No. 247.]

THE SPECTATOR.

tune by a mare; and Ægisthus by a goat; not that they had actually sucked such creatures, as some simpletons have imagined, but that their nurses had been of such a nature and temper, and infused such into them.

ment, that a mother is weakened by giving
suck to her children, is vain and simple.
I will maintain that the mother grows
stronger by it, and will have her health
better than she would have otherwise. She
will find it the greatest cure and preserva-
tive for the vapours and future miscar-
riages, much beyond any other remedy
whatsoever. Her children will be like
giants, whereas otherwise they are but
living shadows, and like unripe fruit; and
certainly if a woman is strong enough to
bring forth a child, she is beyond all doubt
strong enough to nurse it afterwards. It
grieves me to observe and consider how
many poor children are daily ruined by
careless nurses; and yet how tender ought
they to be to a poor infant, since the least
hurt or blow, especially upon the head,
may make it senseless, stupid, or other-
wise miserable for ever!

'Many instances may be produced from good authorities and daily experience, that children actually suck in the several passions and depraved inclinations of their nurses, as anger, malice, fear, melancholy, sadness, desire, and aversion. This, Diodorus, lib. 2. witnesses, when he speaks, saying, that Nero the emperor's nurse had been very much addicted to drinking; which habit Nero received from his nurse, and was so very particular in this, that the people took so much notice of it, as instead of Tiberius Nero, they called him Biberius Mero. The same Diodorus also relates of Caligula, predecessor to Nero, that his 'But I cannot well leave this subject as nurse used to moisten the nipples of her breast frequently with blood, to make Ca- yet; for it seems to me very unnatural that ligula take the better hold of them; which, a woman that has fed a child as part of says Diodorus, was the cause that made herself for nine months, should have no him so blood-thirsty and cruel all his life- desire to nurse it farther, when brought to time after, that he not only committed light and before her eyes, and when by its frequent murder by his own hand, but like- cry it implores her assistance and the office wise wished that all human kind wore but of a mother. Do not the very cruellest of one neck that he might have the pleasure brutes tend their young ones with all the to cut it off. Such like degeneracies asto-care and delight imaginable? How can she nish the parents, who not knowing after be called a mother that will not nurse her whom the child can take, see one inclined young ones? The earth is called the mother to stealing, another to drinking, cruelty, of all things, not because she produces, but stupidity; yet all these are not minded. because she maintains and nurses what she Nay, it is easy to demonstrate, that a child, produces. The generation of the infant is although it be born from the best of parents, the effect of desire, but the care of it armay be corrupted by an ill-tempered nurse. gues virtue and choice. I am not ignorant How many children do we see daily brought but that there are some cases of necessity, into fits, consumptions, rickets, &c. merely where a mother cannot give suck, and then by sucking their nurses when in a passion out of two evils the least must be chosen; or fury? But indeed almost any disorder but there are so very few, that I am sure of the nurse is a disorder to the child, and in a thousand there is hardly one real infew nurses can be found in this town but stance; for if a woman does but know that what labour under some distemper or other. her husband can spare about three or six The first question that is generally asked shillings a week extraordinary, (although a young woman that wants to be a nurse, this is but seldom considered,) she cerwhy she should be a nurse to other peo-tainly, with the assistance of her gossips, ple's children, is answered, by her having will soon persuade the good man to send an ill husband, and that she must make the child to nurse, and easily impose upon shift to live. I think now this very answer him by pretending indisposition. This cruis enough to give any body a shock if duly elty is supported by fashion, and nature considered; for an ill husband may, or ten gives place to custom. Sir, your humble to one if he does not, bring home to his wife servant.' an ill distemper, or at least vexation and disturbance. Besides, as she takes the child out of mere necessity, her food will be accordingly, or else very coarse at best; No. 247.] Thursday, December 13, 1711. whence proceeds an ill-concocted and coarse food for the child; for as the blood, so is the milk; and hence I am very well assured proceeds the scurvy, the evil, and WE are told by some ancient authors, many other distempers. I beg of you, for the sake of the many poor infants that may that Socrates was instructed in eloquence and will be saved by weighing this case by a woman whose name, if I am not misseriously, to exhort the people with the taken, was Aspasia. I have indeed very utmost vehemence, to let the children suck often looked upon that art as the most protheir own mothers, both for the benefit of per for the female sex, and I think the unimother and child. For the general argu-versities would do well to consider whether

Των δ' ακάματος ρεει αυδη

Hesiod.

Εκ στομάτων ηδεία.
Their untir'd lips a wordy torrent pour.

