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bright and lively thoughts. As there should be but one forcible light in a picture which should catch the eye and fall on the hero, so there should be but one object of our love, even the Author of nature. These and the like reflections, well improved, might very much contribute to open the beauty of that art, and prevent young people from being poisoned by the ill gusto of any extravagant workman that should be imposed upon us. I am, sir, your most humble servant.'

confess I was but barely pleased; the next | As the shadows in a picture represent the time I liked them better, but at last, as serious or melancholy, so the lights do the I grew better acquainted with them, I fell deeply in love with them; like wise speeches, they sank deep into my heart: for you know, Mr. Spectator, that a man of wit may extremely affect one for the present, but if he has not discretion, his merit soon vanishes away: while a wise man that has not so great a stock of wit, shall nevertheless give you a far greater and more lasting satisfaction. Just so it is in a picture that is smartly touched, but not well studied; one may call it a witty picture, though the painter in the mean time may be in danger of being called a fool. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Though I am a woOn the other hand, a picture that is tho- man, yet I am one of those who confess roughly understood in the whole, and well themselves highly pleased with a speculaperformed in the particulars, that is begun tion you obliged the world with some time on the foundation of geometry, carried on by ago, from an old Greek poet you call Simothe rules of perspective, architecture, and nides, in relation to the several natures and anatomy, and perfected by a good harmony, distinctions of our own sex. I could not but a just and natural colouring, and such pas- admire how justly the characters of women sions and expressions of the mind as are in this age fall in with the times of Simoalmost peculiar to Raphael; this is what nides, there being no one of those sorts I you may justly style a wise picture, and have not at some time or other of my life which seldom fails to strike us dumb, until met with a sample of. But, sir, the subwe can assemble all our faculties to make ject of this present address are a set of but a tolerable judgment upon it. Other women, comprehended, I think, in the pictures are made for the eyes only, as rat-ninth species of that speculation, called the tles are made for children's ears; and cer- Apes; the description of whom I find to be, tainly that picture that only pleases the "That they are such as are both ugly and eye, without representing some well-chosen ill-natured, who have nothing beautiful part of nature or other, does but show what themselves, and endeavour to detract from fine colours are to be sold at the colour- or ridicule every thing that appears so in shop, and mocks the works of the Creator. others." Now, sir, this sect, as I have If the best imitator of nature is not to be been told, is very frequent in the great esteemed the best painter, but he that makes town where you live; but as my circumthe greatest show and glare of colours; it stance of life obliges me to reside altogether will necessarily follow, that he who can in the country, though not many miles from array himself in the most gaudy draperies London, I cannot have met with a great is best drest, and he that can speak loudest number of them, nor indeed is it a desirathe best orator. Every man when he looks ble acquaintance, as I have lately found by on a picture should examine it according to experience. You must know, sir, that at that share of reason he is master of, or he the beginning of this summer a family of will be in danger of making a wrong judg- these apes came and settled for the season ment. If men when they walk abroad not far from the place where I live. As would make more frequent observations on they were strangers in the country, they those beauties of nature which every mo- were visited by the ladies about them, of ment present themselves to their view, they whom I was one, with a humanity usual in would be better judges when they saw her those who pass most of their time in soliwell imitated at home. This would help tude. The apes lived with us very agreeto correct those errors which most preten- ably our own way until towards the end of ders fall into, who are over hasty in their the summer, when they began to bethink judgments, and will not stay to let reason themselves of returning to town; then it come in for a share in the decision. It is was, Mr. Spectator, that they began to set for want of this that men mistake in this themselves about the proper and distincase, and in common life, a wild extrava- guishing business of their character; and as gant pencil for one that is truly bold and it is said of evil spirits, that they are apt to great, an impudent fellow for a man of true carry away a piece of the house they are courage and bravery, hasty and unreason- about to leave, the apes, without regard able actions for enterprises of spirit and to common mercy, civility, or gratitude, resolution, gaudy colouring for that which thought fit to mimic and fall foul on the is truly beautiful, a false and insinuating faces, dress, and behaviour of their indiscourse for simple truth elegantly recom-nocent neighbours, bestowing abominable mended. The parallel will hold through censures and disgraceful appellations, comall the parts of life and painting too; and monly called nick-names, on all of them; the virtuosos above mentioned will be glad and in short, like true fine ladies, made to see you draw it with your terms of art. their honest plainness and sincerity matter

'CONSTANTIA FIELD.'

