plicity of his manners and goodness of his con la penna dello struzzo vergine, e manda heart, would induce others like him to honour salute ed accrescimento di vecchiezza. my abode; and I should be glad my acquaint- 'Essendo arrivato il tempo in cui il fiore dela ance would take themselves to be invited, or reale nostro gioventù deve maturare i frutti not, as their characters have an affinity to his. della nostra vecchiezza, e confortare con quell'i I would have all my friends know that desiderj de' popoli nostri divoti, e propagare il they need not fear (though I am become a seme di quella pianta che deve proteggerli, country gentleman) I will trespass against their abbiamo stabilito d'accompagnarci con una temperance and sobriety. No sir, I shall re-vergine eccelsa ed amorosa allattata alla mamtain so much of the good sentiments for the mella della leonessa forte e dell' agnella manconduct of life, which we cultivated in each sueta. Perciò essendoci stato figurato sempre other at our club, as to contemn all inordinate il vostro popolo Europeo Romano per paese di pleasures; but particularly remember, with our donne invitte, e forte, e caste; allongiamo la beloved Tully, that the delight in food consists nostra mano potente, a stringere una di loro, e in desire, not satiety. They who most passion-questra sarà una vostra nipote, o nipote di qualately pursue pleasure, seldomest arrive at it. che altro gran sacerdote Latino, che sia guarNow I am writing to a philosopher, I cannot data dall'occhio dritto di Dio, sarà seminata in forbear mentioning the satisfaction I took in lei l'autorità di Sarra, la fedeltà d'Esther, e la the passage I read yesterday in the same Tully. sapienza di Abba; la vogliamo con l'occhio che A nobleman of Athens made a compliment to guarda il cielo, e la terra, e con la bocca della Plato the morning after he had supped at his conchiglia che si pasce della ruggiada del mahouse. "Your entertainments do not only tino. La sua età non passi ducento corsi della please when you give them, but also the day luna, la sua statura sì alta quanto la spicca after." dritta del grano verde, e la sua grossezza quanto un manipolo di grano secco. Noi la mandaremmo a vestire per li nostri mandatici ambasciadori, e chi la conduranno a noi, e noi la incontraremmo alla riva del fiume grande facendola salire sul nostro cocchio. Ella potrà adorare appresso di noi il suo Dio, con ventiquattro altre a suo elezzione e potrà cantare con loro, come la tottora alla primavera. T. 4 I am, My worthy friend, 'Your most obedient humble servant, No. 545.] Tuesday, November 25, 1712. Quin potiùs pacem æternam pactosque hymenæos Let us in bonds of lasting peace unite, I CANNOT but think the following letter from the emperor of China to the pope of Rome, proposing a coalition of the Chinese and Roman churches, will be acceptable to the curi ous. I must confess, I myself being of opinion that the emperor has as much authority to be interpreter to him he pretends to expound, as the pope has to be a vicar of the sacred person he takes upon him to represent, I was not a little pleased with their treaty of alliance, What progress the negociation between his majesty of Rome and his holiness of China makes, (as we daily writers say upon subjects where we are at a loss.) time will let us know. In the mean time, since they agree in the fundamentals of power and authority, and differ only in matters of faith, we may expect the matter will go on without difficulty. Copia di lettera dal rè della Cina al Papa, interpretata dal padre segretario dell' India della compagna di Giesù. A roi benedetto sopra i benedetti P. P. ed imperadore grande de' pontifici e pastore Xmo, dispensatore del' oglio dei rè d' Europa Cle mente XI. 'Soddisfando noi padre e amico nostro, questa nostra brama, sarete caggione di unire in perpetua amicizia cotesti vostri regni d'Europa al nostro dominante imperio, e si abbracciramo le vostri leggi come l'edera abbraccia la pianta; e noi medesemi spargeremo del nostro seme reale in coteste province, riscaldando i letti di tre amazoni, d'alcune delle quali i nostri manvostri principi con il fuoco amoroso delle nosdatici ambasciadori vi porterranno le somiglianze dipinte. 'Vi confirmiamo di tenere in pace le due buone religiose famiglie delli missionarji, gli Dominico, il cui consiglio degl' uni e degl' figlioli d'Ignazio, e li bianchi e neri figliola di altri ci serve di scorta nel nostro regimento e di lume ad interpretare le divine legge, come appunto fa lume l'oglio che si getta in mare. bracciarvi, vi dichiariamo, nostro congiunto e In tanto alzandoci dal nastro trono per abconfederato, ed ordiniamo che questo foglio sia segnato col nostro segno imperiale della nostra città, capo del mondo, Il quinto giorno della terza lunatione, 1 anno quarto del nostre imperio. Il sigillo è un sole nella cui faccia è anche quella della luna, ed intorno tra i raggi, vi sono traposte alcune spada. 