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ALL the members of the imaginary society, which were described in my first papers, having disappeared one after another, it is high time for the Spectator himself to go off the stage, But now I am to take my leave, I am under much greater anxiety than I have known for the work of any day since I undertook this province. It is much more difficult to converse with the world in a real than a personated character. That might pass for humour in the Spectator, which would look like arrogance in a writer who sets his name to his work. The fictitious person might contemn those who disapproved him, and extol his own performances, without giving offence, He might assume a mock authority, without being looked upon as vain and conceited, The praises or censures of himself fall only upon the creature of his imagination; and, if any one finds fault with him, the author may reply with the philosopher of old, Thou dost but beat the case of Anaxarchus,' When I speak in my own private sentiments, I cannot but address myself to my readers in a more submissive manner, and with a just gratitude for the kind reception which they have given to these daily papers, that have been published for almost the space of two years last past.

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I hope the apology I have made, as to the licence allowable to a feigned character, may excuse any thing which has been said in these discourses of the Spectator and his works; but the imputation of the grossest vanity would still dwell upon me if I did not give some account by what means I was enabled to keep up the spirit of so long and approved a performance, All the papers marked with a C, an L, an I, or an O, that is to say, all the papers which I have distinguished by any letter in the name of the muse Clio, were given me by the gentleman of whose assistance I formerly boasted in the preface and concluding leaf of my Tatlers*, I am indeed much more proud of his long continued friendship, than I should be of the fame of being thought the author of any writings which he himself is capable of producing. I remember, when I finished The Tender Husband, I told him there was nothing I so ardently wished, as that we might some time or other publish a work, written by us both, which should bear the name of The Monument, in memory of our friendship. I heartily wish what I have done here was as honorary to that sacred name, as learning, wit, and humanity, render those pieces which I have taught the reader how to distinguish for his. When the play abovementioned was last acted, there were so many applauded strokes in it which I had from the same hand, that I thought very meanly of myself that I have never publicly acknowledged them. After I have put other friends upon importuning him to publish dramatic as well as other writings he has by him, I shall end what I think I am obliged to say on this head, by giving my reader this hint for the better judging of my productions-that the best comment upon them would be an account when the

• Addison,

patron to The Tender IIusband was in England abroad.

The reader will also find some papers which marked with the letter X, for which he is abt gs. to the ingenious gentleman who diverted the on with the epilogue to The Distressed Mother | might have owned these several papers with free consent of these gentlemen, who did not wh them with a design of being known for the But, as a candid and sincere behaviour out to preferred to all other considerations, I would ing let my heart reproach me with a consciones d having acquired a praise which is not my right

The other assistances which I have had have be conveyed by letter, sometimes by whole paper, and other times by short hints from unknown b I have not been able to trace favours of thə ki with any certainty, but to the following which I place in the order wherein I received te obligation, though the first I am going to darreE hardly be mentioned in a list wherein he would deserve the precedence. The persons to whan i am to make these acknowledgments are Mr. Heav Martyn+, Mr. Pope, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Carey d New-college in Oxford, Mr. Tickell of Queenia the same university, Mr. Parnelle, and Mr. Endet. of Trinity in Cambridge. Thus, to speak in t language of my late friend, Sir Andrew Freep I have balanced my accounts with all my credia for wit and learning. But as these excellent per formances would not have seen the light wines the means of this paper, I may still arrogate i myself the merit of their being communicated the public.

I have nothing more to add, but, having swel this work to five hundred and fifty-five pap they will be disposed into seven volumes, four a which are already published, and the three on in the press. It will not be demanded of me va I now leave off, though I must own myself ties to give an account to the town of my time here after; since I retire when their partiality to es so great, that an edition of the former volumes e Spectators, of above ni..e thousand each book, a already sold off, and the tax on each half she has brought into the stamp-office, one week w another, above 201. a week arising from this nɛic paper, notwithstanding it at first reduced it to les than half the number that was usually printed fore this tax was laid.

I humbly beseech the continuance of this nation to favour what I may hereafter produx, and hope I have in my occurrences of life tastes s deeply of pain and sorrow, that I am proof much more prosperous circumstances than any as vantages to which my own industry call pos exalt me.

