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For my own part, I must own I never yet knew any party so just and reasonable, that a man could follow it in its height and violence, and at the same time be innocent. We should likewise be very apprehensive of those actions which proceed from natural constitutions, favourite passions, particular education, or whatever promotes our worldly interest or advantage. In these and the like cases, a man's judgment is easily perverted, and a wrong bias hung upon his mind. These are the inlets of prejudice, the unguarded avenues of the mind, by which a thousand errors and secret faults find admission, without being observed or taken notice of. A wise man will suspect those actions to which he is directed by something besides reason, and always apprehend some concealed evil in every resolution that is of a disputable nature, when it is conformable to his particular temper, his age, or way of life, or when it favours his pleasure or his profit.

There is nothing of greater importance to us than thus diligently to sift our thoughts, and examine all these dark recesses of the mind, if we would establish our souls in such a solid and substantial virtue, as will turn to account in that great day when it must stand the test of infinite wisdom and justice.

I shall conclude this essay with observing that the two kinds of hypocrisy I have here spoken of, namely, that of deceiving the world, and that of imposing on ourselves, are touched with wonderful beauty in the hundred and thirty-ninth psalm. The folly of the first kind of hypocrisy is there set forth by reflections on God's omniscience and omnipresence, which are celebrated in as noble strains of poetry as any other I ever met with, either sacred or profane. The other kind of hypocrisy, whereby a man deceives himself, is intimated in the two last verses, where the psalmist addresses himself to the great Searcher of hearts in that emphatical petition: Try me, O God! and seek the ground of my heart; prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.'

L.

Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire,
Between declining virtue and desire,
That the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away
In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.'

of complaisance, courtship, and artful con-
This prevailing gentle art was made up
formity to the modesty of a woman's man-
ners. Rusticity, broad expression and for-
ward obtrusion, offend those of education,
who have merit enough to attract regard.
and make the transgressors odious to all
It is in this taste that the scenery is so
beautifully ordered in the description which
Antony makes in the dialogue between him
and Dolabella, of Cleopatra in her barge.

'Her galley down the silver Cidnos row'd:
The tackling silk, the streamers wav'd with gold:
The gentle winds were lodg'd in purple sails;
Her nymphs, like Nereids, round her couch were plac'd
Where she, another sea-born Venus, lay;
She lay, and lean'd her cheek upon her hand,
And cast a look so languishingly sweet,
As if, secure of all beholders' hearts,
Neglecting she could take them. Boys, like Cupids,
Stood fanning with their painted wings the winds
That play'd about her face; but if she smil'd,
A darting glory seem'd to blaze abroad,
That men's desiring eyes were never weary'd,
But hung upon the object. To soft flutes
The silver oars kept time; and while they play'd
The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight;
And both to thought-

the objects presented, and yet there is no-
Here the imagination is warmed with all
thing that is luscious, or what raises any
idea more loose than that of a beautiful
woman set off to advantage. The like, or a
more delicate and careful spirit of modesty,
appears in the following passage in one of
Mr. Phillips's pastorals.

Breathe soft, ye winds! ye waters, gently flow!
Shield her, ye trees! ye flowers, around her grow!
Ye swains, I beg you pass in silence by!
My love in yonder vale asleep does lie.

Desire is corrected when there is a ten

derness or admiration expressed which partakes the passion. Licentious language has something brutal in it, which disgraces humanity, and leaves us in the condition of the savages in the field. But it may be asked, To what good use can tend a disCourse of this kind at all? It is to alarm chaste ears against such as have, what is Masters of that talent are capable of clothabove called, the prevailing gentle art.' ing their thoughts in so soft a dress, and something so distant from the secret purpose of their heart, that the imagination of the unguarded is touched with a fondness, which grows too insensibly to be resisted. Much care and concern for the lady's welIT should, methinks, preserve modesty fare, to seem afraid lest she should be anand its interests in the world, that the trans-noyed by the very air which surrounds her, gression of it always creates offence; and and this uttered rather with kind looks, the very purposes of wantonness are deand expressed by an interjection, an 'ah,' feated by a carriage which has in it so much boldness, as to intimate that fear and or an oh,' at some little hazard in moving reluctance are quite extinguished in an ob-fession of love, are the methods of skilful or making a step, than in any direct project which would be otherwise desirable. admirers. They are honest arts when their It was said of a wit of the last age, purpose is such, but infamous when misap

No. 400.] Monday, June 9, 1712.

