No. S. FRIDAY, MARCH 9. At Venus obfcuro gradientes aere fepfit, SHALL here communicate to the world a I couple of letters, which I believe will give the reader as good an entertainment as any that I am able to furnish him with, and therefore shall make no apology for them. I AM one of the directors of the Society for the reformation of manners, and therefore think myself a proper perfon for your correspondence. I have thoroughly examined the prefent ftate of religion in Great Britain, and am able to acquaint you with the predominant 'vice of every market-town in the whole island. I can tell you the progress that virtue has made in all our cities, boroughs, and corporations; and know as well the evil practices that are committed in Berwick or Exeter, as what is done in my own family. In a word, Sir, I have my correfpondents in the remoteft parts ❝ of the nation, who fend me up punctual accounts from time to time of all the little irre"gularities that fall under their notice in their feveral diftri&s and divifions. I am no lefs acquainted with the particular quarters and regions of this great town, than with the different parts and diftributions of the whole nation. I can describe every parifh by its impieties, and can tell you in which of our streets lewdnefs prevails, which gaming has taken the poffeffion of, and where drunkennefs has got the better of them both. When I am difpofed to raise a fine for the poor, I know the lanes and alleys that are inhabited by common fwearers. When I would encourage the hospital of Bridewell, and improve the hempen manufacture, I am very well acquainted with all the haunts and reforts of female night-walkers. perfon reafon to think himself affronted by you. If we are rightly informed, the rules that are obferved by this new fociety are wonderfully contrived for the advancement of cuckoldom. The women either come by themselves, or are introduced by friends who are obliged to quit them, upon their first entrance, to the converfation of any body that addreffes himself to them. There are feveral rooms where the par'ties may retire, and, if they pleafe, fhew their faces by confent. Whipers, fqueezes, nods, ⚫ and embraces, are the innocent freedoms of the ' and fellow-labourer, 'T. B.. Not long after the perufal of this letter, I received another upon the fame fubject; which by the date and ftile of it, I take to be written by fome young templar. 'SIR, W Middle-Temple, 1710-11. HEN a man has been guilty of any vice or folly, I think the beft atone"ment he can make for it, is to warn others not to fall into the like. In order to this I must acquaint you, that fometime in February last 'I went to the Tuesday's masquerade. Upon my first going in I was attacked by a half dozen female quakers, who feemed willing to adopt me for a brother; but upon a nearer examination I found they were a fifterhood of coquettes disguised in that precife habit. I was foon after taken out to dance, and, as I fancied, by a woman of the first quality, for the was very tall, and moved gracefully. As foon as the minuet was over, we ogled one another through · our masks; and as I am very well read in Waller, I repeated to her the following verfe out of his poem to Vandike. The heedlefs lover does not know 'Whofe eyes they are that wound him fo But confounded with thy art, Inquires her name that has his heart. After this fhort account of myself, I must let you know, that the defign of this paper is to give you information of a certain regular af- I pronounced these words with fuch a languish⚫ fembly, which I think falls very properly under ing air, that I had fome reafon to conclude your obfervation, efpecially fince the perfons it had made a conqueft. She told me that she is compofed of are criminals too confiderable hoped my face was not akin to my tongue, and for the animadverfions of our fociety. I mean, looking upon her watch, I accidentally difcoSir, the midnight mark, which has of late been vered the figure of a coronet on the back part very frequently held in one of the most con- ⚫ of it. I was fo tranfported with the thought. fpicuous parts of the town, and which I hear * of fuch an amour, that I plied her from one. will be continued with additions and improve-room to another with all the gallantries I could ments. As all the perfons who compose this lawless affembly are masked, we dare not attack any of them in our way, left we fhould fend a women of quality to Bridewell, or a peer of Great Britain to the Counter: Befides that their numbers are fo very great, that I am afraid they would be able to rout our whole fraternity, though we were accompanied with all our guard of conftables. Both thefe reafons, which fecure them from our authority, make them obnoxious to yours; as both their difquife and their numbers will give no particular 4 invent; and at length brought things to fo happy an iffue, that he gave me a private. 