a very mean one until of very late years, I with honour and gratitude, has very frequentshould have no one great satisfaction_left; ly talked to me upon the subject of marriage. but if I live to the tenth of March, 1714, and all my securities are good, I shall be worth fifty thousand pounds. 'I am, Sir, 'Your most humble servant, MR. SPECTATOR, I was in my younger years engaged partly by his advice, and partly by my own inclinations, in the courtship of a person who had a great deal of beauty, and did not at my first approaches seem to have any aversion to me; but as my natural taciturnity hindered me from showing myself to the best advantage, 'You will infinitely oblige a distressed lo- she by degrees began to look upon me as a ver, if you will insert in your very next paper, very silly fellow, and being resolved to regard the following letter to my mistress. You must merit more than any thing else in the perknow, I am not a person apt to despair, but sons who made their applications to her, she she has got an old humour of stopping short married a captain of dragoons who happenunaccountably, and as she herself told a con- ed to be beating up for recruits in those fidant of hers, she has cold fits. These fits parts. shall last her a month or six weeks together; This unlucky accident has given me an averand as she falls into them without provocation, sion to pretty fellows ever since, and discourso it is to be hoped she will return from them without the merit of new services. But life and love will not admit of such intervals, therefore pray let her be admonished as fol lows: MADAM, 'I love you, and honour you: therefore pray do not tell me of waiting until decencies, until forms, until humours are consulted and aged me from trying my fortune with the fairsex. The observations which I made at this conjuncture, and the repeated advices which received at that time from the good old man above-mentioned, have produced the following essay upon love and marriage. I nerally that which passes in courtship, proviThe pleasantest part of a man's life is geded his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul rise in the pursuit. It is easier for an artful man who is not in gratified. If you have that happy constitution as to be indolent for ten weeks together, you should consider that all that while I burn in impatiences and fevers: but still you say it love to persuade his mistress he has a passion will be time enough, though I and you too for her, and to succeed in his pursuits, than grow older while we are yet talking. Which for one who loves with the greatest violence. do you think the most reasonable, that you True love has ten thousand griefs, impatiences, should alter a state of indifference for happi- and resentments, that render a man unaminess, and that to oblige ine; or I live in tor-able in the eyes of the person whose affection ment, and that to lay no manner of obligation he solicits; besides that it sinks his figure, on you? While I indulge your insensibility I am doing nothing; if you favour my passion, you are bestowing bright desires, gay hopes, generous cares, noble resolutions, and transporting raptures upon, 'Madam, 'Your most devoted humble servant.' MR. SPECTATOR, 'Here is a gentlewoman lodges in the same house with me, that I never did any injury to in my whole life; and she is always railing at me to those that she knows will tell me of it. Do not you think she is in love with me? or would you have me break my mind yet, or Your servant, not? " MR. SPECTATOR, 'T. B.' gives him fears, apprehensions, and poornessof spirit, and often makes him appear ridiculous where he has a mind to recommend himself. Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy, that are preceded by long courtship. The passion should strike root, and gather strength before marriage be grafted on it. A long course of hopes and expectations fixes the idea in our minds, and habituates us to a fondness of the person beloved. There is nothing of so great importance to us, as the good qualities of one to whom we join ourselves for life; they do not only make our present state agreeable, but often determine cur happiness to all eternity. Where the choice is left to friends, the chief point under consideration is an estate; where the 'I am a footman in a great family, and am parties choose for themselves, their thoughts in love with the house-maid. We were all at turn most upon the person. They have both hot-cockles last night in the hall these holy-their reasons. The first would procure many days; when I lay down and was blinded, she conveniences and pleasures of life to the party pulled off her shoe, and hit me with the heel such a rap, as almost broke my head to pieces. Pray, sir, was this love or spite ?' No. 261.] Saturday, December 29, 1711. T. Frag. vet. Poet. Wedlock's an ill men eagerly embrace. My father, whom I mentioned in my first speculation, and whom I must always name whose interests they espouse; and at the same time may hope that the wealth of their friends will turn to their own credit and advantage. The others are preparing for themselves a perpetual feast. A good person does not only raise but continue love, and breeds a secret pleasure and complacency in the beholder, when the first heats of desire are extinguished. It puts the wife or husband in countenance, both among friends and strangers, and generally fills the family with a healthy and beautiful race of children. I should prefer a woman that is agreeable in sits them every morning, and has in it none of my own eye, and not deformed in that of the those seasonings that recommend so many of world, to a celebrated beauty. If you marry the writings which are in vogue