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and graciously to say, 'He could not be there himself, but he would send them a brace of bucks.'

66

I would desire you, Sir, to set this affair in a true light, that posterity may not be misled in so important a point: for when the wise man who shall write your true history shall acquaint the world, that you had a diploma sent from the Ugly Club at Oxford, and that by virtue of it you were admitted into it, what a learned war will there be among future critics about the original of that club, which both universities will contend so warmly for? And perhaps some hardy Cantabrigian author may then boldly affirm, that the word Oxford was an interpolation of some Oxonian instead of Cambridge. This affair will be best adjusted in your life-time; but I hope your affection to your mother will not make you partial to your aunt.

"To tell you, Sir, my own opinion: though I cannot find any ancient records of any acts of the society of the Ugly Faces, considered in a public capacity; yet, in a private one, they have certainly antiquity on their side. I am persuaded they will hardly give place to the Loungers, and the Loungers are of the same standing with the uuiversity itself. Though we well know, Sir, you want no motives to do justice, yet I am commissioned to tell you, that you are invited to be admitted ad eundem at Cambridge; and I believe I may venture safely to deliver this as the wish of our whole university." To MR. SPECTATOR.

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"That your petitioners being in a forlorn and destitute condition, know not to whom we should apply ourselves for relief, because there is hardly any man alive who hath not injured us. Nay, we speak it with sorrow, even you yourself, whom we should suspect of such a practice the last of all manlind, can hardly acquit yourself of having given us some cause of complaint. We are descended of ancient families, and kept up our dignity and honour many years, till the jack-sprat THAT supplanted us. How often have we found ourselves slighted by the clergy in their pulpits, and the lawyers at the bar! Nay, hew often have we heard, in one of the most polite and august assemblies in the universe, to our great mortification, these words, That THAT that noble lord urged;' which if one of us had justice done, would have sounded nobler thus, 'that WHICH that noble lord urged.'. Senates themselves, the guardians of British liberty, have degraded us, and preferred THAT to us; and yet no decree was ever given against us. In the very acts of parliament, in which the utmost right should be done to every body, word, and thing, we find ourselves often either not used, or used one instead of another. In the first and best prayer children are taught, they learn to misuse us : Our Father WHICH art in heaven,' should be, Our Father WHO art in heaven;' and even a Convocation, after long debates, refused to consent to an alteration of it. In our general Confession we say, Spare thou them, O God, WHICH confess their faults, which ought to be, fess their faults.' What hopes then have we of having justice done us, when the makers of our very prayers and laws, and the most learned in all faculties, seem to be in a confederacy against us, and our enemies themselves must be our judges?

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"The Spanish proverb says, Il sabo muda conscio, il necio no; i.e. A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will.' So that we think you, Sir, a very pro

per person to address to, since we know you to be capable of being convinced, and of changing your judgment. You are well able to settle this affair, and to you we submit our cause. We desire you to assign the butts and bounds of each of us; and that for the future we may both enjoy our own. We would desire to be heard by our counsel, but that we fear in their very pleadings they would betray our cause: besides, we have been oppressed so many years, that we can appear in no other way but in forma pauperis. All which considered, we hope you will be pleased to do that which to right and justice shall appertain. "And your petitioners," &c.

R.

No. 79.] THURSDAY, MAY, 31, 1711. Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore.-Hon. I Ep. xvi. 52 The good, for virtue's sake, abhor to sin.-CREECH.

I HAVE received very many letters of late from my female correspondents, most of whom are very angry with me for abridging their pleasures, and looking severely upon things in themselves indifferent. But I think they are extremely unjust to me in this imputation. All I contend for is, that those excellences which are to be regarded but in the second place should not precede more weighty considerations. The heart of man deceives him, in spite of the lectures of half a life spent in discourses on the subjection of passion; and I do not know why one may not think the heart of a woman as unfaithful to itself. If we grant an equality in the faculties of both sexes, the minds of women are less cultivated with precepts, and consequently may, without disrespect to them, be accounted more liable to illusion, in cases wherein 'natural inclination is out of the interests of virtue. I shall take up my present time in commenting upon a billet or two which came from ladies,-and from thence leave the reader to judge whether I am in the right or not, in thinking it is possible fine women may be mistaken. The following address seems to have no other design in it, but to tell me the writer will do what she pleases, for all me.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I am young, and very much inclined to follow the paths of innocence; but at the same time, as I have a plentiful fortune, and am of quality, I am unwilling to resign the pleasure of distinction, some little satisfaction in being admired in general, and much greater in being beloved by a gentleman, whom I design to make my husband. But I have a mind to put off entering into matrimony till another winter is over my head, which (whatever, musty Sir, you may think of the matter) I design to pass away in hearing music, going to plays, visiting, and all other satisfactions which fortune and youth, protected by innocence and virtue, can procure for,

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"Sir, your most humble servant,

M. T..

'My lover does not know I like him, therefore, having no engagements upon me, I think to stay and know whether I may not like any one else better."

