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I am informed that this fashion spreads daily, insomuch that the Whig and Tory ladies begin already to hang out different colors, and to show their principles in their head-dress. Nay, if I may believe my friend Will Honeycomb, there is a certain old coquette of his acquaintance, who intends to appear very suddenly in a rainbow hood, like the Iris in Dryden's Virgil, not questioning but that among such a variety of colors she shall have a charm for every heart.

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My friend Will, who very much values himself No vice or wickedness which people fall into upon his great insight into gallantry, tells me, from indulgence to desires which are natural to all, that he can already guess at the humor a lady is ought to place them below the compassion of the in by her hood, as the courtiers of Morocco know virtuous part of the world which indeed ofter the disposition of their present emperor by the makes me a little apt to suspect the sincerity of color of the dress which he puts on. When Me- their virtue, who are too warmly provoked at lesinda wraps her head in flame color, her heart is other people's personal sins. The unlawful comset upon execution. When she covers it with pur- merce of the sexes is of all others the hardest to ple, I would not, says he, advise her lover to ap-avoid; and yet there is no one which you shall proach her; but if she appears in white, it is hear the rigider part of womankind speak of with peace, and he may hand her out of her box with so little mercy. It is very certain that a modest woman cannot abhor the breach of chastity too much; but pray let her hate it for herself, and only pity it in others. Will Honeycomb calls these

safety.

Will informs me likewise, that these hoods may be used as signals. Why else, says he, does Cornelia always put on a black hood when her hus-over-offended ladies, the outrageously virtuous. band is gone into the country?

Such are my friend Honeycomb's dreams of gallantry. For my own part, I impute this diversity of colors in the hoods to the diversity of complexion in the faces of my pretty countrywomen. Ovid, in his Art of Love, has given some precepts as to this particular, though I find they are different from those which prevail among the moderns. He recommends a red striped silk to the pale complexion; white to the brown, and dark to the fair. On the contrary, my friend Will, who pretends to be a greater master in this art than Ovid, tells me, that the palest features look the most agreeable iu white sarcenet; that a face which is over-flushed appears to advantage in the deepest scarlet; and that the darkest complexion is not a little allevia ted by a black hood. In short, he is for losing the color of the face in that of the hood, as a fire burns dimly, and a candle goes half out in the light of the sun. "This," says he, "your Ovid himself has hinted, where he treats of these matters, when he tells us that the blue-water nymphs are dressed in sky-colored garments; and that Aurora, who always appears in the light of the rising sun, is robed in saffron."

Whether these his observations are justly grounded I cannot tell; but I have often known him, as we have stood together behind the ladies, praise or dispraise the complexion of a face which he never saw, from observing the color of her hood, and [he] has been very seldom out in these his guesses.

As I have nothing more at heart than the honor and improvement of the fair sex, I cannot conclude this paper without an exhortation to the British ladies, that they would excel the women of all other nations as much in virtue and good sense as they do in beauty; which they may certainly do, if they will be as industrious to cultivate their minds as they are to adorn their bodies. In the meanwhile I shall recommend to their most sericus consideration the saying of an old Greek poet:

C.

The mind, not the dress, adorneth woman.

I do not design to fall upon failures in general, with relation to the gift of chastity, but at present only enter upon that large field, and begin with the consideration of poor and public whores. The other evening, passing along near Covent-garden, I was jogged on the elbow as I turned into the piazza, on the right hand coming out of Jamesstreet. by a slim young girl of about seventeen, who with a pert air asked me if I was for a pint of wine. I do not know but I should have indulged my curiosity in having some chat with her, but that I am informed the man of the Bumper knows me; and it would have made a story for him not very agreeable to some part of my writings, though I have in others so frequently said, that I am wholly unconcerned in any scene I am in but merely as a Spectator. This impediment being in my way, we stood under one of the arches by twilight; and there I could observe as exact features as I had ever seen, the most agreeable shape, the finest neck and bosom, in a word, the whole person of a woman exquisitely beautiful. She affected to allure me with a forced wantonness in her look and air; but I saw it checked with hunger and cold her eyes were wan and eager, her dress thin and tawdry, her mien genteel and childish. This strange figure gave me much anguish of heart, and to avoid being seen with her, I went away, but could not forbear giving her a crown. The poor thing sighed, courtsied, and with a blessing expressed with the utmost vehemence, turned from me. This creature is what they call "newly come upon the town," but who, falling I suppose into cruel hands, was left in the first month from her dishonor, and exposed to pass through the hands and discipline of one of those hags of hell whom we call bawds. But lest I should grow too suddenly grave on this subject, and be myself outrageously good, I shall turn to a scene in one of Fletcher's plays, where this character is drawn, and the economy of whoredom most admirably described. The passage I would point to is in the third scene of .he second act of The Humorous Lieutenant. Leucippe, who is agent for the king's lust, and bawds at the same time for the whole court, is very pleasantly introduced, reading her minutes as a person of business, with two maids, her under-secretaries, taking instruc tions at a table before her, Her women, both those under her present tutelage, and those which she is laying wait for, are alphabetically set down in her book; and as she is looking ove" the letter

