far otherwise, that the contention seems to be, who shall be most eminent in performances wherein beasts enjoy greater abilities than we have. I will undertake, were the butler and swineherd, at any true esquire's in Great Britain, to keep and compare accounts of what wash is drunk up in so many hours in the parlour and the pig-stye, it would appear, the gentleman of the house gives much more to his friends than his hogs, ginable to form our pleasures by imitation of others. I will not therefore mention Scipio and Lælius, who are generally produced on this subject as authorities for the charms of a rural life. He that does not feel the force of agreeable views and situations in his own mind, will hardly arrive at the satisfactions they bring from the reflections of others. However, they who have a taste that way, are more particularly inflamed with desire, when they see others in the enjoyment of it, especially when men carry into the country a knowledge of the world as well as of nature. The leisure of such persons is endeared and refined by reflection upon cares and inquietudes. The absence of past labours doubles present pleasures, which is still augmented, if the person in solitude has the happiness of being addicted to letters. My cousin Frank Bickerstaff gives me a very good notion of this sort of felicity in the following letter: This, with many other evils, arises from an error in men's judgments, and not making true distinctions between persons and things. It is usually thought, that a few sheets of parchment, made before a male and a female of wealthy houses come together, give the heirs and descendants of that marriage, possession of lands and tenements; but the truth is, there is no man who can be said to be proprietor of an estate, but he who knows how to enjoy it. Nay, it shall never be allowed, that the land is not a 'SIR,-I write this to communicate to you waste, when the master is uncultivated. There- the happiness I have in the neighbourhood and fore, to avoid confusion, it is to be noted, that a conversation of the noble lord, whose health you peasant with a great estate is but an incumbent, inquired after in your last. I have bought that and that he must be a gentleman to be a land- little hovel which borders upon his royalty; but lord. A landlord enjoys what he has with his am so far from being oppressed by his greatness, heart, an incumbent with his stomach. Glut- that I, who know no envy, and he, who is above tony, drunkenness, and riot, are the entertain- pride, mutually recommend ourselves to each ments of an incumbent; benevolence, civility, other by the difference of our fortunes. He social and human virtues, the accomplishments esteems me for being so well pleased with a of a landlord. Who, that has any passion for little, and I admire him for enjoying so handhis native country, does not think it worse than somely a great deal. He has not the little taste conquered, when so large dimensions of it are of observing the colour of a tulip, or the edging in the hands of savages, that know no use of of a leaf of box; but rejoices in open views, property, but to be tyrants; or liberty, but to the regularity of this plantation, and the wildbe unmannerly? A gentleman in a country-ness of another, as well as the fall of a river, life enjoys paradise with a temper fit for it; a clown is cursed in it with all the cutting and unruly passions man could be tormented with when he was expelled from it. the rising of a promontory, and all other objects fit to entertain a mind like his, that has been long versed in great and public amusements. The make of the soul is as much seen There is no character more deservedly esteem-in leisure as in business. He has long lived in ed than that of a country gentleman, who under-courts, and been admired in assemblies; so that stands the station in which heaven and nature he has added to experience a most charming have placed him. He is father to his tenants, and eloquence, by which he communicates to me patron to his neighbours, and is more superior the ideas of my own mind upon the objects we to those of lower fortune by his benevolence meet with so agreeably, that with his company than his possessions. He justly divides his time in the fields, I at once enjoy the country, and a between solitude and company, so as to use the landscape of it. He is now altering the course one for the other. His life is spent in the good of canals and rivulets, in which he has an eye offices of an advocate, a referee, a companion, to his neighbour's satisfaction, as well as his a mediator, and a friend. His counsel and own. He often makes me presents by turning knowledge are a guard to the simplicity and in- the water into my grounds, and sends me fish nocence of those of lower talents, and the en- by their own streams. To avoid my thanks, tertainment and happiness of those of equal. he makes nature the instrument of his bounty, When a man in a country-life has this turn, as and does all good offices so much with the air it is hoped