Spanish
Proverb,
If there were neither Fools nor Knaves in the World, all People would be of one Mind
.
For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest Men would enter into an Association, for the Support of one another against the Endeavours of those whom they ought to look upon as their Common Enemies, whatsoever Side they may belong to.
Were
there such an honest
Body of Neutral
6
Forces, we should never see the worst of Men in great Figures of Life, because they are useful to a Party; nor the best unregarded, because they are above practising those Methods which would be grateful to their Faction. We should then single every Criminal out of the Herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and overgrown he might appear: On the contrary, we should shelter distressed Innocence, and defend Virtue, however beset with Contempt or Ridicule, Envy or Defamation. In short, we should not any longer regard our Fellow Subjects as Whigs or Tories, but should make the Man of Merit our Friend, and the Villain our Enemy.
C.
Footnote 1:
Among his
Moral Essays
is that showing
How one shall be helped by Enemies.
In his
Lives
, also, Plutarch applauds in Pericles the noble sentiment which led him to think it his most excellent attainment never to have given way to envy or anger, notwithstanding the greatness of his power, nor to have nourished an implacable hatred against his greatest foe. This, he says, was his only real title to the name of Olympius.
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2:
Luke
vi. 27-32.
return
Footnote 3:
Characters altogether different
return
Footnote 4:
a very
return
Footnote 5:
People
return
Footnote 6:
Neutral Body of
return
ContentsContents p.5
Tros Rutulusve fuat, nullo discrimine habebo.Virg.
In my Yesterday's Paper I proposed, that the honest Men of all Parties should enter into a kind of Association for the Defence of one another, and
the
Confusion of their common Enemies. As it is designed this neutral Body should act with a Regard to nothing but Truth and Equity, and divest themselves of the little Heats and Prepossessions that cleave to Parties of all Kinds, I have prepared for them the following Form of an Association, which may express their Intentions in the most plain and simple Manner.
We whose Names are hereunto subscribed do solemnly declare, That we do in our Consciences believe two and two make four; and that we shall adjudge any Man whatsoever to be our Enemy who endeavours to persuade us to the contrary. We are likewise ready to maintain, with the Hazard of all that is near and dear to us, That six is less than seven in all Times and all Places, and that ten will not be more three Years hence than it is at present. We do also firmly declare, That it is our Resolution as long as we live to call Black black, and White white. And we shall upon all Occasions oppose such Persons that upon any Day of the Year shall call Black white, or White black, with the utmost Peril of our Lives and Fortunes.
Were there such a Combination of honest Men, who without any Regard to Places would endeavour to extirpate all such furious Zealots as would sacrifice one half of their Country to the Passion and Interest of the other; as also such infamous Hypocrites, that are for promoting their own Advantage, under Colour of the Publick Good; with all the profligate immoral Retainers to each Side, that have nothing to recommend them but an implicit Submission to their Leaders; we should soon see that furious Party-Spirit extinguished, which may in time expose us to the Derision and Contempt of all the Nations about us.
A Member of this Society, that would thus carefully employ himself in making Room for Merit, by throwing down the worthless and depraved Part of Mankind from those conspicuous Stations of Life to which they have been sometimes advanced, and all this without any Regard to his private Interest, would be no small Benefactor to his Country.
I
remember to have read in
Diodorus Siculus
1
an Account of a very active little Animal, which I think he calls the
Ichneumon
, that makes it the whole Business of his Life to break the Eggs of the Crocodile, which he is always in search after. This instinct is the more remarkable, because the
Ichneumon
never feeds upon the Eggs he has broken, nor in any other Way finds his Account in them. Were it not for the incessant Labours of this industrious Animal,
Ægypt
, says the Historian, would be over-run with Crocodiles: for the
Ægyptians
are so far from destroying those pernicious Creatures, that they worship them as Gods.