'meeting the next day, without page or footman, coach or equipage. My heart danced in raptures, but I had not lived in this golden 'dream above three days, before I found good reafon to wish that I had continued true to my laundrefs. I have fince heard, by a very great accident, that this fine lady does not live far from Covent-Garden, and that I am not the firit cully whom he has paffed herself upon for a countef... Thus, Thus, Sir, you fee how I have mistaken a cloud for a Juno; and if you can make any ufe of this adventure, for the benefit of thofe ◄ who may poffibly be as vain young coxcombs as myself, I do moft heartily give you leave. I am, Sir, Your most humble admirer, 'B. L.' I design to vifit the next Mafquerade myfelf, in the fame habit I wore at Grand Cairo: and till then shall fufpend my judgment of this midaight entertainment. C N° 9. SATURDAY, MARCH 10. ----Tigris agit rabidâ cum tigride pacem Perpetuam, fævis inter fe convenit urfis. Juv. Sat. xv. ver. 163. TATE. ΜΑ as an inftance of it, we may obferve, that we take all occafions and pretences of forming ourselves into those little nocturnal affemblies, which are commonly known by the name of Clubs, When a fet of men find themfelves agree in any particular, though never fo trivial, they establish themselves into a kind of fraternity, and meet once or twice a week, upon the account of fuch a fantastic refemblance. I know a confiderable market-town, in which there was a club of fat men, that did not come together, as you may well fuppofe, to entertain one another with fprightlinefs and wit, but to keep one another in countenance; the room where the club met was fomething of the largest, and had two entrances, the one by a door of a moderate size, and the other by a pair of folding doors. If a candidate for this corpulent club could make his entrance through the firft, he was looked upon as unqualified; but if he ftuck in the paffage, and could not force his way through it, the foldingdoors were immediately thrown open for his reception, and he was faluted as a brother. I have heard that this club, though it confifted but of fifteen perfons, weighed above three tun. In oppofition to this fociety, there fprung up another, compofed of fcarecrows and fkeletons, who being very meagre and envious, did all they could to thwart the defigns of their bulky brethren, whom they reprefented as men of dange rous principles; till at length they worked them out of the favour of the people, and confequently out of the magiftracy. Thefe factions tore the corporation in pieces for feveral years, till at length they came to this accommodation; that the two bailiffs of the town fhould be annually chofen out of the two clubs; by which means the principal magiftrates are at this day coupled like rabbets, one fat and one lean, Every one has heard of the club, or rather the confederacy of the Kings. This grand alliance was formed a little after the return of King Charles the Second, and admitted into it men of all qualities and profeffions, provided they agreed in the furname of King, which, as they imagined, fufficiently declared the owners of it to be altogether untainted with republican and antimomarchical principles. P A Chriftian name has likewife been often ufed as a badge of distinction, and made the occafion of a club. That of the George's, which used to meet at the fign of the George on St. George's.. day, and fwear before George, is Atill fresh in every one's memory. There are at present in several parts of this city what they call Street-Clubs, in which the every night. I remember, upon my enquiring chief inhabitants of the street converfe together after lodgings in Ormond-street, the landlord, to recommend that quarter of the town, told me, there was at that time a very good club in it; he alfo told me, upon farther difcourfe with him, that two or three noify country-fquires, who were fettled there the year before, had confiderably funk the price of houfe-ren; and that the club (to prevent the like inconveniencies for the fu ture) had thoughts of taking every houfe that became vacant into their own hands, till they had found a tenant for it, of a fociable nature and good converfation. The Hum-Drum club, of which I was for merly an unworthy member, was made up of. very honeft gentlemen, of peaceable difpofitions, that used to fit together, fmoke their pipes, and fay nothing till midnight. The Mum-club, as I am informed, is an inftitution of the fame nature, and as great an enemy to noife. After these two innocent focieties, I cannot forbear mentioning a very mischievous one, that was erected in the reign of King Charles the Second: I mean the Club of Duellifts, in which none was to be admitted that had not fought his man. The President of it was faid to have killed half a dozen in fingle combat; and as for the other members, they took their feats according tɔ the number of their flain. There was likewife a fide-table, for fuch as had only drawn blood, and fhewn a laudable ambition of taking the first opportunity to qualify themselves for the first table. This club confifting only of men of honour, did not continue long, most of the members of it being put to the fword, or hanged, a little after its inftitution. Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and drinking, which are points wherein moft men agree, and in which the learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philofopher and the buffoon, can all of them bear a part. The Kit-Cat itfelf is faid to have taken its original from a mutton-pye. The Beaf-Steak, and October clubs, are neither of them averfe to eating and drinking, if we may form a judgment of them from their respective titles. When men are thus knit together, by a love of fociety, not a spirit of faction, and do not me.t to cenfure or annoy thofe that are abfent, but to enjoy one another; when they are thus combine i for their own improvement, or for the good of others, or at least to relax themfelves from the bufinefs of the day, by an innocent and chearful converfation, there may be fomething very useful in these little institutions and establishments. I cannot forbear concluding this paper with a fcheme of laws that I met with upon a wall in a little alehoufe: how I came thither I may inform my reader at a more convenient time. Ther laws were enacted by a knot of artifans and mechanics, who ufed to meet every night; and as there is fomething in them which gives us a pretty picture of low life, I shall transcribe them word for word, Ca RULES RULES to be obferved in the Two-penny Club, erect ed in this place, for the prefervation of friendship and good neighbourhood. 1. Every member at his first coming in fhall lay down his two-pence. II. Every member shall fill his pipe out of his own box. III. If any member absents himself, he fhall forfeit a penny for the use of the club, unless in cafe of fickness.or imprisonment, IV. If any member fwears or curfes, his neigh Bour may give him a kick upon the fhins. V. If any member tells ftories in the club that are not true, he thall forfeit for every third lye, an halfpenny. VI. If any member ftrikes another wrongfully, he fhall pay his club for him. VII. If any member brings his wife into the club, he shall pay for whatever the drinks or fmokes. VIII. If any member's wife comes to fetch him home from the club, the fhall fpeak to him without the door. IX. If any member calls another cuckold, he fhall be turned out of the club. X. None fhall be admitted into the club that is of the fame trade with any member of it. XI. None of the club fhall have his clothes or fhoes made or mended, but by a brother member. XII. No Non-juror shall be capable of being member. The morality of this little club is guarded by fuch wholsome laws and penalties, that I question not but my reader will be as well pleafed with them, as he would have been with the Leges Convivales of Ben Johnson, the regulations of an old Roman club cited by Lipfius, or the rules of a Symposium in an ancient Greek author. count in the fpeculation of the day. And to the It was I would therefore in a very particular manner recommend these my fpeculations to all well-regulated families, that fet apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter; and would earnestly advise them for their good to order this paper to be punctually served up, and to be looked upon as a part of the tea-equipare. Sir Francis Bacon obferves, that a well written book, compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Mofes's ferpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured thofe of the Egyptians. I fhall not be so vain as to think, that where the Spectator appears, the other public prints will vanish; but fhall leave it to my readers confideration, whether it is not much better to be let inte the knowledge of one's felf, than to hear what paffes in Mufcovy or Poland; and to amuse ourfelves with fuch writings as tend to the wearing out of ignorance, paffion, and prejudice, than such as naturally conduce to inflame hatreds, and make enmities irreconcileable. In the next place I would recommend this paper to the daily perufal of those Gentlemen whom I cannot but confider as my good brothers and allies, I mean the fraternity of spectators, who live Cin the world without having any thing to do in it; and either by the affluence of their fortunes, or laziness of their difpofitions, have no other bufinefs with the rcft of mankind, but to look upon them. Under this clafs of men are comprehended all contemplative Tradefmen, titular Phyficians, Fellows of the Royal Society, Templars that are not given to be contentious, and Statesmen that are out of bufinefs; in short, every one that confiders the world as a theatre, and defires to form a right judgment of those who are the actors on it. No 10. MONDAY, MARCH 12. IT drive, DRYDEN. T is with much fatisfaction that I