C in a muttering voice, as if between soliloquy in future discourses, I must venture myself, with and speaking out, she says,

Her maidenhead will yield me; let me see now;
She is not fifteen they say; for her complexion-
Cloe, Cloe, Cloe, here I have her,

Cloe, the daughter of a country gentleman;
Her age upon fifteen. Now her complexion-

A lovely brown; here 'tis; eyes black and rolling,
The body neatly built; she strikes a lute well;
Sings most enticingly. These helps consider'd,
Her maidenhead will amount to some three hundred,
Or three hundred and fifty crowns: 'twill bear it handsomely;
Her father's poor, some little share deducted,

To buy him a hunting nag

The creatures are very well instructed in the circumstances and manners of all who are any way related to the fair one whom they have a design upon. As Cloe is to be purchased with 350 crowns, and the father taken off with a pad; the merchant's wife next to her, who abounds in plenty, is not to have downright money, but the mercenary part of her mind is engaged with a present of plate and a little ambition. She is made to understand that it is a man of quality who dies for her. The examination of a young girl for business, and the crying down her value for being a slight thing, together with every other circumstance in the scene, are inimitably excellent, and have the true spirit of comedy; though it were to be wished the author had added a circumstance which should make Leucippe's business more odious.

my friend Will, into the haunts of beauty and gal lantry; from pampered vice in the habitations of the wealthy, to distressed indigent wickedness expelled the harbors of the brothel.-T.

No. 267.] SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1711-12.
Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Graii.

PROPERT. El. 34, lib. 2, ver. 95.

Give place, ye Roman and ye Grecian wits. THERE is nothing in nature so irksome as gene. ral discourses, especially when they turn chiefly upon words. For this reason I shall wave the discussion of that point which was started some years since, whether Milton's Paradise Lost may be called an heroic poem? Those who will not give it that title, may call it (if they please) a divine poem. It will be sufficient to its perfection, if it has in it all the beauties of the highest kind of poetry: and as for those who allege it is not an heroic poem, they advance no more to the diminution of it, than if they should say Adam is not Æneas, nor Eve Helen.

I shall therefore examine it by the rule of epic poetry, and see whether it falls short of the Iliad or Eneid, in the beauties which are essential to that kind of writing. The first thing to be considered in an epic poem is the fable, which is It must not be thought a digression from my in-perfect or imperfect, according as the action tended speculation, to talk of bawds in a dis- which it relates is more or less so. This actior. course upon wenches: for a woman of the town is should have three qualifications in it. First, it not thoroughly and properly such, without having should be but one action. Secondly, it should gone through the education of one of these houses. be an entire action; and Thirdly, it should be a But the compassionate case of very many is, that great action. To consider the action of the Iliad they are taken into such hands without any the Eneid, and Paradise Lost, in these three several least suspicion, previous temptation, or admoni- lights. Homer, to preserve the unity of his tion to what place they are going. The last week action, hastens into the midst of things, as Horace I went to an inn in the city to inquire for some has observed. Had he gone up to Leda's egg, of provisions which were sent by a wagon out of the begun much later, even at the rape of Helen, of country; and as I waited in one of the boxes till the investing of Troy, it is manifest that the story the chamberlain had looked over his parcels, I of the poem would have been a series of several heard an old and young voice repeating the ques- actions. He therefore opens his poem with the tions and responses of the church-catechism. I discord of his princes, and artfully interweaves, thought it no breach of good manners to peep at a in the several succeeding parts of it, an account crevice, and look in at people so well employed; of everything material which relates to them, but who should I see there but the most artful and had passed before that fatal dissension. After procuress in town, examining a most beautiful the same manner Æneas makes his first appearcountry girl, who had come up in the same wagon ance in the Tyrrhene seas, and within sight of with my things," whether she was well educated, Italy, because the action proposed to be celebrated could forbear playing the wanton with servants was that of his settling himself in Latium. But and idle fellows, of which this town, says she, is because it was necessary for the reader to know too full." At the same time, "whether she knew what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, enough of breeding, as that if a 'squire or a gen- and in the preceding parts of his voyage, Virgil tleman, or one that was her betters, should give makes his hero relate it by way of episode in the her a civil salute, she could courtesy and be hum- second and third books of the Eneid. The conble nevertheless." Her innocent 'forsooths, tents of both which books come before those of yeses, and't please yous, and she would do her the first book in the thread of the story, though endeavor," moved the good old lady to take her for preserving this unity of action they follow out of the hands of a country bumpkin, her bro- them in the disposition of the poem. Milton, in ther, and hire her for her own maid. I staid till imitation of these two great poets, opens his PaI saw them all march out to take coach; the bro-radise Lost with an infernal council plotting the ther loaded with a great cheese, he prevailed upon her to take for her civilities to his sister. This poor creature's fate is not far off that of hers whom I spoke of above; and it is not to be doubted, but after she has been long enough a prey to lust, she will be delivered over to famine. The ironical commendation of the industry and charity of these antiquated ladies, these directors of sin, after they can no longer commit it, makes up the beauty of the iniraitable dedication to the Plain-Dealer, and is a master-piece of raillery on this vice. But to understand all the purlieus of this game the better, and to illustrate this subject |

