treaties will require the ratification of the ftates of your kingdom. So we bid you heartily farewell, until we have the honour to meet you affembled in parliament. This happy expectation makes us willing to wait the event of another campaign, from whence we hope to be raised . from the mifery of flaves to the privileges of fubjects. We are Your majesty's truly faithful and loyal fubjects, &c. NO. 30. SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1709. From my own Apartment, June 16. THE vigilance, the anxiety, the tenderness, which I have for the good people of England, I am perfuaded, will in time be much commended; but I doubt whether they will ever be rewarded. However, I must go on cheerfully in my work of reformation: that being my great defign, I am ftudious to prevent my labour's increafing upon me; therefore am particularly obfervant of the temper and inclinations of childhood and youth, that we may not give vice and folly fupplies from the growing generation. It is hardly to be imagined, how useful this ftudy is, and what great evils or benefits arife from putting us in our tender years to what we are fit and unfit: therefore on Tuesday laft (with a defign to found their inclinations) I took three lads, who are under my guardianship, a rambling in a hackney-coach, to fhew them the town; as the lions, the tombs, Bedlam, and the other places which are entertainments to raw minds, because they strike forcibly on the fancy. The boys are brothers, one of fixteen, the other of fourteen, the other other of twelve. The firft was his father's darling, the 1 the purfuit by enjoyments, which can be fupported only by that cath which they defpife; and therefore are in the end flaves to their inferiors both in fortune and underftanding. I once heard a man of excellent sense observe, that more affairs in the world failed by being in the hands of men of too large capacities for their bufinefs, than by being in the conduct of fuch as wanted abilities to execute them. Jack therefore, being of a plodding make, fhall be a citizen: and I defign him to be the refuge of the family in their diftrefs, as well as their jeft in profperity. His brother Will fhall go to Oxford with all speed, where, if he does not arrive at being a man of fenfe, he will foon be informed wherein he is a coxcomb. There is in that place fuch a true fpirit of raillery and humour, that if they cannot make you a wife man, they will certainly let you know you are a fool; which is all my coufin wants, to cease to be fo. Thus having taken thefe two out of the way, I have, leifure to look at my third lad. I obferve in the young rogue a natural fubtilty of mind, which difcovers itfelf rather in forbearing to declare his thoughts on any occafion, than in any vifible way of exerting himfelf in difcourfe. For which reafon I will place him where, if he commits no faults, he may go farther than thofe in other ftations, though they excel in virtues. The boy is well fashioned, and will eafily fall into a graceful manner; wherefore I have a defign to make him a page ao a great lady of my acquaintance; by which means he will be well fkilled in the common modes of life, and make a greater progrefs in the world by that knowledge, than with the greatest qualities without it. A good mien in a court will carry a man greater lengths than a good understanding in any other place. We fee a world of pains taken, and the beft years of life spent, in collecting a fet of thoughts in a college for the conduct of life; and after all, the man fo qualified shall hefitate in his fpeech to a good fuit of clothes, and want common fenfe before an agreeable woman. Hence it is, that wisdom, valour, juftice, and learning, cannot keep a man in countenance that is poffeffed with thefe excellencies, if he wants that inferior art of life and behaviour called goodbreeding. breeding. A man endowed with great perfections, without this, is like one who has his pockets full of gold, but always wants change for his ordinary occafions. Will Courtly is a living inftance of this truth, and has had the fame education which I am giving my nephew. He never spoke a thing but what was faid before, and yet can converse with the wittieft men without being ridiculous. Among the learned, he does not appear ignorant; nor with the wife, indifcreet. Living in conversation from his infancy, makes him no where at a lofs; and a long familiarity with the perfons of men is, in a manner, of the fame fervice to him, as if he knew their arts. As ceremony is the invention of wife men to keep fools at a diftance, fo good-breeding is an expedient to make fools and wife men equals. Will's Coffee-boufe, June 22. THE fufpenfion of the playhouse has made me have nothing to fend you from hence; but calling here this evening, I found the party I ufually fit with upon the bufinefs of writing, and examining what was the handfomeft ftyle, in which to addrefs women, and write letters of gallantry. Many were the opinions which were immediately declared on this fubject. Some were for a certain softness; fome for I know not what delicacy; others for fomething inexpreffibly tender. When it came to me, I faid there was no rule in the world to be made for writing letters, but that of being as near what you speak face to face as you can; which is fo great a truth, that I am of opinion, writing, has loft more miftreffes than any one mistake in the whole legend of love. For when you write to a lady for whom you have a folid and honourable paffion, the great idea you have of her, joined to a quick fenfe of her abfence, fills your mind with a fort of tenderness, that gives your language too much the air of complaint, which is feldom fuccefsful. For a man may flatter himfelf as he pleases; but he will find that the women have more understanding in their own affairs than we have, and women of spirit are not to be won by mourn ers, ers. He that can keep handsomely within rules, and fupport the carriage of a companion to his miftrefs, is much more likely to prevail, than he who lets her fee the whole relifh of his life depends upon her. If poffible, therefore, divert your mistress rather than figh for her. The pleasant man fhe will defire for her own fake; but the languifhing lover has nothing to hope from, but her pity. To fhew the difference, I produced two letters a lady gave me, which had been writ by two gentlemen who pretended to her, but were both killed the next day after the date, at the battle of Almanza. One of them was a mercurial gay-humoured man; the other a man of a ferious, but a great and gallant fpirit. Poor Jack Carelefs! this is his letter: you fee how it is folded: the air of it is fo negligent, one might have read half of it, by peeping into it without breaking it open. He had no exactnefs. 'MADAM, Ir is a very pleafant circumftance I am in, that while I should be thinking of the good company we are to meet within a day or two, where we fhall go to loggerheads, my thoughts are running upon a fair enemy in England. I was in hopes 1 had left you there; but you follow the camp, though I have endeavoured to make fome of our leaguer ladies drive you out of the field. All my comfort is, you are more troublesome to my colonel than myfelf: I permit you to vifit me only now and then; but he downright keeps you. I laugh at his honour, as far as his gravity will allow me; but I know him to be a man of too much merit to fucceed with a woman, Therefore defend your heart as well as you can. I fhall come home this winter irrefittibly dreffed, and with quite a new foreign air. And fo I had like to fay, I reft, but, alas! I remain, Madam, you moft obedient, moft humble fervant, JOHN CARELESS,' Now |