[No. 448. are to make us happy in the next. The seeds of those spiritual joys and raptures which are to rise up and flourish in the sou to all eternity, must be planted in her dur ing this her present state of probation. In short, heaven is not to be looked upon only as the reward, but as the natural effect of a religious life. who, by long custom, have contracted in On the other hand, those evil spirits, the body habits of lust and sensuality, malice and revenge, and aversion to every thing that is good, just, or laudable, are naturally seasoned and prepared for pain and misery. Their torments have already taken root in them; they cannot be happy when divested of the body, unless we may suppose, that Providence will in a manner create them anew, and work a miracle in the rectification of their faculties. They may, indeed, taste a kind of malignant accustomed, whilst in this life; but when pleasure in those actions to which they are they are removed from all those objects which are here apt to gratify them, they will naturally become their own tormentors, and cherish in themselves those painful habits of mind which are called, in scrip ture phrase, the worm which never dies This notion of heaven and hell is so very conformable to the light of nature, that it was discovered by several of the most exalted heathens. It has been finely improved by many eminent divines of the last age, as Dr. Sherlock: but there is none who has in particular by archbishop Tillotson and raised such noble speculations upon it as Dr. Scot, in the first book of his Christian Life, which is one of the finest and most rational schemes of divinity that is written in our tongue, or in any other. That excellent author has shown how every particular custom and habit of virtue will, in its own nature, produce the heaven, or a state of tise it: as on the contrary, how every cas happiness, in him who shall hereafter practom or habit of vice will be the natural hell of him in whom it subsists. No. 448.] Monday, August 4, 1712. Fedius hoc aliquid quandoque andebis Jun. Sat. ii. 8 In time to greater baseness you'll proceed. THE first steps towards ill are very careThe last use which I shall make of this on when they are once entered, and do not fully to be avoided, for men insensibly go remarkable property in human nature, of keep up a lively abhorrence of the least being delighted with those actions to which unworthiness. There is a certain frivolous it is accustomed, is to show how absolutely falsehood that people indulge themselves necessary it is for us to gain habits of virtue in, which ought to be had in greater detestain this life, if we would enjoy the pleasures tion than it commonly meets with. What of the next. The state of bliss we call hea- I mean is a neglect of promises made en ven will not be capable of affecting those small and indifferent occasions, such as minds which are not thus qualified for it; we must, in this world, gain a relish of truth and virtue, if we would be able to taste that knowledge and perfection, which parties of pleasure, entertainments, and on. I have heretofore discoursed of the insignificant liar, the boaster, and the castlebuilder, and treated them as no ill-designing men (though they are to be placed among the frivolous false ones,) but persons who fall into that way purely to recommend themselves by their vivacities; but indeed I cannot let heedless promisers, though in the most minute circumstances, pass with so slight a censure. If a man should take a resolution to pay only sums above a hundred pounds, and yet contract with different people debts of five and ten, how long can we suppose he will keep his credit? This man will as long support his good name in business, as he will in conversation, who without difficulty makes assignations which he is indifferent whether he keeps or not. I am the more severe upon this vice, because I have been so unfortunate as to be a very great criminal myself. Sir Andrew Freeport, and all my other friends who are scrupulous to promises of the meanest con may assign this light infidelity. Jack Sippet | great, that they subsist by still promising never keeps the hour he has appointed to come to a friend's to dinner; but he is an insignificant fellow, who does it out of vanity. He could never, he knows, make any figure in company, but by giving a little disturbance at his entry, and therefore takes care to drop in when he thinks you are just seated. He takes his place after having discomposed every body, and desires there may be no ceremony; then does he begin to call himself the saddest fellow, in disappointing so many places as he was invited to elsewhere. It is the fop's vanity to name houses of better cheer, and to acquaint you that he chose yours out of ten dinners which he was obliged to be at that day. The last time I had the fortune to eat with him, he was imagining how very fat he should have been had he eaten all he had ever been invited to. But it is impertinent to dwell upon the manners of such a wretch as obliges all whom he disappoints, though his circumstances constrain them to be civil to him. But there are those that every one would be glad to see, who fall into the same de-sideration imaginable, from a habit of virtestable habit. It is a merciless thing that any one can be at ease, and suppose a set of people who have a kindness for him, at that moment waiting out of respect to him, and refusing to taste their food or conversation, with the utmost impatience. One of these promisers sometimes shall make his excuses for not coming at all, so late that half the company have only to lament, that they have neglected matters of moment to meet him whom they find a trifler. They immediately repent of the value they had for him; and such treatment repeated, makes company never depend upon his promises any more; so that he often comes at the middle of a meal, where he is secretly slighted by the persons with whom he eats, and