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fall of man, which is the action he proposed to celebrate; and as for those great actions, which preceded in point of time, the battle of the angels, and the creation of the world (which would have entirely destroyed the unity of the principal action, had he related them in the same order that they happened), he cast them in the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, by way of episode to this noble poem.

Aristotle himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the unity of his fable, though at the same time that great critic and philosopher endeavored to palliate this imperfection

In the Greek poet, by imputing it in some measure to the very nature of an epic poem. Some have been of opinion, that the Eneid also labors in this particular, and has Episodes which may be looked upon as excrescences rather than as parts of the action. On the contrary, the poem which we have now under our consideration, hath no other episodes than such as naturally arise from the subject, and yet is filled with such a multitude of astonishing incidents, that it gives us at the same time a pleasure of the greatest variety and of the greatest simplicity; uniform in its nature, though diversified in the execution.*

I must observe also, that as Virgil, in the poem which was designed to celebrate the origin of the Roman empire, has described the birth of its great rival, the Carthaginian commonwealth; Milton, with the like art in his poem on the fall of man, has related the fall of those angels who are his professed enemies. Beside the many other beauties in such an episode, its running parallel with the great action of the poem, hinders it from breaking the unity so much as another episode would have done, that had not so great affinity with the principal subject. In short this is the same kind of beauty which the critics admire in the Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery, where the two different plots look like counterparts and copies of one another.

The second qualification required in the action of an epic poem is, that it should be an entire action. An action is entire when it is complete in all its parts; or as Aristotle describes it, when it consists of a beginning, a middle, and an end. Nothing should go before it, be intermixed with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it. As, on the contrary, no single step should be omitted in that just and regular process which it must be supposed to take from its origin to its consummation. Thus we see the anger of Achilles in its birth, its continuance, and effects; and Æneas's settlement in Italy carried on through all the oppositions in his way to it both by sea and land. The action in Milton excels (I think) both the former in this particular: we see it contrived in hell, executed upon earth, and punished by Heaven. The parts of it are told in the most distinct manner, and grow out of one another in the most natural order.

The third qualification of an epic poem is its greatness. The anger of Achilles was of such consequence that it embroiled the kings of Greece, destroyed the heroes of Troy, and engaged all the gods in factions. Eneas's settlement in Italy produced the Caesars and gave birth to the Roman empire. Milton's subject was still greater than either of the former; it does not determine the fate of single persons or nations; but of a whole species. The united powers of hell are joined together for the destruction of mankind, which they effected in part, and would have completed, had not Omnipotence itself interposed. The principal actors are man in his greatest perfection, and woman in her highest beauty. Their enemies are the fallen angels; the Messiah their friend, and the Almighty their protector. In short everything that is great in the whole circle of being, whether within the verge of nature, or out of it, has a proper part assigned it in this admirable poem.

