I have received an order under your hand for a thousand pounds, in words at length; and I think I could swear it is your own hand. I have looked it over and over twenty thousand times. There is in plain letters, T,h,o,u,s,a,n,d; and after it the letters P,o,u,n,d,s. I have it still by me, and shall, I believe, continue reading it until I hear from you.'

The old gentleman took no manner of notice of the receipt of his letter; but sent him another order for three thousand pounds more. His amazement on this second letter was unspeakable. He immediately double-locked his door, and sat down carefully to reading and comparing both his orders. After he had read them until he was half mad, he walked six or seven turns in his chamber, then opens his door, then locks it again; and, to examine thoroughly this matter, he locks his door again, puts his table and chairs against it; then goes into his closet, and locking himself in, reads his notes over again about nineteen times, which did but increase his astonishment. Soon after, he began to recollect many stories he had formerly heard of persons, who had been possessed with imaginations and appearances which had no foundation in nature, but had been taken with sudden madness in the midst of a seeming clear and untainted reason. This made him very gravely conclude he was out of his wits; and, with a design to compose himself, he immediately betakes him to his night-cap, with a resolution to sleep himself into his former poverty and senses. To bed therefore he goes at noon-day; but soon rose again, and resolved to visit Sir Tristram upon this occasion. He did so, and dined with the knight, expecting he would mention some advice from his father about paying him money; but no such thing being said, Look you, Sir Tristram,' said he, you are to know, that an affair has happened, which-Look you,' says Tristram, I know Mr. Wildair, you are going to desire me to advance; but the late call of the bank, where I have not yet made my last payment, has obliged me—' Tom interrupted him, by showing him the bill of a thousand pounds. When he had looked at it for a convenient time, and as often surveyed Tom's looks and countenance; Look you, Mr. Wildair, a thousand pounds Before he could proceed, he shows him the order for three thousand more. Sir Tristram examined the orders at the light, and finding

at the writing the name, there was a certain stroke in one letter, which the father and he agreed should be to such directions as he desired might be more immediately honoured, he forthwith pays the money. The possession of four thousand pounds gave my young gentleman a new train of thoughts: he began to reflect upon his birth, the great expectations he was born to, and the unsuitable ways he had long pursued. Instead of that unthinking creature he was before, he is now provident, generous, and discreet. The father and son have an exact and regular cofrespondence, with mutual and unreserved confidence in each other. The son looks upon his father as the best tenant he could have in the country, and the father finds the son the most safe banker he could have in the city.

Will's Coffee-house, August 26.

There is not any thing in nature so extravagant, but that you will find one man or other that shall could not have made so long an harangue as he did practise or maintain it; otherwise Harry Spondes here this evening, concerning the force and efficacy of well-applied nonsense. Among ladies, he positively averred, it was the most prevailing part of eloquence; and had so little complaisance as to say, a woman is never taken by her reason, but always by her passion.' He proceeded to assert, the way to myse that, was only to astonish her. I know,' continued he, a very late instance of this; for being by accident in the room next to Strephon, I could not help over-hearing him, as he made love to a certain great lady's woman. The true method in your application to one of this second rank of understanding, is not to elevate and surprise, but rather to elevate and amaze. Strephon is a perfect master in this kind of persuasion: his way is, to run over with a soft air a multitude of words, without meaning or connexion; but such as do each of them apart give a pleasing idea, though they have nothing to do with each other as he assembles them. After the commen phrases of salutation, and making his entry into the room, I perceived he had taken the fair nymph's hand, and kissing it said, "Witness to my happiness, ye groves! be still, ye rivulets; Oh! woods, caves, fountains, trees, dales, mountains, hills, and streams! oh! fairest! could you love me?" To which I overheard her answer, with a very pretty lisp, "Oh! Strephon, you are a dangerous creature: why do you talk these tender things to me? but you men of wit—” “Is it then possible," said the enamoured Strephon, “that she regards my sorrows! Oh! pity, thou balmy cure to a heart overloaded! If rapture, solicitation, soft desire, and pleasing anxiety-But still I live in the most afflicting of all circumstances, doubt-Cannot my charmer name the place and moment? "There all those joys insatiably to prove,

