'I am, &c. To the supposed Author of the Spectator. In courts licentious, and a shameless stage, of having extorted excellent productions from levity, but rather of endearment and concern; a person of the greatest abilities, who would such as we find in Catullus, and the authors not have let them appeared by any other of Hendecasyllabi after him, where they are means;* to have animated a few young gen-used to express the utmost love and tenderness tlemen into worthy pursuits, who will be a for their mistresses. If you think me right in glory to our age; and at all times, and by my notion of the last words of Adrian, be all possible means in my power, undermined pleased to insert this in the Spectator; if not, the interest of ignorance, vice, and folly, and to suppress it. attempted to substitute in their stead, learning. piety, and good sense. It is from this honest heart that I find myself honoured as a gentleman-usher to the arts and sciences. Mr. Tickell and Mr. Pope have, it seems, this idea of me. The former has writ me an excellent paper of verses, in praise, forsooth, of myself; and the other enclosed for my perusal an admirable poem,t which I hope will shortly see the light. In the mean time: I cannot suppress any thought of his, but insert this sentiment about the dying words of Adrian. I will not determine in the case he mentions; but have thus much to say in favour of his argument, that many of his own works which I have seen, convince me that very pretty and very sublime sentiments may be lodged in the same bosom without diminution of its greatness. 4 MR. SPECTATOR, 'I was the other day in company with five or six men of some learning: where, chancing to mention the famous verses which the emperor Adrian spoke on his death-bed, they were all agreed that it was a piece of gaiety unworthy that prince in those circumstances. I could not but dissent from this opinion. Methinks it was by no means a gay but a very serious soliloquy to his soul at the point of his departure in which sense I naturally took these verses at my first reading them, when I was very young, and before I knew what interpretation the world generally put upon them. “Animula vagula, blandula, "Alas, my soul! thou pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting it, whither art thou flying? to what unknown regions? Thou art all trembling, fearful, and pensive. Now what is become of thy former wit and humour? Thou shalt jest and be gay no more." 'I confess I cannot apprehend where lies the trifling in all this; it is the most natural and obvious reflection imaginable to a dying man: and, if we consider the emperor was a heathen, that doubt concerning the future state of his soul will seem so far from being the effect of want of thought, that it was scarce reasonable he should think otherwise: not to mention that here is a plain confession included of his belief in its immortality. The diminutive epithets of vagula, blandula, and the rest, appear not to me as expressions of Our youth run headlong in the fatal snare; 'Thy spotless thoughts unshock'd the priest may hear, Thy works in Chloe's toilet gain a part, The brainless stripling, who expell'd to town, Such hints alone could British Virgil lend, And fame when shar'd with him is double fame. 'Permit these lines by thee to live-nor blame 'So some weak shoot, which else would poorly rise, 'To the Spectator General, MR. JOHN SLY HUMBLY SHOWETH. faculties. 66 I will soft, obliging, tractable creature."-" After all," cries an old aunt (who belongs to the class of those who read plays with spectacles 'That upon reading the deputation given to the said Mr. John Sly, all persons passing by Dorothy ?"-"What do I think? why, I think on), "what think you, nephew, of proper Mrs. his observatory behaved themselves with the same decorum as if your honour yourself had she cannot be above six foot two inches high."-"Well, well, you may banter as long been present. That your said officer is preparing, acas you please, but height of stature is comcording to your honour's secret instructions, manding and majestic.' -"Come, come," hats for the several kinds of heads that says a cousin of mine in the family, make figures in the realms of Great Britain, Fiddy must please you."-" Oh! your very fit him; Fidelia is yet behind-pretty Miss with cocks significant of their powers and humble servant, dear coz, she is as much too That your said officer has taken due noyoung as her eldest sister is too old."