NO 137 TUESDAY, AUGUST 7. At hac etiam fervis femper libera fuerunt, timerent, gauderent, dolerent, fuo potius quam alterius arbitrio. TULL. Epift. Even flaves were always at liberty to fear, rejoice, and grieve, at their own rather than another's pleasure. IT even Tis no fmall concern to me, that I find fo many complaints from that part of mankind whofe portion it is to live in fervitude, that thofe whom they depend upon will not allow them to be as happy as their condition will admit of. There are, as thefe unhappy correfpondents, inform me, mafters who are offended at a cheerful countenance, and think a fervant is broke loofe from them, if he does not preferve the utmost awe in their prefence. There is one who fays, if he looks fatisfied, his mafter afks him what makes him fo pert this morning; if a little four, Hark ye, firrah, are not you paid your wages? The poor creatures live in the most extreme mifery together: The mafter knows not how to preferve refpect, nor the fervant how to give it. It feems this perfon is of fo fullen a nature, that he knows but little fatisfaction in the midft of a plentiful fortune, and fecretly frets to fee any appearance of content in one that lives upon the hundredth part of his income, who is unhappy in the poffeffion of the whole. Uneafy perfons, who cannot poffefs their own minds, vent their upon all who depend upon them; which, I think, is expreffed in a lively manner in the following letters. • SIR, I SIR, August 2, 1711. Have read your Spectator of the third of the laft month, and wifh I had the happiness of being preferred to ferve fo good a master as Sir ROGER. The character of my mafter is the very reverfe of that good and gentle Knight's. All his directions are given, and his mind revealed by way of contraries: As when any thing is to be remembered, with a peculiar caft of face, he cries, * Be fure to forget now. If I am to make hafte back, • Do not come these two hours; be fure to call by the way upon fome of your companions. Then another excellent way of his is, if he fets me any thing to do, which he knows muft neceffarily take up half a day, he calls ten times in a quarter of an hour to know whether I have done yet. This is his manner; and the fame perverfenefs runs thro" all his actions, according as the circumftances vary. Befides all this, he is fo fufpicious, that he fubmits himself to the drudgery of a fpy. He is as unhappy himfelf as he makes his fervants: He is conftantly watching us, and we differ no more. in pleafure and liberty than as a gaoler and a prifoner. He lays traps for faults, and no fooner makes a difcovery, but falls into fuch language, as I am more afhamed of for coming from him, than fo for being directed to me. This, Sir, is a fhort fketch of a mafter I have ferved upwards of nine years; and though I have never wronged. him, I confefs my defpair of pleafing him has very much abated my endeavour to do it. If you will give me leave to fteal a fentence out of my mafter's Clarendon, I fhall tell you my cafe in a word, Being used worse than I deferved, I cared" lefs to deferve well than I had done. I am,. Savaryu SIR, done. I a Your humble fervant, 6. RALPH VALET. • Dear • V I Am the next thing to a lady's woman, and am under both my lady and her woman. I am fo used by them both, that I fhould be very glad to fee them in the SPECTER. My lady herfelf is of no mind in the world, and for that reafon her woman is of twenty minds in a moment. My lady is one that never knows what to do with herfelf; fhe pulls on and puts off every thing fhe wears twenty times before the refolves upon it for that day. I stand at one end of the room, and reach things to her woman. When my lady afks for a thing, I hear and have half brought it, when the woman meets me in the middle of the room to receive it, and at that inftant fhe fays, No fhe will not have it. Then I go back, and her woman comes up to her, and by this time the will have that and two or three things more in an inftant: The woman and I run to each other ⚫am loaded and delivering the things to her, when my lady fays fhe wants none of all these things, and we are the dulleft creatures in the world, and the the unhappiest woman living, for the fhall not be dreffed in any time. Thus we ftand, not knowing what to do, when our good lady with all the patience in the world tells us as plain as fhe can speak, that she will have temper becaufe we have no manner of understanding; and begins again to drefs, and fee if we can find out of our felves what we are to do. When fhe is dreffed fhe goes to dinner, and after he has difliked every thing there, the calls for her coach, then commands it in again, and then the will not go out at all, and then will go too, and orders the chariot. Now, good Mr. SPECTER, I defire you would in the behalf of all who ferve froward ladies, give out in your paper, that nothing can be: done without allowing time for it, and that one: Shifres vidcannot. ⚫ cannot be back again with what one was fent for, if one is called back before one can go a ftep for that they want. And if you pleafe let them know that all miftreffes are as like as all fervants. I am your loving friend, PATIENCE GIDDY.' Thefe are great calamities; but I met the other day in the five fields towards Chelsea, a pleasanter tyrant than either of the above reprefented. A fat fellow was paffing on in his open waistcoat; a boy of fourteen in a livery, carrying after him his cloke, upper-coat, hat, wig, and fword. The poor lad was ready to fink with the weight, and could not keep up with his mafter, who turned back every half furlong, and wondered what made the lazy young dog lag behind. There is fomething very unaccountable, that people cannot put themfelves in the condition of the perfons below them, when they confider the commands they give. But there is nothing more common, than to fee a fellow (who if he were reduced to it, would not be hired by any man living) lament that he is troubled with the moft worthless dogs in nature. 17 It would, perhaps, be running too far out of common life to urge, that he who is not mafter of himfelf and his own paffions, cannot be a proper mafter of another. Equanimity in a man's own words and actions, will eafily diffuse itself through his whole family. Pamphillio has the happiest household of any man I know, and that proceeds from the humane regard that he has to them in their private perfons, as well as in refpect that they are his fervants. If there be any occafion, wherein they may in themfelves be fuppofed to be unfit to attend their master's concerns, by reafon of any attention to their own, he is fo good as to place himfelf in their condition. I thought it very becom ing in him, when at dinner the other day he made an apology for want of more attendants. He faid, One of my footmen is gone to the wedding of his fifter, and the other I do not expect to wait, because his father died but two days ago. NO 138. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 8. Utitur in re non dubia teftibus non neceffariis. TOLL! He uses unneceffary proofs in an indifputable point. ONE NE meets now and then with perfons who are extremely learned and knotty in expounding clear cafes. Tully tells us of an author that spent fome pages to prove that generals could not perform the great enterprises which have made them fo illuftrious, if they had not had men. He afferted alfo, it seems, that a minifter at home, no more than a commander abroad, could do any thing without other men were his inftruments and affiftants. On this occafion he produces the example of Themiftocles, Pericles, Cyrus, and Alexander himfelf, whom he denies to have been capable of effecting what they did, except they had been followed by others. It is pleafant enough to fee fuch perfons contend without opponents, and triumph without victory. The author above-mentioned by the orator is placed for ever in a very ridiculous light, and we meet every day in converfation fuch as deferve the fame kind of renown, for troubling those with whom they converfe with the like certainties. The perfons that I have always thought to deferve the higheft admiration in this kind are your ordinary ftory-tellers, who are moft religiously careful of keeping to the truth in every particular circumstance of a narration, whether it concern the main end or |