are in mixed company, by way of talking at one another, and not to one another. Honoria is ever complaining of a certain sufficiency in the young women of this age, who assume to themselves an authority of carrying all things before them, as if they were possessors of the esteem of mankind, and all who were but a year before them in the world were neglected or deceased. Flavia, upon such a provocation, is sure to observe, that there are people who can resign nothing, and know not how to give up what they know they cannot hold: that there are those who will not allow youth their follies, not because they are themselves past them, but because they love to continue in them. These beauties rival each other on all occasions, not that they have always had the same lovers, but each has kept up a vanity to show the other the charms of her lover. Dick Crastin and Tom Tulip, among many others, have of late been pretenders in this family-Dick to Honoria, Tom to Flavia. Dick is the only surviving beau of the last age, and Tom almost the only one that keeps up that order of men in this. 1 wish I could repeat the little circumstances of a conversation of the four lovers with the spirit in which the young lady I had my account from represented it at a visit where I had the honor to be present; but it seems Dick Crastin, the admirer of Houoria, and Tom Tulip, the pretender to Flavia, were purposely admitted together by the ladies, that each might show the other that her lover had the superiority in the accomplishments of that sort of creature whom the sillier part of women call a fine gentleman. As this age has a much more gross taste in courtship, as well as in everything else, than the last had, these gentlemen are instances of it in their different manner of application. Tulip is ever making allusions to the vigor of his person, the sinewy force of his make; while Crastin professes a wary observation of the turns of his mistress's mind. Tulip gives himself the airs of a resistless ravisher, Crastin practices those of a skillful lever Poetry is the inseparable property of every man in love; and as men of wit write verses on those occasions, the rest of the world repeat the verses of others. These servants of the ladies were used to imitate their manner of conversation, and allude to one another, rather than interchange discourse in what they said when they met. Tulip the other day seized his mistress's hand, and repeated out of Ovid's Art of Love, "Tis I can in soft battles pass the night, Yet rise next morning vigorous for the fight, with a sly commendation of the doctrine of Pla tonic love; at the same time he ran over, with a laughing eye, Crastin's thin legs, meager looks, and spare body. The old gentleman immediately left the room with some disorder, and the conver sation fell upon untimely passion, after-love, and unseasonable youth. Tulip sang, danced, moved before the glass, led his mistress half a minuet, hummed Celia, the fair, in the bloom of fifteen! when there came a servant with a letter to him, which was as follows: "SIR, "I understand very well what you meant by your mention of Platonic love. I shall be glad to meet you immediately in Hyde-park, or behind Montague-house, or attend you to Barn-elms, or any other fashionable place that's fit for a gentleman to die in, that you shall appoint for, "Sir, "Your most humble servant, "RICHARD CRASTIN." Tulip's color changed at the reading of this epistle; for which reason his mistress snatched it to read the contents. While she was doing so, Tulip went away; and the ladies now agreeing in a common calamity, bewailed together the danger of their lovers. They immediately undressed to go out, and took hackneys to prevent mischief; but after alarming all parts of the town, Crastin was found by his widow in his pumps at Hydepark, which appointment Tulip never kept, but made his escape into the country. Flavia tears her hair for his inglorious safety, curses and despises her charmer, and is fallen in love with Crastin; which is the first part of the history of the rival mother. No. 92.] FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1711. IMITATED. -What would you have me do, R. When out of twenty I can please not two?One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg; The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg; Hard task, to hit the palate of such guests.-POPE. LOOKING Over the late packets of letters which have been sent to me, I found the following one: "MR. SPECTATOR, "Your paper is a part of my tea equipage; and my servant knows my humor so well, that calling for my breakfast this morning (it being my usual hour), she answered, the Spectator was not yet come in; but that the tea-kettle boiled, and she expected it every moment. Having thus in part signified to you the esteem and veneration which I have for you, I must put you in mind of the When Crastin had uttered these verses with a catalogue of books which you have promised to tenderness which at once spoke passion and re-recommend to our sex; for I have deferred furnishspect, Honoria cast a triumphant glance at Flavia, as exulting in the elegance of Crastin's courtship, and upbraiding her with the homeliness of Tulip's. Tulip understood the reproach, and in return began to applaud the wisdom of old amorous gentlemen, who turned their mistress's imagination as far as possible from what they had fong themselves forgot, and ended his discourse ing my closet with authors, till I receive your advice in this particular, being your daily disciple and humble servant, "LEONORA." In answer to my fair disciple, whom I am very proud of, I must acquaint her and the rest of my readers, that since I have called out for help in my catalogue of a lady's library, I have received These verses on Sir Charles Sedley, are from Lord Roches- many letters upon that head, some of which I shall ter's Imitation of Horace, 1 Sat. x. give an account of. In the first class I shall take notice of those which come to me from eminent booksellers, who every one of them mention with respect the authors they have printed, and consequently have an eye to their own advantage more than