Jam cras hesternum consumpsimus; ecce aliud cras
Egerit hos annos, et semper paulum erit ultra.
Nam quamvis prope te, quamvis temone sub uno,
Vertentem sese frustra sectabere canthum.
Pers. Sat. 5. v. 64.

Pers. From thee both old and young, with profit learn
The bounds of good and evil to discern.

Corn. Unhappy he who does this work adjourn,
And to to-morrow would the search delay:
His lazy morrow will be like to-day.

Pers. But is one day of case too much to borrow?
Corn. Yes, sure; for yesterday was once to-morrow.
That yesterday is gone, and nothing gain'd;
And all thy fruitless days will thus be drain'd:
For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask,
And wilt be ever to begin thy task;

Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, art curst,
Still to be near, but ne'er to reach the first.-Dryden.

pro

of two and twenty, and dodged with me above thirty years. I have loved her till she is grown as grey as a cat, and am with much ado become the master of her per son, such as it is at present. She is however in my eye a very charming old woman. We often lament that we did not marry sooner, but she has nobody to blame for it but herself. You know very well that she would never think of me whilst she had a tooth in her head. I have put the date of my passion, anno amoris trigesimo primo, instead of a posy on my wedding ring. I expect you should send me a congratulatory letter, or, if you please, an epithalamium upon this occasion. Mrs. Martha's and yours eternally, SAM HOPEWELL.'

In order to banish an evil out of the world, that does not only produce great uneasiness to private persons, but has also a very bad influence on the public, I shall endeavour to show the folly of demurrage, from two or three reflections which I earnestly recommend to the thoughts of my fair readers.

As my correspondents upon the subject of love are very numerous, it is my design, if possible, to range them under several heads, and address myself to them at different times. The first branch of them, to whose service I shall dedicate this paper, are those that have to do with women of dilatory tempers, who are for spinning out the time of courtship to an immoderate length, without being able either to close with their lovers, or to dismiss them. I have many letters by me filled with_comFirst of all, I would have them seriously plaints against this sort of women. In one think on the shortness of their time. Life of them no less a man than a brother of the is not long enough for a coquette to play all coif tells me, that he began his suit vicesimo her tricks in. A timorous woman drops into nono Caroli secundi, before he had been a her grave before she has done deliberating. twelve-month at the Temple; that he Were the of man the same that it was age secuted it for many years after he was called before the flood, a lady might sacrifice half to the bar; that at present he is a sergeant a century to a scruple, and be two or three at law; and notwithstanding he hoped that ages in demurring. Had she nine hundred matters would have been long since brought years good, she might hold out to the conto an issue, the fair one still demurs.I version of the Jews before she thought fit am so well pleased with this gentleman's to be prevailed upon. But, alas! she ought phrase, that I shall distinguish this sect of to play her part in haste, when she conwomen by the title of Demurrers. I find by siders that she is suddenly to quit the stage, another letter from one that calls himself and make room for others. Thyrsis, that his mistress has been demurIn the second place, I would desire my ring above these seven years. But among female readers to consider, that as the term all my plaintiffs of this nature, I most pity of life is short, that of beauty is much the unfortunate Philander, a man of a con- shorter. The finest skin wrinkles in a few stant passion and plentiful fortune, who sets years, and loses the strength of its colourforth that the timorous and irresolute Syl- ings so soon, that we have scarce time to via has demurred till she is past child- admire it. I might embellish this subject bearing. Strephon appears by his letter to with roses and rainbows, and several other be a very choleric lover, and irrecoverably ingenious conceits, which I may possibly smitten with one that demurs out of self- reserve for another opportunity. interest. He tells me with great passion that she has bubbled him out of his youth; that she drilled him on to five and fifty, and that he verily believes she will drop him in his old age, if she can find her account in another. I shall conclude this narrative with a letter from honest Sam Hopewell, a very pleasant fellow, who it seems has at last married a demurrer. I must only premise, that Sam, who is a very good bottlecompanion, has been the diversion of his friends, upon account of his passion, ever since the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-one.

'DEAR SIR,-You know very well my passion for Mrs. Martha, and what a dance she has led me. She took me out at the age

There is a third consideration which I would likewise recommend to a demurrer, and that is the great danger of her falling in love when she is about threescore, if she cannot satisfy her doubts and scruples be fore that time. There is a kind of latter spring, that sometimes gets into the blood of an old woman, and turns her into a very odd sort of an animal. I would therefore have the demurrer consider what a strange figure she will make, if she chances to get over all difficulties, and comes to a final resolution in that unseasonable part of her life.

