Ah! you little understand, you that have lived a bache lor, how great, how exquifite a pleasure there is in being really beloved! It is impoffible that the most beauteous face in nature fhould raise in me fuch pleafing ideas, as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caufed by her watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which had like to have carried her off last winter. I tell you fincerely, I have fo many obligations to her, that I cannot with any fort of moderation think of her prefent ftate of health. But as to what you say of fifteen, the gives me every day pleasures beyond what I ever knew in the poffeffion of her beauty, when I was in the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh inftances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I firft faw it; there is no decay in any feature, which I cannot trace from the very inftant it was occafioned by fome anxious concern for my welfare and interefts. Thus at the fame time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her, for what he was, is heightened by my gratitude for what fhe is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle paffion commonly called by that name, as the loud. laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of Gentlemen. Oh! she is an inestimable jewel. In her examination of her houfhold affairs, the fhews a certain fearfulness to find a fault, which makes her fervants obey her like children; and the meanest we have has an ingenuous fhame for an offence, not always to be feen in children in other families. I fpeak freely to you, my old friend; ever fince her fickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before, turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things by their fteps, and am confidering what they muft do, fhould they lofe their mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy ftories of battles, and afking my girl questions about difposal of her baby, and the goffiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy.

He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good Lady entered, and with an inexpreffible fweetnefs

in her countenance told us, he had been fearching her clofet for fomething very good, to treat fuch an old friend as I was. Her husband's eyes fparkled with pleafure at the chearfulness of her countenance; and I faw all his fears vanish in an inftant. The Lady obferving fomething in our looks which fhewed we had been more ferious than ordinary, and feeing her hufband receive her with great concern under a forced chearfulness, immediately gueffed at what we had been talking of; and applying herself to me, faid, with a smile, Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you, I shall stilf live to have you for my fecond, as I have often promised you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done fince his coming to town. You must know, he tells me, that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country; for he fees, feveral of his old acquaintance and fchool-fellows are here young fellows with fair full-bottomed periwigs. I could fcarce keep him this morning from going out open-breafted. My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her fit down with us. She did it with that eafinefs which is peculiar to women of sense; and to keep up the good humour fhe had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me: Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the playhoufe; fuppofe you fhould carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me into the front-box. This put us into a long field of discourse about the Beauties, who were mothers to the prefent, and fhined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, I was glad she had tranfferred fo many of her charms, and I did not question but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a Toast.

We were pleafing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young Lady, when on a fudden we were alarmed with the noife of a drum, and immediately entered my little godfon to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing end chiding, would have put him out of the room; but would not part with him fo. I found upon converfation with him, though he was a little noify in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, and was a great mafter of all the learning on the

other

other fide eight years old. I perceived him a very great hiftorian in jop's Fables: But he frankly declared to me his mind, that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were true; for which reafon, I found he had very much turned his ftudies, for about a twelve-month past, into the lives and adventures of Don Bellianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven Champions, and other hiftorians of that age. I could not but obferve the fatisfaction the father took in the forwardness of his fon; and that thefe diverfions might turn to fome profit, I found the boy had made remarks, which might be of fervice to him during the courfe of his whole life. He would tell you the mifmanagements of John Hickathrift, find fault with the paffionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint George for being the champion of England; and by this means had his thoughts infenfibly moulded into the notions of difcretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me, that the little girl who led me in this morning, was in her way a better fcholar than he Betty, fays he, deals chiefly in Fairies and fprights; and fometimes in a winter-night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed.

I fat with them until it was very late, fometimes in merry, fometimes in ferious difcourfe, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relifh to all cor→ verfation, a fenfe that every one of us liked each other. I went home, confidering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; and I must confess it ftruck me with a fecret concern, to reflect, that whenever I go off, I fhall leave no traces behind me. In this fenfive mood I returned to my family; that is to fay, to my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worfe for what happens to me.

N° 96. Saturday, November 19, 1709.

Is mihi demum vivere & frui animâ videtur, qui aliquo negotio intentus, præclari facinoris aut artis bona famam quarit. Sal. Bel. Cat.

In my opinion, he only may be truly faid to live, and enjoy his Being, who is engaged in fome laudable purfuit, and acquires a name by fome illuftrious action, or useful art.

IT

From my own Apartment, November 17.

T has coft me very much care and thought to marshal and fix the people under their proper denominations, and to range them according to their refpective characters. Thefe my endeavours have been received with unexpected fuccefs in one kind, but neglected in another: For though I have many readers, I have but few converts. This must certainly proceed from a falfe opinion, that what I write is defigned rather to amuse and entertain, than convince and inftruct. I entered upon my Effays with a declaration, that I fhould confider mankind in quite another manner, than they had hitherto been reprefented to the ordinary world; and afferted, that none but an useful life should be with me any life at all. But left this doctrine fhould have made this fmall progress towards the conviction of mankind, be caufe it may appear to the unlearned light and whimfical, I must take leave to unfold the wisdom and antiquity of my first propofition in these my Effays, to wit, "That 66 every worthless man is a dead man. This notion is as old as Pythagoras, in whofe fchool it was a point of difcipline, that if among the 'Axasıncì or Probationers, there were any who grew weary of studying to be useful, and returned to an idle life, the rest were to regard them

as

as dead; and upon their departing, to perform their obfequies, and raise them tombs, with infcriptions to warn others of the like mortality, and quicken them to refolutions of refining their Souls above that wretched ftate. It is upon a like fuppofition, that young Ladies, at this very time, in Roman catholic countries, are received into fome nunneries with their coffins, and with the pomp of a formal funeral, to fignify, that henceforth they are to be of no further ufe, and confequently dead. Nor was Pythagoras himself the first author of this fymbol, with whom, and with the Hebrews, it was generally received. Much more might be offered in illuftration of this doctrine from Sacred Authority, which I recommend to my reader's own reflection; who will easily recollect, from places which I do not think fit to quote here, the forcible manner of applying the words, dead and living, to men as they are good or bad.

I have therefore compofed the following fcheme of existence for the benefit both of the living and the dead; though chiefly for the latter, whom I must defire to read it with all poffible attention. In the number of the dead I comprehend all perfons, of what title or dignity foever, who bestow most of their time in eating and drinking, to fupport that imaginary exiftence of theirs, which they call life; or in dreffing and adorning thofe fhadows and apparitions, which are looked upon by the vulgar as real men and women. In short, whoever refides in the world without having any bufinefs in it, and paffes away an age without ever thinking on the errand for which he was fent hither, is to me a dead man to all intents and purposes; and I defire that he may be so reputed. The living are only thofe that are fome way or other laudably employed in the improvement of their own minds, or for the advantage of others; and even amongst thefe, I fhall only reckon into their lives that part of their time which has been spent in the manner above-mentioned. By thefe means, I am afraid, we fall find the longest lives not to confift of many months, and the greatest part of the earth to be quite unpeopled. According to this system we may obferve, that fome men are born at twenty years of age, fome at thirty, some at threescore, and fome not above an hour before they die :