should happen to your Lordship, who could bring into the service of your fovereign the arts and policies of ancient Greece and Rome; as well as the most exact knowledge of our own constitution in particular, and of the interefts of Europe in general; to which I must also add, a certain dignity in Yourself, that (to fay the least of it) has been always equal to those great honours which have been conferred upon You. It is very well known how much the Church owed to You in the most dangerous day it ever saw, that of the arraignment of its prelates; and how far the Civil Power, in the late and present reign, has been indebted to your counsels and wisdom. : But to enumerate the great advantages which the publick has received from your administration, would be a more proper work for an hiftory than for an address of this nature. : Your Lordship appears as great in your private life, as in the most important offices which You have born. I would therefore rather choose to speak of the pleafure You afford all who are admitted into your conversation, of Your elegant taste in all the polite parts of learning, of Your great humanity and complacency of manners, and of the surprising influence which is peculiar to You in making every one who converses with Your Lordship, prefer You to himself, without thinking the less meanly of his own talents. But if I should take notice of all that might be observed in Your Lordship, I should have nothing new to say upon any other character of Diftinction. I am, My LORD, Most devoted, humble Servant, The SPECTATOR. 1 THE SPECTATOR. N. THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 1710-11. Non fumum ex falgore, fed ex fumo dare lucem Cogitat, ut speciofa dehinc miracula promat. I Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 143. One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke; The other out of smoke brings glorious light, And (without raising expectation high) Surprizes us with dazzling miracles. Rofcommon. HAVE obferved, that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure, till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric disposition, married or a bachelor; with other particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory discourses to my following writings, and shall give fome account in them of the several perfons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of compiling, digefting, and correcting, will fall to my share, I must do myself the juftice to open the work with my own history. I was born to a small hereditary eftate, which, according to the tradition of the village where it lies, was bounded by the fame hedges and ditches in William the Conqueror's time that it is at prefent, and has been delivered down from father to fon whole and entire, without the lofs or acquifition of a fingle field or meadow, during the space of fix hundred years. There runs a story in the family, that when my mother was gone with child of me about three months, the dreamt that the was brought-to-bed of a Judge: Whether this might proceed from a law-fuit which was then depending in the family, or my father's being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to think it presaged any dignity Chat I should arrive at in my future life, though that wa the interpretation which the neighbour hood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my very first appearance in the world, and all the time that I fucked, feemed to favour my mother's dream; for, as she has often told me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells from it. As for the reft of my infancy, there being nos thing in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in filence, I find, that, during my nonage, I had the reputation of a very fullen youth; but was always a favourite of my schoolmatter, who used to fay, "that my parts were folid, and would wear well." I had not been long at the university, before I diftinguit el myself by a most į rofound tilence; for during the space of eight years, excepting in the publick exercises of the college, I scarcè uttered the quantity of an hundred words; and, indeed, do not remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole life. Whilst I was in learned body, I applied myself with so muc'i gence to my studies, that there are very few lebrated books, either in the learned or the modern tongues, which I am not acquainted with. Upon the death of my father, I was refolved to travel into foreign countries; and therefore left the university, with the character of an odd, unaccountable fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but shew it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried me into all the countries of Europe, in which there was any thing new or strange to be seen; nay, to fuch a degree was my curiofity raised, that having read the controverfies of fome great men concerning the antiquities of Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the measure of a pyramid; and as foon as I had fet myself right in that particular, returned to my native country with great fatisfaction. I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in most public places, though there are not above half a dozen of my felect friends. that know me; of whom my next paper shall give a more particular account. There is no place of general refort, wherein I do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's, and liftening with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I fimoke a pipe at Child's, and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the Poftman, overhear the converfation of every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights ar St. James's coffee-house; and fometimes join the little committee of politicks in the inner room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known at the Grecian, the Cocoa-Tree, and in the theatres both of Drury-Lane and the Hay-Market. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange for above these ten years, and fometimes pafs for a Jew in the affembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's, short, wherever I fee a cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never open my lips but in my own club, Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of mankind, than as one of the species; by which means I have made myself a fpeculative stutefinan, foldier, merchant, and artifah, without ever moddling with any pract cal part in life, Lam very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and candifcern the error in the ceconomy, bufinefe, and diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them; as standers-by difcover blots, which are apt to efcape those who are in the game, never ! I never espoused any party with violence, and am refolved to observe an exact neutrality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either fide. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve in this paper. I have given the reader just so much of my history and character, as to let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the business I have undertaken. As for other particulars in my life and adventures, I shall infert them in following papers as I shall fee occafion. In the mean time, when I confider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own taciturnity; and fince I have neither time nor inclination to communicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I am refolved to do it in writing, and to print myself out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told by my friends, that it is pity so many useful discoveries which I have made should be in the possession of a filent man. For this reason therefore, I shall publish a sheet-full of thoughts every morning, for the benefit of my contenaporaries; and if I can any way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am fummoned out of it, with the secret fatisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain. There are three very material points which I have not spoken to in this paper; and which, for several important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least for some time: I mean, an account of my name, my age, and my lodgings. I must confefs, I would gratify my Reader in any thing that is reasonable; but as for these three particulars, though I am fenfible they might tend very much to the embellishment of my paper, I cannot yet come to a resolution of communicating them to the Public. They would indeed draw me out of that obfcurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and expose me in public places to several salutes and civilities, which have been always very disagreeable to me; for the greatest pain I can fuffer is, the being talked to, and being stared at. It is for this reason likewise, that I keep my complexion and dress as very great fecrets; though it is not impossible, but I may make discoveries of both, in the progress of the work I have undertaken. After having been thus particular upon myself, I shall in to-morrow's paper give an account of those Gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work; for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and concerted, as all other matters of importance are, in a club. However, as my friends have engaged me to stand in the front, those, who have a mind to correspond with me, may direct their letters to the Spectator, at Mr. Buckley's, in Little-Britain. For I must further acquaint the reader, that though our club meets only on Tuefdays and Thursdays, we have appointed a committee to fit every night for the inspection of all fuch pa pers as may contribute to the advancement of the public weal. no grand father was inventor of that famous country-dance which is called after him. All who know that shire are very well acquainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He is a gentleman that is very fingular in his behaviour, but his fingularities proceed from his good sense, and are contradictions to the manners of the world, only as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this humour creates him enemies, for he does nothing with fourness or obstinacy; and his being unconfined to modes and forms makes him but the readier and more capable to please and oblige all who know him. When he is in town, he lives in Soho-Square. It is said, he keeps himself a bachelor, by reason he was crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir Roger was what you call a fine gentleman, had often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George Etherage, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, and kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffee-house for calling him youngster. But being ill-used by the above-mentioned widow, he was very ferious for a year and a half; and though, his temper being naturally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of himself, and never dressed afterwards. He continues to wear a coat and doublet of the fame cut that were in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his merry humours, he tells us, has been in and out twelve times since he first wore it. It is faid Sir Roger grew humble in his defires after he had forgot this cruel beauty, infomuch, that it is reported he has frequently offended in point of chastity with beggars and gypsies: but this is looked upon by his friends rather as a matter of raillery than truth. He is now in the fixty-sixth year, chearful, gay and hearty; keeps a good house both in town and country; a great lover of mankind; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his fervants look fatisfied, all the young women profess love to him, and the young men are glad of his company; when he comes into a house, he calls the fervants by their names, and talks all the way up-stairs to a vifit. I must not omit, that Sir Roger is a justice of the Quorum; that he fills the chair at a quarter-session with great abilities, and three months ago gained universal applause by explaining a passage in the game-act. The Gentleman next in esteem and authority among us, is another bachelor, who is a mem ber of the Inner-Temple; a man of great probity, wit, and understanding; but he has chofen his place of refidence, rather to obey the direction of an old humoursome father, than in pursuit of his own inclinations. He was placed there to study the laws of the land, and is the most learned of any of the house in those of the stage. Ariftotle and Longinus are much better understood by him than Littleton or Coke. The father sends up every post questions relating to marriage-articles, leases, and tenures, in the neighbourhood; all which questions he agrees with an attorney to anfwer and take care of in the lump. He is studying the paffions themselves, when he should be enquiring into the debates among men which arife from them. He knows the argument of each of the orations of Demofthenes and Tully; but nat one cafe in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool, but none, except his Intimate friends, knew he had a great deal of wit. This turn makes him at once both disinterested and and agreeable: as