sion easily affected; for I must tell you, dear Jenny, I hold one maxim, which is an uncommon one, to wit, that our greatest charms are owing to affectation. It is to that our arms can lodge so quietly just over our hips, and the fan can play without any force or motion, but just of the wrist. It is to atfectation we owe the pensive attention of Deidamia at a tragedy, the scornful approbation of Dulciamara at a comedy, and the lowly aspect of Lanquicelsa at a sermon. "To tell you the plain truth, I know no pleasure but in being admired, and have yet never failed of attaining the approbation of the man whose regard I had a mind to. You see all the men who make a figure in the world (as wise a look as they are pleased to put upon the matter) are moved by the same vanity as I am. What is there in ambition, but to make other people's wills depend upon yours? This indeed is not to be aimed at by one who has a genius no higher than to think of being a very good housewife in a country gentleman's family. The care of poultry and pigs are great enemies to the countenance; the vacant look of a fine lady is not to be preserved, if she admits any thing to take up her thoughts but her own dear person. But I interrupt you too long from your cares, and myself from my conquests. so that your dear may bring you hither as soon as his horses are in case enough to appear in town, and you be very safe against any raillery you may apprehend from me; for I am surrounded with coxcombs of my own making, who are all ridiculous in a manner your good man, I presume, cannot exert himself. As men who cannot raise their fortunes, and are uneasy under the incapacity of shining in courts, rail at ambition; so do awkward and insipid women, who cannot warm the hearts, and charm the eyes of men, rail at affectation: but she that has the joy of seeing a man's heart leap into his eyes at beholding her, is in no pain for want of esteem among the crew of that part of her own sex, who have no spirit but that of envy, and no language but that of malice. I do not in this, I hope, express myself insensible of the merit of Leodacia, who lowers her beauty to all but her husband, and never spreads her charms but to gladden him who has a right to them; I say, I do honour to those who can be coquettes, and are not such; but I despise all who would be so, and, in despair of arriving at it themselves, hate and vilify all those who can. But be that as it will, in answer to your desire of knowing my history: one of my chief present pleasures is in country-dances; and in obedience to me, as well as the pleasure of coming up to me with a good grace, showing themselves in their address to others in my presence, and the like opportunities, they are all proficients that way: and I had the happiness of being the other night where we made six couple, and every woman's partner a professed lover of mine. The wildest imagination can not form to itself, on any occasion, higher delight than "I take your raillery in very good part, and am I acknowledge myself to have been in all that even-obliged to you for the free air with which you speak ing. I chose out of my admirers a set of men who most love me, and gave them partners of such of my own sex who most envied me. "I am, Madam, your most humble Servant." "Give me leave, Mr. Spectator, to add her friend's answer to this epistle, who is a very discreet ingenious woman." "DEAR GATTY, of your own gaieties. But this is but a barren su- T. "Your most obedient Servant." No. 516.] WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1712. A grutch, time out of mind, begun "My way is, when any man who is my admirer pretends to give himself airs of merit, as at this time a certain gentleman you know did, to mortify him by favouring in his presence the most insignicant creature I can find. At this ball I was led into the company by pretty Mr. Fanfly, who, you know, is the most obsequious, well-shaped, well-bred woman's man in town. I, at first entrance, declared him my partner if he danced at all; which put the whole assembly into a grin, as forming no terrors from such a rival. But we had not been long in the room before I overheard the meritorious gentleman above mentioned say with an oath, There is no raillery in the thing, she certainly loves the puppy.' My gentleman, when we were dancing, took an occasion to be very soft in his oglings upon a lady he danced with, and whom he knew of all women I loved most to outshine. The contest began who should plague the other most. I, who do not care a farthing for him, had no hard task to outvex him. I made Fanfly, with a very little encouragement, cut capers coupée, and then sink with all the air and tenderness imaginable. When he performed this, I observed the gentleman you know of fall into the same way, and imitate as well as he could the despised Fanfly. I cannot well give you, who are so grave a country lady, the idea of the joy we have when we see a stubborn heart breaking, or a man of sense turning fool for our sakes; but this happened to our friend, and I expect his attendance whenever I go to church, to court, to the play, or the park. This is a sacrifice due to us women of genius, who of Peace. have the eloquence of beauty, an easy mien. I The