Among several persons and pretensions recorded by my author, he mentions one of a very great estate, who, for having roasted an ox whole, and distributed a hogshead upon king Charles's birth-day, desired to be provided for as his majesty in his great wisdom should think fit.

Another put in to be prince Henry's governor, for having dared to drink his health in the worst of times. A third petitioned for a colonel's commission, for having cursed Oliver Cromwell, the day before his death, on a public bowling-green.

But the most whimsical petition I have met with is that of B. B. Esq. who desired the honour of knighthood, for having cuckolded Sir T. W. a notorious Roundhead.

There is likewise the petition of one who, having let his beard grow from the martyrdom of King Charles the First, until the restoration of King Charles the Second, desired in consideration thereupon to be made a privycounsellor.

I must not omit a memorial setting forth, that the memorialist had, with great dispatch, carried a letter from a certain Lord to a certain Lord, wherein, as it afterwards appeared, measures were concerted for the restoration, and without which he verily believes that happy revolution had never been effected; who thereupon humbly prays to be made postmaster-general.

A certain gentleman, who seems to write with a great deal of spirit, and uses the words gallantry and gentlemanlike very often in his petition, begs that (in consideration of his having worn his hat for ten years past in the loyal cavalier-cock, to his great danger and detriment) he may be made a captain of the guards.

I shall close my account of this collection of memorials with the copy of one petition at length, which I recommend to my reader as a very valuable piece.

The Petition of E. H. Esq..

HUMBLY SHEWETH,

That your petitioner's father's brother's uncle, colonel W. H. lost the third finger of his left hand at Edgehill fight.

That your petitioner, notwithstanding the smallness of his fortune, (he being a younger brother) always kept hospitality, and drank confusion to the Roundheads in half a score of bumpers every Sunday in the year, as several honest gentlemen (whose names are under-written) are ready to testify.

That your petitioner is remarkable in his country, for having dared to treat Sir P. P. a cursed sequestrator, and three members of the assembly of divines, with brawn and minced pies upon new-year's day.

That your said humble petitioner hath been five times imprisoned in five different county-gaols, for having been a ringleader in five different riots; into which his zeal for the royal cause hurried him, when men of greater estates had not the courage to rise.

1

'That he the said E. H. hath had six duels and fourand-twenty boxing matches in defence of his majesty's title; and that he received such a blow upon the head at a bonfire in Stratford upon Avon, as he hath never been the better of from that day to this.

That your petitioner hath been so far from improving his fortune, in the late damnable times, that he verily believes, and hath good reason to imagine, that if he had been master of an estate he had infallibly been plundered and sequestered.

Your petitioner, in consideration of his said merits and sufferings, humbly requests that he may have the place of receiver of the taxes, collector of the customs, clerk of the peace, deputy-lieutenant, or whatsoever else he shall be thought qualified for. And your petitioner shall ever pray, &c.

NO. 630, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1714.

Favete linguis

With mute attention wait.

HOR. Od. i. 1. 3. ver. 2.

HAVING no spare time to write any thing of my own, or to correct what is sent me by others, I have thought fit to publish the following letters.

'SIR,

Oxford, November 22.

IF you would be so kind to me, as to suspend that satisfaction, which the learned world must receive in reading one of your speculations, by publishing this endeavour, you will very much oblige and improve one, who has the boldness to hope that he may be admitted into the number of your correspondents.

'I have often wondered to hear men of good sense and good-nature profess a dislike to music, when at the same time they do not scruple to own that it has the most agreeable and improving influences over their minds : it seems to me an unhappy contradiction, that those persons should have an indifference for an art which raises in them such a variety of sublime pleasures.

'However, though some few, by their own or the unreasonable prejudices of others, may be led into a distaste for those musical societies which are erected merely for entertainment, yet sure I may venture to say that no one can have the least reason for disaffection to that SOlemn kind of melody which consists of the praises of our Creator.

You have, I presume, already prevented me in an argument upon this occasion, which some divines have successfully advanced upon a much greater, that musical sacrifice and adoration has claimed a place in the laws and customs of the most different nations, as the Grecians and Romans of the profane, the Jews and Christians of the sacred world, did as unanimously agree in this as they disagreed in all other parts of their economy.

I know there are not wanting some who are of opinion that the pompous kind of music which is in use in foreign churches, is the most excellent, as it most affects our senses. But I am swayed by my judgment to the modesty which is observed in the musical part of our devotions. Methinks there is something very laudable in the custom of a voluntary before the first lesson; by this we are supposed to be prepared for the admission of those divine truths which we are shortly to receive. We are then to cast all worldly regards from off our hearts, all tumults within are then becalmed, and there should be nothing near the soul but peace and tranquillity. So that in this short office of praise, the man is raised above himself, and is almost lost already amidst the joys of futurity.

، I have heard some nice observers frequently commend the policy of our church in this particular, that it leads us on by such easy and regular methods that we are perfectly deceived into piety. When the spirits begin to languish (as they too often do with a constant series of petitions) she takes care to allow them a pious respite, and relieves them with the raptures of an anthem. Nor can we doubt that the sublimest poetry, softened in the most moving strains of music, can never fail of humbling or exalting the soul to any pitch of devotion. Who can hear the terrors of the Lord of Hosts described in the most expressive melody without being awed into a veneration? Or who can hear the kind and endearing attributes of a merciful father, and not be softened into love towards him?

As the rising and sinking of the passions, the casting soft or noble hints into the soul, is the natural privilege of music in general, so more particularly of that kind which is employed at the altar. Those impressions which it leaves upon the spirits are more deep and lasting, as the grounds from which it receives its authority are founded more upon reason. It diffuses calmness all around us, it makes us drop all those vain or immodest thoughts which would be a hindrance to us in the performance of that great duty of thanksgiving, which, as we are informed by our Almighty Benefactor, is the most acceptable return which can be made for those infinite stores of blessings which he daily condescends to pour down upon his creatures. When we make use of this pathetical method of addressing ourselves to him, we can scarce contain from raptures! The heart is warmed with a sublimity of goodness! We are all piety and all love!

How do the blessed spirits rejoice and wonder to behold unthinking man prostrating his soul to his dread Sovereign, in such a warmth of piety as they themselves might not be ashamed of!

• I shall close these reflections with a passage taken out of the third book of Milton's Paradise lost, where those harmonious beings are thus nobly described :

" Then crown'd again, their golden harps they took,
Harps ever tun'd, that, glittering by their side,
Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet

Of charming symphony they introduce
The sacred song, and waken raptures high:
No one exempt, no voice but well could join
Melodious part-such concord is in heaven!"

Mr. SPECTATOR,

'THE town cannot be unacquainted that in divers parts of it there are vociferous sets of men who are called Rattling Clubs; but what shocks me most is, they have now the front to invade the church and institute those societies there, as a clan of them have in late times done, to such a degree of insolence as has given the partition where they reside, in a church near one of the city gates, the denomination of the Rattling Pew. These gay fellows, from humble lay professions, set up for critics without any tincture of letters or reading, and have the vanity to think they can lay hold of something from the parson which may be formed into ridicule.

'It is needless to observe, that the gentlemen who every Sunday have the hard province of instructing these wretches in a way they are in no present disposition to take, have a fixed character for learning and eloquence, not to be tainted by the weak efforts of this contemptible part of their audiences. Whether the pulpit is taken by these gentlemen or any strangers their friends, the way of the club is this: if any sentiments are delivered too sublime for their conception; if any uncommon topic is entered on, or one in use new-modified with the finest judgment and dexterity; or any controverted point be never so elegantly handled: in short, whatever surpasses the narrow limits of their theology, or is not suited to their taste, they are all immediately upon the watch, fixing their eyes upon each other with as much warmth as our gladiators of Hockley-in-the-Hole, and waiting like them for a hit; if one touches, all take fire, and their noddles instantly meet in the centre of the pew; then, as by beat of drum, with exact discipline, they rear up into a full length of stature, and with odd looks and gesticulations, confer together in so loud and clamorous a manner, continued to the close of the discourse, and during the after-psalm, as is not to be silenced but by the bells. Nor does this suffice them, without aiming to propagate their noise through all the church, by signals given to the adjoining seats, where others designed for