getting acquainted with all the igns and win- great knowledge, that they can tell every time -----As the dial to the fun, Although it be not shone upon. Our younger students are content to carry their speculations as yet no farther than bowlings greens, billiard-tables, and such like places. This may serve for a sketch of my design; in which I hope I thall have your encouragement. • I am, Sir, Yours. I must be so just as to observe I have formerly seen of this fect at our other University; though not diftinguished by the appellation which the learned hiftorian, my correfpondent, reports they bear at Cambridge. They were ever looked upon as a people that impaired themselves more by their strict applications to the rules of their order, than any other students whatever. Others feldem hurt themselves any further than to gain weak eyes, and fometimes head-achs; but these philosophers are seized all over with a general inability, indolence, and weariness, and a certain impatience of the place they are in, with an heaviness in removing to another. *The Lowngers are fatisfied with being merely part of the number of mankind, without diftin. guishing themselves from amongst them. They may be faid rather to fuffer their time to pass, than to spend it, without regard to the past, or profpect of the future, All they know of life is only the present inftant, and do not taste even that. When one of this order happens to be a man of fortune, the expence of his time is transferred to his coach and horses, and his life is to be measured by the'r motion, not his own enjoyments or fufferings. The chief entertainment one of these philofophers can poffibly propose to himself, is to get a relish -----Intus & in jecore agro- Our pamons play the tyrants in our breasts. OST'of the trades, profeffions, and ways of nal either from the love of pleafere, or the war Manè piger stertis : furge, inquit Avaritias cia Jam pueris pellom fuccindus & acnopborum aptas i of dress. This, methinks, might diverfify the per-En quid agis Dupliti in diverfum fcinderis hamd: fon he is weary of, his own dear felf, to bimfelf. I Hunccine, an banc fequeris ? Whether alone, or in thy harlot's lapy the force of natural parts, without having ever feen an Univerfity; and fond my correspondent, for the embellishment of his book, the naines and hiflory of those who pafs their lives without any Incidents at all; ard how they fhift coffee-houfes and chocolate-houfes from hour to hour, to get over the insupportable labour of doing nothing. R 4 And with post-hafte thy running markets. make. hean, is wholesome fin's bur love, thou fayft, will K And he may afk this civil question; friend, fea? Cubb'd in a cabbin, on a mattress laid, contending for empire, their conquests were very various, Luxury got possession of one heart, and Avarice of another. The father of a family would often range himself under the banners of Avarice, and the son under those of Luxury. The wife and husband would often declare themselves On a brown George, with loused swobbers, fed on the two different parties; nay, the fame person Dead wine, that stinks of the Borachio, sup From a foul jack, or greasy maple cup? Indulge, and to thy genius freely give: would very often side with one in his youth, and revolt to the other, in his old age. Indeed the wife men of the world stood neuter; but alas! their numbers were not confiderable. At length, when these two potentates had wearied themselves with waging war upon one another, they agreed upon an interview, at which neither of their counsellors were to be present. It is faid Live, whilst thou liv'st; for death will make us that Luxury began the parley, and after having all A name, a nothing but an old wife's tale. When a government flourishes in conquests, and is secure from foreign attacks, it naturally falls into all the pleasures of luxury; and as these pleasures are very expensive, they put those who are addicted to them upon raising sresh supplies of money, by all the methods of rapaciousness and corruption; so that avarice and luxury very often become one complicated principle of action, in hose whose hearts are wholly set upon ease, magmificence, and pleasure. The most elegant and correct of all the Latin historians obferves, that in Ais time, when the most formidable states of the world were fubdued by the Romans, the Republic funk into those two vices of a quite different nature, luxury and avarice; and accordingiy de&cribes Catiline as one who coveted the wealth of other men, at the same time that he squander'd away his own. This observation on the commons wealth, when it was in its height of power and riches, holda good of all governments that are Yettled in a state of cafe and prosperity. At such simes men paturally endeavour to outshine one another in pomp and splendor, and having no fears so alarm them from abroad, indulge themselves in the enjoyment of all the pleasures they can get into their poffeffion, which naturally produces avarice, and an immoderate purfuit after wealth and riches. represented the endless state of war in which they were engaged, told his enemy, with a frankness of heart which is natural to him, that he believed they two should be very good friends, were it not for the instigations of Poverty, that pernicious counsellor, for, who made an ill ufe of his car, and filled him with groundless apprehenfions, and prejudices. To this Avarice replied, that he looked upon Plenty, the first minifter of his antagonist, to be a much more destructive counsellor than Poverty, for that he was perpettrally fuggefting pleasures, banishing all the necessary cautions against want, and confequently