No. 306. Wednes day, Feb. 20, 1712.

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 I was. Consider the Woman I was did not dye of old Age, but I was taken off in the Prime of my Youth, and according to the Course of Nature may have forty Years After-Life to come. I have Nothing of my self left which I like, but that

I am,

Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

Parthenissa.'

When Lewis of France had lost the Battle of Ramelies, 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 heroick Constancy under Distresses, and so the World had lost the most eminent Part of his Character, Parthenissa's Condition gives her the same Opportunity and to resign Conquests is a Task as diffi cult in a Beauty as an 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 Small-Pox I have known but one Instance where a 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

pray come and see me now: But if you sincerely liked No. 306. me, stay away; for I am not the same

Wednes

Corinna,' day,

Feb. 20,

The Lover thought there was something so sprightly 1712, in her Behaviour, that he answered,

'Madam,

I am not obliged since you are not the same Woman, to let you know whether I flatter'd 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 befall me when we are both one, as well as you do what happens to your self now you are single; there fore I am ready to take such a Spirit for my Companion as soon as you please.

Amilcar

If Parthenissa can now possess her own Mind, and think as little of her Beauty as she ought to have done when she had it, there will be no great Diminution of her 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 you find those who have the strongest Possession of Men's Hearts are not eminent for their 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 Croud of Women at an Entertain ment of Musick, You have often heard me talk of my Beloved; That Woman there, continued he, smiling when he had fixed my Eye, is her very Picture. The Lady he showed me was by much the least remarkable for Beauty of any in the whole Assembly; but having my Curiosity extremely raised, I could not keep my Eyes off of her. Her Eyes at last met mine, and with a sudden Surprize she looked round her to see who near her was remarkably handsome that I was gazing at, This little Act explain'd the Secret: She did not understand herself for the Object of Love, and therefore

she

No. 306, she was so. The Lover is a very honest plain Man Wednes and what charmed him was a Person that goes along day, with him in the Cares and Joys of Life, not taken up with herself, but sincerely attentive with a ready and chearful Mind to accompany him in either.

Feb. 20, 1712.

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 precious Behaviour in their general Conduct, are almost inseparable Accidents in Beauties, All you

obtain of them is granted to Importunity and Sollicitation 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 asham'd of the Vagaries of Fancy which so strangely misled you, and your Admiration of a Beauty, merely as such, is inconsistent with a tolerable Reflec tion upon your self: The chearful 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's Miss Liddy can dance a Jigg, raise Paste, write a good Hand, keep an Accompt, give a reasonable Answer, and do as she is bid, while her elder Sister Madam Martha is out of Humour, has the Spleen, learns by Reports of People of higher Quality new Ways of being uneasy and displeas'd. 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 Airs 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.

Ask any of the Husbands of your great Beauties, and they'll tell you that they hate their Wives nine Hours of every Day they pass together. There is such a Particularity for ever affected by them, that they are incumbered with their Charms in all they say or do. They pray at publick Devotions as they are Beauties; they converse on ordinary Occasions as they are Beauties. Ask Bellinda what it is a Clock, and she is at a Stand whether

In a No. 306.

whether so great a Beauty should answer you. Word, I think instead of Offering to administer Consola Wednes tion to Parthenissa, I should congratulate her Meta- Feb 20, morphosis; and however she thinks she was not in 1712. the least insolent in the Prosperity of 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 Conscious ness 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,

P. S.

• Madam,

February 18,

I have yours of this Day, wherein you twice bid me not disoblige you, but you must explain your self further before I know what to do.

I

AM so well pleased with the following Letter, that I am in Hopes it will not be a disagreeable Present to the Publick,

i Sir,

Though I believe none of your Readers more admire your agreeable Manner of Working up Trifles than my self, 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 Subjec! in them, wherein the general Good of Mankind is concern'd, left unfinished.

I have a long Time expected with great Impatience,

that

No. 307, that you would enlarge upon the ordinary Mistakes Thursday, which are committed in the Education of our Children Feb. 21, I the more easily flatter'd my self that you would one 1712. Time or other resume this Consideration, because you tell us that your 168th Paper was only composed of a few broken Hints; but finding my self hitherto dis appointed, I have ventured to send you my own Thoughts on this Subject.

I remember Pericles, in his famous Oration at the Funeral of those Athenian young Men who perished in the Samian Expedition, has a Thought very much celebrated by several ancient Criticks, namely, That the Loss which the Common-wealth suffered by the Destruction of its Youth, was like the Loss which the Year would suffer by the Destruction of the Spring. The Prejudice which the Publick sustains from a wrong Education of Children, is an Evil of the same Nature, as it in a Manner starves Posterity, and defrauds our Country of those Persons, who, with due Care, might make an eminent Figure in their respective Posts of Life.

I have seen a Book written by Juan Huartes, a Spanish Physician, Entitled, Examen de Ingenios, wherein he lays it down as one of his first Positions, that Nothing but Nature can qualifie a Man for Learn ing 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 Philo sophers of the Age, and, as if all the Books which

were