-" Is it tice of your instructions and admonitions con- You that are but turned of twenty-two, and so, indeed," quoth she, good Mr. Pert? cerning the internals of the head from the Miss Fiddy in half a year's time will be in her outward form of the same. His hats for men of the faculties of law and physic do but just thing. Then she will be so observant; she teens, and she is capable of learniug any turn up, to give a little life to their sagacity; will cry perhaps now and then, but never be his military hats glare full in the face; and he has prepared a familiar easy cock for all good matter, wherein I am more particularly conangry." Thus they will think for me in this companions between the above-mentioned ex-cerned than any body else. If I name any tremes. For this end he has consulted the woman in the world, one of these daughters most learned of his acquaintance for the true has certainly the same qualities. You see by form and dimensions of the lequidum caput, these few hints, Mr. Spectator, what a com'Your said officer does further represent, free with you, I have been passionately fond fortable life I lead. To be still more open and that the young divines about town are many of a young lady (whom give me leave to call of them got into the cock military, and de- Miranda) now for these three years. I have sires your instructions therein. That the town has been for several days with all the submission of a son, but the imoften urged the matter home to my parents very well behaved, and further your said officer saith not.' and made a hat fit for it. No. 533.] Tuesday, November 11, 1712. Immò duas dabo, inquit ille, una si parum est: Et si duarum pœnitebit, addentur quæ. Plaut. T. patience of a lover. Pray, sir, think of three years: what inexpresible scenes of inquietude, what variety of misery must I have gone through in three whole years! Miranda's fortune is equal to those I have mentioned; but her relations are not intimates with mine! Ah! there's the rub! Miranda's person, wit, and humour, are what the nicest fancy could ima gine; and, though we know you to be so elegant a judge of beauty, yet there is none among all your various characters of fine women preferable to Miranda. In a word, she is never guilty of doing any thing but 'You have often given us very excellent one amiss, (if she can be thought to do amiss discourses against that unnatural custom of by me) in being as blind to my faults, as she parents, in forcing their children to marry is to her own perfections. Nay, says he, if one is too little, I will give you two; 6 SIR, To the Spectator. 'I am, Sir, Your very humble ' obedient servant, 'MR. SPECTATOR, contrary to their inclinations. My own case, without further preface, I will lay before you, and leave you to judge of it. My father and mother, both being in declining years, would fain see me, their eldest son, as they call it, settled. I am as much for that as they can be: but I'must be settled, it seems, not ac- 'When you spent so much time as you did cording to my own, but their liking. Upon lately in censuring the ambitious young genthis account I am teazed every day, because I tlemen who ride in triumph through town and have not yet fallen into love, in spite of nature, country on coach-boxes, I wish you had emwith one of a neighbouring gentleman's ployed those moments in consideration of daughters; for, out of their abundant genero-what passes sometimes within-side of those sity, they give me the choice of four. Jack," vehicles. I am sure I suffered sufficiently by begins my father. "Mrs. Catherine is a fine the insolence and ill-breeding of some perwoman. Yes, sir, but she is rather too sons who travelled lately with me in the stage old."-" She will make the more discreet ma-coach out of Essex to London. I am sure, nager, boy." Then my mother plays her part. when you have heard what I have to say, you "Is not Mrs. Betty exceeding fair ?"-"Yes, will think there are persons under the chamadam, but she is of no conversation; she racter of gentlemen, that are fit to be no where has no fire, no agreeable vivacity; she neither else but on the coach-box. Sir, I am a young speaks nor looks with spirit."- "True, son, woman of a sober and religious education, but for those very reasons she will be an easy, and have preserved that character; but on 99 66 66 Monday was fortnight, it was my misfortune pany in confusion. Sir, I know you hate to come to London. I was no sooner clapped long things; but if you like it, you may coninto the coach, but, to my great surprise, tract it, or how you will; but I think it has a two persons in the habit of gentleinen at- moral in it. tacked me with such indecent discourse as I But, sir, I am told you are a famous mecannot repeat to you, so you may conclude chanic as well as a looker-on, and therefore not fit for me to hear. I had no relief but humbly propose you would invent some padthe hopes of a speedy end of my short jour- lock, with full power under your hand and ney. Sir, form to yourself what a persecu- seal, for all modest persons, either men or tion this must needs be to a virtuons and women, to clap upon the mouths of all such chaste mind; and, in order to your proper impertinent impudent fellows: and I wish you handling such a subject, fancy your wife or would publish a proclamation, that no modest daughter, if you had any, in such circum- person who has a value for her countenance, stances, and what treatment you would