his tea and coffee without fugar, and not receive from any perfon whatsoever any thing above mere neceffaries. As we in England are a sober people, and generally inclined rather to a certain bashfulness of behaviour in public, it is amazing whence fome fellows come whom one meets within this town; they do not at all feem to be the growth of our island; the pert, the talkative, all fuch as have no fenfe of the observation of others, are certainly of foreign extraction. As for my part, I am as much furprised when I fee a talkative Englishman, as I should be to fee the Indian pine grow ing on one of our quickset hedges. Where these creatures get fun enough, to make them fuch lively animals and dull men, is above my philofophy. There are another kind of impertinents which a man is perplexed with in mixed company, and those are your loud speakers: these treat man kind as if we were all deaf; they do not express but declare themselves. Many of these are guilty of this outrage out of vanity, because they think all they say is well; or that they have their own persons in such veneration, that they bel eve nothing which concerns them can be infignificant to any body elfe. For these peoples fake, I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes: it is very uneafy that we must neceffarily be under perfecution. Next to these bawlers, is a troublesome creature who comes with the air of your friend and your intimate, and that is your whisperer. There is one of them at a coffee-house which I myself frequent, who obferving me to be a man pretty well made for fecrets, gets by me, and with a whisper tells me things which all the town knows. It is no very hard matter to guess at the fource of this impertinence, which is nothing else but a method or mechanic art of being wife. You never fee any frequent in it, whom you can fuppofe to have any thing in the world to do. These perfons are worse than bawlers, as much as a secret enemy is more dangerous than a declared one. I wish this my coffee-house friend would take this for an intimation, that I have not heard one word he has told me for these several years: whereas he now thinks me the most trufty repofitory of his fecrets. The whitperers have a pleasant way of ending the close conversation, with faying aloud, "Do not you "think fo?" Then whisper again, and then aloud, " but you know that perfon;" then whifper again. The thing would be well enough, if they whifpered to keep the folly of what they fay among friends; but alas, they do it to preserve the importance of their thoughts. I am fure I could name you more than one perfon whom no man living ever heard talk upon any subject in nature, or ever faw in his whole life with a book in his hand, that I know not how can whisper something like knowledge of what has and does pass in the world; which you would think he learned from fome familiar fpirit that did not think him worthy to receive the whole story. But in truth whisperers deal only in half accounts of what they entertain you with. A great help to their difcourse is, "That the "town fays, and people begin to talk very free"ly, and they had it from persons too confider"able to be named what they will tell you when "things are riper." My friend has winked upon me many a day since I came to town last, and has communicated to me as a secret, that he defigned in a very short time to tell me a fecret; but I shall know what he means, he now affures me, in less than a fortnight's time. But I must not omit the dearer part of mankind, I mean the ladies, to take up a whole paper upon grievances which concern the men only; but shall humbly propose, that we change fools for an experiment only. A certain fet of ladies complain they are frequently perplexed with a vifitant, who affects to be wifer than they are; which character he hopes to preserve by an obstinate gravity, and great guard against difcovering his opinion upon any occafion whatso ever. A painful filence has hitherto gained him no farther advantage, than that as he might, if he had behaved himself with freedom, been excepted against, but as to this and that particular, he now offends in the whole. To relieve there ladies, my good friends and correspondents, I shall exchange my dancing outlaw for their dumb visitant, and affign the filent gentleman all the haunts of the dancer: in order to which, 1 bave fent them by the penny-poft the following letters for their conduct in their new converfations. give yourself the trouble to repair to the place ' mentioned in the postscript to this letter at 'feven this evening, you will be conducted into a fpacious room well lighted, where there are ladies and mufic. You will fee a young lady laughing next the window to the street; you may take her out, for she loves you as well as the ' does any man, though the never faw you before. She never thought in her life any more than yourself. She will not be surprised when you accoft her, nor concerned when you leave her. Haften from a place where you are laughed at, to one where you will be admired. You are of no consequence, therefore go where you will be welcome for being fo. 