I have been led into this fpeculation by the characters I have heard of a country gentleman and his lady, who do not live many miles from Sir Roger. The wife is an old coquette, that is always hankering after the diverfions of the town; the husband a morose ruftic, that frowns and frets at the name of it. The wife is over-run with affectation, the hufband funk into brutality: the lady cannot bear the noife of the larks and nightingales, hates your tedious fummer days, and is fick at the fight of fhady woods and purling ftreams; the husband wonders how any one can be pleafed with the fooleries of plays and operas, and rails from morning to night at effenced fops and tawdry courtiers: The children are educated in thefe different notions of their parents. The fons follow the father about his grounds,

while the daughters read volumes of love-letters and romances to their mother. By this means it comes to pass, that the girls look upon their father as a clown, and the boys think their mother no better than she should be.

How different are the lives of Ariftus and Afpafia? The innocent vivacity of the one is tempered and compofed by the chearful gravity of the other. The wife grows wife by the difcourfes of the hufband, and the husband good-humoured by the converfations of the wife. Ariftus would not be fo amiable were it not for his Afpafia, nor Afpafia fo much efteemed were it not for her Ariftus. Their virtues are blended in their children, and diffufe through the whole family a perpetual spirit of benevolence, complacency, and fatisfaction.

PERS. SAT. V. v.71.

REAT mafters in painting never care for drawing people in the fashion; as very well knowing that the head-drefs, or periwig, that now prevails, and gives a grace to their por traitures at prefent, will make a very odd figure, and perhaps look monftrous in the eyes of pofterity. For this reafon they often reprefent an illuftrious perfon in a Roman habit, or in fome other drefs that never varies. I could wifh, for the fake of my country friends, that there was fuch a kind of everlasting drapery to be made ufe of by all who live at a certain diftance from the town, and that they would agree upon fuch fashions as thould never be liable to changes and innovations. For want of this ftanding drefs, a man who takes a journey into the country is as much furprifed, as one who walks in a gallery of old family pictures; and finds as great a variety of garbs and habits in the perfons he converfes with. Did they keep t› one constant dress, they would sometimes be in the fashion, which they never are as matters are managed at prefent. If instead of running after the mode,

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they would continue fixed in one certain habit, the mode would fome time or other overtake them, as a clock that ftands ftill is fure to point right once in twelve hours: in this cafe therefore I would advise them, as a gentleman did his friend who was hunting about the whole town after a rambling fellow, if you follow him you will never find him, but if you plant yourself at the corner of any one ftreet, I will engage it will not be long before you fee him.

I have already touched upon this fubject in a fpeculation which thews how cruelly the country are led aftray in following the town; and equipped in a ridiculous habit, when they fancy themfelves in the height of the mode. Since that fpeculation I have received a letter, which I there hinted at, from a gentleman who is now in the western circuit.

MR. SPECTATOR,

BEING a lawyer of the Middle

Temple, a Cornifhman by birth, I generally ride the western circuit for my health; and as I am not interrupted with clients, have leisure to make many obfervations

bfervations that escape the notice of my fellow-travellers.

hooped petticoat. The people, who were wonderfully ftartled at fuch a fight, all of them rofe up. Some ftared at the

top of this Itrange drefs. In the mean time the lady of the manor filled the area of the church, and walked up to her pew with an unfpeakable fatisfaction, amidst the whifpers, conjectures, and astonishments of the whole congre gation.

Not far from Salisbury I took notice of a juftice of peace's lady, who was at leaft ten years behind-hand in her drefs, but at the fame time as fine as hands could make her. She was flounced and furbelowed from head to foot; every ribbon was wrinkled, and every part of her garments in curl, fo that the looked like one of those animals which in the country we call Friezland hen.

Not many miles beyond this place I was informed that one of the last year's little muffs had by fome means or other ftraggled into thofe parts, and that all the women of fashion were cutting their old muffs in two, or retrenching them, according to the little model which was got among them. I cannot believe the report they have there, that it was fent down franked by a parliament-man in a little packet, but probably by next winter this fafhion will be at the height in the country, when it is quite out at London.

The greatest beau at our next county feffions was dreffed in a most monstrous faxen periwig, that was made in King William's reign. The wearer of it goes, it feems, in his own hair, when he is at home, and lets his wig lie in buckle for a whole half year, that he may put it on upon occafion to meet the judges in it. I must not here omit an adventure which happened to us in a country church upon the frontiers of Cornwall. As we were in the midft of the fervice, a lady who is the chief woman of the place, and had paffed the winter at London with her husband, entered the congregation in a little head-drefs, and a

Upon our way from hence we saw a young fellow riding towards us full gallop, with a bob wig and a black filken bag tied to it. He stopt short at the coach, to ask us how far the judges were behind us. His ftay was fo very fhort, that we had only time to obferve his new filk waistcoat, which was unbuttoned in feveral places to let us fee that he had a clean shirt on, which was ruffled down to his middle.

From this place, during our progress through the moft western parts of the kingdom, we fancied ourfelves in King Charles the Second's reign, the people having made very little variations in their drefs fince that time. The smartest of the country fquires appear fill in the Monmouth-cock, and when they go a wooing, whether they have any polt in the militia or not, they generally put on a red coat. We were, indeed, very much furprifed, at the place we lay at last night, to meet with a gentleman that had accoutered himself in a nightcap wig, a coat with long pockets, and fit fleeves, and a pair of fhoes with high fcollop tops; but we foon found by his converfation that he was a perfon who laughed at the ignorance and rufticity of the country people, and was refolved to live and die in the mode.

you

Sir, if think this account of my travels may be of any advantage to the public, I will next year trouble you with fuch occurrences as I fhall meet with in other parts of England. For I am informed, there are greater curiofities in the northern circuit than in the western; and that a fashion makes it's progrefs much flower into Cumberland than into Cornwall. I have heard in particular, that the Steenkirk arrived but two months ago at Newcastle, and that there are feveral commodes in thofe parts which are worth taking a journey thither to fee.

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N° CXXX.

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SEMPERQUE RECENTES

VIRG. EN. VII. v. 748.

SI was yesterday riding out in the fields with my friend Sir Roger, we faw at a little dittance from us a troop of Gipfies. Upon the first discovery of them, my friend was in fome doubt whether he fhould not exert the Justice of the Peace upon fuch a band of lawless vagrants; but not having his clerk with him, who is a neceflary counsellor on thefe occafions, and fearing that his poultry might fare the worfe for it, he let the thought drop; but at the fame rime gave me a particular account of the mifchiefs they do in the country, in ftealing people's goods and spoiling their fervants. If a tray piece of linen hangs upon an hedge,' fays Sir Roger, they are fure to have it; if the hog lofes his way in the fields, it is ten to one but he becomes their prey; our geefe cannot live in peace for them; if a man profecutes them with feverity, his hen-rooft is fure to pay for it; they generally fraggle into thefe parts about this time of the year; ⚫ and fet the heads of our fervant-maids fo agog for husbands, that we do not expect to have any business done as it fhould be whilft they are in the country. I have an honeft dairy-maid who 'croffes their hands with a piece of filver every fummer, and never fails being promifed the handfomeft young fellow in the parish for her pains. Your friend the butler has been fool enough to be feduced by them; and, though he is fure to lofe a knife, a fork, or a fpoon, every time his fortune is told him, generally fhuts himfelf up in the pantry with an old gipfey for above half an hour once in a twelvemonth. Sweethearts are the things they live upon, which they be ftow very plentifully upon all thofe that apply themselves to them. You fee now and then fome handfome young jades among them: the fluts have very often white teeth and black < eyes."

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Sir Roger obferving that I liftened

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with great attention to his account of a people who were fo intirely new to me, told me, that if I would they fhould tel us our fortunes. As I was very well pleased with the knight's proposal, we rid up and communicated our hands to them. A Caffandra of the crew, after having examined my lines very diligently, told me, that I loved a pretty maid in a corner, that I was a good woman's man, with fome other particulars which I do not think proper to relate. My friend Sir Roger alighted from his horfe, and expofing his palm to two or three that ftood by him, they crumpled it into all fhapes, and diligently fcanned every wrinkle that could be made in it; when one of them, who was older and more fun-burnt than the reft, told him, that he had a widow in his line of life: upon which the knight cried- Go, go, you are an idle bag

gage; and at the fame time fmiled upon me. The gipfey, finding he was not difpleafed in his heart, told him, after a farther inquiry into his hand, that his true-love was conftant, and that the fhould dream of him to-night: my old friend cried Pish, and bid her go

on.

The gipfy told him that he was a batchelor, but would not be fo long; and that he was dearer to fomebody than he thought: the knight ftill repeated, fhe was an idle baggage, and bid her go on. Ah, mafter!" fays the gipfy,' that roguifh leer of your's makes a pretty woman's heart ach; you have not that fimper about the mouth for nothing.' The uncouth gibberish with which all this was uttered, like the darkness of an oracle, made us the more attentive to it. To be short, the knight left the money with her that he had croffed her hand with, and got up again on his horse.

As we were riding away, Sir Roger told me, that he knew feveral fenfible people who believed these gipfies now and then foretold very ftrange things; and for half an hour together appeared

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