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that the heir of a man's fortune is such a one as will be a stranger to his friends, alienated from the same interests, and a promoter of every thing which he himself disapproved. An estate in possession of such a successor to a good man, is worse than laid waste; and the family of which he is the head, is in a more deplorable condition than that of being extinct.

tune, so that no one ever obliged one of them, who had not the obligation multiplied in returns from them all.

It is the most beautiful object the eyes of man can behold, to see a man of worth and his son live in an entire unreserved correspondence. The mutual kindness and affection between them, give an inexpressible satisfaction to all who know them. It is a sublime pleasure which increases by the participation. It is as sacred as friendship,

ligion. This state of mind does not only dissipate sorrow, which would be extreme without it, but enlarges pleasures which would otherwise be contemptible. The most indifferent thing has its force and beauty when it is spoke by a kind father, and an insignificant trifle has its weight when offered by a dutiful child. I know not how to express it, but I think I may call it a 'transplanted self-love.' All the enjoyments and sufferings which a man meets with are regarded only as they concern him in the relation he has to another. A man's very honour receives a new value to him, when he thinks that when he is in his grave, it will be had in remembrance that such an action was done by such an one's father. Such considerations sweeten the old man's evening, and his soliloquy delights him when he can say to himself, No man can tell my child, his father was either unmerciful, or unjust. My son shall meet many a man who shall say to him, I was obliged to thy father; and be my child a friend to his child for ever.'

When I visit the agreeable seat of my honoured friend Ruricola, and walk from room to room revolving many pleasing oc-as pleasurable as love, and as joyful as recurrences, and the expressions of many just sentiments I have heard him utter, and see the booby his heir in pain while he is doing the honours of his house to the friend of his father, the heaviness it gives one is not to be expressed. Want of genius is not to be imputed to any man, but want of humanity is a man's own fault. The son of Ruricola (whose life was one continued series of worthy actions, and gentleman-like inclinations) is the companion of drunken clowns, and knows no sense of praise but in the flattery he receives from his own servants; his pleasures are mean and inordinate, his language base and filthy, his behaviour rough and absurd. Is this creature to be accounted the successor of a man of virtue, wit, and breeding? At the same time that I have this melancholy prospect at the house where I miss my old friend, I can go to a gentleman's not far off it, where he has a daughter who is the picture both of his body and mind, but both improved with the beauty and modesty peculiar to her sex. It is she who supplies the loss of her father to the world; she, without his name or fortune, is a truer memorial of him, than her brother who succeeds him in both. Such an offspring as the eldest son of my friend, perpetuates his father in the same manner as the appearance of his ghost would: it is indeed Ruricola, but it is Ruricola grown frightful. I know not to what to attribute the brutal turn which this young man has taken, ex-end this rhapsody with a letter to an excelcept it may be to a certain severity and distance which his father used towards him, and might, perhaps, have occasioned a dislike to those modes of life, which were not made amiable to him by freedom and affability.

We may promise ourselves that no such excrescence will appear in the family of the Cornelii, where the father lives with his sons like their eldest brother, and the sons converse with him as if they did it for no other reason but that he is the wisest man of their acquaintance. As the Cornelii* are eminent traders, their good correspondence with each other is useful to all that know them as well as to themselves: and their friendship, good-will, and kind offices are disposed of jointly as well as their for

The allusion is supposed to be to the family of the

Eyles's, who were merchants of distinction. Francis Eyles, the father, created baronet by George I. was a director of the East India Company, and an alderman of London. His eldest son, Sir John Eyles, bart. was lord mayor in 1727; and another of his sons, Sir Joseph

Eyles, knight, sheriff of London in 1725.

It is not in the power of all men to leave illustrious names or great fortunes to their posterity, but they can very much conduce to their having industry, probity, valour, and justice. It is in every man's power to leave his son the honour of descending from a virtuous man, and add the blessings of heaven to whatever he leaves him. I shall

lent young man of my acquaintance, who has lately lost a worthy father.

'DEAR SIR,-I know no part of life more impertinent than the office of administering consolation: I will not enter into it, for I cannot but applaud your grief. The virtuous principles you had from that excellent man, whom you have lost, have wrought in you as they ought, to make a youth of three and twenty incapable of comfort upon coming into possession of a great fortune. I doubt not but you will honour his memory by a modest enjoyment of his estate; and scorn to triumph over his grave, by employing in riot, excess, and debauchery, what he purchased with so much industry, prudence, and wisdom. This is the true way to show the sense you have of your loss, and to take away the distress of others upon the occasion. You cannot recall your father by your grief, but you may revive him to his friends by your conduct.' T.

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kept in respect to all other passions and concerns, and the skilful waiter below sifted the inquirer, and gave the doctor notice ascordingly. The levee of a great man is laid after the same manner, and twenty whispers, false alarms, and private intimations, pass backward and forward from the porter, the valet, and the patron himself, before the gaping crew, who are to pay their court, are gathered together. When the scene is ready, the doors fly open and discover his lordship.

There are several ways of making this first appearance. You may be either halfdressed, and washing yourself, which is indeed the most stately; but this way of opening is peculiar to military men, in whom there is something graceful in exposing themselves naked; but the politicians, or civil officers, have usually affected to be more reserved, and preserve a certain chastity of deportment. Whether it be hieroglyphical or not, this difference in the military and civil list, I will not say; but have ever understood the fact to be, that the close minister is buttoned up, and the brave officer open-breasted on these occasions.

WHEN We look round us and behold the strange variety of faces and persons which fill the streets with business and hurry, it is no unpleasant amusement to make guesses at their different pursuits, and judge by their countenances what it is that so anxiously engages their present attention. Of all this busy crowd, there are none who would give a man inclined to such inquiries better diversion for his thoughts, than those whom we call good courtiers, and such as are assiduous at the levees of great men. These worthies are got into a habit of being servile with an air, and enjoy a certain vanity in being known for understanding how the world passes. In the pleasure of this they can rise early, go abroad sleek and welldressed, with no other hope or purpose, but to make a bow to a man in court favour, and be thought, by some insignificant smile of his, not a little engaged in his interests and fortunes. It is wondrous, that a man However that is, I humbly conceive the can get over the natural existence and pos-business of a levee is to receive the acknowsession of his own mind so far as to take ledgments of a multitude, that a man is delight either in paying or receiving such wise, bounteous, valiant and powerful. cold and repeated civilities. But what main- When the first shot of eyes is made, it is tains the humour is, that outward show is wonderful to observe how much submission what most men pursue, rather than real the patron's modesty can bear, and how happiness. Thus both the idol, and idola- much servitude the client's spirit can deter, equally impose upon themselves in scend to. In the vast multiplicity of busipleasing their imaginations this way. But ness, and the crowd about him, my lord's as there are very many of her majesty's parts are usually so great, that to the good subjects who are extremely uneasy at astonishment of the whole assembly, he has their own seats in the country, where all something to say to every man there, and from the skies to the centre of the earth is that so suitable to his capacity, as any man their own, and have a mighty longing to may judge that it is not without talents that shine in courts, or to be partners in the men can arrive at great employments. I power of the world; I say, for the benefit have known a great man ask a flag-officer of these, and others who hanker after being which way was the wind; a commander of in the whisper with great men, and vexing horse the present price of oats, and a stocktheir neighbours with the changes they jobber, at what discount such a fund was, would be capable of making in the appear- with as much ease as if he had been bred ance at a country sessions, it would not to each of those several ways of life. Now methinks be amiss to give an account of this is extremely obliging, for at the same that market for preferment, a great man's time that the patron informs himself of levee. matters, he gives the person of whom he For aught I know, this commerce be- inquires an opportunity to exert himself. tween the mighty and their slaves, very What adds to the pomp of those interviews justly represented, might do so much good, is, that it is performed with the greatest as to incline the great to regard business silence and order imaginable. The patron rather than ostentation; and make the little is usually in the midst of the room, and know the use of their time, too well to some humble person gives him a whisper, spend it in vain applications and addresses. which his lordship answers aloud, 'It is The famous doctor in Moorfields, who gain-well: Yes, I am of your opinion. Pray ined so much reputation for his horary pre-form yourself further, you may be sure of dictions, is said to have had in his parlour my part in it.' This happy man is dismissdifferent ropes to little bells which hung in the room above stairs, where the doctor thought fit to be oraculous. If a girl had been deceived by her lover, one bell was pulled: and if a peasant had lost a cow, the servant rung another. This method was

ed, and my lord can turn himself to a business of a quite different nature, and off-hand gives as good an answer as any great man is obliged to. For the chief point is to keep in generals, and if there be any thing offer ed that is particular, to be in haste.

