I would not be thought, by any thing I have said, to be against
improving a Boys Genius to the utmost pitch it can be carried. What I
would endeavour to shew in this Essay is, that there may be Methods
taken, to make Learning advantageous even to the meanest Capacities.

I am, SIR, Yours, &c.

X.

[Footnote 1: Perhaps Swift and his old schoolfellow, Mr. Stratford, the
Hamburgh merchant.

Stratford is worth a plumb, and is now lending the Government
L40,000; yet we were educated together at the same school and
university.

Journal to Stella, Sept. 14, 1710.]

[Footnote 2:[them]]

[Footnote 3: Leopold the last was also Leopold the First. He died May 6,
1705, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Joseph, who died while the
Spectator was being issued, and had now been followed by his brother,
the Archduke Charles, whose claim to the crown of Spain England had been
supporting, when his accession to the German throne had not seemed
probable. His coronation as Charles VI. was, therefore, one cause of the
peace. Leopold, born in 1640, and educated by the Jesuits, became
Emperor in 1658, and reigned 49 years. He was an adept in metaphysics
and theology, as well as in wood-turning, but a feeble and oppressive
ruler, whose empire was twice saved for him; by Sobiesld from the Turks,
and from the French by Marlborough.]

* * * * *

No. 354. Wednesday, April 16, 1712. Steele.

--Cum magnis virtutibus affers
Grande supercilium--

Juv.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

You have in some of your Discourses describ'd most sorts of Women in
their distinct and proper Classes, as the Ape, the Coquet, and many
others; but I think you have never yet said anything of a Devotee. A
Devotee is one of those who disparage Religion by their indiscreet and
unseasonable introduction of the Mention of Virtue on all Occasion[s]:
She professes she is what nobody ought to doubt she is; and betrays
the Labour she is put to, to be what she ought to be with Chearfulness
and Alacrity. She lives in the World, and denies her self none of the
Diversions of it, with a constant Declaration how insipid all things
in it are to her. She is never her self but at Church; there she
displays her Virtue, and is so fervent in her Devotions, that I have
frequently seen her Pray her self out of Breath. While other young
Ladies in th