With which rich beauty feeds the glutton love." "Forgive me, madam; it is not that my heart is weary-its chain, but-" This incoherent stuff was answered by a tender sigh, "Why do you put your wit to a weak woman?" Strephon saw he had made some progress in her heart, and pursued it, by saying that He would certainly wait upon her at such an hour near Rosamond's pond; and then-the sylvan deities, and rural powers of the place, sacred and inviolable to love; love, the mover of all noble hearts, should hear his vows repeated by the streams and echoes." The assignation was accordingly made. This style he calls the unintelligible method of speaking his

mind; and I will engage, had this gallant spoken plain English, she had never understood him half so readily for we may take it for granted, that he will be esteemed as a very cold lover, who discovers to his mistress that he is in his senses.'

From my own Apartment, August 26.

The following letter came to my hand, with a request to have the subject recommended to our readers, particularly the Smart Fellows; who are desired to repair to Major Touch-hole, who can help them to firelocks that are only fit for exercise.

Just ready for the press,

'Mars Triumphant; or London's Glory: Being the whole art of encampment, with the method of embattling armies, marching them off, posting the officers, forming hollow squares, and the various ways of paying the salute with the half-pike; as it was performed by the trained-bands of London this year, one thousand seven hundred and nine, in that nursery of Bellona, the Artillery Ground. Wherein you have a new method how to form a strong line of foot, with large intervals between each platoon, very useful to prevent the breaking in of horse. A civil way of performing the military ceremony; wherein the major alights from his horse, and, at the head of his company, salutes the lieuteuant-colonel; and the lieutenant-colonel, to return the compliment, courte ously dismounts, and after the same manner salutes his major: exactly as it was performed, with abundance of applause, on the 5th of July last. Likewise an account of a new invention, made use of in the red regiment, to quell mutineering captains; with several other things alike useful for the public. To which is added, an appendix by Major Touch-hole; proving the method of discipline now used in our armies to be very defective: with an essay towards an amendment. Dedicated to the lieutenant-colonel of the first regiment.'

Mr. Bickerstaff has now in the press, A defence of Awkward Fellows against the class of the Smarts: with a dissertation upon the gravity which becomes weighty persons. Illustrated by way of fable, and a discourse on the nature of the elephant, the cow, the dray-horse, and the dromedary, which have motions equally steady and grave. To this is added a treatise written by an elephant, according to Pliny, against receiving foreigners into the forest. Adapted to some present circumstances. Together with allusions to such beasts as declare against the poor Palatines.'

No. 61.]

other a soldier of the same complexion. My learned man would fall into disputes, and argue without any manner of provocation or contradiction: the other was decisive without words, and would give a shrug or an oath to express his opinion. My learned man was a mere scholar, and my man of war as mere a soldier. The particularity of the first was ridiculous, that of the second terrible. They were relations by blood, which in some measure moderated their extravagancies towards each other: I gave myself up merely as a person of no note in the company; but as if brought to be convinced that I was an inconsiderable thing, any otherwise than that they would show each other to me, and make me spectator of the triumph they alternately enjoyed. The scholar has been very conversant with books, and the other with men only; which makes them both superficial: for the taste of books is necessary to our behaviour in the best company, and the knowledge of men is required for a true relish of books: but they have both Fire, which makes one pass for a man of sense, and the other for a fine gentleman. I found I could easily enough pass my time with the scholar for, if I seemed not to do justice to his parts and sentiments, he pitied me, and let me alone. But the warrior could not let it rest there; I must know all that happened within his shallow observations of the nature of the war to all which he added an air of laziness, and contempt of those of his companions who were eminent for delighting in the exercise and knowledge of their duty. Thus it is that all the young fellows of much animal life, and little understanding, who repair to our armies, usurp upon the conversation of reasonable men, under the notion of having Fire.

