time will clear.'-'Ay, ay,' says he, and whispers me, they will never let us into these things beforehand.' I whispered him again, We shall know it as soon as there is a proclamation.'He tells me in the other ear, You are in the right of it.' Then he whispered my friend, to know what my name was; then made an obliging bow, and went to examine another table. This led my friend and me to weigh this wandering manner in many other incidents, and he took out of his pocket several little notes or tickets to solicit for votes to employments: as, Mr. John Taplash having served all offices, and being reduced to great poverty, desires your vote for singing-clerk of this parish. Another has had ten children, all whom his wife has suckled herself; therefore humbly desires to be a schoolmaster.'

6

There is nothing so frequent as this way of application for offices. It is not that you are fit for the place, but because the place would be convenient for you, that you claim a merit to it. But commend me to the great Kirleus, who has lately set up for midwifery, and to help child-birth, for no other reason, but that he is himself the unborn doctor 4.' The way is, to hit upon something that puts the vulgar upon the stare, or touches their compassion, which is often the weakest part about us. I know a good lady, who has taken her daughters from their old dancingmaster, to place them with another, for no other reason but because the new man has broke his leg, which is so ill set, that he can never dance more.

From my own Apartment, July 13.

As it is a frequent mortification to me to receive letters, wherein people tell me, without a name, they

4 See N° 14, note, and No 226.

know I meant them in such and such a passage; so that very accusation is an argument, that there are such beings in human life as fall under our description, and that our discourse is not altogether fantastical and groundless: but in this case I am treated as I saw a boy was the other day, who gave out pocky bills: every plain fellow took it that passed by, and went on his way without further notice: and at last came one with his nose a little abridged; who knocks the lad down, with a 'Why, you son of a w -e, do you think I am p-d? But Shakspeare has made the best apology for this way of talking against the public errors: he makes Jaques, in the play called As you Like it,' express himself thus;

• Why, who cries out on pride,

That can therein tax any private party?
What woman in the city do I name,
When that I say, the city woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
Who can come in and say that I mean her,
When such a one as she, such is her neighbour?
Or, what is he of basest function,

That says his bravery is not on my cost?
Thinking that I mean him; but therein suits

His folly to the mettle of my speech.

There then! How then? Then let me see wherein
My tongue hath wrong'd him: if it do him right,
Then he hath wrong'd himself: if he be free,
Why then my taxing like a wild goose flies,
Unclaim'd of any man.'

STEELE.

N° 42. SATURDAY, JULY 16, 1709.

Celebrare domestica facta.

To celebrate actions done at home.

From my own Apartment, July 15.

LOOKING over some old papers, I found a little treatise, written by my great-grandfather, concerning bribery, and thought his manner of treating that subject not unworthy my remark. He there has a digression concerning a possibility, that in some circumstances a man may receive an injury, and yet be conscious to himself that he deserves it. There are abundance of fine things said on the subject; but the whole wrapped up in so much jingle and pun, which was the wit of those times, that it is scarce intelligible; but I thought the design was well enough in the following sketch of an old gentleman's poetry: for in this case, where two are rivals for the same thing, and propose to obtain it by presents, he that attempts the judge's honesty, by making him offers of reward, ought not to complain when he loses his cause by a better bidder. The good old doggrel runs thus:

A poor man once a judge besought

To judge aright his cause,

And with a pot of oil salutes

This judger of the laws.

"My friend," quoth he, "thy cause is good:"
He glad away did trudge;

Anon his wealthy foe did come

Before this partial judge.

A hog well fed this churl presents,
And craves a strain of law;

The hog receiv'd, the poor man's right
Was judg'd not worth a straw.

< Therewith he cry'd, "O! partial judge,
Thy doom has me undone ;

When oil I gave, my cause was good,
But now to ruin run."

"Poor man," quoth he, "I thee forgot,
And see thy cause of foil;
A hog came since into my house,
And broke thy pot of oil 1."

Will's Coffee-house, July 15.

THE discourse happened this evening to fall upon characters drawn in plays; and a gentleman remarked that there was no method in the world of knowing the taste of an age, or period of time, so good, as by the observations of the persons represented in their comedies. There were several instances produced, as Ben Jonson's bringing in a fellow smoking, as a piece of foppery '; 'but,' said the gentleman who entertained us on this subject, this matter is no where so observable as in the difference of the characters of women on the stage in the last age, and in this. It is not to be supposed that it was a poverty of genius in Shakspeare, that his women made so small a figure in his dialogues3; but it certainly is, that he drew women as they then were in life: for that

I This fable is taken from Whetstone's English Mirror, &c. London, 1586, 4to.

2 "Every Man in his Humour," Com. 4to. 1598.

3 In Shakspeare's time, and for some years after, all the female parts in plays were acted by boys and men.

sex had not in those days that freedom in conversation; and their characters were only, that they were mothers, sisters, daughters, and wives. There were not then among the ladies, shining wits, politicians, virtuosæ, free-thinkers, and disputants; nay, there was then hardly such a creature even as a coquette: but vanity had quite another turn, and the most conspicuous woman at that time of day was only the best housewife. Were it possible to bring into life an assembly of matrons of that age, and introduce the learned lady Woodby into their company, they would not believe the same nation could produce a creature so unlike any thing they ever saw in it.

But these ancients would be as much astonished to see in the same age so illustrious a pattern to all who love things praise-worthy as the divine Aspasia *. Methinks, I now see her walking in her garden like our first parent, with unaffected charms, before beauty had spectators, and bearing celestial conscious virtue in her aspect. Her countenance is the lively picture of her mind, which is the seat of honour, truth, compassion, knowledge, and innocence.

"There dwells the scorn of vice, and pity too."

In the midst of the most ample fortune, and veneration of all that behold and know her, without the least affectation, she consults retirement, the contemplation of her own being, and that supreme Power which bestowed it. Without the learning of schools, or knowledge of a long course of arguments, she goes on in a steady course of uninterrupted piety and virtue, and adds to the severity and privacy of the last

4 This character of Aspasia was written by Congreve; and the person alluded to was lady Elizabeth Hastings.