fell into the finest pitty-patty air, forsooth, who have the Latin tongue, such as use to wonderfully out of countenance, tossing her make what they call golden verses. Comhead up and down, as she swam along the mend me also to those who have not brains body of the church. I, with several others enough for any of these exercises, and yet of the inhabitants, followed her out, and do not give up their pretensions to mirth. saw her hold up her fan to a hackney- These can slap you on the back unawares, coach at a distance, who immediately came laugh loud, ask you how you do with a up to her, and she whipping into it with twang on your shoulders, say you are dull great nimbleness, pulled the door with a to-day, and laugh a voluntary to put you in howing mien, as if she had been used to a humour; not to mention the laborious way better glass. She said aloud, “You know among the miner poets, of making things where to go," and drove off. By this time come into such and such a shape, as that of the best of the congregation was at the an egg, a hand, an axe, or any thing that church-door, and I could hear some say, nobody had ever thought on before for that “A very fine lady;" others, “ I'll warrant purpose, or which would have cost them a you she is no better than she should be:" great deal of pains to accomplish if they and one very wise old lady said she ought did. But all these methods, though they to have been taken up. Mr. Spectator, I are mechanical, and may be arrived at think this matter lies wholly before you: with the smallest capacity, do not serve an for the offence does not come under any honest gentleman who wants wit for his law, though it is apparent this creature ordinary occasions; therefore it is absolutely came among us only to give herself airs, necessary that the poor in imagination and enjoy her full swing in being admired. should save something which may be serI desire you may print this, that she may viceable to them at all hours, upon all combe confined to her own parish; for I can mon occurrences. That which we call assure you there is no attending any thing punning is therefore greatly affected by else in a place where she is a novelty. men of small intellects. These men need She has been talked of among us ever not be concerned with you for the whole since, under the name of “the phantom:" sentence; but if they can say a quaint thing, but I would advise her to coine no more: or bring in a word which sounds like any for there is so strong a party made by the one word you have spoken to them, they women against her, that she must expect can turn the discourse, or distract you so they will not be excelled a second time in that you cannot go on, and by consequence, so outrageous a manner, without doing her if they cannot be as witty as you are, they some insult

. Young women, who assume can hinder your being any wittier than they after this rate, and affect exposing them- are. Thus if you talk of a candle, he can selves to view in congregations at the other deal with you; and if you ask him to help end of the town, are not so mischievous, you to some bread, a punster should think because they are rivalled by more of the himself very 'ill-bred' if he did not; and if same ambition, who will not let the rest he is not as 'well-bred' as yourself, he of the company be particular: but in the hopes for 'grains' of allowance. If you do name of the whole congregation where I not understand that last fancy, you must was, I desire you to keep these agreeable recollect that bread is made of grain; and disturbances out of the city, where sobriety so they go on for ever, without possibility of manners is still preserved, and all glar- of being

exhausted. ing and ostentatious behaviour, even in There are another kind of people of small things laudable, discountenanced. I wish faculties, who supply want of wit with want you may never see the phantom, and am, of breeding; and because women are both sir, your most humble servant,

by nature and education more offended at T! RALPH WONDER.' any thing which is immodest than we men

are, these are ever harping upon things they

ought not to allude to, and deal mightily in No. 504.] Wednesday, October 8, 1712.

double meanings. Every one's own ob

servation will suggest instances enough of Lepus tute es, et pulpamentum quæris.

this kind, without my mentioning any; for Ter. Eun. Act iii. Sc. 1. You are a hare yourself, and want dainties, forsooth. down through all parts of the town or city

your double meaners are dispersed up and It is a great convenience to those who where there are any to offend, in order to want wit to furnish out a conversation, that set off themselves. These men are mighty there is something or other in all companies loud laughers, and held very pretty gentlewhere it is wanted substituted in its stead, men with the sillier and unbred part of which, according to their taste, does the womankind. But above all already menbusiness as well. Of this nature is the tioned, or any who ever were, or ever can agreeable pastime in country-halls of cross be in the world, the happiest and surest to purposes, questions and commands, and the be pleasant, are a sort of people whom we like. A little superior to these are those have not indeed lately heard much of, and who can play at crambo, or cap verses. those are your biters.' Then above them are such as can make A biter is one who tells you a thing you verses, that is, rhyme; and among those I have no reason to disbelieve in itself, and

perhaps has given you, before he bit you, for the future will ever be able to equal, no reason to disbelieve it for his saying it; though I heartily wish him the same occaand, if you give him credit, laughs in your sion. It is a superstition with some surface, and triumphs that he has deceived geons who beg the bodies of condemned you. In a word, a biter is one who thinks malefactors, to go to the gaol, and bargain you a fool, because you do not think him a for the carcase with the criminal himself. knave. This description of him one may A good honest fellow did so last sessions, insist upon to be a just one; for what else and was admitted to the condemned men but a degree of knavery is it, to depend on the morning wherein they died. The upon deceit for what you gain of another, surgeon communicated his business, and be it in point of wit, or interest, or any fell into discourse with a little fellow, who thing else?