massacres to which the church of Rome has mean by an easy mien, one which can be en occa-animated the ordinary people, are dreadful instances Of all the monstrous passions and opinions which have crept into the world, there is none so wonderful as that those who profess the common name of Christians, should pursue each other with rancour and hatred for differences in their way of following the example of their Saviour. It seems so natural that all who pursue the steps of any leader should form themselves after his manners, that it is impossible to account for effects so different from what we might expect from those who profess themselves fol lowers of the highest pattern of meekness and cha rity, but by ascribing such effects to the ambition and corruption of those who are so audacious, with souls full of fury, to serve at the altars of the God of the truth of this observation; and whoever reads | his virtue, and gild his vice at so high a rate, that the history of the Irish rebellion, and the cruelties he without scorn of the one, or love of the other, which ensued thereupon, will be sufficiently con- would alternately and occasionally use both; so vinced to what rage poor ignorants may be worked that his bounty should support him in his rapines, up by those who profess holiness, and become in- his mercy in his cruelties." cendiaries, and, under the dispensation of grace, promote evils abhorrent to nature. "Nor is it to give things a more severe look than is natural, to suppose such must be the consequences The subject and catastrophe, which deserve so of a prince's having no other pursuit than that of well to be remarked by the Protestant world, will, his own glory; for if we consider an infant born into I doubt not, be considered, by the reverend and the world, and beholding itself the mightiest thing learned prelate that preaches to-morrow before many in it, itself the present admiration and future prus of the descendants of those who perished on that la-pect of a fawning people, who profess themselves mentable day, in a manner suitable to the occasion, great or mean, according to the figure he is to make and worthy his own great virtue and eloquence. amongst them, what fancy would not be debauched I shall not dwell upon it any further, but only tran-to believe they were but what they professed them. scribe out of a little tract, called the Christian Hero, published in 1701, what I find there in honour of the renowned hero, William III., who rescued that nation from a repetition of the same disasters. His late majesty, of glorious memory, and the most Christian king, are considered at the conclusion of that treatise as heads of the Protestant and Roman Catholic world in the following manner: selves-his mere creatures, and use them as such, by purchasing with their lives a boundless renour, which he, for want of a more just prospect, would place in the number of his slaves, and the extent of his territories? Such undoubtedly would be the tragical effects of a prince's living with no religion, which are not to be surpassed but by his having a false one. an army, whose swords can make right in power, and solve controversy in belief? And if men should be stiff-necked to the doctrine of that visible church, let them be contented with an oar and a chain, in the midst of stripes and anguish, to contemplate on Him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. "There were not ever, before the entrance of the "If ambition were spirited with zeal, what would Christian name into the world, men who have main-follow, but that his people should be converted inta tained a more renowned carriage, than the two great rivals who possess the full fame of the present age, and will be the theme and examination of the future. They are exactly formed by nature for those ends to which Heaven seems to have sent them among us. Both animated with a restless desire of glory, but pursue it by different means, and with different motives. To one it consists in an extensive undisputed empire over his subjects, to the other in their rational and voluntary obedience. One's happiness is founded in their want of power, the other's in their want of desire to oppose him. The one enjoys the summit of fortune with the luxury of a Persian, the other with the moderation of a Spartan. One is made to oppress, the other to relieve the oppressed. The one is satisfied with the pomp and ostentation of power to prefer and debase his inferiors; the other delighted only with the cause and foundation of it to cherish and protect them. To one therefore religion is but a convenient disguise, to the other a vigorous motive of action. "For, without such ties of real and solid honour, there is no way of forming a monarch, but after the Machiavelian scheme, by which a prince must ever seem to have all virtues, but really to be master of none; but is to be liberal, merciful, and just, only as they serve his interests; while with the noble art of hypocrisy, empire would be to be extended, and new conquests be made by new devices, by which prompt address his creatures might insensibly give law in the business of life, by leading men in the entertainment of it. "With a tyranny begun on his own subjects, and indignation that