can tell the fair one's mind, it will be no small proof of your art, for I dare say it is more than she herself can do. Every sentence she speaks is a riddle; all that I can be certain of is, that I am her and your humble servant, No. 107.] PETER PUZZLE.' Tuesday, July 14, 1713. -tendanda via estI'll try the experiment. he plants me by his side in the pit, I will call over to him, in the same manner, the whole circle of beauties that are disposed among the boxes, and at the same time point out to him the persons who ogle them from their respective stations. I need not tell you that I may be of the same use in any other public assembly. Nor do I only profess the teaching of names, but of things. Upon the sight of a reigning beauty, I shall mention her admirers, and discover her gallantries, if they are of publie notoriety. I shall likewise mark out every toast, I HAVE lately entertained my reader with the club in which she was elected, and the num two or three letters from a traveller, and may ber of votes that were on her side. Not a possibly, in some of my future papers, oblige woman shall be unexplained that makes a figuro him with more from the same hand. The fol- either as a maid, a wife, or a widow. The men lowing one comes from a projector, which is a too shall be set out in their distinguishing chasort of correspondent as diverting as a travel-racters, and declared whose properties they are. ler; his subject having the same grace of novel- Their wit, wealth, or good-humour, their perty to recommend it, and being equally adapted sons, stations, and titles, shall be described at to the curiosity of the reader. For my own large. part, I have always had a particular fondness for a project, and may say without vanity, that I have a pretty tolerable genius that way my I could mention some which I have brought to maturity, others which have miscarried, and many more which I have yet by me, and are to take their fate in the world when I see a proper juncture: I had a hand in the land-bank, and was consulted with upon the reformation of manners. I have had several designs upon the Thames and the New-river, not to mention my refinements upon lotteries and insurances, and that never-to-be-forgotten project, which, if it had succeeded to my wishes, would have made gold as plentiful in this nation as tin or copper. If my countrymen have not reaped any advantages from these my designs, it was not for want of any good-will towards them. They are obliged to me for my kind intentions as much as if they had taken effect. Projects are of a two-fold nature: the first arising from public-spirited persons, in which number I declare myself: the other proceeding from a regard to our private interest, of which nature is that in the following letter: self. I have a wife who is a nomenclatress, and will be ready, on any occasion, to attend the ladies. She is of a much more communicative nature than myself, and is acquainted with all the private history of London and Westminster, and ten miles round. She has fifty private amours which nobody yet knows any thing of but herself, and thirty clandestine marriages, that have not been touched by the tip of a tongue. She will wait upon any lady at her own lodgings, and talk by the clock after the rate of three guineas an hour. 'N. B. She is a near kinswoman of the author of the New Atalantis. I need not recommend to a man of your sagacity, the usefulness of this project, and do therefore beg your encouragement of it, which will lay a very great obligation upon your humble servant.' After this letter from my whimsical correspondent, I shall publish one of a more serious the public, and in particular of such who are nature, which deserves the utmost attention of lovers of mankind. It is on no less a subject than that of discovering the longitude, and deserves a much higher name than that of a project, if our language afforded any such term. But all I can say on this subject will be superfluous when the reader sees the names of those persons by whom this letter is subscribed, and who have done me the honour to send it me. I must only take notice, that the first of these gentlemen is the same person who has lately obliged the world with that noble plan, entitled A Scheme of the Solar System, with the orbits of the planets and comets belonging thereto, described from Dr. Halley's accurate Table of Comets, Philosoph. Trans. No. 297, founded on sir Isaac Newton's wonderful discoveries, by William Whiston, M. A. 