'MR. SPECTATOR,-I write this to communicate to you a misfortune which frequently happens, and therefore deserves a Consolatory discourse on the subject. I was within this half year in the possession of as much beauty and as many lovers as any young lady in England. But my admirers have left me, and I cannot complain of their behaviour. I have within that time had the small-pox: and this face, which (according to many amorous epistles which I have by me) was the seat of all that was beautiful in woman, is now disfigured with scars. It goes to the very soul of me to speak what I really think of my face, and though I think I did not overrate my beauty while I had it, it has extremely advanced in its value with me now it is lost. There is one circumstance which makes my case very particular; the ugliest fellow that ever pretended to me, was and is most in my favour, and he treats me at present the most unreasonably. If you could make him return an obligation which he owes me, in liking a person that is not amiable-but there is, I fear, no possibility of making passion move by the rules of reason and gratitude. But say what you can to one who has survived herself, and knows not how to act in a new being. My lovers are at the feet of my rivals, my rivals are every day bewailing me, and I cannot enjoy what I am, by reason of the distracting reflection upon what Consider the woman I was did not I was. die of old age, but I was taken off in the prime of youth, and according to the course of nature may have forty years after-life to come. I have nothing of myself left, which I like, but that I am, sir, your most humble PARTHENISSA.' servant, When Lewis of France had lost the battle of Ramilies, the addresses to him at that time were full of his fortitude, and they turned his misfortune to his glory; in that, during his prosperity, he could never have manifested his heroic constancy under distresses, and so the world had lost the most eminent part of his character. Parthenissa's condition gives her the same opportu nity: and to resign conquests is a task as difficult in a beauty as a hero. In the very entrance upon this work she must burn all her love-letters; or since she is so candid as not to call her lovers, who follow her no longer, unfaithful, it would be a very good beginning of a new life from that of a beauty, to send them back to those who writ them, with this honest inscription, Articles of a marriage treaty broken off by the smallpox.' I have known but one instance where à matter of this kind went on after a like misfortune, where the lady, who was a woman of spirit, writ this billet to her lover: 'SIR,-If you flattered me before I had this terrible malady, pray come and see me now: but if you sincerely liked me, stay away, for I am not the same "CORINNA." The lover thought there was something so sprightly in her behaviour, that he answered: 'MADAM,-I am not obliged, since you are not the same woman, to let you know whether I flattered you or not: but I assure you I do not, when I tell you I now like you above all your sex, and hope you will bear what may befal me when we are both one, as well as you do what happens to yourself now you are single; therefore I am ready to take such a spirit for my companion as soon as you please. AMILCAR.' you If Parthenissa can now possess her own mind, and think as little of her beauty as there will be no great diminution of her she ought to have done when she had it, charms; and if she was formerly affected too much with them, an easy behaviour will more than make up for the loss of them. Take the whole sex together, and session of men's hearts are not eminent for find those who have the strongest postheir beauty. You see it often happen that those who engage men to the greatest violence, are such as those who are strangers to them would take to be, remarkably defective for that end. The fondest lover I know, said to me one day in a crowd of have often heard me talk of my beloved; women at an entertainment of music, You that woman there,' continued he, smiling, when he had fixed my eye, is her very much the least remarkable for beauty of picture.' The lady he showed me was by any in the whole assembly; but having my curiosity extremely raised, I could not keep my eyes off her. Her eyes at last met mine, and with a sudden surprise she looked round her to see who near her was remarkably handsome that I was gazing at. This little act explained the secret. She did not understand herself for the object of love, and therefore she was so. The lover is a very honest plain man; and what charmed him was a person that goes along with him in the cares and joys of life, not taken up with herself, but sincerely attentive, with a ready and cheerful mind, to accompany him in either. but you must explain yourself farther, be- I can tell Parthenissa for her comfort that the beauties, generally speaking, are the most impertinent and disagreeable of women. An apparent desire of admiration, a reflection upon their own merit, and a No. 307.] Thursday, Feb. 21, 1711-12. precise behaviour in their general conduct, are almost inseparable accidents in beauties. All you obtain of them, is granted to importunity and solicitation for what did not deserve so much of your time, and you recover from the possession of it as out of a dream. You are ashamed of the vagaries of fancy which so strangely misled you, and your admiration of a beauty, merely as such, is inconsistent with a tolerable reflection upon yourself. The cheerful good-humoured creatures, into whose heads it never entered that they could make any man unhappy, are the persons formed for making men happy. There is Miss Liddy can dance a jig, raise paste, write a good hand, keep an account, give a reasonable answer, and do as she is bid; while her eldest sister, Madam Martha, is out of humour, has the spleen, learns by reports of people of higher quality new ways of being uneasy and displeased. And this happens for no reason in the world, but that poor Liddy knows she has no such thing, as a certain negligence that is so becoming:' that there is not I know not what in her air; and that if she talks like a fool, there is no one will say, Well! I know not what it is, but every thing pleases when she speaks it.' Versate diu, quid ferre recusent, Quid valeant humeri Hor. Ars Poet. v. 39. letter, that I am in hopes it will not be a 'SIR,-Though I believe none of your readers more admire your agreeable manner of working up trifles than myself, yet as your speculations are now swelling into volumes, and will in all probability pass down to future ages, methinks I would have no single subject in them, wherein the general good of mankind is concerned, left unfinished. 