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The following letter regards an ingenious set of gentlemen, who have done me the honour to make ne one of their society.

MR. SPECTATOR,

'Dec. 4, 1712.

THE academy of painting lately established in London, having done you and themselves the honour to choose you one of their directors; that noble and lively art, which before was entitled to your egard as a Spectator, has an additional claim to ou, and you seem to be under a double obligation to take some care of her interests.

'The honour of our country is also concerned in the matter I am going to lay before you. We (and perhaps other nations as well as we) have a national false humility as well as a national vain glory; and, though we boast ourselves to excel all the world in things wherein we are outdone abroad, in other things we attribute to others a superiority, which we ourselves possess. This is what is done, particularly in the art of portrait or face-paintng.

Painting is an art of a vast extent, too great by much for any mortal man to be in full possession of in all its parts; it is enough if any one succeed in painting faces, history, battles, landscapes, seapieces, fruit, flowers, or drolls, &c. Nay, no man ever was excellent in all the branches (though many in number) of these several arts, for a distinct art I take upon me to call every one of those several kinds of painting.

And as one man may be a good landscape painter, but unable to paint a face or a history tolerably well, and so of the rest; one nation may excel in some kinds of painting, and other kinds may thrive better in other climates.

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Italy may have the preference of all other nations for history-painting; Holland for drolls, and a near finished manner of working; France for ray, janty, fluttering pictures; and England for portraits: but to give the honour of every one of these kinds of painting to any one of those nations on account of their excellence in any of these parts of it, is like adjudging the prize of heroic, dramatic, lyric, or burlesque poetry, to him who has done well in any one of them.

'Where there are the greatest geniuses, and most helps and encouragements, it is reasonable to suppose an art will arrive to the greatest perfection: by this rule let us consider our own country with espect to face-painting. No nation in the world delights so much in having their own, or friends or relations pictures; whether from their national good-nature, or having a love to painting, and not being encouraged in the great article of religious pictures, which the purity of our worship refuses the free use of, or from whatever other cause. Our helps are not inferior to those of any other people, but rather they are greater; for what the antique statues and bas reliefs which Italy enjoys are to the history-painters, the beautiful and noble faces with which England is confessed to abound

are to face-painters; and, besides, we have the greatest number of the works of the best masters in that kind of any people, not without a compe tent number of those of the most excellent in every other part of painting. And for encouragement, the wealth and generosity of the English nation affords that in such a degree as artists have no reas son to complain.

And accordingly, in fact, face-painting is no where so well performed as in England: I know not whether it has lain in your way to observe it, but I have, and pretend to be a tolerable judge. I have seen what is done abroad; and can assure you that the honour of that branch of painting is justly due to us. I appeal to the judicious obs servers for the truth of what I assert. If foreigners have often times, or even for the most part, excelled our natives, it ought to be imputed to the advantages they have met with here, joined to their own ingenuity and industry; nor has any one na tion distinguished themselves so as to raise an ar gument in favour of their country: but it is to be observed, that neither French nor Italians, nor any one of either nation, notwithstanding all our pre judices in their favour, have, or ever had, for any considerable time, any character among us as faces painters.

This honour is due to our own country, and has been so for near an age: so that, instead of going to Italy, or elsewhere, one that designs for por trait-painting ought to study in England. Hither such should come from Holland, France, Italy, Germany, &c. as he that intends to practise any other kinds of painting should go to those parts where it is in the greatest perfection. It is said the Blessed Virgin descended from heaven to sit to St. Luke. I dare venture to affirm, that if she should desire another Madonna to be painted by the life, she would come to England; and am of opi nion that your present president, Sir Godfrey Knel ler, from his improvement since he arrived in this kingdom, would perform that office better than any foreigner living. I am, with all possible res spect,

'SIR,

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THE

SPECTATOR.

VOL. VIII.

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ΤΟ

WILLIAM HONEYCOMB, ESQ.*

TAE seven former volumes of the 8pectator having been dedicated to some of the most celebrated persons of the age, I take leave to inscribe this eighth and last to you, as to a gentleman who hath ever been ambitious of appearing in the best

company.

