I do not pretend to be the best Courtier in the World, but I have often on publick Occasions thought it a very great Absurdity in the Company (during the Royal Presence) to exchange Salutations from all Parts of the Room, when certainly Common Sense should suggest, that all Regards at that Time should be engaged, and cannot be diverted to any other Object, without Disrespect to the Sovereign. But as to the Complaint of my Correspondents, it is not to be imagined what Offence some of them take at the Custom of Saluting in Places of Worship. I have a very angry Letter from a Lady, who tells me [of] one of her Acquaintance, [who,] out of meer Pride and a Pretence to be rude, takes upon her to return no Civilities done to her in Time of Divine Service, and is the most religious Woman for no other Reason but to appear a Woman of the best Quality in the Church. This absurd Custom had better be abolished than retained, if it were but to prevent Evils of no higher a Nature than this is; but I am informed of Objections much more considerable: A Dissenter of Rank and Distinction was lately prevailed upon by a Friend of his to come to one of the greatest Congregations of the Church of England about Town: After the Service was over, he declared he was very well satisfied with the little Ceremony which was used towards God Almighty; but at the same time he feared he should not be able to go through those required towards one another: As to this Point he was in a State of Despair, and feared he was not well-bred enough to be a Convert. There have been many Scandals of this Kind given to our Protestant Dissenters from the outward Pomp and Respect we take to our selves in our Religious Assemblies. A Quaker who came one Day into a Church, fixed his Eyes upon an old Lady with a Carpet larger than that from the Pulpit before her, expecting when she would hold forth. An Anabaptist who designs to come over himself, and all his Family, within few Months, is sensible they want Breeding enough for our Congregations, and has sent his two [eldest [1]] Daughters to learn to dance, that they may not misbehave themselves at Church: It is worth considering whether, in regard to awkward People with scrupulous Consciences, a good Christian of the best Air in the World ought not rather to deny herself the Opportunity of shewing so many Graces, than keep a bashful Proselyte without the Pale of the Church.



[Footnote 1: [elder]]



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No. 260. Friday, December 28, 1711. Steele.



Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes.

Hor.



Mr. SPECTATOR,

I am now in the Sixty fifth Year of my Age, and having been the greater Part of my Days a Man of Pleasure, the Decay of my Faculties is a Stagnation of my Life. But how is it, Sir, that my Appetites are increased upon me with the Loss of Power to gratify them? I write this, like a Criminal, to warn People to enter upon what Reformation they may please to make in themselves in their Youth, and not expect they shall be capable of it from a fond Opinion some have often in their Mouths, that if we do not leave our Desires they will leave us. It is far otherwise; I am now as vain in my Dress, and as flippant if I see a pretty Woman, as when in my Youth I stood upon a Bench in the Pit to survey the whole Circle of Beauties. The Folly is so extravagant with me, and I went on with so little Check of my Desires, or Resignation of them, that I can assure you, I very often meerly to entertain my own Thoughts, sit with my Spectacles on, writing Love-Letters to the Beauties that have been long since in their Graves. This is to warm my Heart with the faint Memory of Delights which were once agreeable to me; but how much happier would my Life have been now, if I could have looked back on any worthy Action done for my Country? If I had laid out that which I profused in Luxury and Wantonness, in Acts of Generosity or Charity? I have lived a Batchelor to this Day; and instead of a numerous Offspring, with which, in the regular Ways of Life, I might possibly have delighted my self, I have only to amuse my self with the Repetition of Old Stories and Intrigues which no one will believe I ever was concerned in. I do not know whether you have ever treated of it or not; but you cannot fall on a better Subject, than that of the Art of growing old. In such a Lecture you must propose, that no one set his Heart upon what is transient; the Beauty grows wrinkled while we are yet gazing at her. The witty Man sinks into a Humourist imperceptibly, for want of reflecting that all Things around him are in a Flux, and continually changing: Thus he is in the Space of ten or fifteen Years surrounded by a new Set of People whose Manners are as natural to them as his Delights, Method of Thinking, and Mode of Living, were formerly to him and his Friends. But the Mischief is, he looks upon the same kind of Errors which he himself was guilty of with an Eye of Scorn, and with that sort of Ill-will which Men entertain against each other for different Opinions: Thus a crasie Constitution, and an uneasie Mind is fretted with vexatious Passions for young Mens doing foolishly what it is Folly to do at all. Dear Sir, this is my present State of Mind; I hate those I should laugh at, and envy those I contemn. The Time of Youth and vigorous Manhood passed the Way in which I have disposed of it, is attended with these Consequences; but to those who live and pass away Life as they ought, all Parts of it are equally pleasant; only the Memory of good and worthy Actions is a Feast which must give a quicker Relish to the Soul than ever it could possibly taste in the highest Enjoyments or Jollities of Youth. As for me, if I sit down in my great Chair and begin to ponder, the Vagaries of a Child are not more ridiculous than the Circumstances which are heaped up in my Memory. Fine Gowns, Country Dances, Ends of Tunes, interrupted Conversations, and midnight Quarrels, are what must necessarily compose my Soliloquy. I beg of you to print this, that some Ladies of my Acquaintance, and my Years, may be perswaded to wear warm Night-caps this cold Season: and that my old Friend Jack Tawdery may buy him a Cane, and not creep with the Air of a Strut. I must add to all this, that if it were not for one Pleasure, which I thought a very mean one till of very late Years, I should have no one great Satisfaction left; but if I live to the 10th of March, 1714, and all my Securities are good, I shall be worth Fifty thousand Pound.

I am, SIR, Your most humble Servant, Jack Afterday.



Mr. SPECTATOR,

You will infinitely oblige a distressed Lover, if you will insert in your very next Paper, the following Letter to my Mistress. You must know, I am not a Person apt to despair, but she has got an odd Humour of stopping short unaccountably, and, as she her self told a Confident of hers, she has cold Fits. These Fits shall last her a Month or six Weeks together; and as she falls into them without Provocation, so it is to be hoped she will return from them without the Merit of new Services. But Life and Love will not admit of such Intervals, therefore pray let her be admonished as follows.

Madam,

I Love you, and I honour you: therefore pray do not tell me of waiting till Decencies, till Forms, till Humours are consulted and gratified. If you have that happy Constitution as to be indolent for ten Weeks together, you should consider that all that while I burn in Impatiences and Fevers; but still you say it will be Time enough, tho I and you too grow older while we are yet talking. Which do you think the more reasonable, that you should alter a State of Indifference for Happiness, and that to oblige me, or I live in Torment, and that to lay no Manner of Obligation upon you? While I indulge your Insensibility I am doing nothing; if you favour my Passion, you are bestowing bright Desires, gay Hopes, generous Cares, noble Resolutions and transporting Raptures upon, Madam,

Your most devoted humble Servant.



Mr. SPECTATOR,

Here's a Gentlewoman lodges in the same House with me, that I never did any Injury to in my whole Life; and she is always railing at me to those that she knows will tell me of it. Don't you think she is in Love with me? or would you have me break my Mind yet or not? Your Servant, T. B.



Mr. SPECTATOR,

I am a Footman in a great Family, and am in Love with the House-maid. We were all at Hot-cockles last Night in the Hall these Holidays; when I lay down and was blinded, she pulled off her Shoe, and hit me with the Heel such a Rap, as almost broke my Head to Pieces. Pray, Sir, was this Love or Spite?



T.



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No. 261. Saturday. December 29, 1711. Addison.



[Greek: Gamos gar anphropoisin euktaion kakon].

Frag. Vet. Poet.



My Father, whom I mentioned in my first Speculation, and whom I must always name with Honour and Gratitude, has very frequently talked to me upon the Subject of Marriage. I was in my younger Years engaged, partly by his Advice, and partly by my own Inclinations in the Courtship of a Person who had a great deal of Beauty, and did not at my first Approaches seem to have any Aversion to me; but as my natural Taciturnity hindred me from showing my self to the best Advantage, she by degrees began to look upon me as a very silly Fellow, and being resolved to regard Merit more than any Thing else in the Persons who made their Applications to her, she married a Captain of Dragoons who happened to be beating up for Recruits in those Parts.

This unlucky Accident has given me an Aversion to pretty Fellows ever since, and discouraged me from trying my Fortune with the Fair Sex. The Observations which I made in this Conjuncture, and the repeated Advices which I received at that Time from the good old Man above-mentioned, have produced the following Essay upon Love and Marriage.

The pleasantest Part of a Man's Life is generally that which passes in Courtship, provided his Passion be sincere, and the Party beloved kind with Discretion. Love, Desire, Hope, all the pleasing Motions of the Soul rise in the Pursuit.

It is easier for an artful Man who is not in Love, to persuade his Mistress he has a Passion for her, and to succeed in his Pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest Violence. True Love has ten thousand Griefs, Impatiences and Resentments, that render a Man unamiable in the Eyes of the Person whose Affection he sollicits: besides, that it sinks his Figure, gives him Fears, Apprehensions and Poorness of Spirit, and often makes him appear ridiculous where he has a mind to recommend himself.

Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship. The Passion should strike Root, and gather Strength before Marriage be grafted on it. A long Course of Hopes and Expectations fixes the Idea in our Minds, and habituates us to a Fondness of the Person beloved.