But we are now in the height of the affair, | ing an agreeable friend is punished in the and my lord's creatures have all had their very transgression; for a good companion whispers round to keep up the farce of the is not found in every room we go into. But thing, and the dumb-show is become more the case of love is of a more delicate nature, general. He casts his eye to that corner, and the anxiety is inexpressible, if every and there to Mr. Such-a-one; to the other, little instance of kindness is not reciprocal. And when did you come to town?' And There are things in this sort of commerce perhaps just before he nods to another; and which there are not words to express, and enters with him, 'But, sir, I am glad to see a man may not possibly know how to reyou, now I think of it.' Each of those are present what yet may tear his heart into happy for the next four-and-twenty hours; ten thousand tortures. To be grave to a and those who bow in ranks undistinguish- man's mirth, unattentive to his discourse, ed, and by dozens at a time, think they have or to interrupt either with something that very good prospects if they may hope to argues a disinclination to be entertained by arrive at such notices half a year hence. him, has in it something so disagreeable, The satirist says, there is seldom com- that the utmost steps which may be made mon sense in high fortune;* and one would in farther enmity cannot give greater torthink, to behold a levee, that the great were ment. The gay Corinna, who sets up for not only infatuated with their station, but an indifference and becoming heedlessness, also that they believed all below were gives her husband all the torment imaginseized too; else how is it possible they could able out of mere insolence, with this pethink of imposing upon themselves and culiar vanity, that she is to look as gay as others in such a degree, as to set up a levee a maid in the character of a wife. It is no for any thing but a direct farce? But such matter what is the reason of a man's grief, is the weakness of our nature, that when if it be heavy as it is. Her unhappy man men are a little exalted in their condition, is convinced that she means him no dishothey immediately conceive they have addi-nour, but pines to death because she will tional senses, and their capacities enlarged not have so much deference to him as to not only above other men, but above hu- avoid the appearance of it. The author man comprehension itself. Thus it is ordi- of the following letter is perplexed with an nary to see a great man attend one listening, injury that is in a degree yet less criminal, bow to one at a distance, and to call to a and yet the source of the utmost unhappithird at the same instant. A girl in new ness. ribands is not more taken with herself, nor does she betray more apparent coquetries, than even a wise man in such a circumstance of courtship. I do not know any thing that I ever thought so very distasteful as the affectation which is recorded of Cæsar; to wit, that he would dictate to three several writers at the same time. This was an ambition below the greatness and candour of his mind. He indeed (if any man had pretensions to greater faculties than any other mortal) was the person; but such a way of acting is childish, and inconsistent with the manner of our being. It appears from the very nature of things, that there cannot be any thing effectually despatched in the distraction of a public levee; but the whole seems to be a conspiracy of a set of servile slaves, to give up their own liberty to take away their patron's understanding. T.

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'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have read your papers which relate to jealousy, and desire your advice in my case, which you will say is not common. I have a wife, of whose virtue I am not in the least doubtful; yet I cannot be satisfied she loves me, which gives me as great uneasiness as being faulty the other way would do. I know not whether I am not yet more miserable than in that case, for she keeps possession of my heart, without the return of her's. I would desire your observations upon that temper in some women, who will not condescend to convince their husbands of their innocence or their love, but are wholly negligent of what reflections the poor men make upon their conduct (so they cannot call it criminal,) when at the same time a little tenderness of behaviour, or regard to show an inclination to please them, would make them entirely at ease. Do not such women deserve all the misinterpretation which they neglect to avoid? Or are they not in the actual practice of guilt, who care not whether they are thought guilty or not? If my wife does the most ordinary thing, as visiting her sister, or taking the air with her mother, it is always carried with the air of a secret. Then she will sometimes tell a thing of no consequence, as if it was only want of memory made her conceal it before; and this only to dally with my anxiety. I have complained to her of this behaviour in the gentlest terms imaginable, and beseeched her not to use him, who de

No. 195.]

THE SPECTATOR.

