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their ideas in books, which by this great invention of these latter ages may last as long as the sun and moon, and perish only in the general wreck of nature. Thus Cowley, in his poem on the Resurrection, mentioning the destruction of the universe has these admirable lines:

Now all the wide-extended sky,

And all th' harmonious worlds on high, And Virgil's Sacred work shall die. There is no other method of fixing those thoughts which arise and disappear in the mind of man, and transmitting them to the last periods of time; no other method of giving a permanency to our ideas and preserving the knowledge of any particular person, when his body is mixed with the common mass of matter, and his soul retired into the world of spirits. Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet

"Upon the junction of the French and Bavarian armies, they took post behind a great morass, which they thought impracticable. Our general the next day sent a party of horse to reconnoiter' them from a little 'hauteur,' at about a quarter of an hour's distance from the army, who returned again to the camp unobserved through several 'defiles,' in one of which they met with a party of French that had been 'marauding,' and made them all prisoners at discretion. The day after a drum arrived at our camp, with a message which he would communicate to none but the general; he was followed by a trumpet, who, they say, behaved himself very saucily, with a message from the Duke of Bavaria. The next morning our army, being divided into two corps.' made a movement toward the enemy. You will hear in the public prints how we treated them, with the other circumstances of that glorious day. I had the good fortune to be in that regiment that push-unborn. ed the 'gens d'armes.' Several French battalions, which some say were a 'corps de reserve,' made a show of resistance; but it only proved a 'gasconade,' for upon our preparing to fill up a little 'fosse,' in order to attack them, they beat the 'chamade,' and sent us a 'carte blanche.' Their 'commandant,' with a great many other general officers, and troops without number, are made prisoners of war, and will, I believe, give you a visit in England, the 'cartel' not being yet settled. Not questioning but these particulars will be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am your most dutiful son," etc.

The father of the young gentleman, upon the perusal of the letter, found it contained great news but could not guess what it was. He immediately communicated it to the curate of the parish, who, upon the reading of it, being vexed to see anything he could not understand, fell into a kind of passion, and told him, that his son had sent him a letter that was neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring. "I wish," says he, "the captain may be compos mentis:' he talks of a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries messages; then who is this 'carte blanche?' He must either banter us, or he is out of his senses." The father, who always looked upon the curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his son's usage, and producing a letter which he had written to him about three posts before: "You see here," says he, "when he writes for money he knows how to speak intelligibly enough; there is no man in England can express himself clearer, when he wants a new furniture for his horse." In short, the old man was so puzzled upon the point, that it might have fared ill with his son, had he not seen all the prints about three days after filled with the same terms of art, and that Charles only wrote like other men.-L.

No. 166.] MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1711.
Quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis.
Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.
OVID, Met. XV, 871.

--Which nor dreads the rage
Of tempests, fire, or war, or wasting age.-WELSTED.
ARISTOTLE tells us, that the world is a copy or
transcript of those ideas which are in the mind
of the first Being, and that those ideas which are in
the mind of man are a transcript of the world. To
this we may add, that words are the transcript of
those ideas which are in the mind of man, and
that writing or printing is the transcript of words.
As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it
were, printed his ideas in the creation, men express

All other arts of perpetuating our ideas continue but a short time. Statues can last but a few thousands of years. edifices fewer, and colors still fewer than edifices. Michael Angelo, Fontana, and Raphael, will hereafter be what Phidias, Vitruvius, and Apelles are at present; the names of great statuaries, architects, and painters, whose works are lost. The several arts are expressed in mouldering materials. Nature sinks under them, and is not able to support the ideas which are im. pressed upon it.

The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all these great masters is this, that they can multiply their originals: or rather can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. This gives a great author something like a prospect of eternity, but at the same time deprives him of those other advantages which artists meet with. The artist finds greater returns in profit, as the author in fame. What an inestimable price would a Virgil or a Homer, a Cicero or an Aristotle bear, were their works, like a statue, a building, or a picture, to be confined only in one place, and made the property of a single person!

If writings are thus durable, and may pass from age to age through the whole course of time, how careful should an author be of committing any. thing to print that may corrupt posterity, and poison the minds of men with vice and error! Writers of great talents, who employ their parts in propagating immorality, and seasoning vicious sentiments with wit and humor, are to be looked upon as the pests of society, and the enemies of mankind. They leave books behind them (as it is said of those who die in distempers, which breed an ill-will toward their own species), to scatter infection and destroy their posterity. They act the counterparts of a Confucius or a Socrates; and seem to have been sent into the world to deprave human nature, and sink it into the condition of brutality.

