eat; and (I speak it with shame) I am afraid, gentlemen, I should poison you.”

This speech had a good effect in the boatswain's favour; but the surgeon of the ship protested, he had cured him very well, and offered to eat the first steak of him himself.

The boatswain replied (like an orator, with a true notion of the people, and in hopes to gain time) that he was heartily glad if he could be for their service, and thanked the surgeon for his information. "However,"

said he, “I must inform you, for your own good, that I have ever since my cure been very thirsty and dropsical; therefore I presume it would be much better to tap me, and drink me off, than eat me at once, and have no man in the ship fit to be drank." As he was going on with his harangue, a fresh gale arose, and gave the crew hopes of a better repast at the nearest shore, to which they arrived next morning.

Most of the self-denials we meet with are of this sort; therefore I think he acts fairest who owns, he hopes at least to have brother's fare, without professing that he gives himself up with pleasure to be devoured for the preservation of his fellows.

St. James's Coffee-house, August 31.

L etters from the Hague of the 6th of September, N.S., say, that the governor of the citadel at Tournay having offered their highnesses the Duke of Marlborough and the Prince of Savoy to surrender that place on the 31st of the last month, on terms which were not allowed them by those princes, hostilities were thereupon renewed ; but that on the 3rd the place was surrendered, with a seeming condition granted to the besieged above that of being prisoners of war; for they were forthwith to be

conducted to Condé, but were to be exchanged for prisoners of the Allies, and particularly those of Warneton were mentioned in the demand. Both armies having stretched towards Mons with the utmost diligence, that of the Allies, though they passed the much more difficult road, arrived first before that town, which they have now actually invested; and the quartermaster-general was, at the time of despatching these letters, marking the ground for the encampment of the covering army.

To the Booksellers, or others whom this Advertisement

may concern.

Mr. Omicron,' the unborn poet, gives notice, that he writes all treatises as well in verse as prose, being a ninth son, and translates out of all languages, without learning or study.

If any bookseller will treat for his pastoral on the Siege and Surrender of the Citadel of Tournay," he must send in his proposals before the news of a capitulation for any other town.

The undertaker for either playhouse may have an opera written by him; or, if it shall suit their design, a satire upon operas; both ready for next winter.

This is to give notice, that Richard Farloe, M.A., well known for his acuteness in dissection of dead bodies, and his great skill in osteology, has now laid by that practice; and having, by great study, and much labour, acquired the knowledge of an antidote for all the most common maladies of the stomach, is removed, and may be applied to, at any time of the day, in the south entrance from Newgate Street into Christ's Hospital.

1 It has been suggested that there is here a reference to John Oldmixon, the Whig historian and journalist; but in No. 71 Steele seems to disclaim such an intention.

VOL. 11.

97

G

No. 63.

[STEELE, ETC.

From Thursday, September 1, to Saturday, September 3, 1709.

I

White's Chocolate-house, September 2.

Of the Enjoyment of Life with Regard to others.1

have ever thought it the greatest diminution to the Roman glory imaginable, that in their institution of public triumphs, they led their enemies in chains when they were prisoners. It is to be allowed, that doing all honour to the superiority of heroes above the rest of mankind, must needs conduce to the glory and advantage of a nation; but what shocks the imagination to reflect upon, is, that a polite people should think it reasonable, that an unhappy man, who was no way inferior to the victor, but by the chance of war, should be led like a slave at the wheels of his chariot. Indeed these other circumstances of a triumph, that it was not allowed in a civil war, lest part of it should be in tears, while the other was making acclamations; that it should not be allowed, except such a number were slain in battle; that the general should be disgraced who made a false muster of his dead these, I say, had great and politic ends in their being established, and tended to the apparent benefit of the commonwealth. But this behaviour to the conquered had no foundation in nature or policy, only to gratify the insolence of a haughty people, who triumphed over barbarous nations, by acting what was fit only for those very barbarians to practise. It seems wonderful, that they who were so refined as to take care, that to complete the

1

Probably this article is by Addison; see note to No. 50.

honour done to the victorious officer, no power should be known above him in the Empire on the day of his triumph, but that the consuls themselves should be but guests at his table that evening, could not take it into thought to make the man of chief note among his prisoners one of the company. This would have improved the gladness of the occasion, and the victor had made a much greater figure, in that no other man appeared unhappy on his day, than in that no other man appeared great. But we will waive at present such important incidents, and turn our thoughts rather to the familiar part of human life, and we shall find, that the great business we contend for, is in a less degree what those Romans did on more solemn occasions, to triumph over our fellow creatures; and there is hardly a man to be found, who would not rather be in pain to appear happy, than be really happy and thought miserable. This men attempt by sumptuous equipages, splendid houses, numerous servants, and all the cares and pursuits of an ambitious or fashionable life. Bromeo and Tabio are particularly ill-wishers to each other, and rivals in happiness. There is no way in nature so good to procure the esteem of the one, as to give him little notices of certain secret points wherein the other is uneasy. Gnatho has the skill of doing this, and never applauds the improvements Bromeo has been many years making, and ever will be making; but he adds, "Now this very thing was my thought when Tabio was pulling up his underwood, yet he never would hear of it; but now your gardens are in this posture, he is ready to hang himself. Well, to be sincere, that situation of his can never make an agreeable seat he may make his house and appurtenances what he pleases; but he cannot remove them to the same ground where Bromeo stands. But of all things under the sun, a man that is happy at second-hand is the most monstrous.'

"It is a very strange madness," answers Bromeo, "if a man on these occasions can think of any end but pleasing himself. As for my part, if things are convenient, I hate all ostentation: there is no end of the folly of adapting our affairs to the imagination of others." Upon which, the next thing he does, is to enlarge whatever he hears his rival has attempted to imitate him in ; but their misfortune is, that they are in their time of life, in their estates, and in their understandings equal; so that the emulation may continue to the last day of their lives. As it stands now, Tabio has heard Bromeo has lately purchased two hundred a year in the annuities since he last settled the account of their happiness, in which he thought himself to have the balance. This may seem a very fantastical way of thinking in these men; but there is nothing so common, as a man's endeavouring rather to go farther than some other person towards an easy fortune, than to form any certain standard that would make himself happy.

Will's Coffee-house, September 2.

Mr. Dactile has been this evening very profuse of his eloquence upon the talent of turning things into ridicule; and seemed to say very justly, that there was generally in it something too disingenuous for the society of liberal men, except it were governed by the circumstances of persons, time, and place. "This talent," continued he, "is to be used as a man does his sword, not to be drawn but in his own defence, or to bring pretenders and impostors in society to a true light." But we have seen this faculty so mistaken, that the burlesque of Virgil himself has passed, among men of little taste, for wit; and the noblest thoughts that can enter into the heart of man, levelled with ribaldry and baseness: though by the rules of justice, no man ought to be ridiculed for any imper