what is valuable-in that library where the choice | deportment! How pleasing would it be to hear is such, that it will not be a disparagement to be the meanest author in it. Forgive me, my Lord, for taking this occasion of telling all the world how ardently I love and honor you; and that I am, with the utmost gratitude for all your favors, My Lord, your Lordship's most obliged, Most obedient, and most humble servant, THE SPECTATOR. TO THE RIGHT HON. HENRY BOYLE.* SIR, 1712. As the professed design of this work is to entertain its readers in general, without giving offense to any particular person, it would be difficult to find out so proper a patron for it as yourself, there being none whose merit is more universally acknowledged by all parties and who has made him self more friends, and fewer enemies. Your great abilities and unquestioned integrity in those high employments which you have passed through, would not have been able to have raised you this general approbation, had they not been accompanied with that moderation in a high fortune, and that affability of manners, which are so conspicuous through all parts of your life Your aversion to any ostentatious arts of setting to show those great services which you have done the public, has not likewise a little contributed to that universal acknowledgment which is paid you by your country. The consideration of this part of your character, is that which hinders me from enlarging on those extraordinary talents, which have given you so great a figure in the British senate, as well as on that elegance and politeness which appear in your more retired conversation. I should be unpardonable if, after what I have said, I should longer detain you with an address of this nature: I cannot, however, conclude it, without acknowledging those great obligations which you have laid upon, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant, THE SPECTATOR. As it is natural for us to have fondness for what has cost us much time and attention to produce, I hope your grace will forgive my endeavor to preserve this work from oblivion, by affixing to it your memorable name, I shall not here presume to mention the illustrious passages of your life, which are celebrated by the whole age, and have been the subject of the most sublime pens; but if I could convey you to posterity in your private character, and described the stature, the behavior, and aspect, of the Duke of Marlborough, I question not but it would fill the reader with more agreeable images, and give him a more delightful entertainment, than what can be found in the following, or any other book. One cannot indeed without offense to yourself observe, that you excel the rest of mankind in the least, as well as the greatest endowments. Nor were it a circumstance to be mentioned, if the graces and attractions of your person were not the only pre-eminence you have above others, which is left almost unobserved by greater writers. Yet how pleasing would it be to those who shall read the surprising revolutions in your story, to be made acquainted with your ordinary life and that the same man who carried fire and sword into the countries of all that had opposed the cause of liberty, and struck a terror into the armies of France, had, in the midst of his high station, a behavior as gentle as is usual in the first steps toward greatness! And if it were possible to express that easy grandeur, which did at once persuade and command; it would appear as clearly to those to come, as it does to his cotemporaries, that all the great events which were brought to pass under the conduct of so well-governed a spirit, were the blessings of heaven upon wisdom and valor; and all which seem adverse fell out by divine permission, which we are not to search into. most able and fortunate captain, before your time, You have passed that year of life wherein the declared he had lived long enough both to nature and to glory; and your Grace may make that reflection with much more justice. He spoke of it after he had arrived at empire by a usurpation upon those whom he had enslaved; but the Prince of Mindelheim may rejoice in a sovereignty which was the gift of him whose dominions he had preserved. Glory established upon the uninterrupted success of honorable designs and actions, is not subject to diminution; nor can any attempt prevail against it, but in the proportion which the narrow circuit of rumor bears to the unlimited extent of fame. We may congratulate your Grace not only upon your high achievements, but likewise upon the happy expiration of your command, by which your glory is put out of the power of fortune: and when your person shall be so too, that the Author and Disposer of all things may place you in that higher mansion of bliss and immortality which is prepared for good princes, lawgivers, and heroes, when he in his due time removes them from the envy of mankind, is the hearty prayer of, My Lord. your Grace's most obedient, Most devoted, humble servant, THE SPECTATOR TO THE EARL OF WHARTON. 1712-13 THE author of the Spectator, having prefixed before each of his volumes the names of some great persons to whom he has particular obligations, lays his claim to your Lordship's patronage upon the same account. I must confess, my Lord, had not I already received great instances of your favor, I should have been afraid of submitting a work of this nature to your perusal. You are so thoroughly acquainted with the characters of men, and all the parts of human life, that it is impossible for the least misrepresentation of them to escape your notice. It is your Lordship's particular dístinction that you are master of the whole compass of business, and have signalized yourself in all the different scenes of it. We admire some for the vior; some for their clearness of judgment, others dignity, others for the popularity of their behafor their happiness of expression; some for the them into execution. It is your Lordship only who laying of schemes, and others for the putting of enjoys these several talents united, and that too in as great perfection as others possess them singly, Your enemies acknowledge this great extent in your Lordship's character, at the same time that they use their utmost industry and invention to derogate from it. But it is for your honor that those who are now your enemies were always so. You have acted in so much consistency with your self, and promoted the interest of your courtry But when I speak of yon, I celebrate one who has had the happiness of possessing also those qualities which make a man useful to society, and of having had opportunities of exerting them in the most conspicuous