fations; he finds reft more agreeable than motion; and while he has a warm fire and his doxy, never reflects that he deferves to be whipped. Every man who terminates his fatisfactions and enjoyments within the fupply of his own neceffities and paffions, is, fays Sir Roger, in my eye, as poor a rogue as Scarecrow. But, continued he, for the lofs of public and private virtue, we are beholden to your men of parts forfooth; it is with them no matter what is done, fo it be done with an air. But to me, who am fo whimsical in a corrupt age as to act according to nature and reason, a selfish man, in the most fhining circumftance and equipage, appears in the fame condition with the fellow abovementioned, but more contemptible, in proportion to what more he robs the public of, and enjoys above him. I lay it down therefore for a rule, that the whole man is to move together; that every action of any importance, is to have a profpect of public good; and that the general tendency of our indifferent actions ought to be agreeable to the dictates of reason, of religion, of good breeding; without this, a man, as I before have hinted, is hopping instead of walking, he is not in his intire and proper motion.

While the honeft knight was thus bewildering himfelf in good starts, I looked attentively upon him, which made him, I thought, collect his mind a little. What I aim at, fays he, is to reprefent, that I am of opinion, to polish our understandings and neglect our manners, is of all things the most inexcufable. Reafon fhould. govern paffion, but instead of that, you fee, it is often fubfervient to it; and as unaccountable as one would think it, a wife man is not always a good man. This degeneracy is not only the gift of particular perfons, but at fome times of a whole people and perhaps it may appear upon examination, that the moft polite ages are the leaft virtuous. This may be attributed to the folly of admitting wit and learning as merit in themfelves, without confidering the application of them. By this means it becomes a rule, not fo much to regard what we do, as how we do it. But this falfe beauty will not pass upon men of honeft minds and true taste: Sir Richard Blackmore fays, with as much good fenfe as

virtue,

virtue, "It is a mighty dishonour and fhame to employ "excellent faculties and abundance of wit to humour and "please men in their vices and follies. The great enemy "of mankind, notwithstanding his wit and angelic facul"ties, is the most odious being in the whole creation.' He goes on foon after to fay very generoufly, that he undertook the writing of his poem to refcue the Mufes "out of the hands of ravishers, to restore them to their "fweet and chafte manfions, and to engage them in an employment fuitable to their diguity.' This certainly ought to be the purpose of every man who appears in public, and whoever does not proceed upon that foundation, injures his country as faft as he fucceeds in his ftudies. When modefty ceafes to be the chief ornament of one fex, and integrity of the other, fociety is upon a wrong bafis, and we fall be ever after without rules to guide our judg ment in what is really becoming and ornamental. Nature and reafon direct one thing, paffion and humour another to follow the dictates of the two latter, is going into a road that is both endless and intricate; when we purfue the other, our paffage is delightful, and what we aim at eafily attainable.

I do not doubt but England is at prefent as polite a nation as any in the world; but any man who thinks can eafily fee, that the affectation of being gay and in fashion, has very near eaten up our good fenfe and our religion. Is there any thing fo juft, as that mode and gallantry should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper and agreeable to the inflitutions of juftice and piety among us? And yet is there any thing more common than that we run in perfect contradiction to them? All which is fupported by no other pretenfion, than that it is done with what we call a good grace.

Nothing ought to be held laudable or becoming, but what nature itself fhould prompt us to think fo. Refpect to all kind of fuperiors is founded, methinks, upon inftinct; and yet what is fo ridiculous as age? I make this abrupt tranfition to the mention of this vice more than any other, in order to introduce a little ftory, which I think a pretty inftance that the most polite age is in danger of being the moft vicious.

It happened at Athens, during a public reprefentation of fome play exhibited in honour of the common-wealth, that an old Gentleman came too late for a place fuitable to his age and quality. Many of the young gentlemen who obferved the difficulty and confufion he was in, made figns to him that they would • accommodate him if he came where they fat: the good man buftled through the croud accordingly; but ⚫ when he came to the feats to which he was invited, the jeft was to fit close, and expofe him, as he stood out ⚫ of countenance, to the whole audience. The frolic

went round all the Athenian benches. But on thofe ⚫ occafions there were also particular places affigned for foreigners: when the good man fkulked towards the boxes appointed for the Lacedemonians, that honeft people, more virtuous than polite, rofe up all to a man, and with the greatest refpect received him among them. The Athenians being fuddenly touched with a fenfe of the Spartan virtue and their own degeneracy, < gave a thunder of applaufe; and the old man cried out, The Athenians understand what is good, but the La• cedemonians practise it.'

