priesthood, which is now become the scorn of world is in the right in this natural judgment, fools. That a numerous order of men should it is not generally so in the distribution of parbe consecrated to the study of the most sublime ticular persons under their respective denomiand beneficial truths, with a design to propagate nations. It is a clear settled point, that the them by their discourses and writings, to in- gentleman should be preferred to the mechanic. form their fellow-creatures of the being and But who is the gentleman, and who the mechaattributes of the Deity, to possess their minds nic, wants to be explained. with the sense of a future state, and not only to explain the nature of every virtue and moral duty, but likewise to persuade mankind to the practice of them by the most powerful and engaging motives, is a thing so excellent and necessary to the well-being of the world, that nobody but a modern free-thinker could have the forehead or folly to turn it into ridicule.

The light in which these points should be exposed to the view of one who is prejudiced against the names, religion, church, priest, and the like, is to consider the clergy as so many philosophers, the churches as schools, and their sermons as lectures, for the information and improvement of the audience. How would the heart of Socrates or Tully have rejoiced, had they lived in a nation where the law had made provision for philosophers to read lectures of morality and theology every seventh day, in several thousands of schools erected at the public charge throughout the whole country; at which lectures all ranks and sexes, without distinction, were obliged to be present for their general improvement ! And what wicked wretches would they think those men who would endeavour to defeat the purpose of so

divine an institution?

It is indeed usual with that low tribe of writers, to pretend their design is only to reform the church, and expose the vices, and not the order of the clergy. The author of a pamphlet printed the other day, (which, without my mentioning the title, will, on this occasion, occur to the thoughts of those who have read it) hopes to insinuate by that artifice what he is afraid or ashamed openly to maintain. But there are two points which clearly show what it is he aims at. The first is, that he constantly uses the word priests in such a manner, as that his reader cannot but observe he means to throw an odium on the clergy of the church of England, from their being called by a name which they enjoy in common with heathens and impostors. The other is, his raking together and exaggerating, with great spleen and industry, all those actions of churchmen, which, either by their own illness, or the bad light in which he places them, tend to give men an ill impression of the dispensers of the gospel; all which he pathetically addresses to the consideration of his wise and honest countrymen of the laity. The sophistry and ill-breeding of these proceedings are so obvious to men who have any pretence to that oharacter, that I need say no more either of them or their author.

The philosophers distinguish two parts in human nature; the rational, and the animal. Now, if we attend to the reason of the thing, we shall find it difficult to assign a more just and adequate idea of these distinct species, than by defining the gentleman to be him whose occupation lies in the exertion of his rational faculties; and the mechanic, him who is employed in the use of his animal parts, or the organic parts of his body.

The concurring assent of the world, in preferring gentlemen to mechanics, seems founded in that preference which the rational part of our nature is entitled to above the animal; when we consider it in itself, as it is the seat of wisdom and understanding, as it is pure and immortal, and as it is that which, of all the known works of the creation, bears the brightest impress of the Deity.

It claims the same dignity and pre-eminence, if we consider it with respect to its object. Mechanical motives or operations are confined to a narrow circle of low and little things: whereas, reason inquires concerning the nature of intellectual beings, the great Author of our existence, its end, and the proper methods of attaining it. Or, in case that noble faculty submit itself to nearer objects, it is not, like the organic powers, confined to a slow and painful manner of action; but shifts the scenes, and applies itself to the most distant objects with incredible ease and despatch. Neither are the operations of the mind, like those of the hands, limited to one individual object, but at once extended to a whole species.

And as we have shown the intellectual powers to be nobler than those of motion, both in their own nature, and in regard to their object, the same will still hold if we consider their of fice. It is the province of the former to preside and direct; of the latter, to execute and obey. Those who apply their hands to the materials, appear the immediate builders of an edifice; but the beauty and proportion of it is owing to the architect, who designed the plan in his closet. And in like manner, whatever there is either in art or nature of use or regularity, will be found to proceed from the superior principle of reason and understanding. These reflec tions, how obvious soever, do nevertheless, seem not sufficiently attended to by those who, being at great pains to improve the figure and motions of the body, neglect the culture of the mind.

From the premises it follows, that a man may descend from an ancient family, wear fine The inhabitants of the earth may properly clothes, and be master of what is commonly be ranged under the two general heads of gen-called good-breeding, and yet not merit the tlemen and mechanics. This distinction arises name of gentleman. All those whose principal from the different occupations wherein they accomplishments consist in the exertion of the exert themselves. The former of these species mechanic powers, whether the organ made use is universally acknowledged to be more honour-of be the eye, the muscles of the face, the fingers, able than the other, who are looked upon as a feet, or any other part, are in the eye of reason base and inferior order of men. But if the to be esteemed mechanics.

