and study away three ounces more. As for the remaining parts of the pound, I keep no account of them. I do not dine and sup by the clock, but by my chair; for when that informs me my pound of food is exhausted, I conclude myself to be hungry, and lay in another with all diligence. In my days of abstinence I lose a pound and a half, and on solemn fasts am two pound lighter than on other days in the year.

'I allow myself, one night with another, a quarter of a pound of sleep within a few grains, more or less; and if upon my rising I 10 find that I have not consumed my whole quantity, I take out the rest in my chair. Upon an exact calculation of what I expended and received the last year, which I always register in a book, I find the medium to be two hundred weight, so that I cannot discover that I am impaired one ounce in my health during a whole twelvemonth. And yet, Sir, notwithstanding this my great care to ballast myself equally every day, and to keep my body in its proper poise, so it is, that I find myself in a sick and languishing condition. My complexion is grown very sallow, my pulse low, and my body hydropical. Let me therefore beg you, Sir, to con20 sider me as your patient, and to give me more certain rules to walk by than those I have already observed, and you will very much oblige,

'Your humble Servant.'

This letter puts me in mind of an Italian epitaph written on the monument of a Valetudinarian ; Stavo ben; ma, per star meglio, sto qui: which it is impossible to translate ". The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their lives which infallibly destroy them. This is a reflexion made by some historians, upon observing that there are many more thousands 30 killed in a flight than in a battle; and may be applied to those multitudes of imaginary sick persons that break their constitutions by physic, and throw themselves into the arms of death, by endeavouring to escape it. This method is not only dangerous, but below the practice of a reasonable creature. To consult the preservation of life as the only end of it, to make our health our business, to engage in no action that is not part of a regimen or course of physic, are purposes so abject, so mean, so unworthy human nature, that a generous soul would rather die than submit to them. Besides that a continual anxiety for life vitiates all the 40 relishes of it, and casts a gloom over the whole face of nature,

NOT LIFE, BUT GOOD LIFE.

241

it is impossible we should take delight in any thing that we are every moment afraid of losing.

I do not mean, by what I have here said, that I think any one to blame for taking due care of their health. On the contrary, as chearfulness of mind and capacity for business are in a great measure the effects of a well-tempered constitution, a man cannot be at too much pains to cultivate and preserve it. But this care, which we are prompted to not only by common sense but by duty and instinct, should never engage us in groundless fears, 10 melancholy apprehensions, and imaginary distempers, which are natural to every man who is more anxious to live than how to live. In short, the preservation of life should be only a secondary concern, and the direction of it our principal. If we have this frame of mind, we shall take the best means to preserve life, without being over solicitous about the event; and shall arrive at that point of felicity which Martial has mentioned as the perfection of happiness, of neither fearing nor wishing for death".

In answer to the gentleman, who tempers his health by ounces 20 and by scruples, and, instead of complying with those natural solicitations of hunger and thirst, drowsiness or love of exercise, governs himself by the prescriptions of his chair, I shall tell him a short fable. Jupiter, says the mythologist, to reward the piety of a certain countryman, promised to give him whatever he would ask. The countryman desired that he might have the management of the weather in his own estate. He obtained his request, and immediately distributed rain, snow, and sun-shine, among his several fields, as he thought the nature of the soil required. At the end of the year, when he expected to see a more than or30 dinary crop, his harvest fell infinitely short of that of his neighbours: upon which, (says the fable,) he desired Jupiter to take the weather again into his own hands, or that otherwise he should utterly ruin himself.-C.

No. 28. On Sign-posts; their oddity and incongruity; two letters on the subject.

I shall here present my reader with a letter from a projector,

R

concerning a new office which he thinks may very much contribute to the embellishment of the city, and to the driving barbarity out of our streets. I consider it as a satire upon projectors in general, and a lively picture of the whole art of modern criticism.

SIR,

'Observing that you have thoughts of creating certain officers under you, for the inspection of several petty enormities which you yourself cannot attend to, and finding daily absurdities 10 hung out upon the sign-posts of this city, to the great scandal of foreigners, as well as those of our own country, who are curious spectators of the same,-I do humbly propose, that you would be pleased to make me your superintendant of all such figures and devices as are or shall be made use of on this occasion; with full powers to rectify or expunge whatever I shall find irregular or defective. For want of such an officer, there is nothing like sound literature and good sense to be met with in these objects, that are every where thrusting themselves out to the eye, and endeavouring to become visible. Our streets are filled with blue boars, 20 black swans, and red lions; not to mention flying pigs, hogs in armour, with many other creatures more extraordinary than any in the deserts of Afric. Strange! that one who has all the birds and beasts in nature to chuse out of, should live at the sign of an ens rationis!