hear this great city inquiring day by day after these my papers, and receiving my morning lectures with a becoming ferioufnefs and attention. My publither tells me, that there are already three thousand of them distributed every day; fo that if I allow twenty readers to every paper, which I look upon as a modeft computation, I may reckon about threescore thousand difciples in London and Westminster, who I hope will take care to diftinguish themselves from the thoughtless herd of their ignorant and unattentive brethren. Since I have raised to myself fo great an audience, I fhall fpare no pains to make their inftruction agreeable, and their diversion useful. For which reafons I fhall endeavour to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality, that my Leaders may, if poffible, both ways find their ac wife lay a claim to, whom I have lately called nifhed with ideas, till the bufinefs and converthe Blanks of fociety, as being altogether unfurfation of the day hath fsupplied them. I have often confidered thefe poor fouls with an eye of great the first man they have met with, whether there commiferarion, when I have heard them asking was any news ftirring? and by that means ga thering together materials for thinking. Thefe needy perfors do not know what to talk of, 'till about twelve o'clock in the morning; for by that know which way the wind fits, and whether the time they are pretty good judges of the weather, Dutch mail be come in. As they lie at the mercy of the first man they meet, and are grave and impertinent all the day long, according to the notions, which they have imbibed in the morning, I would earnestly intreat them not to ftir out of their chambers till they have read this paper, and do promife them that I will daily inftil into them There is another fet of men that I must like fuck fuch found and wholesome sentiments, as shall have a good effect on their converfation for the enfuing twelve hours, But there are none to whom this paper will be more useful than to the female world. I have often thought there has not been fufficient pains taken in finding out proper employments and diverfions for the fair ones. Their amufements feem contrived for them, rather as they are women, than as they are reasonable creatures; and are more adapted to the sex than to the fpecies. The toilet is their great scene of bufinefs, and the right adjusting of their hair the principal employment of their lives. The forting of a fuit of ribbons is reckoned a very good morning's work; and if they make an excurfion to a mercer's or a toy-shop, fo great a fatigue makes them unfit for any thing else all the day after. Their more fe. rious occupations are fewing and embroidery, and their greatest drudgery the preparation of jellies and sweet-meats, This, I fay, is the ftate of or dinary women; though I know there are multi tudes of thofe of a more elevated life and converfation, that move in an exalted sphere of know ledge and virtue, that join all the beauties of the mind to the ornaments of drefs, and infpire a kind of awe and refpect, as well as love, into their male-beholders. I hope to increase the num ber of thefe by publishing this daily paper, which I fhall always endeavour to make an innocent if not an improving entertainment, and by that means at least divert the minds of my female readers from greater trifles. At the fame time, as I would fain give fome finishing touches to thofe which are already the most beautiful pieces in human nature, I shall endeavour to point out all ́ thofe imperfections that are the blemishes, as well as thofe virtues which are the embellishments, of the fex. In the mean while I hope these my gentle readers, who have so much time on their hands, will not grudge throwing away a quarter of an hour in a day on this paper, fince they may do it without any hindrance to business. I know several of my friends and well-wishers are in great pain for me, left I fhould not be able to keep up the spirit of a paper which I oblige myfelf to furnish every day; but to make them eafy in this particular, I will promise them faithfully to give it over as foon as I grow dull. This I know will be matter of great raillery to the fmall wits; who will frequently put me in mind of my promife, defire me to keep my word, affure me that it is high time to give over, with many other little pleafantries of the like nature, which men of a little smart genius cannot forbear throw ing out against their best friends, when they have fuch a handle given them of being witty. But let them remember that I do hereby enter my caweat against this piece of raillery. C able both to the young and the old. Her behaviour is very frank, without being in the leaft blameable; as he is out of the track of any amorous or ambitious purfuits of her own, her visitants entertain her with accounts of themselves very freely, whether they concern their paffions or their interefts. I made her