well with herself. A little spite is natural to a great beauty: and it is ordinary to snap up a disagreeable fellow lest another should have him. That impudent toad Bareface fares well among all the ladies he converses with, for no other reason in the world but that he has the skill to keep them from explanation with one another. Did they know there is not one who likes him in her heart, each would declare her scorn of him the next moment; but he is well received by them because it is the fashion, and opposition to each other brings them insensibly into an imitation of each other. What adds to him the greatest grace is, that the pleasant thief, as they call him, is the most inconstant creature living, has a wonderful deal of wit and humour, and never wants something to say; besides all which, he has a most spiteful dangerous tongue if you should provoke him.

I Do not think any thing could make a pleasanter entertainment, than the history of the reigning favourites among the women from time to time about this town. In such an account we ought to have a faithful confession of each lady for what she liked such and such a man, and he ought to tell us by what particular action or dress he believed he should be most successful. As for my part, I have always made as easy a judgment when a man dresses for the ladies, as when he is equipped for hunting or coursing. The woman's man is a person in his air and behaviour To make a woman's man, he must not be quite different from the rest of our species. a man of sense, or a fool; the business is His garb is more loose and negligent, his to entertain, and it is much better to have manner more soft and indolent; that is to a faculty of arguing, than a capacity of say, in both these cases there is an apparent judging right. But the pleasantest of all endeavour to appear unconcerned and care- the women's equipage are. your regular less. In catching birds the fowlers have a visitants; these are volunteers in their ser method of imitating their voices, to bring vice without hopes of pay or ferment. them to the snare; and your women's men It is enough that they can lead out from a have always a similitude of the creature public place, that they are admitted on a they hope to betray in their own conversa- public day, and can be allowed to pass tion. A woman's man is very knowing in away part of that heavy load, their time, all that passes from one family to another, in the company of the fair. But commend has pretty little officiousness, is not at a me above all others to those who are loss what is good for a cold, and it is not known for your ruiners of ladies; these are amiss if he has a bottle of spirits in his the choicest spirits which our age propocket in case of any sudden indisposition. duces. We have several of these irresisti Curiosity having been my prevailing ble gentlemen among us when the company passion, and indeed the sole entertainment is in town. These fellows are accomplished of my life, I have sometimes made it my business to examine the course of intrigues as well as the manners and accomplishments of such as have been most successful that way. In all my observation, I never knew a man of good understanding a general favourite; some singularity in his behaviour, some whim in his way of life, and what would have made him ridiculous among the men, has recommended him to the other sex. I should be very sorry to offend a people so fortunate as these of whom I am speaking; but let any one look over the old beaux, and he will find the man of success was remarkable for quarrelling impertinently for their sakes, for dressing unlike the rest of the world, or passing his days in an insipid assiduity about the fair sex to gain the figure he made amongst them. Add to this, that he must have the reputation of being well with other women, to please any one woman of gallantry; for you are to know, that there is If you see a man more full of gesture tha a mighty ambition among the light part of ordinary in a public assembly, if loud upo the sex to gain slaves from the dominion of no occasion, if negligent of the compan others. My friend Will Honeycomb says around him, and yet laying wait for destroy it was a common bite with him, to lay ing by that negligence, you may take it fo suspicions that he was favoured by a lady's granted that he has ruined many a fai enemy, that is, some rival beauty, to be lone. The woman's man expresses himsel

with the knowledge of the ordinary occur rences about court and town, have that sort of good-breeding which is exclusive of all morality, and consists only in being publicly decent, privately dissolute.

