a rich widow; but after having tried my fortune tleman at court. The courtier was as shortlived for abve three years together, I have not been able a favorite as his predecessors, but had the pleasure to get one single relict in the mind. My first at- to see himself succeeded by a long series of lovers, tacks were generally successful, but always broke who followed the widow Wildfire to the 37th year off as soon as they came to the word settlement. of her age, at which time there ensued a cessation Though I have not improved my fortune this way, of ten years, when John Felt, haberdasher, took I have my experience, and have learnt several se- it in his head to be in love with her, and it is crets which may be of use to those unhappy gen-thought will very suddenly carry her off. tlemen, who are commonly distinguished by the "IX. The last is pretty Mrs. Runnet, who broke name of widow-hunters, and who do not know her first husband's heart before she was sixteen, at that this tribe of women are, generally speaking, which time she was entered of the club, but soon as much upon the catch as themselves. I shall after left it upon account of a second, whom she here communicate to you the mysteries of a certain made so quick a dispatch of, that she returned to female cabal of this order, who call themselves her seat in less than a twelvemonth. This young the Widow Club. This club consists of nine ex- matron is looked upon as the most rising member perienced dames, who take their places once a of the society, and will probably be in the presiweek round a large oval table. dent's chair before she dies. "I. Mrs. President is a person who has disposed of six husbands, and is now determined to take a seventh; being of opinion that there is as much virtue in the touch of a seventh husband as of a seventh son. Her comrades are as follows: "II. Mrs. Snap, who has four jointures, by four different bedfellows, of four different shires. She is at present upon the point of marriage with a Middlesex man, and is said to have an ambition of extending her possessions through all the counties in England on this side the Trent. "III. Mrs. Medlar, who, after two husbands and a gallant, is now wedded to an old gentleman of sixty. Upon her making her report to the club after a week's cohabitation, she is still allowed to sit as a widow, and accordingly takes her place at the board. "IV. The widow Quick, married within a fortnight after the death of her last husband. Her weeds have served her thrice, and are still as good as new. "V. Lady Catharine Swallow. She was a widow at eighteen, and has since buried a second husband and two coachmen. "VI. The Lady Waddle. She was married in the 15th year of her age to Sir Simon Waddle, knight, aged threescore and twelve, by whom she had twins nine months after his decease. In the 55th year of her age she was married to James Spindle, Esq., a youth of one-and-twenty, who did not outlive the honeymoon. "VII. Deborah Conquest. The case of this lady is somewhat particular. She is the relict of Sir Sampson Conquest, some time justice of the quorum. Sir Sampson was seven feet high, and two feet in breadth from the tip of one shoulder to the other. He had married three wives, who all of them died in childbed. This terrified the whole sex, who none of them durst venture on Sir Sampson. At length Mrs. Deborah undertook him, and gave so good an account of him, that in three years' time she very fairly laid him out, and measured his length upon the ground. This exploit has gained her so great a reputation in the club, that they have added Sir Sampson's three victories to hers, and given her the merit of a fourth widowhood; and she takes her place accordingly. VIII. The widow Wildfire, relict of Mr. John Wildfire, fox-hunter, who broke his neck over a six-bar gate. She took his death so much at heart that it was thought it would have put an end to her life, had she not diverted her sorrows by receiving the addresses of a gentleman in the neighborhood, who made love to her in the second month of her widowhood. This gentleman was discarded in a fortnight for the sake of a young Templar, who had the possession of her for six weeks after, till he was beaten out by a broken officer, who likewise gave up his place to a gen These ladies, upon their first institution, resolved to give the pictures of their deceased husbands to the club-room; but two of them bringing in their dead at full length, they covered all the walls. Upon which they came to a second resolution, that every matron should give her own picture, and set it round with her husbands' in miniature. "As they have most of them the misfortune to be troubled with the colic, they have a noble cellar of cordials and strong waters. When they grow maudlin, they are very apt to commemorate their former partners with a tear. But ask them which of their husbands they condole, they are not able to tell you, and discover plainly that they do not weep so much for the loss of a husband as for the want of one. "The principal rule by which the whole society are to govern themselves is this, to cry up the pleasures of a single life upon all occasions, in order to deter the rest of their sex from marriage, and engross the whole male world to themselves. "They are obliged, when any one makes love to a member of the society, to communicate his name, at which time the whole assembly sit upon his reputation, person, fortune, and good-humor; and if they find him qualified for a sister of the club, they lay their heads together how to make him sure. By this means, they are acquainted with all the widow-hunters about town, who often afford them great diversion. There is an honest Irish gentleman, it seems, who knows nothing of this society, but at different times has made love to the whole club. "Their conversation often turns upon their former husbands, and it is very diverting to hear them relate their several arts and stratagems with which they amused the jealous, pacified the choleric, or wheedled the good-natured man, till at last, to use the club-phrase, they sent him out of the house with his heels foremost.' The politics which are most cultivated by this society of She-Machiavels, relate chiefly to these two points, how to treat a lover, and how to manage a husband. As for the first set of artifices, they are too numerous to come within the compass of your paper, and shall therefore be reserved for a second letter. The management of a husband is built upon the following doctrines, which are universally assented to by the whole club: Not to give him his head at first. Not to allow him too great freedoms and familiarities. Not to be treated by him like a raw girl, but as a woman that knows the world. Not to lessen anything of her former figure. To celebrate the generosity, or any other virtue of a deceased husband, which she would recommend to his successor. To turn away ali his old friends and servants, that she may have the dear man to herself. To make him disinherit | says Montaigne, "I am a great lover of your white the undutiful children of any former wife. Never wines."-"What the devil signifies it to the pubto be thoroughly convinced of his affection, until lic," says Scaliger, "whether he is a lover of white he has made over to her all his goods and chattels. wines or of red wines?" 'After so long a letter, I am, "Without more ceremony, "Your humble Servant," etc. No. 562.] FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1714. "It is a hard and nice subject for a man to speak of himself," says Cowley; "it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ears to hear anything of praise from him." Let the tenor of his discourse be what it will upon this subject, it generally proceeds from vanity. An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person. I cannot here forbear mentioning a tribe of egotists, for whom I always had a mortal aversion-I mean the authors of memoirs, who are never mentioned in any works but their own, and who raise all their productions out of this single figure of speech. Most of our modern prefaces savor very strongly of the egotism. Every insignificant author fancies it of importance to the world to know that he wrote his book in the country, that he did it to pass away some of his idle hours, that it was published at the importunity of friends, or that his natural temper, studies, or conversations, directed him to the choice of his subject. -Id populus curat scilicet. Such informations cannot but be highly gratifying to the reader. In the works of humor especially, when a man writes under a fictitious personage, the talking of one's self may give some diversion to the public; Some very great writers have been guilty of this but I would advise every other writer never to fault. It is observed of Tully in particular, that speak of himself, unless there be something very his works run very much in the first person, and considerable in his character; though I am sensible that he takes all occasions of doing himself jus- this rule will be of little use in the world, because tice. "Does he think," says Brutus, that his there is no man who fancies his thoughts worth consulship deserves more applause than my put-publishing that does not look upon himself as a ting Cæsar to death, because I am not perpetually considerable person. talking of the ides of March, as he is of the nones of December?" I need not acquaint my learned reader, that in the ides of March Brutus destroyed Cæsar, and that Cicero quashed the conspiracy of Catiline in the calends of December. How shocking soever this great man's talking of himself might have been to his cotemporaries, I must confess I am never better pleased than when he is on this subject. Such openings of the heart give a man a thorough insight into his personal character, and illustrate several passages in the history of his life: beside that, there is some little pleasure in discovering the infirmity of a great man, and seeing how the opinion he has of himself agrees with what the world entertains of him. The gentlemen of Port Royal, who were more eminent for their learning and humility than any other in France, banished the way of speaking in the first person out of all their works, as arising from vainglory and self-conceit. To show their particular aversion to it, they branded this form of writing with the name of an egotism; a figure not to be found among the ancient rhetoricians. The most violent egotism which I have met with in the course of my reading, is that of Cardinal Wolsey, Ego et rex meus, "I and my king;" as perhaps the most eminent egotist that ever appeared in the world was Montaigne, the author of the celebrated Essays. This lively old Gascon has woven all his bodily infirmities into his works; and, after having spoken of the faults or virtues of any other man, immediately publishes to the world