ing at me to thofe fhe knows will tell me of it. • not? • Mr. Spectator, I Am a footman in a great family, and am in love with the houfe-maid. We were all at, hot cockles last night in the hall these holidays; • when I lay down and was blinded, the pulled off her fhoe, and hit me with the heel fuch a rap, as almoft broke my head to pieces. Pray, Sir, was this love or fpite?" ftate agreeable, but often determine our happiness to all eternity. Where the choice is left to friends, the chief point under confideration is an eftate where the parties choofe for themselves, their thoughts turn moft upon the perfon. They T. B. have both their reafons. The firft would procure many conveniences and pleasures of life to the party whofe interefts they efpoufe; and at the fame time may hope that the wealth of their friend will turn to their own credit and advantage. The others are preparing for themselves a perpetual feast. Á good perfon does not only raife, but continue love, and breeds a fecret pleafure and complacency in the beTholder, when the first heats of defire are extinguished. It puts the wife or husband in countenance both among friends and ftrangers, and generally fills the family with a healthy and beautiful I should prefer a woman that is agreeable in my Frag. vét. Poet. own eye, and not deformed in that of the world, to a celebrated beauty. If you marry one remarkably beautiful, you must have a violent paffion for her, or you have not the proper taste of her charms; and if you have fuch a paffion for her, it is odds but it would be imbittered with fears and jealoufies. N° 261. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29. race of children. Wedlock's an ill, men eagerly embrace. M Y father, whom I mentioned in my first fpeculation, and whom I must always name with honour and gratitude, has very frequently talked to me upon the fubject of marriage. I was in my younger years engaged, partly by his advice, and partly by my own inclinations, in the courtship of a perfon who had a great deal of beauty, and did not at my first approaches feem to have any averfion to me; but as my natural taciturnity hindered me from fhewing myself to the beft advantage, the by degrees began to look upon me as a very filly fellow, and being refolved to regard merit more than any thing elfe in the perfons who made their applications to her, the married a captain of dragoons who happened to be beating up for recruits in thofe parts. This unlucky accident has given me an averfion to pretty fellows ever fince, and difcouraged me from trying my fortune with the fair fex. The obfervations which I made in this conjuncture, and the repeated advices which I received at that time from the good old man above-mentioned, have produced the following effay upon Love and Marriage. The pleafanteft part of a man's life is generally that which paffes in courtship, provided his paffion be fincere, and the party beloved kind with difcretion. Love, defire, hope, all the pleasing motions of the foul rife in the pursuit. It is easier for an artful man who is not in love, to perfuade his mistress he has a paflion for her, and to fucceed in his pursuits, than for one who loves with the greatest violence. True love has ten thousand griefs, impatiences, and refentments, that render a man unamiable in the eyes of the perfon whofe affection he folicits; befides, that it inks his figure, gives him fears, apprehenfions and poornefs of fpirit, and often makes him appear ridiculous where he has a mind to recommend him"felf. Good-nature and evennefs of temper will give you an eafy companion for life; virtue and good fenfe, an agreeable friend; love and conftancy, a good wife or hufband. Where we meet one perfon with all thefe accomplishments, we find an hundred without any one of them. The world, notwithfanding, is more intent on trains and equipages, and all the fhowy parts of life; we love rather to dazzle the multitude, than confult our proper interefts; and, as I have elsewhere obferved, it is one of the moft unaccountable paffions of human nature, that we are at greater pains to appear easy and happy to others, than really to make ourfelves fo. Of all difparities, that in humour makes the mof unhappy marriages, yet fearce enters into our thoughts at the contracting of them. Several that are in this refpect unequally yoked, and uneafy for life, with a perfon of a particular character, might have been pleafed and happy with a perfon cf a contrary one, notwithstanding they are both perhaps equally virtuous and laudable in their kind. Before marriage we cannot be too inquifitive and difcerning in the faults of the perfon beloved, nor after it too dim-fighted and fuperficial. However perfect and accomplished the perfon appears to you at a diftance, you will find many blemishes and imperfections in her humour, upon a more intimate acquaintance, which you never