ing entertainment, wrought out of a great | and exemplary virtue. some favours which I have lately received, that I must beg leave to give them utterance amongst the crowd of other anonymous correspondents; and writing, I hope, will be as great a relief to my forced silence as it is to your natural taciturnity. My generous benefactor will not suffer me to speak to him in any terms of acknowledg. ment, but ever treats me as if he had the greatest obligations, and uses me with a distinction that is not to be expected from one so much my superior in fortune, years, and understanding. He insinuates, as if I had a certain right to his favours from some merit, which his particular indulgence to me has discovered; but that is only a beau tiful artifice to lessen the pain an honest mind feels in receiving obligations when there is no probability of returning them. 'A gift is doubled when accompanied with such a delicacy of address; but what to me gives it an inexpressible value, is its coming from the man I most esteem in the world. It pleases me indeed, as it is an advantage and addition to my fortune; but when I consider it as an instance of that good man's friendship, it overjoys, it transports me: I look on it with a lover's eye, and no longer regard the gift, but the hand that gave it. For my friendship is so entirely void of any gainful views, that it often gives me pain to think it should have been chargeable to him; and I cannot at some melancholy hours help doing his generosity the injury of fearing it should cool on this account, and that the last favour might be a sort of legacy of a departing friendship. The advantages of action, show, and dress, on these occasions are allowable, because the merit consists in being capable of imposing upon us to our advantage and entertainment. All that I was going to say about the honesty of an author in the sale of his ware was, that he ought to own all that he had borrowed from others, and lay in a clear light all that he gives his spectators for their money, with an account of the first manufacturers. But I intended to give the .ecture of this day upon the common and prostituted behaviour of traders in ordinary commerce. The philosopher made it à rule of trade, that your profit ought to be the common profit; and it is unjust to make any step towards gain, wherein the gain of even those to whom you sell is not also consulted. A man may deceive himself if he thinks fit, but he is no better than a cheat, who sells any thing without telling the exceptions against it, as well as what is to be said to its advantage. The scandalous abuse of language and hardening of conscience, which may be observed every day in going from one place to another, is what makes a whole city, to an unprejudiced eye, a den of thieves. It was no small pleasure to me for this reason to remark, as I passed by Cornhill, that the shop of that worthy, honest, though lately unfortunate citizen, Mr. John Morton, so well known in the linen trade, is setting up anew. Since a man has been in a distressed condition, it ought to be a great satisfaction to have passed through it in such a manner as not to have lost the friendship of those who suffered with him, but to receive an honourable acknowledgment of his honesty from those very persons to whom the law had consigned his estate. The misfortune of this citizen is like to prove of a very general advantage to those who shall deal with him hereafter; for the stock with which he now sets up being the loan of his friends, he cannot expose that to the hazard of giving credit, but enters into a ready-money trade, by which means he will both buy and sell the best and cheapest. He imposes upon himself a rule of affixing the value of each piece he sells, to the piece itself; so that the most ignorant servant or child will be as good a buyer at his shop as the most skilful in the trade. For all which, you have all his hopes and fortune for your security. To encourage dealing after this way, there is not only the avoiding the most infamous guilt in ordinary bartering; but this observation, that he who buys with ready money saves as much to his family as the state exacts out of his land for the security and service of his country. That is to say, in plain English, sixteen will do as much as twenty No. 547.] Thursday, November 27, 1712. shillings. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-My heart is so swelled with grateful sentiments on account of 'I confess these fears seem very groundless and unjust, but you must forgive them to the apprehension of one possessed of a great treasure, who is frighted at the most distant shadow of danger. 'Since I have thus far opened my heart to you, I will not conceal the secret satisfaction I feel there, of knowing the goodness of my friend will not be unrewarded. I am pleased with thinking the providence of the Almighty hath sufficient blessings in store for him, and will certainly discharge the debt, though I am not made the happy instrument of doing it. 'However, nothing in my power shall be wanting to show my gratitude; I will make it the business of my life to thank him; and shall esteem (next to him) those my best friends, who give me the greatest assistance in this good work. Printing this letter would be some little instance of my gratitude; and your favour herein will very much oblige your most humble servant, &c. W. C. • Nov. 24. Si vulnus tibi, monstrata radice vel herba, T. Hor. Ep. ii. Lib. 2. 