indifferent things, and a merit to actions the moft infignificant. When we look round the world, and obferve the many misunderstandings which are created by the malice and infinuation of the meaneft fervants between people thus related, how neceffary will it appear that it were inculcated that men would be upon their guard to fupport a conftancy of affection, and that grounded upon the principles of reafon, not the impulfes of inftir &?

It is from the common prejudices which men receive from their parents, that hatreds are kept alive from one generation to another; and when men act by instinct, hatreds will defcend when good offices are forgotten. For the degeneracy of human life is fuch, that our anger is more easily transferred to our children than our love. Love always gives fomething to the object it delights in, and anger fpoils the perfon against whom it is moved of fomething laudable in him from this degeneracy therefore, and * a fort of felf-love, we are more prone to 'take up the ill-will of our parents, than to follow them in their friendships.

·

One would think there should need no more to make men keep up this fort of relation with the utmost fanctity, than to examine their own hearts. If every father remembered his own thoughts and inclinations when he was a fon, and every fon remembered what he expected from his father, when he himself was in a ftate of dependence, this one reflexion would pre⚫ ferve men from being diffolute or rigid in thefe feveral capacities. The power and fubjection between them, when broken, make them more • emphatically tyrants and rebels against each other, with greater cruelty of heart, than the difruption of ftates and empires can poffibly produce. I fhall end this application to you with two letters which paffed between a mother and fon very lately, and are as follows:

J

6

Dear Frank,

I

[F the pleafures, which I have the grief to hear you pursue in town, do not take up all your time, do not deny your mother fo much of it, as to read feriously this letter. You faid before Mr. Letacre, that an old woman might live very well in the country upon half my jointure, and that your father was a fond fool to give me a rent charge of eight hundred a year to the prejudice of his fon. What Letacre faid to you upon that occafion, you ought to have borne with more decency, as he was your father's well-beloved fervant, than to have called him a country-put. In the first place, Frank, I must tell you, I will have my rent duly paid, for I will make up to your fifters for the partiality I was guilty of, in making your father do fo much as he has done for you. I may, it seems, live upon half my jointure! I lived upon much ¿ lefs, Frank, when I carried you from place to place in these arms, and could neither eat, drefs, or mind any thing for feeding and tending you a weakly child, and hedding tears when the convulfions you were then troubled with returned upon you. By my care you out-grew them, to throw away the vigour of your youth in the arms of harlots, and deny your mother what is not your's to detain. Both your fifters are crying to fee the paffion which I smother; but if you pleafe to go on thus like a gentleman of the town, and forget all regarde to yourself

i

and family, I shall immediately enter upon your eftate for the arrears due to me, and without one. tear more condemn you for forgetting the fondnefs of your mother, as much as you have the example of your father. O Frank, do I live to omit writing myself,

Your affectionate mother, • A. T.?

I

Your most dutiful fon,

F. T.

I will bring down new heads for my fifters. Pray let all be forgotten,' T

No 264. WEDNESDAY, JAN. 2.

Secretum iter fallentis femita vita..
Hor. Ep. 18. lib. 1. ver. 103.
-Clofe retirement, and a life by stealth.
CREECH

I an affectation

love the pleafure of folitude, among those who cannot poflibly be fuppofed qualified for paffing life in that manner. This people have taken up from reading the many agreeable things which have been writ on that fubject, for which we are beholden to excellent perfons who delighted in being retired and abftracted from the pleasures that inchant the generality of the world. This way of life is recommended indeed with great beauty, and in fuch a manner as difpofes the reader for the time to a pleafing forgetfulness, or negligence of the particular hurry of life in which he is engaged, together with a longing for that ftate which he is charmed with in defcription. But when we confider the world itfelf, and how few there are capable of a religious, learned, or philofophical folitude, we thall be apt to change

a

regard to that fort of folitude, for being a little fingular in enjoying time after the way a man himself likes beft in the world, without going fo far as wholly to withdraw from it. I have often obferved, there is not a man breathing who does not differ from all other men, as much in the fentiments of his mind, as the features of his face. The felicity is, when any one is fo happy as to find out and follow what is the proper bent of his genius, and turn all his endeavours to exert himfelf according as that prompts him. Instead of this, which is an innocent method of enjoying a man's felf, and turning out of the general tracks wherein you have crouds of rivals, there are thofe who purfue their own way out of a fourness and fpirit of contradiction: thefe men do every thing which they are able to support, as if guilt and impunity could not go together. They choose a thing only because another diflikes it; and affect forfooth an inviolable conftancy in matters of no manner of moment. Thus fometimes an old fellow fhall wear this or that fort of cut in his clothes with great integrity, while allthe rest of the world are degenerated into button, pockets, and loops unknown to their ancestors. As infignificant as even this is, if it were fearded to the bottom, you perhaps would find it mt fincere, but that he is in the fashion in his heart and holds out from mere obftinacy. But I an running from

8142

Coverley's letter to me, which pray comply with in favour of the Bumper Tavern. Be • kind, for you know a player's utmost pride is the approbation of the Spectator. I am your admirer, though unknown, Richard Eftcourt To Mr. Eftcourt, at his houfe in Covent-Gar

'den.'

