"DEAR SIR,-I am infinitely obliged to you for bringing me news of my angel. I have since married her, and think the low circumstances she was reduced to a piece of good luck to both of us, since it has quite removed that little pride and vanity, which was the only part of her character that I disliked, and given me an opportunity of showing her the constant and sincere affection which I professed to her in the time of her prosperity." Yours, R. T.' No. 160.] Monday, September 14, 1713. to find out who is the tulip in your last Thursday's paper? Or can you imagine that three nests of ants is such a disguise, that the plainest reader cannot see three kingdoms through it? The blowing up of a neighbouring settlement, where there was a race of poor beggarly ants, under a worse form of government, is not so difficult to be explained as you imagine. Dunkirk is not yet demolished. Your ants are enemies to rain, are they! old Birmingham: no Fmore of your ants, if you dont intend to stir up a nest of hornets. WILL WASP.' Solventur risu tabulæ, tu missus abibis. My lords the judges laugh, and you're dismiss'd. Pope. 'DEAR GUARDIAN,-Calling in yesterday at a coffee-house in the city, I saw a very short, corpulent, angry man reading your paper about the ants. I observed that he reddened and swelled over every sentence of it. After having perused it throughout, he laid it down upon the table, called the woman of the coffee-house to FROM writing the history of lions, I lately him, and asked her in a magisterial voice, if she went off to that of ants; but to my great sur- knew what she did in taking in such papers! The prise, I find that some of my good readers have woman was in such a confusion, that I thought taken this last to be a work of invention, which it a piece of charity to interpose in her behalf, was only a plain narrative of matter of fact. and asked him whether he had found any thing They will several of them have it that my last in it of dangerous import? Sir," said he, Thursday and Friday's papers are full of con- "it is a republican paper from one end to the cealed satire, and that I have attacked people other, and if the author had his deserts"-He in the shape of pismires, whom I durst not med-here grew so exceeding choleric and fierce, that dle with in the shape of men. I must confess that I write with fear and trembling, ever since that ingenious person the Examiner, in his little pamphlet, which was to make way for one of his following papers, found out treason in the word expect. But I shall for the future leave my friend to manage the controversy in a separate work, being unwilling to fill with disputes a paper which was undertaken purely out of good will to my countrymen. I must therefore declare that those jealousies and suspicions, which have been raised in some weak minds, by means of the two above-mentioned discourses concerning ants or pismires, are altogether groundless. There is not an emmet in all that whole narrative who is either whig or tory; and I could heartily wish, that the individuals of all parties among us, had the good of their country at heart, and endeavoured to advance it by the same spirit of frugality, justice, and mutual benevolence, as are visibly exercised by members of those little commonwealths. After this short preface, I shall lay before my reader a letter or two which occasioned it. 'MR. IRONSIDE,-I have laid a wager with a friend of mine about the pigeons that used to peck up the corn which belonged to the ants. I say that by these pigeons you meant the Palatines. He will needs have it that they were the Dutch. We both agree that the papers upon the strings which frighted them away were pamphlets, Examiners, and the like. We beg you will satisfy us in this particular, because the wager is very considerable, and you will much oblige two of your 6 DAILY READERS.' 'OLD IRON,-Why so rusty? will you never leave your innuendoes? Do you think it hard 66 he could not proceed; till after having recovered himself, he laid his finger upon the following sentence, and read it with a very stern voice"Though ants are very knowing, I do not take them to be conjurors: and therefore they could not guess that I had put some corn in that room. I perceived for several days that they were very much perplexed, and went a great way to fetch their provisions. I was not willing for some time to make them more easy: for I had a mind to know whether they would at last find out the treasure, and see it at a great distance, and whether smelling enabled them to know what is good for their nourishment." Then throwing the paper upon the table-" Sir," says he, "these things are not to be suffered-I would engage out of this sentence to draw up an indictment that”—He here lost his voice a second time in the extremity of his rage; and the whole company, who were all of them tories, bursting out into a sudden laugh, he threw down his penny in great wrath, and retired with a most formidable frown. 