I have seen some Roman Catholic authors who tell us that vicious writers continue in purgatory so long as the influence of their writings continues upon posterity: "for purgatory, say they, "is nothing else but a cleansing us of our sins, which cannot be said to be done away, so long as they continue to operate, and corrupt mankind. The vicious author," say they, "sins after death; and so long as he continues to sin, so long must he expect to be punished." Though the Roman Catho lic notion of purgatory be indeed very ridiculous, one cannot but think, that if the soul after death has any knowledge of what passes in this world, that of an immoral writer would receive much

ore regret from the sense of corrupting, than satisfaction from the thought of pleasing, his surviving admirers.

To take off from the severity of this speculation, I shall conclude this paper with a story of an atheistical author, who at a time when he lay dangerously sick, and had desired the assistance of a neighboring curate, confessed to him with great contrition, that nothing sat more heavy at his heart than the sense of his having seduced the age by his writings, and that their evil influence was likely to continue even after his death. The curate upon farther examination finding the penitent in the utmost agonies of despair, and being himself a man of learning, told him, that he hoped his case was not so desperate as he apprehended, since he found that he was so very sensible of his fault, and so sincerely repented of it. The penitent still urged the evil tendency of his book to subvert all religion, and the little ground of hope there could be for one whose writings would continue to do mischief when his body was laid in ashes. The curate, finding no other way of comforting him, told him that he did well in being afflicted for the evil design with which he published his book; but that he ought to be very thankful that there was no danger of its doing any hurt: that his cause was so very bad, and his arguments so weak, that he did not apprehend any ill effects of it: in short, that he might rest satisfied his book could do uo more mischief after his death, than it had done while he was living. To which he added, for his farther satisfaction, that he did not believe any beside his particular friends and acquaintance had ever been at the pains of reading it, or that anybody after his death would ever inquire after it. The dying man had still so much of the frailty of an author in him, as to be cut to the heart with these consolations; and, without answering the good man, asked his friends about him (with a peevishness that is natural to a sick person) where they had pick ed up such a blockhead? and whether they thought him a proper persou to attend one in his condition? The curate, finding that the author did not expect to be dealt with as a real and sincere penitent, but as a penitent of importance, after a short admonition withdrew; not questioning but he should be again sent for if the sickness grew desperate. The author however recovered, and has since written two or three other tracts with the same spirit, and very luckily for his poor soul, with the same success.*-C.

No. 167.] TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1711. -Fuit haud ignobilis Argis,

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Qui se credebat miros audire tragados,
In vacuo lætus sessor, plausorque theatro;
Cætera qui vitæ servaret munia recto
More; bonus sane vicinus, amabilis hospes,
Comis in uxorem; posset qui ignoscere servis,
Et signo læso non insanire lagene;

Posset qui rupem et puteum vitare patentem.
Hic, ubi cognatorum opibus curisque refectus,
Expulit elleboro morbum bilemque meraco,
Et redit ad sese; Pol me occidistis, amici,
Non servastis, ait; cui, sic extorta voluptas,
Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error.
HOR. 2 Ep, ii, 128.

IMITATED.

There liv'd in Primo Georgii (they record)
A worthy member, no small fool, a lord;
Who, though the house was up, delighted sate,
Heard, noted, answer'd as in fall debate;
In all but this, a man of sober life,
Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;

*The atheistical writer here alluded to, might, perhaps, be Mr. Toland, who is said, by a writer in the Examiner, to have been the butt of the Tatler, and for the same reasons, probably, of the Spectator.

Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell,
And much too wise to walk into a well.
Him the damn'd doctor and his friends immur'd;
They bied, they cupp'd, they purg'd, in short they cur'd,
Whereat the gentleman began to stare-

My friends," he cried: "pox take you for your care!
That from a patriot of distinguish'd note,

Have bled and purg'd me to a simple vote."-POPE.

THE unhappy force of an imagination unguided by the check of reason and judgment, was the subject of a former speculation. My reader may remember that he has seen in one of my papers a complaint of an unfortunate gentleman, who was unable to contain himself (when any ordinary matter was laid before him) from adding a few circumstances to enliven plain narrative. That correspondent was a person of too warm a complexion to be satisfied with things merely as they stood in nature, and therefore formed incidents which should have happened to have pleased him in the story. The same ungoverned fancy which pushed that correspondent on, in spite of himself, to relate public and notorious falsehoods, makes the author of the following letter do the same in private; one is a prating, the other a silent liar.

