an unworthy behaviour degrades and disennobles a man in the eye of the world as much as birth and family aggrandize and exalt him. The second are those who believe a new man of an elevated merit is not more to be honoured than an insignificant and worthless man who is descended from a long line of patriots and heroes: or, in other words, behold with contempt a person who is such a man as the first founder of their family was, upon whose reputation they value themselves. · But I shall chiefly apply myself to those whose quality sits uppermost in all their discourses and behaviour. An empty man of a great family is a creature that is scarce conversible. You read his ancestry in his smile, in his air, in his eyebrow. He has indeed nothing but his nobility to give employment to his thoughts. Rank and precedency are the important points which he is always discussing within himself. A gentleman of this turn began a speech in one of king Charles's parliaInents: Sir, I had the honour to be born at a time'-upon which a rough honest gentleman took him up short, I would fain know what that gentleman means; is there any one in the house that has not had the honour to be born as well as himself?" The good sense which reigns in our nation has pretty well destroyed this starched behaviour among men who have seen the world, and know that every gentleman will be treated upon a foot of equality. But there are many who have had their education among women, dependants, or flatterers, that lose all the respect which would otherwise be paid them, by being too assiduous in procuring it. Martha conversed generally with a knot of old virgins, who were likewise of good families, and had been very cruel all the beginning of the last century. They were every one of them as proud as Lucifer; but said their prayers twice a day, and in all other respects were the best women in the world. If they saw a fine petti. coat at church, they immediately took to pieces the pedigree of her that wore it, and would lift up their eyes to heaven at the confidence of the saucy minx, when they found she was an honest tradesman's daughter. It is impossible to describe the pious indignation that would rise in them at the sight of a man who lived plentifully on an estate of his own getting. They were transported with zeal beyond measure, if they heard of a young woman's matching into a great family upon account only of her beauty, her merit, or her money. In short, there was not a female within ten miles of them that was in possession of a gold watch, a pearl necklace, or piece of Mechlin lace, but they examined her title to it. My aunt Martha used to chide me very frequently for not sufficiently valuing my. self. She would not eat a bit all dinner-time, if at an invitation she found she had been seated below herself; and would frown upon me for an hour together, if she saw me give place to any man under a baronet. As I was once talking to her of a wealthy citizen whom she had refused in her youth, she declared to me with great warmth, that she preferred a man of quality in his shirt to the richest man upon the Change in a coach and six. She pretended that our family was nearly related by the mother's side to half a dozen peers; but as none of them knew any thing of the matter, we always kept it as a secret among ourselves. A little before her death she was reciting to me the history of my forefathers; but dwelling a little longer than ordinary upon the actions of sir Gilbert Ironside, who had a horse shot under him at Edgehillfight, I gave an unfortunate pish, and asked, My lord Froth has been so educated in punctilio, that he governs himself by a ceremonial in all the ordinary occurrences of life. He measures out his bow to the degree of the person he converses with. I have seen him in every inclination of the body, from a familiar nod, to the low stoop in the salutation sign. I remem-What was all this to me?' Upon which she ber five of us, who were acquainted with one another, met together one morning at his lodgings, when a wag of the company was saying, it would be worth while to observe how he would distinguish us at his first entrance. Accordingly he no sooner came into the room, but casting his eye about, My lord such a one,' says he, 'your most humble servant. Sir Richard, your humble servant. Your servant, Mr. Ironside. Mr. Ducker, how do you do? Ha, Frank, are you there!' There is nothing more easy than to discover a man whose heart is full of his family. Weak minds that have imbibed a strong tincture of the nursery, younger brothers that have been brought up to nothing, superannuated retainers to a great house, have generally their thoughts taken up with little else. I had, some years ago, an aunt of my own, by name Mrs. Martha Ironside, who would never marry beneath herself, and is supposed to have died a maid in the eightieth year of her age. She was the chronicle of our family, and past away the greatest part of the last forty years of her life in recounting the antiquity, marriages, exploits, and alliances of the Ironsides. Mrs. retired to her closet, and fell a scribbling for three hours together, in which time, as I afterwards found, she struck me out of her will, and left all she had to my sister Margaret, a wheedling baggage, that used to be asking questions about her great-grandfather from morning to night. She now lies buried among the family of the Ironsides, with a stone over her, acquainting the reader, that she died at the age of eighty years, a spinster, and that she was descended of the