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interests they espouse; and at the same time may hope that the wealth of their friends will turn to their own credit and advantage. The others are preparing for themselves a perpetual feast. A good person does not only raise but continue love, and breeds a secret pleasure and complacency in the beholder, when the first heats of desire are extinguished. It puts the wife or husband in countenance both among friends and strangers, and generally fills the family with a healthy and Beautiful race of children.

I should prefer a woman that is agreeable in my own eye, and not deformed in that of the world, to a celebrated beauty. If you marry one remarkably beautiful, you must have a violent passion for her, or you have not the proper taste for her charms; and if you have such a passion for her, it is odds but it would be imbittered with fears and jealousies.

Good-nature and evenness of temper will give you an easy companion for life; virtue and good sense an agreeable friend; love and constancy, a good wife or husband. Where we meet one person with all these accomplishments, we find a hundred without any one of them. The world, notwithstanding, is more intent on trains and equipages, and all the showy parts of life; we love rather to dazzle the multitude, than consult our proper interests; and, as I have elsewhere observed, it is one of the most unaccountable passions of human nature, that we are at greater pains to appear easy and happy to others, than really to make ourselves so. Of all disparities, that in humor makes the most unhappy marriages, yet scarce enters into our thoughts at the contracting of them. Several that are in this respect unequally yoked, and uneasy for life with a person of a particular character, might have been pleased and happy with a person of a contrary one, notwithstanding they are both perhaps equally virtuous and laudable in their kind.

Before marriage we cannot be too inquisitive and discerning in the faults of the person beloved, nor after it too dim-sighted and superficial. How ever perfect and accomplished the person appears to you at a distance, you will find many blemishes and imperfections in her humor, upon a more intimate acquaintance, which you never discovered or perhaps suspected. Here, therefore, discretion and good-nature are to show their strength; the first will hinder your thoughts from dwelling on what is disagreeable, the other will raise in you all the tenderness of compassion and humanity, and by degrees soften those very imperfections into beauties.

Marriage enlarges the scene of our happiness and miseries. A marriage of love is pleasant; a marriage of interest easy; and a marriage where both meet, happy. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and indeed all the sweets of life. Nothing is a greater mark of a degenerate and vicious age, than the common ridicule which passes on this state of life. It is, indeed, only happy in those who can look down with scorn and neglect on the impieties of the times, and tread the paths of life together in a constant uniform course of virtue.-C.

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its them every morning, and has in it none of those seasonings which recommend so many of the writings which are in vogue among us.

As, on the one side, my paper has not in it a single word of news, a reflection in politics, nor a stroke of party; so, on the other, there are no fashionable touches of infidelity, no obscene ideas, no satires upon priesthood, marriage, and the like popular topics of ridicule; no private scandal ; nor anything that may tend to the defamation of particular persons, families, or societies.

There is not one of those above-mentioned subjects that would not sell a very indifferent paper, could I think of gratifying the public by such mean and base methods. But notwithstanding I have rejected everything that savors of party, everything that is loose and immoral, and everything that might create uneasiness in the minds of particular persons, I find that the demand for my papers has increased every month since their first appearance in the world. This does not perhaps reflect so much honor upon myself as on my readers, who give a much greater attention to discourses of virtue and morality than ever I expected, or indeed could hope.

When I broke loose from that great body of writers who have employed their wit and parts in propagating vice and irreligion, I did not question but I should be treated as an odd kind of fellow that had a mind to appear singular in my way of writing: but the general reception I have found convinces me that the world is not so corrupt as we are apt to imagine; and that if those men of parts who have been employed in vitiating the age, had endeavored to rectify and amend it, they needed not to have sacrificed their good sense and virtue to their fame and reputation. No man is so sunk in vice and ignorance, but there are still some hidden seeds of goodness and knowledge in him; which give him a relish of such reflec tions and speculations as have an aptness to im prove the mind, and make the heart better.

I have shown in a former paper, with how much care I have avoided all such thoughts as are loose, obscene, or immoral; and I believe my reader would still think the better of me, if he knew the pains I am at in qualifying what I write after such a manner that nothing may be interpreted as aimed at private persons. For this reason, when I draw any faulty character, I consider all those persons to whom the malice of the world may possibly apply it, and take care to dash it with such particular circumstances as may prevent all such ill-natured applications. If I write anything on a black man, I run over in my mind all the eminent persons in the nation who are of that complexion: when I place an imaginary name at the head of a character, I examine every syllable and letter of it, that it may not bear any resemblance to one that is real. I know very well the value which every man sets upon his reputa tion, and how painful it is to be exposed to the mirth and derision of the public, and should therefore scorn to divert my reader at the expense of any private man.

