TO NESTOR IRONSIDE, ESQ.

SIR,

I Am obliged to fly to you for refuge from fevere ufage, which a very great author, the Examiner, has been pleased to give me for what you have lately published in defence of a young lady. He does not put his name to his writings, and therefore he ought not to reflect upon the characters of those who publicly answer for what they have produced. The Examiner and the Guardian might have difputed upon any particular they had thought fit, without having introduced any third perfon, or making any allufions to matters foreign to the fubject before them. But fince he has thought fit, in his paper of lay the 8th, to defend himself by my example, I fhall beg leave to fay to the town, (by your favour to me, Mr. Ironfide) that our conduct would ftill be very widely different, though I fhould allow that there were particular perfons pointed at in the places which he mentions in the Tatlers. When a fatirift feigns a name, it must be the guilt of the perfon attacked, or his being notoriously understood guilty before the fatire was written, that can make him liable to come under the fictitious appellation. But when the licence of printing letters of people's real names is ufed, things may be affixed to men's characters which are in the utmoft degree remote from thein. Thus it happens in the cafe of the Earl of Nottingham, whom that gentleman afferts to have left the church; though nothing is more evident than that he deferves better of all men in holy orders, or thofe who have any respect for them, or religion itself, than any man in England can pretend to. But as to the inftances he gives against me, Old Downes is a fine piece of raillery, of which I wish I had been author. All I had to do in it, was to ftrike out what related to a gentlewoman about the queen, whom I thought a woman free from ambition; and I did it out of regard to innocence. Powel of the Bath is reconciled to me, and has made me free of his fhow. Tun, Gun, and Piftol, from Wapping, laughed at the representation which was made of them, and were obferved to be more regular in their conduct afterwards. The character of Lord Tunon is no odious one; and, to tell you the truth, Mr, Ironfide, when I writ it, I thought

it more like me myself than any other man; and if I had in my eye any illuftrious perfon who had the fame faults with myfelf, it is no new nor very cri

minal felf-love to flatter curfelves, that what weakneffes we have, we have in common with great men. For the exaltation of style, and embellishing the character, I made Timon a lord; and he may be a very worthy one for all that I have laid of him. I do not remember the mention of Don Diego; nor do I remember that ever I thought of Lord Nottingham, in any character drawn in any one paper of Bickerstaff. Now as to Polypragmon, I drew it as the most odious image I could paint of ambition; and Polypragmon is, to men of busi nefs, what Sir Fopling Flutter is to men of fashion. He's knight of the fhire,

and reprefents you all.' Whosoever feeks employment for his own private intereft, vanity, or pride, and not for the good of his prince and country, has his hare in the picture of Polypragmon; and let this be the rule in examining that defcription, and I believe the Examiner will find others to whom he would rather give a part of it, than to the perfon on whom I believe he bestows it, because he thinks he is the moft capable of having his vengeance on me. But I fay not this from terrors of what any man living can do to me; I fpeak it only to fhew, that I have not, like him, fixed odious images on perfons, but on vices. Alas! what occafion have I to draw people, whom I think ill of, under feigned names? I have wanted and abounded, and I neither fear poverty, nor defie riches; if that be true, why fhould I be afraid, whenever I fee occafion to examine the conduct of any of my fellow-fubjects? I should fcorn to do it but from plain facts, and at my own peril, and from inftances as clear as the day. Thus would I, and I will (whenever I think it my duty) enquire into the behaviour of any man in England, if he is fo pofted, as that his errors may hurt my country, This kind of zeal will expofe him who is prompted by it to a great deal of ill-will, and I could carry any points I aim at for the improvement of my own little affairs, without making myself obnoxious to the refentment of any perfon or party; but, alas! what is there in all the gratifications of fenfe, the accommodations of vanity, or any thing that fortune can

give to please a human foul, when they are put in competition with the interests of truth and liberty? Mr. Ironfide, I confefs I writ to you that letter concerning the young lady of quality, and am glad that my aukward Apology (as the Examiner calls it) has produced in him fo much remorfe as to make any reparation to offended beauty.' Though, by the way, the phrafe of offended beauty is romantic, and has little of the compunction which fhould rife in a man that is begging pardon of a woman for faying of her unjustly, that he had affronted her God and her fovereign.' However, I will not bear hard upon his contrition; but am now heartily forry I called him a mifcreant; that word, I think, fignifies an unbeliever. Mefcroyant, I take it, is the old French word. I will give myfelf no manner of liberty to make gueffes at him, if I may fay him; for though fometimes I have been told by familiar friends, that they faw me fuch a time talking to the Examiner; others, who have raillied me upon the fins of my youth, tell me it is credibly reported that I have formerly lain with the Examiner. I have carried my point, and refcued innocence from calumny; and it is nothing to me, whether the Examiner writes against me in the character of an eftranged friend, or an exafperated miftrefs.

