Nor yet from some was all Distrust remov'd,
Tho' Heav'n such Virtue by such Wonders prov'd,
I am, Sir,

'Mr. SPECTATOR,

Your very humble Servant,

No. 527,
Tuesday,
Nov. 4,

1712.

Philagnotes.'

You will oblige a languishing Lover, if you will please to print the enclosed Verses in your next Paper. If you remember the Metamorphosis, you know Procrís, the fond Wife of Cephalus, is said to have made her Husband, who delighted in the Sports of the Wood, a Present of an unerring Javelin. In Process of Time he was so much in the Forest, that his Lady suspected he was pursuing some Nymph, under the Pretence of following a Chace more innocent. Under this Suspicion she hid her self among the Trees to observe his Motions. While she lay concealed, her Husband, tired with the Labour of Hunting, came within her Hearing. As he was fainting with Heat, he cryed out, Aura vení: Oh charming Air approach.

The unfortunate Wife, taking the Word Air to be the Name of a Woman, began to move among the Bushes, and the Husband believing it a Deer, threw his Javelin and killed her. This History painted on a Fan, which I presented to a Lady, gave occasion to my growing poetical

Come gentle Air! th' Eolian Shepherd said,
While Procris panted in the secret Shade;
Come gentle Air! the fairer Delia cries,
While at her Feet her Swain expiring lies.
Lo the glad Gales o'er all her Beauties stray,
Breath on her Lips, and in her Bosom play.
In Delia's Hand this Toy is fatal found,
Nor did that fabled Dart more surely wound.
Both Gifts destructive to the Givers prove,
Alike both Lovers fall by those they love:
Yet guiltless too this bright Destroyer lives,
At Random wounds, nor knows the Wounds she gives;
She views the Story with attentive Eyes,
And pities Procris while her Lover dies.'

Wednesday

Wednes day, Nov. 5. 1712.

No. 528, No. 528.
[STEELE]

Wednesday, November 5.

Dum potuit, solita gemitum virtute repressit,—Ovid.

'Mr. SPECTATOR,

I
WHO now write to you am a Woman loaded with
Injuries; and the Aggravation of my Misfortune is, that
they are such which are overlooked by the Generality of
Mankind, and tho' the most afflicting imaginable, not
regarded as such in the general Sense of the World. I
have hid my Vexation from all Mankind; but have
now taken Pen, Ink, and Paper, and am resolved to un-
bosome my self to you, and lay before you what grieves
me and all the Sex. You have very often mentioned
particular Hardships done to this or that Lady; but,
methinks, you have not in any one Speculation directly
pointed at the partial Freedom Men take, the unreason
able Confinement Women are obliged to, in the only
Circumstance in which we are necessarily to have a Com
merce with them, that of Love. The Case of Celibacy
is the great Evil of our Nation; and the Indulgence of
the vitious Conduct of Men in that State, with the
Ridicule to which Women are exposed, though never so
virtuous, if long unmarried, is the Root of the greatest
Irregularities of this Nation. To shew you, Sir, that
though you never have given us the Catalogue of a
Lady's Library as you promised, we read good Books
of our own chusing, I shall insert on this Occasion a
Paragraph or two out of Echard's Roman History. In
the 44th Page of the second Volume the Author ob
serves, That Augustus, upon his Return to Rome at the
end of a War, received Complaints that too great a
Number of the young men of Quality were unmarried.
The Emperor thereupon assembled the whole Equestrian
Order; and having separated the Married from the Single,
did particular Honours to the former; but he told the
latter, that is to say, Mr. SPECTATOR, he told the Batchelors,
"That their Lives and Actions had been so peculiar,
that he knew not by what Name to call 'em; not by
that of Men, for they performed nothing that was manly;
not by that of Citizens, for the City might perish not
withstanding

1712.

withstanding their Care; nor by that of Romans, for No. 528, they designed to extirpate the Roman Name." Then Wednes proceeding to shew his tender Care and hearty Affection day, Nov. 5, for his People, he further told 'em, "That their Course of Life was of such pernicious Consequence to the Glory and Grandeur of the Roman Nation, that he could not chuse but tell 'em, that all other Crimes put together could not equalize theirs: For they were guilty of Murder, in not suffering those to be born which should proceed from them; of Impiety, in causing the Names and Honours of their Ancestors to cease; and of Sacrilege, in destroying their Kind, which proceed from the Im mortal Gods, and human Nature, the principal Thing consecrated to 'em: Therefore, in this Respect they dis solved the Government, in disobeying its Laws; betrayed their Country, by making it barren and waste; nay, and demolished their City, in depriving it of Inhabitants. And he was sensible that all this proceeded not from any kind of Virtue or Abstinence, but from a Looseness and Wantonness, which ought never to be encourag'd in any Civil Government." There are no Particulars dwelt upon that let us into the Conduct of these young Worthies, whom this great Emperor treated with so much Justice and Indignation; but any one who observes what passes in this Town, may very well frame to himself a Notion of their Riots and Debaucheries all Night, and their apparent Preparations for them all Day. It is not to be doubted but these Romans never passed any of their Time innocently but when they were asleep, and never slept but when they were weary and heavy with Ex cesses, and slept only to prepare themselves for the Repetition of them. If you did your Duty as a SPECTATOR, you would carefully examine into the Number of Births, Marriages, and Burials; and when you had deducted out of your Deaths all such as went out of the World without marrying, then cast up the Number of both Sexes born within such a Term of Years last past, you might from the single People departed make some useful Inferences or Guesses how many there are left unmarried, and raise some useful Scheme for the Amendment of the Age in that particular. I have not Patience to proceed gravely

