of Heroick Poetry appeared with a sword in her hand, and a laurel on her head. Tragedy was crowned with cyprefs, and covered with robes dipped in blood. Satire had smiles in her look, and a dagger under her garment. Rhetorick was known by her thunderbolt; and Comedy by her mask. After feveral other figures, Epigram marched up in the rear, who had been posted there at the beginning of the expedition, that he might not revolt to the enemy, whom he was fufpected to favour in his heart. I was very much awed and delighted with the appearance of the god of WIT; there was fomething fo amiable, and yet so piercing in his looks, as infpired me at once with love and terror. As I was gazing on him, to my unspeakable joy he took a quiver of arrows from his shoulder, in order to make me a prefent of it; but as I was reaching out my hand to receive it of him, I knocked it against a chair, and by that means awaked.

N° 64. Monday, May 14, 1711.

Hic vivimus ambitiofa

Paupertate omnes

C*.

Juv. Sat, iii, 183. The face of wealth in poverty we wear.

THE

HE most improper things we commit in the conduct of our lives, we are led into by the force of FASHION. Inftances might be given, By ADDISON, dated it feems from Chelfea. See final Note to N°7.

in which a prevailing custom makes us act against the rules of nature, law, and commonfenfe; but at present I fhall confine my confideration to the effect it has upon men's minds, by looking into our behaviour when it is the Fashion to go into mourning. The custom of reprefenting the grief we have for the lofs of the dead by our habits, certainly had its rife from the real forrow of fuch as were too much diftreffed to take the proper care they ought of their dress. By degrees it prevailed, that fuch as had this inward oppreffion upon their minds, made an apology for not joining with the rest of the world in their ordinary diverfions by a dress fuited to their condition. This therefore was at first affumed by fuch only as were under real distress; to whom it was a relief that they had nothing about them fo light and gay as to be irksome to the gloom and melancholy of their inward reflections, or that might misreprefent them to others. In procefs of time this laudable diftinction of the forrowful was loft, and mourning is now worn by heirs and widows. You fee nothing but magnificence and folemnity in the equipage of the relict, and an air of release from fervitude in the pomp of a fon who has loft a wealthy father. This Fashion of forrow is now become a generous part of the ceremonial between princes and fovereigns, who in the language of all nations are stiled brothers to each other, and put on the Purple* upon the

Royal and princely mourners are clad in purple.

death of any potentate with whom they live in amity. Courtiers, and all who wish themselves fuch, are immediately seized with grief from head to foot upon this difafter to their prince; so that one may know by the very buckles of a gentleman-ufher, what degree of friendship any deceased monarch maintained with the court to which he belongs. A good courtier's habit and behaviour is hieroglyphical on these occafions. He deals much in whispers, and you may fee he dreffes according to the best intelligence.

The general affectation among men, of appearing greater than they are, makes the whole world run into the habit of the court. You fee the lady, who the day before was as various as a rainbow, upon the time appointed for beginning to mourn, as dark as a cloud. This humour does not prevail only on those whose fortunes can fupport any change in their equipage, nor on those only whofe incomes demand the wantonnefs of new appearances; but on fuch also who have juft enough to clothe them. An old acquaintance of mine, of ninety pounds a year, who has naturally the vanity of being a man of Fashion deep at his heart, is very much put to it to bear the mortality of princes. He made a new black fuit upon the death of the king of Spain, he turned it for the king of Portugal, and he now keeps his chamber while it is fcouring for the emperor. He is a good economist in his extravagance, and makes only a fresh black button upon his iron- grey fuit for any potentate of fmall territories; he indeed adds his crape hat

band

band for a prince whose exploits he has admired in the Gazette; but whatever compliments may be made on thefe occafions, the true mourners are the mercers, filkmen, lacemen, and milliners. A prince of a merciful and royal difpofition would reflect with great anxiety upon the profpect of his death, if he confidered what numbers would be reduced to mifery by that accident only. He would think it of moment enough to direct, that in the notification of his departure, the honour done to him might be restrained to those of the houshold of the prince to whom it should be fignified. He would think a general mourning to be in a lefs degree the fame ceremony which is practifed in barbarous nations, of killing their flaves to attend the obfequies of their kings.

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I had been wonderfully at a lofs for many months together, to guefs at the character of a man who came now and then to our coffeehouse. He ever ended a news-paper with this reflection, Well, I fee all the foreign princes are in good health." If you afked, Pray, "Sir, what fays the Poftman from Vienna?" He answered," Make us thankful, the Ger"man princes are all well." "What does he

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fay from Barcelona ?" "He does not speak "but that the country agrees very well with "the new queen." After very much enquiry, I found this man of universal loyalty was a wholefale dealer in filks and ribbons. His way is it feems, if he hires a weaver or workman, to have it inferted in his articles, that all this ' fhall

⚫ shall be well and truly performed, provided no foreign potentate fhall depart this life within the time above-mentioned.' It happens in all pubic mournings, that the many trades which depend upon our habits, are during that folly either pinched with prefent want, or terrified with the apparent approach of it. All the atonement which men can make for wanton expences (which is a fort of infulting the scarcity under which others labour) is, that the fuperfluities of the wealthy give fupplies to the neceffities of the poor; but instead of any other good arifing from the affectation of being in courtly habits of mourning, all order seems to be destroyed by it; and the true honour which one court does to another on that occafion, lofes its force and efficacy. When a foreign minifter beholds the court of a nation (which flourishes in riches and plenty) lay afide upon the lofs of his mafter, all marks of fplendor and magnificence, though the head of fuch a joyful people, he will conceive a greater idea of the honour done to his mafter, than when he fees the generality of the people in the fame habit. When one is afraid to ask the wife of a tradefman whom the has loft of her family; and after fome preparation endeavours. to know whom fhe mourns for; how ridiculous is it to hear her explain herfelf, That we have loft one of the house of Auftria!' Princes are elevated fo highly above the reft of mankind, that it is a prefumptuous diftinction to take a part in honours done to their memories, except we have authority for it, by being related in a

particular