vertise upon that learned knight, my very wor- | thy friend, sir William Read: but I shall not interpose in their quarrel: sir William can give him his own in advertisements, that, in the judg. ment of the impartial, are as well penned as the doctor's. The third and last use of these writings is to inform the world, where they may be furnished with almost every thing that is necessary for life. If a man has pains in his head, colicks in his bowels, or spots in his clothes, he may here meet with proper cures and remedies. If a man would recover a wife or a horse that is stolen or strayed; if he wants new sermons, electuaries, asses' milk, or any thing else, either for his body or his mind; this is the place to look for them in. The great art in writing advertisements, is the finding out a proper method to catch the reader's eye, without which a good thing may pass over unobserved, or be lost among commissions of bankrupts. Asterisks and hands were formerly of great use for this purpose. Of late years the N. B. has been much in fashion, as also little cuts and figures, the invention of which we must ascribe to the author of spring-trusses. I must not here omit the blind Italian charac ter, which, being scarce legible, always fixes and detains the eye, and gives the curious reader something like the satisfaction of prying into a secret. But the great skill in an advertiser is chiefly seen in the style which he makes use of. He is to mention the universal esteem, or general reputation,' of things that were never heard of. If he is a physician or astrologer, he must change his lodgings frequently; and, though he never saw any body in them besides his own family, give public notice of it, for the information of the nobility and gentry. Since I am thus usefully employed in writing criticisms on the works of these diminutive authors, I must not pass over in silence an advertisement, which has lately made its appearance, and is written altogether in a Ciceronian manner. It was sent to me, with five shillings, to be inserted among my advertisements; but as it is a pattern of good writing in this way, I shall give it a place in the body of my paper. doctor had called them only his carminative pills, he had been as cleanly as one could have wished; but the second word entirely destroys the decency of the first. There are other ab surdities of this nature so very gross, that I dare not mention them; and shall therefore dismiss this subject with a public admonition to Michael Parrot, That he do not presume any more to mention a certain worm he knows of, which, by the way, has grown seven feet in my memory; for, if I am not much mistaken, it is the same that was but nine feet long about six months ago. By the remarks I have here made, it plainly appears, that a collection of advertisements is a kind of miscellany; the writers of which, contrary to all authors, except men of quality, give money to the booksellers who publish their copies. The genius of the bookseller is chiefly shown in his method of ranging and digesting these little tracts. The last paper I took up in my hand, places them in the following order: The true Spanish blacking for shoes, &c. The beautifying cream for the face, &c. Pease and plaisters, &c. Nectar and ambrosia, &c. Four freehold tenements of fifteen pounds per annum, &c. Annotations upon the Tatler, &c. The present state of England, &c. A commission of bankruptcy being awarded against B. L. bookseller, &c. No. 225.] Saturday, September 16, 1710. Si quid novisti rectius istis, From my own Apartment, September 15. THE hours which we spend in conversation are the most pleasing of any which we enjoy, yet, methinks, there is very little care taken to improve ourselves for the frequent repetition of them. The common fault in this case is that "The highest coinpounded spirit of lavender, of growing too intimate, and falling into dis the most glorious, if the expression may be used, pleasing familiarities: for it is a very ordinary enlivening scent and flavour that can possibly thing for men to make no other use of a close be, which so raptures the spirits, delights the acquaintance with each other's affairs, but to gust, and gives such airs to the countenance, as teaze one another with unacceptable allusions. are not to be imagined but by those that have One would pass over patiently such as converse tried it. The meanest sort of the thing is ad-like animals, and salute each other with bangs mired by most gentlemen and ladies; but this far more, as by far it exceeds it, to the gaining among all a more than common esteem. It is sold, in neat fliat bottles, fit for the pocket, only at the Golden Key in Wharton's court, near Holborn-bars, for three shillings and sixpence, with directions.' At the same time that I recommend the several flowers in which this spirit of lavender is wrapped up, if the expression may be used, I cannot excuse my fellow-labourers for admitting into their papers several uncleanly advertisements, not at all proper to appear in the works of polite writers. Among these I must reckon the 'Carminative wind-expelling pills.' If the on the shoulder, sly raps with canes, or other robust pleasantries practised by the rural gentry of this nation: but even among those who should have more polite ideas of things, you see a set of people who invert the design of conversation, and make frequent mention of ungrate ful subjects; nay, mention them because they are ungrateful; as if the perfection of society were in knowing how to offend on the one part, and how to bear an offence on the other. In all parts of this populous town, you find the merry world made up of an active and a passive companion; one who has good-nature enough to suf fer all his friend shall think fit to say, and one who is resolved to make the most of his good humour to