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be imposed upon by cheats, I would desire y readers, w they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage, and examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely allied Truth, and lineally descended from Good Sense; if not, they conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewise distinguish by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he seldom gets company to join with him. For as True Humour generally lo serious, while every body laughs about him; False Humou always laughing, whilst every body about him looks serious. shall only add, if he has not in him a mixture of both pare that is, if he would pass for the offspring of Wit without Mi or Mirth without Wit, you may conclude him to be altoget spurious and a cheat.

The impostor of whom I am speaking, descends origina from Falsehood, who was the mother of Nonsense, who brought to bed of a son called Frenzy, who married one of daughters of Folly, commonly known by the name of Laught on whom he begot that monstrous infant of which I have b here speaking. I shall set down at length the genealogical ta of False Humour, and, at the same time, place under it the gen logy of True Humour, that the reader may at one view beh their different pedigrees and relations.

FALSEHOOD.

NONSENSE.
FRENZY.-LAUGHTER.

FALSE HUMOUR.

TRUTH.

GOOD SENSE.
WIT.-MIRTH.

HUMOUR.

I might extend the allegory, by mentioning several of

children of False Humour, who are more in number than the sands of the sea, and might in particular enumerate the many sons and daughters which he has begot in this island. But as this would be a very invidious task, I shall only observe in general, that False Humour differs from the True, as a monkey does from a

man.

First of all, He is exceedingly given to little apish tricks and buffooneries.

Secondly, He so much delights in mimicry, that it is all one to him whether he exposes by it vice and folly, luxury and avarice; or, on the contrary, virtue and wisdom, pain and poverty.

Thirdly, He is wonderfully unlucky, insomuch that he will bite the hand that feeds him, and endeavour to ridicule both friends and foes indifferently. For having but small talents, he must be merry where he can, not where he should.

Fourthly, Being intirely void of reason, he pursues no point either of morality or instruction, but is ludicrous only for the sake of being so.

Fifthly, Being incapable of any thing but mock representations, his ridicule is always personal, and aimed at the vicious man, or the writer; not at the vice, or at the writing.

I have here only pointed at the whole species of false humourists; but as one of my principal designs in this paper is to beat down that malignant spirit which discovers itself in the writings of the present age, I shall not scruple, for the future, to single out any of the small wits that infest the world with such compositions as are ill-natured, immoral, and absurd. This is the only exception which I shall make to the general rule I have prescribed myself, of attacking multitudes; since every honest man ought to look upon himself as in a natural state of war with the libeller and lampooner, and to annoy them wherever they

fall in his way. This is but retaliating upon them, and tr them as they treat others.

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SOME months ago, my friend Sir Roger, being in the cou enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain lady whom I here call by the name of Leonora,' and, as it contained ma of consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my hand. Accordingly I waited upon her ladyship pretty ear the morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into lady's library, till such time as she was in a readiness to re me. The very sound of a Lady's Library gave me a great osity to see it; and, as it was some time before the lady can me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of books, which were ranged together in a very beautiful order. the end of the folios (which were finely bound and gilt) great jars of China placed one above another in a very piece of architecture. The quartos were separated from octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delig pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all sha colours, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden fr that they looked like one continued pillar indented with

1 V. Nos. 92, 140, 163, and notes on Leonora, and Miss Sheph whose name by marriage became Mrs. Perry, the lady here alluded to2 V. Tatler, No. 23; Lover, No. 10, and Swift's Works, vol. xx 8vo., p. 55.-C.

finest strokes of sculpture, and stained with the greatest variety of dyes That part of the library which was designed for the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was enclosed in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque works that ever I saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, monkies, mandarines, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in China ware. In the midst of the room was a little Japan table, with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a silver snuff-box made in the shape of a little book. I found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the numbers, like fagots in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixt kind of furniture, as seemed very suitable to both the lady and the scholar, and did not know at first whether I should fancy myself in a grotto, or in a library.

Upon my looking into the books, I found there were some few which the lady had bought for her own use, but that most of them had been got together, either because she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow.

Ogilby's Virgil.
Dryden's Juvenal.
Cassandra.

Cleopatra

Astræa.

Sir Isaac Newton's Works.

The Grand Cyrus; with a pin stuck in one of the middle

eaves.

Pembroke's Arcadia

VOL. V.--5*

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Locke of Human Understanding; with a paper of pa

A spelling-book.

A Dictionary for the explanation of hard words.

Sherlock upon Death.

The fifteen Comforts of Matrimony.

Sir William Temple's Essays.

Father Malbranche's Search after Truth, translated

A book of Novels.

The Academy of Compliments.

Cupepper's Midwifery.

The Ladies' Calling.

Tale in Verse by Mr. Durfey: bound in red leather, gil

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the back and doubled down in several places.

All th Classic Authors, in wood.

Elzivir's, by the same hand.

Clelia which opened of itself in the place that describes lovers in a bower.

Baker's Chronicle.

Advice 0 a Daughter.

The new Atalantis, with a Key to it.

Mr. Steele's Christian Hero.

A Prayer-book; with a bottle of Hungary water by the s

Dr. Sacheverell's Speech.

Fielding's Trial.

Seneca's Morals.

Taylor's holy Living and Dying.

La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances.

I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these, a

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