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demands your animadversion, for the regulat- How art thou, oh my soul, stolen from thying so noble an entertainment as that of the self! how is all my attention broken! my stage. It were to be wished, that all who write books are blank paper, and my friends infor it hereafter would raise their genius, by truders. I have no hope of quiet but from your the ambition of pleasing people of the best un-pity. To grant it would make more for your derstanding; and leave others who show noth- triumph. To give pain is the tyranny, to make ing of the human species but risibility, to seek happy the true empire of beauty. If you their diversion at the bear-garden, or some would consider aright, you would find an other privileged place, where reason and good manners have no right to disturb them. August 8, 1711. T.

'I am, &c.'

No. 142.] Monday, August 13, 1711.
Irrupta tenet copula- Hor. Lib. 1. Od. xiii. 12.
Whom love's unbroken bond unites.

agreeable change in dismissing the attendance
of a slave, to receive the complaisance of a
companion. I bear the former in hopes of the
latter condition. As I live in chains without
murmuring at the power which inflicts them,
so I could enjoy freedom without fogetting
the mercy that gave it.

'I am, Madam,
"Your most devoted
"most obedient servant.'

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THE following letters being genuine, and Though I made him no declarations in the images of a worthy passion, I am willing his favour, you see he had hopes of me when to give the old lady's admonition to myself, he writ this in the month following. and the representation of her own happiness; a place in my writings.

'MR. SPECTATOR,

August 9. 1711.

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MADAM,

September 3, 1671. "Before the light this morning dawned upon the earth I awaked, and lay in expectation of 'I am now in the sixty-seventh year of my its return, not that it could give any new sense age, and read you with approbation; but meof joy to me, but as I hoped it would bless you thinks you do not strike at the root of the with its cheerful face, after a quiet which I greatest evil in life, which is the false notion wished you last night. If my prayers are of gallantry in love. It is, and has long been, heard, the day appeared with all the influence upon a very ill foot; but I who have been a of a merciful Creator upon your person and wife forty years, and was bred up in a way actions. Let others, my lovely charmer, talk that has made me ever since very happy, see of a blind being that disposes their hearts, I through the folly of it. In a word, sir, when I was a young woman, all who avoided the vices of the age were very carefully educated, and all fantastical objects were turned out of our sight. The tapestry-hangings, with the great and venerable simplicity of the scripture stories, had better effects than now the loves of Venus and Adonis, or Bacchus and Ariadne,

in your fine present prints. The gentleman am married to made love to me in rapture, but it was the rapture of a Christian and a man of honour, not a romantic hero or a whining coxcomb. This put our life upon a right basis. To give you an idea of our regard one to another, I enclose to you several of his letters, writ forty years ago, when my lover; and one writ the other day, after so many years coha

bitation.

Your servant,

ANDROMACHE.

C MADAM, August 7, 1671. "If my vigilance, and ten thousand wishes for your welfare and repose, could have any force, you last night slept in security, and had every good angel in your attendance. To have my thoughts ever fixed on you, to live in constant fear of every accident to which human life is liable, and to send up my hourly prayers to avert them from you; I say, madam, thus to think, and thus to suffer, is what I do for her who is in pain at my approach, and calls all my tender sorrow impertinence. You are now before my eyes. my eyes that are ready to flow with tenderness, but cannot give relief to my gushing heart, that dictates what I am now saving, and yearns to tell you all its achings.

contemn their low images of love. I have not a thought which relates to you, that I cannot with confidence beseech the All-seeing Power to bless me in. May he direct you in all your steps, and reward your innocence, your sanctiy of manners, your prudent youth, and becoming piety, with the continuance of his grace and protection. This is an unusual language to ladies; but you have a mind elevated above the giddy notions of a sex insnared by flattery and misled by a false and short adoration into a solid and long contempt. Beauty, my fairest creature, palls in the possession, but I love also your mind: your soul is as dear to me as my own; and if the advantages of a liberal education, some knowledge, and as much contempt of the world, joined with the endeavours towards a life of strict virtue and religion, can qualify me to raise new ideas in a breast so well disposed as your's is, our days will pass away with joy; and old age instead of introducing melancholy prospects of decay, give us hope of eternal youth in a better life. I have but few minutes from the duty of my employment to write in, and without time to read over what I have writ, therefore beseech you to pardon the first hints of my mind, which I have expressed in so little or

der.