refused twelve shillings, and insisted upon This way of wit is called "biting,' by a fifteen for his body. The fellow, who killed metaphor taken from beasts of prey, which the officer of Newgate, very forwardly, and devour harmless and unarmed animals, and like a man who was willing to deal, told look upon them as their food wherever they him, 'Look you, Mr. Surgeon, that little meet them. The sharpers about town very dry fellow, who has been half starved all his ingeniously understood themselves to be to life, and is now half dead with fear, cannot the undesigning part of mankind what foxes answer your purpose. I have ever lived are to lambs, and therefore used the word highly and freely, my veins are full, I have biting, to express any exploit wherein they not pined in imprisonment; you see my had over-reached any innocent and inad-crest swells to your knife; and after Jack vertent man of his purse. These rascals of Catch has done, upon my honour you will late years have been the gallants of the find me as sound as ever a bullock in any town, and carried it with a fashionable of the markets. Come, for twenty shillings haughty air, to the discouragement of I am your man. Says the surgeon, ' Done, modesty, and all honest arts. Shallow fops, there is a guinea.' This witty rogue took who are governed by the eye, and admire the money, and as soon as he had it in his every thing that struts in vogue, took up fist, cries, Bite; I am to be hung in chains.' from the sharpers the phrase of biting, and

T. used it upon all occasions, either to disown any nonsensical stuff they should talk themselves, or evade the force of what was reasonably said by others. Thus, when one of No. 505.] Thursday, October 9, 1712. these cunning creatures was entered into a debate with you, whether it was practicable Non habeo denique nauci marsum augurem, in the present state of affairs to accomplish Non Isiacos conjectores, non interpretes somnium; such a proposition, and you thought he had Non enim sunt ii, aut scientia, aut arte divina, let fall what destroyed his side of the ques-Aut inertes, aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat: tion, as soon as you looked with an earnest- | Qui sui questus causa fictas suscitant sententias, ness ready to lay hold of it, he immediately Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam, cried, 'Bite,' and you were immediately to Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab iis drachmam petunt: acknowledge all that part was in jest. They

De divitiis deducant drachmam, reddant cætera. carry this to all the extravagance imagin

Augurs and soothsayers, astrologers, able; and if one of these witlings knows any Diviners, and interpreters of dreams, particulars which may give authority to

I ne'er consult, and heartily despise: what he says, he is still the more ingenions

Vain their pretence to more than human skill:

For gain, imaginary schemes they draw; if he imposes upon your credulity. I re- Wand'rers themselves, they guide another's steps; member a remarkable instance of this kind. And for poor sixpence promise countless wealth: There came up a shrewd young fellow to

Let them, if they expect to be believed,

Deduct the sixpence, and bestow the rest. a plain young man, his countryman, and taking him aside with a grave concerned

Those who have maintained that men countenance, goes on at this rate: I see would be more miserable than beasts, were you here, and have you heard nothing out their hopes confined to this life only, among of Yorkshire?—You look so surprised, you other considerations take notice that the could not have heard of it-and yet the latter are only afflicted with the anguish of particulars are such that it cannot be false: the present evil, whereas the former are I am sorry I am got into it so far that I very often pained by the reflection on what must tell you; but I know not but it may be is passed, and the fear of what is to come. for your service to know. On Tuesday last, This fear of any future difficulties or misjust after dinner-you know his manner is fortunes is so natural to the mind, that to smoke-opening his box, your father fell were a man's sorrows and disquietudes down dead in an apoplexy'. The youth summed up at the end of his life, it would showed the filial sorrow which he ought-generally be found that he had suffered Upon which the witty man cried, “Bite, more from the apprehension of such evils there was nothing in all this.'

as never happened to him, than from those To put an end to this silly, pernicious, evils which had really befallen him. To frivolous way at once, I will give the reader this we may add, that among those evils one late instance of a bite, which no biter, which befall us, there are many which have Vol. II.

