THE GOOD CLERK.

If we repair not still with virtue's hand, Like a citadel being madly raised on sand, It falls, is swallow'd, and not found.

camest thou hither?

Abst. By treacherous intelligence; honest men so, In the way ignorant, through thieves' purlieus go.Are you Son to such a Father?

Send him to his grave then,

Like a white almond tree, full of glad days
With joy that he begot so good a Son.
O Sir, methinks I see sweet Majesty
Sit with a mourning sad face full of sorrows,
To see you in this place. This is a cave
Of scorpions and of dragons. Oh turn back;
Toads here engender: 'tis the steam of death;
The very air poisons a good man's breath.

Prince. Let me borrow goodness from thy lips. Farewell!

Here's a new wonder; I've met heav'n in hell.

Undue praise declined.

you are far too prodigal in praise, And crown me with the garlands of your merit; As we meet barks on rivers,-the strong gale Being best friends to us, our own swift motion Makes us believe that t'other nimbler rows; Swift virtue thinks small goodness fastest goes.

[From the "Conspiracy," a Tragedy by Henry Killigrew, 1638. Author's age 17.]

The Rightful Heir to the Crown kept from his inheritance: an Angel sings to him sleeping.

Song.

While Morpheus thus does gently lay
His powerful charge upon each part,
Making thy spirits ev'n obey

The silver charms of his dull art;
I, thy Good Angel, from thy side,-

As smoke doth from the altar rise, Making no noise as it doth glide,

Will leave thee in this soft surprise ; And from the clouds will fetch thee down A holy vision, to express

Thy right unto an earthly crown:

No power can make this kingdom less.

But gently, gently, lest I bring

A start in sleep by sudden flight, Playing aloof, and hovering,

Till I am lost unto the sight.

This is a motion still and soft;

So free from noise and cry,

That Jove himself, who hears a thought, Kaows not when we pass by.

C. L

He writeth a fair and swift hand, and is Arithmetic, in the Rule of Three, (which is sometimes called the Golden Rule,) and in Practice. We mention these things, that we may leave no room for cavillers to say, that any thing essential hath been omitted in our definition; else, to speak the truth, these are but ordinary accomplishments, and such as every understrapper at a desk is commonly furnished with. The charac ter we treat of soareth higher.

He is clean and neat in his person; not from a vain-glorious desire of setting himself forth to advantage in the eyes of the other sex, (with which vanity too many of our young sparks now-a-days are infected,) but to do credit (as we say) to the office. For this reason he evermore taketh care that his desk or his books receive no soil; the which things he is commonly as solicitous to have fair and unblemished, as the owner of a fine borse is to have him appear in good keep.

He riseth early in the morning; not because early rising conduceth to health, (though he doth not altogether despise that consideration,) but chiefly to the intent that he may be first at the desk. There is his post-there he delighteth to be; unless when his meals, or necessity, calleth him away; which time he always esteemeth as lost, and maketh as short as possible.

He is temperate in eating and drinking, that he may preserve a clear head and steady hand for his master's service. He is also partly induced to this observation of the rules of temperance by his respect for religion, and the laws of his country; which things (it may once for all be noted) do add special assistances to his actions, but do not and cannot furnish the main spring or motive thereto. His first ambition (as appeareth all along) is to be a good clerk, his next a good Christian, a good patriot, &c.

Correspondent to this, he keepeth himself honest, not for fear of the laws, but because he hath observed how unseemly an article it maketh in the day-book or ledger, when a sum is set down lost or missing; it being his pride to make these books to agree and to tally, the one side with the other, with a sort of architectural symmetry and correspondence.

He marrieth, or marrieth not, as best suiteth with his employer's views. Some merchants do the rather desire to have married men in their counting-houses,

because they think the married state a pledge for their servants' integrity, and an incitement to them to be industrious; and it was an observation of a late lord mayor of London, that the sons of clerks do generally prove clerks themselves, and that merchants encouraging persons in their employ to marry, and to have families, was the best method of securing a breed of sober, industrious young men attached to the mercantile interest. Be this as it may, such a character as we have been describing, will wait till the pleasure of his employer is known on this point; and regulateth his desires by the custom of the house or firm to which he belongeth.

He avoideth profane oaths and jesting, as so much time lost from his employ; what spare time he hath for conversation, which in a counting-house such as we have been supposing can be but small, he spendeth in putting seasonable questions to such of his fellows, (and sometimes respectfully to the master himself,) who can give him information respecting the price and quality of goods, the state of exchange, or the latest improvements in book-keeping; thus making the motion of his lips, as well as of his fingers, subservient to his master's interest. Not that he refuseth a brisk saying, or a cheerful sally of wit, when it comes enforced, is free of offence, and hath a convenient brevity. For this reason he hath commonly some such phrase as this in his mouth :

again shortly, than from any delight which he taketh in foppery or ostentation. The colour of his clothes is generally noted to be black rather than brown, brown rather than blue or green. His whole deportment is staid, modest, and civil. His motto is regularity.

