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'AMORET.'

much by several letters, but the barbarous the fields, and gardens, without Philander, man has refused them all; so that I have afford no pleasure to the unhappy no way left of writing to him but by your assistance. If you can bring him about once more, I promise to send you all gloves and favours, and shall desire the favour of Sir Roger and yourself to stand as godfathers to my first boy. I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant,

'AMORET.'

Philander to Amoret.

'I must desire you, dear Mr. Spectator, to publish this my letter to Philander as soon as possible, and to assure him that I know nothing at all of the death of his rich uncle in Gloucestershire.' X.

No. 402.] Wednesday, June 11, 1712.

-et quæ

Ipse sibi tradit Spectator.

Hor Ars Poet. 1. 181.

'MADAM,-I am so surprised at the question you were pleased to ask me yesterday, that I am still at a loss what to say Sent by the Spectator to himself. to it. At least my answer would be too long to trouble you with, as it would come from I receive from different hands, and perWERE I to publish all the advertisements a person, who, it seems, is so very indiffersons of different circumstances and quality, ent to you. Instead of it, I shall only re- the very mention of them, without refleccommend to your consideration the opinion tions on the several subjects, would raise all of one whose sentiments on these matters I the passions which can be felt by human have often heard you say are extremely just. minds. As instances of this, I shall give "A generous and constant passion," says your favourite author, "in an agreeable which can have no recourse to any legal you two or three letters; the writers of lover, where there is not too great a dispa-power for redress, and seem to have writrity in their circumstances, is the greatest ten rather to vent their sorrow than to reblessing that can befal a person beloved; ceive consolation. and if overlooked in one, may perhaps never be found in another."

'I do not, however, at all despair of being very shortly much better beloved by you than Antenor is at present; since, whenever my fortune shall exceed his, you were pleased to intimate, your passion would increase accordingly.

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The world has seen me shamefully lose that time to please a fickle woman, which might have been employed much more to my credit and advantage in other pursuits. I shall therefore take the liberty to acquaint you, however harsh it may sound in a lady's ears, that though your love-fit should happen to return, unless you could contrive a way to make your recantation as well known to the public as they are already apprized of the manner with which you have treated me, you shall never more see 'PHILANDER.'

But this

MR SPECTATOR,-I am a young woman of beauty and quality, and suitably married to a gentleman who doats on me. Person of mine is the object of an unjust passion in a nobleman who is very intimate with my husband. This friendship gives him very easy access and frequent opportunities of entertaining me apart. My heart is in the utmost anguish, and my face is covered over with confusion, when I impart to you another circumstance, which is, that my mother, the most mercenary of all wo men, is gained by this false friend of my husband's to solicit me for him. I am fre quently chid by the poor believing man, my husband, for showing an impatience of his with my mother, but she tells me stories of friend's company; and I am never alone the discretionary part of the world, and such-a-one, and such-a-one, who are guilty of as much as she advises me to. She laughs Amoret to Philander. at my astonishment; and seems to hint to me, that, as virtuous as she has always ap'SIR,-Upon reflection, I find the injury peared, I am not the daughter of her husI have done both to you and myself to be band. It is possible that printing this letter so great, that, though the part I now act may relieve me from the unnatural impormay appear contrary to that decorum usu-tunity of my mother, and the perfidious ally observed by our sex, yet I purposely courtship of my husband's friend. I have break through all rules, that my repentance an unfeigned love of virtue, and am resolved may in some measure equal my crime. I to preserve my innocence. The only way assure you, that in my present hopes of I can think of to avoid the fatal conserecovering you, I look upon Antenor's estate quences of the discovery of this matter, is with contempt. The fop was here yester- to fly away for ever, which I must do to day in a gilt chariot and new liveries, but I avoid my husband's fatal resentment against refused to see him.-Though I dread to the man who attempts to abuse him, and meet your eyes, after what has passed, I the shame of exposing a parent to infamy. flatter myself, that, amidst all their confu- The persons concerned will know these cir sion, you will discover such a tenderness cumstances relate to them; and though the in mine, as none can imitate but those who regard to virtue is dead in them, I have love. I shall be all this month at lady some hopes from their fear of shame upon D's in the country; but the woods, reading this in your paper; which I conjure

you to publish, if you have any compassion | he was sorry he had made so little use of for injured virtue.

