by him at one of those games in his leisure |
hours; for his vanity was to show that he
was a man of pleasure as well as business.
Next to this sort of insinuation, which is
called in all places (from its taking its birth
in the household of princes) making one's
court, the most prevailing way is, by what
better-bred people call a present, the vul-
gar a bribe. I humbly conceive that such
a thing is conveyed with more gallantry in
a billet-doux that should be understood at
the Bank, than in gross money: but as to
stubborn people, who are so surly as to ac-
cept of neither note nor cash, having for-
merly dabbled in chemistry, I can only say,
that one part of matter asks one thing, and
another another, to make it fluent: but
there is nothing but may be dissolved by a
proper mean. Thus, the virtue which is
too obdurate for gold or paper, shall melt
away very kindly in a liquid. The island
of Barbadoes (a shrewd people) manage all
their appeals to Great Britain by a skilful
distribution of citron water* among the
whisperers about men in power. Generous
wines do every day prevail, and that in great
points, where ten thousand times their value
would have been rejected with indignation.
But, to wave the enumeration of the sun-
dry ways of applying by presents, bribes,
management of people's passions and affec-
tions, in such a manner as it shall appear
that the virtue of the best man is by one
method or other corruptible, let us look out
for some expedient to turn those passions
and affections on the side of truth and ho-
nour. When a man has laid it down for a
position, that parting with his integrity, in
the minuter circumstance, is losing so much
of his very self, self-love will become a vir-
tue. By this means good and evil will be
the only objects of dislike and approbation;
and he that injures any man, has effectually
wounded the man of this turn as much as
if the harm had been to himself. This
seems to be the only expedient to arrive at
an impartiality; and a man who follows the
dictates of truth and right reason, may by
artifice be led into error, but never can into
guilt.

T.

But, though I hope for the best, I shall not pronounce too positively on this point, till I have seen forty weeks well over; at which period of time, as my good friend Sir Roger has often told me, he has more business as justice of peace, among the dis solute young people in the country, than at any other season of the year.

Neither must I forget a letter which I received near a fortnight since from a lady, who, it seems, could hold out no longer, telling me she looked upon the month as then out, for that she had all along reckoned by the new style.

On the other hand, I have great reason to believe, from several angry letters which have been sent to me by disappointed lovers, that my advice has been of very signal service to the fair sex, who, according to the old proverb, were 'forewarned, forearmed."

One of these gentlemen tells me, that he would have given me a hundred pounds, rather than I should have published that paper; for that his mistress, who had promised to explain herself to him about the beginning of May, upon reading that dis course told him, that she would give him her answer in June.

Thyrsis acquaints me, that when he desired Sylvia to take a walk in the fields, she told him, the Spectator had forbidden her.

Another of my correspondents, who writes himself Mat Meager, complains that, whereas he constantly used to breakfast with his mistress upon chocolate; going to wait upon her the first of May, he found his usual treat very much changed for the worse, and has been forced to feed ever since upon green tea.

As I begun this critical season with a caveat to the ladies, I shall conclude it with a congratulation, and do most heartily wish them joy of their happy deliverance.

They may now reflect with pleasure on the dangers they have escaped, and look back with as much satisfaction on the perils that threatened them, as their great grandmothers did formerly on the burning ploughshares, after having passed through the ordeal trial. The instigations of the spring are now abated. The nightingale gives over her love-labour'd song,' as Milton phrases it; the blossoms are fallen, and the beds of flowers swept away by the scythe

of the mower.

No. 395.] Tuesday, June 3, 1712.
Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit.
Ovid. Rem. Amor. 10.
'Tis reason now, 'twas appetite before.
I shall now allow my fair readers to
BEWARE of the ides of March,' said the return to their romances and chocolate,
Roman augur to Julius Cæsar: Beware of provided they make use of them with mode
the month of May,' says the British Spec- ration, till about the middle of the month,
tator to his fair country-women. The cau- when the sun shall have made some pro-
tion of the first was unhappily neglected, gress in the Crab. Nothing is more dan
and Cæsar's confidence cost him his life. I gerous than too much confidence and secu
am apt to flatter myself that my pretty rity. The Trojans, who stood upon their
readers had much more regard to the ad-guard all the while the Grecians lay before
vice I gave them, since I have yet received
very few accounts of any notorious trips

made in the last month.

