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andrinus began to enjoy his ample fortune in all the extremities of household expense, furniture, and insolent équipage; and this he pursued till the day of his own departure began, as he grew sensible, to approach. As Basilius was punished with a son very unlike him, Alexandrinus was visited with one of his own disposition. It

is natural that ill men should be suspicious; and Alexandrinus, besides the jealousy, had proofs of the vicious disposition of his son Renatus, for that was his name.

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Alexandrinus, as I observed, having very good reasons for thinking it unsafe to trust the real secret of his phial and gallipot to any man living, projected to make sure work, and hope for his success depending from the avarice, not the bounty of his benefactor.

"With this thought he called Renatus to his bed-side, and bespoke him in the most pathetic gesture and accent. As much, my son, as you have been addicted to vanity and pleasure, as I also have been before you,* you nor I could escape the fame or the good effects of the profound knowledge of our progenitor, the renowned Basilius. His symbol is very well known to the philosophic world; and I shall never forget the venerable air of his countenance, when he let me into the profound mysteries of the smaragdine table of Hermes. "It is true," said he, "and far removed from all colour of deceit; that which is inferior is like that which is superior, by which are acquired and perfected all the miracles of a certain work. The father is the sun, the mother the moon, the wind is in the womb, the earth is the nurse of it, and mother of all perfection. All this must be received with modesty and wisdom." The chymical people carry, in all their jargon, a whimsical sort of piety which is ordinary with great lovers of money, and is no more but deceiving themselves, that their regularity and strictness of manners, for the ends of this world, has some affinity to the innocence of heart which must recommend them to the next.' Renatus wondered to hear his father talk so like an adept, and with such a mixture of piety; while Alexandrinus, observing his attention fixed, proceeded. This phial, child, and this little earthen pot, will add to thy estate so much as to

* The word "neither" seems omitted here, though it is not in the original publication in folio, or in the edit. in 8yo. of 1712.

make thee the richest man in the German empire. I am going to my long home, but shall not return to common dust.' Then he resumed a countenance of alacrity, and told him, that if within an hour after his death he anointed his whole body, and poured down his throat that liquor which he had from old Basilius, the corpse would be converted into pure gold. I will not pretend to express to you the unfeigned tenderness that passed between these two extraordinary persons; but if the father recommended the care of his remains with vehemence and affection, the son was not behindhand in professing that he would not cut the least bit off him, but upon the utmost extremity, or to provide for his younger brothers and sisters.

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Well, Alexandrinus died, and the heir of his body (as our term is) could not forbear, in the wantonnesses of his heart, to measure the length and breadth of his beloved father, and cast up the ensuing value of him before he proceeded to operation. When he knew the immense reward of his pains, he began the work: but lo! when he had anointed the corpse all over, and began to apply the liquor, the body stirred, and Renatus, in a fright, broke the phial."

T.

N° 427. THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1712.

Quantùm à rerum turpitudine abes, tantùm te à verborum libertate sejungas.-TULL.

We should be as careful of our words as our actions; and as far from speaking as from doing ill.

T is a certain sign of an ill heart to be inclined to defa

have no gratification that way; but it ever arises from a neglect of what is laudable in a man's self, and an impatience of seeing it in another. Else why should virtue provoke? Why should beauty displease in such a degree, that a man given to scandal never lets the mention of either pass by him, without offering something to the diminution of it? A lady the other day at a visit, being attacked somewhat rudely by one whose own character has been very roughly treated, answered a great deal of