'SYLVIA.'

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the unguarded hours we had been together so remote from company; "as, indeed," continued he, "so we are at present." I flew from him to a neighbouring gentlewoman's house, and though her husband and burst into a passion of tears. My friend was in the room, threw myself on a couch, desired her husband to leave the room. extraordinary in this, that I will partake in "But," said he, "there is something so the affliction; and be it what it will, she is so much your friend, she knows she may The man sat down by me, and spoke so command what services I can do her." like a brother, that I told him my whole affliction. He spoke of the injury done me with so much indignation, and animated me the wretch who would have betrayed me, against the love he said he saw I had for with so much reason and humanity to my weakness, that I doubt not of my perseverHis wife and he are my comforters, and I am under no more restraint in their company than if I were alone; and I doubt will take place of the remains of affection not but in a small time contempt and hatred to a rascal. I am, sir, your affectionate DORINDA.' reader,

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am the husband of a woman of merit, but am fallen in love, as they call it, with a lady of her acquaintance, who is going to be married to a gentleman who deserves her. I am in a trust relating to this lady's fortune, which makes my concurrence in this matter necessary; but I have so irresistible a rage and envy rise in me when I consider his future happiness, that against all reason, equity, and common justice, I am ever playing mean tricks to suspend the nuptials. I have no manner of hopes for myself; Emilia, for so 'll call her, is a woman of the most strict virtue; her lover is a gentleman whom of all others I could wish my friend; but envy and jealousy, though placed so unjustly, waste my very being; and, with the tor ment and sense of a demon, I am ever cursing what I cannot but approve. I wish it were the beginning of repentance, that I sit down and describe my present disposition with so hellish an aspect: but at present the destruction of these two excellent persons would be more welcome to me than their happiness. Mr. Spectator, pray let me have a paper on these terrible ground- 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I had the misforless sufferings, and do all you can to ex-tune to be an uncle before I knew my orcise crowds who are in some degree nephews from my nieces: and now we are possessed as I am. CANIBAL.' grown up to better acquaintance, they deny me the respect they owe. One upbraids me with being their familiar, another will hardly be persuaded that I am an uncle, a third calls me little uncle, and a fourth tells I have a brother-in-law whose son will win me there is no duty at all due to an uncle.

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worthy of your cognizance, and will be my affection, unless you shall think this pleased to prescribe some rules for our future reciprocal behaviour. It will be worthy the particularity of your genius to lay down some rules for his conduct who was, as it were, born an old man; in which you will much oblige, sir, your most obedient servant,

T.

CORNELIUS NEPOS.'

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have no other means but this to express my thanks to one man, and my resentment against another. My circumstances are as follow: I have been for five years last past courted by a gentleman of greater fortune than I ought to expect, as the market for women goes You must, to be sure, have observed people who live in that sort of way, as all their friends reckon it will be a match, and are marked out by all the world for each other. In this view we have been regarded for some time, and I have above these three years loved him tenderly. As he is very careful of his fortune, I always thought he lived in a near manner, to lay up what he thought was wanting in my fortune to make up what he might expect in another. Within these few months I have observed No. 403.] Thursday, June 12, 1712. his carriage very much altered, and he has affected a certain air of getting me alone, and talking with a mighty profusion of passionate words, how I am not to be resisted longer, how irresistible his wishes are, and the like. As long as I have been acquainted with him, I could not on such Occasions say downright to him, "You know you may make me yours when you please." But the other night he with great frankness and impudence explained to me, that he thought of me only as a mistress. I answered this declaration as it deserved; upon which he only doubled the terms on which he proposed my yielding. When my anger heightened upon him, he told me

Qui mores hominum multorum vidit--
Hor. Ars Poet. v. 142.

Of many men he saw the manners.
WHEN I consider this great city in its
several quarters and divisions, I look upon
it as an aggregate of various nations dis-
tinguished from each other by their respec-
tive customs, manners, and interests. The
courts of two countries do not so much dif-
fer from one another, as the court and city,
in their peculiar ways of life and conversa
tion. In short, the inhabitants of St. James's,
notwithstanding they live under the same
laws, and speak the same language, are a
distinct people from those of Cheapside,

who are likewise removed from those of the Temple on one side, and those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in their way of thinking and conversing together.

For this reason, when any public affair is upon the anvil, I love to hear the reflections that arise upon it in the several districts and parishes of London and Westminster, and to ramble up and down a whole day together, in order to make myself acquainted with the opinions of my ingenious countrymen. By this means I know the faces of all the principal politicians within the bills of mortality; and as every coffeehouse has some particular statesman belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. The last progress that I made with this intention was about three months ago, when we had a current report of the king of France's death. As I foresaw this would produce a new face of things in Europe, and many curious speculations in our British coffee-houses, I was very desirous to learn the thoughts of our most eminent politicians on that occasion.

That I might begin as near the fountainhead as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in a buzz of politics. The speculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the upper end of the room, and were so very much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a quarter of an hour.

I afterwards called in at St. Giles's, where I saw a board of French gentlemen sitting upon the life and death of their grand monarque. Those among them who had espoused the whig interest, very positively affirmed, that he departed this life about a week since, and therefore proceeded without any further delay to the release of their friends in the galleys, and to their own reestablishment; but, finding they could not agree among themselves, I proceeded on my intended progress.

Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's I saw an alerie young fellow that cocked his hat upon a friend of his who entered just at the same time with myself, and accosted him after the following manner: Well, Jack, the old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the word. Now or never, boy. Up to the walls of Paris directly.' With several other deep reflections of the same nature.

I met with very little variation in the politics between Charing-cross and Coventgarden. And upon my going into Will's, I found their discourse was gone off from the death of the French king to that of monsieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and seve

ral other poets, whom they regretted on this occasion, as persons who would have obliged the world with very noble elegies on the death of so great a prince, and so eminent a patron of learning.

At a coffee-house near the Temple, I found a couple of young gentlemen engaged very smartly in a dispute on the succession to the Spanish monarchy. One of them seemed to have been retained as an advo cate for the duke of Anjou, the other for his imperial majesty. They were both for regulating the title to that kingdom by the statute laws of England; but finding them going out of my depth, I passed forward to St. Paul's church-yard, where I listened with great attention to a learned man, who gave the company an account of the deplorable state of France during the minority of the deceased king.

I then turned on my right hand into Fishstreet, where the chief politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news, (after having taken a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for some time,) 'If,' says he, 'the king of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of mackerel this season: our fishery will not be disturbed by privateers, as it has been for these ten years past.' He afterwards considered how the death of this great man would affect our pilchards, and by several other remarks infused a general joy into his whole audience.

I afterwards entered a by-coffee-house, that stood at the upper end of a narrow lane, where I met with a nonjuror, engaged very warmly with a lace-man who was the great support of a neighbouring conventicle. The matter in debate was, whether the late French king was most like Augustus Cæsar or Nero. The controversy was carried on with great heat on both sides; and as each of them looked upon me very frequently during the course of their de bate, I was under some apprehension that they would appeal to me, and therefore laid down my penny at the bar, and made the best of my way to Cheapside.

I here gazed upon the signs for some time before I found one to my purpose: The first object I met in the coffee-room was a person who expressed a great grief for the death of the French king: but upon explaining himself, I found his sorrow did not arise from the loss of the monarch, but from his having sold out of the bank about three days before he heard the news of it. Upon which a haberdasher, who was the oracle of the coffee-house, and had his circle of admirers about him, called several to witness that he had declared his opinion above a week before, that the French king was certainly dead; to which he added, that, considering the late advices we had received from France, it was impossible that it could be otherwise. As he was laying these together, and dictating to his hearers with great authority, there came in a gentleman from Garraway's, who told us

that there were several letters from France, just come in, with advice that the king was in good health, and was gone out a-hunting the very morning the post came away: upon which the haberdasher stole off his hat that hung upon a wooden peg by him, and retired to his shop with great confusion. This intelligence put a stop to my travels, which I had prosecuted with so much satisfaction; not being a little pleased to hear so many different opinions upon so great an event, and to observe how naturally upon such a piece of news every one is apt to consider it with regard to his particular interest and advantage.

