Chapter VI: Section III: On Reading and Speaking, (4)

3. These three very reasons why he should not be proud, are, notwithstanding, the reasons why he is so. Were not he a sinful creature, he would not be subject to a passion which rises from the depravity of his nature; were he not an ignorant creature, he would see that he has nothing to be proud of; and were not the whole species miserable, he would not have those wretched objects before his eyes, which are the occasions of this passion, and which make one man value himself more than another.

4. A wise man will be contented that his glory be deferred till such time as he shall be truly glorified; when his understanding shall be cleared his will rectified, and his happiness assured; or, in other words, when he shall be neither sinful, nor ignorant, nor miserable.

5. If there be any thing which makes human nature appear _ridiculous_ to beings of superior faculties, it must be pride. They know so well the vanity of those imaginary perfections that swell the heart of man, and of those little supernumerary advantages, whether in birth, fortune, or title, which one man enjoys above another, that it must certainly very much astonish, if it does not very much divert them, when they see a mortal puffed up, and valuing himself above his neighbours on any of these accounts, at the same time that he is obnoxious to all the common calamities of the species.

6. To set this thought in its true light, we will fancy, if you please, that yonder mole-hill is inhabited by reasonable creatures, and that every pismire (his shape and way of life only excepted) is endowed with human passions. How should we smile to hear one give us an account of the pedigrees, distinctions, and titles that reign among them!

7. Observe how the whole swarm divide and make way for the pismire that passes through them! You must understand he is an emmet of quality, and has better blood in his veins than any pismire in the mole-hill.--Don't you see how sensible he is of it, how slow he marches forward, how the whole rabble of ants keep their distance?

8. Here you may observe one placed upon a little eminence, and looking down upon a long row of labourers. He is the richest insect on this side the hillock, he has a walk of half a yard in length, and a quarter of an inch in breadth, he keeps a hundred menial servants, and has at least fifteen barley-corns in his granary. He is now chiding and beslaving the emmet that stands before him, and who, for all that we can discover, is as good an emmet as himself.

9. But here comes an insect of figure! don't you take notice of a little white straw that he carries in his mouth? That straw, you must understand, he would not part with for the longest tract about the mole-hill: did you but know what he has undergone to purchase it! See how the ants of all qualities and conditions swarm about him! Should this straw drop out of his mouth, you would see all this numerous circle of attendants follow the next that took it up, and leave the discarded insect, or run over his back to come at his successor.

10. If now you have a mind to see all the ladies of the mole-hill, observe first the pismire that listens to the emmet on her left hand, at the same time that she seems to turn away her head from him. He tells this poor insect that she is a goddess, that her eyes are brighter than the sun, that life and death are at her disposal. She believes him, and gives herself a thousand little airs upon it.

11. Mark the vanity of the pismire on your left hand. She can scarce crawl with age; but you must know she values herself upon her birth; and if you mind, spurns at every one that comes within her reach. The little nimble coquette that is running along by the side of her, is a wit. She has broke many a pismire's heart. Do but observe what a drove of lovers are running after her.

12. We will here finish this imaginary scene; but first of all, to draw the parallel closer, will suppose, if you please, that death comes down upon the mole-hill in the shape of a cock-sparrow, who picks up without distinction, the pismire of quality and his flatterers, the pismire of substance and his day labourers, the white straw officer and his sycophants, with all the goddesses, wits, and beauties of the mole-hill.

13. May we not imagine that beings of superior natures and perfections regard all the instances of pride and vanity, among our own species, in the same kind of view, when they take a survey of those who inhabit the earth; or, in the language of an ingenious _French_ poet, of those pismires that people this heap of dirt, which human vanity has divided into climates and regions.

GUARDIAN, Vol. II. No. 153.

_Drunkenness_.

1. No vices are so incurable as those which men are apt to glory in. One would wonder how drunkenness should have the good luck to be of this number. _Anarcharsis_, being invited to a match of drinking at Corinth, demanded the prize very humourously, because he was drunk before any of the rest of the company, for, says he, when we run a race, he who arrives at the goal first, is entitled to the reward:

2. On the contrary, in this thirsty generation, the honour falls upon him who carries off the greatest quantity of liquor, and knocks down the rest of the company. I was the other day with honest _Will Funnell_, the West Saxon, who was reckoning up how much liquor had passed through him in the last twenty years of his life, which, according to his computation, amounted to twenty-three hogsheads of October, four ton of port, half a kilderkin of small-beer, nineteen barrels of cyder, and three glasses of champaigne; besides which he had assisted at four hundred bowls of punch, not to mention sips, drams, and whets without number.

