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most noble Pharamond, see one of your officers assert your prerogative by good and gracious actions. When is it used to help the afflicted, to rescue the innocent, to comfort the stranger? Uncommon methods, apparently undertaken to attain worthy ends, would never make power invidious. You see, Sir, I talk to you with the freedom your noble nature approves in all whom you admit to your conversation.

No. 481.] THURSDAY, SEPT. 11, 1712.

-Uti non

Compositus melius cum Bitho Bacchius. In jus
Acres procurrunt-
-HOR. Sat. 1. vii. 19.

Who shall decide when doctors disagree, And soundest casuists doubt, like you and me?.-POPE. Ir is sometimes pleasant enough to consider the different notions which different persons have of the same thing. If men of low condition very "But to return to your majesty's letter, I humbly often set a value on things which are not prized conceive that all distinctions are useful to men, by those who are in a higher station of life, there only as they are to act in public; and it would are many things these esteem which are in no be a romantic madness for a man to be a lord in value among persons of an inferior rank. Comhis closet. Nothing can be honorable to a man mon people are, in particular, very much astonapart from the world, but the reflection upon wor-ished when they hear of those solemn contests and thy actions; and he that places honor in a con- debates, which are made among the great upon sciousness of well-doing, will have but little relish the punctilios of a public ceremony; and wonder for any outward homage that is paid him; since to hear that any business of consequence should what gives him distinction to himself, cannot be retarded by those little circumstances, which come within the observation of his beholders. they represent to themselves as trifling and insig Thus all the words of lordship, honor, and grace, nificant. I am mightily pleased with a porter's are only repetitions to a man that the king has decision in one of Mr. Southern's plays, which is ordered him to be called so; but no evidences that founded upon that fine distress of a virtuous wothere is anything in himself, that would give the man's marrying a second husband, while the first man, who applies to him, those ideas, without the was yet living. The first husband, who was supcreation of his master. posed to have been dead, returning to his house after a long absence, raises a noble perplexity for the tragic part of the play. In the meanwhile the nurse and the porter conferring upon the difficul ties that would ensue in such a case, honest Samson thinks the matter may be easily decided, and solves it very judiciously by the old proverb, that, if his first master be still living, "the man must have his mare again." There is nothing in my time which has so much surprised and confounded the greatest part of my honest countrymen, as the present controversy between Count Rechteren and Monsieur Mesnager, which employs the wise heads of so many nations, and holds all the affairs of Europe in suspense.

"I have, most noble Pharamond all honors and all titles in your own approbation I triumph in them as they are your gift, I refuse them as they are to give me the observation of others. Indulge me, my noble master, in this chastity of renown; let me know myself in the favor of Pharamond; and look down upon the applause of the people. "I am in all duty and loyalty.

"SIR,

"Your majesty's most obedient
"Subject and Servant,

"JEAN CHEZLUY."

"I need not tell with what disadvantages men of low fortunes and great modesty come into the world; what wrong measures their diffidence of themselves, and fear of offending, often oblige them to take; and what a pity it is that their greatest virtues and qualities, that should soonest recommend them, are the main obstacle in the way of their preferment.

This, Sir, is my case; I was bred at a country school, where I learned Latin and Greek. The misfortunes of my family forced me up to town, where a profession of the politer sort has protected me against infamy and want. I am now clerk to a lawyer, and, in times of vacancy and recess from business, have made myself master of Italian and French; and though the progress I have made in my business has gained me reputation enough for one of my standing, yet my mind suggests to me every day that it is not upon that foundation I am to build my fortune.

The person I have my present dependence upon has it in his nature, as well as in his power, to advance me, by recommending me to a gentleman that is going beyond sea in a public employmeut. I know the printing this letter would point, me out to those I want confidence to speak to, and I hope it is not in your power to refuse making anybody happy.

"September 9 1712.

T.

"Yours, etc.

"M. D."

Upon my going into a coffee-house yesterday, and lending an ear to the next table, which was encompassed with a circle of inferior politicians, one of them, after having read over the news very attentively, broke out into the following remarks: "I am afraid," says he, "this unhappy rupture between the footmen at Utrecht will retard the peace of Christendom. I wish the pope may not be at the bottom of it. His holiness has a very good hand at fomenting a division, as the poor Swiss cantous have lately experienced to their cost. If Monsieur What-d'ye-call-him's domestics will not come to an accommodation, I do not know how the quarrel can be ended but by a religious war.'

