N° 286 Monday, January 28. Nomina honefta prætenduntur vitiis. Tacit. Ann. 1. 14. C. 211 པ Specious names are lent to cover vices. Mr. Spectator, York, Jan. 18, 1712. Pretend not to inform a gentleman of so just a Itafte, whenever he pleases to use it; but it may not be amifs to inform your readers, that there is a false delicacy as well as a true one. True delicacy, as I take it, confifts in exactnefs of judgment and dignity of fentiment, or if you will, purity of affection, as this is oppofed to corruption and groffnefs. There are pedants in breeding as well as in learning. The eye that cannot bear the light is not delicate but fore. A good conftitution appears in the foundnefs and vigour of the parts, hot in the fqueamishness of the ftomach; and a falfe delicacy is affectation, not politenefs. What then can be the standard of delicacy but truth and virtue Virtue, which, as the fatirist long fince obferved, is real honour; whereas the other diftinctions among mankind are merely titular. Judging by that rule in my opinion, and in that of many of your virtuous female readers, you are fo far from deferving Mr. Courtly's accufation, that you feem too gentle, and to allow too many excufes for an enormous crime, which is the reproach of the age, and is in all its branches and degrees exprefly forbidden by that religion we pretend to profefs; and whofe laws, in a nation that calls itself chriftian, one would think • fhould take place of thofe rules which men of corrupt * minds, and thofe of weak understandings, follow. I know not any thing more pernicious to good manners, than the giving fair names to foul actions: for this confounds vice and virtue, and takes off that natural 4 • horror horror we have to evil. An innocent creature, who would start at the name of ftrumpet, may think it pretty to be called a mistress, especially if her feducer has taken care to inform her, that a union of hearts is the principal matter in the fight of heaven, and that the bufinefs at church is a mere idle ceremony. Who knows not that the difference between obfcene and modeft words expreffing the fame action, confifts only in the acceffary idea, for there is nothing immodest in ⚫ letters and fyllables. Fornication and adultery are modeft words; because they exprefs an evil action as criminal, and fo as to excite horror and averfion whereas words reprefenting the pleasure rather than the fin, are for this reafon indecent and dishonest. Your papers would be chargeable with fomething worse than indelicacy, they would be immoral, did you treat the deteftable fins of uncleannefs in the fame manner as you rally an impertinent felf-love, and an artful glance; as thofe laws would be very unjust, that should chaf tife murder and petty larceny with the fame punishEven delicacy requires that the pity fhewn to diftreffed indigent wickednefs, firft betrayed into and then expelled the harbours of the brothel, should be changed to deteftation, when we confider pampered vice in the habitations of the wealthy. The * most free person of quality, in Mr. Courtly's phrafe, that is, to fpeak properly, a woman of figure who has forgot her birth and breeding, difhonoured her re"lations and herself, abandoned her virtue and reputation, together with the natural modefty of her sex, and rifked her very foul, is fo far from deferving to ⚫ be treated with no worfe character than that of a kind woman, (which is doubtlefs Mr. Courtly's meaning, if he has any) that one can scarce be too fevere on her, in as much as fhe fins againft greater reftraints, is lefs expofed, and liable to fewer temptations, than beauty in poverty and diftrefs. It is hoped therefore, Sir, that you will not lay afide your generous defign of expofing that monftrous wickedness of the town, whereby a multitude of innocents are facrificed in a more barbarous manner than those who were offered <ment. 寇44 THE SPECTATOR. fered to Moloch. their vice expofed, and the chafte cannot take into 'fuch filth without danger of defilement, but a mere Spectator may look into the bottom, and come off without partaking in the guilt. The doing fo will ⚫ convince us you purfue public good, and not merely your own advantage: but if your zeal flackens, how can one help thinking that Mr. Courtly's letter is but a feint to get off from a subject, in which either your own, or the private and bafe ends of others to whom you are partial, or those of whom you are afraid, would not endure a reformation ? The unchafte are provoked to fee 61 I am, Sir, your humble fervant and admirer, fo long as you tread in the paths of truth, virtue, and honour.' Mr. Spectator, Trin Coll. Cantab. Jan. 12, 1711-12. T is my fortune to have a chamber-fellow, with whom, though I agree very well in many fentiments, yet