last night in the hall these holy-days; when I lay down and was blinded, she pulled off her shoe, and hit me with the heel such a rap, as almost broke my head to pieces. Pray, sir, was this love or spite?' T.

make our present state agreeable, but often
determine our happiness to all eternity.
Where the choice is left to friends, the
chief point under consideration is an estate;
where the parties choose for themselves,
their thoughts turn most upon the person.
They have both their reasons. The first

No. 261.] Saturday, December 29, 1711. would procure many conveniences and plea

W

sures of life to the party whose interests they
espouse; and at the same time may hope
that the wealth of their friends will turn to
their own credit and advantage. The others
are preparing for themselves a perpetual
feast. A good person does not only raise
but continue love, and breeds a secret plea-
sure and complacency in the beholder,
when the first heats of desire are extin-
guished. It puts the wife or husband in
countenance, both among friends and stran-
gers, and generally fills the family with a
healthy and beautiful race of children.

Γάμος γαρ ανθρώποισιν ευκταίον κακον.
Frag. Vet. Poet.
Wedlock's an ill men eagerly embrace:
My father, whom I mentioned in my first
speculation, and whom I must always name
with honour and gratitude, has very fre-
quently talked to me upon the subject of
marriage. I was in my younger years en-
gaged partly by his advice, and partly by
my own inclinations, in the courtship of a
person who had a great deal of beauty, and
did not at my first approaches seem to have
any aversion to me; but as my natural taci-
curnity hindered me from showing myself
Eo the best advantage, she by degrees be-
gan to look upon me as a very silly fellow,
and being resolved to regard merit more
than any thing else in the persons who
made their applications to her, she mar-
ried a captain of dragoons, who happened
to be beating up for recruits in those parts.
This unlucky accident has given me an
Good-nature and evenness of temper will
version to pretty fellows ever since, and give you an easy companion for life; virtue
discouraged me from trying my fortune and good sense, an agreeable friend; love
with the fair sex. The observations which and constancy, a good wife or husband.
made at this conjuncture, and the re- Where we meet one person with all these
peated advices which I received at that accomplishments, we find a hundred with-
ime from the good old man above-men-out any one of them. The world, notwith-
tioned, have produced the following essay standing, is more intent on trains and equi-
upon love and marriage.
pages, and all the showy parts of life: we
love rather to dazzle the multitude than
consult our proper interests; and as I have
elsewhere observed, it is one of the most
unaccountable passions of human nature,
that we are at greater pains to appear easy
and happy to others than really to make
It is easier for an artful man who is not ourselves so. Of all disparities, that in hu-
in love, to persuade his mistress he has a mour makes the most unhappy marriages,
passion for her, and to succeed in his pur-yet scarce enters into our thoughts at the
suits, than for one who loves with the contracting of them. Several that are in
greatest violence. True love has ten thou- this respect unequally yoked, and uneasy
sand griefs, impatiences, and resentments, for life with a person of a particular cha-
that render a man unamiable in the eyes of racter, might have been pleased and happy
the person whose affection he solicits; be- with a person of a contrary one, notwith-
sides that, it sinks his figure, gives him standing they are both perhaps equally
fears, apprehensions, and poorness of spi- virtuous and laudable in their kind.
rit, and often makes him appear ridicu-
ous where he has a mind to recommend
himself.

I should prefer a woman that is agreeable in my own eye, and not deformed in that of the world, to a celebrated beauty. If you marry one remarkably beautiful, you must have a violent passion for her, or you have not the proper taste for her charms; and if you have such a passion for her, it is odds but it would be embittered with fears and jealousies.

The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved, kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul rise in the pursuit.

Before marriage we cannot be too inquisitive and discerning in the faults of the person beloved, nor after it too dim-sighted and superficial. However perfect and accomplished the person appears to you at a distance, you will find many blemishes and imperfections in her humour, upon a more A long course intimate acquaintance, which you never discovered or perhaps suspected. Here, therefore, discretion and good-nature are to show their strength; the first will hinder

