poet sacrifices the best part of his audience to the worst; and, as one would think, neglects the boxes, to write to the orange-wenches. "I must not conclude till I have taken notice of the moral with which this comedy ends. The two young ladies having given a notable example of outwitting those who had a right in the dispo: sal of them, and marrying without the consent of parents-one of the injured parties, who is easily reconciled, winds up all with this remark, -Design whate'er we will, There is a fate which overrules us still.* "We are to suppose that the gallants are men of merit, but if they had been rakes, the excuse might have served as well. Hans Carvel's wife was of the same principle, but has expressed it with a delicacy which shows she is not serious in her excuse, but in a sort of humorous philosophy turns off the thought of her guilt, and says, That if weak women go astray, Their stars are more in fault than they. "This no doubt is a full reparation, and dismisses the audience with very edifying impres sions. "These things fall under a province you have partly pursued already, and therefore demands your animadversion, for the regulating so noble an entertainment as that of the stage. It were to be wished that all who write for it hereafter would raise their genius, by the ambition of pleasing people of the best understanding; and leave others to show nothing of the human species but risibility, to seek their diversion at the bear-gardens, or some other privileged place, where reason and good manners have no right to disturb them. "I am, etc." "August 8, 1711." No. 142.] MONDAY, AUGUST 13, 1711. Irrupta tenet copula HOR. 1 Od. xiii, 12. Whom love's unbroken bond unites. T. THE following being genuine, and the images of a worthy passion, I am willing to give the old lady's admonition to myself, and the representation of her own happiness, a place in my writings. "MR. SPECTATOR, August 9, 1711. "I am now in the sixty-seventh year of my age, and read you with approbation; but methinks you do not strike at the root of the greatest evil in life, which is the false notion of gallantry in love. It is, and has long been, upon a very ill foot; but I who have been a wife forty years, and was bred up in a way that has made me ever since very happy, see through the folly of it. In a word, Sir, when I was a young woman, all who avoided the vices of the age were very carefully educated, and all fantastical objects were turned out of our sight. The tapestry-hangings, with the great and venerable simplicity of the Scripture stories, had better effects than now the loves of Venus and Adonis, or Bacchus and Ariadne, in your fine present prints. The gentleman I am married to made love to me in rapture, but it was the rapture of a Christian and a man of honor, not of a romantic hero or a whining coxcomb. This put our life upon a right basis. To give you an idea of our regard one to another, I inclose to you several of his letters, written forty years ago, when my lover; and one written the other day, after so many years' cohabitation. "Your servant, "ANDROMACHE." *The concluding distitch of Shadwell's play. "MADAM, August 7, 16 "If my vigilance, and ten thousand wish your welfare and repose, could have any you last night slept in security, and had thoughts ever fixed on you, to live in consta good angel in your attendance. To hav of every accident to which human life is and to send up my hourly prayers to avert from you; I say, Madam, thus to suffer, is do for her who is in pain at my approac calls all my tender sorrow impertinence. Y flow with tenderness, but cannot give relief now before my eyes, my eyes that are rea gushing heart, that dictates what I am no ing, and yearns to tell you all its achings. art thou, oh my soul, stolen from thyself! all my attention broken! my books are paper, and my friends intruders. I have no of quiet but from your pity. To grant it make more for your triumph. To give pain If you would consider aright, you would f tyranny, to make happy the true empire of b agreeable change in dismissing the attenda nion. I bear the former in hopes of the latt a slave, to receive the complaisance of a c dition. As I live in chains without mur at the power which inflicts them, so I could freedom without forgetting the mercy that "I am, Madam. "Your most devoted, most obedient serva September 3, 1 "Before the light this morning dawned the earth I awoke, and lay in expectation return, not that it could give any new sense to me, but as I hoped it would bless you w cheerful face, after a quiet which I wish last night. If my prayers are heard, the peared with all the influence of a merciful upon your person and actions. Let othe lovely charmer, talk of a blind being that d their hearts; I contemn their low images o I have not a thought which relates to you cannot with confidence beseech the All Power to bless me in. May he direct you your steps, and reward your innocence, you tity of