have fome irresistible attractions. My mother, before my eyes were well open, declared them a pair of the right killing kind; and if I happened but to cry for a little bread and milk, my father found out in every fquall fome indications of a wonderful fagacity. In fhort, I was looked upon as an abfolute Olio or falmongundy of perfections, to use the words of a fashionable author; and was almoft in danger of being devoured, through the infatiable fondnefs, as I may call it, of my poor father and mother. When I grew towards feven or eight, and had paffed the ordeal of a fiery fmall-pox with pretty good fuccefs, I was pronounced a perfect beauty; and my friends all concluded, that it was impoffible but what fuch a woman as I promised to turn out mult make her fortune by her perfonal attractions. Infatuated by this unaccountable prepoffeffion, my mother's fole attention was confined to thofe accomplishments which were rather engaging than neceffary, and rendered a woman fuperficially agreeable, without being of any intrinfic ufe. Thus, Sir, when other girls of my age were advancing pretty falt in the progrefs of French, Italian, and Engith authors, I was ftudying how to play at quadrille, or exercifing the whole army of my little graces before the looking-glafs. Instead of growing a miftrefs at my needle, and affifting to make up the linen of the family, I was inftructed to laugh at industry, and told, that poring on a piece of work would inevitably injure my eyes, or endanger my conftitution. Going to church, they as good as told me, was extremely vulgar; and it was hinted, that I fhould fhew my fpirit, by taking care to rate the fervants very foundly whenever they grew either familiar or impertinent. In fhort, Sir, in this hopeful manner I reached my fixteenth year, and knew nothing in nature but how to make a cap, play a game at cards, turn out my toes a little tolerably, and play a leffon or two on the harpsichord. As I was now bordering on the age when my mother expected my perfon would work miracles, the took uncommon pains to tell me, that thofe who were my equals only were infinitely beDeath me; and that none but those who were confiderably my fuperiors could 4 poffibly be as good as myself. Vanity Not to dwell upon this unhappy cir- N THEODORA. N SIR, N° LXIV. SATURDAY, APRIL 23. TO THE BABLER. HERE is a fpecies of ill-breed pretty remarkable for the convenience of it's prospect, they strike a kind of awe through a number of families confider. ably better than themselves, and are al •Ting which I have obferved to be moit as good as our reforming clafs of extremely prevalent among feveral of our modern pretenders to politenefs; and which, as it gives much uneasiness to a number of well-meaning people, I have taken the liberty of condemning in the following little narrative; and fhall therefore esteem it as a fingular obligation, if you will lay it before the public through the channel of your excellent paper. You must know, Mr. Babler, that I live in a tolerably genteel street, hot far from Lincoln's Inn, and have made it my principal ftudy during the whole time of my refidence to give no offence whatfoever to any perfon in the neigh. bourhood. Unhappily, however, Sir, there is an antiquated gentleman who lives almoft oppofite to me, and who has a family confifting of a wife every whit as venerable as himself, two daugh ters to whom Nature has been uncom monly parfimonious in the diftribution of her perfonal graces, and a fervantmaid. As this amiable little community pique themfelves prodigiously on the regularity of their own conduct, they are continually upon the watch to pry into the behaviour of every body elfe. Hence, Sir, if a gentleman knocks at my door about bufinefs, fome one of them continually runs to the window to fee who it is, and comments, in a tone loud enough to be diftin&tly heard across the way, either upon his dress or his "perfon. If I have company with me in the parlour, fome of them and centinel on me at the dining-room; and if I take my guests into the dining-room, they mount to the fecond floor, where they have a full command of all my motions, and reduce me to the difagreeable alter native of bearing the whole torrent of their impertinent obfervations, or of letting down my curtains. To be fure, Sir, I am not the only object of this obliging folicitude; as far as they can poffibly fee, they manifeft a laudable anxiety for the conduct of their neighbours; and being fortunately fituated in a house contables, to enforce the minuteft propriety of behaviour. Did their impertinence, however, extend no farther, it might perhaps be borne with fome degree of temper, and they might poffibly be confidered as objects of our pity, without ever exciting our refentment. But, alas! Mr. Babler, the buckling of a fhoe, or the wearing of a clean fhirt, fets them into a tittering; and a little more powder in one's wig than ordinary, occafions a horfe laugh. My wife, Sir, being as good-natured and placid a girl as ever exifted, this difpofition gives them fo great an advantage over her, that the can never look out of her own window, and is always in the greatest distress if the fervant keeps her a moment at the door. If the puts on but a fresh gown to vifit a friend, the hears-' Lord, we are dreffed to day!' breaking from the oppofite fide of the street; and if the fends home but an humble leg of mutton from market, there is a 'Pon my word, we are refolved to live well, however, let who will