are so good as to endeavour to be as contemptible as it is necessary for my quiet I should think you.' At Rutland they arrived, and lived with great but secret impatience for many successive years, until Osmyn thought of a happy expedient to give their affairs a new turn. One day he took Elmira aside, and spoke as follows: My dear, you see here the air is so temperate and serene; the rivulets, the groves, and soil, so extremely kind to nature, that we are stronger and firmer in our health since we left the town; so that there is no hope of a release in this place; but, if you will be so kind as to go with me to my estate in the hundreds of Essex, it is possible some kind damp may one day or other relieve us. If you will condescend to accept of this offer, I will add that whole estate to your jointure in this country.' Elmira, who was all goodness, accepted the offer, removed accordingly, and has left her spouse in that place to rest with his fathers. This is the real figure in which Elmira ought to be beheld in this town; and not thought guilty of an indecorum, in not professing the sense, or bearing the habit of sorrow, for one who robbed her of all the endearments of life, and gave her only common civility, instead of complacency of manners, dignity of passion, and that constant assemblage of soft desires and affections which all feel who love, but none can express. Will's Coffee-house, August 10. Mr. Truman, who is a mighty admirer of dramatic poetry, and knows I am about a tragedy, never meets me, but he is giving admonitions and hints for my conduct. Mr. Bickerstaff,' said he, ' I was reading last night your second act you were so kind to lend me: but I find you depend mightily upon the retinue of your hero to make him magnificent. You make guards, and ushers, and courtiers, and commons, and nobles, march before; and then enters your prince, and says, they cannot defend him from his love. Why, pr'ythee, Isaac, who ever thought they could? Place me your loving monarch in a solitude; let him have no sense at all of his grandeur, but let it be eaten up with his passion. He must value himself as the greatest of lovers, not as the first of princes: and then let him say a more tender thing than ever man said before-for his feather and eagle's beak are nothing at all. The man is to be expressed by his sentiments and affections, and not by his fortune or equipage. You are also to take care, that at his first entrance he says something, which may give us an idea of what we are to expect in a person of his way of thinking. Shakspeare is your pattern. In the tragedy of Cæsar he introduces his hero in his nightgown. He had at that time all the power of Rome: deposed consuls, subordinate generals, and captive princes might have preceded him; but his genius was above such mechanic methods of showing greatness. Therefore, he rather presents that great soul debating upon the subject of life and death with his intimate friends, without endeavouring to prepossess his audience with empty show and pomp. When those who attend him talk of the many omens which had appeared that day, he answers: "Cowards die many times before their deaths; 'When the hero has spoken this sentiment, there is nothing that is great which cannot be expected from one, whose first position is the contempt of death to so high a degree, as to make his exit a thing wholly indifferent, and not a part of his care, but that of heaven and fate. St. James's Coffee-house, August 10. Letters from Brussels of the fifteenth instant, N.S. say that Major-general Ravignan returned on the, eighth, with the French king's answer to the intended capitulation for the citadel of Tournay, which is, that he does not think fit, to sign that capitulation, except the allies will grant a cessation of arms in general, during the time in which all acts of hostility were to have ceased between the citadel and the besiegers. Soon after the receipt of this news, the cannon en each side began to play. There are two attacks against the citadel, commanded by General Lottum and General Schuylemberg, which are both carried on with great success; and it is not doubted but the citadel will be in the hands of the allies before the last day of this month. Letters from Ipres say, that on the ninth instant part of the garrison of that place had mutinied in two bodies, each consisting of two hundred; who being dispersed the same day, a body of eight hundred appeared in the market-place at nine the night following, and seized all manner of provisions, but were with much difficulty quieted. The governor has not punished any of the offenders, the dissatisfaction being universal in that place; and it is thought the officers foment those disorders, that the ministry may be convinced of the necessity of paying those troops, and supplying them with provisions. These advices add, that on the fourteeenth the Marquis d'Este passed express through Brussels from the Duke of Savoy, with advice that the army of his royal highness had forced the retrenchments of the enemy in Savoy, and defeated that body of men, which guarded those passes under the command of the Marquis de Thouy. No. 54.