"But the sad and dismal news which Molly brought me, struck me to the heart, which was, it seems, and is, your ill conditions for my love and respects to you. For she told me, if I came forty times to you, you would not speak with me, which words I am sure is a great grief to me. Now, my dear, if I may not be permitted to your sweet company, and to have the happiness of speaking with your sweet person, I beg the favor of you to accept of this my secret mind and thoughts, which hath so long lodged in my breast, the which if you do not accept, I believe will go nigh to break my heart. "For indeed, my dear, I love you above all the beauties I ever saw in my life. "The young gentleman, and my master's daughter, the Londoner that is come down to marry her, sat in the arbor most part of last night. Oh, dear Betty, must the nightingales sing to those who marry for money, and not to us true lovers! Oh, my dear Betty, that we could meet this night where we used to do in the wood! "Now, my dear, if I may not have the blessing of kissing your sweet lips, I beg I may have the happiness of kissing your fair hand, with a few lines from your dear self, presented by whom you please or think fit. I believe, if time would permit me, I could write all day; but the time being short, and paper little, no more from your neverfailing lover till death. "JAMES Poor James! since his time and paper were so short, I that have more than I can use well of both, will put the sentiments of this kind letter (the style of which seems to be confused with the scraps he had got in hearing and reading what he did not understand) into what he meant to express. "DEAR CREATURE, Can you then neglect him who has forgot all his recreations and enjoyments, to pine away his life in thinking of you? When I do so, you ap *This man's name was James Hirst. He was a servant to the Hon. Elward Wortley, Esq., and in delivering a parcel of letters to his master, gave by mistake this letter, which he had just prepared for his sweetheart, and kept in its stead one of his master's. He quickly returned to rectify the blunder, but it was too late. Unfortunately the letter to Betty was the first that presented itself to Mr. Wortley, who had indulged his euriosity in reading the love-tale of his enamored footman. James requested to have it returned in Vain. No. James," said his master, "you shall be a great man, and this letter must appear in the Spectator." James succeeded in putting an end to Betty's "ill conditions," and obtained her consent to marry him; but the marriage was prevented by her sudden death. James Hirst, Boon after, from his regard and love for Betty, married her sister, and died about thirteen years ago, by Pennistone, in the neighborhood of Wortley, near Leeds. Betty's sister and successor was probably the Molly who walked ten miles to carry the angry message which occasioned the preceding letter. pear more amiable to me than Venus does in the most beautiful description that ever was made of her. All this kindness you return with an accusation, that I do not love you: but the contrary is so manifest, that I cannot think you in earnest. Molly, that you do not love me, is what robs me But the certainty given me in your message by of all comfort. She says you will not see me : if you can have so much cruelty, at least write to fair hand. I love you above all things; and in me, that I may kiss the impression made by your my condition, what you look upon with indifference is to me the most exquisite pleasure or pain. don, who are to marry for mercenary ends, walk Our young lady and a fine gentleman from Lonabout our gardens, and hear the voice of evening those solitudes, because they have heard lovers do nightingales, as if for fashion-sake they courted So. Oh Betty! could I hear these rivulets murmur, and birds sing, while you stood near me, how little sensible should I be that we are both servants, that there is anything on earth above us! Oh! I could write to you as long as I love you, till death itself. "JAMES." several extraordinary clubs, both ancient and moHAVING already given my reader an account of dern, I did not design to have troubled him with lately received information of a club, which can any more narratives of this nature; but I have call neither ancient nor modern, that I dare say will be no less surprising to my reader than it was to myself; for which reason I shall communicate it to the public as one of the greatest curiosities in its kind. who is related to him, after having represented A friend of mine complaining of a tradesman him as a very idle, worthless fellow, who neglected his family, and spent most of his time over a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, that he was a member of the Everlasting club. So very odd a title raised my curiosity to inquire into the nature of a club that had such a sounding name; upon which my friend gave me the following ac count: The Everlasting club consists of a hundred members, who divide the whole twenty-four hours among them in such a manner, that the club sits day and night from one end of the year to another; no party presuming to rise till they are relieved by those who are in course to succeed them. By this means a member of the Everlasting club never wants company; for, though he is not upon duty himself, he is sure to find some who are; so that if he be disposed to take a whet, a nooning, an evening draught, or a bottle after midnight, he goes to the club, and finds a knot of friends to his mind. It is a maxim in this club, that the steward never dies; for as they succeed one another by way of rotation, no man is to quit the great elbowchair which stands at the upper end of the table, till his successor is in readiness to fill it; inso much that there has not been a sede vacante in the memory of man. This club was instituted toward the end (or as some of them say, about the middle) of the civil wars, and continued without interruption till the time of the great fire, which burnt them out, and dispersed them for several weeks. The steward at that time maintained his post till he had like to have been blown up with a neighboring house (which was demolished in order to stop the fire); and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received repeated directions from the club to withdraw himself. This steward is frequently talked of in the club