derness of my nature to the importunity of | be, after the publication of this our edict, having the same respect to those who are capable of bearing office in these our domiserable by their fault, and those who are minions. so by their misfortune. Flatterers (concluded the king smiling) repeat to us princes, that we are heaven's vicegerents; let us be so, and let the only thing out of our power be to do ill." Soon after the evening wherein Pharamond and Eucrate had this conversation, the following edict was published against duels. "The person who shall prove the sending or receiving a challenge, shall receive to his own use and property, the whole personal estate of both parties; and their real estate shall be immediately vested in the next heir of the offenders in as ample manner as if the said offenders were actually deceased. hour of his death be vested in the next heir of the person whose blood he spilt. In cases where the laws (which we have Pharamond's Edict against Duels. already granted to our subjects) admit of an appeal for blood; when the criminal is PHARAMOND, King of the Gauls, to all his condemned by the said appeal, he shall loving subjects sendeth greeting. not only suffer death, but his whole estate, 'Whereas it has come to our royal no-real, mixed, and personal, shall from the tice and observation, that in contempt of all laws, divine and human, it is of late become a custom among the nobility and gentry of this our kingdom, upon slight and trivial, as well as great and urgent provocations, to invite each other into the field, there by their own hands, and of their own authority, to decide their controversies by combat; we have thought fit to take the said custom into our royal consideration, and find upon inquiry into the usual causes whereon such fatal decisions have arisen, That it shall not hereafter be in our royal power, or that of our successors, to pardon the said offences, or restore the offenders in their estates, honours, or blood, for ever. 'Given at our court at Blois, the 8th of February, 420, in the second year of our reign. -Tanta est quærendi cura decoris. T. Juv. Sat. vi. 500. So studiously their persons they adorn. THERE is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress. Within my own memory, I have known it rise and fall above thirty degrees. About ten years ago it shot up to a very great height, insomuch that the female part of our species were much taller than the men.* The women were of such an enormous stature, that that by this wicked custom, maugre all the No. 98.] Friday, June 22, 1711. precepts of our holy religion, and the rules of right reason, the greatest act of the human mind, forgiveness of injuries, is become vile and shameful; that the rules of good society and virtuous conversation are hereby inverted; that the loose, the vain, and the impudent, insult the careful, the discreet, and the modest; that all virtue is suppressed, and all vice supported, in the one act of being capable to dare to the death. We have also further, with great sorrow of mind, observed that this dreadful action, by long impunity (our royal atten-we appeared as grasshoppers before tion being employed upon matters of more general concern) is become honourable, and the refusal to engage in it ignominious. In these our royal cares and inquiries we are yet further made to understand, that the persons of most eminent worth, and most hopeful abilities, accompanied with the strongest passion for true glory, are such as are most liable to be involved in the dangers arising from this licence. Now taking the said premises into our serious consideration, and well weighing that all such emergences (wherein the mind is incapable of commanding itself, and where the injury is too sudden or too exquisite to be borne) are particularly provided for by laws heretofore enacted; and that the qualities of less injuries, like those of ingratitude, are too nice and delicate to come under general rules; we do resolve to blot this fashion, or wantonness of anger, out of the minds of our subjects, by our royal resolutions declared in this edict as follow: 'No person who either sends or accepts a challenge, or the posterity of either, though no death ensues thereupon, shall them.' At present the whole sex is in a manner dwarfed, and shrunk into a race of beauties that seem almost another species. I remember several ladies who were once very near seven feet high, that at present want some inches of five. How they came to be thus curtailed I cannot learn; whether the whole sex be at present under any penance which we know nothing of, or whether they have cast their head-dresses in order to surprise us with something in that kind which shall be entirely new, or whether some of the tallest of the sex, being too cunning for the rest, have contrived this method to make themselves appear sizeable, is still a secret; though I find most are of opinion, they are at present like trees new lopped and *This refers to the commode, a kind of head-dress worn by the ladies at the beginning of the last century, of the cap, consisting of many folds of fine lace, to a which by means of wire bore up their hair and fore-part prodigious height. The transition from this to the op posite extreme was very abrupt and sudden. It made its appearance again a few years after, but has now been long banished. THE SPECTATOR. pruned, that will certainly sprout up and Tot premit ordonibus, tot adhuc compagibus altum tion of twenty thousand people; the men It is usually observed, that a good reign is the only proper time for making of laws against the exorbitance of power; in the same manner an excessive head-dress may be attacked the most effectually when the fashion is against it. I do therefore recommend this paper to my female readers by way of prevention. I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it is for them to add any thing that can be ornamental to what is already the master-piece of nature. The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure. Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermillion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, she seems to have designed the head as the cupola of the most glorious of her works; and when we load it with such a pile of supernumerary ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the eye from great and real beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribands, and bone-lace. The women might possibly have carried the subject, which I thought were entirely is bigger and stronger than himself, seeks new. I shall therefore methodize the seve-all opportunities of being knocked on the ral reflections that arose upon this occasion, head, and after seven years' rambling reand present my reader with them for the turns to his mistress, whose chastity has speculation of this day; after having pre-been attacked in the mean time by giants mised, that if there is any thing in this pa- and tyrants, and undergone as many trials per which seems to differ with any passage as her lover's valour. of last Thursday's, the reader will consider this as the sentiments of the club, and the other as my own private thoughts, or rather those of Pharamond. The great point of honour in men is courage, and in a woman chastity. If a man loses his honour in one rencounter, it is not impossible for him to regain it in another, a slip in a woman's honour is irrecoverable. I can give no reason for fixing the point of honour to these two qualities, unless it be that each sex sets the greatest value on the qualification which renders them the most amiable in the eyes of the contrary sex. Had men chosen for themselves, without regard to the opinions of the fair sex, I should believe the choice would have fallen on wisdom or virtue; or had women determined their own point of honour, it is probable that wit or good-nature would have carried it against chastity. Nothing recommends a man more to the female sex than courage; whether it be that they are pleased to see one who is a terror to others fall like a slave at their feet, or that this quality supplies their own principal defect, in guarding them from insults, and avenging their quarrels: or that courage is a natural indication of a strong and sprightly constitution. On the other side, nothing makes women more esteemed by the opposite sex than chastity; whether it be that we always prize those most who are hardest to come at, or that nothing besides chastity with its collateral attendants, truth, fidelity, and constancy, gives the man a property in the person he loves, and consequently endears her to him above all things. I am very much pleased with a passage in the inscription on a monument erected in Westminster-Abbey to the late Duke and Dutchess of Newcastle. Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the lord Lucas of Colchester; a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous.' In Spain, where there are still great remains of this romantic humour, it is a transporting favour for a lady to cast an accidental glance on her lover from a window, though it be two or three stories high: as it is usual for a lover to assert his passion for his mistress, in single combat with a mad bull. The great violation of the point of honour from man to man, is giving the lie. One may tell another he whores, drinks, blasphemes, and it may pass unresented; but to say he lies, though but in jest, is an affront that nothing but blood can expiate. The reason perhaps may be, because no other vice implies a want of courage so much as the making of a lie; and therefore telling a man he lies, is touching him in the most sensible part of honour, and indirectly calling him a coward. I cannot omit under this head what Herodotus tells us of the ancient Persians, that from the age of five years to twenty they instruct their sons only in three things, to manage the horse, to make use of the bow, and to speak truth. The placing the point of honour in this false kind of courage, has given occasion to the very refuse of mankind, who have neither virtue nor common sense, to set up for men of honour. An English peer, who has not been long_dead,* used to tell a pleasant story of a French gentleman, that visited him early one morning at Paris, and after great professions of respect, let him know that he had it in his power to oblige him; which, in short, amounted to this, that he believed he could tell his lordship the person's name who jostled him as he came out from the opera; but before he would proceed, he begged his lordship, that he would not deny him the honour of making him his second. The English lord, to avoid being drawn into a very foolish affair, told him, he was under engagements for his two next duels to a couple of particular friends. Upon which the gentleman immediately withdrew, hoping his lordship would not take it ill if he meddled no farther in an affair from whence he himself was to receive no advantage. In books of chivalry, where the point of honour is strained to madness, the whole story runs on chastity and courage. The damsel is mounted on a white palfrey as an emblem of her innocence; and to avoid scandal, must have a dwarf for her page. She is not to think of a man, until some misfortune has brought a knight-errant to her relief. The knight falls in love, and did not gratitude restrain her from murdering her deliverer, would die at her feet by her disdain. However, he must waste many years in the desert, before her virginheart can think of a surrender. The knight *It has been said that this was William Cavendish, goes off, attacks every thing he meets that the first Duke of Devonshire, who died August 18, 1707. The beating down this false notion of honour, in so vain and lively a people as those of France, is deservedly looked upon as one of the most glorious parts of their present king's reign. It is a pity but the punishment of these mischievous notions should have in it some particular circumstances of shame and infamy; that those THE SPECTATOR. who are slaves to them may see, that instead of advancing their reputations, they lead them to ignominy and dishonour. Death is not sufficient to deter men who make it their glory to despise it; but if every one that fought a duel were to stand in the pillory, it would quickly lessen the number of these imaginary men of honour, and put an end to so absurd a practice. When honour is a support to virtuous principles, and runs parallel with the laws of God and our country, it cannot be too much cherished and encouraged; but when the dictates of honour are contrary to those of religion and equity, they are the greatest depravations of human nature, by giving wrong ambitions and false ideas of what is good and laudable; and should therefore be exploded by all governments, and driven out as the bane and plague of L. human society. No. 100.] Monday, June 25, 1711. Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico. Hor. Lib. 1. Sat. v. 44. The greatest blessing is a pleasant friend. A MAN advanced in years, that thinks fit to look back upon his former life, and call that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in his infancy. Sickness, ill-humour, and idleness, will have robbed him of a great share of that It is space we ordinarily call our life. therefore the duty of every man that would be true to himself, to obtain, if possible, a disposition to be pleased, and place himself in a constant aptitude for the satisfactions of his being. Instead of this, you hardly see a man who is not uneasy in proportion to his advancement in the arts of life. An affected delicacy is the common improvement we meet with in those who pretend to be refined above others. They do not aim at true pleasures themselves, but turn their thoughts upon observing the false pleasures of other men. Such people are valetudinarians in society, and they should no more come into company than a sick man should come into the air. If a man is too weak to bear what is a refreshment to men in health, he must still keep his chamber. When any one in Sir Roger's company complains he is out of order, he immediately calls for some posset-drink for him; for which reason that sort of people who are ever bewailing their constitution in other places are the cheerfulest imaginable when he is present. It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with whom they converse, by giving them the history of their pains and aches; and imagine such narrations their quota of the conversation. This is of all other the meanest help to discourse, and a man must not think at all, or think himself very in- Of this kind is the life of that extraordi- This portable quality of good-humour seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with in such a manner, that there are no moments lost; but they all pass with so much satisfaction, that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load,) that of time, is never felt by us. Varilas has this quality to the highest perfection, and communicates it whenever he appears. The sad, the merry, the severe, the melancholy, show a new cheerfulness when he comes amongst them. At the same time no one can repeat any thing that Varilas has ever said that deserves repetition; but the man has that innate goodness of temper, that he is wel come to every body, because every man No. 101.] Tuesday, June 26, 1711. IMITATED. Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, And virtuous Alfred, a more sacred name, After a life of gen'rous toils endur'd, The Gaul subdu'd or property secur'd, Ambition humbled, mighty cities storm'd, Or laws establish'd, and the world reform'd; Clos'd their long glories with a sigh, to find Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind.-Pope. "CENSURE,' says a late ingenious author, is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.' It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defence against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph. tions have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportunity of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it. It is therefore the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists, who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions. We can now allow Cæsar to be a great man, without derogating from Pompey, and celebrate the virtues of Cato without detracting from those of Cæsar. Every one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, in which, whilst he lived, his friends were too profuse, and his enemies too sparing. According to Sir Isaac Newton's calculations, the last comet that made its appearance in 1680, imbibed so much heat by its approaches to the sun, that it would have been two thousand times hotter than red hot iron, had it been a globe of that metal; and that supposing it as big as the earth, and at the same distance from the sun, it would be fifty thousand years in cooling, before it recovered its natural temper. In the like manner, if an Englishman considers the great ferment into which our political world is thrown at present, and how intensely it is heated in all its parts, he cannot suppose that it will cool again in less than three hundred years. In such a tract of time it is possible that the heats of the present age may be extinguished, and our several classes of great men represented under their proper characters. Some eminent historian may then probably arise that will not write recentibus odiis (as Tacitus expresses it,) with the passions and prejudices of a contemporary author, but make an impartial distribution of fame among the great men of the present age. I cannot forbear entertaining myself very often with the idea of such an imaginary historian describing the reign of Anne the first, and introducing it with a preface to his reader, that he is now entering upon the most shining part of the English story. The great rivals in fame will be then distinguished according to their respective merits, and shine in their proper points of light. Such an one (says the historian) though variously represented by the writers of his own age, appears to have been a If men of eminence are exposed to cen- man of more than ordinary abilities, great sure on one hand, they are as much liable application, and uncommon integrity: nor to flattery on the other. If they receive was such an one (though of an opposite reproaches which are not due to them, they party and interest) inferior to him in any likewise receive praises which they do not of these respects. The several antagonists deserve. In a word, the man in a high post who now endeavour to depreciate one anis never regarded with an indifferent eye, other, and are celebrated or traduced by but always considered as a friend or an ene- different parties, will then have the same my. For this reason persons in great sta-body of admirers, and appear illustrious in |