designs shortly to publish a new edition of -As the dial to the sun. only the present instant, and do not taste Our younger students are content to carry -Intus et in jecore ægro Pers. Sat. v. 120. Our passions play the tyrant in our breasts. I must be so just as to observe I have formerly seen of this sect at our other univer-ways of living among mankind, take their MOST of the trades, professions, and sity; though not distinguished by the ap-original either from the love of pleasure or pellation which the learned historian, my the fear of want. The former, when it Correspondent, reports they bear at Cam- becomes too violent, degenerates into luxubridge. They were ever looked upon as a people that impaired themselves more by, and the latter into avarice. As these their strict application to the rules of their two principles of action draw different order, than any other students whatever. Others seldom hurt themselves any further than to gain weak eyes, and sometimes headaches; but these philosophers are seized all over with a general inability, indolence, and weariness, and a certain impatience of the place they are in, with a heaviness in removing to another. The loungers are satisfied with being merely part of the number of mankind, without distinguishing themselves from amongst them. They may be said rather to suffer their time to pass than to spend it, without regard to the past, or prospect of the future. All they know of this life is ways, Persius has given us a very humour- Mane, pizer, stertis: surge, inquit Avaritia: eja Jam pueris pellem succinctus, et œnophorum aptas; Vive memor lethi; fugit hora. Hoc quod loquor, inde est. En quid agis? Duplici in diversum scinderis hamo. Whether alone or in thy harlot's lap, When thou wouldst take a lazy morning's nap; At his command th' unwilling sluggard wakes. With thy own hands, from the tir'd camel's back, Tis wholesome sin: but Jove, thou say'st will hear. Resolv'd for sea, the slaves thy baggage pack, and prosperity. At such times men naturally endeavour to outshine one another in pomp and splendour, and having no fears to alarm them from abroad, indulge themselves in the enjoyment of all the pleasures they can get into their possession; which naturally produces avarice, and an immoderate pursuit after wealth and riches. lation of those two great principles of acAs I was humouring myself in the specution, I could not forbear throwing my thoughts into a little kind of allegory or fable, with which I shall here present my reader. There were two very powerful tyrants engaged in a perpetual war against each other, the name of the first was Luxury, and of the second Avarice. The aim of each of them was no less than universal monarchy over the hearts of mankind. Luxury had many generals under him, who did him great service, as Pleasure, Mirth, Pomp, and Fashion. Avarice was likewise very strong in his officers, being faithfully served by Hunger, Industry, Care, and Watchfulness: he had likewise a privy-counsellor who was always at his elbow, and whispering something or other in his ear: the name of this privy-counsellor was Poverty. As Avarice con Stark, staring mad, that thou would'st tempt the sea? ducted himself by the counsels of Poverty, Cubb'd in a cabin, on a matrass laid, On a brown George, with lousy swabbers fed; Say would'st thou bear all this, to raise thy store, his antagonist was entirely guided by the dictates and advice of Plenty, who was his first counsellor and minister of state, that concerted all his measures for him, and never departed out of his sight. While these two great rivals were thus contending for empire, their conquests were very various. Luxury got possession of one heart, and Avarice of another. The father of a family would often range himself under the banners of Avarice, and the son When a government flourishes in con- under those of Luxury. The wife and the quests, and is secure from foreign attacks, husband would often declare themselves it naturally falls into all the pleasures of on the two different parties: nay, the same luxury; and as these pleasures are very person would very often side with one in expensive, they put those who are ad- his youth, and revolt to the other in his old dicted to them upon raising fresh supplies age. Indeed the wise men of the world of money, by all the methods of rapacious- stood neuter; but alas! their numbers were ness and corruption; so that avarice and not considerable. At length, when these luxury very often become one complicated two potentates had wearied themselves with principle of action, in those whose hearts waging war upon one another, they agreed are wholly set upon ease, magnificence, upon an interview, at which neither of and pleasure. The most elegant and cor- their counsellors were to be present. rect of all the Latin historians observes, said that Luxury began the parley, and afthat in his time, when the most formidable ter having represented the endless state of states of the world were subdued by the Ro-war in which they were engaged, told his mans, the republic sunk into those two vices enemy, with a frankness of heart which is of a quite different nature, luxury and ava-natural to him, that he believed they two rice: and accordingly describes Catiline as should be very good friends were in not for one who coveted the wealth of other men, the instigations of Poverty, that pernicious at the same time that he squandered away counsellor, who made an ill use of his ear, his own. This observation on the com- and filled him with groundless apprehenmonwealth, when it was in its height of sions and prejudices. To this Avarice repower and riches, holds good of all go- plied, that he looked upon Plenty (the first vernments that are settled in a state of ease minister of his antagonist) to be a much more destructive counsellor than Poverty, for that he was perpetually suggesting Alieni appetens, sui profusus.-Sal. It is if possible, what tradition they have among them of this matter: which, as well as he could learn by many questions which he asked them at several times, was in substance as follows: pleasures, banishing all the necessary cau- | friend of mine, whom I have formerly mentions against want, and consequently un- tioned, prevailed upon one of the interpredermining those principles on which the ters of the Indian kings, to inquire of them, government of Avarice was founded. At last, in order to an accommodation, they agreed upon this preliminary; that each of them should immediately dismiss his privycounsellor. When things were thus far adjusted towards a peace, all other differences were soon accommodated, insomuch that for the future they resolved to live as good friends and confederates, and to share between them whatever conquests were made on either side. For this reason, we now find Luxury and Avarice taking possession of the same heart, and dividing the same person between them. To which I shall only add, that since the discarding of the counsellors above-mentioned, Avarice supplies Luxury in the room of Plenty, as Luxury prompts Avarice in the place of Poverty. Na 56.] Friday, May 4, 1711. Felices errore suo.— C. Lucan, 1. 454. The visionary, whose name was Marraton, after having travelled for a long space under a hollow mountain, arrived at length on the confines of this world of spirits, but could not enter it by reason of a thick forest made up of bushes, brambles, and pointed thorns, so perplexed and interwoven with one another, that it was impossible to find a passage through it. Whilst he was looking about for some track or pathway that might be worn in any part of it, he saw a huge lion crouched under the side of it, who kept his eye upon him in the same posture as when he watches for his prey. The Indian immediately started back, whilst the lion rose with a spring, and leaped towards him. Being wholly destitute of all other weapons, he stooped down to take up a huge stone in his hand; but to his infinite surprise grasped nothing, and Happy in their mistake. found the supposed stone to be only the apTHE Americans believe that all crea- parition of one. If he was disappointed on tures have souls, not only men and women, this side, he was as much pleased on the but brutes, vegetables, nay, even the most other, when he found the lion, which had inanimate things, as stocks and stones. seized on his left shoulder, had no power They believe the same of all the works of to hurt him, and was only the ghost of that art, as of knives, boats, looking-glasses; ravenous creature which it appeared to be. and that as any of these things perish, their He no sooner got rid of this impotent enesouls go into another world, which is in-my, but he marched up to the wood, and habited by the ghosts of men and women. For this reason they always place by the corpse of their dead friend a bow and arrows, that he may make use of the souls of them in the other world, as he did of their wooden bodies in this. How absurd soever such an opinion as this may appear, our European philosophers have maintained several notions altogether as improbable. Some of Plato's followers in particular, when they talk of the world of ideas, entertain us with substances and beings no less extravagant and chimerical. Many Aristotelians have likewise spoken as unintelligibly of their substantial forms. I shall only instance Albertus Magnus, who, in his dissertation upon the load-stone, observing that fire will destroy its magnetic virtues, tells us that he took particular notice of one as it lay glowing amidst a heap of burning coals, and that he perceived a certain blue vapour to arise from it, which he believed might be the substantial form, that is in our West Indian phrase, the soul of the loadstone. after having surveyed it for some time, endeavoured to press into one part of it that was a little thinner than the rest; when again, to his great surprise, he found the bushes made no resistance, but that he walked through briars and brambles with the same ease as through the open air; and in short, that the whole wood was nothing else but a wood of shades. He immediately concluded, that this huge thicket of thorns and brakes was designed as a kind of fence or quickset hedge to the ghosts it enclosed; and that probably their soft substances might be torn by these subtle points and prickles, which were too weak to make any impressions in flesh and blood. With this thought he resolved to travel through this intricate wood; when by degrees he felt a gale of perfumes breathing upon him, that grew stronger and sweeter in propor tion as he advanced. He had not proceeded much further, when he observed the thorns and briers to end, and gave place to a thousand beautiful green trees covered with blossoms of the finest scents and colours, There is a tradition among the Ameri- that formed a wilderness of sweets, and cans, that one of their countrymen de- were a kind of lining to those ragged scenes scended in a vision to the great repository which he had before passed through. As of souls, or, as we call it here, to the other he was coming out of this delightful part world; and that upon his return he gave of the wood, and entering upon the plains his friends a distinct account of every