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character of my master is the very reverse of that good 6 and gentle Knight's. All his directions are given, and « his mind revealed by way of contraries: as when any • thing is to be remembered, with a peculiar cast of face • he cries, • Be sure to forget now. If I am to make • haste back, · Don't come these two hours; be sure to “ call by the way upon some of your companions.' Then 6 another excellent way of his is, if he fets me any thing "to do, which he knows must necessarily take up

half « day, he calls ten times in a quarter of an hour to know 6 whether I have done yet.

This is his manner; and the • same perverseness runs through all his actions, according o as the circumstances vary. Besides all this, he is so • suspicious, that he submits himself to the drudgery of a

spy. He is as unhappy himself as he makes his servants: • he is constantly watching us, and we differ no more in . pleasure and liberty than as a goaler and a prisoner. He lays traps for faults, and no fooner makes a discovery, but fails into fuch language, as I am more ashamed of for coming from him, than for being directed to me. • This, Sir, is a short sketch of a master I have served up

wards of nine years; and though I have never wronged • him, I confess my despair of pleasing him has very much « abated my endeavour to do it. If you will give me • leave to steal a sentence out of my master's Clarendon, • I shall tell you my case in a word, Being used worse 66 than I deserved; I cared less to deserve well than I had « done.' I am, Sir,

• Your humble servant,

RALPH VALET.' • Dear Mr. SPECTER, :I

AM the next thing to a lady's woman, and am un

der both my lady and her woman. I am so used by them both, that I should be very glad to see them in the Spelter.

My lady herself is of no mind in the • world, and for that reason her woman is of twenty minds « in a moment. My lady is one that never knows what i to do with herfelf: she pulls on and

off

every thing • she wears twenty times before she refolves upon it for • that day. I stand at one end of the room, and reach things to her woman. When my lady asks for a thing,

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• I hear and have half brought it, when the woman meets • me in the middle of the room to receive it, and at that • instant she says, No, she will not have it. Then I go • back, and her woman comes up to her, and by this « time she will have that, and two or three things more

in an instant: the woman and I run to each other; I 6 am loaded and delivering the things to her, when my • lady says she wants none of all these things, and we are "the dullest creatures in the world, and she the unhap* piest woman living, for she shan't be drest in time.

Thus we stand not knowing what to do, when our good • lady with all the patience in the world tells us as plainly

as she can speak, that she will have temper because we • have no manner of understanding; and begins again to • dress, and see if we can find out of ourselves what we

are to do. When she is dressed she goes to dinner, 6 and after she has disliked every thing there, she calls • for the coach, then commands it in again, and then • she will not go out at all, and then will go too, and 6 orders the chariot. Now, good Mr. Specter, I desire you

would, in the behalf of all who serve froward la• dies, give out in your paper, that nothing can be done . without allowing time for it, and that one cannot be « back again with what one was sent for, if one is called • back, before one can go a step for that they want. • And if you please let them know that all mistresses are like all servants.

I am your loving friend,

• PATIENCE GIDDY."

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These are great calamities; but I met the other day in the five fields towards Chelsea, a pleasanter tyrant than either of the above represented. A fat fellow was puffing on in his open waistcoat; a boy of fourteen in a livery, carrying after him his cloak, upper coat, hat, wig, and sword. The

poor lad was ready to sink with the weight, and could not keep up with his master, who turned back every half furlong, and wondered what made the lazy young dog lag behind.

There is something very unaccountable, that people cannot put themselves in the condition of the persons below them, when they consider the commands they give. VOL. II.

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But there is nothing more common, than to see a fellow (who, if he were reduced to it, would not be hired by any man living) lament that he is troubled with the most worthless dogs in nature.

It would, perhaps, be running too far out of common life to urge, that he who is not matter of himself and his own passions, cannot be a proper master of another. Equanimity in a man's own words and actions, will easily diffuse itself through his whole family. Pamphilio has the happiest household of any man I know, and that proceeds froin the humane regard he has to them in their private persons, as well as in respect that they are his servants. If there be any occasion, wherein they may in themselves be supposed to be unfit to attend their master's concerns, by reason of an attention to their own, he is so good as to place himself in their condition; I thought it very becoming in hin, when at dinner the other day he made an apology for want of more attendants. He said, One • of my footmen is gone to the wedding of his sister, and • the other I don't expect to wait, because his father died * but two days ago.'

