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abroad, when her careless husband, sus- that distemper, when my nicce Kitty begpecting she had saved some money, searches ged leave to assure me, that whatever I every corner, till at length he finds this might think, several great philosophers, same ticket; which he immediately carries both ancient and modern, were of opinion, abroad, sells, and squanders away the mo- that both pleasure and pain were imaginary ney without the wife's suspecting any thing distinctions, and that there was no such of the matter. A day or two after this, this thing as either in rerum natura. I have friend, who was a woman, comes and brings often heard them affirm that the fire was the wife word, that she had a benefit of not hot; and one day when I, with the aufive hundred pounds. The poor creature thority of an old fellow, desired one of them overjoyed, flies up stairs to her husband, to put my blue cloak on my knees, she anwho was then at work, and desires him to swered, "Sir, I will reach the cloak; but leave his loom for that evening, and come take notice, I do not do it as allowing your and drink with a friend of his and her's be- description; for it might as well be called low. The man received this cheerful in-yellow as blue; for colour is nothing but the vitation as bad husbands sometimes do, and varicus infractions of the rays of the sun. after a cross word or two, told her he would Miss Molly told me one day, that to say not come. His wife with tenderness renew-snow was white, is allowing a vulgar error; ed her importunity, and at length said to for as it contains a great quantity of nitrous him, "My love! I have within these few particles, it might be more reasonably supmonths, unknown to you, scraped together posed to be black. In short, the young as much money as has bought us a ticket husseys would persuade me, that to believe in the lottery, and now here is Mrs. Quick one's eves is a sure way to be deceived; and come to tell me, that it is come up this have often advised me, by no means to trust morning a five hundred pound prize." The any thing so fallible as my senses. What husband replies immediately, "You lie, I have to beg of you now is, to turn one you slut, you have no ticket, for I have sold speculation to the due regulation of female it." The poor woman upon this faints away literature, so far at least as to make it conin a fit, recovers, and is now run distracted. sistent with the quiet of such whose fate it As she had no design to defraud her hus-is to be liable to its insults; and to tell us band, but was willing only to participate in the difference between a gentleman that his good fortune, every one pities her, but should make cheese-cakes and raise paste, thinks her husband's punishment but just. | and a lady that reads Locke, and underThis, sir, is a matter of fact, and would, stands the mathematics. In which you will if the persons and circumstances were extremely oblige your hearty friend and greater, in a well-wrought play be called humble servant, Beautiful Distress. I have only sketched it out with chalk, and know a good hand can make a moving picture with worse materials. Sir, &c.'

T.

ABRAHAM THRIFTY.'

No. 243.] Saturday, December 8, 1711.

honesti vides; quæ si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles Formam quidem ipsam, Marce fili, et tanquam faciem amores (ut ait Plato) excitaret sapientiæ. Tall. Cic.

You see, my son Marcus, virtue as it were embodied, which, if it could be made the object of sight, would as Plato says) excite in us a wonderful love of wisdom. I Do not remember to have read any discourse written expressly upon the beauty and loveliness of virtue, without considering it as a duty, and as the means of making us happy both now and hereafter. I design therefore this speculation as an essay upon that subject in which I shall consider virtue

• Mr. SpectatOR,—I am what the world calls a warm fellow, and by good success in trade I have raised myself to a capacity of making some figure in the world; but no matter for that. I have now under my guardianship a couple of nieces, who will certainly make me run mad; which you will not wonder at, when I tell you they are female virtuosos, and during the three years and a half that I have had them under my care, they never in the least inclined their thoughts towards any one single part of the character of a notable woman.no farther than as it is in itself of an amiable Whilst they should have been considering the proper ingredients for a sack-posset, you should hear a dispute concerning the magnetic virtue of the loadstone, or perhaps the pressure of the atmosphere. Their language is peculiar to themselves, and they scorn to express themselves, on the meanest trifles, with words that are not of a Latin derivation. But this were supportable still, would they suffer me to enjoy an uninterrupted ignorance; but unless I fall in with their abstracted ideas of things, (as they call them) I must not expect to smoke one pipe in quiet. In a late fit of the gout I complained of the pain of

nature, after having premised, that I understand by the word virtue such a general notion as is affixed to it by the writers of morality, and which by devout men generally goes under the name of religion, and by men of the world under the name of honour.

