nome he shall lie at Hampstead to-night; | some member's chamber, where every one but I believe fear of the first onset after is to pick out what belonged to her from this rupture has too great a place in this this confused bundle of silks, stuffs, laces, resolution. Mrs. Freeman has a very pretty and ribands. I have hitherto given you an sister; suppose I delivered him up, and account of our diversion on ordinary clubarticled with the mother for her for bring-nights; but must acquaint you further, that ng him home. If he has not courage to once a month we demolish a prude, that is, stand it (you are a great casuist,) is it such we get some queer formal creature in an ill thing to bring myself off as well as I among us, and unrig her in an instant. can? What makes me doubt my man is, Our last month's prude was so armed and that I find he thinks it reasonable to ex-fortified in whalebone and buckram, that postulate at least with her; and Captain we had much ado to come at her; but you Sentry will tell you, if you let your orders would have died with laughing to have seen be disputed, you are no longer a comman-how the sober awkward thing looked when der. I wish you could advise me how to get she was forced out of her entrenchments. clear of this business handsomely. Yours, In short, sir, it is impossible to give you a T. TOM MEGGOT.' true notion of our sport, unless you would come one night amongst us; and though it be directly against the rules of our society No. 217.] Thursday, November 8, 1711. to admit a male visitant, we repose so much -Tunc fœmina simplex, Et pariter toto repetitur clamor ab antro.Juv. Sat. vi. 326. Then unrestrain'd by rules of decency, Th' assembled females raise a general cry. I SHALL entertain my reader to-day with some letters from my correspondents. The first of them is the description of a club, whether real or imaginary I cannot determine; but am apt to fancy, that the writer of it, whoever she is, has formed a kind of nocturnal orgie out of her own fancy. Whether this be so or not, her letter conduce to the amendment of that kind of persons who are represented in it, and whose characters are frequent enough in the world. may 'MR. SPECTATOR,-In some of your first papers you were pleased to give the public a very diverting account of several clubs and nocturnal assemblies; but I am a member of a society which has wholly escaped your notice, I mean a club of She-Romps. We take each a hackney-coach, and meet once a week in a large upper-chamber, which we hire by the year for that purpose; our landlord and his family, who are quiet people, constantly contriving to be abroad on our club-night. We are no sooner come together, than we throw off all that modesty and reservedness with which our sex are obliged to disguise themselves in public places. I am not able to express the pleasure we enjoy from ten at night till four in the morning, in being as rude as you men can be for your lives. As our play runs high, the room is immediately filled with broken fans, torn petticoats, lappets, or head-dresses, flounces, furbelows, garters, and working-aprons. I had forgot to tell you at first, that besides the coaches we come in ourselves, there is one which stands always empty to carry off our dead men, for so we call all those fragments and tatters with which the room is strewed, and which we pack up together in bundles and put into the aforesaid coach. It is no small diversion for us to meet the next night at confidence in your silence and taciturnity, 'P. S. We shall demolish a prude next Thursday.' Though I thank Kitty for her kind offer, clination to venture my person with her I do not at present find in myself any inand her romping companions. I should regard myself as a second Clodius intruding on the mysterious rites of the Bona Dea, and should apprehend being demolished as much as the prude. The following letter comes from a gen tleman whose taste I find is much too delicate to endure the least advance towards romping. I may perhaps hereafter improve upon the hint he has given me, and make it the subject of a whole Spectator; in the mean time take it as it follows in his own words: 'MR. SPECTATOR,It is my misfortune to be in love with a young creature who is daily committing faults, which though they give me the utmost uneasiness, I know not how to reprove her for, or even acquaint her with. She is pretty, dresses well, is rich, and good-humoured; 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 professed béfore a large company, that she was all over in a sweat. She told me this afternoon that her stomach ached; and was complaining yesterday at dinner of something that stuck in her teeth. I treated her with a basket of fruit last summer, which she eat so very greedily, as almost made me resolve never to see her more. In short, sir, I begin to tremble whenever I see her about to speak or move. As she does not want sense, if she takes these hints I am happy; if not, I am more than afraid, that these things | tive temper to the advantage or diminution which shock me even in the behaviour of a mistress, will appear insupportable 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 she gives of herself. of those whom they mention, without being moved either by malice or good-will. It will be too long to expatiate upon the sense all mankind have of fame, and the inexpressible pleasure 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 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am happily arrived three different species, as it regards the at a state of tranquillity, which few people different orders of mankind who have any envy, I mean that of an old maid; therefore thing to do with it. Fame therefore may being wholly unconcerned in all that med-be divided into glory, which respects the ley of follies which our sex is apt to contract from their silly fondness of yours, I read your railleries on us, without