linda. When the company broke up, the fine young thing permitted me to take care of her home. Mrs. Jane saw my particular regard to her, and was informed of my attending her to her father's house. She came early to Belinda the next morning, and asked her if Mrs. Such-a-one had been with her?' -No.'-' If Mr. Such-a-one's lady?' No.'— Nor your cousin Such-a-one ?- No.'- Lord,' says Mrs. Jane, 'what is the friendship of women?Nay, they may well laugh at it.-And did no one tell you any thing of the behaviour of your lover, Mr. What-d'ye-call, last night? But perhaps it is nothing to you that he is to be married to young Mrs. on Tuesday next?' Belinda was here ready to die with rage and jealousy. Then Mrs. Jane goes on: I have a young kinsman who is clerk to a great conveyancer, who shall show you the rough draught of the marriage settlement. The world says, her father gives him two thousand pounds more than he could have with you.' I went innocently to wait on Belinda as usual, but was not admitted; I writ to her, and my letter was sent back unopened. Poor Betty, her maid, who is on my side, has been here just now blubbering, and told me the whole matter. She says she did not think I could be so base; and that she is now so odious to her mistress, for having so often spoke well of me, that she dare not mention me more. All our hopes are placed in having these circumstances fairly represented in the Spectator, which Betty says she dare not but bring up as soon as it is brought in; and has promised, when you have broke the ice, to to a hearing, the young lady will support what we say by her testimony, that I never saw her but that once in my whole life. Dear Sir, do not omit this true relation, nor think it too particular; for there are crowds of forlorn coquettes who intermingle themselves with our ladies, and contract familiarities out of malice, and with no other design but to blast the hopes of lovers, the expectation of parents, and the benevolence of kindred. I doubt not but I shall be, Sir, "THE Occasion of this letter is of so great importance, and the circumstances of it such, that I know you will but think it just to insert it, in preference of all other matters that can present themselves to your consideration. I need not, after I have said this, tell you that I am in love. The circumstances of my passion I shall let you understand as well as a disordered mind will admit. That cursed pickthank, Mrs. Jane!' Alas, I am railing at one to you by her name, as familiarly as if you were acquainted with her as well as myself: but I will tell you all, as fast as the alternate interruptions of love and anger will give me leave. There is the most agreeable young woman in the world, whom I am passionately in love with, and from whom I have for some space of time received as great marks of favour as were fit for her to give, or me to desire. The successful progress of the affair, of all others the most essential towards a man's happiness, gave a new life and spirit not only to my behaviour and discourse, but also a certain grace to all my actions in the commerce of life, in all things however remote from love. You know the predominant passion spreads itself through all a man's transactions, and exalts or depresses him according to the nature of such pas-own this was laid between us, and when I can come sion. But, alas! I have not yet begun my story, and what is the use of making sentences and observations when a man is pleading for his life? To begin then. This lady has corresponded with me under the names of love, she my Belinda, I her Cleanthes. Though I am thus well got into the account of my affair, I cannot keep in the thread of it so much as to give you the character of Mrs. Jane, whom I will not hide under a borrowed name; but let you know, that this creature has been, since I knew her, very handsome (though I will not allow her even she has been' for the future,) and during the time of her bloom and beauty, was so great a tyrant to her lovers, so over-valued herself, and under-rated all her pretenders, that they have deserted her to a man: and she knows no comfort but that common one to all in her condition, the pleasure of interrupting the amours of others. It is impossible but you must have seen several of these volunteers in malice, who pass their whole time in the most laborious way of life in getting intelligence, running from place to place with new whispers, without reaping any other benefit but the hopes of making others as unhappy as themselves. Mrs. Jane happened to be at a place where I, with many others well acquainted with my passion for Belinda, passed a Christmas evening. There was among the rest a young lady, so free in mirth, so amiable in a just reserve that had accompanied it; I wrong her to call it a reserve, but there appeared in her a mirth or cheerfulness which was not a forbearance of more immoderate joy, but the natural appearance of all which could flow from a mind possessed of a habit of innocence and purity. I must have utterly No. 273.] SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1711-12. forgot Belinda to have taken no notice of one who was growing up to the same womanly virtues which shine to perfection