into the nature of affection itself, and tell | pretty. "" To this she answers, "All the us according to your philosophy, why it is world but you think I have as much sense that our dears should do what they will as yourself." I repeat to her, "Indeed you with us, shall be froward, ill-natured, as- are pretty." Upon this there is no pa suming, sometimes whine, at others, rail, tience; she will throw down any thing then swoon away, then come to life, have about her, stamp, and pull off her headthe use of speech to the greatest fluency clothes. Fy, my dear," say I, "how imaginable, and then sink away again, and can a woman of your sense fall into such an all because they fear we do not love them intemperate rage?" This is an argument enough; that is, the poor things love us so that never fails. "Indeed, my dear," says heartily, that they cannot think it possible she, " we should be able to love them in so great you do, with the silly way you have of you make me mad sometimes, so a degree, which makes them take on so. treating me like a pretty idiot." Well, I say, sir, a true good-natured man, whom what have I got by putting her into good rakes and libertines call hen-peckt, shall humour? Nothing, but that I must convince fall into all these different moods with his her of my good opinion by my practice; dear life, and at the same time see they are and then I am to give her possession of my wholly put on; and yet not be hard-hearted little ready-money, and, for a day and a enough to tell the dear good creature that half following, dislike all she dislikes, and she is an hypocrite. extol every thing she approves. I am so exquisitely fond of this darling, that I sel dom see any of my friends, am uneasy in all companies until I see her again; and when I come home she is in the dumps, because she says she is sure I came so soon only be cause I think her handsome. I dare not upon this occasion laugh: but though I am one of the warmest churchmen in the kingdom, I am forced to rail at the times, because she is a violent Whig. Upon this we talk politics so long, that she is convinced I kiss her for her wisdom. It is a common practice with me to ask her some question concerning the constitution, which she answers me in general out of Harring ton's Oceana. Then I commend her strange memory, and her arm is immediately locked in mine. While I keep her in this tem per she plays before me, sometimes dancing in the midst of the room, sometimes striking an air at her spinet, varying her posture and her charms in such a manner that I am in continual pleasure. She will play the fool if I allow her to be wise! but if she suspects I like her for her trifling, she immediately grows grave. This sort of good men is very frequent in the populous and wealthy city of London, and is the true hen-peckt man. The kind creature cannot break through his kindnesses so far as to come to an explanation with the tender soul, and therefore goes on to comfort her when nothing ails her, to appease her when she is not angry, and to give her his cash when he knows she does not want it; rather than be uneasy for a whole month, which is computed by hardhearted men the space of time which a froward woman takes to come to herself, if you have courage to stand out. There are indeed several other species of the hen-peckt, and in my opinion they are certainly the best subjects the queen has; and for that reason I take it to be your duty to keep us above contempt. I do not know whether I make myself understood in the representation of a henpeckt life, but I shall take leave to give you an account of myself, and my own spouse. You are to know that I am reckoned no fool, have on several occasions been tried whether I will take ill-usage, and the event has been to my advantage; and yet there is not such a slave in Turkey as I am to my dear. She has a good share of wit, and is what you call a very pretty agreeable woman. I perfectly doat on her, and my affection to her gives me all the anxieties imaginable but that of jealousy. My being thus confident of her, I take, as much as I can judge of my heart, to be the reason, that whatever she does, though it be never so much against my inclination, there is still left something in her manner that is amiable. She will sometimes look at me with an assumed grandeur, and pretend to resent that I have not had respect enough for her opinion in such an instance in company. I cannot but smile at the pretty anger she is in, and then she pretends she is used like a child. In a word, our great debate is, which has the superiority in point of understanding. She is eternally forming an argument of debate; to which I very indolently answer, "Thou art mighty 'These are the toils in which I am taken, and I carry off my servitude as well as most men; but my application to you is in behalf of the hen-peckt in general, and I desire a dissertation from you in defence of us. You have, as I am informed, very good authori ties in our favour, and hope you will no omit the mention of the renowned Socrates and his philosophic resignation to his wife Xantippe. This would be a very good of fice to the world in general, for the hen peckt are powerful in their quality and numbers, not only in cities, but in courts in the latter they are ever the most obse quious, in the former the most wealthy a all men. When you have considered wed lock thoroughly, you ought to enter int the suburbs of matrimony, and give us a account of the thraldom of kind keeper and irresolute lovers; the keepers who can not quit their fair ones, though they se their approaching ruin; the lovers who dar not marry, though they know they neve shall be happy without the mistresses whom | makes no distinction between its objects, if T. 