undermining those principles on which the government of Avarice was founded. At last, in order to an accommodation, they agreed upon this preliminary: That each of them should immediately dismiss his privy-counsellor. When things were thus far adfusted towards a peace, all other differences were foon accommodated, infomuch that for the future they resolved to live as good friends and confede rates, and to share between them whatever com quests were made on either side. For this reafon we now find Luxury and Avarice taking poffeffion of the fame heart, and dividing the fame perfon between them. To which I shall only addly add, that fince the difcarding of the counsellors abovementioned, Avarice supplies Luxury in the room of Plenty, as Luxury promps Avarice in the place of Poverty. As I was humouring myself in the fpeculation: No 56. of these two great principles of action, I could not forbear throwing my thoughts into a little kind of allegory-or fable, with which I shall here prefent my reader. There were two very powerful tyrants engaged in a perpetual war against each other: The name of the firit was Luxury; and of the fecond, Avarice. The aim of each of them was no less than univerfal monarchy over the hearts of mankind. Luxury had many generals under him, who did tim great fervices, as Pleasure, Mirth, Pomp and Fathion, Avarice was likewife very strong in his oficers, being faithfully ferved by Hunger, Industry, Care, and Watchfulness: he had likewife a privy-counsellor who was always at his elbow, and whispering something or other in his ear: the name of this privy-counsellor was Poverty. As Avarice conducted himself by the counsels of Poverty, his antagonist was intirely guided by the dictates and advice of plenty, who was his first gounfellor and minifter of state, that concerted all his measures for hin, and never departed out of his Agha Wihile chefs two grest rivals were thus T FRIDAY, MAY 4. Felices.orgore fun Happy in their mistake. c LUCAN, i. 454 HE Americans believe that all creatures have fouls, not only men and women, but brutes, vegetables, nay even the most inanimate things, as stocks and stones. They believe the fame of all the works of art, as of knives, boots, looking-glasses; and that as any of these things perifh, their fouls go into another world, which is inhabited by the ghosts of men and women, For this reason they always place by the corps of their dead friend a bow and arrows, that he may make use of them in the other world, as he did of their wooden bodies in this. How absurd foever such an opinion as this may appear, our European phi. lofophers have maintained feveral notions altogether as improbable. Some of Plato's followers.in particular, when they talk of the world of ideas, entertain us with substances and beings no less extravagant and chimerical, Many Ariftotelians have likewise spoken as unintelligbly of their fubstantial forms. I shall only instance Albertus Magnus, who in his differtation upon the load stone obferving, that fire will destroy its magnenetic virtues, tells us that he took particular notice of one as it lay glowing amidst an heap of burning coals, and that he perceived a certain blue vapour to arife from it, which he believed might be the fubstantial form, that is, in our West-Indian phrase, the Soul of the loadstone. There is a tradition among the Americans, that one of their countrymen descended in a vifion to the great repository of fouls, or, as we call it here, to the other world; and that upon his return he gave his friends a distinct account of every thing he saw among those regions of the dead. A friend of mine, whom I have formerly mentioned, prevailed upon one of the interpreters of the Indian kings, to inquire of them, if possible, what tradition they have among them, of this matter; which, as well as he could learn by many questions which he asked them at several times, was in substance as follows. The visionary, whose name was Marraton, after having travelled for a long space under an hollow mountain, arrived at length on the confines of this world of spirits, but could not enter it by reason of a thick forest made up of bufhes, brambles, and pointed thorns, so perplexed and interwoven with one another, that it was impossible to find a passage through it. Whilst he was looking about for fome track or path-way that might be worn in any part of it, he saw an huge lion couched under the side of it, who kept his eye upon him in the same pofture as when he watches for his prey. The Indian immediately started back, whilst the lion, rofe with a spring, and leaped towards him, Being wholly deftitute of all other weapons, he stooped down to take up an huge stone in his hand; but to his infinite surprise grasped nothing, and found the supposed ftone to be only the apparition of one. If he was disappointed on this fide, he was as much pleased on the other, when he found the lion, which had seized on his left shoulder, had no power to hurt him, and was only the ghost of that ravenous creature which it appeared to be. He no sooner got rid of his impotent enemy, but he marched up to the wood, and after having furveyed it for fome time, endeavoured to press into one part of it that was a little thinner than the rest; when again, to his great furprize, he found the bushes made no resistánce, but he walked through briers and brambles with the fame ease as through the open air; and, in short, that this whole wood was nothing else but a wood of smades. He immediately concluded, that this huge thicket of thorns and brakes was designed as a kind of fence or quickfet hedge to the ghosts it inclosed; and that probably their