paffion and of awe, with which Tranquillus approached to falute her, gave me good omens of his future behaviour towards her. The Wedding was wholly under my care. After the ceremony at church, I was refolved to entertain the company with a dinner suitable to the occafion, and pitched upon the Apollo, at the Old devil at Temple-bar, as a place facred to mirth, tempered with difcretion, where Ben Johnson and his fons used to make their liberal meetings. Here the chief of the Staffian race appeared; and as foon as the company were come into that ample room, Lepidus Wagstaff began to make me compliments for choofing that place, and fell into a difcourfe upon the subject of pleasure and entertainment, drawn from the rules of Ben's Club, which are in gold letters over the chimney. Lepidus has a way very uncommon, and fpeaks on fubjects on which any man elfe would certainly offend, with great dexterity. He gives us a large account of the public meetings of all the wellturned minds who had paffed through this life in ages past, and clofed his pleafing narrative with a difcourfe on Marriage, and a repetition of the following verfes out of Milton:

Hail, wedded love! myfterious law! true fource
Of human offspring, fole propriety

In paradise, of all things common else.

By thee adult'rous luft was driven from men
Among the beftial herds to range; by thee,
Founded in reafon, loyal, juft, and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities

Of father, fon, and brother, first were known.
Perpetual fountain of domeftic fweets,

Whofe bed is undefil'd, and chafte pronounc'd,
Prefent or paft, as faints or patriarchs us'd.
Here Love his golden fhafts employs; here lights
His conftant lamp, and waves his purple wings:
Reigns here, and revels not in the bought fm ile
Of harlots, lovelefs, joylefs, unindear'd,

Cafual fruition; nor in court amours,

Mix'd dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Or ferenade, which the ftarv'd lover fings
To his proud fair, beft quitted with disdain.

In these verses, all the images that can come into a young woman's head on fuch an occafion are raised; but that in fo chafte and elegant a manner, that the Bride thanked him for his agreeable talk, and we fat down to dinner.

Among the rest of the company, there was got in a fellow you call a Wag. This ingenious perfon is the ufual life of all feafts and merriments, by fpeaking abfurdities, and putting every body of breeding and modesty out of countenance. As foon as we fat down, he drank to the Bride's diverfion that night; and then made twenty double meanings on the word Thing. We are the best-bred family, for one fo numerous, in this kingdom; and indeed we fhould all of us have been as much out of countenance as the Bride, but that we were relieved by an honeft rough relation of ours at the lower end of the table, who is a Lieutenant of marines. The foldier and failor had good plain fenfe, and faw what was wrong as well as another; he had a way of looking at his plate, and speaking aloud in an inward manner and whenever the Wag mentioned the word Thing, or the words, "That fame," the Lieutenant in that voice cried, "Knock him down." The merry man wondering, angry, and looking round, was the diverfion of the table. When he offered to recover, and fay, to the Bride's beft thoughts, "Knock him down," fays the Lieutenant, and fo on. This filly humour diverted, and faved us from the fulfome entertainment of an illbred coxcomb, and the Bride drank the Lieutenant's health. We returned to my lodging, and Tranquillus ed his wife to her apartment, without the ceremony of throwing the ftocking, which generally cofts two or three maidenheads, without any ceremony at all.

Thursday,

N° 80. Thursday, October 13, 1709.

T

Grecian Coffee-house, October 12.

HIS learned board has complained to me of the exorbitant price of late years put upon Books, and confequently on Learning, which has raifed the reward demanded by learned men for their advice and la bour. In order to regulate and fix a standard in thefe matters; Divines, Phyficians, and Lawyers have fent in large propofals, which are of great light and inftruction. From the perufal of thefe memorials, I am come to this immediate refolution, until I have leifure to treat the matter at large, viz. In Divinity, Fathers fhall be valued according to their antiquity; Schoolmen by the pound weight; and Sermons by their goodness. In my own profeffion, which is moftly Phyfic, Authors fhall be rated according to their language. The Greek is fo rarely understood, and the English fo well, I judge them of no value; fo that only Latin fhall bear a price, and that too according to its purity, and as it ferves beft for prefcription. In Law, the value must be fet according to the intricacy and obfcurity of the Author, and blackness of the letter; provided always, that the binding be of calves-fkin. This method I fhall fettle alfo with relation to all other writings; infomuch that even these our Lucubrations, though hereafter printed by Aldus, Elzevir, or Stephanus, shall not advance above one fingle penny.

