her voice was sweet and commanding, I thought | company was over, and a serene light, till I had somewhere heard it; and from her, as I went along, I learned the meaning of every thing which offered. then unknown to the place, diffused around it. At this the detected sorceresses endea voured to escape in a cloud which I saw began to thicken round them; but it was soon dispersed, their charms being controlled, and prevailed over by the superior divinity. For my part I was exceedingly glad to see it so, and began to consider what punishment she would inflict upon them. I fancied it would be proper to cut off Curiosity's ears, and fix them to the eaves of the houses: to nail the tongues of Talkativeness to Indian tables; and to put out the eyes of Censoriousness with a flash of ber light. In respect of Credulity, I had indeed some little pity, and had I been judge she might, perhaps, have escaped with a hearty reproof. We now marched forward through the Rookery of Rumours, which flew thick, and with a terrible din, all around us. At length we arrived at the house of Common Fame, where a hecatomb of reputations was that day to fall for her pleasure. The house stood upon an eminence, having a thousand passages to it, and a thousand whispering holes for the conveyance of sound. The hall we entered was formed with the art of a music-chamber for the improvement of noises. Rest and silence are banished the place. Stories of different natures wander in light flocks all about, some. times truths and lies, or sometimes lies themselves clashing against one another. In the middle stood a table painted after the manner of the remotest Asiatic countries, upon which the lamp, the silver vessel, and cups of a white earth, were planted in order. Then dried herbs were brought, collected for the solemnity in moon-shine, and water being put to them, there was a greenish liquor made, to which they added the flower of milk, and an extraction from the canes of America, for performing a libation to the infernal powers of Mischief. After this, Curiosity, retiring to a withdrawing room, brought forth the victims, being to ap-dered Curiosity and Talkativeness to be fettered pearance a set of small waxen images, which she laid upon the table one after another. Immediately then Talkativeness gave each of them the name of some one, whom for that time they were to represent; and Censoriousness stuck them all about with black pins, still pronouncing at every one she stuck, something to the prejudice of the persons represented. No sooner were these rites performed, and incantations uttered, but the sound of a speaking trumpet was heard in the air, by which they knew the deity of the place was propitiated and assisting. Upon this the sky grew darker, a storm arose, and murmurs, sighs, groans, cries, and the words of grief, or resentment, were heard within it. Thus the three sorceresses discovered, that they whose names they had given to the images, were already affected with what was done to them in effigy. The knowledge of this was received with the loudest laughter, and in many congratulatory words they applauded one another's wit and power. But I soon found that the discerning judge had other designs. She knew them for such as will not be destroyed entirely while mankind is in being, and yet ought to have a brand and punishment affixed to them that they may be avoided. Wherefore she took a seat for judg|ment, and had the criminals brought forward by Shame ever blushing, and Trouble with a whip of many lashes; two phantoms who had dogged the procession in disguise, and waited till they had an authority from Truth to lay hands upon them. Immediately then she or together, that the one should never suffer the other to rest, nor the other ever let her remain undiscovered. Light Credulity she linked to Shame at the tormentor's own request, who was pleased to be thus secure that her pr.oner could not escape; and this was done partly for her punishment, and partly for her amendment. Censoriousness was also in like manner begged by Trouble, and had her assigned for an eternal companion. After they were thus chained with one another, by the judge's order, she drove them from the presence to wander for ever through the world, with Novelty stalking before them. The cause being now over, she retreated from sight within the splendour of her own glory; which leaving the house it had brightened, the sounds that were proper to the place began to be as loud and confused as when we entered; and there being no longer a clear distinguished appearance of any objects represented to me, I returned from the excursion I had made in fancy.' 