add sprightliness to her lady's air, by encouraging her vanity; give gracefulness to her step, by cherishing her pride; and make her show a haughty contempt of her admirers, by enumerating her imaginary conquests. As a critic must stock his memory with the names of all the authors of note, she must be no less ready in the recital of all the beaux and pretty fellows in vogue; like the male critic, she asserts, that the theory of any science is above the practice, and that it is not necessary to be able to set her own person off to advantage, in order to be a judge of the dress of others; and besides all those qualifications, she must be endued with the gift of secrecy, a talent very rarely to be met with in her profession.

By what I have said, I believe my reader will be convinced, that notwithstanding the many pretenders, the perfection of dress cannot be attained without a genius; and shall venture boldly to affirm, that in all arts and sciences whatever, epic poetry excepted, (of which I formerly showed the knack or mechanism) a genius is absolutely necessary.

will not come up to it. Is it not rather the good providence of that being, who in a supereminent degree protects and cherishes the whole race of mankind, his sons and creatures? How shall we, any other way, account for this natural affection, so signally displayed throughout every species of the animal creation, without which the course of nature would quickly fail, and every various kind be extinct? Instances of tenderness in the most savage brutes are so frequent, that quotations of that kind are altogether unnecessary.

If we, who have no particular concern in them, take a secret delight in observing the gentle dawn of reason in babes; if our ears are soothed with their half-forming and aiming at articulate sounds; if we are charmed with their pretty mimicry, and surprised at the unexpected starts of wit and cunning in these miniatures of man; what transport may we imagine in the breasts of those, into whom natural instinct hath poured tenderness and fondness for them! how amiable is such a weakness in human nature! or rather, how great a weakness is it, to give humanity so reproachful a name! The bare consideration of paternal affection should methinks create a more grateful tenderness in children toward their parents, than we generally see; and the silent whispers of nature be attendProgeniem nidosque fovent Virg. Georg. iv. 55. ed to, though the laws of God and man did not

No. 150.] Wednesday, September 2, 1713.

-Nescio qua dulcedine læti,

I WENT the other day to visit Eliza, who in the perfect bloom of beauty is the mother of several children. She had a little prating girl upon her lap, who was begging to be very fine, that she might go abroad; and the indulgent mother, at her little daughter's request, had just taken the knots off her own head, to adorn the hair of the pretty trifler. A smiling boy was at the same time caressing a lap-dog, which is their mother's favourite, because it pleases the children; and she, with a delight in her looks, which heightened her beauty, so divided her conversation with the two pretty prattlers, as to make them both equally cheerful.

As I came in, she said with a blush, 'Mr. Ironside, though you are an old bachelor, you must not laugh at my tenderness to my children.' I need not tell my reader what civil things I said in answer to the lady, whose matron-like behaviour gave me infinite satisfaction; since I myself take great pleasure in playing with children, and am seldom unprovided of plums or marbles, to make my court to such entertaining companions.

Whence is it, said I to myself when I was alone, that the affection of parents is so intense to their offspring? Is it because they generally find such resemblances in what they have produced, as that thereby they think themselves renewed in their children, and are willing to transmit themselves to future times? Or is it, because they think themselves obliged, by the dictates of humanity, to nourish and rear what is placed so immediately under their protection; and what by their means is brought into this world, the scene of misery, of necessity? These

call aloud.

These silent whispers of nature have had a marvellous power, even when their cause hath been unknown. There are several examples in story of tender friendships formed betwixt men who knew not of their near relation. Such ac counts confirm me in an opinion I have long entertained, that there is a sympathy betwixt souls, which cannot be explained by the preju dice of education, the sense of duty, or any other human motive.

