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to form or fall in with suitable projects of inva- | noble and barbarous, the good prince only resion, rapine, murder, and all the guilts that at-nowned and glorious. tend war when it is unjust. At the same time Though men may impose upon themselves what this tyranny was laid, sciences and arts were en- they please by their corrupt imaginations, truth couraged in the most generous manner, as if men will ever keep its station: and as glory is nothing of higher faculties were to be bribed to permit the else but the shadow of virtue, it will certainly massacre of the rest of the world. Every super- disappear at the departure of virtue. But how structure which the court of France built upon carefully ought the true notions of it to be pretheir first designs, which were in themselves vi- served, and how industrious should we be to encious, was suitable to its false foundation. The courage any impulses toward it! The Westminsostentation of riches, the vanity of equipage, ter school-boy that said the other day he could shame of poverty, and ignorance of modesty, not sleep or play for the colors in the hall,* ought were the common arts of life; the generous love to be free from receiving a blow forever. of one woman was changed into gallantry for all the sex, and friendships among men turned into commerces of interest, or mere professions. "While these were the rules of life, perjuries in the prince, and a general corruption of manners in the subject, were the snares in which France has entangled all her neighbors." With such false colors have the eyes of Lewis been enchanted, from the debauchery of his early youth to the superstition of his present old age. Hence it is, that he has the patience to have statues erected to his prowess, his valor, his fortitude, and in the softness and luxury of a court to be applauded for magnanimity and enterprise in military achievements.

Peter Alexovitz of Russia, when he came to years of manhood, though he found himself emperor of a vast and numerous people, master of an endless territory, absolute commander of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, in the midst of this unbounded power and greatness, turned his thoughts upon himself and people with sorrow. Sordid ignorance and a brute manner of life, this generous prince beheld and contemned, from the light of his own genius. His judgment suggested this to him, and his courage prompted him to amend it. In order to this, he did not send to the nation from whence the rest of the world has borrowed its politeness, but himself left his diadem to learn the true way to glory and honor, and application to useful arts, wherein to employ the laborious, the simple, the honest part of his people. Mech Mechanic employments and operations were very justly the first objects of his favor and observation. With this glorious intention he traveled into foreign nations in an obscure manner, above receiving little honors where he sojourned, but prying into what was of more consequence, their arts of peace and of war. By this means has this great prince laid the foundation of a great and lasting fame, by personal labor, personal knowledge, personal valor. It would be injury to any of antiquity to name them with him." Who but himself ever left a throne to learn to sit in it with more grace? Who ever thought himself mean in absolute power, till he had learned to

use it?

If we consider this wonderful person, it is perplexity to know where to begin his encomium. Others may in a metaphorical or philosophic sense be said to command themselves, but this emperor is also literally under his own command. How generous and how good was his entering his own name as a private man in the army he raised, that none in it might expect to outrun the steps with which he himself advanced! By such measures this god-like prince learned to conquer, learned to use his conquests. How terrible has he appeared in battle, how gentle in victory! Shall then the base arts of the Frenchman be held polite, and the honest labors of the Russian barbarous ? No; barbarity is the ignorance of true honor, or placing anything instead of it. The unjust prince is ig

But let us consider what is truly glorious ac cording to the author I have to-day quoted in the front of my paper.

The perfection of glory, says Tully, consists in these three particulars: That the people love us; that they have confidence in us; that being af fected with a certain admiration toward us, they think we deserve honor." This was spoken of greatness in the commonwealth. But if one were to form a consummate glory under our constitution, one must add to the above-mentioned felicities a certain necessary inexistence, and disrelish of all the rest, without the prince's favor. He should, methinks, have riches, power, honor, command, glory; but riches, power, honor, command, and glory, should have no charms, but as accompanied with the affection of his prince. He should, methinks, be popular because a favorite, and a favorite because popular. Were it not to make the character too imaginary, I would give him sovereignty over some foreign territory, and make him esteem that an empty addition without the kind regards of his own prince. One may merely have an idea of a man thus composed and circumstantiated, and if he were so made for power without an incapacity+ of giving jealousy, he would be also glorious without possibility of receiving disgrace. This humility and this importance must make his glory immortal.

These thoughts are apt to draw me beyond the usual length of this paper; but if I could suppose such rhapsodies could outlive the common fate of ordinary things, I would say these sketches and faint images of glory were drawn in August, 1711, when John, Duke of Marlborough, made that memorable march wherein he took the French lines without bloodshed.-T.

