never fear the finding authorities to support you in any detraction, among the writers of anecdotes; since Dion Cassius, a grave historian, has confidently asserted that Cicero prostituted his wife, trained up his son in drunkenness, committed incest with his daughter, and lived in adultery with Cerellia.

I come next to ornaments; under which head I consider sentences, prodigies, digressions, and descriptions. On the two first I shall not detain you, as it will be sufficient to recommend a free use of them, and to be new, if you can. Of digressions you may make the greatest use, by calling them to your aid whenever you are at a fault. If you want to swell your history to a folio, and have only matter for an octavo (suppose, for example, it were the story of Alexander), you may enter into an inquiry of what that adventurer would have done, if he had not been poisoned; whether his conquests, or Kouly Khan's, were the most extraordinary: what would have been the consequence of his marching westward; and whether he would have beat the Duke of Marlborough. You may also introduce in this place a dissertation upon fire-arms, or the art of fortification. In descriptions, you must not be sparing, but outgo every thing that has been attempted before you. Let your battles be the most bloody, your sieges the most obstinate, your castles the most impregnable, your commanders the most consummate, and their soldiers the most intrepid. In describing a

sea

a-fight, let the enemy's fleet be the most numerous, and their ships the largest that ever were known. Do not scruple to burn a thousand ships, and turn their crews half-scorched into the sea; there let them survive a while by swimming, that you may have an opportunity of jamming them between their own and the enemy's vessels: and when you have gone

clude by blowing up the admiral's own ship, and scattering officers of great birth and bravery in the air. In the sacking of a town, murder all the old men and young children in the cruellest manner, and in the most sacred retreats. Devise some ingenious insults on the modesty of matrons. Ravish a great number of virgins, and see that they are all in the height of beauty and purity of innocence. When you have fired all the houses, and cut the throats of ten times the number of inhabitants they contained, exercise all manner of barbarity on the dead bodies. And that you may extend the scene of misery, let some escape, but all naked. Tear their uncovered limbs; cut their feet for want of shoes; harden the hearts of the peasants against them, and arm the elements with unusual rigour for their persecution : drench them with rain, benumb them with frost, and terrify them with thunder and lightning.

If in writing voyages and travels you have occasion to send messengers through an uninhabited country, do not be over-tender or scrupulous how you treat them. You may stop them at rivers, and drown all their servants and horses: infest them with fleas, lice, and musquitoes, and when they have been eaten sufficiently with these vermin, you may starve them to a desire of eating one another; and if you think it will be an ornament to your history, e'en cast the lots, and set them to dinner. But if you do this, you must take care that the savage chief to whom they are sent, does not treat them with man's flesh; because it will be no novelty: I would rather advise you to alter the bill of fare to an elephant, a rhinoceros, or an alligator. The king and his court will of course be drinking out of human skulls; but what sort of liquor you must fill them with, to surprise an European, I must own I cannot conceive. In treating of the Indian manners and customs, you

may make a long chapter of their conjuring, their idolatrous ceremonies, and superstitions; which will give you a fair opportunity of saying something smart on the religion of your own country. On their marriages you cannot dwell too long; it is a pleasing subject, and always, in those countries, leads to polygamy, which will afford occasion for reflections moral and entertaining. When your messengers have their audience of the king, you may as well drop the business they went upon, and take notice only of his civilities and politeness in offering to them the choice of all the beauties of his court; by which you will make them amends for all the difficulties you have led them into.

I cannot promise you much success in the speeches of your savages, unless it were possible to hit upon some bolder figures and metaphors than those which have been so frequently used. In the speeches of a civilized people, insert whatever may serve to display your own learning, judgment, or wit; and let

no man's low extraction be a restraint on the advantages of your education. If in a harangue of Wat Tyler, a quotation from the classics should come in pat, or in a speech of Muley Moluch a sentence from Mr. Locke, let no consideration deprive your history of such ornaments.

To conclude, I would advise you in general not to be sparing of your speeches, either in number or length and if you also take care to add a proper quantity of reflections, your work will be greedily bought up by all members of oratories, reasoning societies, and other talkative assemblies of this most eloquent metropolis.

N° 108. THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1755.

Hoc est Româ decedere? Quos ego homines effugi, cùm in hos incidi?-CICERO ad Atticum.

I HAVE generally observed when a man is talking of his country-house, that the first question usually asked him is, Are you in a good neighbourhood?" From the frequency of this inquiry one would be apt to imagine that the principal happiness of a country life was generally understood to result from the neighbourhood: yet whoever attends to the answer commonly made to this question, will be of a contrary opinion. Ask it of a lady, and you will be sure to hear her exclaim, Thank God! we have no neighbours!' which may serve to convince you that you have paid your court very ill, in supposing that a woman of fashion can endure the insipid conversation of a country neighbourhood. The man of fortune considers every inferior neighbour as an intruder on his sport, and quarrels with him for killing that game with which his very servants are cloyed. If his neighbour be an equal, he is of consequence more averse to him, as being in perpetual contest with him as a rival. His sense of a superior may be learned from those repeated advertisements, which every body must have observed in the public papers, recommending a house upon sale, from being ten miles distant from a lord. The humorist hides himself from his neighbour; the man of arrogance despises him; the modest man is afraid of him; and the penurious considers a length of uninhabited fen as the best security for his beef and ale.

If we trace this spirit to its source, we shall find

it to proceed partly from pride and envy, and partly from the high opinion that men are apt to entertain of their own little clans or societies, which the living in large cities tends greatly to increase, and which is always accompanied with a contempt for those who happen to be strangers to such societies, and consequently a general prejudice against the unknown. The truth of the matter is, that persons unknown are, for that very reason, persons that we have no desire to know.

A man of a sociable disposition, upon coming into an inn, inquires of the landlord what company he has in the house: the landlord tells him, There is a fellow of a college, a lieutenant of a man of war, a lawyer, a merchant, and the captain in quarters ;' to which hen ever fails to add,' and I dare say, Sir, that any of them will be very glad of your company;' knowing that men drink more together than when alone. 'Have you nobody else?' says the guest sullenly. 'We have nobody else, Sir.' Then get me my supper as fast as you can, and I'll go to bed.' The same behaviour is practised by each of these gentlemen in his turn; and for no other reason, than that none of the company happens to be either of his profession or acquaintance.

But if we look with the least degree of wonder at the manner in which the greatest part of mankind behave to strangers, it should astonish us to see how they treat those whom they are intimately acquainted with, and whom they rank under the sacred titles of neighbours and friends. Yet such is the malignity of human nature, that the smallest foible, the most venial inadvertency, or the slightest infirmity, shall generally occasion contempt, hatred, or ridicule, in those very persons who ought to be the foremost to conceal or palliate such failings. Death, accident,