Those marriages generally abound most with love and constancy, that are preceded y long courtship. The passion should trike root, and gather strength before narriage be grafted on it. of hopes and expectations fixes the idea in ur minds, and habituates us to a fondness of the person beloved. There is nothing of so great importance your thoughts from dwelling on what is us as the good qualities of one to whom disagreeable, the other will raise in you all We join ourselves for life; they do not only the tenderness of compassion and humanity,

and by degrees soften those very imperfec-|ficed their good sense and virtue to their tions into beauties. fame and reputation. No man is so sunk Marriage enlarges the scene of our hap-in vice and ignorance but there are still piness and miseries. A marriage of love some hidden seeds of goodness and knowis pleasant; a marriage of interest easy; and ledge in him; which give him a relish of a marriage where both meet, happy. A such reflections and speculations as have happy marriage has in it all the pleasures an aptness to improve the mind, and make of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense the heart better. and reason; and, indeed, all the sweets of life. Nothing is a greater mark of a degenerate and vicious age, than the common ridicule which passes on this state of life. It is, indeed, only happy in those who can look down with scorn and neglect on the impieties of the times, and tread the paths of life together in a constant uniform course

of virtue.

C.

No. 262.] Monday, December 31, 1711.

Nulla venenato littera mista joco est.

Ovid. Trist. Lib. 2. 566.

ADAPTED.

My paper flows from no satiric vein, Contains no poison, and conveys no pain. I THINK myself highly obliged to the public for their kind acceptance of a paper which visits them every morning, and has in it none of those seasonings that recommend so many of the writings which are in

vogue among us.

I have shown in a former paper, with how much care I have avoided all such thoughts as are loose, obscene or immoral; and I believe my reader would still think the better of me if he knew the pains I am at in qualifying what I write after such a manner, that nothing may be interpreted as aimed at private persons. For this rea son when I draw any faulty character, I consider all those persons to whom the malice of the world may possibly apply it and take care to dash it with such particu lar circumstances as may prevent all such ill-natured applications. If I write any thing on a black man, I run over in my mind all the eminent persons in the nation who are of that complexion: when I place an imaginary name at the head of a cha racter, I examine every syllable and letter of it, that it may not bear any resemblance to one that is real. I know very well the value which every man sets upon his repu tation, and how painful it is to be exposed to the mirth and derision of the public, and should therefore scorn to divert my reader at the expense of any private man.

Ås, on the one side, my paper has not in it a single word of news, a reflection in politics, nor a stroke of party; so, on the other, As I have been thus tender of every par there are no fashionable touches of infi- ticular person's reputation, so I have taken delity, no obscene ideas, no satires upon more than ordinary care not to give offence priesthood, marriage, and the like popular to those who appear in the higher figures topics of ridicule; no private scandal, nor of life. I would not make myself meny any thing that may tend to the defamation even with a piece of pasteboard that is in of particular persons, families, or societies. vested with a public character; for which There is not one of those above-men-reason I have never glanced upon the late tioned subjects that would not sell a very designed procession of his Holiness and his indifferent paper, could I think of gratify-attendants, notwithstanding it might have ing the public by such mean and base afforded matter to many ludicrous specula methods. But notwithstanding I have re- tions. Among those advantages which the jected every thing that savours of party, public may reap from this paper, it is no every thing that is loose and immoral, and the least that it draws men's minds off from every thing that might create uneasiness in the bitterness of party, and furnishes them the minds of particular persons, I find that with subjects of discourse that may the demand for my papers has increased treated without warmth or passion. Thi every month since their first appearance is said to have been the first design of in the world. This does not perhaps re- those gentlemen who set on foot the Roya flect so much honour upon myself as on my Society; and had then a very good effect readers, who give a much greater attention as it turned many of the greatest geniuse to discourses of virtue and morality than of that age to the disquisitions of natura ever I expected, or indeed could hope. knowledge, who, if they had engaged in politics with the same parts and applica tion, might have set their country in flame. The air-pump, the barometer, the quadrant, and the like inventions, we thrown out to those busy spirits, as tub and barrels are to a whale, that he may l the ship sail on without disturbance, whi he diverts himself with those innoce amusements.

