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by the grace which Nature gives to every action wherein she is complied with; the brisk and lively will not want their admirers, and even a more reserved and melancholy temper may at some times be agreeable.

When there is not vanity enough awake in a man to undo him, the flatterer stirs up that dormant weakness and inspires him with merit enough to be a coxcomb. But if flattery be the most sordid act that can be complied with, the art of praising justly is as commendable; for it is laudable to praise well; as poets at one and the same time give immortality, and receive it themselves as a reward. Both are pleased: the one while he receives the recompense of merit, the other while he shows he knows how to discern it; but above all, that man is happy in this art, who, like a skillful painter, retains the features and complexion, but still softens the picture into the most agreeable likeness.

There can hardly, I believe, be imagined a more desirable pleasure, than that of praise unmixed with any possibility of flattery. Such was that which Germanicus enjoyed, when, the night before a battle, desirous of some sincere mark of the esteem of his legions for him, he is described by Tacitus listening in a disguise to the discourse of a soldier, and wrapped up in the fruition of his glory, while with an undesigned sincerity they praised his noble and majestic mien, his affability, his valor, conduct and success in war. How must a man have his heart full-blown with joy in such an article of glory as this? What a spur and encouragement still to proceed in those steps which had already brought him to so pure a taste of the greatest of mortal enjoyments?

us from the Greek, in some of your last papers, have been the occasion of my looking into some of those authors; among whom I chanced on a collection of letters which pass under the name of Aristænetus. Of all the remains of antiquity, I believe there can be nothing produced of an air so gallant and polite; each letter contains a little novel or adventure, which is told with all the beauties of language, and heightened with a luxuriance of wit. There are several of them translated; but with such wide deviations from the original, and in a style so far differing from the author's, that the translator seems rather to have taken hints for the expressing his own sense and thoughts, than to have endeavored to render those of Aristænetus. In the following translation, I have kept as near the meaning of the Greek as I could, and have only added a few words to make the sentences in English sit together a little better than they would otherwise have done. The story seems to be taken from that of Pygmalion and the statue of Ovid: some of the thoughts are of the same turn, and the whole is written in a kind of poetical prose."

"PHILOPINAX TO CHROMATION.

"Never was a man more overcome with so fantastical a passion as mine: I have painted a beautiful woman, and am despairing, dying for the picture. My own skill has undone me; it is not the dart of Venus, but my own pencil has thus wounded me. Ah, me! with what anxiety am I necessitated to adore my own idol! How miserable am I, while every one must as much pity the painter as he praises the picture, and own my torment more than equal to my art! But why do I It sometimes happens that even enemies and thus complain? Have there not been more unenvious persons bestow the sincerest marks of es- happy and unnatural passions than mine? Yes, teem when they least design it. Such afford a I have seen the representations of Phædra, Nargreater pleasure, as extorted by merit, and freed cissus, and Pasiphæ. Phædra was unhappy in her from all suspicion of favor or flattery. Thus it is love: that of Pasipha was monstrous: and while with Malvolio: he has wit, learning, and discern- the other caught at his beloved likeness, he dement, but tempered with an alloy of envy, self-stroyed the watery image, which ever eluded his love, and detraction. Malvolio turns pale at the embraces. The fountain represented Narcissus to mirth and good humor of the company, if it ceu- himself, and the picture both that and him thirstter not in his person; he grows jealous and dis-ing after his adored image. But I am yet less pleased when he ceases to be the only person admired, and looks upon the commendations paid to another as a detraction from his merit, and an attempt to lessen the superiority he affects; but by this very method, he bestows such praise as can never be suspected of flattery. His uneasiness and distaste are so many sure and certain signs of another's title to that glory he desires, and has the mortification to find himself not possessed of.

A good name is fitly compared to a precious ointment, and when we are praised with skill and decency, it is indeed the most agreeable perfume; but if too strongly admitted into the brain of a less vigorous and happy texture, it will, like too strong an odor, overcome the senses, and prove pernicious to those nerves it was intended to refresh. A generous mind is of all others the most sensible of praise and dispraise; and a noble spirit is as much invigorated with its due proportion of honor and applause, as it is depressed by neglect and contempt. But it is only persons far above the common level who are thus affected with either of these extremes; as in a thermometer, it is only the purest and most sublimated spirit that is either contracted or dilated by the benignity or inclemency of the season.

