way to the article of wealth. From this one 'confideration it is that I have concealed the ar<dent love I have for her; but I am beholden to the force of my love for many advantages which I reaped from it towards the better 'conduct of my life. A certain complacency " to amuse and relax the mind of the reader, by "frequently difengaging him from too painful "an attention to the principal subject, and by "leading him into other agreeable images. "Homer," fays he, "excelled in this particular, "whofe comparisons abound with fuch images "of nature as are proper to relieve and diverfi"fy his fubjects. He continually instructs the "reader, and makes him take notice, even in objects which are every day before our eyes, "of fuch circumstances as we should not other"wife have obferved." To this he adds, as a maxim univerfally acknowledged, "That it is "not neceffary in poetry for the points of the "comparison to correspond with one another "exactly, but that a general refemblance is "fufficient, and that too much nicety in this "particular favours of the rhetorician and epi"grammatift." In fhort, if we look into the conduct of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, as the great fable is the foul of each poem, fo, to give their works an agreeable variety, their epifodes are fo many fhort fables, and their fimiles fo many fhort epifodes; to which you may add, if you pleafe, that their metaphors are fo many fhort fimiles. If the reader confiders the comparisons in the first book of Milton, of the fun in an eclipfe, of the fleeping Leviathan, of the bees swarming about their hive, of the fairy dance, in the view wherein I have here placed them, he will easily discover the great beauties that are in each of those paffages.* to all the world, a ftrong defire to oblige wherever it lay in my power, and a circumfpect behaviour in all my words and actions, have rendered me more particularly acceptable to all my friends and acquaintance. Love has had the fame good effect upon my fortune; and I have increased in riches in proportion to my advancement in thofe arts which make a 'man agreeable and amiable. There is a certain fympathy which will tell my mistress from thefe circumftances, that it is I who writ this for her reading, if you will please to infert it. There is not a downright enmity, but a great 'coldness between our parents; fo that if either of us declared any kind fentiments for each other, her friends would be very backward to 'lay any obligation upon our family, and mine to receive it from her's. Under these delicate circumftances it is no eafy matter to act with fafety. I have ho reafon to fancy my mistress has any regard for me but from a very difinterefted value which I have for her. If from any hint in any future paper of your's fhe gives me the leaft encouragement, I doubt not but I 'fhall furmount all other difficulties; and infpired by fo noble a motive for the care of my fortune, as the belief she is to be concerned in it, I will not defpair of receiving her one day from her father's own hand. L Vulnus alit venis & cæco carpitur igni. TH ' To his Worship the Spectator The humble petition of Anthony Title-page, 'Stationer, in the centre of Lincoln's-Inn• Fields, • Sherveth, HAT your petitioner and his forefathers TH have been fellers of books for time im'memorial; that your petitioner's ancestor, 'Crouchback Title-Page, was the firft of that vocation in Britain; who keeping his ftation in fair weather, at the corner of Lothbury, · was by way of eminency called the ftationer, a name which from him all fucceeding bookfellers have affected to bear: that the station of your petitioner and his father has been in the place of his prefent fettlement ever fince that fquare has been built; that your petition HE circumftances of my correfpondent, whofe letter I now infert, are fo frequent, that I cannot want compaffion fo much as to forbear laying it before the town. 'There is fomething fo mean and inhuman in a direct Smithfield bargain for children, that if this lover carries his point, and obferves the rules he pretends to follow, I do not only wish him fuccefs, but also that it may animate others to follow his example. I know not one motive relating to this life which would produce fo many honourable and worthy actions, as the hopes of obtaining a woman of merit: there would ten thousand ways of industry and honest ambition be pursued by young men, who believed that the perfons admired had value enough for their paffion to attend the event of their gooder has formerly had the honour of your worfortune in all their applications, in order to make their circumftances fall in with the duties they owe to themselves, their families, and their country. All these relations a man should think of who intends to go into the ftate of marriage, and expects to make it a state of pleasure and fatisfaction. 