When I broke loose from that great body of writers who have employed their wit and parts in propagating vice and irreligion, I did not question but I should be treated as an odd kind of fellow, that had a mind to appear singular in my way of writing: but the general reception I have found, convinces me that the world is not so corrupt as we are apt to imagine; and that if those men of parts who have been employed in vitiating the age had endeavoured to rectify and amend it, they needed not to have sacri

ba

I have been so very scrupulous in th particular of not hurting any man's reput tion, that I have forborne mentioning eve

I am glad, that he whom I must have loved from duty, whatever he had been, is such a one as I can love from inclination.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am the happy fa

ach authors as I could not name with ho-
our. This I must confess to have been a
iece of very great self-denial: for as the
ublic relishes nothing better than the ridi-
ale which turns upon a writer of any emi-ther of a very towardly son, in whom I do
ence, so there is nothing which a man that
as but a very ordinary talent in ridicule
may execute with greater ease. One might
aise laughter for a quarter of a year to-
ether upon the works of a person who has
ublished but a very few volumes. For
hich reason I am astonished, that those
ho have appeared against this paper have
nade so very little of it. The criticisms
which I have hitherto published, have been
made with an intention rather to discover
eauties and excellences in the writers of

my own time, than to publish any of their aults and imperfections. In the mean while I should take it for a very great avour from some of my underhand deractors, if they would break all measures with me, so far as to give me a pretence For examining their performances with an mpartial eye: nor shall I look upon it as any breach of charity to criticise the auchor, so long as I keep clear of the person. In the mean while, until I am provoked o such hostilities, I shall from time to time Endeavour to do justice to those who have distinguished themselves in the politer parts of learning, and to point out such beauties in their works as may have escaped the ob

servation of others.

not only see my life, but also my manner of
life renewed. It would be extremely bene-
ficial to society, if you would frequently re-
sume subjects which serve to bind these sort
of relations faster, and endear the ties of
blood with those of good-will, protection,
observance, indulgence, and veneration. I
would, methinks, have this done after an
uncommon method, and do not think any
one, who is not capable of writing a good
play, fit to undertake a work wherein there
will necessarily occur so many secret in-
stincts, and biases of human nature which
would pass unobserved by common eyes. I
thank Heaven I have no outrageous offence
against my own excellent parents to answer
for; but when I am now and then alone,
and look back upon my past life, from my
earliest infancy to this time, there are many
faults which I committed that did not ap-
pear to me even until I myself became a

father. I had not until then a notion of the

yearnings of heart, which a man has when he sees his child do a laudable thing, or the sudden damp which seizes him when he fears he will act something unworthy. It is not to be imagined, what a remorse touched me for a long train of childish negligences of my mother, when I saw my wife the As the first place among our English other day look out of the window, and turn poets is due to Milton; and as I have drawn as pale as ashes upon seeing my younger more quotations out of him than from any boy sliding upon the ice. These slight inother, I shall enter into a regular criticism timations will give you to understand, that upon his Paradise Lost, which I shall pub- there are numberlesss little crimes which lish every Saturday, until I have given my children take no notice of while they are thoughts upon that poem. I shall not, how doing, which, upon reflection, when they ever, presume to impose upon others my shall themselves become fathers, they will own particular judgment on this author, look upon with the utmost sorrow and conbut only deliver it as my private opinion. trition, that they did not regard before those Criticism is of a very large extent, and whom they offended were to be no more every particular master in this art has his seen. How many thousand things do I refavourite passages in an author which do member which would have highly pleased not equally strike the best judges. It will my father, and I omitted for no other reabe sufficient for me, if I discover many son, but that I thought what he proposed beauties or imperfections which others have the effect of humour and old age, which I not attended to, and I should be very glad am now convinced had reason and good to see any of our eminent writers publish sense in it. I cannot now go into the partheir discoveries on the same subject. In lour to him, and make his heart glad with short, I would always be understood to an account of a matter which was of no write my papers of criticism in the spirit consequence, but that I told it, and acted in Which Horace has expressed in these two it. The good man and woman are long since in their graves, who used to sit and plot the welfare of us their children, while, perhaps, we were sometimes laughing at the old folks at another end of the house. The truth of it is, were we merely to follow nature in these great duties of life, though we have a strong instinct towards the performing of them, we should be on both sides very deficient. Age is so unwelcome to the

famous lines:

Si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidna imperti; si non, his utere mecum. Lib. I. Ep. vi. v. ult. If you have made any better remarks of your own these I present you with. ommunicate them with candour; if not, make use of

C.

No.263.] Tuesday, January 1, 1711-12.

aunque esset, talem habemus ut libenter quoque diligaGratulor quod eum quem necesse erat diligere, qualis.

Trebonius apud Tull.

generality of mankind, and growth towards

manhood so desirable to all, that resigna-
tion to decay is too difficult a task in the
father; and deference, amidst the impulse

tion, and that grounded upon the principles of reason, not the impulses of instinct.