'This, sir, I thought fit to acquaint you with, that you may make what use of it you please. I only wish that you would sometimes diversify your papers with many other pieces of natural history, whether of insects or animals; this being a subject which the most common reader is capable of understanding, and which is very diverting in its nature; besides that, it highly redounds to the praise of that Being who has inspired the several parts of the sensitive world with such wonderful and different kinds of instinct as enable them to provide for themselves, and preserve their species in that state of existence wherein they are placed. There is no party concerned in speculations of this nature; which, instead of inflaming those unnatural heats that prevail among us, and take up most of our thoughts, may divert our minds to sub jects that are useful, and suited to reasonable | shall consider honour with respect to three sorta creatures. Dissertations of this kind are the of men: First of all, with regard to those who more proper for your purpose, as they do not have a right notion of it: Secondly, with regard require any depth of mathematics, or any pre- to those who have a mistaken notion of it: and vious science to qualify the reader for the under- Thirdly, with regard to those who treat it as standing of them. To this I might add, that it chimerical, and turn it into ridicule. is a shame for men to be ignorant of these worlds of wonders which are transacted in the midst of them, and not be acquainted with those objects which are every where before their eyes. To which I might further add, that several are of opinion, there is no other use in many of these creatures than to furnish matter of contemplation and wonder to those inhabitants of the earth, who are its only creatures that are capable of it. I am, sir, your constant reader, and humble servant.' After having presented my reader with this set of letters, which are all upon the same subject, I shall here insert one that has no relation to it. But it has always been my maxim, never to refuse going out of my way to do any honest man a service, especially when I have an interest in it myself. 'MOST VENERABLE NESTOR,-As you are a person that very eminently distinguish yourself in the promotion of the public good, I desire your friendship in signifying to the town what concerns the greatest good of life, health. I do assure you, sir, there is in a vault under the Exchange in Cornhill, over-against Pope's-headalley, a parcel of French wines, full of the seeds of good humour, cheerfulness, and friendly mirth. I have been told, the learned of our nation agree, there is no such thing as bribery in liquors; therefore I shall presume to send you of it, lest you should think it inconsistent with integrity to recommend what you do not understand by experience. In the mean time please to insert this, that every man may judge for himself. I am, sir, &c.' In the first place, true honour, though it be a different principle from religion, is that which produces the same effects. The lines of action, though drawn from different parts, terminate in the same point. Religion embraces virtue, as it is enjoined by the laws of God; honour, as it is graceful and ornamental to human nature. The religious man fears, the man of honour scorns to do an ill action. The latter considers vice as something that is beneath him, the other as something that is offensive to the Divine Being. The one, as what is unbecoming; the other, as what is forbidden. Thus Seneca speaks in the natural and genuine language of a man of honour, when he declares, that were there no God to see or punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of so mean, so base, and so vile a nature. I shall conclude this head with the description of honour in the part of young Juba: "Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind's distinguishing perfection, That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her, And imitates her actions where she is not. It ought not to be sported with.' Cato. In the second place, we are to consider those who have mistaken notions of honour. And these are such as establish any thing to themselves for a point of honour, which is contrary either to the laws of God, or of their country; who think it more honourable to revenge than to forgive an injury; who make no scruple of telling a lie, but would put any man to death that accuses them of it; who are more careful to guard their reputation by their courage, than by their virtue. True fortitude is indeed so becoming in human nature, that he who wants it scarce deserves the name of a man; but we find several who so much abuse this notion, that they place the whole idea of honour in a kind of brutal courage; by which means we have had many among us who have called themselves men of honour, that would have been a disgrace to a gibbet. In a word, the man who sacrifices any duty of a reasonable creature to a prevailing mode or fashion, who looks upon any thing as honourable that is displeasing to his Maker, or destructive to society, who thinks himself obliged by this principle to the practice of some virtues and not of others, is by no means to be reckoned among true men of honour. Timogenes was a lively instance of one ac. tuated by false honour. Timogenes would smile at a man's jest who ridiculed his Maker, and, at the same time, run a man through the body that spoke ill of his friend. Timogenes would have scorned to have betrayed a secret that was intrusted with him, though the fate of his country depended upon the discovery of it. Timogenes took away the life of a young fellow in a duel, for having spoken ill of Belinda, a lady whom he himself had seduced in her youth, and betrayed into want and