You are now wholly retired from the busy part of mankind, and at leisure to reflect upon your past achievements; for which reason I look upon you as a person very well qualified for a dedica

tion.

titudes of aspiring young men fall short of you s all these beauties of your character, notwith ing the study and practice of them is the wh business of their lives. But I need not teli ya that the free and disengaged behaviour of a gentleman makes as many aukward beaux, a t easiness of your favourite Waller hath made sipid poets.

At present you are content to aim all yer charms at your own spouse, without further thongs of mischief to any others of the sex. I know had formerly a very great contempt for that p dantic race of mortals who call themselves ph ́› sophers; and yet, to your honour be it spoke there is not a sage of them all could have beracted up to their precepts in one of the most in I may possibly disappoint my readers, and your-portant points of life: I mean, in that genersa self too, if I do not endeavour on this occasion to make the world acquainted with your virtues. And here, sir, I shall not compliment you upon your birth, person, or fortune; nor any other the like perfections which you possess, whether you will or no but shall only touch upon those which are of your own acquiring, and in which every one must allow you have a real merit.

disregard of popular opinion which you showes some years ago, when you chose for your wife a obscure young woman, who doth not indeed pre tend to an ancient family, but has certainly as mary forefathers as any lady in the land, if she coul but reckon up their names.

I must own, I conceived very extraordinary hopes of you from the moment that you confesse Your janty air and easy motion, the volubility your age, and from eight-and-forty (where you of your discourse, the suddenness of your laugh, had stuck so many years) very ingenuously stepped the management of your snuff-box, with the white-into your grand climacteric. Your deportmen ness of your hands and teeth (whịch have justly has since been very venerable and becoming, l' gained you the envy of the most polite part of the I am rightly informed, you make a regular sppearmale world, and the love of the greatest beauties ance every quarter-sessions among your brothes in the female) are entirely to be ascribed to your of the quorum; and, if things go on as they do, own personal genius and application. stand fair for being a colonel of the militis. am told that your time passes away as agreeably in the amusements of a country life, as it ever áð in the gallantries of the town; and that you 207 take as much pleasure in the planting of young trees, as you did formerly in the cutting down of your old ones. In short, we hear from all has that you are thoroughly reconciled to your dirty acres, and have not too much wit to look s

You are formed for these accomplishments by a happy turn of nature, and have finished yourself in them by the utmost improvements of art. A man that is defective in either of these qualifications (whatever may be the secret ambition of his heart), must never hope to make the figure you have done, among the fashionable part of his species. It is therefore no wonder we see such mul

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After having spoken thus much of my patron, I must take the privilege of an author in saying something of myself. I shall therefore beg leave to add, that I have purposely omitted setting those marks to the end of every paper, which appeared in my former volumes, that you may have an opportunity of showing Mrs. Honeycomb the shrewdness of your conjectures, by ascribing every speculation to its proper author: though you know how often many profound critics in style and sentiments have very judiciously erred in this particular, before they were let into the secret.

'I am, SIR,

"Your most faithful

'humble servant,
THE SPECTATOR *.'

THE

BOOKSELLER TO THE READER.

In the 632d Spectator the Reader will find an account of the rise of this eighth and last volume +. I have not been able to prevail upon the several gentlemen who were concerned in this work to let me acquaint the world with their names. Perhaps it will be unnecessary to inform the Reader, that no other papers which have appeared under the title of Spectator, since the closing of this eighth volume, were written by any of those gentlemen who had a hand in this or the former volumes.

* This dedication has been attributed to Budgell.

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+ After the Spectator had been discontinued about eighteen months, during which time the "Guardian," and the "Englishman," were published, an attempt was made to revive it, at a time,' says Dr. Johnson, by no means favourable to literature, when the succession of a new family to the throne

filled the nation with anxiety, discord, and confusion; and either the turbulence of the times, or the satiety of the readers, put a stop to the publication after an experiment of eighty numbers, which were afterwards collected into an 8th volume, perhaps more valuable than any one of those that went before it. Addison produced more than a fourth

part; and the other contributors are by no means unworthy of appearing as his associates. The time that had passed during the suspension of the Spectator, though it had not lessened his power of humour, seems to have increased his disposition to seriousness: the proportion of his religious to his comic papers is greater than in the former series. The Spectator, from its recommencement, was published only three times a week, and no discriminative marks were added to the

papers. To Addison, Tickell has ascribed 23; Nos. 556, 557, 558, 559, 561, 562, 565, 567, 568, 569, 571, 574, 575, 579, 580, 582, 583, 584, 585, 590, 592, 598, and 600.' Johnson's Lives of English Poets, vol. ii. p. 345, 8vo. edit. 1794.

N° 556. FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1714.

Qualis ubi in lucem coluber mala gramina pastus
Frigida sub terra tumidum quem bruma tegebat;
Nunc positis novus exuviis, nitidusque juventa,
Lubrica convolvit sublato pectore terga
Arduus ad solem, et linguis micat ore trisulcis.
VIRG. Æn. ii. ver. 471.

So shines, renew'd in youth, the crested snake,
Who slept the winter in a thorny brake;
And, casting off his slough when spring returns,
Now looks aloft, and with new glory burns:
Restor'd with pois'nous herbs, his ardent sides
Reflect the sun, and rais'd on spires he rides;
High o'er the grass hissing he rolls along,
And brandishes by fits his forky tongue.
DRYDEN.

U

PON laying down the office of Spectator, I acquainted the world with my design of electing a new club, and of opening my mouth in it after a most solemn manner. Both the election and the ceremony are now past; but not finding it so easy, as I at first imagined, to break through a fifty years silence, I would not venture into the world under the character of a man who pretends to talk like other people, till I had arrived at a full freedom of speech.

I shall reserve for another time the history of such club or clubs of which I am now a talkative, but unworthy member; and shall here give an account of this surprising change which has been produced in me, and which I look upon to be as remarkable an accident as any recorded in history, since that which happened to the son of Croesus, after having been many years as much tongue-tied as myself.

Upon the first opening of my mouth I made a speech, consisting of about half a dozen wellturned periods; but grew so very hoarse upon it, that for three days together, instead of finding the use of my tongue, I was afraid that I had quite lost it. Besides, the unusual extension of my muscles on this occasion made my face ache on both sides to such a degree, that nothing but an invincible resolution and perseverance could have prevented me from falling back to my monosyllables.

I afterwards made several essays towards speaking; and that I might not be startled at my own voice, which has happened to me more than once, I used to read aloud in my chamber, and have often stood in the middle of the street to call a coach, when I knew there was none within hearing.

When I was thus grown pretty well acquainted with my own voice, I laid hold of all opportunities to exert it. Not caring however to speak much by myself, and to draw upon me the whole attention of those I conversed with, I used for some time to walk every morning in the Mall, and found my modesty greatly relieved by the commutalk in chorus with a parcel of Frenchmen. nicative temper of this nation, who are so very sociable as to think they are never better company than when they are all opening at the same

time.

I

I then fancied I might receive great benefit from female conversation, and that I should have a convenience of talking with the greater freedom when I was not under any impediment of thinking: I therefore threw myself into an assembly of ladies, but could not for my life get in a word among them: and found that if I did not change my com pany, I was in danger of being reduced to my primitive taciturnity.

The coffee-houses have ever since been my chief places of resort, where I have made the greatest improvements; in order to which I have taken a particular care never to be of the same of opinion with the man I conversed with. I was a tory at Button's, and a whig at Child's, a friend to the Englishman, or an advocate for the Examiner, as it best served my turn: some fancy me a great enemy to the French king, though in reality I only make use of him for a help to discourse. In short, I wrangle and dispute for exercise; and have carried this point so far, that I was once like to have been run through the body for making a little too free with my betters.

greater height, that, on the contrary, it
the chief tendency of my papers to ingewe
countrymen with a mutual good-will and brea
lence. Whatever faults either party may be par
of, they are rather inflamed than cured by de
reproaches which they cast upon one another, a
most likely method of rectifying any man's
duct is, by recommending to him the prince
truth and honour, religion and virtue; and soap
as he acts with an eye to these principles, who
ever party he is of, he cannot fail of being am
Englishman, and a lover of his country.
As for the persons concerned in this work, te
names of all of them, or at least of such as des

In a word, I am quite another man to what I it, shall be published hereafter; till which tel

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HOR. Sat. iii. 1. 1. ver. 18.
Nothing was ever so unlike itself.'