N° 7.

Thursday, March 8.

Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, fagas,
Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Theffala rides?

R

HOR. Ep. ii. 208.

Vifions, and magic fpells, can you despise,
And laugh at witches, ghosts, and prodigies?

GOIN

OING yefterday to dine with an old acquaintance, I had the misfortune to find his whole family very much dejected. Upon afking him the occafion of it, he told me that his wife had dreamt a strange dream the night before, which they were afraid portended fome misfortune to themselves or to their children. At her coming into the room I obferved a fettled melancholy in her countenance, which I should

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66

fhould have been troubled for, had I not heard from whence it proceeded. We were no fooner fat down, but after having looked upon me a little while, "My dear, fays fhe, turning to her husband, you may now fee the stranger that was in the candle laft night." Soon after this, as they began to talk of family affairs, a little boy at the lower end of the table told her, that he was to go into join-hand on Thursday. "Thursday! fays fhe, no, child, if it pleafe God, you fhall not begin upon "Childermas-day; tell your writing-mafter that Friday "will be foon enough." I was reflecting with myfelf on the oddness of her fancy, and wondering that any body would establish it as a rule to lofe a day in every week. In the midst of thefe my mufings, the defired me to reach her a little falt upon the point of my knife, which I did in fuch a trepidation and hurry of obedience, that I let it drop by the way; at which the immediately startled, and faid it fell towards her. Upon this I looked very blank; → and, obferving the concern of the whole table, began to confider myself, with fome confufion, as a perfon that had brought a difafter upon the family. The lady, however, recovering herfelf after a little fpace, faid to her husband, with a figh, 66 My dear, misfortunes never co.ne "fingle." My friend, I found, acted but an under-part at his table, and being a man of more good-nature than underftanding, thinks himself obliged to fall in with all the paffions and humours of his yoke-fellow: "Do not "you remember, child, fays the, that the pigeon-house "fell the very afternoon that our careless wench fpilt the "falt upon the table? Yes, fays he, my dear, and the “ next poft brought us an account of the battle of Al"manza." The reader may guefs at the figure I made after having done all this mifchief. I difpatched my dinner as foon as I could, with my ufual taciturnity; when, to my utter confufion, the Lady feeing me quitting my knife and fork, and laying them acrofs one another upon the plate, defired me that I would humour her so far as to take them out of that figure, and place them fide by fide. What the abfurdity was which I had commited I did not know, but I fuppofe there was fome traditionary fu perftition in it; and therefore, in obedience to the lady of the houfe, I difpofed of my knife and fork in two parallel

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lines,

lines, which is the figure I fhall always lay them in for the future, tho I do not know any reafon for

it.

It is not difficult for a man to fee that a person has conceived an averfion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the Lady's looks, that the regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate afpect. For which reafon I took my leave immediately after dinner, and withdrew to my own lodgings. Upon my return home, I fell into a profound contemplation on the evils that attend thefe fuperftitious follies of mankind; how they fubject us to imaginary afflictions,. and additional forrows, that do not properly come within our lot. As if the natural calamities of life: were not fufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumftances into misfortunes, and fuffer as much from trifling accidents, as from real evils. I have known the fhooting of a ftar fpoil, a night's reft; and have feen a man in love grow pale and lofe his appe-tite, upon the plucking of a merry-thought. A fcreechowl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing fo inconfiderable, which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognofties. A rufty nail, or a crooked pin, fhoot up into prodigies.

I remember I was once in a mixt affembly, that was full of noife and mirth, when on a fudden an old wo man unluckily obferved there were thirteen of us in company. This remark ftruck a panic terror into fe veral who were prefent, infomuch that one or two of the Ladies were going to leave the room; but a friend of mine taking notice that one of our female companions was big with child, affirmed there were fourteen in the room, and that, instead of portending one of the company fhould die, it plainly foretold one of them fhould be born. Had not my friend found out this expedient to break the omen, I queftion not but half the women in the company would have fallen fick that very night.

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