3. I question not but every reader's memory will suggest to him several ambitious young men, who are as vain in this particular as _Will Funnell_, and can boast of as glorious exploits.

Our modern philosophers observe, that there is a general decay of moisture in the globe of the earth. This they chiefly ascribe to the growth of vegetables, which incorporate into their own substance many fluid bodies that never return again to their former nature:

4. But with submission, they ought to throw into their account, those innumerable rational beings which fetch their nourishment chiefly out of liquids: especially when we consider that men, compared with their fellow-creatures, drink much more than comes to their share.

5. But however highly this tribe of people may think of themselves, a drunken man is a greater monster than any that is to be found among all the creatures which God has made; as indeed there is no character which appears more despicable and deformed, in the eyes of all reasonable persons, than that of a drunkard.

6. _Bonosus_, one of our own countrymen, who was addicted to this vice, having set up for a share in the Roman empire, and being defeated in a great battle, hanged himself. When he was seen by the army in this melancholy situation, notwithstanding he had behaved himself very bravely, the common jest was, that the thing they saw hanging upon the tree before them, was not a man, but a bottle.

7. This vice has very fatal effects on the mind, the body and fortune of the person who is devoted to it.

In regard to the mind, it first of all discovers every flaw in it. The sober man, by the strength of reason, may keep under and subdue every vice or folly to which he is most inclined; but wine makes every latent seed sprout up in the soul, and shew itself: it gives fury to the passions, and force to those objects which are apt to produce them.

8. When a young fellow complained to an old philosopher that his wife was not handsome; Put less water into your wine, says the philosopher, and you'll quickly make her so. Wine heightens indifference into love, love into jealousy, and jealousy into madness. It often turns the good natured man into an idiot, and the choleric into an assassin. It gives bitterness to resentment, it makes vanity insupportable, and displays every little spot of the soul in its utmost deformity.

9. Nor does this vice only betray the hidden faults of a man, and shew them in most odious colours, but often occasions faults to which he is not naturally subject. There is more of turn than of truth in a saying of _Seneca_, that drunkenness does not produce, but discover faults. Common experience teaches the contrary.

10. Wine throws a man out of himself, and infuses qualities into the mind, which she is a stranger to in her sober moments. The person you converse with, after the third bottle, is not the same man who at first sat down at the table with you. Upon this maxim is founded one of the prettiest sayings I ever met with, which is inscribed to _Publius Syrus, He who jests unto a man that is drunk, injures the absent_.

11. Thus does drunkenness act in direct contradiction to reason, whose business it is to clear the mind of every vice which is crept into it, and to guard it against all the approaches of any that endeavour to make its entrance. But besides these ill effects which this vice produces in the person who is actually under its dominion, it has also a bad influence on the mind, even in its sober moments, as it insensibly weakens the understanding, impairs the memory, and makes those faults habitual which are produced by frequent excesses: it wastes the estate, banishes reputation, consumes the body, and renders a man of the brightest parts the common jest of an insignificant clown.

12. A method of spending one's time agreeably is a thing so little studied, that the common amusement of our young gentlemen (especially of such as are at a great distance from those of the first breeding) is drinking. This way of entertainment has custom on its side; but as much as it has prevailed, I believe there have been very few companies that have been guilty of excess this way, where there have not happened more accidents which make against, than for the continuance of it.

13. It is very common that events arise from a debauch which are fatal, and always such as are disagreeable. With all a man's reason and good sense about him, his tongue is apt to utter things out of a mere gaiety of heart, which may displease his best friends. Who then would trust himself to the power of wine, without saying more against it, than, that it raises the imagination and depresses judgment?

14. Were there only this single consideration, that we are less masters of ourselves when we drink in the least proportion above the exigencies of thirst: I say, were this all that could be objected, it were sufficient to make us abhor this vice. But we may go on to say, that as he who drinks but a little is not master of himself, so he who drinks much is a slave to himself.

