"Senor Don Manuel, I must now impart to you an anxiety which I labour under on your account; I have strong reason to suspect you have enemies in your own country, who are upon the watch to arrest you on your landing : when I have told you this, I expect you will repose such trust in my honour, and the sincerity of my regard for you as not to demand a further explanation of the particulars on which my intelligence is founded."-" Heaven and earth!” cried the astonished Spaniard, "who can be those enemies I have to fear, and what can I have done to deserve them?"-" So far I will open myself to you," answered the captain, "as to point out the principal to you, the inquisidor general."—"The best friend I have in Spain," exclaimed the governor, "my sworn protector, the patron of my fortune. He my enemy! impossible."—" Well, Sir," replied the captain, "if my advice does not meet belief, I must so far exert my authority for your sake, as to make this ship your prison till I have waited on our minister at Lisbon, and made the inquiries necessary for your safety; suspend your judgment upon the seeming harshness of this measure till I return to you again? and at the same time, rising from his seat, he gave orders for the barge, and leaving strict injunctions with the first lieutenant not to allow of the governor's quitting the frigate, he put off for the shore, and left the melancholy Spaniard buried in profound and silent meditation.

the British flag flies over thy head, neither Spain, nor Portugal, nor inquisidors, nor devils shall annoy thee under its protection; but if thou ever venturest over the side of this ship, and rashly settest one foot upon Catholic soil, when we arrive at Lisbon, thou art a lost man."-" I were worse than a madman," replied Nicolas, " should I attempt it."-" Keep close in this asylum then," resumed the captain, "and fear nothing. Had it been our fate to have been captured by the Spaniard, what would have become of thee?"-" In the worst of extremities," replied Nicolas, "I should have applied to the inquisidor's vial; but I confess I had no fears of that sort; a ship so commanded and so manned is in little danger of being carried into a Spanish port. "I hope not," said the captain, "and I promise thee thou shalt take thy chance in her, so long as she is afloat under my command, and if we live to conduct her to England, thou shalt have thy proper share of prize-money, which, if the galleon breaks up according to her entries, will be something towards enabling thee to shift, and if thou art as diligent in thy duty as I am persuaded thou wilt be, whilst I live thou shalt never want a seaman's friend."-At these cheering words, little Nicolas threw himself at the feet of his generous preserver, and with streaming eyes, poured out his thanks from a heart animated with joy and gratitude.-The captain raising him by the hand, forbade him, as he prized his friendship, ever to address him in that posture The emissaries of the inquisition having at any more: “Thank me, if you will," added last traced Pedrosa to Lisbon, and there gained he, "but thank me as one man should another: intelligence of his having entered on board the fet no knees bend in this ship but to the name frigate, our captain had no sooner turned into of God-But now," continued he, " let us turn the porch of the hotel at Buenos Ayres, than he our thoughts to the situation of our unhappy was accosted by a messenger of state, with a Casafonda: we are now drawing near to Lis-requisition from the prime minister's office for bon, where he will look to be liberated on his parole."-" By no means let him venture into Spain," said Pedrosa; "I am well assured there are orders to arrest him in every port or frontier town, where he may present himself."-" I can well believe it,” replied the captain; "his piteous case will require further deliberation; in the mean time let nothing transpire on your part, and keep yourself out of his sight as carefully as you can."-This said, the captain left the cabin, and both parties repaired to their several occupations,

As soon as the frigate and her prize cast anchor in the Tagus, Don Manuel de Casafonda impatiently reminded our captain of his promised parole. The painful moment was now come, when an explanation of some sort became unavoidable: the generous Englishman, with a countenance expressive of the tenderest pity, took the Spaniard's hand in his, and seating him on a couch beside him, ordered the sentinel to keep the cabin private, and delivered himself as follows:

the surrender of one Nicolas Pedrosa a subject of Spain and a criminal, who had escaped out of the prison of the inquisition in Madrid, where he stood charged with high crimes and misdemeanours.-As soon as this requisition was explained to our worthy captain, without condescending to a word in reply, he called for pen and ink, and writing a short order to the officer commanding on board, instantly despatched the midshipman, who attended him to the barge, with directions to make the best of his way back to the frigate, and deliver it to the lieutenant. Then turning to the messenger, he said to him in a resolute tone-" That Spaniard is now borne on my books, and before you shall take him out of the service of my king, you must sink his ship."-Not waiting for a reply, he immediately proceeded without stop to the house of the British minister at the farther end of the city. Here he found Pedrosa's intelligence with regard to the governor of Quito, expressly verified, for the order had come down even to Lisbon, upon the chance of the Spanish frigate's taking