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unhappy, I enjoy her presence continually, and if I touch her, I destroy not the beauteous form, but she looks pleased, and a sweet smile sits in the charming space which divides her lips. One would swear that voice and speech were issuing out, and that one's ears felt the melodious sound. How often have I, deceived by a lover's credulity, hearkened if she had not something to whisper me! and when frustrated of my hopes, how often have I taken my revenge in kisses from her cheeks and eyes, and softly wooed her to my embrace, while she (as to me it seemed) only withheld her tongue the more to inflame me. But, madman that I am, shall I be thus taken with the representation only of a beauteous face, and flowing hair, and thus waste myself and melt to tears for a shadow? Ah, sure it is something more, it is a reality; for see her beauties shine out with new luster, and she seems to upbraid me with unkind reproaches. Oh, may I have a living mistress of this form, that when I shall compare the work of nature with that of art, I may be still at a loss which to choose, and be long perplexed with the pleasing uncertainty!"-T.

By Tom Brown and others. See his Works, 4 vols., 12mo.

No. 239.] TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1711.
-Bella, horrida bella!-VIRG. Æn., vi, 86.
-Wars, horrid wars!-DRYDEN.

I HAVE Sometimes amused myself with considering the several methods of managing a debate which have obtained in the world.

The first races of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-day, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rules of art.

Socrates introduced a catechetical method of ar

hundred thousand disputants on each side, and convince one another by dint of sword. A certain grand monarch was so sensible of his strength in this way of reasoning, that he wrote upon his great guns-Ratio ultima regum, “The logic of kings;" but, God be thanked, he is now pretty well baffled at his own weapons. When one has to do with a philosopher of this kind, one should remember the old gentleman's saying, who had been engaged in an argument with one of the Roman emperors † Upon his friends telling him the question, when he had visibly the better of am never ashamed," says he, "to be confuted by one who is master of fifty legions."

guing. He would ask his adversary question upon that he wondered he would give dispute; "I

question, until he had convinced him out of his own mouth, that his opinions were wrong. This way of debating drives an enemy up into a corner, seizes all the passes through which he can make an escape, and forces him to surrender at

discretion.

Aristotle changed this method of attack, and invented a great variety of little weapons, called syllogisms. As in the Socratic way of dispute you agree to everything your opponent advances; in the Aristotelic, you are still denying and contradicting some part or other of what he says. So crates conquers you by stratagem, Aristotle by force. The one takes the town by sap, the other sword in hand.

The universities of Europe, for many years, carried on their debates by syllogism, insomuch that we see the knowledge of several centuries laid out into objections and answers, and all the good sense of the age cut and minced into almost an infinitude of distinctions.

When our universities found there was no end of wrangling, this way, they invented a kind of argument, which is not reducible to any mood or figure in Aristotle. It was called the Argumentum Basilinum (others write it Bacilinum or Baculinum), which is pretty well expressed in our English word club-law. When they were not able to confute their antagonist, they knocked him down. It was their method, in these polemical debates, first to discharge their syllogisms, and afterward to betake themselves to their clubs, until such time as they had one way or other confounded their gainsayers. There is in Oxford a narrow defile (to make use of a military term) where the partisans used to encounter; for which reason it still retains the name of Logic-lane. I have heard an old gentleman, a physician, make his boasts, that when he was a young fellow he marched several times at the head of a troop of Scotists, and cudgeled a body of Smiglesians,† half the length of High-street, until they had dispersed themselves for shelter into their respective garrisons.

This humor, I find, went very far in Erasmus's time. For that author tells us, that upon the revival of Greek letters, most of the universities in Europe were divided into Greeks and Trojans. The latter were those who bore a mortal enmity to the language of the Grecians, insomuch that if they met with any who understood it, they did not fail to treat him as a foe. Erasmus himself had, it seems, the misfortune to fall into the hands of a party of Trojans, who laid him on with so many blows and buffets that he never forgot their hostilities to his dying day.