No. 245.] Tuesday, December 11, 1711.
Ficta voluptatis causa sint proxima veris.
Hor. Ars Poet. v. 338.
Fictions to please, should wear the face of truth.

of ridicule. I could not but acquaint you among us, and which are very proper to with these grievances, as well at the de-pass away a winter night for those who do sire of all the parties injured, as from my not care to throw away their time at an own inclination. I hope, sir, if you cannot opera, or the play-house. I would gladly propose entirely to reform this evil, you know in particular, what notion you have will take such notice of it in some of your of hot-cockles; as also, whether you think future speculations, as may put the deserv- that questions and commands, mottoes, ing part of our sex on their guard against similies, and cross-purposes, have not more these creatures; and at the same time the mirth and wit in them than those public apes may be sensible that this sort of mirth diversions which are grown so very fashionis so far from an innocent diversion, that it able among us. If you would recommend is in the highest degree that vice which is to our wives and daughters, who read your said to comprehend all others. I am, sir, papers with a great deal of pleasure, some your humble servant, of those sports and pastimes that may be T. practised within doors, and by the fireside, we who are masters of families should be hugely obliged to you. I need not tell you that I would have these sports and pastimes not only merry but innocent; for which reason I have not mentioned either whisk or lanterloo, nor indeed so much as one-and-thirty. After having communi THERE is nothing which one regards so cated to you my request upon this subject, much with an eye of mirth and pity as in- I will be so free as to tell you how my wife nocence, when it has in it a dash of folly. and I pass away these tedious winter even At the same time that one esteems the vir-ings with a great deal of pleasure. Though tue, one is tempted to laugh at the simplicity which accompanies it. When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the least grain of the serpent in his composition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumstances of life, and very often discredits his best actions. The Cordeliers tell a story of their founder St. Francis, that as he passed the streets in the dusk of the evening, he discovered a young fellow with a maid in a corner; upon which the good man, say they, lifted up his hands to heaven with a secret thanksgiving, that there was still so much Christian charity in the world. The innocence of the saint made him mistake the kiss of the lover for a salute of charity. I am heartily concerned when I see a virtuous man without a competent knowledge of the world; and if there be any use in these my papers, it is this, that without representing vice under any false alluring notions, they give my reader an insight into the ways of men, and represent human nature in all its changeable colours. The man who has not been engaged in any of the follies of the world, or, as Shakspeare expresses it, 'hackneyed in the ways of men,' may here find a picture of its follies and extravagances. The virtuous and the innocent may know in speculation what they could never arrive at by practice, and by this means avoid the snares of the crafty, the corruptions of the vicious, and the reasonings of the prejudiced. Their minds may be opened without being vitiated. It is with an eye to my following correspondent, Mr. Timothy Doodle, who seems a very well-meaning man, that I have written this short preface, to which I shall subjoin a letter from the said Mr. Doodle.

'SIR, I could heartily wish that you would let us know your opinion upon several innocent diversions which are in use

she be young and handsome, and good
humoured to a miracle, she does not care
for gadding abroad like others of her sex.
There is a very friendly man, a colonel in the
army, whom I am mightily obliged to for his
civilities, that comes to see me almost every
night; for he is not one of those giddy young
fellows that cannot live out of a play-house.
When we are together, we very often
make a party at Blind-man's Buff, which
is a sport that I like the better, because
there is a good deal of exercise in it. The
colonel and I are blinded by turns, and you
would laugh your heart out to see what
pains my dear takes to hoodwink us, so
that it is impossible for us to see the least
glimpse of light. The poor colonel some
times hits his nose against a post, and
makes us die with laughing. I have gene
rally the good luck not to hurt myself, but
am very often above half an hour before I
can catch either of them; for you must
know we hide ourselves up and down in
corners, that we may have the more sport.
I only give you this hint as a sample of such
innocent diversions as I would have you
recommend; and am, most esteemed sir,
your ever-loving friend,

TIMOTHY DOODLE.'

The following letter was occasioned by my last Thursday's paper upon the absence of lovers, and the methods therein mentioned of making such absence supportable.

'SIR,-Among the several ways of consolation which absent lovers make use of while their souls are in that state of departure, which you say is death in love, there are some very material ones that have escaped your notice. Among these, the first and most received is a crooked shilling, which has administered great comfort to our fore

-Ουκ άρα σοι γε πατήρ ην ιπποτα Πηλευς,
Ουδε Θετις μητηρ, γλαυκη δε σ' έτικτε θάλασσα,
Πετραι τ' ηλίβατοι, οτι τοι νεος εστιν απήνης.
Hom. Iliad, xvi. 33.

