⚫ and taken care that it should not be adulterated by the • Retailers before it comes to the Tables of private Families, or the Clubs of honeft Fellows. I cannot imagine how a SPECTATOR can be fuppofed to do his Duty, without frequent Refumption of fuch Subjects as concern our Health, the first thing to be regarded, if we ⚫ have a mind to relifh any thing elfe. It would therefore very well become your fpectatorial Vigilance, to give it in Orders to your Officer for infpecting Signs, that in his March he would look into the Itinerants who ⚫ deal in Provifions, and enquire where they buy their fe⚫veral Wares. Ever fince the Deceafe of Cully Mully-Puff ⚫ of agreeable and noify Memory, I cannot fay I have obferved any thing fold in Carts, or carried by Horfe or Afs, or in fine, in any moving Market, which is not perifhed or putrified; witness the Wheel-barrows of rotten Raifons, Almonds, Figs, and Currants, which you fee * vended by a Merchant dreffed in a fecond-hand Suit of a Foot Soldier. You fhould confider that a Child may be poifoned for the Worth of a Farthing; but except his poor Parents fend to one certain Doctor in Town, they can have no Advice from him under a Guinea. When Poisons are thus cheap, and Medicines thus dear, how can you be negligent in infpecting what we eat or drink, or take no notice of fuch as the above-mentioned Citizens, who have been fo serviceable to us of late in that particular; It was a Cuftom among the old Romans, to ⚫ do him particular Honours who had faved the Life of a Citizen; how much more does the World owe to those who prevent the Death of Multitudes? As thefe Men deferve well of your Office, fo fuch as act to the detriment of our Health, you ought to reprefent to them⚫ felves and their Fellow-Subjects in the Colours which they deserve to wear. I think it would be for the publick Good, that all who vend Wines fhould be under Oaths in that behalf. The Chairman at a Quarter Seffions fhould inform the Country, that the Vintner who mixes Wine to his Cuftomers, fhall (upon proof that the Drinker thereof died within a Year and a Day after taking it) be deemed guilty of wilful Murder; and the : Jury ་ 175 Jury fhall be inftructed to enquire and prefent fuch Delinquents accordingly. It is no Mitigation of the Crime, nor will it be conceived that it can be brought in ChanceMedley or Man-Slaughter, upon proof that it fhall appear Wine joined to Wine, or right Herefordshire poured into Port O Port; but his felling it for one thing, knowing it to be another, muft justly bear the forefaid Guilt of ← wilful Murder: For that he, the said Vintner, did an unlawful Act willingly in the falfe Mixture; and is therefore with Equity liable to all the Pains to which a Man would be, if it were proved he defigned only to run a Man through the Arm, whom he whipped through the • Lungs. This is my third Year at the Temple, and this is or fhould be Law. An ill Intention well proved fhould meet with no Alleviation, because it out-ran itself. There cannot be too great Severity used against the Injustice as ← well as Cruelty of those who play with Men's Lives, by preparing Liquors, whofe Nature, for ought they know, may be noxious when mixed, tho' innocent when apart : And Brooke and Hellier, who have enfured our Safety at our Meals, and driven Jealousy from our Cups in Converfation, deferve the Custom and Thanks of the whole Town; and it is your Duty to remind them of the Ob ligation. I am, SIR, Your humble Servant, Tom. Fottle. Mr. SPECTATOR, I Am a Perfon who was long immured in a College, read much, faw little; fo that I knew no more of the World than what a Lecture or View of the Map taught me. By this means I improved in my Study, but became unpleafant in Converfation. By converfing generally with the Dead, I grew almost unfit for the Society of the Living; fo by a long Confinement I contracted an ungainly Averfion to Conversation, and even difcourfed with Pain to my felf, and little Entertainment to others. At laft I was in fome measure made fenfible of my failing, and the Mortification of never being 14 fpoke fpoke to, or speaking, unless the Difcourfe ran upon Books, put me upon forcing my self amongst Men. I immediately affected the politeft Company, by the fre⚫quent ufe of which I hoped to wear off the Ruft I had contracted; but by an uncouth Imitation of Men used ❝ to act in publick, I got no further than to discover I had a mind to appear a finer thing than I really was. 