If a

There is little pursued in the errors of either of these worthies, but mere present amusement: but the folly of him who lets his fancy place him in distant scenes untroubled and uninterrupted, is very much preferable to that of him who is ever forcing a belief, and defending his untruths with new inventions. But I shall hasten to let this liar in soliloquy, who calls himself a castlebuilder, describe himself with the same unreservedness as formerly appeared in my correspon dent above-mentioned. man were to be serious on this subject, he might give very grave admonitions to those who are following anything in this life, on which they think to place their hearts, and tell them they are really castle-builders. Fame, glory, wealth, honor, have in the prospect pleasing illusions; but they who come to possess any of them will find they are ingredients toward happiness, to be regarded only in the second place: and that when they are valued in the first degree they are as disappointing as any of the phantoms in the following letter:

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"I am a fellow of a very odd frame of mind, as you will find by the sequel; and think myself fool enough to deserve a place in your paper. I am unhappily far gone in building, and am one of that species of men who are properly denominated castle builders, who scorn to be beholden to the earth for a foundation, or dig in the bowels of it for materials; but erect their structures in the most unstable of elements, the air; fancy alone laying the line, marking the extent, and shaping the model. It would be difficult to enumerate what august palaces and stately prorticos have grown under my forming imagination, or what verdant meadows and shady groves have started into being by the powerful feat of a warm fancy. A castle-builder is even just what he pleases, and as such I have grasped imaginary scepters, and delivered uncontrollable edicts, from a throne to which conquered nations yielded obeisance. I have made I know not how many inroads into France, and ravaged the very heart of that kingdom; I have dined in the Louvre, and drank champagne at Versailles; and I would have you take notice, I am not only able to vanquish a people already 'cowed and accustomed to flight but could, Almanzor-like,* drive the British general

Alluding to a furious character in Dryden's Conquest of

Granada.

from the field, were I less a Protestant, or had ever been affronted by the confederates. There is no art or profession, whose most celebrated masters I have not eclipsed. Wherever I have affordel my salutary presence, fevers have ceased to burn and agues to shake the human fabric. When an eloquent fit has been upon me, an apt gesture and proper cadence have animated each sentence, and gazing crowds have found their passions worked up into rage, or soothed into a calm. I am short, and not very well made; yet upon sight of a fine woman, I have stretched into proper stature, and killed with a good air and mien. These are the gay phantoms that dance before my waking eyes, and compose my day-dreams. I should be the most contented, happy man alive, were the chimerical happiness which springs from the paintings of fancy less fleeting and transitory. But alas! it is with grief of mind I tell you, the least breath of wind has often demolished my magnificent edifices, swept away my groves, and left no more trace of them than if they had never been. My exchequer has sunk and vanished by a rap on my door; the salutation of a. friend has cost me a whole continent; and in the same moment I have been pulled by the sleeve, my crown has fallen from my head. The ill consequence of these reveries is inconceivably great, seeing the loss of imaginary possessions makes impressions of real woe. Beside, bad economy is visible and apparent in builders of invisible mansions. My tenants' advertisements of ruins and dilapidations often cast a damp on my spirits, even in the instant when the sun in all his splendor, gilds my eastern palaces. Add to this, the pensive drudgery in building, and constant grasping aerial trowels, distracts and shatters the mind, and the fond builder of Babels is often cursed with an incoherent diversity and confusion of thoughts. I do not know to whom I can more properly apply myse for relief from this fantastical evil, than to yourself; whom I earnestly implore to accommmodate me with a method how to settle my head and cool my brain-pan. A dissertation on castlebuilding may not only be serviceable to myself, but all architects, who display their skill in the thin element. Such a favor would oblige me to make my next soliloquy not contain the praises of my dear self, but of the Spectator, who shall, by complying with this, make me

T.

"His obliged, humble servant,

"VITRUVIUS."

No. 168.] WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 12, 1711.