No. 140.] FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 1711.
Animum curis nunc huc, nunc dividit illuc.
VIRG. En., iv, 285.

This way and that the anxious mind is torn.

WHEN I acquaint my reader that I have many other letters not yet acknowledged, I believe he will own what I have a mind he should believe, that I have no small charge upon me, but am a person of some consequence in this world. I shall therefore employ the present hour only in reading petitions in the order as follows:"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I have lost so much time already, that I desire, upon the receipt hereof, you will sit down immediately and give me your answer. And I would know of you whether a pretender of mine really loves me." As well as I can, I will describe his

The colors taken at Blenheim, in 1704, were fixed up in Westminster-hall, after having been carried in procession through the city.

The sense seems to require "without a capacity," but all the copies read as here.

manners. When he sees me he is always talking of constancy, but vouchsafes to visit me but once a fortnight, and then is always in haste to begone. When I am sick, I hear he says he is mightily concerned, but neither comes nor sends, because, as he tells his acquaintance with a sigh. he does not care to let me know all the power I have over him, and how impossible it is for him to live without me. When he leaves the town, he writes once in six weeks, desires to hear from me, complains of the torment of absence, speaks of flames, tortures, languishings, and extasies. He has the cant of an impatient lover, but keeps the pace of a lukewarm one. You know I must not go faster than he does, and to move at this rate is as tedious as counting a great clock. But you are to know he is rich, and my mother says, as he is slow he is sure; he will love me long, if he love me little; but I appeal to you whether he loves at all. Your neglected, humble servant,

"LYDIA NOVELL."

"All these fellows who have money are extremely saucy and cold; pray, Sir, tell them of it." "MR. SPECTATOR,

"I have been delighted with nothing more through the whole course of your writings, than the substantial account you lately gave of wit, and I could wish you would take some other oppor unity to express further the corrupt taste the age is run into; which I am chiefly apt to attribute to the prevalency of a few popular authors, whose merit in some respects has given a sanction to their faults in others. Thus the imitators of Milton seem to place all the excellency of that sort of writing either in the uncouth or antique words, or something else which was highly vicious, though pardonable in that great man.* The admirers of what we call point, or turn, look upon it as the particular happiness to which Cowley, Ovid, and others, owe their reputation, and therefore endeavor to imitate them only in such instances. What is just, proper, and natural, does not seem to be the question with them, but by what means a quaint antithesis may be brought about, how one word may be made to look two ways, and what will be the consequence of a forced allusion. Now, though such authors appear to me to resemble those who make themselves fine, instead of being well-dressed, or graceful: yet the mischief is, that these beauties in them, which I call blemishes, are thought to proceed from luxuriance of fancy and overflowing of good sense. word, they have the character of being too witty; but if you would acquaint the world they are not witty at all, you would, among others, oblige, Sir, "Your most benevolent reader,

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"R. D."

"I am a young woman and reckoned pretty; therefore you will pardon me that I trouble you to decide a wager between me and a cousin of mine, who is always contradicting one because he understands Latin: pray, Sir, is Dimple spelt with a single or double p? I am, Sir,

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Your very humble servant,
"BETTY SAUNTEK."

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Pray, Sir, direct thus, To the kind Querist.' and leave it at Mr. Lillie's, for I do not care to be known in the thing at all. I am, Sir, again, your humble servant."

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I must needs tell you there are several of your papers I do not much like. You are often so nice there is no enduring you, and so learned there is no understanding you. What have you to do with our petticoats? Your humble servant, "PARTHENOPE."

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"Last night, as I was walking in the Park, I met a couple of friends. Prithee, Jack,' says one of them, let us go and drink a glass of wine, for I am fit for nothing else.' This put me upon reflecting on the many miscarriages which happen in conversations over wine, when men go to the bottle to remove such humors as it only stirs up and awakens. This I could not attribute more to anything than to the humor of putting company upon others which men do not like themselves. Pray, Sir, declare in your papers, that he who is a troublesome companion to himself, will not be an agrecable one to others. Let people reason themselves into good humor before they impose themselves upon their friends. Pray, Sir, be as eloquent as you can upon this subject, and do human life so much good, as to argue powerfully, that it is not every one that can swallow who is fit to drink a glass of wine.

"SIR,

"Your most humble servant."

"I this morning cast my eye upon your paper concerning the expense of time. You are very obliging to the women, especially those who are not young and past gallantry, by touching so gently upon gaming: therefore I hope you do not think it wrong to employ a little leisure time in that diversion; but I should be glad to hear you say something upon the behavior of some of the female gamesters.

"I have observed ladies, who in all other re

spects are gentle, good-humored, and the very
pinks of good breeding; who, as soon
as the
ombre-table is called for, and sit down to their
business, are immediately transmigrated into the
veriest wasps in nature.

You must know I keep my temper, and win their money; but am out of countenance to take it, it makes them so very uneasy. Be pleased, dear Sir, to instruct them to lose with a better grace, and you will oblige, Yours,

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"RACHEL BASTO."

"Your kindness to Leonora in one of your papers, has given me encouragement to do myself the honor of writing to you. The great regard you have so often expressed for the instruction. and improvement of our sex will, hope, in your own opinion, sufficiently excuse me from making any apology for the impertinence of this letter. The great desire I have to embellish my mind with some of those graces which you say are so becom ing, and which you assert reading helps us to, has made ine uneasy until I am put in a capacity of attaining them. This, Sir, I shall never think myself in, until you shall be pleased to recom mend some author or authors to my perusal.

as

"I thought indeed, when I first cast my eye on Leonora's letter, that I should have had no occa sion for requesting it of you; but to my very great concern, I found on the perusal of that Spectator, I was entirely disappointed, and am much at a loss how to make use of my time for the end as ever. Pray, Sir, oblige me at least with one scene, as you were pleased to entertain *So Philips in his Cyder is careful to misspell the words Leonora with your prologue. I write to you not "orchat, sovran," after Milton, etc.

only my own sentiments, but also those of several

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others of my acquaintance, who are as little to perform the like. The author of the following pleased with the ordinary manner of spending letter, it seems, has been of the audience at one of one's time as myself: and if a fervent desire after these entertainments, and has accordingly comknowledge, and a great sense of our present ig-plained to me upon it: but I think he has been to norance, may be thought a good presage and earn-the utmost degree severe against what is excepest of improvement, you may look upon your time tionable in the play he mentions, without dwelling you shall bestow in answering this request not so much as he might have done on the author's thrown away to no purpose. And I cannot but most excellent talent of humor. The pleasant add that, unless you have a particular and more pictures he has drawn of life should have been than ordinary regard for Leonora, I have a better more kindly mentioned, at the same time that he title to your favor than she: since I do not con- banishes his witches, who are too dull devils to tent myself with a tea-table reading of your pa- be attacked with so much warmth. pers, but it is my entertainment very often when alone in my closet. To show I am capable of im'MR. SPECTATOR, provement, and hate flattery, I acknowledge I do not like some of your papers; but even there I am readier to call in question my own shallow understanding than Mr. Spectator's profound jdgment.

"I am, Sir, your already (and in hopes of being more your) obliged servant,

"PARTHENIA."

This last letter is written with so urgent and serious an air, that I cannot but think it incumbent upon me to comply with her commands, which I shall do very suddenly.-T.

No. 141.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1711.
-Migravit ab aure voluptas
Omnis.-IOR., 1 Ep. ii, 187.

Taste, that eternal wanderer, that flies

From head to ears, and now from ears to eyes.-POPE.

In the present emptiness of the town, I have several applications from the lower part of the players, to admit suffering to pass for acting. They in very obliging terms desire me to let a fall on the ground, a stumble, or a good slap on the back, be reckoned a jest. These gambols I shall tolerate for a season, because I hope the evil cannot continue longer than until the people of condition and taste return to town. The method, some time ago, was to entertain that part of the audience who have no faculty above that of eyesight with rope-dancers, and tumblers; which was a way discreet enough, because it prevented confusion and distinguished such as could show all the postures which the body is capable of, from those who were to represent all the passions to which the mind is subject. But though this was prudently settled, corporeal and intellectual actors ought to be kept at a still wider distance than to appear on the same stage at all; for which reason I must propose some methods for the improvement of the bear-garden, by dismissing all bodily actors to that quarter.

In cases of greater moment, where men appear in public, the consequence and importance of the thing can bear them out. And though a pleader or preacher is hoarse or awkward, the weight of his matter commands respect and attention; but in theatrical speaking, if the performer is not exactly proper and graceful, he is utterly ridiculous. In cases where there is little else expected but the pleasure of the ears and eyes, the least diminution of that pleasure is the highest offense. In acting, barely to perform the part is not commendable, but to be the least out is contemptible. To avoid these difficulties and delicacies, I am informed, that while I was out of town, the actors have flown in the air, and played such pranks, and run such hazards, that none but the servants of the fire-office, tilers, and masons, could have been able

"Upon a report that Moll White had followed you to town, and was to act a part in the Lancashire Witches, I went last week to see that play. It was my fortune to sit next to a country justice of the peace, a neighbor (as he said) of Sir Roger's, who pretended to show her to us in one of the dances. There was witchcraft enough in the entertainment almost to incline me to believe him; Ben Jonson was almost lamed; young Bullock+ narrowly saved his neck: the audience was astonished; and an old acquaintance of mine, a person of worth, whom I would have bowed to in the pit, at two yards distance, did not know me.

"If you were what the country people reported you-a white witch-I could have wished you had been there to have exercised that rabble of broomsticks with which we were haunted for above three hours. I could have allowed them to set Clod in the tree, to have scared the sportsmen, plagued the justice, and employed honest Teague with his holy water. This was the proper use of them in comedy, if the author had stopped here; but I cannot conceive what relation the sacrifice of the black lamb, and the ceremonies of their worship to the devil, have to the business of mirth and humor.

"The gentleman who wrote this play, and has drawn some characters in it very justly, appears to have been misled in his witchcraft by an unwary following the inimitable Shakspeare. The incantations in Macbeth have a solemnity admirably adapted to the occasion of that tragedy, and fill the mind with a suitable horror; beside that the witches are a part of the story itself, as we find it very particularly related in Hector Boetius, from whom he seems to have taken it. This therefore is a proper machine where the business is dark, horrid, and bloody; but it is extremely foreign from the affair of comedy. Subjects of this kind, which are in themselves disagreeable, can at no time become entertaining, but by passing through an imagination like Shakspeare's to form them; for which reason Mr. Dryden would not allow even Beaumont and Fletcher capable of imitating him.

But Shakspeare's magic could not copied be:
Within that circle none durst walk but he.

"I should not, however, have troubled you with these remarks, if there were not something else in this comedy, which wants to be exercised more than the witches: I mean the freedom of some passages, which I should have overlooked if I had not observed that those jests can raise the loudest mirth, though they are painful to right sense, and an outrage upon modesty.

"We must attribute such liberties to the taste of that age: but indeed by such representations a

*Alluding to Shadwell's comedy of the Lancashire Witches, which had been lately acted several times, and was adver

tised for the very night in which this Spectator is dated.

The names of two actors then upon the stage.
Different incidents in the play of the Lancashire Witches.

poet sacrifices the best part of his audience to the worst; and, as one would think, neglects the boxes, to write to the orange-wenches.

"I must not conclude till I have taken notice of the moral with which this comedy ends. The two young ladies having given a notable example of outwitting those who had a right in the dispo: sal of them, and marrying without the consent of parents one of the injured parties, who is easily reconciled, winds up all with this remark,

-Design whate'er we will,

There is a fate which overrules us still.*

"We are to suppose that the gallants are men of merit, but if they had been rakes, the excuse might have served as well. Hans Carvel's wife was of the same principle, but has expressed it with a delicacy which shows she is not serious in her excuse, but in a sort of humorous philosophy turns off the thought of her guilt, and says,

That if weak women go astray,

Their stars are more in fault than they.

"This no doubt is a full reparation, and dismisses the audience with very edifying impres

sions.

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These things fall under a province you have partly pursued already, and therefore demands your animadversion, for the regulating so noble an entertainment as that of the stage. It were to be wished that all who write for it hereafter would raise their genius, by the ambition of pleasing eople of the best understanding; and leave thers to show nothing of the human species but risibility, to seek their diversion at the bear-gardens, or some other privileged place, where reason and good manners have no right to disturb them. "I am, etc." "August 8, 1711."

No. 142.] MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1711.
Irrupta tenet copula HOR. 1 01. xiii, 12.

Whom love's unbroken bond unites.

T.

THE following being genuine, and the images of a worthy passion, I am willing to give the old lady's admonition to myself, and the representation of her own happiness, a place in my writings.

MR. SPECTATOR,

August 9, 1711.

"I am now in the sixty-seventh year of my age, and read you with approbation; but methinks you do not strike at the root of the greatest evil in life, which is the false notion of gallantry in love. It is, and has long been, upon a very ill foot; but I who have been a wife forty years, and was bred up in a way that has made me ever since very happy, see through the folly of it. In a word, Sir, when I was a young woman, all who avoided the vices of the age were very carefully educated, and all fantastical objects were turned out of our sight. The tapestry-hangings, with the great and venerable simplicity of the Scripture stories, had better effects than now the loves of Venus and Adonis, or Bacchus and Ariadue, in your fine present prints. The gentleman I am married to made love to me in rapture, but it was the rapture of a Christian and a man of honor, not of a romantic hero or a whining coxcomb. This put our life upon a right basis. To give you an idea of our regard one to another, I inclose to you several of his letters, written forty years ago, when my lover; and one written the other day, after so many years' cohabitation.

"Your servant,

"ANDROMACHE."

The concluding distitch of Shadwell's play.

"MADAM,

August 7, 1671. "If my vigilance, and ten thousand wishes for your welfare and repose, could have any force, you last night slept in security, and had every good angel in your attendance. To have my thoughts ever fixed on you, to live in constant fear of every accident to which human life is liable, and to send up my hourly prayers to avert them from you; I say, Madam, thus to suffer, is what I do for her who is in pain at my approach, and calls all my tender sorrow impertinence. You are now before my eyes, my eyes that are ready to flow with tenderness, but cannot give relief to my gushing heart, that dictates what I am now say. ing, and yearns to tell you all its achings. How art thou, oh my soul, stolen from thyself! how is all my attention broken! my books are blank paper, and my friends intruders. I have no hope of quiet but from your pity. To grant it would make more for your triumph. To give pain is the tyranny, to make happy the true empire of beauty. If you would consider aright, you would find an agreeable change in dismissing the attendance of a slave, to receive the complaisance of a companion. I bear the former in hopes of the latter condition. As I live in chains without murmuring at the power which inflicts them, so I could enjoy freedom without forgetting the mercy that gave it "I am, Madam.

"Your most devoted, most obedient servant."

"Though I made him no declarations in his favor, you see he had hopes of me when he wrote this in the month following:—

"MADAM,

September 3, 1671. "Before the light this morning dawned upon the earth I awoke, and lay in expectation of its return, not that it could give any new sense of joy to me, but as I hoped it would bless you with its cheerful face, after a quiet which I wished you last night. If my prayers are heard, the day ap peared with all the influence of a merciful Creator upon your person and actions. Let others, my lovely charmer, talk of a blind being that disposes their hearts; I contemn their low images of love. I have not a thought which relates to you, that I cannot with confidence beseech the All-seeing Power to bless me in. May he direct you in all your steps, and reward your innocence, your sanctity of manners, your prudent youth, and becoming piety, with the continuance of his grace and protection. This is an unusual language to ladies; but you have a mind elevated above the giddy notions of a sex ensnared by flattery, and misled by a false and short adoration into a solid and long contempt. Beauty, my fairest creature, palls in the possession, but I love also your mind; your soul is as dear to me as my own; and if the advantages of a liberal education, some knowledge, and as much contempt of the world, joined with the endeavors toward a life of strict virtue and religion, can qualify me to raise new ideas in a breast so well disposed as yours is, our days will pass away with joy; and old age, instead of introducing melancholy prospects of decay, give us hope of eternal youth in a better life. I have but few minutes from the duty of my employment to write in, and without time to read over what I have written; therefore beseech you to pardon the first hints of my mind, which I have expressed in so little order.

"I am, dearest creature, "Your most obedient, most devoted servant,"

Richard Steele.

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"The two next were written after the day for der regard for you; but having been very much our marriage was fixed :—

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"It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend business. As for me, all that speak to me find me out, and I must lock myself up, or other people will do it for me. A gentleman asked me this morning, What news from Holland?' and I answered, She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know when I had been last at Windsor; I replied, 'She designs to go with me.' Prithee, allow me at least to kiss your hand before the appointed day, that my mind may be in some composure. Methinks I could write a volume to you, but all the language on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion.

