Col. Plume. Sir, long swords happened to be generally worn in those times. Mr. Sage. In answer to what you were faying, fir Mark, give me leave to inform you, that your knightserrant (who were the very pretty fellows of those ancient times) thought they could not honourably yield, though they had fought their own trufty weapons to the ftumps; but would venture as boldly with the page's leaden fword, as if it had been of enchanted metal. Whence, I conceive, there must be a fpice of romantic gallantry in the compofition of that very pretty fellow. Sir Mark. I am of opinion, Mr. Sage, that fashion governs a very pretty fellow; nature, or common sense, your ordinary perfons, and fometimes men of fine parts. Mr. Sage. But what is the reason, that men of the moft excellent fenfe and morals, in other points, affociate their understandings with the very pretty fellows in that chimera of a duel? Sir Mark. There is no difputing against fo great a majority. Mr. Sage. But there is one fcruple, colonel Plume, and I have done: do not you believe there may be fome advantage even upon a cloak with piftols, which a man of nice honour would fcruple to take. Col. Plume. Faith, I cannot tell, fir; but fince one may reasonably fuppofe that, in fuch a cafe, there can be but one fo far in the wrong as to occafion matters to come to that extremity, I think the chance of being killed fhould fall but on one; whereas, by their clofe and defperate manner of fighting, it may very probably happen to both. Sir Mark. Why, gentlemen, if they are men of fuch nice honour, and muft fight, there will be no fear of foul play, if they threw up crofs or pile who should be fhot. Ne. NO. 40. TUESDAY, JULY 12, 1709. Will's Coffee-houfe, July 11. LETTERS from the city of London give an account of a very great confternation that place is in at prefent, by reafon of a late inquiry made at Guildhall, whether a noble perfon has parts enough to deferve the enjoyment of the great eftate of which he is poffeffed? The city is ap→ prehenfive, that this precedent may go further than was at firft imagined. The perfon against whom this inquifition is fet up by his relations, is a peer of a neighbouring kingdom, and has in his youth made fome few bulls, by which it is infinuated, that he has forfeited his goods and chattels. This is the more afstonishing, in that there are many perfons in the faid city who are ftill more guilty than his lordship, and who, though they are idiots, do not only poffefs, but have alfo themselves acquired great eftates, contrary to the known law of this realm, which wefts their poffeffions in the crown. There is a gentleman in the coffee-house at this time exhibiting a bill in chancery against his father's younger brother, who by fome ftrange magic has arrived at the va lue of half a plumb, as the citizens call an hundred thoufand pounds; and, in all the time of growing up to that wealth, was never known in any of his ordinary words or actions to discover any proof of reafon. Upon this foundation my friend has fet forth, that he is illegally inafter of his coffers, and has writ two epigrams to fignify his own pretenfions and fufficiency for fpending that eftate. He has inferted in his plea fome things which I fear will give offence; for he pretends to argue, that though a man has a little of the knave mixed with the fool, he is nevertheless liable to the lofs of goods; and makes the abuse of reafon as just an avoidance of an eftate as the total absence of it. This is what can never pass; but witty men are fo full of themselves, that there is no perfuading them; and my friend will not be convinced, but that upon quoting Solomon, Solomon, who always used the word fool as a term of the fame fignification with unjust, and makes all deviation from goodness and virtue to come under the notion of folly; I fay, he doubts not, but by the force of this authority, let his idiot uncle appear never so great a knave, he hall prove him a fool at the fame time. This affair led the company here into an examination of these points; and none coming here but wits, what was afferted by a young lawyer, that a lunatic is in the care of the chancery, but a fool in that of the crown, was received with general indignation. Why that? fays old Renault. Why that? Why must a fool be a courtier more than a madman? This is the iniquity of this dull age: I remember the time when it went on the mad-fide; all your top-wits were fcourers, rakes, roarers, and demolifhers of windows. I knew a mad lord who was drunk five years together, and was the envy of that age, who is faintly imitated by the dull pretenders to vice and madness in this. Had he lived to this day, there had not been a fool in fashion in the whole