-Pectus præceptis format amicis.-HOR. 2 Ep. i, 128. Forms the soft bosom with the goadest art.-POPE. It would be arrogance to neglect the applica tion of my correspondents so far, as not sometimes to insert their animadversions upon my paper; that of this day shall be therefore wholly composed of the hints which they have sent me.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I send you this to congratulate your late choice of a subject, for treating on which you deserve public thanks; I mean that on those licensed tyrants the schoolmasters. If you can disarm them of their rods, you will certainly have your old age reverenced by all the young gentlemen of Great Britain who are now between seven and seveuteen years. You may boast that the incomparably wise Quintilian and you are of one mind' in this particular. Si cui est (says he) mens tam illiberalis ut objurgatione non corrigatur, is etiam ad plagas, ut pessirra quæque mancipia, durabitur ;' i. e.

If any child be of so disingenuous a nature, as not to stand corrected by reproof, he, like the very worst of slaves, will be hardened even against blows themselves.' And afterward, Pudet dicere in quæ probra nefandi homines isto cædendi jure abutantur;' i. e. I blush to say how shamefully those wicked men abuse the power of correction.' "I was bred myself, Sir, in a very great school,* of which the master was a Welshman, but certainly descended from a Spanish family, as plainly appeared from his temper as well as his name.† I leave you to judge what sort of a schoolmaster a Welshman ingrafted on a Spaniard would make. So very dreadful had he made himself to me, that although it is above twenty years since I felt his heavy hand, yet still once a month at least I dream of him, so strong an impression did he make on my mind. It is a sign he has fully terrified me waking, who still continues to naunt me sleeping.

"And yet I may say without vanity, that the business of the school was what I did without great difficulty; and I was not remarkably unlucky; and yet such was the master's severity, that once a month, or oftener, I suffered as much as would have satisfied the law of the land for a petty larceny.

These

"Many a white and tender hand, which the fond mother had passionately kissed a thousand and a thousand times, have I seen whipped until it was covered with blood; perhaps for smiling, or for going a yard and a half out of a gate, or for writing an o for an A, or an A for an o. were our great faults! Many a brave and noble spirit has been there broken; others have run from thence, and were never heard of afterward. It is a worthy attempt to undertake the cause of distressed youth; and it is a noble piece of knighterrantry to enter the list against so many armed pedagogues. It is pity but we had a set of men, polite in their behavior and method of teaching, who should be put into a condition of being above flattering or fearing the parents of those they instruct. We might then possibly see learning become a pleasure, and children delighting themselves in that which they now abhor for coming upon such hard terms to them. What would be still a greater happiness arising from the care of such instructors, would be, that we should have no more pedants, nor any bred to learning who had not genius for it.

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"I am, with the utmost sincerity, Sir, Your most affectionate, humble servant." Richmond, Sept. 5, 1711.

“MR. SPECTATOR,

"I am a boy, of fourteen years of age, and have for this last year been under the tuition of a doctor of divinity, who has taken the school of this place under his care. From the gentleman's great tenderness to me and friendship to my father,

am very happy in learning my book with pleasure. We never leave off our diversions any farther than to salute him at hours of play when he pleases to look on. It is impossible for any of us to love our own parents better than we do him. He never gives any of us a harsh word, and we think it the greatest punishment in the world when he will not speak to any of us. My brother and I are both together inditing this letter. He is a year older than I am, but is now ready to break his heart that the doctor has not

* Eton.

+ Dr. Charles Roderick, master, the provost of Eton-school, and afterward master of King's College, Cambridge. version of the Psalms, and was author of several volumes This was Dr. Nicholas Brady, who joined in the new of sermons.

taken any notice of him these three days. If you | No. 169.] THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1711 please to print this he will see it, and, we hope, taking it for my brother's earnest desire to be restored to his favor, he will again smile upon him. Your most obedient servant, T. S."

MR. SPECTATOR,

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Sic vita erat: facile omnes perferre ac pati:
Cum quibus erat cunque una, his sese dedere
Eorum obsequi studiis: adversus nemini;
Nunquam præponens se aliis. Ita facillime
Sine invidia invenias laudem-

TER. Andr., act 1, sc. 1.
His manner of life was this: to bear with everybody's

You have represented several sort of imperti- humors: to comply with the inclinations and pursuits of nents singly; I wish you would now proceed those he conversed with; to contradict nobody; never to as and describe some of them in sets. It often hap-sume a superiority over others. This is the ready way to gain applause without exciting envy. pens in public assemblies, that a party who came thither together, or whose impertinences are of MAN is subject to innumerable pains and sor an equal pitch, act in concert, and are so full of rows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, themselves as to give disturbance to all that are as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, about them. Sometimes you have a set of whis-we are continually adding grief to grief, and agperers who lay their heads together in order to gravating the conimon calamity by our cruel treatsacrifice every body within their observation; ment of one another. Every man's natural weight sometimes a set of laughers that keep up an insi- of afflictions is still made more heavy by the envy, pid mirth in their own corner, and by their noise malice, treachery, or injustice of his neighbor. and gestures show they have no respect for the At the same time that the storm beats upon the rest of the company. You frequently meet with whole species, we are falling foul upon one these sets at the opera, the play, the water-works, another. and other public meetings, where their whole business is to draw off the attention of the spectators from the entertainment and to fix it upon themselves; and it is to be observed that the impertinence is ever loudest, when the set happens to be made up of three or four females who have got what you call a woman's man among them.

