The Coverley Papers, From 'The Spectator'
Author: Joseph Addison; Eustace Budgell; Sir Richard Steele
Date: 2004-09-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: English essays

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Title: The Coverley Papers, From 'The Spectator'

Author: Joseph Addison

Eustace Budgell

Sir Richard Steele

Editor: O. M. Myers

Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6482]
Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Tonya Allen, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COVERLEY PAPERS, FROM 'THE SPECTATOR' ***

Produced by Tonya Allen, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE COVERLEY PAPERS

FROM THE 'SPECTATOR'

EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY O. M. MYERS

PREFACE

The following selection comprises all numbers of the Spectator which are concerned with the history or character of Sir Roger de Coverley, and all those which arise out of the Spectator's visit to his country house. Sir Roger's name occurs in some seventeen other papers, but in these he either receives only passing mention, or is introduced as a speaker in conversations where the real interest is the subject under discussion. In these his character is well maintained, as, for example, at the meeting of the club described in Spectator 34, where he warns the Spectator not to meddle with country squires, but they add no traits to the portrait we already have of him. No. 129 is included because it arises naturally out of No. 127, and illustrates the relation between the town and country. No. 410 has been omitted because it was condemned by Addison as inconsistent with the character of Sir Roger, together with No. 544, which is an unconvincing attempt to reconcile it with the whole scheme. Some of the papers have been slightly abridged where they would not be acceptable to the taste of a later age.

The papers are not all signed, but the authorship is never in doubt. Where signatures are attached, C, L, I, and O are the mark of Addison's work; R and T of Steele's, and X of Budgell's. [Footnote: Spectator 555.]

I have availed myself freely of the references and allusions collected by former editors, and I have gratefully to acknowledge the help of Miss G. E. Hadow in reading my introductory essay.

O. M. M.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

COVERLEY PAPERS.

Spectator 1 Addison (C)

" 2 Steele (R)

" 106 Addison (L)

" 107 Steele (R)

" 108 Addison (L)

" 109 Steele (R)

" 110 Addison (L)

" 112 " (L)

" 113 Steele (R)

" 114 " (T)

" 115 Addison (L)

" 116 Budgell (X)

" 117 Addison (L)

" 118 Steele (T)

" 119 Addison (L)

" 120 " (L)

" 121 " (L)

" 122 " (L)

" 123 " (L)

" 125 " (C)

" 126 " (C)

" 127 " (C)

" 128 " (C)

" 129 " (C)

" 130 " (C)

" 131 " (C)

" 132 Steele (T)

" 269 Addison (L)

" 329 " (L)

" 335 Addison (L)

" 359 Budgell (X)

" 383 Addison (I)

" 517 " (O)

NOTES

APPENDIX I. On Coffee-Houses

APPENDIX II. On the Spectator's Acquaintance

APPENDIX III. On the Death of Sir Roger

APPENDIX IV. On the Spectator's Popularity

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

It is necessary to study the work of Joseph Addison in close relation to the time in which he lived, for he was a true child of his century, and even in his most distinguishing qualities he was not so much in opposition to its ideas as in advance of them. The early part of the eighteenth century was a very middle-aged period: the dreamers of the seventeenth century had grown into practical men; the enthusiasts of the century before had sobered down into reasonable beings. We no longer have the wealth of detail, the love of stories, the delight in the concrete for its own sake of the Chaucerian and Elizabethan children; these men seek for what is typical instead of enjoying what is detailed, argue and illustrate instead of telling stories, observe instead of romancing. Captain Sentry 'behaved himself with great gallantry in several sieges' [Footnote: Spectator 2.] but the Spectator does not care for them as Chaucer cares for the battlefields of his Knight. 'One might … recount' many tales touching on many points in our speculations, and no child and no Elizabethan would refrain from doing so, but the Spectator will not 'go out of the occurrences of common life, but assert it as a general observation.' [Footnote: Spectator 107] He is in perfect harmony with his age, too, in the intensely rational view which he takes of ghosts [Footnote: Spectator 110] and witches, [Footnote: Spectator 117] for it was a period in which men cared very little for things which 'the eye hath not seen'. In his use of mottoes, again, which are deliberately sought illustrations for his papers, [Footnote: Spectator 221] and not the sparks which have fired his train of thought, he is typical of the period of middle-age in which men amuse themselves with such academic pastimes. Addison is the very antipodes of the kind of man who

'Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack'—

he remarks soberly that 'it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous season.' [Footnote: Spectator 125.] He may not have been a great poet, but he was an exquisite critic of life; he shared his contemporaries' lack of enthusiasm, but he possessed a fine discrimination, and those less practical, more irresponsible qualities would have been merely an incumbrance to the apostle of good sense and moderation. For when men are young they are much occupied with the framing of ideals and the search after absolute truth; as they grow older they generally become more practical; they accept, more or less, the idea of compromise, and make the best of things as they are or as they may be made. The age being vicious, Addison did not betake himself to a monastery, or urge others to do so; he tried to mend its morals. This was a difficult task. The Puritans, during their supremacy, had imposed their own severity on others; and now the Court party was revenging itself by indulging in extreme licentiousness. Its amusements were cruel and vicious, and the Puritans did nothing to improve them, but denounced them altogether and held themselves aloof. It was Addison's task to refine the taste of his contemporaries and to widen their outlook, so that the Puritan and the man of the world might find a common ground on which to meet and to learn each from the other; it was his endeavour 'to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality … till I have recovered them out of that desperate state of vice and folly into which the age is fallen. [Footnote: Spectator 10.] It was a happy thing for that and for all succeeding ages that a man of Addison's character and genius was ready to undertake the work. He was well versed in the pleasures of society and letters, but his delicate taste could not be gratified by the ordinary amusements of the town. He treated life as an art capable of affording the artist abundant pleasure, but he recognized goodness as a necessary condition of this pleasure. He was the most popular man of his day; even Swift said that if Addison had wished to be king people could hardly have refused him; [Footnote: Journal to Stella, October 12, 1710.] and the qualities which endeared him to his friends were exactly of the kind to enable him to hold the mean between the bigots and the butterflies, and to dictate without giving offence, for they were humanity and humour, moderation of character, judgment, and a most sensitive tact. His qualities and his limitations alike appear in the Spectator. For example, he tells us that he wishes that country clergymen would borrow the sermons of great divines, and devote all their own efforts to acquiring a good elocution: [Footnote: Spectator 106.] here we detect the practical moralist and the man who likes a thing good of its kind, but not the enthusiast. He upholds the observance of Sunday on account of its social influences rather than for its religious meaning; [Footnote: Spectator 112.] Swift's famous Argument against the Abolition of Christianity is only a satirical exaggeration of this position. The virtues commended in the Spectator are those which make for the well-being of society— good sense and dignity, moderation and a sense of fitness, kindness and generosity. They are to be practised with an eye to their consequences; even virtues must not be allowed to run wild. Modesty is in itself a commendable quality, but in Captain Sentry it becomes a fault, because it interferes with his advancement. [Footnote: Spectator 2.] The great function of goodness is to promote happiness; when it ceases to do this it ceases to be goodness.

But the greatest hindrance that an enthusiastic temperament would have presented to Addison's work is that it would have spoilt his method. His aim he declared roundly to be 'the advancement of the public weal', [Footnote: Spectator 1.] but he did not prosecute it in the usual way. 'A man,' he says, 'may be learned without talking sentences.' [Footnote: Spectator 4.] He saw much evil, and he laughed at it. He has tried, he tells us, to 'make nothing ridiculous that is not in some measure criminal'; [Footnote: Spectator 445.] an enthusiast could never have met crime with laughter, unless with the corrosive laughter of a Swift. Addison's humour is perfectly frank and humane; himself a Whig, he has given us a picture of the Tory Sir Roger which has been compared to the portrait of our friend Mr. Pickwick. Sir Roger put to silence and confusion by the perversity of the widow and her confidant, [Footnote: Spectator 113.] congratulating himself on having been called 'the tamest and most humane of all the brutes in the country', [Footnote: Spectator 113.] seeking to be reassured that no trace of his likeness showed through the whiskers of the Saracen's head, [Footnote: Spectator 122.] puzzled by his doubts concerning the witch, [Footnote: Spectator 117.] and pleased by the artful gipsies, [Footnote: Spectator 130.] inviting the guide to the Abbey to visit him at his lodgings in order to continue their conversation, [Footnote: Spectator 329.] and shocked by the discourtesy of the young men on the Thames [Footnote: Spectator 383.]—these are pictures drawn by one who laughed at what he loved. Addison's humour has a 'grave composure' [Footnote: Elwin.] and a characteristic appearance of simplicity which never cease to delight us.

This was the man; and he found the instrument ready to his hand. There was now a large educated class in circumstances sufficiently prosperous to leave them some leisure for society and its enjoyments. The peers and the country squires were reinforced by the professional men, merchants, and traders. The political revolution of 1688 had added greatly to the freedom of the citizens; the cessation of the Civil War, the increased importance of the colonies, the development of native industries, and the impulse given to cloth-making and silk-weaving by the settlement of Flemish and Huguenot workmen in the seventeenth century had encouraged trade; and the establishment of the Bank of England had been favourable to mercantile enterprise. We find the Spectator speaking of 'a trading nation like ours.' [Footnote: Spectator 108.] Addison realized that it is the way in which men employ their leisure which really stamps their character; so he provided 'wit with morality' for their reading, and attempted, through their reading, to refine their taste and conversation at the theatre, the club, and the coffee-house.

Dunton, Steele, and Defoe had modified the periodical literature of the day by adding to the newspapers essays on various subjects. The aim of the Tatler was the same as that of the Spectator, but it had certain disadvantages. The press censorship had been abolished in 1695, but newspapers were excepted from the general freedom of the Press. A more important disadvantage lay in the character of Steele, who did not possess the balance and moderation required to edit such an organ. Unlike Addison, he was not a true son of his century. He was enthusiastic and impulsive, fertile in invention and sensitive to emotion. His tenderness and pathos reach heights and depths that Addison never touches, but he has not Addison's fine perception of events and motives on the ordinary level of emotion. He could not repress his keen interest sufficiently to treat of politics in his paper and yet remain the impartial censor. So the Tatler was dropped, and the Spectator took its place. This differed from its predecessors in appearing every day instead of three times a week, and in excluding all articles of news.

The machinery of the club had been anticipated in 1690 by John Dunton's Athenian Society, which replied to all questions submitted by readers in his paper, the Athenian Mercury. This was succeeded by the Scandal Club of Defoe's Review, and the well-known club of the Tatler, which met at the Trumpet; [Footnote: Tatler 132] but the plan of arranging the whole work round the doings of the club is a new departure in the Spectator.

It is in these periodicals that we first find the familiar essay. Its only predecessors are such serious essays as those of Bacon, Cowley, and Temple, the turgid paragraphs of Shaftesbury, the vigorous but crude and rough papers of Collier, and the 'characters' of Overbury and Earle. These 'characters' had always been entirely typical; they were treated rather from the abstract than from the human point of view, and had no names or other individualization than that of their character and calling. In some of the numbers of the Spectator we still find these 'characters' occurring, such as the character of Will Wimble, [Footnote: Spectator 108.] of the honest yeoman, [Footnote: Spectator 122.] and of Tom Touchy; [Footnote: Spectator 122.] but they are surrounded by circumstances peculiar to themselves, and so are much more highly individualized. The Tatler and the Spectator very greatly extended the range of essay-writing, and with it the flexibility of prose style; it is this extension that gives to them their modern quality. Nothing came amiss: fable, description, vision, gossip, literary criticism or moral essays, discussion of large questions such as marriage and education, or of the smaller social amenities—any subject which would be of interest to a sufficiently large number of readers would furnish a paper; as Steele wrote at the beginning of the Tatler, 'Quicquid agunt homines nostri libelli farrago.' Different interests were voiced by the various members of the club, and the light humorous treatment and an easy style attracted a larger public than had ever been reached by a single publication. [Footnote: v. Appendix IV.] The elasticity of the structure enabled Addison to produce the maximum effect, and to bring into play the full weight of his character.

The nature of the work was determined throughout by its strongly human interest. It is significant as standing between the lifeless 'characters' of the seventeenth century and the great development of the novel. Thackeray calls Addison 'the most delightful talker in the world', and his essays have precisely the charm of the conversation of a well-informed and thoughtful man of the world. They are entirely discursive; he starts with a certain subject, and follows any line of thought that occurs to him. If he thinks of an anecdote in connexion with his subject, that goes down; if it suggests to him abstract speculations or moral reflections he gives us those instead. It is the capricious chat of a man who likes to talk, not the product of an imperative need of artistic expression. It is significant that so much of his work consists of gossip about people. This growing interest in the individual was leading up to the great eighteenth century novel. It seems to arise out of a growing sense of identity, a stronger interest in oneself; there is a common motive at the root of our observation of other people, of the interest attaching to ordinary actions presented on the stage, and of the fascination of a reflection or a portrait of ourselves; by these means we are enabled to some extent to become detached, and to take an external and impersonal view of ourselves. The stage had already turned to the representation of contemporary life and manners; portraiture was increasing in popularity; and the novel was on its way.

In the Coverley Papers all the characteristic species of the Spectator are represented except the allegory and the essays in literary criticism. Steele, who was always full of projects and swift and spontaneous in invention, wrote the initial description of the club members, and the characters were sustained by the two friends with wonderful consistency. Apparently each was mainly responsible for a certain number of the characters, and Sir Roger was really the property of Addison, but no one person was strictly monopolized by either. The papers were written independently, but it is easy to see that the two authors had an identical conception of their characters. It is true that the singularity of Sir Roger's behaviour described by Steele in the first draft of his character is very lightly touched in subsequent papers, and that, judging by the simplicity of his conduct in town, he has forgotten very completely the 'fine gentleman' [Footnote: Spectator 2.] period of his life, when, like Master Shallow, he 'heard the chimes at midnight', but these are insignificant details.

Since Sir Roger belongs to Addison, it follows naturally that in the present selection Addison's share compared with Steele's is larger in proportion than in the complete Spectator, but it would be a mistake to lose sight of the importance of Steele's part of the work. Addison was the greater artist, and the balance and shapeliness of his style enhances the effect of his thought and judgment, but we should be no less sorry to relinquish Steele's headlong directness and warmth of feeling. The humorous character sketches of Sir Roger's ancestors [Footnote: Spectator 109.] are his, and his the passage at arms between the Quaker and the soldier in the coach—the delightful soldier of whose remark the Spectator tells us: 'This was followed by a vain laugh of his own, and a deep silence of all the rest of the company. I had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all speed.' [Footnote: Spectator 132.] His, too, is the charming little idyll of the huntsman and his Betty, who fears that her love will drown himself in a stream he can jump across, [Footnote: Spectator 118.] and the whole fragrant story of Sir Roger's thirty years' attachment to the widow. [Footnote: Spectator 113, 118.] But above all, we must not overlook the fact that without Steele, as he himself says in his dedication to The Drummer, Addison would never have brought himself to give to the world these familiar, informal essays. Addison was naturally both cautious and shy; the mask which Steele invented lent him just the security which he needed, and the Spectator endures as the monument of a great friendship, a memorial such as Steele had always desired. [Footnote: Spectator 555.]

Steele himself explained the other advantages of the disguise: 'It is much more difficult to converse with the world in a real than in a personated character,' he says, both because the moral theory of a man whose identity is known is exposed to the commentary of his life, and because 'the fictitious person … might assume a mock authority without being looked upon as vain and conceited'. [Footnote: Spectator 555.] It is to the influence of this mask that much of the self- complacent superiority which has been attributed to Addison may be referred; one 'having nothing to do with men's passions and interests', [Footnote: Spectator 4.] one 'set to watch the manners and behaviour of my countrymen and contemporaries,' [Footnote: Spectator 435.] and to extirpate anything 'that shocks modesty and good manners', [Footnote: Spectator 34.] such a censor was bound to place himself on a pinnacle above the passions and foibles which he was to rebuke. Yet occasionally Addison does appear a trifle self-satisfied. Pope's indictment of his character in the person of Atticus cannot be entirely set aside. His creed, as implied in Spectator 115, esteems the welfare of man as the prime end of a fostering Providence, and such an opinion as this, held steadily without doubt or struggle, would tend to give a man a strong sense of his own importance. The superiority of his attitude to women, which, however, does not appear in the Coverley Papers, is attributable partly to his office of censor, and partly to their position at the time. This sort of condescension appears most distinctly in his treatment of animals. He is far more humane in his feeling for them than are the majority of his contemporaries, but although he likes to moralize over Sir Roger's poultry, [Footnote: Spectator 120, 121.] he really looks down on them from the elevation which a reasonable being must possess over the creatures of instinct. Yet how does he know so certainly that instinct is actually inferior to reason?

Addison is essentially a townsman, and his treatment of nature is always cold. The one passage in these papers which evinces a genuine love of the country is Steele's description of his enjoyment when he is strolling in the widow's grove. He is 'ravished with the murmur of waters, the whisper of breezes, the singing of birds; and whether I looked up to the heavens, down on the earth, or turned to the prospects around me, still struck with new sense of pleasure'. [Footnote: Spectator 118.] The style of the two writers reflects the qualities of their minds. Addison's writing is fluent, easy, and lucid. He wrote and corrected with great care, and his words very closely express his thought. Landor speaks of his prose as a 'cool current of delight', and Dr. Johnson, in an often quoted passage, calls it 'the model of the middle style … always equable and always easy, without glowing words or pointed sentences…. His page is always luminous, but never blazes in unexpected splendour. He is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetic…. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.'

Steele was a far more rapid writer, and even grammatical faults are not infrequent in his papers. He explicitly declares that 'Elegance, purity, and correctness were not so much my purpose, as in any intelligible manner as I could to rally all those singularities of human life … which obstruct anything that was really good and great'. [Footnote: Dedication to The Drummer.] His style varies with his mood, and with the degree of his interest. Occasionally it reaches the simple, rhythmic prose of the passage quoted above, but generally it is somewhat abrupt and a little toneless. But now and again we find the 'unexpected splendour' in which Addison is wanting, in phrases like 'a covered indigence, a magnificent poverty', [Footnote: Spectator 114.] or in the sparkling antitheses of Sir Roger's description of his ancestors. [Footnote: Spectator 109.] Yet Steele's claim on our admiration rests not on the quality of his style, but, as Mr. John Forster has said, on 'the soul of a sincere man shining through it all'.

The influence of the Spectator was incalculable. Addison succeeded in his principal object. 'I shall be ambitious to have it said of me that I have brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses,' and that I have produced 'such writings as tend to the wearing out of ignorance, passion, and prejudice'. [Footnote: Spectator 10.] A glance at the social and literary history of the next thirty or forty years will reveal how fully this wish was accomplished. It is true that folly and vice have not yet been wiped off the face of the earth, but the Spectator turned the tide of public opinion against them. The fashionable ideal was reversed; virtue became admirable, and though vice could not be destroyed, it was no longer suffered to plume itself in the eyes of the world. The Spectator had delivered virtue from its position of contempt, and 'set up the immoral man as the object of derision'. [Footnote: Spectator 445.]

The Spectator has also acquired an incidental value from the passage of time. Addison hints at this in his citations from an imaginary history of Queen Anne's reign, supposed to be written three hundred years later. In 'those little diurnal essays which are still extant'—two-thirds of the time has elapsed, and at present the Spectator is certainly extant—we are enabled 'to see the diversions and characters of the English nation in his time.' [Footnote: Spectator 101.] It is in the literature of a nation that we find the history of its life and the motives of its deeds.

Finally, the Spectator has a permanent value as a human document. 'Odd and uncommon characters are the game that I look for and most delight in,' [Footnote: Spectator 103. ] he tells us, but, with the exception of the sketch of Tom Touchy [Footnote: Spectator 122.], none of his persons are lifeless embodiments of a single trait, like the 'humours' of the early part of the preceding century. Sir Roger, who 'calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way upstairs to a visit', [Footnote: Spectator 2.] who is too delicate to mention that the 'very worthy gentleman to whom he was highly obliged' was once his footman, [Footnote: Spectator 107.] who dwells upon the beauty of his lady's hand [Footnote: Spectator 113.] and can be jealous of Sir David Dundrum [Footnote: Spectator 359.] after thirty odd years of courtship, who hardly likes to contemplate being of service to his lady, because of 'giving her the pain of being obliged', [Footnote: Spectator 118.] who addresses the court and remarks on the weather to the judge in order to impress the Spectator and the country, [Footnote: Spectator 122.] who will not own to a mere citizen among his ancestors, [Footnote: Spectator 109.] and 'very frequently' [Footnote: Spectator 125.] repeats his old stories—Sir Andrew, with his joke about the sea and the British common, [Footnote: Spectator 2.] and his tenderness for his old friend and opponent [Footnote: Spectator 517.]—the volatile Will Honeycomb, whose gallantry and care of his person [Footnote: Spectator 2, 359.] remind us of his successor, Major Pendennis—these are all in their degree intimate friends or acquaintances, as living in our imagination and in the actual world now as they were two hundred years ago, and immortal as everything must be which has once been inspired with the authentic breath of life.

[Illustration: Reduced facsimile of the original single-page issue.]

ADDISON: COVERLEY PAPERS

No. 1. THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1710-11.

Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem
Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat.
HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 143.

One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke;
The other out of smoke brings glorious light,
And (without raising expectation high)
Surprises us with dazzling miracles.
ROSCOMMON.

I have observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure, until he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings, and shall give some account in them of the several persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to my share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own history.

I was born to a small hereditary estate, which, according to the tradition of the village where it lies, was bounded by the same hedges and ditches in William the Conqueror's time that it is at present, and has been delivered down from father to son whole and entire, without the loss or acquisition of a single field or meadow, during the space of six hundred years. There runs a story in the family, that when my mother was gone with child of me about three months, she dreamt that she was brought to bed of a Judge: Whether this might proceed from a law-suit which was then depending in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, though that was the interpretation which the neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my very first appearance in the world, and all the time that I sucked, seemed to favour my mother's dream: For, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells from it.

As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find, that, during my nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favourite of my schoolmaster, who used to say, that my parts were solid, and would wear well. I had not been long at the university, before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of an hundred words; and indeed do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life. Whilst I was in this learned body, I applied myself with so much diligence to my studies, that there are very few celebrated books, either in the learned or the modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with.

Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the university, with the character of an odd unaccountable fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but shew it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried me into all the countries of Europe, in which there was any thing new or strange to be seen; nay, to such a degree was my curiosity raised, that having read the controversies of some great men concerning the antiquities of Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid: And, as soon as I had set myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction.

I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there are not above half a dozen of my select friends that know me; of whom my next paper shall give a more particular account. There is no place of general resort, wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's, and, whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James's coffee-house, and sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner-room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa-Tree, and in the theatres both of Drury-Lane and the Hay-Market. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's: In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never open my lips but in my own club.

Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind, than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the errors in the oeconomy, business, and diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them; as standers-by discover blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the game. I never espoused any party with violence, and am resolved to observe an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper.

I have given the Reader just so much of my history and character, as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the business I have undertaken. As for other particulars in my life and adventures, I shall insert them in following papers, as I shall see occasion. In the mean time, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity; and, since I have neither time nor inclination to communicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends, that it is pity so many useful discoveries which I have made should be in the possession of a silent man. For this reason, therefore, I shall publish a sheet-full of thoughts every morning, for the benefit of my contemporaries; and if I can any way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain.

There are three very material points which I have not spoken to in this paper; and which, for several important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least for some time: I mean, an account of my name, my age, and my lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify my reader in any thing that is reasonable; but as for these three particulars, though I am sensible they might tend very much to the embellishment of my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of communicating them to the public. They would indeed draw me out of that obscurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and expose me in public places to several salutes and civilities, which have been always very disagreeable to me; for the greatest pain I can suffer, is the being talked to, and being stared at. It is for this reason likewise, that I keep my complexion and dress as very great secrets; though it is not impossible, but I may make discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have undertaken.

After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall, in to-morrow's paper, give an account of those gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work; for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other matters of importance are) in a Club. However, as my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me, may direct their letters to the SPECTATOR, at Mr. Buckley's in Little-Britain. For I must further acquaint the Reader, that, though our club meets only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have appointed a committee to sit every night, for the inspection of all such papers as may contribute to the advancement of the public weal. C.

No. 2. FRIDAY, MARCH 2.

Ast alii sex
Et plures uno conclamant ore.
Juv. Sat. vii. ver. 167.

Six more at least join their consenting voice.

The first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of ancient descent, a Baronet, his name Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY. His great- grandfather was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir ROGER. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behaviour, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However this humour creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms, makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho- Square. It is said, he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir ROGER was what you call a Fine Gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling him youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned widow, he was very serious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times since he first wore it. He is now in his fifty-sixth year, chearful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company: When he comes into a house he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way upstairs to a visit. I must not omit, that Sir ROGER is a justice of the Quorum; that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause by explaining a passage in the game-act.

The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us, is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner-Temple; a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen his place of residence rather to obey the direction of an old humoursome father, than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every post questions relating to marriage-articles, leases, and tenures, in the neighbourhood; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the debates among men which arise from them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool, but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable: As few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, and writings of the ancients, makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent critick, and the time of the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New-Inn, crosses through Russel-Court, and takes a turn at Will's until the play begins; he has his shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the barber's as you go into the Rose. It is for the good of the audience when he is at a play, for the actors have an ambition to please him.

The person of next consideration is Sir ANDREW FREEPORT, a merchant of great eminence in the city of London. A person of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has usually some sly way of jesting, which would make no great figure were he not a rich man) he calls the sea the British Common. He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms; for true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue, that if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him prove, that diligence makes more lasting acquisitions than valour, and that sloth has ruined more nations than the sword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, amongst which the greatest favourite is, 'A penny saved is a penny got.' A general trader of good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar; and Sir ANDREW having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He has made his fortunes himself; and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms, by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men; though, at the same time, I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which he is an owner.

Next to Sir ANDREW in the club-room sits Captain SENTRY, a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very aukward at putting their talents within the observation of such as should take notice of them. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements, and at several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir ROGER, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier, as well as a soldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a profession where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he has talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty and an even regular behaviour, are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds, who endeavour at the same end with himself, the favour of a commander. He will however, in his way of talk, excuse generals, for not disposing according to men's desert, or inquiring into it: For, says he, that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: Therefore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same frankness runs through all his conversation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from an habit of obeying men highly above him.

But that our society may not appear a set of humourists, unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant WILL HONEYCOMB, a gentleman who, according to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having ever been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but a very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces in his brain. His person is well turned, of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French court ladies our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods, and whose vanity, to shew her foot, made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his conversation and knowledge have been in the female world: As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon such and such an occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of Monmouth danced at court, such a woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received a kind glance or a blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother of the present Lord such-a-one.

If you speak of a young commoner that said a lively thing in the House, he starts up, 'He has good blood in his veins, Tom Mirabell begot him, that rogue cheated me in that affair; that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to.' This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man who is usually called a well-bred Fine Gentleman. To conclude his character, where women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy man.

I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, as one of our company; for he visits us but seldom, but, when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to: He is therefore among divines what a chamber-counsellor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the integrity of his life, create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon; but we are so far gone in years, that he observes when he is among us, an earnestness to have him fall on some divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interests in this world, as one who is hastening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions. R.

No. 106. MONDAY, JULY 2.

Hinc tibi copia Manabit ad plenum,
benigno Ruris honorum opulenta cornu.
HOR. Od. xvii. 1. i. v. 14.

Here to thee shall plenty flow,
And all her riches show,
To raise the honour of the quiet plain.
CREECH.

Having often received an invitation from my friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY to pass away a month with him in the country, I last week accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some time at his country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing Speculations. Sir ROGER, who is very well acquainted with my humour, lets me rise and go to bed when I please, dine at his own table or in my chamber as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding me be merry. When the gentlemen of the country come to see him, he only shews me at a distance: As I have been walking in his fields, I have observed them stealing a sight of me over an hedge, and have heard the Knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be stared at.

I am the more at ease in Sir ROGER'S family, because it consists of sober and staid persons; for, as the Knight is the best master in the world, he seldom changes his servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his servants never care for leaving him; by this means his domesticks are all in years, and grown old with their master. You would take his valet de chambre for his brother, his butler is gray-headed, his groom is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen, and his coachman has the looks of a privy-counsellor. You see the goodness of the master even in the old house-dog, and in a gray pad that is kept in the stable with great care and tenderness, out of regard to his past services, though he has been useless for several years.

I could not but observe, with a great deal of pleasure, the joy that appeared in the countenance of these ancient domesticks upon my friend's arrival at his country-seat. Some of them could not refrain from tears at the sight of their old master; every one of them pressed forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were not employed. At the same time the good old Knight, with a mixture of the father and the master of the family, tempered the inquiries after his own affairs with several kind questions relating to themselves. This humanity and good-nature engages every body to him, so that when he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humour, and none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with: On the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a stander-by to observe a secret concern in the looks of all his servants.

My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his butler, who is a very prudent man, and, as well as the rest of his fellow-servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often heard their master talk of me as of his particular friend.

My chief companion, when Sir ROGER is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir ROGER, and has lived at his house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years. This gentleman is a person of good sense and some learning, of a very regular life, and obliging conversation: He heartily loves Sir ROGER, and knows that he is very much in the old Knight's esteem, so that he lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependant.

I have observed in several of my papers, that my friend Sir ROGER, amidst all his good qualities, is something of an humorist; and that his virtues, as well as imperfections, are, as it were, tinged by a certain extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from those of other men. This cast of mind, as it is generally very innocent in itself, so it renders his conversation highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same degree of sense and virtue would appear in their common and ordinary colours. As I was walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom I have just now mentioned? and without staying for my answer, told me, That he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own table; for which reason he desired a particular friend of his at the University to find him out a clergyman rather of plain sense than much learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable temper, and, if possible, a man that understood a little of back-gammon. My friend, says Sir ROGER, found me out this gentleman, who, besides the endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good scholar, though he does not show it: I have given him the parsonage of the parish; and because I know his value, have settled upon him a good annuity for life. If he outlives me, he shall find that he was higher in my esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty years; and though he does not know I have taken notice of it, has never in all that time asked any thing of me for himself though he is every day soliciting me for something in behalf of one or other of my tenants, his parishioners. There has not been a lawsuit in the parish since he has lived among them: If any dispute arises they apply themselves to him for the decision; if they do not acquiesce in his judgment, which I think never happened above once or twice at most, they appeal to me. At his first settling with me, I made him a present of all the good sermons which have been printed in English, and only begged of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them into such a series, that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued system of practical divinity.

