No. 106.] THE GUARDIAN. The parent, or her friend, who lays the child there, generally leaves a note with it, declaring whether it be yet christened, the name it should be called by, the particular marks upon it, and the like. her good graces, or if not, who is the happy 'I fell asleep in this agreeable reverie, when It often happens that the parent leaves a note for the maintenance and education of the child, or takes it out after it has been some years in the hospital. Nay, it has been known that the father has afterwards owned the young foundling for his son, or left his estate to him. This is certain, that many are by this means preserved and do signal services to their country, who, without such a provision, might have perished as abortives, or have come to an un-nished, when immediately I discerned a long timely end, and perhaps have brought upon their guilty parents the like destruction. This I think is a subject that deserves our most serious consideration, for which reason I hope I shall not be thought impertinent in laying it before my readers. No. 106.] Monday, July 13, 1713. Quod latet arcanâ, non enarrabile, fibra. Pers. Sat. v. 29. The deep recesses of the human breast. As I was making up my Monday's provision for the public, I received the following letter, which being a better entertainment than any I can furnish out myself, I shall set it before the reader, and desire him to fall on without farther ceremony. train of coaches and six, equipages, and liveries, that ran through the heart one after another in a very great hurry for above half an hour together. After this, looking very attentively, I observed the whole space to be filled with a hand of cards, in which I could see distinctly three mattadors. There then followed a quick A playhouse, a succession of different scenes. church, a court, a puppet-show, rose up one after another, until at last they all of them gave place to a pair of new shoes, which kept footing in the heart for a whole hour. These were driven off at last by a lap-dog, who was succeeded by a guinea-pig, a squirrel and a monkey. I myself, to my no small joy, brought up the rear of these worthy favourites. I was ravished at being so happily posted, and in full possession of the heart: but as I saw the little figure of myself simpering and mightily pleased with its situation, on a sudden the heart methought gave a sigh, in which, as I found afterwards, my little representative vanished; for, upon applying my 'SIR,-Your two kinsmen and predecessors eye, I found my place taken up by an ill-bred, of immortal memory, were very famous for awkward puppy, with a money-bag under each their dreams and visions, and, contrary to all arm. This gentleman, however, did not keep his other authors, never pleased their readers more station long, before he yielded it up to a wight as than when they were nodding. Now it is ob- disagreeable as himself, with a white stick in served, that the second sight generally.runs in his hand. These three last figures represented the blood; and, sir, we are in hopes that you to me, in a lively manner, the conflicts in Auyourself, like the rest of your family, may at relia's heart, between love, avarice, and ambilength prove a dreamer of dreams, and a seertion, for we justled one another out by turns, of visions. In the mean while, I beg leave to make you a present of a dream, which may serve to lull your readers until such time as you yourself shall think fit to gratify the public with any of your nocturnal discoveries. You must understand, sir, I had yesterday been reading and ruminating upon that passage where Momus is said to have found fault with the make of a man, because he had not a window in his breast. The moral of this story is very obvious, and means no more than that the heart of man is so full of wiles and artifices, treachery and deceit, that there is no guessing at what he is, from his speeches, and outward appearances. I was immediately reflecting how happy each of the sexes would be, if there was a window in the breast of every one that makes or receives love. What protestations and perjuries would be saved on the one side, what hypocrisy and dissimulation on the other! I am myself very far gone in this passion for Aurelia, a woman of an unsearchable heart. I would give the world to know the secrets of it, and particulary whether I am really in and disputed the post for a great while. But at last, to my unspeakable satisfaction, I saw myself entirely settled in it. I was so transported with my success, that I could not forbear hugging my dear piece of crystal, when, to my unspeakable mortification, I awaked, and found my mistress metamorphosed into a pillow. This is not the first time I have been thus disappointed. O venerable Nestor, if you have any skill in dreams, let me know whether I have the same place in the real heart, that I had in the visionary one. To tell you truly, I am perplexed to death between hope and fear. I was very sanguine until eleven o'clock this morning, when I overheard an unlucky old woman telling her neighbour that dreams always went by contraries. I did not, indeed, before much like the crystal heart, remembering that confounded simile in