I have heard Will Honeycomb say, "A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript." think this gentlewoman has sufficiently discovered hers in this. I will lay what wager she pleases against her present favorite, and can tell her, that she will like ten more before she is fixed, and then will take the worst man she ever liked in her life. There is no end of affection taken in at the eyes only; and you may as well satisfy those eyes with

zeeing, as control any passion received by them only. It is from loving by sight, that coxcombs so frequently succeed with women, and very often a young lady is bestowed by her parents to a man who weds her as innocence itself, though she has, in her own heart, given her approbation of a different man in every assembly she was in the whole year before. What is wanting among women as well as among men, is the love of laudable things, and not to rest only in the forbearance of such as are reproachful. How far removed from a woman of this light imagination is Eudosia! Eudosia has all the arts of life and good-breeding with so much ease, that the virtue of her conduct looks more like instinct than choice. It is as little difficult to her to think justly of persons and things, as it is to a woman of different accomplishments to move ill or look awkward. That which was, at first, the effect of instruction, is grown into a habit; and it would be as hard for Eudesia to indulge a wrong suggestion of thought, as it would be to Flavia, the fine dancer, to come into a room with an unbecoming air.

But the misapprehensions people themselves have of their own state of mind, is laid down with much discerning in the following letter, which is but an extract of a kind epistle from my charming mistress Hecatissa, who is above the vanity of external beauty, and is the better judge of the perfections of the mind. "MR. SPECTATOR,

"I write this to acquaint you, that very many ladies, as well as myself, spend many hours more than we used at the glass, for want of the female library, of which you promised us a catalogue. I hope, Sir, in the choice of authors for us, you will have a particular regard to books of devotion. What they are, and how many, must be your chief care; for upon the propriety of such writings depends a great deal. I have known those among us, who think if they every morning and evening spend an hour in their closet, and read over so many prayers in six or seven books of devotion, all equally nonsensical, with a sort of warmth (that might as well be raised by a glass of wine, or a dram of citron), they may all the rest of their time go on in whatever their particular passion leads them to. The beauteous Philautia, who is (in your language) an idol, is one of these votaries; she has a very pretty-fur: nished closet, to which she retires at her appointed hours. This is her dressing-room, as well as chapel; she has constantly before her a large looking-glass; and upon the table, according to a very witty author,

Together lie her prayer-book and paint,

At once t' improve the sinner and the saint. "It must be a good scene, if one could be present at it, to see this idol by turns lift up her eyes to heaven, and steal glances at her own dear person. It cannot but be a pleasing conflict between vanity and humiliation. When you are upon this subject, choose books which elevate the mind above the world, and give a pleasing indifference to little things in it. For want of such instructions I am apt to believe so many people take it in their heads to be sullen, cross, and angry, under pretence of being abstracted from the affairs of this life, when at the same time they betray their fondness for them by doing their duty as a task, and pouting and reading good books for a week together. Much of this I take to proceed from the indiscretion of the books themselves, whose very titles of weekly preparations, and such limited godliness, lead people of ordinary capacities into great errors, and raise in them a

mechanical religion, entirely distinct from morality. I know a lady so given up to this sort of devotion, that though she employs six or eight hours of the twenty-four at cards, she never misses one constant hour of prayer, for which time another holds her cards, to which she returns with no little anxiousness till two or three in the morning. All these acts are but empty shows, and, as it were, compliments made to virtue; the mind is all the while untoucned with any true pleasure in the pursuit of it. From thence I presume it arises, that so many people caii themselves virtuous, from no other pretence to it but an absence of ill. There is Dulciamara, the most insolent of all creatures to her friends and domestics, upon no other pretence in nature, but that (as her silly phrase is) no one can say black is her eye.' She has no secrets, forsooth, which should make her afraid to speak her mind, and therefore she is impertinently blunt to all her acquaintance, and unseasonably imperious to all her family. Dear Sir, be pleased to put such books into our hands, as may make our virtue more inward, and convince some of us, that, in a mind truly virtuous, the scorn of vice is always accompanied with the pity of it. This and other things are impatiently expected from you by our whole sex; among the rest by, "Sir, your most humble servant,

R.