provocation. I can say with Hamlet, No. 218.] Friday, November 9, 1711. hero; reputation, which is preserved by every gentleman; and credit, which must These be supported by every tradesman. possessions in fame are dearer than life to those characters of men, or rather are the life of these characters. Glory, while the hero pursues great and noble enterprises, is impregnable; and all the assailants of his renown do but show their pain and impatience of its brightness, without throwing the least 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 short-lived to stand 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 stable 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. Besides which, according to a prevailing custom amongst us, every man has his defence in his own arm: and reproach is soon checked, put out of countenance, and overtaken by disgrace. The most unhappy of all men, and the most exposed to the malignity and wantonness of the common voice, is the trader. I HAPPENED the other day, as my way is, Credit is undone in whispers. The tradesto stroll into a little coffee-house beyond man's wound is received from one who is Aldgate; and as I sat there, two or three more private and more cruel than the rufvery plain sensible men were talking of the fian with the lantern and dagger. The manSpectator. One said, he had that morning ner of repeating a man's name,—As; 'Mr. drawn the great benefit ticket; another Cash, Oh! do you leave your money at his wished he had; but a third shaked his head shop? Why, do you know Mr. Searoom? and said, It was a pity that the writer of He is indeed a general merchant.' I say, that paper was such a sort of man, that it I have seen, from the iteration of a man's was no great matter whether he had or no. name, hiding one thought of him, and exHe is, it seems, said the good man, the most plaining what you hide, by saying someextravagant creature in the world; has run thing to his advantage when you speak, a through vast sums, and yet been in con- merchant hurt in his credit; and him who, tinual want: a man, for all he talks so well every day he lived, literally added to the of economy, unfit for any of the offices of value of his native country, undone by life by reason of his profuseness. It would one who was only a burden and a blemish be an unhappy thing to be his wife, his to it. Since every body who knows the child, or his friend; and yet he talks as well world is sensible of this great evil, how of those duties of life as any one. Much careful ought a man to be in his language reflection has brought me to so easy a con- of a merchant? It may possibly be in the tempt for every thing which is false, that power of a very shallow creature to lay this heavy accusation gave me no manner the ruin of the best family in the most opuof uneasiness; but at the same time it threw | lent city; and the more so, the more highly me into deep thought upon the subject of he deserves of his country; that is to say, fame in general; and I could not but pity the farther he places his wealth out of his such as were so weak, as to value what the hands, to draw home that of another clicommon people say out of their own talka- I mate. In this case an ill word may change plenty | them down as they have occurred to me, into want, and by a rash sentence a free without being at the pains to connect or and generous fortune may in a few days be methodise them. reduced to beggary. How little does a All superiority and pre-eminence that giddy prater imagine, that an idle phrase one man can have over another, may be reto the disfavour of a merchant, may be as duced to the notion of quality, which, conpernicious in the consequence, as the for-sidered at large, is either that of fortune, gery 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 occasion, 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 inquisitive, the malicious, and the envious, who are prepared to fill the cry to his dishonour. Fire and sword are slow engines of destruction, in comparison of the babbler in the case of the merchant. 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 himself ill dealt with; that he would never let any thing be urged against a merchant (with whom he had any difference) except in a court of justice. He used to say, that to speak ill of a merchant, was to begin his suit with judgment and execution. One cannot, I think, say more on this occasion, 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 gold of Ophir to the country wherein he resides. T. No. 219.] Saturday, November 10, 1711. Vix ea nostra voco. Ovid. Met. Lib. xiii. 141. body, or mind. The first is that which consists in birth, title, or riches; it 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 arises from health, strength, or beauty; which are nearer to us, and more a part of ourselves than the former. Quality, as it regards the mind, has its rise from knowledge or virtue; and is that which is more essential to us, and more intimately united with us than either of the other two. The quality of fortune, though a man has less reason to value himself upon it than on that of the body or mind, is however the kind of quality which makes the most shin ing figure in the eye of the world. As virtue is the most reasonable and genuine source of honour, we generally find in titles an intimation of some particular merit that should recommend men to the high stations which they possess. Holiness is ascribed to the pope; majesty to kings, serenity or mildness of temper to princes; excellence or perfection to ambassadors; grace to archbishops; honcur to peers; worship or venerable behaviour to magistrates; and reverence, which is of the same import as the former, to the inferior clergy. In the founders of great families, such attributes of honour are generally correspondent with the virtues of the person to whom they are applied; but in the descendants they