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of those vehicles. I am sure I suffered sufficiently by the insolence and ill-breeding of some persons who travelled lately with me in a stage-coach out of Essex to London. I am sure, when you have heard what I have to say, you will think there are persons under the character of gentlemen, that are fit to be no where else but in the coach-box. Sir, I am a young woman of a sober and religious education, and have preserved that character; but on Monday was fortnight it was my misfortune to come to London. I was no sooner clapped in the coach, but, to my great surprise, two persons in the habit of gentlemen attacked ine with such indecent discourse as I can. not repeat to you, so you may conclude not fit for

speedy end of my short journey. Sir, form to yourself what a persecution this must needs be to a virtuous and a chaste mind; and, in order to your proper handling such a subject, fancy your wife or daughter, if you had any, in such circumstances, and what treatment you would then think due to such dragoons. One of them was called a captain, and entertained us with nothing but filthy stupid questions, or lewd songs, all the way. Ready to burst with shame and indignation, I repined that nature had not allowed us as easily to shut our ears as our eyes. But was not this a kind of rape? Why should not every contributor to the abuse of chastity suffer death? I am sure these shameless heli

I will lay before you, and leave you to judge of it. My father and mother both being in declining years, would fain see me, their eldest son, as they call it, settled. Fam as much for that as they can be: but I must be settled, it seems, not according to my own, but their, liking. Upon this account I am teased every day, because I have not yet fallen in love, in spite of nature, with one of a neighbouring gentleman's daughters; for, out of their abundant generosity, they give me the choice of four. 'Jack,' begins my father, Mrs. Catharine is a fine woman.' Yes, Sir, but she is rather too old. She will make the more discreet manager, boy.' Then my mother plays her part. Is not Mrs. Betty exceeding fair? Yes, Madam, but she is of no conver-me to hear. I had no relief but the hopes of a sation; she has no fire, no agreeable vivacity; she neither speaks nor looks with spirit.'- True, son, but for those very reasons she will be an easy, soft, obliging, tractable creature.'-' After all,' cries an old aunt (who belongs to the class of those who read plays with spectacles on), 'what think you, nephew, of proper Mrs. Dorothy ? What do I think? why, I think she cannot be above six foot two inches high.'-' Well, well, you may hanter as long as you please, but height of stature is commanding and majestic. Come, come,' says a cousin of mine in the family, I will fit him: Fidelia is yet behind pretty Miss Fiddy must please you.'-Oh! your very humble servant, dear coz, she is as much too young as her eldest sister is too old.'-' Is it so in-hounds deserved it highly. Can you exert yourself deed,' quoth she, good Mr. Pert? You who are but barely turned of twenty-two, and Miss Fiddy in half a year's time will be in her teens, and she is capable of learning any thing. Then she will be so observant; she will cry perhaps now and then, but never be angry.' Thus they will think for me in this matter, wherein I am more particularly concerned than any body else. If I name any woman in the world, one of these daughters has certainly the same qualities. You see by these few hints, Mr. Spectator, what a comfortable life I lead. To be still more open and free with you, I have been passionately fond of a young lady (whom give me leave to call Miranda) now for these three years. I have often urged the matter home to my parents with all the submission of a son, but the impatience of a lover. Pray, Sir, think of three years; what inexpressible scenes of inquietude, what variety of misery must I have gone through in three long whole years! Miranda's fortune is equal to those I have mentioned; but her relations are not intimates with mine. Ah! there's the rub Miranda's person, wit, and humour, are what the nicest fancy could imagine: and, though we know you to be so elegant a judge of beauty, yet there is none among all your various characters of fine women preferable to Miranda. In a word, she is never guilty of doing any thing but one amiss (if she can be thought to do amiss by me); in being as blind to my faults as she is to her own perfections.

"I am, Sir,

"Your very humble obedient Servant,
DUSTERERASTUS."

