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design to pursue him to London, and get him apprehended, on suspicion of being a highwayman: but when I reflected, that it was the proper office of the magistrate to punish only knaves, and that we had a Censor of Great-Britain for people of another denomination, I immediately determined to prosecute him in your court only. This unjustifiable frolic I take to be neither wit nor humour, therefore hope you will do me, and as many others as were that day frighted, justice.

I am, Sir,

Your friend and servant.

J. L."

" SIR,

"The gentleman begs your pardon, and frighted you out of fear of frighting you: for he is just come out of the small-pox.

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"MR. BICKERSTAFF,

"Your distinction concerning the time of commencing virgins is allowed to be just. I write you my thanks for it, in the twenty-eighth year of my life, and twelfth of my virginity. But I am to ask you another question: may a woman be said to live any more years a maid, than she continues to be Courted?

"SIR,

I am, &c."

August 15, 1710. "I observe that the Postman of Saturday last, giving an account of the action in Spain, has this elegant turn of expression; general Stanhope, who in the whole action expressed as much bravery as conduct, received a contusion in his right shoulder. I should be glad to know, whether this cautious politician means to commend or to rally

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him, by saying, He expressed as much bravery as conduct? If you can explain this dubious phrase, it will inform the public, and oblige, Sir,

Your humble servant, &c."

N° 213. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1710.

Sheer-lane, August 28.

THERE has of late crept in among the downwright English a mighty spirit of dissimulation. But, before we discourse of this vice, it will be necessary to observe, that the learned make a difference between simulation and dissimulation. Simulation is a pretence of what is not, and dissimulation is a concealment of what is. The latter is our present affair. When you look round you in public places in this island, you see the generality of mankind carry in their countenance an air of challenge or defiance; and there is no such man to be found among us, who naturally strives to do greater honours and civilities than he receives. This innate sullenness or stubbornness of complexion is hardly to be conquered by any of our islanders. For which reason, however they may pretend to chouse one another, they make but very aukward rogues; and their dis

like to each other is seldom so well dissembled, but it is suspected. When once it is so, it had has good be professed. A man who dissembles well must have none of what we call stomach, otherwise he will be cold in his professions of good will where he hates; an imperfection of the last ill consequence

in business. This fierceness in our natures is apparent from the conduct of our young fellows, who are not got into the schemes and arts of life which the children of the world walk by. One would think, that of course, when a man of any consequence for his figure, his mien, or his gravity, passes by a youth, he should certainly have the first advances of salutation; but he is, you may observe, treated in a quite different manner; it being the very characteristic of an English temper to defy. As I am an Englishman, I find it a very hard matter to bring myself to pull off the hat first; but it is the only way to be upon any good terms with those we meet with. Therefore the first advance is of high moment. Men judge of others by themselves; and he that will command with us must condescend. It moves one's spleen very agreeably, to see fellows pretend to be dissemblers without this lesson. They are so reservedly complaisant until they have learned to resign their natural passions, that all the steps they make towards gaining those, whom they would be well with, are but so many marks of what they really are, and not of what they would appear.

The rough Britons, when they pretend to be artful towards one another, are ridiculous enough; but when they set up for vices they have not, and dissemble their good with an affectation of ill, they are insupportable. I know two men in this town who make as good figures as any in it, that manage their credit well as to be thought atheists, and yet say their prayers morning and evening. Tom Springly, the other day, pretended to go to an assignation with a married woman at Rosamond's Pond, and was seen soon after reading the responses with great gravity at six-a-clock prayers.

Sheer-lane, August 17.

Though the following epistle bears a just accusation of myself, yet in regard it is a more advantageous piece of justice to another, I insert it at large.

"Garraway's Coffee-house, August 10.

"MR. BICKERSTAFF,

"I have lately read your Paper, wherein you represent a conversation between a young lady, your three nephews, and yourself; and am not a little offended at the figure you give your young merchant in the presence of a beauty. The topic of love is a subject on which a man is more beholden to nature for his eloquence, than to the instruction of the schools, or my lady's woman. From the two latter your scholar and page must have reaped all their advantage above him.-I know by this time you have pronounced me a trader. I acknowledge it; but cannot bear the exclusion from any pretence of speaking agreeably to a fine woman, or from any degree of generosity that way. You have among us citizens many well-wishers; but it is for the justice of your representations, which we, perhaps, are better judges of than you (by the account you give of your nephew) seem to allow.

"To give you an opportunity of making us some reparation, I desire you would tell, your own way, the following instance of heroic love in the city. You are to remember, that somewhere in your writings, for enlarging the territories of virtue and honour, you have multiplied the opportunities of attaining to heroic virtue; and have hinted, that in whatever state of life man is, if he does things above what is ordinarily performed by men of his rank, he is in those instances an hero.

"Tom Trueman, a young gentleman of eighteen years of age, fell passionately in love with the beanteous Almira, daughter to his master. Her regard for him was no less tender. Trueman was better acquainted with his master's affairs than his daughter; and secretly lamented, that each day brought him by many miscarriages nearer bankruptcy than the former. This unhappy posture of their affairs, the youth suspected, was owing to the illmanagement of a factor, in whom his master had an entire confidence. Trueman took a proper occasion, when his master was ruminating on his decaying fortune, to address him for leave to spend the remainder of his time with his foreign correspondent. During three year's stay in that employment, he became acquainted with all that concerned his master, and by his great address in the management of that knowledge saved him ten thousand pounds. Soon after this accident, Trueman's uncle left him a considerable estate. Upon receiving that advice, he returned to England, and demanded Almira of her father. The father, overjoyed at the match, offered him the ten thousand pounds he had saved him, with the further proposal of resigning to him all his business. Trueman refused both; and retired into the country with his bride, contented with his own fortune, though perfectly skilled in all the methods of improving

it.

"It is to be noted that Trueman refused twenty thousand pounds with another young lady; so that reckoning both his self-denials, he is to have in your court the merit of having given thirty thousand pounds for the woman be loved. gentleman I claim your justice to; and hope you will be convinced that some of us have larger

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