It is wonderful how far a fond opinion of herself can carry a woman, to make her have the least regard to a professed known woman's man; but as scarce one of all wo men who are in the tour of gallantries eve hears any thing of what is the common sense of sober minds, but are entertained with a continual round of flatteries, they canno be mistresses of themselves enough to make arguments for their own conduc from the behaviour of these men to others It is so far otherwise, that a general fam for falsehood in this kind, is a recommen dation; and the coxcomb, loaded with fa vours of many others, is received like victor that disdains his trophies, to be victim to the present charmer.

wholly in that motion which we call strutting. An elevated chest, a pinched hat, a measurable step, and a sly surveying eye, are the marks of him. Now and then you see a gentleman with all these accomplishments; but, alas, any one of them is enough to undo thousands; when a gentleman with such perfections adds to it suitable learning, there should be public warning of his residence in town, that we may remove our wives and daughters. It happens sometimes that such a fine man has read all the miscellany poems, a few of our comedies, and has the translation of Ovid's Epistles by heart. Oh if it were possible that such a one could be as true as he is charming! But that is too much, the women will share such a dear false man: a little gallantry to hear him talk one would indulge one's self in, let him reckon the, sticks of one's fan, say something of the Cupids in it; and then call one so many soft names which a man of his learning has at his fingers'-ends. There sure is some excuse for frailty, when attacked by such a force against a weak woman.' Such is the soliloquy of many a lady one might name, at the sight of one of those who make it no iniquity to go on from day to day in the sin of womanslaughter.

a

and accomplishments. But it is not, methinks, so very difficult a matter to make a judgment of the abilities of others, especially of those who are in their infancy. My common-place book directs me on this occasion to mention the dawning of greatness in Alexander, who being asked in his youth to contend for a prize in the Olympic games, answered he would, if he had kings to run against him. Cassius, who was one of the conspirators against Cæsar, gave as great a proof of his temper, when in his childhood he struck a play-fellow, the son of Sylla, for saying his father was master of the Roman people. Scipio is reported to have answered, (when some flatterers at supper were asking him what the Romans would do for a general after his death,) Take Marius.' Marius was then a very boy, and had given no instances of his valour; but it was visible to Scipio from the manners of the youth, that he had a soul formed for the attempt and execution of great undertakings. I must confess I have very often with much sorrow bewailed the misfortune of the children of Great Britain, when I consider the ignorance and undiscerning of the generality of schoolmasters. The boasted liberty we talk of is but a mean reward for the long servitude, the many It is certain, that people are got into heart-aches and terrors, to which our childway of affectation, with a manner of over- hood is exposed in going through a gramlooking the most solid virtues, and admiring mar-school. Many of these stupid tyrants the most trivial excellences. The woman exercise their cruelty without any manner is so far from expecting to be contemned of distinction of the capacities of children, for being a very injudicious silly animal, or the intention of parents in their behalf. that while she can preserve her features There are many excellent tempers which and her mien, she knows she is still the are worthy to be nourished and cultivated object of desire; and there is a sort of secret with all possible diligence and care, that ambition, from reading frivolous books, and were never designed to be acquainted with keeping as frivolous company, each side to Aristotle, Tully, or Virgil; and there are as be amiable in perfection, and arrive at the many who have capacities for understandcharacters of the Dear Deceiver and the ing every word those great persons have Perjured Fair. writ, and yet were not born to have any relish of their writings. For want of this common and obvious discerning in those who have the care of youth, we have so many hundred unaccountable creatures every age whipped up into great scholars, that are for ever near a right understanding, and will never arrive at it. These are the scan-. dal of letters, and these are generally the men who are to teach others. The sense of shame and honour is enough to keep the world itself in order without corporal punishment, much more to train the minds of uncorrupted and innocent children. It happens, I doubt not, more than once in a year, that a lad is chastised for a blockhead, when it is a good apprehension that makes him incapable of knowing what his teacher means. A brisk imagination very often may suggest an error, which a lad could not have fallen into, if he had been as heavy in conjecturing as his master in explaining. But there is no mercy even towards a wrong interpretation of his meaning, the sufferings of the scholar's body are to rectify the mistakes of his mind.

C.

No. 157.] Thursday, August 30, 1711.

Genius, natale comes qui temperat astrum,
Nature Deus humanæ, mortalis in unum.
Quodque caput.-
Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. ii. 187.

IMITATED.

Pope.

