agreeably, who, if there is any truth in my art, is within ten months of being the handsomest great fortune in town. I must confess, I was so struck with the foresight of what she is to be, that I treated her accordingly, and said to her, Pray, young lady, permit me to pass by.' I would, for this reason, advise all masters and mistresses to carry it with great moderation and condescension towards their servants until next Michaelmas, lest the superiority at that time should be inverted. I must likewise admonish all my brethren and fellow-adventurers, to fill their minds with proper arguments for their support and consolation in case of ill success. It so happens in this particular, that though the gainers will have reason to rejoice, the losers will have no reason to complain. I remember, the day after the thousand pound prize was drawn in the penny lottery?, I went to visit a splenetic acquaintance of mine, who was under much dejection, and seemed to me to have suffered some great disappointment. Upon inquiry I found he had put two-pence for himself and his son into the lottery, and that neither of them had drawn the thousand pounds. Hereupon this unlucky person took occasion to enumerate the misfortunes of his life, and concluded with telling me, that he never was successful in any of his undertakings. I was forced to comfort him with the common reflection upon such occasions, that men of the greatest merit are not always men of the greatest success, and, that persons of his character must not expect to be as happy as fools. I shall proceed in the like manner with my rivals and competitors for the thousand pounds a year, which we are now in pursuit of; and, that I may give general This penny-lottery seems to have been a private under. taking. content to the whole body of candidates, I shall allow all that draw prizes to be fortunate, and all that miss them to be wise. I must not here omit to acknowledge, that I have received several letters upon this subject, but find one common error running through them all, which is, that the writers of them believe their fate in these cases depends upon the astrologer, and not upon the stars; as in the following letter from one, who, I fear, flatters himself with hopes of success, which are altogether groundless, since he does not seem to me so great a fool as he takes himself to be. SIR, COMING to town, and finding my friend Mr. Partridge dead and buried, and you the only conjurer in repute, I am under a necessity of applying myself to you for a favour, which nevertheless I confess it would better become a friend to ask, than one who is, as I am, altogether a stranger to you; but poverty, you know, is impudent: and as that gives me the occasion, so that alone could give me the confidence to be thus importunate. 'I am, sir, very poor, and very desirous to be otherwise: I have got ten pounds, which I design to venture in the lottery now on foot. What I desire of you is, that by your art, you will choose such a ticket for me as shall arise a benefit sufficient to maintain me. I must beg leave to inform you, that I am good for nothing, and must therefore insist upon a larger lot than would satisfy those who are capable, by their own abilities, of adding something to what you should assign them; whereas I must expect an absolute independent maintenance, because, as I said, I can do nothing. It is possible, after this free confession of mine, you may think I do not deserve to be rich; but I hope you will likewise observe, I can ill afford to be poor. My own opinion is, that I am well qualified for an estate, and have a good title to luck in a lottery; but I resign myself wholly to your mercy, not without hopes that you will consider, the less I deserve, the greater the generosity in you. If you reject me, I have agreed with an acquaintance of mine to bury me for my ten pounds. I once more recommend myself to your favour, and bid you adieu!' I cannot forbear publishing another letter which I have received, because it redounds to my own credit, as well as to that of a very honest footman. MR. BICKERSTAFF, January 23, 1709-10. I AM bound in justice to acquaint you, that I put an advertisement into your last paper3 about a watch which was lost, and was brought to me on the very day your paper came out, by a footman; who told me, that he would have brought it, if he had not read your discourse of that day against avarice; but that, since he had read it, he scorned to take a reward for doing what in justice he ought to do. 3 See the advertisement at the end of No 123. N° 125. THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1709-10., Quem mala stultitia, et quæcunque inscitia veri HOR. 2. Sat. iii. 43. Whom vicious passions, or whom falsehood blind, FRANCIS. From my own Apartment, January 25. THERE is a sect of ancient philosophers, who, I think, have left more volumes behind them, and those better written, than any other of the fraternities in philosophy. It was a maxim of this sect, that all those who do not live up to the principles of reason and virtue are madmen. Every one who governs himself by these rules is allowed the title of wise, and reputed to be in his senses and every one, in proportion as he deviates from them, is pronounced frantic and distracted. Cicero having chosen this maxim for his theme, takes occasion to argue from it very agreeably with Clodius, his implacable adversary, who had procured his banishment. A city,' says he, is an assembly distinguished into bodies of men, who are in possession of their respective rights and privileges, cast under proper subordinations, and in all its parts obedient to the rules of law and equity.' He then represents the government from whence he was banished, at a time when the consul, senate, and laws had lost their authority, as a commonwealth of luna tics. For this reason he regards his expulsion from Rome, as a man would being turned out of Bedlam, if the inhabitants of it should drive him out of their walls as a person unfit for their community. We are, therefore, to look upon every man's brain to be touched, however he may appear in the general conduct of his life, if he has an unjustifiable singularity in any part of his conversation or behaviour: or if he swerves from right reason, however common his kind of madness may be, we shall not excuse him for its being epidemical; it being our present design to clap up all such as have the marks of madness upon them, who are now permitted to go about the streets for no other reason, but because they do no mischief in their fits. Abundance of imaginary great men are put in straw to bring them to a right sense of themselves. And is it not altogether as reasonable, that an insignificant man, who has an immoderate opinion of his merits, and a quite different notion of his own abilities from what the rest of the world entertain, should have the same care taken of him as a beggar who fancies himself a duke or a prince? Or why should a man, who starves in the midst of plenty, be trusted with himself, more than he who fancies he is an emperor in the midst of poverty? I have several women of quality in my thoughts, who set so exorbitant a value upon themselves, that I have often most heartily pitied them, and wished them for their recovery under the same discipline with the pewterer's wife'. I Who this lady was does not appear: but she is thus mentioned in The Censor:-"I am confident that had the famous pewterer's wife in Bedlam survived to have seen this dress [a new-fashioned black hood], her pride would scarce have gone far enough to have encouraged the fashion by falling into it," Censor, N° 25, 1717. |