No. 511.] Thursday, October 16, 1712. Quis non invenit turba quod amaret in illa? In such a crowd a mistress to his mind? did in Persia, we should find that some of our greatest men would choose out the por tions, and rival one another for the richest piece of deformity; and that, on the contrary, the toasts and belles would be bought up by extravagant heirs, gamesters, and spendthrifts. Thou couldst make very pretty reflections upon this occasion in honour of the Persian politicians, who took care, by such marriages, to beautify the upper part of the species, and to make the greatest persons in the government the most graceful. But this I shall leave to thy judicious pen. DEAR SPEC,-Finding that my last letter took, I do intend to continue my epistolary correspondence with thee, on those dear confounded creatures, women. Thou knowest, all the little learning I am master of is upon that subject: I never looked in a book but for their sakes. I have lately met with two pure stories for a Spectator, which I am sure will please mightily, if they pass 'I have another story to tell thee, which through thy hands. The first of them II likewise met with in a book. It seems the found by chance in an English book, called general of the Tartars, after having laid Herodotus, that lay in my friend Dapper- siege to a strong town in China, and taken wit's window, as I visited him one morning. it by storm, would set to sale all the women It luckily opened in the place where I met that were found in it. Accordingly he put with the following account. He tells us that each of them into a sack, and, after having it was the manner among the Persians to thoroughly considered the value of the wohave several fairs in the kingdom, at which man who was enclosed, marked the price all the young unmarried women were an- that was demanded for her upon the sack. nually exposed to sale. The men who There was a great confluence of chapmen, wanted wives came hither to provide them- that resorted from every part, with a deselves. Every woman was given to the sign to purchase, which they were to do highest bidder, and the money which she unsight unseen. The book mentions a fetched laid aside for the public use, to be merchant in particular, who observing one employed as thou shalt hear by and by. of the sacks to be marked pretty high, barBy this means the richest people had the gained for it, and carried it off with him to choice of the market, and culled out all the his house. As he was resting with it upon most extraordinary beauties. As soon as As soon as a halfway bridge, he was resolved to take the fair was thus picked, the refuse was to a survey of his purchase: upon opening the be distributed among the poor, and among sack, a little old woman popped her head those who could not go to the price of a out of it; at which the adventurer was in so beauty. Several of these married the agree- great a rage, that he was going to shoot her ables, without paying a farthing for them, out into the river. The old lady, however, unless somebody chanced to think it worth begged him first of all to hear her story, by his while to bid for them, in which case the which he learned that she was sister to a best bidder was always the purchaser. But great mandarin, who would infallibly make now you must know, Spec, it happened in the fortune of his brother-in-law as soon as Persia, as it does in our own country, that he should know to whose lot she fell. Upon there was' as many ugly women as beau- which the merchant again tied her up in ties or agreeables; so that by consequence, his sack, and carried her to his house, after the magistrates had put off a great where she proved an excellent wife; and many, there were still a great many that procured him all the riches from her brostuck upon their hands. In order therefore ther that she had promised him. to clear the market, the money which the beauties had sold for was disposed of among the ugly; so that a poor man, who could not afford to have a beauty for his wife, was forced to take up with a fortune; the greatest portion being always given to the most deformed. To this the author adds, that every poor man was forced to live kindly with his wife, or, in case he repented of his bargain, to return her portion with her to the next public sale. The pur 'I fancy, if I was disposed to dream a second time, I could make a tolerable vision upon this plan. I would suppose all the unmarried women in London and Westminster brought to market in sacks, with their respective prices on each sack. The first sack that is sold is marked with five thousand pound. Upon the opening of it, I find it filled with an admirable housewife, of an agreeable countenance. chaser, upon hearing her good qualities, What I would recommend to thee on pays down her price very cheerfully. The this occasion is, to establish such an ima-second I would open should be a five hunginary fair in Great Britain: thou couldst make it very pleasant, by matching women of quality with cobblers and carmen, or describing titles and garters leading off in great ceremony shopkeepers' and farmers' daughters. Though, to tell thee the truth, I am confoundedly afraid, that as the love of money prevails in our island more than it dred pound sack. The lady in it, to our surprise, has the face and person of a toast. As we are wondering how she came to be set at so low a price, we hear that she would have been valued at ten thousand pound, but that the public had made those abatements for her being a scold. I would afterwards find some beautiful, modest, and discreet woman, that should be the top of the market; and perhaps discover half a dozen romps tied up together in the same sack, at one hundred pound a head. The prude and the coquette should be valued at the same price, though the first should go off the better of the two. I fancy thou wouldst like such a vision, had I time to finish it; because, to talk in thy own way, there is a moral in it. Whatever thou mayest think of it, pr'ythee do not make any of thy queer apologies for this letter, as thou didst for my last. The women love a gay lively fellow, and are never angry at the railleries of one who is their known admirer. I am always bitter upon them but well with them. Thine, HONEYCOMB.’ No. 512.] Friday, October 17, 1712. Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo. Mixing together profit and delight. In short, by wiser and better unawares. In the next place, if we look into human nature, we shall find that the mind is never so much pleased as when she exerts herself in any action that gives her an idea of her own perfections and abilities. This natural pride and ambition of the soul is very much gratified in the reading of a fable; for, in writings of this kind, the reader comes in for half of the performance; every thing appears to him like a discovery of his own; he is busied all the while in applying characters and circumstances, and is in this respect both a reader and a composer. It is no wonder therefore that on such occasions, when the mind is thus pleased with itself, and amused with its own discoveries, that it is highly delighted with the writing which is the occasion of it. For this reason the Absalom and Achitophel was one of the most popular poems that appeared in English. The poetry is indeed very fine; but had it been much finer, it would not have so much pleased, without a plan which gave the reader an opportunity of exerting his own talents. This oblique manner of giving advice is so inoffensive, that, if we look into ancient histories, we find the wise men of old very often chose to give counsel to their kings in fables. To omit many which will occur to every one's memory, there is a pretty instance of this nature in a Turkish tale, which I do not like the worse for that little oriental extravagance which is mixed with it. We are told that the Sultan Mahmoud, by his perpetual wars abroad and his tyranny at home, had filled his dominions with ruin and desolation, and half unpeopled the Persian empire. The vizier to this great sultan (whether a humourist or an enthusiast, we are not informed) pretended to have learned of a certain dervise to understand the language of birds, so that there was not a bird that could open his mouth but the vizier But, among all the different ways of giving knew what it was he said. As he was one counsel, I think the finest, and that which evening with the emperor, in their return pleases the most universally, is fable, in from hunting, they saw a couple of owls whatsoever shape it appears. If we con- upon a tree that grew near an old wall out sider this way of instructing or giving ad- of a heap of rubbish. I would fain know," vice, it excels all others, because it is the says the sultan, 'what those two owls are least shocking, and the least subject to those saying to one another; listen to their disexceptions which I have before mentioned. course, and give me an account of it.' The This will appear to us if we reflect in the vizier approached the tree, pretending tc first place, that upon the reading of a fable | be very attentive to the two owls. Upon we are made to believe we advise ourselves. his return to the sultan, 'Sir,' says he, 'I We peruse the author for the sake of the story, and consider the precepts rather as our own conclusions than his instructions. The moral insinuates itself imperceptibly; we are taught by surprise, and become have heard part of their conversation, but dare not tell you what it is.' The sultan would not be satisfied with such an answer, but forced him to repeat word for word every thing the owls had said, 'You mus know then, said the vizier, 'that one of | When a man considers that, as soon as the these owls has a son, and the other a daugh- vital union is dissolved, he shall see that ter, between whom they are now upon a treaty of marriage. The father of the son said to the father of the daughter, in my hearing, "Brother, I consent to this marriage, provided you will settle upon your daughter fifty ruined villages for her portion." To which the father of the daughter replied, "Instead of fifty, I will give her five hundred if you please. God grant a long life to sultan Mahmoud! Whilst he reigns over us, we shall never want ruined villages." The story says, the sultan was so touched with the fable, that he rebuilt the towns and villages which had been destroyed, and from that time forward consulted the good of his people. Supreme Being whom he now contemplates at a distance, and only in his works; or, to speak more philosophically, when by some faculty in the soul, he shall apprehend the Divine Being, and be more sensible of his presence, than we are now of the presence of any object which the eye beholds, a man must be lost in carelessness and stupidity, who is not alarmed at such a thought. Dr. Sherlock, in his excellent treatise upon Death, has represented, in very strong and lively colours, the state of the soul in its first separation from the body, with regard to that invisible world which every where surrounds us, though we are not able to discover it through this grosser world of matter, which is accommodated to our senses in this life. His words are as follow: To fill up my paper, I shall add a most ridiculous piece of natural magic, which was taught by no less a philosopher than Democritus, namely, that if the blood of certain birds, which he mentioned, were mixed together, it would produce a serpent of such a wonderful virtue, that whoever did eat it should be skilled in the language of birds, and understand every thing they said to one another. Whether the dervise above-mentioned might not have eaten such a serpent, I shall leave to the determina-heavens, where he displays his glory to tion of the learned. O. No. 513.] Saturday, October 18, 1712. Afflata est numine quando Jam propriore Dei.