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A GOOD conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves a constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can possibly befall us. I know nothing so hard for a generous mind to get over as calumny and reproach, and cannot find any method of quieting the soul under them, besides this single one, of our being conscious to ourselves that we do not deserve them.

I have been always mightily pleased with that passage in Don Quixote, where the fantastical knight is represented as loading a gentleman of good sense with praises and eulogiums. Upon which the gentleman makes this reflection to himself: How grateful is praise to human nature! I cannot forbear being secretly pleased with the commendations I receive, though I am sensible it is a madman that bestows them on me. In the same manner, though we are often sure that the censores which are passed upon us are uttered by those who know nothing of us, and have neither means nor abilities to form a right judgment of us, we cannot forbear being grieved at what they say.

In order to heal this infirmity, which is so natural to the best and wisest of men, I have taken a particular pleasure in observing the conduct of the old philosophers, how they bore themselves up against the malice and detraction of their enemies.

The way to silence calumny, says Bias, is to be always exercised in such things as are praise-worthy. Socrates after having received sentence, told his friends, that he had always accustomed himself to regard truth and not censure, and that he was not troubled at his condemnation, because he knew himself free from guilt. It was in the same spirit that he heard the accusations of his two great adversaries, who had uttered against him the most

virulent reproaches. Anytus and Melitus, says he, may procure sentence against me, but they cannot hurt me. This divine philosopher was so well fortified in his own innocence, that he neglected all the impotence of evil tongues which were engaged in his destruction. This was properly the support of a good conscience, that contradicted the reports which had been raised against him, and cleared him to himself.

Others of the philosophers rather choose to retort the injury by a smart reply, than thus to disarm it with respect to themselves. They show that it stung them, though at the same time they had the address to make their aggressors suffer with them. Of this kind was Aristotle's reply to one who pursued him with long and bitter invectives. 'You,' says he, 'who are used to suffer reproaches, utter them with delight; I who have not been used to utter them take no pleasure in hearing them.' Diogenes was still more severe on one who spoke ill of him: 'Nobody will believe you when you speak ill of me, any more than they would believe me should I speak well of you.'

In these, and many other instances I could produce, the bitterness of the answer sufficiently testifies the uneasiness of mind the person was under who made it. I would rather advise my reader, if he has not in this case the secret consolation, that he deserves no such reproaches as are cast upon him, to follow the advice of Epictetus: 'If any one speaks ill of thee, consider whether he has truth on his side; and if so, reform thyself, that his censures may not affect thee.' When Anaximander was told, that the very boys laughed at his singing; 'Ay,' says he, 'then I must learn to sing better.' But of all the sayings of philosophers which I have gathered together for my own use on this occasion, there are none which carry in them more candour and good sense than the two following ones of Plato. Being told that he had many enemies who spoke ill of him; 'It is no matter,' said he, 'I will live so that none shall believe them.' Hearing at another time that an intimate friend of his had spoken detractingly of him; 'I am sure he would not do it,' says he, if he had not some reason for it.' This is the surest as well as the noblest way of drawing the sting out of a reproach, and a true method of preparing a man for that great and only relief against the pains of calumny, 'a good conscience.'

I designed in this essay to show that there is no happiness wanting to him who is possessed of this excellent frame of mind, and that no person can be miserable who is in the enjoyment of it: but I find this subject so well treated in one of Dr. South's sermons, that I shall fill this Saturday's paper with a passage of it, which cannot but make the man's heart

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burn within him, who reads it with due at- | No. 136.] Monday, August 17, 1713.
tention.

That admirable author having shown the
virtue of a good conscience in supporting a
man under the greatest trials and difficulties
of life, concludes with representing its force
and efficacy in the hour of death.