'It is from the common prejudices which men receive from their parents, that hatreds are kept alive from one generation to another; and when men act by instinct, hatreds will descend when good offices are forgot ten. For the degeneracy of human life is such, that our anger is more easily transferred to our children than our love. Love always gives something to the object it de lights in, and anger spoils the person against whom it is moved of something laudable in him; from this degeneracy, therefore, and a sort of self-love, we are more prone to

of gay desires, appears unreasonable to the son. There are so few who can grow old with a good grace, and yet fewer who can come slow enough into the world, that a father, were he to be actuated by his desires, and a son, were he to consult himself only, could neither of them behave himself as he ought to the other. But when reason interposes against instinct, where it would carry either out of the interests of the other, there arises that happiest intercourse of good offices between those dearest relations of numan life. The father, according to the opportunities which are offered to him, is throwing down blessings on the son, and the son endeavouring to appear the worthy off-take up the ill-will of our parents, than to spring of such a father. It is after this follow them in their friendships. manner that Camillus and his first-born 'One would think there should need no dwell together. Camillus enjoys a pleasing more to make men keep up this sort of reand indolent old age, in which passion is lation with the utmost sanctity, than to exsubdued, and reason exalted. He waits the amine their own hearts. If every father day of his dissolution with a resignation remembered his own thoughts and inclinamixed with delight; and the son fears the tions when he was a son, and every son reaccession of his father's fortune with dif-membered what he expected from his fidence, lest he should not enjoy or become it as well as his predecessor. Add to this, that the father knows he leaves a friend to the children of his friends, an easy landlord to his tenants, and an agreeable companion to his acquaintance. He believes his son's behaviour will make him frequently remembered, but never wanted. This commerce is so well cemented, that without the pomp of saying, "Son, be a friend to such a one when I am gone;" Camillus knows, being in his favour is direction enough to the grateful youth who is to succeed him, without the admonition of his mentioning it. DEAR FRANK,-If the pleasures, which These gentlemen are honoured in all their I have the grief to hear you pursue in town, neighbourhood; and the same effect which do not take up all your time, do not deny the court has on the manners of a kingdom, your mother so much of it as to read se their characters have on all who live with-riously this letter. You said before Mr. in the influence of them.

father, when he himself was in a state of dependence, this one reflection would preserve men from being dissolute or rigid in these several capacities. The power and subjection between them, when broken, make them more emphatically tyrants and rebels against each other, with greater cruelty of heart, than the disruption of states and empires can possibly produce. I shall end this application to you with two letters which passed between a mother and son very lately, and are as follows:

Letacre, that an old woman might live very My son and I are not of fortune to com- well in the country upon half my jointure, municate our good actions or intentions to and that your father was a fond fool to give so many as these gentlemen do; but I will me a rent charge of eight hundred a year be bold to say, my son has, by the applause to the prejudice of his son. What Letacre and approbation which his behaviour to- said to you upon that occasion, you ought to wards me has gained him, occasioned that have borne with more decency, as he was many an old man besides myself has re- your father's well-beloved servant, than to joiced. Other men's children follow the ex- have called him a country-put. In the first ample of mine, and I have the inexpressible place, Frank, I must tell you, I will have happiness of overhearing our neighbours, as iny rent duly paid, for I will make up to we ride by, point to their children, and say, your sisters for the partiality I was guilty with a voice of joy, "There they go. of, in making your father do so much as You cannot, Mr. Spectator, pass your he has done for you. I may, it seems, time better than in insinuating the delights live upon half my jointure! I lived upon which these relations well regarded bestow much less, Frank, when I carried you from upon cach other. Ordinary passages are place to place in these arms, and could no longer such, but mutual love gives an neither eat, dress, or mind any thing for importance to the most indifferent things, feeding and tending you, a weakly child, and and a merit to actions the most insignificant. shedding tears when the convulsions you When we look round the world and observe were then troubled with returned upon you. the many misunderstandings which are By my care you outgrew them, to throw created by the malice and insinuation of the away the vigour of your youth in the arms meanest servants between people thus re- of harlots, and deny your mother what is lated, how necessary will it appear that it not yours to detain. Both your sisters are were inculcated that men would be upon crying to see the passion which I smother; their guard to support a constancy of affec- but if you please to go on thus like a gentle

