steadiness to his vivacities, or substitute | going from college to college to borrow, as slower men of fidelity to transact the methodical part of his affairs, such a one would outstrip the rest of the world; but business and trade are not to be managed by the same heads which write poetry, and make plans for the conduct of life in general. So though we are at this day beholden to the late witty and inventive duke of Buckingham for the whole trade and manufacture of glass, yet I suppose there is no one will aver, that, were his grace yet living, they would not rather deal with my diligent friend and neighbour, Mr. Gumley, for any goods to be prepared and delivered on such a day, than he would with that illustrious mechanic above-mentioned. they have done since the death of this worthy man. I say, Mr. Hobson kept a stable of forty good cattle, always ready and fit for travelling; but, when a man came for a horse, he was led into the stable, where there was great choice; but he obliged him to take the horse which stood next to the stable door; so that every customer was alike well served according to his chance, and every horse ridden with the same justice; from whence it became a proverb, when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say, "Hobson's choice." This memorable man stands drawn in fresco at an inn (which he used) in Bishopsgate-street, with a hundred pound bag under his arm, with this inscription upon the said bag: 'No, no, Mr. Spectator, you wits must not pretend to be rich; and it is possible the reason may be, in some measure, because "The fruitful mother of a hundred more."t you despise, or at least you do not value it enough to let it take up your chief atten"Whatever tradesman will try the extion; which a trader must do, or lose his periment, and begin the day after you pubcredit, which is to him what honour, re-lish this my discourse to treat his customers putation, fame, or glory, is to other sort of all alike, and all reasonably and honestly, I will ensure him the same success, I am sir, your loving friend, T. men. 'I shall not speak to the point of cash itself, until I see how you approve of these my maxims in general: but I think a speculation upon "many a little makes a mickle, a penny saved is a penny got, penny wise "HEZEKIAH THRIFT.' -Si sapis, Neque præterquam quas ipse amor molestias. and a pound foolish, it is need that makes No. 510.] Wednesday, October 15, 1712. the old wife trot," would be very useful to the world; and if you treated them with knowledge, would be useful to yourself, for it would make demands for your paper among those who have no notion of it at present. But of these matters more hereafter. If you did this, as you excel many writers of the present age for politeness, so you would outgo the author of the true razor strops for use. 'I shall conclude this discourse with an explanation of a proverb, which by vulgar error is taken and used when a man is reduced to an extremity, whereas the propriety of the maxim is to use it when you would say there is plenty, but you must make such a choice as not to hurt another who is to come after you. Mr. Tobias Hobson,* from whom we have the expression, was a very honourable man, for I shall ever call the man so who gets an estate honestly. Mr. Tobias Hobson was a carrier; and, being a man of great abilities and invention, and one that saw where there might good profit arise, though the duller men overlooked it, this ingenious man was the first in this island who let out hackney-horses. He lived in Cambridge; and, observing that the scholars, rid hard, his manner was to keep a large stable of horses, with boots, bridles, and whips, to furnish the gentlemen at once, without * Mr. Hobson was the carrier between London and Cambridge. At the latter place he erected a handsome stone conduit, and left sufficient land for its maintenance for ever. He died in the time of the plague, 1630, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. If you are wise, add not to the troubles which attend the passion of love, and bear patiently those which are inseparable from it. 'I was the other day driving in a hack through Gerrard-street, when my eye was immediately.catched with the prettiest object imaginable-the face of a very fair girl, between thirteen and fourteen, fixed at the chin to a painted sash, and made part of the landscape. It seemed admirably done, and, upon throwing myself eagerly out of the coach to look at it, it laughed, and flung from the window. This amiable figure dwelt upon me; and I was considering the vanity of the girl, and her pleasant coquetry in acting a picture until she was taken notice of, and raised the admiration of the beholders. This little circumstance made me run into reflections upon the force of beauty, and the wonderful influence the female sex has upon the other part of the species. Our hearts are seized with their enchantments, and there are few of us, but brutal men, who by that hardness lose the chief pleasure in them, can resist their insinuations, though never so much against our own interests and opinion. It is common with women to destroy the good effects a man's following his own way and inclina There is a scarce folio print, I believe, from this picture, engraved by Payne, with eight English verses beneath. want of spirit, he alludes to enterprises which he cannot reveal but with the hazard of his life. When he is worked thus far, with a little flattery of her opinion of his gallantry, and desire to know more of it out of her overflowing fondness to him, he brags to her until his life is in her disposal. tion might have upon his honour and for- | world, wishes to make a good figure with tune, by interposing their power over him his mistress, upon her upbraiding him with in matters wherein they cannot influence him, but to his loss and disparagement. I do not know therefore a task so difficult in human life, as to be proof against the importunities of a woman a man loves. There is certainly no armour against tears, sullen looks, or at best constrained familiarities, in her whom you usually meet with transport and alacrity. Sir Walter Raleigh was quoted