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sphere, and approved ourselves better daughters, | taught me at night all he learnt, and put me to better wives, mothers, and friends?

find out words in the dictionary when he was "I cannot but agree with the judicious trader about his exercise. It was the will of Providence in Cheapside (though I am not at all prejudiced that master Harry was taken very ill of a fever, of in his favor) in recommending the study of arith- which he died within ten days after his first fallmetic; and must dissent even from the authority ing sick. Here was the first sorrow I ever knew; which you mention, when it advises the making and I assure you, Mr. Spectator, I remember the our sex scholars. Indeed a little more philosophy, beautiful action of the sweet youth in his fever, as in order to the subduing our passions to our rea- fresh as if it were yesterday. If he wanted anyson might be sometimes serviceable, and a treatise thing, it must be given him by Tom. When I let of that nature I should approve of even in ex- anything fall through the grief I was under, he change for Theodosius, or the Force of Love; would cry, 'Do not beat the poor boy; give him but as I well know you want not hints, I will some more julep for me, nobody else shall give it proceed no farther than to recommend the Bishop me.' He would strive to hide his being so bad, of Cambray's Education of a Daughter, as it is when he saw I could not bear his being in so much translated into the only language I have any danger, and comforted me, saying, Tom, Tom, knowledge of, though perhaps very much to its have a good heart.' When I was holding a cup disadvantage. I have heard it objected against at his mouth, he fell into convulsions; and at this that piece, that its instructions are not of general very time I hear my dear master's last groan. I usc, but only fitted for a great lady: but I confess was quickly turned out of the room, and left to I am not of that opinion; for I do not remember sob and beat my head against the wall at my that there are any rules laid down for the expenses leisure. The grief I was in was inexpressible: of a woman-in which particular only I think a and everybody thought it would have cost me my gentlewoman ought to differ from a lady of the life. In a few days my old lady, who was one of best fortune, or highest quality, and not in their the housewives of the world, thought of turning principles of justice, gratitude, prudence, or mod- me out of doors, because I put her in mind of her esty. I ought perhaps to make an apology for son. Sir Stephen proposed putting me to prenthis long epistle; but as I rather believe you a tice; but my lady being an excellent manager, friend to sincerity than ceremony, shall only as- would not let her husband throw away his money sure you I am, in acts of charity. I had sense enough to be under the utmost indignation, to see her discard, with so little concern, one her son had loved so much; and went out of the house to ramble whereever my feet would carry me.

T.

64

Sir, your most humble servant,

"ANNABELLA."

No. 96.] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 1711.

Amicum

Mancipium domino, et frugi.-HOR. 2 Sat. vii, 2.

-The faithful servant, and the true.-CREECH.

"MR SPECTATOR,

"I HAVE frequently read your discourse upon servants, and as I am one myself, have been much offended that in that variety of forms wherein you considered the bad, you found no place to mention the good. There is, however, one observation of yours I approve, which is, 'That there are men of wit and good sense among all orders of men, and that servants report most of the good or ill which is spoken of their masters.' That there are men of sense who live in servitude, I have the vanity to say I have felt to my woeful experience. You attribute very justly the source of our general iniquity to board-wages, and the manner of living out of a domestic way; but I cannot give you my thoughts on this subject any way so well as by a short account of my own life, to this the fortyfifth year of my age-that is to say, from my first being a foot-boy at fourteen, to my present station of a nobleman's porter in the year of my age

above-mentioned.

"Know then, that my father was a poor tenant to the family of Sir Stephen Rackrent. Sir Stephen put me to school, or rather made me follow his son Harry to school, from my ninth year; and there, though Sir Stephen paid something for my learning, I was used like a servant, and was forced to get what scraps of learning I could by my own industry, for the schoolmaster took very little notice of me. My young master was a lad of very sprightly parts; and my being constantly about him, and loving him, was no small advantage to me. My master loved me extremely, and has often been whipped for not keeping me at a distance. He used always to say, that when he came to his estate I should have a lease of my father's tenement for nothing. I came up to town with him to Westminster-school; at which time he

"The third day after I left Sir Stephen's family, I was strolling up and down in the walks of the Temple. A young gentleman of the house, who (as I heard him say afterward) seeing me halfstarved and well-dressed, thought me an equipage ready to his hand after very little inquiry more than Did I want a master?' bid me follow him; I did so, and in a very little while thought myself the happiest creature in the world. My time was taken up in carrying letters to wenches, or messages to young ladies of my master's acquaintance. We rambled from tavern to tavern, to the playhouse, the Mulberry-garden, and places of resort; where my master engaged every night in some new amour, in which and drinking he spent all his time when he had money. During these extravagances, I had the pleasure of lying on the stairs of a tavern half a night, playing at dice with other servants, and the like idleness. When my master was moneyless. I was generally employed in transcribing amorous pieces of poetry, old songs, and new lampoons. This life held till my master married, and he had then the prudence to turn me off, because I was in the secret of his intrigues.