There is Nothing of so great Importance to us, as the good Qualities of one to whom we join ourselves for Life; they do not only make our present State agreeable, but often determine our Happiness to all Eternity. Where the Choice is left to Friends, the chief Point under Consideration is an Estate: Where the Parties chuse for themselves, their Thoughts turn most upon the Person. They have both their Reasons. The first would procure many Conveniencies and Pleasures of Life to the Party whose Interests they espouse; and at the same time may hope that the Wealth of their Friend will turn to their own Credit and Advantage. The others are preparing for themselves a perpetual Feast. A good Person does not only raise, but continue Love, and breeds a secret Pleasure and Complacency in the Beholder, when the first Heats of Desire are extinguished. It puts the Wife or Husband in Countenance both among Friends and Strangers, and generally fills the Family with a healthy and beautiful Race of Children.

I should prefer a Woman that is agreeable in my own Eye, and not deformed in that of the World, to a Celebrated Beauty. If you marry one remarkably beautiful, you must have a violent Passion for her, or you have not the proper Taste of her Charms; and if you have such a Passion for her, it is odds but it [would [1]] be imbittered with Fears and Jealousies.

Good-Nature and Evenness of Temper will give you an easie Companion for Life; Virtue and good Sense, an agreeable Friend; Love and Constancy, a good Wife or Husband. Where we meet one Person with all these Accomplishments, we find an hundred without any one of them. The World, notwithstanding, is more intent on Trains and Equipages, and all the showy Parts of Life; we love rather to dazzle the Multitude, than consult our proper Interest[s]; and, as I have elsewhere observed, it is one of the most unaccountable Passions of human Nature, that we are at greater Pains to appear easie and happy to others, than really to make our selves so. Of all Disparities, that in Humour makes the most unhappy Marriages, yet scarce enters into our Thoughts at the contracting of them. Several that are in this Respect unequally yoked, and uneasie for Life, with a Person of a particular Character, might have been pleased and happy with a Person of a contrary one, notwithstanding they are both perhaps equally virtuous and laudable in their Kind.

Before Marriage we cannot be too inquisitive and discerning in the Faults of the Person beloved, nor after it too dim-sighted and superficial. However perfect and accomplished the Person appears to you at a Distance, you will find many Blemishes and Imperfections in her Humour, upon a more intimate Acquaintance, which you never discovered or perhaps suspected. Here therefore Discretion and Good-nature are to shew their Strength; the first will hinder your Thoughts from dwelling on what is disagreeable, the other will raise in you all the Tenderness of Compassion and Humanity, and by degrees soften those very Imperfections into Beauties.

Marriage enlarges the Scene of our Happiness and Miseries. A Marriage of Love is pleasant; a Marriage of Interest easie; and a Marriage, where both meet, happy. A happy Marriage has in it all the Pleasures of Friendship, all the Enjoyments of Sense and Reason, and indeed, all the Sweets of Life. Nothing is a greater Mark of a degenerate and vicious Age, than the common Ridicule [which [2]] passes on this State of Life. It is, indeed, only happy in those who can look down with Scorn or Neglect on the Impieties of the Times, and tread the Paths of Life together in a constant uniform Course of Virtue.



[Footnote 1: [will]]

[Footnote 2: [that]]



* * * * *



No. 262. Monday, December 31, 1711. Steele.



Nulla venenato Littera mista Joco est.

Ovid.



I think myself highly obliged to the Publick for their kind Acceptance of a Paper which visits them every Morning, and has in it none of those Seasonings that recommend so many of the Writings which are in Vogue among us.

As, on the one Side, my Paper has not in it a single Word of News, a Reflection in Politics, nor a Stroak of Party; so on the other, there are no Fashionable Touches of Infidelity, no obscene Ideas, no Satyrs upon Priesthood, Marriage, and the like popular Topics of Ridicule; no private Scandal, nor any Thing that may tend to the Defamation of particular Persons, Families, or Societies.

There is not one of these above-mentioned Subjects that would not sell a very indifferent Paper, could I think of gratifying the Publick by such mean and base Methods. But notwithstanding I have rejected every Thing that savours of Party, every Thing that is loose and immoral, and every Thing that might create Uneasiness in the Minds of particular Persons, I find that the Demand of my Papers has encreased every Month since their first Appearance in the World. This does not perhaps reflect so much Honour upon my self, as on my Readers, who give a much greater Attention to Discourses of Virtue and Morality, than ever I expected, or indeed could hope.

When I broke loose from that great Body of Writers who have employed their Wit and Parts in propagating Vice and Irreligion, I did not question but I should be treated as an odd kind of Fellow that had a mind to appear singular in my Way of Writing: But the general Reception I have found, convinces me that the World is not so corrupt as we are apt to imagine; and that if those Men of Parts who have been employed in vitiating the Age had endeavour'd to rectify and amend it, they needed [not [1]] have sacrificed their good Sense and Virtue to their Fame and Reputation. No Man is so sunk in Vice and Ignorance, but there are still some hidden Seeds of Goodness and Knowledge in him; which give him a Relish of such Reflections and Speculations as have an [Aptness [2]] to improve the Mind, and make the Heart better.

I have shewn in a former Paper, with how much Care I have avoided all such Thoughts as are loose, obscene or immoral; and I believe my Reader would still think the better of me, if he knew the Pains I am at in qualifying what I write after such a manner, that nothing may be interpreted as aimed at private Persons. For this Reason when I draw any faulty Character, I consider all those Persons to whom the Malice of the World may possibly apply it, and take care to dash it with such particular Circumstances as may prevent all such ill-natured Applications. If I write any Thing on a black Man, I run over in my Mind all the eminent Persons in the Nation who are of that Complection: When I place an imaginary Name at the Head of a Character, I examine every Syllable and Letter of it, that it may not bear any Resemblance to one that is real. I know very well the Value which every Man sets upon his Reputation, and how painful it is to be exposed to the Mirth and Derision of the Publick, and should therefore scorn to divert my Reader, at the Expence of any private Man.

As I have been thus tender of every particular Persons Reputation, so I have taken more than ordinary Care not to give Offence to those who appear in the higher Figures of Life. I would not make myself merry even with a Piece of Paste-board that is invested with a Publick Character; for which Reason I have never glanced upon the late designed Procession of his Holiness and his Attendants, [3] notwithstanding it might have afforded Matter to many ludicrous Speculations. Among those Advantages, which the Publick may reap from this Paper, it is not the least, that it draws Mens Minds off from the Bitterness of Party, and furnishes them with Subjects of Discourse that may be treated without Warmth or Passion. This is said to have been the first Design of those Gentlemen who set on Foot the Royal Society; [4] and had then a very good Effect, as it turned many of the greatest Genius's of that Age to the Disquisitions of natural Knowledge, who, if they had engaged in Politicks with the same Parts and Application, might have set their Country in a Flame. The Air-Pump, the Barometer, the Quadrant, and the like Inventions were thrown out to those busie Spirits, as Tubs and Barrels are to a Whale, that he may let the Ship sail on without Disturbance, while he diverts himself with those innocent Amusements.

I have been so very scrupulous in this Particular of not hurting any Man's Reputation that I have forborn mentioning even such Authors as I could not name without Honour. This I must confess to have been a Piece of very great Self-denial: For as the Publick relishes nothing better than the Ridicule which turns upon a Writer of any Eminence, so there is nothing which a Man that has but a very ordinary Talent in Ridicule may execute with greater Ease. One might raise Laughter for a Quarter of a Year together upon the Works of a Person who has published but a very few Volumes. For which [Reason [5]] I am astonished, that those who have appeared against this Paper have made so very little of it. The Criticisms which I have hitherto published, have been made with an Intention rather to discover Beauties and Excellencies in the Writers of my own Time, than to publish any of their Faults and Imperfections. In the mean while I should take it for a very great Favour from some of my underhand Detractors, if they would break all Measures with me so far, as to give me a Pretence for examining their Performances with an impartial Eye: Nor shall I look upon it as any Breach of Charity to criticise the Author, so long as I keep clear of the Person.

In the mean while, till I am provoked to such Hostilities, I shall from time to time endeavour to do Justice to those who have distinguished themselves in the politer Parts of Learning, and to point out such Beauties in their Works as may have escaped the Observation of others.

As the first Place among our English Poets is due to Milton; and as I have drawn more Quotations out of him than from any other, I shall enter into a regular Criticism upon his Paradise Lost, which I shall publish every Saturday till I have given my Thoughts upon that Poem. I shall not however presume to impose upon others my own particular Judgment on this Author, but only deliver it as my private Opinion. Criticism is of a very large Extent, and every particular Master in this Art has his favourite Passages in an Author, which do not equally strike the best Judges. It will be sufficient for me if I discover many Beauties or Imperfections which others have not attended to, and I should be very glad to see any of our eminent Writers publish their Discoveries on the same Subject. In short, I would always be understood to write my Papers of Criticism in the Spirit which Horace has expressed in those two famous Lines;

—Si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum,

If you have made any better Remarks of your own, communicate them with Candour; if not, make use of these I present you with.

C.



[Footnote 1: [not to]]

[Footnote 2: [Aptness in them]]

[Footnote 3: [Fifteen images in waxwork, prepared for a procession on the 17th November, Queen Elizabeth's birthday, had been seized under a Secretary of State's warrant. Swift says, in his Journal to Stella, that the devil which was to have waited on the Pope was saved from burning because it was thought to resemble the Lord Treasurer.]

[Footnote 4: The Royal Society was incorporated in 1663 as the Royal Society of London for promoting Natural Knowledge. In the same year there was an abortive insurrection in the North against the infamy of Charles II.'s government.]

[Footnote 5: [Reasons]]



* * * * *



No. 263. Tuesday, January 1, 1712. Steele.



Gratulor quod eum quem necesse erat diligere, qualiscunque esset, talem habemus ut libenter quoque diligamus.

Trebonius apud Tull.



Mr, SPECTATOR,

I am the happy Father of a very towardly Son, in whom I do not only see my Life, but also my Manner of Life, renewed. It would be extremely beneficial to Society, if you would frequently resume Subjects which serve to bind these sort of Relations faster, and endear the Ties of Blood with those of Good-will, Protection, Observance, Indulgence, and Veneration. I would, methinks, have this done after an uncommon Method, and do not think any one, who is not capable of writing a good Play, fit to undertake a Work wherein there will necessarily occur so many secret Instincts, and Biasses of human Nature which would pass unobserved by common Eyes. I thank Heaven I have no outrageous Offence against my own excellent Parents to answer for; but when I am now and then alone, and look back upon my past Life, from my earliest Infancy to this Time, there are many Faults which I committed that did not appear to me, even till I my self became a Father. I had not till then a Notion of the Earnings of Heart, which a Man has when he sees his Child do a laudable Thing, or the sudden Damp which seizes him when he fears he will act something unworthy. It is not to be imagined, what a Remorse touched me for a long Train of childish Negligencies of my Mother, when I saw my Wife the other Day look out of the Window, and turn as pale as Ashes upon seeing my younger Boy sliding upon the Ice. These slight Intimations will give you to understand, that there are numberless little Crimes which Children take no notice of while they are doing, which upon Reflection, when they shall themselves become Fathers, they will look upon with the utmost Sorrow and Contrition, that they did not regard, before those whom they offended were to be no more seen. How many thousand Things do I remember, which would have highly pleased my Father, and I omitted for no other Reason, but that I thought what he proposed the Effect of Humour and old Age, which I am now convinced had Reason and good Sense in it. I cannot now go into the Parlour to him, and make his Heart glad with an Account of a Matter which was of no Consequence, but that I told it, and acted in it. The good Man and Woman are long since in their Graves, who used to sit and plot the Welfare of us their Children, while, perhaps, we were sometimes laughing at the old Folks at another End of the House. The Truth of it is, were we merely to follow Nature in these great Duties of Life, tho we have a strong Instinct towards the performing of them, we should be on both Sides very deficient. Age is so unwelcome to the Generality of Mankind, and Growth towards Manhood so desirable to all, that Resignation to Decay is too difficult a Task in the Father; and Deference, amidst the Impulse of gay Desires, appears unreasonable to the Son. There are so few who can grow old with a good Grace, and yet fewer who can come slow enough into the World, that a Father, were he to be actuated by his Desires, and a Son, were he to consult himself only, could neither of them behave himself as he ought to the other. But when Reason interposes against Instinct, where it would carry either out of the Interests of the other, there arises that happiest Intercourse of good Offices between those dearest Relations of human Life. The Father, according to the Opportunities which are offered to him, is throwing down Blessings on the Son, and the Son endeavouring to appear the worthy Offspring of such a Father. It is after this manner that Camillus and his firstborn dwell together. Camillus enjoys a pleasing and indolent old Age, in which Passion is subdued, and Reason exalted. He waits the Day of his Dissolution with a Resignation mixed with Delight, and the Son fears the Accession of his Fathers Fortune with Diffidence, lest he should not enjoy or become it as well as his Predecessor. Add to this, that the Father knows he leaves a Friend to the Children of his Friends, an easie Landlord to his Tenants, and an agreeable Companion to his Acquaintance. He believes his Sons Behaviour will make him frequently remembered, but never wanted. This Commerce is so well cemented, that without the Pomp of saying, Son, be a Friend to such a one when I am gone; Camillus knows, being in his Favour, is Direction enough to the grateful Youth who is to succeed him, without the Admonition of his mentioning it. These Gentlemen are honoured in all their Neighbourhood, and the same Effect which the Court has on the Manner of a Kingdom, their Characters have on all who live within the Influence of them.

My Son and I are not of Fortune to communicate our good Actions or Intentions to so many as these Gentlemen do; but I will be bold to say, my Son has, by the Applause and Approbation which his Behaviour towards me has gained him, occasioned that many an old Man, besides my self, has rejoiced. Other Mens Children follow the Example of mine, and I have the inexpressible Happiness of overhearing our Neighbours, as we ride by, point to their Children, and say, with a Voice of Joy, There they go.

You cannot, Mr. SPECTATOR, pass your time better than insinuating the Delights which these Relations well regarded bestow upon each other. Ordinary Passions are no longer such, but mutual Love gives an Importance to the most indifferent things, and a Merit to Actions the most insignificant. When we look round the World, and observe the many Misunderstandings which are created by the Malice and Insinuation of the meanest Servants between People thus related, how necessary will it appear that it were inculcated that Men would be upon their Guard to support a Constancy of Affection, and that grounded upon the Principles of Reason, not the Impulses of Instinct.

It is from the common Prejudices which Men receive from their Parents, that Hatreds are kept alive from one Generation to another; and when Men act by Instinct, Hatreds will descend when good Offices are forgotten. For the Degeneracy of human Life is such, that our Anger is more easily transferred to our Children than our Love. Love always gives something to the Object it delights in, and Anger spoils the Person against whom it is moved of something laudable in him. From this Degeneracy therefore, and a sort of Self-Love, we are more prone to take up the Ill-will of our Parents, than to follow them in their Friendships.

One would think there should need no more to make Men keep up this sort of Relation with the utmost Sanctity, than to examine their own Hearts. If every Father remembered his own Thoughts and Inclinations when he was a Son, and every Son remembered what he expected from his Father, when he himself was in a State of Dependance, this one Reflection would preserve Men from being dissolute or rigid in these several Capacities. The Power and Subjection between them, when broken, make them more emphatically Tyrants and Rebels against each other, with greater Cruelty of Heart, than the Disruption of States and Empires can possibly produce. I shall end this Application to you with two Letters which passed between a Mother and Son very lately, and are as follows.

Dear FRANK,

If the Pleasures, which I have the Grief to hear you pursue in Town, do not take up all your Time, do not deny your Mother so much of it, as to read seriously this Letter. You said before Mr. Letacre, that an old Woman might live very well in the Country upon half my Jointure, and that your Father was a fond Fool to give me a Rent-Charge of Eight hundred a Year to the Prejudice of his Son. What Letacre said to you upon that Occasion, you ought to have born with more Decency, as he was your Fathers well-beloved Servant, than to have called him Country-put. In the first place, Frank, I must tell you, I will have my Rent duly paid, for I will make up to your Sisters for the Partiality I was guilty of, in making your Father do so much as he has done for you. I may, it seems, live upon half my Jointure! I lived upon much less, Frank, when I carried you from Place to Place in these Arms, and could neither eat, dress, or mind any thing for feeding and tending you a weakly Child, and shedding Tears when the Convulsions you were then troubled with returned upon you. By my Care you outgrew them, to throw away the Vigour of your Youth in the Arms of Harlots, and deny your Mother what is not yours to detain. Both your Sisters are crying to see the Passion which I smother; but if you please to go on thus like a Gentleman of the Town, and forget all Regards to your self and Family, I shall immediately enter upon your Estate for the Arrear due to me, and without one Tear more contemn you for forgetting the Fondness of your Mother, as much as you have the Example of your Father. O Frank, do I live to omit writing myself, Your Affectionate Mother, A.T.

MADAM, I will come down to-morrow and pay the Money on my Knees. Pray write so no more. I will take care you never shall, for I will be for ever hereafter, Your most dutiful Son, F.T.

I will bring down new Heads for my Sisters. Pray let all be forgotten.

T.



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No. 264. Wednesday, January 2, 1712. Steele.



—Secretum iter et fallentis Semita vitae.

Hor.

It has been from Age to Age an Affectation to love the Pleasure of Solitude, amongst those who cannot possibly be supposed qualified for passing Life in that Manner. This People have taken up from reading the many agreeable things which have been writ on that Subject, for which we are beholden to excellent Persons who delighted in being retired and abstracted from the Pleasures that enchant the Generality of the World. This Way of Life is recommended indeed with great Beauty, and in such a Manner as disposes the Reader for the time to a pleasing Forgetfulness, or Negligence of the particular Hurry of Life in which he is engaged, together with a Longing for that State which he is charmed with in Description. But when we consider the World it self, and how few there are capable of a religious, learned, or philosophick Solitude, we shall be apt to change a Regard to that sort of Solitude, for being a little singular in enjoying Time after the Way a Man himself likes best in the World, without going so far as wholly to withdraw from it. I have often observed, there is not a Man breathing who does not differ from all other Men, as much in the Sentiments of his Mind, as the Features of his Face. The Felicity is, when anyone is so happy as to find out and follow what is the proper Bent of this Genius, and turn all his Endeavours to exert himself according as that prompts him. Instead of this, which is an innocent Method of enjoying a Man's self, and turning out of the general Tracks wherein you have Crowds of Rivals, there are those who pursue their own Way out of a Sowrness and Spirit of Contradiction: These Men do every thing which they are able to support, as if Guilt and Impunity could not go together. They choose a thing only because another dislikes it; and affect forsooth an inviolable Constancy in Matters of no manner of Moment. Thus sometimes an old Fellow shall wear this or that sort of Cut in his Cloaths with great Integrity, while all the rest of the World are degenerated into Buttons, Pockets and Loops unknown to their Ancestors. As insignificant as even this is, if it were searched to the Bottom, you perhaps would find it not sincere, but that he is in the Fashion in his Heart, and holds out from mere Obstinacy. But I am running from my intended Purpose, which was to celebrate a certain particular Manner of passing away Life, and is a Contradiction to no Man. but a Resolution to contract none of the exorbitant Desires by which others are enslaved. The best way of separating a Man's self from the World, is to give up the Desire of being known to it. After a Man has preserved his Innocence, and performed all Duties incumbent upon him, his Time spent his own Way is what makes his Life differ from that of a Slave. If they who affect Show and Pomp knew how many of their Spectators derided their trivial Taste, they would be very much less elated, and have an Inclination to examine the Merit of all they have to do with: They would soon find out that there are many who make a Figure below what their Fortune or Merit entities them to, out of mere Choice, and an elegant Desire of Ease and Disincumbrance. It would look like Romance to tell you in this Age of an old Man who is contented to pass for an Humourist, and one who does not understand the Figure he ought to make in the World, while he lives in a Lodging of Ten Shillings a Week with only one Servant: While he dresses himself according to the Season in Cloth or in Stuff, and has no one necessary Attention to any thing but the Bell which calls to Prayers twice a Day. I say it would look like a Fable to report that this Gentleman gives away all which is the Overplus of a great Fortune, by secret Methods to other Men. If he has not the Pomp of a numerous Train, and of Professors of Service to him, he has every Day he lives the Conscience that the Widow, the Fatherless, the Mourner, and the Stranger bless his unseen Hand in their Prayers. This Humourist gives up all the Compliments which People of his own Condition could make to him, for the Pleasures of helping the Afflicted, supplying the Needy, and befriending the Neglected. This Humourist keeps to himself much more than he wants, and gives a vast Refuse of his Superfluities to purchase Heaven, and by freeing others from the Temptations of Worldly Want, to carry a Retinue with him thither. Of all Men who affect living in a particular Way, next to this admirable Character, I am the most enamoured of Irus, whose Condition will not admit of such Largesses, and perhaps would not be capable of making them, if it were. Irus, tho he is now turned of Fifty, has not appeared in the World, in his real Character, since five and twenty, at which Age he ran out a small Patrimony, and spent some Time after with Rakes who had lived upon him: A Course of ten Years time, passed in all the little Alleys, By-Paths, and sometimes open Taverns and Streets of this Town, gave Irus a perfect Skill in judging of the Inclinations of Mankind, and acting accordingly. He seriously considered he was poor, and the general Horror which most Men have of all who are in that Condition. Irus judg'd very rightly, that while he could keep his Poverty a Secret, he should not feel the Weight of it; he improved this Thought into an Affectation of Closeness and Covetousness. Upon this one Principle he resolved to govern his future Life; and in the thirty sixth Year of his Age he repaired to Long-lane, and looked upon several Dresses which hung there deserted by their first Masters, and exposed to the Purchase of the best Bidder. At this Place he exchanged his gay Shabbiness of Cloaths fit for a much younger Man, to warm ones that would be decent for a much older one. Irus came out thoroughly equipped from Head to Foot, with a little oaken Cane in the Form of a substantial Man that did not mind his Dress, turned of fifty. He had at this time fifty Pounds in ready Money; and in this Habit, with this Fortune, he took his present Lodging in St. John Street, at the Mansion-House of a Taylor's Widow, who washes and can clear-starch his Bands. From that Time to this, he has kept the main Stock, without Alteration under or over to the value of five Pounds. He left off all his old Acquaintance to a Man, and all his Arts of Life, except the Play of Backgammon, upon which he has more than bore his Charges. Irus has, ever since he came into this Neighbourhood, given all the Intimations, he skilfully could, of being a close Hunks worth Money: No body comes to visit him, he receives no Letters, and tells his Money Morning and Evening. He has, from the publick Papers, a Knowledge of what generally passes, shuns all Discourses of Money, but shrugs his Shoulder when you talk of Securities; he denies his being rich with the Air, which all do who are vain of being so: He is the Oracle of a Neighbouring Justice of Peace, who meets him at the Coffeehouse; the Hopes that what he has must come to Somebody, and that he has no Heirs, have that Effect where ever he is known, that he every Day has three or four Invitations to dine at different Places, which he generally takes care to choose in such a manner, as not to seem inclined to the richer Man. All the young Men respect him, and say he is just the same Man he was when they were Boys. He uses no Artifice in the World, but makes use of Mens Designs upon him to get a Maintenance out of them. This he carries on by a certain Peevishness, (which he acts very well) that no one would believe could possibly enter into the Head of a poor Fellow. His Mein, his Dress, his Carriage, and his Language are such, that you would be at a loss to guess whether in the Active Part of his Life he had been a sensible Citizen, or Scholar that knew the World. These are the great Circumstances in the Life of Irus, and thus does he pass away his Days a Stranger to Mankind; and at his Death, the worst that will be said of him will be, that he got by every Man who had Expectations from him, more than he had to leave him.

I have an Inclination to print the following Letters; for that I have heard the Author of them has some where or other seen me, and by an excellent Faculty in Mimickry my Correspondents tell me he can assume my Air, and give my Taciturnity a Slyness which diverts more than any Thing I could say if I were present. Thus I am glad my Silence is attoned for to the good Company in Town. He has carried his Skill in Imitation so far, as to have forged a Letter from my Friend Sir ROGER in such a manner, that any one but I who am thoroughly acquainted with him, would have taken it for genuine.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

Having observed in Lilly's Grammar how sweetly Bacchus and Apollo run in a Verse: I have (to preserve the Amity between them) call'd in Bacchus to the Aid of my Profession of the Theatre. So that while some People of Quality are bespeaking Plays of me to be acted upon such a Day, and others, Hogsheads for their Houses against such a Time; I am wholly employ'd in the agreeable Service of Wit and Wine: Sir, I have sent you Sir Roger de Coverley's Letter to me, which pray comply with in Favour of the Bumper Tavern. Be kind, for you know a Players utmost Pride is the Approbation of the SPECTATOR.

I am your Admirer, tho unknown, Richard Estcourt [1]



To Mr. Estcourt at his House in Covent-Garden. Coverley, December the 18th, 1711.

Old Comical Ones,

The Hogsheads of Neat Port came safe, and have gotten thee good Reputation in these Parts; and I am glad to hear, that a Fellow who has been laying out his Money ever since he was born, for the meer Pleasure of Wine, has bethought himself of joining Profit and Pleasure together. Our Sexton (poor Man) having received Strength from thy Wine since his fit of the Gout, is hugely taken with it: He says it is given by Nature for the Use of Families, that no Stewards Table can be without it, that it strengthens Digestion, excludes Surfeits, Fevers and Physick; which green Wines of any kind cant do. Pray get a pure snug Room, and I hope next Term to help fill your Bumper with our People of the Club; but you must have no Bells stirring when the Spectator comes; I forbore ringing to Dinner while he was down with me in the Country. Thank you for the little Hams and Portugal Onions; pray keep some always by you. You know my Supper is only good Cheshire Cheese, best Mustard, a golden Pippin, attended with a Pipe of John Sly's Best. Sir Harry has stoln all your Songs, and tells the Story of the 5th of November to Perfection.

Yours to serve you, Roger de Coverley.

We've lost old John since you were here.

T.



[Footnote 1: Richard Estcourt, born at Tewkesbury in 1688, and educated in the Latin school there, stole from home at the age of 15 to join a travelling company of comedians at Worcester, and, to avoid detection, made his first appearance in woman's clothes as Roxana in Alexander the Great. He was discovered, however, pursued, brought home, carried to London, and bound prentice to an apothecary in Hatton Garden. He escaped again, wandered about England, went to Ireland, and there obtained credit as an actor; then returned to London, and appeared at Drury Lane, where his skill as a mimic enabled him to perform each part in the manner of the actor who had obtained chief credit by it. His power of mimicry made him very diverting in society, and as he had natural politeness with a sprightly wit, his company was sought and paid for at the entertainments of the great. Dick Estcourt was a great favourite with the Duke of Marlborough, and when men of wit and rank joined in establishing the Beefsteak Club they made Estcourt their Providore, with a small gold gridiron, for badge, hung round his neck by a green ribbon. Estcourt was a writer for the stage as well as actor, and had shown his agreement with the Spectators dramatic criticisms by ridiculing the Italian opera with an interlude called Prunella. In the Numbers of the Spectator for December 28 and 29 Estcourt had advertised that he would on the 1st of January open the Bumper Tavern in James's Street, Westminster, and had laid in

neat natural wines, fresh and in perfection; being bought by Brooke and Hellier, by whom the said Tavern will from time to time be supplied with the best growths that shall be imported; to be sold by wholesale as well as retail, with the utmost fidelity by his old servant, trusty Anthony, who has so often adorned both the theatres in England and Ireland; and as he is a person altogether unknowing in the wine trade, it cannot be doubted but that he will deliver the wine in the same natural purity that he receives it from the said merchants; and on these assurances he hopes that all his friends and acquaintance will become his customers, desiring a continuance of their favours no longer than they shall find themselves well served.