to that of the ladies. One tells me, that he thinks it absolutely necessary for women to have true notions of right and equity, and that therefore they cannot peruse a better book than Dalton's Country Justice. Another thinks they cannot be without The Complete Jockey. A third, observing the curiosity and desire of prying into secrets, which he tells me is natural to the fair sex, is of opinion this female inclination, if well directed, might turn very much to their advantage, and therefore recommends to me Mr. Mede upon the Revelations. A fourth lays it down as an unquestioned truth, that a lady cannot be thoroughly accomplished who has not read The Secret Treaties and Negotiations of Marshal d'Estrades. Mr. Jacob Tonson, junior, is of opinion, that Bayle's Dictionary might be of very great use to the ladies, in order to make them general scholars. Another, whose name I have forgotten, thinks it highly proper that every woman with child should read Mr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism; as another is very importunate with me to recommend to all my female readers The Finishing Stroke; being a Vindication of the Patriarchal Scheme, etc. In the second class I shall mention books which are recommended by husbands, if I may believe the writers of them. Whether or no they are real husbands, or personated ones, I cannot tell; but the books they recommend are as follow:-A Paraphrase on the History of Susannah. Rules to keep Lent. The Christian's Overthrow prevented. A Dissuasive from the Playhouse. The Virtues of Camphire, with directions to make Camphire Tea. The Pleasure of a Country Life. The Government of the Tongue. A letter dated Cheapside, desires me that I would advise all young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's Arithmetic, and concludes with a Postscript, that he hopes I will not forget The Countess of Kent's Receipts. I may reckon the ladies themselves as a third class among these my correspondents, and privycounselors. In a letter from one of them, I am advised to place Pharamond at the head of my catalogue, and if I think proper, to give the second place to Cassandra + Coquetilla begs me not to think of nailing women upon their knees with manuals of devotion, nor of scorching their faces with books of housewifery. Florella desires to know if there are any books written against prudes, and entreats me, if there are, to give them a place in my library. Plays of all sorts have their several advocates: All for Love is mentioned in above fifteen letters; Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow in a dozen: The Innocent Adultery is likewise highly approved; Mithridates, King of Pontus, has many friends; Alexander the Great and Aurengzebe have the same number of voices; but Theodosius, or the Force of Love, carries it from all the rest. I should, in the last place, mention such books as have been proposed by men of learning, and those who appear competent judges of this matter, and must here take occasion to thank A. B., whoever it is that conceals himself under these two letters, for his advice upon this subject. But as I find the work I have undertaken to be very difficult, I shall defer the executing of it till I am farther acquainted with the thoughts of my judi Two solebrated French romances, written by M. La Cal pronede. cious cotemporaries, and have time to examine the several books they offer to me: being resolved, in an affair of this moment, to proceed with the greatest caution. In the meanwhile, as I have taken the ladies under my particular care, I shall make it my business to find out in the best authors, ancient and modern, such passages as may be for their use, and endeavor to accommodate them as well as Í can to their taste; not questioning but the valua ble part of the sex will easily pardon me, if from time to time I laugh at those little vanities and follies which appear in the behavior of some of them, and which are more proper for ridicule than a serious censure. Most books being calculated for male readers, and generally written with an eye to men of learning, makes a work of this nature the more necessary; beside, I am the more encouraged, because I flatter myself that I see the sex daily improving by these my speculations My fair readers are already deeper scholars than the beaux. I could name some of them who talk much better than several gentlemen that make a figure at Will's and as I frequently receive letters from the fine ladies and pretty fellows, I cannot but observe that the former are superior to the other, not only in the sense but in the spelling. This cannot but have a good effect upon the female world, and keep them from being charmed by those empty coxcombs that have hitherto been admired among the women, though laughed at among the men. I am credibly informed that Tom Tattle passes for an impertinent fellow, that Will Trippet begins to be smoked, and that Frank Smoothly himself is within a month of a coxcomb, in case I think fit to continue this paper. For my part, as it is my business in some measure to detect such as would lead astray weak minds by their false pretenses to wit and judgment, humor and gallantry. I shall not fail to lend the best light I am able to the fair sex for the continuation of these their discoveries.-L. No. 33.] SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 1711. -Spatio brevi Spem longam reseces: dum loquimur, fugerit invida Thy lengthen'd hopes with prudence bound While thus we talk in careless ease, The envious moments wing their flight, Nor trust to-morrow's doubtful light.-FRANCIS. WE all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. That noble philosopher has described our inconsistency with ourselves in this particular, by all those various turns of expres sion and thought which are peculiar to his writings. I often consider mankind as wholly inconsistent with itself in a point that bears some affinity te the former. Though we seem grieved at the short ness of life in general, we are wishing every pe riod of it an end. The minor longs to be at age then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honors, then to retire. Thus, although the whole life is allowed by every one to be short, the several divisions of it appear long and tedious. We are lengthening our span in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is composed. The usurer would be very well satisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and next quarter- | day. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad in most parts of our lives that it ran much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, nay we wish away whole years; and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it. vice, the argument redoubles upon us for putting The next method therefore that I would propose to fill up our time, should be useful and innocent diversions. I must confess I think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether conversant in such diversions as are merely innocent, and have nothing else to recommend them but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to say for itself I shall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to see If we divide the life of most men into twenty persons of the best sense passing away a dozen parts, we shall find, that at least nineteen of them hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither cards, with no other conversation but what is filled with pleasure nor business. I do not, how-made up of a few game phrases, and no other ever, include in this calculation the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do an unacceptable piece of service to these persons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I shall propose to them are as follow: ideas but those of black or red spots ranged to- The stage might be made a perpetual source of But the mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the conversation of a well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It cases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and finds employments for most of the vacant hours of life. The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation of the word. The particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues, may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall tu our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequently opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the cha- Next to such an intimacy with a particular perracter of a deserving man; of softening the envi- son, one would endeavor after a more general conous, quieting the angry, and rectifying the preju-versation with such as are able to entertain and diced; which are all of them employments suited to a reasonable nature, and bring great satisfaction to the person who can busy himself in them with discretion. There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for those retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and destitute of company and conversation; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The man who lives under an habitual sense of the divine presence keeps up a perpetual cheerfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the satisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him; it is impossible for him to be alone. His thoughts and passions are the most busied at such hours when those of other men are the most inactive. He no sooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, swells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that presence which everywhere surrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its sorrows, its apprehensions, to the great supporter of its existence. I have here only considered the necessity of a man's being virtuous, that he may have something to do; but if we consider farther, that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lasts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its color from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in improve those with whom they converse, which There are many other useful employments of A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts. The florist, the planter, the gardener, the husbandman, when they are only as accomplishments to the man of fortune, are great reliefs to a country life, and many ways useful to those who are possessed of them. But of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors. But this I shall only touch upon, because it in some measure interferes with the third method, which I shall propose in another paper, for the employ ment of our dead inactive hours, and which I shall only mention in general to be the pursuit of knowledge.-L. No. 94. MONDAY, JUNE 18, 1711. -Hoc est Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui. MART. Epig, xxiii, 10. The present joys of life we doubly taste, THE last method which I proposed in my Saturday's paper, for filling up those empty spaces of life which are so tedious and burdensome to idle people, is the employing ourselves in the pursuit of knowledge. I remember Mr. Boyle, speaking of a certain mineral. tells us, that a man may. consume his whole life in the study of it, without arriving at the knowledge of all its qualities. The truth of it is, there is not a single science, or any branch of it, that might not furnish a man with business for life, though it were much longer than it is. tinct in each of them, follow one another in a greater or less degree of rapidity. There is a famous passage in the Alcoran, which looks as if Mahomet had been possessed of the notion we are now speaking of. It is there said that the Angel Gabriel took Mahomet out of his bed one morning to give him a sight of all things in the seven heavens, in paradise, and in hell, which the prophet took a distinct view of: and after having held ninety thousand conferences with God, was brought back again to his bed. All this, says the Alcoran, was transacted in so small a space of time, that Mahomet at his return found his bed still warm, and took up an earthen pitcher, which was thrown down at the very instant that the Angel Gabriel carried him away, before the water was all spilled.