then and consequently would not be put out of it, think due to such dragoons. One of them was presume to travel after such a day without one called a captain, and entertained us with of them in their pockets. I fancy a smart nothing but filthy stupid questions, or lewd Spectator upon this subject would serve for songs, all the way. Ready to burst with such a padlock; and that public notice may shame and indignation, I repined that nature be given in your paper where they may be had not allowed us as easily to shut our ears had, with directions, price two-pence; and as our eyes. But was not this a kind of rape? that part of the directions may be, when any Why should there be accessaries in ravish- person presumes to be guilty of the abovement any more than murder? Why should mentioned crime, the party aggrieved may not every contributor to the abuse of chastity produce it to his face, with a request to read suffer death? I am sure these shameless hell- it to the company. He must be very much hounds deserved it highly. Can you exert hardened that could outface that rebuke; yourself better than on such an occasion? and his further punishment I leave you to If you do not do it effectually, I will read no prescribe. more of your papers. Has every impertinent fellow a privilege to torment me, who pay my coach-hire as well as he? Sir, pray consider us in this respect as the weakest sex, who have nothing to defend ourselves; and I think No. 534.] Wednesday, November 12, 1712. T. 'Your humble servant, Rarus enim fermè sensus communis in illâ Juv. Sat. viii. 73 -We seldom find Stepney. Much sense with an exalted fortune join'd. MR. SPECTATOR, it is as gentleman-like to challenge a woman to fight as to talk obscenely in her company, especially when she has not power to stir. Pray let me tell you a story which you can make fit for public view. I knew a gentleman who, having a very good opinion of the gentlemen of the army, invited ten or twelve of them to sup with him; and at the same 'I AM a young woman of nineteen, the only time invited two or three friends who were daughter of very wealthy parents, and have very severe against the manners and morals my whole life been used with a tenderness of gentlemen of that profession. It happened which did me no great service in my educaone of them brought two captains of his re- tion. I have perhaps an uncommon desire giment newly come into the army, who at the for knowledge of what is suitable to my sex first onset engaged the company with very and quality; but, as far as I can remember, lewd healths and suitable discourse. You the whole dispute about me has been, whether may easily imagine the confusion of the en- such a thing was proper for the child to do, or tertainer, who finding some of his friends not? or whet er such or such a food was the very uneasy, desired to tell them the story of more wholesome for the young lady to eat? a great man, one Mr. Locke, (whom I find This was ill for my shape, that for my comyou frequently mention) that be ng invited to plexion, and the other for my eyes. I am not dine with the then lords Halifax, Anglesey, extravagant when I tell you, I do not know and Shaftsbury, immediately after dinner, that I have trod upon the very earth ever since instead of conversation, the cards were called I was ten years old. A coach or chair I am for, where the bad or good success produced obliged to for all my motions from one place the usual passions of gaming. Mr. Locke, to another ever since I can remember. retiring to a window, and writing, my lord who had to do to instruct me, have ever been Anglesey desired to know what he was wri- bringing stories of the notable things I have ting: Why, my lords," answered he," I said, and the womanly manner of my behaving could not sleep last night for the pleasure and myself upon such and such an occasion. This improvement I expected from the conversa- has been my state until I came towards years tion of the greatest men of the age." This of womanhood and ever since I grew toso sensibly stung them, that they gladly com-wards the age of fifteen I have been abused pounded to throw their cards in the fire, if he after another manner. Now, forsooth, I am so would his paper, and so a conversation en- killing, no one can safely speak to me. sued fit for such persons. This story pressed house is frequented by men of sense, and I love so hard upon the young captains, together to ask questions when I fall into such converwith the concurrence of their superior of station; but I am cut short with something ficers, that the young fellows left the com-'or other about my bright eyes. There is, sir All Our MR. DAPPERWIT, F 'I am glad to get another line forward, by saying that excellent piece is Mr. Pope's; and so, with proper distances, 'I am, Sir, "Your humble servant, THE SPECTATOR." MR. SPECTATOR, a language particular for talking to women in; and none but those of the very first goodbreeding (who are very few, and