sense of virtue, have the same effect upon him as the neglect of all goodness has upon many others. Being firmly established in all matters of importance, that certain inattention which makes men's actions look easy, appears in him with greater beauty: by a thorough contempt of little excellencies, he is perfectly master of them. This temper of mind leaves him under no necessity of studying his air, and he has this peculiar distinction, that his negligence is unaffected.

must be in the utmost degree both divertin structive; yet to enjoy such observation highest relish, he ought to be placed in a p rection, and have the dealings of their fo them. I have therefore been wonderfully with some pieces of secret history, which quary, my very good friend, lent me as a They are memoirs of the private life of Ph of France. Pharamond," says my autho prince of infinite humanity and generosit He that can work himself into a pleasure in the same time the most pleasant and considering this being as an uncertain one, and companion of his time. He had a pecu think to reap an advantage by its discontinuance, in him, which would have been unluck is in a fair way of doing all things with a graceful prince but himself; he thought there co unconcern, and a gentleman-like ease. Such a exquisite pleasure in conversation bu one does not behold his life as a short, transient, equals; and would pleasantly bewail him perplexing state, made up of trifling pleasures he always lived in a crowd, but was the and great anxieties; but sees it in quite another in France that could never get into light his griefs are momentary and his joys im- This turn of mind made him delight in mortal. Reflection upon death is not a gloomy rambles, attended only with one perso and sad thought of resigning everything that he bedchamber. He would in these excur delights in, but it is a short night followed by an acquainted with men (whose temper 1 endless day. What I would here contend for is, mind to try) and recommend them pri that the more virtuous the man is, the nearer he the particular observation of his first will naturally be to the character of genteel and He generally found himself neglected by agreeable. A man whose fortune is plentiful, acquaintance as soon as they had hopes shows an ease in his countenance, and confidence ing great; and used on such occasions t in his behavior, which he that is under wants and that it was a great injustice to tax princ difficulties cannot assume. It is thus with the getting themselves in their high fortur state of the mind; he that governs his thoughts there were so few that could with const with the everlasting rules of reason and sense, the favor of their very creatures." My must have something so inexpressibly graceful in these loose hints has one passage that his words and actions, that every circumstance very lively idea of the uncommon genius must become him. The change of persons or mond. He met with one man whom he h things around him does not at all alter his situa- all the usual proofs he made of those he h tion, but he looks disinterested in the occurrences to know thoroughly, and found him for with which others are distracted, because the pose. In discourse with him one day greatest purpose of his life is to maintain an in-him an opportunity of saying how mu difference both to it and all its enjoyments. In a satisfy all his wishes. The prince im word, to be a fine gentleman is to be a generous revealed himself, doubled the sum, and and a brave man. What can make a man so him in this manner: "Sir, you have t much in constant good humor, and shine, as we you desired, by the favor of Pharamond call it, than to be supported by what can never to it, that you are satisfied with it, for fail him, and to believe that whatever happens to last you shall ever receive. I from thi him was the best thing that possibly could befall consider you as mine; and to make you him, or else he on whom it depends would not I give you my royal word you shall have permitted it to have befallen him at all!-R. greater or less than you are at present me not (concluded the prince, smiling), the fortune I have put you in, which is own condition: for you have hereaft to hope or to fear."

No. 76.] MONDAY, MAY 28, 1711. Ut tu fortunam, sic nos te, Celce, feremus. HOR., 1 Ep., viii, 17. As you your fortune bear, we will bear you.-CREECH. THERE is nothing so common as to find a man, whom in the general observation of his carriage you take to be of a uniform temper, subject to such unaccountable starts of humor and passion, that he is as much unlike himself, and differs as much from the man you at first thought him, as any two distinct persons can differ from each other. This proceeds from the want of forming some law of life to ourselves, or fixing some notion of things in general, which may affect us in such a manner as to create proper habits both in our minds and bodies. The negligence of this leaves us exposed not only to an unbecoming levity in our usual conversation, but also to the same instability in our friendships, interests, and alliances. A man who is but a mere spectator of what passes around him, and not engaged in commerces of any consideration, is but an ill judge of the secret motions of the heart of man, and by what degrees it is actuated to make such visible alterations in the same person: but, at the same time, when a man is no way concerned in the effect of such inconsistencies in the behavior of men of the world, the speculation

