smiles not by sensation, but by practice. Her laughter is never excited but by a joke, and her notion of a joke is not very delicate. The repetition of a good joke does not weaken its effect: if she has laughed once, she will laugh again.

She is an enemy to nothing but ill-nature and pride; but she has frequent reason to lament that they are so frequent in the world. All who are not equally pleased with the good and the bad, with the elegant and gross, with the witty and the dull, all who distinguish excellence from defect, she considers as ill-natured; and she condemns as proud all who repress impertinence or quell presumption, or expect respect from any other eminence than that of fortune, to which she is always willing to pay homage.

'There are none whom she openly hates, for if once she suffers, or believes herself to suffer, any contempt or insult, she never dismisses it from her mind, but takes all opportunities to tell how easily she can forgive. There are none whom she loves much better than others; for when any of her acquaintance decline in the opinion of the world, she always finds it inconvenient to visit them; her affection continues unaltered, but it is impossible to be intimate with the whole town.

She daily exercises her benevolence by pitying every misfortune that happens to every family within her circle of notice; she is in hourly terrors lest one should catch cold in the rain, and another be frighted by the high wind. Her charity she shews by lamenting that so many poor wretches should languish in the streets, and by wondering what the great can think on that they do so little good with such large

estates.

Her house is elegant, and her table dainty, though she has little taste of elegance, and is wholly free from vicious luxury; but she comforts herself

that nobody can say that her house is dirty, or that her dishes are not well drest.

'This, Mr. Idler, I have found by long experience to be the character of a good sort of woman, which I have sent you for the information of those by whom a good sort of woman, and a good woman, may happen to be used as equivalent terms, and who may suffer by the mistake, like Your humble servant, TIM WARNER.'

N° 101. SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1760.

OMAR, the son of Hassan, had passed seventy-five years in honour and prosperity. The favour of three successive califfs had filled his house with gold and silver; and whenever he appeared, the benedictions of the people proclaimed his passage.

Terrestrial happiness is of short continuance. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odours. The vigour of Omar began to fail, the curls of beauty fell from his head, strength departed from his hands, and agility from his feet. He gave back to the califf the keys of trust and the seals of secrecy; and sought no other pleasure for the remains of life than the converse of the wise, and the gratitude of the good.

The powers of his mind were yet unimpaired. His chamber was filled by visitants, eager to catch the dictates of experience, and officious to pay the tribute of admiration. Caled, the son of the viceroy of Egypt, entered every day early, and retired late.

He was beautiful and eloquent; Omar admired his wit and loved his docility. Tell me,' said Caled, 'thou to whose voice nations have listened, and whose wisdom is known to the extremities of Asia, tell me how I may resemble Omar the prudent. The arts by which you have gained power and preserved it, are to you no longer necessary or useful; impart to me the secret of your conduct, and teach me the plan upon which your wisdom has built your fortune.'

'Young man,' said Omar, 'it is of little use to form plans of life. When I took my first survey of the world, in my twentieth year, having considered the various conditions of mankind, in the hour of solitude I said thus to myself, leaning against a cedar which spread its branches over my head: Seventy years are allowed to man; I have yet fifty remaining; ten years I will allot to the attainment of knowledge, and ten I will pass in foreign countries; I shall be learned, and therefore shall be honoured; every city will shout at my arrival, and every student will solicit my friendship. Twenty years thus passed will store my mind with images which I shall be busy through the rest of my life in combining and comparing. I shall revel in inexhaustible accumulations of intellectual riches; I shall find new pleasures for every moment, and shall never more be weary of myself. I will, however, not deviate too far from the beaten track of life, but will try what can be found in female delicacy. I will marry a wife beautiful as the Houries, and wise as Zobeide; with her I will live twenty years within the suburbs of Bagdat, in every pleasure that wealth can purchase, and fancy can invent. I will then retire to a rural dwelling, pass my last days in obscurity and contemplation, and lie silently down on the bed of death. Through my life it shall be my settled resolution, that I will never depend upon the smile of

howeve

sers, for facing his the unifor

libus life affords no matter for narration that of the most studious life a

dry without sondy author parta Condition of humanity; he is bus another man he has hopes an pectations and disappointments, griefs a

Mente and enemies, like a courtier or HOW CI conceive why his affairs show catiety, as much as the whisper of a of the factions of a camp.

Nothing detains the reader's atte fully than deep involutions of dis vicissitudes of fortune; and thes dandy afforded by memoirs of the They are entangled by contracts wh How to fill, and obliged to write do not understand. Every they period of time, from which some sibh of fame is to be reckoned. Here's life are from battle to er's from book to book.

Success and miscarriage hav git cuditions. The prospere and tattered; and the unfor gud deed. No sooner is the wind way judge of the quaintance press roun han from the ori

.

1

ith whom he dines keep him to supper; if the la¦ es turn to him when his coat is plain, and the footen serve him with attention and alacrity; he may sure that his work has been praised by some der of literary fashions.

Of declining reputation the symptoms are not less ly observed. If the author enters a coffee-house as a box to himself; if he calls at a bookseller's, boy turns his back; and, what is the most fatal prognostics, authors will visit him in a morning, alk to him hour after hour of the malevolence tics, the neglect of merit, the bad taste of the = nd the candour of posterity.

this, modified and varied by accident and 1, would form very amusing scenes of biogrand might recreate many a mind which is very lighted with conspiracies or battles, intrigues irt, or debates of a parliament; to this might d all the changes of the countenance of a paced from the first glow which flattery raises eek, through ardour of fondness, vehemence se, magnificence of praise, excuse of delay, entation of inability, to the last chill look of nission, when the one grows weary of sond the other of hearing solicitation.

opious are the materials which have been ffered to lie neglected, while the reposivery family that has produced a soldier or are ransacked, and libraries are crowded 30s folios of state papers which will never d which contribute nothing to valuable

A of t

the learned will be taught to know their th and their value, and, instead of delives to the honour of those who seldom for their labours, resolve at last to do jusselves.

the