vent being dogged. The lover makes signs to me as I get behind the coach; I shake my head-it was impossible: I leave my lady at the next turning, and follow the cully to know how to fall in his way on another occasion. Besides good offices of this nature, I writ all my mistress's love-letters; some from a lady that saw such a gentleman at such a place in such a coloured coat-some shewing the terrors she was in of a jealous old husband-others explaining that the severity of her parents was such (though her fortune was settled) that she was willing to run away with such a one, though she knew he was but a younger brother. In a word, my half education and love of idle books made me outwrite all that made love to her by way of epistle; and as she was extremely cunning, she did well enough in company by a skilful affectation of the greatest modesty. In the midst of all this, I was surprised with a letter from her, and a ten-pound note. farewell.' "When this place was lost also in marriage, I was resolved to go among quite another people, for the future, and got in butler to one of those families where there is a coach kept, three or four servants, a clean house, and a good general outside upon a small estate. Here I lived very comfortably for some time, until I unfortunately found my master, the very gravest man alive, in the garret with the chambermaid. I knew the world too well to think of staying there; and the next day pretended to have received a letter out of the country that my father was dying, and got my discharge with a bounty for my discretion. "The next I lived with was a peevish single man, whom I stayed with for a year and a half. Most part of the time I passed very easily; for when I began to know him, I minded no more than he meant, what he said: so that one day in a good humour he said, 'I was the best man he ever had, by my want of respect to him.' "These, Sir, are the chief occurrences of my life; and I will not dwell upon very many other places I have been in, where I have been the strangest fellow in the world, where nobody in the world had such servants as they, where sure they were the unluckiest people in the world for servants, and so forth. All I mean by this representation is, to shew you that we poor servants are not (what you called us too generally) all rogues; but that we are what we are, according to the example of our superiors. In the family I am now in, I am guilty of no one sin but lying; which I do with a grave face in my gown and staff every day I live, and almost all day long, in denying my lord to impertinent suitors, and my Jady dy to unwelcome visitants. But, Sir, I am to let you know that I am, when I can get abroad, a leader of the servants: I am he that keeps time with beating my cudgel against the boards in the gallery at an opera: I am he that am touched so properly at a tragedy, when the people of quality are staring at one another during the inost important incidents. When you hear in a crowd a cry in the right place, a hum where the point is touched in a speech, or a huzza set up where it is the voice of the people: you may conclude it is begun or joined by, Sir, "Your more than humble servant, T. A "THOMAS TRUSTY." No. 97.1 THURSDAY, JUNE, 21, 1711. AMONG the loose papers which I have frequently spoken of heretofore, I find a conversation between Pharamond and Eucrate upon the subject of duels, and the copy of an edict issued in consequence of that discourse. Eucrate argued, that nothing but the most severe and vindictive punishment, such as placing the bodies of the offenders in chains, and putting them to death by the most exquisite torments, would be sufficient to extirpate a crime which had so long prevailed, and was so firmly fixed in the opinion of the world as great and laudable. The king answered, " that indeed instances of ignominy were necessary in the cure of this evil; but, considering that it prevailed only among such as had a nicety in their sense of honour, and that it often happened that a duel was fought to save appearances to the world, when both parties were in their hearts in amity and reconciliation to each other, it was evident that turning the mode another way would effectually put a stop to what had been only as a mode; that to such persons poverty and shame were torments sufficient; that he would not go farther in punishing in others, crimes which he was satisfied he himself was most guilty of, in that he might have prevented them by speaking his displeasure sooner." Besides which the king said, " he was in general averse to tortures, which was putting human nature itself, rather than the criminal, to disgrace; and that he would be sure not to use this means where the crime was but an ill effect arising from a laudable cause, the fear of shame." The king, at the same time, spoke with much grace upon the subject of mercy; and repented of many acts of that kind which had a magnificent aspect in the doing, but dreadful consequences in the example. "Mercy to particulars," he observed, "was cruelty in the general. That though a prince could not revive a dead man by taking the life of him who killed him, neither could he make reparation to the next that should die by the evil example; or answer to himself for the partiality in not pardoning the next as well as the former offender. As for me," says Pharamond, "I have conquered France, and yet have given laws to my people. The laws are my methods of life; they are not a diminution but a direction to my power. I am still absolute to distinguish the innocent and the virtuous, to give honours to the brave and generous; I am absolute in my good will; none can oppose my bounty, or prescribe rules for my favour. While I can, as I please, reward the good, I am under no pain that I cannot pardon the wicked; for which reason," continued Pharamond, "I will ef fectually put a stop to this evil, by exposing no more the tenderness of my nature to the importunity of having the same respect to those who are miserable by their fault, and those who are so by their misfortune. Flatterers (concluded the