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No. 117.]

THE SPECTATOR.

they all made a sudden stand, and though | No. 117.] Saturday, July 14, 1711. they continued opening as much as before, durst not once attempt to pass beyond the pole. At the same time Sir Roger rode forward, and alighting, took up the hare in his arms; which he soon after delivered up to one of his servants with an order, if she could be kept alive, to let her go in his great orchard; where it seems he has several of these prisoners of war, who live together in a very comfortable captivity. I was highly pleased to see the discipline of the pack, and the good-nature of the knight, who could not find in his heart to murder a creaIt is with this temper of mind that I conture that had given him so much diversion. As we were returning home, I remem- sider the subject of witchcraft. When I bered that Monsieur Paschal, in his most hear the relations that are made from all excellent discourse on the Misery of Man, parts of the world, not only from Norway tells us, that all our endeavours after great- and Lapland, from the East and West Inness proceed from nothing but a desire of dies, but from every particular nation in being surrounded by a multitude of persons Europe, I cannot forbear thinking that and affairs that may hinder us from looking there is such an intercourse and commerce into ourselves, which is a view we cannot with evil spirits, as that which we express bear. He afterwards goes on to show that by the name of witchcraft. But when I our love of sports comes from the same rea- consider that the ignorant and credulous son, and is particularly severe upon hunting. parts of the world abound most in these reWhat,' says he, unless it be to drown lations, and that the persons among us who thought, can make them throw away so are supposed to engage in such an infernal much time and pains upon a silly animal, commerce, are people of a weak underwhich they might buy cheaper in the mar-standing and crazed imagination, and at the ket?' The foregoing reflection is certainly same time reflect upon the many imposjust, when a man suffers his whole mind to tures and delusions of this nature that have be drawn into his sports, and altogether been detected in all ages, I endeavour to loses himself in the woods; but does not suspend my belief till I hear more certain affect those who propose a far more lauda- accounts than any which have yet come to ble end from this exercise, I mean the pre-my knowledge. In short, when I consider servation of health, and keeping all the organs of the soul in a condition to execute her orders. Had that incomparable person, whom I last quoted, been a little more indulgent to himself in this point, the world might probably have enjoyed him much longer; whereas through too great an application to his studies in his youth, he contracted that ill habit of body, which, after a tedious sickness, carried him off in the fortieth year of his age; and the whole history we have of his life till that time, is but one continued account of the behaviour of a noble soul struggling under innumerable pains and distempers.

For my own part, I intend to hunt twice a week during my stay with Sir Roger; and shall prescribe the moderate use of this exercise to all my country friends, as the best kind of physic for mending a bad constitution, and preserving a good one.

I cannot do this better, than in the fol-
lowing lines out of Mr. Dryden:

The first physicians by debauch were made;
Excess began, and Sloth sustains the trade.
By chase our long-liv'd fathers earn'd their food;
Toil strung the nerves, and purified the blood;
But we their sons, a pamper'd race of men,
Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten.
Better to hunt in fields for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise for cure on exercise depend:
God never made his work for man to mend.'

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the question, whether there are such persons in the world as those we call witches, my mind is divided between the two opposite opinions, or rather (to speak my thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been, such a thing as witchcraft; but at the same time can give no credit to any particular instance of it.

Í am engaged in this speculation, by some occurrences that I met with yesterday, which I shall give my reader an account of at large. As I was walking with my friend Sir Roger by the side of one of his woods, an old woman applied herself to me for my charity. Her dress and figure put me in mind of the following description in Otway:

In a close lane as I pursued my journey,
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself.
spy'd a wrinkled hag, with age grown double,
Cold palsy shook her head; her hands seem'd wither'd;
Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall'd and red;
The tatter'd remnant of an old striped hanging,
And on her crooked shoulders had she wrapt
Which served to keep her carcase from the cold,
So there was nothing of a piece about her.
Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely patch'd
With diffrent colour'd rags, black, red, white, yellow,
And seem'd to speak variety of wretchedness.'