15. As for my part, I ever esteemed a drunkard of all vicious persons the most vicious: for if our actions are to be weighed and considered according to the intention of them, what can we think of him who puts himself into a circumstance wherein he can have no intention at all, but incapacitates himself for the duties and offices of life, by a suspension of all his faculties.

16. If a man considers that he cannot, under the oppression of drink, be a friend, a gentleman, a master, or a subject; that he has so long banished himself from all that is dear, and given up all that is sacred to him, he would even then think of a debauch with horror; but when he looks still further, and acknowledges that he is not only expelled out of all the relations of life, but also liable to offend against them all, what words can express the terror and detestation he would have of such a condition? And yet he owns all this of himself who says he was drunk last night.

17. As I have all along persisted in it, that all the vicious in general are in a state of death, so I think I may add to the non-existence of drunkards that they died by their own hands. He is certainly as guilty of suicide who perishes by a slow, as he that is dispatched by an immediate poison.

18. In my last lucubration I proposed the general use of water-gruel, and hinted that it might not be amiss at this very season: but as there are some, whose cases, in regard to their families, will not admit of delay, I have used my interest in several wards of the city, that the wholesome restorative above-mentioned may be given in tavern kitchens to all the mornings draught-men within the walls when they call for wine before noon.

19. For a further restraint and mark upon such persons, I have given orders, that in all the officers where policies are drawn upon lives, it shall be added to the article which prohibits that the nominee should cross the sea, the words, _Provided also, That the above-mentioned_ A.B. _shall not drink before dinner during the term mentioned in this indenture_.

20. I am not without hopes that by this method I shall bring some unsizeable friends of mine into shape and breadth, as well as others who are languid and consumptive into health and vigour. Most of the self-murderers whom I yet hinted at, are such as preserve a certain regularity in taking their poison, and make it mix pretty well with their food:

21. But the most conspicuous of those who destroy themselves, are such as in their youth fall into this sort of debauchery, and contract a certain uneasiness of spirit, which is not to be diverted but by tippling as often as they can fall into company in the day, and conclude with down-right drunkenness at night. These gentlemen never know the satisfaction of youth, but skip the years of manhood, and are decrepid soon after they are of age.

22. I was godfather to one of these old fellows. He is now three and thirty, which is the grand climacteric of a young drunkard. I went to visit the crazy wretch this morning, with no other purpose but to rally him, under the pain and uneasiness of being sober.

But as our faults are double when they effect others besides ourselves, so this vice is still more odious in a married than a single man.

23. He that is the husband of a woman of honour, and comes home overloaded with wine, is still more contemptible, in proportion to the regard we have to the unhappy consort of his bestiality. The imagination cannot shape to itself any thing more monstrous and unnatural, than the familiarities between drunkenness and chastity. The wretched _Astræa_, who is the perfection of beauty and innocence, has long been thus condemned for life. The romantic tales of virgins devoted to the jaws of monsters, have nothing in them so terrible, as the gift of _Astræa_ to that bacchanal.

24. The reflection of such a match as spotless innocence with abandoned lewdness, is what puts this vice in the worst figure it can bear with regard to others; but when it is looked upon with respect only to the drunkard himself, it has deformities enough to make it disagreeable, which may be summed up in a word, by allowing, that he who resigns his reason, is actually guilty of all that he is liable to from the want of reason.

TATLER, Vol. IV, No. 241.

_Gaming_.

SIR,

1. 'As soon as you have set up your unicorn, there is no question but the ladies will make him push very furiously at the men; for which reason, I think it is good to be beforehand with them, and make the lion roar aloud at female irregularities. Among these I wonder how their gaming has so long escaped your notice.

2. 'You who converse with the sober family of the _Lizards_, are, perhaps, a stranger to these viragoes; but what would you say, should you see the _Sparkler_ shaking her elbow for a whole night together, and thumping the table with a dice-box? Or how would you like to hear good widow lady herself returning to her house at midnight and alarming the whole street with a most enormous rap, after having sat up till that time at crimp or ombre? Sir, I am the husband of one of these female gamesters, and a great loser by it both in rest my and pocket. As my wife reads your papers, one upon this subject might be of use both to her, and;

YOUR HUMBLE SERVANT.'

3. I should ill deserve the name of _Guardian_, did I not caution all my fair wards against a practice, which, when it runs to excess, is the most shameful but one that the female world can fall into. The ill consequences of it are more than can be contained in this paper. However, that I may proceed in method, I shall consider them, First, as they relate to the mind; Secondly, as they relate to the body.

