noblest thoughts that can enter into the heart of man levelled with ribaldry and baseness: though by the rules of justice, no man ought to be ridiculed for any imperfection, who does not set up for eminent sufficiency in that way wherein he is defective. Thus cowards, who would hide themselves by an affected terror in their mien and dress; and pedants, who would show the depth of their knowledge by a supercilious gravity; are equally the objects of laughter: not that they are in themselves ridiculous, for their want of courage or weakness of understanding; but that they seem insensible of their own place in life, and unhappily rank themselves with those whose abilities, compared to their defects, make them contemptible. At the same time, it must be remarked, that risibility being the effect of reason, a man ought to be expelled from sober company who laughs alone.' 'Ha! ha!' says Will Truby, who sat by, 'will any man pretend to give me laws when I should laugh, or tell me what I should laugh at ?' • Look ye,' answered Humphry Slyboots, you are mightily mistaken; you may, if you please, make what noise you will, and nobody can hinder an English gentleman from putting his face into what posture he thinks fit; but take my word for it, that motion which you now make with your mouth open, and the agitation of your stomach, which you relieve by holding your sides, is not laughter: laughter is a more weighty thing than you imagine; and I will tell you a secret, you never did laugh in you life; and truly I am afraid you never will, except you take great care to be cured of those convulsive fits.' Truby left us, and when he had got two yards from us, Well,' said he, you are strange fellows!' and was immediately taken with another fit.

The Trubies are a well-natured family, whose par

ticular make is such, that they have the same pleasure out of good-will, which other people have in that scorn which is the cause of laughter: therefore their bursting into the figures of men, when laughing, proceeds only from a general benevolence they are born with; as the Slyboots smile only on the greatest occasion of mirth; which difference is caused rather from a different structure of their organs, than that one is less moved than the other. I know Sourly frets inwardly, when Will Truby laughs at him; but when I meet him, and he bursts out, I know it is out of his abundant joy to see me, which he expresses by that vociferation which is in others laughter. But I shall defer considering this subject at large, until I come to my treatise of oscitation, laughter, and ridicule.

FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, SEPTEMBER 2.

THE following letter being a panegyric upon me for a quality which every man may attain, an acknowledgment of his faults, I thought it for the good of my fellow-writers to publish it.

" SIR,

It must be allowed that esquire Bickerstaff is of all authors the most ingenuous. There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, though all the world see them to be in downright nonsense. You will be pleased, Sir, to pardon this expression, for the same reason for which you once desired us to excuse you, when you seemed any thing dull. Most writers, like the generality of Paul Lor

• In several editions this name has been erroneously printed Claude Lorraine. In the folio, however, and the first octavo, it is properly Paul; and so it is in Spectator, No. 338. where the same person is again introduced. Paul Lorraine was, at the time here spoken of, the Ordinary of Newgate, which place he held for many years. 'August 24, 1715, the governors of Christ Church hospital made choice of Mr. Philip Castle to

raine's saints, seem to place a peculiar vanity in dying hard. But you, Sir, to show a good example to your brethren, have not only confessed, but of your own accord mended the indictment. Nay, you have been so good-natured as to discover beauties in it, which, I will assure you, he that drew it never dreamed of. And, to make your civility the more accomplished, you have honoured him with the title of your kinsman, which, though derived by the left hand, he is not a little proud of. My brother, for such Obadiah is, being at present very busy about nothing, has ordered me to return you his sincere thanks for all these favours; and, as a small token of his gratitude, to communicate to you the following piece of intelligence, which, he thinks, belongs more properly to you, than to any others of our modern historians.

Madonella, who, as it was thought, had long since taken her flight towards the etherial mansions, still walks, it seems, in the regions of mortality; where she has found, by deep reflections on the revolution mentioned in yours of June 23d, that where early instructions have been wanting to imprint true ideas of things on the tender souls of those of her sex, they are never after able to arrive at such a pitch of

be minister of that parish, in the room of Dr. Barton deceased; the famous Mr. Paul Lorraine was one of the candidates against him, but without success, that worthy gentleman being only befriended by two voices.'-Weekly Packet, No. 164. See also ibidem, No. 179. He died Oct. 7, 1719. See Supplement to Swift's Works, vol. iii. p. 123.