cursed by the servants, whose dinner is delayed by his prolonging their master's entertainment. It is wonderful that men guilty this way could never have observed, that the whiling time, and gathering together, and waiting a little before dinner, is the most awkwardly passed away of any part in the four-and-twenty hours. If they did think at all, they would reflect upon their guilt, in lengthening such a suspension of agreeable life. The constant offending this way has, in a degree, an effect upon the honesty of his mind who is guilty of it, as common swearing is a kind of habitual perjury: it makes the soul unattentive to what an oath is, even while it utters it at the lips. Phocion beholding a wordy orator, while he was making a magnificent speech to the people, full of vain promises; Methinks,' said he, 'I am now fixing my eyes upon a cypress tree; it has all the pomp and beauty imaginable in its branches, leaves, and height: but alas! it bears no fruit.' Though the expectation which is raised by impertinent promises is thus barren, their confidence, even after failures, is so tue that way, have often upbraided me with it. I take shame upon myself for this crime, and more particularly for the greatest I ever committed of the sort, that when as agreeable a company of gentlemen and ladies as ever were got together, and I forsooth, Mr. Spectator, to be of the party with women of merit, like a booby as I was, mistook the time of meeting, and came the night following. I wish every fool who is negligent in this kind, may have as great a loss as I had in this; for the same company will never meet more, but are dispersed into various parts of the world, and I am left under the compunction that I deserve, in so many different places to be called a trifler. This fault is sometimes to be accounted for, when desirable people are fearful of appearing precise and reserved by denials; but they will find the apprehension of that imputation will betray them into a childish impotence of mind, and make them promise all who are so kind to ask it of them. This leads such soft creatures into the misfortune of seeming to return overtures of good-will with ingratitude. The first steps in the breach of a man's integrity are much more important than men are aware of. The man who scruples not breaking his word in little things, would not suffer in his own conscience so great pain for failures of consequence, as he who thinks every little offence against truth and justice a disparagement. We should not make any thing we ourselves disapprove habitual to us, if we would be sure of our integrity. I remember a falsehood of the trivial sort, though not in relation to assignations, that exposed a man to a very uneasy adventure. Will Trap and Jack Stint were chamber-fellows in the Inner-Temple about twenty-five years ago. They one night sat ings many descriptions given of ill persons, and not any direct encomium made of those who are good. When I was convinced of this error, I could not but immediately call quaintance, whose characters deserve to be transmitted to posterity in writings which will long outlive mine. But I do not think that a reason why I should not give them their place in my diurnal as long as it will last. For the service thereof of my female readers, I shall single out some characters of maids, wives, and widows which deserve the imitation of the sex. She who shall reines shall be the amiable Fidelia. in the pit together at a comedy, where they both observed and liked the same young woman in the boxes. Their kindness for her entered both hearts deeper than they imagined. Stint had a good faculty in writ-to mind several of the fair sex of my acing letters of love, and made his address privately that way; while Trap proceeded in the ordinary course, by money and her waiting-maid. ` The lady gave them both encouragement, received Trap into the utmost favour, answering at the same time Stint's letters, and giving him appointments at third places. Trap began to suspect the epistolary correspondence of his friend, and discovered also that Stint opened all his let-lead this small illustrious number of beters which came to their common lodgings, in order to form his own assignations. After Before I enter upon the particular parts much anxiety and restlessness, Trap came of her character, it is necessary to preface, to a resolution, which he thought would that she is the only child of a decrepid break off their commerce with one another father, whose life is bound up in hers. This without any hazardous explanation. He gentleman has used Fidelia from her crade therefore writ a letter in a feigned hand to with all the tenderness imaginable, and has Mr. Trap at his chambers in the Temple.viewed her growing perfections with the Stint, according to custom, seized and opened it, and was not a little surprised to find the inside directed to himself, when, with great perturbation of spirit, he read as follows: partiality of a parent, that soon thought her accomplished above the children of th other men, but never thought she was come to the utmost improvement of which she herself was capable. This fondness has had MR. STINT,-You have gained a slight very happy effects upon his own happiness; satisfaction at the expense of doing a very for she reads, she dances, she sings, uses heinous crime. At the price of a faithful her spinet and lute to the utmost perfection; friend you have obtained an inconstant mis- and the lady's use of all these excellences tress. I rejoice in this expedient I have is to divert the old man in his easy chair, thought of to break my mind to you, and when he is out of the pangs of a chronical tell you, you are a base fellow, by a means distemper. Fidelia is now in the twentywhich does not expose you to the affront third year of her age; but the application except you deserve it. I know, sir, as of many lovers, her vigorous time of hite, criminal as you are, you have still shame