men in the utmost degree below him; nor ever too obsequious from an habit of obeying men highly above him.

But that our society may not appear a set of humorists 5 unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having ever been very careful of his person and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but 10 very little impression either by wrinkles on his forehead or traces in his brain. His person is well turned, of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well and remembers habits as others do 15 men. He can smile when one speaks to him and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods, and whose vanity to show 20 her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a

year. In a word, all his conversation and knowledge has been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon such and such an occasion, he will tell you when the Duke 25 of Monmouth danced at court such a woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations he has ever about the same time received a kind glance or a blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother 30 of the present Lord Such-a-one. If you speak of a young commoner that said a lively thing in the House, he starts up: "He has good blood in his veins; that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to." This way of talking of his

very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man who is usually called a well-bred, fine gentleman. To conclude his character, where women 5 are not concerned, he is an honest, worthy man.

I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of as one of our company, for he visits us but seldom; but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very 10 philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is therefore 15 among divines what a chamber-counselor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind and the integrity of his life. create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in years that he observes, when 20 he is among us, an earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interests in this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordi- 25 nary companions. R.

III. MR. SPECTATOR AT HIS CLUB

[No. 34. Monday, April 9, 1711. ADDISON.]

Parcit

Cognatis maculis similis fera

Juv.

THE club of which I am a member is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed, as it were, out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind. By this means I am furnished 5 with the greatest variety of hints and materials, and know everything that passes in the different quarters and divisions, not only of this great city, but of the whole kingdom. My readers, too, have the satisfaction to find that there is no rank or degree among them who have not 10 their representative in this club, and that there is always somebody present who will take care of their respective interests, that nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringement of their just rights and privileges.

15

I last night sat very late in company with this select body of friends, who entertained me with several remarks which they and others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the various success which they had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. 20 Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest manner he could, that there were some ladies-"but for your comfort," says Will, they are not those of the most wit"-that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera and the puppet-show; that some of them were likewise 25 very much surprised that I should think such serious points

as the dress and equipage of persons of quality proper subjects for raillery.

He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up short, and told him that the papers he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their wives and 5 daughters were the better for them; and further added that the whole city thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of particular intrigues. "In 10 short," says Sir Andrew, "if you avoid that foolish beaten road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of general use."

Upon this my friend the Templar told Sir Andrew that 15 he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner; that the city had always been the province for satire; and that the wits of King Charles's time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign. He then showed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, 20 and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the stage and court had never been accounted too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons might be that patronized them. "But after all," says he, "I think your raillery has made too great an excursion in attacking 25 several persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can show me any precedent for your behavior in that particular."

My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said. nothing all this while, began his speech with a "Pish!" 30 and told us that he wondered to see so many men of sense so very serious upon fooleries. 'Let our good friend," says he, attack every one that deserves it; I would only advise you, Mr. Spectator "—applying himself

ΙΟ

to me "to take care how you meddle with country squires. They are the ornaments of the English nation, men of good heads and sound bodies, and, let me tell you, some of them take it ill of you that you mention fox5 hunters with so little respect."

Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this occasion. What he said was only to commend my prudence in not touching upon the army, and advised me to continue to act discreetly in that point.

By this time I found every subject of my speculations was taken away from me by one or other of the club, and began to think myself in the condition of the good man that had one wife who took a dislike to his gray hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each 15 of them had an aversion to, they left his head altogether bald and naked.

While I was thus musing with myself, my worthy friend the clergyman, who, very luckily for me, was at the club that night, undertook my cause. He told us that he won20 dered any order of persons should think themselves too considerable to be advised. That it was not quality, but innocence, which exempted men from reproof. That vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high 25 and conspicuous stations of life. He further added that my paper would only serve to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly exposed those who are already depressed, and in some measure turned into ridicule by the meanness of their conditions and circumstances. He after30 wards proceeded to take notice of the great use this paper might be of to the public by reprehending those vices which are too trivial for the chastisement of the law, and too fantastical for the cognizance of the pulpit. He then advised me to prosecute my undertaking with