Principibus placuisse viris non ultima laus est. Creech as are unnatural or affected, but also such | No. 280.] Monday, January 21, 1711-12. as are mean and vulgar. Homer has opened a great field of raillery to men of more delicacy and greatness of genius, by the homeliness of some of his sentiments. But as I have before said, these are rather to be imputed to the simplicity of the age in which he lived, to which I may also add, of that in which he described, than to any imperfection in that divine poet. Zoilus, among the ancients, and Monsieur Perrault, among the moderns, pushed their ridicule very far upon him, on account of some such sentiments. There is no blemish to be observed in Virgil under this head, and but a very few in Milton. I shall give but one instance of this impropriety of thought in Homer, and at the same time compare it with an instance of the same nature, both in Virgil and Milton. Sentiments which raise laughter, can very seldom be admitted with any decency into an heroic poem, whose business it is to excite passion of a much nobler nature. Homer, however, in his characters of Vulcan and Thersites, in his story of Mars and Venus, in his behaviour of Irus, and in other passages, has been observed to have lapsed into the burlesque character, and to have departed from that serious air which seems essential to the magnificence of an epic poem. I remember but one laugh in the whole Æneid, which rises in the fifth book, upon Monates, where he is represented as thrown overboard, and drying himself upon a rock. But this piece of mirth is so well-timed, that the severest critic can have nothing to say against it; for it is in the book of games and diversions where the reader's mind may be supposed sufficiently relaxed for such an entertainment. The only piece of pleasantry in Paradise Lost, is where the evil spirits are described as rallying the angels upon the success of their new invented artillery. This passage I look upon to be the most exceptionable in the whole poem, as being nothing else but a string of puns, and those too very indifferent ones. Of Composition, straight they changed their minds, As they would dance; yet for a dance they seem'd To whom thus Belial in like gamesome mood: THE desire of pleasing makes a man agreeable or unwelcome to those with whom he converses, according to the motive from which that inclination appears to flow. If your concern for pleasing others arises from an innate benevolence, it never fails of success; if from a vanity to excel, its disappointment is no less certain. What we call an agreeable man, is he who is endowed with the natural bent to do acceptable things from a delight he takes in them merely as such; and the affectation of that character is what constitutes a fop. Under these leaders one may draw up all those who may make up any manner of figure, except in dumb show. A rational and select conversation is composed of persons, who have the talent of pleasing with delicacy of sentiments flowing from habitual chastity of thought; but mixed company is frequently made up of pretenders to mirth, and is usually pestered with constrained, obscene, and painful witticisms. Now and then you may meet with a man so exactly formed for pleasing, that it is no matter what he is doing or saying, that is to say, that there need be no manner of importance in it, to make him gain upon every body who hears or beholds him. This felicity is not the gift of nature only, but must be attended with happy circumstances, which add a dignity to the familiar behaviour which distinguishes him whom we call an agreeable man. It is from this that every body loves and esteems Polycarpus. He is in the vigour of his age, and the gaiety of life, but has passed through very conspicuous scenes in it: though no soldier, he has shared the danger, and acted with great gallantry and generosity on a decisive day of battle. To have those qualities which only make other men conspicuous in the world as it were supernumerary to him, is a circumstance which gives weight to his most indifferent actions; for as a known credit is ready cash to a trader, so is acknowledged merit immediate distinction, and serves in the place of equipage to a gentleman. This renders Polycarpus graceful in mirth, important in business, and regarded with love in every ordinary occurrence. But not to dwell upon characters which have such particular recommendations to our hearts, let us turn our thoughts rather to the methods of pleasing which must carry men through the world who cannot pretend to such advantages. Falling in with the particular humour or manner of one above you, abstracted from the general rules of good behaviour, is the life of a slave. A parasite differs in nothing from the meanest servant, but that the footman hires himself for bodily labour, subjected to go and come at | disagreeable the mention or appearance of the will of his master, but the other gives up his very soul: he is prostituted to speak, and professes to think after the mode of him whom he courts. This servitude to a patron, in an honest nature, would be more grievous than that of wearing his livery; therefore we will speak of those methods only which are worthy and inge nuous. The happy talent of pleasing either those above you or below you, seems to be wholly owing to the opinion they have of your sincerity. This quality is to attend the agreeable man in all the actions of his life; and I think there need no more be said in honour of it, than that it is what forces the approbation even of your opponents. The guilty man has an honour for the judge who with justice pronounces against him the sentence of death itself. The author of the sentence at the head of this paper, was an excellent judge of human life, and passed his own in company the most agreeable that ever was in the world. Augustus lived amongst his friends, as if he had his fortune to make in his own court. Candour and affability, accompanied with as much power as ever mortal was vested with, were what made him in the utmost manner agreeable among a set of admirable men, who had thoughts too high for ambition, and views too large to be gratified by what he could give them in the disposal of an empire, without the pleasure of their mutual conversation. A certain unanimity of taste and judgment, which is natural to all of the same order of the species, was the band of this society: and the emperor assumed no figure in it, but what he thought was due from his private talents and qualifications, as they contributed to advance the pleasures and sentiments of the company. his wants would make him," that I have often reflected_upon him as a counterpart of Irus, whom I have formerly mentioned. This man, whom I have missed for some years in my walks, and have heard was some way employed about the army, made it a maxim, that good wigs, delicate linen, and a cheerful air, were to a poor dependent the same that working tools are to a poor artificer. It was no small entertainment to me, who knew his circumstances, to see him, who had fasted two days, attribute the thinness they told him of, to the violence of some gallantries he had lately been guilty of. The skilful dissembler carried on this with the utmost address; and if any suspected his affairs were narrow, it was attributed to indulging himself in some fashionable vice rather than an irreproachable poverty, which saved his credit with those on whom he depended The main art is to be as little troublesome as you can, and make all you hope for come rather as a favour from your patron than claim from you. But I am here prating of what is the method of pleasing so as to succeed in the world, when there are crowds, who have, in city, town court, and country, arrived at considerable acquisitions, and yet seem incapable of acting in any constant tenor of life, but have gone on from one successful error to another: therefore I think I may shorten this inquiry after the method of pleasing; and as the old beau said to his son, once for all, Pray, Jack, be a fine gentleman;' so may I to my reader, abridge my introductions, and finish the art of pleasing in a word, 'Be rich.' T. No. 281.] Tuesday, January 22, 1711-12. Cunning people, hypocrites, all who are but half virtuous, or half wise, are incapable of tasting the refined pleasure of such an equal company as could wholly exclude the regard of fortune in their conversations. Horace, in the discourse from whence I take the hint of the present speculation, lays down excellent rules for conduct in conversation with men of power; but he speaks with an air of one who had no need of such an application for any thing which related to himself. It shows he understood of anatomy. what it was to be a skilful courtier, by just I should perhaps have waived this unadmonitions against importunity, and show-dertaking, had I not been put in mind of ing how forcible it was to speak modestly my promise by several of my unknown of your own wants. There is indeed some- correspondents, who are very importunate thing so shameless in taking all opportunities to speak of your own affairs, that he who is guilty of it towards him on whom he depends, fares like the beggar who exposes his sores, which, instead of moving compassion, makes the man he begs of turn away from the object. I cannot tell what is become of him, but I remember about sixteen years ago an honest fellow, who so justly understood how with me to make an example of the coquette, as I have already done of the beau. It is therefore in compliance with the request of friends, that I have looked over the minutes of my former dream, in order to give the public an exact relation of it, which I shall enter upon without farther preface. Our operator, before he engaged in this visionary dissection, told us, that there was nothing in his art more difficult than to lay open the heart of a coquette, by reason of the many labyrinths and recesses which are to be found in it, and which do not appear in the heart of any other animal. He desired us first of all to observe the pericardium, or outward