pected in his circumstances. The lady admonished her of the prime of life with a smile; which Fidelia answered with a frankness that always attends unfeigned virtue; It is true, Madam, there is to be sure very great satisfactions to be expected in the commerce of a man of honour, whom one tenderly loves; but I find so much satisfaction in the reflection, how much I mitigate a good man's pains, whose welfare depends upon my assiduity about him, that I willingly exclude the loose gratifications of passion for the solid reflections of duty. I know not whether any man's wife would be allowed, and (what I still more fear) I know not whether I, a wife, should be willing to be as officious as I am at present about my parent.' The happy father has her declaration that she will not marry during his life, and the pleasure of seeing that resolution not uneasy to her. Were one to paint filial affection in its utmost beauty, he could not have a more lively idea of it than in beholding Fidelia serving her father at his hours of rising, meals, and rest.

When the general crowd of female youth are consulting their glasses, preparing for balls, assemblies, or plays; for a young lady, who could be regarded among the foremost in those places, either for her person, wit, fortune, or conversation, and yet contemn all these entertainments, to sweeten the heavy hours of a decrepid parent, is a resignation truly heroic. Fidelia performs the duty of a nurse, with all the beauty of a bride; nor does she neglect her person, because of her attendance on him, when he is too ill to receive company, to whom she may make an appearance.

Fidelia, who gives him up her youth, does not think it any great sacrifice to add to it the spoiling of her dress. Her care and exactness in her habit, convince her father of the alacrity of her mind; and she has of all women the best foundation for affecting the praise of a seeming negligence. What adds to the entertainment of the good old man is, that Fidelia, where me

rit and fortune cannot be overlooked by epistolary lovers, reads over the accounts of her conquests, plays on her spinet the gayest airs, (and while she is doing so, you would think her formed only for gallantry) to intimate to him the pleasures she despises for his sake.

Those who think themselves the patterns of good breeding and gallantry, would be astonished to hear that in those intervals when the old gentleman is at case, and can bear company, there are at his house in the most regular order, assemblies of people of the highest merit; where there is conversation without mention of the faults of the absent, benevolence between men and women without passion, and the highest subjects of morality treated of as natural and accidental discourse; all which is owing to the genius of Fidelia, who at once makes her father's way to another world easy, and herself capable of being an honour to his name in this.

Mr. Spectator,

I WAS the other day at the Bear-Garden in hopes to have seen your short face; but not being so fortunate, I must tell you by way of letter, that there is a mystery among the gladiators which has escaped your spectatorial penetration. For being in a box at an ale-house near that renowned seat of honour above-mentioned, I overheard two masters of the science agreeing to quarrel on the next opportunity. This was to happen in the company of a set of the fraternity of basket-hilts, who were to meet that evening. When this was settled, one asked the other, Will you give cuts or receive? the other answered, Receive. It was replied, Are you a passionate man? No, provided you cut no more nor no deeper than we agree. I thought it my duty to acquaint you with this, that the people may not pay their money for fighting, and be cheated.

• Your humble servant,

SCABBARD RUSTY.'

All men through different paths, make at the same common thing, Money; and it is to her we owe the politician, the merchant, and the lawyer; nay, to be free with you, I believe to that also we are beholden for our Spectator. I am apt to think, that could we look into our own hearts, we should see money engraved in them in more lively and moving characters than self-preservation; for who can reflect upon the merchant hoisting sail in a doubtful pursuit of her, and all mankind sacrificing their quiet to her, but must perceive that the characters of self-preservation (which were doubtless originally the brightest) are sullied, if not wholly defaced: and that those of money (which at first was only valuable as a mean to security) are of late so brightened, that the characters of self-preservation, like a less light set by a greater, are become almost imperceptible? Thus has money got the upperhand of what all mankind formerly thought most dear, viz. security; and I wish I could say she had here put a stop to her victories; but, alas! common honesty fell a sacrifice to her. This is the way scholastic men talk of the greatest good in the world: but I, a tradesman, shall give you another account of this matter in the plain narrative of my own life. I think it proper in the first place, to acquaint my readers, that since my setting out in the world, which was in the year 1660, I never wanted money; having begun with an indifferent good stock in the tobaccotrade to which I was bred; and by the continual suc

cesses, it has pleased Providence to bless my endeavours with, am at last arrived to what they call a Plumb. To uphold my discourse in the manner of your wits or philosophers, by speaking fine things, or drawing inferences, as they pretend, from the nature of the subject, I account it vain; having never found any thing in the writings of such men, that did not savour more of the invention of the brain, or what is styled speculation, than of sound judgment or profitable observation. I will readily grant indeed that there is what the wits call natural in their talk; which is the utmost those curious authors can assume to themselves, and is indeed all they endeavour at, for they are but lamentable teachers. And what, I pray, is natural? That which is pleasing and easy and what are pleasing and easy? Forsooth a new thought or conceit dressed up in smooth quaint language, to make you smile and wag your head, as being what you never imagined before, and yet wonder why you had not; mere frothy amusements! fit only for boys or silly women to be caught with.

It is not my present intention to instruct my readers in the method of acquiring riches; that may be the work of another essay; but to exhibit the real and solid advantages I have found by them in my long and manifold experience; nor yet all the advantages of so worthy and valuable a blessing, for who does not know or imagine the comforts of being warm or living at case? and that power and pre-eminence are their inseparable attendants? but only to instance the great supports they afford us under the severest calamities and misfortunes; to shew that the love of them is a special antidote against immorality and vice, and that the same does likewise naturally dispose men to actions of piety and devotion: all which I can make out by my own experience, who think myself no ways particular from the rest of mankind, nor better nor worse by nature than generally other men are.

In the year 1665, when the sickness was, I lost by it my wife and two children, which were all my stock. Probably I might have had more, considering I was married between four and five years; but finding her to be a teeming woman, I was careful, as having then little above a brace of thousand pounds to carry on my trade and maintain a family with. I loved them as usually men do their wives and children, and therefore could not resist the first impulses of nature on so wounding a loss; but I quickly roused myself, and found means to alleviate, and at last conquer my affliction, by reflecting how that she and her children having been no great expence to me, the best part of her fortune was still left; that my charge, being reduced to myself, a journeyman, and a maid, I might live far cheaper than before: and that being now a childless widower, I might perhaps marry a no less deserving woman, and with a much better fortune than she brought, which was but eight hundred pounds. And to convince my readers that such considerations as these were proper and apt to produce such an effect, I remember it was the constant observation at that deplorable time when so many hundreds were swept away daily, that the rich ever bore the loss of their families and relations far better than the poor; the latter having little or nothing before-hand, and living from hand to mouth, placed the whole comfort and satisfaction of their lives in their wives and children, and were therefore inconsolable.

The following year happened the fire: at which time, by good providence, it was my fortune to have converted the greatest part of my effects into ready money, on the prospect of an extraordinary advantage which I was preparing to lay hold on. This calamity was very terrible and astonishing, the fury of the flames being such, that whole streets, at several distant places, were destroyed at one and the same time, so that, as it is well known, almost all our citizens were