From Thursday, Nov. 10, to Saturday, Nov, 12, 1709.

Will's Coffee-house, Nov. 11.

The French humour of writing epistles, and publishing their fulsome compliments to each other, is a thing I frequently complain of in this place. It is, methinks, from the prevalence of this silly custom that there is so little instruction in the conversation of our distant friends; for which reason, during the whole course of my life, I have desired my acquaintance, when they write to me, rather to say something which should make me wish myself with them, than make me compliments that they wished themselves with me. By this means, I have by me a collection of letters from most parts of the world, which are as naturally of the growth of the place as any herb, tree, or plant of the soil. This I take to be the proper use of an epistolary commerce. To desire to know how Damon goes on with his courtship to Silvia, or how the wine tastes at the Old Devil, are threadbare subjects, and cold treats, which our absent friends might have given us without going out of town for them. A friend of mine who went to travel, used me far otherwise; for he gave me a prospect of the place, or an account of the people, from every country through which he passed. Among others which I was looking over this evening, I am not a little delighted with this which follows:[275]

"Dear Sir,

"I believe this is the first letter that was ever sent you from the middle region, where I am at this present writing. Not to keep you in suspense, it comes to you from the top of the highest mountain in Switzerland, where I am now shivering among the eternal frosts and snows. I can scarce forbear dating it in December, though they call it the first of August at the bottom of the mountain. I assure you, I can hardly keep my ink from freezing in the middle of the dog-days. I am here entertained with the prettiest variety of snow prospects that you can imagine, and have several pits of it before me that are very near as old as the mountain itself; for in this country it is as lasting as marble. I am now upon a spot of it which they tell me fell about the reign of Charlemagne or King Pepin. The inhabitants of the country are as great curiosities as the country itself: they generally hire themselves out in their youth, and if they are musket-proof till about fifty, they bring home the money they have got, and the limbs they have left, to pass the rest of their time among their native mountains. One of the gentlemen of the place, who is come off with the loss of an eye only, told me by way of boast, that there were now seven wooden legs in his family; and that for these four generations, there had not been one in his line that carried a whole body with him to the grave. I believe you will think the style of this letter a little extraordinary; but the 'Rehearsal' will tell you, that people in clouds must not be confined to speak sense;[276] and I hope we that are above them may claim the same privilege. Wherever I am, I shall always be,

"Sir,

Your most obedient,

Most humble Servant."

I think they ought, in those parts where the materials are so easy to work, and at the same time so durable, when any one of their heroes comes home from the wars, to erect his statue in snow upon the mountains, there to remain from generation to generation. A gentleman who is apt to expatiate upon any hint, took this occasion to deliver his opinion upon our ordinary method of sending young gentlemen to travel for their education. "It is certain," said he, "if gentlemen travel at an age proper for them, during the course of their voyages, their accounts to their friends, and after their return, their discourses and conversations, will have in them something above what we can meet with from those who have not had those advantages. At the same time it is to be observed, that every temper and genius is not qualified for this way of improvement. Men may change their climate, but they cannot their nature. A man that goes out a fool, cannot ride or sail himself into common-sense. Therefore let me but walk over London Bridge with a young man, and I'll tell you infallibly whether going over the Rialto at Venice will make him wiser. It is not to be imagined how many I have saved in my time from banishment, by letting their parents know they were good for nothing. But this is to be done with much tenderness. There is my cousin Harry has a son, who is the dullest mortal that was ever born into our house. He had got his trunk and his books all packed up to be transported into foreign parts, for no reason but because the boy never talked; and his father said he wanted to know the world. I could not say to a fond parent, that the boy was dull; but looked grave, and told him, the youth was very thoughtful, and I feared he might have some doubts about religion, with which it was not proper to go into Roman Catholic countries. He is accordingly kept here till he declares himself upon some points, which I am sure he will never think of. By this means, I have prevented the dishonour of having a fool of our house laughed at in all parts of Europe. He is now with his father upon his own estate, and he has sent to me to get him a wife, which I shall do with all convenient speed; but it shall be such a one, whose good nature shall hide his faults, and good sense supply them. The truth of it is, that race is of the true British kind: they are of our country only; it hurts them to transplant them, and they are destroyed if you pretend to improve them. Men of this solid make are not to be hurried up and down the world, for (if I may so speak) they are naturally at their wit's end; and it is an impertinent part to disturb their repose, that they may give you only a history of their bodily occurrences, which is all they are capable of observing. Harry had an elder brother who was tried in this way. I remember, all he could talk of at his return, was, that he had like to have been drowned at such a place, he fell out of a chaise at another, he had a better stomach when he moved northward than when he turned his course to the parts in the south, and so forth. It is therefore very much to be considered, what sense a person has of things when he is setting out; and if he then knows none of his friends and acquaintance but by their clothes and faces, it is my humble opinion that he stay at home. His parents should take care to marry him, and see what they can get out of him that way; for there is a certain sort of men who are no otherwise to be regarded, but as they descend from men of consequence, and may beget valuable successors. And if we consider, that men are to be esteemed only as they are useful, while a stupid wretch is at the head of a great family, we may say, the race is suspended, as properly as when it is all gone, we say, it is extinct."

