" nauseous impertinences which are written on these 'occasions, and to see the silly creatures sighing 6 over them, it could not but be matter of mirth as well as pity. A little 'prentice girl of mine has 'been for some time applied to by an Irish fellow, 'who dresses very fine, and struts in a laced coat, ⚫ and is the admiration of sempstresses who are under age in town. Ever since I have had some knowledge of the matter, I have debarred my 'prentice 'from pen, ink, and paper. But the other day he bespoke some cravats of me: I went out of the shop and left his mistress to put them up into a bandbox in order to be sent to him when his man 'called. When I came into the shop again, I took 'occasion to send her away, and found in the bottom ❝ of the box written these words, "Why would you ruin a harmless creature that loves you?" then in "the lid, "There is no resisting Strephon:" I search⚫ed a little farther, and found in the rim of the box, "At eleven o'clock at night come in an hackney "coach at the end of our street." This was enough ⚫ to alarm me; I sent away the things, and took my measures accordingly. An hour or two before the appointed time I examined my young lady, and found her trunk stuffed with impertinent letters, ' and an old scroll of parchment in Latin, which her 'lover had sent her as a settlement of fifty pounds a year: among other things, there was also the 'best lace I had in my shop to make him a present 'for cravats. I was very glad of this last circum" stance, because I could very conscientiously swear • against him that he had enticed my servant away, and was her accomplice in robbing me: I procured a warrant against him accordingly. Every thing was now prepared, and the tender hour of love approaching, I, who had acted for myself in my youth 'the same senseless part, knew how to manage accordingly; therefore, having locked up my maid,

' and not being so much unlike her in height and 'shape, as in a huddled way not to pass for her, I ' delivered the bundle designed to be carried off to her lover's man, who came with the signal to re'ceive them. Thus I followed after to the coach, ' where when I saw his master take them in, I cried ' out Thieves! thieves! and the constable with his ' attendants seized my expecting lover. I kept myself unobserved until I saw the crowd sufficiently increased, and then appeared to declare the goods to be mine and had the satisfaction to see my man ' of mode put into the Round-House, with the stolen 'wares by him, to be produced in evidence against ' him the next morning. This matter is notoriously 'known to be fact; and I have been contented to 'save my 'prentice, and take a year's rent of this ' mortified lover, not to appear farther in the matter. This was some penance: but, Sir, is this enough for a villany of much more pernicious consequence than the trifles for which he was to have been in'dicted? Should not you, and all men of any parts 6 or honour, put things upon so right a foot, as that such a rascal should not laugh at the imputation of 'what he was really guilty, and dread being accused of that for which he was arrested?

In a word, Sir, it is in the power of you, and such -" as I hope you are, to make it as infamous to rob a 6 poor creature of her honour as her clothes. I leave

this to your consideration, only take leave (which I 'cannot do without sighing) to remark to you, that if this had been the sense of mankind thirty years ago, I should have avoided a life spent in poverty

and shame.

'I am, Sir,

• Your most humble servant, ALICE THREADNEEDLE.'

Round-House, Sept. 9.

• Mr. Spectator,

I AM a man of pleasure about town, but by the stupidity of a dull rogue of a justice of peace, and • an insolent constable, upon the oath of an old harridan, am imprisoned here for theft, when I design'ed only fornication. The midnight magistrate, as 'he conveyed me along, had you in his mouth, and 'said, this would make a pure story for the Spectator. I hope, Sir, you will not pretend to wit, and take the part of dull rogues of business. The world is < so altered of late years, that there was not a man who would knock down a watchman in my behalf, but I was carried off with as much triumph as if I had been a pick-pocket. At this rate, there is an • end of all the wit and humour in the world. The 'time was when all the honest whore-masters in the 'neighbourhood would have rose against the cuckolds to my rescue. If fornication is to be scandalous, half the fine things that have been writ by most of the wits of the last age may be burnt by the common ' hangman. Harkee, Spec, do not be queer; after ' having done some things pretty well, do not begin to write at that rate no gentleman can read thee. Be 'true to love, and burn your Seneca. You do not exเ pect me to write my name from hence, but I am, • Your unknown humble, &c.

No. CLXXXIII. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29.

δμεν ψεύδεα πολλά λεγειν έτύμοισιν ομοία Ιδμεν δ ̓ εὖτ ̓ ἐέθλωμεν, ἀληθέα μυθὴσσαθαι.

Sometimes fair truth in fiction we disguise,
Sometimes present her naked to men's eyes.

HESIOD.

FABLES were the first pieces of wit that made their appearance in the world, and have been still highly valued, not only in times of the greatest simplicity, but among the most polite ages of mankind. Jotham's fable of the trees is the oldest that is extant, and as beautiful as any which have been made since that time. Nathan's fable of the poor man and his lamb is likewise more ancient than any that is extant, besides the above-mentioned, and had so good an effect, as to convey instruction to the ear of a king without offending it, and to bring the man after God's own heart to a right sense of his guilt and his duty. We find Esop in the most distant ages of Greece; and if we look into the very beginning of the commonwealth of Rome, we see a mutiny among the common people appeased by a fable of the belly and the limbs, which was indeed very proper to gain the attention of an incensed rabble, at a time when perhaps they would have torn to pieces any man who had preached the same doctrine to them in an open and direct manner. As fables took their birth in the very infancy of learning, they never flourished more than when learning was at its greatest height. To justify this assertion, I shall put my reader in mind of Horace, the greatest wit and critic in the Augustan age; and of Boileau, the most correct poet among the moderns: not to mention La Fontaine, who by

this way of writing is come more into vogue than any other author of our times.

The fables I have here mentioned are raised altogether upon brutes and vegetables, with some of our own species mixt among them, when the moral hath so required. But besides this kind of fable, there is another in which the actors are passions, virtues, vices, and other imaginary persons of the like nature. Some of the ancient critics will have it, that the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer are fables of this nature; and that the several names of gods and heroes are nothing else but the affections of the mind in a visible shape and character. Thus they tell us, that Achilles, in the first Iliad, represents anger, or the irascible part of human nature; that upon drawing his sword against his superior in a full assembly, Pallas is only anothername for reason, which checks and advises him upon that occasion; and at her first appearance touches him upon the head, that part of the man being looked upon as the seat of reason. And thus of the rest of the poem. As for the Odyssey, I think it is plain that Horace considered it as one of these allegorical fables, by the moral which he has given us of several parts of it. The greatest Italian wits have applied themselves to the writing of this latter kind of fables: as Spenser's Fairy Queen is one continued series of them, from the beginning to the end of that admirable work. If we look into the finest prose authors of antiquity, such as Cicero, Plato, Xenophon, and many others, we shall find that this was likewise their favourite kind of fable. I shall only farther observe upon it, that the first of this sort that made any considerable figure in the world was that of Hercules meeting with pleasure and virtue; which was invented by Prodicus, who lived before Socrates, and in the first dawnings of philosophy. He used to travel through Greece by virtue of this fable, which procured him a kind reception in all the market-towns,