"I was utterly at a loss what course to take next; when at last I applied myself to a fellow. sufferer, one of his mistresses, a woman of the town. She happening at that time to be pretty full of money, clothed me from head to foot; and knowing me to be a sharp fellow, employed me accordingly. Sometimes I was to go abroad with her, and when she had pitched upon a young fellow she thought for her turn, I was to be dropped as one she could not trust. She would often cheapen goods at the New Exchange; and when she had a mind to be attacked she would send me away on an errand. When an humble servant

*The mulberry-garden was a place of elegant entertain ment near Buckingham-house (now the Queen's Palace), somewhat like the modern Vauxhall.

and York-buildings in the Strand. It was the fashionable

The New Exchange was situated between Durham-yard

mart of millinery wares till 1737, when it was taken down, and dwelling-houses erected on the spot.

and she were beginning a parley, I came im-1 mediately, and told her Sir John was come home: then she would order another coach to prevent being dogged. The lover makes signs to me as I get behind the coach; I shake my head-it was impossible: I leave my lady at the next turning and follow the cully to know how to fall in his way on another occasion. Beside good offices of this nature, I wrote all my mistress's love letters; some from a lady that saw such a gentleman at such a place in such a colored coat-some showing the terrors she was in of a jealous old husbandothers explaining that the severity of her parents was such (though her fortune was settled) that she was willing to run away with such a one, though she knew he was but a younger brother. In a word, my half education and love of Idle books made me outwrite all that made love to her by way of epistle; and as she was extremely cunning, she did well enough in company by a skillful affectation of the greatest modesty. In the midst of all this, I was surprised with a letter from her, and a ten-pound note.

"HONEST TOм,

"You will never see me more. I am married to a very cunning country gentleman, who might possibly guess something if I kept you still; therefore farewell.'

Projecere animas

No. 97.] 1HURSDAY, JUNE, 21, 1711. -VIRG. Æn., vi, 436. They prodigally threw their lives away. AMONG the loose papers which I have frequently spoken of heretofore, I find a conversation between Pharamond and Eucrate upon the subject of duels, and the copy of an edict issued in consequence of that discourse.

Eucrate argued, that nothing but the most severe and vindictive punishment, such as placing the bodies of the offenders in chains, and putting them to death by the most exquisite torments, would be sufficient to extirpate a crime which had so long prevailed, and was so firmly fixed in the opinion of the world as great and laudable. The king answered, "that indeed instances of ignominy were necessary in the cure of this evil; but, considering that it prevailed only among such as had a nicety in their sense of honor, and that it often happened that a duel was fought to save appearances to the world, when both parties were in their hearts in amity and reconciliation to each other, it was evident that turning the mode another way would effectually put a stop to what had been only as a mode; that to such persons poverty and shame were torments. sufficient; that he would not go farther in punishing in others, crimes which he was satisfied he himself was most guilty of, in that he might have prevented them by speaking his displeasure sooner." Beside which the king said, "he was in general averse to tortures, which was putting human nature itself, rather than the criminal, to disgrace; and that he would be sure not to use this means where the crime was but an ill effect arising from a laudable cause, the fear of shame." The king, at the same time, spoke with much grace upon the subject of mercy; and repented

"When this place was lost also in marriage, I was resolved to go among quite another people, for the future, and got in butler to one of those families where there is a coach kept, three or four servants, a clean house, and a good general outside upon a small estate. Here I lived very comfortably for some time, until I unfortunately found my master, the very gravest man alive, in the garret with the chambermaid. I knew the world too well to think of staying there; and the next day pretended to have received a letter out of the of many acts of that kind which had a magnificountry that my father was dying, and got my discharge with a bounty for my discretion.

"The next I lived with was a peevish single man, whom I stayed with for a year and a half. Most part of the time I passed very easily; for when I began to know him, I minded no more than he meant, what he said: so that one day in a good humor he said, 'I was the best man he ever had, by my want of respect to him.'

