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and natural horror which arises in Adam at the sight of the first dying man is touched with great beauty.

But have I now seen death? Is this the way
I must return to native dust? O sight
Of terror foul, and ugly to behold!
Horrid to think, how horrible to feel!

The

The second vision sets before him the image of death, in a great variety of appearances. angel, to give him a general idea of those effects which his guilt had brought upon his posterity, places before him a large hospital, or lazar-house, filled with persons lying under all kinds of mortal diseases. How finely has the poet told us that the sick persons languished under lingering and incurable distempers, by an apt and judicious use of such imaginary beings as those I mentioned in my last Saturday's paper!

Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair
Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch;
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike, tho' oft invok'd
With vows, as their chief good and final hope.

wanton imaginations which Seneca found fault. with, as unbecoming this great catastrophe of nature. If our poet has imitated that verse in which Ovid tells us that there was nothing but sea, and that this sea had no shore to it, he has not set the thought in such a light as to incur the censure which critics have passed upon it. The latter part of that verse in Ovid is idle and superfluous, but just and beautiful in Milton.

Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant;.
Nil nisi pontus erat; deerant quoque littora ponto
OVID, Metam. i, 291

Now seas and earth were in confusion lost;

A world of waters, and without a coast.-DRYDEN
Sea cover'd sea,

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The passion which likewise rises in Adam on than that in Ovid, where we are told that the seathis occasion is very natural:

Sight so deform what heart of rock could long
Dry-ey'd behold? Adam could not, but wept
Tho' not of woman born; compassion quell'd
His best of man, and gave him up to tears.

The discourse between the angel and Adam

which follows, abounds with noble morals.

As there is nothing more delightful in poetry than a contrast and opposition of incidents, the author, after this melancholy prospect of death and sickness, raises up a scene of mirth, love, and jollity. The secret pleasure that steals into Adam's heart, as he is intent upon this vision, is imagined with great delicacy. I must not omit the description of the loose female troop, who seduced the sons of God, as they are called in Scripture.

For that fair female troop thou saw'st, that seem'd
Of goddesses, so blythe, so smooth, so gay,
Yet empty of all good, wherein consists
Woman's domestic honor, and chief praise;
Bred only and completed to the taste

Of lustful appetence, to sing, to dance,

To dress, and troll the tongue, and roll the eye.

To these that sober race of men, whose lives

Religious titled them the sons of God,

Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame,
Ignobly, to the trains and to the smiles

Of these fair atheists

The next vision is of a quite contrary nature, and filled with the horrors of war. Adam at the sight of it melts into tears, and breaks out into that passionate speech,

-O what are these!

Death's ministers, not men, who thus deal death
Inhumanly to men, and multiply

Ten thousandfold the sin of him who slew His brother: for of whom such massacre Make they, but of their brethren, men of men? Milton, to keep up an agreeable variety in his visions, after having raised in the mind of his reader the several ideas of terror which are conformable to the description of war, passes on to those softer images of triumphs and festivals, in that vision of lewdness and luxury which ushers

in the flood.

As it is visible that the poet had his eye upon Ovid's account of the universal deluge, the reader may observe with how much judginent he has avoided everything that is redundant or puerile in the Latin poet. We do not here see the wolf swimming among the sheep, nor any of those

calf lay in those places where the goats were used to browse! The reader may find several other parallel passages in the Latin and English description of the deluge, wherein our poet has visibly the advantage. The sky's being overcharged ing of the seas, and the appearance of the rainwith clouds, the descending of the rains, the risnotice of. The circumstance relating to Paradise bow, are such descriptions as every one must take is so finely imagined, and suitable to the opinions of many learned authors, that I cannot forbear giving it a place in this paper.

-Then shall this mount

Of Paradise, by might of waves, be mov'd
Out of his place, push'd by the horned flood;
With all his verdure spoil'd, and trees adrift
Down the great river to th' opening gulf,
And there take root; an island salt and bare,
The haunt of seals and orcs and sea-mews' clang.

The transition which the poet makes from the vision of the deluge, to the concern it occasioned in Adam, is exquisitely graceful, and copied after Virgil, though the first thought it introduces is rather in the spirit of Ovid:

How didst thou grieve then, Adam, to behold
The end of all thy offspring, end so sad,
Depopulation! Thee another flood,

Of tears and sorrow, a flood, thee also drown'd,
And sunk thee as thy sons: till gently rear'd
By th' angel, on thy feet thou stood'st at last,
Tho' comfortless, as when a father mourus
His children all in view destroy'd at once.

