to this injustice: when suitors of no consideration will have confidence enough to press upon their superiors, those in power are tender of speaking the exceptions they have against them, are mortgaged into promises out of their impatience of importunity. In this latter case, it would be a very useful inquiry to know the history of recommendations. There are, you must know, certain abettors of this way of torment, who make it a profession to manage the affairs of candidates. These gentlemen let out their impudence to their clients, and supply any defective recommendation, by informing how such and such a man is to be attacked. They will tell you, get the least scrap from Mr. Such-a-one, and leave the rest to them. When one of these undertakers has your business in hand, you may be sick, absent in town or country, and the patron shall be worried, or you prevail. I remember to have been shewn a gentlemen some years ago, who punished a whole people for their facility in giving their credentials. This person had belonged to a regiment which did duty in the West Indies, and, by the mortality of the place, happened to be commanding officer in the colony. He oppressed his subjects with great frankness, till he became sensible that he was heartily hated by every man under his command. When he had carried his point to be thus detestable, in a pretended fit of dishumour, and feigned uneasiness of living where he found he was so universally unacceptable, he communicated to the chief inhabitants a design he had to return for England, provided they would give him ample testimonials of their approbation. The planters came into it to a man, and, in proportion to his deserving the quite contrary, the words justice, generosity, and courage, were inserted in his commission, not omitting the general good-liking of people of all conditions in the colony. The gentleman returns for England, and within a few months after came back to them their governor, on the strength of their own testimonials.

Such a rebuke as this cannot indeed happen to easy recommenders, in the ordinary course of things from one hand to another; but how would a man bear to have it said to him, "The person I took into confidence on the credit you gave him, has proved false, unjust, and has not answered any way the character you gave me of him?"

I cannot but conceive very good hopes of that rake Jack Toper of the Temple, for an honest scrupulousness in this point. A friend of his meeting with a servant that had formerly lived with Jack, and having a mind to take him, sent to him to know what faults the fellow had, since he could not please such a careless fellow as he was. answer was as follows:

SIR,

His

"Thomas that lived with me was turned away because he was too good for me. You know I live in taverns; he is an orderly sober rascal, and thinks much to sleep in an entry until two in the morning. He told me one day, when he was dressing me, that he wondered I was not dead before now, since I went to dinner in the evening, and went to supper at two in the morning. We were coming down Essex-street one night a little flustered, and I was giving him the word to alarm the watch; he had the impudence to tell me it was against the law. You that are married, and live one day after another the same way, and so on the whole week, I dare say will like him, and he will be glad to have his meat in due season. The fellow is certainly very honest. My service to your lady.

66 Yours,

"J. T."

Now this was very fair dealing. Jack knew very well, that though the love of order made a man very awkward in his equipage, it was a valuable quality among the queer people who live by rule; and had too much good sense and good-nature to let the fellow starve, because he was not fit to attend his vivacities.

I shall end this discourse with a letter of recommendation from Horace to Claudius Nero. You will see in that letter a slowness to ask a favour, a strong reason for being unable to deny his good word any longer, and that it is a service to the person to whom he recommends, to comply with what is asked: all which are necessary circumstances, both in justice and good-breeding, if a man would ask so as to have reason to complain of a denial; and indeed a man should not in strictness ask otherwise. In hopes the authority of Horace, who perfectly.

understood how to live with great men, may have a good effect towards amending this facility in people of condition, and the confidence of those who apply to them without merit, I have translated the epistle.

"SIR,

"To CLAUDIus Nero.

"Septimius, who waits upon you with this, is very well acquainted with the place you are pleased to allow me in your friendship. For when he beseeches me to recommend him to your notice, in such a manner as to be received by you, who are delicate in the choice of your friends and domestics, he knows our intimacy, and understands my. ability to serve him better than I do myself. I have defended myself against his ambition to be yours, as long as I possibly could; but fearing the imputation of hiding my power in you out of mean and selfish considerations, I am at last prevailed upon to give you this trouble. Thus to avoid the appearance of a greater fault, I have put on this confidence. If you can forgive this transgression of modesty in behalf of a friend, receive this gentleman into your interests and friendship, and take it from me that he is an honest and a brave man."

T.

N° 494. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1712.

