Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to this mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of detogether by their common interest. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes, and the infusion of a China plant is sweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippine islands give a flavour to the European bowls. The single dress of a woman of quality is often the products of a hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together from the different ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole. The brocade petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan. Thus Pontus sends her beaver stones from far; And naked Spaniards temper steel for war. Epirus for th' Elean chariot breeds (In hopes of palms) a race of running steeds. This is th' original contract; these the laws Impos'd by nature, and by nature's cause.-Dryden. THERE is no place in the town which I so much love to frequent as the Royal Ex-pendence upon one another, and be united change. It gives me a secret satisfaction, and in some measure gratifies my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assembly of countrymen and forcigners, consulting together upon the private business of mankind, and making this metropolis a kind of emporium for the whole earth. I must confess I look upon high Change to be a great council, in which all considerable nations have their representatives. Factors in the trading world are what ambassadors are in the politic world; they negotiate affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good correspondence between those wealthy societies of men that are divided from one another by seas and oceans, or live on the different extremities of a continent. I have often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted If we consider our own country in its nabetween an inhabitant of Japan and an al-tural prospect, without any of the benefits derman of London, or to see a subject of the and advantages of commerce, what a barGreat Mogul entering into a league with ren uncomfortable spot of earth falls to our one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely share! Natural historians tell us, that no delighted in mixing with these several mi- fruit grows originally among us, besides nisters of commerce, as they are distin-hips and haws, acorns and pig-nuts, with guished by their different walks and differ- other delicacies of the like nature; that our ent languages. Sometimes I am jostled climate of itself, and without the assistance among a body of Armenians; sometimes I of art, can make no farther advances toam lost in a crowd of Jews; and sometimes wards a plum, than to a sloe, and carries make one in a group of Dutchmen. I am an apple to no greater perfection than a a Dane, Swede, or Frenchman, at different crab; that our melons, our peaches, our times; or rather fancy myself like the old figs, our apricots, and cherries, are stranphilosopher, who upon being asked what gers among us, imported in different ages, countryman he was, replied, that he was a and naturalized in our English gardens; and citizen of the world. that they would all degenerate and fall away into the trash of our own country, if they were wholly neglected by the planter, and left to the mercy of our sun and soil. Nor has traffic more enriched our vegetable world, than it has improved the whole face of nature among us. Our ships are laden with the harvest of every climate. Our tables are stored with spices, and oils, and wines. Our rooms are filled with pyramids of China, and adorned with the workmanship of Japan. Our morning's draught comes to us from the remotest corners of This grand scene of business gives me an the earth. We repair our bodies by the infinite variety of solid and substantial en- drugs of America, and repose ourselves untertainments. As I am a great lover of der Indian canopies. My friend Sir Anmankind, my heart naturally overflows with drew, calls the vineyards of France our pleasure at the sight of a prosperous and gardens; the spice-islands, our hot-beds; happy multitude, insomuch that at many the Persians, our silk-weavers, and the public solemnities I cannot forbear express- Chinese, our potters. Nature indeed furing my joy with tears that have stolen downnishes us with the bare necessaries of life, my cheeks. For this reason I am wonderfully delighted to see such a body of men thriving in their own private fortunes, and at the same time promoting the public stock; or, in other words, raising estates for their own families, by bringing into their country whatever is wanting, and earrying out of it whatever is superfluous. Though I very frequently visit this busy multitude of people, I am known to nobody there but my friend Sir Andrew, who often smiles upon me as he sees me bustling in the crowd, but at the same time connives at my presence without taking further notice of me. There is indeed a merchant of Egypt, who just knows me by sight, having formerly remitted me some money to Grand Cairo: but as I am not versed in the modern Coptic, our conferences go no further than a bow and a grimace. but traffic gives us a great variety of what is useful, and at the same time supplies us with every thing that is convenient and ornamental. Nor is it the least part of this our happiness, that whilst we enjoy the remotest products of the north and south, we are free from those extremities of weather which give them birth; that our eyes are refreshed with the green fields of