wages, and the manner of living out of a walks in the Temple. A young gentleman domestic way: but I cannot give you my of the house, who (as I heard him say afterthoughts on this subject any way so well, as wards) seeing me half-starved and wellby a short account of my own life to this the dressed, thought me an equipage ready to forty-fifth year of my age; that is to say, his hand, after a very little inquiry more from my being first a footboy at fourteen, than "Did I want a master?" bid me folto my present station of a nobleman's por- low him; I did so, and in a very little while ter in the year of my age above-mentioned. thought myself the happiest creature in the Know then, that my father was a poor world. My time was taken up in carrying tenant to the family of Sir Stephen Rack-letters to wenches, or messages to young rent. Sir Stephen put me to school, or ladies of my master's acquaintance. We rather made me follow his son Harry to rambled from tavern to tavern, to the playschool, from my ninth year: and there, house, the Mulberry-garden,* and all places though Sir Stephen paid something for my of resort; where my master engaged every learning, I was used like a servant, and was night in some new amour, in which and forced to get what scraps of learning I could drinking, he spent all his time when he had by my own industry, for the school-master money. During these extravagances, I had took very little notice of me. My young the pleasure of lying on the stairs of a master was a lad of very sprightly parts; tavern half a night playing at dice with and my being constantly about him, and other servants, and the like idleness. When loving him, was no small advantage to me. my master was moneyless, I was generally My master loved me extremely, and has employed in transcribing amorous pieces of often been whipped for not keeping me at poetry, old songs, and new lampoons. This a distance. He used always to say, that life held till my master married, and he when he came to his estate I should have a had then the prudence to turn me off, belease of my father's tenement for nothing. cause I was in the secret of his intrigues. I came up to town with him to Westminster-school; at which time he taught me at night all he learnt; and put me to find out words in the dictionary when he was about his exercise. It was the will of Providence that master Harry was taken very ill of a fever of which he died within ten days after his first falling sick. Here was the first sorrow I ever knew; and I assure you, Mr. Spectator, I remember the beautiful action of the sweet youth in his fever, as fresh as if it were yesterday. If he wanted any thing, it must be given him by Tom. When I let any thing fall through the grief I was under, he would cry, "Do not beat the poor boy: give him some more julep for me, nobody else shall give it me. He would strive to hide his being so bad, when he saw I could not bear his being in so much danger, and comforted me, saying, "Tom, Tom, have a good heart." When I was holding a cup at his mouth, he fell into convulsions; and at this very time I hear my dear master's last groan. I was quickly turned out of the room, and left to sob and beat my head against the wall at my leisure. The grief I was in was inexpressible; and every body thought it would have cost me my life. In a few days my old lady, who was one of the housewives of the world, thought of turning me out of doors, because I put her in mind of her son. Sir Stephen proposed putting me to prentice; but my lady being an excellent manager would not let her husband throw away his money in acts of charity. I had sense enough to be under the utmost indignation, to see her discard with so little concern, one her son had loved so much; and went out of the house to ramble wherever my feet would carry me.

The third day after I left Sir Stephen's family, I was strolling up and down the

'I was utterly at a loss what course to take next; when at last I applied myself to a fellow-sufferer, one of his mistresses, a woman of the town. She happening at that time to be pretty full of money, clothed me from head to foot; and knowing me to be a sharp fellow, employed me accordingly. Sometimes I was to go abroad with her, and when she had pitched upon a young fellow, she thought for her turn, I was to be dropped as one she could not trust. She would often cheapen goods at the New Exchange;t and when she had a mind to be attacked, she would send me away on an errand. When an humble servant and she were beginning a parley, I came immediately, and told her Sir John was come home; then she would order another coach to prevent being dogged. The lover makes signs to me as I get behind the coach; I shake my head, it was impossible: I leave my lady at the next turning, and follow the cully to know how to fall in his way on another occasion. Besides good offices of this nature, I writ all my mistress's love-letters; some from a lady that saw such a gentleman at such a place in such a coloured coat, some showing the terror she was in of a jealous old husband, others explaining that the severity of her parents was such (though her fortune was settled) that she was wil ling to run away with such a one, though she knew he was but a younger brother. In a word, my half education and love of idle books, made me outwrite all that made

*The Mulberry-garden was a place of genteel enter tainment near Buckingham-house, (now the Queen's Palace.)

