SIR, EING employed by Celimene to make up and fend to you her letter, I make bold to recommend the cafe therein mentioned to your confideration, becaufe the and I happen to differ a little in our notions. I, who am a rough man, am afraid the young girl is in a fair way to be spoiled; therefore pray, Mr. Spectator, let us have your opinion of this fine thing called Fine-Breeding; for I am afraid it differs too much from that plain thing called Good• Breeding. Your most humble fervant." The general mistake among us in the educating our children, is, that in our daughters we take care of their perfons and neglect their minds; in our fons, we are fo intent upon adorning their minds, that we wholly neglect their bodies. It is from this that you fhall fee a young lady cele brated and admired in all the affemblies about HE two following letters are upon a fub- town, when her elder brother is afraid to come leperance, ex forrow and indignation, than mirth and laughter. At the fame time I allow it to be nature, but it is nature in its utmoft corruption and deR generacy. N° 66. WEDNESDAY, MAY 16. De tenero meditatur ungui. Echold a ripe and melting maid clay. RoscoMMON. preffed without any air of gravity. To the Spectator. " B that we frequently obferve a man's life is half tues of the mind. SIR, I < TAKE the freedom of asking your advice in behalf of a young country kinfwoman of mine who is lately come to town, and under 'my care for her education. She is very pretty, but you can't imagine how unformed a creature it is. She comes to my hands just as nature left her, half finifhed, and without any acquired improvements. When I look on her I often think of the Belle Sauvage mentioned in one of your papers. Dear Mr. Spectator, help me to make her comprehend the visible graces of fpeech, and the dumb eloquence of motion; for the is at prefent a perfect ftranger to both. She knows no way to exprefs herself but by her tongue, and that always to fignify her meaning. Her eyes ferve her yet only to fee with, and he is utterly a foreigner to the language of looks and glances. In this I fancy you could help her better than any body. I have beftowed two months in teaching her to figh when he is not concerned, and to fmile when she is not pleafed; and am ashamed to own fhe makes little or no improvement. Then the is no more able now to walk, than fhe was to go at a year old. By walking you will eafily know I mean that regular but cafy motion, which gives our perfons fo irrififtible a grace as if we moved to music, and is a kind of difengaged figure, or, if I may so speak, recitative dancing. But the want of this I cannot blame in her, for I find fhe has no ear, and means nothing by walking but to change her place. I could pardon too her blufhing, if the knew how to carry herfelf in it, and if it did not manifeftly injure her complexion. < " They tell me you are a perfon who have feen Your very humble fervant, Cleomira dances with all the elegance of motion imaginable; but her eyes are fo chaftifed with the fimplicity and innocence of her thoughts, that the raifes in her beholders admiration and good-will, but no loofe hope or wild imagination, C SIR, :I AM a man in years, and by an honeft induftry in the world have acquired enough to give my children a liberal education, though I was an utter ftranger to it myself. My eldeft daughter, a girl of fixteen, has for fome time been under the tuition of Monfieur Ri'gadoon, a dancing-master in the city; and I was prevailed upon by her and her mother to go last night to one of his balls. I muft own to you, Sir, that having never been at any fuch 'place before, I was very much pleafed and furprifed with that part of his entertainment which ⚫ he called French Dancing. There were feveral in one of his dialogues, introduces a philofopher chiding his friend for his being a lover of dancing, and a frequenter of balls. The other undertakes the defence of his favourite diverfion, which, he says, was at first invented by the goddess Rhea, and preferved the life of Jupiter himself, from the cruelty of his father Saturn. He proceeds to fhew, that it had been approved by the greatest men in all ages; that Homer calls Merion a Fine Dancer; and fays, that the graceful mien and great agility which he had acquired by that exercise, diftinguished him above the reft in the armies, both of Greeks and Trojans. < He adds, that Pyrrhus gained more reputation by inventing the dance which is called after his name, than by all his other actions: that the Lacedæmonians, who were the bravest people in Greece, gave great encouragement to this diverfion, and made their Hormus, a dance much refembling the French Brawl, famous over all Afia: that there were ftill extant fome Theffa"lian statues erected to the honour of their best dancers and that he wondered how his brother philofopher could declare himself against the opi-fore, juft as my girl was going to be made a nions of those two perfons, whom he profeffed fo much to admire, Homer and Hefiod; the latter of which compares valour and dancing together; and fays, That the gods have beftowed fortitude on fome men, and on others a difpo-ed fition for dancing.' But as the best inftitutions are liable to corruptions, fo, Sir, I must acquaint you, that 6 very great abufes are crept into this entertainment. I was amazed to fee my girl handed by, ' and handing, young fellows with fo much fa'miliarity; and I could not have thought it had been in the child. They very often made use of a most impudent and lafcivious fep called Setting, which I know not how to defcribe to you, but by telling you that it is the very reverse of back to back. At laft an impudent young dog bid the fiddlers play a dance called Moll Pately, and after having made two or three capers, ran to his partner, locked his arms in hers, and whisked her round cleverly above ground in fuch a manner, that I, who fat upon one of the loweft benches, faw further above her shoe than I can think fit to acquaint you with. I 'could no longer endure these enormities; where whirligig, I ran in, seized on the child, and carried her home. · " Laftly, he puts him in mind that Socrates, who, in the judgment of Apollo, was the wifest of men, was not only a profeffed admirer of this exercise in others, but learned it himself when he was an old man. Among the rest, I observed one, which, I think, they call Hunt the Squirrel, in which ' while the woman flies the man pursues her; but as foon as the turns, he runs away, and 'fhe is obliged to follow. 7 The moral of this dance does, I think, very ' aptly recommend modesty and difcretion to the 'female fex. Sir, I am not yet old enough to be a fool. I 'fuppofe this diverfion might be at first invent to keep up a good understanding between young men and women, and fo far I am not againit it; but I fhall never allow of these things. I know not what you will fay to this cafe at prefent, but am sure that, had you been with me, you would have seen matter of great fpeculation. I am, Sir, yours, &c.' The morofe philofopher is fo much affected by these, and fome other authorities, that he becomes a convert to his friend, and defires he would take him with him when he went to his next ball. I love to shelter myself under the examples of great men; and I think, I have fufficiently fhewed that it is not below the dignity of these my speculations to take notice of the following let-ged to dwell almoft a minute on the fair one's ter, which, I fuppofe, is fent me by fome fub- lips, or they will be too quick for the mufic, ftantial tradefman about Change. and dance quite out of time. I must confefs I am afraid that my correfpondent had too much reafon to be a little out of humour at the treatment of his daughter; but I conclude that he would have been much more fo, had he feen one of thofe kiffing dances in which Will. Honeycomb affures mc they are obli > I am not able however to give my final fentence against this diverfion; and am of Mr. Cowley's opinion, that fo much of dancing, at least, as belongs to the behaviour and an handfome carriage of the body, is extremely useful, if not abfolutely neceffary. We generally form fuch ideas of people at first fight, as we are hardly ever perfuaded to lay afide afterwards: for this reafon, a man would wish to have nothing difagreeable or uncomely in his ap-' proaches, and to be able to enter a room with a good grace. I might add, that a moderate knowledge in the little rules of good-breeding gives a man fome affurance, and makes him easy in all companies. M For in difcourfe; but, instead of this, we find that conversation is never so much straitned and confined as in numerous affemblies. When a multitude meet together upon any subject of discourse, their debates are taken up chiefly with forms and general pofitions; nay, if we come into a more contracted affembly of men and women, the talk generally runs upon the weather, fashion, news, and the like public topics. In proportion as converfation gets into clubs and knots of friends, it defcends into particulars, and grows more free and communicative: but the most open, instructive, and unreferved difcourfe, is that which passes between two perfons who are familiar and intimate friends. On thefe occafions, a man gives a loose to every paffion and every though; that is uppermott, difcovers his moft retired opinions of perfons and things, trics the beauty and strength of his fentiments, and expofes his whole foul to the examination of his friend. Tully was the first who obferved, that friendfhip improves happinefs and abates mifery, by the doubling of our joy and dividing our grief; a thought in which he hath been followed by all the effayers upon friendship, that have written fince his time. Sir Francis Bacon has finely defcribed other advantages, or, as he calls them, fruits of friendhip; and indeed there is no fubject of morality which has been better handled and more exhaufted than this. Among the feveral fine things which have been spoken of it, I fhall beg leave to quote fome out of a very ancient author, whofe book would be regarded by our modern wits as one of the most shining tracts