foft substances might be torn by these subtle points and prickles, which were too weak to make any impreffions in flesh and blood. With this thought he resolved to travel through this intricate wood; when by degrees he felt a gale of perfumes breathing ing upon him, h that grew stronger and fweeter in proportion as he advanced. He had not proceeded much further, when he observed the thorns and briers to end, and give place to a thousand beautiful green trees covered with bloffoms of the finest scents and colours, that formed a wilderness of sweets, and were a kind of lining to shose ragged scenes which he had before passed through. As he was coming out of this delightful part of the wood, and entering upon the plains it inclosed, he faw several horfemen rushing by him, and a little while after heard the cry of a pack of dogs. He had not listened long before he saw the appari. tion of a milk-white steed, with a young man on the back of it, advancing upon full stretch after the fouls of about an hundred beagles that were hunting down the ghost of an hare, which run away before them with unspeakable fwiftnefs. As the man on the milk-white steed came by him, he looked upon him very attentively, and found him to be the young prince Nicharagua, who died about half a year before, and by reason of his great virtues was at that time lamented over all the Western parts of America. He had no fooner got out of the wood, but he was entertained with such a landskip of flowery plains, green meadows, running streams, funny hills, and shady vales, as were not to be represented by his own expressions, nor, as he faid, by the conceptions of others. This happy region was peopled with innumerable fwarms of / spirits, who applied themselves to exercises and diversions according as their fancies led them. Some of them were tossing the figure of a coit; others were pitching the shadow of a bar; others were breaking the apparition of a horfe; and multitudes employing themselves upon ingenious handicrafts with the fouls of departed utenfils, for that is the name which in the Indian langua they give their tools when they are burnt or broken. As he travelled through this delightful scene, he was very often tempted to pluck the flowers that rose every where about him in the greatest variety and profusion, having never seen several of them in his own country; but he quickly found that though they were objects of his fight, they were not liable to his touch. He at length came to the fide of a great river, and being a good fisherman himself, stood upon the banks of it fome time to look upon an angler that had taken a great many shapes of fishes, which lay flouncing up and down by him. I should have told my reader, that this Indian had been formerly married to one of the greateit beauties of his country, by whom he had several children. This couple were so famous for their love and conftancy to one another, that the Indians to this day, when they gave a married man joy of his wife, with that they may live together like Marraton and Yaratilda. Marraton had not ftood long by the fisherman when he faw the sha. dow of his beloved Yaratilda, who had for fome time fixed her eyes upon him before he diseovered her. Her arms were stretch'd out towards him, floods of tears ran down her eyes; her looks, her hands, her voice called him over to her; and at the same time seemed to tell him that the river was unpassable. Who can defcribe the paffion made up of joy, forrow, love, defire, aftonithment, that rose in the Indian upon the fight of his dear Yaratilda? He could express it by nothing but his tears, which ran like a river down his cheeks as he looked upon her. He had not stood in this posture long, before he plunged into the stream that lay before him and finding it to be nothing but the phantom of a river, walked on the bottom of it 'till he arose on the other fide. At his approach Yaratilda flew into his arms. whilft Marraton wished hintelf disencumbered of that body which kept her from his embraces. K 2 frer After many questions and endearments on both fides, the conducted him to a bower which the had dretted with her own hands with all the ornaments that could be met with in thefe blooming regions. She had made it gay beyond imagination, and was every day adding fomething new to it. As Marraton ftood aflonished at the unfpeakable beauty of her habitation, and ravished with the fragrancy that came from every part of it, Yaratilda told him that she was preparing this bower for his reception, as well knowing that his picty to his ged, and his faithful dealing towards men, would certainly bring him to that happy place, whenever his life should be at an end. She then brought two of her children to him, who died fome years before, and refided with her in the fame delightful bower; adviûng him to breed up those others which where fill with him in fuch a manner, that they might hereafter all of them meet together in this happy place. The tradition tells us further, that he had afterwards a fight of those difmal habitations which are the portion of iil men after death; and mentlons foveral molten seas of gold, in which were plunged the fouls of barbarous Europeans, who put to the sword fo mary thousands of poor Indians for the fake of that precious metal; but having already touched upon the chief points of this tradition, and exceeded the meafure of my paper, I shall not give any further account of it. N° 57. SATURDAY, MAY 5. ens to kick him out of the house. I have heard her, in her wrath, call a fubftantial tradesman a loufy cur; and remember one day, when the could not think of the name of a perfon, the de