'On Thursday there was but one delin- | blessings and conveniences of life, and an quent. This was a gentleman of strong habitual trust in him for deliverance out of voice, but weak understanding. He had all such dangers and difficulties as may be unluckily engaged himself in a dispute with fall us. a man of excellent sense, but of a modest elocution. The man of heat replied to every answer of his antagonist with a louder note than ordinary, and only raised his voice when he should have enforced his argument. Finding himself at length driven to an absurdity, he still reasoned in a more clamorous and confused manner; and to make the greater impression upon his hearers, concluded with a loud thump upon the table. The president immediately or dered him to be carried off, and dieted with water-grucl, till such time as he should be sufficiently weakened for conversation. 'On Friday there passed very little remarkable, saving only, that several petitions were read of the persons in custody, desiring to be released from their confinement, and vouching for one another's good behaviour for the future. The man who always lives in this dis position of mind, has not the same dark and melancholy views of human nature, as he who considers himself abstractedly from this relation to the Supreme Being. At the same time that he reflects upon his own weakness and imperfection, he comforts himself with the contemplation of those divine attributes which are employed for his safety and his welfare. He finds his want of foresight made up by the Omniscience of Him who is his support. He is not sensible of his own want of strength, when he knows that his helper is almighty. In short, the person who has a firm trust on the Supreme Being is powerful in His power, wise by His wisdom, happy by His happiness. He reaps the benefit of every divine attribute, and loses his own insuf ficiency in the fulness of infinite perfection. 'On Saturday we received many excuses from persons who had found themselves in an unsociable temper, and had voluntarily shut themselves up. The infirmary was, indeed, never so full as on this day, which I was at some loss to account for, till, upon my going abroad, I observed that it was an easterly wind. The retirement of most of my friends has given me opportunity and leisure of writing you this letter, which II must not conclude without assuring you, that all the members of our college, as well those who are under confinement as those who are at liberty, are your very humble servants, though none more than, C. No. 441.] Saturday, July 26, 1712. Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruinæ. &c.' Hor. Od. iii. Lib. 3. 7. Should the whole frame of nature round him break In ruin and confusion hurl'd, He, unconcern'd, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world.-Anon. MAN, considered in himself, is a very helpless and a very wretched being. He is subject every moment to the greatest calamities and misfortunes. He is beset with dangers on all sides; and may become unhappy by numberless casualties, which he could not foresee, nor have prevented had he foreseen them. It is our comfort while we are obnoxious to so many accidents, that we are under the care of One who directs contingencies, and has in his hands the management of every thing that is capable of annoying or offending us; who knows the assistance we stand in need of, and is always ready to bestow it on those who ask it of him. The natural homage which such a creature bears to so infinitely wise and good a Being, is a firm reliance on him for the To make our lives more easy to us, we are commanded to put our trust in Him, who is thus able to relieve and succour us; the divine goodness having made such re liance a duty, notwithstanding we should have been miserable had it been forbidden us. Among several motives which might be made use of to recommend this duty to us, shall only take notice of those that follow. The first and strongest is, that we are promised, He will not fail those who put their trust in Him. But, without considering the supernatural blessing which accompanies this duty, we may observe, that it has a natural tendency to its own reward, or, in other words, that this firm trust and confidence in the great Disposer of all things, contributes very much to the getting clear of any affliction, or to the bearing it manfully. A person who believes he has his succour at hand, and that he acts in the sight of his friend, often exerts himself beyond his abilities, and does wonders that are not to be matched by one who is not animated with such a confidence of success. I could produce instances from history, of generals, who, out of a belief that they were under the protection of some invisible assistant, did not only encourage their soldiers to do their utmost, but have acted themselves beyond what they would have done had they not been inspired by such a belief. I might in the same manner show how such a trust in the assistance of an Almighty. Being naturally produces patience, hope, cheerfulness, and all other dispositions of mind that alleviate those calamities which we are not able to remore The practice of this virtue administers great comfort to the mind of man in times of poverty and affliction, but most of all in the hour of death. When the soul is hover ing in the last moments of its separation when it is just entering on another state of Existence, to converse with scenes, and obects and companions that are altogether