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No. 136. MONDAY, AUGUST 17.

Noctes atque dies patet atri janua ditis. VIRG.

SOME of our quaint moralists have pleased themselves with an observation, that there is but one way of coming into the world, but a thousand to go out of it. I have seen a fanciful dream written by a Spaniard, in which he introduces the person of death metamorphosing himself, like another Proteus, into innumerable shapes and figures. To represent the fatality of fevers and agues, with many other distempers and accidents that destroy the life of man; death enters first of all in a body of fire, a little after he appears like a man of snow, then rolls about the room like a cannon ball, then lies on the table like a gilded pill: after this, he transforms himself, of a sudden, into a sword, then dwindles successively to a dagger, to a bodkin, to a crooked pin, to a needle, to a hair. The Spaniard's design, by this allegory, was to show the many assaults to which the life of man is exposed, and to let his reader see, that there was scarce anything in nature so very mean and inconsiderable, but that it was able to overcome him, and lay his head in the dust. I remember Monsieur Paschal, in his reflections on Providence, has this observation upon Cromwell's death. "That usurper,' says he, "who had destroyed the royal family in his own nation, who had made all the princes of Europe tremble, and struck a terror into Rome itself, was at last taken out of the world by a fit of the gravel. An atom, a grain of sand," says he, "that would have been of no significancy in any other part of the universe, being lodged in such a particular place, was an instrument of Providence to bring about the most happy revolution, and to remove from the face of the earth this troubler of mankind." In short, swarms of distempers are everywhere hovering over us; casualties, whether at home or abroad, whether we wake or sleep, sit or walk, are planted about us in ambuscade; every element, every climate, every season, all nature is full of death.

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There are more casualties incident to men than women, as

1 The construction had been easier and more exact, if the author had said-there was scarce anything in nature, however mean and inconsiderable, which was not able to, &c.

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battles,1 sea-voyages, with several dangerous trades and professions, that often prove fatal to the practitioners. I have seen a treatise written by a learned physician on the distempers peculiar to those who work in stone or marble. It has been, therefore, observed by curious men, that, upon a strict examination, there are more males brought into the world than females. Providence, to supply this waste in the species, has made allowances for it, by a suitable redundancy in the male sex. Those who have made the nicest calculations have found, I think, that taking one year with another, there are about twenty boys produced to nineteen girls. This observation is so well grounded, that I will at any time lay five to four, that there appear more male than female infants in every weekly bill of mortality. And what can be a more demonstrative argument for the superintendency of Providence ?

There are casualties incident to every particular station and way of life. A friend of mine was once saying, that he fancied there would be something new and diverting in a country bill of mortality. Upon communicating this hint to a gentleman who was then going down to his seat, which lies at a considerable distance from London, he told me he would make a collection, as well as he could, of the several deaths that had happened in his country for the space of a whole year, and send them up to me in the form of such a bill as I mentioned. The reader will here see that he has been as good as his promise. To make it the more entertaining, he has set down, among the real distempers, some imaginary ones, to which the country people ascribed the deaths of some of their neighbours. I shall extract out of them such only as seem almost peculiar to the country, laying aside fevers, apoplexies, small-pox, and the like, which they have in common with towns and cities.

Of a six-bar gate, fox-hunters
Of a quickset hedge

Two duels, viz.

First, between a frying-pan and a pitchfork

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1 As battles, &c.] Battles, sea-voyages, trades, and professions, are not themselves casualties, but situations of life, from which they arise. The author should have said—such, for instance, as befall them in battles, seavoyages, or in several dangerous trades, &c. Or it might be sufficient to change as to from.

Second, between a joint-stool and a brown jug

Bewitched

Of an evil tongue

Crossed in love

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Broke his neck in robbing a henroost

Cut finger turned to a gangrene by an old gentle

woman of the parish

Surfeit of curds and cream

Took cold sleeping at church

Of a sprain in his shoulder, by saving his dog at a bull-baiting

Lady B's cordial water

Knocked down by a quart bottle

Frighted out of his wits by a headless dog with

saucer eyes

Of October

Broke a vein in bawling for a knight of the shire
Old women drowned upon trial of witchcraft

Climbing a crow's nest

Chalk and green apples

Led into a horse-pond by a Will of the Wisp
Died of a fright in an exercise of the trained bands
Over-eat himself at a house-warming

By the parson's bull

Vagrant beggars worried by the Squire's house-dog
Shot by mistake

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No. 137. TUESDAY, AUGUST 18.

