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confounds Vice and Virtue, and takes off that natural 'Horror we have to Evil. An innocent Creature, who ⚫ would start at the Name of Strumpet, may think it pretty to be called a Miftrefs, especially if her Seducer has taken care to inform her, that a Union of Hearts is the principal Matter in the Sight of Heaven, and that the Business at Church is a meer idle Ceremony. Who 'knows not that the Difference between obfcene and modest Words expreffing the fame Action, confifts only in the acceffary Idea, for there is nothing immodest in Letters and Syllables. Fornication and Adultery are modeft Words; because they express an Evil Action as criminal, and fo as to excite Horror and Adverfion: Whereas words reprefenting the Pleasure rather than the Sin, 6 are for this Reafon indecent and dishoneft. Your Papers would be chargeable with fomething worse than Indelicacy, they would be Immoral, did you treat " the deteftable Sins of Uncleannefs in the fame manner as you rally an impertinent Self-love, and an artful Glance; as thofe Laws would be very unjuft, that 'fhould chastife Murder and Petty Larceny with the fame Punishment. Even Delicacy requires that the Pity fhewn to diftreffed indigent Wickedness, firft betrayed into, and then expelled the Harbours of the Brothel,' fhould be changed to Deteftation, when we confider pampered Vice in the Habitations of the Wealthy. The moft free Perfon of Quality, in Mr. Courtly's Phrase, that is to speak properly, a Woman of Figure who has forgot her Birth and Breeding, difhonoured her Relati" ons and her felf, abandoned her Virtue and Reputation,' together with the natural Modesty of her Sex, and rifqued her very Soul, is fo far from deferving to be treat'ed with no worfe Character than that of a kind Woman, (which is doubtless Mr. Courtly's Meaning, if he has any) that one can scarce be too fevere on her, in as much as the fins against greater Restraints, is less expofed, and liable to fewer Temptations, than Beauty in Poverty and Diftrefs. It is hoped therefore, Sir, that you will not lay afide your generous Design of expofing that monstrous Wickedness of the Town, whereby a 'Multitude of Innocents are facrificed in a more barbarous Manner than those who were offer'd to Molesh.

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N° 286 The Unchafte are provoked to fee their Vice expofed, and the Chafte cannot rake into fuch Filth without Danger of Defilement; but a meer SPECTATOR may look into the Bottom, and come off without partaking in the Guilt. The doing fo will convince us you purfue publick Good, and not meerly your own Advantage: But if your Zeal flackens, how can one help thinking that Mr. Courtley's Letter. is but a Feint to get off from a Subject, in which either your own, or the private and bafe Ends of others to whom you are partial, or those of whom you are afraid, would not en"dure a Reformation?

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I am, Sir, your humble Servant and Admirer, fo long as you tread in the Paths of Truth, Virtue and Honour.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

Trin. Coll. Cantab. Jan. 12. 1711-12. IT is my Fortune to have a Chamber-Fellow, with

was

whom, tho' I agree very well in many Sentiments, yet there is one in which we are as contrary as Light and Darkness. We are both in Love; his Mistress in a lovely Fair, and mine a lovely Brown. Now as the Praise of our Miftreffefs Beauty employs • much of our Time, we have frequent Quarrels in entring upon that Subject, while each fays all he can to defend his Choice. For my own part, I have racked my Fancy to the utmoft; and sometimes, with the greatest Warmth of Imagination, have told him, That Night made before Day, and many more fine Things, tho' 'without any effect: Nay, laft Night I could not forbear faying, with more Heat than Judgment, that the Devil ought to be painted white. Now my Defire is, Sir, that you would be pleased to give us in Black and White your Opinion in the Matter of Difpute between us; which will either furnish me with fresh and prevailing Arguments to maintain my own Tafte, or make me with lefs Repining allow that of my Chamber-Fellow. I ⚫ know very well that I have Jack Cleveland and Bond's Horace on my Side; but then he has fuch a Band of Rhymers and Romance-Writers, with which he oppo'fes me, and is so continually chiming to the Tune of • Golden

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141 < Golden Treffes, yellow Locks, Milk, Marble, Ivory, Silver, Swans, Snow, Dazies, Doves, and the Lord knows what; which he is always founding with fo ⚫ much Vehemence in my Ears, that he often puts me into a brown Study how to answer him; and I find < that I'm in a fair Way to be quite confounded, with⚫ out your timely Affiftance afforded to,

SIR,

Your bumble Servant,

Philobrune,

No 287. Tuesday, January 29.

Ω φιλτάτη γῆ μῆτερ, ὡς σεμνὸν σφόδρ
Τοῖς νῦν ἔχεσι κλήμα

Menand.

