THE SPECTATOR. VOL. VI No. 395. Tuesday, June 3, 1712. No. 395. Tuesday, June 3, 1712. -Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit.—Ovid. Augur to Julius Cæsar: Beware of the Month of May, says the British Spectator to his fair Country women, The Caution of the first was unhappily neglected, and Caesar's Confidence cost him his Life. I am apt to flatter my self that my pretty Readers had much more Regard to the Advice I gave them, since I have yet received very few Accounts of any notorious Trips made in the last Month. But tho' I hope for the best, I shall not pronounce too positively on this Point, 'till I have seen forty Weeks well over, at which Period of Time, as my good Friend Sir ROGER has often told me, he has more Business as a Justice of Peace, among the dissolute young People in the Country, than at any other Season of the Year, Neither must I forget a Letter which I received near a Fortnight since from a Lady, who, it seems, could hold out no longer, telling me she looked upon the Month as then out, for that she had all along reckoned by the New Stile. On the other hand, I have great Reason to believe, from several angry Letters which have been sent to me by disappointed Lovers, that my Advice has been No. 395. of very signal Service to the fair Sex, who, according 1712. One of these Gentlemen tells me, that he would have given me an hundred Pounds, rather than I should have publish'd that Paper; for that his Mistress, who had promised to explain her self to him about the beginning of May, upon reading that Discourse told him that she would give him her Answer in June. Thyrsis acquaints me, that when he desir'd Sylvía to take a Walk in the Fields, she told him the Spectator had forbidden her. Another of my Correspondents, who writes himself Mat. Meager, complains, that whereas he constantly used to Breakfast with his Mistress upon Chocolate, going to wait upon her the first of May he found his usual Treat very much changed for the worse, and has been forced to feed ever since upon Green Tea. As I begun this Critical Season with a Caveat to the Ladies, I shall conclude it with a Congratulation, and do most heartily wish them Joy of their happy Deliver ance. They may now reflect with Pleasure on the Dangers they have escaped, and look back with as much Satis faction on the Perils that threatned them, as their Great grandmothers did formerly on the burning Ploughshares, after having passed through the Ordeal Tryal The Instigations of the Spring are now abated. The Nightingale gives over her Love-labour'd Song, as Milton phrases it, the Blossoms are fallen, and the Beds of Flowers swept away by the Scythe of the Mower, I shall now allow my Fair Readers to return to their Romances and Chocolate, provided they make use of them with Moderation, 'till about the middle of the Month, when the Sun shall have made some Progress in the Crab. Nothing is more dangerous, than too much Confidence and Security, The Trojans, who stood upon their Guard all the while the Grecians lay before their City, when they fancied the Siege was raised, and the Danger past, were the very next Night burnt in their Beds. I must also observe, that as in some some Climates there is a perpetual Spring, so in some No. 395. Female Constitutions there is a perpetual May: These Tuesday, a kind of Valetudinarians in Chastity, whom I June 3, are would continue in a constant Diet. I cannot think these wholly out of Danger, 'till they have looked upon the other Sex at least Five Years through a Pair of Spectacles. WILL HONEYCOMB has often assured me, that 'tis much easier to steal one of this Species, when she is passed her grand Climacterick, than to carry off an icy Girl on this side Five and Twenty; and that a Rake of his Acquaintance, who had in vain endeavoured to gain the Affections of a young Lady of Fifteen, had at last made his Fortune by running away with her Grandmother. But as I do not design this Speculation for the Ever greens of the Sex, I shall again apply my self to those who would willingly listen to the Dictates of Reason and Virtue, and can now hear me in cold Blood. If there are any who have forfeited their Innocence, they must now consider themselves under that Melancholy View, in which Chamont regards his Sister, in those beautiful Lines, -Long she flourish'd, Grew sweet to Sense, and lovely to the Eye, Cropt this fair Rose, and rifled all its Sweetness, On the contrary, she who has observed the timely Cautions I gave her, and lived up to the Rules of Modesty, will now Flourish like a Rose in June, with all her Virgin Blushes and Sweetness about her: I must, however, desire these last to consider, how shame ful it would be for General, who has made a successful Campaign, to be surprised in his Winter-Quarters: It would be no less dishonourable for a Lady to lose, in any other Month of the Year, what she has been at the Pains to preserve in May. There is no Charm in the Female Sex, that can supply the Place of Virtue. Without Innocence Beauty is unlovely, and Quality contemptible, Good breeding degenerates into Wantonness, and Wit into Impudence. It is observed, that all the Virtues are represented by both 1712. 