"I am, dearest creature,
"Your most obedient

"most devoted servant."

*This and the following letters in this Number are all genuine, having been written by Sir Richard Steele to Miss Scurlock, afterwards Lady Steelc.-See Steele's Letters, Vol. II.

"The two next were written after the day for our marriage was fixed.

66 MADAM, September 25, 1671. "It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend business. As for me, all that speak to me find me out, and I must lock myself up, or other people will do it for me. A gentleman asked me this morning, What news from Holland,' and I answered, She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know when I had been last at Windsor, I replied, She designs to go with me. Pr'ythee, allow me at least to kiss your hand before the appointed day, that my mind may be in some composure. Methinks I could write a volume to you, but all the language on earth would fall in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion,

"I am ever your's."

Sept. 30, 1671, 7 in the morning.

66

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I heartily beg your pardon for my omission to write yesterday. It was no failure of my tender regard for you; but having been very much perplexed in my thoughts on the subject of my last, made me determine to suspend speaking of it until I came myself. But my lovely creature, know it is not in the power of age, or misfortune, or any other accident which hangs over human life, to take from me the pleasing esteem I have for you, or the memory of the bright figure you appeared in, when you gave your hand and heart to, "Madam, your most grateful husband, and obedient servant."

T.

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For life is only life, when blest with health.

66 DEAR CREATURE, "Next to the influence of heaven, I am to to thank you that I see the returning day with It is an unreasonable thing some men expect pleasure. To pass my evenings in so sweet a of their acquaintance. They are ever comconversation, and have the esteem of a woman plaining that they are out of order, or displeasof your merit, has in it a particularity of hap-ed, or they know not how, and are so far from piness no more to be expressed than returned. letting that be a reason for retiring to their own But I am, my lovely creature, contented to be homes, that they make it their argument on the obliged side, and to employ all my days for coming into company. What has any body in new endeavours to convince you and all the to do with accounts of a man's being indisposworld of the sense I have of your condescen-ed but his physician? If a man laments in comsion in choosing,

"Madam, your most faithful,

"most obedient humble servant." "He was, when he writ the following letter, as agreeable and pleasant a man as any in England.

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MADAM,

October 20, 1671.

pany, where the rest are in humour enough to enjoy themselves, he should not take it ill if a servant is ordered to present him with a porringer of caudle or posset-drink, by way of admonition that he go home to bed. That part of life which we ordinarily understand by the word conversation, is an indulgence to the so"I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but ciable part of our make; and should incline us I am forced to write from a coffee-house where to bring our proportion of good-will or goodI am attending about business. There is a dir-humour among the friends we meet with, and ty crowd of busy faces all around me talking not to trouble them with relations which must of money, while all my ambition, all my affliction. Cares, distresses, diseases, uneasiof necessity oblige them to a real or feigned wealth, is love: love, which animates my heart, sweetens my humour, enlarges my soul, nesses, and dislikes of our own, are by no and affects every action of my life. It is to means to be obtruded upon our friends. If my lovely charmer I owe that many noble ideas we would consider how little of this vicissitude are continually affixed to my words and ac-of motion and rest, which we call life, is tions: it is the natural effect of that generous spent with satisfaction, we should be more passion to create in the admirers some simili- tender of our friends, than to bring them littude of the object admired; thus, my dear, tle sorrows which do not belong to them. There is no real life but cheerful life; theream I every day to improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, to that fore valetudinarians should be sworn, before heaven which made thee such, and join with they enter into company, not to say a word of me to implore its influence on our tender inno-themselves until the meeting breaks up. It is cent hours, and beseech the author of love to not here pretended, that we should be always bless the rites he has ordained, and mingle sitting with chaplets of flowers round our with our happiness a just sense of our transient heads, or be crowned with roses in order to condition, and a resignation to his will, which make our entertainment agreeable to us; but only can regulate our minds to a steady endea-if (as it is usually observed) they who resolve vour to please him and each other. to be merry, seldom are so; it will be much "I am, for ever, your faithful servant.' more unlikely for us to be well-pleased, if they are admitted who are always complaining they "I will not trouble you with more letters are sad. Whatever we do, we should keep up at this time, but if you saw the poor withered the cheerfulness of our spirits, and never let hand which sends you these minutes, I am sure them sink below an inclination at least to be you will smile to think that there is one who is well-pleased. The way to this, is to keep our so gallant as to speak of it still as so welcome a bodies in exercise, our minds at ease. present, after forty years possession of the insipid state wherein neither are in vigour, is