ignominy. To close his character, Timogenes, after having ruined several poor tradesmen's families who had trust- | ed him, sold his estate to satisfy his creditors; but, like a man of honour, disposed of all the money he could make of it, in the paying off his play debts, or to speak in his own language, his debts of honour. notice of what I said, ' Mr. Ironside,' says he, you fill my cousins' heads with your fine notions, as you call them; can you teach them to make a pudding?' I must confess he put me out of countenance with his rustic raillery, so that I made some excuse, and left the room. In the third place, we are to consider those This fellow's behaviour made me reflect on persons, who treat this principle as chimerical, the usefulness of complaisance, to make all con and turn it into ridicule. Men who are pro-versation agreeable. This, though in itself it fessedly of no honour, are of a more profligate be scarce reckoned in the number of moral virand abandoned nature than even those who are tues, is that which gives a lustre to every talent actuated by false notions of it, as there is more a man can be possessed of. It was Plato's advice hopes of a heretic than of an atheist. These to an unpolished writer, that he should sacrifice sons of infamy consider honour with old Syphax, to the Graces. In the same manner I would in the play before-mentioned, as a fine imagi- advise every man of learning, who would not nary notion that leads astray young inexperi- appear in the world a mere scholar or philosoenced men, and draws them into real mischiefs, pher, to make himself master of the social virwhile they are engaged in the pursuits of a sha-tue which I have here mentioned. dow. These are generally persons who, in Shakspeare's phrase, ' are worn and hackneyed in the ways of men;' whose imaginations are grown callous, and have lost all those delicate sentiments which are natural to minds that are innocent and undepraved. Such old battered miscreants ridicule every thing as romantic that comes in competition with their present interest, and treat those persons as visionaries, who dare stand up in a corrupt age for what has not its immediate reward joined to it. The talents, interest, or experience of such men, make them very often useful in all parties, and at all times. But whatever wealth and dignities they may arrive at, they ought to consider, that every one stands as a blot in the annals of his country who arrives at the temple of honour by any other way than through that of virtue. No.162.] Wednesday, September 16, 1713. Proprium hoc esse prudentiæ, conciliare sibi animos hominum, et ad usus suos adjungere. Cicero. Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal agreeable, and an inferior acceptable. It smooths distinction, sweetens conversation, and makes every one in the company pleased with himself. It produces good nature and mutual benevolence, encourages the timorous, sooths the turbulent, humanizes the fierce, and distinguishes a society of civilized persons from a confusion of savages. In a word, complaisance is a virtue that blends all orders of men together in a friendly intercourse of words and actions, and is suited to that equality in human nature which every one ought to consider, so far as is consistent with the order and economy of the world. If we could look into the secret anguish and affliction of every man's heart, we should often find that more of it arises from little imaginary distresses, such as checks, frowns, contradictions, expressions of contempt, and (what Shakspeare reckons among other evils under the sun) The proud man's contumely, The insolence of office, and the spurns The art of prudence lies in gaining the esteem of the than from the more real pains and calamities world, and turning it to a man's own advantage. I was the other day in company at my lady Lizard's, when there came in among us their cousin Tom, who is one of those country squires that set up for plain honest gentlemen who speak their minds. Tom is, in short, a lively, impudent clown, and has wit enough to have made him a pleasant companion, had it been polished and rectified by good manners. Tom had not been a quarter of an hour with us before he set every one in the company a blushing, by some blunt question, or unlucky observation. He asked the Sparkler if her wit had yet got her a husband; and told her eldest sister she looked a little wan under the eyes, and that it was time for her to look about her, if she did not design to lead apes in the other world. The good lady Lizard, who suffers more than her daughters on such an occasion, desired her cousin Thomas with a smile, not to be so severe on his relations; to which the booby replied, with a rude country laugh, 'If I be not mistaken, aunt, you were a mother at fifteen, and why do you expect that your daughters should be maids till five-and-twenty!' I endeavoured to divert the discourse; when, without taking of life. The only method to remove these imaginary distresses as much as possible out of human life, would be the universal practice of such an ingenuous complaisance as I have been here describing, which, as it is a virtue, may be defined to be, ‘a constant endeavour to please those whom we converse with, so far as we may do it innocently.' I shall here add, that I know nothing so effectual to raise a man's fortune as