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No. 9.] Saturday, March 21, 1713.

In tantas brevi creverant opes, seu maritimis sen terrestribus fructibns, seu multitudinis incremento, sen sanctitate disciplinæ. Liv.

They rose in a short time to that pitch of wealth and grandeur, by means of an extensive commerce both by sea and land, by an increase of the people, and by the rigour of their laws and discipline.

MANY of the subjects of my papers will consist of such things as I have gathered from the conversation, or learned from the conduct of a gentleman, who has been very conversant in our family, by name Mr. Charwell.* This person was formerly a merchant in this city, who, by exact economy, great frugality, and very fortunate adventures, was about twenty years since, and the fortieth year of his age, arrived to the estate which we usually call a plum. This was a sum so much beyond his first ambition, that he then resolved to retire from the town and the business of it together. Accordingly he laid out one half of his money upon the purchase of a nobleman's estate, not many miles distant from the country seat of my lady Lizard. From this neighbourhood our first acquaintance began, and has ever since been continued will cqual application on both sides. Mr. Charwell visits very few gentlemen in the country; his most frequent airings in the summer time are visits to my lady Lizard. And if ever his affairs bring him up to town during the winter, as soon as these are despatched, he is sure to dine at her house, or to make one at her tea-table, to take her commands for the country.

I shall hardly be able to give an account bow this gentleman has employed the twenty years since he made the purchase I have mentioned, without first describing the conditions of the

estate.

The estate then consisted of a good large old house, a park of two thousand acres, eight thousand acres more of land divided into farms. The land not barren, but the country very thin of people, and these the only consumers of the wheat and barley that grew upon the premises. A river running by the house, which was in the centre of the estate, but the same not navigable, and the rendering it navigable had been opposed by the generality of the whole country. The roads excessive bad, and no possibility of getting off the tenants' corn, but at such a price of carriage as would exceed the whole value when it came to market. The underwoods all destroyed, to lay the country open to my lord's pleasures; but there was indeed the less want of this fuel, there being large coal-pits in the estate, within two miles

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of the house, and such a plenty of coals as was sufficient for whole counties. But then the want of water-carriage made these also a mere drug, and almost every man's for fetching. Many timber-trees were still standing only for want of chapmen, very little being used for building in a country so thin of people, and those at a greater distance being in no likelihood of buying pennyworths, if they must be at the charge of land-carriage. Yet every tree was valued at a much greater price than would be given for it in the place; so was every acre of land in the park; and, as for the tenants, they were all racked to extremity, and almost every one of them beggars. All these things Mr. Charwell knew very well, yet was not discouraged from going on with his purchase.

But in the first place, he resolved that a hundred in family should not ruin him, as it had done his predecessor. Therefore, pretending to dislike the situation of the old house, he made choice of another at a mile distance, higher up the river, at a corner of the park, where, at the expense of four or five thousand pounds, and all the ornaments of the old house, he built a new one, with all convenient offices, more suitable to his revenues, yet not much larger than my lord's dog-kennel, and a great deal less than his lordship's stables.

The next thing was to reduce his park. He took down a great many pales, and with these inclosed only two hundred acres of it near adjoining to his new house. The rest he converted to breeding cattle, which yielded greater profit.

The tenants began now to be very much dissatisfied with the loss of my lord's family, which had been a constant market for great quantities of their corn; and with the disparking so much land, by which provisions were likely to be increased in so dispeopled a country. They were afraid they must be obliged themselves to consume the whole product of their farms, and that they should be soon undone by the economy and frugality of this gentle

man.

He

Mr. Charwell was sensible their fears were but too just; and that, if neither their goods could be carried off to distant markets, nor the markets brought home to their goods, his tenants must run away from their farms. had no hopes of making the river navigable, which was a point that could not be obtained by all the interest of his predecessor, and was therefore not likely to be yielded up to a man who was not yet known in the country. All that was left for him was to bring the market home to his tenants, which was the very thing he intended before he ventured upon his purchase. He had even then projected in his thoughts the plan of a great town just below the old bousc; he therefore presently set himself about the execution of his project.

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The thing has succeeded to his wish. In the space of twenty years he is so fortunate as to see a thousand new houses upon his estate, and at least five thousand new people, men, women, and children, inhabitants of those houses, who are comfortably subsisted by their own labour, whithout charge to Mr. Charwell, and to the great profit of his tenants.

It cannot be imagined that such a body of people can be subsisted at less than five pounds per head, or twenty-five thousand pounds per annum, the greatest part of which sum is annually expended for provisions among the farmers of the next adjacent lands. And as the tenants of Mr. Charwell are nearest of all others to the market, they have the best prices for their goods by all that is saved in the carriage.

But some provisions are of that nature, that they will not bear a much longer carriage than from the extreme parts of his lands; and I think I have been told, that for the single article of milk, at a pint every day for every house, his tenants take from this town not much less than five hundred pounds per an

num.

The soil of all kinds, which is made every year by the consumption of so great a town, I have heard has been valued at two hundred pounds per annum. If this be true, the estate of Mr. Charwell is so much improved in this very article, since all this is carried out upon his lands by the back carriage of those very carts, which were loaden by his tenants with provisions and other necessaries for the people.

A hundred thousand bushels of coal are necessary to supply so great a multitude with yearly fuel. And as these are taken out of the coal-pits of Mr. Charwell, he receives a penny for every bushel; so that this very article is an addition of four hundred pounds per annum to his revenues. And as the town and people are every year increasing, the revenues in the above-mentioned, and many other articles, are increasing in proportion.

There is now no longer any want of the family of the predecessor. The consumption of five thousand people is greater than can be made by any fifty of the greatest families in Great Britain. The tenants stand in no need of distant markets to take off the product of their farms. The people so near their own doors are already more than they are able to supply; and what is wanting at home for this purpose is supplied from places at greater distance, at whatsoever price of carriage.

All the farmers every where near the river are now, in their turn, for an act of parliament to make it navigable, that they may have an easy carriage for their corn to so good a market. The tenants of Mr. Charwell, that they may have the whole market to themselves, are almost the only persons against it. But they

will not be long able to oppose it: their leases are near expiring: and as they are grown very rich, there are many other persons ready to take their farms at more than double the present rents, even though the river should be made navigable, and distant people let in to sell their provisions together with these farmers.

As for Mr. Charwell himself, he is in no manner of pain lest his lands should fall in their value by the cheap carriage of provisions from distant places to his town. He knows very well the cheapness of provisions was one great means of bringing together so great numbers, and that they must be held together by the same means. He seems to have nothing more in his thoughts than to increase his town to such an extent, that all the country for ten miles round about shall be little enough to supply it. He considers that at how great a distance soever provisions shall be brought thither, they must end at last in so much soil for his estate, and that the farmers of other lands will by this means contribute to the improvement of his own.

But by what encouragement and rewards, by what arts and policies, and what sort of people he has invited to live upon his estate, and how he has enabled them to subsist by their own labour, to the great improvement of his lands, will be the subjects of some of my future precautions.

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By your paper of Saturday last, you give the town hopes that you will dedicate that day to religion. You could not begin it better than by warning your pupils of the poison vented under a pretence to free-thinking. If you can spare room in your next Saturday's paper for a few lines on the same subject, these are at your disposal.

I happened to be present at a public conversation of some of the defenders of this discourse of free-thinking, and others that differed from them; where I had the diversion of hearing the same man in one breath, persuade us to freedom of thought, and in the next, offer to demonstrate that we had no freedom in any thing. One would think men should blush, to find themselves entangled in a greater contradiction than any the discourse ridicules. This principle of free fatality or necessary liberty, is a worthy fundamental of the new sect; and indeed, this opinion is an evidence and clearness so nearly related to transubstantiation, that the same genius seems requisite for either. It is fit the world should know how far reason abandons men that would employ it against religion; which intention, I hope, justifies this trouble from, Sir,

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Your hearty well-wisher,

MISATHEUS.

No. 10.] Monday, March 23, 1713.

Venit ad me sæpe clamitans

Vestitu nimiùm indulges, nimiùm ineptus es,
Nimiùm ipse est durus præter æquumque et bonum.
Ter. Adelph. Act i. Sc. 1.

He is perpetually coming to me, and ringing in my ears, that I do wrong to indulge him so much in the article of dress: but the fault lies in his own excessive and unrea sonable severity.

WHEN I am in deep meditation in order to give my wards proper precautions, I have a principal regard to the prevalence of things which people of merit neglect, and from which those of no merit raise to themselves an esteem: of this nature is the business of dress. It is weak in a man of thought and reflection to be either depressed or exalted from the perfections or disadvantages of his person. However there is a respective conduct to be observed in the habit, according to the eminent distinction of the body, either way. A gay youth in the possession of an ample fortune could not recommend his understanding to those who are not of his acquaintance more suddenly, than by sobriety in his habit; as this is winning at first sight, so a person gorgeously fine, which in itself should avoid the attraction of the beholders' eyes, gives as immediate offence.

I make it my business when my lady Lizard's youngest daughter, miss Molly, is making clothes, to consider her from head to foot, and cannot be easy when there is any doubt lies upon me concerning the colour of a knot, or any other part of her head-dress, which by its darkness or liveliness might too much allay or brighten her complexion. There is something loose in looking as well as you possibly can; but it is also a vice not to take care how you look. The indiscretion of believing that great qualities make up for the want of things less considerable, is punished too severely in those who are guilty of it. Every day's experience shows us, among variety of people with whom we are not acquainted, that we take impressions too favourable and too disadvantageous of men at first sight from their habit. I take this to be a point of great consideration, and I shall consider it in my future precautions as such. As to the female world, I shall give them my opinion at large by way of comment upon a new suit of the Sparkler's, which is to come home next week. I design it a model for the ladies; she and I have had three private meetings about it. As to the men, I am very glad to hear, being myself a fellow of Lincoln-college, that there is at last in one of our universities risen a happy genius for little things. It is extremely to be lamented, that hitherto we come from the college as unable to put on our own clothes as we do from nurse. We owe many misfortunes, and an unhappy backwardness in urging our way in the world, to the neglect of these less matters. For this reason

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'I foresee that you will have many currespondents in this place; but as I have often observed, with grief of heart, that scholars are wretchedly ignorant in the science I profess, I flatter myself that my letter will gain a place in your papers. I have made it my study, sir, in these seats of learning, to look into the nature of dress, and am what they call an academical beau. I have often lamented that I am obliged to wear a grave habit, since by that means I have not an opportunity to introduce fashions amongst our young gentle. men; and so am forced, contrary to my own inclinations, and the expectation of all who know me, to appear in print. I have indeed met with some success in the projects I have communicated to some sparks with whom I am intimate; and I cannot without a secret triumph confess, that the sleeves turned up with green velvet, which now flourish throughout the university, sprang originally from my invention.

'As it is necessary to have the head clear, as well as the complexion, to be perfect in this part of learning, I rarely mingle with the men (for I abhor wine,) but frequent the tea-tables of the ladies. I know every part of their dress, and can name all their things by their names. I am consulted about every ornament they buy; and, I speak it without vanity, have a very pretty fancy to knots, and the like. Sometimes I take a needle, and spot a piece of muslin for pretty Patty Cross-stitch, who is my present favourite, which, she says, I do neatly enough; or read one of your papers, and explain the motto, which they all like mightily. But then I am a sort of petty tyrant amongst them, for I own I have my humours. If any thing be amiss, they are sure Mr. Sleek will find fault; if any hoity-toity things make a fuss, they are sure to be taken to pieces the next visit. I am the dread of poor Celia, whose wrapping-gown is not right India; and am avoided by Thalastris, in her second-hand mantua, which several masters of arts think very fine, whereas I perceived it had been scoured, with half an eye.

'Thus have I endeavoured to improve my understanding, and am desirous to commuInicate my innocent discoveries to those, who,

like me, may distinguish themselves more to advantage by their bodies than their minds. I do not think the pains I have taker in these my studies, thrown away, since by these means, though I am not very valuable, I am however not disagreeable. Would gentlemen but reflect upon what I say, they would take care to make the best of themselves; for I think it intolerable that a blockhead should be a sloven. Though every man cannot fill his head with learning, it is in any one's power to wear a pretty periwig; let him who cannot say a witty thing, keep his teeth white at least; he who bath no knack at writing sonnets, may how ever have a soft hand; and he may arch his eye-brows, who hath not strength of genius

for the mathematics.

Attend my lecture, whilst I plainly show, That all mankind are mad, from high to low. THERE is an oblique way of reproof, which takes off from the sharpness of it; and an address in flattery, which makes it agreeable though never so gross: but of all flatterers, the most skilful is he who can do what you like, without saying any thing which argues he does it for your sake; the most winning circamstance in the world being the conformity of manners. I speak of this as a practice neces sary in gaining people of sense, who are not yet given up to self-conceit; those who are far gone in admiration of themselves need not be treated with so much delicacy. The following letter puts this matter in a pleasant and uncommon light: the author of it attacks this vice with an air of compliance, and alarms us against it by exhorting us to it.

SIR,

To the Guardian.

'After the conclusion of the peace, we shall undoubtedly have new fashions from France; and I have some reason to think that some particularities in the garb of their abbés may be transplanted hither to advantage. What 'As you profess to encourage all those who I find becoming in their dress I hope I may, any way contribute to the public good, I flatter without the imputation of being popishly iu- myself I may claim your countenance and proclined, adopt into our habits; but would wil-tection. I am by profession a mad-doctor, but lingly have the authority of the Guardian to of a peculiar kind, not of those whose aim it countenance me in this harmless design. I is to remove frenzies, but one who makes it would not hereby assume to myself a jurisdic- my business to confer an agreeable madness tion over any of our youth, but such as are on my fellow-creatures, for their mutual delight capable of improvement any other way. As and benefit. Since it is agreed by the philofor the awkward creatures that mind their sophers, that happiness and misery consist studies, I look upon them as irreclaimable. chiefly in the imagination, nothing is more But over the afore-mentioned order of men, necessary to mankind in general than this I desire a commission from you to exercise full pleasing delirium, which renders every one authority. Hereby I shall be enabled from satisfied with himself, and persuades him that time to time to introduce several pretty odd- all others are equally so. nesses in the taking and tucking up of gowns, to regulate the dimensions of wigs, to vary the tufts upon caps, and to enlarge or narrow the hems of bands, as I shall think most for the public good.

'I have prepared a treatise against the cravat and berdash, which I am told is not ill done; and have thrown together some hasty observations upon stockings, which my friends assure me I need not be ashamed of. But I shall not offer them to the public until they are approved of at our female club; which I am the more willing to do, because I am sure of their praise; for they own I understand these things better than they do. I shall herein be very proud of your encouragement; for, next to keeping the university clean, my greatest ambition is to be thought, Sir,

'Your most obedient hi mble servant, SIMON SLEEK.

No. 11.] Tuesday, March 24, 1713

-Huc propiùs me,
Dam doceo insanire omnes, vos ordine adite.
Hor. Lib. 2. Sat. iii. 80.

• A kind of neck cloth so called, whence such as sold them ere styled haberdashers.

'I have for several years, both at home and abroad, made this science my particular study, which I may venture to say I have improved in almost all the courts of Europe; and have reduced it into so safe and easy a method, as to practise it on both sexes, of what disposition, age, or quality soever, with success. What enables me to perform this great work, is the use of my Obsequium Catholicon, or the Grand Elixir, to support the spirits of human nature. This remedy is of the most grateful flavour in the world, and agrees with all tastes whatever. It is delicate to the senses, de lightful in the operation, may be taken at al: hours without confinement, and is as properly given at a ball or playhouse as in a private chamber. It restores and vivifies the most dejected minds, corrects and extracts all that is painful in the knowledge of a man's self. One dose of it will instantly disperse itself through the whole animal system, dissipate the first motions of distrust so as never to re turn, and so exhilirate the brain and rarify the gloom of reflection, as to give the patients a new flow of spirits, a vivacity of behaviour, and a pleasing dependence upon their own capacities.

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'Let a person be never so far gone, I advise | a sudden recoverea ner dimples, furled her fan, him not to despair; even though he has been threw round her glances, and for these two troubled many years with restless reflections, Sundays last past has not once been seen in an which by long neglect have hardened into attentive posture. This the churchwardens settled consideration. Those that have been are ready to attest upon oath. tung with satire may here find a certain antidote, which infallibly disperses all the remains of poison that has been left in the understanding by bad cures. It fortifies the heart against the rancour of pamphlets, the inveteracy of epigrams, and the mortification of lampoons; as has been often experienced by several persons of both sexes, during the seasons of Tunbridge and the Bath.

'I could, as farther instances of my success, produce certificates and testimonials from the favourites and ghostly fathers of the most eminent princes of Europe; but shall content myself with the mention of a few cures, which I have performed by this my grand universal restorative, during the practice of one month only since I came to this city.

Cures in the month of February, 1713. "George Spondee, Esq. poet, and inmate of the parish of St. Paul's Covent-garden, fell into violent fits of the spleen upon a thin third night. He had been frighted into a vertigo by the sound of cat-calls on the first day; and the frequent hissings on the second made him unable to endure the bare pronunciation of the letter S. I searched into the causes of his distemper; and by the prescription of a dose of my Obsequium, prepared secundum artem, recovered him to his natural state of madness. I cast in at proper intervals the words, Il taste of the town, Envy of critics, Bad performance of the actors, and the like. He is so perferctly cured that he has promised to sring another play upon the stage next winter. A lady of professed virtue, of the parish of St. James's, Westminster, who hath desired her name may be concealed, having taken offence at a phrase of double meaning in conversation, undiscovered by any other in the company, suddenly fell into a cold fit of modesty. Upon a right application of praise of her virtue, I threw the lady into an agreeable waking dream, settled the fermentation of her blood into a warm charity, so as to make her look with patience on the very gentleman that offended,

Hilaria, of the parish of St. Giles's in the fields, a coquette of long practice, was by the reprimand of an old maiden reduced to look grave in company, and deny herself the play of the fan. In short, she was brought to such melancholy circumstances, that she would sometimes unawares fall into devotion at church. I advised her to take a few innocent freedoms with occasional kisses, prescribed her the exercise of the eyes, and immediately raired her to her former state of life. She on

Andrew Terror, of the Middle temple, mohock, was almost induced by an aged bencher of the same house to leave off bright conversation, and pore over Coke upon Littleton. He was so ill that his hat began to flap, and he was seen one day in the last term at Westminster-ball. This patient had quite lost his spirit of contradiction; I, by the distillation of a few of my vivifying drops in his ear, drew him from his lethargy, and restored him to his usual vivacious misunderstanding. He is at present very easy in his condition.

'I will not dwell upon the recital of the innumerable cures I have performed within twenty days last past; but rather proceed to exhort all persons of whatever age, complexion, or quality, to take as soon as possible of this my intellectual oil: which applied at the ear seizes all the senses with a most agreeable transport, and discovers its effects, not only to the satisfaction of the patient, but all who converse with, attend upon, or any way relate to him or her that receives the kindly infection. It is often administered by chambermaids, valets, or any the most ignorant da mestic; it being one peculiar excellence of this my oil, that it is most prevalent, the more unskilful the person is or appears who applies it. It is absolutely necessary for ladies to take a dose of it just before they take coach to go a visiting.

But I offend the public, as Horace said, when I trespass on any of your time. Give me leave then, Mr. Ironside, to make you a present of a drachm or two of my oil; though I have cause to fear my prescriptions will not have the effect upon you I could wish therefore I do not endeavour to bribe you in my favour by the present of my oil, but wholly depend upon your public spirit and generosity; which, I hope, will recommend to the world the useful endeavours of, Sir, Your most obedient,

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