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Why, truly," says a wiseacre that sat by him, "were I as the king of France, I would scorn to take part with the footmen of either side: here's all the business of Europe stands still, because Monsieur Mesnager's man has had his head broke. If Count Rectrum had given them a pot of ale after it, all would have been well, without any of this bustle; but they say he's a warm man, and does not care to be made mouths at."

Upon this, one that had held his tongue hitherto, began to exert himself; declaring, "that he was very well pleased the plenipotentiaries of our Christian princes took this matter into their serious consideration; for that lackeys were nerer so saucy and pragmatical as they are now-a-days, and that he should be glad to see them taken down in the treaty of peace, if it might be done without prejudice to the public affairs."

One who sat at the other end of the table, and seemed to be in the interests of the French king,

Count Rechteren.

44

told them, that they did not take the matter right, for that His Most Christian majesty did not resent this matter because it was an injury done to Monsieur Mesuager's footman: "for," says he, what are Monsieur Mesnager's footmen to him? but because it was done to his subjects. Now," says he, let me tell you, it would look very odd for a subject of France to have a bloody nose, and his sovereign not to take notice of it. He is obliged in honor to defend his people against hostilities; and if the Dutch will be so insolent to a crowned head, as in anywise to cuff or kick those who are under his protection, I think he is in the right to call them to an account for it."

This distinction set the controversy upon a new foot, and seemed to be very well approved by most that heard it, until a little warm fellow, who had declared himself a friend to the house of Austria, fell most unmercifully upon his Gallic majesty, as encouraging his subjects to make mouths at their betters, and afterward screening them from the punishment that was due to their insolence. To which he added, that the French nation was so addicted to grimace, that, if there was not a stop put to it at the general congress, there would be no walking the streets for them in a time of peace, especially if they continued masters of the West Indies. The little man proceeded with a great deal of warmth, declaring that, if the allies were of his mind, he would oblige the French king to burn his galleys, and tolerate the Protestant religion in his dominions, before he would sheath his sword. He concluded with calling Monsieur Mesnager an insignificant prig.

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The dispute was now growing very warm, and one does not know where it would have ended, had not a young man of about one-and-twenty, who seems to have been brought up with an eye to the law, taken the debate into his hand, and given it as his opinion, that neither Count Rechteren nor Monsieur Mesnager had behaved themselves right in this affair. Count Rechteren," says he, should have made affidavit that his servants had been affronted, and then Monsieur Mesnager would have done him justice, by taking away their liveries from them, or some other way that he might have thought the most proper; for, let me tell you, if a man makes a mouth at me, I am not to knock the teeth out of it for his pains. Then again, as for Monsieur Mesnager, upon his servants being beaten, why, he might have had his action of assault and battery. But as the case now stands, if you will have my opinion, I think they ought to bring it to referees."

I heard a great deal more of this conference, but I must confess, with little edification; for all I could learn at last from these honest gentlemen was, that the matter in debate was of too high a nature for such heads as theirs, or mine, to comprehend.-O.

No. 482.] FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1712.
Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant.-LUCR. iii. 11.
As from the sweetest flower the lab'ring bee
Extracts her precious sweets.-CREECH.

WHEN I have published any single paper that falls in with the popular taste, and pleases more than ordinary, it always brings me in a great return of letters. My Tuesday's discourse, wherein I gave several admonitions to the fraternity of the henpecked, has already produced me very many correspondents; the reason I cannot guess at, unless it be, that such a discourse is of general use, and every married man's money. An honest

tradesman, who dates his letter from Cheapside sends me thanks in the name of a club, who, he tells me, meet as often as their wives will give them leave, and stay together till they are sent for home. He informs me, that my paper has administered great consolation to their whole club, and desires me to give some further account of Socrates, and to acquaint them in whose reign he lived, whether he was a citizen or a courtier, whether he buried Xantippe, with many other particulars: for that, by his sayings, he appears to have been a very wise man, and a good Christian. Another, who writes himself Benjamin Bamboo, tells me that, being couple with a shrew, he had endeavored to tame her by such lawful means as those which I mentioned in my last Tuesday's paper, and that in his wrath he had often gone further than Bracton allows in those cases; but that for the future he was re solved to bear it like a man of temper and learning, and consider her only as one who lives in his house to teach him philosophy. Tom Dapperwit says, that he agrees with me in that whole discourse, excepting only the last sentence, where I affirm the married state to be either a heaven or a hell. Tom has been at the charge of a penny upon this occasion to tell me, that by his experience it is neither one nor the other, but rather that middle kind of state, commonly known by the name of purgatory.

