immediately gave me an inventory of her jewels and estate, adding, that he was resolved to do nothing in a matter of such consequence without my approbation. Finding he would have an answer, I told him if he could get the lady's consent, he had mine. This is about the tenth match, which, to my knowledge, Will has consulted his friends upon, without ever opening his accommodate their counsels to his inclina- | upon so strange a question; upon which he tions, and advise him to such actions only as his heart is naturally set upon. The privy counsellor of one in love must observe the same conduct, unless he would forfeit the friendship of the person who desires his advice. I have known several odd cases of this nature. Hipparchus was going to marry a common woman, but being resolved to do nothing without the advice of his friend Philander, he consult-mind to the party herself. ed him upon the occasion. Philander told him his mind freely, and represented his mistress to him in such strong colours, that the next morning he received a challenge for his pains, and before twelve o'clock was run through the body by the man who had asked his advice. Celia was more prudent on the like occasion. She desired Leonilla to give her opinion freely upon the young fellow who made his addresses to her. Leonilla, to oblige her, told her, with great frankness, that she looked upon 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Now, sir, the thing as one of the most worthless-Celia, fore- is this; Mr. Shapely is the prettiest genseeing what a character she was to expect, He is very tall, but begged her not to go on, for that she had not too tall neither. He dances like an been privately married to him above a angel. His mouth is made I do not know fortnight. The truth of it is, a woman sel-how, but it is the prettiest that I ever saw dom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes. When she has made her own choice, for form's sake, she sends a conge d' elire to ner friends. him I have been engaged in this subject by the following letter, which comes to me from some notable young female scribe, who, by the contents of it, seems to have carried matters so far, that she is ripe for asking advice: but as I would not lose her good will, nor forfeit the reputation which I have with her for wisdom, I shall only communicate the letter to the public, without returning any answer to it. tleman about town. in my life. He is always laughing, for he has an infinite deal of wit. If you did but see how he rolls his stockings! He has a thousand pretty fancies, and I am sure, if If we look into the secret springs and you saw him, you would like him. He is motives that set people at work on these a very good scholar, and can talk Latin as occasions, and put them upon asking ad- fast as English. I wish you could but see vice which they never intend to take; I him dance. Now you must understand, look upon it to be none of the least, that Poor Mr. Shapely has no estate; but how they are incapable of keeping a secret can he help that, you know? And yet my which is so very pleasing to them. friends are so unreasonable as to be always A girl longs to tell her confidant that she hopes to teasing me about him, because he has no be married in a little time; and, in order to estate; but I am sure he has what is better talk of the pretty fellow that dwells so than an estate; for he is a good-natured, inmuch in her thoughts, asks her very genious, modest, civil, tall, well-bred, handgravely, what she would advise her to do some man; and I am obliged to him for his in a case of so much difficulty. Why else civilities ever since I saw him. I forgot to should Melissa, who had not a thousand tell you that he has black eyes, and looks pounds in the world, go into every quarter upon me now and then as if he had tears in of the town to ask her acquaintance, whe-them. And yet my friends are so unreather they would advise her to take Tom Townly, that made his addresses to her with an estate of five thousand a year. It is very pleasant, on this occasion, to hear the lady propose her doubts, and to see the pains she is at to get over them. I must not here omit a practice which is in use among the vainer part of our sex, who will often ask a friend's advice in relation to a fortune whom they are never Will Honeycomb, who is now on the verge of threescore, took me aside not long since, and asked me in his most serious look, whether I would advise um to marry my lady Betty Single, who, like to come at. sonable; that they would have me be un- by the way, is one of the greatest fortunes No. 476.] Friday, September 5, 1712. about town, I stared him full in the face he was, or pretended to be, deaf and dumb, and succeeded in making a fortune to himself by practising for some years on the credulity of the vulgar in the ignominious character of a fortune-teller. -Lucidus ordo. Hor. Ars Poet. 41. AMONG my daily papers which I bestow on the public, there are some which are written with regularity and method, and others that run out into the wildness of those compositions which go by the name of essays. As for the first, I have the whole scheme of the discourse in my mind before I set pen to paper. In the other kind of writing it is sufficient