He is welcome from henceforward to treat me as he pleases; but as you have begun to oppofe him, never let innocence or merit be traduced by him. In particular, I beg of you never to let the glory of our nation, who made France tremble, and yet has that gentleness to be unable to bear oppofition from the meanest of his own countrymen, be calumniated in fo impudent a manner, as in the infinuation that he affected a perpetual dictatorship. Let not a set of brave, wife, and honeft men, who did all that has been done to place their queen in fo great a figure, as to fhew mercy to the highest potentate in Europe, be treated by ungenerous men as traitors and betrayers. To prevent fuch evils is a care worthy a Guardian. These are exercifes worthy the fpirit of a man; and you ought to contemn all the wit in the world against you, when you have the confolation that you act upon thefe honeft motives. If you ever fhrink from them, get Bat Pidgeon to comb your noddle, and wiite fonnets on the fimiles of the Sparkler, but never call yourself Guardian more in a nation full of the fentiments of honour and liberty. I am, Sir, your most humble fervant, RICHARD STEELL.

P. S. I know nothing of the letter at Morphew's.

TULL.

IT

T has been obferved very often, in authors divine and prophane, that we are all equal after death, and this by way of confolation for that deplorable fuperiority which fome among us feem to have over others; but it would be a doctrine of much inore comfortable import, to establish an equality among the living; for the propagation of which paradox I fhall hazard the following

conceits.

I must here lay it down, that I do not pretend to fatisfy every barren reader, that all perfons that have hitherto

tion, of those that think themselves lefs happy, to thofe they think more fo, which is fo very neceffary for the fupport of bufinefs and pleasure.

The common turn of human applications may be divided into love, ambition, and avarice; and whatever victories we gain in thefe our particular purfuits, there will always be fome one or other in the paths we tread, whofe fuperior happinefs will create new uneafinefs, and employ us in new contrivances; and fo through all degrees there will still remain the infatiable defire of fome seeming unacquired good, to imbitter the poffeffion of whatever others we are accommodated with: and if we fuppofe a man perfectly accommodated, and trace him through all the gradations betwixt neceffity and fuperfluity, we fhall find that the flavery which occafioned his firft activity is not abated, but only diverfified.

Thofe that are diftreffed upon fuch causes, as the world allows to warrant the keeneft affliction, are too apt, in the comparison of themfelves with others, to conclude, that where there is not a fimilitude of caufes, there cannot be of affliction, and forget to relieve them felves with this confideration, that the Little difappointments in a life of pleafure are as terrible as thofe in a life of bufinefs; and if the end of one man is to fpend his time and money as agreeably as he can, that of the other to fave both; an interruption in either of thele purfuits is of equal confequence to the purfuers. Befides, as every trifle raifeth the mirth and gaiety of the men of good circumftances, fo do others as inconfiderable expofe then to fpleen and paffion; and, as Solomon fays, According to their riches, their anger rifeth.

One of the most bitter circumstances of poverty has been obferved to be, that it makes men appear ridiculous; but I believe this affirmation may with more juftice be appropriated to riches, fince more qualifications are required to become a great fortune, than even to make one; and there are feveral pretty perfons about town, ten times more ridiculous upon the very account of a good eftate, than they poffibly could have been with the want of it.

I confefs, having a mind to pay my court to fortune, I became an adventurer in one of the late lotteries; in

which, though I got none of the great prizes, I found no occafion to envy fome of thofe that did; comforting myself with this contemplation, that rature and education having disappointed all the favours fortune could bestow upon them, they had gained no fuperiority by an unenvied affluence.

It is pleasant to confider, that whilst we are lamenting our particular affictions to each other, and repining at the inequality of condition, were it poffible to throw off our prefent miferable state, we cannot name the perfon whofe condition in every particular we would embrace and prefer; and an impartial enquiry into the pride, ill-nature, illhealth, guilt, fpleen, or particularity of behaviour of others, generally ends in a reconciliation to our dear felves.