I would not however be understood, by any thing I have here said, to discourage that natural modesty in the sex, which renders a retreat from the first approaches of

a lover both fashionable and graceful. All after the body is cast off and thrown aside.
that I intend is, to advise them, when they As an argument to confirm this their doc-
are prompted by reason and inclination, to trine, they observe, that a lewd youth who
demur only out of form, and so far as de- goes on in a continued course of voluptuous-
cency requires. A virtuous woman should ness, advances by degrees into a libidinous
reject the first offer of marriage, as a good old man; and that the passion survives in
man does that of a bishopric; but I would the mind when it is altogether dead in the
advise neither the one nor the other to per- body; nay, that the desire grows more
sist in refusing what they secretly approve. violent, and (like all other habits) gathers
I would in this particular propose the ex-strength by age at the same time that it
ample of Eve to all her daughters, as Mil- has no power of executing its own pur-
ton has represented her in the following poses. If, say they, the soul is the most
passage, which I cannot forbear transcrib- subject to these passions at a time when it
ing entire, though only the twelve last lines has the least instigations from the body,
are to my present purpose.
we may well suppose she will still retain
them when she is entirely divested of it.
The very substance of the soul is festered
with them, the gangrene is gone too far to
be ever cured; the inflammation will rage
to all eternity.

The rib he form'd and fashion'd with his hands:
Under his forming hands a creature grew,
Man-like, but diff'rent sex; so lovely fair,
That what seem'd fair in all the world, seem'd now
Mean, or in her summ'd up, in her contain'd,
And in her looks; which from that time infus'd
Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before;
And into all things from her air inspir'd
The spirit of love and amorous delight.

She disappear'd, and left me dark: I wak'd
To find her, or for ever to deplore
Her loss, and other pleasures all abjure;
When out of hope, behold her, not far off,
Such as I saw her in my dream, adorn'd
With what all earth or heaven could bestow
To make her amiable. On she came,
Led by her heav'nly Maker, though unseen,
And guided by his voice, nor uninform'd
Of nuptial sanctity and marriage rites:
Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.

I, overjoy'd, could not forbear aloud:

"This turn hath made amends: thou hast fulfill'd Thy words, Creator, bounteous and benign!

Giver of all things fair; but fairest this

Of all thy gifts, nor enviest. I now see

Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself."

She heard me thus, and though divinely brought,
Yet innocence and virgin modesty,

Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth,
That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won,
Not obvious, not obtrusive, but retir'd

The more desirable; or, to say all.

Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought,
Wrought in her so, that seeing me she turn'd.
I follow'd her: she what was honour knew,
And with obsequious majesty approv'd
My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower
I led her blushing like the morn-

Paradise Lost, viii. 469-511.

No. 90.] Wednesday, June 13, 1711.

-Magnus sine viribus ignis

Incassum furit

Virg. Georg. iii. 99.

In all the rage of impotent desire,
They feel a quenchless flame, a fruitless fire.'

In this therefore, (say the Platonists,) consists the punishment of a voluptuous man after death. He is tormented with desires which it is impossible for him to gratify; solicited by a passion that has neither objects nor organs adapted to it. He lives in a state of invincible desire and impotence, and always burns in the pursuit of what he always despairs to possess. It is for this reason (says Plato) that the souls of the dead appear frequently in cemeteries, and hover about the places where their bodies are buried, as still hankering after their old brutal pleasures, and desiring again to enter the body that gave them an opportunity of fulfilling them.

Some of our most eminent divines have made use of this Platonic notion, so far as it regards the subsistence of our passions after death, with great beauty and strength of reason. Plato indeed carries the thought very far when he grafts upon it his opinion of ghosts appearing in places of burial. Though I must confess, if one did believe that the departed souls of men and women wandered up and down these lower regions, and entertained themselves with the sight of their species, 'one could not devise a more proper hell for an impure spirit than that which Plato has touched upon.

The ancients seem to have drawn such a state of torments in the description of Tantalus, who was punished with the rage THERE is not, in my opinion, a consi- of an eternal thirst, and set up to the chin deration more effectual to extinguish inor-in water that fled from his lips whenever dinate desires in the soul of man, than the he attempted to drink it.

notions of Plato and his followers upon that Virgil who has cast the whole system of
subject. They tell us, that every passion Platonic philosophy, so far as it relates to
which has been contracted by the soul the soul of man, into beautiful allegories,
during her residence in the body, remains in the sixth book of his Æneid gives us
with her in a separate state; and that the the punishment of a voluptuary after death,
soul in the body, or out of the body, differs not unlike that which we are here speak-
no more than the man does from himself
when he is in his house, or in open air.
When therefore the obscene passions in
particular have once taken root, and spread
themselves in the soul, they cleave to her
inseparably, and remain in her for ever,

ing of:

-Lucent genealibus altis

Aurea fulcra toris, epulæque ante ora paratæ
Regifico luxu: furiarum maxima juxta
Accubat, et manibus prohibet contingere mensas:
Exurgitque facem attollens, atque intonat ore.
HER. vi. 604

They lie below on golden beds display'd,
And genial feasts with regal pomp are made:
The queen of furies by their side is set,
And snatches from their mouths the untasted meat;
Which, if they touch, her hissing snakes she rears,
Tossing her torch and thundering in their ears.
Dryden.

sheets, with my head (which was indeed
the only part I could move) upon a very
high pillow: this was no sooner done, but
my two female friends came into bed to me
in their finest night-clothes.
You may
easily guess at the condition of a man that
saw a couple of the most beautiful women
in the world undrest and abed with him,
without being able to stir hand or foot. I
begged them to release me, and struggled
all I could to get loose, which I did with so
much violence, that about midnight they
both leaped out of the bed, crying out
they were undone. But seeing me safe,
they took their posts again, and renewed
their raillery. Finding all my prayers and
endeavours were lost, I composed myself
as well as I could, and told them, that if
they would not unbind me, I would fall
asleep between them, and by that means
disgrace them for ever. But alas! this
was impossible; could I have been disposed
to it, they would have prevented me by
several little ill-natured caresses and en-
dearments which they bestowed upon me.
As much devoted as I am to woman-kind,
I would not pass such another night to be
master of the whole sex. My reader will
doubtless be curious to know what became of
me the next morning. Why truly my bed-
fellows left me an hour before day, and told
me, if I would be good and lie still, they
would send somebody to take me up as soon
as it was time for me to rise. Accordingly
about nine o'clock in the morning an old
woman came to unswathe me. I bore all this
very patiently, being resolved to take my
revenge of my tormentors, and to keep no
measures with them as soon as I was at
liberty; but upon asking my old woman
what was become of the two ladies, she
told me she believed they were by that
time within sight of Paris, for that they
went away in a coach and six before five
o'clock in the morning.'

That I may a little alleviate the severity of this my speculation (which otherwise may lose me several of my polite readers,) I shall translate a story that has been quoted upon another occasion by one of the most learned men of the present age, as I find it in the original. The reader will see it is not foreign to my present subject, and I dare say will think it a lively representation of a person lying under the torments of such a kind of tantalism, or Platonic hell, as that which we have now under consideration. Monsieur Pontignan, speaking of a loveadventure that happened to him in the country, gives the following account of it. * "When I was in the country last summer, I was often in company with a couple of charming women, who had all the wit and beauty one could desire in female companions, with a dash of coquetry, that from time to time gave me a great many agreeable torments. I was, after my way, in love with both of them, and had such frequent opportunities of pleading my passions to them when they were asunder, that I had reason to hope for particular favours from each of them. As I was walking one evening in my chamber with nothing about me out my night-gown, they both came into my room, and told me they had a very pleasant trick to put upon a gentleman that was in the same house, provided I would bear a part in it. Upon this they told me such a plausible story, that I laughed at their contrivance, and agreed to do whatever they should require of me. They immediately began to swaddle me up in my night gown, with long pieces of linen, which they folded about me till they had wrapt me in above an hundred yards of swathe. My arms were pressed to my sides, and my legs closed together by so many wrappers one over another, that I looked like an Egyptian mummy. As I stood bolt upright upon one end in this antique figure, one of the ladies burst out a laughing. "And now, Pontignan," says she, "we Dryden. intend to perform the promise that we find you have extorted from each of us. You THOUGH the subject I am now going have often asked the favour of us, and upon would be much more properly the I dare say you are a better bred cava- foundation of a comedy, I cannot forbear lier than to refuse to go to bed with two inserting the circumstance which pleased ladies that desire it of you." After having me in the account a young lady gave me stood a fit of laughter, I uncase me, and do with me what they pleased. No, no," said they, "we like you very well as you are;" and upon that ordered me to be carried to one of their houses, and put to bed in all my swaddles. The room was lighted up on all sides: and I was laid very decently between a pair of

This is a paraphrase of a story in the " Academie

Galante," a little book printed at Paris in 1682.

L.

No. 91.] Thursday, June 14, 1711.
In furias ignemque ruunt: amor omnibus idem.
Virg. Georg. iii. 244.