34

Ennius.

been more painful to us in the prospect, been the habitation of some prophetic Phithan by their actual pressure.

lomath; it having been usual, time out of This natural impatience to look into fu- mind, for all such people as have lost their turity, and to know what accidents may wits to resort to that place, either for their happen to us hereafter, has given birth to cure or for their instruction, many ridiculous arts and inventions. Some found their prescience on the lines of a

• Moorfields, Oct. 4, 1712. man's hand, others on the features of his Mr. SPECTATOR,–Having long consiface: some on the signatures which nature dered whether there be any trade wanted has impressed on his body, and others on in this great city, after having surveyed his own hand-writing: some read men's for- very attentively all kinds of ranks and protunes in the stars, as others have searched fessions, I do not find in any quarter of the after them in the entrails of beasts, or the town an oneiro-critic, or, in plain English, flight of birds. Men of the best sense have an interpreter of dreams. For want of so been touched more or less with these useful a person, there are several good peogroundless horrors and presages of futurity, ple who are very much puzzled in this parupon surveying the most indifferent works ticular, and dream a whole year together, of nature. "Can any thing be more surpris- without being ever the wiser for it. I hope ing than to consider Cicero, * who made I am pretty well qualified for this office, the greatest figure at the bar and in the having studied by candle-light all the rules senate of the Roman Commonwealth, and of art which have been laid down upon this at the same time outshined all the philoso- subject. My great uncle by my wife's side phers of antiquity in his library, and in was a Scotch highlander, and second-sighthis retirements, as busying himself in the ed. I have four fingers and two thumbs college of augurs, and observing with a upon one hand, and was born on the longest religious attention after what manner the night of the year. My Christian and surchickens pecked the several grains of corn name begin and end with the same letters. which were thrown to them.

I am lodged in Moorfields, in a house that Notwithstanding these follies are pretty for these fifty years has always been tewell worn out of the minds of the wise and nanted by a conjurer. learned in the present age, multitudes of • If you had been in company, so much as weak and ignorant persons are still slaves myself, with ordinary women of the town, to them. There are numberless arts of you must know that there are many of them prediction among the vulgar, which are who every day in their lives, upon seeing too trifling to enumerate, and infinite ob- or hearing of any thing that is unexpected, servation of days, numbers, voices, and cry, “My dream is out;" and cannot go to figures, which are regarded by them as sleep in quiet the next night, until someportents and prodigies. In short, every thing or other has happened which has thing prophesies to the superstitious man; expounded the visions of the preceding one. there is scarce a straw, or a rusty piece of There are others who are in very great iron that lies in his way by accident. pain for not being able to recover the cir

It is not to be conceived how many cumstances of a dream, that made strong wizzards, gipsies, and cunning men, are impressions upon them while it lasted. In dispersed through all the counties and mar-short, sir, there are many whose waking ket-towns of Great Britain, not to mention thoughts are wholly employed on their the fortune-tellers and astrologers, who live sleeping ones. For the benefit therefore of very comfortably upon the curiosity of se- this curious and inquisitive part of my felveral well-disposed persons in the cities of low-subjects, I shall in the first place tell London and Westminster.

those persons what they dreamt of, who Among the many pretended arts of divi- fancy they never dream at all. In the next nation, there is none which so universally place I shall make out any dream, upon amuses as that by dreams. I have indeed hearing a single circumstance of it; and in observed in a late speculation, that there the last place, I shall expound to them the have been sometimes, upon very extraor- good or bad fortune which such dreams dinary occasions, supernatural revelations portend. If they do not presage good luck, made to certain persons by this means; but I shall desire nothing for my pains; not as it is the chief business of this paper to questioning at the same time, that those root out popular errors, I must endeavour who consult me will be so reasonable as to expose the folly and superstition of those to afford me a moderate share out of any persons, who, in the common and ordinary considerable estate, profit, or emolument, course of life, lay any stress upon things of which I shall discover to them. I interpret so uncertain, shadowy, and chimerical a to the poor for nothing, on condition that nature. This I cannot do more effectually their names may be inserted in public adthan by the following letter, which is dated vertisements, to attest the truth of such my from a quarter of the town that has always interpretations. As for people of quality,

or others who are indisposed, and do not * This censure of Cicero seems to be unfounded : for their dreams by seeing their water. I set

care to come in person, I can interpret it is said of him, that be wondered how one augur could meet another without laughing in his face.

aside one day in the week for lovers; and interpret by the great for any gentlewoman France, the lady tells her that is a secret who is turned of sixty, after the rate of in dress she never knew before, and that half-a-crown per week, with the usual al- she was so unpolished an English woman, lowances for good luck. I have several as to resolve never to learn to dress even rooms and apartments fitted up at reasona- before her husband. ble rates, for such as have not conveniences There is something so gross in the carfor dreaming at their own houses. riage of some wives, that they lose their

TITUS TROPHONIUS. husband's hearts for faults which, if a man "N, B. I am not dumb.'

