the wonderful nature of a human mind, which is capable of such progressions in knowledge, and can contain such a variety of ideas without perplexity or confusion. How reasonable is it from hence to infer its divine original! And whilst we find unthinking matter endued with a natural power to last for ever, unless annihilated by Omnipotence, how absurd would it be to imagine that a being so much superior to it should not have the same privilege! "At the same time it is very surprising, when we remove our thoughts from such instances as I have mentioned, to consider those we so frequently meet with in the accounts of barbarous nations among "I think I ought not to coneclude without inte resting all my readers in the subject of this discourse; I shall therefore lay it down as a maxim, that though all are not capable of shining in learning or the politer arts, yet every one is capable of excelling in something. The soul has in this respect a certam vegetative power which cannot lie wholly idle. If it is not laid out and cultivated inte a regular and beautiful garden, it will of itself shoot up in weeds or flowers of a wilder growth." the Indians; where we find numbers of people who No. 555.] SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1712 scarce show the first glimmerings of reason, and seem to have few ideas above those of sense and appetite. These, methinks, appear like large wilds, or vast uncultivated tracts of human nature: and, when we compare them with men of the most exalted characters in arts and learning, we find it difficult to believe that they are creatures of the same species. "Soine are of opinion that the souls of men are all naturally equal, and that the great disparity we so often observe arises from the different organization or structure of the bodies to which they are united. But, whatever constitutes this first disparity, the next great difference which we find between men in their several acquirements is owing to accidental differences in their education, fortunes, or course of life. The soul is a kind of rough diamond, which requires art, labour, and time, to polish it. For want of which many a good natural genius is lost, or lies unfashioned, like a jewel in the mine. "One of the strongest incitements to excel in such arts and accomplishments as are in the highest esteem among men, is the natural passion which the mind of man has for glory; which, though it may be faulty in the excess of it, ought by no means to be discouraged. Perhaps some moralists are too severe in beating down this principle, which seems to be a spring implanted by nature to give motion to all the latent powers of the soul, and is always observed to exert itself with the greatest force in the most generous dispositions. The men whose characters have shone the brightest among the ancient Romans, appear to have been strongly animated by this passion. Cicero, whose learning and services to his country are so well known, was inflamed by it to an extravagant degree, and warmly presses Lucceius, who was composing a Respue quod non es Lay the fictitious character aside. PERS. Sat. iv. 51. ALL the members of the imaginary society, which were described in my first papers, having disappeared one after another, it is high time for the Spectator himself to go off the stage. But now 1 am to take my leave, I am under much greater anxiety than I have known for the work of any day since I undertook this province. It is much more difficult to converse with the world in a reai than a personated character. That might pass for humour in the Spectator, which would look like arrogance in a writer who sets his name to his work. The fictitious person might condemn those who disapproved him, and extol his own performances without giving offence. He might assume a mock authority, without being looked upon as vain and conceited. The praises or censures of himself fall only upon the creature of his imagination; and, if any one finds fault with him, the author may reply with the phi losopher of old, "Thou dost but beat the case of Anaxarchus." When I speak in my own private sentiments, I cannot but address myself to my readers in a more submissive manner, and with a just gratitude for the kind reception which they have given to these daily papers, which have been published for almost the space of two years last past. an I, or an O, that is to say, all the papers history of those times, to be very particular and zealous in relating the story of his consulship; and to execute it speedily, that he might have the pleasure of enjoying in his lifetime some part of the honour which he foresaw would be paid to his memory. This was the ambition of a great mind; but he is faulty in the degree of it, and cannot refrain from soliciting the historian upon this occasion to neglect the strict laws of history, and, in praising him, even to exceed the bounds of truth. The younger Pliny appears to have had the same passion for fame, but accompanied with greater chasteness and modesty. His I hope the apology I have made, as to the licence allowable to a feigned character, may excuse any thing which has been said in these