satisfied the law of the land for a petty larceny.

are so full of themselves, as to give disturbance to all that are about them. Sometimes you have a set of whisperers who lay their heads together in order to sacrifice every body within their observation; sometimes a set of laughers that keep up an insipid mirth in their own corner, and by their noise and gestures show they have no respect for the rest of the company. You frequently meet with these sets at the opera, the play, the water works, and other public meetings, where the whole business is to draw off the attention of the spectators from the entertainment, and to fix it upon themselves; and it is to be observed, that the impertinence is ever loudest when the set happens to be made up of three or four females who have got what you call a woman's man among them.

Many a white and tender hand, which the fond mother had passionately kissed a thousand and a thousand times, have I seen whipped until it was covered with blood; perhaps for smiling, or for going a yard and a half out of a gate, or for writing an o for an A, or an A for an o. These were our great faults! Many a brave and noble spirit has been there broken; others have run from thence and were never heard of afterwards. It is a worthy attempt to undertake the cause of distressed youth; and it is a noble piece of knight-errantry to enter the list against so many armed pedagogues. It is pity but we had a set of men, polite in their behaviour and method of teaching, who should be put into a condition of being above flattering or fearing the parents of those they instruct. We might then pos-ple of fortune should learn this behaviour, sibly see learning become a pleasure, and children delighting themselves in that which they now abhor for coming upon such hard terms to them. What would be still a greater happiness arising from the care of such instructors, would be, that we should have no more pedants, nor any bred to learning who had not genius for it. I am, with the utmost sincerity, sir, your most affectionate humble servant.'

Richmond, Sept. 5, 1711. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a boy of fourteen years of age, and have for this last year been under the tuition of a doctor of divinity, who has taken the school of this place under his care. * From the gentleman's great tenderness to me and friendship to my father, I am very happy in learning my book with pleasure. We never leave off our diversions any farther than to salute him at hours of play when he pleases to look on. It is impossible for any of us to love our own parents better than we do him. He never gives any of us a harsh word, and we think it the greatest punishment in the world when he will not speak to any of us. My brother and I are both together inditing this letter. He is a year older than I am, but is now ready to break his heart that the doctor has not taken any notice of him these three days. If you please to print this he will see n and we hope, taking it for my brother's earnest desire to be restored to his favour, he will again smile upon him. Your most obedient servant, T. S.'

'I am at a loss to know from whom peo

unless it be from the footmen who keep their places at a new play, and are often seen passing away their time in sets at allfours in the face of a full house, and with a perfect disregard to the people of quality sitting on each side of them.

For preserving therefore the decency of public assemblies, methinks it would be but reasonable that those who disturb others should pay at least a double price for their places; or rather women of birth and distinction should be informed, that a levity of behaviour in the eyes of people of understanding degrades them below their meanest attendants; and gentlemen should know that a fine coat is a livery, when the person who wears it discovers no higher sense than that of a footman. I am, sir, your most humble servant.”

Bedfordshire, Sept. 1, 1711. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of those whom every body calls a poacher, and sometimes go out to course with a brace of greyhounds, a mastiff, and a spaniel or two; and when I am weary with coursing, and have killed hares enough, go to an alehouse to refresh myself. I beg the favour of you (as you set up for a reformer) to send us word how many dogs you will allow us to go with, how many full pots of ale to drink, and how many hares to kill in a day, and you will do a great piece of service to all the sportsmen. Be quick, then, for the time of coursing is come on. Yours, in haste, ISAAC HEDGEDITCH,'

Sic vita erat: facile omnes perferre ac pati:
Cum quibus erat cunque una, his sese dedere,
Eorum obsequi studiis; adversus nemini ;

'MR. SPECTATOR,-You have represented several sorts of impertinents singly, I No. 169.] Thursday, September 13, 1711. wish you would now proceed and describe some of them in sets. It often happens in public assemblies, that a party who came thither together, or whose impertinences are of an equal pitch, act in concert, and

*This was Dr. Nicholas Brady, who assisted Tate in the new version of the Psalms he died rector of Richmond and Clapham, in Surrey, in 1726..

times, was invented by one Mr. Winstanley, and ex

The Water-theatre a favourite amusement of those

hibited at the lower end of Piccadilly; it consisted of sea-gods, goddesses, &c. playing and spouting out water, and fire mingled with water; performed every evening between five and six.