This is the venture which Steele here backs for his friend with the influence of the Spectator.]



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No. 265. Thursday, January 3, 1712. Addison.



Dixerit e multis aliquis, quid virus in angues Adjicis? et rabidae tradis ovile lupae?

Ovid.



One of the Fathers, if I am rightly informed, has defined a Woman to be [Greek: xoon philokosmon], an Animal that delights in Finery. I have already treated of the Sex in two or three Papers, conformably to this Definition, and have in particular observed, that in all Ages they have been more careful then the Men to adorn that Part of the Head, which we generally call the Outside.

This Observation is so very notorious, that when in ordinary Discourse we say a Man has a fine Head, a long Head, or a good Head, we express ourselves metaphorically, and speak in relation to his Understanding; whereas when we say of a Woman, she has a fine, a long or a good Head, we speak only in relation to her Commode.

It is observed among Birds, that Nature has lavished all her Ornaments upon the Male, who very often appears in a most beautiful Head-dress: Whether it be a Crest, a Comb, a Tuft of Feathers, or a natural little Plume, erected like a kind of Pinacle on the very Top of the Head. [As Nature on the contrary [1] has poured out her Charms in the greatest Abundance upon the Female Part of our Species, so they are very assiduous in bestowing upon themselves the finest Garnitures of Art. The Peacock in all his Pride, does not display half the Colours that appear in the Garments of a British Lady, when she is dressed either for a Ball or a Birth-day.

But to return to our Female Heads. The Ladies have been for some time in a kind of moulting Season, with regard to that Part of their Dress, having cast great Quantities of Ribbon, Lace, and Cambrick, and in some measure reduced that Part of the human Figure to the beautiful globular Form, which is natural to it. We have for a great while expected what kind of Ornament would be substituted in the Place of those antiquated Commodes. But our Female Projectors were all the last Summer so taken up with the Improvement of their Petticoats, that they had not time to attend to any thing else; but having at length sufficiently adorned their lower Parts, they now begin to turn their Thoughts upon the other Extremity, as well remembring the old Kitchen Proverb, that if you light your Fire at both Ends, the middle will shift for it self.

I am engaged in this Speculation by a Sight which I lately met with at the Opera. As I was standing in the hinder Part of the Box, I took notice of a little Cluster of Women sitting together in the prettiest coloured Hoods that I ever saw. One of them was Blue, another Yellow, and another Philomot; [2] the fourth was of a Pink Colour, and the fifth of a pale Green. I looked with as much Pleasure upon this little party-coloured Assembly, as upon a Bed of Tulips, and did not know at first whether it might not be an Embassy of Indian Queens; but upon my going about into the Pit, and taking them in Front, I was immediately undeceived, and saw so much Beauty in every Face, that I found them all to be English. Such Eyes and Lips, Cheeks and Foreheads, could be the Growth of no other Country. The Complection of their Faces hindred me from observing any farther the Colour of their Hoods, though I could easily perceive by that unspeakable Satisfaction which appeared in their Looks, that their own Thoughts were wholly taken up on those pretty Ornaments they wore upon their Heads.

I am informed that this Fashion spreads daily, insomuch that the Whig and Tory Ladies begin already to hang out different Colours, and to shew their Principles in their Head-dress. Nay if I may believe my Friend WILL. HONEYCOMB, there is a certain old Coquet of his Acquaintance who intends to appear very suddenly in a Rainbow Hood, like the Iris in Dryden's Virgil, not questioning but that among such a variety of Colours she shall have a Charm for every Heart.

My Friend WILL., who very much values himself upon his great Insights into Gallantry, tells me, that he can already guess at the Humour a Lady is in by her Hood, as the Courtiers of Morocco know the Disposition of their present Emperor by the Colour of the Dress which he puts on. When Melesinda wraps her Head in Flame Colour, her Heart is set upon Execution. When she covers it with Purple, I would not, says he, advise her Lover to approach her; but if she appears in White, it is Peace, and he may hand her out of her Box with Safety.

Will, informs me likewise, that these Hoods may be used as Signals. Why else, says he, does Cornelia always put on a Black Hood when her Husband is gone into the Country?

Such are my Friend HONEYCOMBS Dreams of Gallantry. For my own part, I impute this Diversity of Colours in the Hoods to the Diversity of Complexion in the Faces of my pretty Country Women. Ovid in his Art of Love has given some Precepts as to this Particular, though I find they are different from those which prevail among the Moderns. He recommends a Red striped Silk to the pale Complexion; White to the Brown, and Dark to the Fair. On the contrary my Friend WILL., who pretends to be a greater Master in this Art than Ovid, tells me, that the palest Features look the most agreeable in white Sarsenet; that a Face which is overflushed appears to advantage in the deepest Scarlet, and that the darkest Complexion is not a little alleviated by a Black Hood. In short, he is for losing the Colour of the Face in that of the Hood, as a Fire burns dimly, and a Candle goes half out, in the Light of the Sun. This, says he, your Ovid himself has hinted, where he treats of these Matters, when he tells us that the blue Water Nymphs are dressed in Sky coloured Garments; and that Aurora, who always appears in the Light of the Rising Sun, is robed in Saffron.

Whether these his Observations are justly grounded I cannot tell: but I have often known him, as we have stood together behind the Ladies, praise or dispraise the Complexion of a Face which he never saw, from observing the Colour of her Hood, and has been very seldom out in these his Guesses.

As I have Nothing more at Heart than the Honour and Improvement of the Fair Sex, [3] I cannot conclude this Paper without an Exhortation to the British Ladies, that they would excel the Women of all other Nations as much in Virtue and good Sense, as they do in Beauty; which they may certainly do, if they will be as industrious to cultivate their Minds, as they are to adorn their Bodies: In the mean while I shall recommend to their most serious Consideration the Saying of an old Greek Poet,

[Greek: Gynaiki kosmos ho tropos, k ou chrysia.]

C. [4]



[Footnote 1: [On the contrary as Nature]]

[Footnote 2: Feuille mort, the russet yellow of dead leaves.]

[Footnote 3:

I will not meddle with the Spectator. Let him fair-sex it to the worlds end.

Swifts Journal to Stella.]

[Footnote 4: Ṭ corrected by an erratum in No. 268.]



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No. 266. Friday, January 4, 1712. Steele.



Id vero est, quod ego mihi puto palmarium, Me reperisse, quomodo adolescentulus Meretricum ingenia et mores possit noscere: Mature ut cum cognorit perpetuo oderit.

Ter. Eun. Act. 5, Sc. 4.



No Vice or Wickedness which People fall into from Indulgence to Desire[s] which are natural to all, ought to place them below the Compassion of the virtuous Part of the World; which indeed often makes me a little apt to suspect the Sincerity of their Virtue, who are too warmly provoked at other Peoples personal Sins. The unlawful Commerce of the Sexes is of all other the hardest to avoid; and yet there is no one which you shall hear the rigider Part of Womankind speak of with so little Mercy. It is very certain that a modest Woman cannot abhor the Breach of Chastity too much; but pray let her hate it for her self, and only pity it in others. WILL. HONEYCOMB calls these over-offended Ladies, the Outragiously Virtuous.

I do not design to fall upon Failures in general, with relation to the Gift of Chastity, but at present only enter upon that large Field, and begin with the Consideration of poor and publick Whores. The other Evening passing along near Covent-Garden, I was jogged on the Elbow as I turned into the Piazza, on the right Hand coming out of James-street, by a slim young Girl of about Seventeen, who with a pert Air asked me if I was for a Pint of Wine. I do not know but I should have indulged my Curiosity in having some Chat with her, but that I am informed the Man of the Bumper knows me; and it would have made a Story for him not very agreeable to some Part of my Writings, though I have in others so frequently said that I am wholly unconcerned in any Scene I am in, but meerly as a Spectator. This Impediment being in my Way, we stood [under [1]] one of the Arches by Twilight; and there I could observe as exact Features as I had ever seen, the most agreeable Shape, the finest Neck and Bosom, in a Word, the whole Person of a Woman exquisitely Beautiful. She affected to allure me with a forced Wantonness in her Look and Air; but I saw it checked with Hunger and Cold: Her Eyes were wan and eager, her Dress thin and tawdry, her Mein genteel and childish. This strange Figure gave me much Anguish of Heart, and to avoid being seen with her I went away, but could not forbear giving her a Crown. The poor thing sighed, curtisied, and with a Blessing, expressed with the utmost Vehemence, turned from me. This Creature is what they call newly come upon the Town, but who, I suppose, falling into cruel Hands was left in the first Month from her Dishonour, and exposed to pass through the Hands and Discipline of one of those Hags of Hell whom we call Bawds. But lest I should grow too suddenly grave on this Subject, and be my self outragiously good, I shall turn to a Scene in one of Fletchers Plays, where this Character is drawn, and the Oeconomy of Whoredom most admirably described. The Passage I would point to is in the third Scene of the second Act of The Humorous Lieutenant. Leucippe who is Agent for the Kings Lust, and bawds at the same time for the whole Court, is very pleasantly introduced, reading her Minutes as a Person of Business, with two Maids, her Under-Secretaries, taking Instructions at a Table before her. Her Women, both those under her present Tutelage, and those which she is laying wait for, are alphabetically set down in her Book; and as she is looking over the Letter C, in a muttering Voice, as if between Soliloquy and speaking out, she says,