Hypocrisy itself does great honour, er rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.

We learn from Hierocles, it was a com- | views, and make her altogether lovely, are mon saying among the heathens, that the cheerfulness and good-nature. These genewise man hates nobody, but only loves the

virtuous.

Tully has a very beautiful gradation of thoughts to show how amiable virtue is. We love a virtuous man,' says he, 'who lives in the remotest parts of the earth, though we are altogether out of the reach of his virtue, and can receive from it no manner of benefit. Nay, one who died several ages ago, raises a secret fondness and benevolence for him in our minds, when we read his story. Nay, what is still more, one who has been the enemy of our country, provided his wars were regulated by justice and humanity, as in the instance of Pyrrhus, whom Tully mentions on this occasion in opposition to Hannibal. Such is the natural beauty and loveliness of virtue.

rally go together, as a man cannot be agreeable to others who is not easy within himself. They are both very requisite in a virtuous mind, to keep out melancholy from the many serious thoughts it is engaged in, and to hinder its natural hatred of vice from souring into severity, and censoriousness.

If virtue is of this amiable nature, what can we think of those who can look upon it with an eye of hatred and ill-will, or can suffer their aversion for a party to blot out all the merit of the person who is engaged in it? A man must be excessively stupid, \ as well as uncharitable, who believes there is no virtue but on his own side, and that there are not men as honest as himself who. may differ from him in political principles. Men may oppose one another in some parStoicism, which was the pedantry of vir- ticulars, but ought not to carry their hatred tue, ascribes all good qualifications of what to those qualities which are of so amiable a kind soever to the virtuous man. Accord- nature in themselves, and have nothing to ingly Cato, in the character Tully has left do with the points in dispute. Men of virof him, carries matters so far, that he would tue, though of different interests ought to not allow any one but a virtuous man to be consider themselves as more nearly united handsome. This indeed looks more like a with one another, than with the vicious philosophical rant than the real opinion of part of mankind, who embark with them a wise man; yet this was what Cato very in the same civil concerns. We should seriously maintained. In short, the Stoics bear the same love towards a man of honour thought they could not sufficiently repre- who is a living antagonist, which Tully sent the excellence of virtue, if they did not tells us in the forementioned passage, every comprehend in the notion of it all possible one naturally does to an enemy that is dead. perfections; and therefore did not only sup-In short, we should esteem virtue though pose, that it was transcendently beautiful in a foe, and abhor vice though in a friend. in itself, but that it made the very body I speak this with an eye to those cruel amiable, and banished every kind of deformity from the person in whom it resided. It is a common observation that the most abandoned to all sense of goodness, are apt to wish those who are related to them of a different character; and it is very observable, that none are more struck with the charms of virtue in the fair sex than those who by their very admiration of it are carried to a desire of ruining it.

A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms.

treatments which men of all sides are apt
to give the characters of those who do not
agree with them. How many persons
of undoubted probity and exemplary vir-
tue, on either side, are blackened and de-
famed? How many men of honour exposed
to public obloquy and reproach? Those
therefore who are either the instruments
or abettors in such infernal dealings, ought
to be looked upon as persons who make use
of religion to promote their cause, not of
their cause to promote religion.
C.

Judex et callidus audis.

Hor. Lib. 2. Sat. vii. 101, A Judge of painting you, a connoisseur.

"Covent Garden, Dec. 7. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I cannot, without

As virtue in general is of an amiable and No. 244.] Monday, December 10, 1711. lovely nature, there are some particular kinds of it which are more so than others, and these are such as dispose us to do good to mankind. Temperance and abstinence, faith and devotion, are in themselves perhaps as laudable as any other virtues: but those which make a man popular and be- a double injustice, forbear expressing to loved, are justice, charity, munificence, you the satisfaction which a whole clan of and, in short, all the good qualities that virtuosos have received from those hints render us beneficial to each other. For this which you have lately given the town on reason even an extravagant man, who has the cartoons of the inimitable Raphael. It nothing else to recommend him but a false should methinks be the business of a Specgenerosity, is often more beloved and es-tator to improve the pleasures of sight, and teemed than a person of a much more there cannot be a more immediate way to finished character, who is defective in this particular.