'SIR, T Your moft humble fervant." HE ladies whom you visit, think a wife man the most impertinent creature living, therefore you cannot be offended that they are difpleased with you. Why will you take pains to appear wife, where you would not be the more esteemed for being really fo? Come to us; forget the gigglers; and let your inclination go along with you whether you speak or are filent; and let all fuch women as are in a clan or fifterhood, go their own way; there is no room for you in that company who are of the common tafte of the sex. No 149. TUESDAY, AUGUST 21. Who has it in her power to make any man mad, or in his fenfes; fick or in health: and whc can choose the object of her affections at pleafure. T I ، HE following letter and my answer shall take up the present speculation. Mr. Spectator, Am the young widow of a country gentleman who has left me entire mistress of a large fortune, which he agreed to as an equivalent for the difference in our years. In these circumstances it is not extraordinary to have a crowd of admirers; which I have abridged in my own thoughts, and reduced to a couple ' of candidates only, both young, and neither ' of them disagreeable in their perfons; according to the common way of computing, in one ⚫ the estate more than déferves my fortune, in • the other my fortune more than deferves the eftate. When I confider the firft, I own I am fo far a woman I cannot avoid being delighted with the thoughts of living great; but then he feems to receive fuch a degree of courage from the knowledge of what he has, he looks as if he was going to confer an obligation on me; and the readiness he accosts me with, ⚫ makes me jealous I am only hearing a repetition of the fame things he has faid to a hundred women before. When I confider the other, I • see myfelf approached with fo much modesty and refpect, and fuch a doubt of himself, as betrays methinks, an affection within, and a belief at the fame time that he himself would be the only gainer by my consent. What an unexceptionable husband could I make out of both! but fince that is impoffible, I beg to be concluded by your opinion; it is absolutely in your power to difpofe of MADAM, Y Your moft obedient servant, OU do me great honour in your application to me on this important occafion; I shall therefore talk to you with the tenderness of a father, in gratitude for your giving me the authority of one. You do not feem to make any great diftinction between these gentlemen as to their perfons; the whole question lies upon their circumstances and behaviour; if the one is less respectful because he is rich, and the other more obfequious because he is not so, they are in that point moved by the fame principle, the confideration of fortune, and you must place them in each other's circumstances, before you can judge of their inclination. To avoid confufion in difcuffing this point, I will call the richer man Strephon, and the other Florio. If you believe Fiorio with Strephon's estate would behave himfelf as he does now, Florio is certainly your man; but if you think Strephon, were he in Florio's condition, would be as obfequious as Florio is now, you ought for your own fake to choofe Strephon; for where the men are equal, there is no doubt riches ought to be a reason for preferAfter this manner, my dear child, I ence. would have you abstract them from their circumstances; for you are to take it for granted, that he who is very humble only because he is poor, is the very fame man in nature with him who is haughty because he is rich. When you have gone thus far, as to confider the figure they make towards you; you will please, my dear, next to confider the appearance you make towards them. If they are men of difcerning, they can observe the motives of your heart; and Florio can fee when he is difregarded only upon account of fortune, which makes you to him a mercenary creature: and you are still the fame thing to Strephon, in taking him for his wealth only: you are therefore to confider whether you had rather oblige, than receive an obligation. The marriage life is always an infipid, a vexatious, or an happy condition. The first is, when two people of no genius or taste for themselves meet together, upon such a fettlement as has been thought reasonable by parents and conveyancers from an exact valuation of the land and cash of both parties: in this cafe the young lady's perfon is no more regarded, than the houfe and improvements in purchase of an estate; but the goes with her fortune, rather than her fortune with her. These make up the crowd or vulgar of the rich, and fill up the lumber of human race without beneficence towards those