I do therefore, by these presents, declare, that all men and women, by what title soever distinguished, whose occupation it is either to ogle with the eye, flirt with the fan, dress, cringe, adjust the muscles of the face, or other parts of the body, are degraded from the rank of gentry; which is from this time forward appropriated to those who employ the talents of the mind in the pursuit of knowledge and practice of virtue, and are content to take their places as they are distinguished by moral and intellectual accomplishments.

The rest of the human species come under the appellation of mechanics, with this difference, that the professed mechanics, who, not pretending to be gentlemen, contain themselves within their proper sphere, are necessary to the well-being of mankind, and consequently should be more respected in a well-regulated commonwealth, than those mechanics who make a merit of being useless.

THERE are two sorts of persons within the consideration of my frontispiece; the first are the mighty body of lingerers, persons who do not indeed employ their time criminally, but are such pretty innocents, who, as the poet says,

waste away

In gentle inactivity the day.

The others being something more vivacious, are such as do not only omit to spend their time well, but are in the constant pursuit of criminal satisfactions. Whatever the divine may think, the case of the first seems to be the most deplorable, as the habit of sloth is more invincible than that of vice. The first is preferred, even when the man is fully possessed of himself, and submitted to with constant deliberation and cool thought. The other we are driven into generally through the heat of wine, or youth, which Mr. Hobbes calls a natural drunkenness; and therefore consequently are more excusable for any errors committed during the deprivation or Having hitherto considered the human species suspension of our reason, than in the possession as distinguished into gentlemen and mechanics, of it. The irregular starts of vicious appetites I come now to treat of the machines; a sort of are in time destroyed by the gratification of beings that have the outside or appearance of them; but a well-ordered life of sloth receives men, without being really such. The free- daily strength from its continuance. 'I went thinkers have often declared to the world, that (says Solomon) by the field of the slothful, and they are not actuated by any incorporeal being the vineyard of the man void of understanding; or spirit; but that all the operations they exert, and lo! it was all grown over with thorns, and proceed from the collision of certain corpuscles, nettles had covered the face thereof, and the endued with proper figures and motions. It is stone wall thereof was broken down.' To raise now a considerable time that I have been their the image of this person, the same author adds, proselyte in this point. I am even so far con-The slothful man hideth his hand in his bovinced that they are in the right, that I shall attempt proving it to others.

The mind being itself invisible, there is no other way to discern its existence, than by the effects which it produceth. Where design, order, and symmetry, are visible in the effects, we conclude the cause to be an intelligent being; but where nothing of these can be found, we ascribe the effect to hazard, necessity, or the like. Now I appeal to any one who is conversant in the modern productions of our freethinkers, if they do not look rather like effects of chance, or at best of mechanism, than of a thinking principle, and consequently, whether the authors of those rhapsodies are not mere machines.

som, and it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth.' If there were no future account expected of spending our time, the immediate inconvenience that attends a life of idleness should of itself be persuasion enough to the men of sense to avoid it. I say to the men of sense, because there are of these that give in to it, and for these chiefly is this paper designed. Arguments drawn from future rewards and punishments, are things too remote for the consideration of stubborn sanguine youth. They are af fected by such only as propose immediate pleasure or pain; as the strongest persuasive to the children of Israel was a land flowing with milk and honey. I believe I may say there is more toil, fatigue, and uneasiness in sloth, than can be found in any employment a man will put himself upon. When a thoughtful man is once fixed this way, spleen is the necessary consequence. This directs him instantly to the contemplation of his health or circumstances, which must ever be found extremely bad upon these melancholy inquiries.

The same point is likewise evident from their own assertion; it being plain that no one could mistake thought for motion, who knew what thought was. For these reasons, I do hereby give it in charge to all Christians, that hereafter they speak of free-thinkers in the neuter gender, using the term it for him. They are to be considered as automata, made up of bones and muscles, nerves, arteries, and animal spirits; not so innocent, indeed, but as destitute of thought and reason, as those little machines which the excellent author from whom I take the motto of this paper, has so elegantly de-culty or other, which to his imagination is as scribed.