of morality that is extant, if it appeared under the name of a Confucius, or of any celebrated Grecian philo fopher; I mean the little apocryphal treatise entitled, The wifdom of the Son of Sirach. How finely as he defcribed the art of making friends, by an obliging and affable behaviour; and laid From the Three Chairs in the Piazza, Covent- down that precept which a late excellent author Garden. has delivered as his own, That we should have ( May 16, 1711, many well-wishers, but few friends?' Sweet S you are a Spectator, I think we, who language will multiply friends ; and a fairmake it our business to exhibit any thingspeaking tongue will increafe kind greetings. to public view, ought to apply ourfelves to you Be in peace with many, nevertheless have but for your approbation. I have travelled Europe, one counsellor of a thoufand.' With what pruto furnish out a fhow for you, and have brought dence does he caution us in the choice of our with me what has been admired in every coun- friends; and with what strokes of nature, I could' try through which I paffed. You have declared almost fay of humour, has he dcfcribed the behain many papers, that your greatest delights are viour of a treacherous and felf-interefted friend? thofe of the eye, which I do not doubt but I If thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, fhall gratify with as beautiful objects as yours and be not hafty to credit him: for fome man ever beheld. If caftles, forefts, ruins fine wo- is a friend for his own occafion, and will not men, and graceful men, can please you. I dare abide in the day of thy trouble. And there is promife you much fatisfaction, if you will appear at my auction on Friday next. A fight is, 1 fuppofe, as grateful to a Spectator, as a treat to another perfon, and therefore I hope you will 'pardon this invitation from, 6 SIR, A < SIR, "Your moft obedient humble fervant, For want of this, I have feen a profeffor of a liberal fcience at a lofs to falute a lady; and a most excellent mathematician not able to determine whether he could itand or fit while my lord drank to him. It is the proper business of a dancing mafter to regulate these matters; though I take it to be a juft obfervation, that unless you add fomething of your own to what thefe fine gentlemen teach you, and which they are wholly ignorant of themfelves, you will much fooner get the character of an affected fop, than of a well bred man. As for Country-Dancing, it must indeed be confeffed that the great familiarities between the two fexes on this occafion may fometimes produce very dangerous confequences; and I have often thought that few ladies hearts are fo obdurate as not to be melted by the charms of mufic, the force of motion, and an handfome young fellow who is continually playing before their eyes, and convincing then that he has the perfect ufe of all his limbs. But as this kind of dance is the particular invention of our own country, and as every one is more or lefs a proficient in it, I would not difcountenance it; but rather fuppofe it may be practifed innocently by others, as well as myfelf who 4m often partner to my landlady's eldest daugh ter. POSTSCRIPT. X Having heard a good character of the collection of pictures which is to be exposed to fale on Friday next; and concluding from the following letter, that the perfon who collected them is a man of no unelegant tafte, I will be fo much his friend as to publifh it, provided the reader will only look upon it as filling up the place of an advertifement. No. 68. FRIDAY, MAY 18. Nos duo turba fumus We two are a multitude, < ( a friend, who being turned to emnity and strife will difcover thy reproach.' Again, Some friend is a companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of thy affliction: butin thy profperity he will be as thyfelf, and will be bold over thy fervants. If thou be brought low he will be against thee, and hide himself from thy face.' What can be more ftrong and pointed than the following verfe? Separate thyfelf from thine enemies, and take heed of thy friends.' In the next words he particularizes one of those fruits of friendship, which is described at length OVID. Met. i. 355. by the two famous authors above-mentioned, and falls into a general elogium of friendship, which is very juft as well as very fublime. A faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath found fuch, an one, hath found a treasure. Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend, and his excel NE would think that the larger the company is in which we are engaged, the greater variety of thoughts and fubjects would be started 6 excellency is unvaluable. A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear the Lord fhall find him. Whofo feareth the Lord 'fhall direct his friendship aright; for as he is, fo fhall his neighbour,' that is, his friend, be alfo.' I do not remember to have met with any faying that has pleafed me more than that of a friend's being the medicine of life, to exprefs the efficacy of friendship in healing the pains and anguish which naturally cleave to cur exiftence in this world; and am wonderfully pleafed with the turn in the laft fentence, That a virtuous man fhall as a bleffing meet with a friend who is as virtuous as himfelf. There is another faying in the fame author, which would have been very much admired in an heathen writer; Forfake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as C new wine: when it is old thou fhalt drink it with pleasure.' With what ftrength of allufion, and force of thought, has he defcribed the breaches and violations of friendship? Whofo cafteth a stone at the birds, frayeth them away; and he that upbraideth his friend, breaketh friendship. Though thou draweft a fword at a friend, yet despair not; for there may be ⚫ reconciliation; except for upbraiding, or pride, < or difclofing of fecrets, or a treacherous wound; for, for these things every friend will depart.' We may obferve in this, and feveral other precepts in this author, thofe little familiar inftances and illuftrations which are fo much admired in the moral writings of Horace and Epictetus. There are very beautiful inftances of this nature in the following paffages, which are likewife written upon the fame fubject: Whofo difcovereth fecrets, lofeth his credit, and fhall never 'find a friend to his mind. Love thy friend, and be faithful unto him; but if thou bewray'eft his fecrets, follow no more after him: for as a man hath destroyed his enemy, 'fo haft thou loft the love of thy friend; as one that letteth a bird go out of his hand, fo haft thou let thy friend go, and fhalt not get him again; follow after him no more, for he is too far off; he is as a roe escaped out of the snare. As for a wound, it may be bound up, and after reviling there may be reconciliation; but he that bewrayeth fecrets, is without hope.' a < ( In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, Among the feveral qualifications of a good friend, this wife man has very juftly fingled out conftancy and faithfulness as the principal: to thefe, others have added virtue, knowledge, difcretion, equality in age and fortune, and as Cicero calls it, Morum Comitas, a pleasantnefs of temper.' If I were to give my opinion upon fuch an exhaufted fubject, I should join to thefe other qualifications, a certain equability or evennefs of behaviour. A man often contracts a friendship with one whom perhaps he does not find out till after a year's converfation; when on a fudden fome latent ill humour breaks out upon him, which he never difcovered or fufpected at his first entering into an intimacy with him. There are feveral perfons who in fome certain periods of their lives are inexpreffibly agreeable, and in others as odious and deteftable. Martial has given us a very pretty picture of one of this fpecies in the following epigram: Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem, Nec tecum poffum vivere, nec fine te. There is no living with thee, nor without thee. N° 69, SATURDAY, MAY 19. Hic fegetes, illic veniunt feliciùs uvæ; Gramina. Nonne vides, croceos ut Tmolus odores, This ground with Bacchus, that with Ceres fuits; DRYDEN. TH HERE is no place in town which I fo much love to frequent as the Royal-Exchange. It gives me a fecret fatisfaction, and, in fome measure, gratifies my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to fee fo rich an affembly of country-men and foreigners confulting together upon the private bufinefs of mankind, and making this metropolis a kind of Emporium for the whole earth. I must confess I look upon High-Change to be a great council, in which all confiderable nations have their reprefentatives. Factors in the trading world are what ambaffadors are in the politic world; they negotiate affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good correfpondence between thofe wealthy focieties of men that are divided from one another by feas and oceans, or live on the different extremities of a continent. I have often been pleafed to hear difputes adjufted between an inhabitant of Japan and an alderman of London, or to fee a fubject of the Great Mogul entering into a league with one of the Czar of Mufcovy. I am infinitely delighted in mixing with thefe feveral minifters of commerce, as they are diftinguifhed by the different walks and different languages: fometimes I am justled among a hody of Arminians: fometimes I am loft in a crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a groupe of Dutchmen. I am a Dane, Swede, or Frenchman, at different times; or rather fancy myfelf like the old philofopher, who, upon being asked what countryman he was, Epig. xii, 47, replied, that he was a citizen of the world. Though I very frequently vifit this bufy multitude of people, I am known to nobody there but my friend Sir Andrew, who often fmiles upon me as he fees me bustling in the crowd, but at the fame time connives at my prefence without taking any further notice of me. There is indeed a merchant of Egypt, who just knows me by fight, having formerly remitted me fome money to Grand Cairo; but as I am not verfed in the modern Coptic, our