1712. No. 395. both Painters and Statuaries, under Female Shapes; but Tuesday, if any one of them has a more particular Title to that June 3, Sex, it is Modesty, I shall leave it to the Divines to guard them against the opposite Vice, as they may be overpowered by Temptations; It is sufficient for me to have warned them against it, as they may be led astray by Instinct. I desire this Paper may be read with more than ordinary Attention, at all Tea-tables within the Cities of London and Westminster, No. 396. HA Wednesday, June 4. X Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton. AVING a great deal of Business upon my Hands at present, I shall beg the Reader's Leave to present him with a Letter that I received about half a Year ago from a Gentleman of Cambridge, who stiles himself Peter de Quír. I have kept it by me some Months, and though I did not know at first what to make of it, upon my reading it over very frequently I have at last discovered several Conceits in it: I would not therefore have my Reader discouraged if he does not take them at the first Perusal. 'To Mr. SPECTATOR. From St. John's College, Cambridge, Feb. 3. 1712. The Monopoly of Punns in this University has been an immemorial Privilege of the Johníans; and we can't help resenting the late Invasion of our ancient Right as to that Particular, by a little Pretender to Clenching in a neighbouring College, who in an Application to by way of Letter, awhile ago, stiled himself Philobrune. Dear Sir, as you are by Character a profest Well-wisher to Speculation, you will excuse a Remark which this Gentleman's Passion for the Brunette has suggested to a Brother Theorist; 'tis an Offer to wards a mechanical Account of his Lapse to Punning, you for for he belongs to a Set of Mortals, who value themselves No. 396, upon an uncommon Mastery in the more humane and Wednes polite Part of Letters, A Conquest by one of this June 4, day, Species of Females gives a very odd Turn to the In- 1712. tellectuals of the captivated Person, and very different from that Way of thinking which a Triumph from the Eyes of another more emphatically of the fair Sex, does generally occasion. It fills the Imagination with an Assemblage of such Ideas and Pictures as are hardly any thing but Shade, such as Night, the Devil, &c. These Portraitures very near over-power the Light of the Understanding, almost benight the Faculties, and give that melancholy Tincture to the most sanguine Complexion, which this Gentleman calls an Inclination to be in a Brown-study, and is usually attended with worse Consequences, in case of a Repulse, During this Twilight of Intellects, the Patient is extremely apt, as Love is the most witty Passion in Nature, to offer at some pert Sallies_now and then, by way of Flourish, upon the amiable Enchantress, and unfortunately stumbles upon that Mongrel miscreated (to speak in Miltonic) kind of Wit, vulgarly termed, the Punn. It would not be much amiss to consult Dr. TW- (who is certainly a very able Projector, and whose System of Divinity and Spiritual Mechanicks obtains very much among the better Part of our Under-Graduates) whether a general Inter-marriage, enjoined by Parliament, be tween this Sisterhood of the Olive Beauties, and the Fraternity of the People called Quakers, would not be a very serviceable Expedient, and abate that Overflow of Light which shines within them so powerfully, that it dazzles their Eyes, and dances them into a thousand Vagaries of Error and Enthusiasm. These Reflexions may impart some Light towards a Discovery of the Origin of Punning among us, and the Foundation of its prevailing so long in this famous Body, 'Tis notorious from the Instance under Consideration, that it must be owing chiefly to the use of brown Juggs, muddy Belch, and the Fumes of a certain memorable Place of Ren dezvous with us at Meals, known by the Name of Staincoat Hole. For the Atmosphere of the Kitchen, |