0.

has either good-nature or good-breeding, he knows not how to tell them of. I am afraid, indeed, the ladies are generally most

faulty in this particular; who, at their first No. 506.] Friday, October 10, 1712.

giving into love, find the way so smooth and Candida perpetuo reside, concordia, lecto,

pleasant, that they fancy it is scarce posTamque pari semper sit Venus æqua jugo.

sible to be tired in it. Diligat illa senem quondam ; sed et ipsa marito, There is so much nicety and discretion Tunc quoque cum fuerit non videatur anus.

required to keep love alive after marriage, Mart. Epig. xii. Lib. 4. 7.

and make conversation still new and agreePerpetual harmony their bed attend,

able after twenty or thirty years, that I And Venus still the well-match'd pair befriend. May she, when time has sunk him into years,

know nothing which seems readily to proLove her old man, and cherish his white hairs; mise it, but an earnest endeavour to please Nor he perceive her charms thro' age decay, on both sides, and superior good sense on But think each happy sun his bridal day.

the part of the man. The following essay is written by the By a man of sense I mean one acquainted gentleman to whom the world is obliged with business and letters. for those several excellent discourses which A woman very much settles her esteem have been marked with the letter X. for a man, according to the figure he makes

I have somewhere met with a fable that in the world, and the character he bears made Wealth the father of Love. It is among his own sex. As learning is the certain that a mind ought at least to be free chief advantage we have over them, it is, from the apprehensions of want and poverty, methinks, as scandalous and inexcusable before it can fully attend to all the softnesses for a man of fortune to be illiterate, as for a and endearments of this passion; notwith- woman not to know how to behave herself standing, we see multitudes of married peo- on the most ordinary occasions. It is this ple, who are utter strangers to this delight- which sets the two 'sexes at the greatest ful passion amidst all the affluence of the distance; a woman is vexed and surprised, most plentiful fortunes.

to find nothing more in the conversation of It is not sufficient to make a marriage a man, than in the common tattle of her happy, that the humours of two people own sex. should be alike. I could instance a hun- Some small engagement at least in busidred pair, who have not the least sentiment ness, not only sets a man's talents in the of love remaining for one another, yet are fairest light, and allots him a part to act in so like in their humours, that if they were which a wife cannot well intermeddle, but not already married, the whole world would gives frequent occasion for those little abdesign them for man and wife.

sences, which, whatever seeming uneasiThe spirit of love has something so ex-ness they may give, are some of the best tremely fine in it, that it is very often dis- preservatives of love and desire. turbed' and lost, by some little accidents, The fair-sex are so conscious to themwhich the careless and unpolite never at- selves that they have nothing in them which tend to, until it is gone past recovery; can deserve entirely to engross the whole