in her, had I not distinguished one who seemed to promise to the world the same life and conduct with my faithful and lovely Be "Your most obliged humble Servant, “SIR, Will's Coffee-house, Jan. 10. "The other day entering a room adorned with the fair sex, I offered, after the usual manner, to each of them a kiss; but one, more scornful than the rest, turned her cheek. I did not think it proper to take any notice of it until I had asked your advice. "Your humble Servant, "E. S." The correspondent is desired to say which cheek the offender turned to him. ADVERTISEMENT. From the parish-vestry, January 9. All ladies who come to church in the newfashioned hoods, are desired to be there before divine service begins, lest they divert the attention of the congregation. T. RALPH. Notandi sunt tibi mores.-HOR. Ars. Poet. ver. 156. Note well the manners. HAVING examined the action of Paradise Lost, This is let us in the next place consider the actors. is not that measure of probability annexed to them, which is requisite in writings of this kind, as I shall show more at large hereafter. Aristotle's method of considering, first the fable, and body of his fable a very beautiful and well-invented secondly the manners; or, as we generally call them allegory. But notwithstanding the fineness of this in English, the fable and the characters. allegory may atone for it in some measure, I cannot Homer has excelled all the heroic poets that ever think that persons of such a chimerical existence wrote in the multitude and variety of his charac-are proper actors in an epic poem; because there ters. Every god that is admitted into his poem, acts a part which would have been suitable to no other deity. His princes are as much distinguished by their manners, as by their dominions; and even those among them, whose characters seem wholly made up of courage, differ from one another as to the particular kinds of courage in which they excel. In short, there is scarce a speech or action in the Iliad, which the reader may not ascribe to the person who speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of it. Homer does not only outshine all other poets in the variety, but also in the novelty of his characters. He has introduced among his Grecian princes a person who had lived thrice the age of man, and conversed with Theseus, Hercules, Polyphemus, and the first race of heroes. His principal actor is the son of a goddess, not to mention the offspring of other deities, who have likewise a place in his poem, and the venerable Trojan prince, who was the father of so many kings and heroes. There is in these several characters of Homer, a certain dignity as well as novelty, which adapts them in a more peculiar manner to the nature of a heroic poem. Though, at the same time, to give them the greater variety, he has described a Vulcan, that is a buffoon, among his gods, and a Thersites among his mortals. Virgil falls infinitely short of Homer in the characters of his poem, both as to their variety and novelty. Eneas is indeed a perfect character; but as for Achates, though he is styled the hero's friend, he does nothing in the whole poem which may deserve that title. Gyas, Mnestheus, Sergestus, and Cloanthes, are all of them men of the same stamp and character: Virgil has indeed admitted Fame as an actress in the Eneid, but the part she acts is very short, and none of the most admired circumstances in that divine work. We find in mock-heroic poems, particularly in the Dispensary and the Lutrin, several allegorical persons of this nature, which are very beautiful in these compositions, and may perhaps be used as an argument, that the authors of them were of opinion such characters might have a place in an epic work. For my own part, I should be glad the reader would think so, for the sake of the poem I am now examining: and must further add, that if such empty unsubstantial beings may be ever made use of on this occasion, never were any more nicely imagined, and employed in more proper actions, than those of which I am now speaking. Another principal actor in this poem is the great enemy of mankind. The part of Ulysses in Homer's Odyssey is very much admired by Áristotle, as perplexing that fable with very agreeable plots and intricacies, not only by the many adventures in his voyage, and the subtilty of his behaviour, but by the various concealments and discoveries of his person in several parts of that poem. But the crafty being I have now mentioned makes a much longer voyage than Ulysses, puts in practice many more wiles and stratagems, and hides himself under a greater variety of shapes and appearances, all of which are severally detected, to the great delight and surprise of the reader. a Redeemer, and a Comforter! We may likewise observe with how much art the poet has varied several characters of the persons Fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthem. that speak in his infernal assembly. On the conThere are, indeed, several natural incidents in the trary, how has he represented the whole Godbead part of Ascanius; and that of Dido cannot be suflence under the threefold distinction of a Creator, exerting itself towards man in its full benevoficiently admired. I