in which we are necessarily to have a commerce downright affront to modesty. A disdainful look on with them, that of love. The case of celibacy is the such an occasion is returned with a countenance regreat evil of our nation; and the indulgence of the buked but by averting their eyes from the woman of vicious conduct of men in that state, with the ridi-honour and decency, to some flippant creature who cule to which women are exposed, though never so will, as the phrase is, be kinder. I must set down virtuous, if long unmarried, is the root of the greatest things as they come into my head, without standing irregularities of this nation. To show you, Sir, that upon order. Ten thousand to one but the gay gentle (though you never have given us the catalogue of a man who stared, at the same time is a housekeeper; lady's library, as you promised) we read good books for you must know they have got into a humour of of our own choosing, I shall insert on this occasion late of being very regular in their sins; and a young a paragraph or two out of Echard's Roman History. fellow shall keep his four maids and three footmen In the 14th page of the second volume, the author with the greatest gravity imaginable. There are no observes that Augustus, upon his return to Rome at less than six of these venerable housekeepers of my the end of a war, received complaints that too great acquaintance. This humour among young men of a number of the young men of quality were unmar- condition is imitated by all the world below them, ried. The emperor thereupon assembled the whole and a general dissolution of manners arises from equestrian order; and having separated the married this one source of libertinism, without shame or refrom the single, did particular honours to the former; prehension in the male youth. It is from this one but he told the latter, that is to say, Mr. Spectator, fountain that so many beautiful helpless young wo he told the bachelors, that their lives and actions men are sacrificed and given up to lewdness, shame, had been so peculiar, that he knew not by what name poverty and disease. It is to this also that so many to call them; not by that of men, for they performed excellent young women, who might be patterns of nothing that was manly; not by that of citizens, for conjugal affection, and parents of a worthy race, the city might perish notwithstanding their care; pine under unhappy passions for such as have not nor by that of Romans, for they designed to extir-attention enough to observe, or virtue enough to pate the Roman name. Then, proceeding to show prefer, them to their common wenches. Now, Mr. his tender care and hearty affection for his people, Spectator, I must be free to own to you, that I my he further told them, that their course of life was of self suffer a tasteless insipid being, from a cousidesuch pernicious consequence to the glory and gran-ration I have for a man who would not, as he has deur of the Roman nation, that he could not choose but tell them, that all other crimes put together could not equalize theirs, for they were guilty of murder in not suffering those to be born which should proceed from them; of impiety, in causing the names and honours of their ancestors to cease; and of sacrilege, in destroying their kind which proceed from the immortal gods, and human nature, the principal thing consecrated to them: therefore, in this respect, they dissolved the government in disobeying its laws; betrayed their country by making it barren and waste; nay, and demolished their city, in depriving it of inhabitants. And he was sensible that all this proceeded not from any kind of virtue or abstinence, but from a looseness and wantonness which ought never to be encouraged in any civil government. There are no particulars dwelt upon that let us into the conduct of these young worthies, whom this great emperor treated with so much justice and indignation; but any one who observes what passes in this town may very well frame to himself a notion of their riots and debaucheries all night, and their apparent preparations for them all day. It is not to be doubted but these Romans never passed any of their time innocently but when they were asleep, and never slept but when they were weary and heavy with excesses, and slept only to prepare themselves for the repetition of them. If you did your duty as a Spectator, you would carefully examine into the number of births, marriages, and burials; and when you have deducted out of your deaths all such as went out of the world without No. 529.] THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1712. marrying, then cast up the number of both sexes born within such a term of years last past; you might, from the single people departed, make some useful inferences or guesses how many there are left unmarried, and raise some useful scheme for the amendment of the age in that particular. I have not patience to proceed gravely on this abominable libertinism; for I cannot but reflect, as I am writing to you, upon a certain lascivious manner which all our young gentlemen use in public, and examine our eyes with a petulancy in their own which is a said in my hearing, resign his liberty, as he calls it, T. 66 Singula quæque locum teneant sortita decenter. HOR, Ars Poet. 92. Let every thing have its due place.-ROSCOMMON. UPON the hearing of several late disputes concerning rank and precedence, I could not forbear amusing myself with some observations which I have made upon the learned world, as to this great par ticular. By the learned world I here mean at large * Dissoluteness. 