Then commonly called Barbadoes water.

their city, when they fancied the siege was raised, and the danger past, were the very next night burnt in their beds. I must also observe, that as in some climates there is perpetual spring, so in some female consti

ions there is a perpetual May. These e a kind of valetudinarians in chastity, om I would continue in a constant diet. cannot think these wholly out of danger, they have looked upon the other sex at st five years through a pair of spectacles. ill Honeycomb has often assured me, that s much easier to steal one of this species, en she has passed her grand climacteric, an to carry off an icy girl on this side e-and-twenty; and that a rake of his acaintance, who had in vain endeavoured to in the affections of a young lady of fifteen, d at last made his fortune by running ay with her grandmother.

But as I do not design this speculation for e evergreens of the sex, I shall again apmyself to those who would willingly en to the dictates of reason and virtue, can now hear me in cold blood. If ere are any who have forfeited their innonce, they must now consider themselves der that melancholy view in which Chaont regards his sister, in those beautiful

es:

Long she flourish'd,

Grew sweet to sense, and lovely to the eye.
Till at the last a cruel spoiler came,
Cropt this fair rose, and rifled all its sweetness,
Then cast it like a loathsome weed away.'

On the contrary, she who has observed
timely cautions I gave her, and lived up
the rules of modesty, will now flourish
ea rose in June,' with all her virgin

shes and sweetness about her. I must, wever, desire these last to consider, how ameful it would be for a general who has de a successful campaign, to be surprised his winter quarters. It would be no less honourable for a lady to lose, in any other enth in the year, what she has been at the ins to preserve in May.

There is no charm in the female sex that supply the place of virtue. Without ocence, beauty is unlovely, and quality temptible; good-breeding degenerates o wantonness, and wit into impudence. is observed, that all the virtues are reesented by both painters and statuaries der female shapes; but if any of them has nore particular title to that sex, it is mosty. I shall leave it to the divines to ard them against the opposite vice, as ey may be overpowered by temptations. is sufficient for me to have warned them ainst it, as they may be led astray by in

nct.

I desire this paper may be read with re than ordinary attention, at all teales within the cities of London and West

nster.

X.

.396.] Wednesday, June 4, 1712. Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton. HAVING a great deal of business upon my ads at present, I shall beg the reader's ve to present him with a letter that I re

To the Spectator.

'From St. John's College, Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1712.
'SIR,-The monopoly of puns in this uni-
versity has been an immemorial privilege
of the Johnians:* and we can't help resent-
ing the late invasion of our ancient rights as
to that particular, by a little pretender to
clenching in a neighbouring college, who in
application to you by way of letter, a while
ago, styled himself Philobrune. Dear sir,
as you are by character a professed well-
wisher to speculation, you will excuse a re-
mark which this gentleman's passion for the
brunette has suggested to a brother theorist;
it is an offer towards a mechanical account
of his lapse to punning, for he belongs to a
set of mortals who value themselves upon an
uncommon mastery in the more humane and
polite parts of letters.

'A conquest by one of this species of
females gives a very odd turn to the in-
tellectuals of the captivated person, and
very different from that way of thinking
which a triumph from the eyes of another,
more emphatically of the fair sex, does ge-
nerally occasion. It fills the imagination
with an assemblage of such ideas and pic-
tures as are hardly any thing but shade,
such as night, the devil, &c. These por-
traitures very near overpower the light of
the understanding, almost benight the fa-
culties, and give that melancholy tincture
to the most sanguine complexion, which
this gentleman calls an inclination to be in a
brown-study, and is usually attended with
worse consequences in case of a repulse.
During this twilight of intellects the patient
is extremely apt, as love is the most witty
passion in nature, to offer at some pert sal-
lies now and then, by way of flourish, upon
the amiable enchantress, and unfortunately
stumbles upon that mongrel miscreated (to
speak in Miltonic) kind of wit, vulgarly
termed the pun. It would not be much
amiss to consult Dr. T-

