so very true, that a great part of ceremony and good- It is not indeed to be denied, but there is something breeding among the ladies turns upon their uneasi- irresistible in a beauteous form; the most severe will ness; and I will undertake, if the how-do-ye-servants not pretend, that they do not feel an immediate preof our women were to make a weekly bill of sick- possession in favour of the handsome. No one deness, as the parish-clerks do of mortality, you would nies them the privilege of being first heard, and not find in an account of seven days, one in thirty being regarded before others in matters of ordinary that was not downright sick or indisposed, or but a consideration. At the same time the handsome very little better than she was, and so forth. It is certain, that to enjoy life and health as a constant feast, we should not think pleasure necessary; but, if possible, to arrive at an equality of mind. It is as mean to be overjoyed upon occasions of good fortune, as to be dejected in circumstances of distress. Laughter in one condition, is as unmanly as weeping in the other. We should not form our minds to expect transport on every occasion, but know how to make it enjoyment to be out of pain. Ambition, envy, vagrant desire, or impertinent mirth, will take up our minds, without we can possess ourselves in that sobriety of heart which is above all pleasures, and can be felt much better than described. But the ready way, I believe, to the right enjoyment of life is, by a prospect towards another, to have but a very mean opinion of it. A great author of our time* has set this in an excellent light, when, with a philosophic pity of human life, he spoke of it in his Theory of the Earth in the following manner: "For what is this life but a circulation of little mean actions? We lie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, work or play, and are weary, and then we lie down again, and the circle returns. We spend the day in trifles, and when the night comes we throw ourselves into the bed of folly, amongst dreams, and broken thoughts, and wild imaginations. Our reason lies asleep by us, and we are for the time as arrant brutes as those that sleep in the stalls or in the field. Are not the capacities of man higher than these? And ought not his ambition and expectations to be greater? Let us be adventurers for another world. It is at least a fair and noble chance; and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our passions. If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our fellow-mortals; and if we succeed in our expectations, we are eternally happy."-T. should consider that it is a possession, as it were, foreign to them. No one can give it himself, or preserve it when they have it. Yet so it is, that people can bear any quality in the world better than beauty. It is the consolation of all who are naturally too much affected with the force of it, that a little attention, if a man behave with judgment, will cure them. Handsome people usually are so fantastically pleased with themselves, that if they do not kill at first sight, as the phrase is, a second interview disarms them of all their power. But I shall make this paper rather a warning-piece to give notice where the danger is, than to propose instructions how to avoid it when you have fallen in the way of it. Handsome men shall be the subject of another chapter, the women shall take up the present discourse. Amaryllis, who has been in town but one winter, is extremely improved in the arts of good breeding, without leaving nature. She has not lost the native simplicity of her aspect, to substitute that patience of being stared at, which is the usual triumph and distinction of a town lady. In public assemblies you meet her careless eye diverting itself with the objects around her, insensible that she herself is one of the brightest in the place. Dulcissa is quite another make; she is almost a beauty by nature, but more than one by art. If it were possible for her to let her fan or any limb about her rest, she would do some part of the execution she meditates; but though she designs herself a prey, she will not stay to be taken. No painter can give you words for the different aspects of Dulcissə in half a moment, wherever she appears: so little does she accomplish what she takes so much pains for, to be gay and careless. Merab is attended with all the charms of women and accomplishments of man. It is not to be doubted but she has a great deal of wit, if she were not such a beauty; and she would have more beauty No. 144.] WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1711. had she not so much wit. Affectation prevents her -Noris quam elegans formarum" Spectator" siem. You shall see how nice a judge of beauty I am. BEAUTY has been the delight and torment of the world ever since it began. an. The philosophers have felt its influence so sensibly, that almost every one of them has left us some saying or other, which intimated that he knew too well the power of it. Onet has told us, that a graceful person is a more powerful recommendation than the best letter that can be writ in your favour. Another desires the possessor of it to consider it as a mere gift of nature, and not any perfection of his own. A third calls it a "short-lived tyranny;" a fourth || a "silent fraud," because it imposes upon us without the help of language; but I think Carneades spoke as much like a philosopher as any of them, though more like a lover, when he calls it" royalty without force." * Dr. Thomas Burnet, master of the Charter-house. Theo ría Telluris, 4to. Amst. 1699, p. 241. * Aristotle. : Plato. § Socrates, Theophratus excellences from walking together. If she has a mind to speak such a thing, it must be done with such an air of her body; and if she has an inclination to look very careless, there is such a smart thing to be said at the same time, that the design of being admired destroys itself. Thus the unhappy Merab, though a wit and beauty, is allowed to be neither, because she will always be both. Albacinda has the skill as well as the power of pleasing. Her form is majestic, but her aspect humble. All good men should beware of the destroyer. She will speak to you like your sister, until she has you sure: but is the most vexatious of tyrants when you are so. Her familiarity of behaviour, her indifferent questions and general conversation, make the silly part of her votaries full of hopes, while the wise fly from her power. She well knows she is too beautiful and too witty to be indifferent to any who converse with her, and therefore knows she does not lessen herself by familiarity, but gains occasions of admiration by seeming ignorance of her perfections. Eudosia adds to the height of her stature a nobility of her sex. Beauty in others is lovely, in others Rather, " A sovereignty that needs no military force of spirit which still distinguishes her above the rest this is the proper meaning of the original agreeable, in others attractive; but in Eudosia it is notice of wagerers. I will not here repeat what Hucommanding. Love towards Eudosia is a sentiment dibras says of such disputants, which is so true, that like the love of glory. The lovers of other women it is almost proverbial; but shall only acquaint you are softened into fondness-the admirers of Eudosia with a set of young fellows of the inns of court, exalted into ambition. whose fathers have provided for them so plentifully, Eucratia presents herself to the imagination with that they need not be very anxious to get law into a more kindly pleasure, and, as she is woman, her praise is wholly feminine. If we were to form an image of dignity in a man, we should give him wisdom and valour, as being essential to the character of manhood. In like manner, if you describe a right woman in a laudable sense, she should have gentle softness, tender fear, and all those parts of life which distinguish her from the other sex with some subordination to it, but such an inferiority that makes her still more lovely. Eucratia is that creatureshe is all over woman, kindness is all her art, and beauty all her arms. Her look, her voice, her gesture, and whole behaviour, is truly feminine. A goodness mixed with fear gives a tincture to all her behaviour. It would be savage to offend her, and cruelty to use art to gain her. Others are beautiful, but, Eucratia, thou art beauty! Omniamante is made for deceit; she has an aspect as innocent as the famed Lucrece, but a mind as wild as the more famed Cleopatra. Her face speaks a vestal, but her heart a Messalina. Who that beheld Omniamante's negligent, unobserving air, would believe that she hid under that regardless manner the witty prostitute, the rapacious wench, the prodigal courtesan? She can, when she pleases, adorn those eyes with tears like an infant that is chid; she can cast down that pretty face in confusion, while you rage with jealousy, and storm at her perfidiousness: she can wipe her eyes, tremble, and look frighted, until you fancy yourself a brute for your rage, own yourself an offender, beg pardon, and make her new presents. But I go too far in reporting only the dangers in beholding the beauteous, which I design for the instruction of the fair as well as their beholders; and shall end this rhapsody with mentioning what I thought was well enough said of an ancient sage -to a beautiful youth, whom he saw admiring his own figure in brass. "What," said the philosopher, "could that image of yours say for itself if it could speak?"" It might say," answered the youth, "that it is very beautiful." "And are not you ashamed," replied the cynic, "to value yourself upon that only of which a piece of brass is capable ?"