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errant (who were the very pretty fellows of thofe antient times) thought they could not honourably yield, though they had fought their own trufty weapons to the flumps; but would venture as boldly with the page's leaden fword, as if it had been of inchanted metal. Whence, I conceive, there must be a fpice of romantic gallantry in the compofition of that very pretty fellow.

Sir Mark. I am of opinion, Mr. Sage, that fashion governs a very pretty fellow; nature, or common fenfe, your ordinary perfons, and fometimes men of fine parts.

Mr. Sage. But what is the reason, that men of the moft excellent sense and morals, in other points, associate their understandings with the very pretty fellows in that chimæra of a Duel?

Sir Mark. There is no difputing againft fo great a majority.

Mr. Sage. But there is one fcruple, Colonel Plume, and I have done: Do not you believe there may be fome advantage even upon a cloak with piftols, which a man of nice honour would fcruple to take.

Col. Plume. Faith, I cannot tell, Sir; but fince one may reasonably fuppofe, that, in fuch a cafe, there can be but one fo far in the wrong as to occafion matters to come to that extremity, I think the chance of being killed fhould fall hut on one; whereas, by their clofe and defperate manner of fighting, it may very probably happen to both.

Sir Mark. Why, Gentlemen, if they are men of such nice honour, and muft fight, there will be no fear of foul play, if they threw up crofs or pile who fhould be shot.

Tuesday,

N° 40.

L

Tuesday, July 12, 1709.

Will's Coffee-house, July 11.

ETTERS from the city of London give an account

of a very great confternation that place is in at prefent, by reafon of a late enquiry made at Guildhall, whether a noble perfon has parts enough to deserve the enjoyment of the great estate of which he is poffeffed? The city is apprehenfive, that this precedent may go further than was at firft imagined. The perfon against whom this inquifition is fet up by his relations, is a Peer of a neighbouring kingdom, and has in his youth made fome few bulls, by which it is infinuated, that he has forfeited his goods and chattels. This is the more aftonishing, in that there are many perfons in the faid city who are ftill more guilty than his Lordship, and who, though they are Ideots, do not only poffefs, but have alfo themfelves acquired great eftates, contrary to the known laws of this realm, which vests their poffeffions in the Crown.

There is a Gentleman in the coffee-house at this time exhibiting a bill in Chancery against his father's younger brother, who by fome ftrange magic has arrived at the value of half a plumb, as the citizens call an hundred thousand pounds; and in all the time of growing up to that wealth, was never known in any of his ordinary words or actions to difcover any proof of reafon. Upon this foundation my friend has fet forth, that he is illegally master of his coffers, and has writ two Epigrams to fignify his own pretenfions and fufficiency for fpending that eftate, He has inferted in his plea fome things which I fear will give offence; for he pretends to argue, that though a man has a little of the knave mixed with the Fool, he is nevertheless liable to the lofs of goods; and makes the abuse of reason as just an avoidance of an

eftate

eftate as the total abfence of it. This is what can never pafs; but witty men are so full of themselves, that there is no perfuading them; and my friend will not be convinced, but that upon quoting Solomon, who always used the word Fool as a term of the fame fignification with unjust, and makes all deviation from goodness and virtue to come under the notion of Folly; I fay, he doubts not, but by the force of this authority, let his ideot uncle appear never so great a knave, he shall prove him a Fool at the fame time.

This affair led the company here into an examination of these points; and none coming here but Wits, what was afferted by a young lawyer, that a lunatic is in the care of the Chancery, but a Fool in that of the Crown, was received with general indignation. "Why that? ~" fays old Renault. Why that? Why muft a Fool be a "courtier more than a madman? This is the iniquity "of this dull age: I remember the time when it went

on the mad fide; all your Top-wits were Scourers, Rakes, Roarers, and demolishers of windows. I "knew a mad Lord who was drunk five years together,

and was the envy of that age, who is faintly imitated by the dull pretenders to vice and madness in this. "Had he lived to this day, there had not been a Fool "in fashion in the whole kingdom. When Renault had "done fpeaking, a very worthy man affumed the dif, "courfe: This is, faid he, Mr. Bickerstaff, a proper

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argument for you to treat of in your article from this "place; and if you would fend your Pacolet into all

our brains, you would find, that a little fibre or valve, "fcarce difcernible, makes the diftinction between a "Politician and an Ideot. We fhould therefore throw a veil upon thofe unhappy instances of human nature, "who feem to breathe without the direction of reafon

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and understanding, as we fhould avert our eyes with abhorrence from fuch as live in perpetual abuse and "contradiction to thefe noble faculties. Shall this un

fortunate man be divested of his eftate, because he is "tractable and indolent, runs in no man's debt, in"vades no man's bed, nor fpends the eftate he owes his "children and his character; when one who fhews no "fense above him, but in such practices, shall be esteemed

in his fenfes, and poffibly may pretend to the guardianfhip of him who is no ways his inferior, but in being lefs wicked? We fee old age brings us indifferently "into the fame impotence of Soul, wherein Nature has "placed this Lord."

There is fomething very fantaftical in the diftribution of civil power and capacity among men. The law certainly gives thefe perfons into the ward and care of the Crown, becaufe that is beft able to protect them from injuries, and the impofitions of craft and knavery; that the life of an Ideot may not ruin the intail of a noble houfe, and his weaknefs may not fruftrate the industry or capacity of the founder of his family. But when one of bright parts, as we fay, with his eyes open, and all mens eyes upon him, deftroys thofe purposes, there is no remedy. Folly and ignorance are punished! folly and guilt are tolerated! Mr. Locke has fomewhere made à distinction between a Madman and a Fool: A Fool is he that from right principles makes a wrong conclufion » but a Madman is one who draws a juft inference from falfe principles. Thus the Fool who cut off the fellow's head that lay afleep, and hid it, and then waited to fee what he would fay when he awaked, and missed his head-piece, was in the right in the first thought, that a man would be furprized to find fuch an alteration in things fince he fell asleep; but he was a little mistaken to imagine he could awake at all after his head was cus off. A Madman fancies himself a Prince; but upon his mistake, he acts fuitably to that character; and though he is out in fuppofing he has principalities, while he drinks gruel, and lies in ftraw, yet you fhall fee him keep the port of a diftreffed Monarch in all his words and actions. Thefe two perfons are equally taken into cuftody but what must be done to half this good company, who every hour of their life are knowingly and wittingly both Fools and Madmen, and yet have capa cities both of forming principles, and drawing conclufons, with the full úfe of reafon ?

VOL. I.

M

From

From my own Apartment, July 11.

This evening fome Ladies came to vifit my fifter Jenny; and the difcourfe, after very many frivolous and public måtters, turned upon the main point among the women, the paffion of Love. Sappho, who always leads on this occafion, began to fhew her reading, and told us, that Sir John Suckling and Milton had upon a parallel occafion, faid the tendereft things fhe ever read. The circumstance, said fhe, is fuch as gives us a notion of that protecting part, which is the duty of men in their honourable defigns upon, or poffeffion of women. in Suckling's Tragedy of Brennoralt he makes the Lover steal into his mistress's bedchamber, and draw the curtains; then, when his heart is full of her charms, as the lies fleeping, inftead of being carried away by the violence of his defires into thoughts of a warmer nature, sleep, which is the image of death, gives this generous Lover reflections of a different kind, which regard rather her fafety than his own paffion. For, beholding her as the lies fleeping, he utters these words:

So mifers look upon their gold,

Which, while they joy to fee, they fear to lofe :
The pleasure of the fight fcarce equalling
The jealoufy of being difpoffefs'd by others.
Her face is like the milky Way i'th' sky,
A meeting of gentle lights without name!

Heav'n'! fhall this fresh ornament of the world, "Thefe precious love-lines, pafs with other common "Things

"Amongst the waftes of time? what pity 'twere!"

When Milton makes Adam leaning on his arm, beholding Eve, and lying in the contemplation of her beauty, he describes the utmost tenderness and guardian affection in one word:

Adam with looks of cordial love
Hung over her enamour'd.

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