605 all those who are any way concerned in works of li- to the learned world, and who regulate themselves terature, whether in the writing, printing, or repeat-upon all occasions by several laws peculiar to their ing part. To begin with the writers. I have ob- body; I mean the players or actors of both sexes. served that the author of a folio, in all companies Among these it is a standing and uncontroverted and conversations, sets himself above the author of principle, that a tragedian always takes place of a a quarto; the author of a quarto above the author of comedian; and it is very well known the merry an octavo; and so on, by a gradual descent and drolls who make us laugh are always placed at the subordination, to an author in twenty-fours. This lower end of the table, and in every entertainment distinction is so well observed, that in an assembly give way to the dignity of the buskin. It is a stage "Once a king, and always a king." For of the learned, I have seen a folio writer place him- maxim, self in an elbow-chair, when the author of a duode- this reason it would be thought very absurd in Mr. cimo has, out of a just deference to his superior qua- Bullock, notwithstanding the height and gracefullity, seated himself upon a squab. In a word, ness of his person, to sit at the right hand of a hero, authors are usually ranged in company after the though he were but five foot high. The same distinction is observed among the ladies of the theatre. same manner as their works are upon a shelf. Queens and heroines preserve their rank in private conversation, while those who are waiting women and maids of honour upon the stage, keep their distance also behind the scenes. The most minute pocket author hath beneath him the writers of all pamphlets, or works that are only stitched. As for the pamphleteer, he takes place of none but the authors of single sheets, and of that fraternity who publish their labours on certain days, I do not nnd that the or on every day of the week. precedency among the individuals in this latter class of writers is yet settled. latter yield the pas to the former; but Mr. Dryden, and many others, would never submit to this deci sion. Burlesque writers pay the same deference to the heroic, as comic writers to their serious brothers in the drama. I shall only add that, by a parity of reason, all writers of tragedy look upon it as their due to be seated, served, or saluted, before comic writers; those who deal in tragi-comedy usually taking their For my own part, I have had so strict a regard to seats between the authors of either side. There has the ceremonial which prevails in the learned world, been a long dispute for precedeney between the that I never presumed to take place of a pam-tragic and heroic poets. Aristotle would have the phleteer, until my daily papers were gathered into those two first volumes which have already appeared. After which, I naturally jumped over the heads not only of all pamphleteers, but of every octavo writer in Great Britain that had written but one book. I am also informed by my bookseller, that six octavos have at all times been looked upon as an equivalent to a folio; which I take notice of the rather, because I would not have the learned world surprised if, after the publication of half a dozen volumes, I take my place accordingly. When my scattered forces are thus rallied, and reduced into regular bodies, I flatter myself that I shall make no despicable figure at the head of them. Whether these rules, which have been received time out of mind in the commonwealth of letters, were not originally established with an eye to our paper manufacture, I shall leave to the discussion of others; and shall only remark further in this place, that all printers and booksellers take the wall of one another according to the above-mentioned merits of the authors to whom they respectively belong. By this short table of laws order is kept up, and distinction preserved, in the whole republic of letters.-0. No. 530.1 FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1712. Sævo mittere cum joco.-HOR. 1 Od. xxxiii. 10. To disagreeing love provokes; She ties the fatal noose, And binds unequals to the brazen yokes.-CRXXCH. Ir is very usual for those who have been severe upon marriage, in some part or other of their lives, to enter into the fraternity which they have ridiI come now to that point of precedency which is culed, and to see their raillery return upon their own settled among the three learned professions by the heads. I scarce ever knew a woman-hater that did wisdom of our laws. I need not here take notice of not, sooner or later, pay for it. Marriage, which is the rank which is allotted to every doctor in each of a blessing to another man, falls upon such a one as these professions, who are all of them, though not a judgment. Mr. Congreve's Old Bachelor is set so high as knights, yet a degree above 'squires: forth to us with much wit and humour, as an exthis last order of men, being the illiterate body of ample of this kind. In short, those who have most the nation, are consequently thrown together into distinguished themselves by railing at the sex in a class below the three learned professions. I general, very often make an honourable amends, by mention this for the sake of several rural 'squires, choosing