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 1709. White's Chocolate-house, August 12. OF THE GOVERNMENT OF AFFECTION. WHEN labour was pronounced to be the portion of man, that doom reached the affections of his mind, feed, and all the animal and vegetable world about as well as his person, the matter on which he was to him. There is, therefore, an assiduous care and culaffections; for they, as they are the excrescences of tivation to be bestowed upon our passions and our souls, like our hair and beards, look horrid or becoming, as we cut or let them grow. All this grave preface is meant to assign a reason in nature husband and keeper. Ten thousand follies had this for the unaccountable behaviour of Duumvir, the unhappy man escaped, had he made a compact with himself to be upon his guard, and not permitted his vagrant eye to let in so many different inclinations upon him, as all his days he has been perplexed with. But indeed, at present, he has brought himself to be confined only to one prevailing mistress; between whom and his wife, Duumvir passes his hours in all the vicissitudes which attend passion and affection, without the intervention of reason. Laura his wife, and Phillis his mistress, are all with whom he has had, for some months, the least amorous commerce. Duumvir has passed the noon of life; but cannot withdraw from those entertainments which are pardonable only before that stage of our being, and which, after that season, are rather punishments than satisfactions for palled appetite is humorous, and must be gratified with sauces rather than food. For which end Duumvir is provided with a haughty, imperious, expensive, and fantastic mistress, to whom he retires from the conversation of an affable, humble, discreet, and affectionate wife. Laura receives him after absence, with an easy and unaffected complacency; but that he calls insipid: Phillis rates him for his absence, and bids him return from whence he came; this he calls spirit and fire; Laura's gentleness is thought mean; Phillis's insolence, sprightly. Were you to see him at his own house, and his mistress's lodgings; to Phillis he appears an obsequious lover, to Laura an imperious master. Nay, so unjust is the taste of Duumvir, that he owns Laura has no ill quality, but that she is his wife; Phillis no good one, but that she is his mistress. And he has himself often said, were he married to any one else, he would rather keep Laura than any woman living; yet allows, at the same time, that Phillis, were she a woman of honour, would have been the most insipid animal breathing. The other day Laura, who has a voice like an angel, began to sing to him. Fie, madam,' he cried,' we must be past all these gaieties.' Phillis has a note as rude and as loud as that of a milk-maid when she begins to warble, 'Well,' says he, there is such a pleasing simplicity in all that wench does.' word, the affectionate part of his heart being corrupted, and his true taste that way wholly lost, he has contracted a prejudice to all the behaviour of Laura, and a general partiality in favour of Phillis. It is not in the power of the wife to do a pleasing : In a thing, nor in the mistress to commit one that is disagreeable. There is something too melancholy in the reflection on this circumstance, to be the subject of raillery. He said a sour thing to Laura at dinner the other day; upon which she burst into tears. 'What the devil, madam,' says he, 'cannot I speak in my own house?' He answered Phillis a little abruptly at supper the same evening, upon which she threw his periwig into the fire. Well,' said he, thou art a brave termagant jade: do you know, hussy, that fair wig cost forty guineas? Oh Laura! is it for this the faithful Cromius sighed for you in vain? How is thy condition altered, since crowds of youth hung on thy eye, and watched its glances? It is not many months since Laura was the wonder and pride of her own sex, as well as the desire and passion of ours. At plays and at balls, the just turn of her behaviour, the decency of her virgin charms, chastised, yet added to diversions. At public devotions her winning modesty, her resigned carriage, made virtue and religion appear with new ornaments, and in the natural apparel of simplicity and beauty. In ordinary conversations, a sweet conformity of manners, and a humility which heightened all the complacencies of good breeding and education, gave her more slaves than all the pride of her sex ever made woman wish for. Laura's hours are now spent in the sad reflection on her choice, and that deceitful vanity, almost inseparable from the sex, of believing she could reclaim one that had so often ensnared others; as it now is, it is not even in the power of Duumvir himself to do her justice: for though beauty and merit are things real and independent on taste and opinion, yet agreeableness is arbitrary, and the mistress has much the advantage of the wife. But whenever fate is so kind to her and her spouse as to end her days, with all this passion for Phillis and indifference for Laura, he has a second wife in view, who may avenge the injuries done to her predecessor. Aglaura is the destined lady, who has lived in assemblies, has ambition and play for her entertainment, and thinks of a man, not as the object of love, but the tool of her interest or pride. If ever Aglaura comes to the empire of this inconstant, she will endear the memory of her predecessor. But, in the mean time, it is melancholy to consider, that the virtue of a wife is like the merit of a poet, never justly valued until after death. From my own Apartment, August 11. As we we have professed that all the actions of men are our subjects, the most solemn are not to be omitted, if there happens to creep into their behaviour any thing improper for such occasions. Therefore, the offence mentioned in the following epistles, though it may seem to be committed in a place sacred from observation, is such, that it is our duty to remark upon it; for though he who does it is himself only guilty of an indecornm, he occasions a criminal levity in all others who are present at it. St. Paul's Church-Yard, August 11. 