His majesty having thus well chosen a a friend and companion, he enjoyed alt the pleasures of an agreeable private great and powerful monarch. He ga with his companion, the name of the m for he punished his courtiers for their in folly, not by any act of public disfav humorously practicing upon their im If he observed a man untractable to h he would find an opportunity to take able notice of him, and render him ins He knew all his own looks, words, a had their interpretations; and his frien Eucrate (for so he was called), having without ambition, he could communi thoughts to him, and fear no artful us made of that freedom. It was no when they were in private, to reflec which had passed in public.

Pharamond would often, to satisfy of power in his country, talk to hir court, and with one whisper make him his old friends and acquaintance. H to that knowledge of men by long that he would profess altering the wh blood in some tempers, by thrice speak

Great wit to madness sure is near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide.*

My reader does, I hope, perceive, that I distinguish a man who is absent, because he thinks of something else, from one who is absent because he thinks of nothing at all. The latter is too innocent a creature to be taken notice of; but the distractions of the former may, I believe, be generally accounted for from one of these reasons:

As fortune was in his power, he gave himself con- I was the more confirmed in my design, when I stant entertainment in managing the mere follow-considered that they were very often blemishes in ers of it with the treatment they deserved. He the characters of men of excellent sense; and would by a skillful cast of his eye, and half a helped to keep up the reputation of that Latin smile, make two fellows who hated, embrace, and proverb, which Mr. Dryden has translated in the fall upon each other's necks, with as much eager- following lines:— ness as if they followed their real inclinations, and intended to stifle one another. When he was in high good humor, he would lay the scene with Eucrate, and on a public night exercise the passions of his whole court. He was pleased to see a haughty beauty watch the looks of a man she had long despised, from observation of his being taken notice of by Pharamond; and the lover conceive higher hopes than to follow the woman he was dying for the day before. In a court, where men speak affection in the strongest terms, and dislike in the faintest, it was a comical mixture of incidents to see disguises thrown aside in one case, and increased on the other, according as favor or disgrace attended the respective objects of men's approbation or disesteem. Pharamond, in his mirth upon the meanness of mankind, used to say, "As he could take away a man's five senses, he could give him a hundred. The man in disgrace shall immediately lose all his natural endowments, and he that finds favor have the attributes of an angel." He would carry it so far as to say, "It should not be only so in the opinion of the lower part of court, but the men themselves shall think thus meanly or greatly of themselves as they are out or in, the good graces of a court." A monarch who had wit and humor, like Pharamond, must have pleasures which no man else can ever have the opportunity of enjoying. He gave fortune to none but those whom he knew could receive it without transport. He made a noble and generous use of his observations, and did not regard his ministers as they were agreeable to himself, but as they were useful in his kingdom. By this means the king appeared in every officer of state; and no man had a participation of the power, who had not a similitude of the virtue of Pharamond.-R.

No. 77.] TUESDAY, MAY 29, 1711. Non convivere licet, nec urbe tota Quisquam est tam prope tam proculque nobis. MART., Epig. 1, 87. What correspondence can I hold with you, Who are so near, and yet so distant too? My friend Will Honeycomb is one of those sort of men who are very absent in conversation, and what the French call à reveur and à distrait. A little before our club-time last night, we were walking together in Somerset-gardens, where Will picked up a small pebble of so odd a make, that he said he would present it to a friend of his, an eminent virtuoso. After we had walked some time, I made a full stop with my face toward the west, which Will knowing to be my usual way of asking what's o'clock of an afternoon, immediately pulled out his watch, and told me we had seven minutes good. We took a turn or two more, when to my great surprise, I saw him squirt away his watch a considerable way into the Thames, and with great sedateness in his looks put up the pebble he had before found into his fob. As I have naturally an aversion to much speaking, and do not love to be the messenger of ill news, especially when it comes too late to be useful, I left him to be convinced of his mistake in due time, and continued my walk, reflecting on these little absences and distractions in mankind, and resolving to make them the subject of a future speculation.

