fess, I had some melancholy hours upon the account of the nar rowness of my fortune, but my conscience at the same time gave me the comfort that I had qualified myself for marrying a fortune. "When I had lived in this manner, for some time, and became thus accomplished, I was now in the twenty-seventh year of my age, and about the forty-seventh of my constitution, my health and estate wasting very fast; when I happened to fall into the company of a very pretty young lady in her own disposal. I entertained the company, as we men of gallantry generally do, with the many haps and disasters, watchings under windows, escapes from jealous husbands, and several other perils. The young thing was wonderfully charmed with one that knew the world so well, and talked so fine; with Desdemona, all her lover said affected her; it was strange, it was wondrous strange.' In a word, I saw the impression I had made upon her, and with a very little application, the pretty thing has married me. There is so much charm in her innocence and beauty, that I do now as much detest the course I have been in for many years, as I ever did before I entered into it. แ "What I intend, MR. SPECTATOR, by writing all this to you is, that you would, hefore you go any further with your panegyrics on the fair sex, give them some lectures upon their silly approbations. It is that I am weary of vice, and that it was not my natural way, that I am now so far recovered as not to bring this believing dear creature to contempt and poverty, for her generosity to me. At the same time tell the youth of good education of our sex, that they take too little care of improving themselves in little things. A good air at entering into a room, a proper audacity in expressing himself with gaiety and gracefulness, would make a young gentleman of virtue and sense capable of discountenancing the shallow impudent rogues that shine among the women. MR. SPECTATOR, I do not doubt but you are a very sagacious person, but you are so great with Tully of late, that I fear you will contemn these things as matters of no consequence; but believe me, sir, they are of the highest importance to human life; and if you can do anything towards opening fair eyes, you will lay an obligation upon all your contemporaries who are fathers, husbands, or brothers to females. "Your most affectionate humble servant, STEELE. T. No. 155. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1711. Hæ nuga seria ducunt In mala HOR. ARS. POET, 451. These things, which now seem frivolous and slight, ROSCOMMON. I HAVE more than once taken notice of an indecent licence taken in discourse, wherein the conversation on one part is involuntary, and the effect of some necessary circumstance. This happens in travelling together in the same hired coach, sitting near each other in any public assembly, or the like. I have, upon making observations of this sort, received innumerable messages from that part of the fair sex whose lot in life is to be of any trade or public way of life. They are all, to a woman, urgent with me to lay before the world the unhappy circumstances they are under, from the unreasonable liberty which is taken in their presence, to talk on what subject it is thought fit by every coxcomb who wants understanding or breeding. One or two of these complaints I shall set down. "MR. SPECTATOR, "I KEEP a coffee-house, and am one of those whom you have thought fit to mention as an Idol some time ago.* I suffered a good deal of raillery upon that occasion; but shall heartily forgive you, who are the cause of it, if you will do me justice in another point. What I ask of you is, to acquaint my customers (who are otherwise very good ones) that I am unavoidably hasped in my bar, and cannot help hearing the improper discourses they are pleased to entertain me with. They strive who shall say the most immodest things in my hearing. At the same time half a dozen of them loll at the bar staring just in my face, ready to interpret my looks and gestures according to their own imaginations. In this passive condition I know not where to cast my eyes, place my hands, or what to employ myself in. But this confusion is to be a jest, and I hear them say in the end, with an insipid air of mirth and subtlety, Let her alone, she knows as well as we, for all she looks so.' Good MR. SPECTATOR, persuade gentlemen that it is out of all decency. Say, it is possible a woman may be modest, and yet keep a public-house. Be pleased to argue, that in truth the affront is the more unpardonable because I am obliged to suffer See the second letter in No. 87. it, and cannot fly from it. I do assure you, sir, the cheerfulness of life, which would arise from the honest gain I have, is utterly lost to me, from the endless, flat, impertinent pleasantries which I hear from morning to night. In a word, it is too much for me to bear; and I desire you to acquaint them, that I will keep pen and ink at the bar, and write down all they say to me, and send it to you for the press. It is possible when they see how empty what they speak, without the advantage of an impudent countenance and gesture, will appear, they may come to some sense of themselves, and the insults they are guilty of towards me. This representation is so just, that it is hard to speak of it without an indignation which perhaps would appear