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most careful of paying, and would be a very worthy subject for a Lucubration.

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Of all men living, I think I am the most proper to treat of this matter; because, in the character and employment of cenfor, I have had encouragement fo infinitely above my defert, that what I fay cannot poffibly be supposed to arife from peevithness, or any disappointment in that kind, which I myself have met with. When we confider trons and their clients, thofe who receive addreffes, and thofe who are addressed to, it must not be understood that the dependents are fuch as are worthlefs in their natures, abandoned to any vice or difhonour, or fuch as, without a call, thruft themfelves upon men in power; nor when we fay patrons, do we mean fuch as have it not in their power, or have no obligation to affift their friends; but we speak of fuch leagues where there are power and obligation on the one part, and merit and expectation on the other. Were we to be very particular on this fubject, I take it, that the divifion of patron and client may include a third part of your nation. The want of merit and real worth will strike out about ninety-nine in the hundred of thefe ; and want of ability in the patron will difpofe of as many of that order. He, who out of mere vanity to be applied to, will take up another's time and fortune in his fervice, where he has no profpect of returning it, is as much more unjust, as thofe who took up my friend the Upholder's goods without paying him for them; I fay, he is as much more unjuft, as our life and time is more valuable than our goods and moveables. Among many whom you fee about the great, there is a contented, well-pleafed fet, who feem to like the attendance for its own fake, and are early at the abodes of the powerful, out of mere fashion. This fort of vanity is as well-grounded, as if a man fhould lay afide his own plain fuit, and dress himself up in a gay livery of

another.

There are many of this fpecies who exclude others of juft expectation, and make thofe proper dependants appear impatient, because they are not fo cheerful as thofe who expect nothing I have made ufe of the penny-poft for the inftruction of these voluntary flaves, and informed

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them, that they will never be provided for; but they double their diligence upon admonition. Will Afterday has told his friends that he was to have the next thing, these ten years; and Harry Linger has been fourteen, within a month, of a confiderable office. However, the fantastic complaifance which is paid to them, may blind the great from seeing themselves in a juft light; they muft needs, if they in the least reflect, at fome times, bave a sense of the injuftice they do in raising in others a falfe expectation. But this is so common a practice in all the stages of power, that there are not more cripples come out of the wars, than from the attendance of patrons. You fee in one a fettled melancholy, in another a bridled rage; a third has loft his memory, and a fourth his whole constitution and humour. In a word, when you fee a particular caft of mind or body, which looks a little upon the distracted, you may be fure the poor gentleman has formerly had great friends. For this reafon, I have thought it a prudent thing to take a nephew of mine out of a lady's fervice, where he was a page, and have bound him to a shoemaker.

But what, of all the humours under the fun, is the most pleasant to confider is, that you fee fome men lay, as it were, a fet of acquaintance by them, to converfe with when they are out of employment, who had no effect of their power when they were in. Here patrons and clients both make the most fantastical figure ima ginable. Friendship, indeed, is moft manifefted in adverfity; but I do not know how to behave myself to a man who thinks me his friend at no other time but that. Dick Reptile, of our club, had this in his head the other night, when he said, I am afraid of ill news when I am vifited by any of my old friends. These patrons are a little like fome fine gentlemen, who spend all their hours of gaiety with their wenches; but when they fall fick will let no one come near them but their wives. It seems, truth and honour are companions too fober for prosperity. It is certainly the moft black ingratitude, to accept of a man's best endeavours to be pleasing to you, and return it with indifference.