Either their minds are wholly fixed on some particular science, which is often the case with mathematicians and other learned men; or are wholly taken up with some violent passion, such as anger, fear, or love, which ties the mind to some distant object; or lastly, these distractions proceed from a certain vivacity and fickleness in a man's temper, which, while it raises up infinite numbers of ideas in the mind, is continually pushing it on, without allowing it to rest on any particular image. Nothing therefore is more unnatural than the thoughts and conceptions of such a man, which are seldom occasioned either by the company he is in, or any of those objects which are placed before him. While you fancy he is admiring a beautiful woman, it is an even wager that he is solving a proposition in Euclid : and while you may imagine he is reading the Paris Gazette, it is far from being impossible that he is pulling down and rebuilding the front of his country house.

At the same time that I am endeavoring to expose this weakness in others, I shall readily confess that I once labored under the same infirmity myself. The method I took to conquer it was a firm resolution to learn something from whatever I was obliged to see or hear. There is a way of thinking, if a man can attain to it, by which he may strike somewhat out of anything. I can at present observe those starts of good sense and struggles of unimproved reason in the conversation of a clown, with as much satisfaction as the most shining periods of the most finished orator; and can make a shift to command my attention at a puppet-show or an opera, as well as at Hamlet or Othello. I always make one of the company I am in; for though I say little myself, my attention to others, and those nods of approbation which I never bestow unmerited, sufficiently show that I am among them. Whereas Will Honeycomb, though a fellow of good sense, is every day doing and saying a hundred things, which he afterward confesses, with a well-bred frankness, were somewhat mal-à-propos and undesigned.

I chanced the other day to get into a coffeehouse where Will was standing in the midst of several auditors, whom he had gathered round him, and was giving them an account of the person and character of Moll Hinton. My appearance before him just put him in mind of me, without making him reflect that I was actually present. So that keeping his eyes full upon me, to the great surprise of his audience, he broke off his first harangue, and proceeded thus:-"Why now there's my friend," mentioning me by name, "he is a fellow that thinks a great deal, but never opens his mouth; I warrant you he is now thrusting his short face into some coffee-house about 'Change. I was his bail in the time of the Popish

*Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementia-Seneca De Tranquil. Anim., cap. xv.

but it was made to appear, that the young lady was amorous, and had like to have run away with her father's coachman-so that it was supposed, that her pretense of falling in love with him, was only in order to be well married. It was pleasant to hear the several excuses which were made, insomuch that some made as much interest to be excused, as they would from serving sheriff; however, at last the society was formed, and proper officers were appointed; and the day was fixed for the entertainment, which was in venison season. A pleasant fellow of King's college (commonly called Crab, from his sour look, and the only man who did not pretend to get off) was nominated for chaplain; and nothing was wanting but some one to sit in the elbow chair by way of president, at the upper end of the table; and there the business stuck, for there was no contention for superiority there. This affair made so great a noise, that the King, who was then at Newmarket, heard of it, and was pleased merrily and graciously to say, "He could not be there himself, but he would send them a brace of bucks.'

"I would desire you, Sir, to set this affair in a true light, that posterity may not be misled in so important a point: for when the wise man who shall write your true history shall acquaint the world, that you had a diploma sent from the Ugly Club at Oxford, and that by virtue of it you were admitted into it, what a learned war will there be among future critics about the original of that club, which both universities will contend so warmly for? And perhaps some hardy Cantabrigian author may then boldly affirm, that the word Oxford was an interpolation of some Oxonian instead of Cidge. This affair will be best adjusted in your lifetime; but I hope your affection to your mother will not make you partial to your

aunt.

"To tell you, Sir, my own opinion: though I cannot find any ancient records of any acts of the society of the Ugly Faces, considered in a public capacity; yet, in a private one, they have certainly antiquity on their side. I am persuaded they will hardly give place to the Loungers, and the Loungers are of the same standing with the university itself.

"Though we well know, Sir, you want no motives to do justice, yet I am commissioned to tell you, that you are invited to be admitted ad eundem at Cambridge; and I believe I may venture safely to deliver this as the wish of our whole university."

TO MR. SPECTATOR.

"The humble petition of WHO and WHICH,

“SHOWETH,

and preferred THAT to us; and yet no decree was ever given against us. In the very acts of parlia ment, in which the utmost right should be done to everybody, word, and thing, we find ourselves often either not used, or used one instead of another. In the first and best prayer children are taught, they learn to misuse us: 'Our Father WHICH art in heaven,' should be, 'Our Father wнo art in heaven;' and even a Convocation, after long debates, refused to consent to an alteration of it. In our general Confession we say, '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, seem to be in a confederacy against us, and our enemies themselves must be our judges?

"The Spanish proverb says, Il sabio muda conscio, il necio no; i. e. A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will.' So that we think you, Sir, a very proper person to address to, since we know you to be capable of being convinced, and of changing your judgment. You are well able to settle this affair, and to you we submit our cause. We desire you to assign the butts and bounds of each of us; and that for the future we may both enjoy our own. We would desire to be heard by our counsel, but that we fear in their very pleadings they would betray our cause: beside, we have been oppressed so many years, that we can appear in no other way but in forma pauperis. All which considered, we hope you will be pleased to do that which to right and justice shall appertain. "And your petitioners," etc.

R.

No. 79.] THURSDAY, MAY 31, 1711.
Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore.

HOR. 1 Ep. xvi, 52.

The good, for virtue's sake, abhor to sin.-CREECH, I HAVE received very many letters of late from my female correspondents, most of whom are very angry with me for abridging their pleasures, and looking severely upon things in themselves indifferent. But I think they are extremely unjust to me in this imputation. All I contend for is that those excellencies which are to be regarded but in the second place should not precede more weighty considerations. The heart of man deceives him, in spite of the lectures of half a life spent in discourses on the subjection of passion; and I do not know why one may not think the heart of a woman as unfaithful to itself. If we grant an equality in the faculties of both sexes, the minds That your petitioners being in a forlorn and of women are less cultivated with precepts, and destitute condition, know not to whom we should consequently may, without disrespect to them, be apply ourselves for relief, because there is hardly accounted more liable to illusion, in cases wherein any man alive who hath not injured us. Nay, we natural inclination is out of the interests of virtue. speak it with sorrow, even you yourself, whom we I shall take up my present time in commenting should suspect of such a practice the last of all upon a billet or two which came from ladies, and mankind, can hardly acquit yourself of having from thence leave the reader to judge whether I given us some cause of complaint. We are deam in the right or not, in thinking it is possible scended of ancient families, and kept up our fine women may be mistaken. The following addignity and honor many years, till the jack-sprat dress seems to have no other design in it, but to THAT Supplanted us. How often have we found tell me the writer will do what she pleases, for all ourselves slighted by the clergy in their pulpits, me. and the lawyers at the bar! Nay, how often have we heard, in one of the most polite and august assemblies in the universe, to our great mortification, these words, That THAT that noble lord urged; which if one of us had justice done, would have sounded nobler thus, that WHICH that noble lord urged.' Senates themselves, the guardians of British liberty, have degraded us,

"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 pleasure of distinction, some little satisfaction in being admired in general, and much greater in being beloved by a gentleman,

D

Together lie her prayer-book and paint,

whom I design to make my husband. But I have | stantly before her a large looking-glass; an a mind to put off entering into matrimony till the table, according to a very witty author another winter is over my head, which (whatever, musty Sir, you may think of the matter) I design to pass away in hearing music, going to plays, visiting, and all other satisfactions which fortune and youth, protected by innocence and virtue, can procure for,

At once t' improve the sinner and the saint "It must be a good scene, if one could sent at it, to see this idol by turns lift up 1 to heaven and steal glances at her own de

"Sir, your most humble servant, M. T. son. It cannot but be a pleasing conflict 1 "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 else

better."

