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existence, to converse with scenes, and ob- | whatever might be proper to adapt them jects and companions that are altogether to the character and genius of my paper, new,-what can support her under such with which it was almost impossible these tremblings of thought, such fear, such anxiety, such apprehensions, but the casting of all her cares upon Him who first gave her being, who has conducted her through 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 this steady reliance on God Almighty in his twenty-third psalm, which is a kind of pastoral hymn, and filled with those allusions which are usual in that kind of writing. As the poetry is very exquisite, I shall present my reader with the following translation of it:

I.

The Lord my pasture shall prepare, And feed me with a shepherd's care: His presence shall my wants supply, And guard me with a watchful eye; My noon-day walks he shall attend, And all my midnight hours defend.

II.

When in the sultry glebe I faint,
Or on the thirsty mountain pant;
To fertile vales and dewy meads
My weary, wand'ring steps he leads;
Where peaceful rivers, soft, and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.

III.

Though in the paths of death I tread,
With gloomy horrors overspread,
My steadfast heart shall fear no ill,
For thou, O Lord, art with me still;
Thy friendly crook shall give me aid,
And guide me through the dreadful shade.
IV.

Though in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious, lonely wilds I stray,
Thy bounty shall my pains beguile:
The barren wilderness shall smile
With sudden greens and herbage crown'd,
And streams shall murmur all around.'

No. 442.] Monday, July 28, 1712.

Scribimus indocti doctique

C.

Hor. Ep. i. Lib. 2. 117. -Those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme and scrawl, and scribble to a man.

Pope.

could exactly correspond, it being certain that hardly two men think alike; and, therefore, so many men so many Spectators. Besides, I must own my weakness for glory is such, that, if I consulted that only, I might be so far swayed by it, as almost to wish that no one could write a Spectator besides myself; nor can I deny but, upon the first perusal of those papers, I felt some secret inclinations of ill-will towards the persons who wrote them. This was the impression I had upon the first reading them; but upon a late review (more for the sake of entertainment than use,) regarding them with another eye than I had done at first (for by converting them as well as I could to my own use, I thought I had utterly disabled them from ever offending me again as Spectators,) I found myself moved by a passion very different from that of envy; sensibly touched with pity, the softest and most generous of all passions, when I reflected what a cruel disappointment the neglect of those papers must needs have been to the writers who impatiently longed to see them appear in print, and who, no doubt, triumphed to themselves in the hopes of having a share with me in the applause of the public; a pleasure so great, that none but those who have experienced it can have a sense of it. In this manner of viewing those papers, I really found I had not done them justice, there being something so extremely natural and peculiarly good in some of them, that I will appeal to the world whether it was possible to alter a word in them without doing them a manifest hurt and violence; and whether they can ever appear rightly, and as they ought, but in their own native dress and colours. And therefore I think I should not only wrong them, but deprive the world of a considerable satisfaction, should I any longer delay the making them public.

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 I Do not know whether I enough ex- in the opinion he has of his own performplained myself to the world, when I invited ances. When these papers appear to the all men to be assistant to me in this my world, I doubt not but they will be followed work of speculation; for I have not yet ac- by many others; and I shall not repine, quainted my readers, that besides the let-though I myself shall have left me but a ters and valuable hints I have from time to time received from my correspondents, I have by me several curious and extraordinary papers sent with a design (as no one will doubt when they are published) that they may be printed entire, and without any alteration, by way of Spectator. I must acknowledge also, that I myself being the first projector of the paper, thought I had a right to make them my own, by dressing them in my own style, by leaving out what would not appear like mine, and by adding

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

severe,

Camilla to the Spectator.

Venice, July 10, N. s.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I take it extremely

on one side, as dying away with me. The women too do justice to my merit, and no

ill-natured, worthless creature cries, "The

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 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 cogsmarts, prudes, coquettes, housewives, and nizance, though cut of the dominions of Great Britain. all sorts of wits, whether male or female, 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 Engarch, 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 cars in Italy 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 melan- the stage, but a general satisfaction apcholy, untowardly or easy, the cold, tem- pears in every countenance of the whole perate, or sanguine; and of what manners hold all the men accompanying me with people. When I dwell upon a note, I beor dispositions soever, whether the ambi-heads inclining, and falling of their persons tious 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 or 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 made thinking a part of their business or diversion, and have any thing worthy to impart on these subjects to sensible I have no pretence to, and abunthe world, according to their several and dantly make up to me the injustice I rerespective talents or geniuses; and, as the ceived in my own country, of disallowing subjects given out hit their tempers, hu- me what I really had. The humour of mours, or circumstances, or may be made hissing which you have among you, I do profitable to the public by their particular not know any thing of; and their applauses knowledge or experience in the matter pro-are uttered in sighs, and bearing a part at posed, 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.

I will not prepossess the reader with too great expectation of the extraordinary advantages which must 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 persons are desired to send in their thoughts within ten days after the date hereof.

No. 443.] Tuesday, July 29, 1712.

Sublatum ex oculis quærimus invidi.

T.

Hor. Od. xxiv. Lib. 3. 33.
Snatch'd from our sight, we eagerly pursue,
And fondly would recall her to our view.

vain thing," when I am rapt in the perwith the effect my voice has upon all who formance of my part, and sensibly touched whom nature has been liberal to in a gracehear me. I live here distinguished as one ful person, and exalted mien, and heavenly voice. These particularities in this strange country are arguments for respect and generosity to her who is possessed of them. The Italians see a thousand beauties I am

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 ev'ry loud tumultuous thought at peace;
And ev'ry ruder gasp of breath

Be calm, as in the arms of death:
And thou, most fickle, most uneasy part,
Thou restless wanderer, my heart,
Be still; gently, ah! gently leave,
Thou busy, idle thing, to heave:
Stir not a pulse; and let my blood,
That turbulent, unruly flood,

Be softly staid:

Let me be all, but my attention dead." The whole city of Venice is as still when I 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 disturb an audience, and break the public peace merely to show they dare.

Mr.

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Spectator, I write this to you thus in haste, | markable for impudence than wit, there

to tell you I am so very much at ease here
that I know nothing but joy; and I will not
return, but leave you in England to hiss all
merit of your own growth off the stage. I
know, sir, you were always my admirer,
and therefore I am yours, CAMILLA,
'P. S. I am ten times better dressed than
ever I was in England.'

'MR. SPECTATOR,-The project in yours of the 11th instant, of furthering the correspondence and knowledge of that considerable part of mankind, the trading world, cannot but be highly commendable. Good lectures to young traders may have very good effects on their conduct; but beware you propagate no false notions of trade: let none of your correspondents impose on the world by putting forth base methods in a good light, and glazing them over with improper terms. I would have no means of profit set for copies to others, but such as are laudable in themselves. Let not noise be called industry, nor impudence courage. Let not good fortune be imposed on the world for good management, nor poverty be called folly: impute not always bankruptcy to extravagance, nor an estate to foresight. Niggardliness is not good husbandry, nor generosity profusion.

Honestus is a well-meaning and judicious trader, hath substantial goods, and trades with his own stock, husbands his money to the best advantage, without taking all the advantages of the necessities of his workmen, or grinding the face of the poor. Fortunatus is stocked with ignorance, and consequently with self-opinion; the quality of his goods cannot but be suitable to that of his judgment. Honestus pleases discerning people, and keeps their custom by good usage; makes modest profit by modest means, to the decent support of his family; while Fortunatus, blustering always, pushes on, promising much and performing little; with obsequiousness of fensive to people of sense, strikes at all, catches much the greater part, and raises a considerable fortune by imposition on others, to the discouragement and ruin of those who trade fair in the same way.

