Terence introduces a Flatterer talking to a Coxcomb, whom he cheats out of a livelihood; and a third person on the stage makes on him this pleasant remark, This "fellow has an art of making fools madmen." The love of Flattery is, indeed, fometimes the weakness of a great mind; but you fee it alfo in perfons, who otherwife difcover no manner of relifh of any thing above mere fenfuality. Thefe latter it fometimes improves ; but always debafes the former. A fool is in himself the object of pity, until he is flattered. By the force of that his stupidity is raised into affectation, and he becomes of dignity enough to be ridiculous. I remember a droll, that upon one's faying, The times are fo ticklish, that there must great care be taken what one fays in converfation; answered with an air of furliness and honefty, If people will be free, let them be fo in the manner that I am, who never abuse a man but to his face. He had no reputation for faying dangerous truths; therefore when it was repeated, You abuse a man but to his face? Yes, fays he, I flatter him.

It is indeed the greateft of injuries to flatter any but the unhappy, or fuch as are difpleafed with themfelves for fome infirmity. In this latter cafe we have a member of our Club, who, when Sir Jeffery falls afleep, wakens him with fnoring. This makes Sir Jeffery hold up for fome moments the longer, to fee there are men younger than himself among us, who are more lethargic than he is.

When Flattery is practifed upon any other confideration, it is the most abject thing in Nature; nay, I cannot think of any character below the Flatterer, except he that envies him. You meet with fellows, prepared to be as mean as poffible in their condefcenfions and expreffions; but they want perfons and talents to rife up to fuch a baseness. As a Coxcomb is a fool of parts, fo a Flatterer is a knave of parts.

The best of this order, that I know, is one who difguifes it under a fpirit of contradiction or reproof. He told an errant driveler the other day, that he did not care for being in company with him, because he heard the turned his abfent friends into ridicule. And upon Lady Autumn's difputing with him about fomething that hap

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pened at the Revolution, he replied with a very angry tone, Pray, Madam, give me leave to know more of a thing in which I was actually concerned, than you who were then in your nurse's arms.

N° 209. Thursday, August 10, 1710.

A

From my own Apartment, Auguft 9.

Noble Painter, who has an ambition to draw a history piece, has defired me to give him a fubject, on which he may fhew the utmost force of his art and genius. For this purpofe, I have pitched upon that remarkable incident between Alexander the Great and his Phyfician. This Prince, in the midft of his con-quests in Perfia, was seized by a violent fever; and, according to the account we have of his vaft mind, his thoughts were more employed about his recovery as it regarded the war, than as it concerned his own life. He profeffed a flow method was worse than death to him; because it was, what he more dreaded, an interruption of his glory. He defired a dangerous, fo it might be a fpeedy remedy. During this impatience of the King, it is well known that Darius had offered an immenfe fum

to any who fhould take away his life. But Philippus the most esteemed and moft knowing of his Physicians, promifed, that within three days time he would prepare a medicine for him, which should restore him more expeditiously than could be imagined. Immediately after this engagement, Alexander receives a Letter from the moft confiderable of his Captains, with intelligence that Darius had bribed Philippus to poifon him. Every cir cumftance imaginable favoured this fufpicion; but this Monarch, who did nothing but in an extraordinary manner, concealed the Letter; and, while the medicine was preparing, spent all his thoughts upon his behaviour inthis important incident. From his long foliloquy, he

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came to this refolution : "Alexander muft not lie here "alive to be oppreffed by his enemy. I will not be"lieve my Phyfician guilty; or, I will perish rather by "his guilt, than my own diffidence.”

At the appointed hour, Philippus enters with the potion. One cannot but form to one's felf on this occafion the encounter of their eyes, the refolution in those of the Patient, and the benevolence in the countenance of the Physician. The Hero raised himself in his bed, and, holding the Letter in one hand, and the potion in the other, drank the medicine. It will exercife my friend's pencil and brain to place this action in its proper beauty. A Prince obferving the features of a fufpected traitor, after having drank the poifon he offered him, is à circumftance fo full of paffion, that it will require the highest ftrength of his imagination, to conceive it, much more to express it. But as Painting is eloquence and poetry in mechanifm, I fhall raise his ideas, by reading with him the finest draughts of the paffions concerned in this circumstance, from the most excellent Poets and Orators. The confidence, which Alexander affumes from. the air of Philippus's face as he is reading his accufation, and the generous difdain which is to rife in the features of a fally accufed man, are principally to be regard. ed. In this particular he muft heighten his thoughts, by reflecting, that he is not drawing only an innocent man traduced, but a man ze lously affected to his perfon and fafety, full of refentment for being thought false. How shall we contrive to exprefs the higheft admiration, mingled with disdain? How fhall we in ftrokes of a pencil fay, what Philippus did to his Prince on this occafion?" Sir, my life never depended on yours more than "it does now. Without knowing this fecret, I prepared the potion, which you have taken as what concerned Philippus no lefs than Alexander; and there is nothing new in this adventure, but that it makes me "ftill more admire the generofity and confidence of my "Master." Alexander took him by the hand and said,

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Philippus, I am confident you had rather I had any. "other way to have manifested the faith I have in you, "than a cafe which fo nearly concerns me: And in "gratitude I now affure you,. Í am anxious for the ef

{e

"fect of your medicine, more for your fake than my "own"

My Painter is employed by a man of fenfe and wealth to furnish him a gallery; and I fhall join with my friend in the defigning part. It is the great ufe of pictures to raife in our minds either agreeable ideas of our abfent friends; or high images of eminent perfonages. But the latter defign is, methinks, carried on in a very im proper way; for to fill a room full of battle-pieces, pompous hiftories of fieges, and a tall Hero alone in a croud of infignificant figures about him, is of no confequence to private men. But to place before our eyes great and illuftrious men in thofe parts and circumstances of life, wherein their behaviour may have an effect upon our minds; as being fuch as we partake with them merely as they were men: Such as thefe, I fay, may be just and ufeful ornaments of an elegant apartment. In this col lection therefore that we are making, we will not have the battles, but the fentiments of Alexander. The affair we were juft now fpeaking of has circumftances of the highest nature; and yet their grandeur has little to do with his fortune. If, by obferving fuch a piece, as that of his taking a bowl of poifon with fo much magnanimity, a man, the next time he has a fit of thè fpleen, is lefs froward to his friend or his fervants; thus far is fome improvement.

I have frequently thought, that if we had many draughts which were hiftorical of certain paffions, and had the true figure of the great men we fee transported by them, it would be of the most solid advantage imaginable. To confider this mighty man on one occafion, adminiftering to the wants of a poor foldier benummed with cold, with the greatest humanity; at another, barbarously stabbing a faithful officer: At one time, fo generously chafte and virtuous as to give his captive Statira her liberty; at another, burning a town at the inftigation of Thais. Thefe changes in the fame perfon are what would be more beneficial leffons of morality, than the feveral revolutions in any great man's fortune. There are but one or two in an age, to whom the pompous incidents of his life can be exemplary; but I, or any man, may be as fick, as good-natured, as compaffionate, and as

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angry,

angry, as Alexander the Great. My purpofe in all this chat is, that fo excellent a furniture may not for the future have fo Romantic a turn, but allude to incidents which come within the fortunes of the ordinary race of men. I do not know but it is by the force of this fenfelefs cuftom, that people are drawn in poftures they would not for half they are worth be furprised in. The unparalleled fiercenefs of fome rural Efquires drawn in red, or in armour, who never dreamed to deftroy any thing above a fox, is a common and ordinary offence of this kind. But I fhall give an account of our whole gallery On another occafion.

N° 210. Saturday, Auguft 12, 1710.

I

Sheer lane, Augufi 11.

Did myself the honour this day to make a vifit to a Lady of Quality, who is one of those that are ever railing at the Vices of the age; but mean only one Vice, because it is the only Vice they are not guilty of. She went fo far as to fall foul on young woman, who has had imputations; but whether they were juft or not, no one knows but herself. However that is, fhe is in her prefent behaviour modeft, humble, pious, and difcreet, I thought it became me to bring this cenforious Lady to reafon, and let her fee, fhe was a much more vitious woman than the person she spoke of.

Madam, faid I, you are very fevere to this poor young woman, for a trefpafs which I believe Heaven has for given her, and for which, you fee, fhe is for ever out of countenance. Nay, Mr. Bickerflaff, the interrupted, if you at this time of day contradict people of Virtue, and stand up for ill women- No, no, Madam, faid 1, not fo faft; he is reclaimed, and I fear you never will be. Nay, nay, Madam, do not be in a paffion; but let me tell you what you are, You are indeed as

good