leave off all your vanities but your singing, let me know at my lodgings in Bow-street, Covent-garden, and you shall be encouraged by

Your humble servant,

ROGER DE COVERLEY.'

My good friend could not well stand the raillery which was rising upon him; but to put a stop to it, I delivered Will Honeycomb the following letter, and desired him to read it to the board.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

HAVING seen a translation of one of the chapters in the Canticles into English verse inserted among your late papers, I have ventured to send you the viith chapter of the Proverbs in a poetical dress. If you think it worthy appearing among your speculations, it will be a sufficient reward for the trouble of

Your constant reader,

"My son, th' instruction that my words impart,
Grave on the living tablet of thy heart;

And all the wholesome precepts that I give,
Observe with strictest reverence, and live.

"Let all thy homage be to Wisdom paid,
Seck her protection, and implore her aid;
That she may keep thy soul from harm secure,
And turn thy footsteps from the harlot's door,
Who with curs'd charms lures the unwary in,
And sooths with flattery their souls to sin.

"Once from my window as I cast mine eye
On those that pass'd in giddy numbers by,
A youth among the foolish youths I spy'd,
Who took not sacred Wisdom for his guide.

"Just as the sun withdrew his cooler light,
And evening soft led on the shades of night,
He stole in covert twilight to his fate,

And pass'd the corner near the harlot's gate!

A. B.'

When lo, a woman comes!

Loose her attire, and such her glaring dress,
As aptly did the harlot's mind express:
Subtle she is, and practis'd in the arts

By which the wanton conquer heedless hearts:
Stubborn and loud she is ; she hates her home;
Varying her place and form, she loves to roam:
Now she's within, now in the street doth stray,
Now at each corner stands, and waits her prey.
The youth she seiz'd; and, laying now aside
All modesty, the female's justest pride,

She said with an embrace, Here at my house
Peace-offerings are, this day I paid my vows.
I therefore came abroad to meet my dear,
And lo, in happy hour, I find thee here.
My chamber I've adorn'd, and o'er my bed
Are coverings of the richest tap'stry spread,
With linen it is deck'd from Egypt brought,
And carvings by the curious artist wrought:
It wants no glad perfume Arabia yields
In all her citron groves, and spicy fields;
Here all her store of richest odours meets,
I'll lay thee in a wilderness of sweets;
Whatever to the sense can grateful be
I have collected there- -I want but thee.
My husband's gone a journey far away
Much gold he took abroad, and long will stay,
He nam'd for his return a distant day.'

"Upon her tongue did such smooth mischief dwell,
And from her lips such welcome flatt'ry fell,
Th' unguarded youth, in silken fetters ty'd,
Resign'd his reason, and with ease comply'd.
Thus does the ox to his own slaughter go,
And thus is senseless of the impending blow,
Thus flies the simple bird into the snare,
That skilful fowlers for his life prepare.
But let my sons attend. Attend may they
Whom youthful vigour may to sin betray;
Let them false charmers fly, and guard their hearts
Against the wily wanton's pleasing arts;
With care direct their steps, nor turn astray
To tread the paths of her deceitful way;
Lest they too late of her fell pow'r complain,
And fall, where many mightier have been slain."

T.

}

N° 411. SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1712.

PAPER I, ON THE PLEASURES OF THE

IMAGINATION.

CONTENTS,

The perfection of our sight above our other senses. The pleasures of the imagination arise originally from sight. The pleasures of the imagination divided under two heads. The pleasures of the imagination in some respects equal to those of the understanding. The extent of the pleasures of the imagination. The advantages a man receives from a relish of these pleasures. In what respect they are preferable to those of the understanding.

Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius antè
Trita solo: juvat integros accedere fonteis,
Atque haurire-

In wild unclear'd, to Muses a retreat,
O'er ground untrod before I devious roam,
And deep-enamour'd into latent springs
Presume to peep at coy virgin Naiads.

LUCR. i. 925.

OUR sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. It fills the mind with the largest

variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments. The sense of feeling can indeed give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours; but at the same time it is very much strained and confined in its operations, to the number, bulk, and distance of its particular objects. Our sight seems designed to supply all these defects, and may be considered as a more delicate and diffusive kind of touch, that

spreads itself over an infinite multitude of bodies, comprehends the largest figures, and brings into our reach some of the most remote parts of the universe.

It is this sense which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that by the pleasures of the imagination,' or 'fancy,' (which I shall use promiscuously) I here mean such as arise from visible objects, either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by paintings, statues, descriptions, or any the like occasion. We cannot indeed have a single image in the fancy that did not make its first entrance through the sight; but we have the power of retaining, altering, and compounding those images, which we have once received, into all the varieties of picture and vision that are most agreeable to the imagination for by this faculty a man in a dungeon is capable of entertaining himself with scenes and landscapes more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole compass of nature.

:

There are few words in the English language which are employed in a more loose and uncircumscribed sense than those of the fancy and the imagination. I therefore thought it necessary to fix and determine the notion of these two words, as I intend to make use of them in the thread of my following speculations, that the reader may conceive rightly what is the subject which I proceed upon. I must therefore desire him to remember, that by the pleasures of the imagination,' I mean only such pleasures as arise originally from sight, and that I divide these pleasures into two kinds : my design being first of all to discourse of those primary pleasures of the imagination, which entirely proceed from such objects as are before our eyes; and in the next place to speak of those secondary plea

No 410. FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1712.

Dum foris sunt, nihil videtur mundius,
Nec magis compositum quidquam, nec magis elegans :
Quæ, cum amatore suo cùm cænant, liguriunt.
Harum videre ingluviem, sordes, inopiam:
Quam inhomesta solæ sint domi, atque avidæ cibi,
Quo pacto ex jure hesterno panem atrum vorent
Nosse omnia hæc, salus est adolescentulis.

TER. Eun. Art. v. sc. 4.

When they are abroad, nothing so clean, and nicely dressed; and when at supper with a gallant, they do but piddle, and pick the choicest bits: but, to see their nastiness and po verty at home, their gluttony, and how they devour black crusts dipped in yesterday's broth, is a perfect antidote against wenching.

WILL HONEYCOMB, who disguises his present decay by visiting the wenches of the town only by way of humour, told us, that the last rainy night he, with sir Roger de Coverley, was driven into the Temple cloister, whither had escaped also a lady most exactly dressed from head to foot. Will made no scruple to acquaint us, that she saluted him very familiarly by his name, and, turning immediately to the knight, she said, she supposed that was his good friend sir Roger de Coverley: upon which nothing less could follow than sir Roger's approach to salutation, with Madam, the same, at your ser vice.' She was dressed in a black tabby mantua and petticoat, without ribbons; her linen striped muslin, and in the whole an agreeable second mourning; decent dresses being often affected by the creatures of the town, at once consulting cheapness and