८ Mr. SPECTATOR, Mile-End-Green, March 6, 1711-12. ERE is a young man walks by our door every He looks up at my window, as if to ste me; and if I fteal towards it to peep at him, he turns another way, and looks frightened at finding what he was looking for. • The air is very cold; and pray let him know that if • he knocks at the door, he will be carry'd to the parlour fire, and I will come down foon after, and give • him an opportunity to break his mind. 6 1 am, SIR, Your humble fervant, • If I observe he cannot speak, I'll give him time to recover himself, and ask him how he does.' Dear Sir, I BEG you to print this without delay, and by the first opportunity give us the natural causes of longing in women; or put me out of fear that my ⚫ wife will one time or other be delivered of fomething • as monstrous as any thing that has yet appeared to the world; for they say the child is to bear a refem• blance of what was defir'd by the mother. I have • been married upwards of fix years, have had four ⚫ children, and my wife is now big with the fifth. • The expences she has put me to in procusing what • she has longed for during her pregnancy with them, ⚫ would not only have handsomly defray'd the charges ⚫ of the month, but of their education too; her fancy being fo exorbitant for the first year or two, as not to • confine itself to the usual objects of eatables and • drinkables, but running out after equipages and fur' niture, and the like extravagancies. To trouble you only with a few of them; when she was with child 6 6 6 of Tom, my eldest fon, the came home one day juft fainting, and told me she had been visiting a relation, • whose husband had made her a present of a chariot, and a stately pair of horses; and that she was pofi ، 6 ، tive she could not breathe a week longer, unless she took the air in the fellow to it of her own within that time: This, rather than lose an heir, I readily comply'd with. Then the furniture of her best room must be • instantly changed, or she should mark the child with • fome of the frightful figures in the old-fashion'd tapeftry. Well, the upholsterer was called, and her longing faved that bout. When she went with Molly, she had • fixed her mind upon a new set of plate, and as much china as would have furnished an India shop: These • also I chearfully granted, for fear of being father to an • Indian Pagod. Hitherto I found her demands rose upon every conceffion; and had she gone on, I had been ruined: But by good fortune, with her third, which was Peggy, the height of her imagination came down to the • corner of a venifon pasty, and brought her once even upon her knees to gnaw off the ears of a pig from the fpit. The gratifications of her palate were eafily preferred to those of her vanity; and fometimes a partridge or a quail, a wheat-ear, or the pestle of a lark, were • chearfully purchased; nay, I could be contented, tho' I ، ، ، ، were to feed her with green pease in April, or cherries • in May. But with the babe the now goes, she is turned ⚫ girl again, and fallen to eating of chalk, pretending twill make the child's skin white; and nothing will • ferve her but I must bear her company, to prevent its • having a fhade of my brown: In this, however I have ⚫ ventur'd to deny her. No longer ago than yesterday, as • we were coming to town, the faw a parcel of crows ⚫ so heartily at breakfast upon a piece of horfe-flesh, that • she had an invincible defire to partake with them, and (to my infinite surprise) begged the coachman to cut • her off a flice as if it were for himself, which the fellow • did; and as soon as the came home the fell to it with such 6 ، an appetite that the feemed rather to devour than eat • it. What her next fally will be, I cannot guess: but in the mean time my request to you is, that if there be any way to come at these wild unaccountable rovings of imagination by reason and argument, you'd speedily • afford us your affiftance. This exceeds the grievance of pin-money, and I think in every fettlement there • ought to be a clause inferted, that the father should be 3 • answer : • answerable for the longings of his daughter. But I shall impatiently expect your thoughts in this matter; and am, SIR, Your most obliged, and most faithful humble servant, Let me know whether you think the next child will • love Horses as much as Molly does China-Ware. N° 327 Saturday, March 15. ******* T -Major rerum mihi nafcitur ordo. Virg. Æn. 7. V. 45. A larger scene of action is display'd. W DRYDEN. E were told in the foregoing book how the evil spirit practised upon Eve as she lay afleep, in order to inspire her with thoughts of vanity, pride, and ambition. The author, who shews a wonderful art throughout his whole poem, in preparing the reader for the several occurences that arife in it, founds, upon the above-mentioned circumftance, the first part of the fifth book. Adam upon his awaking finds Eve still asleep, with an unusual discomposure in her looks. The posture, in which he regards her, is describ'd with a wonderful tenderness, as the whisper, with which he awakens her, is the softest that ever was convey'd to a lover's ear. His wonder was, to find unwaken'd Eve VOL. V. B My My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found, My glory, my perfection! glad I fee I cannot but take notice, that Milton, in the conference between Adam and Eve, had his eye very frequently upon the book of Canticles, in which there is a noble spirit of eastern poetry, and very often not unlike what we meet with in Homer, who is generally placed near the age of Solomon. I think there is no question but the poet in the preceding speech remember'd those two passages, which are spoken on the like occafion, and fill'd with the fame pleasing images of nature. My beloved Spake, and faid unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away; for lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the finging of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is beard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth ber green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good Smell. Arife, my love, my fair one, and come away. Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field, let us get up early to the vineyard, let us fee if the vine flourish, whether the tender grapes appear, and the pomegranates bud forth. His preferring the garden of Eden to that Where the Sapient king Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse, Thews that the poet had this delightful scene in his mind.Eve's dream is full of those high conceits engendring pride, which, we are told, the Devil endeavoured to instil into her. Of this kind is that part of it where the fancies herselfawaken'd by Adam in the following beautiful lines. Why sleep'st thou Eve? now is the pleasant time, 2 An injudicious poet would have made Adam talk thro the whole work in such sentiments as these: But flattery and falfhood are not the courtship of Milton's Adam, and could not be heard by Eve in the state of innocence, excepting only in a dream produc'd on purpose to taint her imagination. Other vain sentiments of the fame kind, in this relation of her dream, will be obvious to every reader. Tho' the catastrophe of the poem is finely presaged on this occafion, the particulars of it are fo artfully shadow'd, that they do not anticipate the story which follows in the ninth book. I shall only add, that tho' the vision itself is founded upon truth, the circumstances of it are full of that wildness and inconfiftency which are natural to a dream. Adam, conformable to his fuperior character for wisdom, instructs and comforts Eve upon this occafion. So chear'd be his fair spouse, and she was chear'd, The morning hymn is written in imitation of one of those pfalms, where, in the overflowings of gratitude B2 and |