woman whom he writes to.

VOL. I.

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24

That

sickness, as the parish clerks do of mortality, you would not find, in an account of seven days, one in thirty that was not downright sick or indisposed, or but a very little better than she was, and so forth.

not to be accounted any part of our portion looks like a penance to breathe the same air of being. When we are in the satisfaction of with them. You see this is so very true, that some innocent pleasure, or pursuit of some a great part of ceremony and good-breeding laudable design, we are in the possession of among the ladies turns upon their uneasiness; life, of human life. Fortune will give us dis- and I will undertake, if the how-d'ye-servants appointments enough, and nature is attended of our women were to make a weekly bill of with infirmities enough, without our adding to the unhappy side of our account by our spleen or ill-humour. Poor Cottilus, among so many real evils, a chronical distemper and a narrow fortune, is never heard to complain. That equal spirit of his, which any man may have, It is certain that to enjoy life and health as a that, like him, will conquer pride, vanity, and af- constant feast, we should not think pleasure fectation, and follow nature, is not to be broken, necessary, but if possible, to arrive at an equabecause it has no points to contend for. To be lity of mind. It is as mean to be overjoyed anxious for nothing but what nature demands upon occasions of good fortune, as to be deas necessary, if it is not the way to an estate, jected in circumstances of distress. Laughter is the way to what men aim at by getting an in one condition is as unmanly as weeping in estate. This temper will preserve health in the other. We should not form our minds to the body, as well as tranquillity in the mind. expect transport on every occasion, but know Cottilus sees the world in a hurry, with the how to make it enjoyment to be out of pain. same scorn that a sober person sees a man Ambition, envy, vagrant desire, or impertinent drunk. Had he been contented with what he mirth, will take up our minds, without we can ought to have been, how could, says he, such possess ourselves in that sobriety of heart a one have met with such a disappointment? If another had valued his mistress for what he ought to have loved her, he had not been in her power. If her virtue had had a part of his passion, her levity had been his cure; she could not then have been false and amiable at the same time.

which is above all pleasures, and can be felt
much better than described. But the ready
way, I believe, to the right enjoyment of life,
is by a prospect towards another, to have but
a very mean opinion of it.
A great author of
our time* has set this in an excellent light,
when with a philosophic pity of human life,
he spoke of it in his Theory of the Earth in
the following manner:

Since we cannot promise ourselves constant health, let us endeavour at such a temper as may be our best support in the decay of it. 'For what is this life but a circulation of Uranius has arrived at that composure of soul, little mean actions? We lie down and rise and wrought himself up to such a neglect of again, dress and undress, feed and wax hunevery thing with which the generality of man-gry, work or play, and are weary, and then kind is enchanted, that nothing but acute pains we lie down again, and the circle returns. We can give him disturbance, and against those spend the day in trifles, and when the night too he will tell his intimate friends he has a se- comes we throw ourselves into the bed of folly, cret which gives him present ease. Uranius is amongst dreams, and broken thoughts, and so thoroughly persuaded of another life, and wild imaginations. Our reason lies asleep by endeavours so, sincerely to secure an interest us, and we are for the time as arrant brutes as in it, that he looks upon pain but as a quicken-those that sleep in the stalls, or in the field. ing of his pace to a home, where he shall be Are not the capacities of men higher than better provided for than in his present apart- these? And ought not his ambition and expecment. Instead of the melancholy views which tations to be greater? Let us be adventurers for others are apt to give themselves, he will tell another world. It is at least a fair and noble you that he has forgot he is mortal, nor will he chance; and there is nothing in this worth our think of himself as such. He thinks at the thoughts or our passions. If we should be distime of his birth he entered into an eternal be-appointed, we are still no worse than the rest ing; and the short article of death he will not of our fellow mortals; and if we succeed in allow an interruption of life; since that mo- our expectations, we are eternally happy.' ment is not of half the duration as is his ordinary sleep. Thus is his being one uniform and consistent series of cheerful diversions and moderate cares, rity. Health to him is more than pleasure to another man, and sickness less affecting to him than indisposition is to others.

without fear or hope of futu-No. 144.] Wednesday, August 15, 1711.

I must confess, if one does not regard life after this manner, none but idiots can pass it away with any tolerable patience. Take a fine lady who is of a delicate frame, and you may observe, from the hour she rises, a certain wearinesss of all that passes about her. I know more than one who is much too nice to be quite alive. They are sick of such strange frightful people that they meet; one is so awkward, and another so disagreeable, that it

T.

Nôris quàm elegans formarum Spectator siem. Ter. Eun. Act. iii. Sc. 5. You shall see how nice a judge of beauty I am.

BEAUTY has been the delight and torment of the world ever since it began. The philosophers have felt its influence so sensibly, that almost every one of them has left us some saying or other, which intimated that he too well

* Dr. Thomas Burnet, Master of the Charter-house, author of "Telluris sacra Theoria."

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knew the power of it. One has told us, that tion to look very careless, there is such a smart a graceful person is a more powerful recom- thing to be said at the same time, that the de mendation than the best letter that can be writ sign of being admired destroys itself. Thus in our favour. Anothert desires the possessor the unhappy Merab, though a wit and beauty, of it to consider it as a mere gift of nature, is allowed to be neither, because she will aland not any perfection of his own. A third ways be both. calls it a short-lived tyranny;' a fourth a Albacinda has the skill as well as power of 'silent fraud,' because it imposes upon us with-pleasing. Her form is majestic, but her aspect out the help of language; but I think Carnea- humble. All good meu should beware of the des spoke as much like a philosopher as any of destroyer. She will speak to you like your them, though more like a lover, when he calls sister, until she has you sure; but is the most it royalty without force.' It is not indeed to vexatious of tyrants when you are so. Her be denied, but there is something irresistible in familiarity of behaviour, her indifferent ques a beauteous form; the most severe will not tions, and general conversation, make the silly pretend, that they do not feel an immediate part of her votaries full of hopes, while the prepossession in favour of the handsome. No wise fly from her power. She well knows she one denies them the privilege of being first is too beautiful and too witty to be indifferent heard, and being regarded before others in to any who converse with her, and therefore matters of ordinary consideration. At the knows she does not lessen herself by familiarisame time the handsome should consider that ty, but gains occasions of admiration by seemit is a possession, as it were, foreign to them.ing ignorance of her perfections. No one can give it himself or preserve it when Eudosia adds to the height of her stature a they have it. Yet so it is, that people can bear nobility of spirit which still distinguishes her any quality in the world better than beauty. It above the rest of her sex. Beauty in others is is the consolation of all who are naturally too lovely, in others agreeable, in others attractive; much affected with the force of it, that a little but in Eudosia it is commanding. Love towards attention, if a man can attend with judgment, Eudosia is a sentiment like the love of glory. will cure them. Handsome people usually are The lovers of other women are softened into so fantastically pleased with themselves, that fondness, the admirers of Eudosia exalted if they do not kill at first sight, as the phrase into ambition. is, a second interview disarms them of all their power. But I shall make this paper rather a warning-piece to give notice where the danger is, than to propose instructions how to avoid it when you have fallen in the way of it. Handsome men shall be the subject of another chapter, the women shall take up the present discourse.

