Though call'd to shine aloft, thou wilt not scorn
To smile on arts thyself did once adorn;
For this thy name succeeding time shall praise,
And envy less thy garter than thy bays.

The Muse, if fir'd with thy enliv'ning beams,
Perhaps shall aim at more exalted themes;
Record our monarch in a nobler strain,
And sing the op'ning wonders of his reign;
Bright Carolina's heavenly beauties trace,
Her valiant consort, and his blooming race.
A train of kings their fruitful love supplies,
A glorious scene to Albion's ravish'd eyes:
Who sees by Brunswick's hand her sceptre sway'd,
And through his line from age to age convey'd.'

look with contempt on the toys and trifles which our hearts have hitherto been set upon. When we advance to manhood, we are held wise, in proportion to our shame and regret for the rashness and extravagance of youth. Old age fills us with mortifying reflections upon a life mis-spent in the pursuit of anxious wealth, or uncertain honour. Agreeable to this gradation of thought in this life, it may be reasonably supposed that, in a future state, the wisdom, the experience, and the maxims of old age, will be looked upon by a separate

No. 621.] Wednesday, November 17, 1714. spirit in much the same light as an ancient

Now to the blest abode, with wonder fill'd,
The sun and moving planets he beheld;
Then, looking down on the sun's feeble ray,
Survey'd our dusky, faint, imperfect day,
And under what a cloud of night we lay.-Rowe.

THE following letter having in it some observations out of the common road, I shall make it the entertainment of this day.

man now sees the little follies and toyings of infants. The pomps, the honours, the policies, and arts of mortal men, will be thought as trifling as hobby-horses, mockbattles, or any other sports that now employ all the cunning and strength, and ambition of rational beings, from four years old to nine or ten.

'If the notion of a gradual rise in beings, from the meanest to the Most High, be not a vain imagination, it is not improbable that an angel looks down upon a man as a man doth upon a creature which ap'MR. SPECTATOR,-The common topics proaches nearest to the rational nature. against the pride of man, which are labour- By the same rule, if I may indulge my ed by florid and declamatory writers, are fancy in this particular, a superior brute taken from the baseness of his original, the looks with a kind of pride on one of an inimperfections of his nature, or the short ferior species. If they could reflect, we duration of those goods in which he makes might imagine, from the gestures of some his boast. Though it be true that we can of them, that they think themselves the have nothing in us that ought to raise our sovereigns of the world, and that all things vanity, yet a consciousness of our own merit were made for them. Such a thought may be sometimes laudable. The folly would not be more absurd in brute creatherefore lies here: we are apt to pride tures than one which men are apt to enterurselves in worthless, or, perhaps, shame-tain, namely, that all the stars in the firmaful things; and on the other hand count that disgraceful which is our truest glory.

Hence it is, that the lovers of praise take wrong measures to attain it. Would a vain man consult his own heart, he would find that if others knew his weakness as well as he himself doth, he could not have the impudence to expect the public esteem. Pride therefore flows from want of reflection, and ignorance of ourselves. Knowledge and humility come upon us together.

The proper way to make an estimate of ourselves is to consider seriously what it is we value or despise in others. A man who boasts of the goods of fortune, a gay dress, or a new title, is generally the mark of ridicule. We ought therefore not to admire in ourselves what we are so ready to laugh at in other men.

ment were created only to please their eyes and amuse their imaginations. Mr. Dryden, in his fable of the Cock and the Fox, makes a speech for his hero the cock, which is a pretty instance for this purpose.

is

"Then turning, said to Partlet, See, my dear,
How lavish nature hath adorn'd the year;
How the pale primrose and the violets spring,
And birds essay their throats, disus'd to sing:
All these are ours, and I with pleasure see
Man strutting on two legs, and aping me."

"What I would observe from the whole this, that we ought to value ourselves upon those things only which superior beings think valuable, since that is the only way for us not to sink in our own esteem hereafter.'

Much less can we with reason pride No. 622.] Friday, November 19, 1714. ourselves in those things, which at some time of our life we shall certainly despise. And yet, if we will give ourselves the trouble of looking backward and forward on the several changes which we have already undergone, and hereafter must try, we shall find that the greater degrees of our knowledge and wisdom serve only to show us our own imperfections.

As we rise from childhood to youth, we VOL. II.

