ship, his humility, his honesty and sincerity, his moderation and his loyalty, his piety, his temperance, his love to mankind, his magnanimity, his public spiritedness, and in fine his consummate virtue, make him justly deserve to be esteemed the glory of his country. The brave do never shun the light: Just are their thoughts and open are their tempers, That man glorious and happy. He that is acquainted with Cato, as I am, cannot help thinking as I do now, and will acknowledge he deserves the name, without being honoured by it. Cato is a man whom fortune has placed in the most obscure part of the country. His circumstances are such as only put him above necessity, without affording him many superfluities: yet who is greater than Cato. I happened but the other day to be at a house in town, where, among others, were met men of the most note in this place; Cato had busi- Who would not rather choose, if it were in ness with some of them, and knocked at the his choice, to merit the above character, than door. The most trifling actions of a man, in be the richest, the most learned, or the most my opinion, as well as the smallest lineaments powerful man in the province without it? and features of the face, give a nice observer Almost every man has a strong natural desome notion of his mind. Methought he rap- sire of being valued and esteemed by the rest ped in such a peculiar manner, as seemed of his species; but I am concerned and grievof itself to express, there was one who deserved to see how few fall into the right and oned as well as desired admission. He appear- ly infallible method of becoming so. ed in the plainest country garb; his great laudable ambition is too commonly misapplied, cont was coarse, and looked old and thread- and often ill applied. Some, to make thembare; his linen was homespun; his beard selves considerable, pursue learning; others perhaps of seven days' growth; his shoes thick grasp at wealth; some aim at being thought and heavy; and every part of his dress cor- witty; and others are only careful to make responding. Why was this man received with the most of a handsome person: but what is such concurring respect from every person in wit, or wealth, or form, or learning, when the room, even from those who had never compared with virtue? It is true, we love known him or seen him before? It was not an the handsome, we applaud the learned, and exquisite form of person or grandeur of dress, we fear the rich and powerful; but we even that struck us with admiration. I believe worship and adore the virtuous. Nor is it long habits of virtue have a sensible effect strange; since men of virtue are so rare, so on the countenance: there was something very rare to be found. in the air of his face, that manifested the true greatness of his mind; which likewise appeared in all he said, and in every part of his behaviour, obliging us to regard him with a kind of veneration. His aspect is sweetened with humanity and benevolence, and at the same time emboldened with resolution, equally free from diffident bashfulness and an unbecoming appearance. The consciousness of his own innate worth and un- O Cretico! thou sour philosopher! thou shaken integrity render him calm and un-cunning statesman! thou art crafty, but far daunted in the presence of the most great and from being wise. When wilt thou be espowerful, and upon the most extraordinary teemed, regarded, and beloved like Cato! occasions. His strict justice and known impar- When wilt thou, among thy creatures, meet tiality make him the arbitrator and decider of with that unfeigned respect, and warm good all differences that arise for many miles around will, that all men have for him? Wilt thou him, without putting his neighbours to the never understand, that the cringing, mean, charge, perplexity, and uncertainty of law- submissive deportment of thy dependants, is suits. He always speaks the thing he means, (like the worship paid by Indians to the devil) which he is never afraid nor ashamed to do, be- rather through fear of the harm thou mayest cause he knows he always means well; and do them, than out of gratitude for the favours therefore is never obliged to blush and feel the they have received from thee? Thou art not confusion of finding himself detected in the wholly void of virtue; there are many good meanness of a falsehood. He never contrives things in thee; and many good actions reill against his neighbour, and therefore is ne- ported of thee. Be advised by thy friend : ver seen with a lowering suspicious aspect. A neglect those musty authors; let them be comixture of innocence and wisdom makes him vered with dust, and moulder on their proper ever seriously cheerful. His generous hos- shelves; and do thou apply thyself to a study pitality to strangers, according to his ability; much more profitable, the knowledge of manhis goodness, his charity, his courage in the kind and of thyself. cause of the oppressed, his fidelity in friend If we were as industrious to become good, as to make ourselves great, we should become really great by being good, and the number of valuable men would be much increased; but it is a great mistake to think of being great without goodness; and I pronounce it as certain, that there never yet was a truly great man, that was not at the same time truly virtuous. This is to give notice, that the Busy-Body strictly forbids all persons, from this time forward, of what age, sex, rank, quality, degree, or denomination, soever, on any pretence, to inquire who is the author of this paper, on pain of his displeasure (his own near and dear relations only excepted.) It is to be observed, that if any bad characters happen to be drawn in the course of these papers, they mean no particular person, if they are not particularly applied. Likewise, that the author is no party man, but a general meddler. N. B. Cretico lives in a neighbouring province. No. IV. Nequid nemis. Feb. 25, 1729. lowing letter left for me at the printer's, is one of the first I have received, which I regard the more that it comes from one of the fair sex, and because I have myself often times suffered under the grievance therein complainined of. To the Busy-Body. SIR,-You having set yourself up for a censuror morum, (as I think you call it,) which is said to mean a reformer of manners, I know no person more proper to be applied to for redress in all the grievances we suffer from want of manners in some people. You must know I am a single woman, and keep a shop in this town for a livelihood. There is a certain neighbour of mine, who is really agreeable company enough, and with whom I have had an intimacy of some time standing; In my first paper, I invited the learned and but of late she makes her visits so exceeding the ingenious to join with me in this under- ly often, and stays so long every visit, that I taking; and I now repeat that invitation. I am tired out of all patience. I have no manwould have such gentlemen, take this oppor- ner of time at all to myself; and you who tunity (by trying their talent in writing) of seem to be a wise man, must needs be sensidiverting themselves and friends, and improv- ble, that every person has little secrets and ing the taste of the town. And because I privacies, that are not proper to be exposed would encourage all wit of our own growth even to the nearest friend. Now I cannot do and produce, I hereby promise, that whoever the least thing in the world, but she must know shall send me a little essay on some moral or about it; and it is a wonder I have found an opother subject, that is fit for public view in this portunity to write you this letter. My misformanner, (and not basely borrowed from any tune is, that I respect her very well, and know other author,) I shall receive it with candour, not how to disoblige her so much as to tell her I and take care to place it to the best advan- should be glad to have less of her company; for tage. It will be hard if we cannot muster up if I should once hint such a thing, I am afraid in the whole country a sufficient stock of she would resent it so as never to darken my sense to supply the Busy-Body at least for a door again.-But, alas, sir, I have not yet told twelvemonth. For my own part, I have al- you half my affliction. She has two children ready professed, that I have the good of my that are just big enough to run about and do country wholly at heart in this design, with- pretty mischief: these are continually along out the least sinister view; my chief purpose, with mamma, either in my room or shop, if I being to inculcate the noble principles of vir- have ever so many customers or people with tue, and depreciate vice of every kind. But me about business. Sometimes they pull the as I know the mob hate instruction, and the goods off my low shelves down to the ground, generality would never read beyond the first and perhaps where one of them has just been line of my lectures, if they were actually fill- making water. My friend takes up the stuff ed with nothing but wholesome precepts and and cries-"Oh! thou little wicked, mischievadvice, I must therefore sometimes humourous rogue! but, however, it has done no them in their own way. There are a set of great names in the province, who are the common objects of popular dislike. If I can now and then overcome my reluctance, and prevail with myself to satirize a little, one of these gentlemen, the expectation of meeting such a gratification will induce many to read me through, who would otherwise proceed immediately to the foreign news. As I am very well assured the greatest men among us have a sincere love for their country, notwithstanding its ingratitude, and the insinuations of the envious and malicious to the contrary, so I doubt not but they will cheerfully tolerate me in the liberty I design to take for the end above mentioned. As yet I have but few correspondents, though they begin now to increase. The fol great damage; it is only wet a little;" and so puts it upon the shelf again. Sometimes they get to my cask of nails behind the counter, and divert themselves, to my great vexation, with mixing my tenpenny and eightpenny and fourpenny together. I endeavour to conceal my uneasiness as much as possible, and, with a grave look, to go on sorting them out. She cries,-" Don't thee trouble thyself, neighbour; let them play a little; I'll put all to rights before I go." But things are never so put to rights but that I find a