'SIR,-A man of your reading knows very well that there were a set of men in old Rome, called by the name of Nomenclators, that is, in English, men who call every one by his name. When a great man stood for any public office, as that of a tribune, a consul, or a censor, he had always one of these nomenclators at his elbow, who whispered in his ear the name of every one he met with, and by that means enabled him to salute every Roman citizen by his name when he asked him for his vote. To come to my purpose: I have with much pains and assiduity qualified myself for a nomenclator to this great city, and shall gladly enter upon my office as soon as I meet with suitable encouragement. I will let myself out by the week to any curious country gentleman or fo reigner. If he takes me with him in a coach At Button's Coffee-house, near Covent-Gardento the Ring, I will undertake to teach him, in two or three evenings, the names of the most celebrated persons who frequent that place. If 'To Nestor Ironside, Esq. London, July 11, 1713. SIR,-Having a discovery of considerable importance to communicate to the public, and finding that you are pleased to concern yourself in any thing that tends to the common be world a plan which has given offence to some gentlemen whom it would not be very safe to disoblige, I must insert the following remonstrance; and at the same time promise those of my correspondents who have drawn this upon themselves, to exhibit to the public any such answer as they shall think proper to make to it. nefit of mankind, we take the liberty to desire | quarrel, but since I have communicated to the the insertion of this letter into your Guardian. We expect no other recommendation of it from you, but the allowing of it a place in so useful a paper. Nor do we insist on any protection from you, if what we propose should fall short of what we pretend to; since any disgrace, which in that case must be expected, ought to lie wholly at our own doors, and to be entirely borne by ourselves, which we hope we have provided for by putting our own names to this paper. It is well known, sir, to yourself and to the learned, and trading, and sailing world, that the great defect of the art of navigation is, that a ship at sea has no certain method, in either her eastern or western voyages, or even in her less distant sailing from the coasts, to know her longitude, or how much she is gone eastward or westward, as it can easily be known in any clear day or night, how much she is gone northward or southward. The several methods by lunar eclipses, by those of Jupiter's satellites, by the appulses of the moon to fixed stars, and by the even motions of pendulum clocks and watches, upon how solid foundations soever they are built, still failing in long voyages at sea, when they come to be practised; and leaving the poor sailors frequently to the great inaccuracy of a log-line, or dead reckoning. This defect is so great, and so many ships have been lost by it, and this has been so long and so sensibly known by trading nations, that great rewards are said to be publicly offered for its supply. We are well satisfied, that the discovery we have to make as to this matter is easily intelligible by all, and ready to be practised at sea as well as at land; that the latitude will thereby be likewise found at the same time; and that with proper charges it may be made as universal as the world shall please; nay, that the longitude and latitude may be generally hereby determined to a greater degree of exactness than the latitude itself is now usually found at sea. So that on all accounts we hope it will appear very worthy the public consideration. We are ready to disclose it to the world, if we may be assured that no other person shall be allowed to deprive us of those rewards which the public shall think fit to bestow for such a discovery; but do not desire actually to receive any benefit of that nature till sir Isaac Newton himself, with such other proper persons as shall be chosen to assist him, have given their opinion in favour of this discovery. If Mr. Ironside pleases so far to oblige the public as to communicate this proposal to the world, he will also lay a great obligation on his very humble servants, No. 108.] WILL. WHISTON, Wednesday, July 15, 1713. Abietibus juvenes patriis et montibus æqui. Dryden. I Do not care for burning my fingers in a 'MR. GUARDIAN,-I was very much troubled to see the two letters which you lately published concerning the short club. You cannot imagine what airs all the little pragmatical fellows about us have given themselves since the reading of those papers. Every one cocks and struts upon it, and pretends to overlook us who are two feet higher than themselves. I met with one the other day who was at least three inches above five feet, which you know is the statutable measure of that club. This overgrown runt has struck off his heels, lowered his foretop, and contracted his figure, that he might be looked upon as a member of this new-erected society; nay, so far did his vanity carry him, that he talked familiarly of Tom Tiptoe, and pretends to be an intimate acquaintance of Tim Tuck. For my part, I scorn to speak any thing to the diminution of these little creatures, and should not have minded them had they been still shuffled among the crowd. Shrubs and underwoods look well enough while they grow within the shades of oaks and cedars; but when these pigmies pretend to draw themselves out from the rest of the world, and form themselves into a body, it is time for us who are men of figure to look about us. If the ladies should once take a liking to such a diminutive race of lovers, we should, in a little time, see mankind epitomized, and the whole species in miniature; daisy roots would grow a fashionable diet. In order therefore to keep our posterity from dwindling, and fetch down the pride of this aspiring race of upstarts, we have here instituted a tall club. 