Eucratia presents herself to the imagination with a more kindly pleasure, and as she is woman, her praise is wholly feminine. If we were to form an image of dignity in a man, we should give him wisdom and valour, as being essential to the character of manhood. In like manner, if you describe a right woman in a laudable sense, she should have gentle Amaryllis, who has been in town but one softness, tender fear, and all those parts of ilfe winter, is extremely improved with the arts of which distinguish her from the other sex; good-breeding, without leaving nature. She with some subordination to it, but such an inhas not lost the native simplicity of her aspect, feriority that makes her still more lovely. to substitute that patience of being stared at, Eucratia is that creature, she is all over wowhich is the usual triumph and distinction of a man, kindness is all her art, and beauty all town lady. In public assemblies you meet her her arms. Her look, her voice, her gesture, careless eye diverting itself with the objects and whole behaviour is truly feminine. A around her, insensible that she herself is one goodness mixed with fear gives a tincture to of the brightest in the place. all her behaviour. It would be savage to of Dulcissa is of quite another make, she is al-fend her, and cruelty to use art to gain her. most a beauty by nature, but more than one by Others are beautiful, but, Eucratia, thou art art. If it were possible for her to let her fan beauty! or any limb about her rest, she would do some part of the execution she meditates; but though she designs herself a prey, she will not stay to be taken. No painter can give you words for the different aspects of Dulcissa in half a moment, wherever she appears: so little does she accomplish what she takes so much pains for, to be gay and careless.

Omniamante is made for deceit, she has an aspect as innocent as the famed Lucrece, but a mind as wild as the more famed Cleopatra, Her face speaks a vestal, but her heart a Mes salina. Who that beheld Omniamant's negli gent unobserving air, would believe that she hid under that regardless manner the witty prostitute, the rapacious wench, the prodigal Merab is attended with all the charms of courtesan ? She can, when she pleases, adorn woman and accomplishments of man. It is those eyes with tears like an infant that is chid; not to be doubted but she has a great deal of she can cast down that pretty face in conwit, if she were not such a beauty; and she fusion, while you rage with jealousy, and would have more beauty had she not so much storm at her perfidiousness; she can wipe her wit. Affectation prevents her excellencies eyes, tremble and look frighted, until you from walking together. If she has a mind to think yourself a brute for your rage, own speak such a thing, it must be done with such yourself an offender, beg pardon, and make an air of her body; and if she has an inclina her new presents.

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But I go too far in reporting only the dangers in beholding the beauteous, which I de

sign for the instruction of the fair as well as staked immediately in that gentleman's hands their beholders; and shall end this rhapsody (pointing to one smoking at another table) with mentioning what I thought was well that I was utterly mistaken. I was dumb for enough said of an ancient sage* to a beauti-want of ten guineas; he went on unmercifully ful youth, whom he saw admiring his own to triumph over my ignorance how to take him figure in brass. What, said the philosopher, up, and told the whole room he had read Tacould that image of yours say for itself if it citus twenty times over, and such a remarkcould speak? It might say, (answered the able incident as that could not escape him. youth) that it is very beautiful. And are He has at this time three considerable wagers not you ashamed,' replied the cynic, 'to value depending between him and some of his comyourself upon that only of which piece of panions, who are rich enough to hold an arbrass is capable?' T.gument with him. He has five guineas upon questions in geography, two that the Isle of Wight is a peninsula, and three guineas to one that the world is round. We have a gentleman comes to our coffee-house, who deals mightily in antique scandal; my disputant has laid him twenty pieces upon a point of history, to wit, that Cæsar never lay with Cato's sister, as is scandalously reported by some people.

a

No. 145] Thursday, August 16, 1711.

