sures beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty, when I was in the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it; there is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the very instant it was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her, for what she was, is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle passion commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her household affairs she shows a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her servants obey her like children; and the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offence, not always to be seen in children in other families. I speak freely to you, my old friend; ever since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am considering what they must do, should they lose their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy stories of battles, and asking my girl questions about the diś-` posal of her baby, and the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy.

He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, told us she had been searching her closet for something very good, to treat such an old friend as I was. Her husband's eyes sparkled with

please of the cheerfulty sa of her countenance; and I sqm at his fears vanish in an instant. The lay onsering strnetning in our looke which showed we had been more serions than ordinary, and seeing her hus band racave her with great concern under a formed cheerfulness, immediately guessed at what we had bera taix ng of; and, applying herself to the, said with a amie, Mr. Buckerstaff, do not belime a word of what ha talla gent. I shall still live to have you for my sebond, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming You must know, he tells me that he finds London is a truh more healthy place than the conntoys for he were several of his old acquaintance and schoolfellows are here young fellows with their fullbonamed periMIERI I could scarce keep him this morning from going out open-breasted.-My friend, wlity is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humorit, made her sit down with us. She did it with that magnese why his peculiar to women of sense; and, thylenep up the good humour she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me: Mr. Bickerstaff, you potomber your followed me one night from the playhouse; suppose you should carry me thither to-inorrow night, and lead me into the front box. This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties who were mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, I was glad she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toast.

We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady, when on a sudden we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and immediately en

tered

so.

tered my little godson to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put him out of the room; but I would not part with him I found upon conversation with him, though he 'was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other side eight years old. I perceived him a very great historian in Æsop's Fables: but he frankly declared to me his mind, that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were true; for which reason I found he had very much turned his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives and adventures of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven Champions, and other historians of that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness of his son; and that these diversions might turn to some profit, I found the boy had made remarks which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagements of John Hickathrift, find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint George for being the champion of England; and by this means had his thoughts insensibly moulded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me, that the little girl who led me in this morning was in her way a better scholar than he: Betty, says she, deals chiefly in fairies and sprites; and sometimes in a winter night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed.

I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes in serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relish to all conversation,

conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I went home, considering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I muft confess it struck me with a secret concern, to re flect, that whenever I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this ponsive mood I returned to my family; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens

to me.

MR. BICKERSTAFF HEARING PETITIONS.

No. 103.

THERE is nothing gives a man greater satisfaction than the sense of having dispatched a great deal of bu siness, especially when it turns to the public emolument. I have much pleasure of this kind upon my spirits at present, occasioned by the fatigue of affairs which I went through last Saturday. It is some time since I set apart that day for examining the pretensions of several who had applied to me for canes, perspective-glasses, snuff-boxes, orange-flower-waters, and the like ornaments of life. In order to adjust this matter, I had before directed Charles Lillie, of Beaufort-buildings, to prepare a great bundle of blank licences in the following words:

You are hereby required to permit the bearer of this cane to pass and repass through the streets and suburbs of London, or any place within ten miles of it, without let or molestation; provided that he does not walk with it under his arm, brandish it in the air, or hang it on a button: in which case it shall be forfeit

ed; and I hereby declare it forfeited to any one who shall think it safe to take it from him.

Isaac Bickerstaff.'

The same form, differing only in the provisos, will serve for a perspective, snuff-box, or perfumed handkerchief. I had placed myself in my elbow-chair at the upper end of my great parlour, having ordered Charles Lillie to take his place upon a joint stool, with a writing-desk before him. John Morphew also took his station at the door; I having, for his good and faithful services, appointed him my chamber-keeper upon court days. He let me know that there were a great number attending without. Upon which I ordered him to give notice, that I did not intend to sit upon snuff-boxes that day; but that those who appeared for canes might enter. The first presented me with the following petition, which I ordered Mr. Lillie to read.

• To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. Censor of Great Britain, The humble petition of Simon Trippit,

• Showeth,

That your petitioner having been bred up to a cane from his youth, it is now become as necessary to him as any other of his limbs.

That a great part of his behaviour depending upon it, he should be reduced to the utmost necessities if he should lose the use of it.

That the knocking of it upon his shoe, leaning one leg upon it, or whistling with it on his mouth, are such great reliefs to him in conversation, that he does not know how to be good company without it.

That