part of them efcaped my particular obfervation, by reafon that my whole attention was fixed on a very fair youth who rode in the midst of them, and feemed to have been dreffed by fome defcription in a romance. His features, complexion, and habit, had a remarkable effeminacy, and a certain languishing vanity appeared in his air; his hair, well curled and powdered, hung to a confiderable length on his fhoulders, and was wantonly ty'd, as if by the hands of his mistress, in a scarlet ribbon, which played like a treamer behind him; he had a coat and waistcoat of blue camblet trimmed and embroidered with filver; a cravat of the finest lace; and wore, in a smart cock, a little beaver hat edged with filver, and made more fprightly by a feather. His horfe too, which was a pacer, was adorned after the fame airy manner, and feemed to fhare in the vanity of the rider. As I was pitying the luxury of this young perfon, who appeared to me to have been educated only as an object of fight, I perceived on my nearer approach, and as I turned my eyes downward, a part of the equipage I had not obferved before, which was a petticoat of the fame with the coat and waistcoat. After this discovery, I looked again on the face of the fair Amazon who had thus deceived me, and thought thofe features which had before offended me by their foftnefs, were now ftrengthened into as improper a boldness; and though her eyes, nofe, and mouth, feemed to be formed with perfect fymmetry, I am not certain whether the, who in appearance was a very handfome youth, may not be in reality a very indifferent woman.

There is an objection which naturally prefents itself against thefe occafional perplexities and mixtures of drefs, which is, that they feem to break in upon that propriety and diftinction of appearance in which the beauty of different charac

ters is preferved; and if they should be more frequent than they are at prefent, would look like turning our public affemblies into a general masquerade. The model of this Amazonian huntinghabit for ladies, was, as I take it, first imported from France, and well enough expreffes the gaiety of a people who are taught to do any thing fo it be with an affurance; but I cannot help thinking it fits aukwardly yet on our English modefty. The petticoat is a kind of incumbrance upon it, and if the Amazon should think fit to go on in this plunder of our fex's ornaments, they ought to add to their fpoils, and compleat their triumph over us, by wearing the breeches.

If it be natural to contract infenfibly the manners of those we imitate, the ladies who are pleafed with affuming our dreffes will do us more honour than we deserve, but they will do it at their own expence. Why fhould the lovely Camilla deceive us in more thapes than her own, and affect to be reprefented in her picture with a gun and a spaniel; while her elder brother, the heir of a worthy family, is drawn in filks like his fifter? The drefs and air of a man are not well to be divided; and those who would not be content with the latter, ought never to think of affuming the former. There is so large a portion of natural agreeableness among the fairfex of our island, that they feem betrayed into thefe romantic habits without having the fame occafion for them with their inventors: all that needs to be defired of them is, that they would be themselves, that is, what nature defigned them; and to fee their mistake when they depart from this, let them look upon a man who affects the softnefs and effeminacy of a woman, to learn how their fex muit appear to us, when approaching to the refemblance of a man. I am, Sir, your most humble fervant.

N° CV.

Y va

MY

AD

he could; but finding himself pufhed on

himself very much

what he calls the knowledge of mankind, which has coft him many disasters in his youth; for Will reckons every misfortune that he has met with among the women, and every rencounter among the men, as parts of his education, and fancies he fhould never have been the man he is, had not he broke windows, knocked down conftables, disturbed honeft people with his midnight ferenades, and beat up a lewd woman's quarters, when he was a young fellow. The engaging in adventures of this nature Will calls the ftudying of mankind; and terms this knowledge of the town, the knowledge of the world. Will ingenuously confefles, that for half his life his head ached every morning with reading of men over-night; and at prefent comforts himfelf under certain pains which he endures from time to time, that without them he could not have been acquainted with the gallantries of the age. This Will looks upon as the learning of a gentleman, and regards all other kinds of fcience as the accomplishments of one whom he calls a fcholar, a bookish man, or a philofopher.