This my way of thinking is warranted by Shakespeare in a very extraordinary manner, where he makes Richard the Second, when depofed and imprifoned, debating a matter, which would foon have been difcuffed by a common capacity, whether his prifon or palace was most eligible, and with very philofophical hesitation leaving the preference undetermined, in the following lines

-Sometimes am I a king,

Thentreafon makes me with my felf a beggar,
And fo indeed I am. Then crushing penury
Perfuades me I was better when a king,
Then am I king'd again———

Prior fays very prettily-
Againft our peace we arm our will;
Amidft our plenty fomething ftill
For horfes, houfes, pictures, planting,
To thee, to me, to him is wanting.
That cruel fomething unpoffeft,
Corrodes and leavens all the reft.
That fomething if we could obtain,
Would foon create a future pain.

Give me leave to fortify my unlearned reader with another bit of wisdom from Juvenal by Dryden :

Look round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good, or knowing it, purfue!
How void of reafon are our hopes and fears!
What in the conduct of our life appears
So well defign'd, so luckily begun,
But, when we have our with, we with undone?

Even the men that are distinguished by, and envied for, their fuperior good fenfe and delicacy of taste, are subje&t to feveral uneafineffes upon this account,

that

that the men of lefs penetration are utter ftrangers to; and every little abfurdity ruffles thefe fine judgments, which would never disturb the peaceful state of the less difcerning.

I fhall end this effay with the following ftory. There is a gentleman of my acquaintance, of a fortune, which may not only be called eafy, but fuperfluous; yet this perfon has, by a great deal of reflection, found out a method to be as uneafy as the worst circumstances could have made him. By a free life he had fwelled himself above his natural proportion, and by a reftrained life had fhrunk below it; and being by nature plenetic, and by leifure more fo, he began to bewail this his lofs of fleth (though otherwife in perfect health) as a very melancholy diminution. He became, therefore, the reverfe of Cæfar, and as a lean hungry-looked rascal was the delight of his eyes, a fat, fleekheaded fellow was his abomination. To fupport himself as well as he could, he took a fervant, for the very reafon every ne elfe would have refufed him, for

being in a deep confumption; and whilst he has compared himself to this creature, and with a face of infinite humour contemplated the decay of his body, I have feen the mafter's features proportionably rife into a boldness, as thofe of his flave funk and grew languid. It was his intereft, therefore, not to fuffer the too hafty diffolution of a being, upon which his own, in fome measure, depended. In short, the fellow, by a little too much indulgence, began to look gay and plump upon his master, who, according to HoraceInvidus alterius macrefcit rebas epimis. EP. 2. L. 1. V. V. 57. Sickens thro' envy at another's good. and as he took him only for being in a confumption, by the fame way of thinking, he found it abfolutely neceflary to difmifs him for not being in one; and has told me fince, that he looks upon it as a very difficult matter to furnish himfelf with a footman that is not altogether as happy as himself,

Juv. SAT. 10. V. 141.

IT is ufual with polemical writers to object ill defigns to their adverfaries. This turns their arguments into fatire; which, inftead of thewing an error in the understanding, tends only to expofe the morals of thofe they write againft. I thall not at after this manner with refpect to the Free-thinkers. Virtue, and the happiness of fociety, are the great ends which all men cught to promote, and fome of that fect would be thought to have a heart above the reft of mankind. But fuppofing those who make that profeffion to carry on a good defign in the fimplicity of their hearts, and according to their best knowledge, yet it is much to be feared, thofe well. meaning fouls, while they endeavoured to recommend virtue, have in reality been advancing the interefts of vice; which as I take to proceed from their ignorance of human nature, we may

DRYDEN.

hope, when they become fenfible of their miitake, they will, in confequence of that beneficent principle they pretend to act upon, reform their practice for the future.

The fages, whom I have in my eye, fpeak of virtue as the most amiable thing in the world; but at the fame time that they extol her beauty, they take care to leffen her portion. Such innocent creatures are they, and fo great ftrangers to the world, that they think this a likely method to increafe the number of her admirers.

Virtue has in herfelf the most engag. ing charms; and chriftianity, as it places her in the strongest light, and adorned with all her native attractions, fo it kindles a new fire in the foul, by adding to them the unutterable rewards which attend ker votaries in an eternal ftate. Or if there are men of a faturnine.

and