Her Maidenhead will yield me; let me see now; She is not Fifteen they say: For her Complexion—- Cloe, Cloe, Cloe, here I have her, Cloe, the Daughter of a Country Gentleman; Here Age upon Fifteen. Now her Complexion, A lovely brown; here tis; Eyes black and rolling, The Body neatly built; she strikes a Lute well, Sings most enticingly: These Helps consider'd, Her Maidenhead will amount to some three hundred, Or three hundred and fifty Crowns, twill bear it handsomly. Her Fathers poor, some little Share deducted, To buy him a Hunting Nag—

These Creatures are very well instructed in the Circumstances and Manners of all who are any Way related to the Fair One whom they have a Design upon. As Cloe is to be purchased with [350] [2] Crowns, and the Father taken off with a Pad; the Merchants Wife next to her, who abounds in Plenty, is not to have downright Money, but the mercenary Part of her Mind is engaged with a Present of Plate and a little Ambition. She is made to understand that it is a Man of Quality who dies for her. The Examination of a young Girl for Business, and the crying down her Value for being a slight Thing, together with every other Circumstance in the Scene, are inimitably excellent, and have the true Spirit of Comedy; tho it were to be wished the Author had added a Circumstance which should make Leucippe's Baseness more odious.

It must not be thought a Digression from my intended Speculation, to talk of Bawds in a Discourse upon Wenches; for a Woman of the Town is not thoroughly and properly such, without having gone through the Education of one of these Houses. But the compassionate Case of very many is, that they are taken into such Hands without any the least Suspicion, previous Temptation, or Admonition to what Place they are going. The last Week I went to an Inn in the City to enquire for some Provisions which were sent by a Waggon out of the Country; and as I waited in one of the Boxes till the Chamberlain had looked over his Parcel, I heard an old and a young Voice repeating the Questions and Responses of the Church- Catechism. I thought it no Breach of good Manners to peep at a Crevice, and look in at People so well employed; but who should I see there but the most artful Procuress in the Town, examining a most beautiful Country-Girl, who had come up in the same Waggon with my Things, Whether she was well educated, could forbear playing the Wanton with Servants, and idle fellows, of which this Town, says she, is too full: At the same time, Whether she knew enough of Breeding, as that if a Squire or a Gentleman, or one that was her Betters, should give her a civil Salute, she should curtsy and be humble, nevertheless. Her innocent forsooths, yess, and't please yous, and she would do her Endeavour, moved the good old Lady to take her out of the Hands of a Country Bumpkin her Brother, and hire her for her own Maid. I staid till I saw them all marched out to take Coach; the brother loaded with a great Cheese, he prevailed upon her to take for her Civilities to [his] Sister. This poor Creatures Fate is not far off that of hers whom I spoke of above, and it is not to be doubted, but after she has been long enough a Prey to Lust she will be delivered over to Famine; the Ironical Commendation of the Industry and Charity of these antiquated Ladies[, these] [3] Directors of Sin, after they can no longer commit it, makes up the Beauty of the inimitable Dedication to the Plain-Dealer, [4] and is a Masterpiece of Raillery on this Vice. But to understand all the Purleues of this Game the better, and to illustrate this Subject in future Discourses, I must venture my self, with my Friend WILL, into the Haunts of Beauty and Gallantry; from pampered Vice in the Habitations of the Wealthy, to distressed indigent Wickedness expelled the Harbours of the Brothel.

T.



[Footnote 1: [under in]]

[Footnote 2: fifty]

[Footnote 3: [. These]]

[Footnote 4: Wycherley's Plain-Dealer having given offence to many ladies, was inscribed in a satirical billet doux dedicatory To My Lady B .]



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No. 267. Saturday, January 5, 1712. Addison.



Cedite Romani Scriptores, cedite Graii. [1]

Propert.



There is nothing in Nature [more irksome than] [2] general Discourses, especially when they turn chiefly upon Words. For this Reason I shall wave the Discussion of that Point which was started some Years since, whether Milton's Paradise Lost may be called an Heroick Poem? Those who will not give it that Title, may call it (if they please) a Divine Poem. It will be sufficient to its Perfection, if it has in it all the Beauties of the highest kind of Poetry; and as for those who [alledge [3]] it is not an Heroick Poem, they advance no more to the Diminution of it, than if they should say Adam is not AEneas, nor Eve Helen.

I shall therefore examine it by the Rules of Epic Poetry, and see whether it falls short of the Iliad or AEneid, in the Beauties which are essential to that kind of Writing. The first thing to be considered in an Epic Poem, is the Fable, [4] which is perfect or imperfect, according as the Action which it relates is more or less so. This Action should have three Qualifications in it. First, It should be but One Action. Secondly, It should be an entire Action; and, Thirdly, It should be a great Action. [5] To consider the Action of the Iliad, AEneid, and Paradise Lost, in these three several Lights. Homer to preserve the Unity of his Action hastens into the Midst of Things, as Horace has observed: [6] Had he gone up to Leda's Egg, or begun much later, even at the Rape of Helen, or the Investing of Troy, it is manifest that the Story of the Poem would have been a Series of several Actions. He therefore opens his Poem with the Discord of his Princes, and [artfully [7]] interweaves, in the several succeeding Parts of it, an Account of every Thing [material] which relates to [them [8]] and had passed before that fatal Dissension. After the same manner, AEneas makes his first Appearance in the Tyrrhene Seas, and within Sight of Italy, because the Action proposed to be celebrated was that of his settling himself in Latium. But because it was necessary for the Reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding Parts of his Voyage, Virgil makes his Hero relate it by way of Episode in the second and third Books of the AEneid. The Contents of both which Books come before those of the first Book in the Thread of the Story, tho for preserving of this Unity of Action they follow them in the Disposition of the Poem. Milton, in imitation of these two great Poets, opens his Paradise Lost with an Infernal Council plotting the Fall of Man, which is the Action he proposed to celebrate; and as for those great Actions, which preceded, in point of Time, the Battle of the Angels, and the Creation of the World, (which would have entirely destroyed the Unity of his principal Action, had he related them in the same Order that they happened) he cast them into the fifth, sixth, and seventh Books, by way of Episode to this noble Poem.

Aristotle himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the Unity of his Fable, [9] tho at the same time that great Critick and Philosopher endeavours to palliate this Imperfection in the Greek Poet, by imputing it in some measure to the very Nature of an Epic Poem. Some have been of opinion, that the AEneid [also labours [10]] in this Particular, and has Episodes which may be looked upon as Excrescencies rather than as Parts of the Action. On the contrary, the Poem, which we have now under our Consideration, hath no other Episodes than such as naturally arise from the Subject, and yet is filled with such a Multitude of astonishing [Incidents,[11]] that it gives us at the same time a Pleasure of the greatest Variety, and of the greatest [Simplicity; uniform in its Nature, tho diversified in the Execution [12]].

I must observe also, that as Virgil, in the Poem which was designed to celebrate the Original of the Roman Empire, has described the Birth of its great Rival, the Carthaginian Commonwealth: Milton, with the like Art, in his Poem on the Fall of Man, has related the Fall of those Angels who are his professed Enemies. Besides the many other Beauties in such an Episode, its running parallel with the great Action of the Poem hinders it from breaking the Unity so much as another Episode would have done, that had not so great an Affinity with the principal Subject. In short, this is the same kind of Beauty which the Criticks admire in The Spanish Frier, or The Double Discovery [13] where the two different Plots look like Counter-parts and Copies of one another.

The second Qualification required in the Action of an Epic Poem, is, that it should be an entire Action: An Action is entire when it is complete in all its Parts; or, as Aristotle describes it, when it consists of a Beginning, a Middle, and an End. Nothing should go before it, be intermixed with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it. As on the contrary, no single Step should be omitted in that just and regular Progress which it must be supposed to take from its Original to its Consummation. Thus we see the Anger of Achilles in its Birth, its Continuance and Effects; and AEneas's Settlement in Italy, carried on thro all the Oppositions in his Way to it both by Sea and Land. The Action in Milton excels (I think) both the former in this Particular; we see it contrived in Hell, executed upon Earth, and punished by Heaven. The Parts of it are told in the most distinct Manner, and grow out of one another in the most natural [Order [14]].

The third Qualification of an Epic Poem is its Greatness. The Anger of Achilles was of such Consequence, that it embroiled the Kings of Greece, destroyed the Heroes of Troy, and engaged all the Gods in Factions. AEneas's Settlement in Italy produced the Caesars, and gave Birth to the Roman Empire. Milton's Subject was still greater than either of the former; it does not determine the Fate of single Persons or Nations, but of a whole Species. The united Powers of Hell are joined together for the Destruction of Mankind, which they affected in part, and would have completed, had not Omnipotence it self interposed. The principal Actors are Man in his greatest Perfection, and Woman in her highest Beauty. Their Enemies are the fallen Angels: The Messiah their Friend, and the Almighty their Protector. In short, every thing that is great in the whole Circle of Being, whether within the Verge of Nature, or out of it, has a proper Part assigned it in this noble Poem.

