In compliance with this part of the office, I have taken many curious surveys of this great city. I have collected into particular bodies the dappers and the smarts, the natural and affected rakes, the pretty fellows, and the very pretty fellows. I have likewise drawn out in several distinct parties your pedants and men of fire, your gamesters and politicians. I have separated cits from citizens, freethinkers from philosophers, wits from snuff-takers, and duellists from men of honour. I have likewise made a calculation of esquires; not only considering the several distinct swarms of them that are settled in the different parts of this town, but also that more rugged species that inhabit the fields and woods, and are often found in pot-houses, and upon hay-cocks. I shall pass the soft sex over in silence, having not yet reduced them into any tolerable order; as likewise the softer tribe of lovers, which will cost me a great deal of time, before I shall be able to cast them into their several centuries and subdivisions. The second part of the Roman censor's office was to look into the manners of the people; and to check any growing luxury, whether in diet, dress, or building. This duty likewise I have endeavoured to discharge, by those wholesome precepts which I have given my countrymen in regard to beef and mutton, and the severe censures which I have passed upon ragoûts and fricassees'. There is not, as I am informed, a pair of red heels to be seen within ten miles of London; which I may likewise ascribe, without vanity, to the becoming zeal which I expressed in that particular. I must own, my success with the petticoat is not so great: but as I have not yet done with it, I hope I shall in a little time put an * N 148. effectual stop to that growing evil. As for the article of building, I intend hereafter to enlarge upon it; having lately observed several warehouses, nay private shops, that stand upon Corinthian pillars, and whole rows of tin pots shewing themselves, in order to their sale, through a sash-window'.' I have likewise followed the example of the Roman censors, in punishing offences according to the quality of the offender. It was usual for them to expel a senator, who had been guilty of great immoralities, out of the senate-house, by omitting his name when they called over the list of his brethren. In the same manner, to remove effectually several worthless men who stand possessed of great honours, I have made frequent draughts of dead men out of the vicious part of the nobility, and given them up to the new society of upholders, with the necessary orders for their interment. As the Roman censors used to punish the knights or gentlemen of Rome, by taking away their horses from them, I have seized the canes of many criminals of figure, whom I had just reason to animadvert upon. As for the offenders among the common people of Rome, they were generally chastised by being thrown out of a higher tribe, and placed in one which was not so honourable. My reader cannot but think I have had an eye to this punishment, when I have degraded one species of men into bombs, squibs, and crackers 3, and another into drums, bass-viols, and bag-pipes+; not to mention whole packs of delinquents whom I have shut up in 2 Sash-windows appear to be mentioned here as novelties and luxuries; whence it may be inferred, that the shops in London began to be shut in and glazed about this time. 3 N° 88. 4 N° 153. 5 kennels, and the new hospital which I am at present erecting for the reception of those my countrymen, who give me but little hopes of their amendment, on the borders of Moorfields. I shall only observe upon this last particular, that since some late surveys I have taken of this island, I shall think it necessary to enlarge the plan of the buildings which I design in this quarter. When my great predecessor, Cato the elder, stood for the censorship of Rome, there were several other competitors who offered themselves; and, to get an interest amongst the people, gave them great promises of the mild and gentle treatment which they would use towards them in that office. Cato, on the contrary, told them, he presented himself as a candidate, because he knew the age was sunk in immorality and corruption; and that, if they would give him their votes, he would promise them to make use of such a strictness and severity of discipline, as should recover them out of it. The Roman historians, upon this occasion, very much celebrated the publicspiritedness of that people, who chose Cato for their censor, notwithstanding his method of recommending himself. I may in some measure extol my own countrymen upon the same account; who, without any respect to party, or any application from my, self, have made such generous subscriptions for the censor of Great Britain, as will give a magnificence to my old age, and which I esteem more than I would any post in Europe of an hundred times the value. 5 N° 125, 127, 174, 175. 6 6 Alluding not only to the extensive sale of these papers on their periodical publication, but to the very numerous and respectable subscriptions for the re-publication of them in octavo, at the price of a guinea for each volume. I shall only add, that, upon looking into my catalogue of subscribers, which I intend to print alphabetically in the front of my Lucubrations, I find the names of the greatest beauties and wits in the whole island of Great Britain; which I only mention for the benefit of any of them who have not yet subscribed, it being my design to close the subscription in a very short time, ADDISON. N° 163. TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 1710. Idem inficeto est inficetior rure, Simul poemata attigit; neque idem unquam Possis CATUL. de Suffeno, xx. 14. Suffenus has no more wit than a mere clown when he attempts to write verses; and yet he is never happier than when he is scribbling: so much does he admire himself and his compositions. And, indeed, this is the foible of every one of us; for there is no man living who is not a Suffenus in one thing or other. Will's Coffee-house, April 24. I YESTERDAY came hither about two hours before the company generally make their appearance, with a design to read over all the news-papers; but, upon my sitting down, I was accosted by Ned Softly, who saw me from a corner in the other end of the room, where I found he had been writing something. 'Mr. Bickerstaff,' says he, I observe, by a late paper of yours, that you and I are just of a humour; for you must know, of all impertinencies, there is nothing which I so much hate as news. I never read a Gazette in my life; and never trouble my head about our armies, whether they win or lose, or in what part of the world they lie encamped.' Without giving me time to reply, he drew a paper of verses out of his pocket, telling me, that he had something which would entertain me more agreeably; and that he would desire my judgment upon every line, for that we had time enough before us until the company came in. Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer of easy lines. Waller is his favourite: and, as that admirable writer has the best and worst verses of any among our great English poets, Ned Softly has got all the bad ones without book; which he repeats upon occasion, to shew his reading, and garnish his conversation. Ned is indeed a true English reader, incapable of relishing the great and masterly strokes of this art; but wonderfully pleased with the little gothic ornaments of epigrammatical conceits, turns, points, and quibbles, which are so frequent in the most admired of our English poets, and practised by those who want genius and strength to represent, after the manner of the ancients, simplicity in its natural beauty and perfection. Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a conversation, I was resolved to turn my pain into a pleasure, and to divert myself as well as I could with so very odd a fellow. You must understand,' says Ned, that the sonnet I am going to read to you was |