scribed him, in a large company of men and ladies, by the fellow with the broad shoulders. If those speeches and actions, which in their own nature are indifferent, appear ridiculous when they proceed from a wrong fex, the faults and imperfections of one fex transplanted into another, appear black and monstrous. As for the men, I shall not in this paper any further concern myfelf about them; but as I would fain contribute to make woman-kind, which is the most beautiful part of the creation, intirely amiable, and wear out all those little spots and blem ishes that are apt to rife among the charms which nature has poured out upon them, I shall dedicate this paper to their fervice, The spot which I would here endeavour to clear them of, is that party-rage which of late years is very much crept into their converfation. This is, in its nature, a male vice, and made up of many angry and cruel paffions that are altogether repugnant to the foftness, the modefty, and thofs other endearing qualities which are natural to the fair fex. Women were formed to temper mankind, and footh them into tendernefs and compassion; not to fet an edge upon their minds, and blow up in them those pasions which are too apt to Crife of their own accord. When I have feen a pretty mouth uttering calumnies and invectives, what would I not have given to have stopt it? How have I been troubled to fee fome of the finest features in the world grow pale, and tremble with party-rage? Camilla is one of the greatest beauties in the British nation, and yer values herleif more upon being the Virago of one party, than upon being the toaft of both. The dear creature, about a week ago, encountered the fierce and beautiful Pentheilea acrofs a tea-table; but in the height of her anger, as her hand chanced to shake with the earneftnefs of the difpute, she sealded her fingers, and spilt a dish of tea upon her petticoat. Had not this accident broke off the debate, nobody knows where it would have ended. Juv. Sat. vi. 251. What fenfe of shame in woman's breaft gan lie, Inur'd to arms, and her own fox to fly? W DRYDEN. HEN the wife of Hector, in Homer's Iliads, difcourses with her husband about the battle in which he was going to engage, the hero, deßring her to leave that matter to his care, bids her go to her maids and mind her spinning; by which the poet intimates, that men and women ought to bufy themsives in their proper Spheres, and on fach matters only as are suitable to their refpective fex. I am at this time acquainted with a young gentleman, who has passed a great part of his life in the nursery, and, upon occafion, can make a caudle or a fack-poffet better than any man in England. He is likewise a wonderful critic in cambric and muffins, and will talk an hour to gether upon a fweet-meat. He entertains his mother every night with obfervations that he makes both in town and court; as what lady sheyes the nicest fancy in her dress; what man of quality wears the fairest wig; who has the finest liren, who the pretttiest snuff-box, with many other the like curious remarks, that may be made in good company. On the other hand I have very frequently the opportunity of feeing a rural Andromache, who came up to town last winter, and is one of the greatest fox-hunters in the country. She talks of Lounds and horfes, and makes nothing of leaping over a fix-bar gate. If a man tells her a waggish story, the gives him a push with her hand in jeft, and calls him an impudent dog; bed if her fervant neglecte this business, threat, I There is one confideration which I would earnefly recommend to all my female readers, and which, I hope, will have fome weight with them. In short it is this, that there is nothing so bad for the face as party-zeal. It gives an ill-natured cast to the eye, and a disagreeable fourness to he look; besides, that it makes the lines toe fstrong, and flushes them worse than brandy have feen a woman's face break out in heats, aş she has been talking against a great lord, whom the had never feen in her life; and indeed never knew a party woman that kept her beauty for a twelvemonth. I would therefore advife all my female readers, as they value their complexions, to let alone all disputes of this nature; though, at the same time, I would give free liberty to all fuperanuated motherly partizans to be as vic ent as they please, since there will be no danger ei. ther of their fpoiling their faces, or of their gaining converts, For my own part, I think a man makes an odious and defpicable figure, that is violent in a party; but a woman is teo sincere to mitigate the fury of her principles with temper and dif cretion, and to aft with that caution and refervedness which are requifite in our fex, When The this unnatural zeal gets into them, it throws them into ten thousand heats and extravagancies; their generous fouls set no bounds to their love, or to their hatred; and whether a whig or a tory, a jap-dog or a gallant, an opera or puppet-show, be the object of it, the passion, while it reigns, engroffes the whole woman. I remember when Dr. Titus Oates was in all his glory, I accompanied my friend Will Honeycomb in a vifit to a lady of his acquaintance. We were no fooner fat down, but upon casting my eyes about the room, I found in almost every corner of it a print that represented the doctor in all magnitudes and dimenfions. A little after, as the lady was discourfing my friend, and held her snuff-box in her hand, who should I fee in the lid of it but the doctor? It was not long after this when the had occasion for her handkerchief, which upon the first opening discovered among the plaits of it the figure of the doctor. Upon