among us. one remarkable beautiful, you must have a vio- As, on the one side, my paper has not in it lent passion for her, or you have not the pro- a single word of news, a reflection in politics, per taste for her charms; and if you have such nor a stroke of party; so, on the other, there a passion for her, it is odds but it would be im- are no fashionable touches of infidelity, no obbittered with fears and jealousies. scene ideas, no satires upon priesthood, marGood-nature and evenness of temper will riage, and the like popular topics of ridicule; give you an easy companion for life; virtue no private scandal, nor any thing that may tend and good sense, an agreeable friend; love and to the defamation of particular persons, famiconstancy, a good wife or husband. Where lies, or societies. we meet one person with all these accomplish- There is not one of those above-mentioned ments, we find an hundred without any one subjects that would not sell a very indifferent of them. The world, notwithstanding, is more paper, could I think of gratifying the public intent on trains and equipages, and all the by such mean and base methods. But notshowy parts of life: we love rather to dazzle withstanding I have rejected every thing that the multitude, than consult our proper inter- savours of party, every thing that is loose and ests; and as I have elsewhere observed, it is immoral, and every thing that might create one of the most unaccountable passions of hu- uneasiness in the minds of particular persons, man nature, that we are at greater pains to I find that the demand for my papers has inappear easy and happy to others, than really creased every month since their first appearto make ourselves so. Of all disparities, that in humour makes the most unhappy marriages, yet scarce enters into our thoughts at the contracting of them. Several that are in this respect unequally yoked, and uneasy for life with a person of a particular character, might have been pleased and happy with a person of a contrary one, notwithstanding they are both perhaps equally virtuous and laudable in their kind. ance in the world. This does not perhaps reflect so much honour upon myself, as on my readers, who give a much greater attention to discourses of virtue and morality than ever I expected, or indeed could hope. When I broke loose from that great body of writers who have employed their wit and parts in propagating vice and irreligion, I did not question but I should be treated as an odd kind of fellow that had a mind to appear sinBefore marriage we cannot be too inquisitive gular in my way of writing: but the general and discerning in the faults of the person be- reception I have found convinces me that the loved, nor after it too dim-sighted and super- world is not so corrupt as we are apt to imaficial. However perfect and accomplished the gine; and that if those men of parts who have person appears to you at a distance, you will been employed in vitiating the age had endeafind many blemishes and imperfections in her voured to rectify and amend it, they needed humour, upon a more intimate acquaintance, not to have sacrificed their good sense and virwhich you never discovered or perhaps sus-tue to their fame and reputation. No man is pected. Here therefore discretion and good- so sunk in vice and ignorance, but there are nature are to show their strength; the first still some hidden seeds of goodness and knowwill hinder your thoughts from dwelling on ledge in him; which give him a relish of such what is disagreeable, the other will raise in reflections and speculations as hate an aptyou all the tenderness of compassion and hu-ness to improve the mind, and make the heart manity, and by degrees soften those very im- better. perfections into beauties. I have shown in a former paper, with how Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness much care I have avoided all such thoughts and miseries. A marriage of love is pleasant; as are loose, obscene or immoral; and I bea marriage of interest easy; and a marriage lieve my reader would still think the better of where both meet, happy. A happy marriage me, if he knew the pains I am at in qualifying has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the what I write after such a manner, that nothing enjoyments of sense and reason, and indeed, may be interpreted as aimed at private persons. all the sweets of life. Nothing is a greater For this reason, when I draw any faulty chamark of a degenerate and vicious age, than the racter, I consider all those persons to whom common ridicule which passes on this state of the malice of the world may possibly apply it, life. It is, indeed, only happy in those who and take care to dash it with such particular can look down with scorn and neglect on the circumstances as may prevent all such illimpieties of the times, and tread the paths of natured applications. If I write any thing life together in a constant uniform course of on a black man, I run over in my mind all the virtue. C. eminent persons in the nation who are of that complexion: when I place an imaginary name at the head of a character, I examine every syllable and letter of it, that it may not bear any resemblance to one that is real. I know very well the value which every man sets upon his reputation, and how painful it is to be exposed to the mirth and derision of the public and should therefore scorn to divert my reader at the expense of any private man. As I have been thus tender of every par- Paradise Lost, which I shall publish every Saticular person's reputation, so I have taken turday, until I have given my thoughtt upon more than ordinary care not to give offence that poem. I shall not, however, presume