The memoirs of a certain French nobleman, which now lie before me, furnish me with a very entertaining instance of this secret attraction implanted by Providence in the human soul. It will be necessary to inform the reader, that the person whose story I am going to relate, was one whose roving and romantic temper, joined to a disposition singularly amorous, had led him through a vast variety of gallantries and amours. He had, in his youth, attended a princess of France into Poland, where he had been entertained by the king her husband, and married the daughter of a grandee. Upon her death he returned into his native country; where his intrigues and other misfortunes having consumed his paternal estate, he now went to take care of the fortune his deceased wife had left him in Poland. In his journey he was robbed before he reached Warsaw, and lay ill of a fever, when he met with the following adventure, which he shall relate in his own words.

"I had been in this condition for four days, when the countess of Venoski passed that way. She was informed that a stranger of good fashion lay sick, and her charity led her to see me. I remembered her, for I had often seen her with my wife, to whom she was nearly related; but when I found she knew not me, I thought fit to conceal my name. I told her I was a Ğerman ;

that I had been robbed; and that if she had the charity to send me to Warsaw, the queen would acknowledge it; I having the honour to be known to her majesty. The countess had the goodness to take compassion of me; and ordering me to be put in a litter, carried me to Warsaw, where I was lodged in her house until my health should allow me to wait on the queen.

'My fever increased after my journey was over, and I was confined to my bed for fifteen days. When the countess first saw me, she had a young lady with her about eighteen years of age, who was much taller and better shaped than the Polish women generally are. She was very fair, her skin exceeding fine, and her hair and shape inexpressibly beautiful. I was not so sick as to overlook this young beauty; and I felt in my heart such emotions at the first view, as made me fear that all my misfortunes had not armed me sufficiently against the charms of the fair sex. The amiable creature seemed afflicted at my sickness; and she appeared to have so much concern and care for me, as raised in me a great inclination and tenderness for her. She came every day into my chamber to inquire after my health; I asked who she was, and I was answered, that she was niece to the countess of Venoski.

'I verily believe that the constant sight of this charming maid, and the pleasure I received from her careful attendance, contributed more to my recovery than all the medicines the physicians gave me. In short, my fever left me, and I had the satisfaction to see the lovely creature overjoyed at my recovery. She came to see me oftener as I grew better; and I already felt a stronger and more tender affection for her than I ever bore to any woman in my life; when I began to perceive that her constant care of me was only a blind, to give her an opportunity of seeing a young Pole, whom I took to be her lover. He seemed to be much about her age, of a brown complexion, very tall, but finely shaped. Every time she came to see me, the young gentleman came to find her out; and they usually retired to a corner of the chamber, where they seemed to converse with great ear nestness. The aspect of the youth pleased me wonderfully; and if I had not suspected that he was my rival, I should have taken delight in his person and friendship.

They both of them often asked me if I were in reality a German, which, when I continued to affirm, they seemed very much troubled. One day, I took notice that the young lady and gentleman, having retired to a window, were very intent upon a picture; and that every now and then they cast their eyes upon me, as if they had found some resemblance betwixt that and my features. I could not forbear to ask the meaning of it; upon which the lady answered, that if I had been a Frenchman, she should have imagined that I was the person for whom the picture was drawn, because it so exactly resembled me. I desired to see it; but how great was my surprise, when I found it to be the very painting which I had sent to the queen five years before, and which she commanded me to get drawn to be given to my children. After I had viewed the piece, I cast my eyes upon the young

lady, and then upon the gentleman I had thought to be her lover. My heart beat, and I felt a se. cret emotion which filled me with wonder. I thought I traced in the two young persons some of my own features, and at that moment I said to myself," Are not these my children?" The tears came into my eyes, and I was about to run and embrace them; but constraining myself with pain, I asked whose picture it was? The maid, perceiving that I could not speak without tears, fell a weeping. Her tears absolutely confirmed me in my opinion, and falling upon her neck, "Ah, my dear child," said I, "yes, I am your father." I could say no more. The youth seized my hands at the same time, and kissing, bathed them with his tears. Throughout my life, I never felt a joy equal to this; and it must be owned, that nature inspires more lively emo tions and pleasing tenderness than the passions can possibly excite.'

