by him at one of those games in his leisure hours; for his vanity was to show that he was a man of pleasure as well as business. Next to this sort of insinuation, which is called in all places (from its taking its birth in the household of princes) making one's court, the most prevailing way is, by what better-bred people call a present, the vulgar a bribe. I humbly conceive that such a thing is conveyed with more gallantry in a billet-doux that should be understood at the Bank, than in gross money: but as to stubborn people, who are so surly as to accept of neither note nor cash, having formerly dabbled in chemistry, I can only say, that one part of matter asks one thing, and another another, to make it fluent: but there is nothing but may be dissolved by a proper mean. Thus, the virtue which is too obdurate for gold or paper, shall melt away very kindly in a liquid. The island of Barbadoes (a shrewd people) manage all their appeals to Great Britain by a skilful distribution of citron water* among the whisperers about men in power. Generous wines do every day prevail, and that in great points, where ten thousand times their value would have been rejected with indignation. But, to wave the enumeration of the sundry ways of applying by presents, bribes, management of people's passions and affections, in such a manner as it shall appear that the virtue of the best man is by one method or other corruptible, let us look out for some expedient to turn those passions and affections on the side of truth and honour. When a man has laid it down for a position, that parting with his integrity, in the minuter circumstance, is losing so much of his very self, self-love will become a virtue. By this means good and evil will be the only objects of dislike and approbation; and he that injures any man, has effectually wounded the man of this turn as much as if the harm had been to himself. This seems to be the only expedient to arrive at an impartiality; and a man who follows the dictates of truth and right reason, may by artifice be led into error, but never can into guilt, T. But, though I hope for the best, I shall not pronounce too positively on this point, till I have seen forty weeks well over; at which period of time, as my good friend Sir Roger has often told me, he has more business as justice of peace, among the dissolute young people in the country, than at any other season of the year. Neither must I forget a letter which I received near a fortnight since from a lady, who, it seems, could hold out no longer, telling me she looked upon the month as then out, for that she had all along reckoned by the new style. On the other hand, I have great reason to believe, from several angry letters which have been sent to me by disappointed lovers, that my advice has been of very signal service to the fair sex, who, according to the old proverb, were 'forewarned, forearmed.' One of these gentlemen tells me, that he would have given me a hundred pounds, rather than I should have published that paper; for that his mistress, who had promised to explain herself to him about the beginning of May, upon reading that discourse told him, that she would give him her answer in June. Thyrsis acquaints me, that when he desired Sylvia to take a walk in the fields, she told him, the Spectator had forbidden her. Another of my correspondents, who writes himself Mat Meager, complains that, whereas he constantly used to breakfast with his mistress upon chocolate; going to wait upon her the first of May, he found his usual treat very much changed for the worse, and has been forced to feed ever since upon green tea. As I begun this critical season with a caveat to the ladies, I shall conclude it with a congratulation, and do most heartily wish them joy of their happy deliverance. They may now reflect with pleasure on the dangers they have escaped, and look back with as much satisfaction on the perils that threatened them, as their great grandmothers did formerly on the burning ploughshares, after having passed through the ordeal trial. The instigations of the spring are now abated. The nightingale gives over her 'love-labour'd song,' as Milton phrases it; the blossoms are fallen, and the beds of flowers swept away by the scythe of the mower. No. 395.] Tuesday, June 3, 1712. Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit. Ovid. Rem. Amor. 10. "Tis reason now, 'twas appetite before. I shall now allow my fair readers to BEWARE of the ides of March,' said the return to their romances and chocolate, Roman augur to Julius Cæsar: Beware of provided they make use of them with modethe month of May,' says the British Spec- ration, till about the middle of the month, tator to his fair country-women. The cauwhen the sun shall have made some protion of the first was unhappily neglected, gress in the Crab. Nothing is more danand Cæsar's confidence cost him his life. I gerous than too much confidence and secuam apt to flatter myself that my pretty rity. The Trojans, who stood upon their readers had much more regard to the ad-guard all the while the Grecians lay before vice I gave them, since I have yet received very few accounts of any notorious trips made in the last month. * Then commonly called Barbadoes water. their city, when they fancied the siege was raised, and the danger past, were the very next night burnt in their beds. I must also observe, that as in some climates there is perpetual spring, so in some female consti tutions there is a perpetual May. These are a kind of valetudinarians in chastity, whom I would continue in a constant diet. I cannot think these wholly out of danger, till they have looked upon the other sex at least five years through a pair of spectacles. Will Honeycomb has often assured me, that it is much easier to steal one of this species, when she has passed her grand climacteric, than to carry off an icy girl on this side 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 last made his fortune by running away with her grandmother. ceived about half a year ago from a gentle man at Cambridge, who styles himself Peter de Quir. I have kept it by me some months; and, though I did not know at first 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 the Spectator. 