'The third and last instance, in which above all others this confidence towards God does most eminently show and exert itself, is at the time of death. Which surely gives the grand opportunity of trying both the strength and worth of every principle. When a man shall be just about to quit the stage of this world, to put off his mortality, and to deliver up his last accounts to God; at which sad time his memory shall serve him for little else, but to terrify him with a frightful review of his past life, and his former extravagances stripped of all their pleasure, but retaining their guilt: what is it then that can promise him a fair passage into the other world, or a comfortable appearance before lus dreadful Judge when he is there? Not all the friends and interests, all the riches and honours under heaven can speak so much as a word for bim, or one word of comfort to him in that condition; they may possibly reproach, but they cannot relieve him.

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No, at this disconsolate time, when the busy tempter shall be more than usually apt to vex and trouble him, and the pains of a dying body to hinder and discompose him, and the settlement of worldly affairs to disturb and confound him; and in a word, all things conspire to make his sick bed grievous and uneasy; nothing can then stand up against all these ruins, and speak life in the midst of death, But a clear conscience.

'And the testimony of that shall make the comforts of heaven descend upon his weary head, like a refreshing dew, or a shower upon a parched ground. It shall give him some lively earnests, and secret anticipations of his approaching joy. It shall bid his soul go out of the body undauntedly, and lift up his head with confidence before saints and angels. Surely the comfort which it conveys at this season, is something bigger than the capacities of mortality, mighty and unspeakable, and not to be understood until it comes to be felt.

'And now, who would not quit all the pleasures, and trash, and trifles, which are apt to captivate the heart of man, and pursue the greatest rigours of piety, and austerities of a good life, to purchase to himself such a conscience, as at the hour of death, when all the friendship in the world shall bid him adieu, and the whole creation turn its back upon him, shall dismiss the soul and close his eyes with that blessed sentence, well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the y of thy Lord!""

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Noctes atque dies patet atri janua ditis.

Virg. ÆL. vi. 197. The gates of death are open night and day.

Dryden.

SOME of our quaint moralists have pleased themselves with an observation, that there is but one way of coming into the world, but a thousand to go out of it. I have seen a fanciful dream written by a Spaniard, in which he introduces the person of Death metamorphosing himself like another Proteus into innumerable shapes and figures. To represent the fatality of fevers and agues, with many other distempers and accidents that destroy the life of man, Death enters first of all in a body of fire; a little after he appears like a man of snow, then rolls about the room like a cannon-ball, then lies on the table like a gilded pill; after this he transforms himself of a sudden into a sword, then dwindles successively to a dagger, to a bodkin, to a crooked pin, to a needle, to a hair. The Spaniard's design by this allegory, was to show the many assaults to which the life of man is exposed, and to let his reader see that there was scarce any thing in nature so very mean and inconsiderable, but that it was able to overcome him, and lay his head in the dust. I remember monsieur Pascal, in his reflections on Providence, has this observation upon Cromwel's death. That usurper, says he, who had destroyed the royal family in his own nation, who had made all the princes of Europe tremble, and struck a terror into Rome itself, was at last taken out of the world by a fit of the gravel. An atom, a grain of sand, says he, that would have oeen of no significancy in any other part of the universe, being lodged in such a particular place, was an instrument of Providence to bring about the most happy revolutions, and to remove froin the face of the earth this troubler of mankind. In short, swarms of distempers are every where hovering over us; casualties, whether at home or abroad, whether we wake or sleep, sit or walk, are planted about us in ambuscade; every element, every climate, every season, all nature is full of death.

There are more casualties incident to men than women, as battles, sea-voyages, with several dangerous trades and professions that often prove fatal to the practitioners. I have seen a treatise written by a learned physician on the distempers peculiar to those who work in stone or marble. It has been therefore observed by curious men, that upon a strict examination there are more males brought into the world than females. Providence, to supply this waste in the species, has made allowances for it by a suitable redundancy in the male sex. Those who have made the nicest calcu lations have found, I think, that taking on: year with another, there are about twenty boys produced to nineteen girls. This observation is so well grounded, that I will at any time lay five to four, that there appear more male than female infants in every weekly bill of mortality. And what can be a more demonstrative argument of the superintendency of Providence?

