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with directions on both sides to be in love with one another; and in three weeks time we were married. I regained my former health and complexion, and am now as happy as the day is long. Now, Mr. Spec, I desire you would find out some name for these craving damsels, whether dignified or distinguished under some or all of the following denominations, to wit, "Trasheaters, Oatmeal-chewers, Pipe-champers, Chalk-lickers, Wax-nibblers, Coal-scranchers, Wall-peelers, or Gravel-diggers;" and, good sir, do your utmost endeavour to prevent (by exposing) this unaccountable folly, so prevailing among the young ones of our sex, who may not meet with such sudden good luck as, sir, your constant reader, and very humble servant,

'SABINA GREEN, T. "Now SABINA RENTFREE.'

--Inter strepit anser olores. Virg. Ecl. ix. 30.
He gabbles like a goose amidst the swan-like quire.
Dryden.

'Oxford, July 14.

invitation in one of your papers to every 'MR. SPECTATOR,-According to a late man who pleases to write, I have sent you the following short dissertation against the vice of being prejudiced. Your most hum

ble servant.'

dresser; I put two or three corns in my mouth, liked it, stole a handful, went into my chamber, chewed it, and for two months after never failed taking toll of every pennyworth of oatmeal that came into the house; but one day playing with a tobaccopipe between my teeth, it happened to break in my mouth, and the spitting out the pieces left such a delicious roughness on my tongue, that I could not be satisfied till I had champed up the remaining part of the pipe. I forsook the oatmeal and stuck to the pipes three months, in which time I had dispensed with thirty-seven foul pipes, all to the bowls: they belonged to an old gentleman, father to my governess. He locked up the clean ones. I left off eating of pipes, and fell to licking of chalk. I was soon tired of this. I then nibbled all the red wax of our last ball-tickets, and, three weeks after, the black wax from the burying-tickets of the old gentleman. Two months after this, I lived upon thunder- No. 432.] Wednesday, July 16, 1712. bolts, a certain long round blueish stone which I found among the gravel in our garden. I was wonderfully delighted with this; but thunder-bolts growing scarce, I fastened tooth and nail upon our garden-wall, which I stuck to almost a twelvemonth, and had in that time peeled and devoured half a foot towards our neighbour's yard. I now thought myself the happiest creature in the world; and I believe, in my conscience, I had eaten quite through, had I had it in my chamber; but now I became lazy and unwilling to stir, and was obliged to seek food nearer home. I then took a strange hankering to coals; I fell to scranching 'em, and had already consumed, I am certain, as much as would have dressed my wedding dinner, when my uncle came for me home. He was in the parlour with my governess, when I was called down. I went in, fell on my knees, for he made me call him father; and when I expected the blessing I asked, the good gentleman, in a surprise, turns himself to my governess, and asks, "whether this (pointing to me) was his daughter? This," added he, "is the very picture of death. My child was a plump-faced, hale, fresh-coloured girl; but this looks as if she was half-starved, a mere skeleton." My governess, who is really a good woman, assured my father I had wanted for nothing; and withal told him I was continually eating some trash or other, and that I was almost eaten up with the green-sickness, her orders being never to cross me. But this magnified but little with my father, who presently, in a kind of pet, paying for my board, took me home with him. I had not been long at home, but one Sunday at church (I shall never forget it) I saw a young neighbouring gentleman that pleased me hugely; I liked him of all men I ever saw in my life, and began to wish I could be as pleasing to him. The very next day he came with his father a visiting to our house: we were left alone together,

"Man is a sociable creature, and a lover of glory; whence it is, that when several persons are united in the same society, they are studious to lessen the reputation of others, in order to raise their own. The wise are content to guide the springs in silence, and rejoice in secret at their regular progress. To prate and triumph is the part allotted to the trifling and superficial. The geese were providentially ordained to save the Capitol. Hence it is, that the invention of marks and devices to distinguish parties is owing to the beaus and belles of this island. Hats moulded into different cocks and pinches, have long bid mutual defiance; patches have been set against patches in battle array: stocks have risen and fallen in proportion to head-dresses; and peace and war been expected, as the white or the red hood hath prevailed. These are the standard-bearers in our contending armies, the dwarfs and 'squires who carry the impresses of the giants or knights, not born to fight themselves, but to prepare the way for the ensuing combat.

