under a double obligation to take some care rable judge. I have seen what is done abroad; of her interests. and can assure you, that the honour of that The honour of our country is also concern- branch of painting is justly due to us. I appeal ed in the matter I am going to lay before you. to the judicious observers for the truth of what We (and perhaps other nations as well as we) I assert. If foreigners have oftentimes, or even have a national false humanity as well as a for the most part, excelled our natives, it ought national vain glory; and, though we boast to be imputed to the advantages they have met ourselves to excel all the world in things where- with here, joined to their own ingenuity and in we are outdone abroad, in other things we industry; nor has any one nation distinguished attribute to others a superiority which we our- themselves so as to raise an argument in faselves possess. This is what is done, particu-vour of their country: but it is to be observed larly in the art of portrait or face-painting. that neither French nor Italians, nor any one Painting is an art of a vast extent, too of either nation, notwithstanding all our prejugreat by much for any mortal man to be in dices in their favour, have, or ever had, for any full possession of in all its parts; it is enough considerable time, any character among us as if any one succeed in painting faces, history, face-painters. battles, landscapes, sea-pieces, fruit, flowers, This honour is due to our own country, or drolls, &c. Nay, no man ever was excel- and has been so far near an age: so that, inlent in all the branches (though many in num- stead of going to Italy, or elsewhere, one that ber,) of these several arts, for a distinct art I designs for portrait-painting ought to study in take upon me to call every one of those seve- England. Hither such should come from Holral kinds of painting. land, France, Italy, Germany, &c. as he that 'And as one man may be a good land- intends to practise any other kinds of paintscape painter, but unable to paint a face or ing should go to those parts where it is in the a history tolerably well, and so of the rest; greatest perfection. It is said the Blessed Virone nation may excel in some kinds of paint-gin descended from heaven to sit to St. Luke. ing, and other kinds may thrive better in other I dare venture to affirm that, if she should declimates. sire another Madonna to be painted by the 'Italy may have the preference of all other life, she would come to England; and am of nations for history painting; Holland for opinion that your present president, Sir Goddrolls and a neat finished manner of working; frey Kneller, from his improvement since he France for gay, jaunty, fluttering pictures; arrived in this kingdom, would perform that and England for portraits; but to give the office better than any foreigner living. I am, honour of every one of these kinds of paint- with all possible respect, ing to any of those nations on account of their excellence in any of these parts of it, is like adjudging the prize of heroic, dramatic, lyric, or burlesque poetry to him who has done well in any one of them. Sir, 'Your most humble and 'most obedient servant, &c.' The ingenious letter signed The Weather Glass, with several others, were received, but came too late. POSTSCRIPT. Where there are the greatest geniuses, and most helps and encouragements, it is reasonable to suppose an art will arrive to the greatest perfection: by this rule let us consider our own country with respect to face-painting. It had not come to my knowledge, when I No nation in the world delights so much in left off the Spectator, that I owe several excelhaving their own, or friends' or relations' lent sentiments and agreeable pieces in this pictures; whether from their national good-work to Mr. Ince, of Gray's-Inn, nature, or having a love to painting, and not being encouraged in the great article of reli R. STEELE. gious pictures, which the purity of our worship No. 556.] Friday, June 18, 1714. Qualis ubi in lucem coluber mala gramina pastus So shines, renew'd in youth, the crested snake, UPON laying down the office of Spectator, I acquainted the world with my design of electing a new club, and of opening my mouth And accordingly, in fact, face-painting is no where so well performed as in England: 1 This paper concluded the seventh volume of the Specknow not whether it has lain in your way to ator, as originally published. The intermediate time was observe it, but I have, and pretend to be a tole-filled up by our authors in the production of the Guardian. in it after a most solemn manner. Both the run through the body for making a little too election and the ceremony are now past; but free with my betters. not finding it so easy, as I at first imagined, In a word, I am quite another man to what to break through a fifty years silence, I would I was. Tam dispar sibi. Nil fuit unquam Hor. Sat. iii Lib. 1. 