not painful." You must know the story, and your observations upon it will oblige, Sir, Your most humble servant.'

When the worst of men that ever lived in the world had the highest station in it, human life was the object of his diversion; and he sent orders frequently out of mere wantonness, to take off such and such, without so much as being angry with them. Nay, frequently his tyranny was so humorous, that he put men to death because he could not but approve of them. It came one day to his ear, that a certain married couple, Pætus and Arria, lived in a more happy tranquillity and mutual love than any other persons who were then in being. He listened with great attention to the account of their manner of spending their time together, of the constant pleasure they were to each other in all their words and actions; and found by exact information, that they were so treasonable as to be much more happy than his imperial majesty himself. Upon which he writ Pætus the following billet:

Pætus, you are hereby desired to dispatch yourself. I have heard a very good character of you; and therefore leave it to yourself, whether you will die by dagger, sword, or poison. If you outlive this order above an hour, I have given directions to put you to death by torture. NERO.' This familiar epistle was delivered to his wife Arria, who opened it.

sion.

One must have a soul very well turned for love, pity, and indignation, to comprehend the tumult this unhappy lady was thrown into upon this occaThe passion of love is no more to be understood by some tempers, than a problem in a science by an ignorant man: but he that knows what affection is, will have, upon considering the con;

has

dition of Arria, ten thousand thoughts flowing upon him, which the tongue was not formed to express; but the charming statue is now before my eyes, and Arria, in her unutterable sorrow, more beauty than ever appeared in youth, in mirth, or in triumph. These are the great and noble incidents which speak the dignity of our nature, in our sufferings and distresses. Behold, her tender affection for her husband sinks her features into a countenance which appears more helpless than that of an infant but again, her indignation shows in her visage and her bosom a resentment as strong as that of the bravest man. Long she stood in this agony of alternate rage and love; but at last composed herself for her dissolution, rather than survive her beloved Pætus. When he came into her presence, he found her with the tyrant's letter in one hand, and a dagger in the other. Upon his approach to her, she gave him the order: and at the same time stabbing herself, Pætus,' says she, it is not painful; and expired. Pætus immediately followed her example. The passion of these memorable lovers was such, that it eluded the rigour of their fortune, and baffled the force of a blow, which neither felt, because each received it for the sake of the other. The woman's part in this story is by much the more heroic, and has occasioned one of the best epigrams transmitted to us from antiquity*.

*Casta suo gladium cum traderet ARRIA PETO,
Quem de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis;
Si qua fides, vulnus quod feci, non dolet, inquit,
Sed quod tu facies hoc mihi, PETE, dolet.

MARTIAL, Epig. i. 14.

When the chaste ARRIA reach'd the reeking sword,
Drawn from her bowels, to her honour'd lord,
Trust me, she said, for this I do not grieve,

I die by that which PETUS must receive.

From my own Apartment, September 23. The boy says, one in a black hat left the following letter:

6

'FRIEND,

19th of the seventh month.

Being of that part of Christians whom men call Quakers, and being a seeker of the right way, I was persuaded yesterday to hear one of your most noted teachers; the matter he treated was the necessity of well living grounded upon a future state. I was attentive; but the man did not appear in earnest. He read his discourse, notwithstanding thy rebukes, so heavily, and with so little air of being convinced himself, that I thought he would have slept, as I observed many of his hearers did. I came home unedified, and troubled in mind. I dipt into the Lamentations, and from thence turning to the 34th chapter of Ezekiel, I found these words: "Woe be to the shepherds of Israel, that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flock? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool: : ye kill them that are fed; but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened; neither have ye healed that which was sick; neither have ye bound up that which was broken; neither have ye brought again that which was driven away; neither have ye sought that which was lost: but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them," &c. Now, I pray thee, friend, as thou art a man skilled in many things, tell me who is meant by the diseased, the sick, the broken, the driven away, and the lost? and whether the prophecy in this chapter be accomplished, or yet to come to pass? and thou wilt oblige thy friend, though unknown.'

This matter is too sacred for this paper; but I cannot see what injury it would do to any clergy

His

man to have it in his eye, and believe all that are taken from him by his want of industry are to be demanded of him. I dare say, Favonius* has very few of these losses. Favonius, in the midst of a thousand impertinent assailants of the divine truths, is an undisturbed defender of them. He protects all under his care, by the clearness of his understanding, and the example of his life: he visits dying men with the air of a man who hopes for his own dissolution, and enforces in others a contempt of this life, by his own expectation of the next. voice and behaviour are the lively images of a composed and well-governed zeal. None can leave him for the frivolous jargon uttered by the ordinary teachers among dissenters, but such who cannot distinguish vociferation from eloquence, and argument from railing. He is so great a judge of mankind, and touches our passions with so superior a command, that he who deserts his congregation must be a stranger to the dictates of nature as well as to those of grace.

But I must proceed to other matters, and resolve the questions of other inquirers; as in the following.

SIR,

Heddington, Sept. 19.

Upon reading that part of the Tatler, No 69, where mention is made of a certain chapel-clerk, there arose a dispute, and that produced a wager, whether by the words chapel-clerk was meant a clergyman or layman? by a clergyman I mean one in holy orders. It was not that any body in the company pretended to guess who the person was; but some asserted, that by Mr. Bickerstaff's words must be meant a clergyman only: others said,

* Dr. Smalridge.

that those words might have been said of any clerk of a parish; and some of them more properly of a layman. The wager is half a dozen bottles of wine in which, if you please to determine it, your health, and all the family of the Staffs, shall certainly be drunk: and you will singularly oblige another very considerable family; I mean that of your humble servants,

THE TRENCHER CAPS.'

The

It is very customary with us learned men, to find perplexities where no one else can see any. honest gentlemen, who wrote this, are much at a loss to understand what I thought very plain; and, in return, their epistle is so plain, that I cannot understand it. This, perhaps, is at first a little like nonsense: but I desire all persons to examine these writings with an eye to my being far gone in the occult sciences; and remember, that it is the privilege of the learned and the great to be understood when they please: for as a man of much business may be allowed to leave company when he pleases; so one of high learning may be above your capacity when he thinks fit. But, without further speeches or fooling, I must inform my friends, the Trencher Caps, in plain words, that I meant, in the place they speak of, a drunken clerk of a church; and I will return their civility among my relations, and drink their healths as they do ours.