Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

A latent fire preys on his fev'rish veins.

reason to fancy my mistress has any regard for me, but from a very disinterested value which I have for her. If from any hint in any future paper of yours she gives me the least encouragement, I doubt not but I shall surmount all other difficulties; and inspired by so noble a motive for the care of my fortune, as the belief she is to be concerned in it, I will not despair of receiving her one day from her father's own hand. I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant,

[ocr errors]

'CLYTANDER.'

To his Worship the Spectator. "The humble petition of Anthony Titlepage, stationer, in the centre of Lincoln's-Inn Fields;

'Showeth,

THE circumstances of my correpondent, whose letter I now insert, are so frequent, that I cannot want compassion so much as to forbear laying it before the town. There is something so mean and inhuman in a direct Smithfield bargain for children, that if this lover carries his point, and observes the rules he pretends to follow, I do not only wish him success, but also that it may animate others to follow his example. I "That your petitioner, and his forefathers, know not one motive relating to this life have been sellers of books for time immewhich could produce so many honourable morial: that your petitioner's ancestor, and worthy actions, as the hopes of obtain-Crouchback Title-page, was the first of ing a woman of merit. There would ten that vocation in Britain; who, keeping his thousand ways of industry and honest am- station (in fair weather,) at the corner of bition be pursued by young men, who be- Lothbury, was, by way of eminency, called lieved that the persons admired had value "The Stationer," a name which, from him enough for their passion, to attend the event all succeeding booksellers have affected to of their good fortune in all their applica-bear: that the station of your petitioner and tions, in order to make their circumstances his father has been in the place of his prefall in with the duties they owe to them-sent settlement ever since that square has selves, their families, and their country.been built: that your petitioner has forAll these relations a man should think of who intends to go into the state of marriage, and expects to make it a state of pleasure and satisfaction.

[ocr errors]

MR. SPECTATOR,-I have for some years indulged a passion for a young lady of age and quality suitable to my own, but very much superior in fortune. It is the fashion with parents (how justly, I leave you to judge,) to make all regards give way to the article of wealth. From this one consideration it is that I have concealed the ardent love I have for her; but I am beholden to the force of my love for many advantages which I reaped from it towards the better conduct of my life. A certain complacency to all the world, a strong desire to oblige wherever it lay in my power, and a circumspect behaviour in all my words and actions, have rendered me more particularly acceptable to all my friends and acquaintance. Love has had the same good effect upon my fortune, as I have increased in riches in proportion to my advancement in those arts which make a man agreeable and amiable. There is a certain sympathy which will tell my mistress from these circumstances, that it is I who writ this for her reading, if you will please to insert it. There is not a downright enmity, but a great coldness between our parents; so that if either of us declared any kind sentiments for each other, her friends would be very backward to lay an obligation upon our family, and mine to receive it from hers. Under these delicate circumstances it is no easy matter to act with safety. I have no

merly had the honour of your worship's custom, and hopes you never had reason to complain of your penny-worths: that particularly he sold you your first Lilly's Grammar, and at the same time a Wit's Commonwealth, almost as good as new: moreover, that your first rudimental essays in spectatorship, were made in your petitioner's shop, where you often practised for hours together; sometimes on his books upon the rails, sometimes on the little hieroglyphics, either gilt, silvered, or plain, which the Egyptian woman on the other side of the shop had wrought in gingerbread, and sometimes on the English youths, who in sundry places there, were exercising themselves in the traditional sports of the field.

From these considerations it is, that your petitioner is encouraged to apply himself to you, and to proceed humbly to acquaint your worship, that he has certain intelligence that you receive great numbers of defamatory letters designed by their authors to be published, which you throw aside and totally neglect: Your petitioner therefore prays, that you will please to bestow on him those refuse letters, and he hopes by printing them to get a more plentiful provision for his family; or, at the worst, he may be allowed to sell them by the pound weight to his good customers the pastry-cooks of London and Westminster, 'And your petitioner shall ever pray, &c.'