"These, Sir, are the chief occurrences of my life; and I will not dwell upon very many other places I have been in, where I have been the strangest fellow in the world, where nobody in the world had such servants as they, where sure they were the unluckiest people in the world for servants, and so forth. All I mean by this representation is, to show you that we poor servants are not (what you called us too generally) all rogues; but that we are what we are, according to the example of our superiors. In the family am now in, I am guilty of no one sin but lying; which I do with a grave face in my gown and staff every day I live, and almost all day long, in denying my lord to impertinent suitors, and my lady to unwelcome visitants. But, Sir, I am to let you know that I am, when I can get abroad, a leader of the servants: I am he that keeps time with beating my cudgel against the boards in the gallery at an opera: I am he that am touched so properly at a tragedy, when the people of quality are staring at one another during the most important incidents. When you hear in a crowd a cry in the right place. a hum where the point is touched in a speech, or a huzza set up where it is the voice of the people: you may conclude it is begun or joined by, Sir, Your more than humble servant, "THOMAS TRUSTY."

T.

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cent aspect in the doing, but dreadful consequences in the example. "Mercy to particulars," he observed, "was cruelty in the general. That though a prince could not revive a dead man by taking the life of him who killed him, neither could he make reparation to the next that should die by the evil example; or answer to himself for the partiality in not pardoning the next as well as the former offender.-As for me," says Pharamond, "I have conquered France, and yet have given laws to my people. The laws are my methods of life; they are not a diminution but a direction to my power. I am still absolute to distinguish the innocent and the virtuous, to give honors to the brave and generous; I am absolute in my good will; none can oppose my bounty, or prescribe rules for my favor. While I can, as I please, reward the good, I am under no pain that I cannot pardon the wicked; for which reason," continued Pharamond, "I will effectually put a stop to this evil, by exposing no more the tenderness of my nature to the importunity of having the same respect to those who are miserable by their fault, and those who are so by their misfortune. Flatterers (concluded the king, smiling) repeat to us princes, that we are heaven's vicegerents; let us be so, and let the only thing out of our power be to do ill."

Soon after the evening wherein Pharamond and Eucrate had this conversation, the following edict was published against duels.

PHARAMOND'S EDICT AGAINST DUELS.

"Pharamond, King of the Gauls, to all his loving subjects sendeth greeting:

"Whereas it has come to our royal notice and |observation, that, in contempt of all laws divine

and human, it is of late oecome a custom among | height, insomuch that the female part of our the nobility and gentry of this our kingdom, upon species, were much taller than the men.* The wᏅ slight and trivial as well as great and urgent pro. men were of such an enormous stature that "we apvocations, to invite each other into the field-there, peared as grasshoppers before them." At present by their own hands, and of their own authority, the whole sex is in a manner dwarfed, and to decide their controversies by combat; we have shrunk into a race of beauties that seem almost thought fit to take the said custom into our royal another species. I remember several ladies, who consideration, and find, upon inquiry into the were once very near seven foot high, that at preusual causes whereon such fatal decisions have sent want some inches of five. How they came arisen, that by this wicked custom, maugre all the to be thus curtailed I cannot learn; whether the precepts of our holy religion and the rules of whole sex be at present under any perance which right reason, the greatest act of the human mind, we know nothing of; or whether they have cast forgiveness of injuries, is become vile and shame-their head-dresses in order to surprise us with ful; that the rules of good society and virtuous something in that kind which shall be entirely new; conversation are hereby inverted; that the loose, or whether some of the tallest of the sex, being the vain, and the impudent, insult the careful, the too cunning for the rest, have contrived this mediscreet, and the modest; that all virtue is sup-thod to make themselves appear sizeable-is still pressed, and all vice supported, in the one act of a secret; though I find most are of opinion, they being capable to dare to the death. We have also are at present like trees new lopped and pruned, farther, with great sorrow of mind, observed that that will certainly sprout up and flourish with this dreadful action, by long impunity (our royal greater heads than before. For my own part, as attention being employed upon matters of more I do not love to be insulted by women who are general concern), is become honorable, and the taller than myself, I admire the sex much more refusal to engage in it ignominious. In these our in their present humiliation, which has reduced royal cares and inquiries we are yet farther made them to their natural dimensions, than when they to understand, that the persons of most eminent had extended their persons and lengthened them worth and most hopeful abilities, accompanied selves out into formidable and gigantic figures with the strongest passion for true glory, are I am not for adding to the beautiful edifices of such as are most liable to be involved in the dan-nature, nor for raising any whimsical superstruc gers arising from this license.-Now, taking the said premises into our serious consideration, and well weighing that all such emergencies (wherein the mind is incapable of commanding itself, and where the injury is too sudden or too exquisite to be borne) are particularly provided for by laws heretofore enacted; and that the qualities of less injuries, like those of ingratitude, are too nice and delicate to come under general rules; we do resolve to blot this fashion or wantonness of anger, out of the minds of our subjects, by our royal resolutions declared in this edict as follow:

"No person who either sends or accepts a challenge, or the posterity of either, though no death ensues thereupon, shall be, after the publication of this our edict, capable of bearing office in these our dominions.

"The person who shall prove the sending or receiving a challenge, shall receive to his own use and property the whole personal estate of both parties; and their real estate shall be, immediately vested in the next heir of the offenders, in as ample manner as if the said offenders were actually deceased.

"In cases where the laws (which we have already granted to our subjects) admit of an appeal for blood; when the criminal is condemned by the said appeal, he shall not only suffer death, but his whole estate, real, mixed, and personal, shall from the hour of his death be vested in the next heir of the person whose blood he spilt.

66

That it shall not hereafter be in our royal power, or that of our successors, to pardon the said offenses or restore the offenders in their estates, honor, or blood, forever.

"Given at our court of Blois, the 8th of February, 420, in the second year of our reign."-T.

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ture upon her plans: I must, therefore, repeat it,
that I am highly pleased with the coiffure now in
fashion, and think it shows the good sense which
at present very much reigns among the valuable
part of the sex. One may observe that women in
all ages have taken more pains than men to adorn
the outside of their heads; and indeed I very
much admire, that those female architects, who
raise such wonderful structures out of ribbons, lace,
and wire, have not been recorded for their respec-
tive inventions. It is certain there have been as
many orders in these kinds of building, as in
those which have been made of marble. Some-
times they rise in the shape of a pyramid, some-
times like a tower, and sometimes like a steeple.
In Juvenal's time the building grew by several
orders and stories, as he has very humorously
described it:

Tot premit ordinibus, tot adhuc compagibus altum
Edificat caput; Andromachen a froute videbis;
Post minor est; aliam credas.
Juv., Sat. vi, 501.

With curls on curls they build her head before,
And mount it with a formidable tow'r;

A giantess she seems: but look behind,
And then she dwindles to the pigny kind.-DRYDEN,

But I do not remember in any part of my reading,
that the head-dress aspired to so great an extra-
vagance as in the fourteenth century; when it
was built up in a couple of cones or spires, which
stood so exceedingly high on each side of the
head, that a woman, who was but a pigmy with-
out her head-dress, appeared like a colossus upon
Monsieur Paradin says, "that
putting it on.
these old-fashioned fontanges rose an ell above
the head; that they were pointed like steeples,
and had long loose pieces of crape fastened to the
tops of them, which were curiously fringed, and
hung down their backs like streamers."

The women might possibly have carried this Gothic building much higher, had not a famous monk, Thomas Conecte by name, attacked it

This refers to the commode (called by the French "fon tange"), a kind of head-dress worn by the ladies at the be ginning of the last century, which by means of wire bore up their hair and fore-part of the cap, consisting of many folds of fine lace, to a prodigious height. The transition from this to the opposite extreme was very abrupt and sudden.

† Numb. xiii, 33.

with great zeal and resolution. This holy man traveled from place to place to preach down this monstrous commode; and succeeded so well in it, that, as the magicians sacrificed their books to the flames upon the preaching of an apostle, many of the women threw down their head-dresses in the middle of the sermon, and made a bonfire of them within sight of the pulpit. He was so renowned, as well for the sanctity of his life as his manner of preaching, that he had often a congregation of twenty thousand people; the men placing themselves on the one side of his pulpit, and the women on the other, appeared (to use the similitude of an ingenious writer) like a forest of cedars with their heads reaching to the clouds. He so warmed and animated the people against this monstrous ornament, that it lay under a kind of persecution; and whenever it appeared in public, was pelted down by the rabble, who flung stones at the persons that wore it. But notwithstanding this prodigy vanished while the preacher was among them, it began to appear again some months after his departure, or, to tell it in Monsieur Paradin's own words, "the women, that, like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out again as soon as the danger was over." This extravagance of the women's headdresses in that age, is taken notice of by Monsieur d'Argentre in his history of Bretagne, and by other historians, as well as the person I have here quoted.