As Sir ROGER was going on in his story, the gentleman we were talking of came up to us; and upon the Knight's asking him who preached to-morrow (for it was Saturday night) told us, the Bishop of St. Asaph in the morning, and Dr. South in the afternoon. He then shewed us his list of preachers for the whole year, where I saw with a great deal of pleasure Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Saunderson, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Calamy, with several living authors who have published discourses of practical divinity. I no sooner saw this venerable man in the pulpit, but I very much approved of my friend's insisting upon the qualifications of a good aspect and a clear voice; for I was so charmed with the gracefulness of his figure and delivery, as well as with the discourses he pronounced, that I think I never passed any time more to my satisfaction. A sermon repeated after this manner, is like the composition of a poet in the mouth of a graceful actor.

I could heartily wish that more of our country-clergy would follow this example; and, instead of wasting their spirits in laborious compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome elocution, and all those other talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater masters. This would not only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying to the people. L.

No. 107. TUESDAY, JULY 3.

AEsopo ingentem statuam posuere Attici,
Servumque collocarunt oeterna in basi,
Patere honoris scirent ut cunctis viam.
PHAED. Epilog. 1. 2.

The Athenians erected a large statue to AEsop, and placed him, though a slave, on a lasting pedestal; to show, that the way to honour lies open indifferently to all.

The reception, manner of attendance, undisturbed freedom and quiet, which I meet with here in the country, has confirmed me in the opinion I always had, that the general corruption of manners in servants is owing to the conduct of masters. The aspect of every one in the family carries so much satisfaction, that it appears he knows the happy lot which has befallen him in being a member of it. There is one particular which I have seldom seen but at Sir ROGER'S; it is usual in all other places, that servants flee from the parts of the house through which their master is passing; on the contrary, here they industriously place themselves in his way; and it is on both sides, as it were, understood as a visit, when the servants appear without calling. This proceeds from the humane and equal temper of the man of the house, who also perfectly well knows how to enjoy a great estate, with such oeconomy as ever to be much beforehand. This makes his own mind untroubled, and consequently unapt to vent peevish expressions, or give passionate or inconsistent orders to those about him. Thus, respect and love go together; and a certain cheerfulness in performance of their duty is the particular distinction of the lower part of this family. When a servant is called before his master, he does not come with an expectation to hear himself rated for some trivial fault, threatened to be stripped or used with any other unbecoming language, which mean masters often give to worthy servants; but it is often to know what road he took, that he came so readily back according to order; whether he passed by such a ground, if the old man who rents it is in good health; or whether he gave Sir ROGER'S love to him, or the like.

A man who preserves a respect, founded on his benevolence to his dependents, lives rather like a prince than a master in his family; his orders are received as favours, rather than duties; and the distinction of approaching him is part of the reward for executing what is commanded by him.

There is another circumstance in which my friend excels in his management, which is the manner of rewarding his servants: He has ever been of opinion, that giving his cast clothes to be worn by valets has a very ill effect upon little minds, and creates a silly sense of equality between the parties, in persons affected only with outward things. I have heard him often pleasant on this occasion, and describe a young gentleman abusing his man in that coat, which a month or two before was the most pleasing distinction he was conscious of in himself. He would turn his discourse still more pleasantly upon the ladies' bounties of this kind; and I have heard him say he knew a fine woman, who distributed rewards and punishments in giving becoming or unbecoming dresses to her maids.

But my good friend is above these little instances of good-will, in bestowing only trifles on his servants; a good servant to him is sure of having it in his choice very soon of being no servant at all. As I before observed, he is so good an husband, and knows so thoroughly that the skill of the purse is the cardinal virtue of this life: I say, he knows so well that frugality is the support of generosity, that he can often spare a large fine when a tenement falls, and give that settlement to a good servant, who has a mind to go into the world, or make a stranger pay the fine to that servant, for his more comfortable maintenance, if he stays in his service.

A man of honour and generosity considers it would be miserable to himself to have no will but that of another, though it were of the best person breathing, and for that reason goes on as fast as he is able to put his servants into independent livelihoods. The greatest part of Sir ROGER'S estate is tenanted by persons who have served himself or his ancestors. It was to me extremely pleasant to observe the visitants from several parts to welcome his arrival in the country; and all the difference that I could take notice of between the late servants who came to see him, and those who staid in the family, was, that these latter were looked upon as finer gentlemen and better courtiers.

This manumission, and placing them in a way of livelihood, I look upon as only what is due to a good servant, which encouragement will make his successor be as diligent, as humble, and as ready as he was. There is something wonderful in the narrowness of those minds, which can be pleased, and be barren of bounty to those who please them.

One might, on this occasion, recount the sense that great persons in all ages have had of the merit of their dependents, and the heroick services which men have done their masters in the extremity of their fortunes; and shewn to their undone patrons, that fortune was all the difference between them; but as I design this my speculation only as a gentle admonition to thankless masters, I shall not go out of the occurrences of common life, but assert it as a general observation, that I never saw but in Sir ROGER'S family, and one or two more, good servants treated as they ought to be. Sir ROGER'S kindness extends to their children's children, and this very morning he sent his coachman's grandson to prentice. I shall conclude this paper with an account of a picture in his gallery, where there are many which will deserve my future observation.

At the very upper end of this handsome structure I saw the portraiture of two young men standing in a river, the one naked, the other in a livery. The person supported seemed half dead, but still so much alive as to shew in his face exquisite joy and love towards the other. I thought the fainting figure resembled my friend Sir ROGER; and looking at the butler, who stood by me, for an account of it, he informed me that the person in the livery was a servant of Sir ROGER'S, who stood on the shore while his master was swimming, and observing him taken with some sudden illness, and sink under water, jumped in and saved him. He told me Sir ROGER took off the dress he was in as soon as he came home, and by a great bounty at that time, followed by his favour ever since, had made him master of that pretty seat which we saw at a distance as we came to this house. I remembered indeed Sir ROGER said there lived a very worthy gentleman, to whom he was highly obliged, without mentioning any thing further. Upon my looking a little dissatisfied at some part of the picture, my attendant informed me that it was against Sir ROGER'S will, and at the earnest request of the gentleman himself, that he was drawn in the habit in which he had saved his master. R.

No. 108. WEDNESDAY, JULY 4.

Gratis anhelans, multa agendo nihil agens. PHAEDR. Fab. v. 1. 2.

Out of breath to no purpose, and very busy about nothing.

As I was yesterday morning walking with Sir ROGER before his house, a country-fellow brought him a huge fish, which, he told him, Mr. William Wimble had caught that very morning; and that he presented it, with his service to him, and intended to come and dine with him. At the same time he delivered a letter which my friend read to me as soon as the messenger left him.

'Sir ROGER,

'I DESIRE you to accept of a jack, which is the best I have caught this season. I intend to come and stay with you a week, and see how the perch bite in the Black River. I observed with some concern, the last time I saw you upon the bowling-green, that your whip wanted a lash to it; I will bring half a dozen with me that I twisted last week, which I hope will serve you all the time you are in the country. I have not been out of the saddle for six days last past, having been at Eaton with Sir John's eldest son. He takes to his learning hugely. I am, SIR,

'Your humble servant,

'WILL WIMBLE.'

This extraordinary letter, and message that accompanied it, made me very curious to know the character and quality of the gentleman who sent them; which I found to be as follows. Will Wimble is younger brother to a baronet, and descended of the ancient family of the Wimbles. He is now between forty and fifty; but, being bred to no business and born to no estate, he generally lives with his elder brother as superintendent of his game. He hunts a pack of dogs better than any man in the country, and is very famous for finding out a hare. He is extremely well-versed in all the little handicrafts of an idle man: He makes a May-fly to a miracle; and furnishes the whole country with angle-rods. As he is a good-natured officious fellow, and very much esteemed upon account of his family, he is a welcome guest at every house, and keeps up a good correspondence among all the gentlemen about him. He carries a tulip-root in his pocket from one to another, or exchanges a puppy between a couple of friends that live perhaps in the opposite sides of the county. Will is a particular favourite of all the young heirs, whom he frequently obliges with a net that he has weaved, or a setting dog that he has made himself. He now and then presents a pair of garters of his own knitting to their mothers or sisters; and raises a great deal of mirth among them, by inquiring as often as he meets them how they wear? These gentleman-like manufactures and obliging little humours make Will the darling of the country.

Sir ROGER was proceeding in the character of him, when we saw him make up to us with two or three hazle-twigs in his hand, that he had cut in Sir ROGER'S woods, as he came through them in his way to the house. I was very much pleased to observe on one side the hearty and sincere welcome with which Sir ROGER received him, and on the other, the secret joy which his guest discovered at sight of the good old Knight. After the first salutes were over, Will desired Sir ROGER to lend him one of his servants to carry a set of shuttlecocks he had with him in a little box to a lady that lived about a mile off, to whom it seems he had promised such a present for above this half year. Sir ROGER'S back was no sooner turned, but honest Will began to tell me of a large cock-pheasant that he had sprung in one of the neighbouring woods, with two or three other adventures of the same nature. Odd and uncommon characters are the game that I looked for, and most delight in; for which reason I was as much pleased with the novelty of the person that talked to me, as he could be for his life with the springing of a pheasant, and therefore listened to him with more than ordinary attention.

In the midst of his discourse the bell rung to dinner, where the gentleman I have been speaking of had the pleasure of seeing the huge jack, he had caught, served up for the first dish in a most sumptuous manner. Upon our sitting down to it he gave us a long account how he had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it out upon the bank, with several other particulars that lasted all the first course. A dish of wild-fowl that came afterwards furnished conversation for the rest of the dinner, which concluded with a late invention of Will's for improving the quail-pipe.

Upon withdrawing into my room after dinner, I was secretly touched with compassion towards the honest gentleman that had dined with us; and could not but consider with a great deal of concern, how so good an heart and such busy hands were wholly employed in trifles; that so much humanity should be so little beneficial to others, and so much industry so little advantageous to himself. The same temper of mind and application to affairs, might have recommended him to the publick esteem, and have raised his fortune in another station of life. What good to his country or himself might not a trader or merchant have done with such useful though ordinary qualifications?

Will Wimble's is the case of many a younger brother of a great family, who had rather see their children starve like gentlemen, than thrive in a trade or profession that is beneath their quality. This humour fills several parts of Europe with pride and beggary. It is the happiness of a trading nation, like ours, that the younger sons, though uncapable of any liberal art or profession, may be placed in such a way of life, as may perhaps enable them to vie with the best of their family: Accordingly we find several citizens that were launched into the world with narrow fortunes, rising by an honest industry to greater estates than those of their elder brothers. It is not improbable but Will was formerly tried at divinity, law, or physick; and that, finding his genius did not lie that way, his parents gave him up at length to his own inventions. But certainly, however improper he might have been for studies of a higher nature, he was perfectly well turned for the occupations of trade and commerce. As I think this is a point which cannot be too much inculcated, I shall desire my reader to compare what I have here written with what I have said in my twenty-first speculation. L.

No. 109. THURSDAY, JULY 5.

Abnormis sapiens. HOR. Sat. ii. 1. 2. v. 3.

Of plain good sense, untutor'd in the schools.

I was this morning walking in the gallery when Sir ROGER entered at the end opposite to me, and advancing towards me, said he was glad to meet me among his relations the DE COVERLEYS, and hoped I liked the conversation of so much good company, who were as silent as myself. I knew he alluded to the pictures, and as he is a gentleman who does not a little value himself upon his ancient descent, I expected he would give me some account of them. We were now arrived at the upper end of the gallery, when the Knight faced towards one of the pictures, and, as we stood before it, he entered into the matter, after his blunt way of saying things, as they occur to his imagination, without regular introduction, or care to preserve the appearance of chain of thought.

'It is,' said he, 'worth while to consider the force of dress; and how the persons of one age differ from those of another, merely by that only. One may observe also, that the general fashion of one age has been followed by one particular set of people in another, and by them preserved from one generation to another. Thus the vast jetting coat and small bonnet, which was the habit in Harry the Seventh's time, is kept on in the yeomen of the guard; not without a good and politick view, because they look a foot taller, and a foot and an half broader: Besides that the cap leaves the face expanded, and consequently more terrible, and fitter to stand at the entrances of palaces.

'This predecessor of ours, you see, is dressed after this manner, and his cheeks would be no larger than mine, were he in a hat as I am. He was the last man that won a prize in the tilt-yard (which is now a common street before Whitehall). You see the broken lance that lies there by his right foot; he shivered that lance of his adversary all to pieces; and bearing himself, look you, Sir, in this manner, at the same time he came within the target of the gentleman who rode against him, and taking him with incredible force before him on the pommel of his saddle, he in that manner rid the tournament over, with an air that shewed he did it rather to perform the rule of the lists, than expose his enemy; however, it appeared he knew how to make use of a victory, and with a gentle trot he marched up to a gallery where their mistress sat (for they were rivals) and let him down with laudable courtesy and pardonable insolence. I don't know but it might be exactly where the coffee-house is now.

'You are to know this my ancestor was not only of a a military genius, but fit also for the arts of peace, for he played on the bass-viol as well as any gentleman at court; you see where his viol hangs by his basket-hilt sword. The action at the tilt-yard you may be sure won the fair lady, who was a maid of honour, and the greatest beauty of her time; here she stands the next picture. You see, Sir, my great-great- great-grandmother has on the new-fashioned petticoat, except that the modern is gathered at the waist: my grandmother appears as if she stood in a large drum whereas the ladies now walk as if they were in a go- cart. For all this lady was bred at court, she became an excellent country-wife, she brought ten children, and when I shew you the library, you shall see in her own hand (allowing for the difference of the language) the best receipt now in England both for an hasty- pudding and a white-pot.

'If you please to fall back a little, because it is necessary to look at the three next pictures at one view: These are three sisters. She on the right hand, who is so beautiful, died a maid; the next to her, still handsomer, had the same fate, against her will; this homely thing in the middle had both their portions added to her own, and was stolen by a neighbouring gentleman, a man of stratagem and resolution, for he poisoned three mastiffs to come at her, and knocked down two deer- stealers in carrying her off. Misfortunes happen in all families: The theft of this romp and so much money, was no great matter to our estate. But the next heir that possessed it was this soft gentleman, whom you see there: Observe the small buttons, the little boots, the laces, the slashes about his clothes, and above all the posture he is drawn in, (which to be sure was his own chusing:) You see he sits with one hand on a desk writing and looking as it were another way, like an easy writer, or a sonneteer: He was one of those that had too much wit to know how to live in the world; he was a man of no justice, but great good manners; he ruined every body that had anything to do with him, but never said a rude thing in his life; the most indolent person in the world, he would sign a deed that passed away half his estate with his gloves on, but would not put on his hat before a lady if it were to save his country. He is said to be the first that made love by squeezing the hand. He left the estate with ten thousand pounds debt upon it, but however by all hands I have been informed that he was every way the finest gentleman in the world. That debt lay heavy on our house for one generation, but it was retrieved by a gift from that honest man you see there, a citizen of our name, but nothing at all akin to us. I know Sir ANDREW FREEPORT has said behind my back, that this man was descended from one of the ten children of the maid of honour I shewed you above; but it was never made out. We winked at the thing indeed, because money was wanting at that time.'

Here I saw my friend a little embarrassed, and turned my face to the next portraiture.

Sir ROGER went on with his account of the gallery in the following manner. 'This man' (pointing to him I looked at) 'I take to be the honour of our house, Sir HUMPHREY DE COVERLEY; he was in his dealings as punctual as a tradesman, and as generous as a gentleman. He would have thought himself as much undone by breaking his word, as if it were to be followed by bankruptcy. He served his country as knight of this shire to his dying day. He found it no easy matter to maintain an integrity in his words and actions, even in things that regarded the offices which were incumbent upon him, in the care of his own affairs and relations of life, and therefore dreaded (though he had great talents) to go into employments of state, where he must be exposed to the snares of ambition. Innocence of life and great ability were the distinguishing parts of his character; the latter, he had often observed, had led to the destruction of the former, and used frequently to lament that great and good had not the same signification. He was an excellent husbandman, but had resolved not to exceed such a degree of wealth; all above it he bestowed in secret bounties many years after the sum he aimed at for his own use was attained. Yet he did not slacken his industry, but to a decent old age spent the life and fortune which was superfluous to himself, in the service of his friends and neighbours.'

Here we were called to dinner, and Sir ROGER ended the discourse of this gentleman, by telling me, as we followed the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the civil wars: 'For, said he, he was sent out of the field upon a private message, the day before the battle of Worcester.' The whim of narrowly escaping by having been within a day of danger, with other matters above-mentioned, mixed with good sense, left me at a loss whether I was more delighted with my friend's wisdom or simplicity. R.

No. 110. FRIDAY, JULY 6.

Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.
VIRG. AEn. ii. v. 755.

All things are full of horror and affright,
And dreadful ev'n the silence of the night.
DRYDEN.

At a little distance from Sir ROGER'S house, among the ruins of an old abbey, there is a long walk of aged elms; which are shot up so very high, that when one passes under them, the rooks and crows that rest upon the tops of them seem to be cawing in another region. I am very much delighted with this sort of noise, which I consider as a kind of natural prayer to that Being who supplies the wants of his whole creation, and who, in the beautiful language of the Psalms>, feedeth the young ravens that call upon him. I like this retirement the better, because of an ill report it lies under of being haunted; for which reason (as I have been told in the family) no living creature ever walks in it besides the chaplain. My good friend the butler desired me with a very grave face not to venture myself in it after sun-set, for that one of the footmen had been almost frighted out of his wits by a spirit that appeared to him in the shape of a black horse without an head; to which he added, that about a month ago one of the maids coming home late that way with a pail of milk upon her head, heard such a rustling among the bushes that she let it fall.

I was taking a walk in this place last night between the hours of nine and ten, and could not but fancy it one of the most proper scenes in the world for a ghost to appear in. The ruins of the abbey are scattered up and down on every side, and half-covered with ivy and elder bushes, the harbours of several solitary birds, which seldom make their appearance till the dusk of the evening. The place was formerly a church-yard, and has still several marks in it of graves and burying-places. There is such an echo among the old ruins and vaults, that if you stamp but a little louder than ordinary, you hear the sound repeated. At the same time the walk of elms, with the croaking of the ravens which from time to time are heard from the tops of them, looks exceeding solemn and venerable. These objects naturally raise seriousness and attention; and when night heightens the awfulness of the place, and pours out her supernumerary horrors upon every thing in it, I do not at all wonder that weak minds fill it with spectres and apparitions.

Mr. Locke, in his chapter of the Association of Ideas, has very curious remarks to show how, by the prejudice of education, one idea often introduces into the mind a whole set that bear no resemblance to one another in the nature of things. Among several examples of this kind, he produces the following instance. The ideas of goblins and sprights have really no more to do with darkness than light: Yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives; but darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other.

As I was walking in this solitude, where the dusk of the evening conspired with so many other occasions of terror, I observed a cow grazing not far from me, which an imagination that was apt to startle might easily have construed into a black horse without an head: And I dare say the poor footman lost his wits upon some such trivial occasion.

My friend Sir ROGER has often told me with a good deal of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate he found three parts of his house altogether useless; that the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that means was locked up; that noises had been heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get a servant to enter it after eight o'clock at night; that the door of one of the chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the family that a butler had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in which either her husband, a son, or daughter had died. The Knight seeing his habitation reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own house, upon the death of his mother ordered all the apartments to be flung open, and exorcised by his chaplain, who lay in every room one after another, and by that means dissipated the fears which had so long reigned in the family.

I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous horrors, did not I find them so very much prevail in all parts of the country. At the same time I think a person who is thus terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spectres, much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports of all historians sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless: Could not I give myself up to this general testimony of mankind, I should to the relations of particular persons who are now living, and whom I cannot distrust in other matters of fact. I might here add, that not only the historians, to whom we may join the poets, but likewise the philosophers of antiquity have favoured this opinion. Lucretius himself, though by the course of his philosophy he was obliged to maintain that the soul did not exist separate from the body, makes no doubt of the reality of apparitions, and that men have often appeared after their death. This I think very remarkable. He was so pressed with the matter of fact which he could not have the confidence to deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the most absurd unphilosophical notions that was ever started. He tells us, That the surfaces of all bodies are perpetually flying off from their respective bodies, one after another; and that these surfaces or thin cases, that included each other whilst they were joined in the body like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it; by which means we often behold the shapes and shadows of persons who are either dead or absent.

I shall dismiss this paper with a story out of Josephus, not so much for the sake of the story itself as for the moral reflexions with which the author concludes it, and which I shall here set down in his own words. 'Glaphyra the daughter of King Archelaus, after the death of her two first husbands (being married to a third, who was brother to her first husband, and so passionately in love with her that he turned off his former wife to make room for this marriage) had a very odd kind of dream. She fancied that she saw her first husband coming towards her, and that she embraced him with great tenderness; when in the midst of the pleasure which she expressed at the sight of him, he reproached her after the following manner: Glaphyra, says he, thou hast made good the old saying, That women are not to be trusted. Was not I the husband of thy virginity? Have I not children by thee? How couldst thou forget our loves so far as to enter into a second marriage, and after that into a third, nay to take for thy husband a man who has so shamefully crept into the bed of his brother? However, for the sake of our passed loves, I shall free thee from thy present reproach, and make thee mine for ever. Glaphyra told this dream to several women of her acquaintance, and died soon after. I thought this story might not be impertinent in this place, wherein I speak of those kings: Besides that the example deserves to be taken notice of, as it contains a most certain proof of the immortality of the soul, and of Divine Providence. If any man thinks these facts incredible, let him enjoy his own opinion to himself, but let him not endeavour to disturb the belief of others, who by instances of this nature are excited to the study of virtue.'

No. 112. MONDAY, JULY 9.

Athanatous men prota theous,
nomo hos diakeitai, tima.
PYTHAG.

First, in obedience to thy country's rites,
Worship the immortal Gods.

I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country people would soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians, were there not such frequent returns of a stated time, in which the whole village meet together with their best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties explained to them, and join together in adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the notions of religion, but as it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their most agreeable forms, and exerting all such qualities as are apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. A country fellow distinguishes himself as much in the Church-yard, as a citizen does upon the Change, the whole parish-politicks being generally discussed in that place, either after sermon or before the bell rings.

My friend Sir ROGER, being a good churchman, has beautified the inside of his church with several texts of his own chusing: He has likewise given a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in the communion-table at his own expence. He has often told me, that at his coming to his estate he found his parishioners very irregular; and that, in order to make them kneel and join in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a common-prayer-book; and at the same time employed an itinerant singing-master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the psalms; upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed out-do most of the country churches that I have ever heard.

As Sir ROGER is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer no body to sleep in it besides himself; for, if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees any body else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his servants to them. Several other of the old Knight's particularities break out upon these occasions:

Sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing psalms, half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it; sometimes, when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the same prayer; and sometimes stands up when every body else is upon their knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants are missing.

I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, in the midst of the service, calling out to one John Matthews to mind what he was about, and not disturb the congregation. This John Matthews it seems is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kicking his heels for his diversion. This authority of the Knight, though exerted in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances of life, has a very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to see any thing ridiculous in his behaviour; besides that, the general good sense and worthiness of his character makes his friends observe these little singularities as foils, that rather set off than blemish his good qualities.

As soon as the sermon is finished, no body presumes to stir till Sir ROGER is gone out of the church. The Knight walks down from his seat in the chancel between a double row of his tenants, that stand bowing to him on each side; and every now and then inquires how such an one's wife, or mother, or son, or father do, whom he does not see at church; which is understood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent.

The chaplain has often told me, that upon a catechising-day, when Sir ROGER has been pleased with a boy that answers well, he has ordered a bible to be given him next day for his encouragement; and sometimes accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his mother. Sir ROGER has likewise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place; and that he may encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect in the church- service, has promised upon the death of the present incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according to merit.

The fair understanding between Sir ROGER and his chaplain, and their mutual concurrence in doing good, is the more remarkable, because the very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that arise between the parson and the 'squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. The parson is always preaching at the 'squire, and the 'squire to be revenged on the parson never comes to church. The 'squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers; while the parson instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of his order, and insinuates to them in almost every sermon, that he is a better man than his patron. In short, matters are come to such an extremity, that the squire has not said his prayers either in public or private this half year; and that the parson threatens him, if he does not mend his manners, to pray for him in the face of the whole congregation.

Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, are very fatal to the ordinary people; who are so used to be dazzled with riches, that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of an estate, as of a man of learning; and are very hardly brought to regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them, when they know there are several men of five hundred a year, who do not believe it. L.

No. 113. TUESDAY, JULY 10.

Hoerent infixi pectore vultus. VIRG. AEn. iv. ver. 4.

Her looks were deep imprinted in his heart.

In my first description of the company in which I pass most of my time, it may be remembered that I mentioned a great affliction which my friend Sir ROGER had met with in his youth; which was no less than a disappointment in love. It happened this evening that we fell into a very pleasing walk at a distance from his house: As soon as we came into it, 'It is,' quoth the good old man, looking round him with a smile, 'very hard, that any part of my land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill as the perverse widow did; and yet I am sure I could not see a sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees, but I should reflect upon her and her severity. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. You are to know this was the place wherein I used to muse upon her; and by that custom I can never come into it, but the same tender sentiments revive in my mind, as if I had actually walked with that beautiful creature under these shades. I have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark of several of these trees; so unhappy is the condition of men in love, to attempt the removing of their passions by the methods which serve only to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world.'

Here followed a profound silence; and I was not displeased to observe my friend falling so naturally into a discourse, which I had ever before taken notice he industriously avoided. After a very long pause he entered upon an account of this great circumstance in his life, with an air which I thought raised my idea of him above what I had ever had before; and gave me the picture of that cheerful mind of his, before it received that stroke which has ever since affected his words and actions. But he went on as follows.

'I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my ancestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all the methods of hospitality and good neighbourhood, for the sake of my fame; and in country-sports and recreations, for the sake of my health. In my twenty-third year I was obliged to serve as sheriff of the county; and, in my servants, officers, and whole equipage, indulged the pleasure of a young man (who did not think ill of his own person) in taking that publick occasion of shewing my figure and behaviour to advantage. You may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, with musick before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows as I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But when I came there, a beautiful creature in a widow's habit sat in court, to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This commanding creature (who was born for the destruction of all who behold her) put on such a resignation in her countenance, and bore the whispers of all around the court, with such a pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered herself from one eye to another, till she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a murrain to her, she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met it, but I bowed like a great surprized booby; and knowing her cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a captivated calf as I was, Make way for the defendant's witnesses.

This sudden partiality made all the county immediately see the sheriff was also become a slave to the fine widow. During the time her cause was upon trial, she behaved herself, I warrant you, with such a deep attention to her business, took opportunities to have little billets handed to her counsel, then would be in such a pretty confusion, occasioned, you must know, by acting before so much company, that not only I, but the whole court was prejudiced in her favour; and all that the next heir to her husband had to urge, was thought so groundless and frivolous, that when it came to her counsel to reply, there was not half so much said as every one besides in the court thought he could have urged to her advantage. You must understand, Sir, this perverse woman is one of those unaccountable creatures, that secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge themselves in no farther consequences. Hence it is that she has ever had a train of admirers, and she removes from her slaves in town to those in the country, according to the seasons of the year. She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of friendship: She is always accompanied by a confident, who is witness to her daily protestations against our sex, and consequently a bar to her first steps towards love, upon the strength of her own maxims and declarations.

'However, I must needs say this accomplished mistress of mine has distinguished me above the rest, and has been known to declare Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY was the tamest and most humane of all the brutes in the country. I was told she said so, by one who thought he rallied me; but upon the strength of this slender encouragement of being thought least detestable, I made new liveries, new-paired my coach-horses, sent them all to town to be bitted, and taught to throw their legs well, and move all together, before I pretended to cross the country, and wait upon her. As soon as I thought my retinue suitable to the character of my fortune and youth, I set out from hence to make my addresses. The particular skill of this lady has ever been to inflame your wishes, and yet command respect. To make her mistress of this art, she has a greater share of knowledge, wit, and good sense, than is usual even among men of merit. Then she is beautiful beyond the race of women. If you will not let her go on with a certain artifice with her eyes, and the skill of beauty, she will arm herself with her real charms, and strike you with admiration instead of desire. It is certain that if you were to behold the whole woman, there is that dignity in her aspect, that composure in her motion, that complacency in her manner, that if her form makes you hope, her merit makes you fear. But then again she is such a desperate scholar, that no country-gentleman can approach her without being a jest. As I was going to tell you, when I came to her house I was admitted to her presence with great civility; at the same time she placed herself to be first seen by me in such an attitude, as I think you call the posture of a picture, that she discovered new charms, and I at last came towards her with such an awe as made me speechless. This she no sooner observed but she made her advantage of it, and began a discourse to me concerning love and honour, as they both are followed by pretenders, and the real votaries to them. When she discussed these points in a discourse, which I verily believe was as learned as the best philosopher in Europe could possibly make, she asked me whether she was so happy as to fall in with my sentiments on these important particulars. Her confident sat by her, and upon my being in the last confusion and silence, this malicious aid of hers turning to her says, 'I am very glad to observe Sir ROGER pauses upon this subject, and seems resolved to deliver all his sentiments upon the matter when he pleases to speak.' They both kept their countenances, and after I had sat half an hour meditating how to behave before such profound casuists, I rose up and took my leave. Chance has since that time thrown me very often in her way, and she as often has directed a discourse to me which I do not understand. This barbarity has kept me ever at a distance from the most beautiful object my eyes ever beheld. It is thus also she deals with all mankind, and you must make love to her, as you would conquer the sphinx, by posing her. But were she like other women, and that there were any talking to her, how constant must the pleasure of that man be, who would converse with the creature—But, after all, you may be sure her heart is fixed on some one or other; and yet I have been credibly informed;—but who can believe half that is said? After she had done speaking to me, she put her hand to her bosom and adjusted her tucker. Then she cast her eyes a little down, upon my beholding her too earnestly. They say she sings excellently: Her voice in her ordinary speech has something in it inexpressibly sweet. You must know I dined with her at a publick table the day after I first saw her, and she helped me to some tansy in the eye of all the gentlemen in the country. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. I can assure you, Sir, were you to behold her, you would be in the same condition; for as her speech is musick, her form is angelick. But I find I grow irregular while I am talking of her; but indeed it would be stupidity to be unconcerned at such perfection. Oh the excellent creature! she is as inimitable to all women, as she is inaccessible to all men.'

I found my friend begin to rave, and insensibly led him towards the house, that we might be joined by some other company; and am convinced that the widow is the secret cause of all that inconsistency which appears in some parts of my friend's discourse, though he has so much command of himself as not directly to mention her, yet according to that of Martial, which one knows not how to render into English, Dum tacet hanc loquitur. I shall end this paper with that whole epigram, which represents with much humour my honest friend's condition.

