in a Court; and what we call good breeding, most
agreeably intermixed with his morality. His addresses to the persons who
favour him are so inimitably engaging, that Augustus complained of him
for so seldom writing to him, and asked him, whether he was afraid
posterity should read their names together? Now for the generality of
men to spend much time in such writings, is as pleasant a folly as any
he ridicules. Whatever the crowd of scholars may pretend, if their way
of life, or their own imaginations, do not lead them to a taste of him,
they may read, nay write, fifty volumes upon him, and be just as they
were when they began. I remember to have heard a great painter say,
there are certain faces for certain painters, as well as certain
subjects for certain poets. This is as true in the choice of studies,
and no one will ever relish an author thoroughly well, who would not
have been fit company for that author had they lived at the same time.
All others are mechanics in learning, and take the sentiments of writers
like waiting-servants, who report what passed at their master's table;
but debase every thought and expression, for want of the air with which
they were uttered.

[Footnote 264: Fence.]

[Footnote 265: Hence the phrase, "a knock-down argument."]

[Footnote 266: Horace, 1 Od. v. 1.]

[Footnote 267: See 1 Od. xxii. 23:

"Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
Dulce loquentem."
]

[Footnote 268: Horace, 1 Od. ix. 24.]

No. 174. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, May 18_, to _Saturday, May 20, 1710_.

Quem mala stultitia, et quaecunque inscitia veri,
Caecum agit, insanum Chrysippi porticus et grex
Autumat.--HOR., 2 Sat. iii. 43.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, May 19._

The learned Scotus, to distinguish the race of mankind, gives every
individual of that species what he calls a "seity," something peculiar
to himself, which makes him different from all other persons in the
world. This particularity renders him either venerable or ridiculous,
according as he uses his talents, which always grow out into faults, or
improve into virtues. In the office I have undertaken, you are to
observe, that I have hitherto presented only the more insignificant and
lazy part of mankind under the denomination of "dead men," together with
the degrees towards non-existence, in which others can neither be said
to liv