To the Spectator. "The humble petition of Bartholomew Lady-Love, of Round-court, in the

parish of St. Martin's in the Fields, in academy for politics, of which the Marquis behalf of himself and neighbours;

'Showeth,

de Torcy, minister and secretary of state, is to be protector. Six academicians are to be chosen, endowed with proper talents, for beginning to form this academy, into which no person is to be admitted under wise have each of them an estate of two twenty-five years of age: they must like

That your petitioners have, with great industry and application, arrived at the most exact art of invitation or intreaty: that by a beseeching air and persuasive address, they have for many years last past peace-thousand livres a year, either in possession, ably drawn in every tenth passenger, whether they intended or not to call at their shops, to come in and buy; and from that softness of behaviour have arrived, among tradesmen, at the gentle appellation of "The Fawners."

That there have of late set up amongst us certain persons from Monmouth-street and Long-lane, who by the strength of their arms, and loudness of their throats, draw off the regard of all passengers from your said petitioners; from which violence they are distinguished by the name of " "The Worriers."

or to come to them by inheritance. The king will allow to each a pension of a thouable masters to teach them the necessary sand livres. They are likewise to have sciences, and to instruct them in all the which have been made in several ages treaties of peace, alliance, and others, past. These members are to meet twice a week at the Louvre. From this seminary who by degrees may advance to higher are to be chosen secretaries to embassies, employments.

Cardinal Richelieu's politics made France have appeared in that nation of late years the terror of Europe. The statesmen who

That while your petitioners stand ready to receive passengers with a submissive bow, and repeat with a gentle voice, "La-have, on the contrary, rendered it either dies, what do you want? pray look in here," the pity or contempt of its neighbours. the worriers reach out their hands at pisThe cardinal erected that famous academy tol-shot, and seize the customers at arms' which has carried all the parts of polite length. learning to the greatest height. His chief That while the fawners strain and redesign in that institution was to divert the lax the muscles of their faces, in making men of genius from meddling with politics, distinction between a spinster in a coloured a province in which he did not care to have scarf and a handmaid in a straw hat, the any one else interfere with him. On the worriers use the same roughness to both, and contrary, the Marquis de Torcy seems prevail upon the easiness of the passengers, France as wise as himself, and is therefore resolved to make several young men in to the impoverishment of your petitioners. taken up at present in establishing a nur"Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that the worriers may not be persery of statesmen. mitted to inhabit the politer parts of the town; and that Round-court may remain a receptacle for buyers of a more soft edu

cation.

[blocks in formation]

also be erected a seminary of petticoat poliSome private letters add, that there will ticians, who are to be brought up at the feet of Madame de Maintenon, and to be despatched into foreign courts upon any emergencies of state; but as the news of this last project has not been yet confirmed, I shall take no further notice of it.

Several of my readers may doubtless remember that upon the conclusion of the last war, which had been carried on so successfully by the enemy, their generals were many of them transformed into ambassa

No. 305.] Tuesday, February 19, 1711-12. dors; but the conduct of those who have com

Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis
Tempus eget-

Virg. Æn. ii. 521.
These times want other aids.-Dryden.

OUR late newspapers being full of the project now on foot in the court of France, for establishing a political academy, and I myself having received letters from several virtuosos among my foreign correspondents, which give some light into that affair, I intend to make it the subject of this day's speculation. A general account of this project may be met with in the Daily Courant of last Friday, in the following words, translated from the Gazette of Amsterdam. Paris, February 12. It is confirmed that the king is resolved to establish a new

manded in the present war, has, it seems, brought so little honour and advantage to their great monarch, that he is resolved to trust his affairs no longer in the hands of those military gentlemen.

The regulations of this new academy very much deserve our attention. The students are to have in possession, or reversion, an estate of two thousand French livres, per annum, which, as the present exchange runs, will amount to at least one hundred and twenty-six pounds English. This, with the royal allowance of a thousand livres, will enable them to find themselves in coffee and snuff; not to mention newspapers, pens and ink, wax and wafers, with the like necessaries for politicians.