king, smiling) re peat to us princes, that we are heaven's vicegerents; let us be so, and let the only thing out of our power be to do ill." Soon after the evening wherein Pharamond and Eucrate had this conversation, the following edict was published against duels. PHARAMOND'S EDICT AGAINST DUELS. "Pharamond, King of the Gauls, to all his loving subjects sendeth greeting: "Whereas it has come to our royal notice and observation, that, in contempt of all laws divine and human, it is of late become a custom among the nobility and gentry of this our kingdom, upon slight and trivial as well as great and urgent provocations, to invite each other into the field-there, by their own hands, and of their own authority, to decide their controversies by combat; we have thought fit to take the said custom into our royal consideration, and find, upon inquiry into the usual causes whereon ten years ago it shot up to a very great height, insomuch that the female part of our species were much taller than the men. The women were of such an enormous stature, that we appeared as grasshoppers before them."† At present the whole sex is in a manner dwarfed, and shrunk into a race of beauties that seems almost another species. I remember several ladies, who were once very near seven foot high, that at present want some inches of such fatal decisions have arisen, that by this wicked five. How they came to be thus curtailed I cannot custom, maugre all the precepts of our holy religion and the rules of right reason, the greatest act of the human mind, forgiveness of injuries, is become vile and shameful; that the rules of good society and virtuous conversation are hereby inverted; that the loose, the vain, and the impudent, insult the careful, the discreet, and the modest; that all virtue is suppressed, and all vice supported, in the one act of being capable to dare to the death. We have also farther, with great sorrow of mind, observed that this dreadful action, by long impunity (our royal attention being employed upon matters of more general concern), is become honourable, and the refusal to engage in it ignominious. In these our royal cares and inquiries we are yet farther made to understand, that the persons of most eminent worth, and most hopeful abilities, accompanied with the strongest passion for true glory, are such as are most liable to be involved in the dangers arising from this licence:-Now, taking the said premises into our serious consideration, and well weighing that all such emergencies (wherein the mind is incapable of commanding itself, and where the injury is too sudden or too exquisite to be borne) are particularly provided for by laws heretofore enacted; and that the qualities of less injuries, like those of ingratitude, are too nice and delicate to come under general rules; we do resolve to blot this fashion, or wantonness of anger, out of the minds of our subjects, by our royal resolutions declared in this edict as follow: "No person who either sends or accepts a challenge, or the posterity of either, though no death enthereupon, on, shall be, after the publication of this our edict, capable of bearing office in these our dominions. sues "The person who shall prove the sending or receiving a challenge, shall receive to his own use and property the whole personal estate of both parties; and their real estate shall be immediately vested in the next heir of the offenders, in as ample manner as if the said offenders were actually deceased. "In cases where the laws (which we have already granted to our subjects) admit of an appeal for blood; when the criminal is condemned by the said appeal, he shall not only suffer death, but his whole estate, real, mixed, and personal, shall from the hour of his death be vested in the next heir of the person whose blood he spilt. learn; whether the whole sex be at present under like Juv. Sat. vi. 501. With curls on curls they build her head before, And then she dwindles to the pigmy kind.-DRYDEN. But I do not remember in any part of my reading, that the head-dress aspired to so great an extravagance as in the fourteenth century; when it was built up in a couple of cones or spires, which stood so exceedingly high on each side of the head, that a woman, who was but a pigmy without her head. dress, appeared like a colossus upon putting it on. Monsieur Paradin says, "that these old-fashioned fontanges rose an ell above the head; that they were pointed like steeples, and had long loose pieces of "Given at our court of Blois, the 8th of February, crape fastened to the tops of them, which were cu420, in the second year of our reign." T. riously fringed, and hung down their backs like "That it shall not hereafter be in our royal power, or that of our successors, to pardon the said offences or restore the offenders in their estates, honour, or blood, for ever. No.98.] FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1711. Tanta est quærendi cura decoris.-Juv. Sat. vi. 500. So studiously their persons they adorn. THERE is not so variable a thing in nature as a lady's head-dress. Within my own memory, I have known it rise and fall above thirty degrees. About streamers." The women might possibly have carried this Gothic This refers to the commode (called by the French "fontange"), a kind of head-dress worn by the ladies at the beginning of the last century, which by means of wire bore up their hair and fore-part of the cap, consisting of many folds of fine lace, to a prodigious height The transition from this to the opposite extreme was very abrupt and sudden. ↑ Numb. xiii, 33. building much higher, had not a famous monk, Thomas Conecte by name, attacked it with great zeal and resolution. This holy man travelled from place to place to preach down this monstrous commode; and succeeded so well in it, that, as the magicians sacrificed their books to the flames upon the preaching of an apostle, many of the women threw down their head-dresses in the middle of the sermon, and made a bonfire of them within sight of the pulpit. He was so renowned as well for the sanctity of his life as his manner of preaching, that he had often a congregation of twenty thousand people; the men placing themselves on the one side of his pulpit, and the women on the other, that appeared (to use the similitude of an ingenious writer) like a forest of cedars with their heads reaching to the clouds. He so warmed and animated the people against this monstrous ornament, that it lay under a kind of persecution; and whenever it appeared in public, was pelted down by the rabble, who flung stones at the persons that wore it. But notwithstanding this prodigy vanished while the preacher was among them, it began to appear again some months after his departure, or, to tell it in Monsieur Paradin's own words, "the women that, like snails in a fright, had drawn in their horns, shot them out again as soon as the danger was over." This extravagance of the women's head-dresses in that age, is taken notice of by Monsieur d'Argentre in his history of Bretagne, and by other historians, as well as the person I have here quoted. It is usually observed, that a good reign is the only proper time for making laws against the exorbitance of power; in the same manner an excessive head-dress may be attacked the most effectually when the fashion is against it. I do therefore recommend this paper to my female readers by way of prevention. I would desire the fair sex to consider how impossible it is for them to add any thing that can be ornamental to what is already the master-piece of nature. The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station, in a human figure. Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, she seems to have designed the head as the cupola to the most glorious of her works: and when we load it with such a pile of supernumerary ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the eye from great and real beauties, to childish gew-gaws, ribands, and bone-lace.-L. No. 99.] SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1711. -Turpi secernis honestum. Hor. 1, Sat. vi. 63. You know to fix the bounds of right and wrong. this paper which seems to differ with any passage of last Thursday's, the reader will consider them as the sentiments of the club, and the other as my own private thoughts, or rather those of Pharamond. The great point of honour in men is courage, and in women chastity. If a man loses his honour in one encounter, it is not impossible for him to regain it in another: a slip in a woman's honour is irrecoverable. I can give no reason for fixing the point of honour to these two qualities, unless it be that each sex sets the greatest value on the qualification which renders them the most amiable in the eyes of the contrary sex. Had men chosen for themselves, without regard to the opinion of the fair sex, I should believe the choice would have fallen on wisdom or virtue; or had women determined their own point of honour, it is probable that wit or good-nature would have carried it against chastity. Nothing recommends a man more to the female sex than courage; whether it be that they are pleased to see one who is a terror to others fall like a slave at their feet; or that this quality supplies their own principal defect, in guarding them from insults, and avenging their quarrels; or that courage is a natural indication of a strong and sprightly constitution. On the other side, nothing makes women more esteemed by the opposite sex than chastity; whether it be that we always prize those most who are hardest to come at; or that nothing beside chastity, with its collateral attendants, truth, fidelity, and constancy, gives the man a property in the person he loves, and consequently endears her to him above all things. I am very much pleased with a passage in the inscription on a monument erected in Westminsterabbey to the late Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. "Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester; a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous." In books of chivalry, where the point of honour is strained to madness, the whole story runs on chastity and courage. The damsel is mounted on a white palfry, as an emblem of her innocence; and, to avoid scandal, must have a dwarf for her page. She is not to think of a man, until some misfortune has brought a knight-errant to her relief. The knight falls in love, and, did not gratitude restrain her from murdering her deliverer, would die at her feet by her disdain. However, he must waste many years in the desert, before her virgin heart can think of a surrender. The knight goes off, attacks every thing he meets that is bigger and stronger than himself, seeks all opportunities of being knocked on the head, and after seven years' rambling returns to his mistress, whose chastity has been attacked in the mean time by giants and tyrants, and undergone as many trials as her lover's valour. In Spain, where there are still great remains of this romantic humour, it is a transporting favour for a lady to cast an accidental glance on her lover from a window, though it be two or three stories high; as it is usual for a lover to assert his passion for his mistress, in a single combat with a mad bull. THE club, of which I have often declared myself a member, were last night engaged in a discourse upon that which passes for the chief point of honour among men and women; and started a great many hints upon the subject, which I thought were en-sented; but to say he lies, though but in jest, is an him in the most sensible part of honour, and indi- stead of this, you hardly see a man who is not uneasy rectly calling him a coward. I cannot admit under in proportion to his advancement in the arts of life. The great violation, in point of honour from man to man, is giving the lie. One may tell another he whores, drinks, blasphemes, and it may pass unre tirely new. I shall therefore methodize the several reflections that arose upon this occasion, and present my reader with them for the speculation of this day; efter having premised, that if there is any thing in affront that nothing but blood can expiate. The reason perhaps may