I am so much of this mind, that Dick Eaftcourt, the comedian, for coming one night to our club, though he laughed at us all the time he was there, fhall have our company at his play on Thursday. A man of talents is to be favoured, or never admitted. Let the ordinary world. truck for money and wares ;~but men of fpirit and conversation should, in every kind, do others as much pleasure as they receive from them. But men are fo taken up with outward forms, that they do not confider their actions; elfe how fhould it be, that a man fhall deny that to the entreaties, and almost tears, of an old friend, which he shall folicit a new one to accept of?.. I remember, when I first. came out of Staffordshire, I had an intimacy with a man of quality, in whofe gift there fell a very good employment. All the town cried, There's a thing for Mr., Bickerstaff! when, to my great aftonishment, I found my patron had been forced upon twenty artifices to surprise a man with it, who never thought of it. But fure, it is a degree of murder to amuse men with vain hopes. If a man takes away another's life, where is the difference, whether he does it by taking away the minutes of his time, or the drops of his blood? But, indeed, fuch as have hearts barren of kindness, are ferved accordingly by those whom they employ; and pafs their lives away with an empty fhew of civility for love, and an infipid intercourse of a commerce in which their affections are no way concerned. But, on the other fide, how beautiful is the life of a patron who performs his duty to his inferiors? A worthy merchant, who em→ ploys a crowd of artificers A great lord, who is generous and merciful to the several neceffities of his tenants? A courtier, who uses his credit and power for the welfare of his friends? These have, in their feveral stations, a quick relish of the exquifite pleasure of doing good. In a word, good patrons are like the guardian angels of Plato, who are ever bufy, though unfeen, in the care of their wards; but ill patrons are like the deities of Epicurus, fupine, indolent, and unconcerned, though they fee mortals in ftorms and tempefts even while they are offering incenfe to their power.

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NO. 197. THURSDAY, JULY 13, 1710.

Semper ego auditor tantùm? Juv. Sat. 1. ver. 1.

Still fhall I only hear

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Grecian Coffee-houfe, July 12.

DRYDEN.

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WHEN I came hither this evening, the man of the house delivered me a book, very finely bound. When I received it, I overheard one of the boys whisper another, and fay, it was a fine thing to be a great scholar! what a pretty book that is! It has, indeed, a very gay outfide, and is dedicated to me by a very ingenipus gentleman, who does not put his name to it. The title of it, for the work is in Latin, is, Epiftolarum Obfcu rorum Virorum, ad Dm. M. Ortuinum Gratium, Volumina II. &c. The Epiftles of the obfcure Writers to Ortuinus, &c. The purpose of the work is fignified in the dedication, in very elegant language, and fine raillery. It feems, this is a collection of letters which fome profound blockheads, who lived before our times, have written in honour of each other, and, for their mutual information, in each other's abfurdities. They are moftly of the German nation, whence, from time to time, inundations of writers have flowed, more pernicious to the learned world, than the fwarms of Goths and Vandals to the politic. It is, methinks, wonderful, that fellows could be awake, and utter fuch incoherent conceptions, and converse with great gravity, like learned men, without the leaft taste of knowledge or good fenfe. It would have been an endless labour to have taken any other method of expofing fuch impertinences, than by an edition of their own works; where you fee their follies, according to the ambition of such virtuofi, in a moft correct édition."

Looking over these accomplished labours, I could not but reflect upon the immenfe load of writings which the commonalty of scholars have pushed into the world, and the abfurdity of parents, who educate crowds to spend

their time in purfuit of fuch cold and fpiritlefs endeavours to appear in public. It seems, therefore, a fruitless labour to attempt the correction of the taste of our con temporaries; except it was in our power to burn all the fenfeless labours of our ancestors. There is a fecret propenfity in nature, from generation to generation, in the blockheads of one age to admire those of another; and men of the fame imperfections are as great admirers of each other, as those of the fame abilities.

This great mifchief of voluminous follies proceeds from a misfortune, which happens in all ages, that men of barren geniufes, but fertile imaginations, are bred scholars. This may at first appear a paradox; but when we confider the talking creatures we meet in public places, it will no longer be fuch. Ralph Shallow is a young fellow that has not, by nature, any the leaft propenfity to ftrike into what has not been obferved and faid, every day of his life, by others; but, with that inability of speaking any thing that is uncommon, he has a great readiness at what he can speak of; and his ima gination runs into all the different views of the fubject he treats of in a moment. If Ralph had learning added to the common chit-chat of the town, he would have been a difputant upon all topics that ever were confidered by men of his own genius. As for my part, I never am teafed by any empty town-fellow, but I blefs my stars that he was not bred a scholar. This addition, we muft confider, would have made him capable of maintaining his follies. His being in the wrong would have been protected by suitable arguments; and when he was hedged in by logical terms, and falfe appearances, you must have owned yourself convinced before you could then have got rid of him, and the fhame of his triumph had been added to the pain of his impertinence.

There is a fort of littleness in the minds of men of wrong fenfe, which makes them much more insufferable than mere fools; and has the further inconvenience of being attended by an endless loquacity. For which reason, it would be a very proper work, if fome wellwifher to human fociety would confider the terms upon

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