growing so deep in the heart of man, that the affectation outlives the practice of it. You must have observed, that men who have been bred in arms preserve to the most extreme and feeble old age, a certain daring in their aspect. In like manner, they who have passed their time in gallantry and adventure, keep up, as well as they can, the appearance of it, and carry a petulant inclination to their last moments. Let this serve for a preface to a relation I am going to give you of an old beau in town, that has not only been amorous, and a follower of women in general, but also, in spite of the admonition of gray hairs, been from his sixty-third year to his present seventieth in an actual pursuit of a young lady, the wife of his friend, and a man of merit. The gay old Escalus has wit, good health, and is perfectly well-bred; but, from the fashion and manners of the court when he was in his bloom, has such a natural tendency to amorous adventure, that he thought it would be an endless reproach to him to make no use of a familiarity he was allowed at a gentleman's house, whose good-humor and confidence exposed his wife to the addresses of any who should take it into their head to do him the good office. It is not impossible that Escalus might also resent that the husband was particularly negligent of him; and though he gave many intimations of a passion toward the wife, the husband either did not see them, or put him to the contempt of overlooking them. In the mean time Isabella (for so we shall call our heroine), saw his passion, and rejoiced in it, as a foundation for much diversion, and an opportunity of indulging herself in the dear delight of being admired, addressed to, and flattered, with no ill consequence to her reputation. This lady is of a free and disengaged behavior, ever in good-humor, such as is the image of innocence with those who are innocent, and an encouragement to vice with those who are abandoned. From this kind of carriage, and an apparent approbation of his gallantry, Escalus had frequent opportunities of laying amorous epistles in her way, fixing his eyes attentively upon her actions, of performing a thousand little offices which are neglected by the unconcerned, but are so many approaches toward happiness with the enamored. It was now, as is above hinted, almost the end of the seventh year of his passion, when Escalus, from general terms, and the ambiguous respect which criminal lovers retain in their addresses, began to bewail that his passion grew too violent for him to answer any longer for his behavior toward her, and that he hoped she would have consideration for his long and patient respect, to excuse the emotions of a heart now no longer under the direction of the unhappy owner of it. Such, for some months, had been the language of Escalus both in his talk and his letters to Isabella, who returned all the profusion of kind things which had been the collection of fifty years, I must not hear you; you will make me forget that you are a gentleman; I would not willingly lose you as a friend;' and the like expressions, which the skillful interpret to their own advantage, as well as knowing that a feeble denial is a modest assent. I should have told you, that Isabella, during the whole progress of this amour, communicated it to her husband; and that an account of Escalus's love was their usual entertainment after half a day's absence. Isabella, therefore, upon her lover's late more open assaults, with a smile told her husband she could hold out no longer, but that his fate was now come to a crisis. After she had explained herself a little further, with her husband's approbation she pro ceeded in the following manner. The next time that Escalus was alone with her, and repeated his importunity, the crafty Isabella looked on her fan with an air of great attention, as considering of what importance such a secret was to her; and upon the repetition of a warm expression, she looked at him with an eye of fondness, and told him he was past that time of life which could make her fear he would boast of a lady's favor; then turned away her head, with a very well-acted confusion, which favored the escape of the aged Escalus. This adventure was matter of great pleasantry to Isabella and her spouse; and they had enjoyed it two days before Escalus could recollect himself enough to form the following letter: "MADAM, "What happened the other day gives me a lively image of the inconsistency of human passions and inclinations. We pursue what we are denied, and place our affections on what is absent, though we neglected it when present. As long as you refused my love, your refusal did so strongly excite my passion, that I had not once the leisure to think of recalling my reason to aid me against the design upon your virtue. But when that virtue began to comply in my favor, my reason made an effort over my love, and let me see the baseness of my behavior in attempting a woman of honor. I own to you, it was not without the most violent struggle that I gained this victory over myself; nay I will confess my shame, and acknowledge, I could not have prevailed but by flight. However, Madam, I beg that you will believe a moment's weakness has not destroyed the esteem I had for you, which was confirmed by so many years of obstinate virtue. You have reason