chased two hundred a year in the annuities since he last settled the account of their happiness, in which he thought himself to have the balance. This may seem a very fantastical way of thinking in these men ; but there is nothing so common, as a man's endeavouring rather to go farther than some other person towards an easy fortune, than to form any certain standard that would make himself happy.

Will's Coffee-house, September 2.

MR. DACTYLE has been this evening very profuse of his eloquence upon the talent of turning things into ridicule; and seemed to say very justly, that there was generally in it something too disingenuous for the society of liberal men, except it were governed by the circumstances of persons, time, and place. This talent,' continued he, is to be used as a man does his sword, not to be drawn but in his own defence, or to bring pretenders and impostors in society to a true light. But we have seen this faculty so mistaken, that the burlesque of Virgil himself has passed, among men of little taste, for wit; and the noblest thoughts that can enter into the heart of man levelled with ribaldry and baseness: though, by the rules of justice, no man ought to be ridiculed for any imperfection, who does not set up for eminent sufficiency in that way wherein he is defective. Thus cowards, who would hide themselves by an affected terror in their mien and dress; and pedants, who would shew the depth of their knowledge by a supercilious gravity, are equally the objects of laughter. Not that they are in themselves ridiculous, for their want of courage, or weakness of understanding; but that they seem insensible of their own place in life, and unhappily rank themselves with those whose abilities,

compared to their defects, make them contemptible. At the same time it must be remarked, that, risibility being the effect of reason, a man ought to be expelled from sober company who laughs without it.'-' Ha! ha!' says Will Truby, who sat by,' will any man pretend to give me laws when I should laugh, or tell me what I should laugh at?'' Look ye,' answered Humphry Slyboots, you are mightily mistaken; you may, if you please, make what noise you will, and nobody can hinder an English gentleman from putting his face into what posture he thinks fit; but, take my word for it, that motion which you now make with your mouth open, and the agitation of your stomach, which you relieve by holding your sides, is not laughter: laughter is a more weighty thing than you imagine; and I will tell you a secret, you never did laugh in your life: and truly I am afraid you never will, except you take great care to be cured of those convulsive fits.' Truby left us, and, when he had got two yards from us, 'Well,' said he, 'you are strange fellows!" and was immediately taken with another fit.

The Trubies are a well-natured family, whose particular make is such, that they have the same pleasure out of good-will, which other people have in that scorn which is the cause of laughter: therefore their bursting into the figures of men, when laughing, proceeds only from a general benevolence they are born with; as the Slyboots smile only on the greatest occasion of mirth; which difference is caused rather from a different structure of their organs, than that one is less moved than the other. I know Sourly frets inwardly, when Will Truby laughs at him; but when I meet him, and he bursts out, I know it is out of

his abundant joy to see me, which he expresses by that vociferation which is in others laughter. But I shall defer considering this subject at large, until I come to my treatise of oscitation, laughter, and ridicule.

From my own Apartment, September 2.

THE following letter being a panegyric upon me for a quality which every man may attain, an acknowledgment of his faults; I thought it for the good of my fellow-writers to publish it.

" SIR,

Ir must be allowed, that Esquire Bickerstaff is of all authors the most ingenuous. There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, though all the world see them to be in downright nonsense. You will be pleased, sir, to pardon this expression, for the same reason for which you once desired us to excuse you, when you seemed any thing dull. Most writers, like the generality of Paul Lorraine's saints,' seem to place a peculiar vanity in dying hard. But you, sir, to shew a good example to your brethren, have not only confessed, but of your own accord mended the indictment. Nay, you have been so good-natured as to discover beauties in it, which, I will assure you, he that drew it never dreamed of. And, to make your civility the more accomplished, you have honoured him with the title of your kinswhich, though derived by the left hand, he is not a little proud of. My brother, for such Obadiah is, being at present very busy about nothing, has ordered me to return you his sincere thanks for all these favours; and, as a small token of his gratitude, to

man,

See Spect. No 338.

communicate to you the following piece of intelligence, which, he thinks, belongs more properly to you, than to any others of our modern historians.

'Madonella', who, as it was thought, had long since taken her flight towards the ethereal mansions, still walks, it seems, in the regions of mortality; where she has found, by deep reflections on the revolution mentioned in yours of June the twenty-third, that where early instructions have been wanting to imprint true ideas of things on the tender souls of those of her sex, they are never after able to arrive at such a pitch of perfection, as to be above the laws of matter and motion; laws which are considerably enforced by the principles usually imbibed in nurseries and boardingschools. To remedy this evil, she has laid the scheme of a college for young damsels; where (instead of scissars, needles, and samplers) pens, compasses, quadrants, books, manuscripts, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, are to take up their whole time. Only on holidays the students will, for moderate exercise, be allowed to divert themselves with the use of some of the lightest and most voluble weapons; and proper care will be taken to give them at least a superficial tincture of the ancient and modern Amazonian tactics. Of these military performances, the direction is undertaken by Epicene3, the writer of Memoirs from the Mediterranean, who, by the help of some artificial poisons conveyed by smells, has within these few weeks brought many persons of both sexes to an untimely fate; and, what is more surprising, has, contrary to her profession, with the same odours, revived others who had long since been drowned in the whirlpools of Lethe. Another of the professors is to ✔ Mrs, Manley.

2 See N° 32.

be a certain lady, who is now publishing two of the choicest Saxon novels+, which are said to have been in as great repute with the ladies of queen Emma's court, as the Memoirs from the new Atalantis are with those of ours. I shall make it my business to inquire into the progress of this learned institution, and give you the first notice of their philosophical transactions, and searches after nature.

Your's, &c.

ADDISON, STEELE, AND SWIFT.

TOBIAH GREENHAT.'

N° 64. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1709.

Quæ caret ora cruore nostro?

HOR. 2. Od. i. 36.

What coast, encircled by the briny flood,
Boasts not the glorious tribute of our blood.'

From my own Apartment, September 5. WHEN I lately spoke of triumphs, and the behaviour of the Romans' on those occasions, I knew by my skill in astrology, that there was a great event approaching to our advantage; but, not having yet taken upon me to tell fortunes, I thought fit to defer the mention of the battle near Mons until it happened: which moderation was no small pain to me; but I should wrong my art, if I concealed that some of my aerial intelligencers had signified to me the news of it

4 Mrs. Elizabeth Elstob. See an account of this very extraordinary lady, Biog. Brit, vol. v. p. 585, fol. 1793. See N° 63, and 65.