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THE

SPECTATOR.

WITH

SKETCHES

OF THE

LIVES OF THE AUTHORS,

AND

EXPLANATORY NOTES.

IN EIGHT VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

London:

FRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS,

ЯОТАТ

2 3 1 7 3 1 2 3

BRITISH

CIBRARY

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SIMILITUDE of manners and ftudies is ufually, mentioned as one of the ftrongeft motives to. affection and efteem; but the paffionate veneration I have for your Lordship, I think, flows from an admiration of qualities in you, of which, in the whole courfe of these papers, I have acknowledged myself incapable. While I bufy myself as a stranger upon earth, and can pretend to no other than being a lookeron, you are confpicuous in the bufy and polite world, both in the world of men and that of letters: While I am filent and unobserved in public meetings, you are admired by all that approach you, as the life and genius of the converfation. What a happy conjunction of different talents meets in him whose whole difcourfe is at once animated by the ftrength and force of reafon, and adorned with all the graces, and embellishments of wit? When learning irradiates common life, it is then in its highest use and perfection; and it is to fuch as your Lordship, that the sciences owe the esteem which they have with the

active part of mankind. Knowledge of books in reclufe men, is like that fort of lanthorn which hides him who carries it, and ferves only to pass through fecret and gloomy paths of his own; but in the poffeffion of a man of bufinefs, it is as a torch in the hand of one who is willing and able to fhew those who are bewildered the way which leads to their profperity and welfare. A generous concern for your country, and a paffion for every thing which is truly great and noble, are what actuate all your life and actions; and I hope you will forgive ine that I have an ambition this book may be placed in the library of fo good a judge of what is valuable, in that library where the choice is fuch, that it will not be a difparagement to be the meanest author in it. Forgive me, my Lord, for taking this occafion of telling all the world how ardently I love and honour you; and that I am, with the utmost gratitude for all your favours,

My LORD,

Your Lordship's most obliged,

moft obedient, and

moft humble Servant,

THE SPECTATOR.

N° 81.

THE

SPECTATOR.

SATURDAY, June 2. 1711.

By ADDISON.

Qualis ubi audito venantum murmure tigris
Horruit in maculas.

As when the tigrefs hears the hunter's din,
A thousand angry spots defile her skin.

A

STATIUS

BOUT the middle of laft winter I went to fee a

opera at the theatre in the Hay-Market, where I could not but take notice of two parties of very fine women, that had placed themselves in the oppofite fideboxes, and feemed drawn up in a kind of battle array one against another. After a fhort furvey of them, I found they were patched differently; the faces on one hand being fpotted on the right fide of the fore-head, and thofe upon the other on the left. I quickly perceived that they caft hoftile glances upon one another; and that their patches were placed in thofe different fituations, as party-fignals to diftinguish friends from foes. In the middle-boxes, between these two oppofite bodies, were feveral ladies who patched indifferently on both fides of their faces, and feemed to fit there with no other inten tion but to fee the opera¶a). Upon inquiry I found, thạt the body of Amazons on my right hand were Whigs, and thofe on my left, Torries; and that those who had placed themselves in the middle-boxes were a neutral party, whofe faces had not yet declared themselves. These last,

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