W- (who is certainly a very able projector, and whose system of divinity and spiritual mechanics obtains very much among the better part of our under-graduates) whether a general intermarriage, enjoined by parliament, between this sisterhood of the olive-beauties and the fraternity of the people called quakers, would not be a very serviceable expedient, and abate that overflow of light which shines within them so powerfully, that it dazzles their eyes, and dances them into a thousand vagaries of error and enthu

The students of St. John's College.

siasm. These reflections may impart some pearance of grief; but when one told them
light towards a discovery of the origin of of any calamity that had befallen even the
punning among us, and the foundation of its nearest of their acquaintance, would imme-
prevailing so long in this famous body. It diately reply, 'What is that to me?' If you
is notorious from the instance under consi- aggravated the circumstance of the afflic
deration, that it must be owing chiefly to the tion, and showed how one misfortune was
use of brown jugs, muddy belch, and the followed by another, the answer was still,
fumes of a certain memorable place of ren-All this may be true, and what is it to me?"
dezvous with us at meals, known by the For my own part, I am of opinion, com-
name of Staincoat Hole: for the atmosphere passion does not only refine and civilize hu-
of the kitchen, like the tail of a comet, pre-man nature, but has something in it more
dominates least about the fire, but resides pleasing and agreeable than what can be
behind, and fills the fragrant receptacle met with in such an indolent happiness,
above mentioned. Besides, it is further such an indifference to mankind, as that in
observable, that the delicate spirits among which the Stoics placed their wisdom. As
us, who declare against these nauseous pro- love is the most delightful passion, pity is
ceedings, sip tea, and put up for critic and nothing else but love softened by a degree
amour, profess likewise an equal abhor- of sorrow. In short, it is a kind of pleasing
rence for punning, the ancient innocent di- anguish, as well as generous sympathy, that
version of this society. After all, sir, though knits mankind together, and blends them in
it may appear something absurd that I seem the same common lot.
to approach you with the air of an advocate
for punning, (you who have justified your
censures of the practice in a set dissertation
upon that subject*) yet I am confident you
will think it abundantly atoned for by ob-
serving, that this humbler exercise may be
as instrumental in diverting us from any in-
novating schemes and hypotheses in wit, as
dwelling upon honest orthodox logic would
be in securing us from heresy in religion.
Had Mr. Wn'st researches been con-
fined within the bounds of Ramus or Crack-
enthorp, that learned news-monger might
have acquiesced in what the holy oracles
pronounced upon the deluge like other
Christians; and had the surprising Mr.
Ly been content with the employment
of refining upon Shakspeare's points and
quibbles (for which he must be allowed to
have a superlative genius,) and now and
then penning a catch or a ditty, instead
of inditing odes and sonnets, the gentle-
men of the bon gout in the pit would
never have been put to all that grimace in
damning the frippery of state, the poverty
and languor of thought, the unnatural wit,
and inartificial structure of his dramas.
am, sir, your very humble servant,
PETER DE QUIR.'

No. 397.] Thursday, June 5, 1712.
-Dolor ipse disertam

Fecerat-
Ovid. Met. xiii. 225.
Her grief inspired her then with eloquence.

Those who have laid down rules for rhe toric or poetry, advise the writer to work himself up, if possible, to the pitch of sorrow which he endeavours to produce in others. There are none therefore who stir up pity so much as those who indite their own sufferings. Grief has a natural eloquence belonging to it, and breaks out in more moving sentiments than can be supplied by the finest imagination. Nature on this occasion dictates a thousand passionate things which cannot be supplied by art

It is for this reason that the short speeches or sentences which we often meet with in history make a deeper impression on the mind of the reader than the most laboured strokes in a well-written tragedy. Truth and matter of fact sets the person actually before us in the one, whom fiction places at a greater distance from us in the other. I do not remember to have seen any ancient or modern story more affecting than a letter of Ann of Bologne, wife to king Henry the Eighth, and mother to Queen Elizabeth, which is still extant in the Cotton library, as written by her own hand.

Shakspeare himself could not have made her talk in a strain so suitable to her con dition and character. One sees in it the expostulation of a slighted lover, the resentment of an injured woman, and the sorrows of an imprisoned queen. I need not acquaint my readers that this princess was then under prosecution for disloyalty to the king's bed, and that she was afterwards publicly beheaded upon the same account; though this prosecution was believed by many to proceed, as she herself intimates, rather from the king's love to Jane Seymour, than from any actual crime of Ann of Bologne.