Valentinian, of a maid "as cold as crystal never to be thawed." Besides, I verily believe if I had slept a little longer, that awkward whelp with his money-bags, would cer13* tainly have made his second entrance. If you can tell the fair one's mind, it will be no small | he plants me by his side in the pit, I will call proof of your art, for I dare say it is more than she herself can do. Every sentence she speaks is a riddle; all that I can be certain of is, that I am her and your humble servant, No. 107.] . PETER PUZZLE.' Tuesday, July 14, 1713.. -tendanda via est I'll try the experiment. Virg. Georg. iii. 8. over to him, in the same manner, the whole circle of beauties that are disposed among the boxes, and at the same time point out to him the persons who ogle them from their respective stations. I need not tell you that I may be of the same use in any other public assembly. Nor do I only profess the teaching of names, but of things. Upon the sight of a reigning beauty, I shall mention her admirers, and dis cover her gallantries, if they are of public notoriety. I shall likewise mark out every toast, I HAVE lately entertained my reader with the club in which she was elected, and the numtwo or three letters from a traveller, and may ber of votes that were on her side. Not a possibly, in some of my future papers, oblige woman shall be unexplained that makes a figure him with more from the same hand. The fol- either as a maid, a wife, or a widow. The men lowing one comes from a projector, which is a too shall be set out in their distinguishing chasort of correspondent as diverting as a travel-racters, and declared whose properties they are. ler; his subject having the same grace of novel. Their wit, wealth, or good-humour, their per ty to recommend it, and being equally adapted sons, stations, and titles, shall be described at to the curiosity of the reader. For my own large. part, I have always had a particular fondness for a project, and may say without vanity, that I have a pretty tolerable genius that way my self. I could mention some which I have brought to maturity, others which have miscarried, and many more which I have yet by me, and are to take their fate in the world when I see a proper juncture: I had a hand in the land-bank, and was consulted with upon the reformation of manners. I have had several designs upon the Thames and the New-river, not to mention my refinements upon lotteries and insurances, and that never-to-be-forgotten project, which, if it had succeeded to my wishes, would have made gold as plentiful in this nation as tin or copper. If my countrymen have not reaped any advantages from these my designs, it was not for want of any good-will towards them. They are obliged to me for my kind intentions as much as if they had taken effect. Projects are of a two-fold nature: the first arising from public-spirited persons, in which number I declare myself: the other proceeding from a regard to our private interest, of which nature is that in the following letter: 'SIR,-A man of your reading knows very well that there were a set of men in old Rome, called by the name of Nomenclators, that is, in English, men who call every one by his name. When a great man stood for any public office, as that of a tribune, a consul, or a censor, he had always one of these nomenclators at his elbow, who whispered in his ear the name of every one he met with, and by that means enabled him to salute every Roman citizen by his name when he asked him for his vote. To come to my purpose: I have with much pains and assiduity qualified myself for a nomenclator to this great city, and shall gladly enter upon my office as soon as I meet with suitable encouragement. I will let myself out by the week to any curious country gentleman or fo reigner. If he takes me with him in a coach to the Ring, I will undertake to teach him, in two or three evenings, the names of the most celebrated persons who frequent that place. If * The Ring in Hyde-park, at this time a fashionable place of resort. I have a wife who is a nomenclatress, and will be ready, on any occasion, to attend the ladies. She is of a much more communicative nature than myself, and is acquainted with all the private history of London and Westminster, and ten miles round. She has fifty private amours which nobody yet knows any thing of but herself, and thirty clandestine marriages, that have not been touched by the tip of a tongue. She will wait upon any lady at her own lodgings, and talk by the clock after the rate of three guineas an hour. 'N. B. She is a near kinswoman of the author of the New Atalantis. I need not recommend to a man of your sagacity, the usefulness of this project, and do therefore beg your encouragement of it, which will lay a very great obligation upon your humble servant.' After this letter from my whimsical correspondent, I shall publish one of a more serious the public, and in particular of such who are nature, which deserves the utmost attention of lovers of mankind. It is on no less a subject than that of discovering the longitude, and deserves a much higher name than that of a project, if our language afforded any such term. But all I can say on this subject will be superfluous when the reader sees the names of those persons by whom this letter is subscribed, and who have done me the honour to send it me. I must only take notice, that the first of these gentlemen is the same person who has lately obliged the world with that noble plan, entitled A Scheme of the Solar System, with the orbits of the planets and comets belonging thereto, described from Dr. Halley's accurate Table of Comets, Philosoph. Trans. No. 297, founded on sir Isaac Newton's wonderful discoveries, by William Whiston, M. A. To Nestor Ironside, Esq. At Button's Coffee-house, near Covent-Garden. London, July 11, 1713. 