a vifit this afternoon, having been formerly introduced to the honour of her acquaintance, by my friend Will Honeycomb, who has prevail'd upon her to admit me sometimes into her affembly, as a civil inoffensive man. I found her ac companied with one person only, a common-place talker, who, upon my entrance, arofe, and after a very flight civility fat down again; then turning to Arietta, pursued his difcourfe, which I found was upon the old topick of conftancy in love. He went on with great facility in repeating what he talks every day of his life; and with the ornaments of infignificant laughs and geftures, enforced his arguments by quotations out of plays and songs, which allude to the perjuries of the fair, and the general levity of women. Methought he ftrove to fhine more than ordinary in his talkative way, that he might infult my filence, and diftinguish himself before a woman of Arietta's tafte and understanding. She had often an inclination to interrupt him, but could find no opportunity, till the larum ceased of itself; which it did not till he had repeated and murdered the celebrated story of the Ephefiam matron. Arietta feemed to regard this piece of raillery as an outrage done to her fex; as indeed I have always obferved that women, whether out of a nicer regard to their honour, or what other reafon I cannot tell, are more fenfibly touched with those general asperkons which are cast upon their sex, than men are by what is faid of theirs. When the had a little recovered herself from the serious anger she was in, fhe replied in the follew manner. Sir, when I confider how perfectly new all you have faid on this fubject is, and that the story you have given us is not quite two thousand years old, I cannot but think it a piece of prefumption to difpute with you; but your quotations put me in mind of the fable of the Lion and the Man. The man walking with that noble animal, fhewed him, in the oftentation of human fuperiority, a fign of a man killing a lion. Upon which the lion faid very juftly, "We lions are none of us painters, elfe we' "could fhew a hundred men killed by lions, for "one lion killed by a man.' "You men are writers, and can reprefent us women as unbecoming as you please in your works, while we are unable to return the injury. You have twice or thrice obferved in your difcourfe, that hypocrify is the very foundation of our education; and that an ability to diffemble our affections is a profeffed part of our breeding. These, and fuch other reflections, are fprinkled up and down the writings of all ages, by authors, who leave behind them memorials of their retentment against the fcorn of particular women, in invectives against the whole fex. Such a writer, I doubt not, was the celebrated Petronius, who invented the pleasant aggravations of the frailty of the Ephefian Lady; but when we confider this question between the fexes, which hath been either a point of difputé or raillery ever fince there were men and women, let us take facts from plain people, and from fuch as have not either ambition or capacity to embellish their narrations with any beauties of imagination. I was the other day amusing myfelt with Ligon's account of Barbadees; and in anfwer Mr. Thomas Inkle, of London, aged twenty years, ambarked in the Downs on the good hip called the Achilles, bound for the Weft-Indies, on the 16th of June, 1647, in order to improve his fortune by trade and merchandise. Our adventurer was the third fon of an eminent citizen, who had taken particular care to inftil into his mind an early love of gain, by making him a perfect master of numbers, and confequently giving him a quick view of lofs and advantage, and preventing the natural impulfes of his paffions, by prepoffeflion towards his interefts. With a mind thus turned, young Inkle had a perfon every way agreeable, a ruddy vigour in his countenance, ftrength in his limbs, with ringlets of fair hair loosely flowing on his thouiders. It happened, in the courfe of the voyage, that the Achilles, in fome diftrefs, put into a creek on the main of America, in search of provifions. The youth, who is the hero of my ftory, among others went ahore on this occafion. From their firft landing they were obferved by a party of Indians, who hid themfcives in the woods for that purpose. The Ergih unadvifedly marched a great diftance from the fhoe into the country, and were intercepted by the natives, who flew the greatest number of them. Our adventurer efcaped among others, by flying into a foreft. Upon his coming into a remote and pathlefs part of the wood, he threw himfelf, tired, and breathlefs, on a little hillock, when an Indian maid rushed from a thicket behind him. After the first furprize, they appeared mutually agreeable to each other. If the European was highly charmed with the limbs, features, and wild graces of the naked American: the American was no lefs taken with the drefs, complexion, and shape of