OUR affembly could boaft no fuch conftellation of intellects as Clarendon's band of Affociates. We had among us no Selden, Falkland, or Waller, but we had men not lefs important in their own eyes, tho' less distinguished by the publick; and many a time have we lamented the partiality of mankind, and agreed that men of the deepeft enquiry fometimes let their discoveries die away in filence, that the most comprehenfive obfervers have feldom opportunities of imparting their remarks, and that modeft merit paffes in the croud unknown and unheeded.

ONE of the greatest men of the fociety was SIM SCRUPLE, who lives in a continual equipoife of doubt, and is a conftant enemy to confidence and dogmatism. Sim's favourite topic of converfation is the narrowness of the human mind, the fallaciousness of our senses, the prevalence of early prejudice, and the uncertainty of appearances. Sim has many doubts about the nature of death, and is sometimes inclined to believe that fenfation may furvive motion, and that a dead man may feel tho' he cannot ftir. He has fometimes hinted that man might perhaps have been naturally a qua

druped,

druped, and thinks it would be very proper that at the Foundling Hospital fome children fhould be inclofed in an apartment in which the nurses should be obliged to walk half upon four and half upon two, that the younglings being bred without the prejudice of example, might have no other guide than Nature, and might at laft come forth into the world as Genius fhould direct, erect or prone, on two legs or on four.

THE next in dignity of mien and fluency of talk, was DICK WORM WOOD, whofe fole delight is to find every thing wrong. Dick never enters a room but he fhews that the door and the chimney are ill placed. He never walks into the fields but he finds ground plowed which is fitter for pafture. He is always an enemy to the prefent Fashion. He holds that all the Beauty and Virtue of women will foon be deftroyed by the use of Tea. He triumphs when he talks on the prefent System of Education, and tell us with great vehemence, that we are learning words when we fhould learn things. He is of opinion that we fuck in errors at the nurse's breast, and thinks it extremely ridiculous that children

I 4

children should be taught to use the right hand rather than the left.

BOB STURDY confiders it as a point of honour to fay again what he has once faid, and wonders how any man that has been known to alter his opinion, can look his neighbours in the face. Bob is the most formidable difputant of the whole company; for without troubling himself to fearch for reafons, he tires his antagonist with repeated affirmations. When Bob has been attacked for an hour with all the powers of Eloquence and Reason, and his position appears to all but himself utterly untenable, he always closes the debate with his firft declaration, introduced by a ftout preface of contemptuous civility. "All this is very judicious; you may talk, Sir, as you please; but I will still fay what I faid at first." Bob deals much in Univerfals, which he has now obliged us to let pass without exceptions. He lives on an annuity, and holds that there are as many Thieves as Traders; he is of Loyalty unshaken, and always maintains, that he who fees a Jacobite fees a Rafcal.

PHIL GENTLE is an enemy to the rudenefs of contradiction and the turbulence of

debate. Phil has no notions of his own, and therefore willingly catches from the last speaker such as he shall drop. This flexibility of ignorance is easily accommodated to any tenet; his only difficulty is, when the disputants grow zealous, how to be of two contrary opinions at once. If no appeal is made to his judgment, he has the art of diftributing his attention and his fmiles in fuch a manner, that each thinks him of his own party; but if he is obliged to speak, he then obferves, that the question is difficult; that he never received fo much pleasure from a debate before; that neither of the controvertifts could have found his match in any other company; that Mr. Wormwood's affertion is very well fupported, and yet there is great force in what Mr. Scruple advanced against it. By this indefinite declaration both are commonly fatisfied; for he that has prevailed is in good humour, and he that has felt his own weakness

is very glad to have escaped fo well.

I am, Sir, Yours, &c.

ROBIN SPRITELY.

N° 84. Saturday, November 24.

B of narrative writing, that which is moft

IOGRAPHY is, of the various kinds

eagerly read, and most easily applied to the purposes of life.

IN Romances, when the wild field of Poffibility lies open to invention, the incidents may easily be made more numerous, the viciffitudes more fudden, and the events more wonderful; but from the time of life when Fancy begins to be over-ruled by Reafon and corrected by Experience, the most artful tale raises little curiofity when it is known to be false; tho' it may, perhaps, be fometimes read as a model of a neat or elegant ftile, not for the fake of knowing what it contains, but how it is written; or those that are weary of themfelves, may have recourfe to it as a pleasing dream, of which, when they awake, they