his plate. It is true the rest of the company want it, as well as their knives and forks, which Menalcas does not let them keep long. Sometimes in a morning he puts his whole family in an hurry, and at last goes out without being able to stay for his coach or dinner; and for that day you may see him in every part of the town, except the very place where he had appointed to be upon a business of importance. You would often take him for every thing that he is not; for a fellow quite stupid, for he hears nothing; for a fool, for he talks to himself, and has an hundred grimaces and motions in his head, which are altogether involuntary; for a proud man, for he looks full upon you, and takes no notice of your saluting him. The truth of it is, his eyes are open, but he makes no use of them, and neither sees you, nor any man, nor any thing else. He came once from his country-house, and his own footmen undertook to rob him, and succeeded. They held a flambeau to his throat, and bid him deliver his purse; he did so, and coming home told his friends he had been robbed; they desired to know the particulars. "Ask my servants," said Menalcas," for they were with me." to hold the company. Invitations were made to very great numbers, but very few accepted them without much difficulty. One pleaded, that being at London, in a bookseller's shop, a lady going by with a great belly longed to kiss him. He had certainly been excused, but that evidence appeared, that indeed one in London did pretend she longed to kiss him, but that it was only a pickpocket, who during his kissing her stole away all his money. Another would have got off by a dimple in his chin; but it was proved upon him, that he had, by coming into a room, made a woman miscarry, and frightened two children into fits. A third alleged, that he was taken by a lady for another gentleman, who was one of the handsomest in the university: but upon inquiry it was found that the lady had actually lost one eye, and the other was very much upon the decline. A fourth produced letters out of the country in his vindication, in which a gentleman offered him his daughter, who had lately fallen in love with him, with a good fortune: but it was made appear, that the young lady was amorous, and had like to have run away with her father's coachman, so that it was supposed, that her pretence of falling in love with him, was only in order to be well married. It was pleasant to hear the several excuses which were made, insomuch that some made as much interest to be excused, as they would from serving sheriff; however, at last the society was formed, and proper officers were appointed; and the day was fixed for the entertainment, which was in venison season. A pleaCrab, from his sour look, and the only man who sant fellow of King's College (commonly called did not pretend to get off) was nominated for chaplain; and nothing was wanting but some one to sit in the elbow chair, by way of president, at the upper end of the table; and there the business stuck, for there was no contention for superiority there. This affair made so great a noise, that the king, who was then at Newmarket, heard of it. and was pleased merrily and graciously to say. He could not be there himself, but he would send them a brace of bucks." 'I SEND you the inclosed, to be inserted (if you" think them worthy of it) in your Spectators; in which so surprising a genius appears, that it is no wonder if all mankind endeavour to get somewhat into a paper which will always live. As to the Cambridge affair, the humour was really carried on in the way I describe it. However, you have a full commission to put out or in, and to do whatever you think fit with it. I have already had the satisfaction of seeing you take that Jiberty with some things I have before sent you. Go on, sir, and prosper. You have the best wishes of, SIR, Your very affectionate, ( And obliged humble servant*.' MR. SPECTATOR, 'Cambridge. You well know it is of great consequence to clear titles, and it is of importance that it be done in the proper season; on which account, this is to assure you, that the club of Ugly Faces was instituted originally at Cambridge, in the merry reign of king Charles II. As in great bodies of men it is not difficult to find members enough for such a club, so (I remember) it was then feared, upon their in, tention of dining together, that the hall belonging to Clare hall, (the ugliest then in the town, though now the neatest) would not be large enough handsomely * Supposed to be from Mr. Eusden, of Trinity-college, Cambridge, afterwards poet-laureat. 'I would desire you, sir, to set this affair in a true light, that posterity may not be misled in so important a point: for when the wise man who shall write your true history shall acquaint the world, that you had a diploma sent from the Ugly club at Oxford, and that by virtue of it you were admitted into it, what a learned war will there be among future critics about the original of that club, which both universities will contend so warmly for? And perhaps some hardy Cantabrigian author may then boldly affirm, that the word Oxford was an interpolation of some Oxonian instead of Cambridge. This affair will be best adjusted in your lifetime; but I hope your affection to your mother will not make yon partial to your aunt. 6 To tell you, sir, my own opinion: though I cannot find any ancient records of any acts of the society of the Ugly Faces, considered in a public capacity; yet, in a private one, they have certainly antiquity on their side. I am persuaded they will hardly give place to the Loungers, and the Loungers are of the same standing with the university itself. tives to do justice, yet I am commissioned to tell Though we well know, sir, you want no moyou that you are invited to be admitted ad eundem at Cambridge; and I believe I may venture safely to deliver this as the wish of our whole university.' * See N° 54 ATOR, HO and WHICH, gry with me for abridging their pleasures, and looking severely upon things in themselves indifferent. But I think they are extremely unjust to me in this imputation. All I contend for is, that those excellencies, which are to be regarded but ng in a forlorn and in the second place, should not precede more I to whom we should weighty considerations. The heart of man deceives ecause there is hardly him in spite of the lectures of half a life spent in injured us. Nay, we discourses on the subjection of passion; and I do ou yourself, whom we not know why one may not think the heart of woactice the last of all man as unfaithful to itself. If we grant an equat yourself of having lity in the faculties of both sexes, the minds of plaint. We are de- women are less cultivated with precepts, and conand kept up our dig-sequently may, without disrespect to them, be accounted more liable to illusion, in cases wherein natural inclination is out of the interest of virtue. I shall take up my present time in commenting upon a billet or two which came from ladies, and from thence leave the reader to judge whether I am in the right or not, in thinking it is possible fine women may be mistaken. The following address seems to have no other design in it, but to tell me the writer will do what she pleases for all me. rs, till the jack-sprat often have we found ergy in their pulpits, Nay, how often have ost polite and august o our great mortificaHAT that noble lord had had justice done, hus, “that WHICH that themselves, the guarave degraded us, and d yet no decree was he very acts of parliaight should be done to we find ourselves often he instead of another. r children are taught, Our Father WHICH art ur Father wнo art in ocation, after long deto an alteration of it. we say, "Spare thou ess their faults," which s their faults." What g justice done us, when yers and laws, and the s, seem to be in a conour enemies themselves MR. SPECTATOR, ‘I AM young, and very much inclined to follow the paths of innocence; but at the same time, as I have a plentiful fortune, and am of quality, I am unwilling to resign the pleasures of distinction, some little satisfaction in being admired in general, and much greater in being beloved by a gentleman whom I design to make my husband. But I have a mind to put off entering into matrimony till another winter is over my head, which (whatever, musty Sir, you may think of the matter) I design to pass away in hearing music, going to plays, visiting, and all other satisfactions which fortune and youth, protected by innocence and virtue, can procure for, SIR, 'Your most humble servant, M. T. 'My lover does not know I like him; therefore, having no engagements upon me, I think to stay and know whether I may like any one else better.' I have heard Will Honeycomb say, 'A woman seldom writes her mind but in her postscript' I think this gentlewoman has sufficiently discovered hers in this. I will lay what wager she pleases against her present favourite, and can tell her, that she will like ten more before she is fixed, and then will take the worst man she ever liked in her life. There is no end of affection taken in at the eyes only; and you may as well satisfy those eyes with seeing, as control any passion received by them only. It is from loving by sight, that coxcombs so frequently succeed with women, and very often a young lady is bestowed by her parents to a man who weds her as innocence itself, though she has, in her own heart, given her approbation of a different man in every assembly she was in the whole year before. What is wanting among women as well as among men, is the love of laudable things, and not to rest only in the forbearance of such as are reproachful. How far removed from a woman of this light imagination is Eudosia! Eudosia has all the arts of life and good-breeding with so much ease, that the virtue of her conduct looks more like instinct than choice. It is as little difficult to her to think justly of persons and things, as it is to a woman of different accomplishments to move ill or look awk, ward. That which was, at first, the effect of instruction, is grown into an habit; and it would be as hard for Eudosia to indulge a wrong suggestion of thought, as it would be to Flavia, the fine dancer, to come into a room with an unbecoming air. But the misapprehensions people themselves have of their own state of mind, is laid down with much discerning in the following letter, which is but an extract of a kind epistle from my charming mistress Hecatissa, who is above the vanity of external beauty, and is the better judge of the perfections of the mind. 'MR. SPECTATOR, | upon no other pretence in nature, but that (as her silly phrase is) no one can say black is her eye." She has no secrets, forsooth, which should make her afraid to speak her mind, and therefore she is impertinently blunt to all her acquaintance, and unseasonably imperious to all her family. Dear sir, be pleased to put such books into our hands, as may make our virtue more inward, and convince some of us, that in a mind truly virtuous, the scorn of vice is always accompanied with the pity of it. This and other things are patiently expected from you by our whole sex; among the rest by, SIR, Your most humble servant, STEELE. 'B. D." R. No 80. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1711. Calum non animum mutant que trans mare currunt. 