show his parts. In the trading part of mankind, I have ever observed the jest went by the weight of purses, and the ridicule is made up by the gains which arise from it. Thus the packer allows the clothier to say what he pleases; and the broker has his countenance ready to laugh with the merchant, though the abuse is to fall on himself, because he knows that, as a go-between, he shall find his account in being in the good graces of a man of wealth. Among these just and punctual people the richest man is ever the better jester; and they know no such a thing as a person who shall pretend to a superior laugh at a man, who does not make him amends by opportunities of advantage in another kind: but, among people of a different way, where the pretended distinction in company is only what is raised from scnse and understanding, it is very absurd to carry on a rough raillery so far, as that the whole discourse should turn upon each other's infirmities, follies, or misfortunes. I was this evening with a set of wags of this class. They appear generally by two and two; and what is most extraordinary, is, that those very persons who are most together, appear least of a mind when joined by other company. This evil proceeds from an indiscreet familiarity, whereby a man is allowed to say the most grating thing imaginable to another, and it shall be accounted weakness to show an impatience for the unkindness. But this and all other deviations from the design of pleasing each other when we meet, are derived from interlopers in society; who want capacity to put in a stock among regular companions, and therefore supply their wants by stale histories, sly observations, and rude hints, which relate to the conduct of others. All cohabitants in general, run into this unhappy fault; men and their wives break into reflections, which are like so much Arabic to the rest of the company; sisters and brothers often make the like figure, from the same unjust sense of the art of being intimate and familiar. It is often said, such-a-one cannot stand the mention of such a circumstance; if he cannot, I am sure it is for want of discourse, or a worse reason, that any companion of his touches upon it. (stracted the company from all considerations of their quality or fortune, it will immediately appear, that to make it happy and polite there must nothing be started which shall discover that our thoughts run upon any such distinctions. Hence it will arise, that benevolence must become the rule of society, and he that is most obliging must be most diverting. This way of talking I am fallen into from the reflection that I am, wherever I go, entertained with some absurdity, mistake, weakness, or illluck of some man or other, whom not only I, but the person who makes me those relations, has a value for. It would therefore be a great benefit to the world, if it could be brought to pass, that no story should be a taking one, but what was to the advantage of the person of whom it is related. By this means, he that is now a wit in conversation would be considered as a spreader of false news is in business. But above all, to make a familiar fit for a bosom friend, it is absolutely necessary that we should always be inclined rather to hide, than rally each other's infirmities. To suffer for a fault is a sort of atonement; and nobody is concerned for the offence for which he has made reparation. P. S. I have received the following letter, which rallies me for being witty sooner than I designed; but I have now altered my resolution, and intend to be facetious until the day in October heretofore mentioned, instead of beginning from that day. Tuesday, September 19, 1710. -Juvenis quendam, nunc femina, Caneus, Cæneus, a woman once, and once a man; Familiarity, among the truly well-bred, never gives authority to trespass upon one another in the most minute circumstance; but it allows to From my own Apartment, September 18. be kinder than we ought otherwise to presume to be. Eusebius has wit, humour, and spirit; IT is one of the designs of this paper to but there never was a man in his company who transmit to posterity an account of every thing wished he had less; for he understands fami- that is monstrous in my own times. For this liarity so well, that he knows how to make use reason, I shall here publish to the world the of it in a way that neither makes himself or life of a person who was neither man nor his friend contemptible; but if any one is les-woman; as written by one of my ingenious sened by his freedom, it is he himself, who al-correspondents, who seems to have imitated ways likes the place, the diet, and the reception when he is in the company of his friends. Equality is the life of conversation; and he is as much out who assumes to himself any part above another, as he who considers himself below the rest of the society. Familiarity in inferiors is sauciness; in superiors, condescension; neither of which are to have being among companions, the very word implying that they are to be equal. When, therefore, we have ab Plutarch in that multifarious erudition, and those occasional dissertations, which he has wrought into the body of his history. The life I am putting out is that of Margery, alias John Young, commonly known by the name of doctor Young; who, as the town very well knows, was a woman that practised physic in a man's clothes, and, after having had two wives and several children, died about a month since. 