'That while your petitioners stand ready to dinal erected that famous academy which has receive passengers with a submissive bow, and carried all the parts of polite learning to the repeat with a gentle voice, "Ladies, what do greatest height. His chief design in that inyou want? pray look in here;" the worriers stitution was to divert the men of genius from reach out their hands at pistol-shot, and seize meddling with politics, a province in which he the customer's at arms' length. did not care to have any one else interfere That while the fawners strain and relax with him. On the contrary, the Marquis de the muscles of their faces, in making distinc-Torcy seems resolved to make several young tion between a spinster in a coloured scarf men in France as wise as himself, and is thereand an handmaid in a straw hat, the worriers fore taken up at present in establishing a nuruse the same roughness to both, and prevail sery of statesmen. upon the easiness of the passengers, to the impoverishment of your petitioners. Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that the worriers may not be permitted to inhabit the politer parts of the town; and that Round-court may remain a receptable for buyers of a more soft education. And your petitioners, &c.' Some private letters add, that there will also be erected a seminary of petticoat politicians, who are to be brought up at the feet of Madame de Maintenon, and to be despatched into foreign courts upon any emergencies of state; but as the news of this last project has not been yet confirmed, I shall take no further notice of it. Several of my readers may doubtless reThe petition of the New-Exchange,* member that upon the conclusion of the last concerning the arts of buying and selling, war, which had been carried on so successand particularly valuing goods by the com- fully by the enemy, their generals were many plexion of the seller, will be considered on of them transformed into ambassadors; but another occasion. T. No. 305.] Tuesday, February 19, 1711-12. Non tall auxilio, nee defensoribus istis the conduct of those who have commanded in the present war, has, it seems, brought so little honour and advantage to their great monarch, that he is resolved to trust his affairs no longer in the hands of those military gentlemen. The regulations of this new academy very much deserve our attention. The students OUR late news-papers being full of the pro- are to have in possession, or reversion, an ject now on foot in the court of France, for estate of two thousand French livres, per anestablishing a political academy, and I myself num, which, as the present exchange runs, having received letters from several virtuosos will amount to at least one hundred and twenamong my foreign correspondents, which ty-six pounds English. This, with the royal give some light into that affair, I intend to allowance of a thousand livres, will enable make it the subject of this day's speculation. them to find themselves in coffee and snuff; A general account of this project may be met not to mention news papers, pens and ink, with in the Daily Courant of last Friday, in wax and wafers, with the like necessaries for the following words, translated from the Ga- politicians. zette of Amsterdam. A man must be at least five and twenty before he can be initiated into the mysteries of this academy, though there is no question but many grave persons of a much more advanced age, who have been constant readers of the Paris Gazette, will be glad to begin the world anew, and enter themselves upon this list of politicians. Paris, February 12. It is confirmed that the king has resolved to establish a new academy for politics, of which the Marquis de Torcy, minister and secretary of state, is to be protector. Six academicians are to be chosen, endowed with proper talents, for beginning to form this academy, into which ne person is to be admitted under twenty-five The society of these hopeful young gentle. years of age: they must likewise have each men is to be under the direction of six proan estate of two thousand livres a year, either fessors, who, it seems are to be speculative in possession, or to come to them by inherit-statesmen, and drawn out of the body of the ance. The king will allow to each a pen-royal academy. These six wise masters, acsion of a thousand livres. They are likewise cording to my private letters, are to have to have able masters to teach them the ne- the following parts allotted to them. cessary sciences, and to instruct them in all The first is to instruct the students in state the treaties of peace, alliance, and others, legerdemain; as how to take off the impreswhich have been made in several agés past. sion of a seal, to split a wafer, to open a letThese members are to meet twice a week ter, to fold it up again, with other the like at the Louvre. From this seminary are to ingenious feats of dexterity and art. When be chosen secretaries to embassies, who by the students have accomplished themselves in degrees may advance to higher employ ments.' this part of their profession, they are to be delivered into the hands of their second instructor, who is a kind of posture-master. Cardinal Richelieu's politics made France the terror of Europe. The statesmen who This artist is to teach them how to nod juhave appeared in that nation of late years diciously, and shrug up their shoulders in a have, on the