exalts his throat to so high a key, that the most | friends and relations, among others the reverend noisy of our order is utterly unheard. If you please to observe upon this, you will ever oblige, &c.'

voice.

Mr. Caswell, minister of the place, that it was highly probable that he should remove the obstacle which prevented the use of his sight; all his acquaintance, who had any regard for There have been communicated to me some the young man, or curiosity to be present when other ill consequences from the same cause; one of full age and understanding received a as, the overturning of coaches by sudden starts new sense, assembled themselves on this occaof the horses as they passed that way, womension. Mr. Caswell, being a gentleman partipregnant frightened, and heirs to families lost; which are public disasters, though arising from cularly curious, desired the whole company, in a good intention: but it is hoped, after this case the blindness should be cured, to keep siadmonition, that Stentor will avoid an act of lence; and let the patient make his own observations, without the direction of any thing he so great supererogation, as singing without a had received by his other senses, or the advan But I am diverted from prosecuting Stentor's tage of discovering his friends by their voices. reformation, by an account, that the two faithful Among several others, the mother, brethren, sisters, and a young gentlewoman, for whom he lovers, Lisander and Coriana, are dead; for, no had a passion, were present. The work was longer ago than the first day of the last month, they swore eternal fidelity to each other, and to performed with great skill and dexterity. When love until death. Ever since that time Lisander the patient first received the dawn of light, there has been twice a day at the chocolate-house, appeared such an ecstasy in his action, that he visits in every circle, is missing four hours in seemed ready to swoon away in the surprise of four-and-twenty, and will give no account of joy and wonder. The surgeon stood before himself. These are undoubted proofs of the de-him with his instruments in his hands. The parture of a lover; and consequently Coriana is also dead as a mistress. I have written to Stentor, to give this couple three calls at the church-door, which they must hear if they are living within the bills of mortality; and if they do not answer at that time, they are from that moment added to the number of my defunct.

WHILE others are busied in relations which concern the interest of princes, the peace of nations, and revolutions of empire;* I think, though these are very great subjects, my theme of discourse is sometimes to be of matters of a yet higher consideration. The slow steps of providence and nature, and strange events which are brought about in an instant, are what, as they come within our view and observation, shall be given to the public. Such things are not accompanied with show and noise, and therefore seldom draw the eyes of the unattentive part of mankind; but are very proper at once to exercise our humanity, please our imaginations, and improve our judgments. It may not therefore, be unuseful to relate many circumstances, which were observable upon a låte cure done upon a young gentleman who was born blind, and on the twenty-ninth of June last received his sight, at the age of twenty years, by the operation of an oculist. This happened no farther off than Newington, and the work was prepared for in the following manner.

The operator, Mr. Grant, having observed the eyes of his patient, and convinced his

*The name of the young man, who is the principal subject of this paper, was William Jones of Newington Butts, who, it is said, was born blind, and brought to his sight at the age of twenty.

young man observed him from head to foot; after which he surveyed himself as carefully, and seemed to compare him to himself; and, observing both their hands, seemed to think they were exactly alike, except the instruments, which he took for parts of his hands. When

he had continued in this amazement some time, his mother could not longer bear the agitations of so many passions, as thronged upon her; but fell upon his neck, crying out, My son! my son! The youth knew her voice, and could speak no more than 'Oh me! are you my mother?' and fainted. The whole room, you will easily conceive, were very affectionately employed in recovering him; but, above all, the young gentlewoman who loved him, and whom he loved, shrieked in the loudest manner. That voice seemed to have a sudden effect upon him as he recovered, and he showed a double curiosity in observing her as she spoke and called to him, until at last he broke out, 'What has been done to me? Whither am I carried? Is all this about me the thing I have heard so often of? Is this the light? Is this seeing? Were you always thus happy, when you said you were glad to see each other? Where is Tom, who used to lead me? But I could now, methinks, go any where without him.' He offered to move, but seemed afraid of every thing around him. When they saw his difficulty, they told him, until he became better acquainted with his new being, he must let the servant still lead him. The boy was called for, and presented to him. Mr. Caswell asked him, 'what sort of thing he took Tom to be before he had seen him?' He answered, 'he belieeved there was not so much of him as of himself; but he fancied him the same sort of creature.' The noise of this sudden change made all the neighbourhood throng to the place where he was. As he saw the crowd thickening he desired Mr. Caswell to tell him how many there were in all to be seen. The gentleman, smiling, answered him, that 'it would be very proper for him to return to his late condition, and suffer his eyes to be covered, until they had received strength: for he might

action at Tessons, where they lost fifteen hun- | tion, quality, merit, and industry, were laid dred who were killed on the spot, four standards, and three hundred prisoners, among whom were forty officers. The last letters from the duke of Marlborough's camp at Orchies of the nineteenth instant, advise, that monsieur Ravignon being returned from the French court with an account that the king of France had refused to ratify the capitulation for the surrender of the citadel of Tournay, the approaches have been carried on with great vigour and success: our miners have discovered several of the enemy's mines, who have sprung divers others, which did little execution; but for the better security of the troops, both assaults are carried on by the cautious way of sapping. On the eighteenth, the confederate army made a general forage without any loss. Marshal Villars continues in his former camp, and applies himself with great diligence in casting up new lines behind the old on the Scarp. The duke of Marlborough and prince Eugene designed to begin a general review of the army on the twentieth.