difcovered, or perhaps fufpected. Here therefore difcretion and goodnature are to fhew their strength; the first will hinder your thoughts from dwelling on what is difagreeable, the other will raife in you all the tenderness of compaffion and humanity, and by degrees foften thofe very imperfections into beauties. Marriage enlarges the fcene of our happiness and miferies. A marriage of love is pleafant; a marriage of interest easy; and a marriage, where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleafures of friendship, all the enjoyments of fenfe and reafon, and indeed, all the fweets of life. Nothing is a greater mark of a degenerate and vicious age, than the common ridicule which pafles on this state of life. It is, indeed, only happy in thofe who can look down with fcorn or neglect on the impieties of the times, and tread the paths of life together in a conftant uniform course of vir twe.. No. N° 262, MONDAY, DECEMBER 31. Satirical reflexions I avoid. I Think myself highly obliged to the public for their kind acceptance of a paper which vifits them every morning, and has in it none of thofe feafonings that recommend fo many of the writings which are in vogue among us. As, on the one fide, my paper has not in it a fingle word of news, a reflexion in politics, nor a ftroke of party; fo on the other, there are no fa1hionable touches of infidelity, no obfcene ideas, no fatires upon priesthood, marriage, and the like popular topics of ridicule; no private fcandal, nor any thing that may tend to the defamation of particular perfons, families, or focieties. therefore fcorn to divert my reader at the expence of any private man. As I have been thus tender of every particular. perfon's reputation, fo, I have taken more than Ovid. Trist. 1. 2. v. 566. ordinary care not to give offence to those who appear in the higher figures of life. I would not make myself merry even with a piece of pasteboard that is invefted with a public character; for which reafon I have never glanced upon the late defigned proceffion of his holiness and his attendants, notwithstanding it might have afforded matter to many ludicrous fpeculations. * Among thofe advantages, which the public may reap from this paper, it is not the least, that it draws men's minds off from the bitterness of party, and furnishes them with subjects of difcourfe that may be treated without warmth or paffion. This is faid to have been the first defign of those gentlemen who set on foot the Royal Society; and had then a very good effect, as it turned many of the greatest geniuses of that age to the difquifitions of natural knowledge, who, if they had engaged in politics with the fame parts and application, might have fet their country in a flame. The air-pump, the barometer, the quadrant, and the like inventions, were thrown out to those busy fpirits, as tubs and barrels are to a whale, that he may let the fhip fail on without difturbance, while he diverts himfelf with thofe innocent amufements. There is not one of these above-mentioned fubjects that would not fell a very indifferent paper, could I think of gratifying the public by fuch mean and bafe methods. But notwithstanding I have rejected every thing that favours of party, every thing that is loofe and immoral, and every thing that might create uneafinefs in the minds of particular perfons, I find that the demand for my papers has increafed every month fince their firft appearance in the world. This does not perhaps reflect fo much honour upon myself, as on my readers, who give a much greater attention to discourses of virtue and morality, than ever I expected, or indeed could hope. When I broke loofe from that great body of writers who have employed their wit and parts in propagating vice and irreligion, I did not queftion but I fhould be treated as an odd kind of fellow, that had a mind to appear fingular in my way of writing; but the general reception I have found, convinces me that the world is not fo corrupt as we are apt to imagine; and that if thofe men of parts who have been employed in vitiating the age had endeavoured to rectify and amend it, they needed not have facrificed their good fenfe and virtue to their fame and reputation. No man is fo funk in vice and ignorance, but there are still fome hidden feeds of goodnefs and knowledge in him; which give him a relish of fuch reflexions and fpeculations as have an aptnefs to improve the mind, and make the heart bet ter. I have fhewn in a former paper, with how much care I have avoided all fuch thoughts as are Joofe, obfcene, or immoral; and I believe my reader would still think the better of me, if he knew the pains I am at in qualifying what I write after fuch a manner, that nothing may be interpreted as aimed at private perfons. For this reafon when I draw any faulty character, I confider all thofe perfons to whom the malice of the world may poffibly apply it, and take care to dash it with fuch particular circumftances as may prevent all fuch ill-natured applications. If I write any thing on a black man, I run over in my mind all the eminent perfons in the nation who are of that complexion: when I place an imaginary name at the head of a character, I examine every fyllable and letter of it, that it may not bear any refemblance to one that is real. I know very well the value which every man fets upon his re. putation, and how painful it is to be expofed to the mirth and derifion of the public, and should I have been fo very fcrupulous in this particular of not hurting any man's reputation that I have forborn mentioning even fuch authors as I could not name with honour. This I must confefs to have been a piece of very great felf denial: for as the public relishes nothing better than the ridicule which turns upon a writer of any eminence, fo there is nothing which a man that has but a very ordinary talent in ridicule may execute with greater eafe, One might raife laughter for a quarter of a year together upon the works of a perfon who has published but a very few volumes, For which reafon I am aftonished, that those who have appeared against this paper have made fo very little of it. The criticifms which I have hitherto published, have been made with an intention rather to difcover beauties and excellencies in the writers of my own time,. than to publifh any of their faults and imperfections. In the mean while I fhould take it for a very great favour from fore of my underhand detractors, if they would break all measures with me fo far, aş to give me a pretence for examining their performances with an impartial eye: nor fhall I look upon it as any breach of charity to criticife the author, fo long as I keep clear of the fon. per In the mean while, until I am provoked to fuch hoftilities, I fhall from time to time endeavour to do juftice to thofe who have diftinguished them. felves in the politer parts of learning, and to point out fuch beauties in their works as may have efcaped the obfervation of others. As the first place among our English poets is due to Milton; and as I have drawn more quotations out of him than from any other, I fhall enter into a regular criticism upon his Paradise Loft, which I fhall publish every Saturday until I have given my thoughts upon that poem. I shall not however prefume to impofe upon others my own particular judgment on this author, but only deliver it as my private opinion. Criticism is of a very large extent, and every particular mafter in this this art has his favourite paffages in an author, -Si quid novifti rectius iftis, • Mr. Spectator, I cannot now go into the parlour to him, and 'make his heart glad with an account of a matter which was of no confequence, but that I told it, and acted in it. The good man and woman are long fince in their graves, who used to fit and plot the welfare of us their children, while, perhaps, we were fometimes laughing at the old 'folks at another end of the houfe. The truth ' of it is, were we merely to follow nature in thefe great duties of life, though we have a ftrong instinct toward the performing of them, we should be on both fides very deficient. Age is fo unwelcome to the generality of mankind, and growth towards manhood fo defirable to all, that refignation to decay is too difficult a task in the father; and deference, amidst the impulfe of gay defires, appears unreasonable to the fon. There are fo few who can grow old with a good grace, and yet fewer who can come flow enough into the world, that a father, were he to be actuated by his defires, and a fon, were he to confult himself only, could neither of them ' behave himself as he ought to the other. But, "when reason interpofes against inftinct, where it would carry either out of the interefts of the other, there arifes that happieft intercourse of good offices between thofe deareft relations of human life. The father, according to the opportunities which are offered to him, is throw⚫ing down bleffings on the son, and the fon endeavouring to appear the worthy offspring of 'fuch a father. It is after this manner that Ca'millus and his firft-born dwell together. Ca'millus enjoys a pleafing and indolent old age, in which paffion is fubdued, and reason exalted. He waits the day of his diffolution with a re fignation mixed with delight, and the fon fears the acceffion of his father's fortune with diffidence, left he should not enjoy or become it as well as his predeceffor. Add to this, that the father knows he leaves a friend to the children of his friends, an eafy landlord to his tenants, and an agreeable companion to his acquaintance. He believes his fon's behaviour will make him frequently remembered, but never wanted. This commerce is fo well cemented, that without the pomp of faying, "Son, be a friend to fuch a one when I am gone;' 55 Ca Am the happy father of a very towardly fon, in whom I do not only fee my life, but also · my manner of life, renewed. It would be extremely beneficial to fociety, if you would frequently refume fubjects which ferve to bind thefe fort of relations fafter, and endear the ties of blood with thofe of good-will, protection, obfervance, indulgence, and veneration, I would, methinks, have this done after an uncommon method, and do not think any one, 'who is not capable of writing a good play, fit < to undertake a work wherein there will neceffarily occur fo many secret instincts, and biaffes of human nature which would pafs unobferved by common eyes. I thank heaven I have no outrageous offence againft my own excellent parents to answer for; but when I am now and ⚫ then alone, and look back upon my paft life, from my earliest infancy to this time, there are many faults which I committed that did not appear to me, even until I myself became a father. I had not until then a notion of the yearnings of heart, which a man has when le fees his child do a laudable thing, or the fudden damp which feizes him when he fears he will act fomething unworthy. It is not to be imagined, what a remorfe touched me for a long train of childish negligences of my mother, when I faw my wife the other day look out of the window, and turn as pale as afhes upon feeing my younger boy fliding upon the ice. Thefe flight intimations will give you to understand, that there are numberlefs little crimes which children take no notice of while they are doing, which, upon reflexion, when they fhall them<felves become fathers, they will look upon with the utmost forrow and contrition, that they did not regard, before thofe whom they offended were to be no more feen. How many thoufand things do I remember, which would have highly pleafed my father, and I omitted for no other reafen, but that I thought what he propofed the effect, of humour and old age, which I am now convinced had reafon and good fenfe in it, I millus knows, being in his favour, is direction " enough to the grateful youth who is to fucceed i him, without the admonition of his mentioning it. Thefe gentlemen are honoured in all their neighbourhood, and the fame effect which the court has on the manners of a kingdom, their characters have on all who live within the infiuence of them. 6 My fon and I are not of fortune to communicate our good actions or intentions to fo many as thefe gentlemen do; but I will be bold to say, my fon has, by the applaufe and approbation which his behaviour towards me has gained him, occafioned that many an old man, befides myfelf, has rejoiced. Other men's children fol low the example of mine, and I have the inex, 'preffible happiness of overhearing our neigh bours, as we ride by, point to their children, and fay, with a voice of joy,, there they ८ indifferent things, and a merit to actions the most infignificant. When we look round the world, and obferve the many misunderstandings which are created by the malice and infinuation of the meaneft fervants between people thus related, how neceffary will it appear that it were inculcated that men would be up· on their guard to fupport a conftancy of affection, and that grounded upon the principles of ⚫ reafon, not the impulfes of inftir &t? It is from the common prejudices which men receive from their parents, that hatreds are kept alive from one generation to another; and when men act by instinct, hatreds will defcend when good offices are forgotten. For the degeneracy of human life is fuch, that our anger is more easily transferred to our children than our love. Love always gives fomething to the object it delights in, and anger fpoils the perfon against whom it is moved of fomething laudable in him from this degeneracy therefore, and a fort of felf-love, we are more prone to 'take up the ill-will of our parents, than to follow them in their friendships. One would think there should need no more to make men keep up this fort of relation with the utmost fanctity, than to examine their own hearts. If every father remembered his own thoughts and inclinations when he was a fon, and every fon remembered what he expected from his father, when he himself was in a ftate of dependence, this one reflexion would pre⚫ ferve men from being diffolute or rigid in thefe feveral capacities. The power and fubjection between them, when broken, make them more • emphatically tyrants and rebels against each other, with greater cruelty of heart, than the difruption of ftates and empires can poffibly produce. I fhall end this application to you with two letters which paffed between a mother and fon very lately, and are as follows: I Dear Frank, the pleasures, which I have the grief to hear you purfue in town, do not take up all your time, do not deny your mother so much of it, as to read feriously this letter. You faid before Mr. Letacre, that an old woman might live very well in the country upon half my jointure, and that your father was a fond fool to give me a rent charge of eight hundred a year to the prejudice of his fon. What Letacre faid to you upon that occafion, you ought to have borne with more decency, as he was your father's well-beloved fervant, than to have called him a country-put. In the first place, Frank, I must tell you, I will have my rent duly paid, for I will make up to your fifters for the partiality I was guilty of, in making your father do fo much as he has done for you. I may, it feems, live upon half my jointure! I lived upon much ¿ lefs, Frank, when I carried you from place to place in thefe arms, and could neither eat, drefs, or mind any thing for feeding and tending you a weakly child, and hedding tears when the convulfions you were then troubled with returned upon you. By my care you out-grew them, to throw away the vigour of your youth in the arms of harlots, and deny your mother what is not your's to detain. Both your fifters are crying to fee the passion which I smother; but if you pleafe to go on thus like a gentleman of the town, and forget all regarde to yourself I've been from age to age, an affectation to love the pleafure of folitude, among those who cannot poflibly be fuppofed qualified for paffing life in that manner. This people have taken up from reading the many agreeable things which have been writ on that fubject, for which we are beholden to excellent perfons who delighted in being retired and abftracted from the pleasures that inchant the generality of the world. This way of life is recommended indeed with great beauty, and in fuch a manner as difpofes the reader for the time to a pleafing forgetfulness, or negligence of the particular hurry of life in which he is engaged, together with a longing for that ftate which he is charmed with in defcription. But when we confider the world itfelf, and how few there are capable of a religious, learned, or Philofophical folitude, we shall be apt to change a regard to that fort of folitude, for being a little fingular in enjoying time after the way a man himself likes beft in the world, without going fo far as wholly to withdraw from it. I have often obferved, there is not a man breathing who does not differ from all other men, as much in the fentiments of his mind, as the features of his face. The felicity is, when any one is fo happy as to find out and follow what is the proper bent of his genius, and turn all his endeavours to exert himfelf according as that prompts him. Instead of this, which is an innocent method of enjoying a man's felf, and turning out of the general tracks wherein you have crouds of rivals, there are thofe who purfue their own way out of a fourness and fpirit of contradiction: these men do every thing which they are able to fupport, as if guilt and im punity could not go together. They choose a thing only because another diflikes it; and affect forfooth an inviolable conftancy in matters of no manner of moment. Thus fometimes an old fellow fhall wear this or that fort of cut in his clothes with great integrity, while allthe rest of the world are degenerated into button, pockets, and loops unknown to their ancestors. As infignificant as even this is, if it were fearded to the bottom, you perhaps would find it not fincere, but that he is in the fashion in his heart and holds out from mere obftinacy. But I an running from from my intended purpofe, which was to celebrate a certain particular manner of paffing away life, and is a contradiction to no man, but a réfolution to contract none of the exorbitant defres by which others are enslaved. The best way of feparating a man's felf from the world, is to give up the defire of being known to it. After a man has preferved his innocence, and performed all duties incumbent upon him, his time spent his own way is what makes his life differ from that of a flave. If they who affect how and pomp knew how many of their spectators derided their trivial tafte, they would be very much lefs elated, and have an inclination to examine the merit of all they have to do with: they would foon find out that there are many who make a figure below what their fortune or merit intitles them to, out of mere choice, and an elegant defire of eafe and difincumbrance. It would look like a romance to tell you in this age of an old man who is contented to pafs for an humourift, and one who does not understand the figure he ought to make in the world, while he lives in a lodging of ten fhillings a week with only one fervant while he dreffes himself according to the feafon in cloth or in stuff, and has no one neceffary attention to any thing but the bell which calls to prayers twice a day. I fay it would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away all which is the overplus of a great fortune, by fecred methods, to