66

you make; and doubt not but your Majefty's faith in "treaties will require the ratification of the States of your kingdom. So we bid you heartly farewel, un"til we have the honour to meet you affembled in par"liament. This happy expectation makes us willing "to wait the event of another campaign, from whence we hope to be raised from the mifery of flaves to the "privileges of fubjects. We are

Your Majesty's

N° 30.

truly faithful and

loyal fubjects, &c.

Saturday, June 18, 1709.

T

From my own Apartment, June 16.

HE vigilance, the anxiety, the tendernefs, which I have for the good people of England, I am perfuaded, will in time be much commended; but I doubt whether they will ever, be rewarded. However, I must go on chearfully in my work of reformation: That being my great defign, I am ftudious to prevent my labour's increafing upon me; therefore am particularly obfervant of the temper and inclinations of Childhood and Youth, that we may not give vice and folly fupplies from the growing generation. It is hardly to be imagined, how ufeful this ftudy is, and what great evils or benefits arife from putting us in our tender years to what we are fit and unfit: Therefore on Tuesday laft (with a defign to found their inclinations) I took three Lads, who are under my guardianship, a rambling, in a hackney-coach, to fhow them the town; as the Lions, the Tombs, Bedlam, and the other places which are entertainments to raw minds, because they ftrike forcibly on

the

the fancy. The Boys are brothers, one of fixteen, the other of fourteen, the other of twelve. The first was his father's darling, the fecond his mother's, and the third is mine, who am their uncle. Mr. William is a lad of true genius; but being at the upper end of a great fchool, and having all the boys below him, his arrogance is infupportable. If I begin to fhew a little of my Latin, he immediately interrupts: Uncle, under favour, that which you fay is not understood in that manner. Brother, fays my boy Jack, you do not show your manners much in contradicting my uncle Ifaac ! You queer cur, fays Mr. William, do you think my uncle takes any notice of fuch a dull rogue as you are? Mr. William goes on; He is the moft ftupid of all my mother's children: he knows nothing of his book: When he fhould mind that, he is hiding or hoarding his taws. and marbles, or laying up farthings. His way of thinking is, four and twenty farthings make fixpence, and two fixpences a fhilling, two fhillings and fixpence halfTM a crown, and two half crowns five fhillings. So within these two months, the clofe hunks has fcraped up twenty fhillings, and we will make him fpend it all before he comes home. Jack immediately claps his hands into both pockets, and turns as pale as afhes. There is nothing touches a parent (and fuch I am to Jack) fo nearly as a provident conduct. This lad has in him the true temper for a good Hufband, a kind Father, and an honeft Executor. All the great people you fee make confiderable figures on the Exchange, in Court, and fometimes in Senates, are fuch as in reality have no greater faculty than what may be called human instinct, which is a natural tendency to their own prefervation, and that of their friends, without being capable of ftriking out of the road for adventures. There is Sir William Scrip was of this fort of capacity from his childhood; he has bought the country round him, and makes a bargain better than Sir Harry Wildfire, with all his wit and humour. Sir Harry never wants money but he comes to Scrip, laughs at him half an hour, and then gives bond for the other thoufand. The clofe men are incapable of placing merit any where but in their pence, and therefore gain it; while others, who have larger capacities,. I 6

are

are diverted from the purfuit by enjoyments, which can be fupported only by that cafh which they defpife; and therefore are in the end flaves to their inferiors both in fortune and understanding. I once heard a man of excellent fenfe obferve, that more affairs in the world failed by being in the hands of men of too large capacities for their bufinefs, than by being in the conduct of fuch as wanted abilities to execute them. Jack therefore, being of a plodding make, fhall be a citizen: and I defign him to be the refuge of the family in their diftrefs, as well as their jeft in profperity. His brother Will fhall go to Oxford with all fpeed, where, if he does not arrive at being a man of fenfe, he will foon be informed wherein he is a coxcomb. There is in that place fuch a true fpirit of raillery and humour, that if they cannot make you a wife man, they will certainly let you know you are a fool; which is all my coufin wants, to cease to be fo. Thus having taken these two out of the way, I have leisure to look at my third lad. I obferve in the young rogue a natural fubtilty of mind, which difcovers itself rather in forbearing to declare his thoughts on any occafion, than in any viñible way of exerting himself in difcourfe. For which reafon I will place him, where, if he commits no faults, he may go farther than those in other ftations, though they excel in virtues. The boy is well fashioned, and will eafily fall into a graceful manner; wherefore I have a defign to make him a page to a great Lady of my acquaintance; by which means he will be well skilled in the common modes of life, andmake a greater progrefs in the world by that knowledge, than with the greatest qualities without it. A good mien in a Court will carry a man greater lengths than a good underftanding in any other place. We fee a world of pains taken, and the best years of life spent in collecting a fet of thoughts in a college for the conduct of life; and after all, the man fo qualified shall hefitate in his fpeech to a good fuit of clothes, and want common sense before an agreeable woman. Hence it is, that wisdom, valour, juftice, and learning, cannot keep a man in countenance that is poffeffed with thefe excellencies, if he wants that inferior art of life and behaviour, called Good-breeding. A man endowed with great perfec

tions, without this, is like one who has his pockets full of gold, but always wants change for his ordinary occafions.

Will Courtly is a living inftance of this truth, and has had the fame education which I am giving my nephew. He never spoke a thing but what was faid before, and yet can converse with the wittieft men without being ridiculous. Among the learned, he does not appear ignorant; nor with the wife, indifcreet. Living in converfation from his infancy, makes him no where at a lofs; and a long familiarity with the perfons of men is, in a manner, of the fame service to him, as if he knew their arts. As ceremony is the invention of wife men to keep fools at a distance, fe good-breeding is an expedient to make fools and wife men equals.

Will's Coffee-house, June 22.

The fufpenfion of the Playhouse has made me have nothing to fend you from hence; but calling here this evening, I found the party I ufually fit with, upon the bufinefs of writing, and examining what was the handfomeft ftyle in which to address women, and write Letters of gallantry. Many were the opinions which were immediately declared on this fubject. Some were for a certain foftnefs; fome for I know not what delicacy; others for fomething inexpreffibly tender. When it camé to me, I faid there was no rule in the world to be made for writing Letters, but that of being as near what you fpeak face to face as you can; which is fo great a truth, that I am of opinion, writing has loft: more miftreffes than any one mistake in the whole Legend of Love. For when you write to a Lady for whom you have a solid and honourable paffion, the great idea you have of her, joined to a quick fenfe of her abfence, fills your mind with a fort of tendernefs, that gives your language too much the air of complaint, which is feldom fuccessful. For a man may flatter himself as he pleases; but he will and that the women have more understanding in their own affairs than we have, and women of fpirit are not to be won, by mourners. He that can keep handsomely within rules, and fupport the carriage of a companion to

his mistress, is much more likely to prevail, than he who lets her fee the whole relifh of his life depends upon her. If poffible, therefore, divert your mistress, rather than figh for her. The pleafant man fhe will defire for her own fake; but the languishing lover has nothing to hope from, but her pity. To fhew the difference, I produced two Letters a Lady gave me, which had been writ by two Gentlemen who pretended to her, but were both killed the next day after the date, at the battle of Almanza. One of them was a mercurial gay-humoured man; the other a man of a ferious, but a great and gallant fpirit. Poor Jack Careless! this is his Letter: You fee how it is folded: The air of it is fo negligent, one might have read half of it, by peeping into it without breaking it open. He had no exactnefs.

I

MADAM,

T is a very pleafant circumftance I am in, that while I fhould be thinking of the good company we are to meet within a day or two, where we shall go to loggerheads, my thoughts are running upon a fair enemy in England. I was in hopes I had left you "there; but you follow the camp, though I have en"deavoured to make fome of our leaguer Ladies drive you out of the field. All my comfort is, you are more troublesome to my Colonel than myfelf: I per66 mit you. to vifit me only now and then; but he down"right keeps you. I laugh at his honour, as far as his

gravity will allow me; but I know him to be a man "of too much merit to fucceed with a woman. There"fore defend your heart as well as you can, I fhall come home this winter irrefiftibly dreffed, and with "quite a new foreign air. And fo I had like to say, L reft, but, alas ! I remain,

6.6.

Madam,

your most obedient,

moft humble fervant,,

John Careless.

Now