speak for him to posterity." Let us now at last make this belief a true one, and let us no longer be found speaking of the Spectator as "Addison's Spectator;" but, if the admirers of Addison will have it so, as "the Steele-Addison Spectator." For among other things let it be remembered that of the essays in the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, 510 | belonged to Steele and 369 to Addison, while Steele was in addition projector, founder, and editor—and what he was as an editor may be inferred when we look at Addison attempting to walk alone.]

THE CIVIL HUSBAND.1

The fate and character of the inconstant Osmyn is a just excuse for the little notice taken by his widow of his departure out of this life, which was equally troublesome to Elmira, his faithful spouse, and to himself. That life passed between them after this manner is the reason the town has just now received a lady with all that gaiety, after having been a relict but three months, which other women hardly assume under fifteen after such a disaster. Elmira is the daughter of a rich and worthy citizen, who gave her to Osmyn with a portion which might have obtained her an alliance with our noblest houses, and fixed her in the eye of the world, where her story had not been now to be related; for her good qualities had made her the object of universal esteem among the polite part of mankind, from whom she has been banished and immured till the death of her jailer.

It is now full fifteen years since that beauteous lady was given into the hands of the happy Osmyn, who in the sense of all the world received at that time a present more valuable than the possession of both the Indies. She was then in her early bloom, with an understanding and discretion very little inferior to the most experienced matrons. She was not beholden to the charms of her sex, that her company was preferable to any Osmyn could meet with abroad; for were all she said considered, without regard to her being a woman, it might stand the examination of the severest judges. She had all the beauty of her own sex, with all the conversation-accomplishments of ours.

But Osmyn very soon grew surfeited with

1 Number 53 of The Tatler.

the charms of her person by possession, and of her mind by want of taste; for he was one of that loose sort of men, who have but one reason for setting any value upon the fair sex, who consider even brides but as new women, and consequently neglect them when they cease to be such. All the merit of Elmira could not prevent her becoming a mere wife within few months after her nuptials; and Osmyn had so little relish for her conversation that he complained of the advantages of it.

"My spouse," said he to one of his companions, "is so very discreet, so good, so virtuous, and I know not what, that I think her person is rather the object of esteem than of love; and there is such a thing as a merit which causes rather distance than passion."

But there being no medium in the state of matrimony, their life began to take the usual gradations to become the most irksome of all beings. They grew in the first place very complaisant; and having at heart a certain knowledge that they were indifferent to each other, apologies were made for every little circumstance which they thought betrayed their mutual coldness. This lasted but few months, when they showed a difference of opinion in every trifle; and, as a sign of certain decay of affection, the word perhaps was introduced in all their discourse.

"I have a mind to go to the park," says she, "but perhaps, my dear, you will want the coach on some other occasion." He would very willingly carry her to the play, but perhaps she had rather go to Lady Centaure's and play at ombre. They were both persons of good discerning, and soon found that they mortally hated each other, by their manner of hiding it. Certain it is, that there are some Genio's which are not capable of pure affection, and a man is born with talents for it as much as for poetry or any other science.

Osmyn began too late to find the imperfection of his own heart, and used all the methods in the world to correct it, and argue himself into return of desire and passion for his wife, by the contemplation of her excellent qualities, his great obligations to her, and the high value he saw all the world except himself did put upon her. But such is man's unhappy condition, that though the weakness of the heart has a prevailing power over the strength of the head, yet the strength of the head has but small force against the weakness of the heart. Osmyn therefore struggled in vain to revive departed desire; and for that reason resolved to retire to one of his estates in the country,

terests. I made her a visit this afternoon, having been formerly introduced to the honour of her acquaintance by my friend Will, Honeycomb, who has prevailed upon her to admit me sometimes into her assembly as a civil, inoffensive man. I found her accompanied with one person only, a commonplace talker, who, upon my entrance, rose, and after a very slight civility sat down again; then turning to Arietta, pursued his discourse, which I found was upon the old topic, of constancy in love. He went on with great facility in repeating what he talks every day of his life; and, with the ornaments of insignificant laughs and gestures, enforced his arguments by quotations out of plays and songs, which allude to the perjuries of the fair and the general levity of women. Methought he strove to shine more than ordinarily in his talkative way, that he might insult my silence, and distinguish himself before a woman of Arietta's taste and understanding. She had often an inclination to interrupt him, but could find no opportunity, 'till the larum ceased of itself; which it did not till he had repeated and murdered the celebrated story of the Ephesian matron.1

Arietta seemed to regard this piece of raillery as an outrage done to her sex; as indeed I have always observed that women, whether out of a nicer regard to their honour, or what other reason I cannot tell, are more sensibly touched with those general aspersions which are cast upon their sex than men are by what is said of theirs.