No. 56.]

Thursday, August 18, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines

nostri est farrago libelli. Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whatever good is done, whaterer illBy human kind, shall this collection fill.*

White's Chocolate-house, August 17.

aside among us by the incursions of these civil hussars; who had got so much countenance, that the breeding and fashion of the age turned their way to the ruin of order and economy in all places where they are admitted.' But Sophronius, who never falls into heat upon any subject, but applies proper language, tem, per, and skill, with which the thing in debate is to be treated, told the youth, 'that gentleman had spoken nothing but what was literally true, but fell upon it with too much carnestness to give a true idea of that sort of people he was declaiming against, or to remedy the evil which he bewailed: for the acceptance of these men being an ill which had crept into the conversation-part of our lives, and not into our constitution itself, it must be corrected where it began; and, consequently, is to be amended only by bringing raillery and derision upon the persons who are guilty, or those who converse with them. For the sharpers,' continued he, at present, are not as formerly, under the acceptation of pick pockets: but are by custom erected into a real and venerable body of men, and have subdued us to so very particular a deference to them, that though they were known to be men with out honour or conscience, no demand is called a debt of honour so indisputably as theirs. You may lose your honour to them, but they lay none against you: as the priesthood in Roman Catholic countries can purchase what they please for the church; but they can alienate nothing from it. It is from this toleration, that sharpers are There is a young foreigner committed to my to be found among all sorts of assemblies and care, who puzzles me extremely in the questions companies; and every talent among men is he asks about the persons of figure we meet in made use of by some one or other of the society, public places. He has but very little of our for the good of their common cause: so that an language, and therefore I am mightily at a loss unexperienced young gentleman is as often ento express to him things for which they have no snared by his understanding as his folly; for word in that tongue to which he was born. It who could be unmoved, to hear the eloquent has been often my answer, upon his asking who Dromio explain the constitution, talk in the key such a fine gentlemen is? That he is what we of Cato, with the severity of one of the ancient call a sharper; and he wants my explication. sages, and debate the greatest question of state I thought it would be very unjust to tell him, in a common chocolate or coffee-house? who he is the same the French call Coquin; the could, I say, hear this generous declamator, Latins, Nebulo; or the Greeks, Pext for, as without being fired at his noble zeal, and becustom is the most powerful of all laws, and coming his professed follower, if he might be that the order of men we call sharpers are re-admitted? Monoculus's gravity would be no ceived amongst us, not only with permission, less inviting to a beginner in conversation; and but favour, I thought it unjust to use them like the snare of his eloquence would equally catch persons upon no establishment; besides that it one who had never seen an old gentleman so would be an unpardonable dishonour to our very wise, and yet so little severe. Many other country to let him leave us with an opinion, instances of extraordinary men among the brothat our nobility and gentry keep company with therhood might be produced; but every man, common thieves and cheats: I told him, they who knows the town, can supply himself with were a sort of tame hussars, that were allowed such examples without their being named. Will in our cities, like the wild ones in our camp; Vafer, who is skilful at finding out the ridiculous who had all the privileges belonging to us, but side of a thing, and placing it in a new and proat the same time, were not tied to our discipline per light, though he very seldom talks, thought or laws.' Aletheus, who is a gentleman of too fit to enter into this subject. He has lately lost much virtue for the age he lives in, would not certain loose sums, which half the income of let this matter be thus palliated; but told my his estate will bring in within seven years: be. pupil, 'that he was to understand that distinc-sides which, he proposes to marry, to set all

*This is the first of some patriotic and excellent pa pers, in which Steele laudably cniployed his wit, in exposing the gamesters, sharpers, and swindlers, of his time, with a view to guard his unwary countrymen from their snares; and, to banish fraud and cozenage from

the presence and conversation of gentlemen.'