"B. D."

No. 80. FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1711. Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. HOR. 1 Ep. ix, 27.

Those that beyond sea go, will sadly find, They change their climate only, not their mind.-CREECH In the year 1688, and on the same day of that year, were born in Cheapside, London, two females Brunetta, the other Phillis. A close intimacy beof exquisite feature and shape; the one we shall call tween their parents made each of them the first acquaintance the other knew in the world. They dance and make courtesies, together. They were played, dressed babies, acted visitings, learned to inseparable companions in all the little entertainments their tender years were capable of; which of their fifteenth year, when it happened that Phillis innocent happiness continued until the beginning had a head-dress on, which became her so very well, that instead of being beheld any more with pleasure for their amity to each other, the eyes of the neighbourhood were turned to remark them with comparison of their beauty. They now no longer enjoyed the ease of mind and pleasing indolence in which they were formerly happy, but all their words and actions were misinterpreted by each other, and every excellence in their speech and behaviour was looked upon as an act of emulation to surpass the other. These beginnings of disinclination soon improved into a formality of behaviour, a general coldness, and by natural steps into an irreconcilable hatred.

These two rivals for the reputation of beauty, were, in their stature, countenance, and mien, so very much alike, that if you were speaking of them in their absence, the words in which you described the one must give you an idea of the other. They were hardly distinguishable, you would think, when they were apart, though extremely different when together. What made their enmity the more entertaining to all the rest of their sex was, that in detraction from each, neither could fall upon any

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After the above melancholy narration, it may perhaps be a relief to the reader to peruse the following expostulation :

"To MR. SPECTATOR.

terms which did not hit herself as much as her ad- the road, and is now landed in inconsolable despair versary. Their nights grew restless with meditation at Plymouth. of new dresses to outvie each other, and inventing new devices to recal admirers, who observed the charms of the one rather than those of the other, on the last meeting. Their colours failed at each other's appearance, flushed with pleasure at the report of a disadvantage, and their countenances withered upon instances of applause. The decencies to which woσε The just Remonstrance of affronted THAT. men are obliged, made these virgins stifle their resentment so far as not to break into open violences, and WHICH, yet you should not suffer them to be "THOUGH I deny not the petition of Mess. WHO while they equally suffered the torments of a regu- rude, and to call honest people names: for that bears lated anger. Their mothers, as it is usual, engaged in the quarrel, and supported the several pretensions very hard on some of those rules of decency which of their daughters with all that ill-chosen sort of ex-find fault, and correct speeches in the senate and at you are justly famous for establishing. They may pensewhich is common with people of plentiful fortunes the bar, but let them try to get themselves so often, and mean taste. The girls preceded their parents and with so much eloquence, repeated in a sentence, like queens of May, in all the gaudy colours imaginable, on every Sunday to church, and were exas a great orator doth frequently introduce me. posed to the examination of the audience for supe- sion, That That I say is this; That, That That gen"My lords!" says he, "with humble submisriority of beauty. tleman has advanced, is not That That he should have proved to your lordships.' Let these two questionary petitioners try to do thus with their Whos

and their Whiches.

in his Indian Emperor,
"What great advantage was I of to Mr. Dryden

"I am not against reforming the corruptions of speech you mention, and own there are proper seasons for the introduction of other words besides That; but I scorn as much to supply the place of a Who or a Which at every turn, as they are unequal always to fill mine; and I expect good language and civil treatment, and hope to receive it for the future: That, That I shall only add is, That I am,

During this constant struggle it happened, that Phillis one day at public prayers smote the heart of a gay West Indian, who appeared in all the colours which can affect an eye that could not distinguish between being fine and tawdry. This American, in a Summer island suit, was too shining and too gay to be resisted by Phillis, and too intent upon her You force me still to answer you in That.— charms to be diverted by any of the laboured attrac- to furnish out a rhyme to Morat? and what a poor tions of Brunetta. Soon after, Brunetta had the figure would Mr. Bayes have made without his mortification to see her rival disposed of in a wealthy Egad and all That?' How can a judicious man marriage, while she was only addressed to in a man- distinguish one thing from another, without saying, ner that shewed she was the admiration of all men,This here,' or 'That there?' And how can a sober but the choice of none. Phillis was carried to the man, without using the expletives of oaths (in which habitation of her spouse in Barbadoes. Brunetta indeed the rakes and bullies have a great advantage had the ill-nature to inquire for her by every op- over others), make a discourse of any tolerable portunity, and had the misfortune to hear of her length, without 'That is;' and if he be a very grave being attended by numerous slaves, fanned into man indeed, without That is to say?' And how slumbers by successive bands of them, and carried instructive as well as entertaining are those usual from place to place in all the pomp of barbarous expressions in the mouths of great men, 'Such magnificence. Brunetta could not endure these re-things as That,' and 'The like of That.” peated advices, but employed all her arts and charms in laying baits for any of condition of the same island, out of a mere ambition to confront her once more before she died. She at last succeeded in her design, and was taken to wife by a gentleman whose estate was contiguous to that of her enemy's husband. It would be endless to enumerate the many occasions on which these irreconcilable beauties laboured to excel each other; but in process of time it happened, that a ship put into the island consigned to a friend of Phillis, who had directions to give her the refusal of all goods for apparel, before Brunetta could be alarmed of their arrival. He did so, and Phillis was dressed in a few days in a brocade more gorgeous and costly than had ever before appeared in that latitude. Brunetta languished at the sight, and could by no means come up to the bravery of her antagonist. She communicated her anguish of mind to a faithful friend, who, by an interest in the wife of Phillis's merchant, procured a remnant of the same silk for Brunetta. Phillis took pains to appear in all public places where she was sure to meet Brunetta; Brunetta was now prepared for the insult, and came to a public ball in a plain black silk mantua, attended by a beautiful negro girl in a petticoat of the same brocade with which Phillis was attired. This drew the attention of the whole company, upon which the unhappy Phillis swooned away, and was immediately conveyed to her house. As soon as she came to herself, she fled from her husband's house, went on board a ship in

R.

"Yours,

"THAT."

No. 81.] SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1711. Qualis ubi audito venantum murmure tigris Horruit in maculas STAT. Theb. ii. 128. As when the tigress hears the hunter's din, Dark angry spots distain her glossy skin. ABOUT the middle of last winter I went to see an opera at the theatre in the Hay-market, where I could not but take notice of two parties of very fine women, that had placed themselves in the opposite side-boxes, and seemed drawn up in a kind of battle array one against another. After a short survey of them, I found they were patched differently; the faces on one hand being spotted on the right side of the forehead, and those upon the other on the left. I quickly perceived that they cast hostile glances upon one another; and that their patches were placed in those different situations, as party-signals to distinguish friends from foes. In the middleboxes, between these two opposite bodies, were se

ral ladies who patched indifferently on both sides of their faces, and seemed to sit there with no other intention but to see the opera. Upon inquiry I found that the body of Amazons on my right hand were whigs, and those on my left tories; and that those who had placed themselves in the middle boxes were a neutral party, whose faces had not yet declared themselves. These last, however, as I afterward found, diminished daily, and took their party with one side or the other; insomuch that I observed, in reveral of them, the patches which were before dispersed equally, are now all gone over to the whig or tory side of the face. The censorious say, that the men, whose hearts are aimed at, are very often the occasions that one part of the face is thus dishonoured, and lies under a kind of disgrace, while the other is so much set off and adorned by the owner; and that the patches turn to the right or to the left, according to the principles of the man who is most in favour. But whatever may be the motives of a few fantastical coquettes, who do not patch for the public good so much as for their own private advantage, it is certain, that there are several women of honour who patch out of principle, and with an eye to the interest of their country.-Nay, I am informed that some of them adhere so steadfastly to their party, and are so far from sacrificing their zeal for the public to their passion for any particular person, that, in a late draught of marriage articles, a lady has stipulated with her husband, that whatever his opinions are, she shall be at liberty to patch on which side she pleases.

I must here take notice, that Rosalinda, a famous whig partisan, has most unfortunately a very beautiful mole on the tory part of her forehead; which being very conspicuous, has occasioned many mistakes, and given a handle to her enemies to misrepresent her face, as though it had revolted from the whig interest. But, whatever this natural patch may seem to insinuate, it is well known that her notions of government are still the same. This unlucky mole, however, has misled several coxcombs; and, like the hanging out of false colours, made some of them converse with Rosalinda in what they thought the spirit of her party, when on a sudden she has given them an unexpected fire, that has sunk them all at once. If Rosalinda is unfortunate in her mole, Nigranilla is as unhappy in a pimple, which forces her, against her inclinations, to patch on the whig side.

