double their diligence upon admonition. Will Afterday has told his friends, that he was to have the next thing, thefe ten years; and Harry Linger has been fourteen, within a month of a confiderable office. However, the fantastic complaifance which is paid to them, may blind the Great from feeing themfelves in a juft lights they muft needs, if they in the least reflect, at some times, have a fenfe of the injuftice they do in raifing in others a falfe expectation. But this is fo common a practice in all the stages of power, that there are not more cripples come out of the wars, than from the attendance of Patrons. You fee in one a fettled melancholy, in another a bridled rage; a third has loft his memory, and a fourth his whole conftitution and humour. In a word, when you fee a particular caft of mind or body, which looks a little upon the diftracted, you may be fure the poor Gentleman has formerly had great friends. For this reason, I have thought it a prudent thing to take a nephew of mine out of a Lady's fervice, where he was a page, and have bound him to a fhoemaker.

But what, of all the humours under the fun, is the most pleasant to confider is, that you fee fome men lay, as it were, a fet of acquaintance by them, to converse with when they are out of employment, who had no ef fect of their power when they were in. Here Patrons and Clients both make the most fantastical figure ima ginable. Friendship indeed is moft manifefted in adverfity; but I do not know how to behave myself to a man, who thinks me his friend at no other time but that. Dick Reptile of our Club had this in his head the other night, when he said, I am afraid of ill news, when I am vifited by any of my old friends. Thefe Patrons are a little like fome fine Gentlemen, who spend all their hours of gaiety with their wenches, but when they fall fick will let no one come near them but their wives. feems, truth and honour are companions too fober for profperity. It is certainly the moft black ingratitude, to accept of a man's beft endeavours to be pleafing to you, and return it with indifference.

It

I am fo much of this mind, that Dick Eaftcourt the Comedian, for coming one night to our Club, though be laughed at us all the time he was there, shall have

Our company at his Play on Thursday. A man of talents is to be favoured, or never admitted. Let the ordinary world truck for money and wares; but men of fpirit and converfation fhould in every kind do others as much pleafure as they receive from them. But men are fo taken up with outward forms, that they do not confider their actions; elfe how fhould it be, that a man fhall deny that to the entreaties, and almoft tears of an old friend, which he fhall folicit a new one to accept of? I remember, when I first came out of Staffordshire, I had an intimacy with a man of Quality, in whofe gift there fell a very good employment. All the town cried, There's a thing for Mr. Bickerstaff! when, to my great aftonishment, I found my Patron had been forced upon twenty artifices to furprize a man with it, who never thought of it: But fure, it is a degree of murder to amufe men with vain hopes. If a man takes away another's life, where is the difference, whether he does it by taking away the minutes of his time, or the drops of his blood? But indeed, fuch as have hearts barren of kindness are ferved accordingly by thofe whom they employ; and pafs their lives away with an empty how of civility for love, and an infipid intercourfe of a commerce in which their affections are no way concerned. But on the other fide, how beautiful is the life of a Patron who performs his duty to his inferiors? A worthy merchant, who employs a crowd of artificers ? A great Lord, who is gene rous and merciful to the feveral neceffities of his tenants ? A Courtier, who uses his credit and power for the welfare of his friends? Thefe have in their feveral ftations a quick relifh of the exquifite pleasure of doing good. In a word, good Patrons are like the guardian Angels of Plato, who are ever bufy, though unfeen, in the care of their wards; but ill Patrons are like the Deities of Epicurus, fupine, indolent, and unconcerned, though they fee mortals in ftorms and tempefts even while they are offering incenfe to their power.

N° 197.

Thursday, July 13, 1710.

Semper ego auditor tantùm?- Juv. Sat. 1. ver. 1.

Still fhall I only hear ?

DRYDEN.

Grecian Coffee-houfe, July 12.