No. 404.] Friday, June 13, 1712.

L.

-Non omnia possumus omnes.-Virg. Ecl. viii. 63. With different talents form'd, we variously excel.

NATURE does nothing in vain: the Creator of the universe has appointed every thing to a certain use and purpose, and determined it to a settled course and sphere of action, from which if it in the least deviates, it becomes unfit to answer those ends for which it was designed. In like manner it is in the dispositions of society, the civil economy is formed in a chain as well as the natural: and in either case the breach but of one link puts the whole in some disorder. It is, I think, pretty plain, that most of the absurdity and ridicule we meet with in the world, is generally owing to the impertinent affectation of excelling in characters men are not fit for, and for which nature never designed them.

fondness for the character of a fine gentleman; all his thoughts are bent upon this; instead of attending a dissection, frequenting the courts of justice, or studying the fathers, Cleanthes reads plays, dances, dresses, and spends his time in drawingrooms; instead of being a good lawyer, divine, or physician, Cleanthes is a downright coxcomb, and will remain to all that know him a contemptible example of talents misapplied. It is to this affectation the world owes its whole race of coxcombs. Nature in her whole drama never drew such a part; she has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making, by applying his talents otherwise than Nature designed, who ever bears a high resentment for being put out of her course, and never fails of taking her revenge on those that do so. Opposing her tendency in the application of a man's parts has the same success as declining from her course in the produc tion of vegetables, by the assistance of art and a hot-bed. We may possibly extort an unwilling plant, or an untimely salad; but how weak, how tasteless and insipid. Just as insipid as the poetry of Valerio. Valerio had an universal character, was genteel, had learning, thought justly, spoke correctly; it was believed there was nothing in which Valerio did not excel; and it was so far true, that there was but one; Valerio had no genius for poetry, yet he is resolved to be a poet; he writes verses, and takes great pains to convince the town that Valerio is not that extraordinary person he was taken for.

Το

If men would be content to graft upon Nature, and assist her operations, what mighty effects might we expect! Tully would not stand so much alone in oratory, Virgil in poetry, or Cæsar in war. build upon Nature, is laying a foundation upon a rock; every thing disposes itself into order as it were of course, and the whole work is half done as soon as undertaken. Cicero's genius inclined him to oratory, Virgil's to follow the train of the Muses; they piously obeyed the admonition, and were rewarded. 'Had Virgil attended the bar, his modest and ingenuous virtue would surely have made but a very indifferent figure; and Tully's declamatory inclination would have been as useless in poetry. Nature, if left to herself, leads us on in the best course, but will do nothing by compulsion and constraint; and if we are not always satisfied to go her way, we are always the greatest sufferers by it.

Every man has one or more qualities which may make him useful both to himself and others. Nature never fails of pointing them out; and while the infant continues under her guardianship, she brings him on in his way, and then offers herself as a guide in what remains of the journey; if he proceeds in that course he can hardly m..scarry. Nature makes good her engagements: for, as she never promises what she is not able to perform, so she never fails of performing what she promises. But the misfortune is, men despise what they may be masters of, and affect what they are not fit for; they reckon themselves already possessed of what their genius inclined them to, and so bend all their ambition to excel in what is out of their reach. Thus they destroy the use of their natural talents, in the same manner as covetous men do their quiet and repose: Wherever nature designs a production, they can enjoy no satisfaction in what they she always disposes seeds proper for it, have, because of the absurd inclination they which are as absolutely necessary to the are possessed with for what they have not. formation of any moral or intellectual exCleanthes has good sense, a great memo-cellence, as they are to the being and ry, and a constitution capable of the closest application. In a word, there was no profession in which Cleanthes might not have made a very good figure; but this won't satisfy him; he takes up an unaccountable VOL. II.

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growth of plants, and I know not by what fate and folly it is, that men are taught not to reckon him equally absurd that will write verses in spite of Nature, with that gardener that should undertake to raise a jon

quil or tulip without the help of their respective seeds.