The fair sex have likewise obliged me with their reflections upon the same discourse. A lady, who calls herself Euterpe, and seems a woman of let ters, asks me whether I am for establishing the Salic law in every family, and why it is not fit that a woman who has discretion and learning should sit at the helm, when the husband is weak and illiterate? Another, of a quite contrary character, subscribes herself Xantippe, and tells me that she follows the example of her namesake; for being married to a bookish man, who has no knowledge of the world, she is forced to take their affairs into her own hands, and to spirit him up now and then, that he may not grow musty, and unfit for conversation.

After this abridgment of some letters which are come to my hands upon this occasion, I shall publish one of them at large.

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"You have given us a lively picture of that kind of husband who comes under the denomination of the henpecked; but I do not remember that you have ever touched upon one that is of the quite different character, and who, in several places of England, goes by the name of a cotquean.' I have the misfortune to be joined for life with one of this character, who in reality is more a woman than I am. He was bred up under the tuition of a tender mother, till she had made him as good a housewife as herself. He could preserve apricots, and make jellies, before he had been two years out of the nursery. He was never suffered to go abroad, for fear of catching cold, when he should have been hunting down a buck, he was by his mother's side learning how to season it, or put it in crust; and was making paper boats with his sisters, at an age when other young gentlemen are crossing the seas, or traveling into foreign countries. He has the whitest hand that you ever saw in your life, and raises paste better than any woman in England. These qualifications make him a sad husband. He is perpetually in the kitchen, and has a thousand squabbles with the cook-maid. He is better acquainted with the milk-score than his steward's accounts. death when I hear him find fault with a dish that

I fret to

as a male character in one of our sex? 0.

is not dressed to his liking, and instructing his committed, enlarges more on t guilt of the suffriends that dine with him in the best pickle for a fering person, than on that of the thief, or the walnut, or sauce for a haunch of venison. With assassin. In short, she is so good a Christian, that all this he is a very good-natured husband, and whatever happens to herself is a trial, and what never fell out with me in his life but once, upon ever happens to her neighbors is a judgment. the over-roasting of a dish of wild fowl. At the The very description of this folly, in ordinary same time I must own, I would rather he was a life, is sufficient to expose it; but, when it appears man of a rough temper, that would treat me harsh- in a pomp and dignity of style, it is very apt to ly sometimes, than of such an effeminate busy amuse and terrify the mind of the reader. Heronature, in a province that does not belong to him. dotus and Plutarch very often apply their judg Since you have given us the character of a wife ments as impertinently as the old woman I have who wears the breeches, pray say something of a before mentioned, though their manner of relating husband that wears the petticoat. Why should them makes the folly itself appear venerable. In not a female character be as ridiculous in a man, deed, most historians, as well Christian as Pagan, have fallen into this idle superstition, and spoken "I am," etc. of ill success, unforeseen disasters, and terrible events, as if they had been let into the secrets of Providence, and made acquainted with that private conduct by which the world is governed. One would think several of our own historiaus in particular had many revelations of this kind made to them. Our old English monks seldom let any of their kings depart in peace, who had endeavored to diminish the power or wealth of which the ecclesiastics were in those times possessed. William the Conqueror's race generally found their judgments in the New Forest, where their father had pulled down churches and monasteries. In short, read one of the chronicles written by an author of this frame of mind, and you would think you were reading a history of the kings of Israel or Judah, where the historians were actually inspired, and where, by a particular scheme of Prov idence, the kings were distinguished by judgments, or blessings, according as they promoted idolatry, or the worship of the true God."

No. 483.] SATURDAY, SEPT. 13, 1712.
Nec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit-
HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 191.

Never presume to make a god appear,
But for a business worthy of a god.-ROSCOMMON.

WE cannot be guilty of a greater act of unchar itableness than to interpret the afflictions which befall our neighbors as punishments and judgments. It aggravates the evil to him who suffers, when he looks upon himself as the mark of Divine vengeance, and abates the compassion of those toward him who regard him in so dreadful a light. This humor, of turning every misfortune into a judgment, proceeds from wrong notions of relig. on, which in its own nature produces good-will toward men, and puts the mildest construction upon every accident that befalls them. In this case, therefore, it is not religion that sours a man's temper, but it is his temper that sours his religion. People of gloomy, uncheerful imaginations, or of envious malignant tempers, whatever kind of life they are engaged in, will discover their natural tincture of mind in all their thoughts, words, and actions. As the finest wines have often the taste of the soil, so even the most religious thoughts often draw something that is particular from the constitution of the mind in which they arise. When folly or superstition strike in with this natural depravity of temper, it is not in the power even of religion itself, to preserve the character of the person who is possessed with it from appear-other. We are not therefore to expect that fire ing highly absurd and ridiculous.

