in them, and can neither please [nor [4]] displease, but merely take up your Time to no manner of Purpose, no manner of Delight; but he is Good-natured, and does it because he loves to be saying something to you, and entertain you.

  I could name you a Soldier that [hath [5]] done very great things
  without Slaughter; he is prodigiously dull and slow of Head, but what
  he can say is for ever false, so that we must have him.

Give me leave to tell you of one more who is a Lover; he is the most afflicted Creature in the World, lest what happened between him and a Great Beauty should ever be known.  Yet again, he comforts himself. Hang the Jade her Woman.  If Mony can keep [the] Slut trusty I will do it, though I mortgage every Acre; Anthony and Cleopatra for that; All for Love and the World well lost ...

Then, Sir, there is my little Merchant, honest Indigo_ of the Change, there’s my Man for Loss and Gain, there’s Tare and Tret, there’s lying all round the Globe; he has such a prodigious Intelligence he knows all the French are doing, or what we intend or ought to intend, and has it from such Hands.  But, alas, whither am I running!  While I complain, while I remonstrate to you, even all this is a Lie, and there is not one such Person of Quality, Lover, Soldier, or Merchant as I have now described in the whole World, that I know of.  But I will catch my self once in my Life, and in spite of Nature speak one Truth, to wit that I am

  Your Humble Servant, &c.

  T.

[Footnote 1:  Prime Minister of Charles XII.]

[Footnote 2:  exactly]

[Footnote 3:  In the Spring of 1698.]

[Footnote 4:  or]

[Footnote 5:  has]

* * * * *

No. 137.  Tuesday, August 7, 1711.  Steele.

      At haec etiam Servis semper libera fuerunt, timerent, gauderent,
      dolerent, suo potius quam alterius arbitrio.

      Tull.  Epist.

It is no small Concern to me, that I find so many Complaints from that Part of Mankind whose Portion it is to live in Servitude, that those whom they depend upon will not allow them to be even as happy as their Condition will admit of.  There are, as these unhappy Correspondents inform me, Masters who are offended at a chearful Countenance, and think a Servant is broke loose from them, if he does not preserve the utmost Awe in their Presence.  There is one who says, if he looks satisfied, his Master asks him what makes him so pert this Morning; if a little sour, Hark ye, Sirrah, are not you paid your Wages?  The poor Creatures live in the most extreme Misery together:  The Master knows not how to preserve Respect, nor the Servant how to give it.  It seems this Person is of so sullen a Nature, that he knows but little Satisfaction in the midst of a plentiful Fortune, and secretly frets to see any Appearance of Content, in one that lives upon the hundredth Part of his Income, who is unhappy in the Possession of the Whole.  Uneasy Persons, who cannot possess their own Minds, vent their Spleen upon all who depend upon them:  which, I think, is expressed in a lively manner in the following Letters.