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appear so monstrous and irrational. I have exposed this picture of an unnatural father with the same intention, that its deformity may deter others from its resemblance. If the reader has a mind to see a father of the same stamp represented in the most exquisite strokes of humour, he may meet with it in one of the finest comedies that ever appeared upon the English stage: I mean the part of Sir Sampson in Love for Love.

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I must not, however, engage myself blindly on the side of the son, to whom the fond letter above-written was directed. His father calls him a saucy and audacious rascal' in the first line; and I am afraid, upon examination, he will prove but an ungracious youth. To go about railing' at his father, and to find no other place but the outside of his letter' to tell him 'that might overcomes right,' if it does not discover his reason to be depraved,' and that he is either fool or mad,' as the cholerie old gentleman tells him, we may at least allow that the father will do very well in endeavouring to better his judgment, and give him a greater sense of his duty.' But whether this may be brought about by breaking his head,' or, ' giving him a great knock on the skull,' ought I think to be well considered. Upon the whole, I wish the father has not met with his match, and that he may not be as equally paired with a son, as the mother in Virgil.

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Crudelis tu quoque mater:

Crudelis mater magis an puer improbus ille?

Improbus ille puer, crudelis tu quoque mater.—ECL. viii. 48.

O barbarous mother, thirsting to destroy!

More cruel was the mother or the boy?

Both, both alike delighted to destroy,
Th' unnatural mother, and the ruthless boy.

WARTON.

Or, like the crow and her egg in the Greek proverb,

Κακοῦ κόρακος κακὸν ὠόν.

Bad the crow, bad the egg.

I must here take notice of a letter which I have received from an unknown correspondent, upon the subject of my paper, upon which the foregoing letter is founded.' The writer of it seems very much concerned, lest that paper should seem to give encouragement to the disobedience of children towards their parents; but if the writer of it will take the pains to read it over again attentively, I dare say his apprehension will vanish. Pardon and reconciliation are all the penitent daughter requests, and all that I contend for in her behalf; and in this case I may use the saying of an eminent wit, who, upon some great men's pressing him to forgive his daughter who had married against his consent, told them he could refuse nothing to their instances, but that he would have them remember there was difference between Giving and Forgiving.

I must confess, in all controversies between parents and their children, I am naturally prejudiced in favour of the former. The obligations on that side can never be acquitted, and I think it is one of the greatest reflections upon human nature, that paternal instinct should be a stronger motive to love than filial gratitude; that the receiving of favours should be a less inducement to good-will, tenderness, and commiseration, than the conferring of them; and that the taking care of any person should endear the child or dependant more to the parent or benefactor, than the parent or benefactor to the child or dependant; yet so it happens, that for one cruel parent we meet with a thousand unduti. ful children. This is, indeed, wonderfully contrived (as I have formerly observed') for the support of every living species; but at the same time that it shews the wisdom of the Creator, it discovers the imperfection and degeneracy of the creature. The obedience of children to their parents is the basis of all

VOL. IV.-20*

1 V. No. 181.-C.

2 No. 120.

government, and is set forth as the measure of that obedience which we owe to those whom Providence hath placed over us.

It is Father Le Comte,' if I am not mistaken, who tells us how want of duty in this particular is punished among the Chinese, insomuch, that if a son should be known to kill, or so much as to strike, his father, not only the criminal, but his whole family, would be rooted out; nay, the inhabitants of the place where he lived would be put to the sword; nay, the place itself would be razed to the ground, and its foundations sown with salt: for, say they, there must have been an utter depravation of manners in that clan or society of people, who could have bred up among them so horrible an offender. To this I shall add a passage out of the first book of Herodotus. That historian, in his account of the Persian customs and religion, tells us, it is their opinion that no man ever killed his father, or that it is possible such a crime should be in nature; but that if any thing like it should ever happen, they conclude that the reputed son must have been illegitimate, supposititious, or begotten in adultery. Their opinion in this particular shews sufficiently what a notion they must have had of undutifulness in general.

L.

No. 191. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9.

οὖλον ὄνειρον.

Hoм. Il. ii. 6.

Delusive vision of the night.

SOME ludicrous schoolmen have put the case, that if an ass were placed between two bundles of hay, which affected his senses

1 V. F. Le Comte's Present State of China, part. 2; Lett. to the Card. d'Estrées; and Guard. in 8vo. No. 96, note.-C.

467

equally on each side, and tempted him in the very same degree, They whether it would be possible for him to eat of either. generally determine this question to the disadvantage of the ass, who, they say, would starve in the midst of plenty, as not having a single grain of free-will to determine him more to the one than to the other. The bundle of hay on either side striking his sight and smell in the same proportion, would keep him in a perpetual suspence, like the two magnets which, travellers have told us, are placed one of them in the roof, and the other in the floor, of Mahomet's burying-place at Mecca, and by that means, say they, pull the impostor's iron coffin with such an equal attraction, that it hangs in the air between both of them.' As for the ass's behaviour in such nice circumstances, whether he would starve sooner than violate his neutrality to the two bundles of hay, I shall not presume to determine; but only take notice of the conduct of our own species in the same perplexity. When a man has a mind to venture his money in a lottery, every figure of it appears equally alluring, and as likely to succeed as any of its fellows. They all of them have the same pretensions to good luck, stand upon the same foot of competition, and no manner of reason can be given why a man should prefer one to the other before the lottery is drawn. In this case, therefore, caprice very often acts in the place of reason, and forms to itself some groundless imaginary motive, where real and substantial ones are wanting. I know a well-meaning man that is very well pleased to risk his good fortune upon the number 1711, because it is the year of our Lord. I am acquainted with a tacker that would give a good deal for the number 134. On the contrary, I have been told of

1 V. Bayle's Dictionary, article Mahomet.-C.

2 In the year 1704 a bill was brought into the House of Commons against occasional conformity, and in order to make it pass through the House of Lords, it was proposed to tack it to a money bill. This bill occasioned warm debates, and at length it was put to the vote: when 134

a certain zealous dissenter, who being a great enemy to popery, and believing that bad men are the most fortunate in this world, will lay two to one on the number 666 against any other number, because, says he, it is the number of the beast. Several would prefer the number 12000 before any other, as it is the number of the pounds in the great prize. In short, some are pleased to find their own age in their number; some that they have got a number which makes a pretty appearance in the cyphers; and others, because it is the same number that succeeded in the last lottery.

Each of these, upon no other grounds, thinks he stands fairest for the great lot, and that he is possessed of what may not be improperly called the Golden Number."

These principles of election are the pastimes and extravagancies of human reason, which is of so busy a nature, that it will be exerting itself in the meanest trifles, and working even when it wants materials. The wisest of men are sometimes actuated by such unaccountable motives, as the life of the fool and the superstitious is guided by nothing else.

3

I am surprised that none of the fortune-tellers, or, as the French call them, the Diseurs de bonne Aventure, who publish their bills in every quarter of the town, have turned our lotteries to their advantage: did any of them set up for a caster of fortunate figures, what might he not get by his pretended discoveries and predictions?

I remember among the advertisements in the Postboy of September the 27th, I was surprised to see the following one:

were for tacking: but a large majority being against it, the motion was overruled and the bill miscarried.-C.

In the Revelations, ch. xiii. v. 18.-C.

2 Alluding to the number so called in the calender.-C.

Tickell, Chalmers and some others read, acted-an evident misprint.-G.

• Some editions read 'have not' though Tickell rejects the 'not.-G.

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