I am told that many virtuous matrons, who formerly have been taught to believe that this artificial spotting of the face was unlawful, are now reconciled by a zeal for their cause, to what they could not be prompted to by a concern for their beauty. This way of declaring war upon one another, puts me in mind of what is reported of the tigress-that several spots rise in her skin when she is angry, or, as Mr. Cowley has imitated the verses that stand as the motto of this paper,

She swells with angry pride,

had retreated hither in order to rally their forces I cannot tell; but the next night they came in so great a body to the opera, that they outnumbered the enemy.

This account of party-patches will, I am afraid, appear improbable to those who live at a distance from the fashionable world; but as it is a distinction of a very singular nature, and what perhaps may never meet with a parallel, I think I should not have discharged the office of a faithful Spectator, had not I recorded it.

I bave, in former papers, endeavoured to expose this party-rage in women, as it only serves to aggravate the hatreds and animosities that reign among men, and in a great measure deprives the fair sex of those peculiar charms with which nature has endowed them.

When the Romans and Sabines were at war, and just upon the point of giving battle, the women, who were allied to both of them, interposed with so many tears and entreaties, that they prevented the mutual slaughter which threatened both parties, and united them together in a firm and lasting peace.

I would recommend this noble example to our British ladies, at a time when their country is torn with so many unnatural divisions, that if they continue, it will be a misfortune to be born in it. The Greeks thought it so improper for women to interest themselves in competitions and contentions, that for this reason, among others, they forbade them, under pain of death, to be present at the Olympic games, notwithstanding these were the public diversions of all Greece.

As our English women exceed those of all nations in beauty, they should endeavour to outshine them in all other accomplishments proper to the sex, and to distinguish themselves as tender mothers and faithful wives, rather than as furious partisans. Female virtues are of a domestic turn. The family is the proper province for private women to shine in. If they must be shewing their zeal for the public, let it not be against those who are perhaps of the same family, or at least of the same religion or nation, but against those who are the open, professed, undoubted enemies of their faith, liberty, and country. When the Romans were pressed with a foreign enemy, the ladies voluntarily contributed all their rings and jewels to assist the government under a public exigence, which appeared so laudable an action in the eyes of their countrymen, that from thenceforth it was permitted by a law to pronounce public orations at the funeral of a woman in praise of the deceased person, which till that time was peculiar to men. Would our English ladies, instead of sticking on a patch against those of their own country, shew themselves so truly public-spirited as to sacrifice every one her necklace against the common enemy, what decrees ought not to be made in favour of them?

Since I am recollecting upon this subject such passages as occur to my memory out of ancient And calls forth all her spots on every side.* authors, I cannot omit a sentence in the celebrated funeral oration of Pericles, which he made in honour When I was in the theatre the time above men- of those brave Athenians that were slain in a fight tioned, I had the curiosity to count the patches on with the Lacedæmonians. After having addressed both sides, and found the tory patches to be about himself to the several ranks and orders of his countwenty stronger than the whig; but to make amends trymen, and shewn them how they should behave for this small inequality, I the next morning found themselves in the public cause, he turns to the female the whole puppet-show filled with faces spotted after part of his audience: the whiggish manner. Whether or no the ladies" I shall advise you in very few words. Aspire only And as for you," says he,

• Davideis, Book III. page 409. Vol IL 1710.

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* Thuyed. Hist L. II. p. 130, edit. H Steph. 1588, folio.

SPECTATOR-Nos. 13 & 14.

H

to those virtues that are peculiar to your sex; follow your natural modesty, and think it your greatest commendation not to be talked of one way or other." C.

No. 82.] MONDAY, JUNE 4, 1711.
-Caput domina venale sub hasta.
Juv. Sat. iii. 33

His fortunes ruin'd, and himself a slave.

persons in authority to make good his charge against him. Human society depends upon his having the vengeance law allots him; and the debtor owes his liberty to his neighbour, as much as the murderer does his life to his prince.