If he has any common business upon his hands, numberless objections arise, that make the despatch of it impossible; and he cries out with Solomon, There is a lion in the way, a lion in the streets; that is, there is some diffi

invincible as a lion really would be. The man, on the contrary, that applies himself to books, or business, contracts a cheerful confidence in all his undertakings, from the daily improvements of his knowledge or fortune, and instead of giving himself up to

'Thick-ey'd musing cursed melancholy,'

Shakspeare.

of the above-mentioned misfortunes, employs himself with much alacrity in the following method. Being vehemently disposed to loquacity, he has a person constantly with him, to whom he gives an annual pension for no other merit but being very attentive, and never interrupting him by question and answer, whatever he may utter that may seemingly require it. To secure to himself discourse, his fundamental maxim seems to be, by no means to consider what he is going to say. He delivers therefore every thought as it first intrudes itself upon him, and then, with all the freedom you could wish, will examine it, and rally the imperti nence, or evince the truth of it. In short, he took the same pleasure in confuting himself, as he could have done in discomfiting an opponent: and his discourse was as that of two persons at. tacking each other with exceeding warmth, incoherence, and good-nature. There is another, whom I have seen in the park, employing himself with the same industry, though not with the same innocence. He is very dexterous in

has that constant life in his visage and conversation, which the idle splenetic man borrows sometimes from the sunshine, exercise, or an agreeable friend. A recluse idle sobriety must be attended with more bitter remorse, than the most active debauchery can at any intervals be molested with. The rake, if he is a cautious manager, will allow himself very little time to examine his own conduct, and will bestow as few reflections upon himself, as the lingerer does upon any thing else, unless he has the misfortune to repent. I repeat, the misfortune to repent, because I have put the great day of account out of the present case, and am now inquiring, not whose life is most irreligious, but most inconvenient. A gentleman that has formerly been a very eminent lingerer, and something splenetic, informs me, that in one winter he drank six hampers of Spa water, several gallons of chalybeate tincture, two hogsheads of bitters, at the rate of sixty pounds a hogshead, laid one hundred and fifty infallible schemes, in every one of which he was disappointed, received a thousand affronts during the north-taking flies, and fixing one at each end of a easterly winds, and in short, run through more horse hair, which his perriwig supplies him misery and expense than the most meritorious with. He hangs them over a little stick, which bravo could boast of. Another tells me, that he suspension inclines them immediately to war fell into this way at the university, where the upon each other, there being no possibility of youth are too apt to be lulled into a state of such retreat. From the frequent attention of his eyes tranquillity as prejudices them against the bus- to these combats, he perceives the several turns tle of that worldly business, for which this part and advantages of the battle, which are altogeof their education should prepare them. As he ther invisible to a common spectator. I the could with the utmost secrecy be idle in his other day found him in the enjoyment of a couown chamber, he says he was for some years ple of gigantic blue-bottles, which were hung irrecoverably sunk, and immersed in the luxury out and embattled in the aforesaid warlike apof an easy-chair, though at the same time, in pointments. That I might enter into the secret the general opinion, he passed for a hard stu- shocks of this conflict, he lent me a magnifying dent. During this lethargy, he had some inter-glass, which presented me with an engagement vals of application to books, which rather aggra- between two of the most rueful monsters I have vated than suspended the painful thoughts of a ever read of even in romance. misspent life. Thus his supposed relief became If we cannot bring ourselves to appoint and his punishment, and, like the damned in Mil-perform such tasks as would be of considerable ton, upon their conveyance at certain revolu- advantage to us, let us resolve upon some other, tions from fire to ice, however trifling, to be performed at appointed times. By this we may gain a victory over a wandering unsettled mind, and by this regulation of the impulse of our wills, may in time make them obedient to the dictates of our reason.

He felt by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.' When he had a mind to go out, he was so scrupulous as to form some excuse or other, which the idle are ever provided with, and could not satisfy himself without this ridiculous ap- When I am disposed to treat of the irreligion pearance of justice. Sometimes by his own con- of an idle life, it shall be under this head, peretrivance and insinuation, the woman that look-unt et imputantur: which is an inscription upon ed after his chamber would convince him of the a sun-dial in one of the inns of court, and is necessity of washing his room, or any other matter of the like joyous import, to which he always submitted, after having decently opposed it, and made his exit with much seeming reluctance and inward delight. Thus did he pass the noon of his life in the solitude of a monk, and the guilt of a libertine. He is since awakened, by application, out of slumber; has no more spleen than a Dutchman, who, as sir W. Temple observes, is not delicate or idle enough to suffer from this enemy, but is always well when he is not ill, always pleased when he is not angry.'

There is a gentleman I have seen at a coffeehouse, near the place of my abode, who having a pretty good estate, and a disinclination to books or business, to secure himself from some

with great propriety placed to public view in such a place, where the inhabitants being in an everlasting hurry of business or pleasure, the busy may receive an innocent admonition to keep their appointments, and the idle a dreadful one not to keep theirs.

August 10, 1713. 'MR. IRONSIDE,—I am obliged to you for in serting my letter concerning the demolition of Dunkirk in your paper of the seventh instant: but you will find, upon perusal, that you have printed the word three where you should have printed the word two; which I desire you would amend by inserting the whole paragraph, and that which immediately follows it, in your very next paper. The paragraph runs thus: