demonstrate to them that all the ribands were of the same colour; or rather, says Jack, of no colour at all. My lady Lizard herself, though she was not a little pleased with her son's improvements, was one day almost angry with him; for having accidentally burnt her fingers as she was lighting the lamp for her tea-pot, in the midst of her anguish Jack laid hold of the opportunity to instruct her that there was no such thing as heat in fire. In short, no day passed over our heads, in which Jack did not imagine he made the whole family wiser than they were before.

A third sign of a swain is, that something of religion, and even superstition is part of his character. For we find that those who have lived easy lives in the country, and contemplate the works of nature, live in the greatest awe of their Author. Nor doth this humour prevail less now than of old. Our peasants as sincerely believe the tales of goblins and fairies, as the heathens those of fauns, nymphs, and satyrs. Hence we find the works of Virgil and Theocritus sprinkled with left-handed ravens, blasted oaks, witchcrafts, evil eyes, and the like. And I observe with great pleasure that our English author of the pastorals I have quoted hath That part of his conversation which gave me practised this secret with admirable judgment. the most pain, was what passed among those I will yet add another mark, which may be country gentlemen that came to visit us. observed very often in the above-named poets, such occasions Jack usually took upon him to which is agreeable to the character of shep-be the mouth of the company; and thinking herds, and nearly allied to superstition, I mean himself obliged to be very merry, would enterthe use of proverbial sayings. I take the com-tain us with a great many old sayings and abmon similitudes in pastoral to be of the proverbial order, which are so frequent, that it is needless, and would be tiresome to quote them. I shall only take notice upon this head, that it is a nice piece of art to raise a proverb above the vulgar style, and still keep it easy and unaffected. Thus the old wish, God rest his soul,' is finely turned:

'Then gentle Sidney liv'd, the shepherd's friend, Eternal blessings on his shade attend!'

No. 24.]

Wednesday, April 8, 1713.

-Dicenda tacendaque calles? Pers. Sat. iv. 5.

Dost thou, so young,

On

surdities of their college-cook. I found this fellow had made a very strong impression upon Jack's imagination; which he never considered was not the case of the rest of the company, till after many repeated trials he found that his stories seldom made any body laugh but himself.

I all this while looked upon Jack as a young tree shooting out into blossoms before its time; the redundancy of which, though it was a little unseasonable, seemed to foretell an uncommon fruitfulness.

In order to wear out the vein of pedantry which ran through his conversation, I took him out with me one evening, and first of all insinuated to him this rule, which I had myself learned

Know when to speak, and when to hold thy tongue ? from a very great author, 'To think with the

Dryden.

JACK LIZARD was about fifteen when he was first entered in the university, and being a youth of a great deal of fire, and a more than ordinary application to his studies, it gave his conversation a very particular turn. He had too much spirit to hold his tongue in company; but at the same time so little acquaintance with the world, that he did not know how to talk like other people.

After a year and a half's stay at the university, he came down among us to pass away a month or two in the country. The first night after his arrival, as we were at supper, we were all of us very much improved by Jack's tabletalk. He told us, upon the appearance of a dish of wild fowl, that according to the opinion of some natural philosophers they might be lately come from the moon. Upon which the Sparkler bursting out into a laugh, he insulted her with several questions relating to the bigness and distance of the moon and stars; and after every interrogatory would be winking upon me, and smiling at his sister's ignorance. Jack gained his point; for the mother was pleased, and all the servants stared at the learning of their young master. Jack was so encouraged at this success, that for the first week he dealt wholly in paradoxes. It was a common jest with him to pinch one of his sister's lap-dogs, and afterwards prove he could not feel it. When the girls were sorting a set of knots, he would

wise, but talk with the vulgar.' Jack's good sense soon made him reflect that he had exposed himself to the laughter of the ignorant by a contrary behaviour; upon which he told me, that he would take care for the future to keep his notions to himself, and converse in the common received sentiments of mankind. He at the same time desired me to give him any other rules of conversation which I thought might be for his improvement. I told him I would think of it; and accordingly, as I have a particular affection for the young man, I gave him the next morning the following rules in writing, which may perhaps have contributed to make him the agreeable man he now is.

The faculty of interchanging our thoughts with one another, or what we express by the word conversation, has always been represented by moral writers as one of the noblest privileges of reason, and which more particularly sets mankind above the brute part of the creation.

Though nothing so much gains upon the affections as this extempore eloquence, which we have constantly occasion for, and are obliged to practise every day, we very rarely meet with any who excel in it.

The conversation of most men is disagreeable, not so much for want of wit and learning, as of good-breeding and discretion.

If you resolve to please, never speak to gratify any particular vanity or passion of your own, but always with a design either to divert or inform the company. A man who only aims

A modest person seldom fails to gain the good-whatever is become a reigning subject. If our will of those he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself.