As I have been thus tender of every particular person's reputation, so I have taken more than ordinary care not to give offense to those who appear in the higher figures of life. I would not make myself merry even with a piece of pasteboard that is invested with a public character; for which reason I have never glanced upon the late designed procession of his Holiness and his attendants, notwithstanding it might have afforded matter to many ludicrous speculations. Among those advantages which the public may reap from this paper, it is not the least, that it draws men's

I am glad that he whom I must have loved from duty, whatever he had been, is such a one as I can love from inclination.

minds off from the bitterness of party, and fur- | No. 263.] TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1711-12. nishes them with subjects of discourse that may be treated without warmth or passion. This is que esset, talem habemus ut libenter quoque diligamus. Gratulor quod eum quem necesse erat diligere, qualiscun said to have been the first design of those gentleTREBONIUS apud TULL. men who set on foot the Royal Society; and had then a very good effect, as it turned many of the greatest geniuses of that age to the disquisitions of natural knowledge, who, if they had engaged in politics with the same parts and application, might have set their country in a flame. The airpump, the barometer, the quadrant, and the like inventions, were thrown out to those busy spirits, as tubs and barrels are to a whale, that he may let the ship sail on without disturbance, while he diverts himself with those innocent amusements.

I have been so very scrupulous in this particular of not hurting any man's reputation, that I have forborne mentioning even such authors as I could not name with honor. This I must confess to have been a piece of very great self-denial; for as the public relishes nothing better than ridicule which turns upon a writer of any eminence, so there is nothing which a man that has but a very ordinary talent in ridicule may execute with greater ease. One might raise laughter for a quarter of a year together upon the works of a person who has published but a very few volumes. For which reason I am astonished, that those who have appeared against this paper, have made so very little of it. The criticisms which I have hitherto published, have been made with an intention rather to discover beauties and excellencies in the writers of my own time, than to publish any of their faults and imperfections. In the meanwhile I should take it for a very great favor from some of my underhand detractors, if they would break all measures with me, so far as to give me a pretense for examining their perform ances with an impartial eye: nor shall I look apon it as any breach of charity to criticise the author so long as I keep clear of the person.

In the meanwhile, until I am provoked to such hostilities, I shall from time to time endeavor to do justice to those who have distinguished themselves in the politer parts of learning, and to point out such beauties in their works as may have escaped the observation of others.

As the first place among our English poets is due to Milton; and as I have drawn more quotations out of him than from any other, I shall enter into a regular criticism upon his Paradise Lost, which I shall publish every Saturday, until I have given my thoughts upon that poem. I shall not, however, presume to impose upon others my own particular judgment on this author, but only deliver it as my private opinion. Criticism is of a very large extent, and every particular master in this art has his favorite passages in an author which do not equally strike the best judges. It will be sufficient for me, if I discover many beauties or imperfections which others have not attended to, and I should be very glad to see any of our eminent writers publish their discoveries on the same subject. In short, I would always be understood to write my papers of criticism in the spirit which Horace has expressed in these two famous lines:

-Si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum. 1 Ep. vi, ult. If you have made any better remarks of your own, communicate them with candor; if not, make use of these I preent you with.-C.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I AM the happy father of a very towardly son, in whom I do not only see my life, but also my manner of life, renewed. It would be extremely beneficial to society, if you would frequently resume subjects which serve to bind these sort of relations faster, and endear the ties of blood with those of good-will, protection, observance, indulgence, and veneration. I would, methinks, have this done after an uncommon method, and do not think any one, who is not capable of writing a good play, fit to undertake a work wherein there will necessarily occur so many secret instincts, and biases of human nature which would pass unobserved by common_eyes. I thank Heaven I have no outrageous offense against my own excellent parents to answer for; but when I am now and then alone, and look back upon my past life, from my earliest infancy to this time, there are many faults which I committed that did not appear to me, even until I myself became a father. I had not until then a notion to the yearnings of a heart, which a man has when he sees his child do a laudable thing, or the sudden damp which seizes him when he fears he will act something unworthy. It is not to be imagined what a remorse touched me for a long train of childish negligences of my mother, when I saw my wife the other day look out of the window, and turn as pale as ashes upon seeing my youngest boy sliding upon the ice. These slight intimations will give you to understand, that there are numberless little crimes which children take no notice of while they are doing, which, upou reflection, when they shall themselves become fathers, they will look upon with the utmost sorrow and contrition, that they did not regard before those whom they offended were to be no more seen. How many thousand things do I remember which would have highly pleased my father, and I omitted for no other reason, but that I thought what he proposed, the effect of humor and old age, which I am now convinced had reason and good sense in it. I cannot now go into the parlor to him, and make his heart glad with an account of a matter which was of no consequence, but that I told it, and acted in it. The good man and woman are long since in their gra es, who used to sit and plot the welfare of us their children, while, perhaps, we were sometimes laughing at the old folks, at another end of the house. The truth of it is, were we merely to follow nature in these great duties of life, though we have strong instinct toward the performing of them, we should be on both sides very deficient. Age is so unwelcome to the generality of mankind, and growth toward manhood so desirable to all, that resignation to decay is too difficult a task in the father; and deference, amidst the impulse of gay desires, appears unreasonable to the son. There are so few who can grow old with a good grace, and yet fewer who can come slow enough into the world, that a father, were he to be actuated by his desires, and a son, were he to consult himself only, could neither of them behave himself as he ought to the other. But when reason interposes against in stinct, where it would carry either out of the in terests of the other, there arises that happiest intercourse of good offices between those dearest

broken, make them more emphatically tyrants and
rebels against each other, with greater cruelty of
heart, than the disruption of states and empires
can possibly produce. I shall end this application
to you with two letters, which passed between a
mother and son very lately, and are as follows:
"DEAR FRANK,

relations of human life. The father, according to | the opportunities which are offered to him, is throwing down blessings on the son, and the son endeavoring to appear the worthy offspring of such a father. It is after this manner that Camillus and his firstborn dwelt together. Camillus enjoys a pleasing and indolent old age, in which passion is subdued, and reason exalted. He waits the day of his dissolution with a resignation "If the pleasures, which I have the grief to mixed with delight; and the son fears the acces- hear you pursue in town, do not take up all your sion of his father's fortune with diffidence, lest he time, do not deny your mother so much of it as to should not enjoy or become it as well as his prede- read seriously this letter. You said before Mr. cessor. Add to this, that the father knows that he Letaere, that an old woman might live very well leaves a friend to the children of his friends, an in the country upon half my jointure, and that easy landlord to his tenants, and an agreeable your father was a fond fool to give me a rent companion to his acquaintance. He believes his charge of eight hundred a-year to the prejudice of son's behavior will make him frequently remem- his son. What Letacre said to you upon that ocbered, but never wanted. This commerce is so casion, you ought to have borne with more decenwell cemented, that without the pomp of saying, cy, as he was your father's well beloved servant, Son, be a friend to such-a-one when I am gone;' than to have called him country put. In the first Camillus knows, being in his favor is direction place, Frank, I must tell you, I will have my rent enough to the grateful youth who is to succeed duly paid, for I will make up to your sisters for him, without the admonition of his mentioning it. the partiality I was guilty of, in making your These gentlemen are honored all in their neigh-father do so much as he has done for you. borhood, and the same effect which the court has on the manners of a kingdom, their characters have on all who live within the influence of them.

I may,

it seems, live upon half my jointure! I lived upon much less, Frank, when 1 carried you from place to place in these arms, and could neither eat, dress, or mind anything for feeding and tend"My son and I are not of fortune to communi-ing you a weakly child, and shedding tears when cate our good actions or intentions to so many as the convulsions you were then troubled with rethese gentlemen do; but I will be bold to say, my turned upon you. By my care you outgrew them, son has, by the applause and approbation which to throw away the vigor of your youth in the his behavior toward me has gained him, occa- arms of harlots, and deny your mother what is sioned that many an old man beside myself has not yours to detain. Both your sisters are crying rejoiced. Other men's children follow the exam- to see the passion which I smother; but if you ple of mine, and I have the inexpressible happi- please to go on thus like a gentleman of the town, ness of overhearing our neighbors, as we ride by, and forget all regards to yourself and family, I point to their children, and say, with a voice of shall immediately enter upon your estate for the joy, There they go.' arrear due to me, and, without one tear more, contemn you for forgetting the fondness of your mo ther, as much as you have the example of your father. O Frank, do I live to omit writing myself, Your affectionate mother,

"You cannot, Mr. Spectator, pass your time better than in insinuating the delights which those relations, well regarded, bestow upon each other. Ordinary passages are no longer such, but mutual love gives an importance to the most indifferent things, and a merit to actions the most insignificant. When we look round the world, and observe the many misunderstandings which are created by the malice and insinuation of the meanest servants between people thus related, how necessary will it appear that it were inculcated, that men would be upon their guard to support a constancy of affection, and that grounded upon the principles of reason, not the impulses of instinct.