For thefe reafons Will fhines in mixed company, where he has the difcretion not to go out of his depth, and has often a certain way of making his real ignorance appear a feeming one.

Our club however has frequently caught him tripping, at which times they never fpare him. For as Will often infults us with the knowledge of the town, we fometimes take our revenge upon him by our knowledge of books.

He was laft week producing two or three letters which he writ in his youth to a coquette lady. The raillery of them was natural, and well enough for a mere man of the town; but, very unluckily, feveral of the words were wrong ipelt. Will laughed this off at first as well as

he told us with a little paffion, that he never liked pedantry in spelling, and that he fpelt like a gentleman, and not like a fcholar; upon this Will had recourfe to his old topic of thewing the narrow-fpiritedness, the pride and ignorance of pedants; which he carried fo far, that upon my retiring to my lodgings, I could not forbear throwing together fuch reflections as occurred to me upon that fubject.

A man who has been brought up among books, and is able to talk of nothing elfe, is a very indifferent companion, and what we call a pedant. But, methinks, we should enlarge the title, and give it every one that does not know how to think out of his profeffion and particular way of life.

What is a greater pedant than a mere man of the town? Bar him the playhoufes, a catalogue of the reigning beauties, and an account of a few fashionable diftempers that have befallen him, and you ftrike him dumb. How many a pretty gentleman's knowledge lies all within the verge of the court? He will tell you the names of the principal favourites, repeat the fhrewd fayings of a man of quality, whisper an intrigue that is not yet blown upon by common fame; or, if the fphere of his obfervations is a little larger than ordinary, will perhaps enter into all the incidents, turns, and revolutions in a game of ombre. When he has gone thus far, he has fhewn you the whole circle of his accomplishments, his parts are drained, and he is difabled from any farther converfation. What are thefe but rank pedants? and yet these are the men who value themselves most on their exemption from the pedantry of colleges.

I might here mention the military pedant, who always talks in a camp, and is ftorming towns, making lodgments, and fighting battles from one end of the

year

year to the other. Every thing he speaks fmells of gunpowder; if you take away his artillery from him, he has not a word to fay for himfelf. I might likewife mention the law-pedant, that is perpetually putting cafes,repeating the tranfactions of Westminster Hall, wrangling with you upon the moft indifferent circumftances of life, and not to be convinced of the diftance of a place, or of the most trivial point in converfation, but by dint of argument. The ftate pedant is wrapt up in news, and loft in politics. If you mention either of the Kings of Spain or Poland, he talks very notably, but if you go out of the Gazette, you drop him. In short, a mere courtier, a mere foldier, a mere scholar, a mere any thing, is an infipid pedantic character, and equally ridiculous.

Of all the fpecies of pedants, which I have mentioned, the book-pedant is much the moft fupportable; he has at kaft an exercifed understanding, and a head which is full though contufed, fo that a man who converfes with him may often receive from him hints of things that are worth knowing, and what he may poffibly turn to his own advantage, though they are of little ufe to the owner.

The worst kind of pedants among learned men, are fuch as are naturally endued with a very small share of common fenfe, and have read a great number of books without taste or diftinction.

The truth of it is, learning, like tra- . velling, and all other methods of improvement, as it finishes good fenfe, fo it makes a filly man ten thousand times more infufferable, by fupplying variety' of matter to his impertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abounding in abfurdities.

Shallow pedants cry up one another much more than men of folid and useful learning. To read the titles they give an editor, or collator of a manufcript, you would take him for the glory of the commonwealth of letters, and the wonder of his age, when perhaps upon examination you find that he has only rectified a Greek particle, or laid out a whole fentence in proper commas.

They are obliged indeed to be thus lavifh of their praifes, that they may keep one another in countenance; and it is no wonder if a great deal of knowledge, which is not capable of making a man wife, has a natural tendency to make him vain and arrogant.

HOR. OD. XVII. L. 1. V. 14.