† Britain's Burse, or the New Exchange, built in 1608, was situated between Durham-yard and York-buildings, in the Strand. It had rows of shops (says Pennant) over This was a place of fashionable resort. It was pulled the walk, filled chiefly with milliners, sempstresses, &c. down in 1737.

love to her by way of epistle; and as she | No. 97.] Thursday, June 21, 1711.

was extremely cunning, she did well enough in company by a skilful affectation of the greatest modesty. In the midst of all this I was surprised with a letter from her and a ten pound note.

"HONEST TOM,-You will never see me more, I am married to a very cunning Country gentleman, who might possibly guess something if I kept you still; therefore farewell."

Projecere animas

Virg. Æn. vi. 436.
They prodigally threw their lives away.
AMONG the loose papers which I have
frequently spoken of heretofore, I find a
conversation between Pharamond and Eu-
crate upon the subject of duels, and the
copy of an edict issued in consequence of
that discourse.

Eucrate argued, that nothing but the
most severe and vindictive punishment,
such as placing the bodies of the offenders
'When this place was lost also in mar-in chains, and putting them to death by the
riage, I was resolved to go among quite an-
other people, for the future, and got in but-
ler to one of those families where there is a
coach kept, three or four servants, a clean
house, and a good general outside upon a
small estate. Here I lived very comfortably
for some time, until I unfortunately found
my master, the very gravest man alive, in
garret with the chamber-maid. I knew
the world too well to think of staying there;
and the next day pretended to have re-
ceived a letter out of the country that my
father was dying, and got my discharge,
with a bounty for my discretion.

the

The next I lived with was a peevish single man, whom I stayed with for a year and a half. Most part of the time I passed very easily; for when I began to know him, I minded no more than he meant what he said; so that one day in a good humour he said, "I was the best man he ever had, by my want of respect to him."

Be

most exquisite torments, would be sufficient to extirpate a crime which had so long prevailed, and was so firmly fixed in the opinion of the world as great and laudable. The king answered, that indeed instances of ignominy were necessary in the cure of this evil; but, considering that it prevailed only among such as had a nicety in their sense of honour, and that it often happened that a duel was fought to save appearances to the world, when both parties were in their hearts in amity and reconciliation to each other, it was evident that turning the mode another way would effectually put a stop to what had being only as a mode; that to such persons, poverty and shame were torments sufficient; that he would not go further in punishing in others, crimes which he was satisfied he himself was most guilty of, in that he might have prevented them by speaking his displeasure sooner. sides which the king said, he was in geneThese, sir, are the chief occurrences of ral averse to tortures, which was putting my life, and I will not dwell upon very human nature itself, rather than the crimimany other places I have been in, where I nal, to disgrace; and that he would be sure have been the strangest fellow in the world, not to use this means where the crime was where nobody in the world had such ser- but an ill effect arising from a laudable Vants as they, where sure they were the cause, the fear of shame. The king, at the unluckiest people in the world in servants, same time, spoke with much grace upon and so forth. All I mean by this represen- the subject of mercy; and repented of many tation is, to show you that we poor servants acts of that kind which had a magnificent are not [what you called us too generally] aspect in the doing, but dreadful conseall rogues; but that we are what we are, quences in the example. Mercy to paraccording to the example of our superiors. ticulars,' he observed, was cruelty in the In the family I am now in, I am guilty of general. That though a prince could not no one sin but lying: which I do with a revive a dead man by taking the life of him grave face in my gown and staff every day who killed him, neither could he make I live, and almost all day long, in denying reparation to the next that should die by my lord to impertinent suitors, and my lady the evil example: or answer to himself for to unwelcome visitants. But, sir, I am to the partiality in not pardoning the next as let you know that I am, when I can get well as the former offender. As for abroad, a leader of the servants: I am he me,' says Pharamond, I have conquered that keeps time with beating my cudgel France, and yet have given laws to my against the boards in the gallery at an people. The laws are my methods of life; opera; I am he that am touched so pro- they are not a diminution but a direction to perly at a tragedy, when the people of my power. I am still absolute to distinguish -quality are staring at one another during the innocent and the virtuous, to give hothe most important incidents. When you nours to the brave and generous; hear in a crowd a cry in the right place, a solute in my good-will; none can oppose my hum where the point is touched in a speech, bounty, or prescribe rules for my favour. or a huzza set up where it is the voice of While I can, as I please, reward the good, the people; you may conclude it is begun I am under no pain that I cannot pardon or joined by, sir, your more than humble the wicked: for which reason,' continued THOMAS TRUSTY.' Pharamond, "I will effectually put a stop

servant,

T.

am ab

to this evil, by exposing no more the ten

derness of my nature to the importunity of | be, after the publication of this our edict, having the same respect to those who are capable of bearing office in these our domiserable by their fault, and those who are minions. so by their misfortune. Flatterers (concluded the king smiling) repeat to us princes, that we are heaven's vicegerents; let us be so, and let the only thing out of our power be to do ill."

