to avoid the persons he speaks of, that I been very much towards intrigue and havshall insert his letter at length. one ing intelligence with women of wit, my whole life has passed away in a series of 'MR. SPECTATOR, I do not know that impositions. I shall, for the benefit of the you have ever touched upon a certain spe- present race of young men give some accies of women, whom we ordinarily call count of my loves. I know not whether jilts. You cannot possibly go upon a more you have ever heard of the famous girl useful work, than the consideration of these about town, called Kitty. This creature dangerous animals. The coquette is indeed (for I must take shame upon myself) was degree towards the jilt; but the heart my mistress in the days when keeping was of the former is bent upon admiring herself, in fashion. Kitty, under the appearance and giving false hopes to her lovers; but of being wild, thoughtless, and irregular in the latter is not contented to be extremely all her words and actions, concealed the amiable, but she must add to that advantage most accomplished jilt of her time. Her a certain delight in being a torment to negligence had to me a charm in it like that others. Thus when her lover is in the full of chastity, and want of desires seemed as expectation of success, the jilt shall meet great a merit as the conquest of them. The him with a sudden indifference, and admi-air she gave herself was that of a romping ration in her face at his being surprised that girl, and whenever I talked to her with any he is received like a stranger, and a cast of turn of fondness, she would immediately her head another way with a pleasant scorn snatch off my periwig, try it upon herself in of the fellow's insolence. It is very proba- the glass, clap her arms a-kimbow, draw ble the lover goes home utterly astonished my sword, and make passes on the wall, take and dejected, sits down to his 'scrutoire, off my cravat, and seize it to make some sends her word in the most abject terms other use of the lace, or run into some other that he knows not what he has done, that unaccountable rompishness, until the time all which was desirable in this life is so sud- I had appointed to pass away with her was denly vanished from him, that the charmer over. I went from her full of pleasure at of his soul should withdraw the vital heat the reflection that I had the keeping of so from the heart which pants for her. He much beauty in a woman, who, as she was continues a mournful absence for some time, too heedless to please me, was also too unpining in secret, and out of humour with all attentive to form a design to wrong me. things which he meets with. At length he Long did I divert every hour that hung takes a resolution to try his fate, and ex- heavy upon me in the company of this creaplain with her resolutely upon her unac- ture, whom I looked upon as neither guilty countable carriage. He walks up to her nor innocent, but could laugh at myself for apartment, with a thousand inquietudes, my unaccountable pleasure in an expense and doubts in what manner he shall meet upon her, until in the end it appeared my first appearance, she flies towards him, man. the first cast of her eye; when, upon his pretty insensible was with child by my footwonders where he has been, accuses him liarity as surprising of his This good correspondence continues until and I resolved after that time to converse as her former coldness. the lady observes the lover grows happy in with none but those who lived within the Enconsistency of behaviour. For (as I just I formed myself into a more regular turn now said) the happiness of a jilt consists of behaviour, and began to make visits, freBuy in the power of making others uneasy. quent assemblies, and lead out ladies from But such is the folly of this sect of women, the theatres, with all the other insignificant "This accident roused me into a disdain against all libertine women, under what ap- To this end that they carry on this pretty, skittish be-duties which the professed servants of the render it supportable. Corinna, that used to perform. In a very little time, (having haviour, until they have no charms left to fair place themselves in constant readiness to torment all who conversed with her with a plentiful fortune,) fathers and mothers false glances, and little heedless unguarded began to regard me as a good match, and I tion towards the man she would insnare, lies in town to observe their daughters; but motions, that were to betray some inclina- found easy admittance into the best famifinds at present all she attempts that way I, who was born to follow the fair to no jilt in her constitution, by laying artificial made my application to three jilts succesunregarded; and is obliged to indulge the purpose, have by the force of my ill stars plots, writing perplexing letters from un-sively. known hands, and making all the young 'Hyæna is one of those who form them fellows in love with her until they find out selves into a melancholy and indolent air, who she is. Thus, as before she gave tor-and endeavour to gain admirers from their ment by disguising her inclination, she now inattention to all around them. Hyæna can s obliged to do it by hiding her person. has been my unhappy fate to be jilted from conceive her meditation is employed only 'As for my own part, Mr. Spectator, it in her countenance, that it is impossible to my youth upward; and as my taste has on her dress and her charms in that pos loll in her coach, with something so fixed ture. If it were not too coarse a smile, I should say, Hyæna, in the figure she affects to