one of the most worthless persons of it for whose reading does not rise so high as to The pre-a companion and yokefellow. Hymen takes his resent State of England, and who are often apt to venge in kind on those who turn his mysteries into usurp that precedency which by the laws of their ridicule. country is not due to them. Their want of learning, which has planted them in this station, may in some measure extenuate their misdemeanour; and our professors ought to pardon them when they offend in this particular, considering that they are in a state of ignorance, or, as we usually say, do not know their right hand from their left. There is another tribe of persons who are retainers * In some Universities, that of Dublin in particular, they have doctors of music, who take rank after the doctors of the three learned professions, and above esquires. My friend Will Honeycomb, who was so unmer cifully witty upon the women, in a couple of letters which I lately communicated to the public, has given the ladies ample satisfaction by marrying a farmer's daughter; a piece of news which came to our club by the last post. The templar is very positive that he has married a dairy-maid: but Will, in his letter to me on this occasion, sets the best face upon the matter that he can, and gives a more tolerable account of his spouse. I must confess I suspected something more than ordinary, when upon opening tion, as a prudent head of a family, a good husband, 0. the letter I found that Will was fallen off from his former gaiety, having changed "Dear Spec.," which was his usual salute at the beginning of the letter, into "My worthy Friend," and subscribed himself at the latter end of it at full length William Honeycomb. In short, the gay, the loud, the vain Will Honeycomb, who had made love to every great fortune that has appeared in town for about thirty years No. 531.] SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1712. together, and boasted of favours from ladies whom he had never seen, is at length wedded to a plain country girl. His letter gives us the picture of a converted rake. The sober character of the husband is dashed with the man of the town, and enlivened with those little cant phrases, which have made my friend Will often thought very pretty company. But let us hear what he says for himself: "MY WORTHY FRIEND, "I question not but you, and the rest of my acquaintance, wonder that I, who have lived in the smoke and gallantries of the town for thirty years together, should all on a sudden grow fond of a country life. Had not my dog of a steward ran away as he did without making up his accounts, I had still been immersed in sin and sea-coal. But since my late forced visit to my estate, I am so pleased with it, that I am resolved to live and die upon it. I am every day abroad among my acres, and can scarce forbear filling my letter with breezes, shades, flowers, meadows, and purling streams. The simplicity of manners, which I have heard you so often speak of, and which appears here in perfection, charms me wonderfully. As an instance of it I must acquaint you, and by your means the whole club, that I have lately married one of my tenant's daughters. She is born of honest parents; and though she has no portion, she has a great deal of virtue. The natural sweetness and innocence of her behaviour, the freshness of her complexion, the unaffected turn of her shape and person, shot me through and through every time that I saw her, and did more execution upon me in grogram than the greatest beauty in town or court had ever done in brocade. In short, she is such a one as promises me a good heir to my estate; and if by her means I cannot leave to my children what are falsely called the gifts of birth, high titles, and alliances, I hope to convey to them the more real and valuable gifts of birth strong bodies and healthy constitutions. As for your fine women, I need not tell thee that I know them. I have had my share in their graces; but no more of that. It shall be my business hereafter to live the life of an honest man, and to act as becomes the master of a family. I question not but I shall draw upon me the raillery of the town, and be treated to the tune of, The Marriage-hater Matched; but I am prepared for it. I have been as witty upon others in my time. To tell thee truly, I saw such a tribe of fashionable young fluttering coxcombs shot up, that I did not think my post of an homme de ruelle any longer tenable. I felt a certain stiffness in my limbs, which entirely destroyed the jantiness of air I was once master of, Besides, for I may now confess my age to thee, I have been eight-and-forty above these twelve years, Since my retirement into the country will make a vacancy in the club, I could wish you would fill up my place with my friend Tom Dapperwit. He has an infinite deal of fire, and knows the town. For my own part, as I have said before, I shall endeavour to live hereafter suitable to a man in my sta Qui mare et terras, variisque mundum Temperat horis; Unde nil majus generatur ipso; Who guides below, and rules above, Supreme he singly fills the throne. CRZECH, SIMONIDES being asked by Dionysius the tyrant what God was, desired a day's time to consider of it before he made his reply. When the day was expired he desired two days; and afterward, instead of returning his answer, demanded still double the time to consider of it. This great poet and philesopher, the more he contemplated the