rowed at the eyes of Venus, which is your fweet perfon.

Nay more, with the token you fent me for my love and fervice offered to your sweet perfon; which was your bafe refpects to my ill conditions; when, alas! there is no ill conditions in me, but quite contrary; all love and purity, efpecially to your sweet perfon; but all this I take as a jeft.

But the fad and difmal news which

Molly brought me ftruck me to the heart, which was, it seems, and is, your ill conditions for my love and respects

to you.

For fhe told me, if I came forty times to you, you would not speak with me, which words I am fure is a great grief

to me.

Now, my dear, if I may not be permitted to your fweet company, and to have the happinefs of fpeaking with your fweet perfon, I beg the favour of you to accept of this my fecret mind and houghts, which hath fo long lodged in my breaft; the which if you do not accept, I believe will go nigh to break my heart.

For indeed, my dear, I love you above all the beauties I ever faw in all my life. The young gentleman, and my mafter's daughter, the Londoner that is come down to marry her, fat in the abour most part of last night. O! dear Betty, muft the nightingales fing to thofe who marry for money, and not to us true lovers! Oh, my dear Betty, that we could meet this night where we ufed to do in the wood!

Now, my dear, if I may not have the bleffing of kiffing your fweet lips, I beg I may have the happinefs of kiffing your fair hand, with a few lines from your dear felf, prefented by whom you picafe or think fit. I believe, if time would permit me, I could write all day; but the time being fhort, and paper little, no more from your never-failing lover ill death, JAMES

Poor James! fince his time and paper were fo thort; I, that have more than I can ufe well of both, will put the fentiments of his kind letter, the stile of which feems to be confufed with fcraps he had got in hearing and reading what he did not understand, into what he meant to exprefs.

DEAR CREATURE,

CAN you then neglect him who has

forgot all his recreations and enjoyments to pine away his life in thinking of you? When I do fo, you appear more amiable to me than Venus does in the most beautiful defcription that ever was made of her. All this kindness you return with an accufation, that I do not love you: but the contrary is fo manifeft, that I cannot think you in earnest. But the certainty given me in your meffage by Molly, that you do not love me, is what robs me of all comfort. She fays you will not fee me: if you can have fo much cruelty, at leaft write to me, that I may kits the impreffion made by your fair hand. I love you above all things; and, in my condition, what you look upon with indifference is to me the most exquifite pleasure or pain. Our young lady, and a fine gentleman from London, who are to marry for mercenary ends, walk about our gardens, and hear the voice of evening nightingales, as if for fashion fake they courted thofe folitudes, because they have heard lovers do fo. Oh, Betty! could I hear thofe rivulets murmur, and birds fing while you ftood near me, how little fenfible thould I be that we are both fervants, that there is any thing on earth above us. Oh! I could write to you as long as I love you, till death itself.

N° LXXII.

HAVING already given my reader

an account of feveral extraordinary clubs both ancient and modern, I did not defign to have troubled him with any more narratives of this nature; but I have lately received information of a club which I can call neither ancient nor modern, that I dare fay will be no lefs furprifing to my reader than it was to myfelf; for which reafon I fhall communicate it to the public as one of the greatest curiofities in it's kind.

A friend of mine complaining of a tradefman who is related to him, after having reprefented him as a very idle worthless fellow, who neglected his family, and spent most of his time over a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, that he was a member of the Everlasting Club. So very odd a title raifed my curiofity to inquire into the nature of a club that had fuch a founding name; upon which my friend gave me the following account.

THE Everlafting Club confifts of an

hundred members, who divide the whole twenty-four hours among them in fuch a manner, that the club fits day and night from one end of the year to another; no party prefumming to rife till they are relieved by thofe who are in courfe to fucceed them. By this means a member of the Everlafting Club never wants company; for though he is not upon duty himself, he is fure to find fome who are; fo that if he be difpofed to take a whet, a nooning, an evening's draught, or a bottle after midnight, he goes to the club, and finds a knot of friends to his mind.

It is a maxim in this club, that the fteward never dies; for as they fucceed one another by way of rotation, no man is to quit the great elbow-chair which ftands at the upper end of the table, till his fucceffor is in a readiness to fill it; infomuch that there has not been a Sede vacante in the memory of man,

DRYDEN.

This club was inftituted towards the end, or, as fome of them fay, about the middle, of, the civil wars, and conti nued without interruption_till_the_time of the Great Fire, which burnt them out, and difperfed them for feveral weeks. The fteward at that time maintained his poft till he had like to have been blown up with a neighbouring house, which was demolished in order to ftop the fire; and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received repeated directions from the club to withdraw himself. This fteward is frequently talked of in the club, and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man than the famous captain mentioned in my Lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship becaule he would not quit it without orders. It is faid, that towards the clofe of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the club had it under confideration whether they fhould break up or continue their fef fion; but, after many fpeeches and debates, it was at length agreed to fit out the other century. This refolution paffed in a general club nemine contradicente.

Having given this fhort account of the institution and continuation of the Everlasting Club, I should here endeavour to fay fomething of the manners and characters of it's feveral members, which I fhall do according to the best lights I have received in this matter.

It appears by their books in general, that, fince their first institution, they have fmoked fifty ton of tobacco, drank thirty thousand butts of ale, one thoufand hogsheads of red port, two hundred barrels of brandy; and a kilderkin of fmall-beer. There has been likewise a great confumption of cards. It is alfo faid, that they obferve the law in Ben Jonfon's club, which orders the fire to be always kept in, focus perennis eflo, as well for the convenience of lighting their pipes, as to cure the dampnefs of

the

nishment upon games at whift, which have been miraculously recovered by members of the fociety, when in all human probability the cafe was defperate:

They delight in feveral old catches, which they fing at all hours, to encourage one another to moiften their clay, and grow immortal by drinking; with many other edifying exhortations of the like nature.

There are four general clubs held in a year, at which times they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire-maker, or elect a new one, and fettle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other neceffaries.

The fenior-member has outlived the whole club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of fome of the prefent fitting members.

O DEA CERTE!

T is very ftrange to confider, that a

VIRG. EN. I. 332.

C

But however unreafonable and ab

fo many weakneffes and imperfections, fhould be actuated by a love of fame: that vice and ignorance, imperfection and mifery, should contend for praife, and endeavour as much as poffible to make themselves objects of admiration.

But notwithstanding man's effential perfection is but very little, his comparative perfection may be very confiderable. If he looks upon himself in an abftracted light, he has not much to boaft of; but if he confiders himfelf with regard to others, he may find occafion of glorying, if not in his own virtues, at leaft in the abfence of another's imperfections. This gives a different turn to the reflections of the wife man and the fool. The firft endeavours

shine in himself, and the laft to outfhine others. The first is humbled by the fenfe of his own infirmities, the laft is lifted up by the difcovery of thofe which he observes in other men. The wife man confiders what he wants, and the fool what he abounds in. The wife man is happy when he gains his own approbation, and the fool when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him.

appear in fuch a creature as man, it is not wholly to be difcouraged; fince it often produces very good effects, not only as it restrains him from doing any thing which is mean and contemptible, but as it pushes him on to actions which are great and glorious. The principle may be defective or faulty; but the confequences it produces are fo good, that, for the benefit of mankind, it ought not to be extinguished.

It is obferved by Cicero, that men of the greatest and the moft fhining parts are the molt actuated by ambition; and if we look into the two fexes, I believe we fhall find this principle of action ftronger in women than in men.

The paffion for praife, which is fo very vehement in the fair-fex, produces excellent effects in women of fenfe, who defire to be admired for that only which deferves admiration: and I think we may obferve, without a compliment to them, that many of them do not only live in a more uniform course of virtue, but with an infinitely greater regard to their honour, than what we find in the gene rality of our own sex. How many in- `, ftances have we of chastity, fidelity, T devotion?

devotion? How many ladies diftinguifh themselves by the education of their children, care of their families, and love of their husbands, which are the great qualities and atchievements of woman-kind: as the making of war, the carrying on of traffic, the administration of juftice, are thofe by which men grow famous, and get themselves a

name?