It is usually observed, that a good reign is the only proper time for making laws against the exorbitance of power; in the same manner an excessive head-dress may be attacked the most effectually when the fashion is against it. I do therefore recommend this paper to my female readers by way of prevention.

I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it is for them to add anything that can be ornamental to what is already the master-piece of nature. The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure. Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, she seems to have designed the head as the cupola to the most glorious of her works: and when we load it with such a pile of supernumerary ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the eye from great and real beauties, to childish gew-gaws, ribbons, and bonelace.-L

No. 99.] SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1711.

-Turpi secernis honestum.-HOR. 1 Sat. vi, 63. You know to fix the bounds of right and wrong.

Thursday's, the reader will consider them as the sentiments of the club, and the other as my own private thoughts, or rather those of Pharamond.

The great point of honor in men is courage, and in women chastity. If a man loses his honor in one encounter, it is not impossible for him to regain it in another: a slip in a woman's honor is irreparable. I can give no reason for fixing the point of honor to these two qualities, unless it be that each sex sets the greatest value on the qualification which renders them the most amiable in the eyes of the contrary sex. I should believe the choice would have fallen on wisdom or virtue; or had women determined their own point of honor, it is probable that wit or good-nature would have carried it against chastity.

Nothing recommends a man more to the female sex than courage; whether it be that they are pleased to see one who is a terror to others fall like a slave at their feet; or that this quality supplies their own principal defect, in guarding them from insults, and avenging their quarrels; or that courage is a natural indication of a strong and sprightly constitution. On the other side, nothing makes women more esteemed by the opposite sex than chastity; whether it be that we always prize those most who are hardest to come at; or that nothing beside chastity, with its collateral attendants, truth, fidelity, and constancy, gives the man a property in the person he loves, and consequently endears her to him above all things. I am very much pleased with a passage in the inscription on a monument erected in Westminster abbey to the late Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester; a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous."

In books of chivalry, where the point of honor is strained to madness, the whole story runs on chastity and courage. The damsel is mounted on a white palfrey, as an emblem of her innocence; and, to avoid scandal, must have a dwarf for her page. She is not to think of a man, until some misfortune has brought a knight-errant to her relief. The knight falls in love, and, did not gratitude restrain her from murdering her deliverer, would die at her feet by her disdain. However, he must waste many years in the desert, before her virgin heart can think of a surrender. The knight goes off, attacks everything he meets that is bigger and stronger than himself, seeks all opportunities of being knocked on the head, and after seven years' rambling returns to his mistress whose chastity has been attacked in the meantime by giants and tyrants, and undergone as many trials as her lover's valor.

In Spain, where there are still great remains of this romantic humor, it is a transporting favor for a lady to cast an accidental glance on her lover from a window, though it be two or three stories high; as it is usual for a lover to assert his passion for his mistress, in a single combat with a mad bull.

The great violation in point of honor from man to man, is giving the lie. One may tell another THE club, of which I have often declared my- he whores, drinks, blasphemes, and it may pass self a member, were last night engaged in a dis- unresented; but to say he lies, though but in course upon that which passes for the chief point jest, is an affront that nothing but blood can exof honor among men and women; and started a piate. The reason perhaps may be, because no great many hints upon the subject, which I thought other vice implies a want of courage so much as were entirely new. I shall therefore method- the making a lie; and therefore telling a man he ize the several reflections that arose upon this lies, is touching him in the most sensible part of occasion, and present my reader with them for honor, and indirectly calling him a coward. I the speculation of this day; after having pre- cannot admit under this head what Herodotus mised, that if there is anything in this paper tells us of the ancient Persians--that from the which seems to differ with any passage of last age of five years to twenty they instruct their

sons only in three things, to manage the horse, to make use of the bow, and to speak truth.

The placing the point of honor in this false kind of courage, has given occasion to the very refuse of mankind, who have neither virtue nor common sense, to set up for men of honor. An English peer who has not long been dead,* used to tell a pleasant story of a French gentleman that visited him early one morning at Paris, and after great professions of respect, let him know that he had it in his power to oblige him; which, in short, amounted to this-that he believed he could tell his lordship the person's name who jostled him as he came out from the opera: but before he would proceed, he begged his lordship that he would not deny him the honor of making him his second. The English lord, to avoid being drawn into a very foolIsh affair, told him he was under engagements for his two next duels to a couple of particular friends; upon which the gentleman immediately withdrew, hoping his lordship would not take it ill if he meddled no farther in an affair from whence he himself was to receive no advantage.

