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 inconsiderable in Europe, as they are friends or enemies to Great Britain. The importance of those great events which happened during that administration in which your Lordship bore so important a charge, will be acknowledged as long as time shall endure. I shall not therefore attempt to rehearse those illustrious passages, but give this application a more private and particular turn, in desiring your Lordship would continue your favor and patronage to me, as you are a gentleman of the most polite literature, and perfectly 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, Obedient, and humble servant, THE SPECTATOR.

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 familiarity. 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.

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 glorious 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.

Your friends and companions in your absence frequently talk these things of you; and you cannot hide from us (by the most discreet silence in anything which regards yourself) that the frank entertainment we have at your table, your easy condescension in little incidents of mirth and diversion, and general complacency of manners, are far from being the greatest obligations we have to you. I do assure you, there is not one of your friends has a greater sense of your merit in gen. eral, and of the favors you every day do us, than, Sir, Your most ob't and most humble servant, RICHARD STEELE.

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 a gentleman 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 dedication.

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 am told that your time passes away as agreeably in the amusements of a country life, as it ever 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 own estate.

After having spoken thus much of my patron, I must take the privilege of an author in saying

ing 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.

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 pretend to an ancient family, but has certainly as many forefathers as any lady in the land, if she but reckons up their names.

I must own 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

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.

THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER.

Is the six hundred and thirty-second Spectator, the reader will find an account of the rise of this eighth and last volume.

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 former volumes.

No, 1.] THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1710-11. Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem, Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat,

HOR., Ars. Poet., ver. 143.

One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke;
Another out of smoke brings glorious light,
And (without raising expectation high)
Surprises us with dazzling miracles, RoscoMMON.

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 present, 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 it remarkable, I shall pass over it in silence. I find that during my nonage, I had the reputation of a very sullen youth, but was always a favorite of my schoolmaster, 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 satis faction.*

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 seen 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,t 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, and can discern the errors in the economy, business, 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 violence, and am resolved to observe a strict neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either 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 his tory 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 posses sion 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

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 forins makes him but the readie and more capable to please and oblige all whe 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 naturally 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

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 embel lishment 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 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.

my cor

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 friends 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.

No. 2.] FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1710-11.

- Ast alii sex

Et plures, uno conclamant ore. -JLV., Sat. vii, 167.
Six more, at least, join their consenting voice.

THE first of our society is a gentleman of Worcestershire, of an ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir Roger de Coverley. His great-grandfather 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

teemed.

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 understood 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 orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool; but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable: as few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste for books is a little too just 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. This fellow was a noted sharper, swaggerer, and do bauchee about town, at the time here pointed out: he was well known in Blackfriars, and its then infamous purlieus.

ancients, makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent critic, and the time of the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through New-Inn, crosses through Russell-court, and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins; he has his shoes rubbed and his perriwig powdered at the barber's as you go into the Rose. It is for the good of the audience when he is at a play, for the actors have an ambition to please him.

The person of next consideration is Sir Andrew Freeport, a merchant of great eminence in the city of London. A person of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has usually some sly way of jesting, which would make no great figure were he not a rich man) he calls the sea the British Common. He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms: for true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue, that if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him prove, that diligence makes more lasting acquisitions than valor, and that sloth has ruined more nations than the sword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, among which the greatest favorite is, "A penny saved is a penny got." A general trader of good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perspicuity of his discourse gives the same pleasure that wit would in another man. He has made his fortune himself; and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms, by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men: though at the same time I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass, but blows home a ship in which he is an

owner.

Next to Sir Andrew in the club-room sits Captain Sentry, a gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting their talents within the observation of such as should take notice of them. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several engagements and at several sieges; but having a small estate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier as well as a soldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a profession where merit is placed in so conspicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he had talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a sour expression, but frankly confess that he left the world, because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty, and an even regular behavior, are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds, who endeavor at the same end with himself, the favor of a commander. He will, however, in his way of talk excuse generals, for not disposing according to men's desert, or inquiring into it; for, says he, that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: therefore he will conclude, that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders,

It has been said, that the real person alluded to under this name was C. Kempenfelt, father of the Admiral Kempenfelt who deplorably lost his life, when the Royal George of 100 guns sank at Spithead, Aug. 29, 1782.

by a proper assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in asserting what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be slow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candor does the gentleman speak of himself and others. The same frankness runs through all his conversation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from a habit of obeying men highly above him.

But that our society may not appear a set of humorists, unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb, a gentleman who, accordind to his years, should be in the decline of his life, but having been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces on his brain. His person is well turned, and of a good height. He is very ready at that sort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods-whose frailty was covered by such a sort of petticoat, and whose vanity to show her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his conversation and knowledge has been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon such an occasion, he will tell you, when the Duke of Monmouth danced at court, such a woman was then smitten-another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received a kind glance, or a blow of a fan from some celebrated beauty, mother of the present Lord Such a-one. If you speak of a young commoner that said a lively thing in the house, he starts up, "He has good blood in his veins, Tom Mirable begot him; the rogue cheated me in that affair; that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog than any woman I ever made advances to." This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that sort of man, who is usually called a well-bred fine gentleman. To conclude his character, where women are not concerned, he is an honest, worthy man.

I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, as one of our company; for he visits us but seldom; but when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophic man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and consequently, cannot accept of such cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is therefore among divines what a chambercounselor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the integrity of his life, create him followers, as being eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the subject he speaks upon;

It has been said that Colonel Cleland was supposed to have been the seal person alluded to under this character.