'I give here but loose hints, and beg you to be very circumspect in the province you have now undertaken: if you perform it successfully, it will be a very great good; for nothing is more wanting than that mechanic industry were set forth with the freedom and greatness of mind which ought always to accompany a man of liberal education. Your humble servant,

From my shop under the Royal Exchange, July 14. R. C.' 'July 24, 1712. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Notwithstanding the repeated censures that your spectatorial wisdom has passed upon people more re

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 is neither mirth nor good humour in hootall, to let these gentlemen know, that there ing 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 discblige. 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 F. B.'

servant,

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IT gives me much despair in the design of reforming the world by my speculations, when I find there always arise, from one generation to another, successive cheats and bubbles, as naturally as beasts of prey, and those which are to be their food. There is hardly a man in the world, one would think, so ignorant, as not to know that the ordinary quack-doctors who publish their great abilities in little brown billets, distributed to all that pass by, are to a man impostors and murderers; yet such is the credulity of the vulgar, and the impudence of those professors, that the affair still goes on, and new promises, of what was never done before, are made every day. What aggravates the jest is, that even this promise has been made as long as the memory of man can trace it, yet nothing performed, and yet still prevails. As I was passing along to-day, a paper given into my hand by a fellow without a nose, tells us as follows what good news is come to town, to wit, that there is now a certain cure for the French disease, by a gentleman just come from his travels.

'In Russel-court, over-against the Cannon ball, at the Surgeon's-arms, in Drurylane, is lately come from his travels, a

*Former motto:

Quid dignum tento feret hic promissor hiatu.-Hor.
Great cry and little wool.-English Proverb.

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 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.

If a man could be so indolent as to look upon this havoc of the human species, which is made by vice and ignorance, it would be a good ridiculous work to comment upon the declaration of this accomplished traveller. There is something unaccountably taking among the vulgar in those who come from a great way off. Ignorant people of quality, as many there are of such, doat excessively this way; many instances of which every man will suggest to himself, without my enumeration of them. The ignorants of lower order, who cannot, like the upper ones, be profuse of their money to those recommended by coming from a distance, are no less complaisant than the others, for they venture their lives from the same admiration.

You

paper, a sagacious fellow took one at the 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. Any thing, however foreign from the business the people want of you, will convince them of your ability in that you profess. There is a doctor in Mouse-Alley, near Wapping, who sets up for curing cataracts, upon the credit of having, as his bill sets forth, lost an eye in the emperor's service. His patients come in upon this, and he shows his muster-roll, which confirms that, he was in his imperial majesty's troops; and he puts out their eyes with great success. Who would believe that a man should be a doctor for the cure of bursten children, by declaring that his father and grandfather were both bursten? But Charles Ingolston, next door to the Harp in Barbican, has made a pretty 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. 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 Í 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, and a dried sea-monster, has a twined-cord, from two to six, he attends, for the good of 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 No. 445.] Thursday, July 31, 1712. 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

Tanti non es, ais.

Sapis, Luperce.

T.

Mart. Epig. 118. 1. 1. v. ult. You say, Lupercus, what I write I'nt worth so much: you're in the right. THIS is the day on which many eminent authors will probably publish their last words. I am afraid that few of our weekly historians, who are men that above all others delight in war, will be able to subsist under the weight of a stamp, and an approaching peace. A sheet of blank paper that must have this new imprimatur clapt upon

*

* August 1, 1712, the stamp duty here alluded to, took place, and every single half-sheet paid a half-penny to the queen. Have you seen the red stamp? Methinks the stamping is worth a half-penny. The Observator is fallen; the Medleys are jumbled together with the ying Post; the Examiner is deadly sick. The Spectator keeps up and doubles its price.'