ancient family of the Ironsides; after which follows the genealogy drawn up by her own hand. pleases him, and almost every paper has some | particular set of men for its advocates. Instead of seeing the number of my papers every day increasing, they would quickly lie as a drug upon my hands, did not I take care to keep up the appetite of my guests, and quicken it from time to time by something new and unexpected. In short, I endeavour to treat my reader in the same manner as Eve does the angel in that beautiful description of Milton : 'So saying, with despatchful looks in haste Fifth Book. If by this method I can furnish out a Splendida furrago, according to the compliment lately paid me in a fine poem, published among the exercises of the last Oxford act, I have gained the end which I proposed to myself. In my yesterday's paper, I showed how the actions of our ancestors and forefathers should excite us to every thing that is great and virtu ous. I shall here observe, that a regard to our posterity, and those who are to descend from us, ought to have the same kind of influence on a generous mind. A noble soul would rather die than commit an action that should make his children blush when he is in his grave, and be looked upon as a reproach to those who shall live a hundred years after him. On the contrary, nothing can be a more pleasing thought to a man of eminence, than to consider that his posterity, who lie many removes from him, shall make their boasts of his virtues, and be honoured for his sake. Virgil represents this consideration as an incentive of glory to Eneas, when after having shown him the race of heroes who were to descend from him, Anchises adds with a noble warmth, Since I have mentioned this passage in Virgil, where Æneas was entertained with the view of his great descendants, I cannot forbear observing a particular beauty, which I do not know that any one has taken notice of. The list which he has there drawn up was in general to do honour to the Roman name, but more particularly to compliment Augustus. For this reason Anchises, who shows Eneas most of the rest of his descendants in the same order that they were to make their appearance in the world, breaks his method for the sake of Augustus, whom he singles out immediately after having mentioned Romulus, as the most illus trious person who was to rise in that empire which the other had founded. He was impatient to describe his posterity raised to the utmost pitch of glory, and therefore passes over all the rest to come at this great man, whom by this means he implicitly represents as making the most conspicuous figure among them. By this artifice the poet did not only give his emperor the greatest praise he could bestow upon him; but hindered his reader from drawing a parallel which would have been disadvantageous to him, had he been celebrated in his proper place, that is, after Pompey and Cæsar, who each of them eclipsed the other in military glory. Though there have been finer things spoken of Augustus than of any other man, all the wits of his age having tried to outrival one another on that subject; he never received a compliment, which, in my opinion, can be compared, for sublimity of thought, to that which the poet here makes him. The English reader may see a faint shadow of it in Mr. Dryden's translation, for the original is inimitable. 'But next behold the youth of form divine, Beyond the solar year, without the starry way, Nor Hercules more lands or labours knew, I could show out of other poets the same kind of vision as this in Virgil, wherein the chief persons of the poem have been entertained with the sight of those who were to descend from them: but instead of that I shall conclude with a rabbinical story which has in it the oriental way of thinking, and is therefore very amusing. Adam, say the rabbins, a little after his creation, was presented with a view of all those souls who were to be united to human bodies, and take their turn after him upon the earth. Among others the vision set before him the soul of David. Our great ancestor was transported at the sight of so beautiful an apparition; but to his unspeakable grief was informed, that it was not to be conversant among men the space of one year. 'Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra Esse sinent' En. vi. 869. This youth (the blissful vision of a day) Shall just be shown on earth, and snatch'd away.' Dryden. Adam, to procure a longer life for so fine a piece of human nature, begged that three-score and ten years (which he heard would be the age of man in David's time) might be taken | ed veracity. It is the famous story of Androout of his own life, and added to that of David. cles the Roman slave, which I premise for the Accordingly, say the rabbins, Adam falls short sake of my learned reader, who needs go no of a thousand years, which was to have been farther in it, if he has read it already. the complete term of his life, by just so many years as make up the life of David. Adam having lived nine hundred and thirty years, and David seventy. This story was invented to show the high opinion which the rabbins entertained of this man after God's own heart, whom the prophet, who was his own contemporary, could not mention without rapture, where he records the last poetical composition of David, 'of David, the son of Jesse, of the man who was raised up on high, of the anointed of the God of Jacob, of the sweet psalmist of Israel.' No. 139.] Thursday, August 20, 1713. -prisca fides facto, sed fama perennis. Virg. En. ix. 79. -The fact, through length of time obscure, Is hard to faith: yet shall the same endure. Dryden. 