but that of late there have been two words in be a very proper present to be made to persons at christenings, marriages, visiting days, and the like joyful solemnities, as several other books are frequently given at funerals. He has printed them in such a little portable volume, that many of them may be ranged together upon a single plate; and is of opinion, that a salver of Specta tors would be as acceptable an entertainment to the ladies as a salver of sweetmeats. every one of them which he could heartily wish I shall conclude this paper with an epigram lately sent to the writer of the Spectator, after having returned my thanks to the ingenious au Having heard the following epigram very much commended, I wonder that it has not yet had a place in any of your papers; I think the suffrage of our poet-laureate should not be over. looked, which shows the opinion he entertains of your paper, whether the notion he proceeds upos be true or false. I make bold to convey it to you, not knowing if it has yet come to your hands." ON THE SPECTATOR. BY MR. TATE. - Aliusque et idem Nasceris- HOR. Carm. Sæc. 10. Letters from the female world are likewise come to me, in great quantities, upon the same occasion; and, as I naturally bear a great deference to this part of our species, I am very glad to find that those who approve my conduct, in this particular, are much more numerous than those who condemn it. A large family of daughters have drawn me up a very handsome remonstrance, in which they set forth that their father having refused to take in the Spectator, since the additional price was set upon it, they offered him unanimously to bate him the article of bread and butter in the teatable account, provided the Spectator might be served up to them every morning as usual. Upon this the old gentleman, being pleased, it seems, with their desire of improving themselves, has granted them the continuance both of the Spectator and their bread and butter, having given particular orders that the tea-table shall be set forth every morning with its customary bill of fare, and without any manner of defalcation. I thought myself obliged to mention this particular, as it does honor to this worthy gentleman; and if the young lady Lætitia, who sent me this account, will acquaint me with his name, I will insert it at No. 469.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1712 length in one of my papers, if he desires it. I should be very glad to find out any expedient that might alleviate the expense which this my paper brings to any of my readers; and, in order to it, must propose two points to their consideration. First, that if they retrench any the smallest particular in their ordinary expense, it will easily make up the halfpenny a day which we have now under consideration. Let à lady sacrifice but a single riband to her morning studies, and it will be sufficient: let a family burn but a candle a night less than the usual number, and they may take in the Spectator without detriment to their private affairs. In the next place, if my readers will not go to the price of buying my papers by retail, let them have patience, and they may buy them in the lump, without the burthen of a tax upon them. My speculations, when they are sold single, like cherries upon the stick, are delights for the rich and wealthy: after some time they come to market in greater quantities, and are every ordinary man's money. The truth of it is, they have a certain flavor at their first appearance, from several accidental circumstances of time, place, and person, which they may lose if they are not taken early; but in this case, every reader is to consider, whether it is not better for him to be half a year behindhand with the fashionable and polite part of the world, than to strain himself beyond his circumstances. My bookseller has now about ten thousand of the third and fourth volumes, which he is ready to publish, having already disposed of as large an edition both of the first and second volume. As he is a person whose head is very well turned to his business, he thinks they would When first the Tatler to a mute was turn'd, "SIR, The mighty force of ocean's troubled flood. I can UPON reading your essay concerning the Pleas ures of the Imagination, I find, among the three sources of those pleasures which you have dis covered, that greatness is one. This bas sug gested to me the reason why, of all objects that I have ever seen, there is none which affects my imagination so much as the sea, or ocean. not see the heavings of this prodigious bulk of waters, even in a calm, without a very pleasing astonishment; but when it is worked up in a tenpest, so that the horizon on every side is nothing but foaming billows and floating mountains, it impossible to describe the agreeable horror that rises from such a prospect. A troubled ocean, to a man who sails upon it, is, I think, the bigg object that he can see in motion, and consequent gives his imagination one of the highest kinds pleasure that can arise from greatness. I must confess it is impossible for me to survey the world of fluid matter, without thinking on the hand that first poured it out, and made a proper channel for its reception. Such an object