good services, but represent our mirth and the genealogies of great families were often freedom by the words wantonness and dis-drawn up in the shape of trees, had taken a fancy to dispose of his own illegitimate issue in a figure of the same kind: order. That in all families where there are spies, there is a general jealousy and misunderstanding. "That the masters and mistresses of such houses live in continual suspicion of their ingenuous and true servants, and are given up to the management of those who are false and perfidious. -Nec longum tempus et ingens And in short space the laden boughs arise, With happy fruit advancing to the skies; The mother plant admires the leaves unknown Of alien trees, and apples not her own.-Dryden. 'That such masters and mistresses who entertain spies, are no longer more than The trunk of the tree was marked with cyphers in their own families; and that we his own name, Will Maple. Out of the your petitioners are with great disdain side of it grew a large barren branch, inobliged to pay all our respect, and expect scribed Mary Maple, the name of his unall our maintenance from such spies. happy wife. The head was adorned with Your petitioners therefore most hum-five huge boughs. On the bottom of the bly pray, that you would represent the premises to all persons of condition; and your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall for ever pray,' &c. T. No. 203.] Tuesday, October 23, 1711. Illustrious parent! if I yet may claim first was written in capital characters Kate Cole, who branched out into three sprigs, viz. William, Richard, and Rebecca. Sal Twiford gave birth to another bough, that shot up into Sarah, Tom, Will, and Frank. The third arm of the tree had only a single infant on it, with a space left for a second; the parent from whom it sprung being near her time when the author took this ingenious device into his head. The two other great boughs were very plentifully loaden with fruit of the same kind; besides which there were many ornamental branches that did not bear. In short, a more flourishing tree never came out of the herald's office. THERE is a loose tribe of men whom I have not yet taken notice of, that ramble What makes this generation of vermin into all the corners of this great city, in so very prolific, is the indefatigable diliorder to seduce such unfortunate females gence with which they apply themselves as fall into their walks. These abandoned to their business. A man does not undergo profligates raise up issue in every quarter of more watchings and fatigues in a camthe town, and very often, for a valuable paign, than in the course of a vicious amour. consideration, father it upon the church-As it is said of some men, that they make warden. By this means there are several married men who have a little family in most of the parishes of London and Westminster, and several bachelors who are undone by a charge of children. their business their pleasure, these sons of darkness may be said to make their pleasure their business. They might conquer their corrupt inclinations with half the pains they are at in gratifying them. Nor is the invention of these men less to be admired than their industry and vigilance. There is a fragment of Apollodorus the comic poet (who was contemporary with Menander) which is full of humour, as follows: Thou mayest shut up thy doors,' says he, with bars and bolts. It will be impossible for the blacksmith to make them so fast, but a cat and a whoremaster will find a way through them.' In a word, there is no head so full of stratagems as that of a libidinous man. When a man once gives himself this liberty of preying at large, and living upon the common, he finds so much game in a populous city, that it is surprising to consider the numbers which he sometimes propagates. We see many a young fellow who is scarce of age, that could lay his claim to the jus trium liberorum, or the privileges which were granted by the Roman laws, to all such as were fathers of three children. Nay, I have heard a rake, who was not quite five-and-twenty, declare himself the father of a seventh son, and Were I to propose a punishment for this very prudently determine to breed him up infamous race of propagators, it should be a physician. In short, the town is full of to send them, after the second or third ofthese young patriarchs, not to mention fence, into our American colonies, in order several battered beaux, who like heed- to people those parts of her majesty's less spendthrifts that squander away their dominions where there is a want of inhaestates before they are masters of them, bitants, and, in the phrase of Diogenes, to have raised up their whole stock of chil-plant men.' Some countries punish this dren before marriage. I must not here omit the particular whim of an impudent libertine, that had a little smattering of heraldry; and observing how crime with death; but I think such a banishment would be sufficient, and might turn this generative faculty to the advantage of the public. In the mean time, until these gentlemen | tinual anxiety for my future fortune, and may be thus disposed of, I would earnestly under a great unhappiness in losing the exhort them to take care of those unfortu- sweet conversation and friendly advice of nate creatures whom they have brought my parents; so that I cannot look upon myinto