'MOST VENERABLE NESTOR,-I find that every body is very much delighted with the voice of your lion. His roarings against the tucker have been most melodious and emphatical. It is to be hoped, that the ladies will take warning by them, and not provoke him to greater outrages; for I observe, that your lion, as you yourself have told us, is made up of mouth and paws. For my own part, I have long considered with myself how I might express my gratitude to this noble animal that has so much the good of our country at his heart. After many thoughts on this subject, I have at length resolved to do honour to him, by compiling a history of his species, and extracting out of all authors whatever may redound to his reputation. In the prosecution of this design, I shall have no manner of regard to what Æsop has said upon the subject, whom I look upon to have been a republican, by the unworthy treatment which he often gives to the king of beasts, and whom, if I had time, I could convict of falsehood and forgery, in almost every matter of fact which he has related of this generous animal. Your romance writers are likewise a set of men whose authority I shall build upon very little in this case. They all of them are born with a particular antipathy to lions, and give them no more quarter than they do giants, wherever they chance to meet them. There is not one of the seven champions, but when he has nothing else to do, encounters with a lion, and you may be sure always gets the better of him. In short, a knight errant lives in a perpetual state of enmity with this noble creature, and hates him more than all things upon the earth, except a dragon. Had the stories recorded of them by these writers been true, the whole species would have been destroyed before now. After having thus renounced all fabulous authorities, I shall begin my memoirs of the lion with a story related of him by Aulus Gellius, and extracted by him out of Dion Cassius, a historian of undoubt 'Androcles was the slave of a noble Roman who was proconsul of Afric. He had been guilty of a fault, for which his master would have put him to death, had not he found an opportunity to escape out of his hands, and fled into the deserts of Numidia. As he was wandering among the barren sands, and almost dead with heat and hunger, he saw a cave in the side of a rock. He went into it, and finding at the farther end of it a place to sit down upon, rested there for some time. At length, to his great surprise, a huge overgrown lion entered at the mouth of the cave, and seeing a man at the upper end of it, immediately made towards him. Androcles gave himself for gone; but the lion, instead of treating him as he expected, laid his paw upon his lap, and, with a complaining kind of voice, fell a licking his hand. Androcles, after having recovered himself a little from the fright he was in, observed the lion's paw to be exceedingly swelled by a large thorn that stuck in it. He immediately pulled it out, and by squeezing the paw very gently, made a great deal of corrupt matter run out of it, which probably freed the lion from the great anguish he had felt some time before. The lion left him upon receiving this good office from him, and soon after returned with a fawn which he had just killed. This he laid down at the feet of his benefactor, and went off again in pursuit of his prey. Androcles, after having sodden the flesh of it by the sun, subsisted upon it until the lion had supplied him with another. He lived many days in this frightful solitude, the lion catering for him with great assiduity. Being tired at length with this savage society, he was resolved to deliver himself up into his master's hands, and suffer the worst effects of his displeasure, rather than be thus driven out from mankind. His master, as was customary for the proconsul of Afric, was at that time getting together a present of all the largest lions that could be found in the country, in order to send them to Rome, that they might furnish out a show to the Roman people. Upon his poor slave's surrendering himself into his hands, he ordered him to be carried away to Rome as soon as the lions were in readiness to be sent, and that for his crime he should be exposed to fight with one of the lions in the amphitheatre, as usual, for the diversion of the people. This was all performed accordingly. Androcles, after such a strange run of fortune, was now in the area of the theatre amidst thousands of specta. tors, expecting every moment when his antago nist would come out upon him. At length a huge monstrous lion leaped out from the place where he had been kept hungry for the show He advanced with great rage towards the man, but on a sudden, after having regarded him a little wistfully, fell to the ground, and crept to. wards his feet with all the signs of blandishment and caress. Androcles, after a short pause, discovered that it was his old Numidian friend, and immediately renewed his acquaintance with him. Their mutual congratulations were very surprising to the beholders, who, upon hearing an account of the whole matter from Androcles, | proposes, therefore, that they should imitate ordered him to be pardoned, and the lion to be their great-grandmothers, the Briths or Picts, given up into his possession. Androcles returned and paint the parts of their bodies which are at Rome the civilities which he had received uncovered, with such figures as shall be most from him in the