world, wishes to make a good figure with his mistress, upon her upbraiding him with 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 fortune, by interposing their power over him 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 When a man is thus liable to be vanwith transport and alacrity. Sir Walter quished by the charms of her he loves, the Raleigh was quoted in a letter (of a very safest way is to determine what is proper ingenious correspondent of mine) upon this to be done; but to avoid all expostulation subject. That author, who had lived in with her before he executes what he has courts, and camps, travelled through many resolved. Women are ever too hard for us countries, and seen many men under seve- upon a treaty; and one must consider how ral climates, and of as various complex-senseless a thing it is to argue with one ions, speaks of our impotence to resist the whose looks and gestures are more prevawiles of women in very severe terms. His lent with you, than your reasons and argu words are as follows: What means did the devil find out, or reason, but that you had not fortitude to support you in asserting it. A man has able wishes and desires; but he does that in enough to do to conquer his own unreasonvain, if he has those of another to gratify. Let his pride be in his wife and family, let him give them all the conveniences of life in such a manner as if he were proud of them; but let it be his own innocent pride, ments can be with her. It is a most miserable slavery to submit to what you disapwhat instruments did his own subtility pre-prove and give up a truth for no other sent 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 and not their exorbitant desires which are is also to be noted by whom the woman was tempted: even by the most ugly and unindulged by him. In this case all the little worthy of all beasts, into whom the devil arts imaginable are used to soften a man's entered and persuaded. Secondly, What heart, and raise his passion above his unwas the motive of her disobedience? Even derstanding. But in all concessions of this a desire to know what was most unfitting kind, a man should consider whether the her knowledge; an affection which has present he makes flows from his own love, ever since_remained in all the posterity of the latter, he is her slave? if from the foror the importunity of his beloved. If from her sex. Thirdly, what was it that moved the man to yield to her persuasions? Even mer, her friend. We laugh it off, and do to the same cause which hath moved all not weigh this subjection to women with men since to the like consent, namely, an that seriousness which so important a circumstance deserves. Why was courage unwillingness to grieve her, or make her sad, lest she should pine, and be overcome with given to a man, if his wife's fears are to frustrate it? When this is once indulged, sorrow. But if Adam, in the state of perfection, and Solomon the Son of David, you are no longer her guardian and proGod's chosen servant, and himself a man in compliance to her weaknesses, you have tector, as you were designed by nature; but, endued with the greatest wisdom, did both disabled yourself from avoiding the misforof them disobey their Creator by the per- tunes into which they will lead you both, suasion, and for the love they bear to a wo- and you are to see the hour in which you man, it is not so wonderful as lamentable, that other men in succeeding ages have are to be reproached by herself for that been allured to so many inconvenient and very compliance to her. It is indeed the wicked practices by the persuasion of their most difficult mastery over ourselves we wives, or other beloved darlings, who cover who charms us; but let the heart ake, be can possibly attain, to resist the grief of her over and shadow many malicious purposes the anguish never so quick and painful, it with a counterfeit passion of dissimulating is what must be suffered and passed 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 through, if you think to live like a gentleman, or be conscious to yourself that you are a man of honesty. The old argument, that you do not love me if you deny me this,' which first was used to obtain a trifle, by habitual success will oblige the unhappy man who gives way to it to resign the cause even of his country and his honour. T. No. 511.] Thursday, October 16, 1712. 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 por tions, and rival one another for the richest piece of deformity; and that, on the cotrary, the toasts and belles would be bought up by extravagant heirs, gamesters, and spendthrifts. Thou couldst make very pretty reflections upon this occasion in ho nour 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 wo have 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. 