case of the heart, which we did very attentively; and by the help of our glasses discerned in it millions of little scars, which seemed to have been occasioned by the points of innumerable darts and arrows, that from time to time had glanced upon the outward coat; though we could not discover the smallest orifice, by which any of them had entered and pierced the inward substance. Every smatterer in anatomy knows that this pericardium, or case of the heart, contains in it a thin reddish liquor, supposed to be bred from the vapours which exhale out of the heart, and, being stopped here, are condensed into this watery substance. Upon examining this liquor, we found that it had in it all the qualities of that spirit which is made use of in the thermometer, to show the change of weather. sels which came into it, or issued out of it, we could not discover any communication that it had with the tongue. We could not but take notice likewise, that several of those little nerves in the heart which are affected by the sentiments of love, hatred, and other passions, did not descend to this before us from the brain, but from the muscles which lie about the eye. Upon weighing the heart in my hand, I found it to be extremely light, and consequently very hollow, which I did not wonder at, when, upon looking into the inside of it, I saw multitudes of cells and cavities running one within another, as our historians describe the apartments of Rosamond's bower. Several of these little hollows were stuffed with innumerable sorts of trifles, which I shall forbear giving any particular account of, and shall therefore only take notice of what lay first and uppermost; which, upon our unfolding it, and applying our microscopes to it, appeared to be a flame-coloured hood. We are informed that the lady of this Nor must I here omit an experiment one heart, when living, received the addresses of the company assured us he himself had of several who made love to her, and did made with this liquor, which he found in not only give each of them encouragement, great quantity about the heart of a coquette but made every one she conversed with bewhom he had formerly dissected. He af-lieve that she regarded him with an eye of firmed to us, that he had actually enclosed kindness; for which reason we expected to it in a small tube made after the manner of have seen the impressions of multitudes of a weather-glass; but that instead of ac-faces among the several plaits and foldings quainting him with the variations of the atmosphere, it showed him the quality of those persons who entered the room where it stood. He affirmed also that it rose at the approach of a plume of feathers, an embroidered coat, or a pair of fringed gloves; and that it fell as soon as an ill-shaped periwig, a clumsy pair of shoes, or an unfashionable coat came into his house. Nay, he proceeded so far as to assure us, that upon his laughing aloud when he stood by it, the liquor mounted very sensibly, and immediately sunk again upon his looking serious. In short, he told us, that he knew very well by this invention, whenever he had a man of sense, or a coxcomb in his room. Having cleared away the pericardium, or case, and liquor above-mentioned, we came to the heart itself. The outward surface of it was extremely slippery, and the mucro, or point, so very cold withal, that upon endeavouring to take hold if it, it glided through the fingers like a smooth piece of ice. of the heart; but to our great surprise not a single print of this nature discovered itself until we came into the very core and centre of it. We there observed a little figure, which, upon applying our glasses to it, appeared dressed in a very fantastic manner. The more I looked upon it, the more I thought I had seen the face before, but could not possibly recollect either the place or time; when at length, one of the company, who had examined this figure more nicely than the rest, showed us plainly by the make of its face, and the several turns of its features, that the little idol which was thus lodged in the very middle of the heart was the deceased beau, whose head I gave some account of in my last Tuesday's paper. As soon as we had finished our dissection, we resolved to make an experiment of the heart, not being able to determine among ourselves the nature of its substance, which differed in so many particulars from that of the heart in other females. Accordingly we laid it in a pan of burning coals, when we observed in it a certain salamandrine quality, that made it capable of living in the midst of fire and flame, without being consumed, or so much as singed. The fibres were turned and twisted in a more intricate and perplexed manner than they are usually found in other hearts; insomuch that the whole heart was wound up together in a Gordian knot, and must As we were admiring this strange phæhave had very irregular and unequal mo-nomenon, and standing round the heart in a tions, while it was employed in its vital functions. One thing we thought very observable, namely, that upon examining all the ves circle, it gave a most prodigious sigh, or rather crack, and dispersed all at once in smoke and vapour. This imaginary noise, which me thought was louder than the -Spes incerta futuri. Virg. En. viii. 580. Hopes and fears in equal balance laid.