that I have several thoughts on a subject, without troubling myself to range them in such order, that they may seem to grow out of one another, and be disposed under the proper heads. Seneca and Montaigne are patterns for writing in this last kind, as Tully and Aristotle excel in the other. When I read an author of genius who writes without method, I fancy myself in a wood that abounds with a great many noble objects, rising one among another in the greatest confusion and disorder. When I read a methodical discourse, I am in a regular plantation, and can place myself in its several centres, so as to take a view of all the lines and walks that are struck from them. You may ramble in the one a whole day together, and every moment discover something or other that is new to you; but when you have done, you will have but a confused, imperfect notion of the place: in the other your eye commands the whole prospect, and gives you such an idea of it as is not easily worn out of the memory. Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them. want of method in the thoughts of my honest countrymen. There is not one dispute in ten which is managed in those schools of politics, where, after the three first sentences, the question is not entirely lost. Our disputants put me in mind of the scuttle-fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him until he becomes invisible. The man who does not know how to methodise his thoughts, has always to borrow a phrase from the Dispensary, a barren superfluity of words;' the fruit is lost amidst the exuberance of leaves. Tom Puzzle is one of the most eminent immethodical disputants of any that has fallen under my observation. Tom has read enough to make him very impertinent: his knowledge is sufficient to raise doubts, but not to clear them. It is a pity that he has so much learning, or that he has not a great deal more. With these qualifications Tom sets up for a freethinker, finds a great many things to blame in the constitution of his country, and gives shrewd intimations that he does not believe another world. In short, Puzzle is an atheist as much as his parts will give him leave. He has got about half a dozen common-place topics, into which he never fails to turn the conversation, whatever was the occasion of it. Though the matter in debate be about Douay or Denain, it is ten to one but half his discourse runs upon the unreasonableness of bigotry and priest-craft. This makes Mr. Puzzle the admiration of all those who have less sense than himself, and the contempt of all those who have more. There is none in town whom Tom dreads so much as my friend Will Dry. Will, who is acquainted with Tom's logic, when he finds him running off the question, cuts him short with a "What then? We allow all this to be true; but what is it to our present purpose?" I have known Tom eloquent half an hour together, and triumphing, as he thought, in the superiority of the argument, when he has been nonplussed on a sudden by Mr. Dry's desiring him to tell the company what it was that he endeavoured to prove. In short, Dry is a man of a clear methodical head, but few words, and gains the same advantage over Puzzle that a small body of regular troops would gain over a numberless undisciplined mi Method is of advantage to a work, both in respect to the writer and the reader. In regard to the first, it is a great help to his invention. When a man has planned his discourse, he finds a great many thoughts rising out of every head, that do not offer themselves upon the general survey of a subject. His thoughts are at the same time more intelligible, and better discover their drift and meaning, when they are placed in their proper lights, and follow one another in a regular series, than when they are thrown together without order and connexion. There is always an obscurity in confusion; and the same sentence that would have enlightened the reader in one part of a discourse, perplexes him in another. For the same reason, likewise, every thought in a methodical discourse shows litia. itself in its greatest beauty, as the several figures in a piece of painting receive new grace from their disposition in the picture. No. 477.] Saturday, September 6, 1712 The advantages of a reader from a methodical discourse are correspondent with those of the writer. He comprehends every thing easily, takes it in with pleasure, and retains it long. Method is not less requisite in ordinary conversation than in writing, provided a man would talk to make himself understood. I, who hear a thousand coffee-house debates every day, am very sensible of this! -An me ludit amabilis Insania? audire et videor pios Quos et aquæ subeunt et auræ. -Does airy fancy cheat C. Hor. Od. iv. Lib. 3. 5. My mind, well pleas'd with the deceit? 