'As matters were at this high point of disorder, the muffled lady, whom I attended on, No. 67.] Thursday, May 28, 1713. being no longer able to endure such barbarous proceedings, threw off her upper garment of Reserve, and appeared to be Truth. As soon as she had confessed herself present, the speaking-trumpet ceased to sound, the sky cleared up, the storm abated, the noises which were heard in it ended, the laughter of the né fortè pudori IT has been remarked, by curious observers, that poets are generally long-lived, and run beyond the usual age of man, if not cut off by some accident or excess, as Anacreon, in the midst of a very merry old age, was choaked with a grape-stone. The same redundancy of spirits that produces the poetical flame, keeps up the vital warmth, and administers uncommon fuel to life. I question not but several instances will occur to my reader's memory, from Homer down to Mr. Dryden. I shall only take notice of two who have excelled in lyrios; the one an ancient, and the other a modern. The first gained an immortal reputation by celebrating several jockeys in the olympic games, the last has signalized himself on the same occasion by the ode that begins with-To horse, brave boys, to Newmarket, to horse.' My reader will, by this time, know that the two poets I have mentioned, are Pindar and Mr. d'Urfey. The former of these is long since laid in his urn, after having, many years together, endeared himself to all Greece by his tuneful compositions. Our countryman is still living, and in a blooming old age, that still promises many musical productions; for if I am not mistaken, our British swan will sing to the last. The best judges who have perused his last song on The moderate Man, do not discover any decay in his parts, but think it deserves a place amongst the finest of those works with which he obliged the world in his more early years. I am led into this subject by a visit which I lately received from my good old friend and contemporary. As we both flourished together in king Charles the Second's reign, we diverted ourselves with the remembrance of several particulars that passed in the world before the greatest part of my readers were born, and could not but smile to think how insensibly we were grown into a couple of venerable old gentlemen. Tom observed to me, that after having written more odes than Horace, and about four times as many comedies as Terence, he was reduced to great difficulties by the importunities of a set of men, who, of late years, had furnished him with the accommodations of life, and would not, as we say, be paid with a song. In order to extricate my old friend, I immediately sent for the three directors of the playhouse, and desired them that they would in their turn do a good office for a man, who, in Shakspeare's phrase, had often filled their mouths, I mean with pleasantry, and popular conceits. They very generously listened to my proposal, and agreed to act the Plotting Sisters, (a very taking play of my old friend's composing) on the fifteenth of the next month, for the benefit of the author. My kindness to the agreeable Mr. d'Urfey will be imperfect, if after having engaged the players in his favour, I do not get the town to come into it. I must therefore heartily recommend to all the young ladies, my disciples, the case of my old friend, who has often made their grandmothers merry, and whose sonnets have perhaps lulled asleep many a present toast, when she lay in her cradle. I have already prevailed on my lady Lizard to be at the house in one of the front boxes, and design, if I am in town, to lead her in myself at the head of her daughters. The gentleman I am speaking of has laid obligations on so many of his countrymen, that I hope they will think this but a just return to the good service of a veteran poet. 6 I myself remember king Charles the Second leaning on Tom d'Urfey's shoulder more than once, and humming over a song with him. It is certain that monarch was not a little supported by Joy to great Cæsar,' which gave the whigs such a blow as they were not able to recover that whole reign. My friend afterwards attacked popery with the same success, having exposed Bellarmine and Porto-Carrerc more than once in short satirical compositions, which have been in every body's mouth. He has made use of Italian tunes and sonatas for promoting the protestant interest, and turned a considerable part of the pope's music against himself. In short, he has obliged the court with political sonnets, the country with dialogues and pastorals, the city with descriptions of a lord-mayor's feast, not to mention his little ode upon Stool-Ball, with many other of the like nature. Should the very individuals he has celebrated make their appearance together, they would be sufficient to fill the play-house. Pretty Peg of Windsor, Gillian of 'Croydon, with Dolly and Molly, and Tommy and Johny, with many others to be met with in the Musical Miscellanies, entitled, Pills to purge Melancholy, would make a good benefit night. As my friend, after the manner of the old lyrics, accompanies his works with his own voice, he has been the delight of the most polite companies and conversations, from the beginning of king Charles the Second's reign to our present times. Many an honest gentleman has got a reputation in his country, by pretending to have been in company with Tom d'Urfey. I might here mention several other merits in my friend; as his enriching our language with a multitude of rhimes, and bringing words together, that without his good offices, would never have been acquainted with one another, so long as it had been a tongue. But I must not omit that my old friend angles for a trout, the best of any man in England. May-flies come in late this season, or I myself should before now, have had a trout of his booking. After what I have said, and much more that I might say, on this subject, I question not but the world will think that my old friend ought not to pass the remainder of his life in a cage like a singing bird, but enjoy all that | of them, than a name in trust in a settlement No. 68.] Friday, May 29, 1713. Inspicere, tanquam in speculum, in vitas omnium Jabeo, atque ex aliis sumere exemplum sibi. Ter. Adelph. Act. iii. Sc. 4. My advice to him is, to consult the lives of other men as he would a looking-glass, and from thence fetch examples for his own imitation. THE paper of to-day shall consist of a letter from my friend sir Harry Lizard, which, with my answer, may be worth the perusal of young men of estates, and young women without for. tunes. It is absolutely necessary, that in our first vigorous years we lay down some law to ourselves for the conduct of future life, which may at least prevent essential misfortunes. The cutting cares which attend such an affection as that against which I forewarn my friend sir Harry, are very well known to all who are called the men of pleasure; but when they have opposed their satisfactions to their anxieties in an impartial examination, they will find their life not only a dream, but a troubled and vexatious one. DEAR OLD MAN, I believe you are very much surprised, that in the several letters I have written to you, since the receipt of that wherein you recommend a young lady for a wife to your humble servant, I have not made the least mention of that matter. It happens at this time that I am not much inclined to marry; there are very many matches in our country, wherein the parties live so insipidly, or so vexatiously, that I am afraid to venture from their example. Besides, to tell you the truth, good Nestor, I am informed your fine young woman is soon to be disposed of elsewhere. As to the young ladies of my acquaintance in your great town, I do not know one whom I could think of as a wife, who is not either prepossessed with some inclination for some other man, or affects pleasures and entertainments, which she prefers to the conversation of any man living. Women of this kind are the most frequently met with of any sort whatsoever; I mean they are the most frequent among people of condition, that is to say, such are easily to be had as would sit at the head of your estate and table, lie-in by you for the sake of receiving visits in pomp at the end of the month, and enjoy the like gratifications from the support of your fortune; but you yourself would signify no more to one 'I have ever been curious to observe the arrogance of a town lady when she first comes down to her husband's seat, and, beholding her country neighbours, wants somebody to laugh with her, at the frightful things, to whom she herself is equally ridiculous. The pretty pittypat step, the playing head, and the fall-back in the curtesy, she does not imagine, make her as unconversable, and inaccessible to our plain people, as the loud voice and ungainly stride render one of our huntresses to her. In a word, dear Nestor, I beg you to suspend all enquiries towards my matrimony until you hear further from, 'Sir, your most obliged, and most humble servant, HARRY LIZARD. A certain loose turn in this letter, mixed indeed with some real exceptions to the too frequent silly choice made by country gentlemen, has given me no small anxiety: and I have sent sir Harry an account of my suspi cions, as follows. SIR, 'To Sir Harry Lizard. 'Your letter I have read over two or three times, and must be so free with you as to tell you, it has in it something which betrays you have lost that simplicity of heart with relation to love, which I promised myself would crown your days with happiness and honour. The alteration of your mind towards marriage is not represented as flowing from discretion and wariness in the choice, but a disinclination to that state in general; you seem secretly to propose to yourself (for I will think no otherwise of a man of your age and temper) all its satisfactions out of it, and to avoid the care and inconveniencies that attend those who enter into it. I will not urge at this time the greatest consideration of all, to wit, regard of innocence; but having, I think, in my eye, what you aim at, I must, as I am your friend, acquaint you, that you are going into a wilderness of cares and distractions, from which you will never be able to extricate yourself, while the compunctions of honour and pity are yet alive in you. Without naming names, I have long suspected your designs upon a young gentlewoman in your neigbourhood: but give me leave to tell you with all the earnestness of a faithful friend, at to