Mr. SPECTATOR,

I

T is my Misfortune to be in love with a young Creature who is daily committing Faults, which though they give me the utmoft Uneafinefs, I know not how to reprove her for, or even acquaint her with. She is pretty, dreffes well, is rich, and good-humour'd; but either wholly neglects, or has no Notion of that which polite People have agreed to distinguish by the * Name of Delicacy. After our Return from a Walk the other Day she threw her self into an Elbow Chair, and profeffed before a large Company, that he was all over in a Sweat. She told me this Afternoon that her Stomach ak'd; and was complaining Yesterday at Dinner ⚫ of something that stuck in her Teeth. I treated her with a Basket of Fruit laft Summer, which the eat fo very greedily, as almost made me resolve never to see her more. In fhort, Sir, I begin to tremble whenever I fee her about to speak or move. As fhe does not want

Senfe, if she takes thefe Hints I am happy; if not, I am more than afraid, that these Things which fhock me even in the Behaviour of a Mistress, will appear infup⚫ portable in that of a Wife.

I am, SIR, Yours, &c.

MY next Letter comes from a Correspondent whom I cannot but very much value, upon the Account which the gives of herself.

Mr. SPECTATOR.

AM happily arrived at a State of Tranquillity, which

therefore being wholly unconcerned in all that Medley ⚫ of Follies which our Sex is apt to contract from their filly Fondness of yours, I read your Ralleries on us ⚫ without Provocation. I can say with Hamlet,

Man delights not me,

Nor Woman neither

Therefore, dear Sir, as you never spare your own Sex, ⚫ do not be afraid of reproving what is ridiculous in ours, and you will oblige at least one Woman, who is

Your Humble Servant, Susanna Frost.

Mr.

X

Mr. SPECTATOR,

Am Wife to a Clergyman, and cannot help think

mankind you meant my self, therefore I have no Quarrel against you for the other Nine Characters.

Your Humble Servant, A. B.

No. 218. Friday, November 9.

Quid de quoque viro, & cui dicas, fæpe caveto.

Have a care

Hor. Ep. 18. 1. 1. v. 68..

Of whom you talk, to whom, and what, and where..

I

POOLY,

Happened the other Day, as my Way is, to ftrole in to a little Coffee-house beyond Aldgate; and as I fat there, two or three very plain fenfible Men were talking of the SPECTATOR. One faid, he had that Morn ing drawn the great Benefit Ticket; another wished he had; but a third fhaked his Head and faid, It was pity that the Writer of that Paper was such a sort of Man, that it was no great Matter whether he had it or no. He is, it seems, faid the good Man, the most extravagant Creature in the World; has run thro' vaft Sums, and yet been in continual Want; a Man, for all he talks fo well of Oeconomy, unfit for any of the Offices of Life by reafon of his Profufenefs. It would be an unhappy Thing to be his Wife, his Child, or his Friend; and yet he talks as well of thofe Duties of Life as any one. Much Reflexion has brought me to fo eafy a Contempt for every thing which is false, that this heavy Accufation gave me no manner of Uneafinefs; but at the fame time it threw me into deep Thought upon the Subject of Fame in general; and I could not but pity fuch as were fo weak, as to value what the common People fay out of their own talkative Temper to the Advantage or Diminution of those whom they mention, without being moved eir

ther

ther by Malice or Good-will. It will be too long to expatiate upon the Sense all Mankind have of Fame, and the inexpreffible Pleafure which there is in the Approbation of worthy Men, to all who are capable of worthy Actions; but methinks one may divide the general Word Fame into three different Species, as it regards the different Orders of Mankind who have any Thing to do with it. Fame therefore may be divided into Glory, which refpects the Hero; Reputation, which is preserved by every Gentleman; and Credit, which must be fupported by every Tradefman. These Poffeffions in Fame are dearer than Life to these Characters of Men, or rather are the Life of those Characters. Glory, while the Hero purfues great and noble Enterprizes, is impregnable; and all the Affailants of his Renown do but fhew their Pain and Impatience of its Brightness, without throwing the leaft Shade upon it. If the Foundation of an high Name be Virtue and Service, all that is offered against it is but Rumour, which is too fhort-liv'd to ftand up in Competition with Glory, which is everlasting.

