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N° 26. Friday, March 30. [1711.]

Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres, O beate Sexti.

Vita summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam :

Jam te premet nox, fabulæque manes,

Et domus exilis Plutonia

Hor.

When I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by my self in Westminster Abby; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lye in it, are 5 apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the Church-yard, the Cloysters, and the Church, amusing my self with the Tombstones and Inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another: The whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these Registers of existence, whether of Brass or Marble, as a kind of Satyr upon the departed persons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battels of Heroic Poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head.

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Γλαϊκόν τε Μέδοντά τε Θερσίλοχόν τε. Hom.

Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque. Virg.

The life of these men is finely described in Holy Writ by the 25 Path of an Arrow, which is immediately closed up and lost.

Upon my going into the Church, I entertained my self with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the composition of an humane body. Upon this, I began to consider with my self what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient Cathedral; how Men and Women, Friends and Enemies, Priests and Soldiers, Monks and Prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old-age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter.

After having thus surveyed this great Magazine of Mortality, as it were, in the lump; I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of the Monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabrick. Some of them were covered with such extravagant Epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there were Poets who had no Monuments, and Monuments which had no Poets. I observed indeed that the present War had filled the Church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the Ocean.

I could not but be very much delighted with several modern Epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honour to the living as well as to the dead. As a Foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a Nation, from the

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turn of their publick monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius, before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesly Shovel's monument has very often given me great offence: Instead of the 5 brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented on his Tomb by the figure of a Beau, dressed in a long Perriwig, and reposing himself upon Velvet Cushions under a Canopy of State. The Inscription is answerable to the Monument; for 10 instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honour. The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, shew an infinitely greater taste of 15 antiquity and politeness in their buildings and works of this nature, than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their Admirals, which have been erected at the publick expence, represent them like themselves; and are adorned with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of sea-weed, shells, and coral.

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But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our English Kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations; but for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of Nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve my self with those objects, which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the Great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the Beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of Parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts

with compassion; when I see the tomb of the Parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: When I see Kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.

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N° 34. Monday, April 9. [1711.]

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The Club of which I am a Member, is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed as it were out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind: By this means I am furnished with the greatest variety of hints and materials, and know every thing that passes in the different quarters and divisions, not only of this great City, but of the whole Kingdom. My readers too have the satisfaction to find, that there is no rank or degree among them who have not their representative in this Club, and that there is always some body present who will take care of their respective interests, that nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringement of their just rights and privileges.

I last night sate very late in company with this select body of friends, who entertained me with several remarks which they and others had made upon these my Speculations, as also with

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the various success, which they had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. WILL. HONEYCOMB told me, in the softest manner he could, That there were some Ladies (but for your comfort, says WILL, they are not those of the most wit) 5 that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the Opera and the Puppet-show; That some of them were likewise very much surprized, that I should think such serious points as the Dress and Equipage of persons of Quality, proper subjects for raillery.

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He was going on, when Sir ANDREW FREEPORT took him up short and told him, That the papers he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their Wives and Daughters were the better for them: And further added, That the whole city thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring 15 my generous intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of particular Intrigues and Cuckoldoms. In short, says Sir ANDREW, you avoid that foolish beaten road of falling upon Aldermen and Citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of Courts, your paper must needs be of general use.

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Upon this my friend the TEMPLER told Sir ANDREW, That he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner; that the City had always been the province for Satyr; and that the Wits of King Charles's time jested upon nothing else during 25 his whole reign. He then shewed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the Stage and Court had never been accounted too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons might be that patronized them. But after all, says he, I think your raillery has made too great an excursion, in attacking several persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can shew me any precedent for your behaviour in that particular.

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My good friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, who had said nothing all this while, began his speech with a Pish! and told us,

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