argument for you to treat of in your article from this place; and if you would send your Pacolet into all our brains, you would find, that a little fibre or valve, scarce discernible, makes the distinction between a politician and an idiot. We should therefore, throw a veil upon those unhappy instances of human nature, who seem to breathe without the direction of reason and understanding, as we should avert our eyes with abhorrence from such as live in perpetual abuse and contradiction to those noble faculties. Shall this unfortunate man be divested of his estate, because he is tractable and indolent, runs in no man's debt, invades no man's bed, nor spends the estate he owes his children and his character; when one who shews no sense above him, but in such practices, shall be esteemed in his senses, and possibly may pretend to the guardianship of him who is no ways his inferior, but in being less wicked? We see old age brings us indifferently into the same impotence of soul, wherein nature has placed this lord.' There is something very fantastical in the distribution of civil power and capacity among men. The law certainly gives these persons into the ward and care of the crown, because that is best able to protect them from injuries, and the impositions of craft and knavery; that the life of an idiot may not ruin the entail of a noble house, and his weakness may not frustrate the industry or capacity of the founder of his family. But when one of bright parts, as we say, with his eyes open, and all men's eyes upon him, destroys those purposes, there is no remedy. Folly and ignorance are punished! folly and guilt are tolerated! Mr. Locke has somewhere made a distinction between a madman and a fool: a fool is he that from right principles makes a wrong conclusion; but a madman is one who draws a just inference from false principles. Thus the fool who cut off the fellow's head that lay asleep, and hid it, and then waited to see what he would say when he awaked and missed his head-piece, was in the right in the first thought, that a man would be surprised to find such an alteration in things since he fell asleep; but he was a little mistaken to imagine he could awake at all after his head was cut off. A madman fancies himself a prince; but upon his mistake, he acts suitable to that character; and though he is out in supposing he has principalities, while he drinks gruel, and lies in straw, yet you shall see him keep the port of a distressed monarch in all his words and actions. These two persons are equally taken into custody: 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 capacities both of forming principles, and drawing conclusions, with the full use of reason? From my own Apartment, July 11. 6 This evening some ladies came to visit my sister Jenny; and the discourse after very many frivolous and public matters, turned upon the main point among the women, the passion of love. Sappho, who always leads on this occasion, began to show her reading, and told us, that Sir John Suckling and Milton had, upon a parallel occasion, said the tenderest things she ever read. The circumstance,' said she, is such as gives us a notion of that protecting part, which is the duty of men in their honourable designs upon, or possession 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 she lies sleeping, instead of being carried away by the violence of his desires 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 safety than his own passion. For, beholding her as she lies sleeping, he utters these words: "So misers look upon their gold, Which, while they joy to see, they fear to lose, A meeting of gentle lights without name!" • 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, 'This is that sort of passion which truly deserves the name of love, and has something more generous than friendship itself; for it has a constant care of the object beloved, abstracted from its own interests in the possession of it. Sappho was proceeding on the subject, when my sister produced a letter sent to her in the time of my absence, in celebration of the marriage state, which is the condition wherein only this sort of passion reigns in full authority. This epistle is as follows: · Dear Madam, "Your brother being absent, I dare take the liberty of writing to you my thoughts of that state, which our whole sex either is, or desires to be in. You will easily guess I mean matrimony, which I hear so much decried, that it was with no small labour I maintained my ground against two op ponents; but, as your brother observed of Socrates, I drew them into my conclusion, from their own concessions; thus: "In marriage are two happy things allow'd, If you think they were too easily confuted, you may conclude them not of the first sense, by their talking against marriage. Yours, MARIANA.' I observed Sappho began to redden at this epistle : and turning to a lady, who was playing with a dog she was so fond of as to carry him abroad with her; Nay,' says she, I cannot blame the men if they have mean ideas of our souls and affections, and wonder so many are brought to take us for compa nions for life, when they see our endearments so triflingly placed; for to my knowledge, Mr. Truman would give half his estate for half the affection you have shown to that Shock; nor do I believe you would be ashamed to confess, that I saw you cry, when he had the colic last week with lapping sour milk. What more could you do for your lover himself?' What more!' replied the lady, There is not a man in England for whom I could lament half so much.' Then she stifled the animal with kisses, and called him beau, life, dear monsieur, pretty fellow, and what not, in the hurry of her impertinence. Sappho rose up; as she always does at any thing she observes done which discovers in her own sex a levity of mind, that renders them inconsiderable in the opinion of ours. N° 41. THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1709. Celebrare domestica facta. To celebrate domestic deeds. White's Chocolate-house, July 12. N. THERE is no one thing more to be lamented in our nation, than their general affectation of every thing that is foreign; nay, we carry it so far, that we are more anxious for our own countrymen when they have crossed the seas, than when we see them in the same dangerous condition before our eyes at home: else how is it possible, that on the twenty-ninth of the last month, there should have been a battle fought in our very streets of London, and nobody at this end of the town has heard of it? I protest, I who make it my business to inquire after adventures, should never have known this had not the following account been sent to me inclosed in a letter. This, it seems, is the way of giving out orders in the Artillery-company; and they prepare for a day of action with so little concern, as only to call it, An exercise of arms.' 'An Exercise at Arms of the Artillery-company, to be performed on Wednesday, June the twenty-ninth, 1709, under the command of Sir Joseph Woolfe, Knight and Alderman, General; Charles Hopson, Esquire, present Sheriff, Lieutenant-general; Captain Richard Synge, Major; Major John Shorey, Captain of Grenadiers; Captain William Grayhurst, Captain John Butler, Captain Robert Carellis, Captains. The body marched from the Artillery ground through Moorgate, Coleman-street, Lotbury, Broadstreet, Finch-lane, Cornhill, Cheapside, St. Martin's, |