To this intent I have been at the expence to lead over arches, from a neighbouring hill, a plentiful store of spring-water, which a beautiful Naiad, placed as high as is possible in the centre of the wall, pours out from an urn. This, by a fall of above twenty feet, makes a most delightful cascade into a bason, that opens wide within the marble floor on that side. At a reasonable distance, on either hand of the cascade, the wall is hollowed into two spreading scollops, each of which receives a couch of green velvet, and forms at the same time a canopy over them. Next to them come two large aviaries, which are likewise let into the stone. These are succeeded by two grottoes, set off with all the pleasing rudeness of shells, and moss, and ragged stones, imitating, in miniature, rocks and precipices, the most dreadful and gigantic works of nature. After the grottoes, you have two niches; the one inhabited by Ceres, with her sickle and sheaf of wheat; and the other by Pomona, who, with a countenance full of good cheer, pours a bounteous autumn of fruits out of her horn. Last of all come two colonies of bees, whose stations lying. east and west, the one is saluted by the rising, the other by the setting sun. These, all of them being placed at proportioned intervals, furnish out the whole length of the wall; and the spaces that lie between are painted in fresco, by the same hand that has encircled my cieling.

"Now, Sir, you see my whole contrivance to elude the rigour of the year, to bring a northern climate nearer the sun, and to exempt myself from the common fate of my countrymen. I must detain you a little longer, to tell you that I never enter this delicious retirement, but my spirits are revived, and a sweet complacency diffuses itself over my whole mind. And how can it be otherwise,

with a conscience void of offence, where the music of falling waters, the symphony of birds, the gentle humming of bees, the breath of flowers, the fine imagery of painting and sculpture; in a word, the beauties and the charms of nature and of art, court all my faculties, refresh the fibres of the brain, and smooth every avenue of thought? What pleasing meditations, what agreeable wanderings of the mind, and what delicious slumbers, have I enjoyed here? And when I turn up some masterly writer to my imagination, methinks here his beauties appear in the most advantageous light, and the rays of his genius shoot upon me with greater force and brightness than ordinary. This place likewise keeps the whole family in good humour, in a season wherein gloominess of temper prevails universally in this island. My wife does often touch her lute in one of the grottoes, and my daughter sings to it; while the ladies with you, amidst all the diversions of the town, and in the most affluent fortunes, are fretting and repining beneath a louring sky for they know not what. In the green-house we often dine, we drink tea, we dance country dances; and what is the chief pleasure of all, we entertain our neighbours in it, and by this means contribute very much to mend the climate five or six miles about us. I am,

Your most humble servant,

T. S."

N° 180. SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1710.

Stultitiam patiuntur opes.—

HOR. 1 Ep. xviii. 29.

Their folly pleads the privilege of wealth.

From my own Apartment, June 2.

I HAVE received a letter which accuses me of partiality in the administration of the Censorship; and says, that I have been very free with the lower part of mankind, but extremely cautious in representations of matters which concern men of condition. This correspondent takes upon him also to say, the upholsterer was not undone by turning politician, but became bankrupt by trusting his goods to persons of quality; and demands of me, that I should do justice upon such as brought poverty and distress upon the world below them, while they themselves were sunk in pleasures and luxury, supported at the expence of those very persons whom they treated with negligence, as if they did not know whether they dealt with them or not. This is a very heavy

accusation, both of me, and such as the man aggrieved accuses me of tolerating. For this reason, I resolved to take this matter into consideration; and upon very little meditation, could call to my memory many instances which made this complaint far from being groundless. The root of this evil does not always proceed from injustice in the men of figure, but often from a false grandeur which they take upon them in being unacquainted with

their own business; not considering how mean a part they act, when their names and characters are subjected to the little arts of their servants and dependents. The overseers of the poor are a people who have no great reputation for the discharge of their trust; but are much less scandalous than the overseers of the rich. Ask a young fellow of a great estate, who was that odd fellow that spoke to him in a public place? he answers, "one that does my business." It is, with many, a natural consequence of being a man of fortune, that they are not to understand the disposal of it; and they long to come to their estates, only to put themselves under new guardianship. Nay, I have known a young fellow, who was regularly bred an attorney, and was a very expert one until he had an estate fallen to him. The moment that happened, he, who could before prove the next land he cast his eye upon, his own; and was so sharp, that a man at first sight would give him a small sum for a general receipt, whether he owed him any thing or not such a one, I say, have I seen, upon coming to an estate, forget all his diffidence of mankind, and become the most manageable thing breathing. He immediately wanted a stirring man to take upon him his affairs; to receive and pay, and do every thing which he himself was now too fine a gentleman to understand. It is pleasant to consider, that he who would have got an estate, had he not come to one, will certainly starve because one fell to him; but such contradictions are we to ourselves, and any change of life is insupportable to some

natures.

It is a mistaken sense of superiority, to believe a figure, or equipage, gives men precedence to their neighbours. Nothing can create respect from mankind, but laying obligations upon them; and it may

very reasonably be concluded, that if it were put into a due balance, according to the true state of the account, many who believe themselves in possession of a large share of dignity in the world, must give place to their inferiors. The greatest of all distinctions in civil life is that of debtor and creditor; and there needs no great progress in logic to know which, in that case, is the advantageous side. He who can say to another, " Pray, master," or, pray, my lord, give me my own,' can as justly tell him, "It is a fantastical distinction you take upon you, to pretend to pass upon the world for my master or lord, when, at the same time that I wear your livery, you owe me wages; or, while I wait at your door, you are ashamed to see me until you have paid my bill."

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The good old way among the gentry of England, to maintain their pre-eminence over the lower rank, was by their bounty, munificence, and hospitality; and it is a very unhappy change, if at present, by themselves or their agents, the luxury of the gentry is supported by the credit of the trader. This is what my correspondent pretends to prove out of his own books, and those of his whole neighbourhood. He has the confidence to say, that there is a mughouse near Long-acre, where you may every evening hear an exact account of distresses of this kind. One complains that such a lady's finery is the occasion that his own wife and daughter appear so long in the same gown. Another, that all the furniture of her visiting apartment are no more her's, than the scenery of a play are the proper goods of the actress. Nay, at the lower end of the same table, you may hear a butcher and poulterer say, that, at their proper charge, all that family has been maintained since they last came to town.