Had a shot passed through the heart of Don Manuel, it could not more effectually have stop-toleration, his merry heart is at rest, save only ped its motions than the perusal of this fatal writing. He dropped lifeless on the couch, and but for the care and assistance of the captain and Pedrosa, in that posture he had probably expired. Grief like his will not be described by

to perform sacrifice upon the reassembling of the better secured, and more completely provided scattered tribes.

NUMBER XCI.

A GOOD man will live with the world as a wise man lives with his wife: he will not let himself down to be a dupe to its humours, a devotee to its pleasures, or a flatterer of its faults; he will make himself as happy as he can in the connection for his own sake, reform where he is able, and complain only when he cannot help it. I am sick of that conversation which spends itself in railing at the times we live in: I am apt to think they are not made better by those complaints, and I have oftentimes occasion to know they are made worse by those very people who are loudest to complain of them. If this be really one of the habits of age, it is high time for every man who grows old to guard against it for there is no occasion to invite more peevish companions for the last hours of life than time and decrepitude will bring in their train: let us look back upon things past with what content we can, salute time present with the best grace we are able, and resign ourselves to futurity with calmness and a patient mind. If we do not wish to be banished from society before death withdraws us from it, do not let us trust to the world's respect only, let us strive also to conciliate its love.

for, than at the present moment.

This may appear so hardy an assertion, that if the Murmurers take the field against me, I suspect that I shall find myself, as I frequently have done, in a very decided minority; for let the reader take notice, I know the world too well to think of getting popularity by defending it if ever I make that my object, I must run counter to my own principles, and abuse many, that all may read me. In the meantime I shall make a show of some of my defences, if it be only to convince the Murmurers, that I shall not capitulate upon the first summons; and I will keep some strong posts marked from their view, that if they repeat their assault, may still have resources in my reach.

Society is cemented by laws, upheld by religion, endeared by manners, and adorned by arts.

Let us now inquire what is the present state of these great fundamentals of social happiness, and whether any better period can be pointed out, compared to which their present state may be justly pronounced a state of declension.

The constitution of England has undergone many changes. The monarch, the nobles, and the people have each in their turn for a time destroyed that proper balance, in which its excellence consists. In feudal times the aristrocratic power preponderated, and the kingdom was torn to pieces with civil distractions. From the accession of Henry the Seventh to the breaking out of the great rebellion, the power of the sovereign was all but absolute; the rapacity of that monarch, the brutality of his successor, the persecuting spirit of Mary, and the imperious prerogative of Elizabeth left scarce a shadow of freedom in the people: and, in spite of all the boasted glories of Elizabeth's golden days, I must doubt if any nation can be happy, whose lives and properties were no better secured than those of her subjects actually were. In all this period, the most tranquil moments are to be found in the peaceful reign of James the First; yet even then the king's jus divinum was at its height, and totally overturned the scale and equipoise of the constitution. What followed in Charles's day I need not dwell upon; a revolution ensued; monarchy was shaken to its foundations, and in the general fermentation and concussion of affairs, the very dregs of the people were thrown up into power, and all was anarchy, slaughter, and oppression. From the Restoration to the Revolution we contemplate a period full of trouble, and, for the most part,

But I do not wish to argue this point with the sect of the Murmurers merely upon the ground of good policy; I should be sorry for the world, if I could give no better reason for keeping well with it than in self-defence: I really think it a world very easy to live with upon passable good terms; I am free to confess it has mended me since I have lived with it, and I am fully of opinion it has mended itself: I do not deny but it has its failings; it still cuts out work for the moralists, and I am in no fear of finding subject matter for three more volumes of essays, before I have exhausted the duty of an Observer. However, though I have presumed upon taking up this character late in life, yet I feel no provocation from what I observe in others, or in myself, to turn Murmurer; I can call the time past under my review, as far back as my experience will go, and comfort myself by the comparison of it with the time present; I can turn to the authors who have delineated the manners of ages antecedent to my own, without being ashamed of my contem-stained with the deepest disgrace: a pensioned poraries, or entertaining a superior respect for theirs. I cannot look back to any period of our own annals, of which I can conscientiously pronounce, according to such judgment as I am possessed of, that the happiness of society was

monarch, an abandoned court, and a licentious people. The abdication, or more properly, the expulsion of a royal bigot, set the constitution upon its bottom, but it left the minds of men in a ferment that could not speedily subside: an

