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I must not omit another report which has been raised by such as are enemies to me and my lion, namely, that he is starved for want of food, and that he has not had a good meal's meat for this fortuight. I do hereby declare these reports to be altogether groundless; and since I am contradicting common fame, I must likewise acquaint the world, that the story of a two hundred pound bank-bill being conveyed to me through the mouth of my lion has no foundation of truth in it. The matter of fact is this, my lion has not roared for these twelve days past, by reason that his prompters have put very ill words in his mouth, and such as he could not utter with common honour and decency. Notwithstanding the admonitions I have given my correspondents, many of them have crammed great quantities of scandal down his throat, others have choked him with lewdness and ribaldry. Some of them have gorged him with so much nonsense that they have made a very ass of him. On Monday last, upon examining, I found him an arrant French tory, and the day after a virulent whig. Some have been so mischievous as to make him fall upon his keeper, and give me very reproachful language; but as I have promised to restrain him from hurting any man's reputation, so my reader may be assured that I myself shall be the last man whom I will suffer him to abuse. However, that I may give general satisfaction, I have a design of converting a room in Mr. Button's house to the lion's library, in which I intend to deposit the several packets of letters and private intelligence which I do not communicate to the public. These manuscripts will in time be very valuable, and may afford good lights to future historians who shall give an account of the present age. In the mean while, as the lion is an animal which has a particular regard for chastity, it has been observed that mine has taken delight in roaring very vehemently against the untuckered neck, and, as far as I can find by him, is still determined to roar louder and louder, until that irregularity be thoroughly reformed.

'GOOD MR. IRONSIDE,

'I must acquaint you, for your comfort, that your lion is grown a kind of bull-beggar among the women where I live. When my wife comes home late from cards, or commits any other enormity, I whisper in her ear, partly between jest and earnest, that "I will tell the lion of her." Dear sir, do not let them alone until you have made them put on their tuckers again. What can be a greater sign, that they themselves are sensible they have stripped too far, than their pretending to call a bit of linen which will hardly cover a silver groat, their modesty-piece? It is observed, that this modesty-piece still sinks lower and lower; and who knows where it will fix at last?

'You must know, sir, I am a Turkey merchant, and I lived several years in a country where the women show nothing but their eyes. Upon my return to England I was almost out of countenance to see my pretty countrywomen laying open their charms with so much liberality, though at that time many of them were concealed under the modest shade of the tucker. I soon after married a very fine woman, who always goes in the extremity of the fashion. I was pleased to think, as every married man must be, that I should make daily discoveries in the dear creature, which were unknown to the rest of the world. But since this new airy fashion is come up, every one's eye is as familiar with her as mine; for I can positively affirm, that her neck is grown eight inches within these three years. And what makes me tremble when I think of it, that pretty foot and ankle are now exposed to the sight of the whole world, which made my very heart dance within me, when I first found myself their proprietor. As in all appearance the curtain is still rising, I find a parcel of rascally young fellows in the neighbourhood are in hopes to be presented with some new scene every day.

'In short, sir, the tables are now quite turned upon me. Instead of being acquainted with her person more than other men, I have now the least share of it. When she is at home she is continually muffled up, and concealed in mobs, morning gowns, and handkerchiefs; but strips every afternoon to appear in public. For aught I can find, when she has thrown aside half her clothes, she begins to think herself half drest. Now, sir, if I may presume to say so, you have been in the wrong to think of reforming this fashion, by showing the immodesty of it. If you expect to make female proselytes, you must convince them, that if they would get husbands, they must not show all before marriage. I am sure, had my wife been dressed before I married her as she is at present, she would have satisfied a good half of my curiosity. Many a man has been bindered from laying out his money on a show, by seeing the principal figure of it hung out before the door. I have often observed a curious passenger so attentive to these objects which he could see for nothing, that he took no notice of the master of the show, who was continually crying out, "Pray, gentlemen walk in."

I have told you at the beginning of this letter, how Mahomet's she-disciples are obliged to cover themselves; you have lately informed us from the foreign newspapers of the regulations which the pope is now making among the Roman ladies in this particular; and I hope, our British dames, notwithstanding they have the finest skins in the world, will be content to show no more of them than what belongs

to the face and to the neck, properly speaking. | virulent reproaches. Anytus and Melitus, Their being fair is no excuse for their being says he, may procure sentence against me, but naked. 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.

'You know, sir, that in the beginning of last century, there was a sect of men among us, who called themselves Adamites, and appeared in public without clothes. This heresy may spring up in the other sex, if you do not put a timely stop to it, there being so many in all public places, who show so great an inclination to be Eveites,

'I am, Sir, &c.'

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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.'

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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 ali the sayings of philo

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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 man-sophers which I have gathered together for my ner, though we are often sure that the censures 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.

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own use on this occasion, there are none which earry 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 In order to heal this infirmity, which is so another time that an intimate friend of his natural to the best and wisest of men, I have had spoken detractingly of him; I am sure taken a particular pleasure in observing the he would not do it,' says he, if he had not conduct of the old philosophers, how they bore some reason for it.' This is the surest as well themselves up against the malice and detrac-as the noblest way of drawing the sting out of tion 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 beard the accusations of his two great adversaries, who had uttered against him the most

a reproach, and a true method of preparing a man for that great and only relief against the pains of calumny, a good conscience.'

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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

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 his 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 him, or one word of comfort to him in that condition; they may possibly reproach, but they cannot relieve bim.

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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.

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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 Joy of thy Lord!"''

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Noctes atque dies patet atri Janna ditis.

Virg. ÆL. vi. 127.

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

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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 our4 selves 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 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 of merit, who is derived from an illustrious 9 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 to distinguish them but the virtues of their 2 forefathers, are to be looked upon with a degree of veneration even upon that account, and to be more respected than the commen run of men who are of low and vulgar extrac2 tion.

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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
whose reputation they value themselves.

ning of the last century. They were every 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 suffi ciently 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 or

But I shall chiefly apply myself to those whose quality sits uppermost in all their discourses and behaviour. An empty 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 punctilio, 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 en-dinary upon the actions of sir Gilbert Ironside, trance. 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 three hours together, in which time, as I afterdo? Ha, Frank, are you there!'

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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.

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

wards 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.

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 No. 138.] Wednesday, August 19, 1713.
away the greatest part of the last forty years
of her life in recounting the antiquity, mar-
riages, exploits, and alliances of the Ironsides.
Mrs. Martha conversed generally with a knot
of old virgins, who were likewise of good fa-
milies, and had been very cruel all the begin

Incenditque animum famæ venientis amore.

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Virg. Æn. vi. 889.

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

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