below them, or respect towards those above them; and lead a defpicable, independent and ufeless life, without sense of the laws of kindness, good-nature, mutual offices, and the elegant fatisfaction which flow from reafon and virtue. The vexatious life arifes from a cunjunction of two people of quick taste and resentment, put together for reasons well known to their friends, in which especial care is taken to avoid, what they think the chief of evils, poverty, and enfure to them riches, with every evil befides. These good people live in a conftant constraint before company, and too great familiarity alone; when they are within observation they fret at each other's carriage and behaviour; when alone they revile each other's perfon and conduct: in company they are in a purgatory, when only together in an hell. The happy marriage is, where two persons meet and voluntarily make choice of each other, without principally regarding or neglecting the circumstances of fortune or beauty. These may still love in spite of adversity or fickness: the former we may in fome measure defend ourselves from, the other is the portion of our very make. When you have a true notion of this fort of paffion, your humour of living great will vanish out of your imagination, and you will find love has nothing to do with state. Solitude, with the perfon beloved, has a pleasure, even in a woman's mind, beyond show or pomp. You are therefore to confider which of your lovers will like you best undressed, which will bear with you most when out of humour; and your way to this is to ask of yourself, which of them you value moft for his own fake? and by that judge which gives the greater inftances of his valuing you for yourself only. After you have expressed some sense of the humble approach of Florio, and a little disdain at Strephon's affurance in his address, you cry out, "What an unexceptionable husband could I " make "make out of both!" It would therefore, methinks, be a good way to determine yourself: take him in whom what you like is not transferable to another, for if you choose otherwise, there is no hopes your husband will ever have what you liked in his rival; but intrinfic qualities in one man may very probably purchase every thing that is adventitious in another. In plainer terms; he whom you take for his personal perfections will fooner arrive at the gifts of fortune, than he whom you take for the fake of his fortune attain to personal perfections. If Strephon is not as accomplished and agreeable as Florio, marriage to you will never make him so; but marriage to you may make Florio as rich as Strephon: therefore to make a fure purchase, employ fortune upon certainties, but do not facrifice certainties to fortune. T I am Your most obedient humble servant. For the torn fourtout and the tatter'd vest, 'The wretch and all his wardrobe are a jest; 'The greasy gown fully'd with often turning, Gives a good hint to fay the man's in mourn' ing; Or if the shoe be ript, or patch is put, 'He's wounded fee the plaister on his foot." DRYDEN It is on this occafion that he afterwards adds the DRYDEN, It must be confefsed that few things make a man appear more despicable, or more prejudice his hearers against what he is going to offer, than an aukward or pitiful dress; infomuch that I fancy, had Tully himself pronounced one of his orations with a blanket about his shoulders, more people would have laughed at his dress than have admired his eloquence. This laft reflection made me wonder at a fet of men, who, N° 150. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 22. without being fubjected to it by the unkindness of their fortunes, are contented to draw upon themselves the ridicule of the world in this particular; I mean fuch as take it into their heads, Juv. Sat. 3. V. 152. that the first regular step to be a wit is to comWant is the scorn of ev'ry wealthy fool, And wit in rags is turn'd to ridicule. DRYDEN. was walking in my chamber the morning before I went last into the country, I heard the hawkers with great vehemence crying about a paper, intitled, "The ninety-nine plagues ** of an empty purse." I had indeed some time before observed, that the orators of Grub-ftreet had dealt very much in Plagues. They have already published in the fame month, "The "Plagues of Matrimony; The Plagues of a fingle Life; the nineteen Plagues of a Cham "bermaid; The Plagues of a Coachman; The " Plagues of a Footman; and The Plague of "Plagues." The success these several plagues met with, probably gave 'occasion to the abovementioned poem on an empty purse. However that be, the fame noise so frequently repeated under my window, drew me infenfibly to think on fome of those inconveniencies and mortifications which usually attend on poverty, and in short, gave birth to the present speculation: forafter my fancy had run over the most obvious and common calamities which men of