When our women thus fill their imaginations with pips and counters, I cannot wonder at the story I have lately heard of a new-born child that was marked with the five of clubs. Their passions suffer no less by this practice than their understandings and imaginations. What hope and fear, joy and anger, sorrow and discontent, break out all at once in a fair assembly upon so noble an occasion as that of turning up a card! Who can consider, without a secret indignation that all those affections of the mind which should be consecrated to their children, husbands, and parents, are thus vilely prostituted and thrown away upon a hand at loo! For my own part, I cannot but be grieved when I see a fine woman fretting and bleeding inwardly from such trivial motives; when I behold the face of an angel agitated and discomposed by the heart of a fury. But there is still another case in which the body is more endangered than in the former. All play-debts must be paid in specie, or by an equivalent. The man that plays beyond his income pawns his estate; the woman must find out something else to mortgage when her pin. money is gone. The husband has his lands to dispose of, the wife her person. Now when the female body is once dipped, if the creditor be very importunate, I leave my reader to con. sider the consequences. ROARINGS OF THE LION. Our minds are of such a make, that they naturally give themselves up to every diversion which they are much accustomed to; and we 'OLD NESTOR,-Ever since the first notice always find that play, when followed with assi- you gave of the erection of that useful monuduity, engrosses the whole woman. She quickly ment of yours in Button's coffee-house, I have grows uneasy in her own family, takes but lit- had a restless ambition to imitate the renowned tle pleasure in all the domestic innocent endear- London prentice, and boldly venture my hand ments of life, and grows more fond of Pam, down the throat of your lion. The subject of than of her husband. My friend Theophrastus, this letter is a relation of a club whereof I am the best of husbands and of fathers, has often member, and which has made a considerable complained to me, with tears in his eyes, of the noise of late. I mean the Silent Club. The late hours he is forced to keep if he would enjoy year of our institution is 1694, the number of his wife's conversation. When she returns to members twelve, and the place of our meeting me with joy in her face, it does not arise,' says is Dumb's-alley, in Holborn. We look upon he, from the sight of her husband, but from ourselves as the relics of the old Pythagoreans, the good luck she has had at cards. On the and have this maxim in common with them, contrary,' says he, 'if she has been a loser, I which is the foundation of our design, that am doubly a sufferer by it. She comes home" Talking spoils company." The president of out of humour, is angry with every body, dis-our society is one who was born deaf and dumb, pleased with all I can do or say, and in reality and owes that blessing to nature, which, in the for no other reason, but because she has been rest of us, is owing to industry alone. I find throwing away my estate.' What charming upon inquiry, that the greater part of us are bed-fellows and companions for life are men married men, and such whose wives are relikely to meet with, that choose their wives out markably loud at home. Hither we fly for reof such women of vogue and fashion! What a fuge, and enjoy at once the two greatest and race of worthics, what patriots, what heroes, most valuable blessings, company and retiremust we expect from mothers of this make! ment. When that eminent relation of yours, I come in the next place to consider the ill the Spectator, published his weekly papers, and consequences which gaming has on the bodies gave us that remarkable account of his silence of our female adventurers. It is so ordered that (for you must know, though we do not read, yet almost every thing which corrupts the soul de- we inspect all such useful essays) we seemed cays the body. The beauties of the face and unanimous to invite him to partake our secrecy, mind are generally destroyed by the same but it was unluckily objected, that he had just means. This consideration should have a par- then published a discourse of his at his own ticular weight with the female world, who were club, and had not arrived to that happy inactidesigned to please the eye and attract the re-vity of the tongue, which we expected from a gards of the other half of the species. Now there is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vigils of the card-table, and those cutting passions which naturally attend them. Hollow eyes, haggard looks, and pale complexions, are the natural indications of a female gamester. Her morning sleeps are not able to repair her midnight watchings. I have known a woman carried off half dead from bassette; and have many a time grieved to see a person of quality gliding by me in her chair at two o'clock in the morning, and looking like a spectre amidst a glare of flambeaux. In short, I never knew a thorough-paced female gamester hold her beauty two winters together. man of his understanding. You will wonder, perhaps, how we managed this debate; but it will be easily accounted for, when