Mr. SPECTATOR, I write this to you thus in IIafte, to tell you I am fo very much at cafe here, that I know nothing but Joy; and I will not return, but leave you in England to his all Merit of your own Growth off the Stage. I know, Sir, you were always my Admirer, and therefore I am yours, CAMILLA. P. S. I am ten times better dreffed than ever I was in England. Mr. SPECTATOR, THE Project in yours of the 11th Inftant, of furthering the Correfpondence and Knowledge of that confiderable Part of Mankind, the Trading World, cannot but be highly commendable. Good Lectures to young Traders may have very good Effects on their Conduct: but beware you propagate no falfe Notions of Trade; let none of your Correfpondents impofe on the World, by putting forth bafe Methods in a good Light, and glazing them over with improper Terms. would have no Means of Profit fet for Copies to others, but fuch as are laudable in themfelves. Let not Noife be called Induftry, nor Impudence Courage. Let not good Fortune be impofed on the World for good Management, nor Poverty be called Folly; impute not always Bankruptcy to Extravagance, nor an Elate to Forefight: Niggardlinefs is not good Husbandry, nor Generofity Profufion. HONESTUS is a well-meaning and judicious Trader, hath fubftantial Goods, and trades with his own Stock; husbands his Money to the beft Advantage, without taking all Advantages of the Neceflitics of his Workmen, or grinding the Face of the Poor. Fortunatus is flocked with Ignorance, and confequently with Self-Opinion; the Quality of his Goods cannot but be fuitable to that of his Judgment. Honeftus pleafes difcerning People, and keeps their Cuftom by good Ufage; makes modeft Profit by modeft Means, to the decent Support of his Family: Whilt Fortunatus bluitering always, puthes on, promifing much, and performing little; with Obfequioufnefs offenfive to People of Senfe, " ⚫ ftrikes 4 ⚫ftrikes at all, catches much the greater Part; raises as confiderable Fortune by Impofition on others, to the Difencouragement and Ruin of those who trade in the • fame Way. I give here but loofe Hints, and beg you to be very circumfpect in the Province you have now undertaken: If you perform it fuccefsfully, it will be a very great Good; for nothing is more wanting, than that Mechanick Industry were fet forth with the Freedom and • Greatness of Mind which ought always to accompany a Man of a liberal Education. From my Shop under the Royal-Exchange, July 14. Mr. SPECTATOR, Your humble Servant, R. C. July 24, 17.12. OTWITHSTANDING the repeated Cenfures that your Spectatorial Wisdom has paffed ⚫ upon People more remarkable for Impudence than Wit, there are yet fome remaining, who pafs with the giddy Part of Mankind for fufficient Sharers of the latter, 'who have nothing but the former Qualification to recommend them. Another timely Animadverfion is abfolutely neceffary; be pleafed therefore once for all to let thefe Gentlemen know, that there is neither • Mirth nor Good-humour in hooting a young Fellow ⚫ out of Countenance; nor that it will ever conftitute a Wit, to conclude a tart Piece of Buffoonry with a what makes you blush? Pray pleafe to inform them again, That to speak what they know is fhocking, proceeds from Ill-nature, and a Sterility of Brain; efpecially when the Subject will not admit of Rallery, and their Difcourfe has no Pretenfion to Satire but what is in their Defign to difoblige. I fhould be very glad too if you would take notice, that a daily Repetition of the fame over-bearing Infolence is yet more infupportable, and a Confirmation of very extraordinary Dulnefs. The fudden Publication of this, may have an Effect upon a notorious Offender of this Kind, whofe Reformation ⚫ would redound very much to the Satisfaction and Quiet < of Your most humble Servant, F. B. T Wednesday, I Wednesday, July 30. Parturiunt Montes. Hor. T gives me much Defpair in the Defign of reforming the World by my Speculations, when I find there always arife, from one Generation to another, fucceffive Cheats and Bubbles, as naturally as Beafts of Prey, and those which are to be their Food. There is hardly a Man in the World, one would think, fo ignorant, as not to know that the ordinary Quack-Doctors, who pubhith their great Abilities in little brown Billets, diftributed to all who pass by, are to a Man Impoftors and Murderers; yet fuch is the Credulity of the Vulgar, and the Impudence of thefe Profeffors, that the Affair ftill goes on, and new Promifes of what was never done before are made every Day. What aggravates the Jeft is, that even this Promife has been made as long as the Memory of Man can trace it, and yet nothing performed, and yet Rill prevails. As I was pafling along to day, a Paper given into my Hand by a Fellow without a Nofe tells us as follows what good News is come to Town, to wit, that there is now a certain Cure for the French Disease, by a