stocked with knowledge are run down by | bestirs himself to distress his enemy by them: I say, over-stocked, because they methods probable and reducible to reason, certainly are so, as to their service of man- so the same reason will fortify his enemy to kind, if from their very store they raise to elude these his regular efforts; but your fool themselves ideas of respect, and greatness projects, acts, and concludes, with such of the occasion, and I know not what, to notable inconsistency, that no regular course disable themselves from explaining their of thought can evade or counterplot his thoughts. I must confess, when I have seen prodigious machinations. My frontispiece, Charles Frankair rise up with a command- I believe, may be extended to imply, that ing mien, and torrent of handsome words, several of our misfortunes arise from things, talk a mile off the purpose, and drive down as well as persons, that seem of very little twenty bashful boobies of ten times his consequence. Into what tragical extravasense, who at the same time were envying gances does Shakspeare hurry Othello, his impudence, and despising his under- upon the loss of a handkerchief only! And standing, it has been matter of great mirth what barbarities does Desdemona suffer, to me; but it soon ended in a secret lamenta- from a slight inadvertency in regard to this tion, that the fountains of every thing praise- fatal trifle! If the schemes of all enterprisworthy in these realms, the universities, ing spirits were to be carefully examined, should be so muddled with a false sense of some intervening accident, not considerable this virtue, as to produce men capable of enough to occasion any debate upon, or give being so abused. I will be bold to say, that them any apprehension of ill consequence it is a ridiculous education which does not from it, will be found to be the occasion of qualify a man to make his best appearance their ill success, rather than any error in before the greatest man, and the finest wo- points of moment and difficulty, which natuman, to whom he can address himself. rally engaged their maturest deliberations. Were this judiciously corrected in the If you go to the levee of any great man, you nurseries of learning, pert coxcombs would will observe him exceeding gracious to know their distance: but we must bear with several very insignificant fellows; and upon this false modesty in our young nobility and this maxim, that the neglect of any person gentry, till they cease at Oxford and Cam- must arise from the mean opinion you have bridge to grow dumb in the study of elo- of his capacity to do you any service or prejudice; and that this calling his sufficiency in question must give him inclination, and where this is there never wants strength, or opportunity to annoy you. There is nobody so weak of invention that cannot aggravate, or make some little stories to vilify his enemy; there are very few but have good inclinations to hear them; and it is infinite pleasure to the majority of mankind to level a person superior to his neighbours. Besides, in all matter of controversy, that party which has the greatest abilities labours under this prejudice, that he will certainly be supposed, upon account of his abilities, to have done an injury, when perhaps he has received one. It would be tedious to enumerate the strokes that nations and particular friends have suffered from persons very contemptible.

quence.

T.

No. 485.] Tuesday, September 16, 1712.

Nihil tam firmum est, cui periculum non sit, etiam ab invalido. Quint. Curt. 1. vii. c. 8.

The strongest things are not so well established as to be out of danger from the weakest.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-My Lord Clarendon has observed, that few men have done more harm than those who have been thought to be able to do least; and there cannot be a greater error, than to believe a man, whom we see qualified with too mean parts to do good, to be therefore incapable of doing hurt. There is a supply of malice, of pride, of industry, and even of folly, in the weakest, when he sets his heart upon it, that makes a strange progress in mischief. What may seem to the reader the greatest paradox in the reflection of the historian is, I suppose, that folly which is generally thought incapable of contriving or executing any design, should be so formidable to those whom it exerts itself to molest. But this will appear very plain, if we remember that Solomon says, "It is a sport to a fool to do mischief;" and that he might the more emphatically express the calamitous circumstances of him who falls under the displeasure of this wanton person, the same author adds farther, that "A stone is heavy, and the sand weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both." It is impossible to suppress my own illustration upon this matter, which is that as the man of sagacity

'I think Henry IV. of France, so formidable to his neighbours, could no more be secured against the resolute villany of Ravillac, than Villiers duke of Buckingham could be against that of Felton. And there is no incensed person so destitute, but can provide himself with a knife or a pistol, if he finds stomach to apply them. That things and persons of no moment should give such powerful revolutions to the progress of those of the greatest, seems a providential disposition to baffle and abate the pride of human sufficiency; as also to engage the humanity and benevolence of superiors to all below them, by letting them into this secret, that the stronger depends upon the weaker. I am, sir, your very humble servant,'

I shall have a fair chance to divide the passengers by the irresistible force of mine.

