which in a mind trained up in all the sentiments of honor and virtue became a very uneasy passion. He despaired of gaining an heiress of so great a fortune, and would rather have died than attempted it by any 5 indirect methods. Leonilla, who was a woman of the greatest beauty joined with the greatest modesty, entertained at the same time a secret passion for Florio, but conducted herself with so much prudence that she never gave him the least intimation of it. Florio was 10 now engaged in all those arts and improvements that are proper to raise a man's private fortune, and give him a figure in his country, but secretly tormented with that passion which burns with the greatest fury in a virtuous and noble heart, when he received a sud15 den summons from Leontine to repair to him into the country the next day. For it seems Eudoxus was so filled with the report of his son's reputation that he could no longer withhold making himself known to him. The morning after his arrival at the house of his 20 supposed father, Leontine told him that Eudoxus had something of great importance to communicate to him ; upon which the good man embraced him and wept. Florio was no sooner arrived at the great house that stood in his neighborhood but Eudoxus took him by 25 the hand, after the first salutes were over, and conducted him into his closet. He there opened to him the whole secret of his parentage and education, concluding after this manner: "I have no other way left of acknowledging my gratitude to Leontine than by mar30 rying you to his daughter. He shall not lose the

pleasure of being your father by the discovery I have made to you. Leonilla, too, shall be still my daughter; her filial piety, though misplaced, has been so exemplary that it deserves the greatest reward I can confer 5 upon it. You shall have the pleasure of seeing a great estate fall to you, which you would have lost the relish of had you known yourself born to it. Continue only to deserve it in the same manner you did before you were possessed of it. I have left your mother in the 10 next room. Her heart yearns toward you. She is making the same discoveries to Leonilla which I have made to yourself.

Florio was so overwhelmed with

this profusion of happiness that he was not able to make a reply, but threw himself down at his father's 15 feet, and amidst a flood of tears kissed and embraced his knees, asking his blessing, and expressing in dumb show those sentiments of love, duty, and gratitude that were too big for utterance. To conclude, the happy pair were married, and half Eudoxus's estate 20 settled upon them. Leontine and Eudoxus passed the remainder of their lives together; and received in the dutiful and affectionate behavior of Florio and Leonilla the just recompense, as well as the natural effects, of that care which they had bestowed upon them in their 25 education.1

1 Addison's feelings on finishing this paper are described in the following letter to Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu:

"DEAR SIR:-Being very well pleased with this day's Spectator, I cannot forbear sending you one of them, and desiring your opinion of the story in it. When you have a son I shall

be glad to be his Leontine, as my circumstances will probably be like his. I have within this twelvemonth lost a place of £2,000 per annum, an estate in the Indies of £14,000, and what is worse than all the rest, my mistress. Hear this and 5 wonder at my philosophy. I find they are going to take away my Irish place from me too; to which I must add that I have just resigned my fellowship and that stocks sink every day. If you have any hints or subjects, pray send me up a paper full. I long to talk an evening with you. I believe I shall 10 not go for Ireland this summer, and perhaps would pass a month with you, if I knew where. Lady Bellasis is very much your humble servant. Dick Steele and I often

15

remember you.

"I am, dear sir, yours eternally,

"July 21, 1711.

JOSEPH ADDISON.

**

XXII

PARTY FEELING

[No. 125.-Addison.

Tuesday, July 24.]

Ne, pueri, ne tanta animis assuescite bella:
Neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires.1

-Virgil.

My worthy friend, Sir Roger, when we are talking of the malice of parties, very frequently tells us an accident that happened to him when he was a school boy, which was at a time when feuds ran high between 5 the Roundheads and Cavaliers. This worthy knight, being then but a stripling, had occasion to inquire which was the way to St.* Anne's Lane, upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead of answering his question, called him a young popish cur, and asked 10 him who had made Anne a saint. The boy, being in some confusion, inquired of the next he met, which was the way to Anne's Lane; but was called a prickeared cur for his pains, and instead of being shown the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was 15 born, and would be one after he was hanged. "Upon this," says Sir Roger, "I did not think fit to repeat the

1 Do not, my children, accustom your minds to great conflicts nor turn your sturdy strength against the vitals of your country.

former question, but going into every lane of the neighborhood, asked what they called the name of that lane." By which ingenious artifice he found the place he inquired after, without giving offence to any party. 5 Sir Roger generally closes this narrative with reflections on the mischief that parties do in the country; how they spoil good neighborhood, and make honest gentlemen hate one another; besides that they manifestly tend to the prejudice of the land-tax, and the 10 destruction of the game.

There cannot a greater judgment befall a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to one another than 15 if they were actually two different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only with regard to those advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private evils which they produce in the heart of almost every par20 ticular person. This influence is very fatal both to men's morals and their understandings; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even

common sense.

A furious party spirit, when it rages in its full vio25 lence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints naturally breaks out in falsehood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancor, and extinguishes all 30 the seeds of good-nature, compassion, and humanity.