i N f\ s I I' A II TH E WORKS OF JO SEP H ADD ISO N COMPLETE IN THREE VOLUMES EMBRACING THE WHOLE OF THE "SPECTATOR," &c VOL. II. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1864. THE.-SPECTATOR N o. 15.] Saturday) March 1, 1711-12. energy of expression, and in a clearer and stronger light than I ever met with in any Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus other writer. As these points are dry in In~ciderit- Ioro. firs Poet. v. 191. themselves to the generality of readers, the Never presume to make a god appear Never presume to make a lgood appear concise and clear mannerin which he has But for a business worthy of a god.-oscomon.' concise and clear manner in which he has treated them is very much to be admired, HORACE advises a poet to consider tho- as is likewise that particular art which he roughly the nature and force of his genius. has made use of in the interspersing of all Milton seems to have known perfectly well those graces of poetry which the subject wherein his strength lay, and has therefore was capable of receiving. chosen a subject entirely conformable to The survey of the whole creation, and of those talents of which he was master. As every thing that is transacted in it, is a his genius was wonderfully turned to the prospect worthy of Omniscience, and as sublime, his subject is the noblest that much above that in which Virgil has drawn could have entered into the thoughts of his Jupiter, as the Christian idea of the Suman. Every thing that is truly great and preme Being is more rational and sublime astonishing has a place in it. The whole than that of the Heathens. The particusystem of the intellectual world; the chaos, lar objects on which he is described to have and the creation: heaven, earth, and hell; cast his eye, are represented in the most enter into the constitution of his poem. beautiful and lively manner: Having in the first and second books represented the infernal world with all its Now had th' Almighty Fatherfrom above p the thnread i fabe natullyS (From the pure empyrean where he sits horrors, the thread of his fable naturally High thron'd above all height) bent down his eye, leads him into' the opposite regions of bliss His own works and their works at once to view and glory. About him all the sanctities of heaven If~^' Ml ton's majesty forsakeshim an Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd If Milton's majesty forsakes him any Beatitude past utterance. On his right where, it is in those parts of his poem The radiant image of his glory sat, where the divine persons are introduced His only Son. On earth he first beheld twh,.ereme divide person^ areinuauce Our two first parents, yet the only two as speakers. One may, I think, observe, Of mankind, in the happy garden plac'd, that the author proceeds with a kind of fear Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love. and trembling, whilst he describes the sen- Uninterrupted joy, unrivalHd love, In blissful solitude. He then survey'd timents of the Almighty He dares not give Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there his imagination its full play, but chooses to Coasting the wall of heav'n on this side night, confine himself to such thoughts as are In the dun air sublime; and ready now To stoop with wearied wings and willing feet drawn from the books of the most ortho- On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd dox divines, and to such expressions as Firm land imbosom'd without firmament; may be met with in scripture. The' beau- Uncertain which, in ocean or in air. - Uncertain which, in ocean or in air. hmay be met with scriptucre. aptto lo Him God beholding from his prospect high, ties, therefore, which we are apt to look Wherein past, present, future he beholds. for in these speeches, are not of a poetical Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake. nature, nor so proper to fill the mind with sentiments of grandeur, as with thoughts Satan's approach to the confines of the of devotion. The passions which they are creation is finely imaged in the beginning designed to raise, are a divine love and re- of the speech which immediately follows. ligious fear. The particular beauty of the The effects of this speech in the blessed speeches in the third book, consists in that spirits, and in the divine person to whom shortness and perspicuity of style, in which it was addressed, cannot but fill the mind the poet has couched the greatest mysteries of the reader with a secret pleasure and of Christianity, and. drawn together, in a complacency: regular scheme, the whole dispensation of Providence with respect to man. He has Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance ill'd arilOtdenc h Wit respect t do ct man.reas All heav'n, and in.the blessed spirits elect represented all the abstruse doctrines of Sense of new joy ineffable diffus'd. predestination, free-will and grace, as also Beyond compare the Son of God was seen the great points of incarnation and redemp- Most glorious; in him all his Father shone, in.a poem Substantially express'd; and in his face tion, (which naturally grow up in a poem Divine compassion visibly appear'd, that treats of the fall of man) with great Love without end, and without measure grame., 3 4 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 315 I need not point out the beauty of that prising accidents, are nevertheless probable circumstance, wherein the whole host of when we are told, that they were the gods angels are represented as standing mute; who thus transformed them. It is this kind nor show how proper the occasion was to of machinery which fills the poems both of produce such a silence iA heaven. The Homer and Virgil with such circumstances close of this divine colloquy, with the hymn as are wonderful but not impossible, and of angels that follows upon it, are so won- so frequently produce in the reader the derfullybeautiful and poetical, that I should most pleasing passion that can rise in the not forbear inserting the whole passage, if mind of man, which is admiration. If there the bounds of my paper would give me be any instance in the JEneid liable to ex leave: ception upon this account, it is in the be No sooner had th' Almighty ceas'd, but all No sooner inad th' Almighty ceasd, bt a of the third book, where 2Eneas is The multitude of angels with a shout represented as tearing up the myrtle that (Loud as from numbers without number, sweet dropped blood. To qualify this wonderful As from blest voices) utt'ring joy, heav'n rung circumstance, Polydorus tells a story from With jubilee, and loud Hosannas fill'd cicumstance, Polydorus tells a story from Th' eternal regions, &c. &c. the root of the myrtle, that the barbarous inhabitants of the country having pierced Satan's walk upon the outside of the uni- him with spears and arrows, the blood verse, which at a distance appeared to him which was left in his body took root in his of a globular form, but upon his nearer ap- wounds, and gave birth to that bleeding proach looked like an unbounded plain, is tree. This circumstance seems to have the natural and noble; as his roaming upon the marvellous without the probable, because frontiers of the creation, between that mass it is represented as proceeding from natuof matter which was wrought into a world, ral causes, without the interposition of any and that shapeless unformed heap of mate- god, or other supernatural power capable rials which still lay in chaos and confusion, of producing it. The spears and arrows strikes the imagination with something asto- grow of themselves without so much as the nishingly great and wild. I have before modern help of enchantment. If we look spoken of the Limbo of Vanity, which the into the fiction df Milton's fable, though we poet places upon this outermost surface of find it full of surprising incidents, they are the universe, and shall here explain myself generally suited to our notions of the things more at large on that, and other parts of and persons described, and,tempered with the poem, which are of the same shadowy a due measure of probability. I must only nature. make an exception to the Limbo of Vanity, Aristotle observes, that the fable of an with his episode of Sin and Death, and some epic poem should abound in circumstances of the imaginary persons in his chaos.that are both credible and astonishing; or, These passages are astonishing, but not as the French critics choose to phrase it, credible: the reader cannot so far impose the fable should be filled with the probable upon himself as to see a possibility in them; and the marvellous. This rule is as fine they are the description of dreams and shaand just as any in Aristotle's whole Art of dows, not of things or persons. I know that Poetry. many critics look upon the stories of Circe, If the fable is only probable, it differs Polypheme, the Sirens, nay the whole Odysnothing from a true history; if it is only sey and Iliad, to be allegories; but allowing marvellous, it is no better than a romance. this to be true, they are fables, which, conThe great secret, therefore, of heroic poe- sidering the opinions of mankind that pretry is to relate such circumstances as may vailed in the age of the poet, might possibly produce in the reader at the same time both have been according to the letter. The belief and astonishment. This is brought to persons are such as might have acted what pass in a well-chosen fable, by the account is ascribed to them, as the circumstances of such things as have really happened, or in which they are represented might posat least of such things as have happened sibly have been truths and realities. This according to the received opinions of man- appearance of probability is so absolutely kind. Milton's fable is a master-piece of requisite in the greater kinds of poetry, that this nature; as the war in heaven, the con- Aristotle observes the ancient tragic writers dition of the fallen angels, the state of inno- made use of the names of such great men cence, the temptation of the serpent, and as had actually lived in the world, though the fall of man,- though they are very asto- the tragedy proceeded upon adventures nishing in themselves, are not only credible, they were never engaged in, on purpose to but actual points of faith. make the subject more credible. In a word, The next method of reconciling miracles besides the hidden meaning of, an epic alle with credibility, is by a happy invention of gory, the plain literal sense ought to appeal the poet: as in particular, when he intro- probable. The story should be such as an duces agents of a superior nature, who are ordinary reader may acquiesce in, whatcapable of effecting what is wonderful, and ever natural, moral, or political truth may what is not to be met with in the ordinary be discovered in it by men of greater penecourse of things. Ulysses's ship being turned tAtion. into a rock, and JEneas's fleet into a shoal Satan, after having long wandered upon of-water-nvmphs, though they are very sur- the surface or outermost wall of the uni No. 316.] THE SPECTATOR. 5 verse, discovers at last a wide gap in it, poem. The same observation might be which led into the creation, and is described applied to that beautiful digression upon as the opening through which the angels hypocrisy in the same book. L. pass to and fro into the lower world, upon their errands to mankind. His sitting upon the brink of this passage, and takifig a No. 316.] Monday, March 3, 1711-12. survey of the whole face of nature, thet appeared to him new and fresh in all its Libertas; que sera, tamen respexit inertem. oeauties, with the simile illustrating this Virg. Eel. i. 28. circumstance, fills the mind of the reader Freedom, which came at length, though slow to come with as surprising and glorious an idea as ryden. any that arises in the whole poem. He'MR. SPECTATOR,-If you ever read a looks down into that vast hollow of the uni- letter which is sent with the more pleasure verse with the eye, or (as Milton calls it in for the reality of its complaints, this may his first book) with the ken of an angel. have reason to hope for a favourable acHIe surveys all the wonders in this immense ceptance; and if time be the most irretrievamphitheatre that lie between both the able loss, the regrets which follow will be poles of heaven, and takes in at one view thought, I hope, the most justifiable. The the whole round of the creation, regaining of my liberty from a long state of His flight between the several worlds indolence and inactivity, and the desire of that shined on every side of him, with the resisting the farther encroachments of idleparticular description of the sun, are set ness, make me apply to you; and the unforth in all the wantonness of a luxuriant easiness with which I recollect the past imagination. His shape, speech, and be- years, and the apprehensions with which I haviour, upon his transforming himself into expect the future, soon determined me to an angel of light, are touched with exquisite it. Idleness is so general a distemper, that beauty. The poet's thought of directing I cannot but imagine a speculation on this Satan to the sun, which, in the vulgar subject will be of universal use. There is opinion of mankind, is the most conspicuous hardly any one person without some allay part of the creation, and the placing in it of it; and thousands besides myself spend an angel, is a circumstance very finely con- more time in an idle uncertainty which to trived, and the more adjusted to a poetical begin first of two affairs, than would have probability, as it was a received doctrine been sufficient to have ended them both. among the most famous philosophers, that The occasion of this seems to be the want every orb had its intelligence; and as an of some necessary employment, to put the apostle in sacred writ is said to have seen spirits in motion, and awaken them out of such an angel in the sun. In the answer their lethargy. If I had less leisure, I which the angel returns to the disguised should have more; for I should then find evil spirit, there is such a becoming ma- my time distinguished into portions, some jesty as is altogether suitable to a superior for business, and others for the indulging of being. The part of it in which he repre- pleasures; but now one face of indolence sents himself as present at the creation, is overspreads the whole, and I have no land-, very noble in itself, and not only proper mark to direct myself by. Were one's time where it is introduced, but requisite to pre- a little straitened by business, like water pare the reader for what follows in the enclosed in its banks, it would have some seventh book: determined course; but unless it be put into I saw when at his word the formless mass, some channel it has no current, but becomes I saw when at his word the formless mass, This world's material mould, came to a heap: a deluge without either use or motion. Confusion heard his voice, and wild Uproar' When Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus, Stood rul'd, stood vast infinitude confind; was dead, the Turks, who had but too often Till at his second bidding Darkness fled, Light shone, &e. felt the force of his arm in the battles he had won from them, imagined that by wearIn the following part of the speech he ing a piece of his bones near their heart, points out the earth with such circum- they should be animated with a vigour and stances, that the reader can scarce forbear force like to that which inspired him when fancying himself employed on the same living. As I am like to be but of little use distant view of it. whilst I live, I am resolved to do what good Look downward on that globe, whose hither side I can after my decease; and have accordWith light from hence, though but reflected, shines; ingly ordered my bones to be disposed of That place is earth, the seat of man, that light in this manner for the good of my counHis day, &c. trymen, who are troubled with too exorbi~ I must not conclude my reflections upon tant a degree of fire. All fox-hunters, this third book of Paradise Lost, without upon wearing me, would in a short time be taking notice of that celebrated complaint brought to endure their beds in a morning, of Milton with which it opens, and which and perhaps even quit them With regret at certainly deserves'all the praises that have ten. Instead of hurrying away to tease a been given it; though, as I have before poor animal, and run away from their own hinted, it may rather be looked upon as an thoughts, a chair or a chariot would be excrescence than as an essential part of the thought the most desirable means of per 6 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 317. forming a remove from one place to an- acquired his eloquence. Seneca in his letother. I should be a cure for the unnatural ters to Lucilius assures him there was not desire of John Trot for dancing, and a spe- a day in which he did not either write cific to lessen the inclination Mrs. Fidget something, or read and epitomize some good has to motion, and cause her always to give author; and I remember Pliny in one of his her approbation to the present place she letters, where he gives an account of the is in. In fine, no Egyptian mummy was various methods he used to fill up every ever half so useful in physic, as I should be vacancy of time, after several employments to these feverish constitutions, to repress which he enumerates; "Sometimes," says the violent sallies of youth, and give each he, "I hunt: but even then I carry with action its proper weight and repose. me a pocket-book, that whilst my servants' I can stifle any violent inclination, and are busied in disposing of the nets and other oppose a torrent of anger, or the solicita- matters, I may be employed in something tions of revenge, with success. Indolence that may be useful to me in my studies; is a stream which' flows slowly on, but yet and that if I miss of my game, I may at the undermines the foundation of every virtue, least bring home some of my own thoughts A vice of a more lively nature were a more with me, and not have the mortification of desirable tyrant than this rust of the mind, having caught nothing all day. which gives a tincture of its nature to every'Thus, sir, you see how many examples action of one's life.. It were as little hazard I recall to mind, and what arguments'I use to be lost in a storm, as to lie thus perpe- with myself to regain my liberty: but as I tually becalmed: and it is to no purpose to am afraid it is no ordinary persuasion that have within one the seeds of athousand good will be of service, I shall expect your qualities, if we want the vigour and resolu- thoughts on this subject with the greatest tion necessary for the exerting them. Death impatience, especially since the good will brings all persons back to an equality; and not be confined to me alone, but will be of this image of it, this slumber of the'mind, universal use. For'there is no hope of leaves no difference between the greatest amendment where men are pleased with genius, and the meanest understanding. A their ruin, and whilst they think laziness faculty of doing things remarkably praise- is a desirable character; whether it be that worthy, thus concealed, is of no more use they like the state itself, or that they'think to the owner than a heap of gold to the man it gives them a new lustre when they do who dares not use it. exert themselves, seemingly to be able to'To-morrow is still the fatal time when do that without labour and application, all is to be rectified. To-morrow comes, it which others attain to but with the greatest goes, and still I please myself with the diligence. I am, sir, your most obliged humshadow, whilst I lose the reality: unmind- ble servant, SAMUEL SLACK.' ful that the present time alone is ours, the future is yet unborn, and the past is dead, Clytander to Cleone. and can only live (as parents in their chil-'MADAM,-Permission to love you is all dren,) in the actions it has produced. that I desire, to conquer all the difficulties' The time we live ought not to be com- those about you place in my way, to surputed by the number of years, but by the mount and acquire all those qualifications use that has been made of it; thus, it is you expect in him who pretends to the not the extent of ground, but the yearly honour of being, madam, your most devoted rent, which gives the value to the estate. humble servant, Wretched and thoughtless creatures, in the Z.'CLYTAIDER.' only place where covetousness were a virtue, we turn prodigals!. Nothing lies upon our hands with such uneasiness, nor have No. 317.] Tuesday, ltarch 4, 1711-12. there, been so many devices for any one thing, as to make it slide away impercepti- — Fruges consumere nati. Hor. Ep. ii. Lib.. 27. bly and to no purpose. A shilling shall be — Born to drink and eat. Creech. hoarded up with care, whilst that which is above the price of an estate is flung away AUGUST, as few minutes before hisa with disregard and contempt. -Tfiere is death, asked his friends who stood about with disrengard and contempt.h a ided as him, if they thought he had acted his part nothing now-a-days, so much avoided, as well; and upon receiving such an answer solicitous improvement of every, part of well; and upon receiving such an answer as was due to his extraordinary merit,'Let time; it is a report must be shunned as one me, then, says due to his extraordinary merit,' Let tenders the name of a wit and i fine genius, me, then,' says he,' go off the stage- with tenders the name of a wit and; fine genius, usin and as one fears the dreadful character of yor pplause;' th e expression wit a laborious plodder: but notwithstanding wh the onlusion of a dramatic piece. I this, the:greatest wits any age has pro- at the conclusion of a dramatic piece* duced thought far otherwise; for who canould wish that men, while they are in think either Socrates or Demosthenes lost health, would consider well the nature o any reputation by their continual pains both fie it will make in the minds of those in overcoming the defects and improving it wlleae behind them, whe r it was the gifts of nature? All are acquainted with ey leave behind them, whether it was the labour and assiduity with which Tully * Vos valete et plaudite No. 317.] THE SPECTATOR. 7 worth coming into the world for; whether Hours ten, eleven, and twelve. Smoked it be suitable to a reasonable being; in short, three pipes of Virginia. Read the Suppler whether it appears graceful in this life, or ment and Daily Courant. Things go ill in will iurn to an advantage in the next. Let the north. Mr. Nisby's opinion thereupon. the sycophant, or the buffoon, the satirist, One o'clock in the afternoon. ChidRalph or the good companion, consider with him- for mislaying my tobacco-box. self, when his body shall be laid in the Two o clock. Sat down o dinner. Mem. grave, and his soul pass into another state Too many plumbs, and no suet. of existence, how much it will redound to From three to four. Took my afternoon's his praise to have it said of him that no nap. man in England ate better, that-he had an From four to six. Walked in the fields. admirable talent at turning his friends into Wind S. S. E. ridicule, that nobody out-did him at an ill- From six to ten. At the Club. Mr. natured jest, or that he never went to bed Nisby's opinion about the peace. before he had despatched his third bottle. Ten o'clock. Went to bed, slept sound. These are, however, very common funeral orations and eulogiums on deceased per- TUESDAY, being holiday, eight o'clock, sons who have acted among mankind with rose as usual. some figure and reputation. Nine o'clock. Washed hands and face, But if we look into'the bulk of our sp haved put on my double-soled shoes. cies, they are such as are not likely to be Ten, eleven, twelve Took a walk to remembered a moment after their disap- Islington. pearance. They leave behind therm d op One. Took a pot of Mother Cob's mild. no Between two and three. Returned, dined traces of their existence, but are forgotten Between two knd three. Returned, dined as though they had never been. They are o a k and bacon. Me neither wanted by the poor, regretted by Sprouts wanting.'the rich, nor celebrated by the learned - Fromfourtosix. Coffee-huse. Read They are neither missed in the common- Fromfour sixCoffee-huse Read wealth, nor lamented by private persons. the news. A dish of twist. Grand viier Their actions are of no significancy to man- strangled. From six to ten. At the club. Mr. Niskind; and might have been performed by o theGr Turk. creatures of much less dignity than those bys account of the Great Turk. who are distinguished by the faculty of rea-. D o t son. An eminent French author speaks sleep. somewhere to the following purpose: I WEDNESDAY, eight o'clock. Tongue have often seen from my chamber win- of my shoe-buckle broke. Hands but not dow two noble creatures, both of them of face. an erect countenance and endowed with Nine. Paid off the butcher's bill. Mem. reason. These two intellectual beings are To be allowed for the last leg of mutton. employed from morning to night in rubbing Ten, eleven. At the Coffee-house. More two smooth stones one upon another; that work in the north. Stranger in a black wig is, as the vulgar phrase is, in polishing asked me how stocks went. marble. From twelve to one. Walked in the My friend, Sir Andrew Freeport, as we fields. Wind to the south. were sitting in the club last night, gave us From one to two. Smoked a pipe and a an account of a sober citizen, who died a half. few days since. This honest man being of Two. Dined as usual. Stomach good. greater consequence in his own thoughts Three. Nap broke by the falling of a than in the eye of the world, had for some pewter dish. Mem. Cook-maid in love, years past kept a journal of his life. Sir An- and grown careless. drew showed us one week of it. Since the From four to six. At the coffee-house. occurrences set down in it mark out such a Advice from Smyrna that the grand.vizier road of action as that I have been speaking was first of all strangled, and afterwards of, I shall present my reader with a faith- beheaded. ful copy of it; after having first informed Six o'clock in the evening. Was half him,'that the deceased person had in his an hour in the club before any body else youth been bred to trade, but finding him- came. Mr. Nisby of opinion that the self not so well turned for business, he had grand vizier was not strangled the sixth for several years last past lived altogether instant. upon a moderate annuity.* Ten at night. Went to bed. Slept withMONDAY, eight o'clock. I put on my out waking until nine the next morning. clothes and walked into the parlour. THURSDAY, nine o'clock. Staid within Nine o'clock ditto. Tied my knee-strings, until two o'clock for Sir Timothy; who did and washed my hands. not bring me my annuity according to his * Ithas been conjectured that this journal was in- promise. tended to ridicule a gentleman who was a member of Two in the afternoon. Sat down to din thecongregation named Independents, where aMr. Nes- ner. Loss of apetite. Small-beer sour bit officiated as minister. See John Dunton's account p Bf o n ed of his Life, Errors and Opinions. Beef over-corned 8 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 318. Three. Could not take my nap. No. 318.] Wednesday, March 5, 1711-12, Four and five. Gave Ralph a box on the ear. Turned off my cook-maid. Sent a -nono:nniapossumusomnes. messenger to Sir Timothy. Mem. I did Virg.viii.63. not go to the club to night. W'Vent to bed at: With different talents form'd, we variously excel.* nine o'clock.'MR. SPECTATOR,-A certain vice, which you have lately attacked, has not FRIDAY. Passed the morning in medita- yet been considered by you as growing so tion upon Sir Timothy, who was with me a deep in the heart of man, that the affectaquarter before twelve. tion outlives the practice of it. You must Twelve o'clock. Bought anew head to have observed, that men who have been my cane, and a tongue to my buckle. Drank bred in arms preserve to the most extreme a glass of purl to recover appetite. and feeble old age, a certain daring in their Two and three. Dined and slept well. aspect. In like manner, they who have From four to six. Went to the coffee- passed their time in gallantry and advenhouse. Met Mr. Nisby there. Smqked ture keep up, as well as they can, the apseveral pipes. Mr. Nisby of opinion hat pearance of it, and carry a petulant inclilaced coffee is bad for the head. nation to their last moments. Let this Six o'clock. At the club as steward. serve for a preface to a relation I am going Sat late. to give you of an old beau in town, that has Twelve o'clock. Wenttobed,dreamtthat not only been amorous, and a follower of I drank small beer with the grand vizier. women in general, but also, in spite of the SATURDAY. Waked at eleven, walked admonition of grey hairs, been from his in the fields, wind sN. E. ixty-third year to his present seventieth, Twelve. Caught in a shower. in an actual pursuit of a young lady, the One in the afternoon. Returned home wife of his friend, and a man of merit. The andie mvysel f. ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^^ and dried myself. gay old Escalus has wit, good health, and Two. Mr. Nisby dined with me. First is perfectly well-bred; but from the fashion Two. r.oisbdined with e. and manners of the court when he was in course, marrow-bones; second, ox-cheek, his bloom, has such a natural tendency to with a bottle of Brooks and Hellier. his bloom, has such a natural tendency to with a bottle of Brooks and Hellier. Three. Overslept myself. amorous adventure, that he thought it Six. Went to the club. Like to have would be an endless reproach to him to fallen into a gutter. Grand vizier certainly make no use of a familiarity he was allowed dead, &c. at a gentleman's house, whose good hu-',~~~ * ~mour and confidence exposed his wife to I question not but the reader will be sur- the addresses of any who should take it in prised to find the above-mentioned journal- their head to do him the good office. It is ist taking so much care of a life that was not impossible that Fscalus might also refilled with such inconsiderable actions, and sent that the husband was particularly nereceived so very small improvements; and gligent of him; and though he gave many yet, if we look into the behaviour of many intimations of a passion towards the wife, whom we daily converse with, we shall find the husband either did not see them, or put that most of their hours are taken up in him to the contempt of overlooking them. those three important articles of eating, In the mean time Isabella, for so we shall drinking, and sleeping. I do not suppose call our heroine, saw his passion, and rethat a man loses his time, who is not en- joiced in it, as a foundation for much divergaged in public affairs, or in an illustrious sion, and an opportunity of indulging hercourse of action. On the contrary, I believe self in the dear delight of being admired, our hours may very often be more profit- addressed to, and flattered, with no ill ably laid out in such transactions as make consequence to her reputation. This lady lo figure in the world, than in such as are is of a free and disengaged behaviour, apt to draw upon them the attention of ever in good-humour, such as is the image mankind. One may become wiser and bet- of innocence with those who are innocent. ter by several methods of employing one's and an encouragement to vice with those self in secrecy and silence, and do what is who are abandoned. From this kind of laudable without noise or ostentation. I carriage, and an apparent approbation of would, however, recommend to every one his gallantry, Escalus had frequent opporof my readers, the keeping. a journal of tunities of laying amorous epistles in her their lives for one week, and setting down way, of fixing his eyes attentively upon her punctually their whole series of employ- actions, of performing a thousand little ofments during that space of time. This fices which are neglected by the unconcernkind of self-examination would give them ed, but are so many approaches towards a true state of themselves, and incline them happiness with the enamoured. It was to consider seriously what they are about. now, as is above hinted, almost the end of One day would rectify the omissions bf the seventh year of his passion, when Es. another, and make a man weigh all those calus, from general terms, and the ambigu indifferent actions, which though they are easily forgotten, must certainly be account- ed for.. Rideat, tto to ths paper in folio was.'ed for. L. Rideat, et pulset lasci'va decentius wetas.'-Bior N. 319.] THE SPECTATOR. 9 ous respect which criminal lovers retain in ness has nQt destroyed the esteem I had for their addresses, began to bewail that his you, which was confirmed by so many years passion grew too violent for him to answer of obstinate virtue. You have reason to reany longer for his behaviour towards her, joice that this did not happen within the and that he hoped she would have consi- observation of one of the young fellows, who deration for his long and patient respect, would have exposed your weakness, and to excuse the emotions of a heart now no gloried in his own brutish inclinations. longer under the direction of the unhappy "I am, Madam, your most devoted humowner of it. Such, for some months, had ble servant." been the language of Escalus, both in his'Isabella, with the help of her husband, talk and his letters to Isabella, who re- returned the following answer: turned all the profusion of kind things which had.been the collection of fifty years, "SIR, — cannot but account myself a with " I must not hear you; you will make very happy woman, in having a man for a me forget that you are a gentleman; I would lover that can write so well, and give so not willingly lose you as a friend;" and the good a turn to a disappointment. Another like expressions, which the skilful inter- excellence you have above all other prepret to their own advantage, as well know- tenders I ever heard of; on occasions where ing that a feeble denial is a modest assent. the most reasonable men lose all their reaI should have told you, that Isabella, during son, you have yours most powerful. We the whole progress of this amour, commu- have each of us to thank our genius that nicated it to her husband; and that- an ac- the passion of one abated in proportion count of Escalus's love was their usual en- as that of the other grew violent. Does it tertainment after half a day's absence. not yet come into your head to imagine, Isabella therefore, upon her lover's late that I knew my compliance was the greatmore open assaults, with a smile told her est cruelty I could be guilty of towards husband she could hold out no longer, but you? In return for your long and faithful that his fate was now come to a crisis. After passion, I must let you know that you are she had explained herself a little farther, old enough to become a little more gravity; with her husband's approbation, she pro- but if you will leave me, and coquet it any ceeded in the following manner. The next where else, may your mistress yield, time that Escalus was alone with her, and T. "ISABELLA." repeated his importunity, the crafty Isabella looked on her fan with an air of great attention, as considering of what impor- No. 319.] Thursday, March 6, 1711-12. tance such a secret was to her; and upon the repetition of a warm expression, she looked Quo teneam vultus mutante-m Protea nodo? at him with an eye of fondness, and told r. Ep. i. Lib, 1.90. him he was past that time of life which Say while they change on thus, what chains can bine' could make her fear he would boast of a These varying forms, this Proteus of the mind? lady's favour; then turned away her head, Francis. with a very well acted confusion, which I HAVE endeavoured in the course of my favoured the escape of the aged Escalus. papers to do justice to the age, and have This adventure was matter of great plea- taken care, as much as possible, to keep santry to Isabella and her spouse; and they myself a neuter between both sexes. I have had enjoyed it two days before. Escalus neither spared the ladies out of complaicould recollect himself enough to form the sance, nor the men out of partiality, but following letter: notwithstanding the great integrity with which I have acted in this particular, 1 "MADAM,-What happened the other find myself taxed with an inclination to faday gives me a lively image of the incon- your my own half of the species. Whether sistency of human passions and inclinations. it be that the women afford a more fruitful We pursue what we are denied, and place field for speculation, or whether they run our affections on what is absent, though we more in my head than the men, I cannot neglected it when present. As long as you tell; but I shall set down the charge as it refused my love, your refusal did so strongly is laid against me in the following letter. excite my passion, that I had not once the leisure to think of recalling my reason to aid' MR. SPECTATOR,-I always make one me against the design upon your virtue. among a company of young females, who But when that virtue began to comply in peruse your speculations every morning. I my favour, my reason made an effort over am at present commissioned by our whole my love, and let me see the baseness of my assembly to let you know, that we fear you behaviour in attempting a woman of honour. are a little inclined to be partial towards I own to you, it was not without the most your own sex. We must, however, acviolent struggle that I gained this victory knowledge, with all due gratitude, that in over myself; nay, I will confess my shame, some cases you have given us our revenge and acknowledge, I could not have pre- on the men, and done us justice. We could vailed but by flight. However, madam, I not easily have forgiven you several strokes be, that vou wll believe a moment's weak- in the dissection of the coquette's heart, if'VOL. II. 2 10 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 319. you had tnot, much about the ~ame time, upon the hat and feather; however, to wipe made a sacrifice to us of a beau's skull, off the present imputation, and gratify my'You may further, sir, please to remem- female correspondent, I shall here print a ner, that not long since you attacked our letter which I lately received from a man hoods and commodes in such a manner, as,' of mode, who seems to have a very extrato use your oywn expression, made very ordinary genius in his way. many of. us ashamed to show our heads. We must therefore beg leave to represent R,- resume I need not inform you, to you that we are in hopes, if you willI presume Ineed not inform yo please to make a due inquiry, the men inof dress it is a common all ages would be found to have been little phrase to say, "Mr. Such-a-one has struck less whimsical in adorning that part than a bold stroke;bywhich we derstand, ourselves. The different forms of their that he is the first man who has had courage wigs, together with the various cocks of enough to lead up a fashion. Accordingly, their hats, all flatter us in this opinion. when our tailors take measure of us, they I'had an humble servant last summer, always demand " whether we will have a who the first time he declared himself, was plain suit, or strike a bold stroke?" I think in a full-bottomed wig; but the day after, I may withoutvanity say, that I havestruck to my no smallsurprise, he accost me in some of the boldest and most successful a thin natural one. I received him at this strokes of any man in Great Britain. I was our second interview as a perfect stranger, the first that struck the long pocket about but was extremely confounded when his two years since; I was likewise the author Park the same evening, hes ppeaired' to me much about the same time the scallop flap, Park the same evening, his appeared'to me the knotted cravat, and made a fair push in one, of those wigs that I think you call a cravat, and made afair push night-cap,'which'had altered him more' ef-for the silver-clocked stocking. fectually than before. He afterwards'play-'A few months after I brought up the ed a couple of black riding-wigs uponme modish jacket, or the coat with close sleeves. I struck this at first in a plain with the same success, and,' in short, as- sleev I s truck i a s n sumed a new face almost every day in the Doly butthat failing, I struck it a second first month of his courtship. time in a blue camlet, and repeated the'I observed afterwards, that the variety stroke in several kinds of cloth, until at last'I observed afterwards, that the variety it took effect. There are two or three of cocks into which he moulded his hat, had i took effect. There are two or three not a little contributed to his impositions young fellows at the other end of the town upon me. who have always their eye upon me, and upon me. Yet, as if all these ways were not suf-anser e stroke for stroke. I was once ficient to distinguish their heads, you must so unwary asto mention my fancy in reladoubtless, sir, have observed, that gret tion to a new-fashioned surtout before one numrbers of young fellows have, for several of these gentlemen, who was disingenuous months last past, taken upon them to wear enough to steal my thought, and by that feathers. means prevented my intended stroke.''We hope, therefore, that these may,' I have a design this spring to make very with as much justice, be called Indian considerable innovations in the waistcoat; princes, as you have styled a woman in a and have already begun with a coup d'essai coloured hood an Indian queen; and that upon the sleeves, which has succeeded very well. you will in due time take these airy gentle- furthe r inform you, if you wll men into consideration.inform you, i you will'We the more earnestly be- that you promise to encourage, or at least to connive We the more earnestly be m that iyou pctice, at mesic that it is my design to strike such a would put a stop to this practice, since it at me, tht it is ny design to ste sch a has already lost us one of the most agree- strok prise the of the next month as able members of our society, who after I do not think it prudent to acquain having refused several good estates, and you wit th particulars of my intended two titles, was lured from us last week by ou witll n ly tell yu, as my intende a mixed feather. ress; but will only tell you, as a sample of'I amn ordered to present you with the it, that I shall very speedily appear at respects of our whole company, and am, White's in a cherry-coloured hat I took this hint from the ladies' hoods, which I -$ir, ourey'u e sDORINDA.' look upon as the boldest stroke that sex has struck for these hundred years last past. I'Note. The person wearing the feather, am, sir, your most obedient, most humble though our friend took him for an officer in servant, WILL SPRIGHTLY.' the guards, has proved to be an errant linendraper.'* I have not time at present to make any reflections on this letter; but must not I am not now at leisure to give my opinion howe-ver omit that having shown it to Will ~'~- -- ~ Honeycomb, he desires to be acquainted * Only an ensign in the train-bands, Spect. infolio. with the gentleman who writ it. X. No. 320.] THE SPECTATOR. 11 No. 320.] Friday, March 7, 1711-12. riages have as constant and regular a cot- ~ n —, non pronuba Juno, respondence as the funeral-men have with Non Hymen.us adest, non illi gratia lecto: vintners and apothecaries. All bachelors are Eumenides stravere torum- - EuOd. eniet. ibstae t. 4. under their immediate inspection: and my Nor Hymen, nor the Graces here preside, friend produced to me a report given in to Nor Juno to befriend the blooming bride; their board, wherein an old uncle of mine, But fiends with funeral brands the process led, who came to town with me, and myself, were And furies waited at the genial bed.-Crozat. inserted, and we stood thus: the uncle smoky,'MR. SPECTATOR, -You have given rotten, poor; the nephew raw, but no fool; many hints in your papers to the disadvan- sound at present, very riclh. My informatage of persons of your own sex, who lay tion did not end here; but my friend's adplots upon women. Among other hard vices are so good, that he could show me a words you have published the term " Male copy of the letter sent to the young lady Coquettes," and have been very severe upon who is to have me; which I enclose to you: such as give themselves the liberty of a MADAM-This is to let you know that little dalliance of heart, and playing fast to u th and loose between love and indifference, you are to be married to a beau that comes and loose between love and indifference, out on Thursday, six in the evening. Be at until perhaps an easy-young girl is reduced tPark. Youcannt but know t evigin fop; to sighs, dreams, and tears, and languishes they have a mind to look saucy, but are out away her life for a careless coxcomb, who they have a mind to look saucy, but are out away her life for a careless coxcomb, who of countenance. The board has denied him looks astonished, and wonders at such an to several oodfamilies. I wish you joy effect from what in him was all but com-'l CORINNA. mon civility. Thus you have treated the men who are irresolute in marriage; but if What makes my correspondent's case you design to be impartial, pray be so honest the more deplorable is, that, as I find by as to print the information I now give you the report from my censor of marriages, of a certain set of women who never coquet the friend he speaks of is employed by the for the matter, but, with a high hand, inquisition to take him in, as the phrase marry whom they please to whom they is. After all that is told him, he has inforplease..As for my'part, I should not have mation only of one woman that is laid for concerned myself with them, but that I him, and that the wrong one; for the lady understand that I am pitched upon by them commissioners have devoted him.to another to be married, against my will, to one I than the person against whom they have never saw in my life. It has been my mis- employed their agent his friend to alarm fortune, sir, very innocently, to rejoice in a him. The plot is laid so well about this plentiful fortune, of which I am master, to young gentleman, that he has no friend to bespeak a fine chariot, to give directions retire to, no place to appear in, or part of for two or three handsome snuff-boxes, and the kingdom to fly into, but he must fall as many suits of fine clothes; but before any into thy notice, and be subject to the power of these were ready I heard reports of my of the inquisition. They have their emissabeing to be married to two or three differ- ries and substitutes in all parts of this united ent young women. Upon my taking notice kingdom. The first step they usually take, of it to a young gentleman who is often in is to find from a correspondence, by their my company, he told me smiling, I was in messengers and whisperers, with some dothe inquisition. You may believe I was not mestic of the bachelor, (who is to be hunted a little startled at what he meant, and into the toils they have laid for him,) what more so, when he asked me if I had be- are his manners, his familiarities, his good spoke any thing of late that was fine. I qualities, or vices; not as the good in him told him several; upon which he produced is a recommendation, or the ill a diminua description of my person, from the trades- tion, but as they affect to contribute to the men whom I had employed, and told me main inquiry, what estate he has in him. that they had certainly informed against When this point is well reported to the me. Mr. Spectator, whatever the world board, they can take in a wild roaring foxmay think of me, I am more coxcomb than hunter, as easily as a soft, gentle young fop fool, and I grew very inquisitive upon this of the town. The way is to make all places head, not a little pleased with the novelty. uneasy to him, but the scenes in which they My friend told me, there were a certain set have allotted him to act. His brother huntsof women of fashion, whereof the number men, bottle companions, his fraternity of of six made a committee, who sat thrice a fops, shall be brought into the conspiracy week, under the title of " The Inquisition against him. Then this matter is not laid 9n Maids and Bachelors. " It seems, when- in so barefaced a mariner before him as to ever there comes such an unthinking gay have it intimated, Mrs. Such-a-one would thing as myself to town, he must want all make him a very proper wife; but by the manner of necessaries, or be put into the force of their correspondence, they shall inquisition by the first tradesman he em- make it (as Mr. Waller said of the fiarploys. They have constant intelligence with riage of the dwarfs,) as impracticable to cane-shops, perfumers, toy-men, coach- have any woman besides her they design makers, and china-houses. From these him, as it would have been in Adam to several places these undertakers for mar- have refused Eve. The man named by 12 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 321. the commission for Mi s. Such-a-one shall day at a neighbouring coffee-house, where neither be in fashion, nor dare ever ap- we have what I may call a lazy club. We pear in company, should he attempt to generally come in night-gowns, with our evade their determination. stockings about our heels, and sometimes The female sex wholly govern domestic but one on. Our salutation at entrance is a life; and by this means, when they think yawn and a stretch, and then without more fit, they can sow dissensions between- the ceremony we take our place at the lollingearest friends, nay,~make-father and son table, where our discourse is, what I fear irreconcilable enemies, in spite of all the you would not read out, therefore shall not ties of gratitude on one part, and the duty insert. But I assure you, sir, I heartily of protection to' bepaid'oni the other. The lament this loss of time, and am now re ladies of the inquisition understand this per- solved, (if possible, with double diligence,) fectly well; and where love is not a motive to retrieve it, being effectually awakened to a man's choosing one whom they allot, by the arguments of Mr. Slack, out of the they can with very much art insinuate sto- senseless stupidity that has so long posries to the disadvantage of his honesty or sessed me. And to demonstrate that penicourage, until the creature is too much tence accompanies my confessions, and condispirited to bear up against a general ill stancy my resolutions, I have locked my reception, which'he every where meets door for a year, and desire you would let with, and in due time falls into their ap- my companions know I am not within. I pointed wedlock for shelter. I have a long am with great respect, sir, your most obeletter bearing date the fourth instant, which dient servant, gives me a large account of the policies of T. N. B.' this court; and find there is now before _ them a very refractory person who has - escaped all their machinations for two No. 321.] Saturday, March 8, 1711-12. years last past; but they haye prevented two successive matches which were of his Nee satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. own inclination; the one by a report that r. rs Poet. v. 9 his mistress was to be married, and the very Tie not enough a poem's finely writ; It must affect and captivate the soul. —Roscomrmon. day appointed, wedding-clothes bought, and all things ready for her being given to an- THOSE who know how many volumes other; the second time by insinuating to all have been written on the poems of Homer his mistress's friends and acquaintance, that and Virgil will easily pardon the length of he had been false to several other women, my discourse upon Milton. The Paradise and the like. The poor man is now re- Lost is looked upon by the best judges, as duced to profess he designs to lead a single the greatest production, or at least the life; but the inquisition give out to all his noblest work of genius in our language, acquaintance, that nothing is intended but and therefore deserves to be set before an the gentleman's own welfare and happi- English reader in its full beauty. For this,ness. When this is urged, he talks still reason, though I have endeavoured to give more hui"rblyfand'pri tstsits-he-aimsnoly at a general idea of its graces and imperfeca life without pain or reproach; pleasure, tions in my first six papers, I thought myhonour, and riches, are things for which he self obliged to bestow one upon every book has no taste. But notwithstanding all this, in particular. The first three books I have and what else he may defend himself with, already despatched, and am now entering as that the lady is too old or too young, of a upon the fourth. I need not acquaint my suitable humour, or the quite contrary, and reader that there are multitudes of beauthat it is impossible they can ever do other ties in this great author, especially in the than wrangle from June to January, every descriptive parts of this poem, which I body tells him all this is spleen, and he have not touched upon; it being my ntenmust have a wife; while all the members tion to point out those only which appear of the inquisition are unanimous in a certain to me the most exquisite, or those which woman for him, and they think they al- are not so obvious to ordinary readers. together are better able to judge than he, Every one that has read the critics who or any other private person whatsoever. have written upon the Odyssey, the Iliad, and the IEneid, knows very well, that'Temple, March 3, 1711. though they agree in their opinions of the'SIR,-Your speculation this day on the great beauties in those poems, they have'subject of idleness has employed me ever nevertheless each of them discovered sevesince I read it, in sorrowful reflections on ral master-strokes, which have escaped the my having loitered away the term (or rather observation of the rest. In the same manthe vacation) of ten years in this place, and ner, I question not but any writer, who shall unhappily suffered a good chamber and treat of this subject after me may find sevestudy to lie idle as long. My books (except ral beauties in Milton, which I have not those I have taken to sleep upon,) have taken notice of. I must likewise observe, been totally neglected, and my Lord Coke that as the greatest masters of critical learnand other venerable authors were never so ing differ among one another, as to some slighted in their lives. I spend most of the particular points in an epic poem, I have No. 321.] THE SPECTATOR. 13 not bound myself scrupulously to the rules forth into a speech that is softened with which any one of them has laid down upon several transient touches of remorse and that art, but have taken the liberty some- self-accusation: but-at length he confirms times to join with one, and sometimes with himself in impenitence, and in his design another, and sometimes to differ from all of of drawing man into his own state of guilt them, when I have thought that the reason and misery. This conflict of passions is of the thing was on my side. raised with a great deal of art, as the open- We may conclude' the beauties of the ing of his speech to the sun is very bold fourth book under three heads. In the first and noble: are those pictures of still-life, which we o thou, that with surpassing glory crown'd, meet with in the description of Eden, Para- Look'st from thy sole dominion like the'god dise, Adam's bower, &c. In the next are the Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars machines, which comprehend the speeches Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call, and behaviour of the good and bad angels But with no friendly voice; and add thy name, and behaviour of the good and bad angels. o sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams, In the last is the conduct of Adam and Eve, That bring to my remembrance from what state who are the principal actors in the poem. I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere.' In the description of Paradise, the poet. This speech is, I think, the finest that is has observed Aristotle's rule of lavishing ascribed to Satan in the whole poem. The all the ornaments of diction on the weak evil spirit afterwards proceeds to make his unactive parts of the fable, which are not discoveries concerning our first parents, supported by the beauty of sentiments and and to learn after what manner they may characters. Accordingly the reader may be best attacked. His bounding over the observe, that the expressions are more walls of Paradise: his sitting in the shape florid and elaborate in these descriptions, of a cormorant upon the tree of life, which than in most other parts of the poem. I stood in the centre of it, and overtopped all must further add, that though the draw- the other trees of the garden; his alighting ings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the among the herd of animals, which are so like dead pieces of nature, are justly cen- beautifully represented as playing about 6ured in an heroic poem, when they run out Adam and Eve; together with his transnto an unnecessary length-the description forming himself into different shapes, in of Paradise would have been faulty, had order to hear their conversation; are cirnot the poet been very particular in it, not cumstances that give an agreeable surprise only as it is the scene of the principal ac- to the reader, and are devised with great tion, but as it is requisite to give us an idea art, to connect that series of adventures in of that happiness from which our first pa- which the poet has engaged this artificer rents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully of fraud. beautiful, and formed upon the short sketch The thought of Satan's transformation which we have of it in holy writ. Milton's into a cormorant, and placing himself on the exuberance of imagination has poured forth tree of life, seems raised upon that passage such a redundancy of ornaments on this in the Iliad, where two deities are described seat of happiness and innocence, that it as perching on the top of an oak in the would be endless to point out each par- shape of vultures. ticular. His planting himself at the ear of Eve I must not quit this head without further under the form of a toad, in order to proobserving, that there is scarce a speech of duce vain dreams and imaginations, is a Adam or Eve in the whole poem, wherein circumstance of the same nature; as his the sentiments and allusions are not taken starting up in his own form is wonderfully from this their delightful habitation. The fine, both in the literal description, and in reader, during their whole course of action the moral which is concealed under it. His always finds himself in the walks of Para- answer upon his being discovered, and dedise. In short, as the critics have remarked, manded to give an account of himself, is that in those poems wherein shepherds are conformable to the pride and intrepidity of the actors, the thoughts ought always to of his character: take a tincture from the woods, fields, and take a tincture from the woods, fields, and, Know ye not, then,' said Satan, Sill'd with scorn, rivers; so we may observe, that our first Know ye not me' Ye knew me once no mate parents seldom lose sight of their happy For you, there sitting where you durst not soar: station in any thing they speak or do; and, t t k me yourselvs unnown, The lowest of your thronunknown, if the reader will give me leave to use the expression, that their thoughts are always Zephon's rebuke, with the influence it'paradisaical.' had on Satan, is exquisitely graceful and We are in the next place to consider the moral. Satan is afterwards led away t. machines of the fourth book. Satan being Gabriel, the chief of the guardian angels, now within the prospect of Eden, and look- who kept watch in Paradise. His disdainful ing round upon the glories of the creation, behaviour on this occasion is so remarkable is filled with sentiments different from those a beauty, that the most ordinary reader which he discovered whilst he was in hell. cannot but take notice of it. Gabriel's dis-'1 he place inspires him with thoughts more covering his approach at a distance is drawn adapted to it. He reflects upon the happy with great strength and liveliness of [magicondition from whence he fell, and breaks nation: 14 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 321.' 0 friends, I hear the tread of nimble feet below the genius of Milton. The descrip Hasting this way, and now by glimpse discern tion of the host of armed angels walking [thuriel and Zephon through the shade, And with them comes a third of regal port, their nightly round in Paradise is of another But faded splendour wan; who by his gait spirit: And fierce demeanour seems the prince of Hell: Not likely to part hence without contest; Daling on he led his radiant files, Stand firm, for in his look defiance low'rs.'lnte moon as that account of the hymns which OUt Tne conference between Gabriel and first parents used to hear them sing in these Satan abounds with sentiments proper for their midnight walks is altogether divine, the occasion, and suitable to the persons of and inexpressibly amusing to the imaginatne two speakers. Satan clothing himself tion. with terror when he prepares for the corn- We are in the last place, to consider the bat is truly sublime, and at least equal to parts which Adam and Eve act in the fourth Homer's description of Discord, celebrated book. The description of them, as they first by Longinus, or to that of Fame in Virgil, appeared to Satan, is exquisitely drawn, and who are both represented with their feet sufficient to make the fallen angel gaze upon standing upon the earth, and their heads them with all that astonishment, and those reaching above the clouds: emotions of envy in which he is represented: While thus he spake, th' angelic squadron bright Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, Turn'd fiery red, sharp'ning in mooned horns God-like erect, with native honour clad Their phalanx, and began to hem him round In naked majesty, seem'd lords of all; With ported spears, &c. And worthy seem'd; for in their looks divine ~-On th' other side Satan alarm'd, The image of their glorious maker shone, Collecting all his might, dilated stood Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure; Like Teneriffe, or Atlas, unremoved: Severe, but in true filial freedom plac'd: His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest For contemplation he and valour form'd, Sat Horror plum'd. For softness she and sweet attractive grace; IHe for God only, she for God in him. I must here take notice, that Milton is His fair large front, and eye sublime declar'd every where full of hints, and sometimes Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung literal translations, taken from the greatest Clust'ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad. of the Greek and Latin poets. But this I She, as a veil, down to her slender waist may.reserve for a discourse by itself, be- Her unadorned golden tresses wore may. woue not ba te t tea f, these Dishevell'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd. cause I would not break the thread of these So pass'd they naked on, nor shunn'd the sight speculations, that are designed for English Of God or angels, for they thought no ill: readers, with such reflections as would be So hand in hand they pass'd, the loveliest pair rof no use but to the learned. That ever since in love's embraces met. of no use but to the learned. I must, however, observe in this place, There is a fine spirit of poetry in the lines that the breaking off the combat between which follow, wherein they are described Gabriel and Satan, by the hangin out of asitting on a bed of flowers by the side of the golden scales in heaven, is a refinement fountain, amidst a mixed assembly o aniupon Homer's thought, who tells us, that mals. before the battle between Hector and The speeches of these two first lovers Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it ow equally from passion and sincerity. in a pair of sales. The professions they make to one another in a pair of scales. The reader may see are full of warmth; but at the same time the whole passage in the 22d Iliad. u rth b a the ae e Virgil, before the last decisive combat founded on truth. In a word they are the describes Jupiter in the same manner, as gallantries of Paradise: waWhen Adam first of men~ weighing the fates of Turnus and JEneas. When Adam first of men weighing the fatces oth i ns 0I euand neas. Sole partner and sole part of all these joys, Milton, though he fetched this beautiful Dearer thyself than all:~ circumstance from the Iliad and fneid, But let us ever praise Him, and extol does not only insert it as a poetical embel- Hi bounty, following our delightful task, lk e. oyielaap ca me- th ato' abn To prune these growing plants, and tend these flow'rs: lishment, like the author's above-mention- Which were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet.' ed, but makes an artful use of it for the To whom thus Eve reply'd. thou, for whom proper carrying on of his fable, and for the And from whom I was form'd, flesh of thy flesh, proper carrying on of his fable, and for the off* the combt b n te And without whom am to no end, my guide breaking off the combat between the two And head, what thou hast said is just and right. warriors, who were upon the point of en- For we to him indeed all praises owe gaging. To this we may further add, that And daily thanks; I chiefly, who enjoy So far the happier lot, enjoying thee, Milton is the more justified in this passage, Pre-eminent by so much odds, while thou as we find the same noble allegory in holy Like consort to thyself canst no where find.' &c. writ, where a wicked prince, some few The remaining part of Eve's speech, in hours before he was assaulted and slain, is which she gives an account of herself upon said to have been' weighed in the scales, her first creation, and the manner in which and to have been found wanting. she was brought to Adam, is, I think, as I must here take notice, under the head beautiful a passage as any in Milton, or of the machines, that Uriel's gliding down'perhaps in any other poet whatsoever. to the earth upon a sun-beam, with the These passages are all worked off with so poet s device to make him descend, as well much art, that they are capable of pleasing in his return to the sun as in his coming the most delicate reader, without offending from it, is a prettiness that might have been the most severe. admired in a little fanc;ful poet, but seems' That day I oft remember, when from sleep,' &c. No. 322.1 FHE SPECTATOR. 1I A poet of less judgment and invention is a very good one, if it be true:' but as for than this great author, would have found the following relation, I should be glad were it very difficult to have filled these tender I sure it were false. It is told with such parts of the poem with sentiments proper simplicity, and there are so many artless for a state of innocence; to have described touches of distress in it, that I fear it comes the warmth of love, and the professions of too much from the heart. it, without artifice or hyperbole; to have made the man speak the most endearing'MR. SPECTATOR,-Some years ago it things without descending from his natural happened that I lived in the same house dignity, and the woman receiving them with a young gentleman of merit, with without departing from the modesty of her whose good qualities I was so much taken, character: in a word, to adjust the pre- as to make it my endeavour to show as rogatives of wisdom and beauty, and make many as I was able in myself. Familiar each appear to the other in its proper force converse improved general civilities into and loveliness. This mutual subordination an unfeigned passion on both sides. He of the two sexes is wonderfully kept up in watched an opportunity to declare himself jhe whole poem, as particularly in the to me; and I, who could not expect a man speech of Eve I have before mentioned, of so great an estate as his, received his adand upon the conclusion of it in the follow- dresses in such terms, as gave him no reaing lines: son to believe I was displeased with them, So spake our general mother, and with eyes though I did nothing to make him think me Of conjugal attraction unreprov'd, more easy than was decent. His father was And meek surrender, half embracing lean'd a very hard worldly man, and proud; so On our first father; half her swelling breast thatthere was no reason to believe he Naked met his, under the flowing gold that there was no reason to believe le Of her loose tresses hid; he in delight would easily be brought to think there was Both of her beauty and submissive charms any thing in any woman's person, or cha-'d with superior love racter, that could balance thedisadvantage The poet adds, that the devil turned of an unequal fortune. In the mean time away with envy at the sight of so much theeon continued his application to me, and happiness. omitted no occasion of demonstrating the We have another view of our first pa- most disinterested passion imaginable to rents in their evening discourses, which is me; and in plain direct terms offered to full of pleasing images and sentiments suit- marry me privately, and keep it so till he able to their condition and characters. The should be so happy as to gain his father's speech of Eve in particular, is dressed up approbation, or become possessed of his in such a soft and natural turn of words estate. I passionately loved him, and you and sentiments, as cannot be sufficiently will believe I did not deny such a one what admired. was my interest also to grant. However, I I shall close my reflections upon this was not so young as not to take the precaubook with observing the masterly transi- tion of carrying with me a faithful servant, tion which the poet makes to their evening who had been also my mother's maid, to be worship in the following lines: present at the ceremony. When that was Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood, over, I demanded a certificate to be signed Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd by the minister, my husband, and the serThe God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n, vant I just now spoke of. After our nupWhich they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, tials, we conversed together very familiarl And starry pole:' Thou also mad'st the night, tis, we conve togeer vey familialy Maker omnipotent, and thou the day,' &c. in the same house; but the restraints we Most of the modern heroic poets have were generally under, and the interviews. imitated the ancients, in beginning a speech we had being stolen and interrupted, made without premising that the person said thus our behaviour to each other have rather or thus; but as it is easy to imitate the an- the impatient fondness which is visible in cients in the omission of two or three words lovers, than the regular and gratified affecit requires judgment to do it in such a man- w hich to be observed in man and ner as they shall not be missed, and that wife. This observation made the father the speech may begin naturally without very anxious for his son, and press him to them. There is a fine instance of this kind a match he had in his eye for him. To reout of Homer, in the twenty-third chapter ee my husband from this importunity, of Longinus. L. and conceal the secret of our marriage, which I had reason to know would not be long in my power in town, it was resolved that I should retire into a remote place in No. 322.] Monday, March 10, 1711-12. the country, and converse under feigned names by letter. We long continued this -Ad h m mror. gravi dedut et ang. way of commerce; and I with my needle, a. rs o. v. 1. few books, and reading over and over my -— rief wrings her soul, and bends it down to earth. husband's letters, passed my time in a rancis. resigned expectation of better days. Be IT is often said, after a man has heard a pleased to take notice, that within four story with extraordinary circumstances,' It months after I left my husband I was deli 16 THE SPECTATOR. LNo. 323. vered of a daughter, who died within a few myself; let him remember how awkward I hours after her birth. This accident, and was in my dissembled indifference towards the retired manner of life I led, gave cri- him before company; ask him how I, who minal hopes to a neighbouring brute of a could never conceal my love for him, at his country gentleman, whose folly was the own request can part with him for ever? Oh, source'of all my affliction. This rustic is Mr. Spectator, sensible spirits know no inone of those rich clowns who supply the difference in marriage: what then do you want of all manner of breeding by the think is my piercing affliction? I leave neglect of it, and with noisy mirth, half un- you to represent my distress your own way derstanding and ample fortune, force them- in which I desire you to be speedy, if you selves upon persons and things, without any have compassion for innocence exposed to sense of time or place. The poor ignorant infamy. OCTAVIA.' people where I lay concealed, and now passed for a widow, wondered I could be so shy and strange, as they called it, to the No. 323.] Tuesday, March 11, 1711-12.'squire; and were bribed by him to admit v, o. him whenever he thought fit: I happened - oo oo to be sitting in a little parlour which be- ometmes a man, sometimes a woman. longed to my own part of the house, and THE journal with which I presented my musing over one of the fondest of my hus- reader on Tuesday last has brought me in band's letters, in which I always kept the several letters, with accounts of many pricertificate of my marriage, when this rude vate lives cast into that form. I have the fellow came in, and with the nauseous fami-'Rake's Journal,' the' Sot's Journal,' the liarity of such unbred brutes snatched the'Whoremaster's Journal,' and, among sepapers out of my hand. I was immediately veral others, a very curious piece, entitled, under so great a concern, that I threw my-' The Journal of a Mohock.' By these inself at his feet, and begged of him to return stances, I find that the intention of my last them. He, with the same odious pretence Tuesday's paper has been mistaken by to freedom and gaiety, swore he wouldead many of my readers. I did not design so them. I grew more importunate, he more much to expose vice as idleness, and aimed curious, till at last, with an indignation at those persons who passed away their arising from a passion I then first disco- time rather in trifles and impertinence, vered in him, he threw the papers into the than in crimes and immoralities. Offences fire, swearing that since he was not to read of this latter kind are not to be dallied with, them, the man who writ them should never or treated in so ludicrous a manner. In be so happy as to have me read them over short, my journal only holds up folly to the again. It is insignificant to tell you my tears light, and shows the disagreeableness of and reproaches made the boisterous calf such actions as are indifferent in themleave the room ashamed and out of coun- selves, and blameable only as they proceed tenance, when I had leisure to ruminate on from creatures endowed with reason. this accident with more than ordinary sor- My following correspondent, who calls row. However, such was then my confi- herself Clarinda, is such a journalist as I dence in my husband, that I writ to him require. She seems by her letter to be the misfortune, and desired another paper placed in a modish state of.indifference beof the same kind. He deferred writing two tween vice and virtue, and to be susceptible or three posts, and at last answered me in of either, were there proper pains taken general, that he could not then send me with her. Had her journal been filled with what I asked for; but when he could find a gallantries, or such occurrences as had proper conveyance, I should be sure to have shown her wholly divested of her natural it. From this time his letters were more innocence, notwithstanding it might have cold every day than other, and, as he grew been more pleasing to the generality of indifferent I grew jealous. This has at last readers, I should not have published it: brought me to town, where I find both the but as it is only the picture of a life filled witnesses of my marriage dead, and that with a fashionable kind of gaiety and lazimy husband, after three month's cohabita- ness, I shall set down five days or it, as I tion, has buried a young lady whom he mar- have received it from the hand of my fair ried in obedience to his father. In a word correspondent. he shuns and disowns me. Should I come'DEAR MR. SPECTATOR,-You having to the house and confront him, the father set your readers an exercise in one of your would join in supporting him against me, last week's papers, I have performed mine though he believed my story; should I talk according to your orders, and herewith it to the world, what reparation can I ex- send it you enclosed. You must know, Mr. pect for an injury I cannot make out? I Spectator, that I am a maiden lady of a believe he means to bring me, through ne- good fortune, who have had several matches cessity, to resign my pretensions to him for offered me for these ten years last past, some provision for my life; but I will die and have at present warm applications first. Pray bid him remember what he said, made to me by' a very pretty fellow.' As and how he was charmed when he laughed I am at my own disposal, I come up to at the heedless discovery I often made of town every winter, and -Dass my time in it No. 323. THE SPECTATOR. 17 after the manner you will find in the follow- flowered handkerchief. Worked half a vioing journal, which I oegan to write the very let leaf in it. Eyes ached and head out of day after your Spectator upon that subject.' order. Threw by my work, and read over the remaining part of Aurengzebe. TUESDAY night. Could not go to sleep th r pt of engee. till one in the morning for thinking of my From four to twelve Changed my mind journal, dressed, went abroad, and played at crimp WEDNESDAY. From eight till ten. Drank till midnight. Found Mrs. Spitely at home. two dishes of chocolate in bed, and fell Conversation: Mrs. Brilliant's necklace asleep after them. false stones. Old lady Love-day going to From ten to eleven. Eat a slice of bread be married to a young fellow that is not and butter, drank a dish of bohea, and read worth a groat. Miss Prue gone into the the Spectator. country. Tom Townly has red hair. Mem. From eleven to one. At my toilette; tried Mrs. Spitely whispered in my ear, that a new hood. Gave orders for Veny to be she had something to tell me about Mr. combed and washed. Mem. I look best in Froth; I am sure it is not true. blue. Between twelve and one. Dreamed that From one till half an hour after two. Mr. Froth lay at my feet, and called me Drove to the'Change. Cheapened a cou- Indamora. ple of fans. SATURDAY. Rose at eight o'clock in the Till four. At dinner. Mem. Mr. Froth morning. Sat down to my toilette. passed by in his new liveries. From eight to nine. Shifted a patch for From tour to six. Dressed: paid a visit to half an hour before I could determine it. old lady Blithe and her sister, having before Fixed it above my left eyebrow. heard they were gone out of town that day. From nine to twelve. Drank my tea, and From six to eleven. At basset. Mem. dressed. Never set again upon the ace of diamonds. From twelve to two. At chapel. A great THURSDAY. From eleven at night to deal of good company. Mem. The third eight in the morning. Dreamed that I air in the new opera. Lady Blithe dressed punted* to Mr. Froth, frightfully. From eight to ten. Chocolate. Read two From three to four. Dined. Miss Kitty acts in Aurengzebe a-bed. called upon me to go to the opera before I From ten to eleven. Tea-table. Sent to was risen from table. borrow lady Faddle's Cupid for Veny. From dinner to six. Drank tea. Turned Read the play-bills. Received a letter from off a footman for being rude to Veny. Mr. Froth. Mem. Locked it up in my Six o'clock. Went to the opera. I did strong box. not see Mr. Froth till the beginning of the Rest of the morning. Fontange, the tire- second act. Mr. Froth talked to a gentlewoman, her account of my lady Blithe's man in a black wig; bowed to a lady in the wash. Broke a tooth in my little tortoise- front box. Mr. Froth and his friend clapshell comb. ped Nicolini in the third act. Mr. Froth Sent Frank to know how my lady Hectic cried out' Ancora.' Mr. Froth led me to rested after her monkey's leaping out at my chair. I think he squeezed my hand. window. Looked pale. Fontange tells me Eleven at night. Went to bed. Melanmy glass is not true. Dressed by three. choly dreams. MethoughtNicolini said he From three to four. Dinner cold before was Mr. Froth. I sat down. SUNDAY. Indisposed. From four to eleven. Saw company. Mr. SUNDAY. Ind ed. Froth's opinion of Milton. His account of MONDAY. Eight o'clock. Waked by the Mohocks. His fancy of a pin-cushion. Miss Kitty. Aurengzebe lay upon the Picture in the lid of his snuff-box. Old lady chair by me. Kitty repeated without book Faddle promises me her woman to cut my the eight best lines in the play. Went in hair. Lost five guineas at crimp. our mobst to the dumb man, according to Twelve o'clock at night. Went to bed. appointment. Told me that my lover's. E t in te mor A- name began with a G. Mem. The conjuFRA. Eight in the morning. A-bed. ror~ was within a letter of Mr. Froth's Read over all Mr. Froth's letters Cupid name, &c. and Veny. Ten o'clock. Stayed within all day, not'Upon looking back into this my journal, at home. I find that I am at a loss to know whether From ten to twelve. In conference with I pass my time well or ill; and indeed never my mantua-maker. Sorted a suit of ribands. thought of considering how I did it before I Broke my blue china cup. perused your speculation upon that subject. From twelve to one. Shut myself up in I scarce find a single action in these five my chamber, practised lady Betty Mode- days that I can thoroughly approve of, ly's skuttle. t excepting the working upon the violet-leaf, One in the afternoon. Called for my which I am resolved to finish the first day * A term in the game of basset. t A sort of dress so named. t A pace of affected precipitation ~ Duncan Campbell. VOL. II. 3 18 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 324. I am at leisure. As for Mr. Froth and required in the members. In order to exert Veny, I did not think they took up so much this principle in its full strength and per of my time and thoughts as I find they do fection, they take care to drink themselves upon my journal. The latter of them I will to a pitch, that is, beyond the possibility turn off, if you insist upon it; and if Mr. of attending to any motions of reason or Froth does not bring matters to a conclu- humanity; then make a general sally, and sion very suddenly, I will not let my life attack all that are so unfortunate as to run away in a dream. Your humble ser- walk the streets through which they pavant, CLARINDA.' trole. Some are knocked down, others ro resume one of the morals of my first stabbed, others cut and carbonadoed. To paper, and to confirm Clarinda in her good put the watch to a total rout, and mortify nclinations, I would have her consider some of those inoffensive militia, is reckonwhat a pretty figure she would make among ed a cou d'eclat. The particular talents posterity were the history of her whole by which these misanthropes are distinlife published like these five days of it. I guished from one another, consist in the shall conclude my paper with an eitaph various kinds of barbarities which they written by an uncertain author on SirPhilip execute upon the prisoners. Some are ceSydney's sister, a lady who seems to have ted for a happy dexterity in tipping been of a temper very much different from the lion upon them; which is performed by that of Clarinda. The lastthoughtofit is so squeezing the nose at to thei face, and very noble, that I dare say my reader will boring out the eyes with their fingers. pardon me the quotation. Others are called the dancing-masters, and pardon me the quotation. teach their scholars to cut capers by runON THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF PEM- ning swords through their legs; a new inBROKE. vention, whether originally French I cannot Underneath this marble hearse tell. A third sort are the tumblers, whose Lies the subject of all verse, office is to set women on their heads, and Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother:.... h Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother: commit certain indecencies, or rather barDeath, ere thou hast kill'd another, Fair and learn'd and good as she, barities, on the limbs which they expose. Time shall throw a dart at thee. But these I forbear to mention, because they L. cannot but be very shocking to the reader as well as the Spectator. In this manner No. 324.] Wednesday, March 12, 1711-12. they carry on a war against mankind; and curv in terris anim, et ccelestium ianes! by the standing maxims of their policy, are Pers. Sat. ii. 61. to enter into no alliances but one, and that O souls, in whom no heavenly fire is found, is offensive and defensive with all bawdyFlat minad, and ever grovelling on the ground!* houses in general, of which they have deDryden. dared themselves protectors and guaran-'MR. SPECTATOR,-The materials you tees. have collected together towards a general' I must own, sir, these are only broken, history of clubs, make sobrightapart of your incoherent memoirs of this wonderful sospeculations, that I think it is but justice we ciety; but they are the best I have been yet all owe the learned world,to furnish you with able to procure: for, being but of late estasuch assistance as may promote that useful blished, it is not ripe for a just history; and, work. For this reason I could not forbear to be serious, the chief design of this troucommunicating to you some imperfect in- ble is to hinder it from ever being so. You formations of a set of men (if you will allow have been pleased, out of a concern for the them a place in that species of being) who good of your countrymen, to act, under the have lately erected themselves into a noc- character of a Spectator, not only the turnal fraternity, under the title of the part of a looker-on, but an overseer of their Mohock-club, a name borrowed it seems actions; and whenever such enormities as from a sort of cannibals in India, who this infest the town, we immediately fly to subsist by plundering and devouring all you for redress. I have reason to believe, the nations about them. The president is that some thoughtless youngsters, out of a styled,' Emperor of the Mohocks;' and his false notion of bravery, and an immoderate arms are a Turkish crescent, which his im- fondness to be distinguished for fellows of perial majesty bears, at present in a very fire, are insensibly hurried into this senseextraordinary manner engraven upon his less, scandalous project. Such will proforehead. Agreeable to their name, the bably stand corrected by your reproofs, avowed design of their institution is mis- especially if you inform them, that it is not chief; and upon this foundation all their courage for half a score fellows, mad with rules and orders are framed. An outrage- wine and lust, to set upon two or three soous ambition of doing all possible hurt to berer than themselves; and that the man their fellow-creatures, is the great cement ners of Indian savages are not becoming cf their assembly, and the only qualification accomplishments to an English fine gentleman. Such of them as have been bullies J The motto prefixed to this paper in folio, is from and scowerers of a long standing, and are Savis inter se convenit ursis. grown veterans in this kind of service, are, Even bears with bears agree. I fear, too hardened to receive any impres No. 325.] THE SPECTATOR. 19 sions from your admonitions. But I beg No. 325.] Thursday, March 13, 1711-12. you would recommend to their perusal your ninth speculation. T^vhey may there be ~0uid frustrasimulacrafugaciacaptas? ninth speculation. They may there be Quod petis, est nusquam: quod amas avertere, perdes. taught to take warning from the club of Ista repercusse, quam cernis, imaginis umbra est, duellists; and be put in mind, that the com- Nil habet ista sui: tecum venitque, manetque; mon fate of those men of honour was, to be Tcum discedet;si discedere possis. Ovid..Met. Lib. iii. 432. hanged. I am, sir, your most humble serVant, PHILANTHROPOS. [From the fable of JVarcissus.] 1March 10, 1711-12.' What could, fond youth, this helpless passion move What kindled in thee this unpitied love? Thy own warm blush within the water glows; The following letter is of a quite contrary With thee the colour'd shadow comes and goes; ature; but I add it here, that the reader Its empty being on thyself relies: iature; but I add it here, that the reader Step thou aside, and the frail charmer dies. —ddison. nay observe, at the same view, how amiible ignorance may be, when it is shown in WILL HONEYCOMB diverted us last night:its simplicities; and how detestable in bar- with an account of a young fellow's first disbarities. It is written by an honest coun- covering his passion to his mistress. The tryman to his mistress, and came to the young lady was one, it seems, who had long hands of a lady of good sense, wrapped before conceived a favourable opinion of about a thread-paper, who has long kept him, and was still in hopes that he would it by h-r as an image of artless love, some time or other make his advances. As he was one day talking with her in comT ob heJ T7r Ivery much rpepany of her two sisters, the conversation'a her I very much respect, Mrs. Mar- happening.to turn upon love, each of the garet Clark. young ladies was, by way of raillery, recom-'Lovely, and oh that I could write loving, mending a wife to him; when, to the no small Mrs. Margaret Clark, I pray you let affec- surprise of her who languished for him in tion excuse presumption. Having been so secret, he told them, with a more than orhappy as to enjoy the sight of your sweet dinary seriousness, that his heart had been countenance and comely body, sometimes long engaged to one whose name he thought when I had occasion to buy treacle or himself obliged in honour to conceal; but liquorish powder at the apothecary's shop, that ou ohe could show her picture in the lid of I am so enamoured with you, that I can no his snuff-box. The young lady, who found more keep close my flaming desires to be- herself most sensibly tou y touched by this concome your servant.* AndI am the more fession, took the first opportunity that ofbold now to write to your sweet self, be- fered of snatching his box out of his han.d cause I am now my own man, and may match He seemed desirous of recovering it; but where I please; for my father is taken finding her resolved to look into the lid, away, and now I am come to my living, begged her, that, if she should happen to which is ten yard land, and a house; and know the person, she would not reveal her there is never a yard land,t in our field, but name. Upon carrying it to the window, it is as well worth ten pounds a year as a she was very agreeably surprised to find thief is worth a halter, and all my brothers there was nothing within the lid but a little and sisters are providedfor: besides, Ihave looking-glass; on which, after she had good household stuff, though I say it, both viewed her own face with more pleasure brass and pewter, linens and woollens; and than she had ever done before, she returnthough my house be thatched, yet, if you ed the box with a smile, telling him she and I match, it shall go hard but I will could not but admire his choice. have one half of it slated. If you think well Will, fancying that this story took, im of this motion,I will wait upon you as soon as mediately fell into a dissertation on the my new clothes are made, and hay harvest usefulness of looking-glasses; and, applying is in. I could, though I say it, have good himself to me, asked if there were any --—.' The rest is torn off; and posterity looking-glasses in the times of the Greeks must be contented to know, that Mrs. and Romans; for that he had often observMargaret Clark was very pretty; but are ed, in the translations of poems out of those left in the dark as to the name of her lover. languages, that people generally talked of T. seeing themselves in wells, fountains, lakes, and rivers. Nay, says he, I remember Mr. *A note in r.Calrerssedition Dryden, in his Ovid, tells us of a swinging Anoteinr.Chaers'sedition of th e Spectator in- fellow, called Polypheme, that made use forms us, that this letter was really conveyed in the manner here mentioned to a Mrs. Cole, of Northamp- of the sea for his looking-glass, and could ton: the writer was a gentleman of the name of Bullock: never dress himself to advantage but in a -the part torn off is given in the note alluded to as calm. follows:'-good matches amongst my neiglibours. ca My mother, peace be with her soul! the good old gen- My friend Will, to show us the whole lewoman, has left me good store of household linen of compass of his learning upon this subject, ter own spinning, a chest full. If you and I lay our further informed us, that there were still means together, it shall go hard but I will pave the way to do well. Your loving servant till death, Mister several nations in the world so very barbaGabriel Bullock, now my father is dead.' See No. 328.* rous as not to have any looking-glasses t A yard land [virgata terra] in some counties, among them; and that he had lately read,ontains 20 acres, in some 24, and in others 30 acres of amon and —Les Teot res de la Ley. Ed. 1667. a voyage to the South Sea, in which it ii 20 THE SPECTATOR. LNo. 326. said that the ladies of Chili always dressed No. 326.] Friday, iarch 14, 1711-1' their heads over a basin of water. Inclusam Danaen turris ahenea, I am the more particular in my account Robustaeque fores, et vigilum canum of Will's last night's lecture on these na- Tristes excubia3 munierant satis tural mirrors as it sems to ear s e Nocturnis ab adulteris: tural mirrors, as it seems to bear some si non - or. Lib. iii. Od. xv relation to the following letter, which I re- Of watchful dogs an odious ward ceived the day befdogs an odiousward ceivecd tihe day before. Right well one hapless virgin guard, When in a tower of brass immur'd,' SIR,-I have read your last Saturday's By mighty burs of steel secur'd, observations on the fourth book of Milton Although by mortal rake-hells lewd with great satisfaction, and am particularly With all their midnight arts pursu'd, pleased with the hidden moral which you d notFrancis, vol. ii. p have taken notice of in several parts of the ADAPTED. poem. The design of this letter is to de- Be to her virtues very kind, tire your thoughts, whether there may not And clap your padlock on her mind.-Padlock. also be some moral couched under that "MR. SPECTATOR, —Your corresport place in the same book, where the poet lets den's leter re g to fortune-uers. us know, that the first woman immediately and your subsequent discourse upon it, after her creation ran to a looking-glass, and have given me encouragement to send you became so enamoured of her own face, that a she had never removed to view any of the tate of my case, by which you will see, other works of nature, had she not been that the matter complained of a common led off to a man? If you think fit to set grievance both to city and country. down the whole passage from Milton, your set I am a country-gentleman of between down the whole able to ssa ge fro m Milton, your five and six thousand a year. It is my mis readers will be able to judge for themselves, fortune to have a very fine park and an only and the quotation will not a little contribu ghte r; upon which account I have been to the filling up of your paper. Your hum-I have been to the filling up of your paper. Your um- so plagued with deer-stealers and fops, that ble servant, R. T.' for these four years past I have scarce enThe last consideration urged by my joyed a moment's rest. I look upon myquerist is so strong, that I cannot forbear self to be in a state of war; and am forced closing with it. The passage he alludes to to keep as constant watch in my seat, as a is part of Eve's speech to Adam, and one governor would dothat commanded a town of the most beautiful passages in the whole on the frontier of an enemy's country. I poem: have indeed pretty well secured my park, That day I oft remember, when from sleep having for this purpose provided myself of' That day I oft remember, when from aleep ^^ ^ ^ P^P ^ ^ an I first awak'd, and found myself repos'd four keepers, who are left-handed, and Under a shade of flowers, much wond'ring where handle a quarter-staff beyond any other felAnd what I was, whence hither brought, and how. lows in the country. And for the guard of Not distant far from thence a murmuring sound house, Of waters issued from a cave, and spread my house, besides a band of pensioner ma Into a liquid plain, and stood unmov'd trons and an old maiden relation whom I Pure as th' expanse of heaven: I thither went keep on constant duty I have blunderWith unexperienc'd thought, and laid me'down ses always charged, and fox-gins plant On the green bank, to look into the clear busses always charged, and fox-gins plant Smooth lake, that to me seem'd another sky. ed in private places about my garden, of As I bent down to look, just opposite, which I have given frequent notice in the A shape within the watery gleam appear'd, neighbourhood; yet so it is, that in spite of Bending to look on me; I started back,t spte of It started back; but pleas'd I soon return'd, all my care, I shall every now and then Pleas'd it return'd as soon with answering looks have a saucy rascal ride by, reconnoitering Of sympathy and love: there I had fix'd t o c it u r m windows Mine eyes till now, and pin'd with vain desire, as I think you call it) uner my windows, Had not a voice thus warn'd me: " What thou seest, as sprucely dressed as if he were going to a What there thou seest, fair creature, is thyself; ball. I am aware of this way of attacking With thee it came and goes; but follow me, mistress on horseback, having heard tha And I will bring thee where no shadow stays Thy coming and thy soft embraces; he it is a common practice in Spain; and have Whose image thou art, him thou shalt enjoy, therefore taken care to remove my daughInseparably thine; to him shalt bear ter from the road-side of the house, and to Multitudes like thyself, and thence be call'd roa- eo t ouse, an Mother of human race." What could I do, lodge her next the garden. But to cut short But follow straight, invisibly thus led? my story: VVhat can a man do after all? Till I espy'd thee, fair indeed and tall, I durst not stand for member of parliament Under a plantain; yet, methought, less fair, less winning soft, less amiably mild, last election, for fear of some ill conseThan that smooth watery image: back I turn'd; quence from my being off my post. What Thou following cry'dst aloud, " Return, fair Eve i Iwould therefore desire of you is, to proWhom fly'st thou? Whom thou fly'st, of him thou art, His flesh, his bone; to give thee being, I lent mote a project I have set on foot, and upon Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart, which I have written to some of my friends: Substantial life, to have thee by my side, and that is, that care may be taken to seHenceforth an individual solace dear: Part of my soul, I seek thee, and thee claim, cure our daughters by law, as well as out My other half!" —With that thy gentle hand deer; and that some honest gentleman, of Seiz'd mine; I yielded, and from that time see a public pirit, would move for leave to How beauty is excelld by manly grace And wisdom, which alone is truly fair. bring in a bill for the better preserving of So spake our general mother the female game. I am, sir, your humble X. servant.' No. 327.] THE SPECTATOR. 21'Mile-End-Green, March 6, 1711-12. sometimes a partridge, or a quail, or a'MR. SPECTATOR,-Here is a young wheatear, or the pestle of a lark, were man walks by our door every day about the cheerfully purchased; nay, I could be condusk of the evening. He looks up at my tented though I were to feed her with window, as if to see me; and if I steal to- green peas in April, or cherries in May. wards it to peep at him, he turns another But with the babe she now goes, she is way, and looks frightened at finding what turned girl again, and fallen to eating of he was looking for. The air is very cold; chalk, pretending it will make the child's and pray let him know, that if he knocks at skin white; and nothing will serve her but the door he will becarried to the parlour I must bear her company, to prevent its fire, and I will come down soon after, and having a shade of my brown. In this, howgive him an opportunity to break his mind. ever, I have ventured to deny her. No'I am, sir, your most humble servant, longer ago than yesterday, as we were' MARY COMFIT. coming to town, she saw a parcel of crows'If I observe he cannot speak, I'll give so heartily at breakfast upon a piece of him time to recover himself, and ask him horse-flesh, that she had an invincible dehow he does.' sire to partake with them, and (to my infinite surprise) begged the coachman to cut'DEAR SIR,-I beg you to print this her off a slice, as if it were for himself, without delay, and by the first opportunity which the fellow did; and as soon as she give us the natural causes of longing in wo- came home, she fell to it with such an apmen; or put me out of fear that my wife will petite, that she seemed rather to devour one time or other be delivered of some- than eat it. What her next sally will be I thing as monstrous as any thing that has cannot guess, but, in the mean time, my yet appeared to the world; for they say the request to you is, that if there be any way child is to bear a resemblance of what was to come at these wild unaccountable rovings desired by the mother. I have been mar- of imagination by reason and argument, ried upwards of six years, have had four you would speedily afford us your assistchildren, and my wife is now big with the ance. This exceeds the grievance of pinfifth. The expenses she has put me to, in money; and I think in every settlement procuring what she has longed for during there ought to be a clause inserted, that the her pregnancy with them, would not only father should be answerable for the longhave handsomely defrayed the charges of ings of his daughter. But I shall impathe month, but of their education too: her tiently expect your thoughts in this matter; fancy being so exorbitant for the first year and am, sir, your most obliged and most or two, as not to confine itself to the usual faithful humble servant, T. B. objects of eatables and drinkables, but run-'Let me know whether you think the ning out after equipages and furniture, and next child will love horses as much as the like extravagances. To trouble you Molly does china-ware.' T. only with a few of them: when she was with child of Tom, my eldest son, she came home one day just fainting, and told me she had been visiting a relation, whose No. 327.] Saturday, March 15, 1711-1, husband had made her a present of a cha- -Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo. riot and a stately pair of horses; and that Virg. JEn. vii. 43. she was positive she could not breathe a A larger scene of action is display'd.-Dryden. week longer, unless she took the air in the W were told in the foregoing book, how fellow to it of her own within that time. the evil spirit practised upon Eve as she This, rather than lose an heir, I readily lay asleep, in order to inspire her with complied with. Then the furniture of her thoughts of vanity, pride, and ambition. best room must be instantly changed, or The author, who shows a wonderful art she should mark the child with some of the throughout his whle poem, in preparing frightful figures in the old fashioned tapes- the reader for the several occurrences that try. Well, the upholsterer was called, and arise in it, founds, upon the above-menher longing saved that bout. When she tioned circumstance, the first part of the went with Molly she had fixed her mind fifth book. Adam, upon his awaking, finds upon a new set of plate, and as much china Eve still asleep, with an unusual discomas would have furnished an Indian shop: posure in her looks. The posture in which these also I cheerfully granted, for fear of reards her is described with a tenderbeing fathrto anIndianpaged.Hitherto he regards her is described with a tenderbeing father to an Indian pagd. Hitherto ness not to be expressed, as the whisper I found her demands rose upon every con- with which he awakens her is the softest cession; and had she gone on, I had been that ever was conveyed to a lover's ear. ruined: but by good fortune, with her third, which was Peggy, the height of her imagi- His wonder was, to find unwaken'd Eve WHiaCtio was eggy, mte height of imagis o With tresses discompos'd, and glowing cheek, nation came down to the corner of a venison As through unquiet rest: he on his side pasty, and brought her once even upon her Leaning half-rais'd, with looks of cordial love knees to gnaw off the ears of a pig from the Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld spit. The gratifications of her palate were Shot forth peculia gaces: then, w ith voiee easily preferred to thos o3f her vanity; and Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes, 22 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 327. Her hand soft touching, whisper'd thus:' Awake, saged on this { ccasion, the particulars of it My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found, are so artfully shadowed, that they do not Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight! Awake: the morning shines, and the fresh field anticipate the story which follows in the Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring ninth book. I shall only add, that though Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove, the vision itself is founded upon truth, the What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed, How nature paints her colours, how the bee circumstances of it are full of that wildness Sits on the bloom, extracting liquid sweet.' and inconsistency which are natural to a Such whispering wak'd her, but with startled eye dream. Adam, conformable to his superior On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake:' soul, in whom my thoughts find all repose, character for wisdom, instructs and conm My glory, my perfection! glad I see forts Eve upon this occasion: Thy face, and morn return'd -.' So cheer'd he his fair spouse, and she was cheer'd, I cannot but take notice, that Milton, in But silently a gentle tear let fall the conferences between Adam and Eve, From either eye, and wiped them with her hair; had his eye very frequently upon the book Two other precious drops, that ready stood had his eye very frequently upon the book Each in their crystal sluice, he, ere they fell, of Canticles, in which there is a noble spirit Kiss'd, as the gracious signs of sweet remorse of eastern poetry, and very often not unlike And pious awe, that fear'd to have offended. iv hat we meet with in Homer, who is ge- The morning hymn is written in imitation nerally placed near the age of Solomon. I of one of those psalms where, in the overthink there is no question but the poet in flowings of gratitude and praise, the psalmthe preceding speech remembered those ist calls not only upon the angels, but upon two passages which are spoken on the like the most conspicuous parts of the inanimate occasion, and filled with the same pleasing creation, to join with him in extolling their images of nature. common Maker. Invocations of this na-'My beloved spake, and said unto me, ture fill the mind with glorious ideas of Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come God's works, and awaken that divine enaway! for, lo! the winter is past, the rain thusiasm which is so natural to devotion. is over and gone, the flowers appear on But if this calling upon the dead parts of the earth, the time of the singing of birds is nature is at all times a proper kind of worcome, and the voice of the turtle is heard ship, it was in a peculiar manner suitable in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her to our first parents, who had the creation green figs, and the vines with the tender fresh upon their minds, and had not seen grapes give a good smell. Arise, my love, the various dispensations of Providence, my fair one, and come away! nor consequently could be acquainted with' Come, my beloved! let us go forth into those many topics of praise which might the field, let us get up early to the vine- afford matter to the devotions of their posyards, let us see if the vine flourish, whe- terity. I need not remark the beautiful ther the tender grapes appear, and the spirit of poetry which runs through this pomegranates bud- forth.' whole hymn, nor the holiness of that resoHis preferring the garden of Eden to that lution with which it concludes. Where the sapient king Having already mentioned those speeches Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse, which are assigned to the persons inthis shows that the poet had this delightful poem, I proceed to the description which scene in his mind. the poet gives of Raphael. His deparEve's dream is full of those high conceits ture from before the throne, and his flight engendering pride, which, we are told, the through the choirs of angels, is finely imadevil endeavoured to instil into her. Of gined. As Milton every where fills his this kind is that part of it where she fancies poem with circumstances that are marvelherself awakened by Adam in the following lous and astonishing, he describes the gate beautiful lines: of heaven as framed after such a manner'Why sleep'st thou, Eve? Now is the pleasant time, that it opened of itself upon the approach The cool, the silent, save where silence yields of the angel who was to pass through it. To the night-warbling bird, that now awake Tunes sweetest his love-labour'd song: now reigns ---- Till at the gate Full-orb'd the moon, and with more pleasing light Of heav'n arriv'd, the gate self-c pen'd wide, Shadowy sets off the face of things. In vain, On golden hinges turning, as, by work If none regard. Heav'n wakes with all his eyes, Divine, the sovereign Architect had fram'd. Whom to behold but thee, nature's desire; In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment, The poet here seems to have regarded Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.' two or three passages in the 18th Iliad, as An injudicious poet would have made that in particular where, speaking of VulAdam talk through the whole work in such can, Homer says that he had made twenty sentiments as these: but flattery and false- tripods running on golden wheels; which, hood are not the courtship of Milton's upon occasion, might go of themselves to Adam, and could not be heard by Eve in the assembly of the gods, and, when there her state of innocence, excepting only in a was no more use for them, return again dream produced on purpose to taint her after the same manner. Scaliger has ralimagination. Other vain sentiments of the lied Homer very severely upon this point, same kind, in this relation of her dream, as M. Dacier has endeavoured to defend it. will be obvious to every reader. Though I will not pretend to determine whether, in the catastrophe of the poem is finely pre- this particular of Homer, the marvellous No. 32. j I'HE SPECTATOR. 2 does not lose sight of'the probable. As the with the figure of Eve ministering at himiraculous workmanship of Milton's gates table; are circumstances which deserve to is not so extraordinary as this of the tripods, be admired. so I am persuaded he would not have men- Raphael's behaviour is every way slittioned it, had he not been supported in it able to the dignity of his nature, and to that by a passage in the Scripture which speaks character of a sociable spirit with which of wheels in heaven that had life in them, the author has so judiciously introduced and moved of themselves, or stood still, in him. He had received instructions to con conformity with the cherubims, whom they verse with Adam, as one friend converses accompanied. with another, and to warn him of the eneThere is no question but Milton had this my, who was contriving his destruction: circumstance in his thoughts; because in accordingly, he is represented as sitting the following book he describes the cha- down at table with Adam, and eating of riot of the Messiah with living wheels, ac- the fruits of Paradise. The occasion nacording to the plan in Ezekiel's vision: turally leads him to his discourse on the Forth rush'd with whirlwind sound food of angels. After having thus entered The chariot of paternal Deity, into conversation with man upon more in Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel undrawn, different subjects, he warns him of his obe Itself instinct with spirit. dience, and makes a natural transition t( I question not but Bossu, and the two the history of that angel who was employed Daciers, who are for vindicating every in the circumvention of our first parents. thing that is censured in Homer, by some- Had I followed Monsieur Bossu's method thing parallel in holy writ, would have in my first paper on Milton, I should have been very well pleased had they thought of dated the action of Paradise Lost from the confronting Vulcan's tripods with Ezekiel's beginning of Raphael's speech in this book, wheels. as he supposes the action of the /Eneid to Raphael's descent to the earth, with the begin in the second book of that poem. I figure of his person, is represented in very could allege many reasons for my drawing lively colours. Several of the French, the action of the iEneid rather from its imItalian, and English poets, have given a mediate beginning in the first book, than loose to their imaginations in the description from its remote beginning in the second; of angels; but I do not remember to have and show why I have considered the sackmet with any so finely drawn, and so con- ing of Troy as an episode, according to the formable to the notions which are given of common acceptation of that word. But as them in Scripture, as this in Milton. After this would be a dry unentertaining piece having set him forth in all his heavenly of criticism, and perhaps unnecessary to plumage, and represented him as alighted those who have read my first paper, I shall upon the earth, the poet concludes his de- not enlarge upon it. Whichsoever of the scription with a circumstance which is alto- notions be true, the unity of Milton's acgether new, and imagined with the greatest tion is preserved according to either of strength of fancy, them; whether we consider the fall of man in its immediate beginning, as proceeding ~-Like MPaia'S son he stood, from the resolutions taken in the infernal And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fil'd resolutions taen in the inernal The circuit wide — council, or, in its more remote beginning, as Raphael's reception of the guardian an- proceeding from the first revolt of the anRaphael's reception of the guardian an- gels in heaven. The occasion which Milgels, his passing through the wilderness of gels In heaven The occasion which Milswgeetls, his disntg app t Aldas ton assigns for this revolt, as it is founded sweets, his distant appearance to Adam, on hints in holy writ, and on the opinion of have all the graces tht poetrwa is capable some great writers, so it was the most proof bestowing. The author afterwards gives per that the poet could have made use of. us a particular description of Eve in her er that the poet could have madesribed with domestic employments: The revolt in heaven is described with domestic employments: great force of imagination, and a fine variety So saying, withdespatchful looks in haste of circumstances. The learned reader She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent, cannot but be pleased with the poet's imiWhat choice to choose for delicacy best, What order, so contriv'd, as not to mix tation of Homer in the last of the following Tastes, not well join'd, inelegant, but bring lines: Taste after taste, upheld with kindliest change; Bestirs her then, &c. At length into the limits of the north They came, and Satan took his royal seat Though in this, and other parts of the High on a hill, far blazing, as a mount same book, the subject is only the house- Rais'd on a mount, with pyramids and tow'rs owi nf our first parent, it is set off with en From diamond quarries hewn, and rocks of gold wifery of our first parent, it is set off with so palace of gratLucifer, (so call many pleasing images and strong expres- That structure in the dialect of men sions, as make it none of the least agreeable Interpreted.)parts in this divine work. Homer mentions persons and things, The natural majesty of Adam, and, at which, he tells us, in the language of the the same time, his submissive behaviour to gods are called by different names from the superior being who had vouchsafed to those they go by in the language of men. be his guest; the solemn'hail' which the Milton has imitated him with his usual angel bestows upon the mother of mankind, judgment in this particular place, wherein 24 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 328. he has likewise the authority of scripture make no question, you wi1 come over to to justify him. The part of Abdiel, who mine. You are not to imagine I find fault was the only spirit that in this infinite host that she either possesses or takes delight in of angels preserved his allegiance to his the exercises of those qualifications I just Maker, exhibits to us a noble moral of re- now mentioned; it is the immoderate fondligious singularity. The zeal of the sera- ness she has to them that I lament, and phim breaks forth in a becoming warmth that what is only designed for the innocent of sentiments and expressions, as the cha- amusement and recreation of life is become racter which is given us of him denotes the whole business and study of hers. The that generous scorn and intrepidity which six months we are in town, (for the year is attends heroic virtue. The author doubt- equally divided between that and the counless designed it as a pattern to those who try,) from almost break of day till noon, live among mankind in their present state the whole morning is laid out in practising of degeneracy and corruption: with her several masters; and to make up the losses occasioned by her absence in So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found eve h w k the at Among the faithless, faithful only he; summer, every day in the week their atAmong innumerable false, unmov'd, tendance is required; and, as they are all Unshaken, unseduc'd unterrify'd; people eminent in their professions, their His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal: skill and time must be recompensed acNor number nor example with him wrought To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, cordingly. So, how far these articles exThough single. From amidst them forth he pass'd, tend, I leave you to judge. Limning, one Long way thro' hostile scorn, which he sustain'd would think, is no expensive diversion; but, Superior, nor of violence fear'd aught; And with retorted scorn his back he turn'd as she rhanages the matter, it is a very conOn those proud tow'rs to swift destruction doom'd. siderable addition to her disbursements; L. which you will easily believe, when you know she paints fans for all her female acquaintance, and draws all her relations' No. 328.] Monday, March 17, 1711-12. pictures, in miniature: the first must be mounted by nobody but Colmar, and the haNuych eas andrnielintotih. Ed.u x hatfollows stimuch orse than the Itor. Epod. xvii. 24. other set by nobody but Charles Mather. * Day chases night, and night the day, D~ay chases niglit and night the day, What follows is still much worse than the But no relief to me convey. Duncombe. former; for, as I told you, she is a great artist at her needle, it is incredible what'MR. SPECTATOR,-As I believe that sums she expends in embroidery; for, bethis is the first complaint tlat ever was sides what is appropriated to her personal made to you of this nature, so you are the use as mantuas, petticoats, stomachers, first person I ever could prevail upon my- handkerchiefs, purses, pin-cushions, and self to lay it before. When I tell you I working aprons, she keeps four French have a healthy, vigorous constitution, a protestants continually employed in mak plentiful estate, no inordinate desires, and ing divers pieces of superfluous furniture, am married to a virtuous lovely woman, as quilts, toilets, hangings for closets, beds, who neither wants wit nor good-nature, and window-curtains, easy chairs, and tabouby whom I have a numerous offspring to rets: nor have I any hopes of ever reclaimperpetuate my family, you will naturally ng her from this extravagance, while she conclude e a happy man. But notwith- obstinately persists in thinking it a notable standing these promising appearances, I piece of good housewifery, because they am so far fiom it, that the prospect of being are made at home, and she has had some ruined and undone by a sort of extrava- share in the performance. There would gance, which of late years is in a less de- benoendofrelatingto you the particularsof gree crept into every fashionable family, the annual charge, in furnishing her storedeprives me of all the comforts of my lite, room with a profusion of pickles and preand renders me the most anxious, misera- serves; for she is not contented with having ble man on earth. My wife, who was the every thing, unless it be done every way, only child and darling care of an indulgent in which she consults an hereditary book mother, employed her early years in learn- of receipts: for her female ancestors have ing all those accomplishments we generally been always famed for good house-wifery, understand by good breeding and polite one of whom is made immortal by giving education. She sings, dances, plays on the her name to an eye-water, and two sorts of lute, and harpsichord, paints prettily, is a puddingrs I cannot undertake to recites all perfect mistress of the French tongue, her medicinal preparations, as salves, sere and has made a considerable progress in cloths, powders, confects, cordials, ratafia, Italian. She is besides excellently skilled n persico, orange-flower, and cherry-brandy, all domestic sciences, as preserving, pick- together with innumerable sorts of simple ling, pastry, making wines of fruits of our waters. But there is nothing I lay so much own growth, embroidering, and needle- to my heart as that detestable catalogue of works of every kind. Hitherto, you will counterfeit wines, which derive their names be apt to think, there is very little cause of from the fruits, herbs, or trees, of whose complaint; but suspend your opinion till I have further explained myself, and then: I * A well-known toyman in Fleet-street at.le tnme No. 328.] THE SPEC I ATOR. 23 juices they are chiefly compounded. They j readings, and the like, is what in all ages are loathsome to the taste, and pernicious persons extremely wise and learned have to the health; and as they seldom survive had in great veneration. For this reason I the year, and then are thrown away, under cannot but rejoice at the following epistle, a false pretence of frugality, I may affirm which lets us into the true author of the they stand me in more than if I entertained letter to Mrs. Margaret Clark, part of all our visitors with the best burgundy and which I did myself the honour to publish champaign. Coffee, chocolate, and green in a former paper. I must confess I do not imperial, peco, and bohea teas, seem to be naturally affect critical learning; but findtrifles; but when the proper appurtenances ing myself not so much regarded as I am of the tea-table are added, they swell the apt to flatter myself I may deserve from account higher than one would imagine. I some professed patrons of learning, I could cannot conclude without doing her justice not but do myself the justice to show I am in one article; where her frugality is so re- not a stranger to such erudition as they markable, I must not deny her the merit smile upon, if I were duly encouraged. of it; and that is in relation to her children, However, this is only to let the world see who are all confined, both boys and girls, what I could do: and shall not give my to one large room in the remotest part of reader any more of this kind, if he will forthe house, with bolts on the doors and bars give the ostentation I show at present. to the windows, under the care and tuition of an old woman, who had been dry nurse'March 13, 1711-12. to her grandmother. This is their residence'SIR,-Upon reading your paper of yesall the year round; and as they are never terday, I took the pains to look out a copy allowed to appear, she prudently thinks it I had formerly taken, and remembered to needless to be at any expense in apparel or be very like your last letter: comparing learning. Her eldest daughter to this day them, I found they were the very same; would have neither read nor wrote, if it and have, underwritten, sent you that part had not been for the butler, who, being the of it which you say was torn off. I hope son of a country attorney, has taught her you will insert it, that posterity may know such a hand as is generally used for en- it was Gabriel Bullock that made love ir grossing bills in Chancery. By this time I that natural style of which you seem to be have sufficiently tired your patience with fond. But to let you see I have other mamy domestic grievances; which I hope you nuscripts in the same way, I have sent you will agree could not well be contained in a inclosed three copies, faithfully taken by narrower compass, when you consider what my own hand from the originals, which a paradox I undertook to maintain in the were wrote by a Yorkshire gentleman of a beginning of my epistle, and which mani- good estate; to madam Mary, and an uncle festly appears to be but too melancholy a of hers, a knight very well known by the truth. And now I heartily wish the rela- most ancient gentry in that and several tion I have given of my misfortunes may other counties of Great Britain. I have be of use and benefit to the public. By the exactly followed the form and spelling. I example I have set before them, the truly have been credibly informed that Mr. Wilvirtuous wives may learn to avoid those liam Bullock, the famous comedian, is the errors which have so unhappily misled descendant of this Gabriel, who begot Mr. mine, and which are visibly these three; William Bullock's great-grandfather, on First, in mistaking the proper objects of the body of the above-mentioned Mrs. Marher esteem, and fixing her affections upon garet Clark. As neither Speed, nor Baker, such things as are only the trappings and nor Selden, take notice of it, I will not predecorations of her sex: Secondly, in not tend to be positive; but desire that the letter distinguishing what becomes the different may be reprinted, and what is here restages of life. And, lastly, the abuse and cor- covered may be in Italics. I am, sir, your ruption of some excellent qualities, which, daily reader.' if circumscribed within just bounds, would have been the blessing and prosperity of'To her I very much resplect, k 7.'s. Marher family; but by a vicious extreme, are garet Clark. like to be the bane and destruction of it.' Lovely, and oh that I could write loving, T.t Mrs. Margaret Clark, I pray you let affection excuse presumption. Having been so happy as to enjoy the sight of your sweet No. 328.*] Monday, March 17, 1711-12. countenance and comely body sometimes Delectata illa urbanitate tam stulta. when I had occasion to buy treacle or liPetron. irb. quorish powder at the apothecary's shop, Delighted with unaffected plainness. I am so enamoured with you, that I can no THAT useful part of learning which con- more keep close my flaming desire to besists in emendations, knowledge of different come your servant. And I am the more bold- now to write to your sweet self, bet The above Paper was very early substituted for cause I am now my own man, and may the one now immediately following, which latter is match where I please; for my father i here reprinted from the original folio, numbered, as at lSrst, 328.* taken awav; and now I am come to my VOL. IL. 4 26 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 329. living, whi:h is ten yard land, and a house;' This is for madam mary norton disforth and there is never a yard land* in our field Lady she went to York. out is as well worth ten pounds a year as a Madam Mary thief's worth a halter; and all my brothers i hope you are well. Dloving set loady, and sisters are provided for: besides, I have for theyo a wil ell. Do no o th o londo good household stuff, though I say it, both heed not Mrs. Luy what she saith to you, brass and pewter, linens and woollens; for she will ly and ceat you. go from to and though my house be thatched, yet if anothe wll lya and weat you. go om wto you and I match, it shall go hard but I will another place, and will gate wed so ith have one half of it slated. If you shall speed. mind what i write to you, for if have one half of it slated. If you shall they gate you to london they will keep you think well of this motion, I will wait upon there; and so let us gatey w ed, ad we il you as soon as my new clothes arezmade, thee; an so iet u go to lodo, and wue wi and hay-harvest is in., I could, thhuE I say both go. so if you go to london, you rueing and hay-harvest is in. I could, though I say yourself. so heed not what none of them it, have good matches in our town; but my saith to youlf. so heed not what none of them i th tow you ne; gate wod, and wmy s halh mother (God's peace be with her,) charged lie to you let us gate will do and we shall me uplon her death-bed to gader any time. i will do any thing woman, one who had been well trained up you to my poore. i hope the devil will in the sowing and cookery. I do not think faile them all, for a hellish company there but t ~hat if you and I can agreetomarry, Ibe. fronm there cursed trick and mischiefus but that f you and Icatn aegree to marry, ways good lord bless and deliver both you and lay our means together, 1 shall be made and me. grand jury-man ere two or three years come' I think to be at York the 24 day.' about, and that will be a great credit to us. If I could have got a messenger for six-' This is for madam mary norton to go to pence, I would have sent one on purpose, london for a lady that belongs to dishforth. and some trfle or other for a token of my' Madam Mary, i hope you are well. i am love: but I hope there is nothing lost for soary that you went away from York. deare that neither. So, hoping you will take this loving sweet lady, i writ to let you know letter in good part, and answer it with what that i do remain faithfull; and if can let care and speed you can, Irest and remain, me know where i can meet you, i will wed youlrs, if ay own, you, and i will do any thing to my poor; si'Mr. t GABRIEL BULLOCK, m for you are a good woman, and will be a' now my father is dead. loving misteris. i am in trouble for you, so'Swepston, Leicestershire. if you will come to york i will wed you. so with speed conie, and i will have none but When the coal carts come, I shall send you. so, sweet love, heed not what to say oftener; and may come in one of them my- to me, and with speed come; heed not self.'t what none of them say to you; your Maid makes you believe ought.'For sir W'lliam to go to london at west-'So deare love think of Mr. george Nillminster remember a parlement. son with speed; i sent 2 or 3 letters before.',-William, i hope that you are I gave misteris elcock some nots, and c SIR,-Willam, t i c hope bthat yiou are thay put me in pruson all the night for me well. i write to let you know that i am in pains, and non new whear I was, and i did troubel about a lady your nease; and i do gat cold. desire that you will be my friend: for when'But it is for mrs. Lucy to go a good way i did com to see her at your hall, i was from home, for in york and round about she mighty Abuesed. i would fain a see you at is known; to writ any more her deeds, the topecliff, and thay would not let me go same will tell her soul is black within, hei to you; but i desire that you will be our corkis stinks of hell. March 19th, 1706.' nor she, for God did make us all. i wish that i might see you, for thay say that you No. 329.] Tuesday, March 18, 1711-12. are a good man; and many doth wounder at it, but madam norton is abuesMd and Ire tamen restat, Nuino qua devenit et Ancus. at SeNit, but madam norton is abuesed and1 w or. Ep. vi. Lib. 1. 27. ceated two i believe. i might a had many a lady, but i con have none but her with a We mAnust descend into the Numa, kings of Rome, good consons, for there is a God that know our hearts. if you and madam norton will MY friend Sir Roger de Coverley told come to York, there i shill meet you if God me t'other night, that he had been readbe willing and if you be pleased. so be not ing my paper upon Westminster-abbey, in angterie till you know the trutes of things. which, says he, there are a great many in-'I give my to me lady genious fancies. He told me at the same' George Nelson. and to Mr. Aysenby, t In the original folio edition of the Spectator, the and to madam norton, following letter is added to No. 330; it is given here as March the 19th, 1706.' evidently relating to this paper, which, as already observed, was suppressed soon after its first publication. See 328.* " In some counties 20, in some 24, and in others 30' March 18, 1711-12. acres of land. Virgata Terra."' IR. SPECTATOR,-Thp ostentation you showed yes t See No. 324, and note. terday [March 17] would have been pardonable, had iNo. 329.J THE SPECTATOR. 27 time, that he observed I had promised an- honest man, and went in without further other paper upon the tombs, and that he ceremony. should be glad to go and see them with me, We had not gone far, when Sir Roger not having visited them since he had read popping out his head, called the coachman history. I could not imagine how this came down from his box, and, upon presenting into the knight's head, till I recollected himself at the window, asked him if he that he had been very busy all last sum- smoked. As I was considering what this mer upon Baker's Chronicle, which he has would end in, he bid him stop by the way quoted several times in his disputes with at any good tobacconist's, and take in a roll Sir Andrew Freeport since his last coming of their best Virginia. Nothing material to t,:wn. Accordingly I promised to call happened in the remaining part of our upon him the next morning, that we might journey, till we were set down at the west go together to the abbey. end of the abbey. I found the knight under his butler's As we wentup the body of the church, the hands, who always shaves him. He was no knight pointed at the trophies upon one of sooner dressed, than he called for a glass the new monuments, and cried out,' A of the widow Truby's water, which he brave man, I warrant him!' Passing aftertold me he always drank before he went wards by Sir Cloudesly Shovel, he flung abroad. He recommended to me a dram of his hand that way, and cried, " Sir Cloudesit at the same time, with so much hearti- ly Shovel! a very gallant man.' As we ness, that I could not forbear drinking it. stood before Busby's tdmb, the knight utAs' soon as I had got it down, I found it tered himself again after the same manner: very unpalatable; upon which the knight,' Dr. Busby: a great man: he whipped my observing that I had made several wry grandfather; a very great man, I should faces, told me that he knew I should not have gone to him myself, if I had not been like it at first, but that it was the best a blockhead: a very great man!' thing in the world against the stone or We were immediately conducted into gravel. the little chapel on the right hand. Sir I could have wished indeed that he had Roger, planting himself at our historian's acquainted me with the virtues of it sooner; elbow, was very attentive to every thing but it was too late to complain, and I knew he said, particularly to the account he gave what he had done was out of good will. Sir us of the lord who had cut off the king of Roger told me further, that he looked upon Morocco's head. Among several other it to be very good for a man whilst he staid figures, he was very well pleased to see the in town, to keep off infection, and that he statesman Cecil upon his knees; and congot together a quantity (,f it upon the first cluding them all to be great men, was connews of the sickness being at Dantzick: ducted to the figure which represents that when of a sudden turning short to one of his martyr to good housewifery who died by servants, who stood behind him, he bid the prick of a needle. Upon our interpre Aim call a hackney-coach, and take care it ter's telling us that she was a maid of ho was an elderly man that drove it. nour to queen Elizabeth, the knight was He then resumed the discourse upon very inquisitive into her name and family; Mrs. Truby's water, telling me that the and, after having regarded her finger for widow Truby was one who did more good some time,' I wonder,' says he,' that Sir than all the doctors and apothecaries in the Richard Baker has said nothing of her in country; that she distilled every poppy his Chronicle.' that grew within five miles of her; that We were then conveyed to the two coro&he distributed her water gratis among all nation chairs, where my old friend, after sorts of people: to which the knight added having heard that the stone underneath the that she had a very great jointure, and that most ancient of them, which was brought the whole country would fain have it a from Scotland, was called Jacob's pillar, match between him and her;' and truly,' sat himself down in the chair, and, looking says Sir Roger,' if I had not been engaged, like the figure of an old Gothic king, asked perhaps I could not have done better.' our interpreter, what authority they had to His discourse was broken off by his man's say that Jacob had ever been in Scotland? telling him he had called a coach. Upon The fellow instead of returning him an an our going to it, after having cast his eye swer, told him, that he hoped his honour upon the wheels, he asked the coachman would pay his forfeit. I could observe Sir if his axle-tree was good: upon the fellow's Roger a little ruffled upon being thus tretelling him he would warrant it, the knight panned; but our guide not insisting upon turned to me, told me he looked like an his demand, the knight soon recovered his good humour, and whispered in my ear, you provided better for the two extremities of your that if Will Wimble were with us and saw paper, and placed in the one the letter R. in the other, those two chairs, it would go hard but he JMescio quid meditans nugarum et totus in illis. ld get a tobacco stopper out of one or A word to the wise. I am your most humble servant. t'other of them. T. TRASH. Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his According to theemendation of the abovecorrespon- hard on Edward the Third's sword, dent, the reader is desired, in the paper of the 17th, to hand upon Edward the Third's sword, read R for T.' and, leaning upon the pummel of it, gave 28 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 330. us the whole history of the Black Prince; plentiful. I cannot make myself better un concluding, that, in Sir Richard Baker's derstood, than by sending you a history of opinion, Edward the Third was one of the myself, which I shall desire you to insert in greatest princes that ever sat upon the your paper, it being the only way I have of English throne. expressing my gratitude for the highest obWe were then shown Edward the Con- ligations imaginable. fessor's tomb: upon which Sir Roger ac-' I am the son of a merchant of the city of quainted us, that he was the first who London, who, by many losses, was reduced touched for the evil: and afterwards Henry from a very luxuriant trade and credit to the Fourth's; upon which he shook his very narrow circumstances, in comparison head, and told us there was fine reading to that of his former abundance. This took in the casualties of that reign. away the vigour of his mind, and all manner Our conductor then pointed to that monu- of attention to a fortune which he now ment where there is the figure of one of our thought desperate; insomuch that he died English kings without a head; and upon without a will, having before buried my giving us to know, that the head, which mother, in the midst of his other misforwas of beaten silver, had been stolen away tunes. I was sixteen years of age when I several years since:' Some Whig, I'll war- lost my father; and an estate of 2001. a year rant you,' says Sir Roger;'you ought to came into my possession, without friend or lock up your kings better; they will carry guardian to instruct me in the management off the body too, if you don't take care.' or enjoyment of it. The natural conseThe glorious names of Henry the Fifth quence of this was (though I wanted no and queen Elizabeth gave the knight great director, and soon had fellows who found opportunities of shining, and of doing justice me out for a smart young gentleman, and to Sir Richard Baker, who, as our knight led me into all the debaucheries of which I observed with some surprise, had a great was capable,) that my companions and I many kings in him, whose monuments he could not well be supplied without running had not seen in the abbey. in debt, which I did very frankly, till I was For my own part, I could not but be arrested, and conveyed, with a guard strong pleased to see the knight show such an ho- enough for the most desperate assassin, to a nest passion for the glory of his country, and bailiff's house, where I lay four days, sursuch a respectful gratitude to the memory rounded with very merry, but not very of its princes, agreeable company. As soon as I had exI must not omit, that the benevolence of tricated myself from that shameful confinemy good old friend, which flows out towards ment, I reflected upon it with so much horevery one he converses with, made him very ror, that I deserted all my old acquaintance, kind to our interpreter, whom he looked and took chambers in an inn of court, with upon as an extraordinary man: for which a resolution to study the law with all possireason he shook him by the hand at parting, ble application. I trifled away a whole year telling him, that he should be very glad to in looking over a thousand intricacies, withsee him at his lodgings in Norfolk-buildings, out a friend to apply to in any case of doubt; and talk over these matters with him more so that I only lived there among men, as little at leisure. L. children are sent to school before they are capable of improvement, only to be out of harm's way. In the midst of this state of No. 330.] W7ednesday, March 19, 1711-12. suspense, not knowing how to dispose of myself, I was sought for by a relation of mine, Maxima debetur pueris reverentia- who, upon observing a good inclination in Juv. Sat. xiv. 47. me, used me with great familiarity, and carTo youth the greatest reverence is due. ried me to his seat in the country. When I THE following letters, written by two came there, he introduced me to all the very considerate correspondents, both under good company in the county; and the great twenty years of age, are very good argu- obligation I have to him for this kind notice, tw~e, are very $ood argu- and residence with him ever since, has made ments of the necessity of taking into consi-and residence withhimeversincehasmade *deration the many incidents which affect so strong an impression upon me, that he has the education of youth. an authority of a father over me, founded upon the love of a brother. I have a good' SIR-I have long expected that, in the study of books, a good stable of horses, course of your observations upon the several always at my command; and though I am parts of human life, you would one time or not now quite eighteen years of age, familiar other fall upon a subject, which, since you converse on his part, and a strong inclination have not, I take the liberty to recommend to exert myself on mine, have had an effect to you. What I mean is, the patronage of upon me that makes me acceptable wheryoung modest men to such as are able to everI go. T'hus, Mr. Spectator, by this countenance and introduce them into the gentleman's favour and patronage, it is my world. For want of such assistances, a youth own fault if I am not wiser and richer every of merit languishes in obscurity or poverty day I live. I speak this, as well by subwhen his circumstances are low, and runs scribing the initial letters of my name to into riot and excess when his fortunes are thank him, as to incite others to an imitation No. 331.] THE SPECTATOR. 29 of his virtue. It would be a worthy work My father's carriage so discourages me, that to show what great charities are to be done he makes me grow dull and melancholy. without expense, and how many noble ac- My master wonders what is the matter with tions are lost, out of inadvertency, in persons with me; I am afraid to tell him; for he is capable of performing them, if they were a man that loves to encourage learning, and put in mind of it. If a gentleman of figure would be apt to chide my father, and, not in a county would make his family a pattern knowing his temper, may make him worse. of sobriety, good sense, and breeding, and Sir, if you have any love'for learning, I beg would kindly endeavourto influence the edu- you would give me some instructions in this cation and growing prospect of the younger case, and persuade parents to encourage gentry about him, I am apt to believe it their children When they find them diligent would save him a great deal of stale beer on and desirous of learning. I have heard some a public occasion, and render him the leader parents say, they would do any thing for of his county from their gratitude to him, their children, if they would but mind their instead of being a slave to their riots and learning: I would be glad to be intheir place. tumults in order to be made their representa- Dear sir, pardon my boldness. If you will tive. The same thing might be recom- but consider and pity my case, I will pray mended to all who have made any progress for your prosperity as long as I live. Your in any parts of knowledge, or arrived at any humble servant, degree in a profession Others may gain'JAMES DISCIPULUS. preferments and fortunes from their patrons;'London, March 2, 1711.' T. but I have, I hope, received from mine good habits and virtues. I repeat to you, sir, my request to print this, in return for all the N6. 331.] Thursday, March 20, 1711-12. evil a helpless orphan shall ever escape, - _ and all the good he shall receive in this life; Stolidam probet tibi vellere aa.. both which are wholly owingto this gentle- Holds out his foolish beard for thee to pluck. man's favour to, sir, your most obedient servant, S. P.' WHEN I was last with my friend Sir Roger in Westminster-abbey, I observed'MR. SPECTATOR-I am a lad of about that he stood longer than ordinary before fourteen. I find a mighty pleasure in learn- the bust of a venerable old man. I was at a ing. I have been at the Latin school four loss to guess the reason of it; when, after years. I don't know I ever played truant, some time, he pointed to the figure, and askor neglected any task my master set me in ed me if I did not think that our forefathers my life. I think on what I read in the school looked much wiser in their beards than we as I go home at noon and night, and so in- do without them?' For my part,' says he, tently, that I have often gone half a mile out' when I am walking in my gallery in the of my way, not minding whither I went. country, and see my ancestors, who many ol Our maid tells me she often hears me talk them died before they were of my age, I Latin in my sleep, and I dream two or three cannot forbear regarding them as so many nights in a week I am reading Juvenal and old patriarchs, and at the same time, lookHomer. My master seems as well pleased ing upon myself as an idle smock-faced with my performances as any boy's in the young fellow. I love to see your Abrahams, same class. I think, if I know my own your Isaacs, and your Jacobs, as we have mind, I would choose rather to be a scholar them in old pieces of tapestry, with beards than a prince without learning. I have a below thgir girdles, that cover half the very good, affectionate father; but though hangings. The knight added,'if I would very rich, yet so mighty near, that he thinks recommend beards in one of my papers, and much of the charges of my education. He endeavour to restore human faces to their often tells me he believes my schooling will ancient dignity, that, upon a month's warnruin him; that I cost him God knows what, ing he would undertake to lead up the in books. I tremble to tell him I want one. fashion himself in a pair of whiskers.' I am forced to keep my pocket-money, and I smiled at my friend's fancy; but, after lay it out. for a book now and then, that he we parted, could not forbear reflecting on don't know of. He has ordered my master the metamorphosis our faces have undergone to buy no more books for me, but says he in this particular. will buy them himself. I asked him for The beard, conformable to the notion of Horace t'other day, and he told me in a my friend Sir Roger, was for many ages passion he did not believe I was fit for it, looked upon as the type of wisdum. Lucian but only my master had a mind to make more than once rallies the philosophers of him think I had got a great way in my learn- his time, who endeavoured to rival one an ing. I am sometimes a month behind other other in beards; and represents a learned boys in getting the books my master gives man who stood for a professorship in philoorders for. All the boys in the school, but sophy, as unqualified for it by the shortness I, have the classic authors in usum Delpihini, of his beard. gilt and lettered on the back. My father is JElian, in his account of Zoilus, the preoften reckoning up how long I have been at tended critic, who wrote against Homer and school, and tells me he fears I do little good. Plato, and thought himself wiser than all 30 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 332. who had gone before him, tells us that this tinct treatise, which I keep by me in manuZoilus had a very long beard that hung down script, upon the mustache. upon his breast, but no hair upon his head, If my friend Sir Roger's project of introwhich he always kept close shaved, regard- ducing beards should take effect, I fear the ing, it seems, the hairs of his head as so luxury of the present age would make it a many suckers, which if they had been suf- very expensive fashion. There is no quesfered to grow, might have drawn away the tion but the beaux would soon provide themnourishment from his chin, and by that selves with false ones of the lightest colours means have starved his beard. and the most immoderate lengths. A fair I have read somewhere, that one of the beard of the tapestry size, which Sir Roger popes refused to accept an eAition of a saint's seems to approve, could not come undei works, which were presented to him, be- twenty guineas. The famous golden beard cause the saint, in his effigies before the of IEsculapius would hardly be more valuabook, was drawn without a beard. ble than one made in the extravagance of We see by these instances what homage the fashion. the world has formerly paid to beards; and Besides, we are not certain that the ladies that a barber was not then allowed to make would not come into the mode, when they those depredations on the faces of the learn- take the air on horseback. They already ed, which have been permitted him of late appear in hats and feathers, coats and periyears. wigs; and I see no reason why we may not Accordingly several wise nations have suppose that they would have their ridingbeen so extremely jealous of the least ruffle beards on the same occasion. offered to their beards, that they. seem to N. B. I may give the moral of this dishave fixed the point of honour principally course in another paper. X. in that part. The Spaniards were wonderfully tender in this particular. Don Quevedo, in his third vision on the last judgment, has carried the humour very far, when he No. 332.] Friday, March 21, 1712. tells us that one of his vainglorious country- — Minus aptus acutis men, after having received sentence, was Naribus horum hominum-Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 1. 29. taken into custody by a couple of evil spirits; He cannot bear the raillery of the age. Creech. but that his guides happening to disorder his mustaches, they were forced to recompose'DEAR SHORT FACE,-In your speculathem with a pair of curling-irons, before tion of Wednesday last, you have given us they could get him to file off. some account of that worthy society of If we look into the history of our own na- brutes the Mohocks, wherein you have partion, we shall find that the beard flourished ticularly specified;he ingenious performin the Saxon heptarchy, but was very much ances of the lion-tippers, the dancing-masdiscouraged under the Norman line. It shot ters, and the tumblers; but as you acknowout, however, from time to time, in several ledged you had not then a perfect history of reigns under different shapes. The last ef- the whole club, you might very easily omit fort it made seems to have been in queen one of the most notable species of it, the Mary's days, as the curious reader may find sweaters, which may be reckoned a sort of if he pleases to peruse the figures of Cardinal dancing-masters too. It is, it seems, the Pole and Bishop Gardiner: though, at the custom for half a dozen, or more, of these same time, I think it may be questioned if well-disposed savages, as soon as they have zeal against popery has not induced our pro- enclosed the person upon whom they design testant painters to extend thebeards of these the favour of a sweat, to whip out their two persecutors beyond their naturaldimen- swords, and holding them parallel to the sions, in order to make them appear the horizon, they describe a sort of magic circle more terrible. round about him with the points. As soon I find but few beards worth taking notice as this piece of conjuration is performed, of in the reign of King James the first. and the patient without doubt already beDuring the civil wars there appeared one, ginning to wax warm, to forward the operawhich makes too great a figure in story to be tion, that member of the circle towards passed over in silence: I mean that of the whom he is so rude as to turn his back first, redoubted Hudibras, an account of which runs his sword directly into that part of the Butler has transmitted to posterity in the patient whereon school-boys are punished; following lines: and as it is very natural to imagine this will soon make him tack about to some other Both of his wisdom and his face; point, every gentleman does himself the In cut and dye so like a tile, same justice as often as he receives the afA sudden view it would beguile; front. After this jig has gone two or three The upper part thereof was whey, times round, and the patient is thought to have sweat sufficiently, he is very handThe whisker continued for some time somely rubbed down by some attendants, among us after the expiration of beards; but who carry with them instruments for that this is a subject which I shall not here enter purpose, and so discharged. This relation tipon, having disc'zssed it at large in a dis- I had from a friend of mine, who has lately No. 333.] THE SPECTATOR. 31 been under this cscipline. lie tells me he being in a great doubt about the orthograhadthe honour to dance before the emperor phy of the word bagnio. I consulted sevehimself, not without the applause and ac- ral dictionaries, but found no relief: at last clamations both of his imperial majesty and having recourse both to the bagnio in Newthe whole ring; though I dare say, neither gate street, and to that in Chancery-lane, I, nor any of his acquaintance, ever dreamt and firxing the original manuscripts upon he would have merited any reputation by the sigp-posts of each to agree literally with his activity. my own spelling, I returned home full of'I Ican assure you, Mr. Spectator, I was satisfaction in ordertodespatch this epistle.' very near being qualified to have given you a faithful and painful account of this'MR. SPECTATOR —AS yOU have taken walking bagnio, if I may so call it, myself. most of the circumstances of human life into Going the other night along Fleet-street, your consideration, we the underwritten and having, out of curiosity, just entered thought it nt improper for us also to reinto discourse with a wandering female who present to you our condition. We are three was travelling the same way, a couple of ladies who live in the country, and the fellows advanced towards us, drew their greatest improvement we make is by readswords, and cried out to each other, "A ing. Wehavetaken a smalljournalofour sweat! a sweat!" Whereon, suspecting lives, and find it extremely opposite to your they were some of the ring-leaders of the last Tuesday's speculation. We rise by bagnio, I also drew my sword, and demand- seven, and pass the beginning of each day ed a parley; but finding none would be in devotion, and looking into those affairs granted me, and perceiving others behind that fall within the occurrences of a retired granted me, and perceiving others behind life; in the afternoon we sometimes enjoy them filing off with great diligence to take life; in the afteoon we sometimes enjoy me in flank, I began to sweat forfearof be- the good company of some friend or neighing forced to it: but very luckily betaking bour, or else work or read: at night we remyself to a pair of heels, which I had good tire to our chambers, and take leave of each reason to believe would do me justice, I in- otherfor the wholenight at ten o'clock. We stantly got possession of a very snu corner take particular care never to be sick of a stantly. got possession of a very snug corner Sunday. Mr. Spectator, we are all very good in a neighbouring alley that lay in my rear;. Mr. Specta tor, wearall vers whic which post I maintained for above half an maids, but ambitious of characters which hour with great firmness and resolution, we think more laudable, that of being very though not letting this success so far over- good wives. If any of your correspondents come me as to make me unmindful of the inquire for a spouse for an honest country circumspection that was necessary to be gentleman, whose estate is not dipped, and observed upon my advancing again towards wants a wife that can save half his revenue, the street; by which prudence and good and yet make a better figure than any of his management I made a handsome and or- neighbours of the same estate, with finer derly retreat, having suffered no other bred women, you shall have further notice damage in this action than the loss of my from, sir, your courteous readers, baggage, and the dislocation of one of my' M ARTHA BUSIE, shoe heels, which last I am just now inform-' DEBORAH THRIFTY, ed is in a fair way of recovery. These T.LIC ARLY. sweaters, by what I canlearn from my friend, and by as near a view as I was able to take of them myself, seem to me to have at pre- No. 333. ] Saturday, March 22, 1711-12. sent but a rude kind of discipline among them. It is probable, if you would take a vocatincertaminadivos.-ig. little pains with them, they might be brought e calls embattled deities to arms. into better order. But I'll leave this to your WE are now entering upon the sixth book own discretion; and will only add, that if of Paradise Lost, in which the poet deyou think it worth while to insert this by scribes the battle of the angels; having way of caution to those who have a mind to raised his reader's expectation, and prepreserve their skins whole from this sort of pared him for it by several passages in the cupping, and tell them at the same time the preceding books. I omitted quoting these hazard of treating with night-walkers, you passages in my observations on the former will perhaps oblige others, as well as your books, having purposely reserved them for very humble servant, the opening of this, the subject of which'JACK LIGHTFOOT. gave occasion to them. The author's ima-'P. S. My friend will have me acquaint gination was so inflamed with this great you, that though he would not willingly de- scene of action, that wherever he speaks of tract from the merit of that extraordinary it, he rises, if possible,abovehimself. Thus, strokesman Mr. Sprightly, yet it is his real where he mentions Satan in the beginning opinion, that some of those fellows who are of his poem, employed as rubbers to this nerv-fashioned Him the almighty Power bagnio, have struck as bold strokes as ever Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky. he did in his life. With hideous ruin and combustion, down cI had sent this four-and-twenty hours To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In adamantine chains and penal fire, sooner, if I had not had the misfortune of Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. 32 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 333 We have likewise several noble hints of it days' engagement, which does not appear n the infernal conference: natural, and agreeable enough to the ideas'O prince! chief of many throned powers, most readers would concve of a fight be That led the embattled seraphim to war, tween two armies of angels. Too well I see and rue the dire event, The second day's engagement is apt to That with sad overthrow and foul defeat startle an imagination which has not been HIath lost us heav'n; and all this mighty host In horribledestruction laid thus low. raised and qualified for such a description But see! the angry victor has recall'd by the reading of the ancient poets, and of His ministers of vengeance and pursuit Homer in particular. It was certainly a Back to the gates of heav'n. The sulphurous hai Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid very bold thought in our author, to ascribe The fiery surge, that from the precipice the first use of artillery to the rebel angels. Ofheav'n received us falling; and the thunder, But as such a pernicious invention may be Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage, well suosed to have from such Perhaps has spent his shafts, and ceases now well supposed to have proceeded from such To bellow through the vast and boundless deep. authors, so it enters very properly into the There are several ot~her very sublime thoughts of that being, who is all along deThere are sev e ral other very sublime scribed as aspiring to the majesty of his imaes on the same subject inthefirstbook, Maker. Such enines were the only instruas also in the second: ments he could have made use of to imitate'What when we fled amain, pursued and struck those thunders, that in all poetry, both saWith heav'n's afflicting thunder, and besought cred and profane, are represented ath The deep to shelter us; this hell then seem'd a P ane,are represente as the A refuge from those wounds- arms of the Almighty. The tearing up the In short, the poet never mentions any hills was not altogether so daring a thought thing of this battle, but in such images of as the former. We are, in some measure, rthing e ts battle, but in su images to te prepared for such an incident by the degreatness and terror as are suitable to the scription of the giants' war, which we meet subject. Among several others I cannot swi th mon e ancient poets.'h at still forbear quoting that passage where the made this circumstthe ance the more p roperWhat still Power, who is described as presiding over Power, who is dlescribed as presiding over for the poet's use, is the opinion of many the chaos, speaks in the second book: the poets use, is the opinion of man the chaos, speaks in the second book: learned men, that the fable of the giants' Thus Satan; and him thus the'Anarch old, war, which makes as great a noise in anWith fault'ring speech and visage incompos'd, Answer'd: "I know thee, stranger, who thou art, That mighty leading angel, who of late description in Hesiod's works, was an alleMade head against heav'n's King, though overthrown gory founded upon this very tradition of a I saw and heard; for such a numerous host fiht w n h oo an a an Fled not in silence through the frighted deepetween e g an nge With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, It may, perhaps, be worth while to conConfusion worse confounded; and heaven's gates sider with what judgment Milton, in this Pour'd out by millions her victorious bands narration, has avoided every thing that is ^^^~Pursuing ~mean and trivial in the description of the It required great pregnancy of invention, Latin and Greek poets; and at the same and strength of imagination, to fill this bat- time improved every great hint which he tle with such circumstances as should raise met with in their works upon this subject and astonish the mind of the reader; and at Homer, in that passage which Longinus has the same time an exactness of judgment, to celebrated for its sublimeness, and which avoid every thing that might appear light Virgil and Ovid have copied after him, tells or trivial. Those who look into Homer us, that the giants threw Ossa upon Olymare surprised to find his battles still rising pus, and Pelion upon Ossa. He adds an one above another, and improving in horror epithet to Pelion (s voosTrxuov) which very to the conclusion of the Iliad. Milton's fight much swells the idea, by bringing up to the of angels is wrought up with the same beau- reader's imagination all the woods that grew ty. It is ushered in with such signs of wrath upon it. There is further a greater beauty as are suitable to Omnipotence incensed, in his singling out by names these three reThe first engagement is carried on under a markable mountains so well known to the cope of fire, occasioned by the flights of in- Greeks. This last is such a beauty, as the numerable burning darts and arrows which scene of Milton's war could not possibly are discharged from either host. The se- furnish him with. Claudian, in his fragcond onset is still more terrible, as it is filled ment upon the giants' war, has given full with those artificial thunders, which seem scope to that wildness of imagination which to make the victory doubtful, and produce was natural to him. He tells us that the a kind of consternation even in the good an- giants tore up whole islands by the roots, gels. This is followed by the tearing up of and threw them at the gods. He describes mountains and promontories; till in the last one of them in particular taking up Lemnos place Messiah comes forth in the fulness of in his arms, and whirling it to the skies, majesty and terror. The pomp of his ap- with all Vulcan's shop in the midst of it. pearance, amidst the roarings of his thun- Another tears up mount Ida, with the river ders, the flashes of his lightnings, and the Enipeus, which ran down the sides of it; noise of his chariot wheels, is described but the poet, not content to describe him with the utmost flights of human imagina- with this mountain upon his shoulders, tells tion. us that the river flowed down his back as There is nothing in the firs, and last he held it up in that posture. It is visible No. 233,1 THE SPECTATOR. 3 to every judicious reader, that such ideas Not long divisible; and from the gash savour more of the burlesque than of the A stream of nectarous humour issuing flow'd savour more o the burlesque tSanguine, (such as celestial spirits may Aeed) sublime. They proceed from a wanton- And all his armour stain'dness of imagination, and rather divert the Homer tells us in the same manner, that mind than astonish it. Milton has taken upon Diomede's wounding the gods, there every thing that is sublime in these several flowed from the wound an ichor, or pure passages, and composes out of them the fol- kind of blood, which was not bred from lowing great image: mortal viands; and that though the pain was From their foundations loos'ning to and fro, exquisitely great, the wound soon closed up They pluck'd the.seated hills, with Ill their load, and healed in those bengswho are veste Rocks, waters, woods, and by the shaggy tops ad h d e eingw are vested Uplifting bore them in their hands. with immortality. We have the full majesty of Homer in this I question not but Milton, in his descrip short description, improved by the imagi-tion of his furious Moloch flying from the nation of Claudian, without its puerilities. battle, and beowing with the wound he I need not point out the description of the hd received, had his eye on Mars in the fallen angels seeing the promontories hang- ad; who, upon his being wounded, is re ing over their heads in such a dreadful presented as retiring out of the fight, and manner, with the other numberless beau- making an outcry louder than that of a ties in this book, which are so conspicuous, whole army when it begins the charge. hat they cannot escape the notice of the omer adds, that the Greeks and Trojans nost tordinary reader, tenicofh who were engaged in a general battle, were There are indeed so many wonderful terrified on each side with the bellowing of strokes of poetry in this book, and such a this wounded deity. The reader will easily variety of sublime ideas, that it would have observe how Milton has kept all the horror been impossible to have given them a place of this image without running into the ridi within the bounds of this paper. Besides cule of it: that I find it in a great measure done to my Where the might of Gabriel fought, hand at the end of my lord Roscommon s And with fierce ensigns pierc'd the deep array Of Moloch, furious king! who him defy'd, Essay on Translated Poetry. I shall refer And at his chariot-wheels to drag him bound my reader thither for some of the master- Threaten'd, nor from the Holy One of heav'n strokes of the sixth book of Paradise Lost, Refrain'd his tongue blasphemous: but anon s:.trokes of the sixth book of Paradise Lost, Down cloven to the waist, with shatter'd arms though at the same time there are many And uncouth pain, fled bellowingothers which that noble author has not Milton has likewise raised his description taken notice of. in this book with many images taken out of Milton, notwithstanding the sublime ge- the poetical parts of scripture. The Mes nius he was master of, has in this book the poetical parts of scripture. The Mes dusrn to h s masster of, has tiheh s book siah's chariot, as I have before taken notice, drawn to his assistance all the helps he is formed upon a vision of Ezekiel, who, as could meet with among the ancient poets. Grotius observes, has very much in him of The sword of Michael, which makes so Homer's spirit in the poetical parts of his great a havoc among the bad angels, was prophecy. given him, we are told, out of the armoury The following lines, in that glorious com-utwof God: mission which is given the Messiah to ex Of Michael from the armoury of God tirpate the host of rebel angels, is drawn Was givn him, temper'd so, that neither keen from a sublime passage in the psalms: Nor solid might resist that edge: it met Go then, thou mightiest, in thy Father's might! The sword of Satan, with steep force to smite Ascend my chariot, guide the rapid wheels Descending, and in half cut sheer — That take heav'n's basis; bring forth all my war, This passage is a copy of that in Virgil, My bow, my thunder, my almighty arms wherein the poet tells us, that the sword of Gird on, and sword on thy puissant thigh. wherein the poet tells us, that the sword of iEneas, which was given him by a deity, The reader will easily discover many 6roke into pieces the sword of Turnus, other strokes of the same nature. which came from a mortal forge. As the There is no question but Milton had moral in this place is divine, so by the way heated his imagination with the fight of the we may observe, that the bestowing on a gods in Homer, before he entered into this man who is favoured by heaven such an engagement of the angels. Homer there allegorical weapon is very conformable to gives us a scene of men, heroes, and gods, the old eastern way of thinking. Not only mixed together in battle. Mars animates Homer has made use of it, but we find the the contending armies, and lifts up his voice Jewish hero in the book of Maccabees, who in such a manner, that it is heard distinctly had fought the battles of the chosen people amidst all the shouts and confusion of the with so much glory and success, receiving fight. Jupiter at the same time thunders m his dream a sword from the hand of the over their heads; while Neptune raises prophet Jeremiah. The following passage, such a tempest, that the whole field of wherein Satan is described as wounded battle, and all the tops of the mountains, by the sword of Michael, is in imitation of shake about them. The poet tells, that Homer: Pluto himself, whose habitation was in the The griding sword with discontinuous wound very centre of the earth, was so affrighted Pass'd through him; but th' ethereal substance clos': at the shock, that he leapt from his throne. VoL. II. 5 {4 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 334. Homer afterwards describesVulcan as pour- stance) shows the ill consequence of such, ing down a storm of fire upon the river prepossessions. What I mean is the art, Xanthus, and Minerva as throwing a rock skill, accomplishment, or whatever you will at Mars; who, he tells us, covered seven call it, of dancing. I knew a gentleman of acres in his fall. great abilities, who bewailed the want of As Homer has introduced into his battle this part of his education to the end of a of the gods every thing that is great and very honourable life. He observed that terrible in nature, Milton has filled his fight there was not occasion for the common use of good and bad angels with all the like cir- of great talents; that they are but seldom in cumstances of horror. The shout of armies, demand; and that these very great talents the rattling of brazen chariots, the hurling were often rendered useless to a man for of rocks and mountains, the earthquake, want of small attainments. A good mien the fire, the thunder, are all of them em- (a becoming motion, gesture, and aspect) ployed to lift up the reader's imagination, is natural to some men; but even these and give him a suitable idea of so great an would be highly more graceful in their caraction. With what art has the poet repre- riage, if what they do from the force of nasented the whole body of the earth trem- ture were confirmed and heightened from bling, even before it was created! the force of reason. To one who has not at all considered it, to mention the force of reason All heav'n resounded; and had earth been then, considered it, to mention the force ofreason All earth had to its centre shook on such a subject will appear fantastical; In how sublime and just a manner does but when you have a little attended to it, an assembly of menwill have qute another'he afterwards describe the whole heaven assembly of men will have quite another shaking under the wheels of the Messiah's view; and they will tell you, it is evident chariot, with that exception to the throne from plain and infallible rules, why this of God! man, with those beautiful features, and a -t Under his burning wheels well-fashioned person, is not so agreeable as ~Under his burning wheels The steadfast empyrean shook throughout, he who sits by him without any of those adAll but the throne itself of God- vantages. When we read, we do it without Notwithstanding the Messiah appears any exerted act of memory that presents clothed with so much terror and majesty, the shape of the letters; but habit makes us the poet has still found means to make his do it mechanically, without staying like readers conceive an idea of him beyond children, to recollect and join those letters. what he himself is able to describe: A man who has not had the regard of his what he himself e t drbe esture is ablny part of his educ ation, will gesture in any part of his education, will Yet half his strengt he put not forth, but checkd find himself unable to act with freedom beHis thunder in mid volley; for he meant f nw onn ^ tha i t nw Not to destroy, but root them out of heaven, fore new company, as a child that is but now In a word, Milton's genius, which was so learning would be to read without hesitation, eat in itself, and so strengthened by all It is for the advancement of the pleasure great in itself, and so strengthened by all we receive in being agreeable to each other the helps of learning, appears in this book we receive in being agreeable to each other every way equal to his subject, which was in ordinary life, that one would wish dancing the most sublime that could enter into the were generally understood, as conducive, as the most sublime that could enter into the i rl i t a deportment in matthoughts of a poet. As he knew all the arts it really is, to a proper deportment in matthoughts of a poet As he knew all the arts ters that appear the most remote from it. of affecting the mind, he has given it cer-ts tt appear tend sense is distinguished A man of learning and sense is distinguished tain resting-places and opportunities of re- from others as he is such, though he never covering itself from time to time; several runs upon points too difficult for the rest of speeches, reflections, similitudes, and the the world; in like manner the reaching out like reliefs, being interspersed to diversify of the arm, and the most ordinary motion, his narration, and ease the attention of the discovers whether a man ever learnt to reader. L. discovers whether a man ever learnt to know what is the true harmony and composure of his limbs and countenance. Whoever has seen Booth in the character of No. 334.] Monday, March 24, 1711-12, Pyrrhus, march to his throne to receive Orestes, is convinced that majestic and great ~-.Voluisti, in suo genere, unumquemque nostrum conceptions are expressed in the very step; quasi quendam esse Roscium, dixistique non tam ea conction are expressd in the very step; qua rectaessent probari, quam que praaa sunt fastidiis but, perhaps, though no other man could adharescere. Cic. de Gestu. perform that incident as well as he does, he You would have each of us be a kind of Roscius in his himself would do it with a yet greater elevaway; and you have said, that fastidious men are not so tion were he a dancer. This is so dangerous a much pleased with what is right, as disgusted at what subject to treat with gravity, that I shall not is wrong. at present enter into it any further: but the IT is very natural to take for our whole author of the following letter has treated it lives a light impression of a thing, which at in the essay he speaks of in such a manner, first fell into contempt with us for want of that I am beholden to him for a resolution, consideration. The real use of a certain that I will never hereafter think meanly oi qualification (which the wiser part of man- any thing, till I have heard what they who kind look upon as at the best an indifferent have another opinion of it have to say in its thing, and generally a frivolous circum- defence. INo. 334.1 THE SPECTATOR. 35' MR. SPECTATOR-Since there are scarce some observations on modern dancing, both any of the arts and sciences that have not as to the stage, and that part of it so absolutebeen recommended to the world by the pens ly necessary for the qualification of gentleof some of the professors, masters, or lovers men and ladies; and have concluded with of them, whereby the usefulness, excel- some short remarks on the origin and prolence, and benefit arising from them, both as gress of the character by which dances are to the speculative and practical part, have writ down, and communicated to one masbeen made public, to the great advantage ter from another. If some great genius afand improvement of such arts and sciences; ter this would arise, and advance this art to why should dancing, an art celebrated by that perfection it seems capable of receiving. the ancients in so extraordinary a manner, what might not be expected from it? For, be totally neglected by the moderns, and if weconsiderthe origin of arts and sciences, left destitute of any pen to.recommend its we shall find that some of them took rise various excellencies and substantial merit to from beginnings so mean and unpromising, mankind? that it is very wonderful to think that ever' The low ebb to which dancing is now such surprising structures should have been fallen, is altogether owing to this silence. raised upon such ordinary foundations. But The art is esteemed only as an amusing what cannot a great genius effect? WVho trifle; it lies altogether uncultivated, and is would have thought that the clangorous Unhappily fallen under the imputation ofil- noise of smiths' hammers should have given literate and mechanic. As Terence, in one the first rise to music? Yet Macrobius in of his prologues, complains of the rope- his second book relates, that Pythagoras, in dancers drawing all the spectators from his passing by a smith's shop, found that the play, so we may well say, that capering and sounds proceeding from the hammers were tumbling is now preferred to, and supplies either more grave or acute, according to the the place of, just and regular dancing on our different weights of the hammers. The theatres. It is, therefore, in my opinion, philosopher, to improve this hint, suspends high time that some one should come to its different weights by strings of the same bigassistance, and relieve it from the many ness, and found in like manner that the gross and growing errorsthathavecreptinto sounds answered to the weights. This beit, and overcast its real beauties; and to set ing discovered, he finds out those numbers dancing in its true light, would show the which produced sounds that were consonant; usefulness and elegance of it, with the plea- as that two strings of the same substance and sure and instruction produced from it; and tension, the one being double the length of also lay down some fundamental rules, that the other, gave that interval which is callmight so tend to the improvement of its pro- ed diapason, or an eighth; the same was also fessors, and information of the spectators, effected from two strings of the same length that the first might be the better enabled to and size, the one having four times the tenperform, and the latter rendered more ca- sion of the other. By these steps, from so pable of judging what is (if there be any mean a beginning, did this great man rething) valuable in this art. duce, what was only before noise to one of'Toencourage, therefore, some ingenious the most delightful sciences, by marrying pen capable of so generous an undertaking, it to the mathematics; and by that means and in some measure to relieve dancing from caused it to be one of the most abstract and the disadvantages it at present lies under, I, demonstrative of sciences. Who knows, who teach to dance,* have attempted a therefore, but motion, whether decorous or small treatise as an Essay towards a History representative, may not (as it seems highly of Dancing: in which I have inquired into probable it may,) be taken into consideraits antiquity, origin, and use, and shown tion by some person capable of reducing it what esteem the ancients had for it. I have into a regular science, though not so demonlikewise considered the nature and perfec- strative as that proceeding from sounds, yet tion of all its several parts, and how benefi- sufficient to entitle it to a place among the cial and delightful it is, both as a qualifica- magnified arts? tion and an exercise; and endeavoured to Now, Mr. Spectator, as you have declaranswer all objections that have been mali- ed yourself visitor of dancing-schools, and ciously raised against it. I have proceeded this being an undertaking which more imto give an account of the particular dances mediately respects them, I think myself inof the Greeks and Romans, whether reli- dispensably obliged, before I proceed to the gious, warlike, or civil: and taken particu- publication of this my essay, to ask your lar notice of that part of dancing relating to advice; and hold it absolutely necessary to the ancient stage, in which the pantomimes have your approbation, in order to recom had so great a share. Nor have I been mend my treatise to the perusal of the pa wanting in giving an historical account of rents of such as learn to dance, as well as to some particular masters excellent in that the young ladies, to whom as visitor you surprising art; after which I have advanced ought to be a guardian.'_ am, sir, * An Essay towards the History of Dancing, &c. By Your most humble servant John Weaver 12mo. 1712. Salop, March 10, 1711-12.' 36 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 335. No. 335. ] Tuesday, March 25, 1711-12. head of his footmen in the rear, we convoy Respieere cxemplarvite morumquejubebo ed him in safety to the playhouse, where Doctum imitatorum et veras hinc ducere voces. after having marched up the entry in good Hor. irs Poet. v. 327. order, the captain and I went in with him, Keep nature's great original in view, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As And thence the living images pursue.-Franis. soon as the house was full, and the candles MY friend, Sir Roger de Coverley, when lighted, my old friend stood up, and looked we last met together at the club, told me about him with that pleasure which a mind that he had a great mind to see the new seasoned with humanity naturally feels in tragedy* with me, assuring me at the same itself, at the sight of a multitude of people time, that he had not been at a play these who seem pleased with one another, and twenty years.' The last I saw, said Sir partake of the same common entertainment. Roger,' was The Committee, which I I could not but fancy to myself, as the old should not have gone to neither, had not I man stood up in the middle of the pit, that been told beforehand that it was a good he made a very proper centre to a tragic church of England comedy.' He then pro- audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, ceeded to inquire of me who this distrest the knight told me, thathe did not believe the mother was; and upon hearing that she was king of France himself had a better strut. I Hector's widow, he told me that her hus- was indeed very attentive to my old friend's band was a brave man, and that when he remarks, because I looked upon them as a was a schoolboy he had read his life at the piece of natural criticism, and was well end of the dictionary. My friend asked me pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of in the next place, if there would not be some almost every scene telling me that he could danger in coming home late, in case the not imagine how the play would end. One Mohocks should be abroad.' I assure you,' while he appeared much concerned for An says he,' I thought I had fallen into their dromache; and a little while after as much hands last night; for I observed two or three for Hermione; and was extremely puzzled lusty black men that followed me half way to think what would become of Pyrrhus. up Fleet-street, and mended their pace be- When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obhind me, in proportion as I put on to get stinate refusal to her lover's importunities, away from them. You must know,' conti- he whispered me in the ear, that he was nued the knight with a smile,'I fancied sure she would never have him; to which they had a mind to hunt me; for I remem- he added, with a more than ordinary veber an honest gentleman in my neighbour- hemence,' You can't imagine, sir, what it hood, who was served such a trick in King is to have to do with a widow.' Upon Charlesthe Second's time, for which reason Pyrrhus's threatening afterwards to leave he has not ventured himself in town ever her, the knight shook his head, and mutsince. I might have shown them very good tered to himself,'Ay, do if you can.' This sport, had this been their design; for, as I part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagiam an old fox-hunter, I should have turned nation, that at the close of the third act, as and dodged, and have played them a thou- I was thinking of something else, he whissand tricks they had never seen in their pered me in my ear,' These widows, sir, lives before.' Sir Roger added that'if these are the most perverse creatures in the gentlemen had any such intention, they did world. But pray,' says he,'you that are not succeed very well in it, for I threw them a critic, is the play according to your draout,' says he,'at the end of Norfolk-street, matic rules, as you call them? Should your where I doubled the corner, and got shelter people in tragedy always talk to be underin my lodgings before they could imagine stood? Why, there is not a single sentence what was become of me. However,' says in this play that I do not know the meanthe knight,' if Captain Sentry will make one ing of.' with us to-morrow night, and you will both The fourth act very luckily began before of you call upon me about four o'clock, that I had time to give the old gentleman an-anwe may be at the house before it is full, I swer.' Well,' says the knight, sitting down will have my own coach in readiness to at- with great satisfaction,' I suppose we are tend you, for John tells me he has got the now to see Hector's ghost.' He then refore-wheels mended.' newed his attention, and, from time to time The captain, who did not fail to meet me fell a-praising the widow. He made, inthere at the appointed hour, bid Sir Roger deed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, fear nothing, for that he had put on the whom at his first entering he took for Assame sword which he made use of at the tyanax; but quickly set himself right in that battle of Steenkirk. Sir Roger's servants, particular, though, at the same time, he and among the rest my old friend the butler, owned he should have been very glad to had, I found, provided themselves with good have seen the little boy, who, says he, must oaken plants, to attend their master upon needs be a very fine child by the account this occasion. When we had placed him that is given of him. Upon Hermione's in his coach, with myself at his left hand, going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the the captainbefore him, and his butler atthe audience gave a loud clap, to which Sir Roger added,'On my word, a notable * The Distrest Mother. young baggage!' No. 336.] THE SPECTATOR. 37, As there was a very remarkable silence has prevailed from generation to generaand stillness in the audience during the tion, which gray hairs and tyrannicalcustom whole action, it was natural for them to continue to support: I hope your spectatotake the opportunity of the intervals be- rial authority will give a seasonable check tween the acts to express their opinion of to the spread of the infection; I mean old the players, and of their respective parts. men's overbearing the strongest sense of Sir Roger, hearing a cluster of them praise their juniors by the mere force of seniority; Orestes, struck in with them, and told so that, for a young man in the bloom of them, that he thought his friend Pylades life, and vigour of age, to give a reasonable was a very sensible man. As they were contradiction to his elders, is esteemed an afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger unpardonable insolence, and regarded as put in a second time.'And let me tell reversing the decrees of nature. I am a you,' says he,' though he speaks but little, young man, I confess; yet I honour the gray like the old fellow in whiskers as well as head as much as any one; however, when, any of them.' Captain Sentry, seeing two in company with old men, I hear them or three wags who sat near us, lean with an speak obscurely, or reason preposterously, attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and fear- (into which absurdities, prejudice, pride, or ing lest they should smoke the knight, interest, will sometimes throw the wisest,) plucked him by the elbow, and whispered I count it no crime to rectify their reasomething in his' ear, that lasted till the sonings, unless conscience must truckle to opening of the fifth act. The knight was ceremony, and truth fall a sacrifice to comwonderfully attentive to the account which plaisance. The strongest arguments are Orestes gives of Pyrrhus's death, and at enervated, and the brightest evidence disapthe conclusion of it, told me it was such a pears, before those tremendous reasonings bloody piece of work that he was glad it and dazzling discoveries of venerable old was not done upon the stage. Seeing after- age. "You are young, giddy-headed felwards Orestes in his raving fit, he grew lows; you have not yet had experience of the more than ordinarily serious, and took oc- world." Thus we young folks find our amcasion to moralize (in his way,) upon an bition cramped, and our laziness indulged; evil conscience, adding, that Orestes, in his since while young we have little room to madness, looked as if he saw something. display ourselves; and, when old, the weakAs we were the first that came into the ness of nature must pass for strength of house, so we were the last that went out of sense, and we hope that hoary heads will it; being resolved to have a clear passage raise us above the attacks of contradic for our old friend, whom we did not care to tion. Now, sir, as you would enliven our venture among the jostling of the crowd. activity in the pursuit of learning, take our Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his case into consideration; and, with a gloss on entertainment, and we guarded him to his brave Elihu's sentiments, assert the rights lodging in the same manner that we brought of youth, and prevent the pernicious enhim to the playhouse; being highly pleased croachments of age. The generous reasonfor my own part, not only with the per- ings of that gallant youth would adorn your formance of the excellent piece which had paper; and I beg you would insert them, been presented, but with the satisfaction not doubting but that they will give good which it had given to the old man. L. entertainment to the most intelligent of your readers.' ~~~_~> ~ ~ ~ 6 "So these three men ceased to answer No. 336.] Wednesday, Marctc 26, 1711-12. Job, because he was righteous in his own4 eyes. Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu, Clament periisse pudorem the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kin Cuncti pene patres: ea cum reprehendere coner, dred of Ram: against Job was his wrath Qure gravis 2Esopus, qume doctus Roscius egit; kindled, becahimself rather Vel quia nil rectum, nisi quod placuit sibi, ducunt use he justified himself rather Vel quia turpe putant parere minoribus, et que than God. Also against his three friends Imberbes didicere, senes perpenda fateri was his wrath kindled, because they had Hor. Ep.. Lib. 2. 80. found no answer, and yet had condemned IMITATED. Job. Now Elihu had waited till Job had One tragic sentence if I dare deride, spoken, because they were elder than he With Betterton's grave action dignified, spoen, because they were elder than he. Or well-mouth'd Booth with emphasis proclaims,u saw ere was no answer in (Though but, perhaps, a muster-roll of names,) the mouth of these three men, then his How will our fathers rise up in a rage, wrath was kindled. And Elihu, the son of And swear all shame is lost in George's age? Rarachel the Buzite, answered and said, I You'd think no fools disgrac'd the former reign arace, answere an sa, Did not some grave examples yet remain, am young, and ye are very old; wherefore Who scorn a lad should teach his father skill, I was afraid and durst not show you mine And, having once been wrong, will be so still. opinion. I said, days should speak, and Poe. multitude of years should teach wisdom.'MR. SPECTATOR,-As you are the daily But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiLndeavourer to promote learning and good ration of the Almighty giveth them undersense, I think myself obliged to suggest to standing. Great men are not always wise: your consideration whatever may promote neither do the aged understand judgment. or prejudice them. There is an evil which Therefore I said, Hearken to me, I also jo~8 ~ THE SPECTATOR, [No. 337. will show mine opinion. Behold, I waited the better for it. Lord, what signifies one for your words; I gave ear to your reasons, poor pot of tea, considering the trouble they whilst you searched out what to say. Yea, put me to? Vapours, Mr. Spectator, are I attended unto you: and behold there was terrible things; for, though I am not posnone of you that convinced Job, or that sessed by them myself, I suffer more from answered his words: lest you should say, them than if I were. Now I must beg of We have found out wisdom: God thrusteth you to admonish all such day-goblins to him down, not man. Now he hath not di- make fewer visits, or to be less troublesome rected his words against me: neither will I when they come to one's shop; and to conanswer him with your speeches. They vince them that we honest shop-keepers were amazed: they answered nomore; they have something better to do than to cure left off speaking. When I had waited (for folks of the vapours gratis. A young son of they spake not, but stood still and answered mine, a school-boy, is my secretary, so I no more,) I said, I will answer also my hope you will make allowances. I am, sir, part, I also will show mine opinion. For I your constant reader, and very humble am full of matter, the spirit within me con- servant, straineth me. Behold, my belly is as wine' REBECCA the distressed. which hath no vent, it is ready to burst like' March the 22d.' T. new bottles. I will speak that I may be refreshed: I will open my lips and answer. Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's No. 337.1 Thursday, March 27, 1712, person, neither let me give flattering titles unto man. For I know not to give flatter- Fingit equum tenera docilem cervice magister, ing titles: in so doing my Maker would soon Ire viam quam monstrat eque. ib.. 64 take me away." The jockey trains the young and tender horse While yet soft-mouth'd, and breeds him to the course.'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have formerly Creech. read with great satisfaction your paper I HAVE lately received a third letter from about idols, and the behaviour of gentle- the gentleman who has already given the men in those coffee-houses where women public two essays upon education. As his officiate; and impatiently waited to see you thoughts seem to be very just and new upon take India and China shops into considera- this subject, I shall communicate them to tion: but since you have passed us over in the reader. silence, either that you have not as vet thought us worth your notice, or that the'SIR,-If I had not been hindered by grievances we lie under have escaped your some extraordinary business, I should have discerning eye, I must make my complaints sent you sooner my further thoughts upon to you, and am encouraged to do it because education. You may please to remember, you seem a little at leisure at this present that in my last letter, I endeavoured to give writing. I am, dear sir, one of the top the best reasons that could be urged ii& China-women about town; and though I favour of a private or public education. say it, keep as good things and receive ds Upon the whole, it may perhaps be thought fine company as any over this end of the that I seemed rather inclined to the latter, town, let the other be who she will. In though at the same time I confessed that short, I am in a fair way to be easy, were virtue, which ought to be our first and prinit not for a club of female rakes, who, under cipal care, was more usually acquired in pretence of taking their innocent rambles, the former. forsooth, and diverting the spleen, seldom' I intended, therefore, in this letter, to fail to plague me twice or thrice a day, to offer at methods, by which I conceive boys cheapen tea, or buy a skreen. What else might be made to improve in virtue as they should they mean? as they often repeat it. advance in letters. These rakes are your idle ladies of fashion,' I know that in most of our public schools who, having nothing to do, employ them- vice is punished and discouraged, whenever selves in tumbling over my ware. One of it is found out: but this is far from being these no-customers (for by the way they sufficient, unless our youth are at the same seldom or never buy any thing,) calls for a time taught to form a right judgment of set of tea-dishes, another for a bason, a third things, and to know what is properly virtue, for my best green tea, and even to the punch-'To this end, whenever they read the bowl, there's scarce a piece in my shop but lives and actions of such men as have been must be displaced, and the whole agree- famous in their generation, it should not be able architecture disordered, so that I can thought enough to make them barely uncompare them to nothing but to the night- derstand so many Greek or Latin sentences; goblins that take a pleasure to overturn but they should be asked their opinion of the disposition of plates and dishes in the such an action or saying, and obliged to give kitchens of your housewifery maids. Well, their reasons why they take it to be good after all this racket and clatter, this is too or bad. By this means they would insensidear, that is their aversion; another thing bly arrive at proper notions of courage, is charming, but not wanted; the ladies are temperance, honour, and justice. cured of the spleen, but I am not a shilling' There must be great care taken how No. 337.] 1HE SPECTATOR. 39 the example of any particular person is he would inspire me with an abhorrence recommended to them in gross; instead of of debauchery,'Do not,' says he,'make which they ought to be taught wherein yourself like Sectanus, when you may be such a man, though great in some respects, happy in the enjoyment of lawful pleasures. was weak and faulty in others. For want How scandalous,' says he,' is the character of this caution, a boy is often so dazzled of Trebonius, who was lately caught in bed with the lustre of a great character, that with another man's wife!' To illustrate he confounds its beauties with its blemishes, the force of this method, the poet adds, that and looks even upon the faulty part of it as a headstrong patient who will not follow with an eye of admiration. at first his physician's prescriptions, grows'I have often wondered how Alexander, orderly when he hears that the neighbours who was naturally of a generous and merci- die all about him; so youth is often frightful disposition, came to be guilty of so bar- ened from vice, by hearing the ill report it barous an action as that of dragging the brings upon others. governor of a town after his chariot. I' Xenophon's schools of equity, in his Life know this is generally ascribed to his pas- of Cyrus the Great, are sufficiently famous sion for Homer, but I lately met with a He tells us, that the Persian children went passage in Plutarch, which, if I am not to school, and employed their time as dili very much mistaken, still gives us a clearer gently in learning the principles of justice light into the motives of this action. Plu- and sobriety, as the youth in other countries tarch tells us, that Alexander in his youth did to acquire the most difficult arts and had a master named Lysimachus, who, sciences; their governors spent most part though he was a man destitute of all polite- of the day in hearing their mutual accusaness, ingratiated himself both with Philip tions one against the other, whether for and his pupil, and became the second man violence, cheating, slander, or ingratitude; at court, by calling the king Peleus, the and taught them how to give judgment Prince Achilles, and himself Phcenix. It is against those who were found to be any no wonder if Alexander, having been thus ways guilty of these crimes. I omit the used not only to admire but to personate story of the long and short coat, for which Achilles, should think it glorious to imitate Cyrus himself was punished, as a case him in this piece of cruelty and extrava- equally known with any in Littleton. gance.'The method which Apuleius tells us the'To carry this thought yet further, I Indian Gymnosophists took to educate their shall submit it to your consideration, whe- disciples, is still more curious and remark ther, instead of a theme or copy of verses, able. His words are as follow: " \hen which are the usual exercises, as they are their dinner is ready, before it is served called in the school phrase, it would not be up, the masters inquire of every particular more proper that a boy should be tasked, scholar how he has employed his time since once or twice a week, to write down his sun-rising: some of them answer, that, opinion of such persons and things as occur having been chosen as arbiters between two to him by his reading; that he should des- persons, they have composed their differcant upon the actions of Turnus, or JEneas; ences, and made them friends; some that show wherein they excelled, or were de- they have been executing the orders of fective; censure or approve any particular their parents; and others, that they have action; observe how it might have been either found out something new by their carried to a greater degree of perfection, own application, or learnt it from the inand how it exceeded or fell short of an- structions of their fellows. But if there other. He might at the same time mark happens to be any one among them who what was moral in any speech, and how cannot make it appear that he has emfar it agreed with the character of the per- ployed the morning to advantage, he is son speaking. This exercise would soon immediately excluded from the company, strengthen his judgment in what is blame- and obliged to work while the rest are at able or praiseworthy, and give him an early dinner. " seasoning of morality.'It is not impossible, that from these' Next to those examples which may be several ways of producing virtue in the met with in books, I very much approve minds of boys, some general method might Horace's way of setting before youth the be invented. What I would endeavour to infamous or honourable characters of their inculcate is, that our youth cannot be too contemporaries. That poet tells us, this soon taught the principles of virtue, seeing was the method his father made use of to the first impressions which are made on incline him to any particular virtue, or give the mind, are always the strongest. him an aversion to any particular vice.'The archbishop of Cambray makes " If," says Horace, "my father advised Telemachus say, that, though he was young me to live within bounds, and be contented in years, he was old in the art of knowing with the fortune he should leave me;' Do how to keep both his own and his friends' you not see,' says he,'the miserable condi- secrets. "When my father," says the tion of Burrus, and the son of Albus? Let prince, "went to the siege of Troy, he the misfortunes of those two wretches teach took me on his knees, and, after having vou to avoid luxury and extravagance If embraced and blessed me, as he was sur 4G THE SPECTATOR. [No. 338. rounded by the nobles of Ithaca,' 0 my self upon, that he will easily forgive me for friends,' says he,'into your hands I corn- publishing the exceptions made against mit the education of my son: if ever you gaiety at the end of serious entertainments loved his father, show it in your care to- in the following letter: I should be more wards him; but, above all, do not omit to unwilling to pardon him, than any body, a form him just, sincere, and faithful in-keep- practice which cannot have any ill conseing a secret.' These words of my father," quence but from the abilities of the person says Telemachus, "were continually re- who is guilty of it. peated to me by his friends in his absence; who made no scruple of communicating to' MR. SPECTATOR,-I had the happiness me their uneasiness to see my mother sur- the other night of sitting very near you, and rounded with lovers, and the measures they your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting designed to take on that occasion." He of the new tragedy, which you have, in a adds, that he was so ravished at being thus late paper or two, so justly recommended. treated like a man, and at the confidence I was highly pleased with the advantageous reposed in him, that he never once abused situation fortune had given me in placing it; nor could all the insinuations of his me so near two gentlemen, from one of father's rivals ever get him to betray what which I was sure to hear such reflections was committed to him under the seal of on the several incidents of the play as pure secrecy. nature suggested, and from the other, such' There is hardly any virtue which a lad as flowed from the exactest art and judgmight not thus learn' by practice and ex- ment: though I must confess that my cuample. riosity led me so much to observe the' I have heard of a good man, who used knight's reflections, that I was not well at at certain times to give his scholars six- leisure to improve myself by yours. Napence a-piece, that they might tell him the ture, I found, played her part in the knight next day how they had employed it. The pretty well, till at the last concluding lines third part was always to be laid out in she entirely forsook him. You must know, charity, and every boy was blamed, or sir, that it is always my custom, when I commended, as he could make it appear have been well entertained at a new tragedy, he had chosen a fit object. to make my retreat before the facetious'In short, nothing is more wanting to our epilogue enters; not but that those pieces public schools, than that the masters of are often very well written, but having paid them should use the same care in fashioning down my half-crown, and made a fair purthe manners of their scholars, as in forming chase of as much of the pleasing melancholy their tongues to the learned languages. as the poet's art can afford me, or my own Wherever the former is omitted, I cannot nature admit of, I am willing to carry some help agreeing with Mr. Locke, that a man of it home with me: and cannot endure to must have a very strange value for words, be at once tricked out of all, though by the when, preferring the languages of the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, Greeks and Romans to that which made I kept my seat the other night in hopes of them such brave men, he can think it worth finding my own sentiments of the matter while to hazard the innocence and virtue favoured by your friends; when, to my great of his son for a little Greek and Latin. surprise, I found the knight entering with'As the subject of this essay is of the equal pleasure into both parts, and as much highest importance, and what I do not re- satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety as he member to have yet seen treated by any had been before with Andromache's greatauthor, I have sent you what occurred to ness. Whether this were no more than an me on it from my own observation, or read- effect of the knight's peculiar humanity, ing, and which you may either suppress or pleased to find at last, that, after all the publish, as you think fit. I am, sir, yours, tragical doings, every thing was safe and &c.''X. well, I do not know; but for my own part, I must confess, I was so dissatisfied, that I Was sorry the poet had saved Andromache, No. 338. ] Friday, March 28, 1712. and could heartily have wished that he had left her stone-dead upon the stage. For you -Tams —--— Nil fuit unquam ii cannot imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mis Tam dispa sibi. —--- -. Sat. iii. Lib.. 18. chief she was reserved to do me. I found my Made up of nought but consstencsoul, during the action, gradually worked I FIND the tragedy of the Distrest Mo- up to the highest pitch, and felt the exalted ther* is published to-day. The author of passion which all generous minds conceive the prologue,t I suppose, pleads an old at the sight of virtue in distress. The imexcuse I have read somewhere, of'being pression, believe me, sir, was so strong dull with design;' and the gentleman who upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had writ the epilogues has, to my knowledge, been let alone in it, I could, at an extremity, so much of greater moment to value him- have ventured to defend yourself and Sir Roger against half a score of the fiercest * By A. Phillips, first published in 1712 Mohocks; but the ludicrous epilogue in the t Steele; See Tat. No. 38. T Eustace Budgell. close extinguished all my ardour, and made No. 339. 1 THE SPECTATOR. 41 me look upon all such noble achievements signs, instead of a penitential psalm, to dis as downright silly and romantic. What the miss his audience with an excellent new rest of the audience felt, I cannot so well ballad of his own composing. Pray, sir, do.ell. For myself I must declare, that at the what you can to put a stop to these growing end of the play I found my soul uniform, evils, and you will very much oblige your and all of a piece; but at the end of the humble servant, epilogue it was so jumbled together, and'PHYSIBULUS.' divided between jest and earnest, that, if you will forgive me an extravagant fancy, will here set it down. I could not but No. 339.] Saturday, March 29, 1712. fancy, if my soul had at that moment quit- - Ut his exordia primis ted-my body, and descended to the poetical Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis, shades in the posture it was then in, what a Tum durare solum et discludere Nerea ponto str e figure it would have made among Caeperit, et rerum paullatim sumere formas. strange figureit would have made among irg. Ed. v.33 them. They would not have known what He sung the secret seeds of nature's frame: to have made of my motley spectre, half How seas, and earth, and air, and active flame, comic and half tragic, all over resembling Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall Were blindly gather'd in this goodly ball. a ridiculous face that at the same time The tender soil then stiffning by degrees, laughs on one side and cries on the other. Shut from the bounded earth the bounding seas, The only defence, I think, I have everheard The earth and ocean various forms disclose, made for this, as it seems to me the most And a new sun to the new world arose.-Dryden. unnatural tack of the comic tail to the tragic LONGINUS has observed that there may head, is this, that the minds of the audience be a loftiness in sentiments where there is mustbe refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies no passion, and brings instances out of an not sent away to their own homes with too cient authors to support this his opinion. dismal and melancholy thoughts about them- The pathetic, as that great critic observes, for who knows the consequence of this? W e may arimate and inflame the sublime, but are much obliged, indeed, to the poets, for is not essential to it. Accordingly, as he the great tenderness they express for the further remarks, we very often find that safety of our persons, and heartily thank those who excel most in stirring up the them for it. But if that be all, pray, good passions very often want the talent of writsir, assure them, that we are none of us like ing in the great and sublime manner, and to come to any great harm; and that, let so on the contrary. Milton has shown himthem do their best, we shall in all proba self a master in both these ways of writing. bility live out the length of our davs, and fre- The seventh book, which we are now enquent the theatres more than ever. What tering upon, is an instance of that sublime makes me more desirous to have some in- which is not mixed and worked up with formation of this matter is, because of an passion. The author appears in a kind of ill consequence or two attending it: for a composed and sedate majesty; and though great many of our church musicians being the sentiments do not give so great an related to the theatre, they have, in imita- emotion as those in the former book, they tion of these epilogues, introduced, in their abound with as magnificent ideas. The tarewell voluntaries, a sort of music quite sixth book, like a troubled ocean, repre foreign to the design of church-services, to sents greatness in confusion; the seventh the great prejudice of well-disposed people. affects the imagination like the ocean in Those fingering gentlemen should be in- a calm, and fills the mind of the reader, formed, that they ought to suit their airs to without producing in it any thing like tuthe place and business, and that the musi- mult or agitation. cian is obliged to keep to the text as much The critic above-mentioned, among the as the preacher. For want of this, I have rules which he lays down for succeeding in found by experience a great deal of mis- the sublime way of writing, proposes to his chief. When the preacher has often, with reader, that he should imitate the most great piety, and art enough, handled his celebrated authors who have gone before subject, and the judicious clerk has with him, and have been engaged in works of the utmost diligence culled out two staves the same nature; as in particular that, if proper to the discourse, and I have found he writes on poetical subjects, he should in myself and the rest of the pew, good consider how Homer would have spoken on thoughts and dispositions, they have been, such an occasion. By this means one great all in a moment, dissipated by a merry jig genius often catches the flame from another, from the organ-loft. One knows not what and writes in his spirit, without copying further ill effects the epilogues I have been servilely after him. There are a thousand speaking of may in time produce: but this shining passages in Virgil, which have been I am credibly informed of, that Paul Lor- lighted up by Homer. rain* has resolved upon a very sudden re- Milton, though his own natural strength formation in his tragical dramas; and that, of genius was capable of furnishing out a at the next monthly performance, he de- perfect work, has doubtless very much raised and ennobled his conceptions by *The ay of Ngat s uch an imitation as that which Longinu. *The ordinary of Newgate at this time. Fee the recommended. Tatler, No. 63. tF recommended. Vzl,. II. 6 42 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 339. In tris book which gives us an account of clouds which lay as a barrier before of the six days' works, the poet received them. but very few assistances from heathen I do not know any thing in the whole writers, who are strangers to the wonders poem more sublime than the description of creation. But as there are many glorious which follows, where the Messiah is restrokes of poetry upon this subject in holy presented at the head of his angels, as look writ, the author has numberless allusions to ing down into the chaos, calming its confu them through the whole course of this book. sion, riding into the midst of it, and drawing The great critic I have before mentioned, the first outline of the creation: though a heathen, has taken notice of the On heav'nly ground they stood, and from the shore sublime manner in which the lawgiver of They view'd the vast immeasurable abyss the Jews has described the creation in the Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild, first chapter of Genesis; and there aremany Up from the bottom turn'd by furious winds first chapter of Genesis; and there are many And surging waves, as mountains to assault other passages in scripture which rise up Heav'n's height, and with the centre mix the bole. to'the same majesty, where the subject is "Silence, ye troubled waves; and thou, deep, peace? touched upon. Milton has shown his judg- staid thn th' omnific Word, Your discord end l" Nor staid, but, on the wings of cherubim ment very remarkably, in making use of Uplifted, in paternal glory rode such of these as were proper for his poem, Far into Chaos, and the world unborn; and in duy qualifyin of easten For Chaos heard his voice. Him all his train and in duly qualifying those strainsof eastern ollod i bright procession, to behold poetry which were suited to readers whose Creation, and the wonders of his might. imaginations were set to a higher pitch than Then stay'd the fervid wheels. and in his hand those of colder climates. He took the golden compasses, prepar'd In God's eternal store to circumscribe Adam's speech to the angel, wherein The universe, and all created things: he desires an account of what had passed One foot he centred, and the other turn'd within the regions of nature before the Round through the vast profundity ebscure, And said, "Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, creation, is very great and solemn. The This be thy just circumference, 0 world!" following lines, in which he tells him, that the day is not too far spent for him to enter The thought of the golden compasses is upon such a subject, are exquisite in their conceived altogether in Homer's spirit, and kind: is a very noble incident in this wonderful description. Homer, when he speaks of And the great light of day yet wants to run the gods ascribes to them several arms and Much of his race, though steep; suspense in heav'n te gs, sries t the several arms an Held by thy voice, thy potent voice he hears, instruments with the same greatness of And longer will delay to hear thee tell imagination. Let the reader only peruse His generation, &c. the description of Minerva's segis or buckangel's encouraging our first parents ler, in the fifth book, with her spear which The angel's encouraging our first parents would overturn whole squadrons, and her in a modest pursuit after knowledge, with hle that was sufficient to coer an army the causes which he assigns for the creation helmet that was sufficient to cover an army othe wo,hich he assins for t creation drawn out of a hundred cities. The golden of the world, are very just and beautiful.the above-mentioned passage, The Messiah, by whom, as we are told in copasses, intheabove-entioned passage, scripture, the heavens were made, goes appear a very natural instrument in the hand cripture the p ewer of hs Faher, gsurouded of him whom Plato somewhere calls the Diforth in the power of his Father, surrounded vine Geometrician. As poetry delights in with a host of angels, and clothed with such othing abstracted ideas in allegories and clothing abstracted ideas in allegories and a majesty as becomes his entering upon a sensible images, we find a magnificent dework which, according to our conceptions, scription of the creation, formed after the appears the utmost exertion of Omnipo- manner, in one of the prophet tence. What a beautiful description has wherein he describes the Almighty Archiour author raised upon that hint in one of tect as measuring the waters in the hollow the prophets!'And behold there came f his hand, meting out the heavens with four chariots out from between two moun- his an, mpehending the dust of th tains, and the mountains were mountains of earth in a measure, weighing the mounbrass:' tains in scales, and the hills in a balance. About his chariot numberless were pour'd Another of them describing the Supreme Cherub and seraph, potentates and thrones, And virtues, winged spirits, and chariots wing'd Being in this great work of creation, re From the armoury of God, where stand of old presents him as laying the foundations of the Myriads between two brazen mountains lodg'd earth, and stretching a line upon it; and, Against a solemn day, harness'd at hand, in another place, as garnishing the heavens, Celestial equipage. and now came forth Spontaneous, for within them spirit liv'd, stretching out the north over the empty Attendant on their Lord: heav'n open'd wide place, and hanging the earth upon nothing. Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound I thought Milton has On golden hinges moving 1lThis last noble thought Milton has expressed in the following verse: I have before taken notice of these chariots of God, and of these gates of heaven; And earth self-balanced on her centre hung. riots of God, and of these gates of heaven; and shall here only add, that Homer gives The beauties of description in this book us the same idea of the latter as opening lie so very thick, that it is imspossible to of themselves; though he afterwards takes enumerate them in this paper. The poet off from it, by telling us, that the Hours has employed on them the whole energy of first of all removed those prodigious heaps our tongue. The several great scenes of No. 340.] THE SPECTATOR. 43 the creation rise up to view one after an- ascended up in triumph through the everother, in such a manner, that the reader lasting gates; when he looked down with seems present at this wonderful work, and pleasure upon his new creation; when to assist among the choirs of angels who every part of nature seemed to rejoice in are the spectators of it. How glorious is the its existence, when the morning-stars sang conclusion of the first day! together, and all the sons of God shouted -Thus was the first day even and morn, for joy. Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung So even and morn accomplish'd the sixth day: By the celestial choirs, when orient light Yet not till the creator from his work Yet not till the Creator from his work Exhaling first from darkness they beheld; Desisting, though unwearied, up return'd, Birth-day of heav'n and earth! with joy and shout Up to the heaven of heavens, his high abode, Tile willow Unp to the heaven of heavens, his high abode, The hIollow universal orb they fill'd. Thence to behold his new created world We have the same elevation of thought The addition of his empire, how it show'd in the third day, when the mountains were In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair, in e tir day, when the mountains were Answering his great idea. Up lie rode, brought forth, and the deep was made: Follow'd with acclamation and the sound Immediately the mountains huge appear Symphonious of ten thousand harps, that tun'd Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave Angelic harmonies, the earth, the air, Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky: Resounded, (thou rememberest, for thou heard'st) So high as heav'n the tumid hills, so low The heavens and all the constellations rung, Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep, The planets in their station list'ning stood, Capacious bed of waters___ While the bright pomp ascended jubilant. "Open, ye everlasting gates!" they sung, We have also the rising of the whole "Open, ye heavens, your living doors! let in vegetable world, described in this day's The great Creator from his work return'd Magnificent, his six days' work-a world!" work, which is filled with all the graces that other poets have lavished on their de- I cannot conclude this book upon the scription of the spring, and leads the rea- creation without mentioning a poem which der's imagination into a theatre equally has lately appeared under that title.* The surprising and beautiful. work was undertaken with so good an inThe several glories of the heavens make tention, and is executed with so great a mastheir appearance on the fourth day: tery, that it deserves to be looked upon as First in his east the glorious lamp was seen, one of the most useful and noble producRegent of day, and all the horizon round tions in our English verse. The reader Invested with bright rays, jocund to run cannot but be pleased to find the depths of His longitude through heavn's high road; the gray enlvened with all the charms Dawn, and the Pleiades before him dane'd, philosophy enlivened ith all the ha Shedding sweet influence. Less bright the moon, of poetry, and to see so great a strength of But opposite in levelI'd west was set, reason, amidst so beautiful a redundancy His mirror, with full face borrowing her light of the imagination. The auth has shwn From him, for other lights she needed nonemag n. he author has hown In that aspect, and still the (!i;tance keeps US that design in all the works of nature Till night; then in the east her turn she shines, which necessarily leads us to the know Revolv'd on heavn's great axle, and her reign ledge of its first cause. In short, he has With thousand lesser lights dividual holds, With thousand thousand stars, that then appear'd illustrated, by numberless and incontestSpangling the hemisphere able instances, that divine wisdom which One would wonder how the poet could the son of Sirach has so nobly ascribed to be so concise in his description of the six the Supreme Being in his formation of the days' works, as to comprehend them with- world, when he tellsus, that' He created in the bounds of an episode, and, at the her, and saw her, and numbered her, and same time, so particular, as to give us a poured her out upon all his works.' lively idea of them. This is still more remarkable in his account of the fifth and sixth days, in which he has drawn out to No. 340.] Monday, March 31, 1712. our view the whole animal creation, from the reptile to the behemoth. As the lion Quiz novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes? the e t the Quem sese ore ferens! quam forti pectore et armis and the leviathan are two of the noblest Virg.,sn. iv. 10. productions in the world of living creatures, What chief is this that visits us from far the reader will find a most exquisite spirit Whose gallant mien bespeaks him train'd to war of poetry in the account which our author gives us of them. The sixth day concludes I TAKE it to be the highest instance of a with the formation of man, upon which the noble mind, to bear great qualities without angel takes occasion, as he did after the discovering in a man's behaviour any conbattle in heaven, to remind Adam of his scousness that he is superior to the rest of obedience, which was the principal design the world. Or, to say it otherwise, it is obedience, which was the principal design of this visit. the duty of a great person so to demean The poet afterwards represents the Mes- himself, as that, whatever endowments he siah returning into heaven, and taking a may have, he may appear to value himself survey of his great work. There is some- upon no qualities but such as any man may thing inexpressibly sublime in this part of arriveat. He ought to think no man valuable the poem, where the author describes the but for his public spirit,justice,and integrity; the poem, where the author describes the and all other endowments to be esteemed great period of time, filled with so many endowments to be esteemed glorious circumstances; when the heavens and earth were finished; when the Messiah * Bv Sir Richard Blackmore 44 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 340. only as they contribute to the exerting who forced the trenches at Turin: but in those virtues. Such a man, if he is wise or general I can say, that he who beholds him valiant, knows it is of no consideration to will easily expect from him any thing that other men that he is so, but as he employs is to be imagined, or executed, by the wit those high talents for their use and service, or force of man. The prince is of that He who affects the applauses and addresses stature which makes a man most easily beof a multitude, or assumes to himself a come all parts of exercise; has height to be preeminence upon any other consideration, graceful on occasions of state and ceremomustsoon turn admiration into contempt. ny, and no less adaptedfor agility and deIt is certain that there can be no merit in spatch: his aspect is erect and composed: any man who is not conscious of it; but the his eye lively and thoughtful, yet.rather sense that it is valuable only according to vigilant than sparkling; his action and adthe application of it, makes that superi- dress the most easy imaginable, and his be ority amiable, which would otherwise be haviour in an assembly peculiarly graceful invidious. In this light it is considered as in a certain art of mixing insensibly with a thing in which every man bears a share. the rest, and becoming one of the company, It annexes the ideas of dignity, power, and instead of receiving the courtship of it. fame, in an agreeable and familiar manner, The shape of his person, and composure of to him who is possessor of it; and all men his limbs, are remarkably exact and beau who are strangers to him are naturally in- tiful. There is in his looks something subcited to indulge a curiosity in beholding lime, which does not seem to arise from the person, behaviour, feature, and shape his quality or character, but the innate of him in whose character, perhaps, each disposition of his mind. It is apparent that man ha'd formed something in common with he suffers the presence of much company, himself. instead of taking delight in it: and he apWhether such, or any other, are the peared in public, while with us, rather to causes, all men have a yearning curiosity to return good-will, or satisfy curiosity, than behold a man of heroic worth. I have had to gratify any taste he himself had of being many letters from all parts of this kingdom, popular. As his thoughts are never tumulthat request I would give them an exact ac- tuous in danger, they are as little discomcount of the stature, the mien, the aspect of posed on occasions of pomp and magnifithe prince who lately visited England, and cence. A great soul is affected, in either has done such wonders for the liberty of case, no further than in considering the Europe. It would puzzle the most curious properest methods to extricate itself from to form to himself the sort of man my seve- them. If this hero has the strong incentives ral correspondents expect to hear of by the to uncommon enterprises that were reaction mentioned, when they desire a de- markable in Alexander, he prosecutes and scription of him. There is always some- enjoys the fame of them with the justness, thing that concerns themselyes, and growing propriety, and good sense of Cesar. It is out of their own circumstances, in all their easy to observe in him a mind as capable. inquiries. A friend of mine in Wales be- of being entertained with contemplation as seeches me to be very exact in my account enterprise; a mind ready for great exploits, of that wonderful man who had marched but not impatient for occasions to exert an army and all its baggage over the Alps; itself. The prince has wisdom and valour and if possible, to learn whether the pea- in as high perfection as man can enjoy it; sant who showed him the way, and is which noble faculties, in conjunction, banish drawn in the map, be yet living. A gen- all vain-glory, ostentation, ambition, and tleman from the university, who is deeply all other vices which might intrude upon intent on the study of humanity, desires me his mind, to make it unequal. These hato be as particular, if I had an opportunity, bits and qualities of soul and body render in observing the whole interview between his personage so extraordinary, that he aphis highness and our late general. Thus do pears to have nothing in him butwhat every men's fancies work according to their se- man should have in him, the exertion of veral educations and circumstances; but all his very self, abstracted from the circumpay a respect, mixed with admiration, to stances in which fortune has placed him. this illustrious character. I have waited Thus, were you to see prince Eugene, and for his arrival in Holland, before I would were told he was a private gentleman, let my correspondents know that I have not you would say he is a man of modesty been so uncurious a Spectator as not to have and merit. Should you be told that was seen prince Eugene.* It would be very prince Eugene, he would be diminished difficult, as I said just now, to answer every no otherwise, than that part of your disexpectation of those who have written to tant admiration would turn into a familiar me on that head; nor is it possible for me good-will. to find words to let one know what an art- This I thought fit to entertain my reader ful glance there is in his countenance who with, concerning a hero who never was surprised Cremona; how daring he appears equalled but by one man:t over whom also * He stood godfather to Steele's second son, who was t The duke of Marlborough, who was disgraced abou amned Eugene after this prince. this time. No. 341.] THE SPECTATOR. 45 he has this advantage, that he has had an tised by Mr. Dryden, who, if he was not opportunity to manifest an esteem for him the best writer of tragedies in his time, wa, in his adversity. T. allowed by every one to have the happiest turn for a prologue, or an epilogue. The epilogues to Cleomenes, Don Sebastian, No. 341.] Tuesday, Aipril 1, 1712. The duke of Guise, Aurengzebe, and Love Triumphant, are all precedents of this ~Revocate animos, moestumque timorem nature Mittite - irg..En. i. 206.'I might further justify this practice by Resume your courage, and dismiss your fear. that excellent epilogue which was spoken, Dryden. that excellent epilogue which was spoken, a few years since, after the tragedy of HAVING, to oblige my correspondent Phaedra and Hippolytus;* with a great Physibulus, printed his letter last Friday, many others, in which the authors have in relation to the new epilogue, he cannot endeavoured to make the audience merry. take it amiss if I now publish another, which If they have not all succeeded so well as the I have just received trom a gentleman who writer of this, they have however shown does not agree with him in his sentiments that it was not for the want of good-will. upon that matter.' I must further observe, that the gaiety' SIR,-I am amazed to find an epilogue of it may be still the more proper, as it is attacked in your last Friday's paper, which at the end of a French play; since every attacked in your last Friday's papuded by the one knows that nation, who are generally has been so generally applauded by the esteemed to have as polite a taste as any town, and received such honours as were e d to ope, always clse their tragic ennever before given to any in an English in Europe, always close their tragic entnever before given to any i an Englishtertainment with what they call a petite' The audience would not permit Mrs. piece, which is purposely designed to raise The audiee wu notpmirth, and send away the audience well Oldfield to go off the stage the first night pleased. The same person who has suptill she had repeated it twice; the second p ed he same ern who has sup night the noise of ancora was as loud as be- very often plys the rincipal part in the fore, and she was obliged again to speak it vey ten plays the pc aveipyslf seep, at twice: the third night it was still called for etite ie ce; so that I hav e myself see, at Paris, Orestes and Lubin acted the same a second time; and, in short, contrary to all night by the same man. other epilogues, which are dropped after Tragi-comedy, indeed, you have yourthe third representation of the play, this self in a former speculation, found fault with has already bee repeted nine utimesd t very justly, because it breaks the tide of the' I must own, I am the more surprised to passions while they are yet flowing; but this find this censure in opposition to the whole s nothing at all to the present case, where town, in a paper which has hitherto been nth a all to the prese case, wr famous for the candour of its criticisms they have already had their full course.'I can by no means allow your melan-' As the new epilogue is written conforml cra n by no means allow your melan- ably to the practice of our best poets, so it choly correspondent, that the new epilogue is not such a one, which, as the duke of is unnatural because it is gay. If I had a s not such a one, which, as the duke of misd to bec learned, I could tl him that Buckingham says in his Rehearsal, might mind to be learned, I could tell him that serve for any other play; but wholly rises the prologue and epilogue were real parts out of te occu oeef the piece it was of the ancient tragedy; but every one comuosedforc knows, that, on the British stage, they are c omposed for. mournful corre distinct performances by themselves, pieces The on this facetiour ouful corre entirely detached from the play, and no spondent gives against this facetious epiwaentirely essdetached fro m t he play, and no logue, as he calls it, is, that he has a mind The moment the play ends, Mrs. Old- to go home melancholy. I wish the gentle-,The moment the play ends, Mrs. Old- m m n b m g t w field is no more Andromache but Mrs. man may not be more grave than wise. Ofield is n o more Antedromahe but Mrs. For my own part, I must confess, I think Oldfield; and tough the poet had left An- it very sufficient to have the anguish of a dromache stone-dead upon the stage, as fictitious piece remain upon me while it is your ingenious correspondent phrases it, representing; but I love to be sent home Mrs. Oldfield might still have spoken a tobedin a good humour. If Physibulus is, merry epilogue. We have an instance of however, rsolved to be inconsolable, and this in a tragedy where there is not only a not to have his tears dried up, he need only death, but a martyrdom St. Catheri not to have his tears dried up, he need only death, but a martyrdom. St. Catherine continue his old custom, and when he has was there personated by Nell Gwin; she had his half-crown's worth of sorrow, slink lies stone-dead upon the stage, but upon out before the epilogue begins. those gentlemen's offering to remove her'It is pleasant enough to hear this tragibody, whose business it is to carry off the c al e s complaining of the great mis slain in our English tragedies, she breaks chiea Andromache hai done him. ge hat out into that abrupt beginning of what wwas a that? hy she mad e him laugh. The a veryludicrous, but at the same time poor gentleman's sufferings put me in mind thought a very good epilogue: of Harlequin's case, who was tickled to'Hold! are you mad? you damn'd confounded dog, I am to rise and speak the epilogue.' * Mr. Edmund Neal, alias Smith, 8vo. 1707. Addison wrote a prologue to this play to ridicule the Italiar This diverting manner was always prac- operas. The epilogue was written by Prior. 40 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 342. death. He tells us soon after, through a arose very much from the circumstances small mistake of sorrow for rage, that dur- of my own life, who am a soldier, and exing the whole action he was so very sorry, pect every day to receive orders, which that he thinks he could have attacked half a will oblige me to leave behind me a wife score of the fiercest Mohocks in the excess that is very dear to me, and that very deof his grief. I cannot but look upon it as servedly. She is at present, I am sure, no an unhappy accident, that a man who is so way below your Asteria for conjugal affecbloody-minded in his affliction was diverted tion: but I see the behaviour of some wofrom this fit of outrageous melancholy, men so6ltle suited to the circumstances The valour of this gentleman in his distress wherein my wife and I shall soon be, that brings to one's memory the Knight of the it is with a reluctance, I never knew besorrowful Countenance, who lays about him fore, I am going to my duty. What puts at such an unmerciful rate in an old ro- me to present pain is the example of a mance. I shall readily grant him that his young lady, whose story you shall have as soul, as he himself says, would have made well as I can give it you.' Hortensius, an a very ridiculous figure, had it quitted the officer of good rank in his majesty's serbody, and descended to the poetical shades, vice, happened, in a certain part of Engin such an encounter. land, to be brought to a country gentleman's'As to his conceit of tacking a tragic head house, where he was received with that with a comic tail, in order to refresh the more than ordinary welcome with which audience, it is such a piece of jargon, that men of domestic lives entertain such few I do not know what to make of it. soldiers whom a military life, from the va-' The elegant writer makes a very sud- riety of adventures, has not rendered overden transition from the playhouse to the bearing, but humane, easy, and agreeable. church, and from thence to the gallows. Hortensius staid here some time, and had' As for what relates to the church, he is easy access at all hours, as well as unavoidof opinion that these epilogues have given able conversation, at some parts of the day, occasion to those merry jigs from the organ- with the beautiful Sylvana, the gentleman's loft, which have dissipated those good daughter. People who live in cities are thoughts and dispositions he has found in wonderfully struck with every little counhimself, and the rest of the pew, upon the try abode they see when they take the air; singing of two staves culled out by the judi- and it is natural to fancy they could live in cious and diligent clerk. every neat cottage (by which they pass)' He fetches his next thought from Ty- much happier than in their present cirburn: and seems very apprehensive lest cumstances. The turbulent way of life there should happen any innovations in the which Hortensius was used to, made him tragedies of his friend Paul Lorrain. reflect with much satisfaction on all the'In the mean time, sir, this gloomy advantages of a sweet retreat one day; and, writer, who is so mightily scandalized at a among the rest, you will think it not imgay epilogue after a serious play, speaking probable it might enter into his thought, of the fate of those unhappy wretches who that such a woman as Sylvana would conare condemned to suffer an ignominious summate theqhappiness. The world is so death by the justice of our laws, endeavours debauched with mean consideatiiionsthat to make the reader merry on so improper Hortensius knew it would be received as an an occasion, by those poor burlesque ex- act of generosity, if he asked for a woman pressions of tragical dramas and monthly of the highest merit, without further quesperformances. I am, sir, with great re- tions, of a parent who had nothing to add spect, your most obedient, most humble to her personal qualifications. The wedservant, PHILOMEDES.' ding was celebrated at her father's house. X. When that was over, the generous husband didnot proportion his provision for her to the circumstances of her fortune, No. 342.] Wednesday, April 2, 1712. but considered his wife as his darling, his Justitie partes sunt non violare homines: verecun. pride, and his vanity; or, rather, that it dim, non offendere. Tull. was in the woman he had chosen that a Justice consists in doing no injury to men: decency, man of ese could show pride or vanity in giving them no offence. with an excuse, and therefore adorned her As regard to decency is a great rule of with rich habits and valuable jewels. He As regard tDecency is a great rule of did not, however, omit to admonish her, ife in general, but more especially to be did not, however, omit to admonish her, consulted by the female world, I cannot that he did his very utmost in this; that it overlook the following letter, which de- was an ostentation he could not be guilty of overlook the following letter, which de- but to a woman he had so much pleasure scribes an egregious offender. but to a woman he had so much pleasure in, desiring her to consider it as such; and'MR. SPECTATOR,-I was'this day look- begged of her also to take these matters ing over your papers, and reading, in that rightly, and believe the gems, the gowns, of December the 6th, with great delight, the laces, would still become her better, if the amiable grief of Asteria for the absence her air and behaviour was such, that it of her husband; it threw me into a great might appear she dressed thus rather in deal of reflection. I cannot say but this compliance to his humour that way, than No. 343.] THE SPECTATOR. 47 out of any value she herself had for the tri- addition to what is truly commendable fles. To this lesson, too hard for a woman, where can this end, but as it frequently Hortensius added, that she must be sure to does, in their placing all their industry, stay with her friends in the country till his pleasure, and ambition, on things which return. As soon as Hortensius departed, will naturally make the gratifications of Sylvana saw in her looking-glass, that the life last, at best, no longer than youth and love he conceived for her was wholly owing good fortune? When we consider the least to the accident of seeing her; and she was ill consequence, it can be no less than lookconvinced it was only her misfortune the ing on their own condition, as years adrest of mankind had not beheld her, or men vance, with a disrelish of life, and falling of much greater quality and merit had con- into contempt of their own persons, or being tended for one,so genteel, though bred in the derision of others: But when they con — obscurity; so very witty, though never ac- sider themselves as they ought, no other quainted with court or town. She there- than an additional part of the species (for fore resolved not to hide so much excel- their own happiness and comfort, as well lence from the world; but, without any as that of those for whom they were born,) regard to the absence of the most generous their ambition to excel will be directed acman alive, she is now the gayest lady about cordingly; and they will in no part of their this town, and has shut out the thoughts of lives want opportunities of being shining her husband, by a constant retinue of the ornaments to their fathers, husbands, brovajnest young fellows this age has pro- thers, or children. T. duced; -to entertain whom,, she squanders away all Hortensius is able to supply her with, though that supplyis purchased with No. 343.] Thursday,.fpril 3, 1712. no less difficulty than the hazard of his life. -----— Errat, et illinc Hue venit, hinc illuc, et quoslibet occupat artus'Now, Mr. Spectator, wouldit not be a Spiritus; eque feris humana in corpora transit, work becoming your office, to treat this Inque feras noster-. criminal as she deserves? You should give. Jt. Lib.xv. 165. it the severest reflections you can. You dAll things are but alterd; nothing dies; And here and there the unbody'd spirit flies, should tell women, that they are more ac- By time, or force, or sickness, dispossess'd, countable for behaviour in absence, than And lodges. where it lights, in man or beast. after death. The dead are not dishonoured Dryden. by their levities; the living may return, and WILL HONEYCOMB, who loves to show be laughed at by empty fops, who will not upon occasion all the little learning he has fail to turn into ridicule the good man, who picked up, told us yesterday at the club, is so unseasonable as to be still alive, and that he thought there might be a great come and spoil good company. I am, sir, deal said for the transmigration of souls; your most obedient humble servant.' and that the eastern parts of the world believed in that doctrine to this day.' Sir All strictness of behaviour is so unmerci- Paul Rycaut,' says he,' gives us an account fully laughed at in our age, that the other of several well-disposed Mahometans that much worse extreme is the more common purchase the freedom of any little bird they folly. But let any woman consider, which see confined to a cage, and think they merit of the two offences a husband would the as much by it as we should do here by ranmore easily forgive, that of being less en- soming any of our countrymen from their tertaining than she could to please compa- captivity at Algiers. You must know,' says ny, or raising the desires of the whole room Will,' the reason is, because they consider to his disadvantage; and she will easily be every animal as a brother or sister in disable to form her conduct. We have indeed guise; and therefore think themselves oblicarried women's characters too much into ged to extend their charity to them, though public life, and you shall see them now-a- under such mean circumstances. They'll days affect a sort of fame: but I cannot help tell you,' says Will,' that the soul of a man, venturing to disoblige them for their ser- when he dies, immediately passes into the vice, by telling them, that the utmost of a body of another man, or of some brute, woman's character is contained indomestic which he resembled in his humour, or his life; she is blameable or praiseworthy ac- fortune, when he was one of us.' cording as her carriage.affects the house of As I was wondering what this profusion her father or her husband. All she has to of learning would end in, Will told us, that do in this world, is contained within the' Jack Freelove, who was a fellow of whim, duties of a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a made love to one of those ladies who throw mother. All these may be well performed, away alltheir fondness on parrots, monkeys, though a Tady should not be the very finest and lap-dogs. Upon going to pay her a visit woman at an opera or an assembly. They one morning, he writ a very pretty epistle are likewise consistent with a moderate upon this hint. Jack,' says he,'was conshare of wit, a plain dress, and a modest ducted into the parlour, where he diverted air. But when the very brains of the sex himself for some time with her favourite are turned, and they place their ambition monkey, which was chained in one of the on c:ircumstances, wherein to excel is no windows; till at length observing a pen and 48 THE SPECTATOR. [No. s4'. ink lie by him, he writ the following letter cessful in two or three chases, he gave me to his mistress in the person of the monkey, such a confounded gripe in his anger that I and upon her not coming down so soon as died of it. he expected, left it in the window, and'In my next transmigration, I was again went about his business, set upon two legs, and became an Indian' The lady soon after coming into the tax-gatherer; but having been guilty of parlour and seeing her monkey look upon great extravagances, and being married to a paper with great earnestness, took it up, an expensive jade of a wife, I ran so cursedly and to this day is in some doubt,' says Will, in debt, that I durst not show my head. I' whether it was written by Jack or the could no sooner step out of my house but I monkey.' was arrested by somebody or other that lay in wait for me. As I ventured abroad one' MADAM,-Not havingthe gift of speech, night in the dusk of the evening, I was taken have a long time waited in vain for an op- up and hurried into a dungeon, where I died portunity of making myself known to you; a few months after. and having at present the convenience of'My soul then entered into a flying-fish, pen, ink, and paper, by me, I gladly take and in that state led a most melancholy life the occasion of giving you my history in for the space of six years. Several fishes writing, which I could not do by word of of prey pursued me when I was in the mouth. You must know, madam, that water; and if I betook myself to my wings, about a thousand years ago I was an In- it was ten to one but I had a flock of birds dian brachman, and versed in all those aiming at me. As I was one day flying mysterious secrets which your European amidst a fleet of English ships, I observed philosopher, called Pythagoras, is said to a huge sea-gull whetting his bill, and hohave learned from our fraternity. I had so vering just over my head; upon my dipping ingratiated myself, by my great skill in the into the water to avoid him, I fell into the occult sciences, with a demon whom I used mouth of aqnonstrous shark, that swallowed to converse with, that he promised to grant me down in an instant. me whatever I should ask of him. I de-'I was some years afterwards, to my sired that my soul might never pass into great surprise, an eminent banker in Loom the body of a brute creature; but this, he bard street; and, remembering how I had told me, was not in his power to grant me. formerly suffered for want of money, beI then begged, that, into whatever creature came so very sordid and avaricious, that I should chance to transmigrate, I should the whole town cried shame of me. I was still retain my memory, and be conscious a miserable little old fellow to look upon; that I was the same person who lived in for I nad in a manner starved myself, and different animals. This, he told me, was was nothing but skin and bone when I died.;n his power, and accordingly promised, on' I was afterwards very much troubled the word of a demon, that he would grant and amazed to find myself dwindled into an me what I desired. From that time forth, emmet. I was heartily concerned to make I lived so unblameably, that I was made so insignificant a figure, and did not know president of a college of brachmans, an but some time or other I might be reduced office which I discharged with great inte- to a m:e, if I did not mend my manners. I grity until the day of my death. therefore applied myself with great dilic I was then shuffled into another human gence to the offices that were allotted to body, and acted my part so well in it, that me, and was generally looked upon as the I became first minister to a prince who notaolest ant in the whole mole-hill. I was reigned upon the banks of the Ganges. I at last picked up as I was groaning under here lived in great honour for several years, a burden, by an unlucky cock-sparrow, but by degrees lost all the innocence of the that lived in the neighbourhood, and had brachman, being obliged to rifle and op- before made great depredations upon our press the people to enrich my sovereign; commonwealth. till at length I became so odious, that my'I then bettered my condition a little, and master, to recover his credit with his sub- lived a whole summer in the shape of a jects, shot me through the heart with an bee; but being tired with the painful and arrow, as I was one day addressing myself penurious life I had undergone in my two to him at the head of his army. last transmigrations, I fell into the other'Upon my next remove, I found myself extreme, and turned drone. As I one day in the woods under the shape of a jackal, headed a party to plunder a hive, we were and soon listed myself in the service of a received so warmly by the swarm which lion. I used to yelp near his den about defended it, that we were most of us left midnight, which was his time of rousing dead upon the spot. and seeking after prey. He always fol- I might tell you of many other transmilowed me in the rear, and when I had run grations which I went through: how I was down a fat buck, a wild goat, or a hare, a town-rake, and afterwards did penance after he had feasted very plentifully upon in a bay gelding for ten years; as also how it himself, would now and then throw me a I was a tailor, a shrimp, and a tom-tit. In bone that was but half-picked, for my en- the last of these my shapes, I was shot in couragement; but, upon my being unsuc- the Christmas holidays by a young jacka No. 344.] THE SPECTATOR. 0,lapes, who would needs try his new gun in his way, and withal so very merry during upon me. the whole entertainment, that he insensi-' But I shall pass over these and several bly betrayed me to continue his competitor, other stages of life, to remind you of the which in a little time concluded in a comyoung beau who made love to you about six plete victory over my rival; after which, years since. You may remember, madam, by way of insult, I ate a considerable prohow he masked, and danced, and sung, portion beyond what the spectators thought and played a thousand tricks to gain you; me obliged in honour to do. The effect, and how he was at last carried off by a cold however, of this engagement, has made me that he got under your window one night in resolve never to eat more for renown; and a serenade. I was that unfortunate young I have, pursuant to this resolution, comfellow to whom you were then so cruel. pounded three wagers I had depending on Not' long after my shifting that unlucky the strength of my stomach, which hapbody, I found myself upon a hill in Ethio- pened very luckily, because it had been pia, where I lived in my present grotesque stipulated in our articles either to play or shape, till I was caught by a servant ot the pay. How a man of common sense could English factory, and sent over into Great be thus engaged is hard to determine; but Britain. I need not inform you how I came the occasion of this is, to desire you to ininto your hands. You see, madam, this is form several gluttons of my acquaintance, not the first time that you have had me in who look on me with envy, that they had a chain: I am, however, very happy in this best moderate their ambition in time, lest my captivity, as you often bestow on me infamy or death attend their success. I those kisses and caresses which I would forgot to tell you, sir, with what unspeakhave given the world for when I was a man. able pleasure I received the acclamations I hope this discovery of my person will not and applause of the whole board, when I tend to my disadvantage, but that you will had almost eat my antagonist into convulstill continue your accustomed favours to sions. It was then that I returned his mirth your most devoted humble servant, upon him with such success, as he was'PUGG.' hardly able to swallow, though prompted by a desire of fame, and a passionate fondcP. S. I would advise your little shock- ness for distinction. I had not endeavoured dog to keep out of my way; for as I look to excel so far, had not the company been upon him to be the most formidable of my so loud in their approbation of my victory. rivals, I may chance one time or other to I don't question but the same thirst after give him such a snap as he won't like.' glory has often caused a man to drink quarts without taking breath, and prompted men to many other as difficult enterprises: No. 344.] Friday, April 4, 1712. Which, if otherwise pursued, might turn very much to a man's advantage. This In solo vivendi causa palato est. ambition of mine was indeed extravagantly Juv. Sat. xi. 11. pursued; however, I cannot help observSuch whose sole bliss is eating: who can give ing, that you hardly ever see a man comBut that one brutal reason why they live. mended for a good stomach, but he immediately falls to eating more, (though he had MR. SPECTATOR,-I think it has not before dined,) as well to confirm the person vet fallen into your way to discourse on that commended him in his good opinion of little ambition, or the many whimsical ways him, as to convince any other at the table, men fall into to distinguish themselves who may have been unattentive enough not among their acquaintance. Such observa- to have done justice to his character. I am, tions, well pursued, would make a pretty sir, your humble servant, history of low life. I myself am got into a'EPICURE MAMMON.' great reputation, which arose (as most extraordinary occurrences in a man's life seem' MR. SPECTATOR,-I have wrote to you to do,) from a mere accident. I was some three or four times, to, desire you would days ago unfortunately engaged among a take notice of an impertinent custom the set of gentlemen, who esteem a man accord- women, the fine women, have lately fallen ing to the quantity of food he throws down into, of taking snuff. This silly trick is atat a meal. Now I, who am ever for dis- tended with such a coquette air in some tinguishing myself according to the notions ladies, and such a sedate masculine one in of superiority which the rest of the com- others, that I cannot tell which most to pany entertain, ate so immoderately, for complain of: but they are to me equally their applause, as had like to have cost me disagreeable. Mrs. Santer is so impatient my life. What added to my misfortune was, of being without it, that she takes it as that having naturally a good stomach, and often as she does salt at meals: and as she having lived soberly for some time, my affects a wonderful ease and negligence in oody was as well prepared for this conten- all her manner, an upper lip mixedwith tion as if it had been by appointment. I snuff and the sauce, is what is presented to had quickly vanquished every glutton in the observation of all who have the honour company but one who was such a prodigy to eat with her. The pretty creature, her Vol II 7 50 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 34a, niece, does all she can to be as disagreeable book, which is filled with Adam's account as her aunt; and if she is not as offensive to of his passion and esteem for Eve, would the eye, she is quite as much to the ear, have been improper for her hearing, and and makes up all she wants in a confident has therefore devised very just and beautiair, by a nauseous rattle of the nose, when ful reasons for her retiring: the snuff is delivered, and the fingers make the stops and cloes on the nostrils. This, So spake our sire, and by his countenance seem'd the stps s., Ent'ring on studious thoughts abtruse; which Eve perhaps, is not a very courtly image in Perceiving, where she sat retir'd in sight, s-eaking of ladies; that is very true: but With lowliness majestic from her seat, where arises the offence? Is it in those who And grace that won who saw to wish her stay, e a s te offe? Is it i ose; and went forth among her fruits and flowers, commit, or those who observe it? As for To visit how they prosper'd, bud and bloom, my part, I have been so extremely dis- Her nursery: they at her coming sprung, gusted with this filthy physic hanging on And, touch'd by her fair tendance, gladlier grew. gUSted With thisfilhyhyschYet went she not, as not with such discourse, the lip, that the most agreeable conversa- Delighted, or not capable her ear tion, or person, has not been able to make Of what was high: such pleasure she reserv'd, up for it. As to those who take it for no Adam he relating, sh e sole auditrefess;'d Her husband the relator she prefer'd other end but to give themselves occasion Before the angel, and of him to ask for pretty action, or to fill up little inter- Chose rather: he, she knew, would intermix vals of discourse, I can bear with them; Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute With conjugal caresses; from his lip but then they must not use it when another Not words alone pleas'd her. 0, when meet now is speaking, who ought to be heard with too Such pairs, in love and mutual honour join'd! much respect, to admit of offering at that time from hand to hand tht snuff-box. But The angel's returning a doubtful answer Flavilla is so far taken with her behaviour to Adam's inquiries, was not only proper in this kind, that she pulls out her box for the moral reason which the poet assigns, (which is indeed full of good Brazil,) in the but because it would have been highly middle of the sermon; and, to show she has absurd to have given the sanction of an the audacity of a well-bred woman, she archangelto any particular system of philooffers it to the men as well as to the women sophy. The chief points in the Ptolemaic who sit near her: but since by this time all and Copernican hypotheses are describel the world knows she has a fine hand, I am with great conciseness and perspicuity, and in hopes she may give herself no further at the same time dressed in very pleasing trouble in this matter. On Sunday was and poetical images. sevennight, when they came about for the Adam, to detain the angel, enters afteroffering, she gave her charity with a very wards upon his own history, and relates to good air, but at the same time asked the him the circumstances in which he found church-warden if he would take a pinch. himself upon his creation; as also his conPray, sir, think of these thingsin time, and versation with his Maker, and his first you will oblige, your humble servant.' meeting with Eve. There is no part of T. the poem more apt to raise the attention cf the reader than this discourse of our great ancestor; as nothing can be more surprising No. 345.] Saturday, firil 5, 1712. and delightful to us, than to hear the sentiments that arose in the first man, while he Sanctius his animal, mentisque capacius alta was yet new and fresh from the hands of his Deerat adhuc, et quod dominari in catera posset, ear he p a inrwovn evr Natus homo est. Ovid. MJ et. Lib. i. 76. r. he poet as interwoven every A creature of a more exalted kind thing which is delivered upon this subject Was wanting yet, and then was man design'd: in holy writ with so many beautiful imagi Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast, nations of his own, that nothing can be con For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest.-Dryden. ceived more just and more natural than this THE accounts which Raphael gives of wholeepisode. Asourauthorknew this sub the battle of angels, and the creation of the ject could not but be agreeable to his reader world, have in them those qualifications he would not throw it into the relation of which the critics jidge requisite to an epi- the six days' work, but reserved it for a sode. They are nearly related to the prin- distinct episode, that he might have an opcipal action, and have a just connexion with portunity of expatiating upon it more at the fable. large. Before I enter upon this part of the The eighth book opens with a beautiful poem, I cannot but take notice of two shin description of the impression which this ing passages in the dialogue between Adaw discourse of the archangel made on our and the angel. The first is that whereinr first parents. Adam afterwards, by a very our ancestor gives an account of the pleanatural curiosity, inquires concerning the sure he took in conversing with him, which motions of those celestial bodies which contains a very noble moral. make the most glorious appearance among while I sit with thee, I seem in heaven, the six days' work. The poet here, with And sweeter thy discourse is to my ear a great deal of art, represents Eve as with- Than fruits of palm-trees (pleasantest to thirst drawing from this part of their conversa- And hunger both, from labour) at the hour tion, to amusements more suitable to her Of sweet repast; they satiate and soon fill, ex ti ewlknwtathon, oamemensmore sital tohier biThough pleasant; but thy words, with grace divine sex. He well knew that the episode in this Imbued, bring to their sweetness no satiety No. 345. J THE SPECTATOR. 51 Tlhe other I shall mention, is that in prepared for his reception, are also cirwhich the angel gives a reason why he cumstances finely imagined, and grounded should be glad to hear the story Adam was upon what is delivered in sacred story. about to relate. These and the like wonderful incidents in' For I that day was absent as befel, this part of the work, have in them all the Bound on a voyage uncouth and obscure, beauties of novelty, at the same time that Far on excursion towards the gates of hell, they have all the graces of nature. Sq:lar'd in full legion (such command we had,) The are such as none but a of reat ~enius To see that none thence issued forth a spy, hey are such as none but a great enius Or enemy, while God was in his work, could have thought of; though, upon the Lest he, incens'd at such eruption bold, perusal of them, they seem to rise of them Destruction with creation might be mix'd.' selves from the subject of which he treats. There is no question but our poet drew In a word, though they are natural, they the image in what follows from that in Vir- are not obvious; which is the true character gil's sixth book, where IEneas and the Sybil of all fine writing. stand before the adamantine gates, which The impression which the interdiction of are there described as shut upon the place the tree of life left in the mind of our first of torments, and listen to the groans, the parent is described with great strength and clank of chains, and the noise of iron whips, judgment; as the image of the several that were heard in those regions of pain and beasts and birds passing in review before sorrow. him is very beautiful and lively:' Fast we found, fast sl u-' Each bird and beast behold he dismal gates, and barricaded strong; Approaching two and two, these cow'ring low uThe dismal gates, l r approach eard within With blandishment; each bird stoop'd on his wing. But long ere our approaching heard within I nam'd them as they pass'd. Noise, other than the sound of dance or song, I d tm a t Torment, and loud lament, and furious rage.' Adam in the next place, describes a conAdam then proceeds to give an account ference which he held with his Maker upon of his condition and sentiments immediately the subject of solitude. The poet here reafter his creation. How agreeably does he presents the Supreme Being as making an represent the posture in which he found essay of his own work, and putting to the himself, the delightful landscape that sur- trial that reasoning faculty with which he rounded him, and the gladness of heart had endued his creature. Adam urges, in which grew up in him on that occasion! this divine colloquy, the impossibility of his being happy, though he was the inhabitant -'As new wak'd fom soundest sleep, of Paradise, and lord of the whole creation, Soft on the fow'ry herb I found me laid a te le creation In balmy sweat, which with his beams the sun without the conversation and society of Soon dry'd, and on the reeking moisture fed, some rational creature who should partake Straight towards heaven my wond'ring eyes I turn'd those blessings with him. This dialogue, And gaz'd awhile the ample sky; till rais'd By quick instinctive motion, up I sprung, which is supported chiefly by the beauty of As thitherward endeavouring, and upright the thoughts, without other poetical ornaStood on my feet. About me round I saw ment, is as fine a part as any in the whole Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains, And liquid lapse of murmuring streams: by these, poem. The more the reader examines the Creatures that liv'd and mov'd, and walk'd, or flew, justness and delicacy of its sentiments, the Birds on the branches warbling; all things smil'd more he will fi himself pleased with it. With fragrance, and with joy my heart o'erflow'd.' The poet h wonderfully preserved the The poet has wonderfully preserved the Adam is afterwards described as sur- character of majesty and condescension in prised at his own existence, and taking a the Creator, and, at the same time, that of survey of himself and of all the works of humility and adoration in the creature, as nature. He likewise is represented as dis- particularly in the following lines: covering, by the light of reason, that he,'Thus I presumptuous; and the vision bright, and every thing about him, must have been As with a smile more brightened, thus reply'd, &c. the effect of some Being infinitely good and And ithuleave ofspeech implor'd And humble deprecation, thus reply'd: powerful, and that this Being had a right to " Let not my words offend thee, Heavenly Power, his worship and adoration. His first address My Maker, be propitious while I speak." &c. to the Sun, and to those parts of the crea- dam then proceeds to give an account tion which made the most distinguished of his second sleep, and of the dream in figure, is very natural and amusing to the which he beheld the formation of Eve. The imagination: new passion that was awakened in him at -' Thou Sun,' said I.' Fair light, the sight of her is touched very finely. And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay, Under his forming hands a creature grew Ye hills, and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains, Manlike, but diffrent sex: so lovely fair And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell, That what seem'd fair in all the world, seem'd now Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus? how here?' Mean, or in her summ'd up, in her contain'd, His next sentiment, when, upon his first Sweetness in he looks, which from that time infusd Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before; going to sleep, he fancies himself losing his And into all things from her air inspir'd existence, and falling away into nothing, The spirit of love and amorous delight.' can never be sufficiently admired. His Adam's distress upon losing sight of this dream, in which he still preserves the con- beautiful phantom, with his exclamations sciousness of his existence, together with of joy and gratitude at the discovery of a his removal into the garden which was real creature who resembled the apparition 52 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 346. which had been presented to him in his'Neither her outside form'd so fair, nor aught dreal m; the approaches he makes to her, In procreation common to all kinds, adream; te approacohes he makes to laid (Though higher of the genial bed by far, and his manner of courtship, are all laid And with mysterious reverence I deem) together in a most exquisite propriety of So much delights me, as those graceful acts, sentiments Those thousand decencies that daily flow From all her words and actions, mix'd with love Though this part of the poem is worked And sweet compliance, which declare unfeign'd up with great warmth and spirit, the love Union of mind, or in us both one soul: which is described in it is every way suit- Harmony to behold in wedded pair!' able to a state of innocence. If the reader Adam's speech at parting with the angel, compares the description which Adam here has in it a deference and gratitude agreegives of his leading Eve to the nuptial able to an inferior nature, and at the same bower, with that which Mr. Dryden has time a certain dignity and greatness suitable made on the same occasion in a scene of his to the father of mankind in his state of inFall of Man, he will be sensible of the great nocence. L. care which Milton took to avoid all thoughts - -- on so delicate a subject that might be offensive to religion or good manners. The No. 346.] Monday, JfAril 7, 1712. sentiments are chaste, but not cold; and Consuetudinem benignitatis largitioni munerum convey to the mind ideas of the most trans- longe antepono. Hiec est gravium hominum atque mag. convey to tenorum; illa quasi assentatorum populi, multitudinis porting passion, and of the greatest purity. levitatem voluptate quasi titillantium. Tull. What a noble mixture of rapture and in- I esteem a habit of benignity greatly preferable to nocence has the author joined together, in munificence. The former is peculiar to great and disthe reflection which Adam makes on the tinguished persons; the latter belongs to flatterers of pleasures of love, compared to those e people, who tickle the levity of the multitude with sense! WHEN we consider the offices of human Thus have I told thee, all my state, and brought l here s methinks, somethig i whan My story to the sum of earthly bliss l there s, methinks, someting in what Which I enjoy; and must confess to find we ordinarily call generosity, which, when In all things else delight indeed, but such carefully examined, seems to flow rather As us'd or not, works in the mind no change from a loose and unguarded temper than Nor vehement desire; these delicacies, I mean of taste, sight, smell, herbs, fruits, and flowers, an honest and liberal mind. For this reason Walks, and the melody of birds: but here it is absolutely necessary that all liberality Far otherwise, transported I behold, cc Far otherwise, transported I behold, should have for its basis and support fruTransported touch; here passion first I felt, Commotion strange! in all enjoyments else gality. By this means the beneficent spirit Superior and unmov'd, here only weak works in a man from convictions of reason, Against the charm of beauty's pow'rful glance. nt from the impulse f passion. The Or nature fail'd in me, and left some part Not proof enough such object to sustain; generous man in the ordinary acceptation, Or from my side subducting, took perhaps without respect of the demands of his More than enough; at least on hear bestowd family, will soon find upon the foot of his Too much of ornament, in outward show Elaborate, of inward less exact. account, that he has sacrificed to fools, -When I approach knaves, flatterers, or the deservedly unHer loveliness, so absolute she seems, hapy, all the opportunities of affording And in herselfcomplete, so well to know Her own, that what she wills to do or say, any future assistance where it ought to be. Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best; Let him therefore reflect, that if to bestow All higher knowledge in her presence falls bein itself laudable, should not a man take Degraded: wisdom in discourse with her Loses, discountenanc'd, and like folly shows: care to secure an ability to do things praiseAuthority and reason on her wait, worthy as long as he lives? Or could there As one intended first, not after made be a more cruel piece of raillery upon a Occasionally; and to consummate all, Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat man who should have reduced his fortune Build in her loveliest, and create an awe below the capacity of acting according to About her, as a guard angelic plac'd.' his natural temper, than to say of him These sentiments of love in our first pa-' That gentleman was generous?' My berent, gave the angel such an insight into loved author therefore has, in the sentence human nature, that he seems apprehensive on the top of my paper, turned his eye with of the evils which might befall the species a certain satiety from beholding the adin general, as well as Adam in particular, dresses to the people by largesses and pubfrom the excess of his passion. He there- lic entertainments, which he asserts to be fore fortifies him against it by timely ad- in general vicious, and are always to be monitions; which very artfully prepare the regulated according to the circumstances mind of the reader for the occurrences of of time and a man's own fortune. A conthe next book, where the weakness, of stant benignity in commerce with the rest which Adam here gives such distant dis- of the world, which ought to run through coveries, brings about that fatal event which all a man's actions, has effects more useful is the subject of the poem. His discourse, to those whom you oblige and is less ostenwhich follows the gentle rebuke he received tatious in yourself. He turns his recomfrom the angel, shows that his love, how- mendation of this virtue on commercial life: ever violent it might appear, was still and, according to him, a citizen who is founded in reason, and consequently not frank in his kindnesses, and abhors severity improper for Paradise: Jn his demands: he who, in buying, selling, No. 346.J THE SPECTA'rOR. lending, doing acts of good neighbourhood, Without this benignity, pride or vengeance is just and easy; he who appears naturally will precipitate a man to choose the receipt averse to disputes, and above the sense of of half his demands from one whom he has little sufferings; bears a noble character, undone, rather than the whole from one to and does much more good to mankind than whom he has shown mercy. This benignity any other man's fortune, without com- is essential to the character of a fair trader, merce, can possibly support. For the citi- and any man who designs to enjoy his wealth zen above all other men, has opportunities with honour and self-satisfaction; nay, it of arriving at'the highest fruit of wealth,' would not be hard to maintain, that the to be liberal without the least expense of a practice of supporting good and industrious man's own fortune. It is not to be denied men would carry a man farther even to his but such a practice is liable to hazard; but profit, than indulging the propensity of this therefore adds to the obligation, that, serving and obliging the fortunate. My auamong traders, he who obliges is as much thor argues on this subject, in order to inconcerned to keep the favour a secret as he dine men's minds to those who want them who receives it. The unhappy distinctions most, after this manner.' We must always among us in England are so great, that to consider the nature of things, and govern celebrate the intercourse of commercial ourselves accordingly. The wealthy man, friendship (with which I am daily made when he has repaid you, is upon a balance, acquainted) would be to raise the virtuous with you; butthe person whom you favoured man so many enemies of the contrary party. with a loan, if he be a good man, will think I am obliged to conceal all I know of' Tom himself in your debt after he has paid you. the Bounteous,' who lends at the ordinary The wealthy and the conspicuous are not interest, to give men of less fortune oppor- obliged by the benefits you do them; they tunities of making greater advantages. He think they conferred a benefit when they conceals, under a rough air and distant be- received one. Your good offices are always haviour, a bleeding compassion and wo- suspected, and it is with them the same manish tenderness. This is governed by thing to expect their favour as to receive it. the most exact circumspection, that there But the man below you, who knows, in the is no industry wanting in the person whom good you have done him, you respected he is to serve, and that he is guilty of no himself more than his circumstances, does improper expenses. This I know of Tom; not act like an obliged man only to him but who dare say it of so known a Tory? from whom he has received a benefit, but The same care I was forced to use some also to all who are capable of doing him one. time ago, in the report of another's virtue, And whatever little offices he can do for and said fifty instead of a hundred, because you, he is so far from magnifying it, that he the man I pointed at was a Whig. Actions will labour to extenuate it in all his actions of this kind are popular, without being in- and expressions. Moreover, the regard to vidious: for every man of ordinary circum- what you do to a great man at best is taken stances looks upon a man who has this notice of no further than by himself or his known benignity in his nature as a person family; but what you do to a man of an ready to be his friend upon such terms as humble fortune (provided always that he is he ought to expect it; and the wealthy who a good and a modest man) raises the affecmay envy such a character, can do no in- tions towards you of all men of that characjury to its interests, but by the imitation of ter (of which there are many) in the whole it, in which the good citizen will rejoice to city. be rivalled. I know not how to-form to my- There is nothing gains a reputation to a self a greater idea of human life, than in preacher so much as his own practice; I what is the practice of some wealthy men am therefore casting about what act of bewhom I could name, that make no step to nignity is in the power of a Spectator. the improvement of their own fortunes, Alas! that lies but in a very narrow comwherein they do not also advance those of pass; and I think the most immediately other men who would languish in poverty under my patronage are either players, or without that munificence. In a nation where such whose circumstances bear an affinity there are so many public funds to be sup- with theirs. All, therefore, I am able to do ported, I know not whether he can be called at this time of this kind, is to tell the town, a good subject, who does not embark some that on Friday the 11th of this instant, part of his fortune with the state, to whose April, there will be performed in Yorkvigilance he owes the security of the whole. Buildings, a concert of vocal and instruThis certainly is an immediate way of lay- mental music, for the benefit of Mr. Edward ing an obligation upon many, and extending Keen, the father of twenty children; and your benignity the farthest a man can pos- that this day the haughty George Powell sibly, who is not engaged in commerce. hopes all the good-natured part of the town But he who trades, besides giving the state will favour him, whom they applauded in some part of this sort of credit he gives his Alexander, Timon, Lear, and Orestes, banker, may, in all the occurrences of his with their company this night, when he life, have his eye upon removing want from hazards all his heroic glory for their appro the door of the industrious, and defending bation in the humble condition of honest the unhappy upright man from bankruptcy. Jack Falstaff. T 54 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 347. No. 347. Tuesday, Apiril 8, 1712.' The Manifesto of Taw Waw Eben Zan Kaladar, Emperor of the Mohocks. Quis furor, o cives! que tanta licentia ferri'Whereas we have received information, t blin, d f c from sundry quarters of this great and Such horrid license to the barb'rous sword! populous city, of severl outrages committed on the legs, arms, noses, and other I DO not question but my country readers parts, of the good people of England, by have been very much surprised at the so such as have styledthemselvesoursubjects; veral accounts they have met with in our in order to vindicate our imperial dignity public papers, of that species of men among from those false aspersions which have been us, lately known by the name of Mohocks. cast on it, as if we ourselves might have I find the opinions of the learned, as to encouraged or abetted any such practices, their origin and designs, are altogether va- we have, by these presents, thought fit to rious, insomuch that very many begin to signify our utmost abhorrence and detesta doubt whether indeed there were ever any tion of all such tumultuous and irregular such society of men. The terror which proceedings; and do hereby farther give spread itself over the whole nation some notice, that if any person or persons has or years since on account of the Irish, is still have suffered any wound, hurt, damage, or fresh in most people's memories, though it detriment, in his or their limb or limbs afterwards appeared there was not the least otherwise than shall be hereafter specified, ground for that general consternation. the said person or persons, upon applying The late panic fear was in the opinion themselves to such as we shall appoint for of many deep and penetrating persons of the inspection and redress of the grievthe same nature. These will have it that ances aforesaid, shall be forthwith committhe Mohocks are like those spectres and ted to the care of our principal surgeon, apparitions which frighten several towns and be cured at our own expense, in some and villages in her majesty's dominions, one or other of those hospitals which we though they were never seen by any of the are now erecting for that purpose. inhabitants. Others are apt to think that'And to the end that no one may, either these Mohocks are a kind of bull-beggars, through ignorance or inadvertency, incur first invented by prudent married men, and those penalties which we have thought fit masters of families, in order to deter their to inflict on persons of loose and dissolute wives and daughters from taking the air at lives, we do hereby notify to the public, unseasonable hours; and that when they that if any man be knocked down or astell them'the Mohocks will catch them,' saulted while he is employed in his lawful it is a caution of the same nature with that business, at proper hours, that it is not of our forefathers, when they bid their chil- done by our order; and we do hereby perdren have a care of Raw-head and Bloody- mit and allow any such person, so knocked bones..down or assaulted, to rise again, and defend For my own part, I am afraid there was himself in the best manner that he is able. too much reason for the great alarm the' We do also command all and every whole city has been in upon this occasion; our good subjects, that they do not prethough at the same time I must own, that sume, upon any pretext whatsoever, to I am in some doubt whether the following issue and sally forth from their respective pieces are genuine and authentic; the more quarters till between the hours of eleven so, because I am not fully satisfied that the and twelve. That they never tip the lion name by which the emperor subscribes upon man, woman, or child, till the clock himself, is altogether conformable to the at St. Dunstan's shall have struck one. Indian orthography.' That the sweat be never given but beI shall only fart-her inform my readers, tween the hours of one and two; always that it was some time since I received the provided, that our hunters may begin to following letter and manifesto, though, for hunt a little after the close of the evening, particular reasons, I did not think fit to any thing to the contrary herein notwithpublish them till now. standing. Provided also, that if ever they To the Sectator. are reduced to the necessity of pinking, it te lectator.shall always be in the most fleshy parts,'SIR,-Finding that our earnest endea- and such as are least exposed to view. vours for the good of mankind have been'It is also our imperial will and pleabasely and maliciously represented to the sure, that our good subjects the sweaters world, we send you enclosed our imperial do establish their hummums in such close manifesto, which it is our will and pleasure places, alleys, nooks, and corners, that the that you forthwith communicate to the patient or patients may not be in danger of public, by inserting it in your next daily catching cold, paper. We do not doubt of your ready'That the tumblers, to whose care we compliance in this particular, and there- chiefly commit the female sex, confine fore bid you heartily farewell, themselves to Drury-lane, and the purlieus (Signed) of the Temple; and that every other party'TAW WAW EBEN ZAN KALADAR, and division of our subjects do each of them'Emiperor of the Mlohocks.' keep within the respective quarters we No. 48. J THE SPECTATOR. 55 have allotted to them. Provided, never- night, it will serve as an instance that theless, that nothing herein contained shall the sexes are equally inclined to defamain any wise be construed to extend to the tion, with equal malice and impotence. hunters, who have our full license and per- Jack Triplett came into my lady Airy's mission to enter into any part of the town about eight of the clock. You know the wherever their game shall lead them. manner we sit at a visit, and I need not' And whereas we have nothing more at describe the circle; but Mr. Triplett came our imperial heart than the reformation in, introduced by two tapers supported by of the cities of London and Westminster, a spruce servant, whose hair is under a cap which to our unspeakable satisfaction we till my lady's candles are all lighted up, have in some measure already effected, we and the hour of ceremony begins: I say do hereby earnestly pray and exhort all Jack Triplett came in, and singing (for he husbands, fathers, house-keepers, and mas- is really good company) "Every feature, ters of families, in either of the aforesaid charming creature,"- he went on, "It is cities, not only to repair themselves to their a most unreasonable thing, that people respective habitations at early and season- cannot go peaceably to see their friends, able hours, but also to keep their wives but these murderers are let loose. Such a and daughters, sons, servants, and appren- shape! such an air! what a glance was that tices, from appearing in the streets at those as her chariot passed by mine!" —My lady times and seasons which may expose them herself interrupted him; " Pray, who is to a military discipline, as it is practised by this fine thing?"-"I warrant," says anour good subjects the Mohocks; and we do other, "'tis the creature I was telling your further promise on our imperial word, that ladyship of, just now. "-" You were telling as soon as the reformation aforesaid shall of?" says Jack; "Iwish I had been so be brought about, we will forthwith cause happy as to have come in and heard you; all hostilities to cease. for I have not words to say what she is:' Given from our court, at the Devil-tavern, but if an agreeable height, a modest air,'March 15, 1712.' X. a virgin shame, and impatience of being beheld amidst a blaze of ten thousand charms " The whole room flew outNo. 348.] Wednesday,.Afril 9, 1712. "OhMr. Triplett!".WhenMrs. Lofty, a known prude, said she believed she knew Invidiam placare paras virtute relicta. whom the gentleman meant; but she was Ho.-. Sat. iii. Lib. 2. 13.'. i indeed, as he civilly represented her, imTo shun detraction, wouldst thou virtue fly? inee, a he ii beheld.rrThen tuering to patient of being beheld.-Then turning to'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have not seen you the lady next to her,-" The most unbred lately at any of the places where I visit, so creature you ever saw!" Another pursued that I am afraid you are wholly unacquaint- the discourse; "As unbred, madam, as ed with what passes among my part of the you may think her, she is extremely belied world, who are, though I say it, without if she is the novice she appears; she was controversy, the most accomplished and last week at a ball till two in the morning: best bred of the town. Give me leave to Mr. Triplett knows whether he was the tell you, that I am extremely discomposed happy man that took care of her home; when I hear scandal, and am an utter but-" This was followed by some partienemy to all manner of detraction, and cular exception that each woman in the think it the greatest meanness that people room made to some peculiar grace or adof distinction can be guilty of. However, vantage; so that Mr. Triplett was beaten it is hardly possible to come into company, from one limb and feature to another, till where you do not find them pulling one he was forced to resign the whole woman. another to pieces, and that from no other In the end, I took notice Triplett recorded provocation but that of hearing any one all this malice in his heart; and saw in his commended. Merit, both as to wit and countenance, and a certain waggish shrug, beauty, is become no other than the pos- that he designed to repeat the conversasession of a few trifling people's favour, tion: I therefore let the discourse die, and which you cannot possibly arrive at, if you soon after took an occasion to recommend have really any thing in you that is deserv- a certain gentleman of my acquaintance for ing. What they would bring to pass is, to a person of singular modesty, courage, inmake all good and evil consist in report, and tegrity, and withal as a man of an enterwith whispers, calumnies, and imperti- taining conversation, to which advantages nences, to have the conduct of those re- he had -a shape and manner peculiarly ports. By this means, innocents are blasted graceful. Mr. Triplett, who is a woman's upon their first appearance in town, and man seemed to hear me with patience there is nothing more required to make a enough commend the qualities of his mind. young woman the object of envy and hatred, -He never heard indeed but that he was than to deserve love and admiration. This a very honest man, and no fool; but for a abominable endeavour to suppress or lessen fine gentleman, he must ask pardon. Upon every thing that is praiseworthy, is as fre- no other foundation than this, Mr. Triplett quent among the men as the women. If I took occasion to give the gentleman's pedicar remember what passed at a visit last gree, by what methods some part of the 56 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 349. estate was acquired, now much it was pronounced vicious or virtuous before the beholden to a marriage for the present cir- conclusion of it. cumstances of it: after all he could see no- It was upon this consideration that Epathing but a common man in his person, his minondas, being asked whether Chabrias breeding, or understanding. Iphicrates, or he himself, deserved most' Thus, Mr. Spectator, this impertinent to be esteemed?'You must first see us humour of diminishing every one who is die,' saith he,'before that question can be produced in conversation to their advan- answered.' tage, runs through the world; and I am, I As there is not a more melancholy conconfess, so fearful of the force of ill tongues, sideration to a good man than his being that I have begged of all those who are my obnoxious to such a change, so there is nowell-wishers never to commend me, for it thing more glorious than to keep up an will but bring my frailties into examination; uniformity in his actions, and preserve the and I had rather be unobserved, than con- beauty of his character to the last. spicuous for disputed perfections. I am The end of a man's life is often compared confident a thousand young people, who to the winding up of a well-written play, would have been ornaments to society, where the principal persons still act in have, from fear of scandal, never dared to character, whatever the fate is which they exert themselves in the polite arts of life. undergo. There is scarce a great person Their lives have passed away in an odious in the Grecian or Roman history, whose rusticity in spite of great advantages of death has not been remarked upon by some person, genius, and fortune. There is a writer or other, and censured or applauded vicious terror of being blamed in some well- according to the genius or principles of the inclined people, and a wicked pleasure in person who has descanted on it. Monsieur suppressing them in others; both which I de St. Evremond is very particular in setrecommend to your spectatorial wisdom to ting forth the constancy and courage ot animadvert upon; and if you can be suc- Petronius Arbiter during his last moments, cessful in it, I need not say how much you and thinks he discovers in them a greater will deserve of the town; but new toasts firmness of mind and resolution than in the will owe to you their beauty, and new wits death of Seneca, Cato, or Socrates. There their fame. I am, sir, your most obedient is no question but this polite author's afhumble servant,'MARY.' fectation of appearing singular in his reT. marks, and making discoveries which had escaped the observations of others, threw No. 349.] Thursday, April 10, 1712. him into this course of reflection. It was Petronius's merit that he died in the same -Maxim-Quos ille timorum gaiety of temper, in which he lived; but as Maximus hand urget lethi metus: inde ruendi In ferrum mens prona viris, animneque capaces his life was altogether loose and dissolute, Mortis- Lucan. Lib. i. 454. the indifference which he showed at the Thrice happy they beneath their northern skies, close of it is to be looked upon as a piece of Who that worst fear, the fear of death, despise! natural carelessness and levity, rather than Hence they no cares for this frail being feel,proBut rush undaunted on the pointed steel. fortitude. The resolution of SocratesproProvoke approaching fate, and bravely scorn ceeded from very different motives, the To spare that life which must so soon return.-Roe. consciousness f a well-spent life, and the I AM very much pleased with a consola- prospect of a happy eternity. If the intory letter of Phalaris, to one who had lost genious author above-mentioned was so a son that was a young man of great merit. pleased with gaiety of humour in a dying The thought with which he comforts the man, he might have found a much nobler afflicted father is, to the best of my me- instance of it in our countryman Sir Thomas mory as follows:-That he should consider More. death had set a kind seal upon his son's This great and learned man was famous character, and placed him out of the reach for enlivening his ordinary discourses with of vice and infamy: that, while he lived, he wit and pleasantry; and as Erasmus tells was still within the possibility of falling him in an epistle dedicatory, acted in all away from virtue, and losing the fame of parts of life like a second Democritus. which he was possessed. Death only closes He died upon a point of religion, and is a man's reputation, and determines it as respected as a martyr by that side for which good or bad. he suffered. That innocent mirth, which This, among other motives, may be one had been so conspicuous in his life, did not reason why we are naturally averse to the forsake him to the last. He maintained launching out into a man's praise till his the same cheerfulness of heart upon the head is laid in the dust. Whilst he is ca- scaffold which he used to show at his table; pable of changing, we may be forced to and upon laying his head on the block, retract our opinion. He may forfeit the gave instances of that good humour with esteem we have conceived of him, and some which he had always entertained his friends time or other appear to us under a different in the most ordinary occurrences. His light from what he does at present. In death was of a piece with his life. There short, as the life of any man cannot be call- was nothing in it new, forced, or affected. ed happy, or unhappy, so neither can it be He did not look upon the severing his head No. 350. THE SPECTATOR. 57 trom his body as a circumstance that ought That elevation of mind which is displayed in dan to produce any change in the disposition of gers, if it wants justice, and fights for its own con his mind; and as he died under a fixed and eniency is settled hope of immortality, he thought any CAPTAIN SENTRY was last night at a unusual degree of sorrow and concern im- club, and produced a letter from Ipswich, proper on such an occasion, as had nothing which his correspondent desired him to in it which could deject or terrify him. communicate to his friend the Spectator. There is no great danger of imitation It contained an account of an engagement from this example. Men's natural fears between a French privateer, commanded will be a sufficient guard against it. I shall by one Dominic Pottiere, and a little vesonly observe, that what was philosophy in sel of that place laden with corn, the masthis extraordinary man, would be phrensy ter whereof, as I remember, was one Goodin one who does not resemble him as well win. The Englishman defended himself in the cheerfulness of his temper as in the with incredible bravery, and beat off the sanctity of his life and manners. French, after having been boarded three I shall conclude this paper with the in- or four times. The enemy still came on stance of a person who seems to me to have with great fury, and hoped by his number shown more intrepidity and greatness of of men to carry the prize; till at last the soul in his dying moments than what we Englishman, finding himself sink apace, meet with among any of the most cele- and ready to perish, struck: but the effect brated Greeks and Romans. I met with which this singular gallantry had upon the this instance in the History of the Revolu- captain of the privateer was no other than tions in Portugal, written by the abbot de an unmanly desire of vengeance for the loss Vortot. he had sustained in his several attacks. When Don Sebastian, king of Portugal, He told the Ipswich man in a speaking had invaded the territories of Muli Moluc, trumpet, that he would not take him aboard, emperor of Morocco, in order to dethrone and that he stayed to see him sink. The him, and set the crown upon the head of Englishman at the same time observed a his nephew, Moluc was wearing away with disorder in the vessel, which he rightly a distemper which he himself knew was judged to proceed from the disdain which incurable. However, he prepared for the the ship's crew had of their captain's inreception of so formidable an enemy. He humanity. With this hope he went into was, indeed, so far spent with his sickness, his boat, and approached the enemy. He that he did not expect to live out the whole was taken in by the sailors in spite of their day when the last decisive battle was given; commander: but though they received him but knowing the fatal consequences that against his command, they treated him, would happen to his children and people, when he was in the ship, in the manner he in case he should die before he put an end directed. Pottiere caused his men to hold to that war, he commanded his principal Goodwin, while he beat him with a stick, officers, that if he died during the engage- till he fainted with loss of blood and rage ment, they should conceal his death from of heart; after which he. ordered him into the army, and that they should ride up to irons, without allowing him any food, but the litter in which his corpse was carried, such as one or two of the men stole to him under pretence of receiving orders from him under peril of the like usage: and having as usual. Before the battle began, he was kept him several days overwhelmed with carried, through all the ranks of his army the misery of stench, hunger, and sorein an open litter, as they stood drawn up ness, lie brought him into Calais. The in array, encouraging themto fight valiantly governor of the place was soon acquainted in defence of their religion and country. with all that had passed, dismissed PotFinding afterwards the battle to go against tiere from his charge with ignominy, and him, though he was very near his last ago- gave Goodwin all the relief which a man of nies, he threw himself out of his litter, honour would bestow upon an enemy barrallied his army, and led them on. to the barously treated, to recover the imputation charge: which afterwards ended in a com- of cruelty upon his prince and country. plete victory on the side of the Moors. He When Mr. Sentry had read his letter, had no sooner brought his men to the en- full of many other circumstances which gagement, but, finding himself utterly aggravate the barbarity, he fell into a sort spent, he was again replaced in his litter, of criticism upon magnanimity and courage, where, laying his finger on his mouth, to and argued that they were inseparable; and enjoin secrecy to his officers who stood that courage, without regard to justice and about him, he died in a few moments after humanity, was no other than the fierceness in that posture. L. of a wild beast.'A good and truly bold spirit,' continued he,' is ever actuated by ~~-~-='~~-======== ~reason, and a sense of honour and duty. No. 350.] Friday, Afiril 11, 1712. The affectation of such a spirit exerts itself. iy, 11,. in an impudent aspect, an overbearing con Ea animi elatio quae cernitur in periculis, si justitia fidence, and a certain negligence of giving vacat, puunatque pro suis commodis, invitioest. Tull. offence. his is visible in all the cocking VOL. II. 8 S8 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 351. youths you see about this town, who are No. 351.] Saturday,.lpril 12, 1712. noisy in assemblies, unawed by the presence of wise and virtuous men; in a word, te omis domus inclinata recmbit. insensible of all the honours and decencies " of human life. A shameless fellow takes On thee the fortunes of our house depend. advantage of merit clothed with modesty IF we look into the three great heroic and magnanimity, and, in the eyes of little poems which have appeared in the world, people, appears sprigitly and agreeable: we may observe that they are built upon while the man of resolution and true gal- very slight foundations. Homer lived near lantry is overlooked and disregarded, if not 300 years after the Trojan war; and, as the despised. There is a propriety in all things; writing of history was not then in use among and I believe what you scholars call just the Greeks, we may very well suppose that and sublime, in opposition to turgid and the tradition of Achilles and Ulysses had bombast expression, may give you an idea brought down but very few particulars to of what I mean, when I say modesty is the his knowledge; though there is no question certain indication of a great spirit, and im- but he has wrought into his two poems such pudence the affectation of it. He that of their remarkable adventures as were still writes with judgment, and never rises into talked of among his contemporaries. improper warmths, manifests the true force The story of 2Eneas, on which Virgil of genius; in like manner, he who is quiet founded his poem, was likewise very bare and equal in his behaviour is supported in of circumstances, and by that means afthat deportment by what we may call true forded him an opportunity of embellishing courage. Alas! it is not so easy a thing to it with fiction, and giving a full range be a brave man as the unthinking part of to his own invention. We find, however, mankind imagine. To dare is not all there that he has interwoven, in the course of his is in it. The privateer we were just now fable, the principal particulars, which were talking of had boldness enough to attack generally believed among the Romans, of his enemy, but not greatness of mind enough Eneas's voyage and settlement in Italy. to admire the same quality exerted by that The reader may find an abridgment of enemy in defending himself. Thus his base the whole story, as collected out of the anand little mind was wholly taken up in the cient historians, and as it was received sordid regard to the prize of which he among the Romans, in Dionysius Halicarfailed, and the damage done to his own nassus. vessel; and therefore he used an honest Since none of the critics have considered man, who defended his own from him, in Virgil's fable with relation to this history the manner as he would a thief that should of _Eneas, it may not perhaps be amiss to rob him. examine it in this light, so far as regards'He was equtally disappointed, and had my present purpose. Whoever looks into not spirit enough to consider, that one case the abridgment above-mentioned, will find would be laudable, fnd the other criminal. that the character of _Eneas is filled with Malice, rancour,. hatred, vengeance, are piety to the gods, and a superstitious obwhat tear the breasts of mean men in fight; servation of prodigies, oracles, and predicbut fame, glory, conquests, desire of oppor- tions. Virgil has not only preserved his tunities to pardon and oblige their opposers, character in the person of 2Eneas, but has are what glow in the minds of the gallant.' given a place in his poem to those particuThe captain ended his discourse with a lar prophecies which he found recorded of specimen of his book-learning; and gave us him in history and tradition. The poet to understand that he had read a French took the matters of fact as they came down author on the subject of justness in point of to him, and circumstanced them after his gallantry.'I love,' said Mr. Sentry'a own manner, to make them appear the critic who mixes the rules of life with anno- more natural, agreeable, or surprising. I betations upon writers. My author,' added lieve very many readers have been shocked he,' in his discourse upon epic poems, at that ludicrous prophecy which one of the takes occasion to speak of the same quality harpies pronounces to the Trojans in the of courage drawn in the two different cha- third book; namely, that before they had racters of Turnus and 2Eneas. He makes built their intended city they should be recourage the chief and greatest ornament duced by hunger to eat fheir very tables. of Turnus; but in 2Eneas there are many But, when they hear that this was one of others which outshine it; among the rest the circumstances that had been transmitted that of piety. Turnus is, therefore, all to the Romans in the history of ZEneas, they along painted by the poet full of ostentation, will think the poet did very well in taking his language haughty and vain-glorious, as notice of it. The historian above-mentioned placing his honour in the manifestation of acquaints us, that a prophetess had foretold his valour; ]Eneas speaks little, is slow to sEneas, that he should take his voyage action, and shows only a sort of defensive westward, till his companions should eat courage. If equipage and address make their tables; and that accordingly, upon his Turnus appear more courageous than landing in Italy, as they were eating their ]Eneas, conduct and success prove XEneas flesh upon cakes of bread for want of other more valiant than Turnus. T. conveniences, they afterwards fed on the No. 351.] THE SPECTATOR. 59 cakes themselves: upon which one of the dents, than any other in the whole poem. company said merrily,' We are eating our Satan's traversing the globe, and still keeptables.' They immediately took the hint, ing within the shadow of the night, as fearsays the historian, and concluded the pro- ing to be discovered by the angel of the phecy to be fulfilled. As Virgil did not sun, who had before detected him, is one think it proper to omit so material a parti- of those beautiful imaginations with which cular in the history of LEneas, it may be he introduces this his second series of adworth while to consider with how much ventures. Having examined the nature of judgment he has qualified it, and taken off every creature, and found out one which every thing that might have appeared im- was the most proper for his purpose, he propeir for a passage in a heroic poem. The again returns to Paradise; and to avoid dispropiletess who foretells it is a hungry covery, sinks by night with a river that harpy, as the person who discovers it is ran under the garden, and rises up again young Ascanius: through a fountain that issued from it by'Ieusetiammensasconsumimus, inquit Iulus!' the tree of life. The poet, who, as we En. vii. 11. have before taken notice, speaks as little'See we devour the plates on which we fed!' as possible in his own person, and, after the DrJden. example of Homer, fills every part of his Such an observation, which is beautiful work with manners and characters, introin the mouth of a boy, would have been duces a soliloquy of this infernal agent, ridiculous from any other of the company. who was thus restless in the destruction of I am apt to think that the changing of the man. He is then described as gliding Trojan fleet into water-nymphs, which is through the garden, under the resemblance the most violent machine in the whole of a mist, in order to find out the creature iEneid, and has given offence to several in which he designed to tempt our first pacritics, may be accounted for the same way. rents. This description has something in it Virgil himself, before he begins that rela- very poetical and surprising: tion, premises, that what he was going to tion, premises, that what he was going to So saying, through each thicket dank or dry, tell appeared incredible, but that it was Like a black mist low creeping, he held on justified by tradition. What further con- His midnight search, where soonest he might find firms me that this change of the fleet was The serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found, firms me that this change of the fleet was In labyrinth of many a round self-roll'd a celebrated circumstance in the history of His head the mi.lst, well stor'd with subtil wiles. 2Eneas, is, that Ovid has given a place to the same metamorphosis in his account of The author afterwards gives us a de the heathen mythology. scription of the morning which is wonderNone of the critics I 1ave met with have fully suitable to a divine poem, and pefiliar considered the fable cf the IEneid in this to that first season of nature. He reprelight, and taken notice how the tradition on sents the earth before it was cursed, as a which it was founded authorizes those parts great altar, breathing out its incense from in it which appear most exceptionable. I all parts, and sending up a pleasant savour hope the length of this reflection will not to the nostrils of its Creator; to which he make it unacceptable to the curious part adds a noble idea of Adam and Eve, as of my readers. offering their morning worship, and filling The history which was the basis of Mil- up the universal concert of praise and ado ton's poem is still shorter than either that ration: of the Iliad or JEneid. The poet has like- Now when a sacred light began to dawn wise taken care to insert every circum- In Eden on the humid flowers, that breath'd stance of it in the body of his fable. rhe Their morning incense; when all things that breathe From th' earth's great altar send up silent praise ninth book, which we are here to consider, To the Creator, and his nostrils fill is raised upon that brief account in scrip- With grateful smell; forth came the human pair ture, wherein we are told that the serpent And joind their vocal worship to the choir was more subtle than any beast of the field; Of creatures anting voice.that he tempted the woman to eat of the The dispute which follows between our forbidden fruit; that she was overcome by two first parents is represented with great this temptation, and that Adam followed art. It proceeds from a difference of udgher example. From these few particulars ment, not of passion, and is managed with Milton has formed one of the most entertain- reason, not with heat. It is such a dispute ing fables that invention ever produced. as we may suppose might have happened He has disposed of these several circum- in Paradise, had man continued happy and stances among so many agreeable and na- innocent. There is a great delicacy in tural fictions of his own, that his whole the moralities which are interspersed ir. story looks only like a comment upon sacred Adam's discourse, and which the most orwrit, or rather seems to be a full and com- dinary reader cannot but take notice of. plete relation of what the other is only an That force of love which the father of manepitome. I have insisted the longer on this kind so finely describes in the eighth book, consideration, as I look upon the disposi- and which is inserted in my last Saturday's tion and contrivance of the fable to be the paper, shows itself here in many fine inprincipal beauty of the ninth book, which stances: as in those fond regards he casts tohas more story in it, and is fuller of inci- wards Eve at her parting from him: 60 THE SPECTATOR. LNo. 351. TIer long with ardent look his eye pursu'd it, are conceived with a wondertul imagina Delighted, but desiring more her stay, Oft he to her his charge of quick return tion, and described in very natural senti Repeated; she to him as oft engaged ments. To be return'd by noon amid the bow'r. When Dido, in the fourth ZEneid, yielded In his impatience and amusement during to that fatal temptation which ruined her, her absence: Virgil tells us the earth trembled, the hea--- ~ -- Adam the while, vens were filled with flashes of lightning, Waiting desirous her return, had wove and the nymphs howled upon the mountain Of choicest flow'rs a garland to adorn tops. Milton, in the same poetical spirit, Her tresses, and her rural labours crown, As reapers oft are wont their harvest queen. has described all nature as disturbed upon Great joy he promis'd to his thoughts, and new Eve's eating the forbidden fruit. Solace in her return, so long delay'd. Solace in her return, so long delayd. So saying, her rash hand in evil hour, But particularly in that passionate speech, Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat, where, seeing her irrecoverably lost, he re- Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat solves to perish with her, rather than to live t h all h w s ae sis without her: wit ~ Some cursed fraud PUpon Adam's falling into the same guilt, Of enemy hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown, the whole creation appears a second time And me with thee hath ruin'd; for with thee in convulsions. Certain my resolution is to die: How can I live without thee? how forego.He scrupled not to eat Thy sweet converse and love so dearly join'd Against his better knowledge; not deceiv'd To live again in these wild woods forlorn? But fondly overcome with female charm, Should God create another Eve, and I Earth trembled from her entrails, as again Another rib afford, yet loss of thee In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan; Would never from my heart; no, no! I feel Sky lower'd, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh, Wept at completing of the mortal sin. Mine never shallmy bone thou art, and from thy state As all nature suffered by the guilt of our The beginning of theis srpeeh, and the first parents, these symptoms of trouble and The beginning of this speech, and the consternation are wonderfully imagined, not preparation to it, are animated with the only as prodigies, but as marks of her sym same spirit as the conclusion, which I have pathizing in the fall of man. here quoted. Adam's converse with Eve, after having The several wiles which are put in prac- eaten the forbidden fruit, is an exact copy tice by the tempter, when he found Eve se- of that between Jupiter and Juno in the four parated from her husband, the many pleas- teenth Iliad. Juno there approaches Jupi ing images of nature which are intermixed ter with the girdle which she had received in thi: part of the story, with its gradual and from Venus: upon which he tells her, that regular progress to the fatal catastrophe, she appeared more charming and desirable following si e ~ ppared more chamin bankd be are so very remarkable, that it would be than she had ever done before, even when superfluous to point out their respective their loves were at the highest. The poet beauties. h. ce;awnaaeifr Psafterwards describes them as reposing on a I have avoided mentioning any particular summit of Mount Ida, which produced unsimilitudes in my remarks on this great der them a bed of flowers, the lotus, the work, because I have given a general ac- crocus, and the hyacinth; and concludes his count of them in my paper on the first book description with their falling asleep. There is one, however, in this part of the Let the reader compare this with the folpoem which I shall here quote, as it is not lowing passage in Milton, which begins with only very beautiful, but the closest of anyin Adam's speech to Eve: the whole poem; I mean that where the r ee to serpent is described as rolling forward in all'For never did thy beau sine the adord his pride, animated bytenvlsprt, I saw thee first and wedded thee, adorn'd, his pride, animated by the evil spirit, and With all perfections, so inflame my sense conducting Eve to her destruction, while With ardour to enjoy thee, fairer now Adam was at too great a distance from her Than ever, bounty of this virtuous tree.'. her.his assstance. These. So several So said he, and forbore not glance or toy to give her his assistance. These several Of amorous intent, well understood particulars are all of them wrought into the Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire. following similitude: Her hand he seiz'd, and to a shady bank, Thick overhead with verdant roof embower d,. —---- -- Hope elevates, and joy He led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch, Brightens his crest; as when a wandering fire Pansies, and violets, and asphodel, Compact of unctious vapour, which the night And hyacinth, Earth's freshest softest lap. Condenses, and the cold environs round, There they their fill of love and love's disport Kindled through agitation to a flame, Took largely, of theik mutual guilt the seal, (Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends) The solace of their sin, till dewy sleep Hovering and blazing with delusive light, Oppress'd them. Misleads th' amaz'd night-wanderer from his way To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool, As no poet seems ever to have studied There swallow'd up and lost from succour far. Homer more, or to have more resembled The secret intoxication of pleasure, with him in the greatness of genius, than Milton, all those transient flushings of guilt and joy, I think I should have given but a very imwhich the poet represents in our first pa- perfect account of its beauties, if I had not rents upon their eating the forbidden fruit, observed the most remarkable passages to those flaggings of spirit, damps of sor- which look like parallels in these two great row, and mutual accusations which succeed authors. I might, in the course of these No. 352.] THE SPECTATOR. 61 criticisms, have taken notice of many par- that nothing but truth and ingenuity has ant ticular lines and expressions which are lasting good effect, even upon a man's fortranslated from the Greek poet; but as I tune and interest. thought this would have appeared too mi-'Truth and reality have all the advannute and over-curious, I have purposely tages of appearance, and many more. If emitted them. The greater incidents, how- the show of any thing be good for any ever, are not only set off by being shown in thing, I am sure sincerity is better, for the same light with several of the same na- why does any man dissemble, or seem ture in Homer, but by that means may be to be that which he is not, but because also guarded against the cavils of the taste- he thinks it good to have such a quality as less or ignorant. L. he pretends to? for to counterfeit and dissemble is to put on the appearance of some real excellency. Now the best way in the world for a man to seem to be any thing, is No. 352.] Monday, April 14, 1712. really to be what he would seem to be. Si ad honestatem nati sumus, ea ant sola Besides, that it is many times as troublesome expetenda est, aut certe omni pondere gravior est ha- to make good the pretence of a good quality, benda quam reliqua omnia. Tull. as to have it; and if a man have it not, it is If we be made for honesty, either it is solely to be ten to one but he is discovered to want it, and sought, or certainly to be estimated much more highly then allhis pains and labour to seem to have than all other things. it is lost. There is something unnatural in WILL HONEYCOMB was complaining to painting, which a skilful eye will easily disme yesterday, that the conversation of the cernfrom native beauty and complexion. town is so altered of late years, that a fine' It is hard to personate and act a part gentleman is at a loss for matter to start dis- long; for where truth is not at the bottom, -course, as well as unable to fall in with the nature will always be endeavouring to retalk he generally meets with. Will takes turn, and will peep out and betray herself notice, that there is now an evil under the one time or other. Therefore, if any man sun which he supposes to be entirely new, think it convenient to seem good, let him be because not mentioned by any satirist, or so indeed, and thenhis goodnesswill appear moralist, in any age.'Men,' said he,'grow to every body's satisfaction; so that upon all knaves sooner than they ever did since the accounts sincerity is true wisdom. Particucreation of the world before.' If you read larly as to the affairs of this world, integrity the tragedies of the last age, you find the has many advantages over all the fine artful men, and persons of intrigue, are ad- and artificial ways of dissimulation and vanced very far in years, and beyond the deceit; it is much the plainer and easier, pleasures and salliesof youth; but now Will much the safer and more secure way of observes, that the young have taken in the dealing in the world: it has less of trouble vices of the aged, and you shall have a man and difficulty, of entanglement and perof five-and-twenty, crafty, false, and in- plexity, of danger and hazard in it: it is the triguing, not ashamed to over-reach, cozen, shortest and nearest way to our end, carryand beguile. My friend adds, that till about ing us thither in a straight line, and will the latter end of king Charles's reign there hold out and last longest. The arts of dewas not a rascal of any eminence under for- ceit and cunning do continually grow weaker ty. In the places of resort for conversation, and less effectual and serviceable to them you now hear nothing but what relates to that use them; whereas integrity gains improving men's fortunes, without regard strength by use, and the more and longer to the methods towards it. This is so any man practiseth it, the greater service fashionable, that young men form them- it does him, by confirming his reputation, selves upon a certain neglect of every thing and encouraging those with whom he hath to that is candid, simple, and worthy of true do to repose the greatest trust and confiesteem; and affect being yet worse than dence in him, which is an unspeakable adthey are, by acknowledging, in their general vantage in the business and affairs of life. turn of mind and discourse, that they have' Truth is always consistent with itself, not any remaining value for true honour and and needs nothing to help it out; it is alhonesty; preferring the capacity of being ways near at hand, and sits upon our lips, artful to gain their ends, to the merit of and is ready to drop out before we are despising those ends when they come in aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and competition with their honesty. All this is sets a man's invention upon the rack, and due to the very silly pride that generally one trick needs a great many more to make prevails of being valued for the ability of it good. It is like building upon a false founcarrying their point; in a word, from the dation, which constantly stands in need of opinion that shallow and inexperienced peo- props to shore it up, and proves at last pie entertain of the short lived force of cun- more chargeable than to have raised a subning. But I shall, before I enter upon the stantial building at first upon a true and various faces which folly covered with ar- solid foundation; for sincerity is firm and tifice, puts on to impose upon the unthink- substantial, and there is nothing hollow and ing, produce a great authority for asserting unsound in it; and, because it is plain and 62 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 353. open, fears no discovery; of which the crafty No. 353.] Tuesday, Afiril 15, 1712. man is always in danger: and when he thinks he walks in the dark, all his pre- In tenui labor - tirg'. Georg. v. 6. tences are so transparent, that he that runs Though low the subject, it deserves our pains. may read them: he is the last man that r finds himself to be found out; and whilst he THE gentleman who obliges the world takes it for granted that he makes fools of and me in particular, it his others, he renders himself ridiculous. thoughts upon education, has just sent me'Add to all this, that sincerity is the most the following letter: compendious wisdom, and an excellent in-I take the liberty to send yu a strument for the speedy despatch of busi- fourth letter upon the education of youth. ness; it creates confidence in those we have In my last I gave you my thoughts upon In my last I gave you my thoughts upon to deal with, saves the labour of many in- some' which m ot l,. J.. some particular tasks, which I conceived quiries, and brings things to an issue in a it might not be amiss to mix with their few words. It is like travelling in a plain usual exercises, in order to give them an beaten road, which commonly brings a man early seasoning of virtue: I shall in this sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, proposesome others, which I fancy might in which men often lose themselves. In contribute to give them a right turn for the a word, whatsoever convenience may be world, and enablethem to make their ay thought to be in falsehood and dissimula- in it. tion, it is soon over; but the inconvenience The design of learning is, as I take it, f it is perpetual, because it brings a man either to render a man an ageeable comunder an everlasting jealousy and suspi- panion to himself, andteachhimto support cion, so that he is not believed when he solitude with pleasure; or, if he is not born speaks the truth, nor trusted perhaps when to an estate to supply that defect and furhe mean honestly*,. W.hen a man has once nish him with the means of acquiring one. forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he A person who applies himself to learning is set fast; and nothing will then tserve Ahis e is set fast; and nothing will then serve his with the first of these views may be said to turn, neither truth nor falsehood. turn, neither truth nor falsehood.'study for ornament; as he who proposes to' And I have often thought, that God hath himself the second, properly studies for use. in his great wisdom, hid from men of false The one does it to raise himself a fortune and dishonest minds the wonderful advan-.. otst o farwehihel y and dishonest minds the wonderful advan- the other to set off that which he is already tages of truth and integrity to the pros- os d of But a far the greater part perity even of our worldly affairs: these possessed of. u the e erity even of our worldly affairs: these of mankind are included in the latter class, men are so blinded by their covetousness all only propose some methods at preand ambition. that they cannot look beyond I shall only propose some methods at preand ambition. that they cannot look beyond sent for the service of such who expect to a present advantage, nor forbear to seize advance themselves in the world by their upon it, though by ways never so indirect; learning. In orde to which, shall pre they cannot see so far as to the remote con- tt mny sh mise, that many more estates havte been sequence of a steady integrity, and the acquired by little accomplishments tha b vast benefit and advantages which it will extraordinary ones; those qualities which bring a man at last. Were but this sort of extraordinary ones; those qualities which bring a man at last. were dut the s sort of make the greatest figure in the eye of the onen wise and clear-sighted enough to dis-world no t being al ways the most useful in cernmthishthey would be honest out of - world notnbeing always the most useful in cern this, they would e honest out of very themselves, or the most advantaeous to knavery, not out ofhonesty and their ow ners. n virtue, but with a crafty design to promote The posts which require men of shining the world for a dayand shoul never hav' The posts which require men of shining and advanc e more effctuallmy their own inant advanc more eectually the ir o own in- and uncommon parts to discharge them are terests; and therefore the justice of the Di-so very few that many a great genius goes so very few, thatemany a great genius goes vine Providence hath hid this truest point out of the world without ever having an of wisdom from their eyes, that bad men opportunity to exert itself; whereas, permight not be upon equal terms with the just sons of ordinary endowments meet with and upright, and serve their own wicked occasions fitted to their parts and capacidesigns by honest and lawffl means. designs by honest and lawful means. ties every day in the common occurrences'Indeed, if a man were only to deal in of life. the world for a day, and should never have Iam acquanted with two ersons who occasion to converse more with mankind, were formerly schoolfellows, and have never more nee d their good opinion or good wereformeryschol-felws,* _adha never more need their good opinion or good been good friends ever since. One of them word, it were then no great matter (speak- wasnotonly thought an impenetrableblocking as to the concernments of this world,) head at school, but still maintained his reif a man spent his reputation all at once, putation at the university; the other was and ventured it at one throw; but if he be the p ride of his master, and the most eleto continue in the world, and would have pride of his masterperson in the college of which he the advantag of onertio hilt h iinbrated person in the college of which he the advantage of conversation whilst he s in was a member. Tihe man of genius is at it, let him' make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions; for nothing but * "Swift, and Mr; Stratford, a merchant.'Stratford this will last and hold out to the end: all is worth a plumb, and is now lending the government other arts will fail, but truth and integrity 40,0001. yet we were educated together at the same school and university.' Swift's Works, vol. xxii. p. 10. will carry a man through, and bear him r. 8vo.-Stratford was afterwards a bankrupt." out to the last.' T. Chalmers Nc. 354.] THE SPECTATOR. 63 present buried in a country parsonage of fied for the finer parts of learning; yet I eight-score pounds a year; while the other, believe I might carry this matter still furwith the bare abilities of a common scri- ther, and venture to assert, that a lad of vener, has got an estate of above a hundred genius has sometimes occasion for these thousand pounds. little acquirements, to be as it were the c I fancy from what I have said, it will forerunners of his parts, and to introduce almost appear a doubtful case to many a him into the world. wealthy citizen, whether or no he ought to' History is full of examples of persons wish his son should be a great genius: but who, though they have had the largest this I am sure of, that nothing is more ab- abilities, have been obliged to insinuate surd than to give a lad the education of themselves into the favour of great men, one, whom nature has not favoured with by these trivial accomplishments; as the any particular marks of distinction. complete gentleman in some of our modern' The fault, therefore, of our grammar comedies, makes his first advances to his schools is, that every boy is pushed on to mistress under the disguise of a painter or works of genius: whereas, it would be far a dancing-master. more advantageous for the greatest part of' The difference is, that in a lad of genius them to be taught such little practical arts these are only so many accomplishments, and sciences as do not require any great which in another are essentials; the one share of parts to be master of them, and diverts himself with them, the other works yet may come often into play during the at them. In short, I look upon a great course of a man's life. genius, with these little additions, in the' Such are all the parts of practical geo- same light as I regard the Grand Seignior, metry. I have known a man contract a who is obliged, by an express command in friendship with a minister of state, upon the Alcoran, to learn and practise some cutting a dial in his window; and remember handicraft trade; though I need not to have a clergyman who got one of the best bene- gone for my instance farther than Germany, fices in the west of England, by setting a where several emperors have voluntarily country gentleman's affairs in some method, done the same thing. Leopold the last, and giving him an exact survey of his estate. worked in wood: and I have heard there are'While I am upon this subject, I cannot several handicraft works of his making to forbear mentioning a particular which is of be seen at Vienna, so neatly turned that the use in every station of life, and which, me- best joiner in Europe might safely own thinks, every master should teach scholars; them without any disgrace to his profesI mean the writing of English letters. To sion.* this end, instead of perplexing them with' I would not be thought, by any thing I Latin epistles, themes, and verses, there have said, to be against improving a boy's might be a punctual.correspondence esta- genius to the utmost pitch it can be carried. blished between two boys, who might act What I would endeavour to show in this in any imaginary parts of business, or be essay is, that there may be methods taken allowed sometimes to give a range to their to make learning advantageous even to the own fancies, and communicate to each other meanest capacities. I am, sir, yours, &c. whatever trifles they thought fit, provided X. neither of them ever failed at the appointed time to answer his correspondent's letter.'I believe I may venture to affirm, that No. 354.] Wednesday,.flril 16, 1712. the generality of boys would find themselves more advantaged by this custom, when they - Cum magnis virtutibus afiers come to be men, than by all the Greek and Grandesupercilium. Ja. Sat. vi. 18 Latin their masters can teach them in seven Their signal virtues hardly can be borne, oLatn their masters can t each mem in seven Dash'd as they are with supercilious scorn. or eight years.'The want of it is very visible in many'MR. SPECTATOR,-You have in soime learned persons, who, while they are ad- of your discourses described most sort of miring the styles of Demosthenes or Cicero. women in their distinct and proper classes, want phrases to express themselves on the as the ape, the coquette, and many others; most common occasions. I have seen a but I think you have never yet said any letter from one of these Latin orators which thing of a devotee. A devotee is one of would have been deservedly laughed at by those who disparage religin by their in a common attorney, discreet and unseasonable introduction of'Under this head of writing, I cannot the mention of virtue on all occasions. She omit accounts and short-hand, which are professes she is what nobody ought to doubt learned with little pains, and very properly she is; and betrays the labour she is put to, come into the number of such arts as I have to be what she ought to be with cheerfulbeen here recommending. ness and alacrity. She lives in the world,' You must doubtless, sir, observe that I and denies herself none of the diversions of have hitherto chiefly insisted upon these it, with a constant declaration how insipid things for such boys as do not appear to all things in it are to her. She is never have any ting extraordinary in their natu- * The well-.known labours of the Czar Peter mav ba ral talents, and consequently are not quali- aded to those enumerated above. 64 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 355 herself but at church; there she displays' Whenever I walk into the streets of her virtue, and is so fervent in all her de- London and Westminster, the countenarces votions, that I have frequently seen her of all the young fellows that pass by me pray herself out of breath. While other make me wish myself in Sparta: I meet young ladies in the house are dancing, or with such' blustering airs, big looks, and playing at questions and commands, she bold fronts, that, to a superficial observer, reads aloud in her closet. She says, all love would bespeak a courage above those Grets ridiculous, except it be celestial; but she cians. I am arrived to that perfection in speaks of the passion of one mortal to an- speculation, that I understand the language other with too much bitterness for one that of the eyes, which would be a great misforhad no jealousy mixed with her contempt tune to me had I not corrected the testiness of it. If at any time she sees a man warm of old age by philosophy. There is scarce in his addresses to his mistress, she will lift a man in a red coat who does not tell me, up her eyes to heaven, and cry, "What with a full stare, he is a bold man: I see nonsense is that fool talking! Will the bell several swear inwardly at me, without any never ring for prayers?" WVe have an emi- offence of mine, but the oddness of my pernent lady of this stamp in our country, who son; I meet contempt in every street; expretends to amusements very much above pressed in different manners by the scornful the rest of her sex. She never carries a look, the elevated eye-brow, and the swellwhite shock-dog with bells under her arm, ing nostrils of the proud and prosperous. nor a squirrel or dormouse in her pocket, The'prentice speaks his disrespect by an but always an abridged piece of morality, extended finger, and the porter by stealing to steal out when she is sure of being ob- out his tongue. If a country gentleman apserved. When she went to the famous pears alittle curious in observing the edifices, ass-race, (which I must confess was but an clocks, signs, coaches, and dials, it is not to odd diversion to be encouraged by people be imagined how the polite rabble of this of rank and figure,) it was not, like other town, who are acquainted with these obladies, to hear those poor animals bray, nor jects, ridicule his rusticity. I have known to see fellows run naked, or to hear country a fellow with a burden on his head steal a'squires in bob wigs and white girdles make hand down from his load, and slily twirl love at the side of a coach, and cry, "Ma- the cock of a'squire's hat behind him; dam this is dainty weather." Thus she while the offended person is swearing, or described the diversion; for she went only out of countenance, all the wag-wits in the to pray heartily that nobody might be hurt highway are grinning in applause of the in in the crowd, and to see if the poor fellow's genious rogue that gave him the tip, and the face, which was distorted with grinning, folly of him who had not eyes all round his might any way be brought to itself again. head to prevent receiving it. These things She never chats over her tea, but covers arise from a general affectation of smarther face, and is supposed in an ejaculation ness, wit, and courage. Wycherly somebefore she tastes a sup. This ostentatious where rallies the pretensions this way, by behaviour is such an offence to true sanc- making a fellow say, " Red breeches are a tity, that it disparages it, and makes virtue certain sign of valour;" and Otway makes not only unamiable, but also ridiculous. a man, to boast his agility, trip up a beggar The sacred writings are full of reflections on crutches. From such hints I beg a specuwhich abhor this kind of conduct; and a lation on this subject: in the mean time I devotee is so far from promoting goodness, shall do all in the power of a weak old felthat she deters others by her example. low in my own defence; for as Diogenes, Folly and vanity in one of these ladies is being in quest of an honest man, sought like vice in a clergyman; it does not only for him when it was broad daylight with a debase him, but makes the inconsiderate lantern and candle, so I intend for the fupart of the world think the worse of reli- ture to walk the streets with a dark lantern, gion. I am, sir, your humble servant, which has a convex crystal in it; and if'HOTSPUR.' any man stares at me, I give fair warning that I will direct the light full into his eyes.' MR. SPECTATOR, -Xenophon in his Thus despairing to find men modest, I hope short account of the Spartan commonwealth by this means to evade their impudence. speaking of the behaviour of their young I am, sir, your humble servant, men in the streets, says, "There was so T-'SOPHROSUNIUS.' much modesty in their looks, that you might as soon have turned the eyes of a marble statue upon you as theirs; and that No. 355.] Thursday,.April 17, 1712. in all their behaviour they were more modest than a bride when put to bed upon Non ego mordaci distrinxi carmine quenquam. her wedding-night." This virtue, which is Ovid. Tist. Lib. ii. 563. always subjoined to magnanimity, had such I ne'er in gall dipp'd my envenom'd pen, an influence upon their courage, that in Nor branded the bold front of shameless men. battle an enemy could not look them.n the I HAVE been very often tempted to write face, and they durst not but die for their invectives upon those who have detracted country. from my works, -r spoken in derogation oi No. 356.] THE SPECTATOR. 65 my person; but 1 look upon it as a particu- no more than one of those fictitious names.ar happiness, that I have always hindered made use of by an author to introduce an my resentments from proceeding to this imaginary character. Why should a man extremity. I once had gone through half be sensible of the sting of a reproach, who a satire, but found so many motions of hu- is a stranger to the guilt that is implied in manity rising in me towards the persons it; or subject himself to the penalty, when whom I had severely treated, that I threw it he knows he has never committed the into the fire without ever finishing it. I have crime? This is a piece of fortitude, which been angry enough to make several little every one owes to his own innocence, and epigrams and lampoons; and, after having without which it is impossible for a man admired them a day or two, have likewise of any merit or figure to live at peace with committed them to the flames. These I himself, in a country that abounds with wit look upon as so many sacrifices to humanity, and liberty. and have received much greater satisfac- The famous Monsieur Balzac, in a letter tion from suppressing such performances, to the chancellor of France, who had prethan I could have done from any reputation vented the publication of a book against they might have procured me, or from any him, has the following words, which are a mortification they might have given my lively picture of the greatness of mind so enemies in case I had made them public, visible in the works of that author:' If it If a man has any talent in writing, it shows was a new thing, it may be I should not a good mind to forbear answering calum- be displeased with the suppression of the nies and reproaches in the same spirit of first libel that should abuse me; but since bitterness with which they are offered. But there are enough of them to make a small when a man has been at some pains in library, I am secretly pleased to see the making suitable returns to an enemy, and number increased, and take delight in raishas the instruments of revenge in his hands, ing a heap of stones that envy has cast at to let drop his wrath, and stifle his resent- me without doing me any harm.' ments, seems to have something in it great The author here alludes to those monuand heroical. There is a particular merit ments of the eastern nations which were in such a way of forgiving an enemy; and mountains of stones raised upon the dead the more violent and unprovoked the of- bodies by travellers, that used to cast every fence has been, the greater still is the merit one his stone upon it as they passed by. It of him who thus forgives it. is certain that no monument is so glorious I never met with a consideration that is as one which is thus raised by the hands of more finely spun, and what has better envy. For my part, I admire an author pleased me, than one in Epictetus, which for such a temper of mind as enables him places an enemy in a new light, and gives to bear an undeserved reproach without us a view of hinr altogether different from resentment, more than for all the wit of that in which we are used to regard him. any the finest satirical reply. The sense of it is as follows:'Does a man Thus far I thought necessary to explain reproach thee for being proud or ill-natured, myself in relation to those who have anienvious or conceited, ignorant or detract- madverted on this paper, and to show the ing? Consider with thyself whether his re- reasons why I have not thought fit to return proaches are true. If they are not, consider them any formal answer. I must further that thou art not the person whom he re- add, that the work would have been of very proaches, but that he reviles an imaginary little use to the public, had it been filled being, and perhaps loves what thou really with personal reflections and debates; for art, though he hates what thou appearest which reason I have never once turned out to be. If his reproaches are true, if thou of my way to observe those little cavils art the envious, ill-natured man he takes which have been made against it by envy thee for, give thyself another turn, become or ignorance. The common fry of scribmild, affable, and obliging, and his re- blers, who have no other way of being proaches of thee naturally cease. His taken notice of but by attacking what has reproaches may indeed continue, but thou gained some reputation in the world, would art no longer the person whom he re- have furnished me with business enough proaches.'* had they found me disposed to enter the I often apply this rule to myself; and lists with them. when I hear of a satirical speech or writing I shall conclude with the fable of Boccathat is aimed at me, I examine my own lini's traveller, who was so pestered with heart, whether I deserve it or not. If I the noise of grasshoppers in his ears that bring in a verdict against myself, I endea- he alighted from his horse in great wrath vour to rectify my conduct for the future in to kill them all.' This,' says the author, those particulars which have drawn the' was troubling himself to no manner of purcensure upon me; but if the whole invec- pose. Had he pursued his journey without tive be grounded upon a falsehood, I trou- taking notice of them, the troublesome ble myself no further about it, and look insects would have died of themselves in a upon my name at the head of it to signify very few weeks, and he would have suffer ed nothing from them.' * Epict. Ench. cal. 48 and 64. L VOL. II. 9 66 THE SPECTAIOR. [No. 35. No. 356.] Friday,./liril 18, 1712. for a heap of fleetingpast pleasures, which -- Aptissima qumque dabunt dii, are at present aching sorrows! Charior est illis homo quam sibi - How pleasing is the contemplation of the Juv. Sat. x. 349. lowly steps our Almighty Leader took in -~The gods will grant conducting us to his heavenly mansions! What their unerring wisdom sees they want: In plain and apt parable, similitude and In goodness as in greatness, they excel;nd apt parable, similitude and Ah! that we lov'd ourselves but half as well! allegory, our great Master enforced the Dryden. doctrine of our salvation, but they of his IT is owing to pride, and a secret affecta- acquaintance, instead of receiving what tion of a certain self-existence, that the they could not oppose, were offended at noblest motive for action that ever was pro- the presumption of being wiser than they; posed to man is not acknowledged the glory They could not raise their little ideas above and happiness of their being. The heart the consideration of him, in those circumis treacherous to itself, and we do not let stances familiar to them, or conceive that our reflections go deep enough to receive he, who appeared not more terrible or religion as the most honourable incentive to pompous, should have any thing more exgood and worthy actions. It is our natural alted than themselves; he in that place weakness to flatter ourselves into a belief, therefore would no longer ineffectually that if we search into our inmost thoughts, exert a power which was incapable of we find ourselves wholly disinterested, and conquering the prepossession of their nardivested of any views arising from self-love row and mean conceptions. and vain-glory. But however spirits of su- Multitudes followed him, and brought perficial greatness may disdain at first sight him the dumb, the blind, the sick, and to do any thing, but from a noble impulse maimed; whom when their Creator had in themselves, without any future regards touched, with a second life they saw, spoke, in this, or any other being; upon stricter leaped, and ran. In affection to him, and inquiry they will find, to act worthily, and admiration of his actions, the crowd could expect to be rewarded only in another not leave him, but waited near him till world, is as heroic a pitch of virtue as hu- they were almost as faint and helpless as man nature can arrive at. If the tenor of others they brought for succour. He had our actions have any other motive than the compassion on them, and by a miracle supdesire to be pleasing in the eye of the Deity, plied their necessities. Oh, the ecstatic it will necessarily follow that we must be entertainment, when they could behold more than men, if we are not too much ex- their food immediately increase to the disalted in prosperity and depressed in ad- tributor's hand, and see their God in person versity. But the Christian world has a feeding and refreshing his creatures! Oh Leader, the contemplation of whose life envied happiness! But why do I say enand sufferings, must administer comfort in vied? as if our God didnot still preside affliction, while the sense of his power and over our temperate meals, cheerful hours, omnipotence must give them humiliation and innocent conversations. in prosperity. But though the sacred story is every It is owing to the forbidding and unlovely where full of miracles, not inferior to this, constraint with which men of low concep- and though in the midst of those acts of tions act when they think they conform divinity he never gave the least hint of a themselves to religion, as well as to the design to become a secular prince, yet had more odious conduct of hypocrites, that the not hitherto the apostles themselves any word Christian does not carry with it, at other than hopes of worldly power, preferfirst view, all that is great, worthy, friend- ment, riches, and pomp; for Peter, upon ly, generous, and heroic. The man who an accident of ambition among the apostles, suspends his hopes of the reward of worthy hearing his Master explain that his kingactions till after death, who can bestow un- dom was not of this world, was so scandaseen, who can overlook hatred, do good to lized that he whom he had so long followed his slanderer, who can never be angry at should suffer the ignominy, shame, and his friend, never revengeful to his enemy, death, which he foretold, that he took him is certainly formed for the benefit of society. aside and said,' Be it far from thee, Lord, Yet these are so far from heroic virtues, this shall not be unto thee:' for which he that they are but the ordinary duties of a suffered a severe reprehension from his Christian. Master, as having in his view the glory of When a man with a steady faith looks man rather than that of God. back on the great catastrophe of this day,* The great change of things began to with what bleeding emotions of heart must draw near, when the Lord of nature he contemplate the life and sufferings of thought fit, as a saviour and deliverer, to his deliverer! When his agonies occur to make his public entry into Jerusalem with him, how will he weep to reflect that he more than the power and joy, but none of has often forgot them for the glance of a the ostentation and pomp of a triumph; he wanton, for the applause of a vain world, came humble, meek, and lowly; with an unfelt new ecstasy, multitudes strewed his * Good Friday, 1712, the day of publication of this wa with garments and olive-branches, paper. crying, with lout gladness and acclama No. 357.] THE SPECTATOR. 67 tion,'Hosannah to the Son of David! other in the whole poem.'Ihe author, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of upon the winding up of his action, introthe Lord!' At this great King's accession duces all those who had any concern in it, to his throne, men were not ennobled, but and shows with great beauty the influence saved; crimes were not remitted, but sins which it had upon each of them. It is like forgiven. He did not bestow medals, the last act of a well-written tragedy, in honours, favours; but health, joy, sight, which all who had a part in it are generally speech; The first object the blind ever drawn up before the audience, and represaw was the Author of sight; while the sented under those circumstances in which lame ran before, and the dumb repeated the determination of the action placesthem. the hosannah. Thus attended, he entered I shall therefore consider this book under into his own house, the sacred temple, and four heads, in relation to the celestial, the by his divine authority expelled traders infernal, the human, and the imaginary.rd worldlings that profaned it; and thus persons, who have their respective parts did he for a time use a great and despotic allotted in it. power, to let unbelievers understand that To begin with.the celestial persons: the it was not want of, but superiority to, all guardian angels of Paradise are described worldly dominion, that made him not exert as returning to heaven upon the fall of man, It. But is this then the Saviour? Is this the in order to approve their vigilance; their Deliverer? Shall this obscure Nazarene arrival, their manner of reception, with command Israel, and sit on the throne of the sorrow which appeared in themselves, David? Their proud and disdainful hearts, and in those spirits who are said to rejoice which were petrified with the love and pride at the conversion of a sinner, are very finely of this world, were impregnable to the re- laid together in the following lines: ception of so mean a benefactor; and were Up into heav'n from Paradise in haste now enough exasperated with benefits to con- Th' angelic guards ascended, mute and sad spire his death. Our Lord was sensible of For man; for of his state by this they knew; their design, and prepared his disciples for Much wondring how asth u nwelcome fiend had stol Entranceunseen. Soon asth'unwelcomenews it, by recounting to them now more distinctly From earth arriv'd at heaven gate, displeas'd what should befal him; but Peter, with an All were who heard; dim sadness did not spare ungrounded resolution, and in a flush of That time celestial visages; yet mixt ungrounded resolution, and in a flush of With pity, violated not their bliss. temper, made a sanguine protestation, that About the new arriv'd, in multitudes though all men were offended in him, yet Th' ethereal people ran to hear and know would not he be offended. It was a great How all befel. They tow'rds the throne supreme Accountable made haste, to make appear article of our Saviour's business in the With righteous plea, their utmost vigilance. world to bring us to a sense of our inability, And easily approv'd; when the Most High without God's assistance, to do any thing Eternal Father, from his secret cloud ewithout God's assistance, to do any thing Amidst, in thunder utter'd thus his voice. great or good; he therefore told Peter, who The same Divine Person, wh n th thought so well of his courage and fidelity, The same Divine Persone who in the that they would both fail him, and even he for egoing parts of this poem interceded fovershould deny him thrice that very night. our first parents before their fall, ove'But what heart can conceive, what threw the rebel angels, and created the tongue utter the sequel? Who is that world, is now represented as descending to wonde, buttethe, m oked, ad spurned? Paradise, and pronouncing sentence upon JVhom do they drag like a felon? Whither the thre offenders The cool of the evenyonder, buffetted, mocked, and spurned? the thre& offend ers. The cool of the evendo they carry my Lord, my King, my Sa- ing being a circumstance with which holy vio ur, and my Godr And will he die to writ introduces this great scene, it is poetiexpiate those very injuries? See where cally described by our author, who has also they have nailed the Lord and giver of life! kept religiously to the form of words in which the three several sentences were How his wounds blacken, his body writhespa ssed upo n Adam, Eve, and th e s erpent and heart heaves with pity and with agony! assed upo n Adam, Eve, and th e rnt Oh Almighty sufferer, look down, look He has rather chosen to neglect the nuOh Almighty sufferer, look down, look io m h is o oan ate down from thy triumphant infamy! Lo, merousness of his verse, than to deviate ne inclines his head to his sacred bosom! from those speeches which are recorded on Hark, he groans! See, he expires! The this great occasion. The guilt and confuearth trembles, the temple rends,the rocks sion of our first parents, standing naked burst, the dead arise. Which are the before their judge, is touched with great quick? Which are the dead? Sure nature, beauty' Upon the arrival of Sin and Deatl, all nature is departing with her Creator.' into the works of creation, the Almighty i T. again introduced as speaking to his angels that surrounded him.' See! with what heat these dogs of hell advance. No. 357.] Saturday,.April 19, 1712. To waste and havoc yonder world, which I So fair and good created,' &c. Quis talia fando -Temperuis talia fando The following passage is formed upon TemperetWho can rea late suchrymioes itho rgt a tear that glorious imnage in holy writ, which Who can relate such woes without a tear? compares the voice of an innumerable host THE tenth book of Paradise Lost has a of angels uttering hallelujahs, to the voice greater variety of persons in it than any of mighty thunderings, or of many waters. 68 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 357. He ended, and the heav'nly audience loud His first appeara: ce in the assembly of Sung hallelujah, as the sound of seas, fallen angels is worked up with circumThrough multitude that sung:'Just are thy ways, Righteous are thy decrees in all thy works, stances which give a delightful surprise to Who can extenuate thee?' — the reader: but there is no incident in the Though the author, in the whole course whole poem which does this more than the of his poem, and particularly in the book transformation of the whole audience, that we are now examining, has infinite allusions follows the account their leader gives them to places of Scripture, I have only taken of his expedition. The gradual change of notice in my remarks of such as are of a Satan himself is described after Ovid's poetical nature and which are woven with manner, and may vie with any of those celereat beauty into the body of his fable. brated transformations which are looked Of this kind is that passage in the present upon as the most beautiful parts in that book, where, describing Sin as marching poet's works. Milton never fails of imthrough the works of nature, he adds, proving his own hints, and bestowing the lthr,, ast finishing touches in every incident which - -— Behind her beath is admitted into his poem. The unexpected Close followingpace for pace, not mounted yet arises in this episode, the dimenOn his pale horse -:hiss which arises in this episode, the dimenOn his pale horse~ a sions and bulk of Satan so much superior to Which alludes to that passage in Scripture those of the infernal spirits who lay under so wonderfully poetical, and terrifying to the same transformation, with the annual the imagination:' And I looked, and be- change which they are supposed to suffer, hold, a pale horse, and his name that sat are instances of this kind. The beauty of on him was Death, and Hell followed with the diction is very remarkable in this whole him: and power was given unto them over episode, as I have observed in the sixth the fourth part of the earth, to kill with paper of these remarks the great judgment sword, and with hunger, and with sickness, with which it was contrived. and with the beasts of the earth.' Under The parts of Adam and Eve, or the huthis first head of celestial persons we must man persons, come next under our conlikewise take notice of the command which sideration. Milton's art is no where more the angels received, to produce the several shown, than in his conducting the parts of changes in nature, and sully the beauty of these our first parents. The representation creation. Accordingly they are represent- he gives of them, without falsifying the ed as infecting the stars and planets with story, is wonderfully contrived to influence malignant influences, weakening the light the reader with pity and compassion toof the sun, bringing down the winter into wards them. Though Adam involves the the milder regions of nature, planting winds whole species in misery, his crime proceeds and storms in several quarters of the sky, from a weakness which every man is instoring the clouds with thunder, and, in dined to pardon and commiserate, as it short, perverting the whole frame of the seems rather the frailty of human nature, universe to the condition of its criminal in- than of the person who offended. Every habitants. As this is a noble incident in one is apt to excuse a fault which he himthe poem, the following lines, in which we self might have fallen into. It was the exsee the angels heaving up the earth, and cess of love for Eve that ruined Adam and placing it in a different posture to.the sun his posterity. I need not add, that the aufrom what it had before the fall of man, is thor is justified in this particular by many conceived with that sublime imagination of the fathers, and the most orthodox wriwhich was so peculiar to this great author: ters. Milton has by this means filled a' Some say he bid his angels turn askance great part of his poem with that kind of The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more writing which the French critics call the From the sun's axle; they with labour push'd tendre, and which is in a particular manner Oblique the centric globe, engaging to all sorts of readers. We are in the second place to consider Adam and Eve, in the book we are now the infernal agents under the view which considering, are likewise drawn with such Milton has given us of them in this book. sentiments as do not only interest the reader It is observed, by those who would set forth in their afflictions, but raise in him the most the greatness of Virgil's plan, that he con- melting passions of humanity and comducts his reader through all the parts of the miseration. When Adam sees the several earth which were discovered in his time. changes of nature produced about him, he Asia, Africa, and Europe, are the several appears in a disorder of mind suitable to scenes of his fable. The plan of Milton's one who had forfeited both his innocence poem is of an infinitely greater extent, and and his happiness: he is filled with horror, fills the mind with many more astonishing remorse, despair; in the anguish of his circumstances. Satan, having surrounded heart he expostulates with his Creator for the earth seven times, departs at length having given him an unasked existence: from Paradise. We then see him steering his course among the constellations; and, Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay after having traversed the whole creation, To mould me man Did I solicit thee pursuing his voyage through the chars, and From darkness to promote me? or here place pursuing his ve th te c, n this delicious garden? As my will entering into his own infernal dominions. Concurr'd not to my being,'twere but right No. 357.] THE SPECTATOR. 69 And equal to reduce mne to my dust, Unhappily deceiv'd Thy suppliant Desirous to resign, and render back I beg, and clasp thy knees. Bereave me not All I receiv'd.' -- (Whereon I live;) thy gentle looks, thy aid, Thy counsel in this uttermost distress, He immediately after recovers from his My only strength, and stay! Forlorn of thee, presumption, owns his doom to be just, and Whither shall I betake me I where subsist? begs that the death which is threatened him While yet we live (scarce one short hour perhaps) may be inflicted on him: Between us two let there be peace.' &c.'. Why delays Adam's reconcilement to her is worked His hand to execute what his decree up in the same spirit of tenderness. Eve Fix'd on this day? Why do I over-live? afterwards nroposes to her husband, in the Why am I mock'd with death, and lengthen'd out atrwards oposer, th ant, in the To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet blindness her despair, that to prevent Mortality my sentence, and be earth their guilt from descending upon posterity, Insensible! how glad would lay me down, they shouldchildless; As ifi my mother's lap! There should I rest roe o e hld oi And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more that could not be done, they should seek Would thunder in my ears: no fear of worse their own deaths by violent methods. To me, and to my offspring, would torment me As these sentiments naturally engage the WitT'ruelexpectatio. -- ^As these sentiments naturally engage the With cruel expectation.' reader to regard the mother of mankind This whole speech is full of the like emo- with more than ordinary commiseration, tion, and varied with all those sentiments they likewise contain a very fine moral. which we may suppose natural to a mind so The resolution of dying to end our miseries broken and disturbed. I must not omit that does not show such a degree of magnanimity generous concern which our first father as a resolution to bear them, and submit to shows in it for his posterity, and which is so the dispensations of Providence. Our auproper to affect the reader: thor has, therefore, with great delicacy, re-' ~~Hide me from the face presented Eve as entertaining this thought, Of God, whom to behold was then my height and Adam as disapproving it. Of happiness! yet well, if here would end Adam as disapproving it. The misery: I deserved it, and would bear We are, in the last place, to consider the My own deservings: but this will not serve; imaginary persons, or Death and Sin, who All that I eat, or drink, or shall beget, act a large part in this book. Such beautiIs propagated curse. 0 voice once heard Delightfully, " Increase and multiply:" ful extended allegories are certainly some Now death to hear! of the finest compositions of genius; but, as Posterity stands cr! Fairpatrimony, I have before observed, are not agreeable That I must leave ye, sons! 0 were I able to the nature of a heroic poem. T his of Sih To waste it all myself, and leave you none! and Death is very exquisite in its kind, if So disinherited, how would you bless n co er a a ar f h a wor Me, now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind, not consierec as apait of suh awork. For one man's fault, thus guiltless be condemn'd The truths contained in it are so clear and If guiltless? But from me what can proceed open, that I shall not lose time in explainBut all corrupt?' ing them; but shall only observe, that a Who can afterwards behold the father of reader, who knows the strength of the mankind, extended upon the earth, utter- English tongue, will be amazed to think ing his midnight complaints, bewailing his how the poet could find such apt words and existence, and wishing for death, without phrases to describe the actions of those two sympathizing with him in his distress? imaginary persons, and particularly in that Thus Adam to himself lamented loud part where Death is exhibited as forming a Through the still night; not now (as ere man fell) bridge over the chaos; a work suitable to Wholesome, and cool, and mild, but with black air, the enius of Milton. Accompanied with damps and dreadful gloom; t he g ens o llt on. Which to his evil conscience represented Since the subject I am upon gives me an All things with double terror. On the ground opportunity of speaking more at large of Outstretch'd he lay; on the cold ground! and oft such shadowy and imaginary persons as Curs'd his creation; death as oft accus'd Of tardy execution.' may be introduced into heroic poems, I Thie part of Eve in this book is no less shall beg leave to explain myself in a matThe part of Eve in this book is no less a passionate, and apt to sway the reader in ter which is curious in its kind, and which passionate, and apt to sway the readerty. iWhn her favour. She is represented with great none of the critics have treated of. It is her favour. She is represented with great certain Homer and Virgil are full of imatenderness as approaching Adam, but is certainary Hom erso and Virgilwho are very beall outifu imaspurned from hinm with a spirit of upbraid- einary persons, who are jery beautiful in ing and indignation, conformable to the na- poery, when they are just shown without ture of man, whose passions had now galned being engaged in any series of action. Hothe dominion over him. Tpassi e following pas- mer, indeed, represents sleep as a person, sage, hedo reinion ov er him. The folloaswing pas- and ascribes a short part to him in his Iliad; sagher addrein she is des cribed as renewig but we must consider, that though we now her addresses to him, with the whole speech regard such a person as entirely shadowy that follows it, have something in them ex- and unsubstantial, the heathens made staquisitely moving and pathetic: tues of him, placed him in their temples, He added not, and from her turn'd: but Eve, and looked upon him, as a real deity. WVhen Not so repuls'd, with tears that ceas'd not flowing, Homer makes use of other such a And tresses all disorder'd, at his feet And tresses- all disordered, at his feet Homer makes use of other such allegorical Fell humble; and embracing them besought persons, it is only in short expressions, His peace, and thus proceeded in her plaint: which convey an ordinary thought to the' Forsake me not thus, Adam! Witness Heav'n mind in the most pleasing manner, and may What love sincere, and rev'rence in my breastanner, and may I bear thee and unweeting ha'- offended, rathd be looked upon as poetical phrases, 70 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 358. than allegorical descriptions. Instead of glaring of her eyes might have scattered telling us that men naturally fly when they infection. But I believe every reader will are terrified, he introduces the persons of think, that in such sublime writings the Flight and Fear, who he tells us, are in- mentioning of her, as it is done in Scripture, separable companions. Instead of saying has something in it more just, as well as that the time was come when Apollo ought great, than all that the most fanciful poet to have received his recompence, he tells could have bestowed upon her in the rich us that the Hours brought him his reward. ness of his imagination. L.* Instead of describing the effects which Minerva's zegis produced in battle, he tells us that the brims of it were encompassed No. 358. Monday,.pfril 21, 1712. by Terror, Rout, Discord, Fury, Pursuit, Massacre, and Death. In the same figure Desipere in oco. Hot. Od.xii. Lib. 4.ult. of speaking, he represents Victory as fol-'Tis joyous folly that unbends the mind.-Francis. lowing Diomedes; Discord as the mother of funerals and mourning; Venus as dressed CH.ARLEs LILLY attended me the othey by the Graces and mourning; Bellona as wearing Terror day, and made me a present of a large and Consternation like a garment. I might sheet of paper, on which is delineated a give several other instances out of Homer, as pavement in Mosaic work, lately discoveredatf Stunsfield near Woodstock. T A person well as a great many out of Virgil. Milton ed at Stunsfield near Woodstockt A peh as Mr. has likewise very often made use of the who has so much the gift of speech as Mr. same way of speaking, as where he tells us Lilly, and cab carry on a discourse without tsat Vicay o sat on the right hand of the a reply, had great opportunity on that ocessaht t ory hn he mr t he d forth againt casion to expatiate upon so fine a piece of Messiah, when he marched forth against r the rebel angels; that, at the rising of the antiquity. Among other things, I remember hee gave me his opinion, which he drew sun, the IIours unbarred the gates of light; r he g av me hs opif t wo, whih he dw that Discord was the daughter of Sin. Of from the ornaments of the wodk, that this was the floor of a room dedicated to Mirth the same nature are those expressions, and Concord. Viewing this work, made where, describing the singing of the night- y fanc run over the many gay expresingale, he adds, Silence was pleased;' and mss I ha r in ove r the many gay expres, upon the Messiah's biding peace to thesions I have read in ancient authors, which upon the Messiah's bidding peace to the contained invitations to lay aside care and chaos,' Confusion heard his voice.' I might contained invitations to tlay peasre and add innumerable instances of our poet's anxietuy and given a l oose to f thpleasing writing in this beautiful figure. It is plain forgetfulness wherein men put off their ithat these I hae mentioned, in which per- characters of business, and enjoy their very sonsthat these i inh r nre in i er- selves. These hours were usually passed sons of an imaginary nature are introduced, in rooms adorned for that purpose, and set are such short allegories as are not designed out in such a manner, as the objects all to be taken in the literal sense, but only out i n such a man ner the objets all to convey particular circumstances to the aroundthe ompany gladdened their hearts; reader, after an unusual and entertaining which, joined to the cheerful looks of wellmanner. But when such persons are intro- chosen and agreeable friends, gave new duced as principal actors, and engaged in a vigour to the airy, produced the latent fire duced as principal actors, and engaged in a of the modest, and gave grace to the slow series of adventures, they take too much of the est, and gave grace to the slow uon them, and are by no means proper for humour of the reserved. A judicious mix upon them, which ought to apper ture of such company, crowned with chap an heroic poem, which ought to appear lets of flowers, and the whole apartment credible in its principal parts. I cannot lets of f lower s, a he whole a forbear therefore thinking, that Sin and glittering with gay lights, cheered with a Death are as improper agents in a work of profusion of roses, artificial falls of water, this nature, as Strength and Necessity in and intervals of soft notes to songs of love this nature, as Stngthand ecessity in and wine, suspended the caresof human one of the tragedies of IEschylus, who re- life, and made a festival of mutual kindpresented those two persons nailing down Such parties of pleasure as these, Prometheus to a rock; for which he has ness. Such parties of pleasure as these, been justly censured by the greatest critics. and te reports of the agreeable passages I do not know any imaginary person made in their jollities, have in all ages awakened use of in a more sublime manner of thinking the dull part of mankind to pretend to than that in one of the prophets, who, de- mirth and good humour, without capacity scribing God as descending fi heprop he avets, for such entertainments; for if I may be scribing God as descending from heaven, and visiting the sins of mankind, adds that allowed to say so, there are a hundred men dreadful circumstance,' Before him went fit for any employment, to one who is capathe Pestilence.' It is certain this imaginary ble of passing a night in company of the person might have been described in all first taste, without shocking any member her purple spots. The Fever might have of the society, over-rating his own part marched before her, Pain might have stood of the conversation, but equally receiving at her right hand, Phrensy on her left, and * The original motto to this paper was the same ar Death in her rear. She might have been that now prefixed to No. 279. introduced as gliding down from the tail of Reddere persona scit convenientia cuique. a comet, or darted upon the earth in a flash lior. drs Poet. v. 316. of lightning. She might have tainted the To each character he gives what best befits. atmosphere with her breath. The very t See Gougil's British Topograplhy, vol. ii. p. 8,S. No. 359. j fHE SPECTATOR. 71 and contributing to the pleasure of the grateful but where it is regarded by him whole company. When one considers such who possesses it in the second place. The collections of companions in past times, and best man that I know of, for heightening such as one might name in the present age, the revel gaiety of a company, is Estcourt, with how much spleen must a man needs whose jovial humour diffuses itself from reflect upon the awkward gaiety of those the highest person at an entertainment to who affect the frolic with an ill grace! I the meanest waiter. Merry tales, accomhave a letter from a correspondent of mine, panied with apt gestures and lively reprewho desires me to admonish all loud, mis- sentations of circumstances and persons, chievous, airy, dull companions, that they beguile thegravest mind into a consent to are mistaken in what they call a frolic. be as humourous as himself. Add to this, Irregularity in itself is not what creates that when a man is in his good graces, he pleasure and mirth; but to see a man, who has a mimickry that does not debase the knows what rule and decency are, descend person he represents; but which, taking from them agreeably in our company, is from the gravity of the character, adds to what denominates him a pleasant compa- the agreeableness of it. This pleasant fel-.ion. Instead of that, you find many whose low gives one some idea of the ancient mirth consists only in doing things which pantomime, who is said to have given the lo not become them, with a secret con- audience; in dumb-show, an exact idea of iciousness that all the world knows they any character or passion, or an intelligible nnow better: to this is always added some- relation of any public occurrence, with no lhing mischievous to themselves or others. other expression than that of his looks and [ have heard of some very merry fellows gestures. If all who have been obliged to among whom the frolic was started, and these talents in Estcourt will be at Love passed by a great majority, that every man for Love to-morrow night, they will but;hould immediately draw a tooth: after pay him what they owe him, at so easy a which they have gone in a body and smoked rate as being present at a play which noi cobler. The same company, at another body would omit seeing, that had, or had aight, has each man burned his cravat; not, ever seen it before. T. and one perhaps, whose estate would bear it, has thrown a long wig and hat into the'came fire. Thus they have jested them- No. 359.] Tuesday,.liril 22, 1712. selves stark-naked, and run into the streets, Torva leaena lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellain; and frighted women very successfully. Florentem cytisum sequitur lasciva capella. There is no inhabitant of any standing in virg. Eel. vi. C3 Covent Garden, but can tell you a hun- Lions the wolves, and wolves the kids pursue, dred good humours, where people have The kids sweet thyme,-and still I follow you, come off with a little bloodshed, and yet Warton. scoured all the witty hours of the night. I As we were at the club last night, I obknow a gentleman that has several wounds served that my old friend Sir Roger, conin the head by watch-poles, and has been trary to his usual custom, sat very silent, thrice run through the body, to carry on a and, instead of minding what was said by good jest. He is very old for a man of so the company, was whistling to himself in much good humour; but to this day he is a very thoughtful mood, and playing with seldom merry but he has occasion to be a cork. I jogged Sir Andrew Preeport, valiant at the same time. But, by the fa- who sat between us; and, as we were both vour of these gentlemen, I am humbly of observing him we saw the knight shake opinion, that a man may be a very witty his head, and heard him say to himself, man, and never offend one statute of this'A foolish woman! I can't believe it.' Sir kingdom, not excepting that of stabbing. Andrew gave him a gentle pat upon the The writers of plays have what they call shoulder, and offered to lay him a bottle of unity of time and place, to give a justness wine that he was thinking of the widow. to their representation; and it would not My old friend started, and, recovering out be amiss if all who pretend to be compa- of his brown study, told Sir Andrew, that nions would confine their actions to the once in his life he had been in the right. place of meeting; for a frolic carried far- In short, after some little hesitation, Sir ther may be better performed by other Roger told us in the fulness of his heart, animals than men. It is not to rid much that he had just received a letter from his ground, or do much mischief, that should steward, which acquainted him that his old denominate a pleasant fellow; but that is rival and antagonist in the country, Sir Da truly frolic which is the play of the mind, vid Dundrum, had been making a visit to and consists of various and unforced sallies the widow.' However,' says Sir Roger, of imagination. Festivity of spirit is a very'I can never think that she will have a uncommon talent, and must proceed from man that's half a year older than I am, and an assemblage of agreeable qualities in the a noted republican into the bargain.' same person. There are some few whom Will Honeycomb, who looks upon love I think peculiarly happy in it, but it is a as his particular province, interrupting our talent one cannot name in a man, especially friend with a jaunty laugh,'I thought, when one considers, that it is never very knight,' said he,'thou hadst lived long T2 THE SPECTATOR. (No. 360. enough in the world not to pin thy happiness one which I made some years since upon upon one that is a woman and a widow. I an old woman, whom I had certainly borne think that, without vanity, I may pretend away with flying colours, if her relations to know as much of the female world as had not come pouring in to her assistance any man in Great Britain; though the from all parts of England; nay, I believe I chief of my knowledge consists in this, that should have got her at last, had not she they are not to be known.' Will imme- been carried off by a hard frost.' diately, with his usual fluency, rambled AsWill's transitions are extremely quick, into an account of his own amours.' I am he turned from Sir Roger, and, applying now,' says he,'upon the verge of fifty.' himself to me, told me there was a passage (though by the way we all knew he was in the book I had considered last Saturday, turned of three-score.)' You may easily which deserves to be writ in letters of gold. guess,' continued Will,'that I have not and taking out a pocket Milton, read the lived so long in the world without having following lines, which are part of one of had some thoughts of settling in it, as the Adam's speeches to Eve after the fall. phrase is. To tell you truly, I have several - Oh! why did our times tried my fortune that way, though I Creator wise! that peopled highest heaven cannot much boast of my sluccess. With spirits masculine, create at last I mad myfirst addresses toayou This novelty on earth, this fair defect'I made my first addresses to a young Ofnature, and not fill the world at once lady in the country; but, when I thought With men, as angels, without feminine? things were pretty well drawing to a con- Or find some other way to generate Mankind? This mischief had not then befall'n, elusion, her father happening to hear that And more that shall befall, innumerable I had formerly boarded with a surgeon, the Disturbances on earth, through female snares, old put forbade me his house, and within a And straight conjunction with this sex: for either -L. c' -i.ter marrie ^ He shall never find out fit mate; but such fortnight after married his daughter to a As some misfortune brings him, or mistake; fox-hunter in the neighbourhood. Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain,'I made my next application to a widow, Through her perverseness; but shall see her gain'd By a far worse: or, if she love, withheld and attacked her so briskly, that I thought By parents; or his happiest choice too late myself within a fortnight of her. As I Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock bound waited upon her one morning, she told me, To a fll adversary, his hate or shame: she intended to keep her ready-money Which infinite calamity shall cause that she intended to keep her ready-money To human life, and household peace confound.' and jointure in her own hand, and desired me to call upon her attorney in Lyon's-Inn, Sir Roger listened to this passage with who would adjust with me what it was great attention; and, desiring Mr. I-loneyroper for me to ad to ith m w i was so comb to fold down a leaf at the place, and lend him his book, the knight put it up in his buffed by this overture, that I never inquired pocket, andhis book, that he would read over either for her or her attorney afterwards. pocket, and told us that he would read over' A few months after, I addressed myself these verses again before he went to bed. to a young lady who was an only daughter, and of a good family. I danced with her at several balls, squeezed her by the hand, No. 360.] Wednesday, April 23, 1712. said soft things to her, and, in short, made no doubt of her heart; and, though my for- - De paupertate tacentes, tune was not equal to hers, I was in hopes Plus poscente ferent. Hor. Ep. xvii. Lib. 1. 43 that her fond father would not deny her the The man who all his wants conceals, man she had fixed her affections upon. But Gains more than he who all his wants reveals. as I went one day to the house, in order to Duncomne. break the matter to him, I found the whole I HAVE nothing to do with the business of family in confusion, and heard to my this day, any further than affixing the piece unspeakable surprise, that Miss Jenny of Latin on the head of my paper; which I was that very morning run away with the think a motto not unsuitable; since, if sibutler. lence of our poverty is a recommendation,' I then courted a second widow, and am still more commendable is his modesty who at a loss to this day how I came to miss her, conceals it by a decent dress. for she had often commended my person and behaviour. Her maid indeed told me'MR. SPECTATOR, —There is an evil one day, that her mistress said she never under the sun, which has not yet come saw a gentleman with such a spindle pair within your speculation, and is the cenof legs as Mr. Honeycomb. sure, disesteem, and contempt, which some'After this I laid siege to four heiresses young fellows meet with from particular successively, and, being a handsome young persons, for the reasonable methods they dog in those days, quickly made a breach take to avoid them in general. This is by in their hearts, but I don't know how it appearing in a better dress than may seem came to pass, though I seldom failed of to a relation regularly consistent with a getting the daughter's c6nsent, I could small fortune; and therefore may occasion never in my life get the old people on my a judgment of a suitable extravagance in sid., other particulars; but the disadvantage with i could give you an account of a thousand which the man of narrow circumstances acts other unsuccessful attempts, particularly of and speaks, is so feelingly set forth in a little No. 360.] THE SPECTATOR. 73 book called the Christian Hero, that the hat to a person whose air and attire hardly,appearing to be otherwise is not only par- entitle him to it! for whom nevertheless the donable, but necessary. Every one knows other has a particular esteem, though he is the hurry of conclusions that are made in ashamed to have it challenged in so public contempt of a person that appears to be a manner. It must be allowed, that any calamitous; which makes it very excusable young fellow that affects to dress and appear to prepare one's self for the company of genteelly,might with artificial management, those that are of a superior quality and for- save ten pounds a-year; as instead of fine tune, by appearing to be in a better condi holland he might mourn in sack-cloth, and tion than one is, so far as such appearance in other particulars be proportionably shabshall not make us really of worse. by: but of what service would this sum be'It is a justice due to the character of to avert any misfortune, whilst it would one who suffers hard reflections from any leave him deserted by the little good acparticular person upon this account, that quaintance he has, and prevent his gaining such persons would inquire into his manner any other? As the appearance of an easy of spending his time; of which, though no fortune is necessary towards making one, I further information can be had than that don't know but it might be of advantage he remains so many hours in his chamber, sornetimes to throw into one's discourse yet if this is cleared, to imagine that a rea- certain exclamations about bank stock, and sonable creature, wrung with a narrow for to show a marvellous surprise upon its fall, tune, does not make the best use of this as well as the most affected triumph upon retirement, wouldbe a conclusion extremely its rise. The veneration and respect which uncharitable. From what has, or will be the practice of all ages has preserved to said, I hope no consequence can be extorted, appearances, without doubt suggested to implying, that I would have any young fel- our tradesmen that wise and politic custom, low spend more time than the common to apply and recommend themselves to the leisure which his studies require, or more public by all those decorations upon their money than his fortune or allowance may sign-posts and houses which the most emiadmit of, in the pursuit of an acquaintance nent hands in the neighbourhood can furnish with his betters: for as to his time, the them with. What can be more attractive gross of that ought to be sacred to more to a man of letters, than that immense erusubstantial acquisitions; for each irrecove- dition of all ages and languages, which a rable moment of which he ought to believe skilful bookseller, in conjunction with a he stands religiously accountable. As to his painter, shall image upon his column, and dress, I shall engage myself no further than the extremities of his shop? The same in the modest defence of two plain suits a spirit of maintaining a handsome appearyear: for being perfectly satisfied in Eu- ance reigns among the grave and solid aptrapelus's contrivance of making a Mohock prentices of the law (here I could be partiof a man, by presenting him with laced and cularly dull in proving the word apprentice embroidered suits, I would by no means be to be significant of a barrister,) and you may thought to controvert the conceit, by insi easily distinguish who has most lately made nuating the advantages of foppery. It is an his pretensions to business, by the whitest assertion which admits of much proof, that and most ornamental frame of his window; a stranger of tolerable sense, dressed like a if indeed the chamber is a ground-room, and gentleman, will be better received by those has rails before it, the finery is of necessity of quality above him, than one of much bet- more extended and the pomp of business ter parts, whose dress is regulated by the better maintained. And what can be a rigid notions of frugality. A man's ap- greater indication of the dignity of dress, pearance falls within the censure of every than that burdensome finery which is the one that sees him; his parts and learning regular habit of our judges, nobles, and very few are judges of; and even upon these bishops, with which upon certain days we few they cannot at first be well intruded; see them incumbered? And though it may for policy and good-breeding will counsel be said, this is lawful, and necessary for the him to be reserved among strangers, and to dignity of the state, yet the wisest of thenm support himself only by the common spirit have been remarkable, before they arrived of conversation. Indeed among the injudi- at their present stations, for being very well cious, the words, "delicacy, idiom, fine dressed persons. As to my own part, I am images, structure of periods, genius, fire," near thirty; and since I left school have not and the rest, made use of with a frugal and been idle, which is a modern phrase for comely gravity, will maintain the figure ot having studied hard. I brought off a clean immense reading, and the depth of criti system of moral philosophy, and a tolerable cism. jargon of metaphysics, from the university''All gentlemen of fortune, at least the since that I have been engaged in the clear voung and middle-aged, are apt to pride ing part of the perplexed style and matte themselves a little too much upon their of the law, which so hereditarily descend dress, and consequently to value others in to all its professors. To all which severe some measure upon the same considera- studies I have thrown in, at proper intion. With what confusion is a man of terims, the pretty learning of the classics. figure obliged to return the civilities of the Notwithstanding which, I anr vhat Shak Vol. II. IC 74 THL SPECTATOR. [No. 361. speare calls a fellow of no mark or likeli- very well, that musical instruments took hood, which makes me understand the their first rise from the notes of birds, and more fully that since the regular methods other melodious animals;' and what,' says of making friends and a fortune by the he,'was more natural than for the first mere force of a profession is so very slow ages of mankind to imitate the voice of a and uncertain, a man should take all rea- cat, that lived under the same roof with sonable opportunities, by enlarging a good them?' He added, that the cat had conacquaintance, to court that time and chance tributed more to harmony than any other which is said to happen to every man. animal; as we are not only beholden to her T. for this wind instrument, but for our string__ __.... __ music in general. Another virtuoso of my acquaintance will No. 361. ] Thursday, Apfril 24, 1712. not allow the cat-call to be older than ThesTartaream intendit vocem, qua protinus omnis pis, and is apt to think it appeared in the Contremuit domus Virg. n. vii. 514. world soon after the ancient comedy; for The blast Tartarea n spreads its notes around which reason it has still a place in our draThe blast Tartarean spreads its notes around; The house astonish'd trembles at the sound. matic entertainments. Nor must I here omit what a very curious gentleman, who is I HAVE lately received the following letter lately returned from his travels, has more from a country gentleman: than once assured me; namely, that there'MR. SPECTATOR,-The night before I was lately dug up at Rome the statue of a left London I went to see a play called The Momus, who holds an instrument in his Humourous Lieutenant. Upon the rising right hand, very much resembling our of the curtain I was very much surprised modern cat-call. with the great concert of cat-calls which There are others who ascribe this invenwas exhibited that evening, and began to tion to Orpheus, and look upon the cat-call think with myself that I had made a mis- to be one of those instruments which that take, and gone to a music-meeting instead famous musician made use of to draw the of the play-house. It appeared indeed a beasts about him. It is certain that the little odd to me, to see so many persons of roasting of a cat does not call together a quality, of both sexes, assembled together greater audience of that species than this at a kind of caterwauling, for I cannot look instrument, if dexterously played upon in upon that performance to have been any proper time and place. thing better, whatever the musicians them- But, notwithstanding these various and selves might think of it. As I had no ac- learned conjectures, I cannot forbear thinkquaintance in the house to ask questions of, ing that the cat-call is originally a piece and was forced to go out of town early the of English music. Its resemblance to the next morning, I could not learn the secret voice of some of our British songsters, as of this matter. What I would therefore well as the use of it, which is peculiar to desire of you, is, to give me some account our nation, confirms me in this opinion. It of this strange instrument, which I found has at least received great improvements the company called a cat-call; and parti- among us, whether we consider the instrucularly to let me know whether it be a ment itself, or those several quavers and piece of music lately come from Italy. For graces which are thrown into the playing my own part to be free with you, I would of it. Every one might be sensible of this rather hear an English fiddle; though I who heard that remarkable overgrown catdufrst not show my dislike whilst I was in call which was placed in the centre of the the play-house, it being my chance to sit pit, and presided over all the rest at the the very next man to one of the performers. celebrated performance lately exhibited at I am, sir, your most affectionate friend and Drury-lane. servant, JOHN SHALLOW, EsQ.' Having said thus much concerning the origin of the cat-call, we are in the next In compliance with Squire Shallow's re- place to consider the use of it. The catquest, I design this paper as a dissertation call exerts itself to most advantage in the upon the cat-call. In order to make myself British theatre; It very much improves a master of the subject, I purchased one the the sound of nonsense, and often goes along beginnin, of last week, though not without with the voice of the actor who pronounces great difficulty, being informed at two or it, as the violin or harpsichord accompa three toy-shops that the players had lately nies the Italian recitative. bought them all up. I have since consulted It has often supplied the place of the many learned antiquaries in relation to its ancient chorus, in the words of Mr. ***. In original, and find them very much divided short, a bad poet has as great an antipathy among themselves upon that particular. A to a cat-call as many people have to a real fellow of the Royal Society who is my good cat. friend, and a great proficient in the mathe- Mr. Collier in his ingenious essay upon matical part of music, concludes, from the music, has the following passage: simplicity of its make, and the uniformity'I believe it is possible to invent an inof its sound, that the cat-call is older than strument that shall have a quite contrary any of the inventions of Jubal. He observes effect to those martial ones now in use; an No 362.] THE SPECTATOR 75 instrument that shall sink the spirits and of private families, or the clubs of honest shake the nerves, and curdle the blood, fellows. I cannot imagine how a Spectator and inspire despair, and cowardice, and can be supposed to do his duty, without consternation, at a surprising rate.'Tis frequent resumption of such subjects as probable the roaring of lions, the warbling concern our health, the first thing to be of cats and screech-owls, together with a regarded, if we have a mind to relish any mixture of the howling of dogs, judiciously thing else. It would, therefore, very well imitated and compounded, might go a great become your spectatorial vigilance, to give way in this invention. Whether such anti- it in orders to your officer for inspecting music as this might not be of service in a signs, that in his march he would look into camp, I shall leave to the military men to the itinerants who deal in provisions, and consider.' inquire where they buy their several wares. VWhat this learned gentleman supposes in Ever since the decease of Colly-Molly-Puff, speculation, I have known actually verified of agreeable and noisy memory, I cannot in practice. The cat-call has struck a damp say I have observed any thing sold in carts, into generals, and frighted heroes off the or carried by horse, or ass, or, in fine, in stage. At the first sound of it I have seen any moving market, which is not perished a crowned head tremble, and a princess or putrefied; witness the wheel-barrows of fall into fits. The humourous lieutenant rotten raisins, almonds, figs, and currants, himself could not stand it; nay, I am told which you see vended by a merchant that even Almanzor looked like a mouse, dressed in a second-hand suit of a foot and trembled at the voice of this terrifying soldier. You should consider that a child instrument. may be poisoned for the worth of a farthing; As it is of a dramatic nature, and pecu- but except his poor parents send him to one liarly appropriated to the stage, I can by certain doctor in town, they can have no no means approve the thought of that angry advice for him under a guinea. When poilover, who, after an unsuccessful pursuit of sons are thus cheap, and medicines thus some years, took leave of his mistress in a dear, how can you be negligent in inspectserenade of cat-calls. ing what we eat and drink, or take no I must conclude this paper with the ac- notice of such as the above-mentioned citi-:ount I have lately received of an ingenious zens, who have been so serviceable to us artist, who has long studied this instrument, of late in that particular? It was a custom ind is very well versed in all the rules of among the old Romans, to do him particuthe drama. He teaches to play on it by lar honours who had saved the life of a book, and to express by it the whole art of citizen. How much more does the world criticism. He has his bass and his treble owe to those who prevent the death of mulcat-call; the former for tragedy, the latter titudes! As these men deserve well of your for comedy; only. in tragi-comedies they office, so such as act to the detriment of may both play together in concert. He has our health, you ought to represent to thema particular squeak, to denote the violation selves and their fellow-subjects in the colours of each of the unities, and has different which they deserve to wear. I think it sounds to show whether he aims at the poet would be for the public good, that all who or the player. In short, he teaches the vend wines should be under oath in that smut-note, the fustian-note, the stupid-note,. behalf. The chairman at the quarter-sesand has composed a kind of air that may sions should. inform the country, that the serve as an act-tune to an incorrigible play, vintner who mixes wine to his customers, and which takes in the whole compass of shall (upon proof that the drinker thereof the cat-call. L. died within a year and a day after taking _______ it,) be deemed guilty of wilful murder, and the jury shall be instructed to inquire and No. 352. ] Friday, tipril 25, 1712. present such delinquents accordingly. It is no mitigation of the crime, nor will it be Laudibus arguitur vini vinosus -- conceived that it can be brought in chanceHor. Ep. x. Lib. 1. medley, or man-slaughter, upon proof that lie praises wine; and we conclude from thence, it shall appear wine joined to wine, or right lie lik'd his glass, on his own evidence, it shall appear wine joined to wine, or right Herefordshire poured into Port O Port: but'Temple, April 24. his selling it for one thing, knowing it to be'MR. SPECTATOR, —Several of my friends another, must justly bear the foresaid guilt were this morning got over a dish of tea in of wilful murder: for that he, the said very good health, though we had celebrated vintner, did an unlawful act willingly in the yesterday with more glasses that we could false mixture, and is therefore with equity have dispensed with, had we not been be- liable to all the pains to which a man would holden to Brooke and Hellier. In gratitude, be, if it were proved that he designed only therefore, to those citizens, I am, in the to run a man through the arm whom he name of the company, to accuse you of great whipped through the lungs. This is my negligence in overlooking their merit, who third year at the Temple, and this is, or have imported true and generous wine, and should be, law. An ill intention, well proved, taken care that it should not be adulterated should meet with no alleviation, because it by the retailers before it comes to the tables outran itself. There cannot be too great 76 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 363. severity used against the injustice as well has from a great wit, governed by as great as cruelty of those who play with men's prudence, and both adorned with innocence, lives, by preparing liquors whose nature, the happiness of always being ready to disfor aught they know, may be noxious when cover her real thoughts. She has many of mixed, though innocent when apart: and us, who now are her admirers; but her Brooke and Hellier, who have insured our treatment of us is so just and proportioned safety at our meals, and driven jealousy to our merit towards her, and what we are from our cups in conversation, deserve the in ourselves, that I protest to you I have custom and thanks of the whole town; and neither jealousy nor hatred towards my it is your duty to remind them of the obli- rivals. Such is her goodness, and the acgation. I am, sir, your humble servant, knowledgment of every man who admires' TOM POTTLE.' her, that he thinks he ought to believe she will take him who best deserves her. I'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a person who will not say that this peace among us is not was long immured in a college, read much, owing to self-love, which prompts each to saw little; so that I knew no more of the think himself the best deserver. I think world than what a lecture or view of the there is something uncommon and worthy map taught me. By this means I improved of imitation in this lady's character. If you in my study, but became unpleasant in con- will please to print my letter, you will versation. By conversing generally with oblige the little fraternity of happy rivals, the dead, I grew almost unfit for the society and in a more particular'manner, sir, your of the living; so by a long confinement I most humble servant, contracted an ungainly aversion to conver-'WILL CYMON.' sation, and ever discoursed with pain to myself, and little entertainment to others. At last I was in some measure made sensi- No. 363.] Saturday,.pril 26, 1712. ble of my failing, and the mortification of never being spoken to, or speaking, unless - Crudelis ubique Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago. t:ie discourse ran upon books, put me upon Virg. En. ii. 368..orcing myself among men. I immediately All parts resound with tumults, plaints, and fears, affected the politest company, by the fre- And grisly Death in sundry shapes appears.-Dryden. quent use of which, I hoped to wear off the MILTON has shown a wonderful art in rust I had contracted: but, by an uncouth describing that variety of passions which imitation of men, used to act in publi'c, arise in our first parents upon the breach got no further than to discover I had a mind e our first paents upn the breach to appear a finer thing than I really was. the commandment that had been given'Such I w, ad sh ws my them. We see them gradually passing from uwhe I bwas, and suah wasmy condition, the triumph of their guilt, through remorse, when I became an ardent lover, and pas- shame, despair, contrition; prayerand hope, sionate admirer of the beauteous Belinda. hame, despair complete repentandhope Then it was thatI reall b to a perfect and complete repentance. At Then it was thatreally egan o improve. the end of the tenth book they are repreThis passion changed all my fears and dif- p ating themselves upon the fidences in my general behaviour to the sole sented as watering the earth wuph thei concern of pleasing her. I had not now to gr a wat the earth with their study the action of a gentleman; but love tircumstance, the et offered up their possessing all my thoughts, made me trul circumstance, that they offered up their ossbe the thing I had a mind tos, made me try penitential prayers on the very place where be the thing I had a mind to appear. My their judge appeared to them when he prothoughts grew free and generous; and the nounced their sentence: ambition to be agreeable to her I admired, produced in my carriage a faint similitude They forthwith to the place of that disengaged manner of my Belinda. Repairing where he judg'd them, prostrate fell Before him reverent, and both confess'd The way we are in at present is, that she Humbly their faults, and pardon begg'd, with tears sees my passion, and sees I at present for- Watering the ground.bear speaking of it through prudential re- There is a beauty of the same kind in a gards. This respect to her she returns with tragedy of Sophocles, where CEdipus, after much civility, and makes my value for her having put out his own eyes, instead of as little misfortune to me as is consistent breaking his neck from the palace battlewith discretion. She sings very charmingly, ments, (which furnishes so elegant an enand is readier to do so at my request, be- tertainment for our English audience) decause she knows I love her. She will dance sires that he may be conducted to Mount with me rather than another for the same Citharon, in order to end his life in that reason. My fortune must alter from what very place where he was exposed in his it is, before I can speak my heart to her: infancy, and where he should then have and her circumstances are not considerable died, had the will of his parents been exeenough to make up for the narrowness of cuted.* mine. But I write to you now, only to give As the author never fails to give a poetical you the character of Belinda, as a woman ________ __________ that has address enough to demonstrate a This paragraphwas not in the original paper in gratitude to her lover, without giving him folio, but added on the republication of the papers in \op.es of success. his passion. Belinda volumes. No. 363.] THE SPECTATOR 77 tunl to his sentiments, he describes in the eclipse, a t.light cloud descends in the beginning of this book the acceptance which western quarter of the heavens, filled with these their prayers met with, in a short a host of angels, and more luminous than allegory formed upon that beautiful passage the sun itself. The whole theatre of nature in holy writ,' And another angel came and is darkened, that this glorious machine may stood at the altar, having a golden censer; appear with all its lustre and magnificence. and there was given unto him much incense,' —Why in the east that he should offer it with the prayers of Darkness ere day's mid-course? and morning light all saints upon the golden altar, which was More orient in that western cloud that draws before the throne: and the smoke of the O'er the blue firmament a radiant white, efore te thone: an e smoke o the Andslowdescends withsomething heavenlyfraught?' incense, which came with the prayers of He err'd not, for by this the heavenly bands the saints, ascended up before God.'* Down from a sky of jasper lighted now In Paradise, and on a hill made halt; -- To heaven their prayer A glorious apparition. -- Flew up, nor miss'd the way, by envious winds Blown vagabond or frustrate; in they pass'd I need not observe how properly this auDimensionless through heav'nly doors, then clad thor, who always suits his parts to the With incense, where the golden altar fum'd actors whom he introduces, has employed Before the Father's throne. c Michael in the expulsion of our first parents We have t~he same thought expressed a from Paradise. The archangel on this ocWe have the same thought expressed a casion neither appears in his proper shape, second time in the intercession of the Mes- nor in the familiar manner with which Ra siah, which is conceived in very emphatical nor in the familiar manner with which Rasiah, whi is conceived in very emphatical phael, the sociable spirit, entertained the sentimentsh ad expressions of S, father of mankind before the fall. His per n the poetical parts s o fi Scripture, son, his port, and behaviour, are suitable to which Milton has rso finel wroughst t into a spirit of the highest rank, and exquisitely this part of his narration, lmust not omit described in the following passage, that wherein Ezekiel, speaking of the an- who appeared to him in a vision adds, Not -Th' archangel soon drew nigh, gels who appeared to him in a vision adds, Not in his shape celestial; but as man that every one had four faces, and that Clad to meet man:over his lucid arms their whole bodies, and their backs, and A military vest of purple flow'd, their hands, and their wings, were full of Livelier than Melibean, or the grain te ans wre Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old, eyes round about: In time of truce: Iris had dipt the woof: The cohort bright His starry helm, unbuckled, show'd him prime Of watchful cherubim, four faces each In manhood where youth ended; by his side, Had, like a double Janus, all their shape As in a glistring zodiac, hung the sword, Spangled with Peyes._- Satan's dire dread, and in his hand the spear. Adam bow'd low; he kingly from his state The assembling of all the angels of hea- Inclin'd not, but his coming thus declared. ven, to hear the solemn decree passed upon Eve's complaint, upon hearing that she man, is represented in very lively ideas. was to be removed from the garden of ParaThe Almighty is here described as remem- dise, is wonderfully beautiful. The sentibering mercy in the midst of judgment, and ments are not only proper to the subject, commanding Michael to deliver his mes- but have something in them particularly sage in the mildest terms, lest the spirit of soft and womanish: man, which was already broken with the'Must I then leave thee, Paradise? Thus leave sense of his guilt and misery, should fail Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades before him: Fit haunt of gods, where I had hope to spend Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day' Yet lest they fain That must be mortal to us both? O flowers, At the sad sentence rigorously urg'd, That never will in other climate grow, For I behold them soften'd, and with tears My early visitation, and my last Bewailing their excess, all terror hide.' At even, which I bred up with tender hand From the first opening bud, and gave you names! The conference of Adam and Eve is full Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank of moving sentiments. Upon their going Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount? abroad, a^fter the melancholy night which Thee, lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorn'd ~aboroacd, afterthmeacoyngtwihWith what to sight or smell was sweet: from thee they had passed together, they discover the How shall I part? and whither wander down lion and the eagle, each of them pursuing Into a lower world, to this, obscure their prey towards the eastern gates of And wild? How shall we breathe in other air Paradise. There is a doue beas ty n this Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?' Paradise. There is a double beauty in this incident, not only as it presents great and Adam's speech abounds with thoughts just omens, which are always agreeable in which are equally moving, but of a more poetry, but as it expresses that enmity masculine and elevated turn. Nothing can which was now produced in the animal be conceived more sublime and poetical creation. The poet, to show the like changes than the following passage in it: in nature, as well as to grace his fable with This most afflicts me, that departing hence a noble prodigy represents the sun in an As from his face I shall be hid, deprived a noe prodig, r s e sn in an His blessed count'nance; here I could frequent, eclipse. This particular incident has like- With worship, place by place, where he vouchsaf' wise a fine effect upon the imagination of Presence divine; and to my sons relate, the reader, in regard to what follows; for On this mount he appeard, under this tree Stood visible, among these pines his voice at the same time that the sun is under an I heard; here with him at this fountain talk',. So many grateful altars I would rear * Rev. viii. 3, 4. Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone 78 THE SPECTATOR. LNo. 363. Of lustre from the brook, in memory he is intent upon this vision, is imagined Or monuments to ages, and thereon with great decacy. ust not omit the Offer sweet-smelling gums and flow'rs. In yonder nether world, where shall I seek description of the loose female troop, who His bright appearances, or footsteps trace? seduced the sons of God, as they are called For though I fled him angry, yet recall'd in Scripture To life prolong'd and promis'd race, I now n ptu Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts'For that fair female troop thousaw'st, that seem'd Of glory, and far off his steps adore.' Of goddesses, so blythe, so smooth, so gay, The angel afterwards leads Adam to the Yet empty of all good, wherein consists The ane gel afterwards leads Adam to the Woman's domestic honour, and chief praise: highest mount of Paradise, and lays before Bred only and completed to the taste him a whole hemisphere, as a proper stage Of lustful appetence, to sing, to dance, for those visions hich were to be repre- To dress, and troule the tongue, and roll the eye; To these that sober race of men, whose lives sented on it. I have before observed how Religious titled them the sons of God, the plan of Milton's poem is in many par- Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame, ticulars greater than that of the Iliad or Ignobly, to the trains and to the smiles Of those fair atheists.' lEneid. Virgil's hero, in the last of these poems, is entertained with a sight of all The next vision is of a quite contrary those who are to descend from him; but nature, and filled with the horrors of war. though that episode is justly admired as one Adam at the sight of it melts into tears, and of the noblest designs in the whole JEneid, breaks out into that passionate speech, every one must allow that this of Milton is o what are these! of a much higher nature. Adam's vision is Death's ministers, not men, who thus deal death confined to any particular tribe of man- Inhumanly to men, and multiply not confined to any particular tribe of man- Ten thousandfold the sin of him who slew kind, but extends to the whole species. His brother: for of whom such massacre In this great review which Adam takes Make they, but of their brethren, men of men? of all his sons and daughters, the first ob- Milton to keep up an agreeable variety in jects he is presented with exhibit to him his visions, after having raised in the mind the story of Cain and Abel, which is drawn of his reader the several ideas of terror together with much closeness and propriety which are conformable to the description of expression. The curiosity and natural of war, passes on to those softer images of horror which arises in Adam at the sight triumphs and festivals, in that vision of of the first dying man is touched with great lewdness and luxury which ushers in the beauty. flood.'But have I now seen death? Is this the way As it is visible that the poet had his eye I must return to native dust? 0 sight upon Ovid's account of the universal deluge, Of terror foul, and ugly to behold! the reader may observ with how much Horrid to think, how horrible to feel!' judgment he has avoided every thing that is The second vision sets before him the redundant or puerile in the Latin poet. We image of death in a great variety of ap- do not here see the wolf swimming among pearances. The angel, to give him a gene- the sheep, nor any of those wanton imaginaral idea of those effects which his guilt had tions which Seneca found fault with, as unbrought upon his posterity, places before becoming this great catastrophe of nature. him a large hospital, or lazar-house, filled If our poet has imitated that verse in which with persons lying under all kinds of mortal Ovid tells us that there was nothing but sea, diseases. How finely has the poet told us and that this sea had no shore to it, he has that the sick persons languished under lin- not set the thought in such a light as to in gering and incurable distempers, by an apt cur the censure which critics have passed and judicious use of such imaginary beings upon it. The latter part of that verse in as those I mentioned in my last Saturday's Ovid is idle and superfluous, but just and paper: beautiful in Milton, Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen liabebant; Tended the sick, busy from couch to couch; Nil nisi pontus erat; deerant quoque littora ponto. And over them triumphant Death his dart Ovid. Met i. 291 Shook, but delay'd to strike, tho' oft invok'd.. With vows, as their chief good and final hope. Now seas and earth were in confusion lost; A world of waters, and without a coast.-Dryder.. The passion which likewise rises in -- Sea cover'd sea, Adam on this occasion is very natural: Sea without shore. J'Milton. Sight so deform what heart of rock could long In Milton the former part of the descripDry-ey'd bellold? Adam could not, but wept, Though not of woman born; compassion quell'd tion does not forestall the latter. How much His best of man, and gave him up to tears. more great and solemn on this occasion is The discourse between the angel and that which follows in our English poet. Adam which follows, abounds with noble -And in their palaces, morals. Where luxury late reign'd, sea-monsters whelp'd As there is nothing more delightful in Andstabled poetry than a contrast and opposition of than that in Ovid, where we are told that incidents, the author, after this melanchoy the sea-calf lay in those places where the prospect of death and sickness, raises up a goats were used to browse! The reader scene of mirth, love,, and jollity. The secret may find several other parallel passages in pleasure that steals into Adam's heart, as the.atin and English description of the No. 364.] THE SPECTATOR 79 deluge; wherein our poet has visibly the ad- ble, and has passed the common exercises vantage. The sky's beingovercharged with of his years with tolerable advantage, but is clouds, the descending of the rains, the withal what you would call a forward youth: rising of the seas, and the appearance of by the help of this last qualification, which. the rainbow, are such descriptions as every serves as a varnish to all the rest, he is enone must take notice of. The circumstance abled to make the best use of his learning, relating to Paradise is so finely imagined, and display it at full length upon all occaand suitable to the opinions of many learned sions. Last summer he distinguished himauthors, that I cannot forbear giving it a self two or three times very remarkably, by place in this paper. puzzling the vicar, before an assembly of - Then shall this mount most of the ladies in the neighbourhood; and Of Paradise, by might of waves be mov'd from such weighty considerations as these, Out of his place, push'd by the horned flood; as it too often unfortunately falls out, the With all his verdure spoil'd, and trees adrift mother is become invincibly persuaded that Down the great riv i er to h' op'ning gulf, And there take root; an island salt and bare, her son is a great scholar; and that to chain The haunt of seals and ores and sea-mews' clang, him down to the ordinary methods of eduThe transition which the poet makes cation, with others of lis age, would be to from the vision of the deluge, to the concern cramp his faculties, and do an irreparable it occasioned in Adam, is exquisitely grace- injury to his wonderful capacity. ful, and copied after Virgil, though the first'I happened to visit at the house last thought it introduces is rather in the spirit week, and missing the young gentleman at of Ovid: the tea-table, where he seldom fails to officiate, could not upon so extraordinary a How didst thou grieve then, Adam, to behold circumstance avoidinquiring afterhim. My The end of all thy offspring, end so sad, lady told me he was gone out with her woDepopulation! Thee another flood, lady told me he was gne ou with her woOf tears and sorrow, a flood, thee also drown'd, man, in order to make some preparation And sunk thee as thy sons; till getly rear'dt for their equipage; for that she intended By th' angel, on thy feet thou stood'st at last, Though comfortless, as when a father mourns very speedily to carry him to "travel." His children all in view destroy'd at once. The oddness of the expression shocked me I have been the more particular in my a little; however, I soon recovered myself quotations out of the eleventh book of Para- enough tolet her know, that all I was willing dise Lost, because it is not generally reck- to understand by it was, that she designed oned among the most shining books of this this summer to show her son his estate in a poem: for which reason the reader might distant county, in which he had never yet been. But she soon took care to rob me of be apt to overlook those many passages in e took cae to ro me o it which deserve our admiration. The ele- that agreeable mistake, and let me into the venth and twelfth are indeed built upon that whole affair. She enlarged upon young single circumstance of the removal of our master's prodigious improvements, and his first parents from Paradise: but though this comprehensive knowledge of all book-learnis not in itself so great a subject as that in ing; concluding, that, it was now high time most of the foregoing books, it is extended he should be made acquainted with men and and diversified with so many surprising in- things; that she had resolved he should cidents and pleasing episodes, that these makethetourofFranceandItaly, but culd two last books can by no means be looked not bear to have him out f her sight, and upon as unequal parts of this divine poem. therefore intended to go along with him. I must further add, that, had not Milton I was goingto raly her for so extravagant represented our first parents as driven out a resolution, but found myself not in a fit represented our first parents as driven out humour to meddle with a subject that deof Paradise,* his fall of man would not have been complete, and consequently his action manded the most soft and delicate touch would have been imperfect. L. imaginable. I was afraid of (dropping something that might seem to bear hard either upon the son's abilities, or the mother's discretion, being sensible that in both these No. 364. ] Monday,.fpril 28, 1712. cases, though supported with all the pow -- Navibus atque ers of reason, I should, instead of gaining Quladrigis petimus bene vivere. her ladyship over to my opinion, only exHor. Ep. xi. Lib. 2. 9. pose myself to her disesteem: I therefore Anxious through seas and land to search for rest, immediately determined to refer the whole Is but laborious idleness at best-Francis. matter to the Spectator.' MR. SPECTATOR,-A lady of my ac-' When I came to reflect at night, as my quaintance, for whom I have too much re- custom is, upon the occurrences of the day, spect to be easy while she is doing an I could not but believe that this humour of indiscreet action, has given occasion to this carrying a boy to travel in his mother's lap, trouble. She is a widow, to whom the in- and that upon pretence of learning men and dulgence of a tender husband has entrusted things, is a case of an extraordinary nature, the management of a very great fortune, and carries on it a peculiar stamp of folly. and a son about sixteen, both of which, she I did not remember to have met with its pa is extremely fond of. The boy has parts of rallel within the compass of my observation, the middlesize, neither shining nor despica- though I could call to mind some not ex 80 THE SPECTATOR. No. 3 6. tremely unlike it. From hence mythoughts we find celebrated as the scene of some fa took occasion to ramble into the general no- mous action, or retaining any footsteps of a tion of travelling, as it is now made a part Cato, Cicero, or Brutus, or some such great of education. Nothing is more frequent virtuous man. A nearer view of any such than to take a lad from grammar and taw, particular, though really little and trifling and, under the tuition of some poor scholar, in itself, may serve the more powerfully to who is willing to be banished for thirty warm a generous mind to an emulation of pounds a year, and a little victuals, send their virtues, and a greater ardency of amhim crying and snivelling into foreign coun- bition to imitate their bright examples, if it tries. Thus he spends his time as children comes duly tempered and prepared for the do at puppet-shows, and with much the impression. But this I believe you will same advantage, in staring and gaping at an hardly think those to be, who are so far amazing variety of strange things; strange from entering into the sense and spirit of the indeed to one who is not prepared to com- ancients, that they do not yet understand prehend the reasons and meaning of them, their language with any exactness.* whilst he should be laying the solid founda-' But I have wandered from my purpose, tions of knowledge in his mind, and furnish- which was only to desire you to save, if posing it with just rules to direct his future sible, a fond English mother, and mother's progress in life under some skilful master own son, from being shown a ridiculous of the art of instruction. spectacle through the most polite parts of' Can there be a more astonishing thought Europe. Pray tell them, that though to be in nature, than to consider how men should sea-sick, or jumbled in an outlandish stagefall into so palpable a mistake? It is a large coach, may perhaps be healthful for the field, and may very well exercise a sprightly constitution of the body, yet it is apt to genius; but I do not remember you have yet cause such dizziness in young empty heads taken a turn in it. I wish, sir, you would as too often lasts their life-time. I am, sir, make people understand that "travel" is your most humble servant. really the last step to be taken in the insti-'PHILIP HOMEBRED.' tution of youth, and that to set out with it, is to begin where they should end.'Birchin-lane.' Certainly the true end of visiting foreign'SIR,-I was married on Sunday last, and parts, is to look into their customs and po- went peaceably to bed; but, to my surprise, licies, and observe in what particulars they was awakened the next morning by the excel or come short of our own; to unlearn thunder of a set of drums. These warlike some odd peculiarities in our manners, and sounds (methinks) are very improper in a wear off such awkward stiffnesses and af- marriage-concert, and give great offence; fectations in our behaviour, as possibly may they seem to insinuate, that the joys of this have been contracted from constantly asso-state are short, and that jars and discords ciating with one nation of men, by a more soon ensue. I fear they have been ominous free, general, and mixed conversation. But to many matches, and sometimes proved a how can any of these advantages be attained prelude to a battle in the honey-moon. A by one who is a mere stranger to the cus- nod from you may hush them; therefore, toms and policies of his native country, and pray, sir, let them be silenced, that for the has not yet fixed in his mind the first prin- future none but soft airs may usher in the ciples of manners and behaviour? To en- morning of a bridal night; which will be a deavour it, is to build a gaudy structure favour not only to those who come after, but without any foundation; or, if I may be al- to me, who can still subscribe myself, your lowed the expression, to work a rich em- most humble and most obedient servant, broidery upon a cob web.'ROBIN BRIDEGROOM.''Another end of travelling, which de-'MR. SPECTATOR,I amone ofthat sort serves to be considered, is the improving of women whom the gayer part of our sex our taste of the best authors of antiquity, by are apt to call a prude. But to show them seeing the places where they lived, and of which they wrote; to compare the natural * The following paragraph, in the first edition ofthi% face of the country with the descriptions paper in folio, was afterwards suppressed. It is here they have given us, and observe how w reprinted from the Spect. in folio, No..364. they have given us, and observe how well'pI cannot quit this head without paying myacknowthe picture agrees with the original. This ledgments to one of the most entertaining pieces this must certainly be a most charmiing exercise age has produced, for the pleasure it gave me. You will musto certainly be a most charming exercise easily guess that the botik I have in my head is Mr. to the mind that is rightly turned for it; be- Addison'y gs thatks upon tay. That ingenious gentle. sides that, it may in a good measure be man has with so much art and judgment applied his ex made subservient to morality, if the person act knowledge of all the parts of classical learning, to is capable of drawing just nconclusions con- illustrate the several occurrences of his travels, that his is capable of drawing just conclusions con- work alone is a pregnant proof of what I have said cerning the uncertainty of human things, Nobody that has a taste this way, can read him going from the ruinous alterations time and bar- from Rome to Naples, and making Horiace and Silius ^barity have brought upoTn enso many palaces, Italicus his chart, but he must feel some uneasiness in baiity have brought upon so many palaces, Ichsthimself to reflect that he was not in his retinue. I am cities, and whole countries, which make sure I wished it ten times in every page, and that not the most illustrious figures in history. And without a secret vanity to think in what state I should this hint may be not a little improved by have travelled the Appian road, with Horace for a guide, this hint may be not a little impro ved by and uin companyn withl a countryman of my own, who, oi examining every little spot of ground that all men living, knows best how to follow his steps' No. 365.1 THE SPECTATOR. 81 that I have very little regard to their month on the lower part of the sex, whc raillery, I shall be glad to see them all at act without disguise, are very visible. It The Amorous Widow, or The Wanton is at this time that we see the young Wife, which is to be acted for the benefit wenches in a country-parish dancing round of Mrs. Porter, on Monday the 28th instant, a May-pole, which one of our learned anI assure you I can laugh at an amorous tiquaries supposes to be a relick of a cerwidow, or wanton wife, with as little tempt- tain pagan worship that I do not think fit ation to imitate them, as I could at any to mention. other vicious character. Mrs. Porter It is likewise on the first day of this obliged me so very much in the exquisite month that we see the ruddy milk-maid sense she seemed to have of the honourable exerting herself in a most sprightly mansentiments and noble passions in the cha- ner under a pyramid of silver tankards, racter of Hermione, that I shall appear in and, like the virgin Tarpeia,* oppressed her behalf at a comedy, though I have no by the costly ornaments which her benegreat relish for any entertainments where factors lay upon her. the mirth is not seasoned with a certain I need not mention the ceremony of the severity, which ought to recommend it to green gown, which is also peculiar to this people who pretend to keep reason and au- gay season. thority over all their actions. I am, sir, The same periodical love-fit spreads your frequent reader, through the whole sex, as Mr. Dryden T.'ALTAMIRA.' well observes in his description of this Y —---— ________________________ merry month.'For thee, sweet month, the groves green liv'ries wear, No. 365.1 Tuesday, i Aril 29, 1712. If not the first, the fairest of the year; -X~ 0.v~ O. Isa irFor thee the graces lead the dancing hours, Vere magis, quia vere calor redit ossibus- And nature's ready pencil paints the flowers. Virg. Gsorg. iii. 272. erThe sprightly May commands our youth to keep The vigils of her night, and breaks their sleep; But most in spring; the kindly spring inspires Each gentle breast with kindly warmth she moves, Reviving heat, and kindles genial fires. Inspires new flames, revives extinguish'd loves.' ADAPTED. Accordingly, among the works of the Flush'd by the spirit of the genial year, great masters in ainting, who have drawn Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts. great masters in painting, who have drawn Thromson's Spring, 160, &c. this genial season of the year, we often obTHE author of the Menagiana acquaints serve Cupids confused with Zephyrs, flyT1HE author of the Menagiana acquaints ing up an down promiscuously in severtl ~ us, that discoursing one day with several i up a o p ict ure. I c annot bu add ladies of quality about the effects of tie parts of the picture. I cannot but add ladies of quality ab ut the effects te from my own experience, that about this month of May, which infuses a kindly time of the year love-letters come up to warmth into the earth, and all its inhabit- me n great mber s, from all quarters of ants, the marchioness of S- -, who was e inatnoa at o one of the company, told him, that though received an epistle in particular by the she would promise to be chaste in every last post from a Yorkshire gentleman, who month besides, she could not engage for makes heavy complaints of one Zelinda herself in May As the beginning there- makes heavy complaints of one Zeiinda. herself in May. As the beginning there- whom it seems he has courted unsuccess fore of this month is now very near, I de- fully these three years past. e tells me sign this paper for a caveat to the fair sex, that he designs to try her this May; and if and publish it before April is quite out, he desinot carry hpoint, he will never that if any of them should be caught trip- h ink ofher wl think of her more. ping, they may not pretend they had not Having thus fairly admonishedthefemale timely notice. I am induced to this, being persuaded the sex, and laid before them the dangers they above-mentioned observation is as well cal- are exposed to in tis critical month I shall in the next place lay down some rules and uld at for o our climate as that of Franc directions for the better avoiding those and that some of our British ladies are of calentures which are so very frequent in the same constitution with the French this season. this season. marchioness. i aogpyiantod- In the first place, I would advise them I shall leave it among physicians to de- never to venture abroad in the fields, but in termine what may be the cause of such an anniversary inclination; whether or no it the company of a parent, a guardian, or is that the spirits, after having been as it some other sober discreet person. I have is tha the spits, afterhaving been as it before shown how apt they are to trip in were froze and congealed by winter, are the flowery meadow; and shall further now turned loose and set a rambling; or, observe to'them, that Proserpine was out that the gay prospects of fields and meaothat the gy prospects of f ie ds and mea a-maying when she met with that fatal addows, with the courtship of the birds in venture to which Milton alludes when he every bush, naturally unbend the mind, mentionsand soften it to pleasure; or that, as somet fr have imagined, a woman is prompted by. That fair field have imagined, a woman is prompted by Of Enna, where Proserpine gath'ring flowers, a kind of instinct to throw herself on a bed Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis of flowers, and not to let those beautiful Was gathered. couches which nature has provided lie useless. However it be, the effects of this * T. Livii Hist. Dec. 1. lib. 1. can. aL. VOL. 11. 