Grata carpentis thyma per laborem Hor. Od. ii. Lib. 4. 27. -My timorous muse Like the laborious bee, For little drops of honey fly, And there with humble sweets contents her industry. MR SPECTATOR, Coroley. in my survey, to go up stairs, and pass the shops of agreeable females; to observe so many pretty hands busy in the folding of ribands, and the utmost eagerness of agreeable faces in the sale of patches, pins, and wires, on each side of the counters, was an amusement in which I could longer have indulged myself, had not the dear creatures called to me, to ask what'I wanted, when I could not answer, only To look on you.' I went to one of the windows which opened to the area below, where THE following letters have in them reflecall the several voices lost their distinction, tions which will seem of importance both to the and rose up in a confused humming; which learned world and to domestic life. There is created in me a reflection that could not come in the first an allegory so well carried on, that into the mind of any but of one a little too it cannot but be very pleasing to those who studious; for I said to myself with a kind of have a taste of good writing; and the other pun in thought, 'What nonsense is all the hur-billets may have their use in common life. ry of this world to those who are above it?' In these, or not much wiser thoughts, I had 'As I walked the other day in a fine garden, liked to have lost my place at the chop-house, and observed the great variety of improvewhere every man, according to the natural ments in plants and flowers, beyond what bashfulness or sullenness of our nation, eats in they otherwise would have been, I was natua public room a mess of broth, or chop of meat, rally led into a reflection upon the advantages in dumb silence, as if they had no pretence to of education, or modern culture: how many speak to each other on the foot of being men, good qualities in the mind are lost, for want except they were of each other's acquaintance. of the like due care in nursing and skilfully I went afterwards to Robin's, and saw peo-managing them; how many virtues are chokple who had dined with me at the five-penny ed, by the multitude of weeds which are sufordinary just before, give bills for the value of fered to grow among them; how excellent large estates; and could not but behold with parts are often starved and useless, by being great pleasure, property lodged in, and trans-planted in a wrong soil; and how very seldom ferred in a moment from, such as would never do these moral seeds produce the noble fruits be masters of half as much as is seemingly in which might be expected from them, by a nethem, and given from them, every day they glect of proper manuring, necessary pruning, live. But before five in the afternoon I left the an an artful management of our tender inclicity, came to my common scene of Covent-nations and first spring of life. These obvigarden, and passed the evening at Will's in at-ous speculations made me at length conclude, tending the discourses of several sets of peo- that there is a sort of vegetable principle in ple, who relieved each other within my hear- the mind of every man when he comes into ing on the subjects of cards, dice, love, learn-world. In infants, the seeds lie buried and ing, and politics. The last subject kept me undiscovered, till after a while they sprout till I heard the streets in the possession of the forth in a kind of rational leaves, which are bell-man, who had now the world to himself, words; and in due season the flowsrs begin to and cried Past two o'clock.' This roused appear in variety of beautiful colours, and all me from my seat; and I went to my lodgings, the gay pictures of youthful fancy and imagiled by a light, whom I put into the dis-nation; at last the fruit knits and is formed, course of his private economy, and made which is green perhaps at first, sour and unhim give me an account of the charge, ha-pleasant to the laste, and not fit to be gatherzard, profit, and loss of a family that depend-ed: till, ripened by due care and application, ed upon a link, with a design to end my trivial it discovers itself in all the noble productions day with the generosity of sixpence, instead of philosophy, mathematics, close reasoning, of a third part of that sum. When I came and handsome argumentation. These fruits, to my chambers, I writ down these minutes; when they arrive at just maturity, and are of but was at a loss what instruction I should a good kind, afford the most vigorous noupropose to my reader from the enumeration rishment to the minds of men. I reflected of so many insignificant matters and occur- further on the intellectual leaves before menrences; and I thought it of great use, if they tioned, and found almost as great a variety could learn with me to keep their minds open among them, as in the vegetable world. I to gratification, and ready to receive it from could easily observe the smooth shining Italian any thing it meets with. This one circum-leaves, the nimble French aspen always in mostance will make every face you see give you tion, the Greek and Latin ever-greens, the the satisfaction you now take in beholding Spanish myrtle, the English oak, the Scotch that of a friend; will make every object a thistle, the Irish shambrogue, the prickly Gerpleasing one; will make all the good which man and Dutch holly, the Polish and Russian arrives to any man, an increase of happiness to yourself. T. nettle, besides a vast number of exotics imported from Asia, Africa, and America. I saw several barren plants, which bore only leaves, without any hopes of flower or fruit. The leaves of some were fragrant and wellshaped, and others ill-scented and irregular. I 24 MR