66 MR. SPECTATOR,

"I AM what the world calls a warm fellow, and by good success in trade I have raised myself to a capacity of making some figure in the world; but no matter for that. I have now under my guardianship a couple of nieces, who will certainly make me run mad; which you will not wonder at, when I tell you they are female virtuosos, and, during the three years and a half that I have had them under my care, they never in the least inclined their thoughts towards any one single part of the character of a notable woman. Whilst they should have been considering the proper ingredients for a sackposset, you should hear a dispute concerning the magnetic virtue of the loadstone, or perhaps the pressure of the atmosphere. Their language is peculiar to themselves, and they scorn to express themselves on the meanest trifle with words that are not of a Latin derivation. But this were supportable still, would they suffer me to enjoy an uninterrupted ignorance; but unless I fall in with their abstracted ideas of things, as they call them, I must not expect to smoke one pipe in quiet. In a late fit of the gout, I complained of the pain of that distemper, when my niece Kitty begged leave to assure me, that, whatever I might think, several great philosophers, both ancient and modern, were of opinion that both pleasure and pain were imaginary distinctions, and that there was no such thing as either in rerum naturâ. I have often heard them affirm that the fire was not hot; and one day when I, with the authority of an old fellow, desired one of them to put my blue cloak on my knees, she answered, Sir, I will reach the cloak; but take notice, I do not do it as allowing your description; for it might as well be called yellow as blue; for

colour is nothing but the various infractions of the rays of the sun.' Miss Molly told me one day, that to say snow was white, is allowing a vulgar error; for, as it contains a great quantity of nitrous particles, it may more reasonably be supposed to be black. In short, the young husseys would persuade me, that to believe one's eyes is a sure way to be deceived; and have often advised me by no means to trust any thing so fallible as my senses. What I have to beg of you now is, to turn one speculation to the due regulation of female literature, so far at least as to make it consistent with the quiet of such whose fate it is to be liable to its insults; and to tell us the difference between a gentleman that should make cheese-cakes and raise paste, and a lady that reads Locke, and understands the mathematics. In which you will extremely oblige

"Your hearty friend and humble servant,

T

66 ABRAHAM THRIFTY."

No. 243. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1711.

Formam quidem ipsam, Marce fili, et tanquam faciem honesti vides: quæ, si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores, ut ait Plato, excitaret sapientia.

TULL, OFFIC.

You see, my son Marcus, virtue as if it were embodied, which, if it could be made the object of sight, would, as Plato says, excite in us a wonderful love of wisdom.

I Do not remember to have read any discourse written expressly upon the beauty and loveliness of virtue, without considering it as a duty, and as the

means of making us happy both now and hereafter. I design, therefore, this speculation as an essay upon that subject; in which I shall consider virtue no further than as it is in itself of an amiable nature; after having premised, that I understand by the word virtue such a general notion as is affixed to it by the writers of morality, and which, by devout men generally, goes under the name of religion, and by men of the world under the name of honour.

Hypocrisy itself does great honour, or rather justice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.

We learn from Hierocles, it was a common saying among the heathens, that the wise man hates nobody, but only loves the virtuous.

Tully has a very beautiful gradation of thoughts to show how amiable virtue is. We love a virtuous man,' says he, who lives in the remotest parts of the earth, though we are altogether out of the reach of his virtue, and can receive from it no manner of benefit.' Nay, one who died several ages ago, raises a secret fondness and benevolence for him in our minds, when we read his story: nay, what is still more, one who has been the enemy of our country, provided his wars were regulated by justice and humanity, as in the instance of Pyrrhus, whom Tully mentions on this occasion in opposition to Hannibal. Such is the natural beauty and loveliness of

virtue.

Stoicism, which was the pedantry of virtue, ascribes all good qualifications of what kind soever to the virtuous man. Accordingly Cato, in the character Tully has left of him, carried matters so far, that he

would not allow any one but a virtuous man to be handsome. This indeed looks more like a philosophical rant than the real opinion of a wise man ; yet this was what Cato very seriously maintained. In short, the Stoics thought they could not sufficiently represent the excellence of virtue, if they did not comprehend in the notion of it all possible perfections; and therefore did not only suppose that it was transcendently beautiful in itself, but that it made the very body amiable, and banished every kind of deformity from the person in whom it resided.

It is a common observation, that the most abandoned to all sense of goodness, are apt to wish those who are related to them of a different character: and it is very observable, that none are more struck with the charms of virtue in the fair sex, than those who, by their very admiration of it, are carried to a desire of ruining it.

A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful sex all over charms.

As virtue in general is of an amiable and lovely nature, there are some particular kinds of it which are more so than others, and these are such as dispose us to do good to mankind. Temperance and abstinence, faith and devotion, are in themselves perhaps as laudable as any other virtues ; but those which make a man popular and beloved, are justice, charity, munificence, and, in short, all the good qualities that render us beneficial to each other.

For

which reason, even an extravagant man, who has nothing else to recommend him but a false generosity, is often more beloved and esteemed than a person of a much more finished character, who is defective in this particular.

The two great ornaments of virtue, which show her in the most advantageous views, and make her

altogether lovely, are cheerfulness and good-nature. These generally go together, as a man cannot be agreeable to others who is not easy within himself. They are both very requisite in a virtuous mind, to keep out melancholy from the many serious thoughts it is engaged in, and to hinder its natural hatred of vice from souring into severity and censoriousness.

If virtue is of this amiable nature, what can we think of those who can look upon it with an eye of hatred and ill-will, or can suffer their aversion for a party to blot out all the merit of the person who is engaged in it? A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes that there is no virtue but on his own side, and that there are not men as honest as himself who may differ from him in political principles. Men may oppose one another in some particulars, but ought not to carry their hatred to those qualities which are of so amiable a nature in themselves, and have nothing to do with the points in dispute. Men of virtue, though of different interests, ought to consider themselves as more nearly united with one another, than with the vicious part of mankind, who embark with them in the same civil concerns. We should bear the same love towards a man of honour who is a living antagonist, which Tully tells us, in the forementioned passage, every one naturally does to an enemy that is dead. In short, we should esteem virtue though in a foe, and abhor vice though in a friend.

I speak this with an eye to those cruel treatments which men of all sides are apt to give the characters of those who do not agree with them. How many persons of undoubted probity and exemplary virtue, on either side, are blackened and defamed? How many men of honour exposed to public obloquy and repreach? Those, therefore, who are either the in