untractable people of all others. You are so excessively perplexed with the particularities in their behaviour, that, to be at ease, one would be apt to wish there was no such creatures. They expect so great allowances, and give so little to others, that they who have to do with them find in the main, a man with a better person than ordinary, and a beautiful woman, might be very happily changed for such to whom nature has been less liberal. The handsome fellow is usually so much a gentleman, and the fine woman has something so becoming, hat there is no enduring either of them. It has therefore been generally my choice to mix with chearful ugly creatures, rather than gentlemen who are graceful enough to omit or do what they please; or beauties who have charms enough to do and say what would be disobliging in any but themselves. Diffidence and presumption upon account of our persons, are equally faults; and both arise from the want of knowing, or rather endeavouring to know ourselves, and for what we ought to be valued or neglected. But indeed, I did not imagine these little considerations and coquetries could have the ill consequence as I find they have by the following letters of iny correspondents, where it seems beauty is thrown into the account, in matters of sale, to those who receive no favour from the charmers.

6

Mr. SPECTATOR,

June 4

AFTER I have assured you I am in every respect one of the handsomest young girls about town--I need be particular in nothing but the make of my face, which has the misfortune to be exactly oval. This Í take to proceed from a temper that naturally inclines me both to speak and to hear.

With this account you may wonder how I can have the vanity to offer myself as a candidate, which I now do, to a society, where the Spectator and Hecatissa have been admitted with so much applause. I don't want to be put in mind how very defective I am in every thing that is ugly: I am too sensible of my own unworth dess in this particular, and therefore I only propose my self as a foil to the Club.

You see how honest I have been to confess all my 'imperfections, which is a great deal to come from a

,woman,

woman, and what I hope you will encourage with the favour of your interest.

'There can be no objection made on the side of the matchless Hecatissa, since it is certain I shall be in no danger of giving her the least occasion of jealousy: and then a joint-stool in the very lowest place at the table, is all the honour that is coveted by.

Your most humble

and obedient servant,

ROSALINDA. 'P. S. I have sacrificed my necklace to put into the. public lottery, against the common enemy. And last Saturday, about three o'clock in the afternoon, I began to patch indifferently on both sides of my face.

'Mr. SPECTATOR,

London, June 7, 1711. UPON reading your late dissertation concerning Idols, I cannot but complain to you that there are, in six or seven laces of this city, coffee-houses kept by persons of that sisterhood. These Idols sit and receive. all day long the adoration of the youth within such and such districts: I know in particular, goods are not entered as they ought to be at the custom-house, nor law-reports perused at the temple; by reason of one beauty who detains the young merchants too long near 'Change, and another fair one who keeps the students at her house when they should be at study. It would be worth your while to see how the idolaters alternately offer incense to their Idols, and what heart-burnings arise in those who wait for their turn to receive kind aspects from those little thrones, which all the company, but these lovers, call the bars. I saw a gentleman turn as pale as ashes, because an Idol turned the sugar in a tea-dish for his rival, aud carelessly called the boy to serve him, with a "Sira! Why don't you give the gentleman the box to Please himself "Certain it is, that a very hopeful young man was taken with leads in his pockets, below be, where he intended to drown himself, because. his Idol would wash the dish in which she had but just drank tea, before she would let him use it.

I am, Sir, a person past being amorous, and do not give this information out of envy or jealousy, but I am VOL. II,

B

a rea!

a real sufferer by it. These lovers take any thing for tea and coffee; I saw one yesterday surfeit to make his court; and all his rivals, at the same time, loud in the commendation of liquors that went against every body ' in the room that was not in love. While these young fellows. resign their stomachs with their hearts, and drink at the Idol in this manner, we who come to do business, or talk politics, are utterly poisoned; they have also drams for those who are more enamoured than ordinary; and it is very common for such as are too low in constitution to ogle the Idol upon the strength of tea, 'to fluster themselves with warmer liquors; thus all pre⚫ tenders advance, as fast as they can, to a fever or diabetes. I must repeat to you, that I do not look with an evil eye upon the profit of the Idols, or the diversions of the lovers; what I hope from this remonstrance, is only that we plain people may not be served as if we were idolaters; but that from the time of publishing this in your paper, the Idols would mix ratsbane only 6 for their admirers, and take more care of us who do not love them. I am, Sir,

R

'Yours,

T. T.

No 88.

MONDAY, June 11.

By STEELE.

Quid domini facient, audent cum talia fures?

Mr. SPECTATOR,

VIRG. Ecl. 3. v. 16. What will not masters do, when servants thus presume? May 30. 1711. HAVE no small value for your endeavours to lay before the world what may escape their observation, and yet highly conduces to their service. You have, I think, succeeded very well on many subjects; ⚫ and seem to have been conversant in very different scenes of life. But in the considerations of mankind, as a Spectator, you should not omit circumstances which relate

to the inferior part of the world, any more than tho e which concern the greater. There is one thing in particular which I wonder you have not touched upon, and that is, the general corruption of manners in the servants of Great Britain. I am a man that have travelled and seen many nations, but have for seven years last past resided constantly in London, or within twenty miles of it. Inthis time I have contracted a numerous acquaintance among the best sort of people, and have hardly found one of them happy in their servants. This is matter of great astonishment to foreigners, and all such as have visited foreign countries: especially since we cannot but observe, that there is no part of the world where servants have those privileges and advantages as in England: they 'have no where else such plentiful diet, large wages, or indulgent liberty: There is no place wherein they labour less, and yet where they are so little respectful, more wasteful, more negligent, or where they so frequently change 'their masters. To this I attribute, in a great measure, 'the frequent robberies and losses which we suffer on the high-road and in our own houses. That, indeed, which gives me the present thought of this kind, is, that a careless groom of mine has spoiled me the prettiest pad in the world with only riding him ten miles; and I you, if I were to make a register of all the horses 'I have known thus abused by negligence of servants, the number would mount a regiment. I wish you would give us your observations, that we may know how to treat these rogues, or that we masters may enter into measures to reform them. Pray give us a speculation in general about servants, and you make me

assure

Yours,

PHILO-BRITANNICUS.

P. S. Pray do no not omit the mention of grooms 'jn particular.

This honest gentleman who is so desirous that I should write a satire upon grooms, has a great deal of reason for his resentment; and I know no evil which touches all mankind so much as this of the misbehaviour of servants.

The

No 8. The complaint of this letter runs wholly upon menservants; and I can attribute the licentiousness which has at present prevailed among them, to nothing but what a hundred before me have ascribed it to, the custom of giving board-wages. This one instance of false economy is sufficient to debauch the whole nation of servants, and makes them as it were but for some part of their time in that quality. They are either attending in places where they meet and run into clubs, or else if they wait at taverns, they eat after their masters, and reserve their wages for other occasions. From hence it arises, that they are but in alower degree what their masters themselves are; and usually effect an imitation of their manners: and you have in liveries, beaux, fops, and coxcombs, in as high perfection as among people that keep equipages. It is a common humour among the retinue of people of quality, when they are in their revels, that is, when they are out of their masters sight, to assume in a humourous way the names and titles of those whose liveries they wear. By which means characters and distinctions become so familiar to them, that it is to this, among other causes, one may impute a certain insolence among our servants, that they take no notice of any gentleman, though they know him ever so well, except he is an acquaintance of their masters.

My obscurity and taciturnity leave me at liberty, without scandal, to dine, if I think fit, at a con mon ordinary, in the meanest as well as the most sumptuous house of entertainment. Falling in the other day at a vie ualling-house near the House of Peers, I heard the maid come down and tell the landlady at the bar, that my Lord Bishop swore he would throw her out at the window, if she did not bring up more mild beer, and that my Lord Duke would have a double mug of purl. My surprise was increased, in bearing loud and rustic voices speak and answer to each other upon the public affairs, by the names of the most illustrious of our nobility; till of a sudden one came running in, and cry'd the house was rising. Down came all the company together, and away! the ale-house was immediately filled with clamour, and scoring one mug to the Marquis of such a place, oiland vinegar to such an Earl, three quarts to my new Lord for wetting his title, and so forth. It is a thing too notorious to mention the crowds of servants, and their insolence,