rather proceeds from 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 whifflers", 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, 'tis the opinion of that grave lady, Madam Match10 well, that 'tis 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 present 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 20 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 arrant shoeing-horn for above these twenty years. I served my first mistress in that capacity above five of the number, 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 till 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 30 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 recount to you the life of an unfortunate shoeinghorn, 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 40 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, with the most profound veneration,

0.

'Yours, &c.'

No. 557. On Polite Conversation; letter of the Ambassador of Bantam.

Quippe domum timet ambiguam, Tyriosque bilingues.

VIRG. Æn. i. 665.

'There is nothing,' says Plato, 'so delightful as the hearing or speaking of truth.' For this reason there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any io intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.

Among all the accounts which are given of Cato, I do not remember one that more redounds to his honour, than the following passage related by Plutarch. As an advocate was pleading the cause of his client before one of the prætors, he could only produce a single witness in a point where the law required the testimony of two persons; upon which the advocate insisted on the integrity of that person whom he had produced: but the prætor told him that where the law required two witnesses he would not accept of one, though it were Cato himself. Such a speech from a person 20 who sat at the head of a court of justice, while Cato was still living,

shews us, more than a thousand examples, the high reputation this great man had gained among his contemporaries upon the account of his sincerity.

When such an inflexible integrity is a little softened and qual:fied by the rules of conversation and good breeding, there is not a more shining virtue in the whole catalogue of social duties. A man, however, ought to take great care not to polish himself out of his veracity, nor to refine his behaviour to the prejudice of his virtue.

This subject is exquisitely treated in the most elegant sermon 30 of the great British preacher". I shall beg leave to transcribe out of it two or three sentences, as a proper introduction to a very curious letter, which I shall make the chief entertainment of this speculation.

'The old English plainness and sincerity, that generous in

HOW IT STRIKES A STRANGER.

309

tegrity of nature, and honesty of disposition, which always argues true greatness of mind, and is usually accompanied with undaunted courage and resolution, is in a great measure lost among us.

'The dialect of conversation is now-a-days so swelled with vanity and compliment, and so surfeited (as I may say) of expressions of kindness and respect, that if a man that lived an age or two ago should return into the world again, he would really want a dictionary to help him to understand his own language, and to know the true intrinsic value of the phrase in fashion; and would 10 hardly, at first, believe, at what a low rate the highest strains and expressions of kindness imaginable do commonly pass in current payment: and when he should come to understand it, it would be a great while before he could bring himself, with a good countenance and a good conscience, to converse with men upon equal terms, and in their own way.'

I have by me a letter which I look upon as a great curiosity, and which may serve as an exemplification to the foregoing passage, cited out of this most excellent prelate. It is said to have been written in King Charles II's reign by the ambassador of Ban20 tam, a little after his arrival in England".

'MASTER.

'The people where I now am have tongues further from their hearts than from London to Bantam, and thou knowest the inhabitants of one of these places do not know what is done in the other. They call thee and thy subjects barbarians, because we speak what we mean; and account themselves a civilised people, because they speak one thing and mean another: truth they call barbarity, and falsehood politeness. Upon my first landing, one who was sent from the king of this place to meet me, told me, That 30 he was extremely sorry for the storm I had met with just before my arrival. I was troubled to hear him grieve and afflict himself upon my account; but in less than a quarter of an hour he smiled, and was as merry as if nothing had happened. Another who came with him, told me, by my interpreter, He should be glad to do me any service that lay in his power. Upon which I desired him to carry one of my portmantuas for me; but instead of serving me according to his promise, he laughed, and bid another do it. I lodged, the first week, at the house of one who desired me to think

myself at home, and to consider his house as my own. Accordingly I the next morning began to knock down one of the walls of it, in order to let in the fresh air, and had packed up some of the household goods, of which I intended to have made thee a present; but the false varlet no sooner saw me falling to work, but he sent word to desire me to give over, for that he would have no such doings in his house. I had not been long in this nation, before I was told by one, for whom I had asked a certain favour from the chief of the king's servants, whom they here call the Lord Trea10 surer, that I had “eternally obliged him.” I was so surprised at this gratitude, that I could not forbear saying, "What service is there which one man can do for another, that can oblige him to all eternity!" However, I only asked him for my reward, that he would lend me his eldest daughter during my stay in this country; but I quickly found that he was as treacherous as the rest of his countrymen.

At my first going to court, one of the great men almost put me out of countenance, by asking ten thousand pardons of me for only treading by accident upon my toe. They call this kind of lie 20 a compliment; for when they are civil to a great man, they tell him untruths, for which thou wouldst order any of thy officers of state to receive a hundred blows upon his foot. I do not know how I shall negotiate any thing with this people, since there is so little credit to be given to them. When I go to see the king's scribe, I am generally told that he is not at home, though perhaps I saw him go into his house almost the very moment before. Thou wouldst fancy that the whole nation are physicians, for the first question they always ask me, is, How I do: I have this question put to me above a hundred times a day. Nay, they are 30 not only inquisitive after my health, but wish it in a more solemn manner, with a full glass in their hands, every time I sit with them at table, though at the same time they would persuade me to drink their liquors in such quantities as I have found by experi ence will make me sick. They often pretend to pray for thy health also in the same manner; but I have more reason to expect it from the goodness of thy constitution, than the sincerity of their wishes. May thy slave escape in safety from this double-tongued race of men, and live to lay himself once more at thy feet in thy royal city of Bantam.'

No. 567. On the Potency of Mystery and Innuendo; Letter composed on this model.

I have received private advice from some of my correspondents, that if I would give my paper a general run I should take care to season it with scandal. I have indeed observed of late, that few writings sell which are not filled with great names and illustrious titles. The reader generally casts his eye upon a new book, and if he finds several letters separated from one another by a dash, he buys it up, and peruses it with great satisfaction. An M and an ь, a T and an r, with a short line between them, has sold many an insipid pamphlet. Nay, I have known a whole 10 edition go off by virtue of two or three well written, &c--'s.

A sprinkling of the words 'faction,' 'Frenchman, 'Papist,' 'plunderer,' and the like significant terms, in an Italic character, have also a very good effect upon the eye of the purchaser; not to mention 'scribbler,' 'liar,' 'rogue,' ' rascal,' ‘knave,' and 'villain,' without which it is impossible to carry on a modern controversy.

Our party-writers are so sensible of the secret virtue of an innuendo to recommend their productions, that of late they never mention the Q-n or P- -t at length, though they 20 speak of them with honour, and with that deference which is due to them from every private person. It gives a secret satisfaction to a peruser of these mysterious works, that he is able to decypher them without help, and by the strength of his own natural parts to fill up a blank space, or make out a word that has only the first or last letter to it.

Some of our authors indeed, when they would be more satirical than ordinary, omit only the vowels of a great man's name, and fall most unmercifully upon all the consonants. This way of writing was first of all introduced by T-m Br-wn", of facetious 30 memory, who, after having gutted a proper name of all its intermediate vowels, used to plant it in his works, and make as free with it as he pleased, without any danger of the statute.

That I may imitate these celebrated authors, and publish a paper which shall be more taking than ordinary, I have here drawn up a very curious libel, in which a reader of penetration