The word 'rescal,' printed in Greek characters.

right. He was, therefore, indolent enough to speak of this matter with great impartiality. When I look around me,' said this easy gentlebles, elder brothers whose support our dull faman, and consider in a just balance us bubthers contrived to depend upon certain acres,

and lackeys, are elevated into companions in this present age, shall be accounted for from the influence of the planet Mercury on this island; the ascendency of which Sharper over Sol, who is a patron of the muses and all honest professions, had been noted by the learned Job Gadbury, to be the cause, that cunning and trick are more esteemed than art and science.' It must be allowed also, to the memory of Mr. Partridge, late of Cecil-street in the Strand, that in his answer to an horary question, at what hour of the night to set a fox-trap in June 1705? he has largly discussed, under the character of Reynard, the manner of surprising all Sharpers as well as him. But of these great points, after more mature deliberation.

with the rooks, whose ancestors left them the | dom. How, therefore, pimps, footmen, fiddlers, wide world; I cannot but admire their fraternity, and contemn my own. Is not Jack Heyday much to be preferred to the knight he has bubbled? Jack has his equipage, his wenches, and his followers: the knight, so far from a retinue, that he is almost one of Jack's. However, he is gay, you see, still; a florid outside-His habit speaks the man-And since he must unbutton, he would not be reduced outwardly, but is stripped to his upper coat. But though I have great temptation to it, I will not at this time give the history of the losing side; but speak the effects of my thoughts, since the loss of my money, upon the gaining people. This ill fortune makes most men contemplative and given to reading; at least it has happened so to me; and the rise and fall of the family of Sharpers in all ages has been my contemplation.'

I find, all times have had of this people: Homer, in his excellent heroic poem, calls them Myrmidons, who were a body that kept among themselves, and had nothing to lose; therefore never spared either Greek or Trojan, when they fell in their way, upon a party. But there is a memorable verse, which gives us an account of what broke that whole body, and made both Greeks and Trojans masters of the secret of their warfare and plunder. There is nothing so pedantic as many quotations; therefore, I shall inform you only, that in this battalion there were two officers called Thersites and Pandarus: they were both less renowned for their beauty than their wit; but each had this particular happiness, that they were plunged over head and ears in the same water which made Achilles invulnerable; and had ever after, certain gifts which the rest of the world were never to enjoy. Among others, they were never to know they were the most dreadful to the sight of all mortals, never to be diffident of their own abilities, never to blush, or ever to be wounded but by each other. Though some historians say, gaming began among the Lydians to divert hunger, I could cite many authorities to prove it had its rise at the siege of Troy; and that Ulysses won the sevenfold shield at hazard. But be that as it may, the ruin of the corps of Myrmidons proceeded from a breach between Thersites and Pandarus. The first of these was leader of a squadron, wherein the latter was but a private man; but having all the good qualities necesary for a partisan, he was the favourite of his officer. But the whole history of the several changes in the order of Sharpers, from those Myrmidons to our modern men of address and plunder, will require that we consult some ancient manuscripts. As we make these inquiries, we shall diurnally communicate them to the public, that the Knights of the Industry may be better understood by the good people of England. These sort of men, in some ages, were sycophants and flatterers only, and were endued with arts of life to capacitate them for the conversation of the rich and great; but now the bubble courts the impostor, and pretends at the utmost to be but his equal. To clear up the reasons and causes in such revolutions, and the different conduct between fools and cheats, shall be one of our labours for the good of this king

St. James's Coffee-house, August 17.

"To Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire. 'SIR,-We have nothing at present new, but that we understand by some Owlers,† old people die in France. Letters from Paris of the tenth instant, N. S. say, that monsieur d'Andre, marquis d'Oraison, died at eighty-five: monsieur Brumars, at one hundred and two years, died for love of his wife, who was ninety-two at her death, after seventy years cohabitation. Nicholas de Boutheiller, parish-preacher at Sasseville, being a bachelor, held out to one hundred and sixteen. Dame Claude de Massy, relict of monsieur Peter de Monceaux, grand audiencer of France, died on the seventeenth, aged one hundred and seven. Letters of the seventeenth say, monsieur Chrestien de Lamoignon died on the seventh instant, a person of great piety and virtue; but having died young, his age is concealed for reasons of state. On the fifteenth, his most Christian majesty, attended by the dauphin, the duke of Burgundy, the duke and dutchess of Berry, assisted at the procession which he yearly performs in memory of a vow made by Lewis the Thirteenth, in 1638. For which act of piety, his majesty received absolution of his confessor, for the breach of all inconvenient vows made by himself. I am, sir, your most humble servant.

'HUMPHREY KIDNEY.

From my own Apartment, August 17.

I am to acknowledge several letters which I have lately received; among others, one subscribed Philanthropos, another Emilia, both which shall be honoured. I have a third from an officer in the army, wherein he desires I would do justice to the many gallant actions which have been done by men of private characters, or officers of lower stations, during this long war; that their families may have the pleasure of seeing we lived in an age, wherein men of all orders had their proper share in fame and glory. There is nothing I should undertake

* Gadbury was an almanack-maker and astrologer. the word is perhaps derived from the necessity of car† Owler signifies one who carries contraband goods; rying on an illicit trade by night.

by means much more indirect than by false dice. I must confess there appeared some reason in what he asserted; and he met me since, and accosted me in the following manner: 'It is wonderful to me, Mr. Bickerstaff, that you can pretend to be a man of penetration, and fall upon us Knights of the Industry as the wickedest of mortals, when there are so many who live in the constant practice of baser methods, unobserved. You cannot, though you know the story of my. self and the North Briton, but allow I am an honester man than Will Coppersmith, for all his great credit among the Lombards. I get my money by men's follies, and he gets his by their distresses. The declining merchant communicates his griefs to him, and he augments them by extortion. If, therefore, regard is to be had to the merit of the persons we injure, who is the more blameable, he that oppresses an unhappy man, or he that cheats a foolish one? All mankind are indifferently liable to adverse strokes of fortune; and he who adds to them, when he might relieve them, is certainly a worse subject, than he who unburdens a man whose prosperity is unwieldy to him. Besides all which, he that borrows of Coppersmith does it out of necessity; he that plays with me does it out of choice.'

I allowed Trump there are men as bad as himself, which is the height of his pretensions; and must confess, that Coppersmith is the most wicked and impudent of all Sharpers; a creature that cheats with credit, and is a robber in the habit of a friend. The contemplation of this worthy person made me reflect on the wonder. full successes I have observed men of the meanest capacities meet with in the world, and recollect an observation I once heard a sage man make; which was, 'That he had observed, that in some professions, the lower the understanding, the greater the capacity.' I remember, he instanced that of a banker, and said, that the fewer appetites, passions, and ideas a man had, he was the better for his business.'

I was this evening representing a complaint sent me out of the country from Emilia. She says, her neighbours there have so little sense of what a refined lady of the town is, that she, who was a celebrated wit in London, is in that dull part of the world in so little esteem, that they call her in their base style a Tongue-Pad. Old True Penny bid me advise her to keep her wit until she comes to town again, and admonish her, that both wit and breeding are local; for a fine court-lady is as awkward among country housewives, as one of them would appear in a drawing-room. It is therefore the most useful knowledge one can attain at, to understand among what sort of men we make the best figure; for if there be a place where the beauteous and accomplished Emilia is unacceptable, it is certainly a vain endeavour to attempt pleasing in all conversations. Here is Will Ubi, who is so thirsty after the reputation of a companion, that his company is for any body that will accept of it; and for want of knowing whom to choose for himself, is never chosen by others. "There is a certain chastity of behaviour which There is little sir Tristram, without connexmakes a man desirable; and which if he trans-ion in his speech, or so much as common sense, gresses, his wit will have the same fate with has arrived by his own natural parts at one of Delia's beauty, which no one regards, because the greatest estates amongst us. But honest sir all know it is within their power. The best Tristram knows himself to be but a repository course Emilia can take is, to have less humility; for cash: he is just such a utensil as his iron for if she could have as good an opinion of her- chest, and may rather be said to hold money, self for having every quality, as some of her than possess it. There is nothing so pleasant neighbours have of themselves with one, she as to be in the conversation of these wealthy would inspire even them with a sense of her proficients. I had lately the honour to drink merit, and make that carriage, which is now half-a-pint with sir Tristram, Harry Copperthe subject of their derision, the sole object of smith, and Giles Twoshoes. These wags gave their imitation. Until she has arrived at this one another credit in discourse, according to value of herself, she must be contented with the their purses; they jest by the pound, and make fate of that uncommon creature, a woman too answers as they honour bills. Without vanity, humble. I thought myself the prettiest fellow of the company; but I had no manner of power over one muscle in their faces, though they smirked at every word spoken by each other. Sir Tristram called for a pipe of tobacco; and telling us 'tobacco was a pot-herb,' bid the drawer bring him the other half-pint. Twoshoes laughed at the knight's wit without moderation; I took the liberty to say it was but a pun.' 'A pun!' by ten thousand pounds if you could pun like sir said Coppersmith; you would be a better man Tristram.' With that they all burst out to

White's Chocolate-house, August 19.
Since my last, I have received a letter from
Tom Trump, to desire that I would do the fra-
ternity of gamesters the justice to own, that
there are notorious Sharpers, who are not of
their class. Among others, he presented me
with the picture of Harry Coppersmith, in little,
who, he says, is at this day worth half a plumb,*

* A Plumb is a term in the city for £100,000.