'I WRITE this to acquaint you, that very many ladies, as well as myself, spend many hours more than we used at the glass, for want of the female library, of which you promised us a catalogue. I hope, sir, in the choice of authors for us, you will hav a particular regard to books of devotion. What they are, and how many, must be your chief care; for upon the propriety of such writings depends a great deal. I have known those among us who In the year 1688, and on the same day of that year, think, if they every morning and evening spend an were born in Cheapside, London, two females, of hour in their closet, and read over so many prayers exquisite feature and shape; the one we shall call in six or seven books of devotion, all equally nonsensical, with a sort of warmth, (that might as well be Brunetta, the other Phillis. A close intimacy between their parents made each of them the first raised by a glass of wine, or a dram of citron) they acquaintance the other knew in the world. They may all the rest of their time go on in whatever played, dressed babies, acted visitings, learned to their particular passion leads them to. The beau- dance and make courtesies together. They were teous Philantia, who is (in your language) an Idol, inseparable companions in all the little entertainis one of these votaries; she has a very pretty fur-ments their tender years were capable of: which nished closet, to which she retires at her appointed hours. This is her dressing-room, as well as chapel; she has constantly before her a large lookingglass; and upon the table, according to a very witty author, innocent happiness continued until the beginning of their fifteenth year, when it happened that Phillis had an head-dress on, which became her so very well, that instead of being beheld any more with pleasure for their amity to each other, the eyes of the neighbourhood were turned to remark them with comparison of their beauty. They now no longer enjoyed the ease of mind and pleasing indolence in which they were formerly happy; but all their words and actions were misinterpreted by each other, and every excellence in their speech and behaviour was looked upon as an act of emulation to surpass the other. These beginnings of disinclination soon improved into a formality of behaviour, a general coldness, and by natural steps into an irreconcilable hatred. "Together lie her prayer-book and paint, At once t'improve the sinner and the saint." 'It must be a good scene, if one could be present at it, to see this Idol by turns lift up her eyes to heaven, and steal glances at her own dear person. It cannot but be a pleasing conflict between vanity and humiliation. When you are upon this subject, choose books which elevate the mind above the world, and give a pleasing indifference to little things in it. For want of such instructions I am apt to believe so many people take it in their heads to be sullen, cross, and angry, under pretence These two rivals for the reputation of beauty, of being abstracted from the affairs of this life, were in their stature, countenance, and mien, so when at the same time they betray their fondness very much alike, that if you were speaking of for them by doing their duty as a task, and pout- them in their absence, the words in which you deing and reading good books for a week together. scribed the one must give you an idea of the other. Much of this I take to proceed from the indiscre- They were hardly distinguishable, you would think, tion of the books themselves, whose very titles of when they were apart, though extremely different Weekly Preparations, and such limited godliness, when together. What made their enmity the more lead people of ordinary capacities into great er- entertaining to all the rest of their sex was, that in rors, and raise in them a mechanical religion, en- detraction from each other, neither could fall upon tirely distinct from morality. I know a lady so terms which did not hit herself as much as her adgiven up to this sort of devotion, that though she versary. Their nights grew restless with meditaemploys six or eight hours of the twenty-four attion of new dresses to outvie each other, and incards, she never misses one constant hour of prayer, venting new devices to recal admirers, who obfor which time another holds her cards, to which served the charms of the one rather than those of she returns with no little anxiousness till two or the other, on the last meeting. Their colours failed three in the morning. All these acts are but empty at each other's appearance, flushed with pleasure shows, and, as it were, compliments made to vir- at the report of a disadvantage, and their countue; the mind is all the while untouched with any tenances withered upon instances of applause. true pleasure in the pursuit of it. From hence I The decencies to which women are obliged, made presume it arises, that so many people call them- these virgins stifle their resentment so far as not to selves virtuous, from no other pretence to it but an break into open violences, while they equally sufabsence of ill. There is Dulcianara the most in- fered the torments of a regulated anger. Their solent of all creatures to her friends and domestics, mothers, as it is usual, engaged in the quarrel, and nsions of their daugh- | came to herself, she fled from her husband's house, went on board a ship in the road, and is now landed in inconsolable despair at Plymouth. ort of expense which plentiful fortunes and ded their parents like gaudy colours imaginchurch, and were exf the audience for su PÓSTSCRIPT. After the above melancholy narration, it may perhaps be a relief to the reader to peruse the fol lowing expostulation. 'TO MR. SPECTATOR. 