"I am at a loss to know from whom people of fortune should learn this behavior, unless it be from the footmen who keep their places at a new play, and are often seen passing away their time in sets at all-fours in the face of a full house, and with a perfect disregard to the people of quality sitting on each side of them.

Half the misery of human life might be extinguished, would men alleviate the general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence, and humanity. There is nothing, therefore, which we ought more to encourage in ourselves and others, than that disposition of mind which in our language goes under the title of good-nature, and which I shall choose for the subject of this day's speculation.

It

Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance, which is more amiable than beauty. shows virtue in the fairest light, takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence supportable.

"For preserving therefore the decency of public assemblies, methinks it would be but reasonable There is no society or conversation to be kept up that those who disturb others should pay at least in the world without good-nature, or something a double price for their places; or rather, women which must bear its appearance, and supply its of birth and distinction should be informed, that place. For this reason mankind have been forced a levity of behavior in the eyes of people of under- to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is standing degrades them below their meanest at-what we express by the word good-breeding. For tendants; and gentlemen should know that a fine coat is a livery, when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman. "I am, Sir, your most humble servant." "Bedfordshire, Sept. 1, 1711.

"MR. SPECTATOR,
"I am one of those whom everybody calls a
poacher, and sometimes go out to course with a
brace of greyhounds, a mastiff, and a spaniel or
two; and when I am weary with coursing, and
have killed hares enough,t go to an alehouse to
refresh myself. I beg the favor of you (as you
set up for a reformer) to send us word how many
dogs you will allow us to go with, how many full
pots of ale to drink, and how many hares to kill
in a day, and you will do a great piece of service
to all the sportsmen. Be quick, then, for the time
of coursing is come on. Yours in haste,
ISAAC HEDGEDITCH."

T.

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if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimicry of good-nature, or, in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced into an art.

These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and be loved, when they are founded upon a real good nature; but without it, are like hypocrisy in reli gion, or a bare form of holiness, which, when it is discovered, makes a man more detestable than professed impiety.

Good-nature is generally born with us; health, prosperity, and kind treatment from the world are the great cherishers of it where they find it; ont nothing is capable of forcing it up, where it does not grow of itself. It is one of the blessings of a happy constitution, which education may improve, but not produce.

Xenophon, in the life of his imaginary prince, whom he describes as a pattern for real ones, is always celebrating the philanthropy or good-nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with him, and gives many remarkable instances of it in his childhood, as well as in all the several parts of his life. Nay, on his deathbed, he describes him as being pleased, that while his soul returned to him who made it, his body should incorporate with the great mother of all things, and by that means become beneficial to all mankind. For which reason he gives his sons a

* Xenoph. De Cyri Instit., lib. viii, cap. vii, ec. 3, edit. J. A Ern. 8vo., tom. i, p. 550.

positive order not to enshrine it in gold or silver, | No. 170.] FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1711. but to lay it in the earth as soon as the life was gone out of it.

An instance of such an overflowing of humanity, such an exuberant love to mankind, could not have entered into the imagination of a writer, who had not a soul filled with great ideas, and a general benevolence to mankind.

In that celebrated passage of Sallust, where Cæsar and Cato are placed in such beautiful, but opposite lights, Cresar's character is chiefly nade up of good-nature, as it showed itself in all its forms toward his friends or his enemies, his servants or dependents, the guilty or the distressed. As for Cato's character, it is rather awful than araiable. Justice seems most agreeable to the nature of God, and mercy to that A being who has nothing to pardon in himself, may reward every man according to his works; but he whose very best actions must be seen with grains of allowance, cannot be too mild, moderate, and forgiving. For this reason, among all the monstrous characters in human nature, there is none so odious, nor indeed so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of a rigid, severe temper in a worthless man.

of man.