REPUTATION, which is the Portion of every -Man who would live with the elegant and knowing Part of Mankind, is as ftable as Glory, if it be as well founded; and the common Cause of human Society is thought concerned when we hear a Man of good Behaviour calumniated: Befides which, according to a prevailing Custom amongst us, every Man has his Defence in his own Arm: And Reproach is foon checked, put out of Countenance, and overtaken by Disgrace.

THE most unhappy of all Men, and the moft expofed to the Malignity or Wantonnefs of the common Voice, is the Trader. Credit is undone in Whispers. The Tradefman's Wound is received from one who is more private and more cruel than the Ruffian with the Lanthorn and Dagger. The Manner of repeating a Man's Name,-As; Mr. Cafh, Ob! do you leave your Money at bis Shop? Why, do you know Mr. Searoom? He is indeed a general Merchant. I fay, I have feen, from the Iteration of a Man's Name, hiding one Thought of him, and explaining what you hide, by faying fomething to his Advantage when you speak, a Merchant hurt in his Credit;

and

and him who, every Day he lived, literally added to the Value of his Native Country, undone by one who was only a Burden and a Blemish to it. Since every Body who knows the World is fenfible of this great Evil, how careful ought a Man to be in his Language of a Merchant ? It may poffibly be in the Power of a very shallow Creature to lay the Ruin of the best Family in the moft opulent City; and the more fo, the more highly he deserves of his Country; that is to say, the farther he places his Wealth out of his Hands, to draw home that of another Climate.

IN this Cafe an ill Word may change Plenty into Want, and by a rash Sentence a free and generous Fortune may in a few Days be reduced to Beggary. How little does a giddy Prater imagine, that an idle Phrase to the Disfavour of a Merchant, may be as pernicious in the Confequence, as the Forgery of a Deed to bar an Inheritance would be to a Gentleman? Land stands where it did before a Gentleman was calumniated, and the State of a great Action is just as it was before Calumny was offered to diminish it, and there is Time, Place and Occafion, expected to unravel all that is contrived against those Characters; but the Trader who is ready only for probable Demands upon him, can have no Armour against the Inquifitive, the Malicious, and the Envious, who are prepared to fill the Cry to his Dishonour. Fire and Sword are flow Engines of Deftruction, in Comparison of the Babler in the Cafe of the Merchant.

any

FOR this Reason I thought it an imitable Piece of Humanity of a Gentleman of my Acquaintance, who had great Variety of Affairs, and used to talk with Warmth enough against Gentlemen by whom he thought himfelf ill dealt with; but he would never let any thing be urged against a Merchant (with whom he had Difference) except in a Court of Juftice. He used to say, that to fpeak ill of a Merchant, was to begin his Suit with Judgment and Execution. One cannot, I think, fay more on this Occafion, than to repeat, That the Merit of the Merchant is above that of all other Subjects; for while he is untouched in his Credit, his Hand-writing is a more portable Coin for the Service of his Fellow-Citizens, and his Word the T Gold of Ophir to the Country wherein he refides.

Saturday,

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No. 219. Saturday, November 10.

Vix ea noftra voco·

Thefe I fcarce call our own.

TH

Ovid, Met. 1..13. V. 141..

HERE are but few Men, who are not ambitious of diftinguishing themselves in the Nation or Country where they live, and of growing confiderable among those with whom they converse. There is a Kind of Grandeur, and Respect, which the meanest and most infignificant Part of Mankind endeavour to procure in the little Circle of their Friends and Acquaintance. The pooreft Mechanick, nay, the Man who lives upon common Alms, gets him his Set of Admirers, and delights in that Superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This Ambition, which is natural to the Soul of Man, might methinks receive a very happy Turn; and, if it were rightly directed, con-tribute as much to a Perfon's Advantage, as it generally does to his Uneafinefs and Difquiet.

I fhall therefore put together fome Thoughts on this Subject, which I have not met with in other Writers; and fhall fet them down as they have occurred to me, with out being at the pains to connect or methodise them.

ALL Superiority and Pre-eminence that one Man can have over another, may be reduced to the Notion of Quality, which, confidered at large, is either that of Fortune, Body, or Mind. The firft is that which confifts in Birth, Title, or Riches; and is the most foreign to our Natures, and what we can the least call our own of any of the three Kinds of Quality. In relation to the Body, Quality arifes from Health, Strength, or Beauty; which are nearer to us, and more a Part of our felves than the former. Quality, as it regards the Mind, has its Rife from Knowledge or Virtue; and is that which is more effential to us, and more intimately united with us than either of the other two.

THE