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plause as it is depressed' by neglect and and a sweet smile sits in the charming contempt. But it is only persons far above space which divides her lips. One would the common level who are thus affected swear that voice and speech were issuing with either of these extremes; as in a ther-out, and that one's ears felt the melodious mometer, it is only the purest and most sound. How often have I, deceived by a sublimated spirit that is either contracted lover's credulity, hearkened if she had not or dilated by the benignity or inclemency of the season.

something to whisper me? and when frustrated of my hopes, how often have I taken 'MR. SPECTATOR,-The translations my revenge in kisses from her cheeks and which you have lately given us from the whilst she (as to me it seemed,) only witheyes, and softly wooed her to my embrace, Greek, in some of your last papers, have held her tongue the more to inflame me. been the occasion of my looking into some But, madman that I am, shall I be thus of those authors: among whom I chanced taken with the representation only of a on a collection of letters which pass under beauteous face, and flowing hair, and thus the name of Aristænetus. Of all the re- waste myself and melt to tears for a shamains of antiquity, I believe there can be dow? Ah, sure it is something more, it is nothing produced of an air so gallant and a reality; for see, her beauties shine out polite; each letter contains a little novel or with new lustre, and she seems to upbraid adventure, which is told with all the beau-me with unkind reproaches. Oh, may I ties of language, and heightened with a luxuriance of wit. There are several of them translated;* but with such wide deviations from the original, and in a style so far differing from the author's, that the translator seems rather to have taken hints for the expressing his own sense and thoughts, than to have endeavoured to render those of Aristænetus. In the following transla- No. 239.] Tuesday, December 4, 1711. tion, I have kept as near the meaning of the Greek as I could, and have only added a few words to make the sentences in English sit together a little better than they would otherwise have done. The story seems to be taken from that of Pygmalion and the statue in Ovid; some of the thoughts are of the same turn, and the whole is written in a kind of poetical prose.'

my art.

Philopinax to Chromation.

have a living mistress of this form, that when I shall compare the work of nature with that of art, I may be still at a loss which to choose, and be long perplexed with the pleasing uncertainty."

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T.

-Bella, horrida bella! Virg. Æn. vi. 86.

-Wars, horrid wars!

Dryden.

considering the several methods of managI HAVE Sometimes amused myself with ing a debate which have obtained in the world.

The first races of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rules

of art.

Socrates introduced a catechetical method of arguing. He would ask his adversary question upon question, until he had convinced him out of his own mouth that his opinions were wrong. This way of debating drives an enemy up into a corner, seizes all the passes through which he can make an escape, and forces him to surrender at discretion.

"Never was a man more overcome with so fantastical a passion as mine; I have painted a beautiful woman, and am despairing, dying for the picture. My own skill has undone me; it is not the dart of Venus, but my own pencil has thus wounded me. Ah, me! with what anxiety am I necessitated to adore my own idol? How miserable am I, whilst every one must as much pity the painter as he praises the picture, Aristotle changed this method of attack, and own my torment more than equal to and invented a great variety of little weaBut why do I thus complain? pons, called syllogisms. As in the Socratic Have there not been more unhappy and way of dispute you agree to every thing unnatural passions than mine? Yes, I have which your opponent advances, in the Arisseen the representation of Phædra, Nar-totelic you are still denying and contradictcissus, and Pasiphæ. Phædra was unhappy ing some part or other of what he says. in her love: that of Pasiphe was monstrous; Socrates conquers you by stratagem, Arisand whilst the other caught at his beloved totle by force! The one takes the town by likeness, he destroyed the watery image, sap, the other sword in hand. which ever eluded his embraces. The The universities of Europe for many fountain represented Narcissus to himself, years carried on their debates by syllogism, and the picture both that and him, thirst- insomuch that we see the knowledge of ing after his adored image. But I am yet several centuries laid out into objections less unhappy. I enjoy her presence con- and answers, and all the good sense of the tinually, and if I touch her, I destroy not age cut and minced into almost an infinithe beauteous form, but she looks pleased, tude of distinctions.

