upon us. There is not a man among them who has any notion of distinction of superiority to one another, either in their fortunes or their talents, when they are in company. Or if any reflection to the contrary occurs in their thoughts, it only strikes a delight upon their minds, that so much wisdom and power is in possession of one whom they love and

esteem.

In these my Lucubrations, I have frequently dwelt upon this one topic. The above maxim would make short work for us reformers; for it is only want of making this a position that renders some characters bad, which would otherwise be good. Tom Mercet means no man ill, but does ill to every body. His ambition is to be witty; and to carry on that design he breaks through all things that other people hold sacred. If he thought that wit was no way to be used but to the advantage of society, that sprightliness would have a new turn; and we should expect what he is going to say with satisfaction instead of fear. It is no excuse for being mischievous, that a man is mischievous without malice: nor will it be thought an atonement, that the ill was done not to injure the party concerned, but to divert the indifferent.

It is methinks a very great error, that we should not profess honesty in conversation, as much as in commerce. If we consider, that there is no greater misfortune than to be ill received; where we love the turning a man to ridicule among his friends, we rob him of greater enjoyments than he could have purchased by his wealth; yet he that laughs at him -would perhaps be the last man who would hurt him in this case of less consequence. It has been said, the history of Don Quixote utterly destroyed the spirit of gallantry in the Spanish nation; and I believe we may say much more truly, that the humour

of ridicule has done as much injury to the true relish of company in England.

Such satisfactions as arise from the secret comparison of ourselves to others, with relation to their inferior fortunes or merit, are mean and unworthy. The true and high state of conversation is, when men communicate their thoughts to each other upon such subjects, and in such a manner, as would be pleasant if there were no such thing as folly in the world; for it is but a low condition of wit in one man which depends upon folly in another.

P. S. I was here interrupted by the receipt of my letters, among which is one from a lady who is not a little offended at my translation of the discourse between Adam and Eve. She pretends to tell me my own, as she calls it, and quotes several passages in my works, which tend to the utter disunion of man and wife. Her epistle will best express her. I have made an extract of it, and shall insert the most material passages.

:

"I suppose you know we women are not too apt to forgive for which reason, before you concern yourself any further with our sex, I would advise you to answer what is said against you by those of your own. I inclose to you business enough, until you are ready for your promise of being witty. You must not expect to say what you please, without admitting others to take the same liberty. Marry come up! you a Censor? Pray read over all these pamphlets, and these notes upon your Lucubrations; by that time you shall hear further. It is, I suppose, from such as you that people learn to be censorious, for which I and all our sex have an utter aversion; when once people come to take the liberty to wound reputations"

This is the main body of the letter; but she bids me turn over, and there I find

"MR. BICKERSTAFF,

"If you will draw Mrs. Cicely Trippet according to the inclosed description, I will forgive you all.”

"To ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esquire.

"The humble Petition of Joshua Fairlove of Stepney,

"SHEWETH,

"That your Petitioner is a general lover, who for some months last past has made it his whole business to frequent the by-paths and roads near his dwelling, for no other purpose but to hand such of the fair sex as are obliged to pass through them.

"That he has been at great expence for clean gloves to offer his hand with.

"That towards the evening he approaches near London, and employs himself as a convoy towards home.

"Your Petitioner therefore most humbly prays,

that for such his humble services he may be allowed the title of Esquire."

Mr. Morphew has orders to carry the proper instruments; and the Petitioner is hereafter to be writ to upon gilt paper, by the title of Joshua Fairlove, Esquire.

N° 220. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1710.

Insani sapiens nomen ferat, æquus iniqui,
Ultra quam satis est, virtutem si petat ipsam.

HOR. 1 Ep. vi. 15.

Even virtue, when pursu'd with warmth extreme,
Turns into vice, and fools the sage's fame.

FRANCIS.

From my own Apartment, September 4. HAVING received many letters filled with compliments and acknowledgements for my late useful discovery of the political Barometer, I shall here communicate to the public an account of my eeclesiastical Thermometer, the latter giving as manifest prognostications of the changes and revolutions in church, as the former does of those in state; and both of them being absolutely necessary for every prudent subject who is resolved to keep what he has, and get what he can.

The church Thermometer, which I am now to treat of, is supposed to have been invented in the reign of Henry the Eighth, about the time when that religious prince put some to death for owning the Pope's supremacy, and others for denying transubstantiation. I do not find, however, any great use made of this instrument, until it fell into the hands of a learned and vigilant priest or minister, for he frequently wrote himself both one and the other, who was some time Vicar of Bray. This gentleman lived in his vicarage to a good old age:

and after having seen several successions of his neighbouring clergy either burned or banished, departed this life with the satisfaction of having never deserted his flock, and died Vicar of Bray. As this Glass was at first designed to calculate the different degrees of heat in religion, as it raged in popery, or as it cooled and grew temperate in the Reformation; it was marked at several distances, after the manner our ordinary thermometer is to this day, viz. "Extreme Heat, Sultry Heat, Very Hot, Hot, Warm, Temperate, Cold, Just Freezing, Frost, Hard Frost, Great Frost, Extreme Cold."

It is well known, that Toricellius, the inventor of the common weather-glass, made the experiment in a long tube which held thirty-two feet of water ; and that a more modern virtuoso, finding such a machine altogether unwieldy and useless, and considering that thirty-two inches of quicksilver" weighed as much as so many feet of water in a tube of the same circumference, invented that sizable instrument which is now in use. After this manner, that I might adapt the Thermometer I am now speaking of to the present constitution of our Church, as divided into High and Low, I have made some necessary variations both in the tube and the fluid it contains. In the first place, I ordered a tube to be cast in a planetary hour, and took care to seal it hermetically, when the Sun was in conjunction with Saturn. I then took the proper precautions about the fluid, which is a compound of two very different liquors; one of them a spirit drawn out of a strong heady wine; the other a particular sort of rock-water, colder than ice, and clearer than crystal. The spirit is of a red fiery colour, and so very apt to ferment, that unless it be mingled with a proportion of the water, or pent up