makes me approve of. The bride next morning came out of her chamber, dressed with all the art and care that Mrs. Toilet, the tire-woman, could bestow on her. She was on her wedding-day three-and-twenty: her person is far from what we call a regular beauty; but a certain sweetness in her countenance, an ease in her shape and motion, with an unaffected modesty in her looks, had attractions beyond what symmetry and exactness can inspire, without the addition of these endowments. When her lover entered the room, her features flushed with shame, and joy; and the ingenuous manner, so full of passion and of awe, with which Tranquillus approached to salute her, gave me good omens of his future behaviour towards her. The wedding was wholly under my care. After the ceremony at church, I was resolved to entertain the company with a dinner suitable to the occasion, and pitched upon the Apollo', at the Old-Devil at Temple-bar, as a place sacred to mirth tempered with discretion, where Ben Jonson and his sons used to make their liberal meetings. Here the chief of the Staffian race appeared; and as soon as the company were come into that ample room, Lepidus Wagstaff began to make me compliments for choosing that place, and fell into a discourse upon the subject of pleasure and entertainment, drawn from the rules of Ben's club, which are in gold letters over the chimney. Lepidus has a way very uncommon, and speaks on subjects on which any man else would certainly offend, with great dexterity. He gave us a large account of the public meetings of all the well-turned minds who had passed through this life in ages past, and closed his pleasing narrative with a discourse on marriage, and a repeti tion of the following verses out of Milton3, A large room at the Devil-tavern. 3 Paradise Lost, iv. 750, et seqq. Hail, wedded love! mysterious law! true source In paradise, of all things common else. By thee adult'rous lust was driven from men Of father, son, and brother, first were known. Mix'd dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball, In these verses, all the images that can come into a young woman's head on such an occasion are raised; but that in so chaste and elegant a manner, that the bride thanked him for his agreeable talk, and we sat down to dinner. Among the rest of the company, there was got in a fellow you call a wag. This ingenious person is the usual life of all feasts and merriments, by speaking absurdities, and putting every body of breeding and modesty out of countenance. As soon as we sat down, he drank to the bride's diversion that night; and then made twenty double meanings on the word 'thing.' We are the best-bred family, for one so numerous, in this kingdom; and indeed we should all of us have been as much out of countenance as the bride, but that we were relieved by an honest rough relation of ours at the lower end of the table, who is a lieutenant of marines. The soldier and sailor had good plain sense, and saw what was wrong as well as another; he had a way of looking at his plate, and speaking aloud in an inward manner; and whenever the wag mentioned the word 'thing,' or the words, 'the same,' the lieutenant in that voice cried, ‘Knock him down.' The merry man, wondering, angry, and looking round, was the diversion of the table. When he offered to recover, and say, 'To the bride's best thoughts,' "Knock him down,' says the lieutenant, and so on. This silly humour diverted, and saved us from the fulsome entertainment of an ill-bred coxcomb; and the bride drank the lieutenant's health. We returned to my lodging, and Tranquillus led his wife to her apartment, without the ceremony of throwing the stocking. 'One in the morning of the 8th of October 1709. 'I was this night looking on the moon, and find by certain signs in that luminary, that a certain person under her dominion, who has been for many years distempered, will within a few hours publish a pamphlet, wherein he will pretend to give my lucubrations to a wrong person; and I require all sober disposed persons to avoid meeting the said lunatic, or giving him any credence any farther than pity demands; and to lock up the said person wherever they find him, keeping him from pen, ink, and paper. And I hereby prohibit any person to take upon him my writings, on pain of being sent by me into Lethe with the said lunatic and all his works.' STEELE. N° 80. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines nostri est farrago libelli. JUV. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whatever good is done, whatever ill- Grecian Coffee-house, October 12. THIS learned board has complained to me of the exorbitant price of late years put upon books, and consequently on learning, which has raised the reward demanded by learned men for their advice and labour. In order to regulate and fix a standard in these matters; divines, physicians, and lawyers, have sent in large proposals, which are of great light and instruction. From the perusal of these memorials, I am come to this immediate resolution, until I have leisure to treat the matter at large, viz. In divinity, fathers shall be valued according to their antiquity; schoolmen by the pound weight; and sermons by their goodness. In my own profession, which is mostly physic, authors shall be rated according to their language. The Greek is so rarely understood, and the - English so well, I judge them of no value; so that only Latin shall bear a price, and that too according to its purity, and as it serves best for prescription. In law, the value must be set according to the intricacy and obscurity of the author, and blackness of the letter; provided always, that the binding be of calvesskin. This method I shall settle also with relation to all other writings; insomuch that even these our lu cubrations, though hereafter printed by Aldus, Elzevir, or Stephens, shall not advance above one single penny. White's Chocolate-house, October 12. It will be allowed me, that I have all along shewed great respect in matters which concern the fair sex; but the inhumanity with which the author of the following letter has been used is not to be suffered. October 9. 6 SIR, • YESTERDAY I had the misfortune to drop in at my lady Haughty's, upon her visiting-day. When I entered the room where she receives company, they all stood up indeed; but they stood, as if they were to stare at rather than to receive me. After a long pause, a servant brought a round stool, on which I sat down at the lower end of the room, in the presence of no less than twelve persons, gentlemen and ladies, lolling in elbow-chairs. And, to complete my disgrace, my mistress was of the society. I tried to compose myself in vain, not knowing how to dispose of either my legs or arms, nor how to shape my countenance; the eyes of the whole room being still upon me in a profound silence. My confusion at last was so great, that, without speaking, or being spoken to, I fled for it, and left the assembly to treat me at their discretion. A lecture from you upon these inhuman distinctions in a free nation, will, I doubt not, prevent the like evils for the future, and make it, as we say, as cheap sitting as standing. 'I am, with the greatest respect, SIR, "Your most humble, and 'most obedient servant, |