ment, unless we are capable of living fo in fome measure amidst the noife and business of the world.

I have ever thought men were better known, by what could be obferved of them from a perufal of their private letters, than any other way. My friend. the clergyman, the other day, upon ferious difcourfe with him concerning the danger of procrastination, gave me the following letters from perfons with whom he lives in great friendship and intimacy, according to the good breeding and good fenfe of his character. The first is from a man of business, who is his convert: the fecond from one of whom he conceives good hopes: the third from one who is in no state at all, but carried one way and another by starts.

SIRT

I know not with what words to exprefs to you ← the sense 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 opportunities 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 Lundertake. • When I relieve merit from discountenance, when I affift a friendless perfon, when I produce conceal. ed worth, I am difpleafed with myfelf 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 most obliged and

• most humble fervant, R. O.'

SIR,

SIR,

I am entirely convinced of the truth of what you were pleased to fay to me, when I was laft with you alone. You told me then of the filly way I was in; but you told me fo, 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 prefent. 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 undefigning, and harmless, that her guilt in one, kind difappears by the comparifon of her innocence in another. Will you, • virtuous men allow, no alleviation of offences? • Muft dear Chloe be called by the hard name you 'pious people give 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 subscribe myself C yours,

SIR,

• T. D.'

There is no state 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 first 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 me to purchase a handsome retreat in the country. At prefent my circumstances enable me, and my duty prompts me, to pass away the remaining part of my life in such a retirement as I at first propofed to myself; but, to my great ⚫ misfortune, I have entirely loft the relifh of it, and fhould now return to the country with greater reluctance than I at first came to court.. I am so un

happy

happy 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.

I am

Your most humble fervant,

I 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,

Obferving that you have thoughts of creating certain officers under you, for the infpection of fe⚫veral petty enormities which you yourself 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 those of our own country, who are curious fpectators of the fame; I do humbly propose, that you would be pleased to make me your fuperintendent of all fuch figures and de

⚫vices

vices as are or fhall be made use 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 sense to be met with in those objects < that are every where thrusting themselves out to the eye, and endeavouring to become vifible. Our streets ⚫ 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 Africa. Strange! that one who has all the birds and beafts in nature to chufe out ' of, should 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 incongruous natures fhould be joined together in the fame fign; fuch as the bell and the 'neat's tongue, the dog and the gridiron. The fox and goose may be supposed to have met, but what has the fox and the 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 therefore I do not intend that " any thing I have here faid should affect it. I must however obferve to you upon this subject, that it is • ufual for a young tradefman, at his firft fetting up, to add to his own fign that of the mafter whom he • ferved; as the husband, after marriage, gives a place to his mistress's arms in his 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 together. I would there•fore establish certain rules, for the determining how • far one tradesman 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 shop to • make

· make ufe of a fign which bears fome affinity to the

wares in which it deals. What can be more inconfiftent than to see a bawd at the fign of the an· gel, or a tailor at the lion? A cook fhould not live • at the boot, nor a fhoemaker at the roafted pig; and yet, for want of this regulation, I have seen a · goat 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 ⚫ those gentlemen who value themselves 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 fhew fome fuch marks of it before their • doors.

When the name gives an occafion for an inge nious 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 sign of the trout; for which reason she has erected before her house the figure of the fish that is her namefake. Mr. Bell has likewife diftinguished himself by a device of the fame nature: And here, Sir, I must beg leave to obferve to you, that this parti⚫cular figure of a bell has given occasion to several • 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 Johnson. Our • apocryphal heathen god is alfo reprefented by this figure; which, in conjunction with the dragon, makes a very handfome picture in fe⚫veral of our streets. 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, until I accidentally fell into the read