There are casualties incident to every particular station and way of life. A friend of mine was once saying, that he fancied there would be something new and diverting in a country bill of mortality. Upon communicating this hint to a gentleman who was then going down to his seat, which lies at a considerable distance from London, he told me he would make a collection, as well as he could,

of the several deaths that had happened in his
country for the space of a whole year, and
send them up to me in the form of such a bill
as I mentioned. The reader will here see that
he has been as good as his promise. To make
it the more entertaining he has set down,
among the real distempers, some imaginary
ones, to which the country people ascribe the
deaths of some of their neighbours. I shall
extract out of them such only as seem almost
peculiar to the country, laying aside fevers,
apoplexies, small-pox, and the like, which they
have in common with towns and cities.

Of a six-bar gate, fox-hunters
Of a quick-set hedge

Two duels, viz.

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First, between a frying-pan and a pitch-fork

Second, between a joint-stool and a brown jug

Bewitched

Of an evil tongue
Crossed in love

Broke his neck in robbing a hen-roost
Cut finger turned to a gangrene by an
old gentlewoman of the parish
Surfeit of curds and cream

Took cold sleeping at church
Of a sprain in his shoulder by saving his
dog at a bull-baiting
Lady B's cordial water
Knocked down by a quart bottle

Frighted out of his wits by a headless
dog with saucer eyes

Of October

Broke a vein in bawling for a knight of the shire

Old women drowned upon trial of witchcraft

Climbing a crow's nest

Chalk and green apples

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HORACE, Juvenal, Boileau, and indeed the greatest writers in almost every age, have exposed with all the strength of wit and good sense, the vanity of a man's valuing himself upon his ancestors, and endeavoured to show that true nobility consists in virtue, not in birth. With submission however to so many great authorities, I think they have pushed this matter a little too far. We ought, in gratitude, to honour the posterity of those who have raised either the interest or reputation of their country; and by whose labours we ourselves are more happy, wise, or virtuous, than we should have been without them. Besides, naturally speaking, a man bids fairer for greatness of soul, who is the descendant of worthy 1 ancestors, and has good blood in his veins, than one who is come of an ignoble and obscure parentage. For these reasons I think a man 13 of merit, who is derived from an illustrious line, is very justly to be regarded more than a man of equal merit, who has no claim to hereditary honours. Nay, I think those who are indifferent in themselves, and have nothing else 1 to distinguish them but the virtues of their 2 forefathers, are to be looked upon with a de

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Led into a horse-pond by a will of the wisp 1
Died of a fright in an exercise of the
trained bands

Over-eat himself at a house-warming
By the parson's bull

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After having thus ascribed due honours to birth and parentage, I must however take notice of those who arrogate to themselves more honours than are due to them on this account. The first are such who are not enough sensible that vice and ignorance taint the blood, and that an unworthy behaviour degrades and disennobles a man in the eye of the world as much as birth and family aggrandize and exalt him.

The second are those who believe a new man of an elevated merit is not more to be honoured than an insignificant and worthless

man who is descended from a long line of pa1 triots and heroes: or in other words, behold 2 with contempt a person who is such a man as

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the first founder of their family was, upon | ning of the last century. They were every variety. By this means every one of my readers | that they were to make their appearance in

whose reputation they value themselves.

But I shall chiefly apply myself to those whose quality sits uppermost in all their discourses and behaviour. An enipty man of a great family is a creature that is scarce conversible. You read his ancestry in his smile, in his air, in his eyebrow. He has indeed nothing but his nobility to give employment to his thoughts. Rank and precedency are the important points which he is always discussing within himself. A gentleman of this turn began a speech in one of king Charles's parliaments: 'Sir, I had the honour to be born at a time'- upon which a rough honest gentleman took him up short, ' I would fain know what that gentleman means; is there any one in the house that has not had the honour to be born as well as himself?" The good sense which reigns in our nation has pretty well destroyed this starched behaviour among men who have seen the world, and know that every gentleman will be treated upon a foot of equality. But there are many who have had their education among women, dependants, or flatterers, that loose all the respect which would otherwise be paid them, by being too assiduous in procuring it. My lord Froth has been so educated in punetilio, that he governs himself by a ceremonial in all the ordinary occurrences of life. He measures out his bow to the degree of the person he converses with. I have seen him in every inclination of the body, from a familiar nod, to the low stoop in the salutation sign. I remember five of us, who were acquainted with one another, met together one morning at his lodgings, when a wag of the company was saying, it would be worth while to observe how he would distinguish us at his first entrance. Accordingly he no sooner came into the room, but casting his eye about, 'My lord such a one,' says he, 'your most humble servant. Sir Richard, your humble servant. Your servant, Mr. Ironside. Mr. Ducker, how do you do? Ha, Frank, are you there!'

