will command with us muft condefcend. It moves one's fpleen very agreeably, to fee fellows pretend to be diffemblers without this leffon. They are fo refervedly complaifant until they have learned to refign their natural paffions, that all the fteps they make towards gaining thofe, whom they would be well with, are but fo many marks of what they really are, and not of what they would appear. The rough Britons, when they pretend to be artful towards one another, are ridiculous enough; but when they fet up for vices they have not, and diffemble their good with an affectation of ill, they are infupportable. I know two men in this town who make as good figures as any in it, that manage their credit fo well as to be thought atheifts, and yet fay their prayers morning and evening. Tom Springly, the other day, pretended to go to an affignment with a married woman at Rofamond's Pond, and was feen foon after reading the refponfes with great gravity at fix-a-clock prayers. Sheer-lane, Auguft 17. THOUGH the following epiftle bears a just accufation of myself, yet in regard it is a more advantageous piece of justice to another, I insert it at large. Mr. BICKERSTAFF, Garraway's Coffee-house, August 10. I HAVE lately read your paper, wherein you represent a conversation between a young lady, your three nephews, and yourself; and am not a little offended at the figure you give your young merchant in the prefence of a beauty. The topic of love is a fubject on which a man is more beholden to nature for his eloquence, than to the inftruction of the fchools, or my lady's woman. From the latter your fcholar and page must have reaped all their advantage above him know by this time you have pronounced me a trader. I acknowledge it; but cannot bear the exclufion from any pretence of speak ing agreeably to a fine woman, or from any degree of generofity that way. You have among us citizens many well-wishers; but it is for the juftice of your reprefentations, which we, perhaps, are better judges of than you (by the account you give of your nephew) feem to allow. To give you an opportunity of making us fome reparation, I defire you would tell, your own way, the following inftance of heroic love in the city. You are to remember, that fomewhere in your writings, for enlarging the territories of virtue and honour, you have multiplied the opportunities of attaining to heroic virtue; and have hinted, that in whatever ftate of life a man is, if he does things above what is ordinarily performed by men of his rank, he is in thofe inftances an hero. Tom Trueman, a young gentleman of eighteen years of age, fell paffionately in love with the beauteous Almira, daughter to his master. Her regard for him was no less tender. Trueman was better acquainted with his master's affairs, than his daughter; and fecretly lamented, that each day brought him by many mifcarriages nearer bankruptcy than the former. This unhappy pofture of their affairs, the youth fufpected, was owing to the ill management of a factor, in whom his mafter had an entire confidence. Trueman took a proper occafion, when his master was ruminating on his decaying fortune, to addrefs him for leave to spend the remainder of his time with his foreign correfpondent. During three years ftay in that employment, he became acquainted with all that concerned his mafter, and by his great addrefs in the management of that knowledge faved him ten thousand pounds. Soon after this accident, Trueman's uncle left him a considerable estate. Upon receiving that advice he returned to England, and demanded Almira of her father. The father, overjoyed at the match, offered him the ten thousand pounds he had faved him, with the further proposal of refigning to him all his business. Trueman refufed both; and retired into the country with his bride, contented with his own fortune, though perfectly skilled in the me thods of improving it. It is to be noted, that Trueman refufed twenty thoufand pounds with another young lady; so that reckoning both his felf-denials, he is to have in your court the merit of having given thirty thousand pounds for the woman he loved. This gentleman I claim your juftice to; and hope you will be convinced that fome of us have larger views than only Cash Debtor, per contra Creditor. Yours, RICHARD TRAFFICK.' N. B. Mr. Thomas Trueman of Lime-ftreet is entered among the heroes of domeftic life. CHARLES LILLIE. NO. 214. TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1710. -Soles & aperta ferena Profpicere,& certis poteris cognofcere fignis. VIRG. Georg. i. ver. 393. -'Tis easy to defcry Returning funs, and a ferene fky. From my own Apartment, August 21. DRYDEN. IN every party there are two forts of men, the rigid and the fupple. The rigid are an intractable race of mortals, who act upon principle, and will not, forfooth, fall into any meatures that are not confiftent with their received notions of honour. These are perfons of a stubborn unpliant morality; that fullenly adhere to their friends, friends, when they are difgraced, and to their principles, though they are exploded. I fhall therefore give up this ftiff-necked generation to their own obftinacy, and turn my thoughts to the advantage of the fupple, who pay their homage to places, and not to perfons; and, without enflaving themselves to any particular scheme of opinions, are as ready to change their conduct in point of fentiment as of fashion. The well difciplined part of a court are generally fo perfect at their exercife, that you may fee a whole affembly, from front to rear, face about at once to a new man of power, though at the fame time they turn their backs upon him that brought them thither. The great hardship thefe complaifant members of fociety are under, feems to be the want of warning upon any approaching change or revolution; fo that they are obliged in a hurry to tack about with every wind, and ftop short in the midst of a full career, to the great furprise and derifion of their beholders. When a man forefees a decaying miniftry, he has leifure to grow a malecontent, reflect upon the prefent conduct, and by gradual murmurs fall off from his friends into a new party, by juft fteps and measures. For want of fuch notices, I have formerly known a very well bred perfon refuse to return a bow of a man whom he thought in difgrace, that was next day made fecretary of ftate; and another, who, after a long neglect of a minifter, came to his levee, and made profeffions of zeal for his fervice the very day before he was turned out. This produces also unavoidable confufions and mistakés in the defcriptions of great men's parts and merits. That ancient lyric, Mr d'Urfey, fome years ago writ a dedication to a certain lord, in which he celebrated him for the greatest poet and critic of that age, upon a misinformation in Dyer's Letter, that his noble patron was made lord chamberlain. In short, innumerable votes, fpeeches, and fermons, have been thrown away, and turned to no account, merely for want of due and timely intelligence. Nay, it has been known, that a panegyric has been half printed off, when the poet, upon the removal of the minifter, has been forced to alter it into a fatire. For For the conduct therefore of such useful perfons, as are ready to do their country fervice upon all occafions, I have an engine in my study, which is a fort of a policical barometer, or, to speak more intelligibly, a ftate weatherglass, that, by the rifing and falling of a certain magical liquor, prefages all changes and revolutions in government, as the common glafs does thofe of the weather. The weather-glass is said to have been invented by Cardan, and given by him as a prefent to his great countryman and contemporary Machiavel; which, by the way, may serve to rectify a received error in chronology, that places one of these some years after the other. How or when it came into my hands, I fhall defire to be excused if I keep to myself; but so it is, that I have walked by it for the better part of a century to my safety at least, if not to my advantage; and have among my papers a register of all the changes that have happened in it from the middle of queen Elizabeth's reign. In the time of that princess it stood long at Settled Fair. At the latter end of king James the firft, it fell to Cloudy. It held feveral years at Stormy; infomuch that at laft defpairing of feeing any clear weather at home I followed the royal exile, and fome time after, finding my glafs rife, returned to my native country, with the rest of the loyalifts. I was then in hopes to pass the remainder of my days in Settled Fair: but alas ! during the greatest part of that reign the English nation lay in a dead calm, which, as it is ufual, was followed by high winds and tempests, until late years; in which, with unspeakable joy and fatisfaction, I have seen our political weather returned to Settled Fair. I muft only observe, that for all this laft fummer my glafs has pointed at changeable. Upon the whole, I often apply to fortune Æneas's speech to the fibyl: -Non ulla laborum O virge, nova mi facies inopinave furgit : No |