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the want of understanding much more than that of the abuse of it. But, alas! how contemptible is such an ambition, which is the very reverse of all that is truly laudable, and the very contradiction to the only means to a juft reputation, fimplicity of manners! Cunning can, in no circumftance imaginable, be a quality worthy a man, except in his own defence, and merely to conceal himself from fuch as are fo; and, in fuch cafes, it is no longer craft, but wisdom. The monftrous affectation of being thought artful, immediately kills all thoughts of humanity and goodness; and gives men a fenfe of the foft affections and impulfes of the mind, which are imprinted in us for our mutual advantage and fuccour, as of mere weakneffes and follies. According to the men of cunning, you are to put off the nature of a man as fast as you can, and acquire that of a demon; as if it were a more eligible character to be a powerful enemy, than an able friend. But it ought to be a mortification to men affected this way, that there wants bút little more than instinct to be confiderable in it; for when a man has arrived at being very bad in his inclination, he has not much more to do but to conceal himfelf, and he may revenge, cheat, and deceive, without much employment for understanding, and go on with great cheerfulness, with the high applaufe of being a prodigious cunning fellow. But, indeed, when we arrive at that pitch of false taste, as not to think cunning a contemptible quality, it is, methinks, a very great injuftice that pickpockets are had in fo little veneration; who must be admirably well turned, not only for the theoretic, but alfo the practical behaviour of cunning fellows. After all the endeavours of this family of men whom we call cunning, their whole work falls to pieces, if others will lay down all esteem for fuch artifices, and treat it as an unmanly quality, which they forbear to practife only because they abhor it. When the spider is ranging in the dif ferent apartments of his web, it is true, that he only can weave so fine a thread; but it is in the power of the merest drone that has wings, to fly through and deftroy it.

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Will's Coffee-houfe, June 28.

THOUGH the tafte of wit and pleafure is at prefent but very low in this town, yet there are some that preferve their relifh undebauched with common impreffions, and can diftinguish between reality and impofture. A gentleman was faying here this evening, that he would go to the play to-morrow night to see heroism, as it has been reprefented by fome of our tragedians, reprefented in burlesque. It feems, the play of Alexander is to be then turned into ridicule for its bombast, and other false ornaments in the thoughts as well as the language. The blufter Alexander makes is as much inconfiftent with the character of an hero, as the roughness of Clytus an inftance of the fincerity of a bold, artless foldier. To be plain is not to be rude, but rather inclines a man to civility and deference; not, indeed, to fhew it in the gestures of the body, but in the fentiments of the mind. It is, among other things, from the impertinent figures unfkilful dramatifts draw of the characters of men, that youth are bewildered and prejudiced in their fenfe of the world, of which they have no notions but what they draw from books and fuch reprefentations. Thus talk to a very young man, let him be of never fo good fenfe, and he thall fmile when you speak of fincerity in a cour tier, good fenfe in a foldier, or honefty in a politician. The reafon of this is, that you hardly fee one play, wherein each of thefe ways of life is not drawn by hands that know nothing of any one of them; and the truth is fo far of the oppofite fide to what they paint, that it is more impracticable to live in esteem in courts than any where elfe, without fincerity. Good fenfe is the great requifite in a foldier, and honefty the only thing that can fupport a politician. This way of thinking made the gentleman, of whom I was juft now speaking, fay, he was glad any one had taken upon him to depreciate fuch unnatural fuftian as the tragedy of Alexander. The character of that prince indeed was, that he was unequal, and given to intemperance; but in his fober moments,

moments, when he had the precepts of his great inftructor warm in his imagination, he was a pattern of generous thoughts and difpofitions, in oppofition to the ftrongest defires which are incident to a youth and conqueror. But instead of representing that hero in the glorious character of generofity and chastity, in his treatment of the beauteous family of Darius,, he is drawn all along as a monfter of luft, or of cruelty; as if the way to raise him to the degree of an hero, were to make his character as little like that of a worthy man as poffible. Such rude and indigested draughts of things are the proper objects of ridicule and contempt; and depreciating Alexander, as we have him drawn, is the only way of reftoring him to what he was in himself. It is well contrived of the players to let this part be followed by a true picture of life, in the comedy called The Chances, wherein Don John and Conftantia are acted to the utmost perfection. There need not be a greater inftance of the force of action than in many incidents of this play, where indifferent paffages, and fuch as conduce only to the tacking of the fcenes together, are enlivened with fuch an agreeable gefture and behaviour, as apparently fhews what a play might be, though it is not wholly what a play fhould be.

B. 5

NO. 192. SATURDAY, JULY 1, 1710.

Tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam libens.

HOR. Od. 9. lib. 3. ver. ult.

Gladly I

With thee would live, with thee would die.

From my own Apartment, June 30.

FRANCIS.

SOME years fince I was engaged with a coach-full of friends to take a journey as far as the Land's End. We were very well pleafed with one another the first day; every one endeavouring to recommend himself by his good-humour and complaifance to the reft of the company. This good correfpondence did not last long; one of our party was foured the very firft evening by a plate of butter which had not been melted to his mind, and which fpoiled his temper to fuch a degree, that he continued upon the fret to the end of our journey. A fecond fell off from his good-humour the next morning, for no other reason, that I could imagine, but because I chanced to step into the coach before him, and place myfelf on the fhady fide. This, however, was but my own private guefs; for he did not mention a word of it, nor indeed of any thing elfe, for three days following. The rest of our company held out very near half the way, when on a fudden Mr. Sprightly fell asleep; and, inftead of endeavouring to divert and oblige us, as he had hitherto done, carried himself with an unconcerned, careless, drowly behaviour, until he came to our laft ftage. There were three of us who ftill held up our heads, and did all we could to make our journey agreeable; but, to my fhame be it spoken, about three miles on this fide Exeter, I was taken with an unaccountable fit of fullennefs, that hung upon me for above threescore miles; whether it were for want of respect, or from an accidental

accidental tread upon my foot, or from a foolifh maid's calling me The old gentleman,' I cannot tell. In fhort, there was but one who kept his good-humour to the Land's End.

There was another coach that went along with us, in which I likewife obferved, that there were many secret jealoufies, heart-burnings, and animofities; for when we joined companies at night, I could not but take notice that the paffengers neglected their own company, and studied how to make themselves esteemed by us, who were altogether ftrangers to them; until at length they grew fo well acquainted with us, that they liked us as little as they did one another. When I reflect upon this journey, I often fancy it to be a picture of human life, in refpect to the feveral friendships, contracts, ́and alliances, that are made and diffolved in the feveral periods of it. The moft delightful and most lafting engagements are generally thofe which pafs between man and woman; and yet, upon what trifles are they weakened, or entirely broken? Sometimes the parties fly afunder even in the midst of courtship, and fometimes grow cool in the very honey-month. Some feparate before the first child, and fome after the fifth; others continue good until thirty, others until forty; while fome few, whole fouls are of an happier make, and better fitted to one another, travel on together to the end of their journey in a continual intercourfe of kind offices, and mutual endearments.

When we therefore choose our companions for life, if we hope to keep both them and ourselves in good hu mour to the last stage of it, we must be extremely care-ful in the choice we make, as well as in the conduct on our part. When the perfons to whom we join ourselves can ftand an examination, and bear the fcrutiny; when they mend upon our acquaintance with them, and dif cover new beauties, the more we fearch into their cha racters; our love will naturally rife in proportion to thèig perfections.

But because there are very few poffeffed of such accomplishments of body and mind, we ought to look

B 6

after

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