MAN is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. Every man's natural weight of afflictions is still made more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injustice of his neighbour. At the same time that the storm beats upon the whole species, we are falling foul upon one another.

Half the misery of human life might be extinguished, would men alleviate the general curse they lie under, by mutual offices of compassion, benevolence and humanity. There is nothing therefore which we ought more to encourage in ourselves and others, than that disposition of mind which in our language goes under the title of good-nature, and which I shall choose for the subject of this day's speculation.

Good-nature is more agreeable in conversation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It shows virtue in the fairest light, takes off in some measure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence supportable.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimickry of goodnature, or in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced

into an art.

These exterior shows and appearances of humanity render a man wonderfully popular and beloved, when they are founded upon a real good-nature: but without it are like hypocrisy in religion, or a bare form of holiness, which when it is discovered, makes a man more detestable than professed impiety.

lanthropy or good-nature of his hero, which he tells us he brought into the world stances of it in his childhood, as well as in with him, and gives many remarkable inall the several parts of his life.* Nay, on his death-bed, he describes him as being pleased, that while his soul returned to him that made it, his body should incorporate with the great mother of all things, and by that means become beneficial to mankind. For which reason, he gives his sons a positive order not to enshrine it in gold or silver, but to lay it in the earth as soon as the life was gone out of it.

An instance of such an overflowing of humanity, such an exuberant love to mankind, could not have entered into the imagination of a writer, who had not a soul filled with great ideas, and a general benevolence to mankind.

In that celebrated passage of Sallust, where Cæsar and Cato are placed in such beautiful but opposite lights,† Cæsar's character is chiefly made up of good-nature, as it showed itself in all its forms towards" his friends or his enemies, his servants or dependants, the guilty or the distressed. As for Cato's character, it is rather awful than amiable. Justice seems most agreeable to the nature of God, and mercy to that of man. A being who has nothing to pardon in himself, may reward every man according to his works; but he whose very best actions must be seen with grains of allowance, cannot be too mild, moderate, and forgiving. For this reason, among all the monstrous characters in human nature, there is none so odious, nor indeed so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of a rigid severe temper in a worthless man.

This part of good-nature, however, which consists in the pardoning and overlooking of faults, is to be exercised only in doing ourselves justice, and that too in the ordinary commerce and occurrences of life; for in the public administration of justice, mercy to one may be cruelty to others.

It is grown almost into a maxim, that good-natured men are not always men of the most wit. This observation in my opinion, has no foundation in nature. The greatest wits I have conversed with are men eminent for their humanity. I take therefore this remark to have been occasioned by two reasons. First, because illnature among ordinary observers pisses for wit. A spiteful saying gratifies so many little passions in those who hear it, that it Good-nature is generally born with us; generally meets with a good reception. health, prosperity, and kind treatment from The laugh rises upon it, and the man who the world are great cherishers of it where utters it is looked upon as a shrewd sathey find it; but nothing is capable of forcing tirist. This may be one reason, why a it up, where it does not grow of itself. It is great many pleasant companions appear so one of the blessings of a happy constitution, surprisingly dull, when they have endeawhich education may improve but not pro-voured to be merry in print; the public duce.

Xenophon in the life of his imaginary

prince, whom he describes as a pattern for edit. J. A. Ern Evo. tom. i. p. 550. real ones, is always celebrating the phi

* Xenoph. De Cyri Instit. lib. viii. cap. v. sect, 3,

† Sallust. Bell. Catil. c. liv.

being more just than private clubs or assemblies, in distinguishing between what is wit, and what is ill-nature.

she kindles the same passion in others, and appears as amiable to all beholders. And as jealousy thus arises from an extraordinary love, it is of so delicate a nature, that it scorns to take up with any thing less than an equal return of love. Not the warmest

tender hypocrisy, are able to give any satisfaction, where we are not persuaded that the affection is real, and the satisfaction mutual. For the jealous man wishes himself a kind of deity to the person he loves. He would be the only pleasure of her senses, the employment of her thoughts; and is angry at every thing she admires or takes delight in besides himself.

