“I could give you an account of a thousand other unsuccessful attempts, particularly of one which I made some years since upon an old woman, whom I had certainly borne away with flying colors, if her relations had not come pouring in to her assistance from all parts of England; nay, I believe I should have got her at last, had not she been carried off by an hard frost."

As Will's transitions are extremely quick, he turned from Sir Roger, and, applying himself to me, told me there was a passage in the book1 I had considered last Saturday, which deserved to be writ in letters of gold; and taking out a pocket Milton, read the following lines, which are part of one of Adam's speeches to Eve after the fall:

Oh! why did God,
Creator wise, that peopled highest heav'n
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect

Of Nature, and not fill the world at once
With men, as angels, without feminine,
Or find some other way to generate

Mankind? This mischief had not then befall'n,
And more that shall befall; innumerable
Disturbances on earth through female snares,

And straight conjunction with this sex: for either
He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake:

Or, whom he wishes most shall seldom gain,
Through her perverseness; but shall see her gain'd
By a far worse; or if she love, withheld

By parents; or his happiest choice too late
Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock bound

To a fell adversary, his hate or shame;

Which infinite calamity shall cause

To human life, and household peace confound.2

1. Addison had been and still was publishing in The Spectator a series of detailed comment and criticism on Milton's Paradise

Lost. He had just discussed Book x.

2. Paradise Lost, x. 888-908.

As I was sitting in my chamber and thinking on a subject for my next "Spectator," I heard two or three irregular bounces at my landlady's door, and upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring whether the philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door answered very innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately recollected that it was my good friend Sir Roger's voice; and that I had promised to go with him on the water1 to Spring Garden, in case it proved a good evening. The Knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the staircase, but told me that if I was speculating he would stay below till I had done. Upon my coming down, I found all the children of the family got about my old friend, and my landlady herself, who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him, being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy upon the head, and bidding him be a good child, and mind his book.

1. They owe their gardens to vice. 2. That is, by the Thames, which was a favorite way to more remote parts of the city. The Spring Gardens was the name of a pleasure resort on the Surrey or south side of the Thames,

We were no sooner come to the Temple Stairs,1 but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking towards it, "You must know," says Sir Roger, "I never make use of anybody to row me, that has not either lost a leg or an arm. I would rather bate him a few

strokes of his oar than not employ an honest man that has been wounded in the Queen's service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a barge, I would not put a fellow in my livery that had not a wooden leg.

3

My old friend, after having seated himself, and trimmed the boat with his coachman, who, being a very sober man, always serves for ballast on these occasions, we made the best of our way for Vauxhall.2 Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg, and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which passed in that glorious action, the Knight, in the triumph of his heart, made several reflections on the greatness of the British nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of Popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe; that London Bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the seven wonders of the world: with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman.

1. A landing on the Thames near the Temple.

2. That is the bridge of that name.

3. Twenty years before, May 19, 1692, the combined English and Dutch fleets had defeated the French at La Hogue, on the northwest coast of France.

with the choirs of birds that sang upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Roger told me it put him in mind of a little coppice by his house in the country, which his chaplain used to call an aviary of nightingales. "You must understand," says the Knight, "there is nothing in the world that pleases a man in love so much as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator! the many moonlight nights that I have walked by myself, and thought on the Widow by the music of the nightingales!" He here fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, when a mask,1 who came behind him, gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a bottle of mead with her. But the Knight being startled at so unexpected a familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted in his thoughts of the Widow, told her she was a wanton baggage, and bid her go about her business.

We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale and a slice of hung beef. When we had done eating ourselves, the Knight called a waiter to him, and bid him carry the remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I perceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I ratified the Knight's commands with a peremptory look.

1. A woman wearing a mask, a common appurtenance at the time. It has been refined down to a veil in these days.