SPECTATOR, wondered at a set of old whimsical botanists, 'P. S. I must do the poor girl the justice to who spent their whole lives in the contempla- let you know, that this match was none of her tion of some withered Egyptian, Coptic, Ar-own choosing (or indeed of mine either); in menian, or Chinese leaves; while others made consideration of which I avoid giving her the it their business to collect, in voluminous her- least provocation; and indeed we live better bals, all the several leaves of some one tree. together than usually folks do who hated one The flowers afford a most diverting entertain- another when they were first joined. To evade ment, in a wonderful variety of figures, co- the sin againts parents, or at least to extenuate lours, and scents; however, most of them it, my dear rails at my father and mother, withered soon, or at best are but annuals. Some and I curse hers for making the match.” professed florists make them their constant August 8, 1712. study and employment, and despise all fruit; 'I like the theme you lately gave out exand now and then a few fanciful people spend all their time in the cultivation of a single tu-tremely, and should be as glad to handle it as lip, or a carnation. But the most agreeable any man living: but I find myself no better ainusement seems to be the well-choosing, qualified to write about money than about my wife; for, to tell you a secret, which I desire mixing, and binding together these flowers in pleasing nosegays, to present to ladies. The may go no further, I am master of neither of those subjects. Yours, scent of Italian flowers is observed, like their 'PILL GARLICK.' other perfumes, to be too strong, and to hurt the brain; that of the French with glaring gaudy colours, yet faint and languid: German 'I desire you will print this in italic, so as it and northern flowers have little or no smell, or may be generally taken notice of. It is designsometimes an unpleasant one. The ancients ed only to admonish all persons, who speak had a secret to give a lasting beauty, colour, either at the bar, pulpit, or any public assemand sweetness, to some of their choice flowers, bly whatsoever, how they discover their ignowhich flourish to this day, and which few of rance in the use of similies. There are, in the moderns can effect. These are becoming the pulpit itself, as well as in other places, enough and agreeable in their seasons, and do often handsomely adorn an entertainment: but an over-fondness of them seems to be a disease. It rarely happens to find a plant vigorous enough to have (like an orange-tree) at once beautiful and shining leaves, fragrant flowers, and delicious, nourishing fruit. 'Sir, yours, &c. 4 MR. SPECTATOR, such gross abuses in this kind, that I give this warning to all I know. I shall bring them for the future before your spectatorial authority. On Sunday last, one, who shall be nameless, reproving several of his congregation for standing at prayers, was pleased to say, "One would think, like the elephant, you had no knees." Now I myself saw an elephant, in Bartholomew fair, kneel down to take on his back the ingenious Mr. William Penkethman. T. De quo 'Your most humble servant.' " DEAR SPEC, August 6, 1712. 'You have given us, in your Spectator of Saturday last, a very excellent discourse upon the force of custom, and its wonderful efficacy in making every thing pleasant to us. I can-No. 456.] Wednesday, August 13, 1712. not deny but that I received above two-pennyworth of instruction from your paper, and in the general was very well pleased with it; but I am, without a compliment, sincerely troubled that I cannot exactly be of your opinion, that it makes every thing pleasaing to us. In short, I have the honor to be yoked to a young lady, who is, in plain English, for her standing, a very eminent scold. She began to break her mind very freely, both to me and to her servants, about two months after our nuptials; and, though I have been accustomed to this humour of hers these three years, yet I do not know what's the matter with me, but I am no more delighted with it than I was at the very first. I have advised with her relations about her, and they all tell me that her mother and her grandmother before her were both taken much after the same manner; so that, since it runs in the blood, I have but small hopes of her recovery. I should be glad to have a little of your advice in this matter. would not willingly trouble you to contrive how it may be a pleasure to me; if you will but put me in a way that I may bear it with indifference, I shall rest satisfied, libelli in celeberrimis locis proponuntur, huic ne perire quidem tacitè conceditur.-Tull. The man whose conduct is publicly arraigned, is not suffered even to be undone quietly. Dear Spec, Your very humble servant. has described the misery of a man whose efOTWAY, in his tragedy of Venice Preserved, fects are in the hands of the law, with great spirit. The bitterness of being the scorn and insulted by men hardened bayond the sense of laughter of base minds, the anguish of being shame or pity, and the injury of a man's fortune being wasted, under pretence of justice. are excellently aggravated in the following speech of Pierre to Jaffier": 'I pass'd this very moment by thy doors, And found them guarded by a troop of villains. The scene of all thy joys, was violated they were merciful when they could have de stroyed, rather than when it was in their power to have spared a man, they destroyed. This Nothing indeed can be more unhappy than is a due to the common calamity of human the condition of bankruptcy. The calamity life, due in some measure to our very enemies. which happens to us by ill-fortune, or by the They who scruple in doing the least injury, injury