naturally raises in my thoughts the idea of an Almighty Being, and convinces me of his existence as m as a metaphysical demonstration. The imagins tion prompts the understanding, and, by the gra ness of the sensible object, produces in it the des of a Being who is neither circumscribed by time nor space. "As I have made several voyages upon the I have often been tossed in storms, and ar occasion have frequently reflected on the descrip tions of them in ancient poets. I remetter 19 Longinus highly recommends one in Homer, because the poet has not amused himself with little fancies upon the occasion, as authors of an inferior genius, whom he mentions, had done, but because he has gathered together those circumstances which are the most apt to terrify the imagination, and which really happen in the raging of a tempest. It is for the same reason that I prefer the following description of a ship in a storm, which the Psalmist has made, before any other I have ever met with: They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then they are glad, because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.'* "By the way, how much more comfortable, as well as rational, is this system of the Psalinist, than the pagan scheme in Virgil and other poets, where one deity is represented as raising a storm, and another as laying it! Were we only to consider the sublime in this piece of poetry, what can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being thus raising a tumult among the elements, and recovering them out of their confusion; thus troubling and becalming nature?" "Great painters do not only give us landscapes of gardens, groves, and meadows, but very often employ their pencils upon sea-pieces. I could wish you would follow their example. If this small sketch may deserve a place among your works, I shall accompany it with a divine ode made by a gentleman upon the conclusion of his travels." I. How are thy servants blest! O Lord! How sure is their defense! Eternal wisdom is their guide, Their help Omnipotence. II. In foreign realms and lands remote, Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt, III. Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil, Think, O my soul, devoutly think, V. Confusion dwelt in ev'ry face, And fear in ev'ry heart; When waves on waves, and gulfs in gulfs, O'ercame the pilot's art. VI. Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord, VII. For though in dreadful whirls we hung lligh on the broken wave, I knew thou wert not slow to hear, *Ps. cvii, 23 et. seqq. No. 490.] MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1712. Domus et placens uxor.-Hon. 2 Od. xiv. 21. Thy house and pleasing wife. CREECH. I HAVE very long entertained an ambition to make the word wife the most agreeable and delightful name in nature. If it be not so in itself, all the wiser part of mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, has consented in an error. But our unhappiness in England has been, that a few loose men, of genius for pleasure, have turned it all to the gratification of ungoverned desires, in despite of good sense, form and order; when, in truth. any satisfaction beyond the boundaries of reason is but a step toward madness and folly. But is the sense of joy and accomplishment of desire no way to be indulged or attained? And have we appetites given us not to be at all gratified? Yes, certainly. Marriage is an institution calculated for a constant scene of as much delight as our being is capable of. Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species, with design to be each other's mutual comfort and entertainment, have in that action bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties and perfections, to the end of their lives. The wiser of the two (and it always happens one of them is such) will, for her or his own sake, keep things from outrage with the utmost sanctity. When this union is thus preserved (as I have often said), the most indifferent circumstance administers delight. Their condition is an endless source of new gratifications. The married man can say, "If I am unacceptable to all the world beside, there is one whom I entirely love that will receive me with joy and transport, and think herself obliged to double her kindness and caresses of me from the gloom with which she sees me overcast. I need not dissemble the sorrow of my heart to be agreeable there; that very sorrow quickens her affection." This passion toward each other, when once well fixed, enters into the very constitution, and the kindness flows as easily and silently as the blood in the veins. When this affection is enjoyed in the most sublime degree, unskillful eyes see nothing of it; but when it is subject to be changed, and has an alloy in it that may make it end in distaste, it is apt to break into rage, or overflow into fondness, before the rest of the world. Uxander and Viramira are amorous and young, and have been married these two years; yet do they so much distinguish each other in company, that in your conversation with the dear things you are still put to a sort of cross-purposes. Whenever you address yourself in ordinary discourse to Viramira, she turns her head another way, and the answer is made to the dear Uxander. If you tell a merry tale, the application is still directed to her dear; and when she should commend you, she says to him, as if he had spoke it, "That is, my dear, so pretty."