great deal of work to do after they are gone. Thus, sir, I have all the trouble and pesterment of children without the pleasure of calling them my own; and they are now so used to being here that they will be content no where else. If she would have been so kind as to have mode him. On this occasion it may be entertaining to some of my readers, if I acquaint them with the Turkish manner of entertaining visiters, which I have from an author of unquestionable veracity; who assures us, that even the Turks are not so ignorant of civility and the arts of endearment, but that they can practise them with as much exactness as any other nation, whenever they have a mind to show themselves obliging. "When you visit a person of quality," says he, "and have talked over your business, or the compliments, or whatever concern brought you thither, he makes a sign to have things served in for the entertainment, which is, generally, a little sweetmeats, a cup of a sherbet, and another of coffee; all which are immediately brought in by the servants, and tendered to all the guests in order, with the greatest care and awfulness imaginable. At last comes the finishing part of the entertain rated her visits to ten times a day, and staid but half an hour at a time, I should have been contented, and I believe never have given you this trouble; but this very morning they have so tormented me that I could bear no longer; for while the mother was asking me twenty impertinent questions, the youngest got to my nails, and, with great delight, rattled them by handfulls all over the floor; and the other at the same time made such a terrible din upon my counter with a hammer, that I grew half distracted. I was just then about to make myself a new suit of pinners, but in the fret and confusion I cut it quite out of all manner of shape, and utterly spoiled a piece of the first muslin. Pray, sir, tell me, what shall I do? and talk against such unreasonable visitings in your next paper; though I would not have her affronted with me for a great deal, for I sincerely love her and her children, as well I think as a neighbour can, and she buys a great many things in a year at my shop.-ment, which is perfuming the beards of the But I would beg her to consider she uses me unmercifully, though I believe it is only for want of thought. But I have twenty things more to tell you besides all this: there is a handsome gentleman that has a mind (I don't question) to make love to me; but he can't get the opportunity to-O dear! here she comes again!-I must conclude.-Yours, &c. PATIENCE. The company; a ceremony which is performed in Indeed it is well enough, as it happens, that she is come to shorten this complaint, which I think is full long enough already, and probably would otherwise have been as long again. However I confess I cannot help pitying my correspondent's case, and in her behalf exhort the visiter to remember and con- "The ceremony may perhaps seem ridicusider the words of the wise man, "With-lous at first, but it passes among the Turks as draw thy foot from the house of thy neigh- a high gratification. And I will say this in bour, lest he grow weary of thee and so hate vindication, that its design is very wise and thee." It is, I believe, a nice thing, and very useful, for it is understood to give a civil disdifficult, to regulate our visits in such a man- mission to the visitants, intimating to them, ner as never to give offence by coming too that the master of the house has business to seldom, or too often, or departing too abruptly, do, or some other avocation, that permits them or staying too long. However, in my opi- to go away as soon as they please; and the nion, it is safest for most people, in a general sooner after this ceremony the better. By way, who are unwilling to disoblige, to visit this means you may at any time, without seldom and tarry but a little while in a place; offence, deliver yourself from being detained notwithstanding pressing invitations, which from your affairs by tedious and unseasonable are many times insincere. And though more visits; and from being constrained to use that of your company should be really desired; piece of hypocrisy, so common in the world, yet in this case too much reservedness is a of pressing those to stay longer with you, fault more easily excused than the contrary. whom perhaps, in your heart, you wish a great way off for having troubled you so long al Men are subject to various inconveniencies merely through lack of a small share of cou-ready." rage, which is a quality very necessary in the common occurrences of life, as well as in a battle. How many impertinencies do we daily suffer with great uneasiness, because we have not courage enough to discover our dislikes! And why may not a man use the boldness and freedom of telling his friends, that their long visits sometimes incommode Thus far my author. For my own part, I have taken such a fancy to this Turkish custom, that for the future I shall put something like it in practice. I have provided a bottle of right French brandy for the men, and citron water for the ladies. After I have treated with a dram, and presented a pinch of my best snuff, I expect all company will retire. and leave me to pursue my studies for the | for gold, nor what baser wretch corrupted good of the public. Advertisement. him, and then bought the bargain: all this, I give notice, that I am actually now compiling, and design to publish in a short time, the true history of the rise, growth, and progress of the renowned Tiff-Club. All persons have a good effect, and, if regarded, may preThese threatenings of mine, I hope, will who are acquainted with any facts, circum-vent abundance of folly and wickedness in stances, characters, transactions, &c. which will be requisite to the perfecting and embel-dance of trouble: and that people may not others, and at the same time save me abunlishment of the said work, are desired to com- flatter themselves with the hopes of concealmunicate the same to the author, and direct ledge, and in that view persist in evil doing, ing their loose misdemeanours from my knowI must acquaint them, that I have lately entered into an intimacy with the extraordinary person who some time ago wrote me the following letter; and who, having a wonderful faculty, that enables him to discover the most secret iniquity, is capable of giving me great assistance in my designed work of reformation. their letters to be left with the printer hereof. The letter signed Would-be-something, came to hand. No. V. Vos, O patricius sanguis, quos vivere fas est, Occipiti cæco, posticiæ occurrite sannæ.-Persius. THIS paper being designed for a terror to evil doers, as well as a praise to them that do well, I am lifted up with secret joy to find, that my undertaking is approved, and encouraged, by the just and good, and that few are against me but those who have reason to fear me. There are little follies in the behaviour of most men, which their best friends are too tender to acquaint them with; there are little vices and small crimes, which the law has no regard to or remedy for: there are likewise great pieces of villany sometimes so craftily accomplished, and so circumspectly guarded, that the law can take no hold of the actors. All these things, and things of this nature, come within my province as Censor, and I am determined not to be negligent of the trust I have reposed in myself, but resolve to execute my office diligently and faithfully. All the world may judge without how much humanity as well as justice I shall behave in this office; and that even my enemies may be convinced I take no delight to rake into the dunghill lives of vicious men; and to the end that certain persons may be a little eased of their fears, and relieved from the terrible palpitations they have lately felt and suffered, and do still suffer; I hereby graciously pass a general act of oblivion, for all offences, crimes, and misdemeanours, of what kind soever, committed from the beginning of the year 1681, until the day of the date of my first paper, and promise only to concern myself with such as have been since and shall hereafter be committed. I shall take no notice who has (heretofore) raised a fortune by fraud and oppression, nor who by deceit and hypocrisy; what woman has been false to her good husband's bed, nor what man has by barbarous usage or neglect, broke the heart of a faithful wife; and wasted his health and substance in debauchery; what base wretch has betrayed his friend, and sold his honesty No. VI. "MR. BUSY-BODY,-I rejoice, sir, at the opportunity you have given me to be serviceable to you, and by your means, to this province; you must know, that such have been the circumstances of my life, and such were the marvellous occurrences of my birth, that I have not only a faculty of discovering the actions of persons that are absent or asleep, but even of the devil himself in many of his secret workings, in the various shapes, habits, and names of men and women; and having travelled and conversed much, and met with but a very few of the same perceptions and qualifications, I can recommend myself to you as the most useful man you can correspond with. My father's father's father (for we had no grandfathers in our family) was the same John Bunyan that writ that memorable book, The Pilgrim's Progress, who had, in some degree, a natural faculty of second sight. This faculty (how derived to him our family memoirs are not very clear) was enjoyed by all his descendants, but not by equal talents. It was very dim in several of my first cousins, and probably had been nearly extinct in our particular branch, had not my father been a traveller. He lived in his youthful days in New England. There he married, and there was born my elder brother, who had so much of this faculty, as to discover witches in some of their occult performances. My parents transporting themselves to Great Britain, my second brother's birth was in that kingdom. He shared but a small portion of this virtue, being only able to discern transactions about the time of and after their happening. My good father, who delighted in the Pilgrim's Progress, and mountainous places, took shipping with his wife for Scotland, and inhabit ed in the Highlands, where myself was born, and whether the soil, climate, or astral influences, of which are preferred divers prognostics, restored our ancestor's natural faculty of second