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Mr. SPECTATOR,

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I AM wife to a clergyman, and cannot help thinking that in your tenth or tithe character of woman'kind you meant myself, therefore I have no quarrel against you for the other nine characters. • Your humble fervant,

X.

'A. B.'

N° 218.

Friday, November 9.

Quid de

-Have a care

quoque viro, & cui dicas, fæpe caveto.

HOR. Ep. 18. lib. 1. ver. 68.

Of whom you talk, to whom, and what, and where.

POOLY.

I HAPPENED the other day, as my way is, to stroll

into a little coffee-houfe beyond Aldgate, and as I fat there, two or three very plain fenfible men were talking of the SPECTATOR. One faid, that he had that morning drawn the great benefit-ticket; another wished he had; but a third fhaked his head and faid, it was pity that the writer of that paper was fuch a fort of man, that it was no great matter whether he had it or no. He is, it seems, faid the good man, the most extravagant creature in the world; has run through vast sums, and yet been in continual want; a man, for all he talks fo well of economy, unfit for any of the offices of life by reafon of his profufenefs. It would be an unhappy thing to be his wife, his child, or his friend; and yet he talks as well of thofe duties of life as any one. reflection has brought me to fo eafy a contempt for every thing which is falfe, that this heavy accufation gave me no inanner of uneafinefs; but at the fame time it threw me into deep thought upon the fubject of fame in general; and I could not but pity fuch as were fo weak, as to value what the common people fay out of their

Much

own talkative temper, to the advantage or diminution of thofe whom they mention, without being moved either by malice or good-will. It will be too long to expatiate upon the fenfe all mankind have of fame, and the inexpreffible pleasure which there is in the approbation of worthy men, to all who are capable of worthy actions; but methinks one may divide the general word fame into three different fpecies, as it regards the different orders of mankind who have any thing to do with it. Fame therefore may be divided into glory, which refpects the hero; reputation, which is preferved by every gentleman; and credit, which must be fupported by every tradefman. Thefe poffeffions in fame are dearer than life to thofe characters of men, or rather are the life of these characters. Glory, while the hero pursues great and noble enterprises, is impregnable; and all the affailants of his renown do but fhew their pain and impatience of its brightness, without throwing the leaft fhade upon it. If the foundation of an high name be virtue and fervice, all that is offered against it is but rumour, which is too fhort-lived to ftand up in competition with glory, which is everlasting.

Reputation, which is the portion of every man who would live with the elegant and knowing part of mankind, is as stable as glory, if it be as well founded; and the common caufe of human fociety is thought concerned when we hear a man of good behaviour calumniated: befides which, according to a prevailing cufton amongst us, every man has his defence in his own arm and proach is foon checked, put out of countenance, and overtaken by difgrace.

The moft unhappy of all men, and the moft expofed" to the malignity and wantonnefs of the common voice, is the trader. Credit is undone in whispers. The tradesman's wound is received from one who is more private and more cruel than the ruffian with the lanthorn and dagger. The manner of repeating a man's name,-As; "Mr. "Cafh, Oh! do you leave your money at his fhop? "Why? do you know Mr. Searoom? He is indeed a ge"neral merchant." I fay, I have feen, from the iteration of a man's name, hiding one thought of him, and explaining what you hide, by faying fomething to his advantage when

you speak, a merchant hurt in his credit; and him who every day he lived, literally added to the value of his native country, undone by one who was only a burden and a blemish to it. Since every body who knows the world is fenfible of this great evil, how careful ought a man to be in his language of a merchant? It may poffibly be in

the power of a very fhallow creature to lay the ruin of

the best family in the most opulent city; and the more fo, the more highly he deferves of his country; that is to fay, the farther he places his wealth out of his hands, to draw home that of another climate.

In this cafe an ill word may change plenty into want, and by a rash sentence a free and generous fortune may in a few days be reduced to beggary. How little does a giddy prater imagine, that an idle phrafe to the disfavour of a merchant may be as pernicious in the confequence, as the forgery of a deed to bar an inheritance would be to a gentleman? Land ftands where it did before a gentleman was calumniated, and the state of a great action is juft as it was before calumny was offered to diminish it, and there is time, place and occafion expected to unravel all that is contrived against those characters; but the trader who is ready only for probable demands upon him, can have no armour against the inquifitive, the malicious, and the envious, who are prepared to fill the cry to his difhonour. Fire and fword are flow engines of deftruction, in comparison of the babbler in the cafe of the merchant.

