it had been some strange fish; but they were more surprised when they saw it was a man, and heard out of his own mouth, that he never believed until that day that there was a God. As he lay in the agonies of confession, one of the honest tars whispered to the boatswain, that it would be a good deed to heave him overboard. But we were now within sight of port, when of a sudden the wind fell, and the penitent relapsed, begging all of us that were present, as we were gentlemen, not to say any thing of what had passed.

He had not been ashore above two days, when one of the company began to rally him upon his devotion on shipboard, which the other denied in so high terms, that it produced the lie on both sides, and ended in a duel. The atheist was run through the body, and, after some loss of blood, became as good a Christian as he was at sea, until he found that his wound was not mortal. He is at present one of the free-thinkers of the age, and now writing a pamphlet against several received opinions concerning the existence of fairies.

As I have taken upon me to censure the faults of the age and country in which I live, I should have thought myself inexcusable to have passed over this crying one, which is the subject of my present discourse. I shall, therefore, from time to time, give my countrymen particular cautions against this distemper of the mind, that is almost become fashionable, and by that means more likely to spread. I have somewhere either read or heard a very memorable sentence, that a man would be a most insupportable monster, should he have the faults that are incident to his years, constitution, profession, family, religion, age, and country; and yet every man is in danger of

them all. For this reason, as I am an old man, I take particular care to avoid being covetous, and telling long stories. As I am choleric, I forbear not only swearing, but all interjections of fretting, as pugh! or pish! and the like. As I am a layman, I resolve not to conceive an aversion for a wise and a good man, because his coat is of a different colour from mine. As I am descended of the ancient family of the Bickerstaffs, I never call a man of merit an upstart. As a protestant, I do not suffer my zeal so far to transport me, as to name the pope and the devil together. As I am fallen into this degenerate age, I guard myself particularly against the folly I have been now speaking of. And as I am an Englishman, I am very cautious not to hate a stranger, or despise a poor Palatine.

ADDISON AND STEELE.

N° 112. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1709.

Accedat suavitas quædam oportet sermonum, atque morum, haudquaquam mediocre condimentum amicitiæ: tristitia autem et in omni re severitas absit. Habet illa quidem gravitatem, sed amicitia, remissior esse debet, et liberior, et dulcior, et ad omnem comitatem facilitatemque proclivior.

CIC. De Amicitia.

There should be added a certain sweetness of discourse and manners, which is no inconsiderable sauce to friendship. But by all means throw out sadness and severity in every thing. There is something of gravity indeed in it; but friendship requires a greater remissness, freedom, and pleasantness, and an inclination to good temper and affability.'

Sheer Lane, December 26.

As I was looking over my letters this morning, I chanced to cast my eye upon the following one, which came to my hands about two months ago from an old friend of mine, who, as I have since learned, was the person that writ the agreeable epistle inserted in my paper of the third of the last month'. It is of the same turn with the other, and may be looked upon as a specimen of right country letters.

" SIR,

THIS sets out to you from my summer-house upon the terrace, where I am enjoying a few hours sunshine, the scanty sweet remains of a fine autumn. The year is almost at the lowest; so that, in all appearance, the rest of my letters between this and spring * N 89.

will be dated from my parlour fire, where the little fond prattle of a wife and children will so often break in upon the connexion of my thoughts, that you will easily discover it in my style. If this winter should prove as severe as the last, I can tell you, beforehand, that I am likely to be a very miserable man, through the perverse temper of my eldest boy. When the frost was in its extremity, you must know that most of the black-birds, robins, and finches of the parish, whose music had entertained me in the summer, took refuge under my roof. Upon this, my care was, to rise every morning before day, to set open my windows for the reception of the cold and the hungry, whom at the same time I relieved with a very plentiful alms, by strewing corn and seeds upon the floors and shelves. But, Dicky2, without any regard to the laws of hospitality, considered the casements as so many traps, and used every bird as a prisoner at discretion. Never did tyrant exercise more various cruelties. Some of the poor creatures he chased to death about the room; others he drove into the jaws of a blood-thirsty cat; and even in his greatest acts of mercy, either clipped the wings, or singed the tails, of his innocent captives. You will laugh, when I tell you I sympathized with every bird in its misfortunes: but I believe you will think me in the right for bewailing the child's unlucky humour. On the other hand, I am extremely pleased to see his younger brother carry an universal benevolence towards every thing that has life. When he was between four and five years old, I caught him weeping over a beautiful butterfly, which he chanced to kill as he was playing with it; and I am informed, that this morning he has

■ Probably Bickerstaff's little godson, who gave him a point of war at eight years old, as we are told in No 95.

given his brother three half-pence, which was his whole estate, to spare the life of a tom-tit. These are at present the matters of greatest moment within my observation, and I know are too trifling to be communicated to any but so wise a man as yourself, and from one who has the happiness to be

'Your most faithful,

' and most obedient servant.'

The best critic that ever wrote, speaking of some passages in Homer which appear extravagant or frivolous, says, indeed, that they are dreams, but the dreams of Jupiter. My friend's letter appears to me in the same light. One sees him in an idle hour; but at the same time in the idle hour of a wise man. A great mind has something in it too severe and forbidding, that is not capable of giving itself such little relaxations, and of condescending to these agreeable ways of trifling. Tully, when he celebrates the friendship of Scipio and Lælius, who were the greatest as well as the politest men of their age, represents it as a beautiful passage in their retirement, that they used to gather up shells on the sea-shore, and amuse themselves with the variety of shape and colour which they met with in those little unregarded works of nature. The great Agesilaus could be a companion to his own children, and was surprised by the ambassadors of Sparta, as he was riding among them upon an hobby-horse. Augustus, indeed, had no playfellows of his own begetting; but is said to have passed many of his hours with little Moorish boys at a game of marbles, not unlike our modern taw. There is, methinks, a pleasure in seeing great men thus fall into the rank of mankind, and entertain themselves with

? Persia, A.