11 82 THE SPECTATOR.. [No. S0 Since I am going into quotations, I shall That devotion to his mistress kindles in his conclude this head with Virgil's advice to mind a general tenderness, which exerts young people while they are gathering itself towards every object as well as his wild strawberries and nosegays, that they fair one. When this passion is represented should have a care of the' snake in the'by writers, it is common with them to engrass.' deavour at certain quaintnesses and turns In the second place, I cannot but ap- of imaginations which are apparently the prove those prescriptions which our astro- work of a mind at ease; but the men of true logical physicians give in their almanacks taste can easily distinguish the exertion of for this month: such as are'a spare and a mind which overflows with tender sentisimple diet, with a moderate use of phle- ments, and the labour of one which is only botomy.' describing distress. In performances of this Under this head of abstinence I shall also kind, the most absurd of all things is to be advise my fair readers to be in a particular witty; every sentiment must grow out of manner careful how they meddle with ro- the occasion, and be suitable to the circummances, chocolate, novels, and the like stances of the character. WVhere this rule inflamers, which I look upon as very dan- is transgressed, the humble servant in all gerous to be made use of during this great the fine things he says, is but showing his carnival of nature. mistress how well he can dress, instead of As I have often declared that I have no- saying how well he loves. Lace and drathing more at heart than the honour of my pery is as much a man, as wit and turn is dear country-women, I would beg them to passion. consider, whenever their resolutions begin to fail them, that there are but one-and-'MR. SPECTATOR,-Thefollowingverses thirty days of this soft season, and if they are a translation of a Lapland love-song, can but weather out this one month, the which I met with in Scheffer's history of rest of the year will be easy to them. As that country.* I was agreeably surprised for that part of the fair sex who stay in to find a spirit of tenderness and poetry in town, I would advise them to be particu- a region which I never suspected for delilarly cautious how they give themselves up cacy. In hotter climates, though altogether to their most innocent entertainments. If uncivilized, I had not wondered if I had they cannot forbear the playhouse, I would found some sweet wild notes among the recommend tragedy to them rather than natives, where they live in groves of oranges, comedy; and should think the puppet-show and hear the melody of the birds about much safer for them than the opera, all the them. But a Lapland lyric, breathing while the sun is in Gemini. sentiments of love and poetry, not unworthy The reader will observe, that this paper old Greece or Rome; a regular ode from is written for the use of those ladies who a climate pinched with frost, and cursed think it worth while to war against nature with darkness so great a part of the year; in the cause of honour. As for that aban- where it is amazing that the poor natives doned crew, who do not think virtue worth should get food, or be tempted to propagate contending for, but give up their reputa- their species-this, I confess, seemed a tion at the first summons, such warnings greater miracle to me than the famous and premonitions are thrown away upon stories of their drums, their winds, and en. them. A prostitute is the same easy crea- chantments. ture in all months of the year, and makes' I am the bolder in commending this no difference between May and December. northern song, because I have faithfully X. kept to the sentiments, without adding or diminishing; and pretend to no greater praise from my translation, than they who smooth and clean the furs of that country No. 366.zril 30, 1712. which have suffered by carriage. The Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis numbers in the original are as loose and unArbor aestiva recreatur aura; equal as those in which the British ladies Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, or their indarics; and perhaps the Dulce loquentem. Heor. Od. xxii. Lib. 1.17. sport their Pindarics; and perhaps the et me were on some ptle lin fairest of them might not think it a disThe swarthy Africans complain, agreeable present from a lover. But I have To see the chariot of the sun ventured to bind it in stricter measures, as 8So ear the scorching country run; being more proper for our tongue, though Theburning zone, the frozen isles, Shall hear me sing of Celia's smiles; perhaps wilder graces may better suit the All cold, but in her breast, I will despise, genius of the Laponian language. And dare all heat but that of Celia's eyes.'It will be necessary to imagine that the author of this song, not having the liberty THERE are such wild inconsistencies in of visiting his mistress at her father's house, the thoughts of a man in love, that I have was in hopes of spying her at a distance in often reflected there can be no reason for her fields. allowing him more liberty than others possessed with phrenzy, but that his distem- Mr. Ambrose Phillips was the supposed author of per has no malevolence in it to any mortal. this love-song. No. 367.]' HE SPECTATOR. 83'Thou rising sun, whose gladsome ray follow your counsel; who am your admirer Invites my fair to rural play, and humble servant, Dispel the mist, and clear the skies, and humble servant And bring my Orra to my eyes.' CONSTANTIA COMB-BRUSHI. Oh! were I sure my dear to view, ~ I beg that you will put it in a better I'd climb that pine-tree's topmost bough, dress, and let it come abroad, that my misAnd round and round for ever gaze. tress, who is an admirer of your specula tions, may see it.' T. My Orra Moor, where art thou laid? What wood conceals my sleeping maid? Fast by the roots enrag'd I'd tear The trees that hide my promis'd fair. No. 367. Thursday, May 1, 1712. Oh! could I ride the clouds and skies, -Periturse parcite charta.-Juv. Sat. i. 18 Or on the raven's pinions rise! Ye storks, ye swans, a moment stay, In mercy spare us when we do our best And waft a lover on his way! To make as much waste paper as the rest. My bliss too long my bride denies, I HAVE often pleased myself with con Apace the wasting summer flies: sidering the two kinds of benefits which Nor yet the wintry blasts I fear, accrue to the public from these my speculations, and which, were I to speak after What may for strength with steel compare? the manner of logicians, I would distinOh! love has fetters stronger far! guish into the material and the formal. By By bolts of steel are limbs confin'd, the latter I understan those advantages But cruel love enchains the mind.the latter I understand those advantages which my readers receive, as their minds No longer then perplex thy breast; are either improved or delighted by these When thoughts torment, the first are best; my daily labours; but having already seTis mad to go,tis death to stay veral times descanted on my endeavours in this light, I shall at present wholly confine' April the 10th. myself to the consideration of the former.'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of those By the word material, I mean those benedespicable creatures called a chambermaid, fits which arise to the public from these my and have lived with a mistress for some speculations, as they consume a considertime, whom I love as my life, which has able quantity of our paper-manufacture, made my duty and pleasure inseparable. employ our artisans in printing, and find Myt greatest delight has been in being cm- business for great numbers of indigent p.oyed about her person; and indeed she'is persons. very seldom out of humour for a woman of Our paper-manufacture takes into it seher quality. But here lies my complaint, sir. veral mean materials which could be put To bear with me is all the encouragement to no other use, and affords work for several she is pleased to bestow upon me; for she hands in the collection of them which are gives her cast-off clothes from me to others; incapable of any other employment. Those some she is pleased to bestow in the house poor retailers, whom we see so busy in to those that neither want nor wear them, every street, deliver in their respective and some to hangers-on, that frequent the gleanings to the merchant. The merchant house daily, who come dressed out in them. carries them in loads to the paper-mill, This, sir, is a very mortifying sight to me, where they pass through a fresh set of who am a little necessitous for clothes, and hands, and give life to another trade. love to appear what I am; and causes an Those who have mills on their estate, by uneasiness, so that I cannot serve with that this means considerably raise their rents, cheerfulness as formerly; which my mis- and the whole nation is in a great measure tress takes notice of, and calls envy and supplied with a manufacture for which forill-temper, at seeing others preferred be- merly she was obliged to her neighbours. fore me. My mistress has a younger sister The materials are no sooner wrought lives in the house with her, that is some into paper, but they are distributed among thousands below her in estate, who is conti- the presses, when they again set innumenually heaping her favours on her maid; so rable artists at work, and furnish business that she can appear every Sunday, for the to another mystery. From hence, accordfirst quarter, in a fresh suit of clothes of ingly as they are stained with news and her mistress's giving, with all other things politics, they fly through the town in Postsuitable. All this I see without envying, men, Post-boys, Daily Courants, Reviews, but not without wishing my mistress would Medleys, and Examiners. Men, women, a little consider what a discouragement it and children contend who shall be the first is to me to have my perquisites divided be- bearers of them, and get their daily sustentween fawners and jobbers, which others ance by spreading them. In short, when I enjoy entire to themselves. I have spoken trace in my mind a bundle of rags to a quire to my mistress, but to little purpose; I of Spectators, I find so many hands em have desired to be discharged (for indeed I ployed in every step they take through fret myself to nothing,) but that she an- their whole progress, that while I am swcrs with silence. I beg, sir, your direc- writing a Spectator, I fancy myself protion what to do, for I am fully resolved to viding bread fcr a multitude. 8" THE SPECTATOR. [No.,68. If I do not take care to obviate some of which has passed through the nands of one my witty readers, they will be apt to tell of the most accurate, learned, and judicious me, that my paper, after it is thus printed writers this age has produced. The beauty and published, is still beneficial to the pub- of the paper, of the character, and of the lic on several occasions. I must confess I several cuts with which this noble work is have lighted my pipe with my own works illustrated, makes it the finest book that I for this twelvemonth past. My landlady have ever seen; and is a true instance of often sends up her little daughter to desire the English genius, which, though it does some of my old Spectators, and has fre- not come the first into any art, generally quently told me, that the paper they are carries it to greater heights than any other printed on is the best in the world to wrap country in the world. I am particularly spices in. They likewise made a good glad that this author comes from a British foundation for a mutton pie, as I have printing-house in so great a magnificence, more than once experienced, and were as he is the first who has given us any very much sought for last Christmas by tolerable account of our country. the whole neighbourhood. My illiterate readers, if any such there It is pleasant enough to consider the are, will be surprised to hear me talk of changes the: a linen fragment undergoes learning as the glory of a nation, and of by passing through the several hands above printing as an art that gains a reputation to mentioned. The finest pieces of Holland, a people among whom it flourishes. When when worn to tatters, assume a new men's thoughts are taken up with avarice whiteness more beautiful than the first, and ambition, they cannot look upon any and often return in the shape of letters to thing as great or valuable which does not their native country. A lady's shift may bring with it an extraordinary power or be metamorphosed into billets-doux, and interest to the person who is concerned in come into her possession a second time. A it. But as I shall never sink this paper so beau may peruse his cravat after it is worn far as to engage with Goths and Vandals, I out, with greater pleasure and advantage shall only regard such kind of reasoners than ever he did in a glass. In a word, a with that pity which is due to so deplorable piece of cloth, after having officiated for a degree of stupidity and ignorance. L. some years as a towel or a napkin, may by this means be raised from a dunghill, and become the most valuable piece of furni- No. 368.] Friday, May 2, 1712. ture in a prince's cabinet. _ The politest nations of Europe have en- aliqNs deceeditus deavoured to vie with one another for the Humane vitae varia reputantes mala: reputation of the finest printing. Absolute At qui labores morte finissetgraves, governments, as well as republics, have Omnesamicoslaude etlIetitia exequi. encouraged an art which seems to be the. apud T noblest and most beneficial that ever was in- When first an infant draws the vital air, Officious grief should welcome him to care: vented among the sons of men. The present But joy should life's concluding scene attend, king of France, in his pursuits after glory, And mirth be kept to grace a dying friend. has particularly distinguished himself by As the Spectator is in a kind, a paper the promoting of this useful art, insomuch s the natural world, as other that several books have been printed in the o e from the bus and pal orl par of manLouvre at his own expense, upon which he kind, I shall translate the following letter, sets so great a value that he considers them written to an eminent French gentleman in as the noblest presents he can make to fo- this town from Paris, which gives us the reign princes and ambassadors. If we look eit of a heroine who is a pattern of pa into the commonwealths of Holland and exit of a generoine who a pattern of pa Venice, we shall find that in this particular a they have made themselves the envy of the' Paris, April 18, 1712. greatest monarchies. Elzevir and Aldus are' SIR,-It is so many years since you left more frequently mentioned than any pen- your native country, that I am to tell you sioner of the one or doge of the other. the characters of your nearest relations as The several presses which are now in much as if you were an utter stranger to England, and the great encouragement them. The occasion of this is to give you which has been given to learning for some an account of the death of Madam de Vilyears last past, has made our own nation lacerfe, whose departure out of this life I as glorious upon this account as for its late know not whether a man of your philo triumphs and conquests. The new edition sophy will call unfortunate or not, since it which is given us of Cesar's Commenta- was attended with some circumstances as ries* has already been taken notice of in much to be desired as to be lamented. She foreign gazettes, and is a work that does was her whole life happy in an uninterhonour to the English press. It is no won- rupted health, and was always honoured der that an edition should be very correct for an evenness of temper and greatness of mind. On the 10th instant that lady was *A most magnificent edition of Cesar's Commenta. taken with an indisposition which confined ties published about this time, by Dr. Samuel Clarke. her to her chamber, but was such as was No. o69.j THE SPECTATOR. 85 too slight to make her take a sick bed,'VWhile this excellent woman spoke these and yet too grievous to admit of any satis- Words, Festeau looked as if he received a faction in being out of it. It is notoriously condemnation to die, instead of a pension known, that some years ago Monsieur Fes- for his life. Madame de Villacerfe lived teau, one of the most considerable surgeons till eight of the clock the next night; and in Paris, was desperately in love'with this though she must have laboured under the lady. Her quality placed her above any most exquisite torments, she possessed her application to her on the account of his mind with so wonderful a patience, that passion: but as a woman always has some one may rather say she ceased to breathe, regard to the person whom she believes to than she died at that hour. You, who had be her real admirer, she now took it into not the happiness to be personally known her head (upon advice of her physicians to this lady, have nothing but to rejoice in to lose some of her blood) to send for Mon- the honour you had of being related to so sieur Festeau on that occasion. I hap- great merit; but we, who have lost her conpened to be there at that time, and my versation, cannot so easily resign our own near relation gave me the privilege to be happiness by reflection upon hers. I am, present. As soon as her arm was stripped sir, your affectionate kinsman, and most bare, and he began to press it, in order to obedient humble servant, raise the vein, his colour changed, and I ob-'PAUL REGNAUD.' served him seized with a sudden tremor, which made me take the liberty to speak There hardly can be a greater instance of it to my cousin with some apprehen- of a heroic mind than the unprejudiced sion. She smiled, and' said, she knew manner in which this lady weighed this M. Festeau had no inclination to do her in- misfortune. The regard of life could not jury. He seemed to recover himself, and, make her overlook the contrition of the unsmiling also, proceeded in his work: Im- happy man, whose more than ordinary conmediately after the operation, he cried out, cern for her was all his guilt. It would that he was the most unfortunate of all men, certainly be of singular use to human sofor that he had opened an artery instead ciety to have an exact account of this lady's of a vein. It is as impossible to express ordinary conduct, which was crowned by so the artist's distraction as the patient's com- uncommon magnanimity. Such greatness posure. I will not dwell on little circum- was not to be acquired in the last article; stances, but go on to inform you, that nor is it to be doubted but it was a constant within three days' time it was thought ne- practice of all that is praiseworthy, which cessary to take off her arm. She was so made her capable of beholding death, not far from using Festeau as it would be as the dissolution, but consummation ofher natural for one of a lower spirit to treat life. T. him, that she would not let him be absent from any consultation about her present condition; and, after having been about a No. 369.] Saturday, May 3, 1712. quarter of an hour alone, she bid the surgeons, of whom poor Festeau was one, go Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, on in their work. I know not how to give Quam qu sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus.you the terms of art, but there appeared Her. rTS Poet. v. 18) such symptoms after the amputation of her What we hear moves less than what we see. arm, that it was visible she could not live Roscommon. four-and-twenty hours. Her behaviour was MILTON, after having represented in so magnanimous throughout the whole vision the history of mankind to the first affair, that I was particularly curious in great period of nature, despatches the retaking notice of what past as her fate ap- maining part of it in narration. He has proached nearet and nearer, and took notes devised a very handsome reason for the of what she said to all about her, particu- angel's proceeding with Adam after this larly word for word what she spoke to M. manner; though doubtless the true reason Festeau, which was as follows: was the difficulty which the poet would "Sir, you give me inexpressible sorrow have found to have shadowed out so mixed for the anguish with which I see you over- and complicated a story in visible objects. whelmed. I am removed to all intents I could wish, however, that the author had and purposes from the interests of human done it, whatever pains it might have cost life, therefore I am to begin to think like him. To give my opinion freely, I think one wholly unconcerned in it. I do not that the exhibiting part of the history of consider you as one by whose error I have mankind in vision, and part in narrative, is lost my life; no, you are my benefactor, as as if a history-painter should put in colours you have hastened my entrance into a happy one half of his subject, and write down the immortality. This is my sense of this acci- remaining part of it. If Milton's poem dent: but the world in which you live may flags any where, it is in this narration, have thoughts of it to your disadvantage: I where in some places the author has been have therefore taken care to provide for you so attentive to his divinity that he has in my will, and have placed you above what neglected his poetry. The narration, howyou have to fear from their ill-nature." ever, rises very happily on several occa 86'IHE SPECTATOR. [No. 369. sions, where the subject is capable of. The poet has very finely represented the poetical ornaments, as particularly in the joy and gladness of heart which arises in confusion which he describes among the Adam upon his discovery of the Messiall. builders of Babel, and in his short sketch As he sees his day at a distance through of the plagues of Egypt. The storm of types and shadows, he rejoices in it; but hail and fire, with the darkness that over- when he finds the redemption of man cor spread the land for three days, are de- pleted, and Paradise again renewed, he scribed with great strength. The beautiful breaks forth in rapture and transport: passage which follows is raised upon noble' goodness infinite! goodness immense! hints in Scripture: That all this good of evil shall produce,' &c.' ~ Thus with ten wounds I have hinted in my sixth paper on MilThe river dragon tam'd, at length submits ha a hero aorn o th To let his sojourners depart; and oftoem accoing to t Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice, opinion of the best critics, ought to end More harden'd after thaw: till in his rage happily, and leave the mind of the reader, Pursuing whom he late dismiss'd, the sea afer having condced i hrogh many Swallows him with his host; but then lets man As on dry land between two crystal walls, doubts and fears, sorrows and disquietudes, Aw'd by the rod of Moses so to stand in a state of tranquillity and satisfaction. Divided -' Milton's fable, which had so many other The river dragon is an allusion to the qualifications to recommend it, was deficrocodile, which inhabits the Nile, from cient in this particular. It is here therefore whence Egypt derives her- plenty. This that the poet has shown a most exquisite allusion is taken from that sublime passage judgment, as well as.the finest invention, in Ezekiel:'Thus saith the Lord God, by finding out a method to supply this Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh, king natural defect in his subject. Accordingly of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the he leaves the adversary of mankind, in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My last view which he gives of him, under the river is mine own, and I have made it for lowest state of mortification and disappointmyself.' Milton has given us another very ment. We see him chewing ashes, gronoble and poetical image in the same de- velling in the dust, and loaden with superscription, which is copied almost word for numerary pains and torments. On the word out of the history of Moses! contrary, our two first parents are comforted by dreams and visions, cheered with'All night he will pursue, but his approachn a m*nn Darkness defends between till morning watchses salvaton, an i a manner Then through the fiery pillar and the cloud raised to a greater happiness than that God looking forth will trouble all his host, which they had forfeited. In short, Satan And craze their chariot wheels: when by command is represented miserable in the heiht of Moses once more his potent rod extends represented mirable in the eigt of Over the sea: the sea his rod obeys: his triumphs, and Adam triumphant in the On their embattled ranks the waves return height of misery. And overwhelm their war higtof ier And overwhelm their warMilton's poem ends very nobly. The last As the principal design of this episode speeches of Adam and the archangel are was to give Adam an idea of the holy per- full of moral and instructive sentiments, son who was to reinstate human nature in The sleep that fell upon Eve, and the effects that happiness and perfection from which it had in quieting the disorders of her mind, it had fallen, the poet confines himself to produces the same kind of consolation in the the line of Abraham, from whence the reader, who cannot peruse the last beautiful Messiah was to descend. The angel is speech, which is ascribed to the mother of described as seeing the patriarch actually mankind, without a secret pleasure and travelling towards the land of promise, satisfaction: which gives a particular liveliness to this'Whence thou return'st, and whitner went'st, I knowpart of the narration: For God is also in sleep, and dreams advise, Which he hath sent propitious, some great good'I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith Presaging, since with sorrow and heart's distress He leaves his gods, his friends, his native soil, Wearied I fell asleep: but now lead on; Ur of Chaldea, passing now the ford In me is no delay: with thee to go, To Haran; after him a cumbrous train Is to stay here, without thee here to stay, Of herds, and flocks, and num'rous servitude; Is to go hence unwilling: thou to me Not wand'ring poor, but trusting all his wealth Art all things under heav'n, all places thou, With God, who call'd him in a land unknown. VWho for my wilful crime art banish'd hence Canaan he now attains: I see his tents This farther consolation yet secure Pitch'd about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain I carry hence; though all by me is lost, Of Moreh; there by promise he receives Such favour I unworthy am vouchsafd, Gift. to his progeny of all that land; By me the promis'd seed shall all restore.' From Hamath northward to the desert south: Thf wn n which onc th (Things by their names I call, though yet unnam'd.)' po ri in s ius blae o t poem, rise in a most glorious blaze of poetiAs Virgil's vision in the sixth IEneid cal images and expressions. probably gave Milton the hint of this whole Heliodorus in the JEthiopics acquaints episode, the last line is a translation of that us, that the motion of the gods differs from verse where Anchises mentions the names that of mortals, as the former do not stir of places, which they were to bear here- their feet, nor proceed step by step, but after: slide over the surface of the earth by an Haec tum nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terre. uniform swimming of the whole body. The No. 369.] THE SPECTATOR. 87 reader may observe with how poetical a no means think, with the last-mentionec description Milton has attributed the same French author, that an epic writer first of kind of motion to the angels who were to all pitches upon a certain moral, as the take possession of Paradise: ground-work and foundation of his poem, So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard and afterwards finds out a story to it; I am Well pleas'd, but answer'd not; for now too nigh however of opinion, that no just heroic Th' archangel stood; and from the other hill poem ever was or can be made, from To their fix'd station, all in bright array The cherubim descended; on the ground whence one great moral may not be deGliding meteorous, as evening mist duced. That which reigns in Milton is the. Ris'n from a river, o'er the marish glides, most universal and most useful that can be And gathers ground fast at the lab'rer's heel Homeward returning. High in front advanc'd imagined. It is, in short, this, that obeThe brandish'd sword of God before them blaz'd dience to the will of God makes men happy Fierce as a comet ~- and that disobedience makes them misera Tlhe author helped his invention in the ble. This is visibly the moral of the prin following passage, by reflecting on the be- cipal fable, which turns upon Adam and haviour of the angel, who in holy writ has Eve, who continued in Paradise while they the conduct of Lot and his family. The kept the command that was given them, circumstances drawn from that relation are and were driven out of it as soon as they had very gracefully made use of on this occasion: transgressed. This is likewise the moral of In either hand the hast'ning angel caught the principal episode, which shows us how Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate an innumerable multitude of angels fell Led them direct; and down the cliff as fast from their disobedience. Besides this great To the subjected plain; then disappear'd, moral, which may be looked upon as the They looking back, &c. soul of the fable, there are an infinity of The scene which our first parents are under-morals which are to be drawn from surprised with, upon their looking back on the several parts of the poem, and which Paradise, wonderfllly strikes the reader's make this work more useful and instrucimagination, as nothing can be more natural tive than any other poem in any language. than the tears they shed on that occasion: Those who have criticised on the OdysThey looking back, all th' eastern side beheld sey, the Iliad, and LEneid, have taken a Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, great deal of pains to fix the number of Wavd over by that flaming brand, the gate months and days contained in the action of With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropp'd but wip'd them soon; each of these poems. If any one thinks it The world was all before them, where to choose worth his while to examine this particular Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. in Milton, he will find, that from Adam's If I might presume to offer at the smallest first appearance in the fourth book, to his alteration in this divine work, I should think expulsion from Paradise in the twelfth, the the poem would end better with the pas- author reckons ten days. As for that part sage here quoted, than with the two verses of the action which is described in the which follow: three first books, as it does not pass within They hand in hand, with wand-ring steps and low the regions of nature, I have before - Through Eden took their solitary way. served that it is not subject to any calculations of time. These two verses, though they have their observations on a beauty, fall very much below the foregoing I have now finished my observations on a beauty, fall very much below the foregoing work which does an honour to the English passage, and renew in the mind of the reader nation I have aken honour to the Engli that anguish which was prett well laid by nation. I have taken a general view of it that anguish which was pretty well laid by under these four heads-the fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language, The world was all before them, where to choose and made each of them the subject of a Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. particular paper. I have in the next place The number of books in Paradise Lost is spoke of the censures which our author equal to those of the XEneid. Our author, may incur under each of these heads, in his first edition, had divided his poem which I have confined to two papers, into ten books, but afterwards broke the though I might have enlarged the number seventh and the eleventh each of them into if I had been disposed to dwell on so untwo different books, by the help of some grateful a subject. I believe, however, that small additions. This second division was the severest reader will not find any little made with great judgment, as any one may fault in heroic poetry, which this author see who will be at the pains of examining has fallen into, that does not come under it. It was not done for the sake of such a one of those heads among which I have chimerical beauty as that of resembling distributed his several blemishes. After Virgil in thi. particular, but for the more having thus treated at large of Paradise just and regular disposition of this great Lost, I could not think it sufficient to have work. celebrated this poem in the whole without Those who have read Bessu, and many descending to particulars. I have thereof the critics who have written since his fore bestowed a paper upon each book, time, will not pardon me if I do not find and endeavoured not only to prove that the out the particular moral which is incul- poem is beautiful in general, but to point cattdl in Paradise Lost. Though I can by out its particular beauties; and to deter 88 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 370. mine wherein they consist, I have endea- terests of true piety and religion, is a player voured to show how some passages are with a still greater imputation of guilt, in beautiful by being sublime, others by being proportion to his depreciating a character soft, others by being natural; which of them more sacred. Consider all the differen are recommended oy the passion, which pursuits and employments of men, and yov by the moral, which by the sentiment, and will find half their actions tend to nothinT which by the expression. I have likewise else but disguise and imposture; and all endeavoured to show how the genius of the that is done which proceeds not from a poet shines by a happy invention, a distant man's very self, is the action of a player. allusion,. or a judicious imitation; how he For this reason it is that I make so frequent has copied or improved Homer or Virgil, mention of the stage. It is with me a matter and raises his own imaginations by the use of the highest consideration, what parts which he has made of several poetical pas- are well or ill performed, what passions or sages in Scripture. I might have inserted sentiments are indulged or cultivated, and also several passages in Tasso, which our consequently what manners and customs author has imitated: but, as I do not look are transfused from the stage to the world, upon Tasso to be a sufficient voucher, I which reciprocally imitate each other. would not perplex my reader with such As the writers of epic poems introduce quotations as might do more honour to the shadowy persons, and represent vices and Italian than to the English poet. In short, virtues under the character of men and I have endeavoured to particularize those women; so I, who am a Spectator in the innumerable kinds of beauty which it would world, may perhaps sometimes make use be tedious to recapitulate, but which are of the names of the actors of the stage, to essential to poetry, and which may be met represent or admonish those who transact with in the works of this great author. Had affairs in the world. When I am comI thought, at my first engaging in this design, mending Wilks for representing the ten that it would have led me to so great a derness of a husband and a father in Maclength, I believe I should never have en- beth, the contrition of a reformed prodigal tered upon it; but the kind reception which in Harry the Fourth, the winning emptiness it has met with among those whose judg- of a young man of good-nature and wealth ment I have a value for, as well as the in The Trip to the Jubilee, the officiousuncommon demands which my bookseller ness of an artful servant in the Fox; when tells me have been made for these particu- thus I celebrate Wilks, I talk to all the lar discourses, give me no reason to repent world who are engaged in any of those cirof the pains I have been at in composing cumstances. If I were to speak of merit them. L. neglected, misapplied, or misunderstood, might I not say Estcourt has a great capacity? But it is not the interest of others who No. 370.] Monday, May 5, 1712. bear a figure on the stage, that his talents were understood; it is their business to imTotus mundus agit histrionem. pose upon him what cannot become him, -All the world's a stage, or keep out of his hands any thing in which And all the men and women merely players. he would shine. Were one to raise a susShakspeare. f h i picion of himself in a man who passes upon MANY of my fair readers, as well as very the world for a fine thing, in order to alarm gay and well-received persons of the other him, one might say, If Lord Foppington sex, are extremely perplexed at the Latin was not on the stage (Cibber acts the false sentences at the head of my speculations. pretensions to a genteel behaviour so very I do not know whether I ought not to in- justly,) he would have in the generality of dulge them with translations of each of mankind more that would admire than dethem: however, I have to-day taken down ride him. When we come to characters from the top of the stage in Drury-lane, a directly comical, it is not to be imagined oit of Latin, which often stands in their what effect a well-regulated stage would view, and signifies, that' The whole world have upon men's manners. The craft of acts the player.' It is certain that if we an usurer, the absurdity of a rich fool, look all around us, and behold the different the awkward roughness of a fellow of half employments of mankind, you hardly see courage, the ungraceful mirth of a creature one who is not, as the player is, in an of half wit, might for ever be put out of assumed character. The lawyer, who is countenance by proper parts for Dogget. vehement and loud in a cause wherein he Johnson, by acting Corbacchio the other knows he has not the truth of the question night, must have given all who saw him a on his side, is a player as to the personated thorough detestation of aged avarice. The part, but incomparably meaner than he as petulancy of a peevish old fellow, who loves to the prostitution of himself for hire; be- and hates he knows not why, is very excelcause the pleader's falsehood introduces lently performed by the ingenious Mr. Wilinjustice: the player feigns for no other end liam Penkethman, in the Fop's Fortune; out to divert or instruct you. The divine, where, in the character of Don Choleric whose passions transport him to say any Snap Shorto de Testy, he answers no questhing with any view but promoting the in- tions but to those whom he likes, and wants No. 371.1 THE SPECTATOR. 89 no account of any thing from those he ap-' Among those innumerable sets of whims proves. Mr. Penkethman is also master of which our country produces, there are none as many faces in the dumb scene as can be whom I have regarded with more curiosity expected from a man in the circumstances than those who have invented any particuof being ready to perish out of fear and lar kind of diversion for the entertainment hunger. He wanders through the whole of themselves and their friends. My letter scene very masterly, without neglecting shall single out those who take delight in his victuals. If it be, as I have heard it sorting a company that has something of sometimes mentioned, a great qualification burlesque and ridicule in its appearance. I of the world to follow business and pleasure shall make myself understood by the foltoo, what is it in the ingenious Mr. Pen- lowing example: One of the wits of the kethman to represent a sense of pleasure last age, who was a man of a good estate,* and pain at the same time, as you may see thought he never laid out his money better him do this evening? than in a jest. As he was one year at the As it is certain that a stage ought to be Bath, observing that, in the great confluwholly suppressed or judiciously encour- ence of fine people, there were several aged, while there is one in the nation, men among them with long chins, a part of the turned for regular pleasure cannot employ visage by which he himself was very much their thoughts more usefully, for the diver distinguished, he invited to dinner half a sion of mankind, than by convincing them score of these remarkable persons who had that it is in themselves to raise this enter- their mouths in the middle of their faces. tainment to the greatest height. It would They had no sooner placed themselves be a great improvement, as well as embel- about the table but they began to stare upon lishment to the theatre, if dancing were one another, not being able to imagine what more regarded, and taught to all the actors. had brought them together. Our English One who has the advantage of such an proverb says, agreeable girlish person as Mrs. Bicknell,'Tis merry in the hall, joined with her capacity of imitation, could When beards wag all.' in proper gesture and motion represent all It proved so in the assembly I am now the decent characters of female life. An speaking of, who seeing so many peaks of amiable modesty in one aspect of a dancer, faces agitated with eating, drinking, and Ind assumed confidence in another, a sud- discourse, and observing all the chins that den joy in another, a falling off with an im- were present meeting together very often patience of being beheld, a return towards over the centre of the table, every one grew the audience with an unsteady resolution to sensible of the jest, and gave into it with so approach them, and well-acted solicitude much good humour, that they lived in strict to please, would revive in the company all friendship and alliance from that day forthe fine touches of mind raised in observing ward. all the objects of affection and passion they' The same gentleman some time after had before beheld. Such elegant enter- packed together a set of oglers, as he called tainments as these would polish the town them, consisting of such as had an unlucky into judgment in their gratifications; and cast in their eyes. His diversion on this ocdelicacy in pleasure is the first step people casion was to see the cross bows, mistaken of condition take in reformation from vice. signs, and wrong connivances, that passed Mrs. Bicknell has the only capacity for.this amidst so many broken and refracted rays sort of dancing of any on the stage; and I of sight. dare say all who see her performance to-' The third feast which this merry genmorrow night, when sure the romp will do tleman exhibited was to the stammerers, her best for her own benefit, will be of my whom he got together in a sufficient body mind. T. to fill his table. He had ordered one of his servants, who was placed behind a screen, to write down their table-talk, which was No. 371.] Tuesday, JMay 6, 1712. very easy to be done without the help of ~.. short-hand. It appears by the notes which Jamne igitur laudas quod de sapientibus unus short-hand. It appears by the notes which Ridebat? Jv. Sat. x. 8. were taken, that though their conversation And shall the sage your approbation win, never fell, there were not above twenty Whose laughing features wore a constant grin? words spoken during the first course; that I SHALL communicate to my readers the upon serving up the second, one of the following letter for the entertainment of company was a quarter of an hour in telling this day. them that the ducklings and asparagus were very good; and that another took up' SIR,-You know very well that our na- the same time in declaring himself of the tion is more famous for that sort of men same opinion. This jest did not, however, who are called "Whims" and "humour- go off so well as the former; for one of the ists," than any other country in the world; guests being a brave man, and fuller of refor which reason it is observed, that our sentment than he knew how to express, English comedy excels that of all other went out of the room, and sent the facetious nations in the novelty and variety of its _________- characters. * Villars, Duke of Buckingham. VOL. II. 12 90 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 372. inviter a challengr. A writing, which, though wherein he made use ~f the same invention it was afterwards dropped by the interposi- to cure a different kind of men, who are the tion of friends, put a stop to these ludicrous pests of all polite conversation, and murder entertainments. time as much as either of the two former,' Now, sir, I dare say you will agree with though they do it more innocently-I mean, me, that as there is no moral in these jests, that dull generation of story-tellers. My they ought to be discouraged, and looked friend got together about half a dozen of his upon rather as pieces of unluckiness than acquaintance, who were infected with this wit. However, as it is natural for one man strange malady. The first day one of them to refine upon the thought of another; and sitting down, entered upon the siege of impossible for any single person, how great Namur, which lasted till four o'clock, their soever his parts may be, to invent an art, time of parting. The second day a North and bring it to its utmost perfection; I shall Briton took possession of the discourse, here give you an account of an honest which it was impossible to get out of his gentleman of my acquaintance, who upon hands so long as the company stayed tohearing the character of the wit above- gether. The third day was engrossed aft? mentioned, has himself assumed it, and en- the same manner by a story of the same deavoured to convert it to the benefit of length. They at last began to reflect upon mankind. He invited half a dozen of his this barbarous way of treating one another, friends one day to dinner, who were each of and by this means awakened out of that them famous for inserting several redundant lethargy with which each of them had been phrases in their discourse, as " D'ye hear seized for several years. me? —D'ye see?-That is,-And so, sir."'As you have somewhere declared, tnat Each of his guests making use of his par- extraordinary and uncommon characters of ticular elegance, appeared so ridiculous to mankind are the game which you delight his neighbour, that he could not but reflect in, and as I look upon you to be the greatest upon himself as appearing equally ridi- sportsman, or, if you please, the Nimrod culous to the rest of the company. By this among this species of writers, I thought means, before they had sat long together, this discovery would not be unacceptable tq every one, talking with the greatest cir- you. I am, sir, &c.' I. cumspection, and carefully avoiding his favourite expletive, the conversation was cleared of its redundancies, and had a No. 372.] Wednesday, May 7, 1712. greater quantity of sense, though less of -Pudet hec opprobria nobis sound in it. Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli.'The same well-meaning gentleman took Ovid. Met. i. 759. occasion, at another time, to bring together To hear an open slander, is a curse; such of his friends as were addicted to a t t t find a answer is a orse Drde foolish habitual custom of swearing. In'May 6, 1712. order to show them the absurdity of the' MR. SPECTATOR,-I am sexton of the practice, he had recourse to the invention parish of Covent-garden, and complained above-mentioned, having placed an amanu- to you some time ago, that as I was tolling ensis in a private part of the room. After in to prayers at eleven in the morning, the.second bottle, when men open their crowds of people of quality hastened to asminds without reserve, my honest friend semble at a puppet-show on the other side began to take notice of the many sonorous of the garden. I had at the same time a out unnecessary words that had passed in very great disesteem for Mr. Powell and nis house since their sitting down at table, his little thoughtless commonwealth, as if and how much good conversation they had they had enticed the gentry into those wanlost by giving way to such superfluous derings: but let that be as it will, I am conphrases. "What a tax," says he, "would vinced of the honest intentions of the said they have raised for the poor, had we put Mr. Powell and comnpany, and send this to the laws in execution upon one another!" acquaint you, that he has given all the Every one of them took this gentle reproof profits which shall arise to-morrow night in good part; upon which he told them, by his play to the use of the poor charitythat, knowing their conversation would have children of this parish. I have been inno secrets in it, he ordered it to be taken formed, sir, that in Holland all persons down in writing, and, for the humour-sake, who set up any show, or act any stage-play, would read it to them, if they pleased. be the actors either of wood and wire, or There were ten sheets of it, which might flesh and blood, are obliged to pay out of have been reduced to two, had there not their gains such a proportion to the honest been those abominable interpolations I have and industrious poor in the neighbourhood: before mentioned. Upon the reading of it by this means they make diversion and in cold blood, it looked rather like a con- pleasure pay a tax to labour and industry. ference of fiends than of men. In short, I have been told also, that all the time of every one trembled at himself upon hear- Lent, in Roman-Catholic countries, the per ing calmly what he had pronounced amidst sons of condition administer to the necesthe heat and inadvertency of discourse. sities of the poor, and attend the beds of'I shall only mention another occasion lazarsanddiseased persons. OurPrctestant No. 373.] THE SPECTATOR. 91 adies and gentlemen are so much to seek'May 6. for proper ways of passing time, that they'MR. SPhCTATOR,-I was last VWedare obliged to punchinello for knowing what nesday night at a tavern in the city, among to do with themselves. Since the case is so, a set of men who call themselves "the lawI desire only you would entreat our people yers' club. " You must know, sir, this club of quality, who are not to be interrupted in consists only of attorneys; and at this meettheir pleasure, to think of the practice of ing every one proposes the cause he has any moral duty, that they would at least then in hand to the board, upon which each fine for their sins, and give something to member gives his judgment according to these poor children: a little out of their the experiencehe has met with. Ifithapluxury and superfluity would atone, in pens that any one puts a case of which they some measure, for the wanton use of the have had no precedent, it is noted down by rest of their fortunes. It would not, me- their clerk, Will Goosequill (who registers thinks, be amiss, if the ladies who haunt all their proceedings,) that one of them may the cloisters and passages of the play-house go the next day with it to a counsel. This were upon every offence obliged to pay to indeed is commendable, and ought to be the this excellent institution of schools of cha- principal end of their meeting; but had you rity. This method would make offenders been there to have heard them relate their themselves do service to the public. But in methods of managing a cause, their manner the mean time I desire you would publish of drawing out their bills, and, in short, this voluntary reparation which Mr. Powell their arguments upon the several ways does our parish, for the noise he has made of abusing their clients, with the applause in it by the'constafit rattling of coaches, that is given to him who has done it most drums, trumpets, triumphs, and battles. artfully, you would before now have given The destruction of Troy, adorned with your remarks on them. They are so conHighland dances, are to make up the en- scious that their discourses ought to be tertainment of all who are so well disposed kept a secret, that they are very cautious of as not to forbear a light entertainment, for admitting any person who is not of their no other reason but that it i~ to do a good profession. When any who are not of the action. I am, sir, your most humble ser- law are let in, the person who introduces vant, RALPH BELFRY. him says he is avery honest gentleman, and' I am credibly informed, that all the in- lie is taken in, as their cant is, to pay costs. sinuations which a certain writer made I am admitted upon the recommendation of against Mr. Powell at the Bath, are false one of their principals, as a very honest and groundless.' good-natured fellow, that will never be in a plot, and only desires to drink his bottle and'MR. SPECTATOR, —My employment, smoke his pipe. You have formerly rewhich is that of a broker, leading me often marked upon several sorts of clubs; and as into taverns about the Exchange, has given the tendency of this is only to increase fraud me occasion to observe a certain enormity, and deceit, I hope you will please to take which I shall here submit to your animad- notice of it. I am, with respect, your humversion. In three or four of these taverns, I ble servant, H. R.' nave at different times, taken notice of a T. precise set of people, with grave countenances, short wigs, black clothes, or dark camlet trimmed with black, and mourning No. 373.] Tursd(ay, May 8, 1712. gloves and hat-bands, who meet on certain Fallt enim vitium specie virtutis et umbra. days at each tavern successively, and keep Juv. Sat. xiv. 109 a sort of moving club. Having often met Vice oft is hid in Virtue's fair disguise, with their faces, and observed a certain And in her borrow'd form escapes inquiring eyes slinking way in their dropping in one after another, I had the curiosity to inquire into MR. LOCKE, in his treatise of Human their characters, being the rather moved to Understanding, has spent two chapters it by their agreeing in the singularity of upon the abuse of words. The first and most their dress; and I find, upon due examina- palpable abuse of words, he says, is when tion, they are a knot of parish clerks, who they are used without clear and distinct have taken a fancy to one another, and per- ideas; the second, when we are so unconhaps settle the bills of mortality over their stant and unsteady in the application of half-pints. I have so great a value and them, that we sometimes use them to signify veneration for any who have but even an one idea, sometimes another. He adds, that assenting Amen in the service of religion, the result of our contemplations and reasonthat I am afraid lest these persons should ings, while we have no precise ideas fixed incur some scandal by this practice; and to our words, must needs be very confused would therefore have them, without rail- and absurd. To avoid this inconvenience, lery, advised to send the Florence and pul- more especially in moral discourses, where lets home to their own houses, and not the same word should be constantly used in pretend to live as well as the overseers of the same sense, he earnestly recommends the poor. I am, sir, your most humble the use of definitions.'A definition,' says servant, HUMPHRY TRANSFER.' he,'is the only way whereby the pre 92 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 374. else meaning of moral words can be known.' within himself, and from a consciousness of He therefore accuses those of great negli- his own integrity, assumes force enough to gence who discourse of moral things with despise the little censures of ignorance and the least obscurity in the terms they make malice. use of; since, upon the'forementioned Every one ought to cherish and encourage ground, he does not scruple to say that he in himself the modesty and assurance I have thinks' morality is capable of demonstra- here mentioned. tion as well as the mathematics.' A man without assurance is liable to be I know no two words that have been more made uneasy by the folly or ill-nature of abused by the different and wrong interpre- every one he converses with. A man withtations which are put upon them, than those out modesty is lost to all sense of honour and two, modesty and assurance. To say such virtue. a one is a modest man, sometimes indeed It is more than probable that the prince passes for a good character; but at present above-mentioned possessed both these quais very often used to signify a sheepish, awk- lifications in a very eminent degree. Withward fellow, who has neither good breed- out assurance he would never have undering, politeness, nor any knowledge of the taken to speak before the most august world. assembly in the world: without modesty he Again, a man of assurance, though at first would have pleaded the cause he had taken it only denoted a person of a free and open upon him, though it had appeared ever so carriage, is now very usually applied to a scandalous, profligate wretch, who can break through From what has been said, it is plain that all the rules of decency and morality with- modesty and assurance are both amiable, out a blush. and may very well meet in the same perI shall endeavour therefore in this essay to son. When they are thus mixed and blendrestore these words to their true meaning, ed together, they compose what we endeato prevent the idea of modesty from being vour to express when we say'a modest confounded with that of sheepishness, and assurance;' by which we understand the to hinder impudence from passing for assur- just mean between bashfulness and impuance. dence. If I was put to define modesty, I would I shall conclude with observing, that as the call it'the reflection of an ingenious mind, same man may be both modest and assured, either when a man has committed an action so it is also possible for the same to be both for which he censures himself, or fancies impudent and bashful. that he is exposed to the censure of others.' We have frequent instances of this odd For this reason a man truly modest is as kind of mixture in people of depraved much so when he is alone as in company, minds, and mean education, who, though and as subject to a blush in his closet as they are not able to meet a man's eyes, or when the eyes of multitudes are upon him. pronounce a sentence without confusion, car I do not remember to have met with any voluntarily commit the greatest villanies or instance of modesty with which I am so well most indecent actions. pleased as that celebrated one of the young Such a person seems to have made a reprince, whose father being a tributary king solution to do ill even in spite of himself, tothe Romans, had several complaintslaid and in defiance of all those checks and ieagainst him before the senate, as a tyrant straints his temper and complexion seem and oppressor of his subjects. The prince to have laid in his way. went to Rome to defend his father; but Upon the whole I would endeavour to escoming into the senate, and hearing a multi- tablish this maxim, that the practice of virtude of crimes proved upon him, was so op- tue is the most proper method to give a man pressed when it came to his turn to speak, a becoming assurance in his words and acthat he wasunable toutter a word. The story tions. Guilt always seeks to shelter itself tells us, that the fathers were more moved in one of the extremes, and is sometimes atat this instance of modesty and ingenuity tended with both. X. than they could have been by the most pathetic oration, and, in short, pardoned the - - guilty father, for this early promise of vir- No. 374. ] Friday, May 9, 1712. tue in the son. I take' assurance to be the faculty of Nil actur reputans si quid superesset agendurn. possessing a man's self, or of saying and do- Lucan, Lib. ii. 57 indifferent things without any He reckon'd not the past, while aught remain'd ing sindiffeent thesmingsd.'That whichs Great to be done, or mighty to be gain'd. Roenw or emotion in the mind.' That which generally gives a man assurance is a moderate THERE is a fault, which, though comknowledge of the world, but above all, a mon, wants a name. It is the very contrary mind fixed and determined in itself to do to procrastination. As we lose the present nothing against the rules of honour and de- hour by delaying from day to day to execency. An open and assured behaviour is cute what we ought to do immediately, so the natural consequence of such a resolution. most of us take occasion to sit still and throw A man thus armed, if his words of actions away the time in our possession, by retroqre at any time misrepresented, retires spect on what is passed, imagining we have No. 374.] THE SPECTATOR. 93 already acquitted ourselves, and established nown upon any tiling that was past. I shall our characters in the sight of mankind. produce two fragments of his, to demonBut when we thus put a value upon our- strate that it was his rule of life to support selves for what we have already done, any himself rather by what he should perform, farther than to explain ourselves in order to than what he had done already. In the taassist our future conduct, that will give us blet which he wore about him, the same an over-weening opinion of our merit, to the year in which he obtained the battle of prejudice of our present industry. The Pharsalia, there were found these loose great rule, methinks, should be, to manage notes of his own conduct. It is supposed by the instant in which we stand, with forti- the circumstances they alluded to, that they tude, equanimity and moderation, according might be set down the evening of the same to men's respective circumstances. If our night. past actions reproach us, they cannot be My part is now but begun, and my atoned for by our own severe reflections so glory must be sustained by the use I make effectually as by a contrary behaviour. If of this victory; otherwise my loss will be they are praise-worthy, the memory of greater than that of Pompey. Our personal them is of no use but to act suitably to them. reputation will rise or fall as we bear cur reThus a good present behaviour is an im- spective fortunes. All my private enemies plicit repentance for any miscarriage in among the prisoners shall be spared. I will what is past; but present slackness will not forget this, in order to obtain such another make up for past activity. Time has swal- day. Trebutius is ashamed to see me: I lowed up all that we contemporaries did will go to his tent, and be reconciled in yesterday, as irrevocably as it has the ac- private. Give all the men of honour, who lions of the antediluvians. But we are again take part with me, the terms I offered beawake, and what shall we do to-day-to- fore the battle. Let them owe this to their day, which passes while we are yet speak- friends who have been long in my interests. in.g? Shall we remember the folly of last Power is weakened by the full use of it, night, or resolve upon the exercise of virtue but extended by moderation. Galbinius to-morrow? Last night is certainly gone, is proud, and will be servile in his present and to-morrow may never arrive. This in- fortune: let him wait. Send for Stertinius; stant make use of. Can you oblige any man he is modest, and his virtue is worth gainof honour and virtue? Do it immediately. ing. I have cooled my heart with reflecCan you visit a sick friend? Will it revive tion, and am fit to rejoice with the army him to see you enter, and suspend your own to-morrow. He is a popular general, who ease and pleasure to comfort his weakness, can expose himself like a private man and hear the impertinences of a wretch in during a battle; but he is more popular pain? Do not stay to take coach, but be who can rejoice but like a private man after gone; your mistress will bring sorrow, and a victory.' your bottle madness. Go to neither. Such What is particularly proper for the exvirtues and diversions as these are mention- ample of all who pretend to industry in the ed because they occur to all men. But every pursuit of honour and virtue, is, that this man is sufficiently convinced that to sus- hero was more than ordinarily solicitous pend the use of the present moment, and about his reputation, when a common mind resolve better for the future only, is an un- would have thought itself in security, and pardonable folly. What I attempted to given itself a loose to joy and triumph. But consider, was the mischief of setting such a though this is a very great instance of his value upon what is past, as to think we have temper, I must confess I am more taken done enough. Let a man have filled all the with his reflections when he retired to his offices of life with the highest dignity till closet in some disturbance upon the repeatyesterday, and begin to live only to himself ed ill omens of Calphurnia's dream, the to-day, he must expect he will, in the ef- night before his death. The literal transfects upon his reputation, be considered as lation of that fragment shall conclude this the man who died yesterday. The man paper. who distinguishes himself from the rest,'Be it so, then. If I am to die to-morrow, stands in a press of people: those before that is what I am to do to-morrow. It will him intercept his progress; and those be- not be then, because I am willing it should hind him, if he does not urge on, will tread be then; nor shall I escape it because I am him down. Casar, of whom it was said unwilling. It is in the gods when, but in that he thought nothing done while there myself how, I shall die. If Calphurnia's was left any thing for him to do, went on in dreams are fumes of indigestion, how shall performing the greatest exploits, without I behold the day after to-morrow? If they assuming to himself a privilege of taking are from the gods, their admonition is not to rest upon the foundation of the merit of his prepare me to escape from their decree, former actions. It was the manner of that but to meet it. I have lived to a fulness of glorious captain to write down what scenes days and of glory: what is there that Cazsar he had passed through, but it was rather to has not done with as much honour as keep his affairs in method, and capable of a ancient heroes? Cmesar has not yet died' clear review, in case they should be ex- Czsar is prepared to die.' amined by others, than that he built a re- T 94 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 375. No. 375.] Saturday, May 10, 1712. virtue, which at present he thought fit to Non possidentem multa vocaveris keep private. The innocent creature, who Recte beatum: rectius occupat never suspected his intentions, was pleased Nomen beati, qui deorum with his person; and, having observed his Muneribus sapienter uti, growing passion for her, hped by so ad Duramque eallet pauperiem pati, Duramque caet pauperiem patgrowing passion for her, hoped by so adPejusque letho flagitium timet. vantageous a match she might quickly be Hor. Od. ix. Lib. 4.45. in a capacity of supporting her impoverishWe barbarously call them blest, ed relations. One day, as he called to see Who are of largest tenements possest, her, he found her in tears over a letter she While swelling coffers break their owner's rest. had ust received from a friend, which ga More truly happy those who can had just received from a friend, which gave Govern that little empire man; an account that her father had lately been Who spend their treasure freely, as'twas giv'n stripped of every thing by an execution. By the large bounty of indulgent heav'n; The lover, who with some difficulty found Who in a fix'd unalterable state,found Smile at the doubtful tide of Fate, out the cause of her grief, took this occasion And scorn alike her friendship and her hate; to make her a proposal. It is impossible to Loth to purcihase life so d eear ey. express Amanda's confusion when she found Loth to purchase life so dear. Stepney. his pretensions were not honourable. She I HAVE more than once had occasion to was now deserted of all her hopes, and had mention a noble saying of Seneca the philo- no power to speak, but, rushing from him sopher, that a virtuous person struggling in the utmost disturbance, locked herself with misfortunes, and rising above them, up in her chamber. He immediately desis an object on which the gods themselves patched a messenger to her father with the may look down with delight. I shall there- following letter: fore set before my reader a scene of this kind of distress in private life, for the specu-'SIR,-I have heard of your misfortunes, lation of this day. ad have offered your daughter, if she will An eminent citizen, who had lived in live with me, to settle on her four hundred good fashion and credit, was, by a train of pounds a year, and to lay down the sum accidents, and by an unavoidable perplexity for which you are now distressed. I will in his affairs, reduced to a low condition. be so ingenuous as to tell you that I do not There is a modesty usually attending fault- intend marriage; but if you are wise, you less poverty, which made him rather will use your authority with her not to be choose to reduce his manner of living to too nice, when she has an opportunity of his present circumstances, than solicit his saving you and your family, and of making friends in order to support the show of an herself happy. I am, &c. estate when the substance was gone. His This letter came to the hands of Amanwife, who was a woman of sense and virtue, da's mother. She opened and read it with behaved herself on this occasion with un- surpise and oncern. She di not gTeat surprise and concern. She did not common decency, and never appeared so think it proper to explain herself to the amiable in his eyes as now. Instead of up- messenger, but, desiring him to call again braiding him with the ample fortune she the next morning, she wrote to her daugh had brought, or the many great offers she ter as follows: had refused for his sake, she redoubled all the instances of her affection, while her'DEAREST CHILD,-Your father and I husband was continually pouring out his have just received a letter from a gentleheart to her in complaints that he had ruin- man who pretends love to you, with a proed the best woman in the world. He some- posal that insults our misfortunes, and times came home at a time when she did would throw us to a lower degree of misery not expect him, and surprised her in tears, than any thing which is come upon us. which she endeavoured to conceal, and al- How could this barbarous man think that ways put on an air of cheerfulness to re- the tenderest of parents would be tempted ceive him. To lessen their expense, their to supply their wants by giving up the best eldest daughter, (whom I shall call Aman- of children to infamy and ruin? It is a mean da) was sent into the country, to the house and cruel artifice to make this proposal at of an honest farmer, who had married a a time when he thinks our necessities must servant of the family. This young woman compel us to any thing; but we will not eat was apprehensive of the ruin which was the bread of shame; and therefore we approaching, and had privately engaged a charge thee not to think of us; but to avoid fiiend in the neighbourhood to give her an the snare which is laid for thy virtue. Be account of what passed from time to time ware of pitying us: it is not so bad as you in her father's affairs. Amanda was in the perhaps have been told. All things will oloom of her youth and beauty, when the yet be well, and I shall write my child betlord of the manor, who often called in at ter news. the farmet's house as he followed his coun-'I have been interrupted: I know not try sports, fell passionately in love with how I was moved to say things would mend. her. He was a man of great generosity, As I was going on, I was startled by the but from a loose education, had contracted noise of one that knocked at the door, and a hearty aversion to marriage. He there- hath brought us an unexpected supply of a fore entertained a design upon Amanda's debt which has long been owing. Oh! I No. 376.] THE SPECTATOR. 95 will now tell thee all. It is some days I have soon after went up to town himself to corn lived almost without support, having con- plete the generous act he had now resolved veyed what little money I could raise to on. By his friendship and assistance Amanyour poor father. Thou wilt weep to think da's father was quickly in a condition of where he is, yet be assured he will soon be retrieving his perplexed affairs. To conat liberty. That cruel letter would have elude, he married Amanda, and enjoyed the broke his heart, but I have concealed it double satisfaction of having restored a worfrom him. I have no companion at present thy family to their former prosperity, and besides little Fanny, who stands watching of making himself happy by an alliance tc my looks as I write, and is crying for her their virtues. sister. She says she is sure you are not well, having discovered that my present trouble is about you. But do not think I N 3d Ma, 7 would thus repeat my sorrows to grieve Mnday thee. No; it is to entreat thee not to make Pavone ex Pythagoreo. Pers. Sat. vi. II them insupportable, by adding what would From the Pythagorean peacock. be worse than all. Let us bear cheerfully an affliction which we have not brought on'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have observed that ourselves, and remember there is a power the officer you some time ago appointed, as who can better deliver us out of it than by inspector of signs, has not done his duty so the loss of thy innocence. Heaven preserve well as to give you an account of very many my dear child! thy affectionate mother, strange occurrences in the public streets,, which are worthy of, but have escaped, your notice. Among all the oddnesses which The messenger, notwithstanding he pro- I have ever met with, that which I am now mised to deliver this letter to Amanda, telling you gave me most delight. You carried it first to his master, who he ima- must have observed that all the criers in gined would be glad to have an oppor- the street attract the attention of the pastunity of giving it into her hands himself. sengers, and of the inhabitants in the seveHIs master was impatient to know the suc- ral parts, by something very particular in cess of his proposal, and therefore broke their tone itself, in the dwelling upon a note, open the letter privately to see the contents. or else making themselves wholly unintelHe was not a little moved at so true a pic- ligible by a scream. The person I am so ture of virtue in distress; but at the same delighted with has nothing to sell, but very time was infinitely surprised to find his gravely receives the bounty of the people, offers rejected. However, he resolved not for no other merit but the homage they pay to suppress the letter, but carefully sealed to his manner of signifying to them that he it up again, and carried it to Amanda. All wants a subsidy. You must sure have heard his endeavours to see her were in vain till speak of an old man who walks about the she was assured he brought a letter from spek an d th a p art of thei her mother. He ~~would not part with it city, and that part of the suburbs which her mother. He would not part with it lies beyond the Tower, performing the but upon condition that she would read it office of a day-watchman, followed by a without leaving the room. While she was the bob of his ditty perusing it, he fixed his eyes on her face onfirmsose, wich bears the bob of his it Quack, and confirms what he says with a Quack, with the deepest attention. Her concern quack. I gave little heed to the mention gave a new softness to her beauty, and, of this known circumstance, till, being the when she burst into tears, he could no other day in those quarters, I passed by a longer refrain from bearing a part in her decrepit old fellow with a pole in his hand, sorrow, and telling her, that he too had who t then was bawling out, Half an read the letter, and was resolved to make hour after one o'clock!' and immediately reparation for having been the occasion of a dirty goose behind made her response, it. My reader will not be displeased to see s Quack, quack.' I could not forbear atthe second epistle which he now wrote to tending this grave procession for the length Amanda's mother. of half a street, with no small amazement'MADAM,-I am full of shame, and will to find the whole place so familiarly acnever forgive myself if I have not your quainted with a melancholymid-night voice pardon for what Ilately wrote. It was far at noon-day, giving them the hour, and extrom my intention to add trouble to the af- horting them of the departure of time, with licted; nor could any thing but my being a a bounce at their doors. While I was full stranger to you have betrayed me into a of this novelty, I went into a friend's house, and told him how I was diverted with their fault, for which, if I live, I shall endeavourand told him how I was diverted with their to make you amends, as a son. You chn- whimsical monitor and his equipage. My not be unhappy while Amanda is your friend gave me the history; and interrupted daughter; nor shall be, if any thing can my commendation of the man, by telling me prevent it which is in the power of, ma- the livelihood of these two animals is purrlam, your most obedient humble servant, chased rather by the good parts of the goose, than of the leader; for it seems the peripatetic who walked before her was a watchThis letter he sent by his steward, and I man in that neighbourhood; and the goose. of 96 THE SPECTATOR. LNo. 377. herself, by frequent hearing his tone, out yet a very extraordinary man n! his way; ot her natural vigilance, not only observed, for, besides avery soft air he has in dancing, but answered it very regularly from time to he gives them a particular tehaviour at tine. The watchman was so affected with a tea-table, and in presenting their snuff it, that he bought her, and has taken her in box; teaches to twirl, slip, or flirt a fan, partner, only altering their hours of duty and how to place patches to the best ad trom night to day. The town has come vantage, either for fat or lean, long or oval into it, and they live very comfortably. faces; for my lady says there is more in This is the matter of fact. Now I desire these things than the world imagines. But you, who are a profound philosopher, to I must confess, the major part of those I consider this alliance of instinct and rea- am concerned with leave it to me. I desire, son. Your speculation may turn very na- therefore, according to the enclosed directurally upon the force the superior part of tion, you would send your correspondent, mankind may have upon the spirits of such who has writ to you on that subject, to m) as, like this watchman, may be very near house. If proper application this way can the standard of geese. And you may add give innocence new charms, and make vir to this practical observation, how in all tue legible in the countenance, I shall spare ages and times, the world has been carried no charge to make my scholars, in their away by odd unaccountable things, which very features and limbs, bear witness how one would think would pass upon no crea- careful I have been in the other parts of ture which had reason; and, under the their education. I am, sir, your most humsymbol of this goose you may enter into the ble servant, manner and method of leading creatures'RACHEL WATCHFUL.' with their eyes open through thick and thin, for they know not what, they know not why. No. 377.1 Tuesday, May 13, 1712.' All which is humbly submitted to your spectatorial wisdom, by sir, your most hum- Quid quisque vitei, nunquam homini satis ole servant, MICHAEL GANDER.' Cautum est in he:as. Hor. Lib. 2. Od. xiii. 13. What each should fly, is seldom known;'MRR. SPECTATOR,-I have for several We, unprovided, are undone. Creec,. years had under my care the government LOVE was the mother of poetry, and still and education of young ladies, which trust produces, among the most ignorant and barI have endeavoured to discharge with due barous, a thousand imaginary distresses and regard to their several capacities and for- poetical complaints. It makes a footman tunes. I have left nothing undone to im- talk like Oroondates, and converts a brutal print in every one of them an humble, rustic into a gentle swain. The most ordicourteous mind, accompanied with a grace- nary plebeian or mechanic in love, bleeds ful becoming mien, and have made them and pines away with a certain elegance and pretty much acquainted with the household tenderness of sentiments which this passion part of family affairs; but still I find there naturally inspires. is something very much wanting in the air These inward languishings of a mind inof my ladies, different from what I have fected with this softness have given birth to observed in those who are esteemed your a phrase which is made use of by all the fine-bred women. Now, sir, I must own to melting tribe, from the highest to the lowest you, I never suffered my girl~ to learn to -I mean that of' dying for love.' dance; but since I have read your discourse Romances, which owe their very being to of dancing, where you have described the this passion, are full of these metaphorical beauty and spirit there is in regular motion, deaths. Heroes and heroines, knights, I own myself your convert, and resolve for squires, and damsels, are all of them in a the future to give my young ladies that ac- dying condition. There is the same kind complishment. But, upon imparting my of mortality in ourmodern tragedies, where design to their parents, I have been made every one gasps, faints, bleeds, and dies. very uneasy for some time, because several Many of the poets, to describe the execuof them have declared, that if I did not tion which is done by this passion, repremake use of the master they recommended, sent the fair-sex as basilisks, that destroy they would take away their children. There with their eyes; but I think Mr. Cowley was colonel Jumper's lady, a colonel of the has, with great justness of thought, comtrain-bands, that has a great interest in her pared a beautiful woman to a porcupine, parish, she recommends Mr. Trott for the that sends an arrow from every part. prettiest master in town; that no man I have often thought that there is no way teaches a jig like him; that she has seen soeffectual for the cure of this general inhim rise six or seven capers together with firmity, as a man's reflecting upon the mothe greatest ease imaginable; and that his tives that produce it. When the passion scholars twist themselves more ways than proceeds from the sense of any virtue or the scholars of any master in town: besides, perfection in the person beloved, I would there is Madam Prim, an alderman's lady, by no means discourage it; but if a man recommends a master of their own name, considers that all his heavy complaints of but she declares he is not of their family; wounds and death arise from some little No. 378.] THE SPECTATOR. 97 iffectations of c quetry, which are im- she received it, and took a, ay his life with proved into charms by his own fond ima- a courtesy. gination, the very laying before himself the John Gosselin, having received a slight cause of his distemper may be sufficient to hurt from a pair of olue eyes, as he was effect the cure of it. making his escape, was despatched by a It is in this view that I have looked over smile. the several bundles of letters which I have Strephon, killed by Clarinda as she looked received from dying people, and composed down into the pit. out of them the following bill of mortality, Charles Careless, shot flying by a girl of which I shall lay before my reader without fifteen, who unexpectedly popped her head any farther preface, as hoping that it may upon him out of a coach. be useful to him in discovering those several Josiah Wither, aged three score and places where there is most danger, and those three, sent to his long home by Elizabeth fatal arts which are made use of to destroy Jetwell, spinster. the heedless and unwary. Jack Freelove murdered by Melissa in Lysander, slain at a puppet-show on the her hair. third of September. William Wiseacre, gent. drowned in a Thyrsis, shot from a casement in Picca- flood of tears by Moll Common. dilly. John Pleadwell, esq. of the Middle TemT. S. wounded by Zelinda's scarlet stock- pie, barrister at law, assassinated in his ing, as she was stepping out of a coach. chambers the 6th instant, by Kitty Sly, who Will Simple, smitten at the opera by the pretended to come to him for his advice. glance of an eye that was aimed at one who stood by him. ~ Tho. Vainlove, lost his life at a ball. No. 378.1 Wednesday May 14 1712. Tim. Tattle, killed by the tap of a fan on his left shoulder, by Coquetilla, as he Aggredere, O magnos! aderit jam tempus honores. was talking carelessly with her in a bow- Vir. Edl. iv. 48. window: Mature in years, to ready honours move. —Dryden. Sir Simon Softly, murdered at the play- I WILL make no apology for entertainnouse in Drury-lane by a frown. ing the reader with the following poem, Philander, mortally wounded by Cleora, which is written by a great genius, a friend as she was adjusting her tucker. of mine* in the country, who is not ashamRalph Gapley, esq. hit by a random-shot ed to employ his wit in the praise of his at the ring. Maker. F. R. caught his death upon the water, M SI April the 1st. MESSIAH W. W. killed by an unknown hand, that A SACRED ECLOGUE. was playing with the glove off upon the side of the front-box in Drury-lane. Composed of several passages of Isaiah the Prophet. Sir Christopher Crazy, bart. hurt by the Written in Imitation of Virgil's Pollio. brush of a whale-bone petticoat. Sylvius, shot through the sticks of a fan YE nymphs of Solyma! begin the song: a St. James's church To heav'nly themes sublimer strains belong. at St. James's church. The mossy fountains, and the sylvan shades, Damon, struck through the heart by a The dreams of Pindus, and th' Aonian maids, diamond necklace. Delight no more.-O Thou my voice inspire, ^Thomas Trnusty, Francis Groosequill, Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire! Thomas Trusty, Francis Goosequill, Rapt into future times, the bard begun, William Meanwell, Edward Callow, esqrs. A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a son! standing in a row, fell all four at the same From Jesse's root behold a branch arise, Isa. xi. 1. time, by an ogle of the widow Trapland. Whose sacred flower with fragrance fills the skies: time, by an ogle o the idow raplan. Th' athereal Spirit o'er its leaves shall move, Tom Rattle, chancing to tread upon a And on its top descends the mystic dove. lady's tail as he came out of the play-house, Ye heavens! from high the dewy nectar pour, xlv. 8 she turned full upon him, and lraid him deadAnd in soft silence shed the kindly shower! she turned full upon him, and laid im dead Thesick and weak the healing plant shall aid, xxv. 4.upon the spot. From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade. Dick Tastewell, slain by a blush from the All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail; queen's box in the third act of the Trip to Returning justice lift aloft her scale: ix. 7.queen Sox n thme tird aPeace o'er the world her olive wand extend, the Jubilee. And white-rob'd Innocence from heav'n descend. Samuel Felt, haberdasher, wounded in Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn! his walks to Islington, by Mrs. Susanna Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born! xxxv. 92 s walk s t Islington, by M Suanna See Nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring, Cross-stitch, as she was clambering over a With all the incense of the breathing spring: stile. See lofty Lebanon his head advance, R. F., T. W., S. I., M. P. &c. put to See nodding forests on the mountains dance, See spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise, death in the last birth-day massacre. And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies! Roger Blinko, cut off in the twenty-first Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers: xi. 3,. year of his age by a white-wash Prepare the way! a God, a God appears; s agei by a. aw ite was. f A God! a God! the vocal hills reply, Musidorus, slain by an arrow that few The rocks proclaim th' approaching Deity. out of a dimple in Belinda's left cheek. Lo earth receives him from the bending skies! Ned Courtly, presenting Flavia with her Sink down, ye mountains; and ye valleys rise! glove (which she had dropped on purpose) * Pope. See No. 534. VOL. II 13 98 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 379 With lvads sdeclin'd, ye c~,dars, homage pay; communicates what he knows to any one Be smooth, ye rocks; ye rapid floods, give way besides. There is certainly no more senThe Saviour comes! by ancient bards foretoldy no more senHear him, ye deaf; and all ye blind, behold! Isa. x.ii. 18. sible pleasure to a good-natured man, than He from thick films shall purge the visual ray, xxxv. 5. 6. if he can by any means gratify or inform And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day. the mind of another. I miht add that this'Tis He th' obstructed paths of sound shall clear, And bid new music charm th' unfolding ear; virtue naturally carries its own reward The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego. along with it, since it is almost impossible And leap exulting like the bounding roe: it should be exercised without the mNo sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear, e exercised t e i From every face he wipes off every tear. xxv. 8. provement of the person who practises it. In adamantine chains shall death be bound, The reading of books and the daily occurAnd hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound. xl. 11 ences of life are continually furnishing us As the good shepherd tends his fleecy care, Seeks freshest pastures and the purest air, with matter for thought and reflection. It Explores the lost, the wandering sheep directs, is extremely natural for us to desire to see By day o'ersees them, and by night protects, such our thoughts put in the dress of The tender lamb he raises in his arms, Feeds from his hand, and in his bosom warms; words, without which, indeed, we can Mankind shall thus his guardian care engage, scarce have a clear and distinct idea of The promis'd father of the future age. ix. 6. them ourselves. When they are thus No more shall nation against nation rise, ii. 4. Nor ardent warriors meet with hateful eyes, clothed in expressions, nothing so truly Nor fields with gleaming steel be cover'd o'er, shows us- whether they are just or false, the brazen trumpets kindle rage no more; as those effects which they produce in the But useless lances into scythes shall bend, And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end. minds of others. Then palaces shall rise; the joyful son xv. 21, 22. I am apt to flatter myself, that, in the Shall finish what the,short-liv'd sire begun; course of these my speculations, I have treat Their vines a shadow to their race shall yield, And the same hand that sow'd shall reap the field. ed of several subjects, and laid down many The swain in barren deserts with surprise xxxv. 1. 7. such rules for the conduct of a man's life, Sees lilies spring, and sudden verdure rise, which my readers were either wholly ignoAnd starts amidst the thirsty wilds to hear r r 4 e f New falls of water murmuring in his ear; rant of before, or which at least those few On rifted rocks, the dragon's late abodes, who were acquainted with them looked The green reed trembles, and the bulrush nods. upon as so many secrets they have found Waste sandy valleys, once perplex'd with thorn, xli. 19, om t f The spiry fur and shapely box adorn: & lv. 13. t for the conduct of themselves, but were The leafless shrubs the flowering palms succeed, resolved never to have made public. And od'rous myrtle to the noisome weed. I am the more confirmed in this opinion The lambs with wolves shall grace the verdant mead, xl. from myhaving received several letters, And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead; [6my having received several letters The steer and lion at one crib shall meet, wherein I am censured for having prostiAnd harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet: tuted learning to the embraces of the vulThe smiling infant in his hand shall take gar, and made her, as one of my corresponThe crested basilisk and speckled snake- ar, and made er, as one ofmycorresponPleas'd the green lustre of the scales survey, [play. dents phrases it, a common strumpet. I And with their forked tongue, and pointless sting shall am charged by another with laying open Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise! lx. 1. the arcana or secrets of prudence to the Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes! arcan or ecrets pruence to te See a long race thy spacious courts adorn! lx. 4. eyes of every reader. See future sons and daughters yet unborn The narrow spirit which appears in the In crowding ranks on every side arise, r Deman crowding rank on every side arise, letters of these my correspondents, is the Demanding life, impatient for the skies! See barb'rous nations at thy gate attend, lx. 3. less surprising, as it has shown itself in all Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend! ages; there is still extant an epistle written See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings, Alander the Great, to his tutor ArsAnd heap'd with products of Sabaean springs! lx. 6. For thee Idume's spicy forests blow, Ix. totle, upon that philosopher's publishing And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow. some part of his writings; in which the SeeAd eavek upn taheke witnh a flood of day prince complains of his having made known No more the rising sun shall gild the morn, lx. 19, 20. to all the world those secrets in learning Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn, li. 6. which he had before communicated to him But lost, dissolv'd in thy superior rays, in private lectures; concluding that he had One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze, O'erflow thy courts: the Light Himself shall shine rather excel the rest of mankind in knowReveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine! ledge than in power. The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay, Ii. 6, & Louisa de Padilla a lady of great learnRocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away; [lvi. 10. ouisade adilla, a lady of grealealnBut fix'd His word, His saving power remains; ing, and countess of Aranda, was in like Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own Messiah reigns. manner angry with the famous Gratian, T. upon his publishing his treatise of the ~-.- ~ ~ - -- Discreto, wherein she fancied that he had laid open those maxims to common readers, No. 379.] Thursday, May 15, 1712. which ought only to have been reserved for the knowledge Ql the great. Scire tuum nihi. est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter. theknowledge of the reat. Pers. Sat. i.. These objections are thought by many e is nt s t of so much weight, that they often defend -- Science is not science till reveal'd. —Dryden. the above-mentioned authors by affir ing the above-mentioned authors by affirming I HAVE often wondered at that ill-natured they have affected such an obscurity in position which has been sometimes main- their style and manner of writing, that, tained in the schools, and is comprised though every one may read their works, in an old Latin verse, namely, that' A there will be but very few who can comman's knowledge is worth nothing if he prehend their meaning. No. 380.J THE SPECTATOR. 99 Persius, the Latin satirist, affected ob- country people soon came with lights to scurity for another reason; with which, the sepulchre, and discovered that the stahowever, Mr. Cowley is so offended, that, tue, which was made of brass, was nothing writing to one of his friends,'You,' says more than a piece of clock-work; that the he,'tell me that you do not know whether floor of the vault was all loose, and underPersius be a good poet or no, because you laid with several springs, which upon any cannot understand him; for which very man's entering, naturally produced that reason I affirm that he is not so.' which had happened.' However, this art of writing unintelligi- Rosicrusius, say his disciples, made use bly has been very much improved, and fol- of this method to show the world that he lowed by several of the moderns, who, had reinvented the ever-burning lamps of observing the general inclination of man- the ancients, though he was resolved no kind to dive into a secret, and the reputa- one should reap any advantage from the tion many have acquired by concealing discovery. X. their meaning under obscure terms and phrases, resolve, that they may be still more abstruse, to write without any mean- No. 380.] Friday, ay16, 1712. ing at all. This art, as it is at present practised by many eminent authors, con- Rivalem patienter habe. sists in throwing so many words at a ven- Ovid. drs Aem. ii, 538. ture into different periods, and leaving the With patience bear a rival in thy love. curious reader to find the meaning of them. The Egyptians, who made use of hiero-'Thursday, May 8, 1712. glyphics to signify several things, express-'SIR,-The character you have in the ed a man who confined his knowledge and world of being the ladies' philosopher, and discoveries altogether within himself by the pretty advice I have seen you give to the figure of a dark lantern closed on all others in your papers, make me address sides; which, though it was illuminated myself to you in this abrupt manner, and within, afforded no manner of light or ad- to desire your opinion of what in this age a vantage to such as stood by it. For my own woman may call a lover. I have lately had part, as I shall from time to time commu- a gentleman that I thought made pretennicate to the public whatever discoveries I sions to me, insomuch that most of my happen to make, I should mtch rather be friends took notice of it, and thought we compared to an ordinary lamp, which con- were really married. I did not take much sumes and wastes itself for the benefit of pains to undeceive them, and especially a every passenger. young gentlewoman of my.particular ac I shall conclude this paper with the story quaintance, who was then in the country. of Rosicrusius's sepulchre. I suppose I She coming to town, and seeing our intineed not inform my readers that this man macy so great, she gave herself the liberty was the author of the Rosicrusian sect, and of taking me to task concerning it. I ingethat his disciples still pretend to new dis- nuously told her we were not married, but coveries, which they are never to commu- I did not know what might be the event. nicate to the rest of mankind.* She soon got acquainted with the gentle-' A certain person having occasion to dig man, and was pleased to take upon her to somewhat deep in the ground, where this examine him about it. Now, whether a philosopher lay interred, met with a small new face had made a greater conquest than door, having a wall on each side of it. His the old I will leave you to judge. I am incuriosity, and the hopes of finding some formed that he utterly denied all pretenhidden treasure, soon prompted him to sions to courtship, but withal professed a force open the door. He was immediately sincere friendship for me; but, whether surprised by a sudden blaze of light, and marriages are proposed by way of frienddiscovered a very fair vault. At the upper ship or not, is what I desire to know, and end of it was a statue of a man in armour, what I may really call a lover? There are sitting by a table, and leaning on his left so many who talk in a language fit only for arm. He held a truncheon in his right that character, and yet guard themselves hand, and had a lamp burning before him. against speaking in direct terms to the The man had no sooner set one foot within point, that it is impossible to distinguish bethe vault, than the statue erected itself tween courtship and conversation. I hope from its leaning posture, stood bolt upright, you will do me justice both upon my lover and, upon the fellow's advancing another and my friend, if they provoke me further. step, lifted up the truncheon in his right In the mean time I carry it with so equal a hand. The man still ventured a third step, behaviour, that the nymph and the swain when the statue, with a furious blow, broke too are mightily at a loss: each believes I, the lamp into a-thousand pieces, and left who know them both well, think myself his guest in a sudden darkness. revenged in their love to one another'Upon the report of this adventure, the which creates an irreconcilable jealousy ________________________ If all comes right again, you shall hear fur * See Comte de Gabais, par l'Abbe Villars. Warbur- her from, sir, your most obedient servant, ton's Pope. vol. i. p. 109, 12mo. MYRTILL A.' 100 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 381.'April 28, 1712. him a courtesy, and went my way. Ht' M.SPECTATOR,-Yourobservations on followed me, and, finding I was going about persons that have behaved themselves ir- my business, he came up with me, and told reverently at church, I doubt not have had me plainly that he gave me the guinea with a good effect on some that have read them; no other intent but to purchase my person but there is another fault which has hitherto for an hour. "Did you so, sir?" says I; escaped your notice; I mean of such per- "you gave it me then to make me wicked; I sons as are there very zealous and punctual will keep it to make me honest; however, to perform an ejaculation that is only pre- not to be in the least ungrateful, I promise paratory to the service of the church, and you I will lay it out in a couple of rings, and yet neglect to join in the service itself. wear them for your sake." I am so just There is an instance of this in a friend of sir, besides, as to give every body that asks \Vill Honeycomb's, who sits opposite to how I came by my rings, this account of me. He seldom comes in till the prayers my benefactor; but to save me the trouble are about half over: and when he has en- of telling my tale over and over again, I tered his seat, (instead of joining with the humbly beg the favour of you to tell it once congregation,) he devoutly holds his hat for all, and you will extremely oblige your before his face for three or four moments, humble servant, then bows to all his acquaintance, sits down, BETTY LEMON.' takes a pinch of snuff, (if it be the evening service, perhaps takes a nap,) and spends'St. Bride's, May 15, 1712. the remaining time in surveying the con-'SIR,-'Tis a great deal of pleasure tc gregation. Now, sir, what I would desire me, and I dare say will be no less satisfacis, that you would animadvert a little on tory to you, that I have an opportunity of this gentleman's practice. In.my opinion, informing you, that the gentlemen and this gentleman's devotion, cap in hand, is others of the parish of St. Bride's, have only a compliance to the custom of the raised a charity-school of fifty girls, as beplace, and goes no farther than a little ec- fore of fifty boys. You were so kind to reclesiastical good-breeding. If you will not commend the boys to the charitable world; pretend to tell us the motives that bring and the other sex hope you will do them such trifles to solemn assemblies, yet let the same favour in Friday's Spectator for me desire that you will give this letter a Sunday next, when they are to appear with place in your paper, and I shall remain, their humble airs at the parish church of sir, your obliged humble servant, J. S.' Saiht Bride's. Sir, the mention of this may May th possibly be serviceable to the children; and May the 5th. sure no one will omit a good action attended *MR. SPECTATOR,-The conversation with no expense. I am, sir, your very at a club of which I am a member, last humble servant night, falling upon vanity and the desire of T.' THE SEXTON.' being admired, put me in mind of relating how agreeably I was entertained at my own door last Thursday, by a clean fresl;- Saturday, My 17, 1712 coloured girl, under the most elegant and 1 ur, 1712. the best furnished milk-pail I had ever ob- E quam memento rebus in arduis served. I was glad of such an opportunity Servaro mentem, non secus in bonis of seeing the behaviour of a coquette in low Ab insolenti temperatam life, and how she received the extraordi- titia, moriture Deli. r. Od. 3. 1.. v. 1. Be calm, my Delius, and serene, nary notice that was taken of her; which I However fortune change the scene: found had affected every muscle of her In thy most dejected state, face, in the same manner as it does the fea- Sink not underneath the weight; of a first-rate toast at a py or in an Nor yet, wheh happy days begin, tures of a first-rate toast at a play or in an And the full tide comes rolling in assembly. This hint of mine made the dis- Let a fierce, unruly joy, course turn upon the sense of pleasure; The settled quiet of thy mind destroy. Jnon which ended in a general resolution, that I HAVE always preferred cheerfulness A the milk-maid enjoys her vanity as exqui- mirth. The latter I consider as an act, thL sitely as the woman of quality. I think it former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is would not be an improper subject for you short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and to examine this frailty, and trace it to all permanent. Those ae often raised into conditions of life; which is recommended the greatest transports of mirth, who are to you as an occasion of obliging many of subject to the greatest depressions of meyour readers, among the rest, your most lancholy. On the contrary, cheerfulness humble servant, T. B. though it does not give the mind such an' May 12, 1712. exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling SIR,-Coming last week into a coffee- into any depths of sorrow.' Mirth is like a house, not far from the Exchange, with flash of lightning, that breaks through a my basket under my arm, a Jew, of consi- gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; derable note, as I am informed, takes half cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day-light' a dozen oranges of me, and at the same in the mind, and fills it with a steady and time slides a guinea into my hand;.1 made perpetual serenity. No. 381.J THE. SPECTATOR. 101 Men of austere principles look upon the natural effect of virtue and innocence. mirth as too wanton and dissolute for a Cheerfulness in an ill man deserves a harder state of probation, and as filled with a cer- name than language can furnish us with, tain triumph and insolence of heart that is and is many degrees beyond what we corninconsistent with a life which is every mo- monly call folly or madness. ment obnoxious to the greatest dangers. Atheism, by which I mean a disbelief of Writers of this complexion have observed, a Supreme Being, and consequently of a that the Sacred Person who was the great future state, under whatsoever titles it shelpattern of perfection, was never seen to ters itself, may likewise very reasonably laugh. deprive a man of this cheerfulness of ternCheerfulness of mind is not liable to any per. There is something so particularly of these exceptions; it is of a serious and gloomy and offensive to human nature in composed nature; it does not throw the the prospect of non-existence, that I canlot mind into a condition improper for the pre- but wonder, with many excellent writers, sent state of humanity, and is very conspi- how it is possible for a man to outlive cuous in the characters of those who are the expectation of it. For my own part, I looked upon as the greatest philosophers think the being of a God is so little t( be among the heathens, as well as among those doubted, that it is almost the only trutl we who have been deservedly esteemed as are sure of; and such a truth as we n eet saints and holy men among Christians. with in every object, in every occurrence, If we consider cheerfulness in three and in every thought. If we look into the lights, with regard to ourselves, to those characters of this tribe of infidels, we g inewe converse with, and to the great Author rally find they are made up of pride, sp' een, of our being, it will not a little recommend and cavil. It is indeed no wonder, that itself on each of these accounts. The man men who are uneasy to themselves sh )uld who is possessed of this excellent frame of be so to the rest of the world; and how is it mind, is not only easy in his thoughts, but possible for a man to be otherwise chan a perfect master of all the powers and facul- uneasy in himself, who is in danger e very ties of his soul. His imagination is always moment of losing his entire existence, and clear, and his judgment undisturbed; his dropping into nothing? temper is even and unruffled, whether in The vicious man and atheist have thereaction or in solitude. He comes with relish fore no pretence to cheerfulness, and would to all those goods which nature has provided act very unreasonably should they endeafor him, tastes all the pleasures of the crea- vour after it. It is impossible for any one tion, which are poured about him, and does to live in good humour, and enjoy his prenot feel the full weight of those accidental sent existence, who is apprehensive either evils which may befall him. of torment or of annihilation; of being miseIf we consider him in relation to the per- rable, or of not being at all. sons whom he converses with, it naturally After having mentioned these two great produces love and good-will, towards him. principles, which are destructive of cheerA cheerful mind is not only disposed to be fulness, in their own nature, as well as in affable and obliging; but raises the same right reason, I cannot think of any other good-humour in those who come within its that ought to banish this happy temper influence. A man finds himself pleased, he from a virtuous mind. Pain and sickness, does not know why, with the cheerfulness shame and reproach, poverty and old age, of his companion. It is like a sudden sun- nay, death itself, considering the shortness shine that awakens a secret delight in the of their duration, and the advantage we mind, without her attending to it. The may reap from them, do not deserve the heart rejoices of its own accord, and natu- name of evils. A good mind may bear up rally flows out into friendship and benevo- under them with fortitude, with indolence, lence towards the person who has so kindly and with cheerfulness of heart. The tossing an effect upon it. of a tempest does not discompose him, which When I consider this cheerful state of he is sure will bringhim to a joyful harbour. ming in its third relation, I cannot but look A man who uses his best endeavours to upon it as a constant habitual gratitude live according to the dictates of virtue and to the great Author of nature. An in- right reason has two perpetual sources of ward cheerfulness is an implicit praise and cheerfulness, in the consideration of his thanksgiving to Providence under all its own nature, and of that Being on whom he lispensations. It is a kind of acquiescence has a dependance. If he looks into himself, in the state wherein we are placed, and a he cannot but rejoice in that existence secret approbation of the divine will in his whici is so lately bestowed upon him, and conduct towards man. which, after millions of ages, will be still There are but two things which, in my new, and still in its beginning. How many opinion, can reasonably deprive us of this self-congratulations naturally rise in the cheerfulness of heart. The first of these is mind, when it reflects on this its entrance the sense of guilt. A man who lives in a into eternity, when it takes a view of those state of vice and impenitence can have no improvable faculties which in a few years, title to that evenness and tranquillity of and even at its first setting out, have mind which is the health f the soul, and made so considerable a progress, and which A02 THE SPECr ATOR. LNo. 382 will still be receiving an increase of per- you, that though the circumstance whicl) fection, and consequently an increase of displeased was never in his thoughts, he happiness! The consciousness of such a has that respect for you, that he is unsatis — seing spreads a perpetual diffusion of joy fied till it is wholly out of yours. It must through the soul of a virtuous man, and be confessed, that when an acknowledgmakes him look upon himself every mo- ment of an offence is made out of poorness inent as more happy than he knows how to of spirit, and not conviction of heart, the conceive. circumstance is quite different. But in the The second source of cheerfulness, to a case of my correspondent, where both the good mind, is the consideration of that notice is taken, and the return made in Being on whom we have our dependence, private, the affair begins and ends with tie and in whom, though we behold him as yet highest grace on each side. To make the out in the first faint discoveries of his per- acknowledgment of a fault in the highest fections, we see every thing that we can manner graceful, it is lucky when the cirimagine as great, glorious, or amiable. We cumstances of the offender place him above find ourselves every where upheld by his any ill consequences from the resentment goodness, and surrounded with an immen- of the person offended. A dauphin of sity of love and mercy. In short, we de- France, upon a review of the argey, and a pend upon a Being, whose power qualifies command of the king to alter the posture him to make us happy by an infinity of of it by a march of one of the wings, gave means, whose goodness and truth engage an improper order to an officer at the head him to make those happy who desire it of of a brigade, who told his highness, he prehim, and whose unchangeableness will se- sumed lie had not received the last orders, cure us in this happiness to all eternity, which were to move a contrary wlay. The Such considerations, which every one prince, instead of taking the admonition, should perpetually cherish in his thoughts, which was delivered in a manner that ac-' will banish from us all that secret heavi- counted for his error with safety to his unness of heart which unthinking men are derstanding, shaked a cane at the officers subject to when they lie under no real and, with the return of opprobrious Ianaffliction: all that anguish which we may guage, persisted in his own orders. The feel from any evil that actually oppresses whole matter came necessarily befire the us, to which I may likewise add those little king, who commanded his son, on foot, to cracklings of mirth and folly that are apter lay his right hand on the gentleman's stirto betray virtue than support it; and esta- rup as he sat on horseback in sight of the blish in us such an even and cheerful tem- whole army, and ask his pardon. nVhen the pei, as makes us pleasing to ourselves, to prince touched his stirrup, and was going those with whom we converse, and to Him to speak, the officer with an incredible whom we were made to please. L. agility, threw himself on the earth and kissed his feet.'-~ — ~ - _~ —--- The body is very little concerned in the No. 382. oday My 19 171 pleasure or sufferings of souls truly great; No. 382.] Monzda5y, M/ay 19, 1712. and the reparation, when an honour was Habes confitentem reum. ullg. designed this soldier, appeared as much The accused confesses Iis guilt. too great to be borne by his gratitude, as the injury was intolerable to his resentI OUGHT not to have neglected a request ment. of one of my correspondents so long as I When we turn our thoughts from these have; but I dare say I have given him time extraordinary occurrences into common to add practice to profession. He sent me life, we see an ingenuous kind of behaviour some time ago a bottle or two of excellent not only make up for faults committed, but wine, to drink the health of a gentleman in a manner expiate them in the very cormwho had by the penny-post advertised him mission. Thus many things wherein a man of an egregious error in his conduct. My has pressed too far, he implicitly excuses, correspondent received the obligation from by owning,'This is a trespass: you'll an unknown hand with the candour which pardon my confidence; I am sensible I is natural to an ingenuous mind; and pro- have no pretensions to this favour;' and the mises a contrary behaviour in that point for like. But commend me to those gay fellows the future. He will offend his monitor with about town who are directly impudent, and no more errors of that kind, but thanks make up for it no otherwise than by calling him for his benevolence. This frank car- themselves such and exultingin it. But thi riage makes me reflect upon the amiable sort of carriage, which prompts a mal atonement a man makes in an ingenuous against rules to urge what he has a mind ackncvledgment of a fault. All such mis- to, is pardonable only when you sue foi carriages as flow from inadvertency are another. When you are confident in premore than repaid by it; for reason, though ference of yourself to others of equal merit, not concerned in the injury, employs all its every man that loves virtue and modesty force in the atonement. He that says, he ought, in defence of those qualities, to opdid not design to disoblige you in such an pose you. But, without considering the action, does as much as if he should tell molraltv of the thin, let usatthis time.be No. 38,.1 THE SPECTATOR. 103 hold any natural consequence of candour thinking on a subject for my next Spectator, when we speak of ourselves. I heard two or three irregular bounces at The Spectator writes often in an elegant, my landlady's door, and upon the opening often in an argumentative, and often in a of it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring whesublime style, with equal success; but how ther the philosopher was at home. The would it hurt the reputed author of that child who went to the door answered very paper to own, that of the most beautiful innocently, that he did not lodge there. pieces under his title he is barely the pub- I immediately recollected that it was my lisher? There is nothing but what a man good friend sir Roger's voice; and that I really performs can be an honour to him; had promised to go with him on the water what he takes more than he ought in the to Spring-garden,* in case it proved a good eye of the world, he loses in the conviction evening. The knight put me in mind of of his own heart; and a man must lose his my promise from the bottom of the stairconsciousness, that is, his very self, before case, but told me, that if I was speculating, he can rejoice in any falsehood without in- he would stay below till I had done. Upon ward mortification. my coming down, I found all the children Who has not seen a very criminal at the of the family got about my old friend; bar, when his counsel and friends have and my landlady herself, who is a notable done' all that they could for him in vain, prating gossip engaged in a conference with prevail on the whole assembly to pity him, him; being mightily pleased with his strokand his judge to recommend his case to the ing her little boy on the head, and bidding mercy of the throne, without offering any him to be a good child and mind his book. thing new in his defence, but that he whom We were no sooner come to the Templebefore we wished convicted,became soout of stairs, but we were surrounded with a his own mouth, and took upon himself all crowd of watermen, offering us their rethe shame and sorrow we were. just before spective services. Sir Roger, after having preparing for him? The great opposition looked about him very attentively, spied to this kind of candour arises from the un- one with a wooden leg, and immediately just idea people ordinarily have of what gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we call a high spirit. It is far from great- we were walking towards it,' You must ness of spirit to persist in the wrong in any know,' says Sir Roger,'I never make use thing; nor is it a diminution of greatness of of any body to row me, that has not lost spirit to have been in the wrong. Perfec- either a leg or an arm. I would rather bate tion is not the attribute of man, therefore him a few strokes of his oar than not cnmhe is not degraded by the acknowledgment ploy an honest man that has been wounded of an imperfection; but it is the work of in the queen's service. If I was a lord or a little minds to imitate the fortitude of great bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put spirits on worthy occasions, by obstinacy in a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden the wrong. This obstinacy prevails so far leg.' upon them, that they make it extend to the My old friend, after having seated himdefence of faults in their very servants. It self, and trimmed the boat with his coachwould swell this paper to too great a length man, who, being a very sober man, always should I insert all the quarrels and debates serves for ballast on these occasions, we which are now on foot in this town; where made the best of our way for Vauxhall. one party, and in some cases both, is sensi- Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us ble of being on the faulty side, and have not the history of his right leg; and, hearing spirit enough to acknowledge it. Among that he had left it at La Hogue, with many the ladies the case is very common; for particulars which passed in that glorious there are very few of them who know that action, the knight, in the triumph of his it is to maintain a true and high spirit, to heart, made several reflections on the throw away from it all which itself disap- greatness of the British nation; as that one proves, and to scorn so pitiful a shame, as Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that which disables the heart from acquir- that we could never be in danger of popery Jng a liberality of affections and sentiments. so long as we took care of our fleet; that The candid mind, by acknowledging and the Thames was the noblest river in discharging its faults, has reason and truth Europe; that London bridge was a greater for the foundations of all its passions and de- piece of work than any of the seven wonsires, and consequently is happy and sim- ders of the world; with many other honest ple; the disingenuous spirit, by indulgence prejudices which naturally cleave to the of one unacknowledged error, is entangled heart of a true Englishman. with an after-life of guilt, sorrow, and per- After some short pause, the old knight plexity. T. turning about his head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with No. 383.] Tuesday, Mlay 20, 1712. churches, and that there was scarce a No8 Tesa, M 2, 1single steeple on this side Temple-bar. Criminibus debent hortos. Juv. Sat. i. 75. A most heathenish sight!' says sir Roger: A beauteous garden, but by vice maintain'd. As I was sitting in my chamber, and * OrVauxhall. 0O4 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 384.'there is no religion at this end of the town. ratified the knight's commands with a pe The fifty new churches will very much remptory look. mend the prospect; but church-work is As we were going out of.he garden, my slow, church-work is slow.' old friend thinking himself obliged, as a I do not remember I have any where member of the quorum, to animadvert upon nentioned in Sir Roger's character, his the morals of the place, told the mistress custom of saluting every body that passes of the house, who sat at the bar, that he by him with a good-morrow, or a good- should be a better customer to her garden, night. This the old man does out of the if there were more nightingales and fewer overflowings of his humanity; though, at strumpets. I. the same time, it renders him so popular among all his country neighbours, that it is thought to have gone a good way in making No. 384.] Wednesday, May 21, 1712. lim once or twice knight of the shire. He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence' Hague, May 24, N. S. The same republican hands, even in town, when he meets with any one who have so often since the chevalier de St. George's in his morning or evening walk. It broke recovery killed him in our public prints, have now rein his morning or evening' walk. It broke duced the young dauphin of France to that desperate from him to several boats that passed by us condition of weakness, and death itself, that it is hard on the water; but, to the knight's great to conjecture what method they will take to bring him r, as he gave4 tto life again. Meantime we are assured, by a very good surprise, as he gave the good-night to two hand from Paris, that on the 20th instant this young or three young fellows a little before our prince was as well as ever he was known to be since landing, one of them, instead of returning the day of his birth. As for the other, they are now the civility, asked us, what queer old put sending his ghost, we suppose (for they never had the the ivility, asked, what queer old put modesty to contradict their assertion of his death,) to we had in the boat, and whether he was Commerci in Lorrain, attended only by four gentlemen, not ashamed to go a wenching at his years? and a few domestics of little consideration. The Baron with a great deal of the like Thames- de Bothmar* having delivered in his credentials to with a great deal of the lIke Thames- qualify him as an ambassador to this state (an office to ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a little shocked which his greatest enemies will acknowledge him to be at first, but at length assuming a face of equal,) is gone to Utrecht, whence he will proceed to magistracy, told us, that if he were a Mid- Hanover, but not stay long at that court, for fear thJ mag istracy, told us, thai he w ee a id- peace should be made during his lamentable absence.'dlesex justice, he would make such va- Post-Boy, May 20. grants know that her majesty's subjects I SHOULD be thought not able to read were no more to be abused by water than were no more to be abused by water than should I overlook some excellent pieces ye awee now arrived at Spring-garden, lately come out. My lord bishop of St. which is exquisitely pleasant at this time of Asapht has just now published some sethe year. When I considered the fragrancy mons, the preface to which seems to me to the year. When I considered the fra y determine a great point. He has, like a of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of determine a great point. Hea, like a birds, that sung upon the trees, and the good man, and a good Christian, in opposiloose tribe of people teat walked under tion to all the flattery and base submission of false friends to princes, asserted, that, their shades, I could not but look upon the C sany lft s he finds r s a sse th place as a kind of Mahometan Paradise. Christianity left us where t found s as to ir R oger told me it put him in mind of a our civil rights. The present entertainment Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a shall consist only of a sentence out of the little coppice by his house in the country, shall consist only o a sentence out of the which his chaplain used to call an aviary of Post-Boy, and the said preface of the lord nightingales.'You muset understand,' says of St. Asaph. I should think it a little odd nightingae'tt Yomust understand, says if the author of the Post-Boy should with the knigthat lease is nothing in the impunity call men republicans for a gladworld that pleases a man in love so muchu walked by myself, and thougaht on the as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator, ness on the report of the death of the prethe many moonlight nights that I have tender; and treat baron Bothmar, the minalked by myself, and thought on the Aanister of Hanover, in such a manner as you widow by the music of ete nhghtingale!' see in my motto. I must own, I think every Herewidow by the musifetched a deep sigh, tiand was fall- man in England concerned to support the Here he fetched a deep sigh, and was fall- succession of that family. ing into a fit of musing, when a mask, who e publishing a few sermons, whil st y. came behind him, gave him a gentle tap ve, the latest of which was preached about upon the shoulder, and asked him if he eight years sine,thelatestofwhichwas above sevenwould drink a bottle of mead with her? eight y e ars since, an the first above sevenBut the knight being startled at so unex- teen, will make it very natural for people pected a familiarity, and displeased to be to inquire into the occasion of doing so; and interrupted in his thoughts of the widow, to such I do very willingly assign these folinterrupted in his thoughts of the wido,1wng reasons: told her she was a wanton baggage; and bid lowirst, from the observations I have been her go about her business. ableFirst, from thmake for these mrvations I have beenst WVe concluded our walk with a glass of able to make for these many years last Burton ale, and a slice of hung beef. When past upon our public affairs, and from the we had done eating ourselves the knight natural tendency of several principles and called a waiter to him, and bid him carry practices, that have of late been studiously the remainder to the waterman that had revived, and from what has followed there,but one leg. I perceived the fellow stared upthim at the oddness ofI the fmessagew * Ambassador from Hanover, and afterwards agen upon him at the oddness of the message, here for the H anoverian family. and was going to be saucy; upon w here for the Hail overian family. and was going to be saucy; upon which I t Dr. William Fleetwood. No. 384.] THE SPECTATOR. 1B5 upon, I could not help both fearing and sonable and well-grounded, that I believe 1 presaging, that these nations should some can never have any other. time or other, if ever we should have an'Another reason of my publishing these enterprising prince upon the throne, of sermons at this time is, that I have a mind more ambition than virtue, justice, and true to do myself some honour by doing what honour, fall into the way of all other na- honour I could to the memory of two most tions, and lose their liberty, excellent princes, and who have very highly' Nor could I help foreseeing to whose deserved at the hands of all the people of charge a great deal of this dreadful mis- these dominions, who have any true value chief, whenever it should happen, would for the Protestant religion, and the conbe laid; whether justly or unjustly, was not stitution of the English government of which my business to determine; but I resolved, they were the great deliverers and defor my own particular part, to deliver my- fenders. I have lived to see their illustrious self, as well as I could, from the reproaches names very rudely handled, and the great and the curses of posterity, by publicly de- benefits they did this nation treated slightly daring to all the world, that, although in and contemptuously. I have lived to see the constant course of my ministry I have our deliverance from arbitrary power and never failed, on proper occasions, to recom- popery traduced and vilified by some who mend, urge, and insist upon the loving, formerlythoughtit wastheir greatest merit, honouring, and reverencing the prince's and made it part of their boast and glory to person, and holding it, according to the have had a little hand and share in bringing laws, inviolable and sacred; and paying all it about; and others who, without it, must obedience and submission to the laws, have lived in exile, poverty, and misery, though never so hard and inconvenient to meanly disclaiming it, and using ill the private people: yet did I never think my- glorious instruments thereof. Who could self at liberty, or authorized to tell the peo- expect such a requital of such merit? I pie, that either Christ, St. Peter, or St. have, I own it, an ambition of exempting Paul, or any other holy writer, had, by any myself from the number of unthankful peodoctrine delivered by them, subverted the pie: and as I loved and honoured those laws and constitutions of the country in great princes living, and lamented over which they lived, or put them in a worse them when dead, so I would gladly raise condition, with respect to their civil liber- them up a monument of praise as lasting as ties, than they would have been had they any thing of mine can be; and I choose to not been Christians. I ever thought it a do it at this time, when it is so unfashionmost impious blasphemy against that holy able a thing to speak honourably of them. religion, to father any thing upon it that'The sermon that was preached upon might encourage tyranny, oppression, or the duke of Gloucester's death was printed injustice in a prince, or that easily tended quickly after, and is now, because the subto make a free and happy people slaves and ject was so suitable, joined to the others. miserable. No: people may make them- The loss of that most promising and hopeselves as wretched as they will, but let not ful prince was at that time, I saw, unspeakGod be called into that wicked party. ably great; and many accidents since have When force and violence, and hard neces- convinced us that it could not have been sity, have brought the yoke of servitude overvalued. That precious life, had it upon a people's neck, religion will supply pleased God to have prolonged it the usual them with a patient and submissive spirit space, had saved us many fears and jealunder it till they can innocently shake it off: ousies, and dark distrusts, and prevented out certainly religion never puts it on. This many alarms, that have long kept us, and always was, and this at present is, my will keep us still, waking and uneasy. Nojudgment of these matters: and I would be thing remained to comfort and support us transmitted to posterity (for the little share under this heavy stroke, but the necessity of time such names as mine can live) under it brought the king and nation under of setthe character of one who loved his country, tling the succession in the house of Hanover, and would be thought a good Englishman, and giving it a hereditary right by act of as well as a good clergyman. parliament, as long as it continues Pro-' This character I thought would be trans- testant. So much good did God, in his mitted by the following sermons, which merciful providence, produce from a miswere made for and preached in a private fortune, which we could never otherwise audience, when I could think of nothing have sufficiently deplored! else but doing my duty on the occasions'The fourth sermon was preached upon that were then offered by God's providence, the queen's accession to the throne, and the without any manner of design of making first year in which that day was solemnly them public; and for that reason I gire observed (for by some accident or other it them now as they were then delivered; by had been overlooked the year before;) and which I hope to satisfy those people who every one will see, without the date of it, have objected a change of principles to me, that it was preached very early in this as if I were not now the same man I for- reign, since I was able only to promise and merly was. I never had but one opinion of presage its future glories and successes, these matters; and that I think is so rea- fiom.he good appearances of. things, and VoL. II. 14 106 ThE SPECTATOR. [No. 385. the happy turn our affairs began to take; Friendship is a strong and habitual inand could not then count up the victories clination in two persons to promote the good and triumphs that, for seven years after, and happiness of one another. Though the made it, in the prophet's language, a name pleasures and advantages of friendship have and a praise among all the people of the been largely celebrated by the best moral earth. Never did seven such years to- writers, and are considered by all as great gether pass over the head of any English ingredients of human happiness, we very monarch, nor cover it with so much honour. rarely meet with the practice of this virtue The crown and sceptre seemed to be the in the world. queen's least ornaments; those, other princes Every man is ready to give in a long ca wore in common with her, and her great talogue of those virtues and good qualities personal virtues were the same before and he expects to find in the person of a friend, since; but such was the fame of her ad- but very few of us are careful to cultivate ministration of affairs at home, such was them in ourselves. the reputation of her wisdom and felicity Love and esteem are the first principles in choosing ministers, and such was then of friendship, which always is imperfect esteemed their faithfulness and zeal, their where either of these two is wanting. diligence and great abilities in executing As, on the one hand, we are soon ashamed her commands; to such a height of military of loving a man whom we cannot esteem; so, glory did her great general and her armies on the other, though we are truly sensible carry the British name abroad; such was of a man's abilities, we can never raise ourthe harmony and concord betwixt her and selves to the warmth of friendship, withher allies; and such was the blessing of out an affectionate good-will towards his God upon all her councils and undertakings, person. that I am as sure as history can make me, Friendship immediately banishes envy no prince of ours ever was so prosperous under all its disguises. A man who can and successful, so beloved, esteemed, and once doubt whether he should rejoice in his honoured by their subjects and their friends, friend's being happier than himself, may nor near so formidable to their enemies. depend upon it that he is an utter stranger We were, as all the world imagined then, to this virtue. just entering on the ways that promised to There is something in friendship so very lead to such a peace as would have answered great and noble, that in those fictitious stoall the prayers of our religious queen, the ries which are invented to the honour of any care and vigilance of a most able ministry, particular person, the authors have thought the payments of a willing and most obedient it as necessary to make their hero a friend people, as well as all the glorious toils and as a lover. Achilles has his Patroclus, and hazards of the soldiery; when God, for our IEneas his Achates. In the first of these sins, permitted the spirit of discord to go instances we may observe, for the reputaforth, and by troubling sore the camp, the tion of the subject I am treating of, that city and the country/ (and oh that it had Greece was almost ruined by the hero's altogether spared the places sacred to his love, but was preserved by his friendship. worship!) to spoil, for a time, this beautiful The character of Achates suggests to us and pleasing prospect, and give us in its an observation we may often make on the stead, I know not what Our ene- intimacies of great men, who frequently mies will tell the rest with pleasure. It will choose their companions rather for the become me better to pray to God to restore qualities of the heart than those of the us to the powet of obtaining such a peace head, and prefer fidelity in an easy, inofas will be to his glory, the safety, honour, fensive, complying temper, to those endowand welfare of the queen and her dominions, ments which make a much greater figure and the general satisfaction of all her high among mankind. I do not remember that and mighty allies.* Achates, who is represented as the first' May 2, 1712.' favourite, either gives his advice, or strikes a blow, through the whole 2Eneid. A friendship which makes the least noise No. 385.] Thursday, May 22, 1712. is very often most useful: for which reason I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous - Thesea pectora juncta fide. one Ovid. Trist. iii. Lib. 1. 66. that with symathiing aror go Atticus, one of the best men of ancient Breasts that with sympathizing ardour glow'd, Rome, was a very remarkable instance of And holy friendship, such as Theseus vow'd., what I am here speaking. This extrao - I INTEND the paper for this day as a dinary person, amidst the civil wars of his loose essay upon friendship, in which I shall country, when he saw the designs of all throw my observations together without parties equally tended to the subversion of any set form, that I may avoid repeating liberty, by constantly preserving the esteem what has been often said on this subject. and affection of both the competitors, found means to serve his friends on either side: * This Preface was seized on by the Tory ministry, and, while he sent money to young Marius, and condemned, by a motion of the House of Commons, whose father was declared an e y to to be burned by the common hangman.-See Biographia whoe father was declare an enemy t lritannica, vol. iii. p. 1974. the commonwealth, he was himself one of No. 386. THE SPECTATOR. 107 Sylla's chief favourites, and always near No. 386.] Friday, May 23, 1712. that general. During the war between Czsar and Pom- Cum tristibus severe, cum remissis jucuade, cum sc pey, he still maintained the same conduct. nibus graviter, cum juventute comiter vivere. After the death of Cxsar, he sent money to a Brutus in his troubles, and did a thousand THE piece of Latin on the head of this good offices to Antony's wife and friends paper is part of a character extremely viwhen that party seemed ruined. Lastly, cious, but I have set down no more than even in that bloody war between Antony may fall in with the rules of justice and and Augustus, Atticus still kept his place honour. Cicero spoke it of Catiline, who, in both their friendships: insomuch that the he said,' lived with the sad severely, with first, says Cornelius Nepos, whenever he the cheerful agreeably, with the old gravewas absent from Rome in any part of the ly, with the young pleasantly;' he added, empire, writ punctually to him what he' with the wicked boldly, with the wanton was doing, what he read, and whither he lasciviously.' The two last instances of his intended to go; and the latter gave him complaisance I forbear to consider, having constantly an exact account of all his affairs. it in my thoughts at present only to speak A likeness of inclinations in every parti- of obsequious behaviour as it sits upon a cular is so far from being requisite to form companion in pleasure, not a man of design a benevolence in two minds towards each and intrigue. To vary with every humour other, as it is generally imagined, that I in this manner cannot be agreeable, except believe we shall find some of the firmest it comes from a man's own temper and nafriendships to have been contracted be- tural complexion; to do it out of an ambitween persons of different humours; the tion to excel that way, is the most fruitless mind being often pleased with those per- and unbecoming prostitution imaginable. fections which are new to it, and which it To put on an artful part to obtain no other does not find among its own accomplish- end but an unjust praise from the undiscernments. Besides that a man in some mea- ing, is of all endeavours the most despicasure supplies his own defects, and fancies ble. A man must be sincerely pleased to himself at second-hand possessed of those become pleasure, or not to interrupt that good qualities and endowments, which are of others; for this reason it is a most calain the possession of him who in the eye of mitous circumstance, that many people who the world is looked upon as his other self. want to be alone, or should be so, will come The most difficult province in friendship into conversation. It is certain that all men, is the letting a man see his faults and errors, who are the least given to reflection, are which should, if possible, be so contrived, seized with an inclination that way, when, that he may perceive our advice is given perhaps, they had rather be inclined to him not so much to please ourselves as for company; but indeed they had better go his own advantage. The reproaches there- home and be tired with themselves, than fore of a friend should always be strictly force themselves upon others to recover just, and not too frequent.' their good humour. In all this, the case of The violent desire of pleasing in the per- communicating to a friend a sad thought or son reproved may otherwise change into a difficulty, in order to relieve a heavy heart, despair of doing it, while he finds himself stands excepted; but what is here meant censured for faults he is not conscious of. is, that a man should always go with incliA mind that is softened and humanized by nation to the turn of the company he is friendship cannot bear frequent reproaches; going into, or not pretend to be of the party. either it must quite sink under the oppres- It is certainly a very happy temper to be sion, or abate considerably of the value and able to live with all kinds of dispositions, esteem it had for him who bestows them. because it argues a mind that lies open to The proper business of friendship is to receive what is pleasing to others, and not inspire life and courage: and a soul thus obstinately bent on any particularity of his supported outdoes itself: whereas, if it be own. unexpectedly deprived of these succours, This is it which makes me pleased with it droops and languishes. the character of my good acquaintance We are in some measure more inexcusa- Acasto. You meet him at the tables and ble if we violate our duties to a friend than conversations of the wise, the impertinent, to a relation; since the former arise from the grave, the frolic, and the witty; and a voluntary choice, the latter from a ne- yet his own character has nothing in it that cessity to which we could not give our own can make him particularly agreeable to any consent. one sect of men; but Acasto has natural As it has been said on one side, that a good sense, good-nature, and discretion, so man ought not to break with a faulty friend, that every man enjoys himself in his conthat he may not expose the weakness of pany; and though Acasto contributes nohis choice; it will doubtless hold much thing to the entertainment, he never was at stronger with respect to a worthy one, that a place where he was not welcome a second he may never be upbraided for having lost time. Without the subordinate good qualiso valuable a treasure which was once in ties of Acasto, a man of wit and learning his possession. X. would be painful to the generality of man 108 THE SPECTATOR. LNo. 387. &ind, instead of being pleasing. Witty men cause he just now saw her. But I think I are apt to imagine they are agreeable as need not dwell on this subject, since I have such, ana. by that means grow the worst acknowledged there can be no rules made companions imaginable; they deride the for excelling this way; and precepts of this absent or rally the present in a wrong man- kind fare like rules for writing poetry, ner, not knowing that if you pinch or tickle which, it is said, may have prevented ill a man till he is uneasy in his seat, or un- poets, but never made good ones. T. gracefully distinguished from the rest of the company, you equally hurt him. I was going to say, the true art of being No. 387.] Saturday, May 24, 1712. agreeable in company (but there can be no such thing as art in it) is to appear well Quid pure tranquilletHor. Ep. xviii. Lib. 102. pleased with those you are engaged with, Ho. Ep. xviii. Lib. 102. easnd rather to see well engteraed, than What calms the breast and makes the mind serene. and rather to seem well entertained, than:o bring entertainment to others. A man IN my last Saturday's paper, I spoke of.thus disposed is not indeed what we ordi- cheerfulness as it is a moral habit of the narily call a good companion, but essentially mind, and accordingly mentioned such mo is such, and in all the parts of his conversa- ral motives as are apt to cherish and keep tion has something friendly in his behaviour, alive this happy temper in the soul of man. which conciliate men's minds more than the I shall now consider cheerfulness in its nahighest sallies of wit or starts of humour can tural state, and reflect on those motives to possibly do. The feebleness of age in a man it which are indifferent either as to virtue of this turn has something which should be or vice. treated with respect even in a man no other- Cheerfulness is, in the first place, the wise venerable. The forwardness of youth, best promoter of health. Repinings, and when it proceeds from alacrity and not in- secret murmurs of heart, give imperceptisolence, has also its allowances. The com- ble strokes to those delicate fibres of which panion who is formed for such by nature, the vital parts are composed, and wear gives to every character of life its due re- out the machine insensibly; not to mention gards, and is ready to account for their im- those violent ferments which they stir up perfections, and receive their accomplish- in the blood, and those irregular disturbed ments as if they were his own. It must motions which they raise in the animal appear that you receive law from, and not spirits. I scarce remember, in my own give it to, your company, to make you observation, to have met with many old agreeable. men, or with such, who (to use our English I remember Tully, speaking, I think, of phrase,) wear well, that had not at least a Antony, says, that, In eo Jacetiae erant, qua certain indolence in their humour,.if not a nulla arte tradi possunt:'He had a witty more than ordinary gayety and cheerfulmirth, which could be acquired by no art.' ness of heart. The truth of it is, health This quality must be of the kind of which and cheerfulness mutually beget each other, I am now speaking; for all sorts of beha- with this difference, that we seldom meet viour which depend upon observation and with a great degree of health which is not knowledge of life are to be acquired; but attended with a certain cheerfulness, but that which no one can describe, and is ap- very often see cheerfulness where there is parently the act of nature, must be every no great degree of health. where prevalent, because every thing it Cheerfulness bears the same friendly remeets is a fit occasion to exert it; for he gard to the mind as to the body. It banishes who follows nature can never be improper all anxious care and discontent, soothes and or unseasonable. composes the passions, and keeps the soul How unaccountable then must their be- in a perpetual calm. But having already haviour be, who, without any manner of touched on this last consideration, I shall consideration of what the company they here take notice, that the world in which have now entered are upon, give themselves we are placed is filled with innumerable the air of a messenger, and make as distinct objects that are proper to raise and keep relations of the occurrences they last met alive this happy temper of mind. with, as if they had been despatched from If we consider this world in its subserthose they talk to, to be punctually exact viency to man, one would think it was made in a report of those circumstances! It is for our use; but if we consider it in its natuunpardonable to those who are met to enjoy ral beauty and harmony, one would be apt one another, that a fresh man shall pop in, to conclude it was made for our pleasure. and give us only the last part of his own The sun, which is as the great soul of the life, and put a stop to ours during the his- universe, and produces all the necessaries tory. If such a man comes fromn'Change, of life, has a particular influence in cheerwhether you will or not, you must hear how ing the mind of man, and making the heart the stocks go; and, though you are never glad. so intently employed on a graver subject, a Those several living creatures which are young fellow of the other end of the town made for our service or sustenance; at the will take his place, and tell you, Mrs. same time either fill the woods with their Such-a-one is charmingly handsor e, be- music, furnish us with game, or raise pleas No. 387.] THE SPECTATOR. 109 ing ideas in us by the delightfulness of their qualities, and tastes a Ad colckrs, sounds appearance. Fpuntains, lakes, and rivers, and smells, heat and cold, but that man, are as refreshing to the imagination, as to while he is conversant in the lower stations the soil through which they pass. of nature, might have his mind cheered There are writers of great distinction, and delighted with agreeable sensations? who have made it an argument for Provi- In short, the whole universe is a kind of dence, that the whole earth is covered with theatre filled with objects that either raise green rather than with any other colour, in us pleasure, amusement, or admiration. as being such a right mixture of light and The reader's own thoughts will suggest shade, that it comforts and strengthens the to him the vicissitude of day and night, the eye, instead of weakening or grieving it. change of seasons, with all that variety ot ror this reason several painters have a scenes which diversify the face of nature, green cloth hanging near them to ease the and fill the mind with a perpetual succeseye upon, after too great an application to sion of beautiful and pleasing images. their colouring. A famous modern philoso- I shall not here mention the several en pher* accounts for it in the following man- tertainments of art, with the pleasures of ner. All colours that are more luminous, friendship, books, conversation, and othel overpower and dissipate the animal spirits accidental diversions of life, because I would which are employed in sight; on the con- only take notice of such incitements to a trary, those that are more obscure do not cheerful temper as offer themselves to pergive the animal spirits a sufficient exercise; sons of all ranks and conditions, and which whereas, the rays that produce in us the may sufficiently show us that Providence idea of green, fall upon the eye in such a did not design this world should be filled due proportion, that they give the animal with murmurs and repinngs, or that the spirits their proper play, and, by keeping heart of man should be involved in gloom up the struggle in a just balance, excite a and melancholy. very pleasing and agreeable sensation. Let I the more inculcate this cheerfulness of the cause be what it will, the effect is cer- temper, as it is a virtue in which our countain; for which reason, the poets ascribe trymen are observed to be more deficient to this particular colour the epithet of than any other nation. Melancholy is a cheerful. kind of demon that haunts our island, and To consider further this double end in the often conveys herself to us in an easterly works of nature, and how they are at the wind. A celebrated French novelist, in op~same time both useful and entertaining, we position to those who begin their romances find that the most important parts in the with the flowery season of the year, enters vegetable world are those which are the on his story thus,'In the gloomy month of most beautiful. These are the seeds by November, when the people of England which the several races of plants are pro- hang and drown themselves, a disconsolate pagated and continued, and which are al- lover walked out into the fields,' &c. ways lodged in the flowers or blossoms. Every one ought to fence against the Nature seems to hide her principal design, temper of his climate or constitution, and and to be industrious in making the earth frequently to indulge in himself those congay and delightful, while she-is carrying on siderations which may give him a serenity her great work, and intent upon her own of mind, and enable him to bear up cheerpreservation. The husbandman, after the fully against those little evils and misfor same manner, is employed in laying out the tunes which are common to human nature, whole country into a kind of garden or land- and which, by a right improvement of them, scape, and making every thing smile about will produce a satiety of joy, and an unin him, whilst in reality he thinks of nothing terrupted happiness. but of the harvest, and the increase which At the same time that I would engage is to arise from it. my reader to consider the world in its most We may further observe how Providence agreeable lights, I must own there are has taken care to keep. up this cheerfulness many evils which naturally spring up in the mind of man, by having formed it amidst the entertainments that are proafter such a manner as to make it capable vided for us; but these, if rightly consiof conceiving delight from several objects dered, should be far from overcasting the which seem to have very little use in them; mind with sorrow, or destroying that cheeras from the wildness of rocks and deserts, fulness of temper which I have been recomand the like grotesque parts of nature. mending. This interspersion of evil with Those who are versed in philosophy may good, and pain with pleasure, in the works still carry this consideration higher, by of nature, is very truly ascribed by Mr. observing, that if matter had appeared to Locke, in his Essay on Human Underas endowed only with those real qualities standing, to a moral reason, in the following which it actually possesses, it would have words. made but a very joyless and uncomfortable Beyond all this, we may ~rd another figure; and why has Providence given it a reason why God hath scattered up and power of producing in us such imaginary down several degrees of pleasure and pain, in all the things that environ and affect us, * Sir Isaac Newton. and blended them together, in almost all 110 THE SPECTATOR. LNo. 389 that our thoughts and senses have to do Through all my veins the passion flies, with; that we, finding imperfection, dis- My feeble soul forsakes its place, A trembling faintness seals my eyes, satisfaction, and want of complete happi- And paleness dwells upon my face: ness, in all the enjoyments which the crea- o I let my love with pow'rful odours stay tures can afford us, mi.ght be led to seek it My fainting love-sick soul, that dies away One hand beneath me let him place, in the enjoyment of Hi.m with whom " there With t'other press me in a chaste embrace. is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand v. are pleasures for evermore."' L. "I charge you, nymphs of Sion, as you go Arm'd with the sounding quiver and the bow, "~~: —,=-~-:~-~ - ~ Whilst thro' the lonesome woods you rove, You ne'er disturb my sleeping love. No. 288.] Monday, May 26, 1712. Be only gentle Zephyrs there With downy wings to fan the air; - Tibi res antiqua laudis et artis Let sacred silence dwell around, Ingredior; sanctos ausus recludere fontes. To keep offeach intruding sound. Virg. Georg. ii. 174. And when the balmy slumber leaves his eyes, May he to joys,unknown till then, arise! For thee, I dare unlock the sacred spring, And arts disclos'd by ancient sages sing.. " But see! he comes! with what majestic gait'MR. SPECTATOR, —It is my custom, He onward bears his lovely state I when I read your papers, to read over the Now through the lattice he appears, With softest words dispels my fears. quotations in the authors from whence you Arise, my fair one, and receive take them. As you mentioned a passage All the pleasures love can give! lately out of the second chapter of Solo- For now the sullen winter's past, No more we fear the northern blast; mon's Song, it occasioned my looking into No storms nor threat'ning clouds appear, it; and, upon reading it, I thought the ideas No falling rains deform the year; so exqftisitely soft and tender, that I could My love admits of no delay, Arise, my fair, and come away I not help making this paraphrase of it: VI which, now it is done, I can as little for- "Already, see! the teeming earth bear sending to you. Some marks of your Brings forth the flow'rs, her beauteous birth, approbation, which I have already re The dews, and soft-descending show'rs, Nurse the new-born tender flow'rs. ceived, have given me so sensible a taste Hark! the birds melodious sing, of them, that I cannot forbear endeavouring And sweetly usher in the spring. after them as often as I can with any ap- lose b his ll sis the dove. And billing whispers her his love. pearance of success. I am, sir, your most The spreading vines with blossoms swell, obedient humble servant.' Diffusing round a grateful smell. Arise, my fair one, and receive TIlE SECOND CHAPTER OF SOLOMON'S SONG. All the blessings love can give: For love admits of no delay, T. Arise, my fair, an:l come away! "As when in Sharon's field the blushing rose VTII Does its chaste bosom to the morn disclose, As to its mate the c tant dove Whilst all around the Zephyrs bear Flies through the covert of the spicy grove, The fragrant odours through the air, So let us hasten to some lonely shade, Or as the lily in the shady vale There let me safe in thy lov'd arms be laid, Does o'er each flow'r with beauteous pride prevail, Where no intruding hateful noise And stands with dews and kindest sunshine blest,damp sou of iousvoice Shall damp the sound of thy melodious voice; In fair pre-eminlence, superior to the est: Where I may gaze, and mark each beauteous grace: So if my Love, with happy influence, shed For sweet thy voice, and lovely is thy face. His eyes' bright sunshine on his lover's head, Then shall the rose of Sharon's field, IX. And whitest lilies, to my beauties yield, " As all of me, my Love, is thine, Then fairest flow'rs with studious art combine, Let all of thee be ever mine, The roses with the lilies join, Among the lilies we will play, And their united charms are less than mine. Fairer, my Love, thou art, than they; IJ,. Till the purple morn arise, " As much as fairest lilies can surpass And balmy sleep forsake thin eyes; Till the gladsome beams of day A thorn in beauty, or in height the grass; Remove the shades of night away So does my Love, among the virgins shine, w so leepsh ro eyes depart Adorod withIbraces more than hal"fnen when soft'seep shall from thy eyes depart, Adorn'd with graces more than half divine: R a tree, that, glorious to behold, Rise like the bounding roe, or lusty hart, Or as a tree, that, glorious to behold, Glad to behold the light again Is hung with apples all of ruddy gold, From Bether's mountains darting o'er the plain." Hesperian fruit, and, beautifully high, T Extends its branches to the sky; T. So does my Love the virgins' eyes invite; )'Tis he alone can fix their wand'ring sight, t Among ten thousand eminently bright. No. 389. Tuesday, May 27 1712. IIL "Beneath his pleasing shade ) Meliora pii docuere parentes. Hor. My wearied limbs at ease I laid, And on his fragrant boughs reclin'd my head, Their pious sires a better lesson taught. [ pull'd the golden fruit with eager haste; NOTHIN has more surprised the learned Sweet was the fruit, and pleasing to the taste THING has more surprised the learned With sparkling wine he crown'd the bowl, in England, than the price which a small With gentle ecstacies he fill'd my soul; book, entitled Spaccio della Bestia triomJoyous we sat beneath the shady grove, And o'er my head he hung the banners ofd is love. fante, bore in a late auction.* This book IV. "I faint! I die! my lab'ring breast * The book here mentioned, was bought by Walter Is with the mighty weight of love opprest! Clavel, esq. at the auction of the library of Charles BarI feel the fire possess nly heart, nard, esq. in 1711, for 28 pounds. The same copy beAnd pain convey'd' every part. carpe successively the property of Mr. John Nicholas, of No. 389.] THE SPECTATOR. 111 was sold for thirty pounds. As it was writ- brated, since our adversaries challenge all ten by one Jordants Brunus, a professed those, as men who have too much interest atheist, with a design to depreciate religion, in this case to be impartial evidences. every one was apt to fancy, from the extra- But what has been often urged as a con vagant price it bore, that there must be sideration of much more weight, is not only something in it very formidable. the opinion of the better sort, but the gene I must confess that, happening to get a ral consent of mankind to this great truth/ sight of one of them myself, I could not for- which I think could not possibly have come bear perusing it with this apprehension; to pass, but from one of the three following but found there was so very little danger in reasons: either that the idea of a God is it, that I shall venture to give my reader a innate and co-existent with the mind itself; fair account of the whole plan upon which or that this truth is so very obvious, that it this wonderful treatise is built. is discovered by the first exertion of reason The author pretends that Jupiter once in persons of the most ordinary capacities; upon a time, resolved upon a reformation or lastly, that it has been delivered down to of the constellations: for which purpose, us through all ages by a tradition from the having summoned the stars together, he first man. complains to them of the great decay of the The atheists are equally confounded, to worship of the gods, which he thought so whichever of these three causes we assign much the harder, having called several,of it; they have been so pressed by this last those celestial bodies by the names of the argument from the general consent of manheathen deities, and by that means made kind, that after great search and pains they the heavens as it were a book of the pagan pretend to have found out a nation of athetheology. Momus tells him that this is not ists, I mean that polite people the Hottento be wondered at, since there were so many tots. scandalous stories of the deities. Upon I dare not shock my readers with the dewhich the author takes occasion to cast re- scription of the customs and manners of flections upon all other religions, concluding these barbarians, who are in every respect that Jupiter, after a full hearing, discarded scarce one degree above brutes, having nc the deities out of heaven, and called the language among them but a confused gabstars by the names of the moral virtues. ble,. which is neither well understood by The short fable, which has no pretence themselves nor others. in it to reason or argument, and but a very It is not, however, to be imagined how small share of wit, has however recom- much the atheists have gloried in these mended itself, wholly by its impiety, to their good friends and allies. those weak men who would distinguish If we boast of a Socrates or a Seneca, the 7 themselves by the singularity of their opi- may now confront them with these great nions. philosophers the Hottentots. There are two considerations which have Though even this point has, not without been often urged against atheists, and which reason, been several times controverted, I they never yet could get over. The first is, see no manner of harm it could do to reli. that the greatest and most eminent persons gion, if we should entirely give them up this of all ages have been against them, and al- elegant part of mankind. ways complied with the public forms of Methinks nothing more shows the weak worship established in their respective coun- ness of their cause, than that no division of tries, when there was nothing in them either their fellow-creatures join with them bul derogatory to the honour of the Supreme those among whom they themselves ownr Being, or prejudicial to the good of mankind. reason is almost defaced, and who have bul The Platos and Ciceros among the an- little else but their shape which can entitle cients; the Bacons, the Boyles, and the them to any place in the species. Lockes, among our own countrymen; are all Besides these poor creatures, there have instances of what I have been saying; not to now and then been instances of a few crazy mention any of the divines, however cele- people in several nations vrho have denied the existence of a deity. The catalogue of these is, however, very Mr. Joseph Ames, of Sir Peter Thompson, and of M. C. The catalogr of thes ist however, very Tutet, esq. among whose books it was lately sold by short; even Vanna, the ost celebrated auction, at Mr. Gerrard's in Litchfield-street. The au- champion for the cause, professed before thor of this book, Giordano Bruno, was a native of his judges that he believed tihe existence of Nola, in the kingdom of Naples, and burnt at Rome by order of the inquisition in 1600. Morhoff. speaking of a God: and, taking up a rtaw which lay atheists, says,' Jordanum tamen Brunum uic classinon before him on the ground, assured them annumerare,-m anzfesto in illo atheismi vestigie non that alone was sufficient to convince him of deprehendo.' Polyhist. i. 1. 8. 22. Bruno published many it: alleging several arguments to prove that other writings said to be atheistical. The book spoken it alleging several arguments to prove that of here was printed, not at Paris, as is said in the title- it was impossible nature alone could create page, nor in 1544, but at London, and in 1584, 12mo. any thing dedicated to sir Philip Sidney. It was for some time so y radn an accont f little regarded, that it was sold with five other books of was the other day reading an account of the same author, for 25 pence French, at the sale of Mr. Casimir Lyszynski, a gentleman of Poland, Bigor's library in 1706; but it is now very scarce, and who was convicted and executed for this has been sold at the exorbitant price of 501. Niceron. crme. Th manner of his punishmnt was Hommes I lust. tom. xvii. p. 211. There was an edition manner punisment of it in Enlglish in 113. very particular. As soon as his body was 112 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 390. burnt, his ashes were put into a cannon, and their own behaviour so unhappily, that shot into the air towards Tartary. there indeed lies some cause of suspicion I am apt to believe, thatif something like upon them. It is certain, that there is no this method of punishment should prevail in authority for persons who have nothing else England (such is the natural good sense of to do, to pass away hours of conversation the British nation,) that whether we ram- upon the miscarriages of other people; but med an atheist whole into a great gun, or since they will do so, they who value their pulverized our infidels, as they do in Po- reputation should be cautious of appearland, we should not have many charges. ances to their disadvantage: but very often I should, however, premise, while our our young women,,aswellasth-miiddleammunitionlasted, that, instead of Tartary, aged, I e-t gay part of those growing we should always keep two or three cannons old, without entering into a formal league ready pointed towards the Cape of Good for that purpose, to a woman, agree upon Hope, in order to shoot our unbelievers into a short way to preserve their characters, the country of the Hottentots., and go on in a way that at best is only not In my opinion, a solemn judicial death is vicious. The method is, when an ill-natured too great an honour for an atheist; though I ortalkative girl has said any thing that bears must allow the method of exploding him, as hard upon some part of another's carriage, it is practised in this ludicrous kind of mar- this creature, if not in any of their little tyrdom, has something in it proper enough cabals, is run down for the most censorious, to the nature of his offence. dangerous odZy.in th. World Thus they There is indeed a great objection against guard their reputation rather than their this manner of treating them. Zeal for re- modesty.; as if guilt lay in being under the ligion is of so effective a nature that it sel- imputation of a fault, and not in a commisdom knows where to rest: for which reason sion of it. Orbicilla is the kindest poor I am afraid, after having discharged our thing in town, but the most blushing creaatheists, we might possibly think of shoot- ture living. It is true, she has not lost the ing off our sectaries; and as one does not sense of shame, but she has lost the sense foresee the vicissitudes of human affairs, it ofjnnocene. — If she had more confidence, might one time or other come to a man's a:ndin'ever did any thing which ought to own turn to fly out of the mouth of a demi- stain her cheeks, would she not be much culverin. more modest, without that ambiguous sufIf any of my readers imagine that I have fusion which is the livery both of guilt and treated these gentlemen in too ludicrous a innocence? Modesty consists in being conmanner, I must confess, for my own part, I scious of no ill, and not in being ashamed think reasoning against such unbelievers, of having done it. When people go upon upon a point that shocks the common sense any other foundation than the truth of their of mankind, is doing them too great an ho- own hearts for the conduct of their actions, tiour, giving them a figure in the eye of the it lies inthe.power of scandalous tongues to world, and making people fancy that they carry the world before them, and make have more in them than they really have. the rest of mankind fall in with the ill for As for those persons who have any scheme fear of ireproactih.''On the other hand, to do of religious worship, I am for treating such what you ought, is the ready way to make with the utmost tenderness, and should calumny either silent, or ineffectually maendeavour to show them their errors with licious. Spenser, in his Fairy Queen, says the greatest temper and humanity; but as admirably to young ladies under the disthese miscreants are for throwing down re- tress of being defamed: ligion in general, for stripping mankind of The best,' said he,that I can you advise, what themselves own is of excellent use in Is to avoid th' occasion of the ill: all great societies, without once offering to For when the cause, whence evil doth arise, establish any thing in the room of it, I think Removed is, th' effect surceaseth still. Abstain from pleasure, and restrain your will, the best way of dealing with them, is to re- Subdue desire, and bridle loose delight: tort their own weapons upon them, which Use scanty diet, and forbear your fill; are those of scorn and mockery. X. hun secresy, and talk in open sight So shall you soon repair your present evil plight.' _7 ^'' - _ Instead of this care over their words and No. 90.1 ednedy',Ay 28, 12 actions, recommended by a poet in old No. 390.] rednesday, Allay 28, 1712. queen Bess's days, the modern way is to Non pudendo, sed non fasciendo id quod non decet, say and do what you please, and yet be the impudentia nomen effugere debemus. Tull. prettiest sort of woman in the world. If It is not by blushing, but by not doing what is unbe- fathers -and brothfiers will defend a lady's aoming, that we ought to guard against the imputation honour, she is quite as safe as in her own of impudence. innocence. Many of the distressed, who MANY are the epistles I receive from suffer under the malice of evil tongues, are ladies extremely afflicted that they lie so harmless, that they ai'eevery day they under the observation of scandalous people, live asleep till twelve at noon; concern who love to defame their neighbours, and themselves with nothing but their own permake the unjustest interpretation of inno- sons till two; take their necessary food becent and indiffereit actions. Thlcy describe tween that time and four; visit, go to the No. 391.] THE SPECTATOR. 113 play, and sit up at cards till towards the Ebullit patrui preclarum funus! Et 0 si Sub rastro crepet argenti mihi seria dextro epsuing m-n;an the malicious world shall..Hercule! pupillumve utinam, quem proximus hares draw conclusions from innocent glances, Impello, expungam! Pers. Sat. ii. v. 3. short whispers, or pretty familiar railleries Thou knost to join with fashionable men, that these fair ones No bribe unhallow'd to a prayer of thine; are not as rigid as vestals. It is certain, Thine, which can ev'ry ear's full test abide, say these goodest creatures very well, Nor need be mutter'd to the gods aside! say'.^ -.^ ~ 2.^ 2 No, thou aloud may'st thy petitions trust; that virtue does not consist in constrained Thou need'st not whisper, other great ones must. behaviour and wry faces; that must be al- For few, my friend, few dare like thee be plain, lowed: but there is a decency in the aspect And prayer's low artifice at shrines disdain. o ladies, contracted fom a Few from their pious mumblings dare depart, and manner oi ladies, contracted m And make profession of their inmost heart. habit of virtue, and from general reflec- Keep me, indulgent Heaven, through life sincere, tions that regard a modest conduct, all Keep my mind sound, my reputation clear, whic m be understood, though they These wishes they can speak, and we can hear. whiclh may be understood, though they Thus far their wants are audibly express'd; cannot be described. A young woman of Then sinks the voice, and muttering groans the rest this sort claims an esteem mixed with affec- Hea, hear at length, good Hercules, my vow! O chink some pot of gold beneath my plow! tion and honour, and meets with no defa- C ould I, O could I to my ravish'd eyes mation; or, if she does, the wild malice is See my rich uncle's pompous funeral rise; overcome with an undisturbed persever- Or could I once my ward's cold corpse attend; ance in her innocence. To speak freely, Then allwere mine!' there are such coveys of coquettes about WHERE Homer represents Phoenix, the this town, that if the peace were not kept tutor of Achilles, as persuading his pupil to by some impertinent tongues of their own lay aside his resentment, and give himself sex, which keep them under some re- up to the entreaties of his countrymen, the straint, we should have no manner of en- poet, in order to make him speak in chagagement upon them to keep them in any racter, ascribes to him a speech full of tolerable order. those fables and allegories which old men As I am a Spectator, and behold how take delight in relating, and which are very plainly one part of woman-kind balance the proper for instruction. The gods,' says behaviour of the other, whatever I may he,'suffer themselves to be prevailed upon think of tale-bearers or slanderers, I can- by entreaties. When mortals have offendnot wholly suppress them, no more than a ed them by their transgressions, they apgeneral would discourage spies. The enemy pease them by vows and sacrifices. You would easily surprise him whom they knew must know, Achilles, that prayers are the had no intelligence of their motions. It is daughters of Jupiter. They are crippled so far otherwise with me, that I acknow- by frequently kneeling, have their faces ledge I permit a she-slanderer or two in full of scars and wrinkles, and their eyes every quarter of the town, to live in the always cast towards heaven. They are characters of coquettes, and take all the constant attendants on the goddess Ate, innocent freedoms of the rest, in order to and march behind her. This goddess walks send me information of the behaviour of the forward with a bold and haughty air; and, respective sisterhoods. being very light of foot, runs through the But as the matter of respect to the world whole earth, grieving and afflicting the which looks on, is carried on, methinks it sons of men. She gets the start of Prayers, is so very easy to be what is in general who always follow her, in order to heal called virtuous, that it need not cost one those persons whom she wounds. He who hour's reflection in a month to deserve that honours these daughters of Jupiter, when appellation. It is pTasant to hear the they draw near to him, receives great benepretty rogues talk of vyitue..and vice fit from them; but as for him who rejects among each other.'She is the laziest them, they entreat their father to give his creature in the world, but I must confess, orders to the goddess Ate, to punish him for strictly virtuous; the peevishest hussy his hardness of heart.' This noble allegory breathing, but as to her virtue, she is with- needs but little explanation; for, whether out blemish. She has not the least charity the goddess Ate signifies injury, as some for any of her acquaintance, but I must have explained it; or guilt in general, as allow her rigidly virtuous.' As the unthink- others; or divine justice, as I am more apt to ing part of the male world call every man think; the interpretation is obvious enough, a man of honour who is not a coward; so I shall produce another heathen fable the crowd of the other sex terms every relating to prayers, which is of g more diwoman who will not be a wench, virtuous. verting kind. One would think by some T. passages in it, that it was composed by Lucian, or at least by some author who has No. 391.] Thursday, M:ay 29, 1712. endeavoured to imitate his way of writing; No.3911 zurda, J2,. but as dissertations of this nature are more — Non tu prece poscis emaci, -~Non tu prece poscis emaci, curious than useful, I shall give my reader tume nisi seductis nequeas committere divis: curious tan useful, snal give my reader At bona pars procerum tacitalibabit acerra. rsusurros the fable, without any further inquiries Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque humilesque after the author. Tollere de templis; et aperto vivere voto. Menippus the philosopher was a second Mens bona, fama, fides; ha-c clare, et ut audiat hospes, Menippus the philosopherwas asecond Illa sibi introrsum et sub lingua immurmurat: O si time taken up into heaven by Jupiter, when VOL. II. 15 114 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 391. for his entertainment, he lifted up a trap- he desires me to take his father, who keeps door that was placed by his footstool. At a great estate from him, out of the miseries its rising, there issued through it such a of human life. The old fellow shall live din of cries as astonished the philosopher. till he makes his heart ache, I can tell him Upon his asking what they meant, Jupiter that for his pains." This was followed up told him they were the prayers that were by the soft voice of a pious lady, desiring sent up to him from the earth. Menippus, Jupiter that she might appear amiable and amidst the confusion of voices, which was charming in the sight of her emperor. As so great that nothing less than the ear of the philosopher was reflecting on this exJove could distinguish them, heard the traordinary petition, there blew a gentle words "riches, honour," and'long life," wind through the trap-door which he at repeated in several different tones and lan- first took for a gentle gale of zephyrs, but guages. When the first hubbub of sounds afterwards found it to be a breeze of sighs. was over, the trap-door being left open, They smelt strong of flowers and incense, the voices came up more separate and dis- and were succeeded by most passionate tinct. The first prayer was a very odd one; complaints of wounds and torments, fire it came from Athens, and desired Jupiter and arrows, cruelty, despair and death. to increase the wisdom and beard of his Menippus fancied that such lamentable humble supplicant. Menippus knew it by cries arose from some general execution, the voice to be the prayer of his friend Li- or from wretches lying under the torture; cander the philosopher. This was succeed- but Jupiter told him that they came up to ed by the petition of one who had just laden him from the isle of Paphos, and that he a ship, and promised Jupiter, if he took every day received complaints of the same care of it, and returned it home again full nature from that whimsical tribe of mortals of riches, he would make him an offering who are called lovers. " I am so trifled of a silver cup. Jupiter thanked him for with," says he, "by this generation of both nothing; and bending down his ear more sexes, and find it so impossible to please attentively than ordinary, heard a voice them, whether I grant or refuse their peti complaining to him of the cruelty of an tions, that I shall order a western wind foi Ephesian widow, and begged him to breed the future to intercept them in their pas compassion in her heart. "This," says sage, and blow them at random upon the Jupiter, "is a very honest fellow. I have earth." The last petition I heard was from received a great deal of incense from him; a very aged man of near a hundred years I will not be so cruel to him as not to hear old, begging but for one year more of life, his prayers." He was then interrupted and then promising tobe contented. "This with a whole volley of vows which were is the rarest old fellow!" says Jupiter; "he made for the health of a tyrannical prince has made this prayer to me for above by his subjects, who prayed for him in his twenty years together. When he was but presence. iMenippus was surprised after fifty years old, he desired only that he having listened to prayers offered up with might live to see his son settled in the world: so much ardour and devotion, to hear low I granted it. He then begged the same fawhispers from the same assembly, expos- vour for his daughter, and afterwards that tulating with Jove for suffering such a he might see the education of a grandson. tyrant to live, and asking him how his When all this was brought about, he puts thunder could lie idle? Jupiter was so up a petition that he might live to finish a offended with these prevaricating rascals, house he was building. In short, he is an that he took down the first vows, and puffed unreasonable old cur, and never wants an away the last. The philosopher, seeing a excuse; I will hear no more of him." Upon great cloud mounting upwards, and making which he flung down the trap-door in a its way directly to the trap-door, inquired passion, and was resolved to give no more of Jupiter what it meant. "This,' says audiences that day.' Jupiter, "is the smoke of a whole heca- Notwithstanding the levity of this fable, tomb that is offered me by the general of the moral of it very well deserves our atan army, who is very importunate with me tention, and is the same with that which has to let him cut off a hundred thousand men been inculcated by Socrates and Plato, not that are drawn up in array against him. to mention Juvenal and Persius, who have What does the impudent wretch think I each of them made the finest satire in their see in him, to believe that I will make a whole works upon this subject. The vanity sacrifice of so many mortals as good as him- of men's wishes which are the natural self, and all this to his glory forsooth? But prayers of the mind, as well as many of hark!" says Jupiter, "there is a voice I those secret devotions which they offer to never heard but in time of danger:'tis a the Supreme Being, are sufficiently exposed rogue that is shipwrecked in the Ionian by it. Among other reasons for set forms of sea. I saved him on a plank but three days prayer, I have often thought it a very good ago upon his promise to mend his manners; one, that by this means the folly and ex the scoundrel is not worth a groat, and yet travagance of men's desires ma) be kept has the impudence to offer me a temple, if within due bounds, and not break out M I will keep him from sinking.-But yon- absurd and ridiculous petitions on so grea der," says he, " is a special youth for you; and solemn an occasion I No. 392.] THE SPECTATOR. 115 No. 392.] Friday, May 30, 1712. to me, that is was pleasantly said, had I Per ambages et ministeria deorum been little enough, she would have hung recipitandus est liber spiritus. Petron. me at her girdle. The most dangerous By fable's aid ungovern'd fancy soars, rival I had, was a gay empty fellow, who And claims the ministry of heav'nly powers. by the strength of a long intercourse with The transformation of Fidelio into a look- Narcissa, joined to his natural endowments, fin-las. had formed himself into a perfect resemblance with her. I had been discarded, had MR. SPECTATOR,-I was lately at a she not observed that he frequently asked tea-table, where some young ladies enter- my opinion about matters'of the last contained the company with a relation of a co- sequence. This made me still more conquette in the neighbourhood, who had been siderable in her eye. discovered practising before her glass. To "Though I was eternally caressed by turn the discourse, which from being witty the ladies, such was their opinion of my grew to be malicious, the matron of the honour, that I was never envied by the family took occasion from the subject to men. A jealous lover of Narcissa one day wish that there were to be found amongst thought he had caught her in an amorous men such faithful monitors to dress the conversation: for, though he was at such a mind by, as we consult to adorn the body. distance that he could hear nothing, he She added, that if a sincere friend were imagined strange things from her airs and miraculously changed into a looking-glass, gestures. Sometimes with a serene look she should not be ashamed to ask its advice she stepped back in a listening posture, very often. This whimsical thought work- and brightened into an innocent smile. ed so much upon my fancy the whole even- Quickly after she swelled into an air of ing, that it produced a very odd dream. majesty and disdain, then kept her eyes' Methought that, as I stood before my half shut after a languishing manner, then glass, the image of a youth of an open in- coveredher blushes with herhand,breathed genuous aspect appeared in it, who with a a sigh, and seemed ready to sink down. shrill voice spoke in the following manner: In rushed the furious lover; but how great " The looking-glass you see was hereto- was his surprise to see no one there but the fore a man, even I, the unfortunate Fidelio. innocent Fidelio with his back against the I had two brothers, whose deformity in wall betwixt two windows! shape was made up by the clearness of their "It were endless to recount all my adunderstanding. It must be owned, how- ventures. Let me hasten to that which ever, that (as it generally happens) they cost me my life, and Narcissa her happihad each a perverseness of humour suitable ness. to their distortion of body. The eldest, "She had the misfortune to have the whose belly sunk in monstrously, was a small-pox, upon which I was expressh great coward, and, though his splenetic forbid her sight, it being apprehended that contracted temper made him take fire im- it would increase her distemper, and that mediately, he made objects that beset him I should infallibly catch it at the first look. appear greater than they were. The se- As soon as she was suffered to leave her cond, whose breast swelled into a bold re- bed, she stole out of her chamber, and lievo, on the contrary, took great pleasure found me all alone in an adjoining apartin lessening every thing, and was perfectly ment. She ran with transport to her darthe reverse of his brother. These oddnesses ling, and without mixture of fear lest I pleased company once or twice, but dis- should dislike her. But, oh me! what was gusted when often seen; for which reason, her fury when she heard me say, I was the young gentlemen were sent from court afraid and shocked at so loathsome a specto study mathematics at the university. tacle! She stepped back, swollen with "I need not acquaint you, that I was very rage, to see if I had the insolence to rewell made, and reckoned a bright polite peat it. I did, with this addition, that gentleman. I was the confidant and darling her ill-timed passion had increased her of all the fair; and if the old and ugly spoke ugliness. Enraged, inflamed, distracted, ill of me, all the world knew it was because she snatched a bodkin, and with all her I scorned to flatter them. No ball, no as- force stabbed me to the heart. Dying, I sembly, was attended till I had been con- preserved my sincerity, and expressed the suited. Flavia coloured her hair before truth though in broken words; and by reme, Celia showed me her teeth, Panthea proachful grimaces to the last I mimicked heaved her bosom, Cleora brandished her the deformity of my murderess. diamond; I have seen Cloe's foot, and tied "Cupid, who always attends the fair, artificially the garters of Rhodope. and pitied the fate of so useful a servant as " It is a general maxim, that those who I was, obtained of the destinies, that my dote upon themselves can have no violent body should remain incorruptible, and reaffection for another; but on thelcontrary, tain the qualities my mind had possessed. I found that the women's passion rose for I immediately lost the figure of a man, and me in proportion to the love they bore to became smooth, polished, and bright, and themselves. This was verified in my to this day am the first favourite of the amour with Narcissa, who was so constant ladies." T. 116 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 393.'qo. 393.] Saturday, May 31, 1712. through the mind of the belolder, upor. surveying the gay scenes of nature: he has Nescio qua prter solitum dulcednelati. 4 touched upon it twice or thrice in his PaUnusual sweetness purer joys inspires. radise Lost, and describes it very beautifully under the name of' vernal delight,' in LOOKING over the letters that have been that passage where he represents the devil sent me, I chanced to find the following himself as almost sensible of it: one, which I received about two years ago Blossoms and fruits at once a goden hue from an ingenious friend who was then in Appear'd with gay enamell'd colours mixt: Denmark. On which the sun more glad impress'd his bears Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow, Copenhagen, May 1, 1710. When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'r}'DEAR SIR,-The spring with you has That landskip, and of pure now purer air already taken possession of the fields and Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires Verna. delight, and joy able to drive woods. Now is the season of solitude, and All sadness, but despair, &c. of moving complaints upon trivial suffer- ings. Now the griefs of lovers begin to Many authors have written on the vanity flow, and the wounds to bleed afresh. I, of the creature and represented the bartoo, at this distance from the softer climates, renness of everything in this world, and its am not without my discontents at present. incapacit oproducingany solid or subYou may perhaps laugh at me for a most stantial happiness. As discourses of this romantic wretch, when I have disclosed to nature are very useful to the sensual and romanticwretch, when have disclosed tovhi youthe occasion of my uneasiness: and yet voluptuous, those peculations hich sho I cannot help thinking my unhappiness the bright side of things, and lay forth real, in being confined to a region whi"h those innocent entertainments which are to fev erye iePadi~ ~ be met with among the several objects that is the very reverse of Paradise. The seasons be met with among the several objects that here are all of them unpleasant, and the encompass us, are no less beneficial to men country quite destitute of rural charms. I of dark and melancholy tempers. It was have not heard a bird sing, nor a brook for this reason that I endeavoured to re murmur nor a breeze whisper, neither commend a cheerfulness of mind in my two have I been blest with the sight of a flow- last Saturday's papers, and which I would ery meadow, these two years. Every wind still inculcate, not only from the considera. here is a tempest, and every water a tur-tion of ourselves, and of that Being on whom oulent ocean. I hope, when you reflect a we depend, nor from the general survey of little, you will not think the grounds of my that universe in which we are placed at complaint in the least frivolous and unbe- present, but from reflections on the parcoming a man of serious thought; since the ticular season in which this paper is writlove of woods, of fields and flowers, of rivers ten. The creation is a perpetual feast to the mind of a good man; every thing he sees and fountains, seems to be a passion im- che nd of agodmahi. Prvienghe sees planted in our natures the most early of any, cheers and delights him. Providence has even before the fair sx had a ein imprinted so many smiles on nature, that it even beir. is impossible for a mind which is not sunk iam, ii, c. in more gross and sensual delights, to take Could I transport myself with a wish, a survey of them without several secret from one country to another, I should choose sensations of pleasure. The psalmist has, to pass my winter in Spain, my spring in in several of his divine poems, celebrated Italy, my summer in England, and my au- those beautiful and agreeable scenes which tumn in France. Of all these seasons there make the heart glad, and produce in it that is none that can vie with the spring for vernal delight which I have before taken beauty and delightfulness. It bears the notice of. same figure among the seasons of the year, Natural philosophy quickens this taste that the morning does among the divisions of of the creation, and renders it not only the day; or youth among the stages of life. pleasing to the imagination, but to the un-'he English summer is pleasanter than that derstanding. It does not rest in the mur of any other country in Europe, on no other mur of brooks and the melody of birds, in account but because it has a greater mix- the shade of groves and woods, or in the ture of spring in it. The mildness of our embroidery of fields and meadows; but conclimate, with those frequent refreshments siders the several ends of Providence which of dews and rains that fall among us, keep are served by them, and the wonders of up a perpetual cheerfulness in our fields, divine wisdom which appear in them. It and fill the hottest months of the year with heightens the pleasures of the eye, and a lively verdure, raises such a rational admiration in the In the opening of the spring, when all soul as is little inferior to devotion. nature begins to recover herself, the same It is not in the power of every one to animal pleasure which makes the birds offer up this kind of worship to the great sing, and the whole brute creation rejoice, Author of nature, and to indulge these rises very sensibly in the heart of man. I more refined meditations of heart, which know none of the poets who have observed are doubtless highly acceptable in his sight, so well as Milton those secret overflow- I shall therefore conclude this short essay inms of gladness which diffuse themselves on that pleasure which the mind naturally No, 394.] THE SPECTATOR. 117 conceives frim the present season of the verses, and working from the observation year, by the recommending of a practice of such their bias in all matters wherein he for which every one has sufficient abilities, has any intercourse with them: for his ease I would have my readers endeavour to and comfort he may assure himself, he need moralize this natural pleasure of the soul, not be at the expense of any great talent or and to improve this vernal delight, as Mil- virtue to please even those who are poston calls it, into a Christian virtue. When sessed of the highest qualifications. Pride, we find ourselves inspired with this pleasing in some particular disguise or other, (often instinct, this secret satisfaction and compla- a secret to the proud man himself) is the cency arising from the beauties of the crea- most ordinary spring of action among men. tion, let us consider to whom we stand in- You need no more than to discover what a debted for all these entertainments of sense, man values himself for;' then of all things and who it is that thus opens his hand and admire that quality, but be sure to be failfills the world with good. The apostle in- ing in it yourself in comparison of the man structs us to take advantage of our present whom you court. I have heard, or read, temper of mind, to graft upon it such a re- of a secretary of state in Spain, who served ligious exercise as is particularly conform- a prince who was happy in an elegant use able to it, by that precept which advises of the Latin tongue, and often writ dethose who are sad to pray, and those who spatches in it with his own hand. The king are merry to sing psalms. The cheerful- showed his secretary a letter he had writness of heart which springs up in us from ten to a foreign prince, and, under the colour the survey of nature's works, is an admira- of asking his advice, laid a trap for his apble preparation for gratitude. The mind plause. The honest man read it as a faithhas gone a great way towards praise and ful counsellor, and not only excepted against thanksgiving, that is filled with such secret his tying himself down too much by some gladness-a grateful reflection on the su- expressions, but mended the phrase in preme cause who produces it, sanctifies it others. You may guess the despatches in the soul, and gives it its proper value. that evening did not take much longer Such an habitual disposition of mind conse- time. Mr. Secretary as soon as he came to crates every field and wood, turns an ordi- his own house, sent for his eldest son, and nary walk into a morning or evening sa- communicated to him that the family must crifice, and will improve those transient retire out of Spain as soon as possible:'for,' gleams of joy which naturally brighten up said he,' the king knows I understand Latin and refresh the soul on such occasions, into better than he does.' an inviolable and perpetual state of bliss This egregious fault in a man of the world and happiness. I. should be a lesson to all who would make their fortunes; but regard must be carefully had to the person with whom you have to No. 394.1 Monday, June 2, 1712. do; for it is not to be doubted but a great man of common sense must look with secret Bene colligitur hec pueris et mulierculis et servis et ser- indignation, or bridled laughter, on all the vorum similimis liberisessegrata: gravivero homini slaves who stand around him with ready et ea quee fiunt judicio certo ponderanti, probari posse faces to approve and smile at all he says in nullo modo.- Tull. faces to approve and smile at all he says in nullo modo-Tull. the gross. It is good comedy enough to It is obvious to see, that these things are very accept observe a superior talkg half sentences, able to children, young women, and servants, and to observe a superior talking half sentences such as most resemble servants; but that they can by and playing an humble admirer's counteno means meet with the approbation of people of nance from one thing to another, with such thought and considerationperplexity, that he knows not what to sneer I HAVE been considering the little and in approbation of. But this kind of corn frivolous things which give men accesses to plaisance is peculiarly the manner of courts; one another, and power with each other, in all other places you must constantly go not only in the common and indifferent ac- further in complance with the persons you cidents of life, but also in matters of greater have to do with, than a mere conformity of importance. You see in elections for mem- looks and gestures. If you are in a country bers to sit in parliament, how far saluting life, and would be a leading man, a good rows of old women, drinking with clowns, stomach, a loud voice, and rustic cheerful and being upon a level with the lowest part ness, will go a great way, provided you are of mankind in that wherein they themselves able to drink, and drink any thing. But I are lowest, their diversions, will carry a was just now going to draw the manner of candidate. A capacity for prostituting a behaviour I would advise people to practise man's self in his behaviour, and descending under some maxim; and intimated, that to the present humour of the vulgar, is per- every one almost was governed b'r his pride. haps as good an ingredient as any other for There was an old fellow about forty years making a considerable figure in the world; ago so peevish and fretful, though a man of and if a man has nothing else or better to business, that no one could come at him; think of, le could not make his way to but he frequented a particular little coffeewealth and distinction by properer me- house, where he triumphed over every body thods, than studying the particular bent or at trick-track and backgammon. The way inclination of people with whom he con- to pass his office well, was first to be insulted 118 THE SPECTATOR. fNo. 395. by him at one of those games in his leisure But, though I hope for the best, I shall hours; for his vanity was to show that he not pronounce too positively on this point, was a man of pleasure as well as business. till I have seen forty weeks well over; at Next to this sort of insinuation, which is which period of time, as my good friend called in all places (from its taking its birth Sir Roger has often told me, he has more in the household of princes) making one's business as justice of peace, among the discourt, the most prevailing way is, by what solute young people in the country, than at better-bred people call a present, the vul- any other season of the year. gar a bribe. I humbly conceive that such Neither must I forget a letter which I a thing Is conveyed with more gallantry in received near a fortnight since from a lady, a billet-doux that should be understood at who, it seems, could hold out no longer, tellthe Bank, than in gross money: but as to ing me she looked upon the month as then stubborn people, who are so surly as to ac- out, for that she had all along reckoned by cept of neither note nor cash, having for- the new style. merly dabbled in chemistry, I can only say, On the other hand, I have great reason that one part of matter asks one thing, and to believe, from several angry letters which another another, to make it fluent: but have been sent to me by disappointed lovers, there is nothing but may be dissolved by a that my advice has been of very signal serproper mean. Thus, the virtue which is vice to the fair sex, who, according to the too obdurate for gold or paper, shall melt old proverb, were'forewarned, forearmed.' away very kindly in a liquid. The island One of these gentlemen tells me, that he of Barbadoes (a shrewd people) manage all would have given me a hundred pounds, their appeals to Great Britain by a skilful rather than I should have published that distribution of citron water* among the paper; for that his mistress, who had prowhisperers about men in power. Generous mised to explain herself to him about the wines do every day prevail, and that in great beginning of May, upon reading that dispoints, where ten thousand times their value course told him, that she would give him would have been rejected with indignation. her answer in June. But, to wave the enumeration of the sun- Thyrsis acquaints me, that when he dedry ways of applying by presents, bribes, sired Sylvia to take a walk in the fields, she management of people's passions and affec- told him, the Spectator had forbidden her. tions, in such a manner as it shall appear Another of my correspondents, who that the virtue of the best man is by one writes himself Mat Meager, complains method or other corruptible, let us look out that, whereas he constantly used to breakfor some expedient to turn those passions fast with his mistress upon chocolate; going and affections on the side of truth and ho- to wait upon her the first of May, he found nour. When a man has laid it down for a his usual treat very much changed for the position, that parting with his integrity, in worse, and has been forced to feed ever the minuter circumstance, is losing so much since upon green tea. of his very self, self-love will become a vir- As I begun this critical season with a tue. By this means good and evil will be caveat to the ladies, I shall conclude it the only objects of dislike and approbation; with a congratulation, and do most heartily and he that injures any man, has effectually wish them joy of their happy deliverance. wounded the man of this turn as much as They may now reflect with pleasure on if the harm had been to himself. This the dangers they have escaped, and look seems to be the only expedient to arrive at back with as much satisfaction on the perils an impartiality; and a man who follows the that threatened them, as their great granddictates of truth and right reason, may by mothers did formerly on the burning ploughartifice be led into error, but never can into shares, after having passed through the guilt. T. ordeal trial. The instigations of the spring _ are now abated. The nightingale gives fN 3 over her'love-labour'd song,' as Milton No. 395.] Tuesday, June 3, 1712. phrases it; the blossoms are fallen, and the Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fait. beds of flowers swept away by the scythe Ovid. Rem. J.mor. 10. of the mower.'Tis reason now,'twas appetite before. I shall now allow my fair readers to BEWARE of the ides of March,' said thereturn to their romances and chocolate, Roman augur to Julius Czsar:' Beware of provided they make use of them with mode the month of May,' says the British Spec- ration, till about the middle of the month, tator to his fair country-women. The cau- when the sun shall have made some pro tion of the first was unhappily neglected, gress in the Crab. Nothing is more danand Cesar's confidence cost him his life. I gerous than too much confidence and secu am apt to flatter myself that my pretty rity. The Trojans, who stood upon their readers had much more regard to the ad- guard all the while the Grecians lay before vice I gave them, since I have yet received their city, when they fancied the siege was very few accounts of any notorious trips raised, and the daiger past, were the very made in the last month. next night burnt in their beds. I must also observe, that as in some climates there is * Then commonly called Barbadoes water. perpetual spring, so in some female consti ANo. z96. THE SPECTATOR. 119 tutions there is a perpetual May. These ceived about half a year ago from a gentleare a kind of vaitladinarians in chastity, man at Cambridge, who styles himself Pe whom I would continue in a constant diet. ter de Quir. I have kept it by me some I cannot think these wholly out of danger, months; and, though I did not know at first till they have looked upon the other sex at what to make of it, upon my reading it over least five years through a pair of spectacles, very frequently I have at last discovered Will Honeycomb has often assured me, that several conceits m it: I would not therefore it is much easier to steal one of this species, have my reader discouraged if he does not when she has passed her grand climacteric, take them at the first perusal. than to carry off an icy girl on this side five-and-twenty; and that a rake of his ac-' To the Sfectator. quaintance, who had in vain endeavoured to'From St. John's College, Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1712. gain the affections of a young lady of fifteen,' SIR,-The monopoly of puns in this unihad at last made his fortune by running versity has been an immemorial privilege away with her grandmother. of the Johnians:* and we can't help resentBut as I do not design this speculation for ing the late invasion of our ancient rights as the evergreens of the sex, I shall again ap- to that particular, by a little pretender to ply myself to those who would willingly clenching in a neighbouring college, who in listen to the dictates of reason and virtue, application to you by way of letter, a while and can now hear me in cold blood. If ago, styled himself Philobrune. Dear sir, there are any who have forfeited their inno- as you are by character a professed wellcence, they must now consider themselves wisher to speculation, you will excuse a reunder that melancholy view in which Cha- mark which this gentleman's passion for the mont regards his sister, in those beautiful brunette has suggested to a brother theorist; lines: it is an offer towards a mechanical account; ~ Long she flourish'd, of his lapse to punning, for he belongs to a Grew sweet to sense, and lovely to the eye. set of mortals who value themselves upon an Till at the last a cruel spoiler came,and Crept this fair rose, and rifled all its sweetness, uncommon mastery inthe more humane and Then cast it like a loathsome weed away.' polite parts of letters. On the contrary, she who has observed A conquest by one of this species of'A conquaest by one of this species of the timely cautions I gave her, and lived up tellectals gives a very od d tur n to the into the rules of modesty, will now flourish tellectals of the captivated person, and like'a rose in June,' with all her virgin different from that way of thinking blushes and sweetness about her. I must, which a triumph from the eyes of another, however, desire these last to consider, how more emphatically of the fair sex, does geshameful it would be for a general who has nerally occasion. It fills the imagination made a successful campaign, to be surprised with an assemblage of such ideas and picwithoan ardem blye good- n sh degase an rpi in his winter quarters. It would be no less tures as are hardly any thing but shade, dishonourable for a lady to lose, in any other such as night, the devil, &c. These pormonth in the year, what she has been at the traitures very near overpower the light or pains to preserve ina May. tthe understanding, almost benight the faThere is no charm in the female sex that culties, and give that melancholy tincture can supply the place of virtue. Without to the mostsanguine complexion, which innocence, beauty is unlovely, and quality this gentleman calls an inclination to be in a contemptible; good-breeding degenerates brown-study, and is usually attended with into wantonness, and wit into impudence. worse consequences in case of a repulse. It is observed, that all the virtues are eDuring this twilight of intellects the patient it is observed, that all the virtues are rqe-u presented by both painters and statuaries is extremely apt, as love is the most witty presented by both painters and statua1es nature, to offer at some pert sali under female shapes; but ifany of them has passion in nature, to offer at so pert sal a more particular title to that sex, it is mo- lies now and then, by way of flourish, upon desty. I shall leave it to the divines to the amiable enchantress, and unfortunately guard them against the opposite vice, as stumbles upon that mongrel miscreated (to they may be overpowered by temptations. speak in Miltonic) kind of wit, vulgarly It is sufficient for me to have warned them termed the pun. It would not be much against it, as they may be led astray by in- amiss to consult Dr. T.- W -\ (who is agatinct. certainly a very able projector, and whose I desire this paper may be read with system of divinity and spiritual mechanics more than ordinary attention, at all tea- obtains very much among the better part of tables within the cities of London and West- our under-graduates) whether a general minster. X. intermarriage, enjoined by parliament, be tween this sisterhood of the olive-beauties - and the fraternity of the people called quakers, would not be a very serviceable exNo. 396.] Wednesday, June 4, 1712. pedient, and abate that overflow of light Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Feri, Baralipton. which shines within them so powerfully, that it dazzles their eyes, and dances them HAVING a great deal of business upon my into a thousand vagaries of error and enthuhands at present, I shall beg the reader's -- leave to present him with a letter that I re- * The students of St. John's College. 120 THE SPECI ATOR'No. 397 siasm. These reflections may impart some pearance of grief; but when one told them light towaids a discovery of the origin of of any calamity that had befallen even the punning among us, and the foundation of its aearest of their acquaintance, would immeprevailing so long in this famous body. It diately reply,'What is that to me?' If you is notorious from the instance under consi- aggravated the circumstance of the afflicderation, that it must be owing chiefly to the tion, and showed how one misfortune was use of brown jugs, muddy belch, and the followed by another, the answer was still, fumes of a certain memorable place of ren-' All this may be true, and what is it to me>' dezvous with us at meals, known by the For my own part, I am of opinion, corn name of Staincoat Hole: for the atmosphere passion does not only refine and civilize hu of the kitchen, like the tail of a comet, pre- man nature, but has something in it more dominates least about the fire, but resides pleasing and agreeable than what can be oehind, and fills the fragrant receptacle met with in such an indolent happiness, above mentioned. Besides, it is further such an indifference to mankind, as that in observable, that the delicate spirits among which the Stoics placed their wisdom. As us, who declare against these nauseous pro- love is the most delightful passion, pity is -eedings, sip tea, and put up for critic and nothing else but love softened by a degree amour, profess likewise an equal abhor- of sorrow In short, it is a kind of pleasing rence for punning, the ancient innocent di- anguish, as well as generous sympathy, that version of this society. After all, sir, though knits mankind together, and blends them in it may appear something absurd that I seem the same common lot. to approach you with the air of an advocate Those who have laid down rules for rhefor punning, (you who have justified your toric or poetry, advise the writer to work censures of the practice in a set dissertation himself up, if possible, to the'pitch of sorupon that subject*) yet I am confident you row which he endeavours to produce in will think it abundantly atoned for by ob- others. There are none therefore who stir serving, that this humbler exercise may be up pity so much as those who indite their as instrumental in diverting us from any in- own sufferings. Grief has a natural elonovating schemes and hypotheses in wit, as quence belonging to it, and breaks cut in dwelling upon honest orthodox logic would more moving sentiments than can be supbe in securing us from heresy in religion. plied by the finest imagination. Nature on Had Mr. W n'st researches been con- this occasion dictates a thousand passionate fined within the bounds of Ramus or Crack- things which cannot be supplied by art. enthorp, that learned news-monger might It is for this reason that the short speeches have acquiesced in what the holy oracles or sentences which we often meet with in pronounced upon the deluge like other history make a deeper impression on the Christians; and had the surprising Mr. mind of the reader than the most laboured L y been content with the employment strokes in a well-written tragedy. Truth of refining upon Shakspeare's points and and matter of fact sets the person actually quibbles (for which he must be allowed to before us in the one, whom fiction places at have a superlative genius,) and now and a greater distance from usinthe other. I do then penning a catch or a ditty, instead not remember to have seen any ancient or of inditing odes and sonnets, the gentle- modern story more affecting than a letter of men of the bon gout in the pit would Ann of Bologne, wife to king Henry the never have been put to all that grimace in Eighth, and mother to Queen Elizabeth, damning the frippery of state, the poverty which is still extant in the Cotton library, and languor of thought, the unnatural wit, as written by her own hand. and inartificial structure of his dramas. I Shakspeare himself could not have made am, sir, your very humble servant, her talk in a strain so suitable to her con-'PETER DPf QUIR.' dition and character. One sees in it the expostulation of a slighted lover, the resent-:~-~~~~ ~~ment 6f an injured woman, and the sorrows No. 397. Thursday, June 5, 1712. of an imprisoned queen. I need not acquaint N'o. 397.] T~ursd5, ~my readers that this princess was then un— Dolor ipse disertam der prosecution for disloyalty to the king's Fecerat - Ovid. Met. xiii. 225. bed, and that she was afterwards publicly Her grief inspired her then with eloquence, beheaded upon the same account; though this prosecution was believed by many to As the stoic philosophers discard all pas- proceed, as she herself intimates, rather sions in general, they will not allow a wise from the king's love to Jane Seymour, man so much as to pity the afflictions of than from any actual crime of Ann of Bo another,'If thou seest thy friend in trou- logne. ble,' says Epictetus,' thou mayest put on a look of sorrow, and condole with him, but Queen lnne Baleyn's last letter to 5ing take care that thy sorrow be not real.' The Henry. more rigid of this sect would not comply so' SIR, far as to show even such an outward ap- Cotton Lib.? Your grace's displeasure, and Otho C. 10. my imprisonment, are things *See Spect. No. 61. t Mr. Whiston. so strange unto me, as what to write, or No. 398.] THE SPECTATOR. 121 what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant, doubt not (whatever the world may think Whereas you send unto me, (willing me to of me,) mine innocence shall be openly confess a truth, and to obtain your favour) known, and sufficiently cleared. by such an one, whom you know to be mine' My last and only request shall be, that ancient professed enemy, I no sooner re- myself may only bear the burden of your ceived this message by him, than I rightly grace's displeasure, and that it may not conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, touch the innocent souls of those poor genconfessing a truth indeed may procure my tlemen who (as I understand,) are likewise safety, I shall with all willingness and duty in straight imprisonment for my sake. If perform your command. ever I have found favour in your sight, if' But let not your grace ever imagine, that ever the name of Ann Boleyn hath been your poor vLfe will ever be brought to pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain acknowledge a fault, where not so much this request, and I will so leave to trouble as a thought thereof proceeded. And to your grace any further, with mine earnest speak a truth, never prince had wife more prayers to the Trinity, to have your grace loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, in his good keeping, and to direct you in than you have ever found in Ann Boleyn: all your actions. From my doleful prison with which name and place I could wil- in the Tower, this sixth of May; your most lingly have contented myself, if God and loyal and ever faithful wife, vour grace's pleasure had been so pleased. L. ANN BOLEYN.' Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation, or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an No. 398.] Friday, June 6, 1712. alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer founda- Insanire pares certa ratione modoque. tion than your grace's fancy, the least al- Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 2. 272 teration I knew was fit and sufficient to You'd be a fool, draw that fancy to some other object. You With art and wisdom, and be mad by rule. have chosen me from a low estate to be rh. your queen and companion, far beyond my CYNTHIO and Flavia are persons of disdesert or desire. If then you found me tinction in this town, who have been lovers worthy of such honour, good your grace, these ten months last past, and writ to each let not any light fancy, or bad counsel of other for gallantry sake under those feigned mine enemies, withdraw your princely fa- names; Mr. Such-a-one and Mrs. Such-avour from me; neither let that stain, that one not being capable of raising the soul unworthy stain of a disloyal heart towards out of the ordinary tracts and passages of your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot life, up to that elevation Which makes the on your most dutiful wife, and the infant life of the enamoured so much superior to princess your daughter. Try me, good king, that of the rest of the world. But ever but let me have a lawful trial, and let not since the beauteous Cecilia has made such my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and a figure as she now does in the circle of judges; yea, let me receive an open trial, charming women, Cynthio has been secretfor my truth shall fear no open shame; then ly one of her adorers. Cecilia has been shall you see either mine innocence cleared, the finest woman in the town these three your suspicion and conscience satisfied, the months, and so long Cynthio has acted the Ignominy and slander of the world stopped, part of a lover very awkwardly in the preor my guilt openly declared. So that, sence of Flavia. Flavia has been too blind whatever God or you may determine of me, towards him, and has too sincere a heart your grace may be freed from an open cen- of her own to observe a thousand things sure; and mine offence being so lawfully which would have discovered this change proved, your grace is at liberty, both before of mind to any one less engaged than she God and man, not only to execute worthy was. Cynthio was musing yesterday in th, punishment on me as an unlawful wife, but piazza in Covent-garden, and was saying to to follow your affection, already settled on himself that he was a very ill man to go on in that party, for whose sake I am now as I visiting and professing love to Flavia, when am, whose name I could some good while his heart was enthralled to another. It is since have pointed unto your grace, not an infirmity that I am not constant to Flaoeing ignorant of my suspicion therein, via; but it would be a still greater crime,' But if you have already determined of since I cannot continue to love her, to prome; and that not only my death, but an in- fess that I do. To marry a woman with famous slander must bring you the enjoying the coldness that usually indeed comes on of your desired happiness; then I desire of after marriage, is ruining one's self with God, that he will pardon your great sin one's eyes open; besides, it is really doing therein, and likewise mine enemies, the in- her an injury. This last consideration, forstruments thereof; and that he will not call sooth, of injuring her in persisting, made vou to a strict account for your unprincely him resolve to break off upon the first and cruel usage of me, at his general judg- favourable opportunity of making her anment seat, where both you and myself must gry. When he was in this thought, he shortly appear, and in whose judgment I saw Robin the porter, who waits at Will's VOL. I1. 16 122 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 398. coffee-house, passirng by. Robin, you must' DEAR CYNTHIO,-I h ave walked a turn know, is the best man in the town for car- or two in my ante-chamber since I writ to rying a billet; the fellow has a thin body, you, and have recovered myself from an swift step, demure looks, sufficient sense, impertinent fit which you ought to forgive and knows the town. This man carried me, and desire you would come to me imCynthio's first letter to Flavia, and, by fre- mediately to laugh off a jealousy that you quent errands ever since, is well known to and a creature of the town went by in a her. The fellow covers his knowledge of hackney-coach an hour ago. I am your the nature of his messages with the most your humble servant, FLAVIA. exquisite low humour imaginable. The first he obliged Flavia to take, was by complain- Cyn writ open the letter which my ing to her that he had a wife and three Cynthio writ pon the miapprehension children, and if she did not take that letter, you must have been under, Ahen you writ, children, and if she did not take that letter, for want of hearing the whole circumwhich he was sure there was no harm in, the whole circumbut rather love, his family must go supper- stance.' less to bed, for the gentleman would pay Robin came back in an instant, and Cyn him according as he did his business. Robin, thio answered: therefore, Cynthio now thought fit to make Half an hour six minutes after three, use of, and gave him orders to wait before June 4 Will s coffee-house. Flavia's door, and if she called him to her,'MADAM,-It is certain I went by your and asked whether it was Cynthio who lodgings with a gentlewoman to whom I passed by, he should at first be loth to own have te honour to be known; she is indeed it was, but upon importunity confess it. iTewas, but pon importunity confess it. my relation, and a pretty sort of a woman. There needed not much search into that But your starting manner of writing, and part of the town to find a well-dressed ning you havenot done me the honour hussey fit for the purpose Cynthio designed ow muh a to op en my lette has in her. As soon as he believed Robin was so much as to open my letter, has in it her. As soon as he believed Robin was posted, he drove by Flavia's lodgings in a something very unaccountable, and alarms posted, he drove by Flavia's lodgings in a one that has had thoughts of passing his hackney-coach, and a woman in it. Robin one withhas had thoughts of pasing hi was at the door, talking with Flavia's maid, y with all your little imperfections. and Cynthio pulled up the glass as sur- with allyourlittle imperfections. prised, and hid his associate. The report of this circumstance soon flew up stairs, Robin ran back and brought for answer' and Robin could not deny but the gentleman favoured* his master; yet, if it was he,'Exact sir, that are at Will's coffeehe was sure the lady was but his cousin, house, six minutes after three, June 4; one whom he had seen ask for him: adding, that has had thoughts, and all my little imthat he believed she was a poor relation; perfections. Sir, come to me immediately, because they made her wait one morning or I shall determine what may perhaps not till he was awake. Flavia immediately writ be very pleasing to you. FLAVIA.' the following epistle, which Robin brought Robin gave an account that she looked tow^^^ W ll's ^ Robi gave an account that she looked oJune 4, 1712. excessive angry when she gave him the,It is in vn to deny, 17bs. letter; and that he told her, for se asked, falsest of mankind; m deny ma id, as the that Cynthio only looked at the clock, takfalsest of mankindmy maid, as well as the ing snuff, and writ two or three words on bearer, saw you. The injured o'FLAVI e A.' the top of the letter when he gave him his. I FAdA' Now the plot thickened so well, as that After Cynthio had read the letter, he Cynthio saw he had not much more to acasked Robin how she looked, and what she complish, being irreconcilably banished: he said at the delivery of it. Robin said she writ, spoke short to him, and called him back MADAM, have that prejudice in fa-' MADAM, —I have that prejudice in faagain, and had nothing to say to him, and our of all you do, that it is not possible for bid him and all the men in the world go out to determine upon what ill not be of her sight; but the maid followed, and bid very pleasing to your obedient servant, him bring an answer.' CYNTHIO.' Cynthio returned as follows: yJune 4, Three afternoon, 1712. This was delivered, and the answer re' June 4, Three afternon, 1712. turned, in a little more than two seconds.' MADAM, —That your maid and the bearer have seen me very often is very'SIR,-Is it come to this? You never certain; but I desire to know, being engaged loved me, and the creature you were with at piquet, what your letter means by "'tis is the properest person for your associate. in vain to deny it." I shall stay here all I despise you, and hope I shall soon hate the evening. Your amazed you as a villain to the credulous' CYNTHIO.''FLAVIA.' As soon as Robin arrived with this, Flavia Robin ran back with: answered:' MADAM,-Your credulity when you are * Resembled. to gain ycur point, and suspicion when you No. 399]. TtlE SPECTATOR. 123 fear to lose it, make it a very hard part to much insisted upon, I shall but just mention behave as becomes your humble slave, them, since they have been handled by' CYNTHIO.' many great and eminent writers. Robin whipt away and returned with, I would therefore propose the following methods to the consideration of such as' MR. WELLFORD,-Flavia and Cynthio would find out their secret faults, and make are no more. I relieve you from the hard a true estimate of themselves. part of which you complain, and banish In the first place, let them consider well you from my sight for ever. what are the characters which they bear'ANN HEART.' among their enemies. Our fiiends very Robin had a crown for his afternoon's often flatter us, as much as our own hearts. work; and this is published to admonish They either do not see our faults, or conCecilia to avenge the injury done to Flavia. ceal them from us, or soften them by their T. representations, after such a manner that we think them too trivial to be taken notice of. An adversary, on the contrary, makes No. 399.] Saturday, June 7, 1712. a stricter search into us, discovers every flaw and imperfection in our tempers; and Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere!-Per. Sat. iv. 23. though his malice may set them in too strong None, none descends into himself to find a light, it has generally some ground for The secret imperfections of his mind. Dryden. what it advances. A friend exaggerates a HYPOCRISY at the fashionable end of the man's virtues, an enemy inflames his crimes. town is very different from hypocrisy in the A wise man should give a just attention to city. The modish hypocrite endeavours to both of them, so far as they may tend to the appear more vicious than he really is, the improvement of one, and the diminution of other kind of hypocrite more virtuous. The the other. Plutarch has written an essay on former is afraid of every thing that has the the benefits which a man may receive from show of religion in it, and would be thought his enemies, and, among the good fruits of engaged in many criminal gallantries and enmity, mentions this in particular, that by amours which he is not guilty of. The lat- the reproaches which it casts upon us we ter assumes a face of sanctity, and covers a see the worst side of ourselves, and open multitude of vices under a seeming religious our eyes to several blemishes and defects in deportment. our lives and conversations, which we But there is another kind of hypocrisy, should not have observed Without the help which differs from both these, and which I of such ill-natured monitors. intend to make the sulbict of this paper: I In order likewise to come at a true know mean that hypocrisy, by which a man does ledge of ourselves, we should consider on not only deceive the world, butwvery often the other hand how far we may deserve the imposes on himself: that hypocrisy which praises and approbations which the world conceals his own heart from him, and makes bestow upon us; whether the actions they him believe he is more virtuous than he celebrate proceedfrom laudable andworthy really is, and either not attend to his vices, motives; and how far we are really posor mistake even his vices for virtues. It is sessed of the virtues which gain us applause this fatal hypocrisy, and self-deceit, which among those with whom we converse. Such is taken notice of in those words.' Who a reflection is absolutely necessary, if we can understand his errors? cleanse thou me consider how apt we are either to value or from secret faults.' condemn ourselves by the opinions of others, If the open professors of impiety deserve and to sacrifice the report of our own hearts the utmost application and endeavours of to the judgment of the world. moral writers to recover them from vice In the next place, that we may not deand folly, how much more may those lay a ceive ourselves in a point of so much imclaim to their care and compassion, who portance, we should not lay too great a are walking in the paths of death, while stress on any supposed virtues we possess they fancy themselves engaged in a course that are of a doubtful nature: and such we of virtue! I shall endeavour therefore to lay may esteem all those in which multitudes down some rules for the discovery of those of men dissent from us, who are as good and vices that lurk in the secret corners of the wise as ourselves. We should always act soul, and to show my reader those methods with great cautiousness and circumspection by which he may arrive at a true and im- in points where it is not impossible that partial knowledge of himself. The usual we may be deceived. Intemperate zeal, means prescribed for this purpose are to bigotry, and persecution for any party or examine ourselves by the rules which are opinion, how praise-worthy soever they laid down for our direction in sacred writ, may appear to weak men of our own prinand to compare our lives with the life of ciples, produce infinite calamities among that person who acted up to the perfection mankind, and are highly criminal in their of human nature, and is the standing ex- own nature: and yet how many persons ample, as well as the great guide and in- eminent for piety suffer such monstrous and structor, of those who receive his doctrines. absurd prirnciples of action to take root in Though these two heads cannot be too their minds under the colour of virtues! 124 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 400, For my own part, I must own I never yet Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire, knew any party so just and reasonable, that Between declining virtue and desire, That the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away a man could follow it in its height and vio- In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.' lence, and at the same time be innocent. r We should likewise be very apprehensive o cmplaisane, rtship and artful co of those actions which proceed from natural complaisance, courtship, and artful conconstitutions, favourite passions, particular f ty to the modesty of a woman's maneducation, or whatever promotes our world- ners. Rusticity, broad expression and forly interest or advantage. In these and the ward obtrusion, offend those of education, like cases, a man's judgment is easily per- and make the transgressors odious to all like cases, a man's judgment is easilyper-who have merit enough to attract regard. verted, and a wrong bias hung upon his who have merit enough to attract regard. mirted, and a wrong bias, hung upon rejudice, It is in this taste that the scenery is so mind. These are the inlets of prejudice, beu the unguarded avenues of the mind, by eautifully ordered in the description which which a thousand errors and secret faults Antony makes in the dialogue between him find admission, without being observed or and Dolabella, of Cleopatra in her barge. taken notice of. A wise man will suspect Her galley down the silver Cidnos row'd: those actions to which he is directed by The tackling silk, the streamers wav'd with gold: something besides reason, and always ap- The gentle winds were lodg'd in purple sails; something besides reason, and always ap- Her nymphs, like Nereids, round her couch were plac'd prehend some concealed evil in every reso- Where she, another sea-born Venus, lay; lution that is of a disputable nature, when Se lay, and lean'd her cheek upon her hand, And cast a look so languishingly sweet, it is conformable to his particular temper, As if, secure of all beholders' hearts, his age, or way of life, or when it favours Neglecting she could take them. Boys, like Cupids, his pleasure or his profit. Stood fanning with their painted wings the winds There is nothing of greater importance to That play'd about her face; but if she smil'd, A darting glory seem'd to blaze abroad, us than thus diligently to sift our thoughts, That men's desiring eyes were never weary'd, and examine all these dark recesses of the But hung upon the object. To soft flutes mind, if we would establish our souls in The silver oars kept time; and while they play'd mind, if we would aestablish our souls in The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight; such a solid and substantial virtue, as will And both to thought -'* turn to account in that great day when it must stand the test of infinite wisdom and Here the imagination is warmed with all justice. cocuehsthe objects presented, and yet there is no I shall conclude this essay with observing thing that is luscious, or what raises any that the two kids of hypocrisy I have hee idea more lose than tat of a beautiful spoken of, namely, that of deceiving the woman set off to advantage. The like, or a world, and that of imposing on ourselves, more delicate and careful spirit of modesty, are touched with wonderful beauty in the appears in the following passage in one of hundred and thirty-ninth psalm. The folly Mr. Phillipss pastorals. of the first kind of hypocrisy is there set Breathe soft, ye winds! ye waters, gently flow! forth by reflections on God's omniscience Shield her, ye trees! ye flowers, around her grow! Ye swains, I beg you pass in silence by l and omnipresence, which are celebrated in My love in yonder vale asleep does lie. as noble strains of poetry as any other I ever met with, either sacred or profane. esire s corrected when there is a ten The other kind of hypocrisy, whereby a derness or admiration expressed which parman deceives himself, is intimated in the takes the passion. Licentious language has two last verses, where the psalmist ad- something brutal in it, which disgraces dresses himself to the great Searcher of humanity, and leaves us in the condition of hearts in that emphatical petition:'Try the savages in the field. But it may be me, 0 God! and seek the ground of my asked, To what good use can tend a disheart; prove me, and examine my thoughts. course of this kind at all? It is to alarm Look well if there be any way of wicked- chaste ears against such as have, what is ness in me, and lead me in the way ever- above called, the'prevailing gentle art.' lasting.' L. Masters of that talent are capable of clothlatin_' ________ _________________ ing their thoughts in so soft a dress, and something so distant from the secret purNo. 400.] iIonday, June 9, 1712. pose of their heart, that the imagination of - Latet anguis in herba.-Virg. Eel. iii. 93. the unguarded is touched with a fondness, There's a snake in the grass.-English Proerb. which grows too insensibly to be resisted. IT should, methinks, preserve modesty Much care and concern for the lady's wel IT should, methinks, preserve modesty fare, to seem afraid lest she should be anand its interests in the world, that the trans- oed the ve afraid lesthh surould be angression of it always creates offence; and noed bythe very ir which surrounds her, the very purposes of wantonness are de- and thi uttered rather with kind looks, feated by a carriage which has in it so and expressed by an interjection, an'al,' or an'oh,' at some little hazard in moving much boldness, as to intimate that fear and or h,' a some little hazard in moring reluctance are quite extinguished in an ob-o making a step, than in any direct pro ct which would be otherwise desirable fession of love, are the methods of skilful Ject which would be otherwise desirable. It was said of a wit of the last age admirers. They are honest arts when their it was said o a wit o te last age, purpose is such, but infamous when misap-'Sedley has that prevailing gentle art, _______a_____________ Which can with a resistless charm impar The loosest wishes to the chastest heart; Dryden's Al fo Love, act iii. ec 1 No. 401.] THE SPECTATOR. 125 plied. It is certain that many a young have, though'a tolerable good philosopher, woman in this town has had her heart irre- but a low opinion of Platonic love: for coverably won, by men who have not made which reason I thought it necessary to give one advance which ties their admirers, my fair readers a caution against it, having, though the females languish with the utmost to my great concern, observed the waist anxiety. I hate often, by way of admoni- of a Platonist lately swell to a roundness tion to my female readers, given them which is inconsistent with that philosophy warning against agreeable company of the T other sex, except they are well acquainted _ with their characters. Women may disguise it if they think fit; and the more to do No. 401.] Tuesday, June 10, 1712, it, they may be angry at me for saying it; but I say it is natural to them, that they In amore he omnia insunt vitia. Injurie, have no manner of approbation of menm, u rspicio s nimi Tr.Eun. indctiSc. without some degree of love. For this rea- It is the capricious state of love, to be attended with son he is dangerous to be entertained as a injuries, suspicions, enmities, truces, quarrelling, and friend or visitant, who is capable of gaining reconcilement. any eminent esteem or observation, though entertainment of it be never so remote from pretensions as a this day, an odd sor of a packet, which I lover. If a man's heart has not the abhor- have just received from one of my female rence of any treacherous design, he may correspondents. easily improve approbation into kindness, and kindness into passion. There may pos-'MR. SPECTATOR, —Since you have often sibly be no manner of love between them in confessed that you are not displeased your the eyes of all their acquaintance; no, it is papers should sometimes convey the comall friendship; and yet they may be as fond plaints of distressed lovers to each other, I as shepherd and shepherdess, in a pastoral, am in hopes you will favour one who gives but still the nymph and the swain may be you an undoubted instance of her reformato each other, no other, I warrant you, than tion, and at the same time a convincing Pylades and Orestes. proof of the happy influence your labours have had over the most incorrigible part'When Lucy decks with flowers her swelling breast, of the most incorrigible sex. Yor must And on her elbow leans, dissembling rest; s Unable to refrain my madding mind, know, sir, I am one of that species of woNor sheep nor pasture worth my care I find. men, whom you have often characterized Once Delia slept, on easy moss reclin'd, under the name of jilts," and that I send Her lovely limbs half bare, and rude the wind: you these lines as well to do public penance I smooth'd her coats, and stole a silent kiss: for having so long continued in a known Condemn me, shepherds, if I did amiss.' p on of the party oferror, as to beg pardon of the party ofSuch good offices asthese,and such friend- fended. I the rather choose this way, bely thoughts and concerns for another, are cause it in some measure answers the terms what make up the amity, as they call it, on which he intimated the breach between Detween man and woman. us might possibly be made up, as you will It is the permission of such intercourse see by the letter he sent me the next day that makes a young woman come to the after I had discarded him; which I thought arms of her husband, after the disappoint- fit to send you a copy of, that you might ment of four or five passions which she has the better know the whole case. successively had for different men,before she C I must further acquaint you, that before is prudentially given to him for whom she I jilted him, there had been the greatest has neither love nor friendship. For what intimacy between us for a year and a half should a poor creature do that has lost all together, during all which time I cherished her friends? There's Marinet the agree- his hopes, and indulged his flame. I leave able has, to my knowledge, had a friend- you to guess, after this, what must be his ship for lord Welford, which had like to surprise, when upon his pressing for my break her heart: then she had so great a full consent one day, I told him I wondered friendship for colonel Hardy, that she could what could make him fancy he had ever not endure any woman else should do any any place in my affections. His own sex thing but rail at him. Many and fatal have allow him sense, and all ours good-breedbeen disasters between friends who have ing. His person is such as might, without fallen out, and these resentments are more vanity, make him believe himself not incakeen than ever those of other men can pos- pable of being beloved. Our fortunes, insibly be; but in this it happens unfortu- deed, weighed in the nice scale of interest, nately, that as there ought to be nothing are not exactly equal, which by the way concealed from one friend to another, the was the true cause of my jilting him; and I friends of different sexes very often find had the assurance to acquaint him with the fatal effects from their unanimity. following maxim, that I should always beFor my part, who study to pass life in as lieve that man's passion to be the most much innocence and tranquillity as I can, I violent, who could offer me the largest setshun the company of agreeable women as tlement. I have since changed my opinion, much as possible; and must confess that I and have endeavoured to let him know s( 1U2 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 402. much by several letters, but the barbarous the fields, and gardens, without Philander, man has refused them all; so that I have afford no pleasure to the unhappy no way left of writing to him but by your' AMORE'I.' assistance. If you can bring him about once' I must desire you, dear Mr. Spectator, more, I promise to send you all gloves and to publish this my letter to Philander as favours, and shall desire the favour of Sir soon as possible, and to assure him that I Roger and yourself to stand as godfathers know nothing at all of the death of his rich to my first boy. I am, sir, your most obe- uncle in Gloucestershire.' X. dient humble servant,'AMORET.' No. 402.] I4'ednesday, June 11, 1712. Philander to Anmoret. ____ e- - t quae' MADAM,-I am so surprised at the Ipsesibl tradit Spectator. P 1 question you were pleased to ask me yesterday, that I am still at a loss what to say Sent by the Spectator to himself. to it. At least my answer would be too long WERE I to publish all the advertisements to trouble you with, as it would come from I receive from different hands, and pera person, who, it seems, is so very indiffer- sons of different circumstances and quality, ent to you. Instead of it, I shall only re- the very mention of them, without refleccommend to your consideration the opinion tions on the several subjects, would raise all of one whose sentiments on these matters I the passions which can be felt by human have often heard you say are extremelyjust. minds. As instances of this, I shall give "A generous and constant passion, says you two or three letters; the writers of your favourite author, "in an agreeable which can have no recourse to any legal lover, where there is not too great a dispa- power for redress, and seem to have writrity in their circumstances, is the greatest ten rather to vent their sorrow than to reblessing that can befal a person beloved; ceive consolation. and if overlooked in one, may perhaps never be found in another. "' MR SPECTATOR,-I am a young woman' I do not, however, at all despair of being of beauty and quality, and suitably married very shortly much better beloved by you to a gentleman who doats on me. But this than Antenor is at present; since, when- person of mine is the object of an unjust ever my fortune shall exceed his, you were passion in a nobleman who is very intimate pleased to intimate, your passion would in- with my husband. This friendship gives crease accordingly. him very easy access and frequent oppor-'The world has seen me shamefully lose tunities of entertaining me apart. My heart that time to please a fickle woman, which is in the utmost anguish, and my face is might have been employed much more to covered over with c:fusion, when I impart my credit and advantage in other pursuits. to you another circumstance, which is, that I shall therefore take the liberty to acquaint my mother, the most mercenary of all woyou, however harsh it may sound in a men, is gained by this false friend of my lady's ears, that though your love-fit should husband's to solicit me for him. I am frehappen to return, unless you could contrive quently chid by the poor believing man, my a way to make your recantation as well husband, for showing an impatience of his known to the public as they are already friend's company; and I am never alone apprized of the manner with which you with my mother, but she tells me stories or have treated me, you shall never more see the discretionary part of the world, and'PHILANDER.' such-a-one, and such-a-one, who are guilty of as much as she advises me to. She laughs.lmoret to Philander. at my astonishment; and seems to hint to me, that, as virtuous as she has always ap-' SIR,-Upon reflection, I find the injury peared, I am not the daughter of her husI have done both to you and myself to be band. It is possible that printing this letter so great, that, though the part I now act may relieve me from the unnatural impormay appear contrary to that decorum usu- tunity of my mother, and the perfidious ally observed by our sex, yet I purposely courtship of my husband's friend. I have break through all rules, that my repentance an unfeigned love of virtue, and am resolved may in some measure equal my crime. I to preserve my innocence. The only way assure you, that in my present hopes of I can think of to avoid the fatal conserecovering you, I look upon Antenor's estate quences of the discovery of this matter, is with contempt. The fop was here yester- to fly away for ever, which I must do to day in a gilt chariot and new liveries, but I avoid my husband's fatal resentment against refused to see him.-Though I dread to the man who attempts to abuse him, and meet your eves, after what has passed, I the shame of exposing a parent to infamy. flatter myself, that, amidst all their confu- The persons concerned will know these cirsion, you will discover such a tenderness cumstances relate to them; and though the in mihe, as none can imitate but those who regard to virtue is dead in them, I have love. I shall be all this month at lady some hopes from their fear of shame upon D -'s in the country; but the woods, reading this in your paper; which I conjure No. 403. THE SPECTATOR. 127 you to publish, if you have any compassion he was sorry he had made so little use of for injured virtue. the unguarded hours we had been together'SYLVIA.' so remote from company; "as, indeed,"'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am the husband continued he, "so we are at present." I of a woman of merit, but am fallen in love, wfrom him to a neighbouring gentleas they call it, with a lady of her acquaint- woman's house, and though her husband ance, who is going to be married to a gen was in the room, threw myself on a couch, tieman who deserves her. I am in a trust and burst into a passion of tears. My friend relatingto this lady's fortune, which makes desired her husband to leave the room. relating to this lady's fortune, which makes "But," said he, "there is something so my concurrence in this matter necessary; e"But" said h, "there is something so but I have so irresistible a rage and envy extraordinary in this, that I will partake in rise in me when I consider his future hap- the affliction; and be it what it will, she is piness, that against all reason, equity, and so much your friend, she knows she may common justice, I am ever playing mean command what services I can do her. tricks to suspend the nuptials. I have no The man sat down by me, and spoke so malner of hopes for myself; Emilia, for so like a brother, that I told him my whole,'11 call her, is a woman of the most strict afiiction. He spoke of the injury done me virtue; her lover is a gentleman whom of with so much indignation, and animated me all others I could wish my friend; but envy against the love he said he saw I had for and jealousy, though placed so unjustly, the wretch who would have betrayed me waste my very being; and, with the tor- w ea ness, that I dou no to my ment and sense of a demon, I am ever weaknessthat doubtnotofmyperseercursing what I cannot but approve. I wish ance. His wife and he are my comforters, it were the beginning of repentance, that I and I am under no more restraint in their sit down and describe my present disposi- company than if I were alone; and I doubt tion with so hellish an aspect: but at pre- not but in a small time contempt and hatred sent the destruction of these two excellent will take place of the remains of affection persons would be more welcome to me than to a rascal. I their happiness. Mr. Spectator, pray let eader, DORINDA. me have a paper on these terrible ground-'MR. SPECTATOR,-I had the misfor less sufferings, and do all you can to ex- tune to be an uncle before I knew my orcise crowds who are in some degree nephews from my nieces: and now we are possessed as I am. CANIBAL.' grown up to better acquaintance, they deny'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have no other me the respect they owe. One upbraids means but this to express my thanks to one me with being their familiar, another will man, and my resentment against another. hardly be persuaded that I am an uncle, a My circumstances are as follow: I have third calls me little uncle, and a fourth tells been for five years last past courted by a me there is no duty at all due to an uncle. gentleman of greater fortune than I ought I have a brother-in-law whose son will win to expect, as the market for women goes. all my affection, unless you shall think this You must, to be sure, have observed people worthy of your cognizance, and will be who live in that sort of way, as all their pleased to prescribe some rules for our friends reckon it will be a match, and are future reciprocal behaviour. It will be marked out by all the world for each other. worthy the particularity of your genius to In this view we have been regarded for lay down some rules for his conduct who some time, and I have above these three was, as it were, born an old man; in which years loved him tenderly. As he is very you will much oblige, sir, your most obecareful of his fortune, I always thought he dient servant, lived in a near manner, to lay up what he.'CONLIUS EPOS. thought was wanting in my fortune to make up what he might expect in another. Within these few months I have observed No. 403.] Thursday, June 12, 1712. his carriage very much altered, and he 4Qui mores hominum multorum vidit.has affected a certain air of getting me HQ- morrs Poet. v. 14alone, and talking with a mighty profusion r. rs Poet of passionate words, how I am not to be re- Ofy men he saw the manners. sisted longer, how irresistible his wishes WHEN I consider this great city in its are, and the like. As long as I have been several quarters and divisions, I look upon acquainted with him, I could not on such it as an aggregate of various nations disoccasions say downright to him, " You tinguished from each other by their respecknow you may make me yours when you tive customs, manners, and interests. The please." But the other night he with great courts of two countries do not so much diffrankness and impudence explained to me, fer from one another, as the court and city, that he thought of me only as a mistress. in their peculiar ways of life and conversaI answered this declaration as it deserved; tion. In short, the inhabitants of St. James's, upon which he only doubled the terms on notwithstanding they live under the same which he proposed my yielding. When laws, and speak the same language, are a my anger heightened upon him, he told me distinct people from those of Cheapside, 128 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 403. who are likewise removed from those of ral other poets, whom they regretted on the Temple on one side, and those of this occasion, as persons who would have Smithfield on the other, by several cli- obliged the world with very noble elegies mates and degrees in their way of thinking on the death of so great a prince, and so and conversing together. eminent a patron of learning. For this reason, when any public affair At a coffee-house near the Temple, I is upon the anvil, I love to hear the reflec- found a couple of young gentlemen engaged tions that arise upon it in the several dis- very smartly in a dispute on the succession tricts and parishes of London and West- to the Spanish monarchy. One of them minster, and to ramble up and down a seemed to have been retained as an advowhole day together, in order to make myself cate for the duke of Anjou, the other for acquainted with the opinions of myingenious his imperial majesty. They were both for countrymen. By this means I know the regulating the title to that kingdom by the faces of all the principal politicians within statute laws of England; but finding them the bills of mortality; and as every coffee- going out of my depth, I passed forward to house has some particular statesman be- St. Paul's church-yard, where I listened longing to it, who is the mouth of the street with great attention to a learned man, who where he lives, I always take care to place gave the company an account of the demyself near him, in order to know his plorable state of France during the minority judgment on the present posture of affairs. of the deceased king. The last progress that I made with this in-.I then turned on my right hand into Fishtention was about three months ago, when street, where the chief politician of that we had a current report of the king of quarter, upon hearing the news, (after France's death. As I foresaw this would having taken a pipe of tobacco, and rumiproduce a new face of things in Europe, nated for some time,)'If,' says he,'the and many curious speculations in our Bri- king of France is certainly dead, we shall tish coffee-houses, I was very desirous to have plenty of mackerel this season: our learn the thoughts of our most eminent fishery will not be disturbed by privateers, politicians on that occasion. as it has been for these ten years past.' He That I might begin as near the fountain- afterwards considered how the death of head as possible, I first of all called in at St. this great man would affect our pilchards, Janmes's, where I found the whole outward and by several other remarks infused a room in a buzz of politics. The specula- general joy into his whole audience. tions were but very indifferent towards the I afterwards entered a by-coffee-house, door, but grew finer as you advanced to that stood at the upper end of a narrow the upper end of the room, and were so lane, where I met with a nonjuror, engaged very much improved by a knot of theorists, very warmly with a lace-man who was the who sat in the inner room, within the great support of a neighbouring convensteams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard tide. The matter in debate was, whether the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, the late French king was most like Augusand all the line of Bourbon provided for in tus Cesar or Nero. The controversy was less than a quarter of an hour. carried on with great heat on both sides; I afterwards called in at St. Giles's, where and as each of them looked upon me very saw a board of French gentlemen sitting frequently during the cours. of their deupon the life and death of their grand bate, I was under some apprehension that nonarque. Those among them who had they would appeal to me, and therefore espoused the whig interest, very positively laid down my penny at the bar, and made affirmed, that he departed this life about a the best of my way to Cheapside. week since, and therefore proceeded with- I here gazed upon the signs for some out any further delay to the release of their time before I found one to my purpose. friends in the galleys, and to their own re- The first object I met in the coffee-room establishment; but, finding they could not was a person who expressed a great grief ag;ree among themselves, I proceeded on for the death of the French king: but upon n.y intended progress. explaining himself, I found his sorrow did Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's I saw an not arise from the loss of the monarch, but alerte young fellow that cocked his hat from his having sold out of the bank about upon a friend of his who entered just at the three days before he heard the news of it. same time with myself, and accosted him Upon which a haberdasher, who was the after the following manner: c Well, Jack, oracle of the coffee-house, and had his cirthe old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the cle of admirers about him, called several to word. Now or never, boy. Up to the walls witness that he had declared his opinion of Paris directly.' With several other deep abov6 a week before, that the French king.eflections of the same nature. was certainly dead; to which he added, I met with very little variation in the that, considering the late advices we had politics between Charing-cross and Covent- received from France, it was impossible garden. And upon my going into Will's, I that it could be otherwise. As he was found their discourse was gone off from the laying these together, and dictating to his death of the French king to that of mon- hearers with great authority, there came in sieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille and seve- a gentleman from Garraway's, who told us No. 404. 1 HE SPECTATOR. 129 that there were several letters from France fondness for the character of a fine gentlejust come in, with advice that the king was man; all his thoughts are bent upon this; m good health, and was gone out a-hunting instead of attending a dissection, frequentthe very morning the post came away: ing the courts of justice, or studying the upon which the haberdasher stole off his fathers, Cleanthes reads plays, dances, hat that hung upon a wooden peg by him, dresses, and spends his time in drawingand retired to his shop with great confusion. rooms; instead of being a good lawyer, diThis intelligence put a stop to my travels, vine, or physician, Cleanthes is a downright which I had prosecuted with so much satis- coxcomb, and will remain to all that know faction; not being a little pleased to hear so him a contemptible example of talents mismany different opinions upon so great an applied. It is to this affectation the world event, and to observe how naturally upon owes its whole race of coxcombs. Nature such a piece of news every one is apt to in her whole drama never drew such a part; consider it with regard to his particular she has sometimes made a fool, but a coxinterest and advantage. L. comb is always of a man's own making, by applying his talents otherwise than Nature designed, who ever bears a high resentment No. 404.] Friday, June 13, 1712. for being put out of her course, and never fails of taking her revenge on those that do -Non omnia possumus omnes. —irg. Eel. viii. 63. so. Opposing her tendency in the applicaWith different talents form'd, we variously excel. tion of a man s parts has the same success as declining from her course in the produc NATURE does nothing in vain: the Creator tion of vegetables, by the assistance of art of the universe has appointed every thing to and a hot-bed. We may possibly extort an a certain use and purpose, and determined unwilling plant, or an untimely salad; but it to a settled course and sphere of action, how weak, how tasteless and insipid. Just from which if it in the least deviates, it be- as insipid as the poetry of Valerio. Valerio comes unfit to answer those ends for which had an universal character, was genteel, it was designed. In like manner it is in the had learning, thought justly, spoke cordispositions of society, the civil economy is rectly; it was believed there was nothing formed in a chain as well as the natural: in which Valerio did not excel; and it was and in either case the breach but of one link so far true, that there was but one; Valerio puts the whole in some disorder. It is, I had no genius for poetry, yet he is resolved think, pretty plain, that most of the ab- to be a poet; he writes verses, and takes surdity and ridicule we meet with in the great pains to convince the town that Vale-. world, is generally owing to the imperti- rio is not that extraordinary person he was nent affectation of excelling in characters taken for. men are not fit for, and for which nature If men would be content to graft upon never designed them. Nature, and assist her operations, what Every man has one or more qualities mighty effects might we expect! Tully which may make him useful both to him- would not stand so much alone in oratory, self and others. Nature never fails of Virgil in poetry, or Casar in war. To pointing them out; and while the infant build upon Nature, is laying a foundation continues under her guardianship, she upon a rock; every thing disposes itself into brings him on in his way, and then offers order as it were of course, and the whole herself as a guide in what remains of the work is half done as soon as undertaken. journey; if hP proceeds in that course he Cicero's genius inclined him to oratory, can hardly miscarry. Nature makes good Virgil's to follow the train of the Muses; her engagements: for, as she never pro- they piously obeyed the admonition, and mises what she is not able to perform, so were rewarded. Had Virgil attended the she never fails of performing what she pro- bar, his modest and ingenuous virtue would mises. But the misfortune is, men despise surely have made but a very indifferent what they may be masters of, and affect figure; and Tully's declamatory inclination what they are not fit for; they reckon would have been as useless in poetry. Nathemselves already possessed of what their ture, if left to herself, leads us on in the best genius inclined them to, and so bend all course, but will do nothing by compulsion their ambition to excel in what is out of and constraint; and if we are not always their reach. Thus they destroy the use of satisfied to go her way, we are always the their natural talents, in the same manner greatest sufferers by it. as covetous men do their quiet and repose: Wherever nature designs a production, they can enjoy no satisfaction in what they she always disposes seeds proper for it, have, because of the absurd inclination they which are as absolutely necessary to the are posissed with for what they have not. formation of any moral or intellectual exCleainhes has good sense, a great memo- cellence, as they are to the being and ry, and a constitution capable of the closest growth of plants, and I know not by what application. In a word, there was no pro- fate and folly it is, that men are taught not fession in which Cleanthes might not have to reckon him equally absurd that will write made a very good figure; but this won't verses in spite of Nature, with that garsatisfy him; he takes up an unaccountable dener that should undertake to raise a jonVOL. II. 17 130 THE SPECTATOR. Noo, 405. quil or tulip without the help of their respec- I AM very sorry to find, by the opera bills tive seeds. for this day, that we are likely to lose the As there is no good or bad quality that greatest performer in dramatic music that does not affect both sexes, so it is not to be is now living, or that perhaps ever appeared imagined but the fair sex must have suf- upon a stage. I need not acquaint my rea fered by an affectation of this nature, at ders that I am speaking of signior Nicolini. least as much as the other. The ill effect The town is highly obliged to that excelof it is in none so conspicuous as in the two lent artist, for having shown us the Italian opposite characters of Calia and Iras; Czelia music in its perfection, as well as for that has all the charms of person, together with generous approbation he lately gave to an an abundant sweetness of nature, but wants opera of our own country, in which the wit, and has a very ill voice; Iras is ugly composer endeavoured to do justice to the and ungenteel, but has wit and good sense. beauty of the words, by following that noble If Celia would be silent, her beholders example, which has been set him by the would adore her; if Iras would talk, her greatest foreign masters in that art. hearers would admire her; but Cxelia's I could heartily wish there was the same tongue runs incessantly, while Iras gives application and endeavours to cultivate and herself silent airs and soft languors, so that improve our church-music as have been it is difficult to persuade oneself that Celia lately bestowed on that of the stage. Our has beauty, and Iras wit: each neglects her composers have one very great incitement own excellence, and is ambitious of the to it. They are sure to meet with excelother's character; Iras would be thought to lent words, and at the same time a wonderhave as much beauty as Cxelia, and Caelia as ful variety of them. There is no passion much wit as Iras. that is not finely expressed in those parts The great misfortune of this affectation of the inspired writings, which are proper is, that men not only lose a good quality, for divine songs and anthems. but also contract a bad one. They not only There is a certain coldness and indifferare unfit for what they were designed, but ence in the phrases of our European lanthey assign themselves to what they are guages, when they are compared with the not fit for; and, instead of making a very oriental forms of speech; and it happens good figure one way, make a very ridi- very luckily, that the Hebrew idioms run culous one another. If Semanthe would into the English tongue with a particular have been satisfied with her natural cor- grace and beauty. Our language has replexion, she might still have been cele- ceived innumerable elegances and improvebrated by the name of the olive beauty; ments, from that infusion of Hebraisms. but Semanthe has taken up an affectation which are derived to it out of the poetical to white and red, and is now distinguished passages in holy writ. They give a force by the character of the lady that paints so and energy to our expression, warm and ani well. In a word, could the world be re- mate our language, and convey our thoughts formed to the obedience of that famed dic- in more ardent and intense phrases, than tate,'Follow Nature,' which the oracle of any that are to be met with in our own Delphos pronounced to Cicero, when he tongue. There is something so pathetic in consulted what course of studies he should this kind of diction, that it often sets the pursue, we should see almost every man as mind in a flame, and makes our hearts burn eminent in his proper sphere as Tully was within us. How cold and dead does a in his, and should in a very short time find prayer appear, that is composed in the impertinence and affectation banished from most elegant and polite forms of speech, among the women, and coxcombs and false which are natural to our tongue, when it is characters from among the men. For my not heightened by that solemnity of phrase part I could never consider this preposter- which may be drawn from the sacred writous repugnancy to Nature any otherwise, ings! It has been said by some of the anthan not only as the greatest folly, but also cients, that if the gods were to talk with one of the most heinous crimes, since it is a men, they would certainly speak in Plato's direct opposition to the disposition of Pro- style; but I think we may say with justice, vidence, and (as Tully expresses it) like that when mortals converse with their Crethe sin of the giants, an actual rebellion ator, they cannot do it in so proper a style against heaven. Z. as in that of the holy scriptures. If any one would judge of the beauties of poetry that are to be met with in the divine Writings, and examine how kindly the HeNo. 405.] Saturday, June 14, 1712 brew manners of speech mix and incorporate with the English language; after having o, s..V.oEPOs o, Qry EEOV...rXovTro perused the book of Psalms; let 14m read KXov C.E&OVTE; IIM IOVxoUPOs A.,xiOv, a literal translation of Horace or Pindar. MExorVTES ExsYov- e ^S qpevoc rEpTrsI izV. He will find in these two last such an absurdity and confusion of style, with such a With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends; comparative poverty of imagination, as will The paans lengthen'd till the sun descends; make him ver sensible of what I have been The Greeks restor'd the grateful notes prolong; Apollo listens and approves the song.-Pope here advancing. No. 406.] THE SPECTATOR. 131 Since we have therefore such a treasury produees more lasting and permanent irn of words, so beautiful in themselves, and so pressions in the mind, than those which acproper for the airs of music, I cannot but company any transient form of words that wonder that persons of distinction should are uttered in the ordinary method of religive so little attention and encouragement gious worship. 0. to that kind cf music, which would have its foundation in reason, and which would improve our virtue in proportion as it raises No.06.] Monday, Jne 16, 1712. our delight. The passions that are excited Mo 16, by ordinary compositions generally flow Haec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem, oblec from such silly and absurd occasions, that a taut, secundas res ornant, adversis solatium et perfilman is ashamed to reflct upon them se- gium prabent; delectant domi, non impediunt foris; iisi but the fear, the loveun them sorro, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinatur, rusticantur.-Tull.. riously; but the fear, the love, the sorrow, the riouslnation that are awaened in the These studies nourish youth; delight old age; are the the indignation, that are awakened in the ornament of prosperity; the solacement and the refuge mind by hymns and anthems, make the of adversity; they are delectable at home, and not burheart better, and proceed from such causes densome abroad; they gladden us at nights, and on our as are altogether reasonable and praisewor- eys, and in the country. thy. Pleasure and duty go hand in hand, THE following letters bear a pleasing and the greater our satisfaction is, the image of the joys and satisfactions of a prigreater is our religion. vate life. The first is from a gentleman to Music among those who are styled the a friend, for whom he has a very great re chosen people was a religious art. The spect, and to whom he communicates the songs of Sion, which we have reason to be- satisfaction he takes in retirement; the other lieve were in high repute among the courts is a letter to me, occasioned by an ode writof the eastern monarchs, were nothing else ten by my Lapland lover: this corresponbut psalms and pieces of poetry that adored dent is so kind as to translate another oc or celebrated the Supreme Being. The Scheffer's songs in a very agreeable mangreatest conqueror in the holy nation, after ner. I publish them together, that the the manner of the old Grecian lyrics, did young and old may find something in the not only compose the words 6f his divine same paper which may be suitable to their odes, but generally set them to'music him- respective tastes in solitude; for I know no self: after which, his works, though they fault in the description of ardent desires, were consecrated to the tabernacle, became provided they are honourable. the national entertainment, as well as the devotion of the people.' DEAR SIR,-You have obliged me with The first original of the drama was a re- a very kind letter; by which I find you ligious worship, consisting only of a chorus, shift the scene of your life from the town which was nothing else but a hymn to a to the country, and enjoy that mixed leity. As luxury and voluptuousness pre- state, which wise men both delight in and vailed over innocence and religion, this form are qualified for. Methinks most of the phi-f worship degenerated into tragedies; in losophers and moralists have run too much which however the chorus so far remem- into extremes in praising entirely either sobered its first office, as to brand every thing litude or public life; in the former, men gethat was vicious, and recommend every nelally grow useless by too much rest; and, thing that was laudable, to intercede with in the latter, are destroyed by too much heaven for the innocent, and to implore its precipitation; as waters lying still putrify vengeance on the people. and are good for nothing; and running vio* Homer and Hesiod intimate to us how lently on, do but the more mischief in their this art should be applied, when they re- passage to others, and are swallowed up and present the Muses as surrounding Jupiter, lost the sooner themselves. Those wlt, and warbling their hymns about his throne. like you, can make themselves useful to all I might show, from innumerable passages states, should be like gentle streams, that in ancient writers, not only that vocal and not only glide through lonely vales and foinstrumental music were made use of in rests, amidst the flocks and shepherds, but their religious worship, but that their most visit populous towns in their course, and are favourite diversions were filled with songs at once of ornament and service to them. and hymns to their respective deities. Had But there is another sort of people who seem we frequent entertainments of this nature designed for solitude, those I mean who among us, they would not a little purify have more to hide than to show. As for and exalt our passions, give our thoughts a my own part, I am one of those whom Seproper turn, and cherish those divine im- neca says, Tarn umbratiles sunt, ut fu pulses in the soul, which every one feels tent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est. that has not stifled them by sensual and Some men like pictures, are fitter for a corimmoral pleasures. ner than a full light; and I believe such as Music,; ihen thus applied, raises noble have a natural bent to solitude are like wahints in the mind of the hearer, and fills it ters, which may be forced into fountains, with great conceptions. It strengthens de- and, exalted to a great height, may make a votion, and advances praise into rapture, much nobler figure, and a much louder engthens out every act of worship, and noise, but after all run more smoothly, 132 THE SPECTATOR. LNo. 407 equally, and plentifully in their own natural IV. course upon the ground. The considera- "Each moment from the charmer I'm confin'd, course upon e ground e consier My breast is tortur'd with impatient fires; tion of this would make me very well con- Fly, my rein-deer, fly swifter than the wind, tented with the possession only of that quiet Thy tardy feet wing with my fierce desires. which Cowley calls the companion of ob- v scurity; but whoever has the muses too for "Our pleasing toil will then be soon o'erpaid, his companions can never be idle enough to And thou, in wonder lost, shalt view my fair; be uneasy. Thus, sir, you see -I would Admire each feature of the lovely maid, be uneasy. Thus, sir, you see I would Her artless charms, her bloom, et-r sprightly air. flatter myself into a good opinion of my own way of living: Plutarch just now told me, But lo! with gracefulotion there she swims " But lo! with graceful motion there she swimls, that it is in human life as in a game at ta- Gently removing each ambitious wave; bles: one may wish he had the highest cast; The crowding waves transported clasp her limbs; but, if his chance be otherwise, he is even When, hen, oh! when shall I such freedoms havt to play it as well as he can, and make the VII. best of it. I am, sir, your most obliged and "In vain, ye envious streams, so fast ye flow. most humble servant.' To hide her from her lover's ardent gaze From every touch you more transparent grow, And all reveal'd the beauteous wanton plays."'MR. SPECTATOR,-The town being so well pleased with the fine picture of artless love, which nature inspired the Laplander No. 407.] Tuesday, June 17, 1712. to paint in the ode you lately printed, we were in hopes that the ingenious translator abest facundis gratia dictis. would have obliged it with the other also Ovid. Jet. Lib. xiii. 127. which Scheffer has given us: but since he Eloquent words a graceful manner want. T. has not, a much inferior hand has ventured to send you this. MosT foreign writers, who have giver,'It is a custom with the northern lovers any character of the English nation, whatto divert themselves,vith a song, whilst ever vices they ascribe to it, allow, in gethey journey through the fenny moors to neral, that the people are naturally mopay a visit to their mistresses. This is ad- dest. It proceeds, perhaps, from this our dressed by the lover to his rein-deer, which national virtue, that our orators are observed is the creature that in that country supplies to make use of less gesture or action than the want of horses. The circumstances those of other countries. Our preachers which successively present themselves to stand stock still in the pulpit, and will not him in his way, are, I believe you will think, so much as move a finger to set off the best naturally interwoven. The anxiety of ab- sermon in the world. We meet with the sence, the gloominess of the roads, and his same speaking statues at our bars, and in resolution of frequenting only those, since all public places of debate. Our words those only can carry him to the object of his flow from us in a smooth continued stream, desires; the dissatisfaction he expresses without those strainings of the voice, moeven at the greatest swiftness with which tions of the body, and majesty of the hand, he is carried, and his joyful surprise at an which are so much celebrated in the oraunexpected sight of his mistress as she is tors of Greece and Rome. We can talk of bathing, seem beautifully described in the life and death in cold blood, and keep our original. temper in a discourse which turns upon' If those pretty images of rural nature every thing that is dear to us. Though out are lost in the imitation, yet possibly you zeal breaks out in the finest tropes and may think fit to let this supply the place of figures, it is not able to stir a limb about us. a long letter, when want of leisure, or indis- I haye heard it observed more than once, by petition for writing, will not permit our be- those who have seen Italy, that an untra ing entertained by your own hand. I pro- veiled Englishman cannot relish all the pose such a time, because, though it is beauties of Italian pictures, because the posnatural to have a fondness for what one does tures which are expressed in them are often oneself, yet, I assure you, I would not have such as are peculiar to that country. One any thing of mine displace a single line of who has not seen an Italian in the pulpit, will yours. not know what to make of that noble gesI. ture in Raphael's picture of St. Paul's "Haste, my rein-deer, and let us nimbly go preaching at Athens, where the apostle is Our am'rous journey through this dreary waste; represented as lifting up both his arms, and Haste, my rein-deer! still, still thou art too slow, pouring out the thunder of his rhetoric Impetuous love demands the lightning's haste. amidst an audience of pagan philosophers amidst an audience of pagan philosophers'Aroud us fr te It is certain that proper gestures and vcr'Around us far the rushy moors are spread: Soon will the sun withdraw his cheerful ray: hement exertions of the voice cannot be too Darkling and tir'd we shall the marshes tread, much studied by a public orator. They are No lay unsung to cheat the tedious way. a kind of comment to what he utters, and III. enforce every thing he says, with weak'The wat'ry length of these unjoyous moors hearers, better than the strongest argument Does all the flow'ry meadows' pride excel; he can make use of. They keep the auOThrough these I fly to her my soul adores;e use. ey eep e auYe flow'ry meadows, empty pride, farewell. dience awake, and fix their attention to what N, 408.] THE SPECTATOR. 133 s delivered to them, at the same time that stole it from him one day in the midst of his they show the speaker is in earnest, and af- pleading; but he had better have let it fected himself with what he so passionately alone, for he lost his cause by his jest. recommends to others. Violent gesture and I have all along acknowledged myself to vociferation naturally shake the hearts of be a dumb man, and therefore may be the ignorant, and fill them with a kind of thought a very improper person to give religious horror. Nothing is more frequent rules for oratory; but I believe every one than to see women weep and tremble at the will agree with me in this, that we ought sight of a moving preacher, though he is either to lay aside all kinds of gesture placed quite out of their hearing; as in (which seems to be very suitable to the geEngland we very frequently see people nius of our nation,) or at least to make use lulled to sleep, with solid and elaborate of such only as aregracefuland expressive. discourses of piety, who would be warmed O. and transported out of themselves by the -- ---- __- oellowing and distortions of enthusiasm. Ifaonsense, when accompanied with such No. 408.] Wednesday,,June 18, 1712. an emotion of voice and body, has such an anl emotion of voice and body, has such an Decet affectus animi neque se nimium erigere, nec influence on men's minds, what might we subjacere, serviliter.-Tull. de Finibus. not expect from many of those admirable discourses which are printed in our tonge The affections of the heart ought not to be too much discourses which are printed in our tongue, indulged, nor servilely depressed. were they delivered with a becoming fervour, and with the most agreeable graces'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have always been of voice and gesture! a very great lover of your speculations, as We are told that the great Latin orator well in regard to the subject as to your manvery much impaired his health by the late- ner of treating it. Human nature I always rum contentio, the vehemence of action, thought the most useful object of human with which he used to deliver himself. The reason; and to make the consideration of it Greek orator was likewise so very famous pleasant and entertaining, I always thought for this particular in rhetoric, that one of the best employment of human wit: other his antagonists, whom he had banished from parts of philosophy may perhaps make us Athens, reading over the oration which had wiser, but this not only answers that end, procured his banishment, and seeing his butmakes usbettertoo. Hence it was that friends admire it, could not forbear asking the oracle pronounced Socrates the wisest them, if they were so much affected by the of al* men living, because he judiciously bare reading of it, how much more they made choice of human nature for the object would have been alarmed, had they heard of his thoughts; an inquiry into which, as him actually throwing out such a storm of much exceeds all other learning, as it is of eloquence? more consequence to adjust the true hature How cold and dead a figure, in compari- and measures of right and wrong, than to son of these two great men, does an orator settle the distances of the planets, and com often make at the British bar, holding up pute the time of their circumvolutions. his head with the most insipid serenity, and' One good effect that will immediately stroking the sides of a long wig that reaches arise from a near observation of human down to his middle! The truth of it is, there nature, is, that we shall cease to wonder at is often nothing more ridiculous than the those actions which men are used to reckon gestures of an English speaker: you see wholly unaccountable; for, as nothing is some of them running their hands into their produced without a cause, so by observing pockets as far as ever they can thrust them, the nature and course of the passions, we and others looking with great attention on a shall be able to trace every action from its piece of paper that has nothing written on first conception to its death. We shall no it; you may see many a smart rhetorician more admire at the proceedings of Catiline turning his hat in his hands, moulding it or Tiberius, when we know the one was into several different cocks, examining some- actuated by a cruel jealousy, the other by times the lining of it, and sometimes the a furious ambition: for the actions of men button, during the whole course of his follow their passions as naturally as light harangue. A deaf man would think he was does heat, or as any other effect flows from its cheapening a beaver, when perhaps he is cause; reason must be employed in adjusttalking of the fate of the British nation. I ing the passions, but they must ever remain remember, when I was a young man, and the principles of action. used to frequent Westminster-hall, there' The strange and absurd variety that is was a counsellor who never pleaded with- so apparent in men's actions, shows plainly out a piece of pack-thread in his hand, they can never proceed immediately from which he used to twist about a thumb or a reason; so pure a fountain emits no such finger all the while he was speaking: the troubled waters: they must necessarily arise wags of those days used to call it'the from the passions, which are to the mind as thread of his discourse,' for he was unable the winds to a ship; they can only move it, to utter a wo d without it. One of his and they too often destroy it: if fair and clients who was mor- merry than wise, gentle, they guide it into the harbour; if 14 THE SPECTATOlt. [No. 408. contrary and furious, they overset it in the the gentle gales of tt. passions, which ma, waves. In the same manner is the mind preserve it from stagnating and corruption; assisted or endangered by the passions; for they are necessary to the health of the reason must then take the place of pilot, mind, as the circulation of the animal spiand can never fail of securing her charge rits is to the health of the body: they keep if she be not wanting to herself. The it in life, and strength, and vigour; nor is it strength of the passions will never be ac- possible for the mind to perform its offices cepted as an excuse for complying with without their assistance. These motions are them: they were designed for subjection; given us with our being; they are little spiand if a man suffers them to get the upper rits that are born and die with us; to some Hand, he then betrays the liberty of his own they are mild, easy, and gentle; to others, soul. wayward and unruly, yet never too strong'As nature has framed the several spe- for the reins of reason and the guidance, of cies of being as it were in a chain, so man judgment. seems to be placed as the middle link be-'We may generally observe a pretty nice tween angels and brutes. Hence he par- proportion between the strength of reason ticipates both of flesh and spirit by an. and passion; the greatest geniuses have admirable tie, which in him occasions per- commonly the strongest affections, as, on petual war of passions; and as man inclines the other hand, the weaker understandings to the angelic or brute part of his constitu- have generally the weaker passions; and it tion, he is then denominated good or bad, is fit the fury of the coursers should not be virtuous or wicked; if love, mercy, and too great for the strength of the charioteer, good-nature prevail, they speak him of the Young men, whose passions are not a little angel: if hatred, cruelty, and envy pre- unruly, give small hopes of their ever being dominate, they declare his kindred to the considerable: the fire of youth will of course brute. Hence it was that some of the an- abate, and is a fault, if it be a fault, that cients imagined, that as men in this life mends every day; but, surely, unless a man inclined more to the angel or the brute, so, has fire in his youth, he can hardly have after their death, they should transmigrate warmth in old age. We must therefore be into the one or the other; and it would very cautious, lest, while we think to rebe no unpleasant notion to consider the gulate the passions, we should quite extinseveral species of brutes, into which we guish them, which is putting out the light may imagine that tyrants, misers, the of the soul; for to be without passion, or to proud, malicious, and ill-natured, might be be hurried away with it, makes a man changed. equally blind. The extraordinary severity'As a consequence of this original, all used in most of our schools has this fatal passions are in all men, but appear not in effect, it breaks the spring of the mind, and all; constitution, education, custom of the most certainly destroys more good geniuses country, reason, and the like causes, may than it can possibly improve. And surely improve or abate the strength of them; it is a mighty mistake that the passions but still the seeds remain, which are ever should be so entirely subdued: for little irready to sprout forth upon the least en- regularities are sometimes not only to be couragement. I have heard a story of a borne with, but to be cultivated too, since good religions man, who having been bred they are frequently attended with the with the milk of a goat, was very modest greatest perfections. All great geniuses in public, by a careful reflection he made have faults mixed with their virtues, and bn his actions; but he frequently had an resemble the flaming bush which has hour in secret, wherein he had his frisks thorns amongst lights. and capers; and if we had an opportunity'Since, therefore, the passions are the of examining the retirement of the strictest principles of human actions, we must endea philosophers, no doubt but we should find vour to manage them so as to retain their perpetual returns of those passions they so vigour, yet keep them under strict comartfully conceal from the public. I remem- mand; we must govern them rather like ber Machiavel observes, that every state free subjects than slaves, lest, while we inshould entertain a perpetual jealousy of its tend to make them obedient, they become neighbours, that so it should never be un- abject, and unfit for those great purposes provided when an emergency happens; in to which they were designed. For my part, like manner should reason be perpetually I must confess I could never have any reon its guard against the passions, and never gard to that sect of philosophers who so suffer them to carry on any design that may much insisted upon an absolute indifference be destructive of its security: yet, at the and vacancy from all passion; for it seems same time, it must be careful that it do not to me a thing very inconsistent, for a man so far break their strength as to render to divest himself of humanity in order to them contemptible, and consequently itself acquire tranquillity of mind; and to eradi Unguarded. cate the very principles of action, because'The understanding, being of itself too it is possible they may produce ill effects. slow and lazy to exert itself into action, it I am, sir, your affectionate admirer, s necessary it should be put in motion by Z.'T B' No. 409.] THE SPECTATOR. 135 No. 409.] Tliursday, June 19, 1712. thoughts, he ought to conclude, not (as is too usual among tasteless readers,) that the — ~MusEo contingere cuncta lepore. author wants those perfections which have Luc. Lib.. 93. been admired in him, but that he himself To grace each subject with enliv'ning wit. wants the faculty of discovering them. GRATIAN very often recommends fine He should, in the second place, be very taste as the utmost perfection of an accom- careful to observe, whether he tastes the plished man. distinguishing perfections, or, if I may be al As this word arises very often in conver- lowed to call them so, the specific qualities sation, I shall endeavour to give some ac- of the author whom he peruses; whether count of it, and to lay down rules how we he is particularly pleased with Livy, for may know whether we are possessed of it, his manner of telling a story, with Sallust, and how we may acquire that fine taste of for entering into those internal principles writing, which is so much talked of among of action which arise from the characters the polite world. and manners of the person he describes, Most languages make use of this meta- or, with Tacitus, for displaying those outphor, to express that faculty of the mind ward motives of safety and interest which which distinguishes all the most concealed gave birth to the whole series of transacfaults and nicest perfections in writing. WVe tions which he relates. may be sure this metaphor would not have He may likewise consider how differently been so general in all tongues, had there he is affected by the same thought which not been a very great conformity between presents itself in a great writer, from what that mental taste, which is.the subject of he is when he finds it delivered by a perthis paper, and that sensitive taste which son of an ordinary genius; for there is as gives us a relish of every different flavour much difference in apprehending a thought that affects the palate. Accordingly we clothed in Cicero's language, and that of a find there are as many degrees of refine- common author, as in seeing an object by ment in the intellectual faculty as in the the light of a taper, or by the light of the sun. sense, which is marked out by this common It is very difficult to lay down rules for denomination, the acquirement of such a taste as that I I knew a person who possessed the one am here speaking of. The faculty must in in so great a perfection, that, after having some. degree be born with us; and it very tasted ten different kinds of tea, he would often happens, that those who have other distinguish, without seeing the colour of it, qualities in perfection are wholly void of the particular sort which was offered him; this. One of the most eminent mathemaand not only so, but any two sorts of them ticians of the age has assured me, that the that were mixed together in an equal pro- greatest pleasure he took in reading Virgil portion; nay, he has carried the experi- was in examining ZEneas's voyage by the ment so far, as, upon tasting the composition map; as I question not but many a modern of three different sorts, to name the parcels compiler of history would be delighted with from whence the three several ingredients little more in that divine author than the were taken. A man of fine taste in writing bare matters of fact. will discern, after the same manner, not But, notwithstanding this faculty must in only the general beauties and imperfections some measure be born with us, there are of an author, but discover the several ways several methods for cultivating and imof thinking and expressing himself, which proving it, and without which it will be diversify him from all other authors, with very uncertain, and of little use to the perthe several foreign infusions of thought and son that possesses it. The most natural language, and the particular authors from method for this purpose is to be conversant whom they were borrowed. among the writings of the most polite auAfter having thus far explained what is thors. A man who has any relish for fine generally meant by a fine taste in writing, writing, either discovers new beauties, or and shown the propriety of the metaphor receives stronger impressions, from the which is used on this occasion, I think I masterly strokes of a great author -every may define it to be' that faculty of the soul time he peruses him; besides that he natuwhich discerns the beauties of an author rally wears himself into the same manner with pleasure, and the imperfections with of speaking and thinking. dislike.' If a man would know whether he Conversation with men of a polite genius is possessed of this faculty, I would have is another method for improving our natural him read over the celebrated works of an- taste. It is impossible for a man of the tiquity, which have stood the test of so greatest parts to consider any thing in its many different ages and countries, or those whole extent, and in all its variety of lights. works among the moderns which have the Every man besides those general observasanction of the politer part of our contem- tions which are to be made upon an author, poraries. If, upon the perusal of such writ- forms several reflections that are peculiar ings, he does not find himself delighted in to his own manner of thinking; so that conan extraordinary manner, or if, upon read- versation will naturally furnish us with ing the admired passages in such authors, hints which we did not.attend to, and make ne finds a coldness and indifference in his us enjoy other men's'arts and reflections 136 THE SPECTATOR.;No. 410. as well as our own. This is the best reason No. 410.] Fridag, June 20, 1712. I can give for the observation which several f, nave made, that men of great genius in the - -Dum foris sunt, nihil sidetur mundius, have ade, that men of great genius in the Ne magis compositum uidquam, ne magis elegan same way of writing seldom rise up singly, Quae, cum amatore suo cum csenant, liguriunt. but at certain periods of time appear to- Harum videre ingluvier, sordes, inopiam: gether, and in a body as they did at Rome Quam inhonestae sola sint domi, atque avida cibi, er, and in a b as t d at uo pacto ex jure hesterno panem atrum vorent; in the reign of Augustus, and in Greece Nosse omnia hec, salus est adolescentulis. about the age of Socrates. I cannot think Ter. Eun. Act v. Sc. 4. that Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau,'When they are abroad, nothing so clean and nicely La Fontaine, Bruyere, Bossu, or the Da- dressed; and when at supper with a gallant, they do but La ontaine, ruyere,, or the a- piddle, and pick the choicest bits; but to see their nasticiers, would have written so well as they ness and poverty at home, their gluttony, and how they have done, had they not been friends and devour black crusts dipped in yesterday's broth, is a contemporaries. contemporariesperfect antidote against wenching.' It is likewise necessary for a man who WILL HONEYCOMB, who disguises his would form to himself a finished taste of present decay by visiting the wenches of good writing, to be well versed in the works the town only by way of humour, told us, of the best critics, both ancient and modern. that the last rainy night he, with Sir Roger I must confess that I could wish there were de Coverley, was driven into the Temple authors of this kind, who, beside the me- cloister, whither had escaped also a lady chanical rules, which a man of very little most exactly dressed from head to foot. taste may discourse upon, would enter into Will made no scruple to acquaint us, that the very spirit and soul of fine writing, and she saluted him very familiarly by his name, show us the several sources of that pleasure and turning immediately to the knight, she which rises in the mind upon the perusal said, she supposed that was his good friend of a noble work. Thus, although in poetry Sir Roger de Coverley: upon which nothing it be absolutely necessary that the unities less could follow than Sir Roger's approach of time, place, and action, with other points to salutation, with' Madam, the same, at of the same nature, should be thoroughly your service.' She was dressed in a black explained and understood, there is still tabby mantua and petticoat,without ribands; something more essential to the art, some- her linen striped muslin, and in the whole thing that elevates and astonishes the fancy, an agreeable second mourning; decent and gives a greatness of mind to the reader, dresses being often affected by the creawhich few of the critics besides Longinus tures of the town, at once consulting cheaphave considered. ness and the pretension to modesty. She Our general taste in England is for epi- went on with a familiar easy air,' Your gram, turns of wit, and forced conceits, friend, Mr. Honeycomb, is a little surprised which have no manner of influence either to see a woman here alone and unattended; for the bettering or enlarging the mind of but I dismissed my coach at the gate, and him who reads them, and have been care- tripped it down to my counsel's chambers; fully avoided by the greatest writers, both for lawyers' fees take up too much of a small among the ancients and moderns. I have disputed jointure to admit any other exendeavoured in several of my speculations, penses but mere necessaries.' Mr. Honeyto banish this gothic taste, which has taken comb begged they might have the honour possession among us. I entertained the town of setting her down, for Sir Roger's servant for a week together with an essay upon wit, was gone to call a coach. In the interim the in which I endeavoured to detect several of footman returned with no coach to be had;' those false kinds which have been admired and there appeared nothing to be done but in the different ages of the world, and at trusting herself with Mr. Honeycomb and the same time to show wherein the nature his friend, to wait at the tavern at the gate of true wit consists. I afterwards gave an for a coach, or to be subjected to all the instance of the great force which lies in a impertinence she must meet with in that natural simplicity of thought to affect the public place. Mr. Honeycomb being a man mind of the reader, from such vulgar pieces of honour, determined the choice of the as have little else besides this single quali- first, and Sir Roger as the better man, took fication to recommend them. I have like- the lady by the hand, leading her through all wise examined the works of the greatest the shower, covering her with his hat, and poet which our nation, or perhaps any gallanting a familiar acquaintance through other, has produced, and particularized rows of young fellows, who winked at Sukey most of those rational and manly beauties in the state she marched off, Will Honey which give a value to that divine work. I comb bringing up the rear. shall next Saturday enter upon an essay on Much importunity prevailed upon the'The Pleasures of the Imagination,' which, fair one to admit of a collation, where, after though it shall consider the subject at large, declaring she had no stomach, and having will perhaps suggest to the reader what it eaten a couple of chickens, devoured a truss is that gives a beauty to many passages of of sallet, and drank a full bottle to her the finest writers both in prose and verse. share, she sung the Old Man's Wish to As an undertaking of this nature is entirely Sir Roger. The knight left the room for new, I question not but it will be received some time after supper, and writ the fol with candour. 0. lowing billet, which he conveyed to Sukey No 411.] THE SPECTATOR. 137 and Sukey to her friend Will Honeycomb. But let my sons attend.'Attend may they Will has given it to Sir Andrew Freeport, Whom youthful vigour may to sin betray; Let them false charmers fly, and guard their he r.ts who read it last night to the club. Against the wily wanton's pleasing arts; With care direct their steps, nor turn astray'I am not so mere a country gentleman, To tread the paths of her deceitful way; but I can guess at the law business you had Lest they too late of her fell pow'r complain, at the Temple. If you would go down to And fall, where many mightier have been slain." at the Temple. If you would go down to " the country, and leave off all your vanities but your singing, let me know at my lodgings in Bow-street, Covent-garden, and you No. 411.] Saturday, June 21, 1712. shall be encouraged by your humble servant,. ROGER DE COVERLEY.' ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. My good friend could not well stand the Contents-The perfection of our sight above our other raillery which was rising upon him; but to senses. The pleasures of the imagination arise origi -nnl- to it, I delivered Vrl Will Honey- nally from sight. The pleasures of the imagination put a stop to it, eivere Wi divided under two heads. The pleasures of the imagi comb the following letter, and desired him nation in some respects equal to those of the under to read it to the board, standing. The extent of the pleasures of the imagina tion. The advantages a man receives from a relish of'MR. SPECTATOR,-Having seen trans- these pleasures. In what respect they are preferable R.SPECTATORHaving seen trans- to those of the understanding. lation of one of the chapters in the Canticles A n ~i-T~~i'i. i~. ~ ~ ~ ~Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante into English verse inserted among your late Trita solo: juvat iltegros accedere fonteis, papers, I have ventured to send you the Atque haurire - Lucr. Lib. i. 925. seventh chapter of the Proverbs in a poetical In wild unclear'd. to Muses a retreat, dress. If you think it worthy appearing O'e ground untrd before I devious roam, And deep-enamour'd, into latent springs among your speculations, it will be a suf- Presume to peep at coy virgin Naiads. ficient reward for the trouble of your conttant reader,2X3 OR sight is the most perfect and most. delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind "My son, th' instruction that my words impart, with the largest variety of ideas, converses Grave on the living tablet of thy heart; with its objects at the greatest distance, and And all the wholesome precepts that I give continues the longest in action without bei Observe with strictest reverence, and live. " Let all thy homage be to Wisdom paid, tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. Seek her protection, and implore her aid; The sense of feeling can indeed give us a That she may keep thy soul from harm secure, notion of extension shape, and all othet And turn thy footsteps from the harlot's door, Who with curs'd charms lures the unwary in, ideas that enter at the eye, except colours; And soothes with flattery their souls to sin. but at the same time it is very much strained, Onc te thfm my indow, as I cast mine eye and confined in its operations, to the numOn those that pass'd in giddy numbers by, A youth among the foolish youths I spy'd, ber, bulk, and distance of its particular Who took not sacred wisdom for his guide. objects. Our sight seems designed to sup" Just as the sun withdrew his cooler light, ply all these defects, and may be considered And evening soft led on the shades of night, He stole in covert twilight to his fate, as a more delicate and diffusive kind of And pass'd the corner near the harlot's gate; touch,that spreads itself over an infinite mulWhen lo, a woman comes! titude of bodies, comprehends the largest Loose her attire, and such her glaring dress, ue oies o re lars As aptly did the harlot's mind express; figures, and brings into our reach some of Subtle she is, and practis'd in the arts the most remote parts of the universe. By which the wanton conquer heedless hearts: It is this sense which furnishes the imaStubborn and loud she is; she hates her home; Varying her place and form, she loves to roam: gination with its ideas; so that by'the Now she's within, now in the street doth stray, pleasures of the imagination,' or' fancy,' Now at each corner stands, and waits her prey. (which I shall use promiscuously) I here The youth she seiz'd; and laying now aside All modesty, the female's justest pride, mean such as arise from visible objects, She said with an embrace,' Iere at my house either when we have them actually in our Peace-offerings are, this day I paid my vows. view or when we call up their ideas into our I therefore came abroad to meet my dear, st, d ripti And lo, in happy hour, I find thee here. minds by paintings, statues, descriptions, My chamber I've adorn'd, and o'er my bed or any the like occasion. We cannot indeed Are coverings of the richest tap'stry spread, have a single image in the fancy that did With linen it is deck'd from Egypt brought, And carvings by the curious artist wrought: not make its first appearance through the It wants no glad perfume Arabia yields sight; but we have the power of retaining, In all her citron groves, and spicy fields; altering, and compounding those images, Here all her store of richest odour meets, which we have once received, into all the I'll lay thee in a wilderness of sweets;althe Whatever to the sense can grateful be varieties of picture and vision that are most I have collected there-I want but thee. agreeable to the imagination; for by this My husband's gone a journey far away, faculty a man in a dungeon is capable of Much gold he took abroad, and long will stay: cuty a man n a dugeon is capable of He nam'd for his return a distant day.' entertaining himself with scenes and land" Upon her tongue did such smooth mischief dwell, scapes more beautiful than any that can be and from her lips such welcome flatt'ry fell, found in the whole compass of nature. rh' unguarded youth, in silken fetters ty'd, ound n the whole compass of nature. Resign'd his reason, and with ease comply'd. There are few words in the English lanrhus does the ox to his own slaughter go, guage which are employed in a more loose And thus is senseless of the impending blow,rd sne thn h f Thus flies the simple bird into the snare, unc mscred sense tan se That skilful fowl-ers for his life prepare. the fancy and the imagination I therefore VoL. II. 18 138 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 412. thought it necessary to fix and determine to make the sphere of his innocent plea the notion of these two words, as I intend sures as wide as possible, that he may reto make use of them in the thread of my tire into them with safety, and find in them following speculations, that the reader may such a satisfaction as a wise man would not -conceive rightly what is the subject which blush to take. Of this nature are those of I proceed upon. I must therefore desire the imagination, which do not require such him to remember, that by'the pleasures a bent of thought as is necessaly to our )f the imagination,' I mean only such plea- more serious employments, nor at the same sures as arise originally from sight, and time, suffer the mind to sink into that neg that I divide these pleasures into two kinds: ligence and remissness, which are apt to my design being first of all to discourse of accompany our more sensual delights, but, those primary pleasures of the imagination, like a gentle exercise to the faculties, which entirely proceed from such objects awaken them from sloth and idleness, as are before our eyes; and in the next without putting them upon any labour or place to speak of those secondary pleasures difficulty. of the imagination which flow from the We might here add, that the pleasures ideas of visible objects, when the objects are of the fancy are more conducive to health not actually before the eye, but are called than those of the understanding, which are up into our memories or formed into agree- worked out by dint of thinking, and attendable visions of things that are either absent ed with too violent a labour of the brain. or fictitious. Delightful scenes, whether in nature, paintThe pleasures of the imagination, taken ing, or poetry, have a kindly influence on in the full extent, are not so gross as those the body, as well as the mind; and not only of sense, nor so refined as those of the un- serve to clear and brighten the imaginaderstanding. The last are indeed more tion, but are able to disperse grief and mepreferable, because they are founded on lancholy, and to set the animal spirits in some new knowledge or improvement in pleasing and agreeable motions. For this the mind of man; yet it must be confessed, reason Sir Francis Bacon, in his Essay upon that those of the imagination are as great Health, has not thought it improper to and as transporting as the other. A beau- prescribe to his reader a poem or a prostiful prospect delights the soul as much as pect, where he particularly dissuades him a demonstration; and a description in Ho- from knotty and subtle disquisitions, and mer has charmed more readers than a advises him to pursue studies that fill the chapter in Aristotle. Besides, the plea- mind with splendid and illustrious objects, sures of the imagination have this advan- as histories, fables, and contemplations of tage above those of the understanding, that nature. they are more obvious, and more easy to be I have in this paper, by way of introduc acquired. It is but opening the eye, and tion, settled the notion of those pleasures the scene enters. The colours paint them- of the imagination which are the subject of selves on the fancy, with very little atten- my present undertaking, and endeavoured, tion of thought or application of the mind by several considerations, to recommend to in the beholder. \e are struck, we know my reader the pursuit of those pleasures. not how, with the symmetry of any thing I shall in my next paper examine the sevewe see, and immediately assent to the ral sources from whence these pleasures beauty of an object, without inquiring into are derived. 0. the particular causes and occasions of it.'A man of a polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are No. 412.] Monday, June 23, 1712. not capable of receiving. He can converse,with a picture and find an agreeable com- PAPER II. panion in a statue. He meets with a secret ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. refreshment in a description, and often feels Contents.-Three sources of all the pleasures of the imaa greater satisfaction in the prospect of gination, in our survey of outward objects. How fields and mneadows, than another does in what is great pleases the imagination. How what is the possession. It gives him, indeed, a kind in our own species pleases the imagination. How of property in every thing he sees, and what is beautiful in general pleases the imagination makes the most rude uncultivated parts of What other accidental causes may contribute to thn nature administer to his pleasures: so that heightening ofthose pleasures. he looks upon the world as it were in an- -Divisum, sic breve fiet opus.-JMart. Ep. iv. 83. other light, and discovers in it a multitude The work, divided aptly, shorter grows. of charms, that conceal themselves from I SHALL first consider those pleasures of the generality of mankind. the imagination which arise from the actual There are indeed but very few who know view and survey of outward objects; and how to be idle and innocent, or have a re- these, I think, all proceed from the sight lish of any pleasures that are not criminal; of what is great, uncommon, or beautiful. every diversion they take is at the expense There may, indeed, be something so terriof some one virtue or another, and their ble or offensive, that the horror or loathvery first step out of business is into vice or someness of an object may overbear the folly. A man should endeavour, therefore, pleasure which results from its greatness, No. 412.] THE SPECTATOR. 139 novelty, or beauty; but still there will be double entertainme- - Groves, fields, and such a mixture of delight in the very meadows, are at any season of the year disgust it gives us, as any of these three pleasant to look upon, but never so much qualifications are most conspicuous and as in the opening of the spring, when they prevailing. are all new and fresh, with their first gloss By greatness, I do not only mean the bulk upon them, and not yet too much accusof any single object, but the largeness of a tomed and familiar to the eye. For this whole view, considered as one entire piece. reason there is nothing more enlivens a Such are the prospects of an open cham- prospect than rivers, jetteaus, or falls of paign country, a vast uncultivated desert, water, where the scene is perpetually shiftof huge heaps of mountains, high rocks and ing, and entertaining the sight every moprecipices, or a wide expanse of water, ment with something that is new. We are where we are not struck with the novelty quickly tired with looking upon hills and or beauty of the sight, but with that rude valleys, where every thing continues fixed kind of magnificence which appears in and settled in the same place and posture, many of these stupendous works of Nature. but find our thoughts a little agitated and Our imagination loves to be filled with an relieved at the sight of such objects as are object, or to grasp at any thing that is too ever in motion, and sliding away from bebig for its capacity. We are flung into a neath the eye of the beholder. pleasing astonishment at such unbounded But there is nothing that makes its way views, and feel a delightful stillness and more directly to the soul than beauty, amazement in the soul at the apprehensions which immediately diffuses a secret satisof them. The mind of man naturally hates'faction and complacency through the imaevery thing that looks like a restraint upon gination, and gives a finishing to any thing t, and is apt to fancy itself under a sort of that is great or uncommon. The very first confinement, when the sight is pent up in discovery of it strikes the mind with an ina narrow compass, and shortened on every ward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and side by the neighbourhood of walls or delight through all its faculties. There is mountains. On the contrary, a spacious not perhaps any real beauty or deformity horizon is an image of liberty, where the more in one piece of matter than another, eye has room to range abroad, to expatiate because we might have been so made, that at large on the immensity of its views, and whatsoever now appears loathsome to us to lose itself amidst the variety of objects might have shown itself agreeable; lbut we that offer themselves to its observation. find by experience that there are several Such wide and undetermined prospects are modifications of matter, which the mind, as pleasing to the fancy as the speculations without any previous consideration, proof eternity or infinitude are to the under- nounces at first sight beautiful or deformed. standing. But if there be a beauty of un- Thus we see that every different species of commonness joined with this grandeur, as sensible creatures has its different notions in a troubled ocean, a heaven adorned with of beauty, and that each of them is most stars and meteors, or a spacious landscape affected with the beauties of its own kind. cut out into rivers, woods, rocks and This is no where more remarkable than in meadows, the pleasure still grows upon birds of the same shape and proportion, us, as it arises from more than a single where we often see the mate determined principle. in his courtship by the single grain oi Every thing that is new or uncommon, tincture of a feather, and never discovering raises a pleasure in the imagination because any charms but in the colour of its species. it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea Scitthalamoservare fidem, sanctasque veretui gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea Connubii leges; non ilium in pectore candor of which it was not before possessed. We Solicitat niveus; neque pravum accendit amorem are indeed so often conversant with one set Splendida lanugo, vel honesta in vertice crista, of objects, and tired out with so many re- Purpureusve nitor pennarum; ast agmina late oobjecs, an e ot wi s e Fceminea explorat cautus, maculasque requirit peated shows of the same things, that Cognatas, paribusque interlita corpora guttis: whatever is new or uncommon contributes Ni faceret, pictis sylvam circum undique monstris a little to vary human life, and to divert Confusam aspiceres vulgo partusque biformes, a e^ m, vry ua nie, < u mei. Et genus ambiguum, et veneris monumenta nefarnte our minds, for a while, with the strange-'HineMerula in nigro se oblectat nigra marto, ness of its appearance. It serves us for a Hine socium lasciva petit Philomela canorum, kind of refreshment, and takes off from Agnoscitque pares sonitus. hine Noctua tetram kindrefreand takes off from Camitiem alarum, et glaucos miratur ocellos. that satiety we are apt to complain of, in Nempe sibi semper constat, crescitque quotannis our usual and ordinary entertainments. It Lucida progenies, castos confessa parentes; is this that bestows charms on a monster, Dum virides inter saltus lucosque sonoros atre Vere novo exultat, plumasque decora juventus and makes even the imperfections of nature Explicat ad solem patriisque coloribus ardet.'* please us. It is this that recommends va- riety, where the mind is every instant call- Preserves connubial rites inviolate, ed off to something new, and the attention With cold indifference every charm he sees, not suffered to dwell too long, and waste it- rhe milky whiteness of the stately neck, self on any particular object. It is this, self o an particlar oectrv wat is great or * It would seem from his manner of introducing likewise, that improves what is great or them, that Mr. Addison was himself the author of thee beautiful and makes it afford the mind a fine verses. 140 THE SPECTAT(jR. [No. 413. The saining down, proud crest, and purple wings: great. The final cause of our being pleased withwha But cautious with a searching eye explores is new. The final cause of our being pleased with The female tribes his proper mate to find, what is beautiful in our own species. The final With kindred colours mark'd; did he not so, cause of our being pleased with what is beautiful in The grove with painted monsters would abound, general. Th' ambiguous product of unnatural love. The blackbird hence selects her sooty spouse; - Causa latet, vis est notissimaThe nightingale, her musical compeer,, Ovid. Met. ix. 207. Lur'd by the well-known voice: the bird of night, Lur'd by thh well-known voice: the bird of night, The cause is secret, but th' effect is known. —ddison. Smit with his dusky wings and greenish eyes, Woos his dun paramour. The beauteous raceHOUG in yesterday's paper we conSpeak the chaste loves of their progenitorsHOUGH yesterdays paper we conWhen, by the spring invited, they exult sidered how every thing that is great, new, In woods and fields, and to the sun unfold or beautiful, is apt to affect the iraginaTheir plumes, that with paternal colours glow.' tion with pleasure, we must own that it is There is a second kind of beauty that we impossible for us to assign the necessary find in the several products of art and na- cause of this pleasure, because we know ture, which does not work in the imagina- neither the nature of an idea, nor the subtion with that warmth and violence as the stance of a human soul, which might help beauty that appears in our proper species, us t. discover the conformity or disagreebut is apt however to raise in us a secret ableness of the one to the other; and theredelight, and a kind of fondness for the fore, for want of such a light, all that we places or objects in which we discover it. can do in speculations of this kind, is to This consists either in the gaiety or variety reflect on those operations of the soul that of colours, in the symmetry and proportioi are most agreeable, and to range, under of parts, in the arrangement and disposi- their proper heads, what is pleasing or distion of bodies, or in a just mixture and con- pleasing to the mind, without being able to currence of all together. Among these trace out the several necessary and efficient several kinds of beauty the eye takes most causes from whence the pleasure or disdelight in colours. We no where meet with pleasure arises. a more glorious or pleasing show in nature Final causes lie more bare and open to than what appears in the heavens at the our observation, as there are often a greater rising and setting of the sun, which is variety that belong to the same effect; and wholly made up of those different stains of these, though they are not altogether so salight that show themselves in clouds of a tisfactory, are generally more useful than different situation. For this reason we find the other, as they give us greater occasion the poets, who are always addressing them- of admiring the goodness and wisdom of the selves to the imagination, borrowing more first Contriver. of their epithets from colours than from One of the final causes of our delight in any other topic. any thing that is great may be this. The As the fancy delights in every thing that Supreme Author of our being has so formed is great, strange, or beautiful, and is still the soul of man, that nothing but himself more pleased the more it finds of these can be its last, adequate, and proper happerfections in the same object, so it is piness. Because, therefore, a great part capable of receiving a new satisfaction by of our happiness must arise from the conthe assistance of another sense. Thus, any templation of his being, that he might give continued sound, as the music of birds, or our souls a just relish of such a contemplaa fall of water, awakens every moment the tion, he has made them naturally delight mind of the beholder, and makes him more in the apprehension of what is great or unattentive to the several beauties of the limited. Our admiration, which is a very place that lie before him. Thus, if there pleasing motion of the mind, immediately arises a fragrancy of smells or perfumes, rises at the consideration of any object that they heighten the pleasures of the imagi- takes up a great deal of room in the fancy, nation, and make even the colours and and, by consequence, will improve into the verdure of the landscape appear more highest pitch of astonishment and devotion agreeable; for the ideas of both senses re- when we contemplate his nature, that is commend each other, and are pleasanter neither circumscribed by time nor place, together than when they enter the mind nor to be comprehended by the largest separately; as the different colours of a capacity of a created being. picture, when they are well -disposed, set He has annexed a secret pleasure to the off one another and receive an additional idea of any thing that is new or uncommon, beauty from the advantages of their situa- that he might encourage us in the pursuit tion. 0. after knowledge, and engage us to search _________________ into the wonders of his creation; for every new idea brings such a pleasure along with No 413.] Tuesday, June 24, 1712. it as rewards any pains we have taken in PAPER III. its acquisition, and consequently serves as a motive to put us upon fresh discoveries. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. He has made every thing that is beautibontents. —Wy the necessary cause of our being pleas- ful i our own species pleasant, that all ed with what is great, new, or beautiful, unknown. hte temted to multi Why the final cause more knowr. and more useful. creatures mht be tempted to multiply The final cause of our being plea led with what is their kind, and fill the world with inhabit No. 413.] THE SPECTATOR. 141 ants; for it is very remarkable, that where- truth which has been proved incontestiblv ever nature is crossed in the production of by many modern philosophers, and is ina monster (the result of any unnatural mix- deed one of the finest speculations in that ture) the breed is incapable of propagating science, if the English reader would see its likeness, and of founding a new order of the notion explained at large, he may find creatures: so that, unless all animals were it in the eighth chapter of the second book allured by the beauty of their own species, of Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Under. generation would be at an end, and the standing. earth unpeopled. In the last place, he has made every reprinted here front the original edition In the last place, he has made every Thefollowing letter of Steele to Addison zs thing that is beautiful in all other objects r ed ere fro te original edition pleasant, or rather has made so many of the Spectator in folio. objects appear beautiful, that he might'June 24, 1712. render the whole creation more gay and'MR. SPECTATOR,-I would not divert delightful. He has given almost every the course of your discourses, when you seem thing about us the power of raising an bent upon obliging the world with a train of agreeable idea in the imagination: so that thinking, which, -rightly attended to, may it is impossible for us to behold his works render the life of every man who reads with coldness or indifference, and to survey it more easy and happy for the future. The so many beauties without a secret satisfac- pleasures of the imagination are what betion and complacency. Things would make wilder life, when reason and judgment do but a poor appearance to the eye, if we not interpose; it is therefore a worthy action saw them only in their proper figures and in you to look carefully into the powers of motions: and what reason can we assign fancy, that other men, from the knowledge for their exciting in us many of those ideas of them, may improve their joys, and allay which are different from any thing that their griefs, by a just use of that faculty. I exists in the objects themselves (for such say, sir, I would not interrupt you in the are light and colours,) were it not to add progress of this discourse; but if you will supernumerary ornaments to the universe, do me the favour of inserting this letter in and make it more agreeable to the imagi- your next paper, you will do some service nation? we are every where entertained to the public, though not in so noble a way with pleasing shows and apparitions; we of obliging, as that of improving their discover imaginary glories in the heavens, minds. Allow me, sir, to acquaint you and in the earth, and see some of this vi- with a design (of which I am partly ausionary beauty poured out upon the whole thor,) though it tends to no greater good creation: but what a rough unsightly sketch than that of getting money. I should not of nature should we be entertained with, hope for the favour of a philosopher in this did all her colouring disappear, and the matter, if it were not attempted under all several distinctions of light and shade the restrictions which you sages put upon vanish? In short, our souls are at present private acquisitions. The first purpose delightfully lost and bewildered in a pleas- which every good man is to propose to himing delusion, and we walk about like the self, is the service of his prince and counenchanted hero in a romance, who sees try; after that is done, he cannot add to beautiful castles, woods, and meadows; and, himself, but he must also be beneficial to at the same time, hears the warbling of them. This scheme of gain is not only conbirds, and the purling of streams; but, sistent with that end, but has its very being upon the finishing of some secret spell, the in subordination to it; for no man can be a fantastic scene breaks up, and the discon- gainer here but at the same time he him solate knight finds himself on a barren self, or some other, must succeed in their heath, or in a solitary desert. It is not im- dealings with the government. It is called probable that something like this may be'The Multiplication Table,' and is so far the state of the soul after its first separa- calculated for the immediate service of her tion, in respect of the images it will receive majesty, that the same person who is forfrom matter; though indeed the ideas of tunate in the lottery of the state may recolours are so pleasing and beautiful in the ceive yet further advantage in this table. imagination, that it is possible the soul will And I am sure nothing can bemore pleasnot be deprived of them, but perhaps find ing to her gracious temper than to find out them excited by some other occasional additional methods of increasing their good cause, as they are at present by the differ- fortune who adventure any thing in her ent impressions of the subtle matter on the service, or laying occasions for others to beorgan of sight. come capable of serving their country who I have here supposed that my reader is are At present in too low circumstances to acquainted with that great modern disco- exert themselves. The manner of exevery, which is at present universally ac- cuting the design is by giving out receipts knowledged by all the inquirers into natural for half guineas received, which shall entitle philosophy: namely, that light and colours, the fortunate bearer to certain sums in the as apprehended by the imagination, are only table, as it is set forth at large in the pro ideas in the mind, and not qualities that posals printed the twenty-third instant. have any existence in matter. As this is a There is another circumstance in this de 142 THE SPECTATOR. lNo. 414. sign which gives me hopes of your favour Speluncae, vivique lacus; hic frigida Tempe, to it, and that is what Tully advises, to Mugitusque boum, mollesque sub abore somni. wit, that the benefit is made as diffusive asrg Gerg. i. 47 possible. Every one that has half a guinea Here easy quiet, a secure retreat, is put into the possibility, from that small A harmless life that knows not how to cheat, is put inlto the possibility, from that small Withhome-bred plenty the rich owner bless, sum to raise himself an easy fortune: when And rural pleasures crown his happiness. these little parcels of wealth are, as it Unvex'd with quarrels, undisturb'd with noise, were, thus thrown back again into the re- The country king his peaceful realm enjoys: were, thus thrown back again into t h e re- Cool grots, and living lakes, the flow'ry pride donation of providence, we are to expect Of meads and streams that through the valley glide that some who live under hardships or ob- And shady groves that easy sleep invite, scurity may be produced to the world in And, after toilsome days, a sweet repose at night. scurity may be produced to the world in Dryden. the figure they deserve by this means. I doubt not but this last argument will have But though there are several of those force with you; and I cannot add another wild scenes, that are more delightful than to it, but what your severity will, I fear, any artificial shows, yet we find the works very little regard; which is, that I am, sir, of nature still more pleasant, the more they your greatest admirer, resemble those of art: for in this case our'RICHARD STEELE.' pleasure rises from a double principle; from the agreeableness of the objects to the eye, and from their similitude to other objects. No. 414.] Wednesday, June 25, 1712. VWe are pleased as well with comparing Noa,, 1' their beauties, as with surveying them, and PAPER IV. can represent them to our minds, either as ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. copies or originals. Hence it is that we tents.-The works of nature more take delight in a prospect which is well laid Contents.-The works of nature more pleasant to the and diversified with fields and meaimagination than those of art. The works of nature out, an iversifed wlth nelds and meastill more pleasant, the more they resemble those of dows, woods and rivers; in those accidental art. The works of art more pleasant, the more they landscapes of trees, clouds, and cities, that resemble those of nature. Our English plantations are sometimes found in the veins of marble; and gardens considered in the foregoing light. are some imes f ound in the veins of marole; in the curious fret-work of rocks and grottos; ~Alterius sic and, in a word, in any thing that hath such a Aftera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice. Altera poscit ope rers Poet. con. 414. variety or regularity as may seem the effect Hor. Poet v. 414o f design in what we call theworks of But mutually they need each other's help.f design in what we call theworks of Roscommon. chance. If the products of nature rise in value acIF we consider the works of nature and cording as they more or less resemble those art as they are qualified to entertain the of art, we may be sure that artificial works imagination, we shall find the last very de- receive a greater advantage from their refective in comparison of the former; for semblance of such as are natural; because though they may sometimes appear as here the similitude is not only pleasant, but beautiful or strange, they can have nothing the pattern more perfect. The prettiest in them of that vastness and immensity, landscape I ever saw, was one drawn on the which afford so great an entertainment to walls of a dark room, which stood opposite the mind of the beholder. The one may be on one side to a navigable river, and on the as polite and delicate as the other, but can other to a park. The experiment is very never show herself so august and magnifi- common in optics. Here you might discocent in the design. There is something ver the waves and fluctuations of the water more bold and masterly in the rough care- in strong and proper colours, with a picture less strokes of nature, than in the nice of a ship entering at one end, and sailing by touches and embellishments of art. The degrees through the whole piece. On anobeauties of the most stately garden or pa- ther there appeared the green shadows of lace lie in a narrow compass, the imagina- trees, waving to and fro with the wind, and tion immediately runs them over, and re- herds of deer among them in miniature, quires something else to gratify her; but in leaping about upon the wall. I must conthe wide fields of nature, the sight wanders fess the novelty of such a sight may be one up and down without confinement, and is occasion of its pleasantness to the imaginafed with an infinite variety of images, with- tion; but certainly its chief reason is its out any certain stint or number. For this nearest resemblance to nature, as it does not reason we always find the poet in love with only, like other pictures, give the colour and the country life, where nature appears in figure, but the motions of the things it re thbe greatest perfection, and furnishes out presents. allkthose scenes >'at are most apt to dlight We have before observed, that there is the imagination. generally in nature something more grand Scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus, et fugit urbes. and august than what we meet with in the Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. ii. 77. curiosities of art. When, therefore, we see -To grottos and to groves we run, this imitated in any measure, it gives us a To ease and silence, ev'ry muse's son. rope. nobler and more exalted kind of pleasure Hic secura quies, et nescia fallere vita, than what we receive from the nicer and Dives )pum variar tm, hic latis otiafundis. more accurate productions of art. On this No. 415.1 1 iHE blrCTATOR. 143 account our English gardens are not so en- No. 415.] Thursday, June 26, 1712. tertaining to the fancy as those in France PAPER V and Italy, where we see a large extent of ground covered over with an agreeable ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. mixture of garden and forest, which repre- Contents.-Of architecture, as it affects the imagination. Greatness in architecture relates either to the bulk or sent every where an artificial rudeness, to the minner. Greatness of bulk in the ancient much more charming than that neatness oriental buildings. The ancient accounts of these and elegancy which we meet with in those buildings confirmed. 1. From the advantages for raisof our own country. It might indeed be of ing such works, in the first ages of the world, and in of our own country. It might indeeld be of eastern climates. 2. From several of them which are ill consequence to the public, as well as stillextant. Instances how greatness of manner afunprofitable to private persons, to alienate fects the imagination. A French author's observa. SO much. ground from pasturage and th~e tions on this subject. Why convex and concave so much ground from pasturage and the figures give a greatness of manner to works of archi plough, in many parts of a country that is tecture. Every thingthat pleases the imagination ii so well peopled, and cultivated to a far architecture, is either great, beautiful, or new. greater advantage. But why may not a Adde tot egregias urbes, operumque laborem. whole estate be thrown into a kind of gar- Virg. Georg. ii. 155. den by frequent plantations, that may turn Witness our cities of illustrious name, as much to the profit as the pleasure of the Their costly labour and stupendous frame. owner? A marsh overgrown with willows, Dryden or a mountain shaded with oaks, are not HAVING already shown how the fancy is only more beautiful but more beneficial, affected by the works of nature, and afterthan when they lie bare and unadorned, wards considered in general both the works Fields of corn make a pleasant prospect; of nature and of art, how they mutually asand if the walks were a little taken care of sist and complete each other in forming such that lie between them, if the natural em- scenes and prospects as are most apt to debroidery of the meadows were helped and light the mind of the beholder, I shall in improved by some small additions of art, this paper throw together some reflections and the several rows of hedges set off by on that particular art, which has a more trees and flowers that the soil was capable immediate tendency, than any other, to of receiving, a man might make a pretty prodiuce those primary pleasures of the landscape of his own possessions. imagination which have hitherto been the Writers, who have given us an account subject of this discourse. The art I mean of China, tell us the inhabitants of that coun- is that of architecture, which I shall consitry laugh at the plantations of our Euro- der -nly with regard to the light in which peans, which are laid out by the rule and the foregoing speculations have placed it, line; because they say, any one may place without entering into those rules and maxtrees in equal rows and uniform figures. ims which the great masters of architecture They chose rather to show a genius in have laid down, and explained at large in works of this nature, and therefore always numberless treatises upon that subject. conceal the art by which they direct them- Greatness, in the works of architecture, selves. They have a word, it seems, in their may be considered as relating to the bulk language, by which they express the parti- and body of the structure, or to the manner cular beauty of a plantation that thus strikes in which it is built. As for the first, we find the imagination at first sight, without dis- the ancients, especially among the eastern covering what it is that has so agreeable an nations of the world, infinitely superior to effect. Our British gardeners, on the con- the moderns. trary, instead of humouring nature, love to Not to mention the tower of Babel, of deviate from it as much as possible. Our which an old author says, there were the trees rise in cones, globes, and pyramids. foundations to be seen in his time, which We see the marks of the scissars upon every looked like a spacious mountain; what plant and bushl I do not know whether I could be more noble than the walls of Babyam singular in my opinion, but, for my own Ion, its hanging gardens, and its temple to part, I would rather look upon a tree in all Jupiter Belus, that rose a mile high by eight its luxuriancy and diffusion of boughs and several stories, each story a furlong in branches, than when it is thus cut and trim- height, and on the top of which was the Bamed into a mathematical figure; and cannot bylonian observatory? I might here, likebut fancy that an orchard in flower looks in- wise, take notice of the huge rock that was finitely more delightful than all the little cut into the figure of Semiramis, with the labyrinths of the most finished parterre. smaller rocks that lay by it in the shape of But, as our great modellers of gardens have tributary kings; the prodigious basin, or artheir magazines of plants to dispose of, it is tificial lake, which took in the whole Euvery natural for them to tear up all the phrates, till such time as a new canal was beautiful plantations of fruit-trees, and con- formed for its reception, with the several trive a plan that may most turn to their own trenches through which that river was conprofit, in taking off their ever-greens, and veyed. I know there are persons who look the like moveable plants, with which their upon some of these wonders of art as fabushops are plentifully stocked. lous: but I cannot find any ground for such 0. a suspicion; unless it be that we have no 144 THE SPECTAT'OR. [No. 415. such works among us at present. There mount Athos, had it Deen cut into the figure were indeed many greater advantages for of the hero, according to the proposal of building in those times, and in that part of Phidias,* with a river in one hand, and a the world, than have been met with ever city in the other. since. The earth was extremely fruitful; Let any one reflect on the disposition of men lived generally on pasturage, which mind he finds in himself at his first entrance requires a much smaller number of* hands into the Pantheon at Rome, and how the than agriculture. There were few trades imagination is filled with something great to employ the busy part of mankind, and and amazing; and, at the same time, con fewer arts and sciences to give workto men sider how little, in proportion, he is afof speculative tempers; and what is more fected with the inside of a Gothic cathedral, than all the rest, the prince was absolute; though it be five times larger than the so that when he went to war, he put himself other; which can arise from nothing else at the head of the whole people, as we find but the greatness of the manner in the one, Semiramis leading her three millions to the and the meanness in the other. field, and yet overpowered by the number I have seen an observation upon this subof her enemies. It is no wonder, therefore, ject in a French author, which very much when she was at peace, and turning her pleased me. It is Monsieur Freart's Paralthoughts on building, that she could accom- lel of the ancient 4d modern Architecture. plish such great works, with such a prodi- I shall give it the reader with the same gious multitude of labourers; besides that, terms of art which he has made use of.' I in her climate there was small interruption am observing,' says he,'a thing which, in of frosts and winters, which make the my opinion, is very curious, whence it pronorthern workmen lie half the year idle. I ceeds, that in the same quantity of supermight mention, too, among the benefits of fices, the one manner seems great and the climate, what historians say of the earth, magnificent, and the other poor and trifling; that it sweated out a bitumen, or natural the reason is fine and uncommon. I say, kind of mortar, which is doubtless the same then, that to introduce into architecture with that mentioned in holy writ, as con- this grandeur of manner, we ought so to tributing to the structure of Babel:' Slime proceed, that the division of the principal they used instead of mortar.' members of the order may consist but of In Egypt we still see their pyramids, few parts, that they be all great, and of a which answer to the descriptions that have bold and ample relievo, and swelling; and been made of them; and I question not but that the eye, beholding nothing little and a traveller might find out some remains of mean, the imagination may be more vigorthe labyrinth that covered a whole pro- ously touched and affected with the work vince, and had a hundred temples disposed that stands before it. For example, in a among its several quarters and divisions. cornice, if the gola or cymatium of the The wall of China is one of these eastern corona, the coping, the modillions, or denpieces of magnificence, which makes a telli, make a noble show by their graceful figure even in the map of the world, al- productions, if we see none of that ordinary though an account of it would have been confusion, which is the result of those little thought fabulous, were not the wall itself cavities, quarter rounds of the astragal, and still extant. I know not how many other intermingled We are obliged to devotion for the noblest particulars, which produce no effect in buildings that have adorned the several great and massy works, and which very countries of the world. It is this which has unprofitably take up place to the prejudice set men at work on temples and public of the principal member, it is most certain places of worship, not only that they might, that this manner will appear solemn and by the magnificence of the building, invite great; as, on the contrary, that it will have the Ieity to reside within it, but that such but a poor and mean effect, where there is stupendous works might, at the same time, a redundancy of those smaller ornaments, open the mind to vast conceptions, and fit which divide and scatter the angles of the it to converse with the divinity of the place. sight into such a multitude of rays, so For every thing that is majestic imprints an pressed together that the whole will apawfulness and reverence on the mind of the pear but a confusion.' beholder, and strikes in with the natural Among all the figures of architecture, greatness of the soul. there are none that have a greater air than In the second place we are to consider the concave and the convex; and we find greatness of manner in architecture, which in all the ancient and modern architecture, has such force upon the imagination, that a as well as in the remote parts of China, as small building, where it appears, shall give in countries nearer home, that round pil, the mind nobler ideas than any one of lars and vaulted roofs make a great part twenty times the bulk, where the manner of those buildings which are designed for is ordinary or little. Thus, perhaps, a man pomp and magnificence. The reason I take would have been more astonished with the to be, because in these figures we generally majestic air that appeared in one of Lysip- see more of the body than in those of other pus's statues of Alexander, though no bigger. than the life, than he might have been with * Dinocrates. No. 416.J THE SPECTATOR. 145 kinds. There are, indeed, figures of bodies, on the other, which, for distinction sake, I where the eye may take in two-thirds of have called' The Secondary Pleasures of the surface; but, as in such bodies the sight the Imagination.' When I say the ideas must split upon several angles, it does not we receive from statues, descriptions, or take il one uniform idea, but several ideas such-like occasions, are the same that were of the same kind. Look upon the outside once actually in our view, it must not be of a dome, your eye half surrounds it; look understood that we had once seen the very upon the inside, and at one glance you have place, action, or person, that are carved or all the prospect of it; the entire concavity described. It is sufficient that we have falls into your eye at once, the sight being seen places, persons, or actions in general, as the centre that collects and gathers into which bear a resemblance, or at least some it the lines of the whole circumference; in remote analogy, with what we find reprea square pillar, the sight often takes in but sented; since it is in the power of the a fourth, part of the surface; and in a square imagination, when it is once stocked with concave, must move up and down to the particular ideas, to enlarge, compound, and different sides, before it is master of all the vary them at her own pleasure. inward surface. For this reason, the fancy Among the different kinds of representa is infinitely more struck with the view of tion, statuary is the most natural, and shows the open air and skies, that passes through us something likest the object that is repre an arch, than what comes through a square, sented. To make use of a common instance: or any other figure. The figure of the rain- let one who is born blind take an image in Dow does not contribute less to its magnifi- his hands, and trace out with his fingers cence than the colours to its beauty, as it is the different furrows and impressions of the Very poetically described by the son of Si- chisel,.and he will easily conceive how the rach:'Look upon the rainbow, and praise shape of a man, or beast, may.be reprehim that made it; very beautiful it is in its sented by it; but should he draw his hand brightness; it encompassestheheavenswith over a picture, where all is smooth and a glorious circle; and the hands of the Most uniform, he would never be able to imagine High have bended it.' how the several prominences and depresHaving thus spoken of that greatness sions of a human body could be shown on a which affects the mind in architecture, I plain piece of canvass, that has in it no un might next show the pleasure that rises in evenness or irregularity. Description runs the imagination from what appears new yet farther from the things it represents and beautiful in this art! but as every be- than painting; for a picture bears a real holder has naturally greater taste of these resemblance to its original, which letters two perfections in every building which and syllables are wholly void of. Colours offers itself to his view, than of that which speak all languages, but words are underI have hitherto considered, I shall not trou- stood only by such a people or nation. For ble my readers with any reflections upon it. this reason, though men's necessities quickIt is sufficient for my present purpose to ly put them on finding out speech, writing observe, that there is nothing in this whole is probably of a later invention than paintart which pleases the imagination, but as it ing; particularly, we are told that in Ameis great, uncommon, or beautiful. 0. rica, when the Spaniards first arrived there, expresses were sent to the emperor of Mexico in paint, and the news of his counNo. 416.] Friday, June 27, 1712.. try delineated by the strokes of a pencil, which was a more natural way than that PAPER VI. of writing, though at the same time much ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. more imperfect, because it is impossible to draw the little connections of speech, or to Contents.-The secondary pleasures of the imagination. give the picture of a conjunction or an adThe several sources of these pleasures(statuary, paint- verb. t would be yet more strange to reing, description, and music) compared together. The final cause of our receiving pleasure from these seve. present visible objects by sounds that have ral sources. Of descriptions in particular. The power no ideas annexed to them, and to make of words over the imagination. Why one reader is something like description in music. Yet it more pleased with descriptions than another. is certain, there may be confused imperfect is certain, there may be confused imperfect Quatenus hoc simile est oculis, quod mente videmus. notions of this nature raised in the imagiLucr. ix. 4. nation by an artificial composition of notes, So far as what we see with our minds bears simili. and we find that great masters in the art tude to what we see with our eyes. are able, sometimes, to set their hearers in I AT first divided the pleasures of the the heat and hurry of a battle, to overcast imagination into such as arise from objects their minds with melancholy scenes and that are actually before our eyes, or that apprehensions of deaths and funerals, or once entered in at our eyes, and are after- to lull them into pleasing dreams of groves wards called up into the mind either barely and elysiums. by its own operations, or on occasion of In all these instances, this secondary something without us, as statues, or de- pleasure of the imagination proceeds from scriptions. WVe have already considered that action of the mind which compares the first division, and shall therefore enter the ideas arising from the original objects VOL. II. 19 146 THE SPECTATOR. [No, 417, with the ideas we receive from the statue, readers, who are all acquainted with the picture, description, or sound, that repre- same language, and know the meaning of sents them. It is impossible for us to give the words they read, should nevertheless the necessary reason why this operation of have a different relish of the same descripthe mind is attended with so much pleasure, tions. We find one transported with a pas as I have before observed on the same oc- sage,which another runs over with coldness casion; but we find a great variety of enter- and indifference; or finding the representatainments derived from this single principle; tion extremely natural, where another call for it is this that not only gives us a relish perceive nothing of likeness and conformity. of statuary, painting, and description, but This different taste must proceed either makes us delight in all the actions and arts fropn the perfection of imagination in one of mimickry. It is this that makes the more than in another, or from the different several kinds of wit pleasant, which con- ideas that several readers affix to the same sists, as I have formerly shown, in the words. For to have a true relish and form affinity of ideas: and we may add, it is this a right judgment of a description; a man also that raises the little satisfaction we should be born with a good imagination, sometimes find in the different sorts of false and must have well weighed the force and wit; whether it consists in the affinity of energy that lie in the several words of a letters, as an anagram, acrostic; or of syl- language, so as to be able to distinguish lables, as in doggrel rhymes, echoes; cr of which are most significant and expressive words, as in puns, quibbles; or of a whole of their proper ideas, and what additional sentence or poem, as wings and altars. The strength and beauty they are capable of final cause, probably, of annexing pleasure receiving from conjunction with others. to this operation of the mind, was to quicken The fancy must be warm, to retain the and encourage us in our searches after truth, print of those images it hath received from since the distinguishing one thing from an- outward objects, and the judgment discernother, and the right discerning betwixt our ing, to know what expressions are most ideas, depend wholly upon our comparing proper to clothe and adorn them to the them together, and observing the congruity best advantage. A man who is deficient in or disagreement that appears among the either of these respects, though he may reseveral works of nature. ceive the general notion of a description, But I shall here confine myself to those can never see distinctly all its particular pleasures of the imagination which pro- beauties; as a person with a weak sight ceed from ideas raised by words, because may have the confused prospect of a place most of the observations that agree with that lies before him, without entering into descriptions are equally applicable to paint- its several parts, or discerning the variety ing and statuary. of its colours in their full glory and perfecWords, when well chosen, have so great tion. 0. a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves. The reader finds a scene No. 417.] Saturday, June 28, 1712. drawn in stronger colours, and painted more to the life in his imagination by the help of PAPER VII. words, than by an actual survey of the ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. scene which they describe. In this case, Contents.-How a whole set of ideas hang together, &c. the poet seems to get the better of nature: A natural cause assigned for it. How to perfect the imagination of a writer. Who among the ancient he takes, indeed, the landscape after her, poets had this faculty in its greatest perfection. Ho but gives it more vigorous touches, height- mer excelled in imagining what is great; Virgil in ens its beauty, and so enlivens the whole imagining what is beautiful; Ovid in imagining piece, that the images which flow from the what is new. Our own countryman, Milton, very piece, h tahe images which w flow from the perfect in all these three respects. object themselves appear weak and faint, Quem tu, Melpomene, semel in comparison of those that come from the Nascentem placido lumine videris, expressions. The reason, probably, may Illum non labor Isthmius be, because in the survey of any object, we Clarabt pugilem, non equs impiger, have only so much of it painted on the ima- Sed que Tibur aque fertile perfluent, Et spissie nemorum coma3 gination as comes in at the eye: but in its Fingent AEolio carmine nobilem. description, the poet gives us as free a Hor. Od. iii. Lib. 4. 1 view of it as he pleases, and discovers to us He on whose birth the lyric queen several parts, that either we did not attend Of numbers smild, shall never grace The.Isthmian gauntlet, or be seen to, or that lay out of our sight when we first First in the fame'dOlympic race. beheld it. As we look on any object, our But him the streams that warbling flow idea of it is, perhaps, made up of two or Rich Tiber's fertile meads along, three simple ideas; but when the poet re- And shady groves, his haunts, shall know The master of th' Eolian song. /tterbu"r. presents it, he may either give us a more The master o complex idea of it, or only raise in us such WE may observe, that any single cir ideas as are most apt to affect the imagina- cumstance of what we nave formerly seen tion. often raises up a whole scene of imagery, It may here be worth our while to exa- and awakens numberless ideas that before mine how it comes to pass that several slept in the imagination; such a particular ro. 417.] THE SPECTATOR. 147 smell or colour is able to fill the mind, on a the productions of art, whether it appearsudden, with the picture of the fields or in painting or statuary, in the great works gardens where we first met with it, and to of architecture, which are in their present bring up into view all the variety of images glory; or in the ruins of those which flour that once attended it. Our imagination ished in former ages. takes the hint, and leads us unexpectedly Such advantages as these help to open into cities or theatres, plains or meadows. man's thoughts, and to enlarge his imagina We may further observe, when the fancy tion, and will therefore have their influence thus reflects on the scenes that have passed on all kinds of writing, if the author know in it formerly, those which were at first how to make right use of them. And pleasant to behold appear more so upon among those of the learned languages who reflection, and that the memory heightens excel in this talent, the most perfect in the delightfulness of the original. A Car- their several kinds are, perhaps, Homer, tesian would account for both these in- Virgil, and Ovid. The first strikes the stances in the following manner: imagination wonderfully with what is great, The set of ideas which we received from the second with what is beautiful, and the such a prospect or garden, having entered last with what is strange. Reading the the mind at the same time, have a set of Iliad, is like travelling through a country traces belonging to them in the brain, uninhabited, where the fancy is entertained bordering very near upon one another: with a thousand savage prospects of vast when, therefore, any one of these ideas deserts, wide uncultivated marshes, huge arises in the imagination, and consequently forests, misshapen rocks and precipices. despatches a flow of animal spirits to its On the contrary, the IEneid is like a wellproper trace, these spirits, in the violence ordered garden, where it is impossible to of their motion, run not only into the trace find out any part unadorned, or to cast our to which they were more particularly di- eyes upon a. single spot that does not prorected, but into several of those that lie duce some beautiful plant or flower. But about it. By this means they awaken other when we are in the Metamorphoses, we ideas of the same set, which immediately are walking on enchanted ground, and see determine a new despatch of spirits, that nothing but scenes of magic lying round us. in the same manner open other neighbour- Homer is in his province, when he is deing traces, till at last the whole set of them scribing a battle or a multitude, a hero or is blown up, and the whole prospect or a god. Virgil is never better pleased than garden flourishes in the imagination. But when he is in his elysium, or copying out because the pleasure we receivefrom these an entertaining picture. Homer's epithets places far surmounted, and overcame the generally mark out what is great; Virgil's little disagreeableness we found in them, what is agreeable. Nothing can be more for this reason there was at first a wider magnificent than the figure Jupiter makes passage worn in the pleasure traces, and, in the first Iliad, nor more.charming than on the contrary, so narrow a one in those that of Venus in the first lEneid. which belonged to the disagreeable ideas,'H.x...UvEr,..S opev'..- VEE Koviwv, that they were quickly stopt up, and ren-'A.po-. V' CpX X ST;S sswpp-vrSTO XVoT0;5 dered incapable of receiving any animal ts 5* V'5T..rco. P-zS 6' x,:V ow. spirits, and consequently of exciting any He spoke, and awful bends his sable 528. unpleasant ideas in the memory. Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod, It would be in vain to inquire whether The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god: the power of imagining things strongly pro- High heav'n with trembling the dread signal took, ceeds from any greater perfection in the nd all Olympusthecentre shook. P soul, or from any nicer texture in the brain Dixit et avertens rosea cervice refulsit, O, o m any aner. Btu i er Ambrosiaque conme divinum vertice odorem of one man than another. But this is cer- Spiravere: pedes vestis defluxit ad imos, tain, that a noble writer should be born Et vera incessu patuit dea.- Virg. En. i. 406 with this faculty in its full strength ad vi- Thus having said, she turn'd, and nihde appear gour, so as to be able to receive lively ideas Her neck refulgent, and dishevell'd hair; from outward objects, to retain them long, Which, flowing from her shoulders reach'd the ground rom OUtwar OjctS, t reta em long, And widely spread ambrosial scents around: and to range them together, upon occasion, In length of train descends her sweeping gown, in such figures and representations, as are And by her graceful walk the queen of love is known most likely to hit the fancy of the reader. Dryden. A poet should take as much pains in form- Homer's persons are most of them godlike ing his imagination, as a philosopher in and terrible: Virgil has scarce admitted cultivating his understanding. He must any into his poem who are not beautiful, gain a due relish of the works of nature, and has taken particular care to make his and be thoroughly conversant in the various hero so. scenery of a country life.. Lumenque juventm'When he is stored with country images, Purpureum, et laetos oculis afflarat honores. if he would go beyond pastoral, and the irg. Xn. i. 594. lower kinds of poetry, he ought to acquaint And gave his rolling eyes a sparkling grace, himself with the pomp and magnificence And breath'd a youthful vigour on his face.-Dryden. of courts. He should be very well versed In a word, Homer fills his readers wit} fn every thing that is noble and stately in sublime ideas, and, I believe, has raised th 148 tHE SPECTATOR. [No. 418. imagination of all the good poets that have of the imagination are of a wider and more come after him. I shall only instance Ho- universal nature than those it has when race, who immediately takes fire at the first joined with sight; for not only what is great, hint of any passage in the Iliad or Odyssey, strange, or beautiful, but any thing that is and always rises above himself when he disagreeable when looked upon, pleases us has Homer in his view. Virgil has drawn in an apt description. Here, therefore, we together, into his ]Eneid, all the pleasing must inquire after a new principle of pleascenes his subject is capable of admitting, sure, which is nothing else but the action and in his Georgics has given us a collec- of the mind, which compares the ideas that tion of the most delightful landscapes that arise from words with the ideas that arise can be made out of fields and woods, herds from objects themselves; and why this of cattle, and swarms of bees. operation ot the mind is attended with so Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, has shown much pleasure, we have before considered. us how the imagination may be affected by For this reason, therefore, the description what is strange. He describes a miracle of a dunghill is pleasing to the imagination, in every story, and always gives us the if the image be represented to our minds sight of some new creature at the end of it. by suitable expressions; though, perhaps, His art consists chiefly in well-timing his this may be more properly called the pleadescription, before the first shape is quite sure of the understanding than of the fancy, worn off, and the new one perfectly finish- because we are not so much delighted with ed; so that he every where entertains us the image that is contained in the descripwith something we never saw before, and tion, as with the aptness of the description shows us monster after monster to the end to excite the image. of the Metamorphoses. But if the description of what is little, If I were to name a poet that is a perfect common, or deformed, be acceptable to the master in all these arts of working on the imagination, the description of what is imagination, I think Milton may pass for great, surprising, or beautiful is much more one: and if his Paradise Lost falls short of so; because here we are not only delighted the IEneid or Iliad in this respect, it pro- with comparing the representation with the ceeds rather from the fault of the language original, but are highly pleased with the in which it is written, than from any defect original itself. Most readers, I believe, are of genius in the author. So divine a poem more charmed with Milton's description of in English, is like a stately palace built of Paradise, than of hell; they are both, perbrick, where one may see architecture in haps, equally perfect in their kind; but in as great a perfection as one of marble, the one the brimstone and sulphur are not though the materials are of a coarser na- so refreshing to the imagination, as the beds ture. But to consider it only as it regards of flowers and the wilderness of sweets in our present subject: What can be conceived the other. greater than the battle of angels, the ma- There is yet another circumstance which jesty of Messiah, the stature and behaviour recommends a description more than all of Satan and his peers? What more beau- the rest; and that is, if it represents to us tiful than Pandemonium, Paradise, Hea- such objects as are apt to raise t secret ferven, Angels, Adam and Eve? What more ment in the mind of the reader, and to work strange than the creation of the world, the with violence upon his passions. For, in several metamorphoses of the fallen angels, this case, we are at once warmed and enand the surprising adventures their leader lightened, so that the pleasure becomes meets with in his search after Paradise? more universal, and is several ways qualiNo other subject could have furnished a fied to entertain us. Thus in painting, it is poet with scenes so proper to strike the pleasant to look on the picture of any face imagination, as no other poet could have where the resemblance is hit; but the pleapainted those scenes in more strong and sure increases if it be the picture of a face lively colours. 0. that is beautiful; and is still greater, if the beauty be softened with an air of melancholy or sorrow. The two leading passions No. 418.] Mllonday, June 30, 1712. which the more serious parts of poetry enPAPER VIII. deavour to stir up in us, are terror and pity. ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. And here, by the way, one would wonder Contents.-Why any thing that is unpleasant to behold how it comes to pass that such passions as pleases the imagination when well described. Why are very unpleasant at all other times, are the imagination receives a more exquisite pleasure very agreeable when excited y poper from the description of what is great, new, or beautiful. The pleasure still heightened,if what is described descriptions. It is not strange, that we raises passion in the mind. Disagreeable passions should take delight in such passages as are pleasing when raised by apt descriptions. Why ter- apt to produce hope, Joy, admiraaon, lote ror and grief are pleasing to the mind when excitede ope, joy, amiration, lo by description. Aparticular advantage the writers in or the like emotions in us, because the! poetry and fiction have to please the imagination. never rise in the mind without an inward What liberties are allowed them. pleasure which attends them. But how ferat et rubus asper amomum. Virg. Eel. iii. 89. comes it to pass, that we should take delight The rugged thorn shall bear the fragrant rose. in being terrified or dejected by a descripTHE pleasures of these secondary views tion, when we find so much uneasiness in No. 419.J THE SPECTATOR. 149 the fear or grief which we receiye from any beautiful than the eye ever saw, and is stil other occasion? sensible of some defect in what it has seen; If we consider, therefore, the nature of on this account it is the part of a poet to this pleasure, we shall find that it does not humour the imagination in our own notions, arise so properly from the description of by mending and perfecting nature where he what is terrible, as from the reflection we describes a reality, and by adding greater make on ourselves at the time of reading it. beauties than are put together in nature, WVhen we look on such hideous objects, we where he describes a fiction. are not a little pleased to think we are in He is not obliged to attend her in the slow no danger of them. * We consider them at advances which she makes from one season the same time, as dreadful and harmless; so to another, or to observe her conduct in the that the more frightful appearance they successive production of plants and flowers. make, the greater is the pleasure we re- He may draw into his description all the ceive from the sense of our own safety. In beauties of the spring and autumn, and short, we look upon the terrors of a descrip- make the whole year contribute something tion with the same curiosity and satisfaction to render it the more agreeable. His rose that wve survey a dead monster. trees, woodbines, and jasmines, may flower -. —_ —-_ Informe cadaver together, and his beds be covered at the Protrahitur: nequeunt expleri corda tuendo same time with lilies, violets, and amaranths. Terribiles oculos, vultum villosaque setis His soil is not restrained to any particular Pectora semiferi atque extinctos faucibus ignes. set of plants, but is proper either for oaks They drag him from hs den. or myrtles, and adapts itself to the products They drag him from his den. of every climate, Oranges may grow wild The wond'ring neighbourhood, with glad surprise, o every climate. Oranges may grow wild Behold his shagged breast, his giant size, in it; myrrh may be met with in every Hismouththatfiamesnomore,andhisextinguish'deyes. hedge; and if le thinks it proper to have a ryen. grove of spices, he can quickly command It is for the same reason that we are de- sun enough to raise it. If all this will not lighted with the reflecting upon dangers furnish out an agreeable scene, he can make that are past, or in looking on a precipice several new species of flowers, with richer at a distance, which would fill us with a scents and higher coloure than any that different kind of horror, if we saw it hang- grow in the gardens of nature. His coning over our heads. certs of birds may be as full and harmoniln the like manner, when we read of tor- ous, and his woods as thick and gloomy as ments, wounds, deaths, and the like dismal he pleases. He is at no more expense in a accidents, our pleasure does not flow so long vista than a short one, and can as easily properly from the grief which such melan- throw his cascades from a precipice of half choly descriptions give us, as from the a mile high, as from one of twenty yards. secret comparison which we make between He has the choice of the winds, and can ourselves and the person who suffers. Such turn the course of his rivers in all the variety representations teach us to set a just value of meanders that are most delightful to the apon our own condition, and make us prize reader's imagination. In a word, he ha: our good fortune, which exempts us from the modelling of nature in his own hands, the like calamities. This is, however, such and may give her what charms he pleases, a kind of pleasure as we are not capable of provided he does not reform her too much) receiving, when we see a person actually and run into absurdities by endeavouring lying under the tortures that we meet with to excel. 0. in a description; because, in this case, the object presses too close upon our senses, and bears so hard upon us, that it does not give T ay ul 1712 us time or leisure to reflect on ourselves. N 419.] T, Jy 1 Our thoughts are so intent upon the miseries PAPER IX. of the sufferer, that we cannot turn them N THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. upon our own happiness. Whereas, on the ON THE PLEASURES o THE IMAGINATION. contents. —Of that kind of poetry which Mr. Dryden contrary, we consider the misfortunes we calls'the fairy way of writing.' How a poet should read in history or poetry, either as past or be qualified for it. The pleasures of the imagination as fictitious; so that the refection upon our- that arise from it. In this respect why the moderns selves rises in us insensibly, and overbears derns. Who the best among the Englis exel the mothe sorrow we conceive for the sufferings matical persons. of the afflicted. _ Mentis gratissimus error. But because the mind of man requires Hor. 2. Ep. ii. Lib. 2. 140. something more perfect in matter than what The sweet delusion of a raptur'd mind. it finds there, and can never meet with any i i i sight in nature which sufficiently answers THERE is a kind of writing wherein the its highest ideas of pleasantness; or, in other poet quite loses sight of nature, and enterwords, because the imagination can fancy tains his reader's imagination with the chato itself things more great, strange, or racters and actions of such persons as have _-e_ __ —, many of them no existence but what he bestows on them. Such are fairies, witches, *'Suave mare dulci turbantibus equora ventis,' &c. bestows on them. Such are fairies, itches, Lucr. Imagicians, demons, and departed spirits. 150 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 419. This Mr. Dryden calls'the fairy way of try among them; for, indeed, almost the writing,' which is indeed more difficult whole substance of it owes its original to than any other that depends on the poet's the darkness and superstition of later ages, fancy, because he has no pattern to follow when pious frauds were made use of to in it, and must work altogether out of his amuse mankind, and frighten them into a own invention. sense of their duty. Our forefathers looked There is a very odd turn of thought re- upon nature with more reverence and horquired for this sort of writing; and it is ror, before the world was enlightened by impossible for a poet to succeed in it, who learning and philosophy; and loved to astohas not a particular cast of fancy, and an nish themselves with the apprehensions imagination naturally fruitful and super- of witchcraft, prodigies, charms, and enstitious. Besides this, he ought to be very chantments. There was not a village in well versed in legends and fables, antiquated England that had not a ghost in it, the romances, and the traditions of nurses and church-yards were all haunted; every large old women, that he may fall in with our common had a circle of fairies belonging to natural prejudices, and humour those no- it; and there was scarce a shepherd to be tions which we have imbibed in our infancy. met with who had not seen a spirit. For otherwise he will be apt to make his Among all the poets of this kind our fairies talk like people of his own species, English are much the best, by what I have and not like other sets of beings, who con- yet seen; whether it be that we abound verse with different objects, and think in a with more stories of this nature, or that the different manner from that of mankind, genius of our country is fitter for this sort lvis deducti caveant, me judice, fauni, of poetry. For the English are naturally Sylvis deducti caveant, me judice, fauni fanciful,-and very often -disposed, by that Ne velut innati triviis, ac pene forenses, fanciful, and very often disposed, by that Aut nimium tenerisjuvenentur versibus. gloominess and melancholy of temper Hor. Ars Poet. v. 244. which is so frequent in our nation, to many Let not the wood-born satyr fondly sport wild notions and visions, to which others With am'rous verses, as if bred at court.-Francis. are not so liable. I do not say, with Mr. Bays in the. Re- Among the English, Shakspeare has inhearsal, that spirits must not be confined to comparably excelled all others. That nospeak sense: but it is certain their sense ble extravagance of fancy, which he had ought to be a little discoloured, that it may in so great perfection, thoroughly qualified seem particular, and proper to the person him to touch this weak superstitious part and condition of the speaker. of his reader's imagination; and made him These descriptions raise a pleasing kind capable of succeeding, where he had nothing of horror in the mind of the reader, and to support him besides the strength of his amuse his imagination with the strangeness own genius. There is something so wild, and novelty of the persons who are repre- and yet so solemn, in the speeches of his sented to them. They bring up into our ghosts, fairies, witches, and the like imamemory the stories we have heard in our ginary persons, that we cannot forbear childhood, and favour those secret terrors thinking them natural, though we have no and apprehensions to which the mind of rule by which to judge of them, and must man is naturally subject. We are pleased confess if there are such beings in the with surveying the different habits and world, it looks highly probable they should behaviours of foreign countries: how much talk and act as he has represented them. more must we be delighted and surprised There is another sort of imaginary bewhen we are led, as it were, into a new ings, that we sometimes meet with among creation, and see the person and manners the poets, when the author represents any of another species! Men of cold fancies passion, appetite, virtue or vice, under a and philosophical dispositions, object to this visible shape, and makes it a person or an kind of poetry, that it has not probability actor in his poem. Of this nature are the enough to affect the imagination. But to descriptions of Hunger and Envy in Ovid, this it may be answered, that we are sure, of Fame in Virgil, and of Sin and Death in in general, there are many intellectual Milton. We find a whole creation of the beings in the world besides ourstlves, and like shadowy persons in Spencer, who had several species of spirits, who are subject an admirable talent in representations of to different laws and economies from those this kind. I have discoursed of these emof mankind: when we see, therefore, any blematical persons in former papers, and of these represented naturally, we cannot shall therefore only mention them in this ook upon the representation as altogether place. Thus we see how many ways poe-.mpossible; nay, many are prepossessed try addresses itself to the imagination, as it with such false opinions, as dispose them to has not only the whole circle of nature for believe these particular delusions; at least its province, but makes new worlds of Its we have all heard so many pleasing relations own, shows us persons who are not to be in favour of them, that we do not care for' found in being, and represents even the faseeing through the falsehood, and willingly culties of the soul, with the several virtues give ourselves up to so agreeable an im- and vices, in a sensible shape and character. ppsture. I shall in my two following papers, consiThe ancients have not much of this poe- der, in general, how ether kinds of writing No, 420. J'rHk SPECTATOR 151 are qualified tc please the imagination; with veral planets that lie within its neighbour which I intend to conclude this essay. hood, we are filled with a pleasing astonish0. ment, to see so many worlds hanging one.......... above another, and sliding round their axles in such an amazing pomp and solemnity. No. 420.] Wednesday, July 2, 1712. If, after this, we contemplate those wild* fields of ather that reach in height as far PAPER ~X. ^as from Saturn to the fixed stars, and run ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. abroad almost to an infinitude, our imagiContetts.-What authors please the imagination. Who nation finds its capacity filled with so imhave nothing to do with fiction. How history pleases mense a prospect; and puts itself upon the the imagination. How the authors of the new philo stretch to comprehend it. But if we et sophy please the imagination. The bounds and defects of the imagination. Whether these defects are rise higher, and consider the fixed stars essential to the imagination. as so many vast oceans of flame, that -- uocunque volunt mentem auditoris agunto. are each of them attended with a different Hor. Ars Poet. v. 100. set of planets, and still discover new firmaAnd raise men's passions to what height they will. ments and new lights that are sunk farther Rosconmmon. in those unfathomable depths of ether, so As the writers in poetry and fiction as not to be seen by the strongest of our borrow their several materials from out- telescopes, we are lost in such a labyrinth ward objects, and join them together at of suns and worlds, and confounded with their own pleasure, there are others who the immensity and magnificence of nature. are obliged to follow nature more closely, Nothing is more pleasant to the fancy, and to take entire scenes out of her. Such than to enlarge itself by degrees, in its con are historians, natural philosophers, tra- templation of the various proportions which vellers, geographers, and, in a word, all its several objects bear to each other, who describe visible objects of a real ex- when it compares the body of man to the istence. bulk of the whole earth, the earth to the It is the most agreeable talent of an his- circle it describes round the sun, that circle torian to be able to draw up his armies to the sphere of the fixed stars, the sphere and fight his battles in proper expressions, of the fixed stars to the circuit of the whole to set before our eyes the divisions, cabals, creation, the whole creation itself to the infian jealousies of great men, to lead us step nite space that is every where diffused about by step into the several actions and events it; or when the imaginationworks downward, of his history. We love to see the subject and considers the bulk of a human body in unfolding itself by just degrees, and break- respect of an animal a hundred times less mng upon us insensibly, so that we may be than a mite, the particular limbs of such an kept in a pleasing suspense, and have time animal, the different springs that actuate given us to raise our expectations, and to the limbs, the spirits which set the springs side with one of the parties concerned in a-going, and the proportionable minuteness the relation. I confess this shows more the of these several parts, before they have art than the veracity of the historian; but arrived at their full growth and perfection: I am only to speak of him as he is qualified but if, after all this, we take the least parto please the imagination; and in this re- tide of these animal spirits, and consider spect Livy has, perhaps, excelled all who its capacity of being wrought into a world went before him, or have written since his that shall contain within those narrow ditime. He describes every thing in so lively mensions a heaven and earth, stars and a manner that his whole history is an ad- planets, and every different species of livmirable picture, and touches on such pro- ing creatures, in the same analogy and per circumstances in every story, that his proportion they bear to each other in our reader becomes a kind of spectator, and own universe; such a speculation, by reason feels in himself all the variety of passions of its nicety, appears ridiculous to those which are correspondent to the several who have not turned their thoughts that parts of the relations, way, though at the same time it is founded But among this set of writers there are on no less than the evidence of a demonnone who more gratify and' enlarge the stration. Nay, we may yet carry it farther, imagination than the authors of the new and discover in the smallest particle of philosophy, whether we consider their this little world a new inexhausted fund of theories of the earth or heavens, the disco- matter, capable of being spun out into anveries they have made by glasses, or any other universe. other of their contemplations on nature. I have dwelt the longer on this subject, WVe are not a little pleased to find every because I think it may show us the proper green leaf swarm with millions of animals, limits, as well as the defectiveness of our that at their largest growth are not visible imagination; how it is confined to a very to the naked eye. There is something small quantity of space, and immediately very engaging to the fancy, as well as to stopt in its operation, when it endeavours our reason, in the treatises of metals, mi- to take in any thing that is very great or nerals, plants, and meteors. But when we survey the whole earth at once, and the se- * Vid. ed. in folio. 152 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 421. very little. Let a man try to conceive the them their similitudes, metaphors, and aldifferent bulk of an animal, which is twenty, legories. By these allusions, a truth in the from another which is an hundred times understanding is, as it were, reflected by less than a mite, or to compare in his the imagination; we are able to see somethoughts a length of a thousand diameters thing like colour and shape in a notion, of the earth, with that of a million, and he and to discover a scheme of thoughts traced will quickly find that he has no different out upon matter. And here the mind remeasures in his mind adjusted to such ex- ceives a great deal of satisfaction, and has traordinary degrees of grandeur or minute- two of itsfaculties gratified at the same time, ness. The understanding, indeed, opens while the fancy is busy in copying after the an infinite space on every side of us; but understanding, and transcribing ideas out the imagination, after a few faint efforts, is of the intellectual world into the material. immediately at a stand, and finds, herself The great art of a writer shows itself in swallowed up in the immensity of the void the choice of pleasing allusions, which are that surrounds it. Our reason can pursue a generally to' be taken from the great or particle of matter through an infinite va- beautiful works of art or nature; for, though riety of divisions; but the fancy soon loses whatever is new or uncommon is apt to sight of it, and feels in itself a kind of delight the imagination, the chief design of chasm, that wants to be filled with matter an allusion being to illustrate and explain of a more sensible bulk. We can neither the passages of an author, it should be alwiden nor contract the faculty to the di- ways borrowed from what is more known inension of either extreme. The object is and common than the passages which are too big for our capacity, when we would to be explained. comprehend the circumference of a world; Allegories, when well chosen, are like so and dwindles into nothing when we endea- many tracks of light in a discourse, that vour after the idea of an atom.. make every thing about them clear and It is possible this defect of imagination beautiful. A noble metaphor, when it is may not be in the soul itself, but as it acts placed to an advantage, casts a kind of glory in conjunction with the body. Perhaps round it, and darts a lustre through a whole there may not be room in the brain for such sentence. These different kinds of allusion a variety of impressions, or the ahimal are but so many different manners of similispirits may be incapable of figuring them tude; and that they may please the imagiin such amanner as is-necessary to excite so nation, the likeness ought to be very exact very large or very minute ideas. However or very agreeable, as we love to see a picit be, we may well suppose that beings of a ture where the resemblance is just, or the higher nature very much excel us in this posture and air graceful. But we often find respect, as it is probable the soul of man eminent writers very faulty in this respect; will be infinitely more perfect hereafter in great scholars are apt to fetch their cor this faculty, as well as in all the rest; inso- parisons and allusions from the sciences il much that, perhaps, the imagination will which they are most conversant, so that a be able to keep pace with the understand- man may see the compass of their learning ing, and to form in itself distinct ideas of all in a treatise on the most indifferent subject. the different modes and quantities of space. I have read a discourse upon love, which 0. none but a profound chymist could understand, and have heard many a sermon that should only have been preached before a No. 421.1 Thursday, July 3, 1712. congregation of Cartesians. On the contrary, your men of business usually have PAPER XI. recourse to such instances as are too mean ON THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. and familiar. They are for drawing the Contents.-How those please the imagination who treat reader into a game of chess or tennis, or for of subjects abstract from matter, by allusions taken leading him from shop to shop, in the cant from it. What allusions are most pleasing to the of particular trades and employments. It imagination. Great writers, how faulty in this re-of particular trades and employments. It spect. Of the art of imagining in general. The ima- is certain, there may be found an infinite gination capable of pain as well as pleasure. In what variety of very agreeable allusions in both degree the imagination is capable either of pain or for the generality, the most pleasure. these kinds; bfit, for the generality the most'TIgnotris errare locis, ignota videre, -entertaining ones lie in the works of nature, Flumina gaudebat; studio minuente laborem. which are obvious to all capacities, and Ovid. Met. vi. 294. more delightful than what is to be found in He sought fresh fountains in a foreign soil: arts and sciences. Te pleasure lessen'd the aending toil.-ddisn. It is this talent of affecting the imaginaTHE pleasures of the imagination are not tion that gives an embellishment to good wholly confined to such particular authors sense, and makes one man's composition as are conversant in material objects, but more agreeable than another's. It sets off are often to be met with among the polite all writings in general, but is the very life masters of morality, criticism, and other and highest perfection of poetry, where it speculations abstracted from matter, who, shines in an eminent degree: it has prethough they do not directly treat of the served several poems for many ages, that visible parts of nature, often draw from have nothing else to recommend them; and No. 422.] THE SPECTATOR. 153 where all the other beauties are present, ture the soul through this single faculty, as the work appears dry and insipid, if this might suffice to make the whole heaven or single one be wanting. If has something in hell of any finite being. it like creation. It bestows a kind of ex- [This essay on the Pleasures of the linaistence, and draws up to the reader's view gination having been published in separate several objects which are not to be found in papers, I shall conclude it with a table of being. It makes additions to nature, and the principal contents of each paper.*] gives greater variety to God's works. In a 0. word, it is able to beautify and adorn the most illustrious scenes in the universe, or to fill the mind with more glorious shows No. 422.] Friday, July 4, 1712. and apparitions than can be found in any part of itiost.ha a efudi n HMec scripsi non otii abundantia, sed amoris ergate. part of it. Tull. Epist We have now discovered the several TullEpist WeQ have now disovered the seer I have written this not out of the abundance of leii originals of those pleasures that gratify the sure, but of my affection towards you. fancy; and here, perhaps, it would not be very difficult to cast under their proper I DO not know any thing which gives heads those contrary objects, which are apt greater disturbance to conversation, than to fill it with distaste and terror; for the the false notion which people have of railimagination is as liable to pain as pleasure. lery. It ought certainly to be the first point When the brain is hurt by any accident, or to be aimed at in society, to gain the goodthe mind disordered by dreams or sickness, will of those with whom you converse; the the fancy is overrun with wild dismal ideas, way to that is, to show you are well inclined and terrified with a thousand hideous mon- towards them. What then can be more sters of its own framing. absurd, than to set up for being extremely sharp and biting, as the term is, in your Eumenidum veluti demens videt agmina Pentheus, expressions to your familiars? A man who Et solem geminum, et duplices se ostendere Thebas: has no good qualit but courage, i in a very Aut Agamemnonius scenis agitatus Orestes, quality t age, in a ve Armatam facibus matrem et serpentibus atris ill way towards making an agreeable figure Cum fugit, ultricesque sedent in limine dire. in the world, because that which he has rg. En. 1469. superior to other people cannot be exerted Like Pentheus, when distracted with his fear, without raising hmself an enemy. our He saw two suns, and double Thebes appear; without raising himsel a enemy. our Or mad Orestes, when his mother's ghost gentleman of a satirical vein is in the like Full in his face infernal torches tost, condition. To say a thing which perplexes And shook her snaky locks: he shuns the sight, the heart of him you speak to, or brings Flies o'er the stage, surpris'd with mortal fright;peakto, or brings The furies guard the door, and intercept his flight. blushes into his face, is a degree of murder; Dryden. and it is, I think, an unpardonable offence There is not a sight-in nature so mortify- to show a man you do ot care whether he ing as that of a distracted person, when his i pleased or displeased. But won't you imagination is troubled, and his whole soul then take a jest? es: but pray let it be a disordered and confused. Babylon inruins jest. It is no jest to put me, who am so disordered and confused. Babylon in ruins u a to h an u so is not so melancholy a spectacle. But to unhappy as to have an utter aversion to quit so disagreeable a subject, I shall only speaking to more than one man at a time, consider, by way of conclusion, what an under a necessity to explainmyselfinmuch infinite advantage this faculty gives an al- company, and reducing me to shame and mighty Being over the soul of man, and dersion, except I perform what my inhow great a measure of happiness or misery firmity of silence disables me to do. we are capable of receiving from the imagi- Callisthenes had great wit accompanied nation only. with that quality without which a man can nation only. We have already seen the influence that have no wit at all-a sound judgment. This one man has over the fancy of another, and gentleman rallies the best of any man I with what ease he conveys into it a variety know: for he forms his ridicule upon a cirof imagery: how great a power then may cumstance which you are in your heart not we suppose lodged in Him who knows all unwilling to grant him; to wit, that you are the ways of affecting the imagination, who guilty of an excess in something which is can infuse what ideas he pleases, and fill in itself laudable. He very well understands those ideas with terror and delight to what what you would be, and needs not fear your degree he thinks fit! He can excite images anger for declaring you are a little too much in the mind without the help of words, and that thing. The generous will bear being make scenes rise up before us, and seem reproached as lavish, and the valiant as present tothe eye, without the assistance rash, without being provoked to resentof bodies or exterior objects. He can trans- ment against their monitor. What has been port the imagination with such beautiful said to be a mark of a good writer will fall and glorious visions as cannot possibly enter in wh the character of a good companion. into our present conceptions, or haunt it The good writer makes his reader better with such ghastly spectres and apparitions as would make us hope for annihilation, and * These contents are printed all together in the origi. think existence no better than a curse. In nal folio, t the end of No. 421; but are in this edition arranged in their proper places, and placed at tile be short, he can so exquisitely ravish or tor- ginnings of the several papers. VOL. II. 20 154 THE SPECTATOR. LNo. 4'2x pleased with himself, and the agreeable Allusions to past follies, hints which revive man makes his friends enjoy themselves, what a man has a mind to forget for ever, rather than him, while he is in their corn and desires that'all the rest of the world pany. Callisthenes does this with inimita- should, are commonly brought forth even ble pleasantry. He whispered a friend the in company of men of distinction. They do other day, so as to be overheard by a young not thrust with the skill of fencers, but cut officer, who gave symptoms of cocking upon up with the barbarity of butchers. It is, the company,'That gentleman has very methinks, below the character of men of much the air of a general officer.' The humanity and good manners to be capable youth immediately put on a composed be- of mirth while there is any of the company haviour, and behaved himself suitably to in pain and disorder. They who have the the conceptions he believed the company true taste of conversation, enjoy themselves had of him. It is to be allowed that Cal- in communication of each other's excellisthenes will make a man run into imper- lencies, and not in a triumph over their tinent relations to his own advantage, and imperfections. Fortius would have been express the satisfaction he has in his own reckoned a wit, if there had never been a dear self, till he is very ridiculous: but in fool in the world: he wants not foils to be a this case the man is made a fool by his own beauty, but has that natural pleasure in consent, and not exposed as such whether observing perfection in others, that his own he will or no. I take it, therefore, that to faults are overlooked out of gratitude by all make raillery agreeable, a man must either his acquaintance. not know he is rallied, or think never the After these several characters of men worse of himself if he sees he is. who succeed or fail in raillery, it may not Acetus is of a quite contrary genius, and is be amiss to reflect a little farther what one more generally admired than Callisthenes, takes to be the most agreeable kind of it; but not with justice. Acetus has no regard and that to me appears when the satire is to the modesty or weakness of the person directed against vice, with an air of conhe rallies; but if his quality or humility tempt of the fault, but no ill-will to the gives him any superiority to the man he criminal. Mr. Congreve's Dors is amasterwould fall upon, he has no mercy inmak- piece of this kind. It is the character of a ing the onset. He can be pleased to see his woman utterly abandoned; but her impubest friends out of countenance, while the dence, by the finest piece of raillery, islaugh is loud in his own applause. His made only generosity. raillery always puts the company into little divisions and separate interests, while that Pecia therefore is her ay, Whether by nature taught of Callisthenes cements it, and makes every I shall not undertake to say, man not only better pleased with himself, Or by experience bought; but also with all the rest in the conversa-d her gra' For who o'ernight obtain'd her grace. tion. She can next day disown, To rally well, it is absolutely necessary And stare upon the strange man's face, that kindness must run through all you say; As one she neer had known. and you must ever preserve the character s o well she can the truth disguise, of a friend to support your pretensions to Such artful wonder frame, be free with a man. Acetus ought to be The lover or distrstshiseyes, banished human society, because he raises Or thinks twas all a dream. his mirth upon giving pain to the person' Some censure this as lewd or low, upon whom he is pleasant. Nothing but Who are to bounty blind; But to forget what we bestow, the malevolence which is too general to- Bespeaks a noble mind., wards those who excel could make his T. company tolerated; but they with whom. - - he converses are sure to see some man sacrificed wherever he is admitted; and all No. 423.] Saturday, July 5, 1712. the credit he has for wit is owing to the _ gratification it gives to other men's ill-na- Nuper idoneus H Od xi. Li.. ture^~..,. ^ ^. ^ ~~~Once fit myself. Minutius has a wit that conciliates a man't've, at the same time that it is ex- I LOOK upon myself as akind of guardian erted against his faults. He has an art of to the fair, and am always watchful to obkeeping the person he rallies in counte- serve any thing which concerns their internance, by insinuating that he himself is est. The present paper shall be employed guilty of the same imperfection. This he in the service of a very fine young woman does with so much address, that he seems and the admonitions I give her may not be rather to bewail himself, than fall upon his unuseful to the rest of her sex. Gloriana fiiend. shall be the name of the heroine in to-day's It is really monstrous to see how unac- entertainment; and when I have told you countably it prevails among men, to take that she is rich, witty, young, and beautithe liberty of displeasing each other. One ful, you will believe she does not want adwould think sometimes that the conten mirers. She has had, since she came to tion is, who shall be most disagreeable., town, abcuf twenty-five of those lovers who No. 423.] THE SPECTATOR. 155 made their addresses by way of jointure to you the other day was a contrivance to and settlement: these come and go with remark your resentment. When you saw great indifference on both sides; and as the billet subscribed Damon, and turned beautiful as she is, a line in a deed has had away with a scornful air, and cried "imexception enough against it to outweigh the pertinence!" you gave hopes to him that lustre of her eyes, the readiness of her un- shuns you, without mortifying hinm that derstanding, and the merit of her general languishes for you. character. But among the crowd of such' What I am concerned for, madam, is, cool adorers, she has two who are very that in the disposal of your heart, you assiduous in their attendance. There is should know what you are doing, and ex something so extraordinary and artful in amine it before it is lost. Strephon contratheir manner of application, that I think it diets you in discourse with the civility of but common justice to alarm her in it. I one who has a value for you, but gives up have done it in the following letter: nothing like one that loves you. This seem ing unconcern gives his behaviour the ad' MADAM,-I have for some time taken vantage of sincerity, and insensibly obtains notice of two young gentlemen who attend your good opinion by appearing disinterestyou in all public places, both of whom have ed in the purchase of it. If you watch these also easy access to you at your own house. correspondents hereafter, you will find The matter is adjusted between them; that Strephon makes his visit of civility and Damon, who so passionately addresses immediately after Damon has tired you you, has no design upon you; but Strephon, with one of love. Though you are very who seems to be indifferent to you, is the discreet, you will find it no easy matter to man who is, as they have settled it, to have escape the toils so well laid; as, when one you. The plot was laid over, a bottle of studies to be disagreeable in passion, the wine; and Strephon, when he first thought other to be pleasing without it. All the of you, proposed to Damon to be his rival. turns of your temper are carefully watch The manner of his breaking of it to him, I ed, and their quick and faithful intelligence was so placed at a tavern, that I could not gives your lovers irresistible advantage. avoid hearing. "Damon," said he, with You will please, madam, to be upon your a deep sigh, "I have long languished for guard, and take all the necessary precauthat miracle of beauty, Gloriana; and if tions against one who is amiable to you you will be very steadfastly my rival, I before you know he is enamoured. I am, shall certainly obtain her. Do not," con- madam, your most obedient servant.' tinued he, "be offended at this overture; for I go upon the knowledge of the temper Strephon makes great progress in this of the woman, rather than any vanity that lady's good graces; for most women being I should profit by any opposition of your actuated by some little spirit of pride and pretensions to those of your humble ser- contradiction, he has the good effects of vant. Gloriana has very good sense, a both those motives by this covert way of quick relish of the satisfactions of life, and courtship. He received a message yesterwill not give herself, as the crowd of wo- day from Damon in the following words, men do, to the arms of a man to whom she superscribed' With speed.' is indifferent. As she is a sensible woman, All goes well; she is very angry at me, expressions of rapture and adoration will and I dare say hates me in earnest. It is a not move her neither; but he that has her good time to visit. Yours.' must be the object of her desire, not her pity. The way to this end I take to be, The comparison of Strephon's gaiety to that a man's general conduct should be Damon's languishment strikesherimaginaagreeable, without addressing in particular tion with a prospect of very agreeable to the woman he loves. Now, sir, if you hours with such a man as the former, and will be so kind as to sigh and die for Glo- abhorrence of the insipid prospect with one riana, I will carry it with great respect to- like the latter. To know when a lady is wards her, but seem void of any thoughts displeased with another, is to know the as a lover. By this means I shall be in the best time of advancing yourself. This memost amiable light of which I am capable; thod of two persons playing into each I shall be received with freedom, you with other's hand is so dangerous, that I cannot reserve. " Damon who has himself no de- tell how a woman could be able to withsigns of marriage at all, easily fell into the stand such a siege. The condition of Gloscheme; and you may observe, that whet riana I am afraid is irretrievable; for ever vou are, Damon appears also. You Strephon has had so many opportunities of see he carries on an unaffected exactness pleasing without suspicion, that all which in his dress and manner, and strives always is left for her to do is to bring him, now she to be the very contrary of Strephon. They is advised, to an explanation of his passion, have already succeeded so far, that your and beginning again, if she can conquer the eyes are ever in search of Strephon, and kind sentiments she has conceived for him. turn themselves of course from Damon. When one shows himself a creature to be They meet and compare notes upon your avoided, the other proper to be fled to for carriage; and the letter which was brought succour, they have the whole woman be 156 THE SPECTATOR- [No. 424. tween them, and can occasionally rebound with which he treats his neighbours, and her love and hatred from one to the other, every one, even the meanest of his own in such a manner as to keep her at a dis- family! and yet how seldom imitated! Intance from all the rest of the world, and stead of which we commonly meet with cast lots for the conquest. ill-natured expostulations, noise, and chidN. B. I have many other secrets which ings.-And this I hinted, because the huconcern the empire of love; but I consider, mour and disposition of the head is what that, while I alarm my women, I instruct chiefly influences all the other parts of a my men. T. family. - An agreement and kind correspondence between friends and acquaintance is the No.424.1] Monday, July 7, 1712. greatest pleasure of life. This is an undoubted truth; and yet any man who judges Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit mquus. from the practice of the world will be Hor. Ep. xi. Lib. 1. 30. almost persuaded to believe the contrary;'Tis not the place disgust or pleasure brings: for how can we suppose people should be From our own mind our satisfaction springs. so industrious to make themselves uneasy?'London, June 24. What can engage them to entertain and'MR. SPECTATOR,-A man who has it foment jealousies of one another upon every in his power to choose his own company, or the least occasion? Yet so it is, there would certainly be much to blame, should are people who (as it should seem) delight he not, to the best of his judgment, take in being troublesome and vexatious, wvho such as are of a temper most suitable to his (as Tully speaks) Mira sunt alacritate ad own; and where that choice is wanting, or litigandum,' have a certain cheerfulness where a man is mistaken in his choice, in wrangling.' And thus it happens, that and yet under a necessity of continuing in there are very few families in which there the same company, it will certainly be his are not feuds and animosities; though it is interest to carry himself as easily as pos- every one's interest, there more particusible. larly, to avoid them, because there (as I' In this I am sensible I do but repeat would willingly hope) no one gives another what has been said a thousand times, at uneasiness without feeling some share of which however I think nobody has any it. But I am gone beyond what I designed, title to take exception, but they who never and had almost forgot what I chiefly profailed to put this in practice.-Not to use posed: which was, barely to tell you how any longer preface, this being the season hardly we, who pass most of our time in of the year in which great numbers of all town, dispense with a long vacation in the sorts of people retire from this place of country, how uneasy we grow to ourselves, business and pleasure to country solitude, and to one another, when our conversation I think it not improper to advise them to is confined; insomuch that, by Michaeltake with them as great a stock of good- mas, it is odds but we come to downright humour as they can; for though a country squabbling, and make as free with one anlife is described as the most pleasant of all other to our faces as we do with the rest of others, and though it may in truth be so, the world behind their backs. After I yet it is so only to those who know how to have told you this, I am to desire that you enjoy leisure and retirement. would now and then give us a lesson of'As for those who cannot live without good-humour, a family-piece, which, since the constant helps of business or company, we are all very fond of you, I hope may let them consider, that in the country there have some influence upon us. is no Exchange, there are no playhouses,'After these plain observations, give me no variety of coffee-houses, nor many of leave to give you a hint of what a set of those other amusements which serve here company of my acquaintance, who are now as so. many reliefs from the repeated occur- gone into the country, and have the use of rences in their own families; but that there an absent nobleman's seat, have settled the greatest part of their time must be among themselves, to avoid the inconvespent within themselves, and consequently niences above mentioned. They are a colit behoves them to consider how agreeable lection of ten or twelve of the same good it will be to them before they leave this inclination towards each other, but of very dear town. different talents and inclinations: from hence'I remember, Mr. Spectator, we were they hope that the variety of their tempers very wvell entertained last year with the will only create variety of pleasures. But advices you gave us from Sir Roger's coun- as there always will arise, among the same try-seat; which I the rather mention, be- people, either for want of diversity of obcause it is almost impossible not to live jects, or the like causes,' a certain satiety, pleasantly, where the master of the family which may grow into ill-humour or disconis such a one as you there describe your tent, there is a large wing of the house friend, who cannot therefore (I mean as which they design to employ in the nature to his domestic character,) be too often re- of an infirmary. Whoever says a peevish commended to the imitation of others. How thing, or acts any thing which betrays a amiable is that affability arli benevolence sourness or indisposition to company, is im No. 425.] THE SPECTATOR. 157 mediately to be conveyed to his chambers with as much light as was necessary to disin the infirmary; from whence he is not to cover a thousand pleasing objects, and a be relieved, till by his manner of submis- the same time divested of all power of heat. sion, and the sentiments expressed in his The reflection of it in the water, the fanpetition for that purpose, he appears to the ning of the wind rustling on the leaves, the majority of the company to be again fit for singing of the thrush and nightingale, and society. You are to understand, that all the coolness of the walks, all conspired to ill-natured words or uneasy gestures are make me lay aside all displeasing thoughts, sufficient cause for banishment; speaking and brought me into such a tranquillity of impatiently to servants, making a man re- mind, as is, I believe, the next happiness peat what he says, or any thing that betrays to that of hereafter. In this sweet retireinattention or dishumour, are also criminal ment I naturally fell into the repetition of without reprieve. But it is provided, that some lines out of a poem of Milton's, which whoever observes the ill-natured fit coming he entitles Il Penseroso, the ideas of which upon himself, and voluntarily retires, shall were exquisitely suited to my present wanbe received at his return from the infirmary derings of thought. with the highest marks of esteem. By these Sweet bird that shun the noise of fol and other wholesome methods, it is ex- Most musical! most melancholy! pected that if they cannot cure one another, Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among, yet at least they have taken care that the I Woo to hearthy ev'ning song: And missing thee I walk unseen ill-humour of one shall not be troublesome An the dry smooth-shav en geen, to the rest of the company. There are To behold the wand'ring moon, many other rules which the society have Riding near her highest noon, Like one that hath been led astray, established for the preservation of their Through the heaven's wide pathless way, ease and tranquillity, the effects of which, And oft, as if her head she bow'd, with the incidents that arise among them, Stooping through a fleecy cloud. shall be communicated to you from time to "Then let some strange mysterious dream time, forthe public good, by, sir, your most Wave with its wings in airy stream humble servant, R. o' Of lively portrgiture display'd nh~umble servant, R. O..' Softly on my eyelids laid: T. And as I wake, sweet music breathe _ -______ Above, about, or underneath, Sent by spirits to mortals' good, No. 42 ] Tuesday, July 8, 12. Or the unseen genius of the wood." No. 425.] Tuesday, July 8, 1712. Frigora mitescunt zephyris; ver proterit iestas I reected then upon the seet viclsslInteritura, simul tudes of night and day, on the charming Pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit; et mox disposition of the seasons, and their return Bruma recurrit iners. Hor. Od. vii. Lib. 4.9. again in a perpetual circle: and oh! said The cold grows soft with western gales, that I could from these my declining years But y ields to autumn's fruitful rain, return again to my first spring of youth and As this to winter storms and hails; vigour; but that, alas! is impossible; all Each loss the hating moon repairs again. that remains within my power is to soften It.C 4Sir W. Temple. the inconveniences I feel; with an easy con-'MR. SPECTATOR,-There is hardly any tented mind, and the enjoyment of such thing gives me a moae sensible delight than delights as this solitude affords me. In this the enjoyment of a cool still evening after thought I sat me down on a bank of flowers, the uneasiness of a hot sultry day. Such a and dropt into a slumber, which, whether one I passed not long ago, which made me it were the effect of fumes and vapours, or rejoice when the hour was come f6r the sun my present thoughts, I know not; but meto set, that I might enjoy the freshness of thought the genius of the garden stood the evening in my garden, which then before me, and introduced into the walk affords me the pleasantest hours I pass in where I lay this drama and different scenes the whole four and twenty. I immediately of the revolution of the year, which, whilst rose from my couch, and went down into it. I then saw, even in my dream, I resolved You descend at first by twelve stone steps to write down, and send to the Spectator. into a large square divided into four grass-' The first person whom I saw advancing plots, in each of which is a statue of white towards me was a youth of a most beautiful marble. This is separated from a large air and shape, though he seemed not yet parterre by a low wall; and from thence, arrived at that exact proportion and symthrough a pair of iron gates, you are led metry of parts which a little more time into a long broad walk of the finest turf, set would have given him; but, however, there on each side with tall yews, and on either was such a bloom in his countenance, such hand bordered by a canal, which on the satisfaction and joy, that I thought it the right divides the walk from a wilderness most desirable form that I had ever seen. parted into variety of alleys and arbours, He was clothed in a flowing mantle of green and on the left from a kind of amphitheatre, silk, interwoven with flowers; he had a which is the receptacle of a great number chaplet of roses on his head, and a narcissus of oranges and myrtles. The moon shone in his hand; primroses and violets sprang up bright, and seemed then most agreeably to under his feet, and all nature was cheered supply the place of the sun, obliging me at his approach. Flora was on one hand, 158 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 425. and Vertumnus on the other, in a robe of faint, whilst for half the steps he took, the changeable silk. After this I was surprised dog-star levelled his rays full at his head. to see the moon-beams reflected with a sud- They passed on, and made way for a perden glare from armour, and to see a man son that seemed to bend a little under the completely armed, advancing with his weight of years; his beard and hair, which sword drawn. I was soon informed by the were full grown, were composed of an equal genius it was Mars, who had long usurped number of black and gray; he wore a robe a place among the attendants of the Spring. which he had girt round him, of a yellowish lie made.way for a softer appearance. It cast, not unlike the colour of fallen leaves, was Venus, without any ornament but her which he walked upon. I thought he hardly own beauties, not so much as her own ces- made amends for expelling the foregoing tus, with which she had encompassed a scene by the large quantity of fruits which globe, which she held in her right hand, he bore in his hands. Plenty walked by his and in her left hand she had a sceptre of side with a healthy fresh countenance, gold. After her followed the Graces, with pouring out from a horn all the various pro arms entwined within one another; their ducts of the year. Pomona followed with a girdles were loosed, and they moved to the glass of cider in her hand, with Bacchus in sound of soft music, striking the ground a chariot drawn by tigers, accompanied by alternately with their feet. Then came up a whole troop of satyrs, fauns, and sylvans. the three Months which belong to this sea- September, who came next, seemed in his son. As March advanced towards me, looks to promise a new Spring, and wore there was, methought in his look a lower- the livery of those months. The succeeding ing roughness, which ill-befitted a month month was all soiled with the juice of which was ranked in so soft a season; but grapes, as he had just come from the wineas he came forwards, his features became press. November, though he was in this insensibly more mild and gentle; he smooth- division, yet, by the many stops he made, ed his brow, and looked with so sweet a seemed rather inclined to the Winter which countenance, that I could not but lament followed close at his heels. He advanced in his departure, though he made way for the shape of an old man in the extremity April. He appeared in the greatest gaiety of age; the hair he had was so very white, imaginable, and had a thousand pleasures it seemed a real snow; his eyes were red to attend him: his look was frequently and piercing, and his beard hung with great clouded, but immediately returned to its first quantity of icicles; he was wrapt up in furs, composure, and remained fixed in a smile. but yet so pinched with excess of cold, that Then came May, attended by Cupid, with his limbs were all contracted, and his body his bow strung, and in a posture to let fly bent to the ground, so that he could not an arrow: as he passed by, methought I have supported himself had it not been fot heard a confused noise of soft complaints, Comus, the god cf:'svels, and Necessity, gentle ecstacies, and tender sighs of lovers; the mother of Fate, who sustained him cn vows of constancy, and as many complain- each side. The shape and mantle of Comus ings of perfidiousness; all which the winds was one of the things thil most surprised wafted away as soon as they had reached me: as he advanced towatds me, his counmy hearing. After these I saw a man ad- tenance seemed the most desirable I had vance in the full prime and vigour of his ever seen. On the fore part of his mantle age; his complexion was sanguine and was pictured joy, delight, and satisfaction, ruddy, his hair black, and fell down in with a thousand emblems of merriment, beautiful ringlets beneath his shoulders; a and jests with faces looking two ways at mantle of hair-coloured silk hung loosely once; but as he passed from me I was upon him: he advanced with a hasty step amazed at a shape so little correspondent after the Spring, and sought out the shade to his face: his head was bald, and all the and cool fountains which played in the gar- rest of his limbs appeared old and deformed. den. He was particularly well pleased On the hinder part of his mantle was rewhen a troop of Zephyrs fanned him with presented Murder* with dishevelled hair their wings. He had two companions, who and a dagger all bloody, Anger in a robe of walked on each side, that made him appear scarlet, and Suspicion squinting with both the most agreeable; the one was Aurora eyes; but above all, the most conspicuous with figures of roses, and her feet dewy, was the battle of Lapithz and the Centaurs. attired in gray; the other was Vesper, in a I detested so hideous a shape, and turned robe of azure beset with drops of gold, my eyes upon Saturn, who was stealing whose breath he caught while it passed away behind him, with a scythe in one over a bundle of honeysuckles and tuberoses hand and an hour-glass in the other, unobwhich he held in his hand. Pan and Ceres served. Behind Necessity was Vesta, the followed them with four reapers, who goddess of fire, with a lamp that was per danced a morrice to the sound of oaten-pipes petually supplied with oil, and whose flame and cymbals. Then came the attendant was eternal. She cheered the rugged brow Months. June retained still some small of Necessity, and warmed her so far as allikeness of the Spring; but the other two seemed to step with a less vigorous tread, * The nglish are branded, perhaps unjustly, with especially August. who seemed almost to being addicted to suicide about this time of the year. No. 426.] THE SPECTATOR. 159 most to make ner assume the features and to help her; just as long as an infant is in likeness of Choice. December, January, the womb of its parent, so long are these and February, passed on after the rest, all medicines of revivification in preparing. in furs: there was little distinction to be Observe this small phial and this little galmade amongst them; and they were only lipot-in this an ungent, in the other a more or less displeasing as they discovered liquor. In these, my childare collected such more or less haste towards the grateful re- powers, as shall revive the springs of lite turn of Spring. Z. when they are yet but just ceased, and give ________- =new strength, new spirits, and, in a word, wholly restore all the organs and senses of No. 426.] Wednesday, July 9, 1712. the human body to as great a duration as it d n m p c had before enjoyed from its birth to the day - O uid non mortalia pectora cogis,. n Auri sacra fames? irgn. iii. 56. of the application of these my medicines. O cursed hunger of pernicious gold? But, my beloved son, care.must be taken to What bands of faith can impious lucre hold! apply them within ten hours after the Dryden. breath is out of the body, while yet the A VERY agreeable friend of mine the clay is warm with its late life, and yet caother day, carrying me in his coach into the pable of resuscitation. I find my frame country to dinner, fell into a discourse con- grown crazy with perpetual toil and medicerning the'care of parents due to their tation; and I conjure you, as soon as I am children,' and the'piety of children to- dead, anoint me with this ungent; and wards their parents.' He was reflecting when you see me begin to move, pour into upon the succession of particular virtues my lips this inestimable liquor, else the and qualities there might be preserved from force of the ointment will be ineffectual. one generation to another, if these regards By this means you will give me life as I were reciprocally held in veneration: but gave you, and we will from that hour muas he never fails to mix an air of mirth and tually lay aside the authority of having begood-humour with his good sense and rea- stowed life on each other, live as brethren, soning, he eatered into the following rela- and prepare new medicines against such tion. another period of time as will demand an-'I will not be confident in what century, other application of the same restoratives." or under what reign it happened, that this In a few days, after these wonderful ingrewant of mutual confidence and right under- dients were delivered to Alexandrinus, Bastanding between father and son was fatal silius departed this life. But such was the to the family of the Valentines in Germany. pious sorrow of the son at the loss of so exBasilius Valentinus was a person who had cellent a father, and the first transports of arrived at the utmost perfection in the her- grief had so wholly disabled him from all mnetic art, and initiated his son Alexandri- manner of business, that he never thought nus in the same mysteries: but, as you of the medicines till the time to which his know they are not to be attained but by the father had limited their efficacy was expainful, the pious, the chaste, and pure of pired. To tell the truth, Alexandrinu: heart, Basilius did not open to him, because was a man of wit and pleasure, andl consi of his youth, and the deviations too natural dered his father had lived out his natura. to it, the greatest secrets of which he was time; his life was long and uniform, suita master, as well knowing that the operation ble to the regularity of it; but that he himwould fail in the hands of a man so liable to self, poor sinner, wanted a new life to reerrors in life as Alexandrinus. But be- pent of a very bad one hitherto; and, in lieving, from a certain indisposition of mind the examination of his heart, resolved to as well as body, his dissolution was draw- go on as he did with this natural being of ing nigh, he called Alexandrinus to him, his, but repent very faithfully, and spend and as he lay on a couch, over against very piously the life to which he should be which his son was seated, and prepared by restored by application of these rarities, sending out servants one after another, and when time should come to his own person. admonition to examine that no one over-' It has been observed, that Providence heard them, he revealed the most import- frequently punishes the self-love of men, ant of his secrets with the solemnity and who would do immoderately for their own language of an adept. "My son," said he, offspring, with children very much below " many have been the watchings, long the their characters and qualifications; inso lucubrations, constant the labours of thy much that they only transmit their names father, not only to gain a great and plentiful to be borne by those who give daily proofs estate to his posterity, but also to take care of the vanity of the labour and ambition of that he should have no posterity. Be not their progenitors. amazed my child: I do not mean that thou' It happened thus in the family of Basishalt be taken from me, but that I will lius; for Alexandrinus began to enjoy his never leave thee, and consequently cannot ample fortune in all the extremities of be said to have posterity. Behold, my household expense, furniture, and insolent dearest Alexandrinus, the effect of what equipage; and this he pursued till the day was propagated in nine months. We are of his own departure began, as he grew not to contradict nature, but to follow and sensible, to approach. As Basilius was 160 THE SPECTATOR. No. 427. punisled with a son very unlike him,' Well, Alexandrinus died, and the heir Alexandrinus was visited by one of his of his body (as our term is) could not forown disposition. It is natural that ill men bear, in the wantonness of his heart, to should be suspicious; and- Alexandrinus, measure the length and breadth of his bebesides that jealousy, had proofs of the loved father, and cast up the ensuing value vicious disposition of his son Renatus, for of him before he proceeded to the operation. that was his name. When he knew the immense reward of his' Alexandrinus, as I have observed, hav- pains, he began the work: but; lo! when he ing very good reason for thinking it unsafe had anointed the corpse all over, and beto trust the real secret of his phial and gal- gan to apply the liquor, the body stirred, lipot to any man living, projected to make and Renatus, in a fright, broke the phial.' sure work, and hope for his success de- T. ending from the avarice, not the bounty of is benefactor.' With this thought he called Renatus to No. 427.] Thursday, July 10, 1712. his bed-side, and bespoke him in the most Quantum a rerum turpitudine abes, tantum te a vepathetic gesture and accent. " As much, borum libertate sejungas. Tull. my son, as you have been addicted to vanity We should be as careful of our words, as our actions; and pleasure, as I also have been before and as far from speaking, as from doing ill. you,* you nor E could escape the fame or IT is a certain sign of an ill heart to be inthe good effects of the profound knowledge dined to defamation. They who are harmof our progenitor, the renowned Basilius. less and innocent can have no gratification His symbol is very well known in the phi- that way; but it ever arises from a neglect losophic world; and I shall never forget the of what is laudable in a man's self, and an venerable air of his countenance, when he impatience in seeing it in another. Else let me into the profound mysteries of the why should virtue provoke? Why should smaragdine tables of Hermes. "It is true," beauty displease in such a degree, that a said he, " and far removed from all colour man given to scandal never lets the menof deceit; that which is inferior is like that tion of either pass by him, without offering which is superior, by which are acquired something to the diminution df it) A lady and perfected all the miracles of a certain the other day at a visit, being attacked work. The father is the sun, the mother somewhat rudely by one whose own chathe moon, the wind is the womb, the earth racter has been very rudely treated, anis the nurse of it, and mother of all perfec- swered a great deal of heat and intempertion. All this must be received with mo- ance very calmly, "Good madam, spare desty and wisdom." The chymical people me, who am none of your match; I speak carry, in all their jargon, a whimsical sort ill of nobody, and it is a new thing to me to of piety which is ordinary with great lovers be spoken ill of." Little minds think fame of money, and is no more but deceiving consists in the number of votes they have themselves, that their regularityand strict- on their side among the multitude, whereas ness of manners, for the ends of this world, it is really the inseparable follower of good has some affinity to the innocence of heart and worthy actions. Fame is as natural a which must recommend them to the next. follower of merit, as a shadow is of a body. Renatus wondered to hear his father talk It is true, when crowds press upon you, so like an adept, and with such a mixture this shadow cannot be seen; but when they of piety; while Alexandrinus, observing his separate from around you, it will again apattention fixed, proceeded. "This phial, pear. The lazy, the idle, and the froward, child, and this little earthen pot, will add are the persons who are most pleased with to thy estate so much as to make thee the the little tales which pass about the town richest man in the German empire. I am to the disadvantage of the rest of the world. going to my long home, but shall not return Were it not for the pleasure of speaking to common dust." Then he resumed a ill, there are numbers of people who are countenance of alacrity, and told him, that too lazy to go out of their own houses, and if within an hour after his death he anointed too ill-natured to open their lips in converhis whole body, and poured down his throat sation. It was not a little diverting the that liquor which he had from old Basilius, other day to observe a lady reading a postthe corpse would be converted into pure letter, and at these words,'After all her gold. I will not pretend to express to you airs, he has heard some story or other, and the unfeigned tenderness that passed be- the match is broken off,' gives orders in the tween these two extraordinary persons; midst of her reading,'Put to the horses.' but if the father recommended the care of That a young woman of merit had missed his remains with vehemence and affection, an advantageous settlement was news not the son was not behind hand in professing to be delayed, lest somebody else should that he would not cut the least bit off him, have given her malicious acquaintance that but upon the utmost extremity, or to pro- satisfaction before her. The unwillingness vide for his younger brothers and sisters. to receive good tidings is a quality as inThewordneiterseems omitted here, thogh it separable from a scandal-bearer, as the * The word'neither' seems omitted here, thogh it readiness to divulge bad. But, alals! how is not in the original publication in folio, or in the edi- eadiess t divulge bad. Bu, alas! how tion in 8vo. of 1712. wretchedly low and contemptible s that No. 428.] THE SPECTATOR. 