rather from the society than the solitude of speculative. There should certainly, thereit. To be obliged to receive and return fore, in each country, be established a club visits from and to a circle of neighbours, of the persons whose conversations I have who, through diversity of age or inclina-described, who for their own private, as tions, can neither be entertaining nor ser- also public emolument, should exclude, viceable to us, is a vile loss of time, and a and be excluded, all other society. Their slavery from which a man should deliver attire, should be the same with their huntshimself, if possible: for why must I lose the men's, and none should be admitted into remaining part of my life, because they this green conversation piece, except he have thrown away the former part of had broke his collar-bone thrice. A broken theirs? It is to me an insupportable afflic-rib or two might also admit a man withtion, to be tormented with the narrations of a set of people, who are warm in their expressions of the quick relish of that pleasure which their dogs and horses have a more delicate taste of. I do also in my heart detest and abhor that damnable doc trine and position of the necessity of a bumper, though to one's own toast; for though it be pretended that these deep potations are used only to inspire gayety, they certainly drown that cheerfulness which would survive a moderate circulation. If at these meetings it were left to every stranger either to fill his glass according to his own inclination, or to make his retreat when he finds he has been sufficiently obedient to that of others, these entertainments would be governed with more good sense, and consequently with more good-breeding, than at present they are. Indeed, where any of the guests are known to measure their fame or pleasure by their glass, proper exhortations might be used to these to push their fortunes in this sort of reputation; but, where it is unseasonably insisted on to a modest stranger, this drench may be said to be swallowed with the same necessity, as if it had been tendered in the horn for that purpose, with this aggravating circumstance, that distresses the enter tainer's guest in the same degree as it relieves his horses. To attend without impatience an account of five-barred gates, double ditches, and precipices, and to survey the orator with desiring eyes, is to me extremely difficult, but absolutely necessary, to be upon tolerable terms with him: but then the occasional bursting out into laughter, is of all other accomplishments the most requisite. I confess at present I have not that command of these convulsions as is necessary to be good company; therefore I beg you would publish this letter, and let me be known all at once for a queer fellow and avoided. It is monstrous to me, that we who are given to reading and calm conversation should ever be visited by these roarcrs: but they think they themselves, as neighbours, may come into our rooms with the same right that they and their dogs hunt in our grounds. out the least opposition. The president must necessarily have broken his neck, and have been taken up dead once or twice: for the more maims this brotherhood shall have met with, the easier will their conversation flow and keep up; and when any one of these vigorous invalids had finished his narration of the collar-bone, this naturally would introduce the history of the ribs. Besides, the different circumstances of their falls and fractures would help to prolong and diversify their relations. There should also be another club of such men who have not succeeded so well in maiming themselves, but are however in the constant pursuit of these accomplishments. I would by no means be suspected, by what I have said, to traduce in general the body of fox-hunters; for whilst I look upon a reasonable creature full speed after a pack of dogs by way of pleasure, and not of business, I shall always make honourable mention of it. 'But the most irksome conversation of al. others I have met with in the neighbourhood, has been among two or three of your travellers, who have overlooked men and manners, and have passed through France and Italy with the same observation tha: the carriers and the stage-coachmen do through Great Britain; that is, their stops and stages have been regulated according to the liquor they have met with in their passage. They indeed remember the names of abundance of places, with the particular fineries of certain churches; but their distinguishing mark is certain prettinesses of foreign languages, the meaning of which they could have better expressed in their own. The entertainment of these fine observers Shakspeare has described to consist "In taking of the Alps and Appennines, and then concludes with a sigh: "Now this is worshipful society!" 'I would not be thought in all this to hate such honest creatures as dogs; I am only unhappy that I cannot partake in their diversions. But I love them so well, as dogs, that I often go with my pockets stuffYour institution of clubs I have always ed with bread to dispense my favours, or admired, in which you constantly endea- make my way through them at neighbours' voured the union of the metaphorically de- houses. There is in particular a young funct, that is, such as are neither serviceable hound of great expectation, vivacity, and to the busy and enterprising part of man- enterprise, that attends my flights wher kind, nor entertaining to the retired and lever he spies me, This creature observes my countenance, and behaves himself accordingly. His mirth, his frolic, and joy, upon the sight of me has been observed, and I have been gravely desired not to encourage him so much, for it spoils his parts; but I think he shows them sufficiently in the several boundings, friskings, and scour ings, when he makes his court to me: but I foresee in a little time he and I must keep company with one another only, for we are fit for no other in these parts. Having informed you how I do pass my time in the country where I am, I must proceed to tell you how I would pass it, had I such a fortune as would put me above the observance of ceremony and custom. storm. After this we would communicate always of opinion every man must be so, to I was called upon by the younger part of a 'MR. SPECTATOR,-About two years ago country family, by my mother's side related to me, to visit Mr. Campbell,* the dumb man; for they told me that that was chiefly what brought them to town, having heard Wonders of him in Essex. I who always wanted faith in matters of that kind, was not easily prevailed on to go; but, lest they should take it ill, I went with them; when, to my surprise, Mr. Campbell related all their past life; in short, had he not been prevented, such a discovery would have come out as would have ruined the next My scheme of a country life then should be as follows. As I am happy in three or four very agreeable friends, these I would design of their coming to town, viz. buying constantly have with me; and the freedom wedding clothes. Our names-though he we took with one another at school and the never heard of us before-and we endeavoured to conceal-were as familiar to him #university, we would maintain and exert upon all occasions with great courage. as to ourselves. To be sure, Mr. SpectaThere should be certain hours of the day tor, he is a very learned and wise man. to be employed in reading, during which Being impatient to know my fortune, havtime it should be impossible for any one of ing paid my respects in a family Jacobus, us to enter the other's chamber, unless by ral other things, that in a year and nine he told me, after his manner, among sevethe trash or treasure we had met with, months I should fall ill of a fever, be given with our own reflections upon the matter; over by my physicians, but should with the justness of which we would controvert much difficulty recover; that, the first time with good-humoured warmth, and never I took the air afterwards, I should be adspare one another out of that complaisant dressed to by a young gentleman of a plenspirit of conversation, which makes others tiful fortune, good sense, and a generous affirm and deny the same matter in a quar- spirit. Mr. Spectator, he is the purest ter of an hour. If any of the neighbouring man in the world, for all he said is come to gentlemen, not of our turn, should take it pass, and I am the happiest she in Kent. in their heads to visit me, I should look have been in quest of Mr. Campbell these upon these persons in the same degree enethree months, and cannot find him out. mies to my particular state of happiness, Now, hearing you are a dumb man too, I as ever the French were to that of the pub-thought you might correspond, and be able lic, and I would be at an annual expense to tell me something; for I think myself in spies to observe their motions. When-highly obliged to make his fortune, as he ever I should be surprised with a visit, as has mine. It is very possible your worI hate drinking, I would be brisk in swill- ship, who has spies all over this town, can ing bumpers, upon this maxim, that it is inform me how to send to him. If you can, better to trouble others with my imperti-I beseech you be as speedy as possible, and nence, than to be troubled myself with you will highly oblige your constant reader theirs. The necessity of an infirmary and admirer, makes me resolve to fall into that project; and as we should be but five, the terrors of an involuntary separation, which our number cannot so well admit of, would make us exert ourselves in opposition to all the particulars mentioned in your institution of that equitable confinement. This my way of life I know would subject me to the imputation of a morose, covetous, and sin- No. 475.] Thursday, September 4, 1712. gular fellow. These and all other hard words, with all manner of insipid jests, and all other reproach, would be matter of mirth to me and my friends: besides, I would destroy the application of the epi-sideration, counsel cannot rule. thets morose and covetous, by a yearly Ir is an old observation, which has been relief of my undeservedly necessitous neigh-made of politicians who would rather inbours, and by treating my friends and do- gratiate themselves with their sovereign, mestics with a humanity that should ex- than promote his real service, that they press the obligation to lie rather on my * Duncan Campbell announced himself to the public side; and as for the word singular, I was as a Scotch highlander, gifted with the second sight. VOL. II. 29 DULCIBELLA THANKLEY.' Ordered, That the inspector I employ about wonders, inquire at the Golden-Lion, opposite to the Half-Moon tavern in Drurylane, into the merits of this silent sage, and report accordingly. T. -Quæ res in se neque consilium, neque modum immediately gave