As there is no good or bad quality that does not affect both sexes, so it is not to be imagined but the fair sex must have suffered by an affectation of this nature, at least as much as the other. The ill effect of it is in none so conspicuous as in the two opposite characters of Cælia and Iras; Cælia has all the charms of person, together with an abundant sweetness of nature, but wants wit, and has a very ill voice; Iras is ugly and ungenteel, but has wit and good sense. If Calia would be silent, her beholders would adore her; if Iras would talk, her hearers would admire her; but Cælia's tongue runs incessantly, while Iras gives herself silent airs and soft languors, so that it is difficult to persuade oneself that Cælia has beauty, and Iras wit: each neglects her own excellence, and is ambitious of the other's character; Iras would be thought to have as much beauty as Cælia, and Cælia as much wit as Iras.

I AM Very sorry to find, by the opera bills for this day, that we are likely to lose the greatest performer in dramatic music that is now living, or that perhaps ever appeared upon a stage. I need not acquaint my readers that I am speaking of signior Nicolini. The town is highly obliged to that excellent artist, for having shown us the Italian music in its perfection, as well as for that generous approbation he lately gave to an opera of our own country, in which the composer endeavoured to do justice to the beauty of the words, by following that noble example, which has been set him by the greatest foreign masters in that art.

I could heartily wish there was the same application and endeavours to cultivate and improve our church-music as have been lately bestowed on that of the stage. Our composers have one very great incitement to it. They are sure to meet with excellent words, and at the same time a wonderful variety of them. There is no passion that is not finely expressed in those parts of the inspired writings, which are proper for divine songs and anthems.

There is a certain coldness and indifference in the phrases of our European languages, when they are compared with the oriental forms of speech; and it happens very luckily, that the Hebrew idioms run into the English tongue with a particular grace and beauty. Our language has re

ments, from that infusion of Hebraisms, which are derived to it out of the poetical passages in holy writ. They give a force and energy to our expression, warm and animate our language, and convey our thoughts

The great misfortune of this affectation is, that men not only lose a good quality, but also contract a bad one. They not only are unfit for what they were designed, but they assign themselves to what they are not fit for; and, instead of making a very good figure one way, make a very ridiculous one another. If Semanthe would have been satisfied with her natural complexion, she might still have been cele-ceived innumerable elegances and improvebrated by the name of the olive beauty; but Semanthe has taken up an affectation to white and red, and is now distinguished by the character of the lady that paints so well. In a word, could the world be reformed to the obedience of that famed dic-in more ardent and intense phrases, than tate,Follow Nature,' which the oracle of Delphos pronounced to Cicero, when he consulted what course of studies he should pursue, we should see almost every man as eminent in his proper sphere as Tully was in his, and should in a very short time find impertinence and affectation banished from among the women, and coxcombs and false characters from among the men. For my part I could never consider this preposterous repugnancy to Nature any otherwise, than not only as the greatest folly, but also one of the most heinous crimes, since it is a direct opposition to the disposition of Providence, and (as Tully expresses it) like the sin of the giants, an actual rebellion against heaven. Z.

No. 405.] Saturday, June 14, 1712.

Οι δε πανημέριοι μολπη Θεον ιλασκοντο
Καλον αειδόντες Παιηονα κούροι Αχαιών,
Μελποντες Εκάεργον" ο δε φρένα τέρπετ' ακκων.
Hom. Iliad. i. 472.

With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends;
The pans lengthen'd till the sun descends;
The Greeks restor'd the grateful notes prolong;
Apollo listens and approves the song.-Pope.

any that are to be met with in our own tongue. There is something so pathetic in this kind of diction, that it often sets the mind in a flame, and makes our hearts burn within us. How cold and dead does a prayer appear, that is composed in the most elegant and polite forms of speech, which are natural to our tongue, when it is not heightened by that solemnity of phrase which may be drawn from the sacred writings! It has been said by some of the ancients, that if the gods were to talk with men, they would certainly speak in Plato's style; but I think we may say with justice, that when mortals converse with their Creator, they cannot do it in so proper a style as in that of the holy scriptures.

If any one would judge of the beauties of poetry that are to be met with in the divine writings, and examine how kindly the Hebrew manners of speech mix and incorporate with the English language; after having perused the book of Psalms; let him read a literal translation of Horace or Pindar. He will find in these two last such an absurdity and confusion of style, with such a comparative poverty of imagination, as will make him very sensible of what I have been here advancing.

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