Love

"MADAM,

66

"A. T."

"I will come down to-morrow and pay the money on my knees. Pray write so no more. I will take care you never shall, for I will be forever hereafter, "Your most dutiful son, "F. T."

"I will bring down new hoods for my sisters. Pray let all be forgotten."

C.

-Secretum iter et fallentis semita vitæ.

"It is from the common prejudices which men receive from their parents, that hatreds are kept alive from one generation to another; and when men act by instinct, hatred will descend when good offices are forgotten. For the degeneracy of No. 264.] WEDNESDAY, JAN. 2, 1711–12. human life is such, that our anger is more easily transferred to our children, than our love. always gives something to the object it delights in, and anger spoils the person against whom it is moved of something laudable in him; from this degeneracy, therefore, and a sort of self-love, we are more prone to take up the ill-will of our parents, than to follow them in their friendships.

ADAPTED.

HOR. 1 Ep. xviii, 103. In public walks let who will shine or stray, I'll silent steal through life in my own way. It has been from age to age an affectation to love the pleasures of solitude, among those whe cannot possibly be supposed qualified for passing "One would think there should need no more life in that manner. This people have taken up to make man keep up this sort of relation with from reading the many agreeable things which the utmost sanctity, than to examine their own have been written on that subject, for which we are hearts. If every father remembered his own beholden to excellent persons who delighted in thoughts and inclinations when he was a son, and being retired, and abstracted from the pleasures every son remembered what he expected from his that enchant the generality of the world. This father, when he himself was in a state of depen-way of life is recommended indeed with great dence, this one reflection would preserve men from being dissolute or rigid in these several capacities. The power and subjection between them, when

beauty, and in such a manner as disposes the reader for the time to pleasing forgetfulness, or negligence of the particular hurry of life in which

manner of moment.

327

the temptations of worldly want, to carry a reti-
nue with him thither.

Of all men who affect living in a particular way,
next to this admirable character, I am the most
enamored of Irus, whose condition will not admit
Irus, though
of such largesses, and who perhaps would not be
capable of making them if it were.
he is now turned of fifty, has not appeared in the
world in his real character since five-and-twenty,
at which age he ran out a small patrimony,
time
A course of ten years pass-
and spent some time after with rakes who had
lived upon him.
ed in all the little alleys, by paths, and sometimes
open taverns and streets of this town, gave Irus a
perfect skill in judging of the inclinations of
mankind, and acting accordingly. He seriously
considered he was poor, and the general horror
which most men have of all who are in that con-
dition. Irus judged very rightly, that while he
could keep his poverty a secret, he should not feel
the weight of it; he improved this thought into
an affectation of closeness and covetousness.
Upon this one principle he resolved to govern his
future life; and in the thirty-sixth year of his
age he repaired to Long-lane, and looked upon
several dresses which hung there deserted by their
first masters, and exposed to the purchase of the
best bidder. At this place he exchanged his gay
shabbiness of clothes fit for a much younger man,
to warm ones that would be decent for a much
older one. Irus came out thoroughly equipped
from head to foot, with a little oaken cane, in the
form of a substantial man that did not mind his
dress, turned of fifty. He had at this time fifty
pounds in ready money; and in this habit, with
this fortune, he took his present lodging in St.
John-street, at the mansion house of a tailor's
widow, who washes, and can clear-starch his
bands. From that time to this he has kept the
main stock, without alteration under or over to the
value of five pounds. He left off all his old ac-
quaintance to a man, and all his arts of life, ex-
cept the play of backgammon, upon which he
has more than borne his charges. Irus has, ever
since he came into this neighborhood, given all
the intimations he skillfully could of being a
close hunks worth money: nobody comes to visit
him, he receives no letters, and tells his money
morning and evening. He has from the public
papers a knowledge of what generally passes,
shuns all discourses of money, but shrugs his
shoulders when you talk of securities; he denies
He is the oracle of a neighbor-
his being rich, with the air which all do who are
vain of being so.