In poetry, as in architecture, not only the whole, but the principal members, and every part of them, should be great. I will not presume to say, that the book of games in the Eneid, or that in the Iliad, are not of this nature: nor to

The clause in Italics is not in the original paper in folio.

reprehend Virgil's simile of the top, and many others of the same kind in the Iliad, as liable to any censure in this particular; but I think we may say, without derogating from those wonderful performances, that there is an unquestionable magnificence in every part of Paradise Lost, and indeed a much greater than could have been formed upon any pagan system.

But Aristotle, by the greatness of the action, does not only mean that it should be great in its nature, but also in its duration, or in other words, that it should have a due length in it, as well as what we properly call greatness. The just measure of this kind of magnitude, he explains by the following similitude: An animal no bigger than a mite, cannot appear perfect to the eye, because the sight takes it in at once, and has only a confused idea of the whole, and not a distinct idea of all its parts; if, on the contrary, you should suppose an animal of ten thousand furlongs in length, the eye would be so filled with a single part of it, that it could not give the mind an idea of the whole What these animals are to the eye, a very short or a very long action would be to the memory. The first would be, as it were, lost and swallowed up by it, and the other difficult to be contained in it. Homer and Virgil have shown their principal art in this particular; the action of the Iliad, and that of the Eneid, were in themselves exceedingly short, but are so beautifully extended and diversified by the invention of episodes, and the machinery of gods, with the like poetical ornament, that they make up an agreeable story, sufficient to employ the memory without overcharging it. Milton's action is enriched with such a variety of circumstances, that I have taken as much pleasure in reading the contents of his books, as in the best invented story I ever met with. It is possible, that the traditions on which the Iliad and Æneid were built, had more circumstances in them than the history of the fall of man, as it is related in Scripture. Beside, it was easier for Homer and Virgil to dash the truth with fiction, as they were in no danger of offending the religion of their country by it. But as for Milton, he had not only a very few circumstances upon which to raise his poem, but was also obliged to proceed with the greatest caution in everything that he added out of his own invention. And indeed, notwithstanding all the restraint he was under, he has filled his story with so many surprising incidents, which bear so close an analogy with what is delivered in holy writ, that it is capable of pleasing the most delicate reader, without giving offense to the most scrupulous.

The modern critics have collected from several hints in the Iliad and Eneid the space of time, which is taken up by the action of each of those poems; but as a great part of Milton's story was transacted in regions that lie out of the reach of the sun and the sphere of day, it is impossible to gratify the reader with such a calculation, which indeed would be more curious than instructive; none of the critics, either ancient or modern, having laid down rules to circumscribe the action of an epic poem with any determined number of years, days, or hours.

This piece of criticism on Milton's Paradise Lost shall be carried on in the following Saturday's paper.-L.

No. 268.] MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1711-12. able them to keep mistresses, horses, hot nds; to

Minus aptus acutis

Naribus horum hominum.-HOR. 1 Sat. iii, 29.

unfit

For lively sallies of corporeal wit.-CREECH. Ir is not that I think I have been more witty than I ought of late, that at present I wholly forbear any attempts toward it; I am of opinion that I ought sometimes to lay before the world the plain letters of my correspondents in the artless dress in which they hastily send them, that the reader may see I am not accuser and judge myself, but that the indictment is properly and fairly laid before I proceed against the criminal. "MR. SPECTATOR,

and very

drink, feast, and game with their companions, pay their debts contracted by former extravagancies or some such vile and unworthy end: and indulge themselves in pleasures which are a shame and scandal to human nature. Now as for women; how few of them are there, who place the happiness of their marriage in the having a wise and virtuous friend? One who will be faithful and just to all, and constant and loving to them? Who with care and diligence will look after and improve the estate, and, without grudging, allow whatever is prudent and convenient? Rather, how few are there, who do not place their happiness in outshining others in pomp and show? and that de not think within themselves when they have mar ried such a rich person, that none of their ac quaintance shall appear so fine in their equipage, so adorned in their persons, or so magnificent in their furniture as themselves? Thus their heads are filled with vain ideas; and I heartily wish I could say that equipage and show were not the chief good of so many women as I fear it is.

"As you are spectator-general, I apply myself to you in the following case, viz: I do not wear a sword, but I often divert myself at the theater, where I frequently see a set of fellows pull plain people, by way of humor or frolic by the nose, upon frivolous or no occasions. A friend of mine the other night applauding what a graceful exit Mr. Wilks made, one of those nose-wringers over"After this manner do both sexes deceive them. hearing him, pinched him by the nose. I was selves, and bring reflections and disgrace upon the in the pit the other night (when it was very much most happy and most honorable state of life; crowded), a gentleman leaning whereas, if they would but correct their depraved upon me, heavily, I very civilly requested him to remove taste, moderate their ambition, and place their his hand; for which he pulled me by the nose. happiness upon proper objects, we should not find I would not resent it in so public a place, be- felicity in the marriage state such a wonder in the cause I was unwilling to create a disturbance; world as it now is. but have since reflected upon it as a thing that is unmanly and disingenuous, renders the nosepuller odious, and makes the person pulled by the nose look little and contemptible. This grievance I humbly request you would endeavor to redress. "I am your admirer, etc.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"JAMES EASY."

"Your discourse of the 29th of December, on love and marriage, is of so useful a kind, that I cannot forbear adding my thoughts to yours on this subject. Methinks it is a misfortune, that the marriage-state, which in its own nature is adapted to give us the completest happiness this life is capable of, should be so uncomfortable a one to so many as it daily proves. But the mischief generally proceeds from the unwise choice people make for themselves, and an expectation of happiness from things not capable of giving it. Nothing but the good qualities of the person beloved can be a foundation for a love of judgment and discretion; and whoever expects happiness from anything but virtue, wisdom, good-humor, and a similitude of manners, will find themselves widely mistaken. But how few are there who seek after these things, and do not rather make riches their chief, if not their only aim? How rare is it for a man, when he engages himself in the thoughts of marriage, to place his hopes of having in such a woman a constant agreeable companion? One who will divide his cares, and double his joys? Who will manage that share of his estate he intrusts to her with care, with prudence and frugality, govern his house with economy and discretion, and be an ornament to himself and family? Where shall we find the man who looks out for one who places her chief happiness in the practice of virtue, and makes her duty her continual pleasure? No, men rather seek for money as the complement of all their desires; and, regardless of what kind of wives they take, they think riches will be a minister to all kind of pleasures, and en

*No. 261.

"Sir, if you think these thoughts worth inserting among your own, be pleased to give them a better dress: and let them pass abroad; and you will oblige

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"Your Admirer,

"A. R"

"As I was this day walking in the street, there happened to pass by on the other side of the way a beauty, whose charms were so attracting, that it drew my eyes wholly on that side, insomuch that I neglected my own way, and chanced to run my nose directly against a post: which the lady no sooner perceived, but she fell into a fit of laughter, though at the same time she was sensible that she herself was the cause of my misfortune, which, in my opinion, was the greater aggravation of her crime. I being busy wiping off the blood which trickled down my face, had not time to acquaint her with her barbarity, as also with my resolution, viz: never to look out of my way for one of her sex more: therefore, that your humble servant may be revenged, he desires you to insert this in one of your next papers, which he hopes will be a warning to all the rest of the women-gazers, as well as to poor

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"I desire to know in your next, if the merry game of 'The parson has lost his cloak,' is not mightily in vogue among the fine ladies this Christmas, because I see they wear hoods of all colors, which I suppose is for that purpose. If it is, and you think it proper, I will carry some of these hoods with me to our ladies in Yorkshire because they enjoined me to bring them something from London that was very new. If you can tell anything in which I can obey their commands more agreeably, be pleased to inform me, and you will extremely oblige

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"Your humble Servant."

Oxford, Dec. 29.

Since you appear inclined to be a friend to the

distressed, I beg you would assist me in an affair under which I have suffered very much. The reigning toast of this place is Patetia; I have pursued her with the utmost diligence this twelvemonth, and find nothing stands in my way but one who flatters her more than I can. Pride is her favorite passion; therefore if you would be so far my friend as to make a favorable mention of me in one of your papers, I believe I should not fail in my addresses. The scholars stand in rows, as they did to be sure in your time, at her pew door; and she has all the devotion paid to her by a crowd of youths who are unacquainted with the sex, and have inexperience added to their passion. However, if it succeeds according to my vows, you will make me the happiest man in the world, and the most obliged among all

"MR. SPECTATOR,

66 'Your humble Servants."

"I came to my mistress's toilet this morning, for I am admitted when her face is stark naked: she frowned and cried pish when I said a thing that I stole; and I will be judged by you whether it was not very pretty. 'Madam,' said I, 'you shall forbear that part of your dress; it may be well in others, but you cannot place a patch where it does not hide a beauty.'"-T.

No. 269.] TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1711-12.

Evo rarissima nostro Simplicitas.

-OVID, Ars. Am., i, 241. Most rare is now our old simplicity.-DRYDEN. I was this morning surprised with a great knocking at the door, when my landlady's daughter came up to me, and told me that there was a man below desired to speak with me. Upon my asking her who it was, she told me it was a very grave elderly person, but that she did know his name. I immediately went down to him, and found him to be the coachman of my worthy friend, Sir Roger de Coverley. He told me that his master came to town last night, and would be glad to take a turn with me in Gray's-inn walks. As I was wondering with myself what had brought Sir Roger to town, not having lately received any letter from him, he told me that his master was come up to get a sight of Prince Eugene, and that he desired I would immediately meet him.

I was not a little pleased with the curiosity of the old knight, though I did not much wonder at it, having heard him say more than once in private discourse, that he looked upon Prince Eugenio (for so the knight always calls him) to be a greater man than Scanderbeg.

I was no sooner come into Gray's-inn walks, but I heard my friend hemming twice or thrice to himself with great vigor, for he loves to clear his pipes in good air (to make use of his own phrase), and is not a little pleased with any one who takes notice of the strength which he still exerts in his morning hems.

I was touched with a secret joy at the sight of the good old man, who, before he saw me, was engaged in conversation with a beggar-man that had asked an alms of him. I could hear my friend chide him for not finding out some work; but at the same time saw him put his hand in his pocket and give him six-pence.

at my service, and that the Sunday before he had made a most incomparable sermon out of Dr. Barrow. "I have left," says he, “all my affairs in his hands, and being willing to lay an obligation upon him, have deposited with him thirty marks, to be distributed among his poor parishioners,"

He then proceeded to acquaint me with the welfare of Will Wimble. Upon which he put his hand into his fob and presented me in his name with a tobacco-stopper, telling me that Will had been busy all the beginning of the winter in turning great quantities of them; and that he made a present of one to every gentleman in the country who has good principles, and smokes. He added, that poor Will was at present under great tribulation, for that Tom Touchy had taken the law of him for cutting some hazel sticks out of one of his hedges.

Among other pieces of news which the knight brought from his country-seat, he informed me that Moll White was dead, and that about a month after her death the wind was so very high that it blew down the end of one of his barns. "But for my own part," says Sir Roger, "I do not think that the old woman had any hand in it."

He afterward fell into an account of the diversions which had passed in his house during the holidays: for Sir Roger, after the laudable custom of his ancestors, always keeps open house at Christmas.

I learned from him that he had killed eight fat hogs, for this season, that he had dealt about his chines very liberally among his neighbors, and that in particular he had sent a string of hogs' puddings with a pack of cards to every poor family in the parish. "I have often thought," says Sir Roger, "it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of winter. It is the most dead uncomfortable time of the year, when the poor people would suffer very much from their poverty and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christmas gambols to support them. I love to rejoice their poor hearts at this season, and to see the whole village merry in my great hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my small-beer, and set it a running for twelve days to every one that calls for it. I have always a piece of cold beef and a mince pie upon the table, and am wonderfully pleased to see iny tenants pass away a whole evening in playing their innocent tricks, and smutting one another. Our friend Will Wimble is as merry as any of them, and shows a thousand roguish tricks upon these occasions."

I was very much delighted with the reflection of my old friend, which carried so much goodness in it. He then launched out into the praise of the late act of parliament for securing the Church of England, and told me with great satisfaction, that he believed it already began to take effect, for that a rigid dissenter, who chanced to dine at his house on Christmas day, had been observed to eat very plentifully of his plum-porridge.

After having dispatched all our country matters, Sir Roger made several inquiries concering the club, and particularly of his old antagonist Sir Andrew Freeport. He asked me with a kind of smile whether Sir Andrew had not taken advantage of his absence, to vent among them some of his republican doctrines; but soon after gathering up his countenance into a more than ordinary seriousness, "Tell me truly," says he, "don't you think Sir Andrew had a hand in the Tope's pro

Our salutations were very hearty on both sides, consisting of many kind shakes of the hand, and several affectionate looks which we cast upon one another. After which the knight told me my good friend his chaplain was very well, and much formity.

*Stat. 10 Ann, cap. 2. The act against occasional con

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