• domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what is become of her now? She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous. She glorified herself and lived deliciously, and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow.' But her hour is come, she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in everlasting oblivion. But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands; but the everlasting hills, the mountains and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax before the sun, and their place is nowhere found.' Here stood the Alps, the load of the earth that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved as a tender cloud into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds; there was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia; and yonder, toward the north, stood the Riphæan hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are vanished, dropt away as the snow upon their heads. Great and marvelous are thy works, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints! hallelujah.'"* T. places which they who live before us do now in- No. 147.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1711. venustate.-TULL The divine Socrates is here represented in a figare worthy his great wisdom and philosophy, worthy the greatest mere man that ever breathed. But the modern discourse is written upon a subject no less than the dissolution of nature itself. O how glorious is the old age of that great man, who has spent his time in such contemplations as has made this being, what only it should be, an education for heaven! He has, according to the lights of reason and revelation which seemed to him clearest, traced the steps of Omnipotence. He has, with a celestial ambition, as far as it is consistent with humility and devotion, examined the ways of Providence from the creation to the dissolution of the visible world. How pleasing must have been the speculation, to observe Nature and Providence move together, the physical and moral world march the same pace: to observe paradise and eternal spring the seat of innocence, troubled Seasons and angry skies the portion of wickedness and vice! When this admirable author has reviewed all that is past, or is to come, which relates to the habitable world, and run through the whole fate of it, how could a guardian angel, that had attended it through all its courses or changes, speak more emphatically at the end of his charge, than does our author when he makes, as it were, a funeral oration over this globe, looking to the point where it once stood? I "Let us only, if you please, to take leave of this subject, reflect upon this occasion on the vanity and transient glory of this habitable world. How, by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labors of men are reduced to nothing. All that we admired and adored before, as great and magnificent, is obliterated or van ished; and another form and face of things, plain, simple, and everywhere the same, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? show me where they stood, read the inscription, tell me * Burnet's Theory of the Earth, 1684, fol., book III, chap. the victor's name. What remains, what impres- 12, p. 110. 111. sions, what difference, or distinction, do you see + Or Garlick-hithe. The rector of this parish at that time in this mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, whose excellent manner of performing the service was long was Mr. Philip Stubbs, afterward archdeacon of St. Albans, the great city, the empress of the world, whose, remembered by the parishioners. Good delivery is a graceful management of the voice, countenance, and gesture. "MR. SPECTATOR, THE well reading of the Common-prayer is of so great importance, and so much neglected, that I take the liberty to offer to your consideration some particulars on that subject. And what more worthy your observation than this? A thing so public, and of so high consequence. It is indeed wonderful, that the frequent exercise of it should not make the performers of that duty more expert in it. This inability, as I conceive, proceeds from the little care that is taken of their reading while boys, and at school, where, when they have got into Latin, they are looked upon as above English, the reading of which is wholly neglected, or at least read to very little purpose, without any due observations made to them of the proper accent and manner of reading; by this means they have acquired such ill habits as will not easily be removed. The only way that I know of to remedy this, is to propose some person of great ability that way as a pattern for them; example being more effectual to convince the learned, as well as instruct the ignorant. "" You must know, Sir, I have been a constant frequenter of the service of the Church of England for above these four years last past, and until Sunday was sevennight never discovered, to so great a degree, the excellency of the CommonPrayer. When, being at St. James' Garlick Hillt church, I heard the service read so distinctly, so emphatically, and so fervently, that it was next to an impossibility to be inattentive. My eyes and my thoughts could not wander as usual, but were confined to my prayers. I then considered I addressed myself to the Almighty, and not to a beautiful face. And when I reflected on my former performances of that duty, I found I had run it over as a matter of form, in comparison to the manner in which I then discharged it. My mind was really affected, and fervent wishes accompanied my words. The Confession was read with such resigned humility, the Absolution with such a comfortable authority, the Thanksgivings with such a religious joy, as made me feel those affections of the mind in a manner I never did before. To remedy therefore the grievance above complained of, I humbly propose, that this excellent reader, upon the next and every annual assembly of the clergy of Sion-college, and all other conventions, should read prayers before them. For then those that are afraid of stretching their mouths, and spoiling their soft voices, will learn to read with clearness, loudness and strength. Others that affect a rakish, negligent air, by fold-preciated, by a dispassionate indolence. I ren ing their arms, and lolling on their books, will be ber to have heard Dr. S- -e say in his pulpi taught a decent behavior, and comely erection of the Common-Prayer, that, at least, it was as body. Those that read so fast as if impatient of fect as anything of human institution. I their work, may learn to speak deliberately, gentlemen who err in this kind would pleas There is another sort of persons, whom I call recollect the many pleasantries they have Pindaric readers, at being confined to no set mea- upon those who recite good things with a sure these pronounce five or six words with great grace, they would go on to think, that wh deliberation, and the five or six subsequent ones that case is only ridiculous, in themselves is with as great celerity; the first part of a sentence pious. But leaving this to their own reflectic with a very exalted voice, and the latter part with shall conclude this trouble with what Cæsar a submissive one: sometimes again, with one sort upon the irregularity of tone in one who read of a tone, and immediately after with a very dif- fore him, 'Do you read or sing? If you ferent one. These gentlemen will learn of my you sing very ill.'† admired reader an evenness of voice and delivery; and all who are innocent of these affectations, but read with such an indifferency as if they did not understand the language, may then be informed of the art of reading movingly and fervently, how to place the emphasis and give the proper accent to each word, and how to vary the voice according to the nature of the sentence. There is certainly a very great difference between the reading a prayer and a gazette, which I beg of you to inform a set of readers, who affect, forsooth, a certain gentleman-like familiarity of tone, and mend the language as they go on, crying, instead of 'pardoneth and absolveth,' pardons and absolves. These are often pretty classical scholars, and would think it an unpardonable sin to read Virgil or Martial with so little taste as they do di T. "Your most humble servant.' vine service. "This indifference seems to me to arise from the endeavor of avoiding the imputation of cant, and the false notion of it. It will be proper, therefore, to trace the origin and signification of this word. Cant' is by some people, derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect, that it is said he was understood by none but his own congregation, and not by all of them. Since Master Cant's time, it has been understood in a larger sense, and signifies all sudden exclamations, whinings, unusual tones, and in fine all praying and preaching, like the unlearned of the Presbyterians. But I hope a proper elevation of voice, a due emphasis and accent, are not to come within this description. So that our readers may still be as unlike the Presbyterians as they please. The dissenters (I mean such as I have heard) do indeed elevate their voices, but it is with sudden jumps from the lower to the higher part of them; and that with so little sense or skill, that their elevation and cadence is bawling and muttering. They make use of an emphasis, but so improperly, that it is often placed on some very insignificant particle, as upon if' or 'and.' Now if these improprieties have so great an effect on the people as we see they have, how great an • influence would the service of our church, taining the best prayers that ever were compo and that in terms most affecting, most hum and most expressive of our wants, and dep ence on the object of our worship, disposed most proper order, and void of all confusi what influence, I say, would these prayers h were they delivered with a due emphasis and posite rising and variation of voice, the sent concluded with a gentle cadence, and, in a w with such an accent and turn of speech as is culiar to prayer? "As the matter of worship is now managed dissenting congregations, you find insignifi words and phrases raised by a lively veheme in our own churches, the most exalted sense No. 148.] MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 171 -Exempta juvat spinis e pluribus una. HOR. 2 Ep. ii, Better one thorn pluck'd out, than all remain. My correspondents assure me, that the en ties which they lately complained of, and I lished an account of, are so far from being an ed, that new evils arise every day to inte their conversation, in contempt of my rep My friend who writes from the coffee-house the Temple, informs me that the gentleman constantly sings a voluntary in spite of the v company, was more musical than ordinary reading my paper; and has not been cont with that, but has danced up to the glass i middle of the room, and practiced minuet st his own humming. The incorrigible creatur gone still farther, and in the open coffee-h with one hand extended as leading a lady he has danced both French and country-da and admonished his supposed partner by and nods to hold up her head and fall bac cording to the respective facings and evolu of the dance. Before this gentleman began his exercise, he was pleased to clear his thre coughing and spitting a full half hour; a soon as he struck up, he appealed to an attor clerk in the room, whether he hit as he o "Since you from death have saved me?" and asked the young fellow (pointing to a cha bill under his arm), whether that was an score he carried or not?