discourses of the Spectator and his works; but the imputation of the grossest vanity would still dwell upon me if I did not give some account by what means I was enabled to keep up the spirit of so long and approved a performance. All the papers marked with a C, an L, have distinguished by any letter in the name of the which I muse Clio, were given me by the gentleman of whose assistance I formally boasted in the preface and concluding leaf of my Tatlers. I am indeed much more proud of his long-continued friendship, than I should be of the fame of being thought the author of any writings which he himself is capable of producing. I remember when I finished The Tender Husband, I told him there was nothing I so ardently wished, as that we might sometime or other publish a work, written by us both, which should bear the name of The Monument, in memory of our friend ingenious manner of owning it to a friend, who had ship. I heartily wish what I have done here were prompted him to undertake some great work, is ex- as honorary to that sacred name, as learning, wit, quisitely beautiful, and raises him to a certain and humanity, render those pieces which I have grandeur above the imputation of vanity. I must taught the reader how to distinguish for his. When confess,' says he, 'that nothing employs my thoughts the play above mentioned was last acted, there were more than the desire I have of perpetuating my so many applauded strokes in it which I had from name; which, in my opinion, is a design worthy of the same hand, that I thought very meanly of myseif a man, at least of such a one, who, being conscious of no guilt, is not afraid to be remembered by posterity.' * Addison. that I have never publicly acknowledged them. After I have put other friends upon importuning him to publish dramatic as well as other writings he has by him, I shall end what I think I am obliged to say on this head, by giving my reader this hint for the better judging of my productions that the best comment upon them would be an account when the patron to The Tender Husband was in England or abroad. The reader will also find some papers which are marked with the letter X, for which he is obliged to the ingenious gentleman who diverted the town with the epilogue to The Distressed Mother. I might have owned these several papers with the free consent of these gentlemen, who did not write them with a design of being known for the authors. But, as a candid and sincere behaviour ought to be preferred to all other considerations, I would not let my heart reproach me with a consciousness of having acquired a praise which is not my right. The other assistances which I have had have been conveyed by letter, sometimes by whole papers, and other times by short hints from unknown hands. I have not been able to trace favours of this kind with any certainty, but to the following names, which I place in the order wherein I received the obligation, though the first I am going to name can hardly be mentioned in a list wherein he would not deserve the precedence. The persons to whom I am to make these acknowledgments are, Mr. Henry Martyn, Mr. Pope, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Carey of NewCollege in Oxford, Mr. Tickell of Queen's in the same university, Mr. Parnell and Mr. Eusden of Trinity in Cambridge. Thus, to speak in the language of my late friend, Sir Andrew Freeport, I have balanced my accounts with all my creditors for wit and learning. But as these excellent performances would not have seen the light without the means of this paper, I may still arrogate to myself the merit of their being communicated to the public. I have nothing more to add, but having swelled this work to five hundred and fifty-five papers, they will be disposed into seven volumes, four of which are already published, and the three others in the press. It will not be demanded of me why I now leave off, though I must own myself obliged to give an account to the town of my time hereafter; since I retire when their partiality to me is so great, that an edition of the former volumes of Spectators of above nine thousand each book, is already sold off, and the tax on each half-sheet has brought into the stamp-office, one week with another, above 20l. a-week arising from the single paper, notwithstandimg it at first reduced it to less than half the number that was usually printed before the tax was laid. "MR. SPECTATOR, Dec. 4, 1712, "The academy of painting, lately established in London, having done you and themselves the honour to choose you one of their directors; that noble and lively art, which before was entitled to your regard as a Spectator, has an additional claim to you, and you seem to be under a double obligation to take some care of her interests. "The honour of our country is also concerned in the matter I am going to lay before you. We (and perhaps other nations as well as we) have a national false humility as well as a national vain glory; and, though we boast ourselves to excel all the world in things wherein we are outdone abroad, in other things we attribute to others a superiority which we ourselves possess. This