and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man than the famous captain mentioned in my Lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship because he would not quit it without orders. It is said, that toward the close of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the club had under consideration whether they should break up or continue their session; but after many speeches and debates, it was at length agreed to sit out the other century. This resolution passed in a general club nemine contradicente. Having given this short account of the institution and continuation of the Everlasting club, I should here endeavor to say something of the manners and characters of its several members, which I shall do according to the best lights I have received in this matter. It appears by their books in general, that since their first institution, they have smoked fifty tons of tobaccco, drunk thirty thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red port, two hundred barrels of brandy, and a kilderkin of small beer. There has been likewise a great consumption of cards. It is also said, that they observe the law in Ben Jonson's club,† which orders the fire to be always kept in (focus perennis esto), as well for the convenience of lighting their pipes, as to cure the dampness of the club-room. They have an old woman in the nature of a vestal, whose business it is to cherish and perpetuate the fire which burns from generation to generation, and has seen the glass-house fires in and out above a hundred times. The Everlasting club treats all other clubs with an eye of contempt, and talks even of the Kit-Cat and October as of a couple of upstarts. Their ordinary discourse (as much as I have been able to learn of it) turns altogether upon such adventures as have passed in their own assembly; of members who have taken the glass in their turns for a week together, without stirring out of the club; of others who have smoked a hundred pipes at a sitting; of others, who have not missed their morning's draught for twenty years together.Sometimes they speak in raptures of a run of ale in King Charles's reign; and sometimes reflect with astonishment upon games at whist, which have been miraculously recovered by members of the society, when in all human probability the case was desperate. They delight in several old catches, which they sing at all hours to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking; with many other edifying exhortations of the like nature. There are four general clubs held in a year, at which time they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire-maker, or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other necessaries. The senior member has outlived the wh twice over, and has been drunk with the fathers of some of the present sitting memb No. 73.] THURSDAY, MAY 24, 17 O Goddess! for no less you seem. Ir is very strange to consider, that a like man, who is sensible of so many wea and imperfections, should be actuated by a fame: that vice and ignorance, imperfect. misery, should contend for praise, and e as much as possible to make themselves ob admiration. But notwithstanding man's essential pe is but very little, his comparative perfecti be very considerable. If he looks upon in an abstracted light, he has not much t of; but if he considers himself with reg others, he may find occasion of glorying in his own virtues, at least in the abs another's imperfections. This gives a d turn to the reflections of the wise man a fool. The first endeavors to shine in hims the last to outshine others. The first is h by a sense of his own infirmities, the last i up by the discovery of those which he obse other men. The wise man considers w wants, and the fool what he abounds in wise man is happy when he gains his own bation, and the fool when he recommends b to the applause of those about him. But however unreasonable and absurd th sion for admiration may appear in such a c as man, it is not wholly to be discouraged it often produces very good effects, not on restrains him from doing anything which i and contemptible, but as it pushes him tions which are great and glorious. The ple may be defective or faulty, but the quences it produces are so good, that, for the fit of mankind, it ought not to be extinguis It is observed by Cicero, that men of the g and the most shining parts are the most ac by ambition; and if we look into the two I believe we shall find this principle of stronger in women than in men. The passion for praise, which is so very veh in the fair sex, produces excellent effects inv of sense, who desire to be admired for the which deserves admiration; and I think w observe, without a compliment to them, that of them do not only live in a more uniform of virtue, but with an infinitely greater reg their honor, than what we find in the general our own sex. How many instances have chastity, fidelity, devotion! distinguish themselves by the education of children, care of their families, and love of husbands,-which are the great qualities achievements of woman-kind, as the makin war, the carrying on of traffic, the administ of justice, are those by which meu grow fa and get themselves a name. How many But as this passion for admiration, wh works according to reason, improves the bea part of our species in everything that is laud so nothing is more destructive to them, wher governed by vanity and folly. What I have fore here to say, only regards the vain part o sex, whom for certain reasons, which the r will hereafter see at large, I shall distinguis the name of idols. An idol is wholly taken the adorning of her person. You see in posture of her body, air of her face, and motion of ter-apotheosis, or a deification inverted.-When a her head, that it is her business and employment man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickto gain adorers. For this reason your idols ap- ly sinks into a woman. pear in all public places and assemblies, in order to seduce men to their worship. The play-house is very frequently filled with idols; several of them are carried in procession every evening about the ring, and several of them set up their worship even in churches. They are to be accosted in the language proper to the Deity. Life and death are in their power: joys of heaven and pains of hell, are at their disposal: paradise is in their arms, and eternity in every moment that you are present with them. Raptures, transports and ecstasies, are the rewards which they confer: sighs and tears, prayers and broken hearts, are the offerings which are paid to them. Their smiles make men happy; their frowns drive them to despair. I shall only add under this head, that Ovid's book of the Art of Love is a kind of heathen ritual, which contains all the forms of worship which are made use of to an idol. It would be as difficult a task to reckon up these different kinds of idols, as Milton's was to number those that were known in Canaan, and the lands adjoining. Most of them are worshiped, like Moloch, in fire and flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to see their votaries cut and slashed, and shedding their blood for them. Some of them, like the idol in the apocrypha, must have treats and collations prepared for them every night. It has indeed been known, that some of them have been used by their incensed worshipers like the Chinese idols, who are whipped and scourged when they refuse to comply with the prayers that are offered to them. I must here observe, that those idolaters who devote themselves to the idols I am here speaking of, differ very much from all other kinds of idolaters. For as others fall out because they worship different idols, these idolaters quarrel because they worship the same. The intention therefore of the idol is quite contrary to the wishes of the idolaters; as the one desires to confine the idol to himself, the whole business and ambition of the other is to multiply adorers. This humor of an idol is prettily described in a tale of Chaucer. He represents one of them sitting at a table with three of her votaries about her, who are all of them courting her favor, and paying their adorations. She smiled upon one, drank to another, and trod upon the other's foot which was under the table. Now which of these three, says the old bard, do you think was the favorite? In troth, says he, not one of all the three. The behavior of this old idol in Chaucer, puts me in mind of the beautiful Clarinda, one of the greatest idols among the moderns. She is worshiped once a week by candlelight, in the midst of a large congregation, generally called an assembly. Some of the gayest youths in the nation endeavor to plant themselves in her eye, while she sits in form with multitudes of tapers burning about her. To encourage the zeal of her idolaLers, she bestows a mark of her favor upon every one of them, before they go out of her presence. She asks a question of one, tells a story to another, glances an ogle upon a third, takes a pinch of snuff from the fourth, lets her fan drop by accident to give the fifth an occasion of taking it up-in short, every one goes away satisfied with his success, and encouraged to renew his devotions on the same canonical hour that day sevennight. An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of coun Old age is likewise a great decayer of your idol. The truth of it is, there is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol, especially when she has contracted such airs and behavior as are only graceful when her worshipers are about her. Considering, therefore, that in these and many other cases the woman generally outlives the idol, I must return to the moral of this paper, and desire my fair readers to give a proper direction to their passion for being admired; in order to which, they must endeavor to make themselves the objects of a reasonable and lasting admiration. This is not to be hoped for from beauty, or dress, or fashion, but from those inward ornaments which are not to be defaced by time or sickness, and which appear most amiable to those who are most acquainted with them.-C. The works unfinished and neglected lie. In my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy-Chase; I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets; for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the Æneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the poet (whoever he was) proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to keep them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature. Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must, however, beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at least the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations. What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that stanza, To drive the deer with hound and horn This way of considering the misfortunes which 120 wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the way | of thinking among the ancient poets. Audiet pugnas vitio parentum Rara juventus.-HOR. 1, Od. ii, 23. Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes, Shall read with grief the story of their times. What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas? The stout Earl of Northumberland A vow to God did make, His pleasure in the Scottish woods With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, Who knew full well in time of need, The hounds ran swiftly through the woods And with their cries the hills and dales -Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum: GEORG., iii, 43. Citharon loudly calls me to my way; Thy hounds, Taygetus, open and pursue the prey: Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses' breed: Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, His men in armor bright; Full twenty hundred Scottish spears, All men of pleasant Tividale. Fast by the river Tweed, etc. DRYDEN. The country of the Scotch warriors, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil: Adversi campo apparent, hustasque reductis Protendunt longe dextris; et spicula vibrant:- Æn., xi, 605; viii, 682, 712. Advancing in a line, they couch their spears- With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land: And those where yellow Tiber takes his way, But to proceed: Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, etc. Our English archers bent their bows, They clos'd full fast on every side, With that there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow, Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart Eneas was wounded after the same ma Has inter voces, media inter talia verba, Ecce viro stridens alis allapsa sagitta est, Incertum qua pulsa manu- Æn., xii, 31 Thus, while he spoke, unmindful of defense A winged arrow struck the pious prince; But whether from a human hand it came, Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame.-D But of all the descriptive parts of this so So thus did both these nobles die, He had a bow bent in his hand, Against Sir Hugh Montgomery The gray-goose wing that was thereon This fight did last from break of day For when they rang the evening bell of the slain, the author has followed th And with Earl Douglas there was slain Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliffe too, Sir David Lamb, so well esteem'd, The familiar sound in these names de -Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight, In the catalogue of the English who fe ington's behavior is in the same man cularized very artfully, as the reader is for it by that account which is given the beginning of the battle; though I a your little buffoon readers (who have passage ridiculed in Hudibras) will n to take the beauty of it; for which rea not so much as quote it. Then stepp'd a gallant 'squire forth, That e'er my captain fought on foot, We meet with the same heroic sentiment in Virgil. For shame, Rutilians, can you bear the sight Can we before the face of heav'n confess Our courage colder, or our numbers less?-DRYDEN. What can be more natural, or more moving, than the circumstances in which he describes the beha vior of those women who had lost their husbands on this fatal day? Next day did many widows come Their husbands to bewail; They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears, Their bodies bathel in purple blood, They bore with them away; Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arise from the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble; that the fanguage is often very sounding, and that the whole. is written with a true poetical spirit. If this song had been written in the Gothic manner, which is the delight of all our little wits whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of so many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I shall only beg pardon for such a profusion of Latin quotations; which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil.-C. No. 75.] SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1711. All fortune fitted Aristippus well.-CREECH. It is with some mortification that I suffered the raillery of a fine lady of my acquaintance, for calling, in one of my papers, Dorimant a clown. She was so unmerciful as to take advantage of my invincible taciturnity, and on that occasion with great freedom to consider the air, the height, the face, the gesture of him, who could pretend to judge so arrogantly of gallantry. She is full of motion, jaunty and lively in her impertinence, and one of those that commonly pass, among the ignorant, for persons who have a great deal of humor. She had the play of Sir Fopling in her hand, and after she had said it was happy for her there was not so charming a creature as Dorimant now living, she began with a theatrical air and tone of voice to read, by way of triumph over me, some of his speeches. Tis she! that lovely air, that easy shape, those wanton eyes, and all those melting charms about her mouth, which Medley spoke of; I'll follow the lottery, and put in for a prize with my friend Bellair.” 64 In love the victors from the vanquish'd fly; And you and Loveit to her cost shall find Oh the fine gentleman! But here, continues she, is the passage I admire most, where he begins to tease Loveit, and mimic Sir Fopling. Oh, the *Spect., No. €5. pretty satire, in his resolving to be a coxcomb to please, since noise and nonsense have such powerful charms. I, that I may successful prove, Transform myself to what you love. Then how like a man of the town, so wild and gay is that! The wise will find a diff'rence in our fate, It would have been a very wild endeavor for a 46 own imagination. No man ought to have the esteem of the rest of the world, for any actions which are disagreeable to those maxims which prevail as the standards of behavior in the country wherein he lives. What is opposite to the eternal rules of reason and good sense must be excluded from any place in the explain myself enough on this subject, when I carriage of a well-bred man. I did not, I confess, called Dorimant a clown, and made it an instance of it, that he called the orange wench Double Tripe: I should have shown, that humanity obliges a gentleman to give no part of humankind reproach, for what they whom they reproach, may possibly have in common with the most virtuous and worthy among us. When a gentleman speaks coarsely, he has dressed himself clean to no purpose. The clothing of our minds certainly ought to be regarded before that of our bodies. To betray in a man's talk a corrupt imagination, is a much greater offense against the conversation of gentlemen than any negligence of dress imaginable. But this sense of the matter is so far from being received among people of condition, that Vocifer even passes for a fine gentleman. He is loud, haughty, gentle, soft, lewd, and obsequious by turns, just as a little understanding and great impudence prompt him at the present moment. He passes among the silly part of our women for a man of wit, because he is generally in doubt. He contradicts with a shrug, and confutes with a certain sufficiency, in professing such and such a thing is above his capacity. What makes his character the pleasanter is, that he is a professed deluder of women; and because the empty coxcomb has no regard to anything that is of itself sacred and inviolable, I have heard an unmarried lady of fortune say, it is a pity so fine a gentleman as Vocifer is so great an atheist. The crowds of such inconsiderable creatures, that infest all places of assembling, every reader will have in his eye from his own observation; but would it not be worth considering what sort of figure a man who formed himself upon those principles among us which are agreeable to the dictates of honor and religion would make in the familiar and ordinary occurrences of life? I hardly have observed any one fill his several duties of life better than Ignotus. All the under parts of his behavior, and such as are exposed to common observation, have their rise in him from great and noble motives. A firm and unshaken expectation of another life makes him become this; humanity and good-nature, fortified by the |