'fhip's cuftom, and hopes you never had reafon to complain of your pennyworths; that particularly he fold you your firft Lilly's grammar, and at the fame time a Wit's Commonwealth almost as good as new: moreover, that your first rudimental effays in fpectator'fhip were made in your petitioner's fhop," where you often practiced for hours toge. ther, fometimes on his books upon the rails, fometimes on the little hieroglyphics either gilt, filvered, or plain, which the Egyptian woman on the other fide of the fhop, had wrought in gingerbread, and fometimes on the English youth, who in fundry places there were exKercibur ercifing themselves in the traditional sports of the field. From these confiderations it is, that your petitioner is encouraged to apply himfelf to you, and to proceed humbly to acquaint your worthip, that he has certain intelligence that you receive great numbers of defamatory letters defigned by their authors to be published, which you throw afide and totally neglect: your petitioner therefore prays, that you will pleafe to beftow on him thofe refufe letters, and he hopes by printing them to get a more plentiful provifion for his family; or at the werft, he may be allowed to fell them by the pound weight to his good customers the 'paftry-cooks of London and Westminster. And your petitioner fhall ever pray, &c.' To the Spectator, The humble petition of Bartholemew Ladylove, of Round-Court, in the parish of St. Martin's in the Fields, in behalf of himfelf and neighbours, Sherveth, TH HAT your petitioners have with great induftry and application arrived at the moft exact art of invitation or in reaty that by a befeeching air and perfuafive addrefs they have for many years laft paft peaceably drawn in every tenth paffenger, whether they intended < or not to call at their fhops, to come in and buy; and from that foftnefs of behaviour, have arrived among tradefmen at the gentle appellation of the fawners. That there have of late fet up among us certain perfons from Monmouth-ftreet and Long-Lane, who by the ftrength of their arms, and loudness of their throats, draw off the regard of all paffengers from your faid petitioner; from which violence they are diftinguished by the name of the worriers. That while your petitioners ftand ready to receive passengers with a fubmiffive bow, and repeat with a gentle voice, "Ladies, what do you want? pray look in here;" the worriers reach out their hands at piftol-fhot, and feize the customers at arms-length. That while the fawners ftrain and relax the mufcles of their faces in making diftinction between a spinster in a coloured scarf and an hand-maid in a ftraw-hat, the worriers ufe the fame roughness to both, and prevail upon the eafinefs of the paffengers, to the impoverifhment of your petitioners. Your petitioners therefore moít humbly pray, that the worriers may not be permitted to inhabit the politer parts of the town; and, that Round-Court may remain a receptacle tor 4 buyers of a more foft education. And your petitioners, &c,' The petition of the New-Exchange, concerning the arts of buying and felling, and particularly valuing goods by the complexion of the feller, will be conndered on another occafion. T UR late news-papers being full of the project now on foot in the court of France, for eftablishing a political academy, and I myfelf having received letters from feveral virtuofos among my foreign correfpondents, which give fome light into that affair, I intend to make it the subject of this days fpeculation. A general account of this project may be met with in the Daily Courant of laft Friday in the following words, tranflated from the Gazette of Amfterdam. Paris, February 12. It is confirmed that the king has refolved to establish a new academy for politics, of which the Marquis de Torcy, minifter and secretary of state, is to be protector. Six academicians are to be chofen, endowed with proper talents, for beginning to form this academy, into which no perfon is to be admitted under twenty'five years of age: they must likewise have each an eftate of two thousand livres a year, either in poffeffion, or to come to them by inheritance. The king will allow to each a penfion of a thousand livres. They are likewite to haye able mafters to teach them the neceffary fciences, and to inftruct them in all the trea'ties of peace, alliance, and others, which 1. have been made in feveral ages paft. These 'members are to meet twice a week at the Louvre. From this feminary are to be chofen fecretaries to embaffies, who by degrees may advance to higher employments' Cardinal Richlieu's politics made France the terror of Europe. The ftatesmen who have appeared in that nation of late years, have on the contrary rendered it either the pity or contempt of its neighbours. The cardinal erected that famous academy which has carried all the parts of polite learning to the greatest height. His chief defign in that inftitution was to divert the men of genius from meddling with politics, a province in which he did not care to have any one else interfere with him. On the contrary, the Marquis de Torcy feems refolved to make feveral young men in France as wife as himfelf and is therefore taken up at present in establishing a nursery of statesmen. Some private letters add, that there will allo be erected a feminary of petticoat politicians, who are to be brought up at the feet of Madame de Maintenon, and to be difpatched into foreign courts upon any emergencies of ftate; but as the news of this laft project has not been yet confirmed, I fhall take no farther notice of it. Several of my readers may doubtlefs remember that upon the conclufion of the laft war, which had been carried on fo fuccefstully by the enemy, their generals were many of them transformed into ambaffadors; but the conduct of those who have commanded in the prefent war, has, it feems, brought fo little honour and advantage to their great monarch, that he is refolved to truft his affairs no longer in the hands of those quilitary gentlemen. The regulations of this new academy very much defe̟lys our attention, The