No. 167.] Tuesday, September 11, 1711. prospect pleasing illusions; but they who

T.

-Pectus præceptis format amicis. Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. i. 128. Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art.-Pope. It would be arrogance to neglect the application of my correspondents so far, as not sometimes to insert their animadversions upon my paper; that of this day shall be therefore wholly composed of the hints which they have sent me.

groves have started into being by the pow-| but all architects who display their skill in Such a favour would erful feat of a warm fancy. A castle- the thin element. builder is even just what he pleases, and as oblige me to make my next soliloquy not such I have grasped imaginary sceptres, contain the praises of my dear self, but of and delivered uncontrollable edicts, from a the Spectator, who shall, by complying throne to which conquered_nations yielded with this, make me his obliged humble obeisance. I have made I know not how servant, VITRUVIUS.' many inroads into France, and ravaged the very heart of that kingdom; I have dined in the Louvre, and drank champaign at Versailles; and I would have you take notice, I No. 168.] Wednesday, Sept. 12, 1711. am not only able to vanquish a people already cowed' and accustomed to flight, but I could, Almanzor-like,* drive the British general from the field, were I less a protestant, or had ever been affronted by the confederates. There is no art or profession, whose most celebrated masters I have not eclipsed. Wherever I have afforded my salutary presence, fevers have ceased to burn, and agues to shake the human fabric. When an eloquent fit has been 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I send you this to upon me, an apt gesture and proper cadence has animated each sentence, and gaz for treating on which you deserve public congratulate your late choice of a subject, ing crowds have found their passions worked thanks, I mean that on those licensed tyup into rage, or soothed into a calm. I am rants the school-masters. If you can disshort, and not very well made; yet upon sight of a fine woman, I have stretched into arm them of their rods, you will certainly a proper stature, and killed with a good air have your old age reverenced by all the and mien. These are the gay phantoms young gentlemen of Great Britain who are now between seven and seventeen years. that dance before my waking eyes, and You may boast that the incomparably wise compose my day-dreams. I should be the Quintilian and you are of one mind in this most contented happy man alive, were the chimerical happiness which springs from particular. "Si cui est (says he,) mens tam illiberalis ut objurgatione non corrigatur, the paintings of fancy less fleeting and tran-is etiam ad plagas, ut fiessima quæque mansitory. But, alas! it is with grief of mind cipia, durabitur," i. e. "If any child be of rected by reproof, he, like the very worst of so disingenuous a nature, as not to stand corslaves, will be hardened even against blows themselves." And afterwards," Pudet dicædendi jure abutantur;" i. e. "I blush to cere in quæ probra nefandi homines isto say how shamefully those wicked men abuse the power of correction."

I

tell you, the least breath of wind has often demolished my magnificent edifices, swept away my groves, and left no more trace of them than if they had never been. My exchequer has sunk and vanished by a rap on my door, the salutation of a friend has cost me a whole continent, and in the same moment I have been pulled by the sleeve, my crown has fallen from my head. The ill I was bred myself, sir, in a very great consequence of these reveries is inconceiv- school,* of which the master was a Welchably great, seeing the loss of imaginary pos- man, but certainly descended from a Spansessions makes impressions of real woe. ish family, as plainly appeared from his Besides, bad economy is visible and appa- temper as well as his name. I leave you rent in builders of invisible mansions. My to judge what sort of a school-master a tenants' advertisements of ruins and dilapi- Welchman ingrafted on a Spaniard would dations often cast a damp on my spirits, make. So very dreadful had he made him even in the instant when the sun, in all its self to me, that although it is above twenty splendour, gilds my eastern palaces. Add self to me, that although it is above twenty to this the pensive drudgery in building, years since I felt his heavy hand, yet still and constant grasping aerial trowels, dis once a month at least I dream of him, so tracts and shatters the mind, and the fond strong an impression did he make on my builder of Babels is often cursed with an in- mind. It is a sign he has fully terrified me coherent diversity and confusion of thoughts. waking, who still continues to haunt me sleeping.