thousands have, he lives in a more of a companion, that his frankness hides his happy condition than any that is described in own condescension, as well as my gratitude. the pastoral descriptions of poets, or the vain- Leave the world to itself, and come see us.glorious solitudes recorded by philosophers. Your affectionate cousin, To a thinking man it would scem prodigious, that the very situation in a country life does not incline men to a scorn of the mean gratifications some take in it. To stand by a stream, naturally lulls the mind into composure and reverence; to walk in shades, diversifies that pleasure; and a bright sunshine makes a man consider all nature in gladness, and himself the happiest being in it, as the most conscious of her gifts and enjoyments. It would be the most impertinent piece of pcdantry ima No. 170.] FRANCIS BICKERSTAFF. Thursday, May 11, 1710. Fortuna svo læta negotio, et But Fortune, ever-changing dame, And constant plays her haughty game; Proud of her office to destroy; And now to others she the bliss bestows. Francis. above an anchorite, as a wise matron who passes through the world with innocence, is preferable to the nun who locks herself up from it. Full of these thoughts, I left my lodging, and took a walk to the court end of the town; and the hurry and busy faces I met with about Whitehall, made me form to myself ideas of the different prospects of all I saw, from the turn and cast of their countenances. All, methought, had the same thing in view; but prosecuted their hopes with a different air. Some showed an unbecoming eagerness, some a surly impatience, some a winning deference; but the generality a servile complaisance. I could not but observe, as I roved about the offices, that all who were still but in expectation, murmured at Fortune; and all who had obtained their wishes, immediately began to say, there was no such being. Each believed it an act of blind chance that any other man was preferred, but owed only to service and merit what he had obtained himself. It is the fault of studious men to appear in public with too contemplative a carriage: and I began to observe, that my figure, age, and dress, made me particular; for which reason, I thought it better to remove a studious countenance from among busy ones, and take a turn with a friend in the Privy From my own Apartment, May 10. HAVING this morning spent some time in reading on the subject of the vicissitudes of human life, I laid aside my book, and began to ruminate on the discourse which raised in me those reflections. I believed it a very good office to the world, to sit down and show others the road, in which I am experienced by my wanderings and errors. This is Seneca's way of thinking, and he had half convinced me, how dangerous it is to our true happiness and tranquillity, to fix our minds upon any thing which is in the power of fortune.. It is excusable only in animals who have not the use of reason, to be catched by hooks and baits. Wealth, glory, and power, which the ordinary people look up at with admiration, the learned and wise know to be only so many snares laid to enslave them. There is nothing farther to be sought for with earnestness, than what will clothe and feed us. If we pamper ourselves in our diet, or give our imaginations a loose in our desires, the body will no longer obey the mind. Let us think no further than to defend ourselves against hunger, thirst, and cold. We are to re-garden. member that every thing else is despicable, and When my friend was alone with me there, not worth our care. To want little is true 'Isaac,' said he, 'I know you come abroad only grandeur, and very few things are great, to a to moralize and make observations: and I will great mind. Those who form their thoughts in carry you hard by, where you shall see all that this manner, and abstract themselves from the you have yourself considered or read in authors, world, are out of the way of fortune, and can or collected from experience, concerning blind look with contempt both on her favours and her Fortune and irresistible Destiny, illustrated in frovns. At the same time, they who separate real persons, and proper mechanisms. The themselves from the immediate commerce with graces, the muses, the fates, all the beings the busy part of mankind, are still beneficial to which have a good or ill influence upon human them, while, by their studies and writings, they life, are, you will say, very justly figured in recommend to them the small value which ought the persons of women; and where I am carryto be put upon what they pursue with so much ing you, you will see enough of that sex tolabour and disquiet. Whilst such men are gether, in an employment which will have so thought the most idle, they are the most use-important an effect upon those who are to refully employed. They have all things, both│ceive their manufacture, as will make them be human and divine, under consideration. To be respectively called deities or furies, as their laperfectly free from the insults of fortune, we