If we look into the Behaviour of ordinary Partizans, we shall find them far from resembling this disinterested Animal; and rather acting after the Example of the wild
Tartars
, who are ambitious of destroying a Man of the most extraordinary Parts and Accomplishments, as thinking that upon his Decease the same Talents, whatever Post they qualified him for, enter of course into his Destroyer.
As in the whole Train of my Speculations, I have endeavoured as much as I am able to extinguish that pernicious Spirit of Passion and Prejudice, which rages with the same Violence in all Parties, I am still the more desirous of doing some Good in this Particular, because I observe that the Spirit of Party reigns more in the Country than in the Town. It here contracts a kind of Brutality and rustick Fierceness, to which Men of a politer Conversation are wholly Strangers. It extends it self even to the Return of the Bow and the Hat; and at the same time that the Heads of Parties preserve toward one another an outward Shew of Good-breeding, and keep up a perpetual Intercourse of Civilities, their Tools that are dispersed in these outlying Parts will not so much as mingle together at a Cockmatch. This Humour fills the Country with several periodical Meetings of Whig Jockies and Tory Fox-hunters; not to mention the innumerable Curses, Frowns, and Whispers it produces at a Quarter-Sessions.
I do not know whether I have observed in any of my former Papers, that my Friends Sir
Roger De Coverley
and Sir
Andrew Freeport
are of different Principles, the first of them inclined to the
landed
and the other to the
monyed
Interest. This Humour is so moderate in each of them, that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable Raillery, which very often diverts the rest of the Club. I find however that the Knight is a much stronger Tory in the Country than in Town, which, as he has told me in my Ear, is absolutely necessary for the keeping up his Interest. In all our Journey from
London
to his House we did not so much as bait at a Whig Inn; or if by chance the Coachman stopped at a wrong Place, one of Sir
Roger's
Servants would ride up to his Master full speed, and whisper to him that the Master of the House was against such an one in the last Election. This often betray'd us into hard Beds and bad Chear; for we were not so inquisitive about the Inn as the Inn-keeper; and, provided our Landlord's Principles were sound, did not take any Notice of the Staleness of his Provisions. This I found still the more inconvenient, because the better the Host was, the worse generally were his Accommodations; the Fellow knowing very well, that those who were his Friends would take up with coarse Diet and an hard Lodging. For these Reasons, all the while I was upon the Road I dreaded entering into an House of any one that Sir Roger had applauded for an honest Man.
Since my Stay at Sir
Roger's
in the Country, I daily find more Instances of this narrow Party-Humour. Being upon a Bowling-green at a Neighbouring Market-Town the other Day, (for that is the Place where the Gentlemen of one Side meet once a Week) I observed a Stranger among them of a better Presence and genteeler Behaviour than ordinary; but was much surprised, that notwithstanding he was a very fair
Bettor
, no Body would take him up. But upon Enquiry I found, that he was one who had given a disagreeable Vote in a former Parliament, for which Reason there was not a Man upon that Bowling-green who would have so much Correspondence with him as to Win his Money of him.
Among
other Instances of this Nature, I must not omit one which
concerns
2
my self.
Will. Wimble
was
the other Day relating several strange Stories that he had picked up no Body knows where of a certain great Man; and upon my staring at him, as one that was surprised to hear such things in the Country
which
3
had never been so much as whispered in the Town,
Will
. stopped short in the Thread of his Discourse, and after Dinner asked my Friend Sir
Roger
in his Ear if he was sure that I was not a Fanatick.
It gives me a serious Concern to see such a Spirit of Dissention in the Country; not only as it destroys Virtue and Common Sense, and renders us in a Manner Barbarians towards one another, but as it perpetuates our Animosities, widens our Breaches, and transmits our present Passions and Prejudices to our Posterity. For my own Part, I am sometimes afraid that I discover the Seeds of a Civil War in these our Divisions; and therefore cannot but bewail, as in their first Principles, the Miseries and Calamities of our Children.
C.
Footnote 1:
Bibliothecæ Historicæ
, Lib. i. § 87.