is what is done, particularly in the art of portrait or face-painting. "Painting is an art of a vast extent, too great by much for any mortal man to be in full possession of in all its parts; it is enough if any one succeed in painting faces, history, battles, landscapes, seapieces, fruit, flowers, or drolls, &c. Nay, no man ever was excellent in all the branches (though many in number) of these several arts, for a distinct part I take upon me to call every one of those several kinds of painting. "And as one man may be a good landscape-painter, but unable to paint a face or a history tolerably well, and so of the rest; one nation may excel in some kinds of painting, and other kinds may thrive better in other climates. Italy may have the preference of all other nations for history-painting; Holland for drolls, and a neat finished manner of working; France for gay, janty, fluttering pictures; and England for portraits: but to give the honour of every one of these kinds of painting to any one of these nations on ac count of their excellence in any of these parts of it, is like adjudging the prize of heroic, dramatic, lyric, or burlesque poetry, to him who has done well in any one of them. "Where there are the greatest geniuses, and most helps and encouragements, it is reasonable to suppose an art will arrive to the greatest perfection: by this rule let us consider our own country with respect to face-painting. No nation in the world delights so much in having their own, or friends', or relations pictures; whether from their national good-nature, or having a love to painting, and not being encouraged in that great article of religious pictures, which the purity of our worship refuses the free use of, or from whatever other cause. Our helps are not inferior to those of any other people, but rather they are greater; for what the antique statues and bas-reliefs which Italy enjoys are to the I humbly beseech the continuance of this inclina-history-painters, the beautiful and noble faces with tion to favour what I may hereafter produce, and which England is confessed to abound are to facehope I have in many occurrences of my life tasted painters; and, besides, we have the greatest numso deeply of pain and sorrow, that I am proof ber of the works of the best masters, in that kind of against much more prosperous circumstances than any people, not without a competent number of those any advantages to which my own industry can pos- of the most excellent in every other part of paintsibly exalt me. I am, my good-natured Reader, Most obliged humble Servant, Vos volete et plaudite. Ter. The following letter regards an ingenious set of gentlemen, who have done me the honour to make me one of their society: ing. And for encouragement, the wealth and generosity of the English nation affords that in such a degree as artists have no reason to complain. no And accordingly, in fact, face-painting ce-painting is where so well performed as in England: I know not whether it has lain in your way to observe it, but I have, and pretend to be a tolerable judge. I have seen what is done abroad; and can assure you that the honour of that branch of painting is justly due to us. I appeal to the judicious observers for the truth of what I assert. If foreigners have often times, or even for the most part, excelled our natives, it ought to be imputed to the advantages they have met with here, joined to their own ingenuity and industry; nor has any one nation distinguished themselves so as to raise an argument in favour of their country: but it is to be observed that neither French nor Italians, nor any one of either nation, notwithstanding all our prejudices in their favour, have, or ever had, for any considerable time, any character among us as face-painters. "This honour is due to our own country, and has been so for near an age: so that, instead of going to Italy, or elsewhere, one that designs for portraitpainting, ought to study in England. Hither such should come from Holland, France, Italy, Germany, &c. as he that intends to practise any other kinds of painting should go to those parts where it is in the greatest perfection. It is said the blessed virgin descended from heaven to sit to St Luke. I dare venture to affirm that, if she should desire another Madonna to be painted by the life, she would come to England; and am of opinion that our present president, Sir Godfrey Kneller, from his improvement since he arrived in this kingdom, would perform that office better than any foreigner living. I am, with all possible respect, "Sir, your most humble and most obedient Servant," &c. * The ingenious letter signed The Weather Glass, with several others, were received, but came too late. POSTSCRIPT. It had not come to my knowledge, when I left off the Spectator, that I owe several excellent sentiments and agreeable pieces in this work to Mr. Ince, of Gray's Inn.