roses and rainbows, and several other ingenious conceits, which I may possibly reserve for another opportunity. There is a third consideration which I would likewise recommend to a demurrer-and that is, the great danger of her falling in love when she is about threescore, if she cannot satisfy her doubts and scruples before that time. There is a kind of latter spring, that sometimes gets into the blood of an old woman, and turns her into a very odd sort of an animal. I would therefore have the demurrer consider what a strange figure she will make, if she chances to get over all difficulties, and comes to a final resolution, in that unseasonable part of her life. I would not however be understood, by anything I have here said, to discourage that natural modesty in the sex, which renders a retreat from the first approaches of a lover both fashionable and graceful. All that I intend is, to advise them, when they are prompted by reason and inclination, to demur only out of form, and so far as decency requires. A virtuous woman should reject the first offer of marriage, as a good man does that of a bishoprie; but I would advise neither the one nor the other to persist in refusing what they secretly approve. I would in this particular propose the example of Eve to all her daughters, as Milton has represented her in the following passage, which I cannot forbear transcribing entire, though only the twelve last lines are to my purpose. The rib he form'd and fashion'd with his hands: She disappear'd, and left me dark; I wak'd I, overjoyed, could not forbear aloud: This turn hath made amends: thou has fulfill'd Of all thy gifts, nor enviest. I now see Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth, that every passion which has been contracted by the soul during her residence in the body remains with her in a separate state; and that the soul in the body, or out of the body, differs no more than the man docs from himself when he is in his house, or in open air. When therefore the obscene passions in particular have once taken root, and spread themselves in the soul, they cleave to her inseparably, and remain in her forever, after the body is cast off and thrown aside. As an argument to confirm this their doctrine, they observe, that a lewd youth who goes on in a continued course of voluptuousness, advances by degrees into a libidinous old man ; and that the passion survives in the mind when it is altogether dead in the body; nay, that the desire grows more violent, and (like all other habits) gathers strength by age, at the same time that it has no power of executing its own purposes. If, say they, the soul is the most subject to these passions at a time when it has the least instigations from the body, we may well suppose she will still retain them when she is entirely divested of it. The very substance of the soul is festered with them, the gangrene is gone too far to be ever cured; the inflammation will rage to all eternity. In this therefore (say the Platonists) consists the punishment of a voluptuous man after death. He is tormented with desires which it is impossible for him to gratify; solicited by a passion that has neither objects nor organs adapted to it. He lives in a state of invincible desire and impotence, and always burns in the pursuit of what he always despairs to possess. It is for this reason (says Plato) that the souls of the dead appear frequently in cemeteries, and hover about the places where their bodies are buried, still hankering after their old brutal pleasures, and desiring again to enter the body that gave them an opportunity of fulfilling them. Some of our most eminent divines have made use of this Platonic notion, so far as it regards the subsistence of our passions after death, with great beauty and strength of reason. Plato indeed carries the thought very far when he grafts upon it his opinion of ghosts appearing in places of burial. Though, I must confess, if one did I believe that the departed souls of men and women wandered up and down these lower regions, and entertained themselves with the sight of their species, one could not devise a more proper hell for an impure spirit than that which Plato has touched upon. The ancients seem to have drawn such a state of torments in the description of Tantalus, who was punished with the rage of an eternal thirst, and set up to the chin in water that fled from his lips whenever he attempted to drink it. Virgil, who has cast the whole system of Platonic philosophy, so far as it relates to the soul of man, into beautiful allegories, in the sixth book of his Æneid gives us the punishment of a voluptuary after death, not unlike that which we are here speaking of: several of my polite readers), I shall translate a and endearments which they bestowed u story that has been quoted upon another occasion. As much devoted as I am to womankind, by one of the most learned men of the present age, as I find it in the original. The reader will see it is not foreign to my present subject, and I dare say will think it a lively representation of a person lying under the torments of such a kind of tantalism, or Platonic hell, as that which we have now under consideration. Monsieur Pontignan, speaking of a love-adventure that happened to him in the country, gives the following account of it.