ΙΟ

I should have told my Reader, that whilst Florio lived at the house of his foster-father, he was always an acceptable guest in the family of Eudoxus, where he became acquainted with Leonilla from her infancy. His acquaintance with her by degrees grew into love, which in a mind trained up in all 5 the sentiments of honour and virtue became a very uneasy passion. He despaired of gaining an Heiress of so great a fortune, and would rather have died than attempted it by any indirect methods. Leonilla, who was a woman of the greatest beauty joined with the greatest modesty, entertained at the same time a secret passion for Florio, but conducted her self with so much prudence that she never gave him the least intimation of it. Florio was now engaged in all those arts and improvements that are proper to raise a man's private fortune, and give him a figure in his country, but secretly tormented 15 with that passion which burns with the greatest fury in a virtuous and noble heart, when he received a sudden summons from Leontine to repair to him into the country the next day. For it seems Eudoxuș was so filled with the report of his son's reputation, that he could no longer with-hold making himself known to him. The morning after his arrival at the house of his supposed father, Leontine told him that Eudoxus had something of great importance to communicate to him; upon which the good man embraced him, and wept. Florio was no sooner arrived at the great house that stood in his neighbourhood, but Eudoxus took him by the hand, after the first salutes were over, and conducted him into his closet. He there opened to him the whole secret of his parentage and education, concluding after this manner. I have no other way left of acknowledging my gratitude to Leontine, than by marrying you to his 30 daughter. He shall not lose the pleasure of being your father, by the discovery I have made to you. Leonilla too shall be still my daughter; her filial piety, though misplaced, has been so exemplary that it deserves the greatest reward I can confer upon

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it. You shall have the pleasure of seeing a great estate fall to you, which you would have lost the relish of, had you known your self born to it. Continue only to deserve it in the same manner you did before you were possessed of it. I have left your mother in the next room. Her heart yearns towards you. She is making the same discoveries to Leonilla which I have made to your self. Florio was so overwhelmed with this profusion of happiness, that he was not able to make a reply, but threw himself down at his father's feet, and amidst a flood of IO tears, kissed and embraced his knees, asking his blessing, and expressing in dumb show those sentiments of love, duty and gratitude that were too big for utterance. To conclude, the happy pair were married, and half Eudoxus's estate settled upon them. Leontine and Eudoxus passed the remainder of their lives together; and received in the dutiful and affectionate behaviour of Florio and Leonilla the just recompence, as well as the natural effects, of that care which they had bestowed upon them in their education.

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N° 125. Tuesday, July 24. [1711.]

Ne pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella:

Neu patriæ validas in viscera vertite vires. Virg.

My worthy friend Sir ROGER, when we are talking of the 20 malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that

happened to him when he was a school-boy, which was at a time when the feuds ran high between the Round-heads and Cavaliers. This worthy Knight being then but a stripling, had occasion to enquire which was the way to St. Anne's lane, 25 upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead of answer

ing his question, called him a young popish cur, and asked him who had made Anne a Saint! The boy being in some

confusion, enquired of the next he met, which was the way to
Anne's lane; but was called a prick-eared cur for his pains,
and instead of being shewn the way, was told, that she had
been a Saint before he was born, and would be one after he
was hanged. Upon this, says Sir ROGER, I did not think fit
to repeat the former question, but going into every lane of the
neighbourhood, asked what they called the name of that lane.
By which ingenious artifice he found out the place he enquired
after, without giving offence to any party.
Sir ROGER gen-

erally closes this narrative with reflections on the mischief that
Parties do in the country; how they spoil good neighbour-
hood, and make honest Gentlemen hate one another; besides
that they manifestly tend to the prejudice of the land-tax, and
the destruction of the game.

There cannot a greater judgment befall a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a Government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to one another, than if they were actually two different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in the heart of almost every particular person. This influence is very fatal both to mens morals and their understandings; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even common sense.

A furious Party-spirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts it self in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints, naturally breaks out in falshood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancour, and extinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion and humanity.

Plutarch says very finely, that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies, because, says he, if you indulge

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this passion in some occasions, it will rise of it self in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you. I might here 5 observe how admirably this precept of morality (which derives the malignity of hatred from the passion it self, and not from its object) answers to that great rule which was dictated to the world about an hundred years before this Philosopher wrote; but instead of that, I shall only take notice, with a real grief of heart, that the minds of many good men among us appear sowered with party-principles, and alienated from one another in such a manner, as seems to me altogether inconsistent with the dictates either of reason or religion. Zeal for a publick cause is apt to breed passions in the hearts of virtuous persons, to which the regard of their own private interest would never have betrayed them.

If this Party-spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments. We often hear a poor insipid paper or pamphlet cryed up, and sometimes a 20 noble piece depreciated, by those who are of a different principle from the Author. One who is actuated by this spirit, is almost under an incapacity of discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man of merit in a different principle, is like an object seen in two different mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however streight and entire it may be in it self. For this reason there is scarce a person of any figure in England, who does not go by two contrary characters, as opposite to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and learning suffer in a particular manner from this strange prejudice, which at 30 present prevails amongst all ranks and degrees in the British nation. As men formerly became eminent in learned societies by their parts and acquisitions, they now distinguish themselves by the warmth and violence with which they espouse their respective parties. Books are valued upon the like

considerations: an abusive scurrilous style passes for Satyr, and a dull scheme of Party-notions is called Fine writing.

There is one piece of Sophistry practised by both sides, and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it. Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary postulatums of these infamous scriblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If this shameless practice of the present age endures much longer, praise and reproach will cease to be motives of action in good men.

There are certain periods of time in all Governments when this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn in pieces by the Guelfes and Gibelines, and France by those who were for and against the League: but it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their interest by a specious concern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for the publick good? What cruelties and outrages would they not commit against men of an adverse party, whom they would honour and esteem, if instead of considering them as they are represented, they knew them as they are? Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into shameful errors and prejudices, and made bad men even by that noblest of principles, the love of their country. I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish proverb, If there were neither fools nor knaves in the world, all people would be of one mind.