wife *. It may perhaps be thought, I have dwelt too long upon the affairs of this operator; but I defire the reader to remember, that it is my way to confider men as they ftand in merit, and not according to their fortune or figure; and if he is in a coffee-house at the reading hereof, let him look round, and he will find, there may be more characters drawn in this account than that of Don SALTERO; for half the politicians about him, he may observe, are, by their place in nature, of the clafs of tooth-drawers.

* SALTER had an old grey muff, which he clapped constantly to his nofe, and by which he was distinguishable at the distance of a quarter of a mile. His wife was none of the best, being much addicted to scolding; and SALTER, who liked his glafs, if he could make a flip to London by himself, was in no hafte to return.

+"Les petites gens qui raisonnent des affaires d'etat veulent "toûjours, pour guerir le mal, que l'on arrache la partie qui les "incommode. Un Miniftre ne charrie-t-il pas droit à leur avis, "il faut le faire pendre. Un Roi vi-t-il trop long-tems à leur "fantafie Ses fujets devroient je foulever, & lui faire trancher "la tête." BABILLARD

N° 35,

"Whate'er men do, or fay, or think, or dream, "Our motley paper feizes for it's theme."

THER

Grecian Coffee-house, June 28.

P.

HERE is an habit or custom which I have put my patience to the utmost stretch to have fuffered fo long, because several of my intimate friends are in the guilt; and that is, the humour of taking fnuff, and looking dirty about the mouth by way of ornament.

My method is, to dive to the bottom of a fore before I pretend to apply a remedy. For this reason, I fat by an eminent ftory-teller and politician, who takes half an ounce in five feconds, and has mortgaged a pretty tenement near the town, merely to improve and dung his brains with this prolific powder. I obferved this gentleman, the other day, in the midst of a story, diverted from it by looking at fomething at a distance, and I foftly hid his box. But he returns to his tale, and, looking for his box, he cries,

CC4

cries, " And fo, Sir-" Then, when he should have taken a pinch, "As I was faying-" fays he," has nobody feen my box?" His friend befeeches him to finish his narration: then he proceeds; " And fo, Sir—where can my box "be?" Then turning to me, "Pray, Sir, did 66 you fee my box?" "Yes, Sir," faid I, "I "took it to fee how long you could live with"out it." He refumes his tale, and I took notice that his dulnefs was much more regular and fluent than before. A pinch supplied the place of "As I was faying," and "So, Sir;" and he went on currently enough in that style which the learned call the infipid. This obfervation easily led me into a philofophic reason for taking fnuff, which is done only to fupply with fenfations the want of reflection. This I take to be an sunnat, a noftrum; upon which I hope to receive the thanks of this board: for as it is natural to lift a man's hand to a fore, when you fear any thing coming at you; fo

*On this fame principle, precifely, the Abbé DU BOs endeavours to account for the pleasure which fome people have in flocking to fee malefactors executed. Reflex Crit. fur la Poefie, & fur la Peinture, tome I. p. 3.

t "I have found it out;" in allufion to the exclamation of ARCHIMEDES, when, by obferving that the quantity of water which overflowed the bath he bathed in, was precisely equal to the weight of his body, he was led into a method of afcertaining the degree of adulteration in the workmanship of a golden crown. The procefs of this curious difcovery is related by VITRUVIUS, Lib. IX. Cap 3.

when

when a perfon feels his thoughts are run out, and he has no more to fay, it is as natural to supply his weak brain with powder at the neareft place of access, viz. the noftrils. This is fo evident, that nature suggests the use according to the indigence of the perfons who take this medicine, without being prepoffeffed with the force of fashion or cuftom. For example; the native Hibernians, who are reckoned not much unlike the ancient Bocotians, take this specific for emptinefs in the head, in greater abundance than any other nation under the fun. The learned SOTUS, as fparing as he is in his words, would be ftill more filent if it were not for this powder *.

However low and poor the taking of snuff argues a man to be in his own ftock of thoughts, or means to employ his brains and his fingers; yet there is a poorer creature in the world than he, and this is a borrower of fnuff; a fellow that keeps no box of his own, but is always afking others for a pinch. Such poor rogues put me always in mind of a common phrase among school-boys when they are compofing their exercife, who run to an upper fcholar, and cry, "Pray give me a little fenfe." But of all things commend me to the ladies who are got into this pretty help to difcourfe. I have been thefe

*TAT. N° 197. See alfo TAT. Nos 1, 27, and 142, ad finem.

three

three years perfuading SAGISSA to leave it off; but the talks fo much, and is fo learned, that

* The ingenious lady here alluded to, under the name of SAGISSA, a diminutive from the word Sage, was probably Mrs. DE LA RIVIERE MANLEY, who provoked STEELE by the liberties she had taken with his character in her "Secret Memoirs from the "New Atlantis, &c." She indifcreetly renewed fimilar provocations in her after writings, and in return was treated most unmercifully. See TAT. No 6, note on Sappho. GUARDIAN, N° 53, and note. EXAMINER, vol. IV. N° 2. ATRE, N° 26.

66

THE

STEELE and the lady were afterwards entirely reconciled. Thus fhe reads her recantation in a dedication to Sir RICHARD to her play of " Lucius," acted and printed in 1717: "-While "common dedications are stuffed with painful panegyricks, the "plain and honest business of this is only to do an act of justice, "and to end a former misunderstanding between the author and "him whom the here makes her patron. In confideration that "one knows not how far what we have said of each other may "affect our character in the world, I take it for an act of honour "to declare, on my part, that I have not known a greater mor"tification than when I have reflected upon the feverities which "have flowed from a pen which is now, you fee, difpofed as "much to celebrate and commend you. On your part, your "endeavours to promote the reputation and fuccess of this tra66 gedy are infallible teftimonies of the candour and friendship retain for me. I rejoice in this publick retribution; and "with pleasure acknowledge, that I find by experience, that "fome ufeful notice which I had the good fortune to give you "for your conduct in former life, with fome hazard to myself, "were not to be blotted out of your memory by any hardships "that followed them." Thus the concludes: "I fhall fay no 66 more, trusting to the gallantry of your temper for further "proofs of friendship; and allowing you, like a true woman, "all the good qualities in the world now I am pleased with you, as well as I gave you all the ill ones when I was angry with

6:

you

"you."

The latter years of Mrs. MANLEY's life were spent in Alderman BARBER'S houfe, where the died in 1723, and was buried at St. Bennet Fink church.

fhe