VIRG. GEORG. 2, VER. 5234

FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, NOV. 16.

THER HERE are feveral perfons who have many pleasures and entertainments in their poffeffion, which they do not enjoy. It is therefore a kind of good office to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention to fuch inftances of their good fortune which they are apt to overlook. Perfons in the married state often want fuch a monitor, and pine away their days, by looking upon the fame condition in anguish and murmur, which carries with it, in the opinion of others, a complication of all the pleafures of life, and a retreat from it's inquietudes.

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I am led into this thought by a vifit I made an old friend, who was formerly my fchool-fellow. He came to town laft week with his family for the winter, and yesterday morning fent me word his wife expected me to dinner, I am as it were at home at that houfe, and every member of it knows me for their well wither. I cannot, indeed, express the pleasure it is, to be met by the children with fo much joy as I am when I' thither: the boys and girls ftrive who fhall come first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door; and that child which lofes the race to me, runs back again to tell the father it is Mr. Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl that we all thought muft have forgot me; for the family has been Qut of town thefe two years. Her knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our difcourfe at the first entrance. After which, they began to railly me upon a thousand little stories they heard in the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbour's daughters; upon which the gentleman, my friend, faid Nay, if Mr. Bickerstaff marries a child of any of his old

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'companions, I hope mine fhall have the preference. There is Mrs. Mary is now fixteen, and would make him as fine a widow as the best of them;. but I know him too well; he is so enamoured with the very memory of those who flourished in our youth, ⚫ that he will not so much as look upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went home in a day to refresh your countenance and drefs, when Teraminta reigned in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife fome of your verfes on her.' With fuch reflections on little paffages which happened long ago, we paffed our time during a chearful and elegant meal, After dinner, his lady left the room, as did alfo the children. As foon as we were alone, he took me by the hand

Well, my good friend, fays he, I am heartily glad to fee thee; I was afraid you would never have feen all the company that dined with you 'to-day again. Do not you think the < good woman of the houfe a little altered fince you followed her from the play-house, to find out who he was for me?' I perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. But to turn the discourse, faid I She is not, indeed, quite that 'creature the was when the returned ⚫ me the letter I carried from you; and told me, fhe hoped, as I was a gentle man, I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had never offended me; but would be fo much the gentleman's friend as to diffuade him from a purfuit which he could never fucceed in. You may remember, I thought her in earnett; and you were forced to employ your coufin Will, who made his fifter get acquainted with her for you. You cannot exKk 3

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'pect her to be for ever fifteen.'-' Fif'teen!' replied my good friend: ' Ah! you little understand, you that have lived a batchelor, how great, how exquifite a pleasure there is in being really beloved! It is impoffible that the • most beauteous face in nature fhould raife in me fuch pleafing ideas, as when I look upon that excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caufed by her watching with me in my fever. This was ⚫ followed by a fit of ficknefs, which had like to have carried her off laft winter. I tell you fincerely, I have fo many obligations to her, that I cannot with any fort of moderation think ⚫ of her prefent state of health. But as to what you fay of fifteen, the gives me every day pleafures beyond what I ever knew in the poffeffion of her beau⚫ty, when I was in the vigour of youth. Every moment of her life brings me fresh inftances of her complacency to

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my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first faw it; there is no decay in any feature, which I cannot trace from the very inftant it was occafioned by fome ⚫ anxious concern for my welfare and interefts. Thus at the fame time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her, for what he was, is heightened by my gratitude for what the is. The love of a wife is as much above the idle paífion commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh! fhe is an inestimable ⚫ jewel.

In her examination of her houthold affairs, the fhews a certain ⚫ fearfulness to find a fault, which makes • her fervants obey her like children; and the meaneft we have has an ingenuous fhame for an offence, not always to be feen in children in other families. I fpeak freely to you, my old friend; ever fince her fickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before, turn now to a certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things by their steps, and am confidering what they must do, fhould they lofe their mother in their tender years. The pleafure I ufed to take in telling my boy ftories of battles, and afking my girl queftions about the difpofal of her baby,

and the goffiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy.'