Another reason why the good-natured man may sometimes bring his wit in question, is, perhaps, because he is apt to be moved with compassion for those misfor-expressions of affection, the softest and most tunes or infirmities, which another would turn into ridicule, and by that means gain the reputation of a wit. The illnatured man, though but of equal parts, gives himself a larger field to expatiate in; he exposes those failings of human nature which the other would cast a veil over, laughs at vices which the other either excuses or conceals, gives utterance to reflections which the other stifles, falls indifferently upon friends or enemies, exposes the person who has obliged him, and, in short, sticks at nothing that may establish his character of a wit. It is no wonder, therefore, he succeeds in it better than the man of humanity, as a person who makes use of indirect methods is more likely to grow rich than the fair trader.

L.

No. 170.] Friday, September 14, 1711.

In amore hæc omnia insunt vitia: injuriæ,
Suspiciones, inimicitiæ, induciæ,
Bellum pax rursum-
Ter. Eun. Act i. Sc. 1.
In love are all these ills: suspicions, quarrels,
Wrongs, reconcilements, war, and peace again.
Colman.

UPON looking over the letters of my female correspondents, I find several from women complaining of jealous husbands, and at the same time protesting their own innocence; and desiring my advice on this occasion. I shall therefore take this subject into my consideration; and the more willingly, because I find that the Marquis of Halifax, who, in his Advice to a Daughter, has instructed a wife how to behave herself towards a false, an intemperate, a choleric, a sullen, a covetous, or a silly husband, has not spoken one word of a jealous husband.

Phædra's request to his mistress, upon his leaving her for three days, is inimitably beautiful and natural:

Cum milite isto præsens, absens ut sies:
Dies noctesque me ames: me desideres:
Me somnies: me expectes: de me cogites:
Me speres: me te obleetes: mecum tota sis:
Meus fac sis postremo animus, quando ego sum tuus.
Ter. Eun. Act i. Sc. 2.

Be with yon soldier present, as if absent:
All night and day love me: still long for me:
Dream, ponder still 'on' me: wish, hope for me:
Delight in me; be all in all with me;

Give your whole heart, for mine's all your's, to me.
Colman.

The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature, that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment. A cool behaviour sets him on the rack, and is interpreted as an instance of aversion or indifference; a fond one raises his suspicions, and looks too much like dissimulation and artifice. If the person he loves be cheerful, her thoughts must be employed on another; and if sad, she is certainly thinking on himself. In short, there is no word or gesture so insignificant, but it gives him new hints, feeds his suspicions, and furnishes him with fresh matters of discovery: so that if we consider the effects of his passion, one would rather think it proceeded from an inveterate hatred, than an excessive love; for certainly none can meet with more disquietude and uneasiness than a suspected wife, if we except the jealous husband.

"Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally But the great unhappiness of this passion beloved by the person whom he entirely is, that it naturally tends to alienate the afloves. Now because our inward passions fection which it is so solicitous to engross; and inclinations can never make themselves and that for these two reasons, because it visible, it is impossible for a jealous man to lays too great a constraint on the words and be thoroughly cured of his suspicions. His actions of the suspected person, and at the thoughts hang at best in a state of doubtful- same time shows you have no honourable ness and uncertainty: and are never capa-opinion of her; both of which are strong ble of receiving any satisfaction on the ad- motives to aversion. vantageous side; so that his inquiries are most successful when they discover nothing. His pleasure arises from his disappointments, and his life is spent in pursuit of a secret that destroys his happiness if he chance to find it.

An ardent love is always a strong ingredient in this passion; for the same affection which stirs up the jealous man's desires, and gives the party beloved so beautiful a figure in his imagination, makes him believe