161 state of mind, that cannot be pleased but so well as this old lady does to disperse it. by what is the subject of lamentation. This She does not know the author of any thing temper has ever been, in the highest de- that is told her, but can readily repeat the gree, odious to gallant spirits. The Persian matter itself; therefore, though she exposes soldier, who was heard reviling Alexander all the whole town, she offends no one body the Great, was well admonished by his of- in it. She is so exquisitely restless and ficer,'Sir, you are paid to fight against peevish, that she quarrels with all about Alexander, and not to rail at him.' her, and sometimes in a freak wiol instantly Cicero, in one of his pleadings, defend- change her habitation. To indulge this ing his client from general scandal, says humour, she is led about the grounds bevery handsomely, and with much reason, longing to the same house she is in; and the' There are many who have particular en- persons to whom she is to remove being in gagements to the prosecutor; there are the plot, are ready to receive her at her many who are known to have ill-will to him own chamber again. At stated times the for whom I appear; there are many who are gentlewoman at whose house she supposes naturally addicted to defamation, and en- she is at the time, is sent for to quarrel with, vious of any good to any man, who may according to her common custom. When have contributed to spread reports of this they have a mind to drive the jest, she is kind; for nothing is so swift as scandal, no- immediately urged to that degree, that she thing is more easily set abroad, nothing re- will board in a family with which she has ceived with more welcome, nothing diffuses never yet been; and away she will go this itself so universally. I shall not desire, instant, and tell them all that the rest have that if any report to our disadvantage has been saying of them. By this means she has any ground for it, you would overlook or been an inhabitant of every house in the extenuate it: but if there be any thing ad- place, without stirring from the same habivanced, without a person who can say tation: and the many stories which every whence he had it, or which is attested by body furnishes her with, to favour the deone who forgot who told him it, or who had ceit, make her the general intelligencer of it from one of so little consideration that he the town of all that can be said by one wodid not think it worth his notice, all such man against another. Thus groundless testimonies as these, I know, you will think stories die away, and sometimes truths are too slight to have any credit against the in- smothered under the general word, when nocence and honour of your fellow citizens.' they have a mind to discountenance a When an ill report is traced, it very often thing,' Oh! that is in my lady Bluemantle's vanishes among such as the orator has here Memoirs.' recited. And how despicable a creature Whoever receives impressions to the dismust that be, who is in pain for what passes advantage of others, without examination, is among so frivolous a people! There is a to be had in no other credit for intelligence town in Warwickshire, of good note, and than this good lady Bluemantle, who is subformerly pretty famous for much animosity jected to have her ears imposed upon for and dissention, the chief families of which want of other helps to better information. have now turned all their whispers, back- Add to this, that other scandal-bearers bitings, envies, and private malices, into suspend the use of these faculties which mirth and entertainment, by means of a she has lost, rather than apply them to do peevish old gentlewoman, known by the title justice to their neighbours: and I think, for of the lady Bluemantle. This heroine had, the service of my fair readers, to acquaint for many years together outdone the whole them, that there is a voluntary lady Blue sisterhood of gossips in invention, quick mantle at every visit in town. T. utterance, and unprovoked malice. This good body is of a lasting constitution, though extremely decayed in her' eyes, and de- No. 428.] Friday, July 11, 1712. crepid in her feet. The two circumstances Occupet extremum scabies.of being always at home, from her lame- Hor drs Poet. ver. 417 ness, and very attentive from her blind- The devil take the hindmost! English Proverbs ness, and very attentive from her blindness, make her lodgings the receptacle IT is an impertinent and unreasonable of all that passes in town, good or bad; fault in conversation, for one man to take but for the latter she seems to have the up all the discourse. It may possibly be oetter memory. There is another thing to objected to me myself, that I am guilty in be noted of her, which is, that, as it is ths kind, in entertaining the town ever usual with old people, she has a livelier day, and not giving so many able persons, memory of things which passed when she who have it more in their power, and as was very young than of late years. Add to much in their inclination, an opportunity to 1ll this, that she does not only not love any oblige mankind with their thoughts. Beoody, but she hates every body. The statue sides,' said one whom I overheard the other m Rome* does not serve to vent malice half day,' why must this paper turn altogether ________ _ upon topics of learning and morality? Why *A statue of Pasquin in that city on which sarcas- should it pretend only to wit, humour, ic remarks were pasted, and thence called Pasquinades. or the like-things which are useful only VOL. II. 21 162'1 HE SPEC'I ATOR. rN<. 4280 to men of literature, and superior educa- what tracts of land have been purchased tion? I would have it consist also of all by a constant attendance within a walk of things which may be necessary or useful to thirty foot. If it could also be noted in the any part of society; and the mechanic arts equipage of those who are ascended from should have their place as well as the libe- the successful trade of their ancestors into ral. The ways of gain, husbandry, and figure and equipage, such accounts would thrift, will serve a greater number of peo- quicken industry in the pursuit of such acple than discourses upon what was well quisitions, and discountenance luxury in the said or done by such a philosopher, hero, enjoyment of them. general, or poet.' —I no sooner heard this To diversify these kinds of information, critic talk of my works, but I minuted what the industry of the female world is not to be he had said; and from that instant resolved unobserved. She to whose household virto enlarge the plan of my speculations, by tues it is owing, that men do honour to her giving notice to all persons of all orders, husband, should be recorded with veneraand each sex, that if they are pleased to tion; she who has wasted his labours, with send me discourses, with their names and infamy. When we are come into domestic places of abode to them, so that I can be life in this manner, to awaken caution and satisfied the writings are authentic, such attendance to the main point, it would not be their labours shall be faithfully inserted in amiss to give now and then a touch of trathis paper. It will be of much more conse- gedy, and describe that most dreadful of quence to a youth, in his apprenticeship, all human conditions, the case of bank to know by what rules and arts such-a-one ruptcy: how plenty, credit, cheerfulness, became sheriff of the city of London, than to full hopes, and easy possessions, are in an see the sign of one of his own quality with instant turned into penury, feint aspects, a lion's heart in each hand. The world, diffidence, sorrow, and misery; how the indeed, is enchanted with romantic and man, who with an open hand the day beimprobable achievements, when the plain fore could administer to the extremities of path to respective greatness and success, others is shunned to-day by the friend of in the way of life a man is in, is wholly his bosom. It would be useful to show how overlooked. Is it possible that a young man just this is on the negligent, how lamentat present could pass his time better than able on the industrious. A paper written in reading the history of stocks, and know- by a merchant might give this island a true ing by what secret springs they have had sense of the worth and importance of his such sudden ascents and falls in the same character, it might be visible from what he day! Could he be better conducted in his could say, that no soldier entering a breach way to wealth, which is the great article adventures more for honour, than the trader of life, than in a treaties dated from does for wealth to his country. In both'Change-alley by an able proficient there? cases, the adventurers have their own gdNothing certainly could be more useful, vantage; but I know no cases wherein every than to be well instructed in his hopes and body else is a sharer in the success. fears; to be diffident when others exult; It is objected by readers of history, that and with a secret joy buy when others the battles in those narrations are scarce think it their interest to sell. I invite all ever to be understood. This misfortune is persons who have any thing to sav for the to be ascribed to the ignorance of historians profitable information of the public, to take in the methods of drawing up, changing their turns in my paper: they are welcome the forms of a battalia, and the enemy refrom the late noble inventor of the longi- treating from, as well as approaching to, tude, to the humble author of straps for ra- the charge. But in the discourses from the zors. If to carry ships in safety, to give correspondents, whom I now invite, the help to a people tossed in a troubled sea, danger will be of another kind; and it is newithout knowing to what shores they bear, cessary to caution them only against using what rocks to avoid, or what coast to pray terms of art, and describing things that are for in their extremity, be a worthy labour, familiar to them in words unknown to the and an invention that deserves a statue; at reader. I promise myself a great harvest the same time, he who has found a means of new circumstances, persons, and things, to let the instrument which is to make your from this proposal; and a world, which visage less horrible, and your person more many think they are well acquainted with, snug, easy in the operation, is worthy of discovered as wholly new. 1 his sort of insome kind of good reception. If things of telligence will give a lively image of the high moment meet with renown, those of chain and mutual dependance of human little consideration, since of any considera- society, take off impertinent prejudices, tion, are not to be despised. In order that enlarge the minds of those whose views are no merit may lie hid, and no art unim- confined to their own circumstances; and, proved, I repeat it, that I call artificers, as in short, if the knowing in several arts, well as philosophers, to my assistance in the professions, and trades, will exert thempublic service. It would be of great use if selves, it cannot but produce a new field of we had an exact history of the successes diversion and instruction, more agreeable of every great shop within the city walls, than has yet appeared. T No. 429, TIIE SPECTATOR. 16g No. 429.] Saturday, July 12, 1712. " That they would please to make merry -Populumque falsis ded)cet uti with their equals. Vocibus Hor. Od. ii. Lib. 2.19. That Mr. Loller might stay with them From cheats of words the'rowd she brings if he thought fit. " To real estimate of things -Creech.'It was immediately resolved, that lady'MR. SPECTATOR,-Since I gave an ac- Lydia was still at London.' count of an agreeable set of company which "The humble Memorial of Thomas SIdwere gone down into the country, I have received advices from thence, that the in- den, Esq. of the Inner Temple, stitution of an infirmary for those who "Showeth, should be out of humour has had very good "That Mr. Sudden is conscious that he effects. My letters mention particular cir- is too much given to argumentation. cumstances of two or three persons, who "That he talks loud. had the good sense to retire of their own "That he is apt to think all things matter accord, and notified that they were with- of debate. drawn, with the reasons of it to the com- "That he stayed behind in Wdstminsterpanv in their respective memorials.' hall, when the late shake of the roof hapThe huml Memoral. o Mc. Mar ~ pened, only because a counsel of the other h" 1 e hzlumble Memtzorial of Mrs. Mary side asserted it was coming down. Dainty, Spinster, "That he cannot for his life consent to "Showeth, any thing. "That conscious of her own want of " That he stays in the infirmary to forget merit, accompanied with a vanity of being himself. admired, she had gone into exile of her "That as soon as he has forgot himself, own accord. he will wait on the company." " She is sensible, that a vain person is the most insufferable creature living in a well-' His indisposition was allowed to be suffibred assembly. cient to require a cessation from company.' "That she desired, before she appeared "The Memorial of rank Jolly, in public again, she might have assurances, that though she might be thought hand- "Showeth, some, there might not more address of cor- That he hath put himself into the inpliment be paid to her than to the rest of firmary, in regard he is sensible of a certain the company. rustic mirth, which renders him unfit for phe company. "That she conceived it a kind of superi- polite conversation. ority, that one person should take upon him " That he intends to prepare himself, by to commend another. abstinence and thin diet, to be one of the "Lastly, that she went into the infirmary, company. to avoid a particular person, who took upon "That at present he comes into a room him to profess an admiration of her. as if he were an express from abroad. " She therefore prayed, that to applaud "That he has chosen an apartment with out of due place might be declared an of- a matted antechamber, to practise motion fence, and punished in the same manner without being heard. with detraction, in that the latter did but " That he bow als, talks, drinks, eats, and report persons defective, and the former helps himself before a glass, to learn to act made them so. with moderation. m S a.' de'.'them. o " That by reason of his luxuriant health "All which is submitted, &c. he is oppressive to persons of composed'There appeared a delicacy and sincerity behaviour. in this memorial very uncommon; but my "That he is endeavouring to forget the friend informs me, that the allegations of it word' pshaw, pshaw.' were groundless, insomuch that this decla- "That he is also weaning himself from ration of an aversion to being praised was his cane. understood to be no other than a secret trap "That when he has learnt to live without to purchase it, for which reason it lies still his said cane, he will wait on the company, on the table unanswered.' &c." "The humble Memorial of the Lady Lydia "The Memorial of John Rhubarb, Esq. Loller, "Showeth, " Showeth, "That your pIetitioner has retired to the "That the lady Lydia is a woman of infirmary, but that he is in perfect good quality; married to a private gentleman. health, except that he has by long use, and "That she finds herself neither well nor for want of discourse, contracted an habit ill. of complaint that he is sick. " That her husband is a clown. "That he wants for nothing under the "That the lady Lydia cannot see corn- sun, but what to say, and therefore has pany. fallen into this unhappy malady of com"That she desires the infirmary may plaining that he is sick. be her apartment dui ng her stay in the " That this custom of his makes him, by countl y. his own confession, fit only for the infirmary, 164 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 4.0f and therefore he has not waited for being you may with authority censure whatever sentenced to it. looks ill, and is offensive to the sight; the "That he is conscious there is nothing worst nuisance of which kind, methinks, is more improper than such a complaint in the scandalous appearance of poor in all good company, in that they must pity, parts of this wealthy city. Such miserable whether they think the lamenter ill or not; objects affect the compassionate beholder and that the complainant must make a silly with dismal ideas, discompose the cheerfigure, whether he is pitied or not. fulness of his mind, and deprive him of the "' Your petitioner humbly prays that he pleasure he might otherwise take in surmay have people to know how he does, and veying the grandeur of our metropolis. he will make his appearance." Who can without remorse see a disabled' The valetudinarian was likewise easily sailor, the purveyor of our luxury, destitute excused: and the society, being resolved of necessaries? Who can behold the honest not only to make it their business to pass soldier that bravely withstood the enemy, their time agreeably for the present season, prostrate and in want among friends? It but also to commence such habits in them- were endless to mention all the variety of selves as may be of use in their future con- wretchedness, and the numberless poor that duct in general, are very ready to give into not only singly, but in companies, implore a fancied or real.incapacity to join with your charity. Spectacles of this nature their measures, in order to have no hu- every where occur; and it is unaccountable mourist, proud man, impertinent or suffi- that amongst the many lamentable cries cient fellow, break in upon their happiness. that infest this town, your comptrollerGreat evils seldom happen to disturb com- general should not take notice of the most pany; but indulgence in particularities of shocking, viz. those of the needy and afhumour is the seed of making half our time flicted. I cannot but think he waived it hang in suspense, or waste away under real merely out of good breeding, choosing radiscomposures. ther to waivehis resentment than upbraid'Among other things, it is carefully pro- his countrymen with inhumanity: however, vided that there may not be disagreeable let not charity be sacrificed to popularity; familiarities. No one is to appear in the and if his ears were deaf to their complaint. public rooms undressed, or enter abruptly let not your eyes overlook their persons. into each other's apartment without inti- There are, I know, many impostors among liation. Every one has hitherto been so them. Lameness and blindness are cercareful in his behaviour, that there has but tainly very often acted; but can those who one offender, in ten days' time, been sent have their sight and limbs employ them into the infirmary, and that was for throw- better than in knowing whether they are ing away his cards at whist. counterfeited or not? I know not which of He has offered his submission in the the two misapplies his senses most, he who following terms: pretends himself blind to move compassion, The humble Petiion of Jefry Hot or he who beholds a miserable object with" The humble Petition ofJeoffry totsfiur, out pitying it. But in order to remove such Showeth, E impediments, I wish, Mr. Spectator, you "Show.th, would give us a discourse upon beggars, Though the petitioner swore, stamped, that we may not pass by true objects of and threw down his cards, he has all ima- charity, or give to impostors. I looked out ginable respect for the ladies, and the whole of my window the other morning earlier company. than ordinary, and saw a blind beggar, an That he humbly desires it may be con- hour before the passage he stands in is sidered, in the case of gaming, there are frequented, with a needle and a thread many motives which provoke the disorder, thriftily mending his stockings. My asto"That the desire of gain, and the desire nishment was still greater, when I beheld a of victory, are both thwarted in losing. lame fellow, whose legs were too big to "That all conversations in the world walk within an hour after, bring him a pot have indulged human infirmity in this case. of ale. I will not mention the shakings "Your petitioner therefore most humbly distortions, and convulsions, which many prays, that he may be restored to the com- of them practise to gain an alms; but surc pany: and he hopes to bear ill-fortune with I am they ought to be taken care of in this a good grace for the future, and to demean condition, either by the beadle or the mahimself so as to be no more than cheerful gistrate. They, it seems, relieve their posts when he wins, than grave when he loses." according to their talents. There is the T. voice of an old woman never begins to beg A —-------------- - ~till nine in the evening; and then she is No. 430.] Monday, Jly 14, 1712. destitute of lodging, turned out for want of Mndy, J 1, rent, and has the same ill fortune every Quaere peregrinum, vicinia rauca reclamat. night in the year. You should employ an Hor. Ep. xvii. Lib. 1. 62.officer to hear the distress of each beggar ~- - -The crowd replies, * that is constant at a particular place, who Go seek a stranger to believe thy lies. —Creech. is ever in the same tone, and succeeds be-'SIR,-As you are a Spectator-general, cause his audience is continually changing, Nn. 431.] THE SPECTATOR. 165 though he does no: alter his lamentation. "For higher of the genial bed by far, If we have nothing else for our money,' let And with mysterious reverence, deem." us have more invention to be cheated with. I am, sir, your humble servant, All which is submitted to your spectatorial'THOMAS MEANWELL.' vigilance; and I am, sir, your most humble _servant.' No. 431.] Tuesday, July 15, 1712. SIR,-I ^ was last Sunday highly trans- Quid dulcius hominum generi a natura datum est, ported at our parish-church; the gentleman quam sui quique liberi? Tull. in the pulpit pleaded movingly in behalf of What is there in nature so dear to a man as his own the poor children, and they for themselves children? much more forcibly by singing a hymn; and I HAVF lately been casting in my thoughts I had the happiness of being a contributor nhppinesses o lifeand cmto this little religious institution of inno- paring the infelicies of old age to those of cents, and am sure I never disposed of paing t he calamities of children are money more to my satisfaction and advan- infancy. T money ore to my satisfction and advan-due to the negligence and misconduct of tage. The inward joy I find in myself, and tage. The inward Joy I fnindi myself, and parents; those of age to the past life which the good-will I bear to mankind, make me led to it. I have here the history of a boy heartily wish those pious works may be en- and girl to their wedding-day and I think couraged, that the present promoters may I cannot give the reader a livelier image of reap delight, and posterity the benefit ofthe nsd way in which time uncultivated themi But whilsto we are building this passes, than by entertaining him with their beautiful edifice, lt not the oldru e- authentic epistles, expressing all that was main in view to sully the prospect. Whilst remarkable in their lives, till the period of we are cultivating and improving this young theirlife above-mentioned. The sentence hopeful offspring, let not the ancient and at the head of this paper, which isonly a helpless creatures be shamefully neglected. warm interrogation,' What is there in naThe crowds of poor,.or pretended poor, in ture so dear as a man's own children to every place, are a great reproach to us, and him?' is all the reflection I shall at present eclipse the glory of all other charity. It is make on those who are negligent or cruel the utmost reproach to society, that there in the education of them. should be a poor man unrelieved, or a poor rogue unpunished. I hope you will think'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am now entering no part of human life out of your considera- into my one and twentieth year, and do not tion, but will, at your leisure, give us the know that I had one day's thorough satishistory of plenty and want, and the natural faction since I came to years of any reflecgradations towards them, calculated for tion, till the time they say others lose their the cities of London and Westminster. I liberty-the day of my marriage. I am son am, sir, your most humble servant, to a gentleman of a very great estate, who' T. D.' resolved to keep me out of the vices of the'MR. SPECTATOR, —I beg you would be age; and, in order to it, never let me see pleased to take notice of a very great inde- any thing that he thought could give me cency, which is extremely common, though, any pleasure. At ten years old I was put to a cency, wh ich is extre mely c ommon, thou gh, then fel a I think, never yet under your censure. It grammar-schoo, where tm master receivis, sir, the strange freedoms some ill-bred ed orders evey post to use me very severemarried people take in company the un- ly, and have no regard to my having a great married peoplet tkeynestate. At fifteen I was removed to the seasonable fondness of some husbands, and university hereAIlivedasoremov the the ill-timed tenderness of some wives, university, where I lived, out of my father's the ill-timed tenderness of some wives. They talk and act as if modesty was only great discretion, in scandalous poverty and fit for maids and bachelors, and that too want, till I was big enough to be married, Iefore m aid s a nd bachelors, a. Secat oro and I was sent for to see the lady whb sends before both. I was once, Mr. Spectator, you the underwritten. hen we were put where the fault I speak of was so very fla- together, we both considered that we were put grant, that (being, you must know, a very not be worse than we were in taking one bashful fellow, and several young ladies. in nother, and, out of a desire of liberty, enthe room,) I protest I was quite out of countenance. Lucina, it seems, was breeding; tered into wedlock. My father says I am tenanco. Lucina, it seems, was breeding; now a man, and may speak to him like and she did nothing but entertain the com- now a man, and may speak to him like pany with a discourse upon the difficulty of another gentleman. I am, sir, your most reckoning to a day; and said she knew those humble seRICHARD RNTFREE.'vant, who were certain to an hour; then fell a laughing at a silly inexperienced creature,' MR. SPEC,-I grew tall and wild at my who was a month above her time. Upon mother's, who is a gay widow, and did not her husband's coming in, she put several care for showing me, till about two years questions to him; which he, not caring to and a half ago; at which time my guardianresolve, "Well," cries Lucina, "I shall uncle sent me to a boarding-school, with have'em all at night. "-But lest I should orders to contradict me in nothing, for I seem guilty of the very fault I write against, had been misused enough already. I haC 1 shall only entreat Mr. Spectator to cor- not been there above a month when, being vect such misdemea 0:ors. in the kitchen, I saw some oatmeal on the 166 THE SPECTATOR. rNo. 43. dresser; 1 put two or three corns in my with directions on both sides to be in love mouth, liked it, stole a handful, went into with one another; and in three weeks time my chamber, chewed it, and for two months we were married. I regained my former after never failed taking toll of every pen- health and complexion, and am now as nyworth of oatmeal that came into the happy as the day is long. Now, Mr. Spec, house; but one day playing with a tobacco- I desire you would find out some name for pipe between my teeth, it happened to these craving damsels, whether dignified break in my mouth, and the spitting out or distinguished under some or all of the the pieces left such a delicious roughness following denominations, to wit, "Trash on my tongue, that I could not be satisfied eaters, Oatmeal-chewers, Pipe-champers, till I had champed up the remaining part Chalk-lickers, Wax-nibblers, Coal-scranof the pipe. I forsook the oatmeal and chers, Wall-peelers, or Gravel-diggers;" stuck to the pipes three months, in which and, good sir, do your utmost endeavour to time I had dispensed with thirty-seven foul prevent (by exposing) this unaccountable pipes, all to the bowls: they belonged to an folly, so prevailing among the young ones old gentleman, father to my governess. of our sex, who may not meet with such He locked up the clean ones. I left off eat- sudden good luck as, sir, your constant ing of pipes, and fell to licking of chalk. I reader, and very humble servant, was soon tired of this. I then nibbled all'SABINA GREEN, the red wax of our last ball-tickets, and, T.'Now SABINA RENTFREE.' three weeks after, the black wax from the burying-tickets of the old gentleman. Two months after this, I lived upon thunder- No. 432.1 Wednesday, July 16, 1712. bolts, a certain long round blueish stone which I found among the gravel in our gar- — Inter strepit anser olores. irg. Eel. ix. 30. den. I was wonderfully delighted with this; He gabbles like a goose amidst the swan-like quire. but thunder-bolts growing scarce, I fastened Dryden. tooth and nail upon our garden-wall, which Oxford July 14 T stuck to almost a twelvemonth, and had'MR. SPECTATOR,-According to a late in that time peeled and devoured half a invitation in one of your papers to every foot towards our neighbour's yard. I now man who pleases to write, I have sent you thought myself the happiest creature in the following short dissertation against the the world; and I believe, in my conscien vce of being prejudiced. Your most humI had eaten quite through, had I had it in be servant. my chamber; but now I became lazy and unwilling to stir, and was obliged to seek "Man is a sociable creature, and a lover food nearer home. I then took a strange of glory; whence it is, that when several hankering to coals; I fell to scranching'em, persons are united in the same society, and had already consumed, I am certain, they are studious to lessen the reputation as much as would have dressed my wed- of others, in order to raise their own.'The ding dinner, when my uncle came for me wise are content to guide the springs in home. He was in the parlour with my silence, and rejoice in secret at their regugoverness, when I was called down. I went lar progress. To prate and triumph is the in, fell on my knees, for he made me call part allotted to the trifling and superficial. him father; and when I expected the bless- The geese were providentially ordained to ing I asked, the good gentleman, in a sur- save the Capitol. Hence it is, that the inprise, turns himself to my governess, and vention of marks and devices to distinguish asks, "whether this (pointing to me) was parties is owing to the beaus and belles of his daughter? This," added he, "is the this island. Hats moulded into different very picture of death. My child was a cocks and pinches, have long bid mutual plump-faced, hale, fresh-coloured girl; but defiance; patches have been set against this looks as if she was half-starved, a mere patches in battle array: stocks have risen skeleton." My governess, who is really a and fallen in proportion to head-dresses; good woman, assured my father I had and peace and war been expected, as the wanted for nothing; and withal told him I white or the red hood hath prevailed. These was continually eating some trash or other, are the standard-bearers in our contending and that I was almost eaten up with the armies, the dwarfs and'squires who cargreen-sickness, her orders being never to ry the impresses of the giants or knights, cross me. But this magnified but little with, not born to fight themselves, but to prepare my father, who presently, in a kind of pet, the way for the ensuing combat. paying for my board, took me home with t It is a matter of wonder to reflect how him. I had not been long at home, but one far men of weak understanding, and strong Sunday at church (I shall never forget it) fancy, are hurried by their prejudices, even I saw ayoung neighbouring gentleman that to the believing that the whole body of the pleased me hugely; I liked him of all men adverse party are a band of villains and I ever saw in my life, and began to wish I daemons. Foreigners complain that the could be as pleasing to him. The very next English are the proudest nation under headay he came with his father a visiting tb ven. Perhaps they too have their share, our house: we were left alone together, but be that as it will, general charges No. 433.] THE SPECTATOR. 167 against bodies of men is the fault I am kind of fame. These copiers of men, like writing against. It must be owned, to our those of authors or painters, run into afshame, that our common people, and most fectations of some oddness, which perhaps who have not travelled, have an irrational was not disagreeable in the original, but contempt for the language, dress, customs, sits ungracefully on the narrow-souled tranand even the shape and minds of other na- scriber. tions. Some men, otherwise of sense, have " By such early corrections of vanity, wondered that a great genius should spring while boys are growing into men, they will out of Ireland; and think you mad in af- gradually learn not to censure superficially; firming that fine odes have been written in but imbibe those principles of general kindLapland, ness and humanity, which alone can make "This spirit of rivalship, which hereto- them easy to themselves, and beloved by fore reigned in the two universities, is ex- others. tinct, and almost over betwixt college and " Reflections of this nature have expungcollege. In parishes and schools the thirst ed all prejudice out of my heart; insomuch, for glory still obtains. At the seasons of that though I am a firm protestant, I hope foot-ball and cock-fighting, these little re- to see the pope and cardinals without vio publics reassume their national hatred to lent emotions; and though I am naturally each other. My tenant in the country is grave, I expect to meet good company at verily persuaded, that the parish of the Paris. I am, sir, your humble servant." enemy hath not one honest man in it.'MR. SPECTATOR,-I find you are a " I always hated satires against women, general undertaker, and have, by your cor anddents or satires againsit men: I am apt to sus-most pect a stranger who laughs at the religion things; which makes me apply myself to of the faculty: my spleen rises at a dull you at present, in the sorest calamity that rogue who is severe upon mayors and al- ever befel man. My wife has taken somedermen; and I was never better pleased thing ill of me, and has not spoke one word, than with a piece of justice executed upon good or bad, to me, or any body in the fathe body of a Templar who was very arch mily, since Friday was seven-night. WVhat upon parsons. must a man do in that case? Your advice "The necessities of mankind require va- would be a great obligation to, sir, your rious employments; and whoever excels in most humble servant his province is worthy of praise. All men'RALPH THIMBLETON.' are not educated after the same manner, nor have all the same talents. Those who' July 15, 1712. are deficient deserve our compassion, and'MR. SPECTATOR,-When you want a have a title to our assistance. All cannot trifle to fill up a paper, in inserting this you be bred in the same place; but in all places will lay an obligation on your humble serthere arise, at different times, such persons vat OIIVIA.' as do honour to their society, which may "DEAR OLIVIA,-It is but this moment raise envy in little souls, but are admired I have had the happiness of knowing to and cherished by generous spirits. whom I am obliged for the present I re" It is certainly a great happiness to be ceived the second of April. I am heartily educated in societies of great and eminent sorry it did not come to hand the day before; men. Their instructions and examples are for I cannot but think it very hard upron of extraordinary advantage. It is highly people to lose their jest, that offer at one proper to instil such a reverence of the go- but once a-year. I congratulate myself verning persons, and concern for the honour however upon the earnest given me of of the place, as may spur the growing mem- something farther intended in my favour, bers to worthy pursuits and honest emula- for I am told that the man who is thought tion; but to swell young minds with vain worthy by a lady to make a fool of stands thoughts of the dignity of their own bro- fair enough in her opinion to become one therhood, by debasing and vilifying all day her husband. Till such time as I have others, doth them a real injury. By this the honour of being sworn, I take leave to means I have found that their efforts have subscribe myself, dear Olivia, your fool become languid, and their prattle irksome, elect, NICODEMUNCIO." as thinking it sufficient praise that they T. are children of so illustrious and ample"a. family. I should think it a surer as well as more generous method, to set before the No. 433.] Thursday, July 17, 1712. eyes of youth such persons as have made Perlege Meonio cantatas carmine ranas, a noble progress in fraternities less talked Et frontem nugis solvere disce meis. of; which seems tacitly to reproach their Mart. Epig. clxxxiii. 14. sloth, who loll so heavily in the seats of To banish anxious thought, and quiet pain, mighty improvement. Active spirits here- Read Homer's frogs, or my more trifling strain. by would enlarge their notions; where- THE moral world, as consisting of males as, by a servile imitation of one, or perhaps and females, is of a mixed nature, and filled two, admired men in their own body, they'with several customs, fashions, and cerecan onlv gain a secondary and derivative monies, which wculd have no place in it 168 THE SPECTATOR. rNo. 434. were there but one sex. Had our species to time, and supplied with their respective no females in it, men would be quite differ- subjects. ent creatures from what they are at pre- These two states were engaged together sent: their endeavours to please the oppo- in a perpetual league, offensive and defensite sex polishes and refines them out of sive; so that if any foreign potentate offered those manners which are most natural to attack either of them, both of the sexes to them, and often sets them upon modelling fell upon him at once, and quickly brought themselves, not accordingtothe planswhich him to reason. It was remarkable that for they approve in their own opinions, but ac- many ages this agreement continued inviocording to those plans which they think are lable between the two states, notwithstandmost agreeable to the female world. In ing, as was said before, they were husbands a word, man would not only be an unhappy, and wives; but this will not appear so wonbut a rude unfinished creature, were he derful, if we consider that they did not live conversant with none but those of his own together above a week in a year. make. In the account which my author gives of Women, on the other side, are apt to form the male republic, there were several custhemselves in every thing with regard to toms very remarkable. The men never that other half of reasonable creatures shaved their beards, or paired their nails, with whom they are here blended and above once in a twelvemonth, which was confused: their thoughts are ever turn- probably about the time of the great annual ed upon appearing amiable to the other meeting upon their frontiers. I find the sex; they talk, and move, and smile, with name of a minister of state in one part of a design upon us; every feature of their their history, who was fined for appearing faces, every part of their dress, is filled too frequently in clean linen;' and of a cerwith snares and allurements. There would tain great general, who was turned out of be no such animals as prudes or coquettes his post for effeminacy, it having been in the world, were there not such an ani- proved upon him by several credible witmal as man. In short, it is the male that nesses that he washed his face ev ry morn gives charms to woman-kind, that produces ing. If any member of the commnonwealth an air in their faces, a grace in their mo- had a soft voice, a smooth face, or a supple tions, a softness in their voices, and a deli- behaviour, he was banished into the comcacy in their complexions. monwealth of females, where he wastreatAs this mutual regard between the two ed as a slave, dressed in petticoats, and set sexes tends to the improvement of each of a spinning. They had no titles of honour them, we may observe that men are apt to among them, but such as denoted some degenerate into rough and brutal natures bodily strength or perfection, as such-a-one who live as if there were no such things as' the tall,' such-a-one' the stocky,' such-awomen in the world; as, on the contrary, one' the gruff.' Their public debates were women who have an indifference or aver- generally managed with kicks and cuffs, sion for their counterparts in human nature insomuch that they often came from the are generally sour and unamiable, sluttish council-table with broken shins, black eyes, and censorious. and bloody noses. When they would reI am led into this train of thoughts by a proach a man in the most bitter terms, little manuscript which is lately fallen into they would tell him his teeth were white, my hands, and which I shall communicate or that he had a fair skin and a soft hand. to the reader, as I have done some other The greatest man I meet with in their hiscurious pieces of the same nature without tory, who was one who could lift five huntroubling him with any inquiries about the dred weight, and wore such a prodigious author of it. It contains a summary ac- pair of whiskers as had never been seen in count of two different states which bordered the commonwealth before his time. These upon one another. The one was a common- accomplishments, it seems, had rendered wealth of Amazons, or women'vithout him so popular, that if he had not died very men; the other was a republic of males, seasonably, it is thought he might have enthat had not a woman in the whole com- slaved the republic. Having made this munity. As these two states bordered upon short extract out of the history of the male one another, it was their way, it seems, to commonwealth, I shall look intothe history meet upon their frontiers at a certain sea- of the neighbouring state, which consisted son of the year, where those among the of females; and if I find any thing in it, will men who had not made their choice in any not fail to communicate it to the public. former meeting, associated themselves with C. particular women, whom they were afterwards obliged to look upon as their wives in every one of these yearly rencounters. No 434]'riday,uy 1 The children that sprung up from this al-July 18, 1712. liance, if males, were sent to their respec- Quales Threicim, cum flumina Thermodoontis tive fathers; if females, continued with Pulsant, etpictis bellantur Amazones armis: their mothers. By means of this anniversary eu circum Hyppolyten, seu cum se Martia curru ^carnival, wu-hich lasted about a week, the Penthesilea refert, magnoque ululante tunultu, carnival, which lasted about a week, the Foeminea exultant lunatis agnina peltis: commonwealths were recruited from time Virg. n. viii. (06 No. 434.] THE SPECTATOR. 169 So march'd the Thracian Amazons of old, could not attend the public affairs as so When Thermodon with bloody billows roll'd: great an exigency of state required; but Such troops as these in shining arms were seen, grea an exigency of state required but When Tlieseus met in fight their maiden queen. this I can give no manner of credit to, since Such to the field Penthesilea led, it seems to contradict a fundamental maxim From the fierce virgin when the Grecians fled. in their government, which I have before With such return'd triumphant from the war, in thr government, which I ave before Her maid& with cries attend the lofty car: mentioned. My author gives the most proThey clash with manly force their moony shields; bable reason of this great disaster; for he With female shouts resound the Phrygian fields affirms that the general was broght bed, or (as others say) miscarried, the very HAVING carefully perused the manu- night before the battle: however it was, script I mentioned in my yesterday's paper, this single overthrow obliged them to call so far as it relates to the republic of women, in the male republic to their assistance; I find in it several particulars which may but, notwithstanding their common efforts very well deserve the reader's attention. to repulse the victorious enemy, the war The girls of quality, from six to twelve continued for many years before they could years old, were put to public schools, where entirely bring it to a happy conclusion. they learned to box and play at cudgles, The campaigns which both sexes passed with several other accomplishments of the together made them so well acquainted same nature: so that nothing was more with one another, that at the end of the usual than to see a little miss returning war they did not care for parting. In the home at night with a broken pate, or two beginning of it they lodged in separate or three teeth knocked out of her head. camps, but afterwards, as they grew more They were afterwards taught to ride the familiar, they pitched their tents promis great horse, to shoot, dart or sling, and cuously. listed into several companies, in order to From this time, the armies being checkperfect themselves in military exercises. ered with both sexes, they polished apace. No woman was to be married till she had The men used to invite their fellow soldiers killed her man. The ladies of fashion used into their quarters, and would dress their to play with young lions instead of lap-dogs; tents with flowers and boughs for their reand when they made any parties of diver- ception. If they chanced to like one more sion, instead of entertaining themselves at than another, they would be cutting her ombre and piquet, they would wrestle and name in the table, or chalking out her pitch the bar for a whole afternoon toge- figure upon a wall, or talking of her in a ther. There was never any such thing as kind of rapturous language, which by dea blush seen, or a sigh heard, in the whole grees improved into verse and sonnet. commonwealth. The women never dressed These were as the first rudiments of archibuttolook terrible; to which end they would tecture, painting, and poetry, among this sometimes, after a battle, paint their cheeks savage people. After any advantage over with the blood of their enemies. For this the enemy, both sexes used to jump toreason, likewise, the face which had the gether, and make a clattering with their most scars was looked upon as the most swords and shields, for joy, which in a few beautiful. If they found lace, jewels, years produced several regular tunes and ribands, or any ornaments in silver or gold, set dances. among the booty which they had taken, As the two armies romped together upon they used to dress their horses with it, these occasions, the women complained of but never entertained a thought of wear- the thick bushy beards and long nails of ing it themselves. There were particular their confederates, who thereupon took care rights and privileges allowed to any mem- to prune themselves into such figures. as her of the commonwealth who was a mo- were most pleasing to their friends and ther of three daughters. The senate was allies. made up of old women, for by the laws of When they had taken any spoils from the country, none was to be a counsellor the enemy, the men would make a present of state that was not past child-bearing. of every thing that was rich and showy to They used to boast that their republic had the women whom they most admired, and continued four thousand years, which is would frequently dress the necks, or heads, altogether improbable, unless we may sup- or arms, of their mistresses, with any thing pose, what I am very apt to think, that which they thought appeared gay or pretty. they measured their time by lunar years. The women observing that the men took There was a great revolution brought about delight in looking upon them when they in this female republic by means of a neigh- were adorned with such trappings and bouring king, who had made war upon them gewgaws, set their heads at work to find several years with various success, and at out new inventions and to outshine one anlength overthrew them in a very great battle. other in all councils of war, or the like This defeat they ascribe to several causes: solemn meetings. On the other hand, the some say that the secretary of state, having men observing how the women's hearts been troubled with the vapours, had com- were set upon finery, begun to embellish mitted some fatal mistakes in several des- themselves, and look as agreeably as they patches about that time. Others pretend could in the eyes of their associates. In that the first minister being big with child, short, after a few years' conversing toge VoL. II. 22 170 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 435. tlier, the women had learned to smile, and a hat and feather, a riding-coat, and a the men to ogle; the women grew soft, and periwig, or at least tie up their hair in a the men lively. bag or riband, in imitation of the smart When they had thus insensibly formed part of the opposite sex. As in my yesterone another, upon finishing of the war, day's paper I gave an account of the mixwhich concluded with an entire conquest ture of two sexes in one commonwealth, I of their common enemy, the colonels in one shall here take notice of this mixture of irmy married the colonels in the other; the two sexes in one person. I have already captains in the same manner took the cap- shown my dislike of this immodest custom tains to their wives: the whole body of more than once; but in contempt of every common soldiers were matched after the thing I have hitherto said, I am informed example of their leaders. By this means that the highways about this great city are the two republics incorporated with one still very much infested with these female another, and became the most flourishing cavaliers. and polite government in the part of the I remember when I was at my friend world which they inhabited. C. Sir Roger de Coverley's, about this time twelvemonth, an equestrian lady of this order appeared upon the plains which lay No. 435.] Saturday, July 19, 1712. at a distance from his house. I was at that -O.time walking in the fields with my old friend; Nec duo sunt, et forma duplex, nec fsemina dici, and as his tenants ran out on every side Nec puer ut possint, neutrumque et utrumque videntur. to see so strange a sight, Sir Roger asked Ovid. Met. iv. 378.to see so strange a sight, Sir Roger asked one of them, who came by us, what it was? Both bodies in a single body smix, dTo which the country fellow replied,'Tis A se body with a double n gentlewoman, saving your worship's preMOST of the papers I give the public are sence, in a coat and hat.' This produced a written on subjects that never vary, but great deal of mirth at the knight's house, are for ever fixed and immutable. Of this where we had a story at the same time kind are all my more serious essays and of another of his tenants, who meeting this discourses; but there is another sort of spe- gentleman-like lady on the highway, was culations, which I consider as occasional asked by her whether that was Coverleypapers, that take their rise from the folly, hall? The honest man seeing only the extravagance, and caprice of the present male part of the querist, replied,'Yes, age. For I look upon myself as one set to sir;' but upon the second question, whether watch the manners and behaviour of my Sir Roger de Coverley was a married man? countrymen and contemporaries, and to having dropped his eye upon the petticoat, mark down every absurd fashion, ridicu- he changed his note into'No, madam.' lous custom, or affected form of speech, Had one of these hermaphrodites apthat makes its appearance in the world peared in Juvenal's days, with what all during the course of my speculations. The indignation should we have seen her depetticoat no sooner begun to swell, but I scribed by that excellent satirist! he would observed its motions. The party-patches have represented her in a riding habit as a had not time to muster themselves before greater monster than the centaur. He I detected them. I had intelligence of the would have called for sacrifices of purifycoloured hood the very first time it ap- ing waters, to expiate the appearance of peared in a public assembly. I might here such a prodigy. He would have invoked mention several other the like contingent the shades of Portia and Lucretia, to see subjects, upon which I have bestowed dis- into what the Roman ladies had transformtinct papers. By this means I have so effec- ed themselves. tually quashed those irregularities which For my own part, I am for treating the gave occasion to them, that I am afraid sex with greater tenderness, and have all posterity will scarce have a sufficient idea along made use of the most gentle methods to of them to relish those discourses which bring them off from any little extravagance were in no little vogue at the time they into which they have sometimes unwarily were written. They will be apt to think fallen. I think it however absolutely necesthat the fashions and customs I attack- sary to keep up the partition between the ed were some fantastic conceits of my two sexes, and to take notice of the smallest own, and that their great grandmothers encroachments which the one makes upon could not be so whimsical as I have repre- the other. I hope therefore I shall not sented them. For this reason, when I think hear any more complaints on this subject on the figure my several volumes of specu- I am sure my she-disciples, who peruse lations will make about a hundred years these my daily lectures, have profited bat hence, I consider them as so many pieces little by them, if they are capable of giving of old plate, where the weight will be re- into such an amphibious dress. This I garded, but the fashion lost. should not have mentioned, had I not lately Among the several female extravagan- met one of these my female readers in ces I have already taken notice of, there Hyde-park, who looked upon me with a is one which still keeps its ground. "I mean masculine assurance, and cocked her hat that if the ladies who dress themselves in full in my face. No. 436.] THE SPECTATOR. 171 For my part, I have one general key to me and exercise a;: the several weapons the behaviour of the fair sex. When I see following, viz: them singular in any part of their dress, I Back sword, Single falchion, conclude it is not without some evil inten-'Swod and dagger, Case of falchions, tion: and therefore question not but the'Sword and buckler Quarter staff.' design of this strange fashion is to smite more effectually their male beholders. If the generous ardour in James Miller to Now to set them right in this particular, I dispute the reputation of Timothy Buck would fain have them consider with them- had something resembling the old heroes selves, wnether we are not more likely to of romance, Timothy Buck returned anhe struck by a figure entirely female, than swer in the same paper with the like spirit, with such a one as we may see every day adding a little indignation at being chalin our glasses. Or, if they please, let them lenged, and seeming to condescend to fight reflect upon their own hearts, and think James Miller, not in regard to Miller himhow they would be affected should they self, but in that as the fame went about, he meet a man on horseback, in his breeches had fought Parkes of Coventry. The acand jack-boots, and at the same time dress- ceptance of the combat ran in these words: ed up in a commode and a nightraile. I must observe that this fashion was first' I Timothy Buck, of Clare-market, masof all brought to us from France, a country ter of the noble science of defence, haring which has infected all the nations of Europe he did fight Mr. Parkesd of Coventry, will with its levity. I speak not this in deroga- not fail (God wiling) to meet this air intion of a whole people, having more than viter at the time and place appointed, deonce found fault with those general reflec- siring a clear stage and no favour. tions which strike at kingdoms or common-' ivat Regina.' wealths in the gross-a piece of cruelty, I shall not here look back on the spectawhich an ingenious writer of our own com- cles of the Greeks and Romans of this kind, pares to that of Caligula, who Wished that but must believe this custom took its rise the Roman people had all but one neck, from the ages of knight-errantry; from that he might behead them at a blow. I those who loved one woman so well, that shall therefore only remark, that as liveli- they hated all men and women else; from ness and assurance are in a peculiar man- those who would fight you, whether you ner the qualifications of the French nation, were or not of their mind; from those who the same habits and customs will not give demanded the combat of their contemporathe same offence to that people which they ries, both for admiring their mistress or produce amongst those of our own country. discommending her. I cannot therefore but Modesty is our distinguishing character, as lament, that the terrible part of the ancient vivacity is theirs: and when this our na- fight is preserved, when the amorous side tional virtue appears in that female beauty of it is forgotten. We have retained the for which our British ladies are celebrated barbarity, but lost the gallantry of the old above all others in the universe, it makes combatants. I could wish, methinks, these up the most amiable object that the eye of gentlemen had consulted me in the proman can possibly behold. C. mulgation of the conflict. I was obliged by - ~~__~_ -a fair young maid, whom I understood to be called Elizabeth Preston, daughter of No. 436.] Monday, July 21, 1712. the keeper of the garden, with a glass of Verso pollice vulgi water; who I imagined might have been, Quemlibet occidunt populariter. Juv. Sat. iii. 30. for form's sake, the general representative With thumbs bent back, they popularly kill. of the lady fought for, and from her beaut Dryden. the proper Amaryllis on these occasions. BEING a person of insatiable curiosity, It would have run better in the challenge, could not forbear going on Wednesday last' I James Miller, sergeant, who have trato a place of no small renown for the gal- velled parts abroad, and came last from the lantry of the lower order of Britons, to frontier of Portugal, for the love of Elizathe Bear-garden, at Hockley in the Hole; beth Preston, do assert that the said Elizawhere (as a whitish brown paper, put into beth is the fairest of women.' The the my hand in the street, informed me) there was to be a trial of skill exhibited between * On a large tomb, in the great church-yard of Coven. two masters of the noble science of de try, isthe folowing inscription:'To the memory of Mr. John Sparkes, a native of this fence, at two of the clock precisely. I was city: he was a man of a mild disposition, a gladiator by not a little charmed with the solemnity of profession: who, after having fought 350 battles in the the challenge which ran thus: principal parts of Europe with honour and applause, at length quitted the stage, sheathed his sword, and, with'I James Miller, sergeants (lately come Christian resignation, submitted to the grand victor in from the frontier of Portugal) master of his age. Jnno salutis umane 1733.' the noble science of defence, hearing in His friend, sergeant Miller, here mentioned, a man most places where I have been of the great of vast athletic accomplishments, was advanced after. fame of Timothy Buck, of London, master 4 wards to the rank of a captain in the British ai my, and ame imothy Buck, o n aster did notable service in Scotland under the duke of Crnm. of the said science, do invite him to meet barland, in 1745. 172 tHE SPEC'I Al OR. [No. 430. answer;' I Timothy Buck, who have staid if all their lives depended on the first blow, in Great Britain during all the war in The combatants met in the middle of the foreign parts, for the sake of Susannah stage, and shaking hands, as removing all Page, do deny that Elizabeth Preston is so malice, they retired with much grace to fair as the said Susannah Page. Let Susan- the extremities of it; from whence they nah Page look on, and I desire of James immediately faced about, and approached Miller no favour.' each other, Miller with a heart full of resoThis would give the battle quite another lution, Buck with a watchful untroubled turn; and a proper station for the ladies, countenance; Buck regarding principally whose complexion was disputed by the his own defence, Miller chiefly thoughtful sword, would animate the disputants with of annoying his opponent. It is not easy to a more gallant incentive than the expecta- describe the many escapes and imperceptition of money from the spectators; though ble defences between two men of quick I would not have that neglected, but thrown eyes and ready limbs; but Miller's heat to that fair one whose lover was approved laid him open to the rebuke of the calm by the donor. Buck, by a large cut on the forehead. Much Yet, considering the thing wants such effusion of blood covered his eyes in a moamendments, it was carried with great or- ment, and the huzzas of the crowd under. James Miller came on first, preceded doubtedly quickened the anguish. The by two disabled drummers, to show, I sup- Assembly was divided into parties upon pose, that the prospect of maimed bodies their different ways of fighting; while a did not in the least deter him. There poor nymph in one of the galleries appaascended with the daring Miller a gentle- rently suffered for Miller, and burst into a man, whose name I could not learn, with a flood of tears. As soon as his wound was dogged air, as unsatisfied that he was not wrapped up, he came on again with a little principal. This son of anger lowered at the rage, which still disabled him farther. But whole assembly, and, weighing himself as what brave man can be wounded into more he marched round from side to side, with a patience and caution? The next was a stiff knee and shoulder, he gave intimations warm eager onset, which ended in a deof the purpose he smothered till he saw the cisive stroke on the left leg of Miller. The issue of the encounter. Miller had a blue lady in the gallery, during this second strife, ribbon tied round the sword arm; which covered her face, and for my part I could ornament I conceive to be the remains of not keep my thoughts from being mostly that custom of wearing a mistress's favour employed on the consideration of her unon such occasions of old. happy circumstance that moment, hearing Miller is a man of six foot eight inches the clashing of swords, and apprehending neight, of a kind but bold aspect, well life or victory concerning her lover in every fashioned, and ready of his limbs; and such blow, but not daring to satisfy herself on readiness as spoke his ease in them was ob- whom they fell. The wound was exposed tained from a habit of motion in military to the view of all who could delight in it, exercise. and sewed up on the stage. The surly seThe expectation of the spectators was cond of Miller declared at this time, that now almost at its height; and the crowd he would that day fortnight fight Mr. Buck pressing in, several active persons thought at the same weapons, declaring himself the they were placed rather according to their master of the renowned Gorman; but Buck fortune than their merit, and took it in their denied him the honour of that courageous heads to prefer themselves from the open disciple, and asserting that he himself had area or pit to the galleries. The dispute taught that champion, accepted the chalbetween desert and property brought many lenge. to the ground, and raised others in propor- There is something in nature very unaction to the highest seats by turns, for the countable on such occasions, when we see space of ten minutes, till Timothy Buck the people take a certain painful gratificacame on, and the whole assembly, giving tion in beholding these encounters. Is it up their disputes, turned their eyes upon cruelty that administers this sort of delight? the champions. Then it was that every or is it a pleasure which is taken in the ex man's affection turned to one or the other ercise of pity? It was, methought, pretty irresistibly. A judicious gentleman near remarkable that the business of the day me said,' I could, methinks, -be Miller's being a trial of skill, the popularity did not second, but I had rather have Buck for run so high as one would have expected on mine.' Miller had an audacious look, that the side of Buck. Is it that people's passions took the eye; Buck, a perfect composure, have their rise in self-love, and thought that engaged the judgment. Buck came on themselves (in spite of all the courage they in a plain coat, and kept all his air till the had) liable to the fate of Miller, but could instant of engaging; at which time he un- not so easily think themselves qualified like dressed to his shirt, his arm adorned with Buck? a bandage of red riband. No one can de- Tully speaks of this custom with less scribe the sudden concern in the whole horror than one would expect, though he assembly; the most tumultuous crowd in confesses it was much abused in his time, nature was as still and as much engaged as and seems directly to approve of it under No. 437.l THE SPECTATOR. 173 its first regulations, when criminals only instigation of Flavilla's mother, brought fought before the people.' Crudele gladia- about the match for the daughter; and the torum sflectaculum et inhumanumnonnullis reputation of this, which is apparently, in videri solet, et haud scio annon ita sit ut point of fortune, more than Flavilla could nunc fit; cum vero sontes fjrro depugna- expect, has gained her the visits and frebant, auribus fortasse multa, oculis quidem quent attendance of the crowd of mothers, nulla, Ipoterat esse fortior contra dolorem et who had rather see their children misermortem discifilina.'' The shows of gladia- able in great wealth, than the happiest ol tors may be thought barbarous and inhu- the race of mankind in a less conspicuous man, and I know not but it is so as now state of life. When Sempronia is so well practised; but in those times when only acquainted with a woman's temper and criminals were combatants, the ear per- circumstances, that she believes marriage haps might receive many better instruc- would be acceptable to her, and advantions, but it is impossible that any thing tageous to the man who shall get her, her which affects our eyes should fortify us so next step is to look out for some one, whose well against pain and death.' T. condition has some secret wound in it, and wants a sum, yet, in the eye of the world, -~:,~~~ \not unsuitable to her. If such is not easily had, she immediately adorns a worthless No'. 437.] Tueday, July 22, 1712. fellow with what estate she thinks conveTune impunehec facias? Tune hie homines adolescen. nient, and adds as great a share of good tulos, humour and sobriety as is requisite. After Imperitos rerum, eductos libere, in fraudem illicis? this is settled, no importunities, arts, and Sollicitando et pollicitando eorum animos lactas? devices, are omitted to hasten the lady to Ac meretricios amores nuptiis conglutinas? devices, are omitted, to hasten the ladyto Ter. And. Act v. Sc. 4. her happiness. In the general, indeed, she Shall you escape with impunity: you who lay snares is a person of so strict justice that she marfor young men of a liberal education, but unacquainted ries a poor gallant to a rich wench, and a with the world, and by force of importunity and pro. moneyless girl to a man of fortune. But mises, draw them in to marry'arlots? then she has no manner of conscience in then she has no manner of conscience in THE other day passed by me in her cha- the disparity, when she has a mind to imriot a lady with that pale and wan com- pose a poor rogue for one of an estate: she plexion which we sometimes see in young has no remorse in adding to it, that he is people who are fallen into sorrow, and illiterate, ignorant, and unfashioned; but private anxiety of mind, which antedate makes these imperfections arguments of age and sickness. It is not three years ago the truth of his wealth; and will on such an since she was gay, airy, a id a little towards occasion, with a very grave face, charge libertine in her carriage.; but, methought, the people of condition with negligence il I easily forgave her that little insolence, the education of their children. Exceptioir which she so severely pays for in her pre- being made the other day against an ignosent condition. Flavilla, of whom I am rant booby of her own clothing, whom she speaking, is married to a sullen fool with was putting off for a rich heir: Madam,' wealth. Herbeauty and merit are lost upon said she,' you know there is no making of the dolt, who is insensible of perfection in children, who know they have estates, atany thing. Their hours together are either tend their books.' painful. or insipid. The minutes she has to Sempronia, by these arts, is loaded with herself in his absence are not sufficient to presents, importuned for her acquaintance, give vent at her eyes, to the grief and tor- and admired by those who do not know the ment of his last conversation. This poor first taste of life, as a woman of exemplary creature was sacrificed (with a temper good breeding. But sure to murder and rob which, under the cultivation of a man of are less iniquities, than to raise profit by sense, would have made the most agreeable abuses as irreparable as taking away life; companion) into the arms of this loathsome but more grievous as making it lastingly yoke-fellow by Sempronia. Sempronia is a unhappy. To rob a lady at play of half her good lady, who supports herself in an af- fortune, is not so ill as giving the whole and fluent condition, by contracting friendship herself to an unworthy husband. But Semwith rich young widows, and maids of plen- pronia can administer consolation to an untiful fortunes at their own disposal, and be- happy fair at home, by leading her to an stowing her friends upon worthless indigent agreeable gallant elsewhere. She then can fellows; on the other side, she ensnares in- preach the general condition of all the considerate and rash youths of great estates married world, and tell an unexperienced into the arms of vicious women. For this young woman the methods of softening her purpose, she is accomplished in all the arts affliction, and laugh at her simplicity and which can make her acceptable at imperti- want of knowledge, with an'Oh! my dear, nent visits; she knows all that passes in you will know better.' every quarter, and is well acquainted with The wickedness of Sempronia, one would all the favourite servants, busy-bodies, de- think, should be superlative: but I cannot pendents, and poor relations,'of all persons but esteem that of some parents equal to it: of condition in the whole town. At the price I mean such as sacrifice the greatest endowof a good sum of money, Sempronia, by the ments and qualifications to base bargains. 174 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 438. A parent who forces a child of a liberal and man deserves the least indulgence imagilngenious* spirit into the arms of a clown or nable. It is said, it is soon over; that is, all a blockhead, obliges her to a crime too the mischief he does is quickly despatched, odious for a name. It is in a degree the which, I think, is no great recommendation unnatural conjunction of rational and brutal to favour. I have known one of those goodbeings. Yet what is there so common, as natured passionate men say in a mixed the bestowing an accomplished woman with company, even to his own wife or child, such a disparity? And I could name crowds such things as the most inveterate enemy who lead miserable lives for want of know- of his family would not have spoken, even ledge in their parents of this maxim. That in imagination. It is certain that quick good sense and good-nature always go sensibility is inseparable from a ready untogether. That which is attributed to fools, derstanding; but why should not that good and called good-nature, is only an inability understanding call to itself all its force on of observing what is faulty, which turns, in such occasions, to master that sudden inclimarriage, into a suspicion of every thing as nation to anger? One of the greatest souls such, from a consciousness of that inability. now in the world* is the most subject by na-. SI am etirey of yr ture to anger, and yet so famous for a conopinion with TO, —Iamentirelyofyour quest of himself this way, that he is the opinion with relation to the equestrian fe- k males, who affect both the masculine and commando f a m ane s se lf. To contam feminine air at the same time; and cannot the s t of anger, is thsel est disci forbear making a presentment against an- pline we can put our rthiest discWh a other order of them, who grow very nu- man ha ae any progress ths hewa a _1. T r. T^' -Qman has madnee any progress this way, aou merous and powerful; and since our lan- frivolous fellow in a passion is to himr as guage is not very capable of good com- contemptibleas afroward child. It ought pound words, I must be contented to call athem only " the naked-shouldered. " These to be the study of every man, for his own themonlyuties arthe naked-shouldered." These quiet and peace. When he stands comweauties are not contented to make lovers bustible and ready to flame upon every thing wherever they appea r, b ut they must make that touches him, life is as uneasy to himrivals at the same time. Were you to see self as it is to all about him, Syncropius Gatty walk the Park at high mall, you leads, of all men living, the most ridiculous would expect those wnho ollowegh der ano would expect those who followed her and life; he is ever offending and begging parthose who met her would immediately draw don. f his man enters the room wthut their swords for her. I hope, sir, you will don. If his man enters the room without provide for the future, that women may what he was sent for-'That blockhead,' provide for the future, that women may bins he-'Gentlemen, I ask your parstick to their faces for doing any farther begins he-'Gentlemen, I ask your parmischief, and not allow any but direct tra- ates are a y are hw o ders i. b y to e. meplates are laid, they are thrown into the ders in beauty to expose more thhe room: his wife stands by in fore-part of the neck, unless you please to pain for him, which he sees i e feand allow this after-game to those who are very pain forw a i h, hha in ee ain her, and defective in the charms of the countenance. atinkin ag:s he hat hed all e was I can say, to my sorrow, the present prac othinking:- eWhy? what the devil! Vhy i can say, to my sorrow, the prest pr ac- don't you take care to give orders in these tice is very unfair, when to look back istasteless death; and it may be said of our beauties, as pleny uof eve thin, every minute expect a great poet did of bulletsc plenty of every thing, every minute expecta great poet did of bullets, ing new insults from his impertinent pas"They kill and wound, like Parthians, as they fly." sions. In a word, to eat with, or visit Syn-'I submit this to your animadversion; and cropius, is no other than going to see him am, for the little while I have left, your exercise his family, exercise their patience, humble servant, the languishing and his own anger.'PHILANTTHUS. It is monstrous that the shame and con-'P. S. Suppose you mended my letter, fusion in which this good-natured angry and made a simile about the "porcupine;" man must needs behold his friends, while but I submit that also.' he thus lays about him, does not give him so much reflection as to create an amendment. This is the most scandalous disuse of reason imaginable; all the harmless part No. 438.] lVednesday, July 23, 1712. of him is no more than that of a bull-dog, they are tame no longer than they are not Animum rege, qui, nisi paret, Imperat Htor. Ep. ii. Lib. 1. 62. offended. One of these good-natured angry — Curbl thy soul, men shall, in an instant, assemble together And check thy rage, which must be rul'd or rule. SO many allusions to secret circumstances, Creech. as are enough to dissolve the peace of all IT is a very common expression, that such the families and friends he is acquainted a one is very good-natured, but very pas- with, in a quarter of an hour, and yet the sionate. The expression, indeed, is very next moment be the best natured man in good-natured, to allow passionate people the world. If you would see passion in its so much quarter; but I think a passionate purity, without mixture of reason, behold * Ingenuous. * Lord Somers. No. 439.] THE SPECTATOR. 175 it represented in a mad hero, drawn by a lost, and I know not to whom I lent it, it is mad poet. Nat. Lee makes his Alexander so many years ago.'' Then, sir, here is the say thus: other volume; I'll send you home that, and'Away! begone! and give a whirlwind room, please to pay for both.''My friend,' reOr I will blow you up like dust! Avaunt! plied he,'canst thou be so senseless as not Madness but meanly represents my toil, to know that one volume is as imperfect in Eternal discord to know that one volume is as imperfect in Fury! revenge! disdain and indignation! my library as in your shop?''Yes, sir, but Tear my swol'n breast, make way for fire and tempest. it is you have lost the first volume; and, to My brain is burst, debate and reason quench'd; be short, I will be paid.' Sir, answered The storm is up, and my hot bleeding heart Iill paid. ir,answe Splits with the rack; while passions, like the wind, the chapman,' you are a young man, your Rise up to heav'n, and put out all the stars.' book is lost; and learn by this little loss to Every passionate fellow in town talks half bear much greater adversities, which you the day with as little consistency, and must expect to meet with.''Yes, I'll bear threatens things as much out of his power. when I must, but I have not lost now, for I The next disagreeable person to the out- say you have it, and shall pay me.''Friend, rageous gentleman, is one of a much lower you grow warm; I tell you the book is lost; order of anger, and he is what we commonly and foresee, in the course even of a pros call a peevish fellow. A peevish fellow is perous life, that you will meet afflictions to one who has some reason in himself for make you mad, if you cannot bear this being out of humour, or has a natural inca- trifle.'' Sir, there is, in thi s case, no need pacity for delight, and therefore disturbs all of bearing, for you have the book.'' I say, who are happier than himself with pishes sir, I have not the book; but your passion and pshaws, or other well-bred interjec- will not let you hear enough to be informed tions, at every thing that is said or done in that I have it not. Learn resignation of his presence. There should be physic yourself to the distresses of this life: nay, mixed in the food of all which these fellows do not fret and fume; it is my duty to tell eat in good company. This degree of anger you that you are of an impatient spirit, and passes, forsooth, for a delicacy of judgment, an impatient spirit is never without woe.' that won't admit of being easily pleased;' Was ever any thing like this?''Yes, sir, but none above the character of wearing a there have been many things like this: the peevish man's livery ought to bear with his loss is but a trifle; but your temper is wanill manners. All things among men of sense ton, and incapable of the least pain; thereand condition should pass the censure, and fore let me advise you, be patient, the book have the protection of the eye of reason. is lost, but do not for that reason lose yourNo man ought to be tolerated in an habi- self.'' T.* tual humour, whim, or particularity of behaviour, by any who do not wait upon him for bread.' Next to the peevish fellow is No. 439. Thursday, July 24, 1712. the snarler. This gentleman deals mightily in what we call the irony; and as those Hi narrata ferunt alio: mensuraque ficti sort of people exert themselves most against Crescit; et auditis aliquid novus adjicit auctor. those below them, you see their humourOvid, e71t. xii. 57. best in their talk to their servants.'T+hat Some tell what they have heard, or tales devise; best in their talk to their servants.' That Each fiction still improv'd with added lies. is so like you; You are a fine fellow; Thou art the quickest head-piece;' and the like. OID describes the palace of Fame as One would think the hectoring, the storm- situated in the very centre of the universe, ing, the sullen, and all the different species and perforated with so many windows as and subordinations of the angry should be gave her the sight of every thing that was cured, by knowing they live only as par- done in the heavens, in the earth, and in doned men; and how pitiful is the condition the sea. The structure of it was contrived of being only suffered! But I am inter- in so admirable a manner, that it echoed rupted by the pleasantest scene of anger, every word which was spoken in the whole and the disappointment of it, that I have compass of nature; so that the palace, says ever known, which happened while I was the poet, was always filled with a confused yet writing, and I overheard as I sat in the hubbub of low, dying sounds, the voices back-room at a French bookseller's. There being almost spent and worn out before they came into the shop a very learned man with arrived at this general rendezvous of an erect solemn air; and, though a person speeches and whispers. of great parts otherwise, slow in under- I cosider courts with the same regard to standing any thing which makes against the governments which they superintend himself. The composure of the faulty man, as Ovid's palace of Fame with regard to and the whimsical perplexity of him that the uiverse. The eyes of a watchful miwas justly angry, is perfectly new. After nister run throughthewhole people. There turning over many volumes, said the seller is scarce a murmur or complaint that does to the buyer,'Sir, you know I have long __ _ asked you to send me back the first volume * By Steele.;ee No. 324, ad finem. of French sermons I formerly lent you.' This scene passed in the shop of Mr. Vaillant, now'Sir,' said the chapman,'I have often look- of Mr. James Payne, in the Strand; and the subject of 1, saidth capmn, i; ave oenloo- it was (for it is still in remembrance) a volume of (Mas ed for it, but cannot find it; it is certainly sillon's Sermons. 176 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 439. not reach his ears. They have news- poor revenge of resenting them. The hisgatherers and intelligencers distributed into tories of Alexander and Cesar are full of their several walks and quarters, who this kind of instances. Vulgar souls are of bring in their respective quotas, and make a quite contrary character. Dionysius, the them acquainted with the discourse and tyrant of Sicily, had a dungeon which was conversation of the whole kingdom or com- a very curious piece of architecture; and of monwealth where they are employed. The which, as I am informed, there are still to wisest of kings, alluding to these invisible be seen some remains in that island. It and unsuspected spies, who are planted by was called Dionysius's Ear, and built with kings and rulers over their fellow-citizens, several little windings and labyrinths in the as well as to those voluntary informers that form of a real ear. The structure of it are buzzing about the ears of a great man, made it a kind of whispering place, but such and making their court by such secret a one as gathered the voice of him who methods of intelligence, has given us a very spoke into a funnel, which was placed at prudent caution:*. Curse not the king, no the very top of it. The tyrant used to not in thy thought, and curse not the rich lodge all his state criminals, or those whom in thy bed-chamber; for a bird of the air he supposed to be engaged together in any shall carry the voice, and that which hath evil design upon him, in this dungeon. He wings shall tell the matter.' had at the same time an apartment over As it is absolutely necessary for rulers to it, where he used to apply himself to the make use of other people's eyes, they should funnel, and by that means overheard every take particular care to do it in such a man- thing that was whispered in the dungeon. ner that it may not bear too' hard on the I believe one may venture to affirm, that a person whose life and conversation are in- Cesar or an Alexander would have rather quired into. A man who is capable of so died by the treason than have used such infamous a calling as that of a spy, is not disingenuous means for the detecting of it. very much to be relied upon. He can have A man who in ordinary life is very inquino great ties of honour or checks of con- sitive after every thing which is spoken ill science, to restrain him in those covert evi- of him, passes his time but very indiffedences, where the person accused has no rently. He is wounded by every arrow opportunity of vindicating himself. He will that is shot at him, and puts it in the power be more industrious to carry that which is of every insignificant enemy to disquiet grateful than that which is true. There him. Nay, he will suffer from what has will be no occasion for him if he does not been said of him, when it is forgotten by hear and see things worth discovery; so those who said or heard it. For this reathat he naturally inflames every word and son I could never bear one of those officious circumstance, aggravates what is faulty, friends, that would be telling every malicious perverts what is good, and misrepresents report, every idle censure, that passed upon what is indifferent. Nor is it to be doubted me. The tongue of man is so petulant, and but that such ignominious wretches let their his thoughts so variable, that one should private passions into these their clandestine not lay too great a stress upon any present informations, and often wreak their par- speeches and opinions. Praise and obloquy ticular spite and malice against the person proceed very frequently out of the same whom they are set to watch. It is a plea- mouth upon the same person; and upon the sant scene enough, which an Italian author same occasion. A generous enemy will describes between a spy and a cardinal who sometimes bestow commendations, as the employed him. The cardinal is represented dearest friend cannot sometimes refrain as minuting down every thing that is told from speaking ill. The man who is indifhim. The spy begins with a low voice, ferent in either of these respects, gives his'Such a one, the advocate, whispered to opinion at random, and praises or disap-. one ef his friends, within my hearing, that proves as he finds himself in humour. your eminence was a very great poltroon;' I shall conclude this essay with part of a and after having given his patron time character, which is finely drawn by the enough to take it down, adds, that another earl of Clarendon, in the first book of his called him a mercenary rascal in a public History, which gives us the lively picture conversation. The cardinal replies,' Very of a great man teasing himself with an ab well,' and bids him go on. The spy pro- surd curiosity. ceeds and loads him with reports of the'He had not that application and subsame nature, till the cardinal rises in great mission, and reverence for the queen, as wrath, calls him an impudent scoundrel, might have been expected from his wisdom and kicks him out of the room. and breeding; and often crossed her preIt is observed of great and heroic minds, tences and desires with more rudeness than that they have not only shown a particular was natural to him. Yet he was impertidisregard to those unmerited reproaches nently solicitous to know what her majesty which have been cast upon them, but have said of him in private, and what resentbeen altogether free from that impertinent ments she had towards him. And when curiosity of inquiring after them, or the by some confidants, who had their ends upon him from those offices, he was in* Eccl. x 20. formed of some bitter expressions falling No. 440.] THE SPECTATOR. 177 from her majesty, he *was so exceedingly from the table, and convey him to the inafflicted and tormented with the sense of firmary. There was but one more sent it, that sometimes by passionate complaints away that day; this was a gentleman who and representations to the king, sometimes is reckoned by some persons one of the by more dutiful addresses and expostula- greatest wits, and by others one of the tions with the queen in bewailing his mis- greatest boobies about town. This vou will fortune, he frequently exposed himself, and say is a strange character; but what makes left his condition worse than it was before, it stranger yet, is a very true one, for he is and the Oclaircissement commonly ended in perpetually the reverse of himself, being the discovery of the persons from whom he always merry or dull to excess. We brought had received his most secret intelligence.' him hither to divert us, which he did 0. very well upon the road, having lavished away as much wit and laughter upon the hackney coachman as might have served No. 440.] Friday, July 25, 1712. during his whole stay here, had it been duly managed. He had been lumpish for Vivere si recte nescis, discede peritis. two or thtee days, but was so far connived Hor. Ep. ii. Lib. 2. 213. at, in hopes of recovery, that we despatched Learn to live well, or fairly make your will. one of the briskest fellows among the broPpe. therhood into the infirmary for having told I HAVE already given my reader an ac- him at table he was not merry. But our count of a set of merry fellows who are president observing that he indulged himpassing their summer together in the coun- self in this long fit of stupidity, and contry, being provided with a great house, struing it as a contempt of the college, where there is not only a convenient apart- ordered him to retire into the place prement for every particular person, but a pared for such companions. He was no large infirmary for the reception of such of sooner got into it, but his wit and mirth them as are any way indisposed or out of returned upon him in so violent a manner, humour. Having lately received a letter that he shook the whole infirmary with the from the secretary of the society, by order noise of it, and had so good an effect upon the of the whole fraternity, which acquaints rest of the patients, that he brought them me with their behaviour during the last all out to dinner with him the next day. week, I shall here make a present of it to' On Tuesday we were no sooner sat the public, down, but one of the company complained that his head ached; upon which, another CMR. SPECTATOR,-We are glad to find asked him in an insolent manner, what he that you approve the establishment which did there then? This insensibly grew into we have here made for the retrieving of some warm words; so that the president, in good manners and agreeable conversation, order to keep the peace, gave directions to and shall use our best endeavours so to im- take them both from the table, and lodge prove ourselves in this our summer retire- them in the infirmary. Not long after, anment, that we may next winter serve as other of the company telling us he knew, patterns to the town. But to the end that by a pain in his shoulder, that we should this our institution may be no less advanta- have some rain, the president ordered him geous to the public than to ourselves, we to be removed, and placed at a weathershall communicate to you one week of our glass in the apartment above-mentioned. proceedings, desiring you at the same time,' On Wednesday a gentleman having reif you see any thing faulty in them, to favour ceived a letter written in a woman's hand, us with your admonitions: for you must and changing colour twice or thrice as he know, sir, that it has been proposed amongst read it, desired leave to retiie into the inus to choose you for our visitor; to which I firmary. The president consented, but demust farther add, that one of the college nied him the use of pen, ink, and paper, having declared last week he did not like till such time as he had slept upon it. One the Spectator of the day, and not being of the company being seated at the lower able to assign any just reasons for such dis- end of the table, and discovering his secret like, he was sent to the infirmary nemine discontent, by finding fault with every dish contradicente. that was served up, and refusing to laugh' On Monday the assembly was in very at any thing that was said, the president good humour, having received some re told him, that he found he was in an uncruits of French claret that morning; when, easy seat, and desired him to accommodate unluckily, towards the middle of the din- himself better in the infirmary. After dinner, one of the company swore at his ser- ner, a very honest fellow chanced to let a vant in a very rough manner for having put pun fall from him; his neighbour cried out, too much water in his wine. Upon which, "To the infirmary;" at the same time prethe president of the day, who is always the tending to be sick at it, as having the same mouth of the company, after having con- natural antipathy to a pun which some vinced him of the impertinence of his pas- have to a cat. This produced a long desion, and the insult he had made upon the bate. Upon the whole, the punster was company, ordered his man to take him acquitted, and his neighbour sent off. VCL. II. 23 ~ ^8 ~ THE SPECTATOR, [No. 441.'On Thui sday there was but one delin- blessings and conveniences of life, and an quent. This was a gentleman of strong habitual trust in him for deliverance out of voice, but weak understanding. He had all such dangers and difficulties as may beunluckily engaged himself in a dispute with fall us. a man of excellent sense, but of a modest The man who always lives in this diselocution. The man of heat replied to every position of mind, has not the same dark and answer of his antagonist with a louder note melancholy views of human nature, as he than ordinary, and only raised his voice who considers himself abstractedly from when he should have enforced his argu- this relation to the Supreme Being. At the ment. Finding,himself at length driven to same time that he reflects upon his own an absurdity, he still reasoned in a more weakness and imperfection, he comforts clamorous and confused manner; and to himself with the contemplation of those make the greater impression upon his divine attributes which are employed for hearers, concluded with a loud thump upon his safety and his welfare. He finds his the table. The president immediately or- want of foresight made up by the Omnidered him to be carried off, and dieted with science of Him who is his support. He is water-gruel, till such time as he'should be not sensible of his own want of strength, sufficiently weakened for conversation. when he knows that his helper is almighty.'On Friday there passed very little re- In short, the person who has a firm trust markable, saving only, that several petitions on the Supreme Being is powerful in His were read of the persons in custody, de- power, wise by His wisdom, happy by His siring to be released from their confinement, happiness. He reaps the benefit of every and vouching for one another's good beha- divine attribute, and loses his own insufviour for the future. ficiency in the fulness of infinite perfection.'On Saturday we received many excuses To make our lives more easy to'us, we from persons who had found themselves in are commanded to put our trust in Him, an unsociable temper, and had voluntarily who is thus able to relieve and succour us; shut themselves up. The infirmary was, the divine goodness having made such reindeed, never so full as on this day, which liance a duty, notwithstanding we should I was at some loss to account for, till, upon have been miserable had it been forbidmy going abroad, I observed that it was an den us. easterly wind. The retirement of most of Among several motives which might be my friends has given me opportunity and made use of to recommend this duty to us, leisure of writing you this letter, which I I shall only take notice of those that follow. must not conclude without assuring you, that The first and strongest is, that we are all the members of our college, as well those promised, He will not fail those who put who are under confinement as those who their trust in Him. are at liberty, are your very humble ser- But, without considering the supernatural vants, though none more than, blessing which accompanies this duty, we C. &c.' may observe, that it has a natural tendency to its own reward, or, in other words, that''~'~===- ~= - — this firm trust and confidence in the great No. 441.] Saturday, July 26, 1712. Disposer of all things, contributes very much to the getting clear of any affliction, Si fractus illabatur orbis, or to the bearing it manfully. A person who Impavidum ferient ruine. Her. Od. iii. Lib. 3.7. believes he has his succour at.hand, and Should the whole frame of nature round him break that he acts in the sight of his friend, often In ruin and confusion hurl'd, exerts himself beyond his abilities, and does He, unconcern'd, would hear the mighty crack, wonders that areynot to be matched bone And stand secure amidst a falling wvorld. —A.non. wonders that are not to be matched by one who is not animated with such a confidence MAN, considered in himself, is a very of success. I could produce instances from helpless and a very wretched being. He history, of generals, who, out of a belief is subject every moment to the greatest that they were under the protection of some calamities and misfortunes. He is beset invisible assistant, did not only encourage with dangers on all sides; and may become their soldiers to do their utmost, but have unhappy by numberless casualties, which acted themselves beyond what they would he could not foresee, nor have prevented have done had they not been inspired by had he foreseen them. such a belief. I might in the same manner It is our comfort while we are obnoxious show how such a trust in the assistance of to so many accidents, that we are under the an Almighty Being naturally produces care of One who directs contingencies, and patience, hope, cheerfulness, and all other nas in his hands the management of every dispositions of mind that alleviate those thing that is capable of annoying or offend- calamities which we are not able to remove. ing us; who knows the assistance we stand The practice of this virtue administers in need of, and is always ready to bestow it great comfort to the mind of man in times on those who ask it of him. of poverty and affliction, but most of all in The natural homage which such a crea- the hour of death. When the soul is hoverture bears to so infinitely wise and good a ing in the last moments of its separation, Being, is a firm reliance on him for the when it is just entering on another state of No. 442.] THE SPECTATOR. 179 existence, to converse with scenes, and ob- whatever might be proper to adapt them Jects and companions that are altogether to the character and genius of my paper, new,-what can support her under such with which it was almost impossible these tremblings of thought, such fear, such could exactly correspond, it being certain anxiety, such apprehensions, but the cast- that hardly two men think alike; and, ing of all her cares upon Him who first therefore, so many men so many Spectagave her being, who has conducted her tors. Besides, I must own my weakness for through one stage of it, and will be always glory is such, that, if I consulted that only, with her to guide and comfort her in her I might be so far swayed by it, as almost to progress through eternity? wish that no one could write a Spectator David has very beautifully represented besides myself; nor can I deny but, upon this steady reliance on God Almighty in the first perusal of those papers, I felt some his twenty-third psalm, which is a kind of secret inclinations of ill-will towards the pastoral hymn, and filled with those allu- persons who wrote them. This was the imsions which are usual in that kind of writ- pression I had upon the first reading them; ing. As the poetry is very exquisite, I but upon a late review (more for the sake shall present my reader with the following of entertainment than use,) regarding them translation of it: with another eye than I had done at first (for by converting them as well as I could to my own use, I thought I had utterly dis AnThe Ld my pasture wit shaepherare, abled them from ever offending me again And feed me with a shepherd's care: His presence shall my wants supply, as Spectators,) I found myself moved by a And guard me with a watchful eye; passion very different from that of envy; My noon-day walks he shall attend, sensibly touched with ity, the sftest and And all my midnight hours defend. sen y t wi py, e test and most generous of all passions, when I re1L. flected what a cruel disappointment the When in the sultry glebe I faint, neglect of those papers must needs have Or on the thirsty mountain pant, been to thewriters who impatiently longed To fertile vales and dewy meads een to thewriters who impatiently longed My weary, wand'ring steps he leads, to see them appear in print, and who, no Where peaceful rivers, soft, and slow, doubt, triumphed to themselves in the Amid the verdant landscape flow. Aopes of having a share with me in the apIil. plause of the public; a pleasure so great,'Though in the paths of death I tread, that none but those who have experienced With gloomy horrors overspread, it can have a sense of it. In this manner of Miy steadfast heart shall fear no ill, For thou, O Lord, art with me still; viewing those papers, I really found I had Thy friendly crook shall give me aid, not done them justice, there being someAnd guide me through the dreadful shade. thing so extremely natural and peculiarly Iv. good in some of then, that I will appeal to'Though in a bare and rugged way, the world whether it was possible to alter a Through devious, lonely wilds I stray, word in them without doing them a maniThy bounty shall my pains beguile: fest hurt and violence; and whether thev The barren wilderness shall smile With sudden greens and herbage crown'd, can ever appear rightly, and as they ought, And streams shall murmur all around.' but in their own native dress and colours. C. And therefore I think I-should not only wrong them, but deprive the world of a considerable satisfaction, should I any longer No. 442.] Monday, July 28, 1712. delay the making them public. Scribimus indocti doctique After I have published a few of these Hor. Ep. i. Lib. 2.117. Spectators, I doubt not but I shall find the -Those who cannot write, and those who can, success of them to equal, if not surpass, All rhyme and scrawl, and scribble to a man. that of the best of my own. An author Pope. should take all methods to humble himself I Do not know whether I enough ex- in the opinion he has of his own performplained myself to the world, when I invited ances. When these papers appear to the all men to be assistant to me in this my world, I doubt not but they will be followed work of speculation; for I have not yet ac- by many others; and I shall not repine, quainted my readers, that besides the let- though I myself shall have left me but a ters and valuable hints I have from time to very few days to appear in public: but pretime received from my correspondents, I ferring the general weal and advantage to have by me several curious and extraor- any consideration of myself, I am resolved dinary papers sent with a design (as no one for the future to publish any Spectator that will doubt when they are published) that deserves it entire and without any alterathey may be printed entire, and without tion; assuring the world (if there can be any alteration, by way of Spectator. I must need of it) that it is none of mine, and if the acknowledge also, that I myself being the authors think fit to subscribe their names, first projector of the paper, thought I had I will add them. a right to make them my own, by dressing I think the best way of promoting this.hem in my own style, by leaving out what generous and useful design, will be by would not appear like mine, and by adding giving out subjects or themes of all kinds 180 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 443. whatsoever, on which (with a preamble of Camilla* to the Spectator. the extraordinary benefit and advantages that may accrue thereby to the public) I MR. S Venice, July 10, N.ex will invite all manner of persons, whether tt y' SPECTATOR,Id take it extremely scholars, citizens, courtiers, gentlemen of ill, that you do not reckon conspicuous the town or country, and all beaus, rakes, persons of your nation are within your co smarts, prudes, coquettes, housewives, and nizance, though ut of the dominions o all sorts of wits, whether male or female, Great Britain. I little thought, in the and however distinguished, whether they green years of my life, that I should ever be true wits, whole or half wits, or whether call it a happiness to be out of dear Engarch, dry, natural, acquired, genuine, or land; but as I grew to woman, I found depraved wits; and persons of all sorts of myself less acceptable in proportion to the tempers and complexions, whether the increase of my merit. Their ears in Italy severe, the delightful the impertinent, the are so differently formed from the make of agreeable, the thoughtful, the busy or care- yours in England, that I never come upon the stage, but a general satisfaction apless, the serene or cloudy, jovial or melan-the stage, but a general satisfaction apcholy, untowardly or easy, the cold, tem- pears in every countenance of the whole perate, or sanguine; and of what manners people. hen I dwell upon a note, I be or dispositions soever, whether the ambi-hold all the men accompanying me with tious or humble-minded, the proud or heads inclining, and falling of their persons pitiful, ingenuous or base-minded, good or on one side, as dying away with me. The ill-natured, public-spirited or selfish; and women too do justice to my merit, and no under what fortune or circumstance soever, ill-natured, worthless creature cries, "The whether the contented or miserable, happy vain thing, when I am rapt in the per or unfortunate, high or low, rich or po formance of my part, and sensibly touched (whether so through want of money, or de- with the effect my voice has upon all who (whether so through want of money, or de- h a o sire of more,) healthy or sickly, married or hear me. I live here distinguished as one single: nay, whether tall or short, fat or hom nature has beenliberal to in agracelean; and of what trade, occupation, pro- fu pers. These, and exalted mien, and heavenly fession, station, country, faction, party, per- voi These articularities in this stran suasion, quality, age, or condition soever; country are arguments for respect and who have ever made thinking a part of gnerosity to her who is possessed of them. their business or diversion, and have any The Italians see a thousand beauties I am thing worthy to impart on these subjects to sensible I have no pretence to, and aunthe world, according to their several and dantly make up to me te injustice I rerespective talents or geniuses; and, as the ceived in my own country, of disallowing subjects given out hit their tempers, hu-me what I real ha e umou of mours, or circumstances, or may be made hissing which you have among you, I do profitable to the public by their particular not knw any thing of; and their applauses knowledge or experience in the matter pro- are uttered in sighs, and bearing a part at posed, to do their utmost on them by such the cadences of voice with the persons who a time, to the end they may receive the are performing. I am often put in mind of inexpressible and irresistible pleasure of those complaisant lines of my own countryseeing their essays allowed of and relished man,t when he is calling all his faculties by the rest of mankind, together to hear Arabella. I will not prepossess the reader with too " Let all be hush'd, each softest motion cease, great expectation of the extraordinary ad- Be ev'ry loud tumultuous thoght at peace; And ev'ry ruder gasp of breath vantages which must redound to the public Be calm, as in the arms of death: by these essays, when the different thoughts And thou, most fickle, most uneasy part, and observations of all sorts of persons, ac- Thou restless wanderer, my heart, Be still; gently, ah! gently leave, cording to their quality, age, sex, educa- Thou busy, idle thing, to heave: tion, professions, humours, manners, and Stir not a pulse; and let my blood, conditions, &c. shall be set out by them- That turbulent, unruly flood, selves in the clearest and most genuine Let me be all, but my attention dead." light, and as they themselves would wish to have them appear to the world. The whole city of Venice is as still when I The thesis proposed for the present ex- am singing as this polite hearer was to ercise of the adventurers to write Specta- Mrs. Hunt. But when they break that tors, is Money; on which subject all persons silence, did you know the pleasure I am are desired to send in their thoughts within in, when every man utters his applauses, ten days after the date hereof. T. by calling me aloud, " The dear Creature! ~,'o ^The Angel! The Venus! What attitudes -~A=____________ _ ~she moves with! Hush, she sings again!" We have no boisterous wits who dare disIo. 443.] Tuesday, July 29, 1712. turb an audience, and break the public peace merely to show they dare. Mr. Sublatum ex oculis quarimus invidi. Hor. Od. xxiv. Lib. 3. 33. o* Mrs. Tofts, who played the part of Camilla in thw Snatch'd from our sight, we eagerly pursue, opera of that name. And fondly would recall her to our view. t Mr. Congreve No. 444.] THE SPECTATOR. 181 Spectator, I write this to you thus in haste, markable for impudence than wit, there to tell you I am so very much at ease here are yet some remaining, who pass with the that I know nothing but joy; and I will not giddy part of mankind for sufficient sharers return, but leave you in England to hiss all of the latter, who have nothing but the merit of your own growth off the stage. I former qualification to recommend them. know, sir, you were always my admirer, Another timely animadversion is absolutely and therefore I am yours, CAMILLA. necessary: be pleased, therefore, once for'P. S. I am ten times better dressed than all, to let these gentlemen know, that there ever I s ian Enan' is neither mirth nor good humour in hootever I was in England.' ing a young fellow out of countenance; nor'MR. SPECTATOR,-The projectin yours that it will ever constitute a wit, to conclude of the 11th instant, of furthering the cor- a tart piece of buffoonery with a "What respondence and knowledge of that con- makes you blush?" Pray please to inform siderable part of mankind, the trading them again, that to speak what they know world, cannot but be highly commendable. is shocking, proceeds from ill-nature and Good lectures to young traders may have sterility of brain; especially when the subvery good effects on their conduct; but be- ject will not admit of raillery, and their ware you propagate no false notions of discourse has no pretension to satire but trade: let none of your correspondents im- what is in their design to disoblige. I pose on the world by putting forth base should be very glad too if you would take methods in a good light, and glazing them notice, that a daily repetition of the same over with improper terms. I would have overbearing insolence is yet more insupno means of profit set for copies to others, portable, and a confirmation of very exbut such as are laudable in themselves. traordinarydulness. The sudden publicaLet not noise be called industry, nor impu- tion of this may have an effect upon a dence courage. Let not good fortune be notorious offender of this kind whose reforimposed on the world for good manage- mation would redound very much to the ment, nor poverty be called folly: impute satisfaction and quiet of your most humble'not always bankruptcy to extravagance, servant, F. B.' nor an estate to foresight. Niggardliness is T. not good husbandry, nor generosity profusion.. 44 dnesda, July, 1712.'Honestus is a well-meaning and judi-No. 444.] eday, July 30, 712. cious trader, hath substantial goods, and Paturiuntmontes trades with his own stock, husbands his Hr. rs Poet. v. 139. money to the best advantage, without The mountainlabours.* taking all the advantages of the necessities IT gives me much despair in the design of his workmen, or grinding the face of the of reforming the world by my speculations, poor. Fortunatus is stocked with igno- when I find there always arise, from one gerance, and consequently with self-opinion; neration to another, successive cheats and the quality of his goods cannot but be suit- bubbles, as naturally as beasts of prey, and able to that of his judgment. Honestus those which are to be their food. There is pleases discerning people, and keeps their hardly a man in the world, one would custom by good usage; makes modest pro- think, so ignorant, as not to know that the fit by modest means, to the decent support ordinary quack-doctors who publish their of his family; while Fortunatus, blustering great abilities in little brown billets, distrialways, pushes on, promising much and buted to all that pass by, are to a man performing little; with obsequiousness of- impostors and murderers; yet such is the fensive to people of sense, strikes at all, credulity of the vulgar, and the impudence catches much the greater part, and raises of those professors, that the affair still goes a considerable fortune by imposition on on, and new promises, of what was never others, to the discouragement and ruin of done before, are made every day. \What those who trade fair in the same way. aggravates the jest is, that even this pro-' I give here but loose hints, and beg you mise has been made as long as the memory to be very circumspect in the province you of man can trace it, yet nothing performed, have now undertaken: if you perform it and yet still prevails. As I was passing successfully, it will be a very great good; along to-day, a paper given into my hand for nothing is more wanting than that me- by a fellow without a nose, tells us as folchanic industry were set forth with the lows what gobd news is come to town, to freedom and greatness of mind which ought wit, that there is now a certain cure for the always to accompany a man of liberal edu- French disease, by a gentleman just come cation. Your humble servant, from his travels. —'From my shop under' In Russel-court, over-against the Canthe Royal Exchange, July 14. R. C.' non ball, at the Surgenn's-arms, in Drury lane, is lately come from his travels, J'July 24, 1712.'MR. SPECTATOR, —Notwithstanding the * Former motto: repeated censures that your spectatorial Quid dignum tento feret hic promissor hiatu..-Ior. wisdom has passed upon people nore re Great cry and little wool.-English Proverb. 182 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 445. surgeon who hath practised surgery and timony of some people'that has been physic both by sea and land, these twenty- thirty years lame.' When I received my four years. He (by the blessing) cures the paper, a sagacious fellow took one at the yellow jaundice, green-sickness, scurvy, same time and read till he came to the dropsy, surfeits, long sea-voyages, cam- thirty years' confinement of his friends, and paigns, and women's miscarriages, lying- went off very well convinced of the doctor's in, &c. as some people that has been lame sufficiency. You have many of those prothese thirty years can testify; in short, he digious persons, who have had some excureth all diseases incident to men, women, traordinary accident at their birth, or a or children. great disaster in some part of their lives. If a man could be so indolent as to look Any thing, however foreign from the busiupon this havoc of the human species, ness the people want of you, will convince which is made by vice and ignorance, it them of your ability in that you profess. would be a good ridiculous work to com- There is a doctor in Mouse-Alley, near ment upon the declaration of this accom- Wapping, who sets up for curing cataplished traveller. There is something racts, upon the credit of having, as his bill unaccountably taking among the vulgar in sets forth, lost an eye in the'emperor's serthose who come from a great way off. Ig- vice. His patients come in upon this, and norant people of quality, as many there he shows his muster-roll, which confirms are of such, doat excessively this way; that he was in his imperial majesty's many instances of which every man will troops; and he puts out their eyes with suggest to himself, without my enumera- great success. Who would believe that a tion of them. The ignorants of lower order, man should be a doctor for the cure of who cannot, like the upper ones, be profuse bursten children, by declaring that his faof their money to those recommended by ther and grandfather were both bursten? coming from a distance, are no less com- But Charles Ingolston, next door to the plaisant than the others, for they venture Harp in Barbican, has made a pretty their lives from the same admiration. penny by that asservation. The generality'The doctor is lately come from his tra- go upon their first conception, and think no vels,' and has' practised both by sea and farther; all the rest is granted. They take land,' and therefore cures'the green-sick- it, that there is something uncommon in ness, long sea-voyages, campaigns, and you, and give you credit for the rest. You lyings-in.' Both by sea and land!-I will may be sure it is upon that I go, when not answer for the distempers called sea- sometimes, let it be to the purpose or not, voyages and campaigns; but I dare say I keep a Latin sentence in my front; and I those of green-sickness and lying-in might was not a little pleased, when I observed be as well taken care of if the doctor staid one of my readers say, casting his eye upon ashore. But the art of managing mankind my twentieth paper,'More Latin still? is only to make them stare a little, to keep What a prodigious scholar is this man!' up their astonishment, to let nothing be fa- But as I have taken much liberty with this miliar to them, but ever have something in learned doctor, I must make up all I have their sleeve, in which they must think you said by repeating what he seems to be in are deeper than they are. There is an in- earnest in, and honestly promises to those genious fellow, a barber of my acquaint- who will not receive him as a great rhanance, who, besides his broken fiddle and to wit,'That from eight to twelve, and a dried sea-monster, has a twined-cord, from two to six, he attends, for the good of strained with two nails at each end, over the public, to bleed for three pence.' T. his window, and the words'rainy, dry, wet,' and so forth; written to denote the weather, according to the rising or falling No. 445.] Thursday, July 31, 1712. of the cord. We very great scholars are., not apt to wonder at this; but I observed a antinoe ais. Epig. 118. 1.. u very honest fellow, a chance customer, You say, Lupercus, what I write who sat in the chair before me to be'nt worth so much: you're in the right. shaved, fix his eye upon this miraculous THIs is the day on which many eminent performance during the operation upon his authors will probably publish their last chin and face. When those and his head words. I am afraid that few of our weekly also were cleared of all incumbrances and historians, who are men that above all others excrescences, he looked at the fish, then at delight in war, will be able to subsist under the fiddle, still grubbing in his pockets, the weight of a stamp,* and an'approachand casting his eye again at the twine, and ing peace. A sheet of blank paper that the words writ on each side; then altered must have this new imprimatur clapt upon his mind as to farthings, and gave my friend a silver sixpence. The business, as * August 1, 1712, the stamp duty here alluded to, took I said, is to keep up the amazement; anid place, and every single half-sheet paid a half-penny to I said, is to keep up the amazement; and the queen.'Have you seen the red stamp? Methinks if my friend had had only the skeleton and the stamping is worth a half-penny. The Observatoi kit, he must have been contented with a is fallen; the Medleys are jumbled together with the ess payment But the doctor we were flying Post; the Examiner is deadly sick. The SpectatoJ ess paymentg But the doctor we weret keeps up and doubles its price.' talking of adds to his long voyages the tes- Swift's Works, cr. 8vo. vol. xix. p. 73 No. 443.] THE SPECTATOR. 183 it before it is qualified to communicate any malcontentedness, which I am resolved thing to the public, will make its way in that none shall ever justly upbraid me with. the w-orld but very heavily. In short, the No, I shall glory in contributing my utmost necessity of carrying a stamp, and the im- to the public weal; and, if my country reprobability or notifying a bloody battle, will, ceives five or six pounds a day by my laI am afraid, both concur to the sinking of bours, I shall be very well pleased to find those thin fol;o,, which have every other myself so useful a member. It is a received day retailed to us the history of Europe for maxim, that no honest man should enrich several years last past. A facetious friend himself by methods that are prejudicial to of mine, who loves a pun, calls this present the community in which he lives; and by mortality among authors,' The fall of the the same rule I think we may pronounce leaf.' the person to deserve very well of his counI remember, upon Mr. Baxter's death, trymen, whose labours bring more into the there was published a sheet of very good public coffers than into his own pocket. sayings, inscribed,' The last words of Mr. Since I have mentioned the word eneBaxter.' The title sold so great a number mies, I must explain myself so far as to acof these papers, that about a week after quaint my reader, that I mean only the inthere came out a second sheet, inscribed, significant party zealots on both sides; men' More last words of Mr. Baxter.' In the of such poor narrow souls, that they are not same manner I have reason to think that capable of thinking on any thing but with several ingenious writers, who have taken an eve to whig or tory. During the course their leave of the public, in farewell papers, of this paper, I have been accused by these will not give over so, but intend to appear despicable wretches of trimming, time-servagain, though perhaps under another form, ing, personal reflection, secret satire, and and with a different title. Be that as it will, the like. Now, though in these my compoit is my business, in this place, to give an sitions it is visible to any reader of comaccount of my own intentions, and to ac- mon sense that I consider nothing but my quaint my reader with the motives by subject, which is always of an indifferent which I act, in this great crisis of the re- nature, how it is possible for me to write public of letters. so clear of party, as not to lie open to the I have been long debating in my own censures of those who will be applying heart, whether I should throw up my pen every sentence, and finding out persons as an author that is cashiered by the act of and things in it, which it has no regard to? parliament which is to operate within this Several paltry scribblers and declaimners four-and-twenty hours, or whether I should have done me the honour to be dull upon still persist in laying my speculations, from me in reflections of this nature; but, notday to day, before the public. The argu- withstanding my name has been sometimes ment which prevails with me most on the traduced by this contemptible tribe of men, first side of the question is, that I am in- I have hitherto avoided all animadversions formed by my bookseller he must raise the upon them. The truth of it is, I am afraid price of every single paper to two pence, of making them appear considerable by or that he shall not be able to pay the duty taking notice of them: for they are like of it. Now, as I am very desirous my rea- those imperceptible insects which are disders should have their learning as cheap as covered by the microscope, and cannot be possible, it is with great difficulty that I made the subject of observation without comply with him in this particular. being magnified. However, upon laying my reasons toge- Having mentioned those few who have ther in the balance, I find that those who shown themselves the enemies of this paper, plead for the continuance of this work, I should be very ungrateful to the public, have much the greater weight. For in the did I not at the same time testify my grafirst place, in recompence for the expense titude to those who are its friends, in which to which this will put my readers, it is to number I may reckon many of the most be hoped they may receive from every distinguished persons, of all conditions, paper so much instruction as will be a very parties, and professions, in the isle of Great good equivalent. And, in order to this, I Britain. I am not so vain as to think apwould not advise any one to take it in, who, probation is so much due to the performafter the perusal of it, does not find himself ance as to the design. There is, and ever two pence the wiser, or the better man for will be, justice enough in the world to afit, or who, upon examination, does not be- ford patronage and protection for those lieve that he has had two-penny worth of who endeavour to advance truth and virtue, mirth or instruction for his money. without regard to the passions and prejuBut I must confess there is another mo- dices of any particular cause or faction. If tive which prevails with me more than the I have any other merit in me it is that I former. I consider that the tax on paper have new pointed all the batteries of ridiwas given for the support of the govern- cule. They have been generally planted ment; and as I have enemies who are apt against persons who have appeared serious to pervert every thing I do or say, I fear rather than absurd: or at best, have aimed they would ascribe the laying down my rather at what is unfashionable than what paper, on such an occasion, to a spirit of is vicious. For my own part, I have en. 184 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 446. deavoured to make nothing ridiculous that that Socrates used to frequent the one, and is not in some measure criminal. I have set Cicero the other, up the immoral man as the object of deri- It happened once, indeed, that Cato sion. In short, if I have not formed a new dropped into the Roman theatre when the weapon against vice and irreligion, I have Floralia were to be represented; and as, in at least shown how that weapon may be put that performance, which was a kind of reto a right use, which has so often fought the ligious ceremony, there were several inbattles of impiety and profaneness. C. decent parts to be acted, the people refused to see them whilst Cato was present, Martial, on this hint, made the following'No. 446. ] Friday,.dugust 1, 1712. epigram, which we must suppose was apQuid deceat, quid non; quo virtus, quo ferat error. plied to some grave friend of his, that had Hor. srs Poet. v. 303. been accidentally present at some such enWhat fit, what not: what excellent, or ill. tertainment: Roscommon. Rommon.' Nosses jocoste dulce cum sacrum Florae, SINCE two or three writers of comedy, Festosque lusus, et licentium vulgi, who are living, have taken their farewell Cur in theatrum, Cato severe, venisti? of the stage, those who succeed them, find- An ideo tantum veneras, ut exires?' Epig. 3. 1. ing themselves incapable of rising up to Why dost thou come, great censor of thy age, To see the loose diversions of the stage? their wit, humour, aild good sense, have With awful countenance, and brow severe, only imitated them in some of those loose What in the name of goodness dost thou here? unguarded strokes, in which they complied ee the mixt crowd how giddy, lewd, and vain! Didst thou come in but to go out again? with the corrupt taste of the more vicious stou come in but to go out again part of their audience. When persons of a An accident of this nature might happen low genius attempt this kind of writing, once in an age among the Greeks and Rothey know no difference between being mans; but they were too wise and good to merry and being lewd. It is with an eye let the constant nightly entertainment be of to some of these degenerate compositions such a nature, that people of the most sense that I have written the following discourse. and virtue could not be at it. Whatever Were our English stage but half so vir- vices are represented upon the stage, they tuous as that of the Greeks and Roinans, ought to be so marked and branded by the we should quickly see the influence of it in poet, as not to appear either laudable or the behaviour of all the politer part of man- amiable in the person who is tainted with kind. It would not be fashionable to ridi- them. But if we look into the English comecule religion; or its professors; the man of dies above-mentioned, we would think they pleasure would not be the complete gentle- were formed upon a quite contrary maxim, man; vanity would be out of countenance; and that this rule, though it held good upon and every quality which is ornamental to the heathen stage, was not to be regarded human nature would meet with that esteem in christian theatres. There is another which is due to it. rule likewise, which was observed by auIf the English stage were under the same thors of antiquity; and which these modern regulations the Athenian was formerly, it geniuses have no regard to, and that was, would have the same effect that had, in re- never to choose an improper subject for commending the religion, the government, ridicule. Now a subject is improper for riand public worship of its country. Were dicule, if it is apt to stir up horror and comour plays subject to proper inspections and miseration rather than laughter. For this imitations, we might not only pass away reason, we do not find any comedy, in so several of our vacant hours in the highest polite an author as Terence, raised upon entertainments, butshould always rise from the violations of the marriage-bed. The them wiser and better than we sat down to falsehood of the wife or husband has given them, occasion to noble tragedies; but a Scipio It is one of the most unaccountable things and Lelius would have looked upon incest in our age, that the lewdness of our theatre or murder to have been as proper subjects should be so much complained of, so well for comedy. On the contrary, cuckoldorr exposed, and so little redressed. It is to be is the basis of most of our modern plays. hoped, that some time or other we may be If an alderman appears upon the stage, you at leisure to restrain the licentiousness of may be sure it is in order to be cuckolded. the theatre, and make it contribute its A husband that is a little grave or elderly, assistance to the advancement of morality, generally meets with the same fate. Knights and to the reformation of the age. As mat- and baronets, country'squires, and justices ters stand at present, multitudes are shut of the quorum, come up to town for no out from this noble diversion, by reason of other purpose. I have seen poor Dogget those abuses and corruptions that accom- cuckolded in all these capacities. In short, pany it. A father is often afraid that his our English writers are as frequently severe daughter should be ruined by those enter- upon this innocent unhappy creature, comtainments, which were invented for the ac- monly known by the name of a cuckold, as complishment and refining of human na- the ancient comic writers were upon an ture. The Athenian and Roman plays were eating parasite, or a vain-glorious soldier. written with such a regard to morality, At the same time the poet so contrives No. 447.] THE SPECTATOR. 185 matters, that the two criminals are the fa- served, may lead us into very useful rules vourites of the audience. We sit still, and of life. What I shall here take notice of in wish well to them through the whole play, custom, is its wonderful efficacy in making are pleased when they meet with proper every thing pleasant to us. A person who opportunities, and out of humour when they is addicted to play or gaming, though he are disappointed. The truth of it is, the took but little delight in it at first, by deaccomplished gentleman upon the English grees contracts so strong an inclination tostage, is the person that is familiar with wards it, and gives himself up so entirely other men's wives, and indifferent to his to it, that it seems the only end of his being. own; as the fine woman is generally a com- The love of a retired or busy life will grow position of sprightliness and falsehood. I upon a man insensibly, as he is conversant do not know whether it proceeds from bar- in the one or the other, till he is utterly renness of invention, depravation of man- unqualified for relishing that to which he ners, or ignorance of mankind, but I have has been for some time disused. Nay, a often wondered that our ordinary poets man may smoke, or drink, or take snuff, cannot frame to themselves the idea of a till he is unable to pass away his time withfine man who is not a whore-master, or a out it; not to mention how our delight in fine woman that is not a jilt. any particular study, art, or science, rises I have sometimes thought of compiling and improves, in proportion to the applicaa system of ethicks out of the writings tion which we bestow upon it. Thus, what of those corrupt poets under the title of was at first an exercise becomes at length Stage Morality. But I have been diverted an entertainment. Our employments are from this thought by a project which has changed into our diversions. The mind been executed by an ingenious gentleman grows fond of those actfions she -is accusof my acquaintance. He has composed, it tomed to, and is drawn" with reluctancy seems, the history of a young fellow who from those paths in'which she has been has taken all his notions of the world from used to walk. the stage, and who has directed himself in Not only such actions as were at first in every circumstance of his life and conver- different to us, but even such as are painful, sation, by the maxims and examples of the will by custom and practice become pleafine gentleman in English comedies. If I sant. Sir Francis Bacon observes, in his can prevail upon him to give me a copy of Natural Philosophy, that our taste is never this new-fashioned novel, I will bestow on pleased better than with those things which it a place in my works, and question not at first created disgust in it. He gives parbut it may have as good an effect upon the ticular instances, of claret, coffee, and other drama as Don Quixote had upon romance. liquors, which the palate seldom approves C. upon the first taste; but, when it has once got a relish of them, generally retains it for life. The mind is constituted after the No. 447.] Saturday, August 2, 1712. same manner, and after having habituated herself to any particular exercise or em-,u&,rokueovvv 0wr6tv tEEVYs,,IXaE' xXs S ployment, not only loses her first aversion TUrT4v cvQOeewitrotsa XrosuTV,cJsv E&VX. towards it, but conceives a certain fondness Long exercise, my friend, inures the mind; and affection for it. I have heard one of the And what we once dislik'd we pleasing find. greatest geniuses this age has produced,* THERE is not a common saying which who had been trained up in all the polite has a better turn of sense in it, than what studies of antiquity, assure me, upon his we often hear in the mouths of the vulgar, being obliged to search into several rolls that' custom is a second nature.' It is in- and records, that notwithstanding such an deed able to form the man anew, and to employment was at first very dry and irkgive him inclinations and capacities alto- some to him, he at last took an incredible gether different from those he was born pleasure in it, and preferred it even to the with. Dr. Plot, in his History of Stafford- reading of Virgil or Cicero. The reader shire, tells us of an idiot that, chancing to will observe, that I have not here consilive within the sound of a clock, and always dered custom as it makes things easy, but' amusing himself with counting the hour of as it renders them delightful; and though the day whenever the clock struck, the others have often made the same reflecclock being spoiled by accident, the idiot tions, it is possible they may not have continued to strike and count the hour drawn those uses from it, with which I inwithout the help of it, in the same manner tend to fill the remaining part of this paper. as he had done when it was entire. Though If we consider attentively this property I dare not vouch for the truth of this story, of human nature, it may instruct us in very it is very certain that custom has a me- fine moralities. In the first place, I would chanical effect upon the body at the same have no man discouraged with that kind ot time that it has a very extraordinary influ- life, or series of action, in which the choice ence upon the mind. of others or his own necessities may have I shall in this paper consider one very engaged him. It may, perhaps, be very remarkable effect which custom has upon human nature, and which, if rightly ob- * Dr. A terbury. VOL. I. 24 186 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 448. disagreeable to him at first; but use and are to make us happy in the next. The application will certainly render it not only seeds of those spiritual joys and raptures, less painful, but.pleasing and satisfactory. which are to rise up and flourish in the soul In the second place, I would recommend to all eternity, must be planted in her durto every one that admirable precept which ing this her present state of probation. In Pythagoras is said to have given to his dis- short, heaven is not to be looked upon only ciples, and which that philosopher must as the reward, but as the natural effect of have drawn from the observation I have a religious life. enlarged upon, Optimum vitm genus eli- On the other hand, those evil spirits, vito, nam consuetudo facietjucondissimum: who, by long custom, have contracted in Pitch upon that course of life which is the the body habits of lust and sensuality, ma most excellent, and custom will render it lice and revenge, and aversion to every the most delightful.' Men, whose circum- thing that is good, just, or laudable, are stances will permit them to choose their naturally seasoned and prepared for pain own way of life, are inexcusable if they do and misery. Their torments have already not pursue that which their judgment tells taken root in them; they cannot be happy them is the most laudable. The voice of when divested of the body, unless we may reason is more to be regarded than the bent suppose, that Providence will in a manner of any present inclination, since, by the rule create them anew, and work a miracle in above-mentioned, inclination will at length the rectification of their faculties. They come over to reason, though we can never may, indeed, taste a kind of malignant force reason to comply with inclination. pleasure in those actions to which they are In the third place, this observation may accustomed, whilst in this life; but when teach the most sensual and irreligious man they are removed from all those objects -o overlook those hardships and difficulties which are here apt to gratify them, they which are apt to discourage him from the will naturally become their own tormentprosecution of a virtuous life; C The gods,' ors, and cherish in themselves those painful said Hesiod,'have placed labour before habits of mind which are called, in scripvirtue: the way to her is at first rough and ture phrase,'the worm which never dies.' difficult, but grows more smooth and easy This notion of heaven and hell is so very the farther you advance in it.' The man conformable to the light of nature, that it who proceeds in it with steadiness and re- was discovered by several of the most exsolution, will in a little time find that' her alted heathens. It has been finely improved ways are ways of pleasantness, and that all by many eminent divines of the last age, as her paths are peace.' in particular by archbishop Tillotson and To enforce this consideration, we may Dr. Sherlock: but there is none who has farther observe, that the practice of reli- raised such noble speculations upon it as gion will not only be attended with that Dr. Scot, in the first book of his Christian pleasure which naturally accompanies those Life, which is one of the finest and most actions to which we are habituated, but with rational schemes of divinity that is written those supernumerary joys of heart that rise in our tongue, or in any other. That excelfrom the consciousness of such a pleasure, lent author has shown how every particular from the satisfaction of acting up to the dic- custom and habit of virtue will, in its own tates of reason, and from the prospect of nature, produce the heaven, or a state of a happy immortality, happiness, in him who shall hereafter pracIn the fourth place, we may learn from tise it: as on the contrary, how every custhis observation, which we have made on tom or habit of vice will be the natural the mind of man, to take particular care, hell of him in whom it subsists. C. when we are once settled in a regular course of life, how we too frequently indulge ourselves in any the most innocent diversions No. 448.] Monday,.uut 4 1712. and entertainments; since the mind may insensibly fall off from the relish of virtuous Fedius hoc aliquid quandoque audebis. actions, and, by degrees, exchange that Juv. Sat. ii. 82. pleasure which it takes in the performance In time to greater baseness you'll proceed. of its duty, for delights of a much more in- THE first steps towards ill are very careferior and unprofitable nature. fully to be avoided, for men insensibly go The last use which I shall make of this on when they are once entered, and do not remarkable property in human nature, of keep up a lively abhorrence of the least being delighted with those actions to which unworthiness. There is a certain frivolous it is accustomed, is to show how absolutely falsehood that people indulge themselves necessary it is for us to gain habits of virtue in, which ought to be had in greater detestain this life, if we would enjoy the pleasures tion than it commonly meets with. What of the next. The state of bliss we call hea- I mean is a neglect of promises made on ven will not be capable of affecting those small and indifferent occasions, such as minds which are not thus qualified for it; parties of pleasure, entertainments, and we must, in this world, gain a relish of sometimes meetings out of curiosity, in men truth and virtue, if we would be able to of like faculties, to be in each other's comtaste thrt knowledge and perfection, which panv. There are many causes to which one No. 448.] THE SPECTATOR. 187 may assign this light infidelity. Jack Sippet great, that they subsist by still promising never keeps the hour he has appointed to on. I have heretofore discoursed of the income to a friend's to dinner; but he is an significant liar, the boaster, and the castle insignificant fellow, who does it out of builder, and treated them as no ill-design vanity. He could never, he knows, make ing men (though they are to be placed any figure in company, but by giving a little among the frivolous false ones,) but persons disturbance at his entry, and therefore takes who fall into that way purely to recommend care to drop in when he thinks you are just themselves by their vivacities; but indeed I seated. He takes his place after having cannot let heedless promisers, though in discomposed every body, and desires there the most minute circumstances, pass with may be no ceremony; then does he begin to so slight a censure. If a man should take call himself the saddest fellow, in disap- a resolution to pay only sums above a hunpointing so many places as he was invited dred pounds, and yet contract with difto elsewhere. It is the fop's vanity to name ferent people debts of five and ten, how houses of better cheer, and to acquaint you long can we suppose he will keep his credit? that he chose yours out of ten dinners which This man will as long support his good he was obliged to be at that day. The last name in business, as he will in conversation, time I had the fortune to eat with him, he who without difficulty makes assignations was imagining how, very fat he should have which he is indifferent whether he keeps been had he eaten all he had ever been in- or not. vited to. But it is impertinent to dwell upon I am the more severe upon this vice, bethe manners of such a wretch as obliges all cause I have been so unfortunate as to be a whom he disappoints, though his circum- very great criminal myself. Sir Andrew stances constrain them to be civil to him. Freeport, and all my other friends who are But there are those that every one would scrupulous to promises of the meanest conbe glad to see, who fall into the same de- sideration imaginable, from a habit of vir testable habit. It is a merciless thing that tue that way, have often upbraided me with any one can be at ease, and suppose a set it. I take shame upon myself for this crime, of people who have a kindness for him, at and more particularly for the greatest I that moment waiting out of respect to him, ever committed of the sort, that when as and refusing to taste their food or conversa- agreeable a company of gentlemen and tion, with the utmost impatience. One of ladies as ever were got together, and I forthese promisers sometimes shall make his sooth, Mr. Spectator, to be of the party excuses for not coming at all, so late that with women of merit, like a booby as I was, half the company have only to lament, that mistook the time of meeting, and came the they have neglected matters of moment to night following. 1 wish every fool who is meet him whom they find a trifler. They negligent in this kind, may have as great a immediately repent of the value they had loss as I had in this; for the same company for him; and such treatment repeated, will never meet more, but are dispersed makes company never depend upon his into various parts of the world, and I am promises any more; so that he often comes left under the compunction that I deserve, at the middle of a meal, where he is secretly in so many different places to be called a slighted by the persons with whom he eats, trifler. and cursed by the servants, whose dinner This fault is sometimes to be accounted is delayed by his prolonging their master's for, when desirable people are fearful of entertainment. It is wonderful that men appearing precise and reserved by denials; guilty this way could never have observed, -but they will find the apprehension of that that the whiling time, and gathering to- imputation will betray them into a childish gether, and waiting a little before dinner, impotence of mind, and make them prois the most awkwardly passed away of any mise all who are so kind to ask it of them. part in the four-and-twenty hours. If they This leads such soft creatures into the misdid think at all, they would reflect upon fortune of seeming to return overtures of their guilt, in lengthening such a suspension good-will with ingratitude. The first steps of agreeable life. The constant offending in the breach of a man's integrity are much this way has, in a degree, an effect upon more important than men are aware of. the honesty of his mind who is guilty of it, The man who scruples not breaking his as common swearing is a kind of habitual word in little things, would not suffer in his perjury: it makes the soul unattentive to own conscience so great pain for failures of what an oath is, even while it utters it at consequence, as he who thinks every little the lips. Phocion beholding a wordy orator, offence against truth and justice a disparagewhile he was making a magnificent speech ment. We should not make any thing we to the people, full of vain promises;' Me- ourselves disapprove habitual to us, if we thinks,' said he,' I am now fixing my eyes would be sure of our integrity. upon a cypress tree; it has all the pomp and I remember a falsehood of the trivial beauty imaginable in its branches, leaves, sort, though not in relation to assignations, and height: but alas! it bears no fruit.' that exposed a man to a very uneasy adThough the expectation which is raised venture. Will Trap and Jack Stint were by impertinent promises is thus barren, chamber-fellows in the Inner-Temple about their confidence, even after failures, is so twenty-five years ago. They one night sat 1b8 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 449. in the pit together at a comedy, where they ings many descriptions given of ill persons, both observed and liked the same young and not any direct encomium made of those woman in the boxes. Their kindness for who are good. When I was convinced of her entered both hearts deeper than they this error, I could not but immediately call imagined. Stint had a good faculty in writ- to mind several of the fair sex of my acing letters of love, and made his address quaintance, whose characters deserve to be privately that way; while Trap proceeded transmitted to posterity in writings which in the ordinary course, by money and her will long outlive mine. But I do not think waiting-maid. The lady gave them both that a reason why I should not give their encouragement, received Trap into the ut- their place in my diurnal as long as it will most favour, answering at the same time last. For the service thereof of my female Stint's letters, and giving him appointments readers, I shall single out some characters at third places. Trap began to suspect the of maids, wives, and widows which deserve epistolary correspondence of his friend, and the imitation of the sex. She who shall discovered also that Stint opened all his let- lead this small illustrious number of heters which came to their common lodgings, roines shall be the amiable Fidelia. in order to form his own assignations. After Before I enter upon the particular parts much anxiety and restlessness, Trap came of her character, it is necessary to preface, to a resolution, which he thought would that she is the only child of a decrepid break off their commerce with one another father, whose life is bound up in hers. This without any hazardous explanation. He gentleman has used Fidelia from her cradle therefore writ a letter in a feigned hand to with all the tenderness imaginable, and has Mr. Trap at his chambers in the Temple. viewed her growing perfections with the Stint, according to custom, seized and partiality of a parent, that soon thought opened it, and was not a little surprised to her accomplished above the children of all find the inside directed to himself, when, other men, but never thought she was come with great perturbation of spirit, he read to the utmost improvement of which she as follows: herself was capable. This fondness has had' MR. STINT,-You have gained a slight very happy effects upon his own happiness;' MR. STINT,~.You have gained a slight ^V ^PPY ^^ "P^ y hines satisfaction at the expense of doing a very for she reads, she dances, she sings, uses heinous crime. At the price of a faithful her spinetand lute to the utmost perfection; friend you have obtained an inconstant mis- and the lady's use of all these excellences tress. I rejoice in this expedient I have is to divert the old man in his easy chair, thought of to break my mind to you, and when he is out of the pangs of a chronical tell you, you are a base fellow, by a means distemper. Fidelia is now in the twentywhich does not expose you to the affront third year of her age; but the application except you deserve it. I know, sir, as of many lovers, her vigorous time of life, criminal as you are, you have still shame her quick sense of all that is truly gallant enough to avenge yourself against the hardi- and elegant in the enjoyment of a plentiful ness of any one that should publicly tell fortune, are not able to draw her from the you of it.'I therefore, who have received side of her good old father. Certain it is, so many secret hurts from you, shall take that there is no kind of affection so pure satisfaction with safety to myself. I call and angelic as that of a father to a daughter. you base, and you must bear it, or acknow- He beholds her both with and without reledge it; I triumph over you that you can- gard to her sex. In ove to our wives there not come at me; nor do I think it disho- is desire, to our sons there is ambition; but nourable to come in armour to assault him, in that to our daughters, there is something who was in ambuscade when he wounded which there are no words to express. Her me. 0 life is designed wholly domestic, and she is' What need more be said to convince so ready a friend and companion, that every you of being guilty of the basest practice thing that passes about a man is accomimaginable, than that it is such as has made panied with the idea of her presence. Her you liable to be treated after this manner, sex also is naturally so much exposed to while you yourself cannot in your own con- hazard, both as to fortune and innocence, science but allow the justice of the upbraid- that there is perhaps a new cause of fondins of your injured friend, ness arising from that consideration also. T.'RALPH TRAP.' None but fathers can have a true sense of T~~_.'_________ "RLP these sort of pleasures and sensations; but my familiarity with the father of Fidelia, No. 449.] Tuesday, August5, 1712. makes me let drop the words which I have heard him speak, and observe upon his — Tibi scriptus, matrona, libellus. tenderness towards her. A book the chastest matron may. Fidelia, on her part, as I was going to say, peruse as accomplished as she is, with her beauty WHEN I reflect upon my labours for the wit, air, and mien, employs her whole public, i cannot but observe, that part of time in care and attendance upon her fathe species, of which I profess myself a ther. How have I been charmed to see one friend ald guardian, is sometimes treated of the most beautiful women the age has with sev erity; that is, there are in my writ- produced, on her knees, helping on an old No 450.] THE SPECTATOR. 189 man's slipper! Her filial regard to him is astonished to hear that, in those int ervals what she makes her diversion, her busi- when the old gentleman is at ease, and can ness, and her glory. When she was asked bear company, the-es are at his house, in by a friend of her deceased mother to ad- the most regular order, assemblies of peomit of the courtship of her son, she answer- pie of the highest merit; where there is ed that she had a great respect and grati- conversation without mention of the faults tude to her for the overture in behalf of one of the absent, benevolence between men so dear to her, but that during her father's and women without passion, and the highlife she would admit into her heart no value est subjects of morality treated of as natural for any thing that should interfere with her and accidental discourse; all which is owing endeavour to make his remains of life as to the genius of Fidelia; who at once happy and easy as could be expected in his makes her father's way to another world circumstances. The lady admonished her easy, and herself capable of being an ho of the prime of life with a smile; which nour to his name in this. Fidelia answered with a frankness that al-' MR. SPECTATOR,-I was the other day ways attends unfeigned virtue:'It is true, at the Bear-garden, in hopes to have seen madam, there are to be sure very great your short face: but not being so fortunate, satisfactions to be expected in the com- I must tell you, by way of letter, that there merce of a man of honour whom one tender- is a mystery among the gladiators which ly loves; but I find so much satisfaction, in has escaped your spectatorial penetration. the reflection, how much I mitigate a good For, being in a box at an ale-house near man's pains, whose welfare depends upon that renowned seat of honour above-menmy assiduity about him, that I willingly ex- tioned, I overheard two masters of the dude the loose gratifications of passion for science agreeing to quarrel on the next opthe solid reflections of duty. I know not portunity. This was to happen in a comwhether any man's wife would be allowed, pany of a set of the fraternity of basket and (what I still more fear) I know not hilts, who were to meet that evening. whether I, a wife, should be willing to be so When this was settled, one asked the officious as I am at present about my pa- other, "Will you give cuts or receive?" rent.' The happyfatherhas her declaration The other answered, "Receive." It was that she will not marry during his life, and replied, "Are you a passionate man?" the pleasure of seeing that resolution not "No, provided you cut no more nor no uneasy to her. Were one to paint filial affec- deeper than we agree." I thought it my tion in its utmost beauty, he could not have duty to' acquaint you with this, that thea more lively idea of it than in beholding people may not pay their money for fight Fidelia serving her father at his hours of ing, and be cheated. Your humble se, rising, meals, and rest. vant, SCABBARD RUSTY.' When the general crowd of female youth T. are consulting their glasses, preparing for _ _ balls, assemblies, or plays; for a young lady, who could be regarded among the No. 450.] Wednesday, August 6, 1712. foremost in those places, either for her per- - Quarenda pecunia primum, son, wit, fortune, or conversation, and yet Virtus post nummos. Hor. Ep. i. Lib. 1. 53. contemn all these entertainments, to sweet- -- Get money, money still; en the heavy hours of a decrepid parent. is And then let virtue follow, if she will.-Pope. a resignation truly heroic. Fidelia performs'MR. SPECTATOR, —All men through the duty of a nurse with all the beauty of a different paths, make at the same common bride; nor does she neglect her person, be- thing, money: and it is to her we owe the cause of her attendance on him, when he politician, the merchant, and the lawyer; is too ill to receive company, to whom she nay, to be free with you, I believe to that may make an appearance. also we are beholden for our Spectator. I Fidelia, who gives him up her youth, am apt to think, that could we look into does not think it any great sacrifice to add our own hearts, we should see money ento it the spoiling of her dress. Her care graved in them in more lively and moving and exactness in her habit convince her fa- characters than self-preservation; for who ther of the alacrity of her mind; and she can reflect upon the merchant hoisting sail has of all women the best foundation for in a doubtful pursuit of her, and all manaffecting the praise of a seeming negligence, kind sacrificing their quiet to her, but must What adds to the entertainment of the perceive that the characters of self-preser good old man is, that Fidelia, where merit vation (which were doubtless originally the and fortune cannot be overlooked by episto- brightest) are sullied, if not wholly defaced; lary lovers, reads over the accounts of her and that those of money (which at first conquests, plays on her spinet the gayest was only valuable as a mean to security) airs (and while she is doing so you would are of late so brightened, that the characthink her formed only for gallantry) to in- ters of self-preservation, like a less light timate to him the pleasures she despises set by a greater, are become almost imperfor his sake. ceptible? Thus has money got the upper Those who think themselves the pattern hand of what all mankind formerly thought ot good-breeding and gallantry would be most dear, viz. security: and I wish I could 190 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 450. say she had here put a stop to her victo- men do their wives and children, and there ries; but, alas! common honesty fell a sa- fore could not resist the first impulses of crifice to her. This is the way scholastic nature on so wounding a loss; but I quickly men talk of the greatest good in the world: roused myself, and found means to allebut I, a tradesman, shall give you another viate, and at last conquer, my affliction, by account of this matter in the plain narra- reflecting how that she and her children tive of my own life. I think it proper, in having been no great expense to me, the the first place, to acquaint my readers, best part of her fortune was still left; that that since my setting out in the world, my charge being reduced to myself, a jourwhich was in the year 1660, I never wanted neyman, and a maid, I might live far money, having begun with an indifferent cheaper than before; and that being now a good stock in the tobacco-trade, to which I childless widower, I might perhaps marry was bred; and by the continual successes it a no less deserving woman, and with a has pleased Providence to bless my endea- much better fortune than she brought, vours with, I am at last arrived at what which was but 8001. And, to convince my they call a plum. To uphold my discourse readers that such considerations as these in the manner of your wits or philosophers, were proper and apt to produce such an by speaking fine things, or drawing infer- affect, I remember it was the constant ob ences, as they pretend, from the nature of servation at that deplorable time, when so the subject, I account it vain; having never many hundreds were swept away daily, found any thing in the writings of such men, that the rich ever bore the loss of their fathat did not savour more of the invention milies and relations far better than the poor; of the brain, or what is styled speculation, the latter having little or nothing beforethan of sound judgment or profitable ob- hand, and living from hand to mouth, servation. I will readily grant indeed, that placed the whole comfort and satisfaction there is what the wits call natural in their of their lives in their wives and children, talk; whicl is the utmost those curious au- and were therefore inconsolable. thors can assume to themselves, and is in-'The following year happened the fire. deed all they endeavour at, for they are but at which time, by good providence, it was lamentable teachers. And what, I pray, is my fortune to have converted the greatest natural? That which is pleasing and easy. part of my effects into-ready money, on the -And what are pleasing and easy? For- prospect of an extraordinary advantage sooth; a new thought, or conceit dressed up which I was preparing to lay hold on. This in smooth quaint language, to make you calamity was very terrible and astonishing, smile and wag your head, as being what the fury of the flames being such, that you never imagined before, and yet wonder whole streets, at several distant places, why you had not; mere frothy amusements, were destroyed at one and the same time, fit only for boys or silly women to be caught so. that (as it is well known) almost all our with. citizens were burnt out of what they had.' It is not my present intention to instruct But what did I then do? I did not stand my readers in the method of acquiring gazing on theruinsof our noble metropolis; riches; that may be the work of another I did not shake my head, wring my hands, essay; but to exhibit the real and solid ad- sigh and shed tears; I considered with myvantages I have found by them in my long self what could this avail; I fell a plodding and manifold experience; nor yet all the ad- what advantages might be made of the vantages of so worthy and valuable a bless- ready cash I had; and immediately being, (for who does not know or imagine the thought myself that wonderful pennyworths comforts of being warm or living at ease, and might be bought of the goods that were that power and pre-eminence are their in- saved out of the fire. In short, with about separable attendants?) but only to instance 20001. and a little credit, I bought as much the great supports they afford us under the tobacco as raised my estate to the value of severest calamities and misfortune; to show 10,0001. I then "looked on the ashes of our that the love of them is a special antidote city, and the misery of its late inhabitants, against immorality and vice; and that the as an effect of the just wrath and indignasame does likewise naturally dispose men tion of heaven towards a sinful and perverse to actions of piety and devotion. All which people." I can make out by my own experience,'After this I married again; and that who think myself no ways particular from wife dying, I took another; but both proved the rest of mankind, nor better nor worse to be idle baggages: the first gave me a by nature than generally other men are. great deal of plague and vexation by her'In the year 1665, when the sickness extravagances, and I became one of the was, I lost by it my- wife and two children, by-words of the city. I knew it would be to which were all my stock. Probably I might no manner of purpose to go about to curb have had more, considering I was married the fancies and inclinationsof women, which between four and five years; but finding her fly out the more for being restrained; but to be a teeming woman, I was careful, as what I could I did; I watched her nar having then little above a brace of thou- rowly, and by good luck found her in the sand pounds to carry on my trade and main- embraces (for which I had two witnesses taib a family with. I loved them as usually with me) of a wealthy spark of the court No. 451.1 THE SPECTATOR. 191 end of the town; of whom I recovered enough to employ his thoughts on every 15,0001. which made me amends for what moment of the day; so that I cannot call to she had idly squandered, and put a silence mind, that in all the time I was a husband, to all my neighbours, taking off my re- which, off and on, was above twelve years, proach by the gain they saw I had by it. I ever once thought of my wives but in bed. The last died about two years after I mar- And, lastly, for religion, I have ever been ried her, in labour of three children. I a constant churchman, both forenoons and conjecture they were begot by a country afternoons on Sundays, never forgetting to kinsman of hers, whom, at her recommen- be thankful for any gain or advantage I had dation, I took into my family, and gave had that day; and on Saturday nights, upon wagesto as a journeyman. What this crea- casting up my accounts, I always was ture expended in delicacies and high diet grateful for the sum of my week's profits, with her kinsman (as well as I could com- and at Christmas for that of the whole pute by the poulterer's, fishmonger's, and year. It is true, perhaps, that my devogrocer's bills,) amounted in the said two tion has not been the most fervent; which, years to one hundred eighty-six pounds four I think, ought to be imputed to the evenshillings and five-pencehalf-penny. The fine ness and sedateness of my temper, which apparel, bracelets, lockets, and treats, &c. never would admit of any impetuosities of of the other, according to the best calcula- any sort: and I can remember, that in my tion, came, in three years and about three youth and prime of manhood, when my quarters, to seven hundred-forty four pounds blood ran brisker, I took greater pleasure seven shillings and nine pence. After this in religious exercises than at present, or I resolved never to marry more, and found many years past, and that my devotion I had been a gainer by my marriages, and sensibly declined as age, which is dull and the damages granted me for the abuses of unwieldy, came upon me. my bed (all charges deducted) eight thou-'I have, I hope, here proved, that the sand three hundred pounds, within a trifle. love of money prevents all immorality and' I come now to show the good effects of vice; which if you will not allow, you the love of money on the lives of men, to- must, that the pursuit of it obliges men to wards rendering them honest, sober, and the same kind of life as they would follow religious. When I was a young man, I had if they were really virtuous; which is all I a mind to make the best of my wits, and have to say at present, only recommending over-reached a country chap in a parcel of to you, that you would think of it, and turn unsound goods; to whom, upon his upbraid- ready wit into ready money as fast as you ing, and threatening to expose me for it, I can. I conclude, your servant, returned the equivalent of his loss; and T.'EPHRAIM WEED.' upon his good advice, wherein he clearly demonstrated the folly of such artifices, which can never end but in shame, and the No. 451.] Thursday, August 7, 171. ruin of all correspondence, I never after transgressed. Can your courtiers, who take Jam sevus apertam bribes, or your lawyers or physicians in In rabiam capit verti jocus, et per honestas bribes, or your lawyers or physicians in Ire minax impune domos —-- ~ their practice, or even the divines who Hor. Ep. i. Lib. 2. 148. intermeddle in worldly affairs, boast of -Times corrupt, and nature ill inclin'd, making but one slip in their lives, and of Produc'd the point that left the sting behind; such a thorough and lasting reformation? Till, friend with friend, and families at strife, Since my coming into the world I do not Triumphant malice rag'd through private life.-Pope remember I was ever overtaken in drink, THERE is nothing so scandalous to a gosave nine times, once at the christening of vernment, and detestable in the eyes of all my first child, thrice at our city feasts, and good men, as defamatory papers and pamfive times at driving of bargains. My re- phlets; but at the same time there is no formation I can attribute to nothing so thing so difficult to tame as a satirical much as the love and esteem of money, for author. An angry writer who cannot apI found myself to be extravagant in my pear in print, naturally vents his spleen in drink, and apt to turn projector, and make libels and lampoons. A gay old woman, rash bargains. As for women, I never says the fable, seeing all her wrinkles reknew any except my wives: for my reader presented in a large looking-glass, threw must know, and it is what he may confide it upon the ground in a passion, and broke in as an excellent recipe, that the love of it in a thousand pieces; but as she was business and money is the greatest mortifier afterwards surveying the fragments with a of inordinate desires imaginable, as em- spiteful kind of pleasure, she could not forploying the mind continually in the careful bear uttering herself in the following solioversight of what one has in the eager quest loquy:' What have I got by this revengeful after more, in looking after the negligences blow of mine? I have only multiplied my and deceits of servants, in the due entering deformity, and see a hundred ugly faces, and stating of accounts, in hunting after where before I saw but one.' chaps, and in the exact knowledge of the It has been proposed, to oblige every state of markets; which things whoever person that writes a book, or a paper, to thoroughly attends to, will find enough and swear himself the author of it, and enter 192 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 451. down in a public register his name and punishments, is under the direction and place of abode. distribution of the magistrate, and not of This indeed would have effectually sup- any private person. Accordingly we learn, pressed all printed scandal, which generally from a fragment of Cicero, that though appears under borrowed names, or under there were very few capital punishments none at all. But it is to be feared that such in the twelve tables, a libel or lampoon, an expedient would not only destroy scan- which took away the good name of andal, but learning. It would operate pro- other, was to be punished by death. But miscuously, and root up the corn and tares this is far from being our case. Our satire together. Not to mention some of the most is nothing but ribaldry and billingsgate. celebrated works of piety, which have Scurrility passes for wit; and he who proceeded from anonymous authors, who can call names in the greatest variety have made it their merit to convey to us so of phrases, is looked upon to have the great a charity in secret; there are few shrewdest pen. By this means the honour works of genius that come out at first with of families is ruined; the highest posts and the author's name. The writer generally the greatest titles are rendered cheap and makes a trial of them in the world before vile in the sight of the people; the noblest he owns them; and, I believe, very few, virtues and most exalted parts exposed to who are capable of writing, would set pen the contempt of the vicious and the ignoto paper, if they knew beforehand that rant. Should a foreigner, who knows nothey must not publish their productions thing of our private factions, or one who is but on such conditions. For my own part, to act his part in the world when our preI must declare, the papers I present the sent heats and animosities are forgotpublic are like fairy favours, which shall should, I say, such a one form to himself last no longer than while the author is con- a notion of the greatest men of all sides in cealed. the British nation, who are now living, That wihich makes it particularly dif- from the characters which are given them ficult to restrain these sons of calumny and in some or other of those abominable writdefamation is, that all sides are equally ings which are daily published among us, guilty of it, and that every dirty scribbler what a nation of monsters must we appear! is countenanced by great names, whose in- As this cruel practice tends to the utter terests he propagates by such vile and subversion of all truth and humanity among infamous methods. I have never yet heard us, it deserves the utmost detestation and of a ministry who have inflicted an exem- discouragement of all who have either the plary punishment on an author that has love of their country, or the honour of their supported their cause with falsehood and religion at heart. I would therefore earnscandal, and treated, in a most cruel man- estly recommend it to the consideration of ner, the names of those who have been those who deal in these pernicious arts of looked upon as their rivals and antagonists. writing, and of those who take pleasure in Would a government set an everlasting the reading of them. As for the first, I mark of their displeasure upon one of those have spoken of them in former papers, and infamous writers, who makes his court to have not stuck to rank them with the murthem by tearing to pieces the reputation derer and assassin. Every honest man sets of a competitor, we should quickly see an as high a value upon a good name, as upon end put to this race of vermin, that are a life itself: and I cannot but think that those scandal to government, and a reproach to who privily assault the one, would destroy human nature. Such a proceeding would the other, might they do it with the same make a minister of state shine in history, security and impunity. and would fill all mankind with a just ab- As for persons who take pleasure in the horrence of persons who should treat him reading and dispersing such detestable liunworthily, and employ against him those bels, I am afraid they fall very little short arms which he scorned to make use of of the guilt of the first composers. By a against his enemies. law of the emperors Valentinian and VaI cannot think that any one will be so lens, it was made death for any person not unjust as to imagine, what I have here said only to write a libel, but, if he met with one is spoken with respect to any party or fac- by chance, not to tear or burn it. But betion. Every one who has in him the senti- cause I would not be thought singular in my ments either of a Christian or a gentleman, opinion of this matter, I shall conclude my cannot but be highly offended at this wick- paper with the words of Monsieur Bayle, ed and ungenerous practice, which is so who was a man of great freedom of thought, much in use among us at present, that it is as well as of exquisite learning and judgbecome a kind of national crime, and dis- ment. tinguishes us from all the governments that' I cannot imagine that a man who dislie about us. I cannot but look upon the perses a libel, is less desirous of doing finest strokes of satire which are aimed at mischief than the author himself. But particular persons, and which are support- what shall we say of the pleasure which a ed even with the appearances of truth, to man takes in the reading of a defamatory be the marks of an evil mind, and highly libel? Is it not a heinous sin in the sight criminal in themselves. Infamy, like other of God? We must distinguish in this point No. 45.J'THE SPECTATOR. 193 This pleasure is either an agreeable sensa- of cooking it is so very different, that there tion we are affected with, when we meet is no citizen, who has an eye to the public with a witty thought which is well ex- good, that can leave the coffee-house with pressed, or it is a joy which we conceive a peace of mind, before he has given every from the dishonour of the person who is one of them a reading. These several dishes defamed. I will say nothing to the first of of news are so very agreeable to the palate these cases; for perhaps some would think of my countrymen, that they are not only that my morality is not severe enough, if pleased with them when they are served. I should affirm that a man is not master of up hot, but when they are again set cold those agreeable sensations, any more than before them, by those penetrating politiof those occasioned by sugar or honey, cians who oblige the public with their rewhen they touch his tongue; but as to the flections and observations upon every piece second, every one will own that pleasure to of intelligence that is sent us from abroad. be a heinous sin. The pleasure in the first This text is given us by one set of writers, case is of no continuance; it prevents our and the comment by another. reason and reflection, and may be imme- But notwithstanding we have the same diately followed by a secret grief, to see tale told us in so many different papers, and our neighbour's honour blasted. If it does if occasion requires, in so many articles not cease immediately, it is a sign that we of the same paper; notwithstanding, in a are not displeased with the ill nature of the scarcity of foreign posts, we hear the same satirist, but are glad to see him defame his story repeated by different advices from enemy by all kinds of stories; and then Paris, Brussels, the Hague, and from every we deserve.the punishment to which the great town in Europe; notwithstanding the writer of the libel is subject. I shall here multitude of annotations, explanations, readd the words of a modern author. St. flections, and various readings which it Gregory, upon excommunicating those passes through, our time lies heavy on our writers who had dishonoured Castorius, hands till the arrival of a fresh mail: we does not except those who read their long to receive farther particulars, to hear works; because, says he, if calumnies have what will be the next step, or what will be always been the delight of their hearers, the consequences of that which we have 1land a gratification of those persons who ready taken. A westerly wind keeps the have no other advantage over honest men, whole town in suspense, and puts a stop to i not he who takes pleasure in reading conversation. them as guilty as he who composed them? This general curiosity has been raised It is an uncontested maxim, that they who and inflamed by our late wars, and if rightly approve an action, would certainly do it if directed, might be of good use to a person they could; that is, if some reason of self- who has such a thirst awakened in him. love did not hinder them. There is no dif- Why should not a man, who takes delight ference, says Cicero, between advising a in reading every thing that is new, apcrime, and approving it when committed, ply himself to history, travels, and other'The Roman law confirmed this maxim, writings of the same kind, where he will having subjected the approvers and authors find perpetual fuel for his curiosity, and of this evil to the same penalty. We may meet with much more pleasure and imtherefore conclude, that those who are provement than in these papers of the pleased with reading defamatory libels, so week? An honest tradesman, who lanfar as to approve the authors and dis- guishes a whole summer in expectation of persers of them, are as guilty as if they a battle, and perhaps is baulked at last, had composed them; for, if they do not may here meet with half a dozen in a day. write such libels themselves, it is because He may read the news of a whole campaign they have not the talent of writing, or be- in less time than he now bestows upon the cause they will run no hazard.' products of a single post. Fights, conquests, The author produces other authorities to and revolutions, lie thick together. The confirm his judgment in this particular. reader's curiosity is raised and satisfied C. every moment, and his passions disappointed or gratified, without being detained in a state of uncertainty from day to day, No. 452.] Friday, august 8, 1712. or lying at the mercy of the sea and wind; in short, the mind is not here kept in a naturahomumno n. apud Lilium. perpetual gape after knowledge, nor puHuman nature is fond of novelty. nished with that eternal thirst, which is the portion of all our modern newsmongers THERE is no humour in my countrymen, and coffee-house politicians. which I am more inclined to wonder at, All pnatters of fact, which a man did not than their general thirst after news. There know Before, are news to him; and I do not are about half a dozen ingenious men, who see how any haberdasher in Cheapside is live very plentifully upon this curiosity of more concerned in the present quarrel of their fellow-subjects. They all of them re- the Cantons, than he was in that of the ceive the same advices from abroad, and League. At least, I believe, every one will very often in the same words; but their way allow me, it is of more importance to an VOL. II. 25 194 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 4S3. Englishman to know the history of his an-' Letters from Brumpton advise, that the cestors, than that of his contemporaries who widow Blight had received several visits live upon the banks of the Danube or the from John Mildew; which affords great Borysthenes. As for those who are of matter of speculation in those parts. another mind, I shall recommend to them'By a fisherman who lately touched at the following letter from a projector, who IHammersmith, there is advice from Putis willing to turn a penny by this remarka- ney, that a certain person well known in ble curiosity of his countrymen. that place, is like to lose his election for'MR. SPECTATOR,-YOU must have ob- churchwarden; but this being boat-news, Mserved that, men who frequent coffee-houses, we cannot give entire credit to it.'Letters from Paddington bring little and delight in news, are pleased with every more than that William Squeak, the sowthing that is matter of fact, so it be what passed through that place the fifth they have not heard before. A victory or instant. a defeat are equally agreeable to them.'They advise from Fulham that things The shutting of a cardinal's mouth pleases remained there in the same state they were. them one post, and the opening of it an- They had intelligence, just as the letters other. They are glad to hear the French came away, of a tub of excellent ale just court is removed to Marli, and are after- set abroach at Parson's Green; but this yards as much delighted with its return to wanted confirmation. Versailles. They read the advertisements I have here, sir, given you a specimen with the same curiosity as the articles of of the news with which I intend to entertain public news; and are as pleased to hear of the town, and which, when drawn up rea pie-bald horse that is strayed out of a ularly in the form of a newspaper, will, I field near Islington, as of a whole troop that doubt not, be very acceptable to many of have, been engaged in any foreign adven- those public-spirited readers who take more ture. In short, they have a relish for every delight in acquainting themselves with other thing that is news, let the matter of it be people's business than their own. I hope a what it will; or, to speak more properly, paper of this kind, which lets us know what they are men of a voracious appetite, but is done near home, may be more useful tc no taste. Now, sir, since the great fountain us than those which are filled with advices of news, I mean the war, is very near being from Zug and Bender, and make some dried up; and since these gentlemen have amends for that dearth of intelligence which contracted such an inextinguishable thirst e may justly apprehend from times o after it, I have taken their case and my peace. I I find that you receive this proown into consid eration, and have thought own into consideration, and have thought ject favourably, I will shortly trouble you of a project which may turn to the ad- with one or two more; and in the mean vantage of us both. I have thoughts of time am, most worthy sir, with all due publishing a daily paper, which shall co- respect, your most obedient and humble prehend in it all the most remarkable oc- servant.' C. currences in every little town, village, and hamlet, that lie within ten miles of London, or, in other words, within the verge of the penny-post. I have pitched upon Saturday, u this scene of intelligence for two reasons; first, because the carriage of letters will be Non ustata nec ten very cheap; and, secondly, because I may Penna Nor. Od. xx. Lib. 2. 1. receive them every day. By this means No weak, no common wing shall bear my readers will have their news fresh and My rising body through the air.-Creech. fresh, and many worthy citizens, who cannot sleep with any satisfaction at present, the is not a more pleasing exercis e om for want of being informed how the world the mind than gratitude. It is accompagoes, may go to bed contentedly, it being nied with such an inward satisfaction, that y design to put out my paper every night the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the at nine o'clock precisely. I have already performance. It is not ike the practice oI established correspondences in these seve- many other virtues, difficult and painful, ral places, and received very good intelli- but attended with so much pleasure, that gence.~ my~ last vwere there no positive command which engence. joined it, nor any recompence laid up for it' By my last advices from Knightsbridge, hereafter, a generous mind would indulge I hear that a horse was clapped into the in ithereaf, for t generous mificat would indulge pound on the third instant, and that he in it, for the natural gratification that acwas not released when the letters came companies it. ways nc If gratitude is due from man to man, how away.' We are informed from Pankridge,* that much more from man to his Maker! The a dozen weddings were lately celebrated in Supreme Being does not only confer upon the mother-church of that place, but are us those bounties, whh proceed morimreferred to their next letters for the names mediately from his hand, but even those of tlhe parties concerned. benefits which are conveyed to us by others. Every blessing we enjoy, by what means St.. Pancras, then a fashionable place for weddings. soever it may be derived upon us, is the No. 454.] THE SPECTATOR. 193 gift of Him who is the great Author of good, II. and Father of mercies.' how shall words with equal warmth The gratitude declare, If gratitude, when exerted towards one That glows within my ravish'd heart? another, naturally produces a very pleasing But thou canst read it there. sensation in the mind of a grateful man, it III. exalts the soul into rapture, when it is em-'Thy providence my life sustain'd, ployed on this great object of gratitude, on And all my wants redrest, When in the silent womb I lay, this beneficent Being, who has given us every And hung upon the breast. thing we already possess, and from whom we expect every thing we yet hope for. To all my weak complaints and cris Most of the works of the pagan poets Thy mercy lent an ear, were either direct hymns to their deities, Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learn'd or tended indirectly to the celebration of To form tlleselves in pray'r. their respective attributes and perfections. V. Those who are acquainted with the works'Unnumberd comforts to my soul Thy tender care bestow'd, of the Greek and Latin poets which are Before my infant heart conceiv'd still extant, will, upon reflection, find this From whom those comforts flow'd. observation so true that I shall not enlarge vI. upon it. One would wonder that more of'When in the slipp'ry paths of youth, our Christian poets have not turned their With heedless steps I ran, Thine arm unseen convey'd me safe, thoughts this way, especially if we consider And led me up to man. that our idea of the Supreme Being is not only infinitely more great and noble than,Through hidden dangers, toils, and deathl what could possibly enter into the heart of It gently clear'd my way, a heathen, but filled with every thing that And through the pleasing snares of vice, can raise the imagination, and give an op- ore to be feard than they. portunity for the sublimest thoughts and vIII. conceptions. When worn with sickness oft hast Thou With health renew'd my face, Plutarch tells us of a heathen who was And when in sins and sorrows sunk, singing a hymn to Diana, in which he cele- Revi'd my soul with grace. brated her for her delight in human sacri- Ix. fices, and other instances of cruelty and Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss revenge; upon which, a poet who was pre- Has ade mycup run o'er, And in a kind and faithful friend sent at this piece of devotion, and seems to Has doubled all my store have had a truer idea of the divine nature,. told the votary, by way of reproof, that,'Ten thousand thousand precious gifts in recompense for his hymn, he heartily My daily thanks employ; wished he might have a daughter of the Nor is the least a cheerful heart, same temper with the goddess he cele- Thattastesthosegiftsithjoy. brated. It was impossible to write the XI. praises of one of those false deities, accord- Thy goodness I'll pursuei ing to the pagan creed, without a mixture And after death, in distant worlds of impertinence and absurdity. The glorious theme renew. The Jews, who before the time of Chris- XII. tianity were the only people who had the' When nature fails and day and night knowledge of the true God, have set the Divide thy works no more, bMy ever grateful heart, O Lord, (Christian world an example how they Thy mercy shall adore. ought to employ this divine talent of which XII. I am speaking. As that nation produced Through all eternity to Thee men of great genius, without considering Ajoyful song I'llraise; them as inspired writers, they have trans- For oh! eternity's too short mitted to us many hymns and divine odes, To utter all thy praise. C which excel those that are delivered down to us by the ancient Greeks and Romans, No. 454.] Monday, August, 11, 1712. in the poetry, as much as in the subject to which it was consecrated. This I think ine me, vcivum tempus ne quod demmihi might easily be shown if there were occa- Laboris. Ter. Heaut. Act. i. Sc. L sion for it. Give me leave to allow myself no respite from labour. I have already communicated to the pub- IT is an inexpressible pleasure to know a lic some pieces of divine poetry; and, as little of the world, and be of no character they have met with a very favourable re- or significancy in it. ception, I shall from time to time publish To be ever unconcerned, and ever lookany work of the same nature, which has ing on new objects with an endless curinot yet appeared in print, and may be ac- osity, is a delight known only to those who ceptable to my readers. are turned for speculation: nay, they who I. enjoy it, must value things only as they are'When all thy mercies, 0 my God, the objects of speculation, without drawing My rising soul surveys; Transported with the view, I'm lost any worldly advantage to themselves from In wonder, love, and praise: them, but just as they are what contribute 196 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 454. to their amusement, or the improvement lieve any place more entertaining than Co. of the mind. I lay one night last week at vent-garden; where I strolled from one Richmond; and being restless, not out of fruit-shop to another, with crowds of agreedissatisfaction, but a certain busy inclina- able young women around me, who were tion one sometimes has, I rose at four in purchasing fruit for their respective famithe morning, and took boat for London, lies. It was almost eight of the clock bewith a resolution to rove by boat and coach fore I could leave that variety of objects. I for the next four-and-twenty hours, till the took coach and followed a young lady,. many different objects I must needs meet who tripped into another just before me, with should tire my imagination, and give attended by her maid. I saw immediately me an inclination to a repose more profound she was of the family of the Vain-loves. than I was at that time capable of. I beg There are a set of these, who of all things, people's pardon for an odd humour I am effect the play of Blindman's-buff, and guilty of, and was often that day, which is leading men into love for they know not saluting any person whom I like, whether whom, who are fled they know not where. I know him or not. This is a particularity This sort of woman is usually a janty slatwould be tolerated in me, if they considered tern; she hangs on her clothes, plays her that the greatest pleasure I know I receive head, varies her posture, and changes at my eyes, and that I am obliged to an place incessantly, and all with an appearagreeable person for coming a broad into ance of striving at the same time to hide my view, as another is for a visit of con- herself, and yet give you to understand she versation at their own houses. is in humour to laugh at you. You must The hours of the day and night are taken have often seen the coachmen make signs up in the cities of London and Westmin- with their fingers, as they drive by each ster, by people as different from each other other, to intimate how much they have got as those who are born in different cen- that day. They can carry on that language turies. Men of six o'clock give way to to give intelligence where they are driving. those of nine, they of nine, to the genera- In an instant my coachman took the wink tion of twelve; and they of twelve disap- to pursue; and the lady'sdriver gave the pear, and make room for the fashionable hint that he was going through Long-acre world, who have made two o'clock the noon towards St. James's: while he whipped up of the day. James-street, we drove for King-street, to When we first put off from shore, we save the pass at St. Martin's-lane. The soon fell in with a fleet of gardeners, bound coachman took care to meet, jostle, and for the several market-ports of London; threaten each other for way, and be entanand it was the most pleasing scene imagin- gled at the end of Newport-street and able to see the cheerfulness with which Long-acre. The fright, you must believe, those industrious people plyed their way brought down the lady's coach door, and to a certain sale of their goods. The banks obliged her, with her mask off, to inquire on each side are as well peopled, and beau- into the bustle,-when she sees the man tified with as agreeable plantations as any she would avoid. The tackle of the coach spot on tne earth; but the Thames itself, window is so bad she cannot draw it up loaded with the product of each shore, again, and she drives on sometimes wholly added very much to the landscape. It was discovered and sometimes half escaped, very easy to observe by their sailing, and according to the accident of carriages in the countenances of the ruddy virgins, who her way. One of these ladies keeps her were supercargoes, the part of the town to seat in a hackney-coach, as well as the best which they were bound. Their was an air rider does on a managed horse. The laced in the purveyors for Covent-garden, who shoe on her left foot, with a careless gesfrequently converse with morning rakes, ture just appearing on the opposite cushion, very unlike the seeming sobriety of those held her both firm, and in proper attitude bound for Stocks-market. to receive the next jolt. Nothing remarkable happened in our As she was an excellent coach-woman. voyage; but I landed with ten sail of apricot many were the glances at each other which boats, at Strand-bridge, after having put in we had for an hour and a half, in all parts at Nine-Elms, and taken in melons, con- of the town, by the sklil of our drivers; till signed by Mr. Cuffee, of that place, to Sarah at last my lady was conveniently lost, with Sewell and company, at their stall in Co- notice from her coachman to ours to make vent-garden. We arrived at Strand-bridge off, and he should hear where she went. at six of the clock, and were unloading, This chase was now at an end; and the when the hackney-coachmen of the fore- fellow who drove her came to us, and disgoing night took their leave of each other covered that he was ordered to come again at the Dark-House, to go to bed before the in an hour, for that she was a Silk-worm. day was too far spent. Chimney-sweepers I was surprised with this phrase, but found passed by us as we made up to the market, it was a cant among the hackney fraternity and some raillery happened between one for their best customers, women who ram of the fruit-wenches and those black men, ble twice or thrice a week from shop to about the Devil and Eve, with allusion to shop, to turn over all the goods in town their several professions. I could not be- without buying any thing. The silk-worms No. 455.] THHE SPECTATOR. 197 are, it seems, indulged by the tradesmen; wiser thoughts, I had liked to have lost my for, though they never buy, they are ever place at the chop-house, where every man, talking of new silks, laces and ribands, and according to the natural bashfulness or serve the owners in getting them customers sullenness of our nation, eats in a public as their common dunners do in making toom a mess of broth, or chop of meat, them pay. in dumb silence, as if they had no pretence The day of people of fashion began now to speak to each other on the foot of being.o break, and carts and hacks were min- men, except they were of each other's acgled with equipages of show and vanity; quaintance. when I resolved to walk it, out of cheap- I went afterwards to Robin's, and saw ness; but my unhappy curiosity is such, people who had dined with me at the fivethat I find it always my interest to take penny ordinary just before, give bills for coach; for some odd adventure among beg- the value of large estates; and could not but gars, ballad singers, or the like, detains behold with great pleasure, property lodged and throws me into expense. It happened in, and transferred in a moment from, such so immediately; for at the corner of War- as would never be masters of half as much wick-street, as I was listening to a new as is seemingly in them, and given from ballad, a ragged rascal, a beggar who knew them, every day they live. But before five me, came up to me, and began to turn the in the afternoon I left the city, came to my eyes of the good company upon me, by tell- common scene ofCovent-garden, and passed ing me he was extremely poor, and should the evening at Will's, in attending the disdie in the street for want of drink, except courses of several sets of people, who reI immediately would have the charity to lieved each other, within my hearing, on give him sixpence go into the next ale-house the subjects of cards, dice, love, learning, and save his life. He urged with a melan- and politics. The last subject kept me till choly face, that all his family had died of I heard the streets in the possession of the thirst. All the mob have humour, and two bell-man, who had now the world to himor three began to take the jest; by which self, and cried'Past two o'clock.' This Mr. Sturdy carried his point, and let me roused me from my seat; and I went to my sneak off to a coach. As I drove along, it lodgings, led by a light, whom I put into was a pleasing reflection to see the world the discourse of his private economy, and so prettily checkered since I left Richmond, made him give me an account of the charge, and the scene still filling with children of a hazard, profit, and loss of a family that denew hour. This satisfaction increased as pended upon a link, with a design to end I moved towards the city; and gay signs, my trivial day with the generosity of sixwell-disposed streets, magnificent public pence, instead of a third part of that sum. structures, and wealthy shops, adorned When I came to my chambers, I writ down with contented faces, made the joy still these minutes: but was at a loss what inrising till we came into the centre of the struction I should propose to my reader city, and centre of the world of trade, the from the enumeration of so many insignifiExchange of London. As other men in the cant matters and occurrences: and I thought crowds about me were pleased with their it of great use, if they could learn with me hopes and bargains, I found my account in to keep their minds open to gratification, observing them, in attention to their seve- and ready to receive it from any thing it ral interests. I indeed, looked upon my- meets with. This one circumstance will self as the richest man that walked the Ex- make every face you see give you the satischange that day; for my benevolence made faction you now take in beholding that of a me share the gains of every bargain that friend; will make every object a pleasing was made. It was not the least of my satis- one; will make all the good which arrives faction in my survey, to go up stairs, and to any man, an increase of happiness to pass the shops of agreeable females; to ob- yourself. T. serve so many pretty hands busy in the folding of ribands, and the utmost eagerness of agreeable faces in the sale of patches, No. 455.] Tuesday, August 12, 1712. pins, and wires, on each side of the counters, was an amusement in which I could - Ego apis matinae longer have indulged myself, had not the More modoque, Grata carpentis thyma per laborem dear creatures called to me, to ask what I Plurimum wanted, when I could not answer, only Hor. Od. ii Lib. 4 27'To look at you.' I went to one of the -- My timorous muse windows which opened to the area below Unambitious tracts pursues: Does with weak unballast wings, where all the several voices lost their dis- About the mossy brooks and springs, tinction, and rose up in a confused hum- Like the laborious bee, ming; which created in me a reflection that For tte drops of honey fly, And there with humble sweets contents her industry. could not come into the mind of any but one eeeee e e y. a little too studious; for I said to myself with a kind of pun in thought,' What non- THE following letters have in them resense is all the hurry of this world to those flections which will seem of importance who are above it?' In these, or not much both to the learned world and t-, domestic 198 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 455,.ife. There is in the first, an allegory so ment, in a wonderful variety of figures, well carried on, that it cannot. but be very colours, and scents; however, most of them pleasing to those who have a taste of good withered soon, or at best are but annuals. writing; and the other billets may have Some professed florists make them their their use m common life.' constant study and employment, and despise all fruit; and now and then a few'MR. SPECTATOR,-As I walked the fanciful people spend all their time in the other day in a fine garden, and observed cultivation of a single tulip, or a carnation. the gi eat variety of improvements in plants But the most agreeable amusement seems and flowers, beyond what they otherwise to be the well-choosing, mixing, and bindwould have been, I was naturally led into ing together these flowers in pleasing nosea reflection upon the advantages of educa- gays, to present to ladies. The scent of tion, or modern culture: how many good Italian flowers is observed, like their other qualities in the mind are lost for want of perfumes, to be too strong, and to hurt the the like due care in nursing and skilfully brain; that of the French with glaring gaudy managing them; how many virtues are colours, yet faint and languid: German and choked by the multitude of weeds which northern flowers have little or no smell, or are suffered to grow among them; how ex- sometimes an unpleasant one. The ancients cellent parts are often starved and useless, had a secret to give a lasting beauty, coby being planted in a wrong soil; and how lour, and sweetness, to some of their choice very seldom do these moral seeds produce flowers, which flourish to this day, and the noble fruits which might be expected which few of the moderns can effect. from them, by a neglect of proper manur- These are becoming enough and agreeable ing, necessary pruning, and an artful ma- in their seasons, and do often handsomely nagement of our tender inclinations and first adorn an entertainment: but an over-fondspring of life. These obvious speculations ness of them seems to be a disease. It made me at length conclude, that there is rarely happens, to find a plant vigorous a sort of vegetable principle in the mind of enough to have (like an orange-tree,) at every man when he comes into the world. once beautiful and shining leaves, fragrant In infants, the seeds lie buried and undis- flowers, and delicious, nourishing fruit.' covered, till after a while they sprout forth Sir, yours, &c.' in a kind of rational leaves, which areAugust, 172. words; and in due season the flowers begin DEAR Spc,-You have given us, in to appear in a variety of beautiful colours, you Spectator of Saturday last, a very e and all the gay pictures of youthful fancy ellent discourse upon the force of custom, and imagination; at last the fruit knits and and it s wo nderful efficcy in m in ee is formed, which is green perhaps at first, and its wonderful efficacy in making every s formned, which is green perhaps at first, thing pleasant to us. I cannot deny but that sour and unpleasant to the taste, and not fit I received above two-pennyworth of in to be gathered: till, ripened by due care strction from your paper, and in the gene and application, it discovers itself in all strcti paper, and in the gene nd applion, ductions ofrs itel i a-l ral was very well pleased with it; but I am, the noble productorns of phiosop a, ama- without a compliment, sincerely troubled thematics, close reasoning, and handsome that I cannot exactly be of your opinio argumentation. These fruits, when they that I ct makes every thing peasing t us arrive at just maturity, and are of a good that it makes eve thing pleasing to be yoked to kind, afford the most vigorous nourishment In short, I have the honour to be yoked to to the minds of men. I reflected farther a young lady, who is, in plain English, for her standing, a very eminent scold. She on the intellectual leaves before mentioned, began to break her mind very freely, both and found almost as great a variety among to me and to her servants, about two months them as in the vegetable world. I could easily observe the smooth shining Italian after our nuptials; and, though I have been easily observe the smooth shining Italian accustomed to this humour of hers these leaves, the nimble French aspen, always in three years, yet I do not know what's the motion, the Greek and Latin ever- greens, matter with me, but I am no more delighted the Spanish myrtle, the English oak, the with it than I was at the very first. I have Scotch thistle, the Irish shambrogue, the advised with her relations about her, and prickly German and Dutch holly, the Po- they all tell me that her mother and her lish acnd Russian nettle, besides a vast num- grandmother before her were both taken ber of exotics imported from Asia, Africa, much after the same manner; so that, since and America. I saw several barren plants, it runs in the blood, I have but small hopes which bore only leaves, without any hopes of her recovery. I should be glad to have of flower or fruit. The leaves of some were a little fragrant and well-shaped, and others ill- a little of your advice in this matter. I scented and irregular. I wondered at a set would not willingly trouble you to contrive how it may be a pleasure to me; if you will of old whimsical botanists, who spent their but put me in a waysure t I may bea it with whole lives in the contemplation of some indifference, I shall rest satisfied, witheredEgyptian, Coptic, Armenian, or'Dear Spec, your very humble servant. Chinese leaves; while others made it their business to collect, in voluminous herbals,'P. S. I must do the poor girl the justice all the several leaves of some one tree. The to let you know, that this match was none flowers afford a most diverting entertain- of her own choosing, (or indeed, of mill No. 456.1 THE SPECTATOR. 19 either;) in consideration of which I avoid By the coarse hands of f thy dungeon villains, giving her the least provocation; and, in- And thrownamongst the common lumber. deed, we live better together than usually Nothing indeed can be more unhappy folks do who hated one another when they than the condition of bankruptcy. The cawere first joined. To evade the sin against lamity which happens to us bv ill-fortune, parents, or at least to extenuate it, my dear or by the injury of others, has In it some rails at my father and mother, and I curse consolation; but what arises from our own hers for making the match.' misbehaviour, or error, is the state of the'August 8, 1712. most exquisite sorrow. When a man con'MR. SPECTATOR,-I like the theme siders not only an ample fortune, but even ou lately e ot e l and should the very necessaries of life, his pretence to be as glad to handle it as any man living: food itself, at the mercy of his creditors, he b R aSPgladCTohAndleiTO asRany, man~livingcanno t but look upon hi msel f in the state but I find myself no better qualified to write cannot but look upon hiself in the state about money ocean about my wife for, to of the dead, with his case thus much about monuey than about my wife; for, to worse, that the last office is performed by tellb you a secret, which I desire may go no his adversaries instead of his friends. From iraertei, I am master of neither of those his adversaries instead of his friends. From 1.rthelr, I am master of neither of those hou e cu o oe nl su bjects. Yours, PILL GARLICK.this kindthis hour the cruel world does not only subjects. Yours, PILL GARLICK.' take possession of his whole fortune, but t'MR. SPECTATOR,-I desire yu nwill even of every thing else which had no reprint this in italic, so as it may be gene- lation to it. All his indifferent actions have rally taken notice of. It is designed only to new interpretations put upon them; and admonish all persons, who speak either at those whom he has favoured in his former the bar, pulpit, or any public assembly life, discharge themselves of their obligawhatsoever, how they discover their igno- tions to him, by joining in the reproaches rance in the use of similies. There are, in of his enemies. It is almost incredible that the pulpit itself, as well as in other places, it should be so; but it is too often seen that such gross abuses in this kind, that I give there is a pride mixed with the impatience this warning to all I know. I shall bring of the creditor; and there are who would them for the future before your spectatorial rather recover their own by the downfal authority. On Sunday last, one, who shall of a prosperous man, than be discharged be nameless, reproving several of his con- to the common satisfaction of themselves gregation for standing at prayers, was and their creditors. The wretched man, pleased to say, " One would think, like the who was lately master of abundance, is elephant, you had no knees." Now I my- now under the direction of others; and the self saw an elephant, in Bartholomew fair, wisdom, economy, good sense, and skill in kneel down to take on his back the in- human life before, by reason of his present genious Mr. William Penkethman. Your misfortune, are of no use to him in the dismost humble servant.' T. position of any thing. The incapacity of an infant or a lunatic is designed for his provision and accommodation; but that of No. 456.] fWednesday, zAugust 13, 1712. a bankrupt, without any mitigation in respect of the accidents by which it arrived, De quo libelli in celeberrimis locis proponuntur, huic iS calculated for his utter ruin, except ne perire quidein tacite conceditur.-Tull. there be a remainder ample enough, aftel The man whose conduct is publicly arraigned, is not the dscharge o his credrs, ea alo suffered even to be undone quietly. the discharge of his creditors, to bear also Tod e nt hie une ye or i e e the expense of rewarding those by whose OTWAY, in his tragedy of Venice Pre- means the effect of all this labour was served, has described the misery of a man transferred from him. This man is to look whose effects are in the hands of the law, on and see others giving directions upon with great spirit. The bitterness of being what terms and conditions his goods are to the scorn and laughter of base minds, the be purchased; and all this usually done, anguish of being insulted by men hardened not with an air of trustees to dispose of his beyond the sense of shame or pity, and the effects, but destroyers to divide and tear injury of a man's fortune being wasted, un- them to pieces. der pretence of justice, are excellently ag- There is something sacred in misery to gravated in the following speech of Pierre great and good minds; for this reason all to Jaffier: makin vlo jest mi to pnin re rirnn^ to Jaffier: tyudigHahwise lawgivers have been extremely ten-'I pass' this very moment by thy doors, der how they let loose even the man who And found them guarded by a troop of villains: is sie to t it ny The sons of public rapine were destroying. has right on hs side, to act with any mixThey told me.by the sentence of the law, ture of resentment against the defendant. They had commission to seize all thy fortune; Virtuous and modest men, though they be Nay, more, Priuli's cruel hand had sign'd it. used with some artifice, and have it in Here stood a ruffian with a horrid face, used with some artifice, and have it in Lording it o'er a pile of massy plate, their power to avenge themselves, are Tumbled into a heap for public sale. slow in the application of that power, and There was another mundo king villanos jests are ever constrained to go into rigorous At thy undoing. He had taen possession Of all thy ancient most domestic ornaments, measures. They are careful to demonRich hangings intermix'd and wrought with gold; strate themselves not only persons injured, RThe very td, hich on thy wsedding-night but also that to bear it longer would be a Receivod thee to the arms of felvidera. Thve f ofrill tiN ioyvs waw violated means to make the offender injure others, SO THE SPECTATOR. [No. 457 before they proceed. Such men clap their rest of the world will regard me for yours. hands upon their hearts, and consider what There is a happy contagion in riches, as it is to have at their mercy the life of a well as a destructive one in poverty: the citizen. Such would have it to say to their rich can make rich without parting with own souls, if possible, that they were mer- any of their store; and the conversation of ciful when they could have destroyed, the poor makes men poor, though they rather than when it was in their power to borrow nothing of them. How this is to be have spared a man, they destroyed. This is accounted for I know not; but men's esti a due to the common calamity of human life, mation follows us according to the company due in some measure to our very enemies. we keep. If you are what you were to me, They who scruple in doing the least injury you can go a great way towards my recoare cautious of exacting the utmost justice. very; if you are not, my good fortune, if Let any one who is conversant in the va- ever it returns, will return by slower apriety of human life reflect upon it, and he proaches. I am, sir, your affectionate will find the man who wants mercy has a friend, and humble servant.' taste of no enjoyment of any kind. There r is a natural disrelish of every thing which s wa s answered by a con descenstro is good in his very nature, and he is born that did not, by long impertinent profesan enemy to the world. He is ever ex-sions of kindness, insult his distress, but tremely partial to himself in all his actions, was as follows: and has no sense of iniquity but from the'DEAR TOM,-I am. very glad to hear punishment which shall attend it. The that you have heart enough to begin the law of the land is his gospel, and all his world a second time. I assure you, I do cases of conscience are determined by his not think your numerous family at all diattorney. Such men know not what it is minished (in the gifts of nature, for which to gladden the heart of a miserable man; I have ever so much admired them,) by that riches are the instruments of serving what has so lately happened to you. I shall the purposes of heaven or hell, according not only countenance your affairs with my to the disposition of the possessor. The appearance for you, but shall accommowealthy can torment or gratify all who are date you with a considerable sum at comin their power, and choose to do one or mon interest for three years. You know other, as they are affected with love or I could make more of it; but I have so hatred to mankind. As for such who are great a love for you, that I can waive opinsensible of the concerns of others, but portunities of gain to help you; for I do not merely as they affect themselves, these men care whether they say of me after I am are to be valued only for their mortality, dead, that I had a hundred or fifty thousand and as we hope better things from their pounds more than I wanted when I was heirs. I could not but read with great de- living. Your obliged humble servant.' light, a letter from an eminent citizen, who T. has failed, to one who was intimate with him in his better fortune, and able by his No. 457.] Thursday, August 14, 1712. countenance to retrieve his lost condition. ~-Multa et preclara minantis. lor. Sat. iii. Lib. 2. 9'SIR,-It is in vain to multiply words Seeing to promise e-mething wondrous great. and make apologies for what is never to be defended by the best advocate in the world, I SHALL this day lay before my readers the guilt of being unfortunate. All that a a letter, written by the same hand with man in my condition can do or say, will be that of last Friday, which contained proreceived with prejudice by the generality posals for a printed newspaper that should of mankind, but I hope not with you: you take in the whole circle of the penny-post. have been a great instrument in helping'SIR, — The kind reception you gave my me to get what I have lost; and I know (for last Friday's'letter, in which I broached that reason, as well as kindness to me) you project ofa newspaper, encourages me cannot but be in pain to see me undone. to lay before you two or three more; for, To show you I am not a man incapable of you must know, sir, that we look upon you bearing calamity, I will, though a poor to be the Lowndes of thae learned wold, man, lay aside the distinction between us, and cannot think any scheme practicable and talk with the frankness we did when or rational before you have approved of it, we were nearer to an equality: as all I do or rto al befe you have approved o i t will be received with prejudice, all you do though all the money we raise by it is in will be received uwith prejudice, all you d our own funds, and for our private use. will be looked upon with partiality. What' I have often thought that a news-letter 1 desire of you is, that you, who are court- of whispers, written every post, and sent ed by all, would smile upon me, who am about the kingdom, after the same manner shunned by all. Let that grace and favour as that of Mr. Dyer, Mr. Dawkes, or any.which your fortune throws upon you, be her epistolary historian, might be highly turned to make up the coldness annd indif- other e pislar hisria, i bene - ference that is used towards me. All gratifying to the public, as well as benegood and generous men Will have an eye of * Secretary at this time of the treasury, and director rindness for me for my own sake, and the of the mint. Nc. 458.] THE SPECTATOR. 