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2:
concerns to
return
Footnote 3:
that
return
ContentsContents p.5
Quantum est in rebus Inane?Pers.
It is our Custom at Sir
Roger's
, upon the coming in of the Post, to sit about a Pot of Coffee, and hear the old Knight read
Dyer's
Letter; which he does with his Spectacles upon his Nose, and in an audible Voice, smiling very often at those little Strokes of Satyr which are so frequent in the Writings of that Author. I afterwards communicate to the Knight such Packets as I receive under the Quality of
Spectator
. The following Letter chancing to please him more than ordinary, I shall publish it at his Request.
Mr.Spectator,'You have diverted the Town almost a whole Month at the Expence of the Country, it is now high time that you should give the Country their Revenge. Since your withdrawing from this Place, the Fair Sex are run into great Extravagancies. Their Petticoats, which began to heave and swell before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous Concave, and rise every Day more and more: In short, Sir, since our Women know themselves to be out of the Eye of theSpectator, they will be kept within no Compass. You praised them a little too soon, for the Modesty of their Head-Dresses; for as the Humour of a sick Person is often driven out of one Limb into another, their Superfluity of Ornaments, instead of being entirely Banished, seems only fallen from their Heads upon their lower Parts. What they have lost in Height they make up in Breadth, and contrary to all Rules of Architecture widen the Foundations at the same time that they shorten the Superstructure. Were they, likeSpanishJennets, to impregnate by the Wind, they could not have thought on a more proper Invention. But as we do not yet hear any particular Use in this Petticoat, or that it contains any thing more than what was supposed to be in those of Scantier Make, we are wonderfully at a loss about it.The Women give out, in Defence of these wide Bottoms, that they are Airy, and very proper for the Season; but this I look upon to be only a Pretence, and a piece of Art, for it is well known we have not had a more moderate Summer these many Years, so that it is certain the Heat they complain of cannot be in the Weather: Besides, I would fain ask these tender constitutioned Ladies, why they should require more Cooling than their Mothers before them.I find several Speculative Persons are of Opinion that our Sex has of late Years been very sawcy, and that the Hoop Petticoat is made use of to keep us at a Distance. It is most certain that a Woman's Honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in Circle within Circle, amidst such a Variety of Out-works and Lines of Circumvallation.AFemale who is thus invested in Whale-Bone is sufficiently secured against the Approaches of an ill-bred Fellow, who might as well think of SirGeorge Etherege's way of making Love in a Tub1, as in the midst of so many Hoops.Among these various Conjectures, there are Men of Superstitious tempers, who look upon the Hoop Petticoat as a kind of Prodigy. Some will have it that it portends the Downfal of theFrenchKing, and observe that the Farthingale appeared inEnglanda little before the Ruin of theSpanishMonarchy. Others are of Opinion that it foretels Battle and Bloodshed, and believe it of the same Prognostication as the Tail of a Blazing Star. For my part, I am apt to think it is a Sign that Multitudes are coming into the World rather than going out of it.The first time I saw a Lady dressed in one of these Petticoats, I could not forbear blaming her in my own Thoughts for walking abroad when she wasso near her Time, but soon recovered myself out of my Error, when I found all the Modish Part of the Sex asfar goneas her self. It is generally thought some crafty Women have thus betrayed their Companions into Hoops, that they might make them accessory to their own Concealments, and by that means escape the Censure of the World; as wary Generals have sometimes dressed two or three Dozen of their Friends in their own Habit, that they might not draw upon themselves any particular Attacks of the Enemy. The strutting Petticoat smooths all Distinctions, levels the Mother with the Daughter, and sets Maids and Matrons, Wives and Widows, upon the same Bottom. In the mean while I cannot but be troubled to see so many well-shaped innocent Virgins bloated up, and waddling up and down like big-bellied Women.Should this Fashion get among the ordinary People our publick Ways would be so crowded that we should want Street-room. Several Congregations of the best Fashion find themselves already very much streightened, and if the Mode encrease I wish it may not drive