with your sweet perfon, I beg the favour of you to ac6 cept of this my fecret mind and thoughts, which hath fo long lodged in my breaft; the which if you do not accept, I believe will go nigh to break my heart. For indeed, my dear, I love you above all the beauties I ever faw in all my life, The young gentleman, and my mafter's daughter, the Londoner that is come down to marry her, fat in the arbour most part of last night. O dear Betty, muft the nightingales fing to those who marry for money, and not to us true lovers! Oh my dear Betty, that we could meet this night where we used to do in the • wood! Now, my dear, if I may not have the bleffing of kiffing your sweet lips, I beg I may have the happiness of kiffing your fair hand, with a few lines from your dear felf, prefented by whom you pleafe or think fit. • I believe, if time would permit me, I could write all day ; but the time being short, and paper little, no more from your never-failing lover till death, James Poor James! fince his time and paper were fo fhort; I, that have more than I can ufe well of both, will put the fentiments of his kind letter, the ftile of which feems to be confufed with fcraps he had got in hearir g and reading what he did not understand, into what he meant to exprefs. Dear Creature, CAN you then neglect him who has forgot all his recreations and enjoyments to pine away his life in thinking of you? When I do fo, you appear more amiable to me than Venus does in the most beautiful defcription that ever was made of her. All this kindness you return with an accufation, that I do not love you : but the contrary is fo manifcft, that I cannot think you in earnest. But the certainty given me in your meffage by Molly, that you do not love me, is what robs me of all comfort. She fays you will not fee me: if you can have Cc 3 fo fo much cruelty, at least write to me, that I may kifs the impreffion made by your fair hand. I love you above all things, and, in my condition, what you look upon with indifference is to me the most exquifite pleasure or pain. Our young lady, and a fine gentleman from London, who are to marry for mercenary ends, walk about our gardens, and hear the voice of evening nightingales, as if for fashion fake they courted thofe folitudes, because they have heard lovers do fo. Oh Betty! could I hear those rivulets murmur, and birds fing while you ftood near me, how little fenfible fhould I be that we are both fervants, that there is any thing on earth above us. Oh! I could write to you as long as I love you, till death itself. James. N. B. By the words Ill-Conditions, James means in a woman Coquetry, in a man Inconftancy. No. LXXII. WEDNESDAY, MAY 23. -Genus immortale manet, multofque per annos And grandfires grandíons the long lift contains. R VIRG. DRYDEN. HAVING already given my reader an account of feve ral extraordinary clubs both ancient and modern, 1 did not defign to have troubled him with any more narratives of this nature; but I have lately received information of a club which I can call neither ancient nor modern, that I dare fay will be no lefs surprising to my reader than it was to myself; for which reafon I fhall communicate it to the public as one of the greatest curiofities in its kind. A friend of mine complaining of a tradefman who is related to him, after having reprefented him as a very idle worthlefs fellow, who neglected his family, and spent moft moft of his time over a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, that he was a member of the Everlasting Club. So very odd a title raised my curiofity to inquire into the nature of a club that had fuch a founding name; upon which my friend gave me the following account. THE Everlafting Club confifts of an hundred mem bers, who divide the whole twenty-four hours among them in such a manner, that the club fits day and night from one end of the year to another; no party prefuming to rife till they are relieved by thofe who are in courfe to fucceed them. By this means a member of the everlasting club never wants company; for though he is not upon duty himself, he is fure to find fome who are; fo that if he be disposed to take a whet, a nooning, an evening's draught, or a bottle after midnight, he goes to the club, and finds a knot of friends to his mind. It is a maxim in this club, that the steward never dies; for as they fucceed one another by way of rotation, no man is to quit the great elbow-chair which ftands at the upper end of the table, 'till his fucceffor is in a readiness to fill it; infomuch that there has not been a Sede vacante in the memory of man. This club was inftituted towards the end, or, as fomè of them fay, about the middle, of the civil wars, and continued without interruption till the time of the Great Fire, which burnt them out, and difperfed them for feveral weeks. The fteward at that time maintained his poft till he had like to have been blown up with a neigh bouring houfe, which was demolished in order to stop the fire; and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received repeated directions from the club to withdraw himself. This fteward is frequently talked of in the club, and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man than the famous captain mentioned in my lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship because he would not quit it without orders. It is faid that towards the clofe of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the club had it under confideration whether they should break up or continue their feffion; but after many speeches and debates, it was at length agreed to fit out the other century. This refolution paffed in a general club nemine contradicente. Having given this short account of the inftitution and continuation of the Everlasting Club, I fhould here endeavour to fay fomething of the manners and characters of its several members, which I fhall do according to the beft lights I have received in this matter. It appears by their books in general, that, fince their firft inftitution, they have fmoked fifty tun of tobacco, drank thirty thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red port, two hundred barrels of brandy, and a kilderkin of fmall-beer. There had been likewife a great confumption of cards. It is also faid, that they obferve the law in Ben Jonfon's club, which orders the fire to be always kept in, focus perennis efto, as well for the convenience of lighting their pipes, as to cure the dampness of the club room. They have an old woman in the nature of a veftal, whose business is to cherish and perpetuate the fire which burns from generation to generation, and has feen the glafs-houfe fires in and out above an hundred times. The Everlafting Club treats all other clubs with an eye of contempt, and talks even of the Kit-Cat and October as of a couple of upftarts. Their ordinary difcourse, as much as I have been able to learn of it, turns altogether upon fuch adventures as have paffed in their own affembly; of members who have taken the glass in their turns for a week together, without ftirring out of the club; of others who have not miffed their morning's draught for twenty years together; fometimes they speak in raptures of a run of ale in king Charles's reign; and fometimes reflect with astonishment upon games at whift, which have been miraculously recovered by members of the fociety, when in all human probability the cafe was defpe rate. They delight in feveral old catches, which they fing at all hours, to encourage one another to moiften their clay, and grow immortal by drinking; with many other edi fying exhortations of the like nature. There 1 There are four general clubs held in a year, at which time they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire-maker or elect a new one, fettle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other neceffaries. The fenior member has out-lived the whole club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of fome of the present fitting members. I No. LXXIII. THURSDAY, MAY 24. O Dea certè ! O Goddess! for no less you feem. C VIRG. T is very strange to confider, that a creature like man, who is fenfible of fo many weakneffes and imperfections, fhould be actuated by a love of fame; that vice and ignorance, imperfection and mifery, fhould contend for praise, and endeavour as much as poffible to make themselves objects of admiration. But notwithstanding man's effential perfection is but very little, his comparative perfection may be very confiderable. If he looks upon himself in an abstracted light, he has not much to boast of; but if he confiders himself with regard to others, he may find occafion of glorying, if not in his own virtues, at leaft in the abfence of another's imperfections. This gives a different turn to the reflections of the wife man and the fool. The first endeavours to fhine in himself, and the last to outshine others. The firft is humbled by the fenfe of his own infirmities, the last is lifted up by the difcovery of thofe which he obferves in other men. The wife man confiders what he wants, and the fool what he abounds in. The wife man is happy when he gains his own approba. tion, and the fool when he recommends himself to the applaufe of thofe about him. But however unreasonable and abfurd this paffion for admiration may appear in fuch a creature as man, it is not wholly to be difcouraged; fince it often produces very |