* There is a very pretty story in the Turkish tales, which relates to this passage of that famous I shall not here engage on those beaten sub-impostor, and bears some affinity to the subject jects of the usefulness of knowledge; nor of the pleasure and perfection it gives the mind; nor on the methods of obtaining it; nor recommend any particular branch of it; all which have been the topics of many other writers; but shall indulge myself in a speculation that is more uncommon, and may therefore perhaps be more entertaining. I have before shown how the unemployed parts of life appear long and tedious, and shall here endeavor to show how those parts of life which are exercised in study, reading, and the pursuits of knowledge, are long, but not tedious, and by that means discover a method of lengthening our lives, and at the same time of turning all the parts of them to our advantage. Mr. Locke observes, "That we get the idea of time or duration, by reflecting on that train of ideas which succeed one another in our minds: that for this reason, when we sleep soundly without dreaming, we have no perception of time, or the length of it while we sleep; and that the moment wherein we leave off to think, till the moment we begin to think again, seems to have no distance." To which the author adds, and so I doubt not but it would be to a waking man if it were possible for him to keep only one idea in his mind, without variation, and the succession of others; and we see, that one who fixes his thoughts very intently on one thing, so as to take but little notice of the succession of ideas that pass in his mind while he is taken up with that earnest contemplation, lets slip out of his account a good part of that duration, and thinks that time shorter than it is." We might carry this thought farther; and consider a man as, on one side, shortening his time by thinking on nothing, or but a few things; so on the other, as lengthening it, by employing his thoughts on many subjects, or by entertaining a quick and constant succession of ideas. Accordingly, Monsieur Malebranche, in his Inquiry after Truth (which was published several years be fore Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding), tells us, "that it is possible some creatures may think half an hour as long as we do a thousand years; or look upon that space of duration which we call a minute, as an hour, a week, a month, or a whole age." This notion of Monsieur Malebranche is capable of some little explanation from what I have quoted out of Mr. Locke; for if our notion of time is produced by our reflecting on the suc cession of ideas in our mind, and this succession may be infinitely accelerated or retarded, it will follow, that different beings may have different notions of the same parts of duration, according as their ideas, which we suppose are equally dis we are now upon. A sultan of Egypt, who was an infidel, used to laugh at this circumstance in Mahomet's life, as what was altogether impossible and absurd; but conversing one day with a great doctor in the law, who had the gift of working miracles, the doctor told him he would quickly convince him of the truth of this passage in the history of Mahomet, if he would consent to do what he should desire of him. Upon this the sultan was directed to place himself by a huge tub of water, which he did accordingly; and as he stood by the tub amid a circle of his great men, the holy man bid him plunge his head into the water, and draw it up again. The king accordingly thrust his head into the water, and at the same time found himself at the foot of a mountain on the sea-shore. The king immediately began to rage against his doctor for this piece of treachery and witchcraft; but at length, knowing it was in vain to be angry, he set himself to think on proper methods for getting a livelihood in this strange country. Accordingly he applied himself to some people whom he saw at work in a neighboring wood: these people conducted him to a town that stood at a little distance from the wood, where, after some adventures, he married a woman of great beauty and fortune. He lived with this woman so long, that he had by her seven sons and seven daughters. He was afterward reduced to great want, and forced to think of plying in the streets as a porter for his livelihood. One day as he was walking alone by the sea-side, being seized with many melancholy reflections upon his former and his present state of life, which had raised a fit of devotion in him, he threw off his clothes with a design to wash himself, according to the custom of the Mahometans, before he said his prayers. After his first plunge into the sea, he no sooner raised his head above the water but he found himself standing by the side of the tub, with the great men of his court about him, and the holy man at his side. He immediately upbraided his teacher for having sent him on such a course of adventures, and betrayed him into so long a state of misery and servitude; but was wonderfully surprised when he heard that the state he talked of was only a dream and delusion; that he had not stirred from the place where he then stood; and that he had only dipped his head into the water, and immediately taken it out again. The Mahometan doctor tock this occasion of instructing the sultan, that nothing was impossi *The Spectator's memory hath here deceived him; no such passage is to be found in the Alcoran, though it possibly may in some of the histories of Mahomet's life. I shall leave my reader to compare these eastern fables with the notions of those two great philosophers whom I have quoted in this paper; and shall only, by way of application, desire him to consider how we may extend life beyond its natural dimension, by applying ourselves diligently to the pursuits of knowledge. The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; so is that of the other, because he distinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts; or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it. ble with God; and that He, with whom a thou- | they imagine the seat of love and friendship to be sand years are but as one day, can, if He pleases, placed visibly in the eyes. They judge what make a single day, nay, a single moment, appear stock of