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this island; and from the corruptions in the government of that, to deduce the chief evils of life. In the mean time that I am thus employed, I have given positive orders to Don Saltero of Chelsea, the tooth-drawer, and doctor Thomas Smith, the corn-cutter of King-street, Westminster, who have the modesty to confine their pretensions to manual operations, to bring me in, with all convenient speed, complete lists of all who are but of equal learning with themselves, and yet administer physic beyond the feet and gums. These advices I shall reserve for my future leisure; but have now taken a resolution to dedicate the remaining part of this instant July to the service of the fair sex, and have almost finished a scheme for settling the whole remainder of that sex who are unmarried, and above the age of twenty-six.

In order to this good and public service, I shall consider the passion of Love in its full extent, as it is attended both with joys and inquietudes; and lay down, for the conduct of my lovers, such rules as shall banish the cares, and heighten the pleasures, which flow from that amiable spring of life and happiness. There is no less than absolute necessity, that some provision be made to take off the dead stock of women in city, town, and country. Let there happen but the least disorder in the streets, and in an instant you see the inequality of the numbers of males and females. Besides that the feminine crowd on such occasions is more numerous in the open way, you may observe them also to the very garrets buddled together, four at least at a casement. Add to this, that by an exact calculation of all that have come to town by stage coach or waggon for this twelvemonth past, three times in four the treated persons have been males. This overstock of beauty, for which there are so few bidders, calls for an immediate supply of lovers and husbands; and I am the studious knighterrant, who have suffered long nocturnal contemplations to find out methods for the relief of all British females, who at present seem to be devoted to involuntary virginity. The scheme, upon which I design to act, I have communicated to none but a beauteous young lady, who has for some time left the town, in the following letter:

To Amanda, in Kent.

• MADAM,

'I send, with this, my discourse of ways and means for encouraging marriage, and re-peopling the island. You will soon oberve, that, according to these rules, the mean considerations, which make beauty and merit cease to be the objects of love and courtship, will be fully exploded. I have unanswerably proved, that jointures and settlements are the bane of happiness; and not only so, but the ruin

even of their fortunes who enter into them. I beg of you therefore to come to town upon the receipt of this, where, I promise you, you shall have as many lovers as toasters; for there needed nothing but to make men's interests fall in with their inclinations, to render you the most courted of your sex. As many as love you will now be willing to marry you. Hasten then, and be the honourable mistress of mankind. Cassander, and many others, stand in The gate of good desert to receive

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From my own Apartment, July 10. THE intended course of my studies was altered this evening by a visit from an old acquaintance, who complained to me, mentioning one upon whom he had long depended, that he found his labour and perseverance in his patron's service and interests wholly ineffectual; and he thought now, after his best years were spent in a professed adherence to him and his fortunes, he should in the end be forced to break with him, and give over all further expectations from him. He sighed and ended his discourse, by saying, 'You, Mr. Censor, some time ago, gave us your thoughts of the behaviour of great men to their creditors. This sort of demand upon them, for what they invite men to expect, is a debt of honour; which, according to custom, they ought to be most careful of paying, and would be a worthy subject for a lucubration.'

Of all men living, I think, I am the most proper to treat of this matter; because, in the character and employment of Censor, I have had encouragement so infinitely above my desert, that what I say cannot possibly be supposed to arise from peevishness, or any disappointment in that kind, which I myself have met with. When we consider Patrons and their Clients, those who receive addresses, and those who are addressed to, it must not be understood that the dependents are such as are worthless in their natures, abandoned to any vice or dishonour, or such as without a call thrust themselves upon men in power; nor when we say Patrons, do we mean such as have it not in their power, or have no obligation, to assist their friends; but we speak of such leagues where there are power and obligation on the one part, and merit and expectation on the

other.