bour shall prove disadvantageous or successful to should arm ourselves with their reflections. We their votaries.' should learn, that none but intellectual possessions are what we can properly call our own. All things from without are but borrowed. What fortune gives us, is not ours; and what ever she gives, she can take away. Without waiting for my answer, he carried me to an apartment contiguous to the Banqueting-house, where there were placed at two long tables a large company of young women, in decent and agreeable habits, making up tickets for the lottery appointed by the goofvernment. There walked between the tables a person who presided over the work. This gentlewoman seemed an emblem of fortune; she commanded, as if unconcerned in their business; and though every thing was performed by her direction, she did not visibly interpose in particulars. She seemed in pain at our near approach to her, and most to approve us when we made her no advances. Her height, her mien, her gesture, her shape, and her countenance, had something that spoke familiarity and dignity. She therefore appeared to be not only a picture of fortune, but of fortune as I liked her; which made me break out in the following words: It is a common imputation to Seneca, that though he declaimed with so much strength reason, and a stoical contempt of riches and power, he was at the same time one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome. I know no instance of his being insolent in that fortune, and can therefore read his thoughts on those subjects with the more deference. I will not give philosophy so poor a look as to say it cannot live in courts; but I am of opinion, that it is there in the greatest eminence, when, amidst the affluence of all the world can bestow, and the addresses of a crowd who follow him for that reason, a man can think both of himself and those about him, abstracted from these circumstances. Such a philosopher is as much MADAM,—I am very glad to see the fate of the many, who now languish in expectation of what will be the event of your labours, in the hands of one who can act with so impartial an indifference. Pardon me, that have often scen you before, and have lost you for want of the respect due to you. Let me beg of you, who have both the furnishing and turning of that wheel of lots, to be unlike the rest of your sex; repulse the forward and the bold, and favour the modest and the humble. I know you fly the importunate; but smile no more on the careless. Add not to the coffers of the usurer; but give the power of bestowing to the generous. Continue his wants, who cannot enjoy or communicate plenty; but turn away his poverty, who can bear it with more ease than he can see it in another.' ADVERTISEMENT. Whereas Philander signified to Clarinda, by letter bearing date Thursday twelve o'clock, that he had lost his heart by a shot from her eyes, and desired she would condescend to meet him the same day at eight in the evening at Rosamond's-pond; faithfully protesting, that in case she would not do him that honour, she might see the body of the said Philander the next day floating on the said lake of love, and that he desired only three sighs upon view of his said body: It is desired, if he has not made away with himself accordingly, that he would forthwith show himself to the coroner of the city of Westminster; or Clarinda, being an old offender, will be found guilty of wilful murder. be called Hector or Alexander? Every thing must bear a proportion with the outward value that is set upon it; or, instead of being long had in veneration, that very term of esteem will become a word of reproach.' When Timoleon had done speaking, Urbanus pursued the same purpose, by giving an account of the manner in which the Indian kings,* who were lately in Great Britain, did honour to the person where they lodged. They were placed,' said he, ‘in a handsome apartment at an upholster's in King-street, Covent-garden. The man of the house, it seems, had been very observant of them, and ready in their service. These just and generous princes, who act according to the dictates of natural justice, thought it proper to confer some dignity upon their landlord before they left his house. One of them had been sick during his residence there, and having never before been in a bed, had a very great veneration for him who made that engine of repose, so useful and so necessary in his distress. It was consulted among the four princes, by what name to dignify his great merit and services. The emperor of the Mohocks and the other three kings stood up, and in that posture recounted the civilities they had received; and particularly repeated the care which was taken of their sick brother. This, in their ima gination, who are used to know the injuries of weather, and the vicissitudes of cold and heat, gave them very great impressions of a skilful upholsterer, whose furniture was so well contrived for their protection on such occasions. It is with these less instructed, I will not say less knowing