students are to have in poffeffion, or reverfion, an estate of two thousand French livres per annum, which as the prefent exchange runs, will amount to at least one hundred and twenty-fix pounds Englith. This, with the royal allowance of a thoufand livres, will enable them to find themfelves in coffee and fnuff; not to mention news-papers, pens and ink, wax and wafers, with the like neceffaries for politicians. A man must be at least five and twenty before he can be initiated into the myfteries of this academy, though there is no queftion, but many grave perfons of a much more advanced age, who have been conftant readers of the Paris Gazette, will be glad to begin the world anew, and enter themfelves upon this lift of politicians. The fociety of thefe hopeful young gentlemen is to be under the direction of fix profeffors, who, it seems, are to be fpeculative ftatefmen, and drawn out of the body of the royal academy. These fix wife mafters, according to my private letters, are to have the following parts allotted to them. The first is to inftruct the students in ftate le gerdemain, as how to take off the impreffion of a feal, to fplit a wafer, to open a letter, to fold it up again, with other the like ingenious feats of dexterity and art. When the ftudents have accomplished themselves in this part of their profefon, they are to be delivered into the hands of their fecond inftructor, who is a kind of posture master. This artift is to teach them how to nod judiciously, to shrug up their fhoulders in a dubious cafe, to connive with either eye, and in a word, the whole practice of political grimace. The third is a fort of language-mafter, who is to instruct them in the stile proper for a minifter in his ordinary difcourfe. And to the end that this college of statesmen may be thoroughly practifed in the political ftile, they are to make ufe of it in their common converfations, before they are employed either in foreign or domeftic affairs. If one of them afks another, what of the clock it is, the other is to answer him indirectly, and, if poffible, to turn off the queftion. If he is defired to change a louis d'or, he muft beg time to confider of it. If it be enquired of him, whether the king is at Verfailles or Marly, he must answer in a whifper. If he be asked the news of the late Gazette, or 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 fo far, he needs only draw his brow up in wrinkles, or elevate the left fhoulder. The fourth profeffor is to teach the whole art of political characters and hieroglyphics; and to the end that they may be perfect alfo in this practice, they are not to fend a note to one another, though it be but to borrow a Tacitus or Machiavel, which is not written in cypher. Their fifth profeffor, it is thought, will be chofen out of the fociety of Jefuits, and is to be well read in the controverfies of probable doctrines, mental refervations, and the rights of princes. This learned man is to inftruct them in the grammar, fyntax, and conftruing part of Treaty-Latin; how to diftinguish between the Spirit and the letter, and likewife demonftrate How the fame form of words may lay an obligation upon any prince in Europe, different from that which it lays upon his mest Christian Ma jefty. He is likewife to teach them the art of finding flaws, loop-holes, and evafions, in the moft folemn compacts, and particularly a great rabbinical fecret, revived of late years by the fraternity of Jefuits, namely, that contradictory interpretations of the fame article may both of them be true and valid. When our statefimen are fufficiently improved by thefe feveral inftructors, they are to receive their laft polishing from one who is to act among them as mafter of the ceremonies. This gentleman is to give them lectures upon the impor tant points of the elbow-chair, and the ftairhead, to inftruct them in the different fituations of the right-hand, and to furnish them with bows and inclinations of all fizes, measures, and proportions. In fhort, this profeffor is to give the fociety their stiffening, and infufe into their manners that beautiful political flarch, which may qualify them for levees, conferences, vifits, and make them shine in what vulgar minds are apt to look upon as trifles. I have not yet heard any further particulars, which are to be observed in this fociety of unfledged ftatefmen; but I must confefs, had I a fon of five and twenty, that fhould take it into his head at that age to fet up for a politician, I think I fhould go near to difinherit him for a blockhead. Befides, I fhould be apprehenfive left the fame arts which are to enable him to negotiate between potentates, might a little infect his ordinary behaviour between man and man. There is no queftion but these young Machiavels will, in a little time, turn their college upfide-down with plots and stratagems, and lay as many schemes to circumvent one another in a frog or a fallad, as they may hereafter put in practice to over-reach a neighbouring prince or state. We are told, that the Spartans, though they punished theft in their young men when it was discovered, looked upon it as honourable if it fucceeded. Provided the conveyance was clean and unfufpected, a youth might afterwards boast of it. This, fay the hiftorians, was to keep them fharp, and to hinder them from being impofed upon, either in their public or private negociations. Whether any fuch relaxations of morality, fuch little jeux d'efprit, ought not to be allowed in