I mean here to say to you is, that the most free person of quality can go no further than being a kind woman; and you should never say of a man of figure worse than that he knows the world. I am, sir, your most humble servant, FRANCIS COURTLY.’ 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a woman of unspotted reputation, and know nothing I have ever done which should encourage such insolence; but here was one the other day, and he was dressed like a gentleman too, who took the liberty to name the words not but you will resent it in behalf of, sir, lusty fellow" in my presence. I doubt your humble servant, CELIA.' No. 276.] Wednesday, Jan. 16, 1711-12. Errori nomen virtus posuisset honestum. Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 1. 45. Misconduct screen'd behind a specious name. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I hope you have philosophy enough to be capable of hearing the mention of your faults. Your papers which regard the fallen part of the fair sex, are, I think, written with an indelicacy which makes them unworthy to be inserted in the writings of a moralist who knows the world. I cannot allow that you are at liberty to observe upon the actions of mankind with the freedom which you seem to resolve upon; at least, if you do so, you should take along with you the distinction of the manners of the world, according to 'MR. SPECTATOR,-You lately put out the quality and way of life of the persons a dreadful paper, wherein you promise a concerned. A man of breeding speaks full account of the state of criminal love; of even misfortune among ladies, without and call all the fair who have transgressed giving it the most terrible aspect it can in that kind by one very rude name, which bear: and this tenderness towards them is I do not care to repeat: but I desire to know much more to be preserved when you speak of you whether I am or am not one of those? of vices. All mankind are so far related, My case is as follows: I am kept by an old that care is to be taken, in things to which bachelor who took me so young that I know all are liable, you do not mention what not how he came by me. He is a bencher concerns one in terms which shall disgust of one of the inns of court, a very gay another. Thus to tell a rich man of the in- healthy old man, which is a very lucky digence of a kinsman of his, or abruptly thing for him; who has been, he tells me, to inform a virtuous woman of the lapse of a scowerer, a scamperer, a breaker of winone who until then was in the same degree dows, an invader of constables, in the days of esteem with herself, is a kind of involv- of yore, when all dominion ended with the ing each of them in some participation of day, and males and females met helter those disadvantages. It is therefore ex-skelter, and the scowerers drove before pected from every writer, to treat his ar- them all who pretended to keep up order gument in such a manner as is most proper or rule to the interruption of love and hoto entertain the sort of readers to whom his nour. This is his way of talk, for he is very discourse is directed. It is not necessary gay when he visits me; but as his former when you write to the tea-table, that you knowledge of the town has alarmed him should draw vices which carry all the hor- into an invincible jealousy, he keeps me in ror of shame and contempt: if you paint an a pair of slippers, neat bodice, warm pettiimpertinent self-love, an artful glance, an coats, and my own hair woven in ringlets, assumed complexion, you say all which after a manner, he says, he remembers. you ought to suppose they can be possibly am not mistress of one farthing of money, guilty of. When you talk with this limita- but have all necessaries provided for me, tion, you behave yourself so as that you under the guard of one who procured for may expect others in conversation may him while he had any desires to gratify. I second your raillery; but when you do it in know nothing of a wench's life, but the rea style which every body else forbears in putation of it: I have a natural voice, and respect to their quality, they have an easy à pretty untaught step in dancing. His remedy in forbearing to read you, and hear manner is to bring an old fellow who has ing no more of their faults. A man that is been his servant from his youth, and is now and then guilty of an intemperance is gray-headed. This man makes on the vionot to be called a drunkard; but the rule of lin a certain jiggish noise to which I dance; polite raillery is to speak of a man's faults and when that is over I sing to him some as if you loved him. Of this nature is what loose air that has more wantonness than was said by Cæsar: when one was railing music in it. You must have seen a strange with an uncourtly vehemence, and broke windowed house near Hyde Park, which is out with, "What must we call him who so built that no one can look out of any of was taken in an intrigue with another man's the apartments; my rooms are after this wife?" Cæsar answered very gravely, "Amanner, and I never see man, woman, or careless fellow." This was at once a re- child, but in company with the two persons primand for speaking of a crime which in above-mentioned. He sends me in all the those days had not the abhorrence attending it as it ought, as well as an intimation that all intemperate behaviour before superiors loses its aim, by accusing in a method unfit for the