few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all but approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, and writings of the ancients, makes him a very delicate observer of what occurs to him in the present world. He is an excellent critick, and the time of the play is his hour of business; exactly at five he passes through NewInn, croffes through Ruffel-Court, and takes a turn at Will's till the play begins; he has his shoes rubbed and his periwig powdered at the barber's as you go in to the Rose. It is for the good of the audience when he is at the play, for the actors have an ambition to please him. The person of next confideration is Sir Andrew Freeport, a merchant of great eminence in the city of London; a person of indefatigable industry, strong reason, and great experience. His notions of trade are noble and generous, and (as every rich man has usually some sly way of jefting, which would make no great figure were he not a rich man) he calls the fea the British Common. He is acquainted with commerce in all its parts, and will tell you, that it is a stupid and barbarous way to extend dominion by arms; for true power is to be got by arts and industry. He will often argue, that if this part of our trade were well cultivated, we should gain from one nation; and if another, from another. I have heard him prove, diligence makes more lafting acquisitions than valour, and that floth has ruined more nations than the sword. He abounds in several frugal maxims, among which the greatest favorite is, ' A penny faved is a penny got.' A general trader of good sense is pleasanter company than a general scholar; and Sir Andrew having a natural unaffected eloquence, the perfpicuity of his discourse gives the fame pleasure that wit would do in another man. He has made his fortunes himself; and fays that England may be richer than other kingdoms, by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men; though at the same time I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which he is an owner. Next to Sir Andrew in the club-room fits Captain Sentry, a Gentleman of great courage, good understanding, but invincible modesty. He is one of those that deserve very well, but are very aukward at putting their talents within the obfervation of fuch as should take notice of them. He was some years a captain, and behaved himself with great gallantry in several fieges; but having a small eftate of his own, and being next heir to Sir Roger, he has quitted a way of life in which no man can rise suitably to his merit, who is not something of a courtier, as well as a foldier. I have heard him often lament, that in a profession where merit is placed in fo confpicuous a view, impudence should get the better of modesty. When he has talked to this purpose, I never heard him make a four expreflion, but frankly confefs that he left the world because he was not fit for it. A strict honesty, and an even regular behaviour, are in themselves obstacles to him that must press through crowds, who endeavour at the fame end with himself, the favour of a commander. He will however in his way of talk excusfe Generals, for not difpofing according to mens defert, or inquiring into it; for, says he, that great man who has a mind to help me, has as many to break through to come at me, as I have to come at him: therefore he will conclude that the man who would make a figure, especially in a military way, must get over all false modesty, and assist his patron against the importunity of other pretenders, by a proper assurance in his own vindication. He says it is a civil cowardice to be backward in afferting what you ought to expect, as it is a military fear to be flow in attacking when it is your duty. With this candour does the Gentleman speak of himself and others. The fame frankness runs through all his conversation. The military part of his life has furnished him with many adventures, in the relation of which he is very agreeable to the company; for he is never overbearing, though accustomed to command men in the utmost degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from an habit of obeying men highly above him. But that our fociety may not appear a fet of humourists, unacquainted with the gallantries and pleasures of the age, we have among us the gallant Will Honeycomb; a Gentleman, who according to his years thould be in the decline of his life; but having ever been very careful of his person, and always had a very easy fortune, time has made but a very little impression, either by wrinkles on his forehead, or traces in his brain. His person is well turned, of a good height. He is very ready at that fort of discourse with which men usually entertain women. He has all his life dressed very well, and remembers habits as others do men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows the history of every mode, and can inform you from which of the French king's wenches our wives and daughters had this manner of curling their hair, that way of placing their hoods; whofe frailty was covered by fuch a fort of petticoat, and whose vanity to shew her foot made that part of the dress so short in such a year. In a word, all his conversation and knowledge have been in the female world. As other men of his age will take notice to you what such a minister said upon fuch an occafion; he will tell you, when the Duke of Monmouth danced at court, such a woman was then smitten; another was taken with him at the head of his troop in the Park. In all these important relations, he has ever about the same time received a kind glance or a blow of a fan from fome celebrated beauty, mother of the present Lord fuch-aone. If you speak of a young commoner that faid a lively thing in the house, he starts up, "He has "good blood in his veins; Tom Mirabell begat " him; the rogue cheated me in that affair, that young fellow's mother used me more like a dog, "than any woman I ever made advances to." This way of talking of his very much enlivens the conversation among us of a more sedate turn; and I find there is not one of the company, but myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that fort of man who is usually called a well-bred fine Gentleman. To conclude his character, where women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy man. I cannot tell whether I am to account him, whom I am next to speak of, 'as one of our company; for he vifits us but seldom, but, when he does, it adds to every man else a new enjoyment of himself. He is a clergyman, a very philosophick man, of general learning, great sanctity of life, and the most exact good-breeding. He has the misfortune to be of a very weak constitution, and confequently cannot accept of fuch cares and business as preferments in his function would oblige him to; he is therefore among divines what a chamber-counsellor is among lawyers. The probity of his mind, and the inte No. 3. grity of his life, create him followers; as being tary consumptions, that, in the twinkling of an eloquent or loud advances others. He feldom intro-eye, the would fall away from the most florid duces the fubject he speaks upon; but we are fo far gone in years, that he observes when he is among us, an earnestness to have him fall on fome divine topic, which he always treats with much authority, as one who has no interests in this world, as one who is haftening to the object of all his wishes, and conceives hope from his decays and infirmities. These are my ordinary companions. No 3. SATURDAY, MARCH 3. R LUCR. 1. 4. v. 959. ------What studies please, what most delight, And fill mens thoughts, they dream them o'er at night. CREECH. N one of my late rambles, or rather speculations, I looked into the great hall where the bank is kept, and was not a little pleased to see the directors, secretariss, and clerks, with all the other members of that wealthy corporation, ranged in their several stations, according to the parts they act in that just and regular economy. This revived in my memory the many difcourses which I had both read and heard concerning the decay of public credit, with the methods of restoring it, and which, in my opinion, have always been defective, because they have always been made with an eye to separate interests, and party principles. complection, and the most healthful state of body, and wither into a skeleton. Her recoveries were often as sudden as her decays, infomuch that the would revive in a moment out of a wasting distemper into a habit of the highest health and vigour. I had very foon an opportunity of observing these quick turns and changes in her constitution. There fat at her feet a couple of secretaries, who received every hour letters from all parts of the world, which the one or the other of them was perpetually reading to her; and, according to the news the heard, to which the was exceedingly attentive, the changed colour, and discovered many symptoms of health or fickness. Behind the throne was a prodigious heap of bags of money, which were piled upon one another fo high that they touched the cieling. The floor, on her right hand and on her left, was covered with vast fums of gold that rose up in pyramids on either fide of her but this I did not so much wonde" at, when I heard, upon inquiry, that she had the same virtue in her touch, which the poets tell us a Lydian king was formerly poffeffed of; and that she could convert whatever the pleased into that precious metal. After a little dizziness, and confused hurry of thought, which a man often meets with in a dream, methought the hall was alarmed, the doors flew open, and there entered half a dozen of the most hideous phantoins that I had ever seen, even in a dream, before that time. They came in two by two, though matched in the most diffociable manner, and mingled together in a kind of dance, It would be tedious to describe their habits and perfons; for which reason, I shall only inform my The thoughts of the day gave my mind employ-reader that the first couple were Tyranny and A ment for the whole night, so that I fell infenfibly into a kind of methodical dream, which disposed all my contemplations into a vision or allegory, or what elic the reader shall please to call it. Methought, I returned to the great hall, where I had been the morning before, but, to my surprise, instead of the company that I left there, I faw, towards the upper end of the hall, a beautiful virgin, feated on a throne of gold. Her name (as they told me) was Public Credit. The walls, instead of being adorned with pictures and maps, were hung with many acts of parliament written in golden letters. At the upper end of the hall was the Magna Charta, with the act of uniformity on the right hand, and the act of toleration on the left. At the lower end of the hall was the net of Settlement, which was placed full in the eye of the virgin that fat upon the throne, Both the fides of the hail were covered with fuch acts of parliament as had been made for the establishment of public funds. The Lady feemed to fet an unspeakable value upon these several pieces of furniture, infomuch that the often. refreshed her eye with them, and often smiled with a fecret pleafure as the looked upon them; but, at the fame time, shewed a very particular uneafiness, if she saw any thing approaching that might hurt thom. She appeared indeed infinitely timorous in all her behaviours and, wither it was from the delicacy of her conftitution, or that the was troubied with vapours, as I was afterwards told by one who I found was none of her well-wishers, the changed colour, and startled at every thing the heard. She was likewife (as I afterwards found) a greater valetudinarian than any I had ever met with ven in her own fex, and iubject to fuch momen narchy, the second were Bigotry and Atheism, the third, the Genius of a Commonwealth, and a young man of about twenty-two years of age, whose name I could not learn. He had a sword in his right hand, which in the dance he often brandished at the Act of Settlement; and a citizen, who stood by me, whispered in my ear, that he saw a sponge in his left hand. The dance of so many jarring natures put me in mind of the fun, moon, and earth, in the Rehearsal, that danced together for no other end but to eclipse one ano ther. The reader will easily suppose, by what has been before said, that the Lady on the throne would have been almost frighted to distraction, had the seen but any one of these spectes; what then must have been her condition when she saw them all in a body? She fainted and died away at the fight. Et neque jam color est misto candore rubori; Her spirits faint, Her blooming cheeks afiume a palid teint, There was as great a change in the hill of money-bags, and the heaps of money, the former shrinking and falling into fo many empty bags, that I now found not above a tenth part of them had been filled with money. The rest that took up the fame space, and made the fame figure as the bags that were really filled with money, had been blown up with air, and called into my memory the bags full of wind, which Homer tells us his hero received as a present from Æolus. The great |