contrary, rendered it either the dubious case, to connive with either eye, and in pity or contempt of its neighbours. The car-a word, the whole practice of political grimace. The third is a sort of language-master, who enable him to negotiate between potentates, is to instruct them in the style proper for a might a little infect his ordinary behaviour minister in his ordinary discourse. And to-between man and man. There is no question the end that this college of statesmen may be but these young Machiavels will in a little thoroughly practised in the political style they time turn their college upside down with plots are to make use of it in their common conver- and stratagems, and lay as many schemes to sations, before they are employed either in circumvent one enother in a frog or a salad, foreign or domestic affairs. If one of them as they may hereafter put in practice to overasks another what o'clock it is, the other is reach a neighbouring prince or state. to answer him indirectly, and, if possible, to We are told that the Spartans, though they turn off the question. If he is desired to change punished theft in the young men when it was a louis d'our, he must beg time to consider of discovered, looked upon it as honourable if it it. If it be inquired of him, whether the king succeeded Provided the conveyance was clean is at Versailles or Marly, he must answer in a and unsuspected, a youth might afterwards whisper. If he be asked the news of the last boast of it. This, say the historians, was to Gazette, of the subject of a proclamation, he is to reply, that he has not yet read it; or if he does not care for explaining himself so far, he needs only draw his brow up in wrinkles, or elevate the left shoulder. The fourth professor is to teach the whole art of political characters and hieroglyphics; and to the end that they may be perfect also in this practice, they are not to send a note to one another (though it be but to borrow a Tacitus or a Machiavel) which is not written in cypher. keep them sharp, and to hinder them from being imposed upon, either in their public or private negociations. Whether any such relaxations of morality, such litttle jeux d'esprit, ought not to be allowed in this extended seminary of politicians, I shall leave to the wisdom of their founder. In the mean-time we have fair warning given us by this doughty body of statesman: and as Sylla saw many Marius's in Cæsar, so I think we may discover many Torcy's in this college of academicians. Whatever we think of ourTheir fifth professor, it is thought, will be selves, I am afraid neither our Smyrna nor chosen out of the society of Jesuits, and is to St. James's will be a match for it. Our coffeebe well read in the controversies of probable houses are indeed, very good institutions; but doctrines, mental reservation, and the rights whether or no these our British schools of poof princes. This learned man is to instruct litics may furnish out as able envoys and sethem in the g ammar, syntax, and construing cretaries as an academy that is set apart for part of Treaty Latin: how to distingush be- that purpose, will deserve our serious consitween the spirit and the letter, and likewise deration, especially if we remember that our demonstrate how the same form of words may country is more famous for producing men of lay an obligation upon any prince in Europe, integrity than statesman: and that, on the different from that which it lays upon his most contrary, French truth and British policy make christian majesty. He is likewise to teach a conspicuous figure in nothing; as the Earl them the art of finding flaws, loop-holes, and of Rochester has very well observed in his adevasions, in the most solemn compacts, and mirable poem upon that barren subject. particularly a great rabbinical secret, revived of late years by the fraternity of Jesuits, namely, that contradictory interpretations of L the same article may both of them be true and No. 306.] Wednesday, Febraury 20, 1711-12. valid. When our statesman are sufficiently improved by these several instructors, they are to receive their last polishing from one who is to act among them as master of the ceremonies. This gentleman is to give them lectures upon the important points of the elbow-chair and the stair-head, to instruct them in the different situations of the right hand, and to furnish them with bows and inclinations of all sizes, measures, and proportions. In short this professor is to give the society their stiffening, and infuse into their manners that beautiful political starch, which may qualify them for levees, conferences, visits, and make them shine in what vulgar minds are apt to look upon as trifles. I WRITE this to communicate to you a misfortune which frequently happens, and therefore deserves a consolatory discourse on the subject. I was within this half year in the possession of as much beauty and as many lovers as any young lady in England. But my admirers have left me, and I cannot complain of their behaviour. I have within that time had the small-pox; and this face, which (according to many amorous epistles which I have by me) I have not yet heard any further particulars was the seat of all that is beautiful in woman, which are to be observed in this society of un-is now disfigured with scars. It goes to the fledged statesmen; but I must confess, had I very soul of me to speak what I really think of a son