me an inventory of her jewels and estate, adding, that he was resolved to do nothing in a matter of such consequence without my approbation. Finding he would have an answer, I told him if he could get the lady's consent, he had mine. This is about the tenth match, which, to my knowledge, Will has consulted his friends upon, without ever opening his mind to the party herself. accommodate their counsels to his inclina- | upon so strange a question; upon which he tions, and advise him to such actions only as his heart is naturally set upon. The privy counsellor of one in love must observe the same conduct, unless he would forfeit the friendship of the person who desires his advice. I have known several odd cases of this nature. Hipparchus was going to marry a common woman, but being resolved to do nothing without the advice of his friend Philander, he consulted him upon the occasion. Philander told him his mind freely, and represented his mistress to him in such strong colours, that the next morning he received a challenge for his pains, and before twelve o'clock was run through the body by the man who had asked his advice. Celia was more prudent on the like occasion. She desired Leonilla to give her opinion freely upon the young fellow who made his addresses to her. Leonilla, to oblige her, told her, with great frankness, that she looked upon him as one of the most worthless-Celia, foreseeing what a character she was to expect, begged her not to go on, for that she had been privately married to him above a fortnight. The truth of it is, a woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes. When she has made her own choice, for form's sake, she sends a conge d' elire to her friends. I have been engaged in this subject by the following letter, which comes to me from some notable young female scribe, who, by the contents of it, seems to have carried matters so far, that she is ripe for asking advice: but as I would not lose her good will, nor forfeit the reputation which I have with her for wisdom, I shall only communicate the letter to the public, without returning any answer to it. him dance. He is 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Now, sir, the thing is this; Mr. Shapely is the prettiest gentleman about town. He is very tall, but not too tall neither. He dances like an angel. His mouth is made I do not know how, but it is the prettiest that I ever saw in my life. He is always laughing, for he has an infinite deal of wit. If you did but thousand pretty fancies, and I am sure, if see how he rolls his stockings! He has a If we look into the secret springs and you saw him, you would like him. motives that set people at work on these a very good scholar, and can talk Latin as occasions, and put them upon asking ad- fast as English. I wish you could but see vice which they never intend to take; I Now you must understand, look upon it to be none of the least, that poor Mr. Shapely has no estate; but how they are incapable of keeping a secret can he help that, you know? And yet my friends which is so very pleasing to them. A girl are so unreasonable as to be always longs to tell her confidant that she hopes to teasing me about him, because he has no be married in a little time; and, in order to estate; but I am sure he has what is better talk of the pretty fellow that dwells so than an estate; for he is a good-natured, inmuch in her thoughts, asks her very genious, modest, civil, tall, well-bred, handgravely, what she would advise her to do some man; and I am obliged to him for his in a case of so much difficulty. Why else civilities ever since I saw him. I forgot to should Melissa, who had not a thousand tell you that he has black eyes, and looks pounds in the world, go into every quarter upon me now and then as if he had tears in of the town to ask her acquaintance, whe-them. And yet my friends are so unreather they would advise her to take Tom sonable; that they would have me be unTownly, that made his addresses to her with an estate of five thousand a year. It is very pleasant, on this occasion, to hear the lady propose her doubts, and to see the pains she is at to get over them. like to come at. civil to him. I have a good portion which they cannot hinder me of, and I shall be fourteen on the 29th day of August next, and am therefore willing to settle in the world as soon as I can, and so is Mr. Shapely. But every body I advise with here is poor Mr. Shapely's enemy. I desire therefore you will give me your advice, for I know you are a wise man; and if you advise me well, I am resolved to follow it. I heartily wish you could see him dance; and am, sir, B. D. your most humble servant, I must not here omit a practice which is in use among the vainer part of our sex, who will often ask a friend's advice in relation to a fortune whom they are never Will Honeycomb, who is now on the verge of threescore, took me aside not long since, and asked me in his most serious look, whether I would advise him to marry my lady Betty Single, who, by the way, is one of the greatest fortunes No. 476.] Friday, September 5, 1712. about town. I stared him full in the face he was, or pretended to be, deaf and dumb, and succeeded in making a fortune to himself by practising for some years on the credulity of the vulgar in the ignominious character of a fortune-teller. 