others draw their breath independent of his frown or smile, why should he not pro ceed to the seizure of the world? And if nothing but the thirst of sway were the motive of his actions, why should treaties be other than mere words, or solemn national compacts be any thing but a balt in the march of that army, who are never to lay down their arms until all men are reduced to the necessity of hanging their lives on his wayward will; who might supinely, and at leisure, expiate his ow sins, by other men's sufferings, while he daily meditates new slaughter and new conquests? "For mere man, when giddy with unbridled power, is an insatiate idol, not to be appeased with myriads offered to his pride, which may be puffed up by the adulation of a base and prostrate world into an opinion that he is something more than human, by being something less: and alas! what is there that mortal man will not believe of himself when complimented with the attributes of God? He can then conceive thoughts of a power as omnipresent as his. But, should there be such a foe of mankind now upon earth, have our sins so far provoked Heaven, that we are left utterly naked to his fury? Is there no power, no leader, no genius, that can conduct and animate us to our death, or our defence? Yes; our great God never gave one to reign by lus permission, but he gave to another also to reign by his grace. "Thus, when words and show are apt to pass for the substantial things they are only to express, there would need no more to enslave a country but to adorn a court; for while every man's vanity makes him believe himself capable of becoming "All the circumstances of the illustrious life of luxury, enjoyments are a ready bait for sufferings, our prince seem to have conspired to make him the and the hopes of preferment invitations to servitude: check and bridle of tyranny; for his mind has been which slavery would be coloured with all the agree-strengthened and confirmed by one contioned strug ments, as they call it, imaginable. The noblest gle, and Heaven has educated him by adversity to arts and artists, the finest pens and most elegant a quick sense of the distresses and miseries of manminds, jointly employed to set it off with the various kind, which he was born to redress. In just scom embellishments of sumptuous entertainments, charming assemblies, and polished discourses, and those apostate abilities of men, the adored monarch might profusely and skilfully encourage, while they flatter of the trivial glories and light ostentations of power, that glorious instrument of Providence moves, like that, in a steady, calm, and silent course, indepen dent either of applause or calumny; which renders With the undoubted character of a glorious captain, and (what he much more values than the most splendid titles) that of a sincere and honest man, he is the hope and stay of Europe, a universal good; not to be engrossed by us only, for distant potentates implore his friendship, and injured empires court his assistance. He rules the world, not by an invasion of the people of the earth, but the address of its princes; and, if that world should be again roused from the repose which his prevailing arms had given it, why should we not hope that there is an Almighty, by whose influence the terrible enemy that thinks himself prepared for battle, may find he is but ripe for destruction?-and that there may be in the womb of time great incidents, which may make the catastrophe of a prosperous life as unfortunate as the particular scenes of it were successful?-for there does not want a skilful eye and resolute arm to observe and grasp the occasion. A prince, who from Gloria". Fuit Ilium, et ingens VIRG. En. ii. 325. Troy is no more, and Ilium was a town.-DRYDEN. Ꭲ. him, if not in a political, yet in a moral, a philoso-poor widow woman, and her fatherless children, phic, an heroic, and a Christian sense, an absolute that had been wronged by a neighbouring gentlemonarch; who, satisfied with this unchangeable, man; for you know, Sir, my good master was always just, and ample glory, must needs turn all his re- the poor man's friend. Upon his coming home, the gards from himself to the service of others; for he first complaint he made was, that he had lost his begins his enterprises with his own share in the suc-roast-beef stomach, not being able to touch a surloin, cess of them; for integrity bears in itself its reward, which was served up according to custom; and you nor can that which depends not on event ever know know he used to take great delight in it. From that disappointment. time forward he grew worse and worse, but still kept a good heart to the last. Indeed we were once in great hopes of his recovery, upon a kind message that was sent him from the widow lady whom he had made love to the forty last years of his life; but this only proved a lightning before death. He has bequeathed to this lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl necklace, and a couple of silver bracelets set with jewels, which belonged to my good old lady his mother. He has bequeathed the fine white gelding that he used to ride a hunting upon to his chaplain, because he thought he would be kind to him; and has left you all his books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the chaplain a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning to every man in the parish a great frieze-coat, and to every woman a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to see him take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we most of us are grown gray-headed in our dear master's service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon the remaining part of our days. He has bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is not yet come to my knowledge; and it is peremptorily said in the parish, that he has left money to build a steeple to the church: for he was heard to say some time ago, that, if he lived two years longer, Coverley church should have a steeple to it. The chaplain tells everybody that he made a very good end, and never speaks of him without tears. He was buried, according to his own directions, among the family of the Coverleys, on the left hand of his father Sir Arthur. The coffin was car ried by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum. The whole parish followed the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits; the men in frieze, and the women in riding hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's nephew, has taken possession of the Hall-house, and the whole estate. When my old master saw him a little before his death, he shook him by the hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to pay the several legacies, and the gifts of charity, which he told him he had left as quit-rents upon the estate. The captain truly seems a courteous man, though he says but little. He makes much of those whom my master loved, and shows great kindness to the old house-dog, that you know my poor master was, so fond of. It would have gone to your heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my master's death. He has never enjoyed himself since; no more has any of us. It was the me. lancholiest day for the poor people that ever hap pened in Worcestershire. This being all from, Honoured Sir, your most sorrowful Servant, "EDWARD Biscuit. No. 517.] THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1712. Undaunted worth! Inviolable truth!-DRYDEN, "HONOURED Sir, Knowing that you was my old master's good friend, I could not forbear sending you the melancholy news of his death, which has afflicted the whole country, as well as his poor servants, who 66 "P S. My master desired, some weeks before he loved him, I may say, better than we did our lives. died, that a book, which comes up to you by the I am afraid he caught his death the last county-carrier, should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport in sessions, where he would go to see justice done to a his name." Also to breathe their last, nine years before, And now have left their father to deplore The loss of all his children, with his wife, Who was the joy and comfort of his life. Here lies the body of Daniel Saul, Spitalfields weaver, and that's all. This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir Andrew, open- «The second is as follows:— ing the book, found it to be a collection of acts of parliament. There was in particular the Act of Uniformity, with some passages in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two or three points which he had disputed with Sir Roger, the last time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old man's hand-writing burst into tears, and put the book into his pocket. Captain Sentry informs me that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club.-O. No. 518.] FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1712. Miserum est aliorum incumbere famæ, Ne collapsa ruant subductis tecta columnis. Juv. Sat. viii. 76. 'Tis poor relying on another's fame For, take the pillars but away, and all The superstructure must in ruins fall.-STEPNEY. THIS being a day of business with me, I must make the present entertainment like a treat at a house-warming, out of such presents as have been sent me by my guests. The first dish which I serve up is a letter come fresh to my hand. "MR. SPECTATOR, "It is with inexpressible sorrow that I hear of the death of good Sir Roger, and do heartily condole with you upon so melancholy an occasion. I think you ought to have blackened the edges of a paper which brought us so ill news, and to have had it stamped likewise in black. It is expected of you that you should write his epitaph, and if possible, fill his place in the club with as worthy and diverting a member. I question not but you will receive many recommendations from the public of such as will appear candidates for that post. "Since I am talking of death, and have mentioned an epitaph, I must tell you, Sir, that I have made discovery of a churchyard in which I believe you might spend an afternoon with great pleasure to yourself and to the public. It belongs to the church of Stebon-Heath, commonly called Stepney. Whe. ther or no it be that the people of that parish have a particular genius for an epitaph, or that there be some poet among them who undertakes that work by the great, I cannot tell: but there are more remarkable inscriptions in that place than in any other I have met with; and I may say, without vanity, that there