ment, unless we are capable of living fo in fome meafure amidft the noife and bufinefs of the world. I have ever thought men were better known, by what could be obferved of them from a perufal of their private letters, than any other way. My friend the clergyman, the other day, upon ferious difcourfe with him concerning the danger of procrastination, gave me the following letters from perfons with whom he lives in great friendship and intimacy, according to the good breeding and good fenfe of his character. The firft is from a man of bufinefs, who is his convert: The fecond from one of whom he conceives good hopes: The third from one who is in no ftate at all, but carried one way and another by ftarts. SIR, 573 Know not with what words to exprefs to you the fenfe I have of the high obligation you have laid upon me, in the penance you me of joined ? doing fome good or other to a perfon of worth every day I live. The ftation I am in furnishes me with daily opportunities of this kind: And the noble principle with which you have infpired me of benevolence to all I have to deal with, quickens my application in every thing I undertake. When I relieve merit from difcountenance, when I affift a friendlefs perfon, when I produce concealed worth, I am difpleafed with myfelf, for having defigned to leave the world in order to be virtuous, I am forry you decline the occafions which the condition I am in might afford me of enlarging your fortunes; but know I contribute more to your fatisfaction, when I acknowledge I am the better man, from the influence and author amon rity you have over, SIB, Your most obligedand • SIR, I Am entirely convinced of the truth of what you were pleased to fay to me, when I was laft with you alone. You told me then of the filly way I was in; but you told me fo, as I faw you loved me, otherwife I could not obey your com'mands in letting you know my thoughts fo fincerely as I do at prefent. I know the creature for whom I refign fo much of my character, is all that you faid of her; but then the trifler has fomething in her fo undefigning, and harmless, that her guilt in one kind difappears by the comparifon of her innocence in another. Will you, virtuous men, allow no alteration of offences? • Muft dear Chloe be called by the hard name you pious people give to common women? I keep the folemn promife I made you in writing to you the ftate of my mind, after your kind admonition; and will endeavour to get the better of this fondnefs, which makes me fo much her humble fervant, that I am almoft afhamed to fubfcribe my• felf yours, T. D. THERE is no ftate of life fo anxious as that of a man who does not live according to the dictates of his own reafon. It will feem odd to you, · when I affure you that my love of retirement firft of all brought me to court; but this will be no riddle, when I acquaint you that I placed myself here with a defign of getting fo much money as <. might enable me to purchase a handfome retreat in the country. At prefent my circumstances enable me, and my duty prompts me, to pafs away the remaining part of my life in fuch a retirement as I at firft propofed to myfelf; but to my great misfortune I have entirely loft the relifh of it, and fhould now return to the country with greater reluctance than I at first came to court. I am fo unhappy R happy as to know that what I am fond of are trifles, and that what I neglect is of the greatest importance: In fhort, I find a conteft in my own mind between reafon and fashion. I remember world you once told me, that I might live in the w and out of it, at the fame time. Let me beg of you to explain this paradox more at large to me, that I may conform my life, if poffible, both to my duty and my incliam, Miss Your most humble fervant, No 28. MONDAY, APRIL 2. RB. Neque femper arcum Tendit Apollo. HOR. Od. x. 1. 2. ver. 19. Nor does Apollo always bend his bow. I SHALL here prefent my reader with a letter from a projector, concerning a new office, which he thinks may very much contribute to the embellishment of the city, and to the driving barbarity out of our ftreets. I confider it as a fatire upon projec tors in general, and a lively picture of the whole art of modern criticism. SIR, Round you dedy Bferving that you have thoughts of creating certain officers under you, for the infpect⚫tion of feveral petty enormities which you your⚫ felf cannot attend to; and finding daily abfurdities hung out upon the fign-pofts of this city, to the great feandal of foreigners, as well as thofe of our own country, who are curious fpectators of the fame: I do humbly propofe, that you would be pleafed to make me your fuperintendent of all fuch figures and devices as are or fhall be made ufe of on this occafion; with full powers to rectify < " C or expunge whatever I fhall find irregular or defective. For want of fuch an officer, there is nor thing like found literature and good fenfe to be met with in those objects, that aré every where thrufting themfelves out to the eye, and endeavouring to become vifible. Our streets are filled with blue boars, black fwans, and red lions; not to mention flying pigs, and hogs in armour, with many other creatures more extraordinary than any in the deferts of Afric. Strange! that one who has all the birds and beafts in nature to chufe out of, fhould live at the fign of an Ens Rationis. My first talk therefore fhould be, like that of Hercules, to clear the city from monfters. In the fecond place, I would forbid that creatures of jarring and incongruous natures fhould be joined together in the fame fign; fuch as the bell and the neat's tongue, the dog and the gridiron. The fox and goofe may be fuppofed to have met, but what has the fox and the feven ftars to do together? And when did the lamb and dolphin ever meet, except upon a fign-poft? As for the cat and fiddle, there is a conceit in it; and therefore 'I do not intend that any thing I have here faid fhould affect it. I muft however obferve to you f upon this fubject, that it is ufual for a young tradefinan, at his first fetting up, to add to his own fign that of the mafter whom he ferved; as the husband after marriage, gives a place to his miftrefs's arms in his own coat. This I take to have given rife to many of thofe abfurdities which are committed over our heads; and, as I am informed, firft occafioned the three nuns and a hare, which we fee fo frequently joined together. I would therefore eftablish certain rules, for the determining how far one tradefiman may give the fign of another, and in what cafes he may be allowed to quarter it with his own. In the third place, I would enjoin every fhop to to make use of a fign which bears fome affinity to the wares in which it deals. What can be more inconfiftent, than to fee a bawd at the fign of the angel, or a tailor at the lion? A cook fhould not live at the boot, nor a fhoemaker at the roasted pig; and yet, for want of this regulation, I have feen a goat fet up before the door of a perfumer, and the French King's head at a fword-cutler's. "An ingenious foreigner obferves, that feveral of those gentlemen who value themselves upon their families, and overlookfuch as are bred to trade, bear the tools of their forefathers in their coats of arms. I will not examine how true this is in fact. But though it may not be neceffary for pofterity thus to fet up the fign of their forefathers, I think it highly proper for those who actually profefs the trade, to fhew fome fuch marks of it before their doors. Ma When the name gives an occafion for an ingenious fign-poft, I would likewife advife the owner to take that opportunity of letting the world know who he is. It would have been ridiculous for the ingenious Mrs. Salmon to have lived at the fign of the trout; for which reason fhe has erected before her houfe the figure of the fifh that is her name-fake. Mr. Bell has likewife diftin• guished himself by a devife of the fame nature : And here, Sir, I must beg leave to obferve to you, that this particular figure of a bell has given occafion to feveral pieces of wit in this kind. A man of your reading muft know, that Abel Drugger gained great applaufe by it in the time of Ben Johnson. Our apocryphal heathen god is also reprefented by this figure; which, in conjunction with the dragon, makes a very handfome picture in feveral of our ftreets. As for the bell-favage, which is the fign of a favage man ftanding by a bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the conceit of it, until I accidentally fell into the read |