"MR. SPECTATOR,
"When you spent so much time as you did lately
in censuring the ambitious young gentlemen who
ride in triumph through town and country on coach-
boxes, I wished you had employed those moments in
consideration of what passes sometimes within-side

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better than on such an occasion? If you do not do it effectually, I will read no more of your papers. Has every impertinent fellow a privilege to torment me, who pay my coach-hire as well as he? Sir, pray consider us in this respect as the weakest sex, who have nothing to defend ourselves; and I think it as gentleman-like to challenge a woman to fight as to talk obscenely in her company, especially when she has not power to stir. Pray let me tell you a story which you can make fit for public view. I knew a gentleman, who having a very good opinion of the gentlemen of the army, invited ten or twelve of them to sup with him; and at the same time invited two or three friends who were very severe against the manners and morals of the gentlemen of that profession. It happened one of them brought two captains of his regiment newly come into the army, who at first onset engaged the company with very lewd healths and suitable discourse. You may easily imagine the confusion of the entertainer, who finding some of his friends very uneasy, desired to tell them the story of a great man, one Mr. Locke (whom I find you frequently mention), that having been invited to dine with the then Lords Halifax, Anglesey, and Shaftesbury, immediately after dinner, instead of conversation, the cards were called for, where the bad or good success produced the usual passions of gaming. Mr. Locke retiring to a window, and writing, my Lord Anglesey desired to know what he was writing: Why, my lords,' answered he, I could not sleep last night for the pleasure and improvement I expected from the conversation of the greatest men of the age.' This so sensibly stung them, that they gladly compounded to throw their cards in the fire, if he would his paper, and so a conversation ensued fit for such persons. This story pressed so hard upon the young captains, together with the concurrence of their superior officers, that the young fellows left the company in confusion. Sir, I know you hate long things; but if you like it, you may contract it, or how you will; but I think it has a moral in it.

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But, Sir, I am told you are a famous mechanic | for no one will answer as if I were their friend or as well as a looker-on, and therefore humbly propose companion. Pray, Sir, be pleased to take the part you would invent some padlock, with full power of us beauties and fortunes into your consideration, under your hand and seal, for all modest persons, and do not let us be thus flattered out of our senses, either men or women, to clap upon the mouths of all I have got a hussy of a maid who is most craftily such impertinent impudent fellows: and I wish you given to this ill quality. I was at first diverted with would publish a proclamation that no modest person, a certain absurdity the creature was guilty of in who has a value for her countenance, and conse- every thing she said. She is a country girl; and, quently would not be put out of it, presume to travel in the dialect of the shire she was born in, would after such a day without one of them in their pockets. tell me that every body reckoned her lady had the I fancy a smart Spectator upon this subject would purest red and white in the world; then would tell serve for such a padlock; and that public notice me I was the most like one Sisly Dobson in their may be given in your paper where they may be had, town, who made the miller make away with himself, with directions, price two-pence; and that part of and walk afterward in the corn-field where they used the directions may be, when any person presumes to meet. With all this, this cunning hussy can lay to be guilty of the above-mentioned crime, the party letters in my way, and put a billet in my gloves, and aggrieved may produce it to his face, with a request then stand in it she knows nothing of it. I do not to read it to the company. He must be very much know, from my birth to this day, that I have been hardened that could outface that rebuke; and his ever treated by any one as I ought; and if it were further punishment I leave you to prescribe. not for a few books, which I delight in, I should be at this hour a novice to all common sense. Would it not be worth your while to lay down rules for behaviour in this case, and tell people, that we fair ones expect honest plain answers as well as other people? Why must I, good Sir, because I have a good air, a fine complexion, and am in the bloom of my years, be misled in all my actions; and have the notions of good and ill confounded in my mind, for no other offence, but because I have the advantages of beauty and fortune? Indeed, Sir, what with the silly homage which is paid us by the sort of people have above spoken of, and the utter negligence which others have for us, the conversation of us young women of condition is no other than what must expose us to ignorance and vanity, if not vice. All this is humbly submitted to your spectatorial wisdom, by Sir, "Your humble Servant, "SHARLOT WEALTHY." Will's Coffee-house.

T.

"Your humble Servant,

"PENANCE Cruel."

No. 534.] WEDNESDAY, NOV. 12, 1712.

Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa
Fortuna-
Juv. Sat. viii. 73.

