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No. 156.] Wednesday, August 29, 1711. | well with herself. A little spite is natural

Sed tu simul obligasti

Perfidum votis capat, enitescis
Pulchrior multo-Hor. Lib. 2, Od. viii. 5.

-But thou,

When once thou hast broke some tender vow,
All perjur'd, dost more charming grow!

To make a woman's man, he must not be a man of sense, or a fool; the business is to entertain, and it is much better to have a faculty of arguing, than a capacity of judging right. But the pleasantest of all the women's equipage are your regular visitants; these are volunteers in their service without hopes of pay or preferment. It is enough that they can lead out from a public place, that they are admitted on a public day, and can be allowed to pass away part of that heavy load, their time, in the company of the fair. But commend me above all others to those who are known for your ruiners of ladies; these are the choicest spirits which our age produces. We have several of these irresistible gentlemen among us when the company is in town. These fellows are accomplished with the knowledge of the ordinary occurrences about court and town, have that sort of good-breeding which is exclusive of all morality, and consists only in being publicly decent, privately dissolute.

to a great beauty: and it is ordinary to snap up a disagreeable fellow lest another should have him. That impudent toad Bareface fares well among all the ladies he converses with, for no other reason in the world but that he has the skill to keep them from explanation with one another. Did they I Do not think any thing could make a know there is not one who likes him in her pleasanter entertainment, than the history heart, each would declare her scorn of him of the reigning favourites among the wo- the next moment; but he is well received men from time to time about this town. In by them because it is the fashion, and opsuch an account we ought to have a faith- position to each other brings them insensiful confession of each lady for what she bly into an imitation of each other. What liked such and such a man, and he ought adds to him the greatest grace is, that the to tell us by what particular action or pleasant thief, as they call him, is the most dress he believed he should be most suc-inconstant creature living, has a wonderful cessful. As for my part, I have always deal of wit and humour, and never wants made as easy a judgment when a man something to say; besides all which, he has dresses for the ladies, as when he is equip- a most spiteful dangerous tongue if you ped for hunting or coursing. The woman's should provoke him. man is a person in his air and behaviour quite different from the rest of our species. His garb is more loose and negligent, his manner more soft and indolent; that is to say, in both these cases there is an apparent endeavour to appear unconcerned and careless. In catching birds the fowlers have a method of imitating their voices, to bring them to the snare; and your women's men have always a similitude of the creature they hope to betray in their own conversation. A woman's man is very knowing in all that passes from one family to another, has pretty little officiousness, is not at a loss what is good for a cold, and it is not amiss if he has a bottle of spirits in his pocket in case of any sudden indisposition. Curiosity having been my prevailing passion, and indeed the sole entertainment of my life, I have sometimes made it my business to examine the course of intrigues as well as the manners and accomplishments of such as have been most successful that way. In all my observation, I never knew a man of good understanding a general favourite; some singularity in his behaviour, some whim in his way of life, and what would have made him ridiculous among the men, has recommended him to the other sex. I should be very sorry to offend a people so fortunate as these of whom I am speaking; but let any one look over the old beaux, and he will find the man of success was remarkable for quarrelling impertinently for their sakes, for dressing unlike the rest of the world, or passing his days in an insipid assiduity about the fair sex to gain the figure he made amongst them. Add to this, that he must have the reputation of being well with other women, to please any one woman of gallantry; for you are to know, that there is If you see a man more full of gesture than a mighty ambition among the light part of ordinary in a public assembly, if loud upon the sex to gain slaves from the dominion of no occasion, if negligent of the company others. My friend Will Honeycomb says around him, and yet laying wait for destroy it was a common bite with him, to laying by that negligence, you may take it for suspicions that he was favoured by a lady's granted that he has ruined many a fair enemy, that is, some rival beauty, to be lone. The woman's man expresses himself

It is wonderful how far a fond opinion of herself can carry a woman, to make her have the least regard to a professed known woman's man; but as scarce one of all women who are in the tour of gallantries ever hears any thing of what is the common sense of sober minds, but are entertained with a continual round of flatteries, they cannot be mistresses of themselves encugh to make arguments for their own conduct from the behaviour of these men to others It is so far otherwise, that a general fame for falsehood in this kind, is a recommendation; and the coxcomb, loaded with favours of many others, is received like a victor that disdains his trophies, to be a victim to the present charmer.