audience. A word to the wise. All books, pamphlets, plays, operas, and songs that come out; and his utmost delight in me, as a woman, is to talk over his old amours in my presence, to play with my neck, say "the time was," give me a kiss, success, to the no small disappointment of our whole female world; but as their constancy and application, in a matter of so great importance, can never be sufficiently commended, so I am glad to find, that in spite of all opposition, they have at length carried their point, of which I received advice by the two following letters: and bid me be sure to follow the directions | tain, that their first attempts were without of my guardian, (the above-mentioned lady,) and I shall never want. The truth of my case is, I suppose, that I was educated for a purpose he did not know he should be unfit for when I came to years. Now, sir, what I ask of you as a casuist, is to tell me how far, in these circumstances, I am innocent, though submissive: he guilty, though impotent? I am, sir, your constant reader, 'PUCELLA.’ To the Man called the Spectator. "FRIEND,-Forasmuch as at the birth of thy labour, thou didst promise upon thy word, that letting alone the vanities that do abound, thou wouldest only endeavour to straighten the crooked morals of this our Babylon, I gave credit to thy fair speeches, and admitted one of thy papers, every day save Sunday, into my house, for the edification of my daughter Tabitha, and to the end that Susanna the wife of my bosom might profit thereby. But, alas! my friend, I find that thou art a liar, and that the truth is not in thee; else why didst thou in a paper which thou didst lately put forth, make mention of those vain coverings for the heads of our females, which thou lovest to liken unto tulips, and which are lately sprung up among us? Nay, why didst thou make mention of them in such a seeming, as if thou didst approve the invention, insomuch that my daughter Tabitha beginneth to wax wanton, and to lust after these foolish vanities? Surely thou dost see with the eyes of the flesh. Verily, therefore, unless thou dost speedily amend, and leave off following thine own imaginations, I will leave off thee. Thy friend, as hereafter thou dost demean thyself, T. · HEZEKIAH BROADBRIM.' 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am so great a lover of whatever is French, that I lately discarded an humble admirer, because he neither spoke that tongue nor drank claret. I have long bewailed in secret the calamities of my sex during the war, in all which time we have laboured under the insupportable inventions of English tire-women, who, though they sometimes copy indifferently well, can never compose with that goût" they do in France. I was almost in despair of ever more seeing a model from that dear country, when last Sunday I overheard a lady in the next pew to me whisper another, that at the Seven Stars, in King-street, Coventgarden, there was a mademoiselle com pletely dressed, just come from Paris. 'I was in the utmost impatience during the remaining part of the service, and as soon as ever it was over, having learnt the milliner's "addresse," I went directly to her house in King-street, but was told that the French lady was at a person of quality's in Pall-mall, and would not be back again until very late that night. I was therefore obliged to renew my visit very early this morning, and had then a full view of the dear moppet from head to foot. You cannot imagine, worthy sir, how ridiculously I find we have been trussed up during the war, and how infinitely the French dress excels ours. • The mantua has no lead in the sleeves, and I hope we are not lighter than the No. 277.] Thursday, January 17, 1711-12. French ladies, so as to want that kind of -fas est et ab hoste doceri. Ovid. Met. Lib. iv. 428. Receive instruction from an enemy. I PRESUME I need not inform the polite part of my readers, that before our correspondence with France was unhappily interrupted by the war, our ladies had all their fashions from thence; which the milliners took care to furnish them with by means of a jointed baby, that came regularly over once a month, habited after the manner of the most eminent toasts in Paris. I am credibly informed, that even in the hottest time of the war, the sex made several efforts, and raised large contributions towards the importation of this wooden mademoiselle. Whether the vessel they sent out was lost or taken, or whether its cargo was seized on by the officers of the custom-house as a piece of contraband goods, I have not vet been able to learn; it is however cer ballast; the petticoat has no whalebone, but sits with an air altogether gallant and degagé: the coiffure is inexpressibly pretty; and, in short, the whole dress has a thousand beauties in it, which I would not have as yet made too public. I thought fit, however, to give you this notice, that you may not be surprised at my appearing a la mode de Paris on the next birth-night. I am, sir, your humble serTERAMINTA.' vant, Within an hour after I had read this let ter, I received another from the owner of the puppet. 