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This passion towards each other, when once well fixed, enters into the very constitution, and the kindness flows as easily and silently as the blood in the veins. When this affection is enjoyed in the sublime degree, unskilful eyes see nothing of it; but when it is subject to be changed, and has an allay in it that may make it end in distaste, it is apt to break into rage, or overflow into fondness, before the rest of the world.

Uxander and Viramira are amorous and young, have been married these two years; yet do they so much distinguish each other in company, that in your conversation with the dear things, you are still put to a sort of cross-purposes. Whenever you address yourself in ordinary discourse to Viramira, she turns her head another way, and the answer is made to the dear Uxander. If you tell a merry tale, the application is still directed to her dear; and when she should commend you, she says to him, as if he had spoke it, That is, my dear, so pretty. This puts me in mind of what I have somewhere read in the admired memoirs of the famous Cervantes; where, while honest Sancho Panca is putting some necessary humble question concerning Rozinante, his supper, or his lodging, the knight of the sorrowful countenance is ever improving the harmless lowly hints of his 'squire to the poetical conceit, rapture, and flight, in contemplation of the dear dulcinea of his affections.

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On the other side, Dictamnus and Moria are ever squabbling; and you may observe them, all the time they are in company, in a state of impatience. As Uxander and Viramira wish you all gone, that they may be at freedom for dalliance; Dictamnus and Moria wait your absence, that they may speak their harsh interpretations on each other's words and actions, during the time you were with them.

It is certain that the greater part of the evils, attending this condition of life, arises from fashion. Prejudice in this case is turned the wrong way; and, instead of expecting more happiness than we shall meet with in it, we are laughed into a prepossession, that we shall be disappointed if we hope for lasting satisfactions.

With all persons who have made good sense the rule of action, marriage is de

owe the following epigram, which I showed my friend Will Honeycomb in French, who has translated it as follows, without understanding the original. I expect it will please the English better than the Latin reader.

When my bright consort, now nor wife nor maid, Asham'd and wanton, of embrace afraid, Fled to the streams, the streams my fair betray'd; To my fond eyes she all transparent stood; She blush'd; I smil'd at the slight covering flood. Thus through the glass the lovely lily glows; Thus through the ambient gem shines forth the rose. I saw new charms, and plung'd to seize my store, Kisses I snatch'd--the waves prevented more."

My friend would not allow that this luscious account could be given of a wife, and therefore used the word consort; which, he learnedly said, would serve for a mistress as well, and give a more gentlemanly turn to the epigram. But, under favour of him and all other such fine gentlemen, I cannot be persuaded but that the passion a bridegroom has for a virtuous young woman will, by little and little, grow into friendship, and then it has ascended to a higher pleasure than it was in its first fervour. Without this happens, he is a very unfortunate man who has entered into this state, and left the habitudes of life he might have enjoyed with a faithful friend. But when the wife proves capable of filling serious as well as joyous hours, she brings happiness unknown to friendship itself. Spenser speaks of each kind of love with great justice, and attributes the highest praise to friendship; and indeed there is no disputing that point, but by making that friendship take its place between two married persons.

'Hard is the doubt, and difficult to deem,
When all three kinds of love together meet,
And do dispart the heart with power extreme,
Whether shall weigh the balance down; to wit,
The dear affection unto kindred sweet,
Or raging fire of love to womankind,
Or zeal of friends combin'd by virtues meet;
But, of them all, the band of virtues mind
Methinks the gentle heart should most assured bind.

For natural affection soon doth cease,
And quenched is with Cupid's greater flame:
But faithful friendship doth them both suppress,
And them with mastering discipline doth tame,
Through thoughts aspiring to eternal fame.
For as the soul doth rule the earthly mass,
And all the service of the body frame;
So love of soul doth love of body pass,
No less than perfect gold surmounts the meanest
brass.

-Digna satis fortuna revisit.

T.

