natured afpect it can bear. It is wonderfully entertaining to me, to hear him fo exquifitely pleasant, and never fay an ill natured thing He is with all his acquaintance the perfon generally chofen to reconcile any differ ence; and if it be capable of accommodation, Tom Lizard is an unexceptionable referee. It has happened to him more than once, that he has been employed, by each oppofite, in a private manner, to feel the pulfe of the adverfary; and when each has propofed the decifion of the matter by any whom the other should name, he has taken hold of the occafion, and put on the authority affigned by them both, fo feasonably, that they have begun a new correfpondence with each other, fortified by his friendfhip, to whom they both owe the value they have for one another, and confequently confer a greater measure of their good-will upon the interpofer. 1 muft: repeat, that, above all, my young man is excellent at raifing the fubject on which he speaks, and casting a light, upon it more agreeable to his company, than they thought the fubject was capable of. He avoids all emotion and violence, and never is warm but on an affectionate occa fion. Gentleness is what peculiarly diftinguishes him: from other men, and it runs through all his words and: actions.

Mr William, the next brother, is not of this fmooth make, nor fo ready to accommodate himself to the hu mours and inclinations of other men, but to weigh what paffes with fome feverity. He is ever fearching into the firft fprings and caufes of any action or circumftance, infomuch that if it were not to be expected that experience and converfation would allay that humour, it muft inevitably turn him to ridicule. But it is not proper to break in upon an inquifitive temper, that is of ufe to him in the way of life which he proposes to himself, to wit, the study of the law, and the endeavour to arrive at a faculty in pleading. I have been very careful to kill in him any pretenfions to follow men already eminent, any farther than as their fuccefs is an encouragement; but make it my endeavour to cherish, in the principal and firft place, his eager purfuit of folid knowledge in his profeflion. For I think, that clear conception will produce clear expreffion; and clear ex

contrary.

pression, proper action. I never faw a man fpeak very well, where I could not apparently obferve this; and it fhall be a maxim with me till I fee an inftance to the When young and unexperienced men take any particular perfon for their pattern, they are apt to imitate them in fuch things, to which their want of knowledge makes them attribute fuccefs, and not to the real caufes of it. Thus one may have an air which proceeds from a juft fufficiency and knowledge of the matter before him, which may naturally produce fome motion of his head and body, which might become the bench better than the bar. How painfully wrong would this be in a youth at his first appearance, when it is not well even from the ferjeant of the greatest weight and digni ty? But I will, at this time, with an hint only of his way of life, leave Mr William at his ftudy in the Temple.

The youngest fon, Mr John, is now in the twentieth year of his age, and has had the good fortune and honour to be chosen last election fellow of All-Souls college in Oxford. He is very graceful in his perfon; has height, ftrength, vigour, and a certain chearfulness and ferenity that creates a fort of love, which people at first fight obferve is ripening into esteem. He has a fublime vein in poetry, and a warm manner in recommending either in fpeech or writing, whatever he has earnestly at heart. This excellent young man has devoted himself to the fervice of his Creator; and with an aptitude to every agreeable quality, and every happy talent, that could make a man fhine in a court, or command in a camp, he is refolved to go into holy orders. He is infpired with a true fenfe of that function, when chofen from a regard to the interests of piety and virtue ; and a fcorn of whatever men call great in a tranfitory being, when it comes in competition with what is unchangeable and eternal. Whatever men would undertake from a paffion to glory, whatever they would do for the fervice of their country, this youth has a mind prepared to atchieve for the falvation of fouls. What gives me great hopes that he will one day make an extraordinary figure in the Chriftian world, is, that his invention, his memory, judgment and imagination, are always employed upon this one view; and I do not doubt but in

my

fu

ture precautions to prefent the youth of this age with more agreeable narrations, compiled by this young man on the fubject of heroic piety, than any they can meet with in the legends of love and honour.

N° 14.

Friday, March 27.

Nec feit qua fit iter, nec fi fciat imperat.-

-Nor did he know

Ovid. Met. 1. 2. v. 1.70.

Which way to turn the reins, or where to go;
Nor would the horses, had be known, obey. Addifon.

To the GUARDIAN.