thing it enclosed, he saw several horsemen rushhe saw among those regions of the dead. Aing by him, and a little while after he heard the cry of a pack of dogs. He had 'not | but his tears, which ran like a river down listened long before he saw the apparition his cheeks as he looked upon her. He had of a milk-white steed, with a young man on not stood in this posture long, before he the back of it, advancing upon full stretch plunged into the stream that lay before him; after the souls of about a hundred beagles, and finding it to be nothing but the phantom that were hunting down the ghost of a hare, of a river, walked on the bottom of it till which ran away before them with an un- he arose on the other side. At his approach speakable swiftness. As the man on the Yaratilda flew into his arms, whilst Marmilk-white steed came by him, he looked raton wished himself disencumbered of that upon him very attentively, and found him body which kept her from his embraces. to be the young prince Nicharagua, who After many questions and endearments on died about half a year before, and by rea- both sides, she conducted him to a bower son of his great virtues, was at that time which she had dressed with all the ornalamented over all the western parts of ments that could be met with in those America. blooming regions. She had made it gay He had no sooner got out of the wood, but beyond imagination, and was every day he was entertained with such a landscape adding something new to it. As Marraton of flowery plains, green meadows, running stood astonished at the unspeakable beauty streams, sunny hills, and shady vales, as of her habitation, and ravished with the frawere not to be represented by his own ex-grancy that came from every part of it, pressions, nor, as he said, by the concep- Yaratilda told him that she was preparing tions of others. This happy region was this bower for his reception, as well knowpeopled with innumerable swarms of spi-ing that his piety to his God, and his faithrits, who applied themselves to exercises ful dealing towards men, would certainly and diversions, according as their fancies led them. Some of them were tossing the figure of a coit; others were pitching the shadow of a bar; others were breaking the apparition of a horse; and multitudes employing themselves upon ingenious handicrafts with the souls of departed utensils, for that is the name which in the Indian language they give their tools when they are burnt or broken. As he travelled The tradition tells us further, that he through this delightful scene, he was very had afterwards a sight of those dismal haoften tempted to pluck the flowers that bitations which are the portion of ill men rose every where about him in the greatest after death; and mentions several molten variety and profusion, having never seen seas of gold, in which were plunged the several of them in his own country: but he souls of barbarous Europeans, who put to quickly found, that though they were ob- the sword so many thousands of poor Injects of his sight, they were not liable to dians for the sake of that precious metal. his touch. He at length came to the side But having already touched upon the chief of a great river, and being a good fisher-points of this tradition, and exceeded the man himself, stood upon the banks of it measure of my paper, I shall not give any some time to look upon an angler that had further account of it. taken a great many shapes of fishes, which lay flouncing up and down by him. bring him to that happy place, whenever his life should be at an end. She then brought two of her children to him, who died some years before, and resided with her in the same delightful bower; advising him to breed up those others which were still with him in such a manner, that they might hereafter all of them meet together in this happy place. C. I should have told my reader, that this No. 57.] Saturday, May 5, 1711. Indian had been formerly married to one of the greatest beauties of his country, by whom he had several children. This couple were so famous for their love and constancy to one another, that the Indians to this day, when they give a married man joy of his wife, wish they may live together like Marraton and Yaratilda. Marraton had not stood long by the fisherman, when he saw the shadow of his beloved Yaratilda, who had for some time fixed her eyes upon him, before he discovered her. Her arms were stretched out towards him, floods of tears ran down her eyes. Her looks, her hands, her voice called him over to her; and at the same time seemed to tell him that the river was impassable. Who can describe the passion made up of joy, sorrow, love, desire, astonishment, that rose in the Indian upon the sight of his dear Yaratilda' He could express it by nothing Quem præstare potest mulier galeata pudorem, Quæ fugit a sexu?Juv. Sat. vi. 251. What sense of shame in woman's breast can lie, Inur'd to arms, and her own sex to fly.