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No 138.

WEDNESDAY, August 8.

བསར་བ་ Utit in re non dubia testibus non necessariis. TULL. He uses unnecessary proofs in an indifputable point.

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tremely learned and knotty in expounding clear cases. Tully tells us of an author that spent some

pages to prove that generals could not perform the great enterprizes which have made them so illustrious, if they had not had men. He afferted also, it seems, that a minifter at home, no more than a commander abroad, could do any thing without other men were his inftruments and assistants. On this occasion he produces the example of Themiftocles, Pericles, Cyrus, and Alexander himself, whom he denies to have been capable of

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effecting what they did, except they had been followed by others. It is pleasant enough to see such persons contend without opponents, and triumph without victory. The author above-mentioned by the Orator is placed

in ridiculous light, and we meet every day in conversation such as deserve the same kind of renown, for troubling those with whom they converse with the like certainties. The persons that I have always thought to deserve the highest admiration in this kind are your ordinary story-tellers, who are most religiously careful of keeping to the truth in every particular circumstance of a narration, whether it concern the main end, or not. A gentleman whom I had the honour to be in company with the other day, upon fome occasion that he was pleased to take, faid, he remembered a very pretty repartee made by a very witty man in King Charlestiine upon the like occasion.

I remember, (faid he, upon entring into the tale) much about the time of Oates' plot, that a cousin-german of mine and I were at the Bear in Holborn: No, I am out, it was at the Cross-Keys; but Jack Thomson was there, for he was very great with the gentleinan who made the answer. But I am sure it was fpoken somewhere thereabouts, for we drank a bottle in that neighbourhood every evening: But no matter for all that, the thing is the same; but

He was going on to settle the geography of the jest when I left the room, wondering at this odd turn of head which can play away its words, with uttering nothing to the purpose, ftill observing its own impertinencies, and yet proceeding in them. I do not question but he informed the rest of his audience, who had more patience than 1, of the birth and parentage, as well as the collateral alliances of his family, who made the repartee, and of him who provoked him to it.

It is no small misfortune to any who have a just value for their time, when this quality of being so very circumftantial, and careful to be exact, happens to shew itself in a man whose quality obliges them to attend his proofs, that it is now day, and the like. But this is augmented when the fame genius gets into authority, as it often does. Nay, I have known it more than once ascend the very pulpit. One of this sort taking it in his head to be a great

admirer of Dr. Tillotson and Dr. Beveridge, never failed of proving out of these great authors, things which no man living would have denied him upon his own single authority. One day, resolving to come to the point in hand, he said, According to that excellent divine, I will enter upon the matter, or in his words, in his fifteenth sermon of the folio edition, page 160.

• I shall briefly explain the words, and then confider the matter contained in them.'

This honest gentleman needed not, one would think, strain his modesty so far as to alter his design of entering

upon the matter,' to that of briefly explaining.' But so it was, that he would not even be contented with that authority, but added also the other divine to Itrengthen his method, and told us, with the pious and learned Dr. Beveridge, page 4th of his oth volume, ' I shall endeavour • to make it as plain as I can from the words which I have

now read, wherein for that purpose we shall consider-' This Wiseacre was reckoned by the parish, who did not understand him, a moft excellent preacher; but that he read too much, and was so humble that he did not trust enough to his own parts.

Next to these ingenious gentlemen, who argue for what nobody can deny them, are to be ranked a sort of people who do not indeed attempt to prove insignificant things, but are ever labouring to raise arguments with you about matters, you will give up to them without the least controversy. One of these people told a gentleman who said he faw Mr. fuch-a-one go this morning at nine o'clock towards the Gravel-Pits, Sir, I must beg your pardon for that, for though I am very loth to have any dispute with you, yet I must take the liberty to tell

you

it was nine when I saw him at St. James'. When men of this genius are pretty far gone in learning, they will put you to prove that snow is white, and when you are upon that topic, can say that there is really no such thing as colour in nature; in a word, they can turn what little knowledge they have into a ready capacity of railing doubts; into a capacity of being always frivolous and always unanswerable. It was of two disputants of this impertinent and laborious kind that the Cynic said, One of these fellows is milking a rąm, and the other holds the pail.'

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