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next, that my young author may have a view of a play, which is acted to perfection, both by them and all concerned in it; as being born within the walls of the theatre, and written with an exact knowledge of the abilities of the performers. Mr. Wilks will do his best in this play, because it is for his own benefit: and Mr. Cibber, because he writ it. Besides which, all the great beauties we have left in town, or within call of it, will be present, because it is the last play this season. This opportunity will, I hope, inflame my pupil with such generous notions, from seeing this fair assembly as will be then present, that his play may be composed of sentiments and characters proper to be presented to such an audience. His drama at present has only the outlines drawn. There are, I find, to be in it all the reverend offices of life such as regard to parents, husbands, and honourable lovers, preserved with the utmost care; and at the same time that agreeableness of behaviour, with the intermixture of pleasing passions which arise from innocence and virtue, interspersed in such a manner, as that to be charming and agreeable, shall appear the natural consequence of being virtuous. This great end is one of those I propose to do in my censorship; but if I find a thin house on an occasion when such a work is to be promoted, my pupil shall return to his commons at Oxford, and Sheer-lane and the theatres be no longer correspondents.

No. 183. SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1710.

- Fuit hæc sapientia quondam,

Publica privatis secernere.—

HOR. ARS POET. 396.

Our sage forefathers wisely understood
To separate public from the private good.

FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, JUNE 9. WHEN men look into their own bosoms, and consider the generous seeds which are there planted, that might, if rightly cultivated, ennoble their lives, and make their virtue venerable to futurity; how can they, without tears, reflect on the universal degeneracy from that public spirit, which ought to be the first and principal motive of all their actions? In the Grecian and Roman nations, they were wise enough to keep up this great incentive, and it was impossible to be in the fashion without being a patriot. All gallantry had its first source from hence; and to want a warmth for the public welfare, was a defect so scandalous, that he who was guilty of it had no pretence to honour or manhood. What makes the depravity among us, in this behalf, the more vexatious and irksome to reflect upon, is, that the contempt of life is carried as far amongst us, as it could be in those memorable people; and we want only a proper application of the qualities which are frequent among us, to be as worthy as they. There is hardly a man to be found who will not fight upon any occasion, which he thinks may taint

served, fall in with a national start of passion, or sullenness of humour, which a whole nation is sometimes taken with as well as a private man; and by that means divert them from their common sense, into an aversion for receiving any thing in its true light. But when Demosthenes had awakened his audience with that one hint of judging by the general tenor of his life towards them, his services bore down his opponent before him, who fled to the covert of his mean arts, till some more favourable occasion should offer against the superior merit of Demosthenes.

It were to be wished, that love of their country were the first principle of action in men of business, even for their own sakes; for when the world begins to examine into their conduct, the generality, who have no share in, or hopes of any part in power or riches, but what is the effect of their own labour or property, will judge of them by no other method than that of how profitable their administration has been to the whole. They who are out of the influence of men's fortune or favour, will let them stand or fall by this one only rule; and men who can bear being tried by it, are always popular in their fall. Those who cannot suffer such a scrutiny, are contemptible in their advancement.

But I am here running into shreds of maxims from reading Tacitus this morning, which has driven me from my recommendation of public spirit, which was the intended purpose of this Lucubration. There is not a more glorious instance of it, than in the character of Regulus. This same Regulus was taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, and was sent by them to Rome, in order to demand some Punic noblemen, who were prisoners, in exchange for himself; and was bound by an oath that he would return to Carthage, if he failed in his commission.

He proposes this to the senate, who were in suspense upon it, which Regulus observing, without having the least notion of putting the care of his own life in competition with the public good, desired them to consider that he was old and almost useless; that those demanded in exchange were men of daring tempers and great merit in military affairs; and wondered they would make any doubt of permitting him to go back to the short tortures prepared for him at Carthage, where he should have the advantage of ending a long life both gloriously and usefully. This generous advice was consented to; and he took his leave of his country and his weeping friends, to go to certain death, with that cheerful composure, as a man, after the fatigue of business in a Court or a city, retires to the next village for the air.

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FROM MY OWN APARTMENT, JUNE 12. THERE are certain occasions of life which give propitious omens of the future, good conduct of it, as well as others which explain our present inward state, according to our behaviour in them. Of the

latter sort are funerals; of the former, weddings. The manner of our carriage when we lose a friend shows very much our temper, in the humility of our words and actions, and a general sense of our destitute condition, which runs through all our deportment. This gives a solemn testimony of the generous affection we bore our friends, when we seem to disrelish every thing, now we can no more enjoy them, or see them partake in our enjoyments. It is very proper and humane to put ourselves, as it were, in their livery after their decease, and wear a habit unsuitable to prosperity, while those we loved and honoured are mouldering in the grave. As this is laudable on the sorrowful side, so on the other, incidents of success may no less justly be represented and acknowledged in our outward figure and carriage. Of all such occasions, that great change of a single life into marriage is the most important; as it is the source of all relations, and from whence all other friendship and commerce do principally arise. The general intent of both sexes is to dispose of themselves happily and honourably in this state; and, as all the good qualities we have are exerted to make our way into it, so the best appearance, with regard to their minds, their persons, and their fortunes, at the first entrance into it, is a due to each other in the married pair, as well as a compliment to the rest of the world It was an instruction of a wise law-giver, that unmarried women should wear such loose habits, which, in the flowing of their garb, should incite their beholders to a desire of their persons; and that the ordinary motion of their bodies might display the figure and shape of their limbs in such a manner as at once to preserve the strictest decency, and raise the warmest inclinations.

This was the economy of the legislature for the increase of people, and at the same time for the pre

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