'Dico il traduttore che secondo il ceremonial di questa lettera e recedentissimo specialIl favorito amico di Dio, Gionata 70, poten- mente foscero scritta con la penna dello struztissimo sopra tutti i potentissimi della terra, zo-vergine con la quella non soglionsi scrivere altissimo sopra tutti gl'altissimi sotto il sole e quei re che le preghiere a Dio, e scrivendo la luna, che siede nella sede di smeraldo della qualche altro principe del mondo, la maggior Cina sopra cento scalini d'oro, ad interpretare finezza che usino, è scrivergli con la penna la lingua di Dio a tutti i descendenti fedeli del pavone.' d'Abramo, che de la vita e la morte a cento quindici regni, ed a cento settante isole, scrive A letter from the emperor of China to the Pope, interpreted by a father Jesuit, secreta-] to embrace you, we declare you our ally and of the Indies. To you, blessed above the blessed, great emperor of bishops and pastor of Christians, dispenser of the oil of the king's of Europe Clement XI. confederate; and have ordered this leaf to be sealed with our imperial signet, in our royal city the head of the world, the eighth day of the third lunation, and the fourth year of our reign.' Letters from Rome say, the whole conver'The favourite friend of God, Gionotta the sation both among gentlemen and ladies has VIIth, most powerful above the most power-turned upon the subject of this epistle, ever ful of the earth, highest above the highest since it arrived. The jesuit who translated it under the sun and moon, who sits on a throne says, it loses much of the majesty of the oriof emerald of China, above 100 steps of gold, to ginal in the Italian. It seems there was an interpret the language of God to the faithful, offer of the same nature made by the predeand who gives life and death to 115 kingdoms, cessor of the present emperor to Lewis XIII. and 170 Islands; he writes with the quill of a of France; but no lady of that court would virgin ostrich, and sends health and increase take the voyage, that sex not being at that time so much used in public negociations. of old age. Being arrived at the time of our age, in The manner of treating the pope is, according which the flower of our royal youth ought to to the Chinese ceremonial, very respectful : ripen into fruit towards old age, to comfort for the emperor writes to him with the quill of therewith the desire of our devoted people, and a virgin ostrich, which was never used before to propagate the seed of that plant which must but in writing prayers. Instructions are preprotect them; we have determined to accom- preparing for the lady who shall have so much pany ourselves with an high amorous virgin, zeal as to undertake this pilgrimage, and be suckled at the breast of a wild lioness, and a an empress for the sake of her religion. The meek lamb, and, imagining with ourselves principal of the Indian missionaries has given that your European Roman people is the fa- in a list of the reigning sins in China, in order ther of unconquerable and chaste ladies, we to prepare indulgencies necessary to this lady stretch out our powerful arm to embrace one and her retinue, in advancing the interests of of them, and she shall be one of your neices, the Roman-catholic religion in those kingor the neice of some other great Latin priest, doms. the darling of God's right eye. Let the authority of Sarah be sown in her, the fidelity of Esther, and the wisdom of Abba. We would have her eye like that of a dove, which may look upon heaven and earth, with the mouth of a shell-fish, to feed upon the dew of the morning, her age must not exceed 200 courses of the moon; let her stature be equal to that of an ear of and her girth a green corn, handful. • We will send our mandarines embassadors to clothe her, and to conduct her to us, and we will meet her on the bank of a great river, making her to leap up into our chariot. She may with us worship her own God, together with twenty-four virgins of her own choosing; and she may sing with them as the turtle in the spring. To the Spectator General. I have of late seen French hats of a prodi- No. 546.] Wednesday, November 26, 1712. Omnia patefacienda, ut ne quid omnino quod venditor norit, emptor ignoret. Tull. Every