of five and twenty, that should take it my face; and though I think I did not overinto his head at that age to set up for a poli-rate my beauty while I had it, it has extremely tician, I think I should go near to disinherit advanced in its value with me now it is lost. him for a blockhead. Besides, I should be There is one circumstance which makes my apprehensive lest the same arts which are to case very particular; the ugliest fellow that ever pretended to me, was and is most in my favour, and he treats me at present the most unreasonably. If you could make him return an obligation which he owes me, in liking a person that is not amiable-But there is, 1 fear, no possibility of making passion move by the rules of reason and gratitude. But say what you can to one who has survived herself, and knows not how to act in a new being. My lovers are at the feet of my rivals, my rivals are every day bewailing me, and I cannot enjoy what I am, by reason of the distracting reflection upon what I was. Consider the woınan I was did not die of old age, but I was taken off in the prime of youth, and according to the course of nature may have forty years after-life to come. I have nothing of myself left, which I like, but that I am, Sir, Your most humble servant, 'PARTHENISSA.' she was formerly affected too much with them, an easy behaviour will more than make up før the loss of them. Take the whole sex together, and you find those who have the strongest possession of men's hearts are not eminent for their beauty. You see it often happen that those who engage men to the greatest violence, are such as those who are strangers to them would take to be remarkably defective for that end. The fondest lover I know, said to me one day in a crowd of women at an entertainment of music, 'You have often heard me talk of my beloved; that woman there,' coutinued he, smiling, when he had fixed my eye, is her very picture.' The lady he showed me was by much the least remarkable for beauty of any in the whole assembly; but having my curiosity extremely raised, I could not keep my eyes off her. Her eyes at last met mine, and with a sudden surprise she looked round her to see who near her was remarkably handsome that I was gazing at. This little act explained the secret. She did not understand herself for the object of love, and therefore she was so. The lover is a very honest plain man; and what charmed him was a person that goes along with him in the cares and joys of life, not taken up with herself, but sincerely attentive, with a ready and cheerful mind, to accompany him in either. An When Lewis of France had lost the battle of Ramilies, the addresses to him at that time were full of his fortitude, and they turned his misfortune to his glory; in that, during his prosperity, he could never have manifested his heroic constancy under distresses, aud so the world has lost the most eminent part of his character. Parthenissa's condition gives her the same opportunity and to resign conquests I can tell Parthenissa for her comfort, that is a task as difficult in a beauty as an hero. the beauties, generally speaking, are the most In the very entrance upon this work she must impertinent and disagrecable of women. burn all her love-letters; or since she is so apparent desire of admiration, a reflection upon candid as not to call her lovers, who follow their own merit, and a precise behaviour in her no longer, unfaithful, it would be a very their general conduct, are almost inseparable good beginning of a new life from that of accidents in beauties. All you obtain of them, a beauty, to send them back to those who writ is granted to importunity and solicitation for them, with this honest inscription, Articles what did not deserve so much of your time, of a marriage-treaty broken off by the small- and you recover from the possession of it as pox.' I have known but one instance where a out of a dream. matter of this kind went on after a like misfortune, where the lady, who was a woman of spirit, writ this billet to her lover: You are ashamed of the vagaries of fancy which so strangely misled you, and your admiration of a beauty, merely as such, is inconsistent with a tolerable reflection upon your'If you flattered me before I had this terri-into whose heads it never entered that they self. The cheerful good-humoured creatures, ble malady, pray come and see me now: but could make any man unhappy, are the persons if you sincerely liked me, stay away, for I am 'SIR, not the same. 'CORINNA.' The lover thought there was something so sprightly in her behaviour, that he answered: MADAM, formed for making men happy. There is Miss Liddy can dance a jig, raise paste, write a good hand, keep an account, give a reasonable answer, and do as she is bid; while her eldest sister, Madam Martha, is out of humour, has the spleen, learns by reports of people of higher quality new ways of being uneasy and dis'I am not obliged, since you are not the pleased. And this happens for no reason in same woman, to let you know whether I flat- the world, but that poor Liddy knows she has tered you or not; but I assure you I do not, no such thing as a certain negligence' that is when I tell you I now like you above all your so becoming that there is not I know not sex, and hope you will bear what may befall what in her air; and that if she talks like a me when we are both one, as well as you do fool, there is no one will say, 'Well! I know what happens to yourself now you are single; not what it is, but every thing pleases when therefore I am ready to take such a spirit for she speaks it.' my companion as soon as you please. 'AMILCAR.' If Parthenissa can now possess her own mind, and think as little of her beauty as she ought to have done when she had it, there will be no great diminution of her charms; and if You. I. Ask any of the husbands of your great beau ties, and they will tell you that they hate their wives nine hours every day they pass together. There is such a particularity for ever affected by them, that they are encumbered with their charms in all they say or do. They pray at public devotions as they are beauties: they con ઠા verse on ordinary occasions as they are beau- The prejudice which the public sustains from ties. Ask Belinda what it is o'clock, and she a wrong education of children, is an evil of the is at a stand whether so great a beauty should same nature, as it in a manner starves posanswer you. In a word, I think, instead of terity, and defrauds our country of those offering to administer consolation to Parthenis-persons, who, with due care, might make sa, I should congratulate her metamorphosis; an eminent figure in their respective posts of and however she thinks she was not the least life. insolent in the prosperity of her charms, she 'I have seen a book written by Juan Huartes was enough so to find she may make herself a Spanish physician, entitled Examen de Ingea much more agreeable creature in her present nois, wherein he lays it down as one of his adversity. The endeavour to please is highly first positions, that nothing but nature can quapromoted by a consciousness that the appro-lify a man for learning; and that without a bation of the person you would be agreeable proper temperament for the particular art or to, is a favour you do not deserve; for in this science which he studies, his utmost pains and case assurance of success is the most cer- application, assisted by the ablest masters, will tain way to disappointment. Good-nature be to no purpose. will always supply the absence of beauty, but beauty cannot long supply the absence of good 'He illustrates this by the example of Tully's son Marcus. 'Cicero, in order to accomplish his son in that sort of learning which he designed him for, sent him to Athens, the most celebrated academy at that time in the world, and where a vast concourse, out of the most polite nations, could not but furnish the young gentleman with a multitude of great examples and accidents that might insensibly have instructed him in his designed studies. He placed him under the care of Cratippus, who was one of the greatest philosophers of the age, and, as if all the books whieh were at that time written had not been sufficient for his use, he composed others on purpose for him notwithstanding all this, history informs us that Marcus proved a mere blockhead, and that nature (who it seems was even with the son for her prodigality to the father) rendered him incapable of improving by all the rules of eloquence, the precepts of philosophy, his own endeavours, : I am so well pleased with the following let-and the most refined conversation in Athens. ter, that I am in hopes it will not be a disagreeable present to the public, This author, therefore proposes, that there should be certain triers or examiners appointed by the state, to inspect the genius of every particular boy, and to allot him the part that is most suitable to his natural talents. 'Plato in one of his dialogues tells us that Socrates, who was the son of a midwife, used to say, that as his mother, though she was very skilful in her profession, could not deliver a woman unless she was first with child, so neither could he himself raise knowledge out of a mind where nuture had not planted it. 'I have a long time expected with great impatience that you would enlarge upon the or- Accordingly the method this philosopher dinary mistakes which are committed in the took, of instructing his scholars by several ineducation of our children. I the more easily terrogatories or questions, was only helping flattered myself that you would one time or the birth, and bringing their own thoughts to other resume this consideration, because you light. tell us that your 168th paper was only com The Spanish doctor above-mentioned, as posed of a few broken hints: but finding his speculations grew more refined, asserts myself hitherto disappointed, I have ven- that every kind of wit has a particular scitured to send you my own thoughts on this ence corresponding to it, and in which alone subject. it can be truly excellent. As to those geniuses, which may seem to have an equal aptitude for several things, he regards them as so many unfinished pieces of nature wrought I remember Pericles, in his famous oration at the funeral of those Athenian young men who perished in the Samian expedition, has a thought very much celebrated by several an-off in haste. cient critics, namely, that the loss which the 'There are indeed but very few to whom nacommonwealth suffered by the destruction of ture has been so unkind, that they are not caits youth, was like the loss which the year pable of shining in some science or other. would suffer by the destruetion of the spring. There is a certain bias towards knowledge in every mind, which may be strengthened and improved