OU having in your firft paper declared, among other things, that you will publish whatever you think may conduce to the advancement of the converfation of gentlemen, I cannot but hope you will give my young mafters, when I have told you their age, condition, and how they lead their lives, and who, though I fay it, are as docile as any youths in Europe, a leffon which they very much want, to restrain them from the infection of bad company, and fquandering away their time in idle and unworthy pursuits. A word from you, I am very well affured, will prevail more with them than any remonftrance they will meet with at home. The eldest is now about feventeen years of age, and the younger fifteen, born of noble parentage, and to plentiful fortunes. They have a very good father and mother, and alfo a governor; but come very feldom (except against their wills) in the fight of any of them. That which I obferve they have most relish to, is horfes and cock fighting; which they too well understand, being almoft pofitive at first fight to tell you which horse will win the match, and which cock the battle; and if you are of another opinion, will lay you what you pleafe on

their own; and it is odds but you lofe.

What I fear to be the greatest prejudice to them, is their keeping much closer to their horfes heels than their books, and converfing more with their ftable-men and lackies, than with their relations and gentlemen; and I apprehend, are at this time better skilled how to hold the reins and drive a coach, than to tranflate a verfe in Virgil or Horace. For t'other day taking a walk abroad, they met accidentally in the fields with two young ladies, whose. converfation they were very much pleafed with; and being defirous to ingratiate themselves further into their favour, prevailed with them, though they had never feen them before in their lives, to take the air in a coach of their father's which waited for them at the end of Gray's Inn lane. The youths ran with the wings of love, and ordered the coachman to wait at the town's end till they came back. One of our young gentlemen got up before, and t'other behind, to act the parts they had long, by the direction and example of their comrades, taken much pains to qualify themselves for, and Lo gallopped off. What these mean entertainments will end in, it is impoffible to forelee; but a precaution upon that fubject might prevent very great calamities in a very worthy family, who take in your papers, and might perhaps be alarmed at what you lay before them upon this fubject. I am,

SIR,

Your most humble fervant,

To the GUARDIAN.

T. S.

+

I

SIR,

Writ to you on the 21ft of this month, which you did not think fit to take notice of. It gives me the greater trouble that you did not, because I am.confi. dent the father of the young lads whom I mentioned, would have confidered how far what was faid in my letter concerned himself; upon which it is now too late to reflect. His ingenious fon, the coachman, aged feventeen years, has fince that time ran away with, and

The

married one of the girls 1 fpoke of in my laft, manner of carrying on the intrigue, as I have picked it out of the younger brother, who is almoft fixteen, Ailf a batchelor, was as follows. One of the young women whom they met in the fields, feemed very much taken with my mafter, the elder fon, and was prevailed with to go into a cake-house not far off the town. The girl it feems acted her part fo well, fo as to enamour the boy, and make him inquifitive into her place of abode, with all other queftions which were neceffary toward further intimacy. The matter was fo managed, that the lad was made to believe there was no poffibility of converfing with her, by reafon of a very fevere mother, but with the utmost caution. What, it feems, made the mother, forfooth, the more fufpicious, was, that because the men faid her daughter was pretty, fomebody or other would perfuade her to marry while fhe was too young to know how to govern a family. By what I can learn from pretences as fhallow as this," fhe appeared fo far from having a defign upon her lover, that it feemed impracticable to him to get her, except it were carried on with much fecrecy and skill. Many were the interviews these lovers had in four and twenty hours time. For it was managed by the mother, that he fhould run in and out as unobferved by her, and the girl be called in every other inftant into the next room, and rated (that she could not stay in a place) in his hearing. The young gentleman was at lalt fo much in love, as to be thought by the daughter engaged far enough to put it to the venture, that he could not live without her. It was now time for the mother to ap pear, who furprized the lovers together in private, and banifhed the youth her house. What is not in the pow er of love! the charioteer, attended by his faithful friend the younger brother, got out the other morning a little earlier than ordinary, and having made a fudden friendfhip with a lad of their own age, by the force of ten fhillings, who drove an hackney-coach, the elder bro ther took his poft in the coach-box, where he could act with a great deal of skill and dexterity, and waited at the corner of the street where his mistress lived, in hopes of carrying her off under that disguise. The