conferences go no further than a bow and a grimace. This grand scene of bufmefs gives me an infinite variety of folid and substantial entertainments. As I am a great lover of mankind, my heart naturally overflows with pleasure at the fight of a profperous and happy multitude, infomuch that at many public folemnities I cannot forbear expreffing my joy with tears that have ftolen down my cheeks. For this reafon I am wonderfully delighted to see fuch a body of men thriving in their own private fortunes, and at the fame time promoting the public stock; or, in other words, raifing eftates for their own families, by bringing into their country whatever is wanting, and carrying out of it whatever is fuperfluous. felves under Indian canopies. My friend Sir Andrew calls the vineyards of France our Gardens ; the fpice-iflands, our hot-beds; the Perfians our filk-weavers, and the Chinefe our potters. Nature indeed furnishes us with the bare receffaries of life; but traffic gives us a great variety of what is useful, and at the fame time fupplies us with every thing that is convenient and ornamental. Nor is it the leaft part of this our happiness, that whilft we enjoy the remoteft products of the north and fouth, we are free from thofe extremities of. weather which give them birth: that our eyes are refreshed with the green fields of Britain, at the fame time that our palates are feasted with fruits that rife between the tropics. For thefe reafons there are not more useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of nature, find work for the poor, and wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great. Our English. merchant converts the tin of his own country into gold, and exchanges his wool for rubies. The Mahometans are cloathed in our British manufacture; and the inhabitants of the frozen zone, warmed with the fleeces of our sheep. When I have been upon the 'Change, I have often fancied one of our kings standing in perfon, where he is reprefented in effigy, and looking down upon the wealthy concourfe of people with which that place is every day filled. In this cafe, how would he be furprised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken in this little fpot of his former dominions, and to fee fo many private. men, who in his time would have been the vaffals of some powerful baron, negotiating like princes for greater fums of money than were formerly to be met with in the Royal Treasury! Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional empire: it has multiply'd the number of the rich, made our landed estates infinitely more valuable than they were formerly, and added to them an acceffion of other eftates as va luable as the lands themselves. с Nature feems to have taken a particular care to diffeminate her bleffings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to this mutual intercourfe and traffic among mankind, that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another, and be united together by their common intereft. Almoft every degree produces fomething peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the fauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes: the infufion of a China plant fweetened with the pith of an Indian cane. The Philippin islands give a flavour to our European bowls. The fingle drefs of a woman of quality is often the product of an hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together from the different ends of the earth. The fcarf is fent from the torrid zone; and the tippet from beneath the pole, The brocade pettic at rifes out of the mines of Peru; and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indoftan. N° 70. MONDAY, MAY 21. If we confider our own country in its natural prof, ect, without any of the benefits and advant. ges of commerce, what a barren uncomfortable fpot of earth falls to our fhare! Natural hiftorians tell us, that no fruit grows originally among us, befides hips and haws, acorns and pig-nuts, with other HOR. Ep. II. i. 63. Sometimes the vulgar fee, and judge, aright. HEN I I took a particular de light in hearing the fongs and fables that are come from father to fon, and are most in vogue among the common people of the countries thro' which I paffed; for it is impoffible that any thing fhould be univerfally tafted and approved by a. multitude, though they are only the rabble of a nation, which hath not in it fome peculiar aptness to please and gratify the mind of man. Human nature is the fame in all reasonable creatures; and whatever falls in with it, will meet with admirers amongst readers of all qualities and conditions. Moliere, we are told by Monfieur Boileau, used to read all his comedies to an old woman, who was his houfe-keeper, as fhe fat with him at her work by the chimney-corner; and could foretel the fuccefs of his play in the theatre, from the reception it met at his fire fide: for he tells us the audience always followed the old woman, and never failed to laugh in the fame place. I know nothing which more fhews the effential and inherent perfection of fimplicity of thought |