'NATHANIEL HENROOST.' No. 177.] Friday, September 22, 1711. Quis enim bonus, aut face dignus Arcana, qualem Cereris vult esse sacerdos, Ulla aliena sibi credat mala? Juv. Sat. xv. 140. Who can all sense of others' ills escape, Is but a brute, at best, in human shape. Tate. IN one of my last week's papers I treated f good-nature, as it is the effect of constituion; I shall now speak of it as a moral vire. The first may make a man easy in imself and agreeable to others, but implies o merit in him that is possessed of it. A an is no more to be praised upon this acount, than because he has a regular pulse, ra good digestion. This good-nature, owever, in the constitution, which Mr. Dryden somewhere calls a milkiness of ood,' is an admirable ground work for the ther. In order, therefore, to try our goodature, whether it arises from the body or e mind, whether it be founded in the anial or rational part of our nature; in a ord, whether it be such as is entitled to by other reward, besides that secret satisction and contentment of mind which is sential to it, and the kind reception it prores us in the world, we must examine it the following rules: First, whether it acts with steadiness and iformity, in sickness and in health, in osperity and in adversity; if otherwise, is to be looked upon as nothing else but irradiation of the mind from some new pply of spirits, or a more kindly circulan of the blood. Sir Francis Bacon menns a cunning solicitor, who would never a favour of a great man before dinner; took care to prefer his petition at a time en the party petitioned had his mind e from care, and his appetites in good mour. Such a transient temporary goodcure as this, is not that philanthropy, t love of mankind, which deserves the e of a moral virtue. The next way of a man's bringing his d-nature to the test is, to consider ether it operates according to the rules reason and duty; for if notwithstandits general benevolence to mankind, it or health, or ease, for the benefit of mankind. Among all these expressions of goodnature, I shall single out that which goes under the general name of charity, as it consists in relieving the indigent; that being a trial of this kind which offers itself to us almost at all times, and in every place. I should propose it as a rule, to every one who is provided with any competency of fortune more than sufficient for the necessaries of life, to lay aside a certain portion of his income for the use of the poor. This I would look upon as an offering to Him who has a right to the whole, for the use of those whom in the passage hereafter mentioned, he has described as his own representatives upon earth. At the same time we should manage our charity with such prudence and caution, that we may not hurt our own friends or relations, whilst we are doing good to those who are strangers to us. This may possibly be explained better by an example than by a rule. Eugenius is a man of an universal goodnature, and generous beyond the extent of his fortune; but withal so prudent, in the economy of his affairs, that what goes out in charity is made up by good management. Eugenius has what the world calls two hundred pounds a year; but never values himself above nine-score, as not thinking he has a right to the tenth part, which he always appropriates to charitable uses. To this sum he frequently makes other voluntary additions, insomuch that in a good year, for such he accounts those in which he has been able to make greater bounties than ordinary, he has given above twice that sum to the sickly and indigent. Eugenius prescribes to himself many particular days of fasting and abstinence, in order to increase his private bank of charity, and sets aside what would be the current expenses of those times for the use of the poor. often goes afoot where his business calls him, and at the end of his walk has given a shilling, which in his ordinary methods of expense would have gone for coach-hire, to the first necessitous person that has fallen in his way. I have known him, when he has been going to a play or an opera, divert the money which was designed for that He purpose, upon an object of charity whom he | of Job. It is the account which that hol has met with in the street; and afterwards man gives of his behaviour in the days o pass his evening in a coffee-house, or at a his prosperity, and if considered only as friend's fire-side, with much greater satis- human composition, is a finer picture of faction to himself, than he could have re- charitable and good-natured man than ist ceived from the most exquisite entertain- be met with in any other author. ments of the theatre. By these means he is generous without impoverishing himself, and enjoys his estate by making it the property of others. "O that I were as in months past, as i the days when