N° 137, man as the first founder of their family was, upon whose reputation they value themselves. But I shall chiefly apply myself to those whose quality sits uppermost in all their discourses and behaviour. An empty man of a great family, is a creature that is scarce conversable. You read his ancestry in his smile, in his air, in his eyebrow. He has indeed nothing but his nobility to give employment to his thoughts. Rank and precedency are the important points which he is always discussing within himself. A gentleman of this turn began a speech in one of King Charles's parliaments; Sir, I had the honour to be born at a time'-upon which an honest gentleman took him up short, 'I would fain know what that gentleman means: is there any one in the house that has not had the honour to be born as well as himself?' The good sense which reigns in our nation, has pretty well destroyed this starch behaviour among men who have seen the world, and know that every gentleman will be treated upon a foot of equality. But there are many who have had their education among women, dependants, or flatterers, that lose all the respect which would otherwise be paid them, by being too assiduous in procuring it. My Lord Froth has been so educated in punctilio, that he governs himself by a ceremonial in all the ordinary occurrences of life. He measures out his bow to the degree of the person he converses with. I have seen him in every inclination of the body, from a familiar nod, to the low stoop in the salutation sign. I remember five of us, who were acquainted with one another, met together one morning at his lodgings, when a wag of the company was saying, 'It would be worth while to observe how he would distinguish us at his first entrance.' Accordingly, he no sooner came into the room, but casting his eyes about, My Lord such-a-one,' says he, 'your most humble ser vant. Sir Richard, your humble servant. Your servant, Mr. Ironside. Mr. Ducker, how do you do? Ha! Frank, are you there?' There is nothing more easy than to discover a man whose heart is full of his family. Weak minds that have imbibed a strong tincture of the nursery, younger brothers that have been bronght up to nothing, superannuated retainers to a great house, have generally their thoughts taken up with little else. I had, some years ago, an aunt of my own, by name Mrs. Martha Ironside, who would never marry beneath herself, and is supposed to have died a maid in the eightieth year of her age. She was the chronicle of our family, and passed away the greatest part of the last forty years of her life in recounting the antiquity, marriages, exploits, and alliances, of the Ironsides. Mrs. Martha conversed generally with a knot of old virgins, who were likewise of good families, and had been very cruel all the beginning of the last century. They were every one of them as proud as Lucifer; but said their prayers twice a day, and in all other respects were the best women in the world. If they saw a fine petticoat at church, they immediately took to pieces the pedigree of her that wore it, and would lift up their eyes to heaven at the confidence of the saucy minx, when they found she was an honest tradesman's daughter. It is impossible to describe the pious indignation that would rise in them at the sight of a man who lived plentifully on an estate of his own getting. They were transported with zeal beyond measure, if they heard of a young woman's matching into a great family upon account only of her beauty, her merit, or her money. In short, there was not a female within ten miles of them that was in possession of a gold watch, a pearl necklace, a piece of Mecklin lace, but they examined her title to it. My aunt Martha used to chide me very frequently for not sufficiently valuing myself. She would not eat a bit all dinner-time, if at an invitation she found she had been seated below herself; and would frown upon me for an hour together, if she saw me give place to any man under a baronet. As I was once talking to her of a wealthy citizen whom she had refused in her youth, she declared to me with great warmth, that she preferred a man of quality in his shirt to the richest man upon the Change in a coach and six. She pretended that our family was nearly related by the mother's side to half-a-dozen peers; but as none of them knew any thing of the matter, we always kept it as a secret among ourselves. A little before her death, she was reciting to me the history of my forefathers; but dwelling a little longer than ordinary upon the actions of Sir Gilbert Ironside, who had a horse shot under him at Edgehill fight, I gave an unfortunate pish, and asked, 'What was all this to me?' Upon which she retired to her closet, and fell a scribbling for three hours together, in which time, as I afterward found, she struck me out of her will, and left all she had to my sister Margaret, a wheedling baggage, that used to be asking questions about her great-grandfather from morning to night. She now lies buried among the family of the Ironsides, with a stone over her, acquainting the reader that she died at the age of eighty years, a spinster, and that she was descended of the ancient family of the Ironsides.-After which follows the genealogy drawn up by her own hand. N° 138. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1713. Incenditque animum Famæ venientis amore. VIRG. Æn. vi. 889. And fires his mind with love of future fame. THERE is nothing which I study so much in the course of these, my daily dissertations, as variety. By this means every one of my readers is sure, some time or other, to find a subject that pleases him, and almost every paper has some particular set of men for its advocates. Instead of seeing the number of my papers every day increasing, they would quickly lie as a drug upon my hands, did not I take care to keep up the appetite of my guests, and quicken it from time to time by something new and unexpected.. In short, I endeavour to treat my reader in the same manner as Eve does the angel in that beautiful description of Milton: So saying, with dispatchful looks in haste If by this method I can furnish out a Splendida farrago, according to the compliment lately paid me in a fine poem, published among the exercises of the last Oxford act; I have gained the end which I proposed to myself. In my yesterday's paper, I shewed how the actions of our ancestors and forefathers should excite us to every thing that is great and virtuous. I shall here observe, that a regard to our posterity, and those who are to descend from us, ought to have the same kind of influence on a generous mind. A noble soul would rather die than commit an action that should make his children blush when he is in his grave, and be looked upon as a reproach to those who shall live a hundred years after him. On the contrary, nothing can be a more pleasing thought to a man of eminence, than to consider that posterity, who lie many removes from him, shall make their boasts of his virtues, and be honourable for his sake! Virgil represents this consideration as an incentive of glory to Æneas, when after having shewn him the race of heroes who were to descend from him, Anchises adds, with a noble warmth, Et dubitamus adhuc virtutem extendere factis? EN. vi. 806. DRYDEN. And doubt we yet through dangers to pursue The paths of honour?Since I have mentioned this passage in Virgil, where Eneas was entertained with a view of his great descendants, I cannot forbear observing a particular beauty, which I do not know that any one has taken notice of. The list which he has there drawn up was in general to do honour to the Roman name, but more particularly to compliment Augustus. For this reason Anchises, who shews Eneas most of the rest of his descendants in the same order that they were to make their appearance in the world, breaks his method for the sake of Augustus, whom he singles out immediately after having mentioned Romulus, as the most illustrious person who was to rise in that empire which the other had founded. He was impatient to describe his posterity raised to |