Were we to be very particular on this subject, I take it, that the division of patron and client may include a third part of our nation. The want of merit and real worth will strike out about ninety-nine in the hundred of these; and want of ability in the patron will dispose of as many of that order. He, who, out of mere vanity to be applied to, will take up another's time and fortune in his service, where he has no prospect of returning it, is as much more unjust, as those who took up my friend the upholder's goods without paying him for them; I say, he is as much more unjust, as our life and time is more valuable than our goods and moveables. Among many whom you see about the great, there is a contented well pleased set, who seem to like the attendance for its own sake, and are early at the abodes of the powerful, out of mere fashion. This sort of vanity is as well grounded as if a man should lay aside his own plain suit, and dress himself up in a gay livery of another.

behave myself to a man, who thinks me his friend at no other time but that. Dick Reptile of our club had this in his head the other night, when he said, ' I am afraid of ill news, when I am visited by any of my old friends.' These patrons are a little like some fine gentlemen, who spend all their hours of gayety with their wenches, but when they fall sick will let no one come near them but their wives. It seems, truth and honour are companions too sober for prosperity. It is certainly the most black ingratitude, tu accept of a man's best endeavours to be pleasing to you, and return it with indifference.

I am so much of this mind, that Dick Eastcourt the comedian, for coming one night to our club, though he laughed at us all the time he was there, shall have our company at his play on Thursday. A man of talents is to be favoured, or never admitted. Let the ordinary world truck for money and wares; but men of spirit and conversation should in every kind do others as much pleasure as they receive from them. But men are so taken up with outward forms, that they do not consider their actions; else how should it be, that a man should deny that to the entreaties, and almost tears of an old friend, which he shall solicit a new one to accept of? I remember, when I first came out of Staffordshire, I had an intimacy with a man of quality, in whose gift there fell a very good employment. All the town cried, 'There's a

There are many of this species who exclude others of just expectations, and make those proper dependants appear impatient, because they are not so cheerful as those who expect nothing. I have made use of the penny-post for the instruction of these voluntary slaves, and informed them, that they will never be provided for; but they double their diligence upon admonition. Will Afterday has told his friends, that he was to have the next thing, these ten years; and Harry Linger has been four-thing for Mr. Bickerstaff!' when, to my great teen, within a month of a considerable office. However, the fantastic complaisance which is paid to them, may blind the great from seeing themselves in a just light; they must needs, if they in the least reflect, at some times, have a sense of the injustice they do in raising in others a false expectation. But this is so common a practice in all the stages of power, that there are not more cripples come out of the wars, than from the attendance of patrons. You see in one a settled melancholy, in another a bridled rage; a third has lost his memory, and a fourth his whole constitution and hu

mour.

In a word, when you see a particular cast of mind or body, which looks a little upon the distracted, you may be sure the poor gentleman has formerly had great friends. For this reason, I have thought it a prudent thing to take a nephew of mine out of a lady's service, where he was a page, and have bound him to a shoemaker.

But what, of all the humours under the sun, is the most pleasant to consider, is, that you see some men lay, as it were, a set of acquaintance by them, to converse with when they are out of employment, who had no effect of their power when they were in. Here patrons and clients both make the most fantastical figure 'maginable. Friendship indeed is most manifested in adversity; but I do not know how to

astonishment, I found my patron had been forced upon twenty artifices to surprise a man with it, who never thought of it: but sure, it is a degree of murder to amuse men with vain hopes. If a man takes away another's life, where is the difference, whether he does it by taking away the minutes of his time, or the drops of his blood? But indeed, such as have hearts barren of kindness are served accordingly by those whom they employ; and pass their lives away with an empty show of civility for love, and an insipid intercourse of a commerce in which their affections are no way concerned. But, on the other side, how beautiful is the life of a patron who performs his duty to his inferiors? A worthy merchant, who employs a crowd of artificers? A great lord, who is generous and merciful to the several necessities of his tenants? A courtier, who uses his credit and power for the welfare of his friends? These have in their several stations a quick relish of the exquisite pleasure of doing good, In a word, good patrons are like the Guardian Angels of Plato, who are ever busy, though unseen, in the care of their wards; but ill patrons are like the Deities of Epicurus, supine, indolent, and unconcerned, though they see mortals in storms and tempests, even while they are offering incense to their power.

No. 197.] Thursday, July 13, 1710.