nature of the Deity, found that he waded but the more out of his depth; and that he lost himself in the thought, instead of finding an end to it. If we consider the idea which wise men, by the light of reason, have framed of the Divine Being, it amounts to this; that he has in him all the perfection of a spiritual nature. And, since we have no notion of any kind of spiritual perfection but what we discover in our own souls, we join infinîtude to each kind of these perfections, and what is a faculty in a human soul becomes an attribute in God. We exist in place and time; the Divine Being fills the immensity of space with his presence, and inhabits eternity. We are possessed of a little power and a little knowledge: The Divine Being is almighty and omniscient. In short, by adding infinity to any kind of perfection we enjoy, and by joining all these different kinds of perfection in one being, we form our idea of the great Sovereign of nature. Though every one who thinks must have made this observation, I shall produce Mr. Locke's anthority to the same purpose, out of his Essay on Human Understanding: "If we examine the idea we have of the incomprehensible Supreme Being, we shall find that we come by it the same way; and that the complex ideas we have both of God and separate spirits, are made up of the simple ideas we receive from reflection; v. g. having, from what we experience in ourselves, got the ideas of existence and duration, of knowledge and power, of pleasure, and happiness, and of several other qualities and powers, which it is better to have than to be without; when we would frame an idea the most suitable we can to the Supreme Being, we enlarge every one of these with our own idea of infinity; and so putting them together make our complex idea of God." It is not impossible that there may be many kinds of spiritual perfection, besides those which are lodged in a human soul; but it is impossible that we should have ideas of any kinds of perfection, except those of which we have some small rays and short imperfect strokes in ourselves. It would therefore be a very high presumption to determine whether the Supreme Being has not many more attributes than those which enter into our concep tions of him. This is certain, that if there be any kind of spiritual perfection which is not marked out in the human soul, it belongs in its fulness to the divine nature. particularly above twenty years, has told me that he was so exact, that he does not remember to have observed him once to fail in it." man, who was an honour to his country, and a more diligent as well as successful inquirer into the works of nature than any other our nation has ever produced. Several eminent philosophers have imagined that "He had the profoundest veneration for the great the soul, in her separate state, may have new facul- God of heaven and earth that I have ever observed ties springing up in her, which she is not capable of in any person. The very name of God was never exerting during her present union with the body; mentioned by him without a pause and a visible støp and whether these faculties may not correspond within his discourse; in which one, that knew him most other attributes in the divine nature, and open to us hereafter new matter of wonder and adoration, we are altogether ignorant. This, as I have said before, we ought to acquiesce in, that the Sovereign Being, the great Author of Nature, has in him all possible perfections, as well in kind as in degree: to speak according to our methods of conceiving, I shall only add under this head, that when we have raised our notion of this infinite Being as high as it is possible for the mind of man to go, it will fall in finitely short of what he really is. "There is no end of his greatness." The most exalted creature he has made is only capable of adoring it; none but himself can comprehend it. Every one knows the veneration which was paid by the Jews to a name so great, wonderful, and holy. They would not let it enter even into their religious discourses. What can we then think of those who make use of so temendous a name in the ordinary expressions of their anger, mirth, and most impertinent passions? of those who admit it into the most familiar questions and assertions, ludicrous phrases, and works of humour? not to mention those who violate it by solemn perjuries! It would be an affront to reason to endeavour to set forth the horror and profaneness of such a practice. The very mention of it exposes it sufficiently to those in whom the light of nature, not to say reli The advice of the son of Sirach is very just and No. 532.] MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1712. I have here only considered the Supreme Being by the light of reason and philosophy. If we would see him in all the wonders of his mercy, we must have recourse to revelation, which represents him to us not only as infinitely great and glorious, but as infinitely good and just in his dispensations towards man. But as this is a theory which falls under every one's consideration, though indeed it can never be sufficiently considered, I shall here only take notice of that habitual worship and veneration which we ought to pay to this Almighty Being. We should often refresh our minds with the thought of him, and annihilate ourselves before him, in the contemplation of our own worthlessness, and of his transcendant excellency and perfection. This would imprint in our minds such a