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N° 168 • Tenants Advertisements of Ruins and Dilapidations often caft a Damp on my Spirits, even in the Inftant when the Sun, in all his Splendor, gilds my Eastern Palaces. Add to this the penfive Drudgery in Building, and conftant grafping Aerial Trowels, diftracts and fhatters the Mind, and the fond Builder of Babells is often curfed with an incoherent Diversity and Confusion of Thoughts. I do not know to whom I can more properly apply my felf for Relief from this Fantastical Evil, than to your felf, whom I earnestly implore to accommodate me with a Method how to fettle my Head and cool my Brain-pan. A Differtation on Caftle-Builing may not only be ferviceable to my felf, but all Architects, who difplay their Skill in the thin Elemeut. Such a Favour would oblige me to make my next Soliloquy not contain the Braifes of my dear felf but of the SPECTATOR, who fhall, by complying with this, make me Hir Obliged, Humble Servant,

T

Vitruvius,

N° 168, Wednesday,
Wednesday, September 12.

-Pectus Praceptis fermat amicis.

Hor.

T would be Arrogance to neglect the Application of my Correfpondents fo far, as not fometimes to infert their Animadverfions upon my Paper; that of this Day fhall be therefore wholly compofed of the Hints which they have fent me.

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Mr. SPECTATOR,

Send you this to congratulate your late Choice of a Subject, for treating on which you deferve publick Thanks; I mean that on thofe licenfedTyrants the SchoolMasters. If you can difarm them of their Rods, you will certainly have your old Age reverenced by all the young Gentlemen of Great Britain who are now between feven and feventeen Years. You may boaft that the incomparably wife Quintillian and you are of one Mind in

this Particular. Si cui eft (fays he) mens tam illiberalis us objurgatione non corrigatur, is etiam ad plagas, ut pessima quaque mancipia, durabitur. If any Child be of fo difingenuous a Nature, as not to ftand corrected by Reproof, he, like the very worst of Slaves, will be hardened even against Blows themselves; and afterwards, Pudet dicere in qua ⚫probra nefandi homines ifto cedendi jure abutantur, i. e. I blush to say how shamefully thofe wicked Men abuse the Power of Correction.

I was bred my self, Sir, in a very great School, of which the Master was a Welchman, but certainly defcended from a Spanish Family, as plainly appeared from his Temper as well as his Name. I leave you to judge.what ⚫ a fort of School-Mafter a Welchman ingrafted on a Spaniard would make. So very dreadful had he made himfelf to me, that altho' it is above twenty Years fince I felt his heavy Hand, yet ftill once a Month at least I dream of him, fo ftrong an Impreffion did he make on my Mind. 'Tis a Sign he has fully terrified me waking, who ftill continues to haunt me fleeping.

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AND yet I may fay, without Vanity, that the Buffnefs of the School was what I did without great Difficulty; and I was not remarkably unlucky; and yet fuch was the Mafter's Severity that once a Month, or oftner, I fuffered as much as would have fatisfied the Law of the Land for a Petty Larceny.

MANY a white and tender Hand, which the fond Mother has paffionately kiffed a thousand and a thousand Times, have I feen whipped 'till it was covered with Blood, perhaps for fmiling, or for going a Yard and half out of a Gate, or for writing an O for an A, or an A for an O: Thefe 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 distrest Youth; and it is a noble Piece of Knight Errantry to enter the Lifts against so many armed Pædagogues. 'Tis pity but we had a Set of Men, polite in their Behaviour and Method of Teaching, who fhould be put into a Condition of being above flattering or fearing the Parents of thofe they inftruct. We might then poffibly fee Learning become a Pleafure, and Children delighting themselves in that, ' which

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320 which now they abhor for coming upon fuch hard Terms to them: What would be ftill a greater Happinefs arifing from the Care of fuch Inftructors, would be, that we fhould have no more Pedants, nor any bred to Learning who have not Genius for it. I am, with the utmost Sincerity, SIR,

Your most affectionate humble Servant.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

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Richmond, Sept. 5th, 1711.