to to those who appear in the higher figures of impose upon others my own particular judglife. I would not make myself merry even ment on this author, but only deliver it as with a piece of pasteboard that is invested my private opinion. Criticism is of a very with a public character; for which reason I large extent, and every particular master in have never glanced upon the late designed pro- this art has his favourite passages in an author cession of his Holiness and his attendants, which do not equally strike the best judges. notwithstanding it might have afforded matter It will be sufficient for me, if I discover many to many ludicrous speculations. Among those beauties or imperfections which others have advantages which the public may reap from not attended to, and I should be very glad to this paper, it is not the least that it draws see any of our eminent writers publish their men's minds off from the bitterness of party, discoveried on the same subject. In short, I and furnishes them with subjects of discourse would always be understood to write my pathat may be treated without warmth or pas- pers of criticisms in the spirit which Horace sion. This is said to have been the first design has expressed in these two famous lines: of those gentlemen who set on foot the Royal Society; and had then a very good effect, as it turned many of the greatest geniuses of that age to the disquisitions of natural knowledge, who, if they had engaged in politics with the same parts and application, might I present you with. have set their country in a flame. The airpump, the barometer, the quadrant, and the like inventions, were thrown out to those busy spirits, as tubs and barrels are to a whale, that he may let the ship sail on without disturbance, while he diverts himself with those innocent amusements, -Si quid novisti rectius istis, If you have made any better remarks of your own communicate them with candour; if not, make use of these No. 263.] Tuesday, January 1, 1711-12. C. Gratulo quòd eum quem necesse erat diligere, qualiscunque esset, talem habemus ut libenter quoque diligamus. Trebonius apud Tull. Whatever he had been, is such a one as I can love from I am glad, that he whom I must have loved from duty, inclination. MR. SPECTATOR, I have been so very scrupulous in this particular of not hurting any man's reputation, that I have forborne mentioning even such authors as I could not name with honour. This I must confess to have been a piece of very great self-denial: for as the public re'I AM the happy father of a very towardly lishes nothing better than the ridicule which son, in whom I do not only see my life, but turns upon a writer of any eminence, so there also my manner of life, renewed. It would be is nothing which a man that has but a very extremely beneficial to society, if you would ordinary talent in ridicule may execute with frequently resume subjects which serve to greater ease. One might raise laughter for bind these sort of relations faster, and endear a quarter of a year together upon the works the ties of blood with those of good-will, proof a person who has published but a very few tection, observance, indulgence, and veneravolumes. For which reason I am astonished, tion. I would, methinks, have this done after that those who have appeared against this an uncommon method, and do not think any paper have made so very little of it. The one, who is not capable of writing a good play, criticisms which I have hitherto published, fit to undertake a work wherein there will ne have been made with an intention rather to cessarily occur so many secret instincts, and discover beauties and excellencies in the biasses of human nature which would pass unwriters of my own time, than to publish any observed by common eyes. I thank Heaven of their faults and imperfections. In the I have no outrageous offence against my own mean while I should take it for a very great excellent parents to answer for; but when I favour from some of my underhand detractors, if they would break all measures with me, so far as to give me a pretence for examining their performances with an impartial eye: nor shall I look upon it as any breach of charity to criticise the author, so long as I keep clear of the person. am now and then alone, and look back upon my past life, from my earliest infancy to this time, there are many faults which I committed that did not appear to me even until I myself became a father. I had not until then a notion of the yearnings of heart, which a man has when he sees his child do a laudable thing, or In the mean while, until I am provoked to the sudden damp which seizes him when he such hostilities, I shall from time to time en- fears he will act something unworthy. It is deavour to do justice to those who have distin- not to be imagined, what a remorse touched guished themselves in the politer parts of learn- me for a long train of childish negligences of ing, and to point out such beauties in their my mother, when I saw my wife the other day works as may have escaped the observation of look out of the window, and turn as pale as others. ashes upon seeing my younger boy sliding up As the first place among our English poets on the ice. These slight imitations will give you is due to Milton; and as I have drawn more to understand, that there are numberless little quotations out of him than from any other, I crimes which children take no notice of while shall enter into a regular criticism upon his they are doing, which, upon reflection, when they shall themselves become fathers, they many as these gentlemen do ; but I will be will look upon with the utmost sorrow and bold to say, my son has, by the applause contrition, that