appear in, is a spider in the midst of a cobweb, that is sure to destroy every fly that approaches it. The net Hyæna throws is so fine, that you are taken in it before you can observe any part of her work. I attempted her for a long and weary season, but I found her passion went no farther than to be admired; and she is of that unreasonable temper, as not to value the inconstancy of her lovers, provided she can boast she once had their addresses. Biblis was the second I aimed at, and her vanity lay in purchasing the adorers of others, and not rejoicing in their love itself. Biblis is no man's mistress, but every woman's rival. As soon as I found this, I fell in love with Chloe, who is my present pleasure and torment. I have writ to her, danced with her, and fought for her, and have been her man in the sight and expectation of the whole town these three years, and thought myself near the end of my wishes; when the other day she called me into her closet, and told me, with a very grave face, that she was a woman of honour, and scorned to deceive a man who loved her with so much sincerity as she saw I did, and therefore she must inform me that she was by nature the most inconstant creature breathing, and begged of me not to marry her: If I insisted upon it, I should; but that she was lately fallen in love with another. What to do or say I know not, Dut desire you to inform me, and you will nfinitely oblige, sir, your humble servant, CHARLES YELLOW.' HE is a very unhappy man who sets his heart upon being admired by the multitude, or affects a general and undistinguishing applause among men. What pious men call the testimony of a good conscience, should be the measure of our ambition in this kind; that is to say, a man of spirit should contemn the praise of the ignorant, and like being applauded for nothing but what he knows in his own heart he deserves. Be sides which, the character of the person who commends you is to be considered, before you set a value upon his esteem. The praise of an ignorant man is only good-will, you should receive his kindness as hel and is a good neighbour in society, and not as a good judge of your actions in point of fame and reputation. The satirist said very well of popular praise and acclamations, "Give the tinkers and cobblers their presents again, and learn to live of yourself."* It is an argument of a loose and ungoverned mind to be affected with the promiscuous approbation of the generality of mankind; and a man of virtue should be too delicate for so coarse an appetite of fame. Men of honour should endeavour only to please the worthy, and the man of merit should desire to be tried only by his peers. I thought it a noble sentiment which I heard yesterday uttered in conversation: 'I know,' said a gentleman, a way to be greater than any man. If he has worth in him, I can re joice in his superiority to me; and that satisfaction is a greater act of the soul in me, than any in him which can possibly appear to me.' This thought could not proceed but from a candid and generous spirit; and the approbation of such minds is what may be esteemed true praise: for with the common race of men there is nothing commendable but what they themselves may hope to be partakers of, and arrive at; but the motive truly glorious is, when the mind is set rather to do things laudable, than to purchase reputation.Where there is that sincerity as the foundation of a good name, the kind opinion of virtuous men will be an unsought, but a necessary consequence. The Lacedæmonians, though a plain people, and no pretenders to politeness, had a certain delicacy in their sense of glory, and sacrificed to the Muses when they entered upon any great enterprise. They would have the commemora tion of their actions be transmitted by the purest and most untainted memorialists. The din which attends victories and public triumphs, is by far less eligible than the recital of the actions of great men by honest and wise historians. It is a frivolous pleasure to be the admiration of gaping crowds; but to have the approbation of a good man in the cool reflections of his closet, is a gratification worthy an heroic spirit. The applause of the crowd makes the head giddy, but the attestation of a reasonable man makes the heart glad. What makes the love of popular or general praise still more ridiculous, is, that it is usually given for circumstances which are foreign to the persons admired. Thus they are the ordinary attendants on power and hands, and put into another's. The appliriches, which may be taken out of one man's cation only, and not the possession, makes those outward things honourable. The vulgar and men of sense agree in admiring would rather be possessed of; the wise man men, for having what they themselves applauds him whom he thinks most virtu us, the rest of the world him who is most | some time since, I shall publish it in this When a man is in this way of thinking, I do not know what can occur to one more monstrous, than to see persons of ingenuity address their services and performances to men no way addicted to liberal arts. In these cases, the praise on one hand, and the patronage on the other, are equally the objects of ridicule. Dedications to ignorant men are as absurd as any of the speeches of Bulfinch in the Droll. Such an address One is apt to translate into other words; and when the different parties are thoroughly Considered, the panegyric generally implies no more than if the author should say to the patron; 'My very good lord, you and I can never understand one another; therefore I humbly desire we may be intimate friends For the future.' The rich may as well ask to borrow of the poor, as the man of virtue or merit to hope for addition to his character from any out such as himself. He that commends another engages so much of his own repucation as he gives to that person commended; and he that has nothing laudable in himself s not of ability to be such a surety. The vise Phocion was so sensible how dangerous t was to be touched with what the multiude approved, that upon a general acclamation made when he was making an orasion, he turned to an intelligent friend who stood near him, and asked in a surprised manner, 'What slip have I made?' 