pay for it! Nay, Sir, my little girl, an infant under two years of age, comes in for her share of this delicate treatment; and her mother having a day or two ago bought her a new bonnet, the child has ever fince undergone the feverest exertion of their wit, and God love you, look at Mifs!' is the continual expreffion whenever the maid appears with her at the door, or takes her out into Lincoln'sInn gardens for a little air and exercile. In fhort, Sir, not an article in our drefs, nor a feature in our faces, escapes the eagle-eyed notice of our worthy neighbours; and there is fcarce a poffibility of conceiving how very unhappy we have been rendered by this excels of curiofity and impertinence. Were thefe good people themselves, either diftinguished by any uncommon elegance of appearance, or amiableness of perfon, this behaviour would be the less extraordinary; but, Sir, Sunday is perhaps perhaps the only day in the week on which they change their linen; and I have already hinted, that there is no extraordinary fhare of beauty in the family. As for the father, he is an abfolute Oran Otan; a mere man of the woods; the old gentlewoman is the immediate idea of that venerable lady to whom Saul paid a midnight vifit at Endor; and the eldest daughter, to an unmeaningness of face that actually borders upon lunacy, joins a couple of tushes that project a furprising way from the mouth, like the forks of an elephant; the youngest, to borrow an ex-, preffion from the Copper Captain, has a hufk about her like a chefnut,' which fo compleatly absorbs every ve ftige of humanity, that I am almoft at a lofs in what order of beings to rank her; and, therefore, though her sex has perhaps been already afcertained, I shall put her fpecies down in the doubtful gender. There is nothing, Mr. Babler, which betrays an understanding fo weak, or a heart fo malevolent, as an inclination to render others undeservedly uneafy. The people of every little T neighbourhood, like the members of the N° LXV. SATURDAY, APRIL 30. CENSOR. O know mankind, and to profit of thefe gentlemen, who has the chaby their follies, is generally the racter of being profoundly verfed in wifh of the mercenary; but there are life, exerting his fuperiority of skill in fome who think, that expofing their company. He has a new phrafe for own follies to public view is the trueft every thing: Tip us a wag of your mameans of acquiring an infight into thofenus, is, for inftance, Shake hands; of others. This method of a man's fubjecting himself to voluntary diftrefs, in order to become acquainted with human nature, goes by the name of feeing life; fo that, as the phrafe goes, the young fellow is now faid to have feen moft of life who has experienced moft mifery. I have often, with pity, regarded fome of my more youthful acquaintance who took this experimental way of becoming philofophers, and who thought proper to buy all the little wit they had by their fufferings: and yet, in fact, when we come to examine this afcetic fect of students, we fhall find them utterly ignorant of real life, and killed only in the ceremonies of a night cellar, or the etiquette of a brothel. It is amusing enough to liften to one Let us have a bufs at your muns,' is, Let me kifs you. For fuch humour as this, our unfortunate creature has had his head broken, his pockets picked, and his conftitution destroyed, though fully convinced of his errors the very mo ment he was running into them with the greatest avidity. It has been often faid, that half the pains which fome men take to be rogues could very comfortably have fupported them in honefty. With equal truth it may be faid, that half the labours which these men ufe in the purfuit of pleature, could have fupplied them with a double portion of the means. Pleasure is not fo coy a miftrefs as thefe men would perfuade us that he is; the needs not be purfued through the mazes of a night adventure, nor earned by the hazard of Na lofing 1 lofing a nofe; the ufual beaten tract to happiness is ever the fureft, and to live like the reft of mankind is a ftrong prefumption that the traveller is in the right way. When one of cur blooded yo ng fellows, with a true eccentricity of think ing, feparates from the crowd, in order to enjoy higher delights than his acquaintance, he only becomes the object of contempt and derifion, and, like a deer in the foreft, he ever finds least safety when alone. The ridicule of every age has been levelled against this abfurd purfuer of life; and still, like the witch in the fable, as he has been hunted down in one shape, he has affumed another. In the Spectator's days, the buck of the time was called a Mobock; he afterwards received the appellat on of a Blood; and, at prefent, he is called a Buck: the three cha racters of the different times, however, are very nearly the fame; they differ in little more than appellation; and are all equally diftinguished for malevolence of heart and weakness of underft nding. The most extraordinary circumftance in the characters of thefe worthy gentlemen who know fo much of life, is, that fcarcely one in a thoufand of them knows any thing of life at all; or at beft, like a maggot in a cheele, he only eats into the rotten part of it; and, after fattening for a feafon on the common of folly and licentioufness, he comes out pampered with nothing but ignorance and immorality. Let one of the most experienced philofophers in the fyftem of modern life come for half an hour into company with two or