manner. The great part you had, as British ambassador, in procuring and cultivating the advantageous commerce between the courts of England and Portugal, has purchased you the lasting esteem of all who understand the business of either nation. Those personal excellencies which are overrated by the ordinary world, and too much neglected by wise men, you have applied with the justest skill and judgment. The most graceful address in horsemanship, in the use of the sword, and in dancing, has been used by you as lower arts; and as they have occasionally served to cover or introduce the talents of a skillful minister. But your abilities have not appeared only in one nation. When it was your province to act as her Majesty's minister at the court of Savoy, at that time encamped, you accompanied that gallant prince through all the vicissitudes of his fortune, and shared by his side the dangers of that glori ous day in which he recovered his capital. As far as it regards personal qualities, you attained, in that one hour, the highest military reputation. The behavior of our minister in the action, and the good offices done the vanquished in the name of the Queen of England, gave both the conqueror and the captive the most lively examples of the courage and generosity of the nation he represented. VERY many favors and civilities (received from you in a private capacity) which I have no other way to acknowledge, will, I hope, excuse this presumption; but the justice I, as a Spectator, owe your character, places me above the want of an excuse. Candor and openness of heart, which shine in all your words and actions, exact the highest esteem from all who have the honor to know you; and a winning condescension to all subordinate to you, made business a pleasure to those who executed it under you, at the same time that it heightened her Majesty's favor to all those who had the happiness of having it conveyed through your hands. A secretary of state, in the interest of mankind, joined with that of his fellow-subjects, accomplished with a great facility and elegance, in all the modern as well as ancient languages, was a happy and proper member of a ministry, by whose services your sovereign is in so high and flourishing a condition, as makes all other princes and potentates powerful or incon- Your friends and companions in your absence siderable in Europe, as they are friends or ene- frequently talk these things of you; and you canmies to Great Britain. The importance of those not hide from us (by the most discreet silence in great events which happened during that admin- anything which regards yourself) that the frank istration in which your Lordship bore so impor- entertainment we have at your table, your easy tant a charge, will be acknowledged as long as condescension in little incidents of mirth and di time shall endure. I shall not therefore attempt version, and general complacency of manners, are to rehearse those illustrious passages, but give far from being the greatest obligations we have to this application a more private and particular you. I do assure you, there is not one of your turn, in desiring your Lordship would continue friends has a greater sense of your merit in gen your favor and patronage to me, as you are a general, and of the favors you every day do us, thau, tleman of the most polite literature, and perfectly Sir, accomplished in the knowledge of books* and men, which makes it necessary to beseech your indulgence to the following leaves, and the author of them; who is, with the greatest truth and respect, SIR, My Lord, your Lordship's obliged, TO MR. METHUEN.† Ir is with great pleasure I take an opportunity of publishing the gratitude I owe you for the place you allow me in your friendship and fainiliarity. I will not acknowledge to you that I have often had you in my thoughts, when I have endeavored to draw, in some parts of these discourses, the character of a good-natured, honest, and accomplished gentleman. But such representations give my readers an idea of a person blameless only, or only laudable for such perfections as extend no farther than to his own private advantage and reputation. Your most ob't and most humble servant, TO WILLIAM HONEYCOMBE, ESQ.* THE seven former volumes of the Spectator having been dedicated to some of the most celebrated persons of the age, I take leave to inscribet this eighth and last to you, as to agentleman who hath ever been ambitious of appearing in the best company. You are now wholly retired from the busy part of mankind, and at leisure to reflect upon your past achievements; for which reason I look upon you as a person very well qualified for a dedica tion. I may possibly disappoint my readers, and yourself too, if I did not endeavor on this occasion to make the world acquainted with your virtues And here, Sir, I shall not compliment you upon your birth, person, or fortune, nor on any other the like perfections which you possess whether you will or no; but shall only touch upon those which are of your acquiring, and in which every one must allow you have a real merit. Your jaunty air and easy motion, the volubility His lordship was the founder of the splendid and truly of your discourse, the suddenness of your laughi, valuable library at Althorp. +Afterward Sir Paul Methuen, Knight of the Bath. This very ingenious gentleman, while ambassador at the court of Portugal, concluded the famous commercial treaty which bears his name; and in the same capacity, at the court of Savoy, exerted himself nobly as a military hero. Generally supposed to be Colonel Cleland.. †This dedication is supposed to have been written by Eus tace Budgell, who might have better dedicated it to Wilk Wimble. the management of your snuff-box, with the whiteness of your hands and teeth (which have justly gained you the envy of the most polite part of the male world, and the love of the greatest beauties in the female) are entirely to be ascribed to your personal genius and application. You are formed for these accomplishments by a happy turn of nature, and have finished yourself in them by the utmost improvements of art. A man that is defective in either of these qualifications (whatever may be the secret ambition of his heart) must never hope to make the figure you have done, among the fashionable part of his species. It is therefore no wonder we see such multitudes of aspiring young men fall short of you in all these beauties of your character, notwithstanding the study and practice of them is the whole business of their lives. But I need not tell you, that the free and disengaged behavior of a fine gentleman makes as many awkward beaux, as the