'From St. John's College, Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1712. 'SIR,-The monopoly of puns in this university has been an immemorial privilege of the Johnians:* and we can't help resentBut as I do not design this speculation for ing the late invasion of our ancient rights as the evergreens of the sex, I shall again ap- to that particular, by a little pretender to ply myself to those who would willingly clenching in a neighbouring college, who in listen to the dictates of reason and virtue, application to you by way of letter, a while and can now hear me in cold blood. If ago, styled himself Philobrune. Dear sir, there are any who have forfeited their inno- as you are by character a professed wellcence, they must now consider themselves wisher to speculation, you will excuse a reunder that melancholy view in which Cha-mark which this gentleman's passion for the mont regards his sister, in those beautiful lines: - Long she flourish'd, Grew sweet to sense, and lovely to the eye. On the contrary, she who has observed the timely cautions I gave her, and lived up to the rules of modesty, will now flourish like a rose in June,' with all her virgin blushes and sweetness about her. I must, however, desire these last to consider, how shameful it would be for a general who has made a successful campaign, to be surprised in his winter quarters. It would be no less dishonourable for a lady to lose, in any other month in the year, what she has been at the pains to preserve in May. brunette has suggested to a brother theorist; it is an offer towards a mechanical account of his lapse to punning, for he belongs to a set of mortals who value themselves upon an uncommon mastery in the more humane and polite parts of letters. A conquest by one of this species of females gives a very odd turn to the intellectuals of the captivated person, and very different from that way of thinking which a triumph from the eyes of another, more emphatically of the fair sex, does generally occasion. 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. These portraitures very near overpower the light of the understanding, almost benight the faThere is no charm in the female sex that culties, and give that melancholy tincture can supply the place of virtue. Without to the most sanguine complexion, which this gentleman calls an inclination to be in a innocence, beauty is unlovely, and quality brown-study, and is usually attended with contemptible; good-breeding degenerates worse consequences in case of a repulse. into wantonness, and wit into impudence. During this twilight of intellects the patient It is observed, that all the virtues are re-is extremely apt, as love is the most witty presented by both painters and statuaries under female shapes; but if any of them has a more particular title to that sex, it is modesty. I shall leave it to the divines to guard them against the opposite vice, as they may be overpowered by temptations. It is sufficient for me to have warned them against it, as they may be led astray by in passion in nature, to offer at some pert sallies now and then, by way of flourish, upon the amiable enchantress, and unfortunately stumbles upon that mongrel miscreated (to speak in Miltonic) kind of wit, vulgarly termed the pun. It would not be much (who is amiss to consult Dr. T— W certainly a very able projector, and whose I desire this paper may be read with system of divinity and spiritual mechanics obtains much the better part of more than ordinary attention, at all teaour under-graduates) whether a general tables within the cities of London and West-intermarriage, enjoined by parliament, be stinct. minster. No. 396.] Wednesday, June 4, 1712. Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Feri, Baralipton. X. HAVING a great deal of business upon my hands at present, I shall beg the reader's leave to present him with a letter that I re very among tween this sisterhood of the olive-beauties and the fraternity of the people called quakers, would not be a very serviceable expedient, and abate that overflow of light which shines within them so powerfully, that it dazzles their eyes, and dances them into a thousand vagaries of error and enthu The students of St. John's College. For my own part, I am of opinion, com passion does not only refine and civilize hu siasm. These reflections may impart some pearance of grief; but when one told them light towards a discovery of the origin of of any calamity that had befallen even the punning among us, and the foundation of its nearest of their acquaintance, would immeprevailing so long in this famous body. It diately reply, 'What is that to me?' If you is notorious from the instance under consi- aggravated the circumstance of the afflicderation, that it must be owing chiefly to the tion, and showed how one misfortune was use of brown jugs, muddy belch, and the followed by another, the answer was still, fumes of a certain memorable place of ren-All this may be true, and what is it to me" dezvous with us at meals, known by the name of Staincoat Hole: for the atmosphere of the kitchen, like the tail of a comet, pre-man nature, but has something in it more dominates least about the fire, but resides pleasing and agreeable than what can be behind, and fills the fragrant receptacle met with in such an indolent happiness, above mentioned. Besides, it is further such an indifference to mankind, as that in observable, that the delicate spirits among which the Stoics placed their wisdom. As us, who declare against these nauseous pro- love is the most delightful passion, pity is ceedings, sip tea, and put up for critic and nothing else but love softened by a degree amour, profess likewise an equal abhor- of sorrow In short, it is a kind of pleasing rence for punning, the ancient innocent di- anguish, as well as generous sympathy, that version of this society. After all, sir, though knits mankind together, and blends them in it may appear something absurd that I seem the same common lot. to approach you with the air of an advocate for punning, (you who have justified your censures of the practice in a set dissertation upon that subject*) yet I am confident you will think it abundantly