Quicquid agit Rufus, nihil est, nisi Noevia Rufo,
Si gaudet, si flet, si tacet, hanc loquitur:
Coenat, propinat, poscit, negat, annuit, una est
Noevia; si non sit Noevia, mutus erit.
Scriberet hesterna patri cum luce salutem,
Noevia lux, inquit, Noevia numen, ave._
Epig. lxix. 1. I.

Let Rufus weep, rejoice, stand, sit, or walk,
Still he can nothing but of Noevia talk;
Let him eat, drink, ask questions, or dispute,
Still he must speak of Noevia, or be mute.
He writ to his father, ending with this line,
I am, my lovely Noevia, ever thine.

No. 114. WEDNESDAY, JULY 11.

Paupertalis pudor & fuga.
HOR. Ep. xviii. 1. I. v. 24.

The dread of nothing more
Than to be thought necessitous and poor.
POOLY.

Oeconomy in our affairs has the same effect upon our fortunes which good-breeding has upon our conversations. There is a pretending behaviour in both cases, which, instead of making men esteemed renders them both miserable and contemptible. We had yesterday at Sir ROGER'S a set of country gentlemen who dined with him; and after dinner the glass was taken, by those who pleased, pretty plentifully. Among others I observed a person of a tolerable good aspect, who seemed to be more greedy of liquor than any of the company, and yet, methought, he did not taste it with delight As he grew warm, he was suspicious of every thing that was said; and as he advanced towards being fuddled, his humour grew worse. At the same time his bitterness seemed to be rather an inward dissatisfaction in his own mind, than any dislike he had taken to the company. Upon hearing his name, I knew him to be a gentleman of a considerable fortune in this county, but greatly in debt. What gives the unhappy man this peevishness of spirit is, that his estate is dipped, and is eating out with usury; and yet he has not the heart to sell any part of it. His proud stomach, at the cost of restless nights, constant inquietudes, danger of affronts, and a thousand nameless inconveniences, preserves this canker in his fortune, rather than it shall be said he is a man of fewer hundreds a year than he has been commonly reputed. Thus, he endures the torment of poverty, to avoid the name of being less rich. If you go to his house you see great plenty; but served in a manner that shews it is all unnatural, and that the master's mind is not at home. There is a certain waste and carelessness in the air of every thing, and the whole appears but a covered indigence, a magnificent poverty. That neatness and chearfulness, which attends the table of him who lives within compass, is wanting, and exchanged for a libertine way of service in all about him.

This gentleman's conduct, though a very common way of management, is as ridiculous as the officer's would be, who had but few men under his command, and should take the charge of an extent of country rather than of a small pass. To pay for, personate, and keep in a man's hands, a greater estate than he really has, is of all others the most unpardonable vanity, and must in the end reduce the man who is guilty of it to dishonour. Yet if we look round us in any county of Great Britain, we shall see many in this fatal error; if that may be called by so soft a name, which proceeds from a false shame of appearing what they really are, when the contrary behaviour would in a short time advance them to the condition which they pretend to.

Laertes has fifteen hundred pounds a year; which is mortgaged for six thousand pounds; but it is impossible to convince him that if he sold as much as would pay off that debt, he would save four shillings in the pound, which he gives for the vanity of being the reputed master of it. Yet if Laertes did this, he would, perhaps, be easier in his own fortune; but then Irus, a fellow of yesterday, who has but twelve hundred a year, would be his equal. Rather than this shall be, Laertes goes on to bring wellborn beggars into the world, and every twelvemonth charges his estate with at least one year's rent more by the birth of a child.

Laertes and Irus are neighbours, whose way of living are an abomination to each other. Irus is moved by the fear of poverty, and Laertes by the shame of it. Though the motive of action is of so near affinity in both, and may be resolved into this, 'That to each of them poverty is the greatest of all evils,' yet are their manners very widely different. Shame of poverty makes Laertes launch into unnecessary equipage, vain expence, and lavish entertainments; fear of poverty makes Irus allow himself only plain necessaries, appear without a servant, sell his own corn, attend his labourers, and be himself a labourer. Shame of poverty makes Laertes go every day a step nearer to it; and fear of poverty stirs up Irus to make every day some further progress from it.

These different motives produce the excesses which men are guilty of in the negligence of and provision for themselves. Usury, stock-jobbing, extortion, and oppression, have their seed in the dread of want; and vanity, riot and prodigality, from the shame of it: But both these excesses are infinitely below the pursuit of a reasonable creature. After we have taken care to command so much as is necessary for maintaining ourselves in the order of men suitable to our character, the care of superfluities is a vice no less extravagant, than the neglect of necessaries would have been before.

Certain it is, that they are both out of nature, when she is followed with reason and good sense. It is from this reflexion that I always read Mr. Cowley with the greatest pleasure: His magnanimity is as much above that of other considerable men, as his understanding; and it is a true distinguishing spirit in the elegant author who published his works, to dwell so much upon the temper of his mind and the moderation of his desires: By this means he has rendered his friend as amiable as famous. That state of life which bears the face of poverty with Mr. Cowley's great Vulgar, is admirably described; and it is no small satisfaction to those of the same turn of desire, that he produces the authority of the wisest men of the best age of the world, to strengthen his opinion of the ordinary pursuits of mankind.

It would methinks be no ill maxim of life, if according to that ancestor of Sir ROGER, whom I lately mentioned, every man would point to himself what sum he would resolve not to exceed. He might by this means cheat himself into a tranquillity on this side of that expectation, or convert what he should get above it to nobler uses than his own pleasures or necessities. This temper of mind would exempt a man from an ignorant envy of restless men above him, and a more inexcusable contempt of happy men below him. This would be sailing by some compass, living with some design; but to be eternally bewildered in prospects of future gain, and putting on unnecessary armour against improbable blows of fortune, is a mechanick being which has not good sense for its direction, but is carried on by a sort of acquired instinct towards things below our consideration and unworthy our esteem. It is possible that the tranquillity I now enjoy at Sir ROGER'S may have created in me this way of thinking, which is so abstracted from the common relish of the world: But as I am now in a pleasing arbour surrounded with a beautiful landscape, I find no inclination so strong as to continue in these mansions, so remote from the ostentatious scenes of life; and am at this present writing philosopher enough to conclude with Mr. Cowley:

If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat,
With any wish so mean as to be great;
Continue heav'n, still from me to remove
The humble blessings of that life I love.

No. 115. THURSDAY, JULY 12.

Ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. Juv. Sat. x. v. 356.

A healthy body and a mind at ease.

Bodily labour is of two kinds, either that which a man submits to for his livelihood, or that which he undergoes for his pleasure. The latter of them generally changes the name of labour for that of exercise, but differs only from ordinary labour as it rises from another motive.

A country life abounds in both these kinds of labour, and for that reason gives a man a greater stock of health, and consequently a more perfect enjoyment of himself, than any other way of life. I consider the body as a system of tubes and glands, or to use a more rustic phrase, a bundle of pipes and strainers, fitted to one another after so wonderful a manner as to make a proper engine for the soul to work with. This description does not only comprehend the bowels, bones, tendons, veins, nerves, and arteries, but every muscle and every ligature, which is a composition of fibres, that are so many imperceptible tubes or pipes interwoven on all sides with invisible glands or strainers.

This general idea of a human body, without considering it in its niceties of anatomy, lets us see how absolutely necessary labour is for the right preservation of it. There must be frequent motions and agitations, to mix, digest, and separate the juices contained in it, as well as to clear and cleanse that infinitude of pipes and strainers of which it is composed, and to give their solid parts a more firm and lasting tone. Labour or exercise ferments the humours, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigour, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.

I might here mention the effects which this has upon all the faculties of the mind, by keeping the understanding clear, the imagination untroubled, and refining those spirits that are necessary for the proper exertion of our intellectual faculties, during the present laws of union between soul and body. It is to a neglect in this particular, that we must ascribe the spleen, which is so frequent in men of studious and sedentary tempers, as well as the vapours to which those of the other sex are so often subject.

Had not exercise been absolutely necessary for our well-being, nature would not have made the body so proper for it, by giving such an activity to the limbs, and such a pliancy to every part as necessarily produce these compressions, extensions, contortions, dilatations, and all other kinds of motions that are necessary for the preservation of such a system of tubes and glands as has been before mentioned. And that we might not want inducements to engage us in such an exercise of the body as is proper for its welfare, it is so ordered that nothing valuable can be procured without it. Not to mention riches and honour, even food and raiment are not to be come at without the toil of the hands and sweat of the brows. Providence furnishes materials, but expects that we should work them up ourselves. The earth must be laboured before it gives its increase, and when it is forced into its several products, how many hands must they pass through before they are fit for use? Manufactures, trade, and agriculture, naturally employ more than nineteen parts of the species in twenty; and as for those who are not obliged to labour, by the condition in which they are born, they are more miserable than the rest of mankind, unless they indulge themselves in that voluntary labour which goes by the name of exercise.

My friend Sir ROGER has been an indefatigable man in business of this kind, and has hung several parts of his house with the trophies of his former labours. The walls of his great hall are covered with the horns of several kinds of deer that he has killed in the chace, which he thinks the most valuable furniture of his house, as they afford him frequent topics of discourse, and shew that he has not been idle. At the lower end of the hall is a large otter's skin stuffed with hay, which his mother ordered to be hung up in that manner, and the Knight looks upon it with great satisfaction, because it seems he was but nine years old when his dog killed him. A little room adjoining to the hall is a kind of arsenal filled with guns of several sizes and inventions, with which the Knight has made great havock in the woods, and destroyed many thousands of pheasants, partridges and woodcocks. His stable-doors are patched with noses that belonged to foxes of the Knight's own hunting down. Sir ROGER shewed me one of them, that for distinction sake has a brass nail struck through it, which cost him about fifteen hours riding, carried him through half a dozen counties, killed him a brace of geldings, and lost above half his dogs. This the knight looks upon as one of the greatest exploits of his life. The perverse widow, whom I have given some account of, was the death of several foxes; for Sir ROGER has told me that in the course of his amours he patched the western door of his stable. Whenever the widow was cruel, the foxes were sure to pay for it. In proportion as his passion for the widow abated and old age came on, he left off fox-hunting; but a hare is not yet safe that sits within ten miles of his house.

There is no kind of exercise which I would so recommend to my readers of both sexes as this of riding, as there is none which so much conduces to health, and is every way accommodated to the body, according to the Idea which I have given of it. Doctor Sydenham is very lavish in its praises; and if the English reader will see the mechanical effects of it described at length, he may find them in a book published not many years since, under the title of Medicina Gymnastica. For my own part, when I am in town, for want of these opportunities, I exercise myself an hour every morning upon a dumb bell that is placed in a corner of my room, and pleases me the more because it does every thing I require of it in the most profound silence. My landlady and her daughters are so well acquainted with my hours of exercise, that they never come into my room to disturb me whilst I am ringing.

When I was some years younger than I am at present, I used to employ myself in a more laborious diversion, which I learned from a Latin treatise of exercises that is written with great erudition: It is there called the skiomachia, or the fighting with a man's own shadow, and consists in the brandishing of two short sticks grasped in each hand, and loaden with plugs of lead at either end. This opens the chest, exercises the limbs, and gives a man all the pleasure of boxing, without the blows. I could wish that several learned men would lay out that time which they employ in controversies and disputes about nothing, in this method of fighting with their own shadows. It might conduce very much to evaporate the spleen, which makes them uneasy to the public as well as to themselves.

To conclude, as I am a compound of soul and body, I consider myself as obliged to a double scheme of duties; and think I have not fulfilled the business of the day when I do not thus employ the one in labour and exercise, as well as the other in study and contemplation. L.

No. 116. FRIDAY, JULY 13.

Vocat ingenti clamore Cithaeron,
Taygetique canes.
Virg. Georg. iii. v. 43.

The echoing hills and chiding hounds invite.

Those who have searched into human nature observe that nothing so much shews the nobleness of the soul as that its felicity consists in action. Every man has such an active principle in him, that he will find out something to employ himself upon, in whatever place or state of life he is posted. I have heard of a gentleman who was under close confinement in the Bastile seven years; during which time he amused himself in scattering a few small pins about his chamber, gathering them up again, and placing them in different figures on the arm of a great chair. He often told his friends afterwards, that unless he had found out this piece of exercise, he verily believed he should have lost his senses.

After what has been said, I need not inform my readers that Sir ROGER, with whose character I hope they are at present pretty well acquainted, has in his youth gone through the whole course of those rural diversions which the country abounds in; and which seem to be extremely well suited to that laborious industry a man may observe here in a far greater degree than in towns and cities. I have before hinted at some of my friend's exploits: He has in his youthful days taken forty coveys of partridges in a season; and tired many a salmon with a line consisting but of a single hair. The constant thanks and good wishes of the neighbourhood always attended him, on account of his remarkable enmity towards foxes; having destroyed more of those vermin in one year, than it was thought the whole country could have produced. Indeed the knight does not scruple to own among his most intimate friends, that in order to establish his reputation this way, he has secretly sent for great numbers of them out of other counties, which he used to turn loose about the country by night, that he might the better signalize himself in their destruction the next day. His hunting-horses were the finest and best managed in all these parts: His tenants are still full of the praises of a grey stone-horse that unhappily staked himself several years since, and was buried with great solemnity in the orchard.

Sir ROGER, being at present too old for fox-hunting, to keep himself in action, has disposed of his beagles and got a pack of Stop- hounds. What these want in speed, he endeavours to make amends for by the deepness of their mouths and the variety of their notes, which are suited in such manner to each other, that the whole cry makes up a complete concert. He is so nice in this particular, that a gentleman having made him a present of a very fine hound the other day, the knight returned it by the servant with a great many expressions of civility; but desired him to tell his master, that the dog he had sent was indeed a most excellent Bass, but that at present he only wanted a Counter-Tenor. Could I believe my friend had ever read Shakespeare, I should certainly conclude he had taken the hint from Theseus in the Midsummer Night's Dream.

My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flu'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew.
Crook-knee'd and dew-lap'd like Thessalian bulls,
Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouths like bells,
Each under each: A cry more tuneable
Was never halloo'd to, nor cheer'd with horn.

Sir ROGER is so keen at this sport, that he has been out almost every day since I came down; and upon the chaplain's offering to lend me his easy pad, I was prevailed on yesterday morning to make one of the company. I was extremely pleased, as we rid along, to observe the general benevolence of all the neighbourhood towards my friend. The farmer's sons thought themselves happy if they could open a gate for the good old Knight as he passed by; which he generally requited with a nod or a smile, and a kind inquiry after their fathers and uncles.

After we had rid about a mile from home, we came upon a large heath, and the sportsmen began to beat. They had done so for some time, when, as I was at a little distance from the rest of the company, I saw a hare pop out from a small furze-brake almost under my horse's feet. I marked the way she took, which I endeavoured to make the company sensible of by extending my arm; but to no purpose, until Sir ROGER, who knows that none of my extraordinary motions are insignificant, rode up to me, and asked me if puss was gone that way? Upon my answering Yes, he immediately called in the dogs, and put them upon the scent. As they were going off, I heard one of the country-fellows muttering to his companion, That it was a wonder they had not lost all their sport, for want of the silent gentleman's crying Stole away.

This, with my aversion to leaping hedges, made me withdraw to a rising ground, from whence I could have the pleasure of the whole chace, without the fatigue of keeping in with the hounds. The hare immediately threw them above a mile behind her; but I was pleased to find, that instead of running straight forwards, or, in hunter's language, Flying the country, as I was afraid she might have done, she wheeled about, and described a sort of circle round the hill where I had taken my station, in such manner as gave me a very distinct view of the sport. I could see her first pass by, and the dogs some time afterwards unravelling the whole track she had made, and following her through all her doubles. I was at the same time delighted in observing that deference which the rest of the pack paid to each particular hound, according to the character he had acquired amongst them: If they were at a fault, and an old hound of reputation opened but once, he was immediately followed by the whole cry; while a raw dog, or one who was a noted Liar, might have yelped his heart out without being taken notice of.

The hare now, after having squatted two or three times, and been put up again as often, came still nearer to the place where she was at first started. The dogs pursued her, and these were followed by the jolly Knight, who rode upon a white gelding, encompassed by his tenants and servants, and cheering his hounds with all the gaiety of five and twenty. One of the sportsmen rode up to me, and told me that he was sure the chace was almost at an end, because the old dogs, which had hitherto lain behind, now headed the pack. The fellow was in the right. Our hare took a large field just under us, followed by the full cry in view. I must confess the brightness of the weather, the cheerfulness of every thing around me, the chiding of the hounds, which was returned upon us in a double echo from two neighbouring hills, with the hallooing of the sportsmen and the sounding of the horn, lifted my spirits into a most lively pleasure, which I freely indulged because I knew it was innocent. If I was under any concern, it was on the account of the poor hare, that was now quite spent and almost within the reach of her enemies; when the huntsman, getting forward, threw down his pole before the dogs. They were now within eight yards of that game which they had been pursuing for almost as many hours; yet on the signal before-mentioned they all made a sudden stand, and though they continued opening as much as before, durst not once attempt to pass beyond the pole. At the same time Sir ROGER rode forward, and alighting, took up the hare in his arms; which he soon delivered to one of his servants, with an order, if she could be kept alive, to let her go in his great orchard; where it seems he has several of these prisoners of war, who live together in a very comfortable captivity. I was highly pleased to see the discipline of the pack, and the good nature of the Knight, who could not find in his heart to murder a creature that had given him so much diversion.

As we were returning home, I remembered that Monsieur Paschal in his most excellent discourse on the misery of man, tells us, that all our endeavours after greatness proceed from nothing but a desire of being surrounded by a multitude of persons and affairs that may hinder us from looking into ourselves, which is a view we cannot bear. He afterwards goes on to show that our love of sports comes from the same reason, and is particularly severe upon hunting. What, says he, unless it be to drown thought, can make men throw away so much time and pains upon a silly animal, which they might buy cheaper in the market? The foregoing reflection is certainly just, when a man suffers his whole mind to be drawn into his sports, and altogether loses himself in the woods; but does not affect those who propose a far more laudable end for this exercise; I mean, The preservation of health, and keeping all the organs of the soul in a condition to execute her orders. Had that incomparable person, whom I last quoted, been a little more indulgent to himself in this point, the world might probably have enjoyed him much longer: Whereas, through too great an application to his studies in his youth, he contracted that ill habit of body, which, after a tedious sickness, carried him off in the fortieth year of his age; and the whole history we have of his life till that time, is but one continued account of the behaviour of a noble soul struggling under innumerable pains and distempers.

For my own part, I intend to hunt twice a week during my stay with Sir ROGER; and shall prescribe the moderate use of this exercise to all my country friends, as the best kind of physick for mending a bad constitution, and preserving a good one.

I cannot do this better, than in the following lines out of Mr. Dryden.

The first physicians by debauch were made;
Excess began, and sloth sustains the trade.
By chace our long liv'd fathers earn'd their food;
Toil strung the nerves, and purifi'd the blood;
But we their sons, a pamper'd race of men,
Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise for cure on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend. X.

No. 117. SATURDAY, JULY 14.

Ipsi sibi somnia fingunt. VIRG. Ecl. viii. ver. 108.

Their own imaginations they deceive.

There are some opinions in which a man should stand neuter, without engaging his assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering faith as this, which refuses to settle upon any determination, is absolutely necessary in a mind that is careful to avoid errors and prepossessions. When the arguments press equally on both sides in matters that are indifferent to us, the safest method is to give up ourselves to neither.

It is with this temper of mind that I consider the subject of witchcraft. When I hear the relations that are made from all parts of the world, not only from Norway and Lapland, from the East and West Indies, but from every particular nation in Europe, I cannot forbear thinking that there is such an intercourse and commerce with evil spirits, as that which we express by the name of witchcraft. But when I consider that the ignorant and credulous parts of the world abound most in these relations, and that the persons among us, who are supposed to engage in such an infernal commerce, are people of a weak understanding and crazed imagination, and at the same time reflect upon the many impostures and delusions of this nature that have been detected in all ages, I endeavour to suspend my belief till I hear more certain accounts than any which have yet come to my knowledge. In short, when I consider the question whether there are such persons in the world as those we call witches, my mind is divided between the two opposite opinions; or rather, (to speak my thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as witchcraft; but, at the same time, can give no credit to any particular instance of it.

I am engaged in this speculation by some occurrences that I met with yesterday, which I shall give my reader an account of at large. As I was walking with my friend Sir ROGER by the side of one of his woods, an old woman applied herself to me for my charity. Her dress and figure put me in mind of the following description in Otway.

In a close lane as I pursu'd my journey,
I spy'd a wrinkled Hag, with age grown double,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself.
Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall'd and red;
Cold palsy shook her head; her hands seem'd withered;
And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapped
The tatter'd remnants of an old strip'd hanging,
Which serv'd to keep her carcase from the cold:
So there was nothing of a piece about her.
Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsly patch'd
With different-coloured rags, black, red, white, yellow,
And seem'd to speak variety of wretchedness.

As I was musing on this description, and comparing it with the object before me, the Knight told me, that this very old woman had the reputation of a witch all over the country, that her lips were observed to be always in motion, and that there was not a switch about her house which her neighbours did not believe had carried her several hundreds of miles. If she chanced to stumble, they always found sticks or straws that lay in the figure of a cross before her. If she made any mistake at church, and cried Amen in a wrong place, they never failed to conclude that she was saying her prayers backwards. There was not a maid in the parish that would take a pin of her, though she should offer a bag of money with it. She goes by the name of Moll White, and has made the country ring with several imaginary exploits which are palmed upon her. If the dairy-maid does not make the butter come so soon as she would have it, Moll White is at the bottom of the churn. If a horse sweats in the stable, Moll White has been upon his back. If a hare makes an unexpected escape from the hounds, the huntsman curses Moll White. 'Nay' (says Sir ROGER) 'I have known the master of the pack, upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White had been out that morning.'

This account raised my curiosity so far, that I begged my friend Sir ROGER to go with me into her hovel, which stood in a solitary corner under the side of the wood. Upon our first entering Sir ROGER winked to me, and pointed at something that stood behind the door, which, upon looking that way I found to be an old broomstaff. At the same time he whispered me in the ear to take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the chimney-corner, which, as the old Knight told me, lay under as bad a report as Moll White herself; for, besides that Moll is said often to accompany her in the same shape, the cat is reported to have spoken twice or thrice in her life, and to have played several pranks above the capacity of an ordinary cat.

I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so much wretchedness and disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smiling to hear Sir ROGER, who is a little puzzled about the old woman, advising her as a justice of peace to avoid all communication with the Devil, and never to hurt any of her neighbour's cattle. We concluded our visit with a bounty, which was very acceptable.

In our return home Sir ROGER told me, that old Moll had been often brought before him for making children spit pins, and giving maids the nightmare; and that the country people would be tossing her into a pond, and trying experiments with her every day, if it was not for him and his chaplain.

I have since found, upon inquiry, that Sir ROGER was several times staggered with the reports that had been brought him concerning this old woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the county-sessions, had not his chaplain with much ado persuaded him to the contrary.

I have been the more particular in this account, because I hear there is scarce a village in England that has not a Moll White in it. When an old woman begins to dote, and grow chargeable to a parish, she is generally turned into a witch, and fills the whole country with extravagant fancies, imaginary distempers, and terrifying dreams. In the mean time, the poor wretch that is the innocent occasion of so many evils begins to be frighted at herself, and sometimes confesses secret commerce and familiarities that her imagination forms in a delirious old age. This frequently cuts off charity from the greatest objects of compassion, and inspires people with a malevolence towards those poor decrepid parts of our species, in whom human nature is defaced by infirmity and dotage. L.

No. 118. MONDAY, JULY 16.

Haeret lateri lethalis arundo.
VIRG. AEn. iv. ver. 73.

The fatal dart
Sticks in his side, and rankles in his heart.
DRYDEN

This agreeable seat is surrounded with so many pleasing walks, which are struck out of a wood, in the midst of which the house stands, that one can hardly ever be weary of rambling from one labyrinth of delight to another. To one used to live in a city the charms of the country are so exquisite, that the mind is lost in a certain transport which raises us above ordinary life, and is yet not strong enough to be inconsistent with tranquillity. This state of mind was I in, ravished with the murmur of waters, the whisper of breezes, the singing of birds; and whether I looked up to the heavens, down to the earth, or turned on the prospects around me, still struck with new sense of pleasure; when I found by the voice of my friend, who walked by me, that we had insensibly strolled into the grove sacred to the widow. 'This woman', says he, 'is of all others the most unintelligible; she either designs to marry, or she does not. What is the most perplexing of all, is, that she doth not either say to her lovers she has any resolution against that condition of life in general, or that she banishes them; but, conscious of her own merit, she permits their addresses, without fear of any ill consequence, or want of respect, from their rage or despair. She has that in her aspect, against which it is impossible to offend. A man whose thoughts are constantly bent upon so agreeable an object, must be excused if the ordinary occurrences in conversation are below his attention. I call her indeed perverse; but, alas! why do I call her so? Because her superior merit is such, that I cannot approach her without awe, that my heart is checked by too much esteem: I am angry that her charms are not more acceptable, that I am more inclined to worship than salute her: How often have I wished her unhappy, that I might have an opportunity of serving her? and how often troubled in that very imagination, at giving her the pain of being obliged? Well, I have led a miserable life in secret upon her account; but fancy she would have condescended to have some regard for me, if it had not been for that watchful animal her confident.

'Of all persons under the sun' (continued he, calling me by my name)' be sure to set a mark upon confidents: They are of all people the most impertinent. What is most pleasant to observe in them, is, that they assume to themselves the merit of the persons whom they have in their custody. Orestilla is a great fortune, and in wonderful danger of surprises, therefore full of suspicions of the least indifferent thing, particularly careful of new acquaintance, and of growing too familiar with the old. Themista, her favourite woman, is every whit as careful of whom she speaks to, and what she says. Let the ward be a beauty, her confident shall treat you with an air of distance; let her be a fortune, and she assumes the suspicious behaviour of her friend and patroness. Thus it is that very many of our unmarried women of distinction, are to all intents and purposes married, except the consideration of different sexes. They are directly under the conduct of their whisperer; and think they are in a state of freedom, while they can prate with one of these attendants of all men in general, and still avoid the man they most like. You do not see one heiress in a hundred whose fate does not turn upon this circumstance of chusing a confident. Thus it is that the lady is addressed to, presented and flattered, only by proxy, in her woman. In my case, how is it possible that—' Sir ROGER was proceeding in his harangue, when we heard the voice of one speaking very importunately, and repeating these words, 'What, not one smile?' We followed the sound till we came to a close thicket, on the other side of which we saw a young woman sitting as it were in a personated sullenness, just over a transparent fountain. Opposite to her stood Mr. William, Sir ROGER's master of the game. The Knight whispered me, 'Hist! these are lovers.' The huntsman looking earnestly at the shadow of the young maiden in the stream, 'Oh thou dear picture, if thou couldst remain there in the absence of that fair creature whom you represent in the water, how willingly could I stand here satisfied for ever, without troubling my dear Betty herself with any mention of her unfortunate William, whom she is angry with: But alas! when she pleases to be gone, thou wilt also vanish—yet let me talk to thee while thou dost stay. Tell my dearest Betty thou dost not more depend upon her, than does her William: Her absence will make away with me as well as thee. If she offers to remove thee, I will jump into these waves to lay hold on thee; herself, her own dear person, I must never embrace again.—Still do you hear me without one smile—It is too much to bear—' He had no sooner spoke these words, but he made an offer of throwing himself into the water: At which his mistress started up, and at the next instant he jumped across the fountain and met her in an embrace. She, half recovering from her fright, said, in the most charming voice imaginable, and with a tone of complaint, 'I thought how well you would drown yourself. No, no, you won't drown yourself till you have taken your leave of Susan Holiday.' The huntsman, with a tenderness that spoke the most passionate love, and with his cheek close to hers, whispered the softest vows of fidelity in her ear, and cried, 'Don't, my dear, believe a word Kate Willow says; she is spiteful, and makes stories because she loves to hear me talk to herself for your sake.' 'Look you there,' quoth Sir ROGER, 'do you see there, all mischief comes from confidents! But let us not interrupt them; the maid is honest, and the man dares not be otherwise, for he knows I loved her father: I will interpose in this matter, and hasten the wedding. Kate Willow is a witty mischievous wench in the neighbourhood, who was a beauty, and makes me hope I shall see the perverse widow in her condition. She was so flippant with her answers to all the honest fellows that came near her, and so very vain of her beauty, that she has valued herself upon her charms till they are ceased. She therefore now makes it her business to prevent other young women from being more discreet than she was herself: However, the saucy thing said the other day well enough,

"Sir ROGER and I must make a match, for we are both despised by those we loved." The hussy has a great deal of power wherever she comes, and has her share of cunning.

'However, when I reflect upon this woman, I do not know whether in the main I am the worse for having loved her: Whenever she is recalled to my imagination my youth returns, and I feel a forgotten warmth in my veins. This affliction in my life has streaked all my conduct with a softness, of which I should otherwise have been incapable. It is, perhaps, to this dear image in my heart owing that I am apt to relent, that I easily forgive, and that many desirable things are grown into my temper, which I should not have arrived at by better motives than the thought of being one day hers. I am pretty well satisfied such a passion as I have had is never well cured; and, between you and me, I am often apt to imagine it has had some whimsical effect upon my brain: For I frequently find, that in my most serious discourse I let fall some comical familiarity of speech, or odd phrase, that makes the company laugh; however, I cannot but allow she is a most excellent woman. When she is in the country I warrant she does not run into dairies, but reads upon the nature of plants; but has a glass-hive, and comes into the garden out of books to see them work, and observe the policies of their commonwealth. She understands every thing. I would give ten pounds to hear her argue with my friend Sir ANDREW FREEPORT about trade. No, no, for all she looks so innocent as it were, take my word for it she is no fool.' T.

No. 119. TUESDAY, JULY 17.

Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, Melibaee, putavi
Stultus ego huic nostrae similem.
VIRG. Ecl. i. v. 20.

Fool that I was, I thought imperial Rome
Like Mantua.
DRYDEN.

The first and most obvious reflexions which arise in a man who changes the city for the country, are upon the different manners of the people whom he meets with in those two different scenes of life. By manners I do not mean morals, but behaviour and good-breeding, as they shew themselves in the town and in the country.