he is engaged, together with a longing for that state which he is charmed with in description. But when we consider the world itself, and how few there are capable of a religious, learned, or philosophic solitude, we shall be apt to change a regard to that sort of solitude, for being a little singular in enjoying time after the way a man himself likes best in the world, without going so far as wholly to withdraw from it. I have often observed, there is not a man breathing who does not differ from all other men as much in the sentiments of his mind as the features of his face. The felicity is, when any one is so happy as to find out and follow what is the proper bent of his genius, and turn all his endeavors to exert himself according as that prompts him. Instead of this, which is an innocent method of enjoying a man's self, and turning out of the general tracks wherein you have crowds of rivals, there are those who pursue their own way out of a sourness and spirit of contradiction. These men do everything which they are able to support, as if guilt and impunity could not go together. They choose a thing only because another dislikes it; and affect for sooth an inviolable constancy in matters of no Thus sometimes an old fellow shall wear this or that sort of cut in his clothes with great integrity, while all the rest of the world are degenerated into buttons, pockets, and loops As insignificant as unknown to their ancestors. even this is, if it were searched to the bottom, you perhaps would find it not sincere, but that he is in the fashion in his heart, and holds out from mere obstinacy. But I am running from my intended purpose, which was to celebrate a certain particular manner of passing away life, in contradiction to no man, but with a resolution to contract none of the exorbitant desires by which others are enslaved. The best way of separating a man's self from the world, is to give up the desire of being known to it. After a man has pre served his innocence, and performed all duties incumbent upon him, his time spent in his own way is what makes his life differ from that of a slave. If they who affect show and pomp knew how many of their spectators derided their trivial taste, they would be very much less elated, and have an inclination to examine the merit of all they have to do with: they would soon find out that there are many who make a figure below what their fortune or merit entitles them to, out of mere choice, and an elegant desire of ease and disencumbrance. It would look like romance to tell you in this age, of an old man who is contented to pass for a humorist, and one who does not un-ing justice of the peace, who meets him at the derstand the figure he ought to make in the world, coffee-house; the hopes that what he has must while he lives in a lodging of ten shillings a- come to somebody, and that he has no heirs, have week with only one servant; while he dresses that effect wherever he is known, that he has every himself according to the season in cloth or in day three or four invitations to dine at different stuff, and has no one necessary attention to any-places, which he generally takes care to choose in thing but the bell which calls to prayers twice a such a manner as not to seem inclined to the All the young men respect him, and day: I say it would look like a fable to report richer man. that this gentleman gives away all which is the say he is just the same man he was when they overplus of a great fortune by secret methods to were boys. He uses no artifice in the world, but other men. If he has not the pomp of a numer makes use of men's designs upon him to get a ous train, and of professors of service to him, he maintenance out of them. This he carries on by has every day he lives the conscience that the a certain peevishness (which he acts very well), widow, the fatherless, the mourner, and the that no one would believe could possibly enter stranger, bless his unseen hand in their prayers. into the head of a poor fellow. His mien, his. This humorist gives up all the compliments which dress, his carriage, and his language, are such, people of his own condition could make him, for that you would be at a loss to guess whether in the pleasure of helping the afflicted, supplying the active part of his life he had been a sensible the needy, and befriending the neglected. This citizen, or scholar that knew the world. These humorist keeps to himself much more than he are the great circumstances in the life of Irus, and wants, and gives a vast refuse of his superfluities thus does he pass away his days a stranger to to purchase heaven, and by freeing others from mankind; and at his death, the worst that wilk

be said of him will be, that he got by every man No. 265.] THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1711-12 who had expectations from him, more than he had to leave him.

I have an inclination to print the following letters; for I have heard the author of them has somewhere or other seen me, and by an excellent faculty in mimicry my correspondents tell me he can assume my air, and give my taciturnity a slyness which diverts more than anything I could say if I were present. Thus I am glad my silence is atoned for to the good company in town. He has carried his skill in imitation so far, as to have forged a letter from my friend Sir Roger in such a manner, that any one but I, who am thoroughly acquainted with him, would have taken it for genuine.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"Having observed in Lilly's grammar how sweetly Bacchus and Apollo run in a verse; I have (to preserve the amity between them) called in Bacchus to the aid of my profession of the theater. So that while some people of quality are bespeaking plays of me to be acted on such a day, and others, hogsheads for their houses against such a time; I am wholly employed in the agreeable service of wit and wine. Sir, I have sent you Sir Roger de Coverley's letter to me, which pray comply with in favor of the Bumper Tavern. Be kind, for you know a player's utmost pride is the approbation of the Spectator.