'MR. BICKERSTAFF. 'It being mine as well as the opinion of many others, that your papers are extremely well fitted to reform any irregular or indecent practice, I present the following as one which requires your correction Myself, and a great many good people who frequent the divine service at St. Paul's have been a long time scandalized by the imprudent conduct of Stentor in that cathedral. This gentleman, you must know, is always very exact and zealous in his devotion, which to roar and bellow so terribly loud in the responses, I believe nobody blames; but then he is accustomed that he frightens even us of the congregation who are daily used to him; and one of our petty canons, a punning Cambridge scholar, calls his way of worship a Bull-offering. His harsh untuneable pipe of a choir: yet, nobody having been enough his is no more fit than a raven's to join with the music friend, I suppose, to inform him of it, he never fails, when present, to drown the harmony of every hymn and anthem, by an inundation of sound beyond that of the bridge at the ebb of the tide, or the neighbour❤ ing lions in the anguish of their hunger. This is a grievance, which, to my certain knowledge, several worthy people desire to see redressed; and if, by inserting this epistle in your paper, or by representing that discord in a choir is the same sin that schism is the matter your own way, you can convince Stentor, in the church in general, you would lay a great obligation upon us; and make some atonement for certain of your paragraphs which have not been highly approved by us. I am, Sir, 'Your most humble servant, lamentation, and the grievances so frequent, and yet • DEAR COUSIN.-This office, which has had its share in the impartial justice of your censures, demands at present your vindication of their rights and privileges. There are certain hours when our young heralds are exercised in the faculties of making proclamation, and other vociferations, which of right belong to us only to utter; but, at the same hours, Stentor in St. Paul's Church, in spite of the coaches, carts, London cries, and all other sounds between us, exalts his throat to so high a key, that the most noisy of our order is utterly unheard. If you please to observe upon this, you will ever oblige, &c.' There have been communicated to me some other ill consequences from the same cause; as, the overturning of coaches by sudden starts of the horses as they passed that way, women pregnant frightened, and heirs to families lost; which are public disasters, though arising from a good intention: but it is hoped, after this admonition, that Stentor will avoid an act of so great supererogation, as singing without a voice. But I am diverted from prosecuting Stentor's reformation, by an account, that the two faithful lovers, Lisander and Coriana, are dead; for, no longer ago than the first day of the last month, they swore eternal fidelity to each other, and to love until death. Ever since that time, Lisander has been twice a-day at the Chocolate-house, visits in every circle, is missing four hours in four-and-twenty, and will give no account of himself. These are undoubted proofs of the departure of a lover; and consequently Coriana is also dead as a mistress. I have written to Stentor, to give this couple three calls at the church-door, which they must hear if they are living within the bills of mortality; and if they do not answer at that time, they are from that moment added to the number of my defunct. cured, to keep silence; and let the patient make his own observations, without the direction of any thing he had received by his other senses, or the advantage of discovering his friends by their voices. Among several others, the mother, brethren, sisters, and a young gentlewoman, for whom he had a passion, were present. The work was performed with great skill and dexterity. When the patient first received the dawn of light, there appeared such an ectasy in his action, that he seemed ready to swoon away in the surprise of joy and wonder. The surgeon stond before him with his instruments in his hands. The young man observed him from head to foot; after which he surveyed himself as carefully, and seemed to compare him to himself; and, observing both their hands, seemed to think they were exactly alike, except the instruments, which he took for parts of his hands. When he had continued in this amazement some time, his mother could no longer bear the agitations of so many passions as thronged upon her; but fell upon his neck, crying out, My son ! my son!" The youth knew her voice, and could speak no more than Oh me! are you my mother? and, fainted. The whole room, you will easily conceive, were very affectionately employed in recovering him; but, above all, the young gentlewoman who loved him, and whom he loved, shrieked in the loudest manner. That voice seemed to have a sudden effect upon him as he recovered, and he showed a double curiosity in observing her as she spoke and called to him, until at last he broke out, What has been done to me? Whither am I carried? Is all this about me the thing I have heard so often of? Is this the light! Is this seeing? Were you always thus happy, when you said you were glad to see each other? Where is Tom, who used to lead me? But I could now, No. 55.] TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1709. White's Chocolate-house, August 15. The operator, Mr. Grant, having