manners, your prudent youth, and ing piety, with the continuance of his gra protection. This is an unusual langu ladies; but you have a mind elevated ab giddy notions of a sex ensnared by flatte misled by a false and short adoration into and long contempt. Beauty, my fairest cr palls in the possession, but I love also your your soul is as dear to me as my own; and advantages of a liberal education, some ledge, and as much contempt of the world, with the endeavors toward a life of strict and religion, can qualify me to raise new i a breast so well disposed as yours is, ou will pass away with joy; and old age, ins introducing melancholy prospects of deca us hope of eternal youth in a better life. but few minutes from the duty of my empl to write in, and without time to read over have written; therefore beseech you to pard first hints of my mind, which I have expre "I am, dearest creature, "Your most obedient, most devoted serv so little order. Richard Steele. "The two next were written after the day for der regard for you; but having been very much our marriage was fixed : "It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend business. As for me, all that speak to me find me out, and I must lock myself up, or other people will do it for me. A gentleman asked me this morning, What news from Holland and I answered, She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know when I had been last at Windsor; I replied, 'She designs to go with me.' Prithee, allow me at least to kiss your hand before the appointed day, that my mind may be in some composure. Methinks I could write a volume to you, but all the language on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion. " DEAR CREATURE, Το "I am ever yours."* September 30, 1671, seven in the morning. "Next to the influence of heaven, I am to thank you that I see the returning day with pleasure. pass my evenings in so sweet a conversation, and have the esteem of a woman of your merit, has in it a particularity of happiness no more to be expressed than returned. But I am, my lovely creature, contented to be on the obliged side, and to employ all my days in new endeavors to convince you and all the world of the sense I have of your condescension in choosing, "Madam, your most faithful, most obedient, humble servant."* "He was, when he wrote the following letter, as agreeable and pleasant a man as any in Eng. land: "I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced to write from a coffee-house where I am attending about business. There is a dirty crowd of busy faces all around me talking of money, while all my ambition, all my wealth, is love: love, which animates my heart, sweetens my humor, enlarges my soul, and affects every action of my life. It is to my lovely charmer I owe that many noble ideas are continually affixed to my words and actions: it is the natural effect of that generous passion to create in the admirers some similitude of the object admired; thus, my dear, am I every day to improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, to that heaven which made thee such, and join with me to implore its influence on our tender, innocent hours, and beseech the author of love to bless the rites he has ordained, and mingle with our happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a resignation to his will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavor to please him and each other. Richard Steele. perplexed in my thoughts on the subject of my last, made me determine to suspend speaking of it until I came myself. But, my lovely creature, know it is not in the power of age, or misfortune, or any other accident which hangs over human life, to take from me the pleasing esteem I have for you, or the memory of the bright figure you appeared in, when you gave your hand and heart to, "Madam, your most grateful husband, No. 143.] TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1711. Ir is an unreasonable thing some men expect of their acquaintance. They are ever complaining that they are out of order, or displeased, or they know not how, and are so far from letting that be a reason for retiring to their own homes, that they make it their argument for coming into company. What has anybody to do with accounts of a man's being indisposed, but his physician? If a man laments in company, where the rest are in humor enough to enjoy themselves, he should not take it ill if a servant is ordered to present him with a porringer of caudle or possetdrink, by way of admonition that he go home to bed. That part of life which we ordinarily understand by the word conversation, is an indulgence to the sociable part of our make; and should incline us to bring our proportion of goodwill or good-humor among the friends we meet with, and not to trouble them with relations which must of necessity oblige them to a real or feigned affliction. Cares, distresses, diseases, uneasinesses, and dislikes of our own, are by no means