Dd

it as an establishment, essential to the support and happiness of society; and when we reflect how often in times past it has been made an engine for subverting that tranquillity and good order in the state which it now peaceably upholds, I think it will be clear to every candid man that this cannot be one of the causes of complaint and murmur against the present times.

cient loyalty and high monarchial principles were not to be silenced at once by the peremptory fiat of an act of parliament; men still harboured them in their hearts, and popery, three times expelled, was still upon the watch, and secretly whetting her weapons for a fourth attempt. Was this a period of social happiness?— The succession of the House of Hanover still left a pretender to the throne; and though the character of the new sovereign had every requisite of temper and judgment for conciliating his gover-point I am to review: and if I am to bring this ment, yet the old leaven was not exhausted, fresh revolutions were attempted, and the nation felt a painful repetition of its former sorrows.

The manners of the age we live in is the next

into any decent compass, I must reject many things out of the account that would make for my argument, and speak very briefly upon all others.

To compare the manners of one age with those of another, we must begin by calling to

The

So far therefore as the happiness of society depends upon the secure establishment of the constitution, the just administration of the laws, the strict and correct ascertainment of the sub-remembrance the changes that may have been jects' rights, and those sacred and inviolable privileges as to person and property, which every man amongst us can now define, and no man living dares to dispute, so far we must acknowledge that the times we live in are happier times than ever fell to the lot of our ancestors, and if we complain of them, it must be on account of something which has not yet come under our review; we will therefore proceed to the next point, and take the present state of religion into our consideration.

made in our own time (if we have lived long
enough to be witnesses of any), or we must
take them upon tradition, or guess at them by
the writings of those who describe them.
comic poets are in general good describers of the
living manners, and of all dramatic painters in
this class Ben Jonson is decidedly the best. In
the mirror of the 'stage we have the reflection
of the times through all their changes, from the
reign of Elizabeth to that of Anne, with an ex-
ception to the days of Oliver, of which interval,
if there was no other delineation of the reigning
manners than what we find in the annals of
Whitelocke and Clarendon, we should be at no
loss to form our judgment of them. I stop at
the age of Queen Anne, because it was then
that Sir Richard Steele and Mr. Addison began
to spread their pallets, and when they had com-
pleted The Spectator, nobody will dispute their
having given a very finished portrait of the age
they lived in. Where they stop tradition may
begin; so that I think an observing man with
all these aids, and no short experience of his
own to help them out, may form a pretty
close comparison in his own thoughts upon the
subject.

Religious feuds are so terrible in their consequences, and the peace of this kingdom has been so often destroyed by the furiousness of zealots and enthusiasts, struggling for church-establishment, and persecuting in their turns the fallen party without mercy, that the tranquillity we now enjoy (greater, as I believe, than in any time past, but certainly as great), is of itself sufficient to put the modern murmurer to silence. To substantiate my assertion, let me refer to the rising spirit of toleration; wherever that blessed spirit prevails, it prevails for the honour of man's nature, for the enlargement of his heart, and for the augmentation of his social happiness. Whilst we were contending for our own rights, self defence compelled us to keep off the encroachments of others, that were hostile to those rights; but these being firmly established, we are no longer warranted to hang the sword of the law over the head of religion, and oppress our seceding fellow-subjects. there any just reason to complain of our esta-riously reserved, gloomy, dark, and fanatical: blished clergy in their collective character? If they do not stun us with controversies, it is because they understand the spirit of their religion better than to engage in them. The publications of the pulpit are still numerous, and if they have dropped their high inflammatory tone, it is to the honour of Christianity that they have so done, and taken up a milder, meeker language in its stead. As for the practice of religion, it is not in my present argument to speak of that: my business is only to appeal to

Is

Here I must remind the reader that I am speaking of manners as they respect society. Now we can readily refer to certain times past, when the manners of men in this country were insufferably boisterous and unpolished; we can point to the period when they were as noto

we know when profligacy threw off all appearances, and libertinism went naked as it were into all societies; we can tell when pedantry was in general fashion, when duelling was the rage, and the point of honour was to be defined by a chain of logic that would have puzzled Aristotle; we can turn to the time when it was reputable to get drunk, and when the fine gentleman of the comedy entertains his mistress with his feats over the bottle, and recommends himself to her good graces by swearing, blust

"SIR,

NUMBER XCII.