'SIR,-Having lately read your essay on its own producing. There is another cirthe Pleasures of the Imagination, I was cumstance in which I am very particular, so taken with your thoughts upon some of or, as my neighbours call me, very whimsiour English gardens, that I cannot forbear cal: as my garden invites into it all the birds troubling you with a letter upon that sub-of the country, by offering them the conject. I am one, you must know, who am veniency of springs and shades, solitude looked upon as a humourist in gardening. I and shelter, I do not suffer any one to dehave several acres about my house which I stroy their nests in the spring, or drive call my garden, and which a skilful gar- them from their usual haunts in fruit-time; dener would not know what to call. It is I value my garden more for being full of a confusion of kitchen and parterre, orch- blackbirds than cherries, and very frankly ard and flower-garden, which lie so mixed give them fruit for their songs. By this and interwoven with one another, that if a means I have always the music of the seaforeigner, who had seen nothing of our coun- son in its perfection, and am highly detry, should be conveyed into my garden at lighted to see the jay or the thrush hopping his first landing, he would look upon it as a about my walks, and shooting before my natural wilderness, and one of the unculti-eyes across the several little glades and alvated parts of our country. My flowers leys that I pass through, I think there are grow up in several parts of the garden in as many kinds of gardening as of poetry: the greatest luxuriancy and profusion. I your makers of parterres and flower-garam so far from being fond of any particular dens are epigrammatists and sonnetteers one, by reason of its rarity, that if I meet in this art; contrivers of bowers and grottos, with any one in a field which pleases me, treillages and cascades, are romance wriI give it a place in my garden. By this ters. Wise and London are our heroic means, when a stranger walks with me, he poets; and if, as a critic, I may single out is surprised to see several large spots of any passage of their works to commend, I ground covered with ten thousand different shall take notice of that part in the upper colours, and has often singled out flowers garden at Kensington, which was at first that he might have met with under a com- nothing but a gravel-pit. It must have mon hedge, in a field, or in a meadow, as been a fine genius for gardening that could some of the greatest beauties of the place. have thought of forming such an unsightly The only method I observe in this particu- hollow into so beautiful an area, and to lar, is to range in the same quarter the have hit the eye with so uncommon and products of the same season, that they may agreeable a scene as that which it is now make their appearance together, and-com- wrought into. To give this particular spot pose a picture of the greatest variety. of ground the greatest effect, they have There is the same irregularity in my plan-made a very pleasing contrast; for as on tations, which run into as great a wilder- one side of the walk you see this hollow ness as their natures will permit. I take basin, with its several little plantations, lyin none that do not naturally rejoice in the ing so conveniently under the eye of the soil; and am pleased, when I am walking beholder, on the other side of it there apin a labyrinth of my own raising, not to pears a seeming mount, made up of trees know whether the next tree I shall meet rising one higher than another, in proportion with is an apple or an oak, an elm or a as they approach the centre. A spectator, pear-tree. My kitchen has likewise its who has not heard this account of it, would particular quarters assigned it; for, besides think this circular mount was not only a the wholesome luxury which that place real one, but that it had been actually abounds with, I have always thought a scooped out of that hollow space which I kitchen-garden a more pleasant sight than have before mentioned. I never yet met the finest orangery or artificial green- with any one, who has walked in this garhouse. I love to see every thing in its per-den, who was not struck with that part of fection; and am more pleased to survey my it which I have here mentioned. As for rows of coleworts and cabbages, with a myself, you will find, by the account which thousand nameless pot-herbs, springing up I have already given you, that my compoin their full fragrancy and verdure, than to sitions in gardening are altogether after see the tender plants of foreign countries the Pindaric manner, and run into the kept alive by artificial heats, or withering beautiful wildness of nature, without afin an air and soil that are not adapted to fecting the nicer elegancies of art. What I them. I must not omit, that there is a foun- am now going to mention will, perhaps, tain rising in the upper part of my garden, deserve your attention more than any thing which forms a little wandering rill, and ad- I have yet said. I find that, in the disministers to the pleasure as well as to the course which I spoke of at the beginning plenty of the place. I have so conducted of my letter, you are against filling an Engit, that it visits most of my plantations; and lish garden with evergreens: and indeed I have taken particular care to let it run in am so far of your opinion, that I can by no the same manner as it would do in an open | field, so that it generally passes through banks of violets and primroses, plats of willow or other plants, that seem to be of means think the verdure of an evergreen comparable to that which shoots out annually, and clothes our trees in the summer season. But I have often wondered