observed the eyes of his patient, and convinced his friends and relations, among others the reverend Mr. Caswell, minister of the place, that it was highly probable that he should remove the obstacle which prevented the use of his sight; all his acquaintance, who had any regard for the young man, or curiosity to be present when one of full age and understanding received a new sense, assembled themselves on this occasion. Mr. Caswell, being a gentleman particularly curious, desired the whole company, in case the blindness should be to move, but seemed afraid of every thing around him. When they saw his difficulty, they told him, until he became better acquainted with his new being, he must let the servant still lead him.' The boy was called for and presented to him. Mr. Caswell asked him, 'what sort of thing he took Tom to be before he had seen him?' He answered, he believed there was not so much of him as himself; but he fancied him the same sort of creature.' The noise of this sudden change made all the neighbourhood throng to the place where he was. As he saw the crowd thickening, he desired Mr. Caswell to tell him how many there were in all to be seen. The gentleman, smiling, answered him, that it would be very proper for him to return to his late condition, and suffer his eyes to be covered, until they had received strength: for he might remember well enough, that by degrees he had from little and little come to the strength he had at present in his ability of walking and moving; and that it was the same thing with his eyes, which,' he said, would lose the power of continuing to him that wonderful transport he was now in, except he would be contented to lay aside the use of them, until they were strong enough to bear the light without so much feeling as he knew he underwent at present. With much reluctance he was prevailed upon to have his eyes bound; in which condition they kept him in a dark room, until it was proper to let the organ receive its objects without further precaution. During the time of this darkness, he bewailed himself in the most distressed manner; and accused all his friends, complaining that some incantation had been wrought upon him, and some strange magic used to deceive him into an opinion that he had enjoyed what they call sight." He added, that the impressions then let in upon his soul would certainly distract him if he were not so at that present.' At another time, he would strive to name the persons he had seen among the crowd after he was couched, and would pretend to speak, in perplexed terms of his own making, of what he in that short time observed. But on the sixth instant, it was thought fit to unbind his head, and the young woman whom he loved was instructed to open his eyes accordingly; as well to endear herself to him by such a circumstance, as to moderate his ecstasies by the persuasion of a voice which had so much power over him as hers ever had. When this beloved young woman began to take off the binding of his eyes, she talked to him as follows. 'Mr. William, I am now taking the binding off, though when I consider what I am doing, I tremble with the appehension, that though I have from my very childhood loved you, dark as you were, and though you had conceived so strong a love for me, you will find there is such a thing as beauty, which may ensnare you into a thousand passions of which you are now innocent, and take you from me for ever. But, before I put myself to that hazard, tell me in what manner that love, you always professed to me, entered into your heart; for its usual admission is at the eyes.' The young man answered, 'Dear Lydia, if I am to lose by sight the soft pantings which I have always felt when I heard your voice; if I am no more to distinguish the step of her I love when she approaches me, but to change that sweet, and frequent pleasure for such an amazement as I knew the little time I lately saw; or if I am to have any thing besides, which may take from me the sense I have of what appeared most pleasing to me at that time, which apparition it seems was you; pull out these eyes, before they lead me to be ungrateful to you, or undo myself. I wished for them but to see you; pull them out, if they are to make me forget you.' Lydia was extremely satisfied with these assurances; and pleased herself with playing with his perplexities. În all his talk to her, he showed but very faint ideas of any thing which had not been received at the ears; and closed his protestation to her, by saying, that if he were to see Valentia and Barcelona, whom he supposed the most esteemed of all women, by the quarrel there was about them, he would never like any but Lydia. St. James's Coffee-house, August 15. We have repeated advices of the entire defeat of the Swedish army near Pultowa, on the twentyseventh of June, Ó. S.; and letters from Berlin give the following account of the remains of the Swedish army since the battle: Prince Menzikoff, being ordered to pursue the victory, came up with the Swedish army, which was left to the command of general Lewenhaupt, on the thirtieth of June, O. S. on the banks of the Boristhenes; whereupon he sent general Lewenhaupt a summons to submit himself to his present fortune; Lewenhaupt immediately despatched three general officers to that prince, to treat about a capitulation; but the Swedes, though they consisted of fifteen thousand meu, were in so great want of provision and ammunition, that they were obliged to surrender themselves at discretion. His czarish majesty despatched an express to General Goltz, with an account