Soon after the evening wherein Pharamond and Eucrate had this conversation, the following edict was published against duels.

Pharamond's Edict against Duels. "PHARAMOND, King of the Gauls, to all his

loving subjects sendeth greeting. "Whereas it has come to our royal notice and observation, that in contempt of all laws, divine and human, it is of late become a custom among the nobility and gentry of this our kingdom, upon slight and trivial, as well as great and urgent provocations, to invite each other into the field, there by their own hands, and of their own authority, to decide their controversies by combat; we have thought fit to take the said custom into our royal consideration, and find upon inquiry into the usual causes whereon such fatal decisions have arisen,

'The person who shall prove the sending or receiving a challenge, shall receive to his own use and property, the whole personal estate of both parties; and their real estate shall be immediately vested in the next heir of the offenders in as ample manner as if the said offenders were actually deceased.

In cases where the laws (which we have already granted to our subjects) admit of an appeal for blood; when the criminal is condemned by the said appeal, he shall not only suffer death, but his whole estate, real, mixed, and personal, shall from the hour of his death be vested in the next heir of the person whose blood he spilt.

That it shall not hereafter be in our royal power, or that of our successors, to pardon the said offences, or restore the offenders in their estates, honours, or blood, for ever.

'Given at our court at Blois, the 8th of February, 420, in the second year of our reign.'

-Tanta est quærendi cura decoris.
Juv. Sat. vi. 500.

T.

that by this wicked custom, maugre all the No. 98.] Friday, June 22, 1711.
precepts of our holy religion, and the rules
of right reason, the greatest act of the hu-
man mind, forgiveness of injuries, is be-
come vile and shameful; that the rules of
good society and virtuous conversation are
hereby inverted; that the loose, the vain,
and the impudent, insult the careful, the
discreet, and the modest; that all virtue is
suppressed, and all vice supported, in the
one act of being capable to dare to the
death. We have also further, with great
sorrow of mind, observed that this dreadful
action, by long impunity (our royal atten-
tion being employed upon matters of more
general concern) is become honourable,
and the refusal to engage in it ignominious.
In these our royal cares and inquiries we
are yet further made to understand, that
the persons of most eminent worth, and
most hopeful abilities, accompanied with
the strongest passion for true glory, are
such as are most liable to be involved in
the dangers arising from this licence.
Now taking the said premises into our se-
rious consideration, and well weighing that
all such emergences (wherein the mind is
incapable of commanding itself, and where
the injury is too sudden or too exquisite to
be borne) are particularly provided for by
laws heretofore enacted; and that the
qualities of less injuries, like those of in-
gratitude, are too nice and delicate to come
under general rules; we do resolve to blot
this fashion, or wantonness of anger, out of
the minds of our subjects, by our royal re-
solutions declared in this edict as follow:
'No person who either sends or accepts
a challenge, or the posterity of either,
though no death ensues thereupon, shall

So studiously their persons they adorn.
THERE is not so variable a thing in na-
ture as a lady's head-dress. Within my
own memory, I have known it rise and fall
above thirty degrees. About ten years ago
it shot up to a very great height, insomuch
that the female part of our species were
much taller than the men.* The women
were of such an enormous stature, that
'we appeared as grasshoppers before
them.' At present the whole sex is in a
manner dwarfed, and shrunk into a race of
beauties that seem almost another spe-
cies. I remember several ladies who were
once very near seven feet high, that at
present want some inches of five.
How
they came to be thus curtailed I cannot
learn; whether the whole sex be at pre-
sent under any penance which we know
nothing of, or whether they have cast their
head-dresses in order to surprise us with
something in that kind which shall be en-
tirely new, or whether some of the tallest
of the sex, being too cunning for the rest,
have contrived this method to make them
selves appear sizeable, is still a secret
though I find most are of opinion, they
are at present like trees new lopped and

