her next the Garden. But to cut short my Story: What can a Man do after all? I durst not stand for Member of Parliament last Election, for Fear of some ill Consequence from my being off of my Post. What I would therefore desire of you, is, to promote a Project I have set on Foot, and upon which I have writ to some of my Friends; and that is, that Care may be taken to secure our Daughters by Law as well as our Deer and that some honest Gentleman of a publick Spirit, would move for Leave to bring in a Bill for the better Preserving of the female Game. I am, Sir, Your humble Servant Mr. SPECTATOR, Mile-End-Green, March 6, 1711-12. Here is a young Man walks by our Door every Day about the Dusk of the Evening. He looks up at my Window as if to see me; and if I steal towards it to peep at him, he turns another Way, and looks frightned at finding what he was looking for. The Air is very cold; and pray let him know that, if he knocks at the Door, he will be carried to the Parlour Fire; and I will come down soon after, and give him an Opportunity to break his Mind, I am, Sir Your humble Servant, If I observe he cannot speak, I'll give him time to recover himself, and ask him how he does.' 'Dear Sir, I beg you to print this without Delay, and by the first Opportunity give us the natural Causes of Longing in Women; or put me out of Fear that my Wife will one Time or other be delivered of something as mon strous as any Thing that has yet appeared to the World; for they say the Child is to bear a Resemblance of what was desired by the Mother, I have been married up wards of six Years, have had four Children, and my Wife is now big with the fifth. The Expences she has has put me to, in procuring what she has longed for No. 326, during her Pregnancy with them, would not only have Friday, March 14, handsomely defrayed the Charges of the Month, but of 1712. their Education too; her Fancy being so exorbitant for the first Year or two, as not to confine it self to the usual Objects of Eatables and Drinkables, but running out after Equipage and Furniture, and the like Extrava gancies, To trouble you only with a few of them: When she was with Child of Tom my eldest Son, she came home one Day just fainting, and told me she had been visiting a Relation, whose Husband had made her a Present of a Chariot and a stately Pair of Horses; and that she was positive she could not breathe a Week longer, unless she took the Air in the Fellow to it of her own within that time: This, rather than lose an Heir, I readily complied with. Then the Furniture of her best Room must be instantly changed, or she should mark the Child with some of the frightful Figures in the old-fashion'd Tapistry, Well, the Upholsterer was called, and her Longing saved that Bout. When she went with Molly, she had fixed her Mind upon a new Set of Plate, and as much China as would have furnished an India Shop: These also I chearfully granted, for Fear of being Father to an Indian Pagod, Hitherto I found her Demands rose upon every Concession; and had she gone on I had been ruined: But by good Fortune, with her third, which was Peggy, the Heighth of her Imagi nation came down to the Corner of a Venison-Pasty, and brought her once even upon her Knees to gnaw off the Ears of a Pig from the Spit. The Gratifications of her Palate were easily preferred to those of her Vanity; and sometimes a Partridge or a Quail, a Wheat-Ear or the Pestle of a Lark, were chearfully purchased; nay I could be contented though I were to feed her with green Pease in April, or Cherries in May. But with the Babe she now goes she is turned Girl again, and fallen to eating of Chalk, pretending 'twill make the Child's Skin white; and nothing will serve her but I must bear her Company, to prevent its having a Shade of my Brown, In this however I have ventured to e deny her. No longer ago than Yesterday, as we were coming ES No. 326. 1712. coming to Town, she saw a Parcel of Crows so heartily at Breakfast upon a Piece of Horse-flesh, that she had an invincible Desire to partake with them, and (to my infinite Surprise) begged the Coachman to cut her off a Slice as if 'twere for himself; which the Fellow did; and as soon as she came home she fell to it with such an Appetite, that she seemed rather to devour than eat it. What her next Sally will be I cannot guess; but in the mean Time my Request to you is, that if there be any way to come at these wild unaccountable Rovings of Imagination by Reason and Argument, you'd speedily afford us your Assistance. This exceeds the Grievance of Pin-Money; and I think in every Settlement there ought to be a Clause inserted, that the Father should be answerable for the Longings of his Daughter. But I shall impatiently expect your Thoughts in this Matter; and am, Sir Your most obliged, And most faithful Humble Servant, T. B. Let me know whether you think the next Child will love Horses as much as Molly does China-Ware,' No. 327. Τ Saturday, March 15. ---Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo.-Virg, WEEwpirit as as the Whisper with which he awakens her is the No. 327. softest that ever was conveyed to a Lover's Ear. His wonder was to find unwaken'd Eve I cannot but take Notice that Milton, in the Con ferences between Adam and Eve, had his Eye very frequently upon the Book of Canticles, in which there is a noble Spirit of Eastern Poetry, and very often not unlike what we meet with in Homer, who is generally placed near the Age of Solomon, I think there is no Question but the Poet in the preceding Speech remember'd those two Passages which are spoken on the like Occasion, and fill'd with the same pleasing Images of Nature, My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away; For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the Voice of the Turtle is heard in our Land. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the Vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my Love, my fair one, and come away. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the Field; let us get up early to the Vineyards, let us see if the Vine flourish, whether the tender Grape appear, and the Pomegranates bud forth. Saturday, March 15, 1712. ¡No. 327. Saturday, March 15, 712. His preferring the Garden of Eden to that Where the Sapient King Held Dalliance with his fair Egyptian Spouse, shews that the Poet had this delightful Scene in his Mind, Eve's Dream is full of those high Conceits engen dring Pride, which, we are told, the Devil endeavoured to instil into her. Of this Kind is that Part of it where she fancies herself awaken'd by Adam in the following beautiful Lines, Why sleep'st thou Eve? now is the pleasant tíme, In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment Other An injudicious Poet would have made Adam talk So chear'd he his fair Spouse, and she was chear'd, From either eye, and wip'd them with her hair: Two |