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demand comes to, in his debtor's honour, liberty, and fortune. One would think he did not know that his creditor can say the worst thing imaginable of him, to wit, 'That he is unjust,' without defamation; and can seize his person without being guilty of an assault. Yet such is the loose and abandoned turn of some men's minds, that they can live under these constant ap prehensions, and still go on to increase the cause of them. Can there be a more low and servile condition, than to be ashamed or afraid to see any one man breathing? Yet he that is much in debt, is in that condition with relation to twenty different people. There are indeed circumstances wherein men of honest natures may become liable to debts, by some unadvised behaviour in any great point of their life, or mortgaging a man's honesty as a security for that of another, and the like: but these instances are so particular and circumstantiated, that they cannot come within general considera tions. For one such case as one of these, there are ten, where a man, to keep up a farce of retinue and grandeur within his own house, shall shrink at the expectation of surly demands at his doors. The debtor is the creditor's criminal, and all the officers of power and state, whom we behold make so great a figure, are no other than so many persons in authority to make good his charge against him. Human society depends upon his having the vengeance law allots him; and the debtor owes his liberty to his neighbour, as much as the murderer does his life to his prince.

I thought I had somewhere heard before. | he transgresses payment, so much as that Coming near to the gate, the prisoner called me by my name, and desired I would throw something into the box: I was out of countenance for him, and did as he bid me, by putting in half a crown. I went away, reflecting upon the strange constitution of some men, and. how meanly they behave themselves in all sorts of conditions. The person who begged of me is now, as I take it, fifty: I was well acquainted with him till about the age of twenty-five; at which time, a good estate fell to him by the death of a relation. Upon coming to this unexpected good fortune, he ran into all the extravagances imaginable; was frequently in drunken fits, broke drawers' heads, talked | and swore loud, was unmannerly to those above him, and insolent to those below him. I could not but remark, that it was the same baseness of spirit which worked in his behaviour in both fortunes: the same little mind was insolent in riches, and shameless in poverty. This accident made me muse upon the circumstance of being in debt in general, and solve in my mind what tempers were most apt to fall into this error of life, as well as the misfortune it must needs be to languish under such pressures. As for myself, my natural aversion to that sort of conversation which makes a figure with the generality of mankind, exempts me from any temptations to expense; and all my business lies within a very narrow compass, which is only to give an honest man who takes care of my estate, proper vouchers for his quarterly payments to me, and observe what linen my laundress brings and takes away with her once a week. My steward brings his receipt ready for my signing; and I have a pretty implement with the respective names of shirts, cravats, handkerchiefs and stockings, with proper numbers, to know how to reckon with my laundress. This being almost all the business I have in the world for the care of my own affairs, I am at full leisure to observe upon what others do, with relation to their equipage and

economy.

When I walk the street, and observe the hurry about me in this town,

'Where, with like haste, thro' several ways they run; Some to undo, and some to be undone;**

I say, when I behold this vast variety of
persons and humours, with the pains they
both take for the accomplishment of the
ends mentioned in the above verses of Den-
ham, I cannot much wonder at the endea-
vour after gain, but am extremely asto-
nished that men can be so insensible of the
danger of running into debt. One would
think it impossible that a man who is given
to contract debts should not know, that his
creditor has, from that moment in which

for such debtors as were freemen of the city of London:
it was taken down in the year 1762.
*Cooper's Hill, v. 31.

Our gentry are, generally speaking, in debt: and many families have put it into a kind of method of being so from generation to generation. The father mortgages when his son is very young: and the boy is to marry, as soon as he is at age, to redeem it and find portions for his sisters. This, forsooth, is no great inconvenience to him; for he may wench, keep a public table, or feed dogs, like a worthy English gentleman, till he has out-run half his estate, and leave the same incumbrance upon his first-born, and so on, till one man of more vigour than ordinary, goes quite through the estate, or some man of sense comes into it, and scorns to have an estate in partnership, that is to say, liable to the demand or insult of any man living. There is my friend Sir Andrew, though for many years a great and general trader, was never the defendant in a law-suit, in all the perplexity of business, and the iniquity of mankind at present; no one had any colour for the least complaint against his dealings with him. This is certainly as uncommon, and in its proportion as laudable in a citizen, as it is in a general never to have suffered a disadvantage in fight. How different from this gentleman is Jack Truepenny, who has been an old acquaintance of Sir Andrew and myself from boys, but could never learn our cau

as the first sketch and outlines of a vision, than as a finished piece.