And here, in the first place, I must observe a very great revolution that has happened in this article of good-breeding. Several obliging deferences, condescensions and submissions, with many outward forms and ceremonies that accompany them, were first of all brought up among the politer part of mankind, who lived in courts and cities, and distinguished themselves from the rustick part of the species (who on all occasions acted bluntly and naturally) by such a mutual complaisance and intercourse of civilities. These forms of conversation by degrees multiplied and grew troublesome; the modish world found too great a constraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside. Conversation, like the Romish religion, was so incumbered with show and ceremony, that it stood in need of a reformation to retrench its superfluities, and restore it to its natural good sense and beauty. At present therefore an unconstrained carriage, and a certain openness of behaviour, are the height of good-breeding. The fashionable world is grown free and easy; our manners sit more loose upon us: Nothing is so modish as an agreeable negligence. In a word, good-breeding shews itself most where to an ordinary eye it appears the least.

If after this we look on the people of mode in the country, we find in them the manners of the last age. They have no sooner fetched themselves up to the fashion of the polite world, but the town has dropped them, and are nearer to the first state of nature than to those refinements which formerly reigned in the court, and still prevail in the country. One may now know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding.

A polite country 'Squire shall make you as many bows in half an hour, as would serve a courtier for a week. There is infinitely more to do about place and precedency in a meeting of justices' wives, than in an assembly of duchesses.

This rural politeness is very troublesome to a man of my temper, who generally take the chair that is next me, and walk first or last, in the front or in the rear, as chance directs. I have known my friend Sir ROGER'S dinner almost cold before the company could adjust the ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to sit down; and have heartily pitied my old friend, when I have seen him forced to pick and cull his guests, as they sat at the several parts of his table, that he might drink their healths according to their respective ranks and qualities. Honest Will Wimble, who I should have thought had been altogether uninfected with ceremony, gives me abundance of trouble in this particular. Though he has been fishing all the morning, he will not help himself at dinner till I am served. When we are going out of the hall, he runs behind me; and last night, as we were walking in the fields, stopped short at a stile till I came up to it, and upon my making signs to him to get over, told me, with a serious smile, that sure I believed they had no manners in the country.

There has happened another revolution in the point of good-breeding, which relates to the conversation among men of mode, and which I cannot but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first distinctions of a well-bred man, to express every thing that had the most remote appearance of being obscene, in modest terms and distant phrases; whilst the clown, who had no such delicacy of conception and expression, clothed his ideas in those plain homely terms that are the most obvious and natural. This kind of good-manners was perhaps carried to an excess, so as to make conversation too stiff, formal, and precise: For which reason (as hypocrisy in one age is generally succeeded by atheism in another) conversation is in a great measure relapsed into the first extreme; so that at present several of our men of the town, and particularly those who have been polished in France, make use of the most coarse uncivilized words in our language, and utter themselves often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear.

This infamous piece of good-breeding, which reigns among the coxcombs of the town, has not yet made its way into the country; and as it is impossible for such an irrational way of conversation to last long, among a people that make any profession of religion or show of modesty, if the country gentlemen get into it they will certainly be left in the lurch. Their good-breeding will come too late to them, and they will be thought a parcel of lewd clowns, while they fancy themselves talking together like men of wit and pleasure.

As the two points of good-breeding which I have hitherto insisted upon, regard behaviour and conversation, there is a third which turns upon dress. In this too the country are very much behind-hand. The rural beaux are not yet got out of the fashion that took place at the time of the Revolution, but ride about the country in red coats and laced hats, while the women in many parts are still trying to outvie one another in the height of their headdresses.

But a friend of mine, who is now upon the western circuit, having promised to give me an account of the several modes and fashions that prevail in the different parts of the nation through which he passes, I shall defer the enlarging upon this last topick till I have received a letter from him, which I expect every post. L.

NO. 120. WEDNESDAY, JULY 18.

Equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis
Ingenium.
VIRG. Georg. i. ver. 415.

I think their breasts with heav'nly souls inspir'd.
DRYDEN.

My friend Sir ROGER is very often merry with me upon my passing so much of my time among his poultry. He has caught me twice or thrice looking after a bird's nest, and several times sitting an hour or two together near an hen and chickens. He tells me he believes I am personally acquainted with every fowl about his house; calls such a particular cock my favourite, and frequently complains that his ducks and geese have more of my company than himself.

I must confess I am infinitely delighted with those speculations of nature which are to be made in a country-life; and as my reading has very much lain among books of natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this occasion the several remarks which I have met with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own observation: The argument for providence drawn from the natural history of animals being in my opinion demonstrative.

The make of every kind of animal is different from that of every other kind; and yet there is not the least turn in the muscles or twist in the fibres of any one, which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture of them would have been.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are Lust and Hunger: The first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind; the latter to preserve themselves.

It is astonishing to consider the different degrees of care that descend from the parent to the young, so far as is absolutely necessary for the leaving a posterity. Some creatures cast their eggs as chance directs them, and think of them no farther, as insects and several kinds of fish; others, of a nicer frame, find out proper beds to deposite them in, and there leave them; as the serpent, the crocodile, and ostrich: Others hatch their eggs, and tend the birth, till it is able to shift for itself.

What can we call the principle which directs every different kind of bird to observe a particular plan in the structure of its nest, and direct all the same species to work after the same model? It cannot be Imitation; for, though you hatch a crow under a hen, and never let it see any of the works of its own kind, the nest it makes shall be the same, to the laying of a stick, with all the other nests of the same species. It cannot be reason; for, were animals indued with it to as great a degree as man, their buildings would be as different as ours, according to the different conveniencies that they would propose to themselves.

Is it not remarkable, that the same temper of weather, which raises this genial warmth in animals, should cover the trees with leaves, and the fields with grass, for their security and concealment, and produce such infinite swarms of insects for the support and sustenance of their respective broods?

Is it not wonderful, that the love of the parent should be so violent while it lasts, and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young?

The violence of this natural love is exemplified by a very barbarous experiment; which I shall quote at length, as I find it in an excellent author, and hope my readers will pardon the mentioning such an instance of cruelty, because there is nothing can so effectually show the strength of that principle in animals of which I am here speaking. 'A person who was well skilled in dissections opened a bitch, and as she lay in the most exquisite tortures, offered her one of her young puppies, which she immediately fell a licking; and for the time seemed insensible of her own pain: On the removal, she kept her eye fixt on it, and began a wailing sort of cry, which seemed rather to proceed from the loss of her young one, than the sense of her own torments.'

But, notwithstanding this natural love in brutes is much more violent and intense than in rational creatures, providence has taken care that it should be no longer troublesome to the parent than it is useful to the young; for so soon as the wants of the latter cease, the mother withdraws her fondness, and leaves them to provide for themselves: And, what is a very remarkable circumstance in this part of instinct, we find that the love of the parent may be lengthened out beyond its usual time, if the preservation of the species requires it; as we may see in birds that drive away their young as soon as they are able to get their livelihood, but continue to feed them if they are tied to the nest, or confined within a cage, or by any other means appear to be out of a condition of supplying their own necessities.

This natural love is not observed in animals to ascend from the young to the parent, which is not at all necessary for the continuance of the species; nor indeed in reasonable creatures does it rise in any proportion, as it spreads itself downwards: For in all family affection, we find protection granted and favours bestowed, are greater motives to love and tenderness, than safety, benefits, or life received. One would wonder to hear sceptical men disputing for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only our pride and prejudices that will not allow them the use of that faculty.

Reason shews itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation, or the continuance of his species. Animals in their generation are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass. Take a brute out of his instinct, and you find him wholly deprived of understanding. To use an instance that comes often under observation.

With what caution does the hen provide herself a nest in places unfrequented, and free from noise and disturbance! When she has laid her eggs in such a manner that she can cover them, what care does she take in turning them frequently, that all parts may partake of the vital warmth? When she leaves them, to provide for her necessary sustenance, how punctually does she return before they have time to cool, and become incapable of producing an animal? In the summer you see her giving herself greater freedoms, and quitting her care for above two hours together; but in winter, when the rigour of the season would chill the principles of life, and destroy the young one, she grows more assiduous in her attendance, and stays away but half the time. When the birth approaches, with how much nicety and attention does she help the chick to break its prison? Not to take notice of her covering it from the injuries of the weather, providing it proper nourishment, and teaching it to help itself; nor to mention her forsaking the nest, if after the usual time of reckoning the young one does not make its appearance. A chymical operation could not be followed with greater art or diligence, than is seen in the hatching of a chick; though there are many other birds that shew an infinitely greater sagacity in all the forementioned particulars.

But at the same time the hen, that has all this seeming ingenuity (which is indeed absolutely necessary for the propagation of the species), considered in other respects, is without the least glimmerings of thought or common sense. She mistakes a piece of chalk for an egg, and sits upon it in the same manner: She is insensible of any increase or diminution in the number of those she lays: She does not distinguish between her own and those of another species; and when the birth appears of never so different a bird, will cherish it for her own. In all these circumstances, which do not carry an immediate regard to the subsistence of herself or her species, she is a very idiot.

There is not, in my opinion, any thing more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rises above reason, and falls infinitely short of it. It cannot be accounted for by any properties in matter, and at the same time works after so odd a manner, that one cannot think it the faculty of an intellectual being. For my own part, I look upon it as upon the principle of gravitation in bodies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies themselves, nor from any laws of mechanism; but, according to the best notions of the greatest philosophers, is an immediate impression from the first mover, and the divine energy acting in the creatures. L.

NO. 121. THURSDAY, JULY 19.

Jovis omnia plena. VIRG. Ecl. iii. v. 60.

All is full of Jove.

As I was walking this morning in the great yard that belongs to my friend's country house, I was wonderfully pleased to see the different workings of instinct in a hen followed by a brood of ducks. The young, upon the sight of a pond, immediately ran into it, while the step- mother, with all imaginable anxiety, hovered about the borders of it, to call them out of an element that appeared to her so dangerous and destructive. As the different principle which acted in these different animals cannot be termed reason, so when we call it instinct, we mean something we have no knowledge of. To me, as I hinted in my last paper, it seems the immediate direction of providence, and such an operation of the Supreme Being, as that which determines all the portions of matter to their proper centres. A modern philosopher, quoted by Monsieur Bayle in his learned dissertation on the souls of brutes, delivers the same opinion, though in a bolder form of words, where he says, Deus est anima brutorum, God himself is the soul of brutes. Who can tell what to call that seeming sagacity in animals, which directs them to such food as is proper for them, and makes them naturally avoid whatever is noxious or unwholesome? Tully has observed, that a lamb no sooner falls from its mother, but immediately and of his own accord applies itself to the teat. Dampier, in his travels, tells us, that when seamen are thrown upon any unknown coasts of America, they never venture upon the fruit of any tree, how tempting soever it may appear, unless they observe that it is marked with the pecking of birds; but fall on without any fear or apprehension where the birds have been before them.

But notwithstanding animals have nothing like the use of reason, we find in them all the lower parts of our nature, the passions and senses in their greatest strength and perfection. And here it is worth our observation, that all beasts and birds of prey are wonderfully subject to anger, malice, revenge, and all the other violent passions that may animate them in search of their proper food; as those that are incapable of defending themselves, or annoying others, or whose safety lies chiefly in their flight, are suspicious, fearful, and apprehensive of every thing they see or hear; whilst others that are of assistance and use to man, have their natures softened with something mild and tractable, and by that means are qualified for a domestic life. In this case the passions generally correspond with the make of the body. We do not find the fury of the lion in so weak and defenceless an animal as a lamb, nor the meekness of a lamb in a creature so armed for battle and assault as the lion. In the same manner, we find that particular animals have a more or less exquisite sharpness and sagacity in those particular senses which most turn to their advantage, and in which their safety and welfare is the most concerned.

Nor must we here omit that great variety of arms with which nature has differently fortified the bodies of several kind of animals, such as claws, hoofs, and horns, teeth, and tusks, a tail, a sting, a trunk, or a proboscis. It is likewise observed by naturalists, that it must be some hidden principle distinct from what we call reason, which instructs animals in the use of these their arms, and teaches them to manage them to the best advantage; because they naturally defend themselves with that part in which their strength lies, before the weapon be formed in it; as is remarkable in lambs, which though they are bred within doors, and never saw the action of their own species, push at those who approach them with their foreheads, before the first budding of a horn appears.

I shall add to these general observations an instance, which Mr. Locke has given us of providence, even in the imperfections of a creature which seems the meanest and most despicable in the whole animal world. We may, says he, from the make of an oyster, or cockle, conclude, that it has not so many nor so quick senses as a man, or several other animals: Nor if it had, would it, in that state and incapacity of transferring itself from one place to another, be bettered by them. What good would sight and hearing do to a creature that cannot move itself to or from the object, wherein at a distance it perceives good or evil? And would not quickness of sensation be an inconvenience to an animal that must be still where chance has once placed it, and there receive the afflux of colder or warmer, clean or foul water, as it happens to come to it.

I shall add to this instance out of Mr. Locke another out of the learned Dr. More, who cites it from Cardan, in relation to another animal which providence has left defective, but at the same time has shewn its wisdom in the formation of that organ in which it seems chiefly to have failed. What is more obvious and ordinary than a mole? and yet what more palpable argument of providence than she? The members of her body are so exactly fitted to her nature and manner of life: For her dwelling being under ground where nothing is to be seen, nature has so obscurely fitted her with eyes, that naturalists can hardly agree whether she have any sight at all or no. But for amends, what she is capable of for her defence and warning of danger, she has very eminently conferred upon her; for she is exceedingly quick of hearing. And then her short tail and short legs, but broad forefeet armed with sharp claws, we see by the event to what purpose they are, she so swiftly working herself under ground, and making her way so fast in the earth as they that behold it cannot but admire it. Her legs therefore are short, that she need dig no more than will serve the mere thickness of her body; and her fore feet are broad that she may scoop away much earth at a time; and little or no tail she has, because she courses it not on the ground, like the rat and mouse, of whose kindred she is, but lives under the earth, and is fain to dig herself a dwelling there. And she making her way through so thick an element, which will not yield easily, as the air or the water, it had been dangerous to have drawn so long a train behind her; for her enemy might fall upon her rear, and fetch her out, before she had completed or got full possession of her works.

I cannot forbear mentioning Mr. Boyle's remark upon this last creature, who I remember somewhere in his works observes, that though the mole be not totally blind (as it is commonly thought) she has not sight enough to distinguish particular objects. Her eye is said to have but one humour in it, which is supposed to give her the idea of light, but of nothing else, and is so formed that this idea is probably painful to the animal. Whenever she comes up into broad day she might be in danger of being taken, unless she were thus affected by a light striking upon her eye, and immediately warning her to bury herself in her proper element. More sight would be useless to her, as none at all might be fatal.

I have only instanced such animals as seem the most imperfect works of nature; and if providence shews itself even in the blemishes of these creatures, how much more does it discover itself in the several endowments which it has variously bestowed upon such creatures as are more or less finished and compleated in their several faculties, according to the condition of life in which they are posted.

I could wish our Royal Society would compile a body of Natural History, the best that could be gathered together from books and observations. If the several writers among them took each his particular species, and gave us a distinct account of its original, birth and education, its policies; hostilities and alliances, with the frame, and texture of its inward and outward parts, and particularly those that distinguish it from all other animals, with their peculiar aptitudes for the state of being in which providence has placed them, it would be one of the best services their studies could do mankind, and not a little redound to the glory of the All-wise Contriver.

It is true, such a Natural History, after all the disquisitions of the learned, would be infinitely short and defective. Seas and deserts hide millions of animals from our observation. Innumerable artifices and stratagems are acted in the Howling Wilderness and in the Great Deep, that can never come to our knowledge. Besides that there are infinitely more species of creatures which are not to be seen without, nor indeed with the help of the finest glasses, than of such as are bulky enough for the naked eye to take hold of. However, from the consideration of such animals as lie within the compass of our knowledge, we might easily form a conclusion of the rest, that the same variety of wisdom and goodness runs through the whole creation, and puts every creature in a condition to provide for its safety and subsistence in its proper station.

Tully has given us an admirable sketch of natural history, in his second book concerning the nature of the Gods; and that in a style so raised by metaphors and descriptions, that it lifts the subject above rallery and ridicule, which frequently fall on such nice observations when they pass through the hands of an ordinary writer. L.

No. 122. FRIDAY, JULY 20.

Comes jucundus in via pro vehiculo est.
PUBL. SYR. Frag.

An agreeable companion upon the road is as good as
a coach.

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world: If the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applauses of the publick: A man is more sure of his conduct, when the verdict he passes upon his own behaviour is thus warranted and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him.

My worthy friend Sir ROGER is one of those who is not only at peace within himself, but beloved and esteemed by all about him. He receives a suitable tribute for his universal benevolence to mankind, in the returns of affection and good-will, which are paid him by every one that lives within his neighbourhood. I lately met with two or three odd instances of that general respect which is shewn to the good old Knight. He would needs carry Will Wimble and myself with him to the county assizes: As we were upon the road Will Wimble joined a couple of plain men who rid before us, and conversed with them for some time; during which my friend Sir ROGER acquainted me with their characters.

The first of them, says he, that has a spaniel by his side, is a yeoman of about an hundred pounds a year, an honest man: He is just within the game-act, and qualified to kill an hare or a pheasant: He knocks down a dinner with his gun twice or thrice a-week; and by that means lives much cheaper than those who have not so good an estate as himself. He would be a good neighbour if he did not destroy so many partridges: In short, he is a very sensible man; shoots flying; and has been several times foreman of the petty-jury.

The other that rides along with him is Tom Touchy, a fellow famous for taking the law of every body. There is not one in the town where he lives that he has not sued at the quarter-sessions. The rogue had once the impudence to go to law with the widow. His head is full of costs, damages, and ejectments: He plagued a couple of honest gentlemen so long for a trespass in breaking one of his hedges, till he was forced to sell the ground it inclosed to defray the charges of the prosecution: His father left him fourscore pounds a-year; but he has cast and been cast so often, that he is not now worth thirty. I suppose he is going upon the old business of the willow-tree.

As Sir ROGER was giving me this account of Tom Touchy, Will Wimble and his two companions stopped short till we came up to them. After having paid their respects to Sir ROGER, Will told him that Mr. Touchy and he must appeal to him upon a dispute that arose between them. Will it seems had been giving his fellow-traveller an account of his angling one day in such a hole; when Tom Touchy, instead of hearing out his story, told him that Mr. Such-a- one, if he pleased, might take the law of him for fishing in that part of the river. My friend Sir ROGER heard them both, upon a round trot; and after having paused some time told them, with the air of a man who would not give his judgment rashly, that much might be said on both sides. They were neither of them dissatisfied with the Knight's determination, because neither of them found himself in the wrong by it: Upon which we made the best of our way to the assizes.

The court was sat before Sir ROGER came; but notwithstanding all the justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room for the old Knight at the head of them; who for his reputation in the county took occasion to whisper in the judge's ear, That he was glad his Lordship had met with so much good weather in his circuit. I was listening to the proceeding of the court with much attention, and infinitely pleased with that great appearance and solemnity which so properly accompanies such a publick administration of our laws; when, after about an hour's sitting, I observed to my great surprise, in the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir ROGER was getting up to speak. I was in some pain for him, till I found he had acquitted himself of two or three sentences, with a look of much business and great intrepidity.

Upon his first rising the court was hushed, and a general whisper ran among the country people, that Sir ROGER was up. The speech he made was so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it; and I believe was not so much designed by the Knight himself to inform the court, as to give him a figure in my eye, and keep up his credit in the country.

I was highly delighted, when the court rose, to see the gentlemen of the country gathering about my old friend, and striving who should compliment him most; at the same time that the ordinary people gazed upon him at a distance, not a little admiring his courage, that was not afraid to speak to the judge.

In our return home we met with a very odd accident; which I cannot forbear relating, because it shews how desirous all who know Sir ROGER are of giving him marks of their esteem. When we were arrived upon the verge of his estate, we stopped at a little inn to rest ourselves and our horses. The man of the house had it seems been formerly a servant in the Knight's family; and to do honour to his old master, had some time since, unknown to Sir ROGER, put him up in a sign-post before the door; so that the Knight's head had hung out upon the road about a week before he himself knew any thing of the matter. As soon as Sir ROGER was acquainted with it, finding that his servant's indiscretion proceeded wholly from affection and good-will, he only told him that he had made him too high a compliment; and when the fellow seemed to think that could hardly be, added with a more decisive look, That it was too great an honour for any man under a duke; but told him at the same time, that it might be altered with a very few touches, and that he himself would be at the charge of it. Accordingly they got a painter by the Knight's directions to add a pair of whiskers to the face, and by a little aggravation of the features to change it into the Saracen's Head. I should not have known this story had not the innkeeper, upon Sir ROGER'S alighting, told him in my hearing, That his honour's head was brought back last night with the alterations that he had ordered to be made in it. Upon this my friend, with his usual cheerfulness, related the particulars above-mentioned, and ordered the head to be brought into the room. I could not forbear discovering greater expressions of mirth than ordinary upon the appearance of this monstrous face, under which, notwithstanding it was made to frown and stare in a most extraordinary manner, I could still discover a distant resemblance of my old friend. Sir ROGER upon seeing me laugh, desired me to tell him truly if I thought it possible for people to know him in that disguise. I at first kept my usual silence; but upon the Knight's conjuring me to tell him whether it was not still more like himself than a Saracen, I composed my countenance in the best manner I could, and replied, that much might be said on both sides.

These several adventures, with the Knight's behaviour in them, gave me as pleasant a day as ever I met with in any of my travels.

No. 123, SATURDAY, JULY 21.

Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
Rectique cultus pectora roborant:
Utcunque defecere mores,
Dedecorant bene nata culpae.
HOR. Od. iv. 1. 4. ver. 33.

Yet the best blood by learning is refin'd,
And virtue arms the solid mind;
Whilst vice will stain the noblest race,
And the paternal stamp efface.
ANON.

As I was yesterday taking the air with my friend Sir ROGER, we were met by a fresh-coloured ruddy young man, who rid by us full speed, with a couple of servants behind him. Upon my inquiry who he was, Sir ROGER told me that he was a young gentleman of a considerable estate, who had been educated by a tender mother that lived not many miles from the place where we were. She is a very good lady, says my friend, but took so much care of her son's health, that she has made him good for nothing. She quickly found that reading was bad for his eyes, and that writing made his head ache. He was let loose among the woods as soon as he was able to ride on horseback, or carry a gun upon his shoulder. To be brief, I found, by my friend's account of him, that he had got a great stock of health, but nothing else; and that if it were a man's business only to live, there would not be a more accomplished young fellow in the whole country.

The truth of it is, since my residing in these parts, I have seen and heard innumerable instances of young heirs and elder brothers who, either from their own reflecting upon the estates they are born to, and therefore thinking all other accomplishments unnecessary, or from hearing these notions frequently inculcated to them by the flattery of their servants and domesticks, or from the same foolish thought prevailing in those who have the care of their education, are of no manner of use but to keep up their families, and transmit their lands and houses in a line to posterity.

This makes me often think on a story I have heard of two friends, which I shall give my reader at large, under feigned names. The moral of it may, I hope, be useful, though there are some circumstances which make it rather appear like a novel than a true story.

Eudoxus and Leontine began the world with small estates. They were both of them men of good sense and great virtue. They prosecuted their studies together in their earliest years, and entered into such a friendship as lasted to the end of their lives. Eudoxus, at his first setting out in the world, threw himself into a court, where, by his natural endowments and his acquired abilities, he made his way from one post to another, till at length he had raised a very considerable fortune. Leontine on the contrary sought all opportunities of improving his mind by study, conversation, and travel. He was not only acquainted with all the sciences, but with the most eminent professors of them throughout Europe. He knew perfectly well the interests of its princes, with the customs and fashions of their courts, and could scarce meet with the name of an extraordinary person in the Gazette whom he had not either talked to or seen. In short, he had so well mixed and digested his knowledge of men and books, that he made one of the most accomplished persons of his age. During the whole course of his studies and travels, he kept up a punctual correspondence with Eudoxus, who often made himself acceptable to the principal men about court, by the intelligence which he received from Leontine. When they were both turned of forty (an age in which, according to Mr. Cowley, there is no dallying with life) they determined, pursuant to the resolution they had taken in the beginning of their lives, to retire, and pass the remainder of their days in the country. In order to this, they both of them married much about the same time. Leontine, with his own and his wife's fortune, bought a farm of three hundred a-year, which lay within the neighbourhood of his friend Eudoxus, who had purchased an estate of as many thousands; they were both of them fathers about the same time, Eudoxus having a son born to him, and Leontine a daughter; but to the unspeakable grief of the latter, his young wife (in whom all his happiness was wrapt up) died in a few days after the birth of her daughter. His affliction would have been insupportable, had he not been comforted by the daily visits and conversations of his friend. As they were one day talking together with their usual intimacy, Leontine, considering how incapable he was of giving his daughter a proper education in his own house, and Eudoxus reflecting on the ordinary behaviour of a son who knows himself to be the heir of a great estate, they both agreed upon an exchange of children, namely, that the boy should be bred up with Leontine as his son, and that the girl should live with Eudoxus as his daughter, till they were each of them arrived at years of discretion. The wife of Eudoxus, knowing that her son could not be so advantageously brought up as under the care of Leontine, and considering at the same time that he would be perpetually under her own eye, was by degrees prevailed upon to fall in with the project. She therefore took Leonilla, for that was the name of the girl, and educated her as her own daughter. The two friends on each side had wrought themselves to such an habitual tenderness for the children who were under their direction, that each of them had the real passion of a father, where the title was but imaginary. Florio, the name of the young heir that lived with Leontine, though he had all the duty and affection imaginable for his supposed parent, was taught to rejoice at the sight of Eudoxus, who visited his friend very frequently, and was dictated by his natural affection, as well as by the rules of prudence, to make himself esteemed and beloved by Florio. The boy was now old enough to know his supposed father's circumstances, and that therefore he was to make his way in the world by his own industry. This consideration grew stronger in him every day, and produced so good an effect, that he applied himself with more than ordinary attention to the pursuit of every thing which Leontine recommended to him. His natural abilities, which were very good, assisted by the directions of so excellent a counsellor, enabled him to make a quicker progress than ordinary through all the parts of his education. Before he was twenty years of age, having finished his studies and exercises with great applause, he was removed from the University to the Inns of Court, where there are very few that make themselves considerable proficients in the studies of the place, who know they shall arrive at great estates without them. This was not Florio's case; he found that three hundred a-year was but a poor estate for Leontine and himself to live upon, so that he studied without intermission till he gained a very good insight into the constitution and laws of his country.

I should have told my reader, that whilst Florio lived at the house of his foster-father, he was always an acceptable guest in the family of Eudoxus, where he became acquainted with Leonilla from her infancy. His acquaintance with her by degrees grew into love, which, in a mind trained up in all the sentiments of honour and virtue, became a very uneasy passion. He despaired of gaining an heiress of so great a fortune, and would rather have died than attempted it by any indirect methods. Leonilla, who was a woman of the greatest beauty joined with the greatest modesty, entertained at the same time a secret passion for Florio, but conducted herself with so much prudence that she never gave him the least intimation of it. Florio was now engaged in all those arts and improvements that are proper to raise a man's private fortune, and give him a figure in his country, but secretly tormented with that passion which burns with the greatest fury in a virtuous and noble heart, when he received a sudden summons from Leontine to repair to him in the country the next day. For it seems Eudoxus was so filled with the report of his son's reputation, that he could no longer with-hold making himself known to him. The morning after his arrival at the house of his supposed father, Leontine told him that Eudoxus had something of great importance to communicate to him; upon which the good man embraced him, and wept. Florio was no sooner arrived at the great house that stood in his neighbourhood, but Eudoxus took him by the hand, after the first salutes were over, and conducted him into his closet. He there opened to him the whole secret of his parentage and education, concluding after this manner: I have no other way left of acknowledging my gratitude to Leontine, than by marrying you to his daughter. He shall not lose the pleasure of being your father by the discovery I have made to you. Leonilla too shall still be my daughter; her filial piety, though misplaced, has been so exemplary, that it deserves the greatest reward I can confer upon it. You shall have the pleasure of seeing a great estate fall to you, which you would have lost the relish of had you known yourself born to it. Continue only to deserve it in the same manner you did before you were possessed of it. I have left your mother in the next room. Her heart yearns towards you. She is making the same discoveries to Leonilla which I have made to yourself. Florio was so overwhelmed with this profusion of happiness, that he was not able to make a reply, but threw himself down at his father's feet, and, amidst a flood of tears, kissed and embraced his knees, asking his blessing, and expressing in dumb show those sentiments of love, duty, and gratitude that were too big for utterance. To conclude, the happy pair were married, and half Eudoxus's estate settled upon them. Leontine and Eudoxus passed the remainder of their lives together; and received in the dutiful and affectionate behaviour of Florio and Leonilla the just recompense as well as the natural effects of that care which they had bestowed upon them in their education. L.

No. 125. TUESDAY, JULY 24.

Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella,
Neu patrice validas in viscera vertite vires.
VIRG. AEn. vi. v. 832.

Embrace again, my sons, be foes no more,
Nor stain your country with her children's gore.
DRYDEN.

My worthy friend Sir Roger, when we are talking of the malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that happened to him when he was a schoolboy, which was at a time when the feuds ran high between the Round-heads and Cavaliers. This worthy Knight, being then but a stripling, had occasion to inquire which was the way to St. Anne's Lane, upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead of answering his question, called him a young Popish Cur, and asked him who had made Anne a saint! The boy, being in some confusion, inquired of the next he met, which was the way to Anne's Lane; but was called a prickeared cur for his pains, and instead of being shown the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was born, and would be one after he was hanged. Upon this, says Sir Roger, I did not think fit to repeat the former question, but going into every lane of the neighbourhood, asked what they called the name of that lane. By which ingenious artifice he found out the place he inquired after, without giving offence to any party. Sir ROGER generally closes this narrative with reflections on the mischief that parties do in the country; how they spoil good neighbourhood, and make honest gentlemen hate one another; besides that they manifestly tend to the prejudice of the land- tax, and the destruction of the game.

There cannot a greater judgment befal a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to one another, than if they were actually two different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in the heart of almost every particular person. This influence is very fatal both to men's morals and their understandings; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even common sense.

A furious party-spirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in falsehood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancour, and extinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion, and humanity.

Plutarch says very finely, that a man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies, because, says he, if you indulge this passion in some occasions, it will rise of itself in others; if you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or those who are indifferent to you. I might here observe how admirably this precept of morality (which derives the malignity of hatred from the passion itself, and not from its object) answers to that great rule which was dictated to the world about an hundred years before this philosopher wrote; but, instead of that, I shall only take notice, with a real grief of heart, that the minds of many good men among us appear soured with party- principles, and alienated from one another in such a manner, as seems to me altogether inconsistent with the dictates either of reason or religion. Zeal for a publick cause is apt to breed passions in the hearts of virtuous persons, to which the regard of their own private interest would never have betrayed them.