many ordinary Women into Meetings and Conventicles. Should our Sex at the same time take it into their Heads to wear Trunk Breeches (as who knows what their Indignation at this Female Treatment may drive them to) a Man and his Wife would fill a whole Pew.Youknow, Sir, it is recorded of Alexander the Great2, that in hisIndianExpedition he buried several Suits of Armour, which by his Direction were made much too big for any of his Soldiers, in order to give Posterity an extraordinary Idea of him, and make them believe he had commanded an Army of Giants. I am persuaded that if one of the present Petticoats happen to be hung up in any Repository of Curiosities, it will lead into the same Error the Generations that lie some Removes from us: unless we can believe our Posterity will think so disrespectfully of their Great Grand-Mothers, that they made themselves Monstrous to appear Amiable.When I survey this new-fashionedRotondain all its Parts, I cannot but think of the old Philosopher, who after having entered into anEgyptianTemple, and looked about for the Idol of the Place, at length discovered a little Black Monkey Enshrined in the midst of it, upon which he could not forbear crying out, (to the great Scandal of the Worshippers) What a magnificent Palace is here for such a Ridiculous Inhabitant!Though you have taken a Resolution, in one of your Papers, to avoid descending to Particularities of Dress, I believe you will not think it below you, on so extraordinary an Occasion, to Unhoop the Fair Sex, and cure this fashionable Tympany that is got among them. I am apt to think the Petticoat will shrink of its own accord at your first coming to Town; at least a Touch of your Pen will make it contract it self, like the sensitive Plant, and by that means oblige several who are either terrified or astonished at this portentous Novelty, and among the rest,Your humble Servant, &c.
C.
Footnote 1:
Love in a Tub
, Act iv, sc, 6.
return to footnote mark
Footnote 2:
In Plutarch's
Life
of him.
return
ContentsContents p.5
... Concordia discors.Lucan.
Women in their Nature are much more gay and joyous than Men; whether it be that their Blood is more refined, their Fibres more delicate, and their animal Spirits more light and volatile; or whether, as some have imagined, there may not be a kind of Sex in the very Soul, I shall not pretend to determine. As Vivacity is the Gift of Women, Gravity is that of Men. They should each of them therefore keep a Watch upon the particular Biass which Nature has fixed in their Mind, that it may not
draw
too much, and lead them out of the Paths of Reason. This will certainly happen, if the one in every Word and Action affects the Character of being rigid and severe, and the other of being brisk and airy. Men should beware of being captivated by a kind of savage Philosophy, Women by a thoughtless Gallantry. Where these Precautions are not observed, the Man often degenerates into a Cynick, the Woman into a Coquet; the Man grows sullen and morose, the Woman impertinent and fantastical.
By what I have said, we may conclude, Men and Women were made as Counterparts to one another, that the Pains and Anxieties of the Husband might be relieved by the Sprightliness and good Humour of the Wife. When these are rightly tempered, Care and Chearfulness go Hand in Hand; and the Family, like a Ship that is duly trimmed, wants neither Sail nor Ballast.
Natural Historians observe, (for whilst I am in the Country I must fetch my Allusions from thence) That only the Male Birds have Voices; That their Songs begin a little before Breeding-time, and end a little after; That whilst the Hen is covering her Eggs, the Male generally takes his Stand upon a Neighbouring Bough within her Hearing; and by that means amuses and diverts her with his Songs during the whole Time of her Sitting.
This Contract among Birds lasts no longer than till a Brood of young ones arises from it; so that in the feather'd Kind, the Cares and Fatigues of the married State, if I may so call it, lie principally upon the Female. On the contrary, as in our Species the Man and
the
Woman are joined together for Life, and the main Burden rests upon the former, Nature has given all the little Arts of Soothing and Blandishment to the Female, that she may chear and animate her Companion in a constant and assiduous Application to the making a Provision for his Family, and the educating of their common Children. This however is not to be taken so strictly, as if the same Duties were not often reciprocal, and incumbent on both Parties; but only to set forth what seems to have been the general Intention of Nature, in the different Inclinations and Endowments which are bestowed on the different Sexes.
But whatever was the Reason that Man and Woman were made with this Variety of Temper, if we observe the Conduct of the Fair Sex, we find that they choose rather to associate themselves with a Person who resembles them in that light and volatile Humour which is natural to them, than to such as are qualified to moderate and counter-ballance it. It has been an old Complaint, That the Coxcomb carries it with them before the Man of Sense. When we see a Fellow loud and talkative, full of insipid Life and Laughter, we may venture to pronounce him a female Favourite: Noise and Flutter are such Accomplishments as they cannot withstand. To be short, the Passion of an ordinary Woman for a Man is nothing else but Self-love diverted upon another Object: She would have the Lover a Woman in every thing but the Sex. I do not know a finer Piece of Satyr on this Part of Womankind, than those lines of Mr.
Dryden
,
Our thoughtless Sex is caught by outward Form,And empty Noise, and loves it self in Man.
This is a Source of infinite Calamities to the Sex, as it frequently joins them to Men, who in their own Thoughts are as fine Creatures as themselves; or if they chance to be good-humoured, serve only to dissipate their Fortunes, inflame their Follies, and aggravate their Indiscretions.
The same female Levity is no less fatal to them after Mariage than before: It represents to their Imaginations the faithful prudent Husband as an honest tractable
and
domestick Animal; and turns their Thoughts upon the fine gay Gentleman that laughs, sings, and dresses so much more agreeably.
As this irregular Vivacity of Temper leads astray the Hearts of ordinary Women in the Choice of their Lovers and the Treatment of their Husbands, it operates with the same pernicious Influence towards their Children, who are taught to accomplish themselves in all those sublime Perfections that appear captivating in the Eye of their Mother. She admires in her Son what she loved in her Gallant; and by that means contributes all she can to perpetuate herself in a worthless Progeny.
The younger
Faustina
was a lively Instance of this sort of Women. Notwithstanding she was married to
Marcus Aurelius
, one of the greatest, wisest, and best of the
Roman
Emperors, she thought a common Gladiator much the prettier Gentleman; and had taken such Care to accomplish her Son
Commodus
according to her own Notions of a fine Man, that when he ascended the Throne of his Father, he became the most foolish and abandoned Tyrant that was ever placed at the Head of the
Roman
Empire, signalizing himself in nothing but the fighting of Prizes, and knocking out Men's Brains.
As
he had no Taste of true Glory, we see him in several Medals and Statues
which
1
are still extant of him, equipped like an
Hercules
with a Club and a Lion's Skin.
I have been led into this Speculation by the Characters I have heard of a Country Gentleman and his Lady, who do not live many Miles from Sir
Roger
. The Wife is an old Coquet, that is always hankering after the Diversions of the Town; the Husband a morose Rustick, that frowns and frets at the Name of it. The Wife is overrun with Affectation, the Husband sunk into Brutality: The Lady cannot bear the Noise of the Larks and Nightingales, hates your tedious Summer Days, and is sick at the Sight of shady Woods and purling Streams; the Husband wonders how any one can be pleased with the Fooleries of Plays and Operas, and rails from Morning to Night at essenced Fops and tawdry Courtiers. The Children are educated in these different Notions of their Parents. The Sons follow the Father about his Grounds, while the Daughters read Volumes of Love-Letters and Romances to their Mother. By this means it comes to pass, that the Girls look upon their Father as a Clown, and the Boys think their Mother no better than she should be.
How different are the Lives of
Aristus
and
Aspasia
? the innocent Vivacity of the one is tempered and composed by the chearful Gravity of the other. The Wife grows wise by the Discourses of the Husband, and the Husband good-humour'd by the Conversations of the Wife.
Aristus
would
not
be so amiable were it not for his
Aspasia
, nor
Aspasia
so much
esteemed
2