By Tom Brown and others. See his Works 4 vols. -12mo.

When our universities found there was no end of wrangling this way, they invented a kind of argument, which is not reducible

to any mood or figure in Aristotle. It was called the argumentum Basilinum, (others write it Bacilinum or Baculinum,) which is pretty well expressed in our English word club-law. When they were not able to confute their antagonist, they knocked him down. It was their method in these polemical debates, first to discharge their syllogisms, and afterwards to betake themselves to their clubs, until such time as they had one way or other confounded their gainsayers. There is in Oxford a narrow defile, (to make use of a military term,) where the partisans used to encounter; for which reason it still retains the name of Logic-lane. I have heard an old gentleman, a physician, make his boasts, that when he was a young fellow he marched several times at the head of a troop of Scotists, and cudgelled a body of Smiglesianst half the length of High-street, until they had dispersed themselves for shelter into their respective garrisons.

This humour, I find, went very far in Erasmus's time. For that author tells us, that upon the revival of Greek letters, most of the universities in Europe were divided into Greeks and Trojans. The latter were those who bore a mortal enmity to the language of the Grecians, insomuch that if they met with any who understood it, they did not fail to treat him as a foe. Erasmus himself had, it seems, the misfortune to fall into the hands of a party of Trojans, who laid on him with so many blows and buffets that he never forgot their hostilities to his dying day.

There is a way of managing an argument not much unlike the former, which is made use of by states and communities, when they draw up a hundred thousand disputants, on each side, and convince one another by dint of sword. A certain grand monarcht was so sensible of his strength in this way of reasoning, that he writ upon his great guns Ratio ultima regum,The logic of kings;' but, God be thanked, he is now pretty well baffled at his own weapons. When one has to do with a philosopher of this kind, one should remember the old gentleman's saying, who had been engaged in an argument with one of the Roman emperors. Upon his friend's telling him that he wondered he would give up the question, when he had visibly the better of the dispute; I am never ashamed,' says he, to be confuted by one who is master of fifty legions.'

I shall but just mention another kind of

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reasoning, which may be called arguing by poll; and another which is of equal force, in which wagers are made use of as arguments, according to the celebrated line in Hudibras. ||

But the most notable way of managing a controversy, is that which we may call arguing by torture. This is a method of reasoning which has been made use of with the poor refugees, and which was so fashionable in our country during the reign of Queen Mary, that in a passage of an author quoted by Monsieur Bayle, it is said the price of wood was raised in England, by reason of the executions that were made in Smithfield. These disputants convince their adversaries with a sorites,** commonly called a pile of faggots. The rack is also a kind of syllogism which has been used with good effect, and has_made_multitudes of converts. Men were formerly disputed out of their doubts, reconciled to truth by force of reason, and won over to opinions by the candour, sense, and ingenuity of those who had the right on their side; but this method of conviction operated too slowly. Pain was found to be much more enlightening than reason. Every scruple was looked upon as obstinacy, and not to be removed but by several engines invented for that purpose. In a word, the application of whips, racks, gibbets, galleys, dungeons, fire and faggot, in a dispute, may be looked upon as popish refinements upon the old heathen legic.

There is another way of reasoning which seldem fails, though it be of a quite different nature to that I have last mentioned. I mean convincing a man by ready money, or as it is ordinarily called, bribing a man to an opinion. This method has often proved successful, when all the others have been made use of to no purpose. A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint, will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamourous, and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens, confounded their statesmen, struck their orators dumb, and at length argued them out of all their liberties.

Having here touched upon the several methods of disputing, as they have preVailed in different ages of the world, I shall very suddenly give my reader an account of the whole art of cavilling; which shall

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be a full and satisfactory answer to all such | have by this admirable person been shown papers and pamphlets as have yet ap- to, and raised in, sir, your most humble peared against the Spectator. servant.'