No amorous hero ever gave thee birth,
Nor ever tender goddess brought thee forth,
Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form,
And raging seas produc'd thee in a storm:
A soul well suiting thy tempestuous kind,
So rough thy manners, so untam'd thy mind.

Pope.

fathers, and is still made use of on this oc- | No. 246.] Wednesday, December 12, 1711. casion with very good effect in most parts of her majesty's dominions. There are some, I know, who think a crown piece cut into two equal parts, and preserved by the distant lovers, is of more sovereign virtue than the former. But since opinions are divided in this particular, why may not the same persons make use of both? The figure of a heart, whether cut in stone or cast in metal, whether bleeding upon an altar, stuck with darts, or held in the hand of a Cupid, has always been looked upon as talismanic in distresses of this nature. I am acquainted with many a brave fellow who carries his mistress in the lid of his snuff-box, and by that expedient has supported himself under the absence of a whole campaign. For my own part, I have tried all these remedies, but never found so much benefit from any as from a ring, in which my mistress's hair is plaited together very artificially in a kind of true-lover's knot. As I have received great benefit from this secret, I think myself obliged to communicate it to the public for the good of my fellow-subjects. I desire you will add this letter as an appendix to your consolations upon absence, and am, your very humble servant, T. B.'

'MR. SPECTATOR,-As your paper is part of the equipage of the tea-table, 1 conjure you to print what I now write to you; for I have no other way to communicate what I have to say to the fair sex on the most important circumstance of life, even "the care of children." I do not understand that you profess your paper is always to consist of matters which are only to entertain the learned and polite, but that it may agree with your design to publish some which may tend to the information of mankind in general; and when it does so, you do more than writing wit and humour. Give me leave then to tell you, that of all the abuses that ever you have as yet endeavoured to reform, certainly not one wanted so much your assistance as the abuse in nursing of children. It is unmerciful to see, that a woman endowed with I shall conclude this paper with a letter all the perfections and blessings of nature, from a university gentleman, occasioned by can, as soon as she is delivered, turn off her my last Tuesday's paper, wherein I gave innocent, tender, and helpless infant, and some account of the great feuds which hap-give it up to a woman that is (ten thousand pened formerly in those learned bodies, between the modern Greeks and Trojans.

'SIR,-This will give you to understand, that there is at present in the society, whereof I am a member, a very consider able body of Trojans, who, upon a proper occasion, would not fail to declare ourselves. In the meanwhile we do all we can to annoy our enemies by stratagem, and are resolved by the first opportunity to attack Mr. Joshua Barnes, whom we look upon as the Achilles of the opposite party. As for myself, I have had the reputation ever since I came from school, of being a trusty Trojan, and am resolved never to give quarter to the smallest particle of Greek, wherever I chance to meet it. It is for this reason I take it very ill of you, that you sometimes hang out Greek colours at the head of your paper, and sometimes give a word of the enemy even in the body of it. When I meet with any thing of this nature, I throw down your speculations upon the table, with that form of words which we make use of when we declare war upon an author,

Græcum est, non potest legi.

'I give you this hint, that you may for the future abstain from any such hostilities at your peril.

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TROILUS.’

to one,) neither in health nor good condition, neither sound in mind nor body, that has neither honour nor reputation, neither love nor pity for the poor babe, but more regard for the money than for the whole child, and never will take farther care of it than what by all the encouragement of money and presents she is forced to; like

sop's earth, which would not nurse the plant of another ground, although never so much improved, by reason that plant was not of its own production. And since another's child is no more natural to a nurse than a plant to a strange and different ground, how can it be supposed that the child should thrive; and if it thrives, must it not imbibe the gross humours and qualities of the nurse, like a plant in a different ground, or like a graft upon a different stock? Do not we observe, that a lamb sucking a goat changes very much its nature, nay, even its skin and wool into the goat kind? The power of a nurse over a child, by infusing into it with her milk her qualities and disposition, is sufficiently and daily observed. Hence came that old saying concerning an ill-natured and malicious fellow, that he had imbibed his malice with his nurse's milk, or that some brute Hence Roor other had been his nurse. mulus and Remus were said to have been nursed by a wolf; Telephus, the son of Hercules, by a hind; Pelias, the son of Nep