From my own Apartment, Nov. 11.[277]

I had several hints and advertisements from unknown hands, that some, who are enemies to my labours, design to demand the fashionable way of satisfaction for the disturbance my lucubrations have given them. I confess, as things now stand, I don't know how to deny such inviters, and am preparing myself accordingly: I have bought pumps and foils, and am every morning practising in my chamber. My neighbour, the dancing-master, has demanded of me, why I take this liberty, since I would not allow it him?[278] But I answered, his was an act of an indifferent nature, and mine of necessity. My late treatises against duels have so far disobliged the fraternity of the noble science of defence, that I can get none of them to show me as much as one pass. I am therefore obliged to learn by book, and have accordingly several volumes, wherein all the postures are exactly delineated. I must confess, I am shy of letting people see me at this exercise, because of my flannel waistcoat, and my spectacles, which I am forced to fix on, the better to observe the posture of the enemy. I have upon my chamber walls, drawn at full length, the figures of all sorts of men, from eight feet to three feet two inches. Within this height I take it, that all the fighting men of Great Britain are comprehended. But as I push, I make allowances for my being of a lank and spare body, and have chalked out in every figure my own dimensions; for I scorn to rob any man of his life by taking advantage of his breadth: therefore I press purely in a line down from his nose, and take no more of him to assault than he has of me: for to speak impartially, if a lean fellow wounds a fat one in any part to the right or left, whether it be in carte or in tierce, beyond the dimensions of the said lean fellow's own breadth, I take it to be murder, and such a murder as is below a gentleman to commit. As I am spare, I am also very tall, and behave myself with relation to that advantage with the same punctilio; and I am ready to stoop or stand, according to the stature of my adversary. I must confess, I have had great success this morning, and have hit every figure round the room in a mortal part, without receiving the least hurt, except a little scratch by falling on my face, in pushing at one at the lower end of my chamber; but I recovered so quick, and jumped so nimbly into my guard, that if he had been alive he could not have hurt me. It is confessed, I have written against duels with some warmth; but in all my discourses, I have not ever said, that I knew how a gentleman could avoid a duel if he were provoked to it; and since that custom is now become a law, I know nothing but the legislative power, with new animadversions upon it, can put us in a capacity of denying challenges, though we are afterwards hanged for it. But no more of this at present. As things stand, I shall put up no more affronts; and I shall be so far from taking ill words, that I will not take ill looks. I therefore warn all young hot fellows, not to look hereafter more terrible than their neighbours; for if they stare at me with their hats cocked higher than other people, I won't bear it. Nay, I give warning to all people in general to look kindly at me; for I'll bear no frowns, even from ladies; and if any woman pretends to look scornfully at me, I shall demand satisfaction of the next of kin of the masculine gender.