An old maiden gentlewoman, whom I shall conceal under the name of Nemesis, is the greatest discoverer of judgments that I have met with. She can tell you what sin it was that set such a man's house on fire, or blew down his barns. Talk to her of an unfortunate young lady that lost her beauty by the small-pox, she fetches a deep sigh, and tells you, that when she had a fine face she was always looking on it in her glass. Tell her of a piece of good fortune that has befallen one of her acquaintance, and she wishes it may prosper with her, but her mother used one of her nieces very barbarously. Her usual remarks turn upon people who had great estates, but never enjoyed them by reason of some flaw in their own or their father's behavior. She can give you the reason why such a one died childless; why such a one was cut off in the flower of his youth; why such a one was unhappy in her marriage; why one broke his leg on such a particular spot of ground; and why another was killed with a back-sword, rather than with any other kind of weapon. She has a crime for every misfortune that can befall any of her acquaintance; and when she hears of a robbery that has been made, or a murder that has been

I cannot but look upon this manner of judging upon misfortunes, not only to be very uncharitable in regard to the person on whom they fall, but very presumptuous in regard to him who is supposed to inflict them. It is a strong argument for a state of retribution hereafter, that in this world virtuous persons are very often unfortunate, and vicious persons prosperous; which is wholy repugnant to the nature of a Being who appears infinitely wise and good in all his works, unless we may suppose that such a promiscuous and undistinguishing distribution of good and evil, which was necessary for carrying on the designs of Providence in this life, will be rectified, and made amends for, in an

should fall from heaven in the ordinary course of Providence; nor, when we see triumphant guilt or depressed virtue in particular persons, that Omnipotence will make bare his holy arm in the defense of the one, or punishment of the other. It is sufficient that there is a day set apart for the hearing and requiting of both, according to their respective merits.

The folly of ascribing temporal judgments to any particular crimes, may appear from several considerations. I shall only mention two. First, that, generally speaking, there is no calamity or affliction, which is supposed to have happened as a judgment to a vicious man, which does not some times happen to men of approved religion and virtue. When Diagoras the atheist was on board one of the Athenian ships, there arose a very vic lent tempest; upon which, the mariners told him, that it was a just judgment upon them for having taken so impious a man on board. Diagoras beg ged them to look upon the rest of the ships that were in the same distress, and asked them whether or no Diagoras was on board every vessel in the fleet. We are all involved in the same calamities, and subject to the same accidents; a d when we see any one of the species under any articula

oppression, we should look upon it as arising from the common lot of human nature, rather than from the guilt of the person who suffers.

a youth of any modesty has been permitted to make an observation, that could in no wise detract. from the merit of his elders, and is absolutely necessary for the advancing his own. I have often seen one of these not only molested in his utterance of something very pertinent, but even plundered of his question, and by a strong sergeant shouldered out of his rank, which he has recovered with much difficulty and confusion. Now, as great part of the business of this profession might. be dispatched by one that perhaps

-Abest virtute diserti

Messalæ, nec scit quantum Cascellius Aulus:
HOR. Ars Poet. 370.
wants Messala's powerful eloquence,
And is less read than deep Cascellius.-RosCOMMON.

Another consideration, that may check our presumption in putting such a construction upon a misfortune, is this; that it is impossible for us to know what are calamities and what are blessings. How many accidents have passed for misfortunes, which have turned to the welfare and prosperity of the persons to whose lot they have fallen! How many disappointments have, in their consequences, saved a man from ruin! If we could look into the effects of everything, we might be allowed to pronounce boldly upon blessings and judgments; but for a man to give his opinion of what he sees but in part, and in its beginnings, is an unjustifiable piece of rashness and folly. The story of so I cannot conceive the injustice done to the pubBiton and Clitobus, which was in great reputation among the heathens (for we see it quoted by all the ancient authors, both Greek and Latin, who have written upon the immortality of the soul), may teach us a caution in this matter. These two brothers being the sons of a lady who was priestess to Juno, drew their mother's chariot to the temple at the time of a great solemnity, the persons being absent who, by their office, were to have drawn her chariot on that occasion. The mother was so transported with this instance of filial duty, that she petitioned her goddess to bestow upon them the greatest gift that could be given to men; upon which they were both cast into a deep sleep, and the next morning found dead in the temple. This was such an event as would have been construed into a judgment, had it happened to the two brothers after an act of disobedience, and would doubtless have been represented as such by any ancient historian who had given us

an account of it.-O.