'SIR,-Having a discovery of considerable importance to communicate to the public, and finding that you are pleased to concern your. self in any thing that tends to the common be world a plan which has given offence to some gentlemen whom it would not be very safe to disoblige, I must insert the following remon strance; and at the same time promise those of my correspondents who have drawn this upon themselves, to exhibit to the public any such answer as they shall think proper to make to it. nefit of mankind, we take the liberty to desire | quarrel, but since I have communicated to the the insertion of this letter into your Guardian. We expect no other recommendation of it from you, but the allowing of it a place in so useful a paper. Nor do we insist on any protection from you, if what we propose should fall short of what we pretend to; since any disgrace, which in that case must be expected, ought to lie wholly at our own doors, and to be entirely borne by ourselves, which we hope we have provided for by putting our own names to this paper. It is well known, sir, to yourself and to the learned, and trading, and sailing world, that the great defect of the art of navigation is, that a ship at sea has no certain method, in either her eastern or western voyages, or even in her less distant sailing from the coasts, to know her longitude, or how much she is gone eastward or westward, as it can easily be known in any clear day or night, how much she is gone northward or southward. The several methods by lunar eclipses, by those of Jupiter's satellites, by the appulses of the moon to fixed stars, and by the even motions of pendulum clocks and watches, upon how solid foundations soever they are built, still failing in long voyages at sea, when they come to be practised; and leaving the poor sailors frequently to the great inaccuracy of a log-line, or dead reckoning. This defect is so great, and so many ships have been lost by it, and this has been so long and so sensibly known by trading nations, that great rewards are said to be publicly offered for its supply. We are well satisfied, that the discovery we have to make as to this matter is easily intelligible by all, and ready to be practised at sea as well as at land; that the latitude will thereby be likewise found at the same time; and that with proper charges it may be made as universal as the world shall please; nay, that the longitude and latitude may be generally hereby determined to a greater degree of exactness than the latitude itself is now usually found at sea. So that on all accounts we hope it will appear very worthy the public consideration. We are ready to disclose it to the world, if we may be assured that no other person shall be allowed to deprive us of those rewards which the public shall think fit to bestow for such a discovery; but do not desire actually to receive any benefit of that nature till sir Isaac Newton himself, with such other proper persons as shall be chosen to assist him, have given their opinion in favour of this discovery. If Mr. Ironside | pleases so far to oblige the public as to communicate this proposal to the world, he will also lay a great obligation on his very humble servants, No. 108.] WILL. WHISTON, Wednesday, July 15, 1713. Abietibus juvenes patriis et montibus æqui. Dryden. MR. GUARDIAN,-I was very much troubled to see the two letters which you lately published concerning the short club. You cannot imagine what airs all the little pragmatical fellows about us have given themselves since the reading of those papers. Every one cocks and struts upon it, and pretends to overlook us who are two feet higher than themselves. I met with one the other day who was at least three inches above five feet, which you know is the statutable measure of that club. This overgrown runt has struck off his heels, lowered his foretop, and contracted his figure, that he might be looked upon as a member of this new-erected society; nay, so far did his vanity carry him, that he talked familiarly of Tom Tiptoe, and pretends to be an intimate acquaintance of Tim Tuck. For my part, I scorn to speak any thing to the diminution of these little creatures, and should not have minded them had they been still shuttled among the crowd. Shrubs and underwoods look well enough while they grow within the shades of oaks and cedars; but when these pigmies pretend to draw themselves out from the rest of the world, and form themselves into a body, it is time for us who are men of figure to look about us. If the ladies should once take a liking to such a diminutive race of