to be well informed in the subject upon which I consult my friends, before I enter into debate with them. I have therefore, with the utmost care and pains, applied myself to the reading all the writings and pamphlets which have come out since the trial, and have studied night and day in order to be master of the whole controversy: but the authors are so numerous, and the state of affairs alters so very fast, that I am now a fortnight behind-hand in my reading, and know only how things stood twelve days ago. I wish you would enter into those useful subjects; for, if I may be allowed to say so, these are not times to jest in. As for my own part, you know very well that I am of a public spirit, and never regarded my own interest, but looked farther; and let me tell you, that while some people are minding only themselves and families, and others are thinking only of their own country, things go on strangely in the North. I foresee very great evils arising from the neglect of transactions at a distance; for which reason I am now writing a letter to a friend in the country, which I design as an answer to the Czar of Muscovy's letter to the Grand Seignior concerning his Majesty of Sweden. I have endeavoured to prove, that it is not reasonable to expect that his Swedish Majesty should leave Bender without forty thousand men ; and I have added to this an apology for the Cossacks. But the matter multiplies upon me, and I grow dim with much writing; therefore desire, if you have an old green pair of spectacles, such as you used about your fiftieth year, that you would send them to me; as also, that you would please to desire Mr. Morphew to send me in a bushel of coals on the credit of my answer to his Czarian Majesty; for I design it shall be printed for Morphew, and the weather grows sharp. I should take it kindly if you would order him also to send me the papers as they come out. If there are no fresh pamphlets published, I compute that I shall know before the end of next month what has been done in town to this day. If it were not for an ill custom lately introduced by a certain author, of talking Latin at the beginning of papers, matters would be in a much clearer light than they are: but, to our comfort, there are solid writers who are not guilty of this pedantry. The Postman writes like an angel. The Moderator is fine reading. It would do you no harm to read the Post-Boy with attention ; he is very deep of late. He is instructive; but I confess a little satirical: a sharp pen! he cares not what he says. The Examiner is admirable, and is become a grave and substantial author. But, above all, I am at a loss how to govern myself in my judgment of those whose whole writings consist in interrogatories; and then the way of answering, by proposing questions as hard to them, is quite as extraordinary. As for my part, I tremble at these novelties; we expose, in my opinion, our affairs too much by it. You may be sure the French king will spare no cost to come at the reading of them. I dread to think if the fable of the Blackbirds should fall into his hands. But I shall not venture to say more until I see you. In the mean time, I am, &c." This unhappy correspondent, whose fantastical loyalty to the King of Sweden has reduced him to this low condition of reason and fortune, would appear much more monstrous in his madness, did we not see crowds very little above his circumstances from the same cause, a passion to politics. It is no unpleasant entertainment to consider the commerce even of the sexes interrupted by difference in state affairs. A wench and her gallant parted last week upon the words unlimited and passive: and there is such a jargon of terms got into the mouths of the very silliest of the women, that you cannot come into a room even among them, but you find them divided into Whig and Tory. What heightens the humour is, that all the hard words they know, they certainly suppose to be terms useful in the disputes of the parties. I came in this day where two were in very hot debate; and "I hoped, as you did, that your friend, the Upholsterer had been dead. He was of a very low character at first, but after we had had his company so often, a long letter from him was extremely insipid."-Examiner, October 12, 1710. one of them proposed to me to explain to them what was the difference between circumcision and predestination. You may be sure I was at a loss; but they were too angry at each other to wait for my explanation, and proceeded to lay open the whole state of affairs, instead of the usual topics of dress, gallantry, and scandal. I have often wondered how it should be possible that this turn to politics should so universally prevail, to the exclusion of every other subject out of conversation; and upon mature consideration, find it is for want of discourse. Look round you among all the young fellows you meet, and you see those who have the least relish for books, company, or pleasure, though they have no manner of qualities to make them succeed in those pursuits, shall make very passable politicians. Thus the most barren invention shall find enough to say to make one appear an able man in the top coffee-houses. It is but adding a certain vehemence in uttering yourself, let the thing you say be never so flat, and you shall be thought a very sensible man, if you were not too hot. As love and honour are the noblest motives of life; so the pretenders to them, without being animated by them, are the most contemptible of all sorts of pretenders. The unjust affectation of any thing that is laudable is ignominious in proportion to the worth of the thing we affect: thus, as love of one's country is the most glorious of all passions, to see the most ordinary tools in a nation give themselves airs that way, without any one good quality in their own life, has something in it romantic, yet not so ridiculous as odious. ON PARENTAL LOVE. No. 235. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1710. [STEELE.] Scit Genius, natale comes qui temperat astrum. HOR. 2 Ep. ii. 187. But whence these turns of inclination rose, AMONG those inclinations which are common to all men, there is none more unaccountable than that unequal love by which parents distinguish their children from each other. Sometimes vanity and self-love appear to have a share towards this effect; and in other instances I have been apt to attribute it to mere instinct : but, however that is, we frequently see the child, that has been beholden to neither of these impulses in his parents, in spite of being neglected, snubbed, and thwarted at home, acquire a behaviour which makes him as agreeable to all the rest of the world, as that of every one else of their family is to each other. I fell into this way of thinking from an intimacy which I have with a very good house in our neighbourhood, where there are three daughters of a very different character and genius. The eldest has a great deal of wit and cunning; the second has good sense, but no artifice; the third has much vivacity, but little understanding. The first is a fine, but scornful woman; the second is not charming, but very winning; the third is no way commendable, but very desirable. The father of these young creatures was ever a great pretender to wit, the mother a woman of as much coquetry. This turn in the parents has biassed their affections towards their children. The old man supposes the eldest of his own genius; and the mother looks upon the youngest as herself renewed. By this means, all the lovers that approach the house are discarded by the father, for not observing Mrs. Mary's wit and beauty; and by the mother, for being blind to the mien and air of Mrs. Biddy. Come never so many pretenders, they are not suspected to have the least thought of Mrs. Betty, the middle daughter. Betty, therefore, is mortified into a woman of a great deal of merit, and knows she must depend on that only for her advancement. The middlemost is thus the favourite of all her acquaintance, as well as mine; while the other two carry a certain insolence about them in all conversations, and expect the partiality which they meet with at home to attend them wherever they appear. So little do parents understand that they are, of all people, the least judges of their children's merit, that what they reckon such is seldon any thing else but a repetition of their own faults and infirmities. There is, methinks, some excuse for being particular, when one of the offspring has any defect in nature. In this case, the child, if we may so speak, is so much the longer the child of its parents, and calls for the continuance of their care and indulgence from the slowness of its capacity, or the weakness of its body. But there is no enduring to see men enamoured only at the sight of their own impertinences repeated, and to observe, as we may sometimes, that they have a secret dislike of their children for a degeneracy from their very crimes. Commend me to lady Goodly; she is equal to all her own children, but prefers them to those of all the world beside. My lady is a perfect hen in the care of her brood; she fights and squabbles with all that appear where they come, but is wholly unbiassed in dispensing her favours among them. It is no small pains she is at to defame all the young women in her neighbourhood, by visits, whispers, intimations, and hearsays; all which she ends with thanking heaven, "that no one living is so blessed with such obedient and well-inclined children as herself. Perhaps," says she, "Betty cannot dance like Mrs. Frontinet, and it is no great matter whether she does or not; but she comes into a room with a good grace; though she says it that should not, she looks like a gentlewoman. Then, if Mrs. Rebecca is not so talkative as the mighty wit Mrs. Clapper, yet she is discreet, she knows better what she says when she does speak. If her wit be slow |