He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, and with an inexpreffible fweetnefs in her countenance told us, fhe had been fearching her clofet for fomething very good, to treat fuch an old friend as I was. Her husband's eyes fparkled with pleafure at the chearfulness of her countenance; and I faw all his fears vanish in an inftant. The lady obferving fomething in our looks which fhewed we had been more ferious than ordinary, and feeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced chearfulness, immediately gueffed at what we had been talking of; and applying herself to me, faid, with a fmile Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what he tells you, I shall still live to have you for my fecond, as I have often promised you; unless he takes more care of himself than he has done fince his 'coming to town. You must know, he tells me, that he finds London is a much more healthy place than the country; for he fees feveral of his old acquaintance and fchool-fellows are here young fellows with fair fullbottomed periwigs. I could fcarce keep him this morning from going out openbreafted.' My friend, who is always extremely delighted with her agreeable humour, made her fit down with us. She did it with that eafinefs which is peculiar to women of fenfe; and to keep up the good humour the had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me:

Mr. Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the playhoufe; fuppofe you fhould carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me into the front-box.' This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties, who were mothers to the prefent, and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told her, I was glad he had transferred fo many of her charms, and I did not queftion but her eldest daughter was within half a year of being a toalt.

We were pleafing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young lady, when on a fudden we were alarmed with the noife of a drum, and immediately entered my little godfon to give me a point of war. His mother, between laughing and chiding, would have put

him out of the room; but I would not part with him fo. I found, upon converfation with him, though he was a little noify in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, and was a great master of all the learning on the other fide eight years old. I perceived him a very great hiftorian in fop's Fables: but he frankly declared to me his mind, that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not believe they were true; for which reafon I found he had very much turned his ftudies, for about a twelvemonth paft, into the lives and adventures of Don Belianis of Greece, Guy of Warwick, the Seven Champions, and other hiftorians of that age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardnefs of his fon; and that these diverfions might turn to fome profit, I found the boy had made remarks, which might be of service to him during the course of his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagements. of John Hickathrift, find fault with the paffionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint George for being the champion of Eng

land; and by this means had his thoughts infenfibly moulded into the notions of difcretion, virtue, and honour. I was extolling his accomplishments, when the mother told me, that the little girl who led me in this morning, was in her way a better scholar than he Betty,' fays fhe, deals chiefly in fairies and sprights; and fometimes in a winter-night will terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed." I fat with them until it was very late, fometimes in merry, fometimes in ferious difcourfe, with this particular pleafure, which gives the only true relish to all converfation, a fenfe that every one of us liked each other. I went home, confidering the different conditions of a married life and that of a batchelor; and I must confefs it ftruck me with a fecret concern, to reflect, that whenever I go off, I fhall leave no traces behind me. In this penfive mood I returned to my family; that is to fay, to my maid, my dog, and my cat, who only can be the better or worse for what happens to me.

FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, NOV. 17.

T has coft me very much care and thought to marthal and fix the people under their proper denominations, and to range them according to their refpective characters. Thefe my endeavours have been received with unexpected fuccefs in one kind, but neglected in another: for though I have many readers, I have but few converts. This must certainly proceed from a falfe opinion, that what I write is defigned rather to amufe and entertain, than convince and inftruct. I entered upon my effays with a declaration, that I fhould confider mankind in quite another manner than they had hitherto been reprefented to the ordinary world; and afferted, that none but an ufeful life fhould be with me any

life at all. But left this doctrine fhould have made this fmall progrefs towards the conviction of mankind, because it may appear to the unlearned light and whimfical, I must take leave to unfold the wisdom and antiquity of my first propofition in thefe my Effays, to wit,

That every worthlefs man is a dead man.' This notion is as old as Pythagoras, in whofe fchool it was a point of difcipline, that if among the 'Avçıxoi, or Probationers, there were any who grew weary of studying to be useful, and returned to an idle life, the reft were to regard them as dead; and, upon their departing, to perform their obfequies, and raise them tombs, with infcriptions to warn others of the like mortality, and quicken them to resolutions of refining their fouls above that wretched state. It

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