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N° 244.

Monday, December 10.

Judex & callidus audis. HOR. Sat. 7. lib. 2. ver. 101. A judge of painting you, and man of fkill. CREECH. Mr. SPECTATOR, Covent-garden, Dec. 7.

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CANNOT, without a double injuftice, forbear expreffing to you the fatisfaction which a whole clan of virtuofos have received from those hints which you have lately given the town on the cartons of the ⚫ inimitable Raphael. It should be methinks the business of a SPECTATOR to improve the pleafures of fight, ⚫ and there cannot be a more immediate way to it than recommending the study and obfervation of excellent drawings and pictures. When I first went to view those of Raphael which you have celebrated, I must confefs I was but barely pleased; the next time I liked them better, but at laft, as I grew better acquainted with them, I fell deeply in love with them, like wife fpeeches they funk deep into my heart; for you know, Mr. • SPECTATOR, that a man of wit may extremely affect one for the prefent, but if he has not discretion, his merit foon vanishes away, while a wife man that has not fo great a stock of wit, fhall nevertheless give you < a far greater and more lafting fatisfaction: juft fo it is in a picture that is fmartly touched but not well ftudied; one may call it a witty picture, though the painter in the mean time may be in danger of being called a fool. On the other hand, a picture that is thoroughly understood in the whole, and well performed in the particulars, that is, begun on the foundation of geometry, carried on by the rules of perfpective, architecture, and anatomy, and perfected by a good harmony, a juft and natural colouring, and fuch paffions and expreffions of the mind as are almost peculiar to Raphael; this is what you may juftly style a wife picture, and which feldom fails to ftrike us dumb, until we can affemble all our faculties to make

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⚫ but a tolerable judgment upon it. Other pictures are 'made for the eyes only, as rattles are made for childrens ears; and certainly that picture that only pleases the eye, without representing fome well-chofen part of nature or other, does but fhew what fine colours are to be fold at the colour-fhop, and mocks the works of the Creator. If the beft imitator of nature, is not to be efteemed the best painter, but he that makes the greateft fhow and glare of colours; it will neceffarily follow, that he who can array himself in the most gaudy draperies is beft dreffed, and he that can speak loudeft the best orator. Every man when he looks on a picture fhould examine it according to that share of reafon he is mafter of, or he will be in danger of making a wrong judgment. If men as they walk abroad would make more frequent obfervations on those beauties of nature which every moment present themselves to their view, they would be better judges when they faw her well imitated at home: this would help to correct those errors which moft pretenders fall into, who are overhafty in their judgments, and will not ftay to let reafon come in for a fhare in the decifion. It is for want ⚫ of this that men mistake in this cafe, and in common life, a wild extravagant pencil for one that is truly bold and great, an impudent fellow for a man of true courage and bravery, hafty and unreasonable actions for enterprizes of fpirit and refolution, gaudy colouring for that which is truly beautiful, a falfe and infinuating difcourfe for fimple truth elegantly recommended. The parallel will hold through all the parts of life and painting too; and the virtuofos above-mentioned will be glad to fee you draw it with your terms of art. As the fhadows in a picture reprefent the ferious and melancholy, fo the lights do the bright and lively thoughts as there fhould be but one forcible light in a picture, which should catch the eye and fall on the hero; fo there fhould be but one object of our love, even the Author of nature. Thefe and the like reflections well improved, might very much contribute. to open the beauty of that art, and prevent young people from being poifoned by the ill gufto of any extravagant workinan that fhould be impofed upon us. I am, Sir, your most humble fervant.'