is not a gentleman in England better read in tombstones than myself, my studies having laid very much in churchyards. I shail beg leave to send you a couple of epitaphs, for a sample of those I have just now mentioned. They are written in a different manner; the first being in a diffused and luxuriant, the second in the close contracted style. The first has much of the simple and pathetic; the second is something light but nervous. The first is thus :- Here Thomas Sapper lies interr'd. Ah, why? "I will not dismiss you, whilst I am upon this subject without sending a short epitaph which I once met with, though I cannot possibly recollect the place. The thought of it is serious, and in my opinion the finest that I ever met with upon this occasion. You know, Sir, it is usual, after having told us the name of the person who lies interred, to launch out into his praises. This epitaph takes a quite contrary turn, having been made by the person himself some time before his death. 'Hic jacet R. C. in expectatione diei supremi Qualis erat, dies iste indicabit,” Here lieth R. C. in expectation of the last day What sort of a man he was that day will discover.' "I am, Sir," &c. if The following letter is dated from Cambridge: "SIR, Having lately read among your speculations an essay upon physiognomy, I cannot but think that, you made a visit to this ancient university, you might receive very considerable lights upon that subject, there being scarce a young fellow in it who does not give certain indications of his particular humour and disposition, conformable to the rules of that art. In courts and cities every body lays a constraint upon his countenance, and endeavours to look like the rest of the world; but the youth of this place, having not yet formed themselves by conversation, and the knowledge of the world, give their limbs and features their full play. "As you have considered human nature in all its lights, you must be extremely well apprised, that there is a very close correspondence between the outward and the inward man; that scarce the least dawning, the least parturiency towards a thought, can be stirring in the mind of man, without producing a suitable revolution in his exteriors, which will easily discover itself to an adept in the theory of the phiz. Hence it is that the intrinsic worth and merit of a son of Alma Mater is ordinarily cal culated from the cast of his visage, the contour of his person, the mechanism of his dress, the disposi tion of his limbs, the manner of his gait and air, with a number of circumstances of equal conse quence and information. The practitioners in this art often make use of a gentleman's eyes to give them light into the posture of his brains; take a handle from his nose to judge of the size of his intellects; and interpret the overmuch visibility and pertness of one year as an infallible mark of reprobation, and a sign the owner of so saucy a member fears neither God nor man. In conformity to this scheme, a contracted brow, a lumpish downcast look, a sober sedate pace, with both hands dangling quiet and steady in lines exactly parallel to each lateral pocket of the galligaskins, is logic, metaphysics, and mathematics, in perfection. So likewise the belles-lettres are typified by a saunter in the gait, a fall of one wing of the peruke backward, an insertion of one hand in the fob, and a negligent swing of the other, with a pinch of right fine Barcelona between finger and thumb, a due quantity of the same upon the upper lip, and a noddle-case loaden with pulvil. Again, a grave, solemn, stalking pace is heroic poetry, and politics; an unequal one, a genius for the ode, and the modern ballad; and an open breast, with an audacious display of the Holland shit, is construed a fatal tendency to the art military. "I might be much larger upon these hints, but I know whom I write to. If you can graft any speculation upon them, or turn them to the advantage of the persons concerned in them, you will do a work very becoming the British Spectator, and oblige, "Your very humble Servant, TOM TWEER." is only made as the basis and support of animals, and that there is no more of the one than what is necessary for the existence of the other. Infinite goodness is of so communicative a nature, that it seems to delight in the conferring of existence upon every degree of perceptive being. As this is a speculation which I have often pursued with great pleasure to myself, I shall enlarge further upon it, by considering that part of the scale of beings which comes within our knowledge. There are some living creatures which are raised but just above dead matter. To mention only that species of shell-fish, which are formed in the fashion of a cone, that grow to the surface of several rocks, and immediately die upon their being severed from the place where they grow. There are many other creatures but one remove from these, which have no other sense besides that of, feeling and taste. Others have still an additional one of hearing; others of smell, and others of sight. It is wonderful to observe by what a gradual progress the world of life advances through a prodigious variety of species, before a creature is formed that is complete in all its senses; and even among these there is such a different degree of perfection in the sense which one No, 519.