Virg. Æn. iii. 318.

scribed as the state capable of the highest No. 491.] Tuesday, September 23, 1712. human felicity. Tully has epistles full of affectionate pleasure, when he writes to his wife, or speaks of his children. But, above all the hints of this kind I have met with in writers of ancient date, I am pleased with an epigram of Martial, in honour of the beauty of his wife Cleopatra. Commentators say it was written the day after his wedding-night. When his spouse was retired to the bathing-room in the heat of the day, he, it seems, came in upon her when she was just going into the water. To her beauty and carriage on this occasion we

A just reverse of fortune on him waits. IT is common with me to run from book to book to exercise my mind with many objects, and qualify myself for my daily labours. After an hour spent in this loitering way of reading, something will remain to be food to the imagination. The writings that please me most on such occasions are stories, for the truth of which there is good authority. The mind of man is naturally a

lover of justice. And when we read a story | wherein a criminal is overtaken, in whom there is no quality which is the object of pity, the soul enjoys a certain revenge for the offence done to its nature, in the wicked actions committed in the preceding part of the history. This will be better understood by the reader from the following narration itself, than from any thing which I can say to introduce it.

sion. This design had its desired effect; and the wife of the unfortunate Danvelt, the day before that which was appointed for his execution, presented herself in the hall of the governor's house; and, as he passed through the apartment, threw herself at his feet, and, holding his knees, beseeched his mercy. Rhynsault beheld her with a dissembled satisfaction; and, assuming an air of thought and authority, he bid her When Charles duke of Burgundy, sur- arise, and told her she must follow him to named The Bold, reigned over spacious his closet; and, asking her whether she dominions now swallowed up by the power knew the hand of the letter he pulled out of France, he heaped many favours and of his pocket, went from her, leaving this honours upon Claudius Rhynsault, a Ger- admonition aloud: If you will save your man, who had served him in his wars against husband, you must give me an account of the insults of his neighbours. A great part all you know without prevarication: for of Zealand was at that time in subjection every body is satisfied he was too fond of to that dukedom. The prince himself was you to be able to hide from you the names a person of singular humanity and justice. of the rest of the conspirators, or any other Rhynsault, with no other real quality than particulars whatsoever.' He went to his courage, had dissimulation enough to pass closet, and soon after the lady was sent for upon his generous and unsuspicious master to an audience. The servant knew his disfor a person of blunt honesty and fidelity, tance when matters of state were to be without any vice that could bias him from debated; and the governor, laying aside the the execution of justice. His highness, pre-air with which he had appeared in public, possessed to his advantage, upon the decease of the governor of his chief town of Zealand, gave Rhynsault that command. He was not long seated in that government before he cast his eyes upon Sapphira, a woman of exquisite beauty, the wife of Paul Danvelt, a wealthy merchant of the city under his protection and government. Rhynsault was a man of a warm constitution, and violent inclination to women, and not unskilled in the soft arts which win their favour. He knew what it was to enjoy the satisfactions which are reaped from the possession of beauty, but was an utter stranger to the decencies, honours, and delicacies, that attend the passion towards them in elegant minds. However, he had so much of the world, that he had a great share of the language which usually prevails upon the weaker part of that sex; and he could with his tongue utter a passion with which his heart was wholly untouched. He was one of those brutal minds which can be gratified with the violation of innocence and beauty, without the least pity, passion, or love, to that with which they are so much delighted. Ingratitude is a vice inseparable to a lustful man; and the possession of a woman by him, who has no thought but allaying a passion painful to himself, is necessarily followed by distaste and aversion. Rhynsault, being resolved to accomplish his will on the wife of Danvelt, left no arts untried to get into a familiarity at her house; but she knew his character and disposition too well, not to shun all occasions that might ensnare her into his conversation. The governor, despairing of success by ordinary means, apprehended and imprisoned her husband, under pretence of an information, that he was guilty of a correspondence with the enemies of the duke to betray the town into their posses

began to be the supplicant, to rally an affliction, which it was in her power easily to remove, and relieve an innocent man from his imprisonment. She easily perceived his intention; and bathed in tears, began to deprecate so wicked a design. Lust, like ambition, takes all the faculties of the mind and body into its service and subjection. Her becoming tears, her honest anguish, the wringing of her hands, and the many changes of her posture and figure in the vehemence of speaking, were but so many attitudes in which he beheld her beauty, and farther incentives of his desires. All humanity was lost in that one appetite, and he signified to her in so many plain terms, that he was unhappy till he had possessed her, and nothing less should be the price of her husband's life, and she must, before the following noon, pronounce the death, or enlargement, of Danvelt. After this notification, when he saw Sapphira enough again distracted, to make the subject of their discourse to common eyes appear different from what it was, he called servants to conduct her to the gate. Loaded with insupportable affliction, she immediately repairs to her husband; and, having signified to his gaolers that she had a proposal to make to her husband from the governor, she was left alone with him, revealed to him all that had passed, and represented the endless conflict she was in between love to his person, and fidelity to his bed. It is easy to imagine the sharp affliction this honest pair was in upon such an incident, in lives not used to any but ordinary occurrences. The man was bridled by shame from speaking what his fear prompted, upon so near an approach of death; but let fall words that signified to her, he should not think her polluted, though she had not yet confessed to him that the governor had

violated her person, since he knew her will had no part in the action. She parted from him with this oblique permission to save a life he had not resolution enough to resign for the safety of his honour.

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The next morning the unhappy Sapphira No. 492.] Wednesday, September 24, 1712. attended the governor, and being led into a remote apartment, submitted to his desires. Rhynsault commended her charms, claimed a familiarity after what had passed between them, and with an air of gayety, in the language of a gallant, bid her return, and take her husband out of prison: but,' continued he, my fair one must not be offended that I have taken care he should not be an interruption to our future assignations.' These last words foreboded what she found when she came to the gaol-her husband executed by the order of Rhynsault!

Quicquid est boni moris levitate extinguitur. Seneca. Levity of behaviour is the bane of all that is good and virtuous. 'Tunbridge, Sept. 18. 'DEAR MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a young woman of eighteen years of age, and I do assure you a maid of unspotted reputation, founded upon a very careful carriage in all my looks, words, and actions. At the same time I must own to you, that it is with much constraint to flesh and blood that my behaviour is so strictly irreproachable; for I It was remarkable that the woman, who am naturally addicted to mirth, to gayety, was full of tears and lamentations during to a free air, to motion, and gadding. Now, the whole course of her afflictions, uttered what gives me a great deal of anxiety, and neither sigh nor complaint, but stood fixed is some discouragement in the pursuit of with grief at this consummation of her mis- virtue, is, that the young women who run fortunes. She betook herself to her abode; into greater freedoms with the men are and, after having in solitude paid her de- more taken notice of than I am. The men votions to him who is the avenger of inno- are such unthinking sots, that they do not cence, she repaired privately to court. Her prefer her who restrains all her passions person, and a certain grandeur of sorrow, and affections, and keeps much within the negligent of forms, gained her passage into bounds of what is lawful, to her who goes to the presence of the duke her sovereign. the utmost verge of innocence and parleys As soon as she came into the presence, she at the very brink of vice, whether she shall broke forth into the following words: Be-be a wife or a mistress. But I must appeal hold, O mighty Charles, a wretch weary of life, though it has always been spent with innocence and virtue. It is not in your power to redress my injuries, but it is to avenge them. And if the protection of the distressed, and the punishment of oppressors, is a task worthy of a prince, I bring the duke of Burgundy ample matter for doing honour to his own great name, and wiping infamy off from mine.'

to your spectatorial wisdom, who, I find, have passed very much of your time in the study of woman, whether this is not a most unreasonable proceeding. I have read somewhere that Hobbes of Malmesbury asserts that continent persons have more of what they contain than those who give a loose to their desires. According to this rule, let there be equal age, equal wit, and equal good-humour, in the woman of prudence, When she had spoke this, she delivered and her of liberty; what stores has he to the duke a paper reciting her story. He expect who takes the former? What refuse read it with all the emotions that indigna- must he be contented with who chooses the tion and pity could raise in a prince jealous latter? Well, but I sat down to write to you of his honour in the behaviour of his officers, to vent my indignation against several pert and prosperity of his subjects. creatures who are addressed to and courted in this place, while poor I, and two or three like me, are wholly unregarded.

Upon an appointed day, Rhynsault was sent for to court, and, in the presence of a few of the council, confronted by Sapphira. The prince asking, 'Do you know that lady? Rhynsault, as soon as he could recover his surprise, told the duke he would marry her, if his highness would please to think that a reparation. The duke seemed contented with this answer, and stood by during the immediate solemnization of the ceremony. At the conclusion of it he told Rhynsault, Thus far you have done as constrained by my authority: I shall not be satisfied of your kind usage to her, without you sign a gift of your whole estate to her after your decease.' To the performance of this also the duke was a witness. When these two acts were executed, the duke turned to the lady, and told her, 'It now remains for me to put you in quiet posses