As I was musing on this description, and comparing it with the object before me, the knight told me, that this very old woman had the reputation of a witch all over the country, that her lips were observed to be always in motion, and that there was not a

switch about her house which her neigh-account, because I hear there is scarce a vilbours did not believe had carried her seve-lage in England that has not a Moll White ral hundreds of miles. If she chanced to in it. When an old woman begins to doat, stumble, they always found sticks or straws and grow chargeable to a parish, she is genethat lay in the figure of a cross before her. rally turned into a witch, and fills the whole If she made any mistake at church, and country with extravagant fancies, imagicried Amen in a wrong place, they never nary distempers, and terrifying dreams. In failed to conclude that she was saying her the mean time, the poor wretch that is the prayers backwards. There was not a maid innocent occasion of so many evils, begins in the parish that would take a pin of her, to be frighted at herself, and sometimes though she should offer a bag of money with confesses secret commerces and familiariit. She goes by the name of Moll White, ties that her imagination forms in a delirious and has made the country ring with several old age. This frequently cuts off charity imaginary exploits that are palmed upon from the greatest objects of compassion, her. If the dairy-maid does not make her and inspires people with a malevolence tobutter come so soon as she would have it, wards those poor decrepid parts of our speMoll White is at the bottom of the churn. cies in whom human nature is defaced by If a horse sweats in the stable, Moll White infirmity and dotage. has been upon his back. If a hare makes an unexpected escape from the hounds, the huntsman curses Moll White. 'Nay,' says Sir Roger, I have known the master of the No. 118.] Monday, July 16, 1711. pack, upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White had been out that morning.'

-Hæret lateri lethalis rundo.

L.

Virg. En. iv. 73. -The fatal dart

Sticks in his side, and rankles in his heart.

Dryden.

This account raised my curiosity so far that I begged my friend Sir Roger to go with me into her hovel, which stood in a THIS agreeable seat is surrounded with solitary corner under the side of the wood. so many pleasing walks, which are struck Upon our first entering, Sir Roger winked out of a wood, in the midst of which the to me, and pointed at something that stood house stands, that one can hardly ever be behind the door, which, upon looking that weary of rambling from one labyrinth of deway, I found to be an old broom-staff. At light to another. To one used to live in a the same time he whispered me in the ear city the charms of the country are so exto take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the quisite, that the mind is lost in a certain chimney corner, which, as the old knight transport which raises us above ordinary told me, lay under as bad a report as Moll life, and yet is not strong enough to be inWhite herself; for besides that Moll is said consistent with tranquillity. This state of often to accompany her in the same shape, mind was I in, ravished with the murmur the cat is reported to have spoken twice or of waters, the whisper of breezes, the singthrice in her life, and to have played seve-ing of birds; and whether I looked up to ral pranks above the capacity of an ordinary cat.

I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so much wretchedness and disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smiling to hear Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled about the old woman, advising her as a justice of the peace to avoid all communication with the devil, and never to hurt any of her neighbours' cattle. We concluded our visit with a bounty, which was very acceptable.

the heavens, down on the earth, or turned to the prospects around me, still struck with new sense of pleasure; when I found by the voice of my friend, who walked by me, that we had insensibly strolled into the grove sacred to the widow. This woman,' says he, 'is of all others the most unintelligible; she either designs to marry, or she does not. What is the most perplexing of all is, that she does not either say to her lovers she has any resolution against that condition of life in general, or that she baIn our return home Sir Roger told me,nishes them; but, conscicus of her own that old Moll had been often brought before him for making children spit pins, and giving maids the night-mare; and that the country people would be tossing her into a pond and trying experiments with her every day, if it was not for him and his chaplain.

merit, she permits their addresses, without fear of any ill consequence, or want of respect, from their rage or despair. She has that in her aspect, against which it is impossible to offend. A man whose thoughts are constantly bent upon so agreeable an object, must be excused if the ordinary ocI have since found upon inquiry, that Sir currences in conversation are below his Roger was several times staggered with the attention. I call her indeed perverse, but, reports that had been brought him concern-alas! why do I call her so? Because her ing this old woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the county sessions, had not his chaplain with much ado persuaded him to the contrary.