who seldom come into my way) can speak to us without regard to our sex. Among the generality of those they call gentlemen, it is impossible for me to speak upon any subject whatsoever, without provoking somebody to say, "Oh! to be sure, fine Mrs Such-a-one must be very particularly acquainted with all that; all the world would contribute to her entertainment and informa- 'I was a wealthy grocer in the city, and as tion." Thus, sir, I am so handsome, that I fortunate as diligent; but I was a single man. One in parmurder all who approach me : so wise, that I and you know there are women. want no new notices; and so well-bred, that I ticular came to my shop, who I wished might, am treated by all that know me like a fool, for but was afraid never would, make a grocer's no one will answer as if I were their friend or wife. I thought, however, to take an effeccompanion. Pray, sir, be pleased to take the tual way of courting, and sold her at less price part of us beauties and fortunes into your conthan I bought, that I might buy at less price sideration, and do not let us be thus flattered than I sold. She, you may be sure, often out of our senses. I have got an huzzy of a came and helped me to many customers at maid who is most craftily given to this ill the same rate, fancying I was obliged to her. quality. I was at first diverted with a certain You must needs think this was a good living absurdity the creature was guilty of in every trade, and my riches must be vastly improved. thing she said. She is a country girl; and in In fine, I was nigh being declared bankrupt, the dialect of the shire she was born in, would when I declared myself her lover, and she tell me that every body reckoned her lady had herself married. I was just in a condition to the purest red and white in the world: then support myself, and am now in hopes of growshe would tell me I was the most like one Sisly ing rich by losing my customers. Dobson in their town, who made the miller make away with himself, and walk afterwards in the corn-field where they used to meet. With all this, this cunning huzzy can lay letters in my way, and put a billet in my gloves, 'I am in the condition of the idol you was and then stand in it she knows nothing of it. I once pleased to mention, and bar-keeper of a do not know, from my birth to this day, that I coffee-house. I believe it is needless to tell have been ever treated by any one as I ought; you the opportunities I must give, and the imand if it were not for a few books, which I de- portunities I suffer. But there is one gentlelight in, I should be at this hour a novice to all man who besieges me as close as the French common sense. Would it not be worth your did Bouchain. His gravity makes him work while to lay down rules for behaviour in this cautious, and his regular approaches denote case, and tell people, that we fair ones expect a good engineer. You need not doubt of his honest plain answers as well as other people? Why must I, good sir, because I have a good air, a fine complexion, and am in the bloom of my years, be misled; in all my actions; What then can weak woman do? I am and have the notions of good and ill confound- willing to surrender, but he would have it at ed in my mind, for no other offence, but be- discretion, and I with discretion. In the mean cause I have the advantages of beauty and for- time, whilst we parley, our several interests tune? Indeed, sir, what with the silly homage are neglected. As his siege grows stronger, which is paid to us by the sort of people I have my tea grows weaker; and while he pleads above spoken of, and the utter negligence at my bar, none come to him for counsel but inwhich others have for us, the conversation of us young women of condition is no other than what must expose us to ignorance and vanity, if not vice. All this is humbly submitted to your spectatorial wisdom, by Sir, 'Your humble servant, MR. SPECTATOR, Will's Coffee-house. 'Pray, sir, it will serve to fill up a paper if you put in this; which is only to ask, whether that copy of verses which is a pharaphrase of Isaiah, in one of your speculations, is not written by Mr. Pope? Then you get on another line, by putting in, with proper distances, as at the end of a letter, 'I am, Sir, 'Your humble servant, Yours, 'JEREMY COMFIT.' MR. SPECTATOR, oratory, as he is a lawyer; and especially since he has had so little use of it at Westminster, he may spare the more for me. formi pauperis. Dear Mr. Spectator, advise A Minute from Mr. John Sly. 