airs in being known to so fine a man as Verisimilis, who, they said, had great interest in all princes courts; and the other was taken notice of by several, as one they had seen somewhere long before. One more particularly said, he had formerly been a man of consideration in the world; but was so unlucky, that they who dealt with him, by some strange infatuation or other, had a way of cutting off their own bills, and were prodigiously slow in improving their stock. But as much as I was curious to observe the reception these gentlemen met with upon the Exchange, I could not help being interrupted by one that came up towards us, to whom every body made their compliments. He was of the common height, and in his dress there seemed to be great care to appear no way particular, except in a certain exact and feat manner of behaviour and circumspection. He was wonderfully careful that his shoes and clothes should be without the least speck upon them; and seemed to think, that on such an accident depended his very life and fortune. There was hardly a man on the Exchange who had not a note upon him; and each seemed very well satisfied that their money lay in his hands, without demanding payment. I asked Pacolet, what great merchant that was, who was so universally addressed to, yet made too familiar an appearance to command that extraordinary deference? Pacolet answered, 'This person is the dæmon or genius of credit; his name is Umbra. If you observe, he follows Alethes and Verisimilis at a distance; and indeed has no foundation for the figure he makes in the world, but that he is thought to keep their cash; though, at the same time, none who trust him would trust the others for a groat.' As the company rolled about, the three spectres were jumbled without the concurrence of the former, the latter are but impositions upon ourselves and others. The force these delusive words have, is not seen in the transactions of the busy world only, but they have also their tyranny over the fair sex, Were you to ask the unhappy Lais, what pangs of reflection preferring the consideration of her honour to her conscience has given her; she could tell you, that it has forced her to drink up half a gallon this winter of Tom Dassapas's potions: that she still pines away for fear of being a mother; and knows not but, the moment she is such, she shall be a murderess: but if conscience had as strong a force upon the mind as honour, the first step to her unhappy condition had never been made; she had still been innocent, as she is beautiful. Were men so enlightened and studious of their own good, as to act by the dictates of their reason and reflection, and not the opinion of others, conscience would be the steady ruler of human life; and the words truth, law, reason, equity, and religion, would be 'but synonimous terms for that only guide which makes us pass our days in our own favour and approbation. STEELE. 3 N° 49. TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines nostri est farrago libelli. Whatever good is done, whatever ill JUV. Sat. i. 85, 86. By human kind, shall this collection fill. White's Chocolate-house, August 1. THE imposition of honest names and words upon improper subjects, has made so regular a confusion anong us, that we are apt to sit down with our errors, well enough satisfied with the methods we are fallen into, without attempting to deliver ourselves from the tyranny under which we are reduced by such innovations. Of all the laudable motives of human life, none have suffered so much in this kind as love; under which revered name a brutal desire called lust is frequently concealed and admitted; though they differ as much as a matron from a prostitute, or a companion from a buffoon. Philander the other day was bewailing this misfortune with much indignation, and upbraided me for having some time since quoted those excellent lines of the satirist : To an exact perfection they have brought How could you,' said he, leave such a hint so coldly? How could Aspasia and Sempronia enter into See N° 5, and 33. your imagination at the same time, and you never declare to us the different receptions you gave them?" The figures which the ancient mythologists and poets put upon love and lust in their writings are very instructive. Love is a beauteous blind child, adorned with a quiver and a bow, which he plays with, and shoots around him, without design or direction; to intimate to us, that the person beloved has no intention to give us the anxieties we meet with, but that the beauties of a worthy object are like the charms of a lovely infant; they cannot but attract your concern and fondness, though the child so regarded is as insensible of the value you put upon it, as it is that it deserves your benevolence. On the other side, the sages figured lust in the form of a satyr; of shape, part human, part bestial; to signify that the followers of it prostitute the reason of a man to pursue the appetites of a beast. This satyr is made to haunt the paths and coverts of the woodnymphs and shepherdesses, to lurk on the banks of rivulets, and watch the purling streams, as the resorts of retired virgins; to shew, that lawless desire tends chiefly to prey upon innocence, and has something so unnatural in it, that it hates its own make, and shuns the object it loved, as soon as it has made it like itself. Love, therefore, is a child that complains and bewails its inability to help itself, and weeps for assistance, without an immediate reflection or knowledge of the food it wants: lust, a watchful thief, which seizes its prey, and lays snares for its own relief; and its principal object being innocence, it never robs, but it murders at the same time. From this idea of a cupid and a satyr, we may settle our notions of these different desires, and acVOL. I. A a |