mean fortunes are liable to, it defcended to those little insults and contempts, which though they may feem to dwindle into nothing when a man offers to defcribe them, are perhaps in themselves more cutting and infupportable than the former. Juvenal, with a great deal of reason and humour tells us, that nothing bore harder upon a poor man in his time, than the continual ridicule which his habit and dress afforded to the beaux mence a sloven. It is certain nothing has fo much debased that, which must have been otherwife so great a character; and I know not how to account for it, unless it may possibly be in complaisance to those narrow minds who can have no notion of the same perfon's poffeffing different accomplishments; or that it is a fort of facrifice which fome men are contented to make to calumny, by allowing it to faften on one part of their character, while they are endeavouring to establish another. Yet however unaccountable this foolish custom is, I am afraid it could plead a long prescription; and probably gave too much occafion for the vulgar definition still remaining among us of an Heathen Phile. sopher. I have seen the speech of a Terræ-filius, spoken in King Charles the Second's reign; in which he describes two very eminent men, who were perhaps the greatest scholars of their age; and after having mentioned the intire friendship between them, concludes, "That they had but " one mind, one purse, one chamber, and one "hat." The men of business were also infected with a fort of fingularity little better than this. I have heard my father say, that a broad-brimmed hat, short hair, and unfolded handkerchief, were in his time abfolutely necessary to denote a notable man; and that he had known two or three, whe aspired to the character of very notable, wear shoe-strings with great fuccess. To the honour of our present age it must be allowed, that some of our greatest genius's for wit and business have almost intirely broke the neck of these abfurdities. Victor, after having dispatched the most important affairs of the commonwealth, has appeared at an affembly, where all the ladies have declared him the genteelest man in the comppany; and in Atticus, though every way one of the greatest genius's the age has produced, one fees nothing particular in his dress or carriage to denote his pretenfions to wit and learning: fo that at present a man may venture to Bb cock cock up his hat, and wear a fashionable wig, without being taken for a rake or a fool. The medium between a fop and a sloven is what a man of sense would endeavour to keep; yet I remember Mr. Ofborn advises his fon to appear in his habit rather above than below his fortune; and tells him, that he will find an handfome fuit of clothes always procures fome additional refpect. I have indeed myself obforved that my banker ever bows lowest to me when I wear my full-bottomed wig; and writes me Mr. or Esq; accordingly as he sees me dressed. I shall conclude this paper with an adventure which I was myself an eye-witness of very lately. I happened the other day to call in at a celebrated coffee-house near the Temple. I had not been there long when there came in an elderly man very meanly dressed, and fat down by me; he had a thread-bare loofe coat on, which it was plain he wore to keep himself warm, and not to favour his under-fuit; which feemed to have been at least its cotemporary: his short wig and hat were both anfwerable to the rest of his apparel. He was no fooner feated than he called for a dith of tea; but as feveral gentlemen in the room wanted other things, the boys of the house did not think themselves at leifure to mind him. I could obferve the old fellow was very uneasy at the affront, and at his being obliged to repeat his commands several times to no purpose; until at last one of the lads presented him with fome stale tea in a broken dish, accompanied with a plate of brown fugar; which fo raised his indignation, that after several obliging appellations of dog and rascal, he asked him aloud before the whole company, "Why he must be used with " less refpect than that sop there?" pointing to a well-dreffed young gentleman who was drinking tea at the oppofite table. The boy of the houfe replied with a great deal of pertness, that his master had two forts of customers, and that the gentlemen at the other table had given him many a fixpence for wiping his shoes. By this tinae the young Templar, who found his honour concerned in the dispute, and that the eyes of the whole coffee-house were upon him, had thrown afide a paper he had in his hand, and was coming towards us, while we at the table made what haste we could to get away from the impending quarrel, but were all of us surprised to fee him as he approached nearer put on an air of deference and refpect. To whom the old man faid, "Hark you, firrah, I will pay off your extravagant bills once more; but will