by proper applications. but an indifferent figure at the bar, might have made a very elegant waterman, and have shined at the Temple stairs, though he can get no business in the house. The story of Clavius is very well known. He was entered in a college of Jesuits, and after having been tried at several parts of 'I have known a corn-cutter, who with a learning, was upon the point of being dis- right education would have been an excellent missed, as an hopeless blockhead, until one of physician. public. the fathers took it into his head to make an To descend lower, are not our streets filled essay of his parts in geometry, which, it seems with sagacious draymen, and politicians in hit his genius so luckily, that he afterwards liveries? We have several tailors of six foot became one of the greatest mathematicians of high, and meet with many a broad pair of the age.* It is commonly thought that the sa-shoulders that are thrown away upon a bargacity of these fathers in discovering the ta-ber, when perhaps at the same time we see lent of a young student, has not a little contri-a pigmy porter reeling under a burden, who buted to the figure which their order has made might have managed a needle with much in the world. dexterity, or have snapped his fingers with 'How different from this manner of educa- great ease to himself, and advantage to the tion is that which prevails in our own country! where nothing is more usual than to see forty or fifty boys of several ages, tempers, and inclinations, ranged together in the same class, employed upon the same authors, and enjoined the same tasks! Whatever their natural genius may be, they are all to be made poets, historians, and orators alike. They are all obliged to have the same capacity, to bring in the same tale of verse, and to furnish out the same portion of prose. Every boy is bound to have as good a memory as the captain of the form. To be brief, instead of adapting studies to the particular genius of a youth, we expect from the young man, that he should adapt his genius to his studies. This, I must confess, is not so much to be imputed to the instructor, as to the parent, who will never be brought to believe, that his son is not capable of performing as much as his neighbour's, and that he may not make him whatever he has a mind to. The Spartans, though they acted with the spirit which I am here speaking of, carried it much farther than what I propose. Among them it was not lawful for the father himself to bring up his children after his own fancy. As soon as they were seven years old, they were all listed in several companies, and disciplined by the public. The old men were spectators of their performances, who often raised quarrels among them, and set them at strife with one another, that by those early discoveries they might see how their several talents lay, and, without any regard to their quality, disposed of them accordingly, for the service of the commonwealth. By this means Sparta soon became the mistress of Greece, and famous through the whole world for her civil and military discipline. 'If you think this letter deserves a place among your speculations, I may perhaps trouble you with some other thoughts on the same subject. 'I am, &c. X. 'If the present age is more laudable than those which have gone before it in any single 'particular, it is in that generous care which several well disposed persons have taken in the education of poor children; and as in these No. 308.] Friday, February 22, 1711-12. -Jam protervà Fronte petet Lalage maritum. Hor. Od. 5. Lib. ii. ver. 15. - Lalage will soon proclaim Her love, nor blush to own her flame.--Creech. charity-schools there is no place left for the overweaning fondness of a parent, the directors of them would make them beneficial to the public, if they considered the precept which I have been thus long inculcating. They might easily, by well examining the parts of those under their inspection, make a just distribution of them into proper classes and divi- 'I GIVE you this trouble in order to prosions, and allot to them this or that particular pose myself to you as an assistant in the study, as their genius qualifies them for pro-weighty cares which you have thought fit to fessions, trades, handicrafts, or service by sea undergo for the public good. I am or land. How is this kind of regulation wanting in the three great professions! 4 MR. SPECTATOR, a very great lover of women, that is to say, honestly; and as it is natural to study what one likes, I have industriously applied myself to Dr. South, complaining of persons who understand them. The present circumstance took upon them holy orders, though alto- relating to them is, that I think there wants gether unqualified for the sacred function, under you, as Spectator, a person to be dissays somewhere, that many a man runs his tinguished and vested in the power and qualihead against a pulpit, who might have done ty of a censor on marriages. I lodge at the his country excellent service at the plough-Temple, and know, by seeing women come hither, and afterwards observing them conIn like manner many a lawyer, who makes ducted by their counsel to judges' chambers, that there is a custom in case of making conveyance of a wife's estate, that she is carried * Clavius died at Rome in 1612, aged 75; his works are to a judge's apartment, and left alone with tail. comprised in five volumes in folio. |