There is nothing more easy than to discover a man whose heart is full of his family. Weak minds that have imbibed a strong tincture of the nursery, younger brothers that have been brought up to nothing, superannuated retainers to a great house, have generally their thoughts taken up with little else.

I had some years ago, an aunt of my own, by name Mrs. Martha Ironside, who would never marry beneath herself, and is supposed to have died a maid in the four-scorth year of her age. She was the chronicle of our family, and past away the greatest part of the last forty years of her life in recounting the antiquity, marriages, exploits, and alliances of the Ironsides. Mrs. Martha conversed generally with a knot of old virgins, who were likewise of good families, and had been very cruel all the begin

one of them as proud as Lucifer; but said their prayers twice a day, and in all other respects were the best women in the world. If they saw a fine petticoat at church, they immediately took to pieces the pedigree of her that wore it, and would lift up their eyes to heaven at the confidence of the saucy minx, when they found she was an honest tradesman's daughter. It is impossible to describe the pious indignation that would rise in them at the sight of a man who lived plentifully on an estate of his own getting. They were transported with zeal beyond measure, if they heard of a young woman's matching into a great family upon account only of her beauty, her merit, or her money. In short, there was not a female within ten miles of them that was in possession of a gold watch, a pearl necklace, or piece of Mechlin lace, but they examined her title to it. My aunt Martha used to chide me very frequently for not sufficiently valuing myself. She would not eat a bit all dinner-time, if at an invitation she found she had been seated below herself; and would frown upon me for an hour together, if she saw me give place to any man under a baronet. As I was once talking to her of a wealthy citizen whom she had refused in her youth, she declared to me with great warmth, that she preferred a man of quality in his shirt to the richest man upon the Change in a coach and six. She pretended that our family was nearly related by the mother's side to half a dozen peers; but as none of them knew any thing of the matter, we always kept it as a secret among ourselves. A little before her death she was reciting to me the history of my forefathers; but dwelling a little longer than ordinary upon the actions of sir Gilbert Ironside, who had a horse shot under him at Edgehillfight, I gave an unfortunate pish, and asked, 'What was all this to me?" Upon which she retired to her closet, and fell a scribbling for three hours together, in which time, as I afterwards found, she struck me out of her will, and left all she had to my sister Margaret, a wheedling baggage, that used to be asking questions about her great-grandfather from morning to night. She now lies buried among the family of the Ironsides, with a stone over her, acquainting the reader, that she died at the age of eighty years, a spinster, and that she was descended of the ancient family of the Ironsides; after which follows the genealogy drawn up by her own hand.

No. 138.] Wednesday, August 19, 1713.

Incenditque animum famæ venientis amore.

Virg. Æn. vi. 880.

And fires his mind with love of future fame.

THERE is nothing which I study so much in the course of these my daily dissertations as

is sure some time or other to find a subject that pleases him, and almost every paper has some particular set of men for its advocates. Instead of seeing the number of my papers every day increasing, they would quickly lie as a drug upon my hands, did not I take care to keep up the appetite of my guests, and quicken it from time to time by something new and unexpected. In short, I endeavour to treat my reader in the same manner as Eve does the angel in that beautiful description of Milton:

So saying, with despatchful looks in haste
She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent,
What choice to choose for delicacy best;
What order, so contrived as not to mix
Tastes, not well joined, inelegant; but bring
Taste after taste, upheld with kindliest change.
Whatever earth, all-bearing mother, yields
In India East or West, or middle shore;
In Pontus or the Punic coast, or where
Alcinous reigned; fruit of all kinds, in coat
Rough or smooth rin'd, or bearded, husk or shell,
She gathers, tribute large, and on the board
Heaps with unsparing hand'

Fifth Book.