enter into a criminal commerce with a woman of merit, whom you find innocent, is of all the follies in this life, the most fruitful of sorrow. You must make your approaches to her with the benevolence and language of a good angel, in order to bring upon her pollution and shame, which is the work of a demon. The fashion of the world,'the warmth of youth, and the affluence of fortune, may, perhaps, make you look upon me in this talk, like a poor well-meaning old man, who is past those ardencies in which you at present triumph; but believe me, sir, if you succeed in what I fear you design, you will find the sacrifice of beauty and innocence so strong an obligation upon you, that your whole life will pass away in the worst condition imaginable, that of doubt and irresolution; you will ever be designing to leave her, and never do it; or else leave her for another, with a constant longing after her. He is a very unhappy man who does not reserve the most pure and kind affections of his heart for his marriage-bed, he will otherwise be reduced to this melancholy circumstance, that he gave his mistress that kind of affection which was proper for his wife, and has not for his wife either that, or the usual inclination which men bestow upon their mistresses. After such an affair as this, you are a very lucky man if you find a prudential marriage only insipid, and not actually miserable; a woman of as ancient a family as your own, may come into the house of the Lizards, murmur in your bed, growl at your table, rate your servants, and insult yourself, while you bear all this with this unhappy reflection at the bottom of your heart," This is all for the injuredThe heart is ungovernable enough, without being biassed by prepossessions; how emphatically unhappy therefore is he, who besides the natural vagrancy of affection, has a passion to one particular object, in which he sees nothing but what is lovely, except what proceeds from his own guilt against it! I speak to you, my dear friend, as one who tenderly regards your welfare, and beg of you to avoid this great error, which has rendered so many agreeable men unhappy before you. When a man is engaged among the dissolute, gay, and artful of the fair sex, a knowledge of their manners and designs, their favours unendeared by truth, their feigned sorrows and gross flatteries, must in time rescue a reasonable man from the in I HAD this morning a very valuable and kind present sent me of a translated work of a most excellent foreign writer, who makes a very considerable figure in the learned and Christian world. It is entitled, A Demonstration of the Existence, Wisdom, and Omnipotence of God, drawn from the knowledge of nature, particularly of man, and fitted to the meanest capacity, by the archbishop of Cambray, author of Telemachus, and trauslated from the French by the same hand that englished that excellent piece. This great author, in the writings which he has before produced, has manifested a heart full of virtuous sentiments, great benevolence to mankind, as well as a sincere and fervent piety towards his Creator. His talents and parts are a very great good to the world, and it is a pleasing thing to behold the polite arts subservient to religion, and recommending it from its natural beauty. Looking over the letters of my correspondents, I find one which celebrates this treatise, and recommends it to my readers. 'SIR, 'To the Guardian. 'I think I have somewhere read, in the writings of one whom I take to be a friend of yours, a saying which struck me very much, and as I remember, it was to this purpose 66 The existence of a God is so far from being a thing that wants to be proved, that I think it is the only thing of which we are certain." This is a sprightly and just expression; however, I dare say, you will not be displeased that I put you in mind of saying something on the Demonstration of the bishop of Cambray. A man of his talents views all things in a light different from that in which ordinary men see them, and the devout disposition of his soul turns all those talents to the improvement of the pleasures of a good life. His style clothes philosophy in a dress almost poetic; and his readers enjoy in full perfection the advantage, while they are reading him, of being what he is. The pleasing representation of the animal powers in the beginning of his work, and his consideration of the nature of man with the addition of reason in the subsequent discourse, impresses upon the mind a strong satifaction in itself, and gratitude towards Him who be stowed that superiority over the brute-world. These thoughts had such an effect upon the author himself, that he has ended his discourse with a prayer. This adoration has a sublimity in it befitting his character, and the emotions of his heart flow from wisdom and knowledge. I thought it would be proper for a Saturday's paper, and have translated it to make you a present of it. I have not, as the translator was obliged to do, confined myself to an exact version from the original, but have endeavoured to