they did not regard before and approbation which his behaviour towards those whom they offended were to be no more me has gained him, occasioned that many an seen. How many thousand things do I re- old man besides myself has rejoiced. Other member which would have highly pleased my men's children follow the example of mine, father, and I omitted for no other reason, but and I have the inexpressible happiness of overthat I thought what he proposed the effect of hearing our neighbours, as we ride by, point humour and old age, which I am now con- to their children, and say, with a voice of joy, vinced had reason and good sense in it. I can-" There they go." not now go into the parlour to him, and make 'You cannot, Mr. Spectator, pass your time his heart glad with an account of a matter better than in insinuating the delights which which was of no consequence, but that I told these relations well regarded bestow upon each it, and acted in it. The good man and woman other. Ordinary passages are no longer such, are long since in their graves, who used to sit but mutual love gives an importance to the and plot the welfare of us their children, while, most indifferent things, and a merit to actions perhaps, we were sometimes laughing at the the most insignificant. When we look round old folks at another end of the house. The the world, and observe the many misundertruth of it is were we merely to follow nature standings which are created by the malice and in these great duties of life, though we have insinuation of the meanest servants between a strong instinct towards the performing of people thus related, how necessary will it them, we should be on both sides very defi- appear that it were inculcated that men cient. Age is so unwelcome to the generality would be upon their guard to support a conof mankind, and growth towards manhood so stancy of affection, and that grounded upon desirable to all, that resignation to decay is the principles of reason, not the impulses of too difficult a task in the father; and de- instinct. ference, amidst the impulse .of gay desires, It is from the common prejudices which appears unreasonable to the son. There are men receive from their parents, that hatreds are kept alive from one generation to another; and when men act by instinct, hatreds will descend when good offices are forgotten. For the degeneracy of human life is such, that our anger is more easily transferred to our children than our love. Love always gives something to the object it delights in, and anger spoils the person against whom it is moved of something laudable in him; from this degeneracy, therefore, and a sort of selflove, we are more prone to take up the ill-will of our parents, than to follow them in their friendships. : so few who can grow old with a good grace, and yet fewer who can come slow enough into the world, that a father, were he to be actuated by his desires, and a son, were he to consult himself only, could neither of them behave himself as he ought to the other. But when reason interposes against instinct, where it would carry either out of the interests of the other, there arises that happiest intercourse of good offices between those dearest relations of human life. The father, according to the opportunities which are offered to him, is throwing down blessings on the son, and the son endeavouring to appear the worthy off- 'One would think there should need no spring of such a father. It is after this man- niore to make men keep up this sort of rener that Camillus and his first born dwelt lation with the utmost sanctity, than to extogether. Camillus enjoys a pleasing and amine their own hearts. If every father reindolent old age, in which passion is subdu-membered his own thoughts and inclinations ed, and reason exalted. He waits the day when he was a son, and every son remembered of his dissolution with a resignation mixed what he expected from his father, when he with delight and the son fears the accession himself was in a state of dependence, this one of his father's fortune with diffidence, lest he reflection would preserve men from being disshould not enjoy or become it as well as his solute or rigid in these several capacities. The predecessor. Add to this, that the father power and subjection between them, when knows he leaves a friend to the children of broken, make them more emphatically tyrants his friends, an easy landlord to his tenants, and an agreeable companion to his acquaintance. He believes his son's behaviour will make him frequently remembered, but never wanted. This commerce is so well cemented, that without the pomp of saying, "Son, be a friend to such a one when I am gone;" Camillus knows, being in his favour is direction enough to the grateful youth who is to 'If the pleasures, which I have the grief to succeed him, without the admonition of his hear you pursue in town, do not take up all mentioning it. These gentlemen are honour-your time, do not deny your mother so much ed in all their neighbourhood; and the same of it as to read seriously this letter. You said effect which the court has on the manners of a before Mr. Letacre, that an old woman might kingdom, their characters have on all who live live very well in the country upon half my within the influence of them. jointure, and that your father was a fond fool 'My son and I are not of fortune to commu- to give me a rent charge of eight hundred a nicate our good actions or intentions to so year to the prejudice of his son. What Letacre and rebels against each other, with greater cruelty of heart, than the disruption of states and empires can possibly produce. I shall end this application to you with two letters which passed between a