's copy-book, containing the round and
round-text hands, with alphabets at large of the Greek and Hebrew, and
joining-pieces of each. Embellished with proper ornaments of command of
hand. By John Rayner, at the Hand and Pen, in St. Paul's Churchyard,
London. Published for the use of schools. Sold by the author, and
Jonathan Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in St. Paul's Churchyard. Price
1_s._" (No. 135, Advertisement). Rayner's book was dedicated to the
Master and Wardens of the Mercers' Company, and was reissued in 1716 (W.
Massey's "Origin and Progress of Letters," 1763, part ii. p. 120).]

[Footnote 119: See No. 141.]

[Footnote 120: Bedlam.]

[Footnote 121: See No. 131.]

[Footnote 122: See No. 125.]

No. 139. [STEELE.

From _Saturday, Feb. 25_, to _Tuesday, Feb. 28, 1709-10_.

----Nihil est, quod credere de se
Non possit, cum laudatur Dis aequa potestas.
JUV., Sat. iv. 70.

* * * * *

_Sheer Lane, February 27._

When I reflect upon the many nights I have sat up for some months last
past in the greatest anxiety for the good of my neighbours and
contemporaries, it is no small discouragement to me, to see how slow a
progress I make in the reformation of the world. But indeed I must do my
female readers the justice to own, that their tender hearts are much
more susceptible of good impressions, than the minds of the other sex.
Business and ambition take up men's thoughts too much to leave room for
philosophy: but if you speak to women in a style and manner proper to
approach them, they never fail to improve by your counsel. I shall
therefore for the future turn my thoughts more particularly to their
service, and study the best methods to adorn their persons, and inform
their minds in the justest methods to make them what Nature designed
them, the most beauteous objects of our eyes, and the most agreeable
companions of our lives. But when I say this, I must not omit at the
same time to look into their errors and mistakes, that being the
readiest way to the intended end of adorning and instructing them. It
must be acknowledged, that the very inadvertencies of this sex are owing
to the other; for if men were not flatterers, women could not fall into
that general cause of all their follies, and our misfortunes, their love
of flattery. Were the commendation of these agree