"

To

DEAR CREATURE,

"I am ever yours."*

September 30, 1671, seven in the morning. "Next to the influence of heaven, I am to thank you that I see the returning day with pleasure. pass my evenings in so sweet a conversation, and have the esteem of a woman of your merit, has in it a particularity of happiness no more to be expressed than returned. But I am, my lovely creature, contented to be on the obliged side, and to employ all my days in new endeavors to convince you and all the world of the sense I have of your condescension in choosing,

"Madam, your most faithful,

most obedient, humble servant."*

"He was, when he wrote the following letter, as agreeable and pleasant a man as any in Eng land:

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"I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced to write from a coffee-house where I am attending about business. There is a dirty crowd of busy faces all around me talking of money, while all my ambition, all my wealth, is love: love, which animates my heart, sweetens my humor, enlarges my soul, and affects every action of my life. It is to my lovely charmer I owe that many noble ideas are continually affixed to my words and actions: it is the natural effect of that generous passion to create i the admirers some similitude of the object adn ired; thus, my dear, am I every day to improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, to that heaven which made thee such, and join with me to implore its influence on our tender, innocent hours, and beseech the author of love to bless the rites he has ordained, and mingle with our happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a resignation to his will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavor to please him aud each other.

"I am, forever, your faithful servant."

"I will not trouble you with more letters at this time, but if you saw the poor withered hand which sends you these minutes, I am sure you would smile to think that there is one who is so gallant as to speak of it still as so welcome a present, after forty years' possession of the woman whom he writes to.

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perplexed in my thoughts on the subject of my last, made me determine to suspend speaking of it until I came myself. But, my lovely creature, know it is not in the power of age, or misfortune, or any other accident which hangs over human life, to take from me the pleasing esteem I have for you, or the memory of the bright figure you appeared in, when you gave your hand and heart to,

"Madam, your most grateful husband,
and obedient servant."-T.*

No. 143.] TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1711. Non est vivere, sed valere, vita.-MARTIAL, Epig. lxx, 6. For life is only life, when blest with health.

Ir is an unreasonable thing some men expect of their acquaintance. They are ever complain. ing that they are out of order, or displeased, or they know not how, and are so far from letting that be a reason for retiring to their own homes, that they make it their argument for coming into company. What has anybody to do with accounts of a man's being indisposed, but his physician? If a man laments in company, where the rest are in humor enough to enjoy themselves, he should not take it ill if a servant is ordered to present him with a porringer of caudle or possetdrink, by way of admonition that he go home to bed. That part of life which we ordinarily understand by the word conversation, is an indulgence to the sociable part of our make; and should incline us to bring our proportion of goodwill or good-humor among the friends we meet with, and not to trouble them with relations which must of necessity oblige them to a real or feigned affliction. Cares, distresses, diseases, uneasinesses, and dislikes of our own, are by no means to be obtruded upon our friends. If we would consider how little of this vicissitude of motion and rest, which we call life, is spent with satisfaction, we should be more tender of our friends than to bring them little sorrows which do not belong to them, There is no real life but cheerful life; therefore valetudinarians should be sworn, before they enter into company, not to say a word of themselves until the meeting breaks up. It is not here pretended that we should be always sitting with chaplets of flowers round our heads, or be crowned with roses in order to make our entertainment agreeable to us; but if (as it is usually observed) they who resolve to be merry, seldom are so; it will be much more unlikely for us to be well pleased, if they are admitted who are always complaining they are sad. Whatever we do, we should keep up the cheerfulness of our spirits, and never let them sink below an inclination at least to be well pleased. The way to this, is to keep our bodies in exercise, our minds at ease. That insipid state wherein neither are in vigor, is not to be accounted any part of our portica of being. When we are in the satisfaction of some innocent pleasure, or pursuit of some laudable design, we are in the possession of life, of human life. Fortune will give us disappointments enough, and nature is attended with infirmities enough, without our adding to the unhappy side of our account by our spleen or ill-humor. Poor Cottilus, among so many real evils, a chronical

Richard Steele.

The letters in this No. 142, are all genuine, written origin

"I heartily beg your pardon for my omission to write yesterday. It was no failure of my ten-ally by Steele, and actually sent, with but little variation, to

Richard Steele

Mrs. Scurlock, afterward Lady Steeie. See Steele's Letters, vol. i, p. 11, et seq., cr. 8vo., 1787, 2 vols.

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