This part of good-nature, however, which consists in the pardoning and overlooking of faults, is to be exercised only in doing ourselves justice, and that too in the ordinary commerce and occurrences of life for in the public administrations of justice, mercy to one may be cruelty to

others.

In amore hæc omnia insunt vitia: injuriæ,
Suspiciones, inimicitiæ, induciæ,
Belium, pax rursum-

TER. Eun., act i, sc. 1.

In love are all these ills: suspicions, quarrels, Wrongs, reconcilements, war, and peace again -COLEMAN, UPON looking over the letters of my female correspondents, I find several from women com. plaining of jealous husbands, and at the same time protesting their own innocence; and desir ing my advice on this occasion. I shall therefore take this subject into my consideration; and the more willingly, because I find that the Marquis of Halifax, who in his Advice to a Daughter, has instructed a wife how to behave herself toward a false, an intemperate, a choleric, a sullen, a covetous or a silly husband, has not spoken one word of a jealous husband.

"Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves." Now because our inward passions and inclinations can never make themselves visible, it is impossible for a jealous man to be thoroughly cured of his suspicions. His thoughts hang at best in a state of doubtfulness and uncertainty; and are never capable of receiving any satisfaction on the advantageous side; so that his inquiries are most successful when they discover nothing. pleasure arises from his disappointments, and his life is spent in pursuit of a secret that destroys his happiness if he chance to find it.

His

up the jealous man's desires, and gives the party beloved so beautiful a figure in his imagination, makes him believe she kindles the same passion in others, and appears as amiable to all beholders. And as jealousy thus arises from an extraordinary love, it is of so delicate a nature, that it scorns to take up with anything less than an equal return of love.

An ardent love is always a strong ingredient It is grown almost into a maxim, that good-in his passion; for the same affection which stirs natured men are not always men of the most wit. This observation, in my opinion, has no foundation in nature. The greatest wits I have conversed with, are men eminent for their humanity. I take, therefore, this remark to have been occasioned by two reasons. First, because ill-nature among ordinary observers passes for wit. A spiteful saying gratifies so many little passions in those who hear it, that it generally meets with a good reception. The laugh rises upon it, and the man who utters it is looked upon as a shrewd sarist. This may be one reason, why a great many pleasant companions appear so surprisingly dull, when they have endeavored to be merry in print; the public being more just than private clubs or assemblies, in distinguishing between what is wit, and what is ill-nature.

Another reason why the good-natured man may sometimes bring his wit in question, is, perhaps, because he is apt to be moved with compassion for those misfortunes or infirmities, which another would turn into ridicule, and by that means gain The ill-natured man, the reputation of a wit. though but of equal parts, gives himself a larger field to expatiate in; he exposes those failings in human nature which the other would cast a vail over, laughs at vices which the other either excuses or conceals, gives utterance to reflections which the other stifles, falls indifferently upon friends or enemies, exposes the person who has obliged him, and in short, sticks at nothing that may establish his character as a wit. It is no wonder, therefore, that he succeeds in it better than the man of humanity, as a person who makes use of indirect methods is more likely to grow rich than the fair trader.-L.

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Not the warmest expressions of affection, the softest and most tender hypocrisy are able to give any satisfaction where we are not persuaded that the affection is real, and the satisfaction mutual. For the jealous man wishes himself a kind of deity to the person he loves. He would be the only pleasure of her senses, the employment of her thoughts, and is angry a everything she admires, or takes delight in, be

side himself.

Phædra's request to his mistress, upon his leaving her for three days, is inimitably beautiful and natural:

Cum milite isto præsens, absens ut sies:
Dies noctesque me ames: me desideres:
Me somnies: me expectes: de me cogites:
Me speres: me te oblectes: mecum tota sis:
Meus fac sis postremo animus, quando ego sum tuus.
TER. Eun., act i, sc. 2.

Be with yon soldier present, as if absent.
All night and day love me: still long for me:
Dream, ponder still "on" me: wish, hope for me
Delight in me: be all in all with me:

Give your whole heart, for mine's all yours, to me.
COLEMAN.

The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a
nature, that it converts all it takes into its own
nourishment. A cool behavior sets him on the
rack, and is interpreted as an instance of aversion
or indifference; a fond one raises his suspicions,
and looks too much like dissimulation and arti-
fice. If the person he loves be cheerful, her
thoughts must be employed on another; and if
sad, she is certainly thinking on himself.
short, there is no word or gesture so insignificant,
but it gives him new hints, feeds his suspicions,

In

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