* "When I was in the country last summer, I was often in company with a couple of charming women, who had all the wit and beauty one could desire in female companions, with a dash of coquetry, that from time to time gave me a great many agreeable torments. I was, after my way, in love with both of them, and had such frequent opportunities of pleading my passion to them when they were asunder, that I had reason to hope for particular favors from each of them. As I was walking one evening in my chamber with nothing about me but my night-gown, they both came into my room, and told me they had a very pleasant trick to put upon a gentleman that was in the same house, provided I would bear a part in it. Upon this they told me such a plausible story, that I laughed at their contrivance, and agreed to do whatever they should require of me. They immediately began to swaddle me up in my night-gown, with long pieces of linen, which they folded about me till they had wrapped me in above a hundred yards of swath. My arms were pressed to my sides, and my legs closed together by so many wrappers one over another, that I looked like an Egyptian mummy. As I stood bolt-upright upon one end in this antique figure, one of the ladies burst out a-laughing. "And now, Pontignan," says she, "we intend to perform the promise that we find you have extorted from each of us. You have often asked the favor of us, and I dare say you are a better-bred cavalier than to refuse to go to bed to two ladies that desire it of you." After having stood a fit of laughter, I begged them to uncase me, and do with me what they pleased. "No, no," said they, "we like you very well as you are;" and upon that ordered me to be carried to one of their houses, and put to bed in all my swaddles. The room was lighted up on all sides: and I was laid very decently between a pair of sheets, with my head (which was indeed the only part I could move) upon a very high pillow: this was no sooner done, but my two female friends came into bed to me in their finest night-clothes. You may easily guess at the condition of a man that saw a couple of the most beautiful women in the world undressed and a-bed with him, without being able to stir haud or foot. I begged them to release me, and struggled all I could to get loose, which I did with so much violence, that about midnight they both leaped out of the bed, crying out they were undone. But seeing me safe, they took their posts again, and renewed their raillery. Finding all my prayers and endeavors were lost, I composed myself as well as I could, and told them that if they would not unbind me, I would fall asleep between them, and by that means disgrace them forever. But, alas! this was impossible; could I have been disposed to it, they would have prevented me by several little ill-natured caresses *The substance of the story here paraphrased is taken from a little book entitled Academie Galante, printed at Paris and in Holland in 1682, and afterward at Amst., in 1708. See that edit., p. 120; and first Dutch edit., p. 160. not pass such another night to be maste whole sex. My reader will doubtless be to know what became of me the next n Why truly my bed-fellows left me about before day, and told me, if I would be g lie still, they would send somebody to tak as soon as it was time for me to rise. Acc about nine o'clock in the morning an old came to unswathe me. I bore all t patiently, being resolved to take my rev iny tormentors, and to keep no measu: them as soon as I was at liberty; but upo: my old woman what was become of the tw she told me she believed they were by t within sight of Paris, for that they went a coach and six before five o'clock in th ing."-L. No. 91.] THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1 In furias ignemque ruunt; amor omnibus ide VIRG., Georg -They rush into the flame; For love is lord of all, and is in all the same.THOUGH the subject I am now goi would be much more properly the founda comedy, I cannot forbear inserting the stances which pleased me in the account lady gave me of the loves of a family which shall be nameless; or rather, for t sound and elevation of the history, instea and Mrs. Such-a-one, I shall call them by names. Without farther preface you are that within the liberties of the city of Wes lives the lady Honoria, a widow about th forty, of a healthy constitution, gay ten elegant person. She dresses a little t like a girl, affects a childish fondness in of her voice, sometimes a pretty sullenn leaning of her head, and now and then a of her eyes on her fan. Neither her im nor her health would ever give her to k she is turned of twenty; but that in the these pretty softnesses and airs of deli attraction, she has a tall daughter with night of fifteen, who impertinently come room, and towers so much toward wor her mother is always checked by her and every charm of Honoria droops at the of Flavia. The agreeable Flavia would she is not, as well as her mother Honoria their beholders are more partial to an a of what a person is growing up to, than has been already enjoyed, and is gone fo is therefore allowed to Flavia to look for not to Honoria to look back. Flavia dependent on her mother with relation to tune, for which reason they live almost equality in conversation; and as Ho given Flavia to understand that it is illalways calling mother, Flavia is as wel never to be called child. It happens means, that these ladies are generally riv places where they appear; and the word and daughter never pass between them spite. Flavia one night at a play observi ria draw the eyes of several in the pit, c lady who sat by her, and bid her ask he to lend her her snuff-box for one moment. time, when a lover of Honoria was on beseeching the favor to kiss her hand rushing into the room, kneeled down by asked her blessing. Several of these tory acts of duty have raised between t a coldness, that they generally converse are in mixed company, by way of talking at one another, and not to one another. Honoria is ever