furvey of my behaviour, and confider carefully whether I have discharged my duty and acted up to the character with which I am invested. For my direction in this particular I have made a narrow fearch into the nature of the old Roman cenfors, whom I always must regard, not only as my predecessors, but as my patterns in this great employment; and have several times asked my own heart with great impartiality, whether Cato will not bear a more venerable figure among posterity than Bickerstaff?

I find the duty of the Roman cenfor was twofold. The first part of it confifted in making frequent reviews of the people, in cafting up their numbers, ranging them under their feveral tribes, disposing them into proper claffes, and subdividing them into their respective centuries.

In compliance with this part of the office, I have taken many curious furveys of this great city. I have collected into particular bodies the Dappers and the Smarts, the natural and affected Rakes, the Pretty fellows and the very Pretty fellows. I have likewife drawn out in feveral diftinct parties your pedants and men of fire, your gamefters and politicians. I have feparated cits from citizens, free-thinkers from philofophers, wits from fnuff-takers, and duellifts from men of honour. I have likewife made a calculation of efquires, not only confidering the feveral diftinct fwarms of them that are settled in the different parts of this town, but also that more rugged fpecies that inhabit the fields and woods, and are often found in pot-houses and upon hay-cocks.

I fhall pass the foft fex over in filence, having not yet reduced them into any tolerable order; as likewise the softer tribe of lovers, which will coft me a great deal of time, before I fhall be able to caft them into their several centuries and fubdivifions.

The second part of the Roman cenfor's office was to look into the manners of the people, and to check any growing luxury, whether in diet, drefs, or building. This duty likewise I have endeavoured to discharge, by thofe wholfome precepts which I have given my countrymen in regard to beef and mutton, and the fevere cenfures, which I have paffed upon

ragouts and fricaffees. There is not, as I am informed, a pair of red heels to be feen within ten miles of London, which I may likewise ascribe, without vanity to the becoming zeal which I expreffed in that particular. I muft own, my fuccefs with the petticoat is not fo great. But as I have not yet done with it, I hope I fhall in a little time put an effectual stop to that growing evil. As for the article of building, I intend hereafter to enlarge upon it, having lately obferved several warehouses, nay, private fhops, that stand upon Corinthian pillars, and whole rows of tin pots fhewing themselves, in order to their fale, through a sash window.

I have likewise followed the example of the Roman cenfors, in punishing offences according to the quality of the offender. It was ufual for them to expel a fenator who had been guilty of great immoralities out of the Senate house, by omitting his name when they called over the lift of his brethren. In the fame manner, to remove effectually feveral worthlefs men who stand poffeffed of great honours, I have made frequent draughts of dead men out of the vicious part of the nobility, and given them up to the new fociety of upholders, with the necessary orders for their interment. As the Roman cenfors used to punish the knights or gentlemen of Rome, by taking away their horfes from them, I have feized the canes of many crimi nals of figure, whom I had just reason to animadvert upon. As for the offenders among the common people of Rome, they were generally chastised, by being thrown out of a higher tribe, and placed in one which was not fo honourable. reader cannot but think I have had an eye to this punishment, when I have degraded one fpecies of men into bombs, fquibs, and crackers, and another into drums, bass-viols, and bagpipes; not to mention whole packs of delinquents whom I have shut up in kennels, and the new hospital which I am at present erecting, for the reception of thofe of my countrymen who give me but little hopes of their amendment, on the borders of Moorfields. I fhall only observe upon this last particular, that fince fome late furveys I have taken of this ifland, I shall think it necessary to enlarge the plan of the buildings which I defign in this quarter.

My

When my great predeceffor, Cato the Elder, stood for the cenforship of Rome, there were feveral other competitors who offered themselves; and to get an interest amongst the people, gave them great promises of the mild and gentle treatment which they would use towards them in that office. Cato on the contrary told them he prefented himfelf as a candidate, because he knew the age was funk in immortality and corruption; and that if they would give him their votes, he would promise them to make use of fuch a strictness and severity of discipline as fhould recover them out of it. The Roman historians, upon this occafion, very much celebrated the publick spiritedness of that people, who chose Cato for their cenfor, notwithstanding his method of recommending himself. I may in fome measure extol my own countrymen upon the fame account.... for the cenfor of Great Britain.... I esteem more than I would any poft in Europe of a hundred times the value.