to be obtruded upon our friends. If we would consider how little of this vicissitude of motion and rest, which we call life, is spent with satisfaction, we should be more tender of our friends than to bring them little sorrows which do not belong to them, There is no real life but cheerful life; therefore valetudinarians should be sworn, before they enter into company, not to say a word of themselves until the meeting breaks up. It is not here pretended that we should be always sitting with chaplets of flowers round our heads, or be crowned with roses in order to make our entertainment agreeable to us; but if (as it is usually observed) they who resolve to be merry, seldom are so; it will be much more unlikely for us to be well pleased, if they are admitted who are always complaining they are sad. Whatever we do, we should keep up the cheerfulness of our spirits, and never let them sink below an inclination at least to be well pleased. The way to this, is to keep our bodies in exercise, our minds at ease. That insipid state wherein neither are in vigor, is not to be accounted any part of our portion of being. When we are in the satisfaction of some innocent pleasure, or pursuit of some laudable design, we are in the possession of life, of human life. Fortune will give us disappointments enough, and nature is attended with infirmities enough, without our adding to the unhappy side of our account by our spleen or ill-humor. Poor Cottilus, among so many real evils, a chronical distemper and a narrow fortune, is never heard to complain. That equal spirit of his, which any man may have, that, like him, will conquer pride, vanity, and affectation, and follow nature, is not to be broken, because it has no points to contend for. To be anxious for nothing but what nature demands as necessary, if it is not the way to an estate, is the way to what men aim at by getting an estate. This temper will preserve health in the body, as well as tranquillity in the mind. Cottilus sees the world in a hurry, with the same scorn that a sober person sees a man drunk. Had he been contented with what he ought to have been, how could, says he, such a one have met with such a disappointment? If another had valued his mistress for what he ought to have loved her, he had not been in her power. If her virtue had had a part of his passion, her levity had been his cure; she could not then have been false and amiable at the same time. Since we cannot promise ourselves constant health, let us endeavor at such a temper as may be our best support in the decay of it. Uranius has arrived at that composure of soul, and wrought himself up to such a neglect of everything with which the generality of mankind is enchanted, that nothing but acute pains can give him disturbance, and against those too he will tell his intimate friends he has a secret which gives him present ease. Uranius is so thoroughly persuaded of another life, and endeavors so sincerely to secure an interest in it, that he looks upon pain but as a quickening of his pace to a home, where he shall be better provided for than in his present apartment. Instead of the melancholy views which others are apt to give themselves, he will tell you that he has forgot he is mortal, nor will he think of himself as such. He thinks at the time of his birth he entered into an eternal being; and the short article of death he will not allow an interruption of life; since that moment is not of half the duration as his ordinary sleep. Thus is his being one uniform and consistent series of cheerful diversions and moderate cares, without fear or hope of futurity. Health to him is more than pleasure to another man, and sickness less affecting to him than indisposition is to others. ment to be out of pain. Ambition, envy, desire, or impertinent mirth, will take minds, without we can possess ourselves sobriety of heart which is above all pl and can be felt much better than describe the ready way, I believe, to the right en of life is, by a prospect toward another, but a very mean opinion of it. A grea of our time has set this in an exceller when, with a philosophical pity of hun he spoke of it in his Theory of the Eart following manner: "For what is this life but a circulation mean actions? We lie down and rise dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, play, and are weary, and then we lie dow and the circle returns. We spend the trifles, and when the night comes we thr selves into the bed of folly, among drea broken thoughts, and wild imagination reason lies asleep by us, and we are for t as arrant brutes as those that sleep in the in the field. Are not the capacities higher than these? And ought not his a and expectations to be greater? Let us be turers for another world. It is at least a noble chance; and there is nothing in thi our thoughts or our passions. If we sh disappointed, we are still no worse than of our fellow-mortals; and if we succee expectations, we are eternally happy."