is in no ftate at all, but carried one way and another by starts.

Sir,

KNOW not with what words to exprefs to you the fenfe I have of the high obligation you have laid upon me, in the penance you enjoined me of doing fome good or other to a perfon of worth every day I live. The ftation I am in furnishes me with daily op 'portunities of this kind; and the noble principle with which you have inspired me, of benevolence to all I • have to deal with, quickens my application in every ⚫ thing I undertake. When I relieve merit from difcountenance, when I affift a friendless perfon, when I produce concealed worth, I am difpleafed with myself 'for having defigned to leave the world in order to be virtuous. I am forry you decline the occafions which the condition I am in might afford me of enlarging your • fortunes; but know I contribute more to your fatisfaction when I acknowledge I am the better man, from the influence and authority you have over,

• Sir,

Your moft obliged and

moft humble fervant,

'R. O.'

• Sir,

:I AM intirely convinced of the truth of what you were pleased to fay to me, when I was laft with 6 you alone. You told me then of the filly way I was in; but you told me so, as I faw you loved me, otherwife I could not obey your commands in letting you • know my thoughts fo fincerely as I do at present. “I "know the creature for whom I refign fo much of my "character," is all that you faid of her; but then the • trifler has fomething in her fo undesigning and harm、 lefs, that her guilt in one kind disappears by the comparifon of her innocence in another. Will you, virtuous men, allow no alteration of offences? Muft dear • Chloe be called by the hard name you pious people give

• to

< to common women? I keep the folemn promife I made you in writing to you the ftate of my mind, after your kind admonition; and will endeavour to get the better of this fondnefs, which makes me fo much her humble fervant, that I am almost ashamed to fubfcribe myself yours,

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• Sir,

TH

''T. D.'

HERE is no ftate of life fo anxious as that of a man who does not live according to the dictates of his own reafon. It will feem odd to you, when I affure you that my love of retirement firit of all brought me to court; but this will be no riddle, when I acquaint you that I placed myself here with a defign of getting fo much money as might enable 6 me to purchafe a handfome retreat in the country. At prefent my circumftances enable me, and my duty prompts me, to pass away the remaining part of my life in fuch a retirement as I at firft propofed to myfelf; but to my great misfortune I have intirely loft the relifh of it, and fhould now return to the country with greater reluctance than I at first came ⚫ to court. I am fo unhappy, as to know that what I am fond of are trifles, and that what I neglect is of the greatest importance: in fhort, I find a conteft in my own mind between reafon and fashion. I remember you once told me, that I might live in the world and out of it at the fame time. Let me beg of you to explain this paradox more at large to me, that I may conform my life, if poffible, both to my duty and my inclination.

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No. XXVIII. MONDAY, APRIL 2.

-Neque femper arcum

Tendit Apollo.

Nor does Apollo always bend his bow.

HOR.

SHALL here prefent my reader with a letter from a projector, concerning a new office which he thinks may very much contribute to the embellishment of the city, and to the driving barbarity out of our streets. I confider it as a fatire upon projectors in general, and a lively picture of the whole art of modern criticism.

• Sir,

OBSERVING that you have thoughts of creat

ing certain officers under you, for the infpection of feveral petty enormities which you yourfelf cannot attend to; and finding daily abfurdities hung out upon the fign-pofts of this city, to the great fcandal of foreigners, as well as thofe of our own country, who are curious fpectators of the fame; I do humbly propofe that you would be pleafed to make me your fuperintendant of all fuch figures and devices as are or fhall be made ufe of on this occafion; with full powers to rectify or expunge whatever I fhall find irregular or defective. For want of fuch an officer, there is nothing like found literature and good fenfe to be met with in thofe objects, that are every where thrufting themselves out to the eye, and endeavouring to become visible. Our ftreets are filled with blue boars, black fwans, and red lions; not to mention flying pigs and hogs in armour, with many 'other creatures more extraordinary than any in the deferts of Afric. Strange! that one who has all birds and beafts in nature to choofe out of, fhould live at the fign of an Ens Rationis!

My first task therefore fhould be, like that of Hercules, to clear the city from monsters. In the fecond place I would forbid, that creatures of jarring and in

con

.

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congruous natures fhould be join'd together in the fame fign; fuch as the Bel and the Neat's-tongue, the Dog and Gridiron. The Fox and Goofe may be fuppofed to have met, but what has the Fox and Seven Stars to do together? And when did the Lamb and Dolphin ever meet, except upon a fign-poft? As for the Cat and Fiddle, there is a conceit in it; and there• fore I do not intend that any thing I have here said fhould affect it. I muft however obferve to you upon this fubject, that it it is ufual for a young tradefiman, 6 at his first fetting-up, to add to his own fign that of the mafter whom he ferved; as the hufband, after 'marriage, gives a place to his miftrefs's arms in his 6 own coat. This I take to have given rife to many of thofe abfurdities which are committed over our heads; and, as I am informed, first occafioned the three Nuns and a Hare, which we fee fo frequently joined toge<ther. I would therefore establish certain rules, for the determining how far one tradefman may give the fign of another, and in what cafes he may be allowed to quarter it with his own.

In the third place, I would enjoin every fhop to make use of a fign which bears fome affinity to the wares in which it deals. What can be more inconfiftent, than to fee a Bawd at the fign of the Angel, or a Tailor at the Lion? A Cook fhould not live at the Boot, nor a Shoe-maker at the Roafted Pig; and yet, for want of this regulation, I have feen a Goat 4 fet up before the door of a perfumer, and the French king's head at a fword-cutler's.

An ingenious foreigner obferves, that feveral of thofe gentlemen who value themfelves upon their families, and overlook fuch as are bred to trade, bear the tools of their forefathers in their coats of arms. I will not examine how true this is in fact; but though it may not be neceffary for pofterity thus to fet up the fign of their forefathers, I think it highly proper for those who actually profefs the trade, to thew fome fuch marks of it before their doors.

When the name gives an occafion for an ingenious' fign-poft, I would likewise advise the owner to take that opportunity of letting the world know who he is. It would have been ridiculous for the ingenious Mrs. Salmon to have lived at the fign of the trout; for which reafon fhe has erected before her house the figure of the fish that is her name-fake. Mr. Bell has likewife diftinguished himíelf by a device of the fame nature: and here, Sir, I must beg leave to obferve to you, that this particular figure of a bell has given occafion to feveral pieces of wit in this kind. A man of your reading muft know, that Abel Drugger gained great applaufe by it in the time of Ben Jonfon. Our apocryphal heathen God is alfo reprefented by this figure; which, in conjunction with the < dragon, makes a very handfome picture in feveral of • our ftreets. As for the bell-favage, which is the fign of a favage man ftanding by a bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old romance tranflated out of the French; which gives an account of a very beautiful woman who was found in a wil⚫dernefs, and is called in the French, La belle Sauvage; and is every where tranflated by our countrymen the Bell-favage. This piece of philofophy will, I hope, convince you that I have made fign-pofts my study, and confequently qualified myself for the employment which I folicit at your hands. But before I conclude my letter, I must communicate to vou ⚫ another remark which I have made upon the fubject, with which I am now entertaining you, namely that I can give a fhrewd gucfs at the humour of the inhabitant by the fign that hangs before his door. A furly choleric fellow generally makes choice of a bear; as men of milder difpofitions frequently live at the lamb. Seeing a punch-bowl painted upon a fign near Charing-Crofs, and very curioufly garnished, with a couple of angels hovering over it and fqueezing a lcmon into it, I had the curiofity to afk after the mafter

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