เ

Upon my coming home, I settled to my studies so heartily, and contracted so great a reservedness by being kept from the company I most affected, that my father thought he might venture me at the Temple.

"Within a week after my arrival I began to shine again, and became enamoured with a mighty pretty creature, who had every thing but money to recommend her. Having frequent opportunities of uttering all the soft things which an heart formed for love could inspire me with, I soon gained her consent to treat of marriage; but, unfortunately for us all, in the absence of my charmer I usually talked the same language to her eldest sister, who is also very pretty. Now, I assure you, Mr. Spectator, this did not proceed from any real affection I had conceived for her; but, being a perfect stranger to the conversation of men, and strongly addicted to associate with the women, I knew no other language but that of love. I should however be very much obliged to you if you could free me from the perplexity I am at present in. I have sent word to I have sent word to my old gentleman in the country that I am desperately in love with the younger sister; and her father, who knew no better, poor man, acquainted him by the same post, that I had for some time made my addresses to the elder. Upon this old Testy sends me up word, that he has heard so much of my exploits, that he intends immediately to order me to the South-sea. Sir, I have occasionally talked so much of dying, that I begin to think there is not much in it; and if the old squire persists in his design, I do hereby give him notice that I am providing myself with proper instruments for the destruction of despairing lovers. Let him therefore look to it, and consider that by his

obstinacy he may himself lose the son of his strength, the world an hopeful lawyer, my mistress a passionate lover, and you, Mr. Spectator,

'Your constant admirer,

'JEREMY LOVEMORE.'

No. 597. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1714.

-Mons sine pondere ludit.

PETER.

The mind uncumber'd plays.

SINCE I received my friend Shadow's letter, several of my correspondents have been pleased to send me an account how they have been employed in sleep, and what notable adventures they have been engaged in during that moonshine in the brain. I shall lay before my readers an abridgment of some few of their extravagancies, in hopes that they will in time accustom themselves to dream a little more to the purpose.

One, who styles himself Gladio, complains heavily that his fair one charges him with inconstancy, and does not use him with half the kindness which the sincerity of his passion may demand; the said Gladio having by valour and stratagem put to death tyrants, enchanters, monsters, knights, &c. without number, and exposed himself to all manner of dangers for her sake and safety. He desires in his postscript to know whether, from a constant success in them, he may not promise himself to succeed in her esteem at last. Another, who is very prolix in his narrative, writes me word, that, having sent a venture beyond sea, he took occasion one night to fancy himself gone

VOL. VI.-25

along with it, and grown on a sudden the richest man in all the Indies. Having been there about a year or two, a gust of wind, that forced open his casement, blew him over to his native country again, where awaking at six o'clock, and the change of the air not agreeing with him, he turned to his left side in order to a second voyage; but ere he could get on shipboard, was unfortunately apprehended for stealing a horse, tried and condemned for the fact, and in a fair way of being executed, if somebody stepping hastily into his chamber had not brought him a reprieve. This fellow too wants Mr. Shadow's advice; who, I dare say, would bid him be content to rise after his first nap, and learn to be satisfied as soon as nature is.

me,

The next is a public-spirited gentleman, who tells

that on the second of September at night the whole city was on fire, and would certainly have been reduced to ashes again by this time if he had not flown over it with the New River on his back, and happily extinguished the flames before they had prevailed too far. He would be informed whether he has not a right to petition the lord mayor and aldermen for a reward.

A letter, dated September the ninth, acquaints me, that the writer, being resolved to try his fortune, had fasted all that day; and, that he might be sure of dreaming upon something at night, procured an handsome slice of bridecake, which he placed very conveniently under his pillow. In the morning his memory happened to fail him, and he could recollect nothing but an odd fancy that he had eaten his cake; which being found upon search reduced to a few crumbs, he is resolved to remember more of his

dreams another time, believing from this that there may possibly be somewhat of truth in them.

I have received numerous complaints from several delicious dreamers, desiring me to invent some method of silencing those noisy slaves whose occupations lead them to take their early rounds about the city in a morning, doing a deal of mischief, and working strange confusion in the affairs of its inhabitants. Several monarchs have done me the honour to acquaint me how often they have been shook from their respective thrones by the rattling of a coach, or the rumbling of a wheelbarrow. And many private gentlemen, I find, have been bawled out of vast estates by fellows not worth three-pence. A fair lady was just upon the point of being married to a young, handsome, rich, ingenious nobleman, when an impertinent tinker passing by, forbid the bans; and an hopeful youth, who had been newly advanced to great honour and preferment, was forced by a neighbouring cobbler to resign all for an old song. It has been represented to me that those inconsiderable rascals do nothing but go about dissolving of marriages and spoiling of fortunes, impoverishing rich and ruining great people, interrupting beauties in the midst of their conquests, and generals in the course of their victories. A boisterous peripatetic hardly goes through a street without waking half a dozen kings and princes, to open their shops or clean shoes, frequently transforming sceptres into paring-shovels, and proclamations into bills. I have by me a letter from a young statesman, who in five or six hours came to be emperor of Europe, after which he made war upon the Great Turk, routed him horse and foot, and was crowned lord of the universe in Constanti

nople the conclusion of all his successes is, that on the 12th instant, about seven in the morning, his imperial majesty was deposed by a chimney-sweeper.

On the other hand, I have epistolatory testimonies of gratitude from many miserable people, who owe to this clamorous tribe frequent deliverances from great misfortunes. A small-coal man,' by waking one of these distressed gentlemen, saved him from ten years imprisonment. An honest watchman, bidding a loud good-morrow to another, freed him from the malice of many potent enemies, and brought all their designs against him to nothing. A certain valetudinarian confesses he has often been cured of a sore throat by the hoarseness of a carman, and relieved from a fit of the gout by the sound of old shoes. A noisy puppy that plagued a sober gentleman all night long with his impertinence, was silenced by a cinder-wench with a word speaking.

Instead therefore of suppressing this order of mortals, I would propose it to my readers to make the best advantage of their morning salutations. A famous Macedonian prince, for fear of forgetting himself in the midst of his good fortune, had a youth to wait on him every morning and bid him remember that he was a man. A citizen, who is waked by one of these criers, may regard him as a kind of remembrancer, come to admonish him that it is time to return to the circumstances he has overlooked all the night-time, to leave off fancying himself what he is not, and prepare to act suitably to the condition he is really placed in.

People may dream on as long as they please;

1 Sir John Hawkins' Hist. of Music, vol. v. p. 70. The name of this famous musical man was Thomas Britton. See Guard. No. 144, note on M. Thoma Briton.