of others, has in it some consolation; are cautious of exacting the utmost justice. but what arises from our own misbehaviour, Let any one who is conversant in the variety or error, is the state of the most exquisite sor- of human life reflect upon it, and he will find row. When a man considers not only an am- the man who wants mercy has a taste of no enple fortune, but even the very necessaries of joyment of any kind. There is a natural dislife, his pretence to food itself, at the mercy relish of every thing which is good in his very of his creditors, he cannot but look upon him- nature, and he is born an enemy to the world. self in the state of the dead, with his case He is ever extremely partial to himself in all thus much worse, that the last office is per- his actions, and has no sense of iniquity but formed by his adversaries instead of his from the punishment which shall attend it. friends. From this hour the cruel world does The law of the land is his gospel, and all his not only take possession of his whole fortune, cases of conscience are determined by his atbut even of every thing else which had no re-torney. Such men know not what it is to lation to it. All his indifferent actions have gladden the heart of a miserable man; that new interpretations put upon them; and those riches are the instruments of serving the purwhom he has favoured in his former life, dis-poses of heaven or hell, according to the discharge themselves of their obligations to him, position of the possessor. The wealthy can by joining in the reproaches of his enemies. torment or gratify all who are in their power, It is almost incredible that it should be so; but and choose to do one or other, as they are afit is too often seen that there is a pride mixed fected with love or hatred to mankind. As with the impatience of the creditor; and there for such who are insensible of the concerns of are who would rather recover their own by others, but merely as they affect themselves, the downfal of a prosperous man, than be these men are to be valued only for their mordischarged to the common satisfaction of tality, and as we hope better things from their themselves and their creditors. The wretch- heirs. I could not but read with great delight, ed man, who was lately master of abundance, a letter from an eminent citizen, who has failis now under the direction of others; and the ed, to one who was intimate with him in his wisdom, economy, good sense, and skill in better fortune, and able by his countenance to human life before, by reason of his present retrieve his lost condition. misfortune, are of no use to him in the disposition of any thing. The incapacity of an infant or a lunatic is designed for his provision 'It is in vain to multiply words and make and accommodation; but that of a bankrupt, apologies for what is not to be defended by without any mitigation in respect of the acci- the best advocate in the world, the guilt of bedents by which it arrived, is calculated for his ing unfortunate. All that a man in my condiutter ruin, except there be a remainder ample tion can do or say, will be received with preenough, after the discharge of his creditors, to judice by the generality of mankind, but I hope bear also the expense of rewarding those by not with you: you have been a great instruwhose means the effect of all this labour was ment in helping me to get what I have lost; transferred from him. This man is to look and I know (for that reason, as well as kindon and see others giving directions upon ness to me) you cannot but be in pain to see what terms and conditions his goods are to me undone. To show you I am not a man inbe purchased; and all this usually done, not capable of bearing calamity, I will, though a with an air of trustees to dispose of his ef- poor man, lay aside the distinction between fects, but destroyers to divide and tear them us, and talk with the frankness we did when to pieces. we were nearer to an equality as all I do There is something sacred in misery to great will be received with prejudice, all you do will and good minds; for this reason all wise law-be looked upon with partiality. What I desire givers have been extremely tender how they of you is, that you, who are courted by all, let loose even the man who has right on his would smile upon me, who am shunned by all. side, to act with any mixture of resentment Let that grace and favour which your fortune against the defendant. Virtuous and modest throws upon you, be turned to make up the men, though they be used with some artifice, coldness and indifference which is used towards and have it in their power to avenge them-me. All good and generous men will have an selves, are slow in the application of that power, eye of kindness for me for my own sake, and and are ever constrained to go into rigorous the rest of the world will regard me for yours. measures. They are careful to demonstrate There is a happy contagion in riches, as well themselves not only persons injured, but also as a destructive one in poverty: the rich can that to bear it longer would be a means to make rich without parting with any of their make the offender injure others, before they store; and the conversation of the poor makes proceed. Such men clap their hands upon their men poor, though they borrow nothing of hearts, and consider what it is to have at their them. How this is to be accounted for I know mercy the life of a citizen. Such would have not; but men's estimation follows us accordit to say to their own souls, if possible, that ing to the company we keep. If you are what SIR, ' and humble servant. This was answered by a condescension that did not, by long impertinent professions of kindness, insult his distress, but