'MR. BUCKLEY,-Mr. Spectator having 'SIRRAH,-You are a saucy audacious you starve I shall conclude this paper with a billet On the subject of love was cut off, she spoke the skull for it. Was there ever such an image of pater- o. 189.] Saturday, October 6, 1711. T. mean the part of Sir Sampson in Love for Love. I must not, however, engage myself blindly on the side of the son, to whom the fond letter above written was directed. His father calls him a 'saucy and audacious rascal,' in the first line, and I am afraid, upon examination, he will prove but an ungracious youth. To go about railing' at THE following letter being written to my his father, and to find no other place but ookseller, upon a subject of which I treated the outside of his letter' to tell him 'that -Patriæ pietatis imago. An image of paternal tenderness. Virg. n. x. 824. The obedience of children to their pa rents is the basis of all government, and set forth as the measure of that obedience which we owe to those whom Providence has placed over us. might overcomes right'-if it does not dis- the Creator, it discovers the imperfection cover his reason to be depraved,' and and degeneracy of the creature. 'that he is either fool or mad,' as the choleric old gentleman tells him, we may at least allow that the father will do very well in endeavouring to better his judgment, and give him a greater sense of his duty. But whether this may be brought about by breaking his head, or giving him a great knock on the skull,' ought, I think, to be well considered. Upon the whole, I wish the father has not met with his match, and that he may not be as equally paired with a son, as the mother in Virgil: It is father Le Compte, if I am not mistaken, who tells us how want of duty in this particular is punished among the Chinese, insomuch, that if a son should be known to kill, or so much as to strike his father, not only the criminal, but his whole family would be rooted out, nay, the inhabitants of the place where he lived would be put to the sword, nay, the place itself would be razed to the ground, and its foundations sown with salt. For, say they, there must have been an utter deprivation of manners in that clan or society of people who could have bred up among them so horrid an of fender. To this I shall add a passage out Or like the crow and her egg in the Greek of the first book of Herodotus. That histoproverb: Bad the crow, bad the egg. Kxxx xoрaxos, xxxov wov. rian, in his account of the Persian customs and religion, tells us, it is their opinion that no man ever killed his father, or that it is possible such a crime should be in nature; but that if any thing like it should ever happen, they conclude that the reputed son must have been illegitimate, suppositious, or begotten in adultery. Their opinion in this particular shows sufficiently what a notion they must have had of undutifulness in general. I must here take notice of a letter which I have received from an unknown correspondent upon the subject of my paper, upon which the foregoing letter is likewise founded. The writer of it seems very much concerned lest that paper should seem to give encouragement to the disobedience of children towards their parents; but if the writer of it will take the pains to read it over again attentively, I dare say his ap- No. 190.] Monday, October 8, 1711. prehensions will vanish. Pardon and reconciliation are all the penitent daughter requests, and all that I contend for in her behalf; and in this case I may use the saying of an eminent wit, who, upon some great men's pressing him to forgive his daughter who had married against his consent, told them he could refuse nothing to their instances, but that he would have them remember there was difference between giving and forgiving. Servitas crescit nova L. Hor. Lib. 2. Od. vii. 18. A slavery to former times unknown. SINCE I made some reflections upon the general negligence used in the case of regard towards women, or in other words, since I talked of wenching, I have had epistles upon this subject, which I shall, for the present entertainment, insert as they lie before me. I must confess, in all controversies between parents and their children, I am 'MR. SPECTATOR,-As your speculanaturally prejudiced in favour of the former. tions are not confined to any part of human The obligations on that side can never be life, but concern the wicked as well as the acquitted, and I think it is one of the good, I must desire your favourable acceptgreatest reflections upon human nature, ance of what I, a poor strolling girl about that paternal instinct should be a stronger town, have to say to you. I was told by a motive to love than filial gratitude; that Roman-Catholic gentleman who picked me the receiving of favour should be a less up last week, and who, I hope, is absolved inducement to good-will, tenderness, and for what passed between us; I say, I was commiseration, than the conferring of them; told by such a person, who endeavoured