'SIR,-On Saturday last, being the 12th instant, there arrived at my house in Kingstreet, Covent-Garden, a French baby for the year 1712. I have taken the utmost. care to have her dressed by the most celebrated tire-women and mantua-makers in Paris, and do not find that I have any reason to be sorry for the expense I have been at in her clothes and importation: however, as I know no person who is so good a judge of dress as yourself, if you please to call at my house in your way to the city, and take a view of her, I promise to amend whatever you shall disapprove in your next paper, before I exhibit her as a pattern to the public. I am, sir, your most humble admirer, and most obedient servant, 'BETTY CROSS-STITCH. they are now practised at the court of France. She added, that she hoped she might depend upon having my encouragement as soon as it arrived; but as this was a petition of too great importance to be answered extempore, I left her without a reply, and made the best of my way to Will Honeycomb's lodgings, without whose advice I never communicate any thing to the public of this nature. X. -Sermones ego mallem Repentes per humum As I am willing to do any thing in reason for the service of my country women, and No. 278.] Friday, January 18, 1711-12. had much rather prevent faults than find them, I went last night to the house of the above-mentioned Mrs. Cross-Stitch. As soon as I entered, the maid of the shop, who, I suppose, was prepared for my coming, without asking me any questions, introduced me to the little damsel, and ran away to call her mistress. The puppet was dressed in a cherrycoloured gown and petticoat, with a short working apron over it, which discovered her shape to the most advantage. Her hair was cut and divided very prettily, with several ribands stuck up and down in it. The milliner assured me, that her complexion was such as was worn by all the ladies of the best fashion in Paris. Her head was extremely high, on which subject having long since declared my sentiments, I shall say nothing more to it at present. Í was also offended at a small patch she wore on her breast, which I cannot suppose is placed there with any good design. Her necklace was of an immoderate length, being tied before in such a manner, that the two ends hung down to her girdle; but whether these supply the place of kissing-strings in our enemy's country, and whether our British ladies have any occasion for them, I shall leave to their serious consideration. After having observed the particulars of her dress, as I was taking a view of it altogether, the shop-maid, who is a pert wench, told me that Mademoiselle had something very curious in the tying of her garters; but as I pay a due respect even to a pair of sticks when they are under petticoats, I did not examine into that particular. Upon the whole, I was well enough pleased with the appearance of this gay lady, and the more so because she was not talkative, a quality very rarely to be met with in the rest of her country women. As I was taking my leave, the milliner farther informed me, that with the assistance of a watch-maker, who was her neighDour, and the ingenious Mr. Powel, she had also contrived another puppet, 'which by the help of several little springs to be wound up within it, could move all its limbs, and that she had sent it over to her correspondent in Paris to be taught the various leanings and bendings of the head, the risings of the bosom, the courtesy and recovery, the gentee! trip, and the agreeable jet, as Hor. Ep. i. Lib. 2. 250. I rather choose a low and creeping style. 'MR. SPECTATOR, SIR,-Your having done considerable services in this great city, by rectifying the disorders of families, and several wives having preferred your advice and directions to those of their husbands, emboldens me to apply to you at this time. I am a shop keeper, and though but a young man, I find by experience that nothing but the utmost diligence both of husband and wife (among trading people) can keep affairs in any tolerable order. My wife at the beginning of our establishment showed herself very assisting to me in my business as much as could lie in her way, and I have reason to believe it was with her inclination: but of late she has got acquainted with a school-man, who values himself for his great knowledge in the Greek tongue. He entertains her frequently in the shop with discourses of the beauties and excellences of that language; and repeats to her several passages out of the Greek poets, wherein he tells her there is unspeakable harmony and agreeable sounds that all other lan guages are wholly unacquainted with. He has so infatuated her with his jargon, that instead of using her former diligence in the shop, she now neglects the affairs of the house, and is wholly taken up with her tutor in learning by heart scraps of Greek, which she vents upon all occasions. She told me some days ago, that whereas I use some Latin inscriptions in my shop, she advised me with a great deal of concern to have them changed into Greek; it being a language less understood, would be more conformable to the mystery of my profession; that our good friend would be assisting to us in this work; and that a certain faculty of gentlemen would find themselves so much obliged to me, that they would infallibly make my fortune. In short, her frequent importunities upon this, and other impertinences of the like nature, make me very uneasy; and if your remonstrances have no more effect upon her than mine, I am afraid I shall be obliged to ruin myself to procure her a settlement at Oxford with her tutor, for she is already too mad for Bedlam. Now, sir, you see the danger my family is exposed to, and the likelihood of my wife's becoming both troublesome and useless, unless her reading herself in your paper may nake her reflect. She is so very learned that I cannot pretend by word of mouth to argue with her. She laughed out at your ending a paper in Greek, and said it was a hint to women of literature, and very civil not to translate it to expose them to the vulgar. You see how it is with, sir, your humble servant.' 