do not see any thing new or particular in Turnus. Pallas and Evander are remote copies of Hector and Priam, as Lausus and Mezentius are almost parallels to Pallas and Evander. The characters of Nisus and Euryalus are beautiful, but common. We must not forget the parts of Sinon, Camilla, and some few others, which are fine improvements on the Greek poet. In short, there is neither that variety nor novelty in the persons of the Æneid, which we meet with in those of the Iliad. amidst his tenderness and friendship for man, shows Nor must we omit the person of Raphael, who, such a dignity and condescension in all his speech and behaviour, as are suitable to a superior nature. The angels are indeed as much diversified in Milton, and distinguished by their proper parts, as the gods are in Homer and Virgil. The reader will find nothing ascribed to Uriel, Gabriel, Michael, or Raphael, which is not in a particular manner suitable to their respective characters.* authors having chosen for their heroes, persons who were so nearly related to the people for whom they If we look into the characters of Milton, we shall find that he has introduced all the variety his fable was capable of receiving. The whole species of actors of the Iliad and Æneid, which gives a pecuThere is another circumstance in the principal mankind was in two persons at the time to which liar beauty to those two poems, and was therefore the subject of his poem is confined. We have, how-contrived with very great judgment. I mean the ever, four distinct characters in these two persons. We see man and woman in the highest innocence and perfection, and in the most abject state of guilt and infirmity. The two last characters are, indeed, mote founder of Rome. By this means their counAchilles was a Greek, and Æneas the revery common and obvious, but the two first are not trymen (whom they principally propose to themonly more magnificent, but more new than any cha-selves for their readers) were particularly attentive racters either in Virgil or Homer, or indeed in the to all the parts of their story, and sympathized with whole circle of nature. their heroes in all their adventures. A Roman wrote. could not but rejoice in the escapes, successes, and victories, of Æneas, and be grieved at any de Milton was so sensible of this defect in the subject of his poem, and of the few characters it would afford him, that he has brought into it two actors of a shadowy and fictitious nature, in the persons of Sin and Death, by which means he has wrought into the in folio. • These two last sentences were not in the original paper Milton's poem is admirable in this respect, since it is impossible for any of its readers, whatever nation, country, or people, he may belong to, not to be related to the persons who are the principal actors in it; but what is still infinitely more to its advantage, the principal actors in this poem are not only our progenitors, but our representatives. We have an actual interest in every thing they do, and no less than our utmost happiness is concerned, and lies at stake in all their behaviour. feats, misfortunes, or disappointments, that befel a sense of this, as to recover the manly modesty in him; as a Greek must have had the same regard the behaviour of my men readers, and the bashful for Achilles. And it is plain, that each of those grace in the faces of my women; but in all cases poems have lost this great advantage, among those which come into debate, there are certain things readers to whom their heroes are as strangers, or previously to be done before we can have a true light into the subject matter: therefore it will, in indifferent persons. the first place, be necessary to consider the impotent wenchers and industrious hags, who are supplied with, and are constantly supplying, new sacrifices to the devil of lust. You are to know, then, if you are so happy as not to know it already, that the great havoc which is made in the habitations of beauty and innocence, is committed by such as can only lay waste and not enjoy the soil. When you observe the present state of vice and virtue, the offenders are such as one would think should have no impulse to what they are pursuing; as in business, you see sometimes fools pretend to be knaves, so in pleasure, you will find old men set up for wenchers. This latter sort of men are the great basis and fund of iniquity in the kind we are speaking of; you shall have an old rich man often receive scrawls from the several quarters of the town, with descriptions of the new wares in their hands, if he will please to send word when he will be waited on. This interview is contrived, and the innocent is brought to such indecencies, as from time to time banish shame and raise desire. With these prepauntil they are brought to lose all apprehensions of I shall take another opportunity to observe, that what shall befal them in the possession of younger a person of an absolute and consummate virtue men. It is a common postscript of a hag to a young She has, should never be introduced in tragedy, and shall fellow whom she invites to a new woman, only remark in this place, that the foregoing ob- I assure you, seen none but old Mr. Such-a-one." servation