No. 484.] MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1712. Neque cuiquam tam statim clarum ingenium est, ut possit

emergere; nisi illi materia, occasio, fautor etiam, commendatorque contingat.-PLIN. Epist.

Nor has any one so bright a genius as to become illustrious instantaneously, unless it fortunately meets with occasion and employment, with patronage too, and commendation. "MR. SPECTATOR,

"Or all the young fellows who are in their progress through any profession, none seem to have so good a title to the protection of the men of eminence in it, as the modest man; not so much because his modesty is a certain indication of his merit, as because it is a certain obstacle to the pro ducing of it. Now, as of all professions this virtue is thought to be more particularly unnecessary in that of the law than in any other, I shall only apply myself to the relief of such who follow this profession with this disadvantage. What aggravates the matter is, that those persons who, the better to prepare themselves for this study, have made some progress in others, have, by addicting themselves to letters, increased their natural modesty, and consequently heightened the obstruction to this sort of preferment; so that every one of these may emphatically be said to be such a one as 'laboreth and taketh pains, and is still the more behind.' It may be a matter worth discussing, then, why that which made a youth so amiable to the ancients, should make him appear so ridiculous to the moderns? and why, in our days, there should be neglect, and even oppression, of young beginners, instead of that protection which was the pride of theirs? In the profession spoken of, it is obvious to every one whose attendance is required at Westminster hall, with what difficulty

lic, if the men of reputation in this calling would introduce such of the young ones into business, whose application to this study will let them into the secrets of it, as much as their modesty will hinder them from the practice; I say it would be laying an everlasting obligation upon a young man, to be introduced at first only as a mute, till by this countenance, and a resolution to support. the good opinion conceived of him in his betters, his complexion shall be so well settled, that the litigious of this island may be secure of his obstreperous aid. If I might be indulged to speak: in the style of a lawyer, I would say, that any one about thirty years of age might make a common motion to the court with as much elegance and propriety as the most aged advocates in the hall. "I cannot advance the merit of modesty by any argument of my own so powerfully, as by inquir ing into the sentiments the greatest among the ancients of different ages entertained upon this virtue. If we go back to the days of Solomon, we shall find favor a necessary consequence to a shamefaced man. Pliny, the greatest lawyer and most elegant writer of the age he lived in, in several of his epistles is very solicitous in recommending to the public some young men of his own profession, and very often undertakes to become an advocate, upon condition that some one of these his favorites might be joined with him, in order to produce the merit of such, whose modesty other. wise would have suppressed it. It may seem very marvelous to a saucy modern, that multum sanguinis, multum verecundiæ, multum sollicitudinis in ore; to have the face first full of blood, then the countenance dashed with modesty, and then the whole aspect as of one dying with fear, when a man begins to speak;' should be esteemed by Pliny the necessary qualifications of a fine speaker. Shakspeare also has expressed himself in the same favorable strain of modesty, when he says:

-In the modesty of fearful duty

I read as much as from the rattling tongue,
Of saucy and audacious eloquence-

"Now, since these authors have professed themselves for the modest man, even in the utmost confusions of speech and countenance, why should an intrepid utterance and a resolute vociferation thunder so successfully in our courts of justice? And why should that confidence of speech and behavior, which seems to acknowledge no superior, and to defy all contradiction, prevail over that deference and resignation with which the modest man implores that favorable opinion which the other seems to command ?

"As the case at present stands, the best consolation that I can administer, to those who cannot get into that stroke of business (as the phrase is) which they deserve, is to reckon every particular acquisition of knowledge in this study as a real increase of their fortune; and fully to believe, that one day

this imaginary gain will certainly be made out by | be a greater error, than to believe a man, whom one more substantial. I wish you would talk to us a little on this head; you will oblige, Sir,

"Your most humble Servant."