4. Could we look into the mind of a female gamester, we should see it full of nothing but trumps and mattadores. Her slumbers are haunted with kings, queens, and knaves. The day lies heavy upon her till the play-season returns, when for half a dozen hours together, all her faculties are employed in shuffling, cutting, dealing and sorting out a pack of cards; and no ideas to be discovered in a soul which calls itself rational, excepting little square figures of painted and spotted paper.

5. Was the understanding, that divine part in our composition, given for such an use? Is it thus that we improve the greatest talent human nature is endowed with? What would a superior being think, were he shewn this intellectual faculty in a female gamester, and at the same time told, that it was by this she was distinguished from brutes, and allied to angels?

6. 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?

7. 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.

8. Our minds are of such a make, that they naturally give themselves up to every diversion which they are much accustomed to, and we always find, that play, when followed with assiduity, engrosses the whole woman. She quickly grows uneasy in her own family, takes but little pleasure in all the domestic innocent endearments of life, and grows more fond of _Pam_ than of her husband.

9. My friend _Theophrastus_, the best of husbands and of fathers, has often complained to me, with tears in his eyes, of the late hours he is forced to keep if he would enjoy his wife's conversation. When she returns to me with joy in her face, it does not arise, says he, from the sight of her husband but from the good luck she has had at cards.

10. On the contrary, says he, if she has been a loser, I am doubly a sufferer by it. She comes home out of humor, is angry with every body, displeased with all I can do or say, and in reality for no other reason but because she has been throwing away my estate. What charming bed fellows and companions for life are men likely to meet with, that chuse their wives out of such women of vogue and fashion? What a race of worthies, what patriots, what heroes must we expect from mothers of this make?

11. I come in the next place to consider the ill consequences which gaming has on the bodies of our female adventurers. It is so ordered, that almost every thing which corrupts the soul decays the body. The beauties of the face and mind are generally destroyed by the same means. This consideration should have a particular weight with the female world, who are designed to please the eye and attract the regards of the other half of the species.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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 lauds 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 consider the consequences.

15. It is needless here to mention the ill consequences attending this passion among the men, who are often bubbled out of their money and estates by sharpers, and to make up their loss, have recourse to means productive of dire events, instances of which frequently occur; for strictly speaking, those who set their minds upon gaming, can hardly be honest; a man's reflections, after losing, render him desperate, so as to commit violence either upon himself or some other person, and therefore gaming should be discouraged in all well regulated communities.

_Whisperers_.

SIR,

1. As the ladies are naturally become the immediate objects of your care, will you permit a complaint to be inserted in your paper, which is founded upon matter of fact? They will pardon me, if by laying before you a particular instance I was lately witness to of their improper behaviour, I endeavour to expose a reigning evil, which subjects them to many shameful imputations.

2. I received last week a dinner card from a friend, with an intimation that I should meet some very agreeable ladies. At my arrival, I found that the company consisted chiefly of females, who indeed did me the honour to rise, but quite disconcerted me in paying my respects, by their whispering each other, and appearing to stifle a laugh. When I was seated, the ladies grouped themselves up in a corner, and entered into a private cabal, seemingly to discourse upon points of great secrecy and importance, but of equal merriment and diversion.

3. The same conduct of keeping close to their ranks was observed at table, where the ladies seated themselves together. Their conversation was here also confined wholly to themselves, and seemed like the mysteries of the _Bonna Deo_, in which men were forbidden to have any share. It was a continued laugh and a whisper from the beginning to the end of dinner. A whole sentence was scarce ever spoken aloud.

4. Single words, indeed, now and then broke forth; such as _odious_, _horrid_, _detestable_, _shocking_, HUMBUG. This last new-coined expression, which is only to be found in the nonsensical vocabulary, sounds absurd and disagreeable, whenever it is pronounced; but from the mouth of a lady it is, "shocking, detestable, horrible and odious."

5. My friend seemed to be in an uneasy situation at his own table; but I was far more miserable. I was mute, and seldom dared to lift up my eyes from my plate, or turn my head to call for small beer, lest by some aukward posture I might draw upon me a whisper or a laugh. _Sancho_, when he was forbid to eat of a delicious banquet set before him, could scarce appear more melancholy.