constant and uninterrupted awe and veneration as that which I am here recommending, and which is in reality a kind of incessant prayer, and reasonable humiliation of the soul before him who made it. This would effectually kill in us all the little seeds of pride, vanity, and self-conceit, which are apt to shoot up in the minds of such whose thoughts turn more on those comparative advantages which they enjoy over some of their fellow-creatures, than on that infinite distance which is placed between them and the supreme model of all perfection. It would likewise quicken our desires and endeavours of uniting ourselves to him by all the acts of religion and virtue. Such an habitual homage to the Supreme Being would, in a particular manner, banish from among us that prevailing impiety of using his name on the most trivial occasions. I find the following passage in an excellent sermon, preached at the funeral of a gentle. | Reddere quæ ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi I play the whetstone; useless, and unfit The former has writ me an excellent paper of verses, in praise, forsooth, of myself; and the other enclosed for my perusal an admirable poem, which I hope will shortly see the light. In the mean time I cannot suppress any thought of his, but insert this sentiment about the dying words of Adrian. I will not determine in the case he mentions; but have thus much to say in favour of his argument, that many of his own works, which I have seen, convince me that very pretty and very the Honourable Robert Boyle. See Bishop Burnet's sermon, preached at the funeral of ↑ Addison. The Temple of Fame. sublime sentiments may be lodged in the same bosom without diminution to its greatness. "MR. SPECTATOR, "I was the other day in company with five or six men of some learning; where, chancing to mention the famous verses which the Emperor Adrian spoke on his death-bed, they were all agreed that it was a piece of gaiety unworthy that prince in those circumstances. I could not but dissent from this opinion. Methinks it was by no means a gay but a very serious soliloquy to his soul at the point of his departure; in which sense I naturally took the verses at my first reading them, when I was very young, and before I knew what interpretation the world generally put upon them. Animula vagula, blandula, Nec (ut soles) dabis joca! "Alas, my soul; thon pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting , whither art thou flying? to what unknown region? Thou art all trembling, fearful, and pensive. Now what is become of thy former wit and humour? Thou shalt jest and be gay no more.' "I confess I cannot apprehend where lies the trifling in all this; it is the most natural and obvious reflection imaginable to a dying man: and, if we consider the emperor was a heathen, that doubt concerning the future fate of his soul will seem so far from being the effect of want of thought, that it was scarce reasonable he should think otherwise not to mention that here is a plain confession included of his belief in its immortality. The diminutive epithets of vagula, blandula, and the rest, appear not to me as expressions of levity, but rather of endearment and concern: such as we find in Catullus, and the authors of Hendecasyllabi after him, where they are used to express the utmost love and tenderness for their mistresses.-If you think me right in my notion of the last words of Adrian, be pleased to insert this in the Spectator; if not, to suppress it. "I am," &c. "To the supposed Author of thE SPECTATOR. "In courts licentious, and a shameless stage, How long the war shall wit with virtue wage? Euchanted by this prostituted fair, Our youth run headlong in the fatal snare; In height of rapture clasp unheeded pains, And suck pollution through their tingling veins. At length despis'd, each to his fields retires, Such readers scorn'd, thou wing'st thy daring flight Such hints alone could British Virgil lend, "Permit these lines by thee to live-nor blame "So some weak shoot, which else would poorly rise, "TO THE SPECTATOR-GENERAL. "That your said officer is preparing, according to your honour's secret instructions, hats for the several kinds of heads that make figures in the realms of Great Britain, with cocks significant of their powers and faculties. "That your said officer has taken due notice of your instructions and admonitions concerning the internals of the head from the outward form of the same. His hats for men of the faculties of law and physic do but just turn up, to give a little life to their sagacity; his military hats glare full in the face; and he has prepared a familiar easy cock for all good companions between the above-mentioned extremes. For this end he has consulted the most learned of his acquaintance for the true form and dimensions of the lepidum caput, and made a hat fit for it. "Your said officer does further represent, That Thy spotless thoughts unshocked the priest may hear, the young divines about town are many of them got And the pure vestal in her bosom wear. To conscious blushes and diminished pride Thy glass betrays what treach'rous love would hide; Nor harsh thy precepts, but, infus'd by stealth, Please while they cure, and cheat us into health. Thy works in Chloe's toilet gain a part, * The brainless stripling, who, expell'd to town, Mr. Tickell here alludes to Steele's papers against the Viscount Bolingbroke. into the cock military, and desires your instructions therein. |