C.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a country gentleman of a good plentiful estate, and live as

No. 240.] Wednesday, December 5, 1711. the rest of my neighbours with great hos

—Aliter non fit, Avite, liber.

pitality. I have been ever reckoned among the ladies the best company in the world, Mart. Ep. 17. Lib. 1. and have access as a sort of favourite. I Of such materials, sir, are books composed. never came in public but I saluted them, 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of the though in great assemblies, all around; most genteel trades in the city, and under- where it was seen how genteelly I avoided stand thus much of liberal education, as to hampering my spurs in their petticoats, have an ardent ambition of being useful to whilst I moved amongst them; and on the mankind, and to think that the chief end other side how prettily they curtsied and of being, as to this life. I had these good received me standing in proper rows, and impressions given me from the handsome advancing as fast as they saw their elders, behaviour of a learned, generous, and or their betters, despatched by me. But so wealthy man towards me, when I first it is, Mr. Spectator, that all our good breedbegan the world. Some dissatisfaction be-ing is of late lost, by the unhappy arrival of tween me and my parents made me enter a courtier, or town gentleman, who came into it with less relish of business than I lately among us. This person whenever he ought; and to turn off this uneasiness, I came into a room made a profound bow, gave myself to criminal pleasures, some and fell back, then recovered with a soft excesses, and a general loose conduct. I air, and made a bow to the next, and so to know not what the excellent man above- one or two more, and then took the gross of mentioned saw in me, but he descended the room, by passing them in a continual from the superiority of his wisdom and bow until he arrived at the person he merit, to throw himself frequently into my thought proper particularly to entertain. company. This made me soon hope that This he did with so good a grace and asI had something in me worth cultivating, surance, that it is taken for the present and his conversation made me sensible of fashion; and there is no young gentlewoman satisfactions in a regular way, which I had within several miles of this place has been never before imagined. When he was kissed ever since his first appearance among grown familiar with me, he opened himself us. We country gentlemen cannot begin like a good angel, and told me he had long again and learn these fine and reserved airs; laboured to ripen me into a preparation to and our conversation is at a stand, until we receive his friendship and advice, both have your judgment for or against kissing which I should daily command, and the by way of civility or salutation; which is use of any part of his fortune, to apply impatiently expected by your friends of the measures he should propose to me, for both sexes, but by none so much as your the improvement of my own. I assure you humble servant, I cannot recollect the goodness and confuRUSTIC SPRIGHTLY.' sion of the good old man when he spoke to this purpose to me without melting into 'December 3, 1711. tears; but in a word, sir, I must hasten to 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I was the other night tell you, that my heart burns with grati-at Philaster, where I expected to hear your tude towards him, and he is so happy a famous trunk-maker, but was unhappily man that it can never be in my power to disappointed of his company, and saw anreturn him his favours in kind, but I am other person who had the like ambition to sure I have made him the most agreeable distinguish himself in a noisy manner, partly satisfaction I could possibly, in being ready by vociferation or talking loud, and partly to serve others to my utmost ability, as far by his bodily agility. This was a very lusty as is consistent with the prudence he pre-fellow, but withal a sort of beau, who getscribes to me. Dear Mr. Spectator, I do not owe to him only the good-will and esteem of my own relations, (who are people of distinction,) the present ease and plenty of my circumstances, but also the government of my passions, and regulation of my desires. I doubt not, sir, but in your imagination such virtues as these of my worthy friend, bear as great a figure as actions which are more glittering in the common estimation. What I would ask of you, is to give us a whole Spectator upon heroic virtue in common life, which may incite men to the same generous inclinations, as

ting into one of the side-boxes on the stage before the curtain drew, was disposed to show the whole audience his activity by leaping over the spikes: he passed from thence to one of the entering doors, where he took snuff with a tolerable good grace, displayed his fine clothes, made two or three feint passes at the curtain with his cane, then faced about and appeared at the other door. Here he affected to survey the whole house, bowed and smiled at random, and then showed his teeth, which were some of them indeed very white. After this he retired behind the curtain, and obliged

us with several views of his person from every opening.