-1 No. 144.] WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15 You shall see how nice a judge of beauty I am. BEAUTY has been the delight and tormen world ever since it began. The philosoph felt its influence so sensibly, that almost e of them has left us some saying or other intimated that he knew too well the pow Onet has told us, that a graceful person i powerful recommendation than the best le can be written in your favor. Another; the possessor of it to consider it as a n of nature, and not any perfection of his I must confess, if one does not regard life after third calls it a "short-lived tyranny;" af this manner, none but idiots can pass it away "silent fraud," because it imposes upon with any tolerable patience. Take a fine lady out the help of language; but I think C who is of a delicate frame, and you may observe, spoke as much like a philosopher as any from the hour she rises, a certain weariness of all though more like a lover, when he calls that passes about her. I know more than one alty without force." It is not indeed t who is much too nice to be quite alive. They nied, but there is something irresistible in are sick of such strange frightful people they teous form; the most severe will not pret meet; one is so awkward, and another so dis- they do not feel an immediate preposse agreeable, that it looks like a penance to breathe favor of the handsome. No one denies t the same air with them. You see this is so very privilege of being first heard, and being true, that a great part of ceremony and good before others in matters of ordinary consi breeding among the ladies turns upon their un- At the same time the handsome should easiness; and I will undertake, if the how-do-that it is a possession, as it were, foreign ye-servants of our women were to make a weekly bill of sickness, as the parish-clerks do of mortality, you would not find in an account of seven days, one in thirty that was not downright sick or indisposed, or but a very little better than she was, and so forth. It is certain, that to enjoy life and health as a constant feast, we should not think pleasure necessary; but, if possible, to arrive at an equality of mind. It is as mean to be overjoyed upon occasions of good fortune, as to be dejected in circumstances of distress. Laughter in one condition, is as unmanly as weeping in another. We should not form our minds to expect transport on every occasion, but know how to make it enjoy No one can give it himself, or preserve they have it. Yet so it is, that people any quality in the world better than beau the consolation of all who are naturally t affected with the force of it, that a little a if a man behave with judgment, will cu Handsome people usually are so pleased with themselves, that if they do at first sight, as the phrase is, a second disarms them of all their power. But fan * Dr. Thomas Burnet, master of the Charter-ho ria Telluris, 4to., Amst., 1699, p. 241. † Aristotle. Plato. Socrates. Theo Rather, "A sovereignty that needs no milita this is the proper meaning of the original. make this paper rather a warning-piece to give | with fear gives a tincture to all her behavior. It notice where the danger is, than to propose in- would be savage to offend her, and cruelty to use structions how to avoid it when you have fallen art to gain her. Others are beautiful, but, Eucratia, in the way of it. Handsome men shall be the thou art beauty! subject of another chapter, the women shall take up the present discourse. Omniamante is made for deceit; she has an aspect as innocent as the famed Lucrece, but a mind Amaryllis, who has been in town but one win-as wild as the more famed Cleopatra. Her face ter, is extremely improved in the arts of good speaks a vestal, but her heart a Messalina. Who breeding, without leaving nature. She has not that beheld Omniamante's negligent, unobserving lost the native simplicity of her aspect, to substi- air, would believe that she hid under that regard tute that patience of being stared at, which is the less manner the witty prostitute, the rapacious usual triumph and distinction of a town lady. wench, the prodigal courtesan? She can, when In public assemblies you meet her careless eye she pleases, adorn those eyes with tears like an diverting itself with the objects around her, insen- infant that is chid; she can cast down that pretty sible that she herself is one of the brightest in face in confusion, while you rage with jealousy, the place. and storm at her perfidiousness: she can wipe her Dulcissa is quite another make; she is almost a eyes, tremble and look frightened, until you fancy beauty by nature, but more than one by art. If it yourself a brute for your rage, own yourself an were possible for her to let her fan or any limb offender, beg pardon, and make her new presents. about her rest, she would do some part of the exe- But I go too far in reporting only the dangers in cution she meditates; but though she designs her beholding the beauteous, which I design for the self a prey, she will not stay to be taken. No instruction of the fair as well as their beholders; painter can give you words for the different as- and shall end this rhapsody with mentioning what pects of Dulcissa in half a moment, wherever she I thought was well enough said of an ancient appears: so little does she accomplish what she sage to a beautiful youth, whom he saw admirtakes so much pains for, to be gay and careless. ing his own figure in brass. "What," said the Merab is attended with all the charms of wo- philosopher, "could that image of yours say for men and accomplishments of man. It is not to itself if it could speak?"