complaisance; which recommends more to the favour of the great, than wit, knowledge, or any other talent whatsoever. I find this consideration very prettily illustrated by a little wild Arabian tale, which I shall here abridge, for the sake of my reader, after having again warned him, that I do not recommend to him such an impertinent or vicious complaisance as is not consistent with honour and integrity. Schacabac being reduced to great poverty, and having eat nothing for two days together, made a visit to a noble barmecide in Persia, who was very hospitable, but withal a great humourist. The barmecide was sitting at his table that seemed ready covered for an entertainment. Upon hearing Schacabac's complaint, he desired him to sit down and fall on. then gave him an empty plate, and asked him He how he liked his rice soup. Schacabac, who was a man of wit, and resolved to comply with the barmecide in all his humours, told him it was admirable, and at the same time, in imitation of the other, lifted up the empty spoon to his mouth with great pleasure. The barmecide then asked him if he ever saw whiter bread? Schacabac, who saw neither bread nor meat, "if I did not like it, you may be sure," says he, "I should not eat so heartily of it." "You oblige me mightily," replied the barmecide, pray, let me help you to this leg of a goose." Schacabac reached out his plate, and received nothing on it with great cheerfulness. No. 163.] Thursday, September 17, 1713. -miserum est aliena vivere quadra. Juv. Sat. v. 2. How wretched he, by cruel fortune crost, WHEN I am disposed to give myself a day's rest, I order the lion to be opened, and search into that magazine of intelligence for such letters as are to my purpose. The first I looked into comes to me from one who is chaplain to a great family. He treats himself in the beginning of it, after such a manner, as I am persuaded no man of sense would treat him. Even the lawyer and the physician to a man of quali ty, expect to be used like gentlemen, and much more may any one of so superior a profession. I am by no means for encouraging that dispute, whether the chaplain or the master of the house be the better man, and the more to be respected. The two learned authors, doctor Hickes and Mr. Collier, to whom I might add several others, are to be excused, if they have carried the point a little too high in favour of the chaplain, since in so corrupt an age as that we live in, the popular opinion runs so far into the other extreme. The only controversy, between the patron and the chaplain, ought to be, which should promote the good designs and interests of each other most; and for my own part, I think it is the happiest circumstance in a great estate or title, that it qualifies a man for choosing out of such a learned and valuable body of men as that of the English clergy, a friend, a spiritual guide, and a companion. The letter I have received from one of this order, is as follows: 'MR. GUARDIAN,-I hope you will not only indulge me in the liberty of two or three questicns, but also in the solution of them. As he was eating very heartily on this imaginary goose, and crying up the sauce to the skies, the barmecide desired him to keep a corner of his stomach for a roasted lamb fed with pistachio nuts, and after having called for it, as though it had really been served up, "here is a dish," says he, "that you will see at nobody's table but my own." Schacabac was wonderfully delighted with the taste of it, "which is like nothing," says he, "I ever eat before." Several other nice dishes were served up in idea, which both of them commended, and feasted on after the same manner. This was followed by an invisible dessert, no part of which delighted Schacabac so much as a certain lozenge, which the barmecide told him was a sweet-meat of his own invention. Schacabac at length being courteously reproached by the barmecide, that he had no stomach, and that he eat nothing, and at the same time being tired with moving his jaws up and down to no purpose, desired to be excused, for that really he was so full he could not eat a bit more. "Come then," says the barmecide, "the cloth shall be removed, and you shall taste of my wines, which I may say, without vanity, are the best in Persia." He then filled both their glasses out of an empty decanter. Schacabac would have excused himself from drinking so 'I have had the honour many years of being much at once, because he said he was a little chaplain to a noble family, and of being acquarrelsome in his liquor; however, being prest counted the highest servant in the house, either to it, he pretended to take it off, having before-out of respect to my cloth, or because I lie in hand praised the colour, and afterwards the fla- the uppermost garret. vour. Being plied with two or three other ima- 'Whilst my old lord lived, his table was al ginary bumpers of different wines, equally deli- ways adorned with useful learning and innocious, and a little vexed with this fantastic treat, cent mirth, as well as covered with plenty. I he pretended to grow flustered, and gave the was not looked upon as a piece of furniture fit barmecide a good box on the ear, but immedi- only to sanctify and garnish a feast, but treated ately recovering himself, "Sir," says he, "I beg as a gentleman, and generally desired to fill up ten thousand pardons, but I told you before, that