N° 152. FRIDAY, AUGUST 24, 1711.

Οιη περ φυλλών γενεη, τοιηδε και ανδρων.

HOM. II. vi. 146.

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found.

POPE.

THERE is no sort of people whose conversation is so pleasant as that of military men, who derive their courage and magnanimity from thought and reflection. The many adventures which attend their way of life makes their conversation so full of incidents, and gives them so frank an air in speaking of what they have been witnesses of, that no company can be more amiable than that of men of sense who are soldiers. There is a certain irregular way in their narrations or discourse, which has something more warm and pleasing than we meet with among men who are used to adjust and methodize their thoughts.

I was this evening walking in the fields with my friend captain Sentry, and I could not, from the many relations which I drew him into of what passed when he was in the service, forbear expressing my wonder, that the 'fear of death,' which we, the rest of mankind, arm ourselves against with so much contemplation, reason and philosophy, should appear so little in camps, that common men march into open breaches, meet opposite battalions, not only without reluctance but with alacrity. My friend answered what I said in the following manner. • What you wonder at may very naturally be the subject of admiration to all who are not conversant in camps; but when a man has spent some time in that way of life, he observes a certain mechanic courage which the

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