we see qualified with too mean parts to do good, to be therefore incapable of doing hurt. There is a supply of malice, of pride, of industry, and even of folly, in the weakest, when he sets his heart upon it, that makes a strange progress in mischief. What may seem to the reader the greatest paradox in the reflection of the historian is, I suppose, that folly, which is generally thought incapable of contriving or executing any design, should be so formidable to those whom it exerts itself to molest. But this will appear very plain, if we remember that Solomon says, 'It is as sport to a fool to do mischief;' and that he might the more emphatically express the calamitous circumstances of him who falls under the displeasure of this wanton person, the same author adds further, that A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both. It is impossible to suppress my own illustration upon this matter, which is, that as the man of sagacity be stirs himself to distress his enemy by methods probable and reducible to reason, so the same rea son will fortify his enemy to elude these his regular efforts; but your fool projects, acts, and concludes, with such notable inconsistency, that no regular course of thought can evade or counterplot his prodigious machinations. My frontispiece, I believe, may be extended to imply, that several of our misfortunes arise from things, as well as persons, that seem of very little consequence. Into what tragical extravagances does Shakspeare hurry Othello, upon the loss of a handkerchief only! And what barbarities does Desdemona suffer, from a slight inadvertency in regard to this fatal trifle! If the schemes of all the enterprising spirits were to be carefully examined, some intervening accident, not considerable enough to occasion any debate upon, or give them any apprehension of, ill consequence from it, will be found to be the occa

The author of this letter is certainly a man of good sense; but I am perhaps particular in my opinion on this occasion: for I have observed that under the notion of modesty, men have indulged themselves in a spiritless sheepishness, and been forever lost to themselves, their families, their friends, and their country. When a man has taken care to pretend to nothing but what he may justly aim at, and can execute as well any other, without injustice to any other, it is ever want of breeding, or courage, to be brow-beaten, or elbowed out of his honest ambition. I have said often, modesty must be an act of the will, and yet it always implies self-denial; for, if a man has an ardent desire to do what is laudable for him to perform, and from an unmanly bashfulness shrinks away, and lets his merit languish in silence, he ought not to be angry at the world that a more unskillful actor succeeds in his part, because he has not confidence to come upon the stage himself. The generosity my correspondent mentions of Pliny cannot be enough applauded. To cherish the dawn of merit, and hasten its maturity, was a work worthy a noble Roman, and a liberal scholar. That concern which is described in the letter, is to all the world the greatest charm imaginable; but then the modest man must proceed, and show a latent resolution in himself for the admiration of his modesty arises from the manifestation of his merit. I must confess we live in an age wherein a few empty blusterers carry away the praise of speaking, while a crowd of fellows overstocked with knowledge are run down by them: 1 say overstocked, because they certainly are so, as to their service of mankind, if from their very store they raise to themselves ideas of respect and greatness of the occasion of their ill success, rather than any error in sion, and I know not what, to disable themselves from explaining their thoughts. I must confess, when I have seen Charles Frankair rise up with a commanding mien, and torrent of handsome words talk a mile off the purpose, and drive down twenty bashful boobies of ten times his sense, who at the same time were envying his impudence, and despising his understanding, it has been matter of great mirth to me: but it soon ended in a secret lamentation, that the fountains of everything praiseworthy in these realms, the universities, should be so muddied with a false sense of this virtue, as to produce men capable of being so abused. I will be bold to say, that it is a ridiculous education which does not qualify a man to make his best appearance before the greatest man, and the finest woman, to whom he can address himself. Were this judiciously corrected in the nurseries of learning, pert coxcombs would know their distance: but we must bear with this false modesty in our young nobility and gentry, till they cease at Oxford and Cambridge to grow dumb in the study of eloquence.-T.

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points of moment and difficulty, which naturally engaged their maturest deliberations. If you go to the levee of any great man you will observe him exceeding gracious to several very insignificant fellows; and upon this maxim, that the neg lect of any person must arise from the mean opinion you have of his capacity to do you any service or prejudice; and that this calling his sufficiency in question must give him inclination, and where this is there never wants strength, or opportunity, to annoy you. There is nobody so weak of inven tion, that cannot aggravate, or make some little stories to vilify his enemy; there are very few but have good inclinations to hear them; and it is infinite pleasure to the majority of mankind to level a person superior to his neighbors. Beside, in all matters of controversy, that party which has the greatest abilities labors under this prejudice, that he will certainly be supposed, upon account of his abilities, to have done an injury, when perhaps he has received one. It would be tedious to enumerate the strokes that nations and particular friends have suffered from persons very contemptible.

"I think Henry IV, of France, so formidable to his neighbors, could no more be secured against the resolute villany of Ravillac, than Villiers, duke And there is no incensed person so destitute, but of Buckingham, could be against that of Felton. can provide himself with a knife or a pistol, if he finds stomach to apply them. That things and persons of no moment should give such powerful revolutions to the progress of those of the greatest, seems a providential disposition to baffle and abate the pride of human sufficiency; as also to engage the humanity and benevolence of superiors to all

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