Ægritudinem laudare, unam rem maximè detestabilem, quorum est tandem philosophorum?-CICERO.

What kind of philosophy is it to extol melancholy, the most detestable thing in nature?

A

BOUT an age ago it was the fashion in England for every one that would be thought religious, to throw as much sanctity as possible into his face, and in particular to abstain from all appearances of mirth and pleasantry, which were looked upon as the marks of a carnal mind. The saint was of a sorrowful countenance, and generally eaten up with spleen and melancholy. A gentleman, who, was lately a great ornament* to the learned world, has diverted me more than once with an

*The gentleman here alluded to was Anthony Henley, Esq. who died much lamented in Aug. 1711.

"

N 494. account of the reception which he met with from a very famous independent minister, who was head of a college* in those times. This gentleman was then a young adventurer in the republic of letters, and just fitted out for the university with a good cargo of Latin and Greek. His friends were resolved that he should try his fortune at an election which was drawing near in the college, of which the independent minister whom I have before-mentioned was governor. The youth, according to custom, waited on him in order to be examined. He was received at the door by a servant who was one of that gloomy generation that were then in fashion. He conducted him, with great silence and seriousness, to a long gallery, which was darkened at noon-day, and had only a single candle burning in it. After a short stay in this melancholy apartment, he was led into a chamber hung with black, where he entertained himself for some time by the glimmering of a taper, until at length the head of the college came out to him from an inner room, with half a dozen night-caps upon his head, and a religious horror in his countenance. The young man trembled: but his fears increased, when instead of being asked what progress he had made in learning, he was examined how he abounded in grace. His Latin and Greek stood him in little stead; he was to give an account only of the state of his soul; whether he was of the number of the elect; what was the occasion of the conversion; upon what day of the month, and hour of the day it happened; how it was carried on, and when completed. The whole examination was summed up with one short question, namely, whether he was prepared for death? The boy, who had been bred up by honest parents, was frighted out of his wits at the solemnity of the proceeding, and especially by the last dreadful interrogatory: so that, upon making his escape out of this house of mourning, he could never be brought a second time to the examination, as not being able to go through the terrors of it.

Notwithstanding this general form and outside of religion is pretty well worn out among us, there are many

The head of a college was Dr. Thomas Goodwin, S. T. P. president of Magdalen college in Oxford, and one of the assembly of divines who sat at Westminster.

persons who, by a natural uncheerfulness of heart, mistaken notions of piety, or weakness of understanding, love to indulge this uncomfortable way of life, and give up themselves a prey to grief and melancholy. Superstitious fears and groundless scruples cut them off from the pleasures of conversation, and all those social entertainments, which are not only innocent but laudable: as if mirth was made for reprobates, and cheerfulness of heart denied those who are the only persons that have a proper title to it.

Sombrius is one of these sons of sorrow. He thinks himself obliged in duty to be sad and disconsolate. He looks on a sudden fit of laughter as a breach of his baptismal vow. An innocent jest startles him like blasphemy. Tell him of one who is advanced to a title of honour, he lifts up his hands and eyes; describe a public ceremony, he shakes his head; shew him a gay equipage, he blesses himself. All the little ornaments of life are pomps and vanities. Mirth is wanton, and wit profane. He is scandalized at youth for being lively, and at childhood for being playful. He sits at a christening, or a marriagefeast, as at a funeral; sighs at the conclusion of

merry story, and grows devout when the rest of the company grow pleasant. After all, Sombrius is a religious man, and would have behaved himself very properly, had he lived when Christianity was under a general persecution.

I would by no means presume to tax such characters with hypocrisy, as is done too frequently; that being a vice which I think none but He who knows the secrets of men's hearts should pretend to discover in another, where the proofs of it do not amount to a demonstration. On the contrary, as there are many excellent persons who are weighed down by this habitual sorrow of heart, they rather, deserve our compassion than our reproaches. I think, however, they would do well to consider whether such a behaviour does not deter men from a religious life, by representing it as an unsociable state, that extinguishes all joy and gladness, darkens the face of nature, and destroys the relish of being itself.

I have, in former papers, shewn how great a tendency there is to cheerfulness in religion, and how such a frame of mind is not only the most lovely, but the most commendable in a virtuous person. In short, those who re