I have been the more particular in this

superior merit is such, that I cannot approach her without awe, that my heart is checked by too much esteem: I am angry that her charms are not more accessible, that I am more inclined to worship than

THE SPECTATOR.

salute her. How often have I wished her thee; herself, her own dear person, I must
unhappy, that I might have an opportunity never embrace again.-Still do you hear
of serving her? and how often troubled in me without one smile-It is too much to
that very imagination, at giving her the bear.'-He had no sooner spoke these
pain of being obliged? Well, I have led a words, but he made an offer of throwing
miserable life in secret upon her account; himself into the water; at which his mis-
but fancy she would have condescended to tress started up, and at the next instant
have some regard for me, if it had not been he jumped across the fountain, and met her
in an embrace. She, half recovering from
for that watchful animal her confidant.
her fright, said in the most charming voice
imaginable, and with a tone of complaint,
I thought how well you would drown
yourself. No, no, you will not drown your-
self till you have taken your leave of Susan
Holiday.' The huntsman, with a tender-
ness that spoke the most passionate love,
and with his cheek close to hers, whispered
the softest vows of fidelity in her ear, and
cried, Do not, my dear, believe a word
Kate Willow says; she is spiteful, and
makes stories, because she loves to hear
me talk to herself for your sake.'-'Look
you there,' quoth Sir Roger, do you see
there, all mischief comes from confidants!
But let us not interrupt them; the maid is
honest, and the man dares not be otherwise,
for he knows I loved her father: I will in-
terpose in this matter, and hasten the wed-
ding. Kate Willow is a witty mischievous
wench in the neighbourhood, who was a
beauty; and makes me hope I shall see the
perverse widow in her condition. She was
so flippant with her answers to all the ho-
nest fellows that came near her, and so very
vain of her beauty, that she has valued her-
self upon her charms till they are ceased.
She therefore now makes it her business to
prevent other young women from being
more discreet than she was herself: how-
ever, the saucy thing said, the other day,
well enough, "Sir Roger and I must make
a match, for we are both despised by those
we loved." The hussy has a great deal of
power wherever she comes, and has her
share of cunning.

"Of all persons under the sun,' (continued he, calling me by name,) 'be sure to set a mark upon confidants: they are of all people the most impertinent. What is most pleasant to observe in them, is, that they assume to themselves the merit of the persons whom they have in their custody. Orestilla is a great fortune, and in wonderful danger of surprises, therefore full of suspicions of the least indifferent thing, particularly careful of new acquaintance, and of growing too familiar with the old. Themista, her favourite woman, is every whit as careful of whom she speaks to, and what she says. Let the ward be a beauty, her confidant shall treat you with an air of distance; let her be a fortune, and she assumes the suspicious behaviour of her friend and patroness. Thus it is that very many of our unmarried women of distinction are to all intents and purposes married, except the consideration of different sexes. They are directly under the conduct of their whisperer; and think they are in a state of freedom, while they can prate with one of these attendants of all men in general, and still avoid the man they most like. You do not see one heiress in a hundred whose fate does not turn upon this circumstance of choosing a confidant. Thus it is that the lady is addressed to, presented and flattered, only by proxy, in her woman. In my case, how is it possible that.' Sir Roger was proceeding in his harangue, when we heard the voice of one speaking very importu'However, when I reflect upon this nately, and repeating these words, What, not one smile!' We followed the sound till we came close to a thicket, on the other side woman, I do not know whether in the main of which we saw a young woman sitting as I am the worse for having loved her; whenit were in a personated sullenness just over ever she is recalled to my imagination my a transparent fountain. Opposite to her youth returns, and I feel a forgotten warmth stood Mr. William, Sir Roger's master of in my veins. This affliction in my life has the game. The knight whispered me, streaked all my conduct with a softness, of Hist, these are lovers.' The huntsman which I should otherwise have been incalooking earnestly at the shadow of the young pable. It is owing, perhaps, to this dear maiden in the stream, Oh thou dear pic- image in my heart that I am apt to relent, ture, if thou couldst remain there in the ab- that I easily forgive, and that many desirasence of that fair creature whom you repre- ble things are grown into my temper, which sent in the water, how willingly could II should not have arrived at by better mostand here satisfied for ever, without trou- tives than the thought of being one day bling my dear Betty herself with any men- hers. I am pretty well satisfied such a tion of her unfortunate William, whom she passion as I have had is never well cured; is angry with! But, alas! when she pleases and between you and me, I am often apt to -Yet imagine it has had some whimsical effect to be gone, thou wilt also vanishlet me talk to thee while thou dost stay. upon my brain; for I frequently find that in Tell my dearest Betty thou dost not more my most serious discourse I let fall some depend upon her, than does her William: comical familiarity of speech or odd phrase her absence will make away with. me as that makes the company laugh. However, well as thee. If she offers to remove thee, I cannot but allow she is a most excellent I will jump into these waves to lay hold on woman. When she is in the country, I

