No. 174. SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1710. Quem mala stultitia, et quemcumque inscitia veri HOR. SAT. ii. 3. 43. Whom vicious passions, or whom falsehood, blind, FRANCIS. FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, MAY 19. THE learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every individual of that species what he calls a Seity, something peculiar to himself, which makes him different from all others persons in the world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous, according as he uses his talents, which always grow out into faults, or improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and lazy part of mankind under the denomination of dead men, together with the degrees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said to live or be defunct, but are only animals merely dressed up like men, and differ from each other but as flies do by a little colouring or fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice also upon the impertinently active and enterprising Such as these I shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moorfields for that service. We, who are adept in astrology, can impute it to several causes in the planets, that this quarter of our great city is the region of such persons as either never had, or have lost the use of reason. It has indeed been, time out of mind, the reception of fools as well as madmen. The care and information of the former I assign to other learned men, who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as, among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr. Langham. These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public lottery. Dr. Langham shows a peculiar generosity on this occasion, taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteen-pence of which to be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply with in favour of every adventurer in the whole lottery. Leaving therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such Literati as I have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable. It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls in with a noble imagination, is called poetical fury, does not come under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse, without natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all the volumes, written by such hands, shall be from time to time placed in proper order upon the rails of the un housed booksellers within the district of the college, who have long inhabited this quarter, in the same manner as they are already disposed, soon after their publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for those patients, whose high imaginations and hot spirits have waked them into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be wrought upon by my gruels and juleps, but must ever be employed, or appear to be so; or their recovery will be impracticable. I shall, therefore, make use of such poets as preserve so constant a mediocrity as never to elevate the mind into joy, or depress it into sadness, yet, at the same time, keep the faculties of the readers in suspense, though they introduce no ideas of their own. By this means, a disordered mind, like a broken limb, will recover its strength by the sole benefit of being out of use, and lying without motion. But, as reading is not an entertainment that can take the full time of my patients, I have now in pension a proportionable number of story-tellers, who are by turns to walk about the galleries of the house, and by their narrations second the labours of my pretty good poets. There are among these story-tellers, some that have so earnest countenances, and weighty brows, that they will draw a madman, even when his fit is just coming on, into a whisper; and by the force of shrugs, nods, and busy gestures, make him stand amazed so long, as that we may have time to give him his broth without danger. up But, as fortune has the possession of men's minds, a physician may cure all the sick people of ordinary degree in the whole town, and never come into reputation. I shall, therefore begin with persons of condition; and the first I shall undertake shall be the lady Fidget, the general visitant, and Will Voluble, the fine talker. These persons shall be first of all whom the one visits, locked up, for the peace The passion which first touched the brain of both these persons, was envy; and has had such wondrous effects, that to this lady Fidget owes that she is so courteous; to this, Will Voluble that he is so eloquent. Fidget has a restless torment in hearing of any one's prosperity; and cannot know any quiet till she visits her, and is eye-witness of something that lessens it. Thus her life is a continual search after what does not concern her; and her companions speak kindly even of the absent and the unfortunate to teaze her. She was the first that visited Flavia after the small-pox, and has never seen her since because she is not altered. Call a young woman handsome in her company, and she tells you it is pity she has no fortune: say she is rich, and she is as sorry that she is silly. With all this ill-nature, Fidget is herself young, rich, and handsome; but loses the pleasure of all those qualities, because she has them in common with others. To make up her misery, she is well bred; she hears commendations, till she is ready to faint for want of venting herself in contradictions. This madness is not expressed by the voice; but is uttered in the eyes and features; its first symptom is, upon beholding an agreeable object, a sudden approbation immediately checked with dislike. This lady I shall take the liberty to conduct into a bed of straw and darkness; and have some hopes, that after long absence from the light, the pleasure of seeing at all, may reconcile her to what she shall see, though it proves to be never so agreeable. My physical remarks on the distraction of envy in other persons, and particularly in Will Voluble, is interrupted by a visit from Mr. Kidney, with advices which will bring matter of new disturbance to many possessed with this sort of disorder, which I shall publish to bring out the symptoms more kindly, and lay the distemper more open to my view. ST. JAMES'S COFFEE-HOUSE, MAY 19. This evening a mail from Holland brought the following advices: 'On the twenty-third the French assembled their army, and encamped with their right near Bouchain, and their left near Crevecœur. Upon this motion of the enemy, the duke of Marlborough and prince Eugene made a movement with their army on the twenty-fourth, and encamped from Arlieux to Vitry and Isex Esquerchien, where they are so advantageously posted, that they not only cover the siege, secure our convoys of provisions, forage, and ammunition, from Lisle and Tournay, and the canals and dikes we have made to turn the water of the Scarp and La Cense to Bouchain; but are in readiness, by marching from the right, to possess themselves of the field of battle marked out betwixt Vitry and Montigny, or from the left to gain the lines of circumvallation betwixt Fierin and Dechy: so that whatever way the enemy shall approach to attack us, whether by the plains of Lens, or by Bouchain and Valenciennes, we have but a very small movement to make, to possess ourselves of the ground on which it will be most advantageous to receive them. The enemy marched this morning from their left, and are encamped with their right at Oisy, and their left toward Arras, and, according to our advices, will pass the Scarp to-morrow, and enter on the plains of Lens, though several regiments of horse, the German and Liege troops, which are destined to compose part of their army, have not yet joined |