be, because no other vice implies a want of courage so much as the making a lie; and therefore telling a man he lies, is touching this head what Herodotus tells us of the ancient Persians that from the age of five years to twenty they instruct their sons only in three things, to manage the horse, to make use of the bow, and to speak truth. The placing the point of honour in this false kind of courage, has given occasion to the very refuse of mankind, who have neither virtue nor common sense, to set up for men of honour. An English peer who has not long been dead, used to tell a pleasant story of a French gentleman that visited him early one morning at Paris, and after great professions of respect, let him know that he had it in his power to oblige him; which, in short, amounted to this that he believed he could tell his lordship the person's name who jostled him as he came out from the opera: but before he would proceed, he begged his lordship that he would not deny him the honour of making him his second. The English lord, to avoid being drawn into a very foolish affair, told him, he was under engagements for his two next duels to a couple of particular friends:-upon which the gentleman immediately withdrew, hoping his lordship would not take it ill if he meddled no farther in an affair from whence he himself was to receive no advantage. The beating down this false notion of honour in so vain and lively a people as those of France, is deservedly looked upon as one of the most glorious parts of their present king's reign. It is a pity but the punishment of these mischievous notions should have in it some particular circumstances of shame and infamy: that those who are slaves to them may see, that instead of advancing their reputations, they lead them to ignominy and dishonour. Death is not sufficient to deter men who make it their glory to despise it; but if every one that fought a duel were to stand in the pillory, it would quickly lessen the number of these imaginary men of honour, and put an end to so absurd a practice. When honour is a support to virtuous principles, and runs parallel with the laws of God and our country, it cannot be too much cherished and encouraged: but when the dictates of honour are contrary to those of religion and equity, they are the greatest depravations of human nature, by giving wrong ambitions and false ideas of what is good and laudable; and should therefore be exploded by all governments, and driven out as the bane and plague of human society. No. 100.] MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1711. L. Nil ego contulerım jucundo sanus amico.-HOR. 1 Sat. v. 44 A MAN advanced in years that thinks fit to look back upon his former life, and call that only life which was passed with satisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in his infancy. Sickness, ill-humour and idleness will have robbed him of a great share of that space we ordinarily call our life. It is therefore the duty of every man that would be true to himself, to obtain, if possible, a disposition to be pleased, and place himself in a constant aptitude for the satisfactions of his being. In * The editor has been told this was William Cavendish, the first duke of Devonshire, who died August 18, 1707 An affected delicacy is the common improvement we meet with in those who pretend to be refined above others. They do not aim at true pleasures themselves, but turn their thoughts upon observing the false pleasures of other men. Such people are valetudinarians in society, and they should no more come into company than a sick man should come into the air. If a man is too weak to bear what is refreshment to men in health, he must still keep his chamber. When any one in Sir Roger's company complains he is out of order, he immediately calls for some posset-drink for him; for which reason that sort of people who are ever bewailing their constitution in other places, are the cheerfullest imaginable when he is present. It is a wonderful thing that so many, and they not reckoned absurd, shall entertain those with whom they converse, by giving them a history of their pains and aches, and imagine such narrations their quota of the conversation. This is of all other the meanest help to discourse, and a man must not think at all, or think himself very insignificant, when he finds an account of his head-ache answered by another's asking what news by the last mail. Mutual good humour is a dress we ought to appear in whenever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice; but indeed there are crowds of people who put themselves in no inethod of pleasing themselves or others; such are those whom we usually call indolent persons. Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate state between pleasure and pain, and very much unbecoming any part of our life after we are out of the nurse's arms. Such an aversion to labour creates a constant weariness, and one would think should make existence itself a burden. The indolent man descends from the dignity of his nature, and makes that being which was rational merely vegetative. His life consists only in the mere increase and decay of a body, which, with relation to the rest of the world, might as well have been uninformed, as the habitation of a reasonable mind. Of this kind is the life of that extraordinary couple, Harry Tersett and his lady. Harry was, in the days of his celibacy, one of those pert creatures who have much vivacity and little understanding; Mrs. Rebecca Quickly, whom he married, had all that the fire of youth and a lively manner could do towards making an agreeable woman. These two people of seeming merit fell into each other's arms; and, passion being sated, and no reason or good sense in either to succeed it, their life is now at a stand; their meals are insipid and their time tedious; their fortune has placed them above care, and their loss of taste reduced them below diversion. When we talk of these as instances of inexistence, we do not mean, that in order to live, it is necessary we should be always in jovial crews, or crowned