sight in a greater lustre to me, than it had shined in through several generations, I will not here discuss. But so it is, that I am possessed largely of it, and design, if you encourage the proposal, to take this opportunity of doing good with it, which I question not will be accepted of in a grateful way by many of your honest readers, though the discovery of my extraction bodes me no deference from your great scholars and modern philosophers. This my father was long ago aware of, and lest the name alone should hurt the fortunes of his children, he in his shiftings from one country to another, changed it. "Sir, I have only this further to say, how I may be useful to you, and as a reason for my not making myself more known in the world: by virtue of this great gift of nature, secondsightedness, I do continually see numbers of men, women, and children, of all ranks, and what they are doing, while I am sitting in my closet; which is too great a burden for the mind, and makes me also conceit, even against reason, that all this host of people can see and observe me, which strongly inclines me to solitude, and an obscure living; and on the other hand, it will be an ease to me to disburden my thoughts and observations in the way proposed to you, by, sir, your friend and servant." I conceal this correspondent's name in my care for his life and safety, and cannot but approve his prudence in choosing to live obscurely. I remember the fate of my poor monkey: he had an ill-natured trick of grinning and chattering at every thing he saw in petticoats: my ignorant country neighbours got a notion that pug snarled by instinct at every female who had lost her virginity. This was no sooner generally believed, than he was condemned to death; by whom I could never learn, but he was assassinated in the night, barbarously stabbed and mangled in a thousand places, and left hanging dead on one of my gate posts, where I found him the next morning. The Censor observing that the itch of scribbling begins to spread exceedingly, and being carefully tender of the reputation of his country in point of wit, and good sense, has determined to take all manner of writings, in verse or prose, that pretend to either, under his immediate cognizance; and accordingly hereby prohibits the publishing any such for the future till they have first passed his examination, and received his imprimatur: for which he demands as a fee only six pence per sheet. N. B. He nevertheless permits to be pub lished, all satirical remarks on the Busy-Body, the above prohibition notwithstanding, and without examination or requiring the said VOL. II.... 3 Q 1 fees; which indulgence the small wits, in and about the city, are advised gratefully to accept and acknowledge. The gentleman who calls himself Sirronis, is directed, on receipt of this, to burn his great book of crudities. P. S. In compassion to that young man on account of the great pains he has taken, in consideration of the character I have just received of him, that he is really good natured, and on condition he shows it to no foreigner, or stranger of sense, I have thought fit to reprieve his said great book of crudities from the flames till further order. 'No. VII. Noli me tangere. I HAD resolved when I first commenced this design, on no account to enter into a public dispute with any man; for I judged it would be equally unpleasant to me, and my readers, to see this paper filled with contentious wranglings, answers, replies, &c. which is a way of writing that is endless, and at the same time seldom contains any thing that is edifying or entertaining. Yet, when such a considerable man as Mr. finds himself so warmly concerned to accuse and condemn me, as he has done in Keimer's last Instructor, 1 cannot forbear endeavouring to say something in my own defence, from one of the worst characters that could be given me by a man of worth. But as I have many things of more consequence to offer to the public, I declare that I never will, after this time, take notice of any accusations not better supported with truth and reason; much less may every little scribbler, that shall attack me, expect an answer from the Busy-Body. The sum of the charge delivered against me, either directly or indirectly, in the said paper, is this: not to mention the first mighty sentence concerning vanity and ill nature, and the shrewd intimation that I am without charity, and therefore can have no pretence to religion, I am represented as guilty of defamation and scandal, the odiousness of which is apparent to every good man; and the practice of it opposite to Christianity, morality, and common justice, and in some cases so far below all these, as to be inhuman; as a blaster of reputations; as attempting by a pretence, to screen myself from the imputation of malice and prejudice; as using a weapon which the wise and better part of mankind hold in abhorrence; and as giving treatment which the wiser and better part of mankind dislike, on the same principles and for the same reasons, as they do assassination, &c.; and all this is inferred and concluded from a character I have wrote in my No. III. In order to examine the justice and truth of this heavy charge, let us recur to that cha |