and visit the territories of my good Lord Mayor, we shall see nature stripped of her masquerade, and hear gentlemen and ladies speaking the language of the heart.

For the entertainment of polite life, and because polite life is sometimes a little in want of entertainment, I shall set down a conversation that passed a few nights ago, at an Assemblée in Thames-street, between two Fretters at a Whist-table; one of which had a beautiful daughter of eighteen years of age, leaning upon her mother's chair.

Five trumps, two honours, and lose four by cards? But I believe, Madam, you never lost a game in the whole course of your

"Now and then, Madam.'

life.'

Not in the memory of your daughter, I believe : and Miss is not so extremely young neither. Clubs are trumps-Well! if ever I play again!You are three by cards, Madam'

And two by honours. I had them in my own hand.'

'I beg your pardon, Madam; I had really forgot whose deal it was. But I thought the cloven-footed gentleman had left off teaching. Pray, Madam, will he expect more than one's soul for half-a-dozen lessons?'

'You are pleased to be severe, Madam; but you know I am not easily put out of temper. What's the trump?

I was extremely pleased with the cool behaviour of this lady, and could not help whispering to her daughter, You have a sweet-tempered Mamma, Miss. How happy would it be if every lady of her acquaintance was so amiably disposed!' I observed that Miss blushed and looked down; but I was ignorant of the reason, till all at once her Mamma's good fortune changed, and her adversary, by hold

N° 7. ing the four honours in her own hand, and by the assistance of her partner, won the game at a deal.

And now, Madam,' cried the patient lady, 'is it you or I who have bargained with the devil? I declare it upon my honour, I never won a game against you in my life. Indeed, I should wonder if I had, unless there had been a curtain between you and your partner. But one has a fine time on't indeed! to be always losing, and yet always to be baited for winning; I defy any one to say, that I ever rose a winner in my born days. There was last summer at Tunbridge! Did any human creature see me so much as win a game? And ask Mr. A, and Sir Richard B, and Dean C, and Lord and Lady D, and all the company at Bath this winter, if I did not lose two or three guineas every night at half-crown Whist, for two months together. But I did not fret and talk of the devil, Madam; no, Madam; nor did I trouble the company with my losings, nor play the aftergame, nor say provoking things-No, Madam; I leave such behaviour to ladies that

'Lord! my dear, how you heat yourself! You are absolutely in a passion. Come, let us cut for partners.'

Which they immediately did; and happening to get together, and to win the next game, they were the best company, and the civilest people I ever

saw.

Many of my readers may be too ready to conceive an ill opinion of these ladies; but I have the pleasure of assuring them, from undoubted authority, that they are in all other respects very excellent people and so remarkable for patience and goodhumour, that one of them has been known to lose her husband, and both of them their reputations, without the least emotion or concern.

To be serious on this occasion; I have many ac

quaintance of both sexes, who, though really goodnatured and worthy people, are violating every day the laws of decency and politeness by these outrageous sallies of petulance and impertinence.

I know of no other reason for a man's troubling his friends with the history of his misfortunes, but either to receive comfort from their pity, or advantage from their charity. If the Growler will tell me that he reaps either of these benefits by disturbing all about him; if he will assure me of his having raised compassion in a single breast, or that he has once induced his adversary to change hands with him out of charity, I shall allow that he acts upon principles of prudence, and that he is not a most teasing, ridiculous, and contemptible animal.

I would not be understood to hint at gaming in this paper. I am glad to find that destructive passion attacked from the stage, and wish success to the attempt. Nor do I condemn the custom of playing at cards for small sums, in those whose tempers and circumstances are unhurt by what they lose. On the contrary, I look upon cards as an innocent and useful amusement; calculated to interrupt the formal conversations and private cabals of large companies, and to give a man something to do who has nothing to say. My design at present is, to signify to these Growlers and Fretters, that they are public as well as private nuisances; and to caution all quiet and civilized persons against cutting in with them at the same tables, or replying to their complaints but by a laugh of contempt.

I shall conclude this paper with acquainting my readers, that, in imitation of the great Mr. Hoyle, I am preparing a book for the press, entitled Rules of Behaviour for the game of Whist; shewing, through an almost-infinite variety of good and bad hands, in what degree the muscles of the face are to be con

tracted or extended; and how often a lady may be permitted to change colour, or a gentleman to bite his lips, in the course of the game. To which will be added, for the benefit of all cool and dispassionate players, an exact calculation of the odds against Growlers and Fretters.

N° 8. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1753.

Date obolum Belisario.

A PHILOSOPHER, as I am, who contemplates the world with serious reflection, will be struck with nothing in it more than its vicissitudes. If he has lived any time, he must have had ample opportunities of exercising his meditations on the vanity of all sublunary conditions. The changes of empires, the fall of ministers, the exaltation of obscure persons, are the continual incidents of human comedy. I remember that one of the first passages in history which made an impression upon me in my youth was the fate of Dionysius, who, from being monarch of Sicily, was reduced to teach school at Corinth. Though his tyranny was the cause of his ruin (if it can be called ruin to be deprived of the power of oppression, and to be taught to know one's self), I could not help feeling that sort of superstitious pity which always attends royalty in distress. Who ever perused the stories of Edward the Second, Richard the Second, or Charles the First, but forgot their excesses, and sighed for their catastrophe? In this free-spirited island there are not more hands ready to punish tyrants, than eyes to weep their fall. It

is a common case: we are Romans in resisting oppression, very women in lamenting oppressors!

If (and I think it cannot be contested) there is generosity in these sensations, ought we not doubly to feel such emotions, in cases where regal virtue is become the sport of fortune? This island ought to be as much the harbour of afflicted majesty, as it has been the scourge of offending majesty. And while every throne of arbitrary power is an asylum for the martyrs of so bad a cause, Britain ought to shelter such princes as have been victims for liberty-whenever so great a curiosity is seen, as a prince contending on the honest side.

How must I blush then for my countrymen, when I mention a monarch! an unhappy monarch! now actually suffered to languish for debt in one of the common prisons of this city! A monarch, whose courage raised him to a throne, not by a succession of ambitious bloody acts, but by the voluntary election of an injured people, who had the common right of mankind to freedom, and the uncommon resolution of determining to be free! This prince is Theodore, King of Corsica! A man whose claim to royalty is as undisputable, as the most ancient titles to any monarchy can pretend to be; that is, the choice of his subjects; the only kind of title, allowed in the excellent Gothic constitutions, from whence we derive our own; the same kind of title, which endears the present Royal Family to Englishmen; and the only kind of title, against which, perhaps, no objection can lie.

This prince (on whose history I shall not at present enlarge) after having bravely exposed his life and crown in defence of the rights of his subjects, miscarried, as Cato, and other patriot heroes did before him. For many years he struggled with fortune, and left no means untried, which indefatigable