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off legs, as well as draw teeth? The particularity of this man put me into a deep thought, whence it should proceed, that of all the lower order, barbers should go further in hitting the ridiculous than any other set of men. Watermen brawl, cobblers sing but why must a barber be for ever a politician, a musician, an anatomist, a poet, and a physician? The learned Vossius" says his barber used to comb his head in Iambics. And indeed, in all ages, one of this useful profession, this order of cosmetic philosophers, has been celebrated by the most 10 eminent hands. You see the barber in Don Quixote is one of the principal characters in the history; which gave me satisfaction in the doubt, why Don Saltero writ his name with a Spanish termination": for he is descended in a right line, not from John Tradescant", as he himself asserts, but from that memorable companion of the knight of Mancha. And I hereby certify all the worthy citizens who travel to see his rarities, that his double-barrelled pistols, targets, coats of mail, his Sclopeta and sword of Toledo, were left to his ancestor by the said Don Quixote, and by the said ancestor to all his progeny down to 20 Don Saltero. Though I go thus far in favour of Don Saltero's great merit, I cannot allow a liberty he takes of imposing several names (without my licence) on the collections he has made, to the abuse of the good people of England; one of which is particularly calculated to deceive religious persons, to the great scandal of the well-disposed, and may introduce heterodox opinions. He shows you a straw-hat, which I know to be made by Madge Peskad, within three miles of Bedford; and tells you, 'It is Pontius Pilate's wife's chambermaid's sister's hat.' To my knowledge of this very hat it may be 30 added, that the covering of straw was never used among the Jews, since it was demanded of them to make bricks without it. Therefore this is really nothing but, under the specious pretence of learning and antiquities, to impose upon the world. There are other things which I cannot tolerate among his rarities: as, the china figure of a lady in the glass-case; the Italian engine for the imprisonment of those who go abroad with it: both which I hereby order to be taken down, or else he may expect to have his letters patent for making punch superseded, be debarred wearing his muff" next winter, or ever coming to 40 London without his wife". It may perhaps be thought, I have

dwelt too long upon the affairs of this operator; but I desire the reader to remember, that it is my way to consider men as they stand in merit, and not according to their fortune or figure; and if he is in a coffee-house at the reading hereof, let him look round, and he will find, there may be more characters drawn in this account than that of Don Saltero; for half the politicians about him, he may observe, are by their place in nature, of the class of tooth-drawers.

Tatler, No. 34.]

[June 28, 1709.

No. 119. On the Indian Kings.

Alter rixatur de lana sæpe caprina,

Propugnat nugis armatus.-HOR. Ep. i. 18. 15.

It hath happened to be for some days the deliberation at the 10 learnedest board in this house, whence honour and title had its first original. Timoleon, who is very particular in his opinion, but is thought particular for no other cause but that he acts against depraved custom by the rules of nature and reason, in a very handsome discourse gave the company to understand, that in those ages which first degenerated from the simplicity of life and natural justice, the wise among them thought it necessary to inspire men with the love of virtue, by giving those who adhered to the interests of innocence and truth some distinguishing name to raise them above the common level of man20 kind. This way of fixing appellations of credit upon eminent merit, was what gave being to titles and terms of honour. 'Such a name,' continued he, 'without the qualities which should give a man pretence to be exalted above others, does but turn him to jest and ridicule. Should one see another cudgelled, or scurvily treated, do you think a man so used would take it kindly to be called Hector or Alexander? Every thing must bear a proportion with the outward value that is set upon it; or, instead of being long had in veneration, that very term of esteem will become a word of reproach.' When Timoleon had