The word has not been of greater use to shallow lovers, to supply them with chat to their mistresses, than it has been to pretended men of pleasure, to support them in being pert and dull, and saying of every fool of their order, Such a one has Fire.' There is Colonel Truncheon, who marches with divisions ready on all occasions; a hero who never doubted in his life, but is ever positively fixed in the wrong, not out of obstinate opinion, but invincible stupidity.

All

It is very unhappy for this latitude of London, that it is possible for such as can learn only fashion, habit, and a set of common phrases of salutation, to pass with no other accomplishments, in this nation of freedom, for men of conversation and sense. these ought to pretend to is, not to offend; but they carry it so far, as to be negligent whether they offend or not; for they have Fire.' But their force differs from true spirit, as much as a vicious from a mettlesome horse. A man of Fire is a general enemy to all the waiters where you drink; is the only man affronted at the company's being neglected; and makes the drawers abroad, his valet de chambre and footman at home, know he is not to be provoked without danger.

This is not the Fire that animates the noble Marinus, a youth of good nature, affability, and moderation. He commands his ship as an intelligence moves in its orb: he is the vital life, and his officers the limbs of the machine. His vivacity is seen in doing all the offices of life with readiness of spirit, and propriety in the manner of doing them. To be ever active in laudable pursuits, is the distinguishing character of a man of merit; while the common behaviour of every gay coxcomb of Fire is, to be confidently in the wrong, and dare to persist in it.

Will's Coffee-house, August 29.

It is a common objection against writings of a

P

:

from it; for it is very just that she who values herself only on her beauty, should be regarded by others on no other consideration.

There is certainly a liberal and a pedantic educa

I am advertised by a letter of August 25, that the name of Coppersmith has very much wanted explanation in the city, and by that means is unjustly given, by those who are conscious that they deserve it themselves, to an honest and worthy citizen belonging to the Copper-office; but that word is framed out of a moral consideration of wealth amongst men whereby he that has gotten any part of it by injustice and extortion, is to be thought in the eye of virtuous men so much the poorer for such gain. Thus, all the gold which is torn from our neighbours, by making advantage of their wants, is Copper; and I authorise the Lombards to distinguish themselves accordingly. All the honest, who make a reasonable profit both for the advantage of themselves and those they deal with, are Goldsmiths; but those who tear unjustly all they can, Coppersmiths. At the same time, I desire him who is most guilty, to sit down satisfied with riches and contempt, and be known by the title of The Coppersmith;' as being the chief of that respected, contemptible fraternity.

This is the case of all others mentioned in our lucubrations; particularly of Stentor, who goes on in his vociferations at St. Paul's with so much obstinacy, that he has received admonition from St. Peter's for it, from a person of eminent wit and piety: but who is by old age reduced to the infirmity of sleeping at a service to which he had been fifty years attentive; and whose death, whenever it happens, may, with that of the saints, well be called Falling asleep :' for the innocence of his life makes him expect it as indifferently as he does his ordinary rest. This gives him a cheerfulness of spirit to rally on his own weakness, and hath made him write to Stentor to hearken to my admonitions. Brother Stentor,' said he, for the repose of the church, hearken to Bickerstaff: and consider, that, while you are so devout at St. Paul's, we cannot sleep for you at St. Peter's.

From my own Apartment, August 29. There has been lately sent me a much harder question than was ever yet put to me, since I professed astrology; to wit, how far, and to what age women ought to make their beauty their chief concern? The regard and care of their faces and persons are as variously to be considered, as their complexions themselves differ; but if one may transgress against the careful practice of the fair sex so much as to give an opinion against it, I humbly presume, that less care, better applied, would increase their empire, and make it last as long as life. Whereas now, from their own example, we take our esteem of their merit

lasts accordingly. She, therefore, that is bred with freedom, and in good company, considers men according to their respective characters and distinctions; while she that is locked up from such observations, will consider her father's butler, not as a butler, but as a man. In like manner, when men converse with women, the well-bred and intelligent are looked upon with an observation suitable to their different talents and accomplishments, without respect to their sex; while a mere woman can be observed under no consideration but that of a woman; and there can be but one reason for placing any value upon her, or losing time in her company. Wherefore, I am of opinion, that the rule for pleasing long is, to obtain such qualifications as would make them so were they not women.

