nal throughout the nation for putting out their candles and going to bed.

Our grandmothers, though they were wont to sit up the last in the family, were all of them fast asleep at the 5 same hours that their daughters are busy at crimp and basset. Modern statesmen are concerting schemes, and engaged in the depth of politics, at the time when their forefathers were laid down quietly to rest, and had nothing in their heads but dreams. As we have thus thrown 10 business and pleasure into the hours of rest, and by that means made the natural night but half as long as it should be, we are forced to piece it out with a great part of the morning; so that near two-thirds of the nation lie fast asleep for several hours in broad daylight. This 15 irregularity is grown so very fashionable at present that there is scarce a lady of quality in Great Britain that ever saw the sun rise. And if the humour increases in proportion to what it has done of late years, it is not impossible but our children may hear the bell-man going about 20 the streets at nine o'clock in the morning, and the watch making their rounds until eleven. This unaccountable disposition in mankind to continue awake in the night and sleep in sunshine, has made me enquire whether the same change of inclination has happened to any other 25 animals? For this reason I desired a friend of mine in the country to let me know, whether the lark rises as early as he did formerly and whether the cock begins to crow at his usual hour? My friend has answered me, that his poultry are as regular as 30 ever, and that all the birds and the beasts of his neighbourhood keep the same hours that they have observed in the memory of man; and the same which, in all probability, they have kept for these five thousand years.

If you would see the innovations that have been made among us in this particular, you may only look into the hours of colleges, where they still dine at eleven, and sup at six, which were doubtless the hours of the whole nation at the time when those places were founded. But at 5 present, the courts of justice are scarce opened in Westminster Hall at the time when William Rufus used to go to dinner in it. All business is driven forward: the landmarks of our fathers (if I may so call them) are removed, and planted further up into the day; insomuch that I am 10 afraid our clergy will be obliged (if they expect full congregations) not to look any more upon ten o'clock in the morning as a regular canonical hour. In my own memory, the dinner has crept by degrees from twelve o'clock to three, and where it will fix nobody knows.

[No. 271.]

[The whole number is dated: From Saturday, December 30 (1710) to Tuesday, January 2, 1710 (1711).]

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The printer having informed me that there are as many of these papers printed as will make four volumes, I am now come to the end of my ambition in this matter, and have nothing further to say to the world under the character of Isaac Bickerstaff. This work has, indeed, for 20 some time been disagreeable to me, and the purpose of it wholly lost by my being so long understood as the author. I never designed in it to give any man any secret wound by my concealment, but spoke in the character of an old man, a philosopher, a humorist, an astrologer, and a cen- 25 sor, to allure my reader with the variety of my subjects, and insinuate, if I could, the weight of reason with the agreeableness of wit. The general purpose of the whole has been to recommend truth, innocence, honour and virtue as the chief ornaments of life; but I considered 30

that severity of manners was absolutely necessary to him who would censure others, and for that reason, and that only, chose to talk in a mask. I shall not carry my humility so far as to call myself a vicious man, but at the 5 same time must confess my life is at best but pardonable. And, with no greater character than this, a man would make but an indifferent progress in attacking prevailing and fashionable vices, which Mr. Bickerstaff has done with a freedom of spirit that would have lost both its 10 beauty and efficacy had it been pretended to by Mr. Steele.

As to the work itself, the acceptance it has met with is the best proof of its value; but I should err against that candour which an honest man should always carry about him, if I did not own that the most approved pieces 15 in it were written by others, and those which have been most excepted against by myself. The hand that has assisted me in those noble discourses upon the immortality of the soul, the glorious prospects of another life, and the most sublime ideas of religion and virtue, is a 20 person who is too fondly my friend ever to own them; but I should little deserve to be his if I usurped the glory of them. I must acknowledge at the same time that I think the finest strokes of wit and humour in all Mr. Bickerstaff's Lucubrations are those for which he is 25 also beholden to him.

The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcester30 shire, of ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger

de Coverley. His great-grandfather was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behaviour, but his singularities proceed 5 from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this humour creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms makes him but the 19 readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho Square. It is said he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment Sir Roger 15 was what you call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etheredge, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling him youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned 20 widow, he was very serious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterward. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his 25 repulse, which, in his merry humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times since he first wore it. 'Tis said Sir Roger grew humble in his desires after he had forgot this cruel beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in point of chastity with beggars and 30 gypsies; but this is looked upon by his friends rather as matter of raillery than of truth. He is now in his fiftysixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind; but

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there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company. When he comes into a house, he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way up-stairs to a visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum ; that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause 10 by explaining a passage in the game act.

The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple, a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen his place of residence rather to obey the 15 direction of an old humoursome father than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. 20 The father sends up every post questions relating to marriage articles, leases, and tenures in the neighbourhood, all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves when he should be inquiring into the 25 debates among men which arise from them. He knows

the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool; but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This 30 turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable : as few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the cus