I do not know to whom I can more proAnd yet I may say without vanity, that perly apply myself for relief from this fan- the business of the school was what I did tastical evil, than to yourself; whom I earn- without great difficulty; and I was not reestly implore to accommodate me with a method how to settle my head and cool my master's severity, that once a month, or markably unlucky; and yet such was the brain-pan. A dissertation on castle-build-oftener, I suffered as much as would have ing may not only be serviceable to myself,

* Almanzor is a furious character in Dryden's Cor quest of Granada.

satisfied the law of the land for a petty | are so full of themselves, as to give disturblarceny.

ance to all that are about them. Sometimes you have a set of whisperers who lay their heads together in order to sacrifice every body within their observation; sometimes a set of laughers that keep up an insipid mirth in their own corner, and by their noise and gestures show they have no respect for the rest of the company. You frequently meet with these sets at the opera, the play, the water-works, † and other public meetings, where the whole business is to draw off the attention of the spectators from the entertainment, and to fix it upon themselves; and it is to be observed, that the impertinence is ever loudest when the set happens to be made up of three or four females who have got what you call a woman's man among them.

'Many a white and tender hand, which the fond mother had passionately kissed a thousand and a thousand times, have I seen whipped until it was covered with blood; perhaps for smiling, or for going a yard and a half out of a gate, or for writing an o for an A, or an A for an o. These were our great faults! Many a brave and noble spirit has been there broken; others have run from thence and were never heard of afterwards. It is a worthy attempt to undertake the cause of distressed youth; and it is a noble piece of knight-errantry to enter the list against so many armed pedagogues. It is pity but we had a set of men, polite in their behaviour and method of teaching, who should be put into a condition of being above flattering or fearing the parents of 'I am at a loss to know from whom peothose they instruct. We might then pos-ple of fortune should learn this behaviour, sibly see learning become a pleasure, and children delighting themselves in that which they now abhor for coming upon such hard terms to them. What would be still a greater happiness arising from the care of such instructors, would be, that we should have no more pedants, nor any bred to learning who had not genius for it. I am, with the utmost sincerity, sir, your most affectionate humble servant.'

'Richmond, Sept. 5, 1711.

unless it be from the footmen who keep their places at a new play, and are often seen passing away their time in sets at allfours in the face of a full house, and with a perfect disregard to the people of quality sitting on each side of them.

understanding degrades them below their meanest attendants; and gentlemen should know that a fine coat is a livery, when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman. I am, sir, your most humble servant.'

For preserving therefore the decency of public assemblies, methinks it would be but reasonable that those who disturb others should pay at least a double price for their places; or rather women of birth and distinction should be informed, that a 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a boy of four-levity of behaviour in the eyes of people of teen years of age, and have for this last year been under the tuition of a doctor of divinity, who has taken the school of this place under his care. * From the gentleman's great tenderness to me and friendship to my father, I am very happy in learning my book with pleasure. We never leave off our diversions any farther than to salute him at hours of play when he pleases to look on. It is impossible for any of us to love our own parents better than we do him. He never gives any of us a harsh word, and we think it the greatest punishment in the world when he will not speak to any of us. My brother and I are both together inditing this letter. He is a year older than I am, but is now ready to break his heart that the doctor has not taken any notice of him these three days. If you please to print this he will see it, and we hope, taking it for my brother's earnest desire to be restored to his favour, he will again smile upon him. Your most obedient servant, T. S.'

'Bedfordshire, Sept. 1, 1711. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of those whom every body calls a poacher, and sometimes go out to course with a brace of greyhounds, a mastiff, and a spaniel or two; and when I am weary with coursing, and have killed hares enough, go to an alehouse to refresh myself. I beg the favour of you (as you set up for a reformer) to send us word how many dogs you will allow us to go with, how many full pots of ale to drink, and how many hares to kill in a day, and you will do a great piece of service to all the sportsmen. Be quick, then, for the time of coursing is come on. Yours, in haste, ISAAC HEDGEDITCH.'

