he has affected a certain art of getting me alone, and talking with a mighty profusion of passionate words, how I am not to be resisted longer, how irresistible his wishes are, and the like. As long as I have been acquainted with him, I could not ea such occasions say downright to him, You know you may make me yours when you please. But the other night, he with great frankness and impudence explained to me, that he thought of me only as a mistress. I answered this declaration as it de served; upon which he only doubled the terms on which he proposed my yielding. When my anger heightened upon him, he told me he was sorry he had made so little use of the unguarded hours se had been together so remote from company, as indeed,' continued he, so we are at present.' I flew from him to a neighbouring gentlewoman's house, and, though her husband was in the room, threw myself on a couch, and burst into a passion of tears. My friend desired her husband to leave the room, But,' said he, there is something so extraordinary in this, that I will partake in the affliction; and be it what it will, she is so much your friend, that she knows she may command what services I can do her.' The man sat down by me, and spoke so like a brother, that I told him my whole affliction, He

to you another circumstance, which is, that my mother, the most mercenary of all women, is gained by this false friend of my husband to solicit me for him. I am frequently chid by the poor believing man my husband, for showing an impatience of his friend's company; and I am never alone with my mother, but she tells me stories of the discretionary part of the world, and such-a-one, and such-a-one, who are guilty of as much as she advises me to. She laughs at my astonishment; and seems to hint to me, that, as virtuous as she has always appeared, I am not the daughter of her husband. It is possible that printing this letter may relieve me from the unnatural importunity of my mother, and the perfidious courtship of my husband's friend. I have an unfeigned love of virtue, and am resolved to preserve my innocence. The only way I can think of to avoid the fatal consequences of the discovery of this matter is to fly away for ever, which I must do to avoid my husband's fatal resentment against the man who attempts to abuse him, and the shame' of exposing a parent to infamy. The persons concerned will know these circumstances relate to them; and though the regard to virtue is dead in them, I have some hopes from their fear of shame upon reading this in your paper; which I conjure you to publish, if you have any compassion for in-spoke of the injury done me with so much indigna jured virtue.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"SYLVIA."

and I doubt not but in a small time contempt and hatred will take place of the remains of affection to

a rascal.

"I am, Sir, your affectionate Reader, "DORINDA," "MR. SPECTATOR,

"I had the misfortune to be an uncle before I

tion, and animated me against the love he said he saw I had for the wretch who would have betrayed "I am the husband of a woman of merit, but am me, with so much reason and humanity to my weakfallen in love, as they call it, with a lady of her ac- and he are my comforters, and I am under no more ness, that I doubt not of my perseverance. Ilis wife quaintance, who is going to be married to a gentle-restraint in their company than if I were alone; man who deserves her. I am in a trust relating to this lady's fortune, which makes my concurrence in this matter necessary; but I have so irresistible a rage and envy rise in me when I consider his future happiness, that against all reason, equity, and common justice, I am ever playing mean tricks to suspend the nuptials. I have no manner of hopes for myself: Emilia (for so I will call her,) is a woman of the most strict virtue; her lover is a gentleman, knew my nephews from my nieces; and now we whom of all others I could wish my friend: but envy are grown up to better acquaintance, they deny me and jealousy, though placed so unjustly, waste my their familiar, another will hardly be persuaded that the respect they owe. One upbraids me with being very being; and with the torment and sense of a demon, I am ever cursing what I cannot but ap-fourth tells me there is no duty at all due to an I am an uncle, a third calls me little uncle, and a prove. I wish it were the beginning of repentance, that I sit down and describe my present disposition uncle. I have a brother-in-law whose son will win with so hellish an aspect: but at present the de- all my affection, unless you shall think this worthy struction of these two excellent persons would be of your cognisance, and will be pleased to prescribe more welcome to me than their happiness. Mr. some rules for our future reciprocal behaviour. It Spectator, pray let me have a paper on these ter-will be worthy the particularity of your genus to rible, groundless sufferings, and do all you can to lay down rules for his conduct, who was, as it were, exorcise crowds who are in some degree possessed born an old man; in which you will much oblige, Sir, your most obedient Servant, "CORNELIUS NEPOS."

as I am.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"CANNIBAL."

