Name, at which Time the whole Affembly fit upon his Reputation, Perfon, Fortune, and good Humour ; and if they find him qualified for a Sifter of the Club, they lay their Heads together how to make him fure. By this means they are acquainted with ' all the Widow-hunters about Town, who often afford them great Diverfion. There is an honeft Irish Gentleman, it feems, who knows nothing of this Society, but at different times has made Love to the whole Club.

THEIR Converfation often turns upon their former Husbands, and it is very diverting to hear them relate their feveral Arts and Stratagems, with which they amufed the Jealous, pacificd the Cholerick, or wheedled the Good-natured Man, 'till at laft, to use the Club Phrafe, They fent him out of the House with bis Heels foremost.

THE Politicks, which are most cultivated by this Society of She-Machiavels, relate chiefly to thefe two Points, How to treat a Lover, and How to manage a Husband. As for the firft Set of Artifices, they are too numerous to come within the Compafs of your Paper, ⚫ and fhall therefore be referved for a Second Letter.

6

THE Management of a Husband is built upon the following Doctrines, which are univerfally affen:ed to by the whole Club. Not to give him his Head at firft. Not to allow him too great Freedoms and Familiarities. Not to be treated by him like a raw Girl, but as a Woman that knows the World. Not to leffen any thing of her former Figure. To celebrate the Generofity, or any other Virtue, of a de⚫ceafed Husband, which fhe would recommend to his Succeffor. To turn away all his old Friends and Servants, that she may have the dear Man to her self. To make him difinherit the undutiful Children of any former Wife. Never to be thoroughly convinced of his Affection, till he had made over to her all his Goods and Chattels.

AFTER fo long a Letter, I am, without more

• Ceremony,'

Your humble Servant, &c.

Friday,

N° 562. Friday, July 2.

Præfens, abfens ut fies.

Ter.

Tis a hard and nice Subject for a Man to speak of I himself, lays Cowley, jetes his own Heart a lay

any thing of Difparagement, and the Reader's Ears to bear any thing of Praife from him. Let the Tenour of his Difcourfe be what it will upon this Subject, it generally proceeds from Vanity. Anoftentatious Man will rather relate a Blunder or an Abfurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear Person.

SOME very great Writers have been guilty of this Fault. It is obferved of Tully in particular, that his Works run very much in the First Perfon, and that he takes all Occafions of doing himself Juftice. • Does he think, fays Brutus, that his Confulfhip deferves more Applause than my putting Cæfar to Death, because I am not perpetually talking of the Ides of March, as he is of the Nones of December?' I need not acquaint my learned Reader, that in the Ides of March, Brutus deftroyed Cafar, and that Cicero quafhed the Confpiracy of Catiline in the Calends of December. How fhocking foever this great Man's talking of himself might have been to his Contemporaries, I must confefs I am never better pleased than when he is on this Subject. Such Openings of the Heart give a Man a thorough Infight into his Perfonal Character, and illuftrate feveral Paffages in the Hiftory of his Life: Befides, that there is fome little Pleafure in difcovering the Infirmity of a great Man, and feeing how the Opinion he has of himfelf agrees with what the World entertains of him.

THE Gentlemen of Port-Royal, who were more eminent for their Learning and their Humility than any other in France, banifh'd the way of fpeaking in the First Perfon out of all their Works, as arifing from

Vain

Vain-Glory and Self-Conceit. To fhew their particular Averfion to it, they branded this Form of Writing with the Name of an Egotifm; a Figure not be found among the ancient Rhetoricians.

THE moft violent Egotifm which I have met with in the Courfe of my Reading, is that of Cardinal Woolfey, Ego & Rex meus, I and my King; as perhaps the most eminent Egotift that ever appeared in the World, was Montagne the Author of the celebrated Effays. This lively old Gafcon has woven all his bodily Infirmities into his Works, and after having spoken of the Faults or Virtues of any other Man, immediately publishes to the World how it ftands with himself in that Farticular. Had he kept his own Counsel he might have paffed for a much better Man, though perhaps he would not have been fo diverting an Author. The Title of an Effay promises perhaps a Difcourfe upon Virgil or Julius Cæfar; but when you look into it, you are fure to meet with more upon Monfieur Montagne, than of either of them. The younger Scaliger, who seems to have been no great Friend to this Author, after having acquainted the World that his Father fold Herrings, adds thefe Words; La grande fadaife de Montagne, qui a ecrit qu'il aimoit mieux le vin blanc que diable a-t-on à faire de fçavoir ce qu'il aime? For my Part, fays Montagne, I am a great Lover of your White Wines -What the Devil fignifies it to the Publick, fays Scaliger, whether he is a Lover of White Wines or of Red Wines?

