N° 136. MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 1713.

Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis.

VIRG, En. vi. 127.

The gates of death are open night and day.

DRYDEN.

SOME of our quaint moralists have pleased themselves with an observation, that there is but one way of coming into the world, but a thousand to go out of it. I have seen a fanciful dream written by a Spaniard, in which he introduces the person of death metamorphosing himself like another Proteus into innumerable shapes and figures. To represent the fatality of fevers and agues, with many other distempers and accidents that destroy the life of man, death enters first of all in a body of fire; a little after he appears like a man of snow, then rolls about the room like a cannon-ball, then lies on the table like a gilded pill; after this he transforms himself all of a sudden into a sword, then dwindles successively to a dagger, to a bodkin, to a crooked pin, to a needle, to a hair. The Spaniard's design by this allegory, was to shew the many assaults to which the life of man is exposed, and to let his reader see that there was scarce any thing in nature so very mean and inconsiderable, but that it was able to overcome him, and lay his head in the dust. I remember monsieur Pascal, in his reflections on Providence, has this observa

tion upon Cromwel's death. That usurper, says he, who had destroyed the royal family in his own nation, who had made all the princes of Europe tremble, and struck a terror into Rome itself, was at last taken out of the world by a fit of the gravel, An atom, a grain of sand, says he, that would have been of no significancy in any other part of the universe, being lodged in such a particular place, was an instrument of Providence to bring about the most happy revolutions, and to remove from the face of the earth this troubler of mankind. In short, swarms of distempers are every where hovering over us; casualties, whether at home or abroad, whether we wake or sleep, sit or walk, are planted about us in ambuscade; every element, every climate, every season, all nature is full of death.

There are more casualties incident to men than women, as battles, sea-voyages, with several dangerous trades and professions that often prove fatal to the practitioners. I have seen a treatise written by a learned physician on the distempers peculiar to those who work in stone or marble. It has been therefore observed by curious men, that upon a strict examination there are more males brought into the world than females. Providence, to supply this waste of the species, has made allowance for it by a suitable redundancy in the male sex. Those who have made the nicest calculations have found, I think, that taking one year with another, there are about twenty boys produced to nineteen girls. This observation is so well grounded, that I will at any time lay five to four, that there appear more male than female infants in every weekly bill of mortality. And what can be a more demonstra

tive argument for the superintendency of Providence?

There are casualties incident to every particular station and way of life. A friend of mine was once saying, that he fancied there would be something new and diverting in a country bill of mortality. Upon communicating this hint to a gentleman who was then going down to his seat, which lies at a considerable distance from London, he told me he would make a collection, as well as he could, of the several deaths that had happened in his country for the space of a whole year, and send them up to me in the form of such a bill as I mentioned. The reader will here see that he has been as good as his promise. To make it the more entertaining he has set down, among the real distempers, some imaginary ones, to which the country people ascribe the deaths of some of their neighbours. I shall extract out of them such only as seem almost peculiar to the country, laying aside fevers, apoplexies, smallpox, and the like, which they have in common with towns and cities.

Of a six-bar gate, fox-hunters

Of a quick-set hedge

Two duels, viz.

First, between a frying-pan and a pitch-fork
Second, between a joint-stool and a brown jug
Bewitched

Broke his neck in robbing a henroost

Cut finger turned to a gangrene by an old

gentlewoman of the parish

Surfeit of curds and cream

4

1

1

13

9

7

1

2

11

Of a sprain in his shoulder by saving his dog

at a bull-baiting

Lady B's cordial water

Knocked down by a quart bottle

Frighted out of his wits by a headless dog with saucer eyes

Of October

Broke a vein in bawling for a knight of the
shire

Old women drowned upon trial of witchcraft
Climbing a crow's nest

Chalk and green apples

Led into a horsepond by a will of the wisp Died of a fright in an exercise of the trained bands

Over-eat himself at a house-warming

By the parson's bull

Vagrant beggars worried by the squire's house-dog

Shot by mistake

Of a mountebank doctor

Of the merry-andrew

Caught her death in a wet ditch

Old age

Foul distemper

1

2

1

1

25

1314

1

1

1

2

2

1

6

1

1

100

0

N° 137. TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1713.

sanctus haberi

Justitiæque tenax, factis dictisque mereris?

Agnosco Procerem

JUV. Sat. viii. 24.

Convince the world, that you're devout and true,
Be just in all you say, in all you do;
Whatever be your birth, you're sure to be
A Peer of the first quality to me.

STEPNEY.

HORACE, Juvenal, Boileau, and indeed the greatest writers in almost every age, have exposed with all the strength of wit and good sense, the vanity of a man's valuing himself upon his ancestors, and endeavoured to shew that true nobility consists in virtue, not in birth. With submission however to so many great authorities, I think they have pushed this matter a little too far. We ought in gratitude, to honour the posterity of those who have raised either the interest or reputation of their country; and by whose labours we ourselves are more happy, wise, or virtuous, than we should have been without them. Besides, naturally speaking, a man bids fairer for greatness of soul, who is the descendant of worthy ancestors, and has good blood in his veins, than one who is come of an ignoble and obscure parentage. For these reasons I think a man of merit, who is derived from an illustrious line, is very justly to be regarded more than a man of equal merit, who has no claim to hereditary honours. Nay, I think those who