Britain, |plicity of thought, above that which I call at the same time that our palates are feasted the Gothic manner of writing, than thiswith fruits that rise between the tropics. that the first pleases all kinds of palates, For these reasons there are not more use- and the latter only such as have formed to ful members in a commonwealth than mer-themselves a wrong artificial taste upon litchants. They knit mankind together in a tle fanciful authors and writers of epigrams. mutual intercourse of good offices, distri- Homer, Virgil, or Milton, so far as the lanbute the gifts of nature, find work for the guage of their poems is understood, will poor, add wealth to the rich, and magni- please a reader of plain common sense, who ficence to the great. Our English mer- would neither relish nor comprehend an chant converts the tin of his own country epigram of Martial, or a poem of Cowley; into gold, and exchanges its wool for rubies. so, on the contrary, an ordinary song or The Mahometans are clothed in our Bri- ballad, that is the delight of the common tish manufacture, and the inhabitants of the people, cannot fail to please all such reafrozen zone warmed with the fleeces of our ders as are not unqualified for the entertainsheep. ment by their affectation or ignorance; and the reason is plain, because the same paintings of nature, which recommend it to the most ordinary reader, will appear beautiful to the most refined. When I have been upon the Change, I have often fancied one of our old kings standing in person, where is represented in effigy, and looking down upon the wealthy concourse of people with which that place is every day filled. In this case, how would he be surprised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so many private men, who in his time would have been the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating like princes for greater sums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury! Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional empire. It has multiplied the number of the rich, made our landed estates infinitely more valuable than they were formerly, and added to them an accession of other estates as valuable as the lands themselves. C. No. 70.] Monday, May 21, 1711. The old song of Chevy-Chase is the favourite ballad of the common people of England, and Ben Jonson used to say, he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney, in his discourse of poetry, speaks of it in the following words: 'I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung by some blind crowder with no rougher voice than rude style, which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar? For my own part, I am so professed an admirer of this antiquated song, that I shall give my reader a critique upon it, without any further apology for so doing.* The greatest modern critics have laid it down as a rule, that an heroic poem should be founded upon some important precept of morality, adapted to the constitution of the country in which the poet writes. WHEN I travelled, I took a particular Homer and Virgil have formed their plans delight in hearing the songs and fables that in this view. As Greece was a collection are come from father to son, and are most of many governments, who suffered very in vogue among the common people of the much among themselves, and gave the countries through which I passed; for it is Persian emperor, who was their common impossible that any thing should be univer- enemy, many advantages over them by sally tasted and approved by a multitude, their mutual jealousies and animosities, though they are only the rabble of a nation, Homer, in order to establish among them which hath not in it some peculiar aptness a union which was so necessary for their to please and gratify the mind of man. safety, grounds his poem upon the discords Human nature is the same in all reasona- of the several Grecian princes who were ble creatures; and whatever falls in with engaged in a confederacy against an Asiatic it, will meet with admirers amongst rea-prince, and the several advantages which ders of all qualities and conditions. Mo-the enemy gained by such discords. At the liere, as we are told by Monsieur Boileau, time the poem we are now treating of was used to read all his comedies to an old wo-written, the dissensions of the barons, man who was his house-keeper, as she sat who were then so many petty princes, ran with him at her work by the chimney-corner; and could foretel the success of his play in the theatre, from the reception it met with at his fire-side: for he tells us the audience always followed the old woman, and never failed to laugh in the same place. I know nothing which more shows the essential and inherent perfection of sim-consequence of it. very high, whether they quarrelled among themselves, or with their neighbours, and much admired by Sir Philip Sidney and Ben Jonson, was not the same as that which he here so elegantly criticises, and which, in Dr. Percy's opinion, cannot be written after the eulogium of Sir Philip Sidney, or in * Mr. Addison was not aware that the old song so older than the time of Elizabeth; and was probably 'God save the king, and bless the land And grant henceforth that foul debate "Twixt noblemen may cease.' The next point observed by the greatest heroic poets, hath been to celebrate persons and actions which do honour to their country: thus Virgil's hero was the founder of Rome, Homer's a prince of Greece; and for this reason Valerius Flaccus and Statius, who were both Romans, might be justly derided for having chosen the expedition of the Golden Fleece, and the wars of Thebes, for the subjects of their epic writings. The poet before us has not only found out an hero in his own country, but raises the reputation of it by several beautiful incidents. The English are the first who take the field, and the last who quit it. The English bring only fifteen hundred to the battle, the Scotch two thousand. The English keep the field with fifty-three; the Scotch retire with fifty-five: all the rest on each side being slain in battle. But the most remarkable circumstance of this kind is the different manner in which the Scotch and English kings receive the news of this fight, and of the great men's deaths who commanded in it: "This news was brought to Edinburgh, 'O heavy news, king James did say, I have not any captain more 'Like tidings to King Henry came 'Now God be with him, said our king, I trust I have within my realm Yet shall not Scot nor Scotland say, And be revenged on them all For brave Lord Percy's sake. This vow full well the king perform'd In one day fifty knights were slain, At the same time that our poet shows a Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, 'Ere thus I will out-braved be, I know thee well, an earl thou art, 'But trust me, Percy, pity it were, And great offence, to kill By whom it is deny'd.' When these brave men had distinguished themselves in the battle, and in single combat with each other, in the midst of a the Scotch earl falls; and with his dying generous parley, full of heroic sentiments, words encourages his men to revenge his death, representing to them, as the most bitter circumstance of it, that his rival saw him fall: 'With that there came an arrow keen Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart 'Who never spoke more words than these, Lord Percy sees my fall.' Merry-men in the language of those times, Tum sic expirans Accam ex æqualibus unam A gathering mist o'erclouds her cheerful eyes; Dryden. Turnus did not die in so heroic a manner; though our poet seems to have had his eye upon Turnus's speech in the last verse: The Latian chiefs have seen me beg my life. Dryden. Earl Percy's lamentation over his enemy is generous, beautiful, and passionate: I must only caution the reader not to let the simplicity of the style, which one may well pardon in so old a poet, prejudice him against the greatness of the thought: "Then leaving life, Earl Percy took 'O Christ, my very heart doth bleed The beautiful line, Taking the dead man At vero ut vultum vidit morientis, et ora, He trudg'd along, unknowing what he sought, 'By chance conducted, or by thirst constrain'd, repose. "The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes, But lest this fine description should be excepted against, as the creation of that great master Mr. Dryden, and not an ac The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead; &c. Dryden. I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of this old song. C. No. 71.] Tuesday, May 22, 1711. -Scribere jussit amor. Ovid. Ep. iv. 10. Love bade me write. the world, I shall give you, verbatim, the epistle of an enamoured footman in the country to his mistress. Their surnames shall not be inserted, because their passions demand a greater respect than is due to their quality. James is servant in a great family, and Elizabeth waits upon the daughter of one as numerous, some miles off her lover. James, before he beheld Betty, was vain of his strength, a rough THE entire conquest of our passions is wrestler, and quarrelsome cudgel-player; so difficult a work, that they who despair Betty a public dancer at May-poles, a romp of it should think of a less difficult task, at stool-ball: he always following idle woand only attempt to regulate them. But men, she playing among the peasants: he a there is a third thing which may contribute country bully, she a country coquette. But not only to the ease, but also to the plea- love has made her constantly in her missure of our life; and that is refining our pas-tress's chamber, where the young lady sions to a greater elegance than we receive them from nature. When the passion is love, this work is performed in innocent, though rude and uncultivated minds, by the mere force and dignity of the object. There are forms which naturally create respect in the beholders, and at once inflame and chastise the imagination. Such an impression as this gives an immediate 'May 14, 1711. ambition to deserve, in order to please. 'MY DEAR BETTY,-Remember your This cause and effect are beautifully de- bleeding lover, who lies bleeding at the cribed by Mr. Dryden in the fable of Cy-wounds Cupid made with the arrows he mon and Iphigenia. After he has repre- borrowed at the eyes of Venus, which is sented Cymon so stupid, that your sweet person. "He whistled as he went for want of thought;" he makes him fall into the following scene, 'It happen'd on a summer's holiday, gratifies a secret passion of her own, by making Betty talk of James; and James is become a constant waiter near his master's apartment, in reading, as well as he can, romances. I cannot learn who Molly is, who it seems walked ten miles to carry the angry message, which gave occasion to what follows: 'Nay more, with the token you sent me sweet person; which was your base refor my love and service offered to your there is no ill conditions in me, but quite spects to my ill conditions; when, alas! contrary; all love, and purity, especially to