of these particulars, and also with instructions to send out detachments of his cavalry, to prevent the king of Sweden's joining his army in Poland. That prince made his escape with a small THE TATLER, No. 13. party by swimming over the Boristhenes; and it was thought he designed to retire into Poland by the way. of Volhinia. Advices from Bern of the eleventh instant say, that the general diet of the Helvetic body held at Baden concluded on the sixth; but the deputies of the six cantons, who are deputed to determine the affair of Tockenburg, continue their application to that business, notwithstanding some new difficulties started by the abbot of St. Gall. Letters from Geneva of the ninth, say, that the duke of Savoy's cavalry had joined count Thaun, as had also two imperial regiments of hussars; and that his royal highness's army was disposed in the following manner; the troops under the command of count Thaun are extended from Constans to St. Peter D'Albigni. Small parties are left in several posts from thence to Little Saint Bernard, to preserve the communication with Piedmont by the valley of Aosta. Some forces are also posted at Taloir, and in the castle of Doin, on each side of the lake of Anneci. General Rhebinder is encamped in the valley of Oulx with ten thousand foot, and some detachments of horse; his troops are extended from Exilles to MountGenevre, so that he may easily penetrate into Dau→ phinè on the least motion of the enemy; but the duke of Berwick takes all necessary precautions to prevent such an enterprise. That general's head quarters are at Francin; and he hath disposed his army in several parties, to preserve a communication with the Maurienne and Briançon. He hath no provisions for his army but from Savoy; Provence and Dauphinè being unable to supply him with necessaries. He left two regiments of Dragoons at Annen, who suffered very much in the late action at Tessons, where they lost fifteen hundred who were killed on the spot, four standards, and three hundred prisoners, among whom were forty officers. The last letters from the Duke of Marlborough's camp at Orchies of the nineteenth instant, advise, that monsieur Ravignon being returned from the French court with an account that the king of France had refused to ratify the capitulation for the surrender of the citadel of Tournay, the approaches have been carried on with great vigour and success; our miners have discovered several of the enemy's mines, who have sprung divers others, which did little execution; but for the better security of the troops, both assaults are carried on by the cautious way of sapping. On the eighteenth, the confederate army made a general forage without any loss. Marshal Villars continues in his former camp, and applies himself with great diligence in casting up Marlborough and Prince Eugene designed to begin a new lines behind the old on the Scarp. The Duke of general review of the army on the twentieth. No. 56.] THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines -nostri est farrago libelli. Jur. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whatever good is done, whatever illBy human kind, shall this collection fill. White's Chocolate-house, August 17. THERE is a young foreigner committed to my care, about the persons of figure we meet in public places. who puzzles me extremely in the questions he asks He has but very little of our language, and therefore which they have no word in that tongue to which he I am mightily at a loss to express to him things for asking who such a fine gentleman is? That he is was born. It has been often my answer, upon his what we call a sharper; and he wants my explication. the same the French call Coquin; the Latins, Nebulo; I thought it would be very unjust to tell him, he is, bring in within seven years: besides which, he proposes to marry, to set all right. He was, therefore, indolent enough to speak of this matter with great impartiality. When I look around me,' said this easy gentleman, and consider in a just balance us bubbles, elder brothers whose support our dull fathers contrived to depend upon certain acres, with the rooks, whose ancestors left them the wide world; I cannot but admire their fraternity, and contemn my own. Is not Jack Heyday much to be preferred to the knight he has bubbled? Jack has his equipage, his wenches, and his followers: the knight, so far from a retinue, that he is almost one of Jack's. However, he is gay, you see, still; a florid outsideHis habit speaks the man-And since he must unbutton, he would not be reduced outwardly, but is stripped to his upper coat. But though I have great temptation to it, I will not at this time give the history of the losing side; but speak the effects of my thoughts, since the loss of my money, upon the gaining people. This ill fortune makes most mea contemplative and given to reading; at least it has happened so to me; and the rise and fall of Sharpers in all ages has been my contemplation.' or the Greeks, Paoxaλ: for, as custom is the most powerful of all laws, and that the order of men we call sharpers are received amongst us, not only with permission, but favour, I thought it unjust to use them like persons upon no establishment; besides, that it would be an unpardonable dishonour to our country, to let him leave us with an opinion, that our nobility and gentry keep company with common thieves and cheats; I told him, they were a sort of tame hussars, that were allowed in our cities, like the wild ones in our camp; who had all the privileges belonging to us, but at the same time, were