honest country gentleman had the misfortune to fall into company with two or three modern men of honour, where he happened to be very ill-treated; and one of the company, being conscious of his offence, sends a note to him in the morning, and tells him, he was ready to give him satisfaction. "This is fine doing," says the plain fellow; "last night he sent me away cursedly out of humour, and this morning he fancies it would be a satisfaction to be run through the body."

As the matter at present stands, it is not to do handsome actions denominates a man of honour; it is enough if he dares to defend ill ones. Thus you often see a common sharper in competition with a gentleman of the first rank; though all mankind is convinced, that a fighting gamester is only a pickpocket with the courage of an highway-man. One cannot with any patience reflect on the unaccountable jumble of persons and things in this town and nation, which occasions very frequently, that a brave man falls by a hand below that of a common hangman, and yet his executioner escapes the clutches of the hangman for doing it. I shall therefore hereafter consider, how the bravest men in other ages and nations have behaved themselves upon such incidents as we decide by combat ; and shew, from their practice, that this resentment neither has its foundation from true reason or solid fame; but is an imposture, made of cowardice, falsehood, and want of understanding. For this work, a good history of quarrels would be very edifying to the public, and I apply myself to the town for particulars and circumstances within their knowledge, which may serve to embellish the dissertation with proper cuts. Most of the quarrels I have ever known, have proceeded from some valiant coxcomb's persisting in the wrong, to defend some prevailing folly, and preserve himself from the ingenuousness of owning a mistake.

By this means it is called "giving a man satisfaction," to urge your offence against him with your sword; which puts me in mind of Peter's order to the keeper, in The Tale of a Tub :“if you neglect to do all this, damn you and your generation for ever: and so we bid you heartily farewel." If the contradiction in

the very terms of one of our challenges were as well explained and turned into downright English, would it not run after this manner?

"SIR,

"Your extraordinary behaviour last night, and the liberty you were pleased to take with me, makes me this morning give you this, to tell you, because you are an ill-bred puppy, I will meet you in Hyde-park, an hour hence; and because you want both breeding and humanity, I desire you would come with a pistol in your hand, on horseback, and endeavour to shoot me through the head, to teach you more manners. If you fail of doing me this pleasure, I shall say, you are a rascal, on every post in town: and so, sir, if you will not injure me more, I shall never forgive what you have done already. Pray, sir, do not fail of getting everything ready; and you will infinitely oblige, sir, your most obedient humble servant, &c."

SNUFF

No. 35. THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 1709. [STEELE.]

THERE is a habit or custom which I have put my patience to the utmost stretch to have suffered so long, because several of my intimate friends are in the guilt; and that is, the humour of taking snuff, and looking dirty about the mouth by way of ornament.

My method is, to dive to the bottom of a sore before I pretend to apply a remedy. For this reason, I sat by an eminent story-teller and politician, who takes half an ounce in five seconds, and has mortgaged a pretty tenement near the town, merely to improve and dung his brains with this prolific powder. I observed this gentleman, the other day, in the midst of a story, diverted from it by looking at something at a distance, and I

softly hid his box. But he returns to his tale, and, looking for his box, he cries, " And so, sir-" Then, when he should have taken a pinch, "As I was saying-" says he, " has nobody seen my box?" His friend beseeches him to finish his narration: then he proceeds: "And so, sir- -where can my box be?" Then turning to me, " Pray, sir, did you see my box?" "Yes, sir,” said I, "I took it to see how long you could live without it." He resumes his tale, and I took notice that his dulness was much more regular and fluent than before. A pinch supplied the place of "As I was saying," and "So, sir;" and he went on currently enough in that style which the learned call the insipid. This observation easily led me into a philosophic reason for taking snuff, which is done only to supply with sensations the want of reflection. This I take to be an €йρηκа, а nostrum ; upon which I hope to receive the thanks of this board; for as it is natural to lift a man's hand to a sore, when you fear anything coming at you; so when a person feels his thoughts are run out, and he has no more to say, it is as natural to supply his weak brain with powder at the nearest place of access, viz. the nostrils. This is so evident that nature suggests the use according to the indigence of the persons who take this medicine, without being prepossessed with the force of fashion or custom. For example; the native Hibernians, who are reckoned not much unlike the antient Boeotians, take this specific for emptiness in the head, in greater abundance than any other nation under the sun. The learned Sotus, as sparing as he is in his words, would be still more silent if it were not for this powder.