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tune by a mare; and Ægisthus by a goat; not that they had actually sucked such creatures, as some simpletons have imagined, but that their nurses had been of such a nature and temper, and infused such into them.

living shadows, and like unripe fruit; and certainly if a woman is strong enough to bring forth a child, she is beyond all doubt strong enough to nurse it afterwards. It grieves me to observe and consider how many poor children are daily ruined by careless nurses; and yet how tender ought they to be to a poor infant, since the least hurt or blow, especially upon the head, may make it senseless, stupid, or otherwise miserable for ever!

ment, that a mother is weakened by giving suck to her children, is vain and simple. I will maintain that the mother grows stronger by it, and will have her health better than she would have otherwise. She will find it the greatest cure and preservaMany instances may be produced from tive for the vapours and future miscargood authorities and daily experience, that riages, much beyond any other remedy children actually suck in the several pas-whatsoever. Her children will be like sions and depraved inclinations of their giants, whereas otherwise they are but nurses, as anger, malice, fear, melancholy, sadness, desire, and aversion. This, Diodorus, lib. 2. witnesses, when he speaks, saying, that Nero the emperor's nurse had been very much addicted to drinking; which habit Nero received from his nurse, and was so very particular in this, that the people took so much notice of it, as instead of Tiberius Nero, they called him Biberius Mero. The same Diodorus also relates of Caligula, predecessor to Nero, that his nurse used to moisten the nipples of her 'But I cannot well leave this subject as breast frequently with blood, to make Ca- yet; for it seems to me very unnatural that ligula take the better hold of them; which, a woman that has fed a child as part of says Diodorus, was the cause that made herself for nine months, should have no him so blood-thirsty and cruel all his life- desire to nurse it farther, when brought to time after, that he not only committed light and before her eyes, and when by its frequent murder by his own hand, but like- cry it implores her assistance and the office wise wished that all human kind wore but of a mother. Do not the very cruellest of one neck that he might have the pleasure brutes tend their young ones with all the to cut it off. Such like degeneracies asto- care and delight imaginable? How can she nish the parents, who not knowing after be called a mother that will not nurse her whom the child can take, see one inclined young ones? The earth is called the mother to stealing, another to drinking, cruelty, of all things, not because she produces, but stupidity; yet all these are not minded. because she maintains and nurses what she Nay, it is easy to demonstrate, that a child, produces. The generation of the infant is although it be born from the best of parents, the effect of desire, but the care of it armay be corrupted by an ill-tempered nurse. gues virtue and choice. I am not ignorant How many children do we see daily brought but that there are some cases of necessity, into fits, consumptions, rickets, &c. merely where a mother cannot give suck, and then by sucking their nurses when in a passion out of two evils the least must be chosen; or fury? But indeed almost any disorder but there are so very few, that I am sure of the nurse is a disorder to the child, and in a thousand there is hardly one real infew nurses can be found in this town but stance; for if a woman does but know that what labour under some distemper or other. her husband can spare about three or six The first question that is generally asked shillings a week extraordinary, (although a young woman that wants to be a nurse, this is but seldom considered,) she cer why she should be a nurse to other peo-tainly, with the assistance of her gossips, ple's children, is answered, by her having will soon persuade the good man to send an ill husband, and that she must make the child to nurse, and easily impose upon shift to live. I think now this very answer him by pretending indisposition. This cruis enough to give any body a shock if duly elty is supported by fashion, and nature considered; for an ill husband may, or ten gives place to custom. Sir, your humble to one if he does not, bring home to his wife servant.' an ill distemper, or at least vexation and disturbance. Besides, as she takes the child out of mere necessity, her food will be accordingly, or else very coarse at best; No. 247.] Thursday, December 13, 1711.

-Των δ' ακάματος ρεει αυδη

Hesiod.

Εκ στομάτων ηδεία -
Their untir'd lips a wordy torrent pour.

T.

whence proceeds an ill-concocted and coarse food for the child; for as the blood, so is the milk; and hence I am very well assured proceeds the scurvy, the evil, and many other distempers. I beg of you, for WE are told by some ancient authors, the sake of the many poor infants that may that Socrates was instructed in eloquence and will be saved by weighing this case by a woman whose name, if I am not misseriously, to exhort the people with the taken, was Aspasia. I have indeed very utmost vehemence, to let the children suck often looked upon that art as the most protheir own mothers, both for the benefit of per for the female sex, and I think the unimother and child. For the general argu-versities would do well to consider whether

they should not fill the rhetoric chairs with | weather, and in every part of the room. she professors.