not tied to our discipline or laws.' Aletheus, who is a gentleman of too much virtue for the age he lives in, would not let this matter be thus palliated; but told my pupil, that he was to understand, that distinction, quality, merit, and industry, were laid aside among us by the incursions of these civil hussars; who had got so much countenance, that the breeding and fashion of the age turned their way to the ruin of order and economy in all places where they are admitted.' But Sophronius, who never falls into heat upon any subject, but applies proper language, temper, and skill, with which the thing in debate is to be treated, told the youth, that gentleman had I find, all times have had of this people: Homer, spoken nothing but what was literally true; but fell in his excellent heroic poem, calls them Myrmidons, upon it with too much earnestness to give a true idea who were a body that kept among themselves, and of that sort of people he was declaiming against, or to had nothing to lose; and therefore never spared remedy the evil which he bewailed: for the acceptance either Greek or Trojan, when they fell in their way, of these men being an ill which had crept into the con- upon a party. But there is a memorable verse, which versation-part of our lives, and not into our constitu- gives us an account of what broke that whole body, tion itself, it must be corrected where it began; and and made both Greeks and Trojans masters of the consequently, is to be amended only by bringing secret of their warfare and plunder. There is nothing raillery and derision upon the persons who are guilty, so pedantic as many quotations; therefore, I shall or those who converse with them. For the sharpers,' inform you only, that in this battalion there were two continued he, at present, are not as formerly, under officers called Thersites and Pandarus: they were the acceptation of pick-pockets; but are by custom both less renowned for their beauty than their wit; erected into a real and venerable body of men, and but each had this particular happiness, that they were have subdued us to so very particular a deference to plunged over head and ears in the same water which them, that though they were known to be men with- made Achilles invulnerable; and had ever after, cerout honour or conscience, no demand is called a debt tain gifts which the rest of the world were never to of honour so indisputably as theirs. You may lose enjoy. Among others, they were never to know they your honour to them, but they lay none against you: were the most dreadful to the sight of all mortals, as the priesthood in Roman Catholic countries can never to be diffident of their own abilities, never to purchase what they please for the church; but they blush, or ever to be wounded but by each other. can alienate nothing from it. It is from this tolera-Though some historians say, gaming began among the tion, that sharpers are to be found among all sorts of Lydians, to divert hunger, I could cite many authoassemblies and companies; and every talent amongst rities to prove it had its rise at the siege of Troy; and men is made use of by some one or other of the that Ulysses won the sevenfold shie'd at hazard. But society, for the good of their common cause: so that be that as it may, the ruin of the corps of the Myran inexperienced young gentleman is as often ensnared midons proceeded from a breach between Thersites by his understanding, as his folly; for who could be and Pandarus. The first of these was leader of a unmoved, to hear the eloquent Dromio explain the squadron, wherein the latter was but a private man; constitution, talk in the key of Cato, with the severity but having all the good qualities necessary for a parof one of the ancient sages, and debate the greatest tisan, he was the favourite of his officer. But the question of state in a common chocolate or coffee- whole history of the several changes in the order of house? who could, I say, hear this generous decla- sharpers, from those Myrmidons to our modern men mator, without being fired at his noble zeal, and of address and plunder, will require that we consult becoming his professed follower, if he might be ad- some ancient manuscripts. As we make these mitted? Monoculus's gravity would be no less in- enquiries, we shall diurnally communicate them to viting to a beginner in conversation; and the snare of the public, that the Knights of the Industry may be his eloquence would equally catch one who had never better understood by the good people of England. seen an old gentleman so very wise, and yet so little These sort of men, in some ages, were sycophants and severe. Many other instances of very extraordinary flatterers only, and were endued with arts of life to men among the brotherhood might be produced; but capacitate them for the conversation of the rich and every man, who knows the town, can supply himself great; but now the bubble courts the impostor, and with such examples without their being named.-pretends at the utmost to be but his equal. To clear Will Vafer, who is skilful at finding out the ridicu-up the reasons and causes in such revolutions, and lous side of a thing, and placing it in a new and the different conduct between fools and cheats, shall proper light, though he very seldom talks, thought fit be one of our labours for the good of this kingdom. to enter into this subject. He has lately lost certain How, therefore, pimps, footmen, fiddlers, and lackeys, loose sums, which half the income of his estate will are elevated into companions in this present age, shall |