'He loves your Spectators mightily.' C. Lucidus ordo. Hor. Ars Poet. 41. AMONG my daily papers which I bestow on the public, there are some which are written with regularity and method, and others that run out into the wildness of those compositions which go by the name of essays. As for the first, I have the whole scheme of the discourse in my mind before I set pen to paper. In the other kind of writing it is sufficient that I have several thoughts on a subject, without troubling myself to range them in such order, that they may seem to grow out of one another, and be disposed under the proper heads. Seneca and Montaigne are patterns for writing in this last kind, as Tully and Aristotle excel in the other. When I read an author of genius who writes without method, I fancy myself in a wood that abounds with a great many noble objects, rising one among another in the greatest confusion and disorder. When I read a methodical discourse, I am in a regular plantation, and can place myself in its several centres, so as to take a view of all the lines and walks that are struck from them. You may ramble in the one a whole day together, and every moment discover something or other that is new to you; but when you have done, you will have but a confused, imperfect notion of the place: in the other your eye commands the whole prospect, and gives you such an idea of it as is not easily worn out of the memory. Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them. want of method in the thoughts of my honest countrymen. There is not one dispute in ten which is managed in those schools of politics, where, after the three first sentences, the question is not entirely lost. Our disputants put me in mind of the scuttle-fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him until he becomes invisible. The man who does not know how to methodise his thoughts, has always to borrow a phrase from the Dispensary, a barren superfluity of words;' the fruit is lost amidst the exuberance of leaves. Tom Puzzle is one of the most eminent immethodical disputants of any that has fallen under my observation. Tom has read enough to make him very impertinent: his knowledge is sufficient to raise doubts, but not to clear them. It is a pity that he has so much learning, or that he has not a great deal more. With these qualifications Tom sets up for a freethinker, finds a great many things to blame in the constitution of his country, and gives shrewd intimations that he does not believe another world. In short, Puzzle is an atheist as much as his parts will give him leave. He has got about half a dozen common-place topics, into which he never fails to turn the conversation, whatever was the occasion of it. Though the matter in debate be about Douay or Denain, it is ten to one but half his discourse runs upon the unreasonableness of bigotry and priest-craft. This makes Mr. Puzzle the admiration of all those who have less sense than himself, Method is of advantage to a work, both and the contempt of all those who have in respect to the writer and the reader. In more. There is none in town whom Tom regard to the first, it is a great help to his dreads so much as my friend Will Dry. invention. When a man has planned his Will, who is acquainted with Tom's logic, discourse, he finds a great many thoughts when he finds him running off the question, rising out of every head, that do not offer cuts him short with a "What then? We themselves upon the general survey of a allow all this to be true; but what is it to subject. His thoughts are at the same time our present purpose?" I have known Tom more intelligible, and better discover their eloquent half an hour together, and triumphdrift and meaning, when they are placed ing, as he thought, in the superiority of the in their proper lights, and follow one an- argument, when he has been nonplussed other in a regular series, than when they on a sudden by Mr. Dry's desiring him to are thrown together without order and con- tell the company what it was that he ennexion. There is always an obscurity in deavoured to prove. In short, Dry is a man confusion; and the same sentence that would of a clear methodical head, but few words, have enlightened the reader in one part and gains the same advantage over Puzzle of a discourse, perplexes him in another. that a small body of regular troops would For the same reason, likewise, every gain over a numberless undisciplined_mithought in a methodical discourse shows litia. itself in its greatest beauty, as the several figures in a piece of painting receive new -An me ludit amabilis C. grace from their disposition in the picture. No. 477.] Saturday, September 6, 1712. The advantages of a reader from a methodical discourse are correspondent with those of the writer. He comprehends every thing easily, takes it in with pleasure, and retains it long. Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood. I, who hear a thousand coffee-house debates every day, am very sensible of this. Insania? audire et videor pios Quos et aquæ subeunt et auræ. -Does airy fancy cheat Hor. Od. iv. Lib. 3. 