with chaplets of roses, as the merry fellows among the ancients are described; but it is intended, by considering these contraries of pleasure, indolence, and too much delicacy, to show that it is prudence to preserve a disposition in ourselves to receive a certain delight in all we hear and see. This portable quality of good humour seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with in such a manner, that there are no moments lost: but they all pass with so much satisfaction, that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load,) that of time, is never what would please them. When we know every years in cooling, before it recovered its natural temspoken of is represented by one who per. In the like manner, if an Englishman con felt by us. Varilas has this quality to the highest perfection, and communicates it wherever he appears. The sad, the merry, the severe, the melancholy, show a new cheerfulness when he comes among them. At the same time no one can repeat any thing that Varilas has ever said that deserves repetition; but the man has that innate goodness of temper, that he is welcome to every body, because every man thinks he is so to him. He does not seem to contribute any thing to the mirth of the company; and yet upon reflection you find it all happened by his being there. I thought it was whimsically said of a gentleman, that if Varilas had wit, it would be the best wit in the world. It is certain, when a well-corrected sively imagination and good breeding are added to a sweet disposition, they qualify it to be one of the greatest blessings as well as pleasures of life. Men would come into company with ten times the pleasure they do, if they were sure of hearing nothing that would shock them, as well as expected nities of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it. It is therefore the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists, who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions. We can now allow Cæsar to be a great man, without derogating from Pompey; and celebrate the virtues of Cato, without detracting from those of Cæsar. Every one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, in which, whilst he lived, his friends were too profuse, and his enemies too sparing. According to Sir Isaac Newton's calculations, the last comet that made its appearance in 1680, imbibed so much heat by its approaches to the sun, that it would have been two thousand times hotter than red hot iron, had it been a globe of that metal; and that supposing it as big as the earth, and at the same distance from the sun, it would be fifty thousand person that is spoke has no ill-will, and every thing that is mentioned described by one that is apt to set it in the best light, the entertainment must be delicate, because the cook has nothing brought to his hand but what is the most excellent in its kind. Beautiful pictures are the entertainments of pure minds, and deformities of the corrupted. It is a degree towards the life of angels, when we enjoy conversation wherein there is nothing presented but in its excellence; and a degree towards that of demons, wherein nothing is shown but in its degeneracy. т. No. 101.] TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1711. IMITATED. Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind.-POPE. "CENSURE," says a late ingenious author, "is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent." It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defence against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph. If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least opportu siders the great ferment into which our political world is thrown at present, and how intensely it is heated in all its parts, he cannot suppose that it will cool again in less than three hundred years. In such a tract of time it is possible that the heats of the present age may be extinguished, and our several classes of great men represented under their proper characters. Some eminent historian may then probably arise that will not write recentibus odiis (as Tacitus expresses it) with the passions and prejudices of a contemporary author-but make an impartial distribution of fame among the great men of the present age. I cannot forbear entertaining myself very often with the idea of such an imaginary historian describing the reign of Anne the first, and introducing it with a preface to his reader that he is now entering upon the most shining part of the English story. The great rivals in fame will be then distinguished according to their respective merits, and shine in their proper points of light. Such a one (says the historian), though variously represented by the writ ers of his own age, appears to have been a man of more than ordinary abilities, great application, and uncommon integrity: nor was such a one (though of an opposite party and interest) inferior to him in any of these respects. The several antagonists who now endeavour to depreciate one another, and are celebrated or traduced by different parties, will then have the same body of admirers, and appear illustrious in the opinion of the whole British nation. The deserving man, who can now recommend himself to the esteem of but half his countrymen, will then receive the approbations and applauses of a whole age. Among the several persons that flourish in this glorious reign, there is no question but such a future historian, as the person of whom I am speaking, will make mention of the men of genius and learning, who have now any figure in the British nation. For my own part, I often flatter myself with the honourable mention which will then be made of me; and have drawn up a paragraph in my own imagi. nation, that I fancy will not be altogether unlike what will be found in some page or other of this imaginary historian. It was under this reign, says he, that the Spectator published those little diurnal essays which are still extant. We know very little of the name or person of this author, except only that he was a man of a very short face, extremely addicted to silence, |