'MR. SPECTATOR,-You will forgive us professors of music if we make a second application to you, in order to promote our design of exhibiting entertainments of music in York-buildings. It is industriously insinuated that our intention is to destroy operas in general, but we beg of you to insert this plain explanation of ourselves in your paper. Our purpose is only to improve our circumstances, by improving the art 'MR. SPECTATOR,-If you have that huwhich we profess. We see it utterly demanity and compassion in your nature that stroyed at present, and as we were the you take such pains to make one think you a groundless imputation that we should set persons who introduced operas, we think it have, you will not deny your advice to a distressed damsel, who intends to be de- tend to assert is, that the songs of different de-up against the opera itself. What we pretermined by your judgment in a matter of authors injudiciously put together, and a great importance to her. You must know foreign tone and manner which are expected then, there is an agreeable young fellow, to in every thing now performed amongst us, whose person, wit and humour, nobody has put music itself to a stand; insomuch makes any objection, that pretends to have that the ears of the people cannot now be been long in love with me." To this I must To this I must entertained with any thing but what has an add (whether it proceeds from the vanity impertinent gaiety, without any just spirit, of my nature, or the seeming sincerity of my lover, I will not pretend to say) that I or a languishment of notes, without any verily believe he has a real value for me; persons of sense and quality who have done passion or common sense. We hope those which, if true, you will allow may justly augment his merit with his mistress. In us the honour to subscribe, will not be short, I am so sensible of his good qualities, not receive impressions that patronising us ashamed of their patronage towards us, and and what I owe to his passion, that I think is being for or against the opera, but truly I could sooner resolve to give up my liberty to him than any body else, were there not promoting their own diversions in a more an objection to be made to his fortunes, in hitherto performed. We are, sir, your just and elegant manner than has been regard they do not answer the utmost mine may expect, and are not sufficient to secure me from undergoing the reproachful phrase so commonly used, "that she has played the fool." Now though I am one of those few who heartily despise equipage, diamonds, and a coxcomb, yet since such op- buildings until after that of the subscripposite notions from mine prevail in the tion." world, even amongst the best, and such as most humble servants, THOMAS CLAYTON, C CHARLES DIEUPART. T. Reddere personæ scit convenientia cuique. are esteemed the most prudent people, I No. 279.] Saturday, January 19, 1711-12 cannot find in my heart to resolve upon curring the censure of those wise folks, which I am conscious I shall do, if when I enter into a married state, I discover a thought beyond that of equalling, if not ad- We have already taken a general survey vancing my fortunes. Under this difficulty of the fable and characters in Milton's ParaI now labour, not being in the least deter-dise Lost. The parts which remain to be mined whether I shall be governed by the vain world, and the frequent examples I meet with, or hearken to the voice of my lover, and the motions I find in my heart in favour of him. Sir, your opinion and advice in this affair is the only thing I know can turn the balance, and which I earnestly entreat I may receive soon; for until I have your thoughts upon it, I am engaged not to give my swain a final discharge. "Besides the particular obligation you will lay on me, by giving this subject room in one of your papers, it is possible it may be of use to some others of my sex, who will be as grateful for the favour as, sir, your humble servant, FLORINDA: P. S. To tell you the truth, I am married to him already, but pray say something to justify me.' considered, according to Aristotle's method, are the sentiments and the language. Before I enter upon the first of these, I must advertise my reader, that it is my design, as soon as I have finished my general reflections on these four several heads, to give particular instances out of the poem which is now before us, of beauties and imperfec tions which may be observed under each of them, as also of such other particulars as may not properly fall under any of them. This I thought fit to premise, that the reader may not judge too hastily of this piece of criticism, or look upon it as imperfect, before he has seen the whole ex tent of it. The sentiments in an epic poem are the thoughts and behaviour which the author ascribes to the persons whom he introduces. and are just when they are conformable to fishing sentiments, where he is not fired the characters of the severa, persons. The by the Iliad. He every where charms sentiments have