-Dryden. WHEN the wife of Hector, in Homer's Iliad, discourses with her husband about the battle in which he was going to engage, the hero, desiring her to leave the matter to his care, bids her go to her maids, and mind her spinning: by which the poet intimates that men and women ought to busy themselves in their proper spheres, and on such matters only as are suitable to their respective sex. I am at this time acquainted with a young gentleman, who has passed a great part of his life in the nursery, and upon occasion can make a caudle or a sack-posset better than any man in England. He is likewise a wonderful critic in cambric and muslins, and will talk an hour together upon a sweet-1 meat. He entertains his mother every night with observations that he makes both in town and court: as what lady shows the nicest fancy in her dress; what man of quality wears the fairest wig; who has the finest linen, who the prettiest snuff-box, with many other the like curious remarks, that may be made in good company. On the other hand, I have very frequently the opportunity of seeing a rural Andromache, who came up to town last winter, and is one of the greatest fox-hunters in the country. She talks of hounds and horses, and makes nothing of leaping over a sixbar gate. If a man tells her a waggish story, she gives him a push with her hand in jest, and calls him an impudent deg; and if her servant neglects his business, threatens to kick him out of the house. I have heard her in her wrath call a substantial tradesman a lousy cur; and remember one day, when she could not think of the name of a person, she described him in a large company of men and ladies by the fellow with the broad shoulders. petticoat. Had not this accident broke off the debate, nobody knows where it would have ended. There is one consideration which I would earnestly recommend to all my female readers, and which, I hope, will have some weight with them. In short, it is this, that there is nothing so bad for the face as party zeal. It gives an ill-natured cast to the eve and a disagreeable sourness to the lock; besides that it makes the lines too strong, and flushes them worse than brandy. I have seen a woman's face break cut in heats, as she has been talking against a great lord, whom she had never seen in her life; and indeed I never knew a party-woman that kept her beauty for a twelve-month. I would therefore advise all my female readers, as they value their complexions, to let alone all disputes of this nature; though at the same time, I would give free liberty to all superannuated motherly partisans to be as viclent as they please, since there will be no danger either of their spoiling their faces, or of their gaining converts. For my own part I think a man makes an odious and despicable figure that is violent in a party; but a woman is too sincere to mitigate the fury of her principles with temper and discretion, and to act with that caution and reservedness which are requisite in our sex. When this unnatural zeal gets into them, it throws them into ten thousand heats and extravagancies; their generous souls set no bounds to their love, or to their hatred; and whether a whig or a tory, a lap-dog or a gallant, an opera or a puppet-show, be the object of it, the passion, while it reigns, engrosses the whole woman. If those speeches and actions, which in their own nature are indifferent, appear ridiculous when they proceed from a wrong sex, the faults and imperfections of one sex transplanted into another, appear black and monstrous. As for the men, I shall not in this paper any further concern myself about them; but as I would fain contribute to make womankind, which is the most beautiful part of the creation, entirely amiable, and wear cut all those little spots and blemishes that are apt to rise among the charms which nature has poured out upon them, I shall dedicate this paper to their service. The spot which I would here en- I remember when Dr. Titus Oates* was deavour to clear them of, is that party rage in all his glory, I accompanied my friend which of late years is very much crept into | Will Honeycomb in a visit to a lady of his their conversation. This is, in its nature, acquaintance. We were no sooner sat a male vice, and made up of many angry down, but upon casting my eyes about the and cruel passions that are altogether re-room, I found in almost every corner of it pugnant to the softness, the modesty, and a print that represented the doctor in all those other endearing qualities which are magnitudes and dimensions. A little after, natural to the fair sex. Women were form- as the lady was discoursing with my friend, ed to temper mankind, and soothe them into and held her snuff-box in her hand, who tenderness and compassion; not to set an should I see in the lid of it but the doctor. edze upon their minds, and blow up in them It was not long after this when she had octhose passions which are too apt to rise of casion for her handkerchief, which, upen their own accord. When I have seen a the first opening, discovered among the pretty mouth uttering calumnies and invec- plaits of it the figure of the doctor. Upon tives, what would I not have given to have this my friend Will, who loves raillery, stopt it? How have I been troubled to see told her, that if he was in Mr. Truelove's some of the finest features in the world grow place (for that was the name of her huspale, and tremble with party rage? Ca-band) he should be made as uneasy by a milla is one of the greatest beauties in the handkerchief as ever Othello was. British nation, and yet values herself more afraid,' said she, Mr. Honeycomb, you upon being the virago of one party, than are a tory: tell me truly, are you a friend upon being the toast of both. The dear to the doctor, cr not? Will, instead of creature, about a week ago, encountered making her a reply, smiled in her face (for the fierce and beautiful Penthesilea across indeed she was very pretty) and told her, a tea-table; but in the height of her anger, that one of her patches was dropping off. as her hand chanced to shake with the earnestness of the dispute, she scalded her fingers, and spilt a dish of tea upon her I am * The name of Dr. T. Oates is here substituted for that of Dr. Sacheverell, who is the real person meant. |