MR. SPECTATOR,

Yo

OUR fpeculations do not fo generally prevail over men's manners as I could with. A former paper of your's concerning the misbehaviour of people, who are neceffarily in each other's company in travelling, ought to have been a lafting admonition against tranfgreffions of that kind: but I had the fate of your Quaker, in meeting with a rude fellow in a stage-coach, who entertained two or three women of us, for there was no man befides himself, with language as indecent as ever was heard upon the water. The impertinent obfervations which the coxcomb made upon our shame and confufion were fuch, that it is an unspeakable grief to reflect upon them. As much as you have declaimed against duelling, I hope you will do us the justice to declare, that if the brute has courage enough to fend to the place where he faw us all alight together to get rid of him, there is not one of us but has a lover who shall avenge the infult. It would certainly be worth your confideration, to look into the frequent inisfortunes of this kind, to which the modeft and innocent are expofed, by the licentious behaviour of fuch as are as much strangers to good-breeding as to virtue. Could we avoid hearing what we do not approve, as eafily as we can feeing what is difagreeable, there were fome confolation; but fince in a box at a play, in an affembly of ladies, or even in a pew at church, it is in the power of a grofs coxcomb to utter what a woman cannot avoid hearing, how mifer.

able is her condition who comes within the power of fuch impertinents! and how neceffary is it to repeat invectives against fuch a behaviour! If the licen tious had not utterly forgot what it is to be modeft, they would know that of fended modeity labours under one of the greatest fufferings to which human life can be expofed. If one of these brutes could reflect thus much, though they want shame, they would be moved by their pity, to abhor an impudent behaviour in the prefence of the chafte and innocent. If you will oblige us with a Spectator on this fubject, and procure it to be pafted against every ftage-coach in Great Britain, as the law of the journey, you will highly oblige the whole fex, for which you have profeffed fo great an efteem; and in particular, the two ladies my late fellow-fufferers, and, Sir, your most humble fervant,

REBECCA RIDINGHOOD,

MR. SPECTATOR,

THE matter which I am now going

to fend you, is an unhappy story in low life, and will recommend itself, fo that you must excufe the manner of expreffing it. A poor idle drunken weaver in Spittlefields has a faithful laborious wife, who by her frugality and industry had laid by her as much money as purchafed her a ticket in the prefent lottery. She had hid this very privately in the bottom of a trunk, and had given her number to a friend and confident, who had promifed to keep the fecret, and bring her news of the fuccefs. The 3 N

poor adventurer was one day gone abroad, when her careless hufband, fufpecting the had faved fome money, fearches every corner, until at length he finds this fame ticket; which he immediately carries abroad, fells, and fquanders away the money without the wife's fufpecting any thing of the matter. A day or two after this, this friend, who was a woman, comes and brings the wife word, that the had a benefit of five hundred pounds. The poor creature overjoyed, flies up ftairs to her husband, who was then at work, and defires him to leave his loom for that evening, and come and drink with a friend of his and her's below. The man received this chearful invitation as bad husbands fometimes do, and after a crofs word or two, told her he would not come. His wife with tenderness renewed her importunity, and at length faid to him- My love! I have within thefe few months, unknown to you, fcraped together as much money as has bought us a ticket in the lottery, and now here is Mrs. Quick come to tell me, that it is come up this morning a five hundred pound prize.' The husband replies immediately. -You lye, you flut, you have no ticket, for I have fold it.' The poor woman upon this faints away in a fit, recovers, and is now run distracted. As she had no defign to defraud her husband, but was willing only to participate in his good fortune, every one pities her, but thinks her husband's punishment but just. This, Sir, is matter of fact, and would, if the perfons and circumstances were greater, in a well-wrought play be called Beautiful Diftrefs.' I have only sketched it out with chalk, and know a good hand can make a moving picture with worse materials. Sir, &c.

any one fingle part of the character of a notable woman. Whilft they fhould have been confidering the proper ingredients for a fack-poffet, you should hear a difpute concerning the magnetic virme of the loadtone, or perhaps the preffure of the atmosphere: their language is peculiar to themfelves, and they fcern to exprefs themselves on the meandt trifle with words that are not of a Latin derivation. But this were supportable till, would they fuffer me to enjoy an uninterrupted ignorance; but unless I fall in, with their abftra&ted ideas of things, as they call them, I muit not expect to fincke one pipe in quiet. In a late fit of the gout I complained of the pain of that distemper, when my niece Kitty begged leave to affure me, that whatever I might think, feveral great philofophers, both ancient and modern, were of opinion, that both pleafure and pain were imaginary diltinctions, and that there was no fuch thing as either in rerum natura. I have often heard them affirm, that the fire was not hot; and one day when I, with the authority of an old fellow, defred one of them to put my blue cleak on my knees, the antwered Sir, I will reach the cloak; but take notice, I do not do it as allowing your defcription; for it might as well be called yellow as blue; for colour is nothing but the various infractions of the rays of the fun. Mifs Molly told me one day, that to fay fnow was white, is allowing a vulgar error; for as it contains a great quantity of nitrous particles, it might more reafonably be fuppofed to be black." In short, the young huffeys would perfuade ine, that to believe one's eyes is a fure way to be deceived; and have often advised me, by no means, to truft any thing fo fallible as my fenfes. What I have to beg of you now is, to turn one fpeculation. to the due regulation of female literature, fo far at leaft, as to make it confiftent with the quiet of fuch whole fate it is to be liable to it's infults; and to tell as the difference between a gentleman that fhould make cheese-cakes and raife pafte, and a lady that reads Locke, and understands the mathematics. In which you will extremely oblige your hearty friend and humble fervant,

T

ABRAHAM THRIFTY,

N° CCXLIII

TARET SAPIENTIÆ.

I

Do not remember to have read any difcourfe written exprefsly upon the beauty and lovelinefs of virtue, without confidering it as a duty, and as the means of making us happy both now and hereafter. I defign therefore this fpeculation as an effay upon that subject, in which I fhall confider virtue no farther than as it is in itself of an amiable nature, after having premised, that I understand by the word Virtue fuch a general notion as is affixed to it by the writers of morality, and which by devout men generally goes under the name of religion, and by men of the world under the name of honour.

Hypocrify itself does great honour, or rather juftice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at fo much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the moft proper and effectual means to gain the love and esteem of mankind.

We learn from Hierocles, it was a common faying among the heathens, that the wife man hates nobody, but only loves the virtuous.

Tully has a very beautiful gradation of thoughts to fhew how amiable virtue is. We love a virtuous man, says he, who lives in the remoteft parts of the earth, though we are altogether out of the reach of his virtue, and can receive from it no manner of benefit; nay, one who died feveral ages ago, raifes a fecret fondness and benevolence for him in our minds, when we read his ftory: nay, what is ftill more, one who has been the enemy of our country, provided his wars were regulated by juftice and humanity, as in the inftance of Pyrrhus, whom Tully mentions on this occafion in oppofition to Hannibal. Such is the natural beauty and lovelinefs of virtue! Stoicism, which was the pedantry of

virtue, afcribes all good qualifications, of what kind foever, to the virtuous man. Accordingly Cato, in the cha racter Tully has left of him, carried matters fo far, that he would not allow any one but a virtuous man to be handfome. This indeed looks more like a philofophical rant than the real opinion of a wife man; yet this was what Cato very feriously maintained. In short, the Stoics thought they could not fufficiently represent the excellence of virtue, if they did not comprehend in the notion of it all poffible perfections; and therefore did not only fuppofe, that it was tranfcendently beautiful in itself, but that it made the very body amiable, and banished every kind of deformity from the perfon in whom it refided.

It is a common obfervation, that the moft abandoned to all fenfe of goodness, are apt to wish thofe who are related to them of a different character; and it is very obfervable, that none are more ftruck with the charms of virtue in the fair-fex, than thofe who by their very admiration of it are carried to a defire of ruining it.

A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful fex all over charms.

As virtue in general is of an amiable and lovely nature, there are fome particular kinds of it which are more fo than others, and thefe are fuch as difpofe us to do good to mankind. Temperance and abftinence, faith and devotion, are in themselves perhaps as laudable as any other virtues; but thofe which make a man popular and beloved, are justice, charity, munificence, and, in short, all the good qualities that render us beneficial to each other. For which reafon even an extravagant man, who has nothing else to recommend him but a falfe generofity, is often more beloved and, 3 N 2 elteemed

efteemed than a perfon of a much more finished character, who is defective in this particular.

The two great ornaments of virtue, which fhew her in the mott advantageous views, and make her altogether lovely, are chearfulnefs and good-nature. Thefe generally go together, as a man cannot be agreeable to others who is not ealy within himself. They are both very requifite in a virtuous mind, to keep out melancholy from the many ferious thoughts it is engaged in, and to hinder it's natural hatred of vice from fouring into feverity and cenforiousness.

If virtue is of this amiable nature, what can we think of those who can look upon it with an eye of hatred and ill-will, or can fuffer their averfion for a party to blot out all the merit of the perfon who is engaged in it? A man must be exceffively stupid, as well as ancharitable, who believes that there is no virtue but on his own fide, and that there are not men as honeft as himfelf who may differ from him in political principles. Men may oppofe one another in fome particulars, but ought not to carry their hatred to those qualities

which are of fo amiable a nature in themselves, and have nothing to do with the points in difpute. Men of virtue, though of different interefts, ought to confider themselves as more nearly united with one another, than with the vicious part of mankind, who embark with them in the fame civil concerns. We should bear the fame love towards a man of honour, who is a living antago nift, which Tully tells us in the forementioned paffage every one naturally does to an enemy that is dead. In short, we should efteem virtue though in a foe, and abhor vice though in a friend.

I fpeak this with an eye to thofe cruel treatments which men of all fides are apt to give the characters of those who do not agree with them. How many perfons of undoubted probity, and ex emplary virtue, on either fide, are blackened and defamed? how many men of honour exposed to public obloquy and reproach? Those therefore who are either the inftruments or abettors in fuch infernal dealings, ought to be looked upon as perfons who make use of religion to promote their caufe, not of their cause to promote religion.

COVENT GARDEN, DEC. 7.

MR. SPECTATOR,

I a you

Cannot, without a double injustice,

faction which a whole clan of virtuofos have received from those hints which you have lately given the town on the cartons of the inimitable Raphael. It should be methinks the business of a Spectator to improve the pleasures of fight, and there cannot be a more immediate way to it than recommending the study and observation of excellent drawings and pictures. When I firit went to view thofe of Raphael which you have celebrated, I must confefs I was but barely pleafed; the next time I iked them better; but at laft, as I grew better acquainted with them, I fell deeply in love with them, like wife fpe.ches they funk deep into my heart; for you know, Mr. Spectator, that a

с

of wit, fhall nevertheless give you a far greater and more lafting fatisfaction: juft fo it is in a picture that is smartly touched, but not well studied; one may call it a witty picture, though the painter in the mean time may be in danger of being called a fool. On the other hand, a picture that is thoroughly understood in the whole, and well performed in the particulars, that is, begun on the foundation of geometry, carried on by the rules of perspective, architecture, and anatomy, and perfected by a good harmony, a juft and natural colouring, and fuch paffions and expreffions of the mind as are almost peculiar to Raphael; this is what you may juftly ftile a wife picture, and which feldom fails to strike