-Latet anguis in herba.-Virg. Ecl. iii. 93. There's a snake in the grass.-English Proverb.

'Sedley has that prevailing gentle art, Which can with a resistless charm impart The loosest wishes to the chastest heart;

* Dryden's All for Love, act iii. sc. 1.

plied. It is certain that many a young woman in this town has had her heart irrecoverably won, by men who have not made one advance which ties their admirers, though the females languish with the utmost anxiety. I have often, by way of admonition to my female readers, given them warning against agreeable company of the other sex, except they are well acquainted with their characters. Women may disguise it if they think fit; and the more to do it, they may be angry at me for saying it; but I say it is natural to them, that they have no manner of approbation of men, without some degree of love. For this reason he is dangerous to be entertained as a friend or visitant, who is capable of gaining any eminent esteem or observation, though it be never so remote from pretensions as a lover. If a man's heart has not the abhorrence of any treacherous design, he may easily improve approbation into kindness, and kindness into passion. There may possibly be no manner of love between them in the eyes of all their acquaintance; no, it is all friendship; and yet they may be as fond as shepherd and shepherdess, in a pastoral, but still the nymph and the swain may be to each other, no other, I warrant you, than Pylades and Orestes.

have, though a tolerable good philosopher, but a low opinion of Platonic love: for which reason I thought it necessary to give my fair readers a caution against it, having, to my great concern, observed the waist of a Platonist lately swell to a roundness which is inconsistent with that philosophy.

No. 401.] Tuesday, June 10, 1712.

In amore hæc omnia insunt vitia.
Suspiciones inimitiæ, induciæ,
Bellum, pax rursum.

Injuriæ,

Ter. Eun. Act i. Sc. 1. It is the capricious state of love, to be attended with injuries, suspicions, enmities, truces, quarrelling, and reconcilement.

this day, an odd sort of a packet, which I I SHALL publish for the entertainment of have just received from one of my female correspondents.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-Since you have often confessed that you are not displeased your papers should sometimes convey the complaints of distressed lovers to each other, I am in hopes you will favour one who gives you an undoubted instance of her reformation, and at the same time a convincing proof of the happy influence your labours have had over the most incorrigible part

When Lucy decks with flowers her swelling breast, of the most incorrigible sex. Yor must

And on her elbow leans, dissembling rest;

Unable to refrain my madding mind,

Nor sheep nor pasture worth my care I find.

Once Delia slept, on easy moss reclin'd,
Her lovely limbs half bare, and rude the wind:
I smooth'd her coats, and stole a silent kiss:
Condemn me, shepherds, if I did amiss.'

Such good offices as these, and such friendly thoughts and concerns for another, are what make up the amity, as they call it, between man and woman.

It is the permission of such intercourse that makes a young woman come to the arms of her husband, after the disappointment of four or five passions which she has successively had for different men, before she is prudentially given to him for whom she has neither love nor friendship. For what should a poor creature do that has lost all her friends? There's Marinet the agreeable has, to my knowledge, had a friendship for lord Welford, which had like to break her heart: then she had so great a friendship for colonel Hardy, that she could not endure any woman else should do any thing but rail at him. Many and fatal have been disasters between friends who have fallen out, and these resentments are more keen than ever those of other men can possibly be; but in this it happens unfortunately, that as there ought to be nothing concealed from one friend to another, the friends of different sexes very often find fatal effects from their unanimity.

For my part, who study to pass life in as much innocence and tranquillity as I can, I shun the company of agreeable women as much as possible; and must confess that I

know, sir, I am one of that species of women, whom you have often characterized under the name of "jilts," and that I send you these lines as well to do public penance for having so long continued in a known error, as to beg pardon of the party offended. I the rather choose this way, because it in some measure answers the terms on which he intimated the breach between us might possibly be made up, as you will see by the letter he sent me the next day after I had discarded him; which I thought fit to send you a copy of, that you might the better know the whole case.