thing should be fairly told, that the buyer may not be ignorant of any thing which the seller knows. It gives me very great scandal to observe, wherever I go, how much skill, in buying all manner of goods, there is necessary to defend yourself from being cheated in whatever you 'You, O father and friend, complying with see exposed to sale. My reading makes such this our desire, may be an occasion of uniting a strong impression upon me, that I should in perpetual friendship our high empire with think myself a cheat in my way, if I should your European kingdoms, and we may em- translate any thing from another tongue, and brace your laws as the ivy embraces the tree; not acknowledge it to my readers. I underand we ourselves may scatter our royal blood stood, from common report, that Mr. Cibber into your provinces, warming the chief of was introducing a French play upon our stage, your princes with the amorous fire of our ama- and thought myself concerned to let the town the resembling pictures of some of which know what was his, and what was foreign.* our said mandarines embassadors shall convey When I came to the rehearsal, I found the house so partial to one of their own fraternity, to you. that they gave every thing which was said such grace, emphasis, and force in their ac zons, We exhort you to keep in peace two good religious families of missionaries, the sons of Ignatius, and the black and white sons of Dominicus; that the counsel, both of the one and the other may serve as a guide to us in our govern nent, and a light to interpret the divine law, as the oil cast into the sea produces light. To conclude, we rising up in our throne *Ximena, or the Heroic Daughter, a tragedy taken from the Cid of Corneille, by C. Cibber. This play met with so little encouragement, that the author did not venture to publish it till about two years after it had been performed, when it appeared with a highly complimentary dedication to Sir Richard Steele, but unfortunately at the expense of a much better writer. He tion, that it was no easy matter to make any [the hazard of giving credit, but enters into a judgment of the performance. Mrs. Oldfield, ready-money trade, by which means he will who, it seems, is the heroic daughter, had both buy and sell the best and cheapest. so just a conception of her part, that her ac-imposes upon himself a rule of affixing the tion made what she spoke appear decent, just, value of each piece he sells, to the piece itself; and noble. The passions of terror and com- so that the most ignorant servant or child will passion they made me believe were very art be as good a buyer at his shop as the most skilfully raised, and the whole conduct of the ful in the trade. For all which, you have all play artful and surprising. We authors do his hopes and fortune for your security. To not much relish the endeavours of players in encourage dealing after this way, there is not this kind, but have the same disdain as physi-only the avoiding the most infamous guilt in cians and lawyers have when attornies and ordinary bartering; but this observation, that apothecaries give advice. Cibber himself took he who buys with ready money saves as much the liberty to tell me, that he expected I would to his family as the state exacts out of his land do him justice, and allow the play well pre- for the security and service of his country. pared for his spectators, whatever it was for that is to say, in plain English, sixteen will do his readers. He added very many particu- as much as twenty shillings. lars not uncurious concerning the manner of taking an audience, and laying wait not only for their superficial applause, but also for in- 'My heart is so swelled with grateful sensinuating into their affections and passions, timents on account of some favours which I by the artful management of the look, voice, have lately received, that I must beg leave and gesture of the speaker. I could not but to give them utterance amongst the crowd of consent that the Heroic Daughter appeared in other anonymous correspondents; and writing, the rehearsal a moving entertainment, wrought | I hope, will be as great a relief to my forced out of a great and exemplary virtue. 