people, the manner of doing honour, to impose some name significant of the qualities of the person they distinguish, and the good offices received from him. It was therefore resolved to call their landlord Cadaroque, which is the name of the strongest fort in their part of the world. When they had agreed up. on the name, they sent for their landlord; and as he entered into their presence, the emperor of the Mohocks, taking him by the hand, called him Cadaroque. After which the other three IT hath happened to be for some days the de- princes repeated the same word and ceremony.' liberation at the learnedest board in this house, account; and, having a philosophic turn, began Timoleon appeared much satisfied with this whence honour and title had its first original. to argue against the modes and manners of Timoleon, who is very particular in his opinion, those nations which we esteem polite, and to exbut is thought particular for no other cause but that he acts against depraved custom by the press himself with disdain at our usual method rules of nature and reason, in a very hand- of calling such as are strangers to our innovations barbarous. I have,' says he, so great a some discourse gave the company to understand, that in those ages which first degenedeference for the distinction given by these rated from the simplicity of life and natural princes, that Cadaroque shall be my upholsterer justice, the wise among them thought it neces sary to inspire men with the love of virtue, by giving those who adhered to the interests of innocence and truth some distinguishing name to raise them above the common level of mankind. This way of fixing appellations of credit upon eminent merit, was what gave being to titles and terms of honour. Such a name,' continued he, without the qualities which should give a man pretence to be exalted above others, does but turn him to jest and ridicule. Should one see another cudgelled, or scurvily treated, do you think a man so used would take it kindly to No. 171.] Saturday, May 13, 1710. Alter rixatur de lana sæpe caprina, Hor. 1. Ep. xviii. 15. He strives for trifles, and for toys contends, Grecian Coffee-house, May 12. He was going on; but the intended discourse was interrupted by Minucio, who sat what of a politician; one of those who sets up near him, a small philosopher, who is also somefor knowledge by doubting, and has no other contradicting all he hears said. He has, beway of making himself considerable, but by sides much doubt and spirit of contradiction, a * About a month before the date of this paper, the four Indian kings here spoken of came into England with the West-India fleet, in behalf of the six Indian nations, who at that time inhabited the back-country of North-America, between New-England and the French settlements in Canada. ་ ADVERTISEMENT. ployed only to hide others, are from this day N. B. All false buyers at auctions being emforward to be known in Mr. Bickerstaff's writings by the word Screens. constant suspicion as to state affairs. This accomplished gentleman, with a very awful brow, and a countenance full of weight, told Timo-him a report of what passed at the auction of Mr. Bickerstaff's aërial messenger has brought leon, that it was a great misfortune men of pictures, which was in Somerset-house yard on letters seldom looked into the bottom of things. Monday last; and finds there were no screens Will any man,' continued he, persuade me, that present, but all transacted with great justice. this was not, from the beginning to the end, a concerted affair? Who can convince the world, that four kings shall come over here, and lie at the two Crowns and Cushion, and one of them fall sick, and the place be called King-street, and all this by mere accident? No, no. To a man of very small penetration it appears, that Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, emperor of the Mohocks, was prepared for this adventure beforehand. I do not care to contradict any gentleman in his discourse; but I must say, however Sa Ga Yeath Rua Geth Ton and E Tow Oh Koam might be surprised in this matter; nevertheless, Ho Nec Yeth Taw No Row knew it before he set foot on the English shore.' No. 172.] Tuesday, May 16, 1710. Quod quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis From my own Apartment, May 15. Timoleon looked steadfastly at him for some time; then shaked his head, paid for his tea, WHEN a man is in a serious mood, and ponand marched off. Several others, who sat round ders upon his own make, with a retrospect to the him, were in their turns attacked by this ready actions of his life, and the many fatal miscardisputant. A gentleman, who was at some dis- riages in it, which he owes to ungoverned pastance, happened in discourse to say it was four sions, he is then apt to say to himself, that exmiles to Hammersmith. I must beg your par- perience has guarded him against such errors don,' says Minucio; when we say a place is so for the future: but nature often recurs in spite far off, we do not mean exactly from