Chapter C

No. 204. Wednesday, October 24, 1711. Steele.

Urit grata protervitas,
Et vultus nimium lubricùs aspici.

Hor.

I am not at all displeased that I am become the Courier of Love, and that the Distressed in that Passion convey their Complaints to each other by my Means. The following Letters have lately come to my hands, and shall have their Place with great Willingness. As to the Readers Entertainment, he will, I hope, forgive the inserting such Particulars as to him may perhaps seem frivolous, but are to the Persons who wrote them of the highest Consequence. I shall not trouble you with the Prefaces, Compliments, and Apologies made to me before each Epistle when it was desired to be inserted; but in general they tell me, that the Persons to whom they are addressed have Intimations, by Phrases and Allusions in them, from whence they came.

_To the_ Sothades [1].

"The Word, by which I address you, gives you, who understand
_Portuguese_, a lively Image of the tender Regard I have for you. The
SPECTATOR'S late Letter from _Statira_ gave me the Hint to use the
same Method of explaining my self to you. I am not affronted at the
Design your late Behaviour discovered you had in your Addresses to me;
but I impute it to the Degeneracy of the Age, rather than your
particular Fault. As I aim at nothing more than being yours, I am
willing to be a Stranger to your Name, your Fortune, or any Figure
which your Wife might expect to make in the World, provided my
Commerce with you is not to be a guilty one. I resign gay Dress, the
Pleasure of Visits, Equipage, Plays, Balls, and Operas, for that one
Satisfaction of having you for ever mine. I am willing you shall
industriously conceal the only Cause of Triumph which I can know in
this Life. I wish only to have it my Duty, as well as my Inclination,
to study your Happiness. If this has not the Effect this Letter seems
to aim at, you are to understand that I had a mind to be rid of you,
and took the readiest Way to pall you with an Offer of what you would
never desist pursuing while you received ill Usage. Be a true Man; be
my Slave while you doubt me, and neglect me when you think I love you.
I defy you to find out what is your present Circumstance with me; but
I know while I can keep this Suspence.

_I am your admired_ Belinda."

_Madam_,

"It is a strange State of Mind a Man is in, when the very
Imperfections of a Woman he loves turn into Excellencies and
Advantages. I do assure you, I am very much afraid of venturing upon
you. I now like you in spite of my Reason, and think it an ill
Circumstance to owe ones Happiness to nothing but Infatuation. I can
see you ogle all the young Fellows who look at you, and observe your
Eye wander after new Conquests every Moment you are in a publick
Place; and yet there is such a Beauty in all your Looks and Gestures,
that I cannot but admire you in the very Act of endeavouring to gain
the Hearts of others. My Condition is the same with that of the Lover
in the _Way of the World_, [2] I have studied your Faults so long,
that they are become as familiar to me, and I like them as well as I
do my own. Look to it, Madam, and consider whether you think this gay
Behaviour will appear to me as amiable when an Husband, as it does now
to me a Lover. Things are so far advanced, that we must proceed; and I
hope you will lay it to Heart, that it will be becoming in me to
appear still your Lover, but not in you to be still my Mistress.
Gaiety in the Matrimonial Life is graceful in one Sex, but
exceptionable in the other. As you improve these little Hints, you
will ascertain the Happiness or Uneasiness of,
_Madam,
Your most obedient,
Most humble Servant_,
T.D."

_SIR_,
When I sat at the Window, and you at the other End of the Room by my
Cousin, I saw you catch me looking at you. Since you have the Secret
at last, which I am sure you should never have known but by
Inadvertency, what my Eyes said was true. But it is too soon to
confirm it with my Hand, therefore shall not subscribe my Name.

_SIR_,
There were other Gentlemen nearer, and I know no Necessity you were
under to take up that flippant Creatures Fan last Night; but you
shall never touch a Stick of mine more, that's pos.
_Phillis_.

To Colonel R----s [3] in Spain.

Before this can reach the best of Husbands and the fondest Lover,
those tender Names will be no more of Concern to me. The Indisposition
in which you, to obey the Dictates of your Honour and Duty, left me,
has increased upon me; and I am acquainted by my Physicians I cannot
live a Week longer. At this time my Spirits fail me; and it is the
ardent Love I have for you that carries me beyond my Strength, and
enables me to tell you, the most painful Thing in the Prospect of
Death, is, that I must part with you. But let it be a Comfort to you,
that I have no Guilt hangs upon me, no unrepented Folly that retards
me; but I pass away my last Hours in Reflection upon the Happiness we
have lived in together, and in Sorrow that it is so soon to have an
End. This is a Frailty which I hope is so far from criminal, that
methinks there is a kind of Piety in being so unwilling to be
separated from a State which is the Institution of Heaven, and in
which we have lived according to its Laws. As we know no more of the
next Life, but that it will be an happy one to the Good, and miserable
to the Wicked, why may we not please ourselves at least, to alleviate
the Difficulty of resigning this Being, in imagining that we shall
have a Sense of what passes below, and may possibly be employed in
guiding the Steps of those with whom we walked with Innocence when
mortal? Why may not I hope to go on in my usual Work, and, tho
unknown to you, be assistant in all the Conflicts of your Mind? Give
me leave to say to you, O best of Men, that I cannot figure to myself
a greater Happiness than in such an Employment: To be present at all
the Adventures to which human Life is exposed, to administer Slumber
to thy Eyelids in the Agonies of a Fever, to cover thy beloved Face in
the Day of Battle, to go with thee a Guardian Angel incapable of Wound
or Pain, where I have longed to attend thee when a weak, a fearful
Woman: These, my Dear, are the Thoughts with which I warm my poor
languid Heart; but indeed I am not capable under my present Weakness
of bearing the strong Agonies of Mind I fall into, when I form to
myself the Grief you will be in upon your first hearing of my
Departure. I will not dwell upon this, because your kind and generous
Heart will be but the more afflicted, the more the Person for whom you
lament offers you Consolation. My last Breath will, if I am my self,
expire in a Prayer for you. I shall never see thy Face again.