kindness you had for the living, by the to any of his creatures as a thousand years. quantity of tears you pour out for the dead: so that if one body wants that quantity of salt water another abounds with, he is in great danger of being thought insensible or ill-natured. They are strangers to friendship whose grief happens not to be moist enough to wet such a parcel of handkerchiefs. But experience has told us nothing is so fallacious as this outward sign of sorrow; and the natural history of our bodies will teach us that this flux of the eyes, this faculty of weeping, is peculiar only to some constitutions. We ob serve in the tender bodies of children, when crossed in their little wills and expectations, how dissolvable they are into tears. If this were what grief is in men, nature would not be able to support them in the excess of it for one moment. Add to this observation, how quick is their transition from this passion to that of their joy! I will not say we see often, in the next tender things to children, tears shed without much grieving. Thus it is common to shed tears without much sorrow, and as common to suffer much sorrow without shedding tears. Grief and weeping are indeed frequent companions; but, I believe, never in their highest excesses. As laughter does not proceed from profound joy, so neither does weeping from profound sorrow. The sorrow which appears so easily at the eyes, cannot have pierced deeply into the heart. The heart, distended with grief, stops all the passages for tears or lamentations. Now, Sir, what I would incline you to in all this is, that you would inform the shallow critics and observers upon sorrow, that true affliction labors to be invisible, that it is a stranger to ceremony, and that it bears in its own nature a dignity much above the little circumstances which are affected under the notion of decency. You must know, Sir. I have lately lost a dear friend, for whom I have not yet shed a tear, and for that reason your animadversions on that subject would be the more acceptable to, How different is the view of past life, in the man who is grown old in knowledge and wisdom, from that of him who is grown old in ignorance and folly! The latter is like the owner of a bar ren country, that fills his eye with the prospect of naked hills and plains, which produce nothing either profitable or ornamental; the other beholds a beautiful and spacious landscape divided into delightful gardens, green meadows, fruitful fields, and can scarce cast his eye on a single spot of his possessions, that is not covered with some beautiful plant or flower. L. No. 95.] TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1711. Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.-3ENECA TRAG. Light sorrows loose the tongue, but great enchain.-P. HAVING read the two following letters with much pleasure, I cannot but think the good sense of them will be as agreeable to the town as anything I could say either on the topics they treat of, or any other; they both allude to former papers of mine, and I do not question but the first, which is upon mourning, will be thought the production of a man who is well acquainted with the generous yearnings of distress in a manly temper, which is above the relief of tears. A speculation of my own on that subject I shall defer till another occasion. The second letter is from a lady of a mind as great as her understanding. There is, perhaps, something in the beginning of it which I ought in modesty to conceal; but I have so much esteem for this correspondent, that I will not alter a tittle of what she writes, though I am thus scrupulous at the price of being ridiculous. "MR. SPECTATOR, 66 Sir, your most humble servant, "B. D." "MR. SPECTATOR, June the 15th. "As I hope there are but few who have so little gratitude as not to acknowledge the usefulness of your pen, and to esteem it a public benefit; so I am sensible, be that as it will, you must nevertheless find the secret and incomparable pleasure of doing good, and be a great sharer in the entertainment you give. I acknowledge our sex to be much obliged, and I hope improved, by your labors, and even your intentions more particularly for our service. If it be true, as it is sometimes "I was very well pleased with your discourse said, that our sex have an influence on the other, upon general mourning, and should be obliged to your paper may be a yet more general good. Your you if you would enter into the matter more directing us to reading is certainly the best means deeply, and give us your thoughts upon the com- to our instruction; but I think with you, caution mon sense the ordinary people have of the demon in that particular very useful, since the improvestrations of grief, who prescribe rules and fashment of our understandings may or may not be of ions to the most solemn affliction; such as the service to us, according as it is managed. It has loss of the nearest relations and dearest friends. been thought we are not generally so ignorant as You cannot go to visit a sick friend, but some ill-taught, or that our sex does not so often want impertinent waiter about him observes the muscles wit, judgment, or knowledge, as the right appli of your face as strictly as if they were prognostics cation of them. You are so well-bred, as to say of his death or recovery. If he happens to be your fair readers are already deeper scholars than taken from you, you are immediately surrounded the beaux, and that you could name some of them with numbers of these spectators, who expect a that talk much better than several gentlemen that melancholy shrug of your shoulders, a pathetical make a figure at Will's. This may possibly be, shake of your head, and an expressive distortion and no great compliment, in my opinion, even of your face, to measure your affection and value supposing your comparison to reach Tom's and for the deceased. But there is nothing, on these the Grecian. Surely you are too wise to think occasions, so much in their favor as immoderate that the real commendation of a woman. Were weeping. As all their passions are superficial, it not rather to be wished we improved in our own |