Nor is this the worst effect of jealousy; for it often draws after it a more fatal train of consequences, and makes the person you suspect guilty of the very crimes you are so much afraid of. It is very natural for such who are treated ill, and upbraided falsely, to find out an intimate friend that will hear their complaints, condole their sufferings, and endeavour to soothe and assuage their secret resentments. Besides, jealousy puts a woman often in mind of an ill thing that

she would not otherwise, perhaps, have thought of, and fills her imagination with such an unlucky idea, as in time grows familiar, excites desire, and loses all the shame and horror which might at first attend it. Nor is it a wonder if she, who suffers wrongfully in a man's opinion of her, and has therefore nothing to forfeit in his esteem, resolves to give him reason for his suspicions, and to enjoy the pleasure of the crime, since she must undergo the ignominy. Such, probably, were the considerations that directed the wise man in his advice to husbands: Be not jealous over the wife of thy bosom, and teach her not an evil lesson against thyself. '*

actions; and are ever tormenting themselves with fancies of their own raising. They generally act in a disguise themselves, and therefore mistake all outward shows and appearances for hypocrisy in others; so that I believe no men see less of the truth and reality of things, than these great refiners upon incidents, who are so wonderfully subtile and over-wise in their conceptions.

and especially where they see any resemblance in the behaviour of two persons, are apt to fancy it proceeds from the same design in both. These men therefore bear hard upon the suspected party, pursue her close through all her turnings and wind

Now, what these men fancy they know of women by reflection, your lewd and vicious men believe they have learned by experience. They have seen the poor husband so misled by tricks and artifices, and in the midst of his inquiries so lost and bewildered And here, among the other torments in a crooked intrigue, that they still suswhich this passion produces, we may usu-pect an under-plot in every female action; ally observe that none are greater mourners than jealous men, when the person who provoked their jealousy is taken from them. Then it is that their love breaks out furiously, and throws off all the mixtures of suspicion which choked and smothered it before. The beautiful parts of the cha-ings, and are too well acquainted with the racter rise uppermost in the jealous husband's memory, and upbraid him with the ill usage of so divine a creature as was once in his possession; whilst all the little imperfections, that were before so uneasy to him, wear off from his remembrance, and show themselves no more.

We may see by what has been said, that jealousy takes the deepest root in men of amorous dispositions; and of these we find three kinds who are most overrun with it.

The first are those who are conscious to themselves of any infirmity, whether it be weakness, old age, deformity, ignorance, or the like. These men are so well acquainted with the unamiable part of themselves, that they have not the confidence to think they are really beloved; and are so distrustful of their own merits, that all fondness towards them puts them out of countenance, and looks like a jest upon their persons. They grow suspicious on their first looking in a glass, and are stung with jealousy at the sight of a wrinkle. A handsome fellow immediately alarms them, and every thing that looks young, or gay, turns their thoughts upon their wives.

A second sort of men who are most liable to this passion, are those of cunning, wary, and distrustful tempers. It is a fault very justly found in histories composed by politicians, that they leave nothing to chance or humour, but are still for deriving every action from some plot or contrivance, for drawing up a perpetual scheme of causes and events, and preserving a constant correspondence between the camp and the council-table. And thus it happens in the affairs of love with men of too refined a thought. They put a construction on a look, and find out a design in a smile; they give new senses and significations to words and

*Ecclesiasticus, ix. 1.

chase to be flung off by any false steps or doubles. Besides, their acquaintance and conversation has lain wholly among the vicious part of woman-kind, and therefore it is no wonder they censure all alike, and look upon the whole sex as a species of impostors. But if, notwithstanding their private experience, they can get over these prejudices, and entertain a favourable opinion of some women, yet their own loose desires will stir up new suspicions from another side, and make them believe all men subject to the same inclinations with themselves.

Whether these or other motives are most predominant, we learn from the modern histories of America, as well as from our own experience in this part of the world, that jealousy is no northern passion, but rages most in those nations that lie nearest It is a misfortune the influence of the sun. for a woman to be born between the tropics; for there lie the hottest regions of jealousy, which as you come northward cools all along with the climate, till you scarce meet with any thing like it in the polar circle. Our own nation is very temperately situated in this respect; and if we meet with some few, disordered with the violence of this passion, they are not the proper growth of our country, but are many degrees nearer the sun in their constitutions than in their climate.

After this frightful account of jealousy, and the persons who are most subject to it, it will be but fair to show by what means the passion may be best allayed, and those who are possessed with it set at ease. Other faults, indeed, are not under the wife's jurisdiction, and should, if possible, escape her observation; but jealousy calls upon her particularly for its. cure, and deserves all her art and application in the attempt. Besides, she has this for her encourage