53

-Fallentis semita vitæ.-Hor. Ep. xviii. Lib. 1. 103. -A safe private quiet, which betrays Itself to ease, and cheats away the days.-Pooley. 'MR. SPECTATOR,—In a former speculation you have observed that true greatness doth not consist in that pomp and noise wherein the generality of mankind are apt to place it. You have there taken notice that virtue in obscurity often appears more

illustrious in the eye of superior beings,
than all that passes for grandeur and mag-a beggar.
nificence among men.

"Gave away my favourite dog for biting "Made the minister of the parish and a whig justice of one mind, by putting them to explain their notions to one another. "Mem. To turn off Peter for shooting 1 doe while she was eating acorns cut of his hand.

"When my neighbour John, who hath often injured me, comes to make his request to-morrow:

"Mem. I have forgiven him.

"Laid up my chariot, and sold my horses, to relieve the poor in a scarcity of com.

"In the same year remitted to my te nants a fifth part of their rents

When we look back upon the history of those who have borne the parts of kings, statesmen, or commanders, they appear to us stripped of those outside ornaments that dazzle their contemporaries; and we regard their persons as great or little, in proportion to the eminence of their virtues or vices. The wise sayings, generous sentiments, or disinterested conduct of a philosopher under mean circumstances of life, set him higher in our esteem than the mighty potentates of the earth, when we view them both through the long prospect of many ages. Were the memoirs of an obscure man, who lived up to the dignity of his nature, and according to the rules of virtue, to be laid before us, we should find nothing in such a character which might not set him on a level with men of the highest stations. The following extract out of the private papers of an honest country gentleman, will set this matter in a clear light. Your reader will, perhaps, No. 623.] Monday, November 22, 1714 conceive a greater idea of him from these actions done in secret, and without a witness, than of those which have drawn upon them the admiration of multitudes.

MEMOIRS.

"In my twenty-second year I found a violent affection for my cousin Charles's wife growing upon me, wherein I was in danger of succeeding, if I had not upon that account begun my travels into foreign countries.

"A little after my return to England, at a private meeting with my uncle Francis, I refused the offer of his estate, and prevailed upon him not to disinherit his son Ned. "Mem. Never to tell this to Ned, lest he should think hardly of his deceased father; though he continues to speak ill of me for this very reason.

"As I was airing to-day I fell into a thought that warmed my heart, and stall, I hope, be the better for it as long as Live "Mem. To charge my son in private erect no monument for me; but not to p this in my last will.”"

Sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ina descat. *
Vel pater omnipotens adizat me fulmine að umbras
Pallentes umbras Erebi noctamente perdonAIR.
Ante, pudor, quam te violm, aut toa para resolvam,
Ille meos, primus qui me sibi nxit afres
Abstulit: ille habeat secum survetque solebro,
1:|:ཀ མ ན,

But first let yawning earth a passage rend,
And let me through the dark abyss docend:
First let avenging Jove, with fanses from high,
Drive down this body to the nether sky,
Condemn'd with ghosts in en Closs night to fet
Before I break the plighted faith I gave:
No: he who had my vows, shall ever have:
For whom I lov'd on earth, I worship in the grave.
Irgin

I AM obliged to my friend, the love a suist, for the following curious piece of antiquity, which I shall communicate to the public in his own words.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-You may remember, that I lately transmitted to you an ac"Prevented a scandalous lawsuit betwixt count of an ancient custom in the manors my nephew Harry and his mother, by al- of East and West Enborne, in the county lowing her under-hand, out of my own of Berks, and elsewhere. "If a customary pocket, so much money yearly as the dis-tenant die, the widow shall have what the pute was about.

"Procured a benefice for a young divine, who is sister's son to the good man who was my tutor, and hath been dead twenty years. "Gave ten pounds to poor Mrs. my friend H's widow.

"Mem. To retrench one dish at my ble, until I have fetched it up again.

law calls her free-bench, in all his copyhold lands, dum sola et casta fuerit; that is, while she lives single and chaste; but if she commits incontinency, she forfeits Ler estate; yet if she will come into the court riding backward upon a black ram, with ta-his tail in her hand, and say the words f lowing, the steward is bound by the custom to re-admit her to her free-bench.

"Mem. To repair my house and finish my gardens, in order to employ poor people after harvest-time.

"Ordered John to let out goodman D—'s sheep that were pounded, by night; but not to let his fellow-servants know it.

"Prevailed upon M. T. esq. not to take the law of the farmer's son for shooting a partridge, and to give him his gun again.

“Paid the apothecary for curing an old woman that confessed herself a witch.