This character was sketched, in an interval of business, to divert some of the melan. choly hours of a counting-house. It is so little a creature of fancy, that it is scarce any thing more than a recollection of some of those frugal and economical maxims which, about the beginning of the last century, (England's meanest period,) were endeavoured to be inculcated and instilled into the breasts of the London apprentices,* by a class of instructors who might not inaptly be termed the masters of mean morals. The astonishing narrowness and illiberality of the lessons contained in some of those books is inconceivable by those whose studies have not led them that way, and would almost induce one to subscribe to the hard censure which Drayton has passed upon the mercantile spirit:

The gripple merchant, born to be the curse
Of this brave isle. †

Defoeana.

No. I.

THE TRADESMAN.

I have now lying before me that curious book, by Daniel Defoe, "The complete English Tradesman." The pompous detail, the studied analysis of every little mean art, every sneaking address, every trick and subterfuge (short of larceny) that is with the hundreds of anecdotes, dialogues necessary to the tradesman's occupation, (in Defoe's liveliest manner) interspersed, all tending to the same amiable purpose, namely, the sacrificing of every honest emotion of the soul to what he calls the main chance-if you read it in an ironical sense, and as a piece of covered satire, make it one of the most amusing books which Defoe ever wrote, as much so as any of his best novels. It is difficult to say what his intention was in writing it. It is almost impossible to suppose him in

earnest. Yet such is the bent of the book

to narrow and to degrade the heart, that if such maxims were as catching and infectious as those of a licentious cast, which happily is not the case, had I been living at that time, I certainly should have recommended to the grand jury of Middlesex, who presented the Fable of the Bees, to have presented this book of Defoe's in preference, a3 of a far more vile and debasing tendency. I will give one specimen of his advice to the young tradesman, on the government of his temper. "The retail tradesman in especial, and even every tradesman in his station, must furnish himself with a competent stock of patience; I mean that sort of patience which is needful to bear with all sorts of impertinence, and the most provoking curiosity that it is im. possible to imagine the buyers, even the worst of them, are or can be guilty of. A

tradesman behind his counter must have no flesh and blood about him, no passions, no resentment; he must never be angry, no not so much as seem to be so, if a customer tumbles him five hundred pounds worth of goods, and scarce bids money for any thing; nay, though they really come to his shop with no intent to buy, as many do, only to see what is to be sold, and though he knows they cannot be better pleased than they are, at some other shop where they intend to buy, 'tis all one, the tradesman must take it, he must place it to the account of his calling, that 'tis his business to be ill used and resent nothing; and so must answer as obligingly to those that give him an hour or two's trouble and buy nothing, as he does to those who in half the time lay out ten or twenty pounds. The case is plain, and if some do give him trouble and do not buy, others make amends and do buy; and as for the trouble, 'tis the business of the shop." Here follows a most admirable story of a mercer, who, by his indefatigable meanness, and more than Socratic patience under affronts, overcame and reconciled a lady, who upon the report of another lady that he had behaved saucily to some third lady, had determined to shun his shop, but by the over-persuasions of a fourth lady was induced to go to it; which she does, declaring beforehand that she will buy nothing, but give him all the trouble she can. Her attack and his defence, her insolence and his persevering patience, are described in colours worthy of a Mandeville; but it is too long to recite. "The short inference from this long discourse," says he, "is this, that here you see, and I could give you many examples like this, how and in what manner a shopkeeper is

to behave himself in the way of his business; what impertinences, what taunts, flouts, and ridiculous things, he must bear in his trade, and must not show the least return, or the least signal of disgust: he must have no passions, no fire in his temper; he must be all soft and smooth; nay, if his real temper be naturally fiery and hot, he must show none of it in his shop; he must be a perfect, complete hypocrite if he will be a complete tradesman.* It is true, natural tempers are not to be always counterfeited; the man cannot easily be a lamb in his shop, and a lion in himself; but, let it be easy or hard, it must be done, and is done: there are men who have, by custom and usage, brought themselves to it, that nothing could be meeker and milder than they, when behind the counter, and yet nothing be more furious and raging in every other part of life; nay, the provocations they have met with in their shops have so irritated their rage, that they would go up stairs from their shop, and fall into frenzies, and a kind of madness, and beat their heads against the wall, and perhaps mischief themselves, if not prevented, till the violence of it had gotten vent, and the passions abate and cool. I heard once of a shopkeeper that behaved himself thus to such an extreme, that when he was provoked by the impertinence of the customers, beyond what his temper could bear, he would go up stairs and beat his wife, kick his children about like dogs, and be as furious for two or three minutes, as a man chained down in Bedlam; and again, when that heat was over, would sit down and cry faster than the children he had abused; and after the fit, he would go down into the shop again, and be as humble, cour teous, and as calm as any man whatever; so absolute a government of his passions had he in the shop, and so little out of it: in the shop, a soulless animal that would resent nothing; and in the family a madman in the shop, meek like a lamb; but in the family, outrageous like a Lybian lion. The sum of the matter is, it is necessary for a tradesman to subject himself by all the ways possible to his business; his customers are to be his idols: so far as he may worship idols by allowance, he is to bow down to them and worship them; at least, he is not in any way to displease them, or show any disgust or distaste, whatsoever they may say or do; the bottom of all is,

As no qualification accompanies this maxim, it must be understood as the genuine sentiment of the author.