Farewell for ever. T.

[Footnote 1: Saudades. To have saudades of anything is to yearn with desire towards it. Saudades da Patria is home sickness. To say Tenho Saudades without naming an object would be taken to mean I am all yearning to call a certain gentleman or lady mine.]

[Footnote 2: In Act I. sc. 3, of Congreve's Way of the World, Mirabell says of Millamant,

I like her with all her faults, nay, like her for her faults. Her
follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her; and those
affectations which in another woman would be odious, serve but to make
her more agreeable. Ill tell thee, Fainall, she once used me with
that insolence, that in revenge I took her to pieces, sifted her, and
separated her failings; I studied em and got em by rote. The
Catalogue was so large, that I was not without hopes one day or other
to hate her heartily: to which end I so used myself to think of em,
that at length, contrary to my design and expectation, they gave me
every hour less and less disturbance; till in a few days it became
habitual to me to remember em without being displeased. They are now
grown as familiar to me as my own frailties; and, in all probability,
in a little time longer I shall like em as well.]

[Footnote 3: The name was commonly believed to be Rivers, when this Paper was published.]

* * * * *

No. 205. Thursday, October 25, 1711. Addison.

Decipimur specie recti

Hor.

When I meet with any vicious Character that is not generally known, in order to prevent its doing Mischief, I draw it at length, and set it up as a Scarecrow; by which means I do not only make an Example of the Person to whom it belongs, but give Warning to all Her Majesty's Subjects, that they may not suffer by it. Thus, to change the [Allusion,[1]] I have marked out several of the Shoals and Quicksands of Life, and am continually employed in discovering those [which [2]] are still concealed, in order to keep the Ignorant and Unwary from running upon them. It is with this Intention that I publish the following Letter, which brings to light some Secrets of this Nature.

_Mr_. SPECTATOR,

There are none of your Speculations which I read over with greater
Delight, than those which are designed for the Improvement of our Sex.
You have endeavoured to correct our unreasonable Fears and
Superstitions, in your Seventh and Twelfth Papers; our Fancy for
Equipage, in your Fifteenth; our Love of Puppet-Shows, in your
Thirty-First; our Notions of Beauty, in your Thirty-Third; our
Inclination for Romances, in your Thirty-Seventh; our Passion for
_French_ Fopperies, in your Forty-Fifth; our Manhood and Party-zeal,
in your Fifty-Seventh; our Abuse of Dancing, in your Sixty-Sixth and
Sixty-Seventh; our Levity, in your Hundred and Twenty-Eighth; our Love
of Coxcombs, in your Hundred and Fifty-Fourth, and Hundred and
Fifty-Seventh; our Tyranny over the Henpeckt, in your Hundred and
Seventy-Sixth. You have described the _Pict_ in your Forty-first; the
Idol, in your Seventy-Third; the Demurrer, in your Eighty-Ninth; the
Salamander, in your Hundred and Ninety-Eighth. You have likewise taken
to pieces our Dress, and represented to us the Extravagancies we are
often guilty of in that Particular. You have fallen upon our Patches,
in your Fiftieth and Eighty-First; our Commodes, in your
Ninety-Eighth; our Fans in your Hundred and Second; our Riding Habits
in your Hundred and Fourth; our Hoop-petticoats, in your Hundred and
Twenty-Seventh; besides a great many little Blemishes which you have
touched upon in your several other Papers, and in those many Letters
that are scattered up and down your Works. At the same Time we must
own, that the Compliments you pay our Sex are innumerable, and that
those very Faults which you represent in us, are neither black in
themselves nor, as you own, universal among us. But, Sir, it is plain
that these your Discourses are calculated for none but the fashionable
Part of Womankind, and for the Use of those who are rather indiscreet
than vicious. But, Sir, there is a Sort of Prostitutes in the lower
Part of our Sex, who are a Scandal to us, and very well deserve to
fall under your Censure. I know it would debase your Paper too much to
enter into the Behaviour of these Female Libertines; but as your
Remarks on some Part of it would be a doing of Justice to several
Women of Virtue and Honour, whose Reputations suffer by it, I hope you
will not think it improper to give the Publick some Accounts of this
Nature. You must know, Sir, I am provoked to write you this Letter by
the Behaviour of an infamous Woman, who having passed her Youth in a
most shameless State of Prostitution, is now one of those who gain
their Livelihood by seducing others, that are younger than themselves,
and by establishing a criminal Commerce between the two Sexes. Among
several of her Artifices to get Money, she frequently perswades a vain
young Fellow, that such a Woman of Quality, or such a celebrated
Toast, entertains a secret Passion for him, and wants nothing but an
Opportunity of revealing it: Nay, she has gone so far as to write
Letters in the Name of a Woman of Figure, to borrow Money of one of
these foolish _Roderigos_, [3] which she has afterwards appropriated
to her own Use. In the mean time, the Person who has lent the Money,
has thought a Lady under Obligations to him, who scarce knew his Name;
and wondered at her Ingratitude when he has been with her, that she
has not owned the Favour, though at the same time he was too much a
Man of Honour to put her in mind of it.

