I have been led to this observation by a company into which I fell accidentally. The subject of antipathies was a proper field wherein such false surprises might expatiate, and there were those present who appeared very fond to show it in its full extent of traditional history. Some of them, in a learned manner, offered to our consideration the miraculous powers which the effluviums of cheese have over bodies whose pores are disposed to receive them in a noxious manner; others gave an account of such who could indeed bear the sight of cheese, but not the taste; for which they brought a reason from the milk of their nurses. Others again discoursed, without endeavouring at reasons, concerning an unconquerable aversion which some stomachs have against a joint of meat when it is whole, and the eager inclination they have for it when, by its being cut up, the shape which had affected them is altered. From hence they passed to eels, then to parsnips, and so from one aversion to another, until we had worked up ourselves to such a pitch of complaisance, that when the dinner was to come in we inquired the name of every dish, and hoped it would be no offence to any in company, before it was admitted. When we had sat down, this civility among us turned the discourse from eatables to other sorts of aversions; and the eternal cat, which plagues every conversation of this nature, began then to engross the subject. One had sweated at the sight of it, another had smelled it out as it lay concealed in a very distant cupboard; and he who crowned the whole set of these stories, reckoned up the number of times in which it had occasioned him to swoon away. 'At last,' says he, 'that you may all be satisfied of my invincible aversion to a cat, I shall give an unanswerable instance. As I was going through a street of London, where I never had been until

then, I felt a general damp and faintness all over me, which I could not tell how to account for, until I chanced to cast my eyes upwards, and found that I was passing under a sign-post on which the picture of a cat was hung.'

The extravagance of this turn in the way of surprise gave a stop to the talk we had been carrying on. Some were silent because they doubted, and others because they were conquered in their own way; so that the gentleman had an opportunity to press the belief of it upon us, and let us see that he was rather exposing himself than ridiculing others.

I must freely own that I did not all this while disbelieve every thing that was said; but yet I thought some in the company had been endeavouring who should pitch the bar furthest; that it had for some time been a measuring cast, and at last my friend of the cat and sign-post had thrown beyond them

all.

I then considered the manner in which this story had been received, and the possibility that it might have passed for a jest upon others, if he had not laboured against himself. From hence, thought I. there are two ways which the well-bred world generally takes to correct such a practice, when they do not think fit to contradict it flatly.

The first of these is a general silence, which I would not advise any one to interpret in his own behalf. It is often the effect of prudence in avoid-, ing a quarrel, when they see another drive so fast that there is no stopping him without being run against; and but very seldom the effect of weakness in believing suddenly. The generality of mankind are not so grossly ignorant, as some overbearing spirits would persuade themselves; and if the authority of a character or a caution against danger make us suppress our opinions, yet neither of these

This had like to have broke my heart, and raised such suspicions in me, that I told the next I made love to, upon receiving some unkind usage from her, that I began to look upon myself as no more than her shoeing horn. Upon which, my dear, who was a coquette in her nature, told me I was hypochondriacal, and I might as well look upon myself. to be an egg, or a pipkin. But in a very short time after she gave me to know that I was not mistaken in myself. It would be tedious to you to recount the life of an unfortunate shoeing horn, or I might entertain you with a very long and melancholy relation of my sufferings. Upon the whole, I think, sir, it would very well become a man in your post, to determine in what cases a woman may be allowed with honour to make use of a shoeing horn, as also to declare, whether a maid on this side five-andtwenty, or a widow who has not been three years in that state, may be granted such a privilege, with other difficulties which will naturally occur to you upon that subject.

0.

I am, Sir,

with the most profound veneration,

Yours, &c.

N° 537. SATURDAY, NOV. 15, 1712.

It has been usual to remind persons of rank, on great occasions in life, of their race and quality, and to what expectations they were born; that by considering what is worthy of them, they may be withdrawn from mean pursuits, and encouraged to laudable undertakings. This is turning nobility into a principle of virtue, and making it productive of merit, as it is understood to have been originally a reward of it.

It is for the like reason, I imagine, that you have in some of your speculations asserted to your readers the dignity of human nature. But you cannot be insensible that this is a controverted doctrine; there are authors who consider human nature in a very different view, and books of maxims have been written to show the falsity of all human virtues*. The reflexions which are made on this subject usually take some tincture from the tempers and

*An allusion to the following book, Reflexions et Maximes Morales de M. le Duc de la Rochefoucault.-Mad. L'Enclos says of him, that he had no more belief in virtues than he had in ghosts.

Politicians

characters of those that make them. can resolve the most shining actions among men into artifice and design; others, who are soured by discontent, repulses, or ill-usage, are apt to mistake their spleen for philosophy; men of profligate lives, and such as find themselves incapable of rising to any distinction among their fellow-creatures, are for pulling down all appearances of merit which seem to upbraid them; and satirists describe nothing but deformity. From all these hands we have such draughts of mankind, as are represented in those burlesque pictures which the Italians call caricaturas; where the art consists in preserving, amidst distorted proportions and aggravated features, some likeness of the person, but in such a manner as to transform the most agreeable beauty into the most odious monster.

It is very disingenuous to level the best of mankind with the worst, and for the faults of particulars to degrade the whole species. Such methods tend not only to remove a man's good opinion of others, but to destroy that reverence for himself, which is a great guard of innocence, and a spring of virtue.

It is true indeed, that there are surprising mixtures of beauty and deformity, of wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, in the human make: such a disparity is found among numbers of the same kind; and every individual in some instances, or at some times, is so unequal to himself, that man seems to be the most wavering and inconsistent being in the whole creation. So that the question in morality concerning the dignity of our nature may at first sight appear like some difficult questions in natural philosophy, in which the arguments on both sides seem to be of equal strength. But, as I began with considering this point as it relates to action, I