'I have a long time expected with great impatience that you would enlarge upon the ordinary mistakes which are committed in the education of our children. I the more easily flattered myself that you would one time or other resume this consideration, because you tell us that your 168th paper was only composed of a few broken hints: but finding myself hitherto disappointed, I have ventured to send you my own thoughts on this subject. Ask any of the husbands of your great 'I remember Pericles, in his famous beauties, and they will tell you that they hate oration at the funeral of those Athenian their wives nine hours of every day they young men who perished in the Samian expass together. There is such a particularity pedition, has a thought very much celefor ever affected by them, that they are brated by several ancient critics, namely, encumbered with their charms in all they that the loss which the commonwealth sufsay or do. They pray at public devotions fered by the destruction of its youth, was as they are beauties: they converse on or- like the loss which the year would suffer dinary occasions as they are beauties. Ask by the destruction of the spring. The preBelinda what it is o'clock, and she is at a judice which the public sustains from a stand whether so great a beauty should an- wrong education of children, is an evil of swer you. In a word, I think, instead of the same nature, as it in a manner starves offering to administer consolation to Parthe-posterity, and defrauds our country of those nissa, I should congratulate her metamor- persons, who, with due care, might make phosis; and however she thinks she was an eminent figure in their respective posts not the least insolent in the prosperity of of life. her charms, she was enough so to find she may make herself a much more agreeable creature in her present adversity. The endeavour to please is highly promoted by a consciousness that the approbation of the person you would be agreeable to, is a favour you do not deserve: for in this case assurance of success is the most certain way to disappointment. Good-nature will always supply the absence of beauty, but beauty cannot long supply the absence of good-nature. 'POSTSCRIPT. 'February 18. 'MADAM, I have yours of this day, wherein you twice bid me not disoblige you, I have seen a book written by Juan Huartes a Spanish Physician, entitled Examen de Ingenois, wherein he lays it down as one of his first positions, that nothing but nature can qualify a man for learning: and that without a proper temperament for the particular art or science which he studies, his utmost pains and application, assisted by the ablest masters, will be to no purpose. He illustrates this by the example of Tully's son Marcus. Cicero, in order to accomplish his son in that sort of learning which he designed him for, sent him to Athens, the most celebrated academy at that time in the world, and where a vast concourse, out of the most polite nations could not but furnish the young gentleman with a multitude of great examples and accidents that might insensibly have instructed him in his designed studies. He placed him under the care of Cratippus, who was one of the greatest philosophers of the age, and, as if all the books which were at that time written had not been sufficient for his use, he composed others on purpose for him: notwithstanding all this, history informs us that Marcus proved a mere blockhead, and that nature, (who it seems was even with the son for her prodigality to the father) rendered him incapable of improving by all the rules of eloquence, the precepts of philosophy, his own endeavours, and the most refined conversation in Athens. This author, therefore, proposes, that there should be certain triers or examiners appointed by the state, to inspect the genius of every particular boy, and to allot him the part that is most suitable to his natural talents. 'Plato in one of his dialogues tells us that Socrates, who was the son of a midwife, used to say, that as his mother, though she was very skilful in her profession, could not deliver a woman unless she was first with child, so neither could he himself raise knowledge out of a mind where nature had not planted it. Accordingly the method this philosopher took, of instructing his scholars by several interrogatories or questions, was only helping the birth, and bringing their own thoughts to light. The Spanish doctor above-mentioned, as his speculations grew more refined, asserts that every kind of wit has a particular science, corresponding to it, and in which alone it can be truly excellent. As to those geniuses, which may seem to have an equal aptitude for several things, he regards them as so many unfinished pieces of nature wrought off in haste. 