was as fol]ows. ، DEAR TOM, you were to me, "you can get a great way to-light visits paid and received by ministers of wards my recovery; if you are not, my good state, clandestine courtships and marriages, fortune, if ever it returns, will return by slower secret amours, losses at play, applications for approaches. I am Sir, | places, with their respective successes and re'Your affectionate friend, pulses, are the materials in which I chiefly intend to deal. I have two persons, that are each of them the representative of a species, who are to furnish me with those whispers which I intend to convey to my correspondents. The first of these is Peter Hush, descended from the ancient family of the Hushes. The other is the old lady Blast, who has a very nu'I am very glad to hear that you have heart merous tribe of daughters in the two great ciPeter Hush enough to begin the world a second time. I ties of London and Westminster assure you, I do not think your numerous fa- has a whipering-hole in most of the great cofmily at all diminished (in the gifts of nature, fee-houses about town. If you are alone with for which I have ever so much admired them) him in a wide room, he carries you up by what has so lately happened to you. I shall corner of it, and speaks in your ear. not only countenance your affairs with my ap- seen Peter seat himself in a company of seven pearance for you, but shall accommodate you or eight persons, whom he never saw before in with a considerable sum, at common interest for three years. You know I could make more of it; but I have so great a love for you, that I can wave opportunities of gain to help you; for I do not care whether they say of me after I am dead, that I had an hundred or fifty thousand pounds more than I wanted when I was living. Your obliged humble servant.' T. No. 457.] Thursday, August 14, 1712. Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 2. 9. Seeming to promise something wondrous great. I SHALL this day lay before my readers a letter, written by the same hand with that of last Friday, which contained proposals for a printed news-paper that should take in the whole circle of the penny-post. into a I have his life; and, after having looked about to see there was no one that overheard him, has communicated to them in a low voice, and under the seal of secrecy, the death of a great man in the country, who was, perhaps, a fox-hunting the very moment this account was given of him. If upon your entering into a coffee-house you see a circle of heads bending over a table, and lying close to one another, it is ten to one but my friend Peter is among them. I have known Peter publishing the whisper of the day by eight o'clock in the morning at Garraway's, by twelve at Will's, and before two at the Smyrna. When Peter has thus effectually launched a secret, I have been very well pleased to hear the people whispering it to one another at second-hand, and spreading it about as their own; for you must know, sir the great incentive to whispering is the ambition which every one has of being thought in the secret, and being looked upon as a man who has ac|cess to greater people than one would imagine. After having given you this account of Peter Hush, I proceed to that virtuous lady, the old lady Blast, who is to communicate to me the private transactions of the crimp-table, with all the arcana of the fair-sex. The lady Blast, you must understand, has such a particular malignity in her whisper, that it blights like an easterly wind, and withers every reputation that it breathes upon. She has a particular knack at making private weddings, and last "I have often thought that a news-letter of winter married above five women of quality whispers, written every post, and sent about to their footmen. Her whisper can make an the kingdom, after the same manner as that of innocent young woman big with child, or fill Mr. Dyer, Mr. Dawkes, or any other epistola-an healthful young fellow with distempers that ry historian, might be highly gratifying to the are not to be named. She can turn a visit inpublic, as well as beneficial to the author. By to an intrigue, and a distant salute into an aswhispers I mean those pieces of news which signation. She can beggar the wealthy, and are communicated as secrets, and which bring | degrade the noble. In short, she can whisa double pleasure to the hearer: first, as they per men base or foolish, jealous or ill-natured: are private history; and, in the next place, as or, if occasion requires, can tell you the slips they have always in them a dash of scandal. of their great grandmothers, and traduce the These are the two chief qualifications in an ar- memory of honest coachmen, that have been ticle of news, which recommend it, in a more in their graves above these hundred years. By than ordinary manner, to the ears of the curi- these and the like helps, I question not but I Sickness of persons in high posts, twi- shall furnish out a very handsome news-letter. If you approve my project, I shall begin to *Secretary at this time of the treasury, and director whisper by the very next post, and question not but every one of my customers will be. The kind reception you gave my last Friday's letter, in which I broached my project of a news-paper, encourages me to lay before you two or three more; for, you must know, sir, that we look upon you to be the Lowndes of the learned world, and cannot think any scheme practicable or rational before you have approved of it, though all the money we raise by it is in our own funds, and for our private use. ous. of the mint. very well pleased with me, when he considers Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, that every piece of news I send him is a word and nothing