A man must be at least five-and-twenty | that which it lays upon his most christian before he can be initiated into the mysteries majesty. He is likewise to teach them the of this academy, though there is no question art of finding flaws, loop-holes, and evasions, but many grave persons of a much more ad- in the most solemn compacts, and particuvanced age, who have been constant readers larly a great rabbinical secret, revived of of the Paris Gazette, will be glad to begin late years by the fraternity of Jesuits, the world anew, and enter themselves upon namely, that contradictory interpretations this list of politicians. of the same article may both of them be

The society of these hopeful young gen-true and valid. tlemen is to be under the direction of six professors, who, it seems, are to be speculative statesmen, and drawn out of the body of the royal academy. These six wise masters, according to my private letters, are to have the following parts allotted to them.

The first is to instruct the students in state legerdemain; as how to take off the impression of a seal, to split a wafer, to open a letter, to fold it up again, with other the like ingenious feats of dexterity and art. When the students have accomplished themselves in this part of their profession, they are to be delivered into the hands of their second instructor, who is a kind of posture-master.

This artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, and shrug up their shoulders in a dubious case, to connive with either eye, and, in a word, the whole practice of political grimace.

The third is a sort of language-master, who is to instruct them in the style proper for a minister in his ordinary discourse. And to the end that this college of statesmen may be thoroughly practised in the political style, they are to make use of it in their common conversations, before they are employed either in foreign or domestic affairs. If one of them asks another what o'clock it is, the other is to answer him indirectly, and, if possible, to turn off the question. If he is desired to change a louis d'or, he must beg time to consider of it. If it be inquired of him, whether the king is at Versailles or Marly, he must answer in a whisper. If he be asked the news of the last Gazette, or the subject of a proclamation, he is to reply that he has not yet read it; or if he does not care for explaining himself so far, he needs only draw his brow up in wrinkles, or elevate the left shoulder. The fourth professor is to teach the whole art of political characters and hieroglyphics; and to the end that they may be perfect also in this practice, they are not to send a note to one another (though it be but to borrow a Tacitus or a Machiavel) which is not written in cypher.

Their fifth professor, it is thought, will be chosen out of the society of Jesuits, and is to be well read in the controversies of probable doctrines, mental reservation, and the rights of princes. This learned man is to instruct them in the grammar, syntax, and construing part of Treaty Latin: how to distinguish between the spirit and the letter, and likewise demonstrate how the same form of words may lay an obligation upon any prince in Europe, different from

When our statesmen are sufficiently improved by these several instructors, they are to receive their last polishing from one who is to act among them as master of the ceremonies. This gentleman is to give them lectures upon the important points of the elbow-chair and the stair-head, to instruct them in the different situations of the right hand, and to furnish them with bows and inclinations of all sizes, measures, and proportions. In short, this professor is to give the society their stiffening, and infuse into their manners that beautiful political starch, which may qualify them for levees, conferences, visits, and make them shine in what vulgar minds are apt to look upon as trifles.

I have not yet heard any further particulars which are to be observed in this society of unfledged statesmen; but I must confess, had I a son of five-and-twenty, that should take it into his head at that age to set up for a politician, I think I should go near to disinherit him for a blockhead. Besides, I should be apprehensive lest the same arts which are to enable him to negociate between potentates, might a little infect his ordinary behaviour between man and man. There is no question but these young Machiavels will in a little time turn their college upside down with plots and stratagems, and lay as many schemes to circumvent one another in a frog or a salad, as they may hereafter put in practice to overreach a neighbouring prince or state.

We are told that the Spartans, though they punished theft in the young men when it was discovered, looked upon it as honourable if it succeeded. Provided the conveyance was clean and unsuspected, a youth might afterwards boast of it. This, say the historians, was to keep them sharp, and to hinder them from being imposed upon, either in their public or private negotiations. Whether any such relaxations of morality, such little jeux d'esprit, ought not to be allowed in this intended seminary of politicians, I shall leave to the wisdom of their founder.