'The world is pretty regular for about forty rod east and ten west of the observatory of the said Mr. Sly; but he is credibly informed. that when they are got beyond the pass into the Strand, or those who move city-ward are got within Temple-bar, they are just as they were before. It is therefore humbly proposed, that moving centries may be appointed all the overlook the goods of fortune which are near busy hours of the day between the Exchange them, for something that glitters in the sight and Westminster, and report what passes to at a distance; to neglect solid and substanyour honour, or your subordinate officers. tial happiness, for what is showy and superfrom time to time. My four hundred and seventy-first speculation turned upon the subject of hope in general. I design this paper as a speculation upon that vain and foolish hope, which is misemployed on temporal objects, and produces many sorrows and calamities in human life. ficial; and to contemn that good which lies within their reach, for that which they are not capable of attaining. Hope calculates its schemes for a long and durable life; presses forward to imaginary points of bliss; grasps at impossibilities; and consequently very often ensnares men into beggary, ruin, |and dishonour. Alnaschar, says the fable, was a very idle It is a precept several times inculcated by fellow, that never would set his hand to any Horace that we should not entertain a hope business during his father's life When his of any thing in life, which lies at a great dis- father died, he left him to the value of an tance from us. The shortness and uncertain- hundred drachmas in Persian money. Alnasty of our time here makes such a kind of char, in order to make the best of it, laid it hope unreasonable and absurd. The grave out in glasses, bottles, and the finest earthenlies unseen between us and the object which ware. These he piled up in a large open baswe reach after. Where one man lives to en-ket, and, having made choice of a very little joy the good he has in view, ten thousand are shop, placed the basket at his feet; and leaned cut off in the pursuit of it. his back upon the wall, in expectation of cus It happens likewise unluckily, that one hope tomers. As he sat in this posture, with his no sooner dies in us but another rises up in eyes upon the basket, he fell into a most amusits stead. We are apt to fancy that we shall ing train of thought, and was overheard by be happy and satisfied if we possess our-one of his neighbours, as he talked to himself selves of such and such particular enjoyments; in the following manner: This basket,' says but either by reason of their emptiness, or he, cost me at the wholesale merchant's an the natural inquietude of the mind, we have hundred drachmas, which is all I have in the no sooner gained one point, but we extend our world. I shall quickly make two hundred of hopes to another. We still find new inviting it, by selling it in retail. These two hundred scenes and landscapes lying behind those which drachmas will in a very little while rise to four at a distance terminated our view. hundred, which of course will amount in time The natural consequences of such reflec- to four thousand Four thousand drachmas tions are these; that we should take care not cannot fail of making eight thousand. As soon to let our hopes run out into too great a length; as by these means I am master of ten thouthat we should sufficiently weigh the objects sand, I will lay aside my trade of a glassman, of our hope, whether they be such as we may and turn jeweller. I shall then deal in diareasonably expect from them what we pro-monds, pearls, and all sorts of rich stones. pose in their fruition, and whether they are When I have got together as much wealth as such as we are pretty sure of attaining, in case I well can desire, I will make a purchase of our life extend itself so far. If we hope for the finest house I can find, with lands, slaves, things which are at too great a distance from us, it is possible that we may be intercepted by death in our progress towards them. If we hope for things which we have not thoroughly considered the value of, our disappointment will be greater than our pleasure in the fruition of them. If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is. eunuchs, and horses. I shall then begin to enjoy myself and make a noise in the world. I will not however stop there, but still continue my traffic, until I have got together a hundred thousand drachmas. When I have thus made myself master of a hundred thousand drachmas, I shall naturally set myself on the foot of a prince, and will demand the grand visier's daughter in marriage, after having represented Many of the miseries and misfortunes of to that minister the information which I have life proceed from our want of consideration, received of the beauty, wit, discretion, and in one or all of these particulars. They are other high qualities which his daughter posthe rocks on which the sanguine tribe of lovers sesses. I will let him know, at the same time, daily split, and on which the bankrupt, the that it is my intention to make him a present politician, the alchymist, and projector, are of a thousand pieces of gold on our marriage cast away in every age. Men of warm imagi- night. As soon as I have marrried the grand nations and towering thoughts are apt to visier's daughter, I will buy her ten black VOL. II. 37 |