'I must further acquaint you, that before I jilted him, there had been the greatest intimacy between us for a year and a half together, during all which time I cherished his hopes, and indulged his flame. I leave you to guess, after this, what must be his surprise, when upon his pressing for my full consent one day, I told him I wondered what could make him fancy he had ever any place in my affections. His own sex allow him sense, and all ours good-breeding. His person is such as might, without vanity, make him believe himself not incapable of being beloved. Our fortunes, indeed, weighed in the nice scale of interest, are not exactly equal, which by the way was the true cause of my jilting him; and I had the assurance to acquaint him with the following maxim, that I should always believe that man's passion to be the most violent, who could offer me the largest settlement. I have since changed my opinion, and have endeavoured to let him know so

'AMORET.'

much by several letters, but the barbarous the fields, and gardens, without Philander, man has refused them all; so that I have afford no pleasure to the unhappy no way left of writing to him but by your assistance. If you can bring him about once more, I promise to send you all gloves and favours, and shall desire the favour of Sir Roger and yourself to stand as godfathers to my first boy. I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant,

'AMORET.'

Philander to Amoret.

'I must desire you, dear Mr. Spectator, to publish this my letter to Philander as soon as possible, and to assure him that I know nothing at all of the death of his rich uncle in Gloucestershire.' X.

No. 402.] Wednesday, June 11, 1712.

-et quæ

Ipse sibi tradit Spectator.

Hor Ars Poet. 1. 181.

'MADAM,-I am so surprised at the question you were pleased to ask me yesterday, that I am still at a loss what to say Sent by the Spectator to himself. to it. At least my answer would be too long to trouble you with, as it would come from I receive from different hands, and perWERE I to publish all the advertisements a person, who, it seems, is so very indifferent to you. Instead of it, I shall only re- the very mention of them, without reflecsons of different circumstances and quality, commend to your consideration the opinion tions on the several subjects, would raise all of one whose sentiments on these matters the passions which can be felt by human have often heard you say are extremely just. minds. As instances of this, I shall give "A generous and constant passion," savs your favourite author, "in an agreeable you two or three letters; the writers of which can have no recourse to any legal lover, where there is not too great a dispa-power for redress, and seem to have writrity in their circumstances, is the greatest ten rather to vent their sorrow than to reblessing that can befal a person beloved; ceive consolation.

and if overlooked in one, may perhaps 'MR SPECTATOR,-I am a young woman

never be found in another."

I do not, however, at all despair of being of beauty and quality, and suitably married very shortly much better beloved by you to a gentleman who doats on me. But this than Antenor is at present; since, when-person of mine is the object of an unjust ever my fortune shall exceed his, you were pleased to intimate, your passion would increase accordingly.

'The world has seen me shamefully lose that time to please a fickle woman, which might have been employed much more to my credit and advantage in other pursuits. I shall therefore take the liberty to acquaint you, however harsh it may sound in a lady's ears, that though your love-fit should happen to return, unless you could contrive a way to make your recantation as well known to the public as they are already apprized of the manner with which you have treated me, you shall never more see

'PHILANDER.'

passion in a nobleman who is very intimate with my husband. This friendship gives him very easy access and frequent oppor tunities of entertaining me apart. My heart is in the utmost anguish, and my face is covered over with confusion, when I impart to you another circumstance, which is, that my mother, the most mercenary of all women, is gained by this false friend of my husband's to solicit me for him. I am frequently chid by the poor believing man, my husband, for showing an impatience of his friend's company; and I am never alone with my mother, but she tells me stories of the discretionary part of the world, and such-a-one, and such-a-one, who are guilty of as much as she advises me to. She laughs Amoret to Philander. at my astonishment; and seems to hint to me, that, as virtuous as she has always ap'SIR,-Upon reflection, I find the injury peared, I am not the daughter of her husI have done both to you and myself to be band. It is possible that printing this letter so great, that, though the part I now act may relieve me from the unnatural impormay appear contrary to that decorum usu-tunity of my mother, and the perfidious ally observed by our sex, yet I purposely courtship of my husband's friend. I have break through all rules, that my repentance an unfeigned love of virtue, and am resolved may in some measure equal my crime. I to preserve my innocence. The only way assure you, that in my present hopes of I can think of to avoid the fatal conse recovering you, I look upon Antenor's estate quences of the discovery of this matter, is with contempt. The fop was here yester- to fly away for ever, which I must do to day in a gilt chariot and new liveries, but I avoid my husband's fatal resentment against refused to see him.-Though I dread to the man who attempts to abuse him, and meet your eyes, after what has passed, I the shame of exposing a parent to infamy. flatter myself, that, amidst all their confu- The persons concerned will know these cir sion, you will discover such a tenderness cumstances relate to them; and though the in mine, as none can imitate but those who regard to virtue is dead in them, I have love. I shall be all this month at lady some hopes from their fear of shame upon D's in the country; but the woods, reading this in your paper; which I conjure