'How different from this manner of education is that which prevails in our own country! where nothing is more usual than to see forty or fifty boys of several ages, tempers, and inclinations, ranged together in the same class, employed upon the same authors, and enjoined the same tasks! Whatever their natural genius may be, they are all to be made poets, historians, and orators alike. They are all obliged to have the same capacity, to bring in the same tale of verse, and to furnish out the same portion of prose. Every boy is bound to have as good a memory as the captain of the form. To be brief, instead of adapting studies to the particular genius of a youth, we expect from the young man, that he should adapt his genius to his studies. This, I must confess, is not so much to be imputed to the instructor, as to the parent, who will never be brought to believe, that his son is not capable of performing as much as his neighbour's, and that he may not make him whatever he has a mind to. If the present age is more laudable than those which have gone before it in any single particular, it is in that generous care which several well-disposed persons have taken in the education of poor children; and as in these charity-schools there is no place left for the overweaning fondness of a parent, the directors of them would make them beneficial to the public, if they considered the precept which I have been thus long inculcating. They might easily, by well examining the parts of those under their inspection, make a just distribution of them into proper classes and divisions, and allot to them this or that particular study, as their genius qualifies them for professions, trades, handicrafts, or service by sea or land. How is this kind of regulation wanting in the three great professions! tail. In like manner many a lawyer, who makes but an indifferent figure at the bar, might have made a very elegant waterman, and have shined at the Temple stairs, though he can get no business in the house. 'Dr. South, complaining of persons who "There are indeed but very few to whom took upon them holy orders, though altonature has been so unkind, that they are gether unqualified for the sacred function, not capable of shining in some science or says somewhere, that many a man runs his other. There is a certain bias towards know-head against a pulpit, who might have done ledge in every mind, which may be strength- his country excellent service at the ploughened and improved by proper applications. The story of Clavius is very well known. He was entered in a college of Jesuits, and after having been tried at several parts of learning, was upon the point of being dismissed, as a hopeless blockhead, until one of the fathers took it into his head to make an essay of his parts in geometry, which it seems hit his genius so luckily, that he after-lent physician. wards became one of the greatest mathematicians of the age. It is commonly thought that the sagacity of these fathers in discovering the talent of a young student, has not a little contributed to the figure which their order has made in the world. * 'I have known a corn-cutter, who with a right education would have been an excel To descend lower, are not our streets filled with sagacious draymen, and politicians in liveries? We have several tailors of six foot high, and meet with many a broad pair of shoulders that are thrown away upon a barber, when perhaps at the same time we see a pigmy porter reeling Clavius died at Rome in 1612, aged 75; his works under a burden, who might have managed are comprised in five volumes in folio. a needle with much dexterity, or have snapped his fingers with great ease to him- for I am an ugly fellow, of great wit and self, and advantage to the public. sagacity. My father was a hale country "The Spartans, though they acted with 'squire, my mother a witty beauty of no the spirit which I am here speaking of, fortune. The match was made by consent carried it much farther than what I pro- of my mother's parents against her own, pose. Among them it was not lawful for and I am the child of the rape on the wedthe father himself to bring up his children ding night; so that I am as healthy and as after his own fancy. As soon as they were homely as my father, but as sprightly and seven years old, they were all listed in se- agreeable as my mother. It would be of veral companies, and disciplined by the great ease to you, if you would use me unpublic. The old men were spectators of der you, that matches might be better their performances, who often raised quar-regulated for the future, and we might rels among them, and set them at strife with one another, that by those early discoveries they might see how their several talents lay, and, without any regard to their quality, disposed of them accordingly, for the service of the commonwealth. By this means Sparta soon became the mistress of Greece, and famous through the whole world for her civil and military discipline. If you think this letter deserves a place among your speculations, I may perhaps trouble you with some other thoughts on the same subject. I am, &c.' X. have no more children of squabbles. I shall not reveal all my pretensions until I receive your answer: and I am, sir, your most humble servant, 'MULES PALFREY.' 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of those unfortunate men within the city-walls, who am married to a woman of quality, but her temper is something different from that of thoughts are spent in keeping up to the Lady Anvil. My lady's whole time and mode both in apparel and furniture. All the goods in my house have been changed three times in seven years. I have had seven children by her: and by our marriage-articles she was to have her apart No. 308.] Friday, February 22, 1711-12. ment new furnished as often as she lay-in. -Jam proterva Fronte petet Lalage maritum. Hor. Od. 5. Lib. ii. ver. 15. -Lalage will soon proclaim Her love, nor blush to own her flame.-Creech. stood up above that time. My dear is of opinion that an old-fashioned grate consumes coals, but gives no heat. If she drinks out of glasses of the last year she cannot distinguish wine from small beer. Oh, dear sir, you may guess all the rest. 'Yours. 