-This puts me in mind of what I have somewhere read in the admired memoirs of the famous Cervantes; where, while honest Sancho Pansa is putting some necessary humble question concerning Rosinante, his supper, or his lodging, the knight of the sorrowful countenance is ever improving the harmless lowly hints of his squire to poetical conceit, rapture, and flight, in contemplation of the dear Dulcinea of his affections. Or raging fire of love to womankind, Or zeal of friends combin'd by virtues meet: And quenched is with Cupid's greater flame; So love of soul doth love of body pass, No less than perfect gold surmounts the meanest brass. T. -Digna satis fortuna revisit.-VIRG. Æn. iii. 318. A just reverse of fortune on him waits. On the other side, Dictamnus and Moria are ever squabbling; and you may observe them, all the time they are in company, in a state of impatience. No. 491.] TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1712. As Uxander and Viramira wish you all gone, that they may be at freedom for dalliance; Dictamnus and Moria wait your absence, that they may speak their harsh interpretations on each other's words and actions, during the time you were with them. It is certain that the greater part of the evils attending this condition of life arises from fashion. Prejudice in this case is turned the wrong way; and, instead of expecting more happiness than we shall meet with in it, we are laughed into a prepossession, that we shall be disappointed if we hope for lasting satisfactions. With all persons who have made good sense the rule of action, marriage is described as the state capable of the highest human felicity. Tully has epistles full of affectionate pleasure, when he writes to his wife, or speaks of his children. But, above all the hints of this kind I have met with in writers of ancient date, I am pleased with an epigram of Martial, in honor of the beauty of his wife Cleopatra. Commentators say it was written the day after his wedding night. When his spouse was retired to the bathing-room in the heat of the day, he, it seems, came in upon her when she was just going into the water. To her beauty and carriage on this occasion we owe the following epigram, which I showed my friend Will Honeycomb in French, who has translated it as follows, without understanding the original. I expect it will please the English better than the Latin reader: When my bright consort, now nor wife nor maid, My friend would not allow that this luscious account could be given of a wife, and therefore used the word consort; which he learnedly said, would serve for a mistress as well, and give a more gentlemanly turn to the epigram. But under favor of him and all other such fine gentlemen, I cannot be persuaded but that the passion a bridegroom has for a virtuous young woman, will, by little and little, grow into friendship, and then it is ascended to a higher pleasure than it was in its first fervor. Without this happens, he is a very unfortunate man who has entered into this state, and left the habitudes of life he might have enjoyed with a faithful friend. But when the wife proves capable of filling serious as well as joyous hours, she brings happiness unknown to friendship itself. Spenser speaks of each kind of love with great Justice, and attributes the highest praise to friendship; and indeed there is no disputing that point, but by making that friendship take its place be tween two married persons. Hard is the doubt, and difficult to deem, Ir is common with me to run from book to book to exercise my mind with many objects, and qualify myself for my daily labors. After an hour spent in this loitering way of reading, something will remain to be food to the imagination. The writings that please me most on such occasions are stories, for the truth of which there is good authority. The mind of man is naturally a lover of justice; and when we read a story wherein a criminal is overtaken, in whom there is no quality which is the object of pity, the soul enjoys a certain revenge for the offense done to its nature, in the wicked actions committed in the preceding part of the history. This will be better understood by the reader from the following narration itself, than from anything which I can say to introduce it. When Charles, Duke of Burgundy, surnamed The Bold, reigned over the spacious dominions now swallowed up by the power of France, he heaped many favors and honors upon Claudius Rhynsault, a German, who had served him in his wars against the insults of his neighbors. A great part of Zealand was at that time in subjection to that dukedom. The prince himself was a person of singular humanity and justice. Rhynsault, with no other real quality than courage, had dissimulation enough to pass upon his generous and unsuspicious master for a person of blunt honesty and fidelity, without any vice that could bias him from the execution of justice. His highness, prepossessed to his advantage, upon the decease of the governor of his chief town of Zealand, gave Rhynsault that command. He was not long seated in that government, before he cast his eyes upon Sap phira, a woman of exquisite beauty, the wife of Paul Danvelt, a wealthy merchant of the city, under his protection and government. Rhynsault was a man of a warm constitution, and violent inclination to women, and not unskilled in the soft arts which win their favor. He knew what it was to enjoy the satisfactions which are reaped from the possession of beauty, but was an utter stranger to the decencies, honors, and delicacies that attend the passion toward them in elegant minds. However, he had so much of the world, that he had a great share of the language which usually prevails upon the weaker part of that sex; and he could with his tongue utter a passion with which his heart was wholly untouched. He was one of those brutal minds which can be gratified with the violation of innocence and beauty, without the least pity, passion, or love, to that with which they are so much delighted. Ingratitude is a vice inseparable to s lustful man; and the possession of a woman by him, who has no thought but allaying a passion painful to himself, is necessarily followed by dis taste and aversion. Rhynsault, being resolved to accomplish his will on the wife of Danvelt, left no arts untried to get into a familiarity at her house; but she knew his character and disposition too well, not to shun lecasions that might insnare her into his conversation. The governor despairing of Buccess by ordinary means, apprehended and imprisoned her husband, under pretense of an information, that he was guilty of a correspondence with the enemies of the duke to betray the town into their possession. This design had its desired effect; and the wife of the unfortunate Danvelt, the day before that which was appointed for his execution, presented herself in the hall of the governor's house, and as he passed through the apartment, threw herself at his feet, and holding his knees, beseeched his mercy. Rhynsault beheld her with a dissembled satisfaction; and, assuming an air of thought and authority, he bid her arise, and told her she must follow him to his closet; and, asking her whether she knew the hand of the letter he pulled out of his pocket, went from her, leaving this admonition aloud: "If you will save your husband, you must give me an account of all you know without prevarication; for everybody is satisfied he was too fond of you to be able to hide from you the names of the rest of the conspirators, or any other particulars whatsoever." He went to his closet, and soon after the lady was sent for to an audience. The servant knew his distance when matters of state were to be debated; and the governor, laying aside the air with which she had appeared in public, began to be the applicant, to rally an affliction, which it was in her power easily to remove, and relieve an innocent man from his imprisonment. She easily perceived his intention; and bathed in tears, began to deprecate so wicked a design. Lust, like ambition, takes all the faculties of the mind and body into its service and subjection. Her becoming tears, her honest anguish, the wringing of her hands, and the many changes of her posture and figure in the vehemence of speaking, were but so many attitudes in which he beheld her beauty, and further incentives of his desire. All humanity was lost in that one appetite, and he signified to her in so many plain terms, that he was unhappy till he had possessed her, and nothing less should be the price of her husband's life; and she must, before the following noon, pronounce the death, or enlargement, of Danvelt. After this notification, when he saw Sapphira enough again distracted, to make the subject of their discourse to common eyes appear different from what it was, he called servants to conduct her to the gate. Loaded with insupportable affliction, she immediately repaired to her husband; and having signified to his jailers that she had a proposal to make to her husband from the governor, she was left alone with him, revealed to him all that had passed, and represented the endless conflict she was in between love to his person and fidelity to his bed. It is easy to imagine the sharp affliction this honest pair was in upon such an incident, in lives not used to any but ordinary occurrences. The man was bridled by shame from speaking what his fear prompted, upon so near an approach of death; but let fall Words that signified to her, he should not think her polluted, though she had not yet confessed to him that the governor had violated her person, since he knew her will had no part in the action. She parted from him with this oblique permission to save a life he had not resolution enough to resign for the safety of his honor. 1 The next morning the unhappy Sapphira attended the governor, and being led into a remote apartment, submitted to his desires. Rhynsault commended her charms, claimed her familiarity after what had passed between them, and with an air of gayety, in the language of a gallant, bid her return and take her husband out of prison: " but," continued he, "my fair one must not be offended that I have taken care he should not be an interruption to our future assignations." These last words foreboded what she found when she came to the jail-ber husband executed by the order of Rhynsault! It was remarkable that the woman, who was full of tears and lamentations during the whole course of her affliction, uttered neither sigh nor complaint, but stood fixed with grief at this consummation of her misfortunes. She betook herself to her abode; and after having in solitude paid her devotions to Him who is the avenger of innocence, she repaired privately to court. Her person, and a certain grandeur of sorrow, negligent of forms, gained her passage into the presence of the duke her sovereign. As soon as she came into the presence, she broke forth into the following words: "Behold, O mighty Charles, a wretch weary of life, though it has always been spent with innocence and virtue. It is not in your power to redress my injuries, but it is to avenge them. And if the protection of the distressed, and the punishment of oppressors is a task worthy a prince, I bring the Duke of Burgundy ample matter for doing honor to his own great name, and wiping the infamy off of mine." When she had spoken this, she delivered the Duke a paper reciting her story. He read it with all the emotions that indignation and pity could raise in a prince jealous of his honor in the beha vior of his officers, and prosperity of his subjects. Upon an appointed day, Rhynsault was sent for to court, and, in the presence of a few of the council, confronted by Sapphira. The prince asking, "Do you know that lady ?" Rhynsault, as soon as he could recover his surprise, told the duke he would marry her, if his highness would please to think that a reparation. The duke seemed contented with this answer, and stood by during the immediate solemnization of the ceremony. the conclusion of it he told Rhynsault, "Thus far you have done as constrained by my authority: I shall not be satisfied of your kind usage of her, without you sign a gift of your whole estate to her after your decease. To the performance of this also the duke was a witness. When these two acts were executed, the duke turned to the lady and told her, "It now remains for me to put you in quiet possession of what your husband has so bountifully bestowed on you;" and ordered the immediate execution of Rhynsault.-T. C. At No. 492.] WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24, 1712. Quicquid est boni moris, levitate, extinguitur.-SENECA. Levity of behavior is the bane of all that is good and virtuous. "Tunbridge, Sept. 18. "DEAR MR. SPECTATOR, "I AM a young woman of eighteen years of age, and I do assure you a maid of unspotted reputation, founded upon a very careful carriage in all my looks, words, and actions. At the same time I must own to you, that it is with much constraint to flesh and blood that my behavior is so strictly irreproachable; for I am naturally addicted to mirth, to gayety, to a free air, to motion, and gadding. Now, what gives me a great deal of anxiety, and is some discouragement in the pursuit of virtue, is, that the young women who run into greater freedoms with the men are more taken notice of than I am. The men are such unthinking sots, that they do not prefer her who restrains all her passions and affections, and keeps much within the bounds of what is lawful, to her who goes to the utmost verge of innocence, and parleys at the very brink of vice, whether she shall be a wife or a mistress. But I must appeal to your spectatorial wisdom, who, I find, have passed very much of your time in the study of woman, whether this is not a most unreasonable proceeding. I have read somewhere that Hobbes of Malmesbury asserts, that continent persons have more of what they contain than those who give a loose to their desires. According to this rule, let there be equal age, equal wit, and equal good-humor, in the woman of prudence, and her of liberty, what stores has he to expect who takes the former? What refuse must he be contented with who chooses the latter? Well, but I sat down to write to you to vent my indignation against several pert creatures who are addressed to and courted in this place, while poor I, and two or three like me, are wholly unregarded. Every one of these affect gaining the hearts of your sex. This is generally attempted by a particular manner of carrying themselves with familiarity. Glycera has a dancing walk, and keeps time in her ordinary gait. Chloe, her sister, who is unwilling to interrupt her conquests, comes into the room before her with a familiar run. Dulcissa takes advantage of the approach of the winter, and has introduced a very pretty shiver; closing up her shoulders, and shrinking as she moves. All that are in this mode carry their fans between both hands before them. Dulcissa, herself, who is author of this air, adds the pretty run to it; and has also, when she is in a very good humor, a taking familiarity in throwing herself into the lowest seat in the room, and letting her hooped petticoats fall with a lucky decency about her. I know she practices this way of sitting down in her chamber; and indeed she does it as well as you may have seen an actress fall down dead in a tragedy. Not the least indecency in her posture. If you have observed what pretty carcasses are carried off