vanity and humiliation. When you are u above the world, and give a pleasing indi subject, choose books which elevate th to little things in it. For want of such tions I am apt to believe so many people in their heads to be sullen, cross, and angry pretense of being abstracted from the af this life, when at the same time they betr fondness for them by doing their duty as and pouting and reading good books for together. Much of this I take to proceed f indiscretion of the books themselves, who titles of weekly preparations, and such godliness, lead people of ordinary capacit great errors, and raise in them a mechar ligion, entirely distinct from morality. I lady so given up to this sort of devoti though she employs six or eight hours twenty-four at cards, she never misses one c hour of prayer, for which time another ho cards, to which she returns with no little a ness till two or three in the morning. A acts are but empty shows, and, as it were, ments made to virtue; the mind is all th untouched with any true pleasure in the How far removed from a woman of this light of it. From thence I presume it arises, imagination is Eudosia! Eudosia has all the arts many people call themselves virtuous, f of life and good-breeding with so much ease, that other pretense to it but an absence of it. the virtue of her conduct looks more like instinct is Dulciamara, the most insolent of all c than choice. It is as little difficult to her to think to her friends and domestics, upon no ot justly of persons and things, as it is to a woman tense in nature, but that (as her silly ph of different accomplishments to move ill or lookno one can say black is her eye.' She awkward. That which was, at first, the effect of secrets, forsooth, which should make her instruction, is grown into a habit; and it would speak her mind, and therefore she is be as hard for Eudosia to indulge a wrong sug-nently blunt to all her acquaintance, and gestion of thought, as it would be to Flavia, the fine dancer, to come into a room with an unbecoming air.

I have heard Will Honeycomb say, "A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript." I think this gentlewoman has sufficiently discovered hers in this. I will lay what wager she pleases against her present favorite, and can tell her, that she will like ten more before she 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 satisfy those eyes with seeing, as control any passion received by them only. It is from loving by sight, that coxcombs so frequently succeed with women, and very often a young lady is bestowed by her parents to a man who weds her as innocence itself, though she has, in her own heart, given her approbation of a different man in every assembly she 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 rest only in the forbearance of such as are reproachful.

But the misapprehensions people themselves have of their own state of mind, is laid down with much discerning in the following letter, which is but an extract of a kind epistle from my charming mistress Hecatissa, who is above the vanity of external beauty, and is the better judge of the perfections of the mind.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

sonably imperious to all her family. Dear pleased to put such books into our hands, make our virtue more inward, and convin of us, that, in a mind truly virtuous, the vice is always accompanied with the pit This and other things are impatiently e from you by our whole sex; among the res "Sir, your most humble serv

R.

"B. D.

No. 80.] FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 171
Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare cu
HOR. 1 Ep

Those that beyond sea go, will sadly find,
They change their climate only, not their mind

A

"I write this to acquaint you, that very many ladies, as well as myself, spend many hours more than we used at the glass, for want of the female library, of which you promised us a catalogue. I hope, Sir, in the choice of authors for us, you will have a particular regard to books of devotion. In the year 1688, and on the same day What they are, and how many, must be your chief year, were born in Cheapside, London, care; for upon the propriety of such writings de- males of exquisite feature and shape; the pends a great deal. I have known those among shall call Brunetta, the other Phillis. us, who think if they every morning and evening timacy between their parents made each spend an hour in their closet, and read over so the first acquaintance the other knew in th many prayers in six or seven books of devotion, They played, dressed babies, acted v all equally nonsensical, with a sort of warmth learned to dance and make courtesies, (that might as well be raised by a glass of wine, They were inseparable companions in all or a dram of citron), they may all the rest of their entertainments their tender years were time go on in whatever their particular passion of; which innocent happiness continued leads them to. The beauteous Philautia, who is beginning of their fifteenth year, when it (in your language) an idol, is one of these vota-ed that Phillis had a head-dress on, which ries; she has a very pretty-furnished closet, to which she retires at her appointed hours. This is her dressing-room, as well as chapel; she has con

her so very well, that instead of being bel more with pleasure for their amity to eac the eyes of the neighborhood were turne