"I have no other means but this to express my thanks to one man, and my resentment against another. My circumstances are as follow: I have been for five years last past courted by a gentlemau of greater fortune than I ought to expect, as the market for women goes. You must, to be sure, have observed people who live in that sort of way, as all their friends reckon it will be a match, and are marked out by all the world for each other. In this view, we have been regarded for some time, and I have above these three years loved him tenderly. As he is very careful of his fortune, I always thought he lived in a near manner, to lay up what he thought was wanting in my fortune to make up what he might expect in another. Within these few months I have observed his carriage very much altered, and

T.

No. 403.] THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 1712.
Qui mores hominum multorum vidit-

HOR. Ars Poet. v. 142.
Of many men he saw the manners.
WHEN I consider this great city in its several
quarters and divisions, I look upon it as an aggre
gate of various nations distinguished from cach
other by their respective customs, manners, and in-
terests. The courts of two countries do not sa
much differ from one another, as the court and city.
in their peculiar ways of life and conversation. fa
short, the inhabitants of St. James's, notwithstand-
ing they live under the same laws, and speak the
same language, are a distinct people from those of

Cheapside, who are likewise removed from those of the Temple on one side, and those of Smithfield on the other, by several climates and degrees in their ways of thinking and conversing together.

the company an account of the deplorable state o France during the minority of the deceased king.

I then turned on my right hand into Fish-street, where the chief politician of that quarter, upon hearing the news (after having taken a pipe of tobacco, and ruminated for some time), If," says he, "the king of France is certainly dead, we shall have plenty of mackerel this season: our fishery will not be disturbed by privateers, as it has been for these ten years past." He afterwards considered how the death of this great man would affect our pilchards, and by several other remarks infused a

For this reason, when any public affair is upon the anvil, I love to hear the reflections that arise upon it in the several districts and parishes of London and Westminster, and to ramble up and down a whole day together, in order to make myself acquainted with the opinions of my ingenious countrymen. By this means I know the faces of all the principal politicians within the bills of mortality; and as every coffee-house has some particular states-general joy into his whole audience. man belonging to it, who is the mouth of the street where he lives, I always take care to place myself near him, in order to know his judgment on the present posture of affairs. The last progress that I made with this intention, was about three months ago, when we had a current report of the king of France's death. As I foresaw this would produce a new face of things in Europe, and many curious speculations in our British coffee-houses, I was very desirous to learn the thoughts, of our most eminent politicians on that occasion.

That I might begin as near the fountain-head as possible, I first of all called in at St. James's, where I found the whole outward room in a buzz of politics. The speculations were but very indifferent towards the door, but grew finer as you advanced to the apper end of the room, and were so very much improved by a knot of theorists, who sat in the inner room, within the steams of the coffee-pot, that I there heard the whole Spanish monarchy disposed of, and all the line of Bourbon provided for in less than a quarter of an hour.

I afterwards called in at Giles's, where I saw a board of French gentlemen sitting upon the life and death of their grand monarque. Those among them who had espoused the whig interest, very positively affirmed, that he departed this life about a week since, and therefore proceeded without any further delay to the release of their friends in the galleys, and to their own re-establishment; but finding they could not agree among themselves, I proceeded ou my intended progress.

Upon my arrival at Jenny Man's I saw an alerte young fellow that cocked his hat upon a friend of his who entered just at the same time with myself, and accosted him after the following manner: Well, Jack, the old prig is dead at last. Sharp's the word. Now or never, boy. Up to the walls of Paris directly." With several other deep reflections

of the same nature.

I met with very little variation in the politics between Charing-cross and Covent-garden. And upon my going into Will's, I found their discourse was gone off from the death of the French king to that of Monsieur Boileau, Racine, Corneille, and several other poets, whom they regretted on this occasion, 38 persons who would have obliged the world with very noble elegies on the death of so great a prince, and so eminent a patron of learning.

I afterward entered a by-coffee-house that stood at the upper end of a narrow lane, where I met with a non-juror, engaged very warmly with a laceman who was the great support of a neighbouring conventicle. The matter in debate was, whether the late French king was most like Augustus Cæsar or Nero. The controversy was carried on with great heat on both sides; and as each of them looked upon me very frequently during the course of their debate, I was under some apprehension that they would appeal to me, and therefore laid down my penny at the bar, and made the best of my way to Cheapside.