If this party-spirit has so ill an effect on our morals, it has likewise a very great one upon our judgments. We often hear a poor insipid paper or pamphlet cried up, and sometimes a noble piece depreciated, by those who are of a different principle from the author. One who is actuated by this spirit is almost under an incapacity of discerning either real blemishes or beauties. A man of merit in a different principle is like an object seen in two different mediums, that appears crooked or broken, however straight and entire it may be in itself. For this reason there is scarce a person of any figure in England, who does not go by two contrary characters, as opposite to one another as light and darkness. Knowledge and learning suffer in a particular manner from this strange prejudice, which at present prevails amongst all ranks and degrees in the British nation. As men formerly became eminent in learned societies by their parts and acquisitions, they now distinguish themselves by the warmth and violence with which they espouse their respective parties. Books are valued upon the like considerations: an abusive scurrilous style passes for satire, and a dull scheme of party- notions is called fine writing.

There is one piece of sophistry practised by both sides, and that is the taking any scandalous story that has been ever whispered or invented of a private man, for a known undoubted truth, and raising suitable speculations upon it. Calumnies that have been never proved, or have been often refuted, are the ordinary postulatums of these infamous scribblers, upon which they proceed as upon first principles granted by all men, though in their hearts they know they are false, or at best very doubtful. When they have laid these foundations of scurrility, it is no wonder that their superstructure is every way answerable to them. If this shameless practice of the present age endures much longer, praise and reproach will cease to be motives of action in good men.

There are certain periods of time in all governments when this inhuman spirit prevails. Italy was long torn in pieces by the Guelfes and Gibellines, and France by those who were for and against the League: but it is very unhappy for a man to be born in such a stormy and tempestuous season. It is the restless ambition of artful men that thus breaks a people into factions, and draws several well-meaning persons to their interest, by a specious concern for their country. How many honest minds are filled with uncharitable and barbarous notions, out of their zeal for the publick good? What cruelties and outrages would they not commit against men of an adverse party, whom they would honour and esteem, if, instead of considering them as they are represented, they knew them as they are? Thus are persons of the greatest probity seduced into shameful errors and prejudices, and made bad men even by that noblest of principles, the love of their country. I cannot here forbear mentioning the famous Spanish proverb, If there were neither fools nor knaves in the world, all people would be of one mind.

For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest men would enter into an association, for the support of one another against the endeavours of those whom they ought to look upon as their common enemies, whatsoever side they may belong to. Were there such an honest body of neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men in great figures of life, because they are useful to a party; nor the best unregarded, because they are above practising those methods which would be grateful to their faction. We should then single every criminal out of the herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and overgrown he might appear: On the contrary, we should shelter distressed innocence, and defend virtue, however beset with contempt or ridicule, envy or defamation. In short, we should not any longer regard our fellow- subjects as Whigs or Tories, but should make the man of merit our friend, and the villain our enemy. C.

No. 126. WEDNESDAY, JULY 25.

Tros Rutulusve fuat, nullo discrimim habebo.
VIRG. AEn. x. ver. 108.

Rutulians, Trojans, are the same to me.
DRYDEN.

In my yesterday's paper I proposed, that the honest men of all parties should enter into a kind of association for the defence of one another, and the confusion of their common enemies. As it is designed this neutral body should act with a regard to nothing but truth and equity, and divest themselves of the little heats and prepossessions that cleave to parties of all kinds, I have prepared for them the following form of an association, which may express their intentions in the most plain and simple manner.

We whose names are hereunto subscribed do solemnly declare, That we do in our consciences believe two and two make four; and that we shall adjudge any man whatsoever to be our enemy who endeavours to persuade us to the contrary. We are likewise ready to maintain with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, That six is less than seven in all times and all places; and that ten will not be more three years hence than it is at present. We do also firmly declare, That it is our resolution, as long as we live, to call black, black; and white, white. And we shall upon all occasions oppose such persons, that, upon any day of the year, shall call black white, or white black, with the utmost peril of our lives and fortunes.

Were there such a combination of honest men, who, without any regard to places, would endeavour to extirpate all such furious zealots as would sacrifice one half of their country to the passion and interest of the other; as also such infamous hypocrites, that are for promoting their own advantage, under colour of the publick good; with all the profligate immoral retainers to each side, that have nothing to recommend them but an implicit submission to their leaders; we should soon see that furious party-spirit extinguished, which may in time expose us to the derision and contempt of all the nations about us.

A member of this society, that would thus carefully employ himself in making room for merit, by throwing down the worthless and depraved part of mankind from those conspicuous stations of life to which they have been sometimes advanced, and all this without any regard to his private interest, would be no small benefactor to his country.

I remember to have read in Diodorus Siculus an account of a very active little animal, which I think he calls the Ichneumon, that makes it the whole business of his life to break the eggs of the crocodile, which he is always in search after. This instinct is the more remarkable, because the Ichneumon never feeds upon the eggs he has broken, nor any other way finds his account in them.

Were it not for the incessant labours of this industrious animal, AEgypt, says the historian, would be over-run with crocodiles; for the AEgyptians are so far from destroying those pernicious creatures, that they worship them as gods.

If we look into the behaviour of ordinary Partizans, we shall find them far from resembling this disinterested animal; and rather acting after the example of the wild Tartars, who are ambitious of destroying a man of the most extraordinary parts and accomplishments, as thinking upon his decease the same talents, whatever post they qualified him for, enter of course into his destroyer.

As in the whole train of my Speculations, I have endeavoured as much as I am able to extinguish that pernicious spirit of passion and prejudice, which rages with the same violence in all parties, I am still the more desirous of doing some good in this particular, because I observe that the spirit of party reigns more in the country than in the town. It here contracts a kind of brutality and rustick fierceness, to which men of politer conversation are wholly strangers. It extends itself even to the return of the bow and the hat; and at the same time that the heads of parties preserve towards one another an outward show of good-breeding, and keep up a perpetual intercourse of civilities, their tools that are dispersed in these outlying parts will not so much as mingle together at a cock-match. This humour fills the country with several periodical meetings of Whig Jockeys and Tory Fox-hunters; not to mention the innumerable curses, frowns, and whispers it produces at a quarter- sessions.

I do not know whether I have observed in any of my former papers, that my friends Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY and Sir ANDREW FREEPORT are of different principles, the first of them inclined to the landed and the other to the monied interest. This humour is so moderate in each of them, that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable rallery, which very often diverts the rest of the club. I find however that the Knight is a much stronger Tory in the country than in town, which, as he has told me in my ear, is absolutely necessary for the keeping up his interest. In all our journey from London to his house we did not so much as bait at a Whig inn; or, if by chance the coachman stopped at a wrong place, one of Sir ROGER'S servants would ride up to his master full speed, and whisper to him that the master of the house was against such an one in the last election. This often betrayed us into hard beds and bad cheer; for we were not so inquisitive about the inn as the inn-keeper; and, provided our landlord's principles were sound, did not take any notice of the staleness of his provisions. This I found still the more inconvenient, because the better the host was, the worse generally were his accommodations; the fellow knowing very well that those who were his friends would take up with coarse diet and an hard lodging. For these reasons, all the while I was upon the road, I dreaded entering into an house of any one that Sir ROGER had applauded for an honest man.

Since my stay at Sir ROGER'S in the country, I daily find more instances of this narrow party-humour. Being upon a bowling-green at a neighbouring market-town the other day, (for that is the place where the gentlemen of one side meet once a week) I observed a stranger among them of a better presence and genteeler behaviour than ordinary; but was much surprised, that notwithstanding he was a very fair bettor, no body would take him up. But upon inquiry I found, that he was one who had given a disagreeable vote in a former parliament, for which reason there was not a man upon that bowling-green who would have so much correspondence with him as to win his money of him.

Among other instances of this nature, I must not omit one which concerns myself. Will Wimble was the other day relating several strange stories that he had picked up no body knows where, of a certain great man; and upon my staring at him, as one that was surprised to hear such things in the country, which had never been so much as whispered in the town, Will stopped short in the thread of his discourse, and after dinner asked my friend Sir ROGER in his ear if he was sure that I was not a fanatick.

It gives me a serious concern to see such a spirit of dissension in the country; not only as it destroys virtue and common sense, and renders us in a manner barbarians towards one another, but as it perpetuates our animosities, widens our breaches, and transmits our present passions and prejudices to our posterity. For my own part, I am sometimes afraid that I discover the seeds of a civil war in these our divisions; and therefore cannot but bewail, as in their first principles, the miseries and calamities of our children. C.

No. 127. THURSDAY, JULY 26.

Quantum est in rebus inane? PERS. Sat. i. ver. 1.

How much of emptiness we find in things!

It is our custom at Sir ROGER'S, upon the coming in of the post, to sit about a pot of coffee, and hear the old Knight read Dyer's letter; which he does with his spectacles upon his nose, and in an audible voice, smiling very often at those little strokes of satire, which are so frequent in the writings of that author; I afterwards communicate to the Knight such packets as I receive under the quality of SPECTATOR. The following letter chancing to please him more than ordinary, I shall publish it at his request.

'Mr. SPECTATOR,

'You have diverted the town almost a whole month at the expence of the country, it is now high time that you should give the country their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex are run into great extravagancies. Their petticoats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise every day more and more: In short, Sir, since our women know themselves to be out of the eye of the SPECTATOR, they will be kept within no compass. You praised them a little too soon for the modesty of their head-dresses; for, as the humour of a sick person is often driven out of one limb into another, their superfluity of ornaments, instead of being entirely banished, seems only fallen from their heads upon their lower parts. What they have lost in height they make up in breadth, and, contrary to all rules of architecture, widen the foundations at the same time that they shorten the superstructure.

'I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has of late years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us at a distance. It is most certain that a woman's honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety of out-works and lines of circumvallation, A female who is thus invested in whalebone is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etherege's way of making love in a tub, as in the midst of so many hoops.

'Among these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious tempers, who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have it that it portends the downfal of the French King, and observe that the farthingale appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others are of opinion that it fortels battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same prognostication as the tail of a blazing star.

'Should this fashion get among the ordinary people, our publick ways would be so crowded that we should want street-room. Several congregations of the best fashion find themselves already very much straitened, and if the mode increase I wish it may not drive many ordinary women into meetings and conventicles. Should our sex at the same time take it into their heads to wear trunk-breeches (as who knows what their indignation at this female treatment may drive them to) a man and his wife would fill a whole pew.

'You know, Sir, it is recorded of Alexander the Great, that in his Indian expedition he buried several suits of armour, which, by his direction, were made much too big for any of his soldiers, in order to give posterity an extraordinary idea of him, and make them believe he had commanded an army of giants. I am persuaded that if one of the present petticoats happens to be hung up in any repository of curiosities, it will lead into the same error the generations that lie some removes from us, unless we can believe our posterity will think so disrespectfully of their great-grandmothers, that they made themselves monstrous to appear amiable.

'When I survey this new-fashioned Rotunda in all its parts, I cannot but think of the old philosopher, who, after having entered into an AEgyptian temple, and looked about for the idol of the place, at length discovered a little black monkey enshrined in the midst of it, upon which he could not forbear crying out, (to the great scandal of the worshippers) What a magnificent palace is here for such a ridiculous inhabitant!

'Though you have taken a resolution, in one of your papers, to avoid descending to particularities of dress, I believe you will not think it below you on so extraordinary an occasion, to unhoop the fair sex, and cure this fashionable tympany that is got among them. I am apt to think the petticoat will shrink of its own accord at your first coming to town; at least a touch of your pen will make it contract itself, like the sensitive plant, and by that means oblige several who are either terrified or astonished at this portentous novelty, and among the rest,

'Your humble servant, &c.'

C.

No. 128. FRIDAY, JULY 27.

Concordia discors. LUCAN. 1. I. v. 98.

Harmonious discord.

Women in their nature are much more gay and joyous than men; whether it be that their blood is more refined, their fibres more delicate, and their animal spirits more light and volatile; or whether, as some have imagined, there may not be a kind of sex in the very soul, I shall not pretend to determine. As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men. They should each of them therefore keep a watch upon the particular bias which nature has fixed in their mind, that it may not draw too much, and lead them out of the paths of reason. This will certainly happen, if the one in every word and action affects the character of being rigid and severe, and the other of being brisk and airy. Men should beware of being captivated by a kind of savage philosophy, women by a thoughtless gallantry. Where these precautions are not observed, the man often degenerates into a Cynick, the woman into a coquette; the man grows sullen and morose, the woman impertinent and fantastical.

By what I have said, we may conclude, men and women were made as counterparts to one another, that the pains and anxieties of the husband might be relieved by the sprightliness and good-humour of the wife. When these are rightly tempered, care and chearfulness go hand in hand; and the family, like a ship that is duly trimmed, wants neither sail nor ballast.

Natural historians observe, (for whilst I am in the country I must fetch my allusions from thence) That only the male birds have voices; that their songs begin a little before breeding-time, and end a little after; that whilst the hen is covering her eggs the male generally takes his stand upon a neighbouring bough within her hearing; and by that means amuses and diverts her with his songs during the whole time of her sitting.

This contract among birds lasts no longer than till a brood of young ones arises from it; so that in the feathered kind, the cares and fatigues of the married state, if I may so call it, lie principally upon the female. On the contrary, as in our species the man and woman are joined together for life, and the main burden rests upon the former, nature has given all the little arts of soothing and blandishment to the female, that she may chear and animate her companion in a constant and assiduous application to the making a provision for his family, and the educating of their common children. This however is not to be taken so strictly, as if the same duties were not often reciprocal, and incumbent on both parties; but only to set forth what seems to have been the general intention of nature, in the different inclinations and endowments which are bestowed on the different sexes.

But whatever was the reason that man and woman were made with this variety of temper, if we observe the conduct of the fair sex, we find that they choose rather to associate themselves with a person who resembles them in that light and volatile humour which is natural to them, than to such as are qualified to moderate and counterbalance it. It has been an old complaint, that the coxcomb carries it with them before the man of sense. When we see a fellow loud and talkative, full of insipid life and laughter, we may venture to pronounce him a female favourite: Noise and flutter are such accomplishments as they cannot withstand. To be short, the passion of an ordinary woman for a man is nothing else but self-love diverted upon another object: She would have the lover a woman in every thing but the sex. I do not know a finer piece of satire on this part of womankind, than those lines of Mr. Dryden.

Our thoughtless sex is caught by outward form, And empty noise, and loves itself in man.

This is a source of infinite calamities to the sex, as it frequently joins them to men, who in their own thoughts are as fine creatures as themselves; or, if they chance to be good-humoured, serve only to dissipate their fortunes, inflame their follies, and aggravate their indiscretions.

The same female levity is no less fatal to them after marriage than before: It represents to their imaginations the faithful prudent husband as an honest, tractable, and domestick animal; and turns their thoughts upon the fine gay gentleman that laughs, sings, and dresses so much more agreeably.

As this irregular vivacity of temper leads astray the hearts of ordinary women in the choice of their lovers and the treatment of their husbands, it operates with the same pernicious influence towards their children, who are taught to accomplish themselves in all those sublime perfections that appear captivating in the eye of their mother. She admires in her son what she loved in her gallant; and by that means contributes all she can to perpetuate herself in a worthless progeny.

The younger Faustina was a lively instance of this sort of women. Notwithstanding she was married to Marcus Aurelius, one of the greatest, wisest, and best of the Roman emperors, she thought a common gladiator much the prettier gentleman; and had taken such care to accomplish her son Commodus according to her own notions of a fine man, that when he ascended the throne of his father, he became the most foolish and abandoned tyrant that was Jo ever placed at the head of the Roman empire, signalizing himself in nothing but the fighting of prizes, and knocking out men's brains. As he had no taste of true glory, we see him in several medals and statues which are still extant of him, equipped like an Hercules with a club and a lion's skin.

I have been led into this speculation by the characters I have heard of a country gentleman and his lady, who do not live many miles from Sir ROGER. The wife is an old coquette, that is always hankering after the diversions of the town; the husband a morose rustick, that frowns and frets at the name of it. The wife is over-run with affectation, the husband sunk into brutality. The lady cannot bear the noise of the larks and nightingales, hates your tedious summer days, and is sick at the sight of shady woods and purling streams; the husband wonders how any one can be pleased with the fooleries of plays and operas, and rails from morning to night at essenced fops and tawdry courtiers. The children are educated in these different notions of their parents. The sons follow the father about his grounds, while the daughters read volumes of love-letters and romances to their mother. By this means it comes to pass, that the girls look upon their father as a clown, and the boys think their mother no better than she should be.

How different are the lives of Aristus and Aspasia? the innocent vivacity of the one is tempered and composed by the chearful gravity of the other. The wife grows wise by the discourses of the husband, and the husband good-humoured by the conversations of the wife. Aristus would not be so amiable were it not for his Aspasia, nor Aspasia so much esteemed were it not for her Aristus. Their virtues are blended in their children, and diffuse through the whole family a perpetual spirit of benevolence, complacency, and satisfaction. C.

No. 129. SATURDAY, JULY 28.

Vertentem sese frustra sectabere canthum,
Cum rota posterior curras & in axe secundo.
PERS. Sat. v. ver. 71.

Thou, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, art curst
Still to be near, but ne'er to be the first.
DRYDEN.

Great masters in painting never care for drawing people in the fashion; as very well knowing that the head-dress, or periwig, that now prevails, and gives a grace to their portraitures at present, will make a very odd figure, and perhaps look monstrous in the eyes of posterity. For this reason they often represent an illustrious person in a Roman habit, or in some other dress that never varies. I could wish, for the sake of my country friends, that there was such a kind of everlasting drapery to be made use of by all who live at a certain distance from the town, and that they would agree upon such fashions as should never be liable to changes and innovations. For want of this standing dress, a man who takes a journey into the country is as much surprised, as one who walks in a gallery of old family pictures; and finds as great a variety of garbs and habits in the persons he converses with. Did they keep to one constant dress they would sometimes be in the fashion, which they never are as matters are managed at present. If instead of running after the mode, they would continue fixed in one certain habit, the mode would some time or other overtake them, as a clock that stands still is sure to point right once in twelve hours: In this case therefore I would advise them, as a gentleman did his friend who was hunting about the whole town after a rambling fellow, if you follow him you will never find him, but if you plant yourself at the corner of any one street, I'll engage it will not be long before you see him.

I have already touched upon this subject in a speculation which shows how cruelly the country are led astray in following the town; and equipped in a ridiculous habit, when they fancy themselves in the height of the mode. Since that speculation I have received a letter (which I there hinted at) from a gentleman who is now in the western circuit.

'Mr. SPECTATOR,

'Being a lawyer of the Middle-Temple, a Cornishman by birth, I generally ride the western circuit for my health, and as I am not interrupted with clients, have leisure to make many observations that escape the notice of my fellow-travellers.

'One of the most fashionable women I met with in all the circuit was my landlady at Stains, where I chanced to be on a holiday. Her commode was not half a foot high, and her petticoat within some yards of a modish circumference. In the same place I observed a young fellow with a tolerable periwig, had it not been covered with a hat that was shaped in the Ramilie cock. As I proceeded in my journey I observed the petticoat grew scantier and scantier, and about threescore miles from London was so very unfashionable, that a woman might walk in it without any manner of inconvenience.

'Not far from Salisbury I took notice of a justice of peace's lady, who was at least ten years behindhand in her dress, but at the same time as fine as hands could make her. She was flounced and furbelowed from head to foot; every ribbon was wrinkled, and every part of her garments in curl, so that she looked like one of those animals which in the country we call a Friezland hen.

'Not many miles beyond this place I was informed, that one of the last year's little muffs had by some means or other straggled into those parts, and that all the women of fashion were cutting their old muffs in two, or retrenching them according to the little model which was got among them. I cannot believe the report they have there, that it was sent down franked by a parliament-man in a little packet; but probably by next winter this fashion will be at the height in the country, when it is quite out at London. The greatest beau at our next county-sessions was dressed in a most monstrous flaxen periwig, that was made in King William's reign. The wearer of it goes, it seems, in his own hair, when he is at home, and lets his wig lie in buckle for a whole half year, that he may put it on upon occasion to meet the judges in it.

'I must not here omit an adventure which happened to us in a country church upon the frontiers of Cornwall. As we were in the midst of the service, a lady who is the chief woman of the place, and had passed the winter at London with her husband, entered the congregation in a little head-dress, and a hooped petticoat. The people, who were wonderfully startled at such a sight, all of them rose up. Some stared at the prodigious bottom and some at the little top of this strange dress. In the mean time the lady of the manor filled the area of the church, and walked up to her pew with an unspeakable satisfaction, amidst the whispers, conjectures, and astonishments of the whole congregation.

'Upon our way from hence we saw a young fellow riding towards us full gallop, with a bob-wig and a black silken bag tied to it. He stopt short at the coach, to ask us how far the judges were behind us. His stay was so very short, that we had only time to observe his new silk waistcoat, which was unbuttoned in several places to let us see that he had a clean shirt on, which was ruffled down to his middle.

'From this place, during our progress through the most western parts of the kingdom, we fancied ourselves in in King Charles II.'s reign, the people having made very little variations in their dress since that time. The smartest of the country squires appear still in the Monmouth cock, and when they go a wooing (whether they have any post in the militia or not) they generally put on a red coat. We were indeed, very much surprised at the place we lay at last night, to meet with a gentleman that had accoutred himself in a night-cap wig, a coat with long pockets and slit sleeves, and a pair of shoes with high scollop tops; but we soon found by his conversation that he was a person who laughed at the ignorance and rusticity of the country people, and was resolved to live and die in the mode.

'Sir, If you think this account of my travels may be of any advantage to the public, I will next year trouble you with such occurrences as I shall meet with in other parts of England. For I am informed there are greater curiosities in the northern circuit than in the western; and that a fashion makes its progress much slower into Cumberland than into Cornwall. I have heard in particular, that the Steenkirk arrived but two months ago at Newcastle, and that there are several commodes in those parts which are worth taking a journey thither to see.' C.

No. 130. MONDAY, JULY 30.

Semperque recentes
Convectare juvat praedas, et vivere rapto.
VIRG. AEn. vii. ver. 748.

Hunting their sport, and plund'ring was their trade.
DRYDEN.

As I was yesterday riding out in the fields with my friend Sir ROGER, we saw at a little distance from us a troop of gipsies. Upon the first discovery of them, my friend was in some doubt whether he should not exert the Justice of the Peace upon such a band of lawless vagrants; but not having his clerk with him, who is a necessary counsellor on these occasions, and fearing that his poultry might fare the worse for it, he let the thought drop: But at the same time gave me a particular account of the mischiefs they do in the country, in stealing people's goods and spoiling their servants. If a stray piece of linen hangs upon an hedge, says Sir ROGER, they are sure to have it; if the hog loses his way in the fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their prey; our geese cannot live in peace for them; if a man prosecutes them with severity, his henroost is sure to pay for it: They generally straggle into these parts about this time of the year; and set the heads of our servant-maids so agog for husbands, that we do not expect to have any business done as it should be whilst they are in the country. I have an honest dairymaid who crosses their hands with a piece of silver every summer, and never fails being promised the handsomest young fellow in the parish for her pains. Your friend the butler has been fool enough to be seduced by them; and though he is sure to lose a knife, a fork, or a spoon every time his fortune is told him, generally shuts himself up in the pantry with an old gipsy for above half an hour once in a twelvemonth. Sweethearts are the things they live upon, which they bestow very plentifully upon all those that apply themselves to them. You see now and then some handsome young jades among them: The sluts have very often white teeth and black eyes.

Sir ROGER observing that I listened with great attention to his account of a people who were so entirely new to me, told me, that if I would they should tell us our fortunes. As I was very well pleased with the Knight's proposal, we rid up and communicated our hands to them. A Cassandra of the crew, after having examined my lines very diligently, told me, that I loved a pretty maid in a corner, that I was a good woman's man, with some other particulars which I do not think proper to relate. My friend Sir ROGER alighted from his horse, and exposing his palm to two or three that stood by him, they crumpled it into all shapes, and diligently scanned every wrinkle that could be made in it; when one of them, who was older and more sunburnt than the rest, told him, that he had a widow in his line of life: Upon which the Knight cried, Go, go, you are an idle baggage; and at the same time smiled upon me. The gipsy finding he was not displeased in his heart, told him, after a farther inquiry into his hand, that his true-love was constant, and that she should dream of him to-night: My old friend cried pish, and bid her go on. The gipsy told him that he was a bachelor, but would not be so long; and that he was dearer to somebody than he thought: The Knight still repeated she was an idle baggage, and bid her go on. Ah, master, says the gipsy, that roguish leer of yours makes a pretty woman's heart ache; you have not that simper about the mouth for nothing—The uncouth gibberish with which all this was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the Knight left the money with her that he had crossed her hand with, and got up again on his horse.

As we were riding away, Sir ROGER told me, that he knew several sensible people who believed these gipsies now and then foretold very strange things; and for half an hour together appeared more jocund than ordinary. In the height of his good-humour, meeting a common beggar upon the road who was no conjurer, as he went to relieve him he found his pocket was picked; that being a kind of palmistry at which this race of vermin are very dexterous.

I might here entertain my reader with historical remarks on this idle profligate people, who infest all the countries of Europe, and live in the midst of governments in a kind of commonwealth by themselves. But instead of entering into observations of this nature, I shall fill the remaining part of my paper with a story which is still fresh in Holland, and was printed in one of our monthly accounts about twenty years ago. 'As the Trekschuyt or hackney-boat, which carries passengers from Leyden to Amsterdam, was putting off, a boy running along the side of the canal desired to be taken in; which the master of the boat refused, because the lad had not quite money enough to pay the usual fare. An eminent merchant being pleased with the looks of the boy, and secretly touched with compassion towards him, paid the money for him, and ordered him to be taken on board. Upon talking with him afterwards, he found that he could speak readily in three or four languages, and learned upon further examination that he had been stolen away when he was a child by a gipsy, and had rambled ever since with a gang of those strollers up and down several parts of Europe. It happened that the merchant, whose heart seems to have inclined towards the boy by a secret kind of instinct, had himself lost a child some years before. The parents, after a long search for him, gave him for drowned in one of the canals with which that country abounds; and the mother was so afflicted at the loss of a fine boy, who was her only son, that she died for grief of it. Upon laying together all particulars, and examining the several moles and marks by which the mother used to describe the child when he was first missing, the boy proved to be the son of the merchant whose heart had so unaccountably melted at the sight of him. The lad was very well pleased to find a father who was so rich, and likely to leave him a good estate; the father on the other hand was not a little delighted to see a son return to him, whom he had given for lost, with such a strength of constitution, sharpness of understanding, and skill in languages.' Here the printed story leaves off; but if I may give credit to reports, our linguist having received such extraordinary rudiments towards a good education, was afterwards trained up in every thing that becomes a gentleman; wearing off by little and little all the vicious habits and practices that he had been used to in the course of his peregrinations: Nay, it is said, that he has since been employed in foreign courts upon national business, with great reputation to himself and honour to those who sent him, and that he has visited several countries as a public minister, in which he formerly wandered as a gipsy. C.

No. 131. TUESDAY, JULY 31.

Ipsae rursum concedite sylvae. VIRG. Ecl. x. ver. 63.

Once more, ye woods, adieu.

It is usual for a man who loves country-sports to preserve the game on his own grounds, and divert himself upon those that belong to his neighbour. My friend Sir ROGER generally goes two or three miles from his house, and gets into the frontiers of his estate, before he beats about in search of a hare or partridge, on purpose to spare his own fields, where he is always sure of finding to diversion, when the worst comes to the worst. By this means the breed about his house has time to increase and multiply, beside that the sport is the more agreeable where the game is the harder to come at, and where it does not lie so thick as to produce any perplexity or confusion in the pursuit. For these reasons the country gentleman, like the fox, seldom preys near his own home.

In the same manner I have made a month's excursion out of the town, which is the great field of game for sportsmen of my species, to try my fortune in the country, where I have started several subjects, and hunted them down, with some pleasure to myself, and I hope to others. I am here forced to use a great deal of diligence before I can spring anything to my mind, whereas in town, whilst I am following one character, it is ten to one but I am crossed in my way by another, and put up such a variety of odd creatures in both sexes, that they foil the scent of one another, and puzzle the chace. My greatest difficulty in the country is to find sport, and in town to chuse it. In the mean time, as I have given a whole month's rest to the cities of London and Westminster, I promise myself abundance of new game upon my return thither.

It is indeed high time for me to leave the country, since I find the whole neighbourhood begin to grow very inquisitive after my name and character: My love of solitude, taciturnity, and particular way of life, having raised a great curiosity in all these parts.

The notions which have been framed of me are various: Some look upon me as very proud, some as very modest, and some as very melancholy. Will Wimble, as my friend the butler tells me, observing me very much alone, and extremely silent when I am in company, is afraid I have killed a man. The country people seem to suspect me for a conjurer; and some of them, hearing of the visit which I made to Moll White, will needs have it that Sir ROGER has brought down a cunning man with him, to cure the old woman, and free the country from her charms. So that the character which I go under in part of the neighbourhood, is what they here call a White Witch.

A justice of peace, who lives about five miles off, and is not of Sir ROGER'S party, has it seems said twice or thrice at his table, that he wishes Sir ROGER does not harbour a Jesuit in his house, and that he thinks the gentlemen of the country would do very well to make me give some account of myself.

On the other side, some of Sir ROGER'S friends are afraid the old Knight is imposed upon by a designing fellow, and as they have heard that he converses very promiscuously when he is in town, do not know but he has brought down with him some discarded Whig, that is sullen, and says nothing because he is out of place.

Such is the variety of opinions which are here entertained of me, so that I pass among some for a disaffected person, and among others for a Popish priest; among some for a wizard, and among others for a murderer; and all this for no other reason, that I can imagine, but because I do not hoot and hollow, and make a noise. It is true my friend Sir ROGER tells them, That it is my way, and that I am only a philosopher; but this will not satisfy them. They think there is more in me than he discovers, and that I do not hold my tongue for nothing.

For these and other reasons I shall set out for London to-morrow, having found by experience that the country is not a place for a person of my temper, who does not love jollity, and what they call good neighbourhood. A man that is out of humour when an unexpected guest breaks in upon him, and does not care for sacrificing an afternoon to every chance-comer; that will be the master of his own time, and the pursuer of his own inclinations, makes but a very unsociable figure in this kind of life. I shall therefore retire into the town, if I may make use of that phrase, and get into the crowd again as fast as I can, in order to be alone. I can there raise what speculations I please upon others, without being observed myself, and at the same time enjoy all the advantages of company with all the privileges of solitude. In the mean while, to finish the month, and conclude these my rural speculations, I shall here insert a letter from my friend WILL HONEYCOMB, who has not lived a month for these forty years out of the smoke of London, and rallies me after his way upon my country life.

