But wealth and wisdom are possessions too solemn not to give weariness to active minds, without the relief (in vacant hours) of wit and love, which are the proper amusements of the powerful and the wise. This emperor, therefore, with great regularity, every day at five in the afternoon, leaves his money-changers, his publicans, and little hoarders of wealth, to their low pursuits, and ascends his chariot, to drive to Will's; where the taste is refined, and a relish given to men's possessions, by a polite skill in gratifying their passions and appetites. There it is that the emperor has learned to live and to love, and not, like a miser, to gaze only on his ingots or his treasures; but, with a nobler satisfaction, to live the admiration of others, for his splendour and happiness in being master of them. But a prince is no more to be his own caterer in his love, than in his food; therefore Aurengezebe has ever in waiting two purveyors for his dishes, and his wenches for his retired hours, by whom the scene of his diversion is prepared in the following manner:

WE see every day volumes written against that tyrant of human life called Love; and yet there is no help found against his cruelties, or barrier against the inroads he is pleased to make into the mind of man. After this preface, you will expect I am going to give particular instances of what I have asserted. That expecta- There is near Covent-garden a street known tion cannot be raised too high for the novelty of by the name of Drury, which, before the days the history and manner of life of the emperor of Christianity, was purchased by the queen of Aurengezebe, who has resided for some years Paphos, and is the only part of Great Britain in the cities of London and Westminster, with where the tenure of vassalage is still in being. the air and mien indeed of his imperial quality, All that long course of building is under parbut the equipage and appointment only of a ticular districts or ladyships, after the manner private gentleman. This potentate, for a long of lordships in other parts, over which matrons series of time, appeared from the hour of twelve of known abilities preside, and have, for the until that of two at a coffee-house near the Ex- support of their age. and infirmities, certain change, and had a seat (though without a canopy) taxes paid out of the rewards of the amorous sacred to himself, where he gave diurnal audi- labours of the young. This seraglio of Great ences concerning commerce, politics, tare and Britain is disposed into convenient alleys and tret, usury and abatement, with all things neces- apartments, and every house, from the cellar to sary for helping the distressed, who are willing the garret, inhabited by nymphs of different orto give one limb for the better maintenance of ders, that persons of every rank may be accomthe rest; or such joyous youths, whose philoso-modated with an immediate consort, to allay phy is confined to the present hour, and were their flames, and partake of their cares. Here desirous to call in the revenue of the next half- it is that, when Aurengezebe thinks fit to give year to double the enjoyment of this. Long did a loose to dalliance, the purveyors prepare the this growing monarch employ himself after this entertainment; and what makes it more august manner: and, as alliances are necessary to all is, that every person concerned in the interlude great kingdoms, he took particularly the inter- has his set part, and the prince sends, beforeests of Lewis the XIVth into his care and pro- hand, word what he designs to say, and directs tection. When all mankind were attacking also the very answer which shall be made to him. that unhappy monarch, and those who had neiIt has been before hinted, that this emperor ther valour nor wit to oppose against him would has a continual commerce with India; and it be still showing their impotent malice, by lay-is to be noted, that the largest stone that rich ing wagers in opposition to his interests, Au-earth has produced, is in our Aurengezebe's posrengezebe ever took the part of his contemporary, session. and laid immense treasures on his side, in defence of his important magazine of Toulon. Aurengezebe also had all this while a constant intelligence with India; and his letters were answered in jewels, which he soon made brilliant, and caused to be affixed to his imperial castor, which he always wears cocked in front, to show his defiance; with a heap of imperial snuff in the middle of his ample visage, to show his sagacity. The zealots for this little spot called Great Britain, fell universally into this emperor's policies, and paid homage to his superior genius, in forfeiting their coffers to his

treasury.

* This name has been applied to a very celebrated East-Indian governor of that time. See more of Au. rengezebe in Tattler, No. 50.

But all things are now disposed for his reception. At his entrance into the scraglio, a servant delivers him his beaver of state and love, on which is fixed this inestimable jewel as his diadem. When he is seated, the purveyors, Pandarus and Nuncio, marching on each side of the matron of the house, introduce her into his presence. In the midst of the room, they bow all together to the diadem. When the matron

'Whoever thou art, as thy awful aspect speaks thee a man of power, be propitious to this mansion of love, and let not the severity of thy wis dom disdain, that by the representation of naked innocence, or pastoral figures, we revive in thee the memory at least of that power of Venus, to which all the wise and the brave are some part

of their lives devoted.' Aurengezebe consents | their stronger years: therefore, be sure to insert by a nod, and they go out backward.' Esculapius and Aurengezebe in your next bill of mortality of the metaphorically defunct.'

St. James's Coffee-house, July 24.

tempt. I knew a gentlemen that made it a maxim to open his doors, and ever run into the My brethren of the quill, the ingenious socie- way of bullies, to avoid. their insolence. The ty of news-writers, having with great spirit and rule will hold as well with coxcombs: they are elegance already informed the world, that the never mortified, but when they see you receive town of Tournay capitulated on the twenty- and despise them; otherwise they rest assured, eighth instant, there is nothing left for me to that it is your ignorance makes them out of say, but to congratulate the good company here, your good graces; or, that it is only want of adthat we have reason to hope for an opportunitymittance prevents their being amiable where of thanking Mr. Withers next winter in this they are shunned and avoided. But sir Taffety place, for the service he has done his country. is a fop of so sanguine a complexion, that I fear No man deserves better of his friends than that it will be very hard for the fair-one he at present gentleman, whose distinguished character it is, pursues to get rid of the chase, without being that he gives his orders with the familiarity, and so tired, as, for her own ease, to fall into the enjoys his fortune with the generosity, of a fel-mouth of the mongrel she runs from. But the low-soldier. His grace the duke of Argyle had history of sir Taffety is as pleasant as his chaalso an eminent part in the reduction of this im-racter. portant place. That illustrious youth discovers the peculiar turn of spirit and greatness of soul, which only make men of high birth and quality useful to their country; and considers nobility as an imaginary distinction, unless accompanied with the practice of those generous virtues by which it ought to be obtained. But that our military glory is arrived at its present height, and that men of all ranks so passionately affect their share in it, is certainly owing to the merit and conduct of our glorious general: for, as the great secret in chemistry, though not in nature, has occasioned many useful discoveries; and the fantastic notion of being wholly disinterested in friendship has made men do a thousand generous actions above themselves; so, though the present grandeur and fame of the duke of Marl-nour of each other, all the remarkable particu borough is a station of glory to which no one hopes to arrive, yet all carry their actions to a higher pitch, by having that great example laid before them.

No. 47.]

Thursday, July 28, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines

nostri est farrago libelli. Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream, Our motley paper seizes for its theme.

White's Chocolate-house, July 18.

P.

It happened that, when he first set up for a fortune-hunter, he chose Tunbridge for the scene of action, where were at that time two sisters upon the same design. The knight believed of course the elder must be the better prize; and consequently makes all his sail that way. People that want sense do always in an egregious manner want modesty, which made our hero triumph in making his amour as public as was possible. The adored lady was no less vain of his public addresses. An attorney with one cause is not half so restless as a woman with one lover. Wherever they met, they talked to each other aloud, chose each other partner at balls, saluted at the most conspicuous parts of the service of the church, and practised, in ho

larities which are usual for persons who admire one another, and are contemptible to the rest of the world. These two lovers seemed as much made for each other as Adam and Eve, and all pronounced it a match of nature's own making; but the night before the nuptials, so universally approved, the younger sister, envious of the good fortune even of her sister, who had been present at most of their interviews, and had an equal taste for the charms of a fop, as there are a set of women made for that order of men; the younger, I say, unable to see so rich a prize pass by her, discovered to sir Taffety, that a coquet air, much tongue, and three suits, was all the portion of his mistress. His love My friend sir Thomas has communicated to vanished that moment, himself and equipage the me his letters from Epsom of the twenty-fifth next morning. It is uncertain where the lover instant, which give, in general, a very good ac. has been ever since engaged; but certain it is, count of the present posture of affairs in that he has not appeared in his character as a follower place; but that the tranquillity and correspond of love and fortune until he arrived at Epsom, ence of the company begins to be interrupted where there is at present a young lady of youth, by the arrival of sir Taffety Trippet,† a fortune-beauty, and fortune, who has alarmed all the hunter, whose follies are too gross to give diver- vain and the impertinent to infest that quarter. sion; and whose vanity is too stupid to let him At the head of this assembly, sir Taffety shines be sensible that he is a public offence. If people in the brightest manner, with all the accomplishwill indulge a splenetic humour, it is impossiblements which usually ensnare the heart of a woto be at ease, when such creatures as are the scandal of our species set up for gallantry and adventures. It will be much more easy, therefore, to laugh sir Taffety into reason, than convert him from his foppery by any serious con

*Henry Withers was at that time a major-general in

the British army. He died in 1723.

Henry Cromwell, Esq. who died in 1728, was the

original of the character bere delineated under the name of sir Taffety Trippet.

man; with this particular merit, which often is of great service, that he is laughed at for her sake. The friends of the fair one are in much pain for the sufferings she goes through from the perseverance of this hero; but they may be much more so from the danger of his succeeding, toward which they give a helping hand, if they dissuade her with bitterness; for there is a fantastical generosity in the sex to approve creatures of the least merit imaginable, when

they see the imperfections of their admirers are become marks of derision for their sakes, and there is nothing so frequent, as that he, who was contemptible to a woman in her own judg. ment, has won her by being too violently opposed by others.