how it stands with himself in that particular. Had he kept his own counsel, he might have passed for a much better man, though perhaps he would not have been so diverting an author. The title of an Essay promises perhaps a discourse upon Virgil, or Julius Cæsar; but, when you look into it, you are sure to meet with more upon Monsieur Montaigne than of either of them. The younger Scaliger, who seems to have been no great friend to this author, after having acquainted the world that his father sold herrings, adds these words: La grande fadaise de Montaigne, qui a écrit qu'il aimoit mieux le vin blanc- Que diable a ton à faire de sçavoir ce qu'il aime? "For my part," I shall close this paper with a remark upon such as are egotists in conversation; these are generally the vain or shallow part of mankind, people being naturally full of themselves when they have nothing else in them. There is one kind of egotists which is very common in the world, though I do not remember that any writer has taken notice of them; I mean those empty conceited fellows who repeat, as sayings of their own or some of their particular friends, several jests which were made before they were born, and which every one who has conversed in the world has heard a hundred times over. A forward young fellow of my acquaintance was very guilty of this absurdity; he would be always laying a new scene for some old piece of wit, and telling us, that, as he and Jack Such-a-one were together, one or t'other of them had such a conceit on such an occasion; upon which he would laugh very heartily, and wonder the company did not join with him. When his mirth was over, I have often reprehended him out of Terence, Tuumne, obsecro te, hoc dictum erat? vetus credidi. But finding him still incorrigible, and having a kindness for the young coxcomb, who was otherwise a good-natured fellow, I recommended to his perusal the Oxford and Cambridge jests, with several little pieces of pleasantry of the same nature. Upon the reading of them he was under no small confusion to find that all his jokes had passed through several editions, and that what he thought was a new conceit, and had ap propriated to his own use, had appeared in print before he or his ingenious friends were ever heard of. This had so good an effect upon him, that he is content at present to pass for a man of plain sense in his ordinary conversation, and is never facetious but when he knows his company. No. 563.] MONDAY, JULY 5, 1714. I SHALL entertain my reader with two very curious letters. The first of them comes from a chi merical person, who I believe never wrote to any body before. "SIR, pay unto him the said sum of Blank, on the Eazi day of the month of Blank next ensuing, the the penalty and forfeiture of Blank." I shall take time to consider the case of this r imaginary correspondent, and in the mear shall present my reader with a letter which to come from a person that is made up of flesh blood. "GOOD MR. SPECTATOR, "I am descended from the ancient family of the Blanks, a name well known to all men of business. It is always read in those little white spaces of writing which want to be filled up, and which for that reason are called blank spaces, as of right appertaining to our family; for I consider myself as the lord of a manor, who lays his claim to all wastes or spots of ground that are unappropriated. is exceedingly good-natured, and at the same t "I am married to a very honest gentleman I am a near kinsman to John a Styles and John a very choleric. There is no standing before in Nokes; and they, I am told, came in with the Con- when he is in a passion; but as soon as it is one queror. I am mentioned oftener in both houses he is the best-humored creature in the wri of Parliament than any other person in Great Bri- When he is angry, he breaks all my chins tain. My name is written, or, more properly that chances to lie in his way, and the next mes speaking, not written, thus: I am one that ing sends me in twice as much as he broke the day me a child's fortune since we were first married to before. I may positively say that he has br gether. can turn my hand to everything, and appear under any shape whatever. I can make myself man, woman, or child. I am sometimes metamorphosed into a year of our Lord, a day of the month, or an hour of the day. I very often represent a sum of money, and am generally the first subsidy that is granted to the crown. I have now and then supplied the place of several thousands of land-soldiers, and have as frequently been employed in the sea-service. "Now, Sir, my complaint is this, that I am only made use of to serve a turn, being always discarded as soon as a proper person is found out to fill up my place. "If you have ever been in the playhouse before the curtain rises, you see most of the front-boxes filled with men of my family, who forthwith turn out and resign their stations upon the appearance of those for whom they are retained. "But the most illustrious branch of the Blanks are those who are planted in high posts, till such time as persons of greater consequence can be found out to supply them. One of these Blanks is equally qualified for all offices; he can serve in time of need for a soldier, a politician, a lawyer, or what you please. I have known in my time many a brother Blank, that has been born under a lucky planet, heap up great riches, and swell into a man of figure and importance, before the