'OLD NESTOR,-I believe you distance me not so much in years as in wisdom, and therefore since you have gained so deserved a reputation, I beg your assistance in correcting the manners of an untoward lad, who perhaps may listen to your admonitions, sooner than to all the severe checks, and grave reproofs of a father. Without any longer preamble, you must know, sir, that about two years ago, Jack, my eldest son and heir, was sent up to London, to be admitted of the Temple, not so much with a view of his studying the law, as a desire to improve his breeding. This was done out of complaisance to a cousin of his, an airy lady, who was continually teazing me, that the boy would shoot up into a mere country booby, if he did not see a little of the world. She herself was bred chiefly in town, and since she was married into the country, neither looks, nor talks, nor dresses like any of her neighbours, and is the grown admiration of every one but her husband. The latter end of last month some important business called me up to town, and the first thing I did, the next morning about ten, was to pay a visit to my son at his chambers; but as I began to knock at the door, I was interrupted by the bed. maker in the staircase, who told me her master seldom rose till about twelve, and about one I might be sure to find him drinking tea. I bid her somewhat hastily hold her prating, and open the door, which accordingly she did. The first thing I observed upon the table was the secret amours of

and by it stood a box of pills: on a chair lay a snuff-box with a fan half broke, and on the floor a pair of foils. Having seen this furniture, I entered his bed-chamber, not without some noise; whereupon, he began to

"Six pair of white kid gloves (£ s. d for madam Sally, 0 14 0 0 15 0

"Three handkerchiefs for madam

Sally,

In his chamber window I saw his shoemaker's bill, with this remarkable article: For Mr. Ringwood, three pair 3 0 0

of laced shoes,

And in the drawer of the table was the following billet:

"MR. RINGWOOD,-I desire, that because you are such a country booby, that you forget the use and care of your snuff-box, you would not call me thief. Pray see my face no more. Your abused friend, SARAH GALLOP."

Under these words my hopeful heir had writ, "Memorandum, To send her word I have found my box, though I know she has it."'

No. 152.]

swear at his bed-maker (as he thought) for dis-
turbing him so soon, and was turning about for
the other nap, when he discovered such a thin,
pale, sickly visage, that had I not heard his voice,
I should never have guessed him to have been
my son. How different was this countenance
from that ruddy, hale complexion, which he had
at parting with me from home! After I had
waked him, he gave me to understand, that he
was but lately recovered out of a violent fever,
and the reason why he did not acquaint me
with it, was, lest the melancholy news might
occasion too many tears among his relations,
and be an unsupportable grief to his mother.
To be short with you, old Nestor, I hurried my
young spark down into the country along with
me, and there am endeavouring to plump him
up, so as to be no disgrace to his pedigree; for,
I assure you, it was never known in the memory
of man, that any one of the family of the Ring-
woods ever fell into a consumption, except Mrs.
Dorothy Ringwood, who died a maid at forty-
five. In order to bring him to himself, and to
be one of us again, I make him go to bed at
ten, and rise half an hour past five; and when
he is pulling for bohea tea and cream, I place
upon a table a jolly piece of cold roast beef, or
well powdered ham, and bid him eat and live;
then take him into the fields to observe the reap-
ers, how the harvest goes forwards. There is
nobody pleased with his present constitution
but his gay cousin, who spirits him up, and
tells him, he looks fair, and is grown well-shaped;
but the honest tenants shake their heads, and
cry, "Lack-a-day, how thin is poor young mas-
ter fallen!" The other day, when I told him
of it, he had the impudence to reply, "I hope,
sir, you would not have me as fat as Mr.
Alas! what would then become of me? how
would the ladies pish at such a great monstrous
thing!"-If you are truly, what your title im-
ports, a Guardian, pray, sir, be pleased to con-
sider what a noble generation must, in all pro.
bability, ensue from the lives which the town-myself.
bred gentlemen too often lead. A friend of
mine, not long ago, as we were complaining of
the times, repeated two stanzas out of my lord
Roscommon, which, I think, may here be ap-
plicable :

""Twas not the spawn of such as these,
That dy'd with Punic blood the conquer'd seas,
And quash'd the stern acides ;

Made the proud Asian monarch feel

How weak his gold was against Europe steel:
Forc'd e'en dire Hannibal to yield,

And won the long-disputed world at Zama's fatal field;
But soldiers of a rustic mould,
Rough, hardy, season'd, manly, bold.

