lewd expression. All that can be said in excuse for them, is, that their
works sufficiently show they have no taste of their authors; and that
what they do in this kind, is out of their great learning, and not out
of any levity or lasciviousness of temper.

A pedant of this nature is wonderfully well described in six lines of
Boileau,[200] with which I shall conclude his character:

"_Un Pedant enivre de sa vaine science,
Tout herisse de grec, tout bouffi d'arrogance,
Et qui, de mille auteurs retenus mot pour mot,
Dans sa tete entasses, n'a souvent fait qu'un sot,
Croit qu'un livre fait tout, et que, sans Aristote,
La raison ne voit goutte, et le bon sens radote._"

[Footnote 198: The original of Tom Folio is supposed to be Thomas
Rawlinson, a great book-collector, who lived in Gray's Inn, and
afterwards in London House, Aldersgate Street, where he died, August 6,
1725, aged 44. His library and MSS. were sold between 1722 and 1734.]

[Footnote 199: No. 154.]

[Footnote 200: Satire iv.: "Les folies humaines."]

No. 159. [STEELE.

From _Thursday, April 13_, to _Saturday, April 15, 1710_.

Nitor in adversum, nec me qui caetera, vincit
Impetus.--OVID., Met. ii. 72.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, April 14._

The wits of this island, for above fifty years past, instead of
correcting the vices of the age, have done all they could to inflame
them. Marriage has been one of the common topics of ridicule that every
stage-scribbler has found his account in; for whenever there is an
occasion for a clap, an impertinent jest upon matrimony is sure to raise
it. This has been attended with very pernicious consequences. Many a
country squire, upon his setting up for a man of the town, has gone home
in the gaiety of his heart and beat his wife. A kind husband has been
looked upon as a clown, and a good wife as a domestic animal, unfit for
the company or conversation of the _beau monde_. In short, separate
beds, silent tables, and solitary homes have been introduced by your men
of wit and pleasure of the age.

As I shall always make it my business to stem the torrents of prejudice
and vice, I shall take particular care to put an honest father of a
family in countenance, and endeavour to remove all the evils out of that
state of life, which is either the most happy, or most miserable, that a
ma