-yours reach them) and tell them, that I have settled all matters between them and me by monsieur Boileau. I should be glad to see you here.'

It is very odd this prince should offer to invite me into his dominions, or believe I should accept the invitation. No, no, I remember too well how he served an ingenious gentleman, a friend of mine, whom he locked up in the Bastile for no reason in the world, but because he was a wit, and feared he might mention him with justice in some of his writings. His way is, that all men of sense are preferred, banished, or imprisoned. He has indeed a sort of justice in him, like that of the gamesters; for if a stander-by sees one at play cheat, he has a right to come in for shares, as knowing the mysteries of the game.

This is a very wise and just maxim; and if I have not left at Mr. Morphew's, directed to me, bank bills for two hundred pounds, on or before this day sevennight, I shall tell how Tom Cash got his estate. I expect three hundred pounds of Mr. Soilett, for concealing all the money he has lent to himself, and his landed friend bound with him, at thirty per cent. at his scrivener's. Absolute princes make people pay what they please in deference to their power: I do not know why I should not do the same, out of fear or respect to my knowledge. I always preserve decorums and civilities to the fair sex : therefore, if a certain lady, who left her coach at the New Exchange door in the Strand, and whipt down Durham-yard into a boat with a young gentleman for Fox-hall; I say, if she will send me word, that I may give the fan which she dropped, and I found, to my sister

6 Now called Vauxhall,

Jenny, there shall be no more said of it. I expect hush-money to be regularly sent for every folly or vice any one commits in this whole town; and hope I may pretend to deserve it better than a chambermaid or a valet de chambre; they only whisper it to the little set of their companions; but I can tell it to all men living, or who are to live. Therefore I desire all my readers to pay their fines, or mend their lives.

White's Chocolate-house, June 8.

My Familiar being come from France, with an answer to my letter to Lewis of that kingdom, instead of going on in a discourse of what he had seen in that court, he put on the immediate concern of a guardian, and fell to inquiring into my thoughts and adventures since his journey. As short as his stay had been, I confessed I had had many occasions for his assistance in my conduct; but communicated to him my thoughts of putting all my force against the horrid and senseless custom of duels". If it were possible,' said he, to laugh at things in themselves so deeply tragical as the impertinent profusion of human life, I think I could divert you with a figure I saw just after my death, when the philosopher threw me, as I told you some days ago, into the pail of

water.

• You are to know that, when men leave the body, there are receptacles for them as soon as they depart, according to the manner in which they lived and died. At the very instant I was killed, there came away with me a spirit which had lost its body in a duel. We were both examined. Me the whole assembly looked at with kindness and pity, but at the

7 See N° 25, 28, 29, 31, 38, and 39.

same time with an air of welcome and consolation: they pronounced me very happy, who had died in innocence; and told me a quite different place was allotted for my companion; there being a great distance from the mansions of fools and innocents: "though at the same time,” said one of the ghosts, "there is a great affinity between an idiot who has been so for a long life, and a child who departs before maturity. But this gentleman who is arrived with you is a fool of his own making, is ignorant out of choice, and will fare accordingly." The assembly began to flock about him, and one said to him, “Sir, I observed you came in through the gate of persons murdered, and I desire to know what brought you to your untimely end?" He said he had been "a second." Socrates (who may be said to have been murdered by the commonwealth of Athens) stood by, and began to draw near him, in order, after his manner, to lead him into a sense of his error by concessions in his own discourse. "Sir," said that divine and amicable spirit," what was the quarrel?” He answered, "We shall know very suddenly, when the principal in the business comes, for he was desperately wounded before I fell."-" Sir," said the sage, "had you an estate?"—"Yes, Sir," the new guest answered, "I have left it in a very good condition, and made my will the night before this occasion 8.”—“ Did you

* On the 4th of September, 1783, a duel was fought in Hyde Park between Lieut. Col. Thomas and Col. Cosmo Gordon, on the challenge of the latter. On the preceding day Lieut. Col. Thomas (who had repeatedly declined the meeting) made his will, from which the following are extracts:

• London, Sept. 3, 1783,

'I am now called upon, and, by the rules of what is called honour, forced into a personal interview with Col. Cosmo

read it before you signed it ?”—“ Yes, sure, Sir," said the new comer. Socrates replies, "Could a man, that would not give his estate without reading the instrument, dispose of his life without asking a question?" That illustrious shade turned from him, and a crowd of impertinent goblins, who had been drolls and parasites in their life-time, and were knocked on the head for their sauciness, came about my fellowtraveller, and made themselves very merry with questions about the words Cart and Terce, and other terms of fencers. But his thoughts began to settle into reflection upon the adventure which had robbed him of his late being: and, with a wretched sigh, said he, "How terrible are conviction and guilt, when they come too late for penitence"!

Pacolet was going on in this strain, but he recovered from it, and told me, it was too soon to give my discourse on this subject so serious a turn; 'You have chiefly to do with that part of mankind which must be led into reflection by degrees, and you must treat this custom with humour and raillery to get an audience, before you come to pronounce sentence

Gordon. God only can know the event, and into his hands I commit my soul, conscious only of having done my duty. I therefore declare this to be my last will and testament, &c.'

In the first place, I commit my soul to Almighty God, in hopes of his mercy and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance with the unwarrantable customs of this wicked world) put myself under the necessity of taking, &c.

(Signed)

FRED. THOMAS."

Lieut. Col. Thomas was killed; and Col. Gordon tried for the murder, but acquitted.

upon it. There is foundation enough for raising such entertainments, from the practice on this occasion. Do you not know that often a man is called out of bed to follow implicitly a coxcomb (with whom he would not keep company on any other occasion) to ruin and death?-Then a good list of such as are qualified by the laws of these uncourteous men of chivalry to enter into combat (who are often persons of honour without common honesty); these, I say, ranged and drawn up in their proper order, would give an aversion to doing any thing in common with such as men laugh at and contemn. But to go through this work, you must not let your thoughts vary, or make excursions from your theme: consider, at the same time, that the matter has been often treated by the ablest and greatest writers; yet that must not discourage you for the properest person to handle it is one who has roved into mixed conversations, and must have opportunities (which I shall give you) of seeing these sort of men in their pleasures and gratifications, among which they pretend to reckon fighting. It was pleasantly enough said of a bully in France, when duels first began to be punished: "The king has taken away gaming and stage-playing, and now fighting too; how does he expect gentlemen shall divert themselves"?

STEELE.