"It is a matter of wonder to reflect how far men of weak understanding, and strong fancy, are hurried by their prejudices, even to the believing that the whole body of the adverse party are a band of villains and dæmons. Foreigners complain that the English are the proudest nation under heaven. Perhaps they too have their share: but be that as it will, general charges

against bodies of men is the fault I am writing against. It must be owned, to our shame, that our common people, and most who have not travelled, have an irrational contempt for the language, dress, customs, and even the shape and minds of other nations. Some men, otherwise of sense, have wondered that a great genius should spring out of Ireland; and think you mad in affirming that fine odes have been written in Lapland,

kind of fame. These copiers of men, like those of authors or painters, run into affectations of some oddness, which perhaps was not disagreeable in the original, but sits ungracefully on the narrow-souled transcriber.

"By such early corrections of vanity, while boys are growing into men, they will gradually learn not to censure superficially; but imbibe those principles of general kindness and humanity, which alone can make them easy to themselves, and beloved by others.

"This spirit of rivalship, which heretofore reigned in the two universities, is extinct, and almost over betwixt college and "Reflections of this nature have expungcollege. In parishes and schools the thirst ed all prejudice out of my heart; insomuch, for glory still obtains. At the seasons of that though I am a firm protestant, I hope foot-ball and cock-fighting, these little re-to see the pope and cardinals without viopublics reassume their national hatred to each other. My tenant in the country is verily persuaded, that the parish of the enemy hath not one honest man in it.

"I always hated satires against women, and satires against men: I am apt to suspect a stranger who laughs at the religion of the faculty: my spleen rises at a dull rogue who is severe upon mayors and aldermen; and I was never better pleased than with a piece of justice executed upon the body of a Templar who was very arch

upon parsons.

"The necessities of mankind require various employments; and whoever excels in his province is worthy of praise. All men are not educated after the same manner, nor have all the same talents. Those who are deficient deserve our compassion, and have a title to our assistance. All cannot

be bred in the same place; but in all places there arise, at different times, such persons as do honour to their society, which may raise envy in little souls, but are admired and cherished by generous spirits.

lent emotions; and though I am naturally grave, I expect to meet good company at Paris. I am, sir, your humble servant.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I find you are a general undertaker, and have, by your correspondents or self, an insight into most things; which makes me apply myself to ever befel man. My wife has taken someyou at present, in the sorest calamity that thing ill of me, and has not spoke one word, good or bad, to me, or any body in the family, since Friday was seven-night. What must a man do in that case? Your advice would be a great obligation to, sir, your most humble servant,

RALPH THIMBLETON.'

'July 15, 1712. MR. SPECTATOR,-When you want a trifle to fill up a paper, in inserting this you will lay an obligation on your humble ser

vant,

OLIVIA.'

"DEAR OLIVIA,-It is but this moment I have had the happiness of knowing to whom I am obliged for the present I received the second of April. I am heartily sorry it did not come to hand the day before; for I cannot but think it very hard upon people to lose their jest, that offer at one but once a-year. I congratulate myself however upon the earnest given me of something farther intended in my favour, for I am told that the man who is thought worthy by a lady to make a fool of stands fair enough in her opinion to become one day her husband. Till such time as I have the honour of being sworn, I take leave to subscribe myself, dear Olivia, your fool elect, NICODEMUNCIO.”

"It is certainly a great happiness to be educated in societies of great and eminent men. Their instructions and examples are of extraordinary advantage. It is highly proper to instil such a reverence of the governing persons, and concern for the honour of the place, as may spur the growing members to worthy pursuits and honest emulation; but to swell young minds with vain thoughts of the dignity of their own brotherhood, by debasing and vilifying all others, doth them a real injury. By this means I have found that their efforts have become languid, and their prattle irksome, as thinking it sufficient praise that they are children of so illustrious and ample a family. I should think it a surer as well as more generous method, to set before the No. 433.] Thursday, July 17, 1712. eyes of youth such persons as have made a noble progress in fraternities less talked of; which seems tacitly to reproach their sloth, who loll so heavily in the seats of mighty improvement. Active spirits hereby would enlarge their notions; whereas, by a servile imitation of one, or perhaps two, admired men in their own body, they can only gain a secondary and derivative

Perlege Mæonio cantatas carmine ranas,
Et frontem nugis solvere disce meis.

