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to learn to take tobacco and see new motions." He does this in the spirit of the fine song of the Old and Young Courtier:

"With a new fashion, when Christmas is drawing on,

On a new journey to London straight we must all begone,
And leave none to keep house, but our new porter John,

Who relieves the poor with a thump on the back with a stone,
Like a young courtier," &c.

Jonson's rules for making a town gentleman out of a country clown are drawn from the life: :

"First, to be an accomplished gentleman—that is, a gentleman of the timeyou must give over housekeeping in the country, and live altogether in the city amongst gallants; where, at your first appearance, 't were good you turn'd four or five acres of your best land into two or three trunks of apparel,-you may do it without going to a conjurer: and be sure you mix yourself still with such as flourish in the spring of the fashion, and are least popular (vulgar): study their carriage and behaviour in all; learn to play at primero and passage, and ever (when you lose) have two or three peculiar oaths to swear by, that no man else swears: but, above all, protest in your play, and affirm, 'Upon your credit,' 'As you are a true gentleman,' at every cast: you may do it with a safe conscience, I warrant you. You must endeavour to feed cleanly at your ordinary, sit melancholy, and pick your teeth when you cannot speak: and when you come to plays be humorous, look with a good starched face, and ruffle your brow like a new boot, laugh at nothing but your own jests, or else as the noblemen laugh. That's a special grace, you must observe. . You must pretend alliance

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with courtiers and great persons; and ever, when you are to dine or sup in any strange presence, hire a fellow with a great chain (though it be copper it's no matter) to bring you letters, feigned from such a nobleman, or such a knight, or such a lady."

All this is keen satire. It is directed against what has been the bane of English society up to the hour in which we write-pretence the aping to be what we are not the throwing aside our proper honours and happiness to thrust ourselves into societies which despise us, and to sacrifice our real good for fancied enjoyments which we ourselves despise.

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Turn we from the gentlemen to the citizens. The satire which we have transcribed is followed by a recommendation to get largely in debt amongst "rich fellows that have the world, or the better part of it, sleeping in their counting-houses." According to Jonson's picture in another comedy (The Devil is an Ass') the citizens were as anxious to get the gentlemen in their books as the gentlemen to be there. The following dialogue takes place between Gilthead, a goldsmith, and Plutarchus, his son :

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For if our debtors pay, we cozen them;
And if they do not, then we cozen ourselves.
But that's a hazard every one must run
That hopes to make his son a gentleman!

Plu. I do not wish to be one, truly, father.
In a descent or two we come to be

Just in their state, fit to be cozen'd like them;
For, since the gentry scorn the city so much,
Methinks we should in time, holding together,
And matching in our own tribes, as they say,
Have got an act of common-council for it,
That we might cozen them out of rerum natura.
Gilt. Ay, if we had an act first to forbid
The marrying of our wealthy heirs unto them,
And daughters with such lavish portions:
That confounds all.

Plu. And makes a mongrel breed, father.

. And when they have your money, then they laugh at you,

Or kick you down the stairs. I cannot abide them:

I would fain have them cozen'd, but not trusted."

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The age in which Jonson wrote was remarkable for two things which generally go together-boundless profusion, and the most extravagant desire for sudden wealth. The poet has left us two of the most vivid personifications of an insane abandonment to the longing for boundless riches that were ever conceived by a deep philosophical spirit working upon actual observation. Sir Epicure Mammon, in the Alchymist,' is a character for "all time." The cheating mysteries by which his imagination was inflamed have long ceased to have their dupes; but there are delusions in the every-day affairs of life quite as exciting, perhaps more dangerous. The delights which this unfortunate dupe proposes to himself when he shall have obtained the philosopher's stone are strong illustrations indeed of the worthlessness of ill-employed riches:

"We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the med'cine.

My meat shall all come in in Indian shells,

Dishes of agate set in gold, and studded

With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies.
The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels,
Boil'd in the spirit of sol, and dissolv'd pearl,
Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy:

And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber,
Headed with diamond and carbuncle.
My footboy shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons,
Knots, godwits, lampreys: I myself will have
The beards of barbels serv'd instead of salads;
Oil'd mushrooms; and the swelling unctious paps
Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off,
Dress'd with an exquisite and poignant sauce;
For which, I'll say unto my cook, There 's gold;
Go forth, and be a knight."

