ld any natural consequence of candour hen we speak of ourselves.

The Spectator writes often in an elegant, ten in an argumentative, and often in a blime style, with equal success; but how Ould it hurt the reputed author of that per to own, that of the most beautiful eces under his title he is barely the pubher? There is nothing but what a man ally performs can be an honour to him; mat he takes more than he ought in the e of the world, he loses in the conviction his own heart; and a man must lose his nsciousness, that is, his very self, before can rejoice in any falsehood without inard mortification.

thinking on a subject for my next Spectator,
I heard two or three irregular bounces at
my landlady's door, and upon the opening
of it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring whe
ther the philosopher was at home. The
child who went to the door answered very
innocently, that he did not lodge there.
I immediately recollected that it was my
good friend sir Roger's voice; and that I
had promised to go with him on the water
to Spring-garden, in case it proved a good
evening. The knight put me in mind of
my promise from the bottom of the stair-
case, but told me, that if I was speculating,
he would stay below till I had done. Upon
my coming down, I found all the children
of the family got about my old friend;
and my landlady herself, who is a notable
prating gossip engaged in a conference with
him; being mightily pleased with his strok-
ing her little boy on the head, and bidding
him to be a good child and mind his book.

Who has not seen a very criminal at the
r, when his counsel and friends have
ne all that they could for him in vain,
evail on the whole assembly to pity him,
d his judge to recommend his case to the
ercy of the throne, without offering any
ing new in his defence, but that he whom We were no sooner come to the Temple-
fore we wished convicted, became so out of stairs, but we were surrounded with a
s own mouth, and took upon himself all crowd of watermen, offering us their re-
e shame and sorrow we were just before spective services. Sir Roger, after having
eparing for him? The great opposition looked about him very attentively, spied
this kind of candour arises from the un-one with a wooden leg, and immediately
st idea people ordinarily have of what gave him orders to get his boat ready. As
e call a high spirit. It is far from great- we were walking towards it, 'You must
ess of spirit to persist in the wrong in any know,' says Sir Roger, 'I never make use
ing; nor is it a diminution of greatness of of any body to row me, that has not lost
irit to have been in the wrong. Perfec- either a leg or an arm. I would rather bate
on is not the attribute of man, therefore him a few strokes of his oar than not em-
is not degraded by the acknowledgment ploy an honest man that has been wounded
an imperfection; but it is the work of in the queen's service. If I was a lord or a
tle minds to imitate the fortitude of great bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put
pirits on worthy occasions, by obstinacy in a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden
e wrong. This obstinacy prevails so far leg.'
on them, that they make it extend to the My old friend, after having seated him-
fence of faults in their very servants. It self, and trimmed the boat with his coach-
ould swell this paper to too great a length man, who, being a very sober man, always
ould I insert all the quarrels and debates serves for ballast on these occasions, we
hich are now on foot in this town; where made the best of our way for Vauxhall.
e party, and in some cases both, is sensi- Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us
e of being on the faulty side, and have not the history of his right leg; and, hearing
irit enough to acknowledge it. Among that he had left it at La Hogue, with many
e ladies the case is very common; for particulars which passed in that glorious
ere are very few of them who know that action, the knight, in the triumph of his
is to maintain a true and high spirit, to heart, made several reflections on the
row away from it all which itself disap-greatness of the British nation; as that one
oves, and to scorn so pitiful a shame, as Englishman could beat three Frenchmen;
at which disables the heart from acquir- that we could never be in danger of popery
a liberality of affections and sentiments. so long as we took care of our fleet; that
he candid mind, by acknowledging and the Thames was the noblest river in
scharging its faults, has reason and truth Europe; that London bridge was a greater
r the foundations of all its passions and de- piece of work than any of the seven won-
es, and consequently is happy and sim-ders of the world; with many other honest
e; the disingenuous spirit, by indulgence prejudices which naturally cleave to the
one unacknowledged error, is entangled heart of a true Englishman.
ith an after-life of guilt, sorrow, and per-
exity.

.383.] Tuesday, May 20, 1712.

T.

After some short pause, the old knight turning about his head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple-bar. A most heathenish sight!' says sir Roger:

Or Vauxhall

'there is no religion at this end of the town. | ratified the knight's commands with a pe-
The fifty new churches will very much remptory look.
mend the prospect; but church-work is
slow, church-work is slow.'