I dreamt that I was admitted into a long spacious gallery, which had one side covered with pieces of all the famous painters who are now living, and the other with the works of the greatest masters that are dead.

tion. Jack has a whorish unresisting goodnature, which makes him incapable of having a property in any thing. His fortune, his reputation, his time, and his capacity, are at any man's service that comes first. When he was at school, he was whipped thrice a week for faults he took upon him to excuse others; since he came into the business of the world, he has been arrested twice or thrice a year for debts he had nothing to do with, but as surety for others; and I remember when a friend of his had suffered in the vice of the town, all the physic his friend took was conveyed to him by Jack, and inscribed A bolus, or an electuary for Mr. Truepenny.' Jack I was resolved to examine the several had a good estate left him which came to artists that stood before me, and accordnothing; because he believed all who pre-ingly applied myself to the side of the liv tended to demands upon it. This easiness ing. The first I observed at work in this and credulity destroy all the other merit he has; and he has all his life been a sacrifice to others, without ever receiving thanks, or doing one good action.

I will end this discourse with a speech which I heard Jack make to one of his creditors (of whom he deserved gentler usage) after lying a whole night in custody at his suit.

"Sir, your ingratitude for the many kindnesses I have done you, shall not make me unthankful for the good you have done me, in letting me see there is such a man as you in the world. I am obliged to you for the diffidence I shall have all the rest of my life: I shall hereafter trust no man so far as to be in his debt.'

No. 83.] Tuesday, June 5, 1711.

Animum pictura pascit inani.

R.

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On the side of the living, I saw several persons busy in drawing, colouring, and designing. On the side of the dead painters, I could not discover more than one person at work, who was exceedingly slow in his motions, and wonderfully nice in his touches.

part of the gallery was Vanity, with his hair tied behind him in a riband, and dressed like a Frenchman. All the faces he drew were very remarkable for their smiles, and a certain smirking air which he bestowed indifferently on every age and degree of either sex. The toujours gai appeared even in his judges, bishops, and privy counsellors. In a word, all his men were petits maitres, and all his women coquettes. The drapery of his figures was extremely well suited to his faces, and was made up of all the glaring colours that could be mixt together; every part of the dress was in a flutter, and endeavoured to distinguish itself above the rest.

On the left hand of Vanity stood a laborious workman, who I found was his humble admirer, and copied after him. He was dressed like a German, and had a very hard name, that sounded something like Stupidity.

The third artist that I looked over was Fantasque dressed like a Venitian scara mouch. He had an excellent hand at chimera, and dealt very much in distortions and grimaces. He would sometimes affright himself with the phantoms that flowed from his pencil. In short, the most elaborate of his pieces was at best but a terrifying dream; and one could say nothing more of his finest figures, than that they were agreeable monsters.

Virg. Æn. i. 468. And with the shadowy picture feeds his mind. WHEN the weather hinders me from taking my diversions without doors, I frequently make a little party with two or three select friends, to visit any thing curious that may be seen under covert. My principal entertainments of this nature are pictures, insomuch, that when I have found the weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole day's journey to see a gallery that is furnished by the hands of great mas- The fourth person I examined was very ters. By this means, when the heavens are remarkable for his hasty hand, which left filled with clouds, when the earth swims in his pictures so unfinished, that the beauty rain, and all nature wears a lowering coun- in the picture (which was designed to contenance, I withdraw myself from these un- tinue as a monument of it to posterity) faded comfortable scenes into the visionary worlds sooner than in the person after whom it was of art; where I meet with shining land-drawn. He made so much haste to desscapes, gilded triumphs, beautiful faces, and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas, and disperse that gloominess which is apt to hang upon it in those dark disconsolate seasons.

I was some weeks ago in a course of these diversions; which had taken such an entire possession of my imagination, that they formed in it a short morning's dream, which I shall communicate to my reader, rather

patch his business, that he neither gave himself time to clean his pencils, nor mix his colours. The name of this expeditious workman was Avarice.

Not far from this artist I saw another of a quite different nature, who was dressed in the habit of a Dutchman, and known by the name of Industry. His figures were wonderfully laboured. If he drew the portraiture of a man, he did not omit a single

Whether it were because the thread of my dream was at an end I cannot tell, but upon my taking a survey of this imaginary old man, my sleep left me. C.

hair in his face; if the figure of a ship, there | hair upon his forehead, discovered him to was not a rope among the tackle that es- be Time. caped him. He had likewise hung a great part of the wall with night-pieces, that seemed to show themselves by the candles which were lighted up in several parts of them; and were so inflamed by the sunshine which accidentally fell upon them, that at first sight I could scarce forbear No. 84.] Wednesday, June 6, 1711. crying out Fire."

The five foregoing artists were the most considerable on this side the gallery; there were indeed several others whom I had not time to look into. One of them, however, I could not forbear observing, who was very busy in retouching the finest pieces, though he produced no originals of his own. His pencil aggravated every feature that was before overcharged, loaded every defect, and poisoned every colour it touched. Though this workman did so much mischief on the side of the living, he never turned his eye towards that of the dead. His name was Envy.

Quis talia fando
Myrmidonum, Dolopumve, aut duri miles Ulyssei,
Temperet a lachrymis ?
Vig. Æn. ii. v. 6.

Who can such woes relate without a tear, As stern Ulysses must have wept to hear? LOOKING Over the old manuscript wherein the private actions of Pharamond are set down by way of table-book, I found many things which gave me great delight, and as human life turns upon the same principles and passions in all ages, I thought it very proper to take minutes of what passed in that age for the instruction of this. The antiquary who lent me these papers, gave Having taken a cursory view of one side me a character of Eucrate the favourite of of the gallery, I turned myself to that which Pharamond, extracted from an author who was filled by the works of those great mas-lived in that court. The account he gives ters that were dead; when immediately I both of the prince and this his faithful fancied myself standing before a multitude friend, will not be improper to insert here, of spectators, and thousands of eyes looking because I may have occasion to mention upon me at once: for all before me appeared many of their conversations, into which so like men and women, that I almost for- these memorials of them may give light. got they were pictures. Raphael's figures stood in one row, Titian's in another, Guido Rheni's in a third. One part of the wall was peopled by Hannibal Carrache, another by Corregio, and another by Rubens, To be short, there was not a great master among the dead who had not contributed to the embellishment of this side of the gallery. The persons that owed their being to these several masters, appeared all of them to be real and alive, and differed among one another only in the variety of their shapes, complexions, and clothes; so that they looked like different nations of the same species.

'Pharamond, when he had a mind to retire for an hour or two from the hurry of business and fatigue of ceremony, made a signal to Eucrate, by putting his hand to his face, placing his arm negligently on a window, or some such action as appeared indifferent to all the rest of the company. Upon such notice, unobserved by others (for their entire intimacy was always a secret) Eucrate repaired to his own apartment to receive the king. There was a secret access to this part of the court, at which Eucrate used to admit many whose mean appearance in the eyes of the ordinary waiters and door-keepers, made them Observing an old man (who was the same be repulsed from other parts of the palace. person I before mentioned, as the only artist Such as these were let in here by order of that was at work on this side of the gallery) Eucrate, and had audiences of Pharamond. creeping up and down from one picture to This entrance Pharamond called "The another, and retouching all the fine pieces gate of the unhappy," and the tears of the that stood before me, I could not but be afflicted who came before him, he would very attentive to all his motions. I found say, were bribes received by Eucrate; for his pencil was so very light, that it worked Eucrate had the most compassionate spirit imperceptibly, and after a thousand touches, of all men living, except his generous masscarce produced any visible effect in the picture on which he was employed. However, as he busied himself incessantly, and repeated touch after touch without rest or intermission, he wore off insensibly every little disagreeable gloss that hung upon a figure. He also added such a beautiful brown to the shades, and mellowness to the colours, that he made every picture appear more perfect than when it came fresh from the master's pencil. I could not forbear looking upon the face of this ancient workman, and immediately, by the long lock of

ter, who was always kindled at the least affliction which was communicated to him. In regard for the miserable, Eucrate took particular care that the common forms of distress, and the idle pretenders to sorrow, about courts, who wanted only supplies to luxury, should never obtain favour by his means: but the distresses which arise from the many inexplicable occurrences that happen among men, the unaccountable alienation of parents from their children, cruelty of husbands to wives, poverty occasioned from shipwreck or fire, the falling

has the distribution of their fortunes. It is therefore the inadvertency, negligence, or guilt of princes to let any thing grow into custom which is against their laws. A court can make fashion and duty walk together; it can never without the guilt of a court, happen, that it shall not be unfashionable to do what is unlawful. But, alas! in the dominions of Pharamond, by the force of a tyrant custom, which is misnamed a point of honour, the duellist kills his friend whom he loves; and the judge condemns the duellist while he approves his behaviour. Shame is the greatest of all evils; what avail laws, when death only attends the breach of them, and shame obedience to them? As for me, oh Pharamond, were it possible to describe the nameless kinds of compunctions and tenderness I feel, when I reflect upon the little accidents in our former familiarity, my mind swells into sorrow which cannot be resisted enough to be silent in the presence of Pharamond. (With that he fell into a flood of tears, and wept aloud.) Why should not Pharamond hear the anguish he only can relieve others from in time to come? Let him hear from me, what they feel who have given death by the false mercy of his administration, and form to himself the vengeance called for by those who have perished by his negligence.

out of friends, or such other terrible disas- | hearing the voice of it; I am sure Phara ters, to which the life of man is exposed; mond is not. Know, then, that I have this in cases of this nature, Eucrate was the morning unfortunately killed in a duel, the patron; and enjoyed this part of the royal man whom of all men living I most loved. favour so much without being envied, that I command myself too much in your royal it was never inquired into, by whose means presence, to say, Pharamond gave me my what no one else cared for doing, was brought friend! Pharamond has taken him from about. me! I will not say, Shall the merciful Pha'One evening when Pharamond came ramond destroy his own subjects? Will the into the apartment of Eucrate, he found father of his country murder his people? him extremely dejected; upon which he But the merciful Pharamond does destroy asked, (with a smile that was natural to his subjects, the father of his country does him,) What, is there any one too misera-murder his people. Fortune is so much the ble to be relieved by Pharamond, that Eu- pursuit of mankind, that all glory and hocrate is melancholy?" "I fear there is,"nour is in the power of a prince, because he answered the favourite: "A person withɔut, of a good air, well dressed, and though a man in the strength of his life, seems to faint under some inconsolable calamity. All his features seem suffused with agony of mind; but I can observe in him, that it is more inclined to break away in tears, than rage. I asked him what he would have. He said he would speak to Pharamond. I desired his business. He could hardly say to me, 'Eucrate, carry me to the king, my story is not to be told twice; I fear I shall not be able to speak it at all.' Pharamond commanded Eucrate to let him enter; he did so, and the gentleman approached the king with an air which spoke him under the greatest concern in what manner to demean himself. The king, who had a quick discerning, relieved him from the oppression he was under: and with the most beautiful complacency, said to him, "Sir, do not add to that load of sorrow I see in your countenance the awe of my presence. Think you are speaking to your friend. If the circumstances of your distress will admit of it, you shall find me so. To whom the stranger: "Oh, excellent Pharamond, name not a friend to the unfortunate Spinamont.* I had one, but he is dead by my own hand; but, oh Pharamond, though it was by the hand of Spinamont, it was by the guilt of Pharamond. I come not, oh excellent prince, to implore your pardon; I come to relate my sorrow, a sorrow too great for human life to support; from henceforth No. 85.] Thursday, June 7, 1711. shall all occurrences appear dreams, or short intervals of amusement, for this one affliction which has seized my very being. Pardon me, oh Pharamond, if my griefs give me leave, that I lay before you in the anguish of a wounded mind, that you, good as you are, are guilty of the generous blood spilt this day by this unhappy hand. Oh that it had perished before that instant!" Here the stranger paused, and recollecting his mind, after some little meditation, he went on in a calmer tone and gesture as follows:

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"There is an authority due to distress, and as none of human race is above the reach of sorrow, none should be above the

* Mr. Thornhill, the gentleman here alluded to, under

the translated name of Spinamont, killed sir C. Deering of Kent, Bart. in a duel, May 9, 1711.

Interdum speciosa locis, morataque recte
Fabula, nullius veneris, sine pondere et arte,
Valdius oblectat populum, meliusque moratur,
Quam versus inopes rerum, nugæque canoræ.

R.

Hors. Ars Poet, ver. 319.

--When the sentiments and manners please,
And all the characters are wrought with ease,
Your Tale, though void of beauty, force, and art,
More strongly shall delight, and warm the heart;
Than where a lifeless pomp of verse appears,
And with sonorous trifles charms our ears.

Francis

Ir is the custom of the Mahometans, if they see any printed or written paper upon the ground, to take it up and lay it aside carefully, as not knowing but it may contain some piece of their Alcoran. I must confess I have so much of the Mussulman in me, that I cannot forbear looking into every printed paper which comes in my

subject, and are such as are the mest proper to excite pity; for which reason the whole narration has something in it very moving, notwithstanding the author of it (whoever he was) has delivered it in such an abject phrase and poorness of expression, that the quoting any part of it would look like a design of turning it into ridicule. But though the language is mean, the thoughts, as I have before said, from one end to the other, are natural, and therefore cannot fail to please those who are not judges of language, or those who, notwithstanding they are judges of language, have a true and unprejudiced taste of nature. The condition, speech, and behaviour of the dying parents, with the age, innocence, and distress of the children, are set forth in such tender circumstances, that it is im possible for a reader of common humanity not to be affected with them. As for the circumstance of the robin-red-breast, it is indeed a little poetical ornament; and to show the genius of the author amidst all his simplicity, it is just the same kind of fiction which one of the greatest of the Latin poets has made use of upon a parallel occasion; I mean that passage in Horace, where he describes himself when he was a child, fallen asleep in a desert wood, and covered with leaves by the turtles that took pity on him.

way, under whatsoever despicable circum- compassion. The incidents grow cut of the stances it may appear; for as no mortal author, in the ordinary fate and vicissitude of things, knows to what use his works may some time or other be applied, a man may often meet with very celebrated names in a paper of tobacco. I have lighted my pipe more than once with the writings of a prelate; and know a friend of mine, who, for these several years, has converted the essays of a man of quality into a kind of fringe for his candlesticks. I remember, in particular, after having read over a poem of an eminent author on a victory, I met with several fragments of it upon the next rejoicing day, which had been employed in squibs and crackers, and by that means celebrated its subject in a double capacity. I once met with a page of Mr. Baxter, under a Christmas pie. Whether or no the pastry-cook had made use of it through chance or waggery, for the defence of that superstitious viande, I know not; but upon the perusal of it, I conceived so good an idea of the author's piety, that I bought the whole book. I have often profited by these accidental readings, and have sometimes found very curious pieces that are either out of print, or not to be met with in the shops of our London booksellers. For this reason, when my friends take a survey of my library, they are very much surprised to find upon the shelf of folios, two long band-boxes standing upright among my books; till I let them see that they are both of them lined with deep erudition and abstruse literature. I might likewise mention a paper-kite, from which I have received great improvement; and a hat case, which I would not exchange for all the beavers in Great Britain. This my inquisitive temper, or rather impertinent humour, of prying into all sorts of writing, with my natural aversion to loquacity, give me a good deal of employment when I enter any house in the country; for I cannot for my heart leave a room, before I have thoroughly studied the walls of it, and examined the several printed papers which are usually pasted upon them. The last piece that I met with upon this occasion gave me most exquisite pleasure. My reader will think I am not serious, when I acquaint him that the piece I am going to speak of, was the old ballad of the Two Children in the Wood, which is one of the darling songs of the common people, and has been the delight of most Englishmen in some part of their age.

This song is a plain simple copy of nature, destitute of the helps and ornaments of art. The tale of it is a pretty tragical story, and pleases for no other reason but because it is a copy of nature. There is even a despicable simplicity in the verse; and yet because the sentiments appear genuine and unaffected, they are able to move the mind of the most polite reader with inward meltings of humanity and

Me fabulosæ Vulture in Appulo,
Altricis extra limen Apuliæ,
Ludo fatigatumque somno
Fronde nova puerum palumbes
Od. iv. Lib. 3. 9

Texere

'Me when a child, as tir'd with play,
Upon th' Apulian hills I lay

In careless slumbers bound,

The gentle doves protecting found,
And cover'd me with myrtle leaves."

I have heard that the late Lord Dorset, who had the greatest wit tempered with the greatest candour, and was one of the finest critics as well as the best poets of his age, had a numerous collection of old Eng lish ballads, and took a particular pleasure in the reading of them. I can affirm the same of Mr. Dryden, and know several of the most refined writers of our present age who are of the same humour.

I might likewise refer my readers to Moliere's thoughts on this subject, as he has expressed them in the character of the Misanthrope; but those only who are endowed with a true greatness of soul and genius, can divest themselves of the images of ridicule, and admire nature in her simplicity and nakedness. As for the little conceited wits of the age, who can only show their judgment by finding fault, they cannot be supposed to admire these pro ductions which have nothing to recommend them but the beauties of nature, when they do not know how to relish even those compositions that with all the beauties of nature, have also the additional advantages of art.

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