149 Suppose you had a wound, and one that show'd It is very difficult to praise a man without putting him out of countenance. My following correspondent has found out this uncommon art, and, together with his friends, has celebrated some of my speculations after such a concealed but diverting manner, that if any of my readers think I am to blame in publishing my own commendations, they will allow I should have deserved their censure as much had I suppressed the humour in which they are conveyed to me. Over the two Spectators on jealousy, being the two first in the third volume, Vos. 170, 171. 'I, William Crazy, aged threescore and seven, having been for several years afflicted with uneasy doubts, fears, and vapours, occasioned by the youth and beauty of Mary my wife, aged twenty-five, do hereby, for the benefit of the public, give notice, that I have found great relief from the two following doses, having taken them two mornings, together with a dish of chocolate. Witness my hand, &c.' • For the benefit of the Poor. 'In charity to such as are troubled with the disease of levee-hunting, and are forced to seek their bread every morning at the chamber-doors of great men, I, A. B. do testify, that for many years past I laboured under this fashionable distemper, but was cured of it by a remedy which I bought of Mrs. Baldwin, contained in a half sheet of paper, marked No. 193, where any one may be provided with the same remedy at the price of a single penny.' CHARLES EASY.' 'I, Christopher Query, having been troubled with a certain distemper in my tongue, which showed itself in impertinent and superfluous interrogatories, have not asked one unnecessary question since my perusal of the prescription marked No. 228. ❝SIR,—I am often in a private assembly of wits of both sexes, where we generally descant upon your speculations, or upon the subjects on which you have treated. We were last Tuesday talking of those two volumes which you have lately published. Some were commending one of your papers, and some another; and there was scarce a single person in the company that had not a favourite speculation. Upon this 'An infallible cure for hypochondriac a man of wit and learning told us, he thought it would not be amiss if we paid melancholy, Nos. 173, 184, 191, 203, 209, the Spectator the same compliment that is 221, 231, 235, 239, 245, 247, 251. often made in our public prints to Sir Wil-Probatum est. liam Read, Dr. Grant, Mr. Moor, the apothecary, and other eminent physicians, where it is usual for the patients to publish the cures which have been made upon them, and the several distempers under which they laboured. The proposal took; and the lady where we visited having the two last volumes in large paper interleaved • The Britannic Beautifier, being an essay for her own private use, ordered them to on modesty, No. 231, which gives such a be brought down, and laid in the window, delightful blushing colour to the cheeks of whither every one in the company retired, those that are white or pale, that it is not and writ down a particular advertisement to be distinguished from a natural fine in the style and phrase of the like inge-complexion, nor perceived to be artificial nious compositions which we frequently by the nearest friend, is nothing of paint, or meet with at the end of our newspapers. in the least hurtful. It renders the face When we had finished our work, we read delightfully handsome: is not subject to be them with a great deal of mirth at the fire-rubbed off, and cannot be paralleled by side, and agreed, nemine contradicente, to | either wash, powder, cosmetic, &c. It is get them transcribed, and sent to the Spec- certainly the best beautifier in the world. tator. The gentleman who made the proposal entered the following advertisement before the title-page, after which the rest succeeded in order. • Remedium efficax et universum ; or, an effectual remedy adapted to all capacities; showing how any person may cure himself of ill-nature, pride, party-spleen, or any other distemper incident to the human system, with an easy way to know when the infection is upon him. The panacea is as innocent as bread, agreeable to the taste, and requires no confinement. It has not its equal in the universe, as abundance of the nobility and gentry throughout the kingdom have experienced. N. B. No family ought to be without it.' 'MARTHA GLOWORM.' 'I, Samuel Self, of the parish of St. James's, having a constitution which naturally abounds with acids, made use of a paper of directions marked No. 177, recommending a healthful exercise called goodnature, and have found it a most excellent sweetener of the blood.' "Whereas I, Elizabeth Rainbow, was troubled with that distemper in my head, which about a year ago was pretty epidemical among the ladies, and discovered itself in the colour of their hoods: having made use of the doctor's cephalic tincture, which he exhibited to the public in one of his last year's papers, I recovered in a very few days.' 