putting off for a rich heir, Madam,' faid fhe, you know there is no making children, who know they have eftates, attend their books.' ; Sempronia, by thefe arts, is loaded with prefents, importuned for her acquaintance, and admired by thofe who do not know the first taste of life, as a woman of exemplary good-breeding. But fure, to murder and to rob are lefs iniquities, than to raise profit by abuses, as irreparable as taking away life but more grievous, as making it laftingly unhappy. To rob a lady at play of half her fortune, is not fo ill, as giving the whole and herself to an unworthy hufband. But Sempronia can adr inifter confolation to an unhappy fair at home, by leading her to an agreeable gallant elfewhere. She then can preach the general condition of all the married world, and tell an unexperienced young woman the methods of foftening her affiction, and laugh at her fimplicity, and want of knowledge, with an " Oh! my dear, you will know better.'. The wickedness of Sempronia, one would think, fhould be fuperlative; but I cannot but efteem that of fome parents equal to it; I mean fuch as facrifice the greatest endowments and qualifications to bafe bargains. A parent who forces a child of a liberal and ingenious pirit into the arms of a clown or a blockhead, obliges her to a crime too odious for a name. It is in a degree the unnatural conjuretion of rational and brutal beings. Yet what is there fo common, as the bestowing an accomplished woman with fuch a difparity? And I could name crouds who lead miferable lives for want of knowledge, in their parents, of this maxim, that good-fenfe ard good-nature always go together. That which is attributed to fools, and called goodnature, is only an inability of obferving what is faulty, which turns, in marriage, into a fufpicion of every thing as fuch, from a confcioufne's of that inability • Mr. SPECTATOR, I AM intirely of your opinion with relation to the equestrian females, who affect both the masculine and feminine air at the fame time; and cannot forbear making a prefen ment against another order of them, who grow very numerous and powerful; and fince our language is not very capable of good compound words, I must be contented to call them only the Naked Shouldered.' Thefe beauties are not con⚫tented to make lovers wherever they appear, but they muft make rivals at the same time. Were you to fee Gatty walk the Park at high mall, you would expect thofe who followed her and those who met her would immediately draw their fwords for her. I hope, fir, you will provide for the future, that women may flick to their faces for doing any future mifchief, and not allow any but direct traders in beauty to expofe more than the fore-part of the neck, unless you please to allow this after-game to those who are very defective ⚫ in the charms of the countenance. I can fay, to my forrow, the prefent practice is very unfair, when to look back is death: and it may be faid of our beauties, as a great poet did of bullets, They kill and wound like Parthians as they fly." I fubmit this to your animadverfion; and am for the little while I have left, Your humble fervant, The languishing PHILANTHUS. P. S. Suppofe you mended my letter, and made a fimile about the porcupine, but I fubmit that alfo.' Ꭲ . And check thy rage, which must be rul'd or rule. CREECH. IT is a very common expreffion that fuch a one is very good-natured, but very paffionate. The expreffion indeed is very good-natured, to allow paffionatc people fo much quarter; but I think a paffionate man deferves the leaft indulgence imaginable. It is faid, it is foon over; that is, all the mifchief he does is quickly difpatched, which I think, is no great recommendation to favour. I have known one of these good-natured paffionate men fay in a mixed company, even to his own wife or child, fuch things as the most inveterate enemies of his family would not have fpoke, even in imagination. It is certain that quick fenfibility is infeparable from a ready understanding; but why fhould not that good understanding call to itself all its force on fuch occafions, to mafter that fudden inclination to anger? One of the greatest fouls now in the world is the most fubject by nature to anger, and yet fo famous for a conqueft of himself this way, that he is the known example when you talk of temper and command of a man's felf. To contain the fpirit of anger, is the worthieft difcipline we can put ourselves to. When a man has made any progrefs this way, a frivolous fellow in a paffion, is to him as contemptible as a froward child." It ought to be the study of every man, for his own quiet. and peace. When he ftands combustible and ready to. flame upon every thing that touches him, life is as uneafy to himself as it is to all about him. Syncropius leads, of all men living, the most ridiculous life; he is ever offending, and begging pardon. If his man enters the room without what he was fent for, That blockhead,' begins he gentlemen, I ask your pardon but fervants now a days'-The wrong plates are laid, they are thrown into the middle of the room; his wife ftands by in pain for him, which he fees in her face, and anfwers, as if he had heard all he was thinking: Why, what the devil! why do not you take care to give orders in these things?' His friends fit down to a taftelefs plenty of every thing, every minute expecting new infults from his impertinent paflions. In a word, to eat with, or vifit Syncropius, is no othert han going to fee him exercife his family, exercife their patience, and his own anger. It is monftrous that the shame and confufion in which this good-natured angry man muft needs behold his friends, while he thus lays about him, does not give him fo much reflection as to create an amendment. This is the moft fcandalous difufe of reason imaginable; all the harmless part of him is no more than that of a bulldog, they are tame no longer than they are not offended. One of thefe good-natured angry men fhal in an inftant, affemble together fo mary allufions to fecret circumstances, as are enough to diffolve the peace of all the families and friends he is acquainted with, in a quarter of an hour, and yet the next moment be the best natured man in the whole world. If you would fee paffion in its purity, without mixture of reafon, behold it reprefented in a mad hero, drawn by a mad poet. Nat. Lee makes his Alexander fay thus: Away, begone, and give a whirlwind room, "Or I will blow you up like duft! avaant; Madness but meanly reprefents my toil. Eternal difcord! Fury! revenge! difdain and indignation! Tear my fwoln breaft, make way for fire and tempeft. The ftorm is up, and my hot bleeding heart Splits with the rack, while paffions, like the wind, Rife up to heaven and put out all the stars.' Every paflionate fellow in town talks half the day with as little confiftency, and threatens things as much out of his power. The next difagreeable perfon to the outrageous gentleman, is one of a much lower order of anger, and he is what we commonly call a peevish fellow. A peevish fellow is one who has fome reafon in himself for being out of humour, or has a natural incapacity for delight, and therefore difturbs all who are happier than himself with pishes and pihaws, or other well-bred interjections, at every thing that is faid or done in his prefence. There should be phyfic mixed in the food of all which thefe fellows eat in good company. This degree of anger paffes, forfooth, for a delicacy of judgment, that will not admit of being easily pleased; but none above the character of wearing a peevish man's livery, ought to bear with his ill-manners. All things among men of fenfe and condition should pass the centre, and have the protection of the eye of reafon. No man ought to be tolerated in an habitual humour, whim, or particularity of behaviour, by any who do not wait upon him for bread. Next to the peevish fellow is the fnarler. This gentleman deals mightily in what we call the irony, and as these fort of people exert themfelves most against thofe below them, you fee their humour best, in their talk to their fervants. 'That is fo like you, you are a fine fellow, thou art the quickeft head-piece, and the like.' One would think the hectoring, the ftormning, the fullen, and all the different fpecies and fubordinations of the angry fhould be cured by knowing they live only as pardoned inen; and how pitiful is the condition of being only fuffered? But I am interrupted by the pleasanteft fcene of anger and the difappointment of it that I have ever known, which happened while I was yet writing, and I overheard as I fat in the back-room at a French bookfeller's There came into the hop a very learned man with an erect folemn air, and, though a perfon of great parts otherwife, flow in understanding any thing which makes against himself. The compofure of the faulty man, and the whimsical perplexity of him, that was juftiy angry, is perfectly new. After turning over many volumes, faid the feller to the buyer, Sir, you know I have long asked you to fend me back the first volume ⚫ of French fermons I formerly lent you.' Sir,' faid |