express the spirit of it, by taking the liberty to render his thoughts in such a way as I should have uttered them if they had been my own. It has been observed, that the private letters of great men are the best pictures of their souls; but certainly their private devotions would be still more instructive, and I know not why they should not be as curious and entertaining. If you insert this prayer, I know not but I may send you, for another occasion, one used by a very great wit of the last age, which has allusions to the errors of a very wild life; and, I believe you will think is written with an uncommon spirit. The person whom I mean was an excellent writer, and the publication of this prayer of his may be, perhaps, some kind of antidote against the infection in his other writings. But this supplication of the bishop has in it a more happy and untroubled spirit; it is (if that is not saying something too fond) the worship of an angel concerned for those who had fallen, but himself still in the state of glory and innocence. The book ends with an act of devotion, to this effect. 'O my God, if the greater number of mankind do not discover thee in that glorious show of nature which thou hast placed before our eyes, it is not because thou art far from every one of us. Thou art present to us more than any object which we touch with our hands; but our senses, and the passions which they produce in us, turn our attention from thee. Thy light shines in the midst of darkness, but the darkness comprehends it not. Thou, O Lord, dost every way display thyself. Thou shinest in all thy works, but art not regarded by heedless and unthinking man. The whole creation talks aloud of thee, and echos with the repetitions of thy holy name. But such is our insensibility, that we are deaf to the great and universal voice of nature. Thou art every where about us, and within us; but we wander from ourselves, become strangers to our own souls, and do not apprehend thy presence. O thou, who art the eternal fountain of light and beauty, who art the ancient of days, without beginning and without end; O thou, who art the life of all that truly live, those can never fail to find thee, who seek for thee within themselves. But alas! the very gifts which thou bestowest upon us do so employ our thoughts, that they binder us from perceiving the hand which conveys them to us. We live by thee, and yet we live without thinking on thee; but, O Lord, what is life in the ignorance of thee! A dead unactive piece of matter; a flower that withers; a river that glides away; a palace that hastens to its ruin; a picture made up of fading colours; a mass of shining ore: strike our imaginations and make us sensible of their existence. We regard them as objects capable of giving us pleasure, not considering that thou conveyest, through them, all the pleasure which we imagine they give us. Such vain empty objects that are only the shadows of being, are proportioned to our low and groveling thoughts. That beauty which thou hast poured out on thy creation, is as a veil which hides thee from our eyes. As thou art a being too pure and exalted to pass through our senses, thou art not regarded by men, who have debased their nature, and have made themselves like the beasts that perish. So infatuated are they, that notwithstanding they know what is wisdom and virtue, which have neither sound, nor colour, nor smell, nor taste, nor figure, nor any other sensible quality, they can doubt of thy existence, because thou art not apprehended by the grosser organs of sense. Wretches that we are are! we consider shadows as realities, and truth as a phantom. That which is nothing, is all to us; and that which is all, appears to us nothing. What do we see in all nature but thee, O my God! Thou and only thou, appearest in every thing. When I consider thee, O Lord, I am swallowed up, and lost in contemplation of thee. Every thing besides thee, even my own existence, vanishes and disappears in the contemplation of thee. I am lost to myself, and fall into nothing, whea I think on thee. The man who does not see thee, has beheld nothing; he who does not taste thee, has a relish of nothing; his being is vain, and his life but a dream. Set up thyself, O Lord, set up thyself, that we may behold thee. As wax consumes before the fire, and as the smoke is driven away, so let thine enemies vanish out of thy presence. How unhappy is that soul who, without the sense of thee, has no God, no hope, no comfort to support him! But how happy the man who searches, sighs, and thirsts after thee! But he only is fully happy, on whom thou liftest up the light of thy countenance, whose tears thou hast wiped away, and who enjoys in thy loving kindness the completion of all his desires. How long, how long, O Lord, shall I wait for that day when I shall possess, in thy presence, fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore ? O my God, in this pleasing hope, my bones rejoice and cry out, Who is like unto thee! My heart melts away, and my soul faints within me when |