new, what can support her under such Temblings of thought, such fear, such nxiety, such apprehensions, but the castng of all her cares upon Him who first Cave her being, who has conducted her hrough one stage of it, and will be always with her to guide and comfort her in her progress through eternity? David has very beautifully represented his steady reliance on God Almighty in is twenty-third psalm, which is a kind of Dastoral hymn, and filled with those alludons which are usual in that kind of writng. As the poetry is very exquisite, I hall present my reader with the following ranslation of it: I Do not know whether I enough exFlained myself to the world, when I invited men to be assistant to me in this my ork of speculation; for I have not yet acuainted my readers, that besides the leters and valuable hints I have from time to me received from my correspondents, I ave by me several curious and extraorinary papers sent with a design (as no one ill doubt when they are published) that hey may be printed entire, and without y alteration, by way of Spectator. I must cknowledge also, that I myself being the rst projector of the paper, thought I had right to make them my own, by dressing em in my own style, by leaving out what ould not appear like mine, and by adding whatever might be proper to adapt them After I have published a few of these Spectators, I doubt not but I shall find the success of them to equal, if not surpass, that of the best of my own. An author should take all methods to humble himself in the opinion he has of his own performances. When these papers appear to the world, I doubt not but they will be followed by many others; and I shall not repine, though I myself shall have left me but a very few days to appear in public: but preferring the general weal and advantage to any consideration of myself, I am resolved for the future to publish any Spectator that deserves it entire, and without any alteration; assuring the world (if there can be need of it) that it is none of mine, and if the authors think fit to subscribe their names, I will add them. I think the best way of promoting this generous and useful design, will be by giving out subjects or themes of all kinds Camilla to the Spectator. Venice, July 10, N. s. the stage, but a general satisfaction ap pears in every countenance of the whole people. When I dwell upon a note, I be hold all the men accompanying me with heads inclining, and falling of their persons on one side, as dying away with ine. The women too do justice to my merit, and no vain thing," when I am rapt in the per ill-natured, worthless creature cries, "The formance of my part, and sensibly touched with the effect my voice has upon all who whatsoever, on which (with a preamble of the extraordinary benefit and advantages that may accrue thereby to the public) I will invite all manner of persons, whether 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I take it extremely scholars, citizens, courtiers, gentlemen of ill, that you do not reckon conspicuous the town or country, and all beaus, rakes, Persons of your nation are within your cog smarts, prudes, coquettes, housewives, and nizance, though out of the dominions all sorts of wits, whether male or female, Great Britain. I little thought, in the and however distinguished, whether they green years of my life, that I should ever be true wits, whole or half wits, or whether call it a happiness to be out of dear Eng arch, dry, natural, acquired, genuine, or land; but as I grew to woman, I found depraved wits; and persons of all sorts of myself less acceptable in proportion to the tempers and complexions, whether the increase of my merit. Their ears in Italy severe, the delightful, the impertinent, the are so differently formed from the make of agreeable, the thoughtful, the busy or care-yours in England, that I never come upon less, the serene or cloudy, jovial or melancholy, untowardly or easy, the cold, temperate, or sanguine; and of what manners or dispositions soever, whether the ambitious or humble-minded, the proud or pitiful, ingenuous or base-minded, good or ill-natured, public-spirited or selfish; and under what fortune or circumstance soever, whether the contented or miserable, happy or unfortunate, high or low, rich or poor (whether so through want of money, or desire of more,) healthy or sickly, married single: nay, whether tall or short, fat or lean; and of what trade, occupation, profession, station, country, faction, party, persuasion, quality, age, or condition soever; who have ever mad thinking a part of their business or diversion, and have any thing worthy to impart on these subjects to the world, according to their several and respective talents or geniuses; and, as the subjects given out hit their tempers, humours, or circumstances, or may be made profitable to the public by their particular knowledge or experience in the matter proposed, to do their utmost on them by such a time, to the end they may receive the inexpressible and irresistible pleasure of seeing their essays allowed of and relished by the rest of mankind. or I will not prepossess the reader with too great expectation.of the extraordinary advantages which mest redound to the public by these essays, when the different thoughts and observations of all sorts of persons, according to their quality, age, sex, education, professions, humours, manners, and conditions, &c. shall be set out by themselves in the clearest and most genuine light, and as they themselves would wish to have them appear to the world. The thesis proposed for the present exercise of the adventurers to write Spectators, is Money; on which subject all are desired to send in their thoughts within ten days after the date hereof. No. 443.] Tuesday, July 29, 1712. persons T. Hor. Od. xxiv. Lib. 3. 