Sic vita erat: facile omnes perferre ac pati:
Cum quibus erat cunque una, his sese dedere,
Eorum obsequi studiis; adversus nemini;

'MR. SPECTATOR,-You have represented several sorts of impertinents singly, I No. 169.] Thursday, September 13, 1711. wish you would now proceed and describe some of them in sets. It often happens in public assemblies, that a party who came thither together, or whose impertinences are of an equal pitch, act in concert, and

* This was Dr. Nicholas Brady, who assisted Tate in the new version of the Psalms; he died rector of Richmond and Clapham, in Surrey, in 1726.

times, was invented by one Mr. Winstanley, and ex

† The Water-theatre, a favourite amusement of those hibited at the lower end of Piccadilly; it consisted of sea-gods, goddesses, &c. playing and spouting out water and fire mingled with water; performed every evening between five and six.

MAN is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. Every man's natural weight of afflictions is still made more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his neighbour. At the same time that the storm beats upon the whole species, we are falling foul upon one another.

Half the misery of human life might oe extinguished, would men alleviate the general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence and humanity. There is nothing therefore which we ought more to encourage in ourselves and others, than that disposition of mind which in our language goes under the title of good-nature, and which I shall choose for the subject of this day's speculation.

Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It shows virtue in the fairest light, takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence supportable.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimickry of goodnature, or in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced

into an art.

These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and beloved, when they are founded upon a real good-nature: but without it are like hypocrisy in religion, or a bare form of holiness, which when it is discovered, makes a man more detestable than pro fessed impiety.

lanthropy or good-nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world with him, and gives many remarkable in stances of it in his childhood, as well as in all the several parts of his life.* Nay, on his death-bed, he describes him as being pleased, that while his soul returned to him that made it, his body should incorporate with the great mother of all things, and by that means become beneficial to mankind. For which reason, he gives his sons a positive order not to enshrine it in gold or silver, but to lay it in the earth as soon as the life was gone out of it.

An instance of such an overflowing of humanity, such an exuberant love to man kind, could not have entered into the imagination of a writer, who had not a soul filled with great ideas, and a general benevolence

to mankind.

In that celebrated passage of Sallust, where Cæsar and Cato are placed in such beautiful but opposite lights,† Cæsar's character is chiefly made up of good-nature, as it showed itself in all its forms towards his friends or his enemies, his servants or dependants, the guilty or the distressed. As for Cato's character, it is rather awful than amiable. Justice seems most agreeable to the nature of God, and mercy to that. of man. A being who has nothing to pardon in himself, may reward every man according to his works; but he whose very best actions must be seen with grains of allowance, cannot be too mild, moderate, and forgiving. For this reason, among all the monstrous characters in human nature, there is none so odious, nor indeed so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of a rigid severe temper in a worthless man.

This part of good-nature, however, which consists in the pardoning and overlooking of faults, is to be exercised only in doing ourselves justice, and that too in the ordinary commerce and occurrences of life; for in the public administration of justice, mercy to one may be cruelty to others.

It is grown almost into a maxim, that good-natured men are not always men of the most wit. This observation in my opinion, has no foundation in nature. The greatest wits I have conversed with are men eminent for their humanity. I take therefore this remark to have been occasioned by two reasons. First, because illnature among ordinary observers passes for wit. A spiteful saying gratifies so many little passions in those who hear it, that it Good-nature is generally born with us; generally meets with a good reception. health, prosperity, and kind treatment from The laugh rises upon it, and the man who the world are great cherishers of it where utters it is looked upon as a shrewd sathey find it; but nothing is capable of forcing tirist. This may be one reason, why a it up, where it does not grow of itself. It is great many pleasant companions appear so one of the blessings of a happy constitution, surprisingly dull, when they have endeawhich education may improve but not pro-voured to be merry in print; the public. duce.

Xenophon in the life of his imaginary

* Xenoph. De Cyri Instit. lib. viii. cap. v.i. sect. 3

prince, whom he describes as a pattern for edit. J. A. Ern. 8vo. tom. i. p. 550.

real ones, is always celebrating the phi

† Sallust. Bell. Catil. c. liv.

being more just than private clubs or assem- | she kindles the same passion in others, and blies, in distinguishing between what is wit, and what is ill-nature.

appears as amiable to all beholders. And as jealousy thus arises from an extraordinary love, it is of so delicate a nature, that it scorns to take up with any thing less than an equal return of love. Not the warmest

tender hypocrisy, are able to give any satisfaction, where we are not persuaded that the affection is real, and the satisfaction mutual. For the jealous man wishes himself a kind of deity to the person he loves. He would be the only pleasure of her senses, the employment of her thoughts; and is angry at every thing she admires or takes delight in besides himself.