wholly in that motion which we call strut- and accomplishments. But it is not, meting. An elevated chest, a pinched hat, a thinks, so very difficult a matter to make measurable step, and a sly surveying eye, a judgment of the abilities of others, espeare the marks of him. Now and then you see cially of those who are in their infancy. a gentleman with all these accomplishments; My common-place book directs me on this but, alas, any one of them is enough to undo occasion to mention the dawning of greatthousands; when a gentleman with such ness in Alexander, who being asked in his perfections adds to it suitable learning, youth to contend for a prize in the Olympic there should be public warning of his resi-games, answered he would, if he had kings dence in town, that we may remove our wives and daughters. It happens some times that such a fine man has read all the miscellany poems, a few of our comedies, and has the translation of Ovid's Epistles by heart. Oh if it were possible that such a one could be as true as he is charming! But that is too much, the women will share such a dear false man: a little gallantry to hear him talk one would indulge one's self in, let him reckon the sticks of one's fan, say something of the Cupids in it; and then call one so many soft names which a man of his learning has at his fingers'-ends. There sure is some excuse for frailty, when attacked by such a force against a weak woman.' Such is the soliloquy of many a lady one might name, at the sight of one of those who make it no iniquity to go on from day to day in the sin of womanslaughter.

to run against him. Cassius, who was one of the conspirators against Cæsar, gave as great a proof of his temper, when in his childhood he struck a play-fellow, the son of Sylla, for saying his father was master of the Roman people. Scipio is reported to have answered, (when some flatterers at supper were asking him what the Romans would do for a general after his death,) Take Marius.' Marius was then a very boy, and had given no instances of his valour; but it was visible to Scipio from the manners of the youth, that he had a soul formed for the attempt and execution of great undertakings. I must confess I have very often with much sorrow bewailed the misfortune of the children of Great Britain, when I consider the ignorance and undiscerning of the generality of schoolmasters. The boasted liberty we talk of is but a mean reward for the long servitude, the many It is certain, that people are got into a heart-aches and terrors, to which our childway of affectation, with à manner of over-hood is exposed in going through a gramlooking the most solid virtues, and admiring mar-school. Many of these stupid tyrants the most trivial excellences. The woman exercise their cruelty without any manner is so far from expecting to be contemned for being a very injudicious silly animal, that while she can preserve her features and her mien, she knows she is still the object of desire; and there is a sort of secret ambition, from reading frivolous books, and keeping as frivolous company, each side to be amiable in perfection, and arrive at the characters of the Dear Deceiver and the Perjured Fair.

C.

No. 157.] Thursday, August 30, 1711.

-Genius, natale comes qui temperat astrum,
Natura Deus humanæ, mortalis in unum.-
Quodque caput.-
Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. ii. 187.

of distinction of the capacities of children, or the intention of parents in their behalf. There are many excellent tempers which are worthy to be nourished and cultivated with all possible diligence and care, that were never designed to be acquainted with Aristotle, Tully, or Virgil; and there are as many who have capacities for understanding every word those great persons have writ, and yet were not born to have any relish of their writings. For want of this common and obvious discerning in those who have the care of youth, we have so many hundred unaccountable creatures every age whipped up into great scholars, that are for ever near a right understanding, and will never arrive at it. These are the scandal of letters, and these are generally the men who are to teach others. The sense of shame and honour is enough to keep the world itself in order without corporal I AM very much at a loss to express by punishment, much more to train the minds any word that occurs to me in our language of uncorrupted and innocent children. It that which is understood by indoles in Latin. happens, I doubt not, more than once in a The natural disposition to any particular year, that a lad is chastised for a blockart, science, profession, or trade, is very head, when it is a good apprehension that much to be consulted in the care of youth, makes him incapable of knowing what his and studied by men for their own conduct teacher means. A brisk imagination very when they form to themselves any scheme often may suggest an error, which a lad of life. It is wonderfully hard indeed for a could not have fallen into, if he had been man to judge of his own capacity impar-as heavy in conjecturing as his master in tially. That may look great to me which may appear little to another, and I may be carried by fondness towards myself so far, as to attempt things too high for my talents

IMITATED.
-That directing pow'r,

Who forms the genius in the natal hour:
That God of nature, who, within us still,
Inclines our action, not constrains our will.