deserts of Afric. Dion Cassius to their fancy. The bosom of the coquette, says, that he himself saw the man leading the says he, may bear the figure of a Cupid, with lion about the streets of Rome, the people every a bow in his hand, and his arrow upon the where gathering about them, and repeating to string. The prude might have a Pallas, with one another, "Hic est leo hospes hominis, hic a shield and gorgon's head. In short, by this est homo medicus leonis." "This is the lion method, he thinks every woman might make who was the man's host, this is the man who very agreeable discoveries of herself, and, at was the lion's physician." IF the same time, show us what she would be at.. But, by my correspondent's good leave, I can by no means consent to spoil the skin of my pretty country women. They could find no colours half so charming as those which are natural to them; and though, like the old Picts, they painted the sun itself upon their bodies, they would still change for the worse, and conceal something more beautiful than what they exhibited. No. 140.] Friday, August 21, 1713. -quibus incendi jam frigidus ævo A sight, might thaw old Priam's frozen age, my I HAVE lately received a letter from an astroroger in Moorfields, which I have read with great satisfaction. He observes to me, that lion at Button's coffee-house was very luckily erected in the very month when the sun was in Leo. He further adds, that upon conversing with the above-mentioned Mr. Button, whose other name he observes is Daniel, (a good omen still with regard to the lion, his cohabitant,) he had discovered the very hour in which the said lion was set up: and that by the help of other lights, which he had received from the said Mr. Button, he had been enabled to calculate the na him in his present good intentions, and that we may act by concert in this matter. Here fol lows the copy of my letter: I shall therefore persist in my first design, and endeavour to bring about the reformation in neck and legs, which I have so long aimed at. Let them but raise their stays and let down their petticoats, and I have done. However, as I will give them space to consider of it, I design this for the last time that my lion shall roar upon the subject during this season, which I give public notice of for the sake of my correspondents, that they may not be at an unnecessary trouble or expense in furnishing me with any informations relating to the tucker before the beginning of next winter, when I may. again resume that point, if I find occasion for it. tivity of the lion. This mysterious philosopher I shall not, however, let it drop without acacquaints me, that the sign of Leo in the hea. quainting my reader, that I have written a letvens immediately precedes that of Virgo, byter to the pope upon it, in order to encourage which, says he, is signified the natural love and friendship the lion bears to virginity; and not only to virginity, but to such matrons likewise as are pure and unspotted; from whence he foretells the good influence which the roarings of my lion are likely to have over the female world, for the purifying of their behaviour, and bettering of their manners. He then proceeds to inform me, that in the most exact astrological schemes, the lion is observed to affect, in a more particular manner, the legs and the neck, as well as to allay the power of the scorpion in those parts which are allotted to that fiery constellation. From hence he very naturally prognosticates, that my lion will meet with great success in the attacks he has made on the untuckered stays and short petticoat; and that, in a few months, there will not be a female bosom or ankle uncovered in Great Britain. He concludes, that by the rules of his art he foresaw five years ago, that both the pope and myself should about this time unite our endea. vours in this particular, and that sundry mutations and revolutions would happen in the female dress. I have another letter by me from a person of a more volatile and airy genius, who, finding this great propension in the fair sex to go uncovered, and thinking it impossible to reclaim them entirely from it, is for compounding the matter with them, and finding out a middle expedient between nakedness and clothing. He 'To Pope Clement the Eighth, Nestor Ironside greeting. DEAR BROTHER,-I have heard with grea' satisfaction, that you have forbidden your priests to confess any woman who appears before them without a tucker, in which you please me well. I do agree with you, that it is impossible for the good man to discharge his office as he ought, who gives an ear to those alluring penitents, that discover their hearts and necks to him at the same time. I am labouring as much as in me lies to stir up the same spirit of modesty among the women of this island, and should be glad we might assist one another in so good a work. In order to it, I desire that you would send me over the length of a Roman lady's neck, as it stood before your late prohibition. We have some here who have necks of one, two, and three feet in length; some that have necks which reach down to their middles, and indeed, some who may be said to be all neck, and no body. I hope, at the same time you observe the stays of your female subjects, that you have also an eye to their petticoats, which rise in this island daily. When the petticoat reaches but to the knee, and the stays fall to the fifth rib (which I hear is to be the standard of each, as it has been lately settled in a junto of the sex,) I will take care to send you one of