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sations; he finds rest more agreeable than motion; and while he has a warm fire and his doxy, never reflects that he deferves to be whipped. Every man who terminates his fatisfactions and enjoyments within the fupply of his own neceffities and paffions, is, says Sir Roger, in my eye, as poor a rogue as Scarecrow. But, continued he, for the lofs of public and private virtus, we are beholden to your men of parts forsooth; it is with them no matter what is done, so it be done with an air. But to me, who am fo whimsical in a corrupt age as to act according to nature and reason, a felfish man, in the most shining circumstance and equipage, appears in the fame condition with the fellow abovementioned, but more contemptible, in proportion to what more he robs the public of, and enjoys above him. I lay it down therefore for a rule, that the whole man is to move together; that every action of any importance, is to have a profpect of public good; and that the general tendency of our indifferent actions ought to be agreeable to the dictates of reason, of religion, of good breeding; without this, a man, as I before have binted, is hopping instead of walking, he is not in his intire and proper motion.

While the honeft knight was thus bewildering himfelf in good starts, I looked attentively upon him, which made him, I thought, collect his mind a little. What I aim at, fays he, is to represent, that I am of opinion, to polith our understandings and neglect our manners, is of all things the most inexcusable. Reason should govern paffion, but instead of that, you fee, it is often fubfervient to it; and as unaccountable as one would think it, a wife man is not always a good man. This degeneracy is not only the gift of particular perfons, but at fome times of a whole people: and perhaps it may appear upon examination, that the most polite ages are the leaft virtuous. This may be attributed to the folly of admitting wit and learning as merit in themfelves, without confidering the application of them. By this means it becomes a rule, not fo much to regard what we do, as how we do it. But this false beauty will not pass upon men of honest minds and true tafte: Sir Richard. Blackmore fays, with as much good fenfe as virtue, "It is a mighty dishonour and shame to employ "excellent faculties and abundance of wit to humour and "please men in their vices and follies. The great enemy " of mankind, notwithstanding his wit and angelic facul

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ties, is the most odious being in the whole creation." He goes on foon after to fay very generously, that he undertook the writing of his poem "to rescue the Muses "out of the hands of ravishers, to restore them to their " fweet and chafte manfions, and to engage them in an employment fuitable to their diguity. ity." This certainly ought to be the purpose of every man who appears in public, and whoever does not proceed upon that foundation, injures his country as fast as he fucceeds in his studies. When modefty ceases to be the chief ornament of one fex, and integrity of the other, fociety is upon a wrong bafis, and we shall be ever after without rules to guide our judgment in what is really becoming and ornamental. Nature and reason direct one thing, paffion and humour another: to follow the dictates of the two latter, is going into a road that is both endless and intricate; when we pursue the other, our passage is delightful, and what we aim at eafily attainable.

I do not doubt but England is at present as polite a nation as any in the world; but any man who thinks can easily fee, that the affectation of being gay and in fashion, has very near eaten up our good fenfe and our religion. Is there any thing so just, as that mode and gallantry should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper and agreeable to the inftitutions of justice and piety among us? And yet is there any thing more common than that we run in perfect contradiction to them? All which is supported by no other pretenfion, than that it is done with what we call a good grace.

Nothing ought to be held laudable or becoming, but what nature itself should prompt us to think so. Refpect to all kind of fuperiors is founded, methinks, upon instinct; and yet what is fo ridiculous as age? I make this abrupt tranfition to the mention of this vice more than any other, in order to introduce a little story, which I think a pretty instance that the most polite age is in danger of being the most vicious.

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' It happened at Athens, during a public representation of fome play exhibited in honour of the common-wealth, that an old Gentleman came too late for a place fuitable to his age and quality. Many of the young gentlemen who observed the difficulty and confufion he was in, made figns to him that they would * accommodate him if he came where they fat: the good man bustled through the croud accordingly; but ' when he came to the feats to which he was invited, the * jest was to fit close, and expose him, as he stood out * of countenance, to the whole audience. The frolic went round all the Athenian benches. But on thofe * occafions there were also particular places assigned for foreigners: when the good man skulked towards the boxes appointed for the Lacedemonians, that honest people, more virtuous than polite, rose up all to a man, and with the greatest respect received him among 'them. The Athenians being fuddenly touched with a * sense of the Spartan virtue and their own degeneracy,

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gave a thunder of applause; and the old man cried out, The Athenians understand what is good, but the La* cedemonians practise it.

N° 7.

Thursday, March 8.

Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, fagas,
Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Theffala rides?

R

HOR. Ep. ii. 208.

Vifions, and magic spells, can you despise,
And laugh at witches, ghosts, and prodigies?

GOING yesterday to dine with an old acquaintance, I had the misfortune to find his whole family very much dejected. Upon asking him the occafion of it, he told me that his wife had dreamt a strange dream the night before, which they were afraid portended fome misfortune to themselves or to their children. At her coming into the room I observed a fettled melancholy in her countenance, which I should

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should have been troubled for, had I not heard from whence it proceeded. We were no fooner fat down, but after having looked upon me a little while, " My dear,

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fays the, turning to her husband, you may now see the stranger that was in the candle last night." Soon after this, as they began to talk of family affairs, a little boy at the lower end of the table told her, that he was to go into join-hand on Thursday. "Thursday! fays she,

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no, child, if it please God, you shall not begin upon Childermas-day; tell your writing-mafter that Friday " will be foon enough." I was reflecting with myself on the oddness of her fancy, and wondering that any body would establish it as a rule to lose a day in every week. In the midft of these my mufings, she defired me to reach her a little falt upon the point of my knife, which I did in fuch a trepidation and hurry of obedience, that I let it drop by the way; at which the immediately startled, and faid it fell towards her. Upon this I looked very blank; and, observing the concern of the whole table, began to confider myself, with fome confufion, as a perfon that had brought a disaster upon the family. The lady, however, recovering herself after a little space, faid to her husband, with a figh, "My dear, misfortunes never come "fingle." My friend, I found, acted but an under-part at his table, and being a man of more good-nature than understanding, thinks himself obliged to fall in with all the paffions and humours of his yoke-fellow: "Do not

you remember, child, fays the, that the pigeon-house " fell the very afternoon that our careless wench fpilt the "falt upon the table? Yes, says he, my dear, and the

next poft brought us an account of the battle of Al" manza." The reader may guess at the figure I made after having done all this mischief. I dispatched my dinner as foon as I could, with my usual taciturnity; when, to my utter confufion, the Lady seeing me quitting my knife and fork, and laying them across one another upon the plate, defired me that I would humour her fo far as to take them out of that figure, and place them fide by fide. What the abfurdity was which I had commited I did not know, but I fuppofe there was fome traditionary fuperftition in it; and therefore, in obedience to the lady of the house, I difpofed of my knife and fork in two parallel lines,

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lines, which is the figure I shall always lay them in for the future, tho I do not know any reason for it.

It is not difficult for a man to fee that a person has conceived an averfion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the Lady's looks, that the regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate afpect. For which reason I took my leave immediately after dinner, and withdrew to my own lodgings. Upon my return home, I fell into a profound contemplation on the evils that attend these fuperftitious follies of mankind; how they subject us to imaginary afflictions, and additional forrows, that do not properly come within our lot. As if the natural calamities of life were not fufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and fuffer as much from trifling accidents, as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a star spoil, a night's rest; and have feen a man in love grow pale and lofe his appe-tite, upon the plucking of a merry-thought. A fcreechowl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket bath ftruck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing fo inconfiderable, which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognofties. A rusty nail, or a crooked pin, shoot up into prodigies.

I remember I was once in a mixt assembly, that was full of noife and mirth, when on a fudden an old woman unluckily observed there were thirteen of us in company. This remark ftruck a panic terror into feveral who were present, infomuch that one or two of the Ladies were going to leave the room; but a friend of mine taking notice that one of our female companions was big with child, affirmed there were fourteen in the room, and that, instead of portending one of the company should die, it plainly foretold one of them should be born. Had not my friend found out this expedient to break the omen, I question not but half the women in the company would have fallen fick that very night.

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