'SIR,-I here make bold to trouble you with a short account of the famous doctor Young's life, which you may call, if you please, a second part of the farce of the Sham Doctor. This perhaps will not seem so strange to you, who, if I am not mistaken, have somewhere mentioned with honour your sister Kirleus,* as a practitioner both in physic and astrology: but in the common opinion of mankind, a she-quack is altogether as strange and astonishing a creature, as the centaur that practised physic in the days of Achilles, or as king Phys in the Rehearsal. Esculapius the great founder of your art, was particularly famous for his beard, as we may conclude from the behaviour of a tyrant, who is branded by heathen historians as guilty both of sacrilege and blasphemy; having robbed the statue of Esculapius of a thick bushy golden beard, and then alleged for his excuse, That it was a shame the son should have a board, when his father Apollo had none. This latter instance indeed seems something to favour a female professor, since, as I have been told, the ancient statues of Apollo are generally made with a head and face of a woman: nay, I have been credibly informed by those who have seen them both, that the famous Apollo in the Belvidera did very much resemble doctor Young. Let that be as it will, the doctor was a kind of Amazon in physic, that made as great devastations and slaughters as any of our chief heroes in the art, and was as fatal to the English in these our days, as the famous Joan d'Arc was in those of our forefathers. 'I do not find any thing remarkable in the life which I am about to write until the year 1695; at which time the doctor, being about twenty-three years old, was brought to-bed of a bastard child. The scandal of such a misfortune gave so great an uneasiness to pretty Mrs. Peggy, for that was the name by which the doctor was then called, that she left her family, and followed her lover to London, with a fixed resolution some way or other to recover her lost reputation: but instead of changing her life, which one would have expected from so good a disposition of mind, she took it in her head to change her sex. This was soon done by the help of a sword and a pair of breeches. I have reason to believe, that her first design was to turn man-midwife, having herself had some experience in those affairs; but thinking this too narrow a foundation for her future fortune, she at length bought her a gold-buttoned coat, and set up for a physician. Thus we see the same fatal miscarriage in her youth made Mrs. Young a doctor, that formerly made one of the same sex a pope. The doctor succeeded very well in his business at first; but very often met with accidents that disquieted him. As he wanted that deep magisterial voice which gives authority to a prescription, and is absolutely necessary for the right pronouncing of these words, "Take these pills," he unfortunately got the nick-name of the Squeaking Doctor. If this circumstance There were two she-quacks of the name of Kirleus, Susannah, the widow of Thomas, and Mary, the widow of John, who advertised upon one another. They were equally skilled in astrology and physic. alarmed the doctor, there was another which gave him no small disquiet, and very much diminished his gains. In short, he found himself run down as a superficial prating quack in all families that had at the head of them a cautious father, or a jealous husband. These would often complain among one another, that they did not like such a smock-faced physician; though in truth, had they known how justly he deserved that name, they would rather have favoured his practice, than have apprehended any thing from it. 'Such were the motives that determined Mrs. Young to change her condition, and take in marriage a virtuous young woman, who lived with her in good reputation, and made her the father of a very pretty girl. But this part of her happiness was soon after destroyed, by a distemper which was too hard for our physician, and carried off his first wife. The doctor had not been a widow long before he married his second lady with whom also he lived in very good understanding. It so happened, tha' the doctor was with child at the same time that his lady was; but the little ones coming both together, they passed for twins. The doctor having entirely established the reputation of hie manhood, especially by the birth of the boy of whom he had been lately delivered, and who very much resembles him, grew into good business, and was particularly famous for the cure of venereal distempers; but would have had much more practice among his own sex, had not some of them been so unreasonable as to demand certain proofs of their cure, which the doctor was not able to give them. The florid blooming look, which gave the doctor some uneasiness at first, instead of betraying his person, only recommended his physic. Upon this occasion I cannot forbear mentioning what I thought a very agreeable surprise: in one of Moliere's plays, where a young woman applies herself to a sick person in the habit of a quack, and speaks to her patient, who was something scandalized at the youth of his physician, to the following purpose :-I began to practise in the reign of Francis the First, and am now in the hundredth and fiftieth year of my age: but, by the virtue of my medicaments, have maintained myself in the same beauty and freshness I had at fifteen. For this reason Hippocrates lays it down as a rule, that a student in physic should have a sound constitution, and a healthy look; which indeed seem as necessary qualifications for a physician, as a good life and virtuous behaviour for a divine. But to return to our subject. About two years ago the doctor was very much afflicted with the vapours, which grew upon him to such a degree, that about six weeks since they made an end of him. His death discovered the disguise he had acted under, and brought him back again to his former sex. It is said, that at his burial the pall was held up by six women of some fashion. The doctor left behind him a widow, and two fatherless children, if they may be called so, besides the little boy before-mentioned. In relation to whom we may say of the doctor, as the good