'I, George Gloom, having for a long time been troubled with the spleen, and being advised by my friends to put myself into a course of Steele, did for that end make use of the remedies conveyed to me several mornings, in short letters, from the hands of the invisible doctor. They were marked at the bottom Nathaniel Henroost, Alice Threadneedle, Rebecca Nettletoy, Tom Loveless, Mary Meanwell, Thomas Smoky, Anthony Freeman, Tom Meggot, Rustic Sprightly, &c. which have had so good an effect upon me, that I now find myself cheerful, lightsome, and easy; and therefore do recommend them to all such as labour under the same distemper.' Not having room to insert all the advertisements which were sent me, I have only picked out some few from the third volume, reserving the fourth for another opportunity. No. 548.] Friday, November 28, 1712. -Vitiis nemo sine nascitur, optimus ille have read it with the same attention I have done, will think there is nothing to be objected against it. I have however drawn up some additional arguments to strengthen the opinion which you have there delivered, having endeavoured to go to the bottom of the matter, which you may either publish or suppress as you think fit. 'Horace, in my motto, says, that all men are vicious, and that they differ from one another only as they are more or less so. Boileau has given the same account of our wisdom, as Horace has of our virtue: "Tous les hommes sont fous, et malgre tous leurs soins Ne different entre eux, que de plus et du moins." "All men," says he, "are fools, and, in spite of their endeavours to the contrary, differ from one another only as they are more or less so. 'Two or three of the old Greek poets have given the same turn to a sentence which describes the happiness of man in this life: « Το ζην αλύπως, ανδρός εστιν ευτυχους. “That man is most happy who is the least miserable.” 'It will not perhaps be unentertaining to the polite reader to observe how these three beautiful sentences are formed upon different subjects, by the same way of thinking; but I shall return to the first of them. 'Nov. 27, 1712. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have read this "Our goodness being of a comparative day's paper with a great deal of pleasure, and not an absolute nature, there is none and could send you an account of several who in strictness can be called a virtuous elixirs and antidotes in your third volume, man. Every one has in him a natural alloy, which your correspondents have not taken though one may be fuller of dross than an notice of in their advertisements; and at the other: for this reason I cannot think it right same time must own to you, that I have to introduce a perfect or a faultless man seldom seen a shop furnished with such a upon the stage; not only because such a variety of medicaments, and in which character is improper to move compassion, there are fewer soporifics. The several but because there is no such thing in navehicles you have invented for conveying ture. This might probably be one reason your unacceptable truths to us, are what I why the Spectator in one of his papers took most particularly admire, as I am afraid notice of that late invented term called they are secrets which will die with you. poetical justice, and the wrong notions into I do not find that any of our critical essays which it has led some tragic writers. The are taken notice of in this paper, notwith-most perfect man has vices enough to draw standing I look upon them to be excellent down punishments upon his head, and to cleansers of the brain, and could venture to justify Providence in regard to any misesuperscribe them with an advertisementries that may befall him. For this reason which I have lately seen in one of your I cannot think but that the instruction and newspapers, wherein there is an account moral are much finer, where a man who is given of a sovereign remedy for restoring virtuous in the main of his character falls the taste to all such persons whose palates into distress, and sinks under the blows of have been vitiated by distempers, unwhole- fortune at the end of a tragedy, than when some food, or any the like occasions. But he is represented as happy and triumphto let fall the allusion, notwithstanding your ant. Such an example corrects the insocriticisms, and particularly the candour lence of human nature, softens the mind of which you have discovered in them, are the beholder with sentiments of pity and not the least taking part of your works, I compassion, comforts him under his own find your opinion concerning poetical jus- private affliction, and teaches him not to tice, as it is expressed in the first part or judge of men's virtues by their success. I your fortieth Spectator, is controverted by cannot think of one real hero in all antisome eminent critics; and as you now quity so far raised above human infirmities, seem, to our great grief of heart, to be that he might not be very naturally reprewinding up your bottoms, I hoped you sented in a tragedy as plunged in misforwould have enlarged a little upon that sub-tunes and calamities. The poet may still ject. It is indeed but a single paragraph find out some prevailing passion or indisin your works, and I believe those who cretion in his character, and show it in such a manner as will sufficiently acquit / minal that they can have no claim or pre the gods of any injustice in his sufferings. tence to happiness. The best of men may For, as Horace observes in my text, the deserve punishment, but the worst of men best man is faulty, though not in so great a cannot deserve happiness. degree as those whom we generally call vicious men. Quamvis digressu veteris confusus amici, Juv. Sat. iii. 1 If such a strict poetical justice as some No. 549.] Saturday, November 29, 1712. gentlemen insist upon was to be observed in this art, there is no manner of reason why it should not extend to heroic poetry as well as tragedy. But we find it so little observed in Homer, that his Achilles is placed in the greatest point of glory and success, though his character is morally vicious, and only poetically good, if I may use the phrase of our modern critics. The Eneid is filled with_innocent, unhappy persons. Nisus and Euryalus, Lausus and Pallas, come all to unfortunate ends. The poet takes notice in particular, that, in the sacking of Troy, Ripheus fell, who was the most just man among the Trojans. -Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus, Qui fuit in Teucris, et servantissimus æqui : Diis aliter visum est En. ii. 427. And that Pantheus could neither be pre- Ibid. ver. 429. I BELIEVE most people begin the world with a resolution to withdraw from it into a serious kind of solitude or retirement when they have made themselves easy in it. Our unhappiness is, that we find out some excuse or other for deferring such our good resolutions until our intended retreat is cut off by death. But among all kinds of people, there are none who are so hard to part with the world as those who are grown old in the heaping up of riches. Their minds are so warped with their constant attention to gain, that it is very difficult for them to give their souls another bent, and convert them towards those objects, which though they are proper for every stage of life, are Horace so more especially for the last. describes an old usurer as so charmed with the pleasures of a country life, that in order I might here mention the practice of an- to make a purchase he called in all his cient tragic poets, both Greek and Latin; money; but what was the event of it? but as this particular is touched upon in the Why, in a very few days after he put it paper above-mentioned, I shall pass it over out again. I am engaged in this series of in silence. I could produce passages out of thought by a discourse which I had last Aristotle in favour of my opinion; and if week with my worthy friend Sir Andrew in one place he says that an absolutely vir- Freeport, a man of so much natural elotuous man, should not be represented as quence, good sense, and probity of mind, unhappy, this does not justify any one who that I always hear him with a particular shall think fit to bring in an absolutely vir- pleasure. As we were sitting together, tuous man upon the stage. Those who are being the sole remaining members of our acquainted with that author's way of writ-club, Sir Andrew gave me an account of ing, know very well that, to take the whole extent of his subject into his divisions of it, he often makes use of such cases as are imaginary, and not reducible to practice. He himself declares that such tragedies as ended unhappily, bore away the prize in theatrical contentions, from those which ended happily; and for the fortieth speculation, which I am now considering, as it has given reasons why these are more apt to please an audience, so it only proves that these are generally preferable to the other, though at the same time it affirms that many excellent tragedies have and may be written in both kinds. 'I shall conclude with observing, that though the Spectator above-mentioned is so far against the rule of poetical justice, as to affirm that good men may meet with an unhappy catastrophe in tragedy, it does not say that ill men may go off unpunished. The reasons for this distinction is very plain, namely, because the best of men are vicious enough to justify Providence for any misfortunes and afflictions which may befall them, but there are many men so cri the many busy scenes of life in which he had been engaged, and at the same time reckoned up to me abundance of those lucky hits, which at another time he would have called pieces of good fortune; but in the temper of mind he was then, he termed them mercies, favours of Providence, and blessings upon an honest industry. Now,' says he, you must know, my good friend, I am so used to consider myself as creditor and debtor, that I often state my accounts after the same manner with regard to heaven and my own soul. In this case, when I look upon the debtor side, I find such innumerable articles, that I want arithmetic to cast them up; but when I look upon the creditor side, I find little more than blank paper. Now, though I am very well satisfied that it is not in my power to balance accounts with my Maker, I am resolved however to turn all my future endeavours that way. You must not therefore be surprised, my friend, if you hear that I am breaking myself to a thoughtful kind of life, and if I meet you nc more in this place.' more I could not but approve so good a resolution, notwithstanding the