diately upon my departure, to use the words in an old comedy, "I find by the noise they make, that they had a mind to be private." I am at a loss to imagine what conversation they have among one another, which I may not be present at; since I love innocent mirth as much as any of them, and am shocked with no freedoms whatsoever, which are consistent with Christianity. I have, with much ado, maintained my post hitherto at the dessert, and every day eat tart in the face of my patron; but how long I shall be invested with this privilege I do not know. For the servants, who do not see me supported as I was in my old lord's time, begin to brush very familiary by me, and thrust aside my chair, when they set the sweetmeats on the table. I have been born and educated a gentleman, and desire you will make the public sensible, that the Christian priesthood was never thought in any age or country to debase the man who is a member of it. Among the great services which your useful papers daily do to religion, this perhaps will not be the least, and will lay a very great obligation on your unknown servant, G. W. VENERABLE NESTOR, I was very much pleased with your paper of the 7th instant, in which you recommend the study of useful knowledge to women of quality or fortune. I have since that met with a very elegant poem, written by the famous sir Thomas More. It is inscribed to a friend of his who was then seeking out a wife; he advises him on that occasion to overlook wealth and beauty, and if he desires a happy life, to join himself with a woman of virtue and knowledge. His words on this last head are as follow: 66 Proculque stulta sit, Parvis labellulis Semper loquacitas; Amoena cantillat, Audire carmina. Certabit in quibus Semper nec unquam erit Summa eloquentia, Gravis, molestave Jam cum omnium gravi Rerum Scientia. Talem olim ego putem Talemque credimus Unquam fuit patri, Gracchos duos, fuit; Quæ quos tulit, bonis 'The sense of this elegant description is as follows: May you meet with a wife who is not always stupidly silent, not always prattling nonsense! May she be learned, if possible, or at least capable of being made so! A woman thus accomplished will be always drawing sentences and maxims of virtue out of the best authors of antiquity. She will be herself in all changes of fortune, neither blown up in prosperity, nor broken with adversity. You will find in her an even, chearful, good-humoured friend, and an agreeable companion for life. She will infuse knowledge into your children with their milk, and from their infancy train them up to wisdom. Whatever company you are engaged in you will long to be at home, and retire with delight from the society of men into the bosom of one who is so dear, so knowing, and so amiable. If she touches her lute, or sings to it any of her own compositions, her voice will sooth you in your solitudes, and sound more sweetly in your ear than that of a nightingale. You will waste with pleasure whole days and nights in her conversation, and be ever finding out new beauties in her discourse. She will keep your mind in perpetual serenity, restrain its mirth from being dissolute, and prevent its melancholy from being painful. for Such was doubtless the wife of Orpheus; who would have undergone what he did to have recovered a foolish bride? Such was the daughter of Ovid, who was his rival in poetry. Such was Tullia as she is celebrated by the most learned and most fond of fathers. And such was the mother of the two Gracchi, who is no less famous for having been their instructor, than their parent.' ** A warning against Popery; being an account of the late conversion of Mr. John Barwell, alias Barton, an eminent Romish Priest, to the reformed church of England. It is the completest account of the gross cheats and errors of the Romish church which was ever published, and very proper to be read in all Protestant families at this time. Price bound 2s. 6d. No. 164. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1713.* —Simili frondescit virga metallo. The same rich metal glitters on the tree. VIRG. Æn. vi. 144. AN eminent prelate of our church observes that there is no way of writing so proper, for the refining and polishing a language, as the translating of books into it, if he who undertakes it has a competent skill of the one tongue, and is a master of the other. When a man writes his own thoughts, the heat of his fancy, and the quickness of his mind, carry him so much after the notions themselves, that for the most part he is two warm to judge of the aptness of words, and the justness of figures; so that he either neglects these too much, or overdoes them; but when a man translates he has none of these heats about him; and therefore the French took no ill method, when they intended to reform and beautify their language, in setting their best writers on work to translate the Greek and Latin authors into it.' Thus far this learned prelate. And another, lately deceased, tells us, that the *Mr. L. EUSDEN'S. This paper, No. 163, is marked with a hand, and re-published in Addison's Works,' 4to. p. 275. Edit. 1721. way of leaving verbal translations, and chiefly regarding the sense and genius of the author, was scarce heard of in England before this present age.' As for the difficulty of translating well, every one I believe must allow my lord Roscommon to be in the right, when he says, 'Tis true, composing is the nobler part, For tho' materials have long since been found, Dryden judiciously remarks, that a translator is to |