'During the time of acting, he appeared frequently in the prince's apartment, made one at the hunting-match, and was very forward in the rebellion.* If there were no injunctions to the contrary, yet this practice must be confessed to diminish the pleasure of the audience, and for that reason presumptuous and unwarrantable; but since her majesty's late command has made it criminal, you have authority to take notice of it. Sir, your humble servant, T. 'CHARLES EASY.'

No. 241.] Thursday, December 6, 1711.

Semperque relinqui

Sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur
Ire viam-
Virg. En. iv. 466.
All sad she seems, forsaken, and alone:
And left to wander wide through paths unknown.-P.

am always in good-humour when an east
wind blows, because it seldom fails of bring-
ing me a letter from him. Let me entreat
you, sir, to give me your advice upon this
occasion, and to let me know how I may
relieve myself in this my widowhood. I
am, sir, your most humble servant,
'ASTERIA.'

Absence is what the poets call death in love, and has given occasion to abundance of beautiful complaints in those authors who have treated of this passion in verse. Ovid's Epistles are full of them. Otway's Monimia talks very tenderly upon this subject:

-It was not kind

To leave me like a turtle, here alone,
To droop and mourn the absence of my mate.
When thou art from me, every place is desert;
And I, methinks, am savage and forlorn.
Thy presence only 'tis can make me blest,
Beal my unquiet mind, and tune my soul.
Orphan, Act ii.

The consolations of lovers on these occasions are very extraordinary. Besides those mentioned by Asteria, there are many other motives of comfort which are made use of by absent lovers.

I remember in one of Scudery's Romances a couple of honcurable lovers agreed at their parting to set aside one half hour in the day to think of each other during a tedicus absence. The romance tells us, that they both of them punctually observed the time thus agreed upon; and that whatever company or business they were engaged in, they left it abruptly as soon as the clock warned them to retire. The romance further adcs, that the lovers expected the return of this stated hour with as much impatience as if it had been a real assignation, and enjoyed an imaginary happiness, that was almost as pleasing to them as what they would have found from a real meeting. It was an inexpressible satisfaction to these divided lovers to be assured that each was at the same time employed in the same kind of contemplation, and making equal returns of tenderness and affection.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-Though you have considered virtuous love in most of its distresses, I do not remember that you have given us any dissertation upon the absence of lovers, or laid down any methods how they should support themselves under those long separations which they are sometimes forced to undergo. I am at present in this unhappy circumstance, having parted with the best of husbands, who is abroad in the service of his country, and may not possibly return for some years. His warm and generous affection while we were together, with the tenderness which he expressed to me at parting, make his absence almost insupportable. I think of him every moment of the day, and meet him every night in my dreams. Every thing I see puts me in mind of him. I apply myself with more than ordinary diligence to the care of his family and his estate; but this instead of relieving me, gives me but so many occasions of wishing for his return. I frequent the rooms where I used to converse with him, and not meeting him there, sit down in his chair and fall a weeping. I love to read the books If I may be allowed to mention a more he delighted in, and to converse with the serious expedient for the alleviating of abpersons whom he esteemed. I visit his pic- sence, I shall take notice of one which I ture a hundred times a day, and place my-have known two persons practise, who self over against it whole hours together. I joined religion to that elegance of sentipass a great part of my time in the walks ments with which the passion of love genewhere I used to lean upon his arm, and rally inspires its votaries. This was, at the recollect in my mind the discourses which return of such an hour, to offer up a certain have there passed between us: I look over prayer for each other, which they had the several prospects and points of view agreed upon before their parting. The huswhich we used to survey together, fix my band, who is a man that makes a figure in eye upon the objects which he has made the polite world, as well as in his own me take notice of; and call to mind a thou-family, has often told me, that he could not sand agreeable remarks which he has made on those occasions. I write to him by every conveyance, and contrary to other people,

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have supported an absence of three years without this expedient.