C.

two pair of stairs; the gentleman of whom N. B. He who writ this is a black man, he writes is fair, and one pair of stairs.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I only say, that it is impossible for me to say how much I am yours, ROBIN SHORTER.

'P. S. I shall think it is a little hard, if you do not take as much notice of this epistle as you have of the ingenious Mr. Short's. I am not afraid of letting the world see which is the deeper man of the two.'

Temple, Paper-buildings. 'DEAR SIR,-I received a letter from you some time ago, which I should have 'I expect sudden despatches from you, answered sooner, had you informed me in with advice of the family you are in now, yours to what part of this island I might how to deport myself upon this so delicate have directed my impertinence; but having a conjuncture; with some comfortable rebeen let into the knowledge of that matter, solutions in favour of the handsome black this handsome excuse is no longer service-man against the handsome fair one. I am, able. My neighbour Prettyman shall be sir, your most humble servant.' the subject of this letter; who, falling in with the Spectator's doctrine concerning the month of May, began from that season to dedicate himself to the service of the fair, in the following manner. I observed at the beginning of the month he bought him a new night-gown, either side to be worn outwards, both equally gorgeous and attractive; but till the end of the month I did not enter so fully into the knowledge of his contrivance as the use of that garment has since suggested to me. Now you must know, that all new clothes raise and warm the wearer's imagination into a conceit of his being a much finer gentleman than he was before, banishing all sobriety and reflection, and giving him up to gallantry and amour. Inflamed, therefore, with this way of thinking, and full of the spirit of the month of May, did this merciless youth resolve upon the business of captivating. At first he confined himself to his room, only now and then appearing at his window, in his night-gown, and practising that easy posture which expresses the very top and dignity of languishment. It was pleasant to see him diversify his loveliness, sometimes obliging the passengers only with a sideface, with a book in his hand; sometimes being so generous as to expose the whole in the fulness of its beauty; at other times, by

ADVERTISEMENT.

London, September 15. Whereas a young woman on horseback, in an equestrian habit, on the 13th instant in the evening, met the Spectator within a mile and a half of this town, and flying in the face of justice, pulled off her hat, in which there was a feather, with the mien and air of a young officer, saying at the same time, Your servant, Mr. Spec,' or words to that purpose: this is to give notice, that if any person can discover the name and place of abode of the said offender, so as she can be brought to justice, the informant shall have all fitting encouragement. T.

Audire est operæ pretium, procedere recte
Qui machis non vultis-

Hor. Sat. fi. Lib. 1. 38.

IMITATED.

a judicious throwing back his periwig, he No. 486.] Wednesday, September 17, 1712. would throw in his ears. You know he is that sort of person which the mob call a handsome jolly man; which appearance cannot miss of captives in this part of the town. Being emboldened by daily success, he leaves his room with a resolution to extend his conquests; and I have apprehended him in his night-gown smiting in all parts of this neighbourhood.

This I, being of an amorous complexion, saw with indignation, and had thoughts of purchasing a wig in these parts; into which, being at a greater distance from the earth, I might have thrown a very liberal mixture of white horse-hair, which would make a fairer, and consequently a handsomer, appearance, while my situation would secure me against any discoveries. But the passion of the handsome gentleman seems to be so fixed to that part of the building, that it must be extremely difficult to divert it to mine; so that I am resolved to stand boldly to the complexion of my own eyebrow, and prepare me an immense black wig of the same sort of structure with that of my rival. Now, though by this I shall not, perhaps, lessen the number of the admirers of his complexion,

All you who think the city ne'er can thrive
Till ev'ry cuckold-maker's flead alive,
Attend-