God preserved me: Whe his candle shined upon my head, and whe by his light I walked through darkness When the Almighty was yet with me when my children were about me: Whe There are few men so cramped in their private affairs, who may not be charitable after this manner, without any disadvantage I washed my steps with butter, and the to themselves, or prejudice to their families. rock poured out rivers of oil. It is but sometimes sacrificing a diversion or convenience to the poor, and turning the usual course of our expenses into a better channel. This is, I think, not only the most prudent and convenient, but the most meritorious piece of charity, which we can put in practice. By this method, we in some measure share the necessities of the poor at the same time that we relieve them, and make ourselves not only their patrons, but their fellow-sufferers. "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave wit ness to me. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him tha had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. I was eyes to the blind, and feet wa I to the lame: I was a father to the poor and the cause which I knew not I searched out. Did not I weep for him that was in Sir Thomas Brown, in the last part of trouble? was not my soul grieved for the his Religio Medici, in which he describes poor? Let me be weighed in an even bal his charity in several heroic instances, and ance, that God may know mine integrity with a noble heat of sentiment, mentions If I did despise the cause of my man that verse in the Proverbs of Solomon, 'He servant or of my maid-servant when they that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the contended with me, what then shall I do Lord: "There is more rhetoric in that when God riseth up? and when he visiteth one sentence," says he, "than in a library what shall I answer him? Did not he that of sermons; and indeed, if those sentences made me in the womb, make him? and were understood by the reader, with the did not one fashion us in the womb? If same emphasis as they are delivered by the have withheld the poor from their desire author, we needed not those volumes of in- or have caused the eyes of the widow to structions, but might be honest by an epi- fail: Or have eaten my morsel myself alone tome."+ and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof This passage in scripture is indeed won-If I have seen any perish for want of cloth derfully persuasive; but I think the same ing, or any poor without covering: If hi thought is carried much farther in the New loins have not blessed me, and if he wer Testament, where our Saviour tells us in a not warmed with the fleece of my sheep most pathetic manner, that he shall here- If I have lifted up my hand against the after regard the clothing of the naked, the feeding of the hungry, and the visiting of the imprisoned, as offices done to himself, and reward them accordingly. Pursuant to those passages in holy scripture, I have somewhere met with the epitaph of a charitable man, which has very much pleased I cannot recollect the words, but the sense of it is to this purpose: What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.§ me. fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone. If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lifted up mysel when evil found him: (Neither have I suf fered my mouth to sin, by wishing a curs to his soul.) The stranger did not lodge i the street; but I opened my doors to the traveller. If my land cry against me, 0 that the furrows likewise therefore com Since I am thus insensibly engaged in sa- plain: If I have eaten the fruits thereo cred writ, I cannot forbear making an ex-without money, or have caused the owner tract of several passages which I have thereof to lose their life; let thistles gro always read with great delight in the book instead of wheat, and cockle instead a * Prov. xix. 17. † Brown's Rel. Medici, Part II. Sect. 13. f. 1659. p. 2. i Mat. xxv. 31, et seqq. barley.' L. The epitaph alluded to is (or was) in St. George's No. 178.] Monday, September 24, 1711. How now, who is heare? That I spent, that I had: Comis in uxorem- Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. ii. 133 I CANNOT defer taking notice of this letter 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am but too good Job xxix. 2. &c. xxx. 25, &c, xxxi. 0, &c. passim. judge of your paper of the 15th instant, I am answered only: That I expose my own the letter of this lady, to consider this dread- a inclination I had to recommend to husbands made of this inexpressible injury, and how be so. but his family, and most exactly well- give desires me for her sake to end one of my you an account of the distraction of it? suaded, thinks such a perseverance very impracticable. Could you but conceive how cruel I am one moment in my resentment, and at the ensuing minute, when I place him in the condition my anger would bring him to, how compassionate; it would give you some notion how miserable I am, and how little I deserve it. When I remonstrate with the greatest gentleness that is possible against HUSBAND, Stay more at home. I know where you visited at seven of the clock on Thursday evening. The colonel, whom you charged me to see no more, is in town. T. 