My old acquaintance scarce know me; nay, I was asked the other day by a Jew at Jonathan's, whether I was not related to a dumb gentleman,

who used to come to that coffee-house? But I think I never was better pleased in my life than about a week ago, when, as I was battling it across the table with a young Templar, his companion gave him a pall by the sleeve, begging him to come away, for that the old prig would talk him to death.

Being now a very good proficient in discourse, I shall appear in the world with this addition to my character, that my countrymen may reap the fruits of my new-acquired loquacity.

must intreat the curious reader to suspend his car sity, and rather to consider what is written on who they are that write it.

Having thus adjusted all necessary preliminar with my reader, I shall not trouble him with y more prefatory discourses, but procced in my method, and entertain him with speculation every useful subject that falls in my way.

ADDISON.

N° 557. MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1714.

Quippe domum timet ambiguam, Tyrinque bil
VIRG. En. i. Ve, tà
He fears th' ambiguous race, and Tyrians double-top

THERE is nothing,' says Plato, so delightful a the hearing or the speaking of truth. For th reason there is no conversation so agreeable as f of the man of integrity, who hears without any tention to betray, and speaks without any istest na to deceive.

Those who have been present at public disputes in the university, know that it is usual to maintain heresies for argument-sake. I have heard a man a most impudent Socinian for half an hour, who has been an orthodox divine all his life after. I have taken the same method to accomplish myself in the gift of utterance, having talked above a twelvemonth, not so much for the benefit of my hearers, as of myself. But, since I have now gained the faculty I have been so long endeavouring after, I intend to make a right use of it, and shall think myself obliged for the future to speak always in truth and sincerity of heart. While a man is learn-required the testimony of two persons: upon wid ing to fence, he practises both on friend and foe; but when he is a master in the art, he never exerts it but on what he thinks the right side.

That this last allusion may not give my reader a wrong idea of my design in this paper, I must here inform him, that the author of it is of no faction; that he is a friend to no interests but those of truth and virtue; nor a foe to any but those of vice and folly. Though I make more noise in the world than I used to do, I am still resolved to act in it as an indifferent Spectator. It is not my ambition to increase the number either of whigs or tories, but of wise and good men; and I could heartily wish there were not faults common to both parties, which afford me sufficient matter to work upon, without descending to those which are pe

culiar to either.

If in a multitude of counsellors there is safety, we ought to think ourselves the securest nation in the world. Most of our garrets are inhabited by statesmen, who watch over the liberties of their country, and make a shift to keep themselves from starving, by taking into their care the properties of their fellow-subjects.

As these politicians of both sides have already worked the nation into a most unnatural ferment, I shall be so far from endeavouring to raise it to a

Among all the accounts which are given of Ca I do not remember one that more redounds to a honour than the following passage related by Pe tarch. As an advocate was pleading the came his client before one of the prætors, he could ! produce a single witness in a point where the

the advocate insisted on the integrity of that pe son whom he had produced; but the prætor him, that where the law required two witnesses would not accept of one, though it were Calo self. Such a speech from a person who sat at the head of a court of justice while Cato was s living, shows us, more than a thousand examples the high reputation this great man had gre among his contemporaries upon the account of sincerity.

When such an inflexible integrity is a liste softened and qualified by the rules of conversat and good-breeding, there is not a more virtue in the whole catalogue of social duties. A man however ought to take great care not to podał himself out of his veracity, nor to refine his bestur viour to the prejudice of his virtue.

This subject is exquisitely treated in the m elegant sermon of the great British preacher. shall beg leave to transcribe out of it two or the sentences, as a proper introduction to a very can rious letter, which I shall make the chef esas tainment of this speculation.

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The old English plainness and sincerity, th generous integrity of nature, and honesty af

Archbishop Tillotson, fulio edit. vol. xi, 16530 ›

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