*This refers to the commode, a kind of head-dress worn by the ladies at the beginning of the last century of the cap, consisting of many folds of fine lace, to a which by means of wire bore up their hair and fore-par prodigious height. The transition from this to the op posite extreme was very abrupt and sudden. It mad its appearance again a few years after, but has now

been long banished.

t Numb. xiii. 33.

pruned, that will certainly sprout up and tion of twenty thousand people; the men
flourish with greater heads than before. For placing themselves on the one side of his
my own part, as I do not love to be insult-pulpit, and the women on the other, that
ed by women who are taller than myself, I appeared (to use the similitude of an inge-
admire the sex much more in their present nious writer) like a forest of cedars with
humiliation, which has reduced them to their heads reaching to the clouds. He so
their natural dimensions, than when they warmed and animated the people against
had extended their persons and lengthened this monstrous ornament, that it lay under
themselves out into formidable and gigan- a kind of persecution; and whenever it ap-
tic figures. I am not for adding to the peared in public, was pelted down by the
beautiful edifices of nature, nor for raising rabble, who flung stones at the persons
any whimsical superstructure upon her who wore it. But notwithstanding this
plans; I must therefore repeat it, that I prodigy vanished while the preacher was
am highly pleased with the coiffure now in among them, it began to appear again
fashion, and think it shows the good sense some months after his departure, or to tell
which at present very much reigns among it in Monsieur Paradin's own words, "The
the valuable part of the sex. One may ob- women that, like snails in a fright, had
serve that women in all ages have taken drawn in their horns, shot them out again
, This ex-
more pains than men to adorn the outside as soon as the danger was over.
of their heads; and indeed I very much ad- travagance of the women's head-dresses in
mire, that those female architects, who that age, is taken notice of by Monsieur
raise such wonderful structures out of d'Argentre in his history of Bretagne, and
ribands, lace, and wire, have not been re- by other historians, as well as the person I
corded for their respective inventions. It have here quoted.
is certain there have been as many or-
ders in these kinds of building, as in those
which have been made of marble. Some-
times they rise in the shape of a pyramid,
sometimes like a tower, and sometimes
like a steeple. In Juvenal's time the build-
ing grew by several orders and stories, as
he has very humorously described it:

Tot premit ordonibus, tot adhuc compagibus altum Edificat caput; Andromachen a fronte videbis; Post minor est: aliam credas.Juv. Sat. vi. 501. With curls on curls they build her head before, And mount it with a formidable tow'r: A giantess she seems; but look behind, And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.-Dryden. But I do not remember in any part of my reading, that the head-dress aspired to so great an extravagance as in the fourteenth century; when it was built up in a couple of cones or spires, which stood so excessively high on each side of the head, that a woman who was but a pigmy without her head-dress, appeared like a colossus upon putting it on. Monsieur Paradin says, "That these old-fashioned fontanges rose an ell above the head; that they were pointed like steeples, and had long loose pieces of crape fastened to the tops of them, which were curiously fringed, and hung down their backs like streamers.'

It is usually observed, that a good reign is the only proper time for making of laws against the exorbitance of power; in the same manner an excessive head-dress may be attacked the most effectually when the fashion is against it. I do therefore recommend this paper to my female readers by way of prevention.

I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it is for them to add any thing that can be ornamental to what is already the master-piece of nature. The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure. Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermillion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, she seems to have designed the head as the cupola of the most glorious of her works; and when we load it with such a pile of supernumerary ornaments, we destroy the ishly contrive to call off the eye from great symmetry of the human figure, and fooland real beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribands, and bone-lace.

-Turpi secernis honestum.

L.

The women might possibly have carried this Gothic building much higher, had not a famous monk, Thomas Conecte by name, attacked it with great zeal and resolution. This holy man travelled from place to place to preach down this monstrous com- No. 99.] Saturday, June 23, 1711. mode; and succeeded so well in it, that as the magicians sacrificed their books to the flames upon the preaching of an apostle, many of the women threw down their head-dresses in the middle of his sermon, THE club, of which I have often declared and made a bonfire of them within sight of myself a member, were last night engaged the pulpit. He was so renowned as well in a discourse upon that which passes for the for the sanctity of his life as his manner of chief point of honour among men and wopreaching, that he had often a congrega-men: and started a great many

Hor. Lib. i. Sat. vi. 63.