I tell you that our fingers are as nimble, and as infallible interpreters of our thoughts, as other men's tongues are; yet even this mechanic eloquence is only allowed upon the weightiest occasions. We admire the wise institutions of the Turks, and other eastern nations, where all commands are performed by officious mutes; and we wonder that the polite courts of Christendom should come so far short of the majesty of barbarians. Ben Jonson has gained an eternal reputation among us by his play called the Silent Woman. Every member here is another Morose while the club is sitting, but at home may talk as much and as fast as his family occasions require, without breach of statute. The advantages we find from this quaker-like assembly are many. We consider, that the understanding of man is liable to mistakes, and his will fond of contradictions; that disputes which are of no weight in themselves, are often very considerable in their effects. The disuse of the tongue is the only effectual remedy against these. All party concerns, all private scandal, all insults over another man's weaker reasons, must there be lost where no disputes arise. Another advantage which follows from the st (and which is very rarely to be met with) is, that we are all upon the same level in conversation. A wag of my acquaintance used to add a third, viz: that if ever we do debate, we are sure to have all our arguments at our fingers' ends. Of all Longinus's remarks, we are most enamoured with that excellent passage, where he mentions Ajax's silence as one of the noblest instances of the sublime; and (if you will allow me to be free with a namesake of yours) I should think that the everlasting story-teller, Nestor, had he been likened to the ass instead of our hero, he had suffered less by the com. parison. I have already described the practice and sentiments of this society, and shall but barely mention the report of the neighbourhood, that we are not only as mute as fishes, but that we drink like fishes too; that we are like the Welshman's owl, though we do not sing, we pay it off with thinking. Others take us for an assembly of disaffected persons; nay, their zeal to the government has carried them so far as to send, last week, a party of constables to surprise us. You may easily imagine how exactly we represented the Roman senators of old, sitting with majestic silence, and undaunted at the approach of an army of Gauls. If you approve of our undertaking, you need not declare it to the world; your silence shall be interpreted as consent given to the honourable body of mutes, and in particular to your humble servant, NED MUM. P. S. We have had but one word spoken since the foundation, for which the member was expelled by the old Roman custom of bending back the thumb. He had just received the news of the battle of Hochstet, and being too impatient to communicate his joy, was unfortunately betrayed into a lapsus lingue. We acted on the principles of the Roman Manlius, and though we approved of the cause of his error as just, we condemned the effect, as a manifest violation of his duty.' I never could have thought a dumb man would have roared so well out of my lion's mouth. My next pretty correspondent, like Shakspeare's lion in Pyramus and Thisbe, roars as it were any nightingale. 'July 28, 1713. MR. IRONSIDE, I was afraid at first you were only in jest, and had a mind to expose our nakedness for the diversion of the town; but since I see that you are in good earnest, and have infallibility of your side, I cannot forbear returning my thanks to you for the care you take of us, having a friend who has promised me to give my letters to the lion, until we can communicate our thoughts to you through our own proper vehicle. Now you must know, dear sir, that if you do not take care to suppress this exorbitant growth of the female chest, all that is left of my waist must inevitably perish. It is at this time reduced to the depth of four inches, by what I have already made over to my neck. But if the stripping design, mentioned by Mrs. Figleaf yesterday, should take effect, sir, I dread to think what it will come to. In short, there is no help for it, my girdle and all must go. This is the naked truth of the matter. Have pity on me then, my dear Guardian, and preserve me from being so inhumanly exposed. I do assure you that I follow your precepts as much as a young woman can, who will live in the world without being laughed at. I have no hooped petticoat, and when I am a matron will wear broad tuckers whether you succeed or no. If the flying project takes, I intend to be the last in wings, being resolved in every thing to behave myself as becomes your most obedient ward.' IJ THAT I may get out of debt with the public as fast as I can, I shall here give them the remaining part of Strada's criticism on the Latin work in the three papers numbered 115, 119, heroic poets. My readers may see the whole 122. Those who are acquainted with the authors themselves cannot but be pleased to see them so justly represented; and as for those who have never perused the originals, they may form a judgment of them from such accurate and entertaining copics. The whole piece will show at least how a man of genius (and none else should call himself a critic) can make the driest