'P. S. I could bear even all this, if I were not obliged also to eat fashionably. I have a plain stomach, and have a constant loathing of whatever comes to my own table; for which reason I dine at the chophouse three days in a week; where the good company wonders they never see you of late. I am sure, by your unprejudiced discourses, you love broth better than soup.' Nothing in our house is useful but that which is fashionable; my pewter holds out generally half a year, my plate a full twelve month; chairs are not fit to sit in that were made two years since, nor beds 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I give you this trou-fit for any thing but to sleep in, that have ble in order to propose myself to you as an assistant in the weighty cares which you have thought fit to undergo for the public good. I am a very great lover of women, that is to say, honestly; and as it is natural to study what one likes, I have industriously applied myself to understand them. The present circumstance relating to them is, that I think there wants under you, as Spectator, a person to be distinguished and vested in the power and quality of a censor on marriages. I lodge at the Temple, and know, by seeing women come hither, and afterwards observing them conducted by their counsel to judges' chambers, that there is a custom, in case of making conveyance of a wife's estate, that she is carried to a judge's apartment, and left alone with him, to be examined in private, whether she has not been frightened or sweetened by her spouse into the act she is going to do, or whether it is of her own freewill. Now if this be a method founded upon reason and equity, why should there not be also a proper officer for examining such as are entered into the state of matrimony, whether they are forced by parents on one side, or moved by interest only on the other, to come together, and bring forth such awkward heirs as are the product of half love and constrained compliances? There is nobody, though I say it myself, would be fitter for this office than I am: 'Will's, Feb. 19. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-You may believe you are a person as much talked of as any man in town. I am one of your best friends in this house, and have laid a wager you are so candid a man, and so honest a fellow, that you will print this letter, though it is in recommendation of a new paper called The Historian. I have read it carefully, and find it written with skill, good sense, modesty, and fire. You must allow the town is kinder to you than you deserve; and I doubt not but you have so much sense of the world's change of humour, and instability of all human things, as to understand, that the only way to preserve favour is to communicate it to others with good 'READER GENTLE.' No. 309.] Saturday, February 23, 1711-12. Virg. En. vi. ver. 264 Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight, Dryden. I was very much surprised this morning that any one should find out my lodging, and know it so well, as to come directly to I HAVE before observed in general, that my closet door, and knock at it, to give me the persons whom Milton introduces into the following letter. When I came out I his poem always discover such sentiments opened it, and saw, by a very strong pair and behaviour as are in a peculiar manner of shoes, and a warm coat the bearer had conformable to their respective characters. on, that he walked all the way to bring it Every circumstance in their speeches and me, though dated from York. My misfor-actions is with great justice and delicacy tune is that I cannot talk, and I found the adapted to the persons who speak and act. messenger had so much of me, that he As the poet very much excels in this concould think better than speak. He had, I sistency of his characters, I shall beg leave observed, a polite discerning, hid under a book in this light. That superior greatto consider several passages of the second shrewd rusticity. He delivered the paper with a Yorkshire tone and a town leer. ness and mock-majesty, which is ascribed to the prince of the fallen angels, is admirably preserved in the beginning of this book. His opening and closing the debate; his taking on himself that great enterprise, at the thought of which, the whole infernal assembly trembled; his encountering the hideous phantom who guarded the gates of hell, and appeared to him in all his terrors; are instances of that proud and daring mind which could not brook submission, even to Omnipotence! Satan was now at hand, and from his seat 'MR. SPECTATOR.-The privilege you have indulged John Trot has proved of very bad consequence to our illustrious assembly, which besides the many excellent maxims it is founded upon, is remarkable for the extraordinary decorum always observed in it. One instance of which is that the carders (who are always of the first quality) never begin to play until the French dances are finished, and the country dances begin: but John Trot, having now got your commission in his pocket, (which every one here has a profound respect for) has the assurance to set up for a minuetdancer. Not only so, but he has brought down upon us the whole body of the Trots, haviour discovers itself in the several adThe same boldness and intrepidity of be which are very numerous, with their aux-ventures which he meets with, during his iliaries the hobblers and the skippers, by passage through the regions of unformed which means the time is so much wasted, that, unless we break all rules of government, it must redound to the utter subversion of the brag-table, the discreet members of which value time as Fribble's wife does her pin-money. We are pretty well assured that your indulgence to Trot was only in relation to country-dances; however, we have deferred issuing an order of council upon the premises, hoping to get you to join with us, that Trot, nor any of his clan, presume for the future to dance any but country dances, unless a hornpipe upon a festival day. If you will do this you will oblige a great many ladies, and particularly your most humble servant, ELIZ. SWEEPSTAKES. York, Feb. 16.' 'I never meant any other than that Mr. Trot should confine himself to country dances. And I further direct that he shall take out none but his own relations according to their nearness of blood, but any gentlewoman may take out him. THE SPECTATOR. 'London, Feb. 21.' matter, and particularly in his address to those tremendous powers who are described as presiding over it. circumstances, full of that fire and fury -Where the might of Gabriel fought, It may be worth while to observe, that |