likewise a relation to things and pleases us by the force of his own as well persons, and are then perfect when genius; but seldom elevates and transports they are such as are adapted to the subject. us where he does not fetch his hints from If in either of these cases the poet endeavours Homer. to argue or explain, to magnify or diminish, Milton's chief talent, and indeed his disto raise love or hatred, pity or terror, or tinguishing excellence, lies in the sublimity any other passion, we ought to consider of his thoughts. There are others of the whether the sentiments he makes use of moderns who rival him in every other part are proper for those ends. Homer is cen- of poetry; but in the greatness of his sentisured by the critics for his defect as to this ments he triumphs over all the poets both particular in several parts of the Iliad and modern and ancient, Homer only excepted. Odyssey, though at the same time those, It is impossible for the imagination of man who have treated this great poet with can-to distend itself with greater ideas, than dour, have attributed this defect to the those which he has laid together in his times in which he lived. It was the fault first, second, and sixth books. The seventh, of the age, and not of Homer, if there which describes the creation of the world, wants that delicacy in some of his senti- is likewise wonderfully sublime, though ments, which now appears in the works of not so apt to stir up emotion in the mind men of a much inferior genius. Besides, of the reader, nor consequently so perfect if there are blemishes in any particular in the epic way of writing, because it is thoughts, there is an infinite beauty in the filled with less action. Let the judicious greatest part of them. In short, if there reader compare what Longinus has obare many poets who would not have fallen served on several passages in Homer, and into the meanness of some of his sentiments, he will find parallels for most of them in there are none who could have risen up to the Paradise Lost. the greatness of others. Virgil has excelled all others in the propriety of his sentiments. Milton shines likewise very much in this particular: nor must we omit one consideration which adds to his honour and reputation. Homer and Virgil introduced persons whose characters are commonly known among men, and such as are to be met with either in history, or in ordinary conversation. Milton's characters, most of them, lie out of nature, and were to be formed purely by his own invention. It shows a greater genius in Shakspeare to have drawn his Caliban, than his Hotspur, or Julius Cæsar: the one was to be supplied out of his own imagination, whereas the other might have been formed upon tradition, history and observation. It was much easier therefore for Homer to find proper sentiments for an assembly of Grecian generals, than for Milton to diversify his infernal council with proper characters, and inspire them with a variety of sentiments. The loves of Dido and Æneas are only copies of what has passed between other persons. Adam and Eve, before the fall, are a different species from that of mankind, who are descended from them; and none but a poet of the most unbounded invention, and the most exquisite judgment, could have filled their conversation and behaviour with so many apt circumstances during their state of innocence. From what has been said we may infer, that as there are two kinds of sentiments, the natural and the sublime, which are always to be pursued in an heroic poem, there are also two kinds of thoughts which are carefully to be avoided. The first are such as are affected and unnatural; the second such as are mean and vulgar. As for the first kind of thoughts, we meet with little or nothing that is like them in Virgil. He has none of those trifling points and puerilities that are so often to be met with in Ovid, none of the epigrammatic turns of Lucan, none of those swelling sentiments which are so frequent in Statius and Claudian, none of those mixed embellishments of Tasso. Every thing is just and natural. His sentiments show that he had a perfect insight into human nature, and that he knew every thing which was the most proper to affect it. Mr. Dryden has in some places, which I may hereafter take notice of, misrepresented Virgil's way of thinking as to this particular, in the translation he has given us of the Æneid. I do not remember that Homer any where falls into the faults above-men tioned, which were indeed the false refinements of later ages. Milton, it must be confessed, has sometimes erred in this respect, as I shall show more at large in another paper; though considering how all the poets of the age in which he writ were Nor is it sufficient for an epic poem to infected with this wrong way of thinking, be filled with such thoughts as are natural, he is rather to be admired that he did not unless it abound also with such as are sub-give more into it, than that he did somelime. Virgil in this particular falls short times comply with the vicious taste which of Homer. He has not indeed so many still prevails so much among modern thoughts that are low and vulgar; but at writers. the same time has not so many thoughts But since several thoughts may be natu that are sublime and noble. The truth of ral which are low and grovelling, an epic it is, Virgil seldom rises into very aston-poet should not only avoid such sentimenta |