'MR SPECTATOR, silence, as it is to your natural taciturnity. The advantages of action, show, and dress, My generous benefactor will not suffer me to on these occasions, are allowable, because the speak to him in any terms of acknowledgment, merit consists in being capable of imposing but ever treats me as if he had the greatest upon us to our advantage and entertainment. obligations, and uses me with a distinction All that I was going to say about the honesty that is not to be expected from one so much of an author in the sale of his ware was, that my superior in fortune, years, and understandhe ought to own all that he had borrowed ing. He insinuates, as if I had a certain right from others, and lay in a clear light all that to his favours from some merit, which his parhe gives his spectators for their money, with ticular indulgence to me has discovered; but an account of the first manufactures. But I that is only a beautiful artifice to lessen the intended to give the lecture of this day upon pain an honest mind feels in receiving obligathe common and prostituted behaviour of tions when there is no probability of returning traders in ordinary commerce. The philoso-them. pher made it a rule of trade, that your profit A gift is doubled when accompanied with ought to be the common profit; and it is un-such a delicacy of address: but what to me just to make any step towards gain, wherein gives it an inexpressible value, is its coming the gain of even those to whom you sell is not from the man I most esteem in the world. also consulted. A man may deceive himself It pleases me indeed, as it is an advantage if he thinks fit, but he is no better than a and addition to my fortune; but when I concheat, who sells any thing without telling the sider it as an instance of that good man's exceptions against it, as well as what is to be friendship, it overjoys, it transports me: 1 said to its advantage. The scandalous abuse look on it with a lover's eye, and no longer of language and hardening of conscience, regard the gift, but the hand that gave it. which may be observed every day in going For my friendship is so entirely void of any from one place to another, is what makes a gainful views, that it often gives me pain to whole city, to an unprejudiced eye, a den of think it should have been chargeable to him; thieves. It was no small pleasure to me for and I cannot at some melancholy hours help this reason to remark, as I passed by Cornhill, doing his generosity the injury of fearing it that the shop of that worthy, honest. though should cool on this account, and that the last lately unfortunate citizen, Mr. John Morton, favour might be a sort of legacy of a departing so well known in the linen trade, is setting up friendship. Since a man has been in a distressed 'I confess these fears seem very groundless condition, it ought to be a great satisfaction to and unjust, but you must forgive them to the have passed through it in such a manner as apprehension of one possessed of a great treanot to have lost the friendship of those who sure, who is frighted at the most distant shadow suffered with him, but to receive an honoura-of danger. ble acknowledgment of his honesty from those very persons to whom the law had consigned his estate. anew. The misfortune of this citizen is like to prove of a very general advantage to those who shall deal with him hereafter; for the stock with which he now sets up being the loan of his friends, he cannot expose that to Since I have thus far opened my heart to you, I will not conceal the secret satisfaction I feel there, of knowing the goodness of my friend will not be unrewarded. I am pleased with thinking the providence of the Almighty hath sufficient blessings in store for him, and will certainly discharge the debt though I am not made the happy instrument of doing it. No. 547.] No. 547.] Thursday, November 27, 1712. Si vulnus tibi, monstratâ radice vel herbâ, Hor. Ep. ii. Lib. 2. 149. Suppose you had a wound, and one that show'd Creech. 'Remedium efficax el universum; or, an ef fectual remedy adapted to all capacities; showing how any person may cure himself of illnature, pride, party-spleen, or any other distemper incident to the human system, with an easy way to know when the infection is upon him. The panacea is as innocent as bread, agreeable to the taste, and requires no confinement. It has not its equal in the universe, as abundance of the nobility and gentry throughout the kingdom have experienced. 'N. B. No family ought to be without it.' Over the two Spectators on jealousy, being the two first in the third volume, No. 170, 171. Witness my 'I William Crazy, aged threescore and seven, having been for several years afflicted with uneasy doubts, fears, and vapours, occasioned by the youth and beauty of Mary my wife, aged twenty-five, do hereby, for the benefit of the public, give notice, that I have found great relief from the two following It is very difficult to praise a man without doses, having taken them two mornings, tohand, &c. putting him out of countenance. My follow-gether with a dish of chocolate. ing correspondent has found out this uncommon art, and, together with his friends, has celebrated some of my speculations after such a concealed but diverting manner, that if any of my readers think I am to blame in publishing my own commendations, they will allow should have deserved their censure as much, had I suppressed the humour in which they are conveyed to me. 'SIR, 'I am often in a private assembly of wits of both sexes, where we generally descant upon your speculations, or upon the subjects on We were last Tueswhich you have treated. For the Benefit of the Poor. 'In charity to such as are troubled with the disease of levee-hunting, and are forced to seek their bread every morning at the chamber-doors of great men, I, A. B. do testify, that for many years past I laboured under this fashionable distemper, but was cured of it by a remedy which I bought of Mrs. Baldwin, contained in a half sheet of paper, marked No. 193, where any one may be provied with the same remedy at the price of a single penny.' CHARLES EASY." 'An infallible cure for hypochondriac meday talking of those two volumes which you have lately published. Some were commend-lancholy, Nos. 173, 184, 191, 203, 209, 221, ing one of your papers, and some another; and 233, 235, 239, 245, 247, 251. there was scarce a single person in the com- Probatum est. pany that had not a favourite speculation. Upon this a man of wit and learning told us, he thought it would not be amiss if we paid the Spectator the same compliment that is often made in our public prints to Sir William Read, Dr. Grant, Mr. Moor, the apothecary, and other eminent physicians, where it is usual for the patients to publish the cures which have been made upon them, and the several distempers under which they laboured. 'I, Christopher Query, having been troubled with a certain distemper in my tongue, which showed itself in impertinent and superfluous interrogatories, have not asked one unnecessary question since my perusal of the prescription marked No. 228.' The Britannic Beautifier, being an essay The proposal on modesty, No 231, which gives such a detook; and the lady where we visited having the lightful blushing colour to the cheeks of two last volumes in large paper interleaved those that are white or pale, that it is not to for her own private use, ordered them to be be distinguished from a natural fine combrought down, and laid in the window, whither plexion, nor perceived to be artificial by the every one in the company retired, and writ nearest friend, is nothing of paint, or in the down a particular advertisement in the style least hurtful. It renders the face delightfully and phrase of the like ingenious compositions handsome: is not subject to be rubbed off, which we frequently meet with at the end of and cannot be paralleled by either wash, powIt is certainly the best When we had finished our der,, cosmetic, &c. our newspapers. MARTHA GLOWORM.' work, we read them with a great deal of mirth beautifier in the world. at the fire-side, and agreed, nemine contradicente, to get them transcribed, and sent to 'I, Samuel Self, of the parish of St. James, the Spectator. The gentleman who made the proposal entered the following advertisement having a constitution which naturally abounds before the title-page, after which the rest suc- [with acids, made use of a paper of directions marked No. 177, recommending a healthful ceeded in order. VOL. II. 39 exercise called good nature, and have found it to our great grief of heart, to be winding up a most excellent sweetener of the blood.' your bottoms, I hoped you would have enlarged a little upon that subject. It is indeed but 'Whereas 1, Elizabeth Rainbow, was trou- a single paragraph in your works, and I bebled with that distemper in my head, which lieve those who have read it with the same atabout a year ago was pretty epidemical among tention I have done, will think there is nothing the ladies, and discovered itself in the colour to be objected against it. I have however drawn of their hoods; having made use of the doc-up some additional arguments to strengthen tor's cephalic tincture, which he exhibited to the opinion which you have there delivered. the public in one of his last year's papers, I having endeavoured to go to the bottom of recovered in a very few days.' the matter, which you may either publish or suppress as you think fit. 