mother and son very lately, and are as follows: 6 DEAR FRANK, said to you upon that occasion, you ought to for being a little singular in enjoying time afhave borne with more decency, as he was your ter the way a man himself likes best in the father's well-beloved servant, than to have world, without going so far as wholly to withcalled him a country-put. In the first place, draw from it. I have often observed, there is Frank, I must tell you, I will have my rent duly not a man breathing who does not differ from paid, for I will make up to your sisters for the all other men, as much in the sentiments of partiality I was guilty of, in making your fa- his mind as the features of his face. The fether do so much as he has done for you. Ilicity is, when any one is so happy as to find may, it seems, live upon half my jointure! I out and follow what is the proper bent of lived upon much less, Frank, when I carried you from place to place in these arms, and could neither eat, dress, or mind any thing for feeding and tending you a weakly child, and shedding tears when the convulsions you were then troubled with returned upon you. By my care you outgrew them, to throw away the vigour of your youth in the arms of harlots, and deny your mother what is not yours to detain. Both your sisters are crying to see the passion which I smother; but if you please to go on thus like a gentleman of the town, and forget all regards to yourself and family, ters of no manner of moment. of omit writing myself, MADAM, 'Your affectionate mother, 'A. T. 'I will come down to-morrow and pay the money on my knees. Pray write so no more. I will take care you never shall, for I will be for ever hereafter 'Your most dutiful son, 'E. T.' 'I will bring down new hoods for my sisters. Pray let all be forgotten.' T. No. 264.] Wednesday, January 2, 1711-12. -Secretum iter et fallentis semita vitæ. his genius, and turn all his endeavours to exert himself according as that prompts him. Instead of this, which is an innocent method of enjoying a man's self, and turning out of the general tracks wherein you have crowds of rivals, there are those who pursue their own way out of a sourness and spirit of contradiction. These men do every thing which they are able to support, as if guilt and impunity could not go together. They choose a thing only because another dislikes it; and affect forsooth an inviolable constancy in matThus some I shall immediately enter upon your estate times an old fellow shall wear this or that for the arrear due to me, and without one tear sort of cut in his clothes with great integrity, more, contemn you for forgetting the fondness while all the rest of the world are degenerated your mother, as much as you have the ex-into buttons, pockets, and loops unknown to ample of your father. O Frank, do I live to their ancestors. As insignificant as even this is, if it were searched to the bottom, you perhaps would find it not sincere, but that he is in the fashion in his heart, and hold out from mere obstinacy. But I am running from my certain particular manner of passing away intended purpose, which was to celebrate a life, in contradiction to no man, but with a resolution to contract none of the exorbitant desires by which others are enslaved. The best way of separating a man's self from the world, is to give up the desire of being known to it. After a man has preserved his innocence, and performed all duties incumbent upon him, his time spent in his own way is what makes his life differ from that of a slave. If they who affect show and pomp knew how many of their spectators derided their trivial taste, they would be very much less elated, and have an inclination to examine the merit of all they have to do with: they would soon find out that there are many who make a figure below what their fortune or merit entitles them to, out of mere choice, and an elegant desire I has been from age to age an affecta- of ease and disincumbrance. It would look tion to love the pleasure of solitude, among like romance to tell you in this age, of an old those who cannot possibly be supposed qua- man who is contented to pass for an humourlified for passing life in that manner. This ist, and one who does not understand the people have taken up from reading the many figure he ought to make in the world, while agreeable things which have been written on he lives in a lodging of ten shillings a week that subject, for which we are beholden to ex-with only one servant; while he dresses himcellent persons who delighted in being retired, self according to the season in cloth or in and abstracted from the pleasures that enchant stuff, and has no one necessary attention to the generality of the world. This way of life any thing but he bell which calls to prayers is recommended indeed with great beauty, and twice a-day: I say it would look like a fable in such a manner as disposes the reader for to report that this gentleman gives away all the time to a pleasing forgetfulness, or negli- which is the overplus of a great fortune by gence of the particular hurry of life in which secret methods to other men. If he has not he is engaged, together with a longing for that the pomp of a numerous train, and of prostate which he is charmed with in description. fessors of service to him, he has every day But when we consider the world itself, and he lives the conscience that the widow, the how few there are capable of a religious, fatherless, the mourner, and the stranger learned, or philosophical solitude, we shall be bless his unseen hand in their prayers. This apt to change a regard to that sort of solitude, humourist gives up all the compliments which In public walks let who will shine or stray, |