-We seldom find

Much sense with an exalted fortune join'd.-STEPNEY. "MR. SPECTATOR,

"I AM a young woman of nineteen, the only daughter of very wealthy parents, and have my whole life been used with a tenderness which did me no great service in my education. I have perhaps an uncommon desire for knowledge of what is suitable to my sex and quality; but, as far as I can remember, the whole dispute about me has been whether such a thing was proper for the child to do, or not? or whether such a food was the more wholesome for the young lady to eat? This was ill for my shape, that for my complexion, and the other for my eyes. I am not extravagant when I tell you I do not know that I have trod upon the very earth ever since I was ten years old. A coach or chair I am obliged to for all my motions from one place to another ever since I can remember. All who had to do to instruct me, have ever been bringing stories of the notable things I have said, and the womanly manner of my behaving myself upon such and such an occasion. This has been my state until I came towards years of womanhood; and ever since I grew towards the age of fifteen I have been abused after another manner. Now, forsooth, I am so killing, no one can safely speak to me. Our house is frequented by men of sense, and I love to ask questions when I fall into such conversation: but I am cut short with something or other about my bright eyes. There is, Sir, a language particular for talking to women in; and none but those of the very first good breeding (who are very few, and who seldom come into my way) can speak to us without regard to our sex. Among the generality of those they call gentlemen, it is impossible for me to speak upon any subject whatsoever, without provoking somebody to say, 'Oh! to be sure, fine Mrs. Sucha-one must be very particularly acquainted with all that; all the world would contribute to her enter tainment and information.' Thus, Sir, I am so handsome that I murder all who approach me; so wise that I want no new notices and so well-bred that I am treated by all that know me like a fool,

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"MR. SPECTATOR,

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"I was a wealthy grocer in the city, and as fortu nate as diligent; but I was a single man, and you know there are women. One in particular came to my shop, who I wished might, but was afraid never would, make a grocer's wife. I thought, however, to take an effectual way of courting, and sold to her at less price than I bought, that I might buy at less price than I sold. She, you may be sure, often came and helped me to many customers at the same rate, fancying I was obliged to her. You must needs think this was a good living trade, and my riches must be vastly improved. In fine, I was nigh being declared bankrupt, when I declared myself her lover, and she herself married. I was just

in a condition to support myself, and am now in satisfied if we possess ourselves of such and such hopes of growing rich by losing my customers.

66

Yours,

*** MR. SFECTATOR,

"JEREMY COMFIT."

"I am in the condition of the idol you was once pleased to mention, and bar-keeper of a coffeehouse. I believe it is needless to tell you the opportunities I must give, and the importunities I suffer. But there is one gentleman who besieges me as close as the French did Bouchain. His gravity makes him work cautious, and his regular approaches denote a good engineer. You need not doubt of his oratory, as he is a lawyer; and especially since he has had so little use of it at Westminster, he may spare the more for me.

"What then can weak woman do? I am willing to surrender, but he would have it at discretion, and I with discretion. In the mean time, whilst we parley, our several interests are neglected. As his siege grows stronger, my tea grows weaker and while he pleads at my bar, none come to him for counsel but in forma pauperis. Dear Mr. Spectator, advise him not to insist upon hard articles, nor by his irregular desires contradict the well-meaning lines of his countenance. If we were agreed, we might settle to something, as soon as we could determine where we should get most by the law-at the coffee-house or at Westminster.

"Your humble Servant,

"LUCINDA PARLEY."

particular enjoyments; but either by reason of their emptiness, or the natural inquietude of the mind, we have no sooner gained one point, but we extend our hopes to another. We still find new inviting scenes and landscapes lying behind those which at a distance terminated our view.

The natural consequences of such reflections are these; that we should take care not to let our hopes run out into too great a length; that we should sufficiently weigh the objects of our hope, whether they be such as we may reasonably expect from them what we propose in their fruition, and whether they are such as we are pretty sure of attaining, in case our life extend itself so far. If we hope for things which are at too great a distance from us, it is possible that we may be intercepted by death in our progress towards them. If we hope for things of which we have not thoroughly considered the value of, our disappointment will be greater than our pleasure in the fruition of them. If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

