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footmen to him? but because it was done to his subjects. 'Now,' says he, 'let me tell you, it would look very odd for a subject of France to have a bloody nose, and his sovereign not to take notice of it. He is obliged in honour to defend his people against hostilities; and if the Dutch will be so insolent to a crowned head, as in any wise to cuff or kick those who are under his protection, I think he is in the right to call them to an account for it.'

This distinction set the controversy upon a new foot, and Io seemed to be very well approved by most that heard it, till a little warm fellow, who declared himself a friend to the house of Austria, fell most unmercifully upon his Gallic majesty, as encouraging his subjects to make mouths at their betters, and afterwards screening them from the punishment that was due to their insolence. To which he added, that the French nation was so addicted to grimace, that if there was not a stop put to it at the general congress, there would be no walking the streets for them in a time of peace, especially if they continued masters of the West Indies. The little man proceeded with a great deal 20 of warmth, declaring that, if the allies were of his mind, he would oblige the French king to burn his galleys, and tolerate the Protestant religion in his dominions, before he would sheath his sword. He concluded with calling Monsieur Mesnager an insignificant prig.

The dispute was now growing very warm, and one does not know where it would have ended, had not a young man about one-and-twenty, who seems to have been brought up with an eye to the law, taken the debate into his hand, and given it as his opinion, that neither Count Rechteren nor Monsieur Mes30 nager had behaved themselves right in this affair. Count Rechteren,' says he, 'should have made affidavit that his servant had been affronted, and then Monsieur Mesnager would have done him justice by taking away their liveries from them, or some other way that he might have thought the most proper; for let me tell you, if a man makes a mouth at me, I am not to knock the teeth out of it for his pains. Then again, as for Monsieur Mesnager, upon his servants being beaten, why, he might have had his action of assault and battery. But as the case now stands, if you will have my opinion, I think they ought to ing it to referees,'

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I heard a great deal more of this conference, but I must confess with little edification; for all I could learn at last from these honest gentlemen was, that the matter in debate was of too high a nature for such heads as theirs, or mine, to comprehend.-O.

No. 536. Knotting recommended to idle young men; Letter on 'Shoeing-borns.'

O vere Phrygiæ, ncquc enim Phryges!

VIRG. Æn. ix. 617.

As I was the other day standing in my bookseller's shop, a pretty young thing, about eighteen years of age, stept out of her coach, and brushing by me, beckoned the man of the shop to the further end of his counter, where she whispered some10 thing to him with an attentive look, and at the same time presented him with a letter: after which, pressing the end of her fan upon his hand, she delivered the remaining part of her message, and withdrew. I observed, in the midst of her discourse, that she flushed, and cast an eye upon me over her shoulder, having been informed by my bookseller that I was the man of the short face whom she had so often read of. Upon her passing by me, the pretty blooming creature smiled in my face, and dropt me a curtsey. She scarce gave me time to return her salute, before she quitted the shop with an easy 20 scuttle, and stepped again into her coach, giving the footmen directions to drive where they were bid. Upon her departure my bookseller gave me a letter superscribed, 'To the ingenious Spectator,' which the young lady had desired him to deliver into my own hands, and to tell me that the speedy publication of it would not only oblige herself, but a whole tea-table of my friends. I opened it therefore, with a resolution to publish it, whatever it should contain, and am sure, if any of my male readers will be so severely critical as not to like it, they would have been as well pleased with it as myself, had they seen the 30 face of the pretty scribe.

'MR. SPECTATOR,

'London, Nov. 1712.

'You are always ready to receive any useful hint or proposal, and such, I believe, you will think one that may put you in

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a way to employ the most idle part of the kingdom; I mean that part of mankind who are known by the name of women's men or beaus, &c. Mr. Spectator, you are sensible these pretty gentlemen are not made for any manly employments, and for want of business are often as much in the vapours as the ladies. Now what I propose is this, that since knotting is again in fashion, which has been found a very pretty amusement, that you would recommend it to these gentlemen as something that may make them useful to the ladies 10 they admire. And, since 'tis not inconsistent with any game or other diversion, for it may be done in the play-house, in their coaches, at the tea-table, and in short, in all places where they come for the sake of the ladies (except at church; be pleased to forbid it there to prevent mistakes), it will be easily complied with. 'Tis besides an employment that allows, as we see by the fair sex, of many graces, which will make the beaus more readily come into it; it shews a white hand and diamond ring to great advantage; it leaves the eyes at full liberty to be employed as before, as also the thoughts, and the 20 tongue. In short, it seems in every respect so proper, that 'tis needless to urge it farther, by speaking of the satisfaction these male knotters will find, when they see their work mixed up in a fringe, and worn by the fair lady for whom and with whom it was done. Truly, Mr. Spectator, I cannot but be pleased I have hit upon something that these gentlemen are capable of; for 'tis sad so considerable a part of the kingdom (I mean for numbers) should be of no manner of use. I shall not trouble you farther at this time, but only to say, that I am always your reader, and generally your admirer, C. B.