Another reason why the good-natured man may sometimes bring his wit in question, is, perhaps, because he is apt to be moved with compassion for those misfor-expressions of affection, the softest and most tunes or infirmities, which another would turn into ridicule, and by that means gain the reputation of a wit. The illnatured man, though but of equal parts, gives himself a larger field to expatiate in; he exposes those failings of human nature which the other would cast a veil over, laughs at vices which the other either excuses or conceals, gives utterance to reflections which the other stifles, falls indifferently upon friends or enemies, exposes the person who has obliged him, and, in short, sticks at nothing that may establish his character of a wit. It is no wonder, therefore, he succeeds in it better than the man of humanity, as a person who makes use of indirect methods is more likely to grow rich than the fair trader.

L.

UPON looking over the letters of my female correspondents, I find several from women complaining of jealous husbands, and at the same time protesting their own innocence; and desiring my advice on this occasion. I shall therefore take this subject into my consideration; and the more willingly, because I find that the Marquis of Halifax, who, in his Advice to a Daughter, has instructed a wife how to behave herself towards a false, an intemperate, a choleric, a sullen, a covetous, or a silly husband, has not spoken one word of a jealous husband.

"Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves." Now because our inward passions and inclinations can never make themselves visible, it is impossible for a jealous man to be thoroughly cured of his suspicions. His thoughts hang at best in a state of doubtfulness and uncertainty: and are never capable of receiving any satisfaction on the advantageous side; so that his inquiries are most successful when they discover nothing. His pleasure arises from his disappointments, and his life is spent in pursuit of a secret that destroys his happiness if he chance to find it.

An ardent love is always a strong ingredient in this passion; for the same affection which stirs up the jealous man's desires, and gives the party beloved so beautiful a figure in his imagination, makes him believe

Phædra's request to his mistress, upon his leaving her for three days, is inimitably beautiful and natural:

Cum milite isto præsens, absens ut sies:
Dies noctesque me ames: me desideres:
Me somnies: me expectes: de me cogites:
Me speres: me te oblectes: mecum tota sis:
Meus fac sis postremo animus, quando ego sum tuus.
Ter. Eun. Act i. Sc. 2

Be with yon soldier present, as if absent:
All night and day love me: still long for me:
Dream, ponder still 'on' me: wish, hope for me:
Delight in me; be all in all with me;

Give your whole heart, for mine's all your's, to me.
Colman.

The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature, that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment. A cool behaviour sets him on the rack, and is interpreted as an instance of aversion or indifference; a fond one raises his suspicions, and looks too much like dissimulation and artifice. If the person he loves be cheerful, her thoughts must be employed on another; and if sad, she is certainly thinking on himself. In short, there is no word or gesture so insignificant, but it gives him new hints, feeds his suspicions, and furnishes him with fresh matters of discovery: so that if we consider the effects of his passion, one would rather think it proceeded from an inveterate hatred, than an excessive love; for certainly none can meet with more disquietude and uneasiness than a suspected wife, if we except the jealous husband.

But the great unhappiness of this passion is, that it naturally tends to alienate the affection which it is so solicitous to engross; and that for these two reasons, because it lays too great a constraint on the words and actions of the suspected person, and at the same time shows you have no honourable opinion of her; both of which are strong motives to aversion.

Nor is this the worst effect of jealousy; for it often draws after it a more fatal train of consequences, and makes the person you suspect guilty of the very crimes you are so much afraid of. It is very natural for such who are treated ill, and upbraided falsely, to find out an intimate friend that will hear their complaints, condole their sufferings, and endeavour to soothe and assuage their secret resentments. Besides, jealousy puts a woman often in mind of an ill thing that