taining his friends, a little before he drank the word or action; nay, a good, a temperate, and bowl of poison, with a discourse on the immor- just man shall be put out of countenance by tality of the soul, at his entering upon it says that representation of those qualities that should he does not believe any, the most comic genius, him honor. So pernicious a thing is wit, wh can censure him for talking upon such a subject it is not tempered with virtue and humanity, at such a time. This passage, I think, evidently I have indeed heard of heedless, inconsider glances upon Aristophanes, who wrote a comedy on writers, that without any malice have sacrific purpose to ridicule the discourses of that divine the reputation of their friends and acquaintan philosopher. It has been observed by many wri- to a certain levity of temper, and a silly ambiti ters, that Socrates was so little moved at this of distinguishing themselves by a spirit of raille piece of buffoonery, that he was several times pre- and satire as if it were not infinitely more he sent on its being acted upon the stage, and never orable to be a good natured man than a expressed the least resentment of it. But with Where there is this little petulant humor in submission, I think the remark I have here made author, he is often very mischievous without shows us, that this unworthy treatment made an signing to be so. For which reason, I alwa impression upon his mind, though he had been lay it down as a rule, that an indiscreet man too wise to discover it. more hurtful than an ill-natured one; for as t latter will only attack his enemies, and those wishes ill to; the other injures indifferently be friends and foes. I cannot forbear on this oc sion transcribing a fable out of Sir Robert I'l trange, which accidentally lies before me. company of waggish boys were watching of fre at the side of a pond, and still as any of the put up their heads, they would be pelting the down again with stones. 'Children,' says one the frogs, you never consider, that though t may be play to you, it is death to us.'" · As this week is in a manner set apart and de When Julius Cæsar was lampooned by Catullus, he invited him to supper, and treated him with such a generous civility, that he made the poet his friend ever after. Cardinal Mazarine gave the same kind of treatment to the learned Quillet, who had reflected upon his eminence in a famous Latin poem. The cardinal sent for him, and, after some kind expostulations upon what he had written, assured him of his esteem, and dismissed him with a promise of the next good abbey that should fall, which he accordingly conferred upon him in a few months after. This had so good an effect upon the author, that he dedicated the sec-cated to serious thoughts, I shall indulge mys ond edition of his book to the cardinal, after hav- in such speculations as may not be altogether ing expunged the passages which had given him suitable to the season; and in the meantime, offense. the settling in ourselves a charitable frame of mi is a work very proper for the time, I have in paper endeavored to expose that particular brea of charity which has been generally overlook by divines, because they are but few who can guilty of it.-C. Sextus Quintus was not of so generous and forgiving a temper. Upon his being made pope, the statue of Pasquin was one night dressed in a very dirty shirt, with an excuse written under it, that he was forced to wear foul linen, because his laundress was made a princess. This was a reflection upon the pope's sister, who before the promotion of her brother, was in those mean circumstances that Pasquin represented her. As this pasquinade made a great noise in Rome, the pope offered a considerable sum of money to any person that should discover the author of it. The author, relying upon his holiness's generosity, as also some private overtures which he had received from him, made the discovery himself; upon which the pope gave him the reward he had promised, but at the same time to disable the satirist for the future, ordered his tongue to be cut out, and both his hands to be chopped off. Aretine is too trite an instance. Every one knows that all the kings of Europe were his tributaries. Nay, there is a letter of his extant, in which he makes his boast that he laid the Sophi of Persia under contribution. Though, in the various examples which I have here drawn together, these several great men behaved themselves very differently toward the wits of the age who had reproached them; they all of them plainly showed that they were very sensible of their reproaches, and consequently that they received them as very great injuries. For my own part, I would never trust a man that I thought was capable of giving these secret wounds; and cannot but think that he would hurt the person whose reputation he thus assaults, in his body or in his fortune, could he do it with the same security. There is, indeed, something very barbarous and inhuman in the ordinary scribblers of lampoons. An innocent young lady shall be exposed for an unhappy feature; a father of a family turned to ridicule for some domestic calamity; a wife made uneasy all her life for a misrepresented *Peter Aretine, infamous for his writings, died in 1556. No. 24.] WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 171 Accurrit quidam notus mihi nomine tantum: THERE are in this town a great number of significant people, who are by no means fit for better sort of conversation, and yet have an i pertinent ambition of appearing with those whom they are not welcome. If you walk in t park, one of them will certainly join with yo though you are in company with ladies; if y drink a bottle, they will find your haunts. W makes such fellows the more burdensome is, ti they neither offend nor please so far as to be tak notice of for either. It is, I presume, for th reason, that my correspondents are willing by t means to be rid of them. The two following! ters are written by persons who suffer by such i pertinence. A worthy old bachelor, who sets for his dose of claret every night, at such an ho is teased by a swarm of them; who, because th are sure of room and good fire, have taken it their heads to keep a sort of club in his compar though the sober gentleman himself is an ut enemy to such meetings. MADAM, " "I take this way to acquaint you with what "I am, Sir, a bachelor of some standing, and a common rules and forms would never permit me traveler; my business, to consult my own good to tell you otherwise; to wit, that you and I, humor, which I gratify without controlling other though equals in quality ard fortune, are by no people's: I have a room and a whole bed to means suitable companions. You are, it is true, myself and I have a dog, a fiddle, and a gun: very pretty, can dance, and make a very good they please me, and injure no creature alive. My figure in a public assembly; but, alas, Madam, you chief meal is a supper, which I always make at a must go no farther; distance and silence are your tavern. I am constant to an hour, and not ill- best recommendations; therefore let me beg of you humored; for which reasons, though I invite no- never to make me any more visits. You come in body, I have no sooner supped, than I have a a literal sense to see one, for you have nothing to crowd about me of that sort of good company say. I do not say this, that I would by any means that know not whither else to go. It is true, lose your acquaintance; but I would keep it up every man pays his share; yet as they are intru- with the strictest forms of good breeding. Let us ders, I have an undoubted right to be the only pay visits, but never see one another. If you will speaker, or at least the loudest; which I main-be so good as to deny yourself always to me, I tain, and that to the great emolument of my au- shall return the obligation by giving the same dience. I sometimes tell them their own in pretty orders to my servants. When accident makes us free language; and sometimes divert them with meet at a third place, we may mutually lament the merry tales, according as I am in humor. I misfortune of never finding one another at home, am one of those who live in taverns to a great go in the same party to a benefit play, and smile age, by a sort of regular intemperance; I never at each other, and put down glasses as we pass go to bed drunk, but always flustered; I wear in our coaches. Thus we may enjoy as much of away very gently; am apt to be peevish, but never each other's friendship as we are capable of: for angry. Mr. Spectator, if you have kept various there are some people who are to be known only company, you know there is in every tavern in by sight, with which sort of friendship I hope town some old humorist or other, who is master you will always honor, Madam, of the house as much as he that keeps it. The drawers are all in awe of him; and all the customers who frequent his company, yield him a sort of comical obedience. I do not know but I may be such a fellow as this myself. But I appeal to you, whether this is to be called a club, because so many impertinents will break in upon me, and come without appointment? Clinch of Barnet has a nightly meeting, and shows to every one that will come in and pay; but then he is the only actor. Why should people miscall things? If his is allowed to be a concert, why may not mine be a lecture? However, Sir, I submit it to you, and am, Sir, your most obedient servant, etc. "THOMAS KIMBOW." fairly; and that done, I shall expect redress from your judicious pen. "GOOD SIB, "Sir, your obliged, humble servant, A like impertinence is also very troublesome to the superior and more intelligent part of the fair sex. It is, it seems, a great inconvenience, that those of the meanest capacities will pretend to make visits, though indeed they are qualified rather to add to the furniture of the house (by filling an empty chair), than to the conversation they enter into when they visit. A friend of mine hopes for redress in this case, by the publication of her letter in my paper; which she thinks those she would be rid of will take to themselves. It seems to be written with an eye to one of those pert, giddy, unthinking girls; who, upon the recommendation only of an agreeable person and a fashionable air, take themselves to be upon a level with women of the greatest merit: "Your most obedient, humble servant, "MARY TUESDAY." "P. S. I suscribe myself by the name of the day I keep, that my supernumerary friends may know who I am." ADVERTISEMENT. To prevent all mistakes that may happen among gentlemen of the other end of the town, who come but once a week to St. James's coffee-house, either by miscalling the servants, or requiring such things from them as are not properly within their respective provinces; this is to give notice, that Kidney, keeper of the book-debts of the outlying customers, and observer of those who go off without paying, having resigned that employment, is succeeded by John Sowton; to whose place of enterer of messages and first coffee-grinder, William Bird is promoted; and Samuel Burdock comes as shoe-cleaner in the room of the said Bird.-R. "SIR, "I am one of that sickly tribe who are commonly known by the name of valetudinarians; and do confess to you, that I first contracted this ill habit of body, or rather of mind, by the study of physic. I no sooner began to peruse books of this nature, but I found my pulse was irregular; and scarce ever read the account of any disease that I did not fancy myself afflicted with.* Dr. Sydenham's learned treatise of fever threw me into a lingering hectic, which hung upon me all the while I was reading that excellent piece. I then applied myself to the study of several authors who have written upon phthisical distempers, and by that means fell into a consumption; till at length, growing very fat, I was in a manner shamed out of that imagination. Not long after this I found in myself all the symptoms of the *Mr. Tickell, in his preface to Addison's Works, says, that "Addison never had a regular pulse," which Steele questions in bis dedication of The Drummer to Mr. Congreve. gout, except pain; but was cured of it by a treatise often proves mortal, and sets people on meth upon the gravel, written by a very ingenious to save their lives which infallibly destroy th author, who (as it is usual for physicians to con- This is a reflection made by some historians, u vert one distemper into another) eased me of the observing that there are many more thousa gout by giving me the stone. I at length studied killed in a flight, than in a battle; and may myself into a complication of distempers; but, applied to those multitudes of imaginary accidentally taking into my hand that ingenious persons that break their constitutions by phy discourse written by Sanctorius, I was resolved and throw themselves into the arms of death to direct myself by a scheme of rules, which I endeavoring to escape it. This method is had collected from his observations. The learned only dangerous, but below the practice of a world are very well acquainted with that gentle- sonable creature. To consult the preservation man's invention; who, for the better carrying on life, as the only end of it-to make our health his experiments, contrived a certain mathematical business-to engage in no action that is not chair, which was so artificially hung upon springs, of a regimen, or course of physic-are purp that it would weigh anything as well as a pair of so abject, so mean, so unworthy human nat scales. By this means he discovered how many that a generous soul would rather die than sub ounces of his food passed by perspiration, what to them. Beside, that a continual anxiety for quantity of it was turned into nourishment, and vitiates all the relishes of it, and casts a gl how much went away by the other channels and over the whole face of nature; as it is imposs distributions of nature. we should take delight in anything that we every moment afraid of losing. I do not mean, by what I have here said, th think any one to blame for taking due care of t health. On the contrary, as cheerfulness of m and capacity for business are in a great mea the effects of a well-tempered constitution, a cannot be at too much pains to cultivate and serve it. But this care, which we are prompte not only by common sense, but by duty and stinct, should never engage us in groundless f melancholy apprehensions, and imaginary tempers, which are natural to every man wh more anxious to live, than how to live. In sh the preservation of life should be only a secon concern, and the direction of it our principal. we have this frame of mind, we shall take best means to preserve life, without being o solicitous about the event; and shall arrive at point of felicity which Martial has mentione the perfection of happiness, of neither fearing wishing for death. In answer to the gentleman, who tempers health by ounces and by scruples, and instea complying with those natural solicitations hunger and thirst, drowsiness, or love of exer governs himself by the prescriptions of his cha shall tell him a short fable. Jupiter, says the thologist, to reward the piety of a certain cour man, promised to give him whatever he would The countryman desired that he might have management of the weather in his own es He obtained his request, and immediately tributed rain, snow, and sunshine, among several fields, as he thought the nature of the required. At the end of the year, when he exp ed to see a more than ordinary crop, his har fell infinitely short of that of his neight Upon which (says the fable) he desired Jup to take the weather again into his own hands that otherwise he should utterly ruin himself. "Having provided myself with this chair, I used to study, eat, drink, and sleep in it; insomuch that I may be said, for these last three years, to have lived in a pair of scales. I compute myself, when I am in full health, to be precisely two hundred weight, falling short of it about a pound after a day's fast, and exceeding it as much after a very full meal; so that it is my continual employment to trim the balance between these two volatile pounds in my constitution. In my ordinary meals I fetch myself up to two hundred weight and half a pound; and if, after having dined, I find myself fall short of it, I drink so much small beer, or eat such a quantity of bread, as is sufficient to make me weight. In my greatest excesses, I do not transgress more than the other half-pound; which, for my health's sake, I do the first Monday in every month. As soon as I find myself duly poised after dinner, I walk till I have perspired 1 five ounces and four scruples; and when I discover, by my chair, that I am so far reduced, I fall to my books, and study away three ounces more. As for the remaining parts of the pound, I keep no account of them. I do not dine and sup by the clock, but by my chair; for when that informs me my pound of food is exhausted, I conclude my self to be hungry, and lay in another with all diligence. In my days of abstinence I lose a pound and a half, and on solemn fasts am two pounds lighter than on the other days of the year. "I allow myself, one night with another, a quarter of a pound of sleep, within a few grains more or less; and if, upon my rising, I find that I have not consumed my whole quantity, I take out the rest in my chair. Upon an exact calculation of what I expended and received the last year, which I always register in a book, I find the medium to be two hundred weight, so that I cannot discover that I am impaired one ounce in my health during a whole twelvemonth. And yet, Sir, notwithstanding this my great care to ballast myself equally every day, and to keep my body in its proper poise, so it is, that I find myself in a sick and languishing condition. My complexion is grown very sallow, my pulse low, and my body hydropical. Let me therefore beg you, Sir, to consider me as your patient, and to give me more certain rules to walk by than those I have already observed, and you will very much oblige "Your humble servant." This letter puts me in mind of an Italian epitaph written on the monument of a valetudinarian: "Stavo hen, ma per star meglio, sto qui:" which it is impossible to translate. The fear of death No. 26.] FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1711. *The following translation, however, may give an English trying to be better, I am here." gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing my self with the tombstones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another; the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born, and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head. Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque.-VIRG. The life of these men is finely described in holy writ by "the path of an arrow," which is immediately closed up and lost. Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixed with a kind of fresh mouldering earth that some time or other had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon this I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled among one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter. After having thus surveyed the great magazine of mortality, as it were, in the lump, I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of the monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed, indeed, that the present war has filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean. I could not but be very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honor to the living as well as the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a nation from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesly Shovel's monument has very often given me great offense. Instead of the brave rough English admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain, gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions, under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to the monument; for instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honor. The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, show an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness in their buildings and works of this nature than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their admirals, which have been erected at the public expense, represent them like themselves, and are adorned with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of sea-weed, shells, and coral. But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our English kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds and gloomy imaginations; but for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies within me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow. When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be cotemporaries, and make our appearance together. C. No. 27.] SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1711. IMITATED. Long as to him, who works for debt, the day; Long as the night to her, whose love's away; Long as the year's dull circle seems to run When the brisk minor pants for twenty-one: So slow th' unprofitable moments roll, That lock up all the functions of my soul; That keep me from myself, and still delay Life's instant business to a future day: That task, which as we follow, or despise, The eldest is a fool, the youngest wise; Which done, the poorest can no wants endure, And which not done the richest must be poor.-POPE. THERE is scarce a thinking man in the world, who is involved in the business of it, but lives under a secret impatience of the hurry and fatigue he suffers, and has formed a resolution to fix himself, one time or other, in such a state as is suitable to the end of his being. You hear men every day in conversation profess, that all the honor, power, and riches, which they propose to themselves, cannot give satisfaction enough to reward them for half the anxiety they undergo in the pursuit or the possession of them. While men are in this temper (which happens very frequently), how inconsistent are they with themselves! They are wearied with the toil they bear, but cannot find in their hearts to relinquish it: retirement is what they want, but they cannot betake themselves to it. While they pant after shade and covert, they still affect to appear in the most glittering scenes of life. Sure this is but just as reasonable as if a man should call for more light, when he has a mind to go to sleep. Since then it is certain that our own hearts deceive us in the love of the world, and that we can not command ourselves enough to resign it, though we every day wish ourselves disengaged from its allurements; let us not stand upon a formal taking of leave, but wean ourselves from them while we are in the midst of them. It is certainly the general intention of the greater part of mankind to accomplish this work, and live according to their own approbation, as soon as they possibly can. But since the duration of life is so uncertain (and that has been a common topic of discourse ever since there was such a thing as life itself), how is it possible that we should defer a moment the beginning to live according to the rules of reason? The man of business has ever some one point to carry, and then he tells himself he will bid adieu to all the vanity of ambition. The man of pleasure resolves to take his leave at least, and part civilly with his mistress; but the ambitious man is entangled every moment in a fresh pursuit, and the lover sees new charms in the object he fancied he could abandon. It is therefore a fantastical way of thinking, when we promise ourselves an alteration in our conduct from change of place and difference of circumstances; the same passions will attend us wherever we are, until they are conquered; and we can never live to our satisfaction in the deepest retirement, unless we are capable of living so, in some measure, amidst the noise and business of the world. I have ever thought men were better known by what could be observed of them from a perusal of their private letters, than any other way. My friend the clergyman, the other day, upon serious discourse with him concerning the danger of procrastination, gave me the following letters from persons with whom he lives in great friendship and intimacy, according to the good breeding and good sense of his character. The first is from a man of business, who is his convert: the second from one who is in no state at all, but carried one way and another by starts. satisfaction, when I acknowledge I am the man, from the influence and authority you over, Sir, "Your most obliged and most humble serv "R. SIB, S "I am entirely convinced of the truth of you were pleased to say to me, when I wa with you alone. You told me then of the way I was in; but you told me so as I sa loved me, otherwise I could not obey your mands in letting you know my thoughts cerely as I do at present. I know the cre for whom I resign so much of my character, that you said of her; but then the trifler has thing in her so undesigning and harmles her guilt in one kind disappears by the co son of her innocence in another. Will yo tuous man, allow no alteration of offenses? dear Chloe be called by the hard name you people give to common women? I ke solemn promise I made you, in writing to y state of my mind, after your kind admonitio will endeavor to get the better of this for which makes me so much her humble serva am almost ashamed to subscribe myself y I "T. "SIR, "There is no state of life so anxious as of his own reason. It will seem odd to you a man who does not live according to the c I assure you that my love of retirement firs brought me to court; but this will be no when I acquaint you, that I placed myse with a design of getting so much money as enable me to purchase a handsome retreat country. At present my circumstances ena and my duty prompts me, to pass away maining part of my life in such a retirem at first proposed to myself; but to my gre fortune I have entirely lost the relish of should now return to the country with reluctance than I at first came to court. unhappy, as to know that what I am fond trifles, and that what I neglect is of the mind between reason and fashion. importance: in short, I find a contest in you once told me, that I might live in the and out of it, at the same time. Let me beg to explain this paradox more at large to i I may conform my life, if possible, both duty and my inclination. I am yours, I I re R. "F 44 left at Mr. Buckley's, in Little Britain, pos Letters are directed "For the Spectato N. B. In the form of a direction, this n figure in the last column of the Spectator "SIR, "I know not with what words to express to you the sense I have of the high obligation you have laid upon me, in the penance you enjoined me, of doing some good or other to a person of worth every day I live. The station I am in furnishes me with daily opportunities of this kind; and the noble principle with which you have inspired me, of benevolence to all I have to deal with, quickens my application in everything I undertake. When from a projector, concerning a new office w I SHALL here present my reader with thinks may very much contribute to the em ments of the city, and to the driving barba I relieve merit from discountenance, when I assist of our streets. "I consider it as a satire up jectors in general, and a lively picture of th art of modern criticism. a friendless person, when I produce concealed worth, I am displeased with myself, for having designed to leave the world in order to be virtuous. I am sorry you decline the occasions which the condition I am in might affa "SIR, No. 28.] MONDAY, APRIL 2, 171 Tendit Apollo.-HOR., 2 Od., x, 19. |