are the

heat and intemperance very calmly, "Good madam, spare me, who am none of your match; I speak ill of nobody, and it is a new thing to me to be ill spoken of." Little minds think fame consists in the number of votes they have on their side among the multitude, whereas it is really the inseparable follower of good and worthy actions. Fame is as natural a follower of merit, as a shadow is of a body. It is true, when crowds press upon you, this shadow cannot be seen; but when they separate from around you, it will again appear. The lazy, the idle, and the froward, persons who are most pleased with the little tales which pass about the town to the disadvantage of the rest of the world. Were it not for the pleasure of speaking ill, there are numbers of people who are too lazy to go out of their own houses, and too ill-natured to open their lips in conversation. It was not a little diverting the other day to observe a lady reading a post letter, and at these words, "After all her airs, he has heard some story or other, and the match is broke off," give orders in the midst of her reading, "Put to the horses." That a young woman of merit has missed an advantageous settlement was news not to be delayed, lest somebody else should have given her malicious acquaintance that satisfaction before her. The unwillingness to receive good tidings is a quality as inseparable from a scandal-bearer, as the readiness to divulge bad. But, alas! how wretchedly low and contemptible is that state of mind, that cannot be pleased but by what is the subject of lamentation. This temper has ever been, in the highest degree, odious to gallant spirits. The Persian soldier, who was heard reviling Alexander the Great, was well admonished by his officer, "Sir, you are paid to fight against Alexander, and not to rail at him." Cicero, in one of his pleadings, defending his client from general scandal, says very handsomely, and with much reason, "There are many who have particular engagements to the prosecutor; there are many who are known to have ill-will to him for whom I appear; there are many who are naturally addicted to defamation, and envious of any good to any man, who may have contributed to spread reports of this kind: for nothing is so swift as scandal, nothing is more easily sent abroad, no

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thing received with more welcome, nothing diffuses itself so universally. I shall not desire that if any report to our disadvantage has any ground for it, you would overlook or extenuate it: but if there be any thing advanced, out a person who can say whence he had it, or which is attested by one who forgot who told him of it, or who had it from one of so little consideration that he did not then think it worth his notice, all such testimonies as these, I know, you will think too slight to have any credit against the innocence and honour of your fellow-citizen." When an ill report is traced, it very often vanishes among such as the orator has here recited. And how despicable a creature must that be who is in pain for what passes among so frivolous a people! There is a town in Warwickshire, of good note, and formerly pretty famous for much animosity and dissension, the chief families of which have now turned all their whispers, backbitings, envies; and private malices, into mirth and entertainment, by means of a peevish old gentlewoman, known by the title of the Lady Bluemantle. This heroine had, for many years together, outdone the whole sisterhood of gossips in invention, quick utterance, and unprovoked malice. This good body is of a lasting constitution, though extremely decayed in her eyes, and decrepit in her feet. The two circumstances of being always at home from her lameness, and very attentive from her blindness, make her lodgings the receptacle of all that passes in town, good or bad; but for the latter she seems to have the better memory. There is another thing to be noted of her, which is, that as it is usual with old people, she has a livelier memory of things which passed when she was very young than of late years. Add to all this, that she does not only not love anybody, but she hates every body. The statue in Rome* does not serve to vent malice half so well as this old lady does to disappoint it. She does not know the author of any thing that is told her, but can readily repeat the matter itself; therefore, though she exposes all the whole town, she offends no one in it. She is so exquisitely rest→ less and peevish, that she quarrels with all about her, and

A statue of Pasquin in that city, on which sarcastic remarks were pasted, and thence called Pasquinades.

sometimes in a freak will instantly change her habitation. To indulge this humour, she is led about the grounds belonging to the same house she is in; and the persons to whom she is to remove, being in the plot, are ready to receive her at her own chamber again. At stated times the gentlewoman at whose house she supposes she is at the time, is sent for to quarrel with, according to her common custom. When they have a mind to drive the jest, she is immediately urged to that degree, that she will board in a family with which she has never yet been; and away she will go this instant, and tell them all that the rest have been saying of them, By this means, she has been an inhabitant of every house in the place, without stirring from the same habitation: and the many stories which every body furnishes her with, to favour that deceit, make her the general intelligencer of the town of all that can be said by one woman against another. Thus groundless stories die away, and sometimes truths are smothered under the general word, when they have a mind to discountenance a thing, "Oh! this is in my Lady Bluemantle's Memoirs."

Whoever receives impressions to the disadvantage of others, without examination, is to be had in no other credit for intelligence than this good Lady Bluemantle, who is subjected to have her ears imposed upon for want of other helps to better information. Add to this, that other scandal-bearers suspend the use of these faculties which she has lost, rather than apply them to do justice to their neighbours: and I think, for the service of my fair readers, to acquaint them, that there is a voluntary Lady Bluemantle at every visit in town.

N° 428. FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1712.
Occupet extremum scabies.

T.

-HOR. Ars Poet. v. 417.

The devil take the hindmost.-ENGLISH PROVERB.

T is an impertinent and an unreasonable fault in con

It may possibly be objected to me myself, that I am guilty in this kind, in entertaining the town every day, and not

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