In ven us fome caufe of complaint. We are defcended of ancient families, and kept up our dignity and honour many years, until the jack-fprat THAT fupplanted us. How often have we found ourselves flighted by the clergy in their pulpits, and the lawyers at the bar? Nay, how often have we heard in one of the most polite and auguft affemblies in the universe, to our great mortification, these words, That THAT that noble Lord urged; which if one of us had had juftice done, would have founded • nobler thus, That WHICH that noble Lord urged. • Senates themselves, the guardians of British liber" ty, have degraded us, and preferred THAT to us; and yet no decree was ever given against us. • the very acts of parliament, in which the utmost right fhould be done to every body, WORD, and thing, we find ourselves often either not used, or ufed one inftead of another. In the first and best < prayer children are taught, they learn to mifufe us: Our Father WHICH art in Heaven, fhould be, • Our Father WHO art in Heaven; and even a • CONVOCATION, after long debates, refused to confent to an alteration of it. In our general confef fion we fay-Spare thou them, O God, WHICH confefs their faults, which ought to be w HO con• fefs their faults. What hopes then have we of having juftice done us, when the makers of our very prayers and laws, and the most learned in all faculties, feem to be in a confederacy against us, ⚫ and our enemies themfelves must be our judges. The Spanish proverb fays, Il fabio muda confejo, • il necio no; i. e. A wife man changes his mind, a fool never will. So that we think you, Sir, a very proper person to addrefs to, fince we know you to be capable of being convinced, and changing your judgment. You are well able to fettle this affair, and to you we fubmit our caufe. We defire you to affign the butts and bounds of each of us; and G g 2 • that that for the future we may both enjoy our own. We would defire to be heard by our counsel, but ' that we fear in their very pleadings they would betray our cause befides, we have been oppreffed so many years, that we can appear no other way but in forma pauperis. All which confidered, we R hope you will be pleased to do that which to right and justice shall appertain. And your petitioners, &c.' No. 79. THURSDAY, MAY 31. I Oderunt peccare bani virtutis amore. HOR. Ep. xvi. l. 1. v. 52. The good, for virtue's fake, abhor to fin. CREECH. HAVE received very many letters of late from my female correfpondents, moft of whom are very angry with me for abridging their pleasures, and looking feverely upon things in themfelves indifferent. But I think they are extremely unjuft to me in this imputation: all that I contend for is, that those excellencies, which are to be regarded but in the fecond place, fhould not precede more weighty confiderations. The heart of man deceives him in fpite of the lectures of half a life spent in difcourfes on the fubjection of paflion; and I do not know why any one may not think the heart of woman as unfaithful to itfelf. If we grant an equality in the faculties of both fexes, the minds of women are lefs cultivated with precepts, and consequently may, without difrefpect to them, be accounted more liable to illufion in cafes wherein natural inclination is out of the interefts of virtue. I fhall take up my prefent time in commenting upon 353 a billet or two which came from ladies, and from thence leave the reader to judge whether I am in the right or not, in thinking it is poffible fine women may be mistaken. The following addrefs feems to have no other defign in it, but to tell me the writer will do what fhe pleafes for all me. Mr. SPECTATOR, I am young, and very much inclined to follow the paths of innocence; but, at the fame time, as I have a plentiful fortune, and am of quality, I am unwilling to refign the pleafures of diftinction, fome little fatisfaction in being admired in • general, and much greater in being beloved by a Gentleman, whom I defign to make my husband. • But I have a mind to put off entering into matrimony until another winter is over my head, which, (whatever, Mufty Sir, you may think of the matter), I defign to pafs away in hearing mufic, going to plays, vifiting, and all other fatisfactions which fortune and youth, protected by innocence and virtue, can procure for, SIR, your moft humble fervant, • My lover does not know I like him; therefore, having no engagements upon me, I think to ftay • and know whether I may not like any one else • better." I have heard WILL HONEYCOMB fay, A woman feldom writes her mind but in her poftfcript. I think this Gentlewoman has fufficiently difcovered hers in this. I will lay what wager fhe pleases against her prefent favourite, and can tell her, that fhe will like ven more before fhe is fixed, and then will take the worst man fhe ever liked in her life. 'There is no end of affection taken in at the eyes only; and you may as well fatisfy thofe eyes with feeing, as conGg 3 troli . trol any paffion received by them only. It is from loving by fight that coxcombs fo frequently fucceed with women, and very often a young lady is beftowed by her parents to a man who weds her as innocence itself, though fhe has, in her own heart, given her approbation of a different man in every affembly fhe was in the whole year before. What is wanting among women, as well as among men, is the love of laudable things, and not to rest only in the forbearance of fuch as are reproachful. How far removed from a woman of this light imagination is Eudofia! Eudofia has all the arts of life and good-breeding with fo much ease, that the vir tue of her conduct looks more like an instinct than choice. It is as little difficult to her to think juftly of perfons and things, as it is to a woman of different accomplishments, to move ill or look awkward. That which was, at first, the effect of inftruction, is grown into an habit; and it would be as hard for Eudofia to indulge a wrong fuggeftion of thought, as it would be for Flavia the fine dancer to come into a room with an unbecoming air. But the misapprehenfions people themselves have of their own ftate of mind, is laid down with much discerning in the following letter, which is but an extract of a kind epiftle from my charming mistress Hecatiffa, who is above the vanity of external beauty, and is the better judge of the perfections of the mind. • Mr. SPECTATOR, I write this to acquaint you, that very many Ladies, as well as myfelf, fpend many hours more than we used at the glass, for want of the female library of which you promised us a catalogue. I hope, Sir, in the choice of authors for us, you will have a particular regard to books of devotion. What they are, and how many, must be your chief care; for upon the propriety of • fuch fuch writings depends a great deal. I have known thofe among us who think, if they every morning and evening spend an hour in their clofet, and read over so many prayers in fix or seven books • of devotion, all equally nonfenfical, with a fort of warmth, (that might as well be raised by a glass of wine, or a dram of citron), they may all the rest of their time go on in whatever their particular paffion leads them to. The beauteous Philautia, who is (in your language) an Idol, is • one of these votaries; the has a very pretty furnifhed closet, to which fhe retires at her appointed hours: this is her dreffing-room, as well as chapel; she has conftantly before her a large looking-glafs, and upon the table, according to a very ⚫ witty author, Together lie her prayer-book and paint, At once t' improve the finner and the faint. It must be a good scene, if one could be prefent at it, to fee this Idol by turns lift up her eyes to heaven, and fteal glances at her own dear perfon. It cannot but be a pleafing conflict between • vanity and humiliation. When you are upon this fubject, chufe books which elevate the mind above the world, and give a pleafing indifference to little things in it. For want of fuch inftructions, I am apt to believe fo many people take it • in their heads to be fullen, crofs and angry, under pretence of being abftracted from the affairs of this life, when at the fame time they betray their fondness for them by doing their duty as a task, and pouting and reading good books for a week together. Much of this I take to proceed from the indifcretion of the books themselves, whofe very titles of Weekly Preparations, and fuch limited godlinefs, lead people of ordinary capacities into great errors, and raife in them a mechanical religion, entirely diftinct from morality. I ⚫ know |