it, for it is the last you shall ever receive. I from "this moment confider you as mine; and to make you truly fo, I give you my royal word you fhall "never be greater or lefs than you are at prefent. Anfwer me not," concluded the prince fmiling, "but enjoy "the fortune I have put you in, which is above my "own condition; for you have hereafter nothing to "hope or to fear." His majefty having thus well chofen and bought a friend and companion, he enjoyed alternately all the pleasures of an agreeable private man and a great and powerful monarch; he gave himself, with his companion, the name of the merry tyrant; for he punished his courtiers for their infolence and folly, not by any act of public disfavour, but by humorously practifing upon their imaginations. If he obferved a man untractable to his inferiors, he would find an opportunity to take fome favourable notice of him, and render him unfupportable. He knew all his own looks, words, and actions, had their interpretations; and his friend Monfieur Eucrate, for fo he was called, having a great foul without ambition, he could communicate all his thoughts to him, and fear no artful ufe would be made of that freedom. It was no fmall delight when they were in private to reflect upon all which had paffed in public. Pharamond would often, to fatisfy a vain fool of power in his country, talk to him in a full court, and with one whisper make him defpife all his old friends and acquaintance. He was come to that knowledge of men by long obfervation, that he would profefs altering the whole mafs of blood in fome tempers by thrice fpeaking to them. As fortune was in his power, he gave himself conftant entertainment in managing the mere followers of it with the treatment they deferved. He would, by a skilful caft of his eye and half a fimile, make two fellows who hated, embrace and fall upon each other's neck with as much eagernefs, as if they followed their real inclinations, and intended to stifle one another. When he was in high good-humour, he would lay the fcene with Eucrate, and on a public night exercife the paffions of his whole court. He was pleafed to fee an haughty beauty watch the looks of the man fhe had long defpifed, from obfervation of his being taken notice of by Paramond; and the lover conceive higher hopes, than to follow the woman he was dying for the day before. In a court, where men fpeak affection in the ftrongeft terms, and diflike in the fainteft, it was a comical mixture of incidents to fee disguises thrown aside in one case and increafed on the other, according as favour or difgrace attended the refpective objects of mens approbation or difefteem. Pharamond, in his mirth upon the meannefs of mankind, used to say, "As he could take away a man's five fenfes, he could give him an hundred. "The man in difgrace fhall immediately lofe all his "natural endowments, and he that finds favour have "the attributes of an angel." He would carry it fo far as to fay, "It should not be only fo in the opi"nion of the lower part of his court, but the men "themselves fhall think thus meanly or greatly of "themselves, as they are out, or in the good graces of a "court." A monarch, who had wit and humour like Pharamond, must have pleasures which no man elfe can ever have an opportunity of enjoying. He gave fortune to none but those whom he knew could receive it without transport: he made a noble and generous use of his obfervations; and did not regard his ministers as they were agreeable to himself, but as they were useful to his kingdom; by this means the king appeared in every officer of ftate; and no man had a participation of the power, who had not a fimilitude of the virtue of Pharamond. R. No. LXXVII. No. LXXVII. TUESDAY, MAY 29. Non convivere licet, nec urbe totâ Quifquam eft tam propè tam proculque nobis. MART. What correfpondence can I hold with you, My friend Will. Honeycomb is one of those fort of men who are very often abfent in converfation, and what the French call a reveur and a distrait. A little before our club-time last night we were walking together in Somerfet-garden, where Will. had picked up a fmall pebble of fo odd a make, that he faid he would prefent it to a friend of his, an eminent Virtuofo. After we had walked fome time, I made a full ftop with my face towards the weft, which Will. knowing to be my ufual method of afking what's o'clock, in an afternoon, immediately pulled out his watch, and told me we had feven minutes good. We took a turn or two more, when to my great furprize, I faw him fquir away his watch a confiderable way into the Thames, and with great fedatenefs in his looks put up the pebble, he had before found, in his fob. As I have naturally an