this intended feminary of politicians, I fhall leave to the wisdom of their founder. In the mean time we have fair warning given us by this doughty body of statesmen: and as Sylla faw many Marius's in Cæfar, fo I think we may difcover many Torcy's in this college of academicians. Whatever we think of ourselves, I am afraid neither our Smyrna or St. James's will be a match for it. Our coffee-houses are, indeed, very good inftitutions, but whether or no thefe our British fchools of politics may furnish out as able envoys and fecretaries as an academy that is fet apart for that purpose, will deferve our ferious confideration, especially if we remember that our country is more famous for producing men of integrity than statesmen ; and that on the contrary, French truth and Bri tih policy make a confpicuous figure in Nothing, as the Earl of Rochefter has very well observed in his admirable poem upon that barren subje, 3 D = L No. • Mr. Spectator, PRYDEN. who was a woman of spirit, writ this billet to - her lover. Write this to communicate to you a misfortune which frequently happens, and therefore deferves a confolatory difcourfe on the fubject. I was within this half year in the * poffeffion 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 epiftles which I have by me, was the feat of all that is beau⚫tiful in woman, is now disfigured with fcars. It goes to the very foul of me to fpeak what I really think of my face; and though I think • I did not over-rate my beauty while I had it, it has extremely advanced in its value with me now it is lost. There is one circumftance which makes my cafe very particular; the uglieft fellow that ever pretended to me, was and is moft 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, I fear, no poffibility ⚫ of making paffion move by the rules of reafon and gratitude. But fay what you can to one who has furvived 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 diftracting reflexion upon what I was. Confider the woman I was • did not die of old age, but I was taken off in the prime of youth, and according to the courfe of nature may have forty years after-life to come. I have nothing of myfelf left, which I like, but that 'I am, Sir, Your most humble fervant, Partheniffa" When Lewis of France had loft the battle of Ramillies, the addreffes to him at that time were full of his fortitude, and they turned his misfortune to his glory; in that, during his profperity, he could never have manifefted his heroic conftancy under diftreffes, and fo the world had loft the most eminent part of his character. Partheniffa's condition gives her the fame opportunity and to refign conquefts is a task as difficult in a beauty as an hero. In the very entrance upon this work she must burn all her love-letters; or fince the is fo candid as not to call her lovers who followed her no longer unfaithful, it would be a very good beginning of a new life from that of a beauty, to fend them back to those who writ them, with this honeft infcription," Articles of a marriage treaty "broken off by the small-pox." I have known but one inftance where a matter of this kind went on after a like misfortune, where the lady, I' SIR, F you flattered me before I had this terrible 6 malady, pray come and fee me now: but, if you fincerely liked me, ftay away; for I am not the fame, • Corinna.' The lover thought there was fomething fo fprightly in her behaviour, that he answered: ..Madam, Am not obilged, fince you are not the fame women, to let you know whether I flatter'ed you or not; but I affure you I do not, when I tell you I now like you above all your fex, and hope you will bear what may befal me, when we are both one, as well as you do what happens to yourself now you are fingle; therefore I am ready to take fuch a spirit for 'my companion as soon as you please. Amilcar If Partheniffa can now poffefs her own mind, and think as little of her beauty as he ought to have done when she had it, there will be no great diminution of her charms; and if she was formerly affected too much with them, an easy behaviour will more than make up for the lofs of them. Take the whole fex together, and you find thofe who have the strongest poffeffion 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 fuch as thofe who are strangers to them would take to be remarkably defective for that end. The fondest lover I know, faid to me one day in a crowd of women at an entertainment of mufic, you have often heard me talk of my beloved; that woman there, continued he, fmiling when he had fixed my eye, is her very picture. The lady he fhewed me was by much the leaft remarkable for beauty of any in the whole affembly; but having my curiofity extremely raifed, I could not keep my eyes off her. Her eyes at last met mine, and with a fudden surprise fhe looked round her to fee who near her was remarkably handsome that I was gazing at. This little act explained the fecret: fhe did not understand herself for the object of love, and therefore the was fo. The lover is a very honest plain man; and what charmed him was a perfon that goes along with him in the cares and joys of life, not taken up with herself, but fincerely attentive with a ready and chearful mind, to accompany him in either. An ap I can tell Partheniffa for her comfort, that the beauties, generally speaking, are the most impertinent and difag ceable of women. parent defire of admiration, a reflexion upon their own merit, and a precife behaviour in their general conduct, are