Nothing has more contributed to banish man, that they heartily despise one who, to it from a married state than too great a use their own expression, is always hanging familiarity, and laying aside the common at their apron-strings. rules of decency. Though I could give in- Lætitia is pretty, modest, tender, and has stances of this in several particulars, I shall sense enough; she married Erastus, who is only mention that of dress. The beaux and in a post of some business, and has a genebelles about town, who dress purely to ral taste in most parts of polite learning. catch one another, think there is no farther Lætitia, wherever she visits, has the pleaoccasion for the bait, when the first design sure to hear of something which was handhas succeeded. But besides the too com- somely said or done by Erastus. Erastus, mon fault, in point of neatness, there are since his marriage, is more gay in his dress several others which I do not remember than ever, and in all companies is as comto have seen touched upon, but in one of plaisant to Lætitia as to any other lady. I our modern comedies, * where a French have seen him give her her fan when it has woman offering to undress and dress herself dropped, with all the gallantry of a lover. before the lover of the play, and assuring When they take the air together, Erastus her mistress that it was very usual in is continually improving her thoughts, and she had no notions of before. Lætitia is light his shadow.'. According to this definitransported at having a new world thus tion, there is nothing so contradictory to his opened to her, and hangs upon the man nature as error and falsehood. The Plathat gives her such agreeable informations. tonists have so just a notion of the AlErastus has carried this point still farther, mighty's aversion to every thing which is as he makes her daily not only more fond false and erroneous, that they looked upon of him, but infinitely more satisfied with truth as no less necessary than virtue to herself. Erastus finds a justness or beauty qualify human soul for the enjoyment in whatever she says or observes, that La- a separate state. For this reason, as they titia herself was not aware of; and by his recommended moral duties to qualify and assistance she has discovered a hundred season the will for a future life, so they pregood qualities and accomplishments in her- scribed several contemplations and sciences self, which she never before once dreamed to rectify the understanding. Thus Plato of. Erastus, with the most artful com- has called mathematical demonstrations the plaisance in the world, by several remote cathartics, or purgatives of the soul, as hints, finds the means to make her say or being the most proper means to cleanse it propose almost whatever he has a mind to, from error, and give it a relish of truth; which he always receives as her own dis- which is the natural food and nourishment covery, and gives her all the reputation of the understanding, as virtue is the perof it.

fection and happiness of the will. Erastus has a perfect taste in painting, There are many authors who have shown and carried Lætitia with him the other day wherein the malignity of a lie consists, and to see a collection of pictures. I sometimes set forth in proper colours the heinousness visit this happy couple. As we were last of the offence. I shall here consider one week walking in the long gallery before particular kind of this crime, which has dinner,-'I have lately laid out some money not been so much spoken to; I mean that in paintings,' says Erastus: 'I bought that abominable practice of party-lying. This Venus and Adonis purely upon Lætitia's vice is so very predominant among us at judgment; it cost me threescore guineas; present, that a man is thought of no princiand I was this morning offered a hundred ple, who does not propagate a certain sysfor it.' I turned towards Lætitia, and saw tem of lies. The coffee-houses are supher cheeks glow with pleasure, while at ported by them, the press is choked with the same time she cast a look upon Erastus, them, eminent authors live upon them. the most tender and affectionate I ever Our bottle conversation is so infected with beheld.

them, that a party-lie is grown as fashionFlavilla married Tom Tawdry, she was able an entertainment as a lively catch, or taken with his laced-coat and rich sword- a merry story. The truth of it is, half the knot; she has the mortification to see Tom great talkers in the nation would be struck despised by all the worthy part of his own dumb were this fountain of discourse dried sex. Tom has nothing to do after dinner, up. There is however one advantage rebut to determine whether he will pare his sulting from this detestable practice: the nails at St. James's, White's, or his own very appearances of truth are so little rehouse. He has said nothing to Flavilla since garded, that lies are at present discharged they were married which she might not in the air, and begin to hurt nobody. When have heard as well from her own woman. we hear a party-story from a stranger, we He however takes great care to keep up consider whether he is a whig or a tory the saucy ill-natured authority of a hus- that relates it, and immediately conclude band. Whatever Flavilla happens to as they are words of course, in which the sert, Tom immediately contradicts with an honest gentleman designs to recommend his oath by way of preface, and, "My dear, I zeal, without any concern for his veracity. must tell you you talk most confoundedly A man is looked upon as bereft of common silly.' Flavilla had a heart naturally as well sense, that gives credit to the relations of disposed for all the tenderness of love as party writers; nay, his own friends shake that of Lætitia; but as love seldom con- their heads at him, and consider him in no tinues long after esteem, it is difficult to other light than an officious tool, or a welldetermine, at present whether the unhappy meaning idiot. When it was formerly the Flavilla hates or despises the person most fashion to husband a lie, and trump it up in whom she is obliged to lead her whole life some extraordinary emergency, it genewith.

X. rally did execution, and was not a little

serviceable to the faction that made use of

it; but at present every man is upon his No. 507.] Saturday, October 11, 1712.

guard: the artifice has been too often re

peated to take effect. Defendit numerus, junctæque umbone phalanges. I have frequently wondered to see men

of probity, who would scorn to utter a falsePreserv'd from shame by numbers on our side. hood for their own particular advantage,

THERE is something very sublime, though give so readily into a sie, when it is become very fanciful, in Plato's description of the the voice of their faction, not withstanding Supreme Being; that truth is his body, and they are thoroughly sensible of it as such,

Jur. Sat. ii. 46.