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THE first and most obvious reflections which arise in a man who changes the city for the country, are upon the different manners of the people whom he meets with in those two different scenes of life. By manners I do not mean morals, but behaviour and good-breeding, as they show themselves in the town and in the country.

And here, in the first place, I must observe a very great revolution that has happened in this article of good-breeding. Several obliging deferences, condescensions, and submissions, with many outward forms and ceremonies that accompany them, were first of all brought up among the politer part of mankind, who lived in courts and cities, and distinguished themselves from the rustic part of the species (who on all occasions acted bluntly and naturally) by such a mutual complaisance and intercourse of civilities. These forms of conversation by degrees multiplied and grew troublesome; the modish world found too great a constraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside. Conversation, like the Romish religion, was so encumbered with show and ceremony, that it stood in need of a reformation to retrench its superfluities, and restore it to its natural good sense and beauty. At present therefore an unconstrained carriage, and a certain openness of behaviour, are the height of good-breeding. The fashionable world is grown free and easy; our manners sit more Loose upon us. Nothing is so modish as an agreeable negligence. In a word, goodbreeding shows itself most, where to an ordinary eye it appears the least.

If after this we look on the people of mode in the country, we find in them the manners of the last age. They have no sooner fetched themselves up to the fashions of the polite world, but the town has dropped them, and are nearer to the first state of nature than to those refinements which formerly reigned in the court, and still prevail in the country. One may now know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding. A polite country 'squire shall make you as many bows in

half an hour, as would serve a courtier for a week. There is infinitely more to do about place and precedency in a meeting of justices' wives, than in an assembly of duchesses.

This rural politeness is very troublesome to a man of my temper, who generally take the chair that is next me, and walk first or last, in the front or in the rear, as chance directs. I have known my friend Sir Roger's dinner almost cold before the company could adjust the ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to sit down: and have heartily pitied my old friend, when I have seen him forced to pick and cull his guests as they sat at the several parts of his table, that he might drink their healths according to their respective ranks and qualities. Honest Will Wimble, who I should have thought had been altogether uninfected with ceremony, gives me abundance of trouble in this particular. Though he has been fishing all the morning, he will not help himself at dinner until I am served. When we are going out of the hall, he runs behind me; and last night, as we were walking in the fields, stopped short at a stile until I came up to it, and upon my making signs to him to get over, told me with a serious smile, that sure I believed they had no manners in the country.

There has happened another revolution in the point of good-breeding, which relates to the conversation among men of mode,, and which I cannot but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first distinctions of a well-bred man to express every thing that had the most remote appearance of being obscene, in modest terms and distant phrases; whilst the clown who had no such delicacy of conception and expression, clothed his ideas in those plain, homely terms that are the most obvious and natural. This kind of good-manners was perhaps carried to an excess, so as to make conversation too stiff, formal, and precise: for which reason, (as hypocrisy in one age is generally succeeded by atheism in another,) conversation is in a great measure relapsed into the first extreme; so that at present several of our men of the town, and particularly those who have been polished in France, make use of the most coarse uncivilized words in our language, and utter themselves often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear.

This infamous piece of good-breeding, which reigns among the coxcombs of the town, has not yet made its way into the country; and as it is impossible for such an irrational way of conversation to last long among a people that make any profession of religion, or show of modesty, if the country gentlemen get into it, they will certainly be left in the lurch. Their good-breeding will come too late to them, and they will be thought a parcel of lewd clowns, while they fancy themselves talking together like men of wit and pleasure.

