There are indeed several other Species of the Henpeckt, and in my Opinion they are certainly the best Subjects the Queen has; and for that Reason I take it to be your Duty to keep us above Contempt. I I do not know whether I make my self understood in the Representation of an hen-peckt Life, but I shall take Leave to give you an Account of my self, and my own Spouse. You are to know that I am reckoned no Fool, have on several Occasions been tried whether I will take ill Usage, and yet the Event has been to my Ad vantage; and yet there is not such a Slave in Turkey as I am to my Dear. She has a good Share of Wit, and is what you call a very pretty agreeable Woman. perfectly doat on her, and my Affection to her gives me all the Anxieties imaginable but that of Jealousie. My being thus confident of her, I take, as much as I can judge of my Heart, to be the Reason, that what ever she does, tho' it be never so much against my Inclination, there is still left something in her Manner that is amiable. She will sometimes look at me with an assumed Grandeur, and pretend to resent that I have not had Respect enough for her Opinion in such an Instance in Company. I cannot but smile at the pretty Anger she is in, and then she pretends she is used like a Child. In a Word, our great Debate is which has the Superiority in Point of Understanding. She is eternally forming an Argument of Debate to which I very indolently answer, Thou art mighty pretty, To this she answers, All the World but you think I have as much Sense as your self. I repeat to her, Indeed you are pretty. Upon this there is no Patience; she will throw down any thing about her, stamp, and pull off her Head Cloaths. Fie, my Dear, say I; how can a Woman of your Sense fall into such an intemperate Rage? This is an Argument which never fails. Indeed, my Dear, says she, you make me mad sometimes, so you do, with the silly Way you have of treating me like a pretty Idiot. Well, what have I got by putting her into good Humour? Nothing, but that I must con vince her of my good Opinion by my Practice; and then I am to give her Possession of my little ready Money 1 1711 Money, and for a Day and a half following dislike all No. 176. she dislikes, and extol every thing she approves. I am Friday, so exquisitely fond of this Darling, that I seldom see Sept. 21 any of my Friends, am uneasie in all Companies till I see her again; and when I come home she is in the Dumps, because she says she's sure I came so soon only because I think her handsome. I dare not upon this Occasion laugh; but tho' I am one of the warmest Churchmen in the Kingdom I am forced to rail at the Times, because she is a violent Whig. Upon this we talk Politicks so long, that she is convinc'd I kiss her for her Wisdom. It is a common Practice with me to ask her some Question concerning the Constitution, which she answers me in general out of Harington's Oceana Then I commend her strange Memory, and her Arm is immediately locked in mine. While I keep her in this Temper she plays before me, sometimes dancing in the Midst of the Room, sometimes striking an Air at her Spinet, varying her Posture and her Charms in such a Manner that I am in continual Pleasure: She will play the Fool if I allow her to be wise, but if she suspects I like her for her trifling she immediately grows grave. These are the Toils in which I am taken, and I carry off my Servitude as well as most Men; but my Applica tion to you is in Behalf of the Hen-peckt in general, and I desire a Dissertation from you in Defence of us. You have, as I am informed, very good Authorities in our Favour, and hope you will not omit the Mention of the renowned Socrates, and his philosophick Resig nation to his Wife Xantippe. This would be a very good 1 Office to the World in general, for the Hen-peckt are powerful in their Quality and Numbers, not only in Cities but in Courts; in the latter they are ever the most obsequious, in the former the most wealthy of all Men. When you have considered Wedlock throughly, you ought to enter into the Suburbs of Matrimony, and give us an Account of the Thraldom of kind Keepers and irresolute Lovers; the Keepers who cannot quit their fair ones tho' they see their approaching Ruin; the Lovers who dare not marry, tho' they know they T ་ shall No. 176. Friday, Sept. 21, 1711, shall never be happy without the Mistresses whom they cannot purchase on other Terms, What will be a great Embellishment to your Discourse, will be, that you may find Instances of the Haughty, the Proud, the Frolick, the Stubborn, who are each of them in secret down-right Slaves to their Wives or Mistresses, I must beg of you in the last Place to dwell upon this, That the Wise and Valiant in all Ages have been hen-peckt; and that the sturdy Tempers who are not Slaves to Affection, owe that Exemption to their being enthraled by Ambition, Avarice, or some meaner Passion I have ten thousand thousand things more to say, but my Wife sees me Writing, and will, according to Custom, be consulted, if I do not seal this immediately. T Yours, Nathaniel Henroost,' Saturday, September 22, IN -Quis enim bonus, aut face dignus Arcana, qualem Cereris vult esse