* 1 "R. STEELE." So shines, renew'd in youth, the crested snake, UPON laying down the office of Spectator, I acquainted the world with my design of electing a new club, and of opening my mouth in it after a most solemn manner. Both the election and the ceremony are now past; but not finding it so easy, as I at first imagined, to break through a fifty years' silence, I would not venture into the world under the character of a man who pretends to talk like other people, until I had arrived at a full freedom of speech. 1 I shall reserve for another time the history of such club or clubs of which I am now a talkative but unworthy member; and shall here give an account of this surprising change which has been produced in me, and which I look upon to be as remarkable an accident as any recorded in history, since that which happened to the son of Cræsus, * This was the conclusion of the seventh volume of the Spectator, as originally published. The intermediate time was filled up by our authors with the Guardian. after having been many years as much tongue-tied as myself. Upon the first opening of my mouth I made a speech, consisting of about half a dozen well-turned periods; but grew so very hoarse upon it, that for three days together, instead of finding the use of my tongue, I was afraid that I had quite lost it. Besides, the unusual extension of my muscles on this occasion made my face ache on both sides, to such a degree, that nothing but an invincible resolution and perseverance could have prevented me from falling back to my monosyllables. I afterward made several essays towards speaking; and that I might not be startled at my own voice which has happened to me more than once, I used to read aloud in my chamber, and have often stood in the middle of the street to call a coach, where I knew there was none within hearing. When I was thus grown pretty well acquainted with my own voice, I laid hold of all opportunities to exert it. Not caring however to speak much by myself, and to draw upon me the whole attention of those I conversed with, I used for some time to walk every morning in the Mall, and talk in chorus with a parcel of Frenchmen. I found my modesty greatly relieved by the communicative temper of this nation, who are so very sociable as to think they are never better company than when they are all opening at the same time. I then fancied I might receive great benefit from female conversation, and that I should have a convenience of talking with the greater freedom when I was not under any impediment of thinking: 1 therefore threw myself into an assembly of ladies, but could not for my life get in a word among them; and found that if I did not change my company I was in danger of being reduced to my primitive taciturnity. The coffee-houses have ever since been my chief places of resort, where I have made the greatest improvements; in order to which I have taken a particular care never to be of the same opinion with the man I conversed with. I was a tory at Button's, and a whig at Child's, a friend to the Englishman, or an advocate for the Examiner, as it best served my turn: some fancy me a great enemy to the French king, though in reality I only make use of him for a help to discourse. In short, I wrangle and dispute for exercise; and have carried this point so far, that I was once like to have been run through the body for making a little too free with my betters. In a word, I am quite another man to what I was, -Nil fuit unquam Tam dispar sibi Nothing was ever so unlike itself. Hor. 1 Sat. iii. 18. My old acquaintance scarce knew me, nay, I was asked the other day by a Jew at Jonathan's, whether I was not related to a dumb gentleman, who used to come to that coffee-house? But I think I never was better pleased in my life than about a week ago, when, as I was s battling it across the table with a young Templar, his companion gave him a pull by the sleeve, begging him to come away, for that the old prig would talk him to death. Being now a very good proficient in discourse, I shall appear in the world with this addition to my character, that my countrymen may reap the fruits of my new-acquired loquacity. Those who have been present at public disputes in the university know that it is usual to maintain heresies for argument's sake. I have heard a man a most impudent Socinian for half an hour, who has been an orthodox divine all his life after. I have taken the same method to accomplish myself in the gift of utterance, having talked above a twelvemonth, not so much for the benefit of my hearers, as of myself. But, since I have now gained the faculty I have been so long endeavouring after, I intend to make a right use of it, and shall think myself obliged for the future to speak always in truth and sincerity of heart. While a man is learning to fence, he practises both on friend and foe; but when he is a master in the art, he never exerts it but on what he thinks the right side. That this last allusion may not give my reader a wrong idea of my design in this paper, I must here inform him, that the author of it is of no faction; that he is a friend to no interests but those of truth and virtue; nor a foe to any but those of vice and folly. Though I make more noise in the world than I used to do, I am still resolved to act in it as an indifferent spectator. It is not my ambition to increase the number either of whigs or