-without staying f answer, he fell into the exercise above-menti and practiced his airs to the full house who turned upon him, without the least shame pentance for his former transgressions. I am to the last degree at a loss what to do this young fellow, except I declare him an law, and pronounce it penal for any one to *Probably Dr. Smalridge. +Si legis, cantas: si cantas, male cantas, direct that he be obliged to drink his tea and coffee without sugar, and not receive from any person whatsoever anything above mere necessa ries. to him in the said house which he frequents, and | But I must not omit the dearer part of mankind, I mean the ladies, to take up a whole paper upon grievances which concern the men only; but shall humbly propose, that we change fools for an experiment only. A certain set of ladies complain they are frequently perplexed with a visitant, who affects to be wiser than they are; which character he hopes to preserve by an obstinate gravity, and great guard against discovering his opinion upon any occasion whatsoever. painful silence has hitherto gained him no farther advantage, than that as he might, if he had behaved himself with freedom, been excepted against but as to this and that particular, he now offends As we in England are a sober people, and generally inclined rather to a certain bashfulness of behavior in public, it is amazing whence some fellows come whom one meets with in this town; they do not at all seem to be the growth of our island; the pert, the talkative, all such as have no sense of the observation of others, are certainly of foreign extraction. As for my own part, I am as much surprised when I see a talkative Englishman, as I should be to see the Indian pine grow-in the whole. To relieve these ladies, my good friends and correspondents, I shall exchange my dancing outlaw for their dumb visitant, and assign the silent gentleman all the haunts of the dancer; in order to which, I have sent them by the pennypost the following letters for their conduct in their new conversations : A ing on one of our quickset hedges. Where these creatures get sun enough, to make them such lively animals and dull men, is above my philosophy. There are another kind of impertinents which a man is perplexed with in mixed company, and those are your loud speakers. These treat mankind as if they were all deaf; they do not express but declare themselves. Many of these are guilty of this outrage out of vanity, because they think "SIR, "I have, you may be sure, heard of your irregularities without regard to my observations upon all they say is well; or they have their own per-you; but shall not treat you with so much rigor as you deserve. If you will give yourself the trouble to repair to the place mentioned in the postscript to this letter at seven this evening, you will be conducted into a spacious room, welllighted, where there are ladies and music. You will see a young lady laughing next the window to the street; you may take her out, for she loves you as well as she does any man, though she never saw you before. She never thought in her life, any more than yourself. She will not be surprised when you accost her, nor concerned when you leave her. Hasten from a place where you are laughed at, to one where you will be admired. You are of no consequence, therefore go where you will be welcome for being so. Your humble servant." sons in such veneration, that they believe nothing which concerns them can be insígnificant to any body else. For these people's sake, I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes. It is very uneasy that we must necessarily be under persecution. Next to these bawlers, is a troublesome creature who comes with the air of your friend and your intimate, and that is your whisperer. There is one of them at a coffee-house which I myself frequent, who observing me to be a man pretty well made for secrets, gets by me, and with a whisper tells me things which all the town knows. It is no very hard matter to guess at the source of this impertinence, which is nothing else but a method or mechanic art of being wise. You never see any frequent in it, whom you can suppose to have anything in the world to do. These persons are worse than bawlers, as much as a secret enemy is more dangerous than a declared one. I wish that my coffee-house friend would take this for an intimation, that I have not heard a word he has told me for these several years; whereas he now thinks me the most trusty repository of his secrets. The whisperers have a pleasant way of ending the close conversation with saying aloud, "Do not you think so?" Then whisper again, and then aloud, "But you know that person:" then whisper again. The thing would be well enough, if they whispered to keep the folly of what they say among friends; but, alas, they do it to preserve the importance of their thoughts. I am sure I could name you more than one person whom no man living ever heard talk upon any subject in nature, or ever saw in his whole life with a book in his hand, that, I know not how, can whisper something like knowledge of what has and does pass in the world; which you would think he learned from some familiar spirit that did not think him worthy to receive the whole story. But in truth whisperers deal only in half accounts of what they entertain you with. A great help to their discourse is, "That the town says, and people begin to talk very freely, and they had it from persons too considerable to be named, what they will tell you when things are riper." My friend has winked upon me any day since I came to town last, and has communicated to me as a secret, that he designed in a very short time to tell me a secret; but I shall know what he means, he now assures me, in less than a fortnight's time. "SIR, "The ladies whom you visit, think a wise man the most impertinent creature living, therefore you cannot be offended that they are displeased with you. Why will you take pains to appear