In the mean-time we have fair warning given us by this doughty body of statesmen: and as Scylla saw many Marius's in Cæsar, so I think we may discover many Torcy's in this college of academicians. Whatever we think of ourselves, I am afraid neither our Smyrna nor St. James's will be a match for it. Our coffee-houses are, indeed, very good institutions; but whether or no these our British schools of politics may furnish

out as able envoys and secretaries as an nity: and to resign conquests is a task as academy that is set apart for that purpose, difficult in a beauty as a hero. In the very will deserve our serious consideration, espe- entrance upon this work she must burn all cially if we remember that our country is more famous for producing men of integrity than statesmen: and that, on the contrary, French truth and British policy make a conspicuous figure in nothing; as the Earl of Rochester has very well observed in his admirable poem upon that barren subject. L.

[blocks in formation]

a

her love-letters; or since 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 send them back to those who writ them,
with this honest inscription, Articles of a
marriage treaty broken off by the small-
pox.' I have known but one instance where
à matter of this kind went on after a like
misfortune, where the lady, who was a wo-
man of spirit, writ this billet to her lover:
'SIR,-If you flattered me before I had
this terrible malady, pray come and see me
now: but if you sincerely liked me, stay
away, for I am not the same

"CORINNA."

The lover thought there was something so sprightly in her behaviour, that he answered:

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I write this to communicate to you a misfortune which frequently happens, and therefore deserves consolatory discourse on the subject. I was within this half year in the possession of as 'MADAM,-I am not obliged, since you much beauty and as many lovers as any are not the same woman, to let you know young lady in England. But my admirers whether I flattered you or not: but I assure have left me, and I cannot complain of their you I do not, when I tell you I now like you behaviour. I have within that time had the above all your sex, and hope you will bear small-pox: and this face, which (accord- what may befal me when we are both one, ing to many amorous epistles which I have as well as you do what happens to yourself by me) was the seat of all that was beauti-now you are single; therefore I am ready ful in woman, is now disfigured with scars. to take such a spirit for my companion as It goes to the very soul of me to speak what soon as you please. AMILCAR.' I really think of my face, and though I think I did not overrate my beauty while I had it, it has extremely advanced in its value with me now it is lost. There is one circumstance which makes my case very particular; the ugliest fellow that ever pretended to me, was and is most in my favour, and he treats me at present the most unreasonably. If you could make him return an obligation which he owes me, in liking a person that is not amiable-but there is, I fear, no possibility of making passion move by the rules of reason and gratitude. But say what you can to one who has survived herself, and knows not how to act in a new being. My lovers are at the feet of my rivals, my rivals are every day bewailing me, and I cannot enjoy what I am, by reason of the distracting reflection upon what Consider the woman I was did not

I was.

die of old age, but I was taken off in the prime of youth, and according to the course of nature may have forty years after-life to come. I have nothing of myself left, which I like, but that I am, sir, your most humble

servant,

PARTHENISSA.'

When Lewis of France had lost the battle of Ramilies, the addresses to him at that time were full of his fortitude, and they turned his misfortune to his glory; in that, during his prosperity, he could never have manifested his heroic constancy under distresses, and so the world had lost the most eminent part of his character. Parthenissa's condition gives her the same opportu

If Parthenissa can now possess her own mind, and think as little of her beauty as there will be no great diminution of her she ought to have done when she had it, charms; and if she was formerly affected too much with them, an easy behaviour will more than make up for the loss of them. Take the whole sex together, and session of men's hearts are not eminent for you find those who have the strongest postheir beauty. You see it often happen that those who engage men to the greatest violence, are such as those who are strangers to them would take to be remarkably defective for that end. The fondest lover I know, said to me one day in a crowd of have often heard me talk of my beloved; women at an entertainment of music, 'You that woman there,' continued he, smiling, when he had fixed my eye, is her very much the least remarkable for beauty of picture.' The lady he showed me was by any in the whole assembly; but having my curiosity extremely raised, I could not keep my eyes off her. Her eyes at last met mine, and with a sudden surprise she looked round her to see who near her was remarkably handsome that I was gazing at. This little act explained the secret. She did not understand herself for the object of love, and therefore she was so. 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 sincerely attentive, with a ready

and cheerful mind, to accompany him in | but you must explain yourself farther, beeither. fore I know what to do. Your most obedient THE SPECTATOR.'