33. hear me. I live here distinguished as one whom nature has been liberal to in a grace voice. These particularities in this strange ful person, and exalted mien, and heavenly country are arguments for respect and generosity to her who is possessed of them. The Italians see a thousand beauties I am sensible I have no pretence to, and abun dantly make up to me the injustice Ire ceived in my own country, of disallowing me what I really had. The humour hissing which you have among you, I do not know any thing of; and their applauses are uttered in sighs, and bearing a part at the cadences of voice with the persons who are performing. I am often put in mind of those complaisant lines of my own country. man, when he is calling all his faculties together to hear Arabella. "Let all be hush'd, each softest motion cease, Be softly staid: Let me be all, but my attention dead." The whole city of Venice is as still when ! am singing as this polite hearer was to Mrs. Hunt. But when they break that silence, did you know the pleasure I am in, when every man utters his applauses, by calling me aloud, "The dear Creature! The Angel! The Venus! What attitudes she moves with! Hush, she sings again!" We have no boisterous wits who dare dis turb an audience, and break the public peace merely to show they dare. Mr. * Mrs. Tofts, who played the part of Camilla in the opera of that name. t Mr. Congreve. tell you I am so very much at ease here at I know nothing but joy; and I will not turn, but leave you in England to hiss all erit of your own growth off the stage. I now, sir, you were always my admirer, d therefore I am yours, CAMILLA. 'P. S. I am ten times better dressed than er I was in England.' pectator, I write this to you thus in haste, | markable for impudence than wit, there are yet some remaining, who pass with the giddy part of mankind for sufficient sharers of the latter, who have nothing but the former qualification to recommend them. Another timely animadversion is absolutely necessary: be pleased, therefore, once for all, to let these gentlemen know, that there is neither mirth nor good humour in hooting a young fellow out of countenance; nor that it will ever constitute a wit, to conclude a tart piece of buffoonery with a "What makes you blush?" Pray please to inform them again, that to speak what they know is shocking, proceeds from ill-nature and sterility of brain; especially when the subject will not admit of raillery, and their discourse has no pretension to satire but what is in their design to disoblige. I should be very glad too if you would take notice, that a daily repetition of the same overbearing insolence is yet more insupportable, and a confirmation of very extraordinary dulness. The sudden publication of this may have an effect upon a notorious offender of this kind whose reformation would redound very much to the satisfaction and quiet of your most humble 'MR. SPECTATOR,-The project in yours servant, T. F. B.' No. 444.] Wednesday, July 30, 1712. Paturiunt montes The mountain labours.* Hor. Ars Poet. v. 139. 'Honestus is a well-meaning and judious trader, hath substantial goods, and ades with his own stock, husbands his oney to the best advantage, without king all the advantages of the necessities IT gives me much despair in the design his workmen, or grinding the face of the of reforming the world by my speculations, or. Fortunatus is stocked with igno- when I find there always arise, from one gence, and consequently with self-opinion; neration to another, successive cheats and e quality of his goods cannot but be suit- bubbles, as naturally as beasts of prey, and le to that of his judgment. Honestus those which are to be their food. There is eases discerning people, and keeps their hardly a man in the world, one would stom by good usage; makes modest pro- think, so ignorant, as not to know that the by modest means, to the decent support ordinary quack-doctors who publish their his family; while Fortunatus, blustering great abilities in little brown billets, distriways, pushes on, promising much and buted to all that pass by, are to a man erforming little; with obsequiousness of impostors and murderers; yet such is the nsive to people of sense, strikes at all, credulity of the vulgar, and the impudence tches much the greater part, and raises of those professors, that the affair still goes considerable fortune by imposition on on, and new promises, of what was never hers, to the discouragement and ruin of done before, are made every day. What ose who trade fair in the same way. aggravates the jest is, that even this proI give here but loose hints, and beg you mise has been made as long as the memory be very circumspect in the province you of man can trace it, yet nothing performed, ve now undertaken: if you perform it and yet still prevails. As I was passing ccessfully, it will be a very great good; along to-day, a paper given into my hand nothing is more wanting than that me- by a fellow without a nose, tells us as folanic industry were set forth with the lows what good news is come to town, to edom and greatness of mind which ought wit, that there is now a certain cure for the ways to accompany a man of liberal edu-French disease, by a gentleman just come tion. Your humble servant, from his travels. From my shop under e Royal Exchange, July 14. R. C.' 'In Russel-court, over-against the Cannon ball, at the Surgeon's-arms, in Drury lane, is lately come from his travels, a * Former motto: Quid dignum tento feret hic promissor hiatu.---Hor. surgeon who hath practised surgery and timony of some people that has been physic both by sea and land, these twenty-thirty years lame.' When I received my four years. He (by the blessing) cures the paper, a sagacious fellow took one at the yellow jaundice, green-sickness, scurvy, dropsy, surfeits, long sea-voyages, campaigns, and women's miscarriages, lyingin, &c. as some people that has been lame these thirty years can testify; in short, he cureth all diseases incident to men, women, or children.' same time and read till he came to the thirty years' confinement of his friends, and went off very well convinced of the doctor's sufficiency. You have many of those prodigious persons, who have had some extraordinary accident at their birth, or a great disaster in some part of their lives If a man could be so indolent as to look Any thing, however foreign from the busi upon this havoc of the human species, ness the people want of you, will convince which is made by vice and ignorance, it them of your ability in that you profess would be a good ridiculous work to com- There is a doctor in Mouse-Alley, near ment upon the declaration of this accom- Wapping, who sets up for curing cata plished traveller. There is something racts, upon the credit of having, as his bill unaccountably taking among the vulgar in sets forth, lost an eye in the emperor's ser those who come from a great way off. Ig- vice. His patients come in upon this, and norant people of quality, as many there he shows his muster-roll, which confirms are of such, doat excessively this way; that he was in his imperial majesty's many instances of which every man will troops; and he puts out their eyes with suggest to himself, without my enumera- great success. Who would believe that a tion of them. The ignorants of lower order, man should be a doctor for the cure of who cannot, like the upper ones, be profuse bursten children, by declaring that his fa of their money to those recommended by ther and grandfather were both bursten? coming from a distance, are no less com- But Charles Ingolston, next door to the plaisant than the others, for they venture Harp in Barbican, has made a pretty their lives from the same admiration. penny by that asservation. The generality The doctor is lately come from his tra- go upon their first conception, and think no vels, and has practised both by sea and farther; all the rest is granted. They take land,' and therefore cures the green-sick- it, that there is something uncommon in ness, long sea-voyages, campaigns, and you, and give you credit for the rest. You lyings-in. Both by sea and land!-I will may be sure it is upon that I go, when not answer for the distempers called sea- sometimes, let it be to the purpose or not voyages and campaigns; but I dare say I keep a Latin sentence in my front; and those of green-sickness and lying-in might was not a little pleased, when I observed be as well taken care of if the doctor staid one of my readers say, casting his eye upon ashore. But the art of managing mankind my twentieth paper, More Latin still is only to make them stare a little, to keep What a prodigious scholar is this man! up their astonishment, to let nothing be fa- But as I have taken much liberty with this miliar to them, but ever have something in learned doctor, I must make up all I have their sleeve, in which they must think you said by repeating what he seems to be in are deeper than they are. There is an in-earnest in, and honestly promises to those genious fellow, a barber of my acquaint- who will not receive him as a great manance, who, besides his broken fiddle and to wit, That from eight to twelve, an a dried sea-monster, has a twined-cord, from two to six, he attends, for the good o strained with two nails at each end, over the public, to bleed for three pence.' his window, and the words 'rainy, dry, wet,' and so forth, written to denote the weather, according to the rising or falling of the cord. We very great scholars are not apt to wonder at this; but I observed a very honest fellow, a chance customer, who sat in the chair before me to be shaved, fix his eye upon this miraculous performance during the operation upon his chin and face. When those and his head also were cleared of all incumbrances and excrescences, he looked at the fish, then at the fiddle, still grubbing in his pockets, and casting his eye again at the twine, and the words writ on each side; then altered his mind as to farthings, and gave my friend a silver sixpence. The business, as I said, is to keep up the amazement; and if my friend had had only the skeleton and kit, he must have been contented with a less payment. But the doctor we were talking of adds to his long voyages the tes T. No. 445.] Thursday, July 31, 1712 * August 1, 1712, the stamp duty here alluded to, place, and every single half-sheet paid a half-pena the queen. 'Have you seen the red stamp? Methi the stamping is worth a half-penny. The Obser is fallen; the Medleys are jumbled together with flying Post; the Examiner is deadly sick. The Spect keeps up and doubles its price.' Swift's Works, cr. 8vo. vol. xix. p. th 12 |