of Aristotle, though it may be true in It pleases the old fellow that the nymph is brought other occasions, does not hold in this; because in to him unadorned, and from his bounty she is acthe present case, though the persons who fall into commodated with enough to dress her for other misfortune are of the most perfect and consummate lovers. This is the most ordinary method of bringvirtue, it is not to be considered as what may possi-ing beauty and poverty into the possession of the bly be, but what actually is our own case; since we are embarked with them on the same bottom, and must be partakers of their happiness or misery. I shall subjoin, as a corollary to the foregoing remark, an admirable observation out of Aristotle, which has been very much misrepresented in the quotations of some modern critics; "If a man of perfect and consummate virtue falls into a misfortune, it raises our pity, but not our terror, because we do not fear that it may be our own case, who do not resemble the suffering person." But, as that great philosopher adds, "if we see a man of virtue mixed with infirmities fall into any misfortune, it does not only raise our pity but our terror; because we are afraid that the like misfortunes may happen to ourselves, who resemble the character of the suf-ratives the hags break their wards by little and little, fering person." In this, and some other very few instances, Aristotle's rules for epic poetry (which he had drawn from his reflections upon Homer) cannot be supposed to quadrate exactly with the heroic poems which have been made since his time; since it is plain his rules would still have been more perfect, could he have perused the Æneid, which was made some hundred years after his death. In my next, I shall go through other parts of Milton's poem; and hope that what I shall there advance, as well as what I have already written, will not only serve as a comment upon Milton, but upon Aristotle.-L. I HAVE upon several occasions (that have occurred since I first took into my thoughts the present state of fornication) weighed with myself in behalf of guilty females, the impulses of flesh and blood, together with the arts and gallantries of crafty men; and reflect with some scorn that most part of what we in our youth think gay and polite, is nothing else but a habit of indulging a pruriency that way. It will cost some labour to bring people to so lively town: but the particular cases of kind keepers, skilful pimps, and all others who drive a separate trade, and are not in the general society or commerce of sin, will require distinct consideration. At the same time that we are thus severe on the abandoned, we are to represent the case of others with that mitigation as the circumstances demand. Calling names does no good; to speak worse of any thing than it deserves, does only take off from the credit of the accuser, and has implicitly the force of an apology in the behalf of the person accused. We shall, therefore, according as the circumstances differ, vary our appellations of these criminals: those who offend only against themselves, and are not scandals to society, but, out of deference to the sober part of the world, have so much good left in them as to be ashamed, must not be huddled in the common word due to the worst of women; but regard is to be had to their circumstances when they fell, to the uneasy perplexity under which they lived under senseless and severe parents, to the importunity of poverty, to the violence of a passion in its beginning well grounded, and all other alleviations which make unhappy women resign the characteristic of their sex, modesty. To do otherwise than thus, would be to act like a pedantic Stoic, who thinks all crimes alike, and not like an impartial Spectator, who looks upon them with all the circumstances that diminish or enhance the guilt. I am in hopes, if this subject be well pursued, women will hereafter from their infancy be treated with an eye to their future state in the world; and not have their tempers made too untractable from an improper "MR. SPECTATOR, Jan. 5, 1711-12. "The subject of your yesterday's paper is of so great importance, that the thorough handling of it may be so very useful to the preservation of many an innocent young creature, that I think every one is obliged to furnish you with what lights he can to expose the pernicious arts and practices of those unnatural women called bawds. In order to this, the enclosed is sent you, which is verbatim the copy of a letter written by a bawd of figure in this town to a noble lord. I have concealed the names of both, my intention being not to expose their persons, but the thing. "I am Sir, your humble Servant." "MY LORD, help of very fine glasses. This gave birth to a great variety of uncommon remarks, and furnished discourse for the remaining part of the day. The different opinions which were started on this occasion presented to my imagination so many new ideas, that by mixing with those which were already there, they employed my fancy all the last night, and composed a very wild extravagant dream, I was invited, methought, to the dissection of a beau's head, and a coquette's heart, which were both of them laid on a table