to and that the taking care of any person, convert me to his own religion, that in should endear the child or dependant more countries where popery prevails, besides to the parent or benefactor, than the parent the advantage of licensed stews, there are or benefactor to the child or dependant; large endowments given for the Incurabili, yet so it happens, that for one cruel parent I think he called them, such as are past all we meet with a thousand undutiful chil- remedy, and are allowed such maintenance dren. This is, indeed, wonderfully contrived (as I have formerly observed,) for the support of every living species; but at the same time that it shows the wisdom of and support as to keep them without farther care until they expire. This manner of treating poor sinners has, methinks, great humanity in it; and as you are a person who pretend to carry your reflections upon nags, when they are warranted for their all subjects whatever that occur to you, soundness. You understand by this time with candour, and act above the sense of that I was left in a brothel, and exposed to what misinterpretation you may meet with, the next bidder, who could purchase me I beg the favour of you to lay before all the of my patroness. This is so much the work world the unhappy condition of us poor of hell: the pleasure in the possession of us vagrants, who are really in the way of wenches abates in proportion to the degrees labour instead of idleness. There are we go beyond the bounds of innocence; and crowds of us whose manner of livelihood no man is gratified, if there is nothing left has long ceased to be pleasing to us; and for him to debauch. Well, sir, my first who would willingly lead a new life, if the man, when I came upon the town, was Sir rigour of the virtuous did not for ever expel Jeoffry Foible, who was extremely lavish us from coming into the world again. As to me of his money, and took such a fancy it now happens, to the eternal infamy of to me that he would have carried me off, the male sex, falsehood among you is not if my patroness would have taken any reareproachfil, but credulity in woman is in-sonable terms for me; but as he was old, famous. 'Give me leave, sir, to give you my history. You are to know that I am a daughter of a man of good reputation, tenant to a man of quality. The heir of this great house took it in his head to cast a favourable eye upon me, and succeeded. I do not pretend to say he promised me marriage: I was not a creature silly enough to be taken by so foolish a story; but he ran away with me up to this town, and introduced me to a grave matron, with whom I boarded for a day or two with great gravity, and was not a little pleased with the change of my condition, from that of a country life to the finest company, as I believed, in the whole world. My humble servant made me understand that I should always be kept in the plentiful condition I then enjoyed; when after a very great fondness towards me, he one day took his leave of me for four or five days. In the evening of the same day, my good landlady came to me, and observing me very pensive, began to comfort me, and with a smile told me I must see the world. When I was deaf to all she could Say to divert me, she began to tell me with a very frank air that I must be treated as I ought, and not to take these squeamish humours upon me, for my friend had left me his covetousness was his strongest passion, REBECCA NETTLETOP.' 'It is a thousand pities you should be so severely virtuous as I fear you are; otherwise, after one visit or two, you would soon understand that we women of the town are not such useless correspondents as you may imagine: you have undoubtedly heard that it was a courtesan who discovered Catiline's conspiracy. If you print this I'll tell you more; and am, in the meantime, sir, the town; and, as their phrase is, she your most humble servant, expected I would see company, or I must be treated like what I had brought myself to. This put me into a fit of crying: and I 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am an idle young immediately, in a true sense of my condi- woman that would work for my livelihood, tion, threw myself on the floor, deploring but that I am kept in such a manner as I my fate, calling upon all that was good and cannot stir out. My tyrant is an old jealous sacred to succour me. While I was in this fellow, who allows me nothing to appear in. agony, I observed a decrepid old fellow I have but one shoe and one slipper; no come into the room, and looking with a head-dress, and no upper-petticoat. As you sense of pleasure in his face at all my ve- set up for a reformer, I desire you would hemence and transport. In a pause take me out of this wicked way and keep EVE AFTERDAY.' distresses I heard him say to the shameless me yourself. old woman who stood by me, "She is cer- 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am to complain tainly a new face, or else she acts it rarely." to you of a set of impertinent coxcombs, With that the gentlewoman, who was mak-who visit the apartments of us women of ing her market of me, in all the turns of the town, only, as they call it, to see the my person, the heaves of my passion, and world. I must confess to you, this to men the suitable change of my posture, took of delicacy might have an effect to cure occasion to commend my neck, my shape, them; but as they are stupid, noisy, and my eyes, my limbs. All this was accom of my panied with such speeches as you may have * A celebrated courtesan and procuress at that time heard horse-coursers make in the sale of upon the town. |