misunderstanding, to the great loss of the men of raillery. This conversation confirmed me in the opinion, that learning usually does but improve in us what nature endowed us with. He that wants good sense is unhappy in having learning, for he has thereby only more ways of exposing himself; and he that has sense knows that learning is not knowledge, but rather the art of using it. St. James's Coffee-house, August 22. We have undoubted intelligence of the defeat of the king of Sweden; and that prince, who for some years had hovered like an approaching tempest, and was looked up at by all the nations of Europe, which seemed to expect their fate according to the course he should take, is now, in all probability, an unhappy exile, without the common necessaries of life. His Czarish Majesty treats his prisoners with great gallantry and distinction. Count Rhensfeildt has had particular marks of his Majesty's esteem, for his merit and services to his master; but Count Piper, whom his Majesty believes author of the most violent counsels into which his prince entered, is disarmed, and entertained accordingly. That decisive battle was ended at nine in the morning; and all the Swedish generals dined with the Czar that very day, and received assurances, that they should find Muscovy was not unacquainted with the laws of honour and humanity. N° 59. THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines- nostri est farrago libelli. Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream, White's Chocolate-house, August 24. P. ESOP has gained to himself an immortal renown for figuring the manners, desires, passions, and interests of men, by fables of beasts and birds. I shall, in my future accounts of our modern heroes and wits, vulgarly called sharpers, imitate the method of that delightful moralist; and think, I cannot represent those worthies more naturally than under the shadow of a pack of dogs; for this set of men are, like them, made up of finders, lurchers, and setters. Some search for the prey, others pursue, others take it, and if it be worth it, they all come in at the death, and worry the carcase. It would require a most exact knowledge of the field and the harbours where the deer lie, to recount all the revolutions in the chace. But I am diverted from the train of my discourse of the fraternity about this town, by letters from Hampstead, which give me an account, there is a late institution there, under the name of a rafflingshop; which is, it seems, secretly supported by a person who is a deep practitioner in the law, and out of tenderness of conscience has, under the name of his maid Sisly, set up this easier way of conveyancing and alienating estates from one family to another. He is so far from having an intelligence with the rest of the fraternity, that all the humbler cheats, who appear there, are out-faced by the partners in the bank, and driven off by the reflection of superior brass. This notice is given to all the silly faces that pass that way, that they may not be decoyed in by the soft allurement of a fine lady, who is the sign to the pageantry. At the same time Signior Hawksly, who is the patron of the household, is desired to leave off this interloping trade, or admit, as he ought to do, the Knights of the Industry to their share of the spoil. But this little matter is only by way of digression. Therefore to return to our worthies. The present race of terriers and hounds would starve, were it not for the enchanted Acteon, who has kept the whole pack for many successions of hunting seasons. Actæon has long tracts of rich soil; but had the misfortune in his youth to fall under the power of sorcery, and has been ever since, some parts of the year, a deer, and in some parts a man. While he is a man, such is the force of magic, he no sooner grows to such a bulk and fatness, but he is again turned into a deer, and hunted until he is lean; upon which he returns to his human shape. Many arts have been tried, and many resolutions taken by Acteon himself, to follow such methods as would break the enchantment; but all have hitherto proved ineffectual. I have, therefore, by midnight watchings and much care, found out, that there is no way to save him from the jaws of his hounds, but to destroy the pack, which, by astrological prescience, I find I am destined to perform. For which end I have sent out my familiar, to bring me a list of all the places where they are harboured, that I may know where to sound my horn, and bring them together, and take an account of their haunts and their marks, against another opportunity. Will's Coffee-house, August 24. The author of the ensuing letter, by his name, and the quotations he makes from the ancients, seems a sort of spy from the old world, whom we moderns ought to be careful of offending; therefore I must be free, and own it a fair hit where he takes me, rather than disoblige him. "Sir, Having a peculiar humour of desiring to be somewhat the better or wiser for what I read, I am always uneasy when, in any profound writer, for I read no others, I happen to meet with what I cannot understand. When this falls out, it is a great grievance to me that I am not able to consult the author himself about his meaning, for commentators are a sect that have little share in my esteem: your elaborate writings have, among many others, this advantage; that their author is still alive, and ready, as his extensive charity makes us expect, to explain whatever may be found in them too sublime for vulgar understandings. This, Sir, makes me presume to ask you, how the Hampstead hero's character could be perfectly new when the last letters came away, and yet Sir John Suckling so well acquainted with it sixty years ago? I hope, Sir, you will not take this amiss: I can assure you, I have a profound respect for you, which makes me write this with the same disposition with which Longinus bids us read Homer and Plato. When in reading, says he, any of those celebrated authors, we meet with a passage to which we cannot well reconcile our reasons, we ought firmly to believe, that were those great wits present to answer for themselves, we should to our wonder be convinced, that we only are guilty of the mistakes we before attributed to them. If you think fit to remove the scruple that now torments me, it will be an encouragement to me to settle a frequent correspondence with you; several things falling in my way which would not, perhaps, be altogether foreign to your purpose, and whereon your thoughts would be very acceptable to your most humble servant, OBADIAH GREENHAT." I own this is clean, and Mr. Greenhat has convinced me that I have writ nonsense, yet am I not at all offended at him. Scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque vicissim. HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 11. 'I own th' indulgence- -Such I give and take.' FRANCIS. This is the true art of raillery, when a man turns another into ridicule, and shews at the same time he is in good humour, and not urged on by malice against the person he rallies. Obadiah Greenhat has hit this very well: for to make an apology to Isaac Bickerstaff, an unknown student and horary historian, as well as astrologer, and with a grave face to say, he speaks of him by the same rules with which he would treat Homer or Plato, is to place him in company where he cannot expect to make a figure; and make him flatter himself, that it is only being named with them which renders him most ridiculous. I have not known, and I am now passed my grand climacteric, being sixty-four years of age, according to my way of life; or rather, if you will allow punning in an old gentleman, according to my way of pastime: I say, as old as I am, I have not been acquainted with many of the Geeenhats. There is, indeed, one Zedekiah Greenhat, who is lucky also in his way. He has a very agreeable manner; for when he has a mind thoroughly to correct a man, he never takes from him any thing, but he allows him something for it; or else he blames him for things wherein he is not defective, as well as for matters wherein he is. This makes a weak man believe he is in jest in the whole. The other day, he told Beau Prim, who is thought impotent, that his mistress had declared that she would not have him, because he was a sloven, and had committed a rape.' The beau bit at the banter, and said very gravely, 'he thought to be clean was as much as was necessary; and that as to the rape, he wondered by what witchcraft that should come to her ears; but it had indeed cost him a hundred pounds to hush the affair. The Greenhats are a family with small voices and short arms, therefore they have power with none but their friends: they never call after those who |