Gentleman juft come from his Travels. IN Ruffel-Court, over-againft the Cannon-Ball, at the Surgeon's Arms in Drury-Lane, is lately come from his Travels a Surgeon who hath practifed Surgery and Phyfick both by Sea and Land thefe twenty four Years. He (by the Bleffing) cures the Yellow Jaundice, Green Sicknefs, Scurvy, Dropfy, Surfeits, long Sea-Voyages, Campaigns, and Women's Mifcarriages, Lying-Inn, &c. as fome People that has been lame thefe thirty Years can teflify; in fhort, he cuneth all Difeafes incident to Men, Women, or Children. IF a Man could be fo indolent as to look upon this Havock of the human Species which is made by Vice and Ignorance, it would be a good ridiculous Work to comment comment upon the Declaration of this accomplished Traveller. There is fomething unaccountably taking among the Vulgar in those who come from a great Way off. Ignorant People of Quality, as many there are of fuch, dote exceffively this Way; many Inftances of which every Man will fuggeft to himself without my Enumeration of them. The Ignorants of lower Order, who cannot, like the upper Ones, be profufe of their Money to those recommended by coming from a Distance, are no less complaifant than the others, for they venture their Lives from the fame Admiration. THE Doctor is lately come from his Travels, and has practifed both by Sea and Land, and therefore cures the Green Sickness, long Sea-Voyages, Campaigns, and LyingInn. Both by Sea and Land!- -I will not anfwer for the Distempers called Sea-Voyages and Campaigns; But I dare fay, thofe of Green Sickness and Lying-Inn might be as well taken care of if the Doctor ftaid afhore. But the Art of managing Mankind, is only to make them ftare a little, to keep up their Aftonishment, to let nothing be familiar to them, but ever to have fomething in your Sleeve, in which they must think you are deeper than they are. There is an ingenious Fellow, a Barber, of my Acquaintance, who, befides his broken Fiddle and a dried Sea-Monfter, has a Twine-Cord, ftrained with two Nails at each End, over his Window, and the Words Rainy, Dry, Wet, and fo forth, written, to denote the Weather according to the Rifing or Falling of the Cord. We very great Scholars are not apt to wonder at this: But I obferved a very honeft Fellow, a chance Cuftomer, who fat in the Chair before me to be fhaved, fix his Eye upon this miraculous Performance during the Operation upon his Chin and Face. When thofe and his Head alfo were cleared of all Incumbrances and Excrefcences, he looked at the Fith, then at the Fiddle, still grubling in his Pockets, and cafting his Eye again at the Twine, and the Words writ on each Side; then altered his Mind as to Farthings, and gave my Friend a Silver Sixpence. The Bufinefs, as I faid, is to keep up the Amazement; and if my Friend had had only the Skeleton and Kit, he must have been contented with a lefs Payment. But the Doctor we were talking of, adds to his long long Voyages the Teftimony of fome People that has been thirty Years lame. When I received my Paper, a fagacious Fellow took one at the fame time, and read 'till he came to the Thirty Years Confinement of his Friends, and went off very well convinced of the Doctor's Sufficiency. You have many of thefe prodigious Perfons, who have had fome extraordinary Accident at their Birth, or a great Difafter in fome Part of their Lives. Any thing, however foreign from the Bufinefs the People want of you, will convince them of your Ability in that you profefs. There is a Doctor in Moufe- Alley near Wapping, who fets up for curing Cataracts upon the Credit of having, as his Bill fets forth, loft an Eye in the Emperor's Service. IIis Patients come in upon this, and he fhews the Mufter- Roll, which confirms that he was in his Imperial Majefty's Troops; and he puts out their Eyes with great Succefs. Who would believe that a Man fhould be a Doctor for the Cure of burften Children, by declaring that his Father and Grandfather were born burften? But Charles Ingoltfon, next Door to the Harp in Barbican, has made a pretty Penny by that Afleveration. The Generality go upon their first Conception, and think no further; all the reft is granted. They take it, that there is fomething uncommon in you, and give you Credit for the reft. You may be fure it is upon that I go, when fometimes, let it be to the Purpose or not, I keep a Latin Sentence in my Front; and I was not a little pleafed when I obferved one of my Readers fay, cafting his Eye on my twentieth Paper, More Latin fill? What a prodigious Scholar is this Man! But as I have here taken much Liberty with this learned Doctor, I muft make up all I have faid by repeating what he feems to be in Earnelt in, and honeftly promife to thofe who will not receive him as a great Man; to wit, That from Eight to Twelve, and from Two till Six, he attends for the good of the Publick to bleed for Three Pence. T Thursday, |