Either they dug the stubborn ground,
Or thro' hewn woods their weighty strokes did sound:
And after the declining sun

Had changed the shadows, and their task was done,

·

Home with their weary team they took their way, And drown'd in friendly bowls the labours of the day." 'I am, sir, your very humble servant, JONATHAN RINGWOOD. 'P. S. I forgot to tell you, that while I waited in my son's anti-chamber, I found upon the table the following bill:

Friday, September 4, 1713.

Quin potius pacem æternam pactosque hymenæos
Exercemus-
Virg. Æn. iv. 99.
Rather in leagues of endless peace unite,
And celebrate the hymeneal rite.

THERE is no rule in Longinus which I more admire than that wherein he advises an author who would attain to the sublime, and writes for eternity, to consider, when he is engaged in his composition, what Homer, or Plato, or any other of those heroes in the learned world, would have said or thought upon the same occasion. I have often practised this rule, with regard to the best authors among the ancients, as well as among the moderns. With what success, I must leave to the judgment of others. I may at least venture to say with Mr. Dryden, where he professes to have imitated Shakspeare's style, that in imi. tating such great authors I have always excelled

I have also, by this means, revived several antiquated ways of writing, which, though very instructive and entertaining, had been laid aside and forgotten for some ages. I shall in this place only mention those allegories wherein virtues, vices, and human passions are introduced as real actors. Though this kind of composition was practised by the finest authors among the ancients, our countryman Spenser is the last writer of note who has applied himself to it with success.

That an allegory may be both delightful and instructive; in the first place, the fable of it ought to be perfect, and, if possible, to be filled with surprising turns and incidents. In the next, there ought to be useful morals and reflections couched under it, which still receive a greater value from their being new and uncommon; as also from their appearing difficult to have been thrown into emblematical types and shadows.

I was once thinking to have written a whole canto in the spirit of Spenser, and in order to "Sold to Mr. Jonathan Ring.£ S. d. it, contrived a fable of imaginary persons and wood, a plain muslin head and 1 18 6 characters. I raised it on that common dispute ruffles, with colbertine lace,

between the comparative perfections and pre

Saturday, September 5, 1713.
Admiranda tibi levium spectacula rerum.
Virg. Georg. iv. 3.
A mighty pomp, though made of little things.
Dryden.

THERE is no passion which steals into the heart more imperceptibly, and covers itself under more disguises, than pride. For my own part, I think if there is any passion or vice which I am wholly a stranger to, it is this; though at the same time, perhaps this very judgment which I form of myself proceeds in some measure from this corrupt principle.

I have been always wonderfully delighted with that sentence in holy writ,- Pride was not made for man.' There is not indeed any single view of human nature under its present condition, which is not sufficient to extinguish in us all the secret seeds of pride; and, on the contrary, to sink the soul into the lowest state of humility, and what the school-men call selfannihilation. Pride was not made for man, as he is,

will, or in his present condition that can tempt
any considerate creature to pride or vanity.
These three very reasons why he should not
be proud, are, notwithstanding the reasons why
he is so.
Were not he a sinful creature, he
would not be subject to a passion which rises
from the depravity of his nature; were he not
an ignorant creature, he would see that he has
nothing to be proud of; and were not the whole
species miserable, he would not have those
wretched objects of comparison before his eyes,
which are the occasions of his passion, and
which make one man value himself more than
another.

A wise man will be contented that his glory be deferred until such time as he shall be truly glorified; when his understanding shall be cleared, his will rectified, and his happiness assured; or in other words, when he shall be neither sinful, nor ignorant, nor miserable.

