willing to draw some superiority over his friends from his fortune; for it is not every man that can entertain with the air of a guest, and do good offices with the mien of one that receives them.

I must confess, I cannot conceive how a man can place himself in a figure wherein he can so much enjoy his own soul, and, that greatest of pleasures, the just approbation of his own actions, than as an adventurer on this occasion, to sit and see the lots go off without hope and fear; perfectly unconcerned as to himself, but taking part in the good fortune of others.

I will believe there are happy tempers in being, to whom all the good that arrives to any of their fellow-creatures gives a pleasure. These live in a course of lasting and substantial happiness, and have the satisfaction to see all men endeavour to gratify them. This state of mind not only lets a man into certain enjoyments, but relieves him from as certain anxieties. If you will not rejoice with happy men, you must repine at them. Dick Reptile alluded to this when he said, "he would hate no man, out of pure idleness." As for my own part, I look at Fortune in quite another view than the rest of the world; and, by my knowledge in futurity, tremble at the approaching prize, which I see coming to a young lady for whom I have much tenderness; and have therefore writ to her the following letter, to be sent by Mr. Elliot, with the notice of her ticket.

"MADAM,

"You receive, at the instant this comes to your hands, an account of your having, what you only wanted, fortune; and to admonish you, that you may not now want every thing else. You had yesterday wit, virtue, beauty; but you never heard of them until to-day. They say Fortune is blind; but you will find she has opened the eyes of all your beholders. I beseech you, madam, make use of the advantages of having been educated without flattery. If you can still be Chloe, Fortune has indeed been kind to you; if you are altered, she has it not in her power to give you an equivalent,"

SOUNDS OF HONOUR.

No. 204. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1710. [STEELE.]

MANY are the inconveniences which happen from the improper manner of address in common speech, between persons of the same or of different quality. Among these errors, there is none greater than that of the impertinent use of title, and a paraphrastical way of saying, You. I had the curiosity the other day, to follow a crowd of people near Billingsgate, who were conducting a passionate woman that sold fish to a magistrate, in order to explain some words, which were ill taken by one of her own quality and profession in the public market. When she came to her defence, she was so very full of, "His Worship," and of, "If it should please his Honour," that we could, for some time, hardly hear any other apology she made for herself, than that of atoning for the ill language she had been accused of towards her neighbour, by the great civilities she paid to her judge. But this extravagance in her sense of doing honour was no more to be wondered at, than that her many rings on each finger were worn as instances of finery and dress. The vulgar may thus heap and huddle terms of respect, and nothing better be expected from them; but for people of rank to repeat appellatives insignificantly, is a folly not to be endured, neither with regard to our time, or our understanding. It is below the dignity of speech to extend it with more words or phrases than are necessary to explain ourselves with elegance; and it is, methinks, an instance of ignorance, if not of servitude, to be redundant in such expressions.

I waited upon a man of quality some mornings ago. He happened to be dressing; and his shoe-maker fitting him,

told him, "that if his Lordship would please to tread hard, or that if his Lordship would stamp a little, his Lordship would find his Lordship's shoe will fit as easy as any piece of work his Lordship should see in England." As soon as my lord was dressed, a gentleman approached him with a very good air, and told him, "he had an affair which had long depended in the lower courts; which through the inadvertency of his ancestors on the one side, and the ill arts of their adversaries on the other, could not possibly be settled according to the rules of the lower courts; that, therefore, he designed to bring his cause before the House of Lords next session, where he should be glad if his Lordship should happen to be present; for he doubted not but his cause would be approved by all men of justice and honour." In this place the word Lordship was gracefully inserted; because it was applied to him in that circumstance wherein his quality was the occasion of the discourse, and wherein it was most useful to the one, and most honourable to the other.

This way is so far from being disrespectful to the honour of nobles, that it is an expedient for using them with greater deference. I would not put Lordship to a man's hat, gloves, wig, or cane; but to desire his Lordship's favour, his Lordship's judgment, or his Lordship's patronage, is a manner of speaking, which expresses an alliance between his quality and his merit. It is this knowledge, which distinguished the discourse of the shoe-maker from that of the gentleman. The highest point of good-breeding, if any can hit it, is to shew a very nice regard to your own dignity, and, with that in your heart, express your value for the man above you.

But the silly humour to the contrary has so much prevailed, that the lavish addition of title enervates discourse, and renders the application of it almost ridiculous. We writers of Diurnals are nearer in our style to that of common talk than any other writers, by which means we use words of respect sometimes very unfortunately. The Post-man, who is one of the most celebrated of our fraternity, fell into this misfortune yesterday in his paragraph from Berlin of the

twenty-sixth of July. "Count Wartembourg," says he, "great chamberlain, and chief minister of this court, who on Monday last accompanied the King of Prussia to Oranienburg, was taken so very ill, that on Wednesday his life was despaired of; and we had a report, that his Excellency was dead."

I humbly presume that it flattens the narration, to say his Excellency in a case which is common to all men; except you would infer what is not to be inferred, to wit, that the author designed to say, "all wherein he excelled others was departed from him."

Were distinctions used according to the rules of reason and sense, those additions to men's names would be, as they were first intended, significant of their worth, and not their persons; so that in some cases it might be proper to say, "The man is dead; but his Excellency will never die." It is, methinks, very unjust to laugh at a Quaker, because he has taken up a resolution to treat you with a word, the most expressive of complaisance that can be thought of, and with an air of goodnature and charity calls you Friend. I say, it is very unjust to rally him for this term to a stranger, when you yourself, in all your phrases of distinction, confound phrases of honour into no use at all.

Tom Courtly, who is the pink of courtesy, is an instance of how little moment an undistinguishing application of sounds of honour are to those who understand themselves. Tom never fails of paying his obeisance to every man he sees, who has title or office to make him conspicuous; but his deference is wholly given to outward considerations. I, who know him, can tell him within half an acre, how much land one man has more than another by Tom's bow to him. Title is all he knows of honour, and civility of friendship for this reason, because he cares for no man living, he is religiously strict in performing, what he calls, his respects to you. To this end he is very learned in pedigree; and will abate something in the ceremony of his approaches to a man, if he is in any doubt about the bearing of his coat of arms. What is the most pleasant of all his character is, that he acts with a

sort of integrity in these impertinences; and though he would not do any solid kindness, he is wonderfully just and careful not to wrong his quality. But as integrity is very scarce in the world, I cannot forbear having respect for the impertinent : it is some virtue to be bound by any thing. Tom and I are upon very good terms, for the respect he has for the house of Bickerstaff. Though one cannot but laugh at his serious consideration of things so little essential, one must have a value even for a frivolous good conscience.

LOVE AND ESTEEM.

No. 206. THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1710. [STEELE.]

Metiri se quemque suo modulo ac pede verum est.

HOR. 1. Ep. vii.

All should be confin'd

Within the bounds, which nature hath assign'd.

THE general purposes of men in the conduct of their lives, I mean with relation to this life only, end in gaining either the affection or the esteem of those with whom they converse. Esteem makes a man powerful in business, and affection desirable in conversation; which is certainly the reason that very agreeable men fail of their point in the world, and those who are by no means such arrive at it with much ease. If it be visible in a man's carriage that he has a strong passion to please, no one is much at a loss how to keep measure with him; because there is always a balance in people's hands to make up with him, by giving him what he still wants in exchange for what you think fit to deny him. Such a person asks with diffidence, and ever leaves room for denial by that softness of his complexion. At the same time he himself is capable of denying nothing, even what he is not able to perform. The other sort of man who courts esteem, having a quite different view, has as different a behaviour; and acts as