complaining of a certain sufficiency in the young wonien of this age, who assume to themselves an authority of carrying all things before them, as if they were possessors of the esteem of mankind, and all who were but a year before them in the world were neglected or deceased. Flavia, upon such a provocation, is sure to observe, that there are people who can resign nothing, and know not how to give up what they know they cannot hold: that there are those who will not allow youth their follies, not because they are themselves past them, but because they love to continue in them. These beauties rival each other on all occasions, not that they have always had the same lovers, but each has kept up a vanity to show the other the charms of her lover. Dick Crastin and Tom Tulip, among many others, have of late been pretenders in this family-Dick to Honoria, Tom to Flavia. Dick is the only surviving beau of the last age, and Tom almost the only one that keeps up that order of men in this. I wish I could repeat the little circumstances of a conversation of the four lovers with the spirit in which the young lady I had my account from represented it at a visit where I had the honor to be present; but it seems Dick Crastin, the admirer of Honoria, and Tom Tulip, the pretender to Flavia, were purposely admitted together by the ladies, that each might show the other that her lover had the superiority in the accomplishments of that sort of creature whom the sillier part of women call a fine gentleman. As this age has a much more gross taste in courtship, as well as in everything else, than the last had, these gentlemen are instances of it in their different manner of application. Tulip is ever making allusions to the vigor of his person, the sinewy force of his make; while Crastin professes a wary observation of the turns of his mistress's mind. Tulip gives himself the airs of a resistless ravisher, Crastin practices those of a skillful lover. Poetry is the inseparable property of every man in love; and as men of wit write verses on those occasions, the rest of the world repeat the verses of others. These servants of the ladies were used to imitate their manner of conversation, and allude to one another, rather than interchange discourse in what they said when they met. Tulip the other day seized his mistress's hand, and repeated out of Ovid's Art of Love, Tis I can in soft battles pass the night, felle has that prevailing gentle art, When Crastin had uttered these verses with a tenderness which at once spoke passion and respect, Honoria cast a triumphant glance at Flavia, as exulting in the elegance of Crastin's courtship, and upbraiding her with the homeliness of Tulip's. Tulip understood the reproach, and in return began to applaud the wisdom of old amor-! ons gentlemen, who turned their mistress's imagination as far as possible from what they had Long themselves forgot, and ended his discourse *These verses on Sir Charles Sedley, are from Lord Rochester's imitation of Horace, 1 Sat. x. with a sly commendation of the doctrine of Pla tonic love; at the same time he ran over, with a laughing eye, Crastin's thin legs, meager looks, and spare body. The old gentleman immediately left the room with some disorder, and the conversation fell upon untimely passion, after-love, and unseasonable youth. Tulip sang, danced, moved before the glass, led his mistress half a minuet, hummed Celia, the fair, in the bloom of fifteen! when there came a servant with a letter to him, which was as follows: Tulip's color changed at the reading of this epistle; for which reason his mistress snatched it to read the contents. While she was doing so, Tulip went away; and the ladies now agreeing in a common calamity, bewailed together the danger of their lovers. They immediately undressed to go out, and took hackneys to prevent mischief; but after alarming all parts of the town, Crastin was found by his widow in his pumps at Hydepark, which appointment Tulip never kept, but made his escape into the country. Flavia tears her hair for his inglorious safety, curses and despises her charmer, and is fallen in love with Crastin; which is the first part of the history of the rival mother. No. 92.] FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1711. -Convivæ prope dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum diversa palato; Quid dem? Quid non dem?--HOR., 2 Ep., ii, 61. IMITATED. -What would you have me do, R. When out of twenty I can please not two?One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg; The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg; Hard task, to hit the palate of such guests.-POPE. LOOKING Over the late packets of letters which have been sent to me, I found the following one: MR. SPECTATOR, "Your paper is a part of my tea equipage; and my servant knows my humor so well, that calling for my breakfast this morning (it being my usual hour), she answered, the Spectator was not yet come in; but that the tea-kettle boiled, and she expected it every moment. Having thus in part signified to you the esteem and veneration which catalogue of books which you have promised to I have for you, I must put you in mind of the recommend to our sex; for I have deferred furnishing my closet with authors, till I receive your advice in this particular, being your daily disciple and humble servant, "LEONORA." In answer to my fair disciple, whom I am very proud of, I must acquaint her and the rest of my readers, that since I have called out for help in my catalogue of a lady's library, I have received many letters upon that head, some of which I shall give an account of. cious cotemporaries, and have time to exa