There is a way of managing an argument not much unlike the former, which is made use of by states and communities, when they draw up a

The followers of Duns Scotus, a celebrated doctor of the schools, who flourished about the year 1300, and from his opposing some favorite doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, gave rise to a new party called Scotists, in opposition to the Thomists, or followers of the other.

The followers of Martin Smiglecius, a famous logician of the 16th century.

I shall but just mention another kind of reasoning, which may be called arguing by poll; and another, which is of equal force, in which wagers are made use of as arguments, according to the celebrated line in Hudibras.‡

But the most notable way of managing a controversy, is that which we may call arguing by torture. This is a method of reasoning which has been made use of with the poor refugees, and which was so fashionable in our country during the reign of Queen Mary, that in a passage of an author quoted by Monsieur Bayle, it is said the price of wood was raised in England, by reason of the executions that were made in Smithfield.§ These disputants convince their adversaries with a sorites, commonly called a pile of fagots. The rack is also a kind of syllogism which has been used with good effect, and has made multitudes of converts. Men were formerly disputed out of their doubts, reconciled to truth by force of reason, and won over to opinions by the candor, sense, and ingenuity of those who had the right on their side; but this method of conviction operated too slowly. Pain was found to be much more enlightening than reason. Every scruple was looked upon as obstinacy, and not to be removed but by engines invented for that purpose. In a word, the application of whips, racks, gibbets, galleys, dungeons, fire and fagot, in a dispute, may be looked upon as popish refinements upon the old heathen logic.

There is another way of reasoning which seldom fails, though it be of a quite different nature to that I have last mentioned. I mean, convincing a man by ready money, or, as it is ordinarily called, bribing a man to an opinion. This method has often proved successful, when all the others have been made use of to no purpose. A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint, will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens, confounded their statesmen, struck their orators dumb, and at length argued them out of all their liberties.

Having here touched upon the several methods of disputing, as they have prevailed in different ages of the world, I shall very suddenly give my

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reader an account of the whole art of caviling; which shall be a full and satisfactory answer to all such papers and pamphlets as have yet apDeared against the Spectator.-C.

me, standing in proper rows, and advancing as fast as they saw their elders, or their betters, dispatched by me. But so it is, Mr. Spectator, that all our good breeding is of late lost by the unhappy arrival of a courtier, or town gentleman, who came lately among us. This person, whenever he came into a room, made a profound bow, and fell back, then recovered with a soft air, and

No. 240.] WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1711. made a bow to the next, and so to one or two

-Aliter non fit, Avite, liber.-MART., Ep. i, 17. Of such materials, Sir, are books composed.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I AM one of the most genteel trades in the city, and understand thus much of liberal education, as to have an ardent ambition of being useful to mankind, and to think that the chief end of being, as to this life. I had these good impressions given me from the handsome behavior of a learned, generous, and wealthy man toward me, when I first began the world. Some dissatisfaction between me and my parents made me enter into it with less relish of business than I ought; and to turn off this uneasiness, I gave myself to criminal pleasures, some excesses, and a general loose conduct. I know not what the excellent man abovementioned saw in me, but he descended from the superiority of his wisdom and merit to throw himself frequently into my company. This made me soon hope that I had something in me worth cultivating, and his conversation made me sensible of satisfactions in a regular way, which I had never before imagined. When he was grown familiar with me, he opened himself like a good angel, and told me he had long labored to ripen me into a preparation to receive his friendship and advice, both which I should daily command, and the use of any part of his fortune, to apply the measures he should propose to me, for the improvement of my own. assure you, I cannot recollect the goodness and confusion of the good man when he spoke to this purpose to me, without melting into tears: but in a word, Sir, I must hasten to tell you, that my heart burns with gratitude toward him, and he is so happy a man, that it can never be in my power to return him his favors in kind, but I am sure I have made him the most agreeable satisfaction I could possibly, in being ready to serve others to my utmost ability, as far as is consistent with the prudence he prescribes to me. Dear Mr. Spectator, I do not owe to him only the good-will and esteem of my own relations (who are people of distinction), the present ease and plenty of my circumstances, but also the governinent of my passions, and regulation of my desires. I doubt not, Sir, but in your imagination such virtues as these of my worthy friend, bear as great a figure as actions which are more glittering in the common estimation. What I would ask of you, is to give us a whole Spectator upon heroic virtue in common life, which may incite men to the same generous inclinations, as have by this admirable person been shown to, and raised in, "Sir, your most humble Servant."