6 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, What I would recommend to thee on pays down her price very cheerfully. The this occasion is, to establish such an ima-second I would open should be a five hunginary fair in Great Britain: thou couldst dred pound sack. The lady in it, to our make it very pleasant, by matching wo-surprise, has the face and person of a toast. men 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 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 knew what it was he said. As he was one 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 | When a man considers that, as soon as the these owls has a son, and the other a daugh- vital union is dissolved, he shall see that ter, between whom they are now upon a Supreme Being whom he now contemplates treaty of marriage. The father of the son at a distance, and only in his works; or, to said to the father of the daughter, in my speak more philosophically, when by some hearing, "Brother, I consent to this mar- faculty in the soul, he shall apprehend the riage, provided you will settle upon your Divine Being, and be more sensible of his daughter fifty ruined villages for her por- presence, than we are now of the presence tion. "To which the father of the daughter of any object which the eye beholds, a replied, "Instead of fifty, I will give her man must be lost in carelessness and stufive hundred if you please. God grant a pidity, who is not alarmed at such a thought. long life to sultan Mahmoud! Whilst he Dr. Sherlock, in his excellent treatise upon reigns over us, we shall never want ruined Death, has represented, in very strong and villages." 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: 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 "That death, which is our leaving this certain birds, which he mentioned, were world, is nothing else put putting off these mixed together, it would produce a serpent bodies, teaches us that it is only our union of such a wonderful virtue, that whoever to these bodies which intercepts the sight 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. THF. 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. 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 would we give now for the least glimpse of that invisible world, which the first step we take out of these bodies will present us with? There are such things' as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.' Death opens our eyes, enlarges our prospect, presents us with a new and more glorious world, which we can never see while we are shut up in flesh; which should make us as willing to part with this veil, as to take the film off of our eyes which hinders our sight?" VI. "For never shall my soul despair Who knows thine only Son has died There is a noble hymn in French, which Monsieur Bayle has celebrated for a very fine one, and which the famous author of the Art of Speaking calls an admirable one, that turns upon a thought of the same nature. If I could have done it justice in English, I would have sent it to you translated; it was written by Monsieur des Barreux, who had been one of the greatest wits and libertines in France, but in his last years was as remarkable a penitent. 'As a thinking man cannot but be very much affected with the idea of his appearing in the presence of that Being "whom none can see and live," he must be much more affected when he considers that this Being whom he appears before will examine all the actions of his past life, and reward or punish him accordingly. I must confess that I think there is no scheme of religion, besides that of Christianity, which can possibly support the most virtuous person under this thought. Let a man's innocence be what it will, let his virtues rise to the highest pitch of perfection attainable in this life, there will be still in him so many secret sins, so many human frailties, so many offences of ignorance, passion, and prejudice, so many unguarded words and thoughts, and, in short, so many defects in No. 514.] Monday, October 20, 1712. his best actions, that, without the advantages of such an expiation and atonement as Christianity has revealed to us, it is impossible that he should be cleared before his Sovereign Judge, or that he should be able to stand in his sight." Our holy religion suggests to us the only means whereby our guilt may be taken away, and our imperfect obedience accepted. "Grand Dieu, tes jugemens sont remplis d'equite; Et ta clemence meme attend que je perisse It is this series of thought that I have endeavoured to express in the following hymn, which I have composed during this my sickness. I. "When, rising from the bed of death, I see my Maker face to face, O how shall I appear! II. "If yet while pardon may be found, My heart with inward horror shrinks, III. And sit in judgment on my soul, IV. "But thou hast told the troubled mind, V. "Then see the sorrows of my heart, And hear my Saviour's dying groans, 0. -Me Parnasi deserta per ardua dulcis Raptat amor; juvat ire jugis qua nulla priorum, Castaliam molli divertitur orbita clivo. Virg. Georg. iii. 291. But the commanding Muse my chariot guides, 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I came home a little later than usual the other night; and, not finding myself inclined to sleep, I took up Virgil to divert me until I should be more disposed to rest. He is the author whom I always choose on such occasions; no one writing in so divine, so harmonious, nor so equal a strain, which leaves the mind composed and softened into an agreeable melancholy; the temper in which, of all others, I choose to close the day. The passages I turned to were those beautiful raptures in his Georgics, where he professes himself entirely given up to the Muses, and smit with the love of poetry, passionately wishing to be transported to the cool shades and retirements of the mountain Hamus. I closed the book and went to bed. What I had just before been reading made so strong an impression on my mind, that fancy seemed almost to fulfil to me the wish of Virgil, in presenting to me the following vision. 'Methought I was on a sudden placed in the plains of Boeotia, where at the end of the horizon I saw the mountain Parnassus rising before me. The prospect was of so large an extent, that I long wandered about. to find a path which should directly lead |