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As the two points of good-breeding, which I have hitherto insisted upon, regard behaviour and conversation, there is a third which turns upon dress. In this too the country are very much behind-hand. The rural beaux are not yet got out of the fashion that took place at the time of the revolution, but ride about the country in red coats and laced hats, while the women in many parts are still trying to outvie one another in the height of their head-dresses.

But a friend of mine, who is now upon the western circuit, having promised to give me an account of the several modes and fashions that prevail in the different parts "of the nation through which he passes, I shall defer the enlarging upon this last topic till I have received a letter from him, which I expect every post. L.

No. 120.] Wednesday, July 18, 1711.
-Equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis
Ingenium-
Virg. Georg. i. 451.

-I deem their breasts inspir'd
With a divine sagacity.———

My friend Sir Roger is very often merry with me upon my passing so much of my time among his poultry. He has caught me twice or thrice looking after a bird's-nest, and several times sitting an hour or two together near a hen and chickens. He tells me he believes I am personally acquainted with every fowl about his house; calls such a particular cock my favourite; and frequently complains that his ducks and geese have more of my company than himself.

I must confess I am infinitely delighted with those speculations of nature which are to be made in a country-life; and as my reading has very much lain among books of natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this occasion the several remarks which I have met with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own observation: the arguments for Providence drawn from the natural history of animals being in my opinion demonstrative. The make of every kind of animal is different from that of every other kind: and yet there is not the least turn in the muscles or twist in the fibres of any one, which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture of them would have been.

The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger. The first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind; the latter to preserve themselves.

It is astonishing to consider the different degrees of care that descend from the parent to the young, so far as is absolutely necessary for the leaving a posterity. Some creatures cast their eggs as chance directs them, and think of them no farther; as insects and several kinds of fish. Others, of a nicer frame, find out proper beds to deposit them in, and there leave them; as the serpent,

the crocodile, and ostrich: others hatch their eggs, and tend the birth until it is able to shift for itself.

What can we call the principle which directs every different kind of bird to observe a partícular plan in the structure of its nest, and directs all the same species to work after the same model? It cannot be imitation; for though you hatch a crow under a hen, and never let it see any of the works of its own kind, the nest it makes shall be the same, to the laying of a stick, with all the other nests of the same species. It cannot be reason; for were animals endowed with it, to as great a degree as man, their buildings would be as different as ours, according to the different conveniences that they would propose to themselves.

Is it not remarkable that the same tem- 7 per of weather, which raises this genial warmth in animals, should cover the trees with leaves, and the fields with grass, for their security and concealment, and produce such infinite swarms of insects for the support and sustenance of their respective broods?

Is it not wonderful that the love of the 8 parent should be so violent while it lasts, and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young?

The violence of this natural love is ex- 9 emplified by a very barbarous experiment; which I shall quote at length, as I find it in an excellent author, and hope my readers will pardon the mentioning such an instance of cruelty, because there is nothing can so effectually show the strength of that principle in animals of which I am here speaking.

'A person who was well skilled in dissection opened a bitch, and as she lay in the most exquisite tortures, offered her one of her young puppies, which she immediately fell a licking: and for the time seemed insensible of her own pain. On the removal she kept her eyes fixed on it, and began a wailing sort of cry, which seemed rather to proceed from the loss of her young one, than the sense of her own torments.'

But notwithstanding this natural love in /0 brutes is much more violent and intense than in rational creatures, Providence has taken care that it should be no longer troublesome to the parent than it is useful to the young; for so soon as the wants of the latter cease, the mother withdraws her fondness, and leaves them to provide for themselves; and what is a very remarkable circumstance in this part of instinct, we find that the love of the parent may be lengthened out beyond its usual time, if the preservation of the species requires it: as we may see in birds that drive away their young as soon as they are able to get their livelihood, but continue to feed them if they are tied to the nest, or confined within a cage, or by any other means appear to be out of a condition of supplying their own necessities.

This natural love is not observed in ani- }} mals to ascend from the young to the parent,

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