18. Nothing was ever so unlike itself. My old acquaintance scarce know me; nay, I was asked the other day by a Jew at Jonathan's, whether I was not related to a dumb gentleman, who used to come to that coffeehouse? But I think I never was better pleased was battling it across the table with a young Templar, his companion gave him a pull by the sleeve, begging him to come away, for that the old prig would talk him to death. I shall reserve for another time the history of such club or clubs of which I am now a talkative but unworthy member; and shall here give an account of this surprising change which has been produced in me, and which I look upon to be as remarkable an accident as any recorded in history, since that which hap-in my life than about a week ago, when, as I pened to the son of Crœsus, after having been many years as much tongue-tied as myself. Upon the first opening of my mouth, I made a speech, consisting of about half a dosen wellturned periods; but grew so very hoarse upon Being now a very good proficient in disit, that for three days together, instead of course, I shall appear in the world with this finding the use of my tongue, I was afraid that addition to my character, that my countrymen I had quite lost it. Besides, the unusual ex-may reap the fruits of my new-acquired loquatension of my muscles on this occasion made my face ache on both sides to such a degree, that nothing but an invincible resolution and perseverance could have prevented me from falling back to my monosyllables. I afterwards made several essays towards speaking; and that I might not be startled at my own voice, which has happened to me more than once, I used to read aloud in my chamber, and have often stood in the middle of the street to call a coach, when I knew there was none within hearing. city. Those who have been present at public disputes in the university know that it is usual to maintain heresies for argument's sake. I have heard a man a most impudent Socinian for half an hour, who has been an orthodox divine all his life after. I have taken the same method to accomplish myself in the gift of utterance, having talked above a twelvemonth, not so much for the benefit of my hearers, as of myself. But, since I have now gained the faculty I have been so long endeavouring after, When I was thus grown pretty well ac- I intend to make a right use of it, and shall quainted with my own voice, I laid hold of all think myself obliged, for the future, to speak opportunities to exert it. Not caring however always in truth and sincerity of heart. While to speak much by myself, and to draw upon a man is learning to fence, he practises both me the whole attention of those I conversed on friend and foe; but when he is a master with, I used for some time to walk every in the art, he never exerts it but on what he morning in the Mall, and talk in chorus with thinks the right side. a parcel of Frenchmen. I found my modesty That this last allusion may not give my greatly relieved by the communicative temper reader a wrong idea of my design in this paper, of this nation, who are so very sociable as to I must here inform him, that the author of it think they are never better company than when is of no faction; that he is a friend to no inthey are all opening at the same time. terests but those of truth and virtue; nor a I then fancied I might receive great benefit foe to any but those of vice and folly. Though from female conversation, and that I should I make more noise in the world than I used to have a convenience of talking with the greater do, I am still resolved to act in it as an indiffreedom, when I was not under any impedi- ferent spectator. It is not my ambition to ment of thinking: I therefore threw myself increase the number either of whigs or tories, into an assembly of ladies, but could not for but of wise and good men; and I could hearmy life get in a word among them; and found tily wish there were not faults common to both that if I did not change my company, I was in parties, which afford me sufficient matter to danger of being reduced to my primitive taci- work upon, without descending to those which turnity. are peculiar to either. The coffee-houses have ever since been my If in a multitude of counsellers there is chief places of resort, where I have made the safety, we ought to think ourselves the secur. greatest improvements; in order to which I est nation the world. Most of our garrets are have taken a particular care never to be of the inhabited by statesmen, who watch over the same opinion with the man I conversed with. liberties of their country, and make a shift I was a tory at Button's, and a whig at Child's, to keep themselves from starving by taking a friend to the Englishman, or an advocate into their care the properties of their fellowfor the Examiner, as it best served my turn: subjects. some fancy me a great enemy to the French As these politicians of both sides have alking, though in reality I only make use of him ready worked the nation into a most unnatural for a help to discourse. In short, I wrangle ferment, I shall be so far from endeavouring and dispute for exercise; and have carried this to raise it to a greater height, that, on the point so far, that I was once like to have been contrary, it shall be the chief tendency of my 1 papers to