'SUCH I was, and fuch my Condition, when I be 'came an ardent Lover, and paffionate Admirer of the beauteous Belinda: Then it was that I really began tɔ improve. This Paffion changed all my Fears and Dif<fidences in my general Behaviour, to the fole Concern of pleafing her. I had not now to study the Action of a Gentleman, but Love poffeffing all my Thoughts, made me truly be the thing I had a mind to appear. My Thoughts grew free and generous, and the Ambition to be agreeable to her I admired, produced in my Carriage ⚫ a faint Similitude of that difengaged Manner of my Belinda. The way we are in at prefent is, that the fees my Paffion, and fees I at prefent forbear fpeaking of it ⚫ through prudential Regards. This Refpect to her fhe returns with much Civility, and makes my Value for her as little a Misfortune to me, as is consistent with Discre<tion. She fings very charmingly, and is readier to do fo at my Requeft, because fhe knows I love her: She will dance with me rather than another, for the fame reafon. My Fortune muft alter from what it is, before I can speak my Heart to her; and her Circumstances are not con<fiderable enough to make up for the Narrowness of mine. But I write to you now, only to give you the < Character of Belinda, as a Woman that has Addrefs enough to demonftrate a Gratitude to her Lover, without giving him Hopes of Succefs in his Paffion. • Belinda has from a great Wit, governed by as great • Prudence, and both adorned with Innocence, the Happiness of always being ready to difcover her real Thoughts. She has many of us, who now are her Admirers; but her Treatment of us is fo juft and proportioned to our Merit towards her, and what we are in our felves, that I proteft to you I have neither Jealoufy nor < Hatred ، Hatred toward my Rivals. Such is her Goodness, and the Acknowledgment of every Man who admires her, that he thinks he ought to believe she will take him who beft deferves her. I will not fay that this Peace, among us is not owing to Self-love, which prompts ' each to think himself the beft Deferver: I think there is fomething uncommon and worthy of Imitation in this Lady's Character. If you will please to print my Letter, you will oblige the little Fraternity of happy Rivals, and in a more particular manner, T SIR, Your most humble Servant, No 363. Saturday, April 26. -Crudelis ubique Luctus, ubique pavor, & plurima Mortis Imago. M Virg. ILTON has fhewn a wonderful Art in defcribing that variety of Paffions which arise in our first Parents upon the Breach of the Commandment that had been given them. We fee them gradually paffing from the Triumph of their Guilt thro' Remor fe, Shame, Defpair, Contrition, Prayer, and Hope, to a perfed and compleat Repentance. At the end of the tenth Book they are reprefented as proftrating themselves upon the Ground, and watering the Earth with their Tears To which the Poets joins this beautiful Circumftance, that they offer'd up their penitential Prayers, on the very Place where their Judge appeared to them when he pronounced their Sen tence. -They forthwith to the place Repairing where he judg'd them, proftrate fell 15 Humbly Humbly their Faults, and Pardon begg'd, with Tears THERE is a Beauty of the fame kind in a Tragedy of Sophocles, where Oedipus, after having put out his own Eyes, inttead of breaking his Neck from the Palace-Battlements (which furnishes fo elegant an Entertainment for our Englih Audience) defires that he may be conducted to Mount Citharon, in order to end his Life in that very Place where he was expofed in his Infancy, and where he fhould then have died, had the Will of his Parents been executed. AS the Author never fails to give a poetical Turn to his Sentiments, he defcribes in the Beginning of this Book the /Acceptance which thefe their Prayers met with, in a short Allegory, form'd upon that beautiful Paffage in holy Writ: And another Angel came and food at the Altar, having a golden Cenfer; and there was given unto him much Incenfe, that he should offer it with the Prayers of all Saints upon the golden Altar, which was before the Throne: And the Smoak of the Incense which came with the Prayers of the Saints, afcended up before God. -To Heav'n their Prayers Flew up, nor miss'd the Way, by envious Winds Before the Father's Throne WE have the fame Thought expreffed a fecond time in the Interceffion of the Meffiah, which is conceived in very emphatick Sentiments and Expreffions. AMONG the poetical Parts of Scripture, which Milton has fo finely wrought into this Part of his Narration, I must not omit that wherein Ezekielspeaking of the Angels who appeared to him in a Vifion, adds, that every one bad four Faces, and that their whole Bodies, and their Backs, and their Hands, and their Wings, were full of Eyes round about. -The Cohort bright Of watchful Cherubim, four Faces each Had |