the world by these indirect methods, self otherwise than as a monster, strangely and to give their spurious children such an sprung up in nature, which every one is education as may render them more virtu- ashamed to own. ous than their parents. This is the best atonement they can make for their own crimes, and indeed the only method that is left them to repair their past miscarriages. I would likewise desire them to consider, whether they are not bound in common humanity, as well as by all the obligations of religion and nature, to make some provision for those whom they have not only given life to, but entailed upon them, though very unreasonably, a degree of shame and disgrace. And here I cannot but take notice of those depraved notions which prevail among us, and which must have taken rise from our natural inclination to favour a vice to which we are so very prone, namely, that bastardy and cuckoldom should be looked upon as reproaches; and that the ignominy which is only due to lewdness and falsehood, should fall in so unreasonable a manner upon the persons who are innocent. I have been insensibly drawn into this discourse by the following letter, which is drawn up with such a spirit of sincerity, that I question not but the writer of it has represented his case in a true and genuine light. 'SIR,-I am one of those people who by the general opinion of the world are counted both infamous and unhappy. 'My father is a very eminent man in this kingdom, and one who bears considerable offices in it. I am his son, but my misfortune is, that I dare not call him father, nor he without shame own me as his issue, I being illegitimate, and therefore deprived of that endearing tenderness and unparalleled satisfaction which a good man finds in the love and conversation of a parent. Neither have I the opportunities to render him the duties of a son, he having always carried himself at so vast a distance, and with such superiority towards me, that by long use I have contracted a timorousness when before him, which hinders me from declaring my own necessities, and giving him to understand the inconveniences I undergo. "It is my misfortune to have been neither bred a scholar, a soldier, nor to any kind of Dusiness, which renders me entirely incapable of making provision for myself without his assistance; and this creates a continual uneasiness in my mind, fearing I shall in time want bread; my father, if I may so call him, giving me but very faint assurances of doing any thing for me. 'I have hitherto lived somewhat like a gentleman, and it would be very hard for me to labour for my living. I am in con 'I am thought to be a man of some natural parts, and by the continual reading what you have offered the world, become an admirer thereof, which has drawn me to make this confession; at the same time hoping, if any thing herein shall touch you with a sense of pity, you would then allow me the favour of your opinion thereupon; as also what part I, being unlawfully born, may claim of the man's affection who begot me, and how far in your opinion I am to be thought his son, or he acknowledged as my father. Your sentiments and advice herein will be a great consolation and satisfaction to, sir, your admirer, &c. C. 'W. B.' No. 204.] Wednesday, October 24, 1711. Et vultus nimium lubricus aspici. The I AM not at all displeased that I am become the courier of love, and that the distressed in that passion convey their complaints to each other by my means. following letters have lately come to my hands, and shall have their place with great willingness. As to the reader's entertainment, he will, I hope, forgive the inserting such particulars as to him may perhaps seem frivolous, but are to the persons who wrote them of the highest consequence. I shall not trouble you with the prefaces, compliments, and apologies made to me before each epistle when it was desired to be inserted; but in general they tell me, that the persons to whom they are addressed have intimations, by phrases and allusions in them, from whence they came. *The following is Mr. Chalmers's excellent definition of the meaning of this significant word. written Sothades) signifies the most refined, most ten"The Portuguese word Saudades (here inaccurately der and ardent desires for something absent, accompanied with a solicitude and anxious regard, which cannot be expressed by one word in any other language. 'Saudade, say the dictionaries, significa, Finissimo sentimiento del bien ansente, com desco de posseerlo. Hence, the word Saudades comprehends every good wish and Muitas Sausades is the highest wish and compliment that can be paid to another. So, if a per son is observed to be melancholy, and is asked 'What ails him? if he answers, Tenho Sausades, it is understood to mean, I am under the most refined torment for the absence of my love; or from being absent from my country,' &c." am sure you should never have known but by inadvertency, what my eyes said was true. But it is too soon to confirm it with my hand, therefore shall not subscribe my name.' 'SIR,-There were other gentlemen under to take up that flippant creature's nearer, and I know no necessity you were fan, last night; but you shall never touch a stick of mine more, that's pos. 