to rejoice that this did not happen within the observation of one of the young fellows, who would have exposed your weakness, and gloried in his own brutish inclinations. "I am, Madam, "Your most devoted, humble Servant." "Isabella, with the help of her husband, returned the following answer: "SIR, "I cannot but account myself a very happy woman, in having a man for a lover that can write so well, and give so good a turn to a disappointment. Another excellence you have above all other pretenders I have heard of; on occasions where the most reasonable men lose all their reason, you have yours most powerful. We have each of us to thank our genius, that the passion of one abated in proportion as that of the other grew violent. Does it not yet come into your head to imagine, that I knew my compliance was the greatest cruelty I could be guilty of toward you? In re turn for your long and faithful passion, I must let you know that you are old enough to become a little more gravity; but if you will leave me, and coquet it anywhere else, may your mistress yield. T. "ISABELLA." No. 319.] THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1711-12. Quo teneam vultus mutantem protea nodo? HOR. 1 Ep. i, 90. Say while they change on thus, what chains can bind These varying forms, this Proteus of the mind? FRANCIS I HAVE endeavored in the course of my papers to do justice to the age, and have taken care as much as possible to keep myself a neuter between both sexes. THE SPECTATOR. I have neither spared the ladies out our friend took him for an officer in the guards, of complaisance, nor the men out of partiality; has proved to be an errant linen-draper." but notwithstanding the great integrity with which I have acted in this particular, I find myself taxed with an inclination to favor my own half of the species. Whether it be that the women afford a more fruitful field for speculation, or whether they run more in my head than the men, I cannot tell; but I shall set down the charge as it is laid against me in the following letter: "MR. SPECTATOR, "I always make one among a company of young females, who peruse your speculations every morning. I am at present commissioned by our whole assembly to let you know, that we fear you are a little inclined to be partial toward your own sex. We must however acknowledge, with all due gratitude, that in some cases you have given us our revenge on the men, and done us justice. We could not easily have forgiven you several strokes in the dissection of the coquette's heart, if you had not, much about the same time, made a sacrifice to us of a beau's skull. I am not now at leisure to give my opinion upon the hat and feather: however, to wipe off the present imputation, and gratify my female correspondent, I shall here print a letter which I have a very extraordinary genius in his way. lately received from a man of mode, who seems to "SIR, "I presume I need not inform you, that among men of dress it is a common phrase to say, 'Mr. Such-a-one has struck a bold stroke;' by which we understand, that he is the first man who has had courage enough to lead up a fashion. Accordingly, when our tailors take measure of us, they always demand, whether we will have a plain suit or strike a bold stroke?' I think I may without vanity say, that I have struck some of the boldest and most successful strokes of any man in Great Britain. I was the first that struck the long pocket about two years since: I was likewise the author of the frosted button, which when I saw the town come readily into, being resolved to strike while the iron was hot, I produced much about the same time the scollop flap, the knotted cravat, and made a fair push for the silver-clocked stocking. You may, however, Sir, please to remember, that not long since you attacked our hoods and commodes in such a manner, as to use your own expression, made very many of us ashamed to "A few months after I brought up the modish show our heads. We must therefore beg leave to that we are in hopes, if you will jacket, or the coat with close sleeves. I struck represent to you, please to make a due inquiry, the men in all ages this at first in a plain Doily; but that failing, I would be found to have been little less whimsical struck it a second time in blue camlet, and rein adorning that part than ourselves. The differ- peated the stroke in several kinds of cloth, until ent forms of their wigs, together with the various at last it took effect. There are two or three cocks of their hats, all flatter us in this opinion. young fellows at the other end of the town who "I had a humble servant last summer, who the have always their eye upon me, and answer me first time he declared himself was in a full-bot- stroke for stroke. I was once so unwary as to tomed wig: but the day after, to my no small sur-mention my fancy in relation to a new-fashioned I surtout before one of these gentlemen, who was prise, he accosted me in a thin natural one. received him, at this our second interview, as a disingenuous enough to steal my thought, and by perfect stranger, but was extremely confounded that means prevented my intended stroke. when his speech discovered who he was. solved, therefore, to fix his face in my memory for the future: but as I was walking in the park the same evening, he appeared to me in one of those wigs that I think you call a night-cap, which had altered him more effectually than before. He afterward played a couple of black riding wigs upon me with the same success, and, in short, assumed a new face almost every day in the first month of his courtship. I re "I observed afterward, that the variety of cocks into which he moulded his hat had not a little contributed to his impositions upon me. "Yet, as if all these ways were not sufficient to distinguish their heads, you must doubtless, Sir, have observed, that great numbers of young fellows have, for several months last past, taken upon them to wear feathers. We hope, therefore, that these may with as much justice be called Indian princes, as you have styled a woman in a colored hood an Indian queen; and that you will in due time take these airy gentlemen into consideration. "We the more earnestly beg that you would put a stop to this practice, since it has already lost us one of the most agreeable members of our society, who, after having refused several good estates, and two titles, was lured from us last week by a mixed feather. "I am ordered to present you with the respects of our whole company, and am, Sir, "Your very humble Servant, DORINDA." "Note. The person wearing the feather, though "I have a design this spring to make very considerable innovations in the waistcoat; and have already begun with a coup d'essai upon the sleeves, which has succeeded very well. "I must further inform you, if you will promise to encourage, or at least to connive at me, that it is my design to strike such a stroke the beginning of the next month as shall surprise the whole town. "I do not think it prudent to acquaint you with "Your most obedient, most humble Servant, I have not time at present to make any reflections on this letter; but must not however omit that having shown it to Will Honeycomb, he desires to be acquainted with the gentleman who wrote it.-X. *Only an ensign in the train-bands.-SPEC. in folio. + This last paragraph was not in the original publication in folio. "You have given many hints in your papers to the disadvantage of persons of your own sex, who lay plots upon women. Among other hard words you have published the term 'Male Coquets,' and been very severe upon such as give them selves the liberty of a little dalliance of heart, and playing fast and loose between love and indifference, until perhaps an easy young girl is reduced to sighs, dreams, and tears, and languishes away her life for a careless coxcomb, who looks astonished, and wonders at such an effect from what in him was all but common civility. Thus you have treated the men who were irresolute in marriage; but if you design to be impartial, pray be so honest as to print the information I now give you of a certain set of women who never coquet for the matter, but, with a high hand, marry whom they please to whom they please. As for my part I should not have concerned myself with them, but that I understand I am pitched upon by them to be married, against my will, to one I never saw in my life. It has been my misfortune, Sir, very innocently, to rejoice in a plentiful fortune, of which I am master, to bespeak a fine chariot, to give directions for two or three handsome snuffboxes, and as many suits of fine clothes; but before any of these were ready, I heard reports of my being to be married to two or three different young women. Upon my taking notice of it to a young gentleman who is often in my company, he told me smiling, I was in the inquisition. You may believe I was not a little startled at what he meant, and more so when he asked me if I had bespoke anything of late that was fine. I told him several; upon which he produced a description of my person, from the tradesmen whom I had employed, and told me that they had certainly informed against me. Mr. Spectator, whatever the world may think of me, I am more coxcomb than fool. and I grow very inquisitive upon this head, not a little pleased with the novelty. My friend told me, there were a certain set of women of fashion, whereof the number of six made a committee, who sat thrice a week, under the title of The Inquisition on Maids and Bachelors.' It seems, whenever there comes such an unthinking gay thing as myself to town, he must want all manner of necessaries, or be put into the inquisition by the first tradesman he employs. They have constant intelligence with cane-shops, perfumers, toy-men, coach-makers, and china-houses. From these several places these undertakers for marriages have as constant and regular correspondence as the funeral-men have with vintners and apothecaries. All bachelors are under their immediate inspection; and my friend produced to me a report given into their board, wherein an old uncle of mine, who came to town with me, and myself were inserted, and we stood thus: the uncle smoky, rotten, poor; the nephew raw, but no fool; sound at present, very rich. My informa The motto to this paper in the original publication in Juv., Sat. vi, 258. tion did not end here; but my friend's advices are so good, that he could show me a copy of the letter sent to the young lady who is to have me; which I inclose to you: "MADAM, This is to let you know, that you are to be married to a beau that comes out on Thursday, six in the evening. Be at the park. You cannot but know a virgin fop; they have a mind to look saucy, but are out of countenance. The board has denied him to several good families. I wish you joy. " CORINNA." What makes my correspodent's case the more deplorable is, that, as I find by the report from my censor of marriages, the friend he speaks of is employed by the inquisition to take him in, as the phrase is. After all that is told him, he has information only of one woman that is laid for him, and that the wrong one; for the lady commissioners have devoted him to another than the person against whom they have employed their agent his friend to alarm him. The plot is laid so well about this young gentleman, that he has no friend to retire to, no place to appear in, or part of the kingdom to fly into, but he must fall into the notice, and be subject to the power of the inquisition. They have their emissaries and substitutes in all parts of this united kingdom. The first step they usually take, is to find from a correspondence, by their messengers and whisperers, with some domestic of the bachelor (who is to be hunted into the toils they have laid for him), what are his manners, his familiarities, his good quali ties, or vices; not as the good in him is a recommendation, or the ill a diminution, but as they affect to contribute to the main inquiry, what estate he has in him. When this point is well reported to the board, they can take in a wild roar ing fox-hunter, as easily as a soft, gentle young fop of the town. The way is to make all places uneasy to him, but the scenes in which they have alloted him to act. His brother huntsmen, bottle companions, his fraternity of fops, shall be brought into the conspiracy against him. This matter is not laid in so barefaced a manner before him as to have intimated, Mrs. Such-a-one would make him a very proper wife; but, by the force of their correspondence, they shall make it (as Mr. Waller said of the marriage of the dwarfs) as imprac ticable to have any woman beside her they design him, as it would have been in Adam to have re fused Eve. The man named by the commission for Mrs. Such-a-one shall neither be in fashion, nor dare ever to appear in company, should be attempt to evade their determination. The female sex wholly govern domestic life; and by this means, when they think fit they can sow dissensions between the dearest friends, nay, make father and son irreconcilable enemies, in spite of all the ties of gratitude on one part, and the duty of protection to be paid on the other. The ladies of the inquisition understand this per fectly well; and where love is not a motive to a man's choosing one whom they allot, they can with very much art insinuate stories to the disad vantage of his honesty or courage, until the cresture is too much dispirited to bear up agai general ill reception, which he everywhere mec with, and in due time falls into their appointed wedlock for shelter. I have a long letter beaning date the fourth instant, which gives me a large count of the policies of this court; and find there is now before them a very refractory person, who has escaped all their machinations for two years last past; but they have prevented two successify I Temple, March 3, 1711. matches which were of his own inclination; the fourth. I need not acquaint my reader that there one by a report that his mistress was to be mar- are multitudes of beauties in this great author, esried, and the very day appointed, wedding-clothes pecially in the descriptive parts of this poem, bought, and all things ready for her being given which I have not touched upon; it being my into another; the second time by insinuating to all tention to point out those only which appear to be his mistress's friends and acquaintance, that he the most exquisite, or those which are not so obvihad been false to several other women and the ous to ordinary readers. Every one that has read like. The poor man is now reduced to profess he the critics who have written upon the Odyssey, designs to lead a single life; but the inquisition the Iliad, and the Eneid, knows very well, that give out to all his acquaintance, that nothing is though they agree in their opinions of the great intended but the gentleman's own welfare and beauties in those poems, they have, nevertheless, happiness. When this is urged, he talks still each of them discovered several master-strokes, more humbly, and protests he aims only at a life which have escaped the observation of the rest. without pain or reproach; pleasure, honor, or In the same manner, I question not but any writer riches, are things for which he has no taste. But who shall treat of this subject after me, may find notwithstanding all this, and what else he may several beauties in Milton, which I have not taken I defend himself with, as that the lady is too old or notice of. I must likewise observe, that as the too young: of a suitable humor, or the quite con- greatest masters of critical learning differ among trary; and that it is impossible they can ever do one another, as to some particular points in an other than wrangle from June to January, every- epic poem, I have not bound myself scrupulously 2. body tells him all this is spleen, and he must have to the rules which any of them have laid down a wife; while all the members of the inquisition upon that art, but have taken the liberty someare unanimous in a certain woman for him, and times to join with one, and sometimes with anoththey think they all together are better able to judge er, and sometimes to differ from all of them, when than he, or any other private person whatsoever. I have thought that the reason of the thing was "SIR, on my side. "Your speculation this day on the subject of idleness has employed me, ever since I read it, in Sorrowful reflections on my having loitered away the term (or rather the vacation) of ten years in this place, and unhappily suffered a good chamber and study to lie idle as long. My books (except those I have taken to sleep upon) have been totally neglected, and my Lord Coke and other venerable authors were never so slighted in their lives. I spend most of the day at a neighboring coffee-house, where we have what I may call a lazy club. We generally come in night-gowns, with our stockings about our heels, and sometimes but one on. Our salutation at entrance is a yawn and a stretch, and then without more ceremony we take our place at the lolling-table, where our discourse is, what I fear you would not read, therefore shall not insert. But I assure you, Sir, I heartily lament this loss of time, and am now resolved (if possible, with double diligence) to retrieve it, being effectually awakened, by the arguments of Mr. Slack, out of the senseless stupidity that has so long possessed me. strate that penitence accompanies my confessions, and constancy my resolutions, I have locked my door for a year, and desire you would let my companions know I am not within. I am, with great respect, "Sir, We may conclude the beauties of the fourth book under three heads. In the first are those pictures of still-life, which we meet with in the description of Eden, Paradise, Adam's Bower, etc. In the next are the machines, which comprehend the speeches and behavior of the good and bad angels. In the last is the conduct of Adam and Eve, who are the principal actors in the poem. In the description of Paradise, the poet has observed Aristotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the weak inactive parts of the fable which are not supported by the beauty of sentiments and characters. Accordingly the reader may observe, that the expressions are more florid and elaborate in these descriptions, than in most other parts of the poem. I must further add, that though the drawings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the like dead pieces of nature, are justly censured in an heroic poem, when they run out into an unnecessary length-the description of Paradise would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it, not only as it is the scene of the principal action, but as it is reAnd to demon-quisite to give us an idea of that happiness from which our first parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the short sketch which we have of it in holy writ. Milton's exuberance of imagination has poured forth such a redundancy of ornaments on this seat of happiness and innocence, that it would be endless to point out each particular. "Your most obedient Servant, No. 321.] SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1711-12. Nec satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. HOR., Ars. Poet., ver. 99. 'Tis not enough a poem's finely writ: It must affect and captivate the soul. THOSE who know how many volumes have been written on the poems of Homer and Virgil will easily pardon the length of my discourse upon Milton. The Paradise Lost, is looked upon, by the best judges, as the greatest production, or at least the noblest work of genius, in our language, and therefore deserves to be set before an English reader in its full beauty. For this reason, though I have endeavored to give a general idea of its graces and imperfections in my first six papers, I thought myself obliged to bestow one upon every book in particular. The first three books I have already dispatched, and am now entering upon the I must not quit this head without further observing, that there is scarce a speech of Adam or Eve in the whole poem, wherein the sentiments and allusions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader, during their whole course of action, always finds himself in the walks of Paradise. In short, as the critics have remarked, that in those poems wherein shepherds are the actors, the thoughts ought always to take a tincture from the woods, fields, and rivers; so we may observe, that our first parents seldom lose sight of their happy station in anything they speak or do: and if the reader will give me leave to use the expression, that their thoughts are always "paradisaical." We are in the next place to consider the machines of the fourth book. Satan being now within prospect of Eden, and looking round upon the glories of the creation, is filled with sentiments different from those which he discovered while he was in hell. The place inspires him ted by Longinus, or to that of Fame in Virgil, with thoughts more adapted to it. He reflects who are both represented with their feet standing upon the happy condition from whence he fell, upon the earth, and their heads reaching above and breaks forth into a speech that is softened the clouds: with several transient touches of remorse and