you to publish, if you have any compassion he was sorry he had made so little use of for injured virtue.

'SYLVIA.'

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the unguarded hours we had been together so remote from company; "as, indeed,' continued he, "so we are at present." I flew from him to a neighbouring gentlewoman's house, and though her husband and burst into a passion of tears. My friend was in the room, threw myself on a couch, desired her husband to leave the room. extraordinary in this, that I will partake in "But," said he, "there is something so the affliction; and be it what it will, she is so much your friend, she knows she may The man sat down by me, and spoke so command what services I can do her." like a brother, that I told him my whole affliction. He spoke of the injury done me with so much indignation, and animated me against the love he said he saw I had for with so much reason and humanity to my the wretch who would have betrayed me, weakness, that I doubt not of my perseverHis wife and he are my comforters, and I am under no more restraint in their company than if I were alone; and I doubt will take place of the remains of affection not but in a small time contempt and hatred to a rascal. I am, sir, your affectionate DORINDA.' reader,

ance.

MR. SPECTATOR,-I am the husband of a woman of merit, but am fallen in love, as they call it, with a lady of her acquaintance, who is going to be married to a gentleman who deserves her. I am in a trust relating to this lady's fortune, which makes my concurrence in this matter necessary; but I have so irresistible a rage and envy rise in me when I consider his future happiness, that against all reason, equity, and common justice, I am ever playing mean tricks to suspend the nuptials. I have no manner of hopes for myself; Emilia, for so I'll call her, is a woman of the most strict virtue; her lover is a gentleman whom of all others I could wish my friend; but envy and jealousy, though placed so unjustly, waste my very being; and, with the torment and sense of a demon, I am ever cursing what I cannot but approve. I wish it were the beginning of repentance, that I sit down and describe my present disposition with so hellish an aspect: but at present the destruction of these two excellent persons would be more welcome to me than their happiness. Mr. Spectator, pray let me have a paper on these terrible ground- 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I had the misforless sufferings, and do all you can to ex-tune to be an uncle before I knew my orcise crowds who are in some degree nephews from my nieces: and now we are possessed as I am. CANIBAL.' grown up to better acquaintance, they deny me the respect they owe. One upbraids me with being their familiar, another will hardly be persuaded that I am an uncle, a third calls me little uncle, and a fourth tells I have a brother-in-law whose son will win me there is no duty at all due to an uncle. all my affection, unless you shall think this worthy of your cognizance, and will be pleased to prescribe some rules for our future reciprocal behaviour. It will be worthy the particularity of your genius to lay down some rules for his conduct who was, as it were, born an old man; in which you will much oblige, sir, your most obedient servant,

T.

'CORNELIUS NEPOS.'

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have no other means but this to express my thanks to one man, and my resentment against another. My circumstances are as follow: I have been for five years last past courted by a gentleman of greater fortune than I ought to expect, as the market for women goes. You must, to be sure, have observed people who live in that sort of way, as all their friends reckon it will be a match, and are marked out by all the world for each other. n this view we have been regarded for some time, and I have above these three years loved him tenderly. As he is very careful of his fortune, I always thought he lived in a near manner, to lay up what he thought was wanting in my fortune to make up what he might expect in another. Within these few months I have observed No. 403.] Thursday, June 12, 1712. his carriage very much altered, and he has affected a certain air of getting me alone, and talking with a mighty profusion of passionate words, how I am not to be resisted longer, how irresistible his wishes are, and the like. As long as I have been acquainted with him, I could not on such occasions say downright to him, "You know you may make me yours when you please." But the other night he with great frankness and impudence explained to me, that he thought of me only as a mistress. I answered this declaration as it deserved; upon which he only doubled the terms on which he proposed my yielding. When my anger heightened upon him, he told me

Qui mores hominum multorum vidit--
Hor. Ars Poet. v. 142.