'PHILLIS.' lively image of the tender regard I have for | Since you have the secret at last, which I you. The Spectator's late letter from Statira gave me the hint to use the same method of explaining myself to you. I am not affronted at the design your late behaviour discovered you had in your addresses to me; but I impute it to the degeneracy of the age, rather than your particular fault. As I aim at nothing more than being yours, I am willing to be a stranger to your name, your fortune, or any figure which your wife might expect to make in the world, provided my commerce with you is not to be a guilty one. I resign gay dress, the pleasures of visits, equipage, plays, balls, and operas, for that one satisfaction of having you for ever mine. I am willing you shall industriously conceal the only cause of triumph which I can know in this life. I wish only to have it my duty, as well as my inclination, to study your happiness. If this has not the effect this letter seems to aim at, you are to understand that I had a mind to be rid of you, and took the readiest way to pall you with an offer of what you would never desist pursuing while you received ill usage. Be a true man; be my slave while you doubt me, and neglect me when you think I love you. I defy you to find out what is your present circumstance with me; but I know while I can keep this suspense, I am your admired, BELINDA.' "To Colonel R-s in Spain. "Before this can reach the best of husbands and the fondest lover, those tender names will be of no more concern to me. The indisposition in which you, to obey the dictates of your honour and duty, left me, has increased upon me; and I am acquainted by my physicians I cannot live a week longer. At this time my spirits fail me; and it is the ardent love I have for you that carries me beyond my strength, and enables me to tell you, the most painful thing in the prospect of death is, that I must part with you. But let it be a comfort to you, that I have no guilt hangs upon me, no unrepented folly that retards me; but I pass away my last hours in reflection upon the happiness we have lived in together, and in sorrow that it is so soon to have an end. This is a frailty which I hope is so far from criminal, that methinks there is a kind of piety in being so unwilling to be separated from a state which is the institution of heaven, and in which we have lived according to its laws. As we know no more of the next life, but that it will be an happy one why may we not please ourselves at least to the good, and miserable to the wicked, to alleviate the difficulty of resigning this 'MADAM,-It is a strange state of mind a man is in, when the very imperfections of a woman he loves turns into excellences and advantages. I do assure you, I am very much afraid of venturing upon you. I now like you in spite of my reason, and think it an ill circumstance to owe one's happiness to nothing but infatuation. I can see you ogle all the young fellows who look at you, and observe your eye wander after new conquests every moment you are in a pub-being, in imagining that we shall have a lic place; and yet there is such a beauty in sense of what passes below, and may possiall your looks and gestures, that I cannot bly be employed in guiding the steps of but admire you in the very act of endea- those with whom we walked with innovouring to gain the hearts of others. My cence when mortal? Why may not I hope condition is the same with that of the lover to go on in my usual work, and, though unin the Way of the World. I have studied known to you, be assistant in all the conflicts of your mind? Give me leave to say your faults so long, that they are become as familiar to me, and I like them as well as I to you, O best of men, that I cannot figure do my own. Look to it, madam, and con- to myself a greater happiness than in such sider whether you think this gay behaviour an employment. To be present at all the will appear to me as amiable when an hus-adventures to which human life is exposed, to administer slumber to thy eyelids in the band, as it does now to me a lover. Things agonies of a fever, to cover thy beloved are so far advanced, that we must proceed; and I hope you will lay to heart, that it will face in the day of battle, to go with thee a be becoming in me to appear still your where I have longed to attend thee when a guardian angel incapable of wound or pain, lover, but not in you to be still my mistress. Gaiety in the matrimonial life is graceful weak, a fearful woman: these, my dear, are the thoughts with which I warm my in one sex, but exceptionable in the other. As you improve these little hints, you will poor languid heart. But indeed I am not ascertain the happiness or uneasiness of, capable, under my present weakness, of madam, your most obedient, most humble bearing the strong agonies of mind I fall into, when I form to myself the grief you T. D.' will be in, upon your first hearing of my departure. I will not dwell upon this, because your kind and generous heart will be but the more afflicted, the more the person servant, 'SIR,-When I sat at the window, and you at the other end of the room by my cousin, I saw you catch me looking at you. for whom you lament offers you consolation. | plain that those your discourses are calcuMy last breath will, if I am myself, expire lated for none but the fashionable part of in a prayer for you. I shall never see thy womankind, and for the use of those who face again. Farewell for