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Among other inftances of this nature, I must not omit one which concerns myself. Will Wimble was the other day relating several strange ftories that he had picked up no body knows where, of a certain great man; and upon my ftaring at him, as one that was furprised to hear fuch things in the country, which had never been fo much as whispered in the town, Will stopped thort in the thread of his difcourse, and after dinner asked my friend Sir ROGER in his ear, if he was fure that I was not a fanatic.

It gives me a ferious concern to fee' such a spirit of diffention in the country; not only as it deftroys virtue and common fenfe, and renders us in a manner barbarians towards one another, but as it perpetuates our animofities, widens our breaches, and tranfmits our present paffions and prejudices to our pofterity. For my own part, I am fometimes afraid that I difcover the feeds of a civil war in thefe our divifions; and therefore cannot but bewail, as in their first principles, the miferies and calamities of our children.

C

No. 127.

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THURSDAY, JULY 26.

Quantum eft in rebus inane ?

PERS. Sat. i. ver. 1.

I

How much of emptinefs we find in things!

T is our custom at Sir ROGER'S, upon the coming in of the poft, to fit about a pot of coffee, and hear the old Knight read Dyer's letter; which he does with his fpectacles upon his nofe, and in an audible voice, finiling very often at thofe little ftrokes of fatire, which are fo frequent in the writings of that author; I afterwards communicate to the Knight fuch packets as I receive under the quality of SPECTATOR. The following letter chanc

ing to please him more than ordinary, I shall pub-, lith it at his request.

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Mr SPECTATOR,

'You have diverted the town almoft a whole, month at the expence of the country, it is ' now high time that you fhould give the country, 'their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair fex are run into great extravagan'cies. Their petticoats, which began to heave and 'fwell before you left us, are now blown up into a moft enormous concave, and rife every day more and more: In fhort, Sir, fince our women 'know themselves to be out of the eye of the SPECTATOR, they will be kept within no com'pafs. You praised them a little too foon for the modefty of their head-dreffes; for, as the hu mour of a fick perfon is often driven out of one limb into another, their fuperfluity of ornaments, inftead of being entirely banifhed, feems only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts. 'What they have loft in height they make up in < breadth, and, contrary to all rules of architecture, widen the foundations at the fame time that they fhorten the fuperftructure. Were they like Spanish jennets, to impregnate by the wind, they could not have thought on a more proper ❝ invention. But as we do not yet hear any parti'cular ufe in this petticoat, or that it contains any

thing more than what was fuppofed to be in those of fcantier make, we are wonderfully at a lofs ' about it.

'The women give out, in defence of these wide 'bottoms, that they are airy, and very proper for the feafon; but this I look upon to be only a pretence, and a piece of art, for it is well known we have not had a more moderate fummer these many years, so that it is certain the heat they com plain of cannot be in the weather: Besides, I R 2

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'would fain afk thefe tender-conftitutioned ladies, why they fhould require more cooling than their 'mothers before them?

'I find several speculative perfons are of opinion that our fex has of late years been very faucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a woIman's honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst 'fuch a variety of out-works and lines of circumvallation. A female who is thus invefted in whalebone is fufficiently fecured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etherege's way of making love in a tub, as in the midft of fo many hoops.

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Among thefe various conjectures, there are men ' of fuperftitious tempers, who look upon the hoop'petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have it that it portends the downfal of the French King, and obferve that the farthingale appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion that it fortels battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the fame prognoftication as the tail of a blazing ftar. For my part, I am apt to think it is a fign that multitudes are coming into the world rather than go ing out of it.

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The first time I faw a lady dreffed in one of 'these petticoats, I could not forbear blaming her in my own thoughts for walking abroad when she was f near her time, but foon recovered myself out of my error, when I found all the modifh part of the fex as far gone as herfelf. It is generally thought fome crafty women have thus betrayed their companions into hoops, that they might make them acceffory to their own concealments, and by that means escape the cenfure of the world; as wary generals have fometimes 'dressed two or three dozen of their friends in

'their own habit, that they might not draw upon f themselves any particular attacks from the enemy, The ftrutting petticoat fmooths all diftinctions, ' levels the mother with the daughter, and fets 'maids and matrons, wives and widows upon the 'fame bottom. In the mean while, I cannot but 'be troubled to fee fo many well-fhapped innocent virgins bloated up, and waddling up and down like big-bellied women.

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Should this fashion get among the ordinary people, our publick ways would be fo crouded that we fhould want ftreet-room. Several con gregations of the best fafhion find themselves al'ready very much ftraitned, and if the mode in· crease, I wish it may not drive many ordinary women into meetings and conventicles. Should our 'fex at the fame time take it into their heads to ' wear trunk-breeches (as who knows what their 'indignation at this female-treatment may drive 'them to?) a man and his wife would fill a whole pew.

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You know, Sir, it is recorded of Alexander 'the Great, that in his Indian expedition he buried feveral fuits of armour, which, by his direction, were made much too big for any of his foldiers, in order to give pofterity an extraordinary idea ' of him, and make them believe he had command. ed an army of giants. I am perfuaded that if ⚫ one of the prefent petticoats happens to be hung up in any repofitory of curiofities, it will lead into the fame error the generations that lie fome removes from us; unless we can believe our posterity will think fo difrefpectfully of their great¢ grandmothers, that they made themselves monftrous to appear amiable.

'When I furvey this new-fashioned rotundo in all its parts, cannot but think of the old philofopher, who, after having entered into an Egyp-. tian temple, and looked about for the idol of the

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place, at length discovered a little black monkey enthrined in the midft of it, upon which he could not forbear crying out, (to the great scandal of the worthippers) What a magnificent palace is here for fuch a ridiculous inhabitant!

Though you have taken a refolution, in one of your papers, to avoid defcending to particularities ' of drefs, I believe you will not think it below you, on fo extraordinary an occafion, to unhocp the fair fex, and cure this fafhionable tympany that is got among them. I am apt to think the petticoat will fhrink of its own accord at your first i coming to town; at least a touch of your pen 'will make it contract itself, like the fenfitive plant, and by that means oblige feveral who are either terrified or aftonished at this portentous novelty, { and among the reft,

C

Your humbly fervant, &c.'

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WOM

LUCAN. 1. 1. ver. 98.

Harmonious difcord.

OMEN in their nature are much more gay and joyous than men; whether it be that their blood is more refined, their fibres more delicate, and ther animal fpirits more light and volatile; or whether, as fome have imagined, there may not be a kind of fex in the very foul, I fhall not pretend to determine. As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men. They fhould each of them therefore keep a watch upon the particular bias which nature has fixed in their mind, that it may not draw too much, and lead them out of the paths of reafon. This will certainly happen, if the one in every word and action affects the cha

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