and fuch as are affiduous at the levees of great men. Thefe worthies are got into an habit of being fervile with an air, and enjoy a certain vanity in being known for understanding how the world paffes. In the pleasure of this they can rife early, go abroad fleek and well-dreffed, with no other hope or purpose, but to make a bow to a man in court-favour, and be thought, by fome infignificant fimile of his, not a little engaged in his intereits and fortunes. It is wondrous, that a man can get over the natural exiftence and poffeffion of his own mind fo far, as to take delight either in paying or receiving fuch cold and repeated civilities. But what maintains the humour is, that outward fhow is what most men purfue rather than real happiness. Thus both the idol and idolater equally impofe upon themselves in pleafing their imaginations this way. But as there are very many of her majefty's good fubjects, who are extremely unealy at their own feats in the country, where all from the fkies to the center of the earth is their own, and have a mighty longing to fhine in courts, or to be partners in the power of the world; I fay, for the benefit of thefe, and others who hanker after being in the whisper with great men, and vexing their neighbours with the changes they would be capable of making in the appearance at a country feffions, it would not methinks be amifs to give an account of that market for preferment, a great man's levee.

For ought I know, this commerce between the mighty and their flaves, very justly represented, might do fo much good, as to incline the great to regard bufinefs rather than oftentation; and make the little know the ufe of their time too well, to spend it in vain applications and addreffes.

The famous doctor in Moorfields, who gained fo much reputation for his horary predictions, is fail to have had in his parlour different ropes to little bells which hung in the room above ftairs, where the doctor thought fit to be oraculous. If a girl had been deceived by her lover, one bell was pulled; and if a pealant had loft a cow, the fervant rung another. This method was kept in respect to all other paffions and concerns, and the fkilful waiter below fifted the inquirer, and gave the doctor notice accordingly. The levee of a great man is laid after the fame manner,

and twenty whispers, falfe alarms, and private intimations, país backward and forward from the porter, the valet, and the patron himself, before the gaping crew, who are to pay their court, are gathered together: when the fcene is ready, the doors fly open and discover his lordship.

There are feveral ways of making this first appearance. You may be either half-dreffed, and washing your felf, which is indeed the moft ftately; but this way of opening is peculiar to military men, in whom there is fomething graceful in expofing themselves naked; but the politicians or civil officers, have ufually affected to be more referved, and preferve a certain chastity of deportment. Whether it be hieroglyphical or not, this difference in the military and civil lift, I will not fay, but have ever understood the fact to be, that the clofe minifter is buttoned up, and the brave officer open

breafted on thefe occafions.

However that is, I humbly conceive the bufinefs of a levee is to receive the acknowledgments of a multitude, that a man is wife, bounteous, valiant, and powerful. When the first thot of eyes is made, it is wonderful to obferve how much fubmiffion the patron's modesty can bear, and how much fervitude the client's fpirit can defcend to. In the vaft multiplicity of bufinefs, and the crowd about him, my lord's parts are usually fo great, that to the affonishment of the whole aflembly, he has fomething to fay to every man there, and that fo fuitable to his capacity, as any man may judge that it is not without talents that men can arrive at great employments. I have known a great man afk a flagofficer which way was the wind, a commander of horse the present price of oats, and a flock-jobber at what discount fuch a fund was, with as much eafe as if he had been bred to each of thofe feveral ways of life. Now this is extremely obliging; for at the fame timme that the patron informs himself of matters, he gives the perfon of whom he inquires, an opportunity to exert himfelf. What adds to the pomp of thofe interviews is, that it is performed with the greatett filence and order imaginable. The patron is ufually in the midft of the room, and fome humble perton gives him a whifp r, which bis lordship anfweis aloud- It is well. Yes, I am of your opinion. Pray

• inform

inform yourself further, you may be fure of my part in it. This happy man is dismissed; and my lord can turn himself to a business of a quite different nature, and off-hand gives as good an anfwer as any great man is obliged to. For the chief point is to keep in gene rals; and if there be any thing offered that is particular, to be in hatte.

But we are now in the height of the affair, and my lord's creatures have all had their whispers round to keep up the farce of the thing, and the dumb how is become more general. He cafts his eye to that corner, and there to Mr. Such-a-one; to the other And when did you come to town?' And perhaps juft before he nods to another; and enters with him-' But, Sir, I am glad to fee you, now I think of it. Each of thofe are happy for the next four and twenty hours; and thofe who bow in ranks undistinguished, and by dozens at a time, think they have very good profpects if they may hope to arrive at fuch notices half a year hence.

The fatirift fays, there is feldom common fenfe in high fortune; and one would think to behold a levee, that the great were not only infatuated with their ftation, but also that they believed all below were feized too; elfe how is it poffible they could think of impofing upon themselves and others in fuch a

T

degree, as to fet up a levee for any thing
but a direct farce? But fuch is the

weakness of our nature, that when men
are a little exalted in their condition,
they immediately conceive they have ad-
ditional fenfes, and their capacities en-
larged not only above other men, but
above human comprehenfion itself. Thus
it is ordinary to fee a great man attend
one liftening, bow to one at a distance,
and to call to a third at the fame in-
ftant. A girl in new ribbands is not
more taken with herself, nor does the
betray more apparent coquetries, than
even a wife man in fuch a circumstance
of courtship. I do not know any thing
that I ever thought fo very
diftafteful
as the affectation which is recorded of
Cæfar, to wit, that he would dictate to
three feveral writers at the fame time.
This was an ambition below the great-
nefs and candour of his mind. He in-
deed (if any man had pretenfions to
greater faculties than any other mortal)
was the perfon; but fuch a way of act-
ing is childith, and inconfiftent with the
manner of our being.
And it appears
from the very nature of things, that
there cannot be any thing effectually
dispatched in the diftraction of a public
levee; but the whole feems to be a con-
fpiracy of a fet of fervile flaves, to give
up their own liberty to take away their
patron's understanding,

No CXCIV. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12.

DIFFICILI BILE ȚUMET JECUR.

HOR. OD. XIII. LIB, I. VER. 4.

ANGER BOILS UP IN MY HOT LAB'RING BREAST.

HE prefent paper fhall confift of two letters which obferve upon faults that are easily cured both in love and friendship. In the latter, as far as it merely regards converfation, the perfon who neglects vifiting an agreeable friend is punished in the very tranfgref fion; for a good companion is not found in every room we go into. But the cafe of Love is of a more delicate nature, and the anxiety is inexpreffible if every little inftance of kindness is not reciprocal. There are things in this fort of commerce which there are not words to exprefs, and a man may not poffibly know how to reprefent what yet may tear his heart into ten thoufand grtures. To be grave to a man's mirth,

GLANVIL.

unattentive to his difcourfe, or to interrupt either with fomething that argues a difinclination to be entertained by him, has in it fomething fo disagreeable, that the utmolt fteps which may be made in farther enmity cannot give greater torment. The gay Corinna, who fets up for an indifference and becoming heedleffness, gives her husband all the torment imaginable out of mere infolence, with this peculiar vanity, that the is to look as gay as a maid in the character of a wife. It is no matter what is the reafon of a man's grief, if it be heavy as it is. Her unhappy man is convinced that the means him no difhonour, but pines to death because she will not have fo much deference to him

N° CXCV. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13.

· Νήπιοι, ἐδ ̓ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντός,
Οὐδ ̓ ὅσον ἐν μαλάχη τε δὲ ἀσφοδέλω μεγ ̓ ὄνειας.

HIS. OPER. ET DIER. LIÊ. I. VÈR. 40i

FOOLS, NOT TÓ KNOW THAT HALF EXCEEDS THE WHOLE,
NOR THE GREAT BLESSINGS OF A FRUGAL BOARD.

Thighs Tales of a king who had HERE is a story in the Arabian long languished under an ill habit of body, and had taken abundance of remedies to no purpose. At length, fays the fable, a physician cured him by the following method: he took an hollow ball of wood, and filled it with feveral drugs; after which he clofed it up fo artificially that nothing appeared. He likewife took a mall, and after having hollowed the handle and that part which ftrikes the ball, he inclosed in them feveral drugs after the fame manner as in the ball itself. He then ordered the sultan, who was his patient, to exercise himself early in the morning with thefe rightly prepared inftruments, until fuch time as he should sweat: when, as the Atory goes, the virtue of the medicaments perfpiring through the wood, had fo good an influence on the fultan's conftitution, that they cured him of an indifpofition which all the compofitions he had taken inwardly had not been able to remove. This eastern allegory is finely contrived to fhew us how be neficial bodily labour is to health, and that exercife is the most effectual phyfic. I have defcribed in my hundred and fifteenth paper, from the general ftruc fure and mechanism of an human body, how abfolutely neceffary exercife is for it's prefervation: I fhall in this place recommend a great preservative of health, which in many cafes produces the fame effects as exercife, and may in fome measure supply it's place, where opportunities of exercise are wanting. The prefervative I am fpeaking of is temperance, which has those particular advantages above all other means of health, that it may be practifed by all ranks and conditions, at any feafon, or in any place. It is a kind of regimen into which every man may put himself, without interruption to bufinefs, expence of money, or lofs of time. If

ercife throws off all fuperfluities, tem

the reffels, temperance neither fatiates perance prevents them; if exercise clears

nor overstrains them; if exercise raises proper ferments in the humours, and promotes the circulation of the blood, temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigour; if exercise diffipates a growing diftemper, temperance ftarves it.

Phyfic, for the most part, is nothing elfe but the fubftitute of exercise and temperance. Medicines are indeed abfolutely neceffary in acute diftempers, that cannot wait the flow operations of these two great inftruments of health; but did men live in an habitual courfe of exercife and temperance, there would be but little occafion for them. Accordingly we find that thofe parts of the world are the moft healthy, where they fubfift by the chace; and that men lived longeft when their lives were employed in hunting, and when they had little food befides what they caught. Bliftering, cupping, bleeding, are feldom of ufe but to the idle and intemperate; as all thofe inward applications which are fo much in practice among us, are for the most part nothing else but expedients to make luxury confiftent with health. The apothecary is perpetually employed in countermining the cook and the vintner. It is faid of Diogenes, that meeting a young man who was going to a feaft, he took him up in the street and carried him home to his friends, as one who was running into imminent danger, had he not prevented him. What would that philofopher have faid, had he been prefent at the gluttony of a modern meal? Would not he have thought the master of a family mad, and have begged his fervants to tie down his hands, had he feen him devour fowl, fith, and flesh; fwallow oil and vinegar, wines and fpices; throw down fallads of twenty different herbs, fauces of an hundred ingredients, confections and fruits of 3 B a numberless