I have been the more particular in my quotations out of the eleventh book of Paradise Lost, because it is not generally reckoned among the most shining books of this poem; for which reason the reader might be apt to overlook those many passages in it which deserve our admiration. The eleventh and twelfth are indeed built upon that single circumstance of the removal of our first parents from Paradise; but though this is not in itself so great a subject as that in most of the foregoing books, it is extended and diversified with so many surprising incidents and pleasing episodes, that these two last books can by no means be looked upon as unequal parts of this divine poem. I must further add, that had not Milton represented our first parents as driven out of Paradise, his fall of man would not have been complete, and consequently his action would have been imperfect.-L.

No. 364. MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1712,

-Navibus atque

Quadrigis petimus bene vivere.

HOR. 1 Ep. xi, 29. Anxious through seas and land to search for rest, Is but laborious idleness at best.-FRANCIS,

"MR. SPECTATOR,

A LADY of my acquaintance, for whom I have too much respect to be easy while she is doing an indiscreet action, has given occasion to this trou ble. She is a widow to whom the indulgence of a tender husband has intrusted the management of a very great fortune, and a son about sixteen, both which she is extremely fond of. The boy has parts of the middle size, neither shining nor despicable, and has passed the common exercises of his years with tolerable advantage, but is withal what you would call a forward youth: by the help of this last qualification, which serves as a varnish to all the rest, he is enabled to make the best use of his learning, and display it at full length upon all occasions. Last summer he distinguished himself two or three times very remarkably, by puzzling the vicar before an assembly of most of the ladies in the neighborhood; and from such weighty considerations as these, as it too often unfortunately falls out, the mother is become invincibly persuaded that her son is a great scholar; and that to chain him down to the ordinary methods of education, with others of his age, would be to cramp his faculties, and do an irreparable injury to his wonderful capacity.

"I happened to visit at the house last week, and missing the young gentleman at the tea-table, where he seldom fails to officiate, could not upon so extraordinary a circumstance avoid inquiring after him. My lady told me he was gone out with her woman, in order to make some preparation for their equipage; for that she intended very speedily to carry him to travel. The oddness of the expression shocked me a little; however, I soon recovered myself enough to let her know, that all I was willing to understand by it was, that she designed this summer to show her son his estate in a distant county, in which he had never yet been. But she soon took care to rob me of that agreeable mistake, and let me into the whole affair. She enlarged upon young master's prodigious improvements, and his comprehensive knowledge of all book learning; concluding, that it was now high time he should be made acquainted with men and things: that she had resolved he should make the tour of France and Italy, but could not bear to have him out of her sight, and therefore intended to go along with him. "I was going to rally her for so extravagant a resolution, but found myself not in a fit humor to meddle with a subject that demanded the most soft and delicate touch imaginable. I was afraid of dropping something that might seem to bear hard either upon the son's abilities, or the mother's discretion, being sensible that in both these cases, though supported with all the powers of reason, I should, instead of gaining her ladyship over to my opinion, only expose myself to her disesteem: I therefore immediately determined to refer the whole matter to the Spectator.

unlike it. From hence my thoughts took occa sion to ramble into the general notion of travel.. ing, as it is now made a part of education Nothing is more frequent than to take a lad from grammar and taw, and, under the tuition of some poor scholar, who is willing to be banished for thirty pounds a year and a little victuals, send him crying and sniveling into foreign countries. Thus he spends his time as children do at puppetshows, and with much the same advantage, in staring and gaping at an amazing variety of strange things; strange indeed to one who is not prepared to comprehend the reasons and meaning of them, while he should be laying the solid foundations of knowledge in his mind, and furnishing it with just rules to direct his future progress in life under some skillful master of the art of instruction.

"Can there be a more astonishing thought in nature, than to consider how men should fall into so palpable a mistake? It is a large field, and may very well exercise a sprightly genius; but I do not remember you have yet taken a turn in it. I wish, Sir, you would make people understand, that travel is really the last step to be taken in the institution of youth; and that to set out withit, is to begin where they should end.

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Certainly the true end of visiting foreign parts is to look into their customs and policies, and ob serve in what particulars they excel or come short of our own; to unlearn some old peculiarities in our manners, and wear off such awkward stiffnesses and affectations in our behavior, as may possibly have been contracted from constantly associating with one nation of men, by a more free, general, and mixed conversation. But how can any of these advantages be attained by one who is a mere stranger to the customs and policies of his nati e country, and has not yet fixed in his mind the first principles of manners and behavior? To endeavor it, is to build a gaudy structure without any foundation; or, if I may be allowed the expression, to work a rich embroidery upon a cobweb.

"Another end of traveling, which deserves to be considered, is the improving our taste of the best authors of autiquity, by seeing the places where they lived, and of which they wrote; to compare the natural face of the country with the descriptions they have given us, and observe how well the picture agrees with the original. This must certainly be a most charming exercise to the mind that is rightly turned for it; beside that it may in a good measure be made subservient to morality, if the person is capable of drawing just conclusions concerning the uncertainty of human things, from the ruinous alterations time and barbarity have brought upon so many places, cities, and whole countries, which make the most illus trious figures in history, And this hint may be not a little improved by examining every spot of ground that we find celebrated as the scene of some famous action, or retaining any footsteps of a Cato, Cicero, or Brutus, or some such great virtuous man. A nearer view of any such particular, though really little and trifling in itself, may serve the more powerfully to warm a gene rous mind to an emulation of their virtues, and a greater ardency of ambition to imitate their bright examples, if it comes duly tempered and prepared for the impression. But this I believe you will hardly think those to be, who are so far from entering into the sense and spirit of the ancients, that they do not yet understand their language with any exactness.*

"When I came to reflect at night, as my custom is, upon the occurrences of the day, I could not but believe that this humor of carrying a boy to travel in his mother's lap, and that upon a pretense of learning men and things, is a case of an extraordinary nature, and carries on it a peculiar stamp of folly. I did not remember to have met with its parallel within the compass of my observation, *The following paragraph, in the first edition of this paper though I could call to mind some not extremely in folio, whether written originally by the Earl of Hardwicke,

"But I have wandered from my purpose, which was only to desire you to save, if possible, a fond English mother, and mother's own son, from being shown a ridiculous spectacle through the most polite part of Europe. Pray tell them, that though to be sea-sick, or jumbled in an outlandish stage-coach, may perhaps be healthful for the constitution of the body, yet it is apt to cause such a dizziness in young empty heads as too often lasts their lifetime.

"SIE,

"I am, Sir, your most humble Servaut,
"PHILIP HOMEBRED."
Birchin-lane.

"I was married on Sunday last, and went peaceably to bed; but, to my surprise, was awakened the next morning by the thunder of a set of drums. These warlike sounds (methinks) are very improper, in a marriage-concert, and give great offense; they seem to insinuate, that the joys of this state are short, and that jars and discord soon ensue. I fear they have been ominous to many matches, and sometimes proved a prelude to a battle in the honeymoon. A nod from you may hush them; therefore, pray, Sir, let them be silenced, that for the future none but soft airs may usher in the morning of a bridal night; which will be a favor not only to those who come after, but to me, who can still subscribe myself, "Your most humble,

"MR. SPECTATOR,

" and most obedient Servant, ROBIN BRIDEGROOM."

"

"I am one of that sort of women whom the gayer part of our sex are apt to call a prude. But to show them that I have a very little regard to their raillery, I shall be glad to see them all at the Amorous Widow, or the Wanton Wife, which is to be acted for the benefit of Mrs. Porter, on Monday the 28th instant. I assure you I can laugh at an amorous widow, or wanton wife, with as little temptation to imitate them, as I could at any other vicious character. Mrs. Porter obliged me so very much in the exquisite sense she seemed to have of the honorable sentiments and noble passions in the character of Hermione, that I shall appear in her behalf at a comedy, though I have no great relish for any entertainments where the mirth is not seasoned with a certain severity, which ought to recommend it to people who pretend to keep reason and authority over all their actions. I am, Sir,

T.

"Your frequent Reader, "ALTAMIRA."

or inserted afterward by Sir R. Steele, was probably suppress ed on the first republication, at the request of Addison. It is reprinted here from the Spect. in folio, No. 364,

"I cannot quit this head without paying my acknowledg ments to one of the most entertaining pieces this age has produced, for the pleasure it gave me. You will easily guess that the book I have in my head is Mr. Addison's Remarks upou Italy. That ingenious gentleman has with so much art and judgment applied his exact knowledge of all the parts of classical learning, to illustrate the several occurrerees of his travels, that his work alone is a pregnant proof of what I have said. Nobody that has a taste this way, can read him going from Rome to Naples, and making Horace and Silius Italicus his ebart, but he must feel some uneasiness in himself to reflect that he was not in his retinue. I am sure

I wished it ten times in every page, and that not without a secret vanity to think in what state I should have traveled the Appian road, with Horace for a guide, and in company

with a countryman of my own, who, of all men living, knows best how to follow his steps."

No. 365.] TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1712
Vere magis, quia vere calor red it ossibus--.
VIRG., Georg. iii, 272.
But most in spring: the kindly spring inspires
Reviving heat, and kindles genial fires.

ADAPTED.

Flush'd by the spirit of the genial year,
Be greatly cautious of your sliding hearts.
THOMSON'S Spring, 160, etc.

THE author of the Menagiana acquaints us; that discoursing one day with several ladies of quality about the effects of the month of May. which infuses a kindly warmth into the earth, and all its inhabitants, the Marchioness of Swho was one of the company, told him, that though she would promise to be chaste in every month beside, she could not engage for herself in May. As the beginning therefore of this month is now very near, I design this paper for a caveat to the fair sex, and publish it before April is quite out, that if any of them should be caught tripping, they may not pretend they had not timely notice. I am induced to this, being persuaded the above-mentioned observation is as well calculated for our climate as for that of France, and that some of our British ladies are of the same.constitution with the French marchioness.

I shall leave it among physicians to determine what may be the cause of such an anniversary inclination; whether or no it is that the spirits. after having been as it were frozen or congealed by winter, are now turned loose, and set a rambling; or that the gay prospects of fields and meadows, with the courtship of the birds in every bush, naturally unbend the mind, and soften it to pleasure: or that, as some have imagined, a woman is prompted by a kind of instinct to throw herself on a bed of flowers, and not to let those beautiful couches, which nature has provided, lie useless. However it be, the effects of this month on the lower part of the sex, who act without disguise, are very visible. It is at this time that we see the young wenches in a country parish dancing round a Maypole, which one of our learned antiquaries supposes to be a relic of a certain pagan worship that I do not think fit to mention.

It is likewise on the first day of this month that we see the ruddy milkmaid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of silver tankards, and like the virgin Tarpeia,* oppressed by the costly ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her.

I need not mention the ceremony of the green gown, which is also peculiar to this gay season.

The same periodical love-fit spreads through the whole sex, as Mr. Dryden well observes in his description of this merry month.

For thee, sweet month, the groves green liv'ries wear, If not the first, the fairest of the year; For thee the Graces lead the dancing hours, And nature's ready pencil paints the flowers. The sprightly May commands our youth to keep The vigils of her night, and breaks their sleep; Each gentle breast with kindly warmth she moves, Inspires new flames, revives extinguish'd loves. Accordingly, among the works of the great masters in painting, who have drawn this genial season of the year, we often observe Cupids confused with Zephyrs, flying up and down promiscuously in several parts of the picture. I cannot but add from my own experience, that about this time of the year love-letters come up to me in great numbers, from all quarters of the nation.

I received an epistle in particular by the last post from a Yorkshire gentleman, who makes

*T. Livii Hist. Dec. i, lib. i, cap. xi.

heavy complaints of one Zelinda, whom it seems he has courted unsuccessfully these three years past. He tells me that he designs to try her this May; and if he does not carry his point, he will never think of her more.

The burning zone, the frozen isles,
Shall hear me sing of Celia's smiles;
All cold, but in her breast, I will despise,
And dare all heat, but that of Celia's eyes.
ROSCOMMON.

THERE are such wild inconsistencies in the

thoughts of a man in love, that I have often reflected there can be no reason for allowing him but that his distemper has no malevolence in it to more liberty than others possessed with frenzy, any mortal. That devotion to his mistress kin

one.

Having thus fairly admonished the female sex, and laid before them the dangers they are exposed to in this critical month, I shall in the next place lay down some rales and directions for their better avoiding those calentures which are so very frequent in this season. In the first place, I would advise them never todles in his mind a general tenderness, which exventure abroad in the fields, but in the company erts itself toward every object as well as his fair of a parent, a guardian, or some other sober dis- it is common with them to endeavor at certain When this passion is represented by writers, creet person. I have before shown how apt they are to trip in the flowery meadow; and shall quaintnesses and turns of imagination, which are further observe to them, that Proserpine was out apparently the work of a mind at ease; but the a-maying when she met with that fatal adventure tion of a mind which overdows with tender sentimen of true taste can easily distinguish the exerto which Milton alludes when he mentionsments, and the labor of one which is only describing distress. In performances of this kind, the most absurd of all things is to be witty; every sentiment must grow out of the occasion, and be suitable to the circumstances of the character. Where this rule is transgressed, the humble servant in all the fine things he says, is but showing his mistress how well he can dress, instead of saying how well he loves. Lace and drapery is as much a man, as wit and turn is passion. MR. SPECTATOR,

-That fair field

Of Enna, where Proserpine gath'ring flowers,
Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
Was gather'd-

Since I am got into quotations, I shall conclude
this head with Virgil's advice to young people,
while they are gathering wild strawberries and
nosegays, that they should have a care of the
snake in the grass.

In the second place, I cannot but approve those prescriptions which our astrological physicians give in their almanacs for this month: such as are a spare and simple diet, with a moderate use of phlebotomy."

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Under this head of abstinence I shall also advise my fair readers to be in a particular manner careful how they meddle with romances, chocolate, novels, and the like inflamers, which I look upon as very dangerous to be made use of during this great carnival of nature.

As I have often declared that I have nothing more at heart than the honor of my dear countrywomen, I would beg them to consider, whenever their resolutions begin to fail them, that there are but one-and thirty days of this soft season, and that if they can but weather out this one month, the rest of the year will be easy to them. As for that part of the fair sex who stay in town, I would advise them to be particularly cautious how they give themselves up to their most innocent entertainments. If they cannot forbear the playhouse, I would recommend tragedy to them rather than comedy; and should think the puppet-show much safer for them than the opera, all the while the sun is in Gemini.

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The following verses are a translation of a Lapland love-song, which I met with in Scheffer's history of that country. I was agreeably surprised to find a spirit of tenderness and poetry in a region which I never suspected for delicacy. In hotter climates, though altogether uncivilized, I had not wondered if I had found some sweet wild notes among the natives, where they live in groves of oranges, and hear the melody of birds about them. But a Lapland lyric, breathing sentiments of love and poetry, not unworthy old Greece or Rome; a regular ode from a climate pinched with frost, and cursed with darkness so great a part of the year: where it is amazing that the poor natives should get food, or be tempted to propagate their species-this, I confess, seemed a greater miracle to me than the famous stories of their drums, their winds, and enchantments.

The

"I am the bolder in commending this northern song, because I have faithfully kept to the sentiments, without adding or diminishing: and pretend to no greater praise from my translation, than they who smooth and clean the furs of that country which have suffered by carriage. The reader will observe, that this paper is writ-numbers in the original are as loose and unequal ten for the use of those ladies who think it worth as those in which the British ladies sport their while to war against nature in the cause of honor. Pindarics; and perhaps the fairest of them might As for that abandoned crew, who do not think vir- not think it a disagreeable present from a lover. tue worth contending for, but give up their repu- But I have ventured to bind it in stricter measures, tation at the first summons, such warnings and as being more proper for our tongue, though perpremonitions are thrown away upon them. A pros- haps wilder graces may better suit the genius of titute is the same easy creature in all months of the Laponian language. the year, and makes no difference between May and December.-X.

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"It will be necessary to imagine that the author of this song, not having the liberty of visiting his mistress at her father's house, was in hopes of spying her at a distance in the fields:

Thou rising sun, whose gladsome ray
Invites my fair to rural play,
Dispel the mist, and clear the skies,
And bring my Orra to my eyes.

Oh! were I sure my dear to view,

I'd climb that pine-tree's topmost bough
Aloft in air that quiv'ring plays,

And round and round forever gaze.