art a pleasing amusement. The Sequel of Strada's Prolusion. The poet who personated Ovid, gives an acwhich attracts gold, after the same manner as count of the chryso-magnet, or of the loadstone the common loadstone attracts iron. The author, that he might express Ovid's way of thinking, derives this virtue to the chryso-magnet from a poetical metamorphosis. As I was sitting by a well,' says he,' when I was a boy, my ring dropped into it, when immediately my father fastening a certain stone to the end of a line, let it down into the well. It no sooner touched the surface of the water, but the ring leaped up from the bottom, and clung to it in such a manner, that he drew it out like a fish. My father, seeing me wonder at the experiment, gave me the following account of it: When Deucalion and Pyrrha went about the world to repair mankind by throwing stones over their heads, the men who rose from them differed in their inclinations according to the places on which the stones fell. Those which fell in the fields became ploughmen and shepherds. Those which fell into the water produced sailors and fishermen. Those that fell among the woods and forests gave birth to huntsmen. Among the rest there were several that fell upon mountains that had mines of gold and silver in them. This last race of men immediately betook themselves to the search of these precious metals; but nature being displeased to see herself ransacked, withdrew these her treasures towards the centre of the earth. The avarice of man, however, persisted in its former pursuits, and ransacked her inmost bowels in quest of the riches which they contained. Nature seeing herself thus plundered by a swarm of miners, was so highly incensed, that she shook the whole place with an earthquake, and buried the men under their own works. The Stygian flames which lay in the neighbourhood of these deep mines, broke out at the same time with great fury, burning up the whole mass of human limbs and earth, until they were hardened and baked into stone. The human bodies that were delving in iron mines were converted into those common loadstones which attract that metal. Those which were in search of gold became chryso-magnets, and still keep their former avarice in their present state of petrifaction.' Ovid had no sooner given over speaking, but the assembly pronounced their opinions of him. Several were so taken with his easy way of writing, and had so formed their tastes upon it, that they had no relish for any composition which was not framed in the Ovidian manner. A great many, however, were of a contrary opinion; until at length it was determined, by a plurality of voices, that Ovid highly deserved the name of a witty man, but that his language was vulgar and trivial, and of the nature of those things which cost no labour in the invention, but are ready found out to a man's hand. In the last place, they all agreed, that the greatest objection which lay against Ovid, both as to his life and writings, was his having too much wit, and that he would have succeeded better in both, had he rather checked than indulged it. Statius stood up next, with a swelling and haughty air, and made the following story the subject of his poem. A German and a Portuguese, when Vienna was besieged, having had frequent contests of rivalry, were preparing for a single duel, when on a sudden the walls were attacked by the enemy. Upon this, both the German and Portuguese consented to sacrifice their private resentments to the public, and to see who could signalize himself most upon the common foe.Each of them did wonders in repelling the enemy from different parts of the wall. The German was at length engaged amidst a whole army of Turks, until his left arm, that held the shield, was unfortunately lopped off, and he himself so stunned with a blow he had received, that he fell down as dead. The Portuguese, seeing the condition of his rival, very generously flew to his succour, dispersed the multitude that were gathered about him, and fought over him as he lay upon the ground. In the meanwhile the German recovered from his trance, and rose up to the assistance of the Portuguese, who a little after had his right arm, which held his sword, cut off by the blow of a sabre. He would have lost his life at the same time by a spear which was aimed at his back, had not the German slain the person who was aiming at him. These two competitors for fame having received such mutu al obligations, now fought in conjunction, and as the one was only able to manage the sword, and the other a shield, made up but one warrior betwixt them. The Portuguese covered the German, while the German dealt destruction upon the enemy. At length, finding themselves faint with loss of blood, and resolving to perish nobly, they advanced to the most shattered part of the wall, and threw themselves down, with a huge fragment of it, upon the heads of the besiegers. When Statius ceased, the old factions immediately broke out concerning his manner of writing. Some gave him very loud acclamations, such as he had received in his life-time, declaring him the only man who had written in a style which was truly heroical, and that he was above all others in his fame as well as in his diction. Others censured him as one who went beyond all bounds in his