The beating down this false notion of honor in so vain and lively a people as those of France, is deservedly looked upon as one of the most glorious parts of their present king's reign. It is a pity but the punishment of these mischievous notions should have in it some particular circumstances of shame and infamy: that those who are slaves to them may see, that instead of advancing their reputations, they lead them to ignominy and dis

honor.

Death is not sufficient to deter men who make it their glory to despise it; but if every one that fought a duel were to stand in the pillory, it would quickly lessen the number of these imaginary men of honor, and put an end to so absurd a practice. When honor is a support to virtuous principles, and runs parallel with the laws of God and our country, it cannot be too much cherished and encouraged but when the dictates of honor are coutrary to those of religion and equity, they are the greatest depravations of human nature, by giving wrong ambitions and false ideas of what is good and laudable; and should therefore be exploded by all governments, and driven out as the bane and plague of human society.

No. 100.] MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1711. Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.

L.

HOR. 1 Sat. v, 41.

The greatest blessing is a pleasant friend. A MAN advanced in years that thinks fit to look back upon his former life, and call that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoy ment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in his infancy. Sickness, ill-humor and idleness will have robbed him of a great share of that space we ordinarily call our life. It is therefore the duty of every man that would be true to himself, to obtain, if possible, a disposition to be pleased, and place himself in a constant aptitude for the sat isfactions of his being. Instead of this, you hardly see a man who is not uneasy in pro. portion to his advancement in the arts of life.An affected delicacy is the common improvement we meet with in those who pretend to be refined above others. They do not aim at true pleasures themselves, but turn their thoughts upon observ

*The editor has been told this was William Cavendish, the first duke of Devonshire, who died August 18, 1707.

ing the false pleasures of other men. Such people are valetudinarians in society, and they should no more come into company than a sick man should come into the air. If a man is too weak to bear what is refreshment to men in health, he must still keep his chamber. When any one in Sir Roger's company complains he is out of order, he immediately calls for some posset-drink for him; for which reason that sort of people who are ever be wailing their constitution in other places, are the cheerfulest imaginable when he is present.

It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with whom they converse, by giving them a history of their pains and aches, and imagine such narrations their quota of the conversation. This is of all other the meanest help to discourse, and a man must not think at all, or think himself very insignificant, when he finds an account of his headache answered by another's asking what news by the last mail. Mutual good humor is a dress we ought to appear in whenever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends, ought to rejoice; but indeed there are crowds of people who put themselves in no method of pleasing themselves or others; such are those whom we usually call indolent persons.Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate state between pleasure and pain, and very much unbecoming any part of our life after we are out of the nurse's arms. Such an aversion to labor creates a constant weariness, and one would think should make existence itself a burden. The indolent man descends from the dignity of his nature, and makes that being which was rational merely vegetative. His life consists only in the mere increase and decay of a body, which, with relation to the rest of the world, might as well have been uninformed, as the habitation of a reasonable mind.

Of this kind is the life of that extraordinary couple, Harry Tersett and his lady. Harry was, in the days of his celibacy, one of those pert creatures who have much vivacity and little understanding; Mrs. Rebecca Quickly, whom he mar ried, had all that the fire of youth and a lively manner could do toward making an agreeable woman. These two people of seeming merit fell into each other's arms; and passion being sated, and no reason or good sense in either to succeed it, their life is now at a stand; their meals are insipid and their time tedious; their fortune has placed them above care, and their loss of taste reduced them below diversion. When we talk of these as instances of inexistence, we do not mean that in order to live, it is necessary we should be always in jovial crews, or crowned with chaplets of roses, as the merry fellows among the ancients are described; but it is intended, by considering these contraries of pleasure, indolence and too much delicacy, to show that it is prudence to preserve a disposition in ourselves to receive a certain delight in all we hear and see.

This portable quality of good humor seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with in such a manner, that there are no moments lost: but they all pass with so much satisfaction, that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load), that of time, is never felt by us. Varilas has this quality to the highest perfection, and communicates it wherever he appears. The sad, the merry, the severe, the melancholy, show a new cheerfulness when he comes among them. At the same time no one can repeat anything that Varilas has ever said that de serves repetition; but the man has that innate goodness of temper, that he is welcome to every.

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