Neither muft I forget a letter which I received near a fortnight fince from a lady, who, it feems, could hold out no longer, telling me fhe looked upon the month as then out, for that he had all along reckoned by the new style. On the other hand, I have great reason to believe, from feveral angry letters which have been sent to me by disappointed lovers, that my advice has been of very fignal fervice to the fair fex, who, according to the old proverb, were fore-warn'd fore-arm'd. One of these gentlemen tells me, that he would have given me an hundred pounds, rather than I fhould have published that paper; for that his miftrefs, who had promised to explain herself to him about the beginning of May, upon reading that difcourfe, told him that he would give him her anfwer in June. Thyrfis acquaints me, that when he desired Sylvia to take a walk in the fields, fhe told him, the Spectator had forbidden her. Another of my correfpondents, who writes himself Mat Meager, complains, that whereas he conftantly ufed to breakfaft with his miftrefs upon chocolate, going to wait upon her the first of May he found his ufual treat very much changed for the worfe, and has - been forced to feed ever fince upon green tea. As I begun this critical season with a caveat to the ladies, I fhall conclude it with a congratulation, and do moft heartily with them joy of their happy deli verance. They may now reflect with pleasure on the dangers they have escaped, and look back with as much fatiffaction on the perils that threatened them, as their great-grandmothers did formerly on the burning plough-fhares, after having paffed through the ordeal trial. The inftigations of the spring are now abated. The nightingale gives over her love-labour'd feng, as Milton phrafes it; the bloffoms are fallen, and the beds of flowers fwept away by the scythe of the mower. I fhall I fhall now allow my fair readers to return to their romances and chocolate, provided they make ufe of them with moderation, till about the middle of the month, when the fun fhall have made fome progrefs in the Crab. Nothing is more dangerous than too much confidence and fecurity. The Trojans, who ftood upon their guard all the while the Grecians lay before their city, when they fancied the fiege was raifed, and the danger paft, were, the very next night, burnt in their beds. I must also obferve, that, as in fome climates there is perpetual Spring, fo in fome female conftitutions there is a perpetual May: thefe are a kind of Valetudinarians in chastity, whom I would continue in a conftant diet. I cannot think thefe wholly out of danger, till they have looked upon the other fex at leaft five years through a pair of fpectacles. WILL HONEYCOMB has often affured me, that it is much easier to steal one of the fpecies, when he had paffed her grand climacteric, than to carry off an icy girl, on this fide five and twenty; and that a rake of his acquaintance, who had in vain endeavoured to gain the affections of a young lady of fifteen, had at laft made his fortune by running away with her grandmother. But, as I do not defign this fpeculation for the Ever-greens of the fex, I shall again apply myself to those who would willingly liften to the dictates of reafon and virtue, and can now hear me in cold blood. If there are any who have forfeited their innocence, they must now confider themselves under that melancholy view, in which Chamont regards his fifter, in those beautiful lines; Long The flourish'd, Grew fweet to fenfe, and lovely to the eye: Gropt this fair rofe, and rifled all its fweetness, On On the contrary, the who has obferved the timely cautions I gave her, and lived up to the rules of modefty, will now flourish like a rofe in June, with all her virgin blushes and fweetnefs about her: I muft, however, defire thefe laft to confider, how fhameful it would be for a general who has made a fuccefsful campaign, to be furprised in his winter-quarters: it would be no less difhonourable for a lady to lose, in any other month of the year, what she has been at the pains to preferve in May. There is no charm in the female fex, that can fupply the place of virtue. Without innocence, beauty is unlovely, and quality contemptible, good-breeding degenerates into wantonnefs, and wit into impudence. It is obferved, that all the virtues are reprefented, by both painters and statuaries, under female fhapes, but if any one of them has a more particular title to that fex, it is modefty. I fhall leave it to the divines to guard them against the oppofite vice, as they may be overpowered by temptations: it is fufficient for me to have warned them against it, as they may be led aftray by instinct. I defire this paper may be read with more than ordinary attention, at all tea-tables within the cities of London and Westminster. WEDNESDAY, No. 396. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4. Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton *. HAVING at prefent, I fhall beg the reader's leave to prefent him with a letter that I received about half a year ago from a gentleman of Cambridge, who ftyles himself Peter de Quir. I have kept it by me fome months, and though I did not know at firft what to make of it, upon my reading it over very frequently, I have at last discovered several conceits in it: I would not, therefore, have my reader discouraged, if he does not take them at the first perusal. To Mr. SPECTATOR. From St. John's College, Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1712. SIR, The monopoly of puns in this univerfity has been an immemorial privilege of the Johnians; and we can't help refenting the late invafion of our ancient right as to that particular, by a little pretender to clenching in a neighbouring college, who, in an application to you by way of letter, a while ago, ftyled himself Philobrune. Dear Sir, as you are by character a profest well-wifher to fpeculation, you will excufe a remark which this gentleman's paflion for the Brunette has fuggested to a • brother theorift: it is an offer towards a mechanical account of his lapfe to punning, for he belongs to a fet of mortals who value themfelves upon an * A barbarous verfe, invented by the logicians. uncom • uncommon mastery in the more humane and polite parts of letters. A conqueft by one of this fpecies of females gives a very odd turn to the intellectuals of the captivated perfon, and very different from that way of thinking which a triumph from the eyes of another, more emphatically of the fair fex, does generally occafion. It fills the imagination with an assemblage of such ideas and pictures as are hardly any thing but shade, such as night, the devil, &c. Thefe portraitures very near overpower the light of the understanding, almost benight the faculties, and give that melancholy tincture to the most fanguine complexion which this gentleman calls an inclination to be in a brownstudy, and is usually attended with worse confequences, in cafe of a repulfe. During this twilight of intellects, the patient is extremely apt, as love is the most witty paffion in nature, to offer at fome pert fallies now and then, by way of flourish, upon the amiable enchantrefs, and unfortunately ftumbles upon that mungrel mifcreated (to speak in • Miltonic) kind of wit, vulgarly termed the Pun. It would not be much amifs to confult Dr. T W, (who is certainly a very able projector, and whose system of divinity, and fpiritual mechanics, obtains very much among the better part of our under-graduates), whether a general inter-marriage, enjoined by parliament, between this fifterhood of the olive-beauties, and the fraternity of the people called Quakers, would not be a very ferviceable expedient, and abate that overflow of light whichr fhines within them fo powerfully, that it dazzles their eyes, and dances them into a thousand vagaries of error and enthufiafm. These reflections may impart fome light towards a difcovery of the origin of punning among us, and the foundation of its prevailing fo long in this famous body. It is notorious, from the inftance under confideration, that it must be owing chiefly to the use of brown jugs, |