M. Lorraine, comme le chapelaine de Newgate, accompagne les gens condamnés au lieu du supplice apres les avoir bien sermonés dans la chapelle. Il avoit coutume de faire imprimer une relation des gens supplicies, où il rendoit compte, et des exortations qu'il leur avoit addressée, et des confessions qu'ils lui avoient faites. A son compte la plupart de ces gens là mouroient fort penitens, et neanmoins chargés ou de peu des crimes, ou de petits crimes, et c'est là ce qu'on appelloit Les Saints de M. Lorraine,' &c.-Le N. P.

perfection, as to be above the laws of matter and motion; laws which are considerably enforced by the principles usually imbibed in nurseries and boardingschools. To remedy this evil, she has laid the scheme of a college for young damsels; where (instead of scissors, needles, and samplers) pens, compasses, quadrants, books, manuscripts, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, are to take up their whole time. Only on holidays the students will, for moderate exercise, be allowed to divert themselves with the use of some of the lightest and most voluble weapons; and proper care will be taken to give them at least a superficial tincture of the antient and modern Amazonian tactics. Of these military performances, the direction is undertaken by Epicene', the writer of " Memoirs

t Epicene means Mrs. D. Manley, of whom, considering her character, enough has been said in the preceding notes. See Tatler, No. 35. note on Sagissa, et passim. See also Supplement to Dr. Swift's Works,' vol. i. p. 144, &c. The lady, having probably no knowledge or suspicion of the real author of what is said of her here, aimed her resentment at the ostensible editor, whom she took all occasions to traduce and calumniate. With this view she penned a furious dedication of her Memoirs of Europe, &c.' in 8vo, 1711, to Captain Steele, under the fictitious name of Isaac Bickerstaff, esq. The letter inserted in that dedication, and the paragraph immediately following, obviously allude to this paper, and furnish additional proof that it was not written by Steele, who denies his being the author in the most unequivocal manner, and is charged by the lady with disingenuousness and falsehood for so doing.

6

Soon after this time, Mrs. D. Manley had the honour to become Swift's amanuensis and fellow-labourer in the Examiner,' in the Narrative of Guiscard's Examination,' in the Learned Comment on Dr. Hare's Sermon,' in the Vindication of the duke of Marlborough,' &c. &c. &c. She rose very high in the Dean's favour, who pleaded her merits with the ministry, solicited their generosity in her behalf, and marked her without a d in the number of his grateful beneficiaries. See Supplement to Swift's Works,' vol. i. page xli. and page 2,

Ingenuity has laboured often in vain to explain apparent inconsistences in Swift's character and conduct. In the dissimilar instances above mentioned he acted uniformly on the principles of party spirit; but he happened to shift sides in the interval. At the time when this paper was written, Swift was avowedly on the same side with Addison and Steele, and a whig by profession: his notorious desertion from that party did not

from the Mediterranean," who, by the help of some artificial poisons conveyed by smells, has within these few weeks brought many persons of both sexes to an untimely fate ; and, what is more surprising, has, contrary to her profession, with the same odours, revived others who had long since been drowned in the whirlpools of Lethe. Another of the professors is to be a certain lady who is now publishing two of the choicest Saxon novels", which are said to have been in as

take place, nor his attacks upon it begin, until a full year after this date. In the beginning of September 1710, he was introduced to Mr. Harley, doubtless at his own desire,' as one extremely ill used by the last ministry, after some obligations, because he would not go certain lengths they would have him, which was in some sort Mr. Harley's own case.' Swift's letters to Stella, in the way of a journal, commence at this period, and furnish numerous and incontestible proofs that he did not hesitate many days about making this change. By abandoning the whigs, he seems to have been cured of his former squeamishness, and he soon after complains that his new party did not go the lengths he would have had them.

Tempora mutantur, et nos mutamur ab illis.

u Mrs. Elizabeth Elstob, the lady here meant, is a striking instance, concurring with those mentioned in Tatler, No. 32. to evince that no accomplishments, natural or acquired, could protect their possessor, of whatever merit or sex, from the severity of his wit.

This very learned and extraordinary lady published, in 1709, an English translation, with valuable notes, and an excellent preface, of an AngloSaxon homily, antiently used in the English Saxon church, and containing an account of the conversion of the English to Christianity. This fine book, dedicated to queen Anne, was printed by subscription, with an elegant frontispiece, head-pieces, &c. and seems to be the publication here ridiculed under the fiction of two Saxon novels. On a supposition that what is said here was intended for wit however incomprehensible, and in the way of banter, however improper, no very accurate inquiry has been made about it; but it is the present belief of this writer, that no publication under the title of a Saron novel ever appeared in an English translation, or ever existed in a Saxon original. After all that may or can be said in favour of Tatler, No. 32. and this sequel, certainly wit and humour are no sufficient atonements for misrepresentations of truth, nor fine writing for injurious insinuations of falsehood. The narrative of Madonella throughout, together with its supplement, is a jeu d'esprit that cannot be justified, and looks like a praxis in earnest on some principles recommended in jest by the same author, in his Letter of Advice to a young Poet.' See Supplement to Dr. Swift's Works,' vol. ii. pp. 87, 99, et passim. A satisfactory account of the family of the Elstobs may be seen in the Anecdotes of Mr. Bowyer.'—C.