a

ed, and is debased into a dereliction of mind for being what it is no guilt to be, a plain man. I would not here be supposed to have said, that our learned men of either robe who have been whipped at school, are not still men of noble and liberal minds; but I am sure they had been much more so than they are, had they never suffered that infamy.

But though there is so little care, as I have observed, taken, or observation made, of the natural strain of men, it is no small comfort to me, as a Spectator, that there is any right value set upon the bona Indoles of other animals; as appears by the following advertisement handed about the county of Lincoln, and subscribed by Enos Thomas, a person whom I have not the honour to know, but

suppose to be profoundly learned in horse-flesh :

• A chesnut horse, called Cæsar, bred by James Darcy, esquire, at Sedbury, near Richmond, in the county of York; his grandam was his old Royal Mare, and got by Blunderbuss, which was got by Hemsly-Turk, and he got Mr. Courant's Arabian, which got Mr. Minshuli's Jew's-Trump. Mr. Cæsar sold him to a nobleman (coming five years old, when he had but one sweat) for three hundred guineas. A guinea a leap and trial, and a shilling the man.

ENOS THOMAS.'

a

STEELE.

T.

NO. 158. FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 1711.

-Nos hæc novimus esse nihil.

MARTIAL. We know these things to be mere trifles. Out of a firm regard to impartiality, I print these letters, let them make for me or not.

a

I HAVE observed through the whole course of

your rhapsodies (as you once very well called them) you are very industrious to overthrow all that many your

superiors, who have gone before you, have made
their rule of writing. I am now between fifty and
sixty, and had the honour to be well with the first
men of taste and gallantry in the joyous reign of
Charles the Second. We then had, I humbly pre-
sume, as good understandings among us as any now
can pretend to. As for yourself, Mr. Spectator,
you seem with the utmost arrogance to undermine
the very fundamentals upon which we conducted
ourselves. It is monstrous to set up for a man of
wit, and yet deny that honour in a woman is any
thing else but peevishness, that inclination is the
best rule of life, or virtue and vice any thing else
but health and disease. We had no more to do but
to put a lady in good humour, and all we could wish
followed of course. Then, again, your Tully, and
your discourses of another life, are the very bane
of mirth and good-humour. Prythee do not value
thyself on thy reason at that exorbitant rate, and
the dignity of human nature; take my word for it,
a setting-dog, has as good reason as any man in
England. Had you (as by your diurnals one would
think you do) set up for being in vogue in town,
you should have fallen in with the bent of passion
and appetite ; your songs had then been in every
pretty mouth in England, and your little distiches
had been the maxims of the fair and the witty to
walk by: but, alas, Sir, what can you hope for,
from entertaining people with what must needs
make them like themselves worse than they did
before they read you? Had you made it your busi-
ness to describe Corinna charming, though incon-
sistent, to find something in human nature itself
to make Zoilus excuse himself for being fond of
her; and to make every man in good commerce
with his own reflections, you had done something
worthy our applause; but indeed, Sir, we shall not
commend you for disapproving us. .
deal more to say to you, but I shall sum it up all
in this one remark: In short, Sir, you do not write
like a gentleman.

I am, SIR,
- Your most humble servant.'

I have a great

and tell you,

MR. SPECTATOR, • The other day we were several of us at a tea-table, and according to custom, and your own advice, had the Spectator read among us.

It was that paper wherein you are pleased to treat with great freedom that character which

you

call a woman's man*. We gave up all the kinds you have mentioned, except those who, you say, are our constant visitants. I was upon the occasion commissioned by the company to write to you

that we shall not part with the men we have at present, until the men of sense think fit to relieve them, and give us their company in their stead. You cannot imagine but that we love to hear reason and good sense better than the ribaldry we are at present entertained with; but we must have company,

and

among us very inconsiderable is better than none at all. We are made for the cements of society, and came into the world to create relations amongst mankind; and solitude is an unnatural being to us. If the men of good understanding would forget a little of their severity, they would find their account in it; and their wisdom would have a pleasure in it, to which they are now strangers. It is natural among us,

when men have à true relish of our company and our value, to say every thing with a better grace ; and there is, without designing it, something ornamental in what men utter before women, which is lost or neglected in conversations of men only. Give me leave to tell you, Sir, it would do you no great harm if you yourself came a little more into our company ; it would certainly cure you of a certain positive and determining manner in which you talk sometimes. In hopes of your amendment,

• I am, sir,

Your gentle reader.'

5. MR. SPECTATOR, "Your professed regard to the fair sex, may perhaps make them value your admonitions when they will not those of other men. I desire you, Sir, to

mon.

repeat some lectures upon subjects which you have now and then in a cursory manner only just touched. I would have a Spectator wholly writ upon good-breeding; and after you have asserted that time and place are to be very much considered in all our actions, it will be proper to dwell upon behaviour at church. On Sunday last, a grave and reverend man preached at our church. There was something particular in his accent, but without any manner of affectation. This particularity a set of gigglers thought the most necessary thing to be taken notice of in his whole discourse, and made it an occasion of mirth during the whole time of ser

You should see one of them ready to burst behind a fan, another pointing to a companion in another seat, and a fourth with an arch composure, as if she would if possible stifle her laughter. There were many gentlemen who looked at them stedfastly, but this they took for ogling and admiring them: there was one of the merry ones in particular, that found out but just then that she had but five fingers, for she fell a reckoning the pretty. pieces of ivory over and over again, to find herself employment, and not laugh out. Would it not be expedient, Mr. Spectator, that the churchwarden should hold up his wand on these occasions, and keep the decency of the place as a magistrate does the peace in a tumult elsewhere?"

MR. SPECTATOR, "I AM a woman's man, and read with a very fine lady your paper *, wherein you fall upon us whom you envy : what do you think I did? You must know she was dressing, I read the Spectator to her, and she laughed at the places where she thought I was touched; I threw away your moral, and taking up her girdle, cried out,

She smiled, Sir, and said you were a pedant; so say of me what you please, read Seneca, and quote him against me if you think fit.

I am, sir,
" Your humble servant.'

T.

STEELE.

N° 159. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER, 1, 1711.

-Omnem, quæ nunc obducta tuenti
Mortales hebetat visus tibi, et humida circuim
Caligat, nubem eripiam-

VIRG. Æn. ii. ver. 604.
The cloud, which, intercepting the clear light,
Hangs o'er thy eyes, and blunts thy mortal sight,

I will remore.-
WHEN

HEN I was at Grand Cairo *, I picked up several oriental manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among others I met with one intitled, The Visions of Mirza, which I have read over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to the Public when I have no other entertainment for them; and shall begin with the first vision, which I have translated word for word as follows :

« On the fifth day of the moon, which aceording to the custom of my forefathers I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to another, “ Surely,” said 1, "man is but a shadow, and life a dream." Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked