Socrates in Plato's Alcibiades, says he was informed by one who had traveled through Persia that as he passed over a great tract of lands and inquired what the name of the place was, they told him it was the 5 Queen's Girdle, to which he adds that another wide field which lay by it was called the Queen's Veil and that in the same manner there was a large portion of ground set aside for every part of her majesty's dress. These lands might not be improperly called the Queen 10 of Persia's Pin Money.

I remember my friend, Sir Roger, who I dare say never read this passage in Plato, told me some time since that upon his courting the perverse widow (of whom I have given an account in former papers) he 15 had disposed of an hundred acres in a diamond ring, which he would have presented her with, had she thought fit to accept it, and that upon her wedding day she should have carried on her head fifty of the tallest oaks upon his estate. He further informed me 20 that he would have given her a coal pit to keep her in clean linen, that he would have allowed her the profits of a windmill for her fans and have presented her once

in three years with the shearing of his sheep for her under petticoats; to which the knight always adds that, though he did not care for fine clothes himself, there should not have been a woman in the country 5 better dressed than my Lady Coverley. Sir Roger, perhaps, may in this, as well as in many other of his devices, appear something odd and singular, but if the humor of pin money prevails, I think it would be very proper for every gentleman of an estate to mark out so 10 many acres of it under the title of the pins.

L.

XXX

IN WESTMINSTER* ABBEY

[No. 329.-Addison. Tuesday, March 18.]

Ire tamen restat, Numa quo devenit et Ancus.1

-Horace.

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other night that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster Abbey, in which, says he, there are a great many ingenious fancies. He told me, at the same time, 5 that he observed I had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he had read history. I could not first imagine how this came into the knight's head, till I recollected that he had 10 been very busy all last summer upon Baker's "Chronicle," which he has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport since his last coming to town. Accordingly, I promised to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together to the Abbey. I found the knight under his butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed than he called for a glass of the widow Trueby's water, which he told me he always drank before he went abroad. He recommended me to a dram of it at the same time,

15

1It remains to go down whither Numa has gone and Ancus.

with so much heartiness that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable; upon which the knight, observing that I had made several wry faces, told me that he 5 knew I should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing in the world against the stone or gravel.

I could have wished, indeed, that he had acquainted me with the virtues of it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had done was out of 10 good-will. Sir Roger told me, further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man, whilst he stayed in town, to keep off infection; and that he got together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being at Dantzic. When, of a sudden, turning short 15 to one of his servants, who stood behind him, he bid him call an hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man that drove it.

He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's water, telling me that the Widow Trueby was one who 20 did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the county: That she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that she distributed her water gratis among all sorts of people; to which the knight added that she had a very great jointure, and that the 25 whole country would fain have it a match between him -and her; "And truly," said Sir Roger, "if I had not been engaged perhaps I could not have done better."

His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after 30 having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked the

5

coachman if his axle-tree was good; upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the knight turned to me, told me he looked like an honest man, and went in without further ceremony.

We had not gone far when Sir Roger, popping out his head, called the coachman down from his box and, upon his presenting himself at the window, asked him if he smoked; as I was considering what this would end in, he bid him stop by the way at any good tobacconist 10 and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material happened in the remaining part of our jour

ney

till we were set down at the west end of the Abbey. As we went up the body of the church, the knight pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monu15 ments, and cried out, "A brave man, I warrant him!" Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, he flung his hand that way, and cried, "Sir Cloudesley Shovel! a very gallant man!" As we stood before Busby's tomb, the knight uttered himself again after the same 20 manner:-"Dr. Busby-a great man! he whipped my grandfather a very great man! I should have gone to him myself if I had not been a blockhead—a very great man!"

We were immediately conducted in to the little 25 chapel on the right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself at our historian's elbow, was very attentive to every thing he said, particularly to the account he gave us of the lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very well pleased 30 to see the statesman Cecil upon his knees; and, con