Before I answer this petition, I am inclined to examine the offenders myself.

NO. 216. SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1710.

Nugis addere pondus.

HOR. Ep. 19. lib. 1. ver. 42.

Weight and importance fome to trifles give.

R. WYNNE.

From my own Apartment, August 25.

NATURE is full of wonders; every atom is a standing miracle, and endowed with such qualities, as could not be impreffed on it by a power and wisdom lefs than infinite. For this reafon, I would not difcourage any fearches that are made into the most minute and trivial parts of the creation. However, fince the world abounds in the nobleft fields of fpeculation, it is, methinks, the mark of a little genius to be wholly converfant among infects, reptiles, animalcules, and thofe trifling rarities that furnish out the apartment of a virtuofo.

There are some men whofe heads are fo oddly turned this way, that though they are utter ftrangers to the common occurrences of life, they are able to discover the sex of a cockle, or defcribe the generation of a mite, in all its circumftances. They are fo little verfed in the world, that they scarce know a horfe from an ox; but at the fame time, will tell you with a great deal of gravity, that a flea is a rhinoceros, and a fnail an hermaphrodite. I have known one of thefe whimfical philofophers, who has fet a greater value upon a collection of fpiders than he would upon a flock of sheep, and has fold his coat off his back to purchase a tarantula.

I would not have a scholar wholly unacquainted with these secrets and curiofities of nature; but certainly the

mind of man, that is capable of fo much higher contemplations, fhould not be altogether fixed upon fuch mean and difproportioned objects. Obfervations of this kind. are apt to alienate us too much from the knowledge of the world, and to make us ferious upon trifles; by which means they expofe philofophy to the ridicule of the witty, and contempt of the ignorant. In fhort, ftudies of this nature should be the diverfions, relaxations, and amusements; not the care, bufinefs, and concern of life.

It is indeed wonderful to confider, that there fhould be a fort of learned men, who are wholly employed in gathering together the refuse of nature, if I may call it fo, and hoarding up in their chefts and cabinets fuch creatures as others induftriously avoid the fight of. One does not know how to mention fome of the most precious parts of their treasure, without a kind of an apology for it. I have been fhewn a beetle valued at twenty crowns, and a toad at an hundred: but we must take this for a general rule, that whatever appears trivial or obscene in the common notions of the world, looks grave and philofophical in the eye of a virtuofo.

To fhew this humour in its perfection, I fhall prefent my reader with a legacy of a certain virtuofo, who laid out a confiderable estate in natural rarities and curiofities, which upon his death-bed he bequeathed to his relations and friends, in the following words:

The Will of a Virtuofo.

I NICHOLAS GIMCRACK, being in found health of mind, but in great weakness of body, do by this my last will and testament bestow my worldly goods and chattels in manner following:

Imprimis, To my dear wife,

One box of butterflies,
One drawer of fhells,

A female skeleton,

A dead cockatrice.

F 4

Item,

Item, To my daughter Elizabeth,

My receipt for preferving dead caterpillars,

As alfo my preparations of winter May-dew, and embryo-pickle.

Item, To my little daughter Fanny,

Three crocodile's eggs.

And upon the birth of her first child, if fhe marries with her mother's confent,

The neft of an humming-bird.

Item, To my eldest brother, as an acknowledgment for the lands he has vefted in my fon Charles, i bequeath My last year's collection of grafhoppers.

Item, To his daughter Susanna, being his only child, I bequeath my

English weeds pafted on royal paper,

With my large folio of Indian cabbage.

Item, To my learned and worthy friend doctor Johannes Elferickius, profeffor in anatomy, and my affociate in the ftudies of nature, as an eternal monument of my affection and friendship for him, I bequeath

My rat's testicles, and
Whale's pizzle,

to him and his iffue male; and in default of fuch iffue in the faid doctor Elfcrickius, then to return to my executor and his heirs for ever.

Having fully provided for my nephew Isaac, by making over to him fome years fince,

A horned fcarabæus,

The skin of a rattlesnake, and

The mummy of an Egyptian king,

I make no further provifion for him in this my will.

My eldest fon John, having fpoke difrefpectfully of his litde fifter, whom I keep by me in fpirits of wine, and in

many

many other inftances behaved himself undutifully towards me, I do difinherit, and wholly cut off from any part of this my personal estate, by giving him a fingle cocklefhell.

To my fecond fon Charles I give and bequeath all my flowers, plants, minerals, moffes, fhells, pebbles, foffils, beetles, butterflies, caterpillars, grafhoppers, and vermin, not above fpecified: as alfo all my monsters, both wet and dry; making the faid Charles whole and fole executor of this my laft will and teftament, he paying, or caufing to be paid, the aforefaid legacies within the space of fix months after my decease. And I do hereby revoke all other wills whatfoever by me formerly made.

ADVERTISEMENT.

"Whereas an ignorant upstart in aftrology has publicly endeavoured to perfuade the world, that he is the late John Partridge, who died the twenty-eighth of March 1708. Thefe are to certify all whom it may concern, that the true John Partridge was not only dead at that time, but continues fo to this prefent day.

'Beware of counterfeits, for fuch are abroad.'

Atque deos atque aftra vocat crudelia mater.

NO. 217.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 29, 1710.

VIRG. Ecl. 5. ver. 23.

DRYDEN.

She figh'd, the fobb'd, and, furious with despair,

Accufed all the gods, and every ftar.

From my own Apartment, Auguft 28.

As I was paffing by a neighbour's house this morning, I overheard the wife of the family fpeaking things to her

F5

hufband

husband which gave me much disturbance, and put me in mind of a character which I wonder I have fo long omitted, and that is, an outrageous fpecies of the fair fex, which is diftinguished by the term Scolds. The generality of women are by nature loquacious; therefore mere volubility of speech is not to be imputed to them, but fhould be con dered with pleasure when it is used to exprefs fuch paffions as tend to fweeten or adorn converfation: but when through rage females are vehement in their elaquence, nothing in the world has fo ill an effect upon the features; for by the force of it I have seen the most amiable become the most deformed; and fhe that appeared one of the graces, immediately turned into one of the furies I humbly conceive, the great caufe of this evil may proceed from a falfe notion the ladies have of, what we call, a modeft woman. They have too narrow a conception of this lovely character; and believe they have not at all forfeited their pretenfions to it, provided they have no imputations on their chastity. But alas! the young fellows know they pick out better women in the fide-boxes, than many of those who pafs upon the world and themfelves for modest..

Modefty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts; when it is ill treated, it pines, it befeeches, it languishes. The neighbour I mention is one of your common modeft women, that is to fay, thofe who are ordinarily reckoned fuch. Her husband knows every pain in life with her, but jealoufy. Now because fhe is clear in this particular, the man cannot fay his foul is his own, but the cries, No modeft woman is refpected now-a-days. What adds to the comedy in this cafe is, that it is very ordinary with this fort of women to talk in the language of diftrefs; they will complain of the forlorn wretchednefs of their condi tion, and then the poor helpless creatures fhall throw the next thing they can lay their hands on, at the perfon who offends them. Our neighbour was only faying to his wife the went a little too fine, when the immediately pulled his periwig off, and ftamping it under, her feet, wrung her hands, and faid, Never modeft woman was so used. These ladies of irrefiftible modefty are those who make virtue unamiable ;