In Poetry, as in Architecture, not only the Whole, but the principal Members, and every Part of them, should be Great. I will not presume to say, that the Book of Games in the AEneid, or that in the Iliad, are not of this Nature, nor to reprehend Virgil's Simile of the Top [15], and many other of the same [kind [16]] in the Iliad, as liable to any Censure in this Particular; but I think we may say, without [derogating from [17]] those wonderful Performances, that there is an unquestionable Magnificence in every Part of Paradise Lost, and indeed a much greater than could have been formed upon any Pagan System.

But Aristotle, by the Greatness of the Action, does not only mean that it should be great in its Nature, but also in its Duration, or in other Words that it should have a due Length in it, as well as what we properly call Greatness. The just Measure of this kind of Magnitude, he explains by the following Similitude. [18] An Animal, no bigger than a Mite, cannot appear perfect to the Eye, because the Sight takes it in at once, and has only a confused Idea of the Whole, and not a distinct Idea of all its Parts; if on the contrary you should suppose an Animal of ten thousand Furlongs in length, the Eye would be so filled with a single Part of it, that it could not give the Mind an Idea of the Whole. What these Animals are to the Eye, a very short or a very long Action would be to the Memory. The first would be, as it were, lost and swallowed up by it, and the other difficult to be contained in it. Homer and Virgil have shewn their principal Art in this Particular; the Action of the Iliad, and that of the AEneid, were in themselves exceeding short, but are so beautifully extended and diversified by the [Invention [19]] of Episodes, and the Machinery of Gods, with the like poetical Ornaments, that they make up an agreeable Story, sufficient to employ the Memory without overcharging it. Milton's Action is enriched with such a Variety of Circumstances, that I have taken as much Pleasure in reading the Contents of his Books, as in the best invented Story I ever met with. It is possible, that the Traditions, on which the Iliad and AEneid were built, had more Circumstances in them than the History of the Fall of Man, as it is related in Scripture. Besides, it was easier for Homer and Virgil to dash the Truth with Fiction, as they were in no danger of offending the Religion of their Country by it. But as for Milton, he had not only a very few Circumstances upon which to raise his Poem, but was also obliged to proceed with the greatest Caution in every thing that he added out of his own Invention. And, indeed, notwithstanding all the Restraints he was under, he has filled his Story with so many surprising Incidents, which bear so close an Analogy with what is delivered in Holy Writ, that it is capable of pleasing the most delicate Reader, without giving Offence to the most scrupulous.

The modern Criticks have collected from several Hints in the Iliad and AEneid the Space of Time, which is taken up by the Action of each of those Poems; but as a great Part of Milton's Story was transacted in Regions that lie out of the Reach of the Sun and the Sphere of Day, it is impossible to gratify the Reader with such a Calculation, which indeed would be more curious than instructive; none of the Criticks, either Ancient or Modern, having laid down Rules to circumscribe the Action of an Epic Poem with any determin'd Number of Years, Days or Hours.

This Piece of Criticism on Milton's Paradise Lost shall be carried on in [the] following [Saturdays] Papers.

L.



[Footnote 1: Give place to him, Writers of Rome and Greece. This application to Milton of a line from the last elegy (25th) in the second book of Propertius is not only an example of Addison's felicity in choice of motto for a paper, but was so bold and well-timed that it must have given a wholesome shock to the minds of many of the Spectators readers. Addison was not before Steele in appreciation of Milton and diffusion of a true sense of his genius. Milton was the subject of the first piece of poetical criticism in the Tatler; where, in his sixth number, Steele, having said that all Milton's thoughts are wonderfully just and natural, dwelt on the passage in which Adam tells his thoughts upon first falling asleep, soon after his creation. This passage he contrasts with the same apprehension of Annihilation ascribed to Eve in a much lower sense by Dryden in his operatic version of Paradise Lost. In Tatlers and Spectators Steele and Addison had been equal contributors to the diffusion of a sense of Milton's genius. In Addison it had been strong, even when, at Oxford, in April, 1694, a young man trained in the taste of the day, he omitted Shakespeare from a rhymed Account of the chief English Poets, but of Milton said:

Whate'er his pen describes I more than see, Whilst evry verse, array'd in majesty, Bold and sublime, my whole attention draws, And seems above the critics nicer laws.

Eighteen years older than he was when he wrote that, Addison now prepares by a series of Saturday Essays,—the Saturday Paper which reached many subscribers only in time for Sunday reading, being always set apart in the Spectator for moral or religious topics, to show that, judged also by Aristotle and the "critics nicer laws," Milton was even technically a greater epic poet than either Homer or Virgil. This nobody had conceded. Dryden, the best critic of the outgoing generation, had said in the Dedication of the Translations of Juvenal and Persius, published in 1692,

"As for Mr. Milton, whom we all admire with so much Justice, his Subject, is not that of an Heroick Poem, properly so call'd: His Design is the Losing of our Happiness; his Event is not prosperous, like that of all other Epique Works" (Dryden's French spelling of the word Epic is suggestive. For this new critical Mode was one of the fashions that had been imported from Paris); "His Heavenly Machines are many, and his Human Persons are but two. But I will not take Mr. Rymer's work out of his Hands: He has promised the World a Critique on that Author; wherein, tho he will not allow his Poem for Heroick, I hope he will grant us, that his Thoughts are elevated, his Words sounding, and that no Man has so happily copy'd the manner of Homer; or so copiously translated his Grecisms and the Latin Elegancies of Virgil. Tis true he runs into a Flat of Thought, sometimes for a Hundred Lines together, but tis when he is got into a Track of Scripture ... Neither will I justify Milton for his Blank Verse, tho I may excuse him, by the Example of Hanabal Caro and other Italians who have used it: For whatever Causes he alledges for the abolishing of Rhime (which I have not now the leisure to examine), his own particular Reason is plainly this, that Rhime was not his Talent; he had neither the Ease of doing it, nor the Graces of it."

So Dryden, who appreciated Milton better than most of his critical neighbours, wrote of him in 1692. The promise of Rymer to discuss Milton was made in 1678, when, on the last page of his little book, The Tragedies of the Last Age consider'd and examined by the Practice of the Ancients and by the Common Sense of all Ages, in a letter to Fleetwold Shepheard, Esq. (father of two ladies who contribute an occasional letter to the Spectator), he said: "With the remaining Tragedies I shall also send you some reflections on that Paradise Lost of Milton's, which some are pleased to call a Poem, and assert Rhime against the slender Sophistry wherewith he attaques it." But two years after the appearance of Dryden's Juvenal and Persius Rymer prefixed to his translation of Rene Rapin's Reflections on Aristotle's Poesie some Reflections of his own on Epic Poets. Herein he speaks under the head Epic Poetry of Chaucer, in whose time language was not capable of heroic character; or Spenser, who "wanted a true Idea, and lost himself by following an unfaithful guide, besides using a stanza which is in no wise proper for our language;" of Sir William Davenant, who, in Gondibert, "has some strokes of an extraordinary judgment," but "is for unbeaten tracks and new ways of thinking;" "his heroes are foreigners;" of Cowley, in whose Davideis "David is the least part of the Poem," and there is want of the "one illustrious and perfect action which properly is the subject of an Epick Poem": all failing through ignorance or negligence of the Fundamental Rules or Laws of Aristotle. But he contemptuously passes over Milton without mention. Rene Rapin, that great French oracle of whom Dryden said, in the Preface to his own conversion of Paradise Lost into an opera, that he was alone sufficient, were all other critics lost, to teach anew the Art of Writing, Rene Rapin in the work translated and introduced by Rymer, worshipped in Aristotle the one God of all orthodox critics. Of his Laws he said,

There is no arriving at Perfection but by these Rules, and they certainly go astray that take a different course.... And if a Poem made by these Rules fails of success, the fault lies not in the Art, but in the Artist; all who have writ of this Art, have followed no other Idea but that of Aristotle.

Again as to Style,

to say the truth, what is good on this subject is all taken from Aristotle, who is the only source whence good sense is to be drawn, when one goes about to write.

This was the critical temper Addison resolved to meet on its own ground and do battle with for the honour of that greatest of all Epic Poets to whom he fearlessly said that all the Greeks and Latins must give place. In so doing he might suggest here and there cautiously, and without bringing upon himself the discredit of much heresy,—indeed, without being much of a heretic,—that even the Divine Aristotle sometimes fell short of perfection. The conventional critics who believed they kept the gates of Fame would neither understand nor credit him. Nine years after these papers appeared, Charles Gildon, who passed for a critic of considerable mark, edited with copious annotation as the Laws of Poetry (1721), the Duke of Buckingham's Essay on Poetry, Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse, and Lord Lansdowne on Unnatural Flights in Poetry, and in the course of comment Gildon said that

Mr. Addison in the Spectators, in his criticisms upon Milton, seems to have mistaken the matter, in endeavouring to bring that poem to the rules of the epopoeia, which cannot be done ... It is not an Heroic Poem, but a Divine one, and indeed of a new species. It is plain that the proposition of all the heroic poems of the ancients mentions some one person as the subject of their poem... But Milton begins his poem of things, and not of men.

