disorder. It is, I think, pretty plain, that most of the absurdity and ridicule we meet with in the world, is generally owing to the impertinent affectation of excelling in characters men are not fit for, and for which nature never designed them.

Every man has one or more qualities which may make him useful both to himself and others. Nature never fails of pointing them out; and while the infant continues under her guardianship, she brings him on in his way, and then offers herself as a guide in what remains of the journey; if he proceeds in that course, he can hardly miscarry. Nature makes good her engagements; for, as she never promises what she is not able to perform, so she never fails of performing what she promises. But the misfortune is, men despise what they may be masters of, and affect what they are not fit for; they reckon themselves already possessed of what their genius inclined them to, and so bend all their ambition to excel in what is out of their reach. Thus they destroy the use of their natural talents, in the same manner as covetous men do their quiet and repose; they can enjoy no satisfaction in what they have, because of the absurd inclination they are possessed with for what they have not.

Cleanthes has good sense, a great memory, and a constitution capable of the closest application. In a word, there was no profession in which Cleanthes might not have made a very good figure: but this won't satisfy him; he takes up an unaccountable fondness for the character of a fine gentleman; all tis thoughts are bent upon this: instead of attending a dissection, frequenting the courts of justice, or studying the fathers, Cleanthes reads plays, dances, tresses, and spends his time in drawing-rooms; stead of being a good lawyer, divine, or physician, Geanthes is a downright coxcomb, and will remain

to all that know him a contemptible example of talents misapplied. It is to this affectation the world owes its whole race of coxcombs. Nature in her

whole drama never drew such a part; she has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making, by applying his talents otherwise than Nature designed, who ever bears a high resentment for being put out of her course, and never fails of taking her revenge on those that do so. Opposing her tendency in the application of a man's parts, has the same success as declining from her course in the production of vegetables, by the assistance of art and an hot-bed. We may possibly extort an unwilling plant, or an untimely sallad'; but how weak, how tasteless and insipid! Just as insipid as the poetry of Valerio. Valerio had an universal character, was genteel, had learning, thought justly, spoke correctly; it was believed there was nothing in which Valerio did not excel; and it was so far true, that there was but one: Valerio had no genius for poetry, yet he is resolved to be a poet; he writes verses, and takes great pains to convince the town that Valerio is not that extraordinary person he was taken for.

Το

If men would be content to graft upon Nature, and assist her operations, what mighty effects might we expect! Tully would not stand so much alone in oratory, Virgil in poetry, or Cæsar in war. build upon Nature is laying a foundation upon a rock; every thing disposes itself into order as it were of course, and the whole work is half done as soon as undertaken. Cicero's genius inclined him to oratory, Virgil's to follow the train of the Muses; they piously obeyed the admonition, and were rewarded. Had Virgil attended the bar, his modest and ingenious virtue would surely have made but a very indifferent figure; and Tully's declamatory in

clination would have been as useless in poetry. Nature, if left to herself, leads us on in the best course, but will do nothing by compulsion and constraint; and if we are not always satisfied to go her way, we are always the greatest sufferers by it.

Wherever Nature designs a production, she always disposes seeds proper for it, which are as absolutely necessary to the formation of any moral or intellectual excellence, as they are to the being and growth of plants; and I know not by what fate and folly it is, that men are taught not to reckon him equally absurd that will write verses in spite of Nature, with that gardener that should undertake to raise a jonquil or tulip without the help of their respective seeds.

As there is no good or bad quality that does not affect both sexes, so it is not to be imagined but the fair sex must have suffered by an affectation of this nature, at least as much as the other. The ill effect of it is in none so conspicuous as in the two opposite characters of Cælia and Iras: Cælia has all the charms of person, together with an abundant sweetness of nature, but wants wit, and has a very ill voice; Iras is ugly and ungenteel, but has wit and good sense. If Calia would be silent, her beholders would adore her: if iras would talk, her hearers would admire her: but Cælia's tongue runs incessantly, while Iras gives herself silent airs and soft languors, so that it is difficult to persuade oneself that Cælia has beauty, and Iras wit: each neglects her own excellence, and is ambitious of the other's character; Iras would be thought to have as much beauty as Cælia, and Cælia as much wit as Iras.

The great misfortune of this affectation is, that men not only lose a good quality, but also contract a bad one. They not only are unfit for what they were designed, but they assign themselves to what they are

now we are grown up to better acquaintance, they deny me the respect they owe. One upbraids me with being their familiar, another will hardly be persuaded that I am an uncle, a third calls me little uncle, and a fourth tells me there is no duty at all to an uncle. I have a brother-in-law whose son will win all my affection, unless you shall think this worthy of your cognizance, and will be pleased to prescribe some rules for our future reciprocal behaviour. It will be worthy the particularity of your genius to lay down some rules for his conduct, who was, as it were, born an old man; in which you will much oblige,

T.

Sir,

Your most obedient servant,
CORNELIUS NEPOS.'

N° 403. THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1712.

Qui mores hominum multorum vidit

Of many men he saw the manners.

HOR. Ars Poet. v. 142.

WHEN I Consider this great city in its several quarters and divisions, I look upon it as an aggregate of various nations distinguished from each other by their respective customs, manners, and interests. The courts of two countries do not so much differ from one another, as the court and city, in their peculiar ways of life and conversation. In short, the inhabitants of St James's, notwithstanding they live under the same laws, and speak the same language, are a distinct people from those of Cheapside, who are likewise removed from those of

the Temple on the one side, and those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in their way of thinking and conversing together.

For this reason, when any public affair is upon the anvil, I love to hear the reflexions that arise upon it in the several districts and parishes of London and Westminster, and to ramble up and down a whole day together, in order to make myself acquainted with the opinions of my ingenious countrymen. By this means I know the faces of all the principal politicians within the bills of mortality; and as every coffee-house has some particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. The last progress that I made with this intention was about three months ago, when we had a current report of the king of France's death. As I foresaw this would produce a new face of things in Europe, and many c curious speculations in our British coffee-houses, I was very desirous to learn the thoughts of our most eminent politicians on that occasion.

That I might begin as near the fountain-head as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in a buz of politics. The speculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were so very much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a quarter of an hour.

I afterwards called in at Giles's, where I saw a board of French gentlemen sitting upon the life and death of their grand monarque. Those among