HAVI AVING often received an invitation from my friend Sir Roger de Coverley to pafs away a month with bim in the country, I last week accompanied him thither, and am fettled with him for some time at his country-house, where I intend to form feveral of my enfuing fpeculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my humour, lets me rife and go to bed when I pleafe, dine at his own table, or in my chamber as I think fit, fit ftill and fay nothing without bidding me be merry. When the gentlemen of the country come to fee him, he only fhews me at a diftance. As I have been walking in his

CREECH.

L

fields I have obferved them stealing a fight of me over an hedge, and have heard the knight defiring them not to let me fee them, for that I hated to be stared at.

I am the more at eafe in Sir Roger's family, because it confifts of fober and ftayed perfons; for as the knight is the beft mafter in the world, he feldom changes his fervants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his fervants never care for leaving him; by this

means his domeftics are all in years, and

grown old with their mafter. You would take his valet de chambre for his brother, his butler is grey-headed, his

2 D

groom

groom is one of the graveft men that I have ever seen, and his coachman has the looks of a privy-counfellor. You fee the goodness of the mafter even in the old houfe-dog, and in a grey pad that is kept in the stable with great care and tenderness out of regard to his part services, though he has been useless for feveral years.

I could not but obferve with a great deal of pleature the joy that appeared in the countenance of these ancient domeftics upon my friend's arrival at his country-feat. Some of them could not refrain from tears at the fight of their old mafter; every one of them preffed forward to do fomething for him, and feemed difcouraged if they were not employed. At the fame time the good old knight, with a mixture of the father and the mafter of the family, tempered the enquiries after his own affairs with feve ral kind questions relating to themselves. This humanity and good-nature engages every body to him, fo that when he is pleafant upon any of them, all his family are in good humour, and none fo much as the perfon whom he diverts himself with: on the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is eafy for a ftander-by to obferve a fecret concern in the looks of all his fervants.

My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his butler, who is a very prudent man, and, as well as the reft of his fellow-fervants, wonderfully defirous of pleafing me, because they have often heard their mafter talk of me as of his particular friend.

My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years. This gentleman is a perfon of good fenfe and fome learning, of a very regular life and ebliging converfation: he heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is very much in the old knight's efteem, fo that he lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependent.

I have obferved in feveral of my papers, that my friend Sir Roger, amidst all his good qualities, is fomething of an humourift; and that his virtues, as well as imperfections, are as it were tinged by a certain extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and diftinguishes

them from thofe of other men. This caft of mind, as it is generally very innocent in itself, so it renders his converfation highly agreeable, and more de lightful than the fame degree of fenfe and virtue would appear in their common and ordinary colours. As I was walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom I have juft now mentioned? and without ftaying for my answer told me, that he was afraid of being infulted with Latin and Greek at his own table; for which reafon he defired a particular friend of his at the univerfity to find him out a clergyman rather of plain fenfe than much learning, of a good afpect, a clear voice, a fociable temper, and, it poffible, a man that understood a little of backgammon. My friend,' fays Sir Roger, found me out this gentleman, who, befides the endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good scholar, though he does not fhew it: I have given him the parfonage of the parish; and because I know his value, have • fettled upon him a good annuity for life. If he outlives me, he shall find that he was higher in my efteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty years; and though 'he does not know I have taken notice of it, has never in all that time ask⚫ed any thing of ine for himself, though he is every day foliciting me for fomething in behalf of one or other of my tenants his parishioners. There has not been a law-fuit in the parish fince he has lived among them; if any dif pute arifes, they apply themselves to him for the decifion; if they do not acquiefce in his judgment, which I think never happened above once or twice at molt, they appeal to me. At his firft fettling with me, I made him a prefent of all the good fermons which have been printed in English, and only begged of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly, he has digefted them into fuch a feries, that they follow one another naturally, ⚫and make a continued fyftem of prac ⚫tical divinity.

As Sir Roger was going on in his ftory, the gentleman we were talking of came up to us; and upon the knight's afking him who preached to-morrow, for it was Saturday night, told us, the Bishop of St. Afaph in the morning,

and