-That directing pow'r, Who forms the genius in the natal hour: That God of nature, who, within us still, Inclines our action, not constrains our will. I AM very much at a loss to express by any word that occurs to me in our language that which is understood by indoles in Latin. The natural disposition to any particular art, science, profession, or trade, is very much to be consulted in the care of youth, and studied by men for their own conduct when they form to themselves any scheme of life. It is wonderfully hard indeed for a man to judge of his own capacity impartially. That may look great to me which may appear little to another, and I may be carried by fondness towards myself so far, as to attempt things too high for my talents

I am confident that no boy, who will not | thing as killing a man to cure him of a disbe allured to letters without blows, will temper; when he comes to suffer punishever be brought to any thing with them. ment in that one circumstance, he is brought A great or good mind must necessarily be below the existence of a rational creature, the worse for such indignities; and it is a and is in the state of a brute that moves sad change, to lose of its virtue for the im- only by the admonition of stripes. But since provement of its knowledge. No one who this custom of educating youth by the lash has gone through what they call a great is suffered by the gentry of Great Britain, school, but must remember to have seen I would prevail only that honest heavy lads children of excellent and ingenuous natures, may be dismissed from slavery sooner than (as has afterwards appeared in their man- they are at present, and not whipped on to hood;) I say no man has passed through their fourteenth or fifteenth year, whether this way of education, but must have seen they expect any progress from them or an ingenuous creature expiring with shame, not. Let the child's capacity be forthwith with pale looks, beseeching sorrow, and examined, and he sent to some mechanic silent tears, throw up its honest eyes, and way of life, without respect to his birth, if kneel on its tender knees to an inexorable nature designed him for nothing higher: let blockhead, to be forgiven the false quantity him go before he has innocently suffered, of a word in making a Latin verse. The and is debased into a dereliction of mind child is punished, and the next day he for being what it is no guilt to be, a plain commits a like crime, and so a third with man. I would not here be supposed to the same consequence. I would fain ask have said, that our learned men of either any reasonable man, whether this lad, in robe, who have been whipped at school, the simplicity of his native innocence, full are not still men of noble and liberal minds; of shame, and capable of any impression but I am sure they had been much more from that grace of soul, was not fitter for so than they are, had they never suffered any purpose in this life, than after that that infamy. spark of virtue is extinguished in him, though he is able to write twenty verses in an evening?

Seneca says, after his exalted way of talking, 'As the immortal gods never learnt any virtue, though they are endued with all that is good; so there are some men who have so natural a propensity to what they should follow, that they learn it almost as soon as they hear it. Plants and vegetables are cultivated into the production of finer fruits than they would yield without that care; and yet we cannot entertain hopes of producing a tender conscious spirit into acts of virtue, without the same methods as are used to cut timber, or give new shape to a piece of stone.

It is wholly to this dreadful practice that we may attribute a certain hardiness and ferocity which some men, though liberally educated, carry about them in all their behaviour. To be bred like a gentleman, and punished like a malefactor, must, as we see it does, produce that illiberal sauciness which we see sometimes in men of letters.

The Spartan boy who suffered the fox (which he had stolen and hid under his coat,) to eat into his bowels, I dare say had not half the wit or petulance which we learn at great schools among us: but the glorious sense of honour, or rather fear of shame, which he demonstrated in that action, was worth all the learning in the world without it.

It is, methinks, a very melancholy consideration, that a little negligence can spoil us, but great industry is necessary to improve us; the most excellent natures are soon depreciated, but evil tempers are long before they are exalted into good habits. To help this by punishments, is the same

But though there is so little care, as I have observed, taken, or observation made of the natural strain of men, it is no small comfort to me, as a Spectator, that there is any right value set upon the bona indoles of other animals: as appears by the following advertisement handed about the county of Lincoln, and subscribed by Enos Thomas, a person whom I have not the honour to know, but suppose to be profoundly learned in horseflesh:

'A chesnut horse called Cæsar, bred by James Darcy, esquire, at Sedbury, near Richmond, in the county of York; his granddam was his old royal mare, and got by Blunderbuss, which was got by HemslyTurk, and he got by Mr. Courant's Arabian, which got Mr. Minshul's Jew's-Trump. Mr. Cæsar sold him to a nobleman (coming five years old, when he had but one sweat) for three hundred guineas. A guinea a leap and trial, and a shilling the man. T.

EÑOS THOMAS.'