images and expressions, laughing at the cruelty of his concep tions, the rumbling of his numbers, and the dreadful pomp and bombast of his expressions. There were, however, a few select judges, who moderated between both these extremes, and pronounced upon Statius, that there appeared in his style much poetical heat and fire, but withal so much smoke as sullied the brightness of it. That there was a majesty in his verse, but that it was the majesty rather of a tyrant than of a king. That he was often towering among the clouds, but often met with the fate of Icarus. In a word, that Statius was among the poets, what Alexander the Great is among heroes, a man of great virtues and of great faults. Virgil was the last of the ancient poets who produced himself upon this occasion. His subject was the story of Theutilla, which being so near that of Judith in all its circumstances, and at the same time translated by a very ingenious gentleman in one of Mr. Dryden's Miscellanies, I shall here give no further account of it. When he had done, the whole assembly declared the works of this great poet a subject rather for their admiration than for their applause, and that if any thing was wanting in Virgil's poetry, it was to be ascribed to a deficiency in the art itself, and not in the genius of this great man. There were, however, some envious murmurs and detractions heard among the crowd, as if there were very frequently verses in him which flagged or wanted spirit, and were rather to be looked upon as faultless than beautiful. But these injudicious censures were heard with a general indignation. I need not observe to my learned reader, that the foregoing story of the German and Portu guese is almost the same in every particular with that of the two rival soldiers in Cæsar's True, conscious honour is to feel no sin; Pope. THERE are a sort of knights-errant in the world, who, quite contrary to those in romance, are perpetually seeking adventures to bring virgins into distress, and to ruin innocence. When men of rank and figure pass away their lives in these criminal pursuits and practices, they ought to consider that they render themselves more vile and despicable than any innocent man can be, whatever low station his fortune or birth have placed him in. Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible. Thy father's merit sets thee up to view, Cato. a letter folded up and directed to a certain nobleman very famous in our parts for low intrigue, or (in plainer words) for debauching country girls; in which number is the unfortunate daughter of my poor tenant, as I learn from the following letter written by her mother. I have sent you here a copy of it, which, made public in your paper, may perhaps furnish useful reflections to many men of figure and quality, who indulge themselves in a passion which they possess but in common with the vilest part of mankind. "MY LORD,-Last night I discovered the injury you have done to my daughter. Heaven knows how long and piercing a torment that short-lived shameful pleasure of yours must bring upon me; upon me, from whom you never received any offence. This consideration alone should have deterred a noble mind from so base But alas! what is all and ungenerous an act. the grief that must be my share, in comparison of that, with which you have requited her by whom you have been obliged? Loss of good name, anguish. of heart, shame, and infamy are what must inevitably fall upon her, unless she gets over them by what is much worse, open impudence, professed lewdness, and abandoned prostitution. These are the returns you have made to her for putting in your power all her livelihood and dependence, her virtue and repuI have often wondered that these deflourers tation. O, my lord, should my son have pracof innocence, though dead to all the sentiments tised the like on one of your daughters-I know of virtue and honour, are not restrained by com- you swell with indignation at the very mention passion and humanity. To bring sorrow, con- of it, and would think he deserved a thousand fusion, and infamy, into a family, to wound the deaths, should he make such an attempt upon heart of a tender parent, and stain the life of a poor the honour of your family. It is well, my lord. deluded young woman with a dishonour that And is then the honour of your daughter, whom can never be wiped off, are circumstances, one still, though it had been violated, you might would think, sufficient to check the most violent have maintained in plenty and even luxury, of passion in a heart which has the least tincture greater moment to her, than to my daughter of pity and good-nature. Would any one pur-hers, whose only sustenance it was? And must chase the gratification of a moment at so dear my son, ved of all the advantages of a generous a rate, and entail a lasting misery on others, for education, must he, I say, consider; and may such a transient satisfaction to himself; nay, your lordship be excused from all reflection? for a satisfaction that is sure, at some time or Eternal contumely attend that guilty title which other, to be followed with remorse? I am led claims exemption from thought, and arrogates to the subject by two letters which came lately to its wearers the prerogative of brutes. Ever to my hands. The last