"ney, and flatter my felf that I have "laid it out to your Satisfaction." Such a Circumstance as this raises a just Pride in an English Merchant, and makes him prefume (not without fome Reafon) to compare himself to a Roman Citizen; and indeed a Peer's Brother does not think Traffic beneath him. When the Lord Townshend was Minister of State, a Brother of his was content to be a City Merchant; and at the Time that the Earl of Oxford govern'd Great-Britain, his younger Brother was no more than a Factor in Aleppo, where he chose to live, and where he died. This Cuftom, which begins however to be laid afide, appears monftruous to Germans, vainly puff'd up with their Extraction. These think it morally impoffible that the Son of an English Peer fhould be no more than a rich and powerful Citizens, for all are Princes in Germany. There have been thirty Highneffes of the fame Name, all whose Patrimony confifted only in their Efcutcheons and their Pride.

IN France the Title of Marquis is given gratis to any one who will accept

of it; and whofoever arrives at Paris from the midst of the most remote Provinces with Money in his Purse, and a Name terminating in ac or ille, may strut about, and cry, fuch a Man as I! A Man of my Rank and Figure! And may look down upon a Trader with fovereign Contempt; whilft the Trader on the other Side, by thus often hearing his Profeffion treated fo difdainfully, is Fool enough to blush at it. However, I need not fay which is most useful to a Nation ; a Lord, powder'd in the tip of the Mode, who knows exactly at what a Clock the King rifes and goes to bed; and who gives himself Airs of Grandeur and State, at the fame Time that he is acting the Slave in the Anti-chamber of a prime Minister; or a Merchant, who enriches his Country, difpatches Orders from his Compting-Houfe to Surat and Grand Cairo, and contributes to the Felicity of the World.

LETTER

LETTER XI.

ON

INOCULATION.

I

T is inadvertently affirm'd in the
Christian Countries of Europe, that

the English are Fools and Madmen. Fools, because they give their Children the Small-Pox to prevent their catching it; and Mad-men, because they wantonly communicate a certain and dreadful Distemper to their Children, merely to prevent an uncertain Evil. The Englih, on the other Side, call the rest of the Europeans cowardly and unnatural. Cowardly, because they are afraid of putting their Children to a little Pain; unnatural, because they expose them to

die one Time or other of the Small-Pox. But that the Reader may be able to judge, whether the English or those who differ from them in opinion, are in the right, here follows the History of the fam'd Inoculation, which is mention'd with fo much Dread in France.

THE Circafian Women have, from Time immemorial, communicated the Small-Pox to their Children when not above fix Months old, by making an Incifion in the arm, and by putting into this Incifion a Puftle, taken carefully from the Body of another Child. This Puftle produces the fame Effect in the arm it is laid in, as Yeft in a Piece of Dough: It ferments, and diffufes through the whole Mafs of Blood, the Qualities with which it is impregnated. The Puftles of the Child, in whom the artificial Small-Pox has been thus inoculated, are employ'd to communicate the fame Distemper to others. There is an almost perpetual Circulation of it in Circaffia; and when unhappily the SmallPox has quite left the Country, the In

habitants

habitants of it are in as great Trouble and Perplexity, as other Nations when their Harvest has fallen short.

THE Circumftance that introduc'd a Cuftom in Circaffia, which appears fo fingular to others, is nevertheless a Cause common to all Nations, I mean maternal Tenderness and Interest.

THE Circafians are poor, and their Daughters are beautiful, and indeed 'tis in them they chiefly trade. They furnish with Beauties, the Seraglios of the Turkish Sultan, of the Perfian Sophy, and of all those who are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious Merchandize. Thefe Maidens are very honourably and virtuously inftructed to fondle and carefs Men; are taught Dances of a very polite and effeminate kind; and how to heighten by the most voluptuous Artifices, the Pleafures of their difdainful Mafters for whom they are defign'd. Thefe unhappy Creatures repeat their Leffon to their Mothers, in the fame manner as little Girls among us repeat their Catechifm, without understanding one Word they say.

Now