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Jam cras hesternum consumpsimus; ecce aliud cras
Egerit hos annos, et semper paulum erit ultra.
Nam quamvis prope te, quamvis temone sub uno,
Vertentem sese frustra sectabere canthum.

Pers. Sat. 5. v. 64.

Pers. From thee both old and young, with profit learn
The bounds of good and evil to discern.

Carn. Unhappy he who does this work adjourn,
And to to-morrow would the search delay:
His lazy morrow will be like to-day.

Pers. But is one day of ease too much to borrow?
Corn. Yes, sure; for yesterday was once to-morrow.
That yesterday is gone, and nothing gain'd;
And all thy fruitless days will thus be drain'd:
For thon hast more to-morrows yet to ask,
And wilt he ever to begin thy task:

Who, like the hindmost chariot wheels, art curst,
Still to be near, but ne'er to reach the first-Dryden.

of two and twenty, and dodged with me above thirty years. I have loved her till she is grown as grey as a cat, and am with much ado become the master of her person, such as it is at present. She is however in my eye a very charming old woman. We often lament that we did not marry sooner, but she has nobody to blame for it but herself. You know very well that she would never think of me whilst she had a tooth in her head. I have put the date of my passion, anno amoris trigesimo primo, instead of a posy on my wedding ring. I expect you should send me a congratulatory letter, or, if you please, an epithalamium upon this occasion. Mrs. Martha's and yours eternally, SAM HOPEWELL.'

In order to banish an evil out of the world, that does not only produce great uneasiness to private persons, but has also a very bad influence on the public, I shall endeavour to show the folly of demurrage, from two or three reflections which I earnestly recommend to the thoughts of my fair readers.

ages in demurring. Had she nine hundred years good, she might hold out to the conversion of the Jews before she thought fit to be prevailed upon. But, alas! she ought to play her part in haste, when she considers that she is suddenly to quit the stage, and make room for others.

As my correspondents upon the subject of love are very numerous, it is my design, if possible, to range them under several heads, and address myself to them at different times. The first branch of them, to whose service I shall dedicate this paper, are those that have to do with women of dilatory tempers, who are for spinning out the time of courtship to an immoderate length, without being able either to close with their lovers, or to dismiss them. I have many letters by me filled with_comFirst of all, I would have them seriously plaints against this sort of women. In one think on the shortness of their time. Life of them no less a man than a brother of the is not long enough for a coquette to play all coif tells me, that he began his suit vicesimo her tricks in. A timorous woman drops into nono Caroli secundi, before he had been a her grave before she has done deliberating. twelve-month at the Temple; that he pro-Were the age of man the same that it was secuted it for many years after he was called before the flood, a lady might sacrifice half to the bar; that at present he is a sergeant a century to a scruple, and be two or three at law; and notwithstanding he hoped that matters would have been long since brought to an issue, the fair one still demurs-I am so well pleased with this gentleman's phrase, that I shall distinguish this sect of women by the title of Demurrers. I find by another letter from one that calls himself Thyrsis, that his mistress has been demur- In the second place, I would desire my ring above these seven years. But among female readers to consider, that as the term all my plaintiffs of this nature, I most pity of life is short, that of beauty is much the unfortunate Philander, a man of a con- shorter. The finest skin wrinkles in a few stant passion and plentiful fortune, who sets years, and loses the strength of its colourforth that the timorous and irresolute Syl-ings so soon, that we have scarce time to via has demurred till she is past child- admire it. I might embellish this subject bearing. Strephon appears by his letter to with roses and rainbows, and several other be a very choleric lover, and irrecoverably ingenious conceits, which I may possibly smitten with one that demurs out of self-reserve for another opportunity. interest. He tells me with great passion that she has bubbled him out of his youth; that she drilled him on to five and fifty, and that he verily believes she will drop him in his old age, if she can find her account in another. I shall conclude this narrative with a letter from honest Sam Hopewell, a very pleasant fellow, who it seems has at last married a demurrer. I must only premise, that Sam, who is a very good bottlecompanion, has been the diversion of his friends, upon account of his passion, ever since the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-one.

DEAR SIR,-You know very well my passion for Mrs. Martha, and what a dance she has led me. She took me out at the age

There is a third consideration which I would likewise recommend to a demurrer, and that is the great danger of her falling in love when she is about threescore, if she cannot satisfy her doubts and scruples before that time. There is a kind of latter spring, that sometimes gets into the blood of an old woman, and turns her into a very odd sort of an animal. I would therefore have the demurrer consider what a strange figure she will make, if she chances to get over all difficulties, and comes to a final resolution in that unseasonable part of her life.

I would not however be understood, by any thing I have here said, to discourage that natural modesty in the sex, which renders a retreat from the first approaches of

after the body is cast off and thrown aside. As an argument to confirm this their doctrine, they observe, that a lewd youth who goes on in a continued course of voluptuousness, advances by degrees into a libidinous old man; and that the passion survives in the mind when it is altogether dead in the body; nay, that the desire grows more violent, and (like all other habits) gathers

a lover both fashionable and graceful. All that I intend is, to advise them, when they are prompted by reason and inclination, to demur only out of form, and so far as decency requires. A virtuous woman should reject the first offer of marriage, as a good man does that of a bishopric; but I would advise neither the one nor the other to persist in refusing what they secretly approve. I would in this particular propose the ex-strength by age at the same time that it ample of Eve to all her daughters, as Milton has represented her in the following passage, which I cannot forbear transcribing entire, though only the twelve last lines are to my present purpose.

The rib he form'd and fashion'd with his hands:
Under his forming hands a creature grew,
Man-like, but diff'rent sex; so lovely fair,
That what seem'd fair in all the world, seem'd now
Mean, or in her summ'd up, in her contain'd,
And in her looks; which from that time infus'd
Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before;
And into all things from her air inspir'd
The spirit of love and amorous delight.

She disappear'd, and left me dark: I wak'd
To find her, or for ever to deplore
Her loss, and other pleasures all abjure;
When out of hope, behold her, not far off,
Such as I saw her in my dream, adorn'd
With what all earth or heaven could bestow
To make her amiable. On she came,
Led by her heav'nly Maker, though unseen,
And guided by his voice, nor uninform'd
Of nuptial sanctity and marriage rites:
Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.

I, overjoy'd, could not forbear aloud:

"This turn hath made amends: thou hast fulfill'd
Thy words, Creator, bounteous and benign!
Giver of all things fair; but fairest this

Of all thy gifts, nor enviest. I now see
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself."-

She heard me thus, and though divinely brought,
Yet innocence and virgin modesty,

Her virtue, and the conscience of her worth,
That would be woo'd, and not unsought be won,
Not obvious, not obtrusive, but retir'd
The more desirable; or, to say all.
Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought,
Wrought in her so, that seeing me she turn'd.
I follow'd her: she what was honour knew,
And with obsequious majesty approv'd
My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower
I led her blushing like the morn

Paradise Lost, viii. 469-511.

No. 90.] Wednesday, June 13, 1711.

-Magnus sine viribus ignis

Virg. Georg. iii. 99.

has no power of executing its own purposes. If, say they, the soul is the most subject to these passions at a time when it has the least instigations from the body, we may well suppose she will still retain them when she is entirely divested of it. The very substance of the soul is festered with them, the gangrene is gone too far to be ever cured; the inflammation will rage to all eternity.

In this therefore, (say the Platonists,) consists the punishment of a voluptuous man after death. He is tormented with desires which it is impossible for him to gratify; solicited by a passion that has neither objects nor organs adapted to it. He lives in a state of invincible desire and impotence, and always burns in the pursuit of what he always despairs to possess. It is for this reason (says Plato) that the souls of the dead appear frequently in cemeteries, and hover about the places where their bodies are buried, as still hankering after their old brutal pleasures, and desiring again to enter the body that gave them an opportunity of fulfilling them.