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I am a country clergyman, of a good plentiful estate, and live as the rest of my neighbors, with great hospitality. I have been ever reckoned among the ladies the best company in the world, and have access as a sort of favorite. I never came in public but I saluted them, though in great assemblies all around; where it was seen how genteelly I avoided hampering my spurs in their petticoats, while I moved among them; and on the other side how prettily they courtsied and received

more, and then took the gross of the room, by passing them in a continual bow until he arrived at the person he thought proper particularly to entertain. This he did with so good a grace and assurance, that it is taken for the present fashion; and there is no young gentlewoman within several miles of this place has been kissed ever since his first appearance among us. We country gentleman cannot begin again and learn these fine and reserved airs; and our conversation is at a stand, until we have your judgment for or against kissing by way of civility or salutation; which is impatiently expected by your friends of both sexes, but by none so much as "Your humble Servant,

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"I was the other night at Philaster, where I expected to hear your famous trunk-maker, but was unhappily disappointed of his company, and saw another person who had the like ambition to distinguish himself in a noisy manner, partly by vociferation or talking loud, and partly by his bodily agility. This was a very lusty fellow, but withal a sort of beau, who getting into one of the side boxes on the stage before the curtain drew, was disposed to show the whole audience his activity by leaping over the spikes; he passed from thence to one of the entering doors, where he took snuff with a tolerable good grace, displayed his fine clothes, made two or three feint passes at the curtain with his cane, then faced about and appeared at t'other door. Here he affected to survey the whole house, bowed and smiled at random, and then showed his teeth, which were some of them indeed very white. After this, he retired behind the curtain, and obliged us with several views of his person from every opening.

"During the time of acting he appeared frequently in the prince's apartment, made one at the hunting-match, and was very forward in the rebellion.* If there were no injunctions to the contrary, yet this practice must be confessed to diminish the pleasure of the audience, and for that reason to be presumptuous and unwarrant able; but since her majesty's late command has made it criminal,† you have authority to take notice of it.

66

T.

"Sir, your humble Servant,

"CHARLES EASY."

*Different scenes in the play of Philaster.

In the playbills about this time there was this clause, By her majesty's command no person is to be admitted be hind the scenes,"

No. 241.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1711.

--Semperque relinqui

Sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur

Ire viam

-VIRG. En., iv, 406.

All sad she seems, forsaken, and alone;

them to retire. The romance further aids that the lovers expected the return of this stated hour with as much impatience as if it had been a real assignation, and enjoyed au imaginary happiness, that was almost as pleasing to them as what they

And left to wander wide through paths unknown.-P. Would have found from a real meeting. It was an