easiness of your favorite hath made insipid poets. I am rightly informed, you make a regular ap pearance every quarter-sessions among your bro thers of the quoruin; and if things go on as they do, stand fair for being a colonel of the militia. I am told that your time passes away as agreeably in the amusements of a country life, as it evor did in the gallantries of the town; and that you now take as much pleasure in the planting of young trees, as you did formerly in the cutting down of your old ones. In short, we hear from all hands that you are thoroughly reconciled to your dirty acres, and have not too much wit to look into your own estate. After having spoken thus much of my patron, I must take the privilege of an author in saying something of myself. I shall therefore beg leave to add, that I have purposely omitted setting those marks to the end of every paper, which appeared in my former volumes, that you may have an opportunity of showing Mrs. Honeycombe the shrewdness of your conjectures, by ascribing every speculation to its proper author; though you know how often many profound critics in style and sentiments have very judiciously erred in this particular, before they were let into the secret. I am, Sir, Your most faithful, humble servant, THE SPECTATOR. At present you are content to aim all your charms at your own spouse, without farther thought of mischief to any others of the sex. I know you had formerly a very great contempt for that pedantic race of mortals who call themselves philosophers; and yet, to your honor be it spoken, there is not a sage of them all could have better acted up to their precepts in one of the most important points of life: I mean, in that generous disregard of popular opinion which you showed some years ago, when you chose for your wife an obscure young woman, who doth not indeed pre-eighth and last volume. tend to an ancient family, but has certainly as many forefathers as any lady in the land, if she but reckons up their names. THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER. In the six hundred and thirty-second Spectator, the reader will find an account of the rise of this I have not been able to prevail upon the several gentlemen who were concerned in this work to let me acquaint the world with their names. Perhaps it will be unnecessary to inform the reader, that no other papers which have appeared under the title of the Spectator, since the closing of this eighth volume, were written by any of those gentlemen who had a hand in this or the I must ow: I conceived very extraordinary hopes of you from the moment that you confessed your age, and from eight-and-forty (where you had stuck so many years) very ingeniously stepped into your grand climacteric. Your deportment has since been very venerable and becoming. If former volumes. THE SPECTATOR. No, 1.] THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1710-11. Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem, HOR., Ars. Poet., ver. 143. One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke; I HAVE observed, that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure, till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor, with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural in a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings, and shall give some account in them of the several persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting, will fall to my share, I must do my self the justice to open the work with my own history. I was born to a small hereditary estate, which, according to the tradition of the village where it lies, was bounded by the same hedges and ditches in William the Conqueror's time that it is at pregent, and has been delivered down from father to son, whole and entire, without the loss or acquisition of a single field or meadow, during the space of six hundred years. There runs a story in the family, that, when my mother was gone with child of me about three months, she dreamed that she was brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might proceed from a law-suit which was then depending in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in future life, though that was the interpretation which the neighborhood put upon it. The gravity of my behavior at my first appearance in the world, and at the time that I sucked, seemed to favor my mother's dream; for, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells from it. As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in remarkable, find that during my nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favorite of my schoolinaster, who used to say; "that my parts were solid, and would wear well." I had not been long at the university, before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered the quantity of a hundred words; and indeed do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life. While I was in this learned body, I applied myself with so much diligence to my studies, that there are few very celebrated books, either in the learned or the modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with." Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the university with the character of an odd, unaccountable fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but show it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried me into all the countries of Europe in which there was anything new or strange to be seen; nay, to such a degree was my curiosity raised, that having read the controversies of some great men concerning the antiquities of Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid; and as soon as I had set myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with great satisfaction.* seen I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though. there are not above half-a-dozen of my select friends that know me; of whom my next paper shall give a more particular account. There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make my appearance.