kingdom. When Renault had done fpeaking, a very worthy man affumed the dif courfe. This is, faid he, Mr. Bickerstaff, a proper argument for you to treat of in your article from this place; and if you would fend your Pacolet into all our brains, you would find that a little fibre or valve, scarce discernible, makes the diftinction between a politician and an idiot. We fhould therefore throw a veil upon those unhappy inftances of human nature, who seem to breathe without the direction of reafon and understanding, as we should avert our eyes with abhorrence from fuch as live in perpetual abuse and contradiction to these noble faculties. Shall this unfortunate man be divefted of his eftate, because he is tractable and indolent, runs in no man's debt, invades no man's bed, nor fpends the eftate he owes his children and his character: when one who fhews no sense above him, but in fuch practices, fhall be efteemed in his fenfes, and poffibly may pretend to the guardianship of him who is no ways his inferior, but in being lefs wicked? We fee old age brings us indifferently into the fame impotence of foul, wherein nature has placed this lord. There There is fomething very fantastical in the distribution of civil power and capacity among men. The law certainly gives these perfons into the ward and care of the crown, because that is best able to protect them from injuries, and the impofitions of craft and knavery; that the life of an idiot may not ruin the intail of a noble house, and his weakness may not fruftrate the induftry or capacity of the founder of his family. But when one of bright parts, as we fay, with his eyes open, and all men's eyes upon him, deftroys thofe purposes, there is no remedy. Folly and ignorance are punished! folly and guilt are tolerated! Mr. Locke has somewhere made a distinction between a madman and a fool: a fool is he that from right principles makes a wrong conclufion; but a madman is one who draws a juft inference from false principles. Thus the fool who cut off the fellow's head that lay asleep, and hid it, and then waited to fee what he would fay when ho awaked, and miffed his head-piece, was in the right in the first thought, that a man would be furprifed to find fuch an alteration in things fince he fell afleep; but he was a little mistaken to imagine he could awake at all after his head was cut off. A madman fancies himself a prince s but upon his mistake, he acts fuitably to that character, and though he is out in fuppofing he has principalities, while he drinks gruel, and lies in ftraw, yet you fhall fe him keep the port of a diftreffed monarch in all his words and actions. These two perfons are equally taken into cuftody but what must be done to half this good company, who every hour of their life are knowingly and wittingly both fools and madmen, and yet have capacities both of forming principles, and drawing conclusions, with the full ufe of reason? From my own Apartment, July 11. THIS evening fome ladies came to vifit my fifter Jenny; and the difcourfe, after very many frivolous and public matters, turned upon the main point among the women, the paffion of love. Sappho, who always leads on this occafion, began to fhew her reading, and told us, that fir VOL. I. M John John Suckling and Milton had, upon a parallel occafion, faid the tendereft things the ever read. The circumstance, faid fhe, is fuch as gives us a notion of that protecting part, which is the duty of men in their honourable defigns upon, or poffeffion of, women, In Suckling's tragedy of Brennoralt, he makes the lover fteal into his miftrefs's bedchamber, and draw the curtains; then, when his heart is full of her charms, as the lies fleeping, inftead of being carried away by the violence of his defires into thoughts of a warmer nature, fleep, which is the image of death, gives this generous lover reflections of a different kind, which regard rather her fafety than his own paffion. For, beholding her as the lies fleeping, he utters these words: So mifers look upon their gold, Which, while they joy to fee, they fear to lose : The jealoufy of being difpoffefs'd by others. Heav'n fhall this fresh ornament of the world, things Amongst the waste of time? what pity 'twere ! When Milton makes Adam leaning on his arm, beholding Eve, and lying in the contemplation of her beauty, he defcribes the utmost tenderness and guardian. affection in one word: Adam with looks of cordial love This is that fort of paffion which truly deferves the name of love, and has fomething more generous than friendship itself; for it has a conftant care of the object beloved, abftracted from its own interefts in the poffeffion of it. Sappho was proceeding on the fubject, when my Lifter |