take ef"fectual care for the future, that your prodiga"lity thall not fpirit up a parcel of rafcals to in" fult your father. Though I by no means approve either the impudence of the fervants or the extravagance of the fon, I cannot but think the old gentleman was in fome measure juftly ferved for walking in masquerade, I mean appearing in a dress so much beneath his quality and estate. N° 151. THURSDAY, AUGUST 23. In the pursuit of pleasure, the greatest virtues lie neglected. I KNOW no one character that gives reason a greater shock, at the fame time that it prefents a good ridiculous image to the imagination, than that of a man of wit and pleasure about the town. This defcription of a man of fashion spoken by fome with a mixture of fcorn and ri dicule, by others with great gravity as a laudable distinction, is in every body's mouth that spends any time in conversation. My friend Will Honey comb has this expreffion very frequently; and I never could understand by the story which fol lows, upon his mention of such a one, but that his man of wit and pleafure was either a drunkard too old for wenching, or a young lewd fellow with some livelincss, who would converfe with you, received kind offices of you, and at the same time debauch your fister, or lie with your wife. According to his defeription, a man of wit, when he could have wenches for crowns apiece which he liked quite as well, would be so extravagant as to bribe servants, make false friendships, fight relations: I say, according to him, plain and fimple vice was too little for a man of wit and pleasure; but he would leave an eafy and acceffible wickedness, to come at the fame thing with only the addition of certain falfhood and possible murder. Will thinks the town grown very dull, in that we do not hear fo much as we used to do of thefe coxcombs, whom, without observing it, he defcribes as the most infamous rogues in nature, with relation to friendship, love, or converíation. When pleasure is made the chief pursuit of life, it will neceffarily follow that fuch monsters as these will arife from a constant application to such blandishments as naturally root out the force of reason and reflection, and fsubstitute in their place a general impatience of thought, and a constant pruriency of inordinate defire. Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the conftant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it, though it leaves the sense of our inability for that we wish, with a disrelish of every thing else. Thus the intermediate seasons of the man of pleasure are more heavy than one would impose upon the vileft criminal. Take him when he is awaked too foon after a debauch, or disappointed in following a worthlefs woman without truth, and there is no man living whose being is such a weight or vexation as his is. He is an utter stranger to the pleasing reflections in the evening of a well spent day, or the gladness of heart or quickness of spirit in the morning after profound fleep or indolent slumbers. He is not to be at ease any longer than he can keep reason and good fenfe without his curtains; otherwise he will be haunted with the reflection, that he could not believe fuch a one the woman that upon trial he found her. What has he got by his conquest, but to think meanly of her for whom a day or two before he had the highest honour? and of himself for, perhaps, wronging the man whom of all men living he himself would least willing. ly have injured? Pleasure Pleasure seizes the whole man who addicts himself to it, and will not give him leisure for any good office in life which contradicts the gaiety of the present hour. You may indeed observe in people of pleasure a certain complacency and absence of all feverity, which the habit of a loose and unconcerned life gives them; but tell the man of pleasure your secret wants, cares, or forrows, and you will find he has given up the delicacy of his paffions to the cravings of his appetites. He little knows the perfect joy he lofes, for the disappointing gratifications which he purfues. He looks at pleasure as the approaches, and comes to him with the recommendation of warm wishes, gay looks, and graceful motion; but he does not observe how the leaves his prefence with diforder, impotence, down-cast shame, and confcious imperfection. She makes our youth inglorious, our age shameful. Will Honeycomb gives us twenty intimations in an evening of feveral hags whose bloom was given up to his arms; and would raise a value to himself for having had, as the phrase is, very good women. unskilfully open at such a time, unmercifully calumnious at fuch a time; and from the whole course of his applauded fatisfactions, unable in the end to recollect any circumstance which can add to the enjoyment of his own mind alone, or which he would put his character upon with other men. Thus it is with those who are beft made for becoming