5. My mind, well pleas'd with the deceit? And wander through the happy grove, 'SIR,-Having lately read your essay on its own producing. There is another cirthe Pleasures of the Imagination, I was cumstance in which I am very particular, so taken with your thoughts upon some of or, as my neighbours call me, very whimsiour English gardens, that I cannot forbear cal: as my garden invites into it all the birds troubling you with a letter upon that sub-of the country, by offering them the conject. I am one, you must know, who am veniency of springs and shades, solitude looked upon as a humourist in gardening. I and shelter, I do not suffer any one to dehave several acres about my house which I stroy their nests in the spring, or drive call my garden, and which a skilful gar- them from their usual haunts in fruit-time; dener would not know what to call. It is I value my garden more for being full of a confusion of kitchen and parterre, orch-blackbirds than cherries, and very frankly ard and flower-garden, which lie so mixed give them fruit for their songs. By this and interwoven with one another, that if a means I have always the music of the seaforeigner, who had seen nothing of our coun- son in its perfection, and am highly detry, should be conveyed into my garden at lighted to see the jay or the thrush hopping his first landing, he would look upon it as a about my walks, and shooting before my natural wilderness, and one of the unculti-eyes across the several little glades and alvated parts of our country. My flowers leys that I pass through, I think there are grow up in several parts of the garden in as many kinds of gardening as of poetry: the greatest luxuriancy and profusion. I your makers of parterres and flower-garam so far from being fond of any particular dens are epigrammatists and sonnetteers one, by reason of its rarity, that if I meet in this art; contrivers of bowers and grottos, with any one in a field which pleases me, treillages and cascades, are romance wriI give it a place in my garden. By this ters. Wise and London are our heroic means, when a stranger walks with me, he poets; and if, as a critic, I may single out is surprised to see several large spots of any passage of their works to commend, I ground covered with ten thousand different shall take notice of that part in the upper colours, and has often singled out flowers garden at Kensington, which was at first that he might have met with under a com- nothing but a gravel-pit. It must have mon hedge, in a field, or in a meadow, as been a fine genius for gardening that could some of the greatest beauties of the place. have thought of forming such an unsightly The only method I observe in this particu-hollow into so beautiful an area, and to lar, is to range in the same quarter the products of the same season, that they may make their appearance together, and compose a picture of the greatest variety. There is the same irregularity in my plantations, which run into as great a wilderness as their natures will permit. I take in none that do not naturally rejoice in the soil; and am pleased, when I am walking in a labyrinth of my own raising, not to know whether the next tree I shall meet with is an apple or an oak, an elm or a pear-tree. My kitchen has likewise its particular quarters assigned it; for, besides the wholesome luxury which that place abounds with, I have always thought a kitchen-garden a more pleasant sight than the finest orangery or artificial greenhouse. I love to see every thing in its perfection; and am more pleased to survey my rows of coleworts and cabbages, with a thousand nameless pot-herbs, springing up in their full fragrancy and verdure, than to see the tender plants of foreign countries kept alive by artificial heats, or withering in an air and soil that are not adapted to them. I must not omit, that there is a fountain rising in the upper part of my garden, which forms a little wandering rill, and administers to the pleasure as well as to the plenty of the place. I have so conducted it, that it visits most of my plantations; and have taken particular care to let it run in the same manner as it would do in an open field, so that it generally passes through banks of violets and primroses, plats of willow or other plants, that seem to be of have hit the eye with so uncommon and agreeable a scene as that which it is now wrought into. To give this particular spot of ground the greatest effect, they have made a very pleasing contrast; for as on one side of the walk you see this hollow basin, with its several little plantations, lying so conveniently under the eye of the beholder, on the other side of it there appears a seeming mount, made up of trees rising one higher than another, in proportion as they approach the centre. A spectator, who has not heard this account of it, would think this circular mount was not only a real one, but that it had been actually scooped out of that hollow space which I have before mentioned. I never yet met with any one, who has walked in this garden, who was not struck with that part of it which I have here mentioned. As for myself, you will find, by the account which I have already given you, that my compositions in gardening are altogether after the Pindaric manner, and run into the beautiful wildness of nature, without affecting the nicer elegancies of art. What I am now going to mention will, perhaps, deserve your attention more than any thing I have yet said. I find that, in the discourse which I spoke of at the beginning of my letter, you are against filling an Engfish garden with evergreens: and indeed I am so far of your opinion, that I can by no means think the verdure of an evergreen comparable to that which shoots out annually, and clothes our trees in the summer season. But I have often wondered that |