'I, George Gloom, having for a long time 'Horace, in my motto, says, that all men been troubled with the spleen, and being ad-are vicious, and that they differ from one vised by my friends to put myself into a course another only as they are more or less so. Boiof Steele, did for that end make use of the leau has given the same account of our wisremedies conveyed to me several mornings, in dom, as Horace has of our virtue : short letters, from the hands of the invisible doctor. They were marked at the bottom Nathaniel Henroost, Alice Threadneedle, Rebecca Nettletoy, Tom Loveless, Mary Meanwell, Thomas Smoky, Anthony Freeman, Tom of their endeavours to the contrary, differ Meggot, Rustick Sprightly, &c. which have from one another only as they are more or had so good an effect upon me, that I now find myself cheerful, lightsome, and easy; and therefore do recommend them to all such as labour under the same disteinper.' Not having room to insert all the advertisements which were sent me, I have only picked out some few from the third volume, reserving the fourth for another opportunity. 0. -Vitiis nemo sine nascitur, optimus ille 'MR. SPECTATOR, Creech. Nov. 27, 1712. "Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgré tous leurs soins less so." Two or three of the old Greek poets have given the same turn to a sentence which describes the happiness of man in this life; “ Τὸ ζῆν ἄλυπως, ἄνδρος ἐστὶν εὐτυχοῦς.” "That man is most happy who is the least miserable." 'It will not perhaps be unentertaining to the polite reader to observe how these three beautiful sentences are formed upon different subjects by the same way of thinking; but { shall return to the first of them. 'Our goodness being of a comparative and not an absolute nature, there is none who in strictness can be called a virtuous man. Every one has in him a natural alloy, though one may be fuller of dross than another: for this 'I HAVE read this day's paper with a great reason I cannot think it right to introduce a deal of pleasure, and could send you an ac- perfect or a faultless man upon the stage; not count of several elixirs and antidotes in your only because such a character is improper to third volume, which your correspondents have move compassion, but because there is no such not taken notice of in their advertisements; thing in nature. This might probably be one and at the same time must own to you, that I reason why the Spectator in one of his papers have seldom seen a shop furnished with such took notice of that late invented term called a variety of medicaments, and in which there poetical justice, and the wrong notions into are fewer soporifics. The several vehicles you which it has led some tragic writers. The have invented for conveying your unacceptable most perfect man has vices enough to draw truths to us, are what I most particularly ad-down punishments upon his head, and to jusmire, as I am afraid they are secrets which will tify Providence in regard to any miseries that die with you. I do not find that any of our cri- may befall him. For this reason I cannot ⚫ tical essays are taken notice of in this paper, think but that the instruction and moral are notwithstanding I look upon them to be excel- much finer, where a man who is virtuous in lent cleansers of the brain, and could venture the main of his character falls into distress, to superscribe them with an advertisement and sinks under the blows of fortune at the which I have lately seen in one of your news-end of a tragedy, than when he is represented papers, wherein there is an account given of a as happy and triumphant. Such an example sovereign remedy for restoring the taste to all corrects the insolence of human nature, sofsuch persons whose palates have been vitiated teus the mind of the beholder with sentiments by distempers, unwholesome food, or any the of pity and compassion, comforts him under like occasions. But to let fall the allusion, his own private affliction, and teaches him not notwithstanding your criticisms, and particu-to judge of men's virtues by their successes. larly the candour which you have discovered I cannot think of one real hero in all antiquity in them, are not the least taking part of your so far raised above human infirmities, that he works, I find your opinion concerning poetical might not be very naturally represented inatrajustice, as it is expressed in the first part or gedy as plunged in misfortunes and calamities. your fortieth Spectator, is controverted by The poet may still find out some prevailing some eminent critics; and as you now seem, passion or indiscretion in his character, and |