Let the beauteons Cleomira then show us her real face, and know that every stage of life has its peculiar charms, and that there is no necessity for fifty to be fifteen. That childish colouring of her cheeks is now as ungraceful, as that shape would have been when her face wore its real countenance. She has sense, and ought to know, that if she will not follow nature, nature will follow her. Time, then, has made that person which had, when I visited her grandfather, an agreeable bloom, sprightly air, and soft utterance, now no less graceful in a lovely aspect, an awful manner, and maternal wisdom. But her heart was so set upon her first character, that she neglects and repines at her present; not that she is against a more stayed conduct in others, for she recommends gravity, circumspection, and severity of countenance to her daughter. Thus, against all chronology, the girl is the sage, the mother the fine lady.

But these great evils proceed from an unaccountable wild method in the education of the better half of the world, the women. We have no such thing as a standard for good breeding. I was the other day at my Lady Wealthy's, and asked one of her daughters how she did? She answered, She never conversed with men.' The same day I visited at Lady Plantwell's and asked her daughter the same question. She answers, What is that to you, you old thief?" and gives me a slap on the shoulders.

I defy any man in England, except he knows the family before he enters, to be able to judge whether he shall be agreeable or not when he comes into it. You find either some odd old woman, who is permitted to rule as long as she lives, in hopes of her death, and to interrupt all things: or some impertinent young woman who will talk sillily upon the strength of looking beautifully. I will not answer for it, but it may be, that I (like all other old fellows) have a fondness for the fashions and manners which prevailed when I was young and in fashion myself. But certain it is, that the taste of grace and beauty is very much lowered. The fine women they show me now-a-days are at best but pretty girls to me who have seen Sacharissa, when all the world repeated the poems she inspired; and Villaria, when a youthful king was her subject. The Things you follow, and make songs on now, should be sent to knit or sit down to bobbins or bone-lace: they are indeed neat, and so are the sempstresses; they are pretty, and so are their hand-maids. But that graceful motion, that awful mien, and that winning attraction, which grew upon them from the thoughts and conversations

they met with in my time, are now no more seen. They tell me I am old: I am glad I am so; for I do not like your present young ladies.

Those among us who set up for any thing of decorum, do so mistake the matter, that they offend on the other side. Five young ladies, who are of no small fame for their great severity of manners, and exemplary behaviour, would lately go no where with their lovers but to an organ-loft in a church; where they had a cold treat, and some few opera songs, to their great refreshment and edification. Whether these prudent persons had not been as much so if this had been done at a tavern, is not very hard to determine, It is such silly starts and incoherences as these, which undervalue the beauteous sex, and puzzle us in our choice of sweetness of temper and simplicity of manners, which are the only lasting charms of woman. But I must leave this important subject, at present, for some matters which press for publication; as you will observe in the following letter:

'London, August 26, Artillery Ground. DEAR SIR,

It is natural for distant relations to claim kindred with a rising family; though at this time zeal to my country, not interest, calls me out. The city forces being shortly to take the field, all good protestants would be pleased that their arms and valour should shine with equal lustre. A council of war was lately held, the Honourable Colonel Mortar being president. After many debates, it was unanimously resolved, That Major Blunder, a most expert officer, should be detached for Birmingham, to buy arms, and to prove his firelocks on the spot, as well to prevent expense, as disappointment in the day of battle. The major, being a person of consummate experience, was invested with a discretionary power. He knew from ancient story, that securing the rear, and making a glorious retreat, was the most celebrated piece of conduct. Accordingly such measures were taken to prevent surprise in the rear of his arms, that even Pallas herself, in the shape of rust, could not invade them. They were drawn into close order, firmly embodied, and arrived securely without touchholes. Great and national actions deserve popular applause; and as praise is no expense to the public, therefore dearest kinsman, I communicate this to you, as well to oblige this nursery of heroes, as to do justice to my native country.