'Dear SPEC,

'I SUPPOSE this letter will find thee picking of daisies, or smelling to a lock of hay, or passing away thy time in some innocent country diversion of the like nature. I have however orders from the club to summon thee up to town, being all of us cursedly afraid thou wilt not be able to relish our company, after thy conversations with Moll White and Will Wimble. Pr'ythee do not send us up any more stories of a cock and a bull, nor frighten the town with spirits and witches. Thy speculations begin to smell confoundedly of woods and meadows. If thou dost not come up quickly, we shall conclude that thou art in love with one of Sir ROGER'S dairymaids. Service to the Knight. Sir ANDREW is grown the cock of the club since he left us, and if he does not return quickly will make every mother's son of us commonwealth's men. Dear SPEC,

'Thine eternally

'WILL HONEYCOMB.'

C.

No. 132. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 1.

Qui, aut tempus quid postulet non videt, aut plura loquitur,
aut se ostentat, aut eorum quibuscum est rationem non
habet, is ineptus esse dicitur.
TULL.

That man is guilty of impertinence, who considers not
The circumstances of time, or engrosses the conversation,
or makes himself the subject of his discourse, or
pays no regard to the company he is in.

Having notified to my good friend Sir ROGER that I should set out for London the next day, his horses were ready at the appointed hour in the evening; and, attended by one of his grooms, I arrived at the country town at twilight, in order to be ready for the stage-coach the day following. As soon as we arrived at the inn, the servant, who waited upon me, inquired of the chamberlain in my hearing, what company he had for the coach? The fellow answered, Mrs. Betty Arable, the great fortune, and the widow her mother; a recruiting officer (who took a place because they were to go;) young squire Quickset her cousin (that her mother wished her to be married to); Ephraim the quaker, her guardian; and a gentleman that had studied himself dumb, from Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY'S. I observed by what he said of myself, that according to his office he dealt much in intelligence; and doubted not but there was some foundation for his reports for the rest of the company, as well as for the whimsical account he gave of me. The next morning at day-break we were all called; and I, who know my own natural shyness, and endeavour to be as little liable to be disputed with as possible, dressed immediately, that I might make no one wait. The first preparation for our setting out was, that the captain's half-pike was placed near the coachman, and a drum behind the coach. In the mean time the drummer, the captain's equipage, was very loud, that none of the captain's things should be placed so as to be spoiled; upon which his cloak-bag was fixed in the seat of the coach; and the captain himself, according to a frequent, though invidious behaviour of military men, ordered his man to look sharp, that none but one of the ladies should have the place he had taken fronting to the coach-box.

We were in some little time fixed in our seats, and sat with that dislike which people not too good-natured usually conceive of each other at first sight. The coach jumbled us insensibly into some sort of familiarity; and we had not moved above two miles when the widow asked the captain what success he had in his recruiting? The officer, with a frankness he believed very graceful, told her, 'That indeed he had but very little luck, and had suffered much by desertion, therefore should be glad to end his warfare in the service of her or her fair daughter. In a word, continued he, I am a soldier, and to be plain is my character: You see me, Madam, young, sound, and impudent; take me yourself, widow, or give me to her, I will be wholly at your disposal. I am a soldier of fortune, ha!' This was followed by a vain laugh of his own, and a deep silence of all the rest of the company. I had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all speed. 'Come,' said he, 'resolve upon it, we will make a wedding at the next town; we will wake this pleasant companion who is fallen asleep, to be the brideman, and' (giving the quaker a clap on the knee) he concluded, 'This sly saint, who, I'll warrant, understands what's what as well as you or I, widow, shall give the bride as father.' The quaker, who happened to be a man of smartness, answered, 'Friend, I take it in good part that thou hast given me the authority of a father over this comely and virtuous child; and I must assure thee, that if I have the giving her, I shall not bestow her on thee. Thy mirth, friend, savoureth of folly: Thou art a person of a light mind; thy drum is a type of thee, it soundeth because it is empty. Verily, it is not from thy fullness, but thy emptiness that thou hast spoken this day. Friend, friend, we have hired this coach in partnership with thee, to carry us to the great city; we cannot go any other way. This worthy mother must hear thee, if thou wilt needs utter thy follies; we cannot help it, friend, I say: If thou wilt we must hear thee; but, if thou wert a man of understanding, thou wouldst not take advantage of thy courageous countenance to abash us children of peace. Thou art, thou sayest, a soldier; give quarter to us, who cannot resist thee. Why didst thou fleer at our friend, who feigned himself asleep? He said nothing; but how dost thou know what he containeth? If thou speakest improper things in the hearing of this virtuous young virgin, consider it as an outrage against a distressed person that cannot get from thee: To speak indiscreetly what we are obliged to hear, by being hasped up with thee in this public vehicle, is in some degree assaulting on the high road.'

Here Ephraim paused, and the captain with a happy and uncommon impudence (which can be convicted and support itself at the same time) cries, 'Faith, friend, I thank thee; I should have been a little impertinent if thou hadst not reprimanded me. Come, thou art, I see, a smoky old fellow, and I'll be very orderly the ensuing part of my journey. I was going to give myself airs, but, ladies, I beg pardon.'

The captain was so little out of humour, and our company was so far from being soured by this little ruffle, that Ephraim and he took a particular delight in being agreeable to each other for the future; and assumed their different provinces in the conduct of the company. Our reckonings, apartments, and accommodation, fell under Ephraim: and the captain looked to all disputes upon the road, as the good behaviour of our coachman, and the right we had of taking place as going to London of all vehicles coming from thence. The occurrences we met with were ordinary, and very little happened which could entertain by the relation of them: But when I considered the company we were in, I took it for no small good-fortune that the whole journey was not spent in impertinencies, which to the one part of us might be an entertainment, to the other a suffering. What therefore Ephraim said when we were almost arrived at London, had to me an air not only of good understanding but good breeding. Upon the young lady's expressing her satisfaction in the journey, and declaring how delightful it had been to her, Ephraim delivered himself as follows: 'There is no ordinary part of human life which expresseth so much a good mind, and a right inward man, as his behaviour upon meeting with strangers, especially such as may seem the most unsuitable companions to him: Such a man, when he falleth in the way with persons of simplicity and innocence, however knowing he may be in the ways of men, will not vaunt himself thereof; but will the rather hide his superiority to them, that he may not be painful unto them. My good friend, (continued he, turning to the officer) thee and I are to part by and by, and peradventure we may never meet again: But be advised by a plain man; modes and apparel are but trifles to the real man, therefore do not think such a man as thyself terrible for thy garb, nor such a one as me contemptible for mine. When two such as thee and I meet, with affections such as we ought to have towards each other, thou shouldst rejoice to see my peaceable demeanour, and I should be glad to see thy strength and ability to protect me in it.' T.

No. 269. TUESDAY, JANUARY 8.

Aevo rarissima nostro
Simplicitas.
OVID, Ars Am. lib. i. ver. 241.

And brings our old simplicity again.
DRYDEN.

I was this morning surprised with a great knocking at the door, when my landlady's daughter came up to me, and told me that there was a man below desired to speak with me. Upon my asking her who it was, she told me it was a very grave elderly person, but that she did not know his name. I immediately went down to him, and found him to be the coachman of my worthy friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY. He told me, that his master came to town last night, and would be glad to take a turn with me in Gray's-Inn walks. As I was wondering in myself what had brought Sir ROGER to town, not having lately received any letter from him, he told me that his master was come up to get a sight of Prince Eugene, and that he desired I would immediately meet him.

I was not a little pleased with the curiosity of the old Knight, though
I did not much wonder at it, having heard him say more than once in
private discourse, that he looked upon Prince Eugenio (for so the
Knight always calls him) to be a greater man than Scanderbeg.

I was no sooner come into Gray's-Inn walks, but I heard my friend upon the terrace hemming twice or thrice to himself with great vigour, for he loves to clear his pipes in good air (to make use of his own phrase), and is not a little pleased with any one who takes notice of the strength which he still exerts in his morning hems.

I was touched with a secret joy at the sight of the good old man, who before he saw me was engaged in conversation with a beggar man that had asked an alms of him. I could hear my friend chide him for not finding out some work; but at the same time saw him put his hand in his pocket and give him sixpence.

Our salutations were very hearty on both sides, consisting of many kind shakes of the hand, and several affectionate looks which we cast upon one another. After which the Knight told me my good friend his chaplain was very well, and much at my service, and that the Sunday before he had made a most incomparable sermon out of Dr. Barrow. 'I have left,' says he, 'all my affairs in his hands, and being willing to lay an obligation upon him, have deposited with him thirty merks, to be distributed among his poor parishioners.'

He then proceeded to acquaint me with the welfare of Will Wimble. Upon which he put his hand into his fob, and presented me in his name with a tobacco-stopper, telling me that Will had been busy all the beginning of the winter in turning great quantities of them; and that he made a present of one to every gentleman in the country who has good principles, and smokes. He added, that poor Will was at present under great tribulation, for that Tom Touchy had taken the law of him for cutting some hazel-sticks out of one of his hedges.

Among other pieces of news which the Knight brought from his country- seat, he informed me that Moll White was dead; and that about a month after her death the wind was so very high, that it blew down the end of one of his barns. 'But for my own part,' says Sir ROGER, 'I do not think that the old woman had any hand in it.'

He afterwards fell into an account of the diversions which had passed in his house during the holidays; for Sir ROGER, after the laudable custom of his ancestors, always keeps open house at Christmas. I learned from him that he had killed eight fat hogs for this season, that he had dealt about his chines very liberally amongst his neighbours, and that in particular he had sent a string of hogs-puddings with a pack of cards to every poor family in the parish. 'I have often thought,' says Sir ROGER, 'it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of winter. It is the most dead uncomfortable time of the year, when the poor people would suffer very much from their poverty and cold, if they had not good cheer, warm fires, and Christmas Gambols to support them. I love to rejoice their poor hearts at this season, and to see the whole village merry in my great hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my small beer, and set it a running for twelve days to every one that calls for it. I have always a piece of cold beef and a mince-pye upon the table, and am wonderfully pleased to see my tenants pass away a whole evening in playing their innocent tricks, and smutting one another. Our friend Will Wimble is as merry as any of them, and shews a thousand roguish tricks upon these occasions.'

I was very much delighted with the reflexion of my old friend, which carried so much goodness in it. He then launched out into the praise of the late act of Parliament for securing the Church of England, and told me, with great satisfaction, that he believed it already began to take effect, for that a rigid dissenter who chanced to dine at his house on Christmas day, had been observed to eat very plentifully of his plumb-porridge.

After having dispatched all our country matters, Sir ROGER made several inquiries concerning the club, and particularly of his old antagonist Sir ANDREW FREEPORT. He asked me with a kind of a smile, whether Sir ANDREW had not taken the advantage of his absence, to vent among them some of his republican doctrines; but soon after gathering up his countenance into a more than ordinary seriousness, 'Tell me truly,' says he, 'do not you think Sir ANDREW had a hand in the Pope's procession?'— but without giving me time to answer him, 'Well, well,' says he, 'I know you are a wary man, and do not care to talk of public matters.'

The Knight then asked me if I had seen Prince Eugenio, and made me promise to get him a stand in some convenient place, where he might have a full sight of that extraordinary man, whose presence does so much honour to the British nation. He dwelt very long on the praises of this great General, and I found that, since I was with him in the country, he had drawn many just observations together out of his reading in Baker's Chronicle, and other authors, who always lie in his hall window, which very much redound to the honour of this Prince.

Having passed away the greatest part of the morning in hearing the Knight's reflexions, which were partly private, and partly political, he asked me if I would smoke a pipe with him over a dish of Coffee at Squire's. As I love the old man, I take delight in complying with every thing that is agreeable to him, and accordingly waited on him to the coffee-house, where his venerable figure drew upon us the eyes of the whole room. He had no sooner seated himself at the upper end of the high table, but he called for a clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a wax-candle, and the Supplement, with such an air of cheerfulness and good humour, that all the boys in the coffee-room (who seemed to take pleasure in serving him) were at once employed on his several errands, insomuch that no body else could come at a dish of tea, until the Knight had got all his conveniences about him. L.

No. 329. TUESDAY, MARCH 18.

Ire tamen restat,
Numa quo devenit, et Ancus.
HOR. Ep. vi. 1. i. ver. 27.

With Ancus, and with Numa, kings of Rome,
We must descend into the silent tomb.

My friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY told me the other night, that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster Abbey, 'in which,' says he, 'there are a great many ingenious fancies.' He told me at the same time, that he observed I had promised another paper upon the Tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he had read history. I could not at first imagine how this came into the Knight's head, till I recollected that he had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's Chronicle, which he has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir ANDREW FREEPORT since his last coming to town. Accordingly I promised to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together to the Abbey.

I found the Knight under his butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed than he called for a glass of the widow Trueby's water, which they told me he always drank before he went abroad. He recommended to me a dram of it at the same time, with so much heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I found it very unpalatable, upon which the Knight observing that I had made several wry faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it was the best thing in the world against the stone or gravel.

I could have wished indeed that he had acquainted me with the virtues of it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had done was out of good-will. Sir ROGER told me further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man whilst he staid in town, to keep off infection, and that he got together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being at Dantzick: When of a sudden, turning short to one of his servants who stood behind him, he bid him call a hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man that drove it.

He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's water, telling me that the widow Trueby was one who did more good than all the doctors or apothecaries in the country: That she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that she distributed her water gratis among all sorts of people; to which the knight added, that she had a very great jointure, and that the whole country would fain have it a match between him and her; 'and truly,' says Sir ROGER, 'if I had not been engaged, perhaps I could not have done better.'

His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked the coachman if his axle-tree was good; upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the Knight turned to me, told me he looked like an honest man, and went in without further ceremony.

We had not gone far, when Sir ROGER, popping out his head, called the coachman down from his box, and, upon presenting himself at the window, asked him if he smoked; as I was considering what this would end in, he bid him stop by the way at any good tobacconist's and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material happened in the remaining part of our journey, till we were set down at the west end of the Abbey.

As we went up the body of the church, the Knight pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cried out, 'A brave man, I warrant him!' Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudesly Shovel, he flung his hand that way, and cried, 'Sir Cloudesly Shovel! a very gallant man!' As he stood before Busby's tomb, the Knight uttered himself again after the same manner, 'Dr. Busby, a great man! he whipped my grandfather; a very great man! I should have gone to him myself, if I had not been a blockhead; a very great man!'

We were immediately conducted to the little chapel on the right hand. Sir ROGER, planting himself at our historian's elbow, was very attentive to every thing he said, particularly to the account he gave us of the lord who had cut off the king of Morocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very well pleased to see the statesman Cecil upon his knees; and concluding them all to be great men, was conducted to the figure which represents that martyr to good housewifery, who died by the prick of a needle. Upon our interpreter's telling us that she was a maid of honour to queen Elizabeth, the Knight was very inquisitive into her name and family; and after having regarded her finger for some time, 'I wonder,' says he, 'that Sir Richard Baker has said nothing of her in his Chronicle.'

We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs, where my old friend after having heard that the stone underneath the most ancient of them, which was brought from Scotland, was called Jacob's pillar, sat himself down in the chair; and looking like the figure of an old Gothick king, asked our interpreter, what authority they had to say that Jacob had ever been in Scotland? The fellow, instead of returning him an answer, told him, that he hoped his honour would pay his forfeit. I could observe Sir ROGER a little ruffled upon being thus trepanned; but our guide not insisting upon his demand, the knight soon recovered his good-humour, and whispered in my ear, that if WILL WIMBLE were with us, and saw those two chairs, it would go hard but he would get a tobacco-stopper out of one or the other of them.

Sir ROGER, in the next place, laid his hand upon Edward the Third's sword, and leaning upon the pommel of it, gave us the whole history of the Black Prince; concluding that, in Sir Richard Baker's opinion, Edward the Third was one of the greatest princes that ever sat upon the English throne.

We were then shewn Edward the Confessor's tomb; upon which Sir ROGER acquainted us, that he was the first who touched for the evil; and afterwards Henry the Fourth's, upon which he shook his head, and told us there was fine reading in the casualties of that reign.

Our conductor then pointed to that monument where there is the figure of one of our English kings without an head; and upon giving us to know, that the head, which was of beaten silver, had been stolen away several years since: 'Some Whig, I'll warrant you,' says Sir ROGER; 'you ought to lock up your kings better; they will carry off the body too, if you don't take care.'

The glorious names of Henry the Fifth and Queen Elizabeth gave the knight great opportunities of shining, and of doing justice to Sir Richard Baker; who, as our Knight observed with some surprise, had a great many kings in him, whose monuments he had not seen in the Abbey.

For my own part, I could not but be pleased to see the Knight shew such an honest passion for the glory of his country, and such a respectful gratitude to the memory of its princes.

I must not omit, that the benevolence of my good old friend, which flows out towards every one he converses with, made him very kind to our interpreter, whom he looked upon as an extraordinary man; for which reason he shook him by the hand at parting, telling him, that he should be very glad to see him at his lodgings in Norfolk-Buildings, and talk over these matters with him more at leisure.

NO. 335. TUESDAY, MARCH 25.

Respicere exemplar vitae morumque jubebo
Doctum unitatorem, et veras hinc ducere voces.
HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 317.

Those are the likest copies, which are drawn
From the original of human life.
ROSCOMMON.

My friend Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY, when we last met together at the club, told me that he had a great mind to see the new tragedy with me, assuring me at the same time, that he had not been at a play these twenty years. 'The last I saw,' said Sir ROGER, 'was the Committee, which I should not have gone to neither, had not I been told beforehand that it was a good church-of-England comedy.' He then proceeded to inquire of me who this Distressed Mother was; and upon hearing that she was Hector's widow, he told me that her husband was a brave man, and that when he was a school-boy he had read his life at the end of the dictionary. My friend asked me, in the next place, if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks should be abroad. 'I assure you,' says he, 'I thought I had fallen into their hands last night; for I observed two or three lusty black men that followed me half way up Fleet-Street, and mended their pace behind me, in proportion as I put on to get away from them. You must know,' continued the Knight with a smile, 'I fancied they had a mind to hunt me; for I remember an honest gentleman in my neighbourhood, who was served such a trick in King Charles the Second's time, for which reason he has not ventured himself in town ever since. I might have shewn them very good sport, had this been their design; for as I am an old fox-hunter, I should have turned and dogged, and have played them a thousand tricks they had never seen in their lives before.'

Sir ROGER added, that if these gentlemen had any such intention, they did not succeed very well in it; 'for I threw them out,' says he, 'at the end of Norfolk-Street, where I doubled the corner, and got shelter in my lodgings before they could imagine what was become of me. However,' says the Knight, 'if Captain SENTRY will make one with us to- morrow night, and if you will both of you call upon me about four o'clock, that we may be at the house before it is full, I will have my coach in readiness to attend you, for John tells me he has got the fore-wheels mended.'

The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed hour, bid Sir ROGER fear nothing, for that he had put on the same sword which he made use of at the battle of Steenkirk. Sir ROGER'S servants, and among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I found, provided themselves with good oaken plants, to attend their master upon this occasion. When we had placed him in his coach, with myself at his left- hand, the Captain before him, and his butler at the head of his footmen in the rear, we conveyed him in safety to the play-house, where after having marched up the entry in good order, the Captain and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old friend stood up and looked about him with that pleasure, which a mind seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of people who seemed pleased with one another, and partake of the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper center to a tragick audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the Knight told me that he did not believe the King of France himself had a better strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. One while he appeared much concerned for Andromache; and a little while after as much for Hermione; and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus.

When Sir ROGER saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she would never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary vehemence, 'You cannot imagine, Sir, what it is to have to do with a widow.' Upon Pyrrhus his threatening afterwards to leave her, the Knight shook his head and muttered to himself, 'Ay, do if you can.' This part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination, that at the close of the third act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered me in the ear, 'These widows, Sir, are the most perverse creatures in the world. But pray,' says he, 'you that are a critick, is the play according to your dramatic rules, as you call them? Should your people in tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of.'

The fourth act very luckily begun before I had time to give the old gentleman an answer: 'Well,' says the Knight, sitting down with great satisfaction,' I suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost.' He then renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a praising the widow. He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom at his first entering he took for Astyanax; but quickly set himself right in that particular, though, at the same time, he owned he should have been very glad to have seen the little boy, 'who,' says he, 'must needs be a very fine child by the account that is given of him.' Upon Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a loud clap, to which Sir ROGER added, 'On my word, a notable young baggage!'

As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness in the audience during the whole action, it was natural for them to take the opportunity of the intervals between the acts, to express their opinion of the players, and of their respective parts. Sir ROGER hearing a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, and told them, that he thought his friend Pylades was a very sensible man; as they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir ROGER put in a second time: 'And let me tell you,' says he, 'though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as any of them.' Captain SENTRY seeing two or three wags, who sat near us, lean with an attentive ear towards Sir ROGER, and fearing lest they should smoke the Knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered something in his ear, that lasted till the opening of the fifth act. The Knight was wonderfully attentive to the account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus his death, and at the conclusion of it, told me it was such a bloody piece of work, that he was glad it was not done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards Orestes in his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, and took occasion to moralize (in his way) upon an evil conscience, adding, that Orestes, in his madness, looked as if he saw something.

As we were the first that came into the house, so we were the last that went out of it; being resolved to have a clear passage for our old friend, whom we did not care to venture among the justling of the crowd. Sir ROGER went out fully satisfied with his entertainment, and we guarded him to his lodging in the same manner that we brought him to the play-house; being highly pleased, for my own part, not only with the performance of the excellent piece which had been presented, but with the satisfaction which it had given to the old man. L.

No. 359. TUESDAY, APRIL 22.

Torva leaena lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam;
Florentem cytisum sequitur lasciva capella.
VIRG. Eccl. ii. v. 63.

The greedy lioness the wolf pursues,
The wolf the kid, the wanton kid the browse.
DRYDEN.

As we were at the club last night, I observed my old friend Sir ROGER, contrary to his usual custom, sat very silent, and instead of minding what was said by the company, was whistling to himself in a very thoughtful mood, and playing with a cork. I jogged Sir ANDREW FREEPORT who sat between us; and as we were both observing him, we saw the Knight shake his head, and heard him say to himself, 'A foolish woman! I can't believe it.' Sir ANDREW gave him a gentle pat upon the shoulder, and offered to lay him a bottle of wine that he was thinking of the widow. My old friend started, and recovering out of his brown study, told Sir ANDREW, that once in his life he had been in the right. In short, after some little hesitation, Sir ROGER told us in the fulness of his heart that he had just received a letter from his steward, which acquainted him that his old rival and antagonist in the country, Sir David Dundrum, had been making a visit to the widow. However, says Sir ROGER, I can never think that she will have a man that is half a year older than I am, and a noted republican into the bargain.

WILL HONEYCOMB, who looks upon love as his particular province, interrupting our friend with a jaunty laugh; 'I thought, Knight,' says he, 'thou had'st lived long enough in the world, not to pin thy happiness upon one that is a woman and a widow. I think that without vanity, I may pretend to know as much of the female world as any man in Great Britain, though the chief of my knowledge consists in this, that they are not to be known.' WILL immediately, with his usual fluency, rambled into an account of his own amours. 'I am now,' says he, 'upon the verge of fifty' (though by the way we all knew he was turned of threescore). 'You may easily guess,' continued WILL, 'that I have not lived so long in the world without having had some thoughts of settling in it, as the phrase is. To tell you truly, I have several times tried my fortune that way, though I cannot much boast of my success.

'I made my first addresses to a young lady in the country: but when I thought things were pretty well drawing to a conclusion, her father happening to hear that I had formerly boarded with a surgeon, the old Put forbid me his house, and within a fortnight after married his daughter to a fox-hunter in the neighbourhood.

'I made my next application to a widow, and attacked her so briskly, that I thought myself within a fortnight of her. As I waited upon her one morning, she told me, that she intended to keep her ready money and jointure in her own hand, and desired me to call upon her attorney in Lion's-Inn, who would adjust with me what it was proper for me to add to it. I was so rebuffed by this overture, that I never inquired either for her or her attorney afterwards.

'A few months after I addressed myself to a young lady, who was an only daughter, and of a good family: I danced with her at several balls, squeezed her by the hand, said soft things to her, and in short made no doubt of her heart; and tho' my fortune was not equal to hers, I was in hopes that her fond father would not deny her the man she had fixed her affections upon. But as I went one day to the house in order to break the matter to him, I found the whole family in confusion, and heard to my unspeakable surprise, that Miss Jenny was that morning run away with the butler.

'I then courted a second widow, and am at a loss to this day how I came to miss her, for she had often commended my person and behaviour. Her maid indeed told me one day, that her mistress had said she never saw a gentleman with such a spindle pair of legs as Mr. Honeycomb.

'After this I laid siege to four heiresses successively, and being a handsome young dog in those days, quickly made a breach in their hearts; but I do not know how it came to pass, though I seldom failed of getting the daughter's consent, I could never in my life get the old people on my side.

'I could give you an account of a thousand other unsuccessful attempts, particularly of one which I made some years since upon an old woman, whom I had certainly borne away with flying colours, if her relations had not come pouring in to her assistance from all parts of England; nay, I believe I should have got her at last, had not she been carried off by a hard frost.'

As Will's transitions are extremely quick, he turned from Sir ROGER, and applying himself to me, told me there was a passage in the book I had considered last Saturday, which deserved to be writ in letters of gold; and taking out a Pocket-Milton, read the following lines, which are part of one of Adam's speeches to Eve after the fall.

Oh! why did God,
Creator wise! that peopled highest heav'n
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature? and not fill the world at once
With men, as angels, without feminine?
Or find some other way to generate Mankind?
This mischief had not then befallen,
And more that shall befall, innumerable
Disturbances on earth through female snares,
And strait conjunction with this sex: For either
He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake;
Or, whom he wishes most, shall seldom gain
Through her perverseness; but shall see her gain'd
By a far worse; or if she love, withheld
By parents; or his happiest choice too late
Shall meet already link'd, and wedlock-bound
To a fell adversary, his hate or shame;
Which infinite calamity shall cause
To human life, and household peace confound.

Sir ROGER listened to this passage with great attention, and desiring Mr. Honeycomb to fold down a leaf at the place, and lend him his book, the Knight put it up in his pocket, and told us that he would read over those verses again before he went to bed. X.

No. 383. TUESDAY, MAY 20.

Criminibus debent hortos. Juv. Sat. i. ver. 75.

A beauteous garden, but by vice maintain'd.

As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking on a subject for my next Spectator, I heard two or three irregular bounces at my landlady's door, and upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful voice enquiring whether the Philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door answered very innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately recollected that it was my good friend Sir ROGER's voice; and that I had promised to go with him on the water to Spring- Garden, in case it proved a good evening. The Knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the staircase, but told me that if I was speculating he would stay below till I had done.

Upon my coming down I found all the children of the family got about my old friend, and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him; being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the head, and bidding him be a good child, and mind his book.

We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs, but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen offering us their respective services. Sir ROGER, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking towards it, You must know, says Sir ROGER, I never make use of any body to row me, that has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ an honest man that has been wounded in the Queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg.

My old friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the boat with his coachman, who, being a very sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the best of our way for Faux-Hall. Sir ROGER obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg, and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which passed in that glorious action, the Knight in the triumph of his heart made several reflections on the greatness of the British nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of Popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe, that London Bridge was a greater piece of work, than any of the seven wonders of the world; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

After some short pause, the old knight turning about his head twice or thrice, to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple-Bar. A most heathenish sight! says Sir Roger: There is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect; but church-work is slow, church-work is slow!

I do not remember I have any where mentioned in Sir Roger's character, his custom of saluting every body that passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity, though at the same time it renders him so popular among all his country neighbours, that it is thought to have gone a good way in making him once or twice Knight of the shire. He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in town, when he meets with any one in his morning or evening walk. It broke from him to several boats that passed by us upon the water; but to the Knight's great surprise, as he gave the good-night to two or three young fellows a little before our landing, one of them, instead of returning the civility, asked us, what queer old put we had in the boat? with a great deal of the like Thames ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a little shocked at first, but at length assuming a face of magistracy, told us, That if he were a Middlesex justice, he would make such vagrants know that her Majesty's subjects were no more to be abused by water than by land.

We were now arrived at Spring-Garden, which is exquisitely pleasant at this time of the year. When I considered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of birds that sung upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the country, which his chaplain used to call an aviary of nightingales. You must understand, says the Knight, there is nothing in the world that pleases a man in love so much as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. SPECTATOR! the many moonlight nights that I have walked by myself, and thought on the widow by the musick of the nightingale! He here fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, when a mask, who came behind him, gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a bottle of mead with her? But the Knight, being startled at so unexpected a familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted in his thoughts of the widow, told her, She was a wanton baggage, and bid her go about her business.

We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale, and a slice of hung beef. When we had done eating ourselves, the Knight called a waiter to him, and bid him carry the remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I perceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I ratified the Knight's commands with a peremptory look.

As we were going out of the garden, my old friend thinking himself obliged, as a member of the Quorum, to animadvert upon the morals of the place, told the mistress of the house, who sat at the bar, that he should be a better customer to her garden, if there were more nightingales, and fewer strumpets.

No. 517. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23.

Heu pietas! heu prisca fides!
VIRG. AEn. vi. ver. 878.

Mirrour of ancient faith!
Undaunted worth! Inviolable truth!
DRYDEN.

We last night received a piece of ill news at our club, which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I question not but my readers themselves will be troubled at the hearing of it. To keep them no longer in suspense, Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY is dead. He departed this life at his house in the country, after a few weeks sickness. Sir ANDREW FREEPORT has a letter from one of his correspondents in those parts, that informs him the old man caught a cold at the country-sessions, as he was very warmly promoting an address of his own penning, in which he succeeded according to his wishes. But this particular comes from a whig justice of peace, who was always Sir ROGER'S enemy and antagonist. I have letters both from the Chaplain and Captain SENTRY, which mention nothing of it, but are filled with many particulars to the honour of the good old man. I have likewise a letter from the butler, who took so much care of me last summer when I was at the Knight's house. As my friend the butler mentions, in the simplicity of his heart, several circumstances the others have passed over in silence, I shall give my reader a copy of his letter, without any alteration or diminution.

