seem attentive to nothing but the _Postman_, overhear the
conversation of every table in the room. I appear on _Sunday_
nights at _St. James_'s coffee-house, and sometimes join the little
committee of politics in the inner-room, as one who comes there to hear
and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the _Grecian_,
the _Cocoa-Tree_, and in the theatres both of _Drury-Lane_ and
the _Hay-Market_. I have been taken for a merchant upon the
_Exchange_ for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a
_Jew_ in the assembly of stock-jobbers at _Jonathan_'s: In
short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with them,
though I never open my lips but in my own club.

Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind, than as one
of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative
statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with
any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a
husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the oeconomy,
business, and diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in
them; as standers-by discover blots, which are apt to escape those who
are in the game. I never espoused any party with violence, and am
resolved to observe an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories,
unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either
side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a looker-on,
which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper.

I have given the Reader just so much of my history and character, as to
let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the business I have
undertaken. As for other particulars in my life and adventures, I shall
insert them in following papers, as I shall see occasion. In the mean
time, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to