Pope.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-There are very many of my acquaintance followers of Socrates, with more particular regard to that part of his philosophy which we among ourselves call his domestics; under which denomination, or title, we include all the conjugal joys and sufferings. We have indeed, with very great pleasure, observed the honour you do the whole fraternity of the hen-pecked in placing that illustrious man at our head, and it does in a very great measure baffle the raillery of pert rogues, who have no advantage above us, but in that they are single. But, when you look about into the crowd of mankind, you will find the fair-sex reigns with greater tyranny over lovers than husbands. You shall hardly meet one in a thousand who is wholly exempt from their dominion, and those that are so are capable of no taste of life, and breathe and walk about the earth

for our long-suffering; but in the case of gallants, they swallow ill usage from one to whom they have no obligation, but from a base passion, which it is mean to indulge, and which it would be glorious to overcome.

These sort of fellows are very numerous, and some have been conspicuously such, without shame; nay, they have carried on the jest in the very article of death, and, to the diminution of the wealth and happiness of their families, in bar of those honourably near to them, have left immense wealth to their paramours. What is this but being a cully in the grave! Sure this is being hen-pecked with a vengeance! But, without dwelling upon these less frequent instances of eminent cullyism, what is there so common as to hear a fellow curse his fate that he cannot get rid of a passion to a jilt, and quote a half line out of a miscellany poem to prove his weakness is natural? If they will go on thus, I have nothing to say to it; but then let them not pretend to be free all this while, and laugh at us poor married patients.

as insignificants. But I am going to desire | cent. This and the like circumstances, your farther favour of our harmless bro- which carry with them the most valuable therhood, and hope you will show in a true regards of human life, may be mentioned light the unmarried hen-pecked, as well as you have done justice to us, who submit to the conduct of our wives. I am very particularly acquainted with one who is under entire submission to a kind girl, as he calls her; and though he knows I have been witness both to the ill usage he has received from her, and his inability to resist her tyranny, he still pretends to make a jest of me for a little more than ordinary obsequiousness to my spouse. No longer than Tuesday last he took me with him to visit his mistress; and having, it seems, been a little in disgrace before, thought by bringing me with him she would constrain herself, and insensibly fall into general discourse with him; and so he might break the ice, and save himself all the ordinary compunctions and mortifications she used to make him suffer before she would be reconciled, after any act of rebellion on his part. When we came into the room, we were received with the utmost coldness; and when he presented me as Mr. Such-aone, his very good friend, she just had patience to suffer my salutation; but when he himself, with a very gay air, offered to follow me, she gave him a thundering box on the ear, called him a pitifui poor-spirited wretch-how durst he see her face? His wig and hat fell on different parts of the floor. She seized the wig too soon for him to recover it, and, kicking it down stairs, threw herself into an opposite room, pulling the door after her by force, that you would have thought the hinges would have given way. We went down you must think, with no very good countenances; and, as we were driving home together, he confessed to me, that her anger was thus highly raised, because he did not think fit to fight a gentleman who had said she was what she was: "but," says he, "a kind letter or two, or fifty pieces, will put her in humour again." I asked him why he did not part with her: he answered, he loved her with all the tenderness imaginable, and she had too many charms to be abandoned 'To be short, Mr. Spectator, we husfor a little quickness of spirit. Thus does bands shall never make the figure we ought this illegitimate hen-pecked overlook the in the imaginations of young men growing hussy's having no regard to his very life up in the world, except you can bring it and fame, in putting him upon an infamous about that a man of the town shall be as indispute about her reputation: yet has he famous a character as a woman of the town. the confidence to laugh at me, because I But, of all that I have met with in my obey my poor dear in keeping out of harm's time, commend me to Betty Duall: she is way, and not staying too late from my own the wife of a sailor, and the kept mistress family, to pass through the hazards of a of a man of quality; she dwells with the town full of ranters and debauchees. You latter during the seafaring of the former. that are a philosopher, should urge in our The husband asks no questions, sees his behalf, that, when we bear with a froward apartments furnished with riches not his, woman, our patience is preserved, in con- when he comes into port, and the lover is sideration that a breach with her might be as joyful as a man arrived at his haven, a dishonour to children who are descended when the other puts to sea. Betty is the from us, and whose concern makes us tole-most eminently victorious of any of her rate a thousand frailties, for fear they sex, and ought to stand recorded the only should redound dishonour upon the inno-woman of the age in which she lives, who VOL. II.

31

I have known one wench in this town carry a haughty dominion over her lovers so well, that she has at the same time been kept by a sea-captain in the Straits, a merchant in the city, a country gentleman in Hampshire, and had all her correspondences managed by one whom she kept for her own uses. This happy man (as the phrase is) used to write very punctually, every post, letters for the mistress to transcribe. He would sit in his night-gown and slippers, and be as grave giving an account, only changing names, that there was nothing in those idle reports they had heard of such a scoundrel as one of the other lovers was; and how could he think she could condescend so low, after such a fine gentleman as each of them? For the same epistle said the same thing to, and of, every one of them. And so Mr. Secretary and his lady went to bed with great order.

.

-Cum prostrata sopore

Urget membra quies, et mens sine pondere ludit.
Petr.

While sleep oppresses the tir'd limbs, the mind Plays without weight, and wantons unconfin'd. THOUGH there are many authors who have written on dreams, they have generally considered them only as revelations of what has already happened in distant parts of the world, or as presages of what is to happen in future periods of time.

I shall consider this subject in another light, as dreams may give us some idea of the great excellency of a human soul, and some intimations of its independency on

matter.

In the first place, our dreams are great instances of that activity which is natural to the human soul, and which is not in the power of sleep to deaden or abate. When the man appears to be tired and worn out with the labours of the day, this active part in his composition is still busied and unwearied. When the organs of sense want their due repose and necessary reparations, and the body is no longer able to keep pace with that spiritual substance to which it is united, the soul exerts herself in her several faculties, and continues in action until her partner is again qualified to bear her company. In this case dreams look like the relaxations and amusements of the soul, when she is disencumbered of her machine, her sports, and recreations, when she has laid her charge asleep.

genious author gives an account of himself in his dreaming and his waking thoughts. "We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. At my nativity my ascendant was the watery sign of Scorpius: I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams; and this time also would I choose for my devotions; but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that that has passed. Thus it is observed that men sometimes, upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above themselves; for then the soul, beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain above mortality.'

We may likewise observe, in the third place, that the passions affect the mind with greater strength when we are asleep than when we are awake. Joy and sorrow give us more vigorous sensations of pain or pleasure at this time than any other. Devotion likewise, as the excellent author above mentioned has hinted, is in a very In the second place, dreams are an in- particular manner heightened and inflam- . stance of that agility and perfection which ed, when it rises in the soul at a time that is natural to the faculties of the mind, when the body is thus laid at rest. Every man's they are disengaged from the body. The experience will inform him in this matter, soul is clogged and retarded in her opera- though it is very probable that this may tions, when she acts in conjunction with a happen differently in different constitutions. companion that is so heavy and unwieldy I shall conclude this head with the two folin its motion. But in dreams it is wonder-lowing problems, which I shall leave to ful to observe with what a sprightliness and alacrity she exerts herself. The slow of speech make unpremeditated harangues, or converse readily in languages that they are but little acquainted with. The grave abound in pleasantries, the dull in repartees and points of wit. There is not a more painful action of the mind than invention; yet in dreams it works with that ease and activity that we are not sensible of, when the faculty is employed. For instance, I believe every one some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, There is another circumstance, which or letters; in which case the invention methinks gives us a very high idea of the prompts so readily, that the mind is im- nature of the soul, in regard to what passes posed upon, and mistakes its own sugges-in dreams. I mean that innumerable multions for the compositions of another.

I shall, under this head, quote a passage out of the Religio Medici,* in which the in*By Sir T. Brown, M. D. author of the curious book on "Vulgar Errors," which appeared in folio, in 1646.

the solution of my reader. Supposing a man always happy in his dreams, and miserable in his waking thoughts, and that his life was equally divided between them; whether would he be more happy or miserable? Were a man a king in his dreams, and a beggar awake, and dreamt as consequentially, and in as continued unbroken schemes, as he thinks when awake; whether would he be in reality a king or a beggar; or, rather, whether he would not be both?

titude and variety of ideas which then arise in her. Were that active and watchful being only conscious of her own existence at such a time, what a painful solitude would our hours of sleep be! Were the soul

sensible of her being alone in her sleeping moments, after the same manner that she is sensible of it while awake, the time would hang very heavy on her, as it often actually does when she dreams that she is in such a solitude.

-Semperque relinqui Sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur Ire viam

Virg. En. iv. 466.

-She seems alone

To wander in her sleep through ways unknown,
Guideless and dark.--Dryden.

But this observation I only make by the way. What I would here remark, is that wonderful power in the soul, of producing her own company on these occasions. She converses with numberless beings of her own creation, and is transported into ten thousand scenes of her own raising. She is herself the theatre, the actor, and the beholder. This puts me in mind of a saying which I am infinitely pleased with, and which Plutarch ascribes to Heraclitus, that all men whilst they are awake are in one common world; but that each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own. The waking man is conversant in the world of nature: when he sleeps he retires to a private world that is particular to himself. There seems something in this consideration that intimates to us natural grandeur and perfection in the soul, which is rather to be admired than explained.

I must not omit that argument for the excellency of the soul which I have seen quoted out of Tertullian, namely, its power of divining in dreams. That several such divinations have been made, none can question, who believes the holy writings, or who has but the least degree of a common historical faith; there being innumerable instances of this nature in several authors both ancient and modern, sacred and profane. Whether such dark presages, such visions of the night, proceed from any latent power in the scul, during this her state of abstraction, or from any communication with the Supreme Being, or from any operation of subordinate spirits, has been a great dispute among the learned; the matter of fact is, I think, incontestible, and has been looked upon as such by the greatest writers, who have been never suspected either of superstition or enthusiasm.

I FIND, by several letters which I receive daily, that many of my readers would be better pleased to pay three half-pence for my paper than two pence. The ingenious T. W. tells me that I have deprived him of the best part of his breakfast; for that, since the rise of my paper, he is forced every morning to drink his dish of coffee by itself, without the addition of the Spectator, that used to be better than lace to it. Eugenius informs me, very obligingly, that he never thought he should have disliked any passage in my paper, but that of late there have been two words in every one of them which he could heartily wish left out, viz. 'Price Two Pence.' I have a letter from a soap-boiler, who condoles with me very affectionately upon the necessity we both lie under of setting a high price on our commodities since the late tax has been laid upon them, and desiring me, when I write next on that subject, to speak a word or two upon the present duties on Castile soap. But there is none of these my correspondents, who writes with a greater turn of good sense, and elegance of expression, than the generous Philomedes, who advises me to value every Spectator at sixpence, and promises that he himself will engage for above a hundred of his acquaintance, who shall take it in at that price.

Letters from the female world are likewise come to me, in great quantities, upon the same occasion; and, as I naturally bear a great deference to this part of our species, I am very glad to find that those who approve my conduct in this particular are much more numerous than those who conI do not suppose that the soul in these demn it. A large family of daughters have instances is entirely loose and unfettered drawn me up a very handsome remonfrom the body; it is sufficient if she is not strance, in which they set forth that their so far sunk and immersed in matter, nor father having refused to take in the Specentangled and perplexed in her operations tator, since the additional price was set upon with such motions of blood and spirits, as it, they offered him unanimously to bate when she actuates the machine in its wak-him the article of bread and butter in the ing hours. The corporeal union is slack-tea-table account, provided the Spectator ened enough to give the mind more play. | might be served up to them every morning The soul seems gathered within herself, as usual. Upon this the old gentleman, and recovers that spring which is broke being pleased. it seems, with their desire and weakened, when she operates more in concert with the body.

The speculations I have here made, if they are not arguments, they are at least

of improving themselves, has granted them the continuance both of the Spectator and their bread and butter, having given particular orders that the tea-table shall be set