TO THE OBSERVER.

Etiam mortuus loquitur.
Listen to the dead.

ering, and beating the watch. We know there | my general rule, by indulging myself in a preare such words in the language as fop and beau, diction (upon which I am willing to stake all and some can remember them in daily use; my credit with the reader), that when the momany are yet living who have had their full dest genius of a Harrison shall be brought into bottomed wigs brought home in a chair; and fuller display, England will have to boast of a many an old lady now crowds herself into a native architect which the brightest age of corner, who once hooped herself in a circle Greece would glory to acknowledge. hardly less than Arthur's round table. Here I may be told that dress is not manners; but I must contend that the manners of a man in a fullbottomed wig must partake something of the stiffness of the barber's buckle; nor do I see how he can walk on foot at his ease when his wig goes in a chair. How many of us can call to mind the day when it was a mark of good breeding to cram a poor surfeited guest to the throat, and the most social hours of life were thrown away in a continual interchange of solicitations and apologies? What a stroke upon the nerves of a modest man was it then to make his first approaches, and perform his awkward reverences to a solemu circle, all rising on their legs at the awful moment of his entry! and what was his condition at departing, when, after having performed the same tremendous ceremonies, he saw his retreat cut off by a double row of guards in livery, to every one of whom he was to pay a toll for free passage. A man will now find bis superiors more accessible, his equals more at their ease, and his inferiors more mannerly than in any time past. The effects of public education, travel, and a general intercourse with mankind, the great influx of foreigners, the variety of public amusements, where all ranks and degrees meet promiscuously, the constant resort to bathing and water-drinking places in the summer, and above all the company of the fair sex, who mix so much more in society than heretofore, have, with many conspiring causes, altogether produced such an ease and suavity of manners throughout the nation, as have totally changed the face of society, and levelled all those bars and barriers which made the approaches to what was called good company so troublesome, and obstructed the intercourse between man and man. Here then I shall conclude upon this topic, and pass to the arts, which I said were the ornaments of society.

As I am persuaded my argument will not be contested in this quarter, I need spend few words upon so clear a point. If ever this country saw an age of artists, it is the present. Italy, Spain, Flanders, and France have had their turn, but they are now in no capacity to dispute the palm, and England stands without a rival; her painters, sculptors, and engravers are now the only schools, properly so called, in Europe; Rome will bear witness that the English artists are as superior in talents as they are in numbers to those of all nations besides. I reserve the mention of her architects as a separate class, that I may for once break in upon

"IF I am rightly advised, the laws of England have provided no remedy for an injury which I have received from a certain gentleman who sets me at defiance, and whom I am not conscious of having offended in the smallest article in life. My case is as follows: Some time ago I went into the South of France for the recovery of my health, which (thank God) I have so far effected that I should think I was at this very moment enjoying as good a stock of spirits and strength as I have enjoyed for many years of my life past, if I was not outfaced by the gentleman in question, who swears I am dead, and has proceeded so far as to publish me dead to all the world, with a whole volume of memoirs which I have no remembrance of, and of sayings which I never said.

"I think this is very hard upon me, and if there is no redress for such proceedings, but that a man must be printed dead whenever any fanciful fellow chooses to write a book of memoirs, I must take the freedom to say this is no country to live in; and let my ingenious biographer take it how he will, I shall still maintain to his face that I am alive, and do not see why my word in such a case should not go as far as his.

"There is yet another thing I will venture to say, that I did never in the whole course of my life utter one half or even one tenth part of the smart repartees and bon mots he is pleased to impute to me: I don't know what he means by laying such things at my door; I defy any one of my acquaintance to say I was a wit, which I always considered as another name for an ill tempered fellow. I do acknowledge that I have lived upon terms of acquaintance with my biographer, and have passed some social hours in his company, but I never suspected he was minuting down every foolish thing that escaped my lips in the unguarded moments of convivial gayety; if I had, I would have avoided him like the pes