manner, and the merchant according to that of Umbra.  Among these men, honour and credit are not valuable possessions in themselves, or pursued out of a principle of justice; but merely as they are serviceable to ambition and to commerce.  But the world will never be in any manner of order or tranquillity, till men are firmly convinced, that conscience, honour, and credit, are all in one interest; and that without the concurrence of the former, the latter are but impositions upon ourselves and others.  The force these delusive words have, is not seen in the transactions of the busy world only, but also have their tyranny over the fair sex.  Were you to ask the unhappy Lais, what pangs of reflection, preferring the consideration of her honour to her conscience, has given her?  She could tell you, that it has forced her to drink up half a gallon this winter of Tom Dassapas’ potions; that she still pines away for fear of being a mother; and knows not, but the moment she is such, she shall be a murderess:  but if conscience had as strong a force upon the mind, as honour, the first step to her unhappy condition had never been made; she had still been innocent, as she’s beautiful.  Were men so enlightened and studious of their own good, as to act by the dictates of their reason and reflection, and not the opinion of others, Conscience would be the steady ruler of human life; and the words, Truth, Law, Reason, Equity, and Religion, would be but synonymous terms for that only guide which makes us pass our days in our own favour and approbation.”

[Footnote 461:  A coffee-house in Exchange Alley, Cornhill, with an auction-room on the first floor, where wine and other things were sold (see No, 147).  Thomas Garway was originally a tobacconist and coffee-man.  Defoe ("Journey through England”) says that this coffee-house was frequented by “the people of quality who have business in the City, and the most considerable and wealthy citizens.”]

[Footnote 462:  Adroit.]

No. 49. [STEELE.

From Saturday, July 30, to Tuesday, August 2, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines ... nostri farrago libelli. 
JUV., Sat. i. 85, 86.

* * * * *

White’s Chocolate-house, August 1.

The imposition of honest names and words upon improper subjects, has made so regular a confusion amongst us, that we are apt to sit down with our errors, well enough satisfied with the methods we are fallen into, without attempting to deliver ourselves from the tyranny under which we are reduced by such innovations.  Of all the laudable motives of human life, none has suffered so much in this kind as love; under which revered name, a brutal desire called lust is frequently concealed and admitted; though they differ as much as a matron from a prostitute, or a companion from a buffoon.  Philander[463] the other day was bewailing this misfortune with much indignation, and upbraided me for having some time since quoted those excellent lines of the satirist: