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risibility, to seek their diversion at the
bear-garden, or some other privileged
place, where reason and good manners
have no right to disturb them.
August 8, 1711.

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T.

I am, &c.'

is all my attention broken! my books are blank paper, and my friends intruders. I have no hope of quiet but from your pity. To grant it would make more for your triumph. To give pain is the tyranny, to make happy the true empire of beauty. If you would consider aright, you would find an agreeable change in dismissing the attendance of a slave, to receive the complaisance of a companion. I bear the former in hopes of the latter condition. As I live in chains without murmuring at the power which inflicts them, so I could enjoy freeTHE following letters being genuine, and dom without forgetting the mercy that gave he images of a worthy passion, I am will-it. I am, Madam, your most devoted, most ing to give the old lady's admonition to my- obedient servant. self, and the representation of her own happiness, a place in my writings.

No. 142.] Monday, August 13, 1711.
Irrupta tenet copula Hor. Lib. 1. Od. xiii. 33,
Whom love's unbroken bond unites.

'August 9, 1711.

MR. SPECTATOR,-I am now in the sixty-seventh year of my age, and read you with approbation; but methinks you do not strike at the root of the greatest evil in life, which is the false notion of gallantry in love. It is, and has long been, upon a very ill foot; but I who have been a wife forty years, and was bred up in a way that has made me ever since very happy, see through the folly of it. In a word, sir, when I was a young woman, all who avoided the vices of the age were very carefully educated, and all fantastical objects were turned out of our sight. The tapestry-hangings, with the great and venerable simplicity of the scripture stories, had better effects than now the loves of Venus and Adonis, or Bacchus and Ariadne, in your fine present prints. The gentleman I am married to, made love to me in rapture, but it was the rapture of a Christian and a man of honour, not a romantic hero or a whining coxcomb. This put our life upon a right basis. To give you an idea of our regard one to another, I enclose to you several of his letters writ forty years ago, when my lover; and one writ the other day, after so many years cohabitation.

Your servant, ANDROMACHE.'

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August 7, 1671. "MADAM,—If my vigilance, and ten thousand wishes for your welfare and repose, could have any force, you last night slept in security, and had every good angel in your attendance. To have my thoughts ever fixed on you, to live in constant fear of every accident to which human life is liable, and to send up my hourly prayers to avert them from you: I say, madam, thus to think, and thus to suffer, is what I do for her who is in pain at my approach, and calls all my tender sorrow impertinence. You are now before my eyes, my eyes that are ready to flow with tenderness, but cannot give relief to my gushing heart, that dictates what I am now saying, and yearns to tell you all its achings. How art thou, oh my soul, stolen fra n thyself! how

Though I made him no declarations in his favour, you see he had hopes of me when he writ this in the month following.

"September 3, 1671. "MADAM,-Before the light this morning dawned upon the earth, I awaked, and lay in expectation of its return, not that it could give any new sense of joy to me, but as I hoped it would bless you with its cheerful face, after a quiet which I wished you last night. If my prayers are heard, the day appeared with all the influence of a merciful Creator upon your person and actions. Let others, my lovely charmer, talk of a blind being that disposes their hearts, I contemn I have not a their low images of love. thought which relates to you, that. I cannot with confidence beseech the All-seeing Power to bless me in. May he direct you in all your steps, and reward your innocence, your sanctity of manners, your prudent youth, and becoming piety, with the continuance of his grace and protection. This is an unusual language to ladies; but you have a mind elevated above the giddy notions of a sex insnared by flattery and misled by a false and short adoration into a solid and long contempt. Beauty, my fairest creature, palls in the possession, but I love also your mind: your soul is as dear to me as my own; and if the advantages of a liberal education, some knowledge, and as much contempt of the world, joined with the endeavours towards a life of strict virtue and religion, can qualify me to raise new ideas in a breast so well disposed as your's is, our days will pass away with joy; and old age, instead of introducing melan choly prospects of decay, give us hope of eternal youth in a better life. I have but few minutes from the duty of my employment to write in, and without time to read over what I have writ, therefore beseech you to pardon the first hints of my mind, which I have expressed in so little order. I am, dearest creature, your most obedient most devoted servant.

* This and the following letters in this Number are

all genuine, having been written by Sir Richard Steele, to Miss Scurlock, afterwards Lady Steele.-See Steele's Letters, Vol. II.

The two next were written after the at this time, but i. you saw the poor withday of our marriage was fixed.

66

ered hand which sends you' these minutes, I am sure you will smile to think that there 'September 25, 1671. “MADAM,——It is the hardest thing in still as so welcome a present, after forty is one who is so gallant as to speak of it the world to be in love, and yet attend bu-years' possession of the woman whom he siness. As for me, all that speak to me writes to. find me out, and I must lock myself up, or other people will do it for me. A gentleman asked me this morning, 'What news from Holland,' and I answered, She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know when I had been last at Windsor. I replied, She designs to go with me.' Pr'ythee, allow me at least to kiss your hand before the appointed day, that my mind may be in some composure. Methinks I could write a volume to you, but all the language on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion, I am ever your's.

وو

"June 23, 1711. MADAM,-I heartily beg your pardon for my omission to write yesterday. It was no failure of my tender regard for you; but having been very much perplexed in my thoughts on the subject of my last, made me determine to suspend speaking of it until I came myself. But my lovely creature, know it is not in the power of age, or misfortune, or any other accident which hangs over human life, to take from me the pleasing esteem I have for you, or the memory of the bright figure you appeared in, when your gave your hand and heart to, Madam, your most grateful husband, and obedient servant." T.

Non est vivere, sed valere, vita.

"Sept. 30, 1671, 7 in the morning. "DEAR CREATURE,-Next to the influence of heaven, I am to thank you that I see the returning day with pleasure. To pass my evenings in so sweet a conversa No. 143.] Tuesday, August 14, 1711. tion, and have the esteem of a woman of your merit, has in it a peculiarity of happiness no more to be expressed than returned. But I am, my lovely creature contented to be on the obliged side, and to employ all my days in new endeavours to convince you and all the world of the sense I have of your condescension in choosing, Madam, your most faithful, most obedient humble

servant.

وو

Martial, Epig, lxx. 6. For life is only life, when blest with health. Ir is an unreasonable thing some men expect of their acquaintance. They are ever complaining that they are out of order, or displeased, or they know not how, and are so far from letting that be a reason for retiring to their own homes, that they make it their argument for coming into company. What has any body to do with accounts of a man's being indisposed but his physician? If a man laments in company, where the rest are in humour enough to enjoy themselves, he should not take it ill if a servant is ordered to present him with a porringer of caudle or posset-drink, by way of admonition that he go home to bed. That part of life which we ordinarily understand by the word conversation, is an indulgence to the sociable part of our make; and should incline us to bring our proportion of good-will or good-humour among the friends we meet with, and not to trouble them with relations which must of necessity oblige them to a real or feigned affliction. Cares, distresses, diseases, uneasinesses, and dislikes of our own, are by no means to be obtruded upon our friends. If we would consider how little of this vicissitude of motion and rest, which we call life, is spent with satisfaction, we should be more tender of our friends, than to bring them little sorrows which do not belong to them. There is no real life but cheerful life; therefore valetudinarians should be sworn, before they enter into company, not to say a word of themselves until the meet ing breaks up. It is not here pretended, that we should be always sitting with chaplets of flowers round our heads, or be 'I will not trouble you with more letters crowned with roses in order to make our

'He was, when he writ the following letter, as agreeable and pleasant a man as any in England.

"October 20, 1671. "MADAM,-I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced to write from a coffee-house where I am attending about business. There is a dirty crowd of busy faces all around me talking of money, while all my ambition, all my wealth, is love; love, which animates my heart, sweetens my humour, enlarges my soul, and affects every action of my life. It is to my lovely charmer, I owe that many noble ideas are continually affixed to my words and actions: it is the natural effect of that generous passion to create in the admirers some similitude of the object admired; thus my dear am I every day to improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, to that heaven which made thee such, and join with me to implore its influence on our tender innocent hours, and beseech the author of love to bless the rites he has ordained, and mingle with our happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a resignation to his will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavour to please him and each other. I am, for ever, your faithful servant.

رو

his ordinary sleep. Thus is his being one uniform and consistent series of cheerful diversions and moderate cares, without fear or hope of futurity. Health to him is more than pleasure to another man, and sickness less affecting to him than indisposition is to others.

I must confess, if one does not regard life after this manner, none but idiots can pass it away with any tolerable patience. Take a fine lady who is of a delicate frame, and you may observe, from the hour she rises, a certain weariness of all that passes about her. I know more than one who is much too nice to be quite alive. They are sick of such strange frightful people that they meet; one is so awkward, and another so disagreeable, that it looks like a penance to breathe the same air with them. You see this is so very true, that a great part of ceremony and good-breeding among the ladies turns upon their uneasiness; and I will undertake, if the howd'ye-servants of our women were to make a weekly bill of sickness, as the parish clerks do of mortality, you would not find, in an account of seven days, one in thirty that was not downright sick or indisposed, or but a very little better than she was, and so forth.

entertainment agreeable to us; but if (as it | moment is not of half the duration as is is usually observed) they who resolve to be merry, seldom are so, it will be much more unlikely for us to be well-pleased, if they are admitted who are always complaining they are sad. Whatever we do, we should keep up the cheerfulness of our spirits, and never let them sink below an inclination at least to be well-pleased. The way of this, is to keep our bodies in exercise, our minds at ease. That insipid state wherein neither are in vigour, is not to be accounted any part of our portion of being. When we are in the satisfaction of some innocent pleasure, or pursuit of some laudable design, we are in the possession of life, of human life. Fortune will-give us disappointments enough, and nature is attended with infirmities enough, without our adding to the unhappy side of our account by our spleen or illhumour. Poor Cottilus, among so many real evils, a chronical distemper and a narrow fortune, is never heard to complain. That equal spirit of his, which any man may have, that like him will conquer pride, vanity, and affectation, and follow nature, is not to be broken, because it has no points to contend for. To be anxious for nothing but what nature demands as necessary, if it is not the way to an estate, is the way to what men aim at by getting an estate. This temper will preserve health in the body, as well as tranquillity in the mind, Cottilus sees the world in a hurry, with the same scorn that a sober person sees a man drunk. Had he been contented with what he ought to have been, how could, says he, such a one have met with such a disappointment? If another had valued his mistress for what he ought to have loved her, he had not been in her power. If her virtue had had a part of his passion, her levity had been his cure; she could not then have been false and amiable at the same time.

Since we cannot promise ourselves constant health, let us endeavour at such a temper as may be our best support in the decay of it. Uranius has arrived at that composure of soul, and wrought himself up to such a neglect of every thing with which the generality of mankind is enchanted, that nothing but acute pains can give him disturbance, and against those too he will tell his intimate friends he has a secret which gives him present ease. Uranius is so thoroughly persuaded of another life, and endeavours so sincerely to secure an interest in it, that he looks upon pain but as a quickening of his pace to a home where he shall be better provided for than in his present apartment. Instead of the melancholy views which others are apt to give themselves, he will tell you that he has forgot he is mortal, nor will he think of himself as such. He thinks at the time of his birth he entered into an eternal being; and the short article of death he will not allow an interruption of life; since that

It is certain that to enjoy life and health as a constant feast, we should not think pleasure necessary, but if possible, to arrive at an equality of mind. It is as mean to be overjoyed upon occasions of good fortune, as to be dejected in circumstances of distress. Laughter in one condition is as unmanly as weeping in the other. We should not form our minds to expect transport on every occasion, but know how to make it enjoyment to be out of pain. Ambition, envy, vagrant desire, or impertinent mirth, will take up our minds, without we can possess ourselves in that sobriety of heart which is above all pleasures, and can be felt much better than described. But the ready way, I believe, to the right enjoyment of life, is, by a prospect towards another, to have but a very mean opinion of it. Á great author of our time* has set this in an excellent light, when, with a philosophic pity of human life, he spoke of it in his Theory of the Earth in the following manner:

For what is this life but a circulation of little mean actions? We lie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, work or play, and are weary, and then we lie down again, and the circle returns. We spend the day in trifles, and when the night comes we throw ourselves into the bed of folly, amongst dreams, and broken thoughts, and wild imaginations. Our reason lies asleep by us, and we are for the time as arrant brutes as those that

* Dr. Thomas Burnet, Master of the Charter-house, author of Telluris sacra Theoria."

sleep in the stalls, or in the field. Are
not the capacities of man higher than
these? And ought not his ambition and ex-
pectations to be greater? Let us be adven-
turers for another world. It is at least a
fair and noble chance; and there is nothing
in this worth our thoughts or our passions.
If we should be disappointed, we are still
no worse than the rest of our fellow mor-
tals; and if we succeed in our expecta-
tions, we are eternally happy.'
T.

She has not lost the native simplicity of her aspect, to substitute that patience of being stared at, which is the usual triumph and distinction of a town lady. In public assemblies you meet her careless eye diverting itself with the objects around her, insensible that she herself is one of the brightest in the place.

Dulcissa is of quite another make, she is almost a beauty by nature, but more than one by art. If it were possible for her to let her fan or any limb about her rest, she would do some part of the execution she

No. 144.] Wednesday, August 15, 1711. meditates; but though she designs herself

-Noris quam elegans formarum Spectator siem.
Ter. Eun. Act. iii. Sc. 5.

You shall see how nice a judge of beauty I am.

a prey, she will not stay to be taken. No painter can give you words for the different aspects of Dulcissa in half a moment, wherever she appears: so little does she accomplish what she takes so much pains for, to be gay and careless.

It

BEAUTY has been the delight and torment of the world ever since it began. The philosophers have felt its influence so sensibly, that almost every one of them has Merab is attended with all the charms of left us some saying or other, which inti- woman and accomplishments of man. mated that he too well knew the power of is not to be doubted but she has a great it. One* has told us, that a graceful person deal of wit, if she were not such a beauty; is a more powerful recommendation than and she would have more beauty had she the best letter that can be written in our not so much wit. Affectation prevents her favour. Another desires the possessor of it excellences from walking together. If she to consider it as a mere gift of nature, and has a mind to speak such a thing, it must not any perfection of his own. A thirdt be done with such an air of her body; and calls it a short-lived tyranny; a fourth sa if she has an inclination to look very care'silent fraud,' because it imposes upon us less, there is such a smart thing to be said without the help of language; but I think at the same time, that the design of being Carneades spoke as much like a philoso-admired destroys itself. Thus the unhappy pher as any of them, though more like Merab, though a wit and a beauty, is ala lover, when he calls it royalty without lowed to be neither, because she will always force.' It is not indeed to be denied, but be both. there is something irresistible in a beauteous form; the most severe will not pretend, that they do not feel an immediate prepossession in favour of the handsome. No one denies them the privilege of being first heard, and being regarded before others in matters of ordinary consideration. At the same time the handsome should consider that it is a possession, as it were, foreign to them. No one can give it himself or preserve it when they have it. Yet so it is, that people can bear any quality in the world better than beauty. It is the consolation of all who are naturally too much affected with the force of it, that a little attention, if a man can attend with judgment, will cure them. Handsome people Eudosia adds to the height of her stature usually are so fantastically pleased with a nobility of spirit which still distinguishes themselves, that if they do not kill at first her above the rest of her sex. Beauty in sight, as the phrase is, a second interview others is lovely, in others agreeable, in disarms them of all their power. But I others attractive, but in Eudosia it is comshall make this paper rather a warning-manding. Love towards Eudosia is a senpiece to give notice where the danger is, than to propose instructions how to avoid it when you have fallen in the way of it. Handsome men shall be the subject of another chapter, the women shall take up the present discourse.

Albacinda has the skill as well as power of pleasing. Her form is majestic, but her aspect humble. All good men should beware of the destroyer. She will speak to you like your sister, until she has you sure; but is the most vexatious of tyrants when you are so. Her familiarity of behaviour, her indifferent questions, and general conversation, make the silly part of her votaries full of hopes, while the wise fly from her power. She well knows she is too beautiful and too witty to be indifferent to any who converse with her, and therefore knows she does not lessen herself by familiarity, but gains occasions of admiration by seeming ignorance of her perfections.

timent like the love of glory. The lovers of other women are softened into fondness, the admirers of Eudosia exalted into ambition.

tion with a more kindly pleasure, and as Eucratia presents herself to the imaginashe is woman, her praise is wholly feminine. If we were to form an image of dignity in a man, we should give him wisdom and valour, as being essential to the cha* Aristotle. Plato. Socrates. Theophrastus. I racter of manhood. In like manner, if you

Amaryllis, who has been in town but one winter, is extremely improved with the arts of good-breeding, without leaving nature.

Omniamante is made for deceit, she has an aspect as innocent as the famed Lucrece, but a mind as wild as the more famed Cleopatra. Her face speaks a vestal, but her heart a Messalina. Who that beheld Omniamante's negligent unobserving air, would believe that she hid under that regardless manner the witty prostitute, the rapacious wench, the prodigal courtesan? She can, when she pleases, adorn those eyes with tears like an infant that is chid; she can cast down that pretty face in confusion, while you rage with jealousy, and storm at her perfidiousness; she can wipe her eyes, iremble and look frighted, until you think yourself a brute for your rage, own yourself an offender, beg pardon, and make her new presents

describe a right woman .n a laudable sense, | yourself more usefully than in adjusting the she should have gentle softness, tender laws of disputation in coffee-houses and accifear, and all those parts of life which dis- dental companies, as well as in more formal tinguish her from the other sex; with some debates. Among many other things which subordination to it, but such an inferiority your own experience must suggest to you, that makes her still more lovely. Eucratia it will be very obliging if you please to take is that creature, she is all over woman, notice of wagerers. I will not here repeat kindness is all her art, and beauty all her what Hudibras says of such disputants, arms. Her look, her voice, her gesture, which is so true, that it is almost proverand whole behaviour is truly feminine. A bial; but shall only acquaint you with a set goodness mixed with fear gives a tincture of young fellows of the inns of court, whose to all her behaviour. It would be savage fathers have provided for them so plentito offend her, and cruelty to use art to gain fully, that they need not be very anxious to her. Others are beautiful, but, Eucratia, get law into their heads for the service of thou art beauty! their country at the bar; but are of those who are sent (as the phrase of parents is,) to the Temple to know how to keep their own.' One of these gentlemen is very loud and captious at a coffee-house which I frequent, and being in his nature troubled with a humour of contradiction, though withal excessively ignorant, he has found a way to indulge this temper, go on in idleness and ignorance, and yet still give himself the air of a very learned and knowing man, by the strength of his pocket. The misfortune of the thing is, I have, as it happens sometimes, a greater stock of learning than of money. The gentleman I am speaking of takes advantage of the narrowness of my circumstances in such a manner, that he has read all that I can pretend to, and runs me down with such a positive air, and with such powerful arguments, that from a very learned person I am thought a mere pretender. Not long ago I was relating that I had read such a passage in Tacitus, up starts my young gentleman in a full company, and pulling out his purse offered to lay me ten guineas, to be staked immediately in that gentleman's hands, (pointing to one smoking at another table,) that I was utterly mistaken. I was dumb for want of ten guineas; he went on unmercifully to triumph over my ignorance how to take him up, and told the whole room he had read Tacitus twenty times over, and such a remarkable incident as that could not escape him. He has at this time three considerable wagers depending between him and some of his companions, who are rich enough to hold an argument with him. He has five guineas upon questions in geography, two that the Isle of Wight is a peninsula, and three guineas to one that the world is IF the following enormities are not round. We have a gentleman comes to our amended upon the first mentioning, I de-coffee-house, who deals mightily in ansire further notice from my correspon

*

But I go too far in reporting only the dangers in beholding the beauteous, which I design for the instruction of the fair as well as their beholders; and shall end this rhapsody with mentioning what I thought was well enough said of an ancient sage to a beautiful youth, whom he saw admiring his own figure in brass. What,' said the philosopher, 'could that image of yours say for itself if it could speak?" It might say, (answered the youth,) that it is very beautiful.' And are not you ashamed,' replied the cynic, to value yourself upon that only of which a piece of brass is capable?'

6

T.

No. 145.] Thursday, August 16, 1711.
Stultitiam patiuntur opes-

Hor. Lib. 1. Ep. xviii. 29.
Their folly pleads the privilege of wealth.

dents.

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twenty pieces upon a point of history, to tique scandal; my disputant has laid him wit, that Cæsar never lay with Cato's sister, as is scandalously reported by some people.

"There are several of this sort of fellows in town, who wager themselves into statesmen, historians, geographers, mathematicians, and every other art, when the persons with whom they talk have not wealth equal to their learning. I beg of you to prevent, in these youngsters, this compendious way to wisdom, which costs other

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