For this reafon I thought it an imitable piece of humanity of a gentleman of my acquaintance, who had great variety of affairs, and used to talk with warmth enough against gentlemen by whom he thought himself ill dealt with; that he would never let any thing be urged against a merchant, with whom he had any dif ference, except in a court of juftice. He used to fay, that to fpeak ill of a merchant, was to begin his fuit with judgment and execution. One cannot, I think, fay more on this occafion, than to repeat, that the merit of the merchant is above that of all other fubjects; for while he is untouched in his credit, his hand-writing is a more portable coin for the fervice of his fellow-citizens, and his word the gold of Ophir to the country wherein he refides.

VOL. III.

I

T.

N° 219.

Saturday, November 10.

Vix ea noftra voco

-OVID. Met. lib. 13. ver. 141.

Thefe I fcarce call our own.

THERE

HERE are but few men who are not ambitious of diftinguishing themselves in the nation or country where they live, and of growing confiderable among those with whom they converfe. There is a kind of grandeur and refpect, which the meaneft and moft infignificant part of mankind endeavour to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The pooreft mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his fet of admirers, and delights in that fuperiority which he enjoys over those who are in fome refpects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the foul of man, might methinks receive a very happy turn; and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage, as it generally does to his uneafinefs and difquiet.

I fhall therefore put together fome thoughts on this fubject, which I have not met with in other writers; and fhall fet them down as they have occurred to me, without being at the pains to connect or methodise them. All fuperiority and pre-eminence that one man can have over another, may be reduced to the notion of quality, which, confidered at large, is either that of fortune, body, or mind. The first is that which confifts in birth, title, or riches; and is the moft foreign to our natures, and what we can the leaft call our own of any of the three kinds of quality In relation to the body, quality arifes from health, ftrength, or beauty; which are nearer to us, and more a part of ourfelves than the former. Quality, as it regards the mind, has its rife from knowledge or virtue; and is that which is more effential to us, and more intimately united with us than either of the other two.

The quality of fortune, though a man has lefs reafon to value himself upon it than on that of the body or mind,

is however the kind of quality which makes the most fhining figure in the eye of the world.

As virtue is the most reasonable and genuine fource of honour, we generally find in titles an intimation of fome particular merit that fhould recommend men to the high stations which they poffefs. Holiness is afcribed to the pope; majefty to kings; ferenity or mildness of temper to princes; excellence or perfection to ambaffadors; grace to archbishops'; honour to peers; worship or venerable behaviour to magiftrates; and reverence, which is of the fame import as the former, to the inferior clergy. In the founders of great families, fuch attributes of honour are generally correfpondent with the virtues of the person to whom they are applied; but in the defcendants they are too often the marks rather of grandeur than of merit. The ftamp and denomination ftill continues, but the intrinfic value is frequently loft.

The death-bed fhews the emptinefs of titles in a true light. A poor difpirited finner lies trembling under the apprehenfions of the ftate he is entering on; and is afked by a grave attendant how his holiness does? Another hears himself addreffed to under the title of highness or excellency, who lies under fuch mean circumftances of mortality, as are the difgrace of human nature. Titles at fuch a time look rather like infults and mockery than respect.

The truth of it is, honours are in this world under no regulation; true quality is neglected, virtue is oppreffed, and vice triumphant. The laft day will rectify this diforder, and affign to every one a station fuitable to the dignity of his character; ranks will be then adjusted, and precedency fet right.

Methinks we fhould have an ambition, if not to advance ourselves in another world, at least to preserve our poft in it, and outshine our inferiors in virtue here, that they may not be put above us in a state which is to fettle the diftinction for eternity.

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Men in fcripture are called "ftrangers and fojourners upon earth," and life a pilgrimage." Several heathen, as well as chriftian authors, under the fame kind of metaphor, have reprefented the world as an inn, which was only defigned to furnish us with accommodations in

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