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be no less surprising to my reader than it was to myself; for which reason I shall communicate it to the public as one of the greatest curiosities in its kind.

A friend of mine complaining of a tradesman who is related to him, after having represented him as a very idle, worthless fellow, who neglected his family, and spent most of his time over a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, that he was a member of the Everlasting Club. So very odd a title raised my curiosity to inquire into the nature of a club that had such a sounding name; upon which my friend gave me the following account.

"THE Everlasting Club consists of a hundred members, who divide the whole twenty-four hours among them in such a manner, that the club sits day and night from one end of the year to another; no party presuming to rise till they are relieved by those who are in course to succeed them. By this means a member of the Everlasting Club never wants company; for though he is not upon duty himself, he is sure to find some who are; so that if he be disposed to take a whet, a nooning, an evening's draught, or a bottle after midnight, he goes to the club, and finds a knot of friends to his mind."

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"It is a maxim in this club, that the steward never dies for as they succeed one another by way of rotation, no man is to quit the great elbow-chair which stands at the upper end of the table, till his successor is in a readiness to fill it; insomuch, that there has not been a Sede vacante in the memory of man.

"This club was instituted towards the end (or, as some of them say, about the middle) of the Civil Wars, and continued without interruption till the time of the Great Fire, which burnt them out, and dispersed them for several weeks. The steward at that time maintained his post till he had like to have been blown up with a neighbouring house, (which was demolished in order to stop the fire,) and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received repeated directions from the club to withdraw himself. This steward is frequently talked of in the club, and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man than the famous captain mentioned in my Lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship because he would not quit it without orders. It is said that towards the close of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the club had it under con

sideration whether they should break up, or continue their session; but, after many speeches and debates, it was at length agreed to sit out the other century. This resolution passed in a general club, Nemine contradicente."

Having given this short account of the institution and continuation of the Everlasting Club, I should here endeavour to say something of the manners and characters of its several members, which I shall do according to the best light I have received in this matter.

It appears by their books in general, that since their first institution, they have smoked fifty tun of tobacco, drank thirty thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red port, two hundred barrels of brandy, and a kilderkin of small beer; there has been likewise a great consumption of cards. It is also said, that they observe the law in Ben Jonson's club, which orders the fire to be always kept in, (focus perennis esto,) as well for the convenience of lighting their pipes, as to cure the dampness of the club-room. They have an old woman in the nature of a vestal, whose business it is to cherish and perpetuate the fire, which burns from generation to generation, and has seen the glass-house fires in and out above an hundred times.

The Everlasting Club treats all other clubs with an eye of contempt, and talks even of the Kit-Cat and October as of a couple of upstarts. Their ordinary discourse (as much as I have been able to learn of it) turns altogether upon such adventures as have passed in their own assembly; of members who have taken the glass in their turns for a week together, without stirring out of the club; of others who have smoked an hundred pipes at a sitting; of others who have not missed their morning's draught for twenty years together; sometimes they speak in raptures of a run of ale in King Charles's reign; and sometimes reflect with astonishment upon games at whist, which have been miraculously recovered by members of the society, when in all human probability the case was desperate.

They delight in several old catches, which they sing at all hours to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking; with many other edifying exhortations of the like nature.

There are four general clubs held in a year, at which times they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire

maker, or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other necessaries.

The senior member has out-lived the whole club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of some of the present sitting members.

No. 73. THURSDAY, MAY 24.

O Dea certe! VIRG.

Ir is very strange to consider, that a creature like man, who is sensible of so many weaknesses and imperfections, should be actuated by a love of fame; that vice and ignorance, imperfection and misery, should contend for praise, and endeavour as much as possible to make themselves objects of admiration.

But notwithstanding man's essential perfection is but very little, his comparative perfection may be very considerable. If he looks upon himself in an abstracted light, he has not much to boast of; but if he considers himself with regard to others, he may find occasion of glorying, if not in his own virtues, at least in the absence of another's imperfections; this gives a different turn to the reflections of the wise man and the fool. The first endeavours to shine in himself, and the last to out-shine others. The first is humbled by the sense of his own infirmities, the last is lifted up by the discovery of those which he observes in other men. The wise man considers what he wants, and the fool what he abounds in. The wise man is happy when he gains his own approbation, and the fool when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him.

But however unreasonable and absurd this passion for admiration may appear in such a creature as man, it is not wholly to be discouraged; since it often produces very good effects, not only as it restrains him from doing anything which is mean and contemptible, but as it pushes him to actions which are great and glorious. The principle may be defective or faulty, but the consequences it produces are so good, that, for the benefit of mankind, it ought not to be extinguished.

It is observed by Cicero, that men of the greatest and the most shining parts are the most actuated by ambition; and

if we look into the two sexes, I believe we shall find this principle of action stronger in women than in men.

The passion for praise, which is so very vehement in the fair sex, produces excellent effects in women of sense, who desire to be admired for that only which deserves admiration: and I think we may observe, without a compliment to them, that many of them do not only live in a more uniform course of virtue, but with an infinitely greater regard to their honour, than what we find in the generality of our own sex. How many instances have we of chastity, fidelity, devotion! How many ladies distinguish themselves by the education of their children, care of their families, and love of their husbands, which are the great qualities and achievements of womankind! as the making of war, the carrying on of traffic, the administration of justice, are those by which men grow famous, and get themselves a name.

But as this passion for admiration, when it works according to reason, improves the beautiful part of our species in everything that is laudable; so nothing is more destructive to them when it is governed by vanity and folly. What I have, therefore, here to say, only regards the vain part of the sex, whom for certain reasons, which the reader will hereafter see at large, I shall distinguish by the name of Idols. An Idol is wholly taken up in the adorning of her person. You see in every posture of her body, air of her face, and motion of her head, that it is her business and employment to gain adorers. For this reason your Idols appear in all public places and assemblies, in order to seduce men to their worship. The playhouse is very frequently filled with Idols; several of them are carried in procession every evening about the ring, and several of them set up their worship even in churches. They are to be accosted in the language proper to the Deity. Life and death are in their power: joys of heaven and pains of hell are at their disposal: paradise is in their arms, and eternity in every moment that you are present with them. Raptures, transports, ecstasies, are the rewards which they confer: sighs and tears, prayers and broken hearts, are the offerings which are paid to them. Their smiles make men happy; their frowns drive them to despair. I shall only add under this head, that Ovid's book of The Art of Love is a kind of heathen ritual, which contains all the forms of worship which are made use of to an Idol.

It would be as difficult a task to reckon up these different kinds of Idols, as Milton's was to number those that were known in Canaan and the lands adjoining. Most of them are worshipped, like Moloch, in fires and flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to see their votaries cut and slashed, and shedding their blood for them. Some of them, like the Idol in the Apocrypha, must have treats and collations prepared for them every night. It has, indeed, been known, that some of them have been used by their incensed worshippers like the Chinese Idols, who are whipped and scourged when they refuse to comply with the prayers that are offered to them.

I must here observe, that those Idolaters who devote themselves to the Idols I am here speaking of, differ very much from all other kinds of Idolaters. For as others fall out because they worship different Idols, these Idolaters quarrel because they worship the same.

The intention, therefore, of the Idol, is quite contrary to the wishes of the Idolater; as the one desires to confine the Idol to himself, the whole business and ambition of the other is to multiply adorers. This humour of an Idol is prettily described in a tale of Chaucer: he represents one of them sitting at a table with three of her votaries about her, who are all of them courting her favour, and paying their adorations: she smiled upon one, drank to another, and trod upon the other's foot which was under the table. Now which of these three, says the old bard, do you think was the favourite? "In troth, (says he,) not one of all the three."

The behaviour of this old Idol in Chaucer, puts me in mind of the beautiful Clarinda, one of the greatest Idols among the moderns. She is worshipped once a week by candle-light in the midst of a large congregation, generally called an assembly. Some of the gayest youths in the nation endeavour to plant themselves in her eye, while she sits in form with multitudes of tapers burning about her. To encourage the zeal of her idolaters, she bestows a mark of her favour upon every one of them before they go out of her presence. She asks a question of one, tells a story to another, glances an ogle upon a third, takes a pinch of snuff from the fourth, lets her fan drop by accident to give the fifth an occasion of taking it up. In short, every one goes away satisfied with his success, and encouraged to renew his devotions at the same canonical hour that day seven-night.

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