T.

they should not fill the rhetoric chairs with | weather, and in every part of the room. she professors.

She has false quarrels and feigned obligations to all the men of her acquaintance; sighs when she is not sad, and laughs when she is not merry. The coquette is in particular a great mistress of that part of oratory which is called action, and indeed seems to speak for no other purpose, but as it gives her an opportunity of stirring a limb, or varying a feature, of glancing her

It has been said in the praise of some men that they could talk whole hours together upon any thing; but it must be owned to the honour of the other sex, that there are many among them who can talk whole hours together upon nothing. I have known a woman branch out into a long extempore dissertation upon the edging of a petticoat, and chide her servant for break-eyes, or playing with her fan. ing a china cup, in all the figures of rhetoric. Were women permitted to plead in courts of judicature, I am persuaded they would carry the eloquence of the bar to greater heights than it has yet arrived at. If any one doubts this, let him but be present at those debates which frequently arise among the ladies of the British fishery.

The first kind therefore of female orators which I shall take notice of, are those who are employed in stirring up the passions; a part of rhetoric in which Socrates his wife had perhaps made a greater proficiency than his above-mentioned teacher.

As for newsmongers, politicians, mimics, story-tellers, with other characters of that nature which give birth to loquacity, they are as commonly found among the men as the women; for which reason I shall pass them over in silence.

I have often been puzzled to assign a cause why women should have this talent of a ready utterance in so much greater perfection than men. I have sometimes fancied that they have not a retentive power, or the faculty of suppressing their thoughts, as men have, but that they are necessitated to speak every thing they think; and if so, The second kind of female orators are it would perhaps furnish a very strong arthose who deal in invectives, and who are gument to the Cartesians for the supportcommonly known by the name of the cen- ing of their doctrine that the soul always sorious. The imagination and elocution of thinks. But as several are of opinion that this set of rhetoricians is wonderful. With the fair sex are not altogether strangers to what a fluency of invention, and copiousness the art of dissembling and concealing their of expression, will they enlarge upon every thoughts, I have been forced to relinquish little slip in the behaviour of another? With that opinion, and have therefore endeahow many different circumstances, and voured to seek after some better reason. with what variety of phrases, will they tell In order to it, a friend of mine, who is an over the same story? I have known an old excellent anatomist, has promised me by lady make an unhappy marriage the sub- the first opportunity to dissect a woman's ject of a month's conversation. She blamed tongue, and to examine whether there may the bride in one place; pitied her in an- not be in it certain juices which render it so other; laughed at her in a third; wondered wonderfully voluble or flippant, or whether at her in a fourth; was angry with her in a the fibres of it may not be made up of a fifth; and, in short, wore out a pair of finer or more pliant thread; or whether coach-horses in expressing her concern for there are not in it some particular muscles her. At length, after having quite exhaust- which dart it up and down by such sudden ed the subject on this side, she made a visit glances and vibrations; or whether, in the to the new-married pair, praised the wife last place, there may not be certain undisfor the prudent choice she had made, told covered channels running from the head her the unreasonable reflections which and the heart to this little instrument of some malicious people had cast upon her, loquacity, and conveying into it a perpetual and desired that they might be better ac-affluency of animal spirits. Nor must I quainted. The censure and approbation of this kind of women are therefore only to be considered as helps to discourse.

A third kind of female orators may be comprehended under the word gossips. Mrs. Fiddle-Faddle is perfectly accomplished in this sort of eloquence; she faunches out into descriptions of christenings, runs divisions upon a head-dress, knows every dish of meat that is served up in her neighbourhood, and entertains her company a whole afternoon together with the wit of her little boy, before he is able to speak.

The coquette may be looked upon as a fourth kind of female orator. To give herself the larger field for discourse, she hates and loves in the same breath, talks to her lap-dog or parrot, is uneasy in all kinds of

omit the reason which Hudibras has given, why those who can talk on trifles speak with the greatest fluency; namely, that the tongue is like a race-horse, which runs the faster the lesser weight it carri

Which of these reasons soever may be looked upon as the most probable, I think the Irishman's thought was very natural, who, after some hours conversation with a female orator, told her, that he believed her tongue was very glad when she was asleep, for that it had not a moment's rest all the while she was awake.

That excellent old ballad of The Wanton Wife of Bath, has the following remarkable lines:

I think, quoth Thomas, women's tongues
Of aspen leaves are made.'

And Ovid, though in the description of a

No. 248.]