Many of the miseries and misfortunes of life proceed from our want of consideration, in one or all of these particulars. They are the rocks on which the sanguine tribe of lovers split, and on which the bankrupt, the politician, the alchymist, and projector, are cast away in every age. Men of warm imaginations and towering thoughts are apt to overlook the goods of fortune which are near them, for A Minute from Mr. John Sly. something that glitters in the sight at a distance; to neglect solid and substantial happiness, for what "The world is pretty regular for about forty rod is showy and superficial; and to contemn that good east and ten west of the observatory of the said Mr. which lies within their reach, for that which they Sly; but he is credibly informed, that when they are not capable of attaining. Hope calculates its are got beyond the pass into the Strand, or those schemes for a long and durable life; presses forward who move city-ward are got within Temple-bar, to imaginary points of bliss; grasps at impossibilithey are just as they were before. It is therefore ties; and consequently very often ensnares men into humbly proposed, that moving sentries may be ap-beggary, ruin, and dishonour. pointed all the busy hours of the day between the Exchange and Westminster, and report what passes to your honour, or your subordinate officers, from

time to time."

Ordered,

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My four-hundred-and-seventy-first speculation turned upon the subject of hope in general. I design this paper as a speculation upon that vain and foolish hope, which is misemployed on temporal objects, and produces many sorrows and calamities in human life.

It is a precept several times inculcated by Horace, that we should not entertain a hope of any thing in life which lies at a great distance from us. The shortness and uncertainty of our time here makes such a kind of hope unreasonable and absurd. The grave lies unseen between us and the object which we reach after. Where one man lives to enjoy the good he has in view, ten thousand are cut off in the pursuit of it.

It happens likewise unluckily, that one hope no sooner dies in us but another rises up in its stead. We are apt to fancy that we shall be happy and

What I have here said may serve as a model to an Arabian fable, which I find translated into French by Monsieur Galland. The fable has in it such a wild but natural simplicity, that I question not but my reader will be as much pleased with it as I have been, and that he will consider himself, if he reflects on the several amusements of hope which have sometimes passed in his mind, as a rear relation to the Persian glassman.

Alnaschar, says the fable, was a very idle fellow that never would set his hand to any business during his father's life. When his father died, he left him to the value of a hundred drachmas in Persian money. Alnaschar, in order to make the best of it, laid it out in glasses, bottles, and the finest earthen ware. These he piled up in a large open basket, and, having made choice of a very little shop, placed the basket at his feet; and leaned his back upon the wall in expectation of customers. As be sat in this posture, with his eyes upon the basket, he fell into a most amusing train of thought, and was overheard by one of his neighbours, as he talked to himself in the following manner: "This basket," says he, "cost me at the wholesale merchant's a hundred drachmas, which is all I have in the world. shall quickly make two hundred of it by selling it in retail. These two hundred drachmas will in a very little while rise to four hundred, which of course will amount in time to four thousand. Four thousand drachmas cannot fail of making eight thousand. As soon as by this means i am master of ten thou

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sand, I will lay aside my trade of a glass-man, and
turn jeweller. I shall then deal in diamonds, pearls,
and all sorts of rich stones. When I have got toge-
ther as much wealth as I well can desire, I will make
a purchase of the finest house I can find, with lands,
slaves, eunuchs, and horses. I shall then begin to
enjoy myself, and make a noise in the world. I will
not however stop there, but still contin. my raffic,
until I have got together a hundred thousand drach-
inas. When I have thus made myself master of a
hundred thousand drachmas, I shall naturally set
myself on the foot of a prince, and will demand the
grand vizier's daughter in marriage, after having
represented to that minister the information which
I have received of the beauty, wit, discretion, and
other high qualities which his daughter possesses.
I will let him know, at the same time, that it is my
intention to make him a present of a thousand pieces
of gold on our marriage-night. As soon as I have
married the grand vizier's daughter, I will buy her
ten black eunuchs, the youngest and the best that
can be got for money. I must afterward make my
father-in-law a visit, with a great train and equi-
page. And when I am placed at his right hand,
which he will do of course, if it be only to honour
his daughter, I will give him the thousand pieces of
gold which I promised him; and afterward to his
great surprise, will present him another purse of the
same value, with some short speech: as, Sir, you
see I am a man of my word: I always give more
than I promise.'

