this Prefumption; but the Juftice I, as a Spectator, owe your Character, places me above the want of an Excufe. Candor and Openness of Heart, which fhine in all your Words and Actions, exacts the highest Esteem from all who have the Honour to know You, and a winning Condefcenfion to all fubordinate to You, made Business a Pleafure to those who executed it under You, at the fame Time that it heightened Her Majesty's Favour to all who had the Happiness of having it convey'd through Your Hands: A Secretary of State, in the Interests of Mankind, joined with that of his FellowSubjects, accomplish'd with a great Facility and Elegance in all the Modern as well as Ancient Languages, was a happy and proper Member of a Miniftry, by whofe Services Your Sovereign and and Country are in fo high and flou. rishing a Condition, as makes all other Princes and Potentates powerful or inconfiderable in Europe, as they are Friends or Enemies to Great Britain. The Importance of those great Events which happened during that Administration, in which Your Lordship bore fo important a Charge, will be acknow. ledg'd as long as Time fhall endure; I fhall not therefore attempt to rehearse those Illuftrious Paffages, but give this Application a more private and particular Turn, in defiring Your Lordship would continue Your Favour and Patronage to me, as You are a Gentleman of the most polite Literature, and perfectly accomplished in the Knowledge of Books and Men, which makes it necessary to befeech Your Indulgence to the following Leaves, and the Author N° 395. VO L. VI. Tuesday, June 3 1712. -Quod nunc ratio eft, Impetus ante fuit. Ovid. B EWARE of the Ides of March, faid the Roman Augur to Julius Cæfar: Beware of the Month of May, fays the British Spectator to his fair Country-women. The Caution of the first was unhappily neglected, andCefar's Confidence cost him his Life. I am apt to flatter my felf that my pretty Readers had much more Regard to the Advice I gave them, fince I have yet received very few Accounts of any notorious Trips made in the last Month. BUT tho' I hope for the beft, I fhall not pronounce too pofitively in this Point, 'till I have feen forty Weeks well over, at which Period of Time, as my good Friend Sir ROGER has often told me, he has more Business as a Juftice of Peace, among the diffolute young People in the Country, than at any other Seafon of the Year. NEITHER must I forget a Letter which I received near a Fortnight fince from a Lady, who, it feems, could hold out no longer, telling me fhe looked upon the Month as then out, for that The had all along reckoned by the New Stile. On the other hand, I have great reafon to believe, from feveral angry Letters which have been fent to me by disappointed Lovers, that my Advice has been of very fignal Service to the fair Sex, who, according to the old Proverb, were Forewarn'd forearm'd. ONE of thefe Gentlemen tells me, that he would have given me an hundred Pounds, rather than I fhould have publish'd that Paper; for that his Miftrefs, who had promifed to explain her self to him about the Beginning of May, upon reading that Difcourfe told him that he would give him her Anfwer in June. THYRSIS acquaints me, that when he defir'd Sylvia to take a Walk in the Fields, fhe told him the Spectator had forbidden her. ANOTHER of my Correfpondents, who writes himself Mat. Meager, complains, that whereas he conftantly used to Breakfaft with his Miftrefs upon Chocolate, going to wait upon her the first of May, he found his ufual Treat very much changed for the worfe, and has been forced to feed ever fince upon Green Tea. As I begun this Critical Season with a Caveat to the Ladies, I fhall conclude it with a Congratulation, and do moft heartily with them Joy of their happy Deliverance. THEY may now reflect with Pleasure on the Dangers they have efcaped, and look back with as much Satisfaction on their Perils that threatned them, as their Great Grandmothers did formerly on the burning Plough-fhares, after having paffed through the Ordeal Tryal. The Infligati ons |