either of their youth with some regret, when their sort, which I advertise you of beforehand, that minds are turned to more exalted and useful you may not compute the stature of our Eng- speculations. This is admirably expressed in lish women from the length of their garments. the following lines, by an author* whom I have In the mean time I have desired the master of formerly done justice to on the account of his a vessel, who tells me that he shall touch at pastoral poems. Civita Vecchia, to present you with a certain female machine which, I believe, will puzzle your infallibility to discover the use of it. Not to keep you in suspense, it is what we call in this country a hooped petticoat. I shall only beg of you to let me know, whether you find any garment of this nature among all the relics of your female saints, and in particular, whether it was ever worn by any of your twenty thousand virgin martyrs. Yours, usque ad aras, 'NESTOR IRONSIDE I must not dismiss this letter without declaring myself a good Protestant, as I hint in the subscribing part of it. This I think necessary to take notice of, lest I should be accused by an author of unexampled stupidity,* for corresponding with the head of the Romish church. No. 141.] Saturday, August 22, 1713. Frange, miser, calamos, vigilataque prælia dele, Let flames on your unlucky papers prey, 'WIT,' saith the bishop of Rochester in his elegant sermon against the scorner, as it implies a certain uncommon reach and vivacity of thought, is an excellent talent, very fit to be employed in the search of truth, and very capable of assisting us to discern and embrace it.' I shall take leave to carry this observation farther into common life, and remark, that it is a faculty, when properly directed, very fit to recommend young persons to the favour of such patrons, as are generously studious to promote the interest of politeness, and the honour of their country. I am therefore much grieved to hear the frequent complaints of some rising authors, whom I have taken under my guardianship. Since my circumstances will not allow me to give them due encouragement, I must take upon me the person of a philosopher, and make them a present of my advice. I would not have any poet whatsoever, who is not born to five hundred a-year, deliver himself up to wit, but as it is subservient to the improvement of his fortune. This talent is useful in all professions, and should be considered not as a wife, but as an attendant. Let them take an old man's word; the desire of fame grows languid in a few years, and thoughts of ease and convenience erase the fairy images of glory and honour. Even those who have succeeded both in fame and fortune, look back on the petty trifles The writer of the Examiner is here alluded to. In search of wisdom, far from wit I fly; Wit is a harlot beauteous to the eve In whose bewitching arms our early time We waste, and vigour of our youthful prime. But when reflection comes with riper years, And manhood with a thoughtful brow appears, We cast the mistress off to take a wife, And, wed to wisdom, lead a happy life. A passage which happened to me some years ago confirmed several maxims of frugality in my mind. A woollen-draper of my acquaintance, remarkable for his learning and goodnature, pulled out his pocket-book, wherein he showed me at the one end several well chosen tterns of cloth at the mottos, and several other. I, like a we red man, praised both sorts of goods; whereupon he tore out the mottos, and generously gave them to me: but, with great prudence, put up the patterns in his pocket again. I am sensible that any accounts of my own secret history can have but little weight with young men of sanguine expectations. I shall therefore take this opportunity to present my wards with the history of an ancient Greek poet, which was sent me from the library of Fez, and is to be found there in the end of a very ancient manuscript of Homer's works, which was brought by the barbarians from Constantinople. The name of the poet is torn out, nor have the critics yet determined it. I have faithfully translated part of it, and desire that it may be diligently perused by all men who design to live by their wits. I was born at the foot of a certain mountain in Greece, called Parnassus, where the country is remarkably delicious. My mother, while she was with child of me longed for laurel leaves; and as I lay in my cradle, a swarm of bees settled about my mouth, without doing me any injury. These were looked upon as presages of my being a great man; and the early promises, I gave of a quick wit, and lively fancy, confirmed the high opinion my friends had conceived of me. It would be an idle tale to relate the trifling adventures of my youth, until I arrived at my twentieth year. It was then that the love I bore to a beautiful young virgin, with whom I had innocently and familiarly conversed from my childhood, became the pub|lic talk of our village. I was so taken up with my passion, that I entirely neglected all other affairs; and though the daughter of Machaon the physician, and a rich heiress, the daughter of a famous Grecian orator, were offered me in marriage, I peremptorily refused both the matches, and rashly vowed to live and die with the lovely Polyhymnia. In vain did my parents remonstrate to me, that the tradition of her being descended from the gods was too poor a portion for one of my narrow fortunes; that except her fine green-house and garden, she had not one foot of land; and though she should gain * Mr. Ambrose Philips. |