As we were going out of the garden, my old friend thinking himself obliged, as a member of the quorum, to animadvert upon the morals of the place, told the mistress of the house, who sat at the bar, that he should be a better customer to her garden, if there were more nightingales and fewer strumpets.

I.

I do not remember I have any where mentioned in Sir Roger's character, his custom of saluting every body that passes by him with a good-morrow, or a goodnight. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity; though, at the same time, it renders him so popular among all his country neighbours, that it is thought to have gone a good way in making No. 384.] Wednesday, May 21, 1712 him once or twice knight of the shire. He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence Hague, May 24, N. S. The same republican hands even in town, when he meets with any one who have so often since the chevalier de St. George's in his morning or evening walk. It broke recovery killed him in our public prints, have now re duced the young dauphin of France to that desperate from him to several boats that passed by us condition of weakness, and death itself, that it is hand on the water; but, to the knight's great to conjecture what method they will take to bring him surprise, as he gave the good-night to two hand from Paris, that on the 20th instant this young to life again. Meantime we are assured, by a very good or three young fellows a little before our prince was as well as ever he was known to be since landing, one of them, instead of returning the day of his birth. As for the other, they are now the civility, asked us, what queer old put modesty to contradict their assertion of his death) to sending his ghost, we suppose (for they never had the we had in the boat, and whether he was Commerci in Lorrain, attended only by four gentlemen not ashamed to go a wenching at his years? and a few domestics of little consideration. The Baron with a great deal of the like Thames-qualify him as an ambassador to this state (an office to de Bothmar* having delivered in his credentials to ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a little shocked which his greatest enemies will acknowledge him to be at first, but at length assuming a face of equal,) is gone to Utrecht, whence he will proceed to magistracy, told us, that if he were a Mid- Hanover, but not stay long at that court, for fear the peace should be made during his lamentable absence. dlesex justice, he would make such va- Post-Boy, May 20. grants know that her majesty's subjects were no more to be abused by water than by land.

I SHOULD be thought not able to read
should I overlook some excellent pieces
We were now arrived at Spring-garden, lately come out. My lord bishop of St
which is exquisitely pleasant at this time of Asapht has just now published some ser
the year. When I considered the fragrancy mons, the preface to which seems to me to
of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of determine a great point. He has, like a
birds, that sung upon the trees, and the good man, and a good Christian, in opposi
loose tribe of people that walked under tion to all the flattery and base submission
of false friends to princes, asserted, that
their shades, I could not but look the
upon
place as a kind of Mahometan Paradise. Christianity left us where it found us as to
Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a shall consist only of a sentence out of the
our civil rights. The present entertainment
little coppice by his house in the country,
which his chaplain used to call an aviary of Post-Boy, and the said preface of the lord
nightingales. You must understand,' says if the author of the Post-Boy should with
of St. Asaph. I should think it a little odd

the knight,that there is nothing in the
world that pleases a man in love so much impunity call men republicans for a glad
as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator, tender; and treat baron Bothmar, the mi
ness on the report of the death of the pre
the many moonlight nights that I have nister of Hanover, in such a manner as you
walked by myself, and thought on the
widow by the music of the nightingale!'
see in my motto. I must own, I think every
Here he fetched a deep sigh, and was fall-man in England concerned to support the
succession of that family.
ing into a fit of musing, when a mask, who
came behind him, gave him a gentle tap live, the latest of which was
"The publishing a few sermons, whilst
upon the shoulder, and asked him if he
would drink a bottle of mead with her? eight years since, and the first above seven
But the knight being startled at so unex-teen, will make it very natural for people
pected a familiarity, and displeased to be to inquire into the occasion of doing so; and
interrupted in his thoughts of the widow, to such I do very willingly assign these fol
told her she was a wanton baggage; and bid lowing reasons:
her go about her business.

preached abou

'First, from the observations I have been able to make for these many years last past upon our public affairs, and from the practices, that have of late been studious! natural tendency of several principles and revived, and from what has followed there

We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale, and a slice of hung beef. When we had done eating ourselves, the knight called a waiter to him, and bid him carry the remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I perceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the message, here for the Hanoverian family. * Ambassador from Hanover, and afterwards agen and was going to be saucy; upon which † Dr. William Fleetwood.

upon, I could not help both fearing and presaging, that these nations should some time or other, if ever we should have an enterprising prince upon the throne, of more ambition than virtue, justice, and true honour, fall into the way of all other nations, and lose their liberty.

sonable and well-grounded, that I believe I
can never have any other.