THE SPECTATOR.

very barbarous circumstance, tells us, that when the tongue of a beautiful female was cut out, and thrown upon the ground, it could not forbear muttering even in that posture:

-Comprensam forcipe linguam

Abstulit ense fero: radix micat ultima lingue.
Ipsa jacet, terræque tremens immurmurat atræ;
Utque salire solet mutilata cauda colubræ
Met. Lib. vi. 556.
Palpitat

-The blade had cut

Her tongue sheer off, close to the trembling root: The mangled part still quiver'd on the ground, Murmuring with a faint imperfect sound; And, as a serpent writhes his wounded train, Uneasy, panting, and possess'd with pain.-Croxall. If a tongue would be talking without a mouth, what could it have done when it had all its organs of speech, and accomplices of sound about it? I might here mention the story of the Pippin Woman, had I not some reason to look upon it as fabulous. *

to do things worthy, but heroic. The great foundation of civil virtue is self-denial; and there is no one above the necessities of life, but has opportunities of exercising that noble quality, and doing as much as his circumstances will bear for the ease and convenience of other men; and he who does more than ordinary men practise upon such occasions as occur in his life, deserves the value of his friends, as if he had done enterprises which are usually attended with the highest glory. Men of public spirit differ rather in their circumstances than their virtue; and the man who does all he can, in a low station, is more a hero than he It is not many who omits any worthy action he is able to accomplish in a great one. years ago since Lapirius, in wrong of his elder brother, came to a great estate by gift of his father, by reason of the dissolute I must confess I am so wonderfully behaviour of the first-born. Shame and charmed with the music of this little instru- contrition reformed the life of the disinment, that I would by no means discourage herited youth, and he became as remarkit. All that I aim at by this dissertation is, able for his good qualities as formerly for to cure it of several disagreeable notes, and his errors. Lapirius, who observed his in particular of those little jarrings and brother's amendment, sent him on a newdissonances which arise from anger, cen- year's day in the morning, the following In letter: soriousness, gossipping, and coquetry. short, I would always have it tuned by good-nature, truth, discretion, and sincerity.

C.

No. 248.] Friday, December 14, 1711.
Hoc maxime officii est, ut quisque maxime opis indi-
Tull. Of. 1. 16.
geat, ita ei potissimum opitulari.
It is a principal point of duty, to assist another most
when he stands most in need of assistance.

'HONOURED BROTHER,-I enclose to you he the deeds whereby my father gave me this house and land. Had he lived till now, would not have bestowed it in that manner; he took it from the man you were, and I restore it to the man you are. I am, sir, P. T.' your affectionate brother, and humble servant,

As great and exalted spirits undertake the pursuit of hazardous actions for the THERE are none who deserve superiority good of others, at the same time gratifying over others in the esteem of mankind, who their passion for glory: so do worthy minds do not make it their endeavour to be bene-in the domestic way of life deny themselves ficial to society; and who upon all occasions many advantages, to satisfy a generous bewhich their circumstances of life can ad- nevolence, which they bear to their friends minister, do not take a certain unfeigned oppressed with distresses and calamities. pleasure in conferring benefits of one kind Such natures one may call stores of Provior other. Those whose great talents and dence, which are actuated by a secret cehigh birth have placed them in conspicuous lestial influence to undervalue the ordinary stations of life are indispensably obliged to gratifications of wealth, to give comfort to exert some noble inclinations for the ser- a heart loaded with affliction, to save a vice of the world, or else such advantages falling family, to preserve a branch of trade become misfortunes, and shade and privacy in their neighbourhood, to give work to the are a more eligible portion. Where oppor-industrious, preserve the portion of the tunities and inclinations are given to the helpless infant, and raise the head of the same person, we sometimes see sublime in- mourning father. People whose hearts are stances of virtue, which so dazzle our ima- wholly bent towards pleasure, or intent ginations, that we look with scorn on all upon gain, never hear of the noble occurwhich in lower scenes of life we may our-rences among men of industry and huselves be able to practice. But this is a manity. It would look like a city romance, vicious way of thinking; and it bears some to tell them of the generous merchant, who spice of romantic madness, for a man to the other day sent this billet to an eminent imagine that he must grow ambitious, or trader under difficulties to support himself, seek adventures, to be able to do great ac- in whose fall many hundreds besides himself tions. It is in every man's power in the had perished: but because I think there is world who is above mere poverty, not only more spirit and true gallantry in it than in any letter I have ever read from Strephon to Phillis, I shall insert it even in the mercantile honest style in which it was sent:

*The crackling crystal yields, she sinks, she dies;
Her head chopp'd off, from her lost shoulders flies;
Pippins she cried, but death her voice confounds,
And pip-pip-pip along the ice resounds.