several books they offer to me: being res an affair of this moment, to proceed greatest caution. In the first class I shall take notice of those which come to me from eminent booksellers, who every one of them mention with respect the authors they have printed, and consequently have an eye to their own advantage more than to that of the In the meanwhile, as I have taken t ladies. One tells me, that he thinks it absolutely under my particular care, I shall make it necessary for women to have true notions of rightness to find out in the best authors, anc and equity, and that therefore they cannot peruse a better book than Dalton's Country Justice. Another thinks they cannot be without The Complete Jockey. A third, observing the curiosity and desire of prying into secrets, which he tells me is natural to the fair sex, is of opinion this female inclination, if well directed, might turn very much to their advantage, and therefore recommends to me Mr. Mede upon the Revelations. A fourth lays it down as an unquestioned truth, that a lady cannot be thoroughly accomplished who has not read The Secret Treaties and Negotiations of Marshal d'Estrades. Mr. Jacob Tonson, junior, is of opinion, that Bayle's Dictionary might be of very great use to the ladies, in order to make them general scholars. Another, whose name I have forgotten, thinks it highly proper that every woman with child should read Mr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism; as another is very importunate with me to recommend to all my female readers The Finishing Stroke; being a Vindication of the Patriarchal Scheme, etc. In the second class I shall mention books which are recommended by husbands, if I may believe the writers of them. Whether or no they are real husbands, or personated ones, I cannot tell; but the books they recommend are as follow:-A Paraphrase on the History of Susannah. Rules to keep Lent. The Christian's Overthrow prevented. A Dissuasive from the Playhouse. The Virtues of Camphire, with directions to make Camphire Tea. The Pleasure of a Country Life. The Government of the Tongue. A letter dated Cheapside, desires me that I would advise all young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's Arithmetic, and concludes with a Postscript, that he hopes I will not forget The Countess of Kent's Receipts. may reckon the ladies themselves as a third class among these my correspondents, and privycounselors. In a letter from one of them, I am advised to place Pharamond* at the head of my catalogue, and if I think proper, to give the second place to Cassandra.+ Coquetilla begs me not to think of nailing women upon their knees with manuals of devotion, nor of scorching their faces with books of housewifery. Florella desires to know if there are any books written against prudes, and entreats me, if there are, to give them a place in my library. Plays of all sorts have their several advocates: All for Love is mentioned in above fifteen letters; Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow in a dozen: The Innocent Adultery is likewise highly approved; Mithridates, King of Pontus, has many friends; Alexander the Great and Aurengzebe have the same number of voices; but Theodosius, or the Force of Love, carries it from all the rest. I should, in the last place, mention such books as have been proposed by men of learning, and those who appear competent judges of this matter, and must here take occasion to thank A. B., whoever it is that conceals himself under these two letters, for his advice upon this subject. But as I find the work I have undertaken to be very difficult, I shall defer the executing of it till I am farther acquainted with the thoughts of my judi *†Two colebrated French romances, written by M. La Calpronede. modern, such passages as may be for t and endeavor to accommodate them as can to their taste; not questioning but t ble part of the sex will easily pardon me time to time I laugh at those little van follies which appear in the behavior of them, and which are more proper for ridi a serious censure. Most books being c for male readers, and generally written eye to men of learning, makes a work of ture the more necessary; beside, I am encouraged, because I flatter myself th the sex daily improving by these my spec My fair readers are already deeper scho the beaux. I could name some of them much better than several gentlemen tha figure at Will's and as I frequently recei from the fine ladies and pretty fellows, but observe that the former are superi other, not only in the sense but in the This cannot but have a good effect upon t world, and keep them from being cha those empty coxcombs that have hitherto mired among the women, though laughed the men. I am credibly informed that Tom Tatt for an impertinent fellow, that Will Trip to be smoked, and that Frank Smoothl is within a month of a coxcomb, in cas fit to continue this paper. For my par my business in some measure to detect would lead astray weak minds by their tenses to wit and judgment, humor and I shall not fail to lend the best light I a the fair sex for the continuation of these coveries.-L. No. 33.] SATURDAY, JUNE 16, Spem longam reseces: dum loquimur, fugeri Thy lengthen'd hopes with prudence bound The envious moments wing their flight, Nor trust to-morrow's doubtful light.