her quick sense of all that is truly gallant enough to avenge yourself against the hardi- and elegant in the enjoyment of a plentiful ness of any one that should publicly tell fortune, are not able to draw her from the you of it. I therefore, who have received side of her good old father. Certain it is so many secret hurts from you, shall take that there is no kind of affection so pure satisfaction with safety to myself. I call and angelic as that of a father to a daughter. you base, and you must bear it, or acknow- He beholds her both with and without reledge it; I triumph over you that you can-gard to her sex. In love to our wives there not come at me; nor do I think it dishonourable to come in armour to assault him, who was in ambuscade when he wounded me. is desire, to our sons there is ambition; but in that to our daughters, there is something which there are no words to express. Her life is designed wholly domestic, and she is 'What need more be said to convince so ready a friend and companion, that every you of being guilty of the basest practice thing that passes about a man is accom imaginable, than that it is such as has made panied with the idea of her presence. Her you liable to be treated after this manner, sex also is naturally so much exposed to while you yourself cannot in your own con-hazard, both as to fortune and innocence, science but allow the justice of the upbraidings of your injured friend, T. 'RALPH TRAP.' No. 449.] Tuesday, August 5, 1712 that there is perhaps a new cause of fondness arising from that consideration also None but fathers can have a true sense of these sort of pleasures and sensations; but my familiarity with the father of Fidelia, makes me let drop the words which I have heard him speak, and observe upon his tenderness towards her. Mart. iii. 68. Fidelia, on her part, as I was going to say, A book the chastest matron may peruse. as accomplished as she is, with her beauty WHEN I reflect upon my labours for the wit, air, and mien, employs her whole public, I cannot but observe, that part of time in care and attendance upon her fathe species, of which I profess myself a ther. How have I been charmed to see cie friend and guardian, is sometimes treated of the most beautiful women the age has with severity; that is, there are in my writ-produced, on her knees, helping on an old astonished to hear that, in those intervals when the old gentleman is at ease, and can bear company, there are at his house, in the most regular order, assemblies of peo conversation without mention of the faults of the absent, benevolence between men and women without passion, and the highest subjects of morality treated of as natural and accidental discourse; all which is owing to the genius of Fidelia; who at once makes her father's way to another world easy, and herself capable of being an honour to his name in this. man's slipper! Her filial regard to him is what she makes her diversion, her business, and her glory. When she was asked by a friend of her deceased mother to admit of the courtship of her son, she answer-ple of the highest merit; where there is ed that she had a great respect and gratitude to her for the overture in behalf of one so dear to her, but that during her father's life she would admit into her heart no value for any thing that should interfere with her endeavour to make his remains of life as happy and easy as could be expected in his circumstances. The lady admonished her of the prime of life with a smile; which Fidelia answered with a frankness that al'MR. SPECTATOR,-I was the other day ways attends unfeigned virtue: 'It is true, at the Bear-garden, in hopes to have seen madam, there are to be sure very great your short face: but not being so fortunate, satisfactions to be expected in the com- I must tell you, by way of letter, that there merce of a man of honour whom one tender-is a mystery among the gladiators which ly loves; but I find so much satisfaction, in the reflection, how much I mitigate a good man's pains, whose welfare depends upon my assiduity about him, that I willingly exclude the loose gratifications of passion for the solid reflections of duty. I know not whether any man's wife would be allowed, and (what I still more fear) I know not whether I, a wife, should be willing to be so officious as I am at present about my parent.' The happy father has her declaration that she will not marry during his life, and the pleasure of seeing that resolution not uneasy to her. Were one to paint filial affection in its utmost beauty, he could not have a more lively idea of it than in beholding Fidelia serving her father at his hours of rising, meals, and rest. When the general crowd of female youth are consulting their glasses, preparing for balls, assemblies, or plays; for a young has escaped your spectatorial penetration. T. lady, who could be regarded among the No. 450.] Wednesday, August 6, 1712. foremost in those places, either for her person, wit, fortune, or conversation, and yet contemn all these entertainments, to sweeten the heavy hours of a decrepid parent, is a resignation truly heroic. Fidelia performs the duty of a nurse with all the beauty of a bride; nor does she neglect her person, because of her attendance on him, when he is too ill to receive company, to whom she may make an appearance. -Quærenda pecunia primum, Hor. Ep. i. Lib. 1. 53. -Get money, money still; And then let virtue follow, if she will.-Pope. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-All men through different paths, make at the same common thing, money: and it is to her we owe the politician, the merchant, and the lawyer; nay, to be free with you, I believe to that also we are beholden for our Spectator. I Fidelia, who gives him up her youth, am apt to think, that could we look into does not think it any great sacrifice to add our own hearts, we should see money ento it the spoiling of her dress. Her care graved in them in more lively and moving and exactness in her habit convince her fa- characters than self-preservation; for who ther of the alacrity of her mind; and she can reflect upon the merchant hoisting sail has of all women the best foundation for in a doubtful pursuit of her, and all manaffecting the praise of a seeming negligence. kind sacrificing their quiet to her, but must What adds to the entertainment of the perceive that the characters of self-presergood old man is, that Fidelia, where merit vation (which were doubtless originally the and fortune cannot be overlooked by episto- brightest) are sullied, if not wholly defaced; lary lovers, reads over the accounts of her and that those of money (which at first conquests, plays on her spinet the gayest was only valuable as a mean to security) airs (and while she is doing so you would are of late so brightened, that the characthink her formed only for gallantry) to in-ters of self-preservation, like a less light timate to him the pleasures she despises for his sake. Those who think themselves the pattern of good-breeding and gallantry would be set by a greater, are become almost imperceptible? Thus has money got the upperhand of what all mankind formerly thought most dear, viz. security: and I wish I could men do their wives and children, and there- having been no great expense to me, the say she had here put a stop to her victories; but, alas! common honesty fell a sacrifice to her. This is the way scholastic men talk of the greatest good in the world: but I, a tradesman, shall give you another account of this matter in the plain narra-reflecting how that she and her children tive of my own life. I think it proper, in the first place, to acquaint my readers, that since my setting out in the world, which was in the year 1660, I never wanted money, having begun with an indifferent good stock in the tobacco-trade, to which I was bred; and by the continual successes it has pleased Providence to bless my endeavours with, I am at last arrived at what they call a plum. To uphold my discourse in the manner of your wits or philosophers, by speaking fine things, or drawing inferences, as they pretend, from the nature of the subject, I account it vain; having never! found any thing in the writings of such men, that did not savour more of the invention of the brain, or what is styled speculation, than of sound judgment or profitable observation. I will readily grant indeed, that there is what the wits call natural in their talk; which is the utmost those curicus authors can assume to themselves, and is indeed all they endeavour at, for they are but lamentable teachers. And what, I pray, is natural? That which is pleasing and easy, -And what are pleasing and easy? Forsooth, a new thought, or conceit dressed up in smooth quaint language, to make you smile and wag your head, as being what you never imagined before, and yet wonder why you had not; mere frothy amusements, fit only for boys or silly women to be caught with. "The following year happened the fire: at which time, by good providence, it was my fortune to have converted the greatest part of my effects into ready money, on the prospect of an extraordinary advantage which I was preparing to lay hold on. This calamity was very terrible and astonishing, the fury of the flames being such, that whole streets, at several distant places were destroyed at one and the same time, so that (as it is well known) almost all our citizens were burnt out of what they had. It is not my present intention to instruct But what did I then do? I did not stand my readers in the method of acquiring gazing on the ruins of our noble metropoist riches; that may be the work of another I did not shake my head, wring my hands, essay; but to exhibit the real and solid ad- sigh and shed tears; I considered with myvantages I have found by them in my long self what could this avail; I fell a piodding and manifold experience; nor vet all the ad- what advantages might be made of the vantages of so worthy and valuable a bless-ready cash I had; and immediately being, (for who does not know or imagine the comforts of being warm or living at ease, and that power and pre-eminence are their inseparable attendants?) but only to instance the great supports they afford us under the severest calamities and misfortune; to show that the love of them is a special antidote against immorality and vice; and that the same does likewise naturally dispose men to actions of piety and devotion. All which I can make out by my own experience, who think myself no ways particular from the rest of mankind, nor better nor worse; by nature than generally other men are. | thought myself that wonderful pennyworths might be bought of the goods that were saved cut of the fire. In short, with about 20004 and a little credit, I bought as much tobacco as raised my estate to the value of 10,000/, I then “locked on the ashes of our city, and the misery of its late inhabitants, as an effect of the just wrath and indignatien of heaven towards a sinful and perverse people.' After this I married again; and that wife dying, I took another; but both proved to be idle baggages: the first gave me a great deal of plague and vexation by leer In the year 1665, when the sickness extravagances, and I became one of the was, I lost by it my wife and two children, by-words of the city. I knew it would be to which were all my stock. Probably I might no manner of purpose to go about to curb have had more, considering I was married the fancies and inclinations of women, which between four and five years; but finding her fly out the more for being restrained; but to be a teeming woman, I was careful, as what I could I did; I watched her narhaving then little above a brace of thou- rowly, and by good luck found her in the sand pounds to carry on my trade and main-embraces (for which I had two witnesses tain a family with. I loved them as usually with me) of a wealthy spark of the court |