done speaking, Urbanus pursued the same purpose, by giving an account of the manner in which the Indian kings", who were lately in Great Britain, did honour to the person where they lodged. 'They were placed,' said he, ‘in a handsome apartment at an upholsterer's in King-street, Covent-garden". The man of the house, it seems, had been very observant of them, and ready in their service. These just and generous princes, who act according to the dictates of natural justice, thought it proper to confer some dignity upon their landlord before they 10 left his house. One of them had been sick during his residence there, and having never before been in a bed, had a very great veneration for him who made that engine of repose, so useful and so necessary in his distress. It was consulted among the four princes, by what name to dignify his great merit and services. The emperor of the Mohocks and the other three kings stood up, and in that posture recounted the civilities they had received; and particularly repeated the care which was taken of their sick brother. This, in their imagination, who are used to know the injuries of weather, and the vicissitudes of 20 cold and heat, gave them very great impressions of a skilful upholsterer, whose furniture was so well contrived for their protection on such occasions. It is with these less instructed, I will not say less knowing people, the manner of doing honour, to impose some name significant of the qualities of the person they distinguish, and the good offices received from him. It was therefore resolved to call their landlord Cadaroque, which is the name of the strongest fort in their part of the world. When they had agreed upon the name, they sent for their landlord; and as he entered into their presence, the emperor of the 30 Mohocks, taking him by the hand, called him Cadaroque. After which the other three princes repeated the same word and ceremony.'

Timoleon appeared much satisfied with this account; and, having a philosophic turn, began to argue against the modes and manners of those nations which we esteem polite, and to express himself with disdain at our usual method of calling such as are strangers to our innovations barbarous. I have,' says he, 'so great a difference for the distinction given by these princes, that Cadaroque shall be my upholsterer-.' He was 40 going on; but the intended discourse was interrupted by

Minucio, who sat near him, a small philosopher, who is also somewhat of a politician; one of those who sets up for knowledge by doubting, and has no other way of making himself considerable, but by contradicting all he hears said. He has, besides much doubt and spirit of contradiction, a constant suspicion as to state affairs. This accomplished gentleman, with a very awful brow, and a countenance full of weight, told Timoleon, 'that it was a great misfortune men of letters seldom looked into the bottom of things. Will any man,' continued he, 10' persuade me, that this was not, from the beginning to the end, a 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 Kingstreet, 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; 20 nevertheless, Ho Nec Yeth Taw No Row knew it before he set foot on the English shore.'

Timoleon looked stedfastly 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 pardon,' says Minucio; 'when we say a place is so far off, we do not mean exactly from the very spot of earth we are in, but from the town where we are; so 30 that you must begin your account from the end of Piccadilly; and if you do so, I will lay any man ten to one, it is not above three good miles off.' Another, about Minucio's level of understanding, began to take him up in this important argument; and maintained, that, considering the way from Pimlico at the end of St. James's-park, and the crossing from Chelsea by Earl's-court, he would stand to it that it was full four miles. But Minucio replied with great vehemence, and seemed so much to have the better of the dispute, that his adversary quitted the field, as well as the other. I sat until I saw the table almost all 40 vanished; when, for want of discourse, Minucio asked me,

'How I did?' to which I answered, 'Very well.' 'That is very much,' said he ; 'I assure you, you look paler than ordinary.' Nay, thought I, if he will not allow me to know whether I am well or not, there is no staying for me neither. Upon which I took my leave, pondering, as I went home, at this strange poverty of imagination, which makes men run into the fault of giving contradiction. They want in their minds entertainment for themselves or their company, and therefore build all they speak upon what is started by others; and since they cannot im10 prove 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.

Tatler, No. 171.]

[May 13, 1710.

No. 120. On a Trial of Skill at Hockley-in-the-Hole.

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Being a person of insatiable curiosity, I could not forbear 20 going on Wednesday last to a place of no small renown for the gallantry of the lower order of Britons, namely, to the Beargarden, at Hockley-in-the-Hole" where (as a whitish-brown paper, put into my hands in the street, informed me) there was to be a trial of skill exhibited between two masters of the noble science of defence, at two of the clock precisely. I was not a little charmed with the solemnity of the challenge, which ran thus:

'I, James Miller ", serjeant (lately come from the frontiers of Portugal) master of the noble science of defence, hearing in

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