But as this paffion for admiration, when it works according to reafon, improves the beautiful part of our species in every thing that is laudable; fo nothing is more destructive to then when it is governed by vanity and folly. What I have therefore here to fay, only regards the vain part of the fex, whom for certain reafons, which the reader will hereafter fee at large, I fhall diftinguish by the name of Idols. An Idol is wholly taken up in the adorning of her perfon. You fee in every pofture of her body, air of her face, and motion of her head, that it is her business and employinent to gain adorers. For this reafon your Idols appear in all public places and affemblies, in order to feduce men to their worthip. The playhoufe is very frequently filled with Idols; feveral of them are carried in proceffion every evening about the Ring, and several of them fet up their worship even in churches. They are to be accolted in the language proper to the Deity. Life and death are in their power; joys of heaven, and pains of hell, are at their difpofal; paradife is in their arms; and eternity in every moment that you are prefent with them. Raptures, tranfports, and extafies, are the rewards which they confer: fighs and tears, prayers and broken hearts, are the offerings which are paid to thein. Their fmiles make men happy; their frowns drive them to defpair. I fhall only add under this head, that Ovid's book of the Art of Love is a kind of heathen ritual, which contains all the forms of worship which are made ufe of to an Idol.

It would be as difficult a task to reckon up these different kinds of Idols, as Milton's was to number thofe that were known in Canaan, and the lands adjoining. Molt of them are worshipped, like Moloch, in fire and flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to fee their volaries cut and flashed, and thed

ding their blood for them like the Idol in the Apocrypha, must have treats and collations prepared for them every night. It has indeed been known, that fome of them have been used by their incensed worshippers like the Chinese Idols, whe are whipped and scourged when they refufe to comply with the prayers that are offered to them.

I must here observe, that those idolaters, who devote themselves to the Idols I am here fpeaking of, differ very much from all other kinds of idolaters. For as others fall out because they worfhip different Idols, thefe idolaters quarrel because they shorship the fame.

The intention, therefore, of the Idol is quite contrary to the wishes of the idolater: as the one defires to confine the Idol to himself, the whole business and ambition of the other is to multiply adorers. This humour of an Idol is prettily defcribed in a tale of Chaucer: he reprefents one of them fitting at a table with three of her votaries about her, who are all of them courting her favour, and paying their adorations: the smiled upon one, drank to another, and trod upon the other's foot which was under the table. 'Now which of thofe three,' fays the old bard, do you think was the favourite?-In troth,' fays he, not one of all the three.'

The behaviour of this old Idol in Chaucer, puts me in mind of the beautiful Clarinda, one of the greatest Idols among the moderns. She is worthipped once a week by candlelight, in the midst of a large congregation, generally called an affembly. Some of the gayeft youths in the nation endeavour to plant themselves in her eye, while the fits in form with multitudes of tapers burning about her. To encourage the zeal of idolaters, fhe bestows a mark of her favour upon every one of them, before they go out of her prefence. She afks a queftion of one, tells a story to another, glances an ogle upon a third, takes a pinch of fnuff from the fourth, lets her fan drop by accident to give the fifth an occafion of taking it up. In fhort, every one goes away fatisfied with his fuccefs, and encouraged to renew his devotions on the fame canonical hour that day fevennight.

An Idol may be undeified by many accidental caules. Marriage in particular is a kind of Counter-Apotheofis,

or

N my last Monday's paper I gave

tiful ftrokes which please the reader in the old fong of Chevy-Chafe: I fhall here, according to my promife, be more particular, and fhew that the fentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of that majestic fimplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets: for which reafon I hall quote feveral paffages of it, in which the thought is altogether the fame with what we meet in feveral paffages of the Æneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the poet, whoever he was, propofed to himself any imitation of thofe paffages, but that he was directed to them in general by the fame kind of poetical genius, and by the fame copyings after na ure.

Had this old fong been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleafed the wrong taffe of fome readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the found of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those taftes which are the most unprejudiced or the most refined. I must however beg leave to diffent from fo great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has paffed as to the rude file and evil apparel of this antiquated fong; for there are feveral parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers fonorous;

C

at least, the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will fee in several of the following quotations.

What can be greater than either the thought or the expreffion in that stanza➡

To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Piercy took his way;

The child may rue that was unborn
The hunting of that day!

This
way
of confidering the misfortunes
which this battle would bring upon po-
fterity, not only on thofe who were born
immediately after the battle, and loft
their fathers in it, but on thofe alfo who
perifhed in future battles which took
their rife from this quarrel of the two
Earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and
conformable to the way of thinking
among the ancient poets.