this my friend Will, who loves raillery, told her, That if he was in Mr. Truelove's place, for that was the name of her husband, he should be made as uneasy by a handkerchief as ever Othelio was. "I am " afraid," said the, "Mr. Honeycomb, you are a "Tory; tell me truly, are you a friend to the "doctor or not?" Will, instead of making her a reply, smiled in her face, for indeed the was very pretty, and told her that one of her patches was dropping off. She immediately adjusted it, and looking a little feriously, "Well, says the, "I'll " be hanged if you and your friend there are not "against the doctor in your hearts. I suspected " as much by his faying nothing." Upon this The took her fan into her hand, and upon the opening of it, again displayed to us the figure of the doctor who was placed with great gravity among the sticks of it. In a word, I found that the doctor had taken possession of her thoughts, *her discourse, and moit of her furniture; but finding myself preffed too close by her question, I winked upon my friend to take his leave, which he did accordingly. N° 58. MONDAY, MAY 7. Ut picture poefis erit ---- N 1 ders meet with any paper that in some parts of it may be a little out of their reach, I would not have them difcouraged, for they may affure themfelves the next shall be much clearer. As the great and only end of these my fpeculations is to banish vice and ignorance out of the territories of Great-Britain, I shall endeavour as much as possible to establish among us a taste of polite writing. It is with this view that I have endeavoured to fet my readers right in feveral points relating to Operas and Tragedies; and shall from time to time impart my notions of Comedy, as I think they may tend to its refinement and perfection. I find by my bookseller that these papers of criticism, with that upon humour have met with a more kind reception than indeed I could have hoped for from such subjects; for which reason I shall enter upon my present undertaking with greater chearfulness. In this, and one or two following papers, I shall trace out the history of false wit, and diftinguish the several kinds of it as they have prevailed in different ages of the world. This I think the more neceffary at present, because I observed there were attempts on foot last winter to revive fome of those antiquated modes of wit that have been long exploded out of the common-wealth of letters. There were several fatires and panegyrics handed about in acrostic, by which means fome of the most arrant undisputed blockheads about the town began to entertain ambitious thoughts, and to fet up for polite authors. I shall therefore defcribe at length those many arts of false wit, in which a writer does not shew himself a man of a beautiful genius, but of great industry. The first species of false wit which I have met with is very venerable for its antiquity, and has produced several pieces which have lived very near as long as the Iliad itself: I mean those short poems printed among the minor Greek poets, which rosemble the figure of an egg, a pair of wings, an ax, a shepherd's pipe, and an altar. As for the first, it is a little oval poem, and may not improperly be called a scholar's egg. I would endeavour to hatch it, or, in more intelligible language, to translate it into English, did not I find the interpretation of it very difficult; for the author seems to have been more intent HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 361. upon the figure of his poem, than upon the sense Poems like pictures are. OTHING is fo much admired, and so little understood as wit. No author that I know of has written professedly upon it; and as for those who make any mention of it, they only treat on the fubject as it has accidentally fallen in their way, and that too in little short reflections, or in general-declamatory flourishes, without entering into the bottom of the matter. I hope therefore I shall perform an acceptable work to my coun trymen, if I treat at large upon this fubject; which I shall endeavour to do in a manner fuitable to it, that I may not incur the cenfure which a famous critic bestows upon one who had written a treatife upon the Sublime in a low groveling file. I intend to lay aide a whole week for this undertaking, that the scheme of my thoughts may not be broken and interrupted; and I dare promife myself, if my readers will give me a week's attention, that this great city will be very much changed for the better by next Saturday pight. I shall endeavour to make what I fay intelligible to ordinary capacities; but, if my rea of it. The pair of wings confift of twelve verses, or rather feathers, every verse decreasing gradually in its measure according to its fituation in the wing. The subject of it, as in the rest of the poems which follow, bears fome remote affinity with the figure, for it describes a god of love, who is always painted with wings. The ax methinks would have been a good figure for a lampoon, had the edge of it confifted of the most fatirical parts of the work; but as it is in the original, I take it to have been nothing elfe but the posy of an ax which was confecrated to Minerva, and was thought to have been the fame that Epeus made use of in the building of the Trojan horse; which is a hint I shall leave. to the confideration of the critics. I am apt to think that the pofy was written originally upon the ax, like those which our modern cutlers ininfcribe upon their knives; and that therefore the posy still remains in its ancient shape, though the ax itfelf is loft. The shepherd's pipe may be faid to be full of music, for it is compofed in nine different |