'Every one of these affect gaining the hearts of your sex. This is generally attempted by a particular manner of carrying themselves with familiarity. Glycera has a dancing walk, and keeps time in her ordinary gait. Chloe, her sister, who is unwilling to interrupt her conquests, comes into the room before her with a familiar run. Dulcissa takes advantage of the approach of the winter, and has introduced a very pretty shiver; closing up her shoulders, and shrinking as she moves. All that are in this mode carry their fans between both hands before them. Dulcissa herself, who is author of this air, adds the pretty run to it: and has also, when she is in very good humour, a taking familiarity in throwing herself into the lowest seat in the room, and

letting her hooped petticoats fall with a lucky decency about her. I know she practises this way of sitting down in her chamber; and indeed she does it as well as you may have seen an actress fall down dead in a tragedy. Not the least indecency in her posture. If you have observed what pretty carcasses are carried off at the end of a verse at the theatre, it will give you a notion how Dulcissa plumps into a chair. Here is a little country girl that is very cunning, that makes her use of being young and unbred, and outdoes the ensnarers, who are almost twice her age. The air that she takes is to come into company after a walk, and is very successfully out of breath upon occasion. Her mother is in the secret, and calls her romp, and then looks round to see what young men stare at her.

It would take up more than can come into one of your papers, to enumerate all the particular airs of the younger company in this place. But I cannot omit Dulceorella, whose manner is the most indolent imaginable, but still as watchful of conquest as the

and bring us sober girls into observation, there is no help for it; we must swim with the tide; the coquettes are too powerful a party for us. To look into the merit of a regular and well behaved woman is a slow thing. A loose trivial song gains the affections, when a wise homily is not attended to. There is no other way but to make war upon them, or we must go over to them. As for my part, I will show all the world it is not for want of charms that I stand so long unasked; and if you do not take measures for the immediate redress of us rigids, as the fellows call us, I can move with a speaking mien, can look significantly, can lisp, can trip, can loll, can start, can blush, can rage, can weep, if I must do it, and can be frighted as agreeably as any she in England. All which is humbly submitted to your spectatorial consideration, with all humility, by your most humble servant,

T.

MATILDA MOHAIR.'

busiest virgin among us. She has a peculiar No. 493.] Thursday, September 25, 1712.

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Qualem commendes etiam atque etiam adspice, ne mox
Incutiant aliena tibi peccata pudorem.

Hor. Lib. 1. Ep. xviii. 76.
Commend not, till a man is thoroughly known:
A rascal prais'd, you make his faults your own.

Anon.

art of staring at a young fellow, till she sees she has got him, and inflamed him by so much observation. When she sees she has him, and he begins to toss his head upon it, she is immediately short-sighted, and labours to observe what he is at a distance, with her eyes half shut. Thus the captive Ir is no unpleasant matter of speculation that thought her first struck, is to make to consider the recommendatory epistles very near approaches, or be wholly disre- that pass round this town from hand to garded. This artifice has done more execu- hand, and the abuse people put upon one tion than all the ogling of the rest of the another in that kind. It is indeed come to women here, with the utmost variety of that pass, that, instead of being the testihalf glances, attentive heedlessnesses, child-mony of merit in the person recommended, ish inadvertencies, haughty contempts, or the true reading of a letter of this sort is, artificial oversights. After I have said thus The bearer hereof is so uneasy to me, that much of ladies among us who fight thus it will be an act of charity in you to take regularly, I am to complain to you of a set him off my hands; whether you prefer him of familiar romps, who have broken through or not, it is all one; for I have no manner of all common rules, and have thought of a kindness for him, or obligation to him or very effectual way of showing more charms his; and do what you please as to that.' As than all of us. These, Mr. Spectator, are negligent as men are in this respect, a point the swingers. You are to know these care- of honour is concerned in it; and there is less pretty creatures are very innocents nothing a man should be more ashamed of, again; and it is to be no matter what they than passing a worthless creature into the do for it is all harmless freedom. They get service or interests of a man who has never on ropes, as you must have seen the chil-injured you. The women indeed are a little dren, and are swung by their men visitants. The jest is, that Mr. Such-a-one can name the colour of Mrs. Such-a-one's stockings; and she tells him he is a lying thief, so he is, and full of roguery; and she will lay a wager, and her sister shall tell the truth if he says right, and he cannot tell what colour her garters are of. In this diversion there are very many pretty shrieks, not so much for fear of falling, as that their petticoats should untie; for there is a great care had to avoid improprieties; and the lover who swings the lady is to tie her clothes very close together with his hatband, before she admits him to throw up her heels.

