curiosity was raised when I heard the names of Alexander the Great and Artaxerxes; and as their talk seemed to run on ancient heroes, I concluded there could not be any secret in it; for which reason I thought I might very fairly listen to what they said. After several parallels between great men, which appeared to me altogether groundless and chimerical, I was surprised to hear one say, that he valued the Black Prince more than the Duke of Vendosme. How the Duke of Vendosme should become a rival of the Black Prince, I could not conceive: and was more startled when I heard a second affirm, with great vehemence, that if the Emperor of Germany was not going off, he should like him better than either of them. He added, that though the season was so changeable, the Duke of Marlborough was in blooming beauty. I was wondering to myself from whence they had received this odd intelligence: especially when I heard them mention the names of several other great generals, as the Prince of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, who, they said, were both running away. To which they added, what I entirely agreed with them in, that the crown of France was very weak, but that the Marshal Villars still kept his colours. At last, one of them told the company, if they would go along with him, he would shew them a chimney-sweeper and a painted lady in the same bed, which he was sure would very much please them. The shower, which had driven them as well as myself into the house, was now over; and as they were passing by me into the garden, I asked them to let me be one of their company. The gentleman of the house told me, if I delighted in flowers, it would be worth my while; for that he believed he could shew me such a blow of tulips as was not to be matched in the whole country.' I accepted the offer, and immediately found that they had been talking in terms of gardening, and that the kings and generals they had mentioned were only so many tulips, to which the gardeners, according to their usual custom, had given such high titles and appellations of honour. Some I was very much pleased and astonished at the glorious show of these gay vegetables, that arose in great profusion on all the banks about us. times I considered them with the eye of an ordinary spectator, as so many beautiful objects varnished over with a natural gloss, and stained with such a variety of colours, as are not to be equalled in any artificial dies or tinctures. Sometimes I considered every leaf as an elaborate piece of tissue, in which the threads and fibres were woven together into different configurations, which gave a different colouring to the light as it glanced on the several parts of the surface. Sometimes I considered the whole bed of tulips, according to the notion of the greatest mathematician and philosopher that ever lived*, as a multitude of optic instruments, designed for the separating light into all those various colours of which it is composed. I was awakened out of these my philosophical speculations, by observing the company often seemed to laugh at me. I accidentally praised a tulip as one of the finest I ever saw; upon which they told me, it was a common fool's-coat. Upon that I praised a second, which it seems was but another kind of fool's-coat. I had the same fate with two or three more; for which reason I desired the owner of the garden to let me know which were the finest of the flowers; for that I was so unskilful in the art, that I thought the most beautiful were the most valuable, and that those which had the gayest colours were the most beautiful. The gentleman smiled at Sir Isaac Newton. my ignorance. He seemed a very plain honest man, and a person of good sense, had not his head been touched with that distemper which Hippocrates calls the TuλTTOμavia, Tulippomania; insomuch that he would talk very rationally on any subject in the world but a tulip. He told me, that he valued the bed of flowers which lay before us, and was not above twenty yards in length and two in breadth, more than he would the best hundred acres of land in England;' and added, 'that it would have been worth twice the money it is, if a foolish cook-maid of his had not almost ruined him the last winter, by mistaking a handful of tulip-roots for a heap of onions, and by that means,' says he, 'made me a dish of porridge that cost me above a thousand pounds sterling.' He then shewed me what he thought the finest of his tulips, which I found received all their value from their rarity and oddness, and put me in mind of your great fortunes, which are not always the greatest beauties. I have often looked upon it as a piece of happiness, that I have never fallen into any of these fantastical tastes, nor esteemed any thing the more for its being uncommon and hard to be met with. For this reason I look upon the whole country in spring-time as a spacious garden, and make as many visits to a spot of daisies or a bank of violets, as a florist does to his borders or parterres. There is not a bush in blossom within a mile of me, which I am not acquainted with, nor scarce a daffodil or cowslip that withers away in my neighbourhood without my missing it. I walked home in this temper of mind through several fields and meadows with an unspeakable pleasure, not without reflecting on the bounty of Providence, which has made the most pleasing and most beautiful objects the most ordinary and most common. N° 219. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1710. Solutos Qui captat risus hominum, famamque dicacis— HOR. 1 Sat. iv. 82. Who trivial bursts of laughter strives to raise, His soul is black, as his complexion's dark.-FRANCIS. NEVER were men so perplexed as a select company of us were this evening with a couple of professed wits, who, through our ill fortune, and their own confidence, had thought fit to pin themselves upon a gentleman who had owned to them, that he was going to meet such and such persons, and named us one by one. These pert puppies immediately resolved to come with him; and from the beginning to the end of the night entertained each other with impertinences, to which we were perfect strangers. I am come home very much tired; for the affliction was so irksome to me, that it surpasses all other I ever knew, insomuch that I cannot reflect upon this sorrow with pleasure, though it is past. An easy manner of conversation is the most desirable quality a man can have; and for that reason coxcombs will take upon them to be familiar with people whom they never saw before. What adds to the vexation of it is, that they will act upon the foot of knowing you by fame; and rally with you, as they call it, by repeating what your enemies say of you; and court you, as they think, by uttering to your face, at a wrong time, all the kind things your friends speak of you in your absence. These people are the more dreadful, the more they have of what is usually called wit: for a lively imagination, when it is not governed by a good understanding, makes such miserable havoc both in conversation and business, that it lays you defenceless, and fearful to throw the least word in its way that may give it new matter for its farther errors. Tom Mercet has as quick a fancy as any one living; but there is no reasonable man can bear him half an hour. His purpose is to entertain, and it is of no consequence to him what is said, so it be what is called well said: as if a man must bear a wound with patience, because he that pushed at you came up with a good air and mien. That part of life which we spend in company is the most pleasing of all our moments; and therefore I think our behaviour in it should have its laws as well as the part of our being which is generally esteemed the more important. From hence it is, that from long experience I have made it a maxim, That however we may pretend to take satisfaction in sprightly mirth and high jollity, there is no great pleasure in any company where the basis of the society is not mutual goodwill. When this is in the room, every trifling circumstance, the most minute accident, the absurdity of a servant, the repetition of an old story, the look of a man when he is telling it, the most indifferent and the most ordinary occurrences, are matters which produce mirth and good-humour. I went to spend an hour after this manner with some friends, who enjoy it in perfection whenever they meet, when those destroyers above-mentioned came in upon us. There is not a man among them who has any notion of distinction of superiority to one another, either in their fortunes or their talents, when they are in company. Or if any reflection to the contrary occurs in their thoughts, it only strikes a delight |