If there be any thing which makes human nature appear ridiculous to beings of superior faculties, it must be pride. They know so well the vanity of those imaginary perfections that swell the heart of man, and of those little supernumerary advantages, whether in birth, fortune, or title, which one man enjoys above another, that it must certainly very much astonish, if it does not very much divert them, when they see a mortal puffed up, and valuing himself above his neighbours on any of these accounts, at the same time that he is obnoxious to all the common calamities of the species.

To set this thought in its true light, we will fancy, if you please, that yonder mole-hill is inhabited by reasonable creatures, and that every pismire (his shape and way of life only excepted) is endowed with human passions. How should we smile to hear one give us an account of the pedigrees, distinctions, and titles that reign among them! Observe how the whole swarm divide and make way for the pismire that passes through them! You must understand he is an emmet of quality, and has better blood in his veins than any pismire in the molehill. Do not you see how sensible he is of it, how slow he marches forward, how the whole rabble of ants keep their distance? Here may observe one placed upon a little eminence, and looking down on a long row of labourers. He is the richest insect on this side the hillock, he has a walk of half a yard in length, and a quarter of an inch in breadth, he keeps a hundred menial servants, and has at least fifteen barley-corns in his granary. He is now chiding and beslaving the emmet that stands before him, and who, for all that we can discover, is as good an emmet as himself.

you

But here comes an insect of figure! Do not you take notice of a little white straw that he carries in his mouth? That straw, you must understand, he would not part with for the longest tract about the mole-hill: did you but know what he has undergone to purchase it! See how the ants of all qualities and conditions swarm about him! Should this straw drop out of his mouth, you would see all this numerous circle of attendants follow the next that took it up, and leave the discarded insect, or run over his back to come at his successor.

If now you have a mind to see all the ladies of the mole-hill, observe first the pismire that listens to the emmet on her left hand, at the same time that she seems to turn away her head from him. He tells this poor insect that she is a goddess, that her eyes are brighter than the sun, that life and death are at her disposal. She believes him, and gives herself a thousand little airs upon it. Mark the vanity of the pismire on your left hand. She can scarce crawl with age; but you must know she values herself upon her birth; and if you mind, spurns at every one that comes within her reach. The little nimble coquette that is running along by the side of her, is a wit. She has broke many a pismire's heart. Do but observe what a drove of lovers are running after her.

We will here finish this imaginary scene; but first of all, to draw the parallel closer, will suppose, if you please, that death comes down upon the mole-hill, in the shape of a cock-sparrow, who picks up, without distinction, the pismire of quality and his flatterers; the pismire of substance and day-labourers; the white-straw officer and his sycophants; with all the goddesses, wits, and beauties of the mole-hill.

May we not imagine that beings of superior natures and perfections, regard all the instances of pride and vanity, among our own species, in the same kind of view, when they take a survey of those who inhabit the earth: or in the language of an ingenious French poet; of those pismires that people this heap of dirt, which human vanity has divided into climates and regions.

No. 154.]

IF

Monday, September 7, 1713. Omnia transformant sese in miracula rerum. Virg. Georg. iv. 441.

All shapes, the most prodigious, they assume.

I QUESTION not but the following letter will be entertaining to those who were present at the late masquerade, as it will recall into their minds several merry particulars that passed in it, and at the same time be very acceptable to those who were at a distance from it, as they may form from hence some idea of this fashionable amusement.

'To Nestor Ironside, Esq. Per via leonis.

'SIR,-I could scarce ever go into good company, but the discourse was on the ambassador, the politeness of his entertainments, the goodness of his Burgundy and Champaign, the gayety of his masquerades, with the odd fantastical dresses which were made use of in those midnight solemnities. The noise these diversions made, at last raised my curiosity, and for once I resolved to be present at them, being at the same time provoked to it by a lady I then made my addresses to, one of a sprightly humour, and a great admirer of such novelties. In order to it, I hurried my habit, and got it ready a week before the time, for I grew impatient to be initiated in these new mysteries. Every morning I drest myself in it, and acted before the look