- Dryden. THE following letter comes to me from that excellent man in holy orders, whom I have mentioned more than once as one of that society, who assists me in my speculations. It is a thought in sickness, and of a very serious nature, for which reason I give it a place in the paper of this day. "That death, which is our leaving this world, is nothing else put putting off these bodies, teaches us that it is only our union to these bodies which intercepts the sight of the other world. The other world is not at such a distance from us as we may imagine; the throne of God indeed is at a great remove from this earth, above the third those blessed spirits which encompass his throne; but as soon as we step out of these bodies we step into the other world, which is not so properly another world (for there is the same heaven and earth still) as a new state of life. To live in these bodies is to live in this world; to live out of them is to remove into the next: for while our souls are confined to these bodies, and can look only through these material casements, nothing but what is material can affect us; nay, nothing but what is so gross that it can reflect light, and convey those shapes and colours of things with it to the eye: so that, though within this visible world there be a more glorious scene of things than what appears to us, we perceive nothing at all of it; for this veil of flesh parts the visible and invisible world: but when we put off these bodies, there are new and surprising wonders present themselves to our views; when these material spectacles are taken off, the soul with its own naked eyes sees what was invisible before; and then we are in the other world, when we can see it, and converse with it. Thus St. Paul tells us, that when we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; but when we are absent_from the body, we are present with the Lord:" 2 Cor. v. 6. 8. And methinks this is enough to cure us of our fondness for these bodies, Among all the reflections which usually unless we think it more desirable to be conrise in the mind of a sick man, who has fined to a prison, and to look through a time and inclination to consider his ap- grate all our lives, which gives us but a proaching end, there is none more natural very narrow prospect, and that none of the than that of his going to appear naked and best neither, than to be set at liberty to nbodied before Him who made him. I view all the glories of the world. Wha 'SIR,-The indisposition which has long hung upon me is at last grown to such a head, that it must quickly make an end of me or of itself. You may imagine, that whilst I am in this bad state of health, there are none of your works which I read with greater pleasure than your Saturday's papers. I should be very glad if I could furnish you with any hints for that day's entertainment. Were I able to dress up several thoughts of a serious nature, which have made great impressions on my mind during a long fit of sickness, they might not be an improper entertainment for that occasion. would we give now for the least glimpse of that invisible world, which the first, step we take out of these bodies will present us with? There are such things as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.' Death opens our eyes, enlarges our prospect, presents us with a new and more glorious world, which we can never see while we are shut up in flesh; which should make us as willing to part with this veil, as to take the film off of our eyes which hinders our sight?" VI. "For never shall my soul despair There is a noble hymn in French, which Monsieur Bayle has celebrated for a very fine one, and which the famous author of the Art of Speaking cails an admirable one, that turns upon a thought of the same nature. If I could have done it justice in English, I would have sent it to you translated; it was written by Monsieur des Barreux, who had been one of the greatest wits and libertines in France, but in his last years was as remarkable a penitent. 'As a thinking man cannot but be very much affected with the idea of his appearing in the presence of that Being "whom none can see and live," he must be much more affected when he considers that this Being whom he appears before will examine all the actions of his past life, and reward or punish him accordingly. I must confess that I think there is no scheme of religion, besides that of Christianity, which can possibly support the most virtuous person under this thought. Let a man's innocence be what it will, let his virtues rise to the highest pitch of perfection attainable in this life, there will be still in him so many secret sins, so many human frailties, so many offences of ignorance, passion, and prejudice, so many unguarded words and houghts, and, in short, so many defects in No. 514.] Monday, October 20, 1712. his best actions, that, without the advantages of such an expiation and atonement as Christianity has revealed to us, it is impossible that he should be cleared before his Sovereign Judge, or that he should be able to stand in his sight." Our holy religion suggests to us the only means whereby our guilt may be taken away, and our imperfect obedience accepted. "Grand Dieu, tes jugemens sont remplis d'equite ; Et ta clemence meme attend que ie perisse It is this series of thought that I have endeavoured to express in the following hymn, which I have composed during this my sickness. 