'I am,

Your most affectionate kinsman,

'OFFSPRING TWIG.'

A war-horse, belonging to one of the colonels of the artillery, to be let or sold. He may be seen adorned with ribbands, and set forth to the best advantage, the next training day.'

No. 62.] THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1709.

White's Chocolate-house, August 31,

THIS place being frequented by persons of condition, I am desired to recommend a dog-kennel to any who shall want a pack. It lies not far from Suffolk-street, and is kept by two who were formerly dragoons in the French service; but left plundering for the more orderly life of keeping dogs: besides that, according to their expectation, they find it more profitable, as well as more conducing to the safety of their skin, to follow this trade, than the beat of

drum. Their residence is very convenient for the dogs to whelp in, and bring up a right breed to follow the scent. The most eminent of the kennel are blood-hounds, which lead the van, and are as follow:

A LIST OF THE DOGS.

Jowler, of a right Irish breed, called Captain. Rockwood, of French race, with long hair, by the courtesy of England, called also Captain. Pompey, a tall hound, kennelled in a convent in France, and knows a rich soil.

These two last hunt in couple, and are followed by Ringwood, a French black whelp of the same breed, a fine open-mouthed dog; and an old sick hound, always in kennel, but of the true blood, with a good nose, French breed.

There is also an Italian greyhound, with good legs, and knows perfectly the ground from Ghent to Paris. Ten setting-dogs, right English.

Four mongrels of the same nation.
And twenty whelps, fit for any game.

These curs are so extremely hungry, that they are too keen at the sport, and worry their game before the keepers can come in. The other day a wild boar from the north rushed into the kennel, and at first, indeed, defended himself against the whole pack; but they proved at last too many for him, and tore twenty-five pounds of flesh from off his back, with which they filled their bellies, and made so great a noise in the neighbourhood, that the keepers are obliged to hasten the sale. That quarter of the town where they are kennelled is generally inhabited by strangers, whose blood the hounds have often sucked in such a manner, that many a German count, and other virtuosi, who came from the continent, have lost the intention of their travels, and been unable to proceed on their journey.

If these hounds are not very soon disposed of to some good purchaser, as also those at the kennels near Saint James's, it is humbly proposed, that they may be altogether transported to America, where the dogs are few, and the wild beasts many; or that, during their stay in these parts, some eminent justice of the peace may have it in particular direction to visit their harbours; and that the sheriff of Middlesex may allow him the assistance of the common hangman to cut off their ears, or part of them for distinction-sake, that we may know the blood-hounds from the mongrels and setters. Until these things are regulated, you may enquire at a house belonging to Paris, at the upper end of Suffolk-street, or a house belonging to Ghent, opposite to the lower end of Pall Mall, and know further.

It were to be wished that these curs were disposed of; for it is a very great nuisance to have them tolerated in cities. That of London takes care, that the Common Hunt,' assisted by the serjeants and bailiffs, expel them whenever they are found within the walls; though it is said, some private families keep them, to the destruction of their neighbours: but it is desired, that all who know of any of these curs, or have been bit by them, would send me their marks, and the houses where they are harboured; and I do not doubt but I shall alarm the people so well, as to have them used like mad dogs wherever they appear. In the mean time, I advise all such as entertain this kind of vermin, that if they give me timely notice that their dogs are dismissed, I shall let them go unregarded: otherwise am obliged to admonish my fellow-subjects in this behalf, and instruct them how to avoid being worried, when they are going about their lawful professions and callings.