almost infeparable accidents in beauties. All you obtain of them, is granted to importunity and folicitation for what did not deferve fo much of your time, and you recover from the poffeffion of it, as out of a dream. You are ashamed of the vagaries of fancy which fo ftrangely misled you, and your admi ration of a beauty, merely as fuch, is inconfiftent with a tolerable reflexion upon yourself: the chearful good-humoured creatures into whofe heads heads it never entered that they could make any man unhappy, are the perfons formed for making men happy. There is Mifs Liddy can dance a jig, raise paste, write a good hand, keep an account, give a reafonable anfwer, and do as fhe is bid; while her eldeft fifter Madam Martha is out of humour, has the spleen, learns by reports of people of higher quality new ways of being uneafy and difpleafed. And this happens for no reason in the world, but that poor Liddy knows she has no fuch thing as a certain negligence "that is fo becoming," that there is not I know not what in her air: and that if she talks like a fool, there is no one will fay, Well! I know not what it is," but every thing pleases when the fpeaks it." I have a long time expected with great impatience that you would enlarge upon the ordinary mistakes which are committed in the education of our children. I the more eafily flattered myself that you would one time or other refume this confideration, because you' tell us that your 168th paper was only compofed of a few broken hints: but finding myfelf hitherto difappointed, I have ventured to fend you my own thoughts on this subject. I remember Pericles, in his famous oration at the funeral of thofe Athenian young men who perished in the Samian expedition, has a cient critics, namely, that the lofs which the commonwealth fuffered by the deftruction of its youth, was like the lofs which the year 'would fuffer by the deftruction of the fpring. The prejudice which the public fuftains from a wrong education of children, is an evil of the fame nature, as it in a manner ftarves pofterity, and defrauds our country of those perfons who, with due care, might make an emi'nent figure in their respective pofts of life. Afk any of the husbands of your great beau-thought very much celebrated by feveral anties, and they will tell you that they hate their wives nine hours of every day they pass together. There is fuch a particularity for ever affected by them, that they are incumbered with their charms in all they fay or do, They pray at public devotions as they are beauties. They converfe on ordinary occafions as they are beauties. Afk Belinda what it is, o'clock, and the is at a ftand whether fo great a beauty should anfwer you. In a word, I think, instead of offering to administer consolation to Partheniffa, I should congratulate her metamorphofis; and however the thinks fhe was not the leaft infolent in the profperity of her charms, she was enough fo to find the may make herself a much more agreeable creature in her prefent adverfity. The endeavour to pleafe is highly promoted by a confciousness that the approbation of the perfon you would be agreeable to, is a favour you do not deferve; for in this cafe affurance of fuccefs is the most certain way to disappointment. Good-nature will always fupply the abfence of beauty, but beauty cannot long supply the abfence of good-nature. 'I have seen a book written by Juan Huartes'. a Spanish physician, intitled Examen de Ingenios, wherein he lays it down as one of his firft pofitions, that nothing but nature can qualify a man for learning; and that without a proper temperament for the particular art or fcience which he ftudies, his utmoft pains and application, affifted by the ableft masters, will be to no purpose. He illuftrates this by the example of Tully's fon Marcus. Cicero, in order to accomplish his fon in that fort of learning which he defigned him for, fent him to Athens, the most celebrated 'academy at that time in the world, and where a vaft concourfe, out of the moft polite nations, could not but furnish the young gentleman with a multitude of great examples and 'accidents that might infenfibly have inftructed him in his defigned ftudies: he placed him under the care of Cratippus, who was one of the greatest philofophers of the age, and, as ' if all the books which were at that time writ'ten had not been fufficient for his ufe, he com pofed others on purpose for him, notwithstanding all this, history informs us, that 'Marcus proved a mere blockhead, and that nature, who it feems was even with the fon for her prodigality to the father, rendered him incapable of improving by all the rules of eloquence, the precepts of philofophy, his own ' endeavours, and the most refined converfation in Athens. This author therefore propofes, that there fhould be certain triers or examiners appointed by the ftate to inspect the genius of every particular boy, and to allot him the part that is moft fuitable to his natural talents. And what your shoulders are too weak to bear. 6 ROSCOMMON. Am fo well pleased with the following letter, that I am in hopes it will not be a difagreeable prefent to the public. Plato in one of his dialogues tells us, that Socrates, who was the fon of a midwife, ufed to fay, that as his mother, though he was very skilful in her profeffion, could not deliver a woman, unlefs fhe was firft with child, fo neither could he himself raise knowledge out of a mind, where nature had not plant, ed it. • Accord |
