not lofe the Pleafure of being your Father by the Dif covery I have made to you. Leonilla too fhall be ftill my Daughter; ber filial Piety, though misplaced, has been fo exemplary that it deferves the greatest Reward I can confer upon it. You shall have the Pleasure of feeing a great Eftate fall to you, which you would have loft the Relish of had you known yourSelf born to it. Continue only to deferve it in the Jame manner you did before you were poffeffed of it. I have left your Mother in the next Room. Her Heart yearns towards you. She is making the fame Difcoveries to Leonilla which I have made to yourself. Florio was fo overwhelmed with this Profufion of Happiness, that he was not able to make a Reply, but threw himself down at his Father's Feet, and amidst a Flood of Tears, kiffed and embraced his Knees, afking his Bleffing, and expreffing in dumb Show thofe Sentiments of Love, Duty, and Gratitude that were too big for Utterance. To conclude, the happy Pair were married, and half Eudoxus's Eftate fettled upon them. Leontine and Eudoxus paffed the Remainder of their Lives together; and received in the dutiful and affectionate Behaviour of Florio and Leonilla the juft Recompence, as well as the natural Effects, of that Care which they had bestowed upon them in their Education.

Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis affuefcite bella:

Neu patriæ validas in vifcera vertite vires. VIRG.

Y worthy Friend Sir ROGER, when we are talking of the Malice of Parties, very frequently tells us an Accident that happened to him when he was a School-boy, which was at a time when the Feuds ran high between the Round-heads and Cavaliers. This worthy Knight, being then but a Stripling, had occafion to inquire which was the Way to St. Anne's Lane, upon which the Perfon whom he spoke to, instead of answering his Question, called him a young Popish Cur, and asked him who had made Anne a Saint! The Boy, being in fome Confufion, inquired of the next he met, which was the Way to Anne's Lane; but was called a prick-eared Cur for his Pains, and instead of being fhewn the Way, was told that she had been a Saint before he

was born, and would be one after he was hanged. Upon this, fays Sir ROGER, I did not think fit to repeat the former Question, but going into every Lane of the Neighbourhood, afked what they called the Name of that Lane. By which ingenious Artifice he found out the Place he inquired after, without giving Offence to any Party. Sir ROGER generally clofes this Narrative with Reflexions on the Mischief that Parties do in the Country; how they fpoil good Neighbourhood, and make honeft Gentlemen hate one another; befides that they manifeftly tend to the prejudice of the Land-Tax, and the Destruction of the Game.

THERE cannot a greater Judgment befal a Country than fuch a dreadful Spirit of Divifion as rends a Government into two diftinct People, and makes them greater Strangers and more averse to one another, than if they were actually two different Nations. The Effects of fuch a Division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those Advantages which they give the Common Enemy, but to those private Evils which they produce in the Heart of almost every particular Perfon. This Influence is very fatal both to Mens Morals and their Understandings; it sinks the Virtue of a Nation, and not only fo, but destroys even Common Sense.

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A furious Party Spirit, when it rages in its full Violence, exerts itself in Civil War and Bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest Restraints naturally breaks out in Falfhood, Detraction, Calumny, and a partial Administration of Juftice. In a word, it fills a Nation with Spleen and Rancour, and extinguishes all the Seeds of Good-nature, Compaffion, and Humanity.

I remember to have read in Diodorus Siculus an Account of a very active little Animal, which I think he calls the Ichneumon, that makes it the whole Business of his Life to break the Eggs of the Crocodile, which he is always in fearch after. This Instinct is the more remarkable, because the Ichneumon never feeds upon the Eggs he has broken, nor any other Way finds his Account in them. Were it not for the inceffant Labours of this induftrious Animal, Ægypt, fays the Historian, would be over-run with Crocodiles; for the Ægyptians are so far from destroying those pernicious Creatures, that they worship them as Gods.

IF we look into the Behaviour of ordinary Partizans, we shall find them far from resembling this difinterested Animal; and rather acting after the Example of the wild Tartars, who are ambitious of destroying a Man of the most extraordinary Parts and Accomplishments, as thinking that upon

his Decease the fame Talents, whatever Post they qualified him for, enter of Course into his Destroyer.

AS in the whole Train of my Speculations, I have endeavoured as much as I am able to extinguish that pernicious Spirit of Paffion and Prejudice, which rages with the fame Violence in all Parties, I am still the more defirous of doing some Good in this Particular, because I obferve that the Spirit of Party reigns more in the Country than in the Town. It here contracts a kind of Brutality and ruftick Fierceness, to which Men of a politer Conversation are wholly Strangers. It extends itself even to the Return of the Bow and the Hat; and at the fame time that the Heads of Parties preferve towards one another an outward Show of Goodbreeding, and keep up a perpetual Intercourfe of Civilities, their Tools that are difperfed in these outlying Parts will not fo much as mingle together at a Cock-match. This Humour fills the Country with feveral periodical Meetings of Whig Jockies and Tory Fox-hunters; not to mention the innumerable Curfes, Frowns, and Whispers it produces at a Quarter-Seffions.

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I do not know whether I have observed in any my former Papers, that my Friends Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY and Sir ANDREW FREEPORT are of different Principles, the first of them inclined to