inspire my countrymen with a mu- of it two or three sentences, as a proper intual good-will and benevolence. Whatever troduction to a very curious letter, which I faults either party may be guilty of, they shall make the chief entertainment of this are rather inflamed than cured by these re-speculation. proaches which they cast upon one another. The old English plainness and sincerity, The most likely method of rectifying any man's that generous integrity of nature, and honesconduct, is by recommending to him the prin- ty of disposition, which always argues true ciples of truth and honour, religion and vir- greatness of mind, and is usually accompanied tue; and so long as he acts with an eye to these with undaunted courage and resolution, is in principles, whatever party he is of, he cannot a great measure lost among us. fail of being a good Englisman, and a lover of The dialect of conversation is now-a-days his country. so swelled with vanity and compliment, and As for the persons concerned in this work, so surfeited (as I may say) of expressions of the names of all of them, or at least of such kindness and respect, that if a man that lived as desire it, shall be published hereafter until an age or two ago should return into the which time I must entreat the courteous rea-world again, he would really want a dictionder to suspend his curiosity, and rather to ary to help him to understand his own lanconsider what is written, than who they are guage, and to know the true intrinsic value that write it. of the phrase in fashion; and would hardly Having thus adjusted all necessary prelimi- at first believe at what a low rate the highest naries with my reader, I shall not trouble him strains and expressions of kindness imaginable with any more prefatory discourses, but pro-do commonly pass in current payment; and eeed in my old method, and entertain him with speculations on every useful subject that falls in my way. No. 557.] Monday, June 21, 1714. C. when he should come to understand it, it would be a great while before he could bring himself with a good countenance, and a good conscieuce, to converse with men upon equal terms and in their own way.' I have by me a letter which I look upon as a great curiosity, and which may serve as an Virg. En. i. 665. exemplification to the foregoing passage, Quippe domum timet ambiguam Tyriosque bilingues. It He fears the ambiguous race, and Tyrians double-tongu'd. is said to have been written in king Charles cited out of the most excellent prelate. THERE is nothing,' says Plato, so de- the Second's reign by the ambassador of lightful as the hearing or the speaking of Bantam,* a little after ais arrival in England. truth.' For this reason there is no conversation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention MASTER, The people where I now am have tongues to betray, and speaks without any intention further from their hearts than from London to deceive. to Bantam; and thou knowest the inhabitants Among all the accounts which are given of of one of these places do not know what is Cato, I do not remember one that more re-done in the other. They call thee and thy dounds to his honour than the following pas- subjects barbarians, because we speak what sage related by Plutarch. As an advocate was we mean; and account themselves a civilized pleading the cause of his client before one of people, because they speak one thing and the prætors, he could only produce a single mean another: truth they call barbarity, and witness in a point where the law required the falsehood politeness. Upon my first landing, testimony of two persons; upon which the ad- one, who was sent from the king of this place vocate insisted on the integrity of that person to meet me, told me that he was extremely whom he had produced; but the prætor told sorry for the storm I had met with just before him, that where the law required two witnesses my arrival. I was troubled to hear him grieve he would not accept of one, though it were and afflict himself upon my account; but in Cato himself. Such a speech from a person less than a quarter of an hour he smiled, and who sat at the head of a court of justice, was as merry as if nothing had happened. while Cato was still living, shows us, more than Another who came with him told me by my a thousand examples, the high reputation interpreter, he should be glad to do me any this great man had gained among his con- service that lay in his power. Upon which 1 temporaries upon the account of his sincerity. desired him to carry one of my portmanteaus When such an inflexible integrity is a little for me: but, instead of serving me according softened and qualified by the rules of conver- to his promise, he laughed, and bid another sation and good-breeding, there is not a more do it. I lodged, the first week, at the house shining virtue in the whole catalogue of social of one who desired me to think myself at duties. A man however ought to take great home, and to consider his house as my own. care not to polish himself out of his. veracity, Accordingly, I the next morning began to nor to refine his behaviour to the prejudice of knock down one of the walls of it, in order his virtue. to let in the fresh air, and had packed up This subject is exquisitely treated in the some of the household goods, of which I in most elegant sermon of the great British tended to have made thee a present; but the preacher.