The common neglect of the present hour is more shameful and criminal, as no man is betrayed to it by error, but admits it by negligence. Of the instability of life, the weakest understanding never thinks wrong, though the strongest often omits to think justly: reason and experience are always ready to inform us of our real state; but we refuse to listen to their suggestions, because we feel our hearts unwilling to obey them: but, surely, nothing is more unworthy of a reasonable being, than to shut his eyes, when he sees the road which he is commanded to travel, that he may deviate with fewer reproaches from himself; nor could any motive to tenderness, except the consciousness that we have all been guilty of the same fault, dispose us to pity those who thus consign themselves to voluntary ruin.

T

N° 109. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER, 20, 1753.

Insanire putas solemnia me, neque rides.

You think me but as mad as all mankind.

HOR.

SIR,

TO THE ADVENTURER.

MONTESQUIEU wittily observes, that by building professed mad-houses, men tacitly insinuate, that all who are out of their senses are to be found only in those places. This remark having made some

impression on my mind, produced last night the following vision.

I imagined that Bedlam had been ordered to be rebuilt upon a more extensive plan by act of parliament; and that Dean Swift, calling at my lodgings, offered to accompany me to see the new-erected edifice, which, he observed, was not half capacious enough before to contain the various species of madness that are to be found in this kingdom. As we walked through the galleries, he gave me the following account of the several inhabitants.

The lady in the first apartment had prevailed upon her husband, a man of study and economy, to indulge her with a route twice a week at her own house. This soon multiplied her obligations to the company she kept, and in a fortnight she insisted upon two more. His lordship venturing to oppose her demand with steady resolution, but with equal tenderness, the lady complained, that the rights of quality and fortune were invaded, that her credit was lost with the fashionable world, and that ignorance and brutality had robbed her of the pleasures of a reasonable being, and rendered her the most unhappy wife in Great Britain. The cause of her complaints, however, still subsisted, and by perpetually brooding over it she at length turned her brain.

Next to her is a dramatic writer, whose comedy having been justly damned, he began to vent his spleen against the public, by weekly abuses of the present age; but as neither the play nor his defences of it were read, his indignation continually increased, till at length it terminated in madness.

He on the right hand is a philosopher, who has lost his reason in a fruitless attempt to discover the cause of electricity.

He on the left is a celebrated jockey of noble

birth, whose favourite mare, that had enjoyed three triumphs in former seasons, was distanced a few days ago at Newmarket.

Yonder meagre man has bewildered his understanding by closely studying the doctrine of chances, in order to qualify himself for a professorship which will be shortly established and amply endowed at an eminent chocolate-house, where lectures on this important subject are constantly to be read.

An unforeseen accident turned the head of the next unfortunate prisoner. She had for a long time passed for fifteen years younger than she was, and her lively behaviour and airy dress concurred to help forward the imposition; till one evening, being animated with an extraordinary flow of spirits, she danced out seven of her artificial teeth, which were immediately picked up, and delivered to her with great ceremony by her partner.

The merchant in the neighbouring cell had resolved to gain a plumb. He was possessed of seventy thousand pounds, and eagerly expected a ship that was to complete his wishes. But the ship was cast away in the channel, and the merchant is distracted for his loss.

That disconsolate lady bad for many years assiduously attended an old gouty uncle, had assented to all his absurdities, and humoured all his foibles, in full expectation of being made his executrix; when happening one day to affirm that his gruel had sack enough in it, contrary to his opinion, he altered his will immediately, and left all to her brother; which affords her no consolation, for avarice is able to subdue the tenderness of nature.

Behold the beautiful and virtuous Theodora! Her fondness for an ungrateful husband was un

N° 109. paralleled. She detected him in the arms of a disagreeable and affected prostitute, and was driven to distraction.

Is my old friend the commentator here likewise? Alas! he has lost his wits in inquiring whether or no the ancients wore perukes? as did his neighbour Cynthio, by receiving a frown from his patron at the last levee.

The fat lady, upon whom you look so earnestly, is a grocer's wife in the city. Her disorder was occasioned by her seeing at court, last Twelfth night, the daughter of Mr. Alderman Squeeze, oil-man, in a sack far richer and more elegant than her

own.

The next chamber contains an adventurer who purchased thirty tickets in the last lottery. As he was a person of a sanguine complexion and lively imagination, he was sure of gaining the ten thou sand pounds by the number of his chances. He spent a month in surveying the counties that lie in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, before he could find out an agreeable site for the fine house he intended to build. He next fixed his eye on a most blooming and beautiful girl, whom he designed to honour as his bride. He bespoke a magnifi. cent coach, and the ornaments of his harness were to be of his own invention. Mr. Degageé, the taylor, was ordered to send to Paris for the lace with which his wedding clothes were to be adorned. But in the midst of these preparations for prosperity, all his tickets were drawn blanks; and instead of his villa on the banks of the Thames, you now see him in these melancholy lodgings.

His neighbour in the next apartment was an honest footman, who was persuaded likewise to try his fortune in the same lottery: and who, obtaining a very large and unexpected sum, could not stand

the shock of such sudden good fortune, but grew mad with excess of joy.

You wonder to see that cell beautified with Chinese vases and urns. It is inhabited by that famous virtuoso lady Harriet Brittle, whose opinion was formerly decisive at all auctions, where she was usually appealed to about the genuineness of porcelain. She purchased, at an exorbitant price, a Mandarin, and a Jos, that were the envy of all the female connoisseurs, and were allowed to be inestimable. They were to be placed at the upper end of a little rock-work temple of Chinese architecture, in which neither propriety, proportion, nor true beauty, were considered, and were carefully packed up in different boxes; but the brutish waggoner happening to overturn his carriage, they were crushed to pieces. The poor lady's understanding could not survive so irreparable a loss; and her relations, to soothe her passion, have provided those Chelsea urns with which she has decorated her chamber, and which she believes to be the true Nanquin.

Yonder miserable youth, being engaged in a hot contention at a fashionable brothel about a celebrated courtezan, killed a sea officer with whose face he was not acquainted; but who proved upon inquiry to be his own brother, who had been ten years absent in the Indies.

Look attentively into the next cell; you will there discover a lady of great worth and fine accomplishments, whose father condemned her to the arms of a right honourable debauchee, when he knew she had fixed her affections irrevocably on another, who possessed an unincumbered estate, but wanted the ornament of a title. She submitted to the orders of a stern father with patience, obedience, and a breaking heart. Her husband treated her with that contempt which he thought due to a citizen's