Look upon it as a peculiar Happiness, that were I to choose of what Religion I would be, and under what Government I would live, I fhould moft certainly give the Preference to that Form of Religion and Government which is established in my own Country. In this Point I think I am determined by Reafon and Conviction; but if I fhall be told that I am acted by Prejudice, I am fure it is an honest Prejudice, it is a Prejudice that arifes from the Love of my Country, and therefore fuch an one as I will always indulge. I have in feveral Papers endeavoured to exprefs my Duty and Efteem for the Church of England, and defign this as an Effay upon the Civil Part of our Conftitution, having often entertained my self with Reflexions on this Subject, which I have not met with in other Writers.

THAT Form of Government appears to me the most reasonable, which is moft conformable to the Equality that we find in human Nature, provided it be confiftent with publick Peace and Tranquillity. This is what may properly be called Liberty, which exempts one Man from

Subjection

Subjection to another fo far as the Order and Oeconomy of Government will permit.

LIBERTY fhould reach every Individual of a People, as they all fhare one common Nature; if it only spreads among particular Branches, there had better be none at all, fince fuch a Liberty only aggravates the Misfortune of those who are depriv'd of it, by fetting before them a difagreeable Subject of Comparifon.

THIS Liberty is beft preserved, where the Legislative Power is lodged in feveral Perfons, especially if those Perfons are of different Ranks and Interefts; for where they are of the fame Rank, and confequently have an Interest to manage peculiar to that Rank, it differs but little from a Defpotical Government in a fingle Perfon. But the greatest Security a People can have for their Liberty, is when the Legislative Power is in the Hands of Persons fo happily distinguished, that by providing for the particular Intereft of their feveral Ranks, they are providing for the whole Body of the People; or in other Words, when there is no Part of the People that has not a common Interest with at least one Part of the Legislators.

IF there be but one Body of Legislators, it is no better than a Tyranny; if there are only two, there will want a cafting Voice, and one of them muft at length be fwallowed up by Difputes and Contentions that will neceffarily arife between them. Four would have the fame Inconvenience as two, and a greater Number would cause too much Confufion. I could never read a Paffage in Polybius, and another in Cicero, to this Purpose, without a fecret Pleasure in applying it to the English Conftitution, which it fuits much better than the Roman. Both these great Authors give the Pre-eminence to a mixt Government confifting of three Branches, the Regal, the Noble, and the Popular. They had doubtlefs in their Thoughts the Conftitution of the Roman Commonwealth, in which the Conful reprefented the King, the Senate the Nobles, and the Tribunes the People. This Divifion of the three Powers in the Roman Conftitution was by no means fo diftin&t and natural, as it is in the Enftlifh Form of Government. Among feveral Objections that might be made to it, I think the Chief are thofe that affect the Confular Power, which had only the Ornaments without

the

Be

the Force of the Regal Authority. Their Number had not a cafting Voice in it; for which Reason, if one did not chance to be employed Abroad, while the other fat at Home, the Publick Bufinefs was fometimes at a Stand, while the Confuls pulled two different Ways in it. fides, I do not find that the Confuls had ever a Negative Voice in the paffing of a Law, or Decree of Senate, so that indeed they were rather the chief Body of the Nobility, or the firft Ministers of State, than a distinct Branch of the Sovereignty, in which none can be looked upon as a Part, who are not a Part of the Legislature. Had the Confuls 'been invested with the Regal Authority to as great a Degree as our Monarchs, there would never have been any Occafions for a Dictatorship, which had in it the Power of all the three Orders, and ended in the Subversion of the whole Constitution.

SUCH an History as that of Suetonius, which gives us a Succeffion of Absolute Princes, is to me an unanfwerable Argument against Defpotick Power. Where the Prince is a Man of Wisdom and Virtue, it is indeed happy for his People that he is Abfolute; but fince in the common Run of Mankind, for one that is Wife and Good you find ten of a contrary Character, it is very dangerous for a Nation to ftand to its Chance, or to have its publick Happinefs or Mifery depend on the Virtues or Vices of a fingle Perfon. Look into the History I have mentioned, or into any Series of Abfolute Princes, how many Tyrants muft you read through, before you come to an Emperor that is fupportable. But this is not all; an honest private Man often grows cruel and abandoned, when converted into an abfolute Prince. Give a Man Power of doing what he pleases with Impunity, you extinguish his Fear, and confequently overturn in him one of the great Pillars of Morality. This too we find confirmed by Matter of Fact. How many hopeful Heirs apparent to grant Empires, when in the Poffeffion of them, have become fuch Monsters of Luft and Cruelty as are a Reproach to Human Nature ?

SOME tell us we ought to make our Governments on Earth like that in Heaven, which, fay they, is altogether 'Monarchical and Unlimited. Was Man like his Creator in Goodness and Justice, I should be for following this

great

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