saw in my papers. The youth produced it, and I found it was my friend Horace. It was very easy to turn to the place the boy was learning in, which was the fifth Ode of the first book, to Pyrrha. I read it over aloud, as well because I am always delighted when I turn to the beautiful parts of that author, as also to gain time for considering a little how to keep up the mother's pleasure in her child, which I thought barbarity to interrupt. In the first place I asked him, 'Who this same Pyrrha was?' He answered very readily,' She was the wife of Pyrrhus, one of Alexander's captains.' I lifted up my hands. The mother courtesies. Nay,' says she, I knew you would stand in admiration-I assure you,' continued she, for all he looks so tall, 6 he is but very young. Pray ask him some more; never spare him.' With that I took the liberty to ask him, 'what was the character of this gentlewoman?' He read the three first verses: Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa HOR. 1 Od. v. 1. and very gravely told me, she lived at the sign of the The Rose in a cellar. I took care to be very much astonished at the lad's improvements; but withal advised her, as soon as possible, to take him from school, for he could learn no more there. This very silly dialogue was a lively image of the impertinent method used in breeding boys without genius or spirit to the reading things for which their heads were never framed. But this is the natural effect of a certain vanity in the minds of parents; who are wonderfully delighted with the thought of breeding their children to accomplishments, which they believe nothing, but want of the same care in their own fathers, prevented them from being masters of. Thus it is, that the part of life most fit for improvement is generally employed in a method against the bent of nature; and a lad of such parts as are fit for an occupation, where there can be no calls out of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time wholly taken up in knowing how well Ovid's mistress became such a dress; how such a nymph for her cruelty was changed into such an animal; and how it is made generous in Æneas to put Turnus to death; gallantries that can no more come within the occurrences of the lives of ordinary men, than they can be relished by their imaginations. However, still the humour goes on from one generation to another; and the pastry-cook here in the lane, the other night, told me, "he would not yet take away his son from his learning; but has resolved, as soon as he had a little smattering in the Greek, to put him apprentice to a soap-boiler.' These wrong beginnings determine our success in the world; and when our thoughts are originally falsely biassed, their agility and force do but carry us the farther out of our way, in proportion to our speed. But we are half way our journey, when we have got into the right road. If all our days were usefully employed, and we did not set out impertinently, we should not have so many grotesque professors in all the arts of life; but every man would be in a proper and becoming method of distinguishing or entertaining himself suitably to what nature designed him. As they go on now, our parents do not only force us upon what is against our talents, but our teachers are also as injudicious in what they put us to learn. I have hardly ever since suffered so much by the charms of any beauty, as I did before I had a sense of passion, for not apprehending that the smile of Lalage was what pleased Horace; and I verily believe the stripes I suffered, about Digito malè perti aci has given me that irreconcilable aversion, which I shall carry to my grave, against coquettes. As for the elegant writer of whom I am talking, his excellences are to be observed as they relate to the different concerns of his life; and he is always to be looked upon as a lover, a courtier, or a man of wit. His admirable Odes have numberless instances of his merit in each of these characters. His Epistles and Satires are full of proper notices for the conduct of life in a court; and what we call good breeding, is most agreeably intermixed with his morality. His addresses to the persons who favoured him, are so inimitably engaging, that Augustus complained of him for so seldom writing to him, and asked him, whether he was afraid posterity should read their names together?' Now for the generality of men to spend much time in such writings is as pleasant a folly as any he ridicules. Whatever the crowd of scholars may pretend, if their way of life, or their own imaginations, do not lead them to a taste of him, they may read, nay write, fifty volumes upon him, and be just as they were when they began. I remember to have heard a great painter say, There are certain faces for certain painters, as well as certain subjects for certain poets.' This is as true in the choice of studies; and no one will ever relish an author thoroughly well, who would not have been fit company for that author, had they lived at the same time. All others are mechanics in learning, and take the sentiments of writers like waiting-servants who report what passed at their master's table; but debase every thought and expression, for want of the air with which they were uttered. N° 174. SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1710. Quem mala stultitia, aut quæcunque inscitia veri, From my own Apartment, May 19. THE learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every individual of that species what he calls a Seity, something peculiar to himself, which makes him different from all other persons in the world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous, according as he uses his talents, which always grow out into faults, or improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and lazy part of mankind under the denomination of dead men, together with the degrees towards nonexistence, in which others can neither be said to live or be defunct; but are only animals merely dressed up like men, and differ from each other but as flies do by a little colouring or fluttering of their wings. Now as our discourses heretofore have chiefly regarded the indolent part of the species, it remains that we do justice also upon the impertinently active and enterprising. Such as these I shall take particular care to place in safe custody, and have used all possible diligence to run up my edifice in Moorfields for that service. We, who are adepts in astrology, can impute it to several causes in the planets, that this quarter of our great city is the region of such persons as either never, had or have lost the use of reason. It has indeed been, time out of mind, the reception of fools as well as madmen. The care and information of the former I assign to other learned men, who have for that end taken up their habitation in those parts; as, among others, to the famous Dr. Trotter, and my ingenious friend Dr. Langham. These oraculous proficients are day and night employed in deep searches, for the direction of such as run astray after their lost goods: but at present they are more particularly serviceable to their country, in foretelling the fate of such as have chances in the public lottery. Dr. Langham shews a peculiar generosity on this occasion, taking only one half-crown for a prediction, eighteen-pence of which to be paid out of the prizes; which method the doctor is willing to comply with in favour of every adventurer in the whole lottery Leaving therefore the whole generation of such inquirers to such Literati as I have now mentioned, we are to proceed towards peopling our house, which we have erected with the greatest cost and care imaginable. It is necessary in this place to premise, that the superiority and force of mind which is born with men of great genius, and which, when it falls in with a noble imagination, is called poetical fury, does not come under my consideration; but the pretence to such an impulse, without natural warmth, shall be allowed a fit object of this charity; and all the volumes, written by such hands, shall be from time to time placed in proper order upon the rails of the unhoused booksellers within the district of the college, who have long inhabited this quarter, in the same manner as they are already disposed, soon after the publication. I promise myself from these writings my best opiates for those patients, whose high imaginations and hot spirits have awakened them into distraction. Their boiling tempers are not to be |