⚫ Here I am

Riding on a black ram,
Like a whore as I am;
And for my crineum craneum,
Have lost my discum duncum
And for my tail's game,

Have done this worldly shame

Therefore I pray you, Mr. Steward, let me have my land again.'

After having informed you that my lord Coke observes, that this is the most frail

The widow Fidget being cited into court, insisted that she had done no more since the death of her husband than what she used to do in his life time; and withal desired Mr. Steward to consider his own wife's case if he should chance to die before her.

and slippery tenure in England, I shall tell | But it was remembered that she made the you, since the writing of that letter, I have, same excuse the year before. Upon which according to my promise, been at great the steward observed, that she might so pains in searching out the records of the contrive it, as never to do the service of black ram; and have at last met with the the manor. proceedings of the court-baron, held in that behalf, for the space of a whole day. The record saith, that a strict inquisition having been made into the right of the tenants to their several estates, by the crafty old steward, he found that many of the lands of the manor were, by default of the several widows, forfeited to the lord, and accordingly would have entered on the premises: upon which the good women demanded the "benefit of the ram.' The steward, after having perused their several pleas, adjourned the court to Barnaby-bright, that they might have day enough before them.

The court being set, and filled with a great concourse of people, who came from all parts to see the solemnity; the first who entered was the widow Frontly, who had made her appearance in the last year's cavalcade. The register observes, that finding it an easy pad-ram, and foreseeing she might have farther occasion for it, she purchased it of the steward.

'Mrs. Sarah Dainty, relict of Mr. John Dainty, who was the greatest prude of the parish, came next in the procession. She at first made some difficulty of taking the tail in her hand; and was observed, in pronouncing the form of penance, to soften the two most emphatical words into clincum clancum: but the steward took care to make her speak plain English before he would let her have her land again.

The third widow that was brought to this worldly shame, being mounted upon a vicious ram, had the misfortune to be thrown by him: upon which she hoped to

"The next in order was a dowager of a very corpulent make, who would have been excused, as not finding any ram that was able to carry her: upon which the steward commuted her punishment, and ordered her to make her entry upon a black ox.

The widow Maskwell, a woman who had long lived with a most unblemished character, having turned off her old chamber-maid in a pet, was by that revengeful creature brought in upon the black ram nine times the same day.

'Several widows of the neighbourhood, being brought upon their trial, showed that they did not hold of the manor, and were discharged accordingly.

A pretty young creature, who closed the procession, came ambling in with so bewitching an air, that the steward was observed to cast a sheep's eye upon her, and married her within a month after the death of his wife.

'N. B. Mrs. Touchwood appeared according to summons, but had nothing laid to her charge; having lived irreproachably since the decease of her husband, who left her a widow in the sixty-ninth year of her age. I am, sir, &c.'

be excused from going through the rest of No. 624.] Wednesday, November 24, 1714. the ceremony; but the steward, being well versed in the law, observed very wisely upon this occasion, that breaking of the rope does not hinder the execution of the criminal.

The fourth lady upon record was the widow Ogle, a famous coquette, who had kept half a score of young fellows off and on for the space of two years; but having been more kind to her carter John, she was introduced with the huzzas of all her lovers about her.

'Mrs. Sable appearing in her weeds, which were very new and fresh, and of the same colour with her whimsical palfrey, made a very decent figure in the solemnity. 'Another, who had been summoned to Inake her appearance, was excused by the steward, as well knowing in his heart that the good squire himself had qualified her for the ram.

'Mrs. Quick, having nothing to object against the indictment, pleaded her belly.

*Then the eleventh, now the twenty-second of June, being the longest day in the year.

Audire, atque togam jubeo componere, quisquis
Ambitione mala, aut argenti pallet amore,
Quisquis luxuria-

Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 2. 77.
Sit still, and hear, those whom proud thoughts do swell,
Those that look pale by loving coin too well;
Whom luxury corrupts.-Creech.