an European, covered from head to foot. The Indian grew immediately enamoured of him, and confequently folicitous for his prefervation. She therefore conveyed him to a cave, where the gave him a delicious repast of fruits, and led him to a ftream to flake his thirft. In the midft of thefe good offices, he would fometimes play with his hair, and delight in the opposition of its colour to that of her fingers; then open his bofom, then laugh at him for covering it. She was, it feems, a perfon of diftinction, for the every day came to him in a different drefs, of the moft beautiful fhells, bugles, and bredes. She likewife brought him a great many spoils, which her other lovers had prefented to her, fo that his cave was richly adorned with all the spotted skins of beafts, and most partycoloured feathers of fowls, which that world afforded. To make his confinement more tolerable, ine would carry him in the dusk of the evening, or by the favour of moon-light, to unfrequented groves and folitudes, and fhew him where to lie down in fafety, and fleep amidst the falls of waters, and melody of nightingales. Her part was to watch and held him awake in her arms, for fear of her countrymen, and awake him on occafions to confult his fafety. In this manner did the lovers pafs away their time, till they had learned a language of their wa, in which the voyager communicated to his mistress, how happy he should be to have her in his country, where the hould be clothed in fuch filks as his waistcoat was made of, and be carried in koufes drawn by horfes, without being expofed to wind or weather. All this he promifed he enjoyment of, without fuch fears and alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender correfpondence thefe lovers lived for feveral months, when Yarico, inftructed by her lover, discovered a veffel on the coaft, to which fhe made fignals; and in the night, with the utmost joy and satisfaction, accompanied him to a fhip's crew of his countrymen, bound for Barbadoes. When a veffel from the main arrives in that island,it seems the planters come down to the fhore, where there is an immediate mar ket of the Indians and other flaves, as with us of horfes and oxen. To be fhort, Mr. Thomas Inkle, now coming into English territories, began feriously to reflect upon his lofs of time, and to weigh with himself how many days intereft of his money he had loft during his ftay with Yarico. This thought made the young man very penfive, and careful what account he should be able to give his friends of his voyage. Upon which confideration, the prudent and frugal young man fold Yarico to a Barbadian merchant; notwithstanding that the poor girl, to incline him to commiferate her condition, told him that he was with child by him; but he only made ufe of that information, to rife in his demands upon the purchafer. I was fo touch'd with this story (which I think fhould be always a counterpart to the Ephefian matron) that I left the room with tears in my eyes; which a woman of Arietta's good fenfe did, I am fure, take for greater applaufe, than any compli ments I could make her. No. 12. A1 R WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14. ----- Veteres avias tibi de pulmone revello. PERS. Sat. v. ver. 92. I root th' old woman from thy trembling heart. T my coming to London, it was fome time before I could fettle myself in a house to my liking. I was forced to quit my firft lodgings, by reafon of an officious landlady, that would be asking me every morning how I had flept. I then fell into an honest family, and lived very happily for above a week when my landlord, who was a jolly goodnatured man, took it into his head that I wanted company, and therefore would frequently come into my chamber to keep me from being alone. This I bore for two or three days; but telling me one day that he was afraid I was melancholy, I thought it was high time for me to be gone, and accordingly took new lodgings that very night. About a week after, I found my jolly landlord, who, as I faid before, was an honeft hearty man, had put me into an advertisement of the Daily Courant, in the following words: "Whereas a melancholy man left his lodgings on Thursday laft in the afternoon, and was afterwards feen going towards Iflington; "if any one can give notice of him to R. B. Fish "monger in the Strand, he fhall be very well re "warded for his pains." As I am the best man in the world to keep my counfel, and my landlord the fifhmonger not knowing my name, this accident of my life was never discovered to this very day. I am now fettled with a widow woman, who has a great many children, and complies with my humour in every thing. I do not remember that we have exchanged a word together these five years; my coffee comes into my chamber every morning without asking for it; if want fire, I point to my chimney, if water to my bafon upon which my landlady nods, as much as to lay the takes my meaning, |