'HONOURED SIR,

'KNOWING that you was my old master's good friend, I could not forbear sending you the melancholy news of his death, which has afflicted the whole country, as well as his poor servants, who loved him, I may say, better than we did our lives. I am afraid he caught his death the last country-sessions, where he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman and her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neighbouring gentleman; for you know, Sir, my good master was always the poor man's friend. Upon his coming home, the first complaint he made was, that he had lost his roast-beef stomach, not being able to touch a sirloin, which was served up according to custom; and you know he used to take great delight in it. From that time forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a good heart to the last. Indeed we were once in great hope of his recovery, upon a kind message that was sent him from the Widow Lady whom he had made love to the forty last years of his life; but this only proved a lightning before death. He has bequeathed to this Lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl necklace, and a couple of silver bracelets set with jewels, which belonged to my good old Lady his mother: He has bequeathed the fine white gelding, that he used to ride a-hunting upon, to his Chaplain, because he thought he would be kind to him; and has left you all his books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the Chaplain a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning, to every man in the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every woman a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to see him take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we most of us are grown gray-headed in our dear master's service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon the remaining part of our days. He has bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is not yet come to my knowledge, and it is peremptorily said in the parish, that he has left money to build a steeple to the church; for he was heard to say some time ago, that if he lived two years longer, Coverley church should have a steeple to it. The Chaplain tells every body that he made a very good end, and never speaks of him without tears. He was buried according to his own directions, among the family of the COVERLEYS, on the left hand of his father Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and the pall held by six of the Quorum: The whole parish followed the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits, the men in frieze, and the women in riding-hoods. Captain SENTRY, my master's nephew, has taken possession of the hall-house, and the whole estate. When my old master saw him, a little before his death, he shook him by the hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to pay the several legacies, and the gifts of charity which he told him he had left as quit-rents upon the estate. The captain truly seems a courteous man, though he says but little. He makes much of those whom my master loved, and shews great kindnesses to the old house- dog, that you know my poor master was so fond of. It would have gone to your heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my master's death. He has never joyed himself since; no more has any of us. It was the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever happened in Worcestershire. This is all from,

'HONOURED SIR,

'Your most sorrowful servant,

'EDWARD BISCUIT.'

'P. S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book which comes up to you by the carrier, should be given to Sir ANDREW FREEPORT, in his name.'

This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir ANDREW opening the book, found it to be a collection of acts of parliament. There was in particular the Act of Uniformity, with some passages in it marked by Sir ROGER'S own hand. Sir ANDREW found that they related to two or three points, which he had disputed with Sir ROGER the last time he appeared at the club. Sir ANDREW, who would have been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old man's hand-writing burst into tears, and put the book into his pocket. Captain SENTRY informs me, that the Knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club.

NOTES

SPECTATOR 1.

Page 1.

9. black. Dark. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet cxxvii:

In the old days black was not counted fair,
or Love's Labour's Lost, iv, iii. 265:

Paints itself black to imitate her brow.

Page 2.

6. depending. Undetermined. In law, pending. Cf. Shakespeare, Cymbeline, iv. iii. 23:

We'll slip you for a season; but our jealousy
Does yet depend.

24. public exercises. Academic discussions maintained by candidates for degrees at the older universities. Traces appear in the term 'Wrangler' (Cambridge) and in the supplementary viva voce examination.

Page 3.

5-10. I made … satisfaction. Addison is alluding to John Greaves, who journeyed to Egypt in 1638 and published a learned work entitled Pyramidographia.

17 et seq. Will's, v. Appendix I, On Coffee-houses. Also for Child's (3. 19), St. James's (22), the Grecian (25), the Cocoa-Tree (25), and Jonathan's (29).

20. the Postman, edited by a Frenchman, M. Fonvive, is mentioned in a contemporary account by John Dunton as the best of the newspapers. It was published weekly.

23. politics was frequently used for politicians. Perhaps so used here.

26. Drury-Lane theatre was built in 1674 and burnt down in 1809.

the Hay-Market theatre took its name from the street in which it was situated, which was the site of a market for hay and straw from the reign of Elizabeth till the beginning of the nineteenth century. It was built in 1705.

27. the Exchange is at the east end of the Poultry. It was built by Sir Thomas Gresham and opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1571. It was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666, and has since been twice rebuilt.

Page 4.

5. blots. In backgammon to expose a man to capture is called leaving a blot.

23. so many … which. Mixed construction: the many … which or so many … as.

32. spoken to. Obsolete in ordinary speaking and writing; survives in oratory.

34. my lodgings. The Spectator discourses on this subject in No. 12.

Page 5.

10. complexion. Aspect, appearance. Cf. Shakespeare, Richard II., III. ii. 194:

Men judge by the complexion of the sky
The state and inclination of the day.

12. discoveries. Revelations, disclosures. Cf. Shakespeare, Rape of Lucrece, 1314:

She dares not thereof make discovery.

14. having been thus particular upon. Having related so many details concerning.

18. For the prevalence of clubs v. Spectator 9.

19. engaged me. Made me undertake.

21. Mr. Buckley's. The printer of the Spectator.

Little Britain, formerly the mansion of the Duke of Bretagne, near Aldersgate Street, was the regular booksellers' quarter.

SPECTATOR 2.

Page 6.

5. Sir Roger de Coverley. For a discussion of the identity of Sir Roger and the other characters v. Appendix II, On the Spectator's Acquaintance. The name was suggested by Swift (Elwin).

7. that famous country-dance. Originated by the minstrels of Sir Roger of Calverley in the reign of Richard I. (Wills).

8. parts. Qualifications, capacities. Cf. Shakespeare, King Lear, i. iv. 285:

My train are men of choice and rarest parts.

17. Soho-Square, south of Oxford Street, was a fashionable place of residence. The name is derived from the cry 'So Hoe' in use when the Mayor and Corporation hunted the hare over the fields of that district.

In Spectator 329 Sir Roger says that he is staying in Norfolk-
Buildings.

19. a perverse beautiful widow. v. Appendix II.

22. Lord Rochester, the poet-wit, who died in 1680, was notorious as a leader of fashionable dissipation. In this connexion he is mentioned by Evelyn and Pepys.

Sir George Etherege, author of The Man of Mode and two other comedies, was the companion of Rochester in dissipation and notoriety. He died in 1691.

23. Bully Dawson. A notorious ruffian and sharper.

29. doublet. A coat reaching just below the waist, introduced from France in the fourteenth century.

Page 7.

9. justice of the Quorum. County justice, magistrate. Quorum was a prominent word in their commission of appointment.

10. quarter-session. The quarterly meeting of magistrates, at which cases sent up from petty sessions are tried. The word is now always used in the plural form, sessions, as in Spectator 126.

12. the game-act originated in the Game Laws of William the Conqueror. The first Game Act was passed in 1496, and the one in force at the time of Addison's writing in the reign of Anne. By these enactments a man was qualified to take out a licence to kill game by his birth or estate. The usual qualification was the possession of land to the value of 100 pounds per annum.

14. the Inner-Temple was originally the property of the Knights Templars. It was converted into Inns of Court in 1311, after the suppression of the military knighthoods.

17. humoursome. Whimsical, capricious. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV., IV. iv. 34, 'As humorous as winter.'

20. the house. The fraternity of lawyers.

Aristotle and Longinus. Aristotle's Poetics and the essay 'On the Sublime' of Longinus are the basis of all classical criticism. Longinus was a critic of the third century. Addison probably knew him in Boileau's famous translation of 1674.

21. Littleton. Author of a famous book on Tenures. He died in 1481.

Coke. The famous seventeenth century jurist and Chief Justice. He is best known by his commentary on Littleton's Tenures.

28. Demosthenes. The famous Athenian orator of the fourth century B.C.

29. Tully. Marcus Tullius Cicero, the great Roman orator of the last century B.C.

31. wit. Understanding, perception. 'True wit consists in the resemblance of ideas' when that resemblance is 'such an one that gives delight and surprise to the reader.' (Dryden.) Cf. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III. ii. 225:

I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth.

32. turn. Bent, proclivity.

34. taste of. Obsolete. Modern English, taste in.

Page 8.

5. the time of the play varied from about five o'clock to half-past six. Cf. Spectator 335, where Sir Roger leaves Norfolk Street at four o'clock for the play.

6. New-Inn. A square in Lincoln's Inn. Russel-Court. A turning out of Drury Lane.

7. turn. Short time.

8. periwig. The long curled dress wig introduced at the Restoration.

9. the Rose was the actors' tavern in Covent Garden.

18. the British common. The sea stands to Britain in the relation that the village common does to the village community.

Page 9.

5. Captain Sentry. v. Appendix II.

19. left the world. Retired from public life.

32. his own vindication. The claim he makes for himself.

Page 10.

9. humourists. Eccentrics. Cf. Ben Jonson, Prologue to The Alchemist:

Many persons more
Whose manners, now call'd humours, feed the stage.

11. Will Honeycomb. v. Appendix II.

20. habits. Clothes. Cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet, I. iii. 70:

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy.

30. the Duke of Monmouth was the natural son of Charles II., and was famous for his personal beauty and fine manners. He was executed in 1685 for pretending to the crown. Mention is made of him in the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys.

Page 11.

22. chamber-counsellor. A consulting lawyer, who does not conduct cases in the courts.

26. gone. Advanced.

SPECTATOR 106.

Page 12.

13. humour. Disposition. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV., II. iv. 256, 'What humour's the prince of?—A good shallow young fellow.'

31. pad. A horse of easy paces. Obsolete.

Page 13.

13. engages. Binds in affection.

14. is pleasant upon. Jests concerning. Cf. Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, III. i. 58:

Take it not unkindly, pray,
That I have been thus pleasant with you both.

30. conversation. v. note on p. 23, 1. 16.

34. in several of my papers. Once only, p. 6, 1. 10.

Page 14.

22. The meaning of this hint is explained in Spectator 517.

Page 15.

8 et seq. All contemporary or recently dead divines.

SPECTATOR 107.

Page 16.

12. family. Household. Obsolete. Cf. Shakespeare, Othello, I. 1. 84:

Signior, is all your family within?

Page 17.

1. stripped, of his livery, i.e. discharged. Cf. Shakespeare, Othello, II. i. 173, 'Such tricks as these strip you out of your lieutenantry.'

17. cast. Discarded. Cf. old saw:

Ne'er cast a clout till May be out.

29. in bestowing. Elliptical. Sc. which consist before in bestowing.

32. husband. Manager. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry VIII., III. ii. 142:

Your earthly audit; sure, in that
I deem you an ill husband.

35. fine when a tenement falls. When a tenement became vacant, the incoming tenant paid dues to the landlord.

Page 18.

18. manumission. Release. The word is derived from the process of freeing a Roman slave—manumissio.

28. that fortune was all the difference between them. That their inferior position did not imply an inferiority of nature.

Page 19.

1. prentice. Shortened form of apprentice. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV., II. ii. 194, 'From a prince to a prentice.'

SPECTATOR 108.

Page 20.

2. Mr. William Wimble, v. Appendix II.

8. jack. Pike.

32. angle-rods. Fishing-rods. Cf. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, II. v. 10:

Give me mine angle,—we'll to the river.

officious. Serviceable, ready to do things for other people. The word is now restricted to its bad sense of meddlesome. Cf. Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, v. ii. 202:

Come, come, be every one officious
To make this banquet.

35. correspondence. Communication.

36. a tulip-root. William III. brought to England the passion for tulip-growing which originated in Holland. At this time it was already on the wane in England.

Page 21.

5. setting dog. Setter.

made. Trained.

10. humours. Pleasantries.

Page 22.

4. played with it. Now played it.

9. quail-pipe. A pipe with which quails are lured to the nets.

26. humour. Whim, notion. Cf. Shakespeare, I Henry IV, III. i. 237, 'You are altogether governed by humours.'

Page 23.

4. turned. Adapted.

8. my twenty-first speculation argues that it is better for a man to go into trade than to enter an over-crowded profession, and reproves 'parents who will not rather choose to place their sons in a way of life where an honest industry cannot but thrive, than in stations where the greatest probity, learning, and good sense may miscarry.'

SPECTATOR 109.

Page 23.

16. conversation. Intercourse, behaviour. Cf. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, II. vi. 131, 'Octavia is of a holy, cold, and still conversation.'

Page 24.

1. jetting. Projecting. Cf. Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, II. i. 64:

How dangerous
It is to jet upon a prince's right.

habit. v. note on p. 10, 1. 20.

2. The bonnet of the Yeomen of the Guard is a round cap of black velvet with a gold band.

10. the tilt-yard. Formerly the yard of St. James's Palace.

11. Whitehall was formerly a royal palace. It was almost entirely destroyed in the two fires of 1691 and 1697.

14. target. Small shield. Cf. Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI., II i. 40:

Bear
Upon my target three fair-shining suns.

16. pommel. Rim in front of saddle.

17. rid. Obsolete. Now rode.

tournament. Here used for lists.

24. the coffee-house, v. Appendix I.

27. bass-viol. A large fiddle-shaped instrument held between the legs. It was very fashionable in the eighteenth century, and was generally to be found in the sitting-rooms of the upper classes for the use of any guests who could perform on it. It is the viol-de-gamboys of Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Twelfth Night, i. iii. 27).

28. basket-hilt. Steel hilt shaped like a basket.

Page 25.

1. go-cart. A sort of cage on small wheels for teaching children to walk.

5. hasty-pudding. A kind of batter made of flour or meal and water.

6. white-pot. A very rich Devonshire dish.

20. slashes. Slits to show the lining of a garment.

Page 26.

18. knight of this shire. Member of Parliament for this county.

30. such. Such and such, a certain. Cf. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, I. iii. 128, 'You spurned me such a day.'

Page 27.

2. discourse of. Discourse concerning. Cf. Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, II. iv. 140:

Now no discourse, except it be of love.

6. the battle of Worcester, 1651, was the final defeat of Charles II. by Cromwell.

7. whim. Whimsical idea.

SPECTATOR 110.

Page 27.

22. Psalm cxlvii. 9, 'He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry.'

Page 28.

25. Locke. The author of the Essay on the Human Understanding died in 1704. The reference is to II. xxxiii. 10.

26. curious. Elaborate, minutely detailed. Cf. Shakespeare, Cymbeline, V. v. 361:

A most curious mantle, wrought by the hand
Of his queen mother.

Page 29.

14. by that means. On that account. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI., II. i. 178:

By this means
Your lady is forthcoming yet at London.

Page 30.

8. Lucretius. Poet and philosopher of the last century B.C. His opinion on this point is expressed in De Rerum Natura, IV. 29, 33, et seq.

13. pressed. Impressed, constrained.

27. Antiquities of the Jews, XVII. xv. 415.

SPECTATOR 112.

Page 33.

27. do. Strictly does.

Page 34.

3. incumbent. Occupant (of the clerk's place).

13. tithe-stealers. The tithes being paid in kind, it was easy to cheat the parson out of some portion of them.

16. his patron. The squire, who gave him his living.

SPECTATOR 113.

Page 35.

11. settled. Salmon thinks that the walk was not actually settled upon the widow as her property, but that it was indissolubly connected with her in Sir Roger's mind.

20. Cf. Orlando in As You Like It, III. ii. 10:

Carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.

Page 36.

17. rid. v. note on p. 24, 1. 17.

19. bitted. Trained to carry their heads well with a bearing rein.

22. assizes. Sessions of the court.

Page 37.

20. far gone. Deeply experienced. For this use of gone, cf. Keats, On a Lock of Milton's Hair, 25, 'Grey gone in passion.'

21. confident. Now confidant.

28. humane. Human, civilized.

34. pretended. Presumed, attempted. Cf. Shakespeare, I Henry VI., IV. i. 6:

And none your foes but such as shall pretend
Malicious practices against his state.

Page 38.

7. go on with. Continue to charm you with, proceed with.

20. discovered, v. note on p. 5, 1, 12.

31. last. Most extreme.

Page 39.

9. the sphinx. The monster which continued to oppress Thebes until such time as one of her victims should be able to answer the riddle she put to him. Oedipus answered her, and she destroyed herself.

21. a publick table. When away from home, it was usual for a traveller to dine, not at his lodgings, but at a public table or ordinary.

22. tansy. A very popular dish of the seventeenth century, a kind of rich, spiced custard.

Page 40.

3. Martial. A Latin poet of the first century of our era. i. 69.

SPECTATOR 114.

Page 40.

24. pretending. Pretentious.

in both cases. In both particulars, i.e. fortune and conversation.

Page 41.

12. dipped. Mortgaged.

32. personate. Appear the possessor of.

Page 42.

7, 13. Laertes and Irus. Laertes was king of Ithaca and father of Ulysses; Irus, or properly Arnaeus, a beggar who kept watch over Penelope's suitors. Their names are here introduced as typical of the rich and the poor man.

10. four shillings in the pound. The amount of the land tax.

19. way. If the verb is correctly are, way should be written in the plural.

Page 43.

11. Cowley, the poet and essayist, who died in 1667.

14. author who published his works. Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, published Cowley's works in 1688.

18. face. Appearance. Cf. Shakespeare, Tempest, 1. ii. 104, 'The outward face of royalty.'

great Vulgar. Cowley concludes his Sixth Essay, Of Greatness, with a translation of Horace, Book III, Ode i, commencing:

Hence, ye profane, I hate ye all,
Both the great vulgar, and the small.

25. lately mentioned. In Steele's last paper, Spectator 109, p. 26, 1. 29.

26. point. Appoint. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet xiv. 6:

Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind.

Page 44.

2. being. Existence, state of being. Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet lxxxi. II:

Tongues to be your being shall rehearse.

7. relish. Taste, enjoyment. Cf. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, III. ii. 20:

The imaginary relish is so sweet

10. mansions. Abiding-places. Cf. St. John, xiv. 2, 'In my Father's house are many mansions.'

13. Quoted from an earlier passage in the same essay (v. note on p. 43, 1. 18).

SPECTATOR 115.

Page 45.

26. the spleen. Melancholy disposition, not the organ of that name. Cf. Shakespeare, As You Like It, iv. i. 217, 'Begot of thought, conceived of spleen.'

27. the vapours. Moods of depression. Cf. Fielding, Amelia, iii. 7, 'Some call it the fever on the spirits, some a nervous fever, some the vapours, some the hysterics.'

29 et seq. The argument runs: nature has adapted the body to exercise, therefore exercise is necessary to our well-being. This is sound only on the assumptions that everything which nature performs is based on necessity, and that the body has been made in such a way as to secure our well-being.

30. proper. Fit. Cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet, II. i. 114:

It is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions.

Page 46.

8. laboured. Worked, tilled. The verb is no longer used transitively.

14. condition. State of prosperity, material circumstances. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI, v. i. 64, 'One so rude and of so mean condition.'

22. chace. The substantive was distinguished from the verb by its spelling. Cf. modern practice, practise.

34. patched. Perhaps with reference to the black patches worn on the face to enhance its beauty; perhaps merely covered here and there, studded.

Page 47.

1. distinction sake. The 's of the possessive is omitted before the initial s of sake.

6. The perverse widow, v. Spectator 113.

8. amours. Used of a single love-affair.

12. sits. Couches in her form or seat.

18. Doctor Sydenham, the celebrated physician, who died in 1689.

22. Medicina Gymnastica, by Francis Fuller, was printed in 1705.

24. dumb bell. An apparatus resembling that used for ringing a church bell, but wanting the bell itself. The use of the modern form of dumb-bell was introduced into England in Elizabeth's reign. It is described in the next paragraph under the name of skiomachia.

33. a Latin treatise. Artis Gymnastica apud Antiquos, by Hieronymus Mercurialis, 1569.

Page 48.

2. loaden. The verb has now become weak; loaded.

9. uneasy. Troublesome.

SPECTATOR 116.

Page 48.

25. the Bastile. The State prison in Paris, which was destroyed by the mob in 1789 (v. Coleridge's poem on this subject, and the stirring description in Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, II. xxi.).

Page 49.

20. Budgell has somewhat defaced the character of Sir Roger by this touch, and by the inhuman humanity of p. 52, 1. 18.

24. managed. Broken in. Cf. Shakespeare, Richard II., III. iii. 179:

Wanting the manage of unruly jades.

25. stone-horse. Stallion.

26. staked himself. Impaled himself on a stake in jumping.

29. beagles. Small hounds formerly employed in hunting the hare. Cf. White's Selborne, Letter VI, 'One solitary grey hen was sprung by some beagles in beating for a hare.' They are now superseded by harriers, which are still sometimes called by their name.

30. Stop-hounds. So called because when one of them found the scent he stopped and squatted 'to impart more effect to his deep tones, and to get wind for a fresh start' (Wills).

32. mouths. Voices. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry V., II. iv. 70:

For coward dogs
Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten
Runs far before them.

33. cry. Pack. Cf. Shakespeare, Coriolanus, III. iii. 120,

'You common cry of curs.'

34. nice. Fastidious. Cf. Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, v. ii. 219, 'We'll not be nice; take hands.'

Page 50.

5. counter-tenor. Alto.

8. iv. i. 124. Shakespeare was not in Budgell's day so common a reservoir of quotations as he has since become. Dryden had appreciated him, but he was in general very little known, even among men of letters.

15. Hunting in July must have entailed great loss on the farmers before it was forbidden by the Game Laws of 1831.

17. pad. v. note on p. 12, 1. 31.

19. rid. v. note on p. 24, 1. 17.

20. benevolence. In its literal meaning of goodwill.

25. rid. Now obsolete: ridden.

Page 51.

7. chace. v. note on p. 46, 1. 22.

35. took. Betook herself to. Cf. Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, v. i. 36:

Run, master, run; for God's sake, take a house!

Page 52.

2. chiding. Barking. Cf. Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, iv. i. 120:

Never did I hear
Such gallant chiding.

10. his pole. The huntsman followed on foot, carrying a long leaping-pole, which permitted him to keep a straighter course than he could have done on horseback, owing to the state of the country.

26. Monsieur Paschal, the great French philosopher of the seventeenth century, who died in 1662.

Page 53.

12. habit. State, condition.

17. But the Spectator's hunting has only consisted of watching the chase from a rising ground!

24. Epistle to John Dryden, 73-4, 88-95.

SPECTATOR 117.

Page 54.

4. neuter. Neutral, Cf. Shakespeare, Richard II., II. iii. 159, 'Be it known to you I do remain as neuter.'

engaging. Pledging. Cf. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, III. ii. 264:

I have engaged myself to a dear friend.

6. determination. Decision. Cf. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, III. ii. 258, 'He humbles himself to the determination of justice.'

15. particular. Individual. Cf. Shakespeare, All's Well that Ends Well, I. i. 97:

That I should love a bright particular star.

Page 65.

7. applied herself. Cf. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2. 126:

If you apply yourself to our intents,
where the word is used in a somewhat different sense. It is now used reflexively only in the sense of applying oneself to the performance of an action.

8. Otway, the poet and playwright, died in 1685. The quotation is from his play of The Orphan, II. i. The first line should run:

Through a close lane….

36. palmed. Foisted, falsely attributed.

Page 60.

16. tabby. Brindled or sometimes female, as opposed to tom-cat. The meaning is derived from the word tabby, a name for watered silk.

28. a bounty. The concrete sense of this word has been lost.

33. trying experiments with her. Testing her by ordeal.

Page 57.

1. Sir Roger's doubtfulness on the subject of witchcraft was not exceptional. In 1664 Sir Thomas Browne had assisted in the condemnation of a witch. In 1711 there were two executions for witchcraft, and in 1712 Jane Wenham was sentenced, but afterwards pardoned. In 1716 there were again two executions, and although the Act was repealed in 1736, an old woman was done to death by the mob as late as 1751.

3. bound her over to. sc. appear at.

14. commerce and familiarities with the devil or evil spirits.

SPECTATOR 118.

Page 68.

9. of all others. A classic construction. For a similar inaccurate phrase cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 324, 'The fairest of her daughters Eve.' The phrase occurs also on p. 41, 1. 33.

24. salute. Kiss. Cf. Shakespeare, As You Like It, III. ii. 50,

You salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands.

33. set a mark upon, in order to know and to shun them.

35. pleasant. Amusing, ridiculous. Cf. Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, Induction, ii. 132, 'Play a pleasant comedy.'

Page 59.

13. conduct. Guidance. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV., V. ii. 36: Led by the impartial conduct of my soul.

19. is addressed to. Has addresses paid to her.

presented. Given presents. The verb is not now used without the indirect completion, 'to be presented with a thing.'

26. personated. Affected, feigned. Cf. Spectator 555, 'A personated character.'

Page 60.

24. honest. Honourable. Cf. Shakespeare, Othello, III. iii. 225: I do not think but Desdemona's honest.

Page 61.

23. reads upon. Reads on the subject of.

26. policies. Arrangements, economy, administration.

SPECTATOR 119

Page 62.

7. manners. Customs, habits. Cf. Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, I. ii. 12, 'I'll view the manners of the town.'

12. article. Particular. Cf. Shakespeare, Othello, III. iii. 22:

I'll perform it
To the last article.

Now concrete in sense: a material object.

23. Conversation. v. note on p. 23, 1. 16.

30. modish. Fashionable. Sc p. 64, 1. 2, 'Men of mode,' and p. 63, 1, 3, 'People of mode.'

Page 64.

31. the country are. Properly is.

Page 65.

3. upon the western circuit. As judge.

SPECTATOR 120.

Page 65.

29. demonstrative. Conclusive. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry V., II. iv. 89: In every branch truly demonstrative.

Page 66.

11. the leaving a posterity. Mixed construction. Leaving should be used either as a gerund, leaving a posterity, or as a verbal noun, the leaving of a posterity.

14. nicer. More delicate.

17. birth. That which they bear, their offspring. Cf. Shakespeare, Othello, I. iii. 410:

Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

30. temper. Temperature.

Page 67.

34. which. sc. a circumstance which.

Page 68.

1. as it spreads. To the degree in which it spreads.

16. Take a brute out of his instinct. Consider an animal in matters outside the range of his instinct.

Page 69.

18. do not carry an immediate regard to. Have no immediate bearing on.

SPECTATOR 121.

Page 70.

7. stepmother. Properly foster-mother.

17. A modern philosopher. M. Bernard, who quotes the Latin saw, is himself quoted by Bayle in a long discussion appended to the articles on Pereira and Rosarius in his Historical Dictionary, a translation of which was printed in 1710. Jacob Tonson, the publisher, declares that the Dictionary was Addison's constant companion.

26. Dampier, the great navigator, printed in 1691 a book entitled A New Voyage round the World.

Page 72.

4. Mr. Locke. v. note on p. 28, 1. 25. The reference is to ii. 9, 13.

19. Dr. More was one of the original members of the Royal Society. He died in 1687.

Cardan or Cardano, was an Italian philosopher of the sixteenth century. The citation is from De Rerum Subtilitate, x.

Page 73.

13. Mr. Boyle. A famous natural philosopher, and member of the Royal Society, who died in 1691. The citation is from A Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things.

18. one humour. The typical eye of the higher animals consists of a lens and two humours or fluids, known as the aqueous and the vitreous.

33. our Royal Society. Founded in 1662.

Page 74.

2. original. Origin. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV, I. ii. 131, 'It hath its original from much grief.'

3. policies. v. note on p. 61, 1. 26.

14. Howling Wilderness and Great Deep. Deuteronomy, xxxii. 10, 'He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness.' Psalm li. 10, 'The waters of the great deep.'

25. Tully. v. note on p. 7, 1. 29.

29. nice. Accurate, precise. Cf. Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, v. i. 75:

Despite his nice fence and his active practice.

SPECTATOR 122.

Page 75.

8. approbations. Not now used in the plural.

21. assizes, v. note on p. 36, 1. 22.

23. rid. v. note on p. 24, 1. 17.

28. the game-act, v. note on p. 7, 1. 12.

Page 76.

3. shoots flying. This accomplishment was just coming into fashion, and was not yet common.

4. the petty-jury, which actually gives a verdict on cases tried. The grand jury decides whether cases shall be sent up for trial.

8. quarter-sessions, v. note on p. 7, 1. 10.

14. cast and been cast. To defeat or be defeated or condemned in a trial or law-suit. Cf. Milton, Eikonoklastes, 'The Commons by far the greatest number cast him.'

34. was sat. Was seated.

Page 77.

2. for. For the sake of, in order to enhance.

Page 78.

11. be at the charge. Bear the expense.

29. conjuring. Urging. Cf. Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, iv. iii. 68:

I conjure you to leave me and be gone.

SPECTATOR 123.

Page 80.

8. a novel at this time meant a short fictitious tale, generally of love.

9. Eudoxus and Leontine. This charming story is reminiscent of Shakespeare's Winter's Tale. Leontine, the friend who has a daughter, may well trace his descent from Leontes, King of Sicilia. Eudoxus must stand for Polixenes, King of Bohemia, since his son Florio is certainly the shadow of Prince Florizel. The plot hinges on the fact that both of the children, like the daughter of Leontine's prototype, grow up in ignorance of their parentage, and in both cases there is an apparent inequality of fortune between the lovers.

In a letter of the same date addressed to Mr. Wortley, Addison writes: 'When you have a son I shall be glad to be his Leontine, as my circumstances will probably be like his.' He had just sustained heavy losses.

32. turned of. We should now say turned.

33. Cowley, Essay X, 'But there is no fooling with life when it is once turned beyond forty.'

Page 81.

1. In order to this. In order to accomplish this.

Page 82.

1. dictated. Dictated to, counselled. Not now used transitively of persons.

Page 83.

26. relish, v. note on p. 44, 1. 7.

30. discoveries, v. note on p. 5, 1. 12.

SPECTATOR 125.

Page 84.

19. St. Anne's Lane. Turning out of Aldersgate Street.

24. prickeared. A contemptuous term applied to Roundheads, in allusion to the effect produced by the shortness of their hair, and borrowed from its ordinary use as applied to mongrel dogs.

Page 85.

7. prejudice of the land-tax. The land-tax was first levied in 1699 to pay for the French War. It was carried by Whig feeling in opposition to the Tory landholders.

the destruction of the game, which would proceed while the country gentlemen were occupied with their party differences.

19. sinks. Used transitively, lowers, diminishes. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry VIII., iii. ii. 383, 'A load would sink a navy.'

28. Plutarch, the great Greek moralist and biographer of the first century of our era. The quotation is from De Inimicorum Utilitate.

Page 86.

2. that great rule. St. Luke, vi. 27, 'Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.'

10. the regard of. A regard for.

19. an object seen in two different mediums. For instance, a straight stick partly immersed in water appears as if bent at the point at which it enters the water. The rays of light reflected from the position under water, by which we see that portion, are bent when they leave the water and enter the air in such a way as to make that part of the stick appear nearer to our eye than it would appear in air.

Page 87.

4. postulatums. The word has now become Anglicized in a different form, postulate, plural postulates.

15. Guelfes and Gibellines. The opposing political parties in Germany and Italy from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. In Italy they were the adherents of the Pope and the Emperor respectively.

16. the League. The Holy League, formed in 1576, in the Roman Catholic interest.

17. unhappy. Unfortunate. Cf. Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, IV. iv. 126, 'O most unhappy day!'

SPECTATOR 126.

Page 89.