'Another reason of my publishing these
sermons at this time is, that I have a mind
to do myself some honour by doing what
honour I could to the memory of two most
excellent princes, and who have very highly
'Nor could I help foreseeing to whose deserved at the hands of all the people of
charge a great deal of this dreadful mis- these dominions, who have any true value
chief, whenever it should happen, would for the Protestant religion, and the con-
be laid; whether justly or unjustly, was not stitution of the English government of which
my business to determine; but I resolved, they were the great deliverers and de-
for my own particular part, to deliver my- fenders. I have lived to see their illustrious
self, as well as I could, from the reproaches names very rudely handled, and the great
and the curses of posterity, by publicly de- benefits they did this nation treated slightly
claring to all the world, that, although in and contemptuously. I have lived to see
the constant course of my ministry I have our deliverance from arbitrary power and
never failed, on proper occasions, to recom- popery traduced and vilified by some who
mend, urge, and insist upon the loving, formerly thought it was their greatest merit,
honouring, and reverencing the prince's and made it part of their boast and glory to
person, and holding it, according to the have had a little hand and share in bringing
laws, inviolable and sacred; and paying all it about; and others who, without it, must
obedience and submission to the laws, have lived in exile, poverty, and misery,
though never so hard and inconvenient to meanly disclaiming it, and using ill the
private people: yet did I never think my-glorious instruments thereof. Who could
self at liberty, or authorized to tell the peo- expect such a requital of such merit? I
ple, that either Christ, St. Peter, or St. have, I own it, an ambition of exempting
Paul, or any other holy writer, had, by any myself from the number of unthankful peo-
doctrine delivered by them, subverted the ple: and as I loved and honoured those
laws and constitutions of the country in great princes living, and lamented over
which they lived, or put them in a worse them when dead, so I would gladly raise
condition, with respect to their civil liber- them up a monument of praise as lasting as
ties, than they would have been had they any thing of mine can be; and I choose to
not been Christians. I ever thought it a do it at this time, when it is so unfashion-
most impious blasphemy against that holy able a thing to speak honourably of them.
religion, to father any thing upon it that
might encourage tyranny, oppression, or
injustice in a prince, or that easily tended
to make a free and happy people slaves and
miserable. No: people may make them-
selves as wretched as they will, but let not
God be called into that wicked party.
When force and violence, and hard neces-
sity, have brought the yoke of servitude
pon a people's neck, religion will supply
hem with a patient and submissive spirit
inder it till they can innocently shake it off:
ut certainly religion never puts it on. This
ways was, and this at present is, my
judgment of these matters: and I would be
ransmitted to posterity (for the little share
of time such names as mine can live) under
he character of one who loved his country,
nd would be thought a good Englishman,
s well as a good clergyman.

"The sermon that was preached upon the duke of Gloucester's death was printed quickly after, and is now, because the subject was so suitable, joined to the others. The loss of that most promising and hopeful prince was at that time, I saw, unspeakably great; and many accidents since have convinced us that it could not have been overvalued. That precious life, had it pleased God to have prolonged it the usual space, had saved us many fears and jealousies, and dark distrusts, and prevented many alarms, that have long kept us, and will keep us still, waking and uneasy. Nothing remained to comfort and support us under this heavy stroke,, but the necessity it brought the king and nation under of settling the succession in the house of Hanover, and giving it a hereditary right by act of parliament, as long as it continues ProThis character I thought would be trans-testant. So much good did God, in his nitted by the following sermons, which merciful providence, produce from a miswere made for and preached in a private fortune, which we could never otherwise udience, when I could think of nothing have sufficiently deplored! Ise but doing my duty on the occasions hat were then offered by God's providence, ithout any manner of design of making iem public; and for that reason I give lem now as they were then delivered; by hich I hope to satisfy those people who ave objected a change of principles to me, if I were not now the same man I forerly was. I never had but one opinion of ese matters; and that I think is so reaVOL. II.

