the conduct of this life, but fuch as we may think need not be erafed, but confift with the happiness of the human foul in the next. This illuftrious character has its proper influence on all below it. The other virtuous perfonages are, in their degree, as worthy and as exemplary as the principal. The conduct of the lovers (who are more warm though more difcreet than ever yet appeared upon the ftage) has in it a conftant fenfe of the great catastrophe which was expected from the approach of Cafar. But to fee the modefty of an heroine, whofe country and family were at the fame time in the most imminent danger, preferved, whilft fhe breaks out into the most fond and open expreffions of her paffion for her lover, is an inftance of no common address. Again to obferve the body of a gallant young man brought before us, who in the bloom of his youth, in the defence of all that is good and great, had received numberlefs wounds; I fay, to obferve that this dead youth is introduced only for the example of his virtue, and that his death is fo circumftantiated that we are fatisfied, for all his virtue, it was for the good of the world and his own family, that his warm temper was not to be put upon farther trial, but his task of life ended while it was yet virtuous, is an employment worthy the confideration of young Britons. We are obliged to authors that can do what they will with us, that they do not play our affections and paffions againft ourfelves; but to make us fo foon refigned to the death of Marcus, of whom we were fo fond, is a power that would be unfortunately lodged in a man without the love of virtue.

Were it not that I fpeak on this occafion rather as a Guardian than a Critic, I could proceed to the examination of the juftnefs of each character, and take notice that the Numidian is as well drawn as the RoThere is not an idea in all the part of Syphax, which does not apparently arise from the habits which grow in the mind of an African; and the fcene be tween Juba and his General, where they talk for and against a liberal education, is full of inftruction. Sye

man.

phax urges all that can be faid against philofophy, as it is made fubfervient to ill ends by men who abuse their talents; and Juba fets the lefs excellencies of activity, labour, patience of hunger, and ftrength of body, which are the admired qualifications of a Numidian, in their proper fubordination to the accomplishments of the mind.

I.

GUARDIAN, Vol. I. No. 33.

CELIBACY.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

who now write to you, am a woman loaded with, injuries; and the aggravation of my misfortune is, that they are fuch as are overlooked by the generality of mankind; and though the moft afflicting imaginable, not regarded as fuch in the general fenfe of the world. I have hid my vexation from all mankind, but have now taken pen, ink, and paper, and am refolved to unbofom myfelf to you, and lay before you what grieves me and all the fex. You have very often mentioned particular hardships done to this or that lady; but methinks you have not in any one fpeculation directly pointed at the partial freedom men take, the unreafonable confinement women are obliged to, in the only circumftance in which we are neceflarily to have a commerce with them, that of love. The cafe of celibacy is the great evil of our nation; and the indulgence of the vicious conduct of men in that ftate, with the ridicule to which women are expofed, though ever fo virtuous, if long unmarried, is the root of the greateft irregularities of this nation. To fhow you, Sir, that though you have never given us the catalogue of a lady's library as you promifed, we read good books of our own choofing, Ifhall infert on this occafion a paragraph or two out of Echard's Roman Hiftory. In the 44th page of the fecond volume, the author obferves, that Auguftus, upon his return to Rome at the end of a war, received complaints that too great a number of the young men of

:

quality remained unmarried. The Emperor thereupon affembled the whole Equestrian order, and having feparated the married from the fingle, did particular honours to the former; but he told the latter, that is to fay, Mr. Spectator, he told the bachelors, "that their lives and actions had been fo peculiar, that he knew not by what name to call them; not by that of men, for they performed nothing that was manly; not by that of citizens, for the city might perish notwithstanding their care; not by that of Romans, for they defigned to extirpate the Roman name." Then proceeding to fhow his tender care and hearty affection for his people, he farther told them," that the courfe of life was of fuch pernicious confequence to the glory and grandeur of the Roman nation, that he could not choofe but tell them, that all other crimes put together could not equalize theirs: for they were guilty of murder, in not fuffering those to be born which fhould proceed from them; of impiety, in caufing the names and honours of their anceftors to ceafe and of facrilege, in deftroying their kind, which proceed from the immortal gods and human nature, the principal thing confecrated to them: therefore they diffolved the government in difobeying its laws; betrayed their country, by making it barren and wafte; nay, and demolifhed their city, in depriving it of inhabitants. And he was fenfible that all this proceeded not from any kind of virtue or abftinence, but from a loofenefs and wantonnefs, which ought never to be encouraged in any civil government." There are no particulars dwelt upon, that let us into the conduct of these young worthies whom this great emperor treated with fo much juftice and indignation. But any one who obferves what paffes in this town, may very well frame to himself a notion of their riots and debaucheries all night, and their apparent preparations for them all day. It is not to be doubted, but thefe Romans never paffed any of their time in nocently but when they were afleep, and never flept but when they were weary and heavy with exceffes, and flept only to prepare themfelves for the repetition

