nature can arrive. Triumph, applaufe, acclamation, are dear to the mind of man; but it is ftill a more ex¬ quifite delight to fay to yourfelf, you have done well, than to hear the whole human race pronounce you glorious, except you yourself can join with them in your own reflections. A mind thus equal and uniform may be deferted by little fashionable admirers and followers, but will ever be had in reverence by fouls like itself. The branches of the oak endure all the feafons of the year, though its leaves fall off in autumn; and these too will be restored with the returning fpring. T. N° 173. Tuesday, September 18. -Remove fera monftra, tuæque Saxificos vultus, quæcunque ea, tolle Medufæ. OVID. Met. lib. 5. ver. 216. Remove that horrid monster, and take hence IN a late paper I mentioned the project of an ingeni ous author for the erecting of feveral handicraft prizes to be contended for by our British artifans, and the influence they might have towards the improvement of our several manufactures. I have fince that been very much furprised with the following advertisement which I find in the Poft-Boy of the eleventh inftant, and again repeated in the Poft-Boy of the fifteenth. ON the ninth of October next will be run for upon Cole's-hill-Heath inWarwickshire, a plate of fix guineas ⚫ value, three heats, by any horfe, mare, or gelding that hath not won above the value of five pounds, the winning horfe to be fold for ten pounds, to carry ten ftone weight, if fourteen hands high; if above or under to carry or be allowed weight for inches, and to be entered Friday the fifth at the Swan in Cole's-hill, before fix in the evening. Alfo a plate of lefs value to be run for by affes. The fame day a gold ring to be grinned for by men.' The first of these diverfions that is to be exhibited by the ten pounds race-horses, may probably have its use; but the two laft in which the affes and men are concerned, feem to me altogether extraordinary and unaccountable. Why they should keep running affes at Cole's-hill, or how making mouths turns to account in Warwickfhire, more than in any other parts of England, I cannot comprehend. I have looked over all the Olympic games, and do not find any thing in them like an assrace, or a match at grinning. However it be, I am informed that feveral affes are now kept in body-clothes, and fweated every morning upon the Heath, and that all the country-fellows within ten miles of the Swan, grin an hour or two in their glaffes every morning, in order to qualify themfelves for the ninth of October. The prize, which is propofed to be grinned for, has raised fuch an ambition among the common-people of outgrinning one another, that many very difcerning perfons are afraid it should spoil most of the faces in the country; and that a Warwickshire man will be known by his grin, as Roman catholics imagine a Kentish man is by his tail. The gold ring which is made the prize of deformity, is just the reverfe of the golden apple that was formerly made the prize of beauty, and should carry for its pofy the old motto inverted, Detur tetriori. Or to accommodate it to the capacity of the combatants, The frightfull'ft grinner Be the winner. In the mean while I would advise a Dutch painter to be prefent at this great controverfy of faces, in order to make a collection of the most remarkable grins that shall be there exhibited. I must not here omit an account which I lately received of one of these grinning-matches from a gentleman, who, upon reading the above-mentioned advertisement, entertained the coffee-house with the following narrative. Upon the taking of Namure, amidst other public rejoicings made on that occafion, there was a gold ring given by a whig juftice of peace to be grinned for. The first competitor that entered the lifts, was a black fwarthy Frenchman, who accidentally paffed that way, and being a man naturally of a withered look, and hard features, promifed himself good fuccefs. He was placed upon a table in the great point of view, and looking upon the like Milton's Death, company Grinn'd horribly a ghaftly fmile His mufcles were fo drawn together on each fide of his face, that he fhewed twenty teeth at a grin, and put the country in fome pain, left a foreigner should carry away the honour of the day; but upon a farther trial they found he was mafter only of the merry grin. The next that mounted the table was a malecontent in those days, and a great mafter in the whole art of grinning, but particularly excelled in the angry grin. He did his part fo well, that he is faid to have made half a dozen women mifcarry; but the juftice being apprised by one who stood near him, that the fellow who grinned in his face was a Jacobite, and being unwilling that a difaffected perfon fhould win the gold ring, and be looked upon as the best grinner in the country, he ordered the oaths to be tendered unto him upon his quitting the table, which the grinner refufing, he was fet afide as an unqualified perfon. There were feveral other grotesque figures that prefented themselves, which it would be too tedious to defcribe. I must not however omit a ploughman, who lived in the farther part of the country, and being very lucky in a pair of long lanthorn jaws, wrung his face into fuch an hideous grimace, that every feature of it appeared under a different distortion. The whole company stood aftonifhed at fuch a complicated grin, and were ready to affign the prize to him, had it not been proved by one of his antagonists, that he had practifed with verjuice for fome days before, and had a crab found upon him at the very time of grinning; upon which the beft judges of grinning declared it as their opinion, that he was not to be looked upon as a fair grinner, and therefore ordered him to be fet afide as a cheat. The prize it seems fell at length upon a cobbler, Giles Gorgon by name, who produced feveral new grins of his, own invention, having been used to cut faces for many years together over his laft. At the very first grin he caft every human feature out of his countenance, at the fecond he became the face of a fpout, at the third a baboon, at the fourth the head of a bass viol, and at the fifth a pair of nut-crackers. The whole affembly wondered at his accomplishments, and bestowed the ring on him unanimoufly; but, what he esteemed more than all the reft, a country wench, whom he had wooed in vain for above five years before, was fo charmed with his grins, and the applaufes which he received on all fides, that the married him the week following, and to this day we ars the prize uponher finger, the cobbler having made ufe of it as his wedding-ring. This paper might perhaps feem very impertinent, if it grew ferious in the conclufion. I would nevertheless leave it to the confideration of those who are the patrons of this monstrous trial of skill, whether or no they are not guilty, in fome meafure, of an affront to their fpecies, in treating after this manner the Human Face Divine, and turning that part of us, which has fo great an image impreffed upon it, into the inage of a monkey; whether the raifing fuch filly competitions among the ignorant, propofing prizes for fuch ufelefs accomplishments, filling the common people's heads with fuch fenfelefs ambitions, and infpiring them with fuch abfurd ideas of fuperiority and pre-eminence, has not in it fomething immoral as well as ridiculous. L. VIRG. Ecl. 7. ver. 69. These rhymes I did to memory commend, When vanquish'dThyrfisdid in vain contend. DRYDEN. THERE HERE is fcarce any thing more common than animofities between parties that cannot fubfift but by their agreement: this was well reprefented in the fedition of the members of the human body in the old Roman fable. It is often the cafe of leffer confederate kates against a fuperior power, which are hardly held together, though their unanimity is neceffary for their common fafety and this is always the cafe of the landed and trading intereft of Great-Britain: the trader is fed by the product of the land, and the landed man cannot be clothed but by the skill of the trader; and yet thofe interefts are ever jarring. : We had laft winter an inftance of this at our club, in fir ROGER DE COVERLEY and fir ANDREW FREEPORT, between whom there is generally a conftant, though friendly, oppofition of opinions. It happened that one of the company, in an hiftorical difcourfe, was observing, that Carthaginian faith was a proverbial phrase to intimate breach of leagues. Sir ROGER faid it could hardly be otherwife; that the Carthaginians were the greatest traders in the world; and as gain is the chief end of fuch a people, they never purfue any other: the means to it are never regarded; they will, if it comes eafily, get money honeftly; but if not, they will not fcruple to attain it by fraud or cozenage: and indeed, what is the whole bufinefs of the trader's account, but to over-reach him who trufts to his memory? But were that not fo, what can there great and noble be expected from him whofe attention is for ever fixed upon balancing his books, and watching over his expences? And at beft, let frugality and parfimony be the virtues of the merchant, how much is his punctual dealing below a gentleman's charity to the poor, or hospitality among his neighbours? Captain SENTRY obferved fir ANDREW very diligent in hearing fir ROGER, and had a mind to turn the difcourse, by taking notice in general, from the highest to the lowest parts of human fociety, there was a fecret, though unjuft, way among men, of indulging the feeds of ill-nature and envy, by comparing their own ftate of life to that of another, and grudging the approach of their neighbour to their own happiness; and on the other fide, he who is the lefs at his cafe, repines at the other, who, he thinks, has unjustly the advantage over him. Thus the civil and military lifts look upon each other with much ill-nature; the foldier repines at the VOL. III. B |