No. 158.] Friday, August 31, 1711.

-Nos hæc novimus esse nihil.-Martial, xiii. 2 We know these things to be mere trifles.

OUT of a firm regard to impartiality,1 print these letters, let them make for me

or not.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have observed through the whole course of your rhap sodies (as you once very well called them,) you are very industrious to overthrow all that many of your superiors, who have gone before you, have made their rule of writing. I am now between fifty and sixty, and had the honour to be well with the first men of taste and gallantry in the joyous

If the

reign of Charles the Second. We then had, | solitude is an unnatural being to us.
I humbly presume, as good understandings men of good understanding would forget a
among us as any now can pretend to. As little of their severity, they would find their
for yourself, Mr. Spectator, you seem with account in it: and their wisdom would have
the utmost arrogance to undermine the a pleasure in it, to which they are now
very fundamentals upon which we con- strangers. It is natural among us when
ducted ourselves. It is monstrous to set up men have a true relish of our company and
for a man of wit, and yet deny that honour our value, to say every thing with a better
in a woman is any thing else but peevish-grace: and there is, without designing it,
ness, that inclination is not'* the best rule something ornamental in what men utter
of life, or virtue and vice any thing else but before women, which is lost or neglected in
health and disease. We had no more to do conversations of men only. Give me leave
but to put a lady in a good humour, and all to tell you, sir, it would do you no great
we could wish followed of course. Then, harm if you yourself came a little more into
again, your Tully, and your discourses of our company: it would certainly cure you
another life, are the very bane of mirth and of a certain positive' and determining man-
good-humour. Pr'ythee do not value thy-ner in which you talk sometimes. In hopes
self on thy reason at that exorbitant rate, of your amendment, I am, sir, your gentle
and the dignity of human nature; take my reader.'
word for it, a setting-dog has as good rea- 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Your professed re-
son as any man in England. Had you (as gard to the fair sex, may perhaps make
by your diurnals one would think you do,) them value your admonitions when they
set up for being in vogue in town, you should will not those of other men. I desire
have fallen in with the bent of passion and sir, to repeat some lectures upon subjects
you,
appetite; your songs had then been in every you have now and then in a cursory man-
pretty mouth in England, and your little
distichs had been the maxims of the fair Spectator wholly write upon good-breeding:
ner only just touched. I would have a
and the witty to walk by: but, alas, sir, and after you have asserted that time and
what can you hope for, from entertaining place are to be very much considered in all
people with what must needs make them our actions, it will be proper to dwell upon
like themselves worse than they did before behaviour at church. On Sunday last a
they read you? Had you made it your grave and reverend man preached at our
business to describe Corinna charming, church. There was something particular
though inconstant, to find something in hu- in his accent; but without any manner of
man nature itself to make Zoilus excuse affectation. This particularity a set of gig-
himself for being fond of her; and to make
every man in good commerce with his own
reflections, you had done something worthy
our applause; but indeed, sir, we shall not
commend you for disapproving us. I have
a great deal more to say to you, but I shall
sum it all up in this one remark. In short,
sir, you do not write like a gentleman. I
am, sir, your most humble servant.'

glers thought the most necessary thing to
be taken notice of in his whole discourse,
and made it an occasion of mirth during
the whole time of sermon. You should see
one of them ready to burst behind a fan,
another pointing to a companion in another
seat, and a third with an arch composure,
as if she would if possible stifle her laugh-
ter. There were many gentlemen who
'MR. SPECTATOR,The other day we looked at them steadfastly, but this they
were several of us at a tea-table, and ac- took for ogling and admiring them. There
cording to custom and your own advice had was one of the merry ones in particular,
the Spectator read among us.
It was that that found out but just then that she had
paper wherein you are pleased to treat with but five fingers, for she fell a reckoning the
great freedom that character which you pretty pieces of ivory over and over again,
call a woman's man. We gave up all the to find herself employment and not laugh
kinds you have mentioned, except those out. Would it not be expedient, Mr. Spec-
who, you say, are our constant visitants. I tator, that the church-warden should hold
was upon the occasion commissioned by the up his wand on these occasions, and keep
company to write to you and tell you, that the decency of the place, as a magistrate
we shall not part with the men we have at does the peace in a tumult elsewhere?"
present, until the men of sense think fit to 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a woman's
relieve them, and give us their company in man, and read with a very fine lady your
their stead."
"You cannot imagine but that paper, wherein you fall upon us whom you
we love to hear reason and good sense bet-envy: what do you think I did? You must
ter than the ribaldry we are at present en- know she was dressing, and I read the
tertained with; but we must have company, Spectator to her, and she laughed at the
and among us very inconsiderable is better places where she thought I was touched; I
than none at all. We are made for the threw away your moral, and taking up her
cements of society, and came into the world girdle, cried out,
to create relations amongst mankind; and

