THE SPECTATOR. N° 522. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1712. -Adjuro nunquam eam me deserturum ; Non, si capiundos mihi sciam esse inimicos omnes homines. Qui inter nos discidium volunt: hanc, nisi mors, mi adimet nemo. I swear never to forsake her; no, though I were sure to make all men my enemies. Her I desired; her I have obtained; our humours agree. Perish all those who would separate us! Death alone shall deprive me of her. SHOULD esteem myself a very happy man if my spe the conduct of my readers in one of the most important affairs of life, to wit, their choice in marriage. This state is the foundation of community, and the chief band of society; and I do not think I can be too frequent on subjects which may give light to my unmarried readers in a particular which is so essential to their following happiness or misery. A virtuous disposition, a good understanding, an agreeable person, and an easy fortune, are the things which should be chiefly regarded on this occasion. Because my present view is to direct a young lady, who I think is now in doubt whom to take of many lovers, I shall talk at this time to my female readers. The advantages, as I was going to say, of sense, beauty, and riches, are what are certainly the chief motives to a prudent young woman of fortune for changing her condition; but, as she is to have her eye upon each of these, she is to ask herself, whether the man who has most of these recommendations in the lump is not the most desirable. N® 522. He that has excellent talents, with a moderate estate, and an agreeable person, is preferable to him who is only rich, if it were only that good faculties may purchase riches, but riches cannot purchase worthy endowments. I do not mean that wit, and a capacity to entertain, is what should be highly valued, except it is founded on good-nature and humanity. There are many ingenious men, whose abilities do little else but make themselves and those about them uneasy. Such are those who are far gone in the pleasures of the town, who cannot support life without quick sensations and gay reflections, and are strangers to tranquillity, to right reason, and a calm motion of spirits, without transport or dejection. These ingenious men, of all men living, are most to be avoided by her who would be happy in a husband. They are immediately sated with possession, and must necessarily fly to new acquisitions of beauty to pass away the wiling moments and intervals of life; for with them every hour is heavy that is not joyful. But there is a sort of man of wit and his own make, and that of his partner, eyes of reason and honour, and who believes he offends against both these, if he does not look upon the woman who chose him to be under his protection in sickness and health with the utmost gratitude, whether from that moment she is shining or defective in mind: I person or say there are those who think themselves bound to supply with good-nature the failings of those who love them, and who always think those the objects of love and pity who came to their arms the objects of joy and admiration. sense,ith reflect upon Of this latter sort is Lysander, a man of wit, learning, sobriety, and good-nature; of birth and estate below no woman to accept; and of whom it might be said, should he succeed in his present wishes, his mistress raised his fortune, but not that she made it. When a woman is deliberating with herself whom she shall choose of many near each other in other pretensions, certainly he of best understanding is to be preferred. Life hangs heavily in the repeated conversation of one who has no imagination to be fired at the several occasions and objects which come before him, or who cannot strike out of his reflections new paths of pleasing discourse. Honest Will Thrash and his wife, though not married above four months, have scarce had a word to say to each other this six weeks; and one cannot form to one's self a sillier picture than these two creatures, in solemn pomp and plenty, unable to enjoy their fortunes, and at a full stop among a crowd of servants, to whose taste of life they are beholden for the little satisfactions by which they can be understood to be so much as barely in being. The hours of the day, the distinctions of noon and night, dinner and supper, are the greatest notices they are capable of. This is perhaps representing the life of a very modest woman, joined to a dull fellow, more insipid than it really deserves; but I am sure it is not to exalt the commerce with an ingenious companion too high, to say that every new accident or object, which comes into such a gentleman's way, gives his wife new. pleasures and satisfactions. The approbation of his words and actions is a continual new feast to her; nor can she enough applaud her good fortune in having her life varied every hour, her mind more improved, and her heart more glad, from every circumstance which they meet with. He will lay out his invention in forming new pleasures and amusements, and make the fortune she has brought him subservient to the honour and reputation of her and hers. A man of sense, who is thus obliged, is ever contriving the happiness of her who did him so great a distinction; while the fool is ungrateful without vice, and never returns a favour because he is not sensible of it. I would, methinks, have so much to say for myself, that, if I fell into the hands of him who treated me ill, he should be sensible when he did so. His conscience should be of my side, whatever became of his inclination. I do not know but it is the insipid choice which has been made by those who have the care of young women, that the marriage state itself has been liable to so much ridicule. But a well-chosen love, moved by passion on both sides, and perfected by the generosity of one party, must be adorned with so many handsome incidents on the other side, that every particular couple would be an example in many circumstances to all the rest of the species. I shall end the chat upon this subject with a couple of letters; one from a lover, who is very well acquainted with the way of bargaining on these occasions; and the other from his rival, who has a less estate, but great gallantry of temper. As for my man of prudence, he makes love, as he says, as if he were already a father, and, laying aside the passion, comes to the reason of the thing. "MADAM, My counsel has perused the inventory of your estate, and considered what estate you have, which it seems is only yours, and to the male-heirs of your body; but, in default of such issue, to the right heirs of your uncle Edward for ever. Thus, Madam, I am advised you cannot (the remainder not being in you) dock the entail; by which means my estate, which is fee-simple, will come by the settlement proposed to your children begotten by me, whether they are males or females: but my children begotten upon you will not inherit your lands, except I beget a son. Now, Madam, since things are so, you are a woman of that prudence, and understand the world so well, as not to expect I should give you more than you can give me. "I am, Madam (with great respect), "T. W." The other lover's estate is less than this gentleman's, but he expressed himself as follows: "MADAM, "I have given in my estate to your counsel, and desired my own lawyer to insist upon no terms which your friends can propose for your certain ease and advantage; for indeed I have no notion of making difficulties of presenting you with what cannot make me happy without "I am, Madam, you. "Your most devoted humble servant, "B. T." You must know the relations have met upon this; and the girl being mightily taken with the latter epistle, she is laughed at, and uncle Edward is to be dealt with to make her a suitable match to the worthy gentleman who has told her he does not care a farthing for her. All I hope for is, that the fair lady will make use of the first light night to shew B. T. she understands a marriage is not to be considered as a common bargain. T. N° 523. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1712. I -Nunc augur Apollo, Nunc Lycia sortes, nunc et Jove missus ab ipso Scilicet is superis labor VIRG. En. iv. 376. Now Lycian lots, and now the Delian god, * DRYDEN. AM always highly delighted with the discovery of any rising genius among my countrymen. For this reason, I have read over, with great pleasure, the late miscellany published by Mr. Pope, in which there are many excellent compositions of that ingenious gentleman. I have had a pleasure of the same kind in perusing a poem that is just published, On the Prospect of Peace; and which, I hope, will meet with such a reward from its patrons as so noble a performance deserves. I was particularly well pleased to find that the author had not amused himself with fables out of the pagan theology, and that when he hints at any thing of this nature he alludes to it only as to a fable. If Many of our modern authors, whose learning very often extends no farther than Ovid's Metamorphoses, do not know how to celebrate a great man, without mixing a parcel of school-boy tales with the recital of his actions. you read a poem on a fine woman among the authors of this class, you shall see that it turns more upon Venus or Helen than on the party concerned. I have known a copy of verses on a great hero highly commended: but upon asking to hear some of the beautiful passages, the admirer of it has repeated to me a speech of Apollo, or a description of Polypheme. At other times, when I have searched for the actions of a great man, who gave a subject to the writer, I have been entertained with the exploits of a river-god, or have been forced to attend a Fury in her mischievous progress, from one end of the poem to the other. When we are at school it is necessary for * By Mr. Thomas Tickell. C |