are too often the marks rather of grandeur than of merit. The stamp and denomination still continues, but the in trinsic value is frequently lost. The death-bed shows the emptiness of titles in a true light. A poor dispirited sinner lies trembling under the apprehensions of the state he is entering on; and is asked by a grave attendant how his holiness does? Another hears himself addressed to under the title of highness or excellency, who lies under such mean circumstances of mortality as are the disgrace of human nature. Titles at such a time look rather like insults and mockery than respect. THERE are but few men, who are not ambitious of distinguishing themselves in the nation or country where they live, and of growing considerable_among those with whom they converse. There is a kind of grandeur and respect, which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavour to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest The truth of it is, honours are in this mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon world under no regulation; true quality is common alms, gets him his set of admirers, neglected, virtue is oppressed, and vice and delights in that superiority which he triumphant. The last day will rectify this enjoys over those who are in some respects disorder, and assign to every one a station Deneath him. This ambition, which is natu- suitable to the dignity of his character. ral to the soul of man, might methinks re-Ranks will be then adjusted, and precedency ceive a very happy turn; and, if it were set right. rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage, as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet. I shall therefore put together some thoughts on this subject, which I have not met with in other writers; and shall set Methinks we should have arı ambition, if not to advance ourselves in another world, at least to preserve our post in it, and outshine our inferiors in virtue here, that they may not be put above us in a state which is to settle the distinction for eternity. Men in Scripture are called strangers and sojourners upon earth, and life a pilgrimage. Several heathen, as well as Christian authors, under the same kind of metaphor, have represented the world as an inn, which was only designed to furnish us with accommodations in this our passage. It is therefore very absurd to think of setting up our rest before we come to our journey's end, and not rather to take care of the reception we shall there meet, than to fix our thoughts on the little conveniences and advantages which we enjoy one above another in the way to it. children of God, and his lot is among the saints!' If the reader would see the description of a life that is passed away in vanity and among the shadows of pomp and greatness, he may see it very finely drawn in the same place. In the mean time, since it is necessary in the present constitution of things, that order and distinction should be kept up in the world, we should be happy, if those who enjoy the upper stations in it, would endeavour to surpass others in virtue, as much as in rank, and by their humanity and condescension make their superiority easy and acceptable to those who are beneath them; and if, on the contrary, those who are in meaner posts of life, would consider how they may better their condition hereafter, and by a just deference and submission to their superiors, make them happy in those blessings with which Providence has thought fit to distinguish them. C. Epictetus makes use of another kind of allusion, which is very beautiful, and wonderfully proper to incline us to be satisfied with the post in which Providence has placed us. We are here, says he, as in a theatre, where every one has a part allotted to him. The great duty which lies upon a man is to act his part in perfection. We may indeed say, that our part does not suit us, and that we could act another better. But this, says the philosopher, is not our business. All that we are concerned in is No. 220.] Monday, November 12, 1711. to excel in the part which is given us. If it be an improper one, the fault is not in us, but in Him who has cast our several parts, and is the great disposer of the drama.* Rumoresque serit varios Virg. Æn. xii. 228 A thousand rumours spreads. The part that was acted by this philoso- 'SIR,-Why will you apply to my father pher himself was but a very indifferent one, for my love? I cannot help it if he will give for he lived and died a slave. His motive to contentment in this particular, receives his power, nor even in my own, to give you you my person; but I assure you it is not in a very great enforcement from the above-my heart. Dear sir, do but consider the ill mentioned consideration, if we remember that our parts in the other world will be new-cast, and that mankind will be there ranged in different stations of superiority and pre-eminence, in proportion as they have here excelled one another in virtue, and performed in their several posts of life the duties which belong to them. consequence of such a match; you are fiftyfive, Itwenty-one. You are a man of business, and mightily conversant in arithmetic and making calculations; be pleased therefore to consider what proportion your spirits bear to mine; and when you have made a just estimate of the necessary decay on one side, and the redundance on the other, you There are many beautiful passages in the will act accordingly. This perhaps is such little apocryphal book, entitled, The Wis- language as you may not expect from a dom of Solomon, to set forth the vanity of young lady; but my happiness is at stake, honour, and the like temporal blessings and I must talk plainly. I mortally hate which are in so great repute among men, you; and so, as you and my father agree, and to comfort those who have not the pos- you may take me or leave me: but if you session of them. It represents in very warm will be so good as never to see me more, and noble terms this advancement of a good you will for ever oblige, sir, your most man in the other world, and the great sur-humble servant, HENRIETTA.' prise which it will produce among those who are his superiors in this. Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him, and made no account of his labours. When they see it they shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the strangeness of his salvation, so far beyond all that they looked for. And they repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit, That feat of poetical activity mentioned shall say within themselves, This was he by Horace, of an author who could compose whom we had sometime in derision, and a two hundred verses while he stood upon one proverb of reproach. We fools accounted leg, has been imitated (as I have heard, his life madness and his end to be without by a modern writer; who priding himself honour. How is he numbered among the on the hurry of his invention, thought it nc * Epicteti Enchirid. cap. 23. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-There are so many artifices and modes of false wit, and such a variety of humour discovers itself among its votaries, that it would be impossible to exhaust so fertile a subject, if you would think fit to resume it. The following instances may, if you think fit, be added by way of appendix to your discourses on that subject. small addition to his fame to have each -Accipe, si vis, • This was the whole of his ambition; and therefore I cannot but think the flights of this rapid author very proper to be opposed to those laborious nothings which you have observed were the delight of the German wits, and in which they so rapidly got rid of such a tedious quantity of their time. 'I have known a gentleman of another turn of humour, who despising the name of an author, never printed his works, but contracted his talent, and by the help of a very fine diamond which he wore on his little finger, was a considerable poet upon glass. He had a very good epigrammatic wit; and there was not a parlour or tavern window where he visited or dined for some years, which did not receive some sketches or memorials of it. It was his misfortune at last to lose his genius and his ring to a sharper at play, and he has not attempted to make a verse since. I think the only improvement_beyond this, would be that which the late Duke of Buckingham mentioned to a stupid pre tender to poetry, as the project of a Dutch mechanic, viz. a mill to make verses. This being the most compendious method of all which have yet been proposed, may deserve the thoughts of our modern virtuosi, who are employed in new discoveries for the public good; and it may be worth the while to consider, whether in an island where few are content without being thought wits, it will not be a common be made cheap. I am, sir, your humble benefit, that wit as well as labour should servant, &c.' 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I often dine at a gentleman's house where there are two young ladies in themselves very agreeable, but very cold in their behaviour, because they understand me for a person that is to "break my mind," as the phrase is, very suddenly to one of them. But I take this way to acquaint them that I am not in love with either of them, in hopes they will use me with that agreeable freedom and indifference which they do all the rest of the world, and not to drink to one another only, but sometimes cast a kind look, with their service to, sir, your humble servant.' But of all contractions or expedients for wit, I admire that of an ingenious projector whose book I have seen. This virtuoso being a mathematician, has according to his taste, thrown the art of poetry into a short problem, and contrived tables, by which any one without knowing a word of grammar or sense, may to his great comfort be able to compose, or rather to erect, Latin verses. * His tables are a kind of poetical logarithms, which being divided into several squares, and all inscribed with so many incoherent words, appear to the eye somewhat like a fortune-telling screen. What a joy must it be to the unlearned operator to find that these words being carefully collected and writ down in order according to the problem, start of themselves into hexameter and pentameter verses? A friend of mine, who is a student in astrology, meeting with this book, performed the operation, by the rules there set down; he showed his verses to the next of his acquaintance, who happened to understand Latin; and being informed they described a tempest of wind, very luckily prefixed them, together with a translation, No. 221.] Tuesday, November 13, 1711. to an almanack he was just then printing, and was supposed to have foretold the last great storm.t 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a young gentleman, and take it for a piece of goodbreeding to pull off my hat when I see any whether I know her or not. I take care thing peculiarly charming in any woman, that there is nothing ludicrous or arch in my manner, as if I were to betray a woman into a salutation by way of jest or humour; and yet, except I am acquainted with her, I find she ever takes it for a rule, that she is to look upon this civility and homage I pay to her supposed merit, as an impertinence or forwardness which she is to observe and neglect. I wish, sir, you would settle the business of salutation; and please to inform me how I shall resist the sudden impulse I have to be civil to what gives an idea of merit; or tell these creatures how to behave themselves in return to the esteem I have for them. My affairs are such, that your decision will be a favour to me, if it be only to save the unnecessary expense of wearing out my hat so fast as I do at pre sent. I am, sir, yours, T. D.' 'POSTSCRIPT. "There are some that do know me, and won't bow to me.' Ab ovo Usque ad mala- |