However low and poor the taking of snuff argues a man to be in his own stock of thoughts, or means to employ his brains and his fingers; yet there is a poorer creature in the world than he, and this is a borrower of snuff; a fellow that keeps no box of his own, but is always asking others for a pinch. Such poor rogues put me always in mind of a common phrase among school-boys when they are composing their exercise, who run to an upper scholar, and cry, "Pray give me a little sense." But of all things commend me to the ladies who are got into

this pretty help to discourse. I have been these three years persuading Sagissa* to leave it off; but she talks so much, and is so learned, that she is above contradiction. However, an accident the other day brought that about, which my eloquence could never accomplish. She had a very pretty fellow in her closet, who ran thither to avoid some company that came to visit her; she made an excuse to go in to him for some implement they were talking of. Her eager gallant snatched a kiss; but, being unused to snuff, some grains from off her upper lip made him sneeze aloud, which alarmed the visitants, and has made a discovery, that profound reading, very much intelligence, and a general knowledge of who and who are together, cannot fill her vacant hours so much, but she is sometimes obliged to descend to entertainments less intellectual.

AN EXERCISE OF ARMS.

No. 41. THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1709. [STEELE.]

Celebrare domestica facta.

"To celebrate domestic deeds."

THERE is no one thing more to be lamented in our nation, than their general affectation of every thing that is foreign; nay, we carry it so far, that we are more anxious for our own countrymen when they have crossed the seas, than when we see them in the same dangerous condition before our eyes at home else how is it possible, that on the twenty-ninth of the last month, there should have been a battle fought in our very streets of London, and nobody at this end of the town have heard of it? I protest, I, who make it my business to enquire after adventures, should never have known this, had not the following account been sent me inclosed in a letter. This, it

*The lady here alluded to, under the name of Sagissa, a diminutive from the word Sage, was Mrs. de la Riviere Manley, who provoked Steele by the liberties she had taken with his character in her "New Atalantis."

seems, is the way of giving out orders in the Artillerycompany; and they prepare for a day of action with so little concern, as only to call it, "An Exercise of Arms."

"An Exercise of Arms of the Artillery-company, to be performed on Wednesday, June the twenty-ninth, 1709, under the command of Sir Joseph Woolfe, knight and alderman, general; Charles Hopson, esquire, present sheriff, lieutenantgeneral; Captain Richard Synge, major; Major John Shorey, captain of grenadiers; Captain William Grayhust, Captain John Butler, Captain Robert Carellis, captains.

"The body marched from the Artillery-ground, through Moorgate, Coleman Street, Lothbury, Broad Street, Finch Lane, Cornhill, Cheapside, St. Martin's, St. Anne's Lane, halt the pikes under the wall in Noble Street, draw up the firelocks facing the Goldsmiths' Hall, make ready and face to the left, and fire, and so ditto three times. Beat to arms, and march round the hall, as up Lad Lane, Gutter Lane, Honey Lane, and so wheel to the right, and make your salute to my lord, and so down St. Ann's Lane, up Aldersgate Street, Barbican, and draw up in Red Cross Street, the right at St. Paul's Alley in the rear. March off lieutenant-general with half the body up Beech Lane: he sends a sub-division up King's Head Court, and takes post in it, and marches two divisions round into Red Lion Market, to defend that pass, and succour the division in King's Head Court; but keeps in White Cross Street, facing Beech Lane, the rest of the body ready drawn up. Then the general marches up Beech Lane, is attacked, but forces the division in the court into the market, and enters with three divisions while he presses the lieutenant-general's main body; and at the same time the three divisions force those of the revolters out of the market, and so all the lieutenant-general's body retreats into Chiswell Street, and lodges two divisions in Grub Street: and as the general marches on, they fall on his flank, but soon made to give way : but have a retreating-place in Red Lion Court, but could not hold it, being put to flight through Paul's Alley, and pursued by the general's grenadiers, while he marches up and attacks