"When I have brought the princess to my house, I shall take particular care to breed in her a due respect for me before I give the reins to love and dalliance. To this end, I shall confine her to her own apartment, make her a short visit, and talk but little to her. Her women will represent to me, that she is inconsolable by reason of my unkindness, and heg me with tears to caress her, and let her sit down by me; but I shall still remain inexorable, and will turn my back upon her all the first night. Her mother will then come and bring her daughter to me, as I am seated upon my sofa. The daughter, with tears in her eyes, will fling herself at my feet, and beg of me to receive her into my favour. Then will I, to imprint in her a thorough veneration for my person, draw up my legs and spurn her from me with my foot, in such a manner that she shall fall down several paces from the sofa."

Alnaschar was entirely swallowed up in this chimerical vision, and could not forbear acting with his foot what he had in his thoughts; so that unluckily striking his basket of brittle ware, which was the foundation of all his grandeur, he kicked his glasses to a great distance from him into the street, and broke them into a thousand pieces. 0.

observed, in the midst of her discourse, that she flushed and cast an eye upon me over her shoulder, having been informed by my bookseller that i was the man of the short face whom she had so often read of. Upon her passing by me, the pretty bleuming creature smiled in my face, and dropped me a curtsey. She scarce gave me time to return her salute, before she quitted the shop with an easy skuttle, and stepped again into her coach, giving the footman directions to drive where they were hit. Upon her departure, my bookseller gave me a letter superscribed "To the ingenious Spectator," which the young lady had desired him to deliver inte my own hands, and to tell me that the speedy publication of it would not only oblige herself, but a whole tea-table of my friends. opened it therefore wan a resolution to publish it, whatever it should contain, and am sure if any of my male readers will be so severely critical as not to like it, they would have been as well pleased with it as myself, had they seen the face of the pretty scribe.

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"You are always ready to receive any useful hint or proposal, and such, I believe, you will think one that may put you in a way to employ the most idle part of the kingdom: I mean that part of mankind who are known by the name of the women's men, or beaux, &c. Mr. Spectator, you are sensible these pretty gentlemen are not made for manly employ

ments, and for want of business are often as much in the vapours as the ladies. Now what I propose is this, that since knotting is again in fashion, which has been found a very pretty amusement, that you will recommend it to these gentlemen as something that may make them useful to the ladies they aumire. And since it is not inconsistent with any game, or other diversion, for it may be done in the playhouse, in their coaches, at the tea-table, and ju short in all places where they come for the sake of the ladies (except at church; be pleased to forbid it there, to prevent mistakes), it will be easily conplied with. It is, besides, an employment that allows, as we see by the fair sex, of many graces, which will make the beaux more readily come into it: it shows a white hand and a diamond ring to great advantage; it leaves the eyes at full liberty to be employed as before, as also the thoughts and the tongue. In short, it seems in every respect so proper, that it is needless to urge it further, by speaking of the satisfaction these male knotters will and worn by the fair lady for whom and with whom find, when they see their work mixed up in a fringe, it was done. Truly, Mr. Spectator, I cannot but be pleased I have hit upon something that these gentlemen are capable of; for it is sad so considerable a part of the kingdom (I mean for numbers) should be of no manner of use. I shall not trouble you further at this time, but only to say, that I am

No. 536.] FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1712.always your reader, and generally your admirer.

O veræ Phrygiæ, neque enim Phryges!-VIRG. Æn. ix. 617.
O! less than women in the shapes of men.-DRYDEN.

As I was the other day standing in my bookseller's shop, a pretty young thing about eighteen years of age stepped out of her coach, and, brushing by me, beckoned the man of the shop to the further end of his counter, where she whispered something to him, with an attentive look, and at the same time presented him with a letter: after which, pressing the end of her fan upon his hand, she delivered the remaining part of her message, and withdrew. I

"C. B.

"P. S. The sooner these fine gentlemen are set to work the better; there being at this time several fine fringes that stay only for more hands."

I shall in the next place present my reader with the description of a set of men who are common enough in the world, though I do not remember that I have yet taken notice of them, as they are drawn in the following letter:

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"Since you have lately, to so good purpose, en