-They rush into the flame;
For love is lord of all, and is in all the same.

shall be nameless; or rather, for the better sound and elevation of the history, instead of Mr. and Mrs. Such-a-one, I shall call them by feigned names. Without further preface, you are to know, that within the liberties of the city of Westminster lives the Lady Honoria, a widow about the age of forty, of a healthy constitution, gay temper, and elegant person. She dresses a

little too much like a girl, affects a childish | surviving beau of the last age, and Tom al-
fondness in the tone of her voice, sometimes most the only one that keeps up that order
a pretty sullenness in the leaning of her of men in this.
head, and now and then a downcast of her. I wish I could repeat the little circum-
eyes on her fan. Neither her imagination stances of a conversation of the four lovers
nor her health would ever give her to know with the spirit in which the young lady I
that she is turned of twenty; but that in the had my account from, represented it at a
midst of these pretty softnesses, and airs of visit where I had the honour to be present;
delicacy and attraction, she has a tall but it seems Dick Crastin, the admirer of
daughter within a fortnight of fifteen, who Honoria, and Tom Tulip, the pretender to
impertinently comes into the room, and Flavia, were purposely admitted together
towers so much towards woman, that her by the ladies, that each might show the
mother is always checked by her presence, other that her lover had the superiority in
and every charm of Honoria droops at the the accomplishments of that sort of crea-
entrance of Flavia. The agreeable Flavia ture whom the sillier part of women call a
would be what she is not, as well as her fine gentleman. As this age has a much
mother Honoria; but all their beholders are more gross taste in courtship, as well as in
more partial to an affectation of what a per- every thing else, than the last had, these
son is growing up to, than of what has been gentlemen are instances of it in their diffe-
already enjoyed, and is gone for ever. It rent manner of application. Tulip is ever
is therefore allowed to Flavia to look for- making allusions to the vigour of his per-
ward, but not to Honoria to look back. son, the sinewy force of his make; while
Flavia is no way dependent on her mother Crastin professes a wały observation of the
with relation to her fortune, for which rea- turns of his mistress's mind.-Tulip gives
son they live almost upon an equality in con- himself the air of a resistless ravisher,
versation; and as Honoria has given Flavia Crastin practises that of a skilful lover.
to understand, that it is ill-bred to be al- Poetry is the inseparable property of every
ways calling mother, Flavia is as well man in love; and as men of wit write verses
pleased never to be called child. It hap-on those occasions, the rest of the world re-
pens by this means, that these ladies are peat the verses of others. These servants
generally rivals in all places where they of the ladies were used to imitate their
appear; and the words mother and daugh- manner of conversation, and allude to one
ter never pass between them but out of another, rather than interchange discourse
spite. Flavia one night at a play observing in what they said when they met. Tulip
Honoria draw the eyes of several in the the other day seized his mistress's hand,
pit, called to a lady who sat by her, and and repeated out of Ovid's Art of Love,
bid her ask her mother to lend her her
snuff-box for a moment.
Another time,
when, a lover of Honoria was on his knees
beseeching the favour to kiss her hand,
Flavia rushing into the room, kneeled down
by him and asked her blessing. Several
of these contradictory acts of duty have
raised between them such a coldness, that
they generally converse when they are in
mixed company by way of talking at one
another, and not to one another. Honoria
complaining of a certain sufficiency
in the young women of this age, who as-
sume to themselves an authority of carry-
ing all things before them, as if they were with a tenderness which at once spoke pas-
possessors of the esteem of mankind, and all sion and respect, Honoria cast a triumph-
who were but a year before them in the ant glance at Flavia, as exulting in the ele-
world, were neglected or deceased. Flavia gance of Crastin's courtship, and upbraid-
upon such provocation, is sure to observe, ing her with the homeliness of Tulip's.
that there are people who can resign no- Tulip understood the reproach, and in re-
thing, and know not how to give up what turn began to applaud the wisdom of old
they know they cannot hold; that there amorous gentlemen, who turned their mis-
are those who will not allow youth their tress's imagination as far as possible from
follies, not because they are themselves what they had long themselves forgot, and
past them, but because they love to con- ended his discourse with a sly commenda-
tinue in them. These beauties rival each tion of the doctrine of Platonic love; at the
other on all occasions; not that they have same time he ran over, with a laughing
always had the same lovers, but each has eye, Crastin's thin legs, meagre looks, and
kept up a vanity to show the other the spare body. The old gentleman imme-
charms of her lover. Dick Crastin and diately left the room with some disorder,
Tom Tulip, among many others, have of

is ever

late been pretenders in this family: Dick

"Tis I can in soft battles pass the night,
Yet rise next morning vigorous for the fight,
Fresh as the day, and active as the light."
of deference, played with Honoria's fan,
Upon hearing this, Crastin, with an air
and repeated,