grandees of his party could agree among themselves which of them should step into his place. Nay, I have known a Blank continue so long in one of these vacant posts (for such it is to be reckoned all the time a Blank is in it), that he has grown too formidable and dangerous to be removed. "But to return to myself. Since I am so very commodious a person, and so very necessary in afl well-regulated governments, I desire you will take my case into consideration, that I may be no longer made a tool of, and only employed to stop a gap. Such usage, without a pun, makes me look very blank. For all which reasons I humbly recommend myself to your protection, and am "Your most obedient Servant, "BLANK." drawn up "P. S. I herewith send you a paper by a country attorney, employed by two gentlemen, whose names he was not acquainted with, and who did not think fit to let him into the secret which they were transacting. I heard him call it a blank instrument,' and read it after the following manner. You may see by this single instance of what use I am to the busy world: "I, T. Blank, Esquire, of Blank town, in the county of Blank, do own myself indebted in the sum of Blank, to Goodman Blank, for the service he did me in procuring for me the goods following; Blank: and I do hereby promise the said Blank to thing that is within reach of his cane. I c he never frequents; but I got nothing by this be rack. is angry at everything that is brittle:" and if "I am, your most humble Servant," ez. HoR.1 Sat 117. Let rules be fixed that may our rage contain, And punish faults with a proportion'd pain: And do not flay him who deserves alone A whipping for the fault that be hath done-es Ir is the work of a philosopher to be every tay subduing his passions, and laying aside his p judices. I endeavor at least to look upon men their actions only as an impartial Spectator, with out any regard to them as they happen to adrasÆ thus employed myself, I cannot help ot or cross my own private interest. But Ekla how those about me suffer themselves to be himad pronounce on every man's character, which t by prejudice and inclination, how ready úg can give in two words, and make him either for nothing, or qualified for everything On 124 contrary, those who search thoroughly into bira nature will find it much more difficult to deur the value of their fellow-creatures, and that men's characters are note thus to be given in general words. There is indeed no such thing as a person entirely good or bad; virtue and vice are blended and mixed together, in a greater or less proportion, in every one; and if you would search for some particular good quality in its most eminent degree of perfection, you will often find it in a mind where it is darkened and eclipsed by a hundred other irregular passions. Men have either no character at all, says a celebrated author, or it is that of being inconsistent with themselves. They find it easier to join extremities than to be uniform and of a piece. This is finely illustrated in Xenophon's Life of Cyrus the Great. That author tells us, that Cyrus having taken a most beautiful lady named Panthea, the wife of Abradatas, committed her to the custody of Araspas, a young Persian nobleman, who had a little before maintained in discourse that a mind truly virtuous was incapable of entertaining an unlawful passion. The young gentleman had not long been in the possession of his fair captive, when a complaint was made to Cyrus, that he not only solicited the lady Panthea to receive him in the room of her absent husband, but that, finding his entreaties had no effect, he was preparing to make use of force. Cyrus, who loved the young man, immediately sent for him, and in a gentle manner representing to him his fault, and putting him in mind of his former assertion, the unhappy youth, confounded with a quick sense of his guilt and shame, burst out into a flood of tears, and spoke as follows: "O'Cyrus, I am convinced that I have two souls. Love has taught me this piece of philosophy. If I had but one soul, it could not at the same time pant after virtue and vice, wish and abhor at the same thing. It is certain therefore we have two souls; when the good soul rules I undertake noble and virtuous actions; but when the bad soul predominates I am forced to do evil. All I can say at present is, that I find my good soul, encouraged by your presence, has got the better of my bad." I know not whether my readers will allow of this piece of philosophy; but if they will not, they must confess we meet with as different passions in one and the same soul as can be supposed in two. We can hardly read the life of a great man who lived in former ages, or converse with any who is eminent among our cotemporaries, that is not an instance of what I am saying. But as I have hitherto only argued against the partiality and injustice of giving our judgment upon men in gross, who are such a composition of virtues and vices, of good and evil, I might carry this reflection still further, and make it extend to most of their actions. If on the one hand, we fairly weighed every circumstance, we should frequently find them obliged to do that action we at first sight condemn, in order to avoid another we should have been much more displeased with. If, on the other hand, we nicely examined such actions as appear most dazzling to the eye, we should find most of them either deficient and lame in several parts, produced by a bad