Of many men he saw the manners.
WHEN I Consider this great city in its
several quarters and divisions, I look upon
it as an aggregate of various nations dis-
tinguished from each other by their respec-
tive customs, manners, and interests. The
courts of two countries do not so much dif-
fer from one another, as the court and city,
in their peculiar ways of life and conversa-
tion. In short, the inhabitants of St. James's,
notwithstanding they live under the same
laws, and speak the same language, are a
distinct people from those of Cheapside,

who are likewise removed from those of the Temple on one side, and those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in their way of thinking and conversing together.

For this reason, when any public affair is upon the anvil, I love to hear the reflections that arise upon it in the several districts and parishes of London and Westminster, and to ramble up and down a whole day together, in order to make myself acquainted with the opinions of my ingenious countrymen. By this means I know the faces of all the principal politicians within the bills of mortality; and as every coffeehouse has some particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. The last progress that I made with this intention was about three months ago, when we had a current report of the king of France's death. As I foresaw this would produce a new face of things in Europe, and many curious speculations in our British coffee-houses, I was very desirous to learn the thoughts of our most eminent politicians on that occasion.

That I might begin as near the fountainhead as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in a buzz of politics. The speculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were so very much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a quarter of an hour.

I afterwards called in at St. Giles's, where I saw a board of French gentlemen sitting upon the life and death of their grand monarque. Those among them who had espoused the whig interest, very positively affirmed, that he departed this life about a week since, and therefore proceeded without any further delay to the release of their friends in the galleys, and to their own reestablishment; but, finding they could not agree among themselves, I proceeded on my intended progress.

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Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's I saw an alerte young fellow that cocked his hat upon a friend of his who entered just at the same time with myself, and accosted him after the following manner: Well, Jack, the old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the word. Now or never, boy. Up to the walls of Paris directly.' With several other deep reflections of the same nature.

I met with very little variation in the politics between Charing-cross and Coventgarden. And upon my going into Will's, I found their discourse was gone off from the death of the French king to that of monsieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and seve

ral other poets, whom they regretted on this occasion, as persons who would have obliged the world with very noble elegies on the death of so great a prince, and so eminent a patron of learning.

At a coffee-house near the Temple, I found a couple of young gentlemen engaged very smartly in a dispute on the succession to the Spanish monarchy. One of them seemed to have been retained as an advocate for the duke of Anjou, the other for his imperial majesty. They were both for regulating the title to that kingdom by the statute laws of England; but finding them going out of my depth, I passed forward to St. Paul's church-yard, where I listened with great attention to a learned man, who gave the company an account of the deplorable state of France during the minority of the deceased king.

I then turned on my right hand into Fishstreet, where the chief politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news, (after having taken a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for some time,) If,' says he, 'the king of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of mackerel this season: our fishery will not be disturbed by privateers, as it has been for these ten years past.' He afterwards considered how the death of this great man would affect our pilchards, and by several other remarks infused a general joy into his whole audience.

I afterwards entered a by-coffee-house, that stood at the upper end of a narrow lane, where I met with a nonjuror, engaged very warmly with a lace-man who was the great support of a neighbouring conventicle. The matter in debate was, whether the late French king was most like Augustus Cæsar or Nero. The controversy was carried on with great heat on both sides; and as each of them looked upon me very frequently during the course of their debate, I was under some apprehension that they would appeal to me, and therefore laid down my penny at the bar, and made the best of my way to Cheapside.

I here gazed upon the signs for some time before I found one to my purpose. The first object I met in the coffee-room was a person who expressed a great grief for the death of the French king: but upon explaining himself, I found his sorrow did not arise from the loss of the monarch, but from his having sold out of the bank about three days before he heard the news of it. Upon which a haberdasher, who was the oracle of the coffee-house, and had his circle of admirers about him, called several to witness that he had declared his opinion above a week before, that the French king was certainly dead; to which he added, that, considering the late advices we had received from France, it was impossible that it could be otherwise. As he was laying these together, and dictating to his hearers with great authority, there came in a gentleman from Garraway's, who told us

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