Some of our most eminent divines have made use of this Platonic notion, so far as it regards the subsistence of our passions after death, with great beauty and strength of reason. Plato indeed carries the thought very far when he grafts upon it his opinion of ghosts appearing in places of burial. Though I must confess, if one did believe that the departed souls of men and women wandered up and down these lower regions, and entertained themselves with the sight of their species, one could not devise a more proper hell for an impure spirit than that which Plato has touched upon.

he attempted to drink it.

Incassum furit The ancients seem to have drawn such In all the rage of impotent desire, a state of torments in the description of They feel a quenchless flame, a fruitless fire.' Tantalus, who was punished with the rage THERE is not, in my opinion, a consi- of an eternal thirst, and set up to the chin deration more effectual to extinguish inor-in water that fled from his lips whenever dinate desires in the soul of man, than the notions of Plato and his followers upon that subject. They tell us, that every passion which has been contracted by the soul during her residence in the body, remains with her in a separate state; and that the soul in the body, or out of the body, differs no more than the man does from himself when he is in his house, or in open air. When therefore the obscene passions in particular have once taken root, and spread themselves in the soul, they cleave to her inseparably, and remain in her for ever,

Virgil who has cast the whole system of Platonic philosophy, so far as it relates to the soul of man, into beautiful allegories, in the sixth book of his neid gives us the punishment of a voluptuary after death, not unlike that which we are here speaking of:

-Lucent genealibus altis

Aurea fulcra toris, epulæque ante ora paratæ
Regifico luxu: furiarum maxima juxtà
Accubat, et manibus prohibet contingere mensas:
Exurgitque facem attollens, atque intonat ore.
ÆR. vi. 604

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sheets, with my head (which was indeed the only part I could move) upon a very high pillow: this was no sooner done, but my two female friends came into bed to me in their finest night-clothes. You may saw a couple of the most beautiful women easily guess at the condition of a man that in the world undrest and abed with him, without being able to stir hand or foot. I begged them to release me, and struggled all I could to get loose, which I did with so much violence, that about midnight they both leaped out of the bed, crying out they were undone. But seeing me safe, they took their posts again, and renewed their raillery. endeavours were lost, I composed myself Finding all my prayers and as well as I could, and told them, that if they would not unbind me, I would fail asleep between them, and by that means disgrace them for ever. was impossible; could I have been disposed to it, they would have prevented me by several little ill-natured caresses and endearments which they bestowed upon me. As much devoted as I am to woman-kind, I would not pass such another night to be master of the whole sex. My reader will doubtless be curious to know what became of me the next morning. Why truly my bedfellows left me an hour before day, and told me, if I would be good and lie still, they would send somebody to take me up as soon as it was time for me to rise. Accordingly about nine o'clock in the morning an old woman came to unswathe me. I bore all this very patiently, being resolved to take my revenge of my tormentors, and to keep no measures with them as soon as I was at liberty; but upon asking my old woman what was become of the two ladies, she told me she believed they were by that time within sight of Paris, for that they went away in a coach and six before five o'clock in the morning."

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THOUGH the subject I am now going foundation of a comedy, I cannot forbear upon would be much more properly the inserting the circumstance which pleased of the loves of a family in town, which me in the account a young lady gave me shall be nameless; or rather, for the better of Mr. and Mrs. Such-a-one, I shall call sound and elevation of the history, instead them by feigned names. Without further preface, you are to know, that within the liberties of the city of Westminster lives the Lady Honoria, a widow about the age of forty, of a healthy constitution, gay temper, and elegant person. She dresses a

I wish I could repeat the little circumstances of a conversation of the four lovers with the spirit in which the young lady I had my account from, represented it at a visit where I had the honour to be present; but it seems Dick Crastin, the admirer of Honoria, and Tom Tulip, the pretender to Flavia, were purposely admitted together by the ladies, that each might show the other that her lover had the superiority in the accomplishments of that sort of crea ture whom the sillier part of women call a fine gentleman. As this age has a much more gross taste in courtship, as well as in every thing else, than the last had, these gentlemen are instances of it in their different manner of application. Tulip is ever making allusions to the vigour of his person, the sinewy force of his make; while Crastin professes a wary observation of the turns of his mistress's mind.-Tulip gives himself the air of a resistless ravisher, Crastin practises that of a skilful lover. Poetry is the inseparable property of every man in love; and as men of wit write verses on those occasions, the rest of the world repeat the verses of others. These servants of the ladies were used to imitate their manner of conversation, and allude to one another, rather than interchange discourse in what they said when they met. Tulip the other day seized his mistress's hand, and repeated out of Ovid's Art of Love,