tories, but of wise and good men; and I could heartily wish there were not faults common to both parties, which afford me sufficient matter to work upon, without descending to those which are peculiar to either. If in a multitude of counsellors there is safety, we ought to think ourselves the securest nation in the world. Most of our garrets are inhabited by statesmen, who watch over the liberties of their country, and make a shift to keep themselves from starving by taking into their care the properties of their fellow-subjects. As these politicians of both sides have already worked the nation into a most unnatural ferment, I - shall be so far from endeavouring to raise it to a greater height, that, on the contrary, it shall be the chief tendency of my papers to inspire my countrymen with a mutual good-will and benevolence. Whatever faults either party may be guilty of. they are rather inflamed than cured by those reproaches which they cast upon one another. The most likely method of rectifying any man's conduct is by recommending to him the principles of truth and honour, religion and virtue; and so long as he acts with an eye to these principles, whatever party he is of, he cannot fail of being a good Englishnan, and a lover of his country. As for the persons concerned in this work, the names of all of them, or at least of such as desire it, shall be published hereafter; until which time I must entreat the courteous reader to suspend his curiosity, and rather to consider what is written than who they are that write it. Having thus adjusted all necessary preliminaries with my reader, I shall not trouble him with any Inore prefatory discourses, but proceed in my old Imethod, and entertain him with speculations on every useful subject that falls in my way. No. 557.1 MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1714. Quippe domum timet ambiguam, Tyriosque bilingues. VIRG. An. i. 665. " a Among all the accounts which are given of Cato, I do not remember one that more redounds to his honour than the following passage related by Plutarch. As an advocate was pleading the cause of his client before one of the prætors, he could only only produc single witness in a point where the law required the testimony of two persons; upon which the advocate insisted on the integrity of that person whom he had produced; but the prætor told him, that where the law required two witnesses he would not accept of one, though it were Cato himself. Such a speech from a person who sat at the head of a court of justice, while Cato was still living, shows us, more than a thousand examples, the high reputation this man had gained among his contemporaries upon the account of his sincerity. When such an inflexible integrity is a little softened and qualified by the rules of conversation and good breeding, there is not a more shining virtue in the whole catalogue of social daties. A man, however, ought to take great care not to polish himself out of his veracity, nor to refine his behaviour to the prejudice of his virtue. This subject is exquisitely treated in the most elegant sermon of the great British preacher.* I shall beg leave to transcribe out of it two or three sentences as a proper introduction to a very curious letter, which I shall make the chief entertainment of this speculation. "The old English plainness and sincerity, that generous integrity of nature, and honesty of disposition, which always argues true greatness of mind, and is usually accompanied with undaunted courage and resolution, is in a great measure lost among us. "The dialect of conversation is now-a-days so swelled with vanity and compliment, and so surfeited (as I may say) of expressions of kindness and respect, that if a man that lived an age or two ago should return into the world again, he would really want a dictionary to help him to understand his own language, and to know the true intrinsic value of the phrase in fashion; and would hardly at first believe at what a low rate the highest strains and expressions of kindness imaginable do commonly pass in current payment; and when he should come to understand it, it would be a great while before he could bring himself with a good countenance, and a good conscience, to converse with men upon equal terms and in their own way." I have by me a letter which I look upon as a great curiosity, and which may serve as an exemplification to the foregoing passage, cited out of this most excellent prelate. It is said to have been written in King Charles the Second's reign by the ambassador of Bantam,† a little after his arrival in England. "MASTER, "The people where I now am have tongues further from their hearts than from London to Bantam; and thou knowest the inhabitants of one of these places do not know what is done in the other. They call thee and thy subjects barbarians, because we speak what we mean; and account themselves a civilized peopie, because they speak one thing and mean another: truth they call barbarity, and falsehood politeness. Upon my first landing, one, who was sent from the king of this place to meet me, He fears the ambiguous race, and Tyrians double-tongued. "THERE