those inconfiderable rafcals do nothing but go about diffolving of marriages, and fpoiling of fortunes, impoverishing rich and ruining great people, interrupting beauties in the midft of their conquefts, and generals in the course of their victories. A boisterous peripatetic hardly goes through a street without waking half a dozen kings and princes, to open their shops or clean fhoes, frequently transforming fceptres into paring-fhovels, and proclamations into bills. I have by me a letter from a young statesman, who in five or fix hours came to be emperor of Europe, after which he made war upon the Great Turk, routed him horfe and foot, and was crowned lord of the universe in Conftantinople; the conclusion of all his fucceffes is, that on the 12th inftant, about feven in the morning, his imperial majefty was depofed by a chimneyfweeper. On the other hand, I have epistolary testimonies of gratitude from many miferable people, who owe to this clamorous tribe frequent deliverances from great misfortunes. A fmall-coal man*, by waking one of these diftreffed gentlemen, faved him from ten years imprisonment. An honeft watchman, bidding aloud good-morrow to another, freed him from the malice of many potent enemies, and brought all their defigns against him to nothing. A certain vale tudinarian confeffes he has often been cured of * Sir John HAWKINS'S "Hift. of Mufic, vol. V. p. 70. The name of this famous mufical man was Thomas Britton. See GUARD. vol. II. No. 144, note on Mr. Thomas Britton. fore fore throat by the hoarfenefs of a carman, and relieved from a fit of the gout by the found of old fhoes. A noify puppy, that plagued a fober gentleman all night long with his impertinence, was filenced by a cinder-wench with a word fpeaking. Inftead therefore of fuppreffing this order of mortals, I would propofe it to my readers to make the best advantage of their morning falutations. A famous Macedonian prince, for fear of forgetting himself in the midst of his good fortune, had a youth to wait on him every morning, and bid him remember that he was a man. A citizen, who is waked by one of these criers, may regard him as a kind of remembrancer, come to admonish him that it is time to return to the circumftances he has overlooked all the nighttime, to leave off fancying himself what he is not, and prepare to act fuitably to the condition he is really placed in. People may dream on as long as they please, but I fhall take no notice of any imaginary adventures that do not happen while the fun is on this fide the horizon. For which reafon I ftifle Fritilla's dream at church laft Sunday, who, while the reft of the audience were enjoying the benefit of an excellent difcourfe, was lofing her money and jewels to a gentleman at play, until after a ftrange run of ill luck fhe was reduced to pawn three lovely pretty children for her laft ftake. When fhe had thrown them away, her companion went off discovering himself by his ufual tokens, a cloven foot and a ftrong fmell of brimftone; brimstone; which laft proved a bottle of fpirits, which a good old lady applied to her nose, to put her in a condition of hearing the preacher's third head concerning time. If a man has no mind to pafs abruptly from his imagined to his real circumftances, he may employ himself a-while in that new kind of obfervation which my oneirocritical correfpondent has directed him to make of himself. Pursuing the imagination through all its extravagancies, whether in fleeping or waking, is no improper method of correcting and bringing it to act in fubordination to reafon, fo as to be delighted only with fuch objects as will affect it with pleasure when it is never fo cool and fedate. * *It is not certainly known now who was the real author, of this paper; if it was not the ingenious Dr. Byrom, who wrote it, it was certainly written on hints originally fuggested by that elegant fcholar and gentleman, in the paper referred to under the title of Mr. Shadow's Letter. On Friday the third of October next, John Abrahall, with a coach and able horses, fets out from the Bull's head, the lower end of Gray's Inn-lane, to bring company from the Bath. This is to give notice, that any perfon may be carried to Bath, or any other place on that road, at a reasonable rate. N. B. This adv. was inferted in the SPECT. in folio, on Thurfday Sept. 25, 1712. N°. 59%. N° 598. Friday, September 24, 1714. Famme igitur laudas, quod de fapientibus alter Juv. Sat. x. 28. • Will ye not now the pair of fages praise, Who the fame end purfu'd by feveral ways? • One pity'd, one contemn'd the woful times; 'One laugh'd at follies, one lamented crimes.' DRYDEN. MA ANKIND may be divided into the merry and the serious, who both of them make a very good figure in the fpecies fo long as they keep their respective humours from degenerating into the neighbouring extreme; there being a natural tendency in the one to a melancholy moroseness, and in the other to a fantastic levity. The merry part of the world are very amiable, while they diffuse a cheerfulness through converfation at proper seasons and on proper occafions; but, on the contrary, a great grievance to fociety when they infect every difcourfe with infipid mirth, and turn into ridicule fuch fubjects as are not fuited to it. For though laughter is looked upon by the philofophers as the property of reafon, the excefs of it has been always confidered as the mark of folly. On the other fide, ferioufnefs has its beauty whilst it is attended with cheerfulness and huma nity, and does not come in unfeasonably to pall the good humour of those with whom we converfe. These two sets of men, notwithstanding they each of them shine in their respective characters, are apt to bear a natural aversion and antipathy` to one another. What is more ufual than to hear men of ferious tempers, and auftere morals, enlarging upon the vanities and follies of the young and gay part of the fpecies, while they look with a kind of horror upon fuch pomps and diverfions as are innocent in themselves, and only culpable when they draw the mind too much? I could not but fmile upon reading a paffage in the account which Mr. Baxter gives of his own life, wherein he reprefents it as a great bleffing that in his youth he very narrowly escaped getting a place at court. It must indeed be confeffed that levity of temper takes a man off his guard, and opens a pafs to his foul for any temptation that affaults it. It favours all the approaches of vice, and weakens all the refiftance of virtue: for which reason a renowned statesman in Queen Elizabeth's days, after having retired from court and public bufinefs, in order to give himself up to the duties of religion, when any of his old friends used to vifit him, had ftill this word of advice in his mouth, "be ferious." An eminent Italian author of this caft of mind, fpeaking of the great advantage of a serious and composed temper, wishes very gravely, that for the |