And then comes the little tobacconist, Abel Drugger, who "this summer will be of the clothing of his company;" and he would give a crown to the Alchymist to receive back a fortune. This satire, it may be objected, is not permanent, because we have no alchymy now; but the passion which gave the alchymists. their dupes is permanent: and Jonson has exhibited another mode in which it. sought its gratification, which comes somewhat nearer to our own times. The

Norfolk Squire of The Devil is an Ass' meets with a projector-one whe pretends to influence at court to obtain monopolies - an 66 undertaker," who makes men's fortunes without the advance of a penny, except a mere trifle of a ring or so by way of present to the great lady who is to procure the patent. But let the projector speak for himself:

"He shall not draw

A string of 's purse; I'll drive his patent for him.
We'll take in citizens, commoners, and aldermen,

To bear the charge, and blow them off again,
Like so many dead flies, when it is carried.
The thing is for recovery of drown'd land,
Whereof the crown's to have a moiety,
If it be owner; else the crown and owners
To share that moiety, and the recoverers
To enjoy the t'other moiety for their charge.
Eng. Throughout England?

Meer. Yes; which will arise

To eighteen millions-seven the first year:
I have computed all, and made my survey
Unto an acre."

(To be concluded in No. XXII.)

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The dupe thus recounts his great fortunes to his wife :

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Wife, such a man, wife!

He has such plots! he will make me a duke!

No less, by heaven! six mares to your coach, wife!
That's your proportion! and your coachman bald,
Because he shall be bare enough. Do not you laugh;
We are looking for a place, and all, in the map,
What to be of. Have faith-be not an infidel.
You know I am not easy to be gull'd.

I swear, when I have my millions, else, I'll make

Another duchess, if you have not faith.

Mrs. Fitz. You'll have too much, I fear, in these false spirits.
Fitz. Spirits! O, no such thing, wife; wit, mere wit.

This man defies the devil and all his works;

He does 't by engine, and devices, he!
He has his winged ploughs, that go with sails,
Will plough you forty acres at once! and mills
Will spout you water ten miles off! All Crowland
Is ours, wife: and the fens, from us, in Norfolk,

To the utmost bounds in Lincolnshire! we have view'd it,
And measur'd it within all, by the scale:

The richest tract of land, love, in the kingdom:

There will be made seventeen or eighteen millions,
Or more, as 't may be handled! so therefore think,
Sweet-heart, if thou hast a fancy to one place

More than another, to be duchess of,

Now name it; I will have 't, whate'er it cost,
(If 't will be had for money,) either here,

Or in France, or Italy.

Mrs. Fitz. You have strange phantasies!"

Is this satire obsolete?

But there is another form of the passion whose permanency and universality cannot be denied. What the victims of gaming propose to themselves Jonson has delineated with inimitable humour :

"There's a young gentleman

Is born to nothing-forty marks a year,
Which I count nothing:-he is to be initiated,
And have a fly of the doctor. He will win you,
By unresistible luck, within this fortnight,
Enough to buy a barony. They will set him
Upmost, at the groom-porters, all the Christmas:
And for the whole year through, at every place
Where there is play, present him with the chair;
The best attendance, the best drink; sometimes
Two glasses of Canary, and pay nothing;
The purest linen, and the sharpest knife;
The partridge next his trencher.

You shall have your ordinaries bid for him,

As playhouses for a poet; and the master

Pray him aloud what dish he affects,

Which must be butter'd shrimps: and those that drink

To no mouth else will drink to his as being

The goodly president mouth of all the board."

The line

"You shall have your ordinaries bid for him "

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will at once suggest to the reader the admirable scene in the Fortunes of Nigel,' where we breathe the very air of the ordinary of " Monsieur le Chevalier de Beaujeu, pink of Paris, and flower of Gascony." The cookery, the wine, the gaming, and the quarrelling, which Scott has so inimitably painted, are to be traced in every page of the comedies of this period. There is, however, amongst the 'Anecdotes and Traditions,' published by the Camden Society from the manuscript of Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, preserved in the Harleian collection, a story which shows us the manners of an ordinary with great truth and spirit:"Old Jack Pinchback, a gamester and ruffler in London, came into an ordinary very brave and daubed with gold-lace, and, spying a country gentleman there, resolved to whet his wit upon him for that meal, and so seated himself by him; meat was no sooner upon the table but the gentleman boards the best dish before him: Soft, friend,' says Pinchback; in such places as these, give gentlemen of quality and your betters leave to be before you.' 'Say you so?' says he; why, they tell me in the country, that, when a man comes into an ordinary at London, every man is his own carver, and eats what he has a mind to.' '0 no,' says Pinchback, take it from me, 'tis false doctrine.' The gentleman, being both wise and daring, and well enough acquainted with the fashions of London, dissembled himself; and observing that Pinchback loved his palate, as soon as the second course was set down, he had the first hand upon a pheasant. 'Fie!' says Pinchback; these country clowns neither know nor will learn good manners.' He held his pheasant for all that, and fed as fast upon it as Pinchback scoffed and played upon him; still answering that in the country he never heard of any such fashions. Well, dinner was no sooner done, and the company risen, but this country gentleman, well fleshed with the best meat, comes boldly up to Pinchback: 'I prithee,' says he, 'whose fool art thou?" Says Pinchback,

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