"MR. SPECTATOR,

inexpressible satisfaction to these divided lovers, to be assured that each was at the same time em“THOUGH you have considered virtuous love in ployed in the same kind of contemplation, and most of its distresses, I do not remember that you making equal returns of tenderness and affection. have given us any dissertation upon the absence If I may be allowed to mention a more serious of lovers, or laid down any methods how they expedient for the alleviating of absence, I shall should support themselves under those long sepa- take notice of one which I have known two perrations which they are sometimes forced to under-sons practice, who joined religion to that elegance go. I am at present in this unhappy circumstance, of sentiment with which the passion of love genhaving parted with the best of husbands, who is erally inspires its votaries. This was, at the reabroad in the service of his country, and may not turn of such an hour, to offer up a certain prayer possibly return for some years. His warni and for each other which they had agreed upon before generous affection while we were together, with their parting. The husband, who is a man that the tenderness which he expressed to me at part- makes a figure in the polite world as well as in ing, make his absence almost insupportable. I his own family, has often told me, that he could think of him every moment of the day, and meet not have supported an absence of three years him every night in my dreams. Everything I without this expedient. see puts me in mind of him. I apply myself with more than ordinary diligence to the care of his family and his estate; but this, instead of relieving me, gives me but so many occasions of wishing for his return. I frequent the rooms where I used to converse with him, and not meeting him there, sit down in his chair and fall a weeping. I love to read the books he delighted in, and to converse with the persons whom he esteemed. I visit his picture a hundred times a day, and place myself over-against it whole hours together. I pass a great part of my time in the walks where I used to lean upon his arm, and recollect in my mind the discourses which have there passed between us: I look over the several prospects and points of view which we used to survey together, fix my eye upon the objects which he has made me take notice of, and call to mind a thousand agreeable remarks which he has made on those occasions. I write to him by every conveyance, and contrary to other people, am always in good hu mor when an east wind blows, because it seldom fails of bringing me a letter from him. Let me entreat you, Sir, to give me your advice upon this occasion, and to let me know how I may relieve myself in this my widowhood.

"I am, Sir, your most humble Servant,

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The consolations of lovers on these occasions are very extraordinary. Beside those mentioned by Asteria, there are many other motives of comfort which are made use of by absent lovers.

Strada, in one of his Prolusions, gives an ac count of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain loadstone, which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time, and in the same manner. He tells us, that the two friends being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with fourand-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates in such a manner, that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion. The friend in the meanwhile saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.

If Monsieur Scudery, or any other writer of romance, had introduced a necromancer, who is generally in the train of a knight-errant, making a present to two lovers of a couple of these abovementioned needles, the reader would not have been a little pleased to have seen them corresponding with one another when they were guarded by spies and watches, or separated by castles and adventures.

In the meanwhile, if ever this invention should be revived or put in practice, I would propose that I remember in one of Scudery's Romances, a upon the lover's dial-plate there should be written couple of honorable lovers agreed at their parting not only the four-and-twenty letters, but several to set aside one half hour in the day to think entire words which have always a place in pasof each other during a tedious absence. The ro- sionate epistles; as flames, darts, die, language, mance tells us, they both of them punctually ob- absence, Cupid, heart, eyes, hang, drown, and the served the time thus agreed upon; and that what-like. This would very much abridge the lover's ever company or business they were engaged in, they left it abruptly as soon as the clock warned

* Lib. ii, prol, 6.

pains in this way of writing a letter, as it would enable him to express the most useful and significant words with a single touch of the needle.-C.

No. 242.] FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1711.
Creditur, ex medio quia res arcessit, habere
Sudoris minimum-
HOR. 2 Ep. i, 168.
To write on vulgar themes, is thought an easy task.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"YOUR speculations do not so generally prevail over men's manners as I could wish. A former paper of yours concerning the misbehavior of people who are necessarily in each others company in traveling, ought to have been a lasting admonition against transgressions of that kind But I had the fate of your Quaker, in meeting with a rude fellow in a stage-coach, who enter tained two or three women of us (for there was no man beside himself) with language as indecent as ever was heard upon the water. The impertinent observations which the coxcomb made upon our shame and confusion were such, that it is an unspeakable grief to reflect upon them. As much as you have declaimed against dueling, I hope you will do us the justice to declare, that if the brute has courage enough to send to the place where he saw us all alight together to get rid of him, there is not one of us but has a lover who shall avenge the insult. It would certainly be worth your consideration, to look into the frequent misfortunes of this kind, to which the modest and innocent are exposed, by the licentious behavior of such as are as much strangers to goodbreeding as to virtue. Could we avoid hearing what we do not approve, as easily as we can seeing what is disagreeable, there were some consolation; but since in a box at a play, in an assembly of ladies, or even in a pew at church, it is in the power of a gross coxcomb to utter what a woman cannot avoid hearing, how miserable is her condition who comes within the power of such impertinents? and how necessary is it to repeat invectives against such behavior? If the licentious had not utterly forgot what it is to be modest, they would know that offended modesty labors under one of the greatest sufferings to which human life can be exposed. If these brutes could reflect thus much, though they want shame, they could be moved by their pity, to abhor an impudent behavior in the presence of the chaste and innocent. If you will oblige us with a Spectator on this subject, and procure it to be pasted against every stage-coach in Great Britain as the law of the journey, you will highly oblige the whole sex, for which you have professed so great an esteem; and in particular, the two ladies my late fellow-sufferers, and,