7. such persons, that. Mixed construction: all persons that or such persons as. Frequent in Shakespeare; cf. Measure for Measure, II. ii. 147:

Such things
That want no ear but yours.

16. retainers. Followers, adherents.

28. Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian of the last century B.C. The citation is from his universal history, a work in forty books, i. 35. 7.

30. Ichneumon. An animal belonging to the same family as the civets. The Egyptian ichneumon, known also as Pharaoh's cat, was held sacred among the ancient Egyptians because of its propensity for destroying crocodiles' eggs, but unfortunately for Addison's illustration, it is now proved that the degenerate ichneumon does actually 'find his account' in feeding upon the eggs which he breaks, whether they be those of crocodiles or merely of the barn-door fowl.

34. finds his account. Receives any recompense or advantage.

Page 90.

8. the wild Tartars. The Tartars are a race of Russians, of Turkish and Mongolian origin. Some of them adhere to the religion of the Greek church, some are Moslems, and some Shamanites. The reference is probably to some Shaman belief, for magic and the spirits of the dead play a very large part in this religion.

12. of course. In due course, in consequence. Cf. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, III. i. 259, 'This being granted in course, now follows all.'

27. cock-match. Match between fighting-cocks.

humour, v. note on p. 22, 1. 26.

30. quarter-sessions, v. note on p. 7, 1. 10.

34. the landed and … the monied interest. The land-owner would naturally be a Tory, and the merchant a Whig.

Page 91.

6. interest. Political position, by virtue of which he was returned for his county.

11. such an one. v. note on p. 26, 1. 30. Here, the Tory candidate for the district.

19. take up with. Put up with.

30. a very fair bettor. Quite a good bettor or better.

32. disagreeable. Unpleasing, unpopular.

34. correspondence. v. note on p. 20, 1. 35.

Page 92.

10. fanatick. A madman. Will Wimble suspects the Spectator of unsoundness in politics, that is, of not being of the Tory persuasion.

SPECTATOR 127.

Page 92.

24. the post would have reached Sir Roger in Worcester twice a week, on Thursdays and Saturdays (Report for 1809.)

25. Dyer's letter. Dyer's News Letter was published three times a week. It dealt more in domestic news than did the regular newspapers, such as The Postman, and was sometimes driven to fill up space by relating fictitious events. Cf. Tatler 18, in which Steele and Addison declare that Dyer is famous for whales in the Thames!

29. under the quality of. In the office of. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry V., III. vi. 146, 'What is thy name? I know thy quality.'

Page 93.

2. ordinary. Used as an adverb.

5. expence. Now expense, v. note on chace, p. 46, 1. 22.

13. You praised them. v. Spectator 98, On Ladies' Headdresses.

14. the humour. The fluid which causes the disease.

30. Sir George Etherege. v. note on p. 6, 1. 22. His first comedy, 1664, was entitled The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub. The reference is to IV. vi.

Page 94.

2. the farthingale was a framework for extending the skirt of a woman's dress. It was introduced in 1545, and finally assumed a perfectly cylindrical shape.

the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. The defeat and dispersal of the Armada in 1558.

5. the tail of a blazing star. Comets have always been held to foretell disaster.

11. into meetings and conventicles. That is, to Dissent.

12. trunk-breeches. Very full, short breeches, reaching to the knee or half-way down the thigh.

16. it is recorded of Alexander the Great in Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. 'He first contrived many vain and sophistical things to serve the purposes of fame; among which were arms much bigger than his men could use … left scattered up and down.' This report is probably baseless, as it is opposed to the magnanimity of Alexander's character.

28. Rotunda. A building of circular shape both outside and inside, such as the Pantheon in Rome.

31. a little black monkey enshrined. Each Egyptian village had its sacred animal or fetish.

Page 95.

8. the sensitive plant. Mimosa pudica, whose leaflets fold together at a touch.

SPECTATOR 128.

Page 96.

9. from thence. A redundant expression. Thence is in itself equivalent to from there. Cf. Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors, IV. iv. 79, 'Did not I in rage depart from thence?'

Page 97.

4. carries it. Succeeds. Cf. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, II. iii. 228, 'Shall pride carry it?'

Page 98.

3. the younger Faustina, the profligate wife of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

25. your was frequently used instead of the in naming an object as typical of its class, especially when the speech carries any flavour of pleasantry. Cf. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, IV. ii. 46, 'Every true man's apparel fits your thief.'

Page 99.

1. Aristus. aristos, best.

Aspasia. The mistress of Pericles, and the inspiration of his greatness.

SPECTATOR 129.

Page 99.

17. periwig. v. note on p. 8, 1. 8.

Page 100.

1. habits, v. note on p. 10, 1. 20.

5. the mode. v. note on p. 62, 1. 30.

12. engage. Undertake.

23. circuit. v. note on p. 65, 1. 3.

28. Stains, now spelt Staines, in Middlesex, ten miles from London.

29. commode. A wire erection to raise the front of the hair and the cap. First worn by Mlle. Fontange, at the court of Louis XIV. In Spectator 98, Addison notes that head-dresses have diminished in height.

33. the Ramilie cock. A particular way of folding back the flaps of a cocked hat invented after Marlborough's victory at Ramillies, 1706.

Page 101.

10. a Friezland hen. Probably frizzled hen (Gallus crispus) whose feathers stand outward from the body, giving it a much beruffled aspect.

15. retrenching. Cutting back, diminishing. Cf. Milton, Paradise Regained, i. 454:

But this thy glory shall be soon retrenched.

18. franked by a parliament-man. Members of Parliament were privileged to send and receive postal matter free of charge. The custom began in 1660, and was regulated by law in 1764. Until 1837 the member had simply to write his name on the corner of the envelope, and often presented his friends with parcels of franked envelopes. The privilege was abolished in 1840.

22. next. Most recent, last. Obsolete in this sense. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry VIII., I. i. 17, 'Each following day became the next day's master.'

26. in buckle. In curl.

Page 102.

4. astonishments. The plural form is not now in use.

7. bob-wig. A wig with short curls or bobs, to imitate natural curly hair.

18. Monmouth cock. Another fashion of cocking the hat, named after the Duke of Monmouth. v. note on p. 10, 1. 30.

23. night-cap wig. A periwig with a short tie and a small round head.

Page 103.

1. the Steenkirk was a black silk cravat, tied so as to produce an effect of negligence, in imitation of the victorious French generals, when a sudden attack summoned them hastily to the field at the battle of Steinkirk. v. note on Spectator 335.

SPECTATOR 130.

Page 103.

10. exert the Justice of the Peace. Exercise the authority of a justice of the peace.

Page 104.

15. A Cassandra. A prophetess. Cassandra, daughter of Priam, King of Troy, was inspired by Apollo with the divine frenzy.

17. in a corner. Secretly. Cf. Acts of the Apostles, xxvi. 26, 'This thing was not done in a corner.'

Page 105.

21. our monthly accounts about twenty years ago. From 1681 monthly publications began to appear, the most notable being The Gentleman's Journal, issued by Peter Mottuex, 1691-4, which proved to be the germ of our entire magazine literature.

22. Trekschuyt. Literally draw-boat.

hackney-boat. Boat plying for hire.

Page 106.

4. gave him for. Gave him up for. Cf. Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, III. ii. 96:

Your favour
I do give lost.

SPECTATOR 131.

Page 107.

17. a month's excursion. In the Spectator for July 2 Addison writes that he went 'last week' to Sir Roger's country-house.

Page 108.

10. killed a man. In a duel. Duelling was still the one way of repudiating an insult. The crusade against it was on foot, but it died hard.

11. visit … to Moll White, v. Spectator 117.

13. cunning. Learned in magic. Cf. Spectator 505, 'Wizards, gypsies, and cunning men.'

16. a White Witch is a witch who can do no harm, and who sometimes performs beneficent actions. Cf. the use of white in such phrases as white lie.

21. harbour a Jesuit. The last order for the expulsion of the Jesuits was issued in 1602. Those who harboured them in defiance of this order were liable to very heavy penalties.

28. discarded Whig, as Salmon points out, is an exact description of Addison at this time.

29. out of place. Deprived of his post or office.

31. disaffected, to the sovereign.

Page 109.

3. discovers, v. note on p. 5, 1. 12.

7. temper. Temperament, disposition. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry V., V. ii. 153, 'A fellow of this temper.'

26. picking of. As if the gerund, a-picking of.

27. smelling to. Now smelling at.

33. stories of a cock and a bull. Now condensed to cock-and- bull stories. Cf. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, II. 11. iv. 274.

Page 110.

6. commonwealth's men. Republicans.

SPECTATOR 132.

Page 110.

23. chamberlain. Servant who attends the bedchambers. Cf. Milton, On the University Carrier, 1. 14, 'In the kind office of a chamberlin.'

25. Mrs. was the early abbreviation of mistress, which we have now unhappily abbreviated to miss.

Page 111.

8. half-pike. A kind of short lance, the weapon of an infantry officer.

10. equipage. Train, following.

12. cloak-bag. Portmanteau. Cf. Shakespeare, Cymbeline, III. iv. 172:

'Tis in my cloak-bag-doublet, hat, hose, all.

in the seat. Under the actual seat, in the well of the coach.

Page 112.

1. the brideman. Now called the best man.

8. the giving her. The giving of her.

11. Cf. Shakespeare, Henry V., IV. iv. 73, 'The saying is true,— the empty vessel makes the greatest sound.'

19. countenance. In its original meaning of bearing, behaviour. Cf. Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, i. i. 234:

Puts my apparel and my countenance on.

22. fleer. Gibe. Cf. Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, V. i. 58, 'Never fleer and jest at me.'

28. hasped up. Shut up.

30. Ephraim was a generic name for Quakers, given them because they refused to fight, v. Psalm lxxviii. 9, 'The children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows turned back in the day of battle.'

35. smoky. The current slang for shrewd. To smoke a plot or a trick was to detect it; in modern slang to smell a rat.

Page 113.

4. ruffle. Disturbance, commotion.

7. conduct. Cf. note on p. 59, 1. 13.

11. taking place of other vehicles was an important privilege, for the road was generally practicable only for one vehicle at a time, so that the displaced one would have to stop till the road should be clear again.

25. inward. Pious, earnest. Cf. Thomas a Kempis, De Imitatione Christi, II. i. 41, 'a very inward man:' also Penn, Rise and Progress of the Quakers, 1690, 'more religious, inward, still.'

32. thee and I. The Friends generally employ thee for thou. So too in p. 114, 1. 2.

Page 114.

3. affections. Dispositions, feelings. Cf. Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, II. iv. 168:

By the affection that now guides me most.

SPECTATOR 269.

Page 114.

19. Gray's Inn Walks are said to have been planted by Bacon. They are situated on the north side of Holborn, and were the regular promenade of people of fashion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for the air blew straight over from Hampstead, unimpeded by the houses which have since sprung up.

22. Eugene, Prince of Savoy, had arrived in London three days before the date of this paper. He had been Marlborough's colleague in the War of the Spanish Succession, and he had come over in order to attempt to repair the overthrow of Marlborough and to prevent the Tory government from concluding peace with France on ruinous and disgraceful terms.

27. Eugenio was regularly employed by Prince Eugene as his signature, in recognition of his Italian family.

28. Scanderbeg was the great Albanian prince and commander of the fifteenth century, who freed his country from the dominion of Turkey.

Page 115.

15. made. Preached, delivered.

16. Dr. Barrow, v. p. 15, 1. 12.

18. thirty merks. Twenty pounds. A merk or mark was worth 13s 4d. It was not a coin, but only a convenient name, as guinea is now.

21. fob. A small pocket, usually intended to hold a watch.

22. tobacco-stopper. A small plug for pressing down the tobacco in the bowl of the pipe.

28. Tom Touchy. v. Spectator 122.

31. Moll White. v. Spectator 117.

Page 116.

8. hogs-puddings. Large sausage-shaped bags stuffed with minced pork.

18. for twelve days, that is, till Twelfth Night, January 6, which puts an end to the Christmas festivities.

22. smutting. A trick, the victim of which is made unconsciously to blacken his own face. Cf. Goldsmith:

The swain mistrustless of his smutted face
While secret laughter tittered round the place.

27. the late act of Parliament for securing the Church of England. The Act of Occasional Uniformity, 1710, attempted to exclude Dissenters from political power and office by strengthening the Test Act of 1673. Dissenters who had once taken the sacrament in order to qualify for civil, military, or magisterial office, were prohibited under very severe penalties from appearing afterwards in sectarian places of worship.

28. securing. Making safe. Cf. Shakespeare, Tempest, II. i. 310, 'We stood here securing your repose.'

Page 117.

6. the Pope's procession was a Whig demonstration performed annually on November 17, the anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth, to relieve the feelings of the Anti-Papal party. This year a particularly riotous procession had been prepared, but it was prevented by the seizure of all the images and accessories by the police in the middle of the preceding night.

17. Baker's Chronicle. Sir Richard Baker, who died in 1645, was the author of A Chronicle of the Kings of England. The observations which Sir Roger applied to Prince Eugene had not, of course, been written with regard to him.

23. Squire's. v. Appendix I.

25. waited on. Attended. Cf. Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, III. ii. 96:

We'll wait upon your grace till after supper.

30. the Supplement was 'an alternative edition of The Postboy, by Jacob Abellius, a postscriptorian, otherwise Boyer.' (Fox Bourne.)

SPECTATOR 329.

Page 118.

5. my paper upon Westminster Abbey. Spectator 26.

8. promised another paper upon the Tombs. 'I have left the repository of our English kings for the contemplation of another day.'

Page 119.

3. the sickness. The plague, which was at Dantzick in 1709.

5. a hackney-coach. A coach let out on hire, the precursor of the modern cab. The hackney-coach was introduced into London in 1625, and in 1715 their number had to be restricted to seven hundred. Cf. p. 105, 1. 22, hackney-boat.

15. engaged in my affections, not betrothed. Cf. p. 13, 1. 13.

34. Sir Cloudesly Shovel, the admiral, who was wrecked off the Scilly Isles in 1707.

Page 120.

2. Dr. Busby, the famous flogging head master, who ruled Westminster School for fifty-five years, 1640-95.

6. the little chapel on the right hand. St. Edmund's Chapel.

9. the lord who had cut off the king of Morocco's head, or who was supposed to have done so on the evidence of his crest.

'a Moor's head orientally crowned,' was Sir Bernard Brocas, a knight of the fourteenth century.

12. the statesman Cecil, in the Chapel of St. Nicholas. Lord Burleigh was Secretary of State to Edward VI., and Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth.

14. that martyr to good housewifery, who died by the prick of a needle. Elizabeth Russell, whose effigy is sculptured with one finger extended, in reality to direct attention to the death's-head at her feet. Cf. Goldsmith, The Citizen of the World, Letter xiii., in which the guide to the Abbey 'talked of a lady who died by pricking her finger; of a king with a golden head, and twenty such pieces of absurdity'.

21. the two coronation chairs. The ancient chair was made for Edward I. to enclose the stone of Scone, which he had brought from Scotland. It was the sacred coronation stone of the Scottish kings, and was supposed to have come originally from Palestine. Unfortunately for this theory it consists of Scotch sandstone, and, as Wills remarks, 'Sir Roger's question was extremely pertinent.' All succeeding sovereigns have been crowned on this chair and stone. It is now railed in, but in Addison's time it was a source of revenue to the guides, who demanded a fine of any person who should sit in it. The second chair was made for the coronation of William III. and Mary.

24. Jacob's pillar, or pillow, v. Genesis, xxviii. 11, 18, and 22.

30. trepanned. In the two earliest editions spelt trapanned, that is, entrapped. In later editions its spelling was influenced by the word trepan, a surgical operation.

Page 121.

1. Edward the Third's sword. A mighty weapon, seven feet long and weighing eighteen pounds, in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor.

8. touched for the evil. The evil is scrofula. Cf. the use of the sickness, p. 119, 1. 3, for the plague. It was long held to be cured by the royal touch. Dr. Johnson remembered being taken to London to be touched by Queen Anne when he was a small child. She was the last sovereign who practised touching for the evil. Cf. Macbeth, IV. iii. 140-56.

Henry the Fourth's tomb is at Canterbury Cathedral, Henry III. is probably intended.

10. fine reading in the casualties of that reign. In Baker's Chronicle the chapter on The Reign of King Henry IV contains a paragraph entitled Casualties happening in his time, relating the appearance of a 'blazing star', a visit of the Devil 'in the likeness of a Gray Friar', a flood, a fire, and finally a winter so severe 'that almost all small birds died through hunger'.

12. the figure of one of our English kings without an head. The effigy of Henry V. was made of oak covered with silver, but the head was of solid silver, and was stolen at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, 1536-9.

33. Norfolk-Buildings, in Norfolk Street, Strand, were originally the property of the Howards. For Sir Roger's residence, v. also Spectator 2, p. 6, 1. 17.

SPECTATOR 335.

Page 122.

9. the Committee was a play by Sir Robert Howard, 1662, the motive of which is ridicule of the Puritans.

12. Distressed Mother, an adaptation by Ambrose Philips of Racine's Andromaque, had been produced on March 17.

15. at the end of the dictionary, where biographical notices of famous persons used to be inserted.

18. the Mohocks. Ever since the Restoration the streets of London had been infested at night with bands of dissolute young men who assaulted and injured men and women by wounding and beating them. No sort of mischief came amiss to them; they effected endless damage by the breaking of windows, and so forth, and a favourite diversion consisted in binding a woman in a barrel, and rolling it down Snow Hill or Ludgate Hill. Their name was derived from the Mohawks, a tribe of North American Indians, and was used to denote savages in general. An especially flagrant outbreak of this Hooliganism was in progress at this time (v, Spectator 324, 332), and on March 17 a royal proclamation against the Mohocks had been issued.

20. black, v. note on p. 1, 1. 9.

21. Fleet Street ran beside the river Fleet, which is now covered over.

22. put on. Hastened.

24. to hunt me. The View Hallo was a favourite and doubtless a very amusing pastime of the Mohocks. The person elected to share in the game was run down and surrounded by a circle of sportsmen, who kept him rotating like a top by pricking him with their swords. Cf. Spectator 332.

26. in King Charles the Second's time the marauders were known as Muns and Tityre-Tus.

Page 123.

8. about four o'clock. For the time of the play, v. note on p. 8, 1. 5.

14. the battle of Steenkirk, 1692, in which the French defeated the allies under William III.

16. oaken plants. Cudgels.

22. the pit was the resort of the critics and people of fashion.

30. Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, was one of the warriors who entered Troy in the wooden horse. He killed Priam, and was given Andromache, the widow of Hector, as his share of the spoil. The play goes on to depict how Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, was forced by her parents to marry him, and how in consequence her lover Orestes raised the Delphians and killed him.

31. the King of France, whom Sir Roger regards as the leader of fashion.

32. a better strut. By reference to an advertisement of the play in the Spectator for March 17, we learn that the happy possessor of this strut was a certain Mr. Booth.

Page 124.

9. Pyrrhus his. This form of the possessive was in frequent use, especially after proper names ending in s.

21. begun. Obsolete in prose; now began.

25. the widow. Andromache.

27. Astyanax, the son of Hector and Andromache.

35. a very remarkable silence. For an account of the talking and disturbance that usually went on, v. Spectator 45 and 240.

Page 125.

6. Pylades, the close friend of Orestes.

9. the old fellow in whiskers. Phoenix, counsellor to Pyrrhus, a minor character.

12. smoke, make a butt of, amuse themselves with. Cf. modern schoolboy slang, roast.

26. justling. Hustling, jostling. Cf. Shakespeare, Tempest, III. ii. 29, 'I am in case to justle a constable.'

SPECTATOR 359.

Page 126.

16. that once. We should say that for once.

Page 127.

13. I had formerly boarded with a surgeon, and so was presumably not a strong man.

14. Put. A Devonshire word, the old wretch.

19. waited upon. Visited.

22. Lion's-Inn. An old Inn of Court, destroyed in 1863.

Page 128.

5. spindle. Thin like the stick with which the thread is twisted in spinning.

21. the book I had considered last Saturday. The Tenth Book of Paradise Lost. Addison's famous criticism of this poem, which appeared in the Saturday issue of the Spectator from January 5 to May 3, 1712, was written before Milton had come into his kingdom.

23. the following lines. Paradise Lost, x. 888-908.

SPECTATOR 383.

Page 129.

20. bounces. Rough, disorderly knocks.

26. Spring-Garden, The new gardens at Vauxhall, not the old Spring Gardens in Whitehall. They are mentioned by Pepys as a place of bad repute.

Page 130.

7. The Temple Stairs were the landing stairs in the grounds of the Temple. Although there was much wheeled traffic in London the river remained a very favourite highway.

14. bate him. Let him off, remit him. Cf. Shakespeare, Tempest, I. ii. 250:

Thou didst promise
To bate me a full year.

22. Faux-Hall. The new Spring-Garden took this name from Foukes de Breant, who married the Countess of Albemarle. It is the scene of the matchless Letter XLVI in Fanny Burney's Evelina, and the subject of many allusions in literature.

24. at La Hogue. The original issue reads in Bantry Bay, where the French fleet defeated the English in 1689. The memory of La Hogue, where the French were defeated in 1692 by the English and Dutch, would be more pleasing to the public.

31. London Bridge. Not the bridge now standing, which dates from 1825, but the old bridge built in the thirteenth century.

32. the seven wonders. The Pyramids, the walls and hanging gardens of Babylon, the tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, the temple of Diana at Ephesus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the statue of Jupiter by Phidias at Olympia, and the Pharos of Alexandria.

33. true Englishman. A phrase made popular by Defoe's True- born Englishman, 1701.

Page 131.

4. Temple-Bar. The old gateway between the Strand and Fleet Street, where traitors' heads used to be exhibited. On this side would be the western side, outside the city.

6. the fifty new churches. By the Act of 1710 a duty was imposed on coal for this and other purposes.

15. knight of the shire, v. note on p. 26, 1. 18.

22. put. v. note on p. 127, 1. 14.

23. Thames ribaldry. The waterway was famous for its verbal interchange, some of which has been recorded by Taylor the Water-Poet, Tom Brown, Swift and Dr. Johnson, and of which the amenities of our omnibus-drivers are but a Bowdlerized version.

34. Mahometan paradise. A paradise of the senses.

Page 132.

4. your nightingale, v. note on p. 98, 1. 25.

8. a mask. A woman in a mask.

16. hung beef. Beef preserved in salt or spices

SPECTATOR 517.

Page 133.

5. sensibly. Keenly. Cf. Shakespeare, Hamlet IV. v. 150:

And am most sensibly in grief for it.

13-14. promoting an address … in which he succeeded. Urging the adoption of an address which actually was adopted.

27. you was. A very frequent use.

29. country. Country-side, neighbourhood. Cf. Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor:

He's a justice of peace in his country.

Page 134.

14. a lightning before death. These words occur in Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, V. iii. 90.

33. peremptorily. Authoritatively, positively. Cf. Shakespeare, I Henry IV, II. iv. 472:

Peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff.

Page 135.

7. Quorum, v. note on p. 7, 1. 9.

16. quit-rents. Charges on the estate.

23. joyed himself. Enjoyed himself, been cheerful.

Page 136.

3. Act of Uniformity. Acts of Uniformity were passed in 1549, 1558, 1662, and 1706.

APPENDIX I

ON COFFEE-HOUSES

The first English coffee-house was opened in Oxford in 1650, and by the beginning of the eighteenth century the coffee-house had become the regular resort of every Londoner who could afford to pay the twopence for the dish of the beverage which admitted him to its society. Men of similar tastes assembled at the same house, so that gradually each of the principal coffee-houses became a centre for a particular kind of society. Thus Will's (p. 3, 1. 17), at the corner of Russell Street and Bow Street, Covent Garden, which had been Dryden's favourite coffee-house, became the haunt of the wits and men of letters; it was from here that Steele dated his articles on poetry for the Tatler. St. James's (p. 3, 1. 22) in St. James's Street, was frequented by politicians and men of fashion; it was a Whig house, and the head quarters of the Tatler's foreign and domestic news (cf. Spectator 403). The Grecian (p. 3, 1. 25), Devereux Court, Temple, was the oldest of all the London coffee-houses; here gathered the barristers of the Temple, and here the Tatler finds the material of his papers on learning, while men from the Exchange assembled at Jonathan's (p. 3, 1. 29) in Exchange Alley, and doctors, clerics, and men of science from the Royal Society at Child's (p. 3, 1. 19), in St. Paul's Churchyard. Coffee-houses were very numerous; we find mention within the limits of these papers of two others, Jenny Mann's (p. 24, 1. 24), in the Tilt-Yard, Charing-Cross, and Squire's (p. 117, 1. 23), in Fulwood's Rents, Holborn, and Ashton gives the names of between four and five hundred, while three thousand are known to have existed in 1708.

There were also a few chocolate-houses, notably White's and the Cocoa-Tree (p. 3, 1. 25), the Tory centre, both in St. James's Street. White's was a great gambling-house; Steele dated from it his articles on Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment, and its destruction by fire, which took place in 1723, is depicted as the scene of Plate VI of Hogarth's The Rake's Progress, in which the Rake ruins himself by gaming.

APPENDIX II

ON THE SPECTATOR'S ACQUAINTANCE

Various suggestions have been made concerning the identity of the characters drawn in these papers. Tradition reported that Sir Roger was drawn from Sir John Pakington or Packington, Knight of Worcester. This theory was maintained by Tyers in 1783, but has been conclusively disproved by Wills. Mr. R. E. H. Duke has made an exhaustive study to show that his original was Richard Duke, of Bulford, near Milston, where Addison's early years were spent.

For the prototype of Sir Andrew Freeport Mr. Henry Martin has been suggested. He was one of the authors of The British Merchant; he contributed No. 180, and probably other papers, to the Spectator.

Rumour has also identified Will Honeycomb with Pope's friend, Colonel Cleland; Captain Sentry with Colonel Kempenfeldt, father of Admiral Kempenfeldt of the Royal George; and Will Wimble with Thomas Morecraft, a Yorkshire gentleman introduced to Addison by Steele. Will Wimble seems, however, to be more nearly akin to the Hon. Thomas Gules of the Tatler (256), who 'produced several witnesses that he had never employed himself beyond the twisting of a whip, or the making of a pair of nut-crackers, in which he only worked for his diversion, in order to make a present now and then to his friends'; [Footnote: Cf. p. 20, I, 13 and p. 21, II, 2-11.] and the imaginary nature of Will Honeycomb's existence is sufficiently indicated by the style in which Addison's eighth and supplementary volume of the Spectator is dedicated to him.

The same questionable authority has given to the perverse widow the name of Mrs. Catharine Bovey, or Boevey, of Flaxley Abbey, Gloucestershire, to whom Steele dedicated the second volume of the Ladies' Library.

It is, however, very doubtful that the characters of the Spectator were drawn from individual persons. Budgell certainly says of Theophrastus that he 'was the Spectator of the age he lived in; he drew the pictures of particular men', but Tickell, who was Addison's friend and literary executor, speaks expressly of 'the feigned person of the Author, and of the several characters that compose his club', and the Spectator himself in two papers exhorts every reader 'never to think of himself or any one of his friends or enemies aimed at in what is said', [Footnote: Spectator 34] for 'when I draw a faulty character I … take care to dash it with such particular circumstances as may prevent all such ill-natured applications.' [Footnote: Spectator 262] The characters are almost certainly created by the Spectator's genius out of the material gathered from his observation of many men.

APPENDIX III

ON THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER

After Sir Roger's visit to town we hear no more of him until the club is startled by the receipt of his butler's letter announcing his death. Some of his admirers have devised a sentimental reason for his decease. In Budgell's Bee we read that "Mr. Addison was so fond of this character that a little before he laid down the Spectator (foreseeing that some nimble gentleman would catch up his pen the moment he quitted it) he said to our intimate friend with a certain warmth in his expression, which he was not often guilty of, 'I'll kill Sir Roger that nobody else may murder him'" Dr. Johnson follows Budgell, and assigns to Addison Cervantes' reason, who finds himself obliged to kill Don Quixote, 'being of opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand would do him wrong.'

But there was a more inevitable reason for the death of the knight. Six more weeks saw the end of the original Spectator, the joint production of Addison and Steele, and their creators were now engaged in disposing of their characters in various ways. Chalmers remarks that 'The killing of Sir Roger was sufficiently accounted for without supposing that Addison despatched him in a fit of anger; for the work was about to close, and it appeared necessary to close the club.'

APPENDIX IV

ON THE SPECTATOR'S POPULARITY

The great vogue of the Spectator gives some measure of its extraordinary influence. Already in the tenth number we read that the daily circulation is three thousand, and later, in Spectator 124, Addison writes: 'My bookseller tells me the demand for these my papers increases daily.' Of particular papers we know that twenty or thirty thousand were sold, and Mr. Forster estimates that these numbers must be multiplied by six to represent a corresponding popularity in our day.

On July 31, 1712, Addison wrote: 'This is the day on which many eminent authors will probably publish their last words.' On August 1 the Stamp Tax came into operation, and every half-sheet periodical paid a duty of a half-penny. The price of the Spectator rose to twopence, and only half the former number of copies were sold, yet towards the close of the seventh volume about ten thousand copies were being issued daily.

After publication the papers were collected and issued in eight volumes, and nine or ten thousand copies of this first edition were sold at the price of a guinea a volume.

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Table of Contents

- THE COVERLEY PAPERS

- FROM THE 'SPECTATOR' EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES, BY O. M. MYERS

- PREFACE

- CONTENTS

- INTRODUCTION

- INTRODUCTION

- ADDISON: COVERLEY PAPERS

- NO. 120. WEDNESDAY, JULY 18.

- NO. 121. THURSDAY, JULY 19.

- NO. 335. TUESDAY, MARCH 25.

- NOTES

- SPECTATOR 2.

- SPECTATOR 106.

- SPECTATOR 107.

- SPECTATOR 108.

- SPECTATOR 109.

- SPECTATOR 110.

- SPECTATOR 112.

- SPECTATOR 113.

- SPECTATOR 114.

- SPECTATOR 115.

- SPECTATOR 116.

- SPECTATOR 117.

- SPECTATOR 118.

- SPECTATOR 119

- SPECTATOR 120.

- SPECTATOR 121.

- SPECTATOR 122.

- SPECTATOR 123.

- SPECTATOR 125.

- SPECTATOR 126.

- SPECTATOR 127.

- SPECTATOR 128.

- SPECTATOR 129.

- SPECTATOR 130.

- SPECTATOR 131.

- SPECTATOR 132.

- SPECTATOR 269.

- SPECTATOR 329.

- SPECTATOR 335.

- SPECTATOR 359.

- SPECTATOR 383.

- SPECTATOR 517.

- APPENDIX I
- APPENDIX II
- APPENDIX III
- APPENDIX IV
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE