'different caufes be of the fame nature, it may not very properly be cured by the fame means. I am, Sir, Your moft humble fervant, and well-wisher, • ESCULAPIUS.' · Mr. SPECTATOR, I AM a young woman croffed in love. My ftory is very long and melancholy. To give you the heads of it: A young gentleman, after having made his applications to me for three years together, and filled my • head with a thoufand dreams of happiness, fome few days fince married another. Pray tell me in what part of the world your promontory lies, which you call the Lover's Leap, and whether one may go to it by land? But alas, I am afraid it has loft its virtue, and that a woman of our times would find no more relief in taking such a leap, than in finging an hymn to Venus. So that I muft cry out with Dido in Dryden's Virgil,, "Ah! cruel heaven, that made no cure for love!" • Your difconfolate fervant, ་ MY heart is fo full of lofes and paffions for Mrs. Gwinifrid, and fhe is fo pettifh and over-run with cholers against me, that if I had the good happiness to have my dwelling (which is placed by my creatcrandfather upon the pottom of an hill) no farther distance but twenty mile from the Lofer's Leap, I ⚫ would indeed indeafour to preak my neck upon it on purpose. Now, good Miffer SPICTATUR of Creat Pritain, you muft know it, there is in Caernarvanshire a very pig mountain, the clory of all Wales, which is named Penmainmaure, and you must also know, it is no creat journey on foot from me; but the road is ftony and bad for fhoes. Now, there is upon the • forehead of this mountain a very high rock, (like a S parish steeple) that cometh a huge deal over the fea; fo when I am in my melancholies, and I do throw myfelf from it, I do defire my fery good friend to tell me in his SPICTATUR, if I fhall be cure of my griefous lofes; for there is the fea clear as class, and as creen as the leek then likewife if I be drown and preak my neck, if Mrs. Gwinifrid will not lofe me afterwards. Pray be speedy in your anfwers, for I am in creat hafte, and it is my tefires to do my pufinefs without lofs of time. I remain with cordial affections, your ever lofing friend, 'DAVYTH AP SHENKYN.. P. S. My law-fuits have brought me to London, but I have loft my caufes; and fo have made my re⚫ folutions to go down and leap before the frofts begin; for I am apt to take colds.' Ridicule, perhaps, is a better expedient againft love than fober advice, and I am of opinion, that Hudibras and Don Quixote may be as effectual to cure the extravagancies of this paffion, as any of the old philofophers. I fhall therefore publifh very speedily the tranflation of a little Greek manufcript, which is fent me by a learned friend. It appears to have been a piece of those records which were kept in the temple of Apollo, that flood upon the promontory of Leucate. The reader will find it to be a fummary account of feveral perfons who tried the Lover's Leap, and of the fuccefs they found in it. As there feem to be in it fome anachronifnis and deviations from the ancient orthography, I am not wholly fatisfied myself that it is authentic, and not rather the production of one of those Grecian fophifters, who have impofed upon the world feveral fpurious works of this nature. I fpeak this by way of precaution, because I know there are feveral writers of uncommon erudition,. who would not fail to expofe my ignorance, if they caught me tripping in a matter of fo great moment. Ć.. N° 228. Wednesday, November 21. Percunctatorem fugito, nam garrulus idem eft. Shun the inquifitive and curious man; THERE POOLY. HERE is a creature who has all the organs of fpeech, a tolerable good capacity for conceiving what is faid to it, together with a pretty proper behaviour in all the occurrences of common life; but naturally very vacant of thought in itself, and therefore forced to apply itself to foreign affiftances, Of this make is that man who is very inquifitive. You may often obferve, that though he fpeaks as good fenfe as any man upon any thing with which he is well acquainted, he cannot truft to the range of his own fancy to entertain himself upon that foundation, but goes on ftill to new inquiries. Thus, though you know he is fit for the mot polite converfation, you fhall fee him very well contented to fit by a jockey, giving an account of the many revolutions in his horfe's health, what potion he made him take, how that agreed with him, how afterwards he came to his ftomach and his exercise, or any the like impertinence; and be as well pleased. as if you talked to him on the most important truths.. This humour is far from making a man unhappy,. though it may subject him to raillery; for he generally falls in with a perfon who feems to be born for him, which is your talkative fellow. It is fo ordered, that there is a fecret bent, as natural as the meeting of different fexes, in these two characters, to fupply each other's wants. I had the honour the other day to fit in. a public room, and faw an inquifitive man look with: an air of fatisfaction upon the approach of one of thefe talkers. The man of ready utterance fat down by him, and rubbing his head, leaning on his arm, and making C 229 an uneafy countenance, he began; There is no manner of news to-day, I cannot tell what is the matter < with me, but I flept very ill laft night; whether I caught ⚫ cold or no, I know not, but I fancy I do not wear fhoes ← thick enough for the weather, and I have coughed all this week: it must be fo, for the custom of washing my head winter and fummer with cold water, prevents any injury from the feafon entering that way; fo it muft come in at my feet; but I take no notice of it:: it comes fo it goes. Moft of our evils proceed from too much tenderness, and our faces are naturally as ← little able to refift the cold as other parts. The Indian anfwered very well to an European, who asked him how he could go naked; I am all face.' as I obferved this difcourfe was as welcome to my general inquirer as any other of more confequence could have been; but fomebody calling our talker to another part of the room, the inquirer told the next man who fat by him, that Mr. Such-a-one, who was just gone from him, ufed to wash his. head in cold water every morning; and fo repeated almoft verbatim all that had been laid to him. The truth is, the inquifitive are the funnels of converfation; they do not take in any thing for their own ufe, but merely to pass it to another they are the channels through which all the good and evil that is spoken in town are conveyed. Such as are offended at them, or think they fuffer by their behaviour, may themfelves mend that inconvenience; for they are not a malicious people, and if you will fupply them, you may contradict any thing they have said before by their own mouths. A farther account of a thing is one of the gratefuleft goods that can arrive to them; and it is feldom that they are more particular than to fay, the town will have it, or I have it from a good hand fo that there is room for the town to know the matter more particularly, and for a better hand to contradict what was faid by a good one. I have not known this humour more ridiculous than in a father, who has been earnestly folicitous to have an account how his fon has paffed his leifure hours; if it be in a way thoroughly infignificant, there cannot be a greater joy than an inquirer difcovers in feeing him follow fo hopefully his own fteps: but this humour among men is most pleasant when they are faying fomething which is not wholly proper for a third perfon to hear, and yet is in itself indifferent. The other day there came in a well-dreffed young fellow, and two gentlemen of this fpecies immediately fell a whispering his pedigree. I could over hear, by breaks, She was his aunt; then an anfwer, Ay, fhe was of the mother's fide: then again in a little lower voice, His father wore generally a darker wig; answer, Not much. But this gentleman wears higher heels to his fhoes. As the inquifitive, in my opinion, are fuch merely from a vacancy in their own imaginations, there is nothing, methinks, fo dangerous as to communicate fecrets to them; for the fame temper of inquiry makes them as impertinently communicative: but no man, though he converses with the:n, need put himself in their power, for they will be contented with matters of less moment as well. When there is fuel enough, no matter what it isThus the ends of fentences in the news-papers, as, "this wants confirmation, this occafions many fpecula"tions, and time will discover the event," are read by them, and confidered not as mere expletives. One may fee now and then this humour accompanied with an infatiable defire of knowing what paffes, without turning it to any ufe in the world but merely their own entertainment. A mind which is gratified this way is adapted to humour and pleafantry, and formed for an unconcerned character in the world; and, like myself, to be a mere fpectator. This curiofity, without malice or felf-intereft, lays up in the imagination a magazine of circumftances which cannot but entertain when they are produced in converfation. If one were to know, from the man of the firft quality to the meaneft fervant, the different intrigues, fentiments, pleasures, and interefts of mankind, would it not be the most pleasing entertainment imaginable to enjoy fo conftant a farce, as the obferving mankind much more different from themselves in their fecret thoughts and public actions, than in their night-caps and long periwigs? |