ever. T. No. 205.] Thursday, October 25, 1711. Decipimur specie recti Hor. Ars Poet, v. 25. Deluded by a seeming excellence. are rather indiscreet than vicious. But, sir, there is a sort of prostitutes in the lower part of our sex, who are a scandal to us, and very well deserve to fall under your censure. I know it would debase your paper too much to enter into the behaviour of Roscommon. those female libertines; but as your remarks WHEN I meet with any vicious charac-on some part of it would be doing a justice ter, that is not generally known, in order to several women of virtue and honour, to prevent its doing mischief, I draw it at whose reputations suffer by it, I hope you length; and set it up as a scarecrow; by will not think it improper to give the pubwhich means I do not only make an exam-lic some accounts of this nature. You must ple of the person to whom it belongs, but know, sir, I am provoked to write you this give warning to all her majesty's subjects, letter, by the behaviour of an infamous that they may not suffer by it. Thus, to woman, who, having passed her youth in a change the allusion, I have marked out most shameless state of prostitution, is now several of the shoals and quicksands of life, one of those who gain their livelihood by and am continually employed in discovering seducing others that are younger than themthose which are still concealed; in order to selves, and by establishing a criminal comkeep the ignorant and unwary from running merce between the two sexes. Among upon them. It is with this intention that I several of her artifices to get money, she publish the following letter, which brings frequently persuades a vain young fellow, to light some secrets of this nature. that such a woman of quality, or such a celebrated toast, entertains a secret passion for him, and wants nothing but an opportunity of revealing it. Nay, she has gone so far as to write letters in the name of a woman of figure, to borrow money of one of these foolish Roderigo's, which she has afterwards appropriated to her own use. In the mean time, the person who has lent the money, has thought a lady under obligations to him, who scarce knew his name; and wondered at her ingratitude, when he has been with her, that she has not owned the favour, though at the same time he was too much of a man of honour to put her in mind of it. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-There are none of your speculations which I read over with greater delight than those which are designed for the improvement of our sex. You have endeavoured to correct our unreasonable fears and superstitions, in your seventh and twelfth papers; our fancy for equipage, in your fifteenth; our love of puppet-shows, in your thirty-first; our notions of beauty, in your thirty-third; our inclination for romances, in your thirty-seventh; our passion for French fopperies, in your forty-fifth; our manhood and party zeal, in your fifty-seventh; our abuse of dancing, in your sixty-sixth and sixty-seventh; our When this abandoned baggage meets levity, in your hundred and twenty-eighth; with a man who has vanity enough to give our love of coxcombs, in your hundred and credit to relations of this nature, she turns fifty-fourth, and hundred and fifty-seventh; him to very good account by repeating our tyranny over the hen-peckt, in your praises that were never uttered, and dehundred and seventy-sixth. You have de-livering messages that were never sent. As scribed the Pict in your forty-first; the Idol | the house of this shameless creature is frein your seventy-third; the Demurrer, in your eighty-ninth; the Salamander, in your hundred and ninety-eighth. You have likewise taken to pieces our dress, and represented to us the extravagances we are often guilty of in that particular. You have fallen upon our patches, in your fiftieth and eighty-first; our commodes, in your ninety-eighth; our fans, in your hundred and second; our riding-habits, in your hundred and fourth; our hoop-petticoats, in your hundred and twenty-seventh; besides a great many little blemishes which you have touched upon in your several other papers, and in those many letters that are scattered up and down your works. At the same time we must own that the compliments you pay our sex are innumerable, and that those very faults which you represent in us, are neither black in themselves, nor, as you own, universal among us. But, sir, it is quented by several foreigners, I have heard of another artifice, out of which she often raises money. The foreigner sighs after some British beauty, whom he only knows by fame; upon which she promises, if he can be secret, to procure him a meeting. The stranger, ravished at his good fortune, gives her a present, and in a little time is introduced to some imaginary title; for you must know that this cunning purveyor has her representatives upon this occasion of some of the finest ladies in the kingdom. By this means, as I am informed, it is usual enough to meet with a German count in foreign countries, that shall make his boasts of favours he has received from women of the highest ranks, and the most unblemished characters. Now, sir, what safety is there for a woman's reputation, when a lady may be thus prostituted as it were by proxy, and be reputed an unchaste woman; as the hero in the ninth book of Dryden's Virgil is looked upon as a coward, because the phantom which appeared in his likeness ran away from Turnus? You may depend upon what I relate to you to be matter of fact, and the practice of more than one of these female panders. If you print this letter, I you to publish the following erratum: In the paper of Saturday, October 13, column 3, line 11, for " glass, ," read "bottle. Yours, ROBIN GOODFELLOW." may give you some farther accounts of this No. 206.] Friday, October 26, 1711. vicious race of women. Your humble servant, BELVIDERA.' I shall add two other letters on different subjects to fill up my paper. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a country clergyman, and hope you will lend me your assistance in ridiculing some little indecencies which cannot so properly be exposed from the pulpit. A widow lady who straggled this summer from London into my parish for the benefit of the air, as she says, appears every Sunday at church with many fashionable extravagances, to the great astonishment of my congregation. 'But what gives us the most offence is her theatrical manner of singing the Psalms. She introduces above fifty Italian airs into the hundredth psalm; and whilst we begin "All people," in the old solemn tune of our forefathers, she in a quite different key runs divisions on the vowels, and adorns them with the graces of Nicolini: if she meets with "eke" or "aye," which are frequent in the metre of Hopkins and Sternhold, we are certain to hear her quavering them half a minute after us, to some sprightly airs of the opera. Quanto quisque sibi plura negaverit, L. A Diis plura feret- Hor. Lib. 3. Od. xvi. 21. They that do much themselves deny, Receive more blessings from the sky.-Creech. THERE is a call upon mankind to value and esteem those who set a moderate price upon their own merit; and self-denial is frequently attended with unexpected blessings, which in the end abundantly recompense such losses as the modest seem to suffer in the ordinary occurrences of life. The curious tell us, a determination in our favour or to our disadvantage is made upon our first appearance, even before they know any thing of our characters, but from the intimations men gather from our aspect. A man, they say, wears the picture of his mind in his countenance; and one man's eyes are spectacles to his, who looks at him to read his heart. But though that way of raising an opinion of those we behold in public is very fallacious, certain it is, that those, who by their words and actions take as much upon themselves, as they can but barely demand in the strict scrutiny of their deserts, will find their account lessen every day. A modest man preserves his character, as a frugal man does his fortune; if either of them live to the height of either, one will find losses, the other errors, which he has not stock by him to make up. It were therefore a just rule, to keep your desires, your words, and actions, within the regard you observe your friends have for you, and never, if it were in a man's power, to take as much as he possibly might, either in preferment or reputation. My walks have lately been among the mercantile part of the world; and one gets phrases 'I know the lady's principles, and that naturally from those with whom one conshe will plead the toleration, which (as she verses. I say, then, he that in his air, his fancies) allows her non-conformity in this treatment of others, or an habitual arroparticular; but I beg of you to acquaint her, gance to himself, gives himself credit for that singing the Psalms in a different tune the least article of more wit, wisdom, goodfrom the rest of the congregation, is a sort ness, or valour, than he can possibly proof schism not tolerated by that act. duce if he is called upon, will find the world sir, your very humble servant, R. S.' break in upon him, and consider him as one who has cheated them of all the esteem they had before allowed him. This brings a commission of bankruptcy upon him; and he that might have gone on to his life's end in a prosperous way, by aiming at more than he should, is no longer proprietor of what he really had before, but his pretensions fare as all things do which are torn instead of being divided. I am very far from being an enemy to church music; but fear this abuse of it may make my parish ridiculous, who already look on the singing psalms as an entertainment, and not part of the devotion: besides, I am apprehensive that the infection may spread; for 'Squire Squeekum, who by his voice seems (if I may use the expression) to be cut out for an Italian singer, was last Sunday practising the same airs. I am, 'MR. SPECTATOR,-In your paper upon temperance, you prescribe to us a rule of drinking, out of Sir William Temple, in the following words: "The first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good-humour, and the fourth for mine enemies." Now, sir, you must know, that I have read this your Spectator, in a club whereof I am a member; when our president told us there was certainly an error in the print, and that the word glass should be bottle; and therefore has ordered me to inform you of this mistake, and to desire There is no one living would deny Cinna the applause of an agreeable and facetious wit; or could possibly pretend that there is not something inimitably unforced and diverting in his manner of delivering all his |