'MARTHA HOUSEWIFE.' unhandsome appearances, and that married No. 179.] Tuesday, September 25, 1711. persons are under particular rules; when he is in the best humour to receive this, I Centuriæ seniorum agitant expertia frugis: Omne tullt punctum qui miscuit utile dulci, Old age is only fond of moral truth, I MAY cast my readers under two general divisions, the mercurial and the saturnine. The first are the gay part of my disciples; who require speculations of wit and humour, the others are those of a more solemn and sober turn, who find no pleasure but in papers of morality and sound sense. The former call every thing that is serious, stupid; the latter look upon every thing as impertinent that is ludicrous. Were I always grave, one half of my readers would fall off from me: were I always merry, I should lose the other. I make it therefore my endeavour to find out entertainments of both kinds, and by that means, perhaps, consult the good of both, more than I should do, did I always write to the particular taste of either. As they neither of them know what I proceed upon, the sprightly reader, who takes up my paper in order to be diverted, very often finds himself engaged unawares in a serious and profitable course of thinking; as, on the contrary, the thoughtful man, who perhaps may hope to find something solid, and full of deep reflection, is very often insensibly betrayed into a fit of mirth. In a word, the reader sits down to my entertainment without knowing his bill of fare, and has therefore at least the pleasure of hoping there may be a dish to his palate. If what I have here said does not recommend, it will at least excuse, the variety of my speculations. I would not willingly laugh but in order to instruct, or if I sometimes fail in this point, when my mirth ceases to be instructive, it shall never cease to be innocent. A scrupulous conduct in this particular, has, perhaps, more merit in it than the generality of readers imagine; did they know how many thoughts occur in a point of humour, which a discreet author in modesty suppresses; how strokes many of raillery present themselves, which could not fail to please the ordinary taste of mankind, but are stifled in their birth by reason of some remote tendency which they carry in them to corrupt the minds of those who read them; did they know how many glances of ill-nature are industriously avoided for fear of doing injury to the reputation of another, they would be apt to think kindly of those writers who endeavour to make themselves diverting without being immoral. One may apply to these authors that passage in Waller: Poets lose half the praise they would have got, Were it but known what they discreetly blot. with all the above-mentioned liberties, it As nothing is more easy than to be a wit, requires some genius and invention to appear such without them. What I have here said is not only in regard to the public, but with an eye to my the following letter, which I have castrated particular correspondent, who has sent me in some places upon these considerations: I must confess, were I left to myself, I 'SIR,-Having lately seen your discourse should rather aim at instructing than divert-upon a match of grinning, I cannot forbear ing; but if we will be useful to the world, we giving you an account of a whistling match, must take it as we find it. Authors of pro- which with many others, I was entertained fessed severity discourage the looser part of with about three years since at the Bath mankind from having any thing to do with The prize was a guinea, to be conferred their writings. A man must have virtue in upon the ablest whistler, that is, on him him, before he will enter upon the reading who could whistle clearest, and go through of a Seneca or an Epictetus. The very title his tune without laughing, to which at the of a moral treatise has something in it aus- same time he was provoked by the antick tere and shocking to the careless and incon- postures of a merry-andrew, who was to siderate. stand upon the stage and play his tricks in For this reason several unthinking per- the eye of the performer. There were three sons fall in my way, who would give no competitors for the guinea. The first was attention to lectures delivered with a reli-a ploughman of a very promising aspect; gious seriousness or a philosophic gravity. They are ensnared into sentiments of wisdom and virtue when they do not think of it; and if by that means they arrive only at such a degree of consideration as may dispose them to listen to more studied and elaborate discourses, I shall not think my speculations useless. I might likewise observe, that the gloominess in which sometimes the minds of the best men are involved, very often stands in need of such little incitements to mirth and laughter, as are apt to disperse melancholy, and put our faculties in good humour. To which some will add, that the British climate, more than any other makes entertainments of this nature in a manner necessary. his features were steady, and his muscles him The next that mounted the stage was a under-citizen of the Bath, a person remark able among the inferior people of that plac for his great wisdom, and his broad band He contracted his mouth with much gr vity, and that he might dispose his mind |