loss I shall suffer by it. Sir Andrew has since explained himself to me more at large in the following letter, which is just come to my hands. finding out a convenient place where I may build an almshouse, which I intend to endow very handsomely for a dozen superannuated husbandmen. It will be a great pleasure to me to say my prayers twice a day with men of my own years, who all of them, as well as myself, may have their thoughts taken up how they shall die, rather than how they shall live. I remember an excellent saying that I learned at school, Finis coronat opus. You know best whether it be in Virgil or in Horace, it is my business to apply it. If your affairs will permit you to take the country air with me ted up for you, and shall be every day entertained with beef or mutton of my own feeding; fish out of my own ponds; and fruit out of my own gardens. You shall have free egress and regress about my house, without having any questions asked you; and in a word, such a hearty welcome as you may expect from your most sincere friend and humble servant, 'ANDREW FREEPORT.' The club of which I am a member being entirely dispersed, I shall consult my reader next week upon a project relating to the institution of a new one. O. No. 550.] Monday, December 1, 1712. 'GOOD MR. SPECTATOR,-Notwithstanding my friends at the club have always rallied me, when I have talked of retiring from business, and repeated to me one of my own sayings, that "a merchant has never enough until he has got a little more;" I can now inform you, that there is one in the world who thinks he has enough, and is determined to pass the re-sometimes, you will find an apartment fit*mainder of his life in the enjoyment of what he has. You know me so well, that I need not tell you I mean, by the enjoyment of my possessions, the making of them useful to the public. As the greatest part of my estate has been hitherto of an unsteady and volatile nature, either tost upon seas or fluctuating in funds, it is now fixed and settled in substantial acres and tenements. I have removed it from the uncertainty of stocks, winds, and waves, and disposed of it in a considerable purchase. This will give me great opportunity of being charitable in my way, that is, in setting my poor neighbours to work, and giving them a comfortable subsistence out of their own industry. My gardens, my fish-ponds, my arable and pasture grounds, shall be my several hospitals, or rather work-houses, in which I propose to maintain a great many indigent persons, who are now staryHor. Ars Poet. ver. 138. ing in my neighbourhood. I have got a fine spread of improvable lands, and in my In what will all this ostentation end?-Roscommon. own thoughts am already plowing up some SINCE the late dissolution of the club, of them, fencing others; planting woods, whereof I have often declared myself a and draining marshes. In fine, as I have member, there are very many persons who my share in the surface of this island, I am by letters, petitions, and recommendations, resolved to make it as beautiful a spot as put up for the next election. At the same any in her majesty's dominions; at least time I must complain, that several indirect there is not an inch of it which shall not be and underhand practices have been made cultivated to the best advantage, and do its use of upon this occasion. A certain counutmost for its owner. As in my mercantile try gentleman began to tap upon the first employment I so disposed of my affairs, information he received of Sir Roger's that, from whatever corner of the compass death; when he sent me up word that, if I the wind blew, it was bringing home one or would get him chosen in the place of the other of my ships; I hope as a husband- deceased, he would present me with a barman to contrive it so, that not a shower of rel of the best October I had ever tasted in rain or a glimpse of sunshine shall fall upon my life. The ladies are in great pain to my estate without bettering some part of know whom I intend to elect in the room it, and contributing to the products of the of Will Honeycomb. Some of them indeed season. You know it has been hitherto my are of opinion that Mr. Honeycomb did not opinion of life, that it is thrown away when take sufficient care of their interest in the it is not some way useful to others. But club, and are therefore desirous of having when I am riding out by myself, in the in it hereafter a representative of their own fresh air, on the open heath that lies by my sex. A citizen who subscribes himself Y. house, I find several other thoughts grow-Z. tells me that he has one-and-twenty ing up in me. I am now of opinion, that a man of my age may find business enough on himself, by setting his mind in order, preparing it for another world, and reconciling it to the thoughts of death. I must therefore acquaint you, that besides those usual methods of charity, of which I have before spoken, I am at this very instant shares in the African company, and offers to bribe me with the odd one in case he may succeed Sir Andrew Freeport, which he thinks would raise the credit of that fund. I have several letters, dated from Jenny Man's, by gentlemen who are candidates for captain Sentry's place; and as many from a coffee-house in St. Paul's |