Queen Anne Boleyn's last letter to King
Henry.

'SIR,

Cotton Lib. Your grace's displeasure, and Otho C. 10. my imprisonment, are things so strange unto me, as what to write, or

what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me, (willing me to confess a truth, and to obtain your favour) by such an one, whom you know to be mine ancient professed enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your command.

doubt not (whatever the world may think of me,) mine innocence shall be openly known, and sufficiently cleared.

If

'My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of your grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen who (as I understand,) are likewise in straight imprisonment for my sake. ever I have found favour in your sight, if ever the name of Ann Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any further, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity, to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, this sixth of May; your most loyal and ever faithful wife, L. 'ANN BOLEYN.'

Insanire pares certa ratione modoque.

Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 2. 272
-You'd be a fool,
With art and wisdom, and be mad by rule.

'But let not your grace ever imagine, that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, where not so much as a thought thereof proceeded. And to speak a truth, never prince had wife more oyal in all duty, and in all true affection, han you have ever found in Ann Boleyn: with which name and place I could wilingly have contented myself, if God and Your grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation, or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an No. 398.] Friday, June 6, 1712. alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundaion than your grace's fancy, the least alceration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object. You ave chosen me from a low, estate to be our queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire. If then you found me worthy of such honour, good your grace, et not any light fancy, or bad counsel of nine enemies, withdraw your princely fayour from me; neither let that stain, that nworthy stain of a disloyal heart towards your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your daughter. Try me, good king, out let me have a lawful trial, and let not ny sworn enemies sit as my accusers and udges; yea, let me receive an open trial, or my truth shall fear no open shame; then hall you see either mine innocence cleared, our suspicion and conscience satisfied, the gnominy and slander of the world stopped, rmy guilt openly declared. So that, whatever God or you may determine of me, our grace may be freed from an open cenure; and mine offence being so lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty, both before God and man, not only to execute worthy unishment on me as an unlawful wife, but follow your affection, already settled on hat party, for whose sake I am now as I m, whose name I could some good while ince have pointed unto your grace, not eing ignorant of my suspicion therein.

'But if you have already determined of e, and that not only my death, but an inmous slander must bring you the enjoying your desired happiness; then I desire of od, that he will pardon your great sin herein, and likewise mine enemies, the inruments thereof; and that he will not call ou to a strict account for your unprincely d cruel usage of me, at his general judgent seat, where both you and myself must ortly appear, and in whose judgment I VOL. II.

16

Creech.

CYNTHIỎ and Flavia are persons of distinction in this town, who have been lovers these ten months last past, and writ to each other for gallantry sake under those feigned names; Mr. Such-a-one and Mrs. Such-aone not being capable of raising the soul out of the ordinary tracts and passages of life, up to that elevation which makes the life of the enamoured so much superior to that of the rest of the world. But ever since the beauteous Cecilia has made such a figure as she now does in the circle of charming women, Cynthio has been secretly one of her adorers. Cecilia has been the finest woman in the town these three months, and so long Cynthio has acted the part of a lover very awkwardly in the presence of Flavia. Flavia has been too blind towards him, and has too sincere a heart of her own to observe a thousand things which would have discovered this change of mind to any one less engaged than she was. Cynthio was musing yesterday in the piazza in Covent-garden, and was saying to himself that he was a very ill man to go on in visiting and professing love to Flavia, when his heart was enthralled to another. It is an infirmity that I am not constant to Flavia; but it would be a still greater crime, since I cannot continue to love her, to profess that I do. To marry a woman with the coldness that usually indeed comes on after marriage, is ruining one's self with one's eyes open; besides, it is really doing her an injury. This last consideration, forsooth, of injuring her in persisting, made him resolve to break off upon the first favourable opportunity of making her angry. When he was in this thought, he saw Robin the porter, who waits at Will's