man of the town, and forget all regards to old fellow shall wear this or that sort of cut ourself and family, I shall immediately in his clothes with great integrity, while all enter upon your estate for the arrear due to the rest of the world are degenerated into me, and without one tear more, contemn buttons, pockets, and loops unknown to ou for forgetting the fondness of your mo- their ancestors. As insignificant as even her, as much as you have the example of this is, if it were searched to the bottom, our father. O Frank, do I live to omit you perhaps would find it not sincere, but writing myself, your affectionate mother, that he is in the fashion in his heart, and 'A. T.' holds out from mere obstinacy. But I am 'MADAM, I will come down to-morrow running from my intended purpose, which and pay the money on my knees. Pray was to celebrate a certain particular manwrite so no more. I will take care you never ner of passing away life, in contradiction to hall, for I will be for ever hereafter your

nost dutiful son,

F. T.

'I will bring down new hoods for my isters. Pray let all be forgotten.' T.

no man, but with a resolution to contract
none of the exorbitant desires by which
others are enslaved. The best way of sepa-
rating a man's self from the world, is to
give up the desire of being known to it.
After a man has preserved his innocence,
and performed all duties incumbent upon

No. 264.] Wednesday, January 2, 1711-12. him, his time spent in his own way is what

-Secretum iter et fallentis semita vitæ.

Hor. Lib. 1. Ep. xviii. 103.
ADAPTED.

In public walks let who will shine or stray,
I'll silent steal through life in my own way.

makes his life differ from that of a slave. If they who affect show and pomp knew how many of their spectators derided their trivial taste, they would be very much less elated, and have an inclination to examine IT has been from age to age an affectation the merit of all they have to do with: they love the pleasure of solitude, among those would soon find out that there are many who cannot possibly be supposed qualified who make a figure below what their fortune or passing life in that manner. This people or merit entitles them to, out of mere choice, ave taken up from reading the many agree- and an elegant desire of ease and disinble things which have been written on that cumbrance. It would look like romance to ubject, for which we are beholden to ex- tell you in this age, of an old man who is ellent persons who delighted in being re- contented to pass for a humourist, and one red, and abstracted from the pleasures who does not understand the figure he ought hat enchant the generality of the world. to make in the world, while he lives in a This way of life, is recommended indeed lodging of ten shillings a week, with only with great beauty, and in such a manner as one servant; while he dresses himself acisposes the reader for the time to a pleas-cording to the season in cloth or in stuff, ng forgetfulness, or negligence of the par- and has no one necessary attention to any cular hurry of life in which he is engaged, thing but the bell which calls to prayers ogether with a longing for that state which twice a-day: I say it would look like a fable e is charmed with in description. But to report that this gentleman gives away all when we consider the world itself, and which is the overplus of a great fortune by ow few there are capable of a religious, secret methods to other men. If he has not earned, or philosophical solitude, we shall the pomp of a numerous train, and of proe apt to change a regard to that sort of fessors of service to him, he has every day olitude, for being a little singular in enjoy-he lives the conscience that the widow, the ng time after the way a man himself likes fatherless, the mourner, and the stranger est in the world, without going so far as bless his unseen hand in their prayers. This holly to withdraw from it. I have often humourist gives up all the compliments bserved, there is not a man breathing who which people of his own condition could oes not differ from all other men, as much make him, for the pleasure of helping the the sentiments of his mind as the features afflicted, supplying the needy, and behis face. The felicity is, when any one is friending the neglected. This humourist happy as to find out and follow what is keeps to himself much more than he wants, he proper bent of his genius, and turn all and gives a vast refuse of his superfluities is endeavours to exert himself according to purchase heaven, and by freeing others that prompts him. Instead of this, which from the temptations of worldly want, to an innocent method of enjoying a man's carry a retinue with him thither.

I

elf, and turning out of the general tracks Of all men who affect living in a particuherein you have crowds of rivals, there lar way, next to this admirable character, re those who pursue their own way out of a am the most enamoured of Irus, whose purness and spirit of contradiction. These condition will not admit of such largesses, en do every thing which they are able to and who perhaps would not be capable of pport, as if guilt and impunity could not making them if it were. Irus, though he is together. They choose a thing only be- now turned of fifty, has not appeared in the use another dislikes it; and affect for- world in his real character since five-andoth an inviolable constancy in matters of twenty, at which age he ran out a small manner of moment. Thus sometimes an patrimony, and spent some time after with