pleasures; but how monstrous is it in the generality of mankind who pretend this way, without genius or inclination towards it? The scene then is wild to an extravagance: this is as if fools should mimic madmen. Pleasure of this kind is the intemperate meals and loud jollities of the common rate of the country gentlemen, whose practice and way of enjoyment is to put an end as fast as they can to that little particle of reason they have when they are sober: these men of wit and pleasure dispatch their senses as fast as possible by drinking until they cannot taste, fmoking until they cannot fee, and roaring until they cannot hear. T HOM. IL. 6. v. 146. Like leaves on trees the race of man is found. THEORE : Will's good women are the comfort of N° 152. FRIDAY, AUGUST 24. his heart, and support him, I warrant, by the memory of past interviews with persons of their Οἵη περ φύλλων γενεή, τοιήδε καὶ ἀνδρῶν. condition. No, there is not in the world an occasion wherein vice makes so phantastical a figure, as at the meeting of two old people who have been partners in unwarrantable pleasure. To tell a toothless old lady that the once had a good fet, or a defunct wencher that he once was the admired thing in the town, are fatires instead of applaufes; but on the other side, confider the old age of those who have passed their days in Jabour, industry, and virtue; their decays make them but appear the more venerable, and the imperfections of their bodies are beheld as a misfortune to human fociety that their make is so little durable. But to return more directly to my man of wit and pleasure. In all orders of men, wherever this is the chief character, the perfon who wears it is a negligent friend, father, and husband, and entails poverty on his unhappy defcendants. Mortgages, diseases, and fettlements are the legacies a man of wit and pleasure leaves to his family. All the poor rogues that make such lamentable speeches after every feffions at Tyburn, were, in their way, men of wit and pleasure, before they fell into the adventures which brought them thither. Irrefolution and procrastination in all a man's affairs, are the natural effects of being addicted to pleafure; dishonour to the gentleman and bankruptcy to the trader, are the portion of either whose chief purpose of life is delight. The chief cause that this purfuit has been in all ages received with fo much quarter from the soberer part of mankind, has been that fome men of great talents have facrificed themselves to it: the shining qualities of such people have given a beauty to whatever they were engaged in, and a mixture of wit has recommended madness. For let any man who knows what it is to have paffedmuch time in a feries of jollity, mirth, wit, or humourous entertainments, look back at what he was all that while a doing, and he will find that he has been often at one instant sharp to fome man he is forry to have offended, imperti--nent to fome one it was cruelty to treat with fuch freedom, ungracefully noify at such a time, : POPE. HERE is no fort of people whose converfo pleafant as that of military men who derive their courage and magnanimity from thought and reflection. The many adventures which attend their way of life makes their conversation so full of incidents, and gives them so frank an air in speaking of what they have been witnesses of, that no company can be more amiable than that of men of sense who are foldiers. There is a certain irregular way in their narrations or difcourse, which has something more warm and pleasing than we meet with among men, who are used to adjust and methodize their thoughts. I was this evening walking in the fields with my friend Captain Sentry, and I could not, from the many relations which I drew him into of what pafssed when he was in the fervice, forbear expressing my wonder, that the fear of death, which we, the rest of mankind, arm ourselves against with so much contemplation, reason and philofophy, should appear fo little in camps, that common men march into open breaches, meet oppofite battalions, not only without reluctance but with alacrity. My friend answered what I faid in the following manner: What you won"der at may very naturally be the subject of ad"miration to all who are not converfant in camps; but when a man has spent some time "in that way of life, he observes a certain me"chanic courage, which the ordinary race of " men become masters of from acting always "in a crowd: they fee indeed many drop, but "then they see many more alive; they observe "themselves escape very narrowly, and they do "not know why they should not again. Be" fides which general way of loose thinking, "they usually spend the other part of their time " in pleasures upon which their minds are so in"tirely bent, that shört labours or dangers, are " but a cheap purchase of joility, triumph, victory, fresh quarters, new scenes, and uncomBba 66 |