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any the least propensity to strike into what has not been observed and said, every day of his life, by others; but with that inability of speaking any thing that is uncommon, he has a great readiness at what he can speak of, and his imagination runs into all the different views of the subject he treats of, in a moment. If Ralph had learning added to the common chitchat of the town, he would have been a disputant upon all topics that ever were considered by men of his own genius. As for my part, I never am teazed by any empty town-fellow, but I bless my stars that he was not bred a scholar. This addition, we must consider, would have made him capable of maintaining his follies. His being in the wrong would have been protected by suitable arguments; and when he was hedged in by logical terms, and false appearances, you must have owned yourself convinced before you could then have got rid of him, and the shame of his triumph had been added to the pain of his impertinence.

Grecian Coffee-house, July 12. WHEN I came hither this evening, the man of the house delivered me a book, very finely bound. When I received it, I overheard one of the boys whisper another, and say, it was a fine thing to be a great scholar! what a pretty book that is! It has indeed a very gay outside, and is dedicated to me by a very ingenious gentleman, who does not put his name to it. The title of it, for the work is in Latin, is, Epistolarum Obscurorum Virorum, ad Dm. M. Ortuiuum Gratium, Volumina II. &c.' Epistles of the obscure Writers to Ortuinus, &c.' The purpose of the work is signified in the dedication, in very elegant language, and fine raillery. It seems, this is a collection of letters which some profound blockheads, who lived before our times, have written in honour of each other, and for their mutual information in each other's absurdities. They are mostly of the German nation, whence, from time to time, inundations of writers have flowed, more pernicious to the learned world, than the swarms of Goths and Vandals to the politic. It is, methinks, wonderful, that fellows could be awake, and utter such incoherent conceptions, and converse with great gravity, like learned men, without the least taste of know-youth, it was a humour at the university, ledge or good sense. It would have been an endless labour to have taken any other method of exposing such impertinences, than by an edition of their own works; where you see their follies, according to the ambition of such virtuosi, in a most correct edition.

Looking over these accomplished labours, I could not but reflect upon the immense load of writings which the commonalty of scholars have pushed into the world, and the absurdity of parents, who educate crowds to spend their time in pursuit of such cold and spiritless endeavours to appear in public. It seems therefore a fruitless labour, to attempt the correction of the taste of our contemporaries; except it was in our power to burn all the senseless labours of our ancestors. There is a secret propensity in nature, from generation to generation, in the block heads of one age to admire those of another; and men of the same imperfections are as great admirers of each other, as those of the same abilities.

There is a sort of littleness in the minds of men of wrong sense, which makes them much more insufferable than mere fools, and has the further inconvenience of being attended by an endless loquacity. For which reason, it would be a very proper work, if some well-wisher to human society would consider the terms upon which people meet in public places, in order to prevent the unseasonable declamations which we meet with there. I remember, in my

when a fellow pretended to be more eloquent than ordinary, and had formed to himself a plot to gain all our admiration, or triumph over us with an argument, to either of which he had no manner of call; I say, in either of these cases, it was the humour to shut one eye. This whimsical way of taking notice to him of his absurdity, has prevented many a man from being a coxcomb. If amongst us, on such an occasion, each man offered a voluntary rbetorician some snuff, it would probably produce the same effect. As the matter now stands, whether a man will or no, he is obliged to be informed in whatever another pleases to entertain him with; though the preceptor makes these advances out of vanity, and not to instruct, but insult him.

There is no man will allow him who wants courage to be called a soldier; but men, who want good sense, are very frequently not only allowed to be scholars, but esteemed for being such. At the same time it must be granted, that as courage is the natural parts of a soldier so is a good understanding of a scholar. Such little minds as these, whose productions are collected in the volume to which I have the

This great mischief of voluminous follies proceeds from a misfortune which happens in all ages, that men of barren geniuses, but fertile imaginations, are bred soholars. This may at first appear a paradox; but when we consi-honour to be patron, are the instruments for der the talking creatures we meet in public places, it will no longer be such. Ralph Shallow is a young fellow, that has not by nature

artful men to work with; and become popular with the unthinking part of mankind. In courts, they make transparent flatterers; in

camps, ostentatious bullies; in colleges, unin- | measure, is the immediate possession of those telligible pedants; and their faculties are used heavenly enjoyments for which they are ad accordingly by those who lead them. dressed.