'SIR,-I have heard of the casualties

"

which have involved you in extreme dis- | together my reflections on it without any tress at this time, and knowing you to be a man of great good-nature, industry, and probity, have resolved to stand by you. Be of good cheer; the bearer brings with him five thousand pounds, and has my order to answer your drawing as much more on my account. I did this in haste, for fear I should come too late for your relief; but you may value yourself with me to the sum of fifty thousand pounds; for I can very cheerfully run the hazard of being so much less rich than I am now, to save an honest man whom I love.* Your friend and servant, W. S.'

No. 249.] Saturday, December 15, 1711. cast of mind cuts himself off from all man

for the sport of others, rather than for our own improvement?

ter with observing, that the metaphor of laughing applied to the fields and meadows when they are in flower, or to trees when they are in blossom, runs through all languages; which I have not observed of any other metaphor, excepting that of fire and burning when they are applied to love. This shows that we naturally regard laugh

We therefore very often find that persons the most accomplished in ridicule are those who are very shrewd at hitting a blot, without exerting any thing masterly in themselves. As there are many eminent critics who never writ a good line, there are many admirable buffoons that animad-ter, as what is in itself both amiable and vert upon every single defect in another, beautiful. For this reason likewise Venus without ever discovering the least beauty has gained the title of 'the laughof their own. By this means, these unlucky ter-loving dame,' as Waller has translated little wits often gain reputation in the it, and is represented by Horace as the godesteem of vulgar minds, and raise them- dess who delights in laughter. Milton, in selves above persons of much more laud- a joyous assembly of imaginary persons, has able characters. given us a very poetical figure of laughter. His whole band of mirth is so finely described, that I shall set down the passage at length.

If the talent of ridicule were employed to laugh men out of vice and folly, it might be of some use to the world; but instead of this, we find that it is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking every thing that is solemn and serious, decent and praiseworthy in human life.

We may observe, that in the first ages of the world, when the great souls and master-pieces of human nature were produced, men shined by a noble simplicity of behaviour, and were strangers to those little embellishments which are so fashionable in our present conversation. And it is very remarkable, that notwithstanding we fall short at present of the ancients in poetry, painting, oratory, history, architecture, and all the noble arts and sciences which depend more upon genius than experience, we exceed them as much in doggrel humour, burlesque, and all the trivial arts of ridicule. We meet with more rail

But come thou goddess, fair and free,
In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth,
With two sisters Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore.
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity,

Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come and trip it as you go,

On the light fantastic toe:

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give the honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures, free.

L'Allegro, y. 11. &c.

lery among the moderns, but more good No. 250.] Monday, December 17, 1711. sense among the ancients.

The two great branches of ridicule in writing are comedy and burlesque. The first ridicules persons by drawing them in their proper characters, the other by drawing them quite unlike themselves. Burlesque is therefore of two kinds; the first represents mean persons in the accoutrements of heroes; the other describes great persons acting and speaking like the basest among the people. Don Quixote is an instance of the first, and Lucian's gods of the second. It is a dispute among the critics, whether burlesque poetry runs best in heroic verse, like that of the Dispensary; or in doggrel, like that of Hudibras. I think where the low character is to be raised, the heroic is the proper measure; but when a hero is to be pulled down and degraded, it is best done in doggrel.

Disce docendus adhuc, quæ censet amiculus, ut si
Cæcus iter monstrare velit; tamen aspice si quid
Et nos, quod cures proprium fecisse, loquamur.
Hor. Lib. 1. Ep. xvii. 3.

Yet hear what an unskilful friend can say:
As if a blind man should direct your way;
So I myself though wanting to be taught,
May yet impart a hint that's worth your thought.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-You see the nature of my request by the Latin motto which I address to you. I am very sensible I ought not to use many words to you, who are one of but few; but the following piece, as it relates to speculation in propriety of speech, being a curiosity in its kind, begs your patience. It was found in a poetical virtuoso's closet among his rarities; and since the several treatises of thumbs, ears, and noses, have obliged the world, this of eyes is at your service.

If Hudibras had been set out with as "The first eye of consequence (under the much wit and humour in heroic verse as he invisible Author of all) is the visible lumiis in doggrel he would have made a much nary of the universe. This glorious Spectamore agreeable figure than he does; though tor is said never to open his eyes at his the generality of his readers are so wonder-rising in a morning, without having a whole fully pleased with the double rhymes, that I do not expect many will be of my opinion in this particular.

I shall conclude this essay upon laugh

kingdom of adorers in Persian silk waiting at his levee. Millions of creatures derive their sight from this original, who, besides his being the great director of optics, is the