is more contemptible than the in his ear, and lets him into a secret. false. The one guards virtue, the other be Having given you a sketch of this project, trays it. True modesty is ashamed to do any I shall, in the next place, suggest to you ano- thing that is repugnant to the rules of right ther for a monthly pamphlet, which I shall reason: false modesty is ashamed to do any likewise submit to your spectatorial wisdom. thing that is opposite to the humour of the I need not, tell you, sir, that there are several company. True modesty avoids every thing authors in France, Germany, and Holland, as that is criminal, false modesty every thing that well as in our own country,* who publish eve-is unfashionable. The latter is only a general ry month what they call, An Account of the undetermined instinct; the former is that inWorks of the Learned, in which they give us an stinct, limited and circumscribed by the rules abstract of all such books as are printed in any of prudence and religion. part of Europe. Now, sir, it is my design to We may conclude that modesty to be false publish evey month, An Account of the Works and vicious which engages a man to do any of the Unlearned. Several late productions of thing that is ill or indiscreet, or which restrains my own countrymen, who many of them make him from doing any thing that is of a contrary a very eminent figure in the illiterate world, nature. How many men, in the common conencourage me in this undertaking. I may, in cerns of life, lend sums of money which they this work, possibly make a review of several are not able to spare, are bound for persons pieces which have appeared in the foreign ac- whom they have but little friendship for, give counts above mentioned, though they ought not recommendatory charactess of men whom they to have been taken notice of in works which bear are not acquainted with, bestow places on such a title. I may likewise take into consider- those whom they do not esteem, live in such a ation such pieces as appear, from time to time, manner as they themselves do not approve, and under the names of those gentlemen who com- all this merely because they have not the conpliment one another in public assemlies, by the fidence to resist solicitation, importunity, or title of "The learned Gentlemen." Our party-example! authors will also afford me a great variety of Nor does this false modesty expose us only subjects, not to mention the editors, commen- to such actions as are indiscreet, but very often tators, and others, who are often men of no to such as are highly eriminal. When Xenolearning, or, what is as bad, of no knowledge. I shall not enlarge upon this hint; but if you think any thing can be made of it, I shall set about it with all the pains and application that so useful a work deserves. C. phanes was called timorous, because he would not venture his money in a game of dice: 'I confess,' said he that I am exceeding timorous, for I dare not do an ill thing.' On the contrary, a man of vicious modesty complies I am ever, with every thing, and is only fearful of doing Most worthy Sir, &c.' what may look singular in the company where he is engaged. He falls in with the torrent, and lets himself go to every action or discourse, however unjustifiable in itself, so it be in vogue among the present party. This, though one of the most common, is one of the most ridiculous dispositions in human nature, that men should not be ashamed of speaking or acting in a dissolute or irrational manner, but that one who is in their company should be ashamed of governing himself by the principles of reason No. 458.] Friday, August 15, 1712. "Αιδώς είχε λάθη Pudor malus False modesty. Hes. Hor. and virtue. I COULD not but smile at the account that was yesterday given me of a modest young gentleman, who, being invited to an entertainment, though he was not used to drink, had not the confidence to refuse his glass in his In the second place, we are to consider false turn, when on a sudden he grew so flustered, that he took all the talk of the table into his modesty, as it restrains a man from doing what own hands, abused every one of the company will suggest to him many instances and exis good and laudable. My reader's own thoughts and flung a bottle at the gentleman's head who treated him. This has given me occasion amples under this head. I shall only dwell to reflect upon the ill effects of a vicious moupon one reflection, which I cannot make without a secret concern. We have in England a desty, and to remember the saying of Brutus, particular bashfulness in every thing that reas it is quoted by Plutarch, that the person gards religion. A well-bred man is obliged to has had but an ill education, who has not been conceal any serious sentiment of this nature, taught to deny any thing.' This false kind of and very often to appear a greater libertine modesty has, perhaps, betrayed both sexes into than he is, that he may keep himself in counas many vices as the most abandoned impu- tenance among the men of mode. Our excess dence; and is the more inexcusable to reason, of modesty makes us shamefaced in all the because it acts to gratify others rather than itself, and is punished with a kind of remorse, not only like other vicious habits when the crime is over, but even at the very time that it is committed. * exercises of piety and devotion. This humour prevails opon us daily; insomuch that, at many well-bred tables, the master of the house is so very modest a man, that he has not the confidence to say grace at his own table: a cus. Mr Michael de la Roche, 38 vols. 8vo. in Engl. under tom which is not only practised by all the nadifferent titles; and in Fr. 8 tomes, 24mo. tions about us, but was never omitted by the |