in a letter (of a very ingenious correspondent of mine) upon this subject. That author, who had lived in courts, and camps, travelled through many countries, and seen many men under several climates, and of as various complexions, speaks of our impotence to resist the wiles of women in very severe terms. His words are as follows: 'What means did the devil find out, or what instruments did his own subtility present him as fittest and aptest to work his mischief by? Even the unquiet vanity of the woman; so as by Adam's hearkening to the voice of his wife, contrary to the express commandment of the living God, mankind by that her incantation became the subject of labour, sorrow, and death; the woman being given to man for a comforter and companion, but not for a counsellor. It is also to be noted by whom the woman was tempted: even by the most ugly and unworthy of all beasts, into whom the devil entered and persuaded. Secondly, What was the motive of her disobedience? Even a desire to know what was most unfitting her knowledge; an affection which has ever since remained in all the posterity of her sex. Thirdly, what was it that moved the man to yield to her persuasions? Even to the same cause which hath moved all men since to the like consent, namely, an unwillingness to grieve her, or make her sad, lest she should pine, and be overcome with sorrow. But if Adam, in the state of perfection, and Solomon the Son of David, God's chosen servant, and himself a man endued with the greatest wisdom, did both of them disobey their Creator by the persuasion, and for the love they bear to a womin, it is not so wonderful as lamentable, that other men in succeeding ages have been allured to so many inconvenient and wicked practices by the persuasion of their wives, or other beloved darlings, who cover over and shadow many malicious purposes with a counterfeit passion of dissimulating sorrow and unquietness.' The motions of the minds of lovers are no where so well described as in the words of skilful writers for the stage. The scene between Fulvia and Curius, in the second act of Johnson's Catiline, is an excellent picture of the power of a lady over her gallant. The wench plays with his affections; and as a man, of all places of the VOL. II. 35 When a man is thus liable to be van- and not their exorbitant desires which are It is indeed the T. No. 511.] Thursday, October 16, 1712. 6 Quis non invenit turba quod amaret in illa? In such a crowd a mistress to his mind? did in Persia, we should find that some of our greatest men would choose out the portions, and rival one another for the richest piece of deformity; and that, on the contrary, the toasts and belles would be bought up by extravagant heirs, gamesters, and spendthrifts. Thou couldst make very pretty reflections upon this occasion in honour of the Persian politicians, who took care, by such marriages, to beautify the upper part of the species, and to make the greatest persons in the government the most graceful. But this I shall leave to thy judicious pen. DEAR SPEC,-Finding that my last letter took, I do intend to continue my epistolary correspondence with thee, on those dear confounded creatures, women. Thou knowest, all the little learning I am master of is upon that subject: I never looked in a book but for their sakes. I have lately met with two pure stories for a Spectator, which I am sure will please mightily, if they pass 'I have another story to tell thee, which through thy hands. The first of them II likewise met with in a book. It seems the found by chance in an English book, called general of the Tartars, after having laid Herodotus, that lay in my friend Dapper- siege to a strong town in China, and taken wit's window, as I visited him one morning. it by storm, would set to sale all the women It luckily opened in the place where I met that were found in it. Accordingly he put with the following account. He tells us that each of them into a sack, and, after having it was the manner among the Persians to thoroughly considered the value of the wohave several fairs in the kingdom, at which man who was enclosed, marked the price all the young unmarried women were an- that was demanded for her upon the sack. nually exposed to sale. The men who There was a great confluence of chapmen, wanted wives came hither to provide them- that resorted from every part, with a deselves. Every woman was given to the sign to purchase, which they were to do highest bidder, and the money which she 'unsight unseen. The book mentions a fetched laid aside for the public use, to be merchant in particular, who observing one employed as thou shalt hear by and by. of the sacks to be marked pretty high, barBy this means the richest people had the gained for it, and carried it off with him to choice of the market, and culled out all the his house. As he was resting with it upon most extraordinary beauties. As soon as a halfway bridge, he was resolved to take the fair was thus picked, the refuse was to a survey of his purchase: upon opening the be distributed among the poor, and among sack, a little old woman popped her head those who could not go to the price of a out of it; at which the adventurer was in so beauty. Several of these married the agree-great a rage, that he was going to shoot her ables, without paying a farthing for them, unless somebody chanced to think it worth his while to bid for them, in which case the best bidder was always the purchaser. But now you must know, Spec, it happened in Persia, as it does in our own country, that there was' as many ugly women as beauties or agreeables; so that by consequence, after the magistrates had put off a great many, there were still a great many that stuck upon their hands. In order therefore to clear the market, the money which the beauties had sold for was disposed of among the ugly; so that a poor man, who could not afford to have a beauty for his wife, was forced to take up with a fortune; the greatest portion being always given to the most deformed. To this the author adds, that every poor man was forced to live kindly with his wife, or, in case he repented of his bargain, to return her portion with her to the next public sale. What I would recommend to thee on this occasion is, to establish such an imaginary fair in Great Britain: thou couldst make it very pleasant, by matching women of quality with cobblers and carmen, or describing titles and garters leading off in great ceremony shopkeepers' and farmers' daughters. Though, to tell thee the truth, I am confoundedly afraid, that as the love of money prevails in our island more than it out into the river. The old lady, however, begged him first of all to hear her story, by which he learned that she was sister to a great mandarin, who would infallibly make the fortune of his brother-in-law as soon as he should know to whose lot she fell. Upon which the merchant again tied her up in his sack, and carried her to his house, where she proved an excellent wife; and procured him all the riches from her brother that she had promised him. 