*This Lapland love-song is ascribed to Mr. Ambrose l'hi

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"I am one of those despicable creatures called a chambermaid, and have lived with a mistress for some time, whom I love as my life, which has made my duty and pleasure inseparable. My greatest delight has been in being employed about her person; and indeed she is very seldom out of humor for a woman of her quality. But here lies my complaint, Sir. To bear with me is all the encouragement she is pleased to bestow upon me; for she gives her cast-off clothes from me to others; some she is pleased to bestow in the house to those that neither want nor wear them, and some to hangers on that frequent the house daily, who come dressed out in them. This, Sir, is a very mortifying sight to me, who am a little necessitous for clothes, and love to appear what I am; and causes an uneasiness, so that I cannot serve with that cheerfulness as formerly; which my mistress takes notice of, and calls envy and ill-temper at seeing others preferred before me. My mistress has a younger sister lives in the house with her, that is some thousands below her in estate, who is continually heaping her favors on her maid; so that she can appear every Sunday, for the first quarter; in a fresh suit of clothes of her mistress's giving, with all other things suitable. All this I see without envying, but not without wishing my mistress would a little consider what a discouragement it is to me to have my perquisites divided between fawners and jobbers, which others enjoy entire to themselves. I have spoken to my mistress, but to little purpose; I have desired to be discharged (for indeed I fret myself to nothing), but that she answers with silence. I beg, Sir, your direction what to do, for I am fully resolved to follow your counsel; who am Your admirer and humble Servant,

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"CONSTANTIA COMB-BRUSH."

"I beg that you will put it in a better dress, and let it come abroad, that my mistress who is an admirer of your speculations, may see it."-T.

No. 367. THURSDAY, MAY 1, 1712.
--Perituræ parcite charta.-Juv., Sat. i, 18.
la mercy spare us, when we do our best
To make as much waste paper as the rest.

I HAVE often pleased myself with considering the two kinds of benefits which accrue to the public from these my speculations, and which, were I to speak after the manner of logicians, I would distinguish into the material and the formal. By

the latter I understand those advantages which my readers receive, as their minds are either improved or delighted by these my daily labors; but having already several times descanted on my endeavors in this light. I shall at present wholly confine myself to the consideration of the former. By the word material, I mean those benefits which arise to the public from these my speculations, as they consume a considerable quantity of our paper-manufacture, employ our artisans in printing, and find business for great numbers of indigent persons.

Our paper-manufacture takes into it several mean materials, which could be put to no other use, and affords work for several hands in the collecting of them which are incapable of any other employment. These poor retailers, whom we see so busy in every street, deliver in their respective gleanings to the merchant. The merchant carries them in loads to the paper-mill, where they pass through a fresh set of hands, and give life to another trade. Those who have mills on their estates, by this means considerably raise their rents; and the whole nation is in a great measure supplied with a manufacture for which formerly she was obliged to her neighbors.

The materials are no sooner wrought into paper, but they are distributed among the presses, where they again set innumerable artists at work, and furnish business to another mystery. From hence, accordingly as they are stained with news or politics they fly through the town in Post-men, Postboys, Daily Courants, Reviews, Medleys, and Examiners. Men, women, and children, contend who shall be the first bearers of them, and get their daily sustenance by spreading them. In short, when I trace in my mind a bundle of rags to a quire of Spectators, I find so many hands employed in every step they take through their whole progress, that while I am writing a Spectator, I fancy myself providing bread for a multitude.

If I do not take care to obviate some of my witty readers, they will be apt to tell me, that my paper, after it is thus printed and published, is still beneficial to the public on several occasions. I must confess I have lighted my pipe with my own works for this twelvemonth past. My landlady often sends up her little daughter to desire some of my old Spectators, and has frequently told me that the paper they are printed on is the best in the world to wrap spice in. They likewise make a good foundation for a mutton-pie, as I have more than once experienced, and were very much sought for last Christmas by the whole neighborhood.

It is pleasant enough to consider the changes that a linen fragment undergoes, by passing through the several hands above-mentioned. The finest pieces of holland, when worn to tatters, assume a new whiteness more beautiful than the first, and often return in the shape of letters to their native country. A lady's shift may be metamorphosed into billets-doux, and come into her possession a second time. A beau may peruse his cravat after it is worn out, with greater pleasure and advantage than ever he did in a glass. In a word, a piece of cloth, after having officiated for some years as a towel or a napkin, may by this means be raised from a dunghill, and become the most valuable piece of furniture in a prince's cabinet.

The politest nations of Europe have endeavored to vie with one another for the reputation of the finest printing. Absolute governments, as well as republics, have encouraged an art which seeins to be the noblest and most beneficial that was ever

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