Am a Boy of fourteen Years of Age, and have for this laft 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 falute him at Hours of Play when he pleases to look on. It is impoffible for any of us to love our own Parents better than we do him. 'He never gives any of us an harfh 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 theíe three Days. If you please to print this he will fee it, and, we hope, taking it for my Brother's earnest Defire to be restored to his Favour, he will again fmile upon him.

Your most obedient Servant,

T. S.

Mr. SPECTATOR,"

OU have reprefented feveral Sorts of Impertinents fingly, I wish you would now proceed, and defcribe fome of them in Sets. It often happens in publick Affemblies, that a Party who came thither together, or whofe Impertinencies are of an equal Pitch, act in Concert, and are so full of themselves as to give Difturbance to all that are about them. Sometimes you have a Set of Whisperers who lay their Heads together in order to facrifice every Body within their Obfervation; fometimes a Set of Laughers, that keep up an infipid Mirth in their . own

own Corners, and by their Noise and Geftures fhew they ⚫ have no Respect for the rest of the Company. You frequently meet with thefe Sets at the Opera, the Play, the Water-works, and other publick Meetings, where their whole Business is to draw off the Attention of the Spectators from the Entertainment, and to fix it upon them⚫felves; and it is to be obferved that the Impertinence is ever loudeft, 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.

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I am at a lofs to know from whom People of Fortune fhould learn this Behaviour, unless it be from the Footmen who keep their Places at a new Play, and are ⚫often seen paffing away their Time in Sets at All-fours in the Face of a full Houfe, and with a perfect Difregard to People of Quality fitting on each Side of them.

FOR preferving therefore the Decency of publick • Affemblies, methinks it would be but reasonable that those who difturb others fhould pay at least a double Price for their Places; or rather Women of Birth and Distinction should be informed, that a Levity of Beha<viour in the Eyes of People of Understanding degrades them below their meanest Attendants; and Gentlemen ⚫ should know that a fine Coat is a Livery, when the Per⚫fon who wears it discovers no higher Sense than that of a Footman. I am,

SIR, Your most Humble Servant.

Mr. SPECTATGR,

'I

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Bedfordshire, Sept. 1, 1711. Am one of those whom every Body calls a Pocher, ' and fometimes go out to courfe with a Brace of Greyhounds, a Maftiff, and a Spaniel or two; and when I am weary with Courfing, and have killed Hares enough, go to an Ale-boufe to refresh my felf. I beg the Favour of you (as you fet up for a Reformer) to fend 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 Sports-men: Be quick then, for the Time of Courfing is come on.

Yours in Haffe,

05

Ifaac Hedgeditch
Thursday,

N° 169. Thursday, September 13.

Sic vita erat: facile omnes perferre ac pati:
Cum quibus erat cunque una, his fefe dedere,
Eorum obfequi ftudiis: adverfus nemini;
: Nunquam preponens fe aliis. Ita facillime
Sine invidia invenias laudem. ·

M

Ter. And,

AN is subject to innumerable Pains and Sorrows by the very Condition of Humanity, and yet, as if Nature had not fown 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 Affliction is still made more heavy by the Envy, Malice, Treachery, or Injuftice of his Neighbour. At the fame time that the Storm beats upon the whole Species, we are falling foul upon one another.

HALF the Mifery of human Life might be extinguifhed, would Men alleviate the general Curfe they lye under, by mutual Offices of Compaffion, Benevolence and Humanity. There is nothing therefore which we ought more to encourage in our felves and others, than that Difpofition of Mind which in our Language goes under the Title of Good-nature, and which I fhall chufe for the Subject of this Day's Speculation.

GOOD-NATURE is more agreeable in Converfation than Wit, and gives a certain Air to the Countenance which is more amiable than Beauty. It fhews Virtue in the faireft Light, takes off in fome measure from the Deformity of Vice, and makes even Folly and Impertinence fupportable,

THERE is no Society or Converfation to be kept up in the World without Good-nature, or fomething which muft bear its Appearance, and supply its Place. For this Reafon Mankind have been forced to invent a kind of Artificial Humanity, which is what we exprefs by the Word Good-Breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the Idea of what we call fo, we fhall find it to be nothing elfe but an Imitation and Mimickry of Good-nature, or in other Terms, Affability, Complaifance and Eafinefs of Temper reduced into an Art.

THESE

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