It has been said in the praise of some men that they could talk whole hours together upon any thing; but it must be owned to the honour of the other sex, that there are many among them who can talk whole hours together upon nothing. I have known a woman branch out into a long extempore dissertation upon the edging of a petticoat, and chide her servant for breaking a china cup, in all the figures of rhetoric. Were women permitted to plead in courts of judicature, I am persuaded they would carry the eloquence of the bar to greater heights than it has yet arrived at. If any one doubts this, let him but be present at those debates which frequently arise among the ladies of the British fishery.

The first kind therefore of female orators which I shall take notice of, are those who are employed in stirring up the passions; a part of rhetoric in which Socrates his wife had perhaps made a greater proficiency than his above-mentioned teacher.

She has false quarrels and feigned obligations to all the men of her acquaintance; sighs when she is not sad, and laughs when she is not merry. The coquette is in particular a great mistress of that part of oratory which is called action, and indeed seems to speak for no other purpose, but as it gives her an opportunity of stirring a limb, or varying a feature, of glancing her eyes, or playing with her fan.

As for newsmongers, politicians, mimics, story-tellers, with other characters of that nature which give birth to loquacity, they are as commonly found among the men as the women; for which reason I shall pass them over in silence.

I have often been puzzled to assign a cause why women should have this talent of a ready utterance in so much greater perfection than men. I have sometimes fancied that they have not a retentive power, or the faculty of suppressing their thoughts, as men have, but that they are necessitated to speak every thing they think; and if so, The second kind of female orators are it would perhaps furnish a very strong arthose who deal in invectives, and who are gument to the Cartesians for the supportcommonly known by the name of the cen- ing of their doctrine that the soul always sorious. The imagination and elocution of thinks. But as several are of opinion that this set of rhetoricians is wonderful. With the fair sex are not altogether strangers to what a fluency of invention, and copiousness the art of dissembling and concealing their of expression, will they enlarge upon every thoughts, I have been forced to relinquish little slip in the behaviour of another? With that opinion, and have therefore endeahow many different circumstances, and voured to seek after some better reason. with what variety of phrases, will they tell In order to it, a friend of mine, who is an over the same story? I have known an old excellent anatomist, has promised me by lady make an unhappy marriage the sub- the first opportunity to dissect a woman's ject of a month's conversation. She blamed tongue, and to examine whether there may the bride in one place; pitied her in an-not be in it certain juices which render it so other; laughed at her in a third; wondered at her in a fourth; was angry with her in a fifth; and, in short, wore out a pair of coach-horses in expressing her concern for her. At length, after having quite exhausted the subject on this side, she made a visit to the new-married pair, praised the wife for the prudent choice she had made, told her the unreasonable reflections which some malicious people had cast upon her, and desired that they might be better acquainted. The censure and approbation of this kind of women are therefore only to be considered as helps to discourse.

A third kind of female orators may be comprehended under the word gossips. Mrs. Fiddle-Faddle is perfectly accomplished in this sort of eloquence; she faunches out into descriptions of christenings, runs divisions upon a head-dress, knows every dish of meat that is served up in her neighbourhood, and entertains her company a whole afternoon together with the wit of her little boy, before he is able to speak.

The coquette may be looked upon as a fourth kind of female orator. To give herself the larger field for discourse, she hates and loves in the same breath, talks to her lap-dog or parrot, is uneasy in all kinds of

wonderfully voluble or flippant, or whether the fibres of it may not be made up of a finer or more pliant thread; or whether there are not in it some particular muscles which dart it up and down by such sudden glances and vibrations; or whether, in the last place, there may not be certain undiscovered channels running from the head and the heart to this little instrument of loquacity, and conveying into it a perpetual affluency of animal spirits. Nor must I omit the reason which Hudibras has given, why those who can talk on trifles speak with the greatest fluency; namely, that the tongue is like a race-horse, which runs the faster the lesser weight it carri

Which of these reasons soever may be looked upon as the most probable, I think the Irishman's thought was very natural, who, after some hours conversation with a female orator, told her, that he believed her tongue was very glad when she was asleep, for that it had not a moment's rest all the while she was awake.

That excellent old ballad of The Wanton Wife of Bath, has the following remarkable lines:

'I think, quoth Thomas, women's tongues
Of aspen leaves are made.'

And Ovid, though in the description of a

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