'My first task, therefore, should be, like that of Hercules, to clear the city from monsters. In the second place, I would forbid that creatures of jarring and incongruous natures should be joined together in the same sign; such as the Bell and the Neat's Tongue, the Dog and the Gridiron. The Fox and the Goose may 30 be supposed to have met, but what has the Fox and the Seven Stars to do together? And when did the Lamb and Dolphin ever meet, except upon a sign-post? As for the Cat and Fiddle, there is a conceit in it; and therefore I do not intend that any thing I have here said should affect it. I must however observe to you upon this subject, that it is usual for a young tradesman, at his first setting up, to add to his own sign that of the master whom he served, as the husband after marriage gives a place to his mistress's arms in his own coat. This I take to have given rise to many of those absurdities which are committed over our

heads; and, as I am informed, first occasioned the Three Nuns and a Hare, which we see so frequently joined together. I would therefore establish certain rules, for the determining how far one tradesman may give the sign of another, and in what cases he may be allowed to quarter it with his own.

'In the third place, I would enjoin every shop to make use of a sign which bears some affinity to the wares in which he deals. A cook should not live at the Boot, nor a shoemaker at the Roasted Pig; and yet, for want of this regulation, I have seen a goat set 10 up before the door of a perfumer, and the French king's head at a sword-cutler's.

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'An ingenious foreigner observes that several of those gentlemen who value themselves upon their families, and overlook such as are bred to trade, bear the tools of their forefathers in their coats of arms. I will not examine how true this is in fact: but though it may not be necessary for posterity thus to set up the sign of their forefathers, I think it highly proper for those who actually profess the trade, to shew some such marks of it before their doors.

'When the name gives an occasion for an ingenious sign-post, I would likewise advise the owner to take that opportunity of letting the world know who he is. It would have been ridiculous for the ingenious Mrs. Salmon to have lived at the sign of the Trout; for which reason she has erected before her house the figure of the fish that is her name-sake. Mr. Bell has likewise distinguished himself by a device of the same nature; and here, Sir, I must beg leave to observe to you, that this particular figure of a bell has given occasion to several pieces of wit in this kind. A man of your reading must know that Abel Drugger n gained great ap30 plause by it in the time of Ben Jonson. Our apocryphal heathen god is also represented by this figure; which, in conjunction with the dragon, makes a very handsome picture in several of our streets. As for the Bell Savage, which is the sign of a savage man standing by a bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old romance translated out of the French, which gives an account of a very beautiful woman who was found in a wilderness, and is called in the French La Belle Sauvage; and is everywhere translated by our countrymen the Bell Savage. This piece 40 of philology will, I hope, convince you that I have made sign

A surly

posts my study, and consequently qualified myself for the employment which I solicit at your hands. But before I conclude my letter, I must communicate to you another remark which I have made upon the subject with which I am now entertaining you, namely, that I can give a shrewd guess at the humour of the inhabitant by the sign that hangs before his door. cholerick fellow generally makes choice of a bear; as men of milder dispositions frequently live at the Lamb. Seeing a punchbowl painted upon a sign near Charing Cross, and very curiously 10 garnished, with a couple of angels hovering over it, and squeezing a lemon into it, I had the curiosity to ask after the master of the house, and found upon enquiry, as I had guessed by the little agrémens upon his sign, that he was a Frenchman. I know, Sir, it is not requisite for me to enlarge upon these hints to a gentleman of your abilities; so humbly recommending myself to your favour and patronage,

20

'I remain, &c.'

I shall add to the foregoing letter another which came to me by the same penny-post.

'HONOURED SIR,

'From my own apartment near Charing-cross.

'Having heard that this nation is a great encourager of ingenuity, I have brought with me a rope-dancer that was caught in one of the woods belonging to the Great Mogul. He is by birth a monkey; but swings upon a rope, takes a pipe of tobacco, and drinks a glass of ale, like any reasonable creature. He gives great satisfaction to the quality; and if they will make a subscription for him I will send for a brother of his out of Holland that is a very good tumbler; and also for another of the same 30 family whom I design for a Merry-Andrew, as being an excellent mimic, and the greatest droll in the country where he now is. I hope to have this entertainment in a readiness for the next winter; and doubt not but that it will please more than the opera or puppetshow. I will not say that a monkey is a better man than some of the opera heroes; but certainly he is a better representative of a man than the most artificial composition of wood and wire. If you will be pleased to give me a good word in your paper, you shall be every night a spectator at my show for nothing, 'I am, &c.'—C.