wise, where you would not be the more esteemed for being really so? Come to us; forget the gigglers; let your inclination go along with you whether you speak or are silent; and let all such women as are in a clan or sisterhood, go their own way; there is no room for you in that company who are of the common taste of the sex. "For women born to be controll'd No. 149.] TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1711. CECIL apud TULL Who has it in her power to make men mad, THE following letter, and my answer, shall take up the present speculation : "MR. SPECTATOR, man, who has left me entire mistress of a large "I am the young widow of a country gentle *No postscript in the Spect., in f. fortune, which he agreed to as an equivalent for provements in purchase of an estate; but "Your most obedient servant, "The vexatious life arises from a conjunc of two people of quick taste and resentment, together for reasons well known to their frie in which especial care is taken to avoid (5) they think the chief of evils) poverty, and in to them riches, with every evil beside. T good people live in a constant constraint be company, and too great familiarity alone. W they are within observation, they fret at other's carriage and behavior; when alone, revile each other's person and conduct. In pany they are in a purgatory, when only toge in a hell. "MADAM, "The happy marriage is, when two per meet and voluntarily make choice of each without principally regarding or neglecting circumstances of fortune or beauty. These still love in spite of adversity or sickness former we may in some measure defend ourse from, the other is the portion of our very n "You do me great honor in your application When you have a true notion of this sort of to me on this important occasion; I shall there- sion, your humor of living great will vanish fore talk to you with the tenderness of a father, of your imagination, and you will find love in gratitude for your giving me the authority of nothing to do with state. Solitude, with the one. You do not seem to make any great distinc- son beloved, has a pleasure, even in a won tion between these gentlemen as to their persons; mind, beyond show or pomp. You are ther the whole question lies upon their circumstances to consider which of your lovers will like and behavior. If the one is less respectful because best undressed; which will bear with you he is rich, and the other more obsequious because when out of humor; and your way to this he is not so, they are in that point moved by the ask of yourself, which of them you value same principle, the consideration of fortune, and for his own sake? and by that judge which you must place them in each other's circumstances the greatest instances of his valuing you for before you can judge of their inclination. To self only. avoid confusion in discussing this point, I will call the richer man Strephon, and the other Florio. If you believe Florio with Strephon's estate would behave himself as he does now, Florio is certainly your man; but if you think Strephon, were he in Florio's condition, would be as obsequious as Florio is now, you ought for your own sake to choose Strephon; for where the men are equal, there is no doubt riches ought to be a reason for preference. After this manner, my dear child, I would have you abstract them from their circumstances; for you are to take it for granted, that he who is very humble only because he is poor, is the very same man in nature, with him who is haughty because he is rich. "When you have gone thus far, as to consider the figure they make toward you; you will please, my dear, next to consider the appearance you make toward them. If they are men of discerning, they can observe the motives of your heart: and Florio can see when he is disregarded only upon account of fortune, which makes you to him a mercenary creature; and you are still the same thing to Strephon, in taking him for his wealth only; you are therefore to consider whether you had rather oblige, than receive an obligation. "The marriage life is always an insipid, a vexatious, or a happy condition. The first is, when two people of no genius or taste for themselves meet together, upon such a settlement as has been thought reasonable by parents and conveyancers from an exact valuation of the land and cash of both parties. In this case the young lady's person is no more regarded than the house and im "After you have expressed some sense of humble approach of Florio, and a little dista Strephon's assurance in his address, you cry What an unexceptionable husband could I out of both!' It would therefore, methinks. good way to determine yourself. Take hi whom what you like is not transferable to and for if you choose otherwise, there is no your husband will ever have what you lik his rival; but intrinsic qualities in one man very probably purchase everything that is a titious to another. In plainer terms; he v you take for his personal perfections will s arrive at the gifts of fortune, than he whom take for the sake of his fortune attain to per perfections. If Strephon is not as accompl and agreeable as Florio, marriage to you will make him so; but marriage to you may Florio as rich as Strephon. Therefore to a sure purchase, employ fortune upon certai but do not sacrifice certainties to fortune. I am, your most obedient, "Humble servant.' 