WHEN I came hither this evening, the man of

the house delivered me a book, very finely bound. When I received it, I overheard one of the boys whif per another, and fay, it was a fine thing to be a great fcholar! what a pretty book that is! It has indeed a very gay outfide, and is dedicated to me by a very ingenious Gentleman, who does not put his name to it. The title of it, for the work is in Latin, is, Epiftolarum Obfcurorum Virorum, ad Dm. M. Ortuinum Gratium, Volumina II. &c. "The Epiftles of the obfcure Writers to Ortuinus, "&c." The purpose of the work is fignified in the dedication, in very elegant language, and fine raillery. It feems, this is a collection of Letters which fome profound blockheads, who lived before our times, have written in honour of each other, and for their mutual information in each other's abfurdities. They are mostly of the German nation, whence from time to time, inundations of writers have flowed, more pernicious to the learned world, than the fwarms of Goths and Vandals to the politic. It is, methinks, wonderful, that fellows could be awake, and utter fuch incoherent conceptions, and converse with great gravity, like learned men, without the least tafte of knowledge or good fenfe. It would have been an endless labour to have taken any other method of expofing fuch impertinences, than by an edition of their. own works; where you fee their follies, according to the ambition of fuch Virtuofi, in a most correct edition.

Looking over thefe accomplished labours, I could not but reflect upon the immenfe load of Writings which the

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commonalty of scholars have pushed into the world, and the abfurdity of parents, who educate crowds to spend their time in purfuit of fuch cold and fprightlefs endeavours to appear in public. It seems therefore a fruitless labour, to attempt the correction of the taste of our contemporaries; except it was in our power to burn all the fenfelefs labours of our ancestors. There is a fecret propenfity in Nature from generation to generation, in the blockheads of one age to admire thofe of another; and men of the fame imperfections are as great admirers of each other, as thofe of the fame abilities.

This great mifchief of voluminous follies proceeds from a misfortune which happens in all ages, that men of barren genius's, but fertile imaginations, are bred fcholars. This may at first appear a paradox; but when we confider the talking creatures we meet in public places, it will no longer be fuch. Ralph Shallow is a young fellow, that has not by Nature any the leaft propenfity to ftrike into what has not been obferved and faid, every day of his life, by others; but with that inability of speaking any thing that is uncommon, he has a great readiness at what he can speak of, and his imagination runs into all the different views of the fubject he treats of in a moment. If Ralph had learning added to the common chit-chat of the town, he would have been a difputant upon all topics that ever were confidered by men of his own genius. As for my part, I never am teazed by any empty town-fellow, but I blefs my ftars that he was not bred a scholar. This addition, we muft confider, would have made him capable of maintaining his follies. His being in the wrong would have been protected by fuitable arguments; and when he was hedged in by logical terms, and falfe appearances, you must have owned yourfelf convinced before you could then have got rid of him, and the fhame of his triumph had been added to the pain of his impertinence.

There is a fort of littlenefs in the minds of men of wrong fenfe, which makes them much more infufferabl than mere fools, and has the further inconvenience of being attended by an endless Loquacity. For which reafon, it would be a very proper work, if fome wellwifher to human fociety would confider the terms, upon which

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which people meet in public places, in order to prevent the unfeasonable declamations which we meet with there. I remember, in my youth, it was an humour at the Univerfity, when a fellow pretended to be more eloquent than ordinary, and had formed to himself a plot to gain all our admiration, or triumph over us with an argument, to either of which he had no manner of call; I fay, in either of these cases, it was the humour to shut one eye. This whimfical way of taking notice to him of his abfurdity, has prevented many a man from being a coxcomb. If amongst us, on fuch an occafion each man offered a voluntary Rhetorician fome fnuff, it would probably produce the fame effect. As the matter now ftands, whether a man will or no, he is obliged to be informed in whatever another pleases to entertain him with; though the preceptor makes thefe advances out of vanity, and not to inftruct, but infult him.

There is no man will allow him who wants courage to be called a foldier; but men, who want good fenfe, are very frequently not only allowed to be scholars, but efteemed for being fuch. At the fame time it must be granted, that as courage is the natural parts of a foldier, fo is a good understanding of a fcholar. Such little minds as thefe, whofe productions are collected in the volume to which I have the honour to be patron, are the inftruments for artful men to work with; and become popular with the unthinking part of mankind. In Courts, they make tranfparent flatterers; in camps, oftentatious bullies; in colleges, unintelligible pedants; and their faculties are ufed accordingly by thofe who lead them.

When a man who wants judgment is admitted into the conversation of reasonable men, he fhall remember fuch improper circumftances, and draw fuch groundless conclufions from their difcourfe, and that with fuch colour of fenfe, as would divide the best fet of company that can be got together. It is just thus with a fool who has a familiarity with books; he fhall quote and recite one Author against another, in fuch a manner as fhall puzzle the best understanding to refute him; though the moft ordinary capacity may obferve, that it is only ig norance that makes the intricacy. All the true ufe of

that