too elevated to such as can be guilty of this inhuman treatment, where they see they affront a modest, plain, and ingenuous behaviour. This correspondent is not the only sufferer in this kind, for I have long letters both from the Royal and New Exchange on the same subject. They tell me that a young fop cannot buy a pair of gloves, but he is at the same time straining for some ingenious ribaldry to say to the young woman who helps them on. It is no small addition to the calamity, that the rogues buy as hard as the plainest and modestest customers they have; besides which, they foll upon their counters half an hour longer than they need, to drive away other customers, who are to share their impertinences with the milliner, or go to another shop. Letters from 'Changealley are full of the same evil; and the girls tell me, except I can chase some eminent merchants from their shops, they shall in a short time fail. It is very unaccountable, that men can have so little deference to all mankind who pass by them, as to bear being seen toying by twos and threes at a time, with no other purpose but to appear gay enough to keep up a light conversation of common place jests, to the injury of her whose credit is certainly hurt by it, though their own may be strong enough to hear it. When we come to have exact accounts of these conversations, it is not to be doubted but that their discourses will raise the usual style of buying and selling. Instead of the plain downright lying, and asking and bidding so unequally to what they will really give and take, we may hope to have from these fine folks an exchange of compliments. There must certainly be a great deal of pleasant difference between the commerce of lovers and that of all other dealers, who are, in a kind, adversaries. A sealed bond, or a bank note, would be a pretty gallantry to convey unseen into the hands of one whom a director is charmed with; otherwise the city loiterers are still more unreasonable than those at the other end of the town. At the New Exchange they are eloquent for want of cash, but in the city they ought with cash to supply their want of eloquence. If one might be serious on this prevailing folly, one might observe, that it is a melancholy thing, when the world is mercenary even to the buying and selling our very persons, that young women, though they have never so great attractions from nature, are never the nearer being happily disposed of in marriage; I say, it is very hard, under this necessity, it shall not be possible for them to go into a way of trade for their maintenance, but their very excellencies and personal perfections shall be a disadvantage to them, and subject them to be treated as if they stood there to sell their persons to prostitution. There cannot be a more melancholy circumstance to one who has made any observation in the world, than one of those erring creatures exposed to bankruptcy. When that happens, none of these toying fools will do any more than any other man they meet, to preserve her from infamy, insult, and distemper. A woman is naturally more helpless than the other sex; and a man of honour and sense should have this in his view in all manner of commerce with her. Were this well weighed, inconsideration, ribaldry, and nonsense would not be more natural to entertain women with than men; and it would be as much impertinence to go into a shop of one of these young women without buying, as into that of any other trader. I shall end this speculation with a letter I have received from a pretty milliner in the city. "MR. SPECTATOR, "I HAVE read your account of beauties, and was not a little surprised to find no character of myself in it. I do assure you I have little else to do but to give audience as I am such. Here are merchants of no small consideration, who call in as certainly as they go to 'Change, to asy something of my roguish eye. And here is one who makes me once or twice a week tumble over all my goods, and then owns it was only a gallantry to see me act with these pretty hands; then lays out threepence in a little riband for his wristbands, and thinks he is a man of great vivacity. There is an ugly thing not far off me, whose shop is frequented only by people of business, that is all day long as busy as possible. Must I that am a beauty be treated with for nothing but my beauty? Be pleased to assign rates to my kind glances, or make all pay who come to see me, or I shall be undone by my admirers for for want of customers. Albacinda, Eudosia, and all the rest, would * No. 144. be used just as we are, if they were in our condition; therefore pray consider the distress of us the lower order of beauties, and I shall be I Do not think anything could make a pleasanter entertainment, than the history of the reigning favourites among the women from time to time about this town. In such an account we ought to have a faithful confession of each lady for what she liked such and such a man, and he ought to tell us by what particular action or dress he believed he should be most successful. As for my part, I have always made as easy a judgment when a man dresses for the ladies, as when he is equipped for hunting or coursing. The woman's 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 little pretty officiousnesses, 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 under |