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· Mr. SPECTATOR, THOUGH I am a woman, yet I am one of thofe < who confefs themselves highly pleased with a fpeculation you obliged the world with fome time ago, from an old Greek poet you call Simonides, in relation to the several natures and diftinctions of our own fex. I could not but admire how juftly the characters of women in this age, fall in with the times of Simonides, there being no one of thofe forts I have not at fome time or other of my life met with a fample of. But, fir, the fubject of this prefent addrefs, are a fet of women comprehended, I think, in the ninth fpecies of that fpeculation, called the apes; the defcription of whom I find to be, "That they are fuch as are both ugly and ill-natured, who have nothing beautiful "themselves, and endeavour to detract from or ridicule every thing that appears fo in others." Now, fir, this fect, as I have been told, is very frequent in the x great town where you live; but as my circumstance of life obliges me to refide altogether in the country, though not many miles from London, I cannot have met with a great number of them, nor indeed is it a defirable acquaintance, as I have lately found by expe⚫rience. You must know, fir, that at the beginning of ⚫ this fummer a family of thefe apes came and fettled for the feafon not far from the place where I live. As they were ftrangers in the country, they were vifited by the ◄ ladies about them, of whom I was one, with an humanity ufual in thofe that pafs most of their time in folitude. The apes lived with us very agreeably our < own way until towards the end of the fummer, when they began to bethink themselves of returning to town; then it was, Mr. SPECTATOR, that they began to fet themselves about the proper and diftinguishing bufinefs ⚫ of their character; and as it is faid of evil fpirits that they are apt to carry away a piece of the house they are about to leave, the apes, without regard to common mercy, civility, or gratitude, thought fit to mimic, ⚫ and fall foul on the faces, drefs, and behaviour of their innocent neighbours, beftowing abominable cenfures and difgraceful appellations, commonly called nicknames, on all of them; and in fhort, like true fine

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ladies, made their honeft plainness and fincerity matter of ridicule. I could not but acquaint you with these grievances, as well at the defire of all the parties injured, as from my own inclination. I hope, fir, if you cannot propofe intirely to reform this evil, you 'will take fuch notice of it in fome of your future fpeculations, as may put the deferving part of our fex on their guard against thefe creatures; and at the fame time the apes may be fenfible, that this fort of mirth is fo far from an innocent diverfion, that it is in the higheft degree that vice which is faid to comprehend all ⚫ others.

T.

• I am, Sir, your humble fervant,
• CONSTANTIA FIELD.'

N° 245.

Tuesday, December 11.

Ficta voluptatis causâ fint proxima veris.

HOR. Ars Poet. ver.

338.

Fictions, to please, fhould wear the face of truth.

THERE is nothing which one regards fo much with

an eye of mirth and pity as innocence, when it has in it a dash of folly. At the fame time that one esteems the virtue, one is tempted to laugh at the fimplicity which accompanies it. When a man is made up wholly of the dove, without the leaft grain of the ferpent in his compofition, he becomes ridiculous in many circumftances of life, and very often difcredits his best actions. The Cordeliers tell a story of their founder St. Francis, that as he paffed the ftreets in the dusk of the evening, he difcovered a young fellow with a maid in a corner; upon which the good man, fay they, lifted up his hands to heaven with a fecret thanksgiving, that there was ftill fo much christian charity in the world. The innocence of the faint made him mistake the kifs of a lover for a falute of charity. I am heartily concerned when I fee a virtuous man without a competent knowledge of the world; and VOL. III. N

if there be any use in these my papers, it is this, that without reprefenting vice under any falfe alluring notions, they give my reader an infight into the ways of men, and reprefent human nature in all its changeable colours. The man who has not been engaged in any of the follies of the world, or, as Shakespeare expreffes it," hackneyed "in the ways of men," may here find a picture of its follies and extravagancies. The virtuous and the innocent may know in fpeculation what they could never arrive at by practice, and by this means avoid the fnares of the crafty, the corruptions of the vicious, and the reafonings of the prejudiced. Their minds may be opened without being vitiated.

It is with an eye to my following correfpondent, Mr. Timothy Doodle, who feems a very well-meaning man, that I have written this fhort preface, to which I fhall fubjoin a letter from the faid Mr. Doodle.

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SIR,

I COULD heartily wish that you would let us know your opinion upon feveral innocent diverfions which are in ufe among us, and which are very proper to pass away a winter night for those who do not care to throw away their time at an opera, or at the play-house. I 'would gladly know in particular, what notion you have of hot-cockles; as alfo whether you think that questions and commands, motto's, fimiles, and cross-purposes, have not more mirth and wit in them, than those public diverfions which are grown fo very fafhionable among us. If you would recommend to our wives and daughters, who read your papers with a great deal of pleafure, fome of thofe fports and paftimes that may be practifed within doors, and by the fire-fide, we who are mafters of families fhould be hugely obliged to you. I need not tell you that I would have thefe fports and paftimes not only merry but innocent, for which reafon I have not mentioned either whisk or lanterloo, nor indeed fo much as one-and-thirty. After having communicated to you my requeft upon this fubject, I will be fo free as to tell you how my wife and I pafs away these tedious winter evenings with a great deal of pleasure. Though The be young and handfome, and good-humoured to a miracle, fhe does not care for gadding abroad like

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