switch about her house which her neigh-account, because I hear there is scarce a vilbours did not believe had carried her seve-lage in England that has not a Moll White ral hundreds of miles. If she chanced to in it. When an old woman begins to doat, stumble, they always found sticks or straws and grow chargeable to a parish, she is genethat lay in the figure of a cross before her. rally turned into a witch, and fills the whole If she made any mistake at church, and country with extravagant fancies, imagicried Amen in a wrong place, they never nary distempers, and terrifying dreams. In failed to conclude that she was saying her the mean time, the poor wretch that is the prayers backwards. There was not a maid innocent occasion of so many evils, begins in the parish that would take a pin of her, to be frighted at herself, and sometimes though she should offer a bag of money with confesses secret commerces and familiariit. She goes by the name of Moll White, ties that her imagination forms in a delirious and has made the country ring with several old age. This frequently cuts off charity imaginary exploits that are palmed upon from the greatest objects of compassion, her. If the dairy-maid does not make her and inspires people with a malevolence tobutter come so soon as she would have it, wards those poor decrepid parts of our speMoll White is at the bottom of the churn. cies in whom human nature is defaced by If a horse sweats in the stable, Moll White | infirmity and dotage. has been upon his back. If a hare makes an unexpected escape from the hounds, the huntsman curses Moll White. 'Nay,' says Sir Roger, 'I have known the master of the No. 118.] Monday, July 16, 1711. pack, upon such an occasion, send one of his servants to see if Moll White had been out that morning.' -Hæret lateri lethalis rundo. L. Virg. Æn. iv. 73. -The fatal dart Sticks in his side, and rankles in his heart. Dryden. This account raised my curiosity so far that I begged my friend Sir Roger to go with me into her hovel, which stood in a THIS agreeable seat is surrounded with solitary corner under the side of the wood. so many pleasing walks, which are struck Upon our first entering, Sir Roger winked out of a wood, in the midst of which the to me, and pointed at something that stood house stands, that one can hardly ever be behind the door, which, upon looking that weary of rambling from one labyrinth of deway, I found to be an old broom-staff. At light to another. To one used to live in a the same time he whispered me in the ear city the charms of the country are so exto take notice of a tabby cat that sat in the quisite, that the mind is lost in a certain chimney corner, which, as the old knight transport which raises us above ordinary told me, lay under as bad a report as Moll life, and yet is not strong enough to be inWhite herself; for besides that Moll is said consistent with tranquillity. This state of often to accompany her in the same shape, mind was I in, ravished with the murmur the cat is reported to have spoken twice or of waters, the whisper of breezes, the singthrice in her life, and to have played seve-ing of birds; and whether I looked up to ral pranks above the capacity of an ordinary cat. I was secretly concerned to see human nature in so much wretchedness and disgrace, but at the same time could not forbear smiling to hear Sir Roger, who is a little puzzled about the old woman, advising her as a justice of the peace to avoid all communication with the devil, and never to hurt any of her neighbours' cattle. We concluded our visit with a bounty, which was very acceptable. In our return home Sir Roger told me, that old Moll had been often brought before him for making children spit pins, and giving maids the night-mare; and that the country people would be tossing her into a pond and trying experiments with her every day, if it was not for him and his chaplain. the heavens, down on the earth, or turned to the prospects around me, still struck with new sense of pleasure; when I found by the voice of my friend, who walked by me, that we had insensibly strolled into the grove sacred to the widow. This woman," says he, 'is of all others the most unintelligible; she either designs to marry, or she does not. What is the most perplexing of all is, that she does not either say to her lovers she has any resolution against that condition of life in general, or that she banishes them; but, conscious of her own merit, she permits their addresses, without fear of any ill consequence, or want of respect, from their rage or despair. She has that in her aspect, against which it is impossible to offend. A man whose thoughts are constantly bent upon so agreeable an object, must be excused if the ordinary occurrences in conversation are below his attention. I call her indeed perverse, but, I have since found upon inquiry, that Sir Roger was several times staggered with the reports that had been brought him concern-alas! why do I call her so? Because her ing this old woman, and would frequently have bound her over to the county sessions, had not his chaplain with much ado persuaded him to the contrary. I have been the more particular in this superior merit is such, that I cannot approach her without awe, that my heart is checked by too much esteem: I am angry that her charms are not more accessible, that I am more inclined to worship than salute her. How often have I wished her unhappy, that I might have an opportunity of serving her? and how often troubled in that very imagination, at giving her the pain of being obliged? Well, I have led a miserable life in secret upon her account; but fancy she would have condescended to have some regard for me, if it had not been for that watchful animal her confidant. thee; herself, her own dear person, I must never embrace again.