and I will engage you will observe, that all the debate lies in this point, Whether they brought in For in a just manner; or forced it in for their own use, rather than as understanding the use of the word itself? There is nothing like familiar instances: you have heard the story of the Irishman, who reading, "Money for live hair," took a lodging, and expected to be paid for living at that house. If this man had known, For was in that place of a quite different signification from the particle To, he could not have fallen into the mistake of taking Live for what the Latins call Vivere, or rather Habitare.'

Martius seemed at a loss; and, admiring his profound learning, wished he had been bred a scholar, for he did not take the scope of his discourse. This wise debate, of which we had much more, made me reflect upon the difference of their capacities, and wonder that there could be as it were a diversity in men's genius for nonsense; that one should bluster, while another crept, in absurdities. Martius moves like a blind man, lifting his legs higher than the ordinary way of stepping; and Comma, like one who is only short-sighted, picking his way when he shouid be marching on. Want of learning makes Martius a brisk entertaining fool, and gives himself a full scope; but that which Comma has, and calls learning, makes him diffident, and curbs his natural 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.

WHITE'S CHOCOLATE-HOUSE, AUGUST 24.

ÆSOP 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

*STEELE'S and SWIFT's.

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 carcass. It would require a most exact knowledge of the field and the harbours where the deer lie, to recount all the revolutions in the chase.

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 Raffling-shop; 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 арpear 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. And 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 in 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

7

starve, were it not for the inchanted 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 Actæon himself, to follow such methods as would break the inchantment; 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

n It is not the intention of this note to appropriate the generic name of Actæon to sir John Jacob, a knight in Cambridgeshire; but it is said, that, about this time, at the age of 70, he continued to play at hazard, when he could hardly discern by the assistance of his spectacles whether he won or lost. When he was laughed at for this folly, and told, that to be sure he must play by the ear;'I cannot help it,' said he, 'I have been used to play above 40 years, and I can no more leave it off now, than I can stop the issues about me, which have been the means of protracting my life to this date.' Memoirs of Gamesters, p. 205.

be free, and own it a fair hit where he takes me, rather than disoblige him.

• 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 has 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

• Swift is said to have been the author of this letter signed Obadiah Greenhat. Gent. Mag. Feb. 1781, p. 71. A.

There is the following account of the family of Swift, in Guillim's ‹ Display of Heraldry, &c.' Godwin Swift, in the county of Hereford esq. of the society of Gray's-Inn, descended of the family of the Swifts in Yorkshire. The arms are, Or, a chevron nebule Argent and Azure between three bucks in full course Vert. This bearing,' says Dr. Philip Nicholls, in his life of Swift, puts me in mind of the family of Greenhats, in Tatler, No. 59. where the dean's particular turn of wit and humour is so exactly hit off. One is the more apt to think that Mr. Obadiah Greenhat had the three bucks Vert in his eye, when lord Orrery is found observing, that the dean had been himself the herald to blazon the dignity of his coat.' Biogr. Brit. art. Swift, p. 3857, note. A.

'L'article suivant est une raillerie tres fine et tres serieuse du stile faussement doucereux, et de la malignité veritablement lâche des gens de cour, qui assassinent un homme en le louant, et qui savent eriger des riens en vices de le plus grand noirceur, au desavantage de ceux qu'ils haïssent.' p Tatler, No. 57. ad finem.