'I fancy, if I was disposed to dream a second time, I could make a tolerable vision upon this plan. I would suppose all the unmarried women in London and Westminster brought to market in sacks, with their respective prices on each sack. The first sack that is sold is marked with five thousand pound. Upon the opening of it, I find it filled with an admirable housewife, of an agreeable countenance. The purchaser, upon hearing her good qualities, pays down her price very cheerfully. The second I would open should be a five hundred pound sack. The lady in it, to our surprise, has the face and person of a toast. As we are wondering how she came to be set at so low a price, we hear that she would have been valued at ten thousand pound, but that the public had made those abatements for her being a scold. I would afterwards find some beautiful, modest, and discreet woman, that should be the top of the market; and perhaps discover half a dozen romps tied up together in the same sack, at one hundred pound a head. The prude and the coquette should be valued at the same price, though the first should go off the better of the two. I fancy thou wouldst like such a vision, had I time to finish it; because, to talk in thy own way, there is a moral in it. Whatever thou mayest think of it, pr'ythee do not make any of thy queer apologies for this letter, as thou didst for my last. The women love a gay lively fellow, and are never angry at the railleries of one who is their known admirer. I am always bitter upon them but well with them. Thine, HONEYCOMB.' No. 512.] Friday, October 17, 1712. Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo. Hor. Ars Poet, ver. 344. Mixing together profit and delight. THERE is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice. We look upon the man who gives it us as offering an affront to our understanding, and treating us like children or idiots. We consider the instruction as an implicit censure, and the zeal which any shows for our good on such an occasion, as a piece of presumption or impertinence. The truth of it is, the person who pretends to advise, does, in that particular, exercise a superiority over us, and can have no other reason for it, but that, in comparing us with himself, he thinks us defective either in our conduct or our understanding. For these reasons, there is nothing so difficult as the art of making advice agreeable; and indeed all the writers, both ancient and modern, have distinguished themselves among one another, according to the perfection at which they have arrived in this art. How many devices have been made use of, to render this bitter portion palatable! Some convey their instructions to us in the best chosen words, others in the most harmonious numbers; some in points of wit, and others in short proverbs. But, among all the different ways of giving counsel, I think the finest, and that which pleases the most universally, is fable, in whatsoever shape it appears. If we consider this way of instructing or giving advice, it excels all others, because it is the least shocking, and the least subject to those exceptions which I have before mentioned. This will appear to us if we reflect in the first place, that upon the reading of a fable we are made to believe we advise ourselves. We peruse the author for the sake of the story, and consider the precepts rather as our own conclusions than his instructions. The moral insinuates itself imperceptibly; we are taught by surprise, and become wiser and better unawares. In short, by this method a man is so far over-reached as to think he is directing himself, while he is following the dictates of another, and consequently is not sensible of that which is the most unpleasing circumstance in advice. In the next place, if we look into human nature, we shall find that the mind is never so much pleased as when she exerts herself in any action that gives her an idea of her own perfections and abilities. This natural pride and ambition of the soul is very much gratified in the reading of a fable; for, in writings of this kind, the reader comes in for half of the performance; every thing appears to him like a discovery of his own; he is busied all the while in applying characters and circumstances, and is in this respect both a reader and a composer. It is no wonder therefore that on such occasions, when the mind is thus pleased with itself, and amused with its own discoveries, that it is highly delighted with the writing which is the occasion of it. For this reason the Absalom and Achitophel was one of the most popular poems that appeared in English. The poetry is indeed very fine; but had it been much finer, it would not have so much pleased, without a plan which gave the reader an opportunity of exerting his own talents. This oblique manner of giving advice is so inoffensive, that, if we look into ancient histories, we find the wise men of old very often chose to give counsel to their kings in fables. To omit many which will occur to every one's memory, there is a pretty instance of this nature in a Turkish tale, which I do not like the worse for that little oriental extravagance which is mixed with it. We are told that the Sultan Mahmoud, by his perpetual wars abroad and his tyranny at home, had filled