ADVERTISEMENT. ployed only to hide others, are from this day N. B. All false buyers at auctions being emforward to be known in Mr. Bickerstaff's writings by the word Screens. constant suspicion as to state affairs. This accomplished gentleman, with a very awful brow, and a countenance full of weight, told Timo-him a report of what passed at the auction of Mr. Bickerstaff's aerial messenger has brought leon, that it was a great misfortune men of pictures, which was in Somerset-house yard on letters seldom looked into the bottom of things. Monday last; and finds there were no screens Will any man,' continued he, persuade me, that this was not, from the beginning to the end, a present, but all transacted with great justice. concerted affair? Who can convince the world, that four kings shall come over here, and lie at the two Crowns and Cushion, and one of them fall sick, and the place be called King-street, and all this by mere accident? No, no. To a man of very small penetration it appears, that Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Row, emperor of the Mohocks, was prepared for this adventure beforehand. I do not care to contradict any gentleman in his discourse; but I must say, however Sa Ga Yeath Rua Geth Ton and E Tow Oh Koam might be surprised in this matter; nevertheless, Ho Nec Yeth Taw No Row knew it before he set foot on the English shore.' No. 172.] Tuesday, May 16, 1710. Quod quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis No man can tell the dangers of each hour, From my own Apartment, May 15. WHEN a man is in a serious mood, and pon. ders upon his own make, with a retrospect to the actions of his life, and the many fatal miscar riages in it, which he owes to ungoverned pas. sions, he is then apt to say to himself, that ex Timoleon looked steadfastly at him for some time; then shaked his head, paid for his tea, and marched off. Several others, who sat round him, were in their turns attacked by this ready disputant. A gentleman, who was at some distance, happened in discourse to say it was four miles to Hammersmith. I must beg your par-perience has guarded him against such errors don,' says Minucio; when we say a place is so for the future: but nature often recurs in spite far off, we do not mean exactly from the very of his best resolutions; and it is to the very end spot of earth we are in, but from the town where of our days a struggle between our reason and we are; so that you must begin your account our temper, which shall have the empire over from the end of Piccadilly; and if you do So, I us. However, this is very much to be helped will lay any man ten to one, it is not above three by circumspection, and a constant alarm against good miles off.' Another, about Minucio's level the first onsets of passion. As this is, in gencof understanding, began to take him up in this ral, a necessary care to make a man's life easy important argument; and maintained, that, con- and agreeable to himself; so it is more particu sidering the way from Pimlico at the end of St. larly the duty of such as are engaged in friendJames's-park, and the crossing from Chelsea by ship, and nearer commerce with others. Those Earl's court, he would stand to it, that it was who have their joys, have also their griefs in full four miles. But Minucio replied with great proportion; and none can extremely exalt or vehemence, and seemned so much to have the depress friends, but friends. The harsh things better of the dispute, that his adversary quitted which come from the rest of the world are rethe field, as well as the other. I sat until I saw ceived and repulsed with that spirit, which every the table almost all vanished; when, for want honest man bears for his own vindication; but of discourse, Minucio asked me, How I did?' unkindness, in words or actions, among friends, to which I answered, Very well.' That is affects us at the first instant in the inmost revery much,' said he; I assure you, you look cesses of our souls. Indifferent people, if I may paler than ordinary.' Nay, thought I, if he will so say, can wound us only in heterogeneous not allow me to know whether I am well or not, parts, maim us in our legs or arms; but the there is no staying for me neither. Upon which friend can make no pass but at the heart itself. I took my leave, pondering, as I went home, On the other side, the most impotent assistance, at this strange poverty of imagination, which the mere well-wishes of a friend, gives a man conmakes men run into the fault of giving contra-stancy and courage against the most prevailing diction. They want in their minds entertain-force of his enemies. It is here only a man enment for themselves or their company, and therefore build all they speak upon what is started by others; and since they cannot improve that foundation, they strive to destroy it. The only way of dealing with these people is to answer in monosyllables, or by way of question. When one of them tells you a thing that he thinks extraordinary, I go no farther than, 'Say you so, Sir? Indeed! Heyday! or, 'Is it come to that? These little rules, which appear but silly in the repetition, have brought me with great tranquillity to this age. And I have made it an observation, that as assent is more agreeable than flattery, so contradiction is more odious than calumny. 2 Q · joys and suffers to the quick. For this reason, the most gentle behaviour is absolutely neces sary to maintain friendship in any degree above the common level of acquaintance. But there is a relation of life much more near than the most strict and sacred friendship, that is to say, marriage. This union is of too close and delicate a nature to be easily conceived by those who do not know that condition by experience. Here a man should, if possible, soften his pas sions; if not for his own ease, in compliance to a creature formed with a mind of a quite different make from his own. I am sure, I do not mean it an injury to women, when I say there is a sort of sex in souls. I am tender of offend 26* ing them, and know it is hard not to do it on this subject; but I must go on to say, that the soul of a man, and that of a woman, are made very unlike, according to the employments for which they are designed. The ladies will please to observe, I say, our minds have different, not superior, qualities to theirs. The virtues have respectively a masculine and a feminine cast. What we call in men wisdom, is in women pru. dence. It is a partiality to call one greater than the other. A prudent woman is in the same class of honour as a wise man, and the scandals in the way of both are equally dangerous. But to make this state any thing but a burden, and not hang a weight upon our very beings, it is proper each of the couple should frequently remeinber, that there are many things which grow out of their very natures that are pardonable, nay, becoming, when considered as such, but, without that reflection, must give the quickest pain and vexation. To manage well a great family, is as worthy an instance of capacity, as to execute a great employment: and for the generality, as women perform the considerable part of their duties as well as men do theirs; so in their common behaviour, females of ordinary genius are not more trivial than the common rate of men; and, in my opinion, the playing of a fan is every whit as good an entertainment as the beating of a snuff-box. be related with all the circumstances as I heard it this evening; for it touched me so much, that I cannot forbear entering upon it. 'Mr. Eustace, a young gentleman of a good estate near Dublin in Ireland,* married a lady of youth, beauty, and modesty, and lived with her, in general, with much ease and tranquillity; but was in his secret temper impatient of rebuke. She was apt to fall into little sallies of passion; yet as suddenly recalled by her own reflection on her fault, and the consideration of her husband's temper. It happened, as he, his wife, and her sister, were at supper together about two months ago, that, in the midst of a careless and familiar conversation, the sisters fell into a little warmth and contradiction. He, who was one of that sort of men who are never unconcerned at what passes before them, fell into an outrageous passion on the side of the sister. The person about whom they disputed was so near, that they were under no restraint from running into vain repetitions of past heats: on which occasion all the aggravations of anger and distaste boiled up, and were repeated with the bitterness of exasperated lovers. The wife, observing her husband extremely moved, began to turn it off, and rally him for interposing be tween two people, who from their infancy had been angry and pleased with each other every half hour. But it descended deeper into his thoughts, and they broke up with a sullen silence. The wife immediately retired to her lowed. When they were in bed, he soon dis. sembled a sleep; and she, pleased that his thoughts were composed, fell into a real one. Their apartment was very distant from the rest of their family, in a lonely country-house. He now saw his opportunity, and, with a dagger he had brought to bed with him, stabbed his wife in the side. She awaked in the highest terror; but immediately imagining it was a blow designed for her husband by ruffians, began to grasp him, and strove to awake and rouse him to defend himself. He still pretended himself sleeping, and gave her a second wound. But, however I have rambled in this libertine manner of writing by way of Essay, I now sat down with an intention to represent to my read-chamber, whither her husband soon after folers how pernicious, how sudden, and how fatal surprises of passion are to the mind of man; and that in the more intimate commerces of life they are more liable to arise, even in our most sedate and indolent hours. Occurrences of this kind have had very terrible effects; and when one reflects upon them, we cannot but tremble to consider, what we are capable of being wrought up to, against all the ties of nature, love, honour, reason, and religion, though the man who breaks through them all, had, an hour before he did so, a lively and virtuous sense of their dictates. When unhappy catastrophes make up part of the history of princes and persons who act in high spheres, or are represented in the moving language and well-wrought scenes of tragedians, they do not fail of striking us with terror; but then they affect us only in a transient manner, and pass through our imaginations as incidents in which our fortunes are too humble to be concerned, or which writers form for the ostentation of their own force; or, at most, as things fit rather to exercise the powers of our minds, than to create new habits in them. Instead of such high passages, I was thinking it would be of great use, if any body could hit it, to lay before the world such adven. tures as befall persons not exalted above the common level. This, methought, would better prevail upon the ordinary race of men; who are so prepossessed with outward appearances, that they mistake fortune for nature, and believe nothing can relate to them, that does not happen to such as live and look like themselves. She now drew open the curtain, and, by the help of moon-light, saw his hand lifted up to stab her. The horror disarmed her from further struggling; and he, enraged anew at being discovered, fixed his poniard in her bosom. As soon as he believed he had despatched her, he attempted to escape out of the window: but she, still alive, called to him not to hurt himself; for she might live. He was so stung with the insupportable reflection upon her goodness, and his own villany, that he jumped to the bed, and wounded her all over with as much rage as if every blow was provoked by new aggravations. In this fury of mind he fled away. His wife had still strength enough to go to her sister's apartment, and give an account of this wonderful tragedy; but died the next day. Some weeks after, an officer of justice, in attempting to seize the criminal, fired upon him, as did the criminal upon the officer. Both their balls took place, and both immediately expired.' The unhappy end of a gentleman, whose story an acquaintance of mine was just now telling me, would be very proper for this end, if it could | Swift. An expression particularly reprobated by Dean Hor. 1. Od. v. 1. Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity WHEN I first began to learn to push, this last winter, my master had a great deal of work upon his hands to make me unlearn the postures and motions which I had got, by having in my younger years practised back-sword, with a little eye to the single falchion. Knock down, was the word in the civil wars; and we gener-things for which their heads were never framed. ally added to this skill the knowledge of the Cornish hug, as well as the grapple, to play with hand and foot. By this means, I was for defending my head when the French gentleman was making a full pass at my bosom; insomuch, that he told me I was fairly killed seven times in one morning, without having done my master any other mischief than one knock on the pate. This was a great misfortune to me; and I believe I may say, without vanity, I am the first who ever pushed so erroneously, and yet conquered the prejudice of education so well, as to make my passes so clear, and recover hand and foot with that agility as I do at this day. The truth of it is, the first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by most parents, as much with relation to the more important concerns of the mind, as the gestures of the body. Whatever children are designed for, and whatever prospects the fortune or interest of their parents may give them in their future lives, they are all promiscuously instructed the same way; and Horace and Virgil must be thumbed by a boy, as well before he goes to an apprenticeship, as to the university. This ridiculous way of treating the under-aged of this island has very often raised both my spleen and mirth, but I think never both at once so much as to-day. A good mother of our neighbourhood made me a visit with her son and heir; a lad somewhat above five feet, and wants but little of the height and strength of a good musketeer in any regiment in the service. Her business was to desire I would examine him; for he was far gone in a book, the first letters of which she often saw in my papers. The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace. It was very easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth ode of the first book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author, as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt. In the first place I asked him,' Who this same Pyrrha was?' He answered very readily, 'She was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains.' I lifted up my hands. The mother courtsies-Nay,' says she, I knew you would stand in admiration-I assure yon,' continued she, for all he looks so tall, he is but very young. Pray ask him some more; never spare him.' With that I took the liberty to ask him, what was the * See Tatler, 164, and note on Bickerstaff's perfection in fencing. As for the elegant writer of whom I am talking, his excellences are to be observed as they * Tell me, Pyrrha, tell me truth, sons as cither never had, or have lost the use of reason. It has indeed been, time out of mind, the reception of fools as well as madmen. The care and information of the former I assign to other learned men, who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as, among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr. Langham. These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public lottery. Dr. Langham shows a peculiar generosity on this occasion, taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteen-pence of which to be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply with in favour of every adventurer in the whole lottery. Leaving therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such Literati as I have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable. relate to the different concerns of his life; and | ter of our great city is the region of such perhe is always to be looked upon as a lover, a courtier, or a man of wit. His admirable Odes have numberless instances of his merit in each of these characters. His Epistles and Satires are full of proper notices for the conduct of life in a court; and what we call good-breeding, is most agreeably intermixed with his morality. His addresses to the persons who favoured him, are so inimitably engaging, that Augustus complained of him for so seldom writing to him, and asked him, whether he was afraid posterity should read their names together?' Now, for the generality of men to spend much time in such writings is as pleasant a folly as any he ridicules. Whatever the crowd of scholars may pretend, if their way of life, or their own imaginations, do not lead them to a taste of him, they may read, nay write, fifty volumes upon him, and be just as they were when they began. I remember to have heard a great painter say, There are certain faces for certain painters, as well as certain subjects for certain poets.' This is as true in the choice of studies; and no one will ever relish an author thoroughly well, who would not have been fit company for that author, had they lived at the same time. All others are mechanics in learning, and take the sentiments of writers like waiting-servants, who report what passed at their master's table; but debase every thought and expression, for want of the air with which they were uttered. No. 174.] Saturday, May 20, 1710. Quem mala stultitia, aut quæcunque inscitia veri, From my own Apartment. Francis. It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls in with a noble imagination, is called poetical fury, does not come under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse, without natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all the volumes, written by such hands, shall be from time to time placed in proper order upon the rails of the unhoused booksellers within the district of the college, who have long inhabited this quarter,* in the same manner as they are already disposed, soon after the publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for those patients, whose high imaginations and hot spirits have awaked them into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be wrought upon by my gruTHE learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of els and juleps, but must ever be employed, or mankind, gives every individual of that species appear to be so; or their recovery will be imwhat he calls a Seity, something peculiar to him- practicable. I shall therefore make use of such self, which makes him different from all other poets as preserve so constant a mediocrity, as persons in the world. This particularity ren-into sadness, yet, at the same time, keep the fanever to elevate the mind into joy, or depress it ders him either venerable or ridiculous, accord-culties of the readers in suspense, though they ing as he uses his talents, which always grow introduce no ideas of their own. By this means, out into faults, or improve into virtues. In the a disordered mind, like a broken limb, will reoffice I have undertaken, you are to observe, that cover its strength by the sole benefit of being I have hitherto presented only the more insig-out of use, and lying without motion. But, as nificant and lazy part of mankind under the denomination of dead men, together with the de-reading is not an entertainment that can take grees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said to live or be defunct; but are only animals merely dressed up like men, and differ from each other but as flics do, by a little colouring or fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice also upon the impertinently active and enterprising. Such as these I shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moor-fields for that service. We, who are adepts in astrology, can impute up the full time of my patients, I have now in who are by turns to walk about the galleries of pension a proportionable number of story-tellers, the house, and, by their narrations, second the labours of my pretty good poets. There are earnest countenances, and weighty brows, that among these story-tellers, some that have so they will draw a madman, even when his fit is of shrugs, nods, and busy gestures, make him just coming on, into a whisper; and by the force stand amazed so long, as that we have time to give him his broth without danger. *The walls of Bedlam were at that time almost wholly it to several causes in the planets, that this quar-covered by the dealers in old books. But, as fortune has the possession of men's | chien, where they are so advantageously posted, minds, a physician may cure all the sick people that they not only cover the siege, secure our of ordinary degree in the whole town, and never convoys of provisions, forage, and ammunition, come into reputation. I shall therefore begin from Lisle and Tournay, and the canals and with persons of condition; and the first I shall dikes we have made to turn the water of the undertake shall be the lady Fidget, the general Scarp and La Cense to Bouchain; but