'The just Remonstrance of affronted THAT. THOUGH I deny not the petition of Mr. WHO and WHICH*, yet you should not suffer them to be rude, and to call honest people names: for that bears very hard on some of those rules of decency which you are justly famous for establishing. They may find fault, and correct speeches in the senate, and at the bar; but let them try to get themselves so often and with so much eloquence repeated in a sentence, as a great orator doth frequently intro gle, it happened, that My lords! (says he) with humble submission, the island consigned to ad directions to give her or apparel, before Bruf their arrival. He did 1 in a few days in a brocostly than had ever beatitude. Brunetta lancould by no means come antagonist. She commuind to a faithful friend, he wife of Phillis's mernt of the same silk for ns to appear in all public e to meet Brunetta; Brufor the insult, and came to ack silk mantua, attended In a petticoat of the same is was attired. This drew le company, upon which oned away, and was imer house. As soon as she 'What great advantage was I of to Mr. Dryden in his Indian Emperor, 66 THE SPECTATOR. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE VOL. II. CHARLES LORD HALIFAX*. MY LORD, SIMILITUDE of manners and studies is usually mentioned as one of the strongest motives to affection and esteem; but the passionate veneration I have for your Lordship, I think, flows from an admiration of qualities in you, of which, in the whole course of these papers, I have acknowledged my self incapable. While I busy myself as a stranger upon earth, and can pretend to no other than being a looker-on, you are conspicuous in the busy and polite world, both in the world of men, and that of letters. While I am silent and unobserved in public meetings, you are admired by all that approach you, as the life and genius of the conversation. What an happy conjunction of different talents meets in him whose whole discourse is at once animated by the strength and force of reason, and adorned with all the graces and embellishments of wit! When learning irradiates common life, it is then in its highest use and per *This very distinguished wit and statesman was fourth son of the Hon. George Montague, of Harton, in No thamptonshire, son of Henry the first earl of Manchester, and born April 16, 1661. He was educated at Westminsterschool, and at Trinity-college, Cambridge; shewed very early a most pregnant genius, and quickly made great progress in learning. In 1684 he wrote a poem “ On the Death of king Charles Il.” in which he displayed his genius | to such advantage, that he was invited by the earl of Dorset to London, where he soon increased his fame, particularly by a piece which he wrote in conjunction with Matthew Prior, and published in 1687, under the title of "The Hind and the Panther, travestied to the Story of the Country-mouse and the City-mouse." Upon the abdication of king James II. he was chosen one of the members of the convention, and recommended by the earl of Dorset to king William, who immediately allowed him a pension of five hundred pounds per annum. After some time, having given proofs of his great abilities in the house of commons, he was made one of the commissioners of the treasury, and soon after chancellor of the exchequer; in which post he brought about that great work of recoining all the current money of the nation. In 1698 he was appointed first commissioner of the treasury, and one of the lords justices of England during the king's absence in Holland; and in 1700 was created a peer of England by the fection; and it is to such as your lordship, that the sciences owe the esteem which they have with the active part of mankind. Knowledge of books in recluse men, is like that sort of lantern, which hides him who carries it, and serves only to pass through secret and gloomy paths of his own; but, in the possession of a man of business, it is, as a torch in the hand of one who is willing and able to show those who were bewildered, the way which leads to their prosperity and welfare. A generous concern for your country, and a passion for every thing which is truly great and noble, are what actuate all your life and actions; and I hope you will forgive me that I have an ambition this book may be placed in the library of so good a judge of what is valuable, in that library where the choice is such, that it will not be a disparagement to be the meanest author in it. Forgive me, my lord, for taking this occasion of telling all the world how ardently I love and honour you; and that I am, with the utmost gratitude for all your favours, my lord, your lordship's most obliged, most obedient, and most humble servant, THE SPECTATOR. title of baron of Halifax in the county of York; but before his promotion, he had conferred on him the place of auditor of the exchequer, being succeeded in his post of first lord of the treasury by Sidney lord Godolphin. In 1701 the house of commons impeached him of high crimes and misdemeanors, in six articles, which, however, were dismissed by the house of lords. He was again attacked by the house of commons in 1702, but without success. In 170 he wrote "An Answer to Mr. Bromeley's Speech," respecting the occasional conformity-bill. In 1706 he was one of the commissioners for the union with Scotland; and upon passing the "Bill for the Naturalization of the illustrious House of Hanover, and for the better security of the succession of the crown in the Protestant line," his lordship was chosen to carry that act to Hanover. Upon the death of queen Anne, he was one of the lords of the regency in his majesty's absence from his kingdoms; and when George 1. had taken possession of his throne, his lordship was again appointed first commissioner of the treasury, and created earl of Halifax and knight of the garter. He died May 19 1715, and was interred in Westminster-abbey. His lord ship wrote, besides those mentioned, some other poems, particularly one intitled, "The Man of Honour," and his works have been since collected, and published among these of the English poets. |