atoned for by observing, that this humbler exercise may be as instrumental in diverting us from any innovating schemes and hypotheses in wit, as dwelling upon honest orthodox logic would be in securing us from heresy in religion. Had Mr. Wn'st researches been confined within the bounds of Ramus or Crackenthorp, that learned news-monger might It is for this reason that the short speeches have acquiesced in what the holy oracles or sentences which we often meet with in pronounced upon the deluge like other history make a deeper impression on the Christians; and had the surprising Mr. mind of the reader than the most laboured Ly been content with the employment strokes in a well-written tragedy. Truth of refining upon Shakspeare's points and and matter of fact sets the person actually quibbles (for which he must be allowed to before us in the one, whom fiction places at have a superlative genius,) and now and a greater distance from us in the other. I do then penning a catch or a ditty, instead not remember to have seen any ancient or of inditing odes and sonnets, the gentle-modern story more affecting than a letter of men of the bon gout in the pit would never have been put to all that grimace in damning the frippery of state, the poverty and languor of thought, the unnatural wit, and inartificial structure of his dramas. am, sir, your very humble servant, PETER DE QUIR.' No. 397.] Thursday, June 5, 1712. -Dolor ipse disertam Ovid. Met. xiii. 225. Fecerat I Those who have laid down rules for rhetoric or poetry, advise the writer to work himself up, if possible, to the pitch of sorrow which he endeavours to produce in others. There are none therefore who stir up pity so much as those who indite their own sufferings. Grief has a natural eloquence belonging to it, and breaks out in more moving sentiments than can be supplied by the finest imagination. Nature on this occasion dictates a thousand passionate things which cannot be supplied by art. Ann of Bologne, wife to king Henry the Eighth, and mother to Queen Elizabeth, which is still extant in the Cotton library, as written by her own hand. Shakspeare himself could not have made her talk in a strain so suitable to her condition and character. One sees in it the expostulation of a slighted lover, the resentment of an injured woman, and the sorrows of an imprisoned queen. I need not acquaint my readers that this princess was then under prosecution for disloyalty to the king's bed, and that she was afterwards publicly beheaded upon the same account; though this prosecution was believed by many to As the stoic philosophers discard all pas-proceed, as she herself intimates, rather sions in general, they will not allow a wise from the king's love to Jane Seymour, man so much as to pity the afflictions of than from any actual crime of Ann of Bo another, If thou seest thy friend in troulogne. ble,' says Epictetus, thou mayest put on a look of sorrow, and condole with him, but take care that thy sorrow be not real.' The more rigid of this sect would not comply so far as to show even such an outward ap Queen Anne Boleyn's last letter to King 'SIR, what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. | doubt not (whatever the world may think Whereas you send unto me, (willing me to of me,) mine innocence shall be openly confess a truth, and to obtain your favour) known, and sufficiently cleared. by such an one, whom you know to be mine ancient professed enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your command. 'My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of your grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen who (as I understand,) are likewise in straight imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favour in your sight, if ever the name of Ann Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any further, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity, to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, this sixth of May; your most loyal and ever faithful wife, L. ANN BOLEYN.' Insanire pares certa ratione modoque. Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 2. 272. 'But let not your grace ever imagine, that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault, where not so much as a thought thereof proceeded. And to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Ann Boleyn: with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation, or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an No. 398.] Friday, June 6, 1712. alteration as I now find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other object. You have chosen me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire. If then you found me worthy of such honour, good your grace, let not any light fancy, or bad counsel of mine enemies, withdraw your princely favour from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain of a disloyal heart towards your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your daughter. Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame; then shall you see either mine innocence cleared, your suspicion and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. So that, whatever God or you may determine of me, your grace may be freed from an open censure; and mine offence being so lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty, both before God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an unlawful wife, but to follow your affection, already settled on that party, for whose sake I am now as I am, whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto your grace, not being ignorant of my suspicion therein. 'But if you have already determined of me, and that not only my death, but an infamous slander must bring you the enjoying of your desired happiness; then I desire of God, that he will pardon your great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the instruments thereof; and that he will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel usage of me, at his general judgment seat, where both you and myself must shortly appear, and in whose judgment I VOL. II. 16 Creech. CYNTHIO and Flavia are persons of distinction in this town, who have been lovers these ten months last past, and writ to each other for gallantry sake under those feigned names; Mr. Such-a-one and Mrs. Such-aone not being capable of raising the soul out of the ordinary tracts and passages of life, up to that elevation which makes the life of the enamoured so much superior to that of the rest of the world. But ever since the beauteous Cecilia has made such a figure as she now does in the circle of charming women, Cynthio has been secretly one of her adorers. Cecilia has been the finest woman in the town these three months, and so long Cynthio has acted the part of a lover very awkwardly in the presence of Flavia. Flavia has been too blind towards him, and has too sincere a heart of her own to observe a thousand things which would have discovered this change of mind to any one less engaged than she was. Cynthio was musing yesterday in the piazza in Covent-garden, and was saying to himself that he was a very ill man to go on in visiting and professing love to Flavia, when his heart was enthralled to another. It is an infirmity that I am not constant to Flavia; but it would be a still greater crime, since I cannot continue to love her, to profess that I do. To marry a woman with the coldness that usually indeed comes on after marriage, is ruining one's self with one's eyes open; besides, it is really doing her an injury. This last consideration, forsooth, of injuring her in persisting, made him resolve to break off upon the first favourable opportunity of making her angry. When he was in this thought, he saw Robin the porter, who waits at Will's coffee-house, passing by. Robin, you must know, is the best man in the town for carrying a billet; the fellow has a thin body, swift step, demure looks, sufficient sense, and knows the town. This man carried Cynthio's first letter to Flavia, and, by frequent errands ever since, is well known to her. The fellow covers his knowledge of the nature of his messages with the most exquisite low humour imaginable. The first he obliged Flavia to take, was by complaining to her that he had a wife and three children, and if she did not take that letter, which he was sure there was no harm in, but rather love, his family must go supperless to bed, for the gentleman would pay him according as he did his business. Robin, therefore, Cynthio now thought fit to make use of, and gave him orders to wait before Flavia's door, and if she called him to her, and asked whether it was Cynthio who passed by, he should at first be loth to own it was, but upon importunity confess it. There needed not much search into that part of the town to find a well-dressed hussey fit for the purpose Cynthio designed her. As soon as he believed Robin was posted, he drove by Flavia's lodgings in a hackney-coach, and a woman in it. Robin was at the door, talking with Flavia's maid, and Cynthio pulled up the glass as surprised, and hid his associate. The report of this circumstance soon flew up stairs, and Robin could not deny but the gentleman favoured his master; yet, if it was he, he was sure the lady was but his cousin, whom he had seen ask for him: adding, that he believed she was a poor relation; because they made her wait one morning till he was awake. Flavia immediately writ the following epistle, which Robin brought to Will's. After Cynthio had read the letter, he asked Robin how she looked, and what she said at the delivery of it. Robin said she spoke short to him, and called him back again, and had nothing to say to him, and bid him and all the men in the world go out of her sight; but the maid followed, and bid him bring an answer. Cynthio returned as follows: 'June 4, Three afternoon, 1712. 'MADAM,-That your maid and the bearer have seen me very often is very certain; but I desire to know, being engaged at piquet, what your letter means by "tis in vain to deny it." I shall stay here all the evening. Your amazed 'CYNTHIO.' As soon as Robin arrived with this, Flavia answered: * Resembled. 'DEAR CYNTHIO,-I have walked a turn or two in my ante-chamber since I writ to you, and have recovered myself from an impertinent fit which you ought to forgive me, and desire you would come to me immediately to laugh off a jealousy that you and a creature of the town went by in a hackney-coach an hour ago. I am your your humble servant, FLAVIA. 'I will not open the letter which my Cynthio writ upon the misapprehension you must have been under, when you writ, for want of hearing the whole circumstance.' Robin came back in an instant, and Cynthio answered: Half an hour six minutes after three, June 4, Will's coffee-house. MADAM,-It is certain I went by your lodgings with a gentlewoman to whom I have the honour to be known; she is indeed my relation, and a pretty sort of a woman. But your starting manner of writing, and owning you have not done me the honour so much as to open my letter, has in it something very unaccountable, and alarms one that has had thoughts of passing his days with you. But I am born to admire you with all your little imperfections. CYNTHIO.' Robin ran back and brought for answer: 'Exact sir, that are at Will's coffeehouse, six minutes after three, June 4; one that has had thoughts, and all my little imperfections. Sir, come to me immediately, or I shall determine what may perhaps not be very pleasing to you. FLAVIA. Robin gave an account that she looked excessive angry when she gave him the letter; and that he told her, for she asked, that Cynthio only looked at the clock, taking snuff, and writ two or three words on the top of the letter when he gave him his. Now the plot thickened so well, as that Cynthio saw he had not much more to accomplish, being irreconcilably banished: he writ, 'MADAM,-I have that prejudice in favour of all you do, that it is not possible for you to determine upon what will not be very pleasing to your obedient servant, 'CYNTHIO.' This was delivered, and the answer returned, in a little more than two seconds. 'SIR,-Is it come to this? You never loved me, and the creature you were with is the properest person for your associate. I despise you, and hope I shall soon hate you as a villain to the credulous Robin ran back with: 'FLAVIA.' MADAM,-Your credulity when you are to gain your point, and suspicion when you |