* I shall beg leave to transcribe out false varlet no sooner saw me falling to work, Archbishop Tillotson, vol. ii. sermon i. folio edition. * In 1682. but he sent word to desire me to give over, for that he would have no such doings in his house. I had not been long in this nation before I was told by one, for whom I had asked a certain favour from the chief of the king's servants, whom they hear call the lord-treasurer, that I had eternally obliged him. I was so surprised at his gratitude, that I could not forbear saying, "What service is there which one man can do for another, that can oblige him to all eternity!" However, I only asked him, for my reward, that he would lend me his eldest daughter during my stay in this country; but I quickly found that he was as treacherous as the rest of his country men. Whether against their will by fate impos'd, Horneck. At my first going to court, one of the great men almost put me out of countenance. by asking ten thousand pardons of me for only treading by accident upon my toe. They call this kind of lie a compliment; for, wheu they are civil to a great man, they tell him untruths, for which thou wouldest order any of thy officers of state to receive a hundred blows It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that upon his foot. I do not know how I shall ne-if all the the mifortunes of mankind were cast gotiate any thing with this people, since there into a public stock, in order to be equally disis so little credit to be given to them. When tributed among the whole species, those who I go to see the king's scribe, I am generally now think themselves the most unhappy, told that he is not at home, though perhaps I would prefer the share they are already possaw him go into his house almost the very sessed of before that which would fall to them moment before. Thou wouldest fancy that the by such a division. Horace has carried this whole nation are physicians, for the first ques- thought a great deal further in the motto of tion they always ask me is, how I do : I have this question put to me above a hundred times my paper, which implies, that the hardships or misfortunes we lie under are more easy a-day. Nay, they are not only thus inquisi- to us than those of any other person would tive after my health, but wish it in a more so-be, in case we could change conditions with lemn manner, with a full glass in their hands, him. every time I sit with them at table, though at As I was ruminating upon these two rethe same time they would persuade me to marks, and seated in my elbow chair. I indrink their liquors in such quantities as I sensibly fell asleep; when on a sudden, mehave found by experience will make me sick. thought, there was a proclamation made by They often pretend to pray for thy health also Jupiter, that every mortal should bring in his in the same manner; but I have more reason griefs and calamities, and throw them togeto expect it from the goodness of thy consti-ther in a heap. There was a large plain aptution than the sincerity of their wishes. pointed for this purpose. I took my stand in May thy slave escape in safety from this dou- the centre of it, and saw with a great deal of ble-tongued race of men, and live to lay him-pleasure the whole human species marching self once more at thy feet in the royal city of one after another, and throwing down their several loads, which immediately grew up into a prodigious mountain, that seemed to rise above the clouds. Bantam !' No. 558.] Wednesday, June, 23, 1714, 0. Qui fit, Marcenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem Whence is't, Mecenas, that so few approve There was a certain lady of a thin airg shape, who was very active in this solemnity. She carried a magnifying glass in one of her hands, and was clothed in a loose flowing robe, embroidered with several figures of fiends and spectres, that discovered themselves in a thousand chimerical shapes, as her garment hovered in the wind. There was something wild and distracted in her looks. Her name was fancy. She led up every mortal to the appointed place, after having very of ficiously assisted him in making up his pack, and laying it upon his shoulders. My heart melted within me to see my fellow-creatures groaning under their respective burdens, and to consider that prodigious bulk of human calamities which lay before me. There was however several persons who gave me great diversion upon this occasion I observed one bringing in a fardel very care-portunity of mending ourselves; and all the fully concealed under an old embroidered contributions being now brought in, every man cloak, which, upon his throwing it into the was at liberty to exchange his misfortunes for But as there arose heap, I discovered to be Poverty. Another, those of another person. after a great deal of puffing, threw down his many new incidents