The two great ornaments of virtue, which show her in the most advantageous

it than recommending the study and observation of excellent drawings and pictures. When I first went to view those of Raphael which you have celebrated, I must

As the shadows in a picture represent the serious or melancholy, so the lights do the bright and lively thoughts. As there should be but one forcible light in a picture which should catch the eye and fall on the hero, so there should be but one object of our love, even the Author of nature. These and the like reflections, well improved, might very much contribute to open the beauty of that art, and prevent young people from being poisoned by the ill gusto of any extravagant workman that should be imposed upon us. I am, sir, your most humble servant.'

confess I was but barely pleased; the next time I liked them better, but at last, as I grew better acquainted with them, I fell deeply in love with them; like wise speeches, they sank deep into my heart: for you know, Mr. Spectator, that a man of wit may extremely affect one for the present, but if he has not discretion, his merit soon vanishes away: while a wise man that has not so great a stock of wit, shall nevertheless give you a far greater and more lasting satisfaction. Just so it is in a picture that is smartly touched, but not well studied; one may call it a witty picture, though the painter in the mean time may be in danger of being called a fool. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Though I am a woOn the other hand, a picture that is tho-man, yet I am one of those who confess roughly understood in the whole, and well themselves highly pleased with a speculaperformed in the particulars, that is begun tion you obliged the world with some time on the foundation of geometry, carried on by ago, from an old Greek poet you call Simo the rules of perspective, architecture, and nides, in relation to the several natures and anatomy, and perfected by a good harmony, distinctions of our own sex. I could not but a just and natural colouring, and such pas- admire how justly the characters of women sions and expressions of the mind as are in this age fall in with the times of Simoalmost peculiar to Raphael; this is what nides, there being no one of those sorts I you may justly style a wise picture, and have not at some time or other of my life which seldom fails to strike us dumb, until met with a sample of. But, sir, the subwe can assemble all our faculties to make ject of this present address are a set of but a tolerable judgment upon it. Other women, comprehended, I think, in the pictures are made for the eyes only, as rat-ninth species of that speculation, called the tles are made for children's ears; and certainly that picture that only pleases the eye, without representing some well-chosen part of nature or other, does but show what fine colours are to be sold at the colourshop, and mocks the works of the Creator. If the best imitator of nature is not to be esteemed the best painter, but he that makes the greatest show and glare of colours; it will necessarily follow, that he who can array himself in the most gaudy draperies is best drest, and he that can speak loudest the best orator. Every man when he looks on a picture should examine it according to that share of reason he is master of, or he will be in danger of making a wrong judgment. If men when they walk abroad would make more frequent observations on those beauties of nature which every moment present themselves to their view, they would be better judges when they saw her well imitated at home. This would help to correct those errors which most pretenders fall into, who are over hasty in their judgments, and will not stay to let reason come in for a share in the decision. It is for want of this that men mistake in this case, and in common life, a wild extravagant pencil for one that is truly bold and great, an impudent fellow for a man of true courage and bravery, hasty and unreasonable actions for enterprises of spirit and resolution, gaudy colouring for that which is truly beautiful, a false and insinuating discourse for simple truth elegantly recommended. The parallel will hold through all the parts of life and painting too; and the virtuosos above mentioned will be glad *o see you draw it with your terms of art.

Apes; the description of whom I find to be, "That they are such as are both ugly and ill-natured, who have nothing beautiful themselves, and endeavour to detract from or ridicule every thing that appears so in others." Now, sir, this sect, as I have been told, is very frequent in the great town where you live; but as my circumstance of life obliges me to reside altogether in the country, though not many miles from London, I cannot have met with a great number of them, nor indeed is it a desirable acquaintance, as I have lately found by experience. You must know, sir, that at the beginning of this summer a family of these apes came and settled for the season not far from the place where I live. As they were strangers in the country, they were visited by the ladies about them, of whom I was one, with a humanity usual in those who pass most of their time in solitude. The apes lived with us very agreeably our own way until towards the end of the summer, when they began to bethink themselves of returning to town; then it was, Mr. Spectator, that they began to set themselves about the proper and distinguishing business of their character; and as it is said of evil spirits, that they are apt to carry away a piece of the house they are about to leave, the apes, without regard to common mercy, civility, or gratitude, thought fit to mimic and fall foul on the faces, dress, and behaviour of their innocent neighbours, bestowing abominable censures and disgraceful appellations, commonly called nick-names, on all of them; and in short, like true fine ladies, made their honest plainness and sincerity matter

of ridicule. I could not but acquaint you with these grievances, as well at the desire of all the parties injured, as from my own inclination. I hope, sir, if you cannot propose entirely to reform this evil, you will take such notice of it in some of your future speculations, as may put the deserving part of our sex on their guard against these creatures; and at the same time the apes may be sensible that this sort of mirth is so far from an innocent diversion, that it is in the highest degree that vice which is said to comprehend all others. I am, sir, your humble servant, T.