on

No. 528, Wednes day, Nov. 5, 1712.

on this abominable Libertinism; for I cannot but reflect,
as I am writing to you, upon a certain lascivious Manner
which all our young Gentlemen use in Publick, and
examine our Eyes with a Petulancy in their own, which
is a downright Affront to Modesty. A disdainful Look on
such an Occasion is returned with a Countenance rebuked
but by averting their Eyes from the Woman of Honour
and Decency to some flippant Creature, who will, as the
Phrase is, be kinder, I must set down things as they
come into my Head, without standing upon Order. Ten
thousand to one but the gay Gentleman who stared at
the same Time is an House-keeper; for you must know
they have got into a Humour of late of being very
regular in their Sins, and a young Fellow shall keep his
four Maids and three Footmen with the greatest Gravity
imaginable. There are no less than six of these vener
able House-keepers of my Acquaintance. This Humour
among young Men of Condition is imitated by all the
World below them, and a general Dissolution of Manners
arises from the one Source of Libertinism without Shame
or Reprehension in the Male Youth. It is from this one
Fountain that so many beautiful helpless young Women
are sacrificed, and given up to Lewdness, Shame, Poverty,
and Disease: It is to this also that so many excellent
young Women, who might be Patterns of conjugal
Affection and Parents of a worthy Race, pine under
unhappy Passions for such as have not Attention enough
to observe, or Virtue enough to prefer them to their
common Wenches. Now, Mr. SPECTATOR, I must be free
to own to you, that I my self suffer a tasteless insipid
Being, from a Consideration I have for a Man who
would not, as he has said in my Hearing, resign his
Liberty, as he calls it, for all the Beauty and Wealth the
whole Sex is possessed of. Such Calamities as these would
not happen, if it could possibly be brought about, that
by fining Batchelors as Papists Convict, or the like, they
were distinguished to their Disadvantage from the rest of
the World, who fall in with the Measures of civil Society,
Lest you
should think I speak this as being, according
to the senseless rude Phrase, a malicious old Maid, I
shall acquaint you I am a Woman of Condition not

now

now three and twenty, and have had Proposals from No. 528. at least ten different Men, and the greater Number of Wednes them have upon the Upshot refused me, Something Nov. 5, day, or other is always amiss when the Lover takes to some 1712. new Wench: A Settlement is easily excepted against; and there is very little Recourse to avoid the vitious Part of our Youth, but throwing one's self away upon some lifeless Blockhead, who though he is without Vice, is also without Virtue. Now-a-days we must be contented if we can get Creatures which are not bad; good are not to be expected. Mr. SPECTATOR, I sate near you the other Day, and I think I did not displease your Spectatorial Eye-sight; which I shall be a better Judge of when I see whether you take Notice of these Evils your own way, or print this Memorial dictated from the disdainful heavy Heart of,

Sír,

Your most Obedient Humble Servant,
Rachael Welladay.

T

No. 529,
[ADDISON.]

Thursday, November 6.

Singula quaeque locum teneant sortita decenter.-Hor. TPON the hearing of several late Disputes concerning

Rank and Precedence, I could not forbear amusing my self with some Observations, which I have made upon the Learned World, as to this great Particular. By the Learned World I here mean at large, all those who are any way concerned in Works of Literature, whether in the Writing, Printing or Repeating Part. To begin with the Writers; I have observed that the Author of a Folio, in all Companies and Conversations, sets himself above the Author of a Quarto; the Author of a Quarto above the Author of an Octavo; and so on, by a gradual Descent and Subordination, to an Author in Twenty-Fours. This Distinction is so well observed, that in an Assembly of the Learned, I have seen a Folio Writer place himself in an Elbow-chair, when the Author of a Duo-decimo has, out of a just Deference to his superior Quality, seated himself upon a Squabb. In a Word, Authors are usually

ranged