of them. If you did your duty as a Spectator, you would carefully examine into the number of births, marriages and burials; and when you had deducted out of your deaths all fuch as went out of the world without marrying, then call up the number of both fexes born within fuch a term of years laft paft, you might from the fingle people departed make fome ufeful inferences or gueffes how many there are left unmarried, and raise fome ufeful fcheme for the amendment of the age in that particular. I have not patience to proceed gravely on this abominable libertinifm; for I cannot but reflect, as I am writing to you, upon a certain lafcivious manner which all our young gentlemen ufe in public, and examine our eyes with a petulancy in their own, which is a downright affront to modesty. A difdainful look on fuch an occafion is returned with a countenance rebuked, but by averting their eyes from the woman of honour and decency, to fome flippant creature, who will, as the phrafe is, be kinder.I muft fet down things as they come into my head, without ftanding upon order. Ten thousand to one but the gay gentleman who ftared, at the fame time is an houfekeeper; for you must know, they have got into a humour of late of being very regular in their fins, and a young fellow fhall keep his four maids and three footmen with the greateft gravity imaginable. There are no lefs than fix of thefe venerable houfekeepers of my acquaintance. This humour among young men of condition, is imitated by all the world below them; and a general diffolution of manners arifes from this one fource of libertinifm, without shame or reprehenfion in the male youth. It is from this one fountain that fo many beautiful helplefs young women are facrificed and given up to lewdnefs, fhame, poverty, and difeafe. It is to this alfo that fo many excellent young women, who might be patterns of conjugal affection, and parents of a worthy race, pine under unhappy paffions for fuch as have not attention enough to obferve, or virtue enough to prefer them. to their common wenches. Now, Mr. Spectator, I must be free to own to you that I myself fuffer a taste

lefs, infipid being, from a confideration I have for a man who would not, as he faid in my hearing, refign his liberty, as he calls it, for all the beauty and wealth the whole fex is poffeffed of. Such calamities as thefe would not happen, if it could be poffibly brought about, that by fining bachelors as papift convicts, or the like, they were diftinguifhed to their difadvantage from the rest of the world, who fall in with the meafures of civil focieties. Left you should think that I fpeak this as being, according to the fenfelefs rude phrafe, a malicious old maid, I fhall acquaint you P am a woman of condition, not now three-and-twenty, and have had propofals from at least ten different men, and the greater number of them have upon the upfhot refufed me. Something or other is always amifs, when the lover takes to fome new wench: a fettlement is easily excepted againft; and there is very little refource to avoid the vicious part of our youth, but throwing one's felf away upon fome lifeless blockhead, who, though he is without vice, is also without virtue. Now-a-days we must be contented if we can get creatures which are not bad; good are not to be expected. Mr. Spectater, I fat near you the other day, and think I did not difplease your fpectatorial eye fight; which I fhall be a better judge of, when I fee whether you take notice of thefe evils your own way, or print this memorial dictated from the difdainful, heavy heart of

Sir, your moft Obedient, &c. RACHAEL WELL ADAY. SPECTATOR, Vol. VII. No. 528. T.

CENSURE.

A GOOD confcience is to the foul, what health is

to the body; it preferves a conftant eafe and ferenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can poffibly befall us. I know nothing fo hard for a generous mind to get over, as calumny and reproach; and cannot find any meth