-"It might say," ansbe doubted but she has a great deal of wit, if she wered the youth, "that it is very beautiful." "And were not such a beauty; and she would have more are not you ashamed," replied the cynic, "to value beauty had she not so much wit. Affectation pre-yourself upon that only of which a piece of brass vents her excellences from walking together. If she is capable?"-T has a mind to speak such a thing, it must be done with such an air of her body; and if she has an inclination to look very careless, there is such a smart thing to be said at the same time, that the design of being admired destroys itself.Thus the unhappy Merab, though a wit and beauty, is allowed to be neither, because she will always be both. Albacinda has the skill as well as the power of pleasing. Her form is majestic, but her aspect humble. All good men should beware of the destroyer. She will speak to you like your sister, until she has you sure: but is the most vexatious of tyrants when you are so. Her familiarity of behavior, her indifferent questions and general conversation, make the silly part of her votaries full of hopes, while the wise fly from her power. She well knows she is too beautiful and too witty to be indifferent to any who converse with her, and therefore knows she does not lessen herself by familiarity, but gains occasions of admiration by seeming ignorance of her perfections. Eudosia adds to the height of her stature a nobility of spirit which still distinguishes her above the rest of her sex. Beauty in others is lovely, in others agreeable, in others attractive; but in Eudosia it is commanding. Love toward Eudosia is a sentiment like the love of glory. The lovers of other women are softened into fondness-the admirers of Eudosia exalted into ambition. Eucratia presents herself to the imagination with a more kindly pleasure, and, as she is woman, her praise is wholly feminine. If we were to form an image of dignity in a man, we should give him wisdom and valor, as being essential to the character of manhood. In like manner, if you describe a right woman in a laudable sense, she should have gentle softness, tender fear, and all those parts of life which distinguish her from the other sex; with some subordination to it, but such an inferiority that makes her still more lovely. Eucratia is that creature-she is all over woman, kindness is all her art, and beauty all her arms. Her look, her voice, her gesture, and whole behavior, is truly feminine. A goodness mixed No. 145.] THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1711. Ir the following enormities are not amended upon the first mentioning, I desire farther notice from my correspondents. "MR. SPECTATOR, "I am obliged to you for your discourse the other day upon frivolous disputants, who with great warmth and enumeration of many circumstances and authorities, undertake to prove matters which nobody living denies. You cannot employ yourself more usefully than in adjusting the laws of disputation in coffee-houses and accidental companies, as well as in more formal debates. Among many other things which your own experience must suggest to you, it will be very obliging if you please to take notice of wagerers. I will not here repeat what Hudibras says of such disputants, which is so true, that it is almost proverbial; but shall only acquaint you with a set of young fellows of the inns of court, whose fathers have provided for them so plentifully, that they need not be very anxious to get law into their heads for the service of their country at the bar; but are of those who are sent (as the phrase of parents is) to the Temple to know how to keep their own. One of these gentlemen is very loud and captious at a coffee-house which I frequent, and being in his nature troubled with a humor of contradiction, though withal excessively ignorant, he has found a way to indulge this temper, go on in idleness and ignorance, and yet still give himself the air of a very learned and knowing man, by the strength of his pocket. The misfortune of the thing is, I have, as it happens sometimes, a greater stock of learning than of money. The gentleman I am speaking of takes advantage of the narrowness of my circumstances * Antisthenes, the founder of the sect of