would never be masters of half as much as is seemingly in them, and given from them every day they live. But before five in the afternoon I left the city, came to my common scene of Covent Garden, and passed the evening at Will's, in attending the discourses of several sets of people, who relieved each other within my hearing on the subject of cards, dice, love, learning, and politics. The last subject kept me until I heard the streets in the possession of the bellman, who had now the world to himself, and criedPast two of the clock.' This roused me from my seat, and I went to my lodging, led by a light, whom I put into the discourse of his private economy, and made him give me an account of the charge, hazard, profit, and loss of a family that depended upon a link, with a design to end my trivial day with the generosity of sixpence, instead of a third part of that sum. When I came to my chambers I writ down these minutes; but was at a loss what instruction I should propose to my reader from the enumeration of so many insignificant matters and occurrences; and I thought it of great use, if they could learn with me to keep their minds open to gratification, and ready to receive it from anything it meets with. This one circumstance will make every face you see give you

the

the satisfaction you now take in beholding that of a friend; will make every object a pleasing one; will make all the good which arrives to any man, an increase of happiness to yourself.

[August 11, 1712.]

SPECTATOR]

N° 20

[STEELE

DICK ESTCOURT: IN MEMORIAM.

Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui plurimum et salis haberet et fellis, nec candoris minus.—PLIN.

MY

Y paper is in a kind a letter of news, but it regards rather what passes in the world of conversation than that of business. I am very sorry that I have at present a circumstance before me, which is of very great importance to all who have a relish for gaiety, wit, mirth, or humour; I mean the death of poor Dick Estcourt. I have been obliged to him for so many hours of jollity, that it is but a small recompense, though all I can give him, to pass a moment or two in sadness for the loss of so agreeable a man. Poor Estcourt! the last time I saw him, we were plotting to shew the town his great capacity for acting in its full light, by introducing him as dictating to a set of young players in what manner to speak this

sentence,

sentence, and utter t'other passion.-He had so exquisite a discerning of what was defective in any object before him, that in an instant he could show you the ridiculous side of what would pass for beautiful and just, even to men of no ill judgment, before he had pointed at the failure. He was no less skilful in the knowledge of beauty; and, I dare say, there is no one who knew him well, but can repeat more well-turned compliments, as well as smart repartees, of Mr. Estcourt's, than of any other man in England. This was easily to be observed in his inimitable faculty of telling a story, in which he would throw in natural and unexpected incidents to make his court to one part, and rally the other part of the company: then he would vary the usage he gave them, according as he saw them bear kind or sharp language. He had the knack to raise up a pensive temper, and mortify an impertinently gay one, with the most agreeable skill imaginable. There are a thousand things which crowd into my memory, which make me too much concerned to tell on about him. Hamlet holding up the skull which the gravedigger threw to him, with an account that it was the head of the king's jester, falls into very pleasing reflections, and cries out to his companion

'Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a

' fellow

'fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he

hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and 'now how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge ' rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed 'I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? 'your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merri· ment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? 'Not one now to mock your own grinning? quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, ' and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this 'favour she must come; make her laugh at that.'

It is an insolence natural to the wealthy, to affix, as much as in them lies, the character of a man to his circumstances. Thus it is ordinary with them to praise faintly the good qualities of those below them, and say, it is very extraordinary in such a man as he is, or the like, when they are forced to acknowledge the value of him whose lowness upbraids their exaltation. It is to this humour only, that it is to be ascribed that a quick wit in conversation, a nice judgment upon any emergency that could arise, and a most blameless inoffensive behaviour could not raise this man above being received only upon the foot of contributing to mirth and diversion. But he was as easy under that condition, as a man of so

excellent