lovers, we should, in a little time, see mankind epitomized, and the whole species in miniature; daisy roots* would grow a fashionable diet. In order therefore to keep our posterity from dwindling, and fetch down the pride of this aspiring race of upstarts, we have here instituted a tall club. As the short club consists of those who are under five feet, ours is to be composed of such as are above six. These we look upon as the two extremes and antagonists of the species; considering all those as neuters who fill up the middle space. When a man rises beyond six feet he is a hypermeter, and may be admitted into the tall club.. We have already chosen thirty members, the most sightly of all her majesty's subjects. We elected a president, as many of the ancients did their kings, by reason of his height, having only confirmed him in that station above us which nature had given him. He is a Scotch Highlander, and within an inch of a show. As for my own part, I am but a sesquipedal, having only six feet and a half of stature. Being the shortest member of the club, I am appointed secretary. If you saw us all together you would take us for the sons of Anak. Our meetings are held like the old gothic parliaments, sub dio, in open air; but we shall make an interest, if we can, that we may hold our assem Daisy roots, boiled in milk, are said to check the I Do not care for burning my fingers in a growth of puppies. blies in Westminster-hall, when it is not term time. I must add, to the honour of our club, that it is one of our society who is now finding out the longitude. The device of our public scal is, a crane grasping a pigmy in his right foot. I know the short club value themselves very much upon Mr. Distich, who may possibly play some of his pentameters upon us, but if he does he shall certainly be answered in Alexandrines. For we have a poet among us of a genius as exalted as his stature, and who is very well read in Longinus's treatise concerning the sublime.* Besides, I would have Mr. Distich consider, that if Horace was a short man, Musæus, who makes such a noble figure in Virgil's sixth Eneid, was taller by the head and shoulders than all the people of Elysium. I shall therefore confront his lepidissimum homuncionem (a short quotation, and fit for a member of their club) with one that is much longer, and therefore more suitable to a member of ours. Quos circumfusos sic est affata Sibylla; To these the Sibyl thus her speech address'd: Dryden. If after all, this society of little men proceed as they have begun, to magnify themselves, and lessen men of higher stature, we have resolved to make a detachment, some evening or other, that shall bring away their whole club in a pair of panniers, and imprison them in a cupboard which we have set apart for that use, until they have made a public recantation. As for the little bully, Tim Tuck, if he pretends to be choleric, we shall treat him like his friend little Dicky, and hang him upon a peg until he comes to himself. I have told you our design, and let their little Machiavel prevent it if he can. This is, sir, the long and the short of the matter. I am sensible I shall stir up a nest of wasps by it, but let them do their worst. I think that we serve our country by discourag. ing this little breed, and hindering it from coming into fashion. If the fair sex look upon us with an eye of favour, we shall make some attempts to lengthen out the human figure, and restore it to its ancient procerity. In the mean time we hope old age has not inclined you in favour of our antagonists; for I do assure you sir, we are all your high admirers, though none more than, sir, yours, &c.' No. 109.] Thursday, July 16, 1713. Pugnabat tunica sed tamen illa tegi. Ocid. Amor. Lib. 1. Eleg, v. 14. Yet still she strove her naked charms to hide. course concerning the tucker. Some of them are filled with reproaches and invectives. A lady, who subscribes herself Teraminta, bids me, in a very pert manner, mind my own af fairs, and not pretend to meddle with their linen; for that they do not dress for an old fellow, who cannot see them without a pair of spectacles. Another, who calls herself Bubnelia, vents her passion in scurrilous terms; an old ninnyham. mer, a dotard, a nincompoop, is the best language she can afford me. Florella, indeed, expostulates with me upon the subject, and only complains that she is forced to return a pair of stays which were made in the extremity of the fashion, that she might not be thought to encourage peeping. But if on the one side I have been used ill, (the common fate of all reformers,) I have on the other side received great applauses and acknowledgments for what I have done, in having put a seasonable stop to this unaccountable hu mour of stripping, that has got among our Bri. tish ladies. As I would much rather the world should know what is said to my praise, than to my disadvantage, I shall suppress what has been written to me by those who have reviled me on this occasion, and only publish those letters which approve my proceedings. SIR,-I am to give you thanks in the name of half a dozen superannuated beauties, for your paper of the sixth instant. We all of us pass for women of fifty, and a man