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CONSTANTIA FIELD.'

No. 245.] Tuesday, December 11, 1711. Ficta voluptatis causa sint proxima veris. Hor. Ars Poet. v. 338. Fictions to please, should wear the face of truth. THERE is nothing which one regards so much with an eye of mirth and pity as innocence, when it has in it a dash of folly. At the same time that one esteems the virtue, one is tempted to laugh at the simplicity which accompanies it. When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions. The Cordeliers tell a story of their founder St. Francis, that as he passed the streets in the dusk of the evening, he discovered a young fellow with a maid in a corner; upon which the good man, say they, lifted up his hands to heaven with a secret thanksgiving, that there was still so much Christian charity in the world. The innocence of the saint made him mistake the kiss of the lover for a salute of charity. I am heartily concerned when I see a virtuous man without a competent knowledge of the world; and if there be any use in these my papers, it is this, that without representing vice under any false alluring notions, they give my reader an insight into the ways of men, and represent human nature in all its changeable colours. The man who has not been engaged in any of the follies of the world, or, as Shakspeare expresses it, "hackneyed in the ways of men,' may here find a picture of its follies and extravagances. The virtuous and the innocent may know in speculation what they could never arrive at by practice, and by this means avoid the snares of the crafty, the corruptions of the vicious, and the reasonings of the prejudiced. Their minds may be opened without being vitiated. It is with an eye to my following correspondent, Mr. Timothy Doodle, who seems a very well-meaning man, that I have written this short preface, to which I shall subjoin a letter from the said Mr. Doodle.

among us, and which are very proper to pass away a winter night for those who do not care to throw away their time at an opera, or the play-house. I would gladly know in particular, what notion you have of hot-cockles; as also, whether you think that questions and commands, mottoes, similies, and cross-purposes, have not more mirth and wit in them than those public diversions which are grown so very fashionable among us. If you would recommend to our wives and daughters, who read your papers with a great deal of pleasure, some of those sports and pastimes that may be practised within doors, and by the fireside, we who are masters of families should be hugely obliged to you. I need not tell you that I would have these sports and pastimes not only merry but innocent; for which reason I have not mentioned either whisk or lanterloo, nor indeed so much as one-and-thirty. After having communi cated to you my request upon this subject, I will be so free as to tell you how my wife and I pass away these tedious winter even ings with a great deal of pleasure. Though she be young and handsome, and good humoured to a miracle, she does not care for gadding abroad like others of her sex. There is a very friendly man, a colonel in the army, whom I am mightily obliged to for his civilities, that comes to see me almost every night; for he is not one of those giddy young fellows that cannot live out of a play-house. When we are together, we very often make a party at Blind-man's Buff, which is a sport that I like the better, because there is a good deal of exercise in it. The colonel and I are blinded by turns, and you would laugh your heart out to see what pains my dear takes to hoodwink us, so that it is impossible for us to see the least glimpse of light. The poor colonel some times hits his nose against a post, and makes us die with laughing. I have gene rally the good luck not to hurt myself, but am very often above half an hour before I can catch either of them; for you must know we hide ourselves up and down in corners, that we may have the more sport. I only give you this hint as a sample of such innocent diversions as I would have you recommend; and am, most esteemed sir, your ever-loving friend,

TIMOTHY DOODLE.'

The following letter was occasioned by my last Thursday's paper upon the absence of lovers, and the methods therein mentioned of making such absence supportable.

