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one may impute a certain insolence among our servants, that they take no notice of any gentleman, though they know him ever so well, except he is an acquaintance of their master's.

My obscurity and taciturnity leave me at liberty without scandal, to dine if I think fit, at a common ordinary, in the meanest as well as the most sumptuous house of entertainment.-Falling in the other day at a victualling-house near the house of peers, I heard the maid come down and tell the landlady at the bar, that my lord bishop swore he would throw her out at window, if she did not bring up more mild beer, and that my lord duke would have a double mug of purl. My surprise was increased, in hearing loud and rustic voices speak and answer to each other upon the public affairs, by the names of the most illustrious of our nobility; till of a sudden one came running in, and cried the house was rising. Down came all the company together and away! The alehouse was immediately filled with clamour, and scoring one mug to the marquis of such a place, oil and vinegar to such an earl, three quarts to my new lord for wetting his title, and so forth. It is a thing too notorious to mention the crowds of servants, and their insolence, near the courts of justice, and the stairs towards the supreme assembly, where there is an universal mockery of all order, such riotous clamour and licentious confusion, that one would think the whole nation lived in jest, and that there were no such thing as rule and distinction among us.

The next place of resort, wherein the servile world are let loose, is at the entrance of Hyde Park, while the gentry are at the ring. Hither people bring their lacqueys out of state, and here it is that all they say at their tables, and act in their houses, is Communicated to the whole town. There are men

of wit in all conditions of life; and mixing with these people at their diversions, I have heard coquettes and prudes as well rallied, and insolence and pride exposed, (allowing for their want of education) with as much humour and good sense, as in the politest companies. It is a general observation, that all dependents run in some measure into the manners and behaviour of those whom they serve. You shall frequently meet with lovers and men of intrigue among the lacqueys as well as at White's or in the side-boxes. I remember some years ago an instance of this kind. A footman to a captain of the guards used frequently, when his master was out of the way, to carry on amours and make assignations in his master's clothes. The fellow had a very good person, and there are very many women that think no further than the outside of a gentleman: besides which, he was almost as learned a man as the colonel* himself: I say, thus qualified, the fellow could scrawl billet-doux so well, and furnish a conversation on the common topics, that he had, as they call it, a great deal of good business on his hands. It happened one day, that coming down a tavern stairs in his master's fine guard-coat with a welldressed woman masked, he met the colonel coming up with other company; but with a ready assurance he quitted his lady, came up to him and said, Sir, I know you have too much respect for yourself to cane me in this honourable habit. But 'you see there is a lady in the case, and I hope on that score also, you will put off your anger till I have told you all another time.' After a little pause the colonel cleared up his countenance, and with an air of familiarity whispered his man apart, Sirrahı, bring the

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In the Spect. in folio, and in the edit. of 1712 in 8vo. this officer is styled both captain and colonel.

lady with you to ask pardon for you:' then aloud, 'Look to it, Will, I'll never forgive you else.' The fellow went back to his mistress, and telling her, with a loud voice and an oath, that was the honestest fellow in the world, conveyed her to an hackneycoach.

But the many irregularities committed by servants in the places above mentioned, as well as in theatres, of which masters are generally the occasions, are too various got to need being resumed on another occasion.

R.

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N° 89. TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1711.

· Petite hinc, juvenesque senesque,

Finem animo certum, miserisque viatica canis.
Cras hoc fiet. Idem cras fiet. Quid? quasi magnum,
Nempe diem donas? sed cùm lux altera venit,
Jam cras hesternum consumpsimus; ecce aliud cras
Egerit hos annos, et semper paulum erit ultra.
Nam quamvis prope te, quamvis temone sub uno,
Vertentem sese frustrà sectubere canthum.

PERS. Sat. v. 64.

Pers. From thee both old and young, with profit learn
The bounds of good and evil to discern.

Corn. Unhappy he, who does this work adjourn,
And to to-morrow wou'd the search delay :

His lazy morrow will be like to-day.

Pers. But is one day of ease too much to borrow?
Corn. Yes, sure; for yesterday was once to-morrow,

That yesterday is gone, and nothing gain'd;

And all thy fruitless days will thus be drain'd:

For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask,

And wilt be ever to begin thy task;

Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, are curst,
Still to be near, but ne'er to reach the first.

DRYDEN.

As my correspondents upon the subject of love are very numerous, it is my design, if possible, to range them under several heads, and address myself to them at different times. The first branch of them, to whose service I shall dedicate this paper, are those that have to do with women of dilatory tempers, who are for spinning out the time of courtship to an immoderate length, without being able either to close with their lovers, or to dismiss them. I have many letters by me filled with complaints against this sort

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of women. In one of them no less a man than a brother of the coif* tells me, that he began his suit vicesimo nono Caroli secundi, before he had been a twelvemonth at the Temple; that he prosecuted it for many years after he was called to the bar; that at present he is a serjeant at law; and notwithstanding he hoped that matters would have been long since brought to an issue, the fair one still demurs.-I am so well pleased with this gentleman's phrase, that I shall distinguish this sect of women by the title of Demurrers. I find by another letter from one that calls himself Thyrsis, that his mistress has been demurring above these seven years. But among all my plaintiffs of this nature, I most pity the unfortunate Philander, a man of a constant passion and plentiful fortune, who sets forth that the timorous and irresolute Sylvia has demurred till she is past child-bearing. Strephon appears by his letter to be a very choleric lover, and irrevocably smitten with one that demurs out of self-interest. He tells me with great passion that she has bubbled him out of his youth; that she drilled him on to five and fifty, and that he verily believes she will drop him in his old age, if she can find her account in another. I shall conclude this narrative with a letter from honest Sam Hopewell, a very pleasant fellow, who it seems has at last married a Demurrer. I must only premise, that Sam, who is a very good bottle-companion, has been the diversion of his friends, upon account of his passion, ever since the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-one.

'DEAR SIR,

'You know very well my passion for Mrs. Martha, and what a dance she has led me. She took

* i. e. A serjeant at law.

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