coffee-house, passing by. Robin, you must DEAR CYNTHIO,-I have walked a turn
know, is the best man in the town for car- or two in my ante-chamber since I writ to
rying a billet; the fellow has a thin body, you, and have recovered myself from an
swift step, demure looks, sufficient sense, impertinent fit which you ought to forgive
and knows the town. This man carried me, and desire you would come to me im-
Cynthio's first letter to Flavia, and, by fre- mediately to laugh off a jealousy that you
quent errands ever since, is well known to and a creature of the town went by in a
her. The fellow covers his knowledge of hackney-coach an hour ago. I am your
the nature of his messages with the most your humble servant, FLAVIA.
exquisite low humour imaginable. The first
he obliged Flavia to take, was by complain-
ing to her that he had a wife and three
children, and if she did not take that letter,
which he was sure there was no harm in,
but rather love, his family must go supper-
less to bed, for the gentleman would pay
him according as he did his business. Robin,
therefore, Cynthio now thought fit to make
use of, and gave him orders to wait before
Flavia's door, and if she called him to her,

her.

and asked whether it was Cynthio who
passed by, he should at first be loth to own
it was, but upon importunity confess it.
There needed not much search into that
part of the town to find a well-dressed
hussey fit for the purpose Cynthio designed
As soon as he believed Robin was
posted, he drove by Flavia's lodgings in a
hackney-coach, and a woman in it. Robin
was at the door, talking with Flavia's maid,
and Cynthio pulled up the glass as sur-
prised, and hid his associate. The report
of this circumstance soon flew up stairs,
and Robin could not deny but the gentle-
man favoured his master; yet, if it was he,
he was sure the lady was but his cousin,
whom he had seen ask for him: adding,
that he believed she was a poor relation;
because they made her wait one morning
till he was awake. Flavia immediately writ
the following epistle, which Robin brought
to Will's.

'June 4, 1712.
SIR,It is in vain to deny it, basest,
falsest of mankind; my maid, as well as the
bearer, saw you. The injured

'FLAVIA.'

After Cynthio had read the letter, he asked Robin how she looked, and what she said at the delivery of it. Robin said she spoke short to him, and called him back again, and had nothing to say to him, and bid him and all the men in the world go out of her sight; but the maid followed, and bid him bring an answer.

Cynthio returned as follows:

June 4, Three afternoon, 1712.
'MADAM,—That your maid and the
bearer have seen me very often is very
certain; but I desire to know, being engaged
at piquet, what your letter means by "tis
in vain to deny it." I shall stay here all
the evening. Your amazed

'CYNTHIO.'

As soon as Robin arrived with this, Flavia answered:

* Resembled.

'I will not open the letter which my Cynthio writ upon the misapprehension you must have been under, when you writ, for want of hearing the whole circum

stance.'

Robin came back in an instant, and Cynthio answered:

But

Half an hour six minutes after three, June 4, Will's coffee-house. MADAM,-It is certain I went by your

lodgings with a gentlewoman to whom I have the honour to be known; she is indeed my relation, and a pretty sort of a woman, owning you have not done me the honour your starting manner of writing, and so much as to open my letter, has in it something very unaccountable, and alarms one that has had thoughts of passing his days with you. But I am born to admire you with all your little imperfections.

CYNTHIO.'

Robin ran back and brought for answer:

'Exact sir, that are at Will's coffeehouse, six minutes after three, June 4; one that has had thoughts, and all my little imperfections. Sir, come to me immediately, or I shall determine what may perhaps not FLAVIA' be very pleasing to you.

Robin gave an account that she looked excessive angry when she gave him the that Cynthio only looked at the clock, tak letter; and that he told her, for she asked, ing snuff, and writ two or three words on the top of the letter when he gave him his

Now the plot thickened so well, as that Cynthio saw he had not much more to ac complish, being irreconcilably banished: he writ,

'MADAM,-I have that prejudice in favour of all you do, that it is not possible for you to determine upon what will not be very pleasing to your obedient servant, 'CYNTHIO.'

This was delivered, and the answer returned, in a little more than two seconds.

'SIR,-Is it come to this? You never loved me, and the creature you were with is the properest person for your associate. I despise you, and hope I shall soon hate you as a villain to the credulous

FLAVIA.'

Robin ran back with: 'MADAM,-Your credulity when you are to gain your point, and suspicion when you