embroidery, wrought together in a most curious piece of net-work, the parts of which were likewise imperceptible to the naked eye. Another of these antrums or cavities were stuffed with invisible billet-doux, love-letters, pricked dances, and other trumpery of the same nature. In another we found a kind of powder, which set the whole company a sneezing, and by the scent discovered itself to be right Spanish. The several other cells were stored with commodities of the same kind, of which it would be tedious to give the reader an exact inventory. There was a large cavity on each side of the head, which I must not omit. That on the right side was filled with fictions, flatteries, and falsehoods, vows, promises, and protestations; that on the left with oaths and imprecations. There issued out a duct from each of these cells, which ran into the root of the tongue, where both joined together, and passed forward in one common duct to the tip of it. We discovered several little roads or canals running from the ear into the brain, and took particular care to trace them out through their several passages. One of them extended itself to a bundle of sonnets and little musical instruments; others ended in several bladders, which were filled either with wind or froth. But the large canal entered into a great cavity of the skull, from whence there went another canal into the tongue. This great cavity was filled with a kind of spongy substance, which the French anatomists call jalimatias, and the English nonsense. The skins of the forehead were extremely tough and thick, and, what very much surprised us, had not in them any single blood-vessel that we were able to discover, either with or without our glasses; from whence we concluded, that the party when alive must have been entirely deprived of the faculty of blushing. The os cribriforme was exceedingly stuffed, and in some places damaged with snuff. We could not but take notice in particular of that small muscle which is not often discovered in dissections, and draws the nose upwards, when it expresses the contempt which the owner of it has upon seeing any thing he does not like, or hearing any thing he does not understand. I need not tell my learned reader, this is that muscle which performs the motion so often mentioned by the Latin poets, when they talk of a man's cocking his nose, or playing the rhinoceros. We did not find any thing very remarkable in the eye, saving only that the musculi amatorii, or, as we may translate it into English, the ogling muscles, were very much worn and decayed with use; whereas, on the contrary, the elevator, or the muscle which turns the eye towards heaven, did not appear to have been used at all. I have only mentioned in this dissection such new discoveries as we were able to make, and have not taken any notice of those parts which are to be met with in common heads. As for the skull, the face, and indeed the whole outward shape and figure of the head, we could not discover any difference from what we observe in the heads of other men. We were informed that the person to whom this head belonged, had passed for a man above five and thirty years; during which time he eat and drank like other peo ple, dressed well, talked loud, laughed frequent ly, and, on particular occasions, had acquitted himself tolerably at a ball or an assembly: to which one of the company added, that a certain knot of ladies took him for a wit. He was cut off in the flower of his age by the blow of a paring-shovel, having been surprised by an eminent citizen as he was tendering some civilities to his wife. When we had thoroughly examined this head, with all its apartments, and its several kinds of furniture, we put up the brain, such as it was, into its proper place, and laid it aside under a broad piece of scarlet cloth, in order to be prepared, and kept in a great repository of dissections; our operator telling us that the preparation would not be so difficult as that of another brain, for that he had observed several of the little pipes and tubes which ran through the brain were already filled with a kind of mercurial substance, which he looked upon to be true quicksilver. He applied himself, in the next place, to the coquette's heart, which he likewise laid open with great dexterity. There occurred to us many particularities in this dissection; but being unwilling to burden my reader's memory too much, I shall reserve this subject for the speculation of another day. (See No. 281.) ADDISON. L. No. 276. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16. Errori nomem virtus posuisset honestum. HOR. MR. SPECTATOR, I HOPE you have philosophy enough to be capable of hearing the mention of your faults. Your papers which regard the fallen part of the fair sex, are, I think, written with an indelicacy which makes them unworthy to be inserted in the writings of a moralist who knows the world.* I can not allow that you are at liberty to observe upon the actions of mankind with the freedom which you seem to resolve upon; at least if you do so, you should take along with you the distinction of manners of the world, according to the quality and way of life of the persons concerned. A man of breeding speaks of even misfortune among ladies, without giving it the most terrible aspect it can bear: and this tenderness towards them, is much more to be preserved when you speak of vices. All mankind are so far related, that care is to be taken, in things to which all are liable, you do not mention what concerns one in terms which shall disgust another. Thus, to tell a rich man of the indigence of a kinsman of his, or abruptly to inform a virtuous woman of the lapse of one who till then was in the same degree of esteem with herself, is in a kind involving each of them in some participation of those disadvantages. It is therefore expected from every writer, to treat his argument in such a manner, as is most proper to entertain the sort The first letter in No. 266. See also No. 274. of readers to whom his discourse is directed. It is not necessary when you write to the tea-table, that you should draw vices which carry all the horror of shame and contempt: if you paint an impertinent self-love, an artful glance, an assumed complexion, you say all which you ought to suppose they can possibly be guilty of. When you talk with this limitation, you behave yourself so as that you may expect others in conversation may second your raillery; but when you do it in a style which every body else forbears, in respect to their quality, they have an easy re medy in forbearing to read you, and hearing no more of their faults. A man that is now and then guilty of an intemperance is not to be called a drunkard; but the rule of polite raillery is, to speak of a man's faults as if you loved him. Of this nature is what was said by Cæsar, when one was railing with an uncourtly vehemence, and broke out with, 'What must we call him who was taken in an intrigue with another man's wife?' Cæsar answered very gravely, 'A careless fellow.' This was at once a reprimand for speaking of a crime which in those days had not the abhorrence attending it as it ought, as well as an intimation, that all intemperate behaviour before superiors loses its aim, by accusing in a method unfit for the audience. A word to the wise: All I mean here to say to you is, that the most free person of quality can go no further than being a kind woman: and you should never say of a man of figure worse, than that he knows the world.* 'I am, sir, your most humble servant, 'FRANCIS COURTLY.' *See No. 286, let. 1. |