Grecian Coffee-house, July 27.

heroic lines of my own, which operated so strongly on the tympanum of his ear, that I doubt not but I have kept out all other sounds for a fortnight; and have reason to hope, we shall see him abroad the day before his poem.

This, you see, is a particular secret I have found out, viz. that you are not to choose your physician for his knowledge in your distemper, but for having it himself. Therefore, I am at hand for all maladies arising from poetical vapours, beyond which I never pretend. For being called the other day to one in love, I took indeed their three guineas, and gave them my advice, which was to send for Esculapius. Es culapius, as soon as he saw the patient, cries out, It is love! it is love! Oh! the unequal pulse! these are the symptoms a lover feels; such sighs, such pangs, attend the uneasy mind; nor can our art, or all our boasted skill, avail.Yet, O fair! for thee'-Thus the sage ran on, and owned the passion which he pitied, as well as that he felt a greater pain than ever he cured: after which he concluded, 'All I can advise, is marriage: charms and beauty will give new life and vigour, and turn the course of nature to its better prospect. This is the new way; and thus Esculapius has left his beloved pow. ders, and writes a recipe for a wife at sixty. In short, my friend followed the prescription, and married youth and beauty in its perfect bloom.

'Supine in Silvia's snowy arms he lies,
And all the busy cares of life defies:
Each happy hour is filled with fresh delight,
While peace the day, and pleasure crowns the night."

From my own Apartment, July 27.

In the several capacities I bear of astrologer, civilian, and physician, I have with great application studied the public emolument; to this end serve all my lucubrations, speculations, and whatever other labours I undertake, whether nocturnal or diurnal. On this motive am I induced to publish a never-failing medicine for the spleen my experience in this distemper came from a very remarkable cure on my ever .worthy friend Tom Spindle, who through excessive gayety, had exhausted that natural stock of wit and spirit he had long been blessed with; he was sunk and flattened to the lowest degree imaginable, sitting whole hours over the Book of Martyrs' and Pilgrim's Progress;' his other contemplations never rising higher than the colour of his urine, or the regularity of his pulse. In this condition I found him, accompanied by the learned Dr. Drachm, and a good old nurse. Drachm had prescribed magazines of herbs, and mines of steel. I soon discovered the malady, and descanted on the nature of it, until I convinced both the patient and his nurse, that the spleen is not to be cured by medicine but by poetry. Apollo, the author of physic, shone with diffusive rays, the best of poets as well as of physicians; and it is in this double capacity that I have made my way; and have found sweet, easy, flowing numbers are oft superior to our noblest medicines. When the Tragical passion was the subject of the disspirits are low, and nature sunk, the muse, with course where I last visited this evening; and a sprightly and harmonious notes, give an un- gentleman who knows that I am at present expected turn with a grain of poetry; which I writing a very deep tragedy, directed his disprepare without the use of mercury. I have course in a particular manner to me. It is done wonders in this kind; for the spleen is like the common fault,' said he, of you gentlemen the Tarantula, the effects of whose malignant who write in the buskin style, that you give poison are to be prevented by no other remedy us rather the sentiments of such who behold but the charms of music: for you are to under- tragical events, than of such who bear a part stand, that as some noxious animals carry anti- in them themselves. I would advise all who dotes for their own poisons, so there is some- pretend this way, to read Shakspeare with care; thing equally unaccountable in poetry; for and they will soon be deterred from putting though it is sometimes a disease, it is to be forth what is usually called tragedy. The way cured only by itself. Now, I knowing Tom of common writers in this kind is rather the Spindle's constitution, and that he is not only a description than the expression of sorrow. pretty gentleman, but also a pretty poet, found There is no medium in these attempts, and the true cause of his distemper was a violent you must go to the very bottom of the heart, grief, that moved his affections too strongly; or it is all mere language; and the writer of for during the late treaty of peace, he had writ such lines is no more a poet, than a man is a a most excellent poem on that subject; and physician for knowing the names of distempers, when he wanted but two lines in the last stanza without the causes of them. Men of sense are for finishing the whole piece, there comes news professed enemies to all such empty labours; that the French tyrant would not sign. Spindle for he who pretends to be sorrowful, and is not, in a few days took his bed, and had lain there is a wretch yet more contemptible than he who still, had not I been sent for. I immediately pretends to be merry, and is not. Such a told him, there was great probability the French tragedian is only maudlin drunk.' The gentlewould now sue to us for peace. I saw immedi- man went on with much warmth; but all he ately a new life in his eyes, and I knew that could say had little effect upon me: but when I nothing could help him forward so well, as came hither, I so far observed his counsel, that hearing verses which he would believe worse I looked into Shakspeare. The tragedy I dipped than his own. I read him, therefore, the into was Henry the Fourth.' In the scene Brussels Postscript: after which I recited somewhere Morton is preparing to tell Northumber

land of his son's death, the old man does not very much in their sentiments of the subject give him time to speak, but says,