'SIR,-Among the several ways of consolation which absent lovers make use of while their souls are in that state of departure, which you say is death in love, there are some very material ones that have escaped 'SIR,-I could heartily wish that you your notice. Among these, the first and would let us know your opinion upon seve-most received is a crooked shilling, which ral innocent diversions which are in use has administered great comfort to our fore

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-Ουκ αρα ότι γε τα της εν ιππότα Πολιτς,
Οι δι Θετες μεταρ, γλώσσα δε σ' ετίετε θάλασσα,
ingni v' gkofatti, ora TOI 2005 JUTA BERING,
Hom. Iliad, xvi. A

No amorous bero ever gave thee birth.
Nor ever tender goddess brought thee forth.
Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form,
And raging seas produc'd thee in a storm:
A soul well suiting thy tempestuous kind,
So rough thy manners, so untam'd thy mind.

Pope.

fathers, and is still made use of on this oc- No. 246.] Wednesday, December 12, 1711. casion with very good effect in most parts of her majesty's dominions. There are some, I know, who think a crown piece cut into two equal parts, and preserved by the distant lovers, is of more sovereign virtue than the former. But since opinions are divided in this particular, why may not the same persons make use of both? The figure of a heart, whether cut in stone or cast in metal, whether bleeding upon an altar, stuck with darts, or held in the hand of a Cupid, has always been looked upon as talismanic in distresses of this nature. I am acquainted with many a brave fellow who carries his mistress in the lid of his snuff-box, and by that expedient has supported himself under the absence of a whole campaign. For my own part, I have tried all these remedies, but never found so much benefit from any as from a ring, in which my mistress's hair is plaited together very artificially in a kind of true-lover's knot. As I have received great benefit from this secret, I think myself obliged to communicate it to the public for the good of my fellow-subjects. I desire you will add this letter as an appendix to your consolations upon absence, and am, your very humble servant, T. B.'

'MR. SPECTATOR,-As your paper is part of the equipage of the tea-table, I conjure you to print what I now write to you; for I have no other way to communicate what I have to say to the fair sex on the most important circumstance of life, even "the care of children." I do not understand that you profess your paper is always to consist of matters which are only to entertain the learned and polite, but that it may agree with your design to publish some which may tend to the information of mankind in general; and when it does so, you do more than writing wit and humour. Give me leave then to tell you, that of all the abuses that ever you have as yet endeavoured to reform, certainly not one wanted so much your assistance as the abuse in nursing of children. It is unmerciful to see, that a woman endowed with I shall conclude this paper with a letter all the perfections and blessings of nature, from a university gentleman, occasioned by can, as soon as she is delivered, turn off her my last Tuesday's paper, wherein I gave innocent, tender, and helpless infant, and some account of the great feuds which hap-give it up to a woman that is (ten thousand pened formerly in those learned bodies, between the modern Greeks and Trojans.

SIR,-This will give you to understand, that there is at present in the society, whereof I am a member, a very consider able body of Trojans, who, upon a proper occasion, would not fail to declare ourselves. In the meanwhile we do all we can to annoy our enemies by stratagem, and are resolved by the first opportunity to attack Mr. Joshua Barnes, whom we look upon as the Achilles of the opposite party. As for myself, I have had the reputation ever since I came from school, of being a trusty Trojan, and am resolved never to give quarter to the smallest particle of Greek, wherever I chance to meet it. It is for this reason I take it very ill of you, that you sometimes hang out Greek colours at the head of your paper, and sometimes give a word of the enemy even in the body of it. When I meet with any thing of this nature, I throw down your speculations upon the table, with that form of words which we make use of when we declare war upon an author,

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to one,) neither in health nor good condition, neither sound in mind nor body, that has neither honour nor reputation, neither love nor pity for the poor babe, but more regard for the money than for the whole child, and never will take farther care of it than what by all the encouragement of money and presents she is forced to; like Esop's earth, which would not nurse the plant of another ground, although never so much improved, by reason that plant was not of its own production. And since another's child is no more natural to a nurse than a plant to a strange and different ground, how can it be supposed that the child should thrive; and if it thrives, must it not imbibe the gross humcurs and quali ties of the nurse, like a plant in a different ground, or like a graft upon a different stock? Do not we observe, that a lamb sucking a goat changes very much its nature, nay, even its skin and wool into the goat kind? The power of a nurse over a child, by infusing into it with her milk her qualities and disposition, is sufficiently and daily observed. Hence came that old saying concerning an ill-natured and malicious fellow, that he had imbibed his malice with his nurse's milk, or that some brute or other had been his nurse." Hence Romulus and Remus were said to have been nursed by a wolf; Telephus, the son of Hercules, by a hind; Pelias, the son of Nep

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