I can tell Parthenissa for her comfort servant, that the beauties, generally speaking, are T. the most impertinent and disagreeable of women. An apparent desire of admiration,

-Versate diu, quid ferre recusent,

Quid valeant humeri

a reflection upon their own merit, and a No. 307.] Thursday, Feb. 21, 1711-12. precise behaviour in their general conduct, are almost inseparable accidents in beauties. All you obtain of them, is granted to importunity and solicitation for what did not deserve so much of your time, and you recover from the possession of it as out of a dream.

You are ashamed of the vagaries of fancy which so strangely misled you, and your admiration of a beauty, merely as such, is inconsistent with a tolerable reflection upon yourself. The cheerful good-humoured creatures, into whose heads it never entered that they could make any man unhappy, are the persons formed for making men happy. There is Miss Liddy can dance a jig, raise paste, write a good hand, keep an account, give a reasonable answer, and do as she is bid; while her eldest sister, Madam Martha, is out of humour, has the spleen, learns by reports of people of higher quality new ways of being uneasy and displeased. And this happens for no reason in the world, but that poor Liddy knows she has no such thing, as a certain negligence that is so 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 say, Well! I know not what it is, but every thing pleases when she speaks it.'

Hor. Ars Poet. v. 39.
-Often try what weight you can support,
And what your shoulders are too weak to bear.
Roscommon.

letter, that I am in hopes it will not be a
I AM SO well pleased with the following
disagreeable present to the public.

'SIR,-Though I believe none of your readers more admire your agreeable manner of working up trifles than myself, yet as your speculations are now swelling into volumes, and will in all probability pass down to future ages, methinks I would have no single subject in them, wherein the general good of mankind is concerned, 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 easily flattered myself that you would one time or other resume this consideration, because you tell us that your 168th paper was only composed of a few broken hints: but finding myself hitherto disappointed, I have ventured to send you my own thoughts on this subject.

Ask any of the husbands of your great "I remember Pericles, in his famous beauties, and they will tell you that they hate oration at the funeral of those Athenian their wives nine hours of every day they young men who perished in the Samian expass together. There is such a particularity pedition, has a thought very much celefor ever affected by them, that they are brated by several ancient critics, namely, encumbered with their charms in all they that the loss which the commonwealth sufsay or do. They pray at public devotions fered by the destruction of its youth, was as they are beauties: they converse on or- like the loss which the year would suffer dinary occasions as they are beauties. Ask by the destruction of the spring. The preBelinda what it is o'clock, and she is at a judice which the public sustains from a stand whether so great a beauty should an- wrong education of children, is an evil of swer you. In a word, I think, instead of the same nature, as it in a manner starves offering to administer consolation to Parthe-posterity, and defrauds our country of those nissa, I should congratulate her metamor-persons, who, with due care, might make phosis; and however she thinks she was an eminent figure in their respective posts not the least insolent in the prosperity of of life. her charms, she was enough so to find she 'I have seen a book written by Juan may make herself a much more agreeable Huartes a Spanish Physician, entitled Excreature in her present adversity. The en- amen de Ingenois, wherein he lays it down deavour to please is highly promoted by a as one of his first positions, that nothing but consciousness that the approbation of the nature can qualify a man for learning: and person you would be agreeable to, is a that without a proper temperament for the favour you do not deserve: for in this case particular art or science which he studies, assurance of success is the most certain way his utmost pains and application, assisted to disappointment. Good-nature will al-by the ablest masters, will be to no purways supply the absence of beauty, but beauty cannot long supply the absence of good-nature.

'POSTSCRIPT.

'February 18. MADAM, I have yours of this day, wherein you twice bid me not disoblige you,

pose.

He illustrates this by the example of Tully's son Marcus.

'Cicero, in order to accomplish his son in that sort of learning which he designed him for, sent him to Athens, the most celebrated academy at that time in the world,

« ZurückWeiter »