-Dryden. Ir is a lamentable thing that every man is full of complaints, and constantly uttering sentences against the fickleness of fortune, when people generally bring upon themselves all the calamities they fall into, and are constantly heaping up matter for their own sorrow and disappointment. That which produces the greatest part of the delusions of mankind, is a false hope which people indulge with so sanguine a flattery to themselves, that their hearts are bent upon fantastical advantages which they had no reason to believe should ever have arrived to them. By this unjust measure of calculating their happiness, they often mourn with real affliction for imaginary losses. When I am talking of this unhappy way of accounting for ourselves, I cannot but reflect upon a particular set of people, who, in their own favour, resolve every thing that is possible into what is probable, and then reckon on that probability as on what must certainly happen. Will Honeycomb, upon my observing his looking on a lady with some particular attention, gave me an account of the great distresses which had laid waste her very fine face, and had given an air of melancholy to a very agreeable person. That lady, and a couple of sisters of hers, were, said Will, fourteen years ago, the greatest fortunes about town; but without having any loss, by bad tenants, by bad securities, or any damage by sea or land, are reduced to very narrow circumstances. They were at that time the most inaccessible haughty beauties in town; and their pretensions to take upon them at that unmerciful rate, were raised upon the following scheme, according to which all their lovers were answered. 'Our father is a youngish man, but then our mother is somewhat older, and not likely to have any children: his estate being 8001. per annum, at twenty years purchase, is worth 16,000l. Our uncle, who is above fifty, has 400l. per annum, which at the aforesaid rate, is 8,000l. There is a widow aunt, who has 10,000l. at her own disposal, left by her husband, and an old maiden aunt, who has 6,000l. Then our father's mother has 9001. per annum, which is worth 18,000l. and 1,000l. each of us has of our own, which cannot be taken from us. These summed up together stand thus: This equally divided between us three, amounts to 20,000l. each: an allowance being given for enlargement upon common fame, we may lawfully pass for 30,000/ fortunes.' In prospect of this, and the knowledge of their own personal merit, every one was contemptible in their eyes, and they refused those offers which had been frequently made them. But mark the end. The mother dies, the father is married again, and has a son; on him was entailed the father's, uncle's, and grandmother's estate. This cut off 42,000l. The maiden aunt married a tall Irishman, and with her went the 6,000%. The widow died, and left but enough to pay her debts and bury her; so that there remained for these three girls but their own 1,000l. They had by this time passed their prime, and got on the wrong side of thirty; and must pass the remainder of their days upbraiding mankind that they mind nothing but money, and bewailing that virtue, sense, and modesty, are had at present in no manner of estimation. I mention this case of ladies before any other, because it is the most irreparable, for though youth is the time least capable of reflection, it is in that sex the only season in which they can advance their fortunes. But if we turn our thoughts to the men, we see such crowds unhappy, from no other reason but an ill-grounded hope, that it is hard to say which they rather deserve, our pity or contempt. It is not unpleasant to see a fellow, grown old in attendance, and after having passed half a life in servitude, call himself the unhappiest of all men, and pretend to be disappointed, because a courtier broke his word. He that promises himself any thing but what may naturally arise from his own property or labour, and goes beyond the desire of possessing above two parts in three even of that, lays up for himself an increasing heap of afflictions and disappointments. There are but two means in the world of gaining by other men, and these are by being either agreeable or considerable. The generality of mankind do all things for their own sakes; and when you hope any thing from persons above you, if you cannot say, 'I can be thus agreeable, or thus serviceable,' it is ridiculous to pretend to the dignity of being unfortunate when they leave you; you were injudicious in hoping for any other than to be neglected for such as can come within these descriptions of being capable to please, or serve your patron, when his humour or interests call for their capacity either way. It would not, methinks, be a useless comparison between the