If by this method I can furnish out a Splendidu farrago, according to the compliment lately paid me in a fine poem, published among the exercises of the last Oxford act, I have gained the end which I proposed to myself.

In my yesterday's paper, I showed how the actions of our ancestors and forefathers should excite us to every thing that is great and virtuous. I shall here observe, that a regard to our posterity, and those who are to descend from us, ought to have the same kind of influence on a generous mind. A noble soul would rather die than commit an action that should make his children blush when he is in his grave, and be looked upon as a reproach to those who shall live a hundred years after him. On the contrary, nothing can be a more pleasing thought to a man of eminence, than to consider that his posterity, who lie many removes from him, shall make their boasts of his virtues, and be honoured for his sake.

Virgil represents this consideration as an incentive of glory to Æneas, when after having shown him the race of heroes who were to descend from him, Anchises adds with a noble warmth,

Et debitamus adhuc virtutem extendere factis?"
Æn. vi. 806.

And doubt we yet through dangers to pursue
The paths of honour?'

Dryden.

Since I have mentioned this passage in Virgil, where Æneas was entertained with the view of his great descendants, I cannot forbear observing a particular beauty, which I do not know that any one has taken notice of. The list which he has there drawn up was in general to do honour to the Roman name, but more particularly to compliment Augustus. For this reason Anchises, who shows Æneas most of the rest of his descendants in the same order

the world, breaks his method for the sake of Augustus, whom he singles out iminediately after having mentioned Romulus, as the most illustrious person who was to rise in that empire which the other had founded. He was impatient to describe his posterity raised to the utmost pitch of glory, and therefore passes over all the rest to come at this great man, whom by this means he implicitly represents as making the most conspicuous figure among them. By this artifice the poet did not only give his emperor the greatest praise he could bestow upon him; but hindered his reader from drawing a parallel which would have been disadvantageous to him, had he been celebrated in his proper place, that is, after Pompey and Cæsar, who each of them eclipsed the other in military glory.

Though there have been finer things spoken of Augustus than of any other man, all the wits of his age having tried to outrival one another on that subject; he never received a compliment, which, in my opinion, can be compared, for sublimity of thought, to that which the poet here makes him. The English reader may see a faint shadow of it in Mr. Dryden's translation, for the original is inimitable.

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But next behold the youth of form divine,
Cæsar himself, exalted in his line;
Augustns, promis'd oft, and long foretold,
Sent to the realm that Saturn rul'd of old;
Born to restore a better age of gold.
Afric and India shall his power obey;
He shall extend his propagated sway
Beyond the solar year, without the starry way,
Where Atlas turns the rolling heavens around,
And his broad shoulders with their lights are crown'd.
At his foreseen approach, already quake
The Caspian kingdoms and Mæotian lake.
Their scers behold the tempest from afar;
And threatening oracles denounce the war.
Nile hears him knocking at his sevenfold gates,

And seeks his hidden spring, and fears his nephews' tates,
Nor Hercules more lands or labours knew,
Not though the brazen-footed hind he slew;
Freed Erymanthus from the foaming boar,
And dipp'd his arrows in Lernæan gore.
Nor Bacchus turning from his Indian war,
By tigers drawn triumphant in his car,
From Nisa's top descending on the plains,
With curling vines around his purple reius.
And doubt we yet through dangers to pursue
The paths of honour?--

I could show out of other poets the same kind of vision as this in Virgil, wherein the chief persons of the poem have been enter tained with the sight of those who were to descend from them: but instead of that, I shall conclude with a rabbinical story which has in it the oriental way of thinking, and is therefore very amusing.

Adam, say the rabbins, a little after his creation, was presented with a view of all those souls who were to be united to human bodies, and take their turn after him upon the earth. Among others the vision set before him the soul

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