in France, Germany, ai Holland, as well as in our own country, who publish every mon what they call " An Account of the Works of the Learned." which they give us an abstract of all such books as are printed any part of Europe. Now, Sir, it is my design to publish ewe month, " An Account of the works of the Unlearned." Several late productions of my own countrymen, who many of them make a very eminent figure in the illiterate world, encourage me in this undertaking. I may, in this work, possibly make a review of several pieces which have appeared in the foreign aocounts above mentioned, though they ought not to have been taken notice of in works whrch bear such a title. I may, likewise, take into consideration such pieces as appear, from time to time, uuder the names of those gentlemen who compliment oue another in public assemblies, by the title of "The Learned Gentlemen." Our party authors will also afford me a great variety of subjects, not to mention the editors, commentators, and others, who are often men of no learning, or, what is as bad, of no knowledge. I shall not enkrge upon this hint; but, if you think any thing can be made of it, I shall set about it with all the pains and application that so useful a work deserves.

. " I am ever, most worthy Sir, &c."

ADDISON. C.

No. 45S. FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 1712.

Ai8»s owe ayathi HE3.

Pudur mains —— noo.

false modesty.

I coui.» not but smile at the account that was yesterday given oe of a modest young gentleman, who being invited to an entertainment, though lie was not used to drink, had not the confidence to refuse his glass in his turn, when on a sudden he grew so flustered, that he took all the talk of the table into his own hands, abused every one of the company, and flung a bottle at the gentleman's head who treated him. This has given me occasion to reieet upon the ill effects of a vicious modesty, and to remember the saying of Brutus, as it is quoted by Plutarch, that " the person tits had but an ill education, who has not been taught to deny anything." This false kind of modesty has, perhaps, betrayed bath sexes into as many vices as the most abandoned impudence ; and is the more inexcusable to reason, because it acts to gratify others rather than itself, and is punished with a kind of remorse, not only like other vicious habits when the crime is over, but even at the very time that it is committed.

Nothing is more admirable than true modesty, and nothing is more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the