I omit other less particulars, the necessary consequence of greater actions. But my reason for troubling you at this present is, to put a stop, if it may be, to an insinuating increasing set of people, who, sticking to the letter of your treatise, and not to the spirit of it, do assume the name of " Pretty Fellows; nay, and even get new names, as you very well hint. Some of them I have heard calling to one another as I have sat at White's and St. James's, by the names of Betty, Nelly, and so forth. You see them accost each other with effeminate airs: they have their signs and tokens like freemasons. They rail at woman-kind; receive visits on their beds in gowns, and do a thousand other unintelligible prettinesses that I cannot tell what to make of. I therefore heartily desire you would exclude all this sort of animals.

"There is another matter I foresee an ill consequence from, that may be timely prevented by prudence; which is, that for the last fortnight prodigious shoals of volunteers have gone over to bully the French, upon hearing the peace was just signing; and this is so true, that I can assure you, all ingrossing work about the Temple is risen above three shillings in the pound for want of hands. Now as it is possible, some little alteration of affairs may have broken their measures, and that they will post back again, I am under the last apprehension, that these will, at their return, all set up for " Pretty Fellows," and thereby confound all merit and service, and impose on us some new alteration in our night-cap wigs and pockets, unless you can provide a particular class for them. I cannot apply myself better than to you, and I am sure I speak the mind of a very great number, as deserving as myself."

The pretensions of this correspondent are worthy a particular distinction; he cannot indeed be admitted as a Pretty," but is what we more justly call a "Smart Fellow." Never to pay at the playhouse is an act of frugality that lets you into his character; and his expedient in sending his children berging before they can go, are characteristical instances that Le belongs to this class. I never saw the gentleman; but I know by his letter, he hangs his came to his button; and by some lines of it he should wear red-heeled shoes; which are essential parts of the habit belonging to the order of “Smart Fellows."

My familiar is returned with the following letter from the French king.

"Versailles, June 3, 1709

LEWIS XIV. to ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.

“SIR,

"I have your epistle, and must take the liberty to say, that there has been a time, when there were generous spirits in Great Britain, who would not have suffered my name to be treated with the familiarity you think fit to use. I thought liberal men would not be such time-servers, as to fall upon a man because his friends are not in power. But, having some concern for what you may transmit to posterity concerning me, I am willing to keep terms with you, and make a request to you, which is, that you would give my service to the nineteenth century (if ever you or yours reach them), and tell them, that I have settled all matters between them and me by Monsieur Boileau. I should be glad to see you here."

It is very odd, this prince should offer to invite me into his dominions, or believe I should accept the invitation. No, no, I remember too well how he served an ingenious gentleman, a friend of mine, whom he locked up in the Bastile for no reason in the world, but because he was a wit, and feared he might mention him with justice in some of his writings. His way is, that all men of sense are preferred, banished, or imprisoned. He has indeed a sort of justice in him, like that of the gamesters; for if a stander-by sees one at play cheat, he has a right to come in for shares, as knowing the mysteries of the game *.

This is a very wise and just maxim; and if I have not left at Mr. Morphew's, directed to me, bank bills for two hundred pounds, on or before this day sevennight, I shall tell how Tom Cash got his estate. I expect three hundred pounds of Mr. Soilett, for concealing all the money he has lent to himself, and his landed friend bound with him at thirty per cent. at his scrivener's. Absolute princes make people pay what they please in deference to their power: I do not know why I should not do the same, out of fear or respect to my knowledge. I always preserve decorums and civilities to the fair sex therefore, if a certain lady, who left her coach at the New Exchange door in the Strand, and whipt down Durham-yard into a boat with a young gentleman for Vauxhall +; I say, if she will send me word, that I may give the fan which she dropped, and I found, to my sister Jenny, there shall be no more said of it. I expect hush-money to be regularly sent for every folly or vice any one

*Sir John Vanbrugh, who was once confined in the Bastile, is probably the person here alluded to.

In the Original Folio it is "Fox-Hall."
T

VOL. I.

sib, said he, How terrible are conviction and guilt, when they come too late for penitence!"

Pacelet was going on in this strain, but he recoverd from it, and told me, "It was too soon to give my discourse on this subject so serious a turn; you have chiefly to do with that part of mankind which must be led into reflection by degrees, and you must treat this custom with humour and raillery to get an audience, before you come to pronounce sentence upon it. There is foundation enough for raising such entertainments, from the practice on this occasion. Do not you know that often a man is called out of bed to follow implicitly a coxcomb (with whom he would not keep company on any other occasion) to ruin and death?--Then a good list of such as are qualified by the laws of these uncourteous men of chivalry to enter into combat (who are often persons of honour without common honesty); these, I say, ranged and drawn up in their proper order, would give an aversion to doing any thing in common with such as men laugh at and contemn. But to go through this work, you must not let your thoughts vary, or make excursions from your theme: consider, at the same time, that the matter has been often treated by the ablest and greatest writers; yet that must not discourage you for the properest person to handle it is one who has roved into mixed conversations, and must have opportunities (which I shall give you) of seeing these sort of men in their pleasures and gratifications, among which they pretend to reckon fighting. It was pleasantly enough said of a bully in France, when duels first began to be punished: The King has taken away gaming and stageplaying, and now fighting too; how does he expect gentlemen shall divert themselves?"

N° 27. SATURDAY, JUNE 11, 1709.

Quicquid agunt bomines

nostri est farrago libelli.

JUV. Sat. 1. 85, 86.

Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream,
Our motley paper seizes for its theme.

White's Chocolate-house, June 9.

P.

PACOLET being gone a-strolling among the men of the sword, in order to find out the secret causes of the frequent disputes we meet with, and furnish me with materials for my treatise on duelling: I have room left to go on in my information to my country readers, whereby they may understand the bright people whose memoirs I have taken upon me to write. But in my discourse of the twenty-eighth of the last month, I omitted to mention the most agreeable of all bad characters, and that is, a Rake.

A Rake is a man always to be pitied; and, if he lives, is one day certainly reclaimed; for his faults proceed not from choice or inclination, but from strong passions and appetites, which are in youth too violent for the curb of reason, good sense, good manners, and good-nature: all which he must have by nature and education, before he can be allowed to be, or to have been of this order. He is a poor unwieldy wretch, that commits faults out of the redundance of his good qualities. His pity and compassion make him sometimes a bubble to all his fellows, let them be never so much below him in understanding. His desires run away with him