Swift's Works, cr. 8vo. vol. xix. p. 173.

it, before it is qualified to communicate any | malcontentedness, which I am resolved thing to the public, will make its way in that none shall ever justly upbraid me with. the world but very heavily. In short, the No, I shall glory in contributing my utmost necessity of carrying a stamp, and the im- to the public weal; and, if my country reprobability of notifying a bloody battle, will, ceives five or six pounds a day by my laI am afraid, both concur to the sinking of bours, I shall be very well pleased to find those thin folios, which have every other myself so useful a member. It is a received day retailed to us the history of Europe for maxim, that no honest man should enrich several years last past. A facetious friend himself by methods that are prejudicial to of mine, who loves a pun, calls this present the community in which he lives; and by mortality among authors, "The fall of the the same rule I think we may pronounce the person to deserve very well of his countrymen, whose labours bring more into the public coffers than into his own pocket.

leaf,'

I remember, upon Mr. Baxter's death, there was published a sheet of very good sayings, inscribed, The last words of Mr. Since I have mentioned the word enea Baxter.' The title sold so great a number mies, I must explain myself so far as to acof these papers, that about a week after quaint my reader, that I mean only the inthere came out a second sheet, inscribed, significant party zealots on both sides; men More last words of Mr. Baxter.' In the of such poor narrow souls, that they are not same manner I have reason to think that capable of thinking on any thing but with several ingenious writers, who have taken an eye to whig or tory. During the course their leave of the public, in farewell papers, of this paper, I have been accused by these will not give over so, but intend to appear despicable wretches of trimming, time-servagain, though perhaps under another form, ing, personal reflection, secret satire, and and with a different title. Be that as it will, the like. Now, though in these my compoit is my business, in this place, to give an sitions it is visible to any reader of comaccount of my own intentions, and to ac-mon sense that I consider nothing but my quaint my reader with the motives by subject, which is always of an indifferent which I act, in this great crisis of the re-nature, how it is possible for me to write public of letters.

I have been long debating in my own heart, whether I should throw up my pen as an author that is cashiered by the act of parliament which is to operate within this four-and-twenty hours, or whether I should still persist in laying my speculations, from day to day, before the public. The argument which prevails with me most on the first side of the question is, that I am informed by my bookseller he must raise the price of every single paper to two pence, or that he shall not be able to pay the duty of it. Now, as I am very desirous my readers should have their learning as cheap as possible, it is with great difficulty that I comply with him in this particular.

However, upon laying my reasons together in the balance, I find that those who plead for the continuance of this work, have much the greater weight. For in the first place, in recompence for the expense to which this will put my readers, it is to be hoped they may receive from every paper so much instruction as will be a very good equivalent. And, in order to this, I would not advise any one to take it in, who, after the perusal of it, does not find himself two pence the wiser, or the better man for it, or who, upon examination, does not believe that he has had two-penny worth of mirth or instruction for his money.

But I must confess there is another motive which prevails with me more than the former. I consider that the tax on paper was given for the support of the government; and as I have enemies who are apt to pervert every thing I do or say, I fear they would ascribe the laying down my paper, on such an occasion, to a spirit of

so clear of party, as not to lie open to the censures of those who will be applying every sentence, and finding out persons and things in it, which it has no regard to?

Several paltry scribblers and declaimers have done me the honour to be dull upon me in reflections of this nature; but, notwithstanding my name has been sometimes traduced by this contemptible tribe of men, I have hitherto avoided all animadversions upon them. The truth of it is, I am afraid of making them appear considerable by taking notice of them: for they are like those imperceptible insects which are discovered by the microscope, and cannot be made the subject of observation without being magnified.

Having mentioned those few who have shown themselves the enemies of this paper, I should be very ungrateful to the public, did I not at the same time testify my gratitude to those who are its friends, in which number I may reckon many of the most distinguished persons, of all conditions, parties, and professions, in the isle of Great Britain. I am not so vain as to think approbation is so much due to the performance as to the design. There is, and ever will be, justice enough in the world to afford patronage and protection for those who endeavour to advance truth and virtue, without regard to the passions and prejudices of any particular cause or faction. If I have any other merit in me it is that I have new pointed all the batteries of ridicule. They have been generally planted against persons who have appeared serious rather than absurd: or at best, have aimed rather at what is unfashionable than what is vicious. For my own part, I have en

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