Sir, your most humble Servant,
REBECCA RIDINGHOOD."

"MR. SPECTATOR,

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"The matter which I am now going to send you, is an unhappy story in low life, and will recommend itself, so that you must excuse the manner of expressing it. A poor, idle, drunken weaver in Spitalfields has a faithful, laborious wife, who by her frugality and industry has laid by her as much money as purchased her a ticket in the present lottery. She had hid this very privately in the bottom of a trunk, and had given her number to a friend and confidant, who had promised to keep the secret, and bring her news of the success. The poor adventurer was one day goue abroad, when her careless husband, supecting

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she had some money, searches every corner, till at length he finds this same ticket; which he immediately carries abroad, sells, and squanders away the money, without his wife's suspecting anything of the matter. A day or two after this, this friend, who was a woman, comes and brings the wife word, that she had a benefit of £500. The poor creature, overjoyed, flies up stairs to her husband, who was then at work, and desires him to leave his loom for that evening, and come and drink with a friend of his and hers below. The man received this cheerful invitation as bad husbands sometimes do, and after a cross word or two, told her he wouldn't come. His wife, with tenderness, renewed her importunity, and at length said to him, My love! I have within these few months, unknown to you, scraped together as much money as has bought us a ticket in the lottery, and now here is Mrs. Quick come to tell me, that it is come up this morning a £500 prize.' The husband replies immediately, 'You lie, you slut, you have no ticket, for I have sold it.' The poor woman upon this faints away in a fit, recovers, and is now run distracted. As she had no design to defraud her husband, but was willing only to participate in his good fortune, every one pities her, but thinks her husband's punishment but just. This, Sir, is a matter of fact, and would, if the persons and circumstances were greater, in a wellwrought play be called Beautiful Distress. I have only sketched it out with chalk, and know a good hand can make a moving picture with worse ma"Sir," etc. terials.

66 MR. SI ECTATOR,

"I am what the world calls a warm fellow, and by good success in trade I have raised myself to a capacity of making some figure in the world; but no matter for that, I have now under my guardianship a couple of nieces, who will certainly make me run mad; which you will not wonder at, when I tell you they are female virtuosos, and during the three years and a half that I have had them under my care, they never in the least inclined their thoughts toward any one single part of While they the character of a notable woman. should have been considering the proper ingre dients for a sack-posset, you should hear a dispute concerning the magnetic virtue of the loadstone, or perhaps the pressure of the atmosphere. Their language is peculiar to themselves, and they scorn to express themselves on the meanest trifle with Words that are not of a Latin derivation. But this were supportable still, would they suffer me to enjoy an uninterrupted ignorance; but unless fall in with their abstracted ideas of things (as they call them) I must not expect to smoke one Pipe in quiet. In a late fit of the gout I complained of the pain of that distemper, when my niece Kitty begged leave to assure me, that what ever I might think, several great philosophers, both ancient and modern, were of opinion, that both pleasure and pain were imaginary distinctions, and that there was no such thing as either in rerum natura. I have often heard them affirm that the fire was not hot; and one day when 1, with the authority of an old fellow, desired one of them to put my blue cloak on my knees, she answered, Sir, I will reach the cloak; but take notice, I do not do it as allowing your description: for it might as well be called yellow as blue; for color is nothing but the various infractions of the rays of the sun.' Miss Molly told me one day, that to say snow was white, is allowing a vulgar error, for as it contains a great quantity of nitrous particles, it might more reasonably be supposed to be black. In short, the young hussies

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