little too much like a girl, affects a childish | surviving beau of the last age, and Tom alfondness in the tone of her voice, sometimes most the only one that keeps up that order a pretty sullenness in the leaning of her of men in this. head, and now and then a downcast of her eyes on her fan. Neither her imagination nor her health would ever give her to know that she is turned of twenty; but that in the midst of these pretty softnesses, and airs of delicacy and attraction, she has a tall daughter within a fortnight of fifteen, who impertinently comes into the room, and towers so much towards woman, that her mother is always checked by her presence, and every charm of Honoria droops at the entrance of Flavia. The agreeable Flavia would be what she is not, as well as her mother Honoria; but all their beholders are more partial to an affectation of what a person is growing up to, than of what has been already enjoyed, and is gone for ever. It is therefore allowed to Flavia to look forward, but not to Honoria to look back. Flavia is no way dependent on her mother with relation to her fortune, for which reason they live almost upon an equality in conversation; and as Honoria has given Flavia to understand, that it is ill-bred to be always calling mother, Flavia is as well pleased never to be called child. It happens by this means, that these ladies are generally rivals in all places where they appear; and the words mother and daughter never pass between them but out of spite. Flavia one night at a play observing Honoria draw the eyes of several in the pit, called to a lady who sat by her, and bid her ask her mother to lend her her snuff-box for a moment. Another time, when, a lover of Honoria was on his knees beseeching the favour to kiss her hand, Flavia rushing into the room, kneeled down by him and asked her blessing. Several of these contradictory acts of duty have raised between them such a coldness, that they generally converse when they are in mixed company by way of talking at one another, and not to one another. Honoria is ever complaining of a certain sufficiency in the young women of this age, who assume to themselves an authority of carrying all things before them, as if they were possessors of the esteem of mankind, and all who were but a year before them in the world, were neglected or deceased. Flavia upon such provocation, is sure to observe, that there are people who can resign nothing, and know not how to give up what they know they cannot hold; that there are those who will not allow youth their follies, not because they are themselves past them, but because they love to continue in them. These beauties rival each other on all occasions; not that they have always had the same lovers, but each has kept up a vanity to show the other the charms of her lover. Dick Crastin and Tom Tulip, among many others, have of late been pretenders in this family: Dick to Honoria, Tom to Flavia. Dick is the only Horace.

Tis I can in soft battles pass the night,
Yet rise next morning vigorous for the fight,
Fresh as the day, and active as the light."
Upon hearing this, Crastin, with an air
of deference, played with Honoria's fan,
and repeated,

Sedley has that prevailing gentle art,
That can with a resistless charm impart
The loosest wishes to the chastest heart:
Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire,
Between declining virtue and desire,
Till the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away,
In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day."*

When Crastin had uttered these verses with a tenderness which at once spoke passion and respect, Honoria cast a triumphant glance at Flavia, as exulting in the elegance of Crastin's courtship, and upbraiding her with the homeliness of Tulip's. Tulip understood the reproach, and in return began to applaud the wisdom of old amorous gentlemen, who turned their mistress's imagination as far as possible from what they had long themselves forgot, and ended his discourse with a sly commendation of the doctrine of Platonic love; at the same time he ran over, with a laughing eye, Crastin's thin legs, meagre looks, and spare body. The old gentleman immediately left the room with some disorder,

* Lord Rochester's Imitation of the first Satire of

and the conversation fell upon untimely passion, after-love, and unseasonable youth. Tulip sung, danced, moved before the glass, led his mistress half a minuet, hummed

Celia the fair, in the bloom of fifteen !

In answer to my fair disciple, whom I am very proud of, I must acquaint her and the rest of my readers, that since I have called out for help in my catalogue of a lady's library, I have received many letters upon that head, some of which I shall give

when there came a servant with a letter to an account of. him, which was as follows:

In the first class, I shall take notice of those which come to me from eminent 'SIR,-I understand very well what you booksellers, who every one of them menmeant by your mention of Platonic love. Ition with respect the authors they have shall be glad to meet you immediately in Hyde-park, or behind Montague-house, or attend you to Barn-elms, or any other fashionable place that's fit for a gentleman to die in, that you shall appoint for, sir,

Your most humble servant,
RICHARD CRASTIN.'

Tulip's colour changed at the reading of this epistle; for which reason his mistress snatched it to read the contents. While she was doing so, Tulip went away; and the ladies now agreeing in a common calamity, bewailed together the danger of their lovers. They immediately undressed to go out, and took hackneys to prevent mischief; but, after alarming all parts of the town, Crastin was found by his widow in his pumps at Hyde-park, which appointment Tulip never kept, but made his escape into the country. Flavia tears her hair for his inglorious safety, curses and despises her charmer, and is fallen into love with Crastin: which is the first part of the history of the rival mother.

No. 92.] Friday, June 15, 1711.

Convive prope dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum diversa palato; Quid dem? Quid non dem?

IMITATED.

R.

Her. Lib. 2 Ep. ii. 61.

-What would you have me do,
When out of twenty I can please not two?-
One likes the pheasant's wing, and one the leg:
The vulgar boil, the learned roast an egg;
Hard task to hit the palate of such guests.

Pope.

printed, and consequently have an eye to their own advantage more than to that of the ladies. One tells me, that he thinks it absolutely necessary for women to have true notions of right and equity, and that therefore they cannot peruse a better book than Dalton's Country Justice. Another thinks they cannot be without The Complete Jockey. A third observing the curiosity and desire of prying into secrets, which he tells me is natural to the fair sex, is of opinion this female inclination, if well directed, might turn very much to their advantage, and therefore recommends to me Mr. Mede upon the Revelations. A fourth lays it down as an unquestioned truth, that a lady cannot be thoroughly accomplished who has not read The Secret Treaties and Negotiations of Marshal d'Estrades. Mr. Jacob Tonson, junior, is of opinion, that Bayle's Dictionary might be of very great use to the ladies, in order to make them general scholars. Another, whose name I have forgotten, thinks it highly proper that every woman with child should read Mr. Wall's History of Infant Baptism; and another is very importunate with me to recommend to all my female readers The finishing Stroke; being a Vindication of the Patriarchal Scheme, &c.

In the second class, I shall mention books which are recommended by husbands, if I may believe the writers of them. Whether or no they are real husbands or personated ones I cannot tell; but the books they recommend are as follow. A Paraphrase on the History of Susannah. Rules to keep Lent. The Christian's Overthrow preLOOKING Over the late packets of let-vented. A Dissuasive from the Play-house. ters which have been sent to me, I found The Virtues of Camphire, with Directions the following: to make Camphire Tea. The Pleasures of a Country Life. The Government of the Tongue. A letter dated from Cheapside, desires me that I would advise all young wives to make themselves mistresses of Wingate's Arithmetic, and concludes with a postscript, that he hopes I will not forget the Countess of Kent's Receipts

MR. SPECTATOR,-Your paper is a part of my tea-equipage, and my servant knows my humour so well, that calling for my breakfast this morning, (it being past my usual hour,) she answered, The Spectator was not yet come in; but that the teakettle boiled, and she expected it every moment. Having thus in part signified to you the esteem and veneration which I have for you, I must put you in mind of the catalogue of books which you have promised to recommend to our sex; for I have deferred furnishing my closet with authors, till I receive your advice in this particular, being your daily disciple and humble servant, LEONORA,'

I may reckon the ladies themselves as a third class among these my correspondents and privy-counsellors. In a letter from one of them, I am advised to place Pharamond at the head of my catalogue, and, if I think proper, to give the second place to Cassandra. Coquetilla begs me not to think of nailing women upon their knees with

Two celebrated French romances, written by M La Calprenede.

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