He

sired only to live with her like an indulgent | Tales of a king who had long languished friend, as the most morose and unsociable under an ill habit of body, and had taken husband in the world. It is no easy matter abundance of remedies to no purpose. At to describe our circumstance, but it is length, says the fable, a physician cured miserable with this aggravation, that it him by the following method: he took an might be easily mended, and yet no remedy hollow ball of wood, and filled it with seveendeavoured. She reads you, and there is ral drugs; after which he closed it up so a phrase or two in this letter which she will artificially that nothing appeared. If we enter into an likewise took a mall, and after having holknow came from me. explanation which may tend to our future lowed the handle and that part which quiet by your means, you shall have our strikes the ball, he inclosed in them several joint thanks; in the mean time I am (as drugs after the same manner as in the ball much as I can in this ambiguous condition itself. He then ordered the sultan, who was his patient, to exercise himself early be any thing,) sir, your humble servant.' in the morning with these rightly prepared instruments, till such time as he should sweat; when, as the story goes, the virtue of the medicaments perspiring through the wood, had so good an influence on the sultan's constitution, that they cured him of an indisposition which all the compositions he had taken inwardly had not been able to This eastern allegory is finely contrived to show us how beneficial bodily labour is to health, and that exercise is the most effectual physic. I have described in my hundred and fifteenth paper, from the general structure and mechanism of an human body, how absolutely necessary exercise is for its preservation: I shall in this place recommend another great preservative of health, which in many cases produces the same effects as exercise, and may in some measure supply its place, where opportunities of exercise are wanting. The preservative I am speaking of is temperance, which has those particular advanbe practised by all ranks and contages above all other means of health, that ditions, at any season, or in any place. It may put himself, without interruption to is a kind of regimen into which every man business, expense of money, or loss of time. If exercise throws off all superfluities, tem

I know

'MR. SPECTATOR,-Give me leave to make you a present of a character not yet described in your papers, which is that of a man who treats his friend with the same odd variety which a fantastical female tyrant practises towards her lover. I have for some time had a friendship with one of The rogue those mercurial persons. my fondloves me, yet takes advantage of ness for him to use me as he pleases. We are by turns the best friends and the greatSometimes you est strangers imaginable. would think us inseparable; at other times he avoids me for a long time, yet neither he nor I know why. When we meet next by chance, he is amazed he has not seen me, is impatient for an appointment the same evening; and when I expect he would have kept it, I have known him slip away to another place; where he has sat reading the news, when there is no post; smoking his pipe which he seldom cares for; and staring about him in company with whom he has had nothing to do, as if he wondered

how he came there.

remove.

it may

That I may state my case to you the more fully, I shall transcribe some short minutes I have taken of him in my almanack since last spring; for you must know there are certain seasons of the year, acthe vessels, temperance neither satiates cording to which, I will not say our friend-perance prevents them; if exercise clears nor overstrains them; if exercise raises ship, but the enjoyment of it rises or falls. In March and April he was as various as the weather; in May and part of June I Proper ferments in the humours, and properance gives nature her full play, and found him the sprightliest best-humoured motes the circulation of the blood, temfellow in the world; in the dog-days he was enables her to exert herself in all her much upon the indolent; in September force and vigour; if exercise dissipates a very agreeable but very busy; and since Physic, for the most part, is nothing else the glass fell last to changeable, he has growing distemper, temperance starves it. made three appointments with me, and but the substitute of exercise and tempeHowever, I have broke them every one. good hopes of him this winter, especially if you will lend me your assistance to reform him, which will be a great ease and pleasure to sir, your most humble servant. October 9, 1711.'

T.

No. 195.] Saturday, October 13, 1711.

Νήπιοι, ουδ' ισασιν όσω πλέον ήμισυ παντός.
Ουδ' όσον εν μαλάχη τε δε ασφοδέλω μεγ' ονειαρ.
Hes. Oper. & Dier. 1. i. 40.
Fools, not to know that half exceeds the whole,
How blest the sparing meal and temperate bowl.
THERE is a story in the Arabian Nights

rance.