T.

Mart. Epig. clxxxiii. 14. To banish anxious thought, and quiet pain, Read Homer's frogs, or my more trifling strain. THE moral world, as consisting of males and females, is of a mixed nature, and filled with several customs, fashions, and ceremonies, which would have no place in it

Had our species | to time, and supplied with their respective subjects.

These two states were engaged together in a perpetual league, offensive and defensive; so that if any foreign potentate offered to attack either of them, both of the sexes fell upon him at once, and quickly brought him to reason. It was remarkable that for many ages this agreement continued inviolable between the two states, notwithstand

were there but one sex. no females in it, men would be quite different creatures from what they are at present: their endeavours to please the opposite sex polishes and refines them out of those manners which are most natural to them, and often sets them upon modelling themselves, not according to the plans which they approve in their own opinions, but according to those plans which they think are most agreeable to the female world. Ining, as was said before, they were husbands a word, man would not only be an unhappy, but a rude unfinished creature, were he conversant with none but those of his own make.

Women, on the other side, are apt to form themselves in every thing with regard to that other half of reasonable creatures with whom they are here blended and confused: their thoughts are ever turned upon appearing amiable to the other sex; they talk, and move, and smile, with a design upon us; every feature of their faces, every part of their dress, is filled with snares and allurements. There would be no such animals as prudes or coquettes in the world, were there not such an animal as man. In short, it is the male that gives charms to woman-kind, that produces an air in their faces, a grace in their motions, a softness in their voices, and a delicacy in their complexions.

As this mutual regard between the two sexes tends to the improvement of each of them, we may observe that men are apt to degenerate into rough and brutal natures who live as if there were no such things as women in the world; as, on the contrary, women who have an indifference or aversion for their counterparts in human nature are generally sour and unamiable, sluttish and censorious.

and wives; but this will not appear so wonderful, if we consider that they did not live together above a week in a year.

In the account which my author gives of the male republic, there were several customs very remarkable. The men never shaved their beards, or paired their nails, above once in a twelvemonth, which was probably about the time of the great annual meeting upon their frontiers. I find the name of a minister of state in one part of their history, who was fined for appearing too frequently in clean linen; and of a cer tain great general, who was turned out of his post for effeminacy, it having been proved upon him by several credible witnesses that he washed his face every morning. If any member of the commonwealth had a soft voice, a smooth face, or a supple behaviour, he was banished into the commonwealth of females, where he was treated as a slave, dressed in petticoats, and set a spinning. They had no titles of honour among them, but such as denoted some bodily strength or perfection, as such-a-one the tall,' such-a-one 'the stocky,' such-aone 'the gruff.' Their public debates were generally managed with kicks and cuffs, insomuch that they often came from the council-table with broken shins, black eyes, and bloody noses. When they would reproach a man in the most bitter terms, they would tell him his teeth were white, or that he had a fair skin and a soft hand. The greatest man I meet with in their history, who was one who could lift five hundred weight, and wore such a prodigious pair of whiskers as had never been seen in the commonwealth before his time. These

I am led into this train of thoughts by a little manuscript which is lately fallen into my hands, and which I shall communicate to the reader, as I have done some other curious pieces of the same nature without troubling him with any inquiries about the author of it. It contains a summary account of two different states which bordered upon one another. The one was a common-accomplishments, it seems, had rendered wealth of Amazons, or women without men; the other was a republic of males, that had not a woman in the whole community. As these two states bordered upon one another, it was their way, it seems, to meet upon their frontiers at a certain season of the year, where those among the men who had not made their choice in any former meeting, associated themselves with particular women, whom they were afterwards obliged to look upon as their wives in every one of these yearly rencounters.

him so popular, that if he had not died very seasonably, it is thought he might have enslaved the republic. Having made this short extract out of the history of the male commonwealth, I shall look into the history of the neighbouring state, which consisted of females; and if I find any thing in it, will not fail to communicate it to the public.

The children that sprung up from this al- No. 434.] Friday, July 18, 1712.

liance, if males, were sent to their respective fathers; if females, continued with their mothers. By means of this anniversary carnival, which lasted about a week, the commonwealths were recruited from time!

C.

Quales Threiciæ, cum flumina Thermodoontis
Pulsant, et pictis bellantur Amazones armis:
Seu circum Hyppolyten, seu cum se Martia curru
Penthesilea refert, magnoque ululante tumultu,
Fœminea exultant lunatis agmina peltis:

Virg. Æn. viii. 660.

So march'd the Thracian Amazons of old,
When Thermodon with bloody billows roll'd:
Such troops as these in shining arms were seen,
When Theseus met in fight their maiden queen.
Such to the field Penthesilea led,

From the fierce virgin when the Grecians fled.
With such return'd triumphant from the war,
Her maids with cries attend the lofty car:
They clash with manly force their moony shields;
With female shouts resound the Phrygian fields.
Dryden.

HAVING carefully perused the manuscript I mentioned in my yesterday's paper, so far as it relates to the republic of women, I find in it several particulars which may very well deserve the reader's attention.

I could not attend the public affairs as so great an exigency of state required; but this I can give no manner of credit to, since it seems to contradict a fundamental maxim in their government, which I have before mentioned. My author gives the most probable reason of this great disaster; for he affirms that the general was brought to bed, or (as others say) miscarried, the very night before the battle: however it was, this single overthrow obliged them to call in the male republic to their assistance; but, notwithstanding their common efforts to repulse the victorious enemy, the war continued for many years before they could entirely bring it to a happy conclusion.

The campaigns which both sexes passed together made them so well acquainted with one another, that at the end of the war they did not care for parting. In the beginning of it they lodged in separate camps, but afterwards, as they grew more familiar, they pitched their tents promiscuously.

From this time, the armies being checkered with both sexes, they polished apace. The men used to invite their fellow soldiers into their quarters, and would dress their tents with flowers and boughs for their reception. If they chanced to like one more than another, they would be cutting her name in the table, or chalking out her figure upon a wall, or talking of her in a kind of rapturous language, which by degrees improved into verse and sonnet. These were as the first rudiments of architecture, painting, and poetry, among this savage people. After any advantage over the enemy, both sexes used to jump together, and make a clattering with their swords and shields, for joy, which in a few years produced several regular tunes and set dances.

The girls of quality, from six to twelve years old, were put to public schools, where they learned to box and play at cudgles, with several other accomplishments of the same nature: so that nothing was more usual than to see a little miss returning home at night with a broken pate, or two or three teeth knocked out of her head. They were afterwards taught to ride the great horse, to shoot, dart or sling, and listed into several companies, in order to perfect themselves in military exercises, No woman was to be married till she had killed her man. The ladies of fashion used to play with young lions instead of lap-dogs; and when they made any parties of diversion, instead of entertaining themselves at ombre and piquet, they would wrestle and pitch the bar for a whole afternoon together. There was never any such thing as a blush seen, or a sigh heard, in the whole commonwealth. The women never dressed but to look terrible; to which end they would sometimes, after a battle, paint their cheeks with the blood of their enemies. For this reason, likewise, the face which had the most scars was looked upon as the most beautiful. If they found lace, jewels, ribands, or any ornaments in silver or gold, among the booty which they had taken, As the two armies romped together upon they used to dress their horses with it, these occasions, the women complained of but never entertained a thought of wear- the thick bushy beards and long nails of ing it themselves. There were particular their confederates, who thereupon took care rights and privileges allowed to any mem-to prune themselves into such figures as ber of the commonwealth_who was a mo- were most pleasing to their friends and ther of three daughters. The senate was allies. made up of old women, for by the laws of When they had taken any spoils from the country, none was to be a counsellor the enemy, the men would make a present of state that was not past child-bearing. of every thing that was rich and showy to They used to boast that their republic had the women whom they most admired, and continued four thousand years, which is would frequently dress the necks, or heads, altogether improbable, unless we may sup- or arms, of their mistresses, with any thing pose, what I am very apt to think, that which they thought appeared gay or pretty. they measured their time by lunar years. The women observing that the men took There was a great revolution brought about delight in looking upon them when they in this female republic by means of a neigh- were adorned with such trappings and bouring king, who had made war upon them gewgaws, set their heads at work to find several years with various success, and at out new inventions and to outshine one anlength overthrew them in a very great battle. other in all councils of war, or the like This defeat they ascribe to several causes: solemn meetings. On the other hand, the some say that the secretary of state, having men observing how the women's hearts been troubled with the vapours, had com- were set upon finery, begun to embellish mitted some fatal mistakes in several des-themselves, and look as agreeably as they patches about that time. Others pretend could in the eyes of their associates. In that the first minister being big with child, short, after a few years' conversing togeVOL. II.