I cannot here forbear mentioning a Tribe of Egotists, for whom I have always had a mortal Averfion, I mean the Authors of Memoirs, who are never mentioned in any Works but their own, and who raife all their 'Productions out of this fingle Figure of Speech,

MOST of our modern Prefaces favour very ftrongly of the Egotism. Every infignificant Author fancies it of Importance to the World, to know that he writ his Book in the Country, that he did it to pass away fome of his idle Hours, that it was published at the Importunity of Friends, or that his natural Temper, Studies or Converfations, directed him to the Choice of his Subject.

Id

Id populus curat fcilicet.

Such Informations cannot but be highly improving to the Reader.

IN Works of Humour, especially when a Man writes under a fictitious Perfonage, the talking of one's felf may give fome Diverfion to the Publick; but I would advise every other Writer never to speak of himself, unlefs there be fomething very confiderable in his Character: Tho' I am fenfible this Rule will be of little Ufe in the World, because there is no Man who fancies his Thoughts worth publishing, that does not look upon himself as a confiderable Perfon.

I fhall close this Paper with a Remark upon fuch as are Egotifts in Converfation: Thefe are generally the vain or fhallow part of Mankind, People being naturally full of themselves when they have nothing elfe in them. There is one kind of Egotifts which is very common in the World, tho' I do not remember that any Writer has taken notice of them; I mean thofe empty conceited Fellows, who repeat as Sayings of their own, or fome of their particular Friends, feveral Jefts which were made before they were born, and which every one who has conversed in the World has heard a hundred times A forward young Fellow of my Acquaintance was very guilty of this Abfurdity: He would be always laying a new Scene for fome old Piece of Wit, and telling us, That as he and Jack fuch-a-one were together, one or t'other of them had fuch a Conceit on fuch an Occafion; upon which he would laugh very heartily, and wonder the Company did not join with him. When his Mirth was over, I have often reprehended him out of Terence, Tuumne, obfecro te, hoc dictum crat? vetus credidi. But finding him ftill incorrigible, and having a Kindness for the young Coxcomb, who was otherwise a good-natured Fellow, recommended to his

Over.

Perufal the Oxford and Cambridge Jefts, with feveral little Pieces of Pleafantry of the fame Nature. Upon the reading of them, he was under no fmall Confufion to find that all his Jokes had paffed through feveral

Editions,

Editions, and that what he thought was a new Conceit, and had appropriated to his own Ufe, had appeared in Print before he or his ingenious Friends were ever heard of. This had fo good an Effect upon him, that he is content at prefent to pass for a Man of plain Senfe in his ordinary Converfation, and is never facetious but when he knows his Company.

N° 563. Monday, July 5.

I

Magni nominis Umbra.

Lucan.

Shall entertain my Reader with two very curious Letters. The first of them comes from a chimerical Perfon, who I believe never writ to any Body before.

SIR,

Am defcended from the Ancient Family of the Blanks, a Name well known among all Men of Bufinefs. It is always read in those little white Spaces of Writing which want to be filled up, and which for that • Reafon are called blank Spaces, as of right appertaining to our Family: For I confider my felf as the Lord of a Manor, who lays his Claim to all Waftes or Spots ' of Ground that are unappropriated. I am a near Kinfman to John a Styles and John a Nokes; and they, I am told, came in with the Conqueror. I am mentioned ⚫oftner in both Houfes of Parliament than any other • Perfon in Great Britain. My Name is written, or, more properly fpeaking, not written, thus,

I am one that can turn my Hand to every thing, and appear under any Shape whatfoever. I can make " my felf Man, Woman, or Child. Iam fometime; metamorphofed into a Year of our Lord, a Day of the Month, or an Hour of the Day. I very often re• prefent