there is one in which we are as contrary as light and darkness. We are both in love: his miftrefs is a lovely fair, and mine a lovely brown. Now as the praife of our miftreffes beauty employs much of our time, we have frequent quarrels in entring upon that fubject, while each fays all he can to defend his choice. For my own part, I have racked my fancy to the utmoft; and fometimes, with the greatest warmth of imagination, have told him, that night was made before day, and many more fine things, though without any effect: : nay, last night I could not forbear fay ing with more heat than judgment, that the devil ought to be painted white. Now, my defire is, Sir, that you will be pleafed to give us in black and white your opinion in the matter of difpute between us; which will either furnish me with fresh and prevailing arguments to maintain my own tafte, or make me with lefs repining allow that of my chamber-fellow. I know very well that I have Jack Cleveland and Bond's Horace on my fide; but when he has fuch a band of rhymers and romance-writers, with which he oppofes me, and is fo continually chiming to the tune of • golden golden treffes, yellow locks, milk, marble, ivory, filver, fwans, fnow, daisies, doves, and the lord knows what; which he is always founding with so much vehemence in my ears, that he often puts me into a brown study how to answer him; and I find that I am in a fair way to be quite confounded, without your timely affiftance afforded to, Dear native land, how do the good and wife Look upon it as a peculiar happiness, that were I to choose of what religion I would be, and under what government I would live, I fhould moft certainly give the preference to that form of religion and government which is established in my own country. In this point ĺ think I am determined by reafon and conviction; but if I fhall be told that I am acted by prejudice, I am fure it is an honeft prejudice, it is a prejudice that arifes from the love of my country, and therefore fuch an one as I will always indulge. I have in feveral papers endeavoured to exprefs my duty and esteem for the church of England, and defign this as an effay upon the civil part of our conftitution, having often entertained myself with reflexions on this fubject, which I have not met with in other writers. That form of government appears to me the most reafonable, which is moft conformable to the equality that we find in human nature, provided it be confiftent with VOL. IV. G public public peace and tranquillity. This is what may properly be called liberty, which exempts one man from fubjection to another, fo far as the order and œconomy of government will permit. Liberty fhould reach every individual of a people, as they all share one common nature; if it only fpreads among particular branches, there had better be none at all, fince fuch a liberty only aggravates the misfortune of those who are deprived of it, by fetting before them a difagreeable fubject of comparison. This liberty is beft preferved, where the legislative power is lodged in feveral perfons, especially if those perfons are of different ranks and interefts; for where they are of the fame rank, and confequently have an intereft to manage peculiar to that rank, it differs but little from a defpotical government in a fingle perfon. But the greateft fecurity a people can have for their liberty, is when the legislative power is in the hands of perfons fo happily diftinguished, that by providing for the particular interests of their feveral ranks, they are providing for the whole body of the people; or in other words, when there is no part of the people that has not a common intereft with at least one part of the legiflators. If there be but one body of legislators, it is no better than a tyranny; if there are only two, there will want a cafting voice, and one of them muft at length be fwallowed up by difputes and contentions that will neceffarily arise between them. Four would have the fame inconvenience as two, and a greater number would caufe too much confufion. I could never read a paffage in Polybius, and another in Cicero, to this purpofe, without a fecret pleafure in applying it to the English conftitution, which it fuits much better than the Roman. Both these great authors give the pre-eminence to a mixt government, confifting of three branches, the regal, the noble, and the popular. They had doubtlefs in their thoughts the conftitution of the Roman commonwealth, in which the conful reprefented the king, the fenate the nobles, and the tribunes the people. This divifion of the three powers in the Roman conftitution was by no means fo diftinct and natural, as it is in the English form of government. Among feveral objections that might be made to |