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his impertinence, was filenced by a cinder-wench with a word fpeaking.

INSTEAD therefore of fuppreffing this order of mortals, I would propofe it to my readers to make the best advantage of their morning-falutations. A famous Macedonian prince, for fear of forgetting himfelf in the midst of his good fortune, had a youth to wait on him every morning, and bid him remember that he was a man. A citizen who is waked by one of these criers, may regard him as a kind of remembrancer, come to admonish him that it is time to return to the circumstances he has overlooked all the night-time, to leave off fancying himself what he is not, and prepare to act fuitably to the condition he is realły placed in.

PEOPLE may dream on as long as they please, but I shall take no notice of any imaginary adventures, that do not happen while the fun is on this fide the horizon. For which reafon I ftifle Fritilla's dream at church laft Sunday, who, while the reft of the audience were enjoying the benefit of an excellent difcourfe, was lofing her money and jewels to a gentleman at play, till after a strange run of ill luck fhe was reduced to pawn three lovely pretty children for her laft ftake. When he had thrown them away her companion went off, difcovering himself by his ufual tokens, a cloven foot and a strong smell of brimflone; which laft proved only a bottle of fpirits, which a good old lady applied to her nofe, to put her in a condition of hearing the preacher's third head concerning time..

If a man has no mind to pass abruptly from his imagi ned to his real circumftances, he may employ himself a while in that new kind of obfervation which my oneirocritical correfpondent has directed him to make of himfelf. Purfuing the imagination through all its extravagancies, whether in fleeping or waking, is no improper method of correcting and bringing it to act in fubordinacy to reason, so as to be delighted only with fuch objects as will affect it with pleafare, when it is never fo cool and fedate,

N3

N° 598.

Friday, September 24.

Jamne igitur laudas, quod de fapientibus alter
Ridebat, quoties a limine moverat unum
Protuleratque pedem: flebat contrarius alter?

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Juv. fat. 10. v. 28.

Will you not now the pair of fages praife,
Who the fame end pursued by feveral ways?
One pity'd, one contemn'd the woful times;
One laugh'd at follies, one lamented crimes. Dryden.

M

ANKIND may be divided into the merry and the ferious, who, both of them, make a very good figure in the fpecies, fo long as they keep their respective humours from degenerating into the neighbouring extreme; there being a natural tendency in the one to a melancholy morofeness, and in the other to a fantastic levity.

THE merry part of the world are very amiable, whilst they diffuse a chearfulness through converfation at proper feafons and on proper occafions; but, on the contrary, a great grievance to fociety, when they infect every difcourfe with infipid mirth, and turn into ridicule fuch fubjects as are not fuited to it. For though laughter is looked upon by the philofophers as the property of reason, the excefs of it has been always confidered as the mark of folly.

On the other fide seriousness has its beauty, whilst it is attended with chearfulness and humanity, and does not eome in unfeafonably to pall the good humour of thofe with whom we converfe.

THESE two fets of men, notwithstanding they each of them fhine in their refpective characters, are apt to bear a natural averfion and antipathy to one another.

WHAT is more ufual than to hear men of ferious tempers and auftere morals, enlarging upon the vanities and follies of the young and gay part of the fpecies; whilst they look with a kind of horror upon fuch pomps and diverfions as are innocent in themselves, and only culpable when they draw the mind too much?

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I COULD not but smile upon reading a paffage in the account which Mr Baxter gives of his own life, wherein he represents it as a great bleffing, that in his youth he very narrowly efcaped getting a place at court.

For

IT muft indeed be confeffed that levity of temper takes a man off his guard, and opens a pass to his foul for any temptation that affaults it. It favours all the approaches of vice, and weakens all the refiftance of virtue. which reafon a renowned statesman in queen Elifabeth's days, after having retired from court and public business, in order to give himself up to the duties of religion; when any of his old friends ufed to visit him, had still this word of advice in his mouth, Be ferious.

AN eminent Italian author of this caft of mind, fpeaking of the great advantage of a ferious and compofed temper, wishes very gravely, that for the benefit of mankind he had Trophonius's cave in his poffeffion; which, fays he, would contribute more to the reformation of manners than all the workhoufes and Bridewells in Europe.