old ballad about the children in the wood says of the &c. unnatural uncle, that he was father and mother | nature of persons afflicted with this evil, when both in one. These are all the circumstances they are incurable, to pretend a contempt of the that I could learn of doctor Young's life, which person envied, if they are taxed with that weakmight have given occasion to many obscene fic- ness. A man who is really envious, will not tions but as I know those would never have allow he is so; but, upon such an accusation, is gained a place in your paper, I have not troubled tormented with the reflection, that to envy a you with any impertinence of that nature, having man, is to allow him your superior. But in your stuck to the truth very scrupulously, as I al case, when you examine the bottom of your ways do when I subscribe myself, sir, yours, heart, I am apt to think it is avarice, which you mistake for envy. Were it not that you have both expectations from the same man, you would look upon your cousin's accomplishments with pleasure. You, that now consider him as an obstacle to your interest, would then behold him as an ornament to your family.' I observed my patient upon this occasion recover himself in some measure; and he owned to me, that 'he hoped it was as I imagined; for that in all places, but where he was his rival, he had pleasure in his company.' This was the first discourse we had upon this malady; but I do not doubt but, after two or three more, I shall, by just degrees, soften his envy into emulation. I shall add as a postscript to this letter, that I am informed the famous Saltero, who sells coffee in his museum at Chelsea, has by him a curiosity, which helped the doctor to carry on his imposture, and will give great satisfaction to the curious inquirer. Martial. No. 227.] Thursday, September 21, 1710. Ir is the business of reason and philosophy to sooth and allay the passions of the mind, or turn them to a vigorous prosecution of what is dictated by the understanding. In order to this good end, I would keep a watchful eye upon the growing inclinations of youth, and be particularly careful to prevent their indulging themselves in such sentiments as may imbitter their more advanced age. I have now under cure a young gentleman, who lately communicated to me, that he was of all men living the most miserably envious. I desired the circumstances of his distemper; upon which, with a sigh that would have moved the most inhuman breast, Mr. Bickerstaff,' said he, ‘I am nephew to a gentle. man of a very great estate, to whose favour I have a cousin that has equal pretensions with myself. This kinsman of mine is a young man of the highest merit imaginable, and has a mind so tender, and so generous, that I can observe he returns my envy with pity. He makes me, upon all occasions, the most obliging condescensions and I cannot but take notice of the concern he is in, to see my life blasted with this racking passion, though it is against himself. In the presence of my uncle, when I am in the room, he never speaks so well as he is capable of; but always lowers his talents and accomplishments out of regard to me. What I beg of you, dear sir, is to instruct me how to love him, as I know he does me: and I beseech you, if possible, to set my heart right; that it may no longer be tormented where it should be pleased, or hate a man whom I cannot but approve.' The patient gave me this account with such candour and openness, that I conceived immediate hopes of his cure; because, in diseases of the mind, the person affected is half recovered when he is sensible of his distemper. Sir,' said I, the acknowledgment of your kinsman's merit is a very hopeful symptom; for it is the Such an envy, as I have here described, may possibly enter into an ingenuous mind; but the envy which makes a man uneasy to himself and others, is a certain distortion and perverseness of temper, that renders him unwilling to be pleased with any thing without him, that has either beauty or perfection in it. I look upon it as a distemper in the mind, which I know no moralist that has described in this light, when a man cannot discern any thing, which another is master of that is agreeable. For which reason, I look upon the good-natured man to be endowed with a certain discerning faculty, which the envious are altogether deprived of. Shallow wits, superficial critics, and conceited fops, are with me so many blind men in respect of excellencies. They can behold nothing but faults and blemishes, and indeed see nothing that is worth seeing. Show them a poem, it is stuff; a picture, it is daubing. They find nothing in architecture that is not irregular, or in music that is not out of tune. These men should consider, that it is their envy which deforms every thing, and that the ugliness is not in the object, but in the eye. And as for nobler minds, whose merits are either not discovered, or are misrepresented by the envious part of mankind, they should rather consider their defamers with pity than indignation. A man cannot have an idea of perfection in another, which he was never sensible of in himself. Mr. Locke tells us, 'That upon asking a blind man, what he thought scarlet was? he answered, That he believed it was like the sound of a trumpet.' He was forced to form his conceptions of ideas which he had not, by those which he had. In the same manner, ask an envious man what he thinks of virtue ? he will call it design; what of good-nature? and he will term it dulness. The difference is, that as the person before-mentioned was born blind, your envious men have contracted the distemper themselves, and are troubled with a sort of an acquired blindness. Thus the devil in Milton, though made an angel of light, could see nothing to please him even in Paradise, and hated our first parents, though in their state of innocence. A powerful aid from other hands will come. R. Wynne. From my own Apartment, September 22. A MAN of business, who makes a public entertainment, may sometimes leave his guests, and beg them to divert themselves as well as they can until his return. I shall here make use of the same privilege, being engaged in matters of some importance relating to the family of the Bickerstaffs, and must desire my readers to entertain one another until I can have leisure to attend them. I have therefore furnished out this paper, as I have done some few others, with letters of my ingenious correspondents, which, I have reason to believe, will please the public as much as my own more elaborate lucubrations. 'Lincoln, September 9. 'SIR, I have long been of the number of your admirers, and take this opportunity of telling you so. I know not why a man so famed for astrological observations may not be also a good casuist; upon which presumption it is I ask your advice in an affair, that at present puzzles quite that slender stock of divinity I am master of. I have now been some time in holy orders, and fellow of a certain college in one of the universities; but, weary of that inactive life, I resolve to be doing good in my generation. A worthy gentleman has lately offered me a fat rectory; but means, I perceive, his kinswoman should have the benefit of the clergy. I am a novice in the world, and confess it startles me, how the body of Mrs. Abigail can be annexed to the cure of souls. Sir, would you give us, in one of your Tatlers, the original and progress of smock-simony, and show us, that where the laws are silent, men's consciences ought to be so too, you could not more oblige our fraternity of young divines, and among the rest, your humble servant, HIGH CHURCH.' I am very proud of having a gentleman of this name for my admirer, and may, some time or other, write such a treatise as he mentions. In the mean time, I do not see why our clergy, who are frequently men of good families, should be reproached, if any of them chance to espouse a hand-maid with a rectory in commendam, since the best of our peers have often joined themselves to the daughters of very ordinary tradesmen, upon the same valuable considerations. 'Globe in Moorfields, Sept. 16. 'HONOURED SIR,-I have now finished my almanack for the next year, in all the parts of it, except that which concerns the weather; and you having shown yourself, by some of your late works, more weatherwise than any of our modern astrologers, I most humbly presume to trouble you upon this head. You know very well, that in our ordinary almanacks the wind and rain, snow and hail, clouds and sunshine, have their proper seasons, and come up as regularly in their several months as the fruits aud 3 B plants of the earth. As for my own part, I freely own to you, that I generally steal my weather out of some antiquated almanack, that foretold it several years ago. Now, sir, what I humbly beg of you is, that you would lend me your State Weather-Glass, in order to fill up this vacant column in my works. This, I know, would sell my almanack beyond any other, and make me a richer man than Poor Robin. If you will not grant me this favour, I must have recourse to my old method, and will copy after an almanack which I have by me, and which I think was for the year when the great storm was. I am, sir, the most humble of your admirers, T. PHILOMATH.' This gentleman does not consider, what a strange appearance his almanack would make to the ignorant, should he transpose his weather, as he must do, did he follow the dictates of my glass. What would the world say to see summers filled with clouds and storms, and winters with calms and sunshine; according to the variations of the weather, as they might accidentally appear in a state-barometer? But let that be as it will, I shall apply my own invention to my own use; and if I do not make my fortune by it, it will be my own fault. The next letter comes to me from another self-interested solicitor. MR. BICKERSTAFF,-I am going to set up for a Scrivener, and have thought of a project which may turn both to your account and mine. It came into my head upon reading that learned and useful paper of yours concerning advertisements. You must understand, I have made myself master in the whole art of Advertising, both as to the style and the letter. Now if you and I could so manage it, that nobody should write advertisements besides myself, or print them any where but in your paper, we might both of us get estates in a little time. For this end I would likewise propose, that you should enlarge the design of advertisements, and have sent you two or three samples of my work in this kind, which I have made for particular friends, and intend to open shop with. The first is for a gentleman, who would willingly marry, if he could find a wife to his liking; the second is for a poor whig, who is lately turned out of his post; and the third for a person of a contrary party, who is willing to get into one.' . Whereas, A. B. next door to the Pestle and Mortar, being about thirty years old, of a spare make, with dark-coloured hair, bright eye, and a long nose, has occasion for a good-humoured, tall, fair, young woman, of about 30001. fortune; these are to give notice, that if any such young woman has a mind to dispose of herself in marriage to such a person as the above-mentioned, she may be provided with a husband, a coach and horses, and proportionable settlement.' 'C. D. designing to quit his place, has great quantities of paper, parchment, ink, wax, and wafers, to dispose of, which will be sold at very reasonable rates.' E. F. a person of good behaviour, six feet high, of a black complexion, and sound principles, wants an employ. He is an excellent penman and accountant, and speaks French.' 32* |