creditor can say the worst thing imaginable of him, to wit, "That he is unjust," without defamation; and can seize his person, without being guilty of an assault. Yet such is the loose and abandoned ture of some men's minds, that they can live under these constant apprehensions, and still go on to increase the cause of them. Can there be a more low and servile condition, than to be ashamed or afraid to see any one man breathing? Yet he that is much in debt, is in that condition with relation to twenty difPASSING under Ludgate the other day, I heard ferent people. There are indeed circumstances a voice bawling for charity, which I thought I had wherein men of honest natures may become liable somewhere heard before. Coming near to the grate, to debts, by some unadvised behaviour in any great the prisoner called me by my name, and desired I point of their life, or mortgaging a man's honesty would throw something into the box; I was out of as a security for that of another, and the like; but countenance for him, and did as he bid me, by put- these instances are so particular and circumstanting in half-a-crown. I went away, reflecting upon tiated, that they cannot come within general conthe strange constitution of some men, and how siderations. For one such case as one of these, meanly they behave themselves in all sorts of con- there are ten where a man, to keep up a farce of ditions. The person who begged of me is now, I retinue and grandeur within his own house, shall take it, fifty: I was well acquainted with him till shrink at the expectation of surly demands at his about the age of twenty-five, at which time a good doors. The debtor is the creditor's criminal; and all estate fell to him by the death of a relation. Upon the officers of power and state, whom we behold coming to this unexpected good fortune, he ran into make so great a figure, are no other than so may all the extravagances imaginable; was frequently in drunken disputes, broke drawers' heads, talked and swore loud, was unmannerly to those above, and insolent to those below him. I could not but remark, that it was the same baseness of spirit which worked in his behaviour in both fortunes: the same little Our gentry are, generally speaking, in debt; and mind was insolent in riches, and shameless in po- many families have put it into a kind of method of verty. This accident made me muse upon the cir- being so from generation to generation. The father cumstance of being in debt in general, and solve in mortgages when his son is very young; and the boy my mind what tempers were most apt to fall into this is to marry, as soon as he is at age, to redeem it and error of life, as well as the misfortune it must needs find portions for his sisters. This, forsooth, is no be to languish under such pressures. As for myself, great inconvenience to him; for he may wench, my natural aversion to that sort of conversation keep a public table, or feed dogs, like a worthy Engwhich makes a figure with the generality of man-lish gentleman, till he has out-run half his estate, kind, exempts me from any temptations to expense; and all my business lies within a very narrow compass, which is only to give an honest man who takes care of my estate, proper vouchers for his quarterly payments to me, and observe what linen my laundress brings and takes away with her once a week. My steward brings his receipt ready for my signing; and I have a pretty implenient with the respective names of shirts, cravats, handkerchiefs, and stockings, with proper numbers, to know how to reckon with my laundress. This being almost all the business I have in the world for the care of my own affairs, I am at full leisure to observe upon what others do, with relation to their equipage and economy. When I walk the street and observe the hurry about me in this town,

Where, with like haste, through several ways they run;
Some to undo, and some to be undone !

I say, when I behold this vast variety of persons and
humours, with the pains they both take for the ac-
complishment of the ends mentioned in the above
verses of Denham, † I cannot much wonder at the
endeavour after gain, but am extremely astonished
that men can be so insensible of the danger of run-
ning into debt. One would think it impossible that
a man who is given to coutract debts should not
know, that his creditor has, from that moment in
which he transgresses payment, so much as that de-
mand comes to, in his debtor's honour, liberty, and
fortune. One would think he did not know that his

Ludgate was a prison for such debtors as were freemen of the city of London; it was taken down in the year 1762, and the prisoners removed to the London workhouse ↑ From his poem entitled Cooper's Hill.'

and leave the same encumbrance upon his first-born, and so on; till one man of more vigour than ordinary goes quite through the estate, or some man of sense comes into it, and scorns to have an estate in partnership, that is to say, liable to the demand or insult of any man living. There is my friend Sir Andrew, though for many years a great and general trader, was never the defendant in a law suit, in all the perplexity of business, and the iniquity of mankind at present; no one had any colour for the least complaint against his dealings with him. This is certainly as uncommon, and in its proportion as laudable in a citizen, as it is in a general never to have suffered a disadvantage in fight. How different from this gentleman is Jack Truepenny, who has been an old acquaintance of Sir Andrew and myself from boys, but could never learn our caution. Jack has a whorish unresisting good nature, which makes him incapable of having a property in any thing. His fortune, his reputation, his time, and his capacity, are at any man's service that comes first. When he was at school he was whipped thrice a week for faults he took upon him to excuse others; since he came into the business of the world, he has been arrested twice or thrice a-year for debts he had nothing to do with, but as surety for others; and I remember when a friend of his had suffered in the vice of the town, all the physic his friend took was conveyed to him by Jack, and inscribed "A bolus or an electuary for Mr Truepenny." Jack had a good estate left him, which came to nothing; because he believed all who pretended to demands upon it. This easiness and credulity destroy all the other merit he has; and he has all his life been a sacrifice

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