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we differ no more in Pleasure and Liberty than as a Gaoler and a Prisoner. He lays Traps for Faults, and no sooner makes a Discovery, but falls into such Language, as I am more ashamed of for coming from him, than for being directed to me. This, Sir, is a short Sketch of a Master I have served upwards of nine Years; and tho' I have never wronged him, I confess my Despair of pleasing him has very much abated my Endeavour to do it. If you will give me leave to steal a Sentence out of my Master's Clarendon, I shall tell you my Case in a Word, Being used worse than I deserved, I cared less to deserve well than I had done.

I am, SIR,

Your Humble Servant,

Ralph Valet."

"Dear Mr. SPECTER,

“I am the next thing to a Lady's Woman, and am under both my Lady and her Woman. I am so used by them both, that I should be very glad to see them in the SPECTER. My Lady her self is of no Mind in the World, and for that Reason her Woman is of twenty Minds in a Moment. My Lady is one that never knows what to do with her self; she pulls on and puts off every thing she wears twenty times before she resolves upon it for that Day. I stand at one end of the Room, and reach things to her Woman. When my Lady asks for a thing, I hear and have half brought it, when the Woman meets me in the middle of the Room to receive it, and at that Instant she says No

she will not have it. Then I go back, and her Woman comes up to her, and by this time she will have that and two or three things more in an Instant: The Woman and I run to each other; I am loaded and delivering the things to her, when my Lady says she wants none of all these things, and we are the dullest Creatures in the World, and she the unhappiest Woman living, for she shan't be dress'd in any time. Thus we stand not knowing what to do, when our good Lady with all the Patience in the World tells us as plain as she can speak, that she will have Temper because we have no manner of Understanding; and begins again to dress, and see if we can find out of our selves what we are to do. When she is Dressed she goes to Dinner, and after she has disliked every thing there, she calls for the Coach, then commands it in again, and then she will not go out at all, and then will go too, and orders the Chariot. Now, good Mr. SPECTER,

I desire you would in the Behalf of all who serve froward Ladies, give out in your Paper, that nothing can be done without allowing Time for it, and that one cannot be back again with what one was sent for, if one is called back before one can go a Step for that they want. And if you please let them know that all Mistresses are as like as all Servants.

I am

Your Loving Friend,

Patience Giddy."

These are great Calamities; but I met the other Day in the five Fields towards Chelsea, a pleasanter

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Fellow was puffing on in his open Waistcoat; a Boy of fourteen in a Livery, carrying after him his Cloak,

upper Coat, Hat, Wig, and Sword. The poor Lad was ready to sink with the Weight, and could not keep up with his Master, who turned back every half Furlong, and wondered what made the lazy Young Dog lag behind.

There is something very unaccountable, that People cannot put themselves in the Condition of the Persons below them, when they consider the Commands they give. But there is nothing more common, than to see a Fellow (who if he were reduced to it, would not be hired by any Man living) lament that he is troubled with the most worthless Dogs in Nature.

It would, perhaps, be running too far out of common Life to urge, that he who is not Master of himself and his own Passions cannot be a proper Master of another. Equanimity in a Man's own Words and Actions will easily diffuse it self through his whole Family. Pamphilio has the happiest Household of any Man I know, and that proceeds from the humane regard he has to them in their private Persons, as well as in respect that they are his Servants. If there be any Occasion wherein they may in themselves be supposed to be unfit to attend their Master's Concerns, by reason of an Attention to their own, he is so good as to place himself in their Condition. I thought it very becoming in him, when at Dinner the other Day he made an Apology for want of more Attendants. He said, One of my Footmen is gone to the Wedding of his Sister, and the other I don't expect to Wait, because his Father died but two Days ago. Steele.

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#309

Shops

To his Worship the SPECTATOR,

The humble Petition of Anthony Title-Page, Stationer, in the Centre of Lincolns-Inn-Fields,

Sheweth,

That your Petitioner and his Fore-Fathers have. been Sellers of Books for Time immemorial; That your Petitioner's Ancestor, Crouchback Title-Page, was the first of that Vocation in Britain; who keeping his Station (in fair Weather) at the Corner of Lothbury, was by way of Eminency called the Stationer, a Name which from him all succeeding Booksellers have affected to bear: That the Station of your Petitioner and his Father has been in the Place of his present Settlement ever since that Square has been built;

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