14

The fourth sermon was preached upon the queen's accession to the throne, and the first year in which that day was solemnly observed (for by some accident or other it had been overlooked the year before;) and every one will see, without the date of it, that it was preached very early in this reign, since I was able only to promise and presage its future glories and successes, from the good appearances of things, and

the happy turn our affairs began to take;
and could not then count up the victories
and triumphs that, for seven years after,
made it, in the prophet's language, a name
and a praise among all the people of the
earth. Never did seven such years to-
gether pass over the head of any English
monarch, nor cover it with so much honour.
The crown and sceptre seemed to be the
queen's least ornaments; those, other princes
wore in common with her, and her great
personal virtues were the same before and
since; but such was the fame of her ad-
ministration of affairs at home, such was
the reputation of her wisdom and felicity
in choosing ministers, and such was then
esteemed their faithfulness and zeal, their
diligence and great abilities in executing
her commands; to such a height of military
glory did her great general and her armies
carry the British name abroad; such was
the harmony and concord betwixt her and
her allies; and such was the blessing of
God upon all her councils and undertakings,
that I am as sure as history can make me,
no prince of ours ever was so prosperous
and successful, so beloved, esteemed, and
honoured by their subjects and their friends,
nor near so formidable to their enemies.
We were, as all the world imagined then,
just entering on the ways that promised to
lead to such a peace as would have answered
all the prayers of our religious queen, the
care and vigilance of a most able ministry,
the payments of a willing and most obedient
people, as well as all the glorious toils and
hazards of the soldiery; when God, for our
sins, permitted the spirit of discord to go
forth, and by troubling sore the camp, the
city and the country, (and oh that it had
altogether spared the places sacred to his
worship!) to spoil, for a time, this beautiful
and pleasing prospect, and give us in its
stead, I know not what- Our ene-
mies will tell the rest with pleasure. It will
become me better to pray to God to restore
us to the power of obtaining such a peace
as will be to his glory, the safety, honour,
and welfare of the queen and her dominions,
and the general satisfaction of all her high
and mighty allies.*
'May 2, 1712.'

No. 385.] Thursday, May 22, 1712.
-Thesea pectora juncta fide.

Ovid. Trist. iii. Lib. 1. 66.
Breasts that with sympathizing ardour glow'd,
And holy friendship, such as Theseus vow'd.

I INTEND the paper for this day as a
loose essay upon friendship, in which I shall
throw my observations together without
any set form, that I may avoid repeating
what has been often said on this subject.

This Preface was seized on by the Tory ministry, and condemned, by a motion of the House of Commons, to be burned by the common hangman.--See Biographia Britannica, vol. iii. p. 1974.

Friendship is a strong and habitual in clination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another. Though the pleasures and advantages of friendship have been largely celebrated by the best moral writers, and are considered by all as great ingredients of human happiness, we very rarely meet with the practice of this virtue in the world.

Every man is ready to give in a long catalogue of those virtues and good qualities he expects to find in the person of a friend, but very few of us are careful to cultivate them in ourselves.

Love and esteem are the first principles of friendship, which always is imperfect where either of these two is wanting.

As, on the one hand, we are soon ashamed of loving a man whom we cannot esteem; so, on the other, though we are truly sensible of a man's abilities, we can never raise our selves to the warmth of friendship, with out an affectionate good-will towards his person.

Friendship immediately banishes envy under all its disguises. A man who can once doubt whether he should rejoice in his friend's being happier than himself, may depend upon it that he is an utter stranger to this virtue.

There is something in friendship so very great and noble, that in those fictitious stories which are invented to the honour of any particular person, the authors have thought it as necessary to make their hero a friend as a lover. Achilles has his Patroclus, and Æneas his Achates. In the first of these instances we may observe, for the reputa tion of the subject I am treating of, that Greece was almost ruined by the hero's love, but was preserved by his friendship.

The character of Achates suggests to us an observation we may often make on the intimacies of great men, who frequently choose their companions rather for the qualities of the heart than those of the head, and prefer fidelity in an easy, inof fensive, complying temper, to those endow ments which make a much greater figure among mankind. I do not remember that Achates, who is represented as the first favourite, either gives his advice, or strikes a blow, through the whole Æneid.

A friendship which makes the least noise is very often most useful: for which reason I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous

ylla's chief favourites, and always near No. 386.] Friday, May 23, 1712. at general.

Cum tristibus severe, cum remissis jucunde, cum senibus graviter, cum juventute comiter vivere.

Tully.