Medicines are indeed absolutely necessary in acute distempers, that cannot wait the slow operations of those two great instruments of health; but did men live in an habitual course of exercise and temperance, there would be but little occasion for them. Accordingly we find that those parts of the world are the most healthy, where they subsist by the chace; and that men lived longest when their lives were employed in hunting, and when they had little food besides what they caught. Blis tering, cupping, bleeding, are seldom of use but to the idle and intemperate; as all

THE SPECTATOR.

those inward applications which are so much in practice among us, are for the most part nothing else but expedients to make luxury consistent with health. The apothecary is perpetually employed in countermining the cook and the vintner. It is said of Diogenes, that meeting a young man who was going to a feast, he took him up in the street and carried him home to his friends, as one who was running into imminent danger, had not he prevented him. What would that philosopher have said, had he been present at the gluttony of a modern meal? Would not he have thought the master of a family mad, and have begged his servants to tie down his hands, had he seen him devour foul, fish, and flesh; swallow oil and vinegar, wines and spices; throw down sallads of twenty different herbs, sauces of an hundred ingredients, confections and fruits of numberless sweets and flavours? What unnatural motions and counter-ferments must such a medley of intemperance produce in the body? For my part, when I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers lying in ambuscade among the dishes.

Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal, but man, keeps to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon every thing that comes in his way; not the smallest fruit or excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or a mushroom, can escape him.

[No. 195.

the second for my friends, the third for good humour, and the fourth for mine enemies. who lives in the world to diet himself But because it is impossible for one always in so philosophical a manner, I think every man should have his days of abstinence, according as his constitution will permit. These are great reliefs to nature, as they qualify her for struggling with hunger and thirst, whenever any distemper or duty of life may put her upon such difficulties; and at the same time give her an opportunity of extricating herself from her oppressions, and recovering the several tones and springs of her distended vessels. Besides that abstinence, well-timed, often kills a sickness in embryo, and destroys the first seeds of an indisposition. It is observed by two or three ancient authors, that Socrates, notwithstanding he lived in Athens during that great plague, which has made so much noise through all ages, and has been celebrated at different times by such eminent hands; I say, notwithstanding that he lived in the time of this devouring pestilence, he never caught the least infection, which those writers unanimously ascribe to that uninterrupted temperance which he always observed.

servation which I have often made, upon And here I cannot but mention an obreading the lives of the philosophers, and comparing them with any series of kings or great men of the same number. If we consider these ancient sages, a great part of whose philosophy consisted in a temperate and abstemious course of life, one would It is impossible to lay down any deter- of a man were of two different dates. For think the life of a philosopher and the life minate rule for temperance, because what we find that the generality of these wise is luxury in one may be temperance in another; but there are few that have lived any years of age, at the time of their respective men were nearer an hundred than sixty time in the world, who are not judges of deaths. But the most remarkable instance their own constitutions, so far as to know of the efficacy of temperance towards the what kinds and what proportions of food do procuring of long life, is what we meet best agree with them. Were I to consider with in a little book published by Lewis my readers as my patients, and to prescribe Cornaro, the Venetian; which I the rather such a kind of temperance as is accommo- mention, because it is of undoubted credit, dated to all persons, and such as is particu- as the late Venetian ambassador, who was larly suitable to our climate and way of of the same family, attested more than once living, I would copy the following rules of in conversation, when he resided in Enga very eminent physician. Make your whole repast out of one dish. If you indulge little treatise I am mentioning, was of an land. Cornaro, who was the author of the in a second, avoid drinking any thing strong infirm constitution, until about forty, when until you have finished your meal; at the by obstinately persisting in an exact course same time abstain from all sauces, or at of temperance, he recovered a perfect state least such as are not the most plain and of health; insomuch that at fourscore he simple.' A man could not be well guilty of published his book, which has been transgluttony, if he stuck to these few obviouslated into English under the title of Sure and and easy rules. In the first case there would be no variety of tastes to solicit his palate, and occasion excess; nor in the second any artificial provocatives to relieve satiety, and create a false appetite. Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: The first glass for myself,

* Diog. Laert. Vite Philosoph. lib. vi. cap. 2. n. 6.

Certain Methods of Attaining a Long and
Healthy Life. He lived to give a third or

†Diogenes Laertius in Vit. Socratis.-Elian in Var.

His. Lib. 13. cap. 27, &c.

lived very freely; which brought him into a bad state of health, upon which he formed the resolution of confining himself to twelve ounces of food and fourteen of

Lewis Cornaro was born in 1467. In his youth he

wine daily; by which means, and exercise, he not only
recovered his health, but acquired a vigorous constitu-
tion. He died at Padua in 1565.

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