Pope.

explaining. But there is no mercy even towards a wrong interpretation of his meaning, the sufferings of the scholar's body are to rectify the mistakes of his mind.

I am confident that no boy, who will not thing as killing a man to cure him of a disbe allured to letters without blows, will temper; when he comes to suffer punishever be brought to any thing with them.ment in that one circumstance, he is brought A great or good mind must necessarily be below the existence of a rational creature, the worse for such indignities; and it is a and is in the state of a brute that moves sad change, to lose of its virtue for the im-only by the admonition of stripes. But since provement of its knowledge. No one who this custom of educating youth by the lash has gone through what they call a great is suffered by the gentry of Great Britain, school, but must remember to have seen I would prevail only that honest heavy lads children of excellent and ingenuous natures, may be dismissed from slavery sooner than (as has afterwards appeared in their man-they are at present, and not whipped on to hood;) I say no man has passed through their fourteenth or fifteenth year, whether this way of education, but must have seen they expect any progress from them or an ingenuous creature expiring with shame, not. Let the child's capacity be forthwith with pale looks, beseeching sorrow, and examined, and he sent to some mechanic silent tears, throw up its honest eyes, and way of life, without respect to his birth, if kneel on its tender knees to an inexorable nature designed him for nothing higher: let blockhead, to be forgiven the false quantity him go before he has innocently suffered, of a word in making a Latin verse. The and is debased into a dereliction of mind child is punished, and the next day he for being what it is no guilt to be, a plain commits a like crime, and so a third with man. I would not here be supposed to the same consequence. I would fain ask have said, that our learned men of either any reasonable man, whether this lad, in robe, who have been whipped at school, the simplicity of his native innocence, full are not still men of noble and liberal minds; of shame, and capable of any impression but I am sure they had been much more from that grace of soul, was not fitter for so than they are, had they never suffered any purpose in this life, than after that that infamy. spark of virtue is extinguished in him, though he is able to write twenty verses in an evening?

But though there is so little care, as I have observed, taken, or observation made of the natural strain of men, it is no small Seneca says, after his exalted way of comfort to me, as a Spectator, that there is talking, 'As the immortal gods never learnt any right value set upon the bona indoles any virtue, though they are endued with of other animals: as appears by the followall that is good; so there are some men ing advertisement handed about the county who have so natural a propensity to what, of Lincoln, and subscribed by Enos Thomas, they should follow, that they learn it al- a person whom I have not the honour to most as soon as they hear it. Plants and know, but suppose to be profoundly learned vegetables are cultivated into the production in horseflesh: of finer fruits than they would yield without that care; and yet we cannot entertain hopes of producing a tender conscious spirit into acts of virtue, without the same methods as are used to cut timber, or give new shape to a piece of stone.

It is wholly to this dreadful practice that we may attribute a certain hardiness and ferocity which some men, though liberally educated, carry about them in all their behaviour. To be bred like a gentleman, and punished like a malefactor, must, as we see it does, produce that illiberal sauciness which we see sometimes in men of letters.

The Spartan boy who suffered the fox (which he had stolen and hid under his coat,) to eat into his bowels, I dare say had not half the wit or petulance which we learn at great schools among us: but the glorious sense of honour, or rather fear of shame, which he demonstrated in that action, was worth all the learning in the world without it.

A chesnut horse called Cæsar, bred by James Darcy, esquire, at Sedbury, near Richmond, in the county of York; his granddam was his old royal mare, and got by Blunderbuss, which was got by HemslyTurk, and he got by Mr. Courant's Arabian, which got Mr. Minshul's Jew's-Trump. Mr. Cæsar sold him to a nobleman (coming five years old, when he had but one sweat,) for three hundred guineas. A guinea a leap and trial, and a shilling the man. T.