your sweet person; but all this I take as a jest. But the sad and dismal news which Molly brought me struck me to the heart, which was, it seems, and is, your ill conditions for my love and respects to you. For she told me, if I came forty times to you, you would not speak with me, which words I am sure is a great grief to me. that I cannot think you are in earnest. But the certainty given me in your message by Molly, that you do not love me, is what robs me of all comfort. She says you will not see me: if you can have so much cruelty, at least write to me, that I may kiss the impression made by your fair Now, my dear, if I may not be permit-hand. I love you above all things, and, in ted to your sweet company, and to have the happiness of speaking with your sweet person, I beg the favour of you to accept of this my secret mind and thoughts, which hath so long lodged in my breast, the which if you do not accept, I believe will go nigh to break my heart. For, indeed, my dear, I love you above all the beauties I ever saw in my life. "The young gentleman, and my master's daughter, the Londoner that is come down to marry her, sat in the arbour most part of last night. Oh, dear Betty, must the nightingales sing to those who marry for money, and not to us true lovers! Oh, my dear Betty, that we could meet this night where we used to do in the wood! my condition, what you look upon with indifference is to me the most exquisite pleasure or pain. Our young lady and å fine gentleman from London, who are to marry for mercenary ends, walk about our gardens, and hear the voice of evening nightingales, as if for fashion sake they courted those solitudes, because they have heard lovers do so. Oh, Betty! could I hear those rivulets murmur, and birds sing, while you stood near me, how little sensible should I be that we are both servants, that there is any thing on earth above us! Oh! I could write to you as long as I love you, till death itself. JAMES.' N. B. By the words ill conditions, James means, in a woman coquetry, in a man in constancy. Now, my dear, if I may not have the blessing of kissing your sweet lips, I beg I may have the happiness of kissing your fair hand, with a few lines from your dear No. 72.] Wednesday, May 22, 1711. self, presented by whom you please or think fit. I believe, if time would permit me, I could write all day; but the time being short, and paper little, no more from your never failing lover till death, 'JAMES Poor James! since his time and paper were so short, I that have more than I can use well of both, will put the sentiments of this kind letter (the style of which seems to be confused with scraps he had got in hearing and reading what he did not understand) into what he meant to express. R. -Genus immortale manet, multosque per annos Th' immortal line in sure succession reigns, HAVING already given my reader an account of several extraordinary clubs both ancient and modern, I did not design to have troubled him with any more narratives of this nature; but I have lately received information of a club which I can call neither ancient nor modern, that I 'DEAR CREATURE,-Can you then ne- dare say will be no less surprising to my glect him who has forgot all his recrea- reader than it was to myself; for which tions and enjoyments to pine away his life reason I shall communicate it to the pubin thinking of you? When I do so, you ap-lic as one of the greatest curiosities of its pear more amiable to me than Venus does in the most beautiful description that ever was made of her. All this kindness you return with an accusation, that I do not love you: but the contrary is so manifest, *The writer of this loving epistle was James Hirst, a servant to the Hon. Edward Wortley, esq. In de livering a number of letters to his master, he gave him, by mistake, this which he had just written to his sweetheart, and in its stead kept one of his master's. James soon discovered the error he had committed, and returned to rectify it, but it was too late: the letter to Betty was the first which met Mr. Wortley's eye, and he had indulged his curiosity in reading the pathetic effusion of his love-lorn footman. James begged to have it returned: "No, James," said his master, "You shall be a great man; and this letter must appear in the Spectator." kind. A friend of mine complaining of a tradesman who is related to him, after having represented him as a very idle, worthless fellow, who neglected his family, and spent most of his time over a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, that he was a member of the Everlasting Club. So very odd a title raised my curiosity to inquire into the nature of a club that had such a · sounding name; upon which my friend gave me the the following account. The Everlasting Club consists of a hundred members, who divide the whole twenty-four hours among them in such a manner, that the club sits day and night James at length succeeded in convincing Betty from one end of the year to another; no cor.sent to marry him: the marriage, however, was un-party presuming to rise till they are refortunately prevented by her sudden death; and James, lieved by those who are in course to sucwho seems to have been a good sort of soul, soon ceed them. By this means a member of after married her sister. This sister was, most proba- the Everlasting Club never wants compably, the Molly who trudged so many miles to carry the angry message. | ny; for though he is not upon duty himself, that he had no "ill conditions," and obtained her |