"I am your admirer, though unknown,

"RICHARD ESTCOURT."

"TO MR. EST COURT. "AT HIS HOUSE IN COVENT-GARDEN.

"Coverley, December 10th, 1711.

"OLD COMICAL ONE,

66

The hogsheads of neat port came safe, and have gotten thee good reputation in these parts; and I am glad to hear, that a fellow who has been laying out his money ever since he was born, for the mere pleasure of wine, has bethought himself of joining profit and pleasure together. Our sexton (poor man), having received strength from thy wine since his fit of the gout, is hugely taken with it; he says it is given by nature for the use of families, and that no steward's table can be without it; that it strengthens digestion, excludes surfeits, fevers, and physic; which green wines of any kind cannot do. Pray get a pure snug room, and I hope next term to help to fill your Bumper with our people of the club; but you must have no bells stirring when the Spectator comes; I forbore ringing to dinner while he was down with me in the country. Thank you for the little hams and Portugal onions: pray keep some always by you. You know my supper is only good Cheshire cheese, best mustard, a golden pippin, attended with a pipe of John Sly's best. Sir Harry has stolen all your songs, and tells the story of the 5th of November to perfection.

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Dixerit e multis aliquis, quid virus in angues
Adjicis? et rabida tradis ovile lupa.

OVID., de Art. Am., iii, But some exclaim: What frenzy rules your mind? Would you increase the craft of womankind? Teach them new wiles and arts? As well you may Instruct a snake to bite, or wolf to prey.-CONGREVË. ONE of the fathers, if I am rightly informed, has defined a woman to be an animal that delighte in finery. I have already treated of the sex in two or three papers, conformably to this defini tion; and have in particular observed, that in all ages they have been more careful than the men to adorn that part of the head which we generally

call the outside.

This observation is so very notorious, that when in ordinary discourse we say a man has a fine head, a long head, or a good head, we express ourselves metaphorically, and speak in relation to his understanding; whereas when we say of a woman, she has a fine, a long, or a good head, we speak only in relation to her commode.

It is observed among birds, that nature has lavished all her ornaments upon the male, who very often appears in a most beautiful head-dress: whether it be a crest, a comb, a tuft of feathers, or a natural little plume, erected like a kind of pinnacle on the very top of the head. As Nature on the contrary has poured out her charms in the greatest abundance upon the female part of our species, so they are very assiduous in bestowing upon themselves the finest garnitures of art. The peacock, in all his pride, does not display half the colors that appear in the garments of a British lady, when she is dressed either for a ball or a birthday.

But to return to our female heads. The ladies have been for some time in a kind of moulting season with regard to that part of their dress, having cast great quantities of ribbon, lace, and cambric, and in some measure reduced that part of the human figure to the beautiful globular form, which is natural to it. We have for a great while expected what kind of ornament would be substituted in the place of those antiquated commodes. Our female projectors were all the last summer so taken up with the improvement of their petticoats, that they had not time to attend to anything else; but having at length sufficiently adorned their lower parts, they now begin to turn their thoughts upon the other extremity, as well remembering the old kitchen proverb, "that if you light the fire at both ends, the middle will shift for itself."

I am engaged in this speculation by a sight which I lately met with at the opera. As I was standing in the hinder part of a box, I took notice of a little cluster of women sitting together in the prettiest colored hood that I ever saw. One of them was blue, another yellow, and another philomot; the fourth was of a pink color, and the fifth of a pale green. I looked with as much pleasure upon this little party-colored assembly, as upon a bed of tulips, and did not know at first whether it might not be an embassy of Indian queens; but upon my going about into the pit, and taking them in front, I was immediately undeceived, and saw so much beauty in every face, that I found them all to be English. Such eyes and lips, cheeks and foreheads, could be the growth of no other country. The complexion of their faces hindered me from observing any further the color of their hoods, though I could easily perceive, by that unspeakable satisfaction which appeared in their looks, that their own thoughts were wholly taken up on those pretty ornaments they wore upon their heads.

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