The Gildon are all gone; and when, in the next generation after theirs, national life began, in many parts of Europe, strongly to assert itself in literature against the pedantry of the French critical lawgivers, in Germany Milton's name was inscribed on the foremost standard of the men who represented the new spirit of the age. Gottsched, who dealt French critical law from Leipzig, by passing sentence against Milton in his Art of Poetry in 1737, raised in Bodmer an opponent who led the revolt of all that was most vigorous in German thought, and put an end to French supremacy. Bodmer, in a book published in 1740 Vom Wunderbaren in der Poesie, justified and exalted Milton, and brought Addison to his aid by appending to his own work a translation of these Milton papers out of the Spectator. Gottsched replied; Bodmer retorted. Bodmer translated Paradise Lost; and what was called the English or Milton party (but was, in that form, really a German national party) were at last left masters of the field. It was right that these papers of Addison should be brought in as aids during the contest. Careful as he was to conciliate opposing prejudices, he was yet first in the field, and this motto to the first of his series of Milton papers, Yield place to him, Writers of Greece and Rome, is as the first trumpet note of the one herald on a field from which only a quick ear can yet distinguish among stir of all that is near, the distant tramp of an advancing host.

[Footnote 2: [so irksom as]]

[Footnote 3: say]

[Footnote 4: Aristotle, Poetics, III. Sec. I, after a full discussion of Tragedy, begins by saying,

with respect to that species of Poetry which imitates by Narration ... it is obvious, that the Fable ought to be dramatically constructed, like that of Tragedy, and that it should have for its Subject one entire and perfect action, having a beginning, a middle, and an end;

forming a complete whole, like an animal, and therein differing, Aristotle says, from History, which treats not of one Action, but of one Time, and of all the events, casually connected, which happened to one person or to many during that time.]

[Footnote 5: Poetics, I. Sec. 9.

Epic Poetry agrees so far with Tragic as it is an imitation of great characters and actions.

Aristotle (from whose opinion, in this matter alone, his worshippers departed, right though he was) ranked a perfect tragedy above a perfect epic; for, he said,

all the parts of the Epic poem are to be found in Tragedy, not all those of Tragedy in the Epic poem.]

[Footnote 6:

Nec reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri, Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo, Semper ad eventum festinat, et in medias res, Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit—

De Arte Poet. II. 146-9.]

[Footnote 7: with great Art]

[Footnote 8: the Story]

[Footnote 9: Poetics, V. Sec. 3. In arguing the superiority of Tragic to Epic Poetry, Aristotle says,

there is less Unity in all Epic imitation; as appears from this—that any Epic Poem will furnish matter for several Tragedies ... The Iliad, for example, and the Odyssey, contain many such subordinate parts, each of which has a certain Magnitude and Unity of its own; yet is the construction of those Poems as perfect, and as nearly approaching to the imitation of a single action, as possible.]

[Footnote 10: labours also]

[Footnote 11: Circumstances]

[Footnote 12: Simplicity.]

[Footnote 13: Dryden's Spanish Friar has been praised also by Johnson for the happy coincidence and coalition of the tragic and comic plots, and Sir Walter Scott said of it, in his edition of Dryden's Works, that

the felicity does not consist in the ingenuity of his original conception, but in the minutely artificial strokes by which the reader is perpetually reminded of the dependence of the one part of the Play on the other. These are so frequent, and appear so very natural, that the comic plot, instead of diverting our attention from the tragic business, recalls it to our mind by constant and unaffected allusion. No great event happens in the higher region of the camp or court that has not some indirect influence upon the intrigues of Lorenzo and Elvira; and the part which the gallant is called upon to act in the revolution that winds up the tragic interest, while it is highly in character, serves to bring the catastrophe of both parts of the play under the eye of the spectator, at one and the same time.]

[Footnote 14: Method]

[Footnote 15: AEneid, Bk. VII. 11. 378-384, thus translated by Dryden:

And as young striplings whip the top for sport, On the smooth pavement of an empty court, The wooden engine files and whirls about, Admir'd, with clamours, of the beardless rout; They lash aloud, each other they provoke, And lend their little souls at every stroke: Thus fares the Queen, and thus her fury blows Amidst the crowds, and trundles as she goes.]

[Footnote 16: [nature]]

[Footnote 17: [offence to]]

[Footnote 18: Poetics, II. section 4, where it is said of the magnitude of Tragedy.]

[Footnote 19: Intervention]



* * * * *



No. 268. Monday, January 7, 1712. Steele.



—Minus aptus acutis Naribus Horum Hominum.

Hor.



It is not that I think I have been more witty than I ought of late, that at present I wholly forbear any Attempt towards it: I am of Opinion that I ought sometimes to lay before the World the plain Letters of my Correspondents in the artless Dress in which they hastily send them, that the Reader may see I am not Accuser and Judge my self, but that the Indictment is properly and fairly laid, before I proceed against the Criminal.

Mr. SPECTATOR, [1]

As you are Spectator-General, I apply myself to you in the following Case; viz. I do not wear a Sword, but I often divert my self at the Theatre, where I frequently see a Set of Fellows pull plain People, by way of Humour [and [2]] Frolick, by the Nose, upon frivolous or no Occasions. A Friend of mine the other Night applauding what a graceful Exit Mr. Wilks made, one of these Nose-wringers overhearing him, pinched him by the nose. I was in the Pit the other Night, (when it was very much crowded) a Gentleman leaning upon me, and very heavily, I very civilly requested him to remove his Hand; for which he pulled me by the Nose. I would not resent it in so publick a Place, because I was unwilling to create a Disturbance; but have since reflected upon it as a thing that is unmanly and disingenuous, renders the Nose-puller odious, and makes the Person pulled by the Nose look little and contemptible. This Grievance I humbly request you would endeavour to redress.

I am your Admirer, &c.

James Easy.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

Your Discourse of the 29th of December on Love and Marriage is of so useful a Kind, that I cannot forbear adding my Thoughts to yours on that Subject. Methinks it is a Misfortune, that the Marriage State, which in its own Nature is adapted to give us the compleatest Happiness this Life is capable of, should be so uncomfortable a one to so many as it daily proves. But the Mischief generally proceeds from the unwise Choice People make for themselves, and Expectation of Happiness from Things not capable of giving it. Nothing but the good Qualities of the Person beloved can be a Foundation for a Love of Judgment and Discretion; and whoever expects Happiness from any Thing but Virtue, Wisdom, Good-humour, and a Similitude of Manners, will find themselves widely mistaken. But how few are there who seek after these things, and do not rather make Riches their chief if not their only Aim? How rare is it for a Man, when he engages himself in the Thoughts of Marriage, to place his Hopes of having in such a Woman a constant, agreeable Companion? One who will divide his Cares and double his Joys? Who will manage that Share of his Estate he intrusts to her Conduct with Prudence and Frugality, govern his House with Oeconomy and Discretion, and be an Ornament to himself and Family? Where shall we find the Man who looks out for one who places her chief Happiness in the Practice of Virtue, and makes her Duty her continual Pleasure? No: Men rather seek for Money as the Complement of all their Desires; and regardless of what kind of Wives they take, they think Riches will be a Minister to all kind of Pleasures, and enable them to keep Mistresses, Horses, Hounds, to drink, feast, and game with their Companions, pay their Debts contracted by former Extravagancies, or some such vile and unworthy End; and indulge themselves in Pleasures which are a Shame and Scandal to humane Nature. Now as for the Women; how few of them are there who place the Happiness of their Marriage in the having a wise and virtuous Friend? one who will be faithful and just to all, and constant and loving to them? who with Care and Diligence will look after and improve the Estate, and without grudging allow whatever is prudent and convenient? Rather, how few are there who do not place their Happiness in outshining others in Pomp and Show? and that do not think within themselves when they have married such a rich Person, that none of their Acquaintance shall appear so fine in their Equipage, so adorned in their Persons, or so magnificent in their Furniture as themselves? Thus their Heads are filled with vain Ideas; and I heartily wish I could say that Equipage and Show were not the Chief Good of so many Women as I fear it is.

After this Manner do both Sexes deceive themselves, and bring Reflections and Disgrace upon the most happy and most honourable State of Life; whereas if they would but correct their depraved Taste, moderate their Ambition, and place their Happiness upon proper Objects, we should not find Felicity in the Marriage State such a Wonder in the World as it now is.

Sir, if you think these Thoughts worth inserting [among [3]] your own, be pleased to give them a better Dress, and let them pass abroad; and you will oblige Your Admirer,

A. B.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

As I was this Day walking in the Street, there happened to pass by on the other Side of the Way a Beauty, whose Charms were so attracting that it drew my Eyes wholly on that Side, insomuch that I neglected my own Way, and chanced to run my Nose directly against a Post; which the Lady no sooner perceived, but fell out into a Fit of Laughter, though at the same time she was sensible that her self was the Cause of my Misfortune, which in my Opinion was the greater Aggravation of her Crime. I being busy wiping off the Blood which trickled down my Face, had not Time to acquaint her with her Barbarity, as also with my Resolution, viz. never to look out of my Way for one of her Sex more: Therefore, that your humble Servant may be revenged, he desires you to insert this in one of your next Papers, which he hopes will be a Warning to all the rest of the Women Gazers, as well as to poor