22

ther, the women had learned to smile, and the men to ogle; the women grew soft, and the men lively.

When they had thus insensibly formed one another, upon finishing of the war, which concluded with an entire conquest of their common enemy, the colonels in one army married the colonels in the other; the captains in the same manner took the captains to their wives: the whole body of common soldiers were matched after the example of their leaders. By this means the two republics incorporated with one another, and became the most flourishing and polite government in the part of the world which they inhabited. C.

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a hat and feather, a riding-coat, and a periwig, or at least tie up their hair in a bag or riband, in imitation of the smart part of the opposite sex. As in my yesterday's paper I gave an account of the mixture of two sexes in one commonwealth, I shall here take notice of this mixture of two sexes in one person. I have already shown my dislike of this immodest custom more than once; but in contempt of every thing I have hitherto said, I am informed that the highways about this great city are still very much infested with these female cavaliers.

I remember when I was at my friend Sir Roger de Coverley's, about this time twelvemonth, an equestrian lady of this order appeared upon the plains which lay at a distance from his house. I was at that time walking in the fields with my old friend; and as his tenants ran out on every side to see so strange a sight, Sir Roger asked one of them, who came by us, what it was? To which the country fellow replied, "Tis a gentlewoman, saving your worship's presence, in a coat and hat.' This produced a great deal of mirth at the knight's house, where we had a story at the same time of another of his tenants, who meeting this gentleman-like lady on the highway, was asked by her whether that was Coverleyhall? The honest man seeing only the male part of the querist, replied, sir;' but upon the second question, whether Sir Roger de Coverley was a married man? having dropped his eye upon the petticoat, he changed his note into 'No, madam.'

Yes,

Had one of these hermaphrodites appeared in Juvenal's days, with what an indignation should we have seen her described by that excellent satirist! he would have represented her in a riding habit as a greater monster than the centaur. He would have called for sacrifices of purifying waters, to expiate the appearance of such a prodigy. He would have invoked the shades of Portia and Lucretia, to see into what the Roman ladies had transform

MOST of the papers I give the public are written on subjects that never vary, but are for ever fixed and immutable. Of this kind are all my more serious essays and discourses; but there is another sort of speculations, which I consider as occasional papers, that take their rise from the folly, extravagance, and caprice of the present age. For I look upon myself as one set to watch the manners and behaviour of my countrymen and contemporaries, and to mark down every absurd fashion, ridiculous custom, or affected form of speech, that makes its appearance in the world during the course of my speculations. The petticoat no sooner begun to swell, but I observed its motions. The party-patches had not time to muster themselves before I detected them. I had intelligence of the coloured hood the very first time it appeared in a public assembly. I might here mention several other the like contingent subjects, upon which I have bestowed distinct papers. By this means I have so effec-ed themselves. tually quashed those irregularities which For my own part, I am for treating the gave occasion to them, that I am afraid sex with greater tenderness, and have all posterity will scarce have a sufficient idea along made use of the most gentle methods to of them to relish those discourses which bring them off from any little extravagance were in no little vogue at the time they into which they have sometimes unwarily were written. They will be apt to think fallen. I think it however absolutely necesthat the fashions and customs I attack- sary to keep up the partition between the ed were some fantastic conceits of my two sexes, and to take notice of the smallest own, and that their great grandmothers encroachments which the one makes upon could not be so whimsical as I have repre- the other. I hope therefore I shall not sented them. For this reason, when I think hear any more complaints on this subject. on the figure my several volumes of specu- I am sure my she-disciples, who peruse lations will make about a hundred years these my daily lectures, have profited but hence, I consider them as so many pieces little by them, if they are capable of giving of old plate, where the weight will be re-into such an amphibious dress. This I garded, but the fashion lost.

Among the several female extravagances I have already taken notice of, there is one which still keeps its ground. I mean that of the ladies who dress themselves in

should not have mentioned, had I not lately met one of these my female readers in Hyde-park, who looked upon me with a masculine assurance, and cocked her hat full in my face.

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