We have a very particular description of this cave in Paufanias, who tells us, that it was made in the form of a huge oven, and had many particular circumstances, which difpofed the person who was in it to be more pensive and thoughtful than ordinary; infomuch that no man was ever obferved to laugh all his life after, who had once made his entry into this cave. It was ufual in thofe times, when any one carried a more than ordinary gloominess in his features, to tell him that he looked like one juft come out of Trophonius's cave.

On the other hand, writers of a more merry comple xion have been no lefs fevere on the oppofite party; and have had one advantage above them, that they have attacked them with more turns of wit and humour.

AFTER all, if a man's temper was at his own difpofal, I think he would not chufe to be of either of these parties; fince the most perfect character is that which is formed out of both of them. A man would neither chufe to be a hermit nor a buffoon: human nature is not fo miserable, as that we fhould be always melancholy; nor fo happy, as that we should be always merry. In a word, a man fhould

not

not live as if there was no God in the world; nor, at the fame time, as if there were no men in it.

Monday, September 27.

N° 599.

-Ubique

Luctus, ubique pavor

Virg. Æn. 2. v. 369.

All parts refound with tumults, plaints, and fears. Dryden.

If

T has been my cuftom, as I grew old, to allow myfelf in fome little indulgences which I never took in my youth. Among others is that of an afternoon's nap, which I fell into in the fifty-fifth year of my age, and have continued for the three last years paft. By this means I enjoy a double morning, and rife twice a-day fresh to my fpeculations. It happens very luckily for me, that fome of my dreams have proved inftructive to my countrymen, fo that I may be faid to fleep, as well as to wake, for the good of the public. I was yesterday meditating on the account with which I have already entertained my readers concerning the cave of Trophonius. I was no fooner fallen into my ufual flumber, but I dreamed that this cave was put into my poffeffion, and that I gave public notice of its virtue, inviting every one to it, who had a mind to be a ferious man for the remaining part of his life. Great multitudes immediately reforted to me. The first who made the experiment was a Merry Andrew, who was put into my hands by a neighbouring justice of peace, in order to reclaim him from that profigate kind of life. Poor Pickle-herring had not taken above one turn in it, when he came out of the cave, like a hermit from his cell, with a penitential look, and a most rueful countenance. I then put in a young laughing fop, and, watching for his return, afked him, with a fmile, how he liked the place? He replied, Prithee, friend, be not impertinent; and stalked by me as grave as a judge. A citizen then defired me to give free ingrefs and egrefs to his wife, who was dreffed in the gayeft coloured ribbons

I had ever seen. She went in with a flirt of her fan and a fmirking countenance, but came out with the feverity of a veftal, and throwing from her feveral female gewgaws, told me with a figh, that the refolved to go into deep mourning, and to wear black all the rest of her life. As I had many coquettes recommended to me by their parents, their husbands, and their lovers, I let them in all at once, defiring them to divert themselves together as well as they could. Upon their emerging again into day-light, you would have fancied my cave to have been a nunnery, and that you had feen a folemn proceffion of religious marching out, one behind another, in the most profound filence and the most exemplary decency. As I was very much delighted with fo edifying a fight, there came towards me a great company of males and females laughing, finging, and dancing, in fuch a manner, that I could hear them a great while before I saw them. Upon my afking their leader, what brought them thither? they told me all at once, that they were French Proteftants lately arrived in Great Britain, and that finding themselves of too gay a humour for my country, they applied themselves to me in order to compofe them for British converfation. I told them, that to oblige them I would foon spoil their mirth; upon which I admitted a whole fhoal of them, who, after having taken a furvey of the place, came out in very good order, and with looks entirely English. I afterwards put in a Dutchman, who had a great fancy to fee the Kelder, as he called it, but I could not obferve that it had made any manner of alteration in him.

A COMEDIAN who had gained great reputation in parts of humour, told me, that he had a mighty mind to act Alexander the Great, and fancied that he should fucceed very well in it, if he could ftrike two or three laughing features out of his face: he tried the experiment, but contracted fo very folid a look by it, that I am afraid he will be fit for no part hereafter but a Timon of Athens, or a mute in The funeral.

I THEN clapt up an empty fantastic citizen, in order to qualify him for an alderman. He was fucceeded by a young rake of the Middle-temple, who was brought to me by his grandmother; but to her great forrow and fur

prife,

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