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'P. S.-The sooner these fine gentlemen are set to work the better; there being at this time several fine fringes that only stay for more hands.'

I shall in the next place present my reader with the description of a set of men who are common enough in the world, though I do not remember that I have yet taken notice of them, as they are drawn in the following letter.

'MR. SPECTATOR,

'Since you have lately, to so good purpose, enlarged upon conjugal love, it is to be hoped you'll discourage every practice that

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rather proceeds from a regard to interest than to happiness. Now you cannot but observe, that most of our fine young ladies readily fall in with the direction of the graver sort, to retain in their service, by some small encouragement, as great a number as they can of supernumerary and insignificant fellows, which they use like whifflers", and commonly call Shoeing-horns. These are never designed to know the length of the foot, but only, when a good offer comes, to whet and spur him up to the point. Nay, 'tis the opinion of that grave lady, Madam MatchIo well, that 'tis absolutely convenient for every prudent family to have several of these implements about the house, to clap on as occasion serves, and that every spark ought to produce a certificate of his being a shoeing-horn, before he be admitted as a shoe. A certain lady, whom I could name if it was necessary, has at present more shoeing-horns of all sizes, countries, and colours, in her service than ever she had new shoes in her life. I have known a woman make use of a shoeing-horn for several years, and finding him unsuccessful in that function, convert him at length into a shoe. I am mistaken if your 20 friend Mr. William Honeycomb was not a cast shoeing-horn before his late marriage. As for myself, I must frankly declare to you, that I have been an arrant shoeing-horn for above these twenty years. I served my first mistress in that capacity above five of the number, before she was shod. I confess, though she had many who made their applications to her, I always thought myself the best shoe in her shop, and it was not till a month before her marriage that I discovered what I was. This had like to have broke my heart, and raised such suspicions in me, that I told the next I made love to, upon 30 receiving some unkind usage from her, that I began to look upon myself as no more than her shoeing-horn. Upon which my dear, who was a coquette in her nature, told me I was hypochondriacal, and that I might as well look upon myself to be an egg or a pipkin. But in a very short time after she gave me to know that I was not mistaken in myself. It would be tedious to recount to you the life of an unfortunate shoeinghorn, or I might entertain you with a very long and melancholy relation of my sufferings. Upon the whole, I think, Sir, it would very well become a man in your post to determine in 40 what cases a woman may be allowed with honour to make

use of a shoeing-horn, as also to declare whether a maid on this side five-and-twenty, or a widow who has not been three years in that state, may be granted such a privilege, with other difficulties which will naturally occur to you upon that subject. 'I am Sir, with the most profound veneration,

0.

'Yours, &c.'

No. 557. On Polite Conversation; letter of the Ambassador of Bantam.

Quippe domum timet ambiguam, Tyriosque bilingues.

VIRG. Æn. i. 665.

'There is nothing,' says Plato, 'so delightful as the hearing or speaking of truth.' For this reason there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any 10 intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.

Among all the accounts which are given of Cato, I do not remember one that more redounds to his honour, than the following passage related by Plutarch. As an advocate was pleading the cause of his client before one of the prætors, he could only produce a single witness in a point where the law required the testimony of two persons; upon which the advocate insisted on the integrity of that person whom he had produced: but the prætor told him that where the law required two witnesses he would not accept of one, though it were Cato himself. Such a speech from a person 20 who sat at the head of a court of justice, while Cato was still living,

shews us, more than a thousand examples, the high reputation this great man had gained among his contemporaries upon the account of his sincerity.

When such an inflexible integrity is a little softened and qualified by the rules of conversation and good breeding, there is not a more shining virtue in the whole catalogue of social duties. A man, however, ought to take great care not to polish himself out of his veracity, nor to refine his behaviour to the prejudice of his virtue. This subject is exquisitely treated in the most elegant sermon 30 of the great British preacher". I shall beg leave to transcribe out of it two or three sentences, as a proper introduction to a very curious letter, which I shall make the chief entertainment of this speculation.

'The old English plainness and sincerity, that generous in

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