When a man who wants judgment is admitted into the conversation of reasonable men, he shall remember such improper circumstances, and draw such groundless conclusions from their discourse, and that with such colour of sense, as would divide the best set of company that can be got together. It is just thus with a fool who has a familiarity with books; he shall quote and recite one author against another, in such a manner as shall puzzle the best understanding to refute him; though the most ordinary capacity may observe that it is only ignorance that makes the intri cacy. All the true use of that we call learning is to ennoble and improve our natural faculties, and not to disguise our imperfections. It is therefore in vain for folly to attempt to conceal itself, by the refuge of learned languages. Literature does but make a man more eminently the thing which nature made him; and Polyglottes, had be studied less than he has, and writ only in his mother-tongue, had been known only in Great Britain for a pedant.

Mr. Bickerstaff thanks Dorinda, and will both answer her letter, and take her advice.*

No. 198.] Saturday, July 15, 1710.

Quale sit id quod amas celeri circumspice mente
Et tua læsuro substrate colla jngo.

Ovid. Rem. Amor. i. 89.
On your choice deliberate, nor rashly yield
A willing neck to Hymen's galling yoke.
From my own Apartment, July 14.

THE HISTORY OF CELIA.

It is not necessary to look back into the first years of this young lady, whose story is of consequence only as her life has lately met with passages very uncommon. She is now in the twentieth year of her age, and owes a strict, but cheerful education, to the care of an aunt; to whom she was recommended by her dying father, whose decease was hastened by an inconsolable affliction for the loss of her mother. As Cælia is the offspring of the most generous passion that has been known in our age, she is adorned with as much beauty and grace as the most celebrated of her sex possess; but her domestic life, moderate fortune, and religious education, gave her but little opportunity, and less inclination, to be admired in public assemblies. Her abode has been for some years at a convenient distance from the cathedral of St. Paul's; where her aunt and she chose to reside for the advantage of that rapturous way of devotion, which gives ecstasy to the pleasures of innocence, and, in some

As no mention is afterwards made of Dorinda, it does not appear what was the purport of her letter or advice.

As you may trace the usual thoughts of men in their countenances, there appeared in the face of Cælia a cheerfulness, the constant companion of unaffected virtue, and a gladness, which is as inseparable from true piety. Her every look and motion spoke the peaceful, mild, resigning, humble inhabitant, that animated her beauteous body. Her air discovered her body a mere machine of her mind, and not that her thoughts were employed in studying graces and attractions for her person. Such was Cælia, when she was first seen by Palamede at her usual place of worship. Palamede is a young man of two-and-twenty, well fashioned, learned, genteel, and discreet; the son and heir of a gentleman of a very great estate, and himself possessed of a plentiful one by the gift of an uncle. He became enamoured with | Cælia, and after having learned her habitation, had address enough to communicate his passion and circumstances with such an air of good sense and integrity, as soon obtained permission to visit and profess his inclinations towards her. Palamede's present fortune and future expectations were no way prejudicial to his addresses; but after the lovers had passed some time in the agreeable entertainments of a successful courtship, Cælia one day took occasion to interrupt Palamede, in the midst of a very pleasing discourse of the happiness he promised himself in so accomplished a companion; and, assuming a serious air, told him, there was another heart to be won before he gained hers, which was that of his father. Palamede seemed much disturbed at the overture; and lamented to her, that his father was one of those too provident parents, who only place their thoughts upon bringing riches into their families by marriages, and are wholly insensible of all other rules of life made her insist upon this demand; considerations. But the strictness of Cælia's and the son, at a proper hour, communicated to his father the circumstances of his love, and the merit of the object. The next day the father made her a visit. The beauty of her person, the fame of her virtue, and a certain irresistible charm in her whole behaviour, on so tender and delicate an occasion, wrought so much upon him, in spite of all prepossessions, tience equal to that of his son. Their nuptials that he hastened the marriage with an impawere celebrated with a privacy suitable to the character and modesty of Cælia; and from that day, until a fatal one last week, they lived together with all the joy and happiness which

attend minds entirely united.

It should have been intimated, that Palamede is a student of the Temple, and usually retired thither early in the morning; Cælia still sleeping.

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