201 ficial to the author By whispers I mean innocent young woman big with child, those pieces of news which are communi- or fill a healthy young fellow with distem sated as secrets, and which bring a double pers that are not to be named. She can pleasure to the hearer: first, as they are turn a visit into an intrigue, and a distant private history; and, in the next place, as salute into an assignation. She can beggar they have always in them a dash of scan- the wealthy, and degrade the noble. In dal. These are the two chief qualifications short, she can whisper men base or foolish, in an article of news, which recommend it jealous or ill-natured: or, if occasion rein a more than ordinary manner, to the quires, can tell you the slips of their great ears of the curious. Sickness of persons in grandmothers, and traduce the memory of high posts, twilight visits paid and receiv- honest coachmen, that have been in their ed by ministers of state, clandestine court- graves above these hundred years. By ships and marriages, secret amours, losses these and the like helps, I question not but at play, applications for places, with their I shall furnish out a very handsome newsrespective successes and repulses, are the letter. If you approve my project, I shall materials in which I chiefly intend to deal. begin to whisper by the very next post, I have two persons, that are each of them and question not but every one of my custhe representative of a species, who are to tomers will be very well pleased with me, furnish me with those whispers which I when he considers that every piece of news intend to convey to my correspondents. I send him is a word in his ear, and lets The first of these is Peter Hush, descend- him into a secret. ed from the ancient family of the Hushes.' Having given you a sketch of this proThe other is the old lady Blast, who has a ject, I shall, in the next place, suggest to very numerous tribe of daughters in the you another for a monthly pamphlet, which two great cities of London and Westmin- I shall likewise submit to your spectatorial ster. Peter Hush has a whispering-hole wisdom. I need not tell you, sir, that there in most of the great coffee-houses about are several authors in France, Germany, town. If you are alone with him in a wide and Holland, as well as in our own counroom, he carries you up into a corner of it, try,* who publish every month what they and speaks in your ear. I have seen Peter call An Account of the Works of the seat himself in a company of seven or eight Learned, in which they give us an abstract persons whom he never saw before in his of all such books as are printed in any part life; and, after having looked about to see of Europe. Now, sir, it is my design to there was no one that overheard him, has publish every month, An Account of the communicated to them in a low voice, and Works of the Unlearned. Several late under the seal of secresy, the death of a productions of my own countrymen, who; great man in the country, who was, per- many of them make a very eminent figure haps, a fox-hunting the very moment this in the illiterate world, encourage me in this account was given of him. If upon your undertaking. I may, in this work, possibly entering into a coffee-house you see a circle make a review of several pieces which of heads bending over the table, and lying have appeared in the foreign accounts above close to one another, it is ten to one but my mentioned, though they ought not to have friend Peter is among them. I have known been taken notice of in works which bear Peter publishing the whisper of the day by such a title. I may likewise take into coneight o'clock in the morning at Garra- sideration such pieces as appear, from time way's, by twelve at Will's, and before two to time, under the names of those gentleat the Smyrna. When Peter has thus ef- men who compliment one another in public fectually launched a secret, I have been assemblies, by the title of " The Learned very well pleased to hear people whis- Gentlemen." Our party-authors will also pering it to one another at second-hand, afford me a great variety of subjects, not to and spreading it about as their own; for mention the editors, commentators, and you must know, sir, the great incentive to others, who are often men of no learning, whispering is the ambition which every or, what is as bad, of no knowledge. I shall one has of being thought in the secret, and not enlarge upon this hint; but if you think being looked upon as a man who has ac- any thing can be made of it, I shall set cess to greater people than one would ima- about it with all the pains and application gine. After having given you this account that so useful a work deserves. I am ever, of Peter Hush, I proceed to that virtuous most worthy sir, &c.' C. lady, the old lady Blast, who is to communicate to me the private transactions of the crimp-table, with all the arcana of the No. 458.] Friday, August 15, 1712. fair-sex. The lady Blast, you must under- Aws awyax —-, Hes. stand, has such a particular malignity in Pudor malus- -Hor. her whisper, that it blights like an easterly False modesty. wind, and withers every reput n that i I not but smile at the account tha. breathes upon. She has a particular knack at making private weddings, and last win- was yesterday given me of a modest young ter married above five women of quality to * Mr. Michael de la Roche, 38 vols. 8vo. in Engl. un their footmen. Her whisper can make an der different titles; and in Fr. 8 tomes, 24mo, VOL. II. 26 202 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 458. gentleman, who, being invited to an enter- nature, that men should not be ashamed of tainment, though he was not used to drink, speaking or acting in a dissolute or irrahad not the confidence to refuse his glass in tional manner, but that one who is in their his turn, when on a sudden he grew so flus- company should be ashamed of governing tered, that he took all the talk of the table himself by the principles of reason and into his cwn hands, abused every one of the virtue. company, and flung a bottle at the gentle- In the second place, we are to consider man's head who treated him. This has false modesty as it restrains a man from given me occasion to reflect upon the ill doing what is good and laudable. My reaeffects of a vicious modesty, and to remem- der's own thoughts will suggest to him ber the saying of Brutus, as it is quoted by many instances and examples under this Plutarch, that'the person has had but an head. I shall only dwell upon one reflecill education, who has not been taught to tion, which I cannot make without a secret deny any thing.' This false kind of mo- concern. We have in England a particudesty has, perhaps, betrayed both sexes lar bashfulness in every thing that regards into as many vices as the most abandoned religion. A well-bred man is obliged to impudence; and is the more inexcusable conceal any serious sentiment of this nato reason, because it acts to gratify others ture, and very often to appear a greater rather than itself, and is punished with a libertine than he is, that he may keep himkind of remorse, not only like other vicious self in countenance among the men of mode. habits when the crime is over, but even at Our excess of modesty makes us shamethe very time that it is committed. faced in all the exercises of piety and devoNothing is more amiable than true mo- tion. This humour prevails upon us daily; desty, and nothing is more contemptible insomuch that, at many well-bred tables, than the false. The one guards virtue, the the master of the house is so very modest a other betrays it. True modesty is ashamed man, that he has not the confidence to say to do any thing that is repugnant to the rules grace at his own table: a custom which is of right reason; false modesty is ashamed not only practised by all the nations about to do any thing that is opposite to the hu- us, but was never omitted by the heathens mour of the company. True modesty avoids themselves. English gentlemen, who travel every thing that is criminal, false modesty into Roman-catholic countries, are not a litevery thing that is unfashionable. The latter tle surprised to meet with people of the best is only a general undetermined instinct; the quality kneeling in their churches, and enformer is that instinct, limited and circum- gaged in their private devotions, though it scribed by the rules of prudence and re- be not at the hours of public worship. An igion. officer of the army, or a man of wit and We may conclude that modesty to be pleasure, in those countries, would be afraid false and vicious which engages a man to of passing not only for an irreligious, but an do any thing that is ill or indiscreet, or ill-bred man, should he be seen to go to bed, which restrains him from doing any thing or sit down at table, without offering up that is of a contrary nature. How many his devotions on such occasions. The same men, in the common concerns of life, lend show of religion appears in all the foreign sums of money which they are not able to reformed churches, and enters so much in spare, are bound for persons whom they their ordinary conversation, that an Enghave but little friendship for, give recom- lishman is apt to term them hypocritical mendatory characters of men whom they are and precise. not acquainted with, bestow places on those This little appearance of a religious dewhom they do not esteem, live in such a portment in our nation, may proceed in manner as they themselves do not approve, some measure from that modesty which is and all this merely because they have not natural to us; but the great occasion of it the confidence to resist solicitation, impor- is certainly this. Those swarms of sectatunity, or example! ries that overran the nation in the time of Nor does this false modesty expose us the great rebellion, carried their hypocrisy only to such actions as are indiscreet, but so high, that they had converted our whole very often to such as are highly criminal. language into a jargon of enthusiasm: inWhen Xenophanes was called timorous, somuch, that upon the restoration, men because he would not venture his money in thought they could not recede too far from a game of dice:'I confess,' said he,'that the behaviour and practice of those perI am exceeding timorous, for I dare not do sons who had made religion a cloak to so an ill thing.' On the contrary, a man of many villanies. This led them into the vicious modesty complies with every thing, other extreme; every appearance of devoand is only fearful of doing what may look tion was looked upon as puritanical, and singular in the company where he is en- falling into the hands of the'ridiculers' gaged. He falls in with the torrent, and who flourished in that reign, and attacked lets himself go to every action or discourse, every thing that was serious, it has ever however unjustifiable in itself, so it be in since been out of countenance among us. vogue among the present party. This, By this means we are gradually fallen into though one of the most common, is one of that vicious modesty, which has in some the most ridiculous dispositions in human measure worn out from among us the 3p No. 459.] THE SPECTAI OR. 205 pearance of Christianity in ordinary life Fourthly, Because the rule of morality and conversation, and which distinguishes is much more certain than that of faith, all us from all our neighbours. the civilized nations of the world agreeing Hypocrisy cannot indeed be too much in the great points of morality, as much as detested, but at the same time it is to be they differ in those of faith. preferred to open impiety. They are both Fifthly, Because infidelity is not of so ma equally destructive to the person who is lignant a nature as immorality; or, to put possessed with them; but, in regard to the same reason in another light, because others, hypocrisy is not so pernicious as it is generally owned, there may be salvabare-faced irreligion. The due mean to be tion for a virtuous infidel, (particularly in observed is,'to be sincerely virtuous, and the case of invincible ignorance,) but none at the same time to let the world see we are for a vicious believer. so.' I do not know a more dreadful me- Sixthly, Because faith seems to draw its nace in the holy writings, than that which principal, if not all its excellency, from the is pronounced against those who have this influence it has upon morality; as we shall perverted modesty to be ashamed before see more at large, if we consider wherein men in a particular of such unspeakable consists the excellency of faith, or the beimportance. lief of revealed religion; and this I think is, First, In explaining, and carrying to greater height, several points of morality. No. 459.] Saturday, August 16, 1712. Secondly, In furnishing new and stronger motives to enforce the practice of morality. -Quicquid dignum sapiente bonoque est. Thirdly, In giving us more amiable ideas Hor. Ep. iv. Lib. 1. 5. of the Supreme Being, more endearing no-.Whate'er befits the wise and good.-Creech. tions of one another, and a truer state of RELIGION may be considered under two ourselves, both in regard to the grandeur general heads. The first comprehends what and vileness of our natures. we are to believe, the other what we are to Fourthly, By showing us the blackness practise. By those things which we are to and deformity of vice, which in the Chrisbelieve, I mean whatever is revealed to us tian system is so very great, that he who is in the holy writings, and which we could possessed of all perfection, and the sovenot have obtained the knowledge of by the reign judge of it, is represented by several light of nature; by the things which we are of our divines as hating sin to the same deto practise, I mean all those duties to which gree that he loves the sacred person who we are directed by reason or natural reli- was made the propitiation of it. gion. The first of these I shall distinguish Fifthly, In being the ordinary and pre by the name of faith, the second by that of scribed method of making morality effectual morality. to salvation. If we look into the more serious part of I have only touched on these several mankind, we find many who lay so great a heads, which every one who is conversant stress upon faith, that they neglect mo- in discourses of this nature will easily onrality; and many who build so much upon large upon in his own thoughts, and draw morality, that they do not pay a due regard conclusions from them which may be useful to faith. The perfect man should be defec- to him in the conduct of his life. One I am tive in neither of these particulars, as will sure is so obvious that he cannot miss it, be very evident to those who consider the namely, that a man cannot be perfect in his benefits which arise from each of them, and scheme of morality, who does not strengthen which I shall make the subject of this day's and support it with that of the Christian paper. faith. Notwithstanding this general division of Besides this, I shall lay down two or three Christian duty into morality and faith, and other maxims, which I think we may dethat they have both their peculiar excel- duce from what has been said. lencies, the first has the pre-eminence in First, That we should be particularly several respects. cautious of making any thing an article of First, Because the greatest part of mo- faith, which does not contribute to the conrality (as I have stated the notion of it,) is firmation or improvement of morality. of a fixed eternal nature, and will endure Secondly, That no article of faith can be when faith shall fail, and be lost in convic- true and authentic, which weakens or subtion. verts the practical part of religion, or what Secondly, Because a person may be qua- I have hitherto called morality. lified to do greater good to mankind, and Thirdly, That the greatest friend of mo become more beneficial to the world, by rality and natural religion cannot possibly morality without faith, than by faith with- apprehend any danger from embracing out morality. Christianity, as it is preserved pure and Thirdly, Because morality gives a greater uncorrupt in the doctrines of our national perfection to human nature, by quieting the church. mind, moderating the passions, and advanc- There is likewise another maximn which ng the happiness of every man in his private capacity. * The Gospel. 204 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 460. I think may be drawn from the foregoing heads; two that dwelt in sorcery, and were considerations, which is this, that we should, famous for bewitching people with the love in all dubious points, consider any ill con- of themselves. To these repaired a multisequences that may arise from them, sup- tude from every side, by two different paths posing they should be erroneous, before we which lead towards each of them. Some give up our assent to them. who had the most assuming air went directly For example, In that disputable point of of themselves to Error, without expecting persecuting men for conscience sake, be- a conductor; others of a softer nature went sides the embittering their minds with first to Popular Opinion, from whence, as hatred, indignation, and all the vehemence she influenced and engaged them with their of resentment, and ensnaring them to pro- own praises, she delivered them over to his fess what they do not believe, we cut them government. off from the pleasures and advantages of When we had ascended to an open part society, afflict their bodies, distress their of the summit where Opinion abode, we fortunes, hurt their reputations, ruin their found her entertaining several who had ar families, make their lives painful, or put rived before us. Her voice was pleasing; an end to them. Sure when I see such she breathed odours as she spoke. She dreadful consequences rising from a princi- seemed to have a tongue for every one; pie, I would be as fully convinced of the every one thought he heard of something truth of it, as of a mathematical demonstra- that was valuable in himself, and expected a tion, before I would venture to act upon it, paradise which she promised as the reward or make it a part of my religion. of his merit. Thus were we drawn to folIn this case the injury done our neighbour low her, till she should bring us where it is plain and evident; the principle that puts was to be bestowed; and it was observable us upon doing it, of a dubious and disputable that, all the way we went, the company nature. Morality seems highly violated by was either praising themselves in their the one; and whether or no a zeal for what qualifications, or one another for those a man thinks the true system of faith may qualifications which they took to be conjustify it, is very uncertain. I cannot but spicuous in their own characters, or disthink, if our religion produces charity as praising others for wanting theirs, or vying well as zeal, it will not be for showing itself in the degrees of them. by such cruel instances. But to conclude At last we approached a bower, at the with the words of an excellent author,' We entrance of which Error was seated. The have just enough of religion to make us trees were thick woven, and the place hate, but not enough to make us love' one where he sat artfully contrived to darken another.' him a little. He was disguised in a whitish -_ ================= -robe, which he had put on, that he might appear to us with a nearer resemblance to No. 460.] Monday, August 18, 1712. Truth; and as she has a light whereby she manifests the beauties of nature to the eyes Decipimur specie recti- Hr. irs Poet. v. 25. of her adorers, so he had provided himself Deluded by a seeming excellence.-Rsconmmn. with a magical wand, that he might do OUR defects and follies are too often un- something in imitation of it, and please with known to us; nay, they are so far from being delusions. This he lifted solemnly, and, known to us, that they pass for demonstra- muttering to himself, bid the glories which tions of our worth. This makes us easy in he kept under enchantment to appear bethe midst of them, fond to show them, fond fore us. Immediately we cast our eyes on to improve them, and to be esteemed for that part of the sky to which he pointed, them. Then it is that a thousand unac- and observed a thin blue prospect, which countable conceits, gay inventions, and ex- cleared as mountains in a summer morning travagant actions, must afford us pleasures, when the mist goes off, and the palace of and display us to others in the colours which Vanity appeared to sight. we ourselves take a fancy to glory in. In- The foundation seemed hardly a foundadeed there is something so amusing for the tion, but a set of curling clouds, which it time in this state of vanity and ill-grounded stood upon by magical contrivance. The satisfaction, that even the wiser world has way by which we ascended was painted chosen an exalted word to describe its en- like a rainbow; and as we went, the breeze chantments and called it,' The Paradise that played about us bewitched the senses. of Fools.' The walls were gilded all for show; the Perhaps the latter part of this reflection lowest set of pillars were of the slight fine may seem a false thought to some, and bear Corinthian order, and the top of the buildanother turn than what I have given; but it ing being rounded, bore so far the resemis at present none of my business to look blance of a bubble. after it, who am going to confess that I have At the gate the travellers neither met been lately amongst them in a vision. with a porter, nor waited till one should Methought I was transported to a hill, appear; every one thought his merits a sufgreen, flowery, and of an easy ascent. ficient passport, and pressed forward. In Upon the broad top of it resided squint-eyed the hall we met with several phantoms, Error, and Popular Opinionl with many that roved amongst us, and ranged the No. 460.] THE SPECTATOR. 205 company according to their sentiments, and I heard it firmly resolved, that he There was decreasing Honour, that had should be used no better wherever they nothing to show but an old coat of his an- met with him hereafter. cestor's achievements. There was Ostenta- I had already seen the meaning of most tion, that made himself his own constant part of that warning which he had given, subject; and Gallantry strutting upon his and was considering how the latter words tiptoes. At the upper end of the hall stood should be fulfilled, when a mighty noise a throne, whose canopy glittered with all was heard without, and the door was blackthe riches that gayety could contrive to ened by a numerous train of harpies crowdlavish on it; and between the gilded arms ing in upon us. Folly and Broken-Credit sat Vanity, decked in the peacock's fea- were seen in the house before they entered. thers, and acknowledged for another Venus Trouble, Shame, Infamy, Scorn, and Poby her votaries. The boy who stood beside verty, brought up the rear. Vanity, with her for a Cupid, and who made the world her Cupid and Graces, disappeared; her to bow before her, was called Self-Conceit. subiects ran into holes and corners; but His eyes had every now and then a cast many of them were found and carried off inwards, to the neglect of all objects about (as I was told by one who stood near me) him; and the arms which he made use of either to prisons or cellars, solitude, or little for conquest, were borrowed from those company, the mean arts or the viler crafts against whom he had a design. The arrow of life.' But these,' added he, with a diswhich he shot at.the soldier, was fledged dainful air,' are such who would fondly live from his own plume of feathers; the dart here, when their merits neither matched he directed against the man of wit, was the lustre of the place, nor their riches its winged from the quills he writ with; and expenses. VVe have seen such scenes as that which he sent against those who pre- these before now; the glory you saw will all sumed upon their riches, was headed with return when the hurry is over.' I thanked gold out of their treasuries. He made nets him for his information; and believing him for statesmen from their own contrivances; so incorrigible as that he would stay till it he took fire from the eyes of the ladies, was his turn to be taken, I made off to the with which he melted their hearts; and door, and overtook some few, who, though lightning from the tongues of the eloquent, they would not hearken to Plain-Dealing, to inflanie them with their own glories. At were now terrified to good purpose by the the foot of the throne sat three false Graces; example of others. But when they had Flattery with a shell of paint, Affectation touched the threshold, it was a strange with a mirror to practise at, and Fashion shock to them to find that the delusion of ever changing the posture of her clothes. Error was gone, and they plainly discerned These applied themselves to secure the the building to hang a little up in the air conquests which Self-Conceit had gotten, without any real foundation. At first we and had each of them their particular saw nothing but a desperate leap remained polities. Flattery gave new colours and for us, and I a thousand times blamed my complexions to all things; Affectation new unmeaning curiosity that had brought me airs and appearances, which, as she said, into so much danger. But as they began to were not vulgar; and Fashion both con- sink lower in their own minds, methought cealed some home defects, and added some the palace sunk along with us, till they foreign external beauties. were arrived at the due point of esteem As I was reflecting upon what I saw, I which they ought to have fdr themselves, heard a voice in the crowd bemoaning the then the part of the building in which they condition of mankind, which is thus managed stood touched the earth, and we departing by the breath of Opinion, deluded by Error, out, it retired from our eyes. Now, whether fired by Self-Conceit, and given up to be they who stayed in the palace were sensible trained in all the courses of Vanity, till of this descent, I cannot tell: it was then Scorn or Poverty come upon us. These ex- my opinion that they were not. However pressions were no sooner handed about, but it be, my dream broke up at it, and has I immediately saw a general disorder, till given me occasion all my life to reflect upon at last there was a parting in one place, and the fatal consequences of following the suga grave old man, decent and resolute, was gestions of Vanity. led forward to be punished for the words he had uttered. He appeared inclined to have'MR. SPECTATOR,-I write to you to despoken in his own defence, but I could not sire that you would again touch upon a cerobserve that any one was willing to hear tain enormity, which is chiefly in use among him. Vanity cast a scornful smile at him; the politer andbetter-bred part of mankind; Self-Conceit was angry; Flattery, who I mean the ceremonies, bows, courtesies, knew him for Plain-Dealing, put on a whisperings, smiles, winks, nods, with vizard, and turned away; Affectation tossed other familiar arts of salutation, which take her fan, made mouths, and called him Envy up in our churches so much time that might or Slander: and Fashion would have it, that be better employed, and which seem so at least he must be Ill-manners. Thus utterly inconsistent with the duty and true slighted and despised by all, he was driven intent of our entering into those religious out for abusing people of merit and figure; assemblies. The resemblance which this 2G6 THFE SPECTATOR. [No. 461. bears to our indeed proper behaviour in reform the taste of a profane age; and pertheatres, may be some instance of its in- suade us to be entertained with divine congruity in the above-mentioned places. poems, whilst we are distinguished by so In Roman-catholic churches and chapels many thousand humours, and split into so abroad, I myself have observed, more than many different sects and parties; yet peronce, persons of the first quality, of the sons of every party, sect, and humour, are nearest relation, and intimatest acquaint- fond of conforming their taste to yours. ance, passing by one another unknowing as You can transfuse your own relish of a it were, and unknown, and with so little poem into all your rea4ers, according to notice of each other, that it looked like their capacity to receive; and when you having their minds more suitably and more recommend the pious passion that reigns solemnly engaged; at least it was an ac- in the verse, we seem to feel the devotion, knowledgment that they ought to have been and grow proud and pleased inwardly, that so. I have been told the same even of we have souls capable of relishing what the Mahometans, with relation to the propriety Spectator approves. of their demeanour in the conventions of' Upon reading the hymns that you have their erroneous worship; and I cannot but published in some late papers, I had a mind think either of them sufficient laudable to try yesterday whether I could write one. patterns for our imitation in this particular. The cxivth psalm appears to me an ad-'I cannot help, upon this occasion, re- mirable ode, and I began to turn it into our marking on the excellent memories of language. As I was describing the journey those devotionists, who upon returning from of Israel from Egypt, and added the Divine church shall give a particular account how Presence amongst them, I perceived a two or three hundred people were dressed: beauty in this psalm which was entirely a thing, by reason of its variety, so difficult new to me, and which I was going to lose; to be digested and fixed in the head, that and that is that the poet utterly conceals it is a miracle to me how two poor hours the presence of God in the beginning of it, of divine service can be time sufficient for and rather lets a possessive pronoun go so elaborate an undertaking, the duty of without a substantive, than he will so much the place too being jointly, and no doubt as mention any thing of divinity there. oft pathetically, performed along with it. "Judah was his sanctuary and Israel his Where it is said in sacred writ, that "the dominion or kingdom." T he reason now woman ought to have a covering on her seems evident, and this conduct necessary: head because of the angels," the last word for, if God had appeared before, there is by some thought to be metaphorically could be no wonder why the mountains used, and to signify young men. Allowing should leap and the sea retire: therefore, this interpretation to be right, the text that this convulsion of nature may be may not appear to be wholly foreign to our brought in with dln surprise, his name is present purpose. not mentioned till afterward; and then,'When you are in a disposition proper with a very agreeable turn of thought, God for writing on such a subject, I earnestly is introduced at once in all his majesty. recommend this to you; and am, sir, your This is what I have attempted to imitate humble servant.' T. in a translation without paraphrase, and to preserve what I could of the spirit of the sacred author. No. 461. ] Tuesday, August 19, 1712.' If the following essay be not too incorri -Sed non ego credulis illus. Yig. Ede. ix. 34. gible, bestow upon it a few brightenings from your genius, that I may learn how to But I discern their flatt'ry from their praise. write better, or to write no more. Your daily admirer and humble servant,* &c. FoR want of time to substitute something PSALM cxiv else in the room of them, I am at present. obliged to publish compliments above my " hen Israel, freed from Pharaoh's hand desert in the following letters. It is no Left the proud tyrant and his land, small satisfaction to have given occasion to The tribes with cheerful homage own Their king, and Judah was his throne. ingenious men to employ their thoughts upon sacred subjects from the approbation " Across the deep their journey lay, of such pieces of poetry as they have seen The deep divides to make them way: in my Saturday's papers. I shall never Thestreams of Jordansaw, andfledt With backward current to their head. publish verse on that day but what is written by the same hand:* yet I shall not ac- The mountains shook like frighted sheep company those writings with eulogiums, Like lambs the little hillocks leap; but leave them to speak for themselves. Not Sinai on her base could stand, Conscious of sov'reign power at hand. For the Spfectator. IV. " X7What power could make the deep divide? MR. SPECTATOR,-YOU very much pro- Make Xordan backward roll his tide? mote the interests of virtue, while you * Dr. Isaac Watts. t Jordan beheld their march, and fled * Addison With backward current to his head.-W-atts'j Ps. No. 462.] THE SPECTATOR. 207 Why did ye leap, ye little hills? certain carelessness, that constantly at And whence the fright that Sinai feels? tends all his actions, carries him on with V. greater success than diligence and assiduity'Let every mountain, every flood, does others who have no share in this enRetire, and know th' approaching God, The King of Israel. See him here; dowment. Dacinthus breaks his word upor Tremble, thou earth, adore and fear. all occasions, both trivial and important VI. and, when he is sufficiently railed at for' He thunders-and all nature mourns; that abominable quality, they who talk of The rock to standing pools he turns. him end with, After all he is a very Flints spring with fountains at his word, him end with,'Afte all, e is avery And fires and seas confess their Lord." pleasant fellow.' Dacinthus is an ill-natur-'MR. SPECTATOR,-There are those ed husband, and yet the very women end who take the advantage of your putting a their freedom of discourse upon this subhalfpenny value upon yourself, above the ject,'But, after all, he is very pleasant rest of our daily writers, to defame you in company. Dacinthus is neither, in point public conversation, and strive to make you of honour, civlity, good breeding, or goodunpopular upon the account of this said nature, unexceptionable; and yet all is anhalfpenny. But, if I were you, I would in- swered,' For he is a vey pleasant fellow.' sist upon that small acknowledgment for When this quality is conspicuous in a man the superior merit of yours, as being a work who has, to accompany it, manly and virof invention. Give me leave, therefore, to tuous sentiments, there cannot certainly be do you justice, and say in your behalf, any thing which cal give so pleasing a what you cannot yourself, which is, that gratification as the gayety of such a person; yurdwritings ahav moare yorearhis, tat but when it is alone, and serves only to gild your writings have made learning a moge a crowd of ill qualities, there is no man so necessary part of good-breeding than it was ch o aoi as or easant ell come fashionable, and impudence stands in A very pleasant fellow shall turn your good come fashionable, and impudence stands in name to a jest, make your character conneed of some wit, since you have put them name to a est, make your character conboth in their proper lights. Profaneness, temptible, debauch your wife or daughter, lewdness, and debauchery, are not now and yet be received by the rest of the world qualfications; and a man may be a very with welcome wherever he appears. It is fine gentleman, though he is neither a very ordinary with those of this character keeper nor lan, tking efidel, twer a to be attentive only to their own satisfacI would have you tell the town the story tions, and have very little bowels for the,m' I w ould have you terientwll the te sorrows of other men; nay of the Sibyls, if they deny giving you two concerns or sorrows of other men; nay, pence. Let them know, that those sacred they are capable of purchasing their own papers were valued at the same rate after pleasures at the expense of giving pain two tirds of them were destroyed, as when to others. But they who do not consider tw third s othe whole sts There are so this sort of men thus carefully, are irrethere was the whole set. There are so sistibly exposed to their insinuations. The many of us who will give you your ownauthor of the following letter carries the price, that you may acquaint your non-con- author of thie g atoin let ter carr the li formist readers, that they shall not have it, matter so high, as to intimate th e liberexcept they come in within such a day, ties of Englarnd have been at the mercy of under three pence. i do not know but you a prince, merely as he was of this pleasant might bring in the Date Obolum Belisario character. with a good grace. The witlings come'MR. SPECTATOR,-There is no on in clusters to two or three coffee-houses'Ms. SE CTATOa, —There s no ont which have left you off; and I hope you passion which all mankind so naturally who fine to your wit, merry give into as pride, or any other passior will make us,. who fine to your wit, merry which appears in such different disguises with their characters who stand out against it is to be found in all habits and com;t. I am your most humble servant.d com:t. I am your most humble servant. plexions. It is not a question, whether if'P. S. I have lately got the ingenious does more harm or good in the world; and authors of blacking for shoes, powder for if there be not such a thing as what we may colouring the hair, pomatum for the hands, call a virtuous and laudable pride? cosmetic for the face, to be your constant'It is this passion alone, when misap. customers; so that your advertisements will plied, that lays us so open to flatterers; and as tnuch adorn the outward man, as your he who can agreeably condescend to soothe paper does the inward.' T. our humour or temper, finds always an open avenue to our soul; especially if the N o. 462.1 I'/ednesday, August 20, 1712. flatterer happen to be our superior., One might give many instances of this Nil ego pretulerim jocundo sanus amico. in a late English monarch, under the title Ifor. Sat. V. i.. 44. of "The gayeties of king Charles II." Nothing so grateful as a pleasant friend. This prince was by nature extremely faPEOPLE are not aware of the very great miliar, of very easy access, and much deforce which pleasantry in company has lighted to see and be seen; and this happy apon all th-.ose with whom a man of that temper, which in the highest degree gratalent converses. His faults are generally tified his people's vanity, did him more nverlooked by all his acquaintance; ana - service with his loving subjects than all 208 THE SPECTATOR, [No. 463. his other virtues, though it must be con- and did the crown many and great services; fessed he had many. He delighted, though and it was owing to this humour of the king a mighty king, to give and take a jest, as that his family had so great a fortune shut they say: and a prince of this fortunate dis- up in the exchequer of their pleasant position, who were inclined to make an ill sovereign. The many good-natured condeuse of his power, may have any thing of scensions of this prince are vulgarly known; his people, be it never so much to their and it is excellently said of him, by a great prejudice. But this good king made gene- handt which writ his character, " That he rally a very innocent use, as to the public was not a king a quarter of an hour togeof this ensnaring temper; for, it is well ther in his whole reign." He would reknown he pursued pleasure more than am- ceive visits even from fools and half madbition. He seemed to glory in being the men, and at times I have met with people first man at cock-matches, horse-races, who have boxed, fought at back-sword, balls, and plays; he appeared highly de- and taken poison before king Charles II. lighted on those occasions, and never failed In a word, he was so pleasant a man, that to warm and gladden the heart of every no one could be sorrowful under his governspectator. He more than once dined with ment. This made him capable of baffling, his good citizens of London on their lord- with the greatest ease imaginable, all sugmayor's day, and did so the year that Sir gestions of jealousy; and the people could Robert Viner was mayor. Sir Robert was not entertain notions of any thing terrible a very loyal man, and, if you will allow the in him, whom they saw every way agreeexpression, very fond of his sovereign; but, able. This scrap of the familiar part of what with the joy he felt at heart for the that prince's history I thought fit to send honour done him by his prince, and through you, in compliance to the request you lately the warmth he was in with continual toast- made to your correspondents. I am, sir, ing healths to the royal family, his lordship your most humble servant.' grew a little fond of his majesty, and en- T. tered into a familiarity not altogether so graceful in so public a place. The king understood very well how to extricate him- No. 463.] Thursday,.August 21, 1712. self in all kinds of difficulties, and, with auntr v dn Omnia qulre sensu volvuntur vota diurno, hint to the company to avoid ceremony, Pectore sopito reddit amica quies. stole off and made towards his coach, Venator defessa toro cum membra reponit, which stood ready for him in Guildhall- Mens tamen ad sylvas et sua lustra redit: wh sood read for 1. in G ldal Judicibus lites, aurige somnia currus. yard. But the mayor liked his company so Vanaque nocturnis meta cavetur equis. well, and was grown so intimate, that he Me quoque lusarum studium sub nocte silenti pursued him hastily, and catching him fast Artibus assuetis solicitare solet. Claud. by the hand, cried out with a vehement In sleep when fancy is let loose to play, oath and accent, "~Sir, you shall stay and Our dreams repeat the wishes of the lay. oath and accent, S ir, y ou shall stay and Though farther toils his tired limbs refuse, take t'other bottle." The airy monarch The dreaming hunter still the chase pursues. looked kindly at him over his shoulder, and The judge a-bed dispenses still the laws with a smile and graceful air (for I saw him n seeps again o'er the unfinishd cause. attetm, an o nw rpae ti ln The dozing racer hears his chariot roll, at the time, and do now) repeated this line Smacks the vain whip, and shuns the fancy'd goal. of the old song: Me too the Muses, in the silent night, With wonted chimes of jingling verse delight. " He that is drunk is as great as a king;"n and immediately turned back and complied I WAS lately entertaining myself with with is l andlord. comparing Homer's balance, in which JuI give you this story, Mr. Spectator, piter is represented as weighing the fates because, as I said, I saw the passage; and of Hector and Achilles, with a passage of I assure you it is ery true, and yet no com- Virgil, wherein that deity is introduced as mon one; and when I tell you the sequel, weighing the fates of Turnus and Eneas. you will say I have a better reason for it. I then considered how the same way of This very mayor, afterwards erected a statue thinking prevailed in the eastern parts of of his merry monarch in Stocks-market,* the world, as in those oble passages of Scripture, wherein we are told, that the * "The Mansion-house and many adjacent buildings, great king of Babylon, the day before his stand on the site of Stocks-market; which took its death, had been'weighed in the balante, name from a pair of stocks for the punishment of of- and been found wanting.' In other places fenders, erected in an open place near this spot, as of the holy writings, the Almighty is deearly as the year 1281. This was the great market of the city during many centuries. In it stood the famous scribed as weighing the mountains in scales, equestrian statue erected in honour of Charles II. by making the weight for the winds, knowing his most loyal subject sir Robert Viner, lord-mayor. the balancings of the clouds; and in others, Fortunately his lordship discovered one (made at Leg- horn) of John Sobieski, King of Poland, trampling on a as weighing the actions of men, and laying Turk. The good knight caused some alterations to be their calamities together in a balance. made, and christened the Polish Monarch by the name of Charles, and bestowed on the turbaned Turk that of Oliver Cromwell; and thus, new-named, it arose on common-council, on Robert Viner, Esq. who removed this spot in honour of his convivial monarch. The it to gf:ace his country-seat.-Pennant's London, p. 355. statue was removed in 1738, to make room for the t Sheffield duke of Buckingham, who said, that, on a Mansion-house. It remained many years afterward premeditation, Charles II. could not act the part of a in an inn-yard; and in 1779 it was bestowed, by the king for a mnoment. No. 463. 1 H1 SPECTATOR. 209 Milton, as I have observed in a former pa- and many weights of the like nature, in one per, had an eye to several of these forego- of them; and seeing a little glittering mg instances in that beautiful description, weight lie by me, I threw it accidentally wherein he represents the archangel and into the other scale, when, to my great the evil spirit as addressing themselves for surprise, it proved so exact a counterpoise, the combat, but parted by the balance that it kept the balance in an equilibrium. which appeared in the heavens, and weigh- This little glittering weight was inscribed ed the consequences of such a battle. upon the edges of it with the word' Vanity.''Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray, I found there were several other weights Hung forth in heav'n his golden scales, yet seen which were equally heavy, and exact counBetwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign: terpoises to one another; a few of them I Wherein all things created first he weigh'd, tried, as Avarice and Poverty, Riches and The pendulous round earth, with balancd air, tie, as Avarice and overy, iches an In counterpoise, now ponders all events, Content, with some others. Battles and realms; in these he put two weights, There were likewise several weights that The lseqatter h of partf and okicd the b, were of the same figure, and seemed to cor The latter quicl upfiew and kitk'd the beam; Which Gabrio spying, thus bespake the fiend: respond with each other, but were entirely "Satan, I knew thy strength, and thou know'st mine, different when thrown into the scales; as Neither our own, but giv'n. What folly then To boast what arms can do, since thine no more Religion and Hypocrisy, Pedantry and Than heav'n permits; nor mine, though doubled now Learning, Wit and Vivacity, Superstition To trample thee as mire! For proof look up, and Devotion, Gravity and isdom, with And read thy lot in yon celestial sign, [weak, mnoers Where thou art weigh'd and shown how light, how many others. if thou resist." The fiend look'd up, and knew I observed one particular weight lettered lis mounted scale aloft; nor more but fled on both sides; and upon applying myself to flurm'ring, and with him fled the shades of night.' the reading of it, I found on one side writThese several amusing thoughts having ten,' In the dialect of men,' and underneath ~iken possession of my mind some time be- it,' Calamities:' on the other side was writIvre I went to sleep, and mingling them- ten,' In the language of the gods,' and uns.lves with my ordinary ideas, raised in derneath'Blessings.' I found the intrinsic my imagination a very odd kind of vision, value of this weight to be much greater I was, methought, replaced in my study, than I imagined, for it overpowered Health, and seated in my elbow-chair, where I had Wealth, Good-fortune, and many other indulged the foregoing speculations with weights, which were much more ponderous my lamp burning by me as usual. Whilst in my hand than the other. I was here meditating on several subjects of There is a saying among the Scotch, that morality, and considering the nature of an ounce of mother-wit is worth a pound many virtues and vices, as materials for of clergy: I was sensible of the truth of this those discourses with which I daily enter- saying, when I saw the difference between tain the public, I saw, methought a pair of the weight of Natural Parts and that of golden scales hanging by a chain of the Learning. The observations which I made same metal, over the table that stood be- upon these two weights opened to me a fore me; when, on a sudden, there were new field of discoveries; for notwithstandgreat heaps of weights thrown down on ing the weight of Natural Parts was much each side of them. I found, upon examin- heavier than that of Learning, I observed ing these weights, they showed the value that it weighed a hundred times heavier of every thing that is in esteem among men. than it did before, when I put Learning I made an essay of them, by putting the into the same scale with it. I made the weight of wisdom in one scale, and that of same observation upon Faith and Morality; riches in another; upon which the latter, to for, notwithstanding the latter outweighed show its comparative lightness, immediate- the former separately, it received a thouly flew up and kicked the beam. sand times more additional weight from its But, before I proceed, I must inform my conjunction with the former, than what it reader, that these weights did not exert had by itself. This odd phenomenon showtheir natural gravity till they were laid in ed itself in other particulars, as in Wit and the golden balance, insomuch that I could Judgment, Philosophy and Religion, Jusnot guess which was light or heavy whilst tice and Humanity, Zeal and Charity, I held them in my hand. This I found by depth of Sense and perspicuity of Style, several instances; for upon my laying a with innumerable other particulars too long weight in one of the scales, which was in- to be mentioned in this paper. scribed by the word' Eternity,' though I As a dream seldom fails of dashing serithrew in that of Time, Prosperity, Afflic- ousness with impertinence, mirth with tion, Wealth, Poverty, Interest, Success, gravity, methought I made several other with many other weights, which in my experiments of a more ludicrous nature, by hand seemed very ponderous, they were one of which I found that an English octavo not able to stir the opposite balance; nor was very often heavier than a French could they have prevailed, though assisted folio; and, by another, that an old Greek with the weight of the Sun, the Stars, and or Latin author weighed down a whole lithe Earth. brary of moderns. Seeing one of my SpecUpon emptying the scales, I laid several tators lying by me, I laid it into one of the titles and honours, with Pomp, Triumphs, scales, and flung a twP-penny piece into VCL. II. 27 210 THE SPECTATOR. [NO, 464, the other. The reader will not inquire ing of wisdom. Poverty turns our thoughts into the event, if he remembers the first too much-upon the supplying of our wants, trial whidh I have recorded in this paper. and riches, upon enjoying our superfluities I afterwards threw both the sexes into the and, as Cowley has said in another case, balance; but as it is not for my interest to' It is hard for a man to keep a steady eye disoblige either of them, I shall desire to upon truth, who is always in a battle or a be excused from telling the result of this triumph.' experiment. Having an opportunity of this If we regard poverty and wealth, as they nature in my hands, I could not forbear are apt to produce virtues or vices in the throwing into one scale the principles of a mind of man, one may observe that there Tory, and into the other those of a Whig; is a set of each of these growing out of but, as I have all along declared this to be poverty, quite different from that which a neutral paper, I shall likewise desire to rises out of wealth. Humility and patience, be silent under this head also, though upon industry and temperance, are very often examining one of the weights, I saw the the good qualities of a poor man. Huword'TEKEL' engraven on it in capital manity, and good-nature, magnanimity and letters. a sense of honour, are as often the qualifiI made many other experiments; and cations of the rich. On the contrary, pothough I have not room for them all in this verty is apt to betray a man into envy, day's speculation, I may perhaps reserve riches into arrogance; poverty is too often them for another. I shall only add, that upon attended with fraud, vicious compliance, my awaking, I was sorry to find my golden repining, murmur and discontent. Riches scales vanished; but resolved forthe future expose a man to pride and luxury, a foolto learn this lesson from them, not to de- ish elation of heart, and too great a fondspise or value any thing for their appear- ness for the present world. In short, the ances, but to regulate my esteem and pas- middle condition is most eligible to the man sions towards them according to their real who would improve himself in virtue; as I and intrinsic value. C. have before shown it is the most advantageous for the gaining of knowledge. It was upon this consideration that Agur No 464.] Frida t 22 1712 founded his prayer, which, for the wisdom No. 464.] Friday, August 22, 1712. of it, is recorded in holy writ.' Two things Auream quisquis mediocritatem have I required of thee; deny me them not Diligit, tutus caret obsoieti before I die. Remove far from me vanity Sobrius aula. o. Od. x. Lib. 2. 5. and lies, give me neither poverty nor riches; The golden mean, as she's too nice to dwell feed me with food convenient for me; lest Among the ruins of a filthy cell, I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is So is her modesty withal as great, the Lord? or lest I be poor and steal, and To balk the envyofa princely seat.-orris. take the name of my God n vain. I AM wonderfully pleased when I meet I shall fill the remaining part of my pawith any passage in an old Greek or Latin per with a very pretty allegory, which is author that is not blown upon, and which wrought into a play by Aristophanes the I have never met with in a quotation. Of Greek comedian. It seems originally dethis kind is a beautiful saying in Theognis: signed as a satire upon the rich, though, in Vice is covered by wealth, and virtue by some parts of it, it is like the foregoing dispoverty;' or to give it in the verbal trans- course, a kind of comparison between lation,' Among men there are some who wealth and poverty. have their vices concealed by wealth, and Chremylus, who was an old and a good others who have their virtues concealed by man, and withal exceeding poor, being depoverty.' Every man's observation will sirous to leave some riches to his son, consupply him with instances of rich men, suits the oracle of Apollo upon the subject. who have several faults and defects that The oracle bids him follow the first man are overlooked, if not entirely hidden, by he should see upon his going out of the means of their riches; and I think, we can- temple. The person he chanced to see was not find a more natural description of a poor to appearance an old sordid blind man, but, man, whose merits are lost in his poverty, upon his following him from place to place, than that in the words of the wise man: he at last found, by his own confession, that'There was a little city, and few men with- he was Plutus the god of riches, and that in it; and there came a great king against he was just come out of the house of a miser. it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks Plutus farther told him, that when he was a against it. Now there was found in it a boy, he used to declare, that as soon as he poor wise man, and he, by his wisdom, de- came to age he would distribute wealth to ivered the city; yet no man remembered none but virtuous and just men; upon which that same poor man. Then, said I, wisdom Jupiter considering the pernicious conseis better than strength; nevertheless, the quences of such a resolution, took his sight poor man's wisdom is despised, and his away from him, and left him to stroll about words are not heard.' the world in the blind condition wherein The middle condition seems to be the Chremylus beheld him. With much ado most advantageousl- situated for the gain Chremylus prevailed upon him to go to his No. 465.] THE SPECTATOR. 211 house, where he met an old woman in a HAVING endeavoured in my last Satur. tattered raiment, who had been his guest day's paper to show the great excellency for many years, and whose name was Po- of faith, I shall here consider what are the verty. The old woman refusing to turn out proper means of strengthening and confirmso easily as he would have her, he threat- ing it in the mind of man. Those who deened to banish her, not only from his own light in reading books of controversy which house, but out of all Greece, if she made are written on both sides of the question on any more words upon the matter. Poverty points of faith, do very seldom arrive at a on this occasion pleads her cause very fixed and settled habit of it. They are one notably, and represents to her old landlord, day entirely convinced of its important that should she be driven out of the coun- truths, and the next meet with sometry, all their trades, arts, and sciences, thing that shakes and disturbs them. The would be driven out with her; and that, if doubt whicl was laid revives again, and every one was rich, they would never be shows itself in new difficulties, and that supplied with those pomps, ornaments, and generally for this reason, because the mind, conveniences of life which made riches de- which is perpetually tost in controversies sirible. She likewise represented to him and disputes, is apt to forget the reasons the several advantages which she bestowed which had once set it at rest, and to be upon her votaries in regard to their shape, disquieted with any former perplexity, their health, and their activity, by pre- when it appears in a new shape, or is startserving them from gouts, dropsies, un- ed by a different hand. As nothing is more wieldiness, and intemperance. But what- laudable than an inquiry after truth, so no-. ever she had to say for herself, she was at thing is more irrational than to pass away last forced to troop off. Chremylus imme- our whole lives, without determining ourdiately considered how. he might restore selves, one way or other, in those points Plutus to his sight; and, in order to it, con- which are of the last importance to us. veyed him to the temple of ZEsculapius, There are indeed many things from which who was famous for cures and miracles of we may withhold our assent; but in cases this nature. By this means the deity re- by which we are to regulate our lives, it is covered his eyes, and began to' make a the greatest absurdity to be wavering and right use of them, by enriching every one unsettled, without closing with that side that was distinguished bypiety towards the which appears the most safe and the most gods and justice towards men: and at the probable. The first rule, therefore, which same time by taking away his gifts from I shall lay down is this; that when by readthe impious and undeserving. This pro- ing or discourse we find ourselves thoduces several merry incidents, till in the roughly convinced of the truth of any arti last act Mercury descends with great com- cle, and of the reasonableness of our belief plaints from the gods, that since the good in it, we should never after suffer ourselves men were grown rich, they had received to call it in question. We may perhaps forno sacrifices; which is confirmed by a priest get the arguments which occasioned our of Jupiter, who enters with a remonstrance, conviction, but we ought to remember the that since the late innovation he was re- strength they had with us, and therefore duced to a starving condition, and could not still to retain the conviction which they live upon his office. Chremylus, who in once produced. This is no more than what the beginning of the play was religious in we do in every common art or science; nor his poverty, concludes it with a proposal, is it possible to act otherwise, considering which was relished by all the good men the weakness and limitation of our intellecwho had now grown rich as well as himself, tual faculties. It was thus that Latimer, that they should carry Plutus in a solemn one of the glorious army of martyrs, who procession to the temple, and install him in introduced the reformation in England, bethe place of Jupiter. This allegory in- haved himself in that great conference structed the Athenians in two points: first which was managed between the most as it vindicted the conduct of Providence learned among the protestants and papists in its ordinary distributions of wealth; and, in the reign of Queen Mary. This venerain the next place, as it showed the great ble old man, knowing his abilities were imtendency of riches to corrupt the morals of paired by age, and that it was impossible those who possessed them. C. for him to recollect all those reasons which had directed him in the choice of his reli- gion, left his companions, who were in the No. 465.i Saturday, /August 23, 1r12. full possession of their parts and learning, o. 45.] S, to baffle and confound their, antagonists by Qua ratione queas traducere leniter ievum; the force of reason. As for himself, he only Ne te semper inops agitet vexetque cupido; repeated to his adversaries the articles in Ne pavor et rerum mediocriter utilium spes. firm Ifor. Ep. xviii. Lib. 1. 97. which he firmly believed, and in the proHow you may glide with gentle ease fession of which he was determined to die. Adown the current of your days; It is in this manner that the mathematiciar Nor vex'd by mean and low desires, proceeds upon propositions which he has Nor warm'd by wild ambitious fires; once demonstrated: and though the deoon By hope alarm'd, depress'd by fear, Fo tings but little worth your carrancis. demonstration may have slipped tout of his den For things but little worthyour care.-Francis. stration may have slipped out of his me. 212 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 466. mory, he builds upon the truth, because rally grow in the mind of every reasonable he knows it was demonstrated. This rule man, who sees the impressions of divine is absolutely necessary for weaker minds, power and wisdom in every object on which and in some measure for men of the great- he casts his eye. The Supreme Being has est abilities; but to these last I would pro- made the best arguments for his own expose, in the second place, that they should istence, in the formation of the heavens lay up in their memories, and always keep and the earth; and these are arguments by them in readiness, those arguments which a man of sense cannot forbear atwhich appear to them of the greatest tending to, who is out of the noise and hurry strength, and which cannot be got over by of human affairs. Aristotle says, that all the doubts and cavils of infidelity, should a man live under ground, and there But, in the third place, there is nothing converse with the works of art and mewhich strengthens faith more than mo- chanism, and should afterward be brought rality. Faith and morality naturally pro- up into the open day, and see the several duce each other. A man is quickly con- glories of the heaven and earth, he would vinced of the truth of religion, who finds it immediately pronounce them the works of is not against his interest that it should be such a being as we define God to be. The true. The pleasure he receives at present, psalmist has very beautiful strokes of p-eand the happiness which he promises him- try to this purpose, in that exalted strain: self from it hereafter, will both dispose him'The heavens declare the glory of God; very powerfully to give credit to it, accord- and the firmament showeth his handy work. ing to the ordinary observation, that'we One day telleth another; and one night cerare easy to believe what we wish.' It is tifieth another. There is neither speech very certain, that a man of sound reason nor language; but their voices are heard cannot forbear closing with religion upon an among them. Their sound is gone out into impartial examination of it; but at the same all lands; and their words into the ends of time it is certain, that faith is kept alive in the world.' As such a bold and sublime us, and gathers strength from practice manner of thinking furnishes very noble more than from speculation. matter for an ode, the reader may see it There is still another method, which is wrought into the following one. more persuasive than any of the former; I and that is an habitual adoration of the Su- "The spacious firmament on high, preme Being, as well in constant acts of With all the blue ethereal sky, mental worship, as in outward forms. The And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim: devout man does not only believe, but feels Th' unwearied sun, from day to day, there is a deity. He has actual sensations Does his Creator's power display, of him; his experience concurs with his And publishes to every land The work of an almighty hand. reason; he sees him more and more in all his intercourses with him, and even in this Soon as theveninshades prevail, life almost loses his faith in conviction. The moon takes up the wondrous tale, The last method which I shall mention And nightly to the list'ning earth for the giving life to a man's faith, is fre- Repeats the story of her birth: Whilst all the stars that round her burn, quent retirement from the world, accom- And all the planets in their turn, panied with religious meditation. When a Confirm the tidings as they roll, man thinks of any thing in the darkness of And spread the truth from pole to pole the night, whatever deep impressions it II. may make in his mind, they are apt to "What though, in solemn silence, all Move round the dark terrestrial ball? vanish as soon as the day breaks upon him. hat though no real voice nor sound'The light and noise of the day, which are Amid their radiant orbs be found? perpetually soliciting his senses, and call- I reason's ear they all rejoice, ing off his attention, wear out of his mind And utter forth aglorious voice, For ever singing, as they shine, the thoughts that imprinted themselves in The hand that made us is divine." it, with so much strength, during the silence and darkness of the night. A man -- finds the same difference as to himself in a No. 466.] Monday,.lugust 25, 1712. crowd and in a solitude: the mind is stunned and dazzled amidst that variety of objects. Vera incessu patuit dea. —Vrg. JEn. i. 409. which press upon her in a great city. She And by her graceful walk the queen of love is known cannot apply herself to the consideration Dryden. of those things which are of the utmost WHEN iEneas, the hero of Virgil, is lost concern to her. The cares or pleasures of in the wood, and a perfect stranger in the the world strike in with every thought, and place on which he is landed, he is accosted a multitude of vicious examples give a kind by a lady in a habit for the chase. She inof justification to our folly. In our retire- quires of him, whether he has seen pass by ments, every thing disposes us to be serious. that way any young woman dressed as she In courts and cities we are entertained with was? whether she were following the sport the works of men; in the country with those in the wood, or any other way employed, of God. One is the province of art, the according to the custom of huntresses? The other of nature. Faith and devotion natu- hero answers with the respect due to the No. 466.] THE SPECTATOR. 213 beautiful appearance she made; tells her, woman, whom I entertained to take care he saw no such person as she inquired for; of her, to be very watchful in her car. and but intimates that he knows her to be one attendance about her. I am a man of busi of the deities, and desires she would con- ness, and obliged to be much abroad. The duct a stranger. Her form, from her first neighbours have told me, that in my abappearance, manifested she was more than sence our maid has let in the spruce sermortal; but, though she was certainly a vants in the neighbourhood to junketings, goddess, the poet does not make her known while my girl played and romped even in to be the goddess of beauty till she moved. the street. To tell you the plain truth, I All the charms of an agreeable person are catched her once, at eleven years old, at then in their highest exertion, every limb chuck-farthing among the boys. This put and feature appears with its respective me upon new thoughts about my child, and grace. It is from this observation that I I determined to place her at a boardingcannot help being so passionate an admirer school; and at the same time gave a very as I am of good dancing. As all art is an discreet young gentlewoman her mainteimitation of nature, this is an imitation of nance at the same place and rate, to be her nature in its highest excellence, and at a companion. I took little notice of my girl time when she is most agreeable. The from time to time, but saw her now and business of dancing is to display beauty; and then in good health, out of harm's way, and for that reason all distortions and mimick- was satisfied. But, by much importunity, I ries, as such, are what raise aversion in- was lately prevailed with to go to one of stead of pleasure; but things that are in their balls. I cannot express to you the themselves excellent, are ever attended anxiety my silly heart was in, when I saw with imposture. and false imitation. Thus, my romp, now fifteen, taken out: I never as in poetry there are labouring fools who felt the pangs of a father upon me so write anagrams and acrosticks, there are strongly in my whole life before; and I pretenders in dancing, who think merely could not have suffered more had my whole to do what others cannot, is to excel. Such fortune been at stake. My girl came on creatures should be rewarded like him who with the most becoming modesty I had ever has acquired a knack of throwing a grain seen, and casting a respectful eye, as if she of corn through the eye of a needle, with a feared me more than all the audience, I bushel to keep his hand in use. The gave a nod, which I think gave her all the dancers on our stage are very faulty in this spirit she assumed upon it: but she rose kind; and what they mean by writhing properly to that dignity of aspect. My themselves into such postures, as it would romp, now the most graceful person of her be a pain for any of the spectators to stand sex, assumed a majesty which commanded in, and yet hope to please those spectators, the highest respect; and when she turned is unintelligible. Mr. Prince has a genius, to me, and saw my face in rapture, she fell if he were encouraged, would prompt him into the prettiest smile, and I saw in all her to better things. In all the dances he in- motions that she exulted in her father's vents, you see he keeps close to the cha- satisfaction. You, Mr. Spectator, will, betracters he represents. He does not hope to ter than I can tell you, imagine to yourself please by making his performers move in all the different beauties and changes of a manner in which no one else ever did but aspect in an accomplished young woman by motions proper to the characters he re- setting forth all her beauties with a design presents. He gives to clowns and lubbards to please no one so much as her father. My clumsy graces: that is, he makes them girl's lover can never know half the satispractise what they would think graces; and faction that I did in her that day. I could I have seen dances of his, which might not possibly have imagined that so great give hints that would be useful to a comic improvement could have been wrought by writer. These performances have pleased an art that I always held in itself ridiculous the taste of such as have not reflection and contemptible. There is, I am conenough to know their excellence, because vinced, no method like this, to give young they are in nature; and the distorted mo- women a sense of their own value and tions of others have offended those who dignity: and I am sure there can be none so could not form reasons to themselves for expeditious to communicate that value to their displeasure, from their being a con- others. As for the flippant insipidly gay, tradiction to nature. and wantonly forward, whom you behold When one considers the inexpressible among dancers, that carriage is more to be advantage there is in arriving at some ex- attributed to the perverse genius of the percellence in this art, it is monstrous to be- formers, than imputed to the art itself. For hold it so much neglected. The following my part, my child has danced herself into letter has in it something very natural on my esteem; and I have as great an honour this subject for her as ever I had for her mother, from whom she derived those latent good quali-'MR. SPECTATOR, -Iam a widowerwith ties which appeared in her countenance but one daughter: she was by nature much when she was dancing; for my girl, though inclined to be a romp; and I had no way of I say it myself, showed in one quarter of an educating her, but commanding a young hour the innate principles of a modest i'ir 214 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 467. gin, a tender wife, a generous friend, a kind to give elegant delight. It may possibly be mother, and an indulgent mistress. I'll proved, that vice is in itself destructive of strain hard but I will purchase for her a pleasure, and virtue in itself conducive to husband suitable to her merit. I am your it. If the delights of a free fortune were convert in the admiration of what I thought under proper regulations, this truth would you jested when you recommended; and if not want much argument to support it; but you please to be at my house on Thursday it would be obvious to every man, that there next, I make a ball for my daughter, and is a strict affinity between all things that you shall see her dance, or, if you will do are truly laudable and beautiful, from the her that honour dance with her. I am, sir, highest sentiment of the soul to the most your humble servant, indifferent gesture of the body. T.'PHILIPATER.' I have some time ago spoken of a treatise No. 467] Tuesday, ugust 26, 1712. written by Mr. Weaver on this subject, which is now, I understand, ready to be -Quodcunque men poterunt audere Camcenae, published. This work sets this matter in a Seu tibi par poterunt; seu, quod spes abnuit, ultra; aunlidne. a *ts lworik sets this er a g Sive minus; certeque canent minus: omne vovemus very plain and advantageous light; and I Hoc tibi: ne tanto careat mihi nomine charta. am convinced from it, that if the art was Tibull. ad Messalem, Eleg. iv. Lib. 1. 24. under proper regulations, it would be a Whate'er my muse adventurous dares indite, mechanic way of implanting insensibly, in Whether the niceness of thy piercing sight Applaud my lays, or censure what I write: minds not capable of receiving it so well by To thlee I sing, and hope to borrow fame, any other rules, a sense of good-breeding By adding to my page Messala's name. and virtue. THE love of praise is a passion deeply Were any one to see Mariamne* dance, fixed in the mind of every extraordinary let him be never so sensual a brute, I defy person; and those who are most affected him to entertain any thoughts but of the with it, seem most to partake of that parhighest respect and esteem towards her. I tide of the divinity which distinguishes was showed last week a picture in a lady's mankind from the inferior creation. The closet, for which she had a hundred dif- Supreme Being himself is most pleased ferent dresses, that she could clap on round with praise and thanksgiving: the other part the face on purpose to demonstrate the of our duty is but an acknowledgment of force of habits in the diversity of the same our faults, whilst this is the immediate adocountenance. Motion, and change of pos- ration of his perfections.'Twas an excel ture and aspect, has an effect no less sur- lent observation, that we then only despise prising on the person of Mariamne when commendation when we cease to deserve it; she dances. and we have still extant two orations of Chloe is extremely pretty, and as silly as Tully and Pliny, spoken to the greatest and she is pretty. This idiot has a very good best princes of all the Roman emperors, ear, and a most agreeable shape; but the who, no doubt, heard with the greatest folly of the thing is such, that it smiles so satisfaction, what even the most disinteimpertinently, and affects to please so sillily, rested persons, and at so large a distance that while she dances you see the simpleton of time, cannot read without admiration, from head to foot. For you must know (as Cesar thought his life consisted in the trivial as this art is thought to be,) no one breath of praise, when he professed he had was ever a good dancer that had not a good lived long enough for himself, when he had understanding. If this be a truth, I shall for his glory. Others have sacrificed themleave the reader to judge, from that maxim, selves for a name which was not to begin what esteem they ought to have for such till they were dead, giving away themselves impertinents as fly, hop, caper, tumble, to purchase a sound which was not to com twirl, turn round, and jump over their mence till they were out of hearing. But heads; and, in a word, play a thousand by merit and superior excellencies, not only pranks which many animals can do better to gain, but, whilst living, to enjoy a great than a man, instead of performing to per- and universal reputation, is the last degree fection what the human figure only is capa- of happiness which we can hope for here ble of performing. Bad characters are dispersed abroad with It may perhaps appear odd, that I, who profusion; I hope for example's sake, and set up for a mighty lover, at least of virtue, (as punishments are designed by the civil should take so much pains to recommend power) more for the deterring the innocent what the soberer part of mankind look upon than the chastising the guilty. The good to be a trifle; but, under favour of the are less frequent, whether it be that there soberer part of mankind, I think they have are indeed fewer originals of this kind to not enough considered this matter, and for copy after, or that, through the malignity that reason only disesteem it. I must also, of our nature, we rather delight in the ridiin my own justification, say, that I attempt cule than the virtues we find in others. to bring into the service of honour and vir- However, it is but just, as well as pleasing, tue every thing in nature that can pretend even for variety, sometimes to give the __________________world a representation of the bright side ot *Probably Mrs. Bicknell. human nature, as well as the dark and No. 467.1 THE SPECTATOR. 215 gloomy The desire of imitation may, per- Swear, that none e'er had such a graceful art, ps, be a reater incentive to the prac- Fotu's free gifts as freely to impart, ticapse of what is good, than the aversion we With an unenvious hand, and an unbounded heart.' tice of what is good, than the aversion we may conceive at wnat is blameable: the one Never did Atticus succeed better in gainimmediately directs you what you should ing the universal love and esteem of all men; do, whilst the other only shows what you nor steer with more success between the should avoid; and I cannot at present do extremes of two contending parties.'Tis this with more satisfaction than by endea- his peculiar happiness that, while he esvouring to do some justice to the character pouses neither with an intemperate zeal, of Manilius. he is not only admired, but, what is a more It would far exceed my present design, rare and unusual felicity, he is beloved and to give a particular description of Manilius caressed by both; and I never yet saw any through all the parts of his excellent life. person, of whatever age or sex, but was I shall now only draw him in his retire- immediately struck with the merit of Mament, and pass over in silence the various nilius. There are many who are acceptaarts, the courtly manners, and the unde- ble to some particular persons, whilst the signing honesty by which he attained the rest of mankind look upon them with coldhonours he has enjoyed, and which now ness and indifference; but he is the first give a dignity and veneration to the ease he whose entire good fortune it is ever to please does enjoy.'Tis here that he looks back and to be pleased, wherever he comes to with pleasure on the waves and billows be admired, and wherever he is absent to through which he has steered to so fair a be lamented. His merit fares like the pichaven: he is now intent upon the practice tures of Raphael, whicia are either seen of every virtue, which a great knowledge with admiration by all, or at least no one and use of mankind has discovered to be dare own he has no taste for a composition the most useful to them. Thus in his pri- which has received so universal an ap vate domestic employments he is no less plause. Envy and malice find it against glorious than in his public; for it is in reality their interest to indulge slander and obloa more difficult task to be conspicuous in a quy.'Tis as hard for an enemy to detract sedentary inactive life, than in one that is from, as for a friend to add to, his praise. spent in hurry and business: persons en- An attempt upon his reputation is a sure gaged in the latter, like bodies violently lessening of one's own; and there is but one agitated, from the swiftness of their motion, way to injure him, which is to refuse him have a brightness added to them, which his just commendations, and be (bstinately often vanishes when they are at rest; but if silent. it then still remain, it must be the seeds of It is below him to catch the sight with intrinsic worth that thus shine out without any care of dress; his outward garb is but any foreign aid or assistance. the emblem of his mind. It is genteel, His liberality in another might almost plain and unaffected; he knows that gold bear the name of profusion: he seems to and embroidery can add nothing to the think it laudable even in the excess, like opinion which all have of his merit, and that river which most enriches when it that he gives a lustre to the plainest dress, overflows. But Manilius has too perfect a whilst'tis impossible the richest should taste of the pleasure of doing good, ever to communicate any to him. He is still the let it be out of his power; and for that rea- principal figure in the room. He first enson he will have a just economy and a gages your eye, as if there were some point splendid frugality at home, the fountain of light which shone stronger upon him from whence those streams should flow than on any other person. which he disperses abroad. He looks with He puts me in mind of a story of the fadisdain on those who propose their death mous Bussy d'Amboise, who, at an assembly as the time when they are to begin their at court, where every one appeared with munificence: he will both see and enjoy the utmost magnificence, relying upon his (which he then does in the highest degree,) own superior behaviour, instead of adornwhat he bestows himself; he will be the ing himself like the rest, put on that day a living executor of his own bounty, whilst plain suit of clothes, and dressed all his they who have the happiness to be within servants in the most costly gay habits he nis care and patronage, at once pray for could procure. The event was, that the the continuation of his life and their own eyes of the whole court were fixed upon good fortune. No one is out of the reach of him; all the rest looked like his attendants, his obligations; he knows how, by proper while he alone had the air of a person of and becoming methods, to raise himself to quality and distinction. a level with those of the highest rank; and Like Aristippus, whatever shape or conhis good-nature is a sufficient warrant dition he appears in, it still sits free and against the want of those who are so un- easy upon him; but in some part of his happy as to be in the very lowest. One character,'tis true, he differs from him; may say of him, as Pindar bids his muse for as he is altogether equal to the large say of Theron, ness of his present circumstances, the rec-' Swear, that Theron sure has swiorn, titude of his judgment has so far corrected No one near him should be poor, the inclinations of his ambition, that he will 216 1 HE SPECTATOR. [No. 468. not trouble himself with either the desires though all I can give him, to pass a moment or pursuits of any thing beyond his present or two in sadness for the loss of so agreeable enjoyments. a man. Poor Eastcourt! the last time I saw A thousand obliging things flow from him him, we were plotting to show the town his upon every occasion; and they are always great capacity for acting in its full light, so just and natural, that it is impossible by introducing him as dictating to a set to think he was at the least pains to look of young players, in what manner to speak for them. One would think it was the this sentence and utter t'other passion. He daemon of good thoughts that discovered to had so exquisite a discerning of what was him those treasures, which he must have defective in any object before him, that in blinded others from seeing, they lay so di- an instant he could show you the ridiculous rectly in their way. Nothing can equal side of what would pass for beautiful and the pleasure that is taken in hearing him just, even to men of no ill judgment, before speak, but the satisfaction one receives in he had pointed at the failure. He was no the civility and attention he pays to the less skilful in the knowledge of beauty; discourse of others. His looks are a silent and I dare say, there is no one who knew commendation of what is good and praise- him well, but can repeat more well-turned worthy, and a secret reproof of what is compliments, as well as smart repartees of licentious and extravagant. He knows how Mr. Eastcourt's, than of any other man in to appear free and open without danger of England. This was easily to be observed intrusion, and to be cautious without seem- in his inimitable faculty of telling a story, ing reserved. The gravity of his conver- in which he would throw in natural and sation is always enlivened with his wit and unexpected incidents to make his court to humour, and the gayety of it is tempered one part, and rally the other part of the with something that'is instructive, as well company. Then he would vary the usage as barely agreeable. Thus, with him you he gave them, according as he saw them are sure not to be merry at the expense of bear kind or sharp language. He had the your reason, nor serious with the loss of knack to raise up a pensive temper, and four good-humour; but by a happy mixture mortify an impertinently gay one, with the of his temper, they either go together, or most agreeable skill imaginable. There perpetually succeed each other. In fine, are a thousand things which crowd into his whole behaviour is equally distant from my memory, which make me too much constraint and negligence, and he commands concerned to tell on about him. Hamlet, your respect while he gains your heart. holding up the skull which the grave-diThere is in his whole carriage such an ger threw at him, with an account that it engaging softness, that one cannot persuade was the head of the king's jester, falls into one's self he is ever actuated by those very pleasing reflection, and cries out to his rougher passions, which, wherever they companion, find place, seldom fail of showing them-' Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horaselves in the outward demeanour of the tio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excelpersons they belong to; but his constitution lent fancy; he hath borne me on his back is a just temperature between indolence on a thousand times: and now how abhorred one hand, and violence on the other. He in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at is mild and gentle, wherever his affairs will it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed give him leave to follow his own inclina- I know not how oft. Where be your gibes tions; but yet never failing to exert himself now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes with vigour and resolution in the service of of merriment, that were wont to set the his prince, his country, or his friend. table on a roar? Not one now to mock your Z. own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she No. 468.] Wednesday, august 27, 1712. must come. Make her laugh at that.' -,. It is an insolence natural to the wealthy, Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui plurimum to affix, as much as in them lies, the cha et salis, haberet et fellis, nec candoris minus. racter of a man to his circumstances. Thus P'n. Epist. it is ordinary with them to praise faintly He was an ingenious, pleasant fellow, and one who the good qualities of those below them, had a great deal of wit and satire, with an equal shares very extraordinary in such a of good-humour. and say it is very extraordinary in such a man as he is, or the like, when they are MY paper is, in a kind, a letter of news, forced to acknowledge the value of him but it regards rather what passes in the whose lowness upbraids their exaltation. world of conversation than that of business. It is to this humour only, that it is to be I am very sorry that I have at present a ascribed, that a quick wit in conversation, circumstance before me, which is of very a nice judgment upon any emergency that great importance to all who have a relish could arise, and a most blameless inoffentor gayety, wit, mirth, or humour; I mean sive behaviour, could not raise this man the death of poor Dick Eastcourt. I have above being received only upon the foot of been obliged to him for so many hours of contributing to mirth and diversion. But jollity, that it is but a small recompence he was as easy under that condition, as a No. 469.] THE SPECTATOR. 217 man of so excellent talents was capable; It is natural for the generality of man and since they would have it, that to divert kind to run into reflections upon our mor was his business, he did it with all the tality, when disturbers of the world are seeming alacrity imaginable, though it laid at rest, but to take no notice when stung him to the heart that it was his busi- they who can please and divert are pulled ness. Men of sense, who could taste his from us. But for my part, I cannot but excellencies, were well satisfied to let him think the loss of such talents as the man of lead the way in conversation, and play whom I am speaking was master of, a after his own manner; but fools, who pro- more melancholy instance of mortality than voked him to mimickry, found he had the the dissolution of persons of never so high indignation to let it be at their expense who characters in the world, whose pretensions called for it, and he would show the form were that they were noisy and mischievous. of conceited heavy fellows as jests to the But I must grow more succinct, and as a company at their own request, in revenge Spectator, give an account of this extraorfor interrupting him from being a compa- dinary man, who, in his way, never had nion to put on the character of a jester. an equal in any age before him, or in that What was peculiarly excellent in this wherein he lived. I speak of him as a memorable companion, was, that in the companion, and a man qualified for conaccounts he gave of persons and sentiments, versation. His fortune exposed him to an he did not only hit the figure of their faces,.obsequiousness towards the worst sort of and manner of their gestures, but he would company, but his excellent qualities renin his narration fall into their very way dered him capable of making the best of thinking, and this, when he recounted figure in the most refined. I have been passages wherein men of the best wits present with him among men of the most were concerned, as well as such wherein delicate taste a whole night, and have were represented men of the lowest rank known him (for he saw it was desired) of understanding. It is certainly as great keep the discourse to himself the most an instance of self-love to a weakness, to part of it, and maintain his good-humour be impatient of being mimicked, as any with a countenance, in a language so decan be imagined. There were none but the lightful, without offence to any person or vain, the formal, the proud, or those who thing upon earth, still preserving the diswere incapable of amending their faults, tance his circumstances obliged him to; I that dreaded him; to others he was in the say, I have seen him do all this in such a highest degree pleasing: and I do not know charming manner, that I am sure none of amy satisfaction of any indifferent kind I those I hint at will read this without giving, vrr tasted so much, as having got over an him some sorrow for their abundant mirth, fmnpatience of my seeing myself in the air and one gush of tears for so many bursts of he could put me in when r have displeased laughter. I wish it were any honour to the him. It is indeed to his exquisite talent pleasant creature's memory, that my eyes this way, more than any philosophy I could are too much suffused to let me go on- T. read on the subject, that my person is very little of my care, and it is indifferent to me the Spectator in follio apparevepass llge in s number ofRd what is said of my shape, my air, my man- cliffe, was suppressed in all the sulhiequel4 editions: ner, my speech, or my address. It is to It is a felicity his friends may rejoise in, that he poor Eastcourt I chiefly owe that I am ar- had his senses, and used them as he ought to do, in his po Eastcourt I chiefywe tat I am last moments. It is remarkable that his judgment was rived at the happiness of thinking nothing in its calm perfection to the utmost article; for when a diminution to me, but what argues a de- his wife out of her fondness, desired she might send for pravity of my will, a certain illiterate humourist (whom he had accompa~pravityofimy wi.. f^nied in a thousand mirthful moments, and whose insoIt has as much surprised me as any thing lence makes fools think he assumes fri m conscious in nature, to have it frequently said, that merit,) he answered, "Do what you please, but he he was not a good player: but that must be won't come near me." Let poor Eastcourt's negligence about this message convince the unwary of a triumphowing to a partiality for former actors in ant empiric's ignorance and inhumanity.' the parts in which he succeeded them, and judging by comparison of what was liked before, rather than by the nature of the No.469.] Thlursday, August'.8, 1712. thing. WAhen a man of his wit and smart- Detrahere aliquid alteri, et hominem hominis incom ness could put on an utter absence of cor- modo suum augere commodum, magis est contra natu mon sense in his face, as he did in the ram, quam mors, quam paupertas, quam,olor, quam character of Bullfinch, in the Northern ctera upossunt autcorporiaccidereautrebus ex Lass, and an air of insipid cunning and vivacity in the character of Pounce in The To detract any thing from another, and for one man ituy in thecharacte-^r^ of Pounce in The tO multiply his own conveniencies by the inconve Tender Husband, it is folly to dispute his niencies of another, is more against nature than death capacity and success, as he was an actor. than poverty, than pain, and the other things whicl Poor Eastcourt! let the vain and proud can befan the body or external circumstances. oe at rest, thou wilt no more disturb their I AM persuaded there are few men, of admiration of their dear selves; and thou generous principles, who would seek after art no longer to drudge in raising the mirth great places were it not rather to have an of stupids, who know nothing of thy merit, opportunity in their hands of obliging their for thy maintenance, particular friends, or those whom they VOL. II. 28 218 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 47tt took upon as men of worth, than to procure But in the last place, there is no man so wealth and honour for themselves. To an improper to be employed in business, as he honest mind, the best perquisites of a place who is in any degree capable of corruption, are the advantages it gives a man of doing and such a one is the man who, upon any good. pretence whatsoever, receives more than Those who are under the great officers what is the stated and unquestioned fee of of state, and are the instruments by which his office. Gratifications, tokens of thankthey act, have more frequent opportunities fulness, despatch money, and the like spefor the exercise of compassion and benevo- cious terms, are the pretences under which lence, than their superiors themselves. corruption very frequently shelters itself. These men know every little case that is to An honest man will however look on all come before the great man, and, if they are these methods as unjustifiable, and will enpossessed with honest minds, will consider joy himself better in a moderate fortune, poverty as a recommendation in the person that is gained with honour and reputation, who applies himself to them, and make the than in an overgrown estate that is cankerjustice of his cause the most powerful soli- ed with the acquisitions of rapine and exaccitor in his behalf. A man of this temper, tion. Were all our offices discharged with when he is in a post of business, becomes a such an inflexible integrity, we should not blessing to the public. He patronises the see men in all ages, who grow up to exororphan and the widow, assists the friend- bitant wealth, with the abilities which are less, and guides the ignorant. He does not to be met with in an ordinary mechanic. I reject the person's pretensions, who does cannot but think that such a corruption not know how to explain them, or refuse proceeds chiefly from men's employing the doing a good office for a man because he first that offer themselves, or those who cannot pay the fee of it. In short, though have the character of shrewd worldly men, he regulates himself in all his proceedings instead of searching out such as have had a by justice and equity, he finds a thousand liberal education, and have been trained up occasions for all the good-natured offices of in the studies of knowledge and virtue. generosity and compassion. It has been observed, that men of learn A man is unfit for such a place of trust, ing who take to business, discharge it genewho is of a sour untractable nature, or has rally with greater honesty than men of the any other passion that makes him uneasy world. The chief reason for it I take to be to those who approach him. Roughness as follows. A man that has spent his youth of temper is apt to discountenance the in reading, has been used to find virtue extimorous or modest. The proud man dis- tolled, and vice stigmatized. A man that courages those from approaching him, who has passed his time in the world, has often are of a mean condition, and who most seen vice triumphant, and virtue discounwant his assistance. The impatient man tenanced. Extortion, rapine, and injustice, will not give himself time to be informed which are branded with infamy in books, of the matter that lies before him. An of- often give a man a figure in the world; ficer, with one or more of these unbecom- while several qualities, which are celeing qualities, is sometimes looked upon as brated in authors, as generosity, ingenuity, a proper person to keep off impertinence and good-nature, impoverish and ruin him. and solicitation from his superior; but this This cannot but have a proportionable is a kind of merit that can never atone for effect on men whose tempers and principles the injustice which may very often arise are equally good and vicious. from it. There would be at least this advantage There are two other vicious qualities, in employing men of learning and parts in which render a man very unfit for such a business; that their prosperity would sit place of trust. The first of these is a dila- more gracefully on them, and that we tory temper, which commits innumerable should not see many worthless persons shot cruelties without design. The maxim which up into the greatest figures of life. 0. several have laid down for a man's conduct in ordinary life, should be inviolable with a man in office, never to think of doing that No. 470.] Friday,.ugust 29, 1712. to-morrow which may be done to-day. Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, A man who defers doing what ought to be Et stultus labor est ineptiarum. done, is guilty of injustice so long as he de-.Mart. Epig. lxxxvi. Lib. 2. S. fers it. The despatch of a good office is'Tis folly only, and defect of sense, very often as beneficial to the solicitor as Turns trifles into things of consequence. the good office itself. In short, if a man I HAVE been very often disappointed of compared the inconveniencies which an- late years, when, upon examining the new other suffers by his delays, with the trifling edition of a classic author, I have found motives and advantages which he himself above half the volume taken up with varimay reap by them, he would never be ous readings. When I have expected to guilty of a fault which very often does an meet with a learned note upon a doub)tful irreparable prejudice to the person who passage in a Latin poet, I have only been depends upon him, and which might be informed. that such or such ancient manuremedied with little trouble to himself. script onI' et write an ac, or of some No 471.] THE SPECTATOR. 219 other notable discovery of the like im- Vatican manuscript for Ireads it; but this portance. Indeed, when a different reading must have been the hallucination of the gives us a different sense or a new elegance transcriber, who probably mistook the dash in an author, the editor does very well in of the I for a T. taking notice of it; but when he only enter- Stanza the second, verse the second. The tains us with the several ways of spelling fatal stroke.] Scioppius, Salmasius, and the same word, and gathers together the many others, for the read a; but I have various blunders and mistakes of twenty or stuck to the usual reading. thirty different transcribers, they only take Verse the third. Till by her wit.] Some up the time of the learned readers, and manuscripts have it his wit, others your, puzzle the nfnds of the ignorant. I have others their wit. But as I find Corinna to often fancied with myself how enraged an be the name of a woman in other authors, I old Latin author would be, should he see cannot doubt but it should be her. the several absurdities, in sense and gram- Stanza the third, verse the first. J long mar, which are imputed to him by some or and lasting anguish. ] The German manuother of these various readings. In one he script reads a lasting passion, but the speaks nonsense; in another makes use of a rhyme will not admit it. word that was never heard of; and indeed Verse the second. For Belvidera I en there is scarce a solecism in writing which dure. ] Did not all the manuscripts reclaim, the best author is not guilty of, if we may I should change Belvidera into Pelvidera; be at liberty to read him in the words of Pelvis being used by several of the ancient some manuscript which the laborious editor comic writers for a looking-glass, by which has thought fit to examine in the prosecu- means the etymology of the word is very tion of his work. visible, and Pelvidera will signify a lady I question not but the ladies and pretty who often looks in her glass; as indeed she fellows will be very curious to understand had very good reason, if she had all those what it is that I have been hitherto talking beauties which our poet here ascribes to her. of. I shall therefore give them a notion of Verse the third. Hourly I sigh and this practice, by endeavouring to write hourly languish. Some for the word after the manner of several persons who hourly read daily, and others nightly; the make an eminent figure in the republic of last has great authorities of its side. letters. To this end we will suppose that Verse the fourth. The wonted cure.] the following song is an old ode, which I The elder Stevens reads wanted cure. present to the public in a new edition, with Stanza the fourth, verse the second. the several various readings which I find After a thousand beauties.] In several of it in former editions, and in ancient copies we meet with a hundred beauties, manuscripts. Those who cannot relish the by the usual error of the transcribers, who various readings, will perhaps find their probably omitted a cypher, and had not account in the song, which never before taste enough to know that the word thouappeared in print, sand was ten times a greater compliment' My love was fickle once and changing, to the poet's mistress than a hundred. Nor e'er would settle in my heart; Verse the fourth. And finds variety in From beauty still to beauty ranging, one. ] Most of the ancient manuscripts have In every face I found a dart. - it in two. Indeed so many of thejn concur "Twas first a charming shape enslav'd me; in this last reading, that I am very much Till by her gwave te fatal stroke: in doubt whether it ought not to take place. And all my former fetters broke. There are but two reasons which incline But now a long and lasting anguish me to the reading as I have published it: For Belvidera I endure; first, because the rhyme; and, secondly, Hourly I sigh, and hourly languish, because the sense is preserved by it. It Nor hope to find the wonted cure. might likewise proceed from the oscitancy'For here the false unconstant lover, of transcribers, who, to despatch their After a thousand beauties shown, work the sooner, used to write all numbers Does new surprising charms discover, And finds variety in one.' in cypher, and seeing the figure 1 followed by a little dash of the pen, as is customary Various Readings. in old manuscripts, they perhaps mistook Stanza the first, verse the first. And the dash for a second figure, and, by casting changing.] The and in some manuscripts up both together, composed out of them is written thus, &; but that in the Cotton the figure 2. But this I shall leave to the library writes it in three distinct letters. learned, without determining any thing in Verse the second. JVor e'er would. ] a matter of so great uncertainty. C. Aldus reads it ever would; but as this would hurt the metre, we have restored it to the genuine reading, by observing that synzre- No. 471.] Saturday, august 30, 1712. sis which had been neglected by ignorant transcribers Xp. d. Ibid. In my heart.] Scaliger and others, The wise with hope support the pains of life. on my heart. X THE time present seldom affords sufVerse the fourth. Ifound a dart.] The ficient employment in the mind of man. 220 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 471. ObJects of pain or pleasure, love or admi- but every reader will draw a moral from ration, do not lie thick enough together in this story, and apply it to himself without life to keep the soul in constant action, and my direction. supply an immediate exercise to its facul- The old story of Pandora's box (which ties. In order, therefore, to remedy this many of the learned believe was formed defect, that the mind may not want busi- among the heathens upon the tradition of ness, but always have materials for think- the fall of man) shows us how deplorable a ing, she is endowed with certain powers, state they thought the present life, without that can recall what is passed, and antici- hope. To set forth the utmost condition of pate what is to come. misery, they tell us, that our forefather, That wonderful faculty, which we call according to the pagan theology, had a the memory, is perpetually looking back, great vessel presented him by Pandora. when we have nothing present to entertain Upon his lifting up the lid of it, says the us. It is like those repositories in several fable, there flew out all the calamities and animals that are filled with stores of their distempers incident to men, from which, former food, on which they may ruminate till that time, they had been altogether when their present pasture fails. exempt. Hope, who had been enclosed in As the memory relieves the mind in her the cup with so much bad company, invacant moments, and prevents any chasms stead of flying off with the rest, stuck so of thought by ideas of what is passed, we close to the lid of it, that it was shut down have other faculties that agitate and em- upon her. ploy her for what is to come. These are I shall make but two reflections upon the passions of hope and fear. what I have hitherto said. First, that no By these two passions we reach forward kind of life is so happy as that which is full into futurity, and bring up to our present of hope, especially when the hope is well thoughts objects that lie hid in the remotest grounded, and when the object of it is of an depths of time. We suffer misery and en- exalted kind, and in its nature proper to joy happiness, before they are in being; we make the person happy who enjoys it. This can set the sun and stars forward, or lose proposition must be very evident to those sight of them by wandering into those re- who consider how few are the present entired parts of eternity, when the heavens joyments of the most happy man, and how and earth shall be no more. By the way, insufficient to give him an entire satisfaction who can imagine that the existence of a and acquiescence in them. creature is to be circumscribed by time, My next observation is this, that a reliwhose thoughts are not? But I shall, in gious life is that which most abounds in a this paper, confine myself to that particu- well-grounded hope, and such a one as is lar passion which goes by the name of fixed on objects that are capable of making hope. us entirely happy. This hope in a religious Our actual enjoyments are so few and man is much more sure and certain than transient, that man would be a very miser- the hope of any temporal blessing, as it is able being, were he not endowed with this strengthened not only by reason, but by passion, which gives him a taste of those faith. It has at the same tine its eye pergood things that may possibly come into his petually fixed on that state, which implies possession.'We should hope for every in the very nbtion of it the most full and thing that is good,' says the old poet Linus, complete happiness. because there is nothing which may not I have before shown how the influence of be hoped for, and nothing but what the hope in general sweetens life, and makes gods are able to give us.' Hope quickens our present condition supportable, if not all the still parts of life, ad keeps the mind pleasing; but a religious hope has still awake in her most remiss,and indolent greater advantages. It does not only bear hours. It gives habitual serenity and good up the mind under her sufferings, but makes humour. It is a kind of vital heat in the her rejoice in them, as they may be the insoul, that cheers and gladdens her, when struments of procuring her the great and she does not attend eo it. It makes pain ultimate end of all her hope. easy, and labour pleasant. Religious hope has likewise this advanBesides these several advantages which tage above any other kind of hope, that it rise from hope, there is another which is is able to revive the dying man, and to fill none of the least, and that is, its great his mind not only with secret comfort and efficacy in preserving us from setting too refreshment, but sometimes with rapture high a value on present enjoyments. The and transport. He triumphs in his agonies, saying of Cesar is very well known. When whilst the soul springs forward with delight he had given away all his estate in gratuities to the great object which she has always among his friends, one of them asked what had in view, and leaves the body with an he had left for himself; to which that great expectation of being reunited to her in a man replied,'Hope.' His natural mag- glorious and joyful resurrection. nanimity hindered him from prizing what I shall conclude this essay with those he was certainly possessed of, and turned emphatical expressions of a lively hope, all his thoughts upon something more valu- which the psalmist made use of in the midst able that he had in view. I question not of those dangers and adversities which sur No. 472.]'1HE SPECTATOR 221 founded him; for the following passage had were not petrified with the love of this its present and personal, as well as its fu- world, against all sense of the commerce ture and prophetic sense.' I have set the which ought to be among them, it would Lord always before me. Because he is at not be an unreasonable bill for a poor man my right hand I shall not be moved. There- in the agony of pain, aggravated by want fore my heart is glad, and my glory re- and poverty, to draw upon a sick alderman joiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope. after this form: For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to'MR. BASIL PLENTY,-Sir, you have the see corruption. Thou wilt show me the gout and stone, with sixty thousand pounds path of life. In thy presence is fulness of sterling; I have the gout and stone, not joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures worth one farthing; I shall pray for you, for evermore.' C. and desire you would pay the bearer twenty shillings, for value received from, sir, your humble servant,'LAZARUS HOPEFUL. No. 4,2.] Monday, September 1, 1712.'Cripplegate, August 29, 1712.' ~oanVoluptas. The reader's own imagination will sug Solamenque malio -~ Virg..e. iii. 660. gest to him the reasonableness of such cor This only solace his hard fortune sends.-Dryden. sonens an i f tm io respondences, and diversify them into a I RECEIVED some time ago a proposal, thousand forms; but I shall close this as I which had a preface to it, wherein the au- began upon the subject of blindness. The thor discoursed at large of the innumerable following letter seems to be written by a objects of charity in a nation, and admo- man of learning, who is returned to his nished the rich, who were afflicted with study, after a suspense of ability to do so. any distemper of body, particularly to re- The benefit he reports himself to have gard the poor in the same species of afflic- received, may well claim the handsomest tion, and confine their tenderness to them, encomium he can give the operator. since it is impossible to assist all who are presented to them. The proposer had been'MR. SPECTATOR,-Ruminating lately relieved from a malady in his eyes by an on your admirable discourses on the Pleaoperation performed by Sir William Read, sures of the Imagination, I began to consiand, being a man of condition, had taken a der to which of our senses we are obliged resolution to maintain three poor blind men for the greatest and most important share during their lives, in gratitude for that great of those pleasures; and I soon concluded blessing. This misfortune is so very great that it was to the sight. That is the soveand unfrequent, that one would think an reign of the senses, and mother of all the establishment for all the poor under it, arts and sciences, that have refined the might be easily accomplished, with the ad- rudeness of the uncultivated mind to a podition of a very few others to those wealthy liteness that distinguishes the fine spirits who are in the same calamity. However, from the barbarous gout of the great vulthe thought of the proposer arose from a gar and the small. The sight is the obligvery good motive; and the parcelling of ing benefactress that bestows on us the ourselves out, as called to particular acts most transporting sensations that we have of beneficence, would be a pretty cement from the various and wonderful products of society and virtue. It is the ordinary of nature. To the sight we owe the amaz-foundation for men's holding a commerce ing discoveries of the height, magnitude, with each other, and becoming familiar, and motion of the planets, their several rethat they agree in the same sort of plea- volutions about their common centre of sure; and sure it may also be some reason light, heat and motion, the sun. The sight for amity, that they are under one com- travels yet farther to the fixed stars, and mon distress. If all the rich who are lame furnishes the understanding with solid reawith the gout, from a life of ease, pleasure, sons to prove, that each of them is a sun, and luxury, would help those few who moving on its own axis, in the centre of its have it without a previous life of pleasure, own vortex, or turbillion, and performing and add a few of such laborious men, who the same offices to its dependant planets are become lame from unhappy blows, that our glorious sun does to this. But the falls, or other accidents of age or sickness; I inquiries of the sight will not be stopped say, would such gouty persons administer here, but make their progress through the to the necessities of men disabled like them- immense expanse to the Milky Way, and selves, the consciousness of such a behaviour there divide the blended fires of the galaxy would be the best julep, cordial, and ano- into infinite and different worlds, made up dyne, in the feverish, faint, and tormenting of distinct suns, and their peculiar equipage vicissitudes of that miserable distemper. of planets, till, unable to pursue this track The same may be said of all other, both any farther, it deputes the imagination to bodily and intellectual evils. These classes go on to new discoveries, till it fill the unof charity would certainly bring down bless- boundless space with endless worlds. ings upon an age and people; and if men'The sight informs the statuary's chisel 222 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 473 with power to gih oreath to lifeless brass'Again, in Samson Agornstes: and marble, and the painter's pencil tot cf o swell the flat canvass with moving figures loss of sight! of thee I must complain: actuated by imaginary souls. Music in- Blind among enemies! O worse than chains, deed may plead another original, since Ju- Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepit age! bal, by the different falls of his hammer on Light, the prime work of God, to me's extinct, And all her various objects of delight the anvil, discovered by the ear the first Annull'd ~. rude music that pleased the antediluvian Still as a fathers; but then the sight has not only re- In pow'r of others, never in my own, duced those wilder sounds into artful order Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half: and harmony, but conveys that harmony to 0 dark! dark! dark! amid the blaze ofnoon: Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse, the most distant parts of the world without Without all hopes of day." the help of sound. To the sight we owe not only all the discoveries of philosophy, The enjoyment of sight then being so but all the divine imagery of poetry that great a blessing, and the loss of it so terri transorts the intelligent reader of Homer, ble an evil, how excellent and valuable is Miltonsp and Viri. the skill of that artist which can restore'As the sight has polished the world, so the former, and redress the latter! My does it supply us with the most grateful and frequent perusal of the advertisements in lasting pleasure. Let love, let friendship, the public newspapers (generallythe most paternal affection, filial piety, and conjugal agreeable entertainment they afford,) has duty, declare the joys the sight bestows on presented me with many and various benefits of this kind done to my countrymen by a meeting after absence. But it would be that skifl artis knd dne to countrymen by endless to enumerate all the pleasures and that skilful artist, Dr. Grant, h majesty's advantages of sight; every one that has it, oculist extraordinary, whose happy hand every hour he makes use of it, finds them, has brought and restored to sight several eerye hour s thuse, fenjs them. hundreds in less than four years. Many feels them, enjoys them. e Thus, as our greatest pleasures and have received sight by his means who came knowledge are derived from the sight, so blind from their mother's womb, as in th has Providence been ore curious in the famous instance-o Jones of Newington. I formation of its seat, the eye, than of the myself have been cured by him of a weakorgans of the other senses. That stupen- ness in my eyes next to blindness, and am dous machine is composed, in a wonderful ready to believe any thing that is reported d man ner of muscles, membranes, and hu- of his ability this way; and know that many mours. Its motions are admirably directed who could not purchase his assistance with by the muscles; the perspicuity of the hu- money, have enjoyed it from his charity. mours transmits the rays of light; the rays But a list of particulars would swell my are regularly refracted by their figure; the letter beyond its bounds: what I hae said black lining of the sclerotes effectually pre- being sufficient to comfort those who are vents their being confounded by reflection. in the like distress, since they may conIt is wonderful indeed to consider how ceive hopes of being no longer miserable i many objects the eye is fitted to take in at this kind, while there yet alive so able once, and successively in an instant, and at an oculist as Dr. Grant. I am the Specthe same time to make a judgment of their tator's humble servant, position, figure, or colour. It watches against R S. our dangers, guides our steps, and lets in all the visible objects, whose beauty and variety instruct and delight. No. 473.] Tuesday, Seitember 2, 1712.'The pleasures and advantages of sight being so great, the loss must be very griev- Eusi quis ltu torv feru s et pede nudo, of which Milton, from e, Exiguaeque togae simulet textore Catonam; ous; of which Milton, from experience, Virtutemne repreesentet, moresque Catonis? gives the most sensible idea, both in the or. Ep. xix. Lib. 1. 12. third book of his Paradise Lost, and in his Suppose a man the coarsest gown should wear, Samson Agonistes. No shoes, his forehead rough, his look severe, And ape great Cato in his form and dress;'To light, in the former: Must he his virtues and his mind express? Creech,. —. Thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp; but thou To the Sfectator. Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain c To find thy piercing ray, but find no dawn." SIR,-I am now in the country, and employ most of my time in reading, or' And a little after: thinking upon what I have read. Your pa-'Seasons return, but not to me returns per comes constantly down to me, and it Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, affects me so much, that I find my thoughts Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, run into your way: and I recommend to ybu Or flocks of herds, or human face divine; a subject upon which you have not yet Bht cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surround me: from the cheerful ways of men touched, and that is, the satisfaction some Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair, men seem to take in their imperfections: I Presented with an universal blank think one may call it glorying in their inOf nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out' sufficiency. A certain great author is of No. 474.] THE SPECTATOR. 223 opinion it is the contrary to envy, though knowledge of them was rather a diminution perhaps it may proceed from it. Nothing than an advancement of a man's character; is so common as to hear men of this sort, though, at the same time, I know he lanspeaking of themselves, add to their own guishes and repines he is not master of merit (as they think,) by impairing it, in them himself. Whenever I take any of praising themselves for their defects, freely these fine persons thus detracting from what allowing they commit some few frivolous they do not understand, I tell them I will errors, in order to be esteemed persons of complain to you; and say I am sure you will uncommon talents and great qualifications, not allow it an exception against a thing, They are generally professing an injudi- that he who contemns it is an ignorant in cious neglect of dancing, fencing, and riding, it. I am, sir, your most humble servant, as also an unjust contempt for travelling,'S. T.' and the modern languages; as for their part, they say, they never valued or troubled tliir'MR SPECTATOR,-I am a man of a very heads about them. This panegyrical satire good e e an m honourably in ove. on themselves certainly is worthy of your I hope you will allow, when the ultimate animadversion. I have known one of these purpose is honest, there may be, without gentlemen think himself obliged to forget tespass against innocence, some toying by the day of an appointment, and sometimes the way. People of condition are perhaps even that you spoke to him; and when you too distant and formal on those occasions; see'em, they hope you'll pardon'em, for but however that is, I am to confess to you they have the worst memory in the world. that I have writ some verses to atone for One of'em started up t'other day in some my offence. You professed authors are a confusion, and said, " Now I think on't, I little severe upon us, who write like genam to meet Mr. Mortmain, the attorney, tlemen: but if you are a friend to love, you about some business, but whether it is to- will insert my poem. You cannot imagine day or to-morrow, faith I can't tell." Now, how much service it would do me with my to my certain knowledge, he knew his time fair one, as well as reputation with all my to a moment, and was there accordingly. friends, to have something of mine in the These forgetful persons have, to heighten Spectator. My crime was, that I snatched their crime, generally the best memories a kiss, and my poetical excuse as follows, of any people, as I have found out by their I. remembering sometimes through inadvert- Belinda, see from yonder flowers The bee flies loaded to its cell: ency. Two or three of'em that I know, Can you perceive what it devours? can say most of our modern tragedies by Are they impaired in show or smell heart. I asked a gentleman the other day, that is famous for a good carver, (at which "So, though I robb'd you of a kiss, acquisition he is out of countenance, imagin- Sweeter than their ambrosial dew; ing it may detract from some of his more Wy areyou angry at my bliss...... \ \, Has it at all impoverish'd you? essential qualifications,) to help me to something that was near him; but he excused III. "'Tis by this cunning I contrive, himself, and blushing told me, "Of all In spite of your unkind reserve, things he could never carve in his life;" To keep my famish'd love alive, though it can be proved upon him that he Which you inhumanly would starve." cuts up, disjoints, and uncases with incom-' I am, sir, your humble servant, parable dexterity. I would not be under-'TIMOTHY STANZA.' stood as if I thought it laudable for a man of quality and fortune to rival the acquisi-'Aug. 23, 1712. tions of artificers, and endeavour to excel'SIR,-Having a little time upon my in little handy qualities; no, I argue only hands, I could not think of bestowing it against being ashamed of what is really better, than in writing an epistle to the praise-worthy. As these pretences to in- Spectator, which I now do, and am, sir, genuity show themselves several ways, you your humble servant, BOB SHORT. will often see a man of this temper ashamed P. S. If you approve of my style, I am co be clean, and setting up for wit, only from likely enough to become your correspondnegligence in his habit. Now I am upon ent. I desire your opinion of it. I design it this head, I cannot help observing also upon for that way of writing called by the judia very different folly proceeding from the cious " the familiar."' T. same cause. As these above-mentioned arise from affecting an equality with men of greater talents, from having the same No. 474. dnesday, Setemer3, 1712. faults, there are others that would come at September 3, 1712 a parallel with those above them, by pos- Asperitas agrestis et inconcinna sessing little advantages which they want. Hor. Ep. 18. Lib. 1. G. I heard a young man not long ago, who has Rude, rustic, and inelegant. sense, comfort himself in his ignorance of "MR. SPECTATOR,-Being of the number Greek, Hebrew, and the Orientals: at the of those that have lately retired from the same time that he published his aver- centre of business and pleasure, my uneasision to those languages, he said that the ness in the country where I am, arises 224 THE SPECTATOR, [No. 474. rather from the society than the solitude of speculative. There should certainly- there it. To be obliged to receive and return fore, in each country, be established a club visits from and to a circle of neighbours, of the persons whose conversations I have who, through diversity of age or inclina- described, who for their own private, as tions, can neither be entertaining nor ser- also public emolument, should exclude, viceable to us, is a vile loss of time, and a and be excluded, all other society. Their slavery from which a man should deliver attire, should be the same with their huntshimself, if possible: for why must I lose the men's, and none should be admitted into remaining part of my life, because they this green conversation piece, except he have thrown away the former part of had broke his collar-bone thrice. A broken theirs? It is to me an insupportable afflic- rib or two might also admit a man withtion, to be tormented with the narrations out the least opposition. The president of a set of people, who are warm in their must necessarily have broken his neck, expressions of the quick relish'of that plea- and have been taken up dead'nce or twice: sure which their dogs and horses have a for the more maims this brotherhood shall more delicate taste of. I do also in my have met with, the easier will their conheart detest and abhor that damnable doc- versation flow and keep up; and when any trine and position of the necessity of a one of these vigorous invalids had finished bumper, though to one's own toast; for his narration of the collar-bone, this natu though it be pretended that these deep po- rally would introduce the history of the tations are used only to inspire gayety, they ribs. Besides, the different circumstances certainly drown that cheerfulness which of their falls and fractures would help to.rould survive a moderate circulation. If prolong and diversify their relations. There at these meetings it were left to every should also be another club of such men stranger either to fill his glass according to who have not succeeded so well in maimhis own inclination, or to make his retreat ing themselves, but are however in tht when he finds he has been sufficiently obe- constant pursuit of these accomplishments. dient to that of others, these entertainments I would by no means be suspected, by what would be governed with more good sense, I have said, to traduce in general the body and consequently with more good-breeding, of fox-hunters; for whilst I look upon a than at present they are. Indeed, where reasonable creature full speed after a pack any of the guests are known to measure of dogs by way of pleasure, and not of butheir fame or pleasure by their glass, siness, I shall always make honourable proper exhortations might be used to these mention of it. to push their fortunes in this sort of reputa-'But the most irksome conversation of al tion;'but, where it is unseasonably insisted others I have met with in the neighbour on to a modest stranger, this drench may hood, has been among two or three of your be said to be swallowed with the same ne- travellers, who have overlooked men and cessity, as if it had been tendered in the horn manners, and have passed through France for that purpose, with this aggravating and Italy with the same observation tha' circumstance, that distresses the enter- the carriers and the stage-coachmen do tainer's guest in the same degree as it re- through Great Britain; that is, their stops lieves his horses. and stages have been regulated according'To attend without impatience an ac- to the liquor they have met with in their count of five-barred gates, double ditches, passage. They indeed remember the names and precipices, and to survey the orator of abundance of places, with the particular with desiring eyes, is to me extremely dif- fineries of certain churches; but their disficult, but absolutely necessary, to be upon tinguishing mark is certain prettinesses tolerable terms with him: but then the oc- of foreign languages, the meaning of which casional bursting out into laughter, is of all they could have better expressed in their other accomplishments the most requisite. own. The entertainment of these fine I confess at present I have not that com- observers Shakspeare has described to mand of these convulsions as is necessary consist to be good company; therefore I beg you, In taking of the Alps and Appennines would publish this letter, and let me be The Pyrenean, and the river Po:" known all at once for a queer fellow and c and then concludes with a sigh: avoided. It is monstrous to me, that we Nowthisisworshipfulsociety" who are given to reading and calm conversation should ever be visited by these roar-'I would not be thought in all this to ors: but they think they themselves, as hate such honest creatures as dogs; I am neighbours, may come into our rooms with only unhappy that I cannot partake in their the same right that they and their dogs diversions. But I love them so well, as hunt in our grounds. dogs, that I often go with my pockets stuff-' Your institution of clubs I have always ed with bread to dispense my favours, or admired, in which you constantly endea- make my way through them at neighbours' voured the union of the metaphorically de- houses. There is in particular a young funct, that is, such as are neither serviceable hound of great expectation, vivacity, and to the busy and enterprising part of man- enterprise, that attends my flights wherkind, nor entertaining to the retired and ever he spies me. This creature observes No. 475.1 THE SPECTATOR. 225 my countenance and behaves himself ac- always of opinion every man must be so, to cordingly. His mirth, his frolic, and joy, be what one would desire him. Your very upon the sight of me has been observed, humble servant, J. R.' and 1 have been gravely desired not to en- t yr courage him so much, for it spoils his parts; was calle pon by the younger art of a but I think he shows them sufficiently in wascaleduponbytheyoungerpartof the several bov:ndings, friskings, and scour- country family, by mymother's siderelated ings, when he makes his court to me: but I to me, to visit Mr. Campbell,* the dumb foresee in a little time he and I must keep man; for they told me that that was chiefly foresee in a little time he and I must keep what brought them to town, having heardl company with one another only, for we are what rought them to town, havsng heard fit for no other in these parts. Having in- wonders o him in Essex. I who always formed you how I do pass my time in the wanted faith in matters of that kind, was country where I am, I must proceed to tell not easily pvailed on to go; but, lest ey you how I would pass it, had I such a for- should take it ill, I went with them; when, tune as would put me above the observance to my surprse, Mr. Campbell related all of ceremony and custom. their past life; in short, had he not been'My scheme of a country life then should prevented, such a discovery would have be as'ollows. As I am happy in three or come out as would have ruined the nexi four very agreeable friends, these I would design of their coming to town, viz. buying constantly have with me; and the freedom wedding clothes. Our namesthough he we took with one another at school and the never heard of us before-and we endeauniversity, we would maintain and exert voured to conceal-were as familiar to him upon all occasions with great courage. as to ourselves. To be sure, Mr. SpectaThere should be certain hours of the day tor, he is a very learned and wise man. to be employed in reading, during which Being impatient to know my fortune, havtime it should be impossible for any one of ing paid my respects in a family Jacobus, us to enter the other's chamber, unless by he told me, after his manner, among sevestorm. After this we would communicate ral other things, that in a year and nine:he trash or treasure we had met with, months I should fall ill of a fever, be given die trash or treasure we had met with, oe I h i b s with with our own reflections upon the matter; over by my physicians, but should with the lustness of which we would controvert much difficulty recover; that, the first time with good-humoured warmth, and never I took the air afterwards, I should be adipare one another out of that complaisant dressed to by a young gentleman of a plenJpirit of conversation, which makes others tiful fortune, good sense, and a generous affirm and deny the same matter in a quar- spirit. Mr. Spectator, he is the purest.er of an hour. If any of the neighbouringman in the world, for all he said is come to gentlemen, not of our turn, should take it pass, and I am the happiest she in Kent. in their heads to visit me, I should look I have been in quest of Mr. Campbell these upon these persons in the same degreeene- three months, and cannot find him out. mies to my particular state of happiness, Now, hearing you are a dumb man too, I as ever the French were to that of the pub- to0ught you might correspond, and be able lic, and I would be at an annual expense tell me something; for I think myself in spies to observe their motions. When- highly obliged to make his fortune, as he ever I should be surprised with a visit, as has mine. It is very possible your worI hate drinking, I would be brisk in swill- ship, who has spies all over this town, can ing bumpers, upon this maxim, that it is inform me how to send to him. If you can, better t trouble others with my imperti- I beseech you be as speedy as possible, and nence, than to be troubled myself with you will highly oblige your constant reader theirs. The necessity of an infirmary nd admirer, makes me resolve to fall into that project;'DULCIBELLA THANKLE.' and as we should be but five, the terrors of Ordered, That the inspector I employ'n involuntary separation, which our num- about wonders, inquire at the Golden-Lion, ber cannot so well admit of, would make us opposite to the Half-Moon tavern in Druryexert ourselves in opposition to all the par- lane, into the merits of this silent sage, and oiculars mentioned in your institution of report accordingly. T. that equitable confinement. This my way of life I know would subject me to the imputation of a morose, covetous, and sin- No. 475.] Thursday, September 4, 1712. gular fellow. These and all other hard -Qua res in se neque consilium, neque modum words, with all manner of insipid jests, and Habet ullum, ear consilio regere non potes. ill other reproach, would be matter of Tr.un.Acti.Sc. mirth to me and my friends: besides, I The thing that in itself has neither measure nor con. would destroy the application of the epi- iderationcounsel annotrule.:hets morose and covetous, by a yearly IT is an'old observation, which has been,eliefofmyundeservedly necessitous neigh- made of politicians who wuld rather inhours, and by treating my friends and do- gratiate themselves with their sovereign, mestics with a humanity that should ex- than promote his real service, that they press the obligation to lie rather on my * Duncan, Campbell announced himself to the public side; and as for the word singular I was as a Scotch highlander, gifted with the second sight! VOL. II. 29 226 THE SPECTATOR. I No, 476. accommodate their counsels to his inclina- upon so strange a question; upon which he tion3, ivnd advise him to such actions only immediately gave me an inventory of her as his heart is naturally set upon. The jewels and estate, adding, that he was reprivy counsellor of one in love must ob- solved to do nothing in a matter of such conserve the same conduct, unless he would sequence without my approbation. Finding forfeit the friendship of the person who de- he would have an answer, I told him if he sires his advice. I have known several could get the lady's consent, he had mine. odd cases of this nature. Hipparchus was This is about the tenth match, which, to going to marry a common woman, but be- my knowledge, Will has consulted his ing resolved to do nothing without the friends upon, without ever opening his advice of his friend Philander, he consult- mind to the party herself. ed him upon the occasion. Philander told I have been engaged in this subject by him his mind freely, and represented his the following letter, which comes to me mistress to him in such strong colours, that from some notable young female scribe, the next morning he received a challenge who, by the contents of it, seems to have for his pains, and before twelve o'clock carried matters so far, that she is ripe for was run through the body by the man who asking advice: but as I would not lose her had asked his advice. Celia was more good will, nor forfeit the reputation which prudent on the like occasion. She desired I have with her for wisdom, I shall only Leonilla to give her opinion freely upon the communicate the letter to the public, withyoung fellow who made his addresses to out returning any answer to it. her. Leonilla, to oblige her, told her, with. SPECTATR,-, sir, the thing great frankness, that she looked upon him MR. SCTR,, sir, t he thing as one of the most worthless-Celia, fore- iS this; Mr. Shapely is the prettiest genseeing what a character she was to expect, tleman about town. e is very tall, but begged her not to go on, for that she had not too tall neither. He dances like an been privately married to him above a angel. His mouth is made I do not know fortnight. The truth of it is, a woman sel- how, but it is the prettiest that I ever saw dom asks advice before she has bought her in my life. He is always laughing, for he wedding clothes. When she has de her has an infinite deal of wit. If you did but wedding clothes. When she has made her see how he rolls his stockings! He has a own choice, for form's sake, she sends a see how he rolls his stockings He has a conge d' elire to ner friends, thousand pretty fancies, and I am sure, if If we look into the secret springs and you saw him, you would like him. He is motives that set people at work on these a very good scholar, and can talk Latin as occasions, and put them upon asking ad- fast as English. I wish you could but see vice which they never intend to take; I him dance. Now you must understand, look upon it to be none of the least, that poor Mr. Shapely has no estate; but how they are incapable of keeping a secret can he help that, you know? And yet my which is so very pleasing to them. A girl friends are so unreasonable as to be always longs to tell her confidant that she hopes to teasing me about him, because he has no be married in a little time; %nd, in order to estate; but I am sure he has what is better talk of the pretty fellow that dwells so than an estate; for he is a good-natured, inmuch in her thoughts, asks her very genious, modest, civil, tall, well-bred, handgravely, what she would advise her to do some man; and I am obliged to him for his gravely, what she would advise her to do in a case of so much difficulty. Why else civilities ever since I saw him. I forgot to should Melissa, who had not a thousand tell you that he has black eyes, and looks pounds in the world, go into every quarter upon me now and then as if he had tears in pounds in the world, go into every quarter And yet my friends are so unreaof the town to ask her acquaintance, whe-. An d yet my friends are so unreather they would advise her to take Tom sonable; that they would have me be unTownly, that made his addresses to her civil to him. I have a good portion which with an estate of five thousand a year. It they cannot hinder me of, and I shall be is very pleasant, on this occasion, to hear fourteen on the 29th day of August next, and the lady propose her doubts, and to see the am therefore willing to settle in t world pains she is at to get over them. as soon as I can, so Shapely I must not here omit a practice which is But every body I advise with here is poor in use among the vainer part of our sex, Mr. Shapelys enemy. I desire therefore who will often ask a friend's advice in rela- you will gi.e me your advice, for I know tion to a fortune whom they are never you are a wise man; and if you advise me like to come at. Will Honeycomb, who is well, I am resolved to follow it. I heartily now on the verge of threescore, took me wish you could see him dance; and am, sir, aside not long since, and asked me in his your most humbleervant, B. D most serious look, whether I would advise'e loves your Spectators mightily.' C..im to marry my lady Betty Single, who, oy the way, is one of the greatest fortunes No. 76.] Friday, September 5, 1712. about town. I stared him full in the face _ Lucidusmordo. Hor. Jirs Poet. 41. he was, or pretended to be, deaf and dumb, and suc- Method gives light. ceeded in making a fortune to himself by practising for AmONG my daily papers which I bestow some years on the credulity of the vulgar in the igno- ininious character of a fortune-teller. on the public, there are some which are No. 477. THE SPECTAI OR. 227 written with regularity and method, and want of method in the thoughts of my hoothers that run out into the wildness of nest countrymen. There is not onedispute those compositions which go by the name in ten which is managed in those schools of essays. As for the first, Ihave the whole of politics, where, after the three first scheme of the discourse in my mind before sentences, the question is not entirely lost. I set pen to paper. In the other kind of Our disputants put me in mind of the scutwriting it is sufficient that I have several tie-fish, that when he is unable to extricate thoughts on a subject, without troubling himself, blackens all the water about him mnyself tc range them in such order, that until he becomes invisible. The man who they may seem to grow out of one another, does not know how to methodise his and be disposed under the proper heads. thoughts, has always to borrow a phrase Seneca and Montaigne are patterns for from the Dispensary,'a barren superfluity writing in this last kind, as Tully and Aris- of words;' the fruit is lost amidst the exutotle excel in the other. When I read an berance of leaves. author of genius who writes without me- Tom Puzzle is one of the most eminent thod, I fancy myself in a wood that abounds immethodical disputants of any that has with a great many noble objects, rising one fallen under my observation. Tom has among another in the greatest confusion read enough to make him very impertinent: and disorder. When I read a methodical his knowledge is sufficient to raise doubts, discourse, I am in a regular plantation, and but not to clear them. It is a pity that he can place myself in its several centres, so has so much learning, or that he has not a as to take a view of all the lines and walks great deal more. With these qualifications that are struck from them. You may ram- Tom sets up for a freethinker, finds a ble in the one a whole day together, and great many things to blame in the constituevery moment discover something or other tion of his country, and gives shrewd intithat is new to you; but when you have mations that he does not believe another done, you will have but a confused, imper- world. In short, Puzzle is an atheist as fect notion of the place: in the other your much as his parts will give him leave. He eye commands the whole prospect, and has got about half a dozen common-place gives you such an idea of it as is not easily topics, into which he never fails to turn the worn out of the memory. conversation, whatever was the occasion Irregularity and want of method are only of it. Though the matter in debate be supportable in men of great learning or ge- about Douay or Denain, it is ten to one but nius, who are often too full to be exact, and half his discourse runs upon the unreason. therefore choose to throw down their pearls ableness of bigotry and priest-craft. This in heaps before the reader, rather than be makes Mr. Puzzle the admiration of all at the pains of stringing them. those who have less sense than himself, Method is of advantage to a work, both and the contempt of all those who have in respect to the writer and the reader. In more. There is none in town whom Tom regard to the first, it is a great help to his dreads so much as my friend Will Dry. invention. When a man has planned his Will, who is acquainted with Tom's logic, discourse, he finds a great many thoughts when he finds him running off the question, rising out of every head, that do not offer cuts him short with a " What then? We themselves upon the general survey of a allow all this to be true; but what is it to subject. His thoughts are at the same time our present purpose?" I have known Tom more intelligible, and better discover their eloquent half an hour together, and triumphdrift and meaning, when they are placed ing, as he thought, in the superiority of the in their proper lights, and follow one an- argument, when he has been nonplussed other in a regular series, than when they on a sudden by Mr. Dry's desiring him to are thrown together without order and con- tell the company what it was that he ennexion. There is always an obscurity in deavoured to prove. In short, Dry is a man confusion; and the same sentence that would of a clear methodical head, but few words, have enlightened the reader in one part and gains the same advantage over Puzzle of a discourse, perplexes him in another. that a small body of regular troops would For the same reason, likewise, every gain over a numberless undisciplined mi thought in a methodical discourse shows litia. C. itself in its greatest beauty, as the several figures in a piece of painting receive new grace from their disposition in the picture o. 477 Saturday, Setember 6 1712 The advantages of a reader from a methodi- cal discourse are correspondent with those -~An me ludit amabilis of the writer. He comprehends every thing Insania? audire et videor pios Errare per lueos, amcenw, easily, takes it in with pleasure, and retains auos et aquac subeunt et auia;. it long. Hor. Od. iv. Lib 3. a Method is not less requisite in ordinary Does airy fancy cheat conversation than in writing, provided a My mind,well pleas'd with the deceit? man would talk to make himself under- I seem to hear, I seem to move, stood. I, who hear a thousand coffee-house And wander through the happy grovw, stood. I, who hear a Where smooth springs flow, and murnm'nng b.!be debates every day, am very sensible of this Wantons through the waving trees. — Cre 228 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 477.'SIR, —laving lately read your essay on its own producing. There is another cirthe Pleasures of the Imagination, I was cumstance in which I am very particular, so taken with your thoughts upon some of or, as my neighbours call me, very whimsiour English gardens, that I cannot forbear cal: as my garden invites into it all the birds troubling you with a letter upon that sub- of the country, by offering them the conject. I am one, you must know, who am veniency of springs and shades, solitude looked upon as a humourist in gardening. I and shelter, I do not suffer any one to dehave several acres about my house which I stroy their nests in the spring, or drive call my garden, and which a skilful gar- them from their usual haunts in fruit-time; dener would not know what to call. It is I value my garden more for being full of a confusion of kitchen and parterre, orch- blackbirds than cherries, and very frankly ard and flower-garden, which lie so mixed give them fruit for their songs. By this and interwoven with one another, that if a means I have always the music of the seaforeigner, who had seen nothing of our coun- son in its perfection, and am highly detry, should be conveyed into my garden at lighted to see the jay or the thrush hopping nis first landing, he would look upon it as a about my walks, and shooting before my natural wilderness, and one of the unculti- eyes across the several little glades and alvated parts of our country. My flowers leys that I pass through, I think there are grow up in several parts of the garden in as many kinds of gardening as of poetry. the greatest luxuriancy and profusion. I your makers of parterres and flower-garam so far from being fond of any particular dens are epigrammatists and sonnetteers one, by reason of its rarity, that if I meet in this art; contrivers of bowers and grottos, with any one in a field which pleases me, treillages and cascades, are romance wriI give it a place in my garden. By this ters. Wise and London are our heroic means, when a stranger walks with me, he poets; and if, as a critic, I may single out is surprised to see several large spots of any passage of their works to commend, I ground covered with ten thousand different shall take notice of that part in the upper colours, and has often singled out flowers garden at Kensington, which was at first that he might have met with under a com- nothing but a gravel-pit. It must have mon hedge, in a field, or in a meadow, as been a fine genius for gardening that could some of the greatest beauties of the place. have thought of forming such an unsightly The only method I observe in this particu- hollow into so beautiful an area, and to lar, is to range in the same quarter the have hit the eye with so uncommon and products of the same season, that they may agreeable a scene as that which it is now make their appearance together, and com- wrought into. To give this particular spot pose a picture of the greatest variety. of ground the greatest effect, they have There is the same irregularity in my plan- made a very pleasing contrast; for as on tations, which run into as great a wilder- one side of the walk you see this hollow ness as their natures will permit. I take basin, with its several little plantations, lyin none that do not naturally rejoice in the ing so conveniently under the eye of the soil; and am pleased, when I am walking beholder, on the other side of it there apin a labyrinth of my own raising, not to pears a seeming mount, made up of trees know whether the next tree I shall meet rising one higher than another, in proportion with is an apple or an oak, an elm or a as they approach the centre. A spectator, pear-tree. My kitchen has likewise its who has not heard this account of it, would particular quarters assigned it; for, besides think this circular mount was not only a the wholesome luxury which that place real one, but that it had been actually abounds with, I have always thought a scooped out of that hollow space which I kitchen-garden a more pleasant sight than have before mentioned. I never yet met the finest orangery or artificial green- with any one, who has walked in this garhouse. I love to see every thing in its per- den, who was not struck with that part of fection; and am more pleased to survey my it which I have here mentioned. As for rows of coleworts and cabbages, with a myself, you will find, by the account which thousand nameless pot-herbs, springing up I have already given you, that my compoin their full fragrancy and verdure, than to sitions in gardening are altogether after see the tender plants of foreign countries the Pindaric manner, and run into the kept alive by artificial heats, or withering beautiful wildness of nature, without afin an air and soil that are not adapted to fecting the nicer elegancies of art. What I them. I must not omit, that there is a foun- am now going to mention will, perhaps, tain rising in the upper part of my garden, deserve your attention more than any thing which forms a little wandering rill, and ad- I have yet said. I find that, in the disministers to the pleasure as well as to the course which I spoke of at the beginning plenty of the place. I have so conducted of my letter, you are against filling an Engit, that it visits most of my plantations; and lish garden with evergreens: and indeed I have taken particular care to let it run in am so far of your opinion, that I can by no the same manner as it would do in an open means think the verdure of an evergreen field, so that it generally passes through comparable to that which shoots out anbanks of violets and primroses, plats of nually, and clothes our trees in the summer willow or other plants, that seem to be of season. But I have oiten wondered that No. 478.] THE SPECTATOR 229 those who are like myself, and love to live that a friend of mine, who had many things in gardens, have never thought of contriv- to buy for his family, would oblige me to ing a winter garden, which would consist walk with him to the shops. He was very of such trees only as never cast their leaves. nice in his way, and fond of having every We have very often little snatches of sun- thing shown; which at first made me very shine and fair weather in the most uncom- uneasy; but, as his humour still continued, fortable parts of the year, and have fre- the things which I had been staring at quently several days in November and along with him began to fill my head, and January that are as agreeable as any in the led me into a set of amusing thoughts confinest months. At such times, therefore, I Qerning them. think there could not be a greater pleasure I I fancied it must be very surprising to than to walk in such a winter garden as I any one who enters into a detail of fashions have proposed. In the summer season the to consider how far the vanity of mankind whole country blooms, and is a kind of gar- has laid itself out in dress, what a proden; for which reason we are not so sensi- digious number of people it maintains, and ble of those beauties that at this time may what a circulation of money it occasions. be every where met with; but when nature Providence in this case makes use of the is in her desolation, and presents us with folly which we will not give up, and it benothing but bleak and barren prospects, comes instrumental to the support of those there is something unspeakably cheerful in who are willing to labour. Hence it is that a spot of ground which is covered with trees fringe-makers, lace-men, tire-women, and that smile amidst all the rigour of winter, a number of other trades, which would be and give us a view of the most gay season useless in a simple state of nature, draw in the midst of that which is the most dead their subsistence; though it is seldom seen and melancholy. I have so far indulged that such as these are extremely rich, bemyself in this thought, that I have set apart cause their origint fault of being founded a whole acre of ground for the executing of upon vanity keeps them poor by the light it. The walls are covered with ivy instead inconstancy of its nature. The variableness of vines. The laurel, the horn-beam, and of fashion turns the stream of business, the holly, with many other trees and plants which flows from it, now into one channel, of the same nature, grow so thick in it, and anon into another; so that the different that you cannot imagine a more lively sets of people sink or flourish in their turns scene. The glowing redness of the ber- by it. ries, with which they are hung at this time,' From the shops we retired to the tavern, vies with the verdure of their leaves, and where I found my friend express so much is apt to inspire the heart of the beholder satisfaction for the bargains he had made, with that vernal delight which you have that my moral reflections (if I had told somewhere taken notice of in your former them) might have passed for a reproof; papers. It is very pleasant, at the same so I chose rather to fall in with him, time, to see the several kinds of birds re- and let the discourse run upon the use of tiring into this little green spot, and enjoy- fashions. ing themselves among the branches and'Here we remembered how much man foliage, when my great garden, which I is governed by his senses, how lively he is nave before mentioned to you, does not af- struck by the objects which appear to him ford a single leaf for their shelter. in an agreeable manner, how much clothes'You must know, sir, that I look upon contribute to make us agreeable objects, the pleasure which we take in a garden as and how much we owe it to ourselves that one of the most innocent delights in human we should appear so. life. A garden was the habitation of our'We considered man as belonging to first parents before the fall. It is naturally societies; societies as formed of different apt to fill the mind with calmness and tran- ranks; and different ranks distinguished by quillity, and to lay all its turbulent passions habits, that all proper duty or respect at rest. It gives us a great insight into the might attend their appearance. contrivance and wisdom of Providence, and'VWe took notice of several advantages suggests innumerable subjects for medita- which are met with in the occurrences of tion. I cannot but think the very compla- conversation; how the bashful man has beer cency and satisfaction which a man takes in sometimes so raised, as to express himself these works of nature to be a laudable, if with an air of freedom when he imagines not a virtuous, habit of mind. For all which that his habit introduces him to company reasons I hope you will pardon the length with a becoming manner; and again, how of my present letter. I am, sir, &c.' C. a fool in fine clothes shall be suddenly heard with attention, till he has betrayed himself; whereas a man of sense appearing No. 478.] Monday, September 8, 1712. with a dress of negligence, shall be bul _____- - -— _- - Usus, coldly received till he be proved by time, Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus et norma- and established in a character. Such thing, or. drs Poet. v. 72. as these we could recollect to have hap Fashion, sole arbitrers of dress. pened to our own knowledge so very often,'MR. SPECTATd R, — happened c!tely i that we concluded the author had his rea 230 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 4/o. sons, who advises his son to go in dress lars, who might have bei otherwise useful rather above his fortune than under it. to the world, have spent their time in study-' At last the subject seemed so consider- ing to describe the dresses of the ancients able, that it was proposed to have a re- from dark hints, which they are fain to pository built for fashions, as there are interpret and support with much learning; chambers for medals and other rarities. it will from henceforth happen that they The building may be shaped as that which shall be freed from the trouble, and the stands among the pyramids, in the form of world from useless volumes. This project a woman's head. This may be raised upon will be a registry, to which posterity may pillars, whose ornaments shall bear a just have recourse, for the clearing such obscure relation to the design. Thus there may be passages as tend that way in authors; and an imitation of fringe carved in the base, a therefore we shall not for the future submit sort of appearance of lace in the frieze, and ourselves to the learning of etymology, a representation of curling locks, with bows which might persuade the age to come that of ribband sloping over them, may fill up the farthingale was worn for cheapness, or the work of the cornice. The inside may the furbelow for warmth. be divided intotwo apartments appropriated'Fourthly, Whereas they, who are old to each sex. The apartments may be filled themselves, have often a way of railing at with shelves, on which boxes are to stand the extravagance of youth, and the whole as regularly as books in a library. These age in which their children live; it is hoped are to have folding doors, which, being that this ill-humour will be much supopened, you are to behold a baby dressed pressed, when we can have recourse to the out in some fashion which has flourished, fashions of their times, produce them in and standing upon a pedestal, where the our vindication, and be able to show, that time of its reign is marked down. For its it might have been as expensive in queen farther regulation, let it be ordered, that Elizabeth's time only to wash and quill a every one who invents a fashion shall bring ruff, as it is now to buy cravats or neck in his box, whose front he may at pleasure handkerchiefs. have either worked or painted with some' We desire also to have it taken notice amorous or gay device, that, like books of, that because we would show a particular with gilded leaves and covers, it may the respect to foreigners, which may induce sooner draw the eyes of the beholders. them to perfect their breeding here in a And to the end that these may be preserved knowledge which is very proper for pretty with all due care, let there be a keeper ap- gentlemen, we have conceived the motto pointed, who shall be a gentleman qualified for the house in the learned language. with a competent knowledge in clothes; so There is to be a picture over the door, with that by this means the place will be a com- a looking-glass and a dressing chair in the fortable support for some beau who has middle of it; then on one side are to be spent his estate in dressing. seen, above one another, patch-boxes, pin*' The reasons offered, by which we ex- cushions, and little bottles; on the other, pected to gain the approbation of the public, powder-bags, puffs, combs, and brushes; were as follows:- beyond these, swords with fine knots, whose' First, That every one who is consider- points are hidden, and fans almost closed, able enough to be a mode, and has any im- with the handles downward, are to stand perfection of nature or chance, which it is out interchangeably from the sides, until possible to hide by the advantage of clothes, they meet at the top, and form a semicircle may, by coming to this repository, be fur- over the rest of the figures: beneath all, nished herself, and furnish all who are the writing is to run in this pretty sounding under the same misfortune, with the most manner: agreeable manner of concealing it; and that, Adeste, quotquotsunt,Veneres,Gram, Cupidies, on the other side, every one, who has any En vobis adstint in promptu beauty in face or shape, may also be fur- Faces, vincula, spicula; nished with the most agreeable manner of Hine eligite, sumite, regite. showing it. " All ye Venusses, Graces, and Cupids, attend:'Secondly, That whereas some of our See, prepared to your hands, Darts, torches, and bands: young gentlemen who travel, give us great Your weapons here choose, and your empire extend" reason to suspect that they only go abroad,, to make or improve a fancy for dress, a am, sir, project of this nature may be a means to Y most humbe serant, keep them at home; which is in effect the Keeping of so much money in the kingdom. The proposal of my correspondent I canAnd perhaps the balance of fashion in not but look upon as an ingenious method Europe, which now leans upon the side of of placing persons (whose parts make them France, may be so altered for the future, ambitious to exert themselves in frivolous that it may become as common with French- things) in a rank by themselves. In order men to come to England for their finishing to this, I would propose that there be a stroke of oreeding, as it has been for Eng- board of directors of the fashionable society; lishmen to go to France for it. and, because it is a matter of too much'Thirdly, Whereas several great sho- weight for a private mar to determine No. 479.] THE SPECTATOR. 231 alone, I should be highly obliged to my especially in the domestic, or matrimonial correspondents if they would give in lists of part of it, to preserve always a disposition persons qualified for this trust. If the chief to be pleased. This cannot be supported coffee-houses, the conversations of which but by considering things in their right places are carried on by persons, each of light, and as Nature has formed them, and whom has his little number of followers not as our own fancies or appetites would and admirers, would name from among have them. He then who took a young themselves two or three to be inserted, they lady to his bed, with no other considerashould be put up with great faithfulness. tion than the expectation of scenes of dalOld beaus are to be represented in the first liance, and thought of her (as I said before) place; but as that sect, with relation to only as she was to administer to the gratidress, is almost extinct, it will, I fear, be fication of desire; as that desire flags, will, absolutely necessary to take in all time- without her fault, think her charms and servers, properly so deemed; that is, such her merit abated: from hence must follow as, without any conviction of conscience, or indifference, dislike, peevishness, and rage. view of interest, change with the world, But the man who brings his reason to supand that merely from a terror of being out port his passion, and beholds what he loves of fashion. Such also, who from facility of as liable to all the calamities of human life, temper, and too much obsequiousness, are both in body and mind, and even at the vicious against their will, and follow leaders best what must bring upon him new cares, whom they do not approve, for want of and new relations; such a lover, I say, will courage to go their own way, are capable form himself accordingly, and adapt his persons for this superintendency. Those mind to the nature of his circumstances. who are loth to grow old, or would do any This latter person will be prepared to be a thing contrary to the course and order of father, a friend, an advocate, a steward for things, out of fondness to be in fashion, are people yet unborn, and has proper affecproper candidates. To conclude, those who tions ready for every incident in the marare in fashion without apparent merit, must riage state. Such a man can hear the cries be supposed to have latent qualities, which of children with pity instead of anger; and, would appear in a post of direction; and when they run over his head, he is not disbherefore are to be regarded in forming turbed at their noise, but is glad of their these lists. Any who shall be pleased ac- mirth and health. Tom Trusty has told cording to these, or what farther qualifica- me, that he thinks it doubles his attention tions may occur to himself, to send a list, is to the most intricate affair he is'about, to desired to do it within fourteen days from hear his children, for whom all his cares this date. are applied, make a noise in the next room: N. B. The place of the physician to this on the other side, Will Sparkish cannot society, according to the last mentioned put on his periwig, or adjust his cravat at the qualification, is already engaged. T. glass, for the noise of those damned nurses and squalling brats; and then ends with a gallant reflection upon the comforts of matrimony, runs out of the hearing, and drives No. 479.] Tuesday, September 9, 1712. to the chocolate-house. Dare jura maritis. Ho.. 398. According as the husband is disposed in To reulate the ma l le himself, every circumstance of his life is to To regulate the matrimonial life. give him torment or pleasure. When the MANY are the epistles I every day receive affection is well placed, and supported by from husbands who complain of vanity, the considerations of duty, honour, and pride, but, above all, ill-nature in their friendship, which are in the highest degree wives. I cannot tell how it is, but I think engaged in this alliance, there can nothing I see in all their letters that the cause of rise in the common course of life, or from their uneasiness is in themselves; and indeed the blows or favours of fortune, in which a [ have hardly ever observed the married man will not find matters of some delight condition unhappy, but for want of judg- unknown to a single condition. ment or temper in the man. The truth is, He who sincerely loves his wife and fawe generally make love in a style and with mily, and studies to improve that affection sentiments very unfit for ordinary life: they in himself, conceives pleasure from the are half theatrical and half romantic. By most indifferent things; while the married this means we raise our imaginations to man, who has not bid adieu to the fashions what is not to be expected in human life; and false gallantries of the town, is perand, because we did not beforehand think plexed with every thing around him. In of the creature we are enamoured of, as both these cases men cannot, indeed, make subject to dishonour, age, sickness, im- a sillier figure than in repeating such pleapatience, or sullenness, but altogether con- sures and pains to the rest of the world; sidered her as the object of joy; human but I speak of them only as they sit upon nature itself is often imputed to her as her those who are involved in them. As I visit particular imperfection, or defect. all sorts of people, I cannot indeed but I take it to be a rule, proper to be ob- smile, when the good lady tells her husband served in all occurrences of life, but more what extraordinary things the child spoke 237 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 480. since he went out. No longer than yester- tippe, that I'bear so wll your flying out in day I was prevailed with to go home with a dispute.' To another,'My hen clacks a fond husband: and his wife told him, that very much, but she brings me chickens. his son, of his own head, when the clock in They that live in a trading street are not the parlour struck two, said papa would disturbed at the passage of carts.' I would come home to dinner presently. While have, if possible, a wise man be contented the father has him in a rapture in his arms, with his lot, even with a shrew; for, though and is drowning him with kisses, the wife he cannot make her better, he may, you tells me he is but just four years old. Then see, make himself better by her means. they both struggle for him, and bring him But, instead of pursuing my design of up to me, and repeat his observation of two displaying conjugal love in its natural beauo'clock. I was called upon, by looks upon ties and attractions, I am got into tales to the child, and then at me, to say some- the disadvantage of that state of life. I thing; and I told the father that this remark must say, therefore, that I am verily perof the infant of his coming home, and join- suaded, that whatever is delightful in human ing the time with it, was a certain indica- life is to be enjoyed in greater perfection in tion that he would be a great historian and the married than in the single condition. chronologer. They are neither of them He that has this passion in perfection, in fools, yet received my compliment with occasions of joy, can say to himself; besides great acknowledgment of my prescience. his own satisfaction,' How happy will this I fared very well at dinner, and heard makemy wife and children!' Uponoccurmany other notable sayings of their heir, rences of distress or danger, can comfort which would have given very little enter- himself:'But all this while my wife and tainment to one less turned to reflection children are safe.' There is something in than I was: but it was a pleasing specula- it that doubles satisfactions, because others tion to remark on the happiness of a life, in participate them; and dispels afflictions, which things of no moment give occasion because others are exempt from them. All of hope, self-satisfaction, and triumph. On who are married without this relish of their the other hand, I have known an ill-natured circumstances, are in either a tasteless incoxcomb, who has hardly improved in any dolence and negligence, which is hardly tvthing but bulk, for want of this disposition, be attained, or else live in the hourly repesilence the whole family as a set of silly tition of sharp answers, eager upbraidings, women and children, for recounting things and distracting reproaches. In a word, the which weretreally above his own capacity. married state, with and without the affecWhen I say all this, I cannot deny but tion suitable to it, is the completest image there are perverse jades that fall to men's of heaven and hell we are capable of relots, with whom it requires more than com- ceiving in this life. T. mon proficiency in philosophy to be able to _ live. When these are joined to men of warm spirits, without temper or learning, No. 480.] T/ednesday, Sefitember 19, 1712. they are frequently corrected with stripes; Responsare cupidinibus, contemnere honores, but one of our famous lawyers* is of opinion, Fortis, et in seipso totus teres, atque rotundus.' that this ought to be used sparingly;' as I cr. Sat. vii. Lii. 2. 35. remember, those are his very words: but He, sir, is proof to grandeur, pride, or pelf, And, greater still, he's master of himself: as it is proper to draw some spiritual use Not to and fro by fears and factions hurld, out of all afflictions, I should rather recom- But loose to all the interests of the world; mend to those who are visited with women And while the world turns round, entire and whole, of spirit, to form themselves for the world He keeps the sacred tenor of his soul.-Pitt. by patience at hore. Socrates, who is by THE other day, looking over those old all accounts the undoubted head of the sect manuscripts of which I have formerly of the hen-pecked, owned and acknow- given some account, and which relate to ledged that he owed great part of his virtue. the character of the mighty Pharamond of to the exercise which his useful wife con- France, and the close friendship between stantly gave it. There are several good him and his friend Eucrate, I found among instructions may be drawn from his wise the letters which had been in the custody answers to the people of less fortitude than of the latter, an epistle from a country genhimself on her subject. A friend, with in- tleman to Pharamond, wherein he excuses dignation, asked how so good a man could himself from coming to court. The genlive with so violent a creature? He ob- tleman, it seems, was contented with his served to him, that they who learn to keep condition, had formerly been in the king's a good seat on horse-back, mount the least service; but at the writing the following manageable they can get; and, when they letter, had, from leisure and reflection, have mastered them, they are sure never quite another sense of things than that to be discomposed on the backs of steeds which he had in the more active part of less restive. At several timtes, to different his life. person's, on the same subject he has said,luy to ar'My dear friend, you are beholden to Xan- nsr Chezlu to ar ond'DREAD SIR,-I have from your own *Bracton. hard (enclosed under the cover of Mr. No. 480.J THE SPECTATOR. 233 Eucrate, of your majesty's bed-chamber) a tell'you, sir, this is the reason that we in letter which invites me to court. I under- the country hear so often repeated the stand this great honour to be done me out word prerogative. That part of your law of respect and inclination to me, rather which is reserved in yourself, forthe rea than regard to our own service; for which dier service and good of the public, slight reason I beg leave to lay before your ma- men are eternally buzzing in our ears, to jesty my reasons for declining to depart cover their own follies and miscarriages. from home; and will not doubt but, as your It would be an addition to the high favour motive in desiring my attendance was to you have done me, if you would let Eucrate make me a happier man, when you think send me word how often, and in what cases, that will not be effected by my remove, you allow a constable to insist upon the you will permit me to stay where I am. prerogative. From the highest to the lowThose who have an ambition to appear in est officer in your dominions, something of courts, have either an opinion that their their own carriage they would exempt persons or their talents are particularly from examination, under the shelter of the formed for the service or ornament of that word prerogative. I would fain, most noble place! or else are hurried by downright Pharamond, see one of your officers assert desire of gain, or what they call honour, your prerogative by good and gracious acto take upon themselves whatever the tions. When is it used to help the afflicted, generosity of their master can give them to rescue the innocent, to comfort the opportunities to grasp at. But your good- stranger? Uncommon methods, apparently ness shall not be thus imposed upon by me: undertaken to attain worthy ends, would I will therefore confess to you, that fre- never make power invidious. You see, sir, quent solitude, and long conversation with I talk to you with the freedom your noble such who know no arts which polish life, nature approves in all whom you admit to have made me the plainest creature in your your conversation. dominions. Those less capacities of moving'But, to return to your majesty's letter, with a good grace, bearing a ready affa- I humbly conceive that all distinctions are bility to all around me, and acting with useful to men, only as they are to act in ease before many, have quite left me. I public; and it would be a romantic madness am come to that, with regard to my per- for a man to be lord in his closet. Nothing son, that I consider it only as a machine I can be honourable to a man apart from the am obliged to take care of, in order to en- world, but reflection upon worthy actions; joy my soul in its faculties with alacrity; and he that places honour in a consciouswell remembering that this habitation of ness of well doing will have but little relish clay will in a few years be a meaner piece for any outward homage that is paid hirr, of earth than any utensil about my house. since what gives him distinction to himself, When this is, as it really is, the most fre- cannot come within the observation of his quent reflection I have, you will easily beholders. Thus all the words of lordship, imagine how well I should become a draw honour, and grace, are only repetitions to ing-room: add to this, what shall a man a man that the king has ordered him to be without desires do about the generous Pha- called so; but no evidences that there is any ramond? Monsieur Eucrate has hinted to thing in himself, that would give the man, me, that you have thoughts of distinguish- who applies to him, those ideas, without ing me with titles. As for myself, in the the creation of his master. temper of my present mind, appellations'I have, most noble Pharamond, all hoof honour would but embarrass discouise, nours and all titles in your approbation: I and new behaviour towards me perplex ie triumph in them as they are in your gift, I in every habitude of life. I am also to a — refuse them as they are to give me the Knowledge to you, that my children of observationofothers. Indulgeme,mynoble whom your majesty condescended to in master, in this chastity of renown; let me quire, are all of them mean, both in their know myself in the favour of Pharamond; persons and genius. The estate my eldest and look down upon the applause of the son is heir to, is more than he can enjoy people. I am, in all duty and loyalty, your with a good grace. My self-love will not majesty's most obedient subject and sercarry me so far as to impose upon mankind vant, JEAN CHEZLUY.' the advancement of persons (merely for their being related to me) into high distinc' SR,-I need not tell with what disadtions, who oughtfor their own sakes, as well vantages men of low fortunes and great as that of the public, to affect obscurity. I modesty come into the world; what wrong wish, my generous prince, as it is in your measures their diffidence of themselves, power to give honours and offices, it were and fear of offending, often oblige them to also to give talents suitable to them: were take; and what a pity it is that their greatest,t so, the noble Pharamond would reward virtues and qualities, that should soonest the zeal of my youth with abilities to do recommend them, are the main obstacles him service in my age. in the way of their preferment.'Those who accept of favour without'This, sir, is my case; I was bred at a merit, support themselves in it at the ex- country-school, where I learned Latin and pense of vour majesty. Give me leave to Greek, The misfortunes- of my family Vi. IJL 30 234 T-HE SPECTATOR. [No. 481. Forced me up to town, where a profession between Count Rechteren and Monsieui of the politer sort has protected me against Mesnager, which employs the wise heads infamy and want. I am now clerk to a of so many nations, and holds all the affairs lawyer, and, in times of vacancy and re- of Europe in suspense. cess from business, have made myself mas- Upon my going into a coffee-house yes ter of Italian and French; and though the terday, and lending an ear to the next table, progress I have made in my business has which was encompassed with a circle of gained me reputation enough for one of my inferior politicians, one of them, after havstanding, yet my mind suggests to me every ing read over the news very attentively, day, that it is not upon that foundation I broke out into the following remarks:'I am to build my fortune. am afraid,' says he,' this unhappy rupture' The person I have my present depen- between the footmen at Utrecht will retard dence upon has in his nature, as well as in the peace of Christendom. I wish the pope his power, to advance me, by recommend- may not be at the bottom of it. His holiing me to a gentleman that is going beyond ness has a very good hand in fomenting a sea, in a public employment. I know the division, as the poor Swiss cantons have printing this letter would point me out to lately experienced to their cost. If Monthose I want confidence to speak to, and I sieur What-d'ye-call-him's domestics will hope it is not in your power to refuse mak- not come to an accommodation, I do not ing any body happy. Yours, &c. know how the quarrel can be ended but by'September 9, 1712. M. D.' a religious war. T.'Why, truly,' says a wiseacre that sat by him,'were I as the king of France, I would scorn to take part with the footmen No. -81.] Tlury S r 11 12 of either side; here's all the business of EuNo. 81. urday, Setember 1, 1712. rope stands still, because Monsieur MesnaUti inon ger's man has had his head broke. If Count Compositus melius cum Bitho Bacchius: in ju Rectrum* had given them a pot of ale after Acres procurrunt - it, all would have been well, without any laor. Sat. vii. Lib. 1. 19. of this bustle; but they say he's a warm Who shall decide when doctors disagree, man, and does not care to be made mouths And soundest casuists doubt like you and me? at. Pope. Upon this, one that had held his tongue IT is sometimes pleasant enough to con- hitherto began to exert himself; declaring, sider the different notions which different that he was very well pleased the plenipopersons have of the same thing. If men tentiaries of our Christian princes took this of low condition very often set a value on matter into their serious consideration; for things which are not prized by those who that lackeys were never so saucy and pragare in a higher station of life, there are matical as they are now-a-days, and that many things these esteem which are in no he should be glad to see them taken down value among persons of an inferior rank. in the treaty of peace, if it might be done Common people are, in particular, very without prejudice to the public affairs. much astonished when they hear of those One who sat at the other end of the table, solemn contests and debates, which are and seemed to be in the interests of the made among the great upon the punctilios French king, told them, that they did not of a public ceremony; and wonder to hear take the matter right, for that his most that any business of consequence should Christian majesty did not resent this matter be retarded by those little circumstances, because it was an injury done to Monsieur which they represent to themselves as Mesnager's footmen;'for,' says he, what trifling and insignificant. I am mightily are Monsieur Mesnager's footmen to him? pleased with a porter's decision in one of but because it was done to his subjects. Mr. Southern's plays, which is founded Now,' says he,'let me tell you, it would upon that fine distress of a virtuous wo- look very odd for a subject of France to man's marrying a second husband, while have a bloody nose, and his sovereign not ner first was yet living. The first husband, to take notice of it. He is obliged in howho was supposed to have been dead, re- nour to defend his people against hostilities; turning to his house, after a long absence, and if the Dutch will be so insolent to a raises a noble perplexity for the tragic part crowned head, as in any wise to cuff or of the play. In the meanwhile the nurse kick those who are under his protection, I and the porter conferring upon the diffi- think he is in the right L Ad1 them to an culties that would ensue in such a case, account for it.' honest Samson thinks the matter may be: This distinction set the controversy upon easily decided, and solves it very judiciously a new foot, and seemed to be very well by the old proverb, that if his first master approved by most that heard it, until a be still living,'the man must have his little warm fellow, who had declared himmare again.' There is nothing in my time self a friend to the house of Austria, fell which has so much surprised and con- most unmercifully upon his Gallic majesty, founded the greatest part of my honest ___ countrymen, as the present controversy * Count Rechteren. No. 482. THE SPECTATOR. 235 as encouraging his subjects to make mouths the name of a club, who, he tells me, meet at their betters, and afterwards screening as often as their wives Still give them leave, them from the punishment that was due to and stay together till they are sent for their insolence. To which he added, that home. He informs me t at my paper has adthe French nation was so addicted to gri- ministered great consolation to their whole mace, that, if there was not a stop put to club, and desires me to give some farther acit at the general congress, there would be count of Socrates, and to acquaint them in no walking the streets for them in a time of "whose reign he lived, whether he was a peace, especially if they continued masters citizen or a courtier, whether he buried of the West Indies. The little man pro- Xantippe, with many other particulars: for cecded with a great deal of warmth, de- that by his sayings, he appears to have been claring that, if the allies were of his mind, a very wise man, and a good Christian. he would oblige the French king to burn Another who writes himself Benjamin his galleys, and tolerate the protestant re- Bamboo, tells me that, being coupled with ligion in his dominions, before he would a shrew,ihe had endeavoured to tame her sheath his sword. He concluded with call- by such lawful means as those which I ing Monsieur Mesnager an insignificant'mentioned in my last Tuesday's paper, and prig. that in his wrath he had often gone farther The dispute was now growing very warm, than Bracton always allows in those cases: and one does not know where it would have but that for the future he was resolved to ended, had not a young man of about one- bear it like a man of temper and learning, and-twenty, who seems to have been brought and consider her only as one who lives in up with an eye to the law, taken the debate his house to teach him philosophy. Tom into his hand, and given it as his opinion, Dapperwit says that he agrees with me in that neither Count Rechteren nor Monsieur that whole discourse, excepting only the Mesnager had behaved themselves right in last sentence, where I affirm the married this affair.' Count Rechteren,' says he, state to be either a heaven or a hell. Tom' should have made affidavit that his ser- has been at the charge of a penny upon vant had been affronted, and then Monsieur this occasion to tell me, that by his expeMesnager would have done him justice, by rience it is neither one nor the other, but taking away their liveries from them, or rather that middle kind of state, commonly some other way that he might have thought known by the name of purgatory. the most proper; for, let me tell you, if a The fair-sex have likewise obliged me man makes a mouth at me, I am not to with their reflections upon the same disknock the teeth out of it for his pains. course. A lady, who calls herself Euterpe, Then again, as for Monsieur Mesnager, and seems a woman of letters, asks me upon his servant's being beaten, why he whether I am for establishing the Salic law might have had his action of assault and in every family, and why it is not fit that a battery. But as the case now stands, if you woman who has discretion and learning will have my opinion, I think they ought should sit at the helm, when the husband'o bring it to referees.' is weak and illiterate? Another, of a quite I heard a great deal more of this confer- contrary character, subscribes herself Xan P.nce, but I must confess with little edifica- tippe, and tells me that she follows the tion, for all I could learn at last from these example of her namesake; for being marhonest gentlemen was, that the mafter in ried to a bookish man, who has no knowdebate was of too high a nature for such ledge of the world, she is forced to take neads as theirs, or mine, to comprehend. their affairs into her own hands, and to 0. spirit him up now and then, that he may not grow musty, and unfit for conversation. After this abridgment of some letters No. 482.] Friday, Sefptember 12, 1712. which are come to my hands upon this oca~~~~~i'casion, I shall publish one of them at large. Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant. Luer. Lib. iii. 11.' MR. SPECTATOR,-YOU have given us As from the sweetest flowers the lab'ring bee a lively picture of that kind of husband Extracts her precious sweets.-Creech. who comes under the denomination of the hen-pecked; but I do not remember that WHEN I have published any single paper you have ever touched upon one that is that falls in with the popular taste, and quite of the different character, and who, pleases more than ordinary, it always brings in several places of England, goes by the me in a great return of letters. My Tues- name of' a cot-queen.' I have the misforday's discourse, wherein I gave several tune to be joined for life with ohe of this admonitions to the fraternity of the hen- character, who in reality is more a woman pecked, has already produced me very than I am. He was bred up under the tuimany correspondents; the reason I cannot tion of a tender mother, till she had made guess, unless it be, that such a discourse is him as good a housewife as herself. He of general use, and every married man's could preserve apricots, and make jellies, money. An honest tradesman, who dates his before he had been two years out of the letter from C~eapside, sends me thanks in nursery. He was never suffered to go 236 TLE SPECTA1TOR. LNo. 4d3 abroad, for fear of catching cold; when he tural depravity of temper it is not in the should have been hunting down a buck, he power, even of religion itself, to preserve was by his mother's side learning how to the character of the person who is possessseason it, or put it in crust; and making ed with it from appearing highly absurd paper boats with his sisters, at an age and ridiculous. when other young gentlemen are crossing An old maiden gentlewoman, whom I the seas, or travelling into foreign coun- shall conceal under the name of Nemesis, tries. He has the whitest hand you ever is the greatest discoverer of judgments that saw in your life, and raises paste better I have met with. She can tell you what sin than any woman in England. These quali- it was that set such a man's house on fire, for fications make him a sad husband. He is blew down his barns. Talk to her of an perpetually in the kitchen, and has a thou- unfortunate young lady that lost her beauty sand squabbles with the cook-maid. He is by the small-pox, she fetches a deep sigh, better acquainted with the milk-score than and tells you, that when she had a fine face his steward's accounts. I fret to death she was always looking on it in her glass. when I hear him find fault with a dish that Tell her of a piece of good fortune that has is not dressed to his liking, and instructing befallen one of her acquaintance, and she his friends that dine with him in the best wishes it may prosper with her, but her pickle for a walnut, or sauce for a haunch mother used one of her nieces very barbaof venison. With all this he is a very good- rously. Her usual remarks turn upon peonatured husband, and never fell out with pie who had great estates, but never enme in his life but once, upon the over- joyed them by reason of some flaw in their roasting of a dish of wild fowl. At the same own or their father's behaviour. She can time I must own, I would rather he was a give you the reason why such a one died man of a rough temper, and would treat me childless; why such a one was cut off in the harshly sometimes, than of such an effemi- flower of his youth; why such a one was nate busy nature, in a province that does unhappy in her marriage; why one broke not belong to him. Since you have given his leg on such a particular spot of ground; us the character of a wife who wears the and why another was killed with a backbreeches, pray say somewhat of a husband sword, rather than with any other kind of that wears the petticoat. Why should not weapon. She has a crime for every misfora female character be as ridiculous in a tune that can befall any of her acquaintman, as a male character in one of our sex? ance; and when she hears of a robbery that I am, &c. 0. has been made, or a murder that has been committed, enlarges more on the guilt of ~"~' ~Act====~===== = ~the suffering person, than on that of the No. 483.] Saturday, September 13, 1712. t^thief, or assassin. In short, she is so good No' 4a, 12 a Christian, that whatever happens to herNec deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus self is a trial, and whatever happens to her I^~nciderit -- Heor. ss Poet. ver. 191. neighbour is a judgment. Never presume to make a god appear, h vr d ri n o th fll But for a business worthy of a god. —Roscommon. e scpon is lly, n ordinary life, is sufficient to expose it: but, WE cannot be guilty of a greater act of when it appears in a pomp and dignity of uncharitableness than to interpret the af- style, it is very apt to amuse and terrify the flictions which befall our neighbours as mind of the reader. Herodotus and Plupunishments and judgments. It aggravates tarch very often apply their judgments as the evil to him who suffers, when he looks impertinently as the old woman I have beupon himself as the mark of divine ven- fore mentioned, though their manner of regeance, and abates the compassion of those lating them makes the folly itself appear towards him who regard him in so dread- venerable. Indeed most historians, as well ful a light. This humour, of turning every Christian as pagan, have fallen into this misfortune into a judgment, proceeds from idle superstition, and spoken of ill success, wrong notions of religion, which in its own. unforeseen disasters, and terrible events, as nature produces good-will towards men, if they had been let into the secrets of Proviand puts the mildest construction upon denCe, and made acquainted with that prievery accident that befalls them. In this vate conductby which the world is governed. case, therefore, it is not neligion that sours One would think several of our own histoa man's temper, but it is his temper that rians in particular had many revelations of sours his religion. People of gloomy, un- this kind made to them. Our old English cheerful imaginations, or of envious malig- monks seldom let any of their kings depart nant tempers, whatever kind of life they in peace, who had endeavoured to diminish are engaged in, will discover their natural the power of wealth of which the ecclesiastincture of mind in all their thoughts, tics were in those times possessed. Wilwords, and actions. As the finest vines liam the Conqueror's race generally found have often the taste of the soil, so even the their judgments in the New Forest where most religious thoughts often draw some- their father had pulled down churches and thing that is particular from the constitu- monasteries. In short, read one of the tion of the mind in which they arise. When chronicles written by an author of this folly or srperst'ticn strike in with this na- frame of mind, and you would think you No. 484,] THE SPECTATOR. 257 were reading a history of the kings of If we could look into the effects of every Israel and Judah, where the historians thing, we might be allowed to pronounce were actually inspired, and where, by a boldly upon blessings and judgments; but particular scheme of Providence, the kings for a man to give his opinion of what he were distinguished by judgments, or bless- sees but in part, and in its beginnings, is an;ngs, according as they promoted idolatry unjustifiable piece of rashness and folly. or the worship of the true God. The story of Biton and Clitobus, which I cannot but look upon this manner of was in great reputation among the hea judging upon misfortunes, not only to be thens, (for we see it quoted by all the anvery uncharitable in regard to the person cient authors, both Greek and Latin, who on whom they fall, but very presumptuous have written upon the immortality of the in regard to him who is supposed to inflict soul,) may teach us a caution in this matter. * them. It is a strong argument for a state of These two brothers, being the sons of a retribution hereafter, that in this world vir- lady who was priestess to Juno, drew their tuous persons are very often unfortunate, mother's chariot to temple at the time of a and vicious persons prosperous; which is great solemnity, the persons being absent wholly repugnant to the nature of a Being who, by their office, were to have drawn who appears infinitely wise and good in all her chariot on that occasion. The mother his works, unless we may suppose that such was so transported with this instance of a promiscuous and undistinguished distri- filial duty, that she petitioned her goddess bution of good and evil, which was neces- to bestow upon them the greatest gift that sary for carrying on the designs of Provi- could be given to men; upon which they dence in this life, will be rectified, and were both cast into a deep sleep, and the made amends for, in another. We are not next morning found dead in the temple. therefore to expect that fire should fall This was such, an event, as would have been from heaven in the ordinary course of Pro- construed into a judgment, had it happened vidence; nor, when we see triumphant guilt to the two brothers after an act of disobeor depressed virtue in particular persons, dience, and would doubtless have been rethat Omnipotence will make bare his holy presented as such by any ancient historian arm in the defence of one, or punishment who had given us an account of it. O. of the other. It is sufficient that there is a day set apart for the hearing and requiting of both, according to their respective No. 484.] Monday, Seepteliber 15, 171'~. merits. The folly of ascribing temporal judg- Neque cuiquam tam statim clarum ingenium est, ut ments to any particular crimes, may ap- possit emergere; nisi illi materia, occasio, fautor etiam, pear from several considerations. Ishall commendatorque contingat. Pin. Epist. Nor has any one so bright a genius as to become ilonly mention two: First, that, generally lustrious instantaneously, unless it fortunately meets speaking, there is no calamity or affliction, with occasion and employment, with patronage too, which is supposed to have happened as a and commendation. judgment to a vicious man, which does not''MR SPECTATOR,-OF all the young felsometimes happen to men of approved re- lows who are in their progress through any ligion and virtue. When Diagoras the profession, none seem to have so good a atheist was on board one of the Athenian title to the protection of the men of emiships, there arose a very violent tempest: nence in it as the modest man, not so much upon which the mariners told him, that it because his modesty is a certain indication was a just judgment upon them for having of his merit, as because it is a certain obtaken so impious a man on board. Diagoras stacle to the producing of it. Now, as of begged them to look upon the restofthe ships all professions, this virtue is thought to be that were in the same distress, and asked more particularly unnecessary in that of them whether or no Diagoras was on board the law than in any other, I shall only apevery vessel in the fleet. We are all in- ply myself to the relief of such who follow volved in the same calamities, and subject this profession with this disadvantage. to the same accidents: and when we see What aggravates the matter is, that those any one of the species under any particular persons who, the better to prepare them oppression, we should look upon it as selves for this study, have made some proarising from the common lot of human na- gress in others, have, by addicting themture, rather than from the guilt of the per- selves to letters, increased their natural sory who suffers. modesty, and consequently heightened the Another consideration, that may check obstruction to this sort of preferment; so our presumption in putting such a construc- that every one of these may emphatically tion upon a misfortune, is this, that it is im- be said to be such a one as " laboureth and possible for us to know what are calamities taketh pains, and is still the more behind." and what are blessings. How many acci- It may be a matter worth discussing, then, dents have passed for misfortunes, which why that which made a youth so amiable have turned to the welfare and prosperity to the ancients, should make him appear of the persons to whose lot they have fal- so ridiculous to the moderns? and why, in len! How many disappointments have, in our days, there should be neglect, and even their consequences, saved a man from ruin! oppression of young beginners, instead of 238 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 484. that protection which was the pride of expressed himself in the same favourable theirs? In the profession spoken of, it is strain of modesty, when he says, obvious to every one whose attendance is required at Westminster-hall, with what In the modesty of fearful duty I read as much as from the rattling tongue difficulty a youth of any modesty has been Of saucy and audacious eloquence permitted to make an observation, that could in no wise detract from the merit of his' Now, since these authors have professed elders, and is absolutely necessary for the themselves for the modest man, even in the advancing of his own. I have often seen utmost confusions of speech and counteone of these not only molested in his utter- nance, why should an intrepid utterance ance of something very pertinent, but even and a resolute vociferation thunder so sucplundered of his question, and by a strong cessfully in our courts of justice? And why sergeant shouldered out of his rank, which should that confidence of speech and behe has recovered with much difficulty and haviour, which seems to acknowledge no confusion. Now, as great part of the busi- superior, and to defy all contradiction, preness of this profession might be despatched vail over that deference and resignation oy one that perhaps with which the modest man implores that __Abest virtute diserti, favourable opinion which the other seems Messale, nec scit quantum Causellius Aulus; to command? Hor. Ars Poet. v. 370.' As the case at present stands, the best - wants Messala's powerful eloquence, consolation that I can administer to those And is less read than deep Causellius: who cannot get into that stroke of business (as the phrase is) which they deserve, is so I cannot conceive the injustice done to to reckon every particular acquisition of the public, if the men of reputation in this knowledge in this study as a real increase calling would introduce such of the young of their fortune; and fully to believe, that ones into business, whose application in this one day this imaginary gain will certainly study will let them into the secrets of it, as be made out by one more substantial. I much as their modesty will hinder them wish you would talk to us a little on this from the practice: I say, it would be laying head; you would oblige, sir, your humble an everlasting obligation upon a young man, servant.' to be introduced at first only as a mute, till by this countenance, and a resolution to The author of this letter is certainly a support the good opinion conceived of him man of good sense; but I am perhaps parin his betters, his complexion shall be so ticular in my opinion on this occasion: for I well settled, that the litigious of this island have observed that, under the notion of may be secure of this obstreperous aid. If modesty, men have indulged themselves in I might be indulged to speak in the style of spiritless sheepishness, and been for ever a lawyer, I would say, that any one about lost to themselves, their families, their thirty years of age might make a common friends, and their country. When a man motion to the court with as much elegance has taken care to pretend to nothing but and propriety as the most aged advocates what he may justly aim at, and can execute in the hall. as well as any other, without injustice to' I cannot advance the merit of modesty any other, it is ever want of breeding or by any argument of my own so powerfully courage to be brow-beaten or elbowed out as by inquiring into the sentiments the of his honest ambition. I have said often, greatest among the ancients of different modesty must be an act of the will, and yet ages entertained upon this virtue. If we go it always implies self-denial; for, if a man back to the days of Solomon, we shall find has an ardent desire to do what is laudable favour a necessary consequence to a shame- for him to perform, and, from an unmanly faced man. Pliny the greatest lawyer and bashfulness, shrinks away, and lets his most elegant writer of the age he lived in, merit languish in silence, he ought not to in several of his epistles is very solicitous be angry at the world that a more unskilful in recommending to the public some young actor succeeds in his part, because he has men, of his own profession, and very often not confidence to come upon the stage himundertakes to become an advocate, upon self. The generosity my correspondent condition that some one of these his favour- mentions of Pliny cannot be enough apites might be joined with him, in order to plauded. To cherish the dawn of merit, produce the merit of such, whose modesty and hasten its maturity, was a work worthy otherwise would have suppressed it. It may a noble Roman and a liberal scholar. That seem very marvellous to a saucy modern, concern which is described in the letter, is that multum sanguinis, multum verecun- to all the world the greatest charm imagindix, multum sollicitudinis in ore, " to have able; but then the modest man must prothe face first full of blood, then the counte- ceed, and show a latent resolution in himriance dashed with modesty, and then the self; for the admiration of modesty arises whole aspect as of one dying with fear, from the manifestation of his merit. I must when a man begins to speak," should be confess we live in an age wherein a few esteemed by Pliny the necessary qualifica- empty blusterers carry away the praise of tions of a fine speaker. Shakspeare also has speaking, while a crowd of fellows over No. 485.] THE SPECTATOR. 239 stocked with knowledge are run down by bestirs himself to distress his enemy by them: I say, over-stocked, because they methods probable and reducible to reason, certainly are so, as to their service of man- so the same reason will fortify his enemy to kind, if from their very store they raise to elude these his regular efforts; but your fool themselves ideas of respect, and greatness projects, acts, and concludes, with such of the occasion, and I know not what, to notable inconsistency, that no regular course disable themselves from explaining their of thought can evade or counterplot his thoughts. I must confess, when I have seen prodigious machinations. My frontispiece, Charles Frankair riseup with a command- believe, may be extended to imply, that ing mien, and torrent of handsome words, several ofpur misfortunes arise from things, talk a mile off the purpose, and drive down as well as persons, that seem of very little twenty bashful boobies of ten times his consequence. Into what tragical extravasense, who at the same time were envying gances does Shakspeare hurry Othello, his impudence, and despising his under- upon the loss of a handkerchief only! And standing, it has been matter of great mirth what barbarities does Desdemona suffer, to me; but it soon ended in a secret lamenta- from a slight inadvertency in regard to this tion, that the fountains of every thing praise- fatal trifle! If the schemes of all enterprisworthy in these realms, the universities, ing spirits were to be carefully examined, should be so muddled with a false sense of some intervening accident, not considerable this virtue, as to produce men capable of enough to occasion any debate upon, or give being so abused. I will be bold to say, that them any apprehension of ill consequence it is a ridiculous education which does not from it, will be found to be the occasion of qualify a man to make his best appearance their ill success, rather than any error in before the greatest man, and the finest wo- points of moment and difficulty, which natuman, to whom he can address himself. rally engaged their maturest deliberations. Were this- judiciously corrected in the If you go to the levee of any great man, you nurseries of learning, pert coxcombs would will observe him exceeding gracious to know their distance: but we must bear with several very insignificant fellows; and upon this false modesty in our young nobility and this maxim, that the neglect of any person gentry, till they cease at Oxford and Cam- must arise from the mean opinion you have bridge to grow dumb in the study of elo- of his capacity to do you any service ot quence. T. prejudice; and that this calling his sufficiency in question must give him inclination, and where this is there never wants No. 48 Tuedayr 16 12 strength, or opportunity to annoy you. No. 485. Tuesda Setember 16, 1712. There is nobody so weak of invention that Nihil tam firmum est, cui periculum non sit, etiamcannot aggravate, or make some little ab invalido. Quint. Curt.. vii. c. 8. stories to vilify his enemy; there are very The strongest things are not so well established as to few but have good ininations hea be out of danger from the weakest. them; and it is infinite pleasure to the majority of mankind to level a person superior'MR. SPECTATOR,-My Lord Clarendon to his neighbours. Besides, in all matter has observed, that few men have done more of controversy, that party which has the harm than those who have been thought to greatest abilities labours under this preju be able to do least; and there cannot be a dice, that he will certainly be supposed, greater error, than to believe a man, whom upon account of his abilities, to have done we see qualified with too mean parts to do an injury, when perhaps he has received good, to be therefore incapable of doing one. It would be tedious to enumerate the hurt. There is a supply of malice, of strokes that nations and particular friends pride, of industry, and even of folly, in the have suffered from persons very contemptiweakest, when he sets his heart upon it, ble. that makes a strange progress in mischief.' I think Henry IV. of France, so formidaWhat may seem to the reader the greatest ble to his neighbours, could no more be paradox in the reflection of the historian is, secured against the resolute villany of I suppose, that folly which is generally Ravillac, than Villiers duke of Buckingthought incapable of contriving or execut- ham could be against that of Felton. And ing any design, should be so formidable to there is no incensed person so destitute, but those whom it exerts itself to molest. But can provide himself with a knife or a pistol, this will appear very plain, if we remem- if he finds stomach to apply them. That her that Solomon says, " It is a sport to a things and persons of no moment should fool to do mischief;" and that he might the give such powerful revolutions to the promore emphatically express the calamitous gress of those of the greatest, seems a procircumstances of him who falls under the vidential disposition to baffle and abate ths displeasure of this wanton person, the same pride of human sufficiency; as also to enauthor adds farther, that "A stone is heavy, gage the humanity and benevolence of and the sand weighty, but a fool's wrath is superiors to all below them, by letting them heavier than them both." It is impossible into this secret, that the stronger depends to suppress my own illustration upon this upon the weaker. I am, sir, your very matter, which is that as the man of sagacity humble servant.' 240 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 486. Temple, Paper-buildings. I shall have a fair lhance to divide the pas-'DEAR SIR,-I received a letter from sengers by the irresistible force of mine. you some time ago, which I should have'I expect sudden despatches from you, answered sooner, had you informed me in with advice of the family you are in now, yours to what part of this island I might how to deport myself upon this so delicate have directed my impertinence; but having a conjuncture; with some comfortable rebeen let into the knowledge of that matter, solutions in favour of the handsome black this handsome excuse is no longer service- man against the handsome fair one. I am, able. My neighbour Prettyman shall be sir, your most humble servant.' C. the subject of this letter; who, falling in B. e who rit this is a black man, with the Spectator's doctrine concerning N.B. He who writ this is a black man, with the Spectator's doctrine concerning two pair of stairs; the gentleman of whom the month of May, began from that season he writes is fair an one to dedicate himself to the service of the es is fair, and one pair of stairs. fair, in the following manner. I observed' MR. SPECTATOR,-I only say, that it at the beginning of the month he bought is impossible for me to say how much I am him a new night-gown, either side to be yours, ROBIN SHORTER. worn outwards, both equally gorgeous and attractive; but till the end of the month I'P. S. I shall think it is a little hard, if did not enter so fully into the knowledge of you do not take as much notice of this his contrivance as the use of that garment epistle as you have of the ingenious Mr. has since suggested to me. Now you must Short's. I am not afraid of letting the world know, that all new clothes raise and warm see which is the deeper man of the two.' the wearer's imagination into a conceit of ADVERTISEMENT. his being a much finer gentleman than he London, September was before, banishing all sobriety and re- Whereas a young woman onhorseback, flection, and giving him up to gallantry and in an equestian habit, on the 13t instant Scmiour. Inflamed, ~therefore, with this way in an equestrian habit, on the 13th instant amour. Inflamed, therefore, with this way in the evening, met the Spectator within a of thinking, and full of the spirit of the, mile and a half of this town, and flying in month of May, did this merciless youth re- the face of justice, pulled off her hat, in solve upon the business of captivating. At which there was a feather, with the mien first heconfined himself to his room, only and air of a young officer, saying at the same now and then appearing at his window,'in time, c Your servant, Mr. Spec,' or words his night-gown, and practising that easy to that purpose: this is to give notice, that posture which expresses the very top and if any person can discover the name and dignity of languishment. It was pleasant to place of abode of the said offender, so as see him diversifyhis loveliness, sometimes she canbe brought to justice, the informobliging the passengers only with a side- ant shall have ab l f itt ing encouragement. face, with a book in his hand; sometimes being so generous as to expose the whole in the fulness of its beauty; at other times, by -. a judicious throwing back his periwig, he No. 486.] Wednesday, Sefitember 17, 1712. would throw in his ears. You know he is that sort of person which the mob call a Aui mcechis non pvultismredre re handsome jolly man; which appearance ftor. Sat. ii. Lib. 1. 33 cannot miss of captives in this part of the IMITATED. town. Being emboldened by daily success, All you who think the city ne'er can thrive he leaves his room with a resolution to Till ev'ry cuckold-maker's flead alive, extend his conquests; and I have appre-Attend Pope. hended him in his night-gown smiting in all' MR. SPECTATOR,-There are very parts of this neighbourhood. many of my acquaintance followers of So-' This I, being of an amorous complexion, crates, with more particular regard to that saw with indignation, and had thoughts of part of his philosophy which we among purchasing a wig in these parts; into which, ourselves call his domestics; under which being at a greater distance from the earth, denomination, or title, we include all the I might have thrown a very liberal mix- conjugal joys and sufferings. We have inture of white horse-hair, which would deed, with very great pleasure, observed make a fairer, and consequently a hand- the honour you do the whole fraternity of somer, appearance, while my situation the hen-pecked in placing that illustrious would secure me against any discoveries, man at our head, and it does in a very But the passion of the handsome gentle- great measure baffle the raillery of pert man seems to be so fixed to that part of the rogues, who have no advantage above us, building, that it must be extremely dif- but in that they are single. But, when you ficult to divert it to mine; so that I am re- look about into the crowd of mankind, you solved to stand boldly to the complexion of will find the fair-sex reigns with greater my own eyebrow, and prepare me an im- tyranny over lovers than husbands. You mense black wig of the same sort of struc- shall hardly meet one in a thousand who is ture wit+. that of my rival. Now, though wholly exempt from their dominion, and by this I shall not, perhaps, lessen the those that are so are capable of no taste of number of the admirers of his complexion, life, and breathe and walk about the earth No. 486.] THE SPECTATOR. 