-T. No. 145.1 THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 1711. Ir the following enormities are not amended upon the first mentioning, I desire farther notice from my correspondents. "MR. SPECTATOR, "I am obliged to you for your discourse the other day upon frivolous disputants, who with great warmth and enumeration of many circumstances and authorities, undertake to prove matters which nobody living denies. You cannot employ yourself more usefully than in adjusting the laws of disputation in coffee-houses and accidental companies, as well as in more formal debates. Among many other things which your own experience must suggest to you, it will be very obliging if you please to take • Antisthenes, the founder of the sect of Cynic philosophers. their heads for the service of their country at the their own. One of these gentlemen is very loud "There are several of this sort of fellows in town, "Your humble servant. "MR. SPECTATOR, Aug. 12, 1711. : "MR. SPECTATOR, "We are a company of young women who pass our time very much together, and obliged by the mercenary humour of the men to be as mercenarily inclined as they are. There visits among us an old bachelor whom each of us has a mind to. The fellow is rich, and knows he may have any of us, therefore is particular to none, but excessively ill-bred. His pleasanty consists in romping; he snatches kisses by surprise, puts his hands in our necks, tears our fans, robs us of ribands, forces letters out of our hands, looks into any of our papers, and a thousand other rudenesses. Now what I will desire of you is, to acquaint him, by printing this, that if he does not marry one of us very suddenly, we have all agreed, the next time he pretends to be merry, to affront him, and use him like a clown as he is. In the name of the sisterhood I take my leave of you, and am as they all are, "Your constant reader and well-wisher." "MR. SPECTATOR, "I and several others of your female readers have conformed ourselves to your rules, even to our very dress. There is not one of us but has reduced our outward petticoat to its ancient sizeable circumference, though indeed we retain still a quilted one underneath; which makes us not altogether unconformable to the fashion; but it is on condition Mr. Spectator extends not his censure so far. But we find you men secretly approve our practice, by imitating our pyramidical form. The skirt of your fashionable coats forms as large a circumference as our petticoats; as these are set out with whalebone, so are those with wire, to increase and sustain a the former, in proportion to his advantages of scripture and revelation. If I had a mind to it, I could not at present talk of any thing else; therefore I shall translate a passage in the one, and transcribe a paragraph out of the other, for the speculation of this day. Cicero tells us, that Plato reports Socrates, upon receiving his sentence, to have spoken to his judges in the following manner: " I have great hopes, O my judges, that it is infinitely to my advantage that I am sent to death; for it must of necessity be, that one of these two things must be the consequence. Death must take away all these senses, or convey me to another life. If all sense is to be taken away, and death is no more than that profound sleep without dreams, in which we are sometimes buried, oh, heavens! how desirable it is to die! How many days do we know in life preferable to such a state? But if it be true that death is but a passage to places which they who live, before us do now inhabit, how much still happier is it to go from those who call themselves judges to appear before those that really are such; before Minos, Rhadamanthus, Eacus, and Triptolemus, and to meet men who have lived with justice and truth! Is this, do you think, no happy journey? Do you think it nothing to speak with Orpheus, Musæus, Homer, and Hesiod? I would, indeed, suffer many deaths to enjoy these things. With what particular delight should I talk to Palamedes, Ajax, and others, who like me have suffered by the iniquity of their judges. I should examine the wisdom of that great prince who carried such mighty forces against Troy; and argue with Ulysses and Sisyphus upon difficult points, as I have in conversation here, without being in danger of being condemned. But let not those among you who have pronounced me an innocent man be afraid of death, No harm can arrive at a good man, whether dead or living; his affairs are always under the direction of the gods; nor will I believe the fate which is allotted to me bunch of fold that hangs down on each side; and the hat, I perceive, is decreased in just proportion I aught to say either against my judges or accusers, to our head-dresses. We make a regular figure, but I defy your mathematics to give name to the form you appear in. Your architecture is mere Gothic, and betrays a worse genius than ours; therefore if you are partial to your own sex, I shall be less than I am now "Your humble servant." т. No. 146.] FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 1711. Nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit.-TULL. No man was ever great without some degree of inspiration. We know the highest pleasure our minds are capable of enjoying with composure, when we read sublime thoughts communicated to us by men of great genius and eloquence: such is the entertainment we meet with in the philosophic parts of Cicero's writings. Truth and good sense have there so charming a dress, that they could hardly be more agreeably represented with the addition of poetical fiction, and the power of numbers. This ancient author, and a modern one, have fallen into my hands within these few days; and the impressions they have left upon me have at the present quite spoiled me for a merry fellow. The modern is that admirable writer, the author of The Theory of Earth. The subjects with which I have lately been entertained in them both bear a near affinity; they are upon inquiries into hereafter, and the thoughts of the latter seem to me to be raised above those of myself this day to have arrived by chance; nor have but that they thought they did me an injury.But I detain you too long; it is time that I retire to death, and you to your affairs of life; which of us has the better is known to the gods, but to no mortal man." The divine Socrates is here represented in a figure worthy his great wisdom and philosophy, worthy the greatest mere man that ever breathed. But the modern discourse is written upon a subject no less than the dissolution of nature itself. Oh how glorious is the old age of that great man, who has spent his time in such contemplations as has made this being, what only it should be, an education for heaven! He has, according to the lights of reason and revelation which seemed to him clearest, traced the steps of Omnipotence. He has, with a celestial ambition, as far as it is consistent with humility and devotion, examined the ways of Providence, from the creation to the dissolution of the visible world. How pleasing must have been the speculation, to observe Nature and Providence move together, the physical and moral world march the same pace: to observe paradise and eternal spring the seat of innocence, troubled seasons and angry skies the portion of wickedness and vice! When this admirable author has reviewed all that is past, or is to come, which relates to the habitable world, and run through the whole fate of it, how could a guardian angel, that had attended it through all its courses or chan * Tusculan Quæstion. lib. 1. ges, speak more emphatically at the end of his charge, than does our author when he makes, as it were, a funeral oration over this globe, looking to the point where it once stood? by this means they have acquired such ill habits as will not easily be removed. The only way that I know of to remedy this, is to propose some person of great ability that way as a pattern for them; example being more effectual to convince the learned, as well as instruct the ignorant. "Let us only, if you please, to take leave of this subject, reflect upon this occasion on the vanity and transient glory of this habitable world. How, by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labours of men are reduced to nothing. All that we admired and adored before, as great and magnificent, is obliterated or vanished; and another form and face of things, plain, simple, and every where the same, overspreads the whole earth. Where and so fervently, that it was next to an impossibility "You must know, Sir, I have been a constant frequenter of the service of the church of England for above these four years last past, and until Sunday was sevennight never discovered, to so great a degree, the excellency of the Common-Prayer. When, being at St. James's Garlick-Hill church, I heard the service read so distinctly, so emphatically, to be inattentive. My eyes and my thoughts could not wander as usual, but were confined to my prayers. are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? shew me where they stood, read I then considered I addressed myself to the Al the inscription, tell me the victor's name. What remains, what impressions, what difference, or distinction, do you see in this mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of the world, whose domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what is become of her now? She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous. She glorified herself and lived deliciously, and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow. But her hour is come, she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in everlasting oblivion. But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands; but the everlasting hills, the mountains and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax before the sun, and their place is no where found.' Here stood the Alps, the load of the earth that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved as a tender cloud into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds; there was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia; and yonder, towards the north, stood the Riphæan hills, clothed in ice and snow. All these are va nished, dropt away as the snow upon their heads. *Great and marvellous are thy works, just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints! hallelujah. "* т. MR. SPECTATOR, "THE well reading of the Common-prayer is of so great importance, and so much neglected, that I take the liberty to offer to your consideration some particulars on that subject. And what more worthy your observation than this? A thing so public, and of vo high consequence. It is indeed wonderful, that the frequent exercise of it should not make the performers of that duty more expert in it. This ihability, as I conceive, proceeds from the little care that is taken of their reading while boys, and at school, where, when they have got into Latin, they are looked upon as above English, the reading of which is wholly neglected, or at least read to very little purpose, without any due observations made to them of the proper accent and manner of reading; mighty, and not to a beautiful face. And when I reflected on my former performances of that duty, I found I had run it over as a matter of form, in comparison to the manner in which I then dis. charged it. My mind was really affected, and fervent wishes accompanied my words. The Confession was read with such resigned humility, the Absolution with such a comfortable authority, the Thanksgivings with such a religious joy, as made me feel those affections of the mind in a manner I never did before. To remedy therefore the grievance above complained of, I humbly propose, that this excellent reader, upon the next and every annual assembly of the clergy of Sion-college, and all other conventions, should read prayers before them. For then those that are afraid of stretching their mouths, and spoiling their soft voices, will learn to read with clearness, loudness, and strength. Others that affect a rakish, negligent air, by folding their arms, and lolling on their books, will be taught a decent behaviour, and comely erection of body. Those that read so fast as if impatient of their work, may learn to speak deliberately. There is another sort of persons, whom I call Pindaric readers, as being confined to no set measure: these pronounce five or six words with great deliberation, and the five or six subsequent ones with as great celerity; the first part of a sentence with a very exalted voice, and the latter part with a submissive one: sometimes again, with one sort of a tone, and immediately after with a very different one. These gentlemen will learn of my admired reader an evenness of voice and delivery; and all who are innocent of these affectations, but read with such an indifferency as if they did not understand the language, may then be informed of the art of reading movingly and fervently, how to place the emphasis and give the proper accent to each word, and how to vary the voice according to the nature of the sentence. There is certainly a very great difference between the reading a prayer and a gazette, which I beg of you to inform set of readers, who affect, forsooth, a certain gentleman-like familiarity of tone, and mend the language as they go on, crying, instead of 'pardoneth and absolveth, pardons and absolves. These are often pretty classical scholars, and would think it an unpardonable sin to read Virgil or Martial with so little taste as they do divine service. a "This indifferency seems to me to arise from the endeavour of avoiding the imputation of cant, and the false notion of it. It will be proper, therefore, * Or Garlick-hithe. The rector of this parish at that time was Mr. Philip Stubbs, afterward archdeacon of St. Albans, remembered by the parishioners. • Burnet's Theory of the Earth, 1684, fol. book III. chap whose excellent manner of performing the service was long 12. р. 110, 111. to trace the original and signification of this word. 'Cant' is, by some people, derived from one Andrew Cant, who, they say, was a Presbyterian minister in some illiterate part of Scotland, who by exercise and use had obtained the faculty, alias gift, of talking in the pulpit in such a dialect, that it is said he was understood by none but his own congregation, and not by all of them. Since Master Cant's time, it has been understood in a larger sense, and signifies all sudden exclamations, whinings, unusual tones, and in fine all praying and preaching, like the un learned of the Presbyterians. But I hope a proper elevation of voice, a due emphasis and accent, are not to come within this description. So that our readers may still be as unlike the Presbyterians as they please. The dissenters (I mean such as I have heard) do indeed elevate their voices, but it is with sudden jumps from the lower to the higher part of them; and that with so little sense or skill, that their elevation and cadence is bawling and muttering. They make use of an emphasis, but so improperly, that it is often placed on some very insignificant particle, as upon 'if' or 'and.' Now, if these improprieties have so great an effect on the people as we see they have, how great an influence would the service of our church, containing the best prayers that ever were composed, and that in terms most affecting, most humble, and most expressive of our wants, and dependence on the object of our worship, disposed in most proper order, and void of all confusion; what influence, I say, would these prayers have, were they delivered with a due emphasis and apposite rising and variation of voice, the sentence concluded with a gentle cadence, and, in a word, with such an accent and turn of speech as is peculiar to prayer? "As the matter of worship is now