'Coverley, December the 18th, 1711. Old comical One,

TH

HE hogfheads of neat port came fafe, and have gotten thee good reputation in thefe < parts; and I am glad to hear, that a fellow who has been laying out his money ever fince he was born, for the mere pleasure of wine, has be⚫ thought himself of joining profit and pleasure to gether. Our fexton, (poor man) having received ⚫ strength from thy wine fince his fit of the gout, is hugely taken with it: he fays it is given by nature for the use of families, that no fteward's ⚫ table can be without it, that it strengthens digeftion, excludes furfeits, fevers and phyfic; which green wines of any kind cannot do. Pray get a pure fnug room, and I hope next term to help fill your Bumper with our people of the club; but you must have no bells stirring when the Spectator comes; I forbore ringing to dinner while he was down with me in the country. Thank you for the little hams and Portugal onions; pray keep fome always by you. You know my supper is only good Chefhire cheese, best mustard, a golden pippin, attended with a pipe of John Sly's beft. Sir Harry has ftolen all your fongs, and tells the story of the 5th of November to perfection.

Your's, to ferve you, Roger de Coverley. < We have loft old John fince you were here.'

T

may

Inftruct a snake to bite, or wolf to prey.

whether it be a creft, a comb, a tuft of feathers or a natural little plume, erected like a kind of pinnacle on the very top of the head. As nature on the contrary has poured out her charms in the greatest abundance upon the female part of our fpecies, fo they are very affiduous in beftowing upon themselves the finest garnitures of art. The peacock, in all his pride, does not difplay half the colours that appear in the garments of a British lady, when she is dreffed either for a ball or a birth-day.

But to return to our female heads. The ladies have been for fome time in a kind of moulting feafon, with regard to that part of their drefs, having caft great quantities of ribbon, lace, and cambric, and in fome measure reduced that part of the human figure to the beautiful globular form, which is natural to it. We have for a great while expected what kind of ornament would be substituted in the place of those antiquated commodes. But our female projectors were all the last summer so taken up with the improvement of their petticoats, that they had not time to attend to any thing elfe; but having as length fufficiently adorned their lower parts, they now begin to turn their thoughts upon the other extremity, as well remembering the old kitchen proverb, "that if you light your fire at both "ends, the middle will shift for itself."

CONGREVE.

ONE

NE of the fathers, if I am rightly informed, has defined a woman to "an animal that delights in finery." I have already treated of the, fex in two or three papers, conformably to this definition, and have in particular obferved, that in all ages they have been more careful than the men to adorn that part of the head, which we generally call the outfide.

This obfervation is fo very notorious, that when in ordinary difcourfe we fay a man has a fine head, a long head, or a good head, we exprefs ourselves metaphorically, and fpeak in relation to his understanding; whereas when we fay of a woman, fhe has a fine, a long, or a good head, we speak only in relation to her commode.

It is obferved among birds, that nature has lavished all her ornaments upon the male, who very often appears in a most beautiful head-drefs:

1

I am engaged in this fpeculation by a fight which I lately met with at the opera. As I was ftanding in the hinder part of the box, I took no tice of a little cluster of women fitting together in the prettieft coloured hoods that I ever faw. One of them was blue, another yellow, and another philemot; the fourth was of a pink colour, and the fifth of a pale green. I looked with as much pleasure upon this little party-coloured affembly, as upon a bed of tulips, and did not know at first whether it might not be an embassy of Indian queens; but upon my going about into the pit, and taking them in front, I was immediately undeceived, and faw fo much beauty in every face, that I found them all to be English. Such eyes and lips, cheeks and foreheads, could be the growth of no other country. The complexion of their faces hindered me from obferving any fareafily perceive by that unspeakable fatisfaction ther the colour of their hoods, though I could which appeared in their looks, that their own thoughts were wholly taken up on thofe pretty ornaments they wore upon their heads.

I am informed that this fafhion fpreads daily, infomuch that the whig and tory ladies begin already to hang out different colours, and to fhew their principles in their head drefs. Nay, if I may believe my friend Will Honeycomb, there is a certain old coquette of his acquaintance who intends to apear in a rainbow hood, like the Iris in Dryden's Virgil, not queftioning but that among fuch variety of colours the fhall have a charm for every heart.

My friend Will, who very much values himself upon his great infight into gallantry, tells me, that he can already guefs at the humour a lady is in by her hood, as the courtiers of Morocco know the difpofition of their prefent emperor by the colour of the drefs which he puts on. When Melefinda wraps her head in flame colour, her heart is fet upon execution. When the covers it with purple, I would not, fays he, advife her lever to approach her; but if the appears in white,

it

it is peace, and he may hand her out of the box with fafety.

Will informs me likewife, that these hoods may be ufed as fignals, Why elfe, fays he, does Cor, melia always put on a black hood when her hulband is gone into the country?

Such are my friend Honeycomb's dreams of galJantry. For my own part, I impute this diverfity of colours in the hoods to the diverfity of complexion in the faces of my pretty countrywomen. Orid in his Art of Love has given fome precepts as to this particular, though I find they are different from thofe which prevail among the moderns. He recommends a red ftriped filk to the pale com plexion; white to the brown, and dark to the fair. On the contrary, my friend Will, who pretends to be a greater matter in this art than Ovid, tells me, that the paleft features look the most agreeable in white farfanet; that a face which is overflushed appears to advantage in the deepest fcarlet, and that the darkest complexion is not a little alleviated by a black hood. In short, he is for lofing the colour of the face in that of the hood, as a fire Burns dimly, and a candle goes half out, in the light of the fun. This, fays he, your Ovid himfelf has hinted, where he treats of these matters, when he tells us that the blue water nymphs are dreffed in fky-coloured garments; and that Aurora, who always appears in the light of the rifing fun, is robed in fatron.

hor the breach of chastity too much; but pray let her hate it for herself, and only pity it in others. Will Honeycomb calls these over-offended ladies, the outrageously virtuous.

I do not defign to fall upon failures in general, with relation to the gift of chastity, but at prefent only enter upon that large field, and begin with the confideration of poor and public whores. The other evening paffing along near Covent Garden, I was jogged on the elbow as I turned into the piazza, on the right hand coming out of James-Street, by a young flim girl of about feventeen, who with a pert air afked me if I was for a pint of wine. I do not know but I fhould have indulged my curiofity in having fome chat with her, but that I am informed the man of the Bumper knows me; and it would have made a ftory for him not very agreeable to fome part of my writings, though I have in others fo frequently faid that I am wholly unconcerned in any scene I am in, but merely as a spectator. This impediment being in my way, we food under one of the arches by twilight; and there I could obferve as exact features as I had ever feen, the most agreeable fhape, the fineft neck and bofom, in a word, the whole perfon of a woman exquifitely beautiful. She affected to allure me with a forced wantonnefs in her look and air; but I faw it checked with hunger and cold: her eyes. were wan and eager, her drefs thin and tawdry, her mien genteel and childish. This ftrange figure gave me much anguish of heart, and to avoid being feen with her I went away, but could not forbear giving her a crown. The poor thing fighed, curtfled, and with a bleffing expreffed with the utmost This creature is vehemence, turned from me. what they call "newly come upon the town," but who, I fuppofe, falling into cruel hands, was left in the first month from her difhonour, and exposed to pafs through the hands and difcipline of one of thofe hags of hell whom we call bawds. But left L thould grow too fuddenly grave on this fubject, and be myfelf outrageously good, I fhall turn to a scene in one of Fletcher's plays, where this character is drawn, and the economy of whoredom most admirably defcribed. The paffage I would point to is in the third fcene of the fecond Act of the Humorous Lieutenant. Leucipre, who is agent for the king's luft, and bawds at the fame time for the whole court, is very pleasantly introduced, reading her minutes as a perfon of bufinefs, with two maids her under-fecretaries, taking inftructions at a table before her. Her women, both thofe under her prefent tutelage, and thofe which the is laying wait for, are alphabetically fet down in her book; and fhe is looking over the letter C, in a muttering voice, as if between foliloquy and fpeaking out, The fays,

Whether thefe his obfervations are juftly grounded I cannot tell: but I have often known him, as we have flood together behind the ladies, praife or difpraife the complexion of a face which he never faw, fron obferving the colour of her hood, and has been very feldom out in thefe his gueffes.

As I have nothing more at heart than the honour and improvement of the fair fex, I cannot conclude this paper without an exhortation to the British ladies, that they would excel the women of all other nations as much in virtue and good fenfe, as they do in beauty; which they may certainly do, if they will be as induftrious to cultivate their minds, as they are to adorn their bodies: in the mean while fhall recommend to their most ferious confideration the faying of an old Greek poet,

Γυναικὶ κόσμος ὁ τρόπος κ ̓ ἐ χρυσία.

C

N° 266. FRIDAY, JANUARY 4. Id verò eft, quod ego mihi puto palmarium, Me reperiffe, quomodo adolefcentulus Meretricium ingenia & mores poffit nofcere:"} Mature ut cum cognovit perpetuò oderit. Ter. Eun. A&t. I look upon it as my mafter-piece, that I have found out how a young fellow may know the difpofition and behaviour of harlots, and by early knowing come to deteft them.

Se. 4. 5.

"Her maidenhead will yield me; let me fee now; "She is not fifteen they fay; for her complex❝ion