I went home last night full of these reflec. | memory or mention of the king's attainder, tions from a coffee-house, where a great many should be defaced, cancelled, and taken off the excellent writings were arraigned, and as many file.-Divers secret and nimble scouts and spies, very indifferent ones applauded, more (as it &c. to learn, search, and discover all the cirseemed to me) upon the account of their date, cumstances and particulars. To assail, sap, and than upon any intrinsic value or demerit. The work into the constancy of sir Robert Clifford.' conversation ended with great encomiums upon I leave the following passages to every one's my lord Verulam's History of Henry the VIIth. consideration, without making any farther reThe company were unanimous in their appro- marks upon them. bation of it. I was too well acquainted with the 'He should be well enough able to scatter the traditional vogue of that book throughout the Irish as a flight of birds, and rattle away his whole nation, to venture my thoughts upon it. swarm of bees with their king.-The rebels Neither would I now offer my judgment upon took their way towards York, &c. but their that work to the public, (so great a veneration | snow-ball did not gather as it went.-So that (in have I for the memory of a man whose writings a kind of mattacina* of human fortune) he are the glory of our nation,) but that the autho-turned a broach that had worn a rity of so leading a name may perpetuate a vicious taste amongst us, and betray future historians to copy after a model which I cannot help thinking far from complete.

crown;

whereas fortune commonly doth not bring in a comedy or farce after a tragedy.-The queen was crowned, &c. about two years after the marriage, like an old christening that had As to the fidelity of the history, I have no- stayed long for god-fathers.-Desirous to trouthing to say to examine it impartially in ble the waters in Italy, that he might fish the that view would require much pains and leisure. better, casting the net not out of St. Peter's, but But as to the composition of it, and sometimes out of Borgia's bark.-And therefore upon the the choice of matter, I am apt to believe it will first grain of incense that was sacrificed upon appear a little faulty to an unprejudiced reader. the altar of peace at Bulloigne, Perkin was A complete historian should be endowed with smoked away.-This was the end of this little the essential qualifications of a great poet. His cockatrice of a king, that was able to destroy style must be majestic and grave, as well as those that did not espy him first.-It was simple and unaffected; his narration should be observed, that the great tempest, which drove animated, short, and clear, and so as even to Philip into England, blew down the Golden outrun the impatience of the reader, if possible. Eagle from the spire of St. Paul's; and in the This can only be done by being very sparing fall, it fell upon a sign of the Black Eagle, and choice in words, by retrenching all cold which was in Paul's church-yard, in the place and superfluous circumstances in an action, and where the school-house now standeth, and batby dwelling upon such alone as are material, and tered it, and broke it down: which was a strange fit to delight or instruct a serious mind. This stooping of a hawk upon a fowl.-The king is what we find in the great models of antiquity, began to find where his shoe did wring him. and in a more particular manner, in Livy, In whose bosom or budget most of Perkin's sewhom it is impossible to read without the warm-crets were laid up.-One might know afar off est emotions.

But my lord Verulam, on the contrary, is ever in the tedious style of declaimers, using two words for one; ever endeavouring to be witty, and as fond of out-of-the-way similies as some of our old play-writers. He abounds in low phrases, beneath the dignity of history, and often condescends to little conceits and quibbles. His political reflections are frequently false, almost every where trivial and puerile. His whole manner of turning his thoughts is full of affectation and pedantry; and there appears throughout his whole work more the air of a recluse scholar, than of a man versed in the world.

After passing so free a censure upon a book which, for these hundred years and upwards, has met with the most universal approbation, I am obliged in my own defence to transcribe some of the many passages I formerly collected for the use of my first charge, sir Marmaduke Lizard. It would be endless, should I point out the frequent tautologies and circumlocutions that occur in every page, which do, as it were, rarify, instead of condensing his thoughts and matter. It was, in all probability, his application to the law that gave him a habit of being so wordy; of which I shall put down two or three examples.

'That all records, wherein there was any

where the owl was by the flight of birds.-Bold men, and careless of fame, and that took toll of their master's grist.-Empson and Dudley would have cut another chop out of him.-Peter Hialas, some call him Elias; surely he was the forerunner of, &c.-Lionel, bishop of Concordia, was sent as nuncio, &c. but notwithstanding he had a good ominous name to have made a peace, nothing followed.-Taxing him for a great taxer of his people.-Not by proclamations, but by court-fames, which commonly print better than printed proclamations.-Sir Edward Poynings was enforced to make a wild chase upon the wild Irish.-In sparing of blood by the bleeding of so much treasure.-And although his own case had both steel and parchment more than the other; that is to say, a conquest in the field, and an act of parliament.—That pope knowing that king Henry the Sixth was reputed in the world abroad but for a simple man, was afraid it would but diminish the estimation of that kind of honour, if there were not distance kept between innocents and saints.'

Not to trouble my reader with any more instances of the like nature, I must observe that the whole work is ill conducted, and the story of Perkin Warbeck (which should have been only like an episode in a poem) is spun out to

near a third part of the book. The character | formed, they are pleased, instead of taking noof Henry the Seventh, at the end, is rather an tice of my precaution, to call me an ill-bred old abstract of his history than a character. It is fellow, and say I do not understand the world. tedious, and diversified with so many particu- It is not, it seems, within the rules of goodlars as confound the resemblance, and make it breeding to tax the vices of people of quality, almost impossible for the reader to form any and the commandments were made for the vul distinct idea of the person. It is not thus the gar. I am indeed informed of some oblations ancients drew their characters; but in a few sent into the house, but they are all come from just and bold strokes gave you the distinguish- the servants of criminals of condition. A poor ing features of the mind, (if I may be allowed chamber-maid has sent in ten shillings out of the metaphor,) in so distinct a manner, and in her hush-money, to expiate her guilt of being so strong a light, that you grew intimate with in her mistress's secret; but says she dare not your man immediately, and knew him from a ask her ladyship for any thing, for she is not to hundred. suppose that she is locked up with a young gen. tleman, in the absence of her husband, three hours together, for any harm; but, as my lady is a person of great sense, the girl does not know but that they were reading some good book together; but because she fears it may be other

After all, it must be considered in favour of my lord Verulam, that he lived in an age wherein chaste and correct writing was not in fashion, and when pedantry was the mode even at court; so that it is no wonder if the prevalent humour of the times bore down his genius, though su-wise, she has sent her ten shillings for the guilt perior in force, perhaps, to any of our country men that have either gone before or succeeded him.

A woman's true dowry, in my opinion, is not that which is usually so called; but virtue, modesty, and restrained desires.

A HEALTHY old fellow, that is not a fool, is the happiest creature living. It is at that time of life only, men enjoy their faculties with pleasure and satisfaction. It is then we have nothing to manage, as the phrase is; we speak the downright truth, and whether the rest of the world will give us the privilege or not, we have so little to ask of them, that we can take it. I shall be very free with the women from this one consideration; and, having nothing to desire of them, shall treat them as they stand in nature, and as they are adorned with virtue, and not as they are pleased to form and disguise themselves. A set of fops, from one generation to another, has made such a pother with bright eyes, the fair sex, the charms, the air,' and something so incapable to be expressed but with a sigh, that the creatures have utterly gone out of their very being, and there are no women in all the world. If they are not nymphs, shepherdesses, graces, or goddesses, they are to a woman, all of them the ladies.' Get to a christening at any alley in the town, and at the meanest artificer's, and the word is, 'Well, who takes care of the ladies?' I have taken notice that ever since the word Forsooth was banished for Madam, the word Woman has been discarded for Lady. And as there is now never a woman in England, I hope I may talk of women without offence to the ladies. What puts me in this present disposition to tell them their own, is, that in the holy week I very civilly desired all delinquents in point of chastity to make some atonement for their freedoms, by bestowing a charity upon the miserable wretches who languish in the Lock hospital. But I hear of very little done in that matter; and I am in

of concealing it. We have a thimble from a country girl that owns she has had dreams of a fine gentleman who comes to their house, who gave her half-a-crown, and bid her have a care of the men in this town; but she thinks he does not mean what he says, and sends the thimble because she does not hate him as she ought. | The ten shillings, this thimble, and an occamy spoon from some other unknown poor sinner, are all the atonement which is made for the body of sin in London and Westminster. I have computed that there is one in every three hundred who is not chaste; and if that be a modest computation, how great a number are those who make no account of my admonition! It might be expected one or two of the two hundred and ninety-nine honest, might, out of mere charity and compassion to iniquity, as it is a misfortune, have done something upon so good a time as that wherein they were solicited. But major Crab-tree, a sour pot companion of mine, says, the two hundred ninety and nine are one way or other as little virtuous as the three hundredth unchaste woman-I would say lady. It is certain, that we are infested with a parcel of jilflirts, who are not capable of being mothers of brave men, for the infant partakes of the temper and disposition of its mother. We see the unaccountable effects which sudden frights and longings have upon the offspring; and it is not to be doubted, but the ordinary way of thinking of the mother, has its influence upon what she bears about her nine months. Thus, from the want of care in this particular of choosing wives, you see men, after much care, labour, and study, surprised with prodigious starts of ill-nature and passion, that can be accounted for no otherwise but from hence, that it grew upon them in embryo, and the man was determined surly, peevish, froward, sullen, or outrageous, before he saw the light. The last time I was in a public place I fell in love by proxy for sir Harry Lizard. The young woman happens to be of quality. Her father was a gentleman of as noble a disposition as any I ever met with. The widow, her mother, under whose wing she loves to appear, and is proud of it, is a pattern to persons of condition. Good sense, heightened and exlerted with good-breeding, is the parent's distin