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person, "I am your betters." Pray, Sir, as near as you can, describe that eternal flirt and disturber of families, Mrs. Taperty, who is always visiting, and putting people in a way, as they call it. you can make her stay at home one evening, you will be a general benefactor to all the ladies women in town, and particularly to

Your loving friend,
SUSAN CIVIL.'

6 MR. SPECTATOR,

'I AM a footman, and live with one of those men, each of whom is said to be one of the best-humoured men in the world, but that he is passionate. Pray be pleased to inform them, that he who is passionate, and takes no care to command his hastiness, does more injury to his friends and servants in one half hour than whole years can atone for.

This

master of mine, who is the best man alive in common fame, disobliges somebody every day he lives; and strikes me for the next thing I do, because he is out of humour at it. If these gentlemen knew that they do all the mischief that is ever done in conversation, they would reform; and I who have been a Spectator of gentlemen at dinner for many years, have seen that indiscretion does ten times more mischief than ill-nature. But you will represent this better than

• Your abused humble servant, THOMAS SMOKY.'

TO THE SPECTATOR.

The humble petition of John Steward, Robert Butler, Harry Cook, and Abigail Chambers, in behalf of themselves and their relations belonging to and dispersed in the several services of most of the great families within the cities of London and Westminster :

• Sheweth,

THAT in many of the families in which your petitioners live and are employed, the several heads of them are wholly unacquainted with what is business, and are very little judges when they are well or ill used by us your said petitioners.

That for want of such skill in their own affairs, and by indulgence of their own laziness and pride, they continually keep about them certain mischievous animals called spies.

That whenever a spy is entertained, the peace of that house is from that moment banished.

That spies never give an account of good services, but represent our mirth and freedom by the words wantonness and disorder.

< That in all families where there are spies, there is a general jealousy and misunderstanding.

That the masters and mistresses of such houses live in continual suspicion of their ingenuous and true servants, and are given up to the management of those who are false and perfidious.

That such masters and mistresses who entertain. spies, are no longer more than cyphers in their own families; and that we your petitioners are with great disdain obliged to pay all our respect, and expect all our maintenance from such spies.

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Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that you would represent the premises to all persons of condition; and your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall for ever pray, &c.'

STEELE.

T.

N° 203. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1711.

Phabe pater, si das hujus mihi nominis usum,
Nec falsa Clymene culpam sub imagine celat;
Pignora da, genitor

Ovid. Met. 1. ii. ver. 36.

Illustrious parent! since you don't despise
A parent's name, some certain token give,
That I may Clymene's proud boast believe,
Nor longer under false reproaches grieve.

ADDISON.

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THERE is a loose tribe of men whom I have not yet taken notice of, that ramble into all the corners of this great city, in order to seduce such unfortunate females as fall into their walks. These abandoned profligates raise up issue in every quarter of the town, and very often, for a valuable consideration, father it upon the church-warden. By this means there are several married men who have a little family in most of the parishes of London and Westminster, and several bachelors who are undone by a charge of children.

When a man once gives himself this liberty of preying at large, and living upon the common, he finds so much game in a populous city, that it is surprising to consider the numbers which he sometimes propagates. We see many a young fellow who is scarce of age, that could lay his claim to the jus trium liberorum, or the privileges which were granted by the Roman laws to all such as were fathers of three children. Nay, I have heard a rake, who was not quite five and twenty, declare himself the father of a seventh son, and very prudently determine to breed him up a physician. In short, the town is full of these young patriarchs, not to mention several battered beaus, who, like heedless spendthrifts that squander away their estates before they are masters of them, have raised up their whole stock of children before marriage.

I must not here omit the particular whim of an impudent libertine, that had a little smattering of heraldry; and observing how the genealogies of great families were often drawn up in the shape of trees, had taken a fancy to dispose of his own illegitimate issue in a figure of the same kind :

Nec longum tempus et ingens

Exiit ad cælum ramis felicibus arbos,
Miraturque novas frondes, et non sua poma.'

VIRG. Georg. ii. ver. 80.

And in short space the laden boughs arise,
With happy fruit advancing to the skies :'

The mother plant admires the leaves unknown
Of alien trees, and apples not her own.'

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The trunk of the tree was marked with his own name, Will Maple. Out of the side of it grew a large barren branch, inscribed Mary Maple, the name of his unhappy wife. The head was adorned with five huge boughs. On the bottom of the first was written in capital characters Kate Cole, who branched out into three sprigs, viz. William, Richard, and Rebecca. Sal Twiford gave birth to another bough that shot up into Sarah, Tom, Will, and Frank. The third arm of the tree had only a single infant on it, with a space left for a second, the parent from whom it sprung being near her time when the author took this ingenious device into his head. The two other great boughs were very plentifully loaden with fruit of the same kind; besides which, there were many ornamental branches that did not bear. In short, a more flourishing tree never came out of the heralds office.

What makes this generation of vermin so very prolific, is the indefatigable diligence with which they apply themselves to their business. A man does not undergo more watching and fatigues in a campaign, than in the course of a vicious amour. As it is said of some men, that they make their business their pleasure, these sons of darkness may be

said to make their pleasure their business. They might conquer their corrupt inclinations with half the pains they are at in gratifying them.

Nor is the invention of these men less to be admired than their industry and vigilance. There is a fragment of Apollodorus the comic poet (who was contemporary with Menander) which is full of humour, as follows: Thou mayest shut up thy doors,' says he, with bars and bolts. It will be impossible for the blacksmith to make them so fast, but a cat and a whore-master will find a way through them.' In a word, there is no head so full of stratagems as that of a libidinous man.

Were I to propose a punishment for this infamous race of propagators, it should be to send them, after the second or third offence, into our American colonies, in order to people those parts of her majesty's dominions where there is a want of inhabitants, and, in the phrase of Diogenes, to plant men.' Some countries punish this crime with death; but I think such a banishment would be sufficient, and might turn this generative faculty to the advantage of the public.

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In the mean time, till these gentlemen may be thus disposed of, I would earnestly exhort them to take care of those unfortunate creatures whom they have brought into the world-by these indirect methods, and to give their spurious children such an education as may render them more virtuous than their parents. This is the best atonement they can make for their own crimes, and indeed the only method that is left them to repair their past miscarriages.

I would likewise desire them to consider, whether they are not bound in common humanity, as well as by all the obligations of religion and nature, to make some provision for those whom they have not only given life to, but entailed upon them, though very unreasonably, a degree of shame and disgrace. And here I cannot but take notice of those depraved notions which prevail among us, and

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