- Sometimes I am thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's,† and while I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James's coffee-house, and sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa-tree, and in the theaters both of Drury-lane and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the exchange for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never open my lips but in my own club. Thus I live in the world rather as a Spectator of mankind than as one of the species, by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any practical part in life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband, or a father, can discern ness, and diversions of others, better than those who are engaged in them; as standers-by discover blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the game. I never espoused any party with viofence, and am resolved to observe a strict neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either *A sarcasm on Mr. Greaves, and his book entitled Pyrami dographia. Child's coffee-house was in St. Paul's church-yard, and the resort of the clergy; St. James's stood then where it does now; Jonathan's was in Change-alley; and the Rose tavern was on the outside of Temple-bar side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper. I have given the reader just so much of my history and character, as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the business I have undertaken. As for other particulars in my life and adventures I shall insert them in following papers, as I shall see occasion. In the meantime, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity; and since I have neither time nor inclination to communicate the fullness of my heart in speech, I am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends, that it is pity so many useful discoveries which I have made should be in the possession of a silent man. For this reason, therefore, I shall publish a sheet-full of thoughts every morning, for the benefit of my cotemporaries; and if I can in any way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it when I am summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain. There are three very material points which I have not spoken to in this paper: and which, for several important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least for some time: I mean an account of my name, age, and lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify my reader in anything that is reasonable; but as for these three particulars, though I am sensible they might tend very much to the embellishment of my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of communicating them to the public. They would indeed draw me out of that obscurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and expose me in public places to several salutes and civilities, which have been always very disagreeable to me; for the greatest pain I can suffer, is the being talked to, and being stared at. It is for this reason, likewise, that I keep my complexion and dress as very great secrets; though it is not impossible but I may make discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have undertaken. After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall in to-morrow's paper give an account of those gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted (as all other matters of importance are) in a club. However, as my friend's have engaged me to stand in the front, those who have a mind to correspond with me may direct their letters to the Spectator, at Mr. Buckley's, in Little Britain. For I must further acquaint the reader, that though our club meets only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have appointed a committee to sit every night for the inspection of all such papers as may contribute to the advancement of the public weal.-C. world is in the wrong. However, this humor creates him no enemies, for he does nothing with sourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms makes him but the readie and more capable to please and oblige all wh know him. When he is in town he lives in Sohosquare. It is said, he keeps himself a bachelor by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town and kicked bully Dawsont in a public coffee-house for calling him youngster. But being ill-used by the abovementioned widow, he was very serious for a year and a-half; and though, his temper being natu rally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterward. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry humors, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times, since he first wore it. It is said Sir Roger grew humble in his desires after he had forgot his cruel beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in point of chastity with beggars and gipsies: but this is looked upon, by his friends, rather as matter of raillery than truth. He is now in his fifty-sixth year, cheerful, gay and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behavior, that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company. When he comes into a house he calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way up-stairs to a visit. I must not omit, that Sir Roger is a justice of the quorum; that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause, by explaining a passage in the game act. The gentleman next in esteem and authority among us is another bachelor, who is a member of the Inner Temple, a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chosen his place of residence rather to obey the direction of an old humorsome father, than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Aristotle and Longinus are much better understand by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every post, questions relating to marriage-articles, leases, and tenures in the neighborhood; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to answer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the passions themselves, when he should be inquiring into the debates among men which arise from them. He knows the argument of each of the No. 2.] FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1710–11. orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one -Ast alii sex case in the reports of our own courts. No one Et plures, uno conclamant ore. Juv., Sat. vii, 167. ever took him for a fool; but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. Six more, at least, join their consenting voice. This turn makes him at once both disinterested THE first of our society is a gentleman of Wor- and agreeable: as few of his thoughts are drawn cestershire, of an ancient descent, a baronet, his from business, they are most of them fit for conname Sir Roger de Coverley. His great-grandfa-versation. His taste for books is a little too just ther was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very singular in his behavior, but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world only as he thinks the for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, and writings of the *At that time the genteelest part of the town. bauchee about town, at the time here pointed out: he was well known in Blackfriars, and its then infamous purlious. This fellow was a noted sharper, swaggerer, and de |