is nothing," says Plato, so delightful as the hearing or the speaking of truth." For this reason there is no conversation so agreeable as that told me that he was extremely sorry for the storm of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive. Archbishop Tillotson, vol. ii. sermon i. p. 7. edit. in folho ↑ In 1682. I had met with just before my arrival. I was troubled to hear him grieve and afflict himself on my account; but in less than a quarter of an hour he smiled, and was as merry as if nothing had happened. Another who came with him told me, by my interpreter, he should be glad to do me any service that lay in his power. Upon which I desired him to carry one of my portmanteaus for me; but, instead of serving me according to his promise, he laughed, and bid another do it. I lodged the first week at the house of one who desired me to think myself at home, and to consider his house as my own. Accordingly I the next morning began to knock down one of the walls of it, in order to let in the fresh air, and had packed up some of the household goods, of which I intended to have made thee a present; but the false varlet no sooner saw me falling to work, but he sent word to desire me to give over, for that he would have no such doings in his house. I had not being long in this nation, before I was told by one, for whom I had asked a certain favour from the chief of the king's servants, whom they here call the lord-treasurer, that I had eternally obliged him. I was so surprised at his gratitude, that I could not forbear saying, 'What service is there which one man can do for another, that can oblige him to all eternity? However, I only asked him, for my reward, that he would lend me his eldest daughter during my stay in this country; but I quickly found that he was as treacherous as the rest of his countrymen. "At my first going to court, one of the great men almost put me out of countenance, by asking ten thousand pardons of me for only treading by accident upon my toe. They call this kind of lie a compliment; for, when they are civil to a great man, they tell him untruths, for which thou wouldest order any of thy officers of state to receive a hundred blows upon his foot. I do not know how I shali negotiate any thing with this people, since there is so little credit to be given to them. When I go to see the king's scribe, I am generally told that he is not at home, though perhaps I saw him go into his house almost the very moment before. Thou wouldest fancy that the whole nation are physicians, for the first question they always ask me is, how I do: I have this question put to me above a hundred times a-day, nay, they are not only thus inquisitive after my health, but wish it in a more solemn manner, with a full glass in their hands, every time I sit with them at table, though at the same time they would persuade me to drink their liquors in such quantities as I have found by experience will make me sick. They often pretend to pray for thy health also in the same manner; but i have more reason to expect it from the goodness of thy constitution than the sincerity of their wishes. May thy slave escape in safety from this doubletongued race of men, and live to lay himself once more at thy feet in the royal city of Bantam!" No. 558.] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 1714 Whence is't, Mæcenas, that so few approte It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among th whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of before that which would fall to them by such a division. Horace has carried this thought a great deal further in the motto of my paper, which implies, that the hardships or misfortunes we he under are more easy to us than those of any other person would be, in case we could change conditions with him. As I was ruminating upon these two remarks, and seated in my elbow-chair, I insensibly fell asleep; when on a sudden methought there was a proclamation made by Jupiter, that every mortal should bring in his griefs and calamities, and throw them ingether in a heap. There was a large piain appointed for this purpose. I took my stand in the centre of it, and saw with a great deal of pleasure the whole human species marching one after another, and throwing down their several loads, which imme diately grew up into a prodigious mountain, that seemed to rise above the clouds. There was a certain lady of a thin airy shape, who was very active in this solemnity. She carried & magnifying glass in one of her hands, and was clothed in a loose flowing robe, embroidered with several figures of fiends and spectres, that discovered themselves in a thousand chimerical shapes as her garment hovered in the wind. There was something wild and distracted in her looks. Her name was Fancy. She led up every mortal to the ap pointed place, after having very officiously assisted him in making up his pack, and laying it upon his shoulders. My heart melted within me to see my fellow-creatures groaning under their respective burdens, and to consider that prodigious bulk of human calamities which lay before me. There were, however, several persons who gave |