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fubdued, and reafon exalted. He waits the day of his diffolution with a refignation mixed with delight, and the fon fears the acceffion of his father's fortune with diffidence, left he should not enjoy or become it as well as his predeceffor. Add to this, that the father knows he leaves a friend to the children of his friends, an eafy landlord to his tenants, and an agreeable companion to his acquaintance. He believes his fon's behaviour will make him frequently remembered, but never wanted. This commerce is fo well cemented, that without the pomp of saying, "Son, be a friend to fuch a one when I am gone • Camillus knows, being in his favour, is direction enough to the grateful youth who is to fucceed him, without the admonition of his mentioning it. Thefe gentlemen are honoured in all their neighbourhood, ..and the fame effect which the court has on the manners of a kingdom, their characters have on all who live within the influence of them.

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My fon and I are not of fortune to communicate our good actions or intentions to fo many as thefe gentlemen do; but I will be bold to fay, my fon has, by the applause and approbation which his behaviour towards me has gained him, occafioned that many an old man, befides myself, has rejoiced. Other men's children follow the example of mine, and I have the inexpreffible happiness of overhearing our neighbours, as we ride by, point to their children, and say, with a voice of joy, there they go.

You cannot, Mr. Spectator, pass your time better than in infinuating the delights which thefe relations ⚫ well regarded bestow upon each other. Ordinary paffages are no longer fuch, but mutual love gives an importance to the most indifferent things, and a merit to <actions the most infignificant. When we look round the world, and obferve the many misunderstandings which are created by the malice and infinuation of the • meaneft fervants between people thus related, how neceffary will it appear that it were inculcated that men would be upon their guard to fupport a conftancy of affection, and that grounded upon the principles of reafon, not the impulses of inftin&t ?

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It is from the common prejudices which men receive from their parents, that hatreds are kept alive from one generation to another; and when men act by instinct, ⚫ hatreds will defcend when good offices are forgotten. For the degeneracy of human life is fuch, that our anger is more eafily transferred to our children than our love. Love always gives fomething to the objec it delights in, and anger fpoils the perfon against whom it is moved of fomething laudable in him: from this degeneracy therefore, and a fort of felf-love, we are more prone to take up the ill-will of our parents, than to follow them in their friendships.

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One would think there fhould need no more to make men keep up this fort of relation with the utmoft fanctity, than to examine their own hearts. If every father remembered his own thoughts and inclinations when he was a fon, and every fon remembered what he ex pected from his father, when he himself was in a state of dependence, this one reflexion would preferve men from being diffolute or rigid in thefe feveral capacities. The power and fubjection between them, when broken, make them more emphatically tyrants and rebels against each other, with greater cruelty of heart,, than the difruption of ftates and empires can. poffibly produce. I fhall end this application to you with two letters which paffed between a mother and fon very lately, and are as follows..

• Dear Frank,.

F the pleafures, which I have the grief to hear you pursue in town, do not take up all. your time, "do not deny your mother fo much of it, as to read ferioufly this letter. You faid before Mr. Letacre, that an old woman might live very well in the country <. -upon half my jointure, and that your father was a fond fool to give me a rent-charge of eight hundred à year to the prejudice of his fon. What Letacre faid to you upon that occafion, you ought to have borne with more decency, as he was your father's well-beloved fervant, than to have called him country-put. In the first place, Frank, I must tell you, I will have my rent duly paid, for I will make up to your fifters for the ⚫ partiality

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partiality I was guilty of, in making your father do fo much as he has done for you. I may, it seems, live upon half my jointure! I lived upon much less, Frank, ⚫ when I carried you from place to place in these arms, and could neither eat, drefs, or mind any thing for feeding and tending you a weakly child, and fhedding tears ⚫ when the convulfions you were then troubled with returned upon you. By my care you out-grew them, to throw away the vigour of your youth in the arms of harlots, and deny your mother what is not your's to detain. Both your fifters are crying to fee the paffion which I fmother; but if you please to go on thus like a gentleman of the town, and forget all regards to yourfelf and family, I fhall immediately enter upon your eftate for the arrear due to me, and without one tear more condemn you for forgetting the fondnefs of your mother, as much as you have the example of your father. O Frank, do I live to omit writing myself,

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Will come down to-morrow and pay the money on my knees. Pray write fo no more. I will take care you never fhall, for I will be for ever here• after

Your moft dutiful fon,

• F. T.

I will bring down new heads for my fikers. Pray let all be forgotten.'

T

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Wednesday,

• N° 264 Wednesday, January 2.

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- Secretum iter & fallentis femita vita.

Hor. Ep. 18. lib. 1. ver. 103. -Close retirement, and a life by stealth. CREECH,

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T has been from age to age an affectation to love the pleasure of folitude, among those who cannot poffibly be fuppofed qualified for paffing life in that manner. This people have taken up from reading the many agreeable things which have been writ on that fubject, for which we are beholden to excellent perfons who delighted in being retired and abftracted from the pleafures that inchant the generality of the world. way of life is recommended indeed with great beauty, and in fuch a manner as difpofes the reader for the time to a pleafing forgetfulnefs, or negligence of the particular hurry of life in which he is engaged, together with a longing for that ftate which he is charmed with in defcription. But when we confider the world itself, and how few there are capable of a religious, learned, or philofophic folitude, we fhall be apt to change a regard to that fort of folitude, for being a little fingular in enjoying time after the way a man himself likes beft in the world, without going fo far as wholly to withdraw from it. I have often obferved, there is not a man breathing who does not differ from all other men, as much in the fentiments of his mind, as the features of his face. The felicity is, when any one is fo happy as to find out and follow what is the proper bent of his genius, and turn all his endeavours to exert himfelf according as that prompts him. Instead of this, which is an innocent method of enjoying a man's felf, and turning out of the general tracks wherein you have crouds of rivals, there are those who pursue their own way out of a fournefs and fpirit of contradiction: these men do every thing which they are able to support, as if guilt and impunity could

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not go together. They choose a thing only because another dislikes it; and affect forfooth an inviolable conftancy in matters of no manner of moment. Thus fometimes an old fellow fhall wear this or that fort of cut in his clothes with great integrity, while all the rest of the world are degenerated into buttons, pockets, and leaps unknown to their ancestors. As infignificant as even this is, if it were fearched to the bottom, you perhaps would find it not finçere, but that he is in the fashion in his heart, and holds out from mere obstinacy. But I am running from my intended purpose, which was to celebrate a certain particular manner of paffing away life, and is a contradiction to no man, but a refolution to contract none of the exorbitant defires by which others are enslaved. The best way of feparating a man's felf from the world, is to give up the defire of being known to it. After a man has preferved his innocence, and performed all duties incumbent upon him, his time fpent his own way is what makes his life differ from that of a flave. If they who affect how and pomp knew how many of their fpectators derided their trivial tafte, they would be very much less elated, and have an inclination to examine the merit of all they have to do with: they would foon find out that there are many who make a figure below what their fortune or merit intitles them to, out of mere choice, and an elegant defire of ease and difincumbrance. It would took like a romance to tell you in this age of an old man who is contented to pafs for an humourist, and one who does not understand the figure he ought to make in the world, while he lives in a lodging of ten fhillings a week with only one fervant: while he dreffes himself according to the season in cloth or in fluff, and has no one neceffary attention to any thing but the bell which calls to prayers twicę a day. I fay it would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away all which is the overplus of a great fortune, by fecret methods, to other men. If he has not the pomp of a numerous train, and of profeffors of fervice to him, he has every day he lives the Confcience that the widow, the fatherlefs, the mourner, and the ftranger blefs his unfeen hand in their prayers. This humourist gives up all the compliments which

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