ambition, or directed to an ill end. The very same action may sometimes be so oddly circumstanced, that it is difficult to determine whether it ought to be rewarded or punished. Those who compiled the laws of England were so sensible of this, that they have laid it down as one of their first maxims, "It is better suffering a mischief than an inconvenience;" which is as much as to say in other words, that, since no law can take in or provide for all cases, it is better private men should have some injustice done them than that a public grievance should not be redressed. This is usually pleaded in defense of all those hardships which fall on particular persons in particular occasions, which could not be foreseen when a law was made. To remedy this, however, as much as possible, the court of chancery was erected, which frequently mitigates and breaks the teeth of the common law, in cases of men's properties, while in criminal cases there is a power of pardoning still lodged in the crown. Notwithstanding this, it is perhaps impossible in a large government to distribute rewards and punishments strictly proportioned to the merits of every action. The Spartan commonwealth was indeed wonderfully exact in this particular; and I do not remember in all my reading to have met with so nice an example of justice as that recorded by Plutarch, with which I shall close my paper for this day. The city of Sparta, being unexpectedly attacked by a powerful army of Thebans, was in very great danger of falling into the hands of their enemies. The citizens suddenly gathering themselves into a body, fought with a resolution equal to the necessity of their affairs, yet no one so remarkably distinguished himself on this occasion, to the amazement of both armies, as Isidas, the son of Phoebidas, who was at that time in the bloom of his youth, and very remarkable for the comeliness of his person. He was coming out of the bath when the alarm was given, so that he had not time to put on his clothes, much less his armor; however, transported with a desire to serve his country in so great an exigency, snatched up a spear in one hand and a sword in the other, he flung himself into the thickest ranks of his enemies. Nothing could withstand his fury; in what part soever he fought he put the enemies to flight without receiving a single wound. Whether, says Plutarch, he was the particular care of some god, who rewarded his valor that day with an extraordinary protection, or that his enemies, struck with the unusualness of his dress, and beauty of his shape, supposed him something more than man, I shall not determine. The gallantry of this action was judged so great by the Spartans, that the ephori, or chief magistrates, decreed he should be presented with a garland, but, as soon as they had done so, fined him a thousand drachmas for going out to the battle unarmed. No. 565.] FRIDAY, JULY 9, 1714. For God the whole created mass inspires, I was yesterday about sunset walking in the open fields, until the night insensibly fell upon me. I at first amused myself with all the richness and variety of colors which appeared in the western parts of heaven; in proportion as they faded away and went out, several stars and planets appeared one after another, until the whole firmament was in a glow. The blueness of the ether was exceedingly heightened and enlivened by the season of the year, and by the rays of all those luminaries that passed through it. The galaxy appeared in its most beautiful white. To complete the scene, the full moon rose at length in that clouded majesty which Milton takes notice of, and opened to the eye a new picture of nature, which was more finely shaded and disposed among softer lights than that which the sun had before discovered to us. As I was surveying the moon walking in her brightness, and taking her progress among the constellations, a thought rose in me which I believe very often perplexes and disturbs men of serious and contemplative natures. David himself fell into it in that reflection, "When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou regardest him?" In the same manner when I considered that infinite host of stars, or, to speak more philosophically, of suns which were then shining upon me, with those innumerable sets of planets or worlds which were moving round their respective suns; when I still enlarged the idea, and supposed another heaven of suns and worlds rising still above this which we discovered, and these still enlightened by a superior firmament of luminaries, which are planted at so great a distance, that they may appear to the inhabitants of the former as the stars do to us; in short, while I pursued this thought, I could not but reflect on that little, insignificant figure which I myself bore amidst the immensity of God's works. Were the sun, which enlightens this part of the creation, with all the host of planetary worlds that move about him, utterly extinguished and annihilated, they would not be missed more than a grain of sand upon the sea-shore. The space they possess is so exceedingly little in comparison of the whole, that it would scarce make a blank in the creation. The chasm would be imperceptible to an eye that could take in the whole compass of nature, and pass from one end of the creation to the other; as it is possible there may be such a sense in ourselves hereafter, or in creatures which are at present more exalted than ourselves. We