that those who are like myself, and love to live in gardens, have never thought of contriving a winter garden, which would consist of such trees only as never cast their leaves. We have very often little snatches of sunshine and fair weather in the most uncomfortable parts of the year, and have frequently several days in November and January that are as agreeable as any in the finest months. At such times, therefore, I think there could not be a greater pleasure than to walk in such a winter garden as I have proposed. In the summer season the whole country blooms, and is a kind of garden; for which reason we are not so sensible of those beauties that at this time may be every where met with; but when nature is in her desolation, and presents us with nothing but bleak and barren prospects, there is something unspeakably cheerful in a spot of ground which is covered with trees that smile amidst all the rigour of winter, and give us a view of the most gay season in the midst of that which is the most dead and melancholy. I have so far indulged myself in this thought, that I have set apart a whole acre of ground for the executing of it. The walls are covered with ivy instead of vines. The laurel, the horn-beam, and the holly, with many other trees and plants of the same nature, grow so thick in it, that you cannot imagine a more lively scene. The glowing redness of the berries, with which they are hung at this time, vies with the verdure of their leaves, and is apt to inspire the heart of the beholder with that vernal delight which you have somewhere taken notice of in your former papers. It is very pleasant, at the same time, to see the several kinds of birds retiring into this little green spot, and enjoying themselves among the branches and foliage, when my great garden, which have before mentioned to you, does not afford a single leaf for their shelter. 'You must know, sir, that I look upon the pleasure which we take in a garden as one of the most innocent delights in human life. A garden was the habitation of our first parents before the fall. It is naturally apt to fill the mind with calmness and tranquillity, and to lay all its turbulent passions at rest. It gives us a great insight into the contrivance and wisdom of Providence, and suggests innumerable subjects for meditation. I cannot but think the very complacency and satisfaction which a man takes in these works of nature to be a laudable, if not a virtuous, habit of mind. For all which reasons I hope you will pardon the length of my present letter. I am, sir, &c.' C. that a friend of mine, who had many things to buy for his family, would oblige me to walk with him to the shops. He was very nice in his way, and fond of having every thing shown; which at first made me very uneasy; but, as his humour still continued, the things which I had been staring at along with him began to fill my head, and led me into a set of amusing thoughts concerning them. 'I fancied it must be very surprising to any one who enters into a detail of fashions to consider how far the vanity of mankind has laid itself out in dress, what a prodigious number of people it maintains, and what a circulation of money it occasions. Providence in this case makes use of the folly which we will not give up, and it becomes instrumental to the support of those who are willing to labour. Hence it is that fringe-makers, lace-men, tire-women, and a number of other trades, which would be useless in a simple state of nature, draw their subsistence; though it is seldom seen that such as these are extremely rich, because their original fault of being founded upon vanity keeps them poor by the light inconstancy of its nature. The variableness of fashion turns the stream of business, which flows from it, now into one channel, and anon into another; so that the different sets of people sink or flourish in their turns by it. From the shops we retired to the tavern, where I found my friend express so much satisfaction for the bargains he had made, that my moral reflections (if I had told them) might have passed for a reproof; so I chose rather to fall in with him, and let the discourse run upon the use of fashions. 'Here we remembered how much man is governed by his senses, how lively he is struck by the objects which appear to him in an agreeable manner, how much clothes contribute to make us agreeable objects, and how much we owe it to ourselves that we should appear so. We considered man as belonging to societies; societies as formed of different ranks; and different ranks distinguished by habits, that all proper duty or respect might attend their appearance. We took notice of several advantages which are met with in the occurrences of conversation; how the bashful man has beer sometimes so raised, as to express himself with an air of freedom when he imagines that his habit introduces him to company with a becoming manner; and again, how a fool in fine clothes shall be suddenly heard with attention, till he has betrayed himself; whereas a man of sense appearing with a dress of negligence, shall be but coldly received till he be proved by time, and established in a character. Such things as these we could recollect to have hap pened to our own knowledge so very often, 'MR. SPECTATOR,-It