You know to fix the bounds of right and wrong.

hints upon

the subject, which I thought were entirely is bigger and stronger than himself, seeks new. I shall therefore methodize the seve-all opportunities of being knocked on the ral reflections that arose upon this occasion, head, and after seven years' rambling reand present my reader with them for the turns to his mistress, whose chastity has speculation of this day; after having pre- been attacked in the mean time by giants mised, that if there is any thing in this pa- and tyrants, and undergone as many trials per which seems to differ with any passage as her lover's valour. of last Thursday's, the reader will consider this as the sentiments of the club, and the other as my own private thoughts, or rather those of Pharamond.

The great point of honour in men is courage, and in a woman chastity. If a man loses his honour in one rencounter, it is not impossible for him to regain it in another, a slip in a woman's honour is irrecoverable. I can give no reason for fixing the point of honour to these two qualities, unless it be that each sex sets the greatest value on the qualification which renders them the most amiable in the eyes of the contrary sex. Had men chosen for themselves, without regard to the opinions of the fair sex, I should believe the choice would have fallen on wisdom or virtue; or had women determined their own point of honour, it is probable that wit or good-nature would have carried it against chastity.

In Spain, where there are still great remains of this romantic humour, it is a transporting favour for a lady to cast an accidental glance on her lover from a window, though it be two or three stories high: as it is usual for a lover to assert his passion for his mistress, in single combat with a mad bull.

The great violation of the point of honour from man to man, is giving the lie. One may tell another he whores, drinks, blasphemes, and it may pass unresented; but to say he lies, though but in jest, is an affront that nothing but blood can expiate. The reason perhaps may be, because no other vice implies a want of courage so much as the making of a lie; and therefore telling a man he lies, is touching him in the most sensible part of honour, and indirectly calling him a coward. I cannot omit under this head what Herodotus tells us of the ancient Persians, that from the age of five years to twenty they instruct their sons only in three things, to manage the horse, to make use of the bow, and to speak truth.

Nothing recommends a man more to the female sex than courage; whether it be that they are pleased to see one who is a terror to others fall like a slave at their feet, or that this quality supplies their own principal defect, in guarding them from in- The placing the point of honour in this sults, and avenging their quarrels: or that false kind of courage, has given occasion to courage is a natural indication of a strong the very refuse of mankind, who have and sprightly constitution. On the other neither virtue nor common sense, to set up side, nothing makes women more esteemed for men of honour. An English peer, who by the opposite sex than chastity; whether has not been long_dead,* used to tell a it be that we always prize those most who pleasant story of a French gentleman, that are hardest to come at, or that nothing be-visited him early one morning at Paris, sides chastity with its collateral attendants, truth, fidelity, and constancy, gives the man a property in the person he loves, and consequently endears her to him above all things.

I am very much pleased with a passage in the inscription on a monument erected in Westminster-Abbey to the late Duke and Dutchess of Newcastle. Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the lord Lucas of Colchester; a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous.'

and after great professions of respect, let him know that he had it in his power to oblige him; which, in short, amounted to this, that he believed he could tell his lordship the person's name who jostled him as he came out from the opera; but before he would proceed, he begged his lordship, that he would not deny him the honour of making him his second. The English lord, to avoid being drawn into a very foolish affair, told him, he was under engagements for his two next duels to a couple of particular friends. Upon which the gentleman immediately withdrew, hoping his lordship would not take it ill if he meddled no farther in an affair from whence he himself was to receive no advantage.

In books of chivalry, where the point of honour is strained to madness, the whole story runs on chastity and courage. The damsel is mounted on a white palfrey as an emblem of her innocence; and to avoid The beating down this false notion of scandal, must have a dwarf for her page. honour, in so vain and lively a people as She is not to think of a man, until some those of France, is deservedly looked upon misfortune has brought a knight-errant to as one of the most glorious parts of their her relief. The knight falls in love, and present king's reign. It is a pity but the did not gratitude restrain her from murder-punishment of these mischievous notions ing her deliverer, would die at her feet by should have in it some particular circumher disdain. However, he must waste stances of shame and infamy; that those many years in the desert, before her virginheart can think of a surrender. The knight It has been said that this was William Cavendish goes off, attacks every thing he meets that the first Duke of Devonshire, who died August 18, 1707