When she had a little recovered herself from the serious anger she was in, she replied in the following manner :—

Sir, when I consider how perfectly new all you have said on this subject is, and that the story you have given us is not quite two thousand years old, I cannot but think it a piece of presumption to dispute with you: but your quotations put me in mind of the fable of the lion and the man. The man walking with that noble animal, showed him, in the ostentation of human superiority, a sign of a man killing a lion. Upon which the lion said very justly, “We lions are none of us painters, else we could show a hundred men killed by lions for one lion killed by a man.” You men are writers, and can represent us women as unbe

1 Told in the prose "Satyricon" ascribed to Petronius, whom Nero called his arbiter of elegance. The tale was known in the middle ages from the stories of the "Seven Wise Masters." She went down into the vault with her husband's corpse, resolved to weep to death or die of

coming as you please in your works, while we are unable to return the injury. You have twice or thrice observed in your discourse that hypocrisy is the very foundation of our education; and that an ability to dissemble our affections is a professed part of our breeding. These, and such other reflections, are sprinkled up and down the writings of all ages, by authors, who leave behind them memorials of their resentment against the scorn of particular women, in invectives against the whole sex. Such a writer, I doubt not, was the celebrated Petronius, who invented the pleasant aggravations of the frailty of the Ephesian lady; but when we consider this question between the sexes, which has been either a point of dispute or raillery ever since there were men and women, let us take facts from plain people, and from such as have not either ambition or capacity to embellish their narrations with any beauties of imagination. I was the other day amusing myself with Ligon's account of Barbadoes; and, in answer to your wellwrought tale, I will give you (as it dwells upon my memory) out of that honest traveller, in his fifty-fifth page, the history of Inkle and Yarico.

Mr. Thomas Inkle of London, aged twenty years, embarked in the Downs, on the good ship called the Achilles, bound for the West Indies, on the 16th of June, 1647, in order to improve his fortune by trade and merchandise. Our adventurer was the third son of an eminent citizen, who had taken particular care to instil into his mind an early love of gain, by making him a perfect master of numbers, and consequently giving him a quick view of loss and advantage, and preventing the natural impulses of his passions, by prepossession towards his interests. With a mind thus turned, young Inkle had a person every way agreeable, a ruddy vigour in his countenance, strength in his limbs, with ringlets of fair hair loosely flowing on his shoulders.. It happened, in the course of the voyage, that the Achilles, in some distress, put into a creek on the main of America in search of provisions: the youth, who is the hero of my story, among others, went ashore on this occasion. From their first landing they were observed by a party of Indians, who hid themselves in the woods for that purpose. The English unadvisedly marched a great dis

famine; but was tempted to share the supper of a soldier who was watching seven bodies hanging upon trees, and that very night, in the grave of her husband and in her funeral garments, married her new and stranger guest.— Prof. Morley.

of these trees; so unhappy is the condition of men in love, to attempt the removing of their passion by the methods which serve only to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world."

Here followed a profound silence; and I was not displeased to observe my friend falling so naturally into a discourse, which I had ever before taken notice he industriously avoided. After a very long pause he entered upon an account of this great circumstance in his life, with an air which I thought raised my idea of him above what I had ever had before; and gave me the picture of that cheerful mind of his, before it received that stroke which has ever since affected his words and actions. But he went on as follows:

"I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my ancestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all the methods of hospitality and good neighbourhood, for the sake of my fame; and in country sports and recreations, for the sake of my health. In my twenty-third year I was obliged to serve as sheriff of the county; and in my servants, officers, and whole equipage indulged the pleasure of a young man (who did not think ill of his own person) in taking that public occasion of showing my figure and behaviour to advantage. You may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, with music before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows as I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But when I came there a beautiful creature in a widow's habit sat in court to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This commanding creature (who was born for destruction of all who behold her) put on such a resignation in her countenance, and bore the whispers of all around the court with such a pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered herself from one eye to another, 'till she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a murrain to her, she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met it but I bowed like a great surprised booby; and knowing her cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a captivated calf was, 'Make way for the defendant's witnesses.' This sudden partiality made all the

as I

county immediately see the sheriff also was become a slave to the fine widow. During the time her cause was upon trial she behaved herself, I warrant you, with such a deep attention to her business, took opportunities to have little billets handed to her council, then would be in such a pretty confusion, occasioned, you must know, by acting before so much company, that not only I but the whole court was prejudiced in her favour; and all that the next heir to her husband had to urge was thought so groundless and frivolous, that when it came to her council to reply, there was not half so much said as every one besides in the court thought he could have urged to her advantage. You must understand, sir, this perverse woman is one of those unaccountable creatures that secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge themselves in no further consequences. Hence it is that she has ever had a train of admirers, and she removes from her slaves in town to those in the country, according to the seasons of the year. She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of friendship; she is always accompanied by a confidant, who is witness to her daily protestations against our sex, and consequently a bar to her first steps towards love, upon the strength of her own maxims and declarations.

'However, I must needs say this accomplished mistress of mine has distinguished me above the rest, and has been known to declare Sir Roger de Coverley was the tamest and most human of all the brutes in the country. I was told she said so by one who thought he rallied me; but upon the strength of this slender encouragement, of being thought least detestable, I made new liveries, new paired my coach-horses, sent them all to town to be bitted, and taught to throw their legs well, and move all together, before I pretended to cross the country and wait upon her. As soon as I thought my retinue suitable to the character of my fortune and youth, I set out from hence to make my addresses. The particular skill of this lady has ever been to inflame your wishes, and yet command respect. To make her mistress of this art she has a greater share of knowledge, wit, and good sense than is usual even among men of merit. Then she is beautiful beyond the race of women. If you won't let her go on with a certain artifice with her eyes, and the skill of beauty, she will arm herself with her real charms, and strike you with admiration instead of desire. It is certain that if you were to behold the whole woman there is that dignity