When this abandoned Baggage meets with a Man who has Vanity enough to
give Credit to Relations of this nature, she turns him to very good
Account, by repeating Praises that were never uttered, and delivering
Messages that were never sent. As the House of this shameless Creature
is frequented by several Foreigners, I have heard of another Artifice,
out of which she often raises Money. The Foreigner sighs after some
_British_ Beauty, whom he only knows by Fame: Upon which she promises,
if he can be secret, to procure him a Meeting. The Stranger, ravished
at his good Fortune, gives her a Present, and in a little time is
introduced to some imaginary Title; for you must know that this
cunning Purveyor has her Representatives upon this Occasion, of some
of the finest Ladies in the Kingdom. By this Means, as I am informed,
it is usual enough to meet with a German Count in foreign Countries,
that shall make his Boasts of Favours he has received from Women of
the highest Ranks, and the most unblemished Characters. Now, Sir, what
Safety is there for a Woman's Reputation, when a Lady may be thus
prostituted as it were by Proxy, and be reputed an unchaste Woman; as
the Hero in the ninth Book of _Dryden's_ Virgil is looked upon as a
Coward, because the Phantom which appeared in his Likeness ran away
from _Turnus?_ You may depend upon what I relate to you to be Matter
of Fact, and the Practice of more than one of these female Pandars. If
you print this Letter, I may give you some further Accounts of this
vicious Race of Women.
_Your humble Servant,_
BELVIDERA.

I shall add two other Letters on different Subjects to fill up my Paper.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

I am a Country Clergyman, and hope you will lend me your Assistance
in ridiculing some little Indecencies which cannot so properly be
exposed from the Pulpit.

A Widow Lady, who straggled this Summer from _London_ into my Parish
for the Benefit of the Air, as she says, appears every _Sunday_ at
Church with many fashionable Extravagancies, to the great Astonishment
of my Congregation.

But what gives us the most Offence is her theatrical Manner of
Singing the Psalms. She introduces above fifty _Italian_ Airs into the
hundredth Psalm, and whilst we begin _All People_ in the old solemn
Tune of our Forefathers, she in a quite different Key runs Divisions
on the Vowels, and adorns them with the Graces of _Nicolini_; if she
meets with Eke or Aye, which are frequent in the Metre of _Hopkins_
and _Sternhold_,[4] we are certain to hear her quavering them half a
Minute after us to some sprightly Airs of the Opera.

I am very far from being an Enemy to Church Musick; but fear this
Abuse of it may make my _Parish_ ridiculous, who already look on the
Singing Psalms as an Entertainment, and no Part of their Devotion:
Besides, I am apprehensive that the Infection may spread, for Squire
_Squeekum_, who by his Voice seems (if I may use the Expression) to be
cut out for an _Italian_ Singer, was last _Sunday_ practising the same
Airs.

I know the Lady's Principles, and that she will plead the Toleration,
which (as she fancies) allows her Non-Conformity in this Particular;
but I beg you to acquaint her, That Singing the Psalms in a different
Tune from the rest of the Congregation, is a Sort of Schism not
tolerated by that Act.

_I am, SIR, Your very humble Servant,_ R. S.

_Mr._ SPECTATOR,

In your Paper upon Temperance, you prescribe to us a Rule of
drinking, out of Sir _William Temple_, in the following Words; _The
first Glass for myself, the second for my Friends, the third for
Good-humour, and the fourth for mine Enemies_. Now, Sir, you must
know, that I have read this your _Spectator_, in a Club whereof I am a
Member; when our President told us, there was certainly an Error in
the Print, and that the Word _Glass_ should be _Bottle;_ and therefore
has ordered me to inform you of this Mistake, and to desire you to
publish the following _Errata:_ In the Paper of _Saturday, Octob._
13, Col. 3. Line 11, for _Glass_ read _Bottle_.

_Yours_, Robin Good-fellow.

L.

[Footnote 1: Metaphor,]

[Footnote 2: that]

[Footnote 3: As the Roderigo whose money Iago used.]

[Footnote 4: Thomas Sternhold who joined Hopkins, Norton, and others in translation of the Psalms, was groom of the robes to Henry VIII. and Edward VI.]