cipal within. Assuming the demeanour of official importance, he peremptorily stated, that he had come for the last letters that had been received from governor Hutchinson and Mr. Oliver, noticing the office in which they ought regularly to have been placed. Without a question being asked, the letters were delivered. The clerk, doubtless, supposed him to be an authorised person from some other public office. Dr. Williamson immediately carried them to Dr. Franklin, and the next day left London for Holland. "I received this important fact from a gentleman of high respectability, now living; with whom, as the companion and friend of his early days, Dr. Williamson had intrusted the secret." STEELE'S DOMESTIC LIFE. THE amiable qualities of Sir Richard Steele are universally acknowledged by his contemporaries; yet they failed to procure him that greatest of all personal enjoyments,-comfort at home. He had for his wife (his second wife) a lady difficult to please, or rather, whom there was no pleasing; beautiful, yet cold, proud of his devotedness to her service, yet without that tender consideration for his happiness, which respect for his genius ought, and real affection for him would have inspired. She appears to have been of that sort of wives who love for their own sakes alone, and who can be very angels as long as every thing is heavenly around them, but who are no sooner touched by the shafts of adversity, than they become angry with their lot, and, instead of dividing griefs with their husbands, which Cicero takes to be the quintessence of connubial friendship, grow as angry with them as if it were in their power to ordain them a life of perpetual sunshine. What a helpmate for a man of such variable fortunes as Steele ! alternately the most flourishing and the most needy of men, now rolling in abundance, and the next day paying with a pamphlet for his tavern score! Steele strove not however with his destiny, and submitted to become what is vulgarly called a very hen-pecked husband. The following specimens of the sort of letters which he was in the habit of dispatching to his imperious beauty, whenever business or pleasure detained him from home, must induce at once pity for the writer, and admiration of that genius which could give so much grace to so contemptible a thraldom. Dearest Being on Earth, Oct. 16th, 1707. Pardon me if you do not see me till eleven o'clock; having met a schoolfellow from India, by whom I am to be informed in things this night which immediately concern your obedient husband, RICH. STEELE. Dear Ruler, December 8th, 1707. I cannot wait upon you to-day at Hampton Court. I have the West Indian business on my hands,* and find very much to be done before Thursday's post. I shall dine at our table at court, where the bearer knows how to come to me with any orders for your obedient husband, and most humble servant, RICH. STEELE. To Mrs. Steele. December 22a, 1707. My dear, dear Wife, I write to let you know I do not come home to dinner, being obliged to attend some business abroad, of which I shall give you an account (when I see you in the evening), as becomes your dutiful and obedient husband, RICH. STEELE. Dear Prue, Devil Tavern, Temple-bar, I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, and inclose two guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot come home to dinner. I languish after your welfare, and will never be a moment careless more. Your faithful husband, RICH. STEele. Send me word you have received this Dear Prue, Eleven at night-Jan. 5th, 1707-8. I was going home two hours ago, but was met by Mr. Griffith, who has kept me ever since, meeting me as he came from Mr. Lambert's. I will come within a pint of wine. We drink your health, and Mr. Griffith is your servant, RICH. STEELE. * The plantation in Barbadoes, left to Steele by his first wife. Dear Prue, Lord Sunderland's Office, May 19th, 1708, Eleven o'clock. I desire of you to get the coach and yourself ready as soon as you can conveniently, and call for me here, from whence we will go and spend some time together in the fresh air in free conference. Let my best perriwig be put in the coach-box, and my new shoes, for it is a comfort to be well dressed and in agreeable company. You are vital life to your obliged, affectionate husband, and humble servant, My dear Prue, RICH. STEEle. St. James's, Gentlemen Ushers' Table, I cannot dine at home, but am in haste to speak with one about business of moment. Dear Prue, be cheerful, for I am in pursuit of what will be good news to you. I am, your most affectionate, obliged husband, Think of going with me this afternoon. Dear Prue, RICH. STEele. I shall be at the office exactly at seven, in hopes of seeing the beautifulest object that can present itself to my eyesyour fair self. Pray be well dressed. Your obedient servant, and affectionate husband, We shall stay in town. RICH. STEele. Dear Prue, June 5th, 1708. What you would have me do, I know not. All that my fortune will compass you shall always enjoy, and have nobody near you that you do not like, except I am myself disapproved by you, for being devotedly your obedient servant, I shall not come home till night. Dear Prue, RICH. STEELE. August 28th, 1708. The afternoon coach shall bring you £10. Your letters show you are passionately in love with me: but we must take our portion of life as it runs without repining; and I consider, that good-nature, added to that beautiful form God has given you, would make a happiness too great for human life. Your most obliged husband and humble servant, Dear Prue, RICH. STEELE. August 30th, 1708. I sent £10 by the afternoon coach of Saturday, and hope you received it safe. The manner in which you write to me, might, perhaps, to another, look like neglect and want of love; but I will not understand it so, and take it to be only the uneasiness of a doating fondness which cannot bear my absence without disdain. I hope we shall never be so long asunder more, for it is not in your power to make me otherwise than your affectionate, faithful, and tender husband, RICH. STEEle. THE GOLDEN TOOTH. FONTENELLE says, "If the truth of a fact were always ascertained before its cause were inquired into, or its nature disputed, much ridicule might be avoided by the learned." In illustration of this remark, he relates the following whimsical anecdote: 66 In 1593, a report prevailed, that a child in Silesia, seven years old, having lost its first teeth, in the new set a tooth of gold grew up in place of one of the cheek teeth. Hortius, Professor of Medicine in the University of Helmstadt, became so convinced of the truth of this story, that he wrote a history of this tooth, in which he affirmed, that it was partly natural and partly miraculous, and that it had been sent by heaven to that child to console the poor Christians oppressed by the Turks. It is not, however, very easy to conceive what consolation the Christians could draw from this tooth, nor what relation it could bear to the Turks. 66 Hortius, however, was but one historian of the tooth; for, in the same year that this work appeared, Rullandus wrote another history of it. Two years afterwards, Ingosterus, another learned man, wrote in opposition to Rullandus respecting the golden tooth, who failed not to make a very elaborate and scientific reply. Another great man, Libavius, collected all that had been said on the tooth, and added his own peculiar doctrine. 66 Nothing was wanting to so many fine works, but a proof that the tooth was really of gold; a goldsmith at length was called to examine it, who discovered that it was only a bit of leaf gold applied to the tooth with considerable address. Their books were first composed on an assumed fact, and then the goldsmith consulted." FALSE METAPHOR. In the early period of the French revolution, when the church of St. Genevieve, at Paris, was converted into a Pantheon, to be dedicated to the illustrious dead, the remains of Rousseau were among the first that were deposited there. They were inclosed in a sarcophagus made of boards and plaster, in the form of a long trunk or coffer, at each end of which were folding-doors, apparently capable of being opened. One of these flaps was open, and out of it projected a naked arm, the hand grasping a torch, the flame of which spread all over the monument. On considering the time and circumstances when this monument was constructed, there is no doubt that the artist intended to represent this philosopher as enlightening the world from the very depth of his tomb, but the mere aspect of this extended arm, and this furiously-flaming brand, rather suggests the idea of an attempt to set the world on fire. In short, it appears to be an emblem much more proper to preserve the memory of Erostratus, than that of the author of the "Social Contract," understood as its partisans understand it. This sarcophagus is distinguished by being adorned with rough trunks of trees, billets of wood, and branches with leaves, instead of pilasters and other ornaments. The artist The artist appears to have had in his mind the idea of floreat semper, eternal verdure; but this is no less impossible to be executed expressively in sculpture, than to be ensured to the productions of a writer of the character of J. J. Rousseau. |