Stultitiam patiuntur opes

Hor. Lib. 1. Ep. xviii. 29.

Their folly pleads the privilege of wealth.

If the following enormities are not amended upon the first mentioning, I desire farther notice from my correspondents.

6 MR. SPECTATOR,

'Your humble servant.'

Coffee-house near the Temple, Aug. 12, 1711. MR. SPECTATOR,

'There are several of this sort of fellows in town, who wager themselves into statesmen, historians, geographers, mathematicians, and 'I am obliged to you for your discourse the every other art, when the persons with whom other day upon frivolous disputants, who with they talk have not wealth equal to their learngreat warmth and enumeration of many cir-ing. I beg of you to prevent, in these youngcumstances and authorities, undertake to prove sters, this compendious way to wisdom, which matters which nobody living denies. You costs other people so much time and pains : cannot employ yourself more usefully than in and you will oblige adjusting the laws of disputation in coffeehouses and accidental companies, as well as in more formal debates. Among many other things which your own experience must suggest to you, it will be very obliging if you tunes or whistles in a full house. Pray let 'Here is a young gentleman that sings opera please to take notice of wagerers. I will not here repeat what Hudibras says of such dispu- if he were in an empty room. him know that he has no right to act here as tants, which is so true, that it is almost pro- divide the spaces of a public room, and certify Be pleased to verbial; but shall only acquaint you with a set of young fellows of the inns of court, whose whistlers, singers, and common orators, that .fathers have provided for them so plentifully, are heard farther than their portion of the that they need not be very anxious to get law room comes to, that the law is open, and that into their heads for the service of their coun- there is an equity which will relieve us from try at the bar; but are of those who are sent such as interrupt us in our lawful discourse, (as the phrase of parents is) to the Temple to as much as against such who stop us on the know how to keep their own. One of these road. I take these persons, Mr. Spectator. gentlemen is very loud and captious at a cof-to be such trespassers as the officer in your fee-house which I frequent, and being in his stage-coach, and am of the same sentiment with counsellor Ephraim.

nature troubled with a humour of contradic

pleases.

It is true the

tion, though withal excessively ignorant, he young man is rich, and, as the vulgar say, has found a way to indulge this temper, go on needs not care for any body; but sure that is in idleness and ignorance, and yet still give him-no authority for him to go whistle where he self the air of a very learned and knowing inan, by the strength of his pocket. The mis'I am, Sir, your most humble servant. fortune of the thing is, I have, as it happens 'P. S. I have chambers in the Temple, and sometimes, a greater stock of learning than of here are students that learn upon the hautmoney. The gentleman I am speaking of takes boy: pray desire the benchers that all lawyers advantage of the narrowness of my circum- who are proficients in wind-music may lodge stances in such a manner, that he has read to the Thames."

MR. SPECTATOR,

all that I can pretend to, and runs me down with such a positive air, and with such powerful arguments, that from a very learned 'We are a company of young women who person I am thought a mere pretender. Not pass our time very much together, and obliged long ago I was relating that I had read such a by the mercenary humour of the men to be as passage in Tacitus, up starts my young gen-mercenarily inclined as they are. There visits tleman in a full company, and pulling out his among us an old bachelor whom each of us purse offered to lay me ten guineas, to be has a mind to. The fellow is rich, and knows he may have any of us, therefore is particular to none, but excessively ill-bred. His plea santry consists in romping, he snatches kisses

*Antisthenes, the founder of the sect of Cynic philo

sophers.

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