-Still do you hear me without one smile-It is too much to bear.'-He had no sooner spoke these words, but he made an offer of throwing himself into the water; at which his mistress started up, and at the next instant he jumped across the fountain, and met her in an embrace. She, half recovering from "Of all persons under the sun,' (continued her fright, said in the most charming voice he, calling me by name,) 'be sure to set a imaginable, and with a tone of complaint, mark upon confidants: they are of all peo-'I thought how well you would drown ple the most impertinent. What is most yourself. No, no, you will not drown yourpleasant to observe in them, is, that they self till you have taken your leave of Susan assume to themselves the merit of the per- Holiday.' The huntsman, with a tendersons whom they have in their custody. ness that spoke the most passionate love, Orestilla is a great fortune, and in wonder- and with his cheek close to hers, whispered ful danger of surprises, therefore full of the softest vows of fidelity in her ear, and suspicions of the least indifferent thing, cried, Do not, my dear, believe a word particularly careful of new acquaintance, Kate Willow says; she is spiteful, and and of growing too familiar with the old. makes stories, because she loves to hear Themista, her favourite woman, is every me talk to herself for your sake.'-'Look whit as careful of whom she speaks to, and you there,' quoth Sir Roger, 'do you see what she says. Let the ward be a beauty, there, all mischief comes from confidants! her confidant shall treat you with an air of But let us not interrupt them; the maid is distance; let her be a fortune, and she as- honest, and the man dares not be otherwise, sumes the suspicious behaviour of her friend for he knows I loved her father: I will inand patroness. Thus it is that very many terpose in this matter, and hasten the wedof our unmarried women of distinction are ding. Kate Willow is a witty mischievous to all intents and purposes married, except wench in the neighbourhood, who was a the consideration of different sexes. They beauty; and makes me hope I shall see the are directly under the conduct of their whis- perverse widow in her condition. She was perer; and think they are in a state of free- so flippant with her answers to all the hodom, while they can prate with one of these nest fellows that came near her, and so very attendants of all men in general, and still vain of her beauty, that she has valued heravoid the man they most like. You do not self upon her charms till they are ceased. see one heiress in a hundred whose fate She therefore now makes it her business to does not turn upon this circumstance of prevent other young women from being choosing a confidant. Thus it is that the more discreet than she was herself: howlady is addressed to, presented and flattered, ever, the saucy thing said, the other day, only by proxy, in her woman. In my case, well enough, Sir Roger and I must make how is it possible that.' Sir Roger was a match, for we are both despised by those proceeding in his harangue, when we heard we loved.' "The hussy has a great deal of the voice of one speaking very importu- power wherever she comes, and has her nately, and repeating these words, What, share of cunning. not one smile! We followed the sound till 'However, when I reflect upon this we came close to a thicket, on the other side woman, I do not know whether in the main of which we saw a young woman sitting as I am the worse for having loved her; whenit were in a personated sullenness just over ever she is recalled to my imagination my a transparent fountain. Opposite to her youth returns, and I feel a forgotten warmth stood Mr. William, Sir Roger's master of in my veins. This affliction in my life has the game. The knight whispered me, streaked all my conduct with a softness, of Hist, these are lovers.' The huntsman which I should otherwise have been incalooking earnestly at the shadow of the young pable. It is owing, perhaps, to this dear maiden in the stream, 'Oh thou dear pic- image in my heart that I am apt to relent, ture, if thou couldst remain there in the ab- that I easily forgive, and that many desirasence of that fair creature whom you repre- ble things are grown into my temper, which sent in the water, how willingly could II should not have arrived at by better mostand here satisfied for ever, without trou- tives than the thought of being one day bling my dear Betty herself with any men-hers. I am pretty well satisfied such a tion of her unfortunate William, whom she passion as I have had is never well cured; is angry with! But, alas! when she pleases and between you and me, I am often apt to to be gone, thou wilt also vanish- -Yet let me talk to thee while thou dost stay. Tell my dearest Betty thou dost not more depend upon her, than does her William: her absence will make away with me as well as thee. If she offers to remove thee, I will jump into these waves to lay hold on imagine it has had some whimsical effect upon my brain; for I frequently find that in my most serious discourse I let fall some comical familiarity of speech or odd phrase that makes the company laugh. However, I cannot but allow she is a most excellent woman. When she is in the country, I warrant she does not run into dairies, but | half an hour, as would serve a courtier for reads upon the nature of plants; she has a a week. There is infinitely more to do glass bee-hive, and comes into the garden about place and precedency in a meeting out of books to see them work, and observe of justices' wives, than in an assembly of the policies of their commonwealth. She duchesses. understands every thing. I would give ten pounds to hear her argue with my friend Sir Andrew Freeport about trade. No, no, for all she looks so innocent, as it were, take my word for it she is no fool.' T. No. 119.] Tuesday, July 17, 1711. Urbem quam dicunt Romam, Melibae, putavi Virg. Ecl. i. 20. Warton. THE first and most obvious reflections which arise in a man who changes the city for the country, are upon the different manners of the people whom he meets with in those two different scenes of life. By manners I do not mean morais, but behaviour and good-breeding, as they show themselves in the town and in the country. And here, in the first place, I must observe a very great revolution that has happened in this article of good-breeding. Several obliging deferences, condescensions, and submissions, with many outward forms and ceremonies that accompany them, were first of all brought up among the politer part of mankind, who lived in courts and cities, and distinguished themselves from the rustic part of the species (who on all occasions acted bluntly and naturally) by such a mutual complaisance and intercourse of civilities. These forms of conversation by degrees multiplied and grew troublesome; the modish world found too great a constraint in them, and have therefore thrown most of them aside. Conversation, like the Romish religion, was so encumbered with show and ceremony, that it stood in need of a reformation to retrench its superfluities, and restore it to its natural good sense and beauty. At present therefore an unconstrained carriage, and a certain openness of behaviour, are the height of good-breeding. The fashionable world is grown free and easy; our manners sit more loose upon us. Nothing is so modish as an agreeable negligence. In a word, goodbreeding shows itself most, where to an ordinary eye it appears the least. If after this we look on the people of mode in the country, we find in them the manners of the last age. They have no sooner fetched themselves up to the fashions of the polite world, but the town has dropped them, and are nearer to the first state of nature than to those refinements which formerly reigned in the court, and still prevail in the country. One may now know a man that never conversed in the world, by his excess of good-breeding. A polite country 'squire shall make you as many bows in This rural politeness is very troublesome to a man of my temper, who generally take the chair that is next me, and walk first or last, in the front or in the rear, as chance directs. I have known my friend Sir Roger's dinner almost cold before the company could adjust the ceremonial, and be prevailed upon to sit down: and have heartily pitied my old friend, when I have seen him forced to pick and cull his guests as they sat at the several parts of his table, that he might drink their healths according to their respective ranks and qualities. Honest Will Wimble, who I should have thought had been altogether uninfected with ceremony, gives me abundance of trouble in this particular. Though he has been fishing all the morning, he will not help himself at dinner until I am served. When we are going out of the hall, he runs behind me; and last night, as we were walking in the fields, stopped short at a stile until I came up to it, and upon my making signs to him to get over, told me with a serious smile, that sure I believed they had no manners in the country. There has happened another revolution in the point of good-breeding, which relates to the conversation among men of mode, and which I cannot but look upon as very extraordinary. It was certainly one of the first distinctions of a well-bred man to express every thing that had the most remote appearance of being obscene, in modest terms and distant phrases; whilst the clown who had no such delicacy of conception and expression, clothed his ideas in those plain, homely terms that are the most obvious and natural. This kind of good-manners was perhaps carried to an excess, so as to make conversation too stiff, formal, and precise: for which reason, (as hypocrisy in one age is generally succeeded by atheism in another,) conversation is in a great mea sure relapsed into the first extreme; so that at present several of our men of the town, and particularly those who have been polished in France, make use of the most coarse uncivilized words in our language, and utter themselves often in such a manner as a clown would blush to hear. This infamous piece of good-breeding, which reigns among the coxcombs of the town, has not yet made its way into the country; and as it is impossible for such an irrational way of conversation to last long among a people that make any profession of religion, or show of modesty, if the country gentlemen get into it, they will certainly be left in the lurch. Their good-breeding will come too late to them, and they will be thought a parcel of lewd clowns, while they fancy themselves talking together like men of wit and pleasure. As the two points of good-breeding, which I have hitherto insisted upon, regard behaviour and conversation, there is a third which turns upon dress. In this too the Country are very much behind-hand. The rural beaux are not yet got out of the fashion that took place at the time of the revolution, but ride about the country in red coats and laced hats, while the women in many parts are still trying to outvie one another in the height of their head-dresses. But a friend of mine, who is now upon the western circuit, having promised to give me an account of the several modes and fashions that prevail in the different parts of the nation through which he passes, I shall defer the enlarging upon this last topic till I have received a letter from him, which I expect every post. L. -I deem their breasts inspir'd My friend Sir Roger is very often merry with me upon my passing so much of my time among his poultry. He has caught me twice or thrice looking after a bird's-nest, and several times sitting an hour or two together near a hen and chickens. He tells me he believes I am personally acquainted with every fowl about his house; calls such a particular cock my favourite; and frequently complains that his ducks and geese have more of my company than himself. I must confess I am infinitely delighted with those speculations of nature which are to be made in a country-life; and as my reading has very much lain among books of natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this occasion the several remarks which I have met with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own observation: the arguments for Providence drawn from the natural history of animals being in my opinion demonstrative. The make of every kind of animal is different from that of every other kind: and yet there is not the least turn in the muscles or twist in the fibres of any one, which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture of them would have been. The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger. The first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind; the latter to preserve themselves. It is astonishing to consider the different degrees of care that descend from the parent to the young, so far as is absolutely necessary for the leaving a posterity. Some creatures cast their eggs as chance directs them, and think of them no farther; as insects and several kinds of fish. Others, of a nicer frame, find out proper beds to deposit them an, and there leave them; as the serpent, the crocodile, and ostrich: others hatch their eggs, and tend the birth until it is able to shift for itself. What can we call the principle which directs every different kind of bird to observe a particular plan in the structure of its nest, and directs all the same species to work after the same model? It cannot be imitation; for though you hatch a crow under a hen, and never let it see any of the works of its own kind, the nest it makes shall be the same, to the laying of a stick, with all the other nests of the same species. It cannot be reason; for were animals endowed with it, to as great a degree as man, their buildings would be as different as ours, according to the different conveniences that they would propose to themselves. Is it not remarkable that the same temper of weather, which raises this genial warmth in animals, should cover the trees with leaves, and the fields with grass, for their security and concealment, and produce such infinite swarms of insects for the support and sustenance of their respective broods? Is it not wonderful that the love of the parent should be so violent while it lasts, and that it should last no longer than is necessary for the preservation of the young? The violence of this natural love is exemplified by a very barbarous experiment; which I shall quote at length, as I find it in an excellent author, and hope my readers will pardon the mentioning such an instance of cruelty, because there is nothing can so effectually show the strength of that principle in animals of which I am here speaking. 'A person who was well skilled in dissection opened a bitch, and as she lay in the most exquisite tortures, offered her one of her young puppies, which she immediately fell a licking: and for the time seemed insensible of her own pain. On the removal she kept her eyes fixed on it, and began a wailing sort of cry, which seemed rather to proceed from the loss of her young one, than the sense of her own torments. But notwithstanding this natural love in brutes is much more violent and intense than in rational creatures, Providence has taken care that it should be no longer troublesome to the parent than it is useful to the young; for so soon as the wants of the latter cease, the mother withdraws her fondness, and leaves them to provide for themselves; and what is a very remarkable circumstance in this part of instinct, we find that the love of the parent may be lengthened out beyond its usual time, if the preservation of the species requires it: as we may see in birds that drive away their young as soon as they are able to get their livelihood, but continue to feed them if they are tied to the nest, or confined within a cage, or by any other means appear to be out of a condition of supplying their own necessities. This natural love is not observed in animals to ascend from the young to the parent, which is not at all necessary for the continuance of the species: nor indeed in reasonable creatures does it rise in any proportion, as it spreads itself downward; for in all family affection, we find protection granted and favours bestowed, are greater motives to love and tenderness, than safety, benefits, or life received. One would wonder to hear sceptical men disputing for the reason of animals, and telling us it is only our pride and prejudices that will not allow them the use of that faculty. Reason shows itself in all occurrences of life; whereas the brute makes no discovery of such a talent, but in what immediately regards his own preservation or the continuance of his species. Animals in their generations are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass. Take a brute out of his instinct, and you find him wholly deprived of understanding. To use an instance that comes often under observation. other species; and when the birth appears of never so different a bird, will cherish it for her own. In all these circumstances, which do not carry an immediate regard to the subsistence of herself or her species, she is a very idiot. There is not, in my opinion, any thing more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rises above reason and falls infinitely short of it. It cannot be accounted for by any properties in matter, and at the same time works after so odd a manner, that one cannot think it the faculty of an intellectual being. For my own part, I look upon it as upon the principle of gravitation in bodies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies themselves, nor from the laws of mechanism, but, according to the best notions of the greatest philoso phers, is an immediate impression from the first mover, and the divine energy acting in the creatures. -Jovis omnia plena. L. Virg. Ecl. iii. 60. With what caution does the hen provide No. 121.] Thursday, July 19, 1711. herself a nest in places unfrequented, and free from noise and disturbance! When she has laid her eggs in such a manner that she can cover them, what care does she take in turning them frequently that all parts may partake of the vital warmth! When she leaves them, to provide for her necessary sustenance, how punctually does she return before they have time to cool, and become incapable of producing an animal! In the summer you see her giving herself greater freedoms, and quitting her care for above two hours together; but in winter, when the rigour of the season would chill the principles of life, and destroy the young one, she grows more assiduous in her attendance, and stays away but half the time. When the birth approaches, with how much nicety and attention does she help the chick to break its prison! not to take notice of her covering it from the injuries of the weather, providing it proper nourishment, and teaching it to help itself; nor to mention her forsaking the nest, if after the usual time of reckoning the young one does not make its appearance. A chymical operation could not be followed with greater art or diligence than is seen in the hatching of a chick; though there are many other birds that show an infinitely greater sagacity in all the forementioned particulars. But at the same time the hen, that has all this seeming ingenuity (which is indeed absolutely necessary for the propagation of the species,) considered in other respects, is without the least glimmering of thought or common sense. She mistakes a piece of chalk for an egg, and sits upon it in the same manner. She is insensible of any increase or diminution in the number of those she lays. She does not distinguish between her own and those of an -All things are full of Jove. As I was walking this morning in the great yard that belongs to my friend's country-house, I was wonderfully pleased to see the different workings of instinct in a hen followed by a brood of ducks. The young upon the sight of a pond, immediately ran into it; while the step-mother, with all imaginable anxiety, hovered about the borders of it, to call them out of an element that appeared to her so dangerous and destructive. As the different principle which acted in these different animals cannot be termed reason, so, when we call it Instinct, we mean something we have no knowledge of. To me, as I hinted in my last paper, it seems the immediate direction of Providence, and such an operation of the supreme Being, as that which determines all the portions of matter to their proper centres. A modern philosopher, quoted by Monsieur Bayle in his learned Dissertation on the Souls of Brutes, delivers the same opinion, though in a bolder form of words, where he says, Deus est anima brutonum,-God himself is the soul of brutes.' Who can tell what to call that seeming sagacity in animals, which directs them to such food as is proper for them, and makes them naturally avoid whatever is noxious or unwholesome? Tully has observed that a lamb no sooner falls from its mother, but immediately and of its own accord it applies itself to the teat. Dampier, in his Travels, tells us, that when seamen are thrown upon any of the unknown coasts of America, they never venture upon the fruit of any tree, how tempting soever it may appear, unless they observe that it is marked with the pecking of birds; but fall on without any fear or |