241 as insignificants. But I am going to desire cent. This and the like circumstances, your farther favour of our harmless bro- which carry with them the most valuable therhood, and hope you will show in a true regards of human life, may be mentioned light the unmarried hen-pecked, as well as for our long-suffering; but in the case of you have done justice to us, who submit gallants, they swallow ill usage from one to to the conduct of our wives. I am very par- whom they have no obligation, but from ticularly acquainted with one who is under a base passion, which it is mean to indulge, entire submission to a kind girl, as he calls and which it would be glorious to overher; and though he knows I have been come. witness both to the ill usage he has receiv-' These sort of fellows are very nume ed from her, and his inability to resist her rous, and some have been conspicuously tyranny, he still pretends to make a jest such, without shame; nay, they have carof me for a little more than ordinary obse- ried on the jest in the very article of death, quiousness to my spouse. No longer than and, to the diminution of the wealth and hapTuesday last he took me with him to visit piness of their families, in bar of those hohis mistress; and having, it seems, been a nourably near to them, have left immense little in disgrace before, thought by bring- wealth to their paramours. What is this ing me with him she would constrain her- but being a cully in the grave! Sure this self, and insensibly fall into general dis- is being hen-pecked with a vengeance! course with him; and so he might break But, without dwelling upon these less frethe ice, and save himself all the ordinary quent instances of eminent cullyism, what compunctions and mortifications she used is there so common as to hear a fellow to make him suffer before she would be re- curse his fate that he cannot get rid of a conciled, after any act of rebellion on his passion to a jilt, and quote a half line out part. When we came into the room, we of a miscellany poem to prove his weakwere received with the utmost coldness; ness is natural? If they will go on thus, I and when he presented me as Mr. Such-a- have nothing to say to it; but then let them one, his very good friend, she just had pa- not pretend to be free all this while, and tience to siffer my salutation; but when he laugh at us poor married patients. himself, with a very gay air, offered to' I have known one wench in this town follow me, she gave him a thundering box carry a haughty dominion over her lovers on the ear, called him a pitiful poor-spirited so well, that she has at the same time been wretch-how durst he see her face? His kept by a sea-captain in the Straits, a merwig and hat fell on different parts of the chant in the city, a country gentleman in floor. She seized the wig too soon for him Hampshire, and had all her corresponto recover it, and, kicking it down stairs, dences managed by one whom she kept for threw herself into an opposite room, pull- her own uses. This happy man (as the ing the door after her by force, that you phrase is) used to write very punctually, would have thought the hinges would have every post, letters for the mistress to trangiven way. We went down you must think, scribe. He would sit in his night-gown with no very good countenances; and, as and slippers, and be as grave giving an acwe were driving home together, he con- count, only changing names, that there was fessed to me, that her anger was thus nothing in those idle reports they had heard highly raised, because he did not think fit of such a scoundrel as one of the other to fight a gentleman who had said she was lovers was; and how could he think ste what she was: " but," says he, "a kind could condescend so low, after such a fine letter or two, or fifty pieces, will put her in gentleman as each of them? For the same humour again." I asked him why he did epistle said the same thing to, and of, every not part with her: he answered, he loved one of them. And so Mr. Secretary and her with all the tenderness imaginable, and his lady went to bed with great order. she had too many charms to be abandoned'To be short, Mr. Spectator, we hus for a little quickness of spirit. Thus does bands shall never make the figure we ought this illegitimate hen-pecked overlook the in the imaginations of young men growing hussy's having no regard to his very life up in the world, except you can bring it and fame, in putting him upon an infamous about that a man of the town shall be as indispute about her reputation: yet has he famous a character as a woman of the town. the confidence to laugh at me, because I But, of all that I have met with in my obey my poor dear in keeping out of harm's time, commend me to Betty Duall: she is way, and not staying too late from my own the wife of a sailor, and the kept mistress family, to pass through the hazards of a of a man of quality; she dwells with the town full of ranters and debauchees. You latter during the seafaring of the former. that are a philosopher, should urge in our The husband asks no questions, sees his behalf, that, when we bear with a froward apartments furnished with riches not his, woman, our patience is preserved, in con- when he comes into port, and the lover is sideration that a breach with her might be as joyful as a man arrived at his haven, a dishonour to children who are descended when the other puts to sea. Betty is the from us, and whose concern makes us tole- most eminently victorious of any of her rate a thousand frailties, for fear they sex, and ought to stand recorded the only should redound dishonour upon the inno- woman of the age in which she lives, who Vo,. II. 31 242 THE SPECTATOR, [No, 487 has possessed at the same time two abused, genious author gives an account of himself and two contented-' T. in his dreaming and his waking thoughts.... _~ __ _._ ~__~'We are somewhat more than ourselves in ouir sleeps, and the slumber of the body No. 487.] Thursday, September 18, 1712. seems tobbut the waking of the soul. ft -m Cum prestrata sopore is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of Urget membra quies, et mens sine pondee ludit. reason; and our waking conceptions do not Petr. match the fancis of our sleeps. At my While sleep oppresses the tird limbs, the mind nativity my ascendant was the watery sign Piays without weight, and wantons unconfind.us: I was born in the planetary of Scorpius: I was born in the planetary THOUGH there are many authors who hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece have written on dreams, they have gene- of that leaden planet in me. I am no way rally considered them only as revelations of facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and what has already happened in distant parts galliardise of company; yet in one dream I of the world, or as presages of what is to can compose a whole comedy, behold the happen in future periods of time. action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myI shall consider this subject in another self awake at the conceits thereof. Were light, as dreams may give us some idea of my memory as faithful as my reason is then the great excellency of a human soul, and fruitful, I would never study but in my some intimations of its independency on dreams; and this time also would I choose matter. for my devotions; but our grosser memories In the first place, our dreams are great have then so little hold of our abstracted instances of that activity which is natural understandings, that they forget the story, to the human soul, and which is not in the and can only relate to our awaked souls a power of sleep to deaden or abate. When confused and broken tale of that that has the man appears to be tired and worn out passed. Thus it is observed that men somewith the labours of the day, this active part times, upon the hour of their departure, do in his composition is still busied and unwea- speak and reason above themselves; for ried. When the organs of sense want their then the soul, beginning to be freed from due repose and necessary reparations, and the ligaments of the body, begins to reason the body is no longer able to keep pace like herself, and to discourse in a strain with that spiritual substance to which it is above mortality.' united, the soul exerts herself in her seve- We may likewise observe, in the third ral faculties, and continues in action until place, that the passions affect the mind her partner is'again qualified to bear her with greater strength when we are asleep company. In this case dreams look like than when we are awake. Joy and sorrow the relaxations and amusements of the soul, give us more vigorous sensations of pain or when she is disencumbered of her machine, pleasure at this time than any other. Deher sports, and recreations, when she has votion likewise, as the excellent author laid her charge asleep. above mentioned has hinted, is in a very In the second place, dreams are an in- particular manner heightened and inflamstance of that agility and perfection which ed, when it rises in the soul at a time that is natural to the faculties of the mind, when the body is thus laid at rest. Every man's they are disengaged from the body. The experience will inform him in this matter, soul is clogged and retarded in her opera- though it is very probable that this may tions, when she acts in conjunction with a happen differently in different constitutions. companion that is so heavy and unwieldy I shall conclude this head with the two folin its motion.* But in dreams it is wonder- lowing problems, which I shall leave to ful toobserve with what a sprightliness and the solution of my reader. Supposing a alacrity she exerts herself. The slow of man always happy in his dreams, and mispeech make unpremeditated harangues, serable in his waking thoughts, and that or converse readily in languages that they his life was equally divided between them; are but little acquainted with. The grave whether would he be more happy or miseabound in pleasantries, the dull in repar- rable? Were a man a king in his dreams, tees and points of wit. There is not a more and a beggar awake, and dreamt as consepainful action of the mind than invention; quentially, and in as continued unbroken yet in dreams it works with that ease and schemes, as he thinks when awake; wheactivity that we are not sensible of, when ther would he be in reality a king -or a the faculty is employed. For instance, I beggar; or, rather, whether he would not believe every one some time or other, be both? dreams that he is reading papers, books, There is another circumstance, which or letters; in which case the invention methinks gives us a very high idea of the prompts so readily, that the mind is im- nature of the soul, in regard to what passes posed upon, and mistakes its own sugges- in dreams. I mean that innumerable multions for the compositions of another. titude and variety of ideas which then arise I shall, under this head, quote a passage in her. Were that active and watchful out of the Religio Medici,* in which the in- being only conscious of her own existence at *By,Sir T. Brown, M. D. author of the curious booksuch a time, what a painful solitude would on "Vulgar Errors," which appeared in folio, in 1646. our hours of sleep be! Were the soul No. 488.] THE SPECTATOR. 243 sensible of her being alone in her sleeping strong intimations, not only cf the excel moments, after the same manner that she lency of the human soul, but of its inde is/ sensible of it while awake, the time pendence on the body; and, if they do not would hang very heavy on her, as it often prove, do at least confirm these two great actually does when she dreams that she is points, which are established by many m such a solitude. other reasons that are altogether unan - - - Semperque relinqui swerable. 0. Sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur Ire viam - Virg. En. iv. 466. - - - She seems alone No. 488.] Friday, September 19, 1712. To wander in her sleep through ways unknown, Guideless and dark. —Dryden. Quanti empt? parvo. Quanti ergo? octo assibus. But this observation I only make by the Eheu! Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 2. 156. way. What I would here remark, is that What doth it cost? Not much upon my word, wunderful power in the soul, of producing How much pray? Why, Two pence. Two pence! 0 her own company on these occasions. She converses with numberless beings of her I FIND, by several letters which I re own creation, and is transported into ten ceive daily, that many of my readers woulc thousand scenes of her own raising. She is be better pleased to pay three half-pence herself the theatre, the actor, and the be- for my paper than two pence. The inge holder. This puts me in mind of a saying nious T. W. tells me that I have deprived which I am infinitely pleased with, and him of the best part of his breakfast; for which Plutarch ascribes to Heraclitus, that, since the rise of my paper, he is that all men whilst they are awake are in forced every morning to drink his dish of one common world; but that each of them, coffee by itself, without the addition of the when he is asleep, is in a world of his own. Spectator, that used to be better than lace The waking man is conversant in the world to it. Eugenius informs me, very obligingof nature: when he sleeps he retires to a ly, that he never thought he should have private world that is particular to himself. disliked any passage in my paper, but tha There seems something in this considera- of late there have been two words in every tion that intimates to us natural grandeur one of them which he could heartily wish and perfection in the soul, which is rather left out, viz. Price Two Pence.' I have a to be admired than explained. letter from a soap-boiler, who condoles I must not omit that argument for the with me very affectionately upon the neexcellency of the soul which I have seen cessity we both lie under of setting a high quoted out of Tertullian, namely, its power price on our commodities since the late tax of divining in dreams. That several such has been laid upon them, and desiring me, divinations have been made, none can ques- when I write next on that subject, to speak tion, who believes the holy writings, or a word or two upon the present duties on who has but the least degree of a common Castile soap. But there is none of these my historical faith; there being innumerable correspondents, who writes with a greater instances of this nature in several authors turn of good sense, and elegance of expresboth ancient and modern, sacred and pro- sion, than the generous Philomedes, who fane. Whether such dark presages, such advises me to value every Spectator at sixvisions of the night, proceed from any la- pence, and promises that he himself will tent power in the soul, during this her state engage for above a hundred of his acquaint of abstraction, or from any communication ance, who shall take it in at that price. with the Supreme Being, or from any ope- Letters from the female world are likewise ration of subordinate spirits, has been a come to me, in great quantities, upon the great dispute among the learned; the.mat- same occasion; and, as I naturally bear a ter of fact is, I think, incontestible, and has great deference to this part of ourspecies, been looked upon as such by the greatest I am very glad to find that those who apwriters, who have been never suspected prove my conduct in this particular are either of superstition or enthusiasm. much more numerous than those who conI do not suppose that the soul in these demn it. A large family of daughters have instances is entirely loose and unfettered drawn me up a very handsome remonfrom the body; it is sufficient if she is not strance, in which they set forth that their so far sunk and immersed in matter, nor father having refused to take in the Specentangled and perplexed in her operations tator, since the additional price was set upon with such motions of blood and spirits, as it, they offered him unanimously to 6ate when she actuates the machine in its wak- him the article of bread and butter in the ing hours. The corporeal union is slack- tea-table account, provided the Spectator ened enough to gii-e the mind more play. might be served up to them every morning The soul seems gathered within herself, as usual. Upon this the old gentleman, and recovers that spring which is broke being pleased, it seems, with their desire and weakened, when she operates more in of improving themselves, has granted them concert with the body. the continuance both of the Spectatot and The speculations I have here made, if their bread and butter, having given parti they are not arguments, they are at least cular orders that the tea-table shall be set 244 THE SPECTATOR. Lao. 489, forth every morning with its customary poet laureat should not be over-looked, bill of fare, and without any manner of de- which shows the opinion he entertains of falcation. I thought myself obliged to your paper, whether the notion he promention this particular, as it does honour ceeds upon be true or false. I make bold to this worthy gentleman; and if the young to convey it to you, not knowing if it has lady L:etitia, who sent me this account, yet come to your hands. will acquaint me with his name, I will in- E SPECTTOR sert it at length in one of my papers, if he SCTT desires it. BY MR. TATE., I should be very glad to find out any ex- -- Aliusque et idem pedient that might alleviate the expense Nasceris Hor. Carm. Sec. 10. which this my paper brings to any of my You rise another and the same. readers; and in order to it, must propose When first the Tatler to a mute was turn'd, two points to their consideration. First, Great Britain for her censor's silence mourn'd; that if they retrench any of the smallest Robb'd of his sprightly beams, she wept the night. that they retrench any o the smallest Till the Spectator rose and blaz'd as bright. particular in their ordinary expense, it will So the first man the sun's first setting view'd, easily make up the half-penny a day which And sigh'd till circling day his joys renew'd. we have now under consideration. Let a Yet, doubtful how that second sun to name, w afe bnow under conasin deration. hLet a Whether a bright successor, or the same. lady sacrifice but a single riband to her o we; but now from this suspense are freed, morning studies, and it will be sufficient: Since all agree, who both with judgment read, let a family burn but a candle a night less'Tis the same sun, and does himself succeed. O. than their usual number, and they may take in the Spectator without detriment to No. 489.] Saturday, September 20, 1712. their private affairs. In the next place, if my readers will not B ves-ro Els e-Oevo;'-LXxvoso. Homer. go to the price of buying my papers by re- The mighty force of ocean's troubled flood. tail, let them have patience, and they may'SIR,-Upon reading your essay conbuy them in the lump without the burden cerning the Pleasures of the Imagination, of a tax upon them. My speculations, I find among the three sources of those when they are sold single, like cherries pleasures which you have discovered, that upon the stick,, are delights for the rich and greatness is one. This has suggested to me wealthy: after some time they come to the reason why, of all objects that I have market in greater quantities, and are every ever seen, there is none which affects my ordinary man's money. The truth of it is, imagination so much as the sea, or ocean. I they have a certain flavour at their first cannot see the heavings of this prodigious appearance, from several accidental cir- bulk of waters, even in a calm, without a cumstances of time, place, and person, very pleasing astonishment; but when it is which they may lose if they are not taken worked up in a tempest, so that the horiearly; but, in this case, every reader is to zon on every side is nothing but foaming consider, whether it is not better for him to billows and floating mountains, it is imposbe half a year behind-hand with the fash- sible to describe the agreeable horror that ionable and polite part of the world, than rises from such a prospect. A troubled to strain himself beyond his circumstances. ocean, to a man who sails upon it, is, I My bookseller has now about ten thousand think, the biggest object that he can see in of the third and fourth volumes, which he motion, and consequently gives his imagiis ready to publish, having already dis- nation one of the highest kinds of pleasure posed of as large an edition both of the first that can arise from greatness. I must conand second volumes. As he is a person fess it is impossible for me to survey this whose head is very well turned to his busi- world of fluid matter without thinking on ness, he thinks they would be a very proper the hand that first poured it out, and made present to be made to persons at christen- a proper channel for its reception. Such an ings, marriages, visiting days, and the like object naturally raises in my thoughts the joyful solemnities, as several other books idea of an Almighty Being, and convinces are frequently given at funerals. He has me of his existence as much as a meta printed them in such a little portable physical demonstration. The imaginatior volumei that many of them may be ranged prompts the understanding, and, by thr together upon a single plate; and is of opi- greatness of the sensible object, produce: nion, that a salver of Spectators would be in it the idea of a being who is neither cir as acceptable an entertainment to the la- cumscribed by time nor space. dies as a salver of sweet-meats.'As I have made several voyages upor I shall conclude this paper with an epi- the sea, I have often been tossed in storms gram lately sent to the writer of the Spec- and on that occasion have frequently re tator, after having returned my thanks to flected on the descriptions of them in anthe ingenious author of it. cient poets. I remember Longinus highly recommends one in Homer, because the'SIR,-Having heard the following epi- poet has not amused himself with little gram very much commended, I wonder fancies upon the occasion, as authors of an that it has not yet had a place in any of inferior genius, whom he mentions, had your papers; I think the suffrage of our done, but because he has gathered togethel No. 490.] THE SPECTATOR. 245 those circumstances which are the most Whilst, in the confidence of prayer apt to terrify the imagination, and which My soul took hold on thee. really happen in the raging of a tempest. VII. It is for the same reason that I prefer the Fo though in dreadful whirls we hung High on the broken wave, following description of a ship in a storm, I knew thou wert not slow to hear, which the psalmist has made, before any Nor impotent to save. other I have ever met with. " They that go yVi. down to the sea in ships, that do business "The storm was laid, the winds retir'd, in great waters; these see the works of the Obedient to thy will; Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he t thy c ommand wa commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waters thereof. They In midst of dangers, fears, and death, mount up to the heaven, they go down Thy goodness I'll adore, again to the depths, their soul is melted And praise thee for thy mercies past, because of trouble. They reel to and fro, And humbly hope for more. and stagger like a drunken man, and are at x. their wit's end. Then they cry unto the M life, if thou preserv'st my life, Thy sacrifice shall be; Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them And death, if death must be my doom, out of their distresses. He maketh the Shall join my soul to thee." storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then they are glad, because they be quiet, so he bringeth themn unto their No. 490.] Mionday, September 22, 1712. desired haven. " Domus et placens uxor.-Hor. Od. xiv. Lib. 2. 21.' By the way; how much more comfortable, as well as rational, is this system of Th house and pleasing wife-Cee the psalmist, than the pagan scheme in I HAVE very long entertained an ambiVirgil and other poets, where one deity is tion to make the word wife the most agreerepresented as raising a storm, and another able and delightful name in nature. If it be as laying it! Were we only to consider the not so in itself all the wiser part of mansublime in this piece of poetry, what can kind, from the beginning of the world tc be nobler than the idea it gives us of the this day, has consented in an error. But Supreme Being thus raising a tumult among our unhappiness in England has been, that the elements, and recovering them out of a few loose men of genius for pleasure, their confusion; thus troubling and becalm- have turned it all to the gratification of uning nature? governed desires, in despite of good sense,' Great painters do not only give us land- form, and order; when in truth, any satisscapes of gardens, groves, and meadows, faction beyond the boundaries of reason is but very often employ their pencils upon but a step towards madness and folly. But sea-pieces. I could wish you would follow is the sense of joy and accomplishment of their example. If this small sketch may desire no way to be indulged or attained? deserve a place among your works, I shall And have we appetites given us not to be accompany it with a divine ode made by a at all gratified? Yes, certainly. Marriage gentlemanupon the conclusion of histravels. is an institution calculated for a constant ~~~I. ~scene of delight, as much as our being is "How are thy servants blest, O Lord! capable of. Two persons, who have chosen How sure is their defence! each other out of all the species, with deEternal wisdom is their guide, sign to be each other's mutual comfort and Their help Omnipotence. entertainment, have in that action bound lI. themselves to be good-humoured, affable, " In foreign ealms and lands remote, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with Supported by thy care, Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt, respect to each other's frailties and perfecAnd breath'd in tainted air. tions, to the end of their lives. The wiser III. of the two (and it always happens one of "Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil, them is such) will, for her or his own sake, Made ev'ry region please: keep things from outrage with the utmost And smooth'd the Tyrrhene seas. sanctity. When this union is thus preserved, (as I have often said) the most indifThink, O my soul, devoutly think, ferent circumstance administers delight: How, with affrighted eyes, their condition is an endless source of new Thou saw'st the wide extended deep gratifications. The married man can say, In all its horrors rise!' If I am unacceptable to all the world be V. side, there is one whom I entirely love, Andi ye fear in ev'ry face, that will receive me with joy and transport, When waves on waves, and gulfs in gulfs and think herself obliged to double her O'ercame the pilot's art. kindness and caresses of me from the gloom VI. with which she sees me overcast. I need' Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord, not dissemble the sorrow of my heart to be Thy mercy set me free,,Thy mercy set me fre__e, agreeable there; that very sorrow quickens * Ps..vii 23, et seq. h.er affection.' 246 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 491. This passion towards each eher, when owe the following epigram, which I showed once well fixed, enters into the very consti- my friend Will Honeycomb in French, who tution, and the kindness flows as easily and has translated it as follows, without undersilently as the blood in the veins. When standing the original. I expect it will please this affection is enjoyed in tae sublime de- the English better than the Latin reader. gree, unskilful eyes see nothing of it; but gree, unskilful eyes see nothing of it; but'When my bright consort, now nor wife nor maid, when it is subject to be changed, and has Asham'd and wanton, of embrace afraid, an allay in it that may make it end in dis- Fled to the streams, the streams my fair betray'd; taste, it is apt to break into rage, or over- To my fond eyes she all transparent stood; flow into fondness, before the rest of the She blush'd; I smil'd at the slight covering flood. flow into fondness, before the rest of the Thus through the glass the lovely lily glows; world. Thus through tl.e ambient gem shines forth the rose. Uxander and Viramira are amorous and I saw new charms, and plung'd to seize my store, Kisses I snatch'd —the waves prevented more.' young, have been married these two years; waves prevented more. yet do they so much distinguish each other My friend would not allow that this lus in company, that in your conversation with cious account could be given of a wife, and the dear things, you are still put to a sort therefore used the word consort; which, he of cross-purposes. Whenever you address learnedly said, would serve for a mistress yourself in ordinary discourse to Viramira, as well, and give a more gentlemanly turn she turns her head another way, and the to the epigram. But, under favour of him answer is made to the dear Uxander. If and all other such-fine gentlemen, I cannot you tell a merry tale, the application is be persuaded but that the passion a bridestill directed to her dear; and when she groom has for a virtuous young woman will, should commend you, she says to him, as if by little and little, grow into friendship, and he had spoke it,'That is, my dear, so then it has ascended to a higher pleasure pretty.' —This puts me in mind of what I than it was in its first fervour. Without have somewhere read in the admired me- this happens, he is a very unfortunate man moirs of the famous Cervantes; where, who has entered into this state, and left the while honest Sancho Panca is putting some habitudes of life he might have enjoyed necessary humble question concerning Ro- with a faithful friend. But when the wife zinante, his supper, or his lodging, the proves capable of filling serious as well as knight of the sorrowful countenance is ever joyous hours, she brings happiness unknown improving the harmless lowly hints of his to friendship itself. Spenser speaks of each'squire to the poetical conceit, rapture, and kind of love with great justice, and attnflight, in contemplation of the dear dulcinea butes the highest praise to friendship; and of his affections.. indeed there is no disputing that point, but On the other side, Dictamnus and Moria by making that friendship take its plar. are ever squabbling; and you may observe between two married persons. them, all the time they are in company, in a state of impatience. As Uxander and Vi- Hard is the doubt, and difficult to deem, state of impatience. As Uxander ad When all three kinds of love together meet, ramira wish you all gone, that they may And do dispart the heart with power extreme, be at freedom for dalliance; Dictamnus Whether shall weigh the balance down; to wit, anrd Moanalria wait your absence, that they The dear affection unto kindred sweet, and Moria wait your absence, that they Or raging fire of love to womankind, may speak their harsh interpretations on Or zeal of friends combin'd by virtues meet; each other's words and actions, during the But, of them all, the band of virtues mind time you were with them. Methinks the gentle heart should most assured bind It is certain that the greater part of the' For natural affection soon doth cease, evils, attending this condition of life, arises And quenched is with Cupid's greater flame: evils, att~ending this conditmion of life, arises But faithful friendship doth them both suppress, from fashion. Prejudice in this case is And them with mastering discipline doth tame, turned the wrong way; and, instead of ex- Through thoughts aspiring to eternal fame. FoAnd all the soul doth rule of th earthly mfrass, pecting more happiness than we nhall meet And all the service Of the bod frE me? with in it, we are laughed into a prepos- So love of soul doth love of body pass, session, that we shall be disappointed if we No less than perfect gold surmounts the meanest nope for lasting satisfactions. brass. With all persons who have made good sense the rule of action, marriage is described as the state capable of the highest No. 491.] Tuesday, September 23, 1712. human felicity. Tully has epistles full of. Tusday, September 23, 1712. affectionate pleasure, when he writes to his -Digna satis fortuna revisit. wife, or speaks of his children. But, above Virg. eEa. iii. 318. all the hints of this kind I have met with A just reverse of fortune on him waits. in writers of ancient date, I am pleased IT is common with me to run from book with an epigram of Martial, in honour of to book to exercise my mind with many the beauty of his wife Cleopatra. Com- objects, and qualify myself for my daily la mentators say it was written the day after bours. After an hour spent in this loitering his wedding-night. When his spouse was way of reading, something will remain to retired to the bathing-room in the heat of be food to the imagination. The writings the day, he, it seems, came in upon her when that please me most on such occasions are she was just going into the water. To her stories, for the truth of which there is good beauty and carriage on this occasion we authority. The mind of man is naturally a No. 491.] THE SPECTATOR. 247 lover of justice. And when we read a story sion. This design had its desired effect; wherein a criminal is overtaken, in whom and the wife of the unfortunate Darvelt, the there is no quality which is the object of day before that which was appointed for pity, the soul enjoys a certain revenge for his execution, presented herself in the hall the offence done to its nature, in the wicked of the governor's house; and, as he passed actions committed in the preceding part of through the apartment, threw herself at the history. This will be better under- his feet, and, holding his knees, beseeched stood by the reader from the following nar- his mercy. Rhynsault beheld her with a ration itself, than from any thing which I dissembled satisfaction; and, assuming an can say to introduce it. air of thought and authority, he bid her When Charles duke of Burgundy, sur- arise, and told her she must follow him to named The Bold, reigned over spacious his closet; and, asking her whether she dominions now swallowed up by the power knew the hand of the letter he pulled out of France, he heaped many favours and of his pocket, went from her, leaving this honours upon Claudius Rhynsault, a Ger- admonition aloud:' If you will save your man, who had served him in his wars against husband, you must give me an account ot the insults of his neighbours. A great part all you know without prevarication: for of Zealand was at that time in subjection every body is satisfied he was too fond of to that dukedom. The prince himself was you to be able to hide from you the names a person of singular humanity and justice. of the rest of the conspirators, or any other Rhynsault, with no other real quality than particulars whatsoever.' He went to his courage, had dissimulation enough to pass closet, and soon after the lady was sent for upon his generous and unsuspicious master to an audience. The servant knew his disfor a person of blunt honesty and fidelity, tance when matters of state were to be without any vice that could bias him from debated; and the governor, laying aside the the execution of justice. His highness, pre- air with which he had appeared in public, possessed to his advantage, upon the de- began to be the supplicant, to rally an afcease of the governor of his chief town of fliction, which it was in her power easily to Zealand, gave Rhynsault that command. remove, and relieve an innocent man from He was not long seated in that government his imprisonment. She easily perceived before he cast his eyes upon Sapphira, a his intention; and bathed in tears, began to woman of exquisite beauty, the wife of deprecate so wicked a design. Lust, like Paul Danvelt, a wealthy merchant of the ambition, takes all the faculties of the mind city under his protection and government. and body into its service and subjection. Rhynsault was a man of a warm constitu- Her becoming tears, her honest anguish, tion, and violent inclination to women, and the wringing of her hands, and the many not unskilled in the soft arts which win changes of her posture and figure in the their favour. He knew what it was to enjoy vehemence of speaking, were but so many the satisfactions which are reaped from the attitudes in which he beheld her beauty, possession of beauty, but was an utter and farther incentives of his desires. All stranger to the decencies, honours, and de- humanity was lost in that one appetite, and licacies, that attend the passion towards he signified to her in so many plain terms, them in' elegant minds. However, he had that he was unhappy till he had possessed so much of the world, that he had a great her, and nothing less should be the price share of- the language which usually pre- of her husband's life, and she must, before vails upon the weaker part of that sex; and the following noon, pronounce the death, he could with his tongue utter a passion' or enlargement, of Danvelt. After this nowith which his heart was wholly untouched. tification, when he saw Sapphira enough He was one of those brutal minds which again distracted, to make the subject of can be gratified with the violation of inno- their discourse to common eyes appear difcence and beauty, without the least pity, ferent from what it was, he called servants passion, or love, to that with which they to conduct her to the gate. Loaded with are so much delighted. Ingratitude is a insupportable affliction, she immediately vice inseparable to a lustful man; and the repairstoher husband; and, having signified possession of a woman by him, who has no to his gaolels that she had a proposal to thought but allaying a passion painful to make to her husband from the governor, himself, is necessarily followed by distaste she was left alone with him, revealed to and aversion. Rhynsault, being resolved to him all that had passed, and represented accomplish his will on the wife of Danvelt,'the endless conflict she was in between love left no arts untried to get into a familiarity to his person, and fidelity to his bed. It is at her house; but she knew his character easy to imagine the sharp affliction this and disposition too well, not to shun all honest pair was in upon such an incident, occasions that might easnare her into his in lives not used to any but ordinary occurconversation. The governor, despairing of rences. The man was bridled by shame success by ordinary means, apprehended from speaking what his fear prompted, and imprisoned her husband, under pre- upon so near an approach of death; but let tence of an information, that he was guilty fall words that signified to her, he should of a correspondence with the enemies of the not think her polluted, though she had not duke to betray the town into their posses- yet confessed to him that the governor had 248 rHE SPECTATOR. [No. 492 violated her person, since he knew her sion of what your husband has so bounti. will had no part in the action. She parted fully bestowed on you;' and ordered the from him with this oblique permission to immediate execution of Rhynsault. T save a life he had not resolution enough to resign for the safety of his honour. The next morning the unhappy Sapphira No. 492.] Wednesday, September 24, 1712. attended the governor, and being led into a remote apartment, submitted to his desires. Quicquid est boni moris levitate extinguitur. Seneca Rhynsault commended her charms, claimed Levity of behaviour is the bane of all that is good a familiarity after what had passed between and virtuous. them, and with an air of gayety, in the lan-'Tunbridge, Sept. 18. guage of a gallant, bid her return, and take' DEAR MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a young her husband out of prison:' but,' continued woman of eighteen years of age, and I do he,' my fair one must not be offended that assure you a maid of unspotted reputation, I have taken care he should not be an inter- founded upon a very careful carriage in all ruption to our future assignations.' These my looks, words, and actions. At the same last words foreboded what she found when time I must own to you, that it is with much she came to the gaol-her husband exe- constraint to flesh and blood that my becuted by the order of Rhynsault! haviour is so strictly irreproachable; for I It was remarkable that the woman, who am naturally addicted to mirth, to gayety, was full of tears and lamentations during to a free air, to motion, and gadding. Now, the whole course of her afflictions, uttered what gives me a great deal of anxiety, and neither sigh nor complaint, but stood fixed is some discouragement in the pursuit of with grief at this consummation of her mis- virtue, is, that the young women who run fortunes. She betook herself to her abode; into greater freedoms with the men are and, after having in solitude paid her de- more taken notice of than I am. The men votions to him who is the avenger of inno- are such unthinking sots, that they do not cence, she repaired privately to court. Her prefer her who restrains all her passions person, and a certain grandeur of sorrow, and affections, and keeps much within the negligent of forms, gained her passage into bounds of what is lawful, to her who goes to the presence of the duke her sovereign. the utmost verge of innocence and parleys As soon as she came into the presence, she at the very brink of vice, whether she shall broke forth into the following words:' Be- be a wife or a mistress. But I must appeal hold, 0 mighty Charles, a wretch weary to your spectatorial wisdom, who, I find, of life, though it has always been spent have passed very much of your time in the with innocence and virtue. It is not in your study of woman, whether this is not a most power to redress my injuries, but it is to unreasonable proceeding. I have read someavenge them. And if the protection of the where that Hobbes of Malmesbury asserts distressed, and the punishment of oppres- that continent persons have more of what sors, is a task worthy of a prince, I bring they contain than those who give a loose to the duke of Burgundy ample matter for their desires. According to this rule, let doing honour to his own great name, and there be equal age, equal wit, and equal wiping infamy off from mine.' good-humour, in the woman of prudence, When she had spoke this, she delivered and her of liberty; what stores has he to the duke a paper reciting her story. He expect who takes the former? What refuse read it with all the emotions that indigna- must he be contented with who chooses the tion and pity could raise in a prince jealous latter? Well, but I sat down to write to you of his honour in the behaviour of his officers, to vent my indignation against several pert and prosperity of his subjects. creatures who are addressed to and courted Upon an appointed day, Rhynsault was in this place, while poor I, and two or three sent for to court, and, in the presence of a like me, are wholly unregarded. few of the council, confronted by Sapphira.'Every one of these affect gaining the The prince asking,'Do you know that hearts of your sex. This is generally atlady?' Rhynsault, as soon as he could re- tempted by a particular manner of carrycover his surprise, told the duke he would ing themselves with familiarity. Glycera marry her, if his highness would please to has a dancing walk, and keeps time in her think that a reparation. The duke seemed ordinary gait. Chloe, her sister, who is uncontented with this answer, and stood by willing to interrupt her conquests, comes during the immediate solemnization of the into the room before her with a familiar run. ceremony. At the conclusion of it he told Dulcissa takes advantage of the approach Rhynsault, Thus far you have done as of the winter, and has introduced a very constrained by my authority: I shall not be pretty shiver; closing up her shoulders, satisfied of your.kind usage to her, without and shrinking as she moves. All that are you sign a gift of your whole estate to her in this mode carry their fans between both after your decease.' To the performance hands before them. Dulcissa herself, who of this also the duke was a witness. When is author of this air, adds the pretty run to these two acts were executed, the duke it: and has also, when she is in very good turned to the lady, and told her,' It now humour, a taking familiarity in throwing remains for me to put you in quiet posses- herself into the lowest seat in the room, and No. 493.] THE SPECTATOR. 249 etting her hooped petticoats fall with a and bring us sober girls into observation, lucky decency about her. I know she prac- there is no help for it; we must swim with tises this way of sitting down in her cham- the tide; the coquettes are too powerful a ber; and indeed she does it as well as you party for us. To look into the merit of a may have seen an actress fall down dead in regular and well behaved woman is a slow a tragedy. Not the least indecency in her thing. A loose trivial song gains the affecposture. If you have observed what pretty tions, when a wise homily is not attended carcasses are carriedoff at the end of a verse to. There is no other way but to make war at the theatre, it will give you a notion how upon them, or we must go over to them. Dulcissa plumps into a chair. Here is a As for my part, I will show all the world it little country girl that is very cunning, that is not for want of charms that I stand so makes her use of being young and unbred, long unasked; and if you do not take meaand outdoes the ensnarers, who are almost sures for the immediate redress of us rigids, twice her age. The air that she takes is to as the fellows call us, I can move with a come into company after a walk, and is speaking mien, can look significantly, can very successfully out of breath upQnocca- lisp, can trip, can loll, can start, can blush, sion. Her mother is in the secret, ahd calls can rage, can weep, if I must do it, and can her romp, and then looks round to see what be frighted as agreeably as any she in Engyoung men stare at her. land. All which is humbly submitted to' It would take up more than can come your spectatorial consideration, with all into one of your papers, to enumerate all humility, by your most humble servant, the particular airs of the younger company T. MATILDA MOHAIR.' in this place. But I cannot omit Dulceorella, whose manner is the most indolent imaginable, but still as watchful of conquest as the busiest virgin among us. She has a peculiar No. 493.] Thursday, September 25, 1712. art of staring at a young fellow, till she sees Qualem commendes etiam atque etiam adspice, ne mox she has got him, and inflamed him by so Incutiant aliena tibi peccata pudorem. much observation. When she sees she has Her. Lib. 1. Ep. xviii. 6. him, and he begins to toss his head upon it, Commend not, till a man is thoroughly known: she is immediately short-sighted, and la- A rascal prais'd, you make his faults your own. bours to observe what he is at a distance, nn with her eyes half shut. Thus the captive IT is no unpleasant matter of speculation that thought her first struck, is to make to consider the recommendatory epistles very near approaches, or be wholly disre- that pass round this town from hand to garded. This artifice has done more execu- hand, and the abuse people put upon one tion than all the ogling of the rest of the another in that kind. It is indeed come to women here, with the utmost variety of that pass, that, instead of being the testihalf glances, attentive heedlessnesses, child- mony of merit in the person recommended, ish inadvertencies, haughty contempts, or the true reading of a letter of this sort is, artificial oversights. After I have said thus' The bearer hereof is so uneasy to me, that much of ladies among us who fight thus it will be an act of charity in you to take regularly, I am to complain to you of a set him off my hands; whether you prefer him of familiar romps, who have broken through or not, it is all one; for I have no manner of all common rules, and have thought of a kindness for him, or obligation to him or very effectual way of showing more charms his; and do what you please as to that.' As than all of us. These, Mr. Spectator, are negligent as men are in this respect, a point the swingers. You are to know these care- of honour is concerned in it; and there is less pretty creatures are very innocents nothing a man should be more ashamed of, again; and it is to be no matter what they than passing a worthless creature into the do for it is all harmless freedom. They get service or interests of a man who l)as never on ropes, as you must have seen the chil- injured you. The women indeed are a little dren, and are swung by their men visitants. too keen in their resentments to trespass The jest is, that Mr. Such-a-one can name often this way: but you shall sometimes the colour of Mrs. Such-a-one's stockings; know, that the mistress and the maid shall and she tells him he is a lying thief, so he quarrel, and give each other very free lanis, and full of roguery; and she will lay a guage, and at last the lady shall be pacified wager, and her sister shall tell the truth if to turn her out of doors, and give her a very he says right, and he cannot tell what colour good word to any body else. Hence it is her garters are of. In this diversion there that you see, in a year and a half's time, are very many pretty shrieks, not so much the same face a domestic in all parts of the for fear of falling, as that their petticoats town. Good-breeding and good-nature lead should untie; for there is a great care had people in a great measure to this injustice: to a-oid improprieties; and the lover who when suitors of no consideration will have swings the lady is to tie her clothes very confidence enough to press upon their suclose together with his hatband, before she periors those in power are tender of speakadmits him to throw up her heels. ing the exceptions they have against them,'Now, Mr. Spectator, except you can and are mortgaged into promises out of note these wantonnesses in their beginnings, their impatience of importunity. In this VoL. II. 32 250 THE SPECTAI OR. [No. 494. latter case, it would be a very useful in- We were coming down Essex-street one quiry to know the history of recommenda- night a little flustered, and I was giving tions. There are, vou must know, certain him the word to alarm the watch; he had abettors of this way of torment, who make the impudence to tell me it was against the it a profession to manage the affairs of can- law. You that are married, and live one didates. These gentlemen let out their im- day after another the same way, and so on pudence to their clients, and supply any the whole week, I dare say will like him, defective recommendation, -by informing and he will be glad to have his meat in due now such and such a man is to be attacked. season. The fellow is certainly very honest. They will tell you, get the least scrap from My service to your lady. Yours, J. T.' Mr. Such —a-one, and leave the rest to them. Now this was very fair dealing. Jack When one of these undertakers has your knew very well, that though the love of business in hand, you may be sick, absent order made a man very awkward in his in town or country, and the patron shall be equipage, it was a valuable quality among worried, or you prevail. I remember to the queer people who live by rule; and had have been shown a gentleman some years too much good-sense and good-nature to let ago, who punished a whole people for their the fellow starve, because he was not fit to facility in giving their credentials. This attend his vivacities. person had belonged to a regiment which I shall end this discourse with a letter of did duty in the West Indies, and, by the recommendation from Horace to Claudius mortality of the place, happened to be Nero. You will see in that letter a slowcommanding officer in the colony. He op- ness to ask a favour, a strong reason for pressed his subjects with great frankness, being unable to deny his good word any till he became sensible that he was heartily longer, and that it is a service to the person hated by every man under his command. to whom he recommends, to comply with When he had carried his point to be thus what is asked: all which are necessary cirdetestable, in a pretended fit of dishumour, cumstances, both in justice and good-breedand feigned uneasiness of living where he ing, if a man would ask so as to have reason found he was so universally unacceptable, to complain of a denial; and indeed a man he communicated to the chief inhabitants a should not in strictness ask otherwise. In design he had to return for England, pro- hopes the authority of Horace, who pervided they would give him ample testi- fectly understood how to live with great monials of their approbation. The planters men, may have a good effect towards came intoit to a man, and in proportion to amending this facility in people of condihis deserving the quite contrary, the words tion, and the confidence of those who apply justice, generosity, and courage, were in- to them without merit, I have translated serted in his commission, not omitting the the epistle. general good liking of people of all condi- To Claudiu Ner tions in the colony. The gentleman returns T Claud is unero. for England, and within a few months after'SIR,-Septimus, who waits upon you came back to them their governor, on the with this, is very well acquainted with the strength of their own testimonials. place you are pleased to allow me in your Such a rebuke as this cannot indeed hap- friendship. For when he beseeches me to pen to easy recommenders, in the ordinary recommend him to your notice in such a course of things from one hand to another; manner as to be received by you, who are but how would a man bear to have it said delicate in the choice of your friends and to him,' The person I took into confidence domestics, he knows our intimacy, and unon the credit you gave him, has proved derstands my ability to serve him better false, unjust, and has not answered any way than I do myself. I have defended myself the character you gave me of him?' against his ambition to be yours, as long as I cannot but conceive very good hopes of I possibly could; but fearing the imputation that rake Jack Toper of the Temple, for of hiding my power in you out of mean and an honest scrupulousness in this point. A selfish considerations, I am at last prevailed friend of his meeting with a servant that upon to give you this trouble. Thus, to had formerly lived with Jack, and having avoid the appearance of a greater fault, I a mind to take him, sent to him to know have put on this confidence. If you can what faults the fellow had, since he could forgive this transgression of modesty in benot please such a careless fellow as he was. half of a friend, receive this gentleman into His answer was as follows: your interests and friendship, and take it from me that he is an honest and a brave'SIR,-Thomas, that lived with me, was man.' T. turned away because he was too good for - me. You know I live in taverns: he is an No. 494.] Friday, September 26, 1712. orderly sober rascal, and thinks much to Agritudinem laudare, unan rem maxime detestabi. sleep in an entry until two in the morning. lem, quorum est tandem philosophorum? Cicero. He told me one day, when he was dressing What kind of philosophy is it to extol melancholy, me, that he wondered I was not dead before the most detestable thing in nature? now, since I went to dinner in the evening, ABOUT an age ago it was the fashion in and went to supper at two in the morning. England for every cne that would bh No. 494.] THE SPECTATOR. 251 thought religious to throw as much sanctity and when completed. The whole examinaas possible into his face, and in particular to tion was summed up with one short quesabstain from all appearances of mirth and tion, namely, whether he was prepared for pleasantry, which were looked upon as the death? The boy, who had been bred up by marks of a carnal mind. The saint was of honest parents, was frighted out of his a sorrowful countenance, and generally wits at the solemnity of the proceeding, eaten up with spleen and melancholy. A and by the last dreadful interrogatory; so gentleman, who was lately a great orna- that, upon making his escape out of this ment* to the learned world, has diverted house of mourning, he could never be me more than once with an account of the brought a second time, to the examination, reception which he met with from a very as not being able to go through the terrors famous independent minister, who was head of it. of a colleget in those times. This gentle- Notwithstanding this general form and man was then a young adventurer in the outside of religion is pretty well worn out republic of letters, and just fitted out for among us, there are many persons who, by the university with a good cargo of Latin a natural uncheerfulness of heart, mistaken and Greek. His friends were resolved that notions of piety, or weakness of understand he should try his fortune at an election ing, love to indulge this uncomfortable way which was drawing near in the college, of of life, and give up themselves a prey to which the independent minister whom I grief and melancholy. Superstitious fears have before mentioned was governor. The and groundless scruples cut them off from youth, according to custom, waited on him the pleasures of conversation, and all those in order to be examined. He was received social entertainments, which are not only at the door by a servant who was one of innocent, but laudable: as if mirth was that gloomy generation that were then in made for reprobates, and cheerfulness of fashion. He conducted him with great si- heart denied those who are the only persons fence and seriousness, to a long gallery, that have a proper title to it. which was darkened at noon-day, and had Sombrius is one of these sons of sorrow. only a single candle burning in it. After a He thinks himself obliged in duty to be sad short stay in this melancholy apartment, and disconsblate. He looks on a sudden fit ne was led into a chamber hung with black, of laughter as a breach of his baptismal where he entertained himself for some time vow. An innocent jest startles him like by the glimmering of a taper, until at blasphemy. Tell him of one who is adlength the head of the college came out to vanced to a title of honour, he lifts up his him from an inner room, with half a dozen hands and eyes: describe a public ceremonight-caps upon his head, and religious ny, he shakes his head; show him a gay horror in his countenance. The young man equipage, he blesses himself. All the little trembled: but his fears increased, when in- ornaments of life are pomps and vanities. stead of being asked what progress he. had Mirth is wanton, and wit profane. He is made in learning, he was examined how he scandalized at youth for being lively, and abounded in grace. His Latin and Greek at childhood for being playful. He sits at stood him in little stead; he was to give an a christening, or marriage-feast, as at a fuaccount only of the state of his soul; whe- neral; sighs at the convulsion of aemferry ther he was of the number of the elect; what story, and grows devout when the rest ot was the occasion of the conversion, upon the company grow pleasant. After all, what day of the month, and hour of the Sombrius is a religious man, and would day it happened; how it was carried on, have behaved himself very properly, had he lived when christianity was under a gc* The gentleman alluded to was Anthony Henley, neral persecution. Esq. son of Sir Robert Henley, of the Grange, in Hamp- I would by no means presume to tax such shire. He was the intimate friend of the most consider- characters with hypocrisy, as is done too able wits of the time, and is believed to have been an frequently; that being a vice which I thin ample contributor to the Tatler. Dr. Garthentertained e so high an opinion of him, that he dedicated his Dis- none but He who knows the secrets of pensary to him "in terms which must lead the reader men's hearts should pretend to discover in to form a very exalted idea of his virtues and accom- another, where the proofs of it do not plishments." Mr. Henleydied inAugust, 1711. t This was Dr. Thomas Goodwin, S. T. P. President amount to a demonstration. On the conof Magdalen College, Oxford, and one of the assembly. trary, as there are many excellent persons of divines that sat at Westminster. Wood styles him who are weighed down by this habitual and Dr. Owen " the two Atlasses and Patriarchs of independency." In the character prefixed to his works, sorrow of heart, they rather deserve our he is described as a man "much addicted to retirement compassion than our reproaches. I think, and deep contemplation; that he had been much ex- however they would do well to consider ercised in the controversies agitated in the age in which he lived, and had a deep insight into the grace of God, whether such a behaviour does not deter and the covenant of grace." - He attended Cromwell, men from a religious life, by representing his friend and patron, upon his death-bed, and was very it as an unsociable state, that extinguishes confident he would not die, from a supposed revelation communicated to him in prayer, but a few minutes be- all joy and gladness, darkens the face of nafore his death. When he found himself mistaken, in a ture, and destroys the relish of being itself. subsequent address to God, he exclaimed, "Thou hast I have, i former papers, shown how deceived us, and we were deceived." He died in Feb. I have, in former papers, shown how 1679, in the eightieth year of his age.-See Granger great a tendency there is to cheerfulness in vol. ii. religion, and how such a frame of mind is 252 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 495. not only the most lovely, but the most com- race of people called Jews, many of whom mendable in a virtuous person. In short, I have met with in most of the considerable those who represent religion in so unami- towns which I have passed through in the able a light, are like the spies sent by course of my travels. They are, indeed, so Moses to make a discovery of the Land of disseminated through all the trading parts Promise, when by their reports they dis- of the world, that they are become the incouraged the people from entering upon it. struments by which the most distantnations Those who show us the joy,-the cheerful- converse with one another, and by which ness, the good humour, that naturally mankind are knit together in a general corspring up in this happy state, are like the respondence. They are like the pegs and spies bringing along with them the clusters nails in a great building, which, though they of grapes, and delicious fruits, that might are but little valued in themselves, are abinvite their companions into the pleasant solutely necessary to keep the whole frame country which produced them. together. An eminent pagan writer* has made a That I may not fall into any common discourse to show that the atheist, who de- beaten tracks of observation, I shall consinies a God, does him less dishonour than der this people in three views: First, with the man who owns his being; but at the regard to their number; secondly, their same time believes him to be cruel, hard dispersion; and thirdly their adherence to to please, and terrible to human nature. their religion: and afterwards endeavour' For my own part,' says he,' I would ra- to show first, what natural reasons, and ther it should be said of me, that there secondly, what providential reasons, may was never any such man as Plutarch, than be assigned for these three remarkable that Plutarch was ill-natured, capricious, particulars.or inhuman.' The Jews are looked upon by many to be If we may believe our logicians, man is as numerous at present, as they were fordistinguished from all other creatures by merly in the land of Canaan. the faculty of laughter. He has a heart This is wonderful, considering the dreadcapable of mirth, and naturally disposed to ful slaughter made of them under some of it. It is not the business of virtue to extir- the Roman emperors, which historians pate the affections of the mind, but to regu- describe by the death of many hundred late them. It may moderate and restrain, thousands in a war; and the innumerable but was not designed to banish gladness massacres and persecutions they have un from the heart of man. Religion contracts dergone in Turkey, as well as in all Chris the circle of our pleasures, but leaves it tian nations of the world. The rabbins, to wide enough for her votaries to expatiate express the great havoc which has been in. The contemplation of the divine Being, sometimes made of them, tell us, after their and the exercise of virtue, are in their own usual manner of hyperbole, that there were nature, so far from excluding all gladness such torrents of holy blood shed, as carried of heart, that they are perpetually sources rocks of a hundred yards in circumference of it. In a word, the true spirit of religion above three miles into the sea. cheers, as well as composes, the soul; it Their dispersion is the second remarkbanishes indeed all levity of behaviour, all able particular in this people. They swarm vicious and dissolute mirth; but in exchange over all the East, and are settled in the refills the mind with a perpetual serenity, motest parts of China. They are spread uninterrupted cheerfulness, and an habi- through most of the nations in Europe and tual inclination to please others, as well as Africa, and many families of them are to be pleased in itself. 0. established in the West Indies: not to mention whole nations bordering on PresterJohn's country, and some discovered in the No. 495. ] Saturday, September 27, 1712 inner parts of America, if we may give any credit to their own writers. Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus Their firm adherence to their religion is Nigrae feraci frondis in Algido, Per damna, per endes, ab ipso no less remarkable than their numbers and Ducit opes animumque ferro. dispersion, especially considering it as perHor. Od. iv. Lib. 4.57. secuted or contemned over the face of the -Like an oak on some cold mountain's brow, whole earth. This is likewise the more The axey and swordnewigour a give, remarkable, if we consider the frequent And by their ruins they revive. —Anon. apostacies of this people, when they lived As I ala one who, by my profession, am under their kings in the land of promise, obliged tq look into all kinds of men, there and within sight of the temple. are none whom I consider with so much If in the next place we examine what pleasure, as those who have any thing new may be the natural reasons of these three or extraordinary in their characters or particulars which we find in the Jews, and ways of living. For this reason I have often which are not to be found in any other reamused myself with speculations on the ligion or people, I can, in the first place, _________________attribute their numbers to nothing but their * P1ut. rsp o AsrsuvcS Plut Opera, tom. i. constant employment, their abstinence, p. 2866. H. Steph. 1572, 2mo. their exemption from wars, and, above all, No. 496. 1 1 HE SPECTATOR. 253 their frequent marriages; for they look on on the genius and temper of mankind, by celibacy as an accursed state, and generally considering the various bent and scope of are married before twenty, as hoping the our actions throughout the progress of life, Messiah may descend from them. have with great exactness allotted inclinaThe dispersion of the Jews into all the tions and objects of desire particular to nations of the earth, is the second remark- every stage, according to the different cirable particular of that people, though not cumstances of our conversation and fortune, so hard to be accounted for. They were through the several periods of it. Hence always in rebellions and tumults while they they were disposed easily to excuse those had the temple and holy city in view, for excesses which might possibly arise from which reason they have often been driven a too eager pursuit of the affections more out of their old habitations in the land of immediately proper to each state. They promise. They have as often been banish- indulged the levity of childhood with tened out of most other places where they derness, overlooked the gayety of youth have settled, which must very much dis- with good-nature, tempered the forward perse and scatter a people, and oblige them ambition and impatience of ripened manto seek a livelihood where they can find it. hood with discretion, and kindly imputed Besides, the whole people is now a race of the tenacious avarice of old men to their such merchants as are wanderers by pro- want of relish for any other enjoyment. fession, and, at the same time, are in most, Such allowances as these were no less adif not all places, incapable of either lands vantageous to common society than obliging or offices, that might engage them to make to particular persons, for, by maintaining any part of the world their home. a decency and regularity in the course of This dispersion would probably have lost life, they supported the dignity of human their religion, had it not been secured by nature, which then suffers the greatest viothe strength of its constitution: for they are lence when the order of things is inverted; to live all in a body, and generally within and in nothing is it more remarkably vilithe same enclosure; to marry among them- fled and ridiculous, than when feebleness selves, and to eat no meats that are not preposterously attempts to adorn itself killed or prepared their own way. This with that outward pomp and lustre, which shuts them out from all table conversation, serve only to set off the bloom of youth and the most agreeable intercourses of life; with better advantage. I was insensibly and, by consequence, excludes them from carried into reflections of this nature, by the most probable means of conversion. just now meeting Paulino (who is in his If, in the last place, we consider what climacteric) bedecked with the utmost providential reasons may be assigned for splendour of dress and equipage, and giving these three particulars, we shall find that an unbounded loose to all manner of pleatheir numbers, dispersion, and adherence sure, whilst his only son is debarred all to their religion, have furnished every age, innocent diversion, and may be seen freand every nation of the world, with the quently solacing himself in the Mall with strongest arguments for the Christian faith, no other attendance than one antiquated not only as these very particulars are fore- servant of his father's for a companion and told of them, but as they themselves are director. the depositaries of these, and all the other' It is a monstrous want of reflection, that prophecies, which tend to their own con- a man cannot consider, that when he canfusion. Their number furnishes us with not resign the pleasures of life in his decay a sufficient cloud of witnesses that attest of appetite and inclination to them, his son the truth of the old Bible. Their disper- must have a much uneasier task to resist sion spreads these witnesses through all the impetuosity of growing desires. The parts of the world. The adherence to their skill therefore should methinks be, to let a religion makes their testimony unquestion- son want no lawful diversion, in proportion able. Had the whole body of the Jews to his future fortune, and the figure he is been converted to Christianity, we should to make in the world. The first step tocertainly have thought all the prophecies wards virtue that I have observed, in young of the Old Testament, that relate to the men of condition that have run into excoming and history of our blessed Saviour, cesses, has been that they had a regard to forged by Christians, and have looked upon their quality and reputation in the managethem with the prophecies of the Sybils, as ment of their vices. Narrowness in their made many years after the events they pre- circumstances has made many youths, to tended to foretell. 0. supply themselves as debauchees, oom mence cheats and rascals. The father who No. 496.] Monday, September 29, 1712. allows his son to the utmost ability avoids this latter evil, which as to the world is Gnatum pariter uti his decuit aut etiam amplius, this latter evil, which as to the world is Quod illa atas magis ad hac utenda idonea est. much greater than the former. But the Terent. Heaut. Act. i. Sc. 1. contrary practice has prevailed so much Your son ought to have shared in these things, be- among some men, that I have known them cause youth is best suited to the enjoyment of them. deny them what was merely necessary for'MR. SPECTATOR,-Those ancients who education suitable to their quality. Poor were the most accurate in their remarks young Antonio is a lamentable instance of 254 rHE SPECTATOR. [No. 497 ill conduct in this kind. The young man all hernice aitsand hercrooked legs. Pray did not want natural talents; but the father be sure to put her in for both those twc of him was a coxcomb, who affected being things, and you will oblige every body here, a fine gentleman so unmercifully, that he especially, your humble servant, could not endure in his sight, or the fre-'ALICE BLUEGARTER.' quent mention of one, who was his son, growing into manhood, and thrusting him out of the gay world. I have often thought No. 497.] Tuesday, September 30, 1712, the father took a secret pleasure in reflecting that, when that fine house and seat OrTO E- rywXEATy5 7ypwY. Menander. came into the next hands, it would revive A cunning old fox this! his memory, as a person who knew how to A FAVOUR well bestowed is almost as enjoy them, from observation of the rusti- great an honour to him who confers it as to city and ignorance of his successor. Cer- him who receives it. What indeed makes tain it is, that a man may, if he will, let his for the superior reputation of the patron in heart close to the having no regard to any this case is, that he is always surrounded thing but his dear self, even with exclusion with specious pretences of unworthy candiof his very children. I recommend this dates, andis often alone in the kind inclinasubject to your consideration, and am, sir, tion he has towards the well deserving. your most humble servant, T. B.' Justice is the first quality in the man who'London, Sept. 26, 1712. is in a post of direction; and I remember MR. SPECTATOR.-I am just come from to have heard an old gentleman talk of the Tunbridge, and have since my return read civil wars, and in his relation give an acMrs. Matilda Mohair's letter to you. She count of a general officer, who with this pretends to make a mighty story about the one quality, without any shining endowdiversions of swinging in that place. What ments, became so popularly beloved and was done was only among relations; and no honoured, that all decisions between man man swung any woman who was not second and man were laid before him by the parcousin at farthest. She is pleased to say, ties concerned, in a private way; and they care was taken that the gallants tied the would lay by their animosities implicitly, ladies' legs before they were wafted into if he bid them be friends, or submit themthe air. Since she is so spiteful, I will tell selves in the wrong without reluctance, if you the plain truth.-There was no such he said it, without waiting the judgment of nicety observed, since we were all, as I courts-martial. His manner was to keep just now told you, near relations; but Mrs. the dates of all commissions in his closet, Mohair herself has been swung there, and and wholly dismiss from the service such she invents all this malice, because it was who were deficient in their duty; and after observed she had crooked legs, of which I that took care to prefer according to the was an eye witness. Your humble servant, order of battle. His familiars were his en-'RACHEL SHOESTRING.' tire friends, and could have no interested views in courting his acquaintance; for his'Tunbridge, Sept. 26, 1712. affection was no step to their preferment,'MR. SPECTATOR,-We have just now though it was to their reputation. By this read your paper, containing Mrs. Mohair's means a kind aspect, a salutation, a smile, letter. It is an invention of her own from and giving out his hand, had the weight of one end to the other; and I desire you what is esteemed by vulgar minds more would print the enclosed letter by itself, substantial. His business was very short, and shorten it so as to come within the and he who had nothing to do but justice compass of your half sheet. She is the most was never affronted with a request of a famalicious minx in the world, for all she miliar daily visitant for what was due to a looks so innocent. Do not leave out that brave man at a distance. Extraordinary part about her being in love with her fa- merit he used to recommend to the king ther's butler, which makes her shun men; for some distinction at home; till the order for that is the truest of it all. Your humble of battle made way for his rising in the servant, SARAH TRICE. troops. Add to this, that he had an excel-' P. S. She has crooked legs.' lent way of getting rid of such who he obTunbridge, Sept. 26, 1712. served were good at a halt, as his phrase'Ma. SP ECTATOR,-A that Mrs. Mo-was. Under this description he compreMhair is so vexd at an st te g ood com- ended all those who were contented to hair is so vexed at against the good com- live without reproach,and had no promptipany of this place is, that we all know she tude in their minds towards glory. These has crooked legs. This is certainly true. f ere ain recommended to the I do not care for putting my name, because king, and taken off the general's hands one would not be in the power of the crea- into posts when digenerand c on ture. Uour humble servant unknown' into posts wherein diligence and common tur o,. honesty were all that were necessary. This'Tunbridge, Sept. 26, 1712. general had no weak part in his line, but'MR. SPECTATOR,-That insufferable every man had as much care upon him, prude, Mrs. Mohair, who has told such and as much honour to lose as himself. stories of the company here, is with child; for Every oflcer could answer for what passed No. 498.] THE SPECTATOR. 255 where he was; and the general's presence himself and servants, that the whole court was never necessary any where, but where were in an emulation who should first introhe had placed himself at the first disposi- duce him to his holiness. What added to tion, except that accident happened from the expectation his holiness had of the extraordinary efforts of the enemy which pleasure he should have in his follies, was, he could not foresee; but it was remarkable that this fellow, in a dress the most exquithat it never fell out from failure in his own sitely ridiculous, desired he might speak to troops. It must be confessed the world is him alone, for he had matters of the highest just so much out of order, as an unworthy importance, upon which he wanted a conperson possesses what should be in the di- ference. Nothing could be denied to a coxrection of him who has better pretensions comb of so great hope; but when they were to it. apart, the impostor revealed himself, and Instead of such a conduct as this old fel- spoke as follows: low used to describe in his general, all the rri, evils which have ever happened among o t be surprised, mostholy father, mankind have arose from the wanton dis- seeing, instead of a coxcomb to laugh at, position of the favours of the powerful. It your old friend, who has taken this way of is generally all that men of modesty and access to admonish you of your own folly. virtue can do, to fall in with some whimsi-'Can any thing show your holiness how uncal turn in a great man, to make way for worthy you treat mankind, more than my things of real and absolute service. In the being put upon this difficulty to speak with time of Don Sebastian of Portugal, or some you? It is a degree of folly to delight to see time since, the first minister would let no- t in others, and it is the greatest insolence thing rome near him but what bore the imaginable to rejoice in the disgrace of humost profound face of wisdom and gravity. man nature. It is a criminal humility in a They carried it so far, that, for the greater person of your holiness's understanding, to show-of their profound knowledge, a pair believe you cannot excel but in the conof spectacles tied on their noses with a versation of half-wits, humourists, coxblack riband round their heads, was what combs, and buffoons. If your holiness has completed the dress of those who made a mind to be diverted like a rational man, their court at his levee, and none with you have a great opportunity for it, in disnaked noses were admitted to his presence. robing all the impertinents you have faA blunt honest fellow, who had a com- voured, of all their riches and trappings at mand in the train of artillery, had attempted once, and bestowing them on the humble, to make an impression upon the porter, the virtuous, and the meek. If your holiday after day in vain, until at length he ness s no concerned for te sake of virtue made his appearance in a very thoughtful and religion, be pleased to reflect, that for dark suit of clothes, and two pair of specta- the sake of your own safety it is not proper cles on at once. He was conducted from to be so very much in jest. When the pope room to room, with great deference, to the is thus merry, the people will in time begin minister; and, carrying on the farce of the to think many things, which they have place, he told his excellency that he had hitherto beheld with great veneration, are pretended in this manner to be wiser than in themselves objects of scorn and derision. he reallywas, but with no ill intention: but If they once get a trick of knowing how to he was honest Such-a-one of the train, and laugh, your holiness's saying this sentence he came to tell him that they wanted wheel- one night cap, and the other with the barrows and pick-axes. The th thing hap- er, the change of your slippers, bringing pened not to displease, the great man was youyourstaff in the midst of a prayer, then seen to smile, and the successful officer was stripping you of one vest, and clapping on re-conducted with the same profound cere-a second during divine service, will be found mony out of the house. out to have nothing in it. Consider, sir, that When Leo X. reigned pope of Rome, at this rate a head will be reckoned never his holiness, though a man of sense, and of the wiser for being bald, and the ignorant an excellent taste of letters, of all things will be apt to say, that going bare-foot does affected fools, buffoons, humourists, and not at allhelp o the o way to heaven. The coxcombs. Whether it were from vanity, red cap and the cowl will fall under the and that he enjoyed no talents in other men same contempt; and the vulgar will tell us but what were inferior to him, or whatever to our faces, that we shall have no authority — it was, he carried it so far, that his whole over them but from the force of our argudelight was in finding out new fools, and as ments and the sanctity of our lives. T our phrase is, playing them off, and making them show themselves to advantage. A priest of his former acquaintance, suffered No. 498.] Wednesday, October 1, 1712. a great many disappointments in attempt- ing to find access to him in a regular cha- Frustra retinacula tendens, rater, until ast last in despair he retired Fertur equis auriga, neque audit currus habenas. racter, until at last in despair he retired Virg. Georg. i. 514 from Rome, and returned in an equipage so Nor reins, nor curbs, nor cries the horses fear, very fantastical, both as to the dress of But force along the trembling charioteer.-Dryden. 256 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 498. To the Spectator-General of Great Britain. seemed, at least to me, to be surrounded From the farther end of the Widow's Coffee-house with so many difficulties, that, notwithin Devereux-court. Monday evening, twenty- standing the unknown advantages which eight minutes and a half past six. might have accrued to me thereby, I gave'DEAR DUMB,-In short, to use no far- over all hopes of attaining it; and I believe ther preface, if I should tell you that I have had never thought of it more, but that my seen a hackney-coachman, when he has memory has been lately refreshed by seecome to set down his fare, which has con- ing some of these ingenious gentlemen ply sisted of two or three very fine ladies, hand in the open streets, one of which I saw rethem out, and salutp every one of them ceive so suitable a reward to his labours, with an air of familiarity, without giving that though I know you are no friend of the least offence, you would perhaps think story-telling, yet I must beg leave to troume guilty of a gasconade. But to clear my- ble you with this at large. self from that imputation, and to explain' About a fortnight since, as I was divert this matter to you, I assure you that there ing myself with a pennyworth of walnuts at are many illustrious youths within this city, the Temple gate, a lively young fellow in who frequently recreate themselves by a fustian jacket shot by me, beckoned a driving of a hackney-coach: but those coach, and told the coachman he wanted to whom, above all others, I would recom- go as far as Chelsea. They agreed upon mend to you, are the young gentlemen be- the price, and this young gentleman mounts longing to the inns of court. We have, I the coach-box: the fellow, staring at him, think, about a dozen coachmen, who have desired to know if he should not drive until chambers here in the Temple; and, as it is they were out of town. No, no, replied he. reasonable to believe others will follow He was then going to climb up to him, but their example, we may perhaps in time (if received another check, and was then orit shall be thought convenient) be drove to dered to get into the coach, or behind it, Westminster by our own fraternity, allow- for that he wanted no instructors; " But be ing every fifth person to apply his medita- sure, you dog you," says he, " do not bilk tions this way, which is but a modest com- me.' The fellow thereupon surrendered putation, as the humour is now likely to his whip, scratched his head, and crept take. It is to be hoped, likewise, that there into the coach. Having myself occasion to are in the other nurseries of the law to be go into the Strand about the same time, we found a proportionable number of these started both together; but the street being hopeful plants, springing up to the ever- very full of coaches, and he not so able a lasting renown of their native country. Of coachman as perhaps he imagined himself, how long standing this humour has been, I I had soon got a little way before him; know not. The first time I had any par- often, however, having the curiosity to cast ticular reason to take notice of it was about my eye back upon him, to observe how he this time twelvemonth, when, being upon behaved himself in this high station; which Hampstead-heath with some of these studi- he did with great composure, until he came ous young men, who went thither purely for to the pass, which is a military term the the sake of contemplation, nothing would brothers of the whip have given to the serve them but I must go through a course of strait at St. Clement's church. When he this philosophy too; and, being ever willing was arrived near this place, where are alto embellish myself with any commendable ways coaches in waiting, the coachmen qualification, it was not long ere they per- began to suck up the muscles of their' suaded me into the coachbox; nor indeed cheeks, and to tip the wink upon each much longer, before I underwent the fate other, as if they had some roguery in their of my brother Phaeton; for, having drove.heads, which I was immediately convinced about fifty paces with pretty good success, of; for he no sooner came within reach, but through my own natural sagacity, together the first of them with his whip took the with the good instructions of my tutors, exact dimension of his shoulders, which he who to give them their due, were on all very ingeniously called endorsing: and inhands encouraging and assisting me in this deed, I must say, that every one of them laudable undertaking: I say, sir, having took due care to endorse him as he came drove above fifty paces with pretty good through their hands. He seemed at first a success, I must needs be exercising the little uneasy under the operation, and was lash; which the horses resented so ill from going in all haste to take the numbers of my hands, that they gave a sudden start, their coaches; but at length, by the mediaand thereby pitched me directly upon my tion of the worthy gentleman in the coach, head, as I very well remembered about his wrath was assuaged, and he prevailed half an hour afterwards; which not only upon to pursue his journey; though indeed deprived me of all the knowledge I had I thought they had clapped such a spoke in gained for fifty yards before, but had like his wheel, as had disabled him from being to have broke my neck into the bargain. a coachman for that day at least: for I am After such a severe reprimand, you may only mistaken, Mr. Spec, if some of these imagine I was not very easily prevailed endorsements were not wrote with so strong with to make a second attempt; and indeed, a hand that they are still legible. Upon my.Ipon mature deliberation, the whole science inquiring the reason of this unusual saluta No 499.] THE SPECTA 1 OR. 257 tion, they told me, that it was a custom away many of their effects, granted them among them, whenever they saw a brother their petition: when the women, to his grea tottering or unstable in his post, to lend surprise, came out of the place with every him a hand, in order to settle him again one her husband upon her back. The emtherein. For my part, I thought their al- peror was so moved at the sight, that he legations but reasonable, and so marched burst into tears; and, after having very off. Besides our coachmen, we abound in much extolled the women for their conju divers other sorts of ingenious robust youth, gal affection, gave the men to their wives, who, I hope, will not take it ill if I defer and received the duke into his favour. giving you an account of their several re-' The ladies did not a little triumph at creations to another opportunity. In the this story, asking us at the same time, mean time, if you would but bestow a little whether in our consciences we believed of your wholesome advice upon our coach- that the men in any town in Great Britain men, it might perhaps be a reprieve to would, upon the same offer, and at the some of their necks. As I understand you same conjuncture, have loaden themselves have several inspectors under you, if you with their wives; or rather, whether they would but send one amongst us here in the would not have been glad of such an opporTemple, I am persuaded he would not tunity to get ridofthem? To this my very want employment. But I leave this to your good friend, Tom Dapperwit, who took own consideration, and am, sir, your hum- upon him to be the mouth of our sex, replied, ble servant, that they would be very much to blame if' MOSES GREENBAG. they would not do the same good office for'P. S. I have heard our critics in the the women, considering that their strength coffee-house hereabout talk mightily of the would be greater, and their ourdens lighter. unity of time and place. According to m As we were amusing ourselves with dis ty of tme and pace. Aordn to y courses of this nature, in order to pass away notion of the matter, I have endeavoured the evening, which now oegis to grow teat something like it in the beginning o m eveng, which now oegns to grow teat something like it in the beginning of my dious, we fell into that laudaole and primiepistle. I desire to be informed a little as tive diversion of questions and commands. to that particular. In my next I design to I was no sooner vested with the regal augive you some account of excellent water- I was no sooner vested with the regal aumen, who are bred to the law, and far thority, but I enjoined all the ladies, under outdo the land students above-mentioned. pain f my displeasure, to tell the company T. ingeniously, in case they nad been at the siege above-mentioned. and had the same offers made them as the good women of that place, what every one of them would No. 499. ] Th'ursday, October 2, 1712. have brought off with her. and have thought _ Nimis uncis.. most worth the saving? There were seveNaribus indulges Pers. Sat. i. 40. ral merry answers made to my question, You drive the jest too far.-Dryden which entertained us until bed-time. This filled my mind with such a huddle of ideas, MY friend Will Honeycomb has told me, that, upon my going to sleep, I fell into the for about this half year, that hehad a great following drearh: mind to try his hand at a Spectator, and' I saw a town of this island, which shall that he would fain have one of his writing be nameless, invested on every side, and in my works. This morning I received the the inhabitants of it so strained as to cry following letter, which, after having recti- for quarter. The general refused any other fied some little orthographical mistakes, I terms than those granted to the aboveshall make a present of to the public, mentioned town of Hensburg, namely, that the married women might come out with'DEAR SPEC,-I was about two nights what they could bring along with them. ago in company with very agreeable young Immediately the city gates flew open, and people of both sexes, where, talking of some a female procession appeared, multitudes of your papers which are written on conju- of the sex followed one another in a row, gal love, there arose a dispute among us, and staggering under their respective bur whether there were not more bad husbands dens. I took my stand upon an eminence m the world than bad wives. A gentleman, in the enemy's camp, which was appointed who was advocate for the ladies, took this for the general rendezvous of these female occasion to tell us the story of a famous carriers, being very desirous to look into siege in Germany, which I have since found their several ladings. The first of them related in my historical dictionary, after had a huge sack upon her shoulders, which the following manner. When the emperor she set down with great care. Upon the Conrade the Third had besieged Guelphus, opening of it, when expected to have seen duke of Bavaria, in the city of Hensburg, her husband shot out of it, I found it was.he women, finding that the town could not filled with china-ware. The next appeared possibly hold out long, petitioned the em- in a more decent figure, carrying a handperor that they might depart out of it, with some young fellow upon her back: I could so much as each of them could carry. The not forbear commending the young woman emperor, knowing they could not convey for her conjugal affection, when, to my VOL. II. 33 258 sTHE SPECTATOR. tNo, 500 great surprise, I found that she had left the raillery on marriage, and one who has often good man at home, and brought away her tried his fortune that way without success, gallant. I saw the third, at some distance, I cannot however dismiss this letter, withwith a little withered face peeping over her out observing, that the true story on which shoulder, whom I could not suspect for any it is built does honour to the sex, and that, out her spouse, until upon her setting him in order to abuse them, the writer is obliged down I heard her call him dear pug, and to have recourse to dream and fiction, found him to be her favourite monkey. A O. fourth brought a huge bale of cards along with ler, and the fifth a Bologna lap-dog; for her husband, it seems, being a very No. 500.] Friday, October 3, 1712. burly man, she thought it would be less trouble for her to bring away little Cupid. tHuc natas adjice septem, The next was the wife of a rich usurer, Et todidem juvenes; et mox generosque nurusque: loaden with a bag of gold; she told us that Quwerite nunc, habeat quam nostra superbia causawr Ovid Aliet. Lib. vi. 182. her spouse was very old, and by the course evenaremydaughtersofformdivine of nature could not expect to live long; With seven fair sons, an indefective line. and that to show her tender regards for Go, fools, consider this, and ask the cause him, she had saved that which the poor From which my pride its strong presumption draws man loved better than his life. The nextroal came towards us with her son upon her'SIR, —You, who are so well acquainted back, who, we were told, was the greatest with the story of Socrates, must have read rake in the place, but so much the mother's how, upon his making a discourse concerndarling, that she left her husband behind ing love, he pressed his point with so much with a large family of hopeful sons and success, that all the bachelors in his audaughters, for the sake of this graceless dience took a resolution to marry by the youth. first opportunity, and that all the married' It would be endless to mention the seve- men immediately took horse and galloped ral persons, with their several loads, that home to their wives. I am apt to think your appeared to me in this strange vision. All discourses, in which you have drawn so the place about me was covered with packs many agreeable pictures of marriage, have of ribands, brocades, embroidery, and ten had a very good effect this way in England. thousand other materials, sufficient to have We are obliged to you, at least, for having furnished a whole street of toy-shops. One taken off that senseless ridicule, which for of the women, having a husband, who was many years the witlings of the town have none of the heaviest, was bringing him off turned upon their fathers and mothers. For upon her shoulders, at the same time that my own part, I was born in wedlock, and she carried a great bundle of Flanders lace I do not care who knows it; for which reaunder her arm; but finding herself so over- son, among many others, I should look upon loaden, that she could not save both of myself as a most insufferable coxcomb, did them, she dropped the good man, and I endeavour to maintain that cuckoldom brought away the bundle. In short, I found was inseparable from marriage, or to make but one husband among this great moun- use of husband and wife as terms of retain of baggage, who was a lively cobbler, proach. Nay, sir, I will go one step farthat kicked and spurred all the while his ther, and declare to you, before the whole wife was carrying him on, and, as it vas world, that I am a married man, and at said, he had scarce passed a day in his life the same time I have so much assurance as without giving her the discipline of the not to be ashamed of what I have done. strap.'Among the several pleasures that ac-' I cannot conclude my letter, dear Spec, company this state of life, in which you without telling thee one very odd whim in have described in your former papers, this my dream. I saw, methought, a dozen there are two you have not taken notice of, women employed in bringing off one man; and which are seldom cast into the account I could not guess who it should be, until by those who write 6n this subject. You upon his nearer approach I discovered thy must have observed, in your speculations short phiz. The women all declared that on human nature, that nothing is more it was for the sake of thy works, and not gratifying to the mind of man than power thy person, that they brought thee off, and or dominion; and this I think myself amply that it was on condition that thou shouldst possessed of, as I am the father of a family. continue the Spectator. If thou thinkest I am perpetually taken up in giving out this dream will make a tolerable one, it orders, in prescribing duties, in hearing is at thy service, from, dear Spec, thine, parties, in administering justice, and in dissleeping and waking, tributing rewards and punishments. To'WILL HONEYCOMB.' speak in the language of the centurion, I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to anThe ladies will see by this letter what I other, Come, and he cometh; and to my have often told them, that Will is one of servant, Do this, and he doeth it. In short, those old-fashioned men of wit and plea- sir, I look upon my family as a patriarchal sure of the town, that shows his parts by sovereignty, in which I am myself both No. 501.] THE SPECTATOR. 259 king and priest. All great governments to most of those with whom I converse, are nothing else but clusters of these little namely, that a man who has many chilprivate royalties, and therefore I consider dren, and gives them a good education, is the masters of families as small deputy- more likely to raise a family, than he who governors, presiding over the several little has but one, notwithstanding he leaves him parcels and divisions of their fellow-sub- his whole estate. For this reason I cannot jects. As I take great pleasure in the forbear amusing myself with finding out a rdministration of my government in par- general, an admiral, or an alderman of ticular, so I look upon myself not only as a London, a divine, a physician, or a lawyer, more useful, but as a much greater and among my little people who are now perhappier man than any bachelor in England haps in petticoats; and when I see the mo-,Lf my rank and condition. therly airs of my little daughters when they "There is another accidental advantage are playing with their puppets, I cannol n marriage, which has likewise fallen to but flatter myself that their husbands and my share; I mean the having a multitude children will be happy in the possession of of children. These I cannot but regard as such wives and mothers. very great blessings. When I see my little' If you are a father, you will not perhaps troop before me, I rejoice in the additions think this letter impertinent; but if you are which I have made to my species, to my a single man, you will not know the meancountry, and to my religion, in having pro- ing of it, and probably throw it into the fire. duced such a number of reasonable crea- Whatever you determine of it, you may tures, citizens, and Christians. I am pleased assure yourself that it comes from one who; to see myself thus perpetuated; and as is your most humble servant, and wellthere is no production comparable to that wisher, PHILOGAMUS.' of a human creature, I am more proud of O. having been the occasion of ten such glorious productions, than if I had built a hundred pyramids at my own expense, or No. 501. Saturday, October 4, 1712. published as many volumes of the finest wit and learning. In what a beautiful light Durum: sed levius fit patientia has the holy scripture represented Abdon, Quicquid corrigere est nefas. one of the judges of Israel, who had forty Htr. Od. xxiv. Lib. 1. 19 sons and thirty grandsons, that rode on'Tis hard: but when we needs must bear, threescore and ten ass colts, according to Mnduring patience makes the burden light.-Creec, the magnificence of the eastern countries! As some of the finest compositions among How must the heart of the old man rejoice, the ancients are in allegory, I have endea.when he saw such a beautiful procession of voured, in several of my papers, to revive his own descendants, such a numerous ca- that way of writing, and hope I have not valcade of his own raising! For my own been altogether unsuccessful in it; for I find part, I can sit in my own parlour with great there is always a great demand for those content when I take a review of half a dozen particular papers, and cannot but observe of my little boys mounting upon hobby that several authors have endeavoured of horses, and of as many little girls tutoring late to excel in works of this nature. their babies, each of them endeavouring to Among those, I do not know any one who excel the rest, and to do something that has succeeded better than a very ingenious may gainmyfavourandapprobation. Ican- gentleman, to whom I am obliged for the not question but he who has blessed me following piece, and who was the author of with so many children, will assist my en- the vision in the 460th paper. deavours in providing for them. There is one thing I am able to give each of them, How are we tortured with the absence which is a virtuous education. I think it is of what we covet to possess, when it apSir Francis Bacon's observation, that in a pears to be lost to us! What excursions numerous family of children, the eldest is does the soul make in imagination after it! often spoiled by the prospect of an estate, and how does it turn into itself again, more and the youngest by being the darling of the foolishly fond and dejected at the disapparents; but that some one or other in the pointment! Our grief, instead of having remiddle, who has not perhaps been regard- course to reason, which might restrain it, edl, has made his way in the world, and searches to find a farther nourishment. It overtopped the rest. It is my business to calls upon memory to relate the several implant in every one of my children the passages and circumstances of satisfaction same seeds of industry, and the same which we formerly enjoyed; the pleasures honest principles. By this means I think I we purchased by those riches that are have a fair chance, that one or other of taken from us; or the power and splendour them may grow considerable in some way of our departed honours; or the voice, tile or other of life, whether it be in the army, words, the looks, the temper and affections or in the fleet, in trade or any of the three of our friends that are deceased. It needs learned professions; for you must know, sir, must happen from hence that the passion. that, from long experience and observation, should often swell to such a size as to burst I' am persuaded of what seems a paradox the heart which contains it, if time did nc4 260 THE SPECTATOR.. [No. 501 make these circumstances less strong and heightened by the influence of what wc lively, so that reason should become a more heard and saw, and one of our number was equal match for the passion, or if another wrought up to such a pitch of wildness, as desire which becomes more present did not to talk of hanging himself upon a bough overpower them with a livelier representa- which shot temptingly across the path we tion. These are thoughts which I had travelled in; but he was restrained from it when I fell into a kind of vision upon this by the kind endeavours of our above-mensubject, End may therefore stand for a pro- tioned companion. per introduction to a relation of it. We had now gotten into the most dusky I found myself upon a naked shore, with silent part of the island, and by the redoucompany whose afflicted countenances wit- bled sounds of sighs, which made a doleful nessed their conditions. Before us flowed a whistling in the branches, the thickness of water, deep, silent, and called the river of air, which occasioned faintish respiration, Tears, which, issuing from two fountains and the violent throbbings of heart which on an upper ground, encompassed an island more and more affected us, we found that that lay before us. The boat which plied we approached the Grotto of Grief. It was in it was old and shattered, having been a wide, hollow, and melancholy cave, sunk sometimes overset by the impatience and deep in a dale, and watered by rivulets haste of single passengers to arrive at the that had a colour between red and black. other side. This immediately was brought These crept slow and half congealed to us by Misfortune who steers it, and we amongst its windings, and mixed their were allpreparing to take our places, when heavy murmurs with the echo of groans there appeared a woman of a mild and that rolled through all the passages. In composed behaviour, who began to deter the most retired parts of it sat the doleful us from it, by representing the dangers being herself; the path to her was strewe( which would attend our voyage. Hereupon with goads, stings, and thorns; and hei some who knew her for Patience, and some throne on which she sat was broken into a of those too who until then cried the loud- rock, with ragged pieces pointing upwards est, were persuaded by her, and returned for her to lean upon. A heavy mist hung back. The rest of us went in, and she above her; her head oppressed with it re(whose good-nature would not suffer her to dined upon her arm. Thus did she reign forsake persons in trouble) desired leave to over her disconsolate subjects, full of heraccompany us, that she might at least ad- self to stupidity, in eternal pensiveness, and minister some small comfort or advice the profoundest silence. On one side of her while we sailed. We were no sooner em- stood DeJection, just dropping into a swoon, barked but the boat was pushed off, the and Paleness,wasting to a skeleton; on the sheet was spread; and being filled with other side were Care inwardly tormented sighs, which are the winds of that country, with imaginations, and Anguish suffering we made a passage to the farther bank, outward troubles to suck the blood from through several difficulties of which the her heart in the shape of vultures. The most of us seemed utterly regardless. whole vault had a genuine dismalness in it, When we landed, we perceived the which a few scattered lamps, whose blueish island to be strangely overcast with fogs, flames arose and sunk in their urns, diswhich no brightness could pierce, so that covered to our eyes with increase. Some a kind of gloomy horror sat always brood- of us fell down, overcome and spent with ing over it. This had something in it very what they suffered in the way, and were shocking to easy tempers, insomuch that given over to those tormenters that stood some others, whom Patience had by this on either hand of the presence; others time gained over, left us here, and privily galled and mortified with pain, recovered conveyed themselves round the verge of the the entrance, where Patience, whom we island to find a fordby which she told them had left behind, was still waiting to re they might escape. ceive us. For my part, I still went along with With her (whose company was now be those who were for piercing into the cen- come more grateful to us by the want wi tre of the place; and joining ourselves to had found of her) we winded round the others whom we found upon the samejour- grotto, and ascended at the back of it, ou. ney, we marched solemnly as at a funeral, of the mournful dale in whose bottom it lay. through bordering hedges of rosemary, and On this eminence we halted, by her advice, through a grove of yew-trees, which love to pant for breath; and lifting our eyes, to overshadow tombs and flourish in the which until then were fixed downwards, church-yards. Here we heard on every felt a sullen sort of satisfaction, in observside the wailings and complaints of several ing, through the shades, what numbers had of the inhabitants, who had cast them- enteredthe island. This satisfaction, whicl selves disconsolately at the feet of trees; appears to have ill-nature in it, was exand as we chanced to approach any of these cusable, because it happened at a time we might perceive them wringing their when we were too much taken up with our hands, beating their breasts, tearing their own concern, to have respect to that of hair, or after some other manner, visibly others; and therefore we did not consider agitated with vexation. Our sorrows were them as suffering, but ourselves'e not suf No. 532.] THE SPECTATOR. 261 fering in the most forlorn estate. It had as their own respective studies and inclinaalso the ground-work of humanity and com- tions have prepared them, and make their passion in it, though the mind was then too reflections accordingly. Some, perusing Rodark and too deeply engaged to perceive man writers, would find in them, whatever it: but as we proceeded onward, it began to the subject of the discourses were, parts discover itself, and, from observing that which implied the grandeur of that people others were unhappy, we came to question in their warfare, or their politics. As for one another, when it was that we met, and my part, who am a mere Spectator, I drev what were the sad occasions that brought this morning conclusions of their eminence us together. Then we heard our stories, in what I think great, to wit, in having and compared them, we mutually gave worthy sentiments, from the reading a coand received pity, and so by degrees be- medy of Terence. The play was the Selfcame tolerable company. Tormentor. It is from the beginning to the A considerable part of the troublesome end a perfect picture of human life; but I road was thus deceived; at lengtlhthe open- did not observe in the whole one passage ings among the trees grew larger, the air that could raise a laugh. How well-disseemed thinner, it lay with less oppression posed must that people be, who could be upon us, and we could now and then discern entertained with satisfaction by so sober tracks in it of a lighter grayness, like the and polite mirth! In the first scene of the breakings of day, short in duration, much comedy, when one of the old men accuses enlivening, and called in that country the other of impertinence for interposing in gleams of amusement. Within a short his affairs, he answers,'I am a man, and while these gleams began to appear more cannot help feeling any sorrow that can frequent, and then brighter and of a longer arrive at man.'* It is said this sentence was continuance: the sighs that hitherto filled received with an universal applause. There the air with so much dolefulness, altered to cannot be a greater argument of the genethe sound of common breezes, and in gene- ral good understanding of a people than a ral the horrors of the island were abated. sudden consent to give their approbation of Wvhen we had arrived at last at the ford a sentiment which has no emotion in it. If by which we were to pass out, we met with it were spoken with ever so great skill in those fashionable mourners who had been the actor, the manner of uttering that senferried over along with us, and who, being tence could have nothing in it which could unwilling to go as far as we, had coasted strike any but people of the greatest huby the shore to find the place, where they manity, nay, people elegant and skilful in' waited our coming; that by showing them- observations upon it. It is possible he might selves to the world only at the time when have laid his hand on his breast, and, with we did, they might seem also to have been a winning insinuation in his countenance, among the troubles of the grotto. Here the expressed to his neighbour that he was a waters that rolled on the other side so deep man who made his case his own; yet I will and silent were much dried up, and it was engage a player in Covent-garden might an easier matter for us to wade over. hit such an attitude a thousand times beThe river being crossed, we were re- fore he would have been regarded. I have ceived upon the farther bank by our friends heard that a minister of state in the reign and acquaintance, whom Comfort had of queen Elizabeth had all manner of books brought out to congratulate our appearance and ballads brought to him, of what kind in the world again. Some of these blamed soever, and took great notice how much us for staying so long away from them, they took with the people; upon which he others advised us against all temptations of would, and certainly might, very well going back; every one was cautious not to judge of their present dispositions, and the renew our trouble, by asking any particu- most proper way of applying them accordlars of the journey; and all concluded that, ing to his own purposes. What passes ol in a case of so much melancholy and afflic- the stage, and the reception it meets with tion, we could not have made choice of a from the audience, is a very useful instrucfitter companion than Patience. Here Pa- tion of this kind. According to what you tience, appearing serene at her praises, may observe on our stage, you see them delivered us over to Comfort. Comfort often moved so directly against all oomsmiled at his receiving the charge: imme- mon sense and humanity, that you would be diately the sky purpled on that side to apt to pronounce us a nation of savages. It which he turned, and double day at once cannot be called a mistake of what is pleabroke in upon me. sant, but the very contrary to it is what most assuredly takes with them. The other No. 02. z Octobr 6 12 night, an old woman carried off with a pain No. 5023.] Moday, October 6, 1712. in her side, with all the distortions and anMelius, pejus, prosit, obsit, nil vident nisi quod lubent. guish of countenance whict is natural to Ter. Heaut. Act iv. Sc. 1. one in that condition, was laughed at and Better or worse, profitable or disadvantageous, they clapped off the stage. Terence's comedy, see nothing but what they list. __ WHEN men read, they tase te m r* omo sum, et nihil humanum e me-alienum puto. WHEN men read, they taste the matter I am a man, and all calamities, with which they are entertained, according That touch humaniry, come home to me. —Colman, 262 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 502 which 1 arm speaking of, is indeed written whole house at some times in so proper a as if he hoped to please none but such as disposition, that indeed I have trembled had as good a taste as himself. I could not for the boxes, and feared the entertain but reflect upon the natural description of ment would end in a representation of the the innocent young woman made by the rape of the Sabines. servant to his master.' When I came to I would not be understood in this talk to the house,' said he,' an old woman opened argue that nothing is tolerable on the stage the door, and I followed her in, because I but what has an immediate tendency to the could, by entering upon them unawares, promotion of virtue. On the contrary, I better observe what was your mistress's can allow, provided there is nothing against ordinary manner of spending her time, the the interests of virtue, and is not offensive only way of judging any one's inclinations to good manners, that things of an indiffer and genius. I found her at her needle in a ent nature may be represented. For this sort of second mourning, which she wore reason I have no exception to the wellfor an aunt she had lately lost. She had drawn rusticities in the Country Wake; nothing on but what showed she dressed and there is something so miraculously only for herself. Her hair hung negligently pleasant in Dogget's acting the awkward about her shoulders. She had none of the triumph and comic sorrow of Hob in differarts with which others use to set them- ent circumstances, that I shall not be able selves off, but had that negligence of person to stay away whenever it is acted. All that which is remarkable in those who are care- vexes me is, that the gallantry of taking ful of their minds. Then she had a maid the cudgels for Gloucestershire, with the who was at work near her that was a slat- pride of heart in tucking himself up, and tern, because her mistress was careless; taking aim at his adversary, as well as the which I take to be another argument of other's protestation in the humanity of low your security in her; for the go-betweens romance, that he could not promise the of women of intrigue are rewarded too well'squire to break Hob's head, but he would, to be dirty. When you were named, and if he could do it in love; then flourish and I told her you desired to see her, she threw begin: I say what vexes me is, that such down her work for joy, covered her face, excellent touches as these, as well as the and decently hid her tears.' He must be'squire's being out of all patience at Hob's a very good actor, and draw attention ra- success, and venturing himself into the ther from his own character than the words crowd, are circumstances hardly taken noof the author, that could gain it among us tice of, and the height of the jest is only in for this speech, though so full of nature and the very point that heads are broken. I good sense. am confident, were there a scene written, The intolerable folly and confidence of wherein Pinkethman should break his leg players putting in words of their own, does by wrestling with Bullock, and Dicky in a great measure feed the absurd taste of come in to set it, without one word said but the audience. But however that is, it is what should be according to the exact rules ordinary for a cluster of coxcombs to take of surgery, in making this extension, and up the house to themselves, and equally binding up his leg, the whole house should insult both the actors and the company. be in a roar of applause at the dissembled These savages, who want all manner of re- anguish of the patient, the help given by gard and deference to the rest of mankind, him who threw him down, and the handy come only to show themselves to us, with- address and arch looks of the surgeon. out any other purpose than to let us know To enumerate the entrance of ghosts, the they despise us. embattling of armies, the noise of heroes 1 he gross of an audience is composed in love, with a thousand other enormiof two sorts of people, those who know no ties, would be to transgress the bounds pleasure but of the body, and those who of this paper, for which reason it is possiimprove or command corporeal pleasures, ble they may have hereafter distinct dis by the addition of fine sentiments of the courses; not forgetting any of the audience mind. At present, the intelligent part of who shall set up'for actors, and interrupt the company are wholly subdued by the the play on the stage; and players who insurrections of those who know no satis- shall prefer the applause of fools to that of factions but what they have in common the reasonable part of the company. Twith all other animals. This is the reason that when a scene Postscript to the Spectator, JVo. 502. tending to procreation is acted, you see N. B. There are in the play of the Self the whole pit in such a chuckle, and old Tormentor of Terence, which is allowed a letchers, with mouths open, stare at those most excellent comedy, several incidents loose gesticulations on the stage with which would dcraw tears from any man of shameful earnestness: when the justest sense, and not one which would move his pictures of human life in its calm dignity, laughter.-Spect. in folio, No. 521. and the properest sentiments for the con- This speculation, No. 502, is controvertduct of it, pass by like mere narration, as ed in the Guard. No. 59, by a writer under conducing only to somewhat much better the fictitious name of John Lizard; perhaps which is to come after. I have seen the Doctcr Edw Young. No. 503. THE SPECI ATOR. 263 No. 503.] Tuesday, Octooer 7, 1712. ed the churlish dislike and hesitation in Del3o omnes dehinc ex animo mulieres. approving what is excellent, too frequent Ter. Eun. Act ii. Sc. 3. among us, to a general attention and enterProm henceforward I blot out of my thoughts all me- tainment in ebserving her behaviour. All mory of womankind. the while that we were gazing at her, she IMR. SPECTATOR, —YOU have often took notice of no object about her, but had mentioned with great vehemence and in- an art of seeming awkwardly attentive, dignation the misbehaviour of people at whatever else her eyes were accidentally church; but I am at present to talk to you thrown upon. One thing indeed was paron that subject, and complain to you of one, ticular, she stood the whole service, and whom at the same time I know not what to never kneeled or sat; I lo not question but accuse of, except it be looking too well that it was to show herself with the greater there, and diverting the eyes of the congre- advantage, and set forth to better grace gation to that one object. However, I have her hands and arms, lifted up with the this to say, that she might have staid at her most ardent devotion; and her bosom, the own parish, and not come to perplex those fairest that was ever seen, bare to observawho are otherwise intent upon their duty. tion; while she, you must think, knew no-'Last Sunday was seven-night I went thing of the concern she gave others, any into a church not far from London-bridge; other than as an example of devotion, that but I wish I had been contented to go to my threw herself out, without regard to dress own parish, I am sure it had been better or garment, all contrition, and loose of all for me; I say I went to church thither, and worldly regards in ecstacy of devotion. got into a pew very near the pulpit. I had Well; now the organ was to play a volunhardly been accommodated with a seat, tary, and she was so skilful in music, and before there entered into the aisle a young so touched with it, that she kept time not lady in the very bloom of youth and beauty, only with some motion of her head, but and dressed in the most elegant manner also with a different air in her countenance. imaginable. Her form was such that it When the music was strong and bold, she engaged the eyes of the whole congrega- looked exalted, but serious; when lively tion in an instant, and mine among the rest. and airy, she was smiling and gracious; Though we were all thus fixed upon her, when the notes were more soft and lansle was not in the least out of countenance, guishing, she was kind and full of pity. or under the least disorder, though unat- When she had now made it visible to the tended by any one, and not seeming to whole congregation, by her motion and know particularly where to place herself. ear, that she could dance, and she wanted However, she had not in the least a*confi- now only to inform us that she could sing dent aspect, but moved on with the most too; when the psalm was given out, her graceful modesty, every one making way un- voice was distinguished above all the rest, til she came to a seat just over-against that or rather people did not exert their own in in which I was placed. The deputy of the order to hear her. Never was any heard ward sat in that pew, and she stood oppo- so sweet and so strong. The organist obsite to him, and at a glance into the seat, served it, and he thought fit to play to heI though she did not appear the least ac- only, and she swelled every note, when she quainted with the gentleman, was let in, found she had thrown us all out, and had with a confusion that spoke much admira- the last verse to herself in such a manner tion at the novelty of the thing. The ser- as the whole congregation was intent upon vice immediately began, and she composed her, in the same manner as we see in the herself for it with an air of so much good- cathedrals they are on the person who ness and sweetness, that the confession sings alone the anthem. Well; it came which she uttered, so as to be heard where at last to the sermon, and our young lady we sat, appeared an act of humiliation would not lose her part in that neither: for more than she had occasion for. The truth she fixed her eye upon the preacher, and is, her beauty had something so innocent, as he said any thing she approved, with and yet so sublime, that we all gazed upon one of Charles Mather's fine tablets she her like a phantom. None of the pictures set down the sentence, at once showing her which we behold of the best Italian paint- fine hand, the gold pen, her readiness in ers have any thing like the spirit which writing, and her judgment in choosing appeared in her countenance, at the differ- what to write. To sum up what I intend ent sentiments expressed in the several by this long and particular account, I apparts of divine service. That-gratitude and peal to you, whether it is reasonable that joy at a thanksgiving, that lowliness and such a creature as this shall come from a sorrow at the prayers for the sick and dis- janty part of the town, and give herself tressed, that triumph at the passages which such violent airs, to the disturbance of ail gave instances of the divine mercy, which innocent and inoffensive congregation, with appeared respectively in her aspect, will her sublimities. The fact, I assure you, be in my memory to my last hour. I pro- was as I have related: but I had like to test to you, sir, that she suspended the de- have forgot another very considerable par votion of every one around her; and the ticular. As soon as church was done, she ease she did every thing with, soon dispers- immediately stepped out of her p w, and 264 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 504. fell irto the finest pitty-patty air, forsooth, who have the Latin tongue, such as use to wonderfully out of countenance, tossing her make what they call golden verses. Comhead up and down, as she swam along the mend me also to those who have not brains body of the church. I, with several others enough for any of these exercises, and yet of the inhabitants, followed her out, and do not give up their pretensions to mirth. saw her hold up her fan to a hackney- These can slap you on the back unawares, coach at a distance, who immediately came laugh oud, ask you how you do with a up to her, and she whipping into it with twang on your shoulders, say you are dull great nimbleness, pulled the door with a to-day, and laugh a voluntary to put you in bowing mien, as if she had been used to a humour; not to mention the laborious way better glass. She said aloud, "You know among the miner poets, of making things where to go," and drove off. By this time come into such and such a shape, as that of the best of the congregation was at the an egg, a hand, an axe, or any thing that church-door, and I could hear some say, nobody had ever thought on before for that "A very fine lady;" others, "I'll warrant purpose, or which would have cost them a you she is no better than she should be:" great deal of pains to accomplish if they and one very wise old lady said she ought did. But all these methods, though they to have been taken up. Mr. Spectator, I are mechanical, and may be arrived at think this matter lies wholly before you: with the smallest capacity, do not serve an for the offence does not come under any honest gentleman who wants wit for his law, though it is apparent this creature ordinary occasions; therefore it is absolutely came among us only to give herself airs, necessary that the poor in imagination and enjoy her full swing in being admired. should save something which may be serI desire you may print this, that she may viceable to them at all hours, upon all combe confined to her own parish; for I can mon occurrences. That which we call assure you there is no attending any thing punning is therefore greatly affected by else in a place where she is a novelty. men of small intellects. These men need She has been talked of among us ever not be concerned with you for the whole since, under the name of " the phantom:" sentence; but if they can say a quaint thing, but I would advise her to come no more: or bring in a word which sounds like any for there is so strong a party made by the one word you have spoken to them, they women against her, that she must expect can turn the discourse, or distract you so they will not be excelled a second time in that you cannot go on, and by consequence, so outrageous a manner, without doing her if they cannot be as witty -s you are, they some insult. Young women, who assume can hinder your being any wittier than they after this rate, and affect exposing them- are. Thus if you talk of a candle, he' can selves to view in congregations at the other deal' with you; and if you ask him to help end of the town, are not so mischievous, you to some bread, a punster should think because they are rivalled by more of the himself very' ill-bred' if he did not; and if same ambition, whc will not let the rest he is not as'well-bred' as yourself, he of the company be particular: but in the hopes for'grains' of allowance. If you do name of the whole congregation where I not understand that last fancy, you must was, I desire you to keep these agreeable recollect that bread is made of grain; and disturbances out of the city, where sobriety so they go on for ever, without possibility of manners is still preserved, and all glar- of being exhausted. ing and ostentatious behaviour, even in There are another kind of people of small things laudable, discountenanced. I wish faculties, who supply want of wit with want you may never see the phantom, and am, of breeding; and because women are both sir, your most humble servant, by nature and education more offended at T.'RALPH WONDER.' any thing which is immodest than we men are, these are ever harping upon things they ought not to allude to, and deal mightily in No. 504.] Wednesday, October 8, 1712. doube meanings. Every one's own observation will suggest instances enough of Ter. Eun. Act iii. Sk. i. Lepus tute es, eBamn.At me Se qthi s kind, without my mentioning any; for your double meaners are dispersed up and You are a hare yourself, and want dainties, forsooth. down through all parts of the town o city IT is a great convenience to those who where there are any to offend, in order to want wit to furnish out a conversation, that set off themselves. These men are mighty there is something or other in all companies loud laughers, and held very pretty gentlewhere it is wanted substituted in its stead, men with the sillier and unbred part of which, according to their taste, does the womankind. But above all already menbusiness as well. Of this nature is the tioned, or any who ever were, or ever can agreeable pastime in country-halls of cross be in the world, the happiest and surest tc purposes, questions and commands, and the be pleasant, are a sort of people whom we like. A little superior to these are those have not indeed lately heard much of, and who can play at crambo, or cap verses. those are your'biters.' then above them are such as can make A biter is one who tells you a thing you verses, that is, rhiyme; and among those have no reason to disbelieve in itself, and No. 505.] THE SPECTATOR. 265 perhaps has given you, before he bit you, for the future will ever be able to equal, no reason to disbelieve it for his saying it; though I heartily wish him the same occaand, if you give him credit, laughs in your sion. It is a superstition with some sur face, and triumphs that he has deceived geons who beg the bodies of condemned Vou. In a word, a biter is one who thinks malefactors, to go to the gaol, and bargain you a fool, because you do not think him a for the carcase with the criminal himself. knave. This description of him one may A good honest fellow did so last sessions, insist upon to be a just one; for what else and was admitted to the condemned men but a degree of knavery is it, to depend on the morning wherein they died. The upon deceit for what you gain of another, surgeon communicated his business, and be it in point of wit, or interest, or any fell into discourse with a little fellow, who thing else? refused twelve shillings, and insisted upon This way of wit is called' biting,' by a fifteen for his body. The fellow, who killed metaphor taken from beasts of prey, which the officer of Newgate, very forwardly, and devour harmless and unarmed animals, and like a man who was willing to deal, told look upon them as their food wherever they him,'Look you, Mr. Surgeon, that little meet them. The sharpers about town very dry fellow, who has been half starved all his ingeniously understood themselves to be to life, and is now half dead with fear, cannot the undesigning part of mankind what foxes answer your purpose. I have ever lived are to lambs, and therefore used the word highly and freely, my veins are full, I have biting, to express any exploit wherein they not pined in imprisonment; you see my had over-reached any innocent and inad- crest swells to your knife; and after Jack vertent man of his purse. These rascals of Catch has done, upon my honour you will late years have been the gallants of the find me as sound as ever a bullock in any town, and carried it with a fashionable of the markets. Come, for twenty shillings haughty air, to the discouragement of I am your man.' Says the surgeon,'Done, modesty, and all honest arts. Shallow fops, there is a guinea.' This witty rogue took who are governed by the eye, and admire the money, and as soon as he had it in his every thing that struts in vogue, took up fist, cries,' Bite; I am to be hung in chains.' from the sharpers the phrase of biting, and T. used it upon all occasions, either to disown any nonsensical stuff they should talk themselves, or evade the force of what was reasonably said by others. Thus, when one of No. 505.] Thursday, October 9, 1712. these cunning creatures was entered into a debate with you, whether it was practicable Non habeo denique nauci marsum augurem, inathe wiet you, wstae rf aI was prtaccmcaplsh Non vicanos aruspices, non de circo astrologos. in the present state of affairs to accomplish Non Isiacos onjectores, non interpretes somnium, such a proposition, and you thought he had Non enim sunt ii, aut scientia, aut arte divina, let fall what destroyed his side of the ques- Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque harioli, Aut inertes, aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat: tion, as soon as you looked with an earnest- Qui si questus causa fictas suscitant sententias, ness ready to lay hold of it, he immediately Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam cried, 6 Bite,' and you were immediately to Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab iis drachmam petunt: acknoledge all tt pt was injes hey De divitiis deducant drachmam, reddant catera. acknowledge all that part wasinjest. They Ennius. carry this to all the extravagance imagin- Augurs and soothsayers, astrologers, able; and if one of these witlings knows any Diviners, and interpreters of dreams, particulars which may give authority to I neer consult, and heartily despise: what he says, he is still the more ingenious gain imaginary schemes theyuman skill:draw; if he imposes upon your credulity. I re- Wand'rers themselves, they guide another's steps; member a remarkable instance of this kind. And for poor sixpence promise countless wealth: There came up a shrewd young fellow to Let them, if they expect to be believed, There came up a shrewd young fellow to Deduct the sixpence, and bestow the rest. a plain young man, his countryman, and taking him aside with a grave concerned THOSE who have maintained that men countenance, goes on at this rate:'I see would be more miserable than beasts, were you here, and have you heard nothing out their hopes confined to this life only, among of Yorkshire?-You look so surprised, you other considerations take notice that the could not have heard of it-and yet the latter are only afflicted with the anguish of particulars are such that it cannot be false: the present evil, whereas the former are 1 am sorry I am got into it so far that I very often pained by the reflection on what must tell you; but I know not but it may be is passed, and the fear of what is to come, for your service to know. On Tuesday last, This fear of any future difficulties or misjust after dinner-you know his manner is fortunes is so natural to the mind, that to smoke-opening his box, your father fell were a man's sorrows and disquietudes down dead in an apoplexy.' The youth summed up at the end of his life, it would showed the filial sorrow which he ought- generally be found that he had suffered Upon which the witty man cried,'Bite, more from the apprehension of such evils there was nothing in all this.' as never happened to him, than from those To put an end to this silly, pernicious, evils which had really befallen him. To frivolous way at once, I will give the reader this we may add, that among those evils one late instance of a bite, which no biter which befall us, there are many which have VOL. II. 34 266 THE SPECTATOR. No. 505. oeen rt. re painful to us in the prospect, been the habitation of some prophetic Phithan by their actual pressure. lomath; it having been usual, time out of This natural impatience to look into fu- mind, for all such people as have lost their turity, and to know what accidents may wits to resort to that place, either for their happen to us hereafter, has given birth to cure or for their instruction. many ridiculous arts and inventions. Some found their prescience on the lines of a'Moorfields, Oct. 4, 1712. m.an's hand, others on the features of his'MR. SPECTATOR,-Having long consli face: some on the signatureswhich nature dered whether there be any trade wanted has impressed on his body, and others on in this great city, after having surveyed his own hand-writing: some read men's for- very attentively all kinds of ranks and protunes in the stars, as others have searched fessions, I do not find in any quarter of the after them in the entrails of beasts, or the town an oneiro-critic, or, in plain English, flight of birds. Men of the best sense have an interpreter of dreams. For want of so been touched more or less with these useful a person, there are several good peogroundless horrors and presages of futurity, pie who are very much puzzled in this parupon surveying the most indifferent works ticular, and dream a whole year together, of nature. Can any thing be more surpris- without being ever the wiser for it. I hope ing than to consider Cicero,* who made I am pretty well qualified for this office, the greatest figure at the bar and in the having studied by candle-light all the rules senate of the Roman Commonwealth, and of art which have been laid down upon this at the same time outshined all the philoso- subject. My great uncle by my wife's side phers of antiquity in his library, and in was a Scotch highlander, and second-sighthis retirements, as busying himself in the ed. I have four fingers and two thumbs college of augurs, and observing with a upon one hand, and was born on the longest religious attention after what manner the night of the year. My Christian and surchickens pecked the several grains of corn name begin and end with the same letters. which were thrown to them. I am lodged in Moorfields, in a house that Notwithstanding these follies are pretty for these fifty years has always been te well worn out of the minds of the wise and nanted by a conjurer. learned in the present age, multitudes of' If you had been in company, so much as weak and ignorant persons are still slaves myself, with ordinary women of the town, to them. There are numberless arts of you must know that there are many of them prediction among the vulgar, which are who every day in their lives, upon seeing too trifling to enumerate, and infinite ob- or hearing of any thing that is unexpected, servation of days, numbers, voices, and cry, " My dream is out;" and cannot go to figures, which are regarded by them as sleep in quiet the next n.^ght, until someportents and prodigies. In short, every thing or other has happened which has thing prophesies to the superstitious man; expounded the visions of the preceding one. there is scarce a straw, or a rusty piece of There are others who are in very great iron that lies in his way by accident. pain for not being able to recover the cirIt is not to be conceived how many cumstances of a dream, that made strong wizzards, gipsies, and cunning men, are impressions upon them while it lasted. In dispersed through all the counties and mar- short, sir, there are many whose waking ket-towns of Great Britain, not to mention thoughts are wholly employed on their the fortune-tellers and astrologers, who live sleeping ones. For the benefit therefore of very comfortably upon the curiosity of se- this curious and inquisitive part of my felveral well-disposed persons in the cities of low-subjects, I shall in the first place tell London and Westminster. those persons what they dreamt of, who Among the many pretended arts of divi- fancy they never dream at all. In the next nation, there is,none which so universally place I shall make out any dream, upon amuses as that by dreams. I have indeed hearing a single circumstance of it; and in observed in a late speculation, that there the last place, I shall expound to them the have been sometimes, upon very extraor- good or bad fortune which such dreams dinary occasions, supernatural revelations portend. If they do not presage good luck, made to certain persons by this means; but I shalldesire nothing for my pains; not as it is the chief business of this paper to questioning at the same time, that those root out popular errors, I must endeavour who consult me will be so reasonable as to expose the folly and superstition of those to afford me a moderate share out of any persons, who, in the common and ordinary considerable estate, profit, or emolument, course of life, lay any stress upon things of which I shall discover to them. I interpret so uncertain, slfadowy, and chimerical a to the poor for nothing, on condition that nature. This I cannot do more effectually their names may be inserted in public adthan by the following letter, which is dated vertisements, to attest the truth of such my from a quarter of the town that has always interpretations. As for people of quality, or others who are indisposed, and do not care to come in person, I can interpret * This censure of Cicero seems to be unfounded: for their dreams by seein their water. set it is saikl of him, that he wondered how one augur could maeet another without laughing in his face. aside one day in the week for lovers; and No. 506. 1 HE SPECTATOR.!67 interpret by the great for any gentlewoman France, the lady tells her that is a secret who is turner of sixty, after the rate of in dress she never knew before, and that half-a-crown per week, with the usual al- she was sc unpolished an English woman, lowances for good luck. I have several as to resolve never to learn to dress even rooms and apartments fitted up at reasona- before her husband. ble rates, for such as have not conveniences There is something so gross in the carfor dreaming at their own houses. riage of some wives, that they lose their TITUS TROPHONIUS. husband's hearts for faults which, if a man my readers in one of the most important' I confess of late I have not been so much affairs of life, to wit, their choice in maramazed at the declaimers in coffee-houses riage. This state is the foundation of comas I formerly was, being satisfied that they munity, and the chief band of society; and expect to be rewarded for their vocifera- I do notthink I can be too frequent on subtions. Of these liars there are two sorts: jects which may give light to my unmarthe genius of the first consists in much im- ried readers in a particular which is so pudence, and a strong memory; the others essential to their following happiness or have added to these qualifications a good misery. A virtuous disposition, a good ununderstanding and smooth language. These derstanding, an agreeable person, and an therefore have only certain heads, which easy fortune, are the things which should they are as eloquent upon as they can, and be chiefly regarded on this occasion. Bemay be called " embellishers;" the others cause my present view is to direct a young repeat only what they hear from ottlers as lady, whoI think is now in doubt whom to literally as their parts or zeal will permit, take of many lovers, I shall talk at this and are called "reciters." Here was a time to my female readers. The advanfellow in town some years ago, who used to tages, as I was going to say, of sense, beauty, divert himself by telling a lie at Charing- and riches, are what are certainly the chief cross in the morning at eight of the clock, motives to a prudent young woman of forand following it through all parts of the,tune for changing her condition; but, as she town until eight at night: at which time he is to have her eye upon each of these, she came to a club of his friends, and diverted is to ask herself, whether the man who has them with an account what censure it had most of these recommendations in the lump at Will's in Covent-garden, how dangerous is not the most desirable. He that has exit was believed to be at Child's, and what cellent talents, with a moderate estate, and inference they drew from it with relation to an agreeable person, is preferable to him stocks at Jonathan's. I have had the ho- who is only rich, if it were only that good nowr to travel with this gentleman I speak faculties may purchase riches, but riches of, in search of one of his falsehoods; and cannot purchase worthy endowments. I do have been present when they have de- not mean that wit, and a capacity to enterscribed the very man they have spoken to, tain, is what should be highly valued, exas him who first reported it, tall or short, cept it is founded on good-nature and hublack or fair, a gentleman or a raggamuffin, manity. There are many ingenious men, according as they liked the intelligence. I whose abilities do little else but make themhave heard one of our ingenious writers of selves and those about them uneasy. Such news say, that, when he has had a customer are those who are far gone in the pleasures with an advertisement of an apprentice or of the town, who cannot support life witha wife run away, he has desired the ad- out quick sensations and gay reflections, vertiser to compose himself a little before and are strangers to tranquillity, to right he dictated the description of the offender: reason, and a calm motion of spirits, withfor when a person is put in a public paper out transport or dejection. These ingenious by a man who is angry with him, the real men, of all men living, are most to be VOL. II. 37 290 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 52X. avoided by her who would be happy in a is ever contriving the happiness of her who husband. They are immediately sated with did him so great a distinction; while the possession, and must necessarily fly to new fool is ungrateful without vice, and never acquisitions of beauty to pass away the returns a favour because he is not sensible whiling moments and intervals of life; for of it. I would, methinks, have so much to with them every hour is heavy that is not say for myself, that, if I fell into the hands joyful. But there is a sort of man of wit of him who treated me ill, he should be. and sense, that can reflect upon.his own sensible when he did so. His conscience make, and that )f his partner, with eyes of should be of my side, whatever became of reason and honour, and who believes he his inclination..I do not know but it is the offends against both these, if hedoes not insipid choice which has been made by look upon the woman, who chose him to be those who have the care of young women, under his protection in sickness and health, that the marriage state itself has been liable with the utmost gratitude, whether from to so much ridicule. But a well-chosen that moment she is shining or defective in love, moved by passion on both sides, and person or mind: I say, there are those who perfected by the generosity of one party, think themselves bound to supply with must be adorned with so many handsome good-nature the failings of those who love incidents on the other side, that every parthem, and who always think those the ob- ticular couple would be an example, in jects of love and pity who came to their many circumstances, to all the rest of the arms the objects of joy and admiration. species. I shall end the chat upon this subOf this latter sort isLysander, a man of ject with a couple of letters; one from a wit, learning, sobriety, and good-nature; of lover, who is very well acquainted with the birth and estate below no woman to accept; way of bargaining on these occasions; and and of whom it might be said; should he the other from his rival, who has a less succeed in his present wishes, his mistress estate, but great gallantry of temper. At raised his fortune, but not that she made it. to my man of prudence, he makes love, as When a woman is deliberating with her- he says, as if he were already a father, and, self whom she shall choose of many near laying aside the passion, comes to the rea each other in other pretensions, certainly son of the thing. he of best understanding is to be preferred. MADAM,- counsel has perused the Life hangs heavily in the repeated con- inventory of your estate, and considered versation of one who has no imagination to inventory o your eae, ad cosidt er i be fired at the several occasions and objects onlywhat estate you hathe, w hich it seems is which come before him, or who cannot oy y, to the m s o strike out of his reflections new paths of body; but, in default.of such issue, to the strike out of his reflections new paths of r uncle Edward for ever. pleasing discourse. Honest Will Thrush right heirs of your uncle Edward for ever. Pleasing discourse. Honest Will T rusThus, madam, I am advised you cannot and his wife, thouh not married above four (the remainder not being in you) dock the months, have scarce had a word to say to entail; by which means my estate, which is each other this six weeks, and one cannot fee simple, will come by the settlement form to one's self a sillier picture than these pposeto yourchildren begottenbyme, tvo creatures, in solemn pomp and plenty, proposed to your children begotten by me, two creatures, in solemn pomp and plenty, whether they are males or females: but My unable to enjoy their fortunes, and at a full her they are males or females: but ry stop among a crowd of servants; to whose children begotten upon you will not inherit stop among a crowd of servantds, except I beget a son. Now, taste of life they are beholden for the little your lands, except I beget a son. Now, satisfactions by which they can be under- madam, since things are so, you are a wostood to be so much as barely in being. man of that prudence, and understand the stoodto be so much as barely in being. world so well, as not to expect I should The hours of the day, the distinctions of worl s o e as not to eect I shou noon and night, dinner and supper, are the give you more than you can give me. I am, greatest notices they are capable of. This madam, (with great respect,) our most is perhaps representing the life of a very obedient servant, T. W modest woman, joined to a dull fellow, more The other lover's estate is less than this insipid than it really deserves; but I am gentleman's, but he expressed himself as sure it is not to exalt the commerce with an follows: ingenious companion too high, to say that MADAM,-I have given in my estate to every new accident or object, which comes o counsel, and desired my own lawyer in such a gentleman's way, gives his wife to insist upon no terms which your friends new pleasures and satisfactions. The ap- can propose for your certain ease and adprobation of his words and actions is a con- vantage; for indeed I have no notion of tinual new feast to her; nor can she enough making difficulties of presenting you with applaud hergood fortune in having her life what cannot make me happv without you. varied every hour, her mind more im- I am, madam, your most devoted humble proved, and her heart more glad, from servant B. T.' every circumstance which they meet with. He will lay out his invention in forming You must know the relations have met new pleasures and amusements, and make upon this; and the girl, being mightily taken the fortune she had brought him subservient with the latter epistle, she is laughed at, to the honour and reputation of her and and uncle Edward is to be dealt with to hers. A man of sense, who is thus obliged, make her a suitable match to the worthy No. 523.] THE SPECTATOR. 291 gentleman who has told her he does not founded in truth, or at least in that which care a farthing for her. All I hope for is, passes for such. that the fair lady will make use of the first In mock heroic poems the use of the light night to show B. T. she understands heathen mythology is not only excusable, a marriage is not to be considered as a corn- but graceful, because it is the design of mon bargain. T. such compositions to divert, by adapting the fabulous machines of the ancients to low subjects, and, at the same time, by ridiculing such kinds of machinery in modern o. 5 Turs, October 30, 712. writers. If any are of opinion that there is -- T —-— Nunc augur Apollo, a necessity of admitting these classical leNunc Lyciam sortes, nunc et Jove missus ab ipso gends into our serious compositions, in order' Interpres divum fert horrida jussa per auras. to give them a more poetical turn, I would Scilicet is superis laborEn. iv. 376. recommend to their consideration the pasNow Lycian lots, and now the Delian god, torals of Mr. Phillips. One would hve Now Hermes is employed from Jove's abode, thought it impossible for this kind of poetry To warn him hence; as if the peaceful state to have subsisted without fawns and satyrs, Of heavenly pow'rs were touch'd with human ft wood-nymphs and water-nymphs, with all Dryden. wood-nymphs and water-nymphs, with all the tribe of rural deities. But we see he I AM always highly delighted with the has given a new life and a more natural discovery of any rising genius among my beauty to this way of writing, by substitutcountrymen. For this reason I have read ing in the place of these antiquated fables, over, with great pleasure, the late miscel- the superstitious mvthology which prevails lany published by Mr. Pope, in which there among the shepherds of our own country. are many excellent compositions of that in- Virgil and Homer might compliment genious gentleman. I have had a pleasure their heroes by interweaving the actions of of the same kind in perusing a poem that is deities with their achievements; but for a just published, On the Prospect of Peace;* Christian author to write in the pagan and which, I hope, will meet with such a creed, to make prince Eugene a favourite reward from its patrons as so noble a per- of Mars, or to carry on a correspondence formance deserves. I was particularly well between Bellona and the Marshal de Vilpleased to find that the author had not lars, would be downright puerility, and unamused himself with fables out of the pagan pardonable in a poet that is past sixteen. theology, and that when he hints at any It is want of sufficient elevation in a genius thing of this nature he alludes to it only as to describe realities, and place them in a to a fable. "shining light, that makes him have recourse Many of our modern authors, whose to such trifling antiquated fables; as a mall learning very often extends no farther than may write a fine description of Bacchus or Ovid's Metamorphoses, do not know how Apollo that does not know how to draw the to celebrate a great man, without mixing a character of any of his contemporaries. parcel of school-boy tales with the recital In order therefore to put a stop to this of his actions. If you read'a poem on a fine absurd practice, I shall publish the followwoman among the authors of this class, you ing edict, by virtue of that spectatorial aushall see that it turns more upon Venus or thority with which I stand invested. Helen than on the party concerned. I have' Whereas the time of a general peace is, known a copy of verses on a great hero in all appearance, drawing near, being inhighly commended; but, upon asking to formed that there are several ingenious hear some of the beautiful passages, the persons who intend to show their talents on admirer of it has repeated to me a speech so happy an occasion, and being willing, as of Apollo, or a description of Polypheme. much as in me lies, to prevent that effusion At other times, when I have searched for of nonsense which we have good cause to the actions of a great man, who gave a sub- apprehend; I do hereby strictly require ject to the writer, I have been entertained every person who shall write on this subwith the exploits of a river god, or have ject, to remember that he is a Christian, been forced to attend a Fury in her mis- and not to sacrifice his catechism to his chievous progress, from one end of the poetry. In order to it, I do expect of him poem to the other When we are at school, in the first place to make" his own poem, it is necessary for us to be acquainted with without depending upon Phoebus for any the system of pagan theology; and we may part of it or calling out for aid upon any be allowed to enliven a theme, or point an one of the Muses by name. I do likewise epigram, with a heathen god; but when we positively forbid the sending of Mercury could write a manly panegyric that should with any particular message or despatch carry in it all the colours of truth, nothing relating to the peace, and shall by no means can be more ridiculous than to have re- suffer Minerva to take upon her the shape course to our Jupiters and Junos. of any plenipotentiary concerned in this No thought is beautiful which is not just; great work. I do farther declare, that I qnd no thought can be just which is not shall not allow the Destinies to have had a _y Mr._ ToaTikehand in the deaths of the several thousands * By Mr. Thomas Tickle. who have been slain in the late wAr, being 292 THE SPECTATOR. INo. 5.24 of opinion that all such deaths may be very which I have owned to have been written well accounted for by the Christian system by other hands. I shall add a dream to of powder and ball. I do therefore strictly these which comes to me from Scotland, forbid the Fates to cut the thread of man's by one who declares himself of that counlife upon any pretence whatsoever, unless try; and, for all I know, may be secondit be for the sake of the rhyme. And sighted. There is, indeed, something in it whereas I have good reason to fear that of the spirit of John Bunyan; but at the Neptune will have a great deal of business same time a certain sublime which that on his hands, in several poems which we author was never master of. I shall pubmay now suppose are upon the anvil, I do lish it, because I question not but it will also prohibit his appearance, unless it be fall in with the taste of all my popular done in metaphor, simile, or any very short readers, and amuse the imaginations of allusion; and that even here he be not per- those who are more profound; declaring, initted to enter but with great caution and at the same time, that this is the last dream circumspection. I desire that the same rule which I intend to publish this season. may be extended to.his whole fraternity of heathen gods; it being my design to con-'SIR,-I was last Sunday in the evening demn every poem to the flames in which led into a serious reflection'on the reasonaJupiter thunders, or exercises any other bleness of virtue, and great folly of vice, act of authority which does not belong to from an excellent sermon I had heard that him: in short, I expect that no pagan agent afternoon in my parish church. Among shall be introduced, or any fact related, other observations, ihe preacher showed us which a man cannot give credit to with a that the temptations which the tempter good conscience.'Provided always, that proposed are all on a supposition, that we nothing herein contained shall extend, or are either madmen or fools, or with an inbe construed to extend, to several of th'e tention to render us such; that in no other female poets in this nation, who shall be affair we would suffer ourselves to be thus still left in full possession of their gods and imposed upon, in a case so plainly and goddesses,'in the same manner as if this clearly against our visible interest. His paper had never been written.' 0. illustrations and arguments carried so much persuasion and conviction with them, that they remained a considerable while fresh, No. 524.] Friday, October 31, 1712. and working in my memory; until at last No. 5a,,. the mind, fatigued with thought, gave way Nos populo damus Sen. to the forcible oppressions of slumber and As the world leadsi we follow. sleep; whilst fancy, unwilling yet to drop' the subject, presented me with the followWHEN I first of all took it into my head ing vision. to write dreams and visions, I determined'Methought I was just awoke out of a to print nothing of that nature which was sleep that I could never remember the benot of my own invention. But several labo- ginning of; the place where I found myself rious dreamers have of late communicated to be was a wide and spacious plain, full to me works of this nature, which, for their of people that wandered up and down reputations and my own, I have hitherto through several beaten paths, whereof some suppressed. Had I printed every one that few were straight, and in direct lines, but came into my hands, my book of specula- most of them winding and turning like a tions would have been little else but a book labyrinth; but yet it appeared to me afterof visions. Some of my correspondents have wards that these last all met in one issue, indeed been so very modest as to offer as an so that many that seemed to steer quite excuse for their not being in a capacity to contrary courses, did at length meet and dream better. I have by me, for example, face one another, to the no little amazethe dream of a young gentleman not passed ment of many of them. fifteen:' have likewise by me the dream'In the midst of the plain there was a of a person of quality, and another called great fountain: they called it the spring of The Lady's Dream. In these, and other Self-love; out of it issued two rivulets to the pieces of the same nature, it is supposed eastward and westward: The name of the the usual allowances will be made to the first was Heavenly-Wisdom; its water was age, condition, and sex of the dreamer. To wonderfully clear, but of a yet more wonprevent this inundation of dreams, which derful effect: the other's name was World daily flows in upon me, I shall apply to all ly-Wisdom; its water was thick, and yet dreamers of dreams the advice which Epic- far from being dormant or stagnating, for tetus has couched, after his manner, in a it was in a continual violent agitation; which very simple and concise precept. c Never kept the travellers, whom I shall mention tell thy dream,' says that philosopher;'for by and by, from being sensible of the foul though thou thyself mayest take a pleasure ness and thickness of the water; which had in telling thy dream, another will take no this effect, that it intoxicated those who pleasure in hearing it.' After this short drank it, and made tlem mistake every preface, I must do justice to two or three object that lay before them. Both rivuleti visions which I have lately published, and were parted near their springs into so many No. 524.] THE SPECTATOR. 93 others, as there were straight and crooked the crooked paths, who came up to me, paths, which attended all along to their re- bid me go along with them, and presently spective issues. fell to singing and dancing: they took me I observed from the several paths many by the hand, and so carried me away along now and -then diverting, to refresh and with-them. After Ihad followed them a otherwise qualify themselves for their jour- considerable while, I perceived I had lost ney, to the respective rivulets that ran near the black tower of light, at which I greatly them: they contracted a very observable wondered; but as I looked and gazed round;ourage and steadiness in what they were about me abt and saw nothing, I began to fancy about, by drinking these waters. At the my first vision had been but a dream, and end of the perspective of every straight there was no such thing in reality, but then path, all which did end in one issue and I considered that if I could fancy to see point, appeared a high pillar, all of dia- what was not, I might as well have an allumond, casting rays as bright as those of the sion wrought on me at present, and not see sun into the paths; which rays had also what was really before me. I was very certain sympathizing and alluring virtues much confirmed'in this thought, by the in them, so that whosoever had made some effect I then just observed, the water of considerable progress in his journey on- Worldly-Wisdom had upon me; for as I wards towards the pillar, by the repeated had drank a little of it again, I felt a very impression of these rays upon him, was sensible effect in my head; methought it wrought into an habitual inclination and distracted and disordered all there; this conversion of his sight towards-it, so that it made me stop of a sudden, suspecting some grew at last in a manner natural to him to charm or enchantment. As I was casting look and gaze upon it, whereby he was about within myself what I should do, and kept steady in the straight paths, which whom to apply to in this case, I spied at alone led to that radiant body, the behold- some distance off me a man beckoning, and ing of which was now grown a gratification making signs to me to come over to him. I to his nature. cried to him, I did not know the way. He'.At the issue of the crooked paths there then called to me, audibly, to step at least was a great black tower, out of the centre out of the path I was in; for if I stayed of which streamed a long succession of there any longer I was in danger to be flames, which did rise. even above the catched in a great net that was just hangclouds; it gave a very great light to the ing over me, and ready to catch me up; whole plain, which did sometimes outshine that he wondered I was so blind, or so disthe light, and oppressed the beams of the tracted, as not to see so imminent and visiadamantine pillar; though by the observa- ble a danger; assuring me, that as soon as tion I made afterwards, it appeared that it I was out of that way, he would come to was not from any diminution of light, but me to lead me into a more secure path. that this lay in the travellers, who would This I did, and he brought me his palmsometimes step out of straight paths, where full of the water of Heavenly-Wisdom, they lost the full prospect of the radiant which was of very great use to me, for mypillar, and saw it but sideways: but the eyes were straight cleared, and I saw the great light from the black tower, which great black tower just before me: but the was somewhat particularly scorching to great net which I spied so near me cast me them, would generally light and hasten in such a terror, that I ran back'as far as I them to tbepr proper climate again. could in one breath without looking behind'Round about the black tower there me. Then my benefactor thus bespoke were, methought, many thousands of huge me: "You have made the wonderfullest mis-shapen ugly monsters; these had great escape in the world; the water you used to nets which they were perpetually plying drink is of a bewitching nature; you would and casting towards the crooked paths, and else have been mightily shocked at the dethey would now and then catch up those formities and meanness of the place; for that were nearest to them: these they took besides the set of blind fools, in whose comup straight, and whirled over the walls into pany you was, you may now behold many the flaming tower, and they were no more others who are only bewitched after anseen nor heard of. other no less dangerous manner. Look a'They would sometimes cast their nets little that way, there goes a crowd of pastowards the right paths to catch the strag- sengers; they have indeed so good a head glers, whose eyes, for want of drinking at as not to suffer themselves to be blinded by the brook that run by them, grew dim, this bewitching water; the black tower is whereby they lost their way: these would not vanished out of their sight, they see it sometimes very narrowly mis~ being catch- whenever ther look up to it: but see how ed away, but I could not hear whether any they go sideways, and with their eyes of these had ever been so unfd tunate, that downwards, as if they were mad, thai they iad been before very hearty in the straight thus may rush into the net, without being paths. beforehand troubled at the thought' of so'I considered all these'strange sights miserable a destruction. Their wills are with great attention, until at last I was in- so perverse, and their hearts so fond of the terrupted by a cluster of the travellers in pleasures of the place, that rather than 294 THE SPECTATOR. rNo. 525. iorego them they will run all hazards, and cetious companions; that he need not own venture upon all the miseries and woes be- he married only to plunder an heiress of fore them. her fortune, nor pretend that he uses her' See there that other company; though ill, to avoid the ridiculous name of a tond they should drink none of the bewitching husband. water, yet they take a course bewitching Indeed, if I may speak my opinion of and deluding. See how they choose the great part of the writings which once precrookedest paths, whereby tiey have often vailed among us under the notion of huthe black tower behind them, and some- mour, they are such as would tempt one te times see the radiant column sideways, thirik there had been an association among which gives them some weak glimpse of it! the wits of those times to rally legitimacy These fools content themselves with that, out of our island. A state of wedlock was not knowing whether any other have any the common mark of all the adventurers in more of its influence and light than them- farce and comedy, as well as the essayers selves: this road is called that of Supersti- in lampoon and satire, to shoot at; and notion -or Human Invention: they grossly thing was a more standing-jest, in all clubs overlook that which the rules and laws of of fashionable mirth and gay conversation. the place prescribe to them, and contrive It was determined among those airy critics, some other scheme, and set off directions that the appellation of a sober man should and prescriptions for themselves, which signify a spiritless fellow. And I am apt they hope will serve their turn." He to think it was about the same time that showed me many other kinds of fools, good-nature, a word so peculiarly elegant which put me quite out of humour with in our language, that some have affirmed it the place. At last he carried me to'the cannot well be expressed in any other, right paths, where I found true and solid came first to be rendered suspicious, and pleasure, which entertained me all the in danger of being transferred from its way, until we came in closer sight of the original sense to so distant an idea as that pillar, where the satisfaction increased to of folly. that measure that my faculties were not I must confess it has been my ambition, able to contain it: in the straining of them in the course of my writings to restore, as I was Violently waked, not a little grieved vell as I was able, the proper ideas ot at the vanishing of so pleasing a dream. things. And as I have attempted this al-'Glasgow, Sept. 29.' ready on the subject of marriage in set ral papers, I shall here add some farther observations which occur to me on the same head. No. 525.]' Saturday, ANovember 1, 1712. No. 5] Saturday, oember 1, 1712. Nothing seems to be thought, by our fine'o',,, TO oppov,, pEt0v T' CYWVpPW, gentlemen, so indispensable an ornament in ZKrhTOg svQpwri5. ^.- ainp. fashionable life, as love.' A knight-errant,' That love alone, which virtue's laws contro, says Don Quixote,' without a mistress, is Deserves reception in the human soul. like a tree without leaves;' and a man of IT is my custom to-take frequent oppor- mode among us who has not some fair one tunities of inquiring, from time to time, to sigh for, might as well pretend to appear.what success my speculations meet with in dressed without his periwig. We have the town. I am glad to find, in particular, lovers in prose innumerable. All our prethat my discourses on marriage have been tenders to rhyme are professed inamoratos; well received. A friend of mine gives me and there is scarce a poet good or bad, to to understand from Doctor's-commons, that be heard of, who has not some real or supmore licenses have been taken out there of posed Saccharissa to improve his vein. late than usual. I am likewise informed If love be any refinement, conjugal love of several pretty fellows, who have resolv- must be certainly so in a much higher deed to commence heads of families by the gree. There is no comparison between the first favourable opportunity. One of them frivolous affectations of attractingthe eyes of writes me word that he is ready to enter women with whom you are only captivated into the bonds of matrimony, provided I byway of amusement, and of whom perhaps will give it him under my hand (as I now you know nothing more than their features; do) that a man may show his face in good and a regular and uniform endeavour to company after he is married, and that he make yourself valuable, both as a friend need not be ashamed to treat a woman with and lover, to one whom you have chosen kindness who puts herself in his power for to be the companion of your life. The first life. is the spring of a thousand fopperies, silly I have other letters on this subject, which artifices, falsehoods, and perhaps barbarisay that I am attempting to make a revolu- ties; or at best rises no higher than to a tion in the world of gallantry, and that the kind of dancing-school breeding, to give consequence of it will be that a great deal the person a more sparkling air. The latof the sprightliest wit and satire of the last ter is the parent of substantial virtues and age will be lost; that a bashful fellow, upon agreeable qualities, and cultivates the mind changing his condition, will be no longer while it improves the behaviour. The puzzled how to stand the raillery of his fa passion of love to a mistress, even where it No. 526.1 THE SPECTATOR. 295 Is most sincere, resetrJlet ro much the of you, and of youriand her ancestors. Her flame of a fever. that o a wife is like the ingenuity is admirable; her frugality extravital heat. orainary. She loves me; the surest pledge I have often thought, if thre letters writ- of her virtue; and adds to this a wonderful ten by men of good-nature to their wives disposition to learning, which she has-acwere to be compared with those written by quired from her affection to me. She reads men of gallantry to their mistresses, the my writings, studies them, and even gets former, notwithstanding any inequality of them by heart. You would smile to see the style, would appear to have the advantage, concern she is in when I have a cause to Friendship, tenderness, and constancy, plead, and the joy she shows when it is dressed in a simplicity of expression, re- over. She finds means to have the first commend themselves by a more native news brought her of the success I meet elegance, than passionate,raptures, extra- with in court, how I am heard, and what vagant encomiums, and slavish adoration. decree is made. If I recite any thing in If we were admitted to search the cabinet public, she cannot refrain from placing of the beautiful Narcissa, among heaps of herself privately in some corner to hear, epistles from several admirers, which are where, with the utmost delight, she feasts there preserved with equal care, hew few upon my applauses. Sometimes she sings should we find but would make any one my verses; and accompanies them with the sick in the reading, except her who is flat- lute, without any master except love, the tered by them? But in how different a style best of instructors. From these instances I must the wise Benevolus, who converses take the most certain omens of our perwith that good sense and good humour petual and increasing happiness; since her among all his friends, write to a wife who affection is not founded on my youth and is the worthy object of his utmost affection? person, which must gradually decay, but Benevolus, both in public and private, and she is in love with the immortal part of me, all occasions of life, appears to have every my glory and reputation. Norindeed could good quality and desirable ornament. less be expected from one who had the Abroad he is reverenced and esteemed; at happiness to receive her education from home beloved and happy. The satisfaction you, who in your house was accustomed to he enjoys there settles into an habitual every thing that was virtuous and decent, complacency, which shines in his counte- and even began to love me, by your renance, enlivens his wit, and seasons his commendation. For, as you had always conversation. Even those of his acquaint- the greatest respect for my mother, you ance, who have never seen him in his re- were pleased from my infancy to form me, tirement, are sharers in the happiness of it; to commend me, and kindly to presage I and it is very much owing to his being the should be one day what my wife fancies I best and best beloved of husbands, that he am. Accept therefore our united thanks: is the most steadfast of friends, and the mine, that you have bestowed her on me; most agreeable of companions. and hers, that you have given me to her, There is a sensible pleasure in contem- as a mutual grant of joy and felicity. plating such beautiful instances of domestic life. The happiness of the conjugal state appears heightened to the highest degree it is capable of when we see two6persons of No. 526.] Monday, November 3, 1712. accomplished minds not only united in the - Fortius utere loris. Ovid Met. Lib. ii. 127. same interests and affections, but in their Keep a stiffrein-ddison. taste of the same improvements and diversions. Pliny, one of the finest gentlemen I AM very loath to come to extremities and politest writers of the age in which he with the young gentlemen mentioned in the lived, has left us, in his letter to Hispulla, following letter, and do not care to chastise his wife's aunt, one of the most agreeable them with my own hand, until I am forced family pieces of this kind I have ever met by provocation too great to be suffered with. I shall end this discourse with a without the absolute destruction of my translation of it, and I believe the reader spectatorial dignity. The crimes of these will be of my opinion, that conjugal love is offenders are placed under the observation drawn in it with a delicacy which makes it of one of my chief officers, who is posted appear to be, as I have represented it, an just at the entrance of the pass between ornament as well as a virtue. London and Westminster. As I have great confidence in the capacity, resolution, and Pliny to Hispulla. integrity of the person deputed by me to'As I remember the great affection give an account of enormities, I doubt not which was between you and your excellent but I shall soon have oefore me all proper brother, and know you love his daughter notices which are requisite for the amendas your own, so as not only to express the ment of manners in public, and the instructenderness of the best of aunts, but even to tion of each individual of the human species supply that of the best of fathers; I am in what is due from him in respect to the sure it will bea pleasure to you to hear that whole body of mankind. The present she proves worthy of her father, worthy paper shall consist only of the above-men 296 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 526. tioned letter, and the copy of a deputation would but give them two or three touches which I have given to my trusty friend, with your own pen, though you might not Mr. John Sly; wherein he is charged to perhaps prevail with them to desist entirely notify to me all that is necessary for my from their meditations, yet I doubt not but animadversion upon the delinquents men- you would at least preserve them from tioned by my correspondent, as well as all being public spectacles of folly in our others described in the said deputation. streets. I say two or three touches with'To te Sectator Genera.of Great your own pen; for I have already observed, TotheectatorGeneralof Great Mr. Spec, that those Spectators which are so prettily laced down the sides with little I grant it does look a little familiar, but I c's, how instinctive soever they may be, do must call you not carry with them that authority as the others. Ido again therefore desire, that for DEAR DuMB,-Being got again to the the sake of their dear necks, you would befarther end of the Widow's coffee-house, I stow one penful of your own ink upon them. shall from hence give you some account of I know you are loath to expose them; and the behaviour of our hackney-coachmen it is, I must confess, a thousand pities that since my last. These indefatigable gentle- any young gentleman who is come of honest men, without the least design, I dare say, parents should be brought to public shame. of self-interest or advantage to themselves, And indeed I should be glad to have them do still ply as volunteers day and night for handled a little tenderly at the first, but if the good of their country, I will not trouble fair means will not prevail, there is then you with enumerating many particulars, no other way to reclaim them but by makbut I must by no means omit to inform you ing'use of some wholesome severities; and of an infant about six feet high, and be- I think it is better that a dozen or two of tween twenty and thirty years of age, who such good-for-nothing fellows should be was seen in the arms of a hackney-coach- made examples of, than that the reputaman, driving by Will's coffee-house in Co- tion of some hundreds of as hopeful young vent-garden, between the hours of four and gentlemen as myself should suffer through five in the afternoon of that very day their folly. It is not, however, for me to wherein you published a memorial against direct you what to do; but, in short, if our them. This impudent young cur, though coachmen will drive on this trade, the very he could not sit in a coach-box without first of them that I do find meditating in holding, yet would venture his neck to bid the street, I shall make bold to " take the defiance to your spectatorial authority, or number of his chambers,"* together with to any thing that you countenanced. Who a note of his name, and despatch them to he was I know not, but I heard this relation you, that you may chastise him at yput this morning from a gentleman who was an own discretion. I am, dear Spec, for ever eye witness of this his impudence; and I your's, MOSES GREENBAG, was willing to take the first opportunity to' Esq. if you please. infornY you of him, as holding it extremely S T requisite that you should nip him in the P.S. Tom Hammercloth, one of our bud. But I am myself most concerned for coachmen, is now pleading at the bar at my fellow-templars, fellow-students, and the other end of the room, but has a little fellow-labourers in the law, I mean suchof too much vehemence, and throws out his them as are dignified and distinguished up- arms too much to take his audience, with der the denomination of hackney-coach- a good grace.' men. Such aspiring minds have these am- To my loving and well-beloved John Sly, bitious young men, that they cannot enjoy haberdasher of hats, and tobacconist, themselves out of a coach-box. It is, how- between the cities of London and Westever, an unspeakable comfort to me that minster. I can now tell you that some of them are Whereas frequent disorders, affronts, grown so bashful as to study only in the indignities, omissions, and trespasses, for night time, or in the country. The other which there are no remedies by any form night I spied one of our young gentlemen of law, but which apparently disturb and very diligent at his lucubrations in Fleet disquiet the minds of men, happen near Street; and, by the way, I should be under the place of your residence; and that you some concern, lest this hard student should are aswell byyourcommodioussituation, as one time or other crack his brain with stu- the good parts with which you are endowed, dying, but that I am in hopes nature has properly qualified for the observationof taken care to fortify him in proportion to the said offences; I do hereby authorize and the great undertakings he was designed for. depute you, from the hours of nine in the Another of my fellow-templars on Thurs- morning until four in the afternoon, to keep -daylast was getting up into his study at the a strict eye upon all persons and things that bottom of Gray's-Inn-Lane, in order,~ I are conveyed in coaches, carried in carts, suppose, to contemplate in the fresh air. walk on foot, from the city of London to Now, sir, my request is, that the great th city of Westminster or from the city modesty of these two gentlemen may be.__________...___ ecorded as a pattern to the rest; and if you * An allusion to the number of a hackney-coacb. mo~. 527.] THE SPECTATOR. 297 of Westminster to the city of London,'the history picture of a fan in so gallant a within the said hours. You are' therefore manner as he addresses it. But see the not to depart from your observatory at the letters. end of Devereux-court during the said space of each day, but to observe the be-'MR. SPECTATOR, -It is now almost haviour of all persons who are suddenly three months since I was in town about transported from tramping on pebbles to some business; and the hurry of it being sit at ease in chariots, what notice they over, I took a coach one afternoon, and take of their foot acquaintance, and send drove to see a relation, who married about me the speediest advice, when they are six years ago a wealthy citizen. I found guilty of overlooking, turning from, or ap- her at home, but her husband gone to the pearing grave and distant to, their old Exchange, and expected back witin an friends. When man and wife are in the hour at the farthest. After the usual salutasame coach, you are to see whether they tions of kindness, and a hundred questions appear pleased or tired with each other, about friends in the country, we sat down and whether they carry the due mean in to piquet, played two or three games, and the eye of the world, between fohdness and drank tea. I should have told. you that this coolness. You are carefully tobehold all such was my second titne of seeing her since as shall have addition of honour or riches, marriage; but before, she lived at the same and report whether they preserve the town where I went to school; so that the countenance they had before such..addition. plea of a relation, added to the innocence As to persons on foot, you are to be atten- of my youth, prevailed upon her good-hutive whether they are pleased -with their mour to indulge me in a freedom of concondition, and are dressed suitable to it; versation as often, and oftener, than the but especially to distinguish such as appear strict discipline of the school would allow discreet, by a low-heel shoe, with the de- of. You may easily imagine, after such an cent ornament of a leather garter: to write acquaintance, we might be exceeding merry down the names of such country gentlemen without any offence; as in calling to mind as, upon the approach of peace, have left how many inventions I have been put to in the hunting for the military cock of the deluding the master, how many hands hat; of all who strut, make a noise, and forged for excuses, how many times been swear at the drivers of coaches to make sick in perfect health; for I was then never haste, when they see it is impossible they sick but at school, and only then because should pass; of all young gentlemen in out of her company. We had whiled away coach-boxes, who labour at a perfection in three hours after this manner, when I found what they are sure to be excelled by the it past five; and not expecting her husband meanest of the people. You are to do all would return until late, rose up, and told that in you lies that coaches and passengers her I should go early next morning for the give way according to the course of busi- country. She kindly answered she was ness, all the morning in term-time, towards afraid it would be long before she saw me Westminster, the rest of the year towards again; so, I took my leave, and parted. the Exchange. Upon these directions, toge- Now, sir, I had not been got home a fortther with other secret articles herein en- night, when I received a letter from a closed, you are to govern yourself, and give neighbour of theirs, that ever since that advertisement thereof to me, at all con- fatal afternoon the lady has been most invenient and spectatorial hours, when men humanly treated, and the husband publicly of business are to be seen. Hereof you are stormed that he was made a member of too not to fail. Given under my seal of office. numerous a society. He had, it seems, lisT.'THE SPECTATOR;' tened most of the time my cousin and I were together. As jealous ears always hear double, so he heard enough to make him To. 527.] NTuesday vember 4,1712 mad; and asjealous eyes always see through Tuesday,. magnifying glasses, so he was certain it Facile invenies et pejorem, et pejus moratam; could not be I whom he had seen, a beardMeliorem neque tu reperies, neque sol videt. less stripling, but fancied he saw a gay Platu in Stichr gentleman of the temple, ten years older You will easily find a worse voman; a better the sun than sryself; and for that reason, I presume, than rr.yself; and for that reason, I presume, durst not come in, nor take any notice when I. AM so tender of my women-readers, I went out. He is perpetually asking his that I cannot defer the publication of any wife if she does not'think the time long (as hing which concerns their" happiness or she said she should) until she see her cousin quiet. The repose of a married woman is again. Pray, sir, what can be done in this consulted in the first of the following letters, case? I have writ to him to assure him I and the felicity of a maiden lady in the was at his house all that afternoon expectsecond. I call it a felicity to have the ad- ing to see him. His answer is, it is only a dresses of an agreeable man; and I think I trick of hers, and that he neither can nor have not any where seen a prettier applica- will believe me. The parting kiss I find tion of a poetical story than that of his, in mightily nettles him, and confirms him in making the tale of Cephalus and Procris all Mis errors. Ben Jonson, as I remember, VaL. II 38 298 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 528. makes a foreigner, in one of his comedies, he was so much in the forest, that his lady admire the desperate valour of the bold suspected he was pursuing some nymph, English, who let out their wives to all en- under the pretence of following. a chase counters." The general custom of saluta- more innocent. Under this suspicion she tion should excuse the favour done me, or hid herself among the trees, to observe his you should lay down rules when such dis- motions. While she lay concealed, her tinctions are to be given or omitted. You husband, tired with the labour of hunting, cannot imagine, sir, how troubled I am for came within her hearing. As he was faintthis unhappy lady's misfortune, and beg ing with heat, he cried out, " ura veni!" you would insert this letter, that the hus- "Oh, charming air, approach!" band may reflect upon this accident coolly.' The unfortunate wife, taking the word It is no small matter, the ease of a virtuous air to be the name of a woman, began to woman for her whole life. I know she will move among the bushes; and the husbanid, conform to any regularities (though more believing it a deer, threw his javelin, and strict than the common rules of our country killed her. This history, painted on a fan, require) to which his particular temper which I presented to a lady, gave occasion shall incline him to oblige her. This ac- to my growing poetical.' cident puts me in mind how generously Pisistrat s, the Athenian tyrant, behaved "Come, gentle air!" the Aeolian shepherd said,' While Procris panted in the secret shade; himself on a like occasion, when he was "Come, gentle air," the fairer Delia cries, instigated by hlis wife to put to death a young While at her feet the swain expiring lies. gentleman, because, being passionately fond Lo! the glad gales o'er all her beauties stray, Breathe on her lips, and in her bosom play. of his daughter, he had kissed her in public, In Delia's hand this toy is fatal found, as he met her in the street. " What," said Nor did that fabled dart more surely wound. he,' shall we do to those who are our ene- Both gifts destructive to the givers prove, Alike both lovers fall by those they love: mies, if we do thus to those who are our -Yet guiltless too this bright destroyer lives, friends?"' I will not trouble you much At random wounds, nor knows the wound she gives; longer, but am exceedingly concerned lest She views thestory with attentive eyes, longer~, D m exeedngly^conernAnd pities Procris, wbile p. r lover dies. this accident may cause a virtuous lady to lead a miserable life with a husband who -? has no grounds for his jealousy but what I have faithfully related, and ought to be No. 528.] Wednesday, J'ovember, 1712. reckoned none. It is to be feared too, if at last he sees his mistake, yet people will be Dum potuit, solita gemitum viriate repressit. -la~ heseshsitae etp ewilb Ovid,.et. ix. 165. as slow and unwilling n disbelieving scandalr in b ~With wonted fortitude she bore the smart, dal as they are quick and forward in believ- And not a groan confess'd her burning heart.-Gay. ing it. I shall endeavour to enliven this plain honest letter with Ovid's relation'MR. SPECTATOR, —I who now write t about Cybele's image. The ship wherein you am a woman loaded with injuries; and it was aboard was stranded at the mouth the aggravation of my misfortune is, that of the fiber, and the men were unable to they are such which are overlooked by the move it, until Claudia, a virgin, but sus- generality of mankind; and, though tht pected of unchastity, by a slight pull hauled most afflicting imaginable, not regarded a! it in. Tie story is told in the fourth book such in the general sense of the world. 1 of the Fasti. have hid my vexation from all mankind; but having now taken pen, ink, and paper, "' Parent of gods, (began the weeping fair,) am resolved to unbosom myself to you, and Rt, eward or punish, but oh! hear my prayer: If lewdness e'er defil'd my virgin bloom, lay before you what grieves me and all the From heav'n with justice I receive my doom: sex. You have very often mentioned parBut if my honour yet has known no stain, ticular hardships done to this or that lady; Thou, goddess, thou my innocence maintain; Thou, whom the nicest rules of goolness sway'd, but methinks you have not, in any one Vouchsafe to follow an.unblemish'd maid." speculation, directly pointed at the partial She spoke and touch'd the cord with glad surprise, freedom men take, the unreasonable con(The truth was witness'd by ten thousand eyes) The pitying goddess easily comply'd, nement women are obliged to, in the only Follow'd in triumph, and adorn'd her guide; circumstance in which we are necessarily While Claudia, blushing still for past disgrace, to have a commerce with them, that of March'd silent on, with a slow solemn pace: o ve o f lh the at Nor yet from some was all distrust remov'd, love. The case of celibacy is the great evil Though heav'n such virtue by such wonders prov'd. of our nation; and the indulgence of the'I am, sir, your very humble servant. vicious conduct of men in that state, with PHILAGNOTES.' the ridicule to which women are exposed, though ever so virtuous, if long unmarried,'MR. SPECTATOR,-YOU will oblige a is the root of the greatest irregularities of languishing lover, if you will please to print this nation. To show you, sir, that (though the enclosed verses in your next paper. If you never have given us the catalogue of a you remember the Metamorphoses, you lady's library, as you promised) we read know Procris, the fond wife of Cephalus, is books of our own choosing, I shall insert on said to have made her husband, who de- this occasion a paragraph or two out ot lighted in the sports of the wood, a present Echard's Roman History. In the 44th page of an unerring Javelin. In process of time of the second volume, the author observes No. 528.] THE SPECTATOR. 299 that Augustus, upon his return to Rome at lascivious manner which.1ll our young genthe end of a war, received complaints that tlemen use in public, and examine our eyes too great a number of the young men of with a petulancy in their own which is a quality were unmarried. The emperor downright affront to modesty. A disdainful thereupon assembled the whole equestrian look on such an occasion is returned with a order; and, having separated the married countenance rebuked, but by averting their.from the single, did particular honours to eyes from the woman of henour and dethe former; but he told the latter, that is cency to some flippant creature, who will, to say, Mr. Spectator, he told the bache- as the phrase is, be kinder. I must set lors, that their lives and actions had been down things as they come into my head, so peculiar, that he knew not by what name without standing upon order. Ten thousand to call them; not by that of men, for they to one but the gay gentleman who stared, performed nothing that was manly; not by at the same time, is a housekeeper; for you that of citizens, for the city might perish must know they are got into a humour of notwithstanding their care; nor by that of late of being very regular in their sins; and Romans, for they designed to extirpate the a young fellow shall keep his four maids Roman name. Then, proceeding to show and three footmen with the greatest gravity his tender care and hearty affection for his imaginable. There are no less than six off people, he farther told them, that their these venerable housekeepers of my accourse of life was of such pernicious conse- quaintance. This humour among young quence to the glory and grandeur of the men of condition is. imitated by all the world Roman nation, that he could not choose but below them, and a general dissolution* of tell them, that all other crimes put together manners arises from this one source of could not equalize theirs, for they were libertinism, without shame or reprehension guilty of murder, in not suffering those to in the male youth. It is from this one founbe born which should proceed from them; tain that so many beautiful helpless young of impiety, in causing the names and ho- women are sacrificed and given up to lewdnours of their ancestors to cease; and of ness, shame, poverty, and disease. It is to sacrilege, in destroying their kind, which this also that so many excellent young woproceed from _the immortal gods, and hu- men, who might be patterns of conjugal man nature, the principal thing consecrated affection, and parents of a worthy race, to them: therefore, in this respect, they pine under unhappy passions for such as dissolved the government in disobeying its have not attention to observe, or virtue laws; betrayed their country, by making it enough to prefer them to their common barren and waste; nay, and demolished wenches. Nowi Mr. Spectator, I must be their city, in depriving it of inhabitants, free to own to you that I myself suffer a And he was sensible that all this proceeded tasteless insipid being, from a consideration not from any kind of virtue or abstinence, I have for a man who would not, as he said but from a looseness and wantonness which in my hearing, resign his liberty, as he calls ought never to be encouraged in any civil it, for all the beauty and wealth the whole government. There are no particulars sex is possessed of. Such calamities as these dwelt upon that let us into the conduct of would not happen, if it could possibly be these young worthies, whom this great brought about, that by fining bachelors as emperor treated with so much justice and papists, convicts, or the like, they were indignation; but any one who observes what distinguished to their disadvantage from the passes in this town may very well frame to rest of the world, who fall in with the meahimself a notion of their riots and debauche- sures of civil society. Lest you should think ries all night, and their apparent prepara- I speak this as being, according to the tions for them all day. It is not to be doubted senseless rude phrase, a malicious old maid, but these Romans never passed any of their I shall acquaint you I am a woman of contime innocently but when they were asleep, dition, not now three-and-twenty, and have and never slept but when they were weary had proposals from a, least ten different and heavy with excesses, and slept only to men, and the greater number of them have prepare themselves for the repetition of upon the upshot refused me. Something or them. If you did your duty as a Spectator, other is always amiss when the lover takes you would carefully examine into the num- to some new wench. A settlement is easily ber of births, marriages, and burials; and excepted against; and there is very little when you had deducted out of your deaths recourse to avoid the vicious part of our all such as went out of the world without youth, but throwing oneself away upon marrying, then cast up the number of both some lifeless blockhead, who, though he is sexes born within such a term of years last without vice, is also without virtue. Nowpast; you might, from the single people de- a-days we must be contented if we can get parted, make some useful inferences or creatures which are not bad; good are not guesses how many there are left unmarried, to be expected. Mr. Spectator, I sat near and raise some useful scheme for the amend- you the other day, and think I did not disment of the age in that particular. I have please your spectatorial eye-sight; which I not patience to proceed gravely on this shall be a better judge of when I see whe abominable libertinism; for I cannot but re- - flect, as I am writing to you, upon a certain * Dissoluteness. .00 THE SPECTATOR. [No1529.:her you take notice of these evils your own received time out of mind in the common way, or print this memorial dictated from wealth of letters, were not originally esta. the disdainful heavy heart of, sir, your most blished with an eye to our paper manufacobedient humble servant, ture I shall leave to the discussion of T.'RACHEL WELLADAY. others; and shall only remark farther in this place, that all printers and booksellers take the wall of one another according to the above-mentioned merits of the authors No, 529.] Thursday, November 6, 1712. to whom they respectively belong. Singula que locum teneant sortitadecenter I come now to that point of precedency H r..rs Poet. v. 92. which is settled among the three learned Let every thing have its due place.-Roscommon. professions by the wisdom of our laws. I need not here take notice of the rank which UPON the hearing of several late disputes is allotted to every doctor in each of these concerning rank and precedence, I could professions, who are all of them, though not forbear amusing myself with some ob- not so high as knights, yet a degree above servations, which I have made upon the'squires; this last order of men, being the learned world, as to this great particular. illiterate body of the nation, are conse By the learned world, I here mean at large, quently thrown together in a class below all those who are in any way concerned in the three learned professions. I mention works of literature, whether in the writing, this for the sake of several rural'squires, printing, or repeating part. To begin with whose reading does not rise so high as to the writers: I have observed that the au- The present State of England, and who are thor of a folio, in all companies and con- often apt to usurp that precedency which, versations, sets himself above the author of by the laws of their country, is not due to a quarto; the author of a quarto above the them. Their want of learning, which has author of an octavo; and so on, by a gradual planted them in this station, may in some descent and subordination, to an author in measure extenuate their misdemeanor; and twenty-fours. This distinction is so well ob- our professors ought to pardon them when served, that in an assembly of the learned, they offend in this particular, considering I have seen a folio writer place himself in that they are in a state of ignorance, or, as an elbow chair, when the author of a duo- we usually say, do not know their right decimo has, out of a just deference to his hand from their left. superior quality, seated himself upon a There is another tribe of persons who squab. In a word, authors are usually are retainers to the learned world, and who ranged in company after the same manner regulate themselves upon all occasions by as their works are upon a shelf. several laws peculiar to their body; I mean The most minute pocket author hath be- the players or actors of both sexes. Among neath him the writers of all pamphlets, or these it is a standing and uncontroverted works that are only stitched. As for the principle, that a tragedian always takes pamphleteer, he takes place of none but place of a comedian; and it is very well the authors of single sheets, and of that fra- known the merry drolls who make us laugh ternity who publish their labours on certain are always placed at the lower end of the days, or on every day in the week. I do table, and in every entertainment give way not find that the precedency among the to the dignity of the buskin. It is a stage individuals in this latter class of writers is maxim,' Once a king, and always a king.' yet settled. For this reason it would be thought very For my own part, I have had so strict a absurd in Mr. Bullock, notwithstanding the regard to the ceremonial which prevails in height and gracefulness of his person, to the learned world, that I never presumed sit at the right hand of a hero, though he to take place of a pamphleteer, until my were but five foot high. The same disdaily papers were gathered into those two tinction is observed among the ladies of the first volumes which have already appeared. theatre.. Queens and heroines preserve their After which, I naturally jumped over the rank in private conversation, while those heads not only of all pamphleteers, but of who are waiting-women and maids of hoevery octavo writer in Great Britain that nour upon the stage keep their distance had written but one book. I am also in- also behind the scenes. formed by my bookseller, that six octavos I shall only add that by a parity of reahave at all times been looked upon as an son, all writers of tragedy look upon it as equivalent to a folio; which I take notice of, their due to be seated, served, or saluted, the rather because I would not have the before comic writers: those who deal in learned world surprised, if, after the pub- tragi-comedy.usually taking their seats belication of half a dozen volumes, I take my tween the authors of either side. There place accordingly. When my scattered has been a long dispute for precedency beforces are thus rallied, and reduced into tween the tragic and heroic poets. Aristotle regular bodies, I flatter myself that I shall would have the latter yield the fas to the make'no despicable figure at the head of former; but Mr. Dryden, and many others, them. would never submit to this decision. Bur Whether these rules, which have been lesque writers pay the same deference to No. 530. THE SPECTATOR. 301 the hemic, as comic writers to their serious thought very pretty company. But let us brothers in the drama. hear what he says for himself. By this short table of laws order is kept up, and distinction preserved, in the whole' MY WORTHY FRIEND,-I question not republic of letters. 0. but you, and the rest of my acquaintance, wonder that I, who have lived in the smoke and gallantries of the town for thirty years together, should all on a sudden grow fond No. 530.] Friday, November 7, 1712. of a country life. Had not my dog of a steward ran away as he did, without makSic visum Veneri; cui placet impares ing up his accounts, I had still been imFormas atque animos sub juga ahenea since m Sfevo mittere cum joco. mersed i sin and sea-coal. But since my Hor. Od. xxxiii. Lib. 1. 10. late forced visit to my estate, I am so pleased Thus Venus sports; the rich, the base, with it, that I am resolved to live and die Unlike in fortune and in face, upon it. I am every day abroad among my To disagreeing love provokes; acres, and can scarce forbear filling my he ties the fatal noose, letters with breezes, shades, flowers, meaAnd binds unequals to the brazen yokes. —Creech. dows, and purling streams. The simplicity of manners, which I have heard you so IT is very usual for those who have been often speak of, and which appears here in severe upon marriage, in some part or perfection, charms me wonderfully. As other of their lives, to enter into the frater- an instance of it I must acquaint you, and nity which they have ridiculed, and to see by your means the whole club, that I have their raillery return upon their own heads. lately married one of my tenant's daughI scarce ever knew a woman-hater that did ters. She is born of honest parents; and not, sooner or later, pay for it. Marriage, though she has no portion, she has a great which is a blessing to another man, falls upon deal of virtue. The natural sweetness and such a one as a judgment. Mr. Congreve's innocence of her behaviour, the freshness Old Bachelor is set forth to us with much of her complexion, the unaffected turn of wit and humour, as an example of this her shape and person, shot me through kind. In short, those who have most dis- and through every time I saw her, and did tinguished themselves by railing at the sex more execution upon me in grogram than in general, very often make an honourable the greatest beauty in town or. court had amends, by choosing one of the most worth- ever done in brocade. In short, she is such less persons of it for a companion and yoke- a one as promises me a good heir to my fellow. Hymen takes his revenge in kind estate; and if by her means I cannot leave on those who turn his mysteries into ridi- to my children what are falsely called the cule. gifts of birth, high titles, and alliances, I My friend Will Honeycomb, who was so hope to convey to them the more real and unmercifully witty upon the women, in a valuable gifts of birth-strong bodies, and couple of letters which I lately communi- healthy constitutions. As for your fine wocated to the public, has given the ladies men, I need not tell thee that I know them. ample satisfaction by marrying a farmer's I have had my share in their graces; but daughter; a piece of news which came to no more of that. It shall be my business our club by the last post. The templar is hereafter to live the life of an honest man, very positive that he has married a dairy- and to act as becomes the master of a famaid: but Will, in his letter to me on this mily. I question not but I shall draw upon occasion, sets the best face upon the matter me the-raillery of the town, and be treated that he can, and gives a more tolerable to the tune of,'The Marriage-hater Matchaccount of his spouse. I must confess I, ed;'* but I am prepared for it. I have been suspected something more than ordinary, as witty upon others, in my time. To tell when upop opening the letter I found that thee truly, I saw such a tribe of fashionable Will was fallen off from his former gayety, young fluttering coxcombs shot up, that I having changed'Dear Spec,' which was did not think my post of an homme de ruelle his usual salute at the beginning of the any longer tenable. I felt a certain stiffletter, into'.My worthy Friend,' and sub- ness in my limbs, which entirely destroyed scribed himself in the latter end, at full the jauntiness of air I was once master of. length, William Honeycomb. In short, the Besides, for I may now confess my age to gay, the loud, the vain Will Honeycomb, thee, I have been eight-and-forty above who had made love to every great fortune these twelve years. Since my retirement that has appeared in town for above thirty into the country will make a vacancy in the years together, and boasted of favours from club, I could wish you would fill up my ladies whom he had never seen, is at length place with my friend Tom Dapperwit. He wedded to a plain country girl. has an infinite deal of fire, and knows the His letter gives us the picture of a converted rake. The sober character of the * The name of one of Tom Durfey's miserable come. husband is dashed with the man of the town, dies. It was Dogget's excellent performance of a cha. and enlivened with those little cant phrases racter in this play, that first drew the eyes of the public an eivene wth tse litle cant p s upon him, and marked a'f out as an actor of superid which have made my friend Will often talents. ?02 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 531. town. For my own part, as I have said to the Supreme Being, we enlarge every before, I shall endeavour to live hereafter one of these with our own idea of infinity: suitable to a man in my station, as a pru- and so putting them together, make our dent head of a family, a good husband, a complex idea of God.' careful father, (when it shall so happen,) It is not impossible that there may be and as your most sincere friend, many kinds of spiritual perfection, besides O.'WILLIAM HONEYCOMB.' those which are lodged in a human soul: but it is impossible that we should have the ideas of any kinds of perfection, except those of which we have some small rays No. 531.] Saturday, November 8, 1712. and short imperfect strokes in ourselves. It would therefore be very high presump. Qui mare et terras, variisque mundum tion to determine whether the Supreme Undenilmajusgenerath urips: Being has not many more attributes than Nec viget quicquam simile altt secundum. those which enter into our conceptions of Hqr. Od. xii. Lib. 1 15. him. This is certain, that if there be any Who guides below and rules above, kind of spiritual perfection which is not The great disposer, and the mighty King; marked out in a human soul, it belongs in Than he none greater, like him none, its fulness to the divine nature That can be, is, or was; *its fulness to the divine nature. That can be, is, or was; Supreme he singly fills the throne. —reech. Several eminent philosophers have imagined that the soul, in her separate state, SIMONIDES being asked by Dionysius the may have new faculties springingup in her, tyrant what God was, desired a day's time which she is not capable of exerting during to consider of' it before he made his reply. her present union with the body; and wheWhen the day was expired he desired two ther these faculties may not correspond days; and afterwards, instead of returning with other attributes in the divine nature, his answer, demanded still double the tihe and open to us hereafter new matter of to consider of it. This great poet and phi- wonder and adoration, we are altogether losopher, the more he contemplated the ignorant. This, as I have said before, we nature of the Deity, found that he waded ought to acquiesce in, that the Sovereign but the more out of his depth; and that he Being, the great author of nature, has in lost himself in the thought, instead of find- him all possible perfection, as w1ll in kind ifg an end of it. as in degree: to speak according to our meIf we consider the idea which wise meh, thods of conceiving, I shall only add under by the light of reason, have framed of the this head, that when we have raised our Divine Being, it amounts to this; that he notion of this Infinite Being as high as it is has in hirrnall the perfection of a spiritual possible for the mind of man to go, it will nature. And since we have no notion of any fall infinitely short -f what he really is. kind of spiritual perfection but what we'There is no end of his greatness.' The discover in our own souls, we join infinitude. most exalted creature he has made is only to each kind of these perfections, and what capable of adoring it, none but himself can is a faculty in a human soul becomes an at- comprehend it. tribute in God. We exist in place and time; The advice of the son of Sirach is very the Divine Being fills the immensity of just and sublime in this light.'By his space with his presence, and inhabits eter- word all things consist. We may Speak nity. We are possessed of a little power much, and yet come short: wherefore in and a little knowledge: the Divine Being some he is all. How shall we be able to is almighty and omniscient. In short, by magnify him? for he is great above all his adding infinity to any kind of perfection we works. The Lord is terrible and very enjoy, and by joining all these different great; and marvellous in his power. When kinds of perfection in one being, we form you glorify the Lord, exalt him as much as our idea of the great Sovereign of Nature. you can; for even yet will he far exceed. Though every one who thinks must have And when you exalt him, put forth all made this observation, I shall produce Mr. your strength, and be not weary; for you Locke's authority to the same purpose, out can never go far enough. Who hath seen of his Essay on Human Understanding. him, that he might tell us? and who can'If we examine the idea we have of the magnify him as he is? There are yet hid incomprehensible Supreme Being, we shall greater things than these be, for we have find that we come by it the same way; and seen but a few of his works.' that the complex ideas we have both of I have here only considered the Supreme God and separate spirits, are made up of Being by the light of reason and philosoihe simple ideas we receive from reflection: phy. If wve would see him in all the wonv. g. having, from what we experience in ders of his mercy, we must have recourse ourselves, got the ideas of existence and to revelation, which represents him to us duration, of knowledge and power of plea- not only as infinitely great and glorious, but sure and happiness, and of several other as infinitely good and just in his dispensaqualities and powers, which it is better to tiOns towards man. But as this is the theory have than to be without: when we would which falls under every rnd s consideration, frame an idea the most suitable we can though indeed it can neve. be.sfficientlf N'x 532. j THE SPECTA FOR. 503 considered, I shall here only take notice of No. 532.] Monday, November 10, 1712. that habitual worship and veneration which we ought to pay to this Almighty Being. -- Funor vice cotis, acutum WV'e should often refresh our minds with the Reddere qua ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi. Hor...rs Poet. ver. 304 thought of him, and annihilate ourselves ply whetstone:useless and unfit before him, in the contemplation of our To cut myself, I sharpen others wit.-Creech. own worthlessness, and of his transcendent excellency and perfection. This would IT is a very honest action to be studious imprint in our minds such a constant and to produce other men's merit; and I make uninterrupted awe and veneration as that no scruple of saying, I have as much of which I am here recommending, and which this temper as any man in the world. It is in reality a kind of incessant prayer, and would not be a thing to be bragged of, but reasonable humiliation of the soul before that is what any man may be master of, him who made it. who will take pains enough for it. Much This would effectually kill in us all the observation of the unworthiness in being little seeds of pride, vanity, and self-con- pained at the excellence of another will ceit, which are apt to shoot up in the minds bring you to a scorn of yourself for that unof such whose thoughts turn more on those willingness; and when you have got so far, comparative advantages which they enjoy you will find it a greater pleasure than you over some of their fellow-creatures, than ever before knew to be zealous in promoton that infinite distance which is placed ing the fame and welfare of the praisebetween them and the supreme model of worthy. I do not speak this as pretending all perfection. It would likewise quicken to be a mortified self-denying man, but as our desires and endeavours of uniting our- one who had turned his ambition into a selves to him by all the acts of religion and right channel. I claim to myself the merit virtue, of having extorted excellent productions Such an habitual homage to the Su- from a person of the greatest abilities, who preme Being would, in a particular manner, would not have let them appeared by any danish from among us that prevailing im- other means;t to have animated a few piety of using his name on the most trivial young gentlemen into worthy pursuits, who occasions. will be a glory to our age; and at all times, I find the following passage in an.excel- and by all possible means in my power, unlent sermon, preached at the funeral of a dermined the interest of ignorance, vice, gentleman* who was an honour to his coun- and folly, and attempted to substitute in try, and a more diligent as well as success- their stead, learning, piety, and good sense. ful inquirer into the works of nature than It is from this honest heart that I find myany other our nation has ever produced. self honoured as a gentleman-usher to the' He had the profoundest veneration for the arts and sciences.-Mr. Tickell and Mr. great God of heaven and earth that I have Pope have, it seems, this idea of me. The ever observed in any person. The very name former has writ me an excellent paper of of God was never mentioned by him with- verses, in praise, forsooth, of myself; and out a pause and a visible stop in his dis- the other enclosed for my perusal an adcourse; in which one, that knew him most mirable poem,: which I hope will shortly particularly above twenty years, has told see the light. In the mean time I cannot me that he was so exact, that he does not suppress any thought of his, but insert this remember to have observed him once to sentiment about the dying words of Adrian. fail in it.' I will not determine in the case he menEvery one knows the veneration which tions; but have thus much to say in favour was paid by the Jews to a name so great, of his argument, that many of his own works wonderful, and holy. They would not let it which I have seen, convince me that very enter even into their religious discourses. pretty and very sublime sentiments may What can we then think of those who make be lodged in the same bosom without dimi use of so tremendous a name in the ordinary nutiot of its greatness. expressions of their anger, mirth, and most MR. SPECTATOR,-I was the other day impertinent passions? of those who admit it in company with five or six men of some into the most familiar questions and asser- learning: where, chancing to mention the tions, ludicrous phrases, and workbf ling where, chancing to mention the tions, ludicrous phrases, and workAf tiu- famous verses which the emperor Adrian mour? not to mention those who iolate it spoke on his death-bed, they were all by solemn perjuries! It would be an affront agreed that it was a piece of gayety unto reason to endeavour to set forth the hor- worthy that prince in those circumstances. ror and profaneness of such a practice. I could not but dissent from this opinion. The very mention of it exposes it suffi- Methinks it was by no means a gay but a ciently to those in whom the light of na- very serious soliloquy to his soul at th ture, not to say rcgion, is not utterly ex- point of his departure: in which sense I tinguished. O. naturally took these verses at my first read....