other men. If he has not the pomp of a numerous train, and of profeffors of fervice to him, he has every day he lives the confcience that the widow, the fatherless, the mourner, and the ftranger blefs his unfeen hand in their prayers. This humourift gives up all the compliments which people of his own condition could make him, for the pleafures of helping the afflicted, fupplying the needy, and befriending the neglected. This humourift keeps to himself much more than he wants, and gives a vaft refufe of his fuperfluities to purchase heaven, and by freeing others from the temptations of worldly want, to carry a retinue with him thither. : He Of all men who affect living in a particular way, next to this admirable character, I am the moit enamoured of Irus, whofe condition will not admit of fuch largeffes, and who perhaps would not be capable of making them, if it were. Irus, though he is now turned of fifty, has not appeared in the world, in his real character, fince five and twenty, at which age he ran out a small patrimony, and spent fome time after with rakes who had lived upon him a course of ten years time, paffed in all the little alleys, by-paths, and fometimes open taverns and streets of this town, gave Irus a perfect skill in judging of the inclinations of mankind, and acting accordingly. feriously confidered he was poor, and the general horror which moft men have of all who are in that condition. Irus judged very rightly, that while he could keep his poverty a fecret, he fhould not feel the weight of it; he improved this thought into an affectation of clofenefs and covetoufnefs. Upon this one principle he refolved to govern his future life; and in the thirty-fixth year of his age he repaired to Long-lane, and looked upon feveral dreffes which hung there deferted by their first mafters, and expofed to the purchase of the best bidder. At this place he exchanged his gay fhabbiefs of clothes fit for a much younger man, to warm ones that would be decent for a much older one, Irus came out thoroughly equiped from head to foot, with a little oaken cane in the form of a fubftantial man that did not mind his drefs, turned of fifty. He had at this time fifty pounds of ready money; and in this habit, with this fortune, he took his present lodging in St. John's-ftreet, at the mansion-house of a taylor's widow, who washes and can clearftarch his bands. From that time to this he has kept the main stock, without alteration under or over, to the value of five pounds. He left off all his old acquaintance to a man, and all his arts of life, except the play of back-gammon, upon which he has more than bore his charges. Irus has, ever fince he came into this neighbourhood, given all the intimation he skilfully cou d of being a close hunks worth money: no body comes to vifit him, he receives no letters, and tells his money morning and evening. He has, from the public papers, a knowledge of what generally paffes, fhuns all difcourfes of money, but shrugs his fhoulders when you talk of fecurities; he denies his being rich with the air, which all do who are vain of being fo: he is the oracle of a neighbouring juftice of peace, who meets him at the coffeehoufe; the hopes that what he has muft come to fomebody, and that he has no heirs, have that effeet wherever he is known, that he every day has three or four invitations to dine at different places, which he generally takes care to choose in fuch a manner, as not to feem inclined to the richer man. All the young men refpect him, and fay he is just the fame man he was when they were boys. He ufes no artifice in the world, but makes ufe of men's defigns upon him to get a maintenance out of them. This he carries on by a certain peevishness, (which he acts very well) that no one would believe could poffibly enter into the head of a poor fellow. His mien, his drefs, his carriage, and his language are fuch, that you would be at a lofs to guess whether in the active part of his life he had been a fenfible citizen, or scholar that knew the world. These are the great circumftances in the life of Iras, and thus does he pafs away his days a ftranger to mankind; and at his death, the worst that will be faid of him will be, that he got by every man who had expectations from him, more than he had to leave him. I have an inclination to print the following letters; for that I have heard the author of them has fomewhere or other feen me, and by an excellent faculty in mimicry my correspondents tell me he can affume my air, and give my taciturnity a flyness which diverts more than any thing I could fay if I were prefent. Thus I am glad my filence is atoned for to the good company in town. He has carried his skill in imitation fo far, as to have forged a letter from my friend Sir Roger in fuch a manner, that any one but I, who am thoroughly acquainted with him, would have taken it for genuine, |