Strada, in one of his Prolusions, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain loadstone, which had such virtue in it, that

↑ Lib. ii. prol. &

if it touched two several needles, when one | yours concerning the misbehaviour of peoof the needles so touched began to move, the ple, who are necessarily in each other's other, though at never so great a distance, company in travelling, ought to have been moved at the same time, and in the same a lasting admonition against transgressions manner. He tells us, that the two friends of that kind. But I had the fate of your being each of them possessed of one of these quaker, in meeting with a rude fellow in a needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscrib- stage-coach, who entertained two or three ing it with the four-and-twenty letters, in women of us (for there was no man besides the same manner as the hours of the day himself) with language as indecent as ever are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. was heard upon the water. The impertiThey then fixed one of the needles on each nent observations which the coxcomb made of these plates in such a manner that it upon cur shame and confusion were such, could move round without impediment, so that it is an unspeakable grief to reflect as to touch any of the four-and-twenty let-upon them. As much as you have declaimters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write any thing to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion. The friend in the meanwhile saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.

If Monsieur Scudery, or any other writer on romance, had introduced a necromancer, who is generally in the train of a knighterrant, making a present to two lovers of a couple of these above-mentioned needles, the reader would not have been a little pleased to have seen them corresponding with one another when they were guarded by spies and watches, or separated by castles and adventures.

In the meanwhile, if ever this invention should be revived or put in practice, I would propose that upon the lover's dial-plate there should be written not only the fourand-twenty letters, but several entire words which have always a place in passionate epistles; as flames, darts, die, languish, absence, Cupid, heart, eyes, hang, drown, and the like. This would very much abridge the lover's pains in this way of writing a letter, as it would enable him to express the most useful and significant words with a single touch of the needle.

C.

No. 242.] Friday, December 7, 1711.
Creditur, ex medio quia res arcessit, habere
Sudoris minimum-
Hor. Lib. 2, Ep. i. 168.
To write on vulgar themes, is thought an easy task.
'MR. SPECTATOR,-Your speculations
do not so generally prevail over men's man-
ners as I could wish. A former paper of

ed against duelling, I hope you will do us the justice to declare, that if the brute has courage enough to send to the place where he saw us all alight together to get rid of him, there is not one of us but has a lover who shall avenge the insult. It would certainly be worth your consideration, to look into the frequent misfortunes of this kind, to which the modest and innocent are exposed, by the licentious behaviour of such as are as much strangers to good-breeding as to virtue. Could we avoid hearing what we do not approve, as easily as we can seeing what is disagreeable, there were some consolation; but since in a box at a play, in an assembly of ladies, or even in a pew at church, it is in the power of a gross coxcomb to utter what a woman cannot avoid hearing, how miserable is her condition who comes within the power of such impertinents? and how necessary is it to repeat invectives against such a behaviour? If the licentious had not utterly forgot what it is to be modest, they would know that offended modesty labours under one of the greatest sufferings to which human life can be exposed. If these brutes could reflect thus much, though they want shame, they would be moved by their pity, to abhor an impudent behaviour in the presence of the chaste and innocent. If you will oblige us with a Spectator on this subject, and procure it to be pasted against every stagecoach in Great Britain as the law of the journey, you will highly oblige the whole sex, for which you have professed so great an esteem; and in particular the two ladies my late fellow-sufferers, and, sir, your most humble servant,

'REBECCA RIDINGHOOD.'

'MR. SPECTATOR,-The matter which I am now going to send you, is an unhappy story in low life, and will recommend itself, so that you must excuse the manner of expressing it. A poor idle drunken weaver in Spitalfields has a faithful laborious wife, who by her frugality and industry had laid by her as much money as purchased her a ticket in the present lottery. She had hid this very privately in the bottom of a trunk and had given her number to a friend and confidant, who had promised to keep the secret, and bring her news of the success. The poor adventurer was one day gone

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