are in visitant, and Will Voluble, the fine talker. These readiness, by marching from the right, to possess persons shall be first locked up, for the peace of themselves of the field of battle marked out be all whom the one visits, and all whom the other twixt Vitry and Montigny, or from the left to talks to. gain the lines of circumvallation betwixt Fierin and Dechy; so that whatever way the enemy shall approach to attack us, whether by the plains of Lens, or by Bouchain and Valenciennes, we have but a very small movement to make, to possess ourselves of the ground on which it will be most advantageous to receive them. The enemy marched this morning from their left, and are encamped with their right at Oisy, and their left toward Arras, and, according to our advices, will pass the Scarp to-morrow, and enter on the plains of Lens, though several regiments of horse, the German and Liege troops, which are destined to compose part of their army, have not yet joined them. If they pass the Scarp, we shall do the like at the same time, to possess ourselves with all possible advantage of the field of battle; but if they continue where they are, we shall not remove, because, in our present station, we sufficiently cover from all insults both our siege and convoys. The passion that first touched the brain of both these persons, was envy; which has had such wondrous effects, that to this, lady Fidget owes that she is so courteous; to this, Will Voluble that he is eloquent. Fidget has a restless torment in hearing of any one's prosperity; and cannot know any quiet until she visits her, and is eye-witness of something that lessens it. Thus her life is a continual search after what does not concern her; and her companions speak kindly even of the absent and the unfortunate, to teaze her. She was the first that visited Flavia after the small-pox, and has never seen her since because she is not altered. Call a young woman handsome in her company, and she tells you, it is a pity she has no fortune; say she is rich, and she is as sorry that she is silly. With all this ill-nature, Fidget is herself young, rich, and handsome; but loses the pleasure of all those qualities, because she has them in common with others. To make up her misery, she is well bred; she hears commendations until she is ready to faint for want of venting herself in contradic tions. This madness is not expressed by the voice; but is uttered in the eyes and features: its first symptom is, upon beholding an agreeable object, a sudden approbation inmediately checked with dislike. This lady I shall take the liberty to conduct into a bed of straw and darkness; and have some hopes, that, after long absence from the light, the pleasure of seeing at all, may reconcile her to what she shall see, though it proves to be never so agrecable. My physical remarks on the distraction of envy in other persons, and particularly in Will Voluble, is interrupted by a visit from Mr. Kidney, with advices which will bring matter of new disturbance to many possessed with this sort of disorder, which I shall publish to bring out the symptoms more kindly, and lay the distemper more open to my view. St. James's Coffee-house, May 19. This evening a mail from Holland brought the following advices: From the Camp before Douay, May 26, N. S. On the twenty-third the French assembled their army, and encamped with their right near Bouchain, and their left near Crevecœur. Upon this motion of the enemy, the duke of Marlborough and prince Eugene made a movement with their army on the twenty-fourth, and encamped from Arlieux to Vitry and Isez Esquer * A waiter at that time in St. James's Coffee-house, frequently mentioned in these papers. See Tatler, numbers L. 10. 26, &c. Monsieur Villars cannot yet go without crutches, and it is believed will have much difficulty to ride. He and the duke of Berwick are to command the French army, the rest of the marshals being only to assist in council. Last night we entirely perfected four bridges over the Avant Fosse at both attacks; and our saps are so far advanced, that in three or four days, batteries will be raised on the Glacis, to batter in breach both the outworks and ramparts of the town. Letters from the Hague of the twenty-seventh, N. S. say, That the deputies of the states of Holland, who set out for Gertruydenburg on the twenty-third, to renew the conferences with the French ministers, returned on the twenty-sixth, and had communicated to the states-general the new overtures that were made on the part of France, which, it is believed, if they are in earnest, may produce a general treaty. No. 175.] Tuesday, May 23, 1710. From my own Apartment, May 22. IN the distribution of the apartments in the New Bedlam, proper regard is had to the different sexes, and the lodgings accommodated acthought fit to appoint story-tellers to soothe the cordingly. Among other necessaries, as I have the intervals of my female patients. But, bemen, so I have allowed tale-bearers to indulge fore I enter upon disposing of the main of the great body that wants my assistance, it is necessary to consider the human race abstracted from all other distinctions and considerations except that of sex. This will lead us to a nearer view of their excellences and imperfections, which are to be accounted, the one or the other, as they |