In a nation of liberty, there is hardly a perfon in the whole mass of the people more abfolutely neceflary than a cenfor. It is allowed that I have no authority for affuming this important appellation, and that I am cenfor of these nations juft as one is chofen king at the game of questions and commands. But if, in the execution of this fantastical dignity, I obferve upon things which do not fall within the cognizance of real authority, I hope it will be granted, that an idle man could not be more usefully employed. Among all the irregularities of which I have taken notice, I know none fo proper to be presented to the world by a cenfor, as that of the general expenfe and affectation in equipage. I have lately hinted, that this extravagance must necessarily get footing where we have no fumptuary laws, and where every man may be dressed, attended, and carried, in what manner he pleafes. But my tenderness to my fellow-fubjects will not permit me to let this enormity go unobferved.

As the matter now ftands, every man takes it in his head, that he has a liberty to spend his money as he pleases. Thus, in fpite of all order, justice, and decorum, we, the greater number of the Queen's loyal fubjects, for no other reason in the world but because we want money, do not share alike in

the divifion of Her Majesty's high road. The horses and flaves of the rich take up the whole street, while we peripateticks are very glad to watch an opportunity to whisk across a passage, very thankful that we are not run over for interrupting the machine that carries in it a perfon neither more handfome, wife, or valiant, than the meaneft of us. For this reason, were I to propose a tax, it should certainly be upon coaches and chairs, for no man living can affign a reason, why one man should have half a street to carry him at his ease, and perhaps only in pursuit of pleasures, when as good a man as himself wants room for his own perfon to pass upon the most neceffary and urgent occafion. Till fuch an acknowledgment is made to the public, I shall take upon me to vest certain rights in the fcavengers of the cities of London and Westminster, to take the horses and fervants of all fuch as do not become or deferve fuch diftinctions, into their peculiar cuftody. The offenders themselves I fhall allow fafe conduct to their places of abode in the carts of the said scavengers, but their horfes fhall be mounted by their footmen, and fent into the service abroad; and I take this opportunity, in the first place, to recruit the regiment of my good old friend, the brave and honeft Sylvius, that they be as well taught as they are fed. It is to me moft miraculous, fo unreasonable a ufurpation as this I am fpeaking of, fhould fo long have been tolerated. We hang a poor fellow for taking any trifle from us on the road, and bear with the rich for robbing us of the road itself. Such a tax as this would be of great fatisfaction to us who walk on foot; and fince the diftinction of riding in a coach is not to be appointed according to a man's merit or fervice to his country, nor that liberty given as a reward for fome eminent virtue, we should be highly contented to see them pay fomething for the infult they do us in the state they take upon them while they are drawn by us.

Till they have made us fome reparation of this kind, we, the peripateticks of Great Britain, cannot think ourselves well treated, while every one that is able is allowed to set up an equipage.

As for my part, I cannot but admire how perfons, conscious

to themselves of no manner of fuperiority above others, can, out of mere pride or laziness expofe themselves at this rate to publick view, and put us all upon pronouncing those three terrible fyllables, who is that? When it comes to that queftion, our method is, to confider the mien and air of the paffenger, and comfort ourselves for being dirty to the ancles, by laughing at his figure and appearance who overlooks us. I must confefs, were it not for the folid injuftice of the thing, there is nothing could afford a difcerning eye greater occafion for mirth, than this licentious huddle of qualities and characters in the equipages about this town. The overfeers of the highways and conftables have fo little skill or power to rectify this matter, that you may often see the equipage of a fellow whom all the town know to deferve hanging, make a stop that shall interrupt the Lord High Chancellor, and all the judges in their way to Westminster.

For the better understanding of things and perfons in this general confufion, I have given directions to all the coachmakers and coach-painters in town, to bring me in lifts of their several customers; and doubt not, but with comparing the orders of each man, in his placing his arms on the door of his chariot, as well as the words, devices, and cyphers to be fixed upon them, to make a collection which shall let us into the nature, if not the hiftory, of mankind, more usefully than the curiofities of any medallist in Europe.

But this evil of vanity in our figure, with many others, proceeds from a certain gaiety of heart which has crept into men's very thoughts and complexions. The paffions and

adventures of heroes, when they enter the lifts for the tournament in romances, are not more easily distinguishable by their palfreys and their armour, than the fecret fprings and affections of the feveral pretenders to show amongst us are known by their equipages in ordinary life. The young bridegroom with his gilded cupids and winged angels, has fome excuse in the joy of his heart to launch out into fomething that may be fignificant of his present happiness; but to fee men, for no reafon upon earth but that they are rich, afcend triumphant chariots, and ride through the people, has, at the bottom,