of your sense knows how many additional years are always to be thrown into female computations of this nature. We are very sensible that several young flirts about town had a design to cast us out of the fashionable world, and to leave us in the lurch by some of their late refinements. Two or three of them have been heard to say, that they would kill every old woman about town. In order to it, they began to throw off their clothes as fast as they could, and have played all those pranks which you have so seasonably taken notice of. We were forced to uncover, after them, being unwilling to give out so soon, and be regarded as veterans in the beau monde. Some of us have already caught our deaths by it. For my own part, I have not been without a cold ever since this foolish fashion came up. I have followed it thus far with the hazard of my life; and how much farther I must go nobody knows, if your paper does not bring us relief. You may assure yourself that all the antiquated necks about town are very much obliged to you. Whatever fires and flames are concealed in our bosoms (in which perhaps we vie with the youngest of the sex) they are not sufficient to preserve us against the wind and weather. In taking so many old women under your care, you have been a real Guardian to us, and saved the life of many of your contemporaries. In short, we all of us beg leave to subscribe ourselves, most venerable Nestor, your humble servants and sisters.' I am very well pleased with this approbation of my good sisters. I must confess I have alIways looked on the tucker to be the decus et tu tamen,* the ornament and defence, of the female | composition, which may be imputed to inadverneck. My good old lady, the lady Lizard, condemned this fashion from the beginning, and has observed to me, with some concern, that her sex, at the same time they are letting down their stays, are tucking up their petticoats, which grow shorter and shorter every day. The leg discovers itself in proportion with the neck. But I may possibly take another occasion of handling this extremity, it being my design to keep a watchful eye over every part of the female sex, and to regulate them from head to foot. In the mean time I shall fill up my paper with a letter which comes to me from another of my obliged correspondents. DEAR GUARDEE,-This comes to you from one of those untuckered ladies whom you were so sharp upon on Monday was se'nnight. I think myself mightily beholden to you for the reprehension you then gave us. You must know I am a famous olive beauty. But though this complexion makes a very good face when there are a couple of black sparkling eyes set in it, it makes but a very indifferent neck. Your fair women, therefore, thought of this fashion to insult the olives and the brunettes. They know very well, that a neck of ivory does not make so fine a show as one of alabaster. It is for this reason, Mr. Ironside, that they are so liberal in their discoveries. We know very well, that a woman of the whitest neck in the world, is to you no more than a woman of snow; but Ovid, in Mr. Duke's translation of him, seems to look upon it with another eye, when he talks of Corinna, and mentions tency, or to the imperfection of human nature. The truth of it is, there can be no more a perfect work in the world, than a perfect man. To say of a celebrated piece, that there are faults in it, is in effect to say no more, than that the author of it was a man. For this reason, I consider every critic that attacks an author in high reputation, as the slave in the Roman triumph, who was to call out to the conqueror, Remember, sir, that you are a man.' I speak this in relation to the following letter, which criticises the works of a great poet, whose very faults have more beauty in them than the most elaborate compositions of many more correct writers. The remarks are very curious and just, and introduced by a compliment to the work of an author, who I am sure would not care for being praised at the expense of another's reputation. I must therefore desire my correspondent to excuse me, if I do not publish either the preface or conclusion of his letter, but only the critical part of it. As Dryden's Cleomenes is acquainted with the "I am pleas'd with my own work; Jove was not more 'I have now Mr. Dryden's Don Sebastian before me, in which I find frequent allusions to ancient history, and the old mythology of the heathen. It is not very natural to suppose a king of Portugal would be borrowing thoughts out of Ovid's Metamorphoses when he talked even to those of his own court; but to allude to these Roman fables when he talks to an emperor of Barbary, seems very extraordinary. But observe how he defies him out of the classics, in the following lines: "Why didst not thou engage me man to man, And try the virtue of that Gorgon face To stare me into statue ?" 'Almeyda, at the same time, is more book. learned than Don Sebastian. She plays a hydra upon the emperor that is full as good as the Gorgon. "O that I had the fruitful heads of hydra, 'She afterwards, in allusion to Hercules, bids him "lay down the lion's skin, and take the distaff;" and in the following speech utters her passion still more learnedly. |