of them is, it seems, the cursed be its false lustre, which could dazzle copy of one sent by a mother to one who had my poor daughter to her undoing. Was it for abused her daughter; and though I cannot jus- this that the exalted merits and godlike virtues tify her sentiments at the latter end of it, they of your great ancestor were honoured with a are such as might arise in a mind which had not coronet, that it might be a pander to his posteyet recovered its temper after so great a provo-rity, and confer a privilege of dishonouring the cation. I present the reader with it as I re-innocent and defenceless? At this rate the laws ceived it, because I think it gives a lively idea of rewards should be inverted, and he who is of the affliction of which a fond parent suffers on such an occasion. shire, July, 1713. 'SIR,-The other day I went into the house of one of my tenants, whose wife was formerly a servant in our family, and (by my grandmother's kindness) had her education with my mother from her infancy; so that she is of a spirit and understanding greatly superior to those of her own rank. I found the poor woman in the utmost disorder of mind and attire, drowned in tears, and reduced to a condition that looked rather like stupidity than grief. She leaned upon her arm over a table, on which lay generous and good, should be made a beggar and a slave; that industry and honest diligence may keep his posterity unspotted, and preserve them from ruining virgins, and making whole families unhappy. Wretchedness is now be come my everlasting portion! Your crime, my lord, will draw perdition even upon my head. I may not sue for forgiveness of my own failings and misdeeds, for I never can forgive yours, but shall curse you with my dying breath; and at the last tremendous day shall hold forth in my arms my much wronged child, and call aloud for vengeance on her defiler. Under these present horrors of mind, I could be content to be your chief tormentor, ever paying you mock reverence, and sounding in your ears, to your unutterable loathing, the empty title which inspired you with presumption to tempt, and overawed my daughter to comply. "Thus have I given some vent to my sorrow; nor fear I to awaken you to repentance, so that your sin may be forgiven. The divine laws have been broken; but much injury, irreparable injury, has been also done to me, and the just Judge will not pardon that until I do. My lord, your conscience will help you to my name." MORE ROARINGS OF THE LION. MR. GUARDIAN,-Before I proceed to make you my proposals, it will be necessary to inform you, that an uncommon ferocity in my countenance, together with the remarkable flatness of my nose, and extent of my mouth, have long since procured me the name of Lion in this our university. The vast emolument that in all probability will accrue to the public from the roarings of my new-erected likeness at Button's, hath made me desirous of being as like him in that part of his character, as I am told I already am in all parts of my person. Wherefore I most humbly propose to you, that (as it is impossible for this one lion to roar, either long enough or loud enough against all things that are roar-worthy in these realms) you would appoint him a sublion, as a præfectus provinciæ, in every county in Great Britain; and it is my request, that I may be instituted his under-roarer in this university, town, and county of Cambridge, as my resemblance does, in some measure, claim that I should. 'I shall follow my metropolitan's example, in roaring only against those enormities that are too slight and trivial for the notice or censures of our magistrates; and shall communicate my roarings to him monthly, or oftener, if occasion requires, to be inserted in your papers cum privilegio. I shall not omit giving informations of the improvement or decay of punning, and may chance to touch upon the rise and fall of tuckers; but I will roar aloud, and spare not, to the terror of, at present, a very flourishing society of people called loungers, gentlemen whose observations are mostly itinerant, and who think they have already too much good sense of their own, to be in need of staying at home to read other people's. 'I have, sir, a raven, that shall serve by way of jackall, to bring me in provisions, which I shall chaw and prepare for the digestion of my principal, and I do hereby give notice to all under my jurisdiction, that whoever are willing to contribute to this good design, if they will affix their information to the leg or neck of the afore. said raven or jackall, they will be thankfully • Mr. Ironside,—Hearing that your unicorn is now in hand, and not questioning but his horn will prove a cornucopiæ to you, I desire that in order to introduce it, you will consider the following proposal. My wife and I intend a dissertation upon horns; the province she has chosen, is the planting of them, and I am to treat of their growth, improvement, &c. The work is like to swell so much upon our hands, that I am afraid we shall not be able to bear the charge of printing it without a subscription; wherefore I hope you will invite the city into it, and desire those who have any thing by them relating to that part of natural history, to communicate it to, sir, your humble servant, HUMPHREY BINICORN.' |