happened lately that we concluded the author had his rea No. 478.] Monday, September 8, 1712. -Usus, Quem penes arbitrium est, et jus et norma- sons, who advises his son to go in dress rather above his fortune than under it. At last the subject seemed so considerable, that it was proposed to have a repository built for fashions, as there are chambers for medals and other rarities. The building may be shaped as that which stands among the pyramids, in the form of a woman's head. This may be raised upon pillars, whose ornaments shall bear a just relation to the design. Thus there may be an imitation of fringe carved in the base, a sort of appearance of lace in the frieze, and a representation of curling locks, with bows of ribband sloping over them, may fill up the work of the cornice. The inside may be divided into two apartments appropriated to each sex. The apartments may be filled with shelves, on which boxes are to stand as regularly as books in a library. These are to have folding doors, which, being opened, you are to behold a baby dressed out in some fashion which has flourished, and standing upon a pedestal, where the time of its reign is marked down. For its farther regulation, let it be ordered, that every one who invents a fashion shall bring in his box, whose front he may at pleasure have either worked or painted with some amorous or gay device, that, like books with gilded leaves and covers, it may the sooner draw the eyes of the beholders. And to the end that these may be preserved with all due care, let there be a keeper appointed, who shall be a gentleman qualified with a competent knowledge in clothes; so that by this means the place will be a comfortable support for some beau who has spent his estate in dressing. 'The reasons offered, by which we expected to gain the approbation of the public, were as follows: lars, who might have been otherwise useful to the world, have spent their time in studying to describe the dresses of the ancients from dark hints, which they are fain to interpret and support with much learning; it will from henceforth happen that they shall be freed from the trouble, and the world from useless volumes. This project will be a registry, to which posterity may have recourse, for the clearing such obscure passages as tend that way in authors; and therefore we shall not for the future submit ourselves to the learning of etymology, which might persuade the age to come that the farthingale was worn for cheapness, or the furbelow for warmth. 'Fourthly, Whereas they, who are old themselves, have often a way of railing at the extravagance of youth, and the whole age in which their children live; it is hoped that this ill-humour will be much suppressed, when we can have recourse to the fashions of their times, produce them in our vindication, and be able to show, that it might have been as expensive in queen Elizabeth's time only to wash and quill a ruff, as it is now to buy cravats or neck handkerchiefs. "We desire also to have it taken notice of, that because we would show a particular respect to foreigners, which may induce them to perfect their breeding here in a knowledge which is very proper for pretty gentlemen, we have conceived the motto for the house in the learned language. There is to be a picture over the door, with a looking-glass and a dressing chair in the middle of it; then on one side are to be seen, above one another, patch-boxes, pincushions, and little bottles; on the other, powder-bags, puffs, combs, and brushes; beyond these, swords with fine knots, whose First, That every one who is consider-points are hidden, and fans almost closed, able enough to be a mode, and has any imperfection of nature or chance, which it is possible to hide by the advantage of clothes, may, by coming to this repository, be furnished herself, and furnish all who are under the same misfortune, with the most agreeable manner of concealing it; and that, on the other side, every one, who has any beauty in face or shape, may also be furnished with the most agreeable manner of showing it. 'Secondly, That whereas some of our young gentlemen who travel, give us great reason to suspect that they only go abroad to make or improve a fancy for dress, a project of this nature may be a means to keep them at home; which is in effect the keeping of so much money in the kingdom. And perhaps the balance of fashion in Europe, which now leans upon the side of France, may be so altered for the future, that it may become as common with Frenchmen to come to England for their finishing stroke of breeding, as it has been for Englishmen to go to France for it. 'Thirdly, Whereas several great scho with the handles downward, are to stand "Adeste, O quotquot sunt, Veneres, Gratie, Cupidines, "All ye Venusses, Graces, and Cupids, attend: Your weapons here choose, and your empire extend." 'Your most humble servant, The proposal of my correspondent I cannot but look upon as an ingenious method of placing persons (whose parts make them ambitious to exert themselves in frivolous things) in a rank by themselves. In order to this, I would propose that there be a board of directors of the fashionable society; and, because it is a matter of too much weight for a private man to determine |