sacerdos, one of my last Week's Papers I treated of Good now speak of it as it is a Moral Virtue. The first may make a Man easie in himself, and agreeable to others, but implies no Merit in him that is possessed of it. A Man is no more to be praised upon this Account, than because he has a regular Pulse or a good Digestion. This Good-nature however in the Constitution, which Mr. Dryden somewhere calls a Milkiness of Blood, is an admirable Ground-work for the other, In order there fore to try our Good-nature, whether it arises from the Body or the Mind, whether it be founded in the Animal or Rational Part of our Nature, in a word, whether it be such as is entituled to any other Reward, besides that secret Satisfaction and Contentment of Mind which is essential to it, and the kind Reception it procures us in the World, we must examine it by the following Rules. First, Whether it acts with Steadiness and Uniformity 1711 in Sickness and in Health, in Prosperity and in Ad No. 177, versity; if otherwise, it is to be looked upon as nothing Saturday, else but an Irradiation of the Mind from some new Sept. 22, Supply of Spirits, or a more kindly Circulation of the Blood. Sir Francis Bacon mentions a cunning Sollicitor, who would never ask a Favour of a great Man before Dinner; but took care to prefer his Petition at a time when the Party petitioned had his Mind free from Care, and his Appetites in good Humour, Such a transient Temporary Good-nature as this, is not that Philanthrophie, that Love of Mankind, which deserves the Title of a Moral Virtue. The next way of a Man's bringing his Good-nature to the Test is, to consider whether it operates according to the Rules of Reason and Duty: For if, notwithstand ing its general Benevolence to Mankind, it makes no distinction between its Objects, if it exerts it self pro miscuously towards the Deserving and the Undeserving, if it relieves alike the Idle and the Indigent, if it gives it self up to the first Petitioner, and lights upon any one rather by Accident than Choice, it may pass for an amiable Instinct, but must not assume the Name of a Moral Virtue. The third Tryal of Good-nature will be the examin ing our selves, whether or no we are able to exert it to our own Disadvantage, and employ it on proper Objects, notwithstanding any little Pain, Want or Inconvenience which may arise to our selves from it: In a word, whether we are willing to risque any part of our Fortune, our Reputation, our Health or Ease, for the Benefit of Mankind. Among all these Expressions of Good-nature, I shall single out that which goes under the general Name of Charity, as it consists in relieving the Indigent; that being a Tryal of this kind which offers it self to us almost at all Times and in every Place, I should propose it as a Rule to every one, who is provided with any Competency of Fortune more than sufficient for the Necessaries of Life, to lay aside a certain Proportion of his Income for the use of the Poor. This I would look upon as an Offering to him who has a Right to the whole, for the Use of those, *B II 165 whom No. 177. 1711. whom, in the Passage hereafter mentioned, he has de Saturday scribed as his own Representatives upon Earth. At the Sept. 22, same time we should manage our Charity with such Prudence and Caution, that we may not hurt our own Friends or Relations, whilst we are doing good to those who are Strangers to us. This may possibly be explained better by an Example than by a Rule, Eugenius is a Man of an Universal Good-nature, and Generous beyond the Extent of his Fortune, but withal so prudent in the Oeconomy of his Affairs, that what goes out in Charity is made up by Good Management. Eugenius has what the World calls Two hundred Pounds a Year; but never values himself above Ninescore, as not thinking he has a right to the Tenth Part, which he always appropriates to charitable Uses. To this Sum he frequently makes other voluntary Additions, insomuch that in a good Year, for such he accounts those in which he has been able to make greater Bounties than ordinary, he has given above twice that Sum to the Sickly and Indigent. Eugenius prescribes to himself many particular Days of Fasting and Abstinence, in order to encrease his private Bank of Charity, and sets aside what would be the current Expences of those Times for the use of the Poor. He often goes a foot where his Business calls him, and at the End of his Walk has given a Shilling, which in his ordinary Methods of Expence would have gone for Coach-hire, to the first necessitous Person that has fallen in his way. I have known him, when he has been going to a Play, or an Opera, divert the Mony which was designed for that Purpose, upon an Object of Charity whom he has met with in the Street, and afterwards pass his Evening in a Coffee-house, or at a Friend's Fireside, with much greater Satisfaction to him self than he could have received from the most ex quisite Entertainments of the Theatre. By these means he is generous without impoverishing himself, and enjoys his Estate by making it the Property of others. There are few Men so cramped in their private Affairs, who may not be charitable after this maner, without |