self-accusation: but at length he confirms himself in impenitence, and in his design of drawing man into his own state of guilt and misery. This conflict of passions is raised with a great deal of art, as the opening of his speech to the sun is very bold and noble: "O thou that, with surprising glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god This speech is, I think, the finest that is ascribed to Satan, in the whole poem. The evil spirit afterward proceeds to make his discoveries concerning our first parents, and to learn after what manner they may be best attacked. His bounding over the walls of Paradise; his sitting in the shape of a cormorant upon the tree of life, which stood in the center of it, and overtopped all the other trees of the garden; his alighting among the herd of animals, which are so beautifully represented as playing about Adam and Eve, together with his transforming himself into different shapes, in order to hear their conversation; are circumstances that give an agreeable surprise to the reader, and are devised with great art, to connect that series of adventures in which the poet has engaged this artificer of fraud. a The thought of Satan's transformation into cormorant, and placing himself on the tree of life, seems raised upon that passage in the Iliad, where two deities are described as perching on the top of an oak in the shape of vultures. His planting himself at the ear of Eve under the form of a toad, in order to produce vain dreams and imaginations, is a circumstance of the same nature: as his starting up in his own form is wonderfully fine, both in the literal description, and in the moral which is concealed under it. His answer upon his being discovered, and demanded to give an account of himself, is conformable to the pride and intrepidity of his character: "Know ye not, then," said Satan, fill'd with scorn, Zephon's rebuke, with the influence it had on Satan, is exquisitely graceful and moral. Satan is afterward led away to Gabriel, the chief of the While thus he spake, th' angelic squadron bright Turn'd fiery red, sharp'ning in mooned horns Their phalanx, and began to hem him round With ported spears, etc. On the other side Satan alarm'd, His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest I must here take notice, that Milton is everywhere full of hints, and sometimes literal transla tions, taken from the greatest of the Greek and Latin poets. But this I may reserve for a dis course by itself, because I would not break the thread of these speculations, that are designed for English readers, with such reflections as would be of no use but to the learned. I must, however, observe in this place, that the breaking off the combat between Gabriel and Sa tan, by the hanging out of the golden scales in heaven, is a refinement upon Homer's thought, who tells us, that before the battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair of scales. The reader may see the whole passage in the 22d Iliad. Virgil, before the last decisive combat, describes Jupiter in the same manner, as weighing the fates of Turnus and Eneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Eneid, does not only insert it as a poetical embellishment, like the authors above-mentioned, but makes an artful use of it for the proper carry. ing on of his fable, and for the breaking off the combat between the two warriors, who were upon the point of engaging. To this we may further add, that Milton is the more justified in this pas sage, as we find the same noble allegory in foly writ, where a wicked prince, some few hours be fore he was assaulted and slain, is said to have been "weighed in the scales, and to have been found wanting." I must here take notice, under the head of the machines, that Uriel's gliding down to the earth upon a sunbeam, with the poet's device to make him descend, as well in his return to the sun as in his coming from it, is a prettiness that might have been admired in a little fanciful poet, but seems below the genius of Milton. The description of the host of armed angels walking their nightly round in Paradise is of another spirit: So saying, on he led his radiant files, guardian angels, who kept watch in Paradise, as that account of the hymns which our first re His disdainful behavior on this occasion is so re- rents used to hear them sing in these their midmarkable a beauty, that the most ordinary reader night walks is altogether divine, and inexpressi cannot but take notice of it. Gabriel's discover-bly amusing to the imagination. ing his approach at a distance, is drawn with great strength and liveliness of imagination: "O friends, I hear the tread of nimble feet The conference between Gabriel and Satan abounds with sentiments proper for the occasion, and suitable to the persons of the two speakers. Satan clothing himself with terror when he prepares for the combat is truly sublime, and at least equal to Homer's description of Discord, celebra which Adam and Eve act in the fourth book. The We are, in the last place, to consider the part description of them as they first appeared to Sa tan, is exquisitely drawn, and sufficient to make the fallen angel gaze upon them with all that astonishment, and those emotions of envy, in which he is represented: Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, |