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and best prayer children are taught, they learn to mif• ufe us. "Our Father Which art it Heaven," should be, "Our Father Who art in Heaven;" and even a Con' vocation, after long debates, refused to confent to an al⚫teration of it. In our general Confeffion we fay,

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Spare thou them, O God, Which confess their faults." • which ought to be, "Who confess their faults." What ⚫ hopes then have we of having justice done us, when • the makers of our very prayers and laws, and the most • learned in all faculties, feem to be in a confederacy ⚫ against us, and our enemies themselves must be our • judges.

The Spanish Proverb says. El fabio muda confejo, el ' necio no; i. e. "A wife man changes his mind, a "fool never will." So that we think you, Sir, a very proper perfon to address to, since we know you to be ⚫ capable of being convinced, and changing your judgYou are well able to fettle this affair, and to

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you we fubmit our cause. We defire you to affign • the butts and bounds of each of us; and that for the ' future we may both enjoy our own. We would de• fire to be heard by our counsel, but that we fear in their

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very pleadings they would betray our cause: befides, we ⚫ have been oppreffed fo many years, that we can appear ⚫ no other way, but in forma pauperis. All which con• fidered, we hope you will be pleased to do that which

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to right and justice shall appertain.

And your Petitioners, &c.'

No. LXXIX. THURSDAY, MAY 31.

Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore.

The good, for virtue's fake, abhor to fin.

HOR.

CREECH.

I HAVE received very many letters of late, from my female correfpondents, most of whom are very angry

with me for abridging their pleasures, and looking fe

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verely upon things in themselves indifferent. But 1 think they are extremely unjust to me in this imputation; all that I contend for is, that those excellencies, which are to be regarded but in the second place, should not precede more weighty confiderations. The heart of man deceives him in spite of the lectures of half a life spent in difcourfes on the subjection of paffion; and I do not know why one may not think the heart of woman as unfaithful to itself. If we grant an equality in the faculties of both sexes, the minds of woman are lefs cultivated with precepts, and confequently may, without disrespect to them, be accounted more liable to illusion in cafes wherein natural inclination is out of the interests of virtue. I shall take up my present time in commenting upon a billet or two which came from ladies, and from thence leave the reader to judge whether I am in the right or not, in thinking it is poffible fine women may be mistaken.

- The following address seems to have no other design in it, but to tell me the writer will do what the pleases for all me.

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• Mr. Spectator,

I AM young, and very much inclined to follow the paths of innocence; but at the same time, as I have a plentiful fortune, and am of quality, I am unwilling to resign the pleasures of diftinction, some little fatif' faction in being admired in general, and much greater ⚫ in being beloved by a gentleman, whom I design to ' make my husband. But I have a mind to put off en• tering into matrimony till another winter is over my head, which, whatever, musty Sir, you may think of ' the matter, I design to pass away in hearing mufic, going to plays, vifiting, and all other fatisfactions which • fortune and youth, protected by innocence and virtue, * can procure for,

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• Sir,

• Your moft humble servant,

Μ. Τ.

• My

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• My lover does not know I like him; therefore, having no engagements upon me, I think to stay and • know whether I may not like any one elfe better.'

I have heard Will. Honeycomb say, ' A woman feldom • writes her mind but in her postscript.' I think this gentlewoman has fufficiently difcovered hers in this. I'll lay what wager she pleases againft her prezent favourite, and can tell her that she will like ten more before the is fixed, and then will take the worst man she ever liked in her life. There is no end of affection taken in at the eyes only; and you may as well fatisfy those eyes with feeing, as control any paffion received by them only. It is from loving by fight that coxcombs fo frequently fucceed with women, and very often a young lady is bestowed by her parents to a man who weds her as innocence itielf, though the has, in her own heart, given her approbation of a different man in every affembly the was in the whole year before. What is wanting among women, as well as among men, is the love of laudable things, and not to reft only in the forbearance of fuch as are reproachful.

How far removed from a woman of this light imagination is Eudofia! Eudofia has all the arts of life and goodbreeding with fo much eafe, that the virtue of her conduct looks more like an inftinét than choice. It is as little difficult to her to think justly of perfons and things, as it is to a woman of different accomplishments to move ill or look awkward. That which was at first the effect of inftruction, is grown into an habit; and it would be as hard for Eudofia co indulge a wrong fuggeftion of thought, as it would be for Flavia, the fine dancer, to come into a room with an unbecoming air.

But the mifapprehenfions people themselves have of their own ftate of mind, is laid down with much difcerning in the following letter, which is but an extract of a kind epiftle from my charming mistress Hecatiffa, who is above the vanity of external beauty, and is the better judge of the perfections of the mind.

VOL. I.

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• Mr.

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• Mr. Spectator,

I WRITE this to acquaint you, that very many 'adies, as well as myself, fpend many hours more than • we used at the glass, for want of the female library of • which you promifed us a catalogue. I hope, Sar, in • the choice of authors for us, you will have a particular • regard to books of devotion. What they are, and • how many, must be your chief care; for upon the pro• priety of fuch writings depends a great deal. I have • known those among us who think, if they every morn• ing and evening spend an hour in their closet, and read • over so many prayers in fix or seven books of devotion, • all equally nonfenfical, with a fort of warmth, that ⚫ might as well be raised by a glass of wine, or a dram • of citron, they may all the rest of their time go on in • whatever their particular paffion leads them to. The ⚫ beauteous Philatnia, who is, in your language, an Idol, ⚫ is one of these votaries; she has a very pretty furnished ⚫ closet, to which she retires at her appointed hours: this ⚫ is her dreffing-room as well as chapel; she has con< stantly before her a large looking-glass, and upon the ⚫ table, according to a very witty author,

• Together lie her prayer-book and paint,
• At once t' improve the finner and the faint.

• It must be a good scene, if one could be present at • it, to fee this Idol by turns lift up her eyes to heaven, and steal glances at her own dear perfon. It cannot but • be a pleasing conflict between vanity and I umiliation. • When you are upon this fubject, choose books which • elevate the mind above the world, and give a pleasing • indifference to little things in it. For want of fuch • instructions, I am apt to believe so many people take • it in their heads to be fullen, cross, and angry, under • pretence of being abstracted from the affairs of this • life, when at the fame time they betray their fondness ⚫ for thom by doing their duty as a task, and pouting ⚫ and reading good books for a week tosether. Much • of this I take to proceed from the indifcretion of the books themselves, whose very titles of weekly prepara<tions, ⚫tions, and fuch limited godliness, lead people of ordinary capacities into great errors, and raife in them a • mechanical religion, intirely diftinct from morality. • I know a lady so given up to this fort of devotion, that ⚫ though the employs fix or eight hours of the twenty• four at cards, the never miffes one constant hour of

prayer, for which time another holds her cards, to • which the returns with no little anxiousness till two or ⚫ three in the morning. All these acts are but empty • shows, and, as it were, compliments made to virtue; • the mind is all the while untouched with any true plea' sure in the pursuit of it. From hence I prefume it • arifes that fo many people call themselves virtuous from ⚫ no other pretence to it but an abfence of ill. There is • Dulcianara, the most insolent of all creatures to her • friends and domestics, upon no other pretence in na

ture but that, as her filly phrase is, no one can tay black ' is her ey. She has no fecrets, forfooth, which should • make her afraid to speak her mind, and therefore the ⚫ is impertinently blunt to all her acquaintance, and un• seasonably imperious to all her family. Dear Sir, be pleased to put fuch books in our hands as may make

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our virtue more inward, and convince fome of us that ⚫ in a mind truly virtuous the scorn of vice is always ⚫ accompanied with the pity of it. This and other ⚫ things are impatiently expected from you by our whole

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• Sir,

• Your most humble fervant,

B. D.'

No. LXXX. FRIDAY, JUNE 1.
Cælum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.
Those that beyond-fea go, will fadly find,
They change their climate only, not their mind.

HOR.

CREECH.

N the year 1688, and on the fame day of that year, were born in Cheapfide, London, two females of ex

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quisite feature and shape; the one we shall call Brunetta,

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