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1712. Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitæque voluitum. Et quæ marmoreo fert inoustra sub æquore pontus. VIRG. L. vi. 723. Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain, And birds of air, and monsters of the main-DRYDEN, THOUGH there is a great deal of pleasure in contemplating the material world, by which I mean that system of bodies into which nature has so curiously wrought the mass of dead matter, with the several relations which those bodies bear to one another; there is still, methinks, something more won-animal enjoys beyond what appears in another, that, derful and surprising in contemplations on the world of life, by which I mean all those animals with which every part of the universe is furnished. The material world is only the hell of the universe; the world of life are its inhabitants. provements, according to the species in which they are implanted. This progress in nature is so very gradual, that the most perfect of an inferior species comes very near to the most imperfect of that which is immediately above it. though the sense in different animals be distinguished by the same common denomination, it seems almost of a different nature. If after this we look into the several inward perfections of cunning and sagacity, or what we generally call instinct, we find If we consider those parts of the material world them rising after the same manner imperceptibly which lie the nearest to us, and are therefore sub-one above another, and receiving additional imject to our observations and inquiries, it is amazing to consider the infinity of animals with which it is stocked. Every part of matter is peopled; every green leaf swarms with inhabitants. There is scarce a single humour in the body of man, or of any other animal, in which our glasses do not discover The exuberant and overflowing goodness of the myriads of living creatures. The surface of ani- Supreme Being, whose mercy extends to all his mals is also covered with other animals, which are works, is plainly seen, as I have before hinted, from in the same manner the basis of other animals that his having made so very little matter, at least what live upon it; nay, we find in the most solid bodies, falls within our knowledge, that does not swarm with as in marble itself, innumerable cells and cavities life. Nor is his goodness less seen in the diversity, that are crowded with such imperceptible inhabitants than in the multitude of living creatures. Had he as are too little for the naked eye to discover. On only made one species of animals, none of the rest the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts would have enjoyed the happiness of existence: he of nature, we see the seas, lakes, and rivers, teem-has, therefore, specified in his creation every degree ing with numberless kinds of living creatures. We of life, every capacity of being. The whole chasm find every mountain and marsh, wilderness and in nature, from a plant to a man, is filled up with wood, plentifully stocked with birds and beasts; and divers kinds of creatures, rising oue over another, every part of matter affording proper necessaries and by such a gentle and easy ascent, that the little conveniences for the livelihood of multitudes which transitions and deviations from one species to aainhabit it. other are almost insensible. The intermediate space The author of the Plurality of Worlds draws a is so well husbanded and managed, that there is very good argument from this consideration for the scarce a degree of perception which does not appear peopling of every planet; as indeed it seems very in some one part of the world of life. Is the goodprobable, from the analogy of reason, that if no partness or the wisdom of the Divine Being more maof matter which we are acquainted with, lies waste nifested in this his proceeding? aud useless, those great bodies, which are at such a distance from us, should not be desert and unpeopled, but rather that they should be furnished with beings adapted to their respective situations. Existence is a blessing to those beings only which are endowed with perception; and is in a manner thrown away upon dead matter, any further than as it is subservient to beings which are conscious of their existence. Accordingly, we find, from the bodies which lie under our observation, that matter Fontenelle.-This book was published in 1686, and is fended on the chimerical Vortices of Descartes. SPECTATOR-Nos. 75 & 76. There is a consequence, besides those I have already mentioned, which seems very naturally deducible from the foregoing considerations. If the scale of being rises by such a regular progress so high as man, we may, by a parity of reason, suppose that it still proceeds gradually through those beings which are of a superior nature to him: since there is an infinitely greater space and room for different degrees of perfection between the Supreme Being and man, than between man and the most despi cable insect. This consequence of so great a variety of beings which are superior to us, from that variety which is inferior to us, is made by Mr. Locke, 2 Q |