'As the short club consists of those who are under five feet, ours is to be composed of such as are above six. These we look upon as the two extremes and antagonists of the species; considering all those as neuters who fill up the middle space. When a man rises beyond six feet he is a hypermeter, and may be admitted into the tall club. We have already chosen thirty members, the most sightly of all her majesty's subjects. We elected a president, as many of the ancients did their kings, by reason of his height, having only confirmed him in that station above us which nature had given him. He is a Scotch Highlander, and within an inch of a show. As for my own part, I am but a sesquipedal, having only six feet and a half of stature. Being the shortest member of the club, I am appointed secretary. If you saw us all together you would take us for the sons of Anak. Our meetings are held like the old gothic parliaments, sub dio, in open air; but we shall make an interest, if we can, that we may hold our assem. * Daisy roots, boiled in milk, are said to check the growth of puppies. blies in Westminster-hall, when it is not term time. I must add, to the honour of our club, that it is one of our society who is now finding out the longitude. The device of our public seal is, a crane grasping a pigmy in his right foot. I know the short club value themselves very much upon Mr. Distich, who may possibly play some of his pentameters upon us, but if he does he shall certainly be answered in Alexandrines. For we have a poet among us of a genius as exalted as his stature, and who is very well read in Longinus's treatise concerning the sublime. Besides, I would have Mr. Distich consider, that if Horace was a short man, Musæus, who makes such a noble figure in Virgil's sixth Eneid, was taller by the head and shoulders than all the people of Elysium. I shall therefore confront his lepidissimum homuncionem (a short quotation, and fit for a member of their club) with one that is much longer, and therefore more suitable to a member of ours. Quos circumfusos sic est affata Sibylla; Museum ante omnes: medium nam plurima turba Hunc habet, atque humeris extantum suscipit aitis.' Virg. n. vi. 006. 'To these the Sibyl thus her speech address'd: And first to him surrounded by the rest; Towering his height and ample was his breast." Dryden. If after all, this society of little men proceed as they have begun, to magnify themselves, and lessen men of higher stature, we have resolved to make a detachment, some evening or other, that shall bring away their whole club in a pair of panniers, and imprison them in a cupboard which we have set apart for that use, until they have made a public recantation. As for the little bully, Tim Tuck, if he pretends to be choleric, we shall treat him like his friend little Dicky, and hang him upon a peg until he comes to himself. I have told you our design, and let their little Machiavel prevent it if he can. I This is, sir, the long and the short of the matter. I am sensible I shall stir up a nest of wasps by it, but let them do their worst. think that we serve our country by discouraging this little breed, and hindering it from coming into fashion. If the fair sex look upon us with an eye of favour, we shall make some attempts to lengthen out the human figure, and restore it to its ancient procerity. In the mean time we hope old age has not inclined you in favour of our antagonists; for I do assure you sir, we are all your high admirers, though none more than, sir, yours, &c.' course concerning the tucker. Some of them are filled with reproaches and invectives. A lady, who subscribes herself Teraminta, bids me, in a very pert manner, mind my own af fairs, and not pretend to meddle with their linen; for that they do not dress for an old fellow, who cannot see them without a pair of spectacles. Another, who calls herself Bubnelia, vents her passion in scurrilous terms; an old ninnyhammer, a dotard, a nincompoop, is the best language she can afford me. Florella, indeed, expostulates with me upon the subject, and only complains that she is forced to return a pair of stays which were made in the extremity of the fashion, that she might not be thought to encourage peeping. But if on the one side I have been used ill, (the common fate of all reformers,) I have on the other side received great applauses and acknowledgments for what I have done, in having put a seasonable stop to this unaccountable humour of stripping, that has got among our British ladies. As I would much rather the world should know what is said to my praise, than to my disadvantage, I shall suppress what has been written to me by those who have reviled me on this occasion, and