themselves not only perfons injured, but alfo that to bear it no longer would be a means to make the offender injure others, before they proceed. Such men clap their hands upon their hearts, and confider what it is to have at their mercy the life of a citizen. Such would have it to fay to their own fouls, if poffible, that they were merciful when they could have deftroyed, rather than when it was in their power to have fpared a man, they deftroyed. This is a due to the common calamity of human life, due in fome meafure to our very enemies. They who fcruple doing the leaft injury, are cautious of exacting the utmoft juftice.

Let any one who is converfant in the variety of human life reflect upon it, and he will find the man who wants mercy has a taste of no enjoyment of any kind. There is a natural disrelish of every thing which is good in his very nature, and he is born an enemy to the world. He is ever extremely partial to himfelf in all his actions, and has no fenfe of iniquity but from the punishment which fhall attend it. The law of the land is his gofpel, and all his cafes of confcience are determined by his attorney. Such men know not what it is to gladden the heart of a miferable man, that riches are the inftruments of ferving the purposes of heaven or hell, according to the difpofition of the poffeffor. The wealthy can torment or gratify all who are in their power, and chufe to do one or other as they are affected with love or hatred to mankind. As for fuch who are infenfible of the concerns of others, but merely as they affect themselves, thefe men are to be valued only for their mortality, and as we hope better things from their heirs. I could not but read with great delight a letter from an eminent citizen, who has failed, to one who

was intimate with him in his better fortune, and able by his countenance to retrieve his loft condition.

SIR,

IT is in vain to multiply words and make apologies for what is never to be defended by the beft advocate in the world, the guilt of being unfortunate. All that a man in my condition can do or fay, will be received with prejudice by the generality of mankind, but I

hope not with you: you have been a great inftrument in helping me to get what I have loft; and I know, for that reafon, as well as kindness to me, you cannot but be in pain to fee me undone. To fhew you I am not a man incapable of bearing calamity, I will, though a poor man, lay afide the diftinction between us, and talk with the frankness we did when we were nearer to an equality: as all I do will be received with prejudice, all you do will be looked upon with partiality. What I defire of you is, that you, who are courted by all, would fmile upon me, who am fhunned by all. Let that grace and fayour which your fortune throws upon you, be turned to make up the coldness and indifference that is used towards

me.

All good and generous men will have an eye of kindness for me for my own fake, and the reft of the world will regard me for yours. There is a happy contagion in riches, as well as a deftructive one in poverty: the rich can make rich without parting with any of their ftore; and the converfatios of the poor makes men poor, though they borrow nothing of them. How this is to be accounted for I know not; but men's eftimation follows us according to the company we keep. If you are what you were to me, you can go a great way towards my recovery; if you are not, my good fortune, if ever it returns, will return by flower approaches. I am, Sir, your affectionate friend, and humble fervant.

This was anfwered with a condefcenfion that did not, by long impertinent profeffions of kindness, infult his diftrefs, but was as follows.

DEAR TOM,

I Am very glad to hear that you have

heart enough to begin the world a fecond time. I affure you, I do not think your numerous family at all diminished, in the gifts of nature for which I have ever fo much admired them, by what has fo lately happened to you. I fhail not only countenance your affairs with my appearance for you, but fhall accommodate you with a confiderable fum at common intereft for three years. You know I could make more of it; but Fhave to great a love for you, that I can

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wave opportunities of gain to help you; for I do not care whether they fay of me after I am dead, that I had an hun

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dred or fifty thousand pounds more than I wanted when I was living. Your obliged humble fervant. T

Hoa. SAT. III. L. 2. v. 9.

Shall this day lay before my reader a letter, written by the fame hand with that of last Friday, which contained propofals for a printed news-paper that should take in the whole circle of the penny poft.

SIR,

THE kind reception you gave my laft Friday's letter, in which I broached my project of a news-paper, encourages me to lay before you two or three more; for, you must know, Sir, that we look upon you to be the Lowndes of the learned world, and cannot think any fcheme practicable or rational before you have approved of it, though all the money we raife by it is on our own funds, and for our private use.'

I have often thought that a Newsletter of Whispers, written every pott, and fent about the kingdom, after the fame manner as that of Mr. Dyer, Mr. Dawkes, or any other epiftolary hiftorian, might be highly gratifying to the public, as well as beneficial to the author. By whifpers I mean those pieces of news which are communicated as fecrets, and which bring a double pleafure to the hearer; first, as they are private history, and in the next place, as they have always in them a dafh of fcandal. Thefe are the two chief qualifications in an article of news, which recommend it, in a more than ordinary manner, to the ears of the curious. Sickness of perfons in high posts, twilight vifits paid and received by minifters of state, clandeftine courtships and marriages, fecret amours, loffes at play, applications for places, with their respective fucceffes or repulfes, are the materials in which I chiefly intend to deal. I have two perfons, that are each of them the reprefentative of a fpecies, who are to furnish me with thofe whifpers which I intend to convey to my

correfpondents. The firft of thefe is Peter Hush, descended from the ancient family of the Hufhes: the other is the old Lady Blaft, who has very numerous tribe of daughters in the two great cities of London and Weltminster. Peter Huh has a whispering-hole in most of the great coffee-houfes about town. If you are alone with him in a wide room, he carries you up into a corner of it, and speaks it in your ear. I have seen Peter feat himself in a company of feven or eight perfons, whom he never faw before in his life; and after having looked about to fee there was no one that overheard him, has communicated to them in a low voice, and under the feal of fecrecy, the death of a great man in the country, who was perhaps a fox-hunting the very moment this account was given of him. If upon your entering into a coffee-house you fee a circle of heads bending over the table, and lying close by one another, it is ten to one but my friend Peter is among them. I have known Peter publishing the whisper of the day by eight of the clock in the morning at Garraway's, by twelve at Will's, and before two at Smyrna. When Peter had thus effectually launched a fecret, I have been very well pleased to hear people whifpering it to one another at fecond-hand, and spreading it about as their own; for you must know, Sir, the great incentive to whispering is the ambition which every one has of being thought in the fecret, and being looked upon as a man who has accefs. to greater people than one would inagine. After having given you this account of Peter Hufh, I proceed to that virtuous lady, the old Lady Blast, who, is to communicate to me the private tranfactions of the crimp-table, with all the arcana of the fair-fex. The Lady Blaft, you must understand, has fuch a particular malignity in her whisper, that

it

ft blights like an eafterly wind, and withers every reputation that it breathes upon. She has a particular knack at making private weddings, and last winter married above five women of quality to their foounen. Her whifper can make an innocent young wonian big with child, or fill an healthy young fellow with diftempers that are not to be named. She can turn a vifit into an intrigue, and a diftant falute into an affignation. She can beggar the wealthy, and degrade the noble. In fhort, the can whisper men bafe or foolish, jealous or ill-natured; or, if occafion requires, can tell you the flips of their great grandmothers, and traduce the memory of honeft coach men that have been in their graves above thefe hundred years. By thefe and the like helps, I question not but I shall furnish out a very handsome news-letter, If you approve my project, I fhall be gin to whisper by the very next poft; and question not but every one of my customers will be very well pleafed with me, when he confiders that every piece of news I fend him is a word in his ear, and lets him into a fecret.

Having given you a sketch of this project, I fhall, in the next place, fugget to you another for a monthly pamphlet, which I fhall likewife fubmit to your fpectatorial wisdom. I need not tell you, Sir, that there are feveral authors in France, Germany, and Hol

land, as well as in our own country, who publish every month, what they call, An Account of the Works of the Learned, in which they give us an abftract of all fuch books as are printed in any part of Europe. Now, Sir, it is my defign to publifh every month, An Account of the Works of the Unlearned.' Several late productions of my own countrymen, who many of them make a very eminent figure in the illiterate world, encourage me in this undertaking. I may, in this work, poffibly make a review of several pieces which have appeared in the foreign accounts above mentioned, though they ought not to have been taken notice of in works which bear such a title. I may, likewife, take into confideration fuch pieces as appear, from time to time, under the names of those gentlemen who compliment one another in public affemblies, by the title of The Learned

Gentlemen. Our party-authors will. alfo afford me a great variety of fubjects, not to mention editors, commentators, and others, who are often men of no learning, or, what is as bad, of no knowledge. I fhall not enlarge upon this hint; but if you think any thing can be made of it, I fhall fet about it with all the pains and application that fo ufeful a work deferves. I am ever, moft worthy Sir, &c.

I could not

FALSE MODESTY,

the account that was yesterday given me of a modeft young gentleman, who being invited to an entertainment, though he was not used to drink, had not the confidence to refufe his glafs in his turn, when on a fudden he grew fo fluttered that he took all the talk of the table into his own hands, abufed every one of the company, and flung a bottle at the gentleman's head who treated him. This has given me occafion to reflect upon the ill effects of a vicious modetty, and to remember the faving of Brutus, as it is quoted by Plutarch, that the perfon

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has had but an ill education, who has not been taught to deny any thing." This falte kind of modefty has, perhaps, betrayed both fexes into as many vices as the most abandoned impudence; and is the more inexcufable to reafon, be caufe it acts to gratify others rather than itself, and is punifhed with a kind of remorse, not only like other vicious ha bits when the crime is over, but even at the very time that it is committed.

Nothing is more amiable than true modefty, and nothing is more contemptible than the falle. The one guards virtue, the other betrays it. True mo

defty

from among us the appearance of chriftianity in ordinary life and converfation, and which diftinguifhes us from all our neighbours.

Hypocrify cannot indeed be too much detelted, but at the fame time is to be preferred to open impiety. They are both equally deftructive to the perfon who is poffeffed with them; but in regard to others, hypocrify is not fo per

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nicious as barefaced irreligion. The due mean to be obferved is to be fin cerely virtuous, and at the fame time to let the world fee we are fo. I do not know a more dreadful menace in the Holy Writings, than that which is pronounced against thofe who have this perverted modefty, to be afhamed before men in a particular of fuch unspeakable importance.

ELIGION may be confidered under two general heads. The first comprehends what we are to believe, the other what we are to practife. By thofe things which we are to believe, I mean whatever is revealed to us in the Holy Writings, and which we could not have obtained the knowledge of by the light of nature; by the things which we are to practife, I mean all thofe duties to which we are directed by reafon or natural religion. The firft of thefe I fhall diftinguish by the name of faith, the fecond by that of morality.

If we look into the more ferious part of mankind, we find many who Jay fo great a ftrefs upon faith, that they Reglect morality; and many who build fo much upon morality, that they do not pay a due regard to faith. The perfect man should be defective in neither of these particulars, as will be very evident to thofe who confider the benefits which arife from each of them, and which I fhall make the subject of this day's paper.

Notwithstanding this general divifion. of chriftian duty into morality and faith, and that they have both their peculiar excellencies, the first has the pre-eminence in feveral refpects.

First, because the greatest part of morality, as I have stated the notion of it, is of a fixed eternal nature, and will endure when faith fhall fail, and be loft in conviction.

Secondly, because a perfon may be qualified to do greater good to mankind,

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and become more beneficial to the world, by morality without faith, than by faith without morality.

Thirdly, because morality gives a greater perfection to human nature, by quieting the mind, moderating the paffions, and advancing the happinets of every man in his private capacity.

Fourthly, becaufe the rule of mora lity is much more certain than that of faith, all the civilized nations of the world agreeing in the great points of morality, as much as they differ in those of faith.

Fifthly, because infidelity is not of fo malignant a nature as immorality; or to put the fame reafon in another light, because it is generally owned, there may be falvation for a virtuous infidel, particularly in the cafe of invincible ignorance, but none for a vi cious believer.

Sixthly, becaufe faith feems to draw it's principal, if not all it's excellency, from the influence it has upon morality; as we fhall fee more at large, if we confider wherein confits the excellency of faith, or the belief of revealed religion; and this I think is,

First, in explaining, and carrying to greater heights feveral points of morality.

Secondly, in furmithing new and ftronger motives to enforce the practice of morality.

Thirdly, in giving us more amiable ideas of the Supreme Being, more endearing notions of one another, and a

truer