Cynic philosophers. marry one of us very suddenly, we ha agreed, the next time he pretends to be me affront him, and use him like a clown as In the name of the sisterhood I take my le you, and am as they all are, "Your constant reader, and well-w "MR. SPECTATOR, in such a manner, that he has read all that I can pretend to, and runs me down with such a positive air, and with such powerful arguments, that from a very learned person I am thought a mere pretender. Not long ago I was relating that I had read such a passage in Tacitus: up starts my! young gentleman in a full company, and pulling out his purse offered to lay me ten guineas, to be staked immediately in that gentleman's hands "I and several others of your female (pointing to one smoking at another table), that I have conformed ourselves to your rules, was utterly mistaken. I was dumb for want of our very dress. There is not one of us b ten guineas; he went on unmercifully to triumph reduced our outward petticoat to its ancie over my ignorance how to take him up, and told able circumference, though indeed we reta the whole room he had read Tacitus twenty times a quilted one underneath; which makes over, and such a remarkable incident as that could altogether unconformable to the fashion; b not escape him. He has at this time three con- on condition Mr. Spectator extends not h siderable wagers depending between him and some sure so far. But we find you men secre of his companions who are rich enough to hold prove our practice, by imitating our pyra an argument with him. He has five guineas upon form. The skirt of your fashionable coat questions in geography-two that the Isle of as large a circumference as our petticoats; a Wight is a peninsula, and three guineas to one are set out with whalebone, so are those wit that the world is round. We have a gentleman to increase and sustain a bunch of fold tha comes to our coffee-house, who deals mightily in down on each side; and the hat, I perceive antique scandal; my disputant has laid him twenty creased in just proportion to our headpieces upon a point of history, to wit, that Cæsar We make a regular figure, but I defy your never lay with Cato's sister, as is scandalously re-matics to give name to the form you app ported by some people. Your architecture is mere Gothic, and be worse genius than ours; therefore if y partial to your own sex, I shall be less tha "Your humble servant.' "There are several of this sort of fellows in "MR SPECTATOR, "I am, Sir, your most humble servant. "We are a company of young women who pass our time very much together, and obliged by the mercenary humor of the men to be as mercenarily inclined as they are. There visits among us an old bachelor whom each of us has a mind to. The fellow is rich, and knows he may have any of us, therefore is particular to none, but excessively ill-bred. His pleasantry consists in romping; he snatches kisses by surprise, puts his hands in our necks, tears our fans, robs us of our ribbons, forces letters out of our hands, looks into any of our papers, and a thousand other rudenesses. Now what I will desire of you is, to acquaint him, by printing this, that if he does not now No. 146.] FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 1 Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unqua No man was ever great without some degree of ins We know the highest pleasure our min capable of enjoying with composure, wh read sublime thoughts communicated to us of great genius and eloquence: such is the tainment we meet with in the philosophi of Cicero's writings. Truth and good sens there so charming a dress, that they could be more agreeably represented with the a of poetical fiction, and the power of nu This ancient author, and a modern one, hav into my hands within these few days; and pressions they have left upon me have present quite spoiled me for a merry fellow modern is that admirable writer, the aut The Theory of Earth. The subjects with I have lately been entertained in them bot a near affinity; they are upon inquiries int after, and the thoughts of the latter seem to be raised above those of the former, in pro to his advantages of scripture and revelatio I had a mind to it, I could not at present anything else; therefore I shall translate a p in the one, and transcribe a paragraph out other, for the speculation of this day. tells us, that Plato reports Socrates, up ceiving his sentence, to have spoken to his in the following manner: "I have great hopes, O my judges, tha infinitely to my advantage that I am sent to for it must of necessity be, that one of the things must be the consequence. Death take away all these senses, or convey me other life. If all sense is to be taken awa death is no more than that profound sleep w dreams, in which we are sometimes burie heavens! how desirable it is to die! How days do we know in life preferable to such a But if it be true that death is but a pass *Tusculan. Quæstion. lib. 1. |