managed, in dissenting congregations, you find insignificant words and phrases raised by a lively vehemence; in our own churches, the most exalted sense depreciated, by a dispassionate indolence. I remember to have heard Dr. Se say in his pulpit, of the Common Prayer, that, at least, it was as perfect as any thing of human institution. If the gentlemen who err in this kind would please to recollect the many pleasantries they have read upon those who recite good things with an ill grace, they would go on to think, that what in that case is only ridiculous, in themselves is impious. But leaving this to their own reflections, I shall conclude this trouble with what Cæsar said upon the irregularity of tone in one who read before him, 'Do you read or sing? If you sing, you sing very ill.'† т. "Your most humble servant." No. 148.] MONDAY, AUGUST 20, 1711. Exempta juvat spinis e pluribus una. HOR. 2 Ep. ii. 212. Better one thorn pluck'd out, than all remain. My correspondents assure me, that the enormities which they lately complained of, and I published an account of, are so far from being amended, that new evils arise every day to interrupt their conversation, in contempt of my reproofs. My friend who writes from the coffee-house near the Temple, informs me that the gentleman who constantly sings a voluntary in spite of the whole company, was more musical than ordinary after reading my paper; and has not been contented with that, but has danced up to the * Probably Dr. Smalridge. ↑ Si legis, cantas: si cantas, male cantas glass in the middle of the room, and practised minuet steps to his own humming. The incorrigible creature has gone still farther, and in the open coffeehouse, with one hand extended as leading a lady in it, he has danced both French and country-dances, and admonished his supposed partner by smiles and nods to hold up her head and fall back, according to the respective facings and evolutions of the dance. Before this gentleman began this his exercise, he was pleased to clear his throat by coughing and spitting a full half hour; and as soon as, he struck up, he appealed to an attorney's clerk in the room, whether he hit as he ought, "Since you from death have saved me?" and then asked the young fellow (pointing to a chancery-bill under his arm), whether that was an opera score he carried or not?-without staying for an answer, he fell into the exercise above mentioned, and practised his airs to the full house who were turned upon him, without the least shame or repentance for his former transgressions. I am to the last degree at a loss what to do with this young fellow, except I declare him an outlaw, and pronounce it penal for any one to speak to him in the said house which he frequents, and direct that he be obliged to drink his tea and coffee without sugar, and not receive from any person whatsoever any thing above mere necessaries. As we in England are a sober people, and generally inclined rather to a certain bashfulness of behaviour in public, it is amazing whence some fellows come whom one meets with in this town; they do not at all seem to be the growth of our island; the pert, the talkative, all such as have no sense of the observation of others, are certainly of foreign extraction. As for my own part, I am as much sur prised when I see a talkative Englishman, as I should be to see the Indian pine growing on one of our quickset hedges. Where these creatures get sun enough, to make them such lively animals and dull men, is above my philosophy. There are another kind of impertinents which a man is perplexed with in mixed company, and those are your loud speakers. These treat mankind as if we were all deaf; they do not express but declare themselves. Many of these are guilty of this outrage out of vanity, because they think all they say is well; or they have their own persons in such veneration, that they believe nothing which concerns them can be insignificant to any body else. For these people's sake, I have often lamented that we cannot close our ears with as much ease as we can our eyes. It is very uneasy that we must necessarily be under persecution. Next to these bawlers, is a troublesome creature who comes with the air of your friend and your intimate, and that is your whisperer. There is one of them at a coffee-house which I myself frequent, who observing me to be a man pretty well made for secrets, gets by me, and with a whisper tells me things which all the town knows. It is no very hard matter to guess at the source of this impertinence, which is nothing else but a method or mechanic art of being wise. You never see any frequent in it, whom you can suppose to have any thing in the world to do. These persons are worse than bawlers, as much as a secret enemy is more dangerous than a declared one. I wish that my coffee-house friend would take this for an intimation, that I have not heard a word he has told me for these several years; whereas he now thinks me the most trusty repository of his secrets. The whisperers have a pleasant way of ending the close conversation with saying aloud, "Do not you think so?" Then whis |