During the war between Cæsar and Pom-
ey, he still maintained the same conduct.
fter the death of Cæsar, he sent money to
rutus in his troubles, and did a thousand THE piece of Latin on the head of this
od offices to Antony's wife and friends paper is part of a character extremely vi-
hen that party seemed ruined. Lastly, cious, but I have set down no more than
ven in that bloody war between Antony may fall in with the rules of justice and
nd Augustus, Atticus still kept his place honour. Cicero spoke it of Catiline, who,
both their friendships: insomuch that the he said, 'lived with the sad severely, with
rst, says Cornelius Nepos, whenever he the cheerful agreeably, with the old grave-
as absent from Rome in any part of the ly, with the young pleasantly;' he added,
mpire, writ punctually to him what he with the wicked boldly, with the wanton
as doing, what he read, and whither he lasciviously.' The two last instances of his
tended to go; and the latter gave him complaisance I forbear to consider, having
Onstantly an exact account of all his affairs. it in my thoughts at present only to speak
A likeness of inclinations in every parti- of obsequious behaviour as it sits upon a
lar is so far from being requisite to form companion in pleasure, not a man of design
benevolence in two minds towards each and intrigue. To vary with every humour
ther, as it is generally imagined, that I in this manner cannot be agreeable, except
elieve we shall find some of the firmest it comes from a man's own temper and na-
iendships to have been contracted be- tural complexion; to do it out of an ambi-
ween persons of different humours; the tion to excel that way, is the most fruitless
ind being often pleased with those per- and unbecoming prostitution imaginable.
ections which are new to it, and which it To put on an artful part to obtain no other
oes not find among its own accomplish-end but an unjust praise from the undiscern-
ents. Besides that a man in some mea-ing, is of all endeavours the most despica-
are supplies his own defects, and fancies ble. A man must be sincerely pleased to
imself at second-hand possessed of those become pleasure, or not to interrupt that
ood qualities and endowments, which are of others; for this reason it is a most cala-
the possession of him who in the eye of mitous circumstance, that many people who
e world is looked upon as his other self. want to be alone, or should be so, will come
The most difficult province in friendship into conversation. It is certain that all men,
the letting a man see his faults and errors, who are the least given to reflection, are
hich should, if possible, be so contrived, seized with an inclination that way, when,
at he may perceive our advice is given perhaps, they had rather be inclined to
im not so much to please ourselves as for company; but indeed they had better go
advantage. The reproaches there- home and be tired with themselves, than
re of a friend should always be strictly force themselves upon others to recover
st, and not too frequent.
their good humour. In all this, the case of
communicating to a friend a sad thought or
difficulty, in order to relieve a heavy heart,
stands excepted; but what is here meant
is, that a man should always go with incli-
nation to the turn of the company he is
going into, or not pretend to be of the party.
It is certainly a very happy temper to be
able to live with all kinds of dispositions,
because it argues a mind that lies open to
receive what is pleasing to others, and not
obstinately bent on any particularity of his
own.

is own

The violent desire of pleasing in the perreproved may otherwise change into a espair of doing it, while he finds himself Ensured for faults he is not conscious of. mind that is softened and humanized by iendship cannot bear frequent reproaches; ther it must quite sink under the oppreson, or abate considerably of the value and teem it had for him who bestows them. The proper business of friendship is to spire life and courage: and a soul thus pported outdoes itself: whereas, if it be expectedly deprived of these succours, droops and languishes.

We are in some measure more inexcusae if we violate our duties to a friend than a relation; since the former arise from voluntary choice, the latter from a nessity to which we could not give our own

nsent.

As it has been said on one side, that a
an ought not to break with a faulty friend,
at he may not expose the weakness of
choice; it will doubtless hold much
ronger with respect to a worthy one, that
may never be upbraided for having lost
valuable a treasure which was once in
spossession.
X.

This is it which makes me pleased with the character of my good acquaintance Acasto. You meet him at the tables and conversations of the wise, the impertinent, the grave, the frolic, and the witty; and yet his own character has nothing in it that can make him particularly agreeable to any one sect of men; but Acasto has natural good sense, good-nature, and discretion, so that every man enjoys himself in his company; and though Acasto contributes nothing to the entertainment, he never was at a place where he was not welcome a second time. Without the subordinate good qualities of Acasto, a man of wit and learning would be painful to the generality of man