at the end of a verse at the theater, it will give you a notion how Dulcissa plumps into a chair. Here is a little country girl that is very cunning, that makes her use of being young and unbred, and outdoes the ensnarers who are almost twice her age. The air that she takes is to come into company after a walk, and is very successfully out of breath upon occasion. Her mother is in the secret, and calls her romp, and then looks round to see what young men stare at her. "It would take up more than can come into one of your papers, to enumerate all the particular airs of the younger company in this place. But I can not omit Dalceorella, whose manner is the most indolent imaginable, but still as watchful of conquest as the busiest virgin among us. She has a peculiar art of staring at a young fellow, till she sees she has got him, and inflamed him by so much observation. When she sees she has him, and he begins to toss his head upon it, she is immediately short-sighted, and labors to observe what he is at a distance, with her eyes half shut. Thus the captive that thought her first struck, is to make very near approaches, or be wholly disregarded. This artifice has done more execution than all the ogling of the rest of the women here, with the utmost variety of half glances, attentive heedlessness, childish inadvertencies, haughty contempt, or artificial oversights. After I have said thus much of ladies among us who fight thus regularly, I am to complain to you of a set of familiar romps, who have broken through all common rules, and have thought of a very effectual way of showing more charms than all of us. These, Mr. Spectator, are the swingers. You are to know these careless pretty creatures are very innocents again; and it is to be no matter whe lo, for it is all 1 harmless freedom. They get on ropes, as you must have seen the children, and are swung by their men visitants. The jest is, that Mr. Such a-one can name the color of Mrs. Such-a-one's stockings; and she tells him he is a lying thief, so he is, and full of roguery; and she will lay a wa ger, and her sister shall tell the truth if he right, and he cannot tell what color her garters are of. In this diversion there are very many pretty shrieks, not so much for fear of falling, as that their petticoats should untie; for there is a great care had to avoid improprieties: and the lover who swings the lady is to tie her clothes very close with his hatband, before she admits him to throw up her heels. "Now, Mr. Spectator, except you can note these wantonnesses in their beginnings, and bring us sober girls into observation, there is no help for it; we must swim with the tide; the coquettes are too powerful a party for us. To look into the merit of a regular and well-behaved woman is a slow thing. A loose, trivial song gains their affec tions, when a wise homily is not attended ta There is no other way but to make war upon them or we must go over to them. As for my part, I will show all the world it is not for want of charms that I stand so long unasked; and if you do not take measures for the immediate redress of us rigids, as the fellows call us, I can move with a speaking mien, can look significantly, can lisp, can trip, can loll, can start, can blush, can rage, can weep, if I must do it, and can be frightened as agreeably as any she in England. All which is humbly submitted to your spectatorial consideration, with all humility, by T. No. 493.] "Your most humble Servant, "MATILDA MOHAIR.” THURSDAY, SEPT. 25, 1712 Qualem commendes, etiam atque etiam aspice, ne mor Incutiant aliena tibi peccata pudorem.—Hor. 1 Ep. xviii. 75. Commend not, till a man is thoroughly known: A rascal prais'd, you make his faults your own.-ANON. Ir is no unpleasant matter of speculation to con sider the recommendatory epistles that pass round this town from hand to hand, and the abuse people put upon one another in that kind. It is, indeed, come to that pass, that, instead of being the testimony of merit in the person recommended, the true reading of a letter of this sort is, "The bearer hereof is so uneasy to me, that it will be an act of charity in you to take him off my hands; whether you prefer him or not, it is all one; for 1 have no manner of kindness for him, or obligation to him or his; and do what you please as to that." As negligent as men are in this respect, a point of honor is concerned in it; and there is nothing & man should be more ashamed of, than passing a worthless creature in the service or interest of man who has never injured you. The women, indeed, are a little too keen in their resentments to trespass often this way; but you shall some times know, that the mistress and the maid shall quarrel, and give each other very free language, and at last the lady shall be pacified to turn ber out of doors, and give her a very good word to anybody else. Hence, it is that you see, in a year and half's time, the same face a domestic in all parts of the town. Good-breeding and good ture lead people in a great measure to this is tice: when suitors of no consideration will have confidence enough to press upon their superiors, those in power are tender of speaking the excep tions they have against them, and are mortgaged |
