came 1711. spoke some Cravats of me: I went out of the Shop, and No. 182. left his Mistress to put them up into a Band-Box in order Friday, to be sent to him when his Man called. When I Sept. 28, into the Shop again I took Occasion to send her away, and found in the Bottom of the Box written these Words, Why would you ruín a harmless Creature that loves you? then in the Lid, There is no resisting Strephon: Í searched a little further, and found in the Rim of the Box, At eleven of Clock at Night come in an Hackney, Coach at the End of our Street. This was enough to alarm me; I sent away the things, and took my Measures accordingly. An Hour or two before the appointed Time I examined my young Lady, and found her Trunk stuffed with impertinent Letters, and an old Scrole of Parch ment in Latin, which her Lover had sent her as a Settlement of fifty Pounds a Year; among other things there was also the best Lace I had in my Shop to make him a Present for Cravats. I was very glad of this last Circumstance, because I could very conscienciously swear against him that he had enticed my Servant away, and was her Accomplice in robbing me. I pro cured a Warrant against him accordingly. Every thing was now prepared, and the tender Hour of Love ap proaching, I who had acted for my self in my Youth the same senseless Part, knew how to manage accord ingly. Therefore after having locked up my Maid, and not being so much unlike her in Height and Shape, as in a huddled way not to pass for her, I delivered the Bundle designed to be carried off to her Lover's Man, who came with the Signal to receive them. Thus I followed after to the Coach, where when I saw his Master take them in, I cryed out Thieves! Thieves! and the Constable with his Attendants seized my ex pecting Lover. I kept my self unobserved 'till I saw the Crowd sufficiently encreased, and then appeared to declare the Goods to be mine; and had the Satisfaction to see my Man of Mode put into the Round-house with the stolen Wares by him, to be produced in Evidence against the next Morning. This Matter is notori ously known to be Fact, and I have been contented to save my Prentice, and take a Year's Rent of this mortified Lover Lover not to appear further in the Matter. This was some Penance; but, Sir, is this enough for a Villany of much more pernicious Consequence than the Trifles for which he was to have been indicted? Should not you, and all Men of any Parts or Honour, put things upon so right a Foot, as that such a Rascal should not laugh at the Imputation of what he was really guilty, and dread being accused of that for which he was arrested? In a Word, Sir, it is in the Power of you, and such as I hope you are, to make it as infamous to rob a poor Creature of her Honour as her Cloaths. I leave this to your Consideration, only take Leave (which I can not do without sighing) to remark to you, that if this had been the Sense of Mankind thirty Years ago, I should have avoided a Life spent in Poverty and Shame, I am, Sir, 'Mr. SPECTATOR, Your most humble Servant, Alice Threadneedle.' Round-house, Sept. 9, I am a Man of Pleasure about Town, but by the Stupidity of a dull Rogue of a Justice of Peace and an insolent Constable, upon the Oath of an old Harridan, am imprisoned here for Theft when I designed only Fornication. The Midnight Magistrate as he conveyed me along had you in his Mouth, and said this would make a pure Story for the SPECTATOR. I hope, Sir, you won't pretend to Wit, and take the Part of dull Rogues of Business. The World is so altered of late Years, that there was not a Man who would knock down a Watchman in my Behalf, but I was carried off with as much Triumph as if I had been a Pick-pocket. At this Rate there is an End of all the Wit and Humour in the World. The Time was when all the honest Whore masters in the Neighbourhood, would have rose against the Cuckolds to my Rescue, If Fornication is to be scandalous, half the fine Things that have been writ by most of the Wits of the last Age may be burnt by the common Hangman. Harkee, SPEC do not be queer; after having done some things pretty well, don't begin to 1 to write at that Rate that no Gentleman can read thee. No. 182, Sept. 28, 1711. No. 183, Saturday, September 29. Ιδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ετύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, FABLES were the first Pieces of Wit that made their Appearance in the World, and have been still highly valued, not only in times of the greatest Simplicity, but among the most polite Ages of Mankind. Jothram's Fable of the Trees is the oldest that is extant, and as beautiful as any which have been made since that time. Nathan's Fable of the poor Man and his Lamb is like wise more Ancient than any that is extant, besides the above-mentioned, and had so good an effect as to convey Instruction to the Ear of a King without offending it, and to bring the Man after God's own Heart to a right Sense of his Guilt and his Duty, We find Esop in the most distant Ages of Greece; and if we look into the very Beginnings of the Commonwealth of Rome, we see a Mutiny among the Common People appeased by a Fable of the Belly and the Limbs, which was indeed very proper to gain the Attention of an incensed Rabble, at a time when perhaps they would have torn to Pieces any Man who had preached the same Doctrine to them in an open and direct manner. As Fables took their Birth in the very Infancy of Learning, they never flourished more than when Learning was at its greatest Height. To justifie this Assertion, I shall put my Reader in mind of Horace, the greatest Wit and Critick in the Augustan Age; and of Boileau, the most correct Poet among the Moderns: Not to mention la Fontaine, who by this way of Writing is come more into Vogue than any other Author of our times. The Fables I have here mentioned are raised altogether upon Brutes and Vegetables, with some of our own Species mixt among them, when the Moral hath so required. But besides this kind of Fable there is another in 1711. in which the Actors are Passions, Virtues, Vices, and Saturday, other imaginary Persons of the like Nature, Some of the Sept. 29, Ancient Criticks will have it that the Iliad and Odissey of Homer are Fables of this nature; and that the several Names of Gods and Heroes are nothing else but the Affections of the Mind in a visible Shape and Character, Thus they tell us, that Achilles, in the first Iliad, repre sents Anger, or the Irascible part of Human Nature, That upon drawing his Sword against his Superior in a full Assembly, Pallas is only another Name for Reason, which checks and advises him upon that occasion; and at her first Appearance touches him upon the Head, that part of the Man being looked upon as the Seat of Reason. And thus of the rest of the Poem. As for the Odissey, I think it is plain that Horace considered it as one of these Allegorical Fables, by the Moral which he has given us of several Parts of it. The greatest Italian Wits have applied themselves to the Writing of this latter kind of Fables; As Spencer's Fairy Queen is one continued Series of them from the Beginning to the end of that admirable Work, If we look into the finest Prose Authors of Antiquity, such as Cícero, Plato, Xenophon, and many others, we shall find that this was likewise their favourite kind of Fable. I shall only further observe upon it, that the first of this sort that made any consider able Figure in the World was that of Hercules meeting with Pleasure and Virtue, which was invented by Prodicus, who lived before Socrates, and in the first Dawnings of Philosophy. He used to Travel through Greece by vertue of this Fable, which procured him a kind Reception in all the Market Towns, where he never failed telling it as soon as he had gathered an Audience about him. After this short Preface, which I have made up of such Materials as my Memory does at present suggest to me, before I present my Reader with a Fable of this kind, which I design as the Entertainment of the present Paper, I must in a few Words open the occasion of it, In the Account which Plato gives us of the Convers ation and Behaviour of Socrates the Morning he was to Die, he tells the following Circumstance, When 1711. When Socrates his Fetters were knocked off (as was No. 183, usual to be done on the Day that the Condemn'd Person Saturday, was to be executed) being seated in the midst of his Sept. 29, Disciples, and laying one of his Legs over the other, in a very unconcerned Posture, he began to rub it where it had been galled by the Iron; and whether it was to shew the Indifference with which he entertained the Thoughts of his approaching Death, or after his usual manner, to take every occasion of Philosophizing upon some useful Subject, he observed the Pleasure of that Sensation which now arose in those very Parts of his Leg, that just before had been so much pained by the Fetter. Upon this he reflected on the Nature of Pleasure and Pain in general, and how constantly they succeed one another. To this he added, that if a Man of a good Genius for a Fable were to represent the Nature of Pleasure and Pain in that way of Writing, he would probably join them together after such a manner, that it would be impossible for the one to come into any Place, without being followed by the other, It is possible, that if Plato had thought it proper at such a time to describe Socrates launching out into a Discourse which was not of a Piece with the Business of the Day, he would have enlarged upon this Hint, and have drawn it out into some beautiful Allegory or Fable. But since he has not done it, I shall attempt to write one my self in the Spirit of that Divine Author. There were two Families which from the beginning of the World were as opposite to each other as Light and Darkness, The one of them lived in Heaven, and the other in Hell. The youngest Descendant of the first Family was Pleasure, who was the Daughter of Happiness, who was the Child of Virtue, who was the Offspring of the Gods. These, as I said before, had their Habitation in Heaven. The youngest of the opposite Family was Pain, who was the Son of Misery, who was the Child of Vice, who was the Offspring of the Furies. The Habitation of this Race of Beings was in Hell. The middle Station of Nature between these two opposite |
