FROM TUESDAY MARCH 13.  TO THURSDAY MARCH 15. 1710.[3]

From my own Apartment in Channel-Row, March 14.

The dignity and distinction of men of wit is seldom enough considered, either by themselves or others; their own behaviour, and the usage they meet with, being generally very much of a piece.  I have at this time in my hands an alphabetical list of the beaux esprits about this town, four or five of whom have made the proper use of their genius, by gaining the esteem of the best and greatest men, and by turning it to their own advantage in some establishment of their fortunes, however unequal to their merit; others satisfying themselves with the honour of having access to great tables, and of being subject to the call of every man of quality, who upon occasion wants one to say witty things for the diversion of the company.  This treatment never moves my indignation so much, as when it is practised by a person, who though he owes his own rise purely to the reputation of his parts, yet appears to be as much ashamed of it, as a rich city knight to be denominated from the trade he was first apprenticed to, and affects the air of a man born to his titles, and consequently above the character of a wit, or a scholar.  If those who possess great endowments of the mind would set a just value upon themselves, they would think no man’s acquaintance whatsoever a condescension, nor accept it from the greatest upon unworthy or ignominious terms.  I know a certain lord that has often invited a set of people, and proposed for their diversion a buffoon player, and an eminent poet, to be of the party; and which was yet worse, thought them both sufficiently recompensed by the dinner, and the honour of his company.  This kind of insolence is risen to such a height, that I my self was the other day sent to by a man with a title, whom I had never seen, desiring the favour that I would dine with him and half a dozen of his select friends.  I found afterwards, the footman had told my maid below stairs, that my lord having a mind to be merry, had resolved right or wrong to send for honest Isaac.  I was sufficiently provoked with the message; however I gave the fellow no other answer, than that “I believed he had mistaken the person, for I did not remember that his lord had ever been introduced to me.”  I have reason to apprehend that this abuse hath been owing rather to a meanness of spirit in men of parts, than to the natural pride or ignorance of their patrons.  Young students coming up to town from the places of their education, are dazzled with the grandeur they everywhere meet, and making too much haste to distinguish their parts, instead of waiting to be desired and caressed, are ready to pay their court at any rate to a great man, whose name they have seen in a public paper, or the frontispiece of a dedication.  It has not always been thus:  wit in polite ages has ever begot either esteem or fear.  The hopes