averfion to much speaking and do not love to be the meffenger of ill news, especially when it comes too late to be ufeful, I left him to be convinced of his mistake in due time, and continued my walk, reflecting on thefe little abfences and distractions in mankind, and refolving to make them the fubject of a future fpeculation. I was the more confirmed in my defign, when I confidered that they were very often blemishes in the characters of men of excellent fenfe; and helped to keep up the reputation of that Latin proverb, which Mr. Dryden has tranflated in the following lines: Great wit to madnefs fure is near ally'd, My reader does, I hope, perceive, that I diftinguish a man who is abfent, because he thinks of fomething elfe, from one who is abfent, because he thinks of nothing at all: the latter is too innocent a creature to be taken notice of; but the diftractions of the former may, I believe, be generally accounted for from one of these reafons. Either their minds are wholly fixed on fome particular fcience, which is often the cafe of mathematicians and other learned men; or are wholly taken up with fome violent paffion, fuch as anger, fear, or love, which ties the mind to fome diftant object; or, lastly, these distractions proceed from a certain vivacity and fickleness in a man's temper, which while it raises up infinite numbers of ideas in the mind, is continually pushing it on, without allowing it to reft on any particular image. Nothing therefore is more unnatural than the thoughts and conceptions of fuch a man, which are feldom occafioned either by the company he is in, or any of thofe objects which are placed before him, While you fancy he is admiring a beautiful woman, it is an even wager that he is folving a propofition in Euclid; and while you may imagine he is reading the Paris-Gazette, it is far from being impoffible, that he is pulling down and rebuilding the front of his countryhouse. At the fame time that I am endeavouring to expofe this weakness in others, I fhall readily confefs that I once laboured under the fame infirmity myfelf. The method I took to conquer it was a firm refolution to learn fomething from whatever I was obliged to fee or hear. There is a way of thinking, if a man can attain to it, by which he may ftrike fomewhat out of any thing. I can at prefent obferve thofe ftarts of good fenfe and ftruggles of unimproved reafon in the converfation of a clown, with as much fatisfaction as the most shining periods of the most finished orator; and can make a fhift to command my attention at a Puppetfhow or an Opera, as well as at Hamlet or Othello. I always make one of the company I am in; for though I fay fay little myself, my attention to others, and those nods of approbation which I never beftow unmerited, sufficiently fhew that I am among them. Whereas Will. Honeycomb, though a fellow of good fenfe, is every day doing and faying an hundred things which he afterwards confeffes, with a well-bred franknefs were fomewhat mal à propos, and undefigned. I chanced the other day to go into a coffee-houfe, where Will. was ftanding in the midst of feveral auditors whom he had gathered round him, and was giving them an account of the perfon and character of Moll Hinton. My appearance before him juft put him in mind of me, without making him reflect that I was actually prefent. So that keeping his eyes full upon me, to the great furprize of his audience, he broke off his first harangue, and proceeded thus:" Why now "there's my friend," mentioning me by name," he " is a fellow that thinks a great deal, but never opens "his mouth; I warrant you he is now thrufting his "fhort face into fome coffee-houfe about 'Change. I " was his bail in the time of the Popish-plot, when he "was taken up for a jefuit." If he had looked on me a little longer, he had certainly defcribed me fo particularly, without ever confidering what led him into it, that the whole company must neceffarily have found me out; for which reafon, remembering the old proverb, ‘Out of sight out of mind,' I left the room; and, upon meeting him an hour afterwards, was aiked by him, with a great deal of good-humour, in what part of the world I had lived, that he had not feen me these three days. Monfieur Bruyere has given us the character of an abfent Man, with a great deal of humour, which he has pushed to an agreeable extravagance; with the heads of it I fhall conclude my prefent paper. Menalcas,' fays that excellent author, comes down in a morning, opens his door to go out, but fhuts it again, because he perceives that he has his night-cap on; and examining himself further finds that he is but • half-fhaved, that he has ftuck his fword on his right Ee 3 • fide, |