his dominions with ruin and desolation, and half unpeopled the Persian empire. The vizier to this great sultan (whether a humourist or an enthusiast, we are not informed) pretended to have learned of a certain dervise to understand the language of birds, so that there was not a bird that could open his mouth but the vizier As he was one knew what it was he said. evening with the emperor, in their return from hunting, they saw a couple of owls upon a tree that grew near an old wall out of a heap of rubbish. I would fain know,' says the sultan, 'what those two owls are saying to one another; listen to their discourse, and give me an account of it.' The vizier approached the tree, pretending to be very attentive to the two owls. Upon his return to the sultan, Sir,' says he, 'I have heard part of their conversation, but dare not tell you what it is.' The sultan would not be satisfied with such an answer, but forced him to repeat word for word every thing the owls had said, 'You must know then, said the vizier, that one of these owls has a son, and the other a daughter, between whom they are now upon a treaty of marriage. The father of the son said to the father of the daughter, in my hearing, "Brother, I consent to this marriage, provided you will settle upon your daughter fifty ruined villages for her portion." To which the father of the daughter replied, "Instead of fifty, I will give her five hundred if you please. God grant a long life to sultan Mahmoud! Whilst he reigns over us, we shall never want ruined villages." The story says, the sultan was so touched with the fable, that he rebuilt the towns and villages which had been destroyed, and from that time forward consulted the good of his people. To fill up my paper, I shall add a most ridiculous piece of natural magic, which was taught by no less a philosopher than Democritus, namely, that if the blood of certain birds, which he mentioned, were mixed together, it would produce a serpent of such a wonderful virtue, that whoever did eat it should be skilled in the language of birds, and understand every thing they said to one another. Whether the dervise above-mentioned might not have eaten such a serpent, I shall leave to the determination of the learned. O. THE following letter comes to me from that excellent man in holy orders, whom I have mentioned more than once as one of that society, who assists me in my speculations. It is a thought in sickness, and of a very serious nature, for which reason I give it a place in the paper of this day. 'SIR,-The indisposition which has long hung upon me is at last grown to such a head, that it must quickly make an end of me or of itself. You may imagine, that whilst I am in this bad state of health, there are none of your works which I read with greater pleasure than your Saturday's papers. I should be very glad if I could furnish you with any hints for that day's entertainment. Were I able to dress up several thoughts of a serious nature, which have made great impressions on my mind during a long fit of sickness, they might not be an improper entertainment for that occasion. Among all the reflections which usually rise in the mind of a sick man, who has time and inclination to consider his approaching end, there is none more natural than that of his going to appear naked and unbodied before Him who made him. When a man considers that, as soon as the vital union is dissolved, he shall see that Supreme Being whom he now contemplates at a distance, and only in his works; or, to speak more philosophically, when by some faculty in the soul, he shall apprehend the Divine Being, and be more sensible of his presence, than we are now of the presence of any object which the eye beholds, a man must be lost in carelessness and stupidity, who is not alarmed at such a thought. Dr. Sherlock, in his excellent treatise upon Death, has represented, in very strong and lively colours, the state of the soul in its first separation from the body, with regard to that invisible world which every where surrounds us, though we are not able to discover it through this grosser world of matter, which is accommodated to our senses in this life. His words are as follow: "That death, which is our leaving this world, is nothing else put putting off these bodies, teaches us that it is only our union to these bodies which intercepts the sight of the other world. The other world is not at such a distance from us as we may imagine; the throne of God indeed is at a great remove from this earth, above the third heavens, where he displays his glory to those blessed spirits which encompass his throne; but as soon as we step out of these bodies we step into the other world, which is not so properly another world (for there is the same heaven and earth still) as a new state of life. To live in these bodies is to live in this world; to live out of them is to remove into the next: for while our souls are confined to these bodies, and can look only through these material casements, nothing but what is material can affect us; nay, nothing but what is so gross that it can reflect light, and convey those shapes and colours of things with it to the eye: so that, though within this visible world there be a more glorious scene of things than what appears to us, we perceive nothing at all of it; for this veil of flesh parts the visible and invisible world: but when we put off these bodies, there are new and surprising wonders present themselves to our views; when these material spectacles are taken off, the soul with its own naked eyes sees what was invisible before; and then we are in the other world, when we can see it, and converse with it. Thus St. Paul tells us, that when we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; but when we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord:' 2 Cor. v. 6. 8. And methinks this is enough to cure us of our fondness for these bodies, unless we think it more desirable to be confined to a prison, and to look through a grate all our lives, which gives us but a very narrow prospect, and that none of the best neither, than to be set at liberty to view all the glories of the world. What 4 |