libertine women, fo will I be as little merciful to infignificant and mischievous men. In order to this, all vifitants who frequent families wherein there are young females, are forthwith required to declare themfelves, or abfent from places where their prefence banishes fuch as would pass their time more to the advantage of those whom they vifit. It is a matter of too great moment to be dallied with and I fhall expect from all my young people a fatisfactory account of appearances. Strephon has from the publication hereof feven days to explain the riddle he prefented to Eudamia; and Chloris an hour after this comes to her hand, to declare whether the will have Philotas, whom a woman of no less merit than herself, and of fuperior fortune, languishes to call her own. SIR, Since To the Spectator. Ince fo many dealers turn authors, and write quaint advertisements in praise of their wares, one who from an author turned dealer may be allowed for the advancement of trade to turn author again. I will not however fet up like fome of them, for felling cheaper than the moft able honeft tradefmen can; nor do I fend this to be better known for choice and cheapnefs of china and japan wares, tea, fans, muflins, pictures, arrack, and other Indian goods. Placed as I am in Leadenhall-street, near the India-company, and the centre of that trade, thanks to my fair cuftomers, my warehoufe is graced as well as the benefit days of my plays and operas; and the foreign goods I fell feem no lefs acceptable than the foreign books I tranflated, Rabelais and Don Quixote: this the critics allow me, and while they like my wares they may difpraife my writing. But as it is not fo well known yet that I 'frequently crofs the feas of late, and fpeaking Dutch and French, befides other languages, I have the conveniency of buying and importing rich brocades, Dutch atlas's, with gold and filver, or without, and other foreign filks of the newest modes and beft fabrics, fine Flanders lace, linens, and pictures, at the best hand; ⚫ this • this my new way of trade I have fallen into I cannot better publifh than by an application to you. My wares are fit only for fuch as your readers; and I would beg of you to print this addrefs in your paper, that those whofe minds you adorn may take the ornaments for their perfons and houses from me. This, < Sir, if I may prefume to beg it, will be the greater 'favour, as I have lately received rich filks and fine lace to a confiderable value, which will be fold cheap for a quick return, and as I have alfo a large ftock of other goods. Indian filks were formerly a great branch of our trade; and fince we must not fell them, we must 'feek amends by dealing in others. This I hope will plead for one who would leffen the number of teazers of the mufes, and who, fuiting his fpirit to his circumitances, humbles the poet to exalt the citizen. Like a true tradefman, I hardly ever look into any books but thofe of accounts. To fay the truth, I cannot, I think, give you a better idea of my being a downright man of traffic, than by acknowledging I oftener read the • advertisements, than the matter of even your paper. I am under a great temptation to take this opportunity of admonishing other writers to follow my example, and trouble the town no more; but as it is my prefent business to increase the number of buyers rather than fellers, I haften to tell you that I am, T Sir, your most humble • and moft obedient fervant, Peter Motteux.' G 5 Thursday, N° 289 Thursday, January 3F. Vita fumma brevis fpem nos vetat inchoare longam: Life's fpan forbids us to extend our cares, UP CREECH.. PON taking my feat in a coffee-houfe I often draw the eyes of the whole room upon me,. when in the hottest seasons of news, and at a time perhaps that: the Dutch mail is juft come in, they hear me ask the coffee-man for his laft week's bill of mortality: I find. that I have been fometimes taken on this occafion for a parifh fexton, fometimes for an undertaker, and.fometimes for a doctor of phyfic. In this, however, I am guided by the fpirit of a philofopher, as I take occafion from hence to reflect upon the regular increase and dimi nution of mankind, and confider the feveral various ways. through which we pafs from life to eternity. I am very well pleased with these weekly admonitions, that bring. into my mind fuch thoughts as ought to be the daily en-. tertainment of every reasonable creature, and can confider with pleasure to myself, by which of thofe deliveances, or, as we commonly call them,. diftempers, Imay poffibly make my efcape out of this world. of forrows, into that condition of exiftence, wherein I hope to be happier than it is poffible for me at prefent to conceive.. But this is not all the ufe I make of the above-mentioned weekly paper. A bill of mortality is in my opinion an unanfwerable argument for a Providence. How can we, without fuppofing