before us. An imag. nary operator opened the first with a great deal of nicety, which, upon a cursery and superficial view, appeared like the head of another man; but upon applying our glasses to it, we made a very odd discovery, namely, that what we looked upon as brains, were not such in reality, but a heap of strange materials wound up in that shape and texture, and packed together with wonderful art in the several cavities of the skull. For, as Homer tells us, that the blood of the gods is not real blood, but only something like it; so we found that the brain of a beau is not a real brain, but only something like it. The pineal gland, which many of our modern philosophers suppose to be the seat of the soul, smelt very strong of essence and orange-flower water, and was encompassed with a kind of horny substance, cut into a thousand little faces or mirrors, which were imperceptible to the naked eye, insomuch that the soul, if there had been any here, must have been always taken up in contemplating her own beauties. We observed a large antrum or cavity in the sinciput, that was filled with ribands, lace, and embroidery, wrought together in a most curious piece of net-work, the parts of which were likewise imperceptible to the naked eye. Another of these antrums or cavities was stuffed with invisible billetsdoux, love-letters, pricked dances, and other trumpery of the same nature. In another we found a kind of powder, which set the whole company a sneezing, and by the scent discovered itself to be right Spanish. The several other cells were stored with commodities of the same kind, of which it would be tedious to give the reader an exact inventory. "I having a great esteem for your honour, and a better opinion of you than of any of the quality, makes me acquaint you of an affair that I hope will oblige you to know. I have a niece that came to town about a fortnight ago. Her parents being lately dead, she came to me, expecting to have found me in so good a condition as to set her up in a milliner's shop. Her father gave fourscore pound with her for five years: her time is out, and she is not sixteen as pretty a black gentlewoman as ever you saw; a little woman, which I know your lordship likes; well shaped, and as fine a complexion for red and white as ever I saw; I doubt not but your lordship will be of the same opinion. She designs to go down about a month hence, except I can provide for her, which I cannot at present. Her father was one with whom all he had died with him, so there is four children left destitute; so if your lordship thinks proper to make an appointment where I shall wait on you with my niece, by a line or two, I stay for your answer; for I have no place fitted up since I left my house, fit to entertain your honour. I told There was a large cavity on each side the head, her she should go with me to see a gentleman, a very which I must not omit. That on the right side was good friend of mine; so I desire you to take no no-filled with fictions, flatteries, and falsehoods, vows, tice of my letter, by reason she is ignorant of the ways of the town. My lord, I desire if you meet us to come alone; for upon my word and honour you are the first that I ever mentioned her to. So I remain promises, and protestations: that on the left with oaths and imprecations. There issued out a duct from each of these cells, which ran into the root of the tongue, where both joined together, and passed forward in one common duct to the tip of it. We discovered several little roads or canals running from the ear into the brain, and took particular care to trace them out through their several passages. One of them extended itself to a bundle of sonnets and little musical instruments. Others ended in several bladders which were filled either with wind No. 275.] TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1711-12. or froth. But the large canal entered into a great -Tribus Anticyris caput insanabile HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 300. A head, no hellebore can cure. cavity of the skull, from whence there went another canal into the tongue. This great cavity was filled with a kind of spongy substance, which the French anatomists call galimatias, and the English, nonsense. I was yesterday engaged in an assembly of virtuosos, where one of them produced many curious The skins of the forehead were extremely tough observations which he had lately made in the ana- and thick, and, what very much surprised us, had tomy of a human body. Another of the company not in them any single blood-vessel that we were communicated to us several wonderful discoveries able to discover, either with or without our glasses; which he had also made on the same subject, by the | from whence we concluded that the party when alive must have been entirely deprived of the faculty of blushing. The os cribriforme was exceedingly stuffed, and in some places damaged with snuff. We could not but take notice in particular of that small muscle which is not often discovered in dissection, and draws the nose upwards, when it expresses the contempt which the owner of it has, upon seeing any thing he does not like, or hearing any thing he does not understand. I need not