'Give me but what this riband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.'*
*Waller's verses on a lady's girdle.

'She smiled, sir, and said you were al and affability that familiarized him to my pedant; so say of me what you please, read imagination, and at once dispelled all the Seneca, and quote him against me if you fears and apprehensions with which I apthink fit. I am, sir, your humble ser- proached him. He lifted me from the ground, and taking me by the hand, "Mirza," said he, I have heard thee in thy soliloquies; follow me.

vant.'

T.

No. 159.] Saturday, September 1, 1711.

-Omnem, quæ nunc obducta tuenti Mortales hebetat visus tibi, et humida circum Caligat, nubem eripiam.- Virg. n. ii. 604. The cloud, which, intercepting the clear light, Hangs o'er thy eyes, and blunts thy mortal sight, I will remove.

He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing me on the top of it, "Cast thy eyes eastward," said he, "and tell me what thou seest.""I see," said I, "a huge valley, and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it. The valley that thou seest," said he, "is the Vale of WHEN I was at Grand Cairo, I picked Misery, and the tide of water that thou up several oriental manuscripts which I seest, is part of the great tide of eternity." have still by me. Among others, I met with "What is the reason," said I, "that the one entitled, The Visions of Mirza, which tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one I have read over with great pleasure. I end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at intend to give it to the public when I have the other?""What thou seest," said he, no other entertainment for them; and shall "is that portion of eternity which is called begin with the first vision, which I have time, measured out by the sun, and reachtranslated word for word as follows: ing from the beginning of the world to its "On the fifth day of the moon, which, consummation.""Examine now," said according to the custom of my forefathers, he, "this sea that is bounded with darkness I always keep holy, after having washed at both ends, and tell me what thou discomyself, and offered up my morning devo-verest in it."-"I see a bridge," said I, tions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, standing in the midst of the tide."-"The in order to pass the rest of the day in medi-bridge thou seest, ," said he, "is human tation and prayer. As I was here airing life, consider it attentively." Upon a more myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell leisurely survey of it, I found that it coninto a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to another, "Surely," said I, "man is but a shadow, and life a dream." Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from any thing I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival in Paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures. I had often been told that the rock before me was the haunt of a Genius; and that several had been entertained with music who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts by those transporting airs which he played, to taste the pleasures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand directed me to approach the place where he sat. I drew near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature; and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion

sisted of three-score and ten entire arches,
with several broken arches, which added
to those that were entire, made up the
number about an hundred. As I was count-
ing the arches, the genius told me that this
bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches:
but that a great flood swept away the rest,
and left the bridge in the ruinous condition
I now beheld it. "But tell me farther,"
said he, "what thou discoverest on it."-
"I see multitudes of people passing over
it," said I," and a black cloud hanging on
each end of it." As I looked more atten-
tively, I saw several of the passengers
dropping through the bridge into the great
tide that flowed underneath it; and upon
farther examination, perceived there were
innumerable trap-doors that lay concealed
in the bridge, which the passengers no
sooner trod upon, but they fell through
them into the tide, and immediately disap
peared. These hidden pit-falls
very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so
that throngs of people no sooner broke
through the cloud, but many of them fell
into them. They grew thinner towards
the middle, but multiplied and lay closer
together towards the end of the arches that
were entire.

were set

There were indeed some persons, but their number was very small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and spent with so long a walk.

I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented. My