MANKIND is divided into two parts, the busy and the idle. The busy world may be divided into the virtuous and the vicious. The vicious again into the covetous, the ambitious, and the sensual. The idle part of mankind are in a state inferior to any one of these. All the other are engaged in the pursuit of happiness, though often misplaced, and are therefore more likely to be attentive to such means as shall be proposed to them for that end. The idle, who are neither wise for this world nor the next, are emphatically called by Dr. Tillotson, 'fools at large.' They propose to themselves no end, but run adrift with every wind. Advice, therefore, would be but thrown away upon them, since they would scarce take the pains to read it. I shall not fatigue any of this worthless tribe with

a long harangue; but will leave them with which are heavier in the balance. It may this short saying of Plato, that labour is seem strange, at the first view, that the preferable to idleness, as brightness to rust.' men of pleasure should be advised to chance The pursuits of the active part of man- their course, because they lead a painti kind are either in the paths of religion and life. Yet when we see them so active and virtue; or, on the other hand, in the roads vigilant in quest of delight; under so mar to wealth, honours, or pleasure. I shall, disquiets, and the sport of such various therefore, compare the pursuits of avarice, passions; let them answer, as they can i ambition, and sensual delight with their op- the pains they undergo do not curwerk posite virtues; and shall consider which of their enjoyments. The infidelities on the these principles engages men in a course of one part between the two sexes, and the the greatest labour, suffering, and assiduity. caprices on the other, the debasement of Most men, in their cool reasonings, are reason, the pangs of expectation, the disapwilling to allow that a course of virtue will pointments in possession, the stings of rein the end be rewarded the most amply; morse, the vanities and vexations attening but represent the way to it as rugged and even the most refined delights that make narrow. If, therefore, it can be made ap-up this business of life, render it so sur pear, that men struggle through as many troubles to be miserable, as they do to be happy, my readers may, perhaps, be persuaded to be good, when they find they shall lose nothing by it.

and uncomfortable, that no man is thought wise until he hath got over it, or happs, but in proportion as he hath cleared himse from it.

The sum of all is this.. Man is made an First, for avarice. The miser is more active being. Whether he walks in the industrious than the saint: the pains of get-paths of virtue or vice, he is sure to meet ting, the fears of losing, and the inability of enjoying his wealth, have been the mark of satire in all ages. Were his repentance upon his neglect of a good bargain, his sorrow for being over-reached, his hope of improving a sum, and his fear of falling into want, directed to their proper objects, they would make so many different Christian

graces and virtue. He may apply to himself a great part of saint Paul's catalogue of sufferings. In journeying often: in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils among false brethren. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often. ---At how much less expense might he lay up to himself treasures in heaven!' Or, if I may in this place be allowed to add the saving of a great philosopher, he may provide such possessions as fear neither arms, nor men, nor Jove himself.'

In the second place, if we look upon the toils of ambition in the same light as we have considered those of avarice, we shall readily own that far less trouble is requisite to gain lasting glory, than the power and reputation of a few years; or, in other words, we may with more ease deserve honour than obtain it. The ambitious man should remember cardinal Wolsey's complaint, Had I served God with the same application wherewith I served my king, he would not have forsaken me in my old age.' The cardinal here softens his ambition by the specious pretence of serving his king;' whereas his words, in the proper construction, imply, that, if instead of being acted by ambition, he had been acted by religion, he should now have felt the comforts of it, when the whole world turned its back upon him.

Thirdly, let us compare the pains of the sensual with those of the virtuous, and see

• Actuated.

with many difficulties to prove his patience and excite his industry. The same, if not greater labour, is required in the service of vice and folly as of virtue and wisdom: and he hath this easy choice left him—whe ther, with the strength he is master of, he will purchase happiness or repentance.

No. 625.] Friday, November 26, 1714.

-amores

De tenero meditatur ungui

Hor. Od vs Lib. 1.3 Love, from her tender years, her thoughts empier`d. THE love casuist hath referred to me the following letter of queries with his answer to each question, for my approbation. I have accordingly considered the several matters therein contained, and hereby cofirm and ratify his answers, and require the gentle querist to conform herself thereunto

'SIR, ---I was thirteen the 9th of Novene ber last, and must now begin to think of settling myself in the world; and so I wood humbly beg your advice, what I must do with Mr. Fondle, who makes his addresses to me. He is a very pretty man, and hath the blackest eyes and whitest teeth you ever saw. Though he is but a younger brother. he dresses like a man of quality, and nobody comes into a room like him. I know be hath refused great offers, and if he cannot marry me, he will never have any body else. But my father hath forbid him the house, because he sent me a copy of verses; for he is one of the greatest wits in town. My eldest sister, who, with her good wil, would call me miss as long as I live, must be married before me, they say. She tels them that Mr. Fondle makes a fool of me, and will spoil the child, as she calls me, like a confident thing as she is. In short, I am resolved to marry Mr. Fondle, if it be but to spite her. But because I would do nothing that is imprudent, I beg of you to