ourselves under the constant care of a fupreme Being, give any poffible account for that nice proportion, which we find in every great city, -between the deaths and births of its inhabitants, and beween the number of males and that of females, who are brought into the world? What else could adjust in fo exact a manner the recruits of every nation to its loffes, and divide thefe new fupplies of people into fuch equal bodies of both fexes? Chance could never hold the balance with fo fteady a hand. Were we not counted out by an intelligent fupervifor, we should fometimes be over-charged with multitudes, and at others wafte away into a defert: we should be fometimes a populus virorum, as Florus elegantly expreffes it, "a generation of males," and at others a fpecies of women.. We may extend thisconfideration to every fpecies of living creatures, and confider the whole animal world as an huge army made up of innumerable corps, if I may ufe that term, whofe quotas have been kept intire near five thousand years, in fo wonderful a manner, that there is not probably a single fpecies loft during this long tract of time. Could we have general bills of mortality of every kind of animals, or particular ones of every fpecies in each continent and iland, I could almoft fay in every wood, marth or moun tain, what aftonifhing inftances would they be of that Providence which watches over all its works? I have heard of a great man in the Romish church,. who, upon reading thofe words in the 5th chapter of Genefis, "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hun dred and thirty years, and he died; and all the days "of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died; and all the days of Methuselah were nine hun“dred and fixty-nine years, and he died;" immediately hut himself up in a convent, and retired from the world, as not thinking any thing in this life worth pursuing, which had not regard to another. The truth of it is, there is nothing in hiftory which is fo improving to the reader, as thofe accounts which we meet with of the deaths of eminent perfons, and of their behaviour in that dreadful feafon. It may alfo add, that there are no parts in history which affect and please the reader in fo fenfible a manner. The reafon I take to be this, becaufe there is no other fingle circumftance in the ftory of any perfon, which can poffibly be the cafe of every one who reads it. A battle or a triumph are conjunctures in which not one man in a million is likely to be engaged;. but when we fee a perfon at the point of death, we cannot forbear being attentive to every thing he fays or does, be G6 caufe cause we are fure that fome time or other we shall ourselves be in the fame melancholy circumftances. The general, the statesman, or the philofopher, are perhaps characters which we may never act in, but the dying man is one whom, fooner or later, we fhall certainly refemble. It is, perhaps, for the fame kind of reafon that few books, written in English, have been fo much perufed as Dr. Sherlock's difcourfe upon death; though at the fame time I must own, that he who has not perufed this excellent piece, has not perhaps read one of the strongest perfuafives to a religious life that ever was written in any language. The confideration, with which I fhall clofe this effay upon death, is one of the moft ancient and most beaten morals that has been recommended to mankind. But its being fo very common, and fo univerfally received, though it takes away from it the grace of novelty, adds very much to the weight of it, as it fhews that it falls in with the general fenfe of mankind. In fhort, I would have every one confider, that he is in this life nothing more than a paffenger, and that he is not to fet up his reft here, but to keep an attentive eye upon that ftate of being to which he approaches every moment, and which will be for ever fixed and permanent. This fingle confideration would be fufficient to extinguish the bitterness of hatred, the thirft of avarice, and the cruelty of ambition. I am very much pleafed with the paffage of Antiphanes, a very anciet poet, who lived near an hundred years before Socrates, which reprefents the life of man under this view, as I have here tranflated it word for word. "Be "not grieved," fays he, "above measure for thy deceafed friends. They are not dead, but have only finished that journey which it is neceffary for every one of us to take, We ourselves must go to that great place of reception in which they are all of them affembled, and in this general rendezvous of mankind, "live together in another ftate of being." I think I have, in a former paper, taken notice of those beautiful metaphors in fcripture, where life is termed a pilgrimage, and thofe who pafs through it are called ftrangers and fojourners upon earth. I fhall conclude this with a story, which I have fomewhere road in the travels of |