tell my learned reader, this is that muscle which performs the motion so often mentioned by the Latin poets, when taey talk of a man's cocking his nose, or playing the rhinoceros. We did not find any thing very remarkable in the eye, saving only, that the musculi amatorii, or, as we may translate it into English, the ogling muscles, were very much worn and decayed with use; whereas, on the contrary, the elevator, or the muscle which turns the eye towards heaven, did not appear to have been used at all. of mankind with the freedom which you seem to resolve upon; at least, if you do so, you shoul take along with you the distinction of manners o the world, according to the quality and way of life of the persons concerned. A man of breeding speaks of even misfortune among ladies, without giving it the most terrible aspect it can bear: and this tenderness towards them is much more to be preserved when you speak of vices. All mankind are so far related, that care is to be taken in things to which all are liable, you do not mention what concerns one in terms which shall disgust another. Thus to tell a rich man of the indigence of a kinsman of his, or abruptly to inform a virtuous woman of the lapse of one who until then was in the same degree of esteem with herself, is a kind of involving each of them in some participation of those disadvantages. It is therefore expected from every writer, to treat his argument in such a manner, as is most proper to entertain the sort of readers to whom his discourse is directed. It is not necessary when you write to the tea-table, that you should draw vices which carry all the horror of shame and contempt: if you paint an impertinent self-love, an artful glance, an assumed complexion, you say all which you ought to suppose they can possibly be guilty of. When you talk with limitation, you behave yourself so as that you may expect others in conversation may second your raillery; but when I have only mentioned in this dissection such new discoveries as we were able to make, and have not taken any notice of those parts which seem to be met with in common heads. As for the skull, the face, and indeed the whole outward shape and figure of the head, we could not discover any difference from what we observe in the heads of other men. We were informed, that the person to whom this head belonged, had passed for a man above five-and-you do it in a style which every body else forbears thirty years: during which time he ate and drank like other people, dressed well, talked loud, laughed frequently, and on particular occasions had acquitted himself tolerably at a ball or an assembly; to which one of the company added, that a certain knot of ladies took him for a wit. He was cut off in the flower of his age by the blow of a paring-shovel, having been surprised by an eminent citizen, as he was tendering some civilities to his wife. in respect to their quality, they have an easy remedy in forbearing to read you, and hearing no more of their faults. A man that is now and then guilty of an intemperance is not to be called a drunkard; but the rule of polite raillery is to speak of a man's faults as if you loved him. Of this nature is what was said by Cæsar: when one was railing with an uncourtly vehemence, and broke out with, 'What must we call him who was taken in an intrigue with another man's wife?' Cæsar an When we had thoroughly examined this head, with all its apartments, and its several kinds of fur-swered very gravely, 'A careless fellow.' This was niture, we put up the brain, such as it was, into its proper place, and laid it aside under a broad piece of scarlet cloth, in order to be prepared, and kept in a great repository of dissections; our operator telling us that the preparation would not be so difficult as that of another brain, for that he had observed several of the little pipes and tubes which ran through the brain were already filled with a kind of mercurial substance, which he looked upon to be true quick-silver. He applied himself in the next place to the coquette's heart, which he likewise laid open with great dexterity. There occurred to us many particularities in this dissection; but being unwilling to burden my reader's memory too much, I shall reserve this subject for the speculation of another day.-L. No. 276.] WEDNESDAY, JAN. 16, 1711-12. Errori nomen virtus posuisset honestum.-HOR. 1 Sat. iii. 42. "MR. SPECTATOR, "I HOPE you have philosophy enough to be capable of hearing the mention of your faults. Your papers which regard the fallen part of the fair sex are, I think, written with an indelicacy which makes them unworthy to be inserted in the writings of a moralist who knows the world. I cannot allow that you are at liberty to observe upon the actions at once a reprimand for speaking of a crime which in those days had not the abhorrence attending it as it ought, as well as an intimation that all intemperate behaviour before superiors loses its aim, by accusing in a method unfit for the audience. A word to the wise. All I mean here to say to you is, that the most free person of quality can go no further than being a kind woman; and you should never say of a man of figure worse than that he knows the world. |