After-Life to come. I have nothing of my self left which I like, but that

I am, SIR,

Your most humble Servant,

Partheniffa.

WHEN Lewis of France had loft the Battle of Ramelies, the Addreffes to him at that time were full of his Fortitude, and they turned his Misfortune to his Glory ; in that, during his Profperity, he could never have manifefted his heroick Conftancy under Diftreffes, and fo the World had lost the most eminent Part of his Character. Parthenia's Condition gives her the fame Opportunity: and to refign Conquefts is a Task as difficult in a Beauty as an Hero. In the very Entrance upon this Work fhe muft burn all her Love-Letters; or fince she is so candid as not to call her Lovers who follow her no longer Unfaithful, it would be a very good beginning of a new Life from that of a Beauty, to fend them back to those who writ them, with this honeft Infcription, Articles of a Marriage Treaty broken off by the Small-Pox. I have known but one Inftance where a Matter of this Kind went on after a like Misfortune, where the Lady, who was a Woman of Spirit, writ this Billet to her Lover.

SIR,

IF you flattered me before I had this terrible Malady, pray come and fee me now: But if you fincerely liked me, ftay away; for I am not the fame

Corinna THE Lover thought there was fomething fo fprightly in her Behaviour, that he answered,

Madam,

IA

Am not obliged, fince you are not the fame Wo man, to let you know whether I flattered you or not; but I affure you, I do not, when I tell you I now like you above all your Sex, and hope you will bear • what may befal me when we are both one, as well as you do what happens to your felf now you are fingle; ⚫ therefore I am ready to take fuch a Spirit for my Com*panion as foon as you please.

Amilcar

IF Parthenia can now poffefs her own Mind, and think as little of her Beauty as fhe ought to have done when she had it, there will be no great Diminution of her Charms; and if she was formerly affected too much with them, an easy Behaviour will more than make up for the Lofs of them. Take the whole Sex together, and you find those who have the strongest Poffeffion of Mens Hearts are not eminent for their Beauty: You fee it often happen that those who engage Men to the greatest Violence, are fuch as thofe who are Strangers to them would take to be remarkably defective for that End. The fondest Lover I know, faid to me one Day in a Croud of Women at an Entertainment of Mufick, You have often heard me talk of my Beloved: That Woman there, continued he, fmiling when he had fixed my Eye, is her very Picture. The Lady he fhewed me was by much the least remarkable for Beauty of any in the whole Affembly; but having my Curiofity extremely raised, I could not keep my Eyes off her. Her Eyes at last met mine, and with a fudden Surprife he looked round her to fee who near her was remarkably handfom that I was gazing at. This little A&t explain'd the Secret : She did not understand herself for the Object of Love, and therefore she was fo. The Lover is a very honest plain Man; and what charmed him was a Person that goes along with him in the Cares and Joys of Life, not taken up with herself, but fincerely attentive with a ready and chearful Mind, to accompany him in either.

I can tell Partheniffa for her Comfort, That the Beauties, generally fpeaking, are the most impertinent and difagreeable of Women. An apparent Defire of Admiration, a Reflexion upon their own Merit, and a precious Behaviour in their general Conduct, are almoft infeparable Accidents in Beauty. All you obtain of them is granted to Importunity and Solicitation for what did not deferve fo much of your Time, and you recover from the Poffeffion of it, as out of a Dream.

YOU are afhamed of the Vagaries of Fancy which fo Arangely misled you, and your Admiration of a Beauty, merely as fuch, is inconfiftent with a tolerable Reflexion upon your felf: The chearful good-humoured Creatures, into whofe heads it never entered that they could make

any

221 any Man unhappy, are the Perfons formed for making Men happy. There's Mifs Liddy can dance a Jig, raise Pafte, write a good Hand, keep an Accompt, give a reafonable Answer, and do as she is bid ; while her elder Sifter Madam Martha is out of Humour, has the Spleen, learns by Reports of People of higher Quality new Ways of being uneafy and difpleafed. And this happens for no Reafon in the World, but that poor Liddy knows she has no fuch thing as a certain Negligence that is fo becoming, that there is not I know not what in her Air: And that if she talks like a Fool, there is no one will fay, Well! I know not what it is, but every thing pleafes when he speaks it.