'ENOS THOMAS. ›

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'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have observed through the whole course of your rhap It is, methinks, a very melancholy con- sodies (as you once very well called them,) sideration, that a little negligence can spoil you are very industrious to overthrow all us, but great industry is necessary to im-that many of your superiors, who have prove us; the most excellent natures are soon depreciated, but evil tempers are long before they are exalted into good habits. To help this by punishments, is the same

gone before you, have made their rule of writing. I am now between fifty and sixty, and had the honour to be well with the first men of taste and gallantry in the joyous

reign of Charles the Second. We then had, solitude is an unnatural being to us. If the I humbly presume, as good understandings men of good understanding would forget a among us as any now can pretend to. As little of their severity, they would find their for yourself, Mr. Spectator, you seem with account in it: and their wisdom would have the utmost arrogance to undermine the a pleasure in it, to which they are now very fundamentals upon which we con- strangers. It is natural among us when ducted ourselves. It is monstrous to set up men have a true relish of our company and for a man of wit, and yet deny that honour our value, to say every thing with a better in a woman is any thing else but peevish- grace: and there is, without designing it, ness, that inclination is not the best rule something ornamental in what men utter of life, or virtue and vice any thing else but before women; which is lost or neglected in health and disease. We had no more to do conversations of men only. Give me leave but to put a lady in a good humour, and all to tell you, sir, it would do you no great we could wish followed of course. Then, harm if you yourself came a little more into again, your Tully, and your discourses of our company: it would certainly cure you another life, are the very bane of mirth and of a certain positive and determining mangood-humour. Pr'ythee do not value thy-ner in which you talk sometimes. In hopes self on thy reason at that exorbitant rate, of your amendment, I am, sir, your gentle and the dignity of human nature; take my reader.' word for it, a setting-dog has as good rea- 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Your professed reson as any man in England. Had you (as gard to the fair sex, may perhaps make by your diurnals one would think you do,) them value your admonitions when they set up for being in vogue in town, you should will not those of other men. I desire you, have fallen in with the bent of passion and sir, to repeat some lectures upon subjects appetite; your songs had then been in every pretty mouth in England, and your little you have now and then in a cursory mandistichs had been the maxims of the fair Spectator wholly write upon good-breeding: ner only just touched. I would have a and the witty to walk by: but, alas, sir, and after you have asserted that time and what can you hope for, from entertaining place are to be very much considered in all people with what must needs make them our actions, it will be proper to dwell upon like themselves worse than they did before behaviour at church. On Sunday last a they read you? Had you made it your grave and reverend man preached at our business to describe Corinna charming, church. There was something particular though inconstant, to find something in hu-in his accent; but without any manner of man nature itself to make Zoilus excuse affectation. This particularity a set of gighimself for being fond of her; and to make every man in good commerce with his own reflections, you had done something worthy our applause; but indeed, sir, we shall not commend you for disapproving us. I have a great deal more to say to you, but I shall sum it all up in this one remark. In short, sir, you do not write like a gentleman. I am, sir, your most humble servant.'

glers thought the most necessary thing to be taken notice of in his whole discourse, and made it an occasion of mirth during the whole time of sermon. You should see one of them ready to burst behind a fan, another pointing to a companion in another seat, and a third with an arch composure, as if she would if possible stifle her laughter. There were many gentlemen who looked at them steadfastly, but this they took for ogling and admiring them. There was one of the merry ones in particular, that found out but just then that she had but five fingers, for she fell a reckoning the pretty pieces of ivory over and over again, to find herself employment and not laugh out. Would it not be expedient, Mr. Spectator, that the church-warden should hold up his wand on these occasions, and keep the decency of the place, as a magistrate does the peace in a tumult elsewhere?'

'MR. SPECTATOR,-The other day we were several of us at a tea-table, and according to custom and your own advice had the Spectator read among us. It was that paper wherein you are pleased to treat with great freedom that character which you call a woman's man. We gave up all the kinds you have mentioned, except those who, you say, are our constant visitants. I was upon the occasion commissioned by the company to write to you and tell you, "that we shall not part with the men we have at present, until the men of sense think fit to 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a woman's relieve them, and give us their company in man, and read with a very fine lady your their stead." You cannot imagine but that paper, wherein you fall upon us whom you we love to hear reason and good sense bet- envy: what do you think I did? You must ter than the ribaldry we are at present en-know she was dressing, and I read the tertained with; but we must have company, and among us very inconsiderable is better than none at all. We are made for the cements of society, and came into the world to create relations amongst mankind; and

* Spect. in folio. In the 8vo. edition of 1712, 'not' was left out.