White's Chocolate-house, October 12.

It will be allowed me, that I have all along fhewed great refpect in matters which concern the Fair Sex ; but the inhumanity with which the Author of the following Letter has been used, is not to be fuffered.

66

Lady Haughty's, upon her vifiting-day. When "I entered the room where the receives company, they "all ftood up indeed; but they stood as if they were to "ftare at rather than to receive me. After a long pause,

a fervant brought a round ftool, on which I fat down 86 at the lower end of the room, in the prefence of nó lefs than twelve perfons, Gentlemen and Ladies, lolling in elbow-chairs. And, to complete my dif* grace, my miftrefs was of the fociety. I tried to "compofe myself in vain, not knowing how to dif is pofe of either my legs or arms, nor how to fhape my countenance; the eyes of the whole room being ftill upon me in a profound filence. My confufion was at laft fo great, that without fpeaking, or being fpoken to, I fled for it, and left the affembly to treat me at their difcretion. A lecture from you upon these inhuman diftin&tions in a free nation, will, I doubt not, prevent the like evils for the future, and make it, as we fay, as cheap fitting as ftanding. I am, with the greatest respect,

186

P. S.

Sir,

-Your most humble, and

moft obedient fervant,

J. Rr

"That a

I had almost forgot to inform you, fair young Lady fat in an armless chair upon my right hand, with manifeft difcontent in her looks."

Soon after the receipt of this Epiftle, I heard a very gentle knock at my door: My maid went down, and brought up word, that a tall, lean, black man, well dreffed, who faid he had not the honour to be acquainted with me, defired to be admitted. I bid her shew him

up,

up, met him at my chamber-door, and then fell back a few paces. He approached me with great refpect, and told me with a low voice, he was the Gentleman that had been feated upon the round ftool. I immediately recollected, that there was a joint-stool in my chamber, which I was afraid he might take for an inftrument of diftinction, and therefore winked at my boy to carry it into my closet; I then took him by the hand, and led him to the upper end of my room, where I placed him in my great elbow-chair; at the fame time drawing another without arms to it, for myself to fit by him. I then asked him, at what time this misfortune befel him? He answered, between the hours of feven and eight in the evening. I farther demanded of him, what he had eat or drank that day ? He replied, nothing but a dish of water-gruel with a few plumbs in it. In the next place, I felt his pulfe, which was very low and languifhmg. Thefe circumftances confirmed me in an opinion, which I had entertained upon the firft reading of his Letter, that the Gentleman was far gone in the spleen. I therefore advifed him to rife the next morning, and plunge into the cold-bath, there to remain under water until he was almost drowned, This I ordered him to repeat fix days fucceffively; and on the feventh, to repair at the wonted hour to my Lady Haughty's, and to acquaint me afterwards with what he fhall meet with there; and particularly to tell me, whether he fhall think they ftared upon him fo much as the time before. The Gentleman fmiled; and by his way of talking to me, fhewed himfelf a man of excellent fenfe in all particulars, unléfs when a cane-chair, a round or a jointftool, were fpoken of. He opened his heart to me at the fame time concerning feveral other grievances; fuch as, being over-looked in public affemblies, having his bows unanswered, being helped laft at table, and placed at the back part of a coach; with many other diftreffes, which have withered his countenance, and worn him to a skeleton. Finding him a man of reafon, I entered into the bottom of his distemper. Sir, faid I, there are more of your conftitution in this ifland of Great-Britain, than in any other part of the world; and I beg the fayour of you to tell me, whether you do not obferve,