the very of his best resolutions; and it is to the very end spot of earth we are in, but from the town where of our days a struggle between our reason and we are; so that you must begin your account our temper, which shall have the empire over from the end of Piccadilly; and if you do so, I us. However, this is very much to be helped will lay any man ten to one, it is not above three by circumspection, and a constant alarm against good miles off.' Another, about Minucio's level the first onsets of passion. As this is, in geneof understanding, began to take him up in this ral, a necessary care to make a man's life easy important argument; and maintained, that, con- and agreeable to himself; so it is more particusidering the way from Pimlico at the end of St. larly the duty of such as are engaged in friendJames's-park, and the crossing from Chelsea by ship, and nearer commerce with others. Those Earl's court, he would stand to it, that it was who have their joys, have also their griefs in full four miles. But Minucio replied with great proportion; and none can extremely exalt or vehemence, and seemed so much to have the depress friends, but friends. The harsh things better of the dispute, that his adversary quitted which come from the rest of the world are rethe field, as well as the other. I sat until I saw ceived and repulsed with that spirit, which every the table almost all vanished; when, for want honest man bears for his own vindication; but of discourse, Minucio asked me, How I did?' unkindness, in words or actions, among friends, to which I answered, Very well.' That is affects us at the first instant in the inmost revery much,' said he; I assure you, you look cesses of our souls. Indifferent people, if I may paler than ordinary.' Nay, thought I, if he will so say, can wound us only in heterogeneous not allow me to know whether I am well or not, parts, maim us in our legs or arms; but the there is no staying for me neither. Upon which friend can make no pass but at the heart itself. I took my leave, pondering, as I went home, On the other side, the most impotent assistance, at this strange poverty of imagination, which the mere well-wishes of a friend, gives a man conmakes men run into the fault of giving contra-stancy and courage against the most prevailing diction. They want in their minds entertain-force of his enemies. It is here only a man enment for themselves or their company, and joys and suffers to the quick. For this reason, therefore build all they speak upon what is the most gentle behaviour is absolutely neces started by others; and since they cannot im-sary to maintain friendship in any degree above prove that foundation, they strive to destroy it. The only way of dealing with these people is to answer in monosyllables, or by way of question. When one of them tells you a thing that he thinks extraordinary, I go no farther than, 'Say you so, Sir? Indeed! Heyday! or, Is it come to that? These little rules, which appear but silly in the repetition, have brought me with great tranquillity to this age. And I have made it an observation, that as assent is more agree. able than flattery, so contradiction is more odious than calumny. the common level of acquaintance. But there is a relation of life much more near than the most strict and sacred friendship, that is to say, marriage. This union is of too close and delicate a nature to be easily conceived by those who do not know that condition by experience. Here a man should, if possible, sotten his pas sions; if not for his own ease, in compliance to a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make from his own. I am sure, I do not mean it an injury to women, when I say there is a sort of sex in souls. I am tender of offend. ing them, and know it is hard not to do it on | be related with all the circumstances as I heard this subject; but I must go on to say, that the it this evening; for it touched me so much, that soul of a man, and that of a woman, are made I cannot forbear entering upon it. very unlike, according to the employments for which they are designed. The ladies will please to observe, I say, our minds have different, not superior, qualities to theirs. The virtues have respectively a masculine and a feminine cast. What we call in men wisdom, is in women pru-buke. She was apt to fall into little sallies of dence. It is a partiality to call one greater than the other. A prudent woman is in the same class of honour as a wise man, and the scandals in the way of both are equally dangerous. But to make this state any thing but a burden, and not hang a weight upon our very beings, it is proper each of the couple should frequently remember, that there are many things which grow out of their very natures that are pardonable, nay, becoming, when considered as such, but, without that reflection, must give the quickest pain and vexation. To manage well a great family, is as worthy an instance of capacity, as to execute a great employment: and for the generality, as women perform the considerable