I here gazed upon the signs for some time, before I found one to my purpose. The first object I met in the coffee-room was a person who expressed great grief for the death of the French king; but, upon his explaining himself, I found his sorrow did not arise from the loss of the monarch, but for his having sold out of the bank about three days before he heard the news of it. Upon which, a haberdasher, who was the oracle of the coffee-house, and had his circle of admirers about him, called several to wit ness that he had declared his opinion above a week before, that the French king was certainly dead; to which he added, that, considering the late advices we had received from France, it was impossible that it could be otherwise. As he was laying these together, and dictating to his hearers with great authority, there came in a gentleman from Garraway's, who told us that there were several letters from France just come in, with advice that the king was gone out a-hunting the very morning the post came away: upon which, the haberdasher stole off his hat that hung upon a wooden peg by him, and retired to his shop with great confusion. This intelligence put a stop to my travels, which I had prosecuted with much satisfaction, not being a little pleased to hear so many different opinions upon so great an event, and to observe how naturally upon such a piece of news every one is apt to consider it with regard to his own particular interest and advantage.-L.

No. 404.] FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 1712. -Non omnia possumus onmes.-VIRO. Ecl. viii. 63. With different talents form'd, we variously excel. NATURE does nothing in vain: the Creator of the universe has appointed every thing to a certain At a coffee-house near the Temple, I found a use and purpose, and determined it to a settled couple of young gentlemen engaged very smartly in course and sphere of action, from which if it in the a dispute on the succession to the Spanish monarchy.least deviates, it becomes unfit to answer those ends One of them seemed to have been retained as advo- for which it was designed. In like manner, it is in sate for the Duke of Anjou, the other for his im- the dispositions of society, the civil economy is perial majesty. They were both for regulating the tle to that kingdom by the statute laws of England; but finding them going out of my depth, I passed forward to St. Paul's churchyard, where I listened with great attention to a learned man, who gave SPECTATOR-Nos. 59 & 60.

formed in a chain, as well as the natural: and in either case the breach but of one link puts the whole in some disorder. It is, I think, pretty plain, that most of the absurdity and ridicule we meet with in the world is generally owing to the impertinent

2 H

affectation of excelling in characters men are not fit for, and for which Nature never designed them. Every man has one or more qualities which may make him useful both to himself and others. Nature never fails of pointing them out; and while the infant continues under her guardianship, she brings him on in his way, and then offers herself for a guide in what remains of the journey; if he proceeds in that course, he can hardly miscarry. Nature makes good her engagements; for, as she never promises what she is not able to perform, so she never fails of performing what she promises. But the misfortune is, men despise what they may be masters of, and affect what they are not fit for; they reckon themselves already possessed of what their genius inclined them to, and so bend all their ambition to excel in what is out of their reach. Thus they destroy the use of their natural talents, in the same manner as covetous men do their quiet and repose: they can enjoy no satisfaction in what they have, because of the absurd inclination they are possessed with for what they have not.

Nature, if left to herself, leads us on in the best course, but will do nothing by compulsion and constraint: and if we are not satisfied to go her way, we are always the greatest sufferers by it.

Wherever Nature designs a production, she always disposes seeds proper for it, which are as absolutely necessary to the formation of any moral or intellectual excellence, as they are to the being and growth of plants; and I know not by what fate and folly it is, that men are taught, not to reckon him equally absurd that will write verses in spite of Nature, with that gardener that should undertake to raise a jonquil or tulip without the help of their respective seeds.

As there is no good or bad quality that does not affect both sexes, so it is not to be imagined but the fair sex must have suffered by an affectation of this nature, at least as much as the other. The ill effect of it is in none so conspicuous as in the two opposite characters of Calia and Iras: Celia has all the charms of person, together with an abundant sweetness of nature, but wants wit, and has a very ill voice; Iras is ugly and ungenteel, but has wit and good sense. If Calia would be silent, her beholders would adore her: if Iras would talk, her hearers would admire her: but Cælia's tougue runs inces santly, while Iras gives herself silent airs and soft languors, so that it is difficult to persuade one's self that Calia has beauty, and Iras wit: each neglects her own excellence, and is ambitious of the other's character; Iras would be thought to have as much beauty as Cælia, and Celia as much wit as Iras.

Cleanthes had good sense, a great memory, and a constitution capable of the closest application. In a word, there was no profession in which Cleanthes might not have made a very good figure; but this will not satisfy him; he takes up an unaccountable fondness for the character of a gentleman: all his thoughts are bent upon this. Instead of attending a dissection, frequenting the courts of justice, or studying the fathers, Cleanthes reads plays, dances, dresses, and spends his time in drawing-rooms. Instead of being a good lawyer, divine, or physician, The great misfortune of this affectation is, that Cleanthes is a downright coxcomb, and will remain men not only lose a good quality, but also contract to all that know him a contemptible example of ta- a bad one. They not only are unfit for what they lents misapplied. It is to this affectation the world were designed, but they assign themselves to what owes its whole race of coxcombs. Nature in her they are not fit for; and instead of making a very whole drama never drew such a part; she has some- good figure one way, make a very ridiculous one times made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a another. If Semanthe would have been satisfied man's own making, by applying his talents other- with her natural complexion, she might still have wise than Nature designed, who ever bears a high been celebrated by the name of the olive beauty; resentment for being put out of her course, and but Semanthe has taken up an affectation to white never fails of taking her revenge on those that do and red, and is now distinguished by the character so. Opposing her tendency in the application of a of the lady that paints so well. In a word, could man's parts, has the same success as declining from the world be reformed to the obedience of that famed her course in the production of vegetables. By the dictate, "Follow Nature," which the oracle of Delassistance of art and a hot-bed, we may possibly phos pronounced to Cicero, when he consulted what extort an unwilling plant, or an untimely salad; course of studies he should pursue, we should see but how weak, how tasteless and insipid! Just as almost every man as eminent in his proper sphere insipid as the poetry of Valerio. Valerio had a as Tully was in his, and should in a very short time universal character, was genteel, had learning, find impertinence and affectation banished from thought justly, spoke correctly; it was believed among the women, and coxcombs and false charac there was nothing in which Valerio did not excel; ters from among the meu. For my part, I could and it was so far true, that there was but one: Va-never consider this preposterous repugnancy to Nalerio had no genius for poetry, yet he is resolved to ture any otherwise, than not only as the greatest be a poet; he writes verses, and takes great pains folly, but also one of the most heinous crimes, since to convince the town that Valerio is not that extra-it is a direct opposition to the disposition of Proviordinary person he was taken for. dence, and (as Tully expresses it) like the sin of the giants, an actual rebellion against Heaven.-2.

No. 405.] SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1712
With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends;
The pæans lengthened till the sun descends;
The Greeks restored, the grateful notes prolong:
Apollo listens, and approves the song-Porz.

If men would be content to graft upon Nature, and assist her operations, what mighty effects might we expect! Tully would not stand so much alone in oratory, Virgil in poetry, or Cæsar in war. To build upon Nature, is laying a foundation upon a rock; every thing disposes itself into order as it were of course, and the whole work is half done as soon as undertaken. Cicero's genius inclined him to oratory, Virgil's to follow the train of the Muses; I AM very sorry to find, by the opera bills for this they piously obeyed the admonition, and were re-day, that we are likely to lose the greatest performer warded. Had Virgil attended the bar, his modest in dramatic music that is now living, or that perand ingenuous virtue would surely have made but a haps ever appeared upon a stage. I need not auvery indifferent figure; and Tully's declamatory quaint my readers that I am speaking of Siguiar inclination would have been as useless in poetry. Nicelini. The town is highly obliged to that excel

lent artist, for having shown us the Italian music ta its perfection, as well as for that generous approbation, he lately gave to an opera of our own country, in which the composer endeavoured to do justice to the beauty of the words, by following that noble example which has been set him by the greatest foreign masters in that art.

I could heartily wish there were the same application and endeavours to cultivate and improve our church music as have been lately bestowed on that of the stage. Our composers have one very great incitement to it. They are sure to meet with excellent words, and at the same time a wonderful variety of them. There is no passion that is not finely expressed in those parts of the inspired writings, which are proper for divine songs and anthems.

which we have reason to believe were in high repute among the courts of the eastern monarchs, were nothing else but psalms and pieces of poetry that adored or celebrated the Supreme Being. The greatest conqueror in this holy nation, after the manner of the old Grecian lyrics, did not only compose the words of his divine odes, but generally set them to music himself: after which, his works, though they were consecrated to the tabernacle, be came the national entertainment as well as the devotion of his people.

The first original of the drama was a religious worship, consisting only of a chorus, which was nothing else but a hymn to a deity. As luxury and voluptuousness prevailed over innocence and religion, this form of worship degenerated into tragé dies; in which, however, the chorus so far remembered its first office, as to brand every thing that was vicious, and recommend every thing that was laudable, to intercede with Heaven for the innocent, and to implore its vengeance on the criminal.

Homer and Hesiod intimate to us how this art should be applied, when they represent the Muses as surrounding Jupiter and warbling their hymns about his throne. I might show, from innumerable passages in ancient writers, not only that vocal and instrumental music were made use of in their religious worship, but that their most favourite diversions were filled with songs and hymns to their respective deities. Had we frequent entertainments of this nature among us, they would not a little purify and exalt our passions, give our thoughts a proper turn, and cherish those divine impulses in the soul, which every one feels that has not stifled them by sensual and immoderate pleasures.

There is a certain coldness and indifference in the phrases of our European languages, when they are compared with the oriental forms of speech; and it happens very luckily, that the Hebrew idioms run into the English tongue with a particular grace and beauty. Our language has received innumerable elegancies and improvements, from that infusion of Hebraisms, which are derived to it out of the poetical passages in holy writ. They give a force and energy to our expressions, warm and animate our language, and convey our thoughts in more ardent and intense phrases, than any that are to be met with in our own tongue. There is something so pathetic in this kind of diction, that it often sets the mind in a fame, and makes our hearts burn within us. How cold and dead does a prayer appear, that is composed in the most elegant and polite forms of speech, which are natural to our tongue, when it is not heightened by that solemnity of phrase which Music, when thus applied, raises noble hints in may be drawn from the sacred writings. It has the mind of the hearer, and fills it with great conbeen said by some of the ancients, that if the gods ceptions. It strengthens devotion, and advances were to talk with men, they would certainly speak praise into rapture; it lengthens out every act of in Plato's style; but I think we may say with jus-worship, and produces more lasting and permanent tice, that when mortals converse with their Creator, they cannot do it in so proper a style as in that of the Holy Scriptures.

If any one would judge of the beauties of poetry that are to be met with in the divine writings, and examine how kindly the Hebrew manners of speech mix and incorporate with the English language; after having perused the Book of Psalms, let him read a literal translation of Horace or Pindar. He will find in these two last such an absurdity and confusion of style, with such a comparative poverty of imagination, as will make him very sensible of what I have been here advancing.

impressions in the mind than those which accompany any transient form of words that are uttered in the ordinary method of religious worship.-O.

Hæc

No. 406.]
MONDAY, JUNE 16, 1712.
studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, se-

cundas res ornant, adversis solatium et perfugium præbent;
delectant domi, non impediunt foris; pernoctant nobiscum,
peregrinantur, rusticantur.

TULL

These studies nourish youth; delight old age; are the ornament of prosperity, the solacement and the refuge of adversity: they are delectable at home, and not burdensome abroa they gladden us at nights, and on our journeys, and in country.

Since we have therefore such a treasury of words, so beautiful in themselves, and so proper for the THE following letters bear a pleasing image of airs of music, I cannot but wonder that persons of the joys and satisfactions of private life. The first distinction should give so little attention and en- is from a gentleman to a friend, for whom he has a couragement to that kind of music which would very great respect, and to whom he communicates have its foundation in reason, and which would in- the satisfaction he takes in retirement; the other is prove our virtue in proportion as it raised our de-a letter to me, occasioned by an ode written by my light. The passions that are excited by ordinary compositions generally flow from such silly and absurd occasions, that a man is shamed to reflect upon them seriously; but the fear, the love, the sorrow, the indignation, that are awakened in the mind by hymns and anthems, make the heart better, and proceed from such causes as are altogether reasonable and praiseworthy. Pleasure and duty go hand in hand; and the greater our satisfaction is, the greater is our religion.

Music, among those who were styled the chosen

Lapland lover: this correspondent is so kind as to translate another of Scheffer's songs in a very agreeable manner. I publish them together, that the young and old may find something in the same paper which may be suitable to their respective tastes in solitude; for I know no fault in the description of ardent desires, provided they are honourable.

"DEAR SIR,

"You have obliged me with a very kind letter, people, was a religious art. The songs of Sion, by which I find you shift the scene of your life rou