66 T. paper, entitled, The Ninety-nine Plagues of an Empty Purse. I had indeed some time before observed that the orators of Grub-street had dealt very much in plagues. They have already published in the same month, The Plagues of Matrimony, The Plagues of a Single Life, The Nineteen Plagues of a Chambermaid, The Plagues of a Coachman, The Plagues of a Footman, and The Plague of Plagues. The success these several plagues met with, probably gave occasion to the above-mentioned poem on an empty purse. However that be, the same noise so frequently repeated under my window, drew me insensibly to think on some of those inconveniences and mortifications which usually attend on poverty, and, in short, gave birth to the present speculation; for after my fancy had run over the most obvious and common calamities which men of mean fortunes are liable to, it descends to those little insults and contempts which, though they may seem to dwindle into nothing when a man offers to describe them, are perhaps in themselves more cutting and insuperable than the former. Juvenal, with a great deal of humor and reason, tells us, that nothing bore harder upon a poor man in his time, than the continual ridicule which his habit and dress afforded to the beaux of Rome: Want is the scorn of every wealthy fool, It must be confessed that few things make a man appear more despicable, or more prejudice his hearers against what he is going to offer, than an awkward or pitiful dress; insomuch that I faney, had Tully himself pronounced one of his orations with a blanket about his shoulders, more people would have laughed at his dress than have admired his eloquence. This last reflection made me wonder at a set of men, who, without being subjected to it by the unkindness of their fortunes, are contented to draw upon themselves the ridicule of the world in this particular. I mean such as take it into their heads that the first regular step to be a wit is to commence a sloven. It is certain nothing has so much debased that which must have been otherwise so great a character; and I know not how to account for it, unless it may possibly be in complaisance to those narrow minds who can have no notion of the same persons possessing different accomplishments; or that it is a sort of sacrifice which some men are contented to make to calumny, by allowing it to fasten on one part of their character, while they are endeavoring to establish another. Yet however unaccountable this foolish custom is, I am afraid it could plead a long prescription; and probably give too much occasion for the vulgar definition still remaining among us of a heathen philosopher. having mentioned the entire friendship between them, concludes that, "they had but one mind, one purse, one chamber, and one hat." The men of business were also infected with a sort of singularity little better than this. I have heard my father say, that a broad brimmed hat, short hair, and unfolded handkerchief, were in his time absolutely necessary to denote a "notable man ;" and that he had known two or three, who aspired to the character of "very notable," wear shoe-strings with great success. To the honor of our present age, it must be allowed, that some of our greatest geniuses for wit and business have almost entirely broken the neck of these absurdities. Victor, after having dispatched the most important affairs of the commonwealth, has appeared at an assembly, where all the ladies have declared him the genteelest man in the company; and in Atticus,* though every way one of the greatest geniuses the age has produced, one sees nothing particular in his dress or carriage to denote his pretensions to wit and learning: so that at present a man may venture to cock up his hat, and wear a fashionable wig, without being taken for a rake or a fool. The medium between a fop and a sloven is what a man of sense would endeavor to keep; yet I remember Mr. Osborn advises his son to appear in his habit rather above than below his fortune; and tells him that he will find a handsome suit of clothes always procures some additional respect.† I have indeed myself observed that my banker ever bows lowest to me when I wear my full-bottomed wig; and writes me Mr." or Esq." according as he sees me dressed. " 66 I shall conclude this paper with an adventure which I was myself an eye-witness of very lately. I happened the other day to call in at a celebeen there long when there came in an elderly brated coffee-house near the Temple. I had not man very meanly dressed, and sat down by me; he had a threadbare loose coat on, which it was plain he wore to keep himself warm, and not to favor his under suit, which seemed to have been at least its cotemporary; his short wig and hat were both answerable to the rest of his apparel. He was no sooner seated than he called for a dish of tea; but as several gentlemen in the room wanted other things, the boys of the house did not think themselves at leisure to mind him. I could observe the old fellow was very uneasy at the affront, and at his being obliged to repeat his commands several times to no purpose; until at last one of the lads presented him with some stale tea in a broken dish, accompanied with a plate of brown sugar which so raised his indignation, that after several obliging appellations of dog and rascal, he asked him aloud before the whole company, "why he should be used with less respect than that fop there?" pointing to a well-dressed young gentleman who was drinking tea at the opposite table. The boy of the house replied with a good deal of pertness, "that his master had two sorts of customers, and that the gentleman at the other table had given him many a sixpence for wiping his shoes." By this time the young Templar, who found his honor concerned in the dispute, and that the eyes of the whole coffee-house were upon him, had thrown aside a paper he held in his hand, and was coming toward us, while we at the table made what haste we could to get away from the impending quarrel, but we were all of us surprised to see him, as he approached nearer, put I have seen the speech of a Terræ filius, spoken in King Charles the Second's reign; in which he describes two very eminent men, who were per Probably Mr. Addison. baps the greatest scholars of their age; and after Advice to a Son by Francis Osborn, Esq., part 1, sect, 23. |