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too keen in their resentments to trespass often this way: but you shall sometimes know, that the mistress and the maid shall quarrel, and give each other very free language, and at last the lady shall be pacified to turn her out of doors, and give her a very good word to any body else. Hence it is that you see, in a year and a half's time, the same face a domestic in all parts of the town. Good-breeding and good-nature lead people in a great measure to this injustice: when suitors of no consideration will have confidence enough to press upon their superiors those in power are tender of speaking the exceptions they have against them, and are mortgaged into promises out of their impatience of importunity. In this

him the word to alarm the watch; he had the impudence to tell me it was against the law. You that are married, and live one day after another the same way, and so on the whole week, I dare say will like him, and he will be glad to have his meat in due season. The fellow is certainly very honest. My service to your lady. Yours, J. T.'

Now this was very fair dealing. Jack knew very well, that though the love of order made a man very awkward in his equipage, it was a valuable quality among the queer people who live by rule; and had too much good-sense and good-nature to let the fellow starve, because he was not fit to attend his vivacities.

latter case, it would be a very useful in- | We were coming down Essex-street one quiry to know the history of recommenda- night a little flustered, and I was giving tions. There are, you must know, certain abettors of this way of torment, who make it a profession to manage the affairs of candidates. These gentlemen let out their impudence to their clients, and supply any defective recommendation, by informing how such and such a man is to be attacked. They will tell you, get the least scrap from Mr. Such-a-one, and leave the rest to them. When one of these undertakers has your business in hand, you may be sick, absent in town or country, and the patron shall be worried, or you prevail. I remember to have been shown a gentleman some years ago, who punished a whole people for their facility in giving their credentials. This person had belonged to a regiment which I shall end this discourse with a letter of did duty in the West Indies, and, by the recommendation from Horace to Claudius mortality of the place, happened to be Nero. You will see in that letter a slowcommanding officer in the colony. He op-ness to ask a favour, a strong reason for pressed his subjects with great frankness, till he became sensible that he was heartily hated by every man under his command. When he had carried his point to be thus detestable, in a pretended fit of dishumour, and feigned uneasiness of living where he found he was so universally unacceptable, he communicated to the chief inhabitants a design he had to return for England, provided they would give him ample testimonials of their approbation. The planters came into it to a man, and in proportion to his deserving the quite contrary, the words justice, generosity, and courage, were inserted in his commission, not omitting the general good liking of people of all conditions in the colony. The gentleman returns for England, and within a few months after came back to them their governor, on the strength of their own testimonials. Such a rebuke as this cannot indeed hap-friendship. For when he beseeches me to pen to easy recommenders, in the ordinary course of things from one hand to another; but how would a man bear to have it said to him, 'The person I took into confidence on the credit you gave him, has proved false, unjust, and has not answered any way the character you gave me of him?'

I cannot but conceive very good hopes of that rake Jack Toper of the Temple, for an honest scrupulousness in this point. A friend of his meeting with a servant that had formerly lived with Jack, and having a mind to take him, sent to him to know what faults the fellow had, since he could not please such a careless fellow as he was. His answer was as follows:

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being unable to deny his good word any longer, and that it is a service to the person to whom he recommends, to comply with what is asked: all which are necessary circumstances, both in justice and good-breeding, if a man would ask so as to have reason to complain of a denial; and indeed a man should not in strictness ask otherwise. In hopes the authority of Horace, who perfectly understood how to live with great men, may have a good effect towards amending this facility in people of condition, and the confidence of those who apply to them without merit, I have translated the epistle.

'To Claudius Nero.

'SIR,-Septimus, who waits upon you with this, is very well acquainted with the place you are pleased to allow me in your

I

recommend him to your notice in such a manner as to be received by you, who are delicate in the choice of your friends and domestics, he knows our intimacy, and understands my ability to serve him better than I do myself. I have defended myself against his ambition to be yours, as long as possibly could; but fearing the imputation of hiding my power in you out of mean and selfish considerations, I am at last prevailed upon to give you this trouble. Thus, to avoid the appearance of a greater fault, I have put on this confidence. If you can forgive this transgression of modesty in behalf of a friend, receive this gentleman into your interests and friendship, and take it from me that he is an honest and a brave T.

man.

No. 494.] Friday, September 26, 1712.

Ægritudinem laudare, unan rem maxime detestabilem, quorum est tandem philosophorum? Cicero. What kind of philosophy is it to extol melancholy, the most detestable thing in nature ?

ABOUT an age ago it was the fashion in England for every one that would be

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