'Sedley has that prevailing gentle art,
That can with a resistless charm impart
The loosest wishes to the chastest heart:
Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire,
Between declining virtue and desire,
Till the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away,
In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day."*

When Crastin had uttered these verses

Lord Rochester's Imitation of the first Satire of

to Honoria, Tom to Flavia. Dick is the only Horace.

and the conversation fell upon untimely passion, after-love, and unseasonable youth. Tulip sung, danced, moved before the glass, led his mistress half a minuet, hummed

'Celia the fair, in the bloom of fifteen l'

In answer to my fair disciple, whom I am very proud of, I must acquaint her and the rest of my readers, that since I have called out for help in my catalogue of a lady's library, I have received many letters upon that head, some of which I shall give

when there came a servant with a letter to an account of. him, which was as follows:

'SIR,-I understand very well what you meant by your mention of Platonic love. I shall be glad to meet you immediately in Hyde-park, or behind Montague-house, or attend you to Barn-elms, or any other fashionable place that's fit for a gentleman to die in, that you shall appoint for, sir,

"Your most humble servant,

"RICHARD CRASTIN.'

Tulip's colour changed at the reading of this epistle; for which reason his mistress snatched it to read the contents. While she was doing so, Tulip went away; and the ladies now agreeing in a common calamity, bewailed together the danger of their lovers. They immediately undressed to go out, and took hackneys to prevent mischief; but, after alarming all parts of the town, Crastin was found by his widow in his pumps at Hyde-park, which appointment Tulip never kept, but made his escape into the country. Flavia tears her hair for his inglorious safety, curses and despises her charmer, and is fallen into love with Crastin: which is the first part of the history of the rival mother. R.

No. 92.] Friday, June 15, 1711.

-Convive prope dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum diversa palato; Quid dem? Quid non dem?

IMITATED.

Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. ii. 61.

-What would you have me do,
When out of twenty I can please not two?-
One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg:
The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg;
Hard task to hit the palate of such guests.

Pope.

In the first class, I shall take notice of those which come to me from eminent booksellers, who every one of them mention with respect the authors they have printed, and consequently have an eye to their own advantage more than to that of the ladies. One tells me, that he thinks it absolutely necessary for women to have true notions of right and equity, and that therefore they cannot peruse a better book than Dalton's Country Justice. Another thinks they cannot be without The Complete Jockey. A third observing the cu riosity and desire of prying into secrets, which he tells me is natural to the fair sex, is of opinion this female inclination, if well directed, might turn very much to their advantage, and therefore recommends to me Mr. Mede upon the Revelations. A fourth lays it down as an unquestioned truth, that a lady cannot be thoroughly accomplished who has not read The Secret Treaties and Negotiations of Marshal d'Estrades. Mr. Jacob Tonson, junior, is of opinion, that Bayle's Dictionary might be of very great use to the ladies, in order to make them general scholars. Another, whose name! have forgotten, thinks it highly proper that every woman with child should read Mr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism; and another is very importunate with me to recommend to all my female readers The finishing Stroke; being a Vindication of the Patriarchal Scheme, &c.

on

In the second class, I shall mention books which are recommended by husbands, if I may believe the writers of them. Whether or no they are real husbands or personated ones I cannot tell; but the books they re commend are as follow. A Paraphrase the History of Susannah. Rules to keep Lent. The Christian's Overthrow prelet-vented. A Dissuasive from the Play-house The Virtues of Camphire, with Directions to make Camphire Tea. The Pleasures of a Country Life. The Government of the Tongue. A letter dated from Cheapside, desires me that I would advise all with a postscript, that he hopes I will not young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's Arithmetic, and concludes forget the Countess of Kent's Receipts. I

LOOKING Over the late packets of ters which have been sent to me, I found the following:

every

MR. SPECTATOR,-Your paper is a part of my tea-equipage, and my servant knows breakfast this morning, (it being past my my humour so well, that calling for my usual hour,) she answered, The Spectator was not yet come in; but that the teakettle boiled, and she expected it moment. Having thus in part signified to you the esteem and veneration which 1 have for you, I must put you in mind of the catalogue of books which you have promised to recommend to our sex; for I have deferred furnishing my closet with authors, till I receive your advice in this particular, being your daily disciple and humble servant, LEONORA.'

may reckon the ladies themselves as a third class among these my correspondents and privy-counsellors. In a letter from one of them, I am advised to place Pharamond at the head of my catalogue, and, if I think proper, to give the second place to Cassan dra. * Coquetilla begs me not to think of

nailing women upon their knees with Two celebrated French romances, written by M

La Calprenede.