only publish those letters which approve my proceedings. SIR,-I am to give you thanks in the name of half a dozen superannuated beauties, for your paper of the sixth instant. We all of us pass for women of fifty, and a man of your sense knows how inany additional years are always to be thrown into female computations of this nature. We are very sensible that several young flirts about town had a design to cast us out of the fashionable world, and to leave us in the lurch by some of their late refinements. Two or three of them have been heard to say, that they would kill every old woman about town. In order to it, they began to throw off their clothes as fast as they could, and have played all those pranks which you have so seasonably taken notice of. We were forced to uncover, after them, being unwilling to give out so soon, and be regarded Some of us as veterans in the beau monde. have already caught our deaths by it. For my own part, I have not been without a cold ever since this foolish fashion came up. I have followed it thus far with the hazard of my life; and how much farther I must go nobody knows, if your paper does not bring us relief. You may assure yourself that all the antiquated necks about town are very much obliged to you. Whatever fires and flames are concealed in our bosoms (in which perhaps we vie with the youngest of the sex) they are not sufficient to preserve us against the wind and weather. In taking so many old women under your care, yon have been a real Guardian to us, and saved the life of many of your contemporaries. In short, we all of us beg leave to subscribe ourselves, most venerable Nestor, your humble servants and sisters.' I-am very well pleased with this approbation of my good sisters. I must confess I have always looked on the tucker to be the decus et tu tamen,* the ornament and defence, of the female | composition, which may be imputed to inadver. neck. My good old lady, the lady Lizard, con- tency, or to the imperfection of human nature, demned this fashion from the beginning, and The truth of it is, there can be no more a perhas observed to me, with some concern, that fect work in the world, than a perfect man. To her sex, at the same time they are letting down say of a celebrated piece, that there are faults their stays, are tucking up their petticoats, in it, is in effect to say no more, than that the which grow shorter and shorter every day. author of it was a man. For this reason, I conThe leg discovers itself in proportion with the sider every critic that attacks an author in high neck. But I may possibly take another occa. reputation, as the slave in the Roman triumph, sion of handling this extremity, it being my who was to call out to the conqueror, Remem. design to keep a watchful eye over every part ber, sir, that you are a man.' I speak this in of the female sex, and to regulate them from relation to the following letter, which criticises head to foot. In the mean time I shall fill up the works of a great poct, whose very faults my paper with a letter which comes to me from have more beauty in them than the most elabo. another of my obliged correspondents. rate compositions of many more correct writers. The remarks are very curious and just, and in, troduced by a compliment to the work of an author, who I am sure would not care for being praised at the expense of another's reputation. I must therefore desire my correspondent to ex. cuse me, if I do not publish either the preface or conclusion of his letter, but only the critical part of it. DEAR GUARDEE,-This comes to you from one of those untuckered ladies whom you were so sharp upon on Monday was se'nnight. I think myself mightily beholden to you for the reprehension you then gave us. You must know I am a famous olive beauty. But though this complexion makes a very good face when there are a couple of black sparkling eyes set in it, it makes but a very indifferent neck. Your fair women, therefore, thought of this fashion to insult the olives and the brunettes. They know very well, that a neck of ivory does not make so fine a show as one of alabaster. It is for this reason, Mr. Ironside, that they are so liberal in their discoveries. We know very well, that a woman of the whitest neck in the world, is to you no more than a woman of snow; but Ovid, in Mr. Duke's translation of him, seems to look upon it with another eye, when he talks of Corinna, and mentions As Dryden's Cleomenes is acquainted with the "I am pleas'd with my own work; Jove was not more 'I have now Mr. Dryden's Don Sebastian before me, in which I find frequent allusions to ancient history, and the old mythology of the heathen. It is not very natural to suppose & king of Portugal would be borrowing thoughts out of Ovid's Metamorphoses when he talked even to those of his own court; but to allude to these Roman fables when he talks to an empe. ror of Barbary, seems very extraordinary. But observe how he defies him out of the classics, in the following lines: "Why didst not thou engage me man to man, And try