ASK any of the Husbands of your great Beauties, and they'll tell you that they hate their Wives Nine Hours of every Day they pafs together. There is fuch a Particularity for ever affected by them, that they are incumbred with their Charms in all they fay or do. They pray at publick Devotions as they are Beauties. They converfe on ordinary Occafions as they are Beauties. Ask Belinda what it is a Clock, and the is at a ftand whether fo great a Beauty should anfwer you. In a Word, I think, instead of offering to adminifter Confolation to Partheniffa, I fhould congratulate her Metamorphofis; and however the thinks fhe was not in the least infolent in the Profperity of her Charms, fhe was enough fo to find she may make herself a much more agreeable Creature in her present Adverfity. The Endeavour to please is highly promoted by a Consciousness that the Approbation of the Perfon you would be agreeable to, is a Favour you do not deserve; for in this Cafe Affurance of Succefs is the most certain way to disappointment. Good-nature will always fupply the Abfence of Beauty, but Beauty cannot long fupply the Absence of Good-nature.

T

Madam,

P. S.

February 18.

I Have yours of this Day, wherein you twice bid me not difoblige you, but you must explain your felf further before I know what to do.

Your most obedient Servant,

The SPECTATOR.

I

Verfate diu, quid ferre recufent,

Quid valeant humeri

Hor.

Am fo well pleased with the following Letter, that am in hopes it will not be a difagreeable Present to the Publick.

SIR,

THOUGH I believe none of your Readers more admire your agreeable manner of working up • Trifles than my felf, yet as your Speculations are now ⚫fwelling into Volumes, and will in all Probability pafs down to future Ages, methinks I would have no fingle Subject in them, wherein the general Good of Mankind is concern'd, left unfinished.

I have a long time expected with great Impatience that you would enlarge upon the ordinary Mistakes ⚫ which are committed in the Education of our Children. I the more eafily flattered my felf that you would one time or other refume this Confideration, because you ⚫ tell us that your 168th Paper was only compofed of a ⚫ few broken Hints; but finding my felf hitherto difap• pointed, I have ventur'd to send you my own Thoughts on this Subject.

I remember Pericles in his famous Oration at the Funeral of those Athenian young Men who perished in the Samian Expedition, has a Thought very much ce⚫lebrated by feveral ancient Criticks, namely, That the • Lofs which the Commonwealth suffer'd by the Destruction of its Youth, was like the Lofs which the Year would fuffer by the Deftruction of the Spring. The Prejudice which the Publick fuftains from a wrong Education of • Children, is an Evil of the fame Nature, as it in a manner ftarves Pofterity, and defrauds our Country of those • Perfons who, with due Care, might make an eminent Figure in their refpective Pofts of Life.

• I have seen a Book written by Juan Huartes a Spanish Phyfician, entitled Examen de Ingenios, wherein ⚫ he lays it down as one of his first Pofitions, that Nothing ⚫ but Nature can qualify a Man for Learning; and that without a proper Temperament for the particular Art or Science which he ftudies, his utmost Pains and Application, affifted by the ablest Masters, will be to no purpose.

HE illuftrates this by the Example of Tully's Son

• Marcus.

CICERO, in order to accomplish his Son in that fort ⚫ of Learning which he defigned him for, fent him to Athens, the most celebrated Academy at that Time in ⚫ the World, and where a vast Concourse, out of the • most polite Nations, could not but furnish the young • Gentleman with a Multitude of great Examples, and Accidents that might infenfibly have inftructed him in his defigned Studies: He placed him under the Care of Cratippus, who was one of the greatest Philofophers of the Age, and, as if all the Books which were at that ⚫ time written had not been fufficient for his Ufe, he com⚫ pofed others on purpose for him: Notwithstanding all this, Hiftory informs us, that Marcus proved a meer Block-head, and that Nature, (who it seems was even with the Son for her Prodigality to the Father,) ren⚫dered him incapable of improving by all the Rules of Eloquence, the Precepts of Philofophy, his own En⚫deavours and the most refined Conversation in Athens. • This Author therefore proposes, that there fhould be cer⚫tain Triers or Examiners appointed by the State to infpect the Genius of every particular Boy, and to allot • him the Part that is most suitable to his natural Talents.

• PLATO in one of his Dialogues tells us, that So⚫ crates who was the Son of a Midwife, ufed to fay, that as his Mother, tho' fhe was very skilful in her Profeffion, could not deliver a Woman, unless fhe was first ⚫ with Child, fo neither could he himself raise Knowledge • out of a Mind, where Nature had not planted it.

• ACCORDINGLY the Method this Philofopher took, ⚫ of inftructing his Scholars by feveral Interrogatories or Questions, was only helping the Birth, and bringing their own Thoughts to Light.

K4

6 THE