"It is for the like reason, I imagine, that you have in some of your speculations asserted to your readers the dignity of human nature. But you cannot be insensible that this is a controverted doctrine; there are authors who consider human nature in a very different view, and books of maxims have been written to show the falsity of all human virtues,* The reflections which are made on the subject usually take some tincture from the tempers and characters of those that make them. Politicians can resolve the most shining actions among men into artifice and design: others who are soured by discontent, repulses, or ill-usage, are apt to mistake their spleen for philosophy; men of profligate lives, and such as find themselves incapable of rising to any distinction among their fellow-creatures, are for

larged upon conjugal love, it is to be hoped you will | of merit, as it is understood to have been originally discourage every practice that rather proceeds from a reward of it. a regard to interest than to happiness. Now you cannot but observe, that most of our fine young ladies readily fall in with the direction of the graver sort, to retain in their service by some small encouragement as great a number as they can of supernumerary and insignificant fellows, which they use like whilers, and commonly call shoeing horns.' These are never designed to know the length of the foot, but only, when a good offer comes, to whet and spur him up to the point. Nay, it is the opinion of that grave lady, Madam Matchwell, that it is absolutely convenient for every prudent family to have several of these implements about the house to clap on as occasion serves; and that every spark ought to produce a certificate of his being a shoeing horn before he be admitted as a shoe. A certain lady whom I could name, if it was necessary, has at pre-pulling down all appearances of merit which seem sent more shoeing horns of all sizes, countries, and colours, in her service, than ever she had new shoes in her life. I have known a woman make use of a shoeing horn for several years, and, finding him unsuccessful in that function, convert him at length into a shoe. I am mistaken if your friend, Mr. WilLiam Honeycomb, was not a cast shoeing horn before his late marriage. As for myself, I must frankly declare to you, that I have been an errant shoeing horn for above these twenty years. I served my "It is very disingenuous to level the best of manfirst mistress in that capacity above five of the num-kind with the worst, and for the faults of particulars ber, before she was shod. I confess, though she had many who made their applications to her, I always thought myself the best shoe in her shop; and it was not until a month before her marriage that I discovered what I was.

This had like to have broke my heart, and raised such suspicions in me, that I told the next I made love to, upon receiving some unkind usage from her, that I began to look upon myself as no more than her shoeing horn. Upon which, my dear, who was a coquette in her nature, told me I was hypochondriacal, and that I might as well look upon myself to be an egg, or a pipkin. But in a very short time after she gave me to know that I was not mistaken in myself. It would be tedious to you to recount the life of an unfortunate shoeing horn, or I might entertain you with a very long and melancholy relation of my sufferings. Upon the whole, I think, Sir, it would very well become a man in your post, to determine in what cases a woman may be allowed with honour to make use of a shoeing horn, as also to declare, whether a maid on this side five-and-twenty, or a widow who has not been three years in that state, may be granted such a privilege, with other difficulties which will naturally occur to you upon that subject. "I am, Sir,

0.

"With the most profound veneration,
"Yours," &c.

to upbraid them; and satirists describe nothing but deformity. From all these hands, we have such draughts of mankind as are represented in those burlesque pictures which the Italians call caricaturas; where the art consists in preserving, amidst distorted proportions and aggravated features, some distinguishing likeness of the person, but in such a manner as to transform the most agreeable beauty into the most odious monster.

to degrade the whole species. Such methods tend not only to remove a man's good opinion of others, but to destroy that reverence for himself, which is a great guard of innocence, and a spring of virtue.

"It is true, indeed, that there are surprising mix. tures of beauty and deformity, of wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, in the human make: such a disparity is found among numbers of the same kind; and every individual in some instances, or at some times, is so unequal to himself, that man seems to be the most wavering and inconsistent being in the whole creation. So that the question in morality concerning the dignity of our nature may at first sight appear like some difficult questions in natural philosophy, in which the arguments on both sides seem to be of equal strength.. But, as I began with considering this point as it relates to action, I shall here borrow an admirable reflection from Monsieur Pascal, which I think sets it in its proper light.

"It is of dangerous consequence,' says he, to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both.' Whatever imperfections we may have in our nature, it is the business of religion and virtue to rectify them, as far as is consistent with our present state. In the mean time, it is no small encou

No. 537.] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1712. ragement to generous minds to consider, that we

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shall put them all off with our mortality. That sublime manner of salutation with which the Jews approach their kings,

O king, live for ever' mav be addressed to the lowest and most despised mortal among us, under all the infirmities and dis

An allusion to the following book, Reflexions et Maximes Morales de M. le Duc de la Rochefoucault-Mad. L'Enclos

says of him, that he had no more belief in virtues than he had in ghosts.

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