three rational beings, and he looks as if he was abfolutely of a different fpecies. Converfant with no thing but what he ought not to know, he is incapable of conducting himself, either like a man of fenfe or a gentleman; and, acquainted only with the defpicable frolics of the Garden, he is at a visible lots if a subject of the least erudition is started; and perplexed if he hears a fyllable bordering upon polite nefs or good-breeding; he languishes only for an indelicate toalt, or an oppor tunity of introducing fome paltry little adventure, which ought to be reserved for a fet of intoxicated apprentices on a Chriftmas holiday. Even in the presence of the most modeft among the softer fex, he does not hesitate to mention the name of fome fashionable demirep; nor cruple to buatt of a Newgate acquaintance with an executed highwayman. Yet, notwithtanding this defcription of a modern buck is pretty exact, there is an unaccountable ambition among the greatest number of our young fellows to fhew a tolerable pretenfion to the character. From a ftrange opinion that libertinifm is a proof of good fenfe, they all facrifice the little fente which they poffefs to become libertines, and are infinitely lefs fearful of being looked upon as profligates than being ridiculed as fools. Thofe, however, who would wil lingly arrive at the good opin on of the world, and merit the fecret approbation of their own hearts, muft act upon a very oppofite principle. Little as the world may follow the documents of virtue, it nevertheless admires them; and we ourselves are never more ready to venerate a man of principle, than when on account of our vices he treats us with contempt. Let us, therefore, inftead of being what in our hearts we realiv deteft, endeavour to arrive at what we are ambitious to be thought; and make that very pride, which hurries us into fuch a number of exceffes, a laudable incentive to the road of perfection. Virtue, in fact, wants only to be known to have a number of admirers; and as in the purfuit of those vices which deftrov both our temporal and our eternal felicity, habit encreases our relifh for perfevering; fo in the practice of all that can enture our happiness here and hereafter, habit alfo impels us to proceed, and furnishes continual inducements which gradually lead us to the most exalted pinnacle of human excellence. The man, therefore, who will not be happy, has nobody to cenfere but himself, as the power is entirely in his hands, if he chufes but to exert it. f N° LXVI. SATURDAY, MAY 1. HERE never has been a period made to patriotism than in the present, though perhaps there never was a period in which public fpirit was fo utterly difregarded. Every man we meet has fomething to fay about the fufferings of his unfortunate country, though at that very moment he is doing every thing in his power to prejudice this unfortunate country him elf. In the courfe of my acquaintance I have known a man exclaim against luxury, who could not make a dinner without twelve or fourteen dishes; and have heard a woman of fashion commiferating the cafe of our diftreffed manufacturers, with the very fame breath that gave orders for the purchase of a French filk, a fet of Drefden difhes, or an Indian cabinet. Con tradiction is the prevailing foible of the prefent age; and in nothing are we more unaccountable than in our eternal pre tenhons to consistency. The moft whimsical patriot, however, whom I have met with, is Ned Scamper. This extraordinary character has studied the celebrated fable of the Bees with the closest attention, and puts down every vice or folly which he commits to the good of his country. If he gets intoxicated, it is from a fpirit of genuine patriotifm. The national revenue is be nefited in proportion to the quantity he confumes: and if he breaks the head of an unfortunate waiter, that is another inftance of public fpirit. The money, which he gives to make the affair up circulates through the community, and is a cause of fatisfaction to a thousand families. In fhort, Ned has drank, felf, through an exalted folicitude for the general emoluments and is now close pent up in one of our prifons, out of a pure and difinterested regard for the welfare of fociety. Yet, notwithstanding the little claim which the generality of this kingdom can really have to the character of pas triotifm, it must nevertheless be ac knowledged, that we have fome people who, in oppofition to the torrent of fas fhionable folly, confume scarcely any thing but the produce of their own country. To be fure, these people cut but a very moderate figure in life; they feldom rife beyond the level of oysterwomen, common foldiers, hackneyi coachmen, or bricklayers labourers but what then--both their beer and their gin are manufactured within the weekly bills; and if their tobacco is not the immediate growth of Great Britain, it is at leaft fent us from fome of the British plantations. Nay, their very oathsare entirely of English materials. No Pon my honours, or Let me dies, and fuch likedet. picable exclamations of foreign contexs ture; buta folid Bt myls like a huma ming tankard of Calvert's entire butt, ftrikes us at once with admiration, and gives an equal proof both of their public fpirit and understanding! It is remarkable, that though these people are the best friends to the real intereft of their country, they neverthe lefs give themfelves no airs of importance, nor run into any infolent selffufficiencies about their attachment to the |