-_ ~ing them, when I was very young, and be * See bishop Burnet's Sermon, preached at the funeral if the honourable Robert Boyle. t Addison. I The Temple of Fame 304 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 53, fore I knew wnat interpretation the world * uch readers scorn'd, thou wing'st thy daring fllgt generally put nupon them. Above the stars, and tread'st the fields of L; t; generally put upon thnem. Fame, heaven, and hell, are thy exalted theme, " Animula vagula, blandula, And visions such as Jove himself might dream; Tospes comesque corporis, Man sunk to slav'ry, though to glory born, Qua! nunc ablbls in loca i Heaven's pride when upright, and deprav'd his scorn Pallidula, rigida, nudula,'Such hints alone could British Virgil lend,$ Nec (ut soles) dabis jocos!" And thou alone deserve from such a friend; A debt so borrow'd is illustrious fame, "Alas, my soul! thou pleasing compa- And fame when shar'd with him is double fame. nion of this body, thou fleeting thing that So flush'd with sweets, by beauty's queen bestow'd, art now deserting it, whither art thou fly- With more than mortal charms _Eneas glow'd: ing? to what unknown region? Thou art Such gen'rous strifes Eugene and Marlbro' try, And as in glory so in friendship vie. all trembling, fearful, and pensive. Now wbhat is become of thy former wit and' Permit these lines by thee to live-nor blame h our? T u salt jt and be gy n A muse that pants and languishes for fame; huil.our? IThou shalt jest and be gay no That fears to sink when humbled themes she sing% more." Lost in the mass of mean forgotten things.'I confess I cannot apprehend where Receiv'd by thee, I prophesy my rhymes The praise of virgins in succeeding times; lies the. trifling in all this; it is the most Mix'd with thy works, their life no bounds shall se" natural and obvious reflection imaginable I But stand protected as inspir'd by thee. to a dying man: and, if we consider the'So some weak shoot, which else would poorly rise, emperor was a heathen, that doubt con- Jove's tree adopts and lifts him to the skies; cerning the future state of his soul will Through the new pupil fost'ring juices flow, seem so far from being the effect of want Thrust forth the gems, and give the flowers to blow seem so far from being the effect of want Aloft, immortal reigns the plant unknown, of thought, that it was scarce reasonable With borrow'd life, and vigour not his own.' he should think otherwise: not to mention that there is-a plain confession included of To t Sectaor General. his belief in its immortality. The diminu-'Mr. John Sly humbly showeth:tive epithets of vagula, blandula, and the' That upon reading the deputation given rest, appear not to me as expressions of to the said Mr. John Sly, all persons passievity, but rather of endearment and con- ing by his observatory behaved themselves cern; such as we find in Catullus, and the with the same decorum as if your honour authors of Hendecasyllabi after him, where yourself had been present. they are used to express the utmost love'That your said officer is preparing, acand tenderness for their mistresses. If you cording to your honour's secret instructions, think me right in my notion of the last hats for the several kinds of heads that words of Adrian, be pleased to insert this make figures in the realms of Great Britain, m the Spectator; if not, suppress it. with cocks significant of their powers and I am, &c.' faculties.' That your said officer has taken due no-'To the supposed Author of the Spectator. tice of your instructions and admonitions'in courts licentious, and a shameless stage, concerning the internals of the head from How long the war shall wit with virtue wage? the outward form of the same. His hats Enchanted by this prostituted fair, Our youth run headlong in the fatal snare; for men of the faculties of law and physic In height of rapture clasp unheeded pain*, do but just turn up, to give a little life to And suck pollution through their tingling veins. their sagacity; his military hats glare full' Thy spotless thoughts unshock'd the priest mayhear, in the face; and he has prepared a familiar And the pure vestal in her bosom wear. easy cock for all good companions between To conscious blushes and diminish'd pride, te above-mentioned etremes. For tis Thy glass betrays what treach'rous love would hide: above-mentone extremes or t Nor harsh thy precepts, but infus'd by stealth, end he has consulted the most learned of Please while they cure, and cheat us into health. his acquaintance for the true form and di-'Thy works in Chloe's toilet gain a part, mensions of the lepidum cafput, and made And with his tailorsha're the fopling's heart: a hat fit for it. Lash'd in thy satire, the penurious cit'Your said officer does farther repreLaughs at himself, and finds no harm in wit: From felon gamesters the raw'squire is free, sent, that the young divines about town are And Britain owes her rescu'd oaks to thee.* many of them got into the cock military His-miss the frolic viscountt dreads to toast, Or his third cure the shallow templar boast, and desires your instructions therein. And the rash fool, who scorn'd the beaten road, That the town has been for several days Dares quake at thunder, and confess his God. very well behaved, and farther your said'The brainless stripling, who, expell'd to town, officer sath not.' T. Damn'd the stiffcollege and pedantic clown, Aw'd by thy name is dumb, and thrice a week Spells uncouth Latin, and pretends to Greek. No. 533.] Tuesday, JNovember 11, 1712. A saunt'ring tribe! such, born to wide estates, Immo duas dabo, inquit ille, una si parum est With " yea" and " no" in senates hold debates; Et si duarum paonitebit addentur dun-Plaut. At length despis'd, each to his field retires, First with the dogs, and king amidst the'squires; Nay, says he, if one is too little, I will give you two From pert to stupid sinks supinely down, And if two will not satisfy you, I will add two more In youth a coxcomb, and in age a clown.' To the Sfirctattor. * Mr. Tickell here alludes to Steel's papers against the h ftn vn very sharpers, &c. in the Tatler, and particularly to a letter R,-You have often given us very ex in Tat. No. 73, signed Will Trusty, and written by Mr. cellent discourses against that unnatural John Hughes. i Viscount Bolingbroke. t A compliment to Addison. No. 533.] THE SPEC ATOR. 305 custom of parents in forcing their children beauty, yet there is none amcng all your to marry contrary to their inclinations, My various characters of fine women preferown case, without farther preface, I will able to Miranda. In a word, she is never lay before you, and leave you to judge of it. guilty of doing any thing but one amiss, (it My father and mother, both being in de- she can be thought to do amiss by me) in dining years, would fain see me, their being as blind to my faults, as she is to her eldest son, as they call it, settled. I am as own perfections. I am, sir, your very much for that as they can be; but I must humble, obedient servant, be settled, it seems, not according to my'D)USTERERASTUS.' own, but their liking. Upon this account I am teased every day, because I have not'MR. SPECTATOR,-When you spent so yet fallen into love, in spite of nature, with much time as you did lately in censuring one of a neighbouring gentleman's daugh- the ambitious young gentlemen who ride ters; for out of their abundant generosity, in triumph through town and country on they give me the choice of four. "Jack," coach-boxes, I wish you had employed begins my father. "Mrs. Catharine is a those moments in consideration of what fine woman."-" Yes, sir, but she is rather passes sometimes within-side of those vehitoo old."-" She will make the more dis- cles. I am sure I suffered sufficiently by creet manager, boy." Then my mother the insolence and ill-breeding of some perplays her part. "IsnotMrs. Betty exceed- sons who travelled lately with me in the ing fair?" —" Yes, madam, but she is of no stage-coach out of Essex to London. I am conversation; she has no fire, no agreeable sure, when you have heard what I have to vivacity; she neither speaks nor looks with say, you will think there are persons under spirit.' -" True, son, but for those very the character of gentlemen, that are fit to reasons she will be an easy, soft, obliging, be no where else but on the coach-box. tractable creature."-" After all," cries an Sir, I am a young woman of a sober and old aunt, (who belongs to the class of those religious education, and have preserved who read plays with spectacles on,) " what that character; but on Monday was fortthink you, nephew, of proper Mrs. Doro- night, it was my misfortune to come to thy?"-" What do I think? why, I think London. I was no sooner clapped into the she cannot be above six foot two inches coach, but, to my great surprise, two perhigh."-" Well, well, you may banter as sons in the habit of gentlemen attacked me long as you please, but height of stature with such indecent discourse as I cannot is commanding and majestic."-" Come, repeat to you, so you may conclude not fit come," says a cousin of mine in the family, for me to hear. I had no relief but the "I will fit him; Fidelia is yet behind- hopes of a speedy end of my short journey. pretty Miss Fiddy must please you." Sir, form to yourself what a persecution:" Oh your veryhumble servant, dear coz, this must needs be to a virtuous and chaste she is as much too young as her eldest sis- mind; and, in order to your proper handter is too old."" Is it so, indeed," quoth ling such a subject, fancy your wife or she, "good Mr. Pert? You that are but daughter, if you had any, in such circumturned of twenty-two, and Miss Fiddy in stances, and what treatment you would half a year's time will be in her teens, then think due to such dragoons. One of and she is capable of learning any thing. them was called a captain, and entertained Then she will be so observant; she will us with nothing but filthy stupid questions, cry perhaps now and then, but never be or lewd songs, all the way. Ready to burst angry." Thus they will think for me. in with shame and indignation, I repined that this matter, wherein I am more particu- nature had not allowed us as easily to shut larly concerned than any body else. If I our ears as our eyes. But was not this a name any woman in the world, one of these kind of rape? Why should there be acdaughters has certainly the same qualities. cessaries in ravishment any more than You see by these few hints, Mr. Spectator, murder? Why should not every contriwhat a comfortable life I lead. To be still butor to the abuse of chastity suffer death? more open and free with you, I have been I am sure these shameless hell-hounds depassionately fond of a young lady (whom served it highly. Can you exert yourself give me leave to call Miranda) now for better than on such an occasion? If'you do these three years. I have often urged the not do it effectually, I will read no more of matter home to my parents with all the your papers. Has every impertinent felsubmission of a son, but the impatience of low a privilege to torment me, who pay alover. Pray, sir, think of three years: my coach-hire as well as he? Sir, pray what inexpressible scenes of inquietude, consider us in this respect as the weakest what variety of misery must I have gone sex, who have nothing to defend ourselves; through in three whole years! Miranda's and I think it is as gentleman-like to chalfortune is equal to those I have mentioned; lenge a woman to fight as to talk obscenely but her relations are not intimates with in her company, especially when she has mine! Ah! there's the rub! Miranda's not power to stir. Pray let me tell you a person, wit, and humour, are what the story which you can make fit for public nicest fancy could imagine; and, though view. I knew a gentleman who,.having a we know you to be so elegant a judge of very good opinion of the gentlemen of the VOL. II. 39 306 THE SPECTATOR. lNo. 534. army. invited ten or twelve of them to sup -- We seldom find with nilm; and at the same time invited Much sense with an exalter fortune joined.'with him; and at the. same time invited &pney. two or three friends who were very severe against the manners and morals of gentle- MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a young woman men of that profession. It happened one of nineteen, the only daughter of very of them brought two captains of his regi- wealthy parents, and have my whole life ment newly come into the army, who at been used with a tenderness which did me the first onset engaged the company with no great service in my education. I have very lewd healths and suitable discourse. perhaps an uncommon desire for knowledge You may easily imagine the confusion of of what is suitable to my sex and quality; the entertainer, who finding some of his but, as far as I can remember, the whole friends very uneasy, desired to tell them dispute about me has been, whether such the story of a great man, one Mr. Locke, a thing was proper for the child to do, or (whom I find you frequently mention) that not? or whether such or such a food was being invited to dine with the then lords the more wholesome for the young lady to Halifax, Anglesey, and Shaftesbury, im- eat? This was ill for my shape, that for my mediately after dinner, instead of conver- complexion, and the other for my eyes. I sation, the cards were called for, where am not extravagant when I tell you, I do the bad or good success produced the usual not know that I have trod upon the very passions of gaming. Mr. Locke, retiring earth ever since I was ten years old. A to a window, and writing, my lord Angle- coach or chair I am obliged to for all my sey desired to know what he was writing: motions from one place to another ever " Why, my lords," answered he, " I coul since I can remember. All who had to do not sleep last night for the pleasure and to instruct me, have ever been bringing improvement I expected from the conver- stories of the notable things I have said, sation of the greatest men of the age." and the womanly manner of my behaving This so sensibly stung them, that they myself upon such and such an occasion. gladly compounded to throw their cards in This has been my state until I came tothe fire, if he would his paper, and so a con- wards years of womanhood: and ever since versation ensued fit for such persons. This I grew towards the age of fifteen I have story pressed so hard upon the young cap- been abused after another manner. Now, tains, together with the concurrence of their forsooth, I am so killing, no one can safely superior officers, that the young fellows left speak to me. Our house is frequented by the company in confusion. Sir, I know you men of sense, and I love to ask questions hate long things; but if you like it you may when I fall into such conversation; but I contract it, or how you will; but I think it am cut short with something or other about has a moral in it. my bright eyes. There is, sir, a language'But, sir, I am told you are a famous particular for talking to women in; and mechanic as well as a looker-on, and there- none but those of the very first good-breedfore humbly propose you would invent ing (who are very few, and who seldom some padlock, with full power under your come into my way) can speak to us without hand and seal, for all modest persons, regard to our sex. Among the generality either men or women,'to clap upon the of those they call gentlemen, it is impossimouths of all such impertinent impudent ble for me to speak upon any subject whatfellows: and I wish you would publish a soever, without provoking somebody to say, proclamation, that no modest person who "Oh! to be sure, fine Mrs. Such-a-one has value for her countenance, and conse- must be very particularly acquainted with quently would not be put out of it, presume all that; all the world woud wo contribute to to travel after such a day without one of her entertainment and information." Thus, them in their pockets. I fancy a smart sir, I am so handsome, that I murder all Spectator upon this subject would serve for who approach me; so wise, that I want no such a padlock; and that public notice new notices; and so well-bred, that I am may be given in your paper where they treated by all that know me like a fool, for may be had, with directions, price two no one will answer as if I were their friend pence; and that part of the directions may or companion. Pray, sir, be pleased to be, when any person presumes to be guilty take the part of us beauties and fortunes of the above-mentioned crime, the party into your consideration, and do not let us aggrieved may produce it to his face, with be tus flattered out of our senses. I have a request to read it to the company. He got a huzzy of a maid who is most craftily must be very much hardened that could given to this ill quality. I was at first dioutface that rebuke; and his farther pu- verted with a certain absurdity the creanishment I leave you to prescribe. Your ture was guilty of in every thing she said. humble servant, She is a country girl; and in the dialect of T.'PENANCE CRUEL' the shire she was born in,, would tell me that every body reckoned her lady had the purest red and white in the world: then No. 534.] Wednesday, November 12, 1712. she would tell me I was the most like one Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in illa Sisly Dobson in their town, who made the Fortuna Juv. Sat. viii. 73. miller make away with himself, and walk No. 535.] THE SPECTATOR. 307 afterwards in the corn-field where they'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am in the condiused to meet. With all this, this cunning tion of the idol you was once pleased tc huzzy can lay letters in my way, and put a mention, and bar-keeper of a coffee-house. billet in my gloves, and then stand in it she I believe it is needless to tell you the oppor. knows nothing of it. I do not know, from tunities I must give, and the importunities my birth to this day, that I have been ever I suffer. But there is one gentleman who treated by any one as I ought; and if it were besieges me as close as the French did not for a few books, which I delight in, I Bouchain. His gravity makes him work should be at this hour a novice to all com- cautious, and his regular approaches denote mon sense. Would it not be worth your a good engineer. You need not doubt of his while to lay down rules for behaviour in oratory, as he is a lawyer; and especially this case, and tell people, that we fair ones since he has had so little use of it at Westexpect honest plain answers as well as minster, he may spare the more for me. other people?' Why must I, good sir, be-' What then can weak women do? I am cause I have a good air, a fine complexion, willing to surrender, but he would have it and am in the bloom of my years, be mis- at discretion, and I with discretion. In the led in all my actions; and have the notions mean time, whilst we parley, our several of good and ill confounded in my mind, for interests are neglected. As his siege grows no other offence, but because I have the stronger, my tea grows weaker; and while advantages of beauty and fortune? Indeed, he pleads at my bar, none come to him for sir, what with the silly homage which is counsel but in forma fiauferis. Dear Mr. paid to us by the sort of people I have Spectator, advise him not to insist upon above spoken of, and the utter negligence hard articles, nor by his irregular desires which others have for us, the conversation contradict the well meaning lines of his of us young women of condition is no other countenance. If we were agreed, we might than what must expose us to ignorance and settle to something, as soon as we could vanity, if not vice. All this is humbly sub- determine where we should get most by mitted to your spectatorial wisdom, by sir, the law-at the coffee-house, or at Westyour humble servant, minster. Your humble servant,'SHARLOT WEALTHY.''LUCINDA PARLEY.' W'ill's Coffee-house. A Minute from Mr. John Sly.' MR. SPECTATOR,-Pray, sir, it will, MR. SPEcTATOR, —Pray, sir, it will'The world is pretty regular for about serve to fill up a paper if you put in this; forty rod eastand tenwest ofthe observawhich is only to ask, whether that copy of tory ofthe said Mr. Sly but he is credibly verses which is a paraphrase of Isaiah, in informed, that when they are got beyond one of your speculations, is not written by the pass into the Strand, or those who move Mr. Pope? Then you get on another line, city-ward are got within Temple-bar, they by putting in, with proper distances, as at are just as they were before. It is therefore the end of a letter, I am, sir, your humble humbly proposed, that moving centries servant,'ABRAHAM DAPPERWIT.' may be appointed all the busy hours of the' ABRAHAM DAPPERWIT.' day between the Exchange and Westmin-'MR. DAPPERWIT, —I am glad to get ster, and report what passes to your hoanother line forward, by saying that excel- nour, or your subordinate officers, from lent piece is Mr. Pope's; and so, with time to time. proper distances, I am, your humble ser- Ordered, vant, THE SPECTATOR.' That Mr. Sly name the said officers, pro-'MR. SPECTATOR,-I was a wealthy vided he will answer for their principles'Ma. SPECTATOR, —I was a wealthy and morals. T. grocer in the city, and as fortunate as diligent; but I was a single man, and you know -== there are women. One in particular came to my shop, who I wished might, but was No. 535.] Thursday, JVovember 13, 1712. afraid never would, make a grocer's wife. I thought, however, to take an effectual Spem longam reseces.way of courting, and sold her at less price Hor. Cd. xi. Lib. 1. 7. than I bought, that I might buy at less price Cut short vain hope. than I sold. She, you may be sure, often MY four hundred and seventy-first specame and helped me to many customers at culation turned upon the subject of hope in the same rate, fancying I was obliged to general. I design this paper as a specula* her. You must needs think this was a good tion upon that vain andr foolish hope which living trade, and my riches must be vastly is misemployed on temporal objects, and improved. In fine, I was nigh being de- produces many sorrows and calamities in dared bankrupt, when I declared myself human life. her lover, and she, herself married. I was It is a precept several times inculcated just in a condition to support myself, and by Horace, that we should not entertain a am now in hopes of growing rich by losing hope of any thing in life, which lies at a my customers. Yours, great distance from us. The shortness and'JEREMY COMFIT.' uncertainty of our time here makes such a 308 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 535. kind of hope unreasonable and absurd. The fellow, that would never set his hand to grave lies unseen between us and the ob- any business during his father's life. When ject which we reach after. Where one his father died, he left him to the value of man lives to enjoy the good he has in view, a hundred drachmas in Persian money. ten thousand are cut off it the pursuit of it. Alnaschar, in order to make the best of it, It happens likewise unluckily, that one laid it out in glasses, bottles, and the finest hope no sooner dies in us but another rises earthenware. These he piled up in a large up in its stead. We are apt to fancy that open basket, and, having made choice of a we shall be happy and satisfied if we pos- very little shop, placed the basket at his sess ourselves of such and such particular feet: and leaned his back upon the wall, in enjoyments; but either by reason of their expectation of customers. As he sat in this emptiness, or the natural inquietude of the posture, with his eyes upon the basket, he mind, we have no sooner gained one point, fell into a most amusing train of thought, but we extend our hopes to another. We and was overheard by one of his neighstill find new inviting scenes.and landscapes bours, as he talked to himself in the follying behind those which at a distance ter- lowing manner:'This basket,' says he, minated our view. cost me at the wholesale merchant's a The natural consequences of such reflec- hundred drachmas, which is all I have in tlons are these, that we should take care the world. I shall quickly make two hunnot to let our hopes run out into too great a dred of it, by selling it in retail. These two length; that we should sufficiently weigh hundred drachmas will in a very little while the objects of our hope, whether they be rise to four hundred, which of course will such as we may reasonably expect from amount in time to four thousand. Four them what we propose in their fruition, thousand drachmas cannot fail of making and whether they are such as we are pretty eight thousand. As soon as by these means sure of attaining, in case our life extend I am master of ten thousand, I will lay aside itself so far. If we hope for things which my trade of a glassman, and turn jeweller. are at too great a distance from us, it is I shall then deal in diamonds, pearls, and possible that we may be intercepted by all sorts of rich stones. When I have got death in our progress towards them. If we together as much wealth as I well can dehope for things which we have not tho- sire, 1 will make a purchase of the finest roughly considered the value of, our disap- house I can find, with lands, slaves, eupointment will be greater than our pleasure nuchs, and horses. I shall then begin to in the fruition of them. If we hope for enjoy myself and make a noise in the world. what we are not likely to possess, we act I will not however stop there, but still conand think in vain, and make life a greater tinue my traffic, until I have got together dream and shadow than it really is. a hundred thousand drachmas. When I Many of the miseries and misfortunes of have thus made myself master of a hundred life proceed from our want of consideration, thousand drachmas I shall naturally set in one or all of these particulars. They are myself on the foot of a prince, and will the rocks on which the sanguine tribe of demand the grand vizier's daughter in marlovers daily split, and on which the bank- riage, after having represented to that rupt, the politician, the alchymist, and pro- minister the information which I have rejector, are cast away in every age. Men of ceived of the beauty, wit, discretion, and warm imaginations and towering thoughts other high qualities which his daughter are apt to overlook the goods of fortune possesses. I will let him know at the same which are near them, for something that time, that it is my intention to make him a glitters in the sight at a distance; to neglect present of a thousand pieces of gold on our solid and substantial happiness for what is marriage night. As soon as I have married showy and superficial; and to contemn that the grand vizier's daughter, I will buy her good which lies within their reach, for that ten black eunuchs, the youngest and the which they are not capable of attaining. best that can be got for money. I must afHope calculates its schemes for a long and terwards make my father-in-law a visit, durable life; presses forward to imaginary with a great train and equipage. And when points of bliss; grasps at impossibilities; and I am placed at his right hand, which he consequently very often ensnares men into will do of course, if it be only to honour his beggary, ruin, and dishonour. daughter, I will give him the thousand What I have here said may serve as a pieces of gold which I promised him; and moral to an Arabian fable, which I find afterwards to his great surprise, will pretranslated into French by Monsieur Gal- sent him with another purse of the same land. The fable has in it such a wild but value, with some short speech: as, "Sir, natural simplicity, that I question not but you see I am a man of my word: I always my reader will be as much pleased with it give more than I promise." as I have been, and that he will consider' When I have brought the princess to himself, if he reflects on the several amuse- my house, I shall take particular care to mentsof hope which have sometimes passed breed her in a due respect for me before 1 in his mind, as a near relation to the Per- give the reins to love and dalliance. To sian glassman. this end I shall confine her to her own Alnaschar, says the fable, was a very idle apartment, make her a short visit, and talk No. 536.] THE SPECTATOR. 309 but little to her. Her women will repre-'London, Nov. 1712. sent to me that she is inconsolable by reason'MR. SPECTATOR, —YOU are always of my unkindness, and beg me with tears ready to receive any useful hint or propoto caress her, and let her sit down by me; sal, and such, I believe, you will think one but I shall still remain inexorable, and will that may put you in a way to employ the turn my back upon her all'the first night. most idle part of the kingdom: I mean that Her mother will then come and bring her part of mankind who are known by the daughter to me, as I am seated upon my name of the women's men, or beaux, &c. sofa. The daughter, with tears in her eyes, Mr. Spectator, you are sensible these pretty will fling herself at my feet, and beg of me gentlemen are not made for any manly emto receive her into my favour. Then will ployments, and for want of business are I, to imprint in her a thorough veneration often as much in the vapours as the ladies. for my person, draw up my legs and spurn Now what I propose is this, that since her from me with my foot, in such a man- knotting is again in fashion, which has been ner that she shall fall down several paces found a very pretty amusement, that you from the sofa.' will recommehd it to these gentlemen as Alnaschar was entirely swallowed up in something that may make them useful to this chimerical vision, and could not forbear the ladies they admire. And since it is not acting with his foot what he had in his inconsistent with any game, or other diverthoughts; so that unluckily striking his sion, for it may be done in the play-house, basket of brittle ware, which was the foun- in their coaches, at the tea-table, and in dation of all his grandeur, he kicked his short, in all places where they come for glasses to a great distance from him into the sake of the ladies, (except at church; the street, and broke them into ten thou- be'pleased to forbid it there to prevent sand pieces. 0. mistakes,) it will be easily complied with. It is besides an employment that allows, as we see by the fair-sex, of many graces, No. 536.] Friday, November 14, 1712. which will make the beaux more readily come into it; it shows a white hand and a O Verai Phrygie, neque enim Phryges! diamond ring to great advantage; it leaves Virg. En. ix 617. the eyes at full liberty to be employed as 0! less than women in the shapes of men! before, as also the thoughts and the tongue. D^rydn. In short, it seems in every respect so proAs I was the other day standing in my per, that it is needless to urge it farther, oookseller's shop, a pretty young thing, by speaking of the satisfaction these male about eighteen years of age, stepped out of knotters will find, when they see their work her coach, and, brushing by me, beckoned mixed up in a fringe, and worn by the fair the man of the shop to the farther end of lady for whom and with whom it was done. his counter, where she whispered some- Truly, Mr. Spectator, I cannot but be thing to him, with an attentive look, and at pleased I have hit upon something that the same time presented him with a letter: these gentlemen are capable of; for it is sad after which, pressing the end of her fan so considerable a part of the kingdom (I upon his hand, she delivered the remaining mean for numbers,) should be of no manpart of her message, and withdrew. I ob- ner of use. I shall not trouble you farther served, in the midst of her discourse, that at this time, but only to say, that I am she flushed and cast an eye upon me over always your reader, and generally your her shoulder, having been informed by my admirer. C. B. bookseller that I was the-man with the short face whom she had so often read of. P. S. The sooner these fine gentlemen Upon her passing by me, the pretty bloom- are set to work the better; there being at mg creature smiled in my face, and drop- this time several finefringes, that stay only ped me a courtesy. She scarce gave me for more hands. time to return her salute, before she quitted I shall in the next place present my the shop with an easy scuttle, and stepped reader with the description of a set of men again into her coach, giving the footmen who are common enough in the world, directions to drive where they were bid. though I do not remember that I have yet Upon her departure, my bookseller gave taken notice of them, as they are drawn in me a letter superscribed,' To the ingenious the following letter. Spectator,' which the young lady had desired him to deliver into my own hands,' M. SPECTATOR,-Since you have lateand to tell me, that the speedy publication ly, to so good purpose, enlarged upon conof it would not only oblige herself but a jugal love, it is to be hoped you will diswhole tea-table of my friends. I opened it courage every practice that rather proceeds therefore with a resolution to publish it, from a regard to interest than to happiness. whatever it should contain, and am sure Now you cannot but observe, that most of if any of mv male readers will be so se- our fine young ladies readily fall in with verely critical as not to like it, they would the direction of the graver sort, to retain have been as well pleased with it as myself, in their service, by some small encouragehad they seen the face of the pretty scribe. ment, as great a number as they can of 310 ThE SPECTATOR. LNo. 537. supernumerary and insignificant fellows, pectations they were born: that by conwhich they use like whifflers, and corn- sidering what is worthy of them, they may monly call " shoeing-horns."-These are be withdrawn from mean pursuits, and ennever designed to know the length of the couraged to laudable undertakings. This foot, but only, when a good offer cdmes, to is turning nobility into a principle of virtue, whet and spur him up to the point. Nay, and making it productive of merit, as it is it is the opinion of that grave lady, madam understood to have been originally a reward Matchwell, that it is absolutely convenient of it. for every prudent family to have several of' It is for the like reason, I imagine, that these implements about the house to clap you have in some of your speculations ason as occasion serves; and that every spark serted to your readers the dignity of human ought to produce a certificate of his being nature. But you cannot be insensible that a shoeing-horn before he be admitted as a this is a controverted doctrine; there are shoe. A certain lady whom I could name, authors who consider human nature in a if it was necessary, has at present more very different view, and books of maxims shoeing-horns of all sizes, countries, and have been written to show the falsity of all colours in her service, thari ever she had human virtues.* The reflections which are new shoes in her life. I have known a wo- made on this subject usually take some man make use of a shoeing-horn for several tincture from the tempers and characters years, and finding him unsuccessful in that of those that make them. Politicians can function, convert him at length into a shoe. resolve the most shining actions among men I am mistaken if your friend, Mr. William into artifice and design; others, who are Honeycomb, was not a cast shoeing-horn soured by discontent, repulses, or ill-usage, before his late marriage. As for myself, I are apt to mistake their spleen for philosomust frankly declare to you, that I have phy; men of profligate lives, and such as been an errant shoeing-horn for above these find themselves incapable of rising to any twenty years. I served my first mistress in distinction among their fellow-creatures, that capacity above five of the number, be- are for pulling down all appearances of fore she was shod. I confess, though she had merit which seem to upbraid them; and many who made their application to her, I satirists describe nothing but deformity, always thought myself the best shoe in her From all these hands we have such draughts shop; and it was not until a month before of mankind, as are represented in those her marriage that I discovered what I was. burlesque pictures which the Italians call This had like to have broke my heart, caricaturas; where the art consists in preand raised such suspicions in me, that I told serving, amidst distorted proportions and the next I made love to, upon receiving aggravated features, some likeness of the some unkind usage from her, that I began person, but in such a manner as to transform to look upon myself as no more than her the most agreeable beauty into the most shoeing-horn. Upon which, my dear, who odious monster. was a coquette in her nature, told me I was'It is very disingenuous to level the best hypochondriacal, and I might as well look of mankind with the worst, and for the upon myself to be an egg, or a pipkin. But faults of particulars to degrade the whole m a very short time after she gave me to species. Such methods tend not only to know that I was not mistaken in myself. It remove a man's good opinion of others, but would be tedious to you to recount the life to destroy that reverence for himself, which of an unfortunate shoeing-horn, or I might is a great guard of innocence, and a spring entertain you with a very long and melan- of virtue. choly relation of my sufferings. Upon the'It is true indeed, that there are surpriswhole, I think, sir, it would very well be- ing mixtures of beauty and deformity, of come a man in your post, to determine in wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, in the what cases a woman may be allowed with human make: such a disparity is found honour to make use of a shoeing-horn, as among numbers of the same kind; and also to declare whether a maid on this side every individual in some instances, or at five-and-twenty, or a widow, who has not some times, is so unequal to himself, that been three years in that state, may be man seems to be the most wavering and granted such a privilege, with other diffi- inconsistent being in the whole creation. culties which will naturally occur to you So that the question in morality concerning upon that subject. I am, sir, with the most the dignity of our nature may at first sight profound veneration, yours, &c.' 0. appear like some difficult questions in natural philosophy, in which the arguments on both sides seem to be of equal strength. No. 537.] Saturday, November 15, 1712. But, as I began with considering this point Too ev mp ao~ e. sv. arat. as it relates to action, I shall here borrow For we are his offspring. Atvii. 28. an admirable reflection from monsieur Paschal, which I think sets it in its propel' To the Sfiectator. light.'SIR,-It has been usual to remind per- sons of rank, on great occasions in life, of This is an allusion to the Reflections et Maxime their race and quality, and to what ex- Morales de M. le Due de la Rochefoucault. No. 537.] THE SPECTATOR. 311 " It is of dangerous consequence," says the soul while in a mortal body lives, ba he, "to represent to man how near he is to when departed out of it dies: or that its the level of beasts, without showing him at consciousness is lost when it is discharged the same time his greatness. It is likewise out of an unconscious habitation. But when dangerous to let him see his greatness with- it is freed from all corporeal alliance, then out his meanness. It is more dangerous yet it truly exists. Farther, since the human to leave hFn ignorant of either; but very frame is broken by death, tell us what be beneficial that he should be made sensible comes of its parts? It is visible whether the of both." Whatever imperfections we may materials of other beings are -ranslated; have in our nature, it is the business of re- namely, to the source from whence they ligion and virtue to rectify them, as far as had their birth. The soul alone, neither is consistent with our present state. In the present nor departed, is the object of our mean time it is no small encouragement to eyes." generous minds to consider, that we shall'Thus Cyrus. But to proceed:-" No put them all off with our mortality. That one shall persuade me, Scipio, that your sublime manner of salutation with which worthy father or your grandfathers Paulus the Jews approach their kings, and Africanus, or Africanus his father or 0 o king, live for ever!" uncle, or many other excellent men whom I need not name, performed so many acmay be addressed to the lowest and most tions to be remembered by posterity, withdespised mortal among us, under all the out being sensible that futurity was their infirmities and distresses with which we right. And, if I may be allowed an old see him surrounded. And whoever believes man's privilege so to speak of myself, do in the immortality of the soul, will not need you think I would have endured the fatigue a better argument for the dignity of his of so many wearisome days and night~, both nature, nor a stronger incitement to actions at home and abroad, if I imagined that the suitable to it. same boundary which is set to my life must' I am naturally led by this reflection to a terminate my glory? Were it not more de subject I have already touched upon in a sirable to have worn out my days in ease former letter, and cannot without pleasure and tranquillity, free from labour and withcall to mind the thought- of Cicero to this out emulation? But, I know not how, my purpose, in the close of his book concerning soul has always raised itself, and looked old age. Every one who is acquainted with forward on futurity, in this view and ex his writings will remember that the elder pectation, that when it shall depart out of Cato is introduced in that discourse as the life it shall then live for ever; and if this speaker, and Scipio and Lelils as his audi- were not true, that the mind is immortal, tors. This venerable person is represented the soul of the most worthy would not, looking forward as it were from the verge above all others, have the strongest imof extreme old age into a future state, and pulse to glory. rising into a contemplation on the unperish- " What besides this is the cause that the able part of his nature, and its existence wisest men die with the greatest equanimity, after death. I shall collect part of his dis- the ignorant with the greatest concern? course. And as you have formerly offered Does it not seem that those minds which some arguments for the soul's immortality, have the most extensive views foresee they agreeable both to reason and the Christian are removing to a happier condition, which doctrine, I believe your readers will not be those of a narrow sight do not perceive? I, displeased to see how the same great truth for my part, am transported with the hope shines in the pomp of Roman eloquence, of seeing your ancestors: whom I have ho"'rhis (says Cato) is my firm persuasion, noured and loved; and am earnestly desirous that since the human soul exerts itself with of meeting not only those excellent persons so great activity; since it has such a re- whom I have known, but those too of whom membrance of the past, such a concern for I have heard and read, and of whom I my the future; since it is enriched with so many self have written; nor would I be detained arts, sciences, and discoveries; it is impos- from so pleasing a journey. O happy day, sible but the being which contains all these when I shall escape from this crowd, this must be immortal." heap of pollution, and be admitted to that' The elder Cyrus, just before his death, divine assembly of exalted spirits! when I is represented by Xenophon speaking after shall go not only to those great persons I this manner: " Think not, my dearest chil- have named, but to my Cato, my son, than dren, that when I depart from you I shall whom a better man was never born, and be no more: but remember, that my soul, whose funeral rites I myself performed, even while I lived among you, was invisible whereas he ought rather to have.attended to you: yet by my actions you were sensible mine. Yet has not his soul deserted me, it existed in this body. Believe it therefore but, seeming to cast back a look on me, is existing still, though it be still unseen. How gone before to those habitations to which it quickly would the honours of illustrious was sensible I should follow him. And men perish after death, if their souls per- though I might appear to have borne my formed nothing to preserve their fame! loss with courage, I was not unaffected with For my own part, I never could think that it; but I comforted myself in the assurance, 312 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 538, that it would not be long before we should until we had worked up ourselves to such meet again and be divorced no more." I a pitch of complaisance, that when the am, sir, &c.' dinner was to come in we inquired the name of every, dish, and hoped it would be no offence to any in company, before it was admitted. When we had sat down, this No. 538.] Monday, November 17, 1712. civility among us turned the discourse from,.- __ Ultra eatables to other sorts of aversions; and the Finem tendere opus.- eternal cat, which plagues every conversa- roi. Sat. i. Lib. 2. 1. tion of this nature, began then to engross To launch beyond all bounds. the subject. One had sweated at the sight of it, another had smelled it out as it lay SURPRISE is so much the life of stbries, concealed in a very distant cupboard; and that every one aims at it who endeavours to he who crowned the whole set of these please by telling them. Smooth delivery, stories, reckoned up the number of times an elegant choice of words, and a sweet ar- in which it had occasioned him to swoon rangement, are all beautifying graces, but away.'At last,' says he,'that you may not the particulars in this point of conversa- all be satisfied of my invincible aversion to tion which either long command the atten- a cat, I shall give an unanswerable instance. tion, or strike with the violence of a sudden As I was going through a street of London, passion, or occasion the burst of laughter where I never had been until then, I felt a which accompanies humour. I have some- general damp and faintaess all over me, times fancied that the mind is in this case which I could not tell how to account for, like a traveller who sees a fine seat in haste; until I chanced to cast my eyes upwards, he acknowledges" the delightfulness of a and found that I was passing under a walk set with regularity, but would be un- sign-post on which the picture of a cat was easy if he were obliged to pace it over, hung.' when the first view had let'him into all its The extravagance of this turn in the way beauties from one end to the other. of surprise, gave a stop to the talk we had However, a knowledge of the success been carrying on. Some were silent bewhich stories will have when they are at- cause they doubted, and others because tended with a turn of surprise, as it has they were conquered in their own way; so happily made the characters of some, so that the gentleman had an opportunity to has it also been the ruin of the characters press the belief of it upon us, and let us see of others. There is a set of men who out- that he was rather exposing himself than rage truth, instead of affecting us with a ridiculing others. manner in telling it; who overleap the line I must freely own that I did not all this of probability that they may be seen to move while disbelieve every thing that was said; out of the common road; anfd endeavour but yet I thought some in the company had only to make their hearers stare by impos- been endeavouring who should pitch the ing upon them with a kind of nonsense bar farthest; that it had for some time been against the philosophy of nature, or such a a measuring cast, and at last my friend of heap of wonders told upon their own know- the cat and sign-post had thrown beyond ledge, as it is not likely one man should them all. have ever met with. I then considered the manner in which I have been led to this observation by a this story had been received, and the possicompany into which I fell accidentally. bility that it might have passed for a jest The subject of antipathies was a proper upon others, if he had not laboured against field wherein such false surprisers might himself. From hence, thought I, there expatiate, and there were those present are two ways which the well-bred world who appeared very fond to show it in its generally takes to correct such a practice, full extent of traditional history. Some of when they do not think fit to contradict it them, in a learned manner, offered to our flatly. consideration the miraculous powers which The first of these is a general silence, the effluviums of cheese have over bodies which I would not advise any one to interwhose pores are disposed to receive them pret in his own behalf. It is often the effect in a noxious manner; others gave an ac- of prudence in avoiding a quarrel, when count of such who could indeed bear the they see another drive so fast that there is sight of cheese, but not the taste; for which no stopping him without being run against; they brought a reason from the milk of and but very seldom the effect of weakness their nurses. Others again discoursed, in believing suddenly. The generality of without endeavouring at reasons, concern- mankind are not so grossly ignorant, as ing an unconquerable aversion which some some overbearing spirits would persuade stomachs have against a joint of meat when themselves; and if the authority of a chait is whole, and the eager inclination they racter or a caution against danger make us have for it when, by its being cut up, the suppress our opinions, yet neither of these shape which had affected them is altered. are of force enough to suppress our thoughts From hence they passed to eels,then to pars. of them. If a man who has endeavoured nips, and so from one aversion to another, to amuse his company with improbabilitie No. SS9.' THE SPECTATOR, 313 could but look into their minds, he would others entertain concerning you. In short, find that they imagine he lightly esteems you are against yourself; the laugh of the of their sense when he thinks to impose company runs against you; the censuring upon them, and that he is less esteemed by world is obliged to you for that triumph them for his attempt in doing so. His en- which you have allowed them at your oWn deavour to glory at their expense becomes expense; and truth, which you have ina ground of quarrel, and the scorn and jured, has a near way of being revenged on indifference with which they entertain it you, when by-the bare repetition of your begins the immediate punishment: and in- story you become a frequent diversion for deed (if we should even go no farther) the public. silence, or a negligent indifference, has a deeper way of wounding than opposition,'MR. -SPECTATOR,-The other day, because opposition proceeds from an anger walking in Pancras church-yard, I thought that has a sort of generous sentiment for of your paper wherein you mention epithe adversary mingling along with it, while taphs, and am of opinion this has a thought it shows that there is some esteem in your in it worth being communicated to your mind for him: in short, that you think him readers. worth while to contest with. But silence, " Here innocence and beauty lies, whose breath or a negligent indifference, proceeds from Was snatch'd by early, not untimely, death. anger, mixed with a scorn that shows Hence did she go, just as she did begin Sorrow to know, before she knew to sin. another he is thought by you too contempt- Death, that does sin and sorrow thus prevent, ible to be regarded. Is the next blessing to a life well spent." The other method which the world has' am sir our servant' taken for correcting this practice of false surprise, is to overshoot such talkers in their own bow, or to raise the story with farther degrees of impossibility, and set up No. 539.] Tuesday, November 18, 1712. for a voucher to them in such a manner Heteroclitasunto as must let them see they stand detected. Be they heteroclites. Thus I have heard a discourse was once managed upon the effects of fear. One of MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a young widow the company had given an account how it of good fortune and family, and just come had turned his friend's hair gray in a night, to town; where I find I have clusters of while the terrors of a shipwreck encom- pretty fellows come already to visit me, passed him. Another, taking the hint some dying with hopes, others with fears, from hence, began, upon his own know- though they never saw me. Now, what I ledge, to enlarge his instances of the like would beg of you would be to know whether nature to such a number, that it was not I may venture to use these pert fellows probable he could ever have met with with the same freedom as I did my country them: and as he still grounded these upon acquaintance. I desire your leave to use different causes for the sake of variety, it them as to me shall seem meet, without might seem at last, from his share of the imputation of a jilt; for since I make declaconversation, almost impossible that any ration that not one of them shall have me, one who can feel the passion of fear, should I think I ought to be allowed the liberty all his life escape so common an effect of it. of insulting those who have the vanity to By this time some of the company grew believe it is in their power to make me negligent, or desirous to contradict him; break that resolution. There are schools but one rebuked the rest with an appear- for learning to use foils, frequented by those ance of severity, and with the known old who never design to fight; and this useless story in his head, assured theim he did not way of aiming at the heart, without design scruple to believe that the fear of any thing to wound it on either side, is the play with can make a man's hair gray, since he knew which I am resolved to divert myself. The one whose periwig had suffered so by it. man who pretends to win, I shall use him Thus he stopped the talk, and made them like one who comes into a fencing-school easy. Thus is the same method taken to to pick a quarrel. I hope upon this foundabring us to shame, which we fondly take tion you will give me the free use of the to increase our character. It is indeed a natural and artificial force of my eyes, kind of mimickry, by which another puts looks, and gestures. As for verbal proon our air of conversation to show us to mises, I will make none, but shall have no ourselves. He seems to look ridiculous mercy on the conceited interpreters of before you, that you may remember how glances and motions. I am particularly near a resemblance you bear to him; or skilled in the downcast eye, and the recothat you may know that he will not lie very into a sudden full aspect and away dnder the imputation of believing you. again, as you may have seen sometimes Then it is that you are struck dumb im- practised by us country beauties beyond mediately with a conscientious shame for all that you have. observed in courts and what you have been saying. Then it is cities. Add to this, sir, that I have a ruddy that you are inwardly grieved at the senti- heedless look, which covers artifice the ments which you cannot but perceive best of any thing. Though I can dance VOL. II. 40 .S14 THE SPECTATOR. [No. s40. very well, I affect a tottering untaught way Spectator, this reverend divine gave us his of walking, by which I appear an easy grace's sermon, and yet I do not know prey; and never exert my instructed how; even I that am sure have read it at charms, until I find I have engaged a pur- least twenty times, could not tell what to suer. Be pleased, sir, to print this letter, make of it, and was at a loss sometimes to which will certainly begin the chase of a guess what the man aimed at. He was so rich widow. The many foldings, escapes, just, indeed, as to give us all the heads and returns, and doublings, which I make, I the subdivisions of the sermon, and farther shall from time to time communicate to I think there was not one beautiful thought you, for the better instruction of all females, in it but what we had. But then, sir, this who set up, like me, for reducing the pre- gentleman made so many pretty additions; sent exorbitant power and insolence of and he could never give us a paragraph of man. I am, sir, your faithful corres- the sermon but he introduced it with somepondent, RELICTA LOVELY.' thing which methought looked more like a'DEAR MR. SPECTATOR,-I depend design to show his own ingenuity than to upon your professed respect for virtuous instruct the people. In short, he added love for your immediately answering the and curtailed in such a manner, that he design of this letter: which is no other vexed me; insomuch that I could not forthan to lay before the world the severity of bear thinking (what I contess I ought not certain parents, who desire to suspend the to have thought in so holy a place,) that marriage of a discreet young woman of eigh- this young spark was as ustly blameable teen, three vears longer, for no other reason as Bullock or Penkethman, when they but that of her being too young to enter mend anoble play of Shakspeare or Joninto that state. As to the consideration of son. Pray, sir, takethis intoyour considerariches, my circumstances are such, that I tion; and, if we must be entertained with cannot be suspected to make my addresses the works of any of those great men, desire to her on such low motives as avarice or these gentlemen to give them us as they ambition. If ever innocence, wit, and find them, that so when we read them to beauty, united their utmost charms, they our families at home they may the better have in her. I wish you would expatiate remember they have heard them at a little on this subject, and admonish her church. Sir, your humble servant.' parents that it may be from the very imperfection of human nature itself, and not No. 540.] Wednesday, Jovember 19, 1712. any personal frailty of her or me, that our inclinations baffled at present may alter; -Non deficit alter. —Vir. En. vi. 143. and while we are arguing with ourselves to A second is not wanting. put off the enjoyment of our present pas-'MR. SPECTATOR,-There is no part of sions, our affections may change their ob- ritings which I have in more esteem jects in the operation. It is a very delicate ha your criticism upon Milton. It is an subjecttotalkupon;butifitwerebut than y cism upo subject to talk upon; but if it were but honourable and candid endeavour to set the hinted, I am in hopes it would give the works of our noble writers in the graceful parties concerned some reflection that light which they deserve. You will loSe might expedite our happiness. There is a ligt ch they incini on t owd s possibility, and I hope I maysay it without f my kind inclinattempt the enc omium of imputation of immodesty to her I love with Sp u also, or at least indulge my pasthe highest honour; I say there is a p Spenser also, or at least indulge my pasthe highestP honour; I say there is a poss sion for that charming author so far as to biity this delay m ay be as pinful to her as print the loose hints I now give you on that it is to me; if it be as much, it must be subject. more, by reason of the severe rules the sex'Spenser's general plan is the represenare under, in being denied even the relief tation of six virtues —holiness, temperance, of complaint. If you oblige me in this, and chastity, friendship, justice, and courtesyI succeed, I promise you a place at my wed- i six legends by six persons. The six ding, and a treatment suitable to your ding a nd a treatmen ot s uita ble to your personages are supposed, under proper alspectatorial dignity. YourEmot humb legories suitable to their respective characservant, EUSTACE.' ters, to do all that is necessary for the SIR,-I yesterday heard a young gentle- full manifestation of the respective virtues man, that looked as if he had come just to which they are to exert. the gown and a scarf, upon evil speaking:'These, one might undertake to show which subject you know archbishop Til- under the several heads, are admirably lotson has so nobly handled in a sermon in drawn; no images improper, and most surhis folio. As soon as ever he had named his prisingly beautiful. The Redcross Knight text, and had opened a little the drift of runs through the whole steps of the Chrishis discourse, I was in great hopes he had tian life; Guyon does all that temperance been one of Sir Roger's chaplains. I have can possibly require; Britomartis (a woman) conceived so great an idea of the charming observes the true rules of unaffected chasdiscourse above, that I should have thought tity; Arthegal is in every respect of life one part of my sabbath very well spent in strictly and wisely just; Calidore is rightly hearing a repetition of it. But, alas! Mr. courteous. No. 541.] THE' SPECI A rOR, 315 In short, in Fairly-land, where knights- 34. errant have a full scope to range, and to do " There entering in, they found the good mars's se even what Ariostos or Orlandos could not Full busily unto his work ybent, do in the world without breaking into cre- Who was so weel a wretched wearish elf, With hollow eyes and rawbone cheeks far spent, dibility, Spenser's knights have, under As if he had in prison long been pent. those six heads, given a ill and truly Full black and griesly did his face appear, poetical system of Christian, public, and Besmear'd with smoke, that nigh his eye-sight blent poeticl stith rugged beard, and hoary shagged hair, lOW life., The which he never wont to comb, or comely shear.' His legend of friendship is more diffuse; 35. and yet even there the allegory is finely Rude was his garnent, and to rags all rent, drawn, only the heads various; one knight Ne better had he, ne for better cared; could not there support all the parts. His blister'd hands amongst the cinders brent,'To do honour to his country, prince 4nd fingers filthy, with long nails prepared, To do honour to his country, prince Right fit to rend the food on which he fared. Arthur is a universal hero; in holiness, His name was Care: a blacksmith by his trade, temperance, chastity, and justice, super- That neither day nor night-from working spared, excellent. For the same reason, and to But to small purpose iron wedges mtade: ece llent. quen Ezabet, reason, an'These be unquiet thoughts that careful minds invade." comnpliment queen Elizabeth, Gloriana, queen of fairies, whose court was the asy-' Homer's epithets were much admired lum of the oppressed, represents that glo- by antiquity: see, what great justness and rious queen. At her commands all these variety there are in these epithets of the knights set forth, and only at hers the Red- trees in the forest, where the Redcross cross Knight destroys the dragon, Guyon Knight lost truth, B. i. Cant. i. Stan. 8, 9 overturns the Bower of Bliss, Arthegal.. overturns the Bower of Bliss, Arthegal " The sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall, i. e. Justice) beats down Geryoneo (i. e. The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry; Philip II. king of Spain) to rescue Belge The builder oak, sole king of forests all, (i. e. Holland,) and he beats the Grantorto The aspine, good for staves, the cypress funeral. (the same Philip in another light) to restore 9. Irena (i. e. Peace) to Europe. " The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors,.'Chastity being the first female virtue, And poets sage; the fir, that weepeth still, Chastity being the first female virtue, The willow, worn of forlorn paramours, Britomartis is a Briton; her part is fine, The yew, obedient to the bender's will, though it requires explication. His style The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill: is very poetical; no puns, affectations of The myrrhe sweet, bleeding in the bitter wound, IS vey poetical; no puns, a s o The war-like beech, the ash, for nothing ill, wit, forced antitheses, or any of that low The fruitful olive, and the plantane round, tribe. The carver holm, the maple, seldom inward sound." His old words are all true English, and shall trouble you no more, but desire numbers exquisite; and since of words there you to let me c lude with these verses is the multa renassentur, since they are all though I think they have already beer. proper, such a poem should not (any more quoted by you. They are addressed tc than Milton's) consist all of it of common young adies oppressed with calumny v ordinary words. See instances of descrip- 6. 14. tions.. "The best (said he) that I can you advise Causeless jealousy in Britomartis, v. 6, 14, Is to avoid the occasion of the ill; in its estlessness. For when the cause whence evil doth arise, Removed is, the effect surceaseth still. Abstain from pleasure and restrain your will, "Like as a wayward child, whose sounder sleepe Subdue desire and bridle loose delight, rs broken with some fearful dream's affright, Use scanted diet, and forbear your fill, With froward will doth set himself to weep, Shun secresy, and talk in open sight, Ne can be still'd for all his nurse's might, So shall you soon repair your present evil plight." But kicks and squalls, and shrieks for fell despite: T. Now scratching her, and her loose locks misusing, Now seeking darkness, and now seeking light; Then craving suck, and then the suck refusing: Suchwasthislady'slovesinherlove'sfondaccusing." No. 541.] Thursday, Jovember 20, 1712. Curiosity occasioned by jealousy, upon oc- Format enim natura prius nos intus ad omnem, casion of her lover's absence. Ibid. Stan, Fortunarum habitum: juvat, aut impellit ad iram. 8 9. Aut ad humum mcerore gravi deducit, et angit: 8, 9 Post effert animi motus interprete lingua. Hor. JArs Poet. ver. 108. " Then as she looked long, at last she spied One coming towards her with hasty speed, For nature forms and softens us within, Well ween'd she then, ere him she plain descry'd, And writes our fortune's changes in our face: That it was one sent from her love indeed: Pleasure enchants, impetuous rage transports, Whereat her heart was fill'd with hope and dread, And grief dejects, and wrings the tortur'd soul: Ne would she stay till he in place could come, And these are all interpreted by speech. But ran to meet him forth to know his tidings somme; Roscommon. Even in the door him meeting, she begun, fr' And where is he, thy lord, and how far hence? MY friend the Templar, whom I hav. Declare at once: and hath he lost or won?" so often mentioned in these writings, hav ing determined to lay aside his poetical Care and his house are described thus, v. studies, in order to a closer pursuit of the 6. 33, 34, 35. law, has put together, as a farewell essay, "Not far away, nor meet for any guest, some thoughts concerning pronunciation They spied a little cottage, like some poor man's nest, and action, which he has given me leave 316 THE SPECTATOR. [No. $41. to communicate to the public. -They are acute, raised, and hurrying sound. The chiefly collected from his favourite author itassionate character of king Lear, as it is Cicero, who is known to have been an inti- admirably drawn by Shakspeare, abounds mate friend of Roscius the actor, and a with the strongest instances of this kind. good judge of dramatic performances, as. Death Confusion! well as the most eloquent pleader of the Fiery what quality?-why Gloster!Gloster! time in which he lived. I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife. Cicero concludes his celebrated books De Are they informed of this? my breath and blood! Fiery! the fiery duke!'-&e, Oratore with some precepts for pronuncia- Fedue &c tion and action, without which part he af- Sorrow and complaint demand a voice firms that the best orator in the world can quite different; flexible, slow, interrupted, never succeed; and an indifferent one, who and modulated in a mournful tone: as in is master of this, shall gain much greater that pathetical soliloquy of cardinal Wolapplause.'What could make a stronger sey on his fall. impression,' says he,'than those exclama-'Farewell!-A long farewell to all my greatness! tions of Gracchus?'-" Whither shall I This is the state of man!-to day he puts forth turn? Wretch that I am! to what place The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms, betake myself? Shall I go to the Capitol? And bears his blushing honours thick upon him; betakemyself? Shall totheCapitol? The third day comes a fiost, a killing frost, Alas! it is overflowed with my brother's And when he thinks, good, easy man, full surely blood. Or shall I retire to my house? Yet His greatness is a ripening, nips his root; And then he fails as I do.' there I behold my mother plunged in misery, weeping and despairing!" These We have likewise a fine example of this breaks and turns of passion, it seems, were in the whole of Andromache in the Distrest so enforced by the eyes, voice, and gesture Mother, particularly in these linesof the speaker, that his very enemies could I'll go, and in the anguish of my heart not refrain from tears.'I insist,' says Weep o'er my child Ifhe must die, my life Tully,'upon this the rather, because our Is wrapt in his, I shall not long survive: orators, who are as it were actors of the'Tis for his sake that I have suiffered life, orators, who are as it were actors of the Groan'd in captivity, and out-liv'd Hector. truth itself, have quitted this manner of Yes, my Astyanax, we'll go together I speaking: and the players, who are but the Together to the realms of night we'll go, imitators of truth, have taken it up.' There to thy ravish'd eyes thy sire I'll show, imitators o truth, ave taken it up. And point him out among the shades below.' I shall therefore pursue the hint he has here given me, and for the service of the Fear expresses itself in a low, hesitating, British stage I shall copy some of the rules and abject sound. If the reader considers which this great Roman master has laid the following speech of lady Macbeth, down; yet without confining myself wholly while her husband is about the murder ot to his thoughts or words: and to adapt this Duncan and his grooms, he will imagine essay the more to the purpose for which I her even affrighted with the sound of her intend it, instead of the examples he has own voice while she is speaking it. inserted in this discourse out of the ancient' Alas! I am afraid they have awak'd, tragedies, I shall make use of parallel pas- And'tis not done; th' attempt and not the deed, sages out of the most celebrated of our own. Confound us-Hark! I laid the daggers ready, He could not miss them. Had he not resembled The design of art is to assist action as My father as he slept, I had done it.' much as possible in the representation of nature; for the appearance of reality is Courageassumes a louder tone, as in tha that which moves us in all representations, speech of Don Sebastian and these have always the greater force' Here satiate all your fury: the nearer they approach to nature, and Let fortune empty her whole quiver on me; ~show of imitation.~ ~I have a soul, that, like an ample shield, the less they show of imitation. Can take in all, and verge enough for more.' Nature herself has assigned to every motion of the soul its peculiar cast of the Pleasure dissolves into a luxurious, mild, countenance, tone of voice, and nanner of tender, and joyous modulation; as in the gesture, through. the whole person; all the following lines in Caius Marius. features of the face and tones of the voice' Lavinia! 0 there's music in the name, answer, like strings upon musical instru- That softning me to infant tenderness, ments, to the impressions made on them by. Makes my heart spring like the first leaps of life.' the mind. Thus the sounds of the voice, And perplexity is different from all these according to the various touches which grave, but not bemoaning, with an earnest raise them, form themselves into an acute uniform sound of voice; as in that celebratea or grave, quick or slow, loud or soft, tone. speech of Hamlet. These two may be subdivided into various,To be, or not to be!ithat is the question. kinds of tones, as the gentle, the rough, the Whether'tis nobler in the mind to suffer contracted, the diffuse, the continued, the The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune: intermitted, the broken, abrupt, winding, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, intermitted, the broken, abrupt, winding, softened or elevated. Every one of these And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep. softened or elevated. Every one of these No more; and by a sleep to say we end may be employed with art and judgment; The heart ache, and a thousand natural shocks and all supply the actor, as colours do the That fesh is heir to;'tis a consummation ann,with an expressive variety. Devoutly to be wish'd i To die, to sleep! —painter, with an expressive variety. To sleep; perchance to dream! Ay, there's the rub; Anger exerts its peculiar voice in an For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come, No. 542.] THE SPECTATOR 317 When we have shuffled off this mortl coil, swer to which I venture to lay it down as a Must give us pause-There's the respect maxim, that without good sense no one can That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, be a good player, and that he is very unfit Th' oppressor's wrongs, the proud man's contumely, to personate the dignity of a Roman hero The pangs of despis'd love, th law's delay, who cannot enter into the rules for pronunThe insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, ciation and gesture delivered by a Roman When he himself might his quietus make, orator. With a bare bodkin? Who would fardles bear, There is another thing which my author To groan and sweat under a weary life? But that the dread of something after death, does not think too minute to insist on, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn though it is purely mechanical; and that is No traveller returns, puzzles the will, ther t pitching of the voice. On this And makes us rather choose those ills we have,e On Than fly to others that we know not of.' occasion he tells the story of Gracchus, who employed a servant with a little ivory As all these varieties of voice are to be pipe to stand behind him, and give him directed by the sense, so the action is to be the right pitch, as often as he wandered too directed by the voice, and with a beautiful far from the proper modulation.' Every propriety, as it were, to enforce it. The voice,' says Tully,'has its particular mearm, which by a strong figure Tully calls dium and compass, and the sweetness of the orator's weapon, is to be sometimes speech consists in leading it through all the raised and extended: and the hand, by its variety of tones naturally, and without motion, sometimes to lead, and sometimes touching any extreme. Therefore,' says to follow, the words as they are uttered. he,' leave the pipe at home, but carry the The stamping of the foot too has its proper sense of custom with you. expression in contention, anger, or absolute command. But the face is the epitome of the whole man, and the eyes are, as ito. 542. day, ember 21,1712 were, the epitome of the face;' for which reason, he says, the best judges among the Et sibi prsferri se gaudet Romans were not extremely pleased even Ovid, Met. Lib. ii. 430 with Roscius himself in his mask. No part -He heard, of the body, besides the face, is capable of Well pleased, himself before himself preferred. as many changes as there are different ddin. emotions in the mind, and of expressing WHEN I have been present in assemblies them all by those changes. Nor is this to where my paper has been talked of, I have be done without the freedom of the eyes; been very well pleased to hear those who therefore Theophratus called one, who would detract from the author of it observe barely rehearsed his speech with his eyes that the letters which are sent to the Spec fixed, an' absent actor.' tator are as good, if not better, than any of As the countenance admits of so great his works. Upon this occasion many letvariety, it requires also great judgment to ters of mirth are usually mentioned, which govern it. Not that the form of the face is some think the Spectator writ to himself, to be shifted on every occasion; lest it turn and which others commend because they to farce and buffoonery; but it is certain fancy he received them from his corresthat the eyes have a wonderful power of pondents. Such are those from the valetumarking the emotions of the mind; some- dinarian; the inspector of the sign-posts; times by a steadfast look, sometimes by a the master of the fan exercise; with that careless one-now by a sudden regard, of the hooped petticoat; that of Nicholas then by a joyful sparkling, as the sense of Hart, the annual sleeper; that from Sir the word is diversified: for action is, as it John Envil; that upon London cries; with were, the speech of the features and multitudes of the same nature. As I love limbs, and must therefore conform itself nothing more than to mortify the ill-natured, always to the sentiments of the soul. And that I may do it effectually, I must acquaint it may be observed, that in all which re- them they have very often praised me when lates to the gesture there is a wonderful they did not design it, and that they have force implanted by nature: since the vulgar, approved my writings when they thought the unskilful, and even the most barbarous, they had derogated from them. I have are chiefly affected by this. None are heard several of these unhappy gentlemen moved by the sound of words but those proving, by undeniable arguments, that who understand the language; and the I was not able to pen a letter which I had sense of many things is lost upon men of a written the day before. Nay, I have heard dull apprehension: but action is a kind of some of them throwing out ambiguous exuniversal tongue: all men are subject to the pressions, and giving the company reason to same passions, and consequently know the suspect that they themselves did me the hosame marks of them in others, by which nour to send me such and such a particular they themselves express them. epistle, which happened to be talked of Perhaps some of my readers may be of with the esteem or approbation of those opinion that the hints I have here made who were present. These rigid critics are use of out of Cicero are somewhat too re- so afraid of allowing me any tliing which fined for the players on our theatre; in an- does not belong to me, that they wil' not 318 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 542. be positive whether the lion, the wild boar, was made use of, that is not liaole to this and the flower-pots in the play-house, did exception; since nothing, according to this not actually write those letters which came notion, can be related innocently, which to me in their names. I must therefore in- was not once matter of fact. Besides I form these gentlemen, that I often choose think the most ordinary reader may be this way of casting my thoughts into a let- able to discover, by my way of writing, ter, for the following reasons. First, out what I deliver in these occurrences as of the policy of those who try their jest truth, and what as fiction. upon another, before they own it them- Since I am unawares engaged in answerselves. Secondly, because I would extort a ing the several objections which have been little praise from such who will never ap- made against these my works, I must take plaud any thing whose author is known and notice that there are some who affirm a certain. Thirdly, because it gave me an paper of this nature should always turn opportunity of introducing a great variety upon diverting subjects, and others who of characters into my works, which could find fault with every one of them that hath not have been done had I always written in not an immediate tendency to the advancethe person of the Spectator. Fourthly, be- ment of religion or learning. I shall leave cause the dignity spectatorial would have these gentlemen to dispute it out among suffered had I published as from myself themselves; since I see one half of my conthose severe ludicrous compositions which duct patronized by each side. Were I I have ascribed to fictitious names and serious on an improper subject, or trifling characters. And lastly, because they often in a serious one, I should deservedly draw serve to bring in more naturally such ad- upon me the censure of my readers: or ditional reflections as have been placed at were I conscious of any thing in my writthe end of them. ings that is not innocent at least, or that There are others who have likewise done the greatest part of them were not sincerely me a very particular honour, though un- designed to discountenance vice and ignodesignedly. These are such who willneeds rance, and support the interest of truth, have it that I have translated or borrowed wisdom, and virtue, I should be more many of my thoughts out of books which severe upon myself than the public is disare written in other languages. I have posed to be. In the mean while I desire heard of a person, who is more famous for my reader to consider every particular his library than his learning, that has as- paper, or discourse, as a distinct tract by serted this more than once in'his private itself, and independent of every thing that conversation.* Were it true, I am sure he goes before or after it. could not'speak it from his own knowledge; I shall end this paper with the following but, had he read the books which he has letter, which was really sent me, as some collected, he would find this accusation to others have been which I have published, be wholly groundless. Those who are truly and for which I must own myself indebt learned will acquit me in this point, in ed to their respective writers. which I have been so far from offending, that I have been scrupulous, perhaps to a' SIR,-I was this morning in a company fault, in quoting the authors of several pas- of your well-wishers, when we read over, sages which I might have made my own. with great satisfaction, Tully's observation But, as this assertion is in reality an enco- on action adapted to the British theatre: mium on what I have published, I ought though by the way, we were very sorry to rather to glory in it than endeavour to con- find that you have disposed of another fute it. member of your club. Poor Sir Roger is Some are so very willing to alienate from dead, and the worthy clergyman dying; me that small reputation which might ac- captain Sentry has taken possession of a crue to me from any of these my specula- good estate; Will Honeycomb has married tions, that they attribute some of the best a farmer's daughter; and the Templar of them to those imaginary manuscripts withdraws himself into the business of his with which I have introduced them. There own profession. What will all this end in? are others I must confess whose objections We are afraid it portends no good to the have given me a greater concern, as they public. Unless you very speedily fix the seem to reflect, under this head, rather on day for the election of new members, we my morality than on my invention. These are under apprehensions of losing the are they who say an author is guilty of British Spectator. Ihear of a party of ladies falsehood, when he talks to the public who intended to address you on this subject: of manuscripts which he never saw, or and I question not, if you do not give us describes scenes of action or discourse in the slip very suddenly, that you will rewhich he was never engaged. But these ceive addresses from all parts of the kinggentlemen would do well to consider, that dom to continue so useful a work. Pray there is not a fable or parable, which ever deliver us out of this perplexity; and, among the multitude of your readers, you * This is an allusion to Mr. Thomas Rowlinson, the will particularly oblige your most sincere celebrated book collector. Addison had already ridi- friend and servant, culed him in the Tattler, No. 158, under the name of s,' OTom Frlio. 0.'PHILO-SPEC.' No. 543.] THE SPECTATOR. 319 No. 543.] Saturday, November 22, 1712. miracle of the present age, can lock t'hrough a whole planetary system; consider it in ~ Facies non omnibus una, its weight, number, and measure; and draw NOidec, diversa tamen Li.. 1. from it as many demonstrations of infinite Similar, though not the sam. power and wisdom, as a more confined unSimilar, though not the saderstanding is able to deduce from the sysTHOSE who were skilful in anatomy, tem of a human body. among the ancients, concluded, from the But to return to our speculations on anaoutward and inward make of a human tomy, I shall here consider the fabric and body, that it was the work of a Being texture of the bodies of animals in one partranscendently wise and powerful. As the ticular view: which in my opinion shows world grew more enlightened in this art, the hand of a thinking and all-wise Being their discoveries gave them fresh oppor- in their formation, with the evidence of a tunities of admiring the conduct of Provi- thousand demonstrations. I think we may dence in the formation of a human body. lay this down as an incontested principle, Galen was converted by his dissections, and that chance never acts in a perpetual unicould not but own a Supreme Being upon formity and consistence with itself. If one a survey of this handy-work. There were, should always fling the same number with indeed, many parts, of which the old ana- ten thousand dice, or see every throw just tomists did not know the certain use; but, five times less, or five times more in numas they say that most of those which they ber, than the throw which immediately examined were adapted with admirable preceded it, who would not imagine there art to their several functions, they did not is some invisible power which directs the question but those, whose uses they could cast? This is the proceeding which we not determine, were contrived with the find in the operations of nature. Every same wisdom for respective ends and pur- kind of animal is diversified by different poses. Since the circulation of the blood magnitudes, each of which gives rise to a has been found out, and many other great different species. Let a man trace the dog discoveries have been made by our modern or lion kind, and he will observe how many anatomists, we see new wonders in the of the works of nature are published, if I human frame, and discern several impor- may use the expression, in a variety of tant uses for those parts, which uses the editions. If we look into the reptile world, ancients knew nothing of. In short, the or into those different kinds of animals body of man is such a subject as stands the that fill the element of water, we meet utmost test of examination. Though it with the same repetition among several appears formed with the nicest wisdom, species, that differ very little from one upon the most superficial survey of it, it another, but in size and bulk. You find still mends upon the search, and produces the same creature that is drawn at large, our surprise and amazement in proportion copied out in several proportions and endas we pry into it. What I have here said ing in miniature. It would be tedious. to of a human body may be applied to the produce instances of this regulh conduct body of every animal which has been the in Providence, as it would be superfluous subject of anatomical observations. to those who are versed in the natural The body of an animal is an object ade- history of animals. The magnificent harquate to our senses. It is a particular mony of the universe is such, that we may system of Providence that lies in a narrow observe innumerable divisions running upon compass. The eye is able to command it, the same ground. I might also extend this and by successive inquiries can search into speculation to the dead parts of nature, in all its parts. Could the body of the whole which we may find matter disposed into earth, or indeed the whole universe, be many similar systems, as well in our survey thus submitted to the examination of our of stars and planets as of stones, vegesenses, were it not too big and dispropor- tables, and other sublunary,parts of the tioned for our inquiries, too unwieldy for creation. In a word, Providence has shown the management of the eye and hand, there the richness of its goodness and wisdom, is no question but it would appear to us as not only in the production of many original curious and well contrived a frame as that species, but in the multiplicity of descants of the human body. We should see the which it has made on every original species same concatenation and subserviency, the in particular. same necessity and usefulness, the same But to pursue this thought still farther. beauty and harmony, in all and every of its Every living creature, considered in itself, parts, as what we discover in the body of has many very complicated parts that are every single arfimal. exact copies of some other parts which it The more extended our reason is, and possesses, and which are complicated in the more able to grapple with immense the same manner. One eye would have objects, the greater still are those discove- been sufficient for the subsistence and preries which it makes of wisdom and pro- servation of an animal; but, in order to vidence in the works of the creation. A better his condition, we see another placed Sir Isaac Newton, who stands up as the with a mathematical exactness in the same 320 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 544. most advantageous situation, and in every No. 544.] Monday, Arovember 24, 1712. particular of the same size and texture. Is it possible for chance to be thus delicate Nunquam ita quisquam bene subducta ratione a and uniform in her operation? Should a Quin res, etas, usus, semper aliquid apportet novi, million of dice turn up together twice the Aliquid moneat: ut illa, qual te scire credas, nescias; same number, the wonder would be nothing Et, qure tibi putaris prima, in experiundo ut repudies samTer. Adelph. Act. v. Sc. 4. in comparison with this. But when wesee No man was ever so compltely skilled in te con this similitude and resemblance in the arm, duct of life, as not to receive new information from the hand, the fingers: when we see one age and experience: insomuch that we find ourselves half of the body entirely correspond with really ignorant of what we thought we understood, a o e d en tely corresp wit and see cause to reject what we fancied our truest the other in all those minute strokes, with- interest. out which a man might have very well subsisted; nay, when we often see a single THERE are, I think, seienits in the part repeated a hundred times in the same followin letter from my fiend captain body, notwithstanding it consists of the Sentry, which discover a rational and equal most intricate weaving of numberless fibres, frame of mind, as well prepared for an adand these parts differing still in magnitude, vantageous as an unfortunate change of as the convenience of their particular situation requires; sure a man must have a'Coverley-hall, Nov. 15, Worcestershire. strange cast of understanding, who does eSIR,-I am come to the succession of not discover the finger of God in so won- the estate of my honoured kinsman, Sir derful a work. These duplicates in those Roger de Coverley; and I assure you I find parts of the body, without which a man it no easy task to keep up the figure of might have very well subsisted, though master of the fortune which was so handnot so well as with them, are a plain de- somely enjoyed by that honest plain man. monstration of an all-wise Contriver, as I cannot (with respect to the great obligathose more numerous copyings which are tions I have, be it spoken) reflect upon his found among the vessels of the same body, character, but I am confirmed in the truth are evident demonstrations that they could which I have, I think, heard spoken at the not be the work of chance. This argument club; to wit, that a man of a warm and wellreceives additional strength, if we apply it disposed heart, with a very small capacity, to every animal and insect within our is highly superior in human society to him knowledge, as well as to those numberless who, with the greatest talents, is cold and living creatures that are objects too minute languid in his affections. But alas! why do for a human eye; and if we consider how I make a difficulty in speaking of my worthy the several species in this whole world of ancestor's failings? His little absurdities life resemble one another in very many and incapacity for the conversation of the particulars, so far as is convenient for their politest men are dead with him, and his respective states of existence, it is much greater qualities are ever now useful to more probable that a hundred millions of him. I know not whether by naming those dice should be casually thrown a hundred disabilities I do not enhance his merit, since millions of times in the same number, than he has left behind him a reputation in his that the body of any single animal should country which would be worth the pains of be produced by the fortuitous concourse of the wisest man's whole life to arrive at. matter. And that the like chance should By the way, I must observe to you, that arise in innumerable instances requires a many of your readers have mistook that degree of credulity that is not under the passage in your writings, vherein Sir Roger direction of common smnse. WVe may carry is reported to have inquired into the private this consideration yet farther, if we reflect character of the young woman at the tavern. on the tvwo sexes in every living species, I know you mentioned that circumstance as with their resemblance to each other, and an instance of the simplicity and innocence those particular distinctions that were ne- of his mind, which made him imagine it a cessary for the keeping up of this great very easy thing to reclaim one of those world of life. criminals, and not as an inclination in him There are many more demonstrations of to be guilty with her. The less discerning a Supreme Being, and of his transcendent of your readers cannot enter into that deliwisdom, power, and goodness, in the forma- cacy of description in the character: but tion of the body of a living creature, for indeed my chief business at this time is to which I refer my reader to other writ- represent to you my present state of mind, ings, particularly to the sixth book of the and the satisfaction I promise to myself in poem entitled Creation,* where the ana- the possession of my new fortune. I have tomy of the human body is described with continued all Sir Roger's servants, except great perspicuity and elegance. I have such as it was a relief to dismiss into little been particular on the thought which runs beings within my manor. Those who are through this speculation, because I have in a list of the good knight's own hand to be not seen it enlarged upon by others. 0. taken care of by rre, I have quartered upon such as have taken new leases of me, and added so many advantages during the lives * Creation. A poem by Sir Richard Blackmore. of the persons so quartered, that it is the No. 545.] THE SPEC FATOR. 321 interest of those whom they are joined with, this worth, we could never have seen the to cherish and befriend them upon all occa- glorious events which we have in our days. sions. I find a considerable sum of ready I need not say more to illustrate the chamoney, which I am laying out among my racter of a soldier than to tell you he is the dependants at the common interest, but very contrary to him you observe loud, with a design to lend it according to their saucy, and overbearing, in a red coat about merit, rather than according to their ability. town. But I was going to tell you that, in I shall lay a tax upon such as I have highly honour of the profession of arms, I have set obliged, to become security to me for such apart a certain sum of money for a table for of their own poor youth, whether male or such gentlemen as have served their counfemale, as want help towards getting into try in the army, and will please from time some being in the world. I hope I shall be to time to sojourn all, or any part of the able to manage my affairs so as to improve year, at Coverley. Such of them as will do my fortune every year by doing acts of me that honour shall find horses, servants, kindness. I will lend my money to the use and all things necessary for their accomof none but indigent men, secured by such modation and enjoyment of all the conveas have ceased to be indigent by the favour niences of life in a pleasant various country. of my family or myself. What makes this If colonel Camperfelt* be in town, and his the more practicable is, that if they will do abilities are not employed another way in any good with my money, they are welcome the service, there is no man would be more to it upon their own security: and I make welcome here. That gentleman's thorough no exceptions against it, because the per- knowledge in his profession, together with sons who enter into the obligations do it for the simplicity of his manners and goodness their own family. I have laid out four thou- of his heart, would induce others like him sand pounds this way, and it is not to be to honour my abode; and I should be glad imagined what a crowd of people are obliged my acquaintance would take themselves to by it. In cases where Sir Roger has recom- be invited, or not, as their characters have mended, I have lent money to put out chil- an affinity to his. dren, with a clause which makes void the I would have all my friends know that obligation in case the infant dies before he they need not fear (though I am become a is out of his apprenticeship; by which country gentleman) I will trespass against means the kindred and masters are ex- their temperance and sobriety. No sir, I tremely careful of breeding him to industry, shall retain so much of the good sentiments that he may re-pay it himself by his labour, for the conduct of life, which we cultivated in three years journey-work after his time in each other at our club, as to contemn all is out, for the use of his securities. Op- inordinate pleasures; but particularly reportunities of this kind are all that have member, with our beloved Tully, that the occurred since I came to my estate: but I delight in food consists in desire, not satiety. assure you I will preserve a constant dis- They who most passionately pursue pesaposition to catch at all the occasions I can sure, seldomest arrive at it. Now I am to promote the good and happiness of my writing to a philosopher, I cannot forbear neighbourhood. mentioning the satisfaction I took in the' But give me leave to lay before you a passage I read yesterday in the same Tully. little establishment which has grown out A nobleman of Athens made a compliment of my past life, that I doubt not will ad- to Plato the morning after he-had supped minister great satisfaction to me in that at his house. " Your entertainments do not part of it, whatever that is, which is to only please when you give them, but also come. the day after." I am, my worthy friend,'There is a prejudice in favour of the your most obedient humble servant, way of life to which a man has been edu- T.' WILLIAM SENTRY.' cated, which I know not whether it would not be faulty to overcome. It is like a partiality to the interest of one's own country No. 545. Tuesday, November 25, 1712. before that of any other nation. It is. from a habit of thinking, grown upon me from Quin potius pacenm iternam pactosque hymenaeos my youth spent in arms, that I have ever Exercemus -- Virg. n. iv. 99. held gentlemen, who have preserved mo- Let us in bonds of lasting peace unite, desty, good-nature, justice, and humanity, And celebrate the hymeneal rite. in a soldier's life, to be the most valuable I CANNOT but think the following letter and worthy persons of the human race. To from the emperor of China to the pope of pass through imminent dangers, suffer pain- Rome, proposing a coalition of the Chinese ul watchings, frightful alarms, and labor- and Roman churches, will be acceptable to ous marches, for the greater part of a man's the curious. I must confess, I myself being time, and pass the rest in sobriety conform- of opinion that the emperor has as much able to the rules of the most'virtuous civil authority to be interpreter to him he prelife, is a merit too great to deserve the treatment it usually meets with among the tretr parmnt f t ll ee wi rld Bt Iamon he * A fine compliment to colonel Kempenfelt, father of other parts of the world. But I assure you, the admiral, who was drowned in the Royal George at sir, were there not very many who have Spithead, August 29, 1782. V.. II. 41 322 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 545. tends to expound, as the pope has to be a regni d'Europa al nostro dominante imvicar of the sacred person he takes upon perio, e si abbracciramo le vostri leggi him to represent, I was not a little pleased come l'edera abbraccia la pianta; e noi with their treaty of alliance. What pro- medesemi spargeremo del nostro seme gress the negotiation between his majesty reale in coteste province, riscaldando i letti of Rome and his holiness of China makes, di vostri principj con il fuoco amoroso delle (as we daily writers say upon subjects nostre amazoni, d'alcune delle quali i nostri where we are at a loss,) time will let us mandatici ambasciadori vi porteranno le know. In the mean time, since they agree somiglianze dipinte. in the fundamentals of power and authority,' Vi cgnfirmiamo di tenere in pace le due and differ only in matters of faith, we may buone religiose famiglie delli missionarji, expect the matter will go on without dif- gli figlioli d'Ignazio, e li bianchi e neri ficulty. figlioli di Dominico, il cui consigiio degl' uni e degl' altri ci serve discorta nel nostro Copia di lettera dal re della Cina al Papa, regimento e di lume ad interpretare en interpretata dal padre segretario dell' divine legge, come appunto fa lume Voglio India della compagna di Giesi. che si getta in mare.'A voi benedetto sopra i benedetti P. P. ed' In tanto alzandoci dal nostro trono per imperadore grande de'l ontifici e pastore abbracciarvi, vi dichiariamo, nostro conXmo, disfensatore del' oglio dei re d' giunto e confederate, ed ordiniamo che Eurofia -lemente XI. questo foglio sia segnato col nostro segno imperiale della nostra citta, capo del mondo,'11 favorito amico di Dio, Gionata 7, il quinto giorno della terza lunatione, l'anno potentissimo sopra tutti i potentissimi della quarto del nostro imperio. terra, altissimo sopra tutti gl'altissimi sotto' 1 sigillo e un sole nella cui faccia e anche il sole e la luna, che siede nella sede di quella della luna, ed intorno tra i raggi, vi smeraldo della Cina sopra cento scalini sono traposte alcune spada. d'oro, ad interpretare la lingua di Dio a' Dico il traduttore che secondo il ceremotutti i descendenti fedeli d'Abramo, che da nial di questa lettera e recedentissimo la vita e la morte a cento quindici regni, ed specialmente fossero scritta con la penna a cento settante isole, scrive con la penna dello struzzo-vergine con la quella Con dello struzzo vergine, e manda salute ed soglionsi scrivere quei re che le preghiere accrescimento di vecchiezza. a Dio, e scrivendo a qualche altro principe'Essendo arrivato il tempo in cui il fiore del mondo, la maggior finezza che usino, ~ della reale nostro gioventi deve maturare i scrivergli con la penna del pavone.' frutti della nostra vecchiezza, e confortare con quell' i desiderj de' popoli nostri divoti, A letter from the emperor of China to the e propagare il seme di quella pianta che Pope, interpreted by a father Jesuit, deve proteggerli, abbiamo stabilito d'ac- secretary of the Indies. compagnarci con una vergine eccelsa ed To you, lessed above the blesse, reat amorosa allattata alla mammella della leon- Toro bishos ande blessed, great essa forte e dell' agnella mansueta. Percio emneror o bishops and i aor of Cris- essendoci stato figurato sempre il vostro t, enf the oil of te kgs of popolo Europeo Romano per paese di donne uroe, Clement X invitte, e forte, e caste; allongiamo la nostra'The favourite friend of God, Gionotta mano potente, a stringere una di loro, e the VIIth, most powerful above the most questa sara una vostra nipote, o nipote di powerful of the earth, highest above the qualche altro gran sacerdote Latino, che highest under the sun and moon, who sits sia guardata dall' occhio dritto di Dio, sara on a throne of emerald of China, above 100 seminata in lei l'autorita di Sarra, la fedelta steps of gold, to interpret the language of d'Esther, e la sapienza di Abba; la vogliamo God to the faithful, and who gives life and con l'occhio che guarda il cielo, e la terra, death to 115 kingdoms, and 170 islands; he e con la bocca della conchiglia che si pasce writes with the quill of a virgin ostrich, and della ruggiada del matino. La sua eta non sends health and increase of old age. passi ducento corsi della luna, la sua statura' Being arrived at the time of our age, in si alta quanto la spicca dritta del grano which the flower of our royal youth ought verde, e la sua grossezza quanto un mani- to ripen into fruit towards old age, to compolo di grano secco. Noi la mandaremmo a fort therewith the desires of our devoted vestire per li nostri mandatici ambasciadori, people, and to propagate the seed of that e chi la conduranno a noi, e noi la incon- plant which must protect them; we have traremmo alla riva del fiume grande facen- determined to accompany ourselves with a dola salire sul nostro cocchio. Ella potra high amorous virgin, suckled at the breast adorare appresso di noi il suo Dio, con of a wild lioness, and a meek lamb, and, ventiquattro altre a suo elezzione e potr& imagining with ourselves that your Eurocantare con loro, come la tottora alla pean Roman people is the father of unconprimavera. querable and chaste ladies, we stretch out' Soddisfando noi, padre e amico nostro, our powerful arm to embrace one of them, questa nostra brama, sarete caggione di and she shall be one of your nieces, or the unire in perpetua amicizia cotesti vostri niece of some other great Latin priest, the No. 546.] THE SPECTATOR. 323 darling of God's right eye. Let the autho- and her retinue, in advancing the interests rity of Sarah be sown in her, the fidelity of of the Roman-catholic religion m those Esther,and the wisdom of Abba. We would kingdoms. have her eye like that of a dove, which may look upon heaven and earth, with the'To tle Spectator General. mouth of a shell-fish, to feed upon the dew'MAY IT PLEASE YOUR HONOUR, —Ihve of the morning, her age must not exceed of late seen French hats of a prodigious 200 courses of the moon; let her stature be magnitude pass by my observatory. equal to that of an ear of green corn, and T.'JOHN SLY.' her girth a handful.' We will send our mandarines ambassadors to clothe her, and to conduct her too.546. Wenesday,ovember26,1712. us, and we will meet her on the bank of a great river, making her to leap up into our Omnia patefacienda, ut ne quid omnino quod vendichariot. She may with us worship her own tor norit, emptor ignoret. Tull. God, together with twenty-four virgins of Every thing should be fairly told, that the buyer may her own choosing; and she may sing with not be ignorant of any thing which the seller knows. them as the turtle in the spring. IT gives me very great scandal to ob-'You, 0 father and friend, complying serve, wherever I go, how much skill, in with this our desire, may be an occasion of buying all manner of goods, there is necesuniting in perpetual friendship our high sary to defend yourself from being cheated empire with your European kingdoms, and in whatever you see exposed to sale. My we may embrace your laws as the ivy reading makes such a strong impression embraces the tree; and we ourselves may upon me, that I should think myself a cheat scatter our royal blood into your provinces, in my way, if I should translate any thing warming the chief of your princes with from another tongue, and not acknowledge the amorous fire of our amazons, the re- it to my readers. I understood, from comsembling pictures of some of which our mon report, that Mr. Gibber was introsaid mandarines ambassadors shall convey ducing a French play upon our stage, and to you. thought myself concerned to let the town' We exhort you to keep in peace two know what was his, and what was foreign. * good religious families of missionaries, the When I came to the rehearsal, I found the sons of Ignatius, and the black and white house so partial to one of their own fratersons of Dominicus; that the counsel, both nity, that they gave every thing which was of the one and the other may serve as a said such grace, emphasis, and force in guide to us in our government, and a light their action, that it was no easy matter to to interpret the divine law, as the oil cast make any judgment of the performance. into the sea produces light. Mrs. Oldfield, who, it seems, is the heroic To conclude, we rising up in our throne daughter, had so just a conception of her to embrace you, we declare you our ally part, that her action made what she spoke and confederate; and have ordered this leaf appear decent, just, and noble. The pasto be sealed with our imperial signet, in our sions of terror ani compassion they made royal city, the head of the world, the eighth me believe were very artfully raised, and day of the third lunation, and the fourth the whole conduct of the play artful and year of our reign.' surprising. We authors do not much relish the endeavours of players in this kind, but Letters from Rome say, the whole con- have the same disdain as physicians and versation both among gentlemen and ladies lawyers have when attorneys and apothehas turned upon the subject of this epistle, caries give advice. Gibber himself took ever since it arrived. The jesuit who trans- the liberty to tell me, that he expected I lated it says, it loses much of the majesty would do him justice, and allow the play of the original in the Italian. It seems there well prepared for his spectators, whatever was an offer of the same nature made by it was for his readers. He added very many the predecessor of the present emperor to particulars not uncurious concerning the Lewis XIII. of France; but no lady of that manner of taking an audience, and laying court would take the voyage, that sex not wait not only for their superficial applause, being at that time so much used in public but also for insinuating into their affections negotiations. The manner of treating the and passions, by the artful management of pope is, according to the Chinese ceremo- the look, voice, and gesture of the speaker. nial, very respectful: for the emperor writes I could not but consent that the Heroic to him with the quill of a virgin ostrich, Daughter appeared in the rehearsal a movwhich was never used before but in writing prayers. Instructions are preparing for the lady who shall have so much zeal as to un- Ximena, or the Heroic Daughter, a tragedy taken s from the Cid of Corneille, by C. Cibber. dertake this pilgrimage, and be an empres This play met with so little encouragement, that the for the sake of her religion. The principal author did not venture to publish it till about two years of the Indian missionaries has given in a list after it had been performed, when it appeared with a of trn s i hhighly complimentary dedication to Sir Richard Steele, of the reigning sins in China, in order to but unfortunately at the expense of a much better prepare indulgencies necessary to this lady writer. 324 THE SPECTATOR. [No, 547. ing entertainment, wrought out of a great some favours which 1 have lately received, and exemplary virtue, that I must beg leave to give them utterThe advantages of action, show, and dress, ance amongst the crowd of other anonymous on these occasions are allowable, because correspondents; and writing, I hope, will the merit consists in being capable of im- be as great a relief to my forced silence posing upon us to our advantage and enter- as it is to your natural taciturnity. My tainment. All that I was going to say about generous benefactor will not suffer me to the honesty of an author in the sale of his speak to him in any terms of acknowledgware was, that he ought to own all that he ment, but ever treats me as if he had the had borrowed from others, and lay in a greatest obligations, and uses me with a clear light all that he gives his spectators distinction that is not to be expected from Cor their money, with an account of the first one so much my superior in fortune, years, manufacturers. But I intended to give the and understanding. He insinuates, as if I.ecture of this day upon the common and had a certain right to his favours from some prostituted behaviour of traders in ordinary merit, which his particular indulgence to commerce. The philosopher made it a rule me has discovered; but that is only a beau of trade, that your profit ought to be the tiful artifice to lessen the pain an honest common profit; and it is unjust to make any mind feels in receiving obligations when step towards gain, wherein the gain of even there is no probability of returning them. those to whom you sell is not also consulted.'A gift is doubled when accompanied A man may deceive himself if he thinks with such a delicacy of address; but what fit, but he is no better than a cheat, who to me gives it an inexpressible value, is its sells any thing without telling the excep- coming from the man I most esteem in the tions against it, as well as what is to be world. It pleases me indeed, as it is an said to its advantage. The scandalous abuse advantage and addition to my fortune; but of language and hardening of conscience, when I consider it as an instance of that good which may be observed every day in going man's friendship, it overjoys, it transports from one place to another, is what makes me: I look on it with a lover's eye, and no a whole city, to an unprejudiced eye, a den longer regard the gift, but the hand that of thieves. It was no small pleasure to me gave it. For my friendship is so entirely for this reason to remark, as I passed by void of any gainful views, that it often gives Cornhill, that the shop of that worthy, ho- me pain to think it should have been nest, though lately unfortunate citizen, Mr. chargeable to him; and I cannot at some John Morton, so well known in the linen melancholy hours help doing his generosity trade, is setting up anew. Since a man has the injury of fearing it should cool on this been in a distressed condition, it ought to be account, and that the last favour might be a great satisfaction to have passed through a sort of legacy of a departing friendship. it in such a manner as not to have lost the' I confess these fears seem very groundfriendship of those who suffered with him, less and unjust, but you must forgive them but to receive an honourable acknowledg- to the apprehension of one possessed of a ment of his honesty from those very persons great treasure, who is frighted at the most to whom the law had consigned his estate. distant shadow of danger. The misfortune of this citizen is like to' Since I have thus far opened my heart prove of a very general advantage to those to you, I will not conceal the secret satiswho shall deal with him hereafter; for the faction I feel there, of knowing the goodstock with which he now sets up being the ness of my friend will not be unrewarded. loan of his friends, he cannot expose that I am pleased with thinking the providence to the hazard of giving credit, but enters of the Almighty hath sufficient blessings in into a ready-money trade, by which means store for him, and will certainly discharge he will both buy and sell the best and the debt, though I am not made the happy cheapest. He imposes upon himself a rule instrument of doing it. of affixing the value of each piece he sells,'However, nothing in my power shall be to the piece itself; so that the most igno- wanting to show my gratitude; I will make rant servant or child will be as good a buyer it the business of my life to thank him; and at his shop as the most skilful in the trade. shall esteem (next to him) those my best For all which, you have all his hopes and friends, who give me the greatest assistfortune for your security. To encourage ance in this good work. Printing this letdealing after this way, there is not only the ter would be some little instance of my avoiding the most infamous guilt in ordi- gratitude; and your favour herein will nary bartering; but this observation, that very much oblige your most humble serhe who buys with ready money saves as vant, &c. W. C. much to his family as the state exacts out'Nov. 24. T. of his land for the security and service of his country. That is to say, in plain English, sixteen will do as much as twenty No. 547.] Thursday, November 27, 1712, shillings. Si vulnus tibi, monstrata radice vel herba,'MR. SPECTATOR,-Myheartisso swell- Non fieret levius, fugeres radice'el herba ed with grateful sentiments on accont of 1 Proficiente nihil curarier. ed with grateful sentiments on account of Ilor. Ep. ii. Lib. 2. 149 No. 547.] THE SPECTATOR. 325 Suppose you h id a wound, and one that show'd Over the two Spectators on jealousy, being An herb, whil:h you apply'd, but found no good; the two first in the third volume,.Vos. Would you bi; fond of this, increase your pain,n 171 And use the fruitless remedy again?-Creech. 170, 171.' I, William Crazy, aged threescore and IT is very difficult to praise a man with- seven, having been for several years afflictout putting him out of countenance. My ed with uneasy doubts, fears, and vapours, following correspondent has found out this occasioned by the youth and beauty of uncommon art, and, together with his Mary my wife, aged twenty-five, do herefriends, has celebrated some of my specu- by, for the benefit of the public, give notice, lations after such a concealed but diverting that I have found great relief from the two manner, that if any of my readers think I following doses, having taken them two am to blame in publishing my own com- mornings, together with adish of chocolate. mendations, they will allow I should have Witness my hand, &c.' deserved their censure as much had I suppressed the humour in which they are con-'For the benefit of the Poor. veyed to me,' In charity to such as are troubled with the disease of levee-hunting, and are forced'SIR,-I am often in a private assembly to seek their bread every morning at the of wits of both sexes, where we generally chamber-doors of great men, I, H. B. do descant upon your speculations, or upon testify, that for many years past I laboured the subjects on which you have treated. under this fashionable distemper, but was We were last Tuesday talking of those two cured of it by a remedy which I bought of volumes which you have lately published. Mrs. Baldwin, contained in a half sheet of Some were commending one of your pa- paper, marked No. 193, where any one pers, and some another; and there was may be provided with the same remedy at scarce a single person in the company that the price of a single penny.' had not a favourite speculation. Upon this a man of wit and learning told us, he'An infallible cure for hypochondriac thought it would not be amiss if we paid melancholy, Nos. 173, 184, 191, 203, 209, the Spectator the same compliment that is 221, 231, 235, 239, 245, 247, 251. often made in our public prints to Sir Wil-'Probatum est. CHARLES EASY.' hiam Read, Dr. Grant, Mr. Moor, the apothecary, and other eminent physicians,'I, Christopher Query, having been trwhere it is usual for the patients to publish bled with a certain distemper in my tongue, the cures which have been made upon which showed itself in impertinent and suthem, anthe he several distempers under perfluous interrogatories, have not asked which they laboured. The proposal took; o unnecessary question since my erusal and the lady where we visited having the of the prescription marked No. 228.' two last volumes in large paper interleaved' The Britannic Beautifier, being an essay for her own private use, ordered them to on modesty, No. 231, which gives such a be brought down, and laid in the window, delightful blushing colour to the cheeks of whither every one in the company retired, those that are white or pale, that it is not and writ down a particular advertisement to be distinguished from a natural fine in the style and phrase of the like inge- complexion, nor perceived to be artificial nious compositions which we frequently by the nearest friend, is nothing of paint, or meet with at the end of our newspapers. in the least hurtful. It renders the face When we had finished our work, we read delightfully handsome: is not subject to be them with a great deal of mirth at the fire- rubbed off, and cannot be paralleled by side, and agreed, nemine contradicente; to either wash, powder, cosmetic, &c. It is get them transcribed, and sent to the Spec- certainly the best beautifier in the world. tator. The gentleman who made the pro-' MARTHA GLOWORM.' posal entered the following advertisement before the title-page, after which the rest'I, Samuel Self, of the parish of St. succeeded in order. James's, having a constitution which naturally abounds'with acids, made use of a Remedium efficax et universum or, an paper of directions marked No. 177, recomeffectual remedy adapted to all capacities; meiding a healthful exercise called goodshowing how any person may cure himself nature, and have found it a most excellent of ill-nature, pride, party-spleen, or any sweetener of the blood. other distemper incident to the human sys- c Whereas I, Elizabeth Rainbow, was ter, with an easy way to know when the troubled with that distemper in my head, infection is upon him. The panacea is as which about a year ago was pretty epiinnocent as bread, agreeable to the taste, demical among the ladies, and discovered and requires no confinement. It has not its itself in the colour of their hoods: having equal in the universe, as abundance of the made use of the doctor's cephalic tincture, nobility and gentry throughout, the king- which he exhibited to the public in one of dom have experienced. his last year's papers, I recovered in a'N. B. No family (cught to be without it.' very few days.' 32b I'HE SPECTATOR. [No. 548.' I, George Gloom, having for a long time have read it with the same attention I have been troubled with the spleen, and being done, will think there is nothing to be obadvised by my friends to put myself into a jected against it. I have however drawn course of Steele, did for that end make use up some additional arguments to strengthen of the remedies conveyed to me several the opinion which you have there delivermornings, in short letters, from the hands ed, having endeavoured to go to the bottom of the invisible doctor. They were marked of the matter, which you may either pubat the bottom Nathaniel Henroost, Alice lish or suppress as you think fit. Threadneedle, Rebecca Nettletoy, Tom'Horace,,in my motto, says, that all men Loveless, Mary Meanwell, Thomas Smoky, are vicious, and that they differ from one Anthony Freeman, Tom Meggot, Rustic another only as they are more or less so. Sprightly, &c. which have had so good an Boileau has given the same account of our effect upon me, that I now find myself wisdom, as Horace has of our virtue: cheerful, lightsome, and easy; and there- " Tousles hommes sont fous, et maigre tous ieurs soins fore do recommend them to all such as la- Ne different entre eux, que de plus et du moins." bour under the same distemper.' " All men," says he, " are fools, and, in Not having room to insert all the adver- spite of their endeavours to the contrary, tisements which were sent me, I have only differ from one another only as they are picked out some few from the third vo- more or less so." lume, reserving the fourth for another op-'Two or three of the old Greek poets portunity... have given the same turn to a sentence which describes-the happiness of man in this life: No. 548. ] Friday, November 28, 1712. IT To ev au7Xrw, savpo e.arrv suroXs.." " That man is most happy who is the least miserable." — Vitiis nemo sine nascitur, optimus ille Qui minimis urgetur. Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 1. 68.'It will not perhaps be unentertaining to There's none but has some fault; and he's the best, the polite reader to observe how these three Most virtuous he that's spotted with the least. beautiful sentences are formed upon differCreech. ent subjects, by the same way of thinking; Nov. 27, 1712. but I shall return to the first of them.'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have read this'Our goodness being of a comparative day's paper with a great deal of pleasure, and not an absolute nature, there is none and could send you an account of several who in strictness can be called a virtuous elixirs and antidotes in your third volume, man. Every one has in him a natural alloy, which your correspondents have not taken though one may be fuller of dross than an. notice of in their advertisements; and at the other: for this reason I cannot think it right same time must own to you, that I have to introduce a perfect or a faultless man seldom seen a shop furnished with such a upon the stage; not only because such a variety of medicaments, and in which character is improper to move compassion, there are fewer soporifics. The several but because there i~ no such thing in navehicles you have invented for conveying ture. This might probably be one reason your unacceptable truths to us, are what I why the Spectator in one of his papers took most particularly admire, as I am afraid notice of that late invented term called they are secrets which will die with you. poetical justice, and the wrong notions into I do not find that any of our critical essays which it has led some tragic writers. The are taken notice of in this paper, notwith- most perfect man has vices enough to draw standing I look upon them to be excellent down punishments upon his head, and to cleansers of the brain, and could venture to justify Providence in regard to any misesuperscribe them with an advertisement ries that may befall him. For this reason which I have lately seen in one of your I cannot think but that the instruction and newspapers, wherein there is an account moral are much finer, where a man who is given of a sovereign remedy for restoring virtuous in the main of his character falls the taste to all such persons whose palates into distress, and sinks under the blows'of have been vitiated by disteripers, unwhole- fortune at the end of a tragedy, than when some food, or any the like occasions. But he is represented as happy and triumphto let fall the allusion, notwithstanding your ant. Such an example corrects the insocriticisms, and particularly the candour lence of human nature, softens the mind of which you have discovered in them, are the beholder with sentiments of pity and not the least taking part of your works, I compassion, comforts him under his own find your opinion concerning poetical jus- private affliction, and teaches him not to tice, as it is expressed in the first part or judge of men's virtues by their success. I your fortieth Spectator, is controverted by cannot think of one real hero in all antisome eminent critics; and as you now quity so far raised above human infirmities, seem, to our great grief of heart, to be that he might not be very naturally reprewinding up your bottoms, I hoped you sented in a tragedy as plunged in misforwould have enlarged a little upon that sub- tunes and calamities. The poet may still ject. It is indeed but a single paragraph find out some prevailing passion or Indism your works, and I believe those who cretion in his character, and show it in No. 549.] THE SPECTATOR. 327 such a mans., as will sufficiently acquit minal that they can have no claim or pre the gods of any injustice in his sufferings. tence to happiness. The best of men may For, as Horace observes in my text, the deserve punishment, but the worst of men best man is faulty, though not in so great a cannot deserve happiness. degree as those whom we generally call vicious men. -....'If such a strict poetical justice as some No. 549.] Saturday, November 29, 1712. gentlemen insist upon was to be observed in this art, there is no manner of reason why Quamvis digressu veteris confusus amici, it should not extend to heroic poetry as well Laudo tamen. Juv. Sat. iii. 1 as tragedy. But we find it so little observed Though griev'd at the departure of my friend, in Homer, that his Achilles is placed inthe His purpose of retiring 1 commend. greatest point of glory and success, though I BELIEVE most people begin the world his character is morally vicious, and only with a resolution to withdraw from it into poetically good, if I may use the phrase of a serious kind of solitude or retirement our modern critics. The ZEneid is filled when they have made themselves easy in* with innocent, unhappy persons. Nisus it. Our unhappiness is, that we find out and Euryalus, Lausus and Pallas, come all some excuse or other for deferring such our to unfortunate ends. The poet takes notice good resolutions until our intended retreat in particular, that, in the sacking of Troy, is cut off by death. But among all kinds of Ripheus fell, who was the most just man people, there are none who are so hard to among the Trojans. part with the world as those who are grown - Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus, old in the heaping up of riches. Their minds Qui fuit in Teucris, et servantissimus aequi: are so warped with their constant attention Diis aliter visum est — En. ii. 427. to gain, that it is very difficult for them to And that Pantheus could neither be pre- give their souls another bent, and convert served by his transcendent piety, nor by the them towards those objects, which though holy fillets of Apollo, whose priest he was. they are proper for every stage of life, are Nec tetua plurima, Pantheu, so more especially for the last. Horace Labentem pietas, nec Apoliinis infula texit. describes an old usurer as so charmed with Ibid. ver. 429. the pleasures of a country life, that in order I might here mention the practice of an- to make a purchase he called in all his cient tragic poets, both Greek and Latin; money; but what was the event of it? but as this particular is touched upon in the Why, in a very few days after he put it paper above-mentioned, I shall pass it over out again. I am engaged in this series of in silence. I could produce passages out of thought by a discourse which I had last Aristotle in favour of my opinion; and if week with my worthy friend Sir Andrew in one place he says that an absolutely vir- Freeport, a man of so much natural elotuous man, should not be represented as quence, good sense, and probity of mind, unhappy, this does not justify any one who that I always hear him with a particular shall think fit to bring in an absolutely vir- pleasure. As we were sitting together, tuous man upon the stage. Those who are being the sole remaining members of our acquainted with that author's way of writ- club, Sir Andrew gave me an account of ing, know very well that, to take the whole the many busy scenes of life in which he extent of his subject into his divisions of it, had been engaged, and at the same time he often makes use of such cases as are reckoned up to me abundance of those imaginary, and not reducible to practice. lucky hits, which at another time he would He himself declares that such tragedies as have called pieces of good fortune; but in ended unhappily, bore away the prize in the temper of mind he was then, he termtheatrical contentions, from those which ed them mercies, favours of Providence, ended happily; and for the fortieth specu- and blessings upon an honest industry. rlation, which I am now considering, as it' Now,' says he, vyou must know, my good has given reasons why these are more apt friend, I am so used to consider myself as to please an audience, so it only proves that creditor and debtor, that I often state my these are generally preferable to the other, accounts after the same manner with rethough at the same time it affirms that gard to heaven and my own soul. In this many excellent tragedies have and may be case, when I look upon the debtor side, I written in both kinds. find such innumerable articles, that I want'I shall conclude with observing, that arithmetic to cast them up; but when I though the Spectator above-mentioned is look upon the creditor side, I find little so far against the rule of poetical justice, as more than blank paper. Now, though I to affirm that good men may meet with an am very well satisfied that it is not in my unhappy catastrophe in tragedy, it does not power to balance accounts with my Maker, say that ill men may go off unpunished. I am resolved however to turn all my future The reasons for this distinction is very endeavours that way. You must not thereplain, namely, because the best of men are fore be surprised, my friend, if you hear vicious enough to justify Providence for any that I am breaking myself to a more misfortunes and afflictions which may be- thoughtful kind of life, and if I meet you nc fall them, but there are many men so cri- more in this place.' 328 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 550. I could not but approve so good a resolu- finding out a convenient place where I may tion, notwithstanding the loss I shall suffer build an almshouse, which I intend to enby it. Sir Andrew has since explained dow very handsomely for a dozen superhimself to me more at large in the follow- annuated husbandmen. It will be a great ing letter, which is just come to my hands. pleasure to me to say my prayers twice a day with men of my own years, who all of'GOOD MR. SPECTATOR,-Notwithstand- them, as well as myself, may have their ing my friends at the club have always thoughts taken up how they shall die, rallied me, when I have talked of retiring rather than how they shall live. I rememfrom business, and repeated to me one ber an excellent saying that I learned at of my own sayings, that " a merchant has school, finis coronat opus. You know best never enough until he has got a little whether it be in Virgil or in Horace, it is more;" I can now inform you, that there my business to apply it. If your affairs will is one in the world who thinks he has permit you to take the country air with me enough, and is determined to pass the re- sometimes, you will find an apartment fit-'nainder of his life in the enjoyment of what ted up for you, and shall be every. day enhe has. You know me so well, that I need tertained with beef or mutton of my own not tell you I mean, by the enjoyment of feeding; fish out of my own ponds; and my possessions, the making of them useful fruit out of my own gardens. You shall to the public. As the greatest part of my have free egress and regress about my estate has been hitherto of an unsteady and house, without having any questions asked volatile nature, either tost upon seas or you; and in a word, such a hearty welcome fluctuating in funds, it is now fixed and set- as you may expect from your most sincere tled in substantial acres and tenements. I friend and humble servant, have removed it from the uncertainty of'ANDREW FREEPORT.' stocks, winds, and waves, and disposed of it in a considerable purchase. This will The club of which I am a member being give me great opportunity of being charita- entirely dispersed, I shall consult my reader ble in my way, that is, in setting my poor next week a project relating to the neighbours to work, and giving them a institutonof a newone. comfortable subsistence out of their own industry. My gardens, my fish-ponds, my arable and pasture. grounds, shall be my several hospitals, or rather work-houses, No. 550.1 Monday, December 1, 1712. in which I propose to maintain a great Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu many indigent persons, who are now starv- Hor. 2Ars Poet. ver. 138. ing in my neighbourhood. I have got a In what will all this ostentation end?-Roscomon. fine spread of improvable lands, and in my own thoughts am already plowing up some SINCE the late dissolution of the club, of them, fencing others; planting woods, whereof I have often declared myself a and draining marshes. In fine, as I have member, there are very many persons who my share in the surface of this island, I am by letters, petitions, and recommendations, resolved to make it as beautiful a spot as put up for the next election. At the same any in her majesty's dominions; at least time I must complain, that several indirect there is not an inch of it which shall not be and underhand practices have been made cultivated to the best advantage, and do its use of upon this occasion. A certain counutmost for its owner. As in my mercantile try gentleman began to tap upon the first employment I so disposed of my affairs, information he received of Sir Roger's that, from whatever corner of the compass death; when he sent me up word that, if I the wind blew, it was bringing home one or would get him chosen in the place of the other of my ships; I hope as a husband- deceased, he would present me with a barman to contrive it so, that not a shower of rel of the best October I had ever tasted in rain or a glimpse of sunshine shall fall upon my life. The ladies are in great pain to my estate without bettering some part of know whom I intend to elect in the room it, and contributing to the products of the of Will Honeycomb. Some of them indeed season. You know it has been hitherto my are of opinion that Mr. Honeycomb did not opinion of life, that it is thrown away when take sufficient care of their interest in the it is not some way useful to others. But club, and are therefore desirous of having when I am riding out by myself, in the in it hereafter a representative of their own fresh air, on the open heath that lies by my sex. A citizen who subscribes himself Y. house, I find several other thoughts grow- Z. tells me that he has one-and-twenty ing up in me. I am now of opinion, that a shares in the African company, and offers man of my age may find business enough to bribe me with the odd one in case he on himself, by setting his mind in order, may succeed Sir Andrew Freeport, which preparing it for another world, and recon- he thinks would raise the credit of that ciling it to the thoughts of death. I must fund. I have several letters, dated from therefore acquaint you, that besides those Jenny Man's, by gentlemen who are candiusual methods of charity, of which I have dates for captain Sentry's place; and as before spoken, I am at this very instant many from a coffee-house in St. Paul's No. 551.] THE SPECT iTOR. 329 church-yard of such who would ill up the of late found hny name in foreign gazettes vacancy occasioned by the death of my upon less occasions, I question not but in worthy friend the clergyman, whom I can their next articles from Great Britain they never mention but with a particular re- will inform the world,' that the Spectator's spect. mouth is to be opened on the twenty-fifth Having maturely weighed these several of March next.' I may perhaps publish particulars, with the many remonstrances a very useful paper at that time of the that have been made to me on this subject, proceedings in that solemnity, and of the and considering how invidious an office I persons who shall assist at it. But of this shall take upon me if I make the whole elec- more hereafter. 0O tion depend upon my single voice, and being unwilling to expose myself to those cla- mours, which on such an occasion will not fail to be raised against me for partiality, No. 551.] Tuesday, December 2, 1712. injustice, corruption, and other qualities, Sic honor et nomen djvinis vatibus atque, which my nature abhors, I have formed to Carminibus venit. myself the project of a club as follows. Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 400. I have thoughts of issuing out writs to all So ancient is the pedigree of verse, and everylof the clubs that are established And so divine a poet's function.-Rscommo in the cities of London and Westminster,'MR. SPECTATOR,-When men of worrequiring them to choose out of their re- thy and excelling geniuses have obliged the spective bodies a person of the greatest world with beautiful and instructive writmerit, and to return his name to me before ings, it is in the nature of gratitude that Lady-day, at which time I intend to sit praise should be returned them, as one upon business. proper consequent reward of their perBy this means I may have reason to hope, formances. Nor has.mankind ever been so that the club over which I shall preside degenerately sunk, but they have made this will be'the very flower and quintessence of return, and even when they have not been all other clubs. I have communicated this wrought up by the generous endeavours so my project to none but a particular friend as to receive the advantages designed by it. of mine, whom I have celebrated twice or This praise, which arises first in the mouth thrice for his happiness in that kind of wit of particular persons, spreads and lasts acwhich is commonly known by the name of cording to the merit of authors; and, when a pun. The only objection he makes to it is, it thus meets with a full success, changes its that I shall raise up enemies to myself if I denomination, and is called fame. They, act with so regal an air, and that my de- who have happily arrived at this, are, even tractors, instead of giving me the usual title while they live, inflamed by the acknowof Spectator, will be apt to call me the King ledgments of others, and spurred on to of Clubs. new undertakings for the benefit of manBut to proceed on my intended project: kind, notwithstanding the detraction which it is very well known that I at first set forth some abject tempers would cast upon them: in this work with the character of a silent but when they decease, their characters man; and I think I have so well preserved being free from the shadow which envy my taciturnity, that I do not remember to laid them under, begin to shine with the have violated it with three sentences in the greater splendour; their spirits survive in space of almost two years. As a monosyl- their works; they are admitted into the highlable is my delight, I have made very few est companies, and they continue pleasing excursions, in conversations which I have and instructing posterity from age to age. related, beyond a Yes or a No. By this Some of the best gain a character, by being means my readers have lost many good able to show that they are no strangers to things which I have had in my heart, though them; and others obtain a new warmth I did not care for uttering them. to labour for the happiness and ease of Now in order to diversify my character, mankind, from a reflection upon those hoand to show the world how well I can talk nours which are paid to their memories. if I have a mind, I have thoughts of being' The thought of this took me up as I very loquacious in the club which I have turned over those epigrams which are the now under consideration. But that I may remains of several of the wits of Greece, proceed the more regularly ththis affair, I and perceived many dedicated to the fame design, upon the first meeting of the said of those who had excelled in beautiful poclub, to have my mouth opened in form; etic performances. Wherefore, in pursuintending to regulate myself in this particu- ance to my thought, I concluded to do lar by a certain ritual which I have by me, something along with them to bring their that contains all the ceremonies which are praises into a new light and language, for practised at the opening of the mouth of a the encouragement of those whose modest cardinal. I have likewise examined the tempers may be deterred by the fear of forms which were used of old by Pythago- envy or detraction from fair attempts, to ras, when any of his scholars, after an ap- which their parts might render them prenticeship of silence, was made free of equal. You will perceive them as they his speech. In the mean time, as I have follow to be conceived il the form of epiVOL, II. 42 330 THE SPEC'L A rOR. [No. 551. taphs, a sort of writing which is wholly set particular character. It would be better if, apart for a short-pointed method of praise, when we light upon such a turn, we join it ON ORPHEUS, WRITTEN BY ANTIPATER. with something that circumscribes and "No longer, Orpheus, shall thy sacred strains bounds it to the qualities of our subject. Lead stones, and trees, and beasts along the plains; He who gives his praise in gross, will often No longer sooth the boisterous winds to sleep, appear either to have been a stranger to Or still the billows of the raging deep; those he writes upon, or not to have found For thou art gone. The Muses mourn thy fall In solemn strains, thy mother most of all. any thing in them which is praise-worthy. Ye mortals, idly for your sons ye moan, If thus a goddess could not save her own." ON SOPHOCLES, BY SIMONIDES. cObse.rve here, that if we take the fbaKI "Winde, gentle ever-green, to form a shade' Observe here, that if we take the fable Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid: for granted, as if it was believed to be in Sweet ivy winde thy boughs, and intertwine that age when the epigram was written, With blushing roses and the clust'ring vine: the turn appears to have piety to the gods, Thus will thy lasting leaves, with beauties hung, the turn appears to have piety to the gos, Prove grateful emblems of the lays he sung; and a resigning spirit in its application. Whose soul, exalted like a god of wit, But if we consider the point with respect Among the Muses and the Graces writ." to our present knowledge, it will be less'This epigram I have opened more than esteemed; though the author himself, be- any of the former: the thought towards the cause he believed it, may still be more latter end seemed closer couched, so as to valued than any one who should now write require an explanation. I fancied the poet with a point of the same nature. aimed at the picture which is generally ON HOMER, BY ALPHEUS OF MYTILENE. made of Apollo and the Muses, he sitting " Still in our ears Andromache complains, with his harp in the middle, and they And still in sight the fate of Troy remains; around him. This looked beautiful to my Still Ajax fights, still Hector's dragg'd along: thought, and because the image arose beSuch strange enchantment dwells in Homer's song; ou t a b e teiae os b Whose birth could more than one poor realm adorn, fore me out of the words of the original as For all the world is proud that he was born." I was reading it, I ventured to explain'The thought in the first part of this is them so. natural, and depending upon the force of ON MENANDER, THE AUTHOR UNNAMED. poesy; in the latter part it looks as if it "The very bees, 0 sweet Menander hung would aim at the history of seven towns To taste the Muses' spring upon thy tongue; contending for the honour of Homer's birth- The very Graces made the scenes you writ place; but when you expect to meet with Their happy point of fine expression hit. place,; but when you expect to meet withThus still you live, you make your Athens shine, that common story, the poet slides by, and And raise its glory to the skies in thine." raises the whole world for a kind of arbiter, Thi which is to end the contention amongst itso the chaseveralwhich i s to end the contention racter of its subject; for Menander writ rese AAveral par tsibR. markably with a justness and purity of lanON ANACREON, BY ANTIPATER. guage. It has also told the country he was "This tomb be thine, Anacreon! All around born in, without either a set or a hidden Let ivy wreathe, let flow'rets deck the ground; manne while it twists together the glory And from its earth, enrich'd with such a prize manner, le t t together the glory Let wells of milk and streams of wine arise of the poet and his nation, so as to make the So will thine ashes yet a pleasure know, nation depend upon his for an increase of If any pleasure reach the shades below." its own.' The poet here written upon is an easy' I will offer no more instances at present gay author, and he who writes upon him to show that they who deserve praise have has filled his own head with the character it returned them from different ages: let of his subject. He seems to love his theme these which have been laid down show men so much, that he thinks of nothing but that envy will not always prevail. And to pleasing him as if he were still alive, by the end that writers may more successfully entering into his libertine spirit; so that the enliven the endeavours of one another, let humour is easy and gay, resembling Ana- them consider, in some such manner as I creon in its air, raised by such images, and have attempted, what may be the justest pointed with such a turn as he might have spirit and art of praise. It is indeed very used. I give it a place here, because the hard to come up to it. Our praise is trifling author may have designed it for his honour; when it depends upon fable; it is false when and I take an opportunity from it to advise it depends upon wrong qualifications; it others, that when they would praise they means nothing when it is general; it is excautiously avoid every looser qualification, tremely difficult to hit when we propose to and fix only where there is a real founda- raise characters high, while we keep to tion in merit, them justly. I shall end this with tranON EURIPIDES, BY ION. scribing that excellent epitaph of Mr. " Divine Euripides, this tomb we see Cowley, wherein, with a kind of grave and So fair, is not a monument for thee, philosophic humour, he very beautifully So much as thou for it; since all will own speaks of himself (withdrawn from the Thy name and lasting praise adorn the stone." world, and dead to all the interests of it,' The thought here is fine, but its fault as of a man really deceased. At the same is, that it is general, tha' it may belong to time it is an instruction how to leave the any great man, because it points out no public with a good grace. No. 552.] THE SPECTATOR. 331 EPITAPHIUM VIV AUTHORIS.'DEAR MR. SPECTATOR, —I am a gen "Hic, 0 viator, sub lare parvulo tleman of a pretty good fortune, and of a Couleius hic est cdnditus, hic jacet temper impatient of any thing which I think Defunctus humani laboris Sorte. supervacuaque vita; an injury. However, I always quarrelled Non indecora pauperie nitens, according to law, and instead of attacking Et non inerti nobilisotio my adversary by the dangerous method of Vanoque dilectis popello Divitiis animosushostis. sword and pistol, I made my assaults by Possis ut ilium dicere mortuum, that more secure one of writ or warrant. En terra jam nunc quantula sufficit! I cannot help telling you, that either by the E xempta sit curis, viator, Terra sit illa levis, precare. justice of my causes, or the superiority of ice sparge flores, sparge breves rosas, my counsel, I have been generally successNam vita gaudet mortua floribus, ful: and to my great satisfaction I can say Herbisque odoratis corona Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem." it, that by three actions of slander, and half a dozen trespasses, I have for several years FTHE LIVING AUTHORs EPITAPH, enjoyed a perfect tranquillity in my reputar H ife's d ebo f hum tou cares enlarg'd tion and estate: by these means also I have Here Cowley lies, beneath this shed, been made known to the judges; the serTo ev'ry worldly interest dead: jeants of our circuit are my intimate friends; With descent poverty content; and the ornamental counsel pay a very proHis hours of ease not idly spent; To fortune's goods a foe profess'd, found respect to one who has made so great And hating wealth, by all caress'd. a figure in the law. Affairs of consequence'Ti sure,pot of ead: forth is n ow hi s all having brought me to town, I had the cuO! wish that earth may lightly lay, riosity the other day to visit WestminsterAnd ev'ry care be arr away! hall; and having placed myself in one of Bring fowrs, the short-liv'd roses bring, the courts, expected to be most agreeably To life deceas'd fit offering! And sweets around the poet strow, entertained. After the court and counsel Whilst yet with life his ashes glow." were with due ceremony seated, up stands The publication of these criticisms hav- a learned gentleman, and began, When this mg procured me the following letter from matter was last " stirred" before your lorda very ingenious gentleman, I cannot for- ship; the next humbly moved to "quash" bear inserting it in the volume,* though it an indictment; another complained that his did not come soon enough to have a place adversary had " snapped" a judgment; the in any of my single papers. next informed the court that his client was t" stripped," of his possessions; another begn MR. SpCTATOR,-Having read over ged leave to acquaint his lordship they had in your paper, No. 551, some of the epi- been "saddled" with costs. At last up got grams made by the Grecian wits, in com- a grave serjeant, and told us his client had mendation of their celebrated poets, I could been " hung up" a whole term by a writ of not forbear sending you another, out of the error. At this I could bear it no longer, same collection; which I take to be as great but came hither, and resolved to apply a compliment to Homer as any that has yet myself to your honour to interpose ith been paid him. these gentlemen, that they would leave off TiS 7ro' oTov TpoS4, roXe/ov, &c. such low and unnatural expressions: for " Who first transcrib'd the famous Trojan war, surely though the lawyers subscribe to hiAnd wise Ulysses' acts, O Jove, make known: deous French and false Latin, yet they Foor since tis Hoertain thin these poems own."re, should let their clients have a little decent No more let Homer boast they are his own." and proper English for their money. What *J~ r * i-. and proper English for their money. What'If you think it worthy of a place in your man that has a value for a good name would speculations, for aught I know, (by that like to have it said in a public court, that means) it may in time be printed as often Mr. Such-a-one was stripped, saddled,..or in English as it has already been in Greek. hung up? This being what has escaped I am, (like the rest of the world,) sir, your your spectatorial observation, be pleased to great admirer, G. R. correct such an illiberal cant among pro4th Dec.' fessed speakers, and you will infinitely The reader may observe, that the beauty oblige your humble servant, of this epigram is different from that of the' PHILONICUS. foregoing. An irony is looked upon as the'Joe's Coffee-house, Nov. 28.' finest palliative of praise; and very often conveys the noblest panegyric under the appearance of satire. Homer is here seem- No. 552.] Wednesday, December 3, 1712. ingly accused and treated as a plagiary; but what is drawn up in the form of an accusa- -- ui pregravat artes tion is certainly, as my correspondent ob- Infra se positas, extinctus apiabitur idem. serves, the greatest compliment that couldr. Ep. i. Lib. 2. 13. have been paid to that divine poet. For those are hated that excel the rest, Although, when dead, they are belov'd and blest. * The translation of Cowley's epitaph, and all that Creech. follows except the concluding letter, signed Philonicus, A I was tumbling abot the town t was not printed in the Spectator in folio, but added in As I w tumblin about the town the the 8vo. edition of 1712. other day in a hackney-coach, and delight 332 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 552.:ng myself with busy scenes in the shops of and calamity, and a sope of endless rapeach side of me, it came into my head, with ture, joy, and hallelujah hereafter. no small remorse, that I had not been fre- When I am doing this justice, I am not quent enough in the mention and recom- to forget the best mechanic of my acquaint mendation of the industrious part of man- ance, that useful servant to science and kind. It very naturally, upon this occasion, knowledge, Mr. John Rowley; but I think touched my conscience in particular, that I lay a great obligation on the public, by I had not acquitted myself to my friend acquainting them with his proposals for a Mr. Peter Motteux. That industrious man pair of new globes. After his preamble he of trade, and formerly brother of the quill, promises in the said proposals that, has dedicated to me a poem upon tea. It would injure him, as a man of business, if I IN THE CELESTIAL GLOBE, did not let the world know that the author' Care shall be taken that the fixed stars of so good verses writ them before he was be placed according to their true longitude concerned in traffic. In order to expiate and latitude, from the many and correct obmy negligence t6Wards him, I immediately servations of Hevelius, Cassini, Mr. Flamresolved to make him a visit. I found his stead, reg. astronomer; Dr. Halley, Savispacious warehouses filled and adorned with lian professor of geometry in Oxon; and tea, China and Indiaware. I could observe from whatever else can be procured to a beautiful ordonnance of the whole; and render the globe more exact, instructive, such different and considerable branches of and useful. trade carried on in the same house, I exulted' That all the constellations be drawn in in seeing disposed oy a poetical head. In a curious, new, and particular manner; each one place were exposed to view silks of star in so just, distinct, and conspicuous a various shades and colours, rich brocades, proportion, that its magnitude may be reaand the wealthiest products of foreign looms. dily known by bare inspection, according Here you might see the finest laces held up to the different light and sizes of the stars. by the fairest hands; and there, examined That the track or way of such comets as by the beauteous eyes of the buyers, the have been well observed, but not hitherto most delicate cambrics, muslins, and linens. expressed in a globe, be carefully delineIcould not but congratulate my friend on ated in this. tie humble, but I hoped beneficial, use he had made of his talents, and wished I could'IN THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE, be a patron to his trade, as he had been'That by reason the descriptions forpleased to make me of his poetry.. The merly made, both in the English and Dutch honest man has, I klow, the modest desire great globe, are erroneous, Asia, Africa, of gain which is peculiar to those who un- and America, be drawn in a manner wholly derstand better things than riches; and, I new; by which means if is to be noted that dare say, he would be contented with much the undertakers will be obliged to alter the less than what is called wealth at that latitude of some places in ten degrees, the quarter of the town which he inhabits, and longitude of others in twenty degrees; bewill oblige all his customers with demands sides which great and necessary alterations, agreeable to the moderation of his desires. there be many remarkable countries, cities, Among other omissions of which I have towns, rivers, and lakes, omitted in other been also guilty, with relation to men of globes, inserted here according to the best industry of a superior oider, I must ac- discoveries made by our late navigators. knowledge my silence towards a proposal Lastly, that the course of the trade-winds, frequently enclosed to me by Mr. Renatus the monsoons, and other winds periodically Harris, organ-builder. The ambition of shifting between the tropics, be visibly exthis artificer is to erect an organ in St. pressed. Paul's cathedral, over the west door, at the' Now, in regard that this undertaking is entrance into the body of the church, which of so universal use, as the advancement of in art and magnificence shall transcend any the most necessary parts of the mathemawork of that kind ever before invented, tics, as well as tending to the honour of the The proposal in perspicuous language sets British nation, and that the charge of car forth the honour and advantage such a per- rying it on is very expensive, it is desired formance would be to the British name, as that all gentlemen who are willing to prowell as that it would apply the tower of mote so great a work will be pleased to sounds in a manner more amazingly forci- subscribe on the following conditions. ble than, perhaps, has yet been known, and'1. The undertakers engage to furnish I am sure to an end much more worthy. each subscriber with a celestial and terresHad the vast sums which have been laid trial globe, each of thirty inches diameter, out upon operas, without skill or conduct, in all respects curiously adorned, the stars and to no other purpose but to suspend or gilded, the capital cities plainly distinguishvitiate our understandings, been disposed ed, the frames, meridians, horizons, hour this way, we should now perhaps have an circles, and indexes, so exactly finished engine so formed as to strike the minds of up, and accurately divided, that a pair of half the people at once in a place of wor- these globes will appear, in the judgment ship, with a forgetfulness of present care of any disinterested and intelligent person, No. 553.] THE SPECTATOR. 333 worth fifteen pounds more than will be de- ters go on to my satisfaction, I may perhaps manded for them by the undertakers. put off the meetng to a farther day; but of' 2 Whosoever will be pleased to sub- this, public notice shall be given. scribe, and pay twenty-five pounds in the In the mean time, I must confess that I manner following, for a pair of these globes, am not a little gratified and obliged by that either for their own use, or to present them concern which appears in this great city to any college in the universities, or any upon my present design of laying down public library or schools, shall have his this paper. It is likewise with much satiscoat of arms, name, title, seat, or place of faction, that I find some of the most outlyresidence, &c. inserted in some convenient ing parts of the kingdom alarmed upon this place of the globe. occasion, having received letters to expos-' 3. That every subscriber do at first pay tulate with me about it from several of my down the sum of ten pounds, and fifteen readers of the remotest boroughs of Great pounds more upon the delivery of each pair Britain. —Among these I am very well of globes perfectly fitted up. And that the pleased with a letter dated from Berwicksaid globes be delivered within twelve upon-Tweed, wherein my correspondent months after the number of thirty subscri- compares the office, which I have for some bers be completed; and that the subscribers time executed in these realms, to the weedbe served with globes in the order which ing of a great garden;' which,' says he, they subscribed.' it is not sufficient to weed once for all, and'4. That a pair of these globes shall not afterwards to give over, but that the work hereafter be sold to any person but the sub- must be continued daily, or the same spots scribers under thirty pounds. of ground which. are cleared for a while' 5. That, if there be not thirty subscri- will in a little time be overrun as much as bers within four months after the first of ever.' Another gentleman lays before me December, 1712, the money paid shall be several enormities that are already sproutreturned on demand, by Mr. John Warner, ing, and which he believes will discover goldsmith, near Temple-bar, who shall re- themselves in their growth immediately ceive and pay the same according to the after my disappearance.'There is no above-mentioned articles.' doubt,' says he,' but theladies' heads will shoot up as soon as they know they are no longer under the Spectator's eye; and I have No. 553.] Thursday, December 4, 1712. already seen such monstrous broad-brimmed hats under the arms of foreigners, that Nec lusisse pudet, sed non incidere ludum. I question not but they will overshadow the Hor. Ep. xiv. Lib. 1.36. island within a month or two after the Once to be wild is no such foul disgrace, dropping of your paper.' But, among all But'tis so still to run the frantic race.- Creec. the lettrs hich come tomyhands, the letters which are come to my hands, rHE project which I published on Mon there is none so handsomely written as the day last has brought me in several packets following one, which I am the more pleased of letters. Among the rest, I have received with as it is sent me from gentlemen who one from a certain projector, wherein, after belong to a body which I shall always having represented, that in all probability honour, and where (I cannot speak it withthe solemnity of opening my mouth will out a secret pride) my speculations have draw together a great confluence of be- met with a very kind reception. It is.holders, he proposes to me the hiring of usual for poets, upon the publishing of Stationer's-hall for the more convenient ex- their works, to print before them such hibiting of that public ceremony. He un- copies of verses as have been made in their dertakes- to be at the charge of it himself, praise. Not that you must imagine they provided he may have the erecting of gal- are pleased with their own commendation, leries on every side, and the letting of them but because the elegant compositions of out upon that occasion. I have a letter also their friends should not be lost. IA must from a bookseller, petitioning me in a very make the same apology for the publication humble manner, that he may have the of the ensuing letter, in which I have printing of the speech which I shall make suppressed no part of those praises that to the assembly upon the first opening of are given my speculations with too lavish my mouth. I am informed from all parts and good-natured a hand; though my corthat there are great canvassings in the se- respondents can witness for me, that at veral clubs about town, upon the choosing other times I have generally, blotted out of a proper person to sit with me on those those pars in the letters which I have re arduous affairs to which I have summoned ceived from them. 0. them. Three clubs have already proceeded to election, whereof one has made a double' Oxford, Nov. 25. return. If I find that my enemies shall'MR. SPECTATOR,-In spite of your take advantage of my silence to begin hos- invincible silence you have found out the tilities upon me, or if any other exigency of method of being the most agreeable corn affairs may so require, since I see elections panion in the world: that kind of conversain so great forwardness, we may possibly tion which you hold with the town, has meet before the day appointed; or, if mat- the good fortune of being always pleasinr 334 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 554. to the men of taste and leisure, and never have one manifest advantage over that reoffensive to those of hurry and business. nowned society, with respect to Mr. Spec You are never heard but at what Horace tator's company. For though they may calls dextro tempore, and have the happi- brag that you sometimes make your perness to observe the politic rule, which the sonal appearance amongst them, it is same discerning author gave his friend impossible they should ever get a word when he enjoined him to deliver his book from you, whereas you are with us the to Augustus: reverse of what Phedria would have his " Si validus, si lwtus erit, si denique poscet." mistress be in his rival's company, " preEp. xiii. Lib. 1. 3. sent in your absence." We make you." ~wVhen vexing cares are fled, talk as much and as long as we please; When well, when merry, when he asks to read." and, let me tell you, you seldom hold your I Creech. tongue for the whole evening. I promise You never begin to talk but when people myself you will look with an eye of favour are desirous to hear you; and I defy any upon a meeting which owes its original to one to be out of humour until you leave a mutual emulation among its members, off. But I am led unawares into reflections who shall show the most profound respect foreign to the original design of this epistle; for your paper; not but we have a very which was to let you know, that some great value for your person: and I dare say unfeigned admirers of your inimitable you can no where find four more sincere papers, who could without any flattery, admirers, and humble servants, than greet you with the salutation used to the' T F. G. S. J. T. E. T.' eastern monarchs, viz. " O Spec, live for ever," have lately been under the same apprehensions with Mr. Philo-Spec; that No. 554.] Friday, December 5, 1712. the haste you have made to despatch your best friends, portends no long duration to -Tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim your own short visage. We could not, Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora. r ownhorviage We could not, Virg. Georg. iii, 9. indeed, find any just grounds for complaint in the method you took to dissolve that New ways I must attempt my grovelling name venerable body: no, tOhe world was not To raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame.-Drydan. venerable body: no, the world was not worthy of your Divine. Will Honeycomb I AM obliged for the following essay, as could not, with any reputation, live single well as for that, which lays down rules out any longer. It was high time for the of Fully for pronunciation and action, to'remplar to turn himself to Coke; and Sir the ingenious author of a poem just pubRoger's dying was the wisest thing he ever lished, entitled, An Ode to the Creator of did in his life. It was, however, matter of the World, occasicned by the Fragments great grief to us, to think that we were in of Orpheus. danger of losing so elegant and valuable an' It is a remark made, as I remember, entertainment. And we could not, with- by a celebrated French author, that no out sorrow, reflect that we were likely to man ever pushed his capacity as far as it nave nothing to interrupt our sips in the was able to extend. I shall not inquire morning, and to suspend our coffee in mid whether this assertion be strictly true. It air, between our lips and right ear, but may suffice to say, that men of the greatest the ordinary trash of newspapers. We application and acquirements can look resolved, therefore, not to part with you back upon many vacant spaces, and negso. But since, to make use of your own lected parts of time, which have slipped allusion, the cherries began now to crowd away from them unemployed; and there is the market, and their season was almost hardly any one considering person in the over, we consulted our future enjoyments, world but is apt to fancy with himself, at and endeavoured to make the exquisite some time or other, that if his life were to pleasure that delicious fruit gave our taste begin again he could fill it up better. as lasting as we could, and by drying them'The mind is most provoked to cast on protract their stay beyond its natural date. itself this ingenuous reproach, when the We own that thus they have not a flavour examples of such men are presented to it equal to that of their juicy bloom; but yet, as have far outshot the generality of their under this disadvantage, they pique the species in learning, arts, or any valuable palate, and become a salver better than improvements. any other fruit at its first appearance. To One of the most extensive and improved speak plain, there are a number of us who geniuses we have had any instance of in our have begun your works afresh, and meet own nation, or in any other, was that of Sir two nights in the week in order to give Francis Bacon, lord Verulam. This great you a re-hearing. We never come together man, by an extraordinary force of nature, without drinking your health, and as sel- compass of thought, and indefatigable study. dom part without general expressions of had amassed to himself such stores of thanks to you for our night's improvement. knowledge as we cannot look upon without This we conceive to be a more useful insti- amazement. His capacity seemed to have tution than any other club whatever, not grasped all that was revealed in books beexcepting even that of Ugly Faces. We fore his time; and, not satisfied with that, No. 554.] THE SPECTATOR. 335 he began to strike out new tracts of science, tion of body. The instances of his strength too many to be travelled overby any one man are almost incredible. He is described tc m the compass of the longest life. These, have been a well-formed person, and a therefore, he could only mark down, like master of all genteel exercises. And lastly, imperfect coastings on maps, or supposed we are told that his moral qualities were points of land to be farther discovered and agreeable to his natural and intellectual ascertained by the industry of after ages, endowments, and that he was of an honest who should proceed upon his notices or and generous mind, adorned with great conjectures. sweetness of manners. I might break off'The excellent Mr. Boyle was the per- the account of him here, but I imagine it son who seems to have been designed by will be an entertainment to the curiosity of nature to succeed to the labours and in- my readers, to find so remarkable a chaquiries of that extraordinary genius I have racter distinguished by as remarkable a iust mentioned. By innumerable experi- circumstance at his death. The fame of ments, he in a great measure filled up his works having gained him an universal those plans and outlines of science which esteem, he was invited to the court of his predecessor had sketched out. His life France, where, after some time, he fell was spent in the pursuit of nature through sick; and Francis the First coming to see a great variety of forms and changes, and him, he raised himself in his bed to acin the most rational as well as devout ado- knowledge the honour which was done him ration of its divine Author, by that visit. The king embraced him, It would be impossible to name many and Leonardo, fainting in the same mopersons who have extended their capa- ment, expired in the arms of that great cities as far as these two, in the studies they monarch. pursued; but my learned readers on this'It is impossible to attend to such inoccasion will naturally turn their thoughts stances as these without being raised into a to a third,* who is yet living, and is like- contemplation on the wonderful nature of a wise the glory of our own nation. The human mind, which is capable of such proimprovements which others had made in gressions in knowledge, and can contain natural and mathematical knowledge have such a variety of ideas without perplexity so vastly increased in his hands, as to afford or confusion. How reasonable is it from at once a wonderful instance how great the hencetoinfer its divine original! And whilst capacity is of a human soul, and inexhaus- we find unthinking matter endued with a tible the subject of its inquiries; so true is natural power to last for ever, unless annithat remark in holy writ, that " though a hilated by Omnipotence, how absurd would wise man seek to find out the works of God it be to imagine that a being so much supefrom the beginning to the end, yet shall he rior to it should not have the same privilege! not be able to do it."' At the same time it is very surprising,' I cannot help mentioning here one cha- when we remove our thoughts from such racter more of a different kind indeed from instances as I have mentioned, to consider these, yet such a one as may serve to those we so frequently meet with in the show the wonderful force of nature and of accounts of barbarous nations among the application, and isthc most singular instance Indians; where we find numbers of people of an universal genius I have ever met who scarce show the first glimmerings of with. The person I mean is Leonardo da reason, and seem to have few ideas above Vinci, an Italian painter, descended from those of seise and appetite. These, me a noble family in Tuscany, about the be- thinks, appear like large wilds, or vast unginning of the sixteentht century. In his cultivated tracts of human nature; and, profession of history-painting he was so when we compare them with men of the great a master, that some have affirmed most exalted characters in arts and learnhe excelled all who went before him. It is ing, we find it difficult to believe that they certain that he raised the envy of Michael are creatures of the same species. Angelo, who was his contemporary, and'Some are of opinion that the souls of that from the study of his works Raphael men are all naturally equal, and that the himself learned his best manner of design- great disparity we so often observe, arises ing. He was a master too in sculpture and from the different organization or structure architecture, and skilful in anatomy, ma — of the bodies to which they are united. But, thematics, and mechanics. The aqueduct whatever constitutes this first disparity, the from the river Adda to Milan is mentioned next great difference which we find beas a work of his contrivance. He had tween men in their several acquirements learned several languages, and was ac- is owing to accidental differences in their quainted with the studies of history, philo- education, fortunes, or course of life. The sophy, poetry, and music. Though it is soul is a kind of rough diamond, which renot necessary to my present purpose, I quires art, labour, and time to polish it. cannot but take notice, that all who have For want of which many a good-natured writ of him mention likewise his perfec- genius is lost, or lies unfashioned, like a ___ __________jewel in the mine. * Sir Isaac Newton.' One of the strongest incitements to excel i3 was born in 1445, and died in 1520. in such arts and accomplishments as are in 336 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 555. the highest esteem am ng men, is the natu- take my leave, I am under much greater rat passion which the mind of man has for anxiety than I have known for the work of glory; which though it may be faulty in the any day since I undertook this province. It excess of it, ought by no means to be dis- is much more difficult to converse with the couraged. Perhaps some moralists are too world in a real than a personated character. severe in beating down this principle, which That might pass for humour in the Spectaseems to be a spring implanted by nature tor, which would look like arrogance in a to give motion to all the latent powers of writer who sets his name to his work. The the soul, and is always observed to exert fictitious person might condemn those who itself with the greatest force in the most disapproved him, and extol his own pergenerous dispositions. The men whose cha- formances without giving offence. He might racters have shown the brightest among assume a mock authority, without being the ancient Romans, appear to have been looked upon as vain and conceited. The strongly animated by this passion. Cicero, praises or censures of himself fall only upon whose learning and services to his country the creature of his imagination; and, if any are so well known, was inflamed by it to an one finds fault with him, the author may extravagant degree, and warmly presses reply with the philosopher of old,'Thou Lucceius, who was composing a history of dost but beat the case of Anaxarchus.' those times, to be very particular and zeal- When I speak in my own private sentious in relating the story of his consulship; ments, I cannot but address myself to my and to execute it speedily, that he might readers in a more submissive manner, and have'the pleasure of enjoying in his life- with a just gratitude for the kind reception time some part of the honour which he which they have given to these daily papers, foresaw would be paid to his memory. which have been published for almost the This was the ambition of a great mind; but space of two years last past. he is faulty in the degree of it, and cannot I hope the apology I have made, as to refrain from soliciting the historian upon the license allowable to a feigned character, this occasion to neglect the strict laws of may excuse any thing which has been said history; and, in praising him, even to ex- in these discourses of the Spectator and his ceed the bounds of truth. The younger works; but the imputation of the grossest Pliny appears to have had the same passion vanity would still dwell upon me, if I did for fame, but accompanied with greater not give some account by what means I was chasteness and modesty. His ingenious enabled to keep up the spirit of so long and manner of. owning it to a friend, who had approved a performance. All the papers prompted him to undertake some great marked with a C, an L, an I, or an 0, that work, is exquisitely beautiful, and raises is to say, all the papers which 1 have dishim to a certain grandeur above the im- tinguished by any letter in the name of the putation of vanity. "I must confess," says muse Clio, wNere given me by the gentlehe, "that nothing employs my thoughts man of whose assistance I formerly boasted more than the desire I have of perpetuating in the preface and concluding leaf of my my name; which in my opinion is a design Tatlers. I am indeed much more proud of worthy of a man, at least of such a one, his long continued friendship, than I should who, being conscious of no guilt, is not be of the fame of being thought the author afraid to be remembered by posterity." of any writings which he himself is capable' I think I ought not to conclude without of producing. I remember, when I finished interesting all my readers in the subject of The Tender Husband, I told him there was this discourse: I shall therefore lay it down nothing I so ardently wished, as that we as a maxim, that though all are not capable might some time or other publish a work, of shining in learning or the politer arts, written by us both, which should bear the yet every one is capable of excelling in name of The Monument, in memory of our something. The soul has in this respect a friendship. I heartily wish what I have certain vegetative power which cannot lie done here was as honorary to that sacred wholly idle. If it is not laid out and culti- name, as learning, wit, and humanity, renvated into a regular and beautiful garden, der those pieces which I have taught the it will of itself shoot up in weeds or flowers reader how to distinguish for his. When of a wilder growth.' the play above-mentioned was last acted, there were so many applauded strokes in it which I had from the same hand, that I thought very meanly of myself that I have No. 555.] Saturday, December 6, 1712. never publicly acknowledged them. After Resqe quod non es - I have put other friends upon importuning Resqe quod nPers. Sat. iv. 51. him to publish dramatic as well as othet Lay the fictitious character aside. writings he has by him, I shall end what I think I am obliged to say on this head by ALL the members of the imaginary so- giving my reader this hint for the setter cietv, which were described in my first judging of my productions-that the best pape s, having disappeared one after an- comment upon them would be an account other, it is high time for the Spectator him- when the patron to The Tender Husband self to go off the stage. But now I am to was in England or abroad. No. 555.] THE SPECTATOR. 33T The reader will also find some papers The following letter regards an ingenious which are marked with the letter X, for set of gentlemen, who have done me the which he is obliged to the ingenious gentle- honour to make me one of their society. man who diverted the town with the epilogue to The Distressed Mother. I might' Dec. 4, 171Z. have owned these several papers with the'MR. SPECTATOR,-The academy of free consent of these gentlemen, who did painting, lately established in London, not write them with a design of being known having done you and themselves the honour for the authors. But, as a candid and sin- to choose you one of their directors; that cere behaviour ought to be preferred to all noble and lively art, which before was enother considerations, I would not let my titled to your regard as a Spectator, has an heart reproach me with a consciousness of additional claim to you, and you seem to be having acquired a praise which is not my under a double obligation to take some care right, of her interests. The other assistances which I have had' The honour of our country is also conhave been conveyed by letter, sometimes cerned in the matter I am going to lay beby whole papers, and other times by short fore you. We (and perhaps other nations hints from unknown hands. I have not been as well as we) have a national false huable to trace favours of this kind with any manity as well as a national vain glory; certainty, but to the following names, which and, though we boast ourselves to excel all I place in the order wherein I received the the world in things wherein we are outdone obligation, though the first I am going to abroad, in other things we attribute to name can hardly be mentioned in a list others a superiority which we ourselves wherein he would not deserve the prece- possess. This is what is done, particularly dence. The persons to whom I am to make in the art of portrait or face-painting. these acknowledgments are, Mr. Henry' Painting is an art of a vast extent, too Martyn, Mr. Pope, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Carey great by much for any mortal man to be in of New-college in Oxford, Mr. Tickell of full possession of in all its parts; it is Queen's in the same university, Mr. Par- enough if any one succeed in painting faces, nelle, and Mr. Eusden, of Trinity in Cam- history, battles, landscapes, sea-pieces, bridge. Thus, to speak in the language of fruit, flowers, or drolls, &c. Nay, no man my late friend, Sir Andrew Freeport, I ever was excellent in all the branches have balanced my accounts with all my (though many in number,) of these several creditors for wit and learning. But as these arts, for a distinct art I take upon me to excellent performances would not have seen call every one of those several kinds of the light without the means of this paper, painting. I may still arrogate to myself the merit of'And as one man may be a good land their being communicated to the public. scape painter, but unable to paint a face or I have nothing more to add, but, having a history tolerably well, and so of the rest; swelled this work to five hundred and fifty- one nation may excel in some kinds of five papers, they will be disposed into seven painting, and, other kinds may thrive better volumes, four of which are already publish- in other climates. ed, and the three others in the press. It' Italy may have the preference of all will not be demanded of me why I now other nations for history painting; Holland leave-off, though I must own myself obliged for drolls and a neat finished manner of to give an account to the town of my time working; France for gay, jaunty, fluttering hereafter; since I retire when their par- pictures; and England for portraits; but to tiality to me is so great, that an edition of give the honour of every one of these kinds the former volumes of Spectators, of above of painting to any one of those nations on nine thousand each book, is already sold account of their excellence in any of these off, and the tax on each half-sheet has parts of it, is like adjudging the prize of Drought into the stamp-office, one week heroic, dramatic, lyric, or burlesque poetry with another, above 201. a week, arising to him who has done well in any one of from the single paper, notwithstanding it them. at first reduced it to less than half the num-' Where there are the greatest geniuses, oer that was usually printed before the tax and most helps and encouragements, it is was laid. reasonable to suppose an art will arrive to I humbly beseech the continuance of this the greatest perfection: by this rule let us inclination to favour what I may hereafter consider our own country with respect to produce, and hope I have in my occur- face-painting. No nation in the world derences of life tasted so deeply of pain and lights so much in having their own, or sorrow, that I am proof against much more friends' or relations' pictures; whether prosperous circumstances than any advan- from their national good-nature, or having tages to which my own industry can pos- a love to painting, and not being encou sibly exalt me. am, my good-natured raged in the great article of religious pic reader, your most obedient, most obliged tures, which the purity of our worship numble servant, refuses the free use of, or from whatever RICHARD STEELE. other cause. Our helps are not inferior to Vos valete et plaudite. Ter. those of arty other people, but rather they VOL. II. 43 338 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 556. are greater; for what the antique statues No. 556.] Friday, June 18, 1714. and bas-reliefs which Italy enjoys are to u the hist ry-painters, the beautKur and' no- Qualis ubi in lucem.coiuber mala gramina pastU'S the history-painters, the beautiful and no- Frigida, sub terra tumidum quem bruma tegebat; ble faces with which England is confessed Nunc positis novus exuviis, nitidusque juventa, to abound, are to-face-painters; and be- Lubricaconvobvitsublatopectoreterga sides, we have the greatest number of the Arduus ad solem, et linguis micat ore trisulcis. sides, we have the greatest number of the Firg. ~En. ii. 471 works of the best masters in that kind of n 4 works of the best masters i.n that kind of So shines, renew'd in youth, the crested snake, any people, not without a competent num- Who slept the winter in a thorny brake: ber of those of the most excellent in every And casting off his slough, when spring returns, other part of painting. And for encourage- Now looks aloft, and with new glory burns: Restor'd with pois'nous herbs, his ardent sides ment, the wealth and generosity of the Reflect the sun, and rais'd on spires he rides; English nation affords that in such a degree High o'er the grass hissing he rolls along, as artists have no reason to complain. And brandishes by fits his forky tongue.-Dryde~.' And accordingly, in fact, face-painting UPON laying down the office of Spectator. is no where so well performed as in Eng- I acquainted the world with my design of land: I know not whether it has lain in electing a new club, and of opening my. your way to observe it, but I have, and mouth in it after a most solemn manner. pretend to be a tolerable judge. I have Both the election and the ceremony are now seen what is done abroad; and can assure past; but not finding it so easy, as I at first you, that the honour of that branch of imagined, to break through a fifty years' painting is justly due to us. I appeal to the silence, I would not venture into the world judicious observers for the truth of what I under the character of a man who preassert. If foreigners have oftentimes, or tends to talk like other people, until I had even for the most part excelled our natives, arrived at a full freedom of speech. it ought to be imputed to the advantages I shall reserve for another time the histhey have met with here, joined to their tory of such club or clubs of which I am own ingenuity and industry; nor has any now a talkative but unworthy member; one nation distinguished themselves so as to and shall here give an account of this surraise an argument in favour of their coun- prising change which has been produced try: but it is to be observed that neither in me, and which I look upon to be as reFrench nor Italians, nor any one of either markable an accident as any recorded in nation, notwithstanding all our prejudices history, since that which happened to the in their favour, have, or ever had, for any son of Crcesus, after having been many considerable time, any character among us years as much tongue-tied as myself. as face-painters. Upon the first opening of my mouth, I'This honour is due to bur own country, made a speech, consisting of about half a and has been so for near an age: so that, dozen well-turned periods; but grew so instead of going to Italy, or elsewhere, one very hoarse upon it, that for three days to that designs for portrait-painting ought to gether, instead of finding the use of my study in England. Hither such should tongue, I was afraid that I had quite lost it. come from Holland, France, Italy, Ger- Besides, the unusual extension of my musmany, &c. as he that intends to practise cles on this occasion made my face ache on any other kinds of painting should go to both sides to such a degree, that nothing those parts where it is in the greatest per- but an invincible resolution and perseverfection. It is said the blessed Virgin de- ance could have prevented me from falling scended from heaven to sit to St. Luke. back to my monosyllables. I dare venture to affirm that, if she should I afterwards made several essays towards desire another Madonna to be painted by speaking; and that I might not be startled the life, she would come to England; and at my own voice, which has happened to am of opinion that your present president, me more than once, I used to read aloud in Sir Godfrey Kneller, from his improve- my chamber, and have often stood in the ment since he arrived in this kingdom, middle of the street to call a coach, when I would perform that office better than any knew there was none within hearing. foreigner living. I am, with all possible When I was thus grown pretty well acrespect, sir, your most humble and most quainted with my own voice, I laid hold of obedient servant, &c.' all opportunities to exert it. Not caring ** The ingenious letter signed the however to speak much by myself, and to Weather Glass, with several others, were draw upon me the whole attention of those received, but came too late. I conversed with, I used for some time to POSTSCRIPT. walk every morning in the Mall, and talk It had not come to my knowledge, when in chorus with a parce of Frenchmen. I 1 left off the Spectator, that I owe several found my modesty greatly relieved by the excellent sentiments and agreeable pieces communicative temper of this nation, who in this work to Mr. Ince, of Gray's-Inn. * are so very sociable as to think they are R. S1 TEELE. never better company than when they are all opening at the same time. * This paper concluded the seventh volume of the I then fancied I might receive great beSpectator, as originally published. The intermediate nefit from female conversation, and that I time was filled up by our authors in the production of o eale conerinn at the Guardian. should have a convenience of talking with No. 557.] THE SPECTATOR. 339 the greater freedom, when I was not under friend to no interests but those of truth and any impediment of thinking: I therefore virtue; nor a foe to any but those of vice threw myself into an assembly of ladies, and folly. Though I make more noise in but could not for my life get in a word the world than I used to do, I am still re among them; and found that if I did not solved to act in it as an indifferent spectachange my company, I was in danger of tor. It is not my ambition to increase the being reduced to my primitive taciturnity. number either of whigs or tories, but cf The coffee-houses have ever since been wise and good men; and I could heartily my chief places of resort, where I have wish there were not faults common to both made the greatest improvements; in order parties, which afford me sufficient matter to which I have taken a particular care to work upon, without descending to those never to be of the same opinion with the which are peculiar to either. man I conversed with. I was a tory at If in a multitude of counsellors there is Button's, and a whig at Child's, a friend to safety, we ought to think ourselves the sethe Englishman, or an advocate for the curest nation in the world. Most of our Examiner, as it best served my turn: some garrets are inhabited by statesmen, who fancy me a great enemy to the French watch over the liberties of their country, king, though in reality I only make use of and make a shift to keep themselves from him for a help to discourse. In short, I starving by taking into their care the prowrangle and dispute for exercise; and have perties of their fellow-subjects. carried this point so far, that I was once As these politicians of both sides have like to have been run through the body for already worked the nation into a most unmaking a little too free with my betters. natural ferment, I shall be so far from enIn a word, I am quite another man to deavouring to raise it to a greater height, what I was. that, on the contrary, it shall be the chief ~- ~~ Nil fuit unquam tendency of my papers to inspire my counTam dispar sibi. - trymen with a mutual good-will and beneHer. Sat. i. Lb. 1. 18. volence. Whatever faults either party may Nothing was ever so unlike itself. ^ r Nothing was ever so unlike itself, be guilty of, they are rather inflamed than My old acquaintance scarce know me; cured by those reproaches which they cast nay, I was asked the other day by a Jew at upon one another. The most likely meJonathan's, whether I was not related to a thod of rectifying any man's conduct, is by dumb gentleman, who used to come to that recommending to him the principles of coffee-house? But I think I never was bet- truth and honour, religion and virtue: and ter pleased in my life than about a week so long as he acts with an eye to these ago, when, as I-was battling it across the principles, whatever party he is of, he cantable with a young Templar, his compa- not fail of being a good Englishman, and a nion gave him a pull by the sleeve, begging lover of his country. him to come away, for that the old prig As for the persons concerned in this work, would talk him to death. the names of all of them, or at least of such Being now a very good proficient in dis- as desire it, shall be published hereafter: course, I shall appear in the world with until which time I must entreat the courthis addition to my character, that my teous reader to-suspend his curiosity, and countrymen may reap the fruits of my new- rather to consider what is written, than acquired loquacity. who they are that write it. Those who have been present at public Having thus adjusted all necessary predisputes in the university know that it is liminaries with my reader, I shall not trouusual to maintain heresies for argument's ble him with any more prefatory discourses, sake. I have heard a man a most impu- but proceed in my old method, and enterdent Socinian for half an hour, who has tain him with speculations on every useful been an orthodox divine all his life after. subject that falls in my way. C. I have taken the same method to accomplish myself in the gift of utterance, having talked above a twelvemonth, not so *much for the benefit of my hearers, as of myself. No. 557.] Monday, June 21, 1714. But, since I have now gained the faculty Quippe domum timet ambiguam Tyriosque bilingues. I have been so long endeavouring after, I Virg. n. i. 665. intend to make a right use of it, and shall He fears the ambiguous race, and Tyrians double think myself obliged for the future, to tongu'd. speak always in truth and sincerity of'THERE is nothing,' says Plato,' so de heart. While a man is learning to fence, lightful as the hearing or the speaking of he practises both on friend and foe; but truth.' For this reason there is no converwhen he is a master in the art, he never sation so agreeable as that of the man of inexerts it but on what he thinks the right tegrity, who hears without any intention to side. betray, and speaks without any intention to That this last allusion may not give my deceive. reader a wrong idea of my design in this Among all the accounts which are given paper, I must here inform him, that the of Cato, I do not remember one that more author of it is of no faction; that he is a redounds to his henour than the following 340 fHE SPECTATOR. [No. 557. passage related by Plutarch. As an advo- than from London to Bantam; and thou cate was pleading the cause of his client knowest the inhabitants of one of these before one of the praetors, he could only places do not know what is done in the produce a single witness in a point where other. They call thee and thy subjects the law required the testimony of two per- barbarians, because we speak what we sons; upon which the advocate insisted on mean; and account themselves a civilized the integrity of that person whom he had people, because they speak one thing and produced; but the prztor told him, that mean another; truth they call barbarity, where the law required two witnesses he and falsehood politeness. Upon my first would not accept of one, though it were landing, one, who was sent from the king Cato himself. Such a speech from a per- of this place to meet me, told me that he son who sat at the head of a court of jus- was extremely sorry for the storm I had tice, while Cato was still living, shows us, met with just before my arrival. I was more than a thousand examples, the high troubled to hear him grieve and afflict himreputation this great man had gained among self upon my account; but in less than a his contemporaries upon the account of his quarter of an hour he smiled, and was as sincerity, merry as if nothing had happened. Another When such an inflexible integrity is a who came with him told me by my interlittle softened and qualified by the rules of preter, he should be glad to do me any serconversation and good-breeding, there is vice that lay in his power. Upon which I not a more shining virtue in the whole cata- desired him to carry one of my portmanlogue of social duties. A man however teaus for me; but, instead of serving me ought to take great care not to publish him- according to his promise, he laughed, and self out of his veracity, nor to refind his be- bid another do it. I lodged, the first week, haviour to the prejudice of his virtue, at the house of one who desired me to think This subject is exquisitely treated in the myself at home, and to consider his house most elegant sermon of the great British as my own. Accordingly, I the next mornpreacher. * I shall beg leave to transcribe ing began to knock down one of the walls out of it two or three sentences, as a proper of it, in order to let in the fresh air, and introduction to a very curious letter, which had packed up some of the household I shall make the chief entertainment of this goods, of which I intended to have made speculation. thee a present; but the false varlet no I The old English plainness and sincerity, sooner saw me falling to work, but he sent that generous integrity of nature, and ho- word to desire me to give over, for that he nesty of disposition, which always argues would have no such doings in his house. I true greatness of mind, and is usually ac- had not been long in this nation before I companied with undaunted courage and re- was told by one, for whom I had asked a solution, is in a great measure lost among us. certain favour from the chief of the king's'The dialect of conversation is now-a- servants, whom they here call the lord days so swelled with vanity and compli- treasurer, that I had eternally obliged him. ment, and so surfeited (as I may say) of I was so surprised at his gratitude, that I expressions of kindness and respect, that if could not forbear saying, "'What service a man that lived an age or two ago should is there which one man can do for another, return into the world again, he would really that can oblige him to all eternity! " Howwant a dictionary to help him to under- ever, I only asked him, for my reward, that stand his own language, and to know the he would lend me his eldest daughter during true intrinsic value of the phrase in fashion; my stay in this country; but I quickly found and would hardly at first believe at what a that he was as treacherous as the rest of his low rate the highest strains and expres- countrvmen. sions of kindness imaginable do commonly'At my first going to court, one of the pass in current payment; and when he great men almost put me out of counteshould come to understand it, it would be a nance, by asking ten thousand pardons of great while before he could bring himself, me for only treading by accident upon my with a good countenance, and a good con- toe. #They call this kind of lie a compliscience, to converse with men upon equal ment; for, when they are civil to a great terms and in their own way.' man they tell him untruths, for which thou I have by me a letter which I look upon wouldest order any of thy officers of state as a great curiosity, and which may serve to receive a hundred blows upon his foot. I as an exemplification to the foregoing pas- do not know how I shall negotiate any thing sage, cited out of this most excellent pre- with this people, since there is so little crelate. It is said to have been written in dit to be given to them. When I go to see king Charles the Second's reign by the the king's scribe, I am generally told that ambassador of Bantam,t a little after his he is not at home, though perhaps I saw arrival in England. him go into his house almost the very moMWAsTER,-nThe people where I now ment before. Thou wouldest. fancy that am have tongues farther from their heartsthe whole nation are physicians, for the first question they always ask me is, how I * Archbishop Tillotson, vol. ii. sermon i. folio edition do; I have this question put to me above a t in is 2. hundred times a-day. Nay, they are not No. 558.] THE SPECTATOR. 341 only thus inquisitive after my health, but of any other person would be, in case we wish it in a more solemn manner, with a would change conditions with him. full glass in their hands, every time I sit As I was ruminating upon these two rewith them at table, though at the same marks, and seated in my elbow chair, I time they would persuade me to drink their insensibly fell asleep; when on a sudden, liquors in such quantities as I have found methought, there was a proclamation made by experience will make me sick. They by Jupiter, that every mortal should bring often pretend to pray for thy health also in in his griefs and calamities, and throw them the same manner; but I have more reason together in a heap. There was a large to expect it from the goodness of thy con- plain appointed for this purpose. I took my stitution than the sincerity of their wishes, stand in the centre of it, and saw with a May thy slave escape in safety from this great deal of pleasure the whole human double-tongued race of men, and live to lay species marching one after another, and nimself once more at thy feet in the royal throwing down their several loads, which city of Bantam!' immediately grew up into a prodigious mountain, that seemed to rise above the clouds. No. 558.1 Wednesday, June 23, 1714. There was a certain lady of a thin airy Qui fit, Mecenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem shape, who was very active in this solemSeu ratio dederi*' eu fors objecerit, illa nity. She carried a magnifying glass in Contentus vivat: laudet diversa sequentes one of her hands, and was clothed in a loose O fortunati mercatores, gravis annis Miles ait, multo jam fractus membra labore! flowing robe, embroidered with several Contra mercator, navim jactantibus austris, figures of fiends and spectres, that discovMilitia est potior. Quid enim? concurritur: hora ered themselves in a thousand chimerical Momento cita mors venit, dut victoria leta. her garment hovered Agricolam laudat juris legumque peritus, shapes, as her garment hovered in the Sub galli cantum consultor ubi ostia pulsat. wind. There was something wild and disIlle, datis vadibus, qui rure extractus in urbem est, tracted in her looks. Her name was Fancy. Solos felices viventes clamat in urbe. mortal to the appointed Cetera de genere hoc (adeo sunt multa) loquacem She led up every mortal to the appointed Delassare valent Fabium. Ne te morer, audi place, after having very officiously assisted Quo rem deducam. Si quis Deus, en ego, dicat, him in making up his pack, and laying it Tam faciam quod vultis: eris tu, qui modo miles, M ar elt w Mercator: tu consultus modo, rusticus. Hinc vos, Upon his shoulders. Vos hinc mutatis discedite partibus. Eja, in me to see my fellow-creatures groaning Quid statis? Nolint. Atqui licet esse beatis. under their respective burdens, and to conHor. Sat. i. Lib.. sider that prodigious bulk of human calaWhence is't, Mecenas, that so few approve mities which la before me. The state they're plac'd in, and incline to rove; Whether against their will by fate impos'd, There were however several persons who Or by consent and prudent choice espous'd? gave me great diversion upon this occasion. Happy the merchant the old soldier cries, I observed one bringing in a fardel very Broke with fatigues and warlike enterprise The merchant, when the dreaded hurricane carefully concealed under an old embroiTosses his wealthy cargo on the main, dered cloak, which, upon his throwing it Applauds the wars and toils of a campaign: into the heap, I discovered to be Poverty. There an engagement soon decides your doom, f f' Bravely to die, or come victorious home. Another, after a great deal of puffing, threw The lawyer vows the farmer's life is best, down his luggage, which, upon examining, When at the dawn the clients break his rest. I found to be h wife The farmer, having put in bail t'appear, And forc'd to town, cries they are happiest there: There were multitudes of lovers saddled With thousands more of this inconstant race, with very whimsical burdens composed of Would tire e'en Fabius to relate each case, darts and flames; but, what was very odd, Not to detain you longer, pray attend The issue of all this: Should Jove descend, though they sighed as if their hearts would And grant to every man his rash demand, break under these bundles of calamities, To run his lengths with a neglectful hand; they could not persuade themselves to cast First, grant the harass'd warrior a release; them into the heap, when theycame up to Bid him to trade, and try the faithless seas, To purchase treasure and declining ease; to it; but, after a few faint efforts, shook Next call the pleader from his learned strife, their heads, and marched away as heavy To the calm blessings of a country life; loaden as they came. I saw multitudes of And, with these separate demands dismissden as they came. I saw multitudes o )Cach suppliant to enjoy the promis'd bliss: old women throw down their wrinkles, oton't you believe they'd run? Not one will move, and several young ones who stripped themrhough proffer'd to be happy from above.-Horne. selves of a tawny skin There were very IT is a celebrated thought of Socrates, great heaps of red noses, large lips, and that if all the misfortunes of mankind were rusty teeth. The truth of it is, I was surcast into a' public stock, in order to be prised to see the greatest part of the equally distributed among the whole spe- mountain made up of bodily deformities. cies, those who now think themselves the Observing one advancing towards the heap most unhappy, would prefer the share they with a larger cargo than ordinary upon his are already possessed of before that which back, I found upon his near approach that could fall to them by such a division. Ho- it was only a natural hump, which he disrace has carried this thought a great deal posed of, with great joy of heart, among farther in the motto of my paper, which this collectiqn of human miseries. There implies, that the hardships or misfortunes were likewise distempers of all sorts; we lie under are more easy to us than those though I could not but observe, that there 342 fHE SPECTATOR. [No. 559. were many more imaginary than real. One ard wondered how the owners of them ever little packet I could not but take notice of, came to look upon them as burdens and which was a complication of all the diseases grievances. incident to human nature, and was in the As we were regarding very attentively hand of a great many fine people: this this confusion of miseries, this chaos ot was called the spleen. But what most of calamity, Jupiter issued out a second proall surprised me, was a remark I made, clamation, that every one was now at liberty that there was not a single vice or folly to exchange his affliction, and to return to thrown into the whole heap; at which I his habitation with any such other bundle was very much astonished, having conclud- as should be delivered to him. ed within myself, that every one would take Upon this, Fancy began again to bestir this opportunity of getting rid of his pas- herself, and, parcelling out the whole heap sions, prejudices, and frailties. with incredible activity, recommended to I took notice in particular of a very pro- every one his particular packet. The hurry fligate fellow, who I did not question came and confusion at this time was not to be exloaded with his crimes: but upon searching pressed. Some observations which I made into his bundle I found, that instead of upon this occasion, I shall communicate to throwing his guilt from him, he had only the public. A venerable gray-headed man, laid down his memory. He was followed who had laid down the colick, and who I by another worthless rogue, who flung found wanted an heir to his estate, snatch-. away his modesty instead of his ignorance. ed up an undutiful son that had been When the whole race of mankind had thrown into the heap by his angry father. thus cast their burdens, the phantom which The graceless youth, in less than a quarter had been so busy on this occasion, seeing of an hour, pulled the old gentleman by the me an idle Spectator of what had passed, beard, and had like to have knocked his approached towards me. I grew uneasy at brains out; so that meeting the true father, her presence, when of a sudden she held who came towards him with a fit of the her magnifying glass full before my eyes. gripes, he begged him to take his son again, I no sooner saw my face in it, but was and give him back his colick; but they startled at the shortness of it, which now were incapable either of them to recede appeared to me in its utmost aggravation, from the choice they had made. A poor The immoderate breadth of the features galley-slave, who had thrown down his made me very much out of humour with chains, took up the gout in their stead, but my own countenance, upon which I threw made such wry faces, that one might easily it from me like a mask. It happened very perceive he was no great gainer by the luckily that one who stood by me had just bargain. It was pleasant enough to see the before thrown down his visage, which it several exchanges that were made, for seems was too long for him. It was indeed sickness against poverty, hunger against extended to a most shameful length; I be- want of appetite, and care against pain. lieve the very chin was, modestly speaking, The female world were very busy among aslong as my whole face. We had both of themselves in bartering for features: one us an opportunity of mending ourselves; and was trucking a lock of gray hairs for a carall the cgntributions being now brought in, buncle, another was making over a short every man was at liberty to exchange his waist for a pair of round shoulders, and a misfortunes for those of another person. third cheapening a bad face for a lost reBut as there arose many new incidents in putation: but on all these occasions there the sequel of my vision, I shall reserve was not one of them who did not think the them for the subject of my next paper. new blemish, as soon as she had got it into her possession, much more disagreeable N than the old one. I made the same observNo. 559.1 Friday, June 25, 1714. ation on every other misfortune or calamity Quid causae est, merito quin illis Jupiter ambas which every one in the assembly brought Iratus huccas inflet, neque se fore posthac upon himself in lieu of what he had parted Tam facilem dicat, votis ut praebeat aurem with: whether it be that all the evils which Hot. Sat. i. Lib. 1.20. whether it be that all the evils which Were it not just that Jove, provok'd to heat, efalus, are in some measure suited and Should drive these triflers from the hallovw'd seat, proportioned to our strength, or that every And unrelenting stand when they entreat? evil becomes more supportable by our beHoratck. ing accustomed to it, I shall not determine. IN my last paper, I gave my reader a I could not from my heart forbear pitying sight of that mountain of miseries which the poor hump-backed gentleman mentionwas made up of those several calamities ed in the former paper, who went off a very that afflict the minds of men. I saw with well shaped person with a stone in his unspeakable pleasure the whole species bladder; nor the fine gentleman who had thus delivered from its sorrows; though at struck up this bargain with him, that limpthe same time, as we stood round the heap, ed through % whole assembly of ladies, who and surveyed the several materials of used to admire him, with a pair of shoulders which it was composed, thereivas scarcely peeping over his head. a mortal in this vast multitude, who did not I must not omit my own particular addiscover what he thought pleasures of life, ventu-e. My friend with a long visage had N 560. THE SPECTATOR. 343 no sooner taken upon him my short face, judgment of his neighbour's sufferings; for but he made such a grotesque figure in it, which reason also I have determined never that as I looked upon him I could not for- to think too lightly of another's complaints, bear laughing at myself, insomuch that I but to regard the sorrows of my fellowput my own face out of countenance. The creatures with sentiments of hr.manity and poor gentleman was so sensible of the ridi- compassion. 0 cule, that I found he was ashamed of what he had done: on the other side, I found that I myself had no great reason to triumph, No. 560.] Monday, June 28, 1714. for as I went to touch my forehead I missed the place, and clapped my finger upon my - Verba intermissa retentat. upper lip. Besides, as my nose was exceed- Ovid, Met. Lib. i. 746. ing prominent, I gave it two or three un- He tries his tongue, his silence softly breaks. lucky knocks as I was playing my hand Dryden. about my face, and aiming at some other EVERY one has heard of the famous conpart of it. I saw two other gentlemen by juror, who, according to the opinion of the me who were in the same ridiculous cir- vulgar, has studied himself dumb: for cumstances. These had made a foolish which reason, as it is believed, he delivers swap between a couple of thick bandy legs out his oracles in writing. Be that as it and two long trap-sticks that had no calves will, the blind Tiresias was not more fa-4 to them. One of these looked like a man mous in Greece than this dumb artist has walking upon stilts, and was so lifted up been for some years last past in the cities of into the air, above his ordinary height, that London and Westminster. Thus much for his head turned round with it; while the the profound gentleman who honours me other made such awkward circles, as he with the following epistle. attempted to walk, that he scarcely knew how to move forward upon his new sup-'From my cell, June 24, 1714. porters. Observing him to be a pleasant'SIR,-Being informed that you have kind of fellow, I stuck my cane on the lately got the use of your tongue, I have ground, and told him I would lay him a some thoughts of following your example, bottle of wine that he did not march up to that I may be a fortune-teller, properly it on a line that I drew for him in a quarter speaking. I am grown weary of my taciturof an hour. nity, and having served my country many The heap was at last distributed among years under the titleof " the dumb doctor," the two sexes, who made a most piteous I shall now prophesy by word of mouth, and sight, as they wandered up and down under (as Mr. Lee says of the magpie, who you the pressure of their several burdens. The know was a great fortune-teller among the whole plain was filled with murmurs and ancients) chatter futurity. I have hitherto complaints, groans and lamentations. Ju- chosen to receive questions and return anpiter at length taking compassion on the swers in writing, that I might avoid the tepoor mortals, ordered them a second time diousness and trouble of debates, my querists to lay down their loads, with a design to being generally of a humour to think that give every one his own again. They dis- they have never predictions enough for charged themselves with a great deal of their money. In short, sir, my case has pleasure: after which, the phantom who been something like that of those discreet had led them into such gross delusion was animals the monkeys, who, as the Indians commanded to disappear. There was sent tell us, can speak if they would, but purin her stead a goddess of a quite different posely avoid it that they may not be made figure; her motions were steady and com- to work. I have hitherto gained a liveli. posed, and her aspect serious but cheerful. hood by holding my tongue, but shall no~ She every now and then cast her eyes to- open my mouth in order to fill it. If I ap wards heaven, and fixed them upon Jupiter: pear a little word-bound in my first solu. her name was Patience. She had no sooner tions and responses, I hope it will not b( placed herself by the Mount of Sorrows, imputed to any want of foresight, but t( but, what I thought very remarkable, the the long disuse of speech. I doubt not by whole heap sunk to such a degree, that it this invention to have all my former cusdid not appear a third part so big as it was tomers over again; for, if I have promised before. She afterwards returned every any of them lovers or husbands, riches or man his own proper calamity, and teaching good luck, it is my design to confirm to him how to bear it in the most commodious them, viva voce, what I have already given manner, he marched off with it contentedly, them under my hand. If you will honour being very well pleased that he had not me with a visit, I will compliment you with been left to his own choice as tothe kind of the first opening of my mouth: and if you evil which fell to his lot. please, you may make an entertaining diaBesides the several pieces of morality to logue out of the conversation of two dumb be drawn out of this vision, I learnt from men. Excuse this trouble, worthy sir, from it never to repine at my own misfortunes, one who has been a long time, your silent or to envy the happiness of another, since admirer, it is impossible for any man to form a right''CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.' 344 THE SPECTATOR. [No. 56L I have received the following letter, or mind to pass for a Bantamite, or to make rather billet-doux, from a pert young bag- us all Quakers? I do assuie thee, dear gage, who congratulates with me upon the Spec, I am not polished out of my veracity same occasion. when I subscribe myself, thy constant adJu, 1. mirer, and humble servant,