-FRA WE all of us complain of the shortnes saith Seneca, and yet have much mor know what to do with. Our lives, say spent either in doing nothing at all, of nothing to the purpose, or in doing no we ought to do. We are always compla days are few, and acting as though there no end of them. That noble philosoph scribed our inconsistency with ourselv particular, by all those various turns sion and thought which are peculi writings. I often consider mankind as wholly ir with itself in a point that bears some the former. Though we seem grieved at ness of life in general, we are wishing riod of it an end. The minor longs to then to be a man of business, then to m estate, then to arrive at honors, then Thus, although the whole life is allowe one to be short, the several divisions of long and tedious. We are lengthening in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is composed. The usurer would be very well satisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and next quarterday. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad in most parts of our lives that it ran much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, nay we wish away whole years; and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it. vice, the argument redoubles upon us for putting in practice this method of passing away our time. When a man has but a little stock to improve, and has opportunities of turning it all to good account, what shall we think of him if he suffers nineteen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the twentieth to his ruin or disadvantage? But because the mind cannot be always in its fervors, nor strained up to a pitch of virtue, it is necessary to find out proper employments for it in its relaxations. The next method therefore that I would propose to fill up our time, should be useful and innocent diversions. I must confess I think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether conversant in such diversions as are merely innocent, and have nothing else to recommend them but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to say for itself I shall not determine; but I think it is wonderful to see very If we divide the life of most men into twenty persons of the best sense passing away a dozen parts, we shall find, that at least nineteen of them hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither cards, with no other conversation but what is filled with pleasure nor business. I do not, how-made up of a few game phrases, and no other ever, include in this calculation the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do an unacceptable piece of service to these persons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I shali propose to them are as follow: ideas but those of black or red spots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this species complaining that life is short? The stage might be made a perpetual source of the most noble and useful entertainments, were it under proper regulations. But the mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the conversation of a well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and finds employments for most of the vacant hours of life. The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation of the word. The particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues, may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequently opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the cha- Next to such an intimacy with a particular perracter of a deserving man; of softening the envi- son, one would endeavor after a more general conous, quieting the angry, and rectifying the preju-versation with such as are able to entertain and diced; which are all of them employments suited to a reasonable nature, and bring great satisfaction to the person who can busy himself in them with discretion. There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for those retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and destitute of company and conversation; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The man who lives under an habitual sense of the divine presence keeps up a perpetual cheerfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the satisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him; it is impossible for him to be alone. His thoughts and passions are the most busied at such hours when those of other men are the most inactive. He no sooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, swells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that presence which everywhere surrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its sorrows, its apprehensions, to the great supporter of its existence. I have here only considered the necessity of a man's being virtuous, that he may have something to do; but if we consider farther, that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it la-ts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its color from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in improve those with whom they converse, which are qualifications that seldom go asunder. There are many other useful employments of life, which one would endeavor to multiply, that one might on all occasions have recourse to something, rather than suffer the mind to lie idle, or run adrift with any passion that chances to rise in it. A man that has a taste of music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relish of those arts. The florist, the planter, the gardener, the husbandman, when they are only as accomplishments to the man of fortune, are great reliefs to a country life, and many ways useful to those who are possessed of them. But of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors. But this I shall only touch upon, because it in some measure interferes with the third method, which I shall propose in another paper, for the employment of our dead inactive hours, and which I shall only mention in general to be the pursuit of knowledge.-L. |