in the sequel of my vision, luggage, which, upon examining, I found to I shall reserve them for the subject of my next be his wife. paper. There were multitudes of lovers saddled with Quid causæ est, meritò quin illis Jupiter ambas Were it not just that Jove, provok'd to heat, Horneck. very whimsical burdens composed of darts and No. 559.] Friday, June 25, 1714. flames; but, what was very odd, though they sighed as if their hearts would break under these bundles of calamities, they could not persuade themselves to cast them into the heap, when they came up to it; but, after a few faint efforts, shook their heads, and marched away as heavy loaden as they came. I saw multitudes of old women throw down their wrinkles, and several young ones who stripped themselves of a tawny skin. There were very great In my last paper, I gave my reader a sight heaps of red noses, large lips, and rusty teeth. of that mountain of miseries which was made The truth of it is, I was surprised to see the up of those several calamities that afflict the greatest part of the mountain made up of minds of men. I saw with unspeakable pleabodily deformities. Observing one advancing sure the whole species thus delivered from its towards the heap with a larger cargo than ordi- sorrows; though at the same time, as we nary upon his back, I found upon his near ap-stood round the heap, and surveyed the several proach that it was only a natural hump, which materials of which it was composed, there was he disposed of, with great joy of heart, among scarcely a mortal in this vast multitude, who There did not discover what he thought pleasures of this collection of human miseriess. were likewise distempers of all sorts; though life, and wondered how the owners of them I could not but observe. that there were ever came to look upon them as burdens and many more imaginary than real. One little grievances. packet I could not but take notice of, which was a complication of all the diseases incident to human nature, and was in the hand of a great many fine people: this was called the spleen. But what most of all surprised me, was a remark I made, that there was not a single vice or folly thrown into the to him. whole heap; at which I was very much as- Upon this, Fancy began again to bestir tonished. having concluded within myself, herself, and, parcelling out the whole heap that every one would take this opportunity of getting rid of his passions, prejudices, and frailties. I took notice in particular of a very profligate fellow, who I did not question came loaded with his crimes: but upon searching into his bundle I found, that instead of throwing his guilt from him, he had only laid down his memory. He was followed by another worthless rogue, who flung away his modesty instead of his ignorance. As we were regarding very attentively this confusion of miseries, this chaos of calamity, Jupiter issued out a second proclamation, that every one was now at liberty to exchange his affliction, and to return to his habitation with any such other bundle as should be delivered with incredible activity, recommended to every one his particular packet. The hurry and confusion at this time was not to be expressed. Some observations which I made upon this occasion, I shall communicate to the public. A venerable gray headed man, who had laid down the colick, and who ĺ found wanted an heir to his estate, snatched up an undutiful son that had been thrown The into the heap by his angry father. graceless youth, in less than a quarter of When the whole race of mankind had thus an hour, pulled the old gentleman by the cast their burdens, the phantom which had beard, and had like to have knocked his been so busy on this occasion, seeing me an brains out; so that meeting the true father, idle Spectator of what had passed, approached who came towards him with a fit of the gripes, towards me. I grew uneasy at her presence, he begged him to take his son again, and give when of a sudden she held her magnifying him back his colick; but they were incapaglas full before my eyes. I no sooner saw ble either of them to recede from the choice A poor galley-slave, who my face in it, but was startled at the short- they had made. ness of it, which now appeared to me in its had thrown down his chains, took up the utmost aggravation. The immoderate breadth gout in their stead, but made such wry faces, of the features made me very much out of that one might easily perceive he was no humour with my own countenance, upon which great gainer by the bargain. It was pleaI threw it from me like a mask. It happened sant enough to see the several exchanges very luckily that one who stood by me had that were made, for sickness against poverty, just before thrown down his visage, which it hunger against want of appetite, and care seems was too long for him. It was indeed agianst pain." The female world were very busy among extended to a most shameful length; I believe the very chin was, modestly speaking, as long themselves in bartering for features: one was as my whole face. We had both of us an op- trucking a lock of gray hairs for a carbuncle, 41 VOL. IL |