the conversation an hour after I had done my it was my misfortune to be quarrelsome in my duty. But now my young lord is come to the drink." The barmecide could not but smile at estate, I find I am looked upon as a censor mothe humour of his guest, and instead of being rum, an obstacle to mirth and talk, and suffered angry at him, "I find," says he, "thou art a to retire constantly with "Prosperity to the complaisant fellow, and deservest to be enter-church" in my mouth. I declare solemnly, sir, tained in my house. Since thou canst accom- that I have heard nothing from all the fine genmodate thyself to my humour, we will now eattlemen who visit us, more remarkable, for half together in good earnest." Upon which, calling for his supper, the rice soup, the goose, the pistachio lamb, the several other nice dishes, with the dessert, the lozenges, and all the variety of Persian wines, were served up successively, one after another and Schacabac was feasted in reality with those very things which he had before been entertained with in imagination.' a year, than that one young lord was seven times drunk at Genoa, and another had an af fair with a famous courtesan at Venice. I have lately taken the liberty to stay three or four rounds beyond the church, to see what topics of discourse they went upon, but to my great surprise, have hardly heard a word all the time besides the toasts. Then they all stare full in my face, and show all the actions of uneasiness till I am gone. Immediately upon my departure, to use the words in an old comedy, "I find by the noise they make, that they had a mind to be private." I am at a loss to imagine what conversation they have among one another, which I may not be present at; since I love innocent mirth as much as any of them, and am shocked with no freedoms whatsoever, which are consistent with Christianity. I have, with much ado, maintained my post hitherto at the dessert, and every day eat tart in the face of my patron; but how long I shall be invested with this privilege, I do not know. For the servants, who do not see me supported as I was in my old lord's time, begin to brush very familiarly by me, and thrust aside my chair when they set the sweet-meats on the table. I have been born and educated a gentleman, and desire you will make the public sensible, that the Christian priesthood was never thought, in any age or country, to debase the man who is a member of it. Among the great services which your useful papers daily do to religion, this perhaps will not be the least, and will lay a very great obligation on your unknown servant, G. W.' 'The sense of this elegant description is as follows: 66 May you meet with a wife who is not always stupidly silent, not always prattling nonsense! May she be learned, if possible, or at least capable of being made so! A woman thus accomplished will be always drawing sentences and maxims of virtue out of the best authors of antiquity. She will be herself in all changes of fortune, neither blown up in prosperity, nor broken with adversity. You will find in her an even, cheerful, good-humoured friend, and an agreeable companion for life. She will infuse knowledge into your children with their milk, and from their infancy train them up to wisdom. Whatever company you are engaged in you will long to be at home, and retire with delight from the society of men into the bosom of one who is so dear, so knowing, and so amiable. If she touches her lute, or sings to it any of her own VENERABLE NESTOR,-I was very much pleased with your paper of the seventh instant, in which you recommend the study of useful knowledge to women of quality or fortune. I have since that met with a very elegant poem, written by the famous sir Thomas More. It is inscribed to a friend of his, who was then seek-compositions, her voice will sooth you in your ing out a wife; he advises him on that occasion to overlook wealth and beauty, and if he desires a happy life, to join himself with a woman of virtue and knowledge. His words on this last head are as follow: solitudes, and sound more sweetly in your ear than that of the nightingale. You will waste with pleasure whole days and nights in her conversation, and be ever finding out new beauties in her discourse. She will keep your mind in perpetual serenity, restrain its mirth from being dissolute, and prevent its melancholy from being painful. "Such was doubtless the wife of Orpheus; for who would have undergone what he did to have recovered a foolish bride? Such was the daughter of Ovid, who was his rival in poetry. Such was Tullia, as she is celebrated by the most learned and the most fond of fathers. And such was the mother of the two Gracchi, who is no less famous for having been their instructor, than their parent."' IF -simili frondescit virga metallo. Virg. Æn. vi. 144. The same rich metal glitters on the tree. An eminent prelate of our church observes, that there is no way of writing so proper for the refining and polishing a language, as the translating of books into it, if he who undertakes it has a competent skill of the one tongue, and is a master of the other. When a man writes his own thoughts, the heat of his fancy, and the quickness of his mind, carry him so much after the notions themselves, that for the most part he is too warm to judge of the aptness of words, and the justness of figures; so |