not creep with the air of a ftrut. I must add to all this, that if it were not for one pleasure, which I thought a very mean one until of very late years, I 'fhould have no one great fatisfaction left; but if I live to the 10th of March, 1714, and all my fecurities are good, I fhall be worth fifty thousand pound. I am, SIR, Mr. SPECTATOR, YOU Your most bumble fervant, Jack Afterday. OU will infinitely oblige a diftreffed lover, if you will infert in your very next paper, the following letter to my miftrefs. You must know, I am not a perfon apt to defpair, but fhe has got an odd humour of ftopping fhort unaccountably, and, as 'fhe herfelf told a confident of hers, fhe has cold fits. • Thefe fits fhall laft her a month or fix weeks together; and as fhe falls into them without provocation, fo it is to be hoped fhe will return from them without the merit of new fervices. But life and love will not admit of fuch intervals, therefore pray let her be ad'monished as follows. Madam, I Love you, and I honour you: therefore pray do not tell me of waiting until decencies, until 'forms, until humours are confulted and gratified. If you have that happy constitution as to be indolent for ten weeks together, you should confider that all that while I burn in impatiences and fevers; but ftill you fay it will be time enough, though I and you too grow older while we are yet talking. Which do you think the more reasonable, that you fhould alter a ftate of indifference for happiness, and that to oblige me, or I live in torment, and that to lay no manner of C obligation upon you? While I indulge your infenfibility I am doing nothing; if you favour my paffion, you are beftowing bright defires, gay hopes, generous cares, noble refolutions, and tranfporting raptures upon, Madam, Your most devoted humble fervant. Mr. SPECTATOR, H LIERE is a gentlewoman lodges in the fame houfe with me, that I never did any injury to in my whole life; and the is always railing at me to 'thofe that the knows will tell me of it. Do not you 'think he is in Love with me? or would you have me 'break my mind yet or not? Your fervant, T. B. Mr. SPECTATOR, I Am a footman in a great family, and am in love with the house-maid. We were all at hot cockles laft night in the hall these holidays; when I lay down ' and was blinded, fhe pulled off her fhoe, and hit me ' with the heel fuch a rap, as almost broke my head to pieces. Pray, Sir, was this love or spite? T * N° 261 Saturday, December 29. Frag. vet. Poet. Γάμο γὰρ ἀνθρώποισιν ἐυκλαῖον κακόν. M Y father, whom I mentioned in my firft fpeculation, and whom I must always name with honour and gratitude, has very frequently talked to me upon the fubject of marriage. I was in my younger years engaged, partly by his advice, and partly by my own inclinations, in the courtship of a perfon who had a great deal of beauty, and did not at my first approaches feem to have any averfion to me; but as my natural taciturnity hindered me from fhewing myfelf to the best advantage, fhe by degrees began to look upon me as a very filly fellow, and being refolved to regard merit more than any thing else in the perfons w made their applications to her, fhe married a capt.... of of dragoons who happened to be beating up for recruits in those parts. This unlucky accident has given me an averfion to, pretty fellows ever fince, and difcouraged me from trying my fortune with the Fair-fex. The obfervations which I made in this conjuncture, and the repeated advices which I received at that time from the good old man above-mentioned, have produced the following ellay upon Love and marriage. The pleasanteft part of a man's life is generally that which paffes in courtship, provided his paffion be fincere, and the party beloved kind with difcretion. Love, defire, hope, all the pleafing motions of the foul rife in the purfuit. It is easier for an artful man who is not in Love, to perfuade his miftrefs he has a paffion for her, and to fucceed in his pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest violence. True Love has ten thousand griefs, impatiences and refentments, that render a man unamiable in the eyes of the perfon whofe affection he folicits; befides, that it finks his figure, gives him fears, apprehenfions, and poornefs of spirit, and often makes him appear ridiculous where he has a mind to recommend himself. Thofe marriages generally abound moft with Love and conftancy, that are preceded. by a long courtship. The paffion fhould ftrike root, and gather ftrength before marriage be grafted on it. A long courfe of hopes and expectations fixes the idea in our minds, and habituates us to a fondness of the perfon beloved. I There is nothing of fo great importance to us, as the good qualities of one to whom we join ourfelves for life; they do not only make our prefent ftate agreeable, but often determine our happiness to all eternity. Where the choice is left to friends, the chief point under confideration is an eftate; where the parties choofe for themfelves, their thoughts turn moft upon the pert fon. They have both their reafons. The first would procure many conveniences and pleasures of life to the party whofe interests they efpoufe; and at the fame time may hope that the wealth of their friend will turn to their own credit and advantage. The others are preparing paring for themselves a perpetual feaft. A good perfon does not only raife, but continue love, and breeds a fecret pleafure and complacency in the beholder, when the first heats of defire are extinguished. It puts the wife or husband in countenance both among friends and ftrangers, and generally fills the family with a healthy and beautiful race of children. I fhould prefer a woman that is agreeable in my own eye, and not deformed in that of the world, to a celebrated beauty. If you marry one remarkably beautiful, you must have a violent paffion for her, or you have not the proper tafte of her charms; and if you have fuch a paffion for her, it is odds but it would be imbittered with fears and jealoufies. Good-nature and evennefs of temper will give you an eafy companion for life; virtue and good fenfe, an agreeable friend; love and conftancy, a good wife or hulband. Where we meet one perfon with all these accomplishments, we find an hundred without any one of them. The world, notwithstanding, is more intent on trains and equipages, and all the showy parts of life; we love rather to dazzle the multitude, than confult our proper interefts; and, as I have elsewhere obferved, it is one of the most unaccountable paffions of human nature, that we are at greater pains to appear eafy and happy to others, than really to make ourfelves fo. Of all difparities, that in humour makes the most unhappy marriages, yet scarce enters into our thoughts at the contrac ting of them. Several that are in this refpect unequally yoked, and uneafy for life, with a person of a particular character, might have been pleafed and happy with a perfon of a contrary one, notwithstanding they are both perhaps equally virtuous and laudable in their kind. Before marriage we cannot be too inquifitive and difcerning in the faults of the perfon beloved, nor after it too dim-fighted and fuperficial. However perfect and accomplished the perfon appears to you at a distance, you will find many blemishes and imperfections in her humour, upon a more intimate acquaintance, which you never difcovered or perhaps fufpected. Here therefore difcretion and good-nature are to fhew their trength; the first will hinder your thoughts from dwelling 1 N° 262 dwelling on what is difagreeable, the other will raife in you all the tenderness of compaffion and humanity, and by degrees foften thofe very imperfections into beauties. Marriage enlarges the fcene of our happinefs and miferies. A marriage of love is pleasant; a marriage of intereft eafy; and a marriage, where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of fenfe and reafon, and indeed, all the fweets of life. Nothing is a greater mark of a degenerate and vicious age, than the common ridicule which paffes on this ftate of life. It is, indeed, only happy in thofe who can look down with fcorn or neglect on the impieties of the times, and tread the paths of life together in a conftant uniform course of virtue. N° 262 Monday, December 31. Nulla venenato littera mifta joco eft. Ovid. Trift. 1. 2. ver. 566. Satirical reflexions I avoid. Think myself highly obliged to the publick for their kind acceptance of a paper which vifits them every morning, and has in it none of those seasonings that recommend fo many of the writings which are in vogue among us. As on the one fide, my paper has not in it a fingle word of news, a reflexion in politicks, nor a stroke of party; fo on the other, there are no fashionable touches of infidelity, no obfcene ideas, no fatires upon priesthood, marriage, and the like popular topicks of ridicule; no private fcandal, nor any thing that may tend to the defamation of particular perfons, families, or focieties. There is not one of thofe abovementioned fubjects that would not fell a very indifferent paper, could I think of gratifying the publick by fuch mean and base methods. |