ignorance without the leaft fenfe of it. The best and moft fuccefsful Starers now in this town, are of that nation; they have usually the advantage of the ftature mentioned in the above letter of my correfpondent, and generally take their ftands in the eye of women of fortune; infomuch that I have known one of them, three months after he came from plough, with a tolerable good air, lead out a woman from a play, which one of our own breed, after four years at Oxford and two at the Temple, would have been afraid to look at.

I cannot tell how to account for it, but these people have usually the preference to our own fools, in the opinion of the fillier part of womankind. Perhaps it is that an English coxcomb is feldom fo obfequious as an Irish one; and when the defign of pleafing is vifible, an abfurdity in the way toward it, is eafily forgiven.

But those who are downright Impudent, and go on without reflection that they are fuch, are more to be tolerated, than a fet of fellows among us who profefs Impudence with an air of humour, and think to carry off the most inexcufable of all faults in the world, with no other apology than faying in a gay tone, “I put "an Impudent face upon the matter." No; no man fhall be allowed the advantages of Impudence, who is confcious that he is fuch. If he knows he is Impudent, he may as well be otherwife; and it fhall be expected that he blush, when he fees he makes another do it.

For nothing can atone for the want of MoDESTY; without which Beauty is ungraceful, and Wit deteftable.

I

N° 21. Saturday, March 21, 1710-11.

Locus eft & pluribus umbris.

R*.

HOR. I Ep. v. 28.

There's room enough, and each may bring his friend. CREECH

AM fometimes very much troubled, when

I reflect upon the three great profeffions of Divinity, Law, and Phyfic; how they are each of them, overburdened with practitioners, and filled with multitudes of ingenious gentlemen that starve one another.

We may divide the Clergy into Generals, Field Officers, and Subalterns. Among the first we may reckon Bishops, Deans, and ArchDeacons. Among the fecond are Doctors of Divinity, Prebendaries, and all that wear scarfs, The rest are comprehended under the Subalterns. As for the firft clafs, our conftitution preferves it from any redundancy of incumbents, notwithstanding competitors are numberless. Upon a strict calculation, it is found that there has been a great exceeding of late years in the fecond divifion, feveral brevets having been granted for the converting of Subalterns into Scarf-Officers; in fo much, that within my

By STEELE. See final Note to N° 5; and N° 324; Note ad finem.

memory

memory the price of luteftring is raised above two-pence in a yard. As for the Subalterns, they are not to be numbered. Should our Clergy once enter into the corrupt practice of the Laity, by the splitting of their freeholds, they would be able to carry most of the elections in England.

The body of the Law is no lefs incumbered with fuperfluous members, that are like Virgil's army, which he tells us was fo crowded, many of them had not room to use their weapons. This prodigious fociety of men may be divided into the litigious, and peaceable. Under the first are comprehended all those who are carried down in coach-fulls to Weftminster-Hall, every morning in term-time. Martial's description of this fpecies of Lawyers is full of humour:

Iras & verba locant.

"Men that hire out their words and anger;' that are more or lefs paffionate according as they are paid for it, and allow their client a quantity of wrath proportionable to the fee which they receive from him. I must however obferve to the reader, that above three parts of those whom I reckon among the litigious are fuch as are only quarrelfome in their hearts, and have no opportunity of fhewing their paffion at the bar. Nevertheless, as they do not know what ftrifes may arife, they appear at the Hall every day, that they may fhew themselves in a readiness to enter the lifts, whenever there shall be occafion for them.

The

The peaceable Lawyers are, in the first place, many of the Benchers of the feveral Inns of Court, who seem to be the dignitaries of the Law, and are endowed with thofe qualifications of mind that accomplish a man rather for a ruler than a pleader. Thefe men live peaceably in their habitations, eating once a day, and dancing once a year*, for the honour of their refpective focieties.

Another numberlefs branch of peaceable lawyers, are thofe young men who, being placed at the Inns of Court in order to study the laws of their country, frequent the play-house more than Westminster-Hall, and are feen in all public affemblies, except in a Court of Justice. I shall fay nothing of those filent and busy multitudes that are employed within doors in the drawing-up of writings and conveyances; nor of those greater numbers that palliate their want of business with a pretence to fuch chamberpractice.

If, in the third place, we look into the profeffion of Phyfic, we shall find a most formidable body of men. The fight of them is enough to make a man serious, for we may lay it down as a maxim, that when a nation abounds in Phyficians, it grows thin of people. Sir William Temple is very much puzzled to find out a reason why the Northern Hive, as he calls it, does not send out fuch prodigious fwarms, and over-run the world with Goths and Vandals, as

*See Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales.

it did formerly; but had that excellent author obferved that there were no ftudents in Phyfic among the fubjects of Thor and Woden, and that this fcience very much flourishes in the north at prefent, he might have found a better folution for this difficulty than any of those he has made ufe of. This body of men in our own country, may be described like the British army in Cæfar's time. Some of them flay in chariots, and fome on foot. If the infantry do lefs execution than the charioteers, it is because they cannot be carried fo foon into all quarters of the town, and dispatch fo much business in so short a time. Befides this body of regular troops, there are stragglers, who without being duly lifted and enrolled, do infinite mifchief to thofe who are fo unlucky as to fall into their hands.

There are, befides the above-mentioned, innumerable retainers to Phyfic, who for want of other patients, amufe themfelves with the ftifling of cats in an air-pump, cutting up dogs alive, or impaling of infects upon the point of a needle for microfcopical obfervations; befides those that are employed in the gathering of weeds, and the chafe of butterflies: not to mention the cockleshell-merchants, and spidercatchers.

When I confider how each of these profeffions are crouded with multitudes that feek their livelihood in them, and how many men of merit there are in each of them, who may be rather faid to be of the fcience, than the feffion; I very much wonder at the humour of

pro

parents,