see many stars by the help of glasses, which we do not discover with our naked eyes; and the finer our telescopes are, the more still are our discoveries. Huygenius carries this thought so far, that he does not think it impossible there may be stars whose light is not yet traveled down to us, since their first creation. There is no question but the universe has certain bounds set to it: but when we consider that it is the work of an infinite power, prompted by infinite goodness, with an infinite space to exert itself in, how can our imagination set any bounds to it? widest of these our spheres has its circumference. When, therefore, we reflect on the Divine nature, we are so used and accustomed to this imperiertion in ourselves, that we cannot forbear in some measure ascribing it to Him in whom there is ou shadow of imperfection. Our reason indeed 2 sures us that his attributes are infinite; but the poorness of our conceptions is such, that it cas not forbear setting bounds to everything it contemplates, until our reason comes again to ou succor, and throws down all those little prejudices which rise in us unawares, and are natural to the mind of man. We shall therefore utterly extinguish this mela choly thought, of our being overlooked by e Maker in the multiplicity of his works, and the infinity of those objects among which he seems to be incessantly employed, if we consider, in the first place, that he is omnipresent; and, in the second, that he is omniscient. If we consider him in his omnipresence, his being passes through, actuates, and supports, the whole frame of nature. His creation, and every part of it, is full of him. There is nothing be has made that is either so distant, so little, or so inconsiderable, which he does not essentially inhabit. His substance is within the substance of every being, whether material, or immaterial, and as intimately present to it as that being is to itself. It would be an imperfection in him were he able to remove out of one place into another, or to withdraw himself from anything he has created, or from any part of that space which is diffused and spread abroad to infinity. In shor to speak of him, in the language of the old philoso pher, he is a Being whose center is everywhere, and his circumference nowhere. Others In the second place, he is omniscient as well as omnipresent. His omniscience indeed necessarily and naturally flows from his omnipresence, be cannot but be conscious of every motion that arises in the whole material world, which he thus essentially pervades, and of every thought that is stirring in the intellectual world, to every part of which he is thus intimately united. Several mar alists have considered the creation as the temple of God, which he has built with his own hands, and which is filled with his presence. have considered infinite space as the receptacle, or rather the habitation, of the Almighty; but the To return, therefore, to my first thought. I noblest and most exalted way of considering this could not but look upon myself with secret hor-infinite space is that of Sir Isaac Newton, who ror, as a being that was not worth the smallest calls it the sensorium of the Godhead. regard of One who had so great a work under his and men have their sensoriola, or little sensocare and superintendency. I was afraid of being riums, by which they apprehend the presence and overlooked amidst the immensity of nature, and perceive the actions of a few objects that lie conlost among that infinite variety of creatures, which tiguous to them. Their knowledge and observain all probability swarm through all these im- tion turn within a very narrow circle. But s measurable regions of matter. God Almighty cannot but perceive and know everything in which he resides, infinite space gives room to infinite knowledge, and is, is it were, an organ to omniscience. In order to recover myself from this mortifying thought, I considered that it took its rise from those narrow conceptions which we are apt to entertain of the Divine nature. We ourselves cannot attend to many different objects at the same time. If we are careful to inspect some things, we must of course neglect others. This imperfection, which we observe in ourselves, is an imperfection that cleaves in some degree to creatures of the highest capacities, as they are creatures, that is, beings of finite and limited natures. The presence of every created being is confined to a certain measure of space, and consequently his observation is stinted to a certain number of objects. The sphere in which we move, and act, and understand, is a wider circumference to one creature than another, according as we rise one above another in the scale of existence. But the Brutes Were the soul separate from the body, and with one glance of thought should start beyond the bounds of the creation, should it for millions of years continue its progress through infinite space with the same activity, it would still find itsel within the embrace of its Creator, and encos passed round with the immensity of the trod head. While we are in the body he is not iss present with us because he is concealed from ss O that I knew where I might find him!" s Job. "Behold I go forward, but he is not the and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on 28 left hand where he does work, but I cannOL N hold him: he hideth himself on the right hand that I cannot see him." In short, reason as vel ་་ |