part of their duties as well as men do theirs; so in their common behaviour, females of ordinary genius are not more trivial than the common rate of men; and, in my opinion, the playing of a fan is every whit as good an entertainment as the beating of a snuff-box. Mr. Eustace, a young gentleman of a good estate near Dublin in Ireland,* married a lady of youth, beauty, and modesty, and lived with her, in general, with much case and tranquillity; but was in his secret temper impatient of repassion; yet as suddenly recalled by her own reflection on her fault, and the consideration of her husband's temper. It happened, as he, his wife, and her sister, were at supper together about two months ago, that, in the midst of a careless and familiar conversation, the sisters fell into a little warmth and contradiction. He, who was one of that sort of men who are never unconcerned at what passes before them, fell into an outrageous passion on the side of the sister. The person about whom they disputed was so near, that they were under no restraint from running into vain repetitions of past heats: on which occasion all the aggravations of anger and distaste boiled up, and were repeated with the bitterness of exasperated lovers. The wife, observing her husband extremely moved, began to turn it off, and rally him for interposing be tween two people, who from their infancy had been angry and pleased with each other every half hour. But it descended deeper into his thoughts, and they broke up with a sullen silence. The wife immediately retired to her lowed. When they were in bed, he soon dissembled a sleep; and she, pleased that his thoughts were composed, fell into a real one. Their apartment was very distant from the rest of their family, in a lonely country-house. He now saw his opportunity, and, with a dagger he had brought to bed with him, stabbed his wife in the side. She awaked in the highest terror; but immediately imagining it was a blow designed for her husband by ruffians, began to grasp him, and strove to awake and rouse him to defend himself. He still pretended himself sleeping, and gave her a second wound. But, however I have rambled in this libertine manner of writing by way of Essay, I now sat down with an intention to represent to my read-chamber, whither her husband soon after folers how pernicious, how sudden, and how fatal surprises of passion are to the mind of man; and that in the more intimate commerces of life they are more liable to arise, even in our most sedate and indolent hours. Occurrences of this kind have had very terrible effects; and when one reflects upon them, we cannot but tremble to consider, what we are capable of being wrought up to, against all the ties of nature, love, honour, reason, and religion, though the man who breaks through them all, had, an hour before he did so, a lively and virtuous sense of their dictates. When unhappy catastrophes make up part of the history of princes and persons who act in high spheres, or are represented in the moving language and well-wrought scenes of tragedians, they do not fail of striking us with terror; but then they affect us only in a transient manner, and pass through our imaginations as incidents in which our fortunes are too humble to be concerned, or which writers form for the ostentation of their own force; or, at most, as things fit rather to exercise the powers of our minds, than to create new habits in them. Instead of such high passages, I was thinking it would be of great use, if any body could hit it, to lay before the world such adventures as befall persons not exalted above the common level. This, methought, would better prevail upon the ordinary race of men; who are so prepossessed with outward appearances, that they mistake fortune for nature, and believe nothing can relate to them, that does not happen to such as live and look like themselves. 'She now drew open the curtain, and, by the help of moon-light, saw his hand lifted up to stab her. The horror disarmed her from further struggling; and he, enraged anew at being discovered, fixed his poniard in her bosom. As soon as he believed he had despatched her, he attempted to escape out of the window: but she, still alive, called to him not to hurt himself; for she might live. He was so stung with the insupportable reflection upon her goodness, and his own villany, that he jumped to the bed, and wounded her all over with as much rage as if every blow was provoked by new aggravations. In this fury of mind he fled away. His wife had still strength enough to go to her sister's apartment, and give an account of this wonderful tragedy; but died the next day. Some weeks after, an officer of justice, in attempting to seize the criminal, fired upon him, as did the criminal upon the officer. Both their balls took place, and both immediately expired.' The unhappy end of a gentleman, whose story an acquaintance of mine was just now telling me, would be very proper for this end, if it could [ Swift. *An expression particularly reprobated by Dean |