6. The rueful length of my face might possibly increase the mirth of my tormentors: at least their joy seemed to rise in exact proportion with my misery. At length, however, the time of my delivery approached. Dinner ended, the ladies made their exit in pairs, and went off hand in hand whispering like the two kings of _Brentford_.

7. Modest men, Mr. _Town_, are deeply wounded when they imagine themselves the subjects of ridicule or contempt; and the pain is the greater, when it is given by those whom they admire, and from whom they are ambitious of receiving any marks of countenance and favour. Yet we must allow, that affronts are pardonable from ladies, as they are often prognostics of future kindness.

8. If a lady strikes our cheek, we can very willingly follow the precept of the gospel, and turn the other cheek to be smitten: even a blow from a fair hand conveys pleasure. But this battery of whispers is against all legal rights of war; poisoned arrows and stabs in the dark, are not more repugnant to the general laws of humanity.

9. Modern writers of comedy often introduce a pert titling into their pieces, who is very severe upon the rest of the company; but all his waggery is spoken _aside_.--These giglers and whisperers seem to be acting the same part in company that this arch rogue does in the play. Every word or motion produces a train of whispers; the dropping of a snuff-box, or spilling the tea, is sure to be accompanied with a titter: and, upon the entrance of any one with something particular in his person, or manner, I have seen a whole room in a buz like a bee hive.

10. This practice of whispering, if it is any where allowable, may perhaps be indulged the fair sex at church, where the conversation can only be carried on by the secret symbols of a curtsy, an ogle, or a nod. A whisper in this place is very often of great use, as it serves to convey the most secret intelligence, which a lady would be ready to burst with, if she could not find vent for it by this kind of auricular confession. A piece of scandal transpires in this manner from one pew to another, then presently whizes along the channel, from whence it crawls up to the galleries, till at last the whole church hums with it.

11. It were also to be wished, that the ladies would be pleased to confine themselves to whispering in their _tete-a-tete_ conferences at an opera or the play-house; which would be a proper deference to the rest of the audience. In _France_, we are told, it is common for the _parterre_ to join with the performers in any favorite air: but we seem to have carried this custom still further, as the company in our boxes, without concerning themselves in the least with the play, are even louder than the players.

12. The wit and humour of a _Vanbrugh_, or a _Congreve,_ is frequently interrupted by a brilliant dialogue between two persons of fashion; and a love scene in the side box has often been more attended to, than that on the stage. As to their loud bursts of laughter at the theatre, they may very well be excused, when they are excited by any lively strokes in a comedy: but I have seen our ladies titter at the most distressful scenes in _Romeo_ and _Juliet_, grin over the anguish of a _Monimia_, or _Belvidera_, and fairly laugh king _Lear_ off the stage.

13. Thus the whole behaviour of these ladies is in direct contradiction to good manners. They laugh when they should cry, are loud when they should be silent, and are silent when their conversation is desirable. If a man in a select company was thus to laugh or whisper me out of countenance, I should be apt to construe it as an affront, and demand an explanation.

14. As to the ladies I would desire them to reflect how much they would suffer, if their own weapons were turned against them, and the gentlemen should attack them with the same arts of laughing and whispering. But, however free they may be from our resentment, they are still open to ill-natured suspicions. They do not consider, what strange constructions may be put on these laughs and whispers.

15. It were indeed, of little consequence, if we only imagined, that they were taking the reputation of their acquaintance to pieces, or abusing the company round; but when they indulge themselves in this behaviour, some perhaps may be led to conclude, that they are discoursing upon topics, which they are ashamed to speak of in a less private manner.

16. If the misconduct which I have described, had been only to be found, Mr. _Town_, at my friend's table, I should not have troubled you with this letter: but the same kind of ill breeding prevails too often, and in too many places. The giglers and the whisperers are innumerable; they beset us wherever we go; and it is observable, that after a short murmur of whispers, out comes the burst of laughter: like a gunpowder serpent, which, after hissing about for some time, goes off in a bounce.

17. Some excuse may perhaps be framed for this ill-timed merriment, in the fair sex. _Venus_, the goddess of beauty, is frequently called _laughter-loving dame_; and by laughing, our modern ladies may possibly imagine, that they render themselves like _Venus_. I have indeed remarked, that the ladies commonly adjust their laugh to their