Spectator to her, and she laughed at the
places where she thought I was touched; I
threw away your moral, and taking up her
girdle, cried out,

'Give me but what this riband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.'*
* Waller's verses on a lady's girdle.

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No. 159.] Saturday, September 1, 1711.

-Omnem, quæ nunc obducta tuenti Mortales hebetat visus tibi, et humida circum Caligat, nubem eripiam.—— Vir). En. 11. 604. The cloud, which, intercepting the clear light, Hangs o'er thy eyes, and blunts thy mortal sight, I will remove.

WHEN I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several oriental manuscripts which I have still by me. Among others, I met with one entitled, The Visions of Mirza, which I have read over with great pleasure. I intend to give it to the public when I have no other entertainment for them; and shall begin with the first vision, which I have translated word for word as follows:

and affability that familiarized him to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions with which I approached him. He lifted me from the ground, and taking me by the hand, Mirza," said he, "I have heard thee in thy soliloquies; follow me."

He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing me on the top of it, "Cast thy eyes eastward," said he, “and tell me what thou seest.”—“I see," said I, "a huge valley, and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it."-"The valley that thou seest," said he, "is the Vale of Misery, and the tide of water that thou seest, is part of the great tide of eternity." "What is the reason," said I, "that the tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at the other?"-"What thou seest," said he,

is that portion of eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the world to its 'On the fifth day of the moon, which, consummation.”—“ Examine now," said according to the custom of my forefathers, he, "this sea that is bounded with darkness I always keep holy, after having washed at both ends, and tell me what thou discomyself, and offered up my morning devo-verest in it."-"I see a bridge,” said I, tions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, "standing in the midst of the tide.”—“The in order to pass the rest of the day in medi- bridge thou seest," said he, "is human tation and prayer. As I was here airing life, consider it attentively." Upon a more myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell leisurely survey of it, I found that it coninto a profound contemplation on the vanity sisted of three-score and ten entire arches of human life; and passing from one thought with several broken arches, which added to another, "Surely," said I, "man is but to those that were entire, made up the a shadow, and life a dream." Whilst I number about an hundred. As I was countwas thus musing, I cast my eyes towards ing the arches, the genius told me that this the summit of a rock that was not far from bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches: me, where I discovered one in the habit of but that a great flood swept away the rest, a shepherd, with a little musical instrument and left the bridge in the ruinous condition in his hand. As I looked upon him he ap-I now beheld it. "But tell me farther," plied it to his lips, and began to play upon said he, “what thou discoverest on it.”— it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, "I see multitudes of people passing over and wrought into a variety of tunes that it,” said I, “and a black cloud hanging on were inexpressibly melodious, and alto- each end of it." As I looked more attengether different from any thing I had ever tively, I saw several of the passengers heard. They put me in mind of those dropping through the bridge into the great heavenly airs that are played to the de-tide that flowed underneath it; and upon parted souls of good men upon their first farther examination, perceived there were arrival in Paradise, to wear out the im-innumerable trap-doors that lay concealed pressions of the last agonies, and qualify in the bridge, which the passengers no them for the pleasures of that happy place. sooner trod upon, but they fell through My heart melted away in secret raptures. them into the tide, and immediately disapI had often been told that the rock be-peared. These hidden pit-falls were set fore me was the haunt of a Genius; and that very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so several had been entertained with music that throngs of people no socner broke who had passed by it, but never heard that through the cloud, but many of them fell the musician had before made himself visi- into them. They grew thinner towards ble. When he had raised my thoughts by the middle, but multiplied and lay closer those transporting airs which he played, to together towards the end of the arches that taste the pleasures of his conversation, as I were entire. looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand directed me to approach the place where he sat. I drew near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature; and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I fell I passed some time in the contemplation down at his feet and wept. The genius of this wonderful structure, and the great smiled upon me with a look of compassion I variety of objects which it presented. "My

"There were indeed some persons, but their number was very small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and spent with so long a walk.

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