the virtue of that Gorgon face To tare me into statue ?" Almeyda, at the same time, is more book. learned than Don Sebastian. She plays a hydra upon the emperor that is full as good as the Gorgon. "O that I had the fruitful heads of hydra, 'She afterwards, in allusion to Hercules, bids him "lay down the lion's skin, and take the distaff;" and in the following speech utters her passion still more learnedly, "No! were we join'd, even tho' it were in death, The emperor of Barbary shows himself acquainted with the Roman poets as well as either of his prisoners, and answers the foregoing speech in the same classic strain: "Serpent, I will engender poison with thee; Our offspring, like the seed of dragons' teeth, Shall issue arm'd, and fight themselves to death." 'Ovid seems to have been Muley Molock's favourite author, witness the lines that follow: "She still inexorable, still imperious And loud, as if, like Bacchus, born in thunder." I shall conclude my remarks on his part with that poetical complaint of his being in love, and leave my reader to consider how prettily it would sound in the mouth of an emperor of Mo rocco: "The god of love once more has shot his fires Into my soul, and my whole heart receives him." Muley Zeydan is as ingenious a man as his brother Muley Molock; as where he hints at the story of Castor and Pollux: "May we ne'er meet! For like the twins of Leda, when I mount, As for the mufti, we will suppose that he was bred up a scholar, and not only versed in the law of Mahomet, but acquainted with all kinds of polite learning. For this reason, he is not at all surprised when Dorax calls him a Phaeton in one place, and in another tells him he is like Archimedes. The mufti afterwards mentions Ximenes, Albornoz, and cardinal Wolsey by name. The poet seems to think he may make every person in his play know as much as himself, and talk as well as he could have done on the same occasion. At least I believe every reader will agree with me, that the above-mentioned sentiments, to which I might have added several others, would have been better suited to the court of Augustus, than that of Muley Molock. I grant they are beautiful in themselves, and much more so in that noble language which was peculiar to this great poet. I only observe that they are improper for the persons who make use of them. Dryden is, indeed, gene. rally wrong in his sentiments. Let any one read the dialogue between Octavia and Cleopatra, and he will be amazed to hear a Roman lady's mouth filled with such obscene raillery. If the virtuous Octavia departs from her character, the loose Dolabella is no less inconsist ent with himself, when, all of a sudden, he drops the pagan, and talks in the sentiments of revealed religion. "Heaven has but Our sorrow for our sins, and then delights But here, some captain of the land or fleet, I AM very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves, and useful to the world. The greatest part of our British youth lose their figure, and grow out of fashion by that time they are five-andtwenty. As soon as the natural gayety and amiableness of the young man wears off, they have nothing left to recommend them, but lie by the rest of their lives among the lumber and refuse of the species. It sometimes happens, indeed, that for want of applying themselves in due time to the pursuits of knowledge, they take up a book in their declining years, and grow very hopeful scholars by that time they are threescore. I must, therefore, earnestly press my readers, who are in the flower of their youth, to labour at those accomplishments which may set off their persons when their bloom is gone, and to lay in timely provisions for manhood and old age. In short, I would advise the youth of fifteen to be dressing up every day the man of fifty, or to consider how to make himself venerable at threescore. Young men, who are naturally ambitious, would do well to observe how the greatest men of antiquity made it their ambition to excel all their contemporaries in knowledge. Julius Cæsar and Alexander, the most celebrated in. stances of human greatness, took a particular care to distinguish themselves by their skill in the arts and sciences. We have still extant several remains of the former, which justify the character given of him by the learned men of his own age. As for the latter, it is a known saying of his, that he was more obliged to Aristotle, who had instructed him, than to Philip, who had given him life and empire. There is a letter of his recorded by Plutarch and Aulus Gelius, which he wrote to Aristotle upon hearing that he had published those lectures he had given him in private. This letter was written in the following words, at a time when he was in the height of his Persian conquests. • Alexander to Aristotle, greeting. You have not done well to publish your 'I might show several faults of the same nature in the celebrated Aureng Zebe. The impropriety of thoughts in the speeches of the great mogul and his empress has been gene-books of Select Knowledge; for what is there |