petition the Lord Mayor and Aldermen for a reward. A letter, dated September the ninth, acquaints me, That the writer being refolved to try his fortune, had fafted all that day; and that he might be fure of dreaming upon fomething at night, procured an handsome flice of bride-cake, 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 fearch reduced to a few crums, he is refolved to remember more of his dreams another time, believing from this that there may poffibly be fomewhat of truth in them. I have received numerous complaints from feveral delicious dreamers, defiring me to invent fome method of filencing thofe noify flaves whofe occupations lead them to take their early rounds about the city in a morning, doing a deal of mischief; and working ftrange confufion in the affairs of its inhabitants. Several Monarchs have done me the honour to acquaint me, how often they have been fhook from their refpective thrones by the rattling of a coach, or the rumbling of a wheel-barrow. And many private Gentlemen, I find, have been bawled out of vaft eftates by fellows not worth three-pence. A fair Lady was just upon the point of being married to a young, handfome, rich, ingenious nobleman, when an impertinent tinker paffing by forbid the banns; and an hopeful youth, who had been newly advanced to great honour and preferment, was forced by a neighbouring cobler to refign all for an old fong. It has been reprefented to me, that those inconfiderable rascals do nothing but go about diffolving of marriages, and fpoiling of fortunes, impoverishing rich, and ruining great people, interrupting beauties in the midst of their conquefts, 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 thops or clean fhoes, frequently transforming fceptres into paring fhovels, and proclamations into bills. I have by me a letter from a young ftatefman, who in five or fix 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 univerfe in Conftantinople: The conclufion of all his fucceffes is, that on the 12th instant, about feven in the morning, his imperial majefty was depofed by a chimney-fweeper. On the other hand, I have epiftolary teftimonies of gratitude from many miferable people, who owe to this clamorous tribe frequent deliverances, from great misfortunes. A fmall-coal-man, by waking of one of thefe diftreffed Gentlemen, faved him from ten years imprisonment. An honeft watch. man, bidding a loud good-morrow to another, freed him from the malice of many potent enemies, and brought all their defigns against him to nothing. A certain valetudinarian confeffes he has often been cured of a fore throat by the hoarfeness of a carman, and relieved from a fit of the gout by the found of old foes. A noify puppy, that plagued a fober Gentleman all night long with his impertinence, was filenced by a cinder-wench with a word fpeaking. Instead therefore of fuppreffing this order of mortals, I would propose it to my readers to make the best advantage of their morning falutations. A famous Macedonian Prince, for fear of forgetting himself in the midft 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 circumftances he has overlooked overlooked all the night-time, to leave off fancying himself what he is not, and prepare to act fuitably to the condition he is really placed in. People may dream on as long as they please, but I fhall take no notice of any imaginary adventures, that do not happen while the fun is on this fide the horizon. For which reafon I ftifle Fritil la's dream at church last Sunday, who, while the reft of the audience were enjoying the benefit of an excellent difcourfe, was lofing her money and jew els to a Gentleman at play, until after a strange runTM of ill luck fhe was reduced to pawn three lovely pretty children for her last stake. When fhe had thrown them away, her companion went off, difcovering himself by his ufual tokens, a cloven foor and a ftrong fmell of brimftome; which laft prov ed a bottle of fpirits, which a good old Lady ap plied to her nofe, to put her in a condition of hear ing the preacher's third head concerning time. If a man has no mind to pafs abruptly from his imagined to his real circumstances, he may employ himself a while in that new kind of obfervation which my onirocritical correfpondent has directed? him to make of himself. Purfuing the imaginati on through all its extravagancies, whether in fleep ing or waking, is no improper method of correct ing and bringing it to act in fubordinacy to reason, fo as to be delighted only with fuch objects as will affect it with pleasure, when it is never fo cool and fedate. FRIDAY, No 598. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. Jamne igitur laudas, quod de fapientibus alter Will ye not now the pair of fages praife, DRYDEN. MANKIND may be divided into the merry and the serious, who, both of them, make a very good figure in the fpecies, fo long as they keep their refpective humours from degenerating into the neighbouring extreme; there being a natural tendency in the one to a melancholy morofenefs, and in the other to a fantastic levity. The merry part of the world are very amiable, while they diffufe a cheerfulness through converfation at proper seasons, and on proper occafions, but, on the contrary, a great grievance to fociety, when they infect every difcourfe with infipid mirth, and turn into ridicule fuch subjects as are not fuited to it. For though laughter is looked upon by the philofophers as the property of reafon, the excefs of it has been always confidered as the mark of folly. On the other fide, ferioufnefs has its beauty while it is attended with cheerfulness and humanity, and does not come in unfeasonably to pall the good-humour of thofe with whom we converse. These two fets of men, notwithstanding they each of them fhine in their respective characters, are are apt to bear a natural averfion and antipathy to one another. What is more ufual than to hear men of serious tempers and auftere morals, enlarging upon the vanities and follies of the young and gay part of the fpecies; while they look with a kind of horror upon fuch pomps and diverfions as are innocent in themfelves, and only culpable when they draw the mind too much? I could not but smile upon reading a paffage in the account which Mr. Baxter gives of his own life, wherein he reprefents it as a great bleffing, that in. his youth he very narrowly escaped getting a place at court. It must indeed be confeffed, that levity of temper takes a man off his guard, and opens a pafs to his foul for any temptation that affaults it. It favours all the approaches of vice, and weakens all the refiftance of virtue. For which reafon a renowned ftatesman in Queen Elifabeth's days, afterhaving retired from court and public bufinefs, in order to give himfelf up to the duties of religion ;when any of his old friends used to vifit him, had ftill this word of advice in his mouth, Be ferious. An eminent Italian author of this caft of mind, fpeaking of the great advantage of a ferious and compofed temper, wifhes very gravely, that for the benefit of mankind he had Trophonius's cave in his poffeffion; which, fays he, would contribute more to the reformation of manners than all the workhoufes and Bridewells in Europe. We have a very particular defcription of this cave in Paufanias, who tells us that it was made in the form of a huge oven, and had many particular circumftances which difpofed the perfon who was in it to be more penfive and thoughtful than ordinary; infomuch that no man was ever observed to laugh all his life after, who had once. made his entry r |