condition of a man who shuns all the pleasures of life, and of one who makes it his business to pursue them. Hope in the recluse makes his austerities comfortable, while the luxurious man gains nothing but uneasiness from his enjoyments. What is the difference in the happiness of him who is macerated by abstinence, and him who is surfeited with excess? He who resigns the world has no temptation to envy, hatred, malice, anger, but is in constant possession of a serene mind: he who follows the pleasures of it, which are in their very nature disappointing, is in constant search of care, solicitude, remorse, and confusion. "January 14, 1712. first were wholly discarded; and I do not find any one so hardy at present as to deny that there are very great advantages in the enjoyment of a plentiful fortune. Indeed the best and wisest of men, though they may possibly despise a good part of those things which the world calls pleasures, can, I think, hardly be insensible of that weight and dignity which a moderate share of wealth adds to their characters, counsels, and actions. mon prudence, to fear foul play from an indigent person, rather than from one whose circumstances seem to have placed him above the bare temptation of money. wealth regard her richest subjects, as those who are most concerned for her quiet and interest, and consequently fittest to be intrusted with her highest employments. On the contrary, Catiline's saying to those men of desperate fortunes, who applied themselves to him, and of whom he afterwards composed his army, that they had nothing to hope for but a civil war, was too true not to make the impressions he This reason also makes the common We find it is a general complaint in professions and trades, that the richest members of them are chiefly encouraged; and this is falsely imputed to the ill-nature of mankind, who are bestowing their favours on such as least want them. Whereas, if we fairly consider their proceedings in this case, we shall find them founded on undoubted reason: since, supposing both equal 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a young wo-in their natural integrity, I ought, in comman, and have my fortune to make, for which reason I come constantly to church to hear divine service, and make conquests: but one great hindrance in this my design is, that our clerk, who was once a gardener, has this Christmas so over-decked the church with greens, that he has quite spoiled my prospect; insomuch that I have scarce seen the young baronet I dress at these three weeks, though we have both been very constant at our devotions, and do not sit above three pews off. The church, as it is now equipped, looks more like a green-house than a place of worship. The middle aisle is a very pretty shady walk, and the pews look like so many arbours on each side of it. The pulpit itself has such clusters of ivy, holly, and rosemary about it, that a light fellow in our pew took occasion to say, that the congregation heard the word out of a bush, like Moses. Sir Anthony Love's pew in particular is so well hedged, that all my batteries have no effect. I am obliged to shoo at random among the boughs, without taking any manner of aim. Mr. Spectator, unless you will give orders for removing these greens, I shall grow a very awkward creature at church, and soon have little else to do there but to say my prayers. I am in haste, dear sir, your most obedient servant, T. JENNY SIMPER.' No. 283.] Thursday, Jan. 24, 1711-12. Magister artis ingenique largitor English Proverbs. LUCIAN rallies the philosophers in his time, who could not agree whether they should admit riches into the number of real goods; the professors of the severer sects threw them quite out, while others as resolutely inserted them. desired. I believe I need not fear but that what I have said in praise of money, will be more than sufficient with most of my readers to excuse the subject of my present paper, which I intend as an essay on the ways to raise a man's fortune, or the art of growing rich. The first and most infallible method towards the attaining of this end is thrift. All men are not equally qualified for getting money, but it is in the power of every one alike to practice this virtue, and I believe there are very few persons, who, if they please to reflect on their past lives, will not find that had they saved all those little sums which they have spent unnecessarily, they might at present have been masters of a competent fortune. Diligence justly claims the next place to thrift. I find both these excellently well recommended to common use in the three following Italian proverbs: Never to do that by proxy which you can do yourself. A third instrument of growing rich, is method in business, which, as well as the two former, is also attainable by persons of the meanest capacities. The famous De Witt, one of the greatest I am apt to believe, that as the world statesman of the age in which he lived, grew more polite, the rigid doctrines of the | being asked by a friend how he was able to |