-sanctus haberi

Justitiæque tenax, factis dictisque mereris ?

Agnosco procerem—

Juv.

HORACE, Juvenal, Boileau, and indeed the greatest writers in almost every age, have exposed, with all the strength of wit and good sense, the vanity of a man's valuing himself

upon his ancestors, and endeavoured to show that true nobility consists in virtue, not in birth. With submission, however, to so many great authorities, I think they have pushed this matter a little too far. We ought in gratitude to honour the posterity of those who have raised either the interest or reputation of their country, and by whose labours we ourselves are more happy, wise, or virtuous, than we should have been without them. Besides, naturally speaking, a man bids fairer for greatness of soul, who is the descendant of worthy ancestors, and has good blood in his veins, than one who is come of an ignoble and obscure parentage. For these reasons, I think a man of merit, who is derived from an illustrious line, is very justly to be regarded more than a man of equal merit who has no claim to hereditary honours. Nay, I think those who are indifferent in themselves, and have nothing else to distinguish them but the virtues of their forefathers, are to be looked upon with a degree of veneration even upon that account, and to be more respected than the common run of men who are of low and vulgar extraction.

After having thus ascribed due honours to birth and parentage, I must, however, take notice of those who arrogate to themselves more honours than are due to them upon this account. The first are such who are not enough sensible that vice and ignorance taint the blood, and that an unworthy behaviour degrades and disennobles a man, in the eye of the world, as much as birth and family aggrandize and exalt him.

The second are those who believe a new man of an elevated merit is not more to be honoured than an insignificant and worthless man who is descended from a long line of patriots and heroes: or, in other words, behold with contempt a person who is such a man as the first founder of their family was, upon whose reputation they value themselves.

But I shall chiefly apply myself to those whose quality

1-Who have raised—and by whose labours we, &c.] This construction is, indeed, in frequent use, but not so natural as the following would have been-" who have raised—and who, by their labours, have made ourselves more happy," &c. The mind loves to proceed in the construction with which it set out, and suffers a kind of torture in having another presently forced upon it.

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sits uppermost in all discourses and behaviour. An empty man of a great family is a creature that is scarce conversible. You read his ancestry in his smile, in his air, in his eye-brow. He has, indeed, nothing but his nobility to give employment to his thoughts. Rank and precedency are the important points which he is always dicussing within himself. A A gentleman of this turn begun a speech in one of King Charles's parliaments: "Sir, I had the honour to be born at a timeupon which a rough honest gentleman took him up short, "I would fain know what that gentleman means: is there any one in this house that has not had the honour to be born as well as himself?" The good sense which reigns in our nation has pretty well destroyed this starched behaviour among men who have seen the world, and know that every gentleman will be treated upon a foot of equality. But there are many who have had their education among women, dependants, or flatterers, that lose all the respect, which would otherwise be paid them, by being too assiduous in procuring it.

My Lord Froth has been so educated in punctilio, that he governs himself by a ceremonial in all the ordinary occurrences of life. He measures out his bow to the degree of the person he converses with. I have seen him in every inclination of the body, from a familiar nod to the low stoop in the salutation-sign. I remember five of us, who were acquainted with one another, met together one morning at his lodgings, when a wag of the company was saying, it would be worth while to observe how he would distinguish us at his first entrance. Accordingly he no sooner came into the room, but casting his eye about, "My Lord such a one, (says he,) your most humble servant. Sir Richard, your humble servant. Your servant, Mr. Ironside. Mr. Ducker, how do you do? Hah! Frank, are you there ?

There is nothing more easy than to discover a man whose heart is full of his family. Weak minds that have imbibed a strong tincture of the nursery, younger brothers that have been brought up to nothing, superannuated retainers to a great house, have generally their thoughts taken up with little else.

1 Many who have had—that lose.] To avoid the two unconnected relatives, who and that-read thus-many who having had, or, who, in consequence of having had, &c.—lose all the respect.

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