0. -Me Parnasi deserta per ardua dulcis Raptat amor; juvat ire jugis qua nulla priorum, Castaliam molli divertitur orbita clivo. Virg. Georg. iii. 291. But the commanding Muse my chariot grides, 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I came home a little Methought I was on a sudden placed in the plains of Boeotia, where at the end of the horizon I saw the mountain Parnassus rising before me. The prospect was of so large an extent, that I long wandered about to find a path which should directly lead me to it, had I not seen &. some distance a | grove of trees, which, in a plain that had nothing else reinarkable enough in it to fix my sight, immediately determined me to go thither. When I arrived at it, I found it parted out into a great number of walks and alleys, which often widened into beautiful openings, as circles or ovals, set round with yews and cypresses, with niches, grottos, and caves, placed on the sides, encompassed with ivy. There was no sound to be heard in the whole place, but only that of a gentle breeze passing over the leaves of the forest; every thing beside was buried in a profound silence. I was captivated with the beauty and retirement of the place, and never so much, before that hour, was pleased with the enjoyment of myself. I indulged the humour, and suffered myself to wander without choice or design. At length, at the end of a range of trees, I saw three figures seated on a bank of moss, with a silent brook creeping at their feet. I adored them as the tutelary divinities of the place, and stood still to take a particular view of each of them. The middlemost, whose name was Solitude, sat with her arms across each other, and seemed rather pensive, and wholly taken up with her own thoughts, than any ways grieved or displeased. The only companions which she admitted into that retirement, were the goddess Silence, who sat on her right hand with her finger on her mouth, and on her left Contemplation, with her eyes fixed upon the heavens. Before her lay a celestial globe, with several schemes of mathematical theorems. She prevented my speech with the greatest affability in the world. "Fear not," said she, "I know your request before you speak it; you would be led to the mountain of the Muses: the only way to it lies through this place, and no one is so often employed in conducting persons thither as myself." When she had thus spoken, she rose from her seat, and I immediately placed myself under her direction; but whilst I passed through the grove I could not help inquiring of her who were the persons admitted into that sweet retirement. "Surely," said I, "there can nothing enter here but virtue and virtuous thoughts; the whole wood seems designed for the reception and reward of such persons as have spent their lives according to the dictates of their conscience, and the commands of the gods. "You imagine right," said she: "assure yourself this place was at first designed for no other: such it continued to be in the reign of Saturn, when none entered here but holy priests, deliverers of their country from oppression and tyranny, who reposed themselves here after their labours, and those whom the study and ove of wisdom had fitted for divine conversation. But now it is become no less dangerous than it was before desirable: vice has learned so to وو mimic virtue, that it often creeps in hither under its disguise. See there; just before you, Revenge stalking by, habited in the robe of Honour. Observe not far from him Ambition, standing alone; if you ask him his name, he will tell you it is Emulation, or Glory. But the most frequent intruder we have is Lust, who succeeds now the deity to whom in better days this grove was entirely devoted. Virtuous Love, with Hymen, and the Graces attending him, once reigned over this happy place; a whole train of virtues waited on him, and no dishonourable thought durst presume for admittance. But now, how is the whole prospect changed! and how seldom renewed by some few who dare despise sordid wealth, and imagine themselves fit companions for so charming a divinity." The goddess had no sooner said thus, but we were arrived at the utmost boundaries of the wood, which lay contiguous to a plain that ended at the foot of the mountain. Here I kept close to my guide, being solicited by several phantoms, who assured me they would show me a nearer way to the mountain of the Muses. Among the rest Vanity was extremely importunate, having deluded infinite numbers, whom I saw wandering at the foot of the hill. I turned away from this despicable troop with disdain; and addressing myself to my guide, told her that, as I had some hopes I should be able to reach up part of the ascent, so I despaired of having strength enough to attain the plain on the top. But, being informed by her that it was impossible to stand upon the sides, and that if I did not proceed onwards I should irrevocably fall down to the lowest verge, I resolved to hazard any labour and hardship in the attempt: so great a desire had I of enjoying the satisfaction I hoped to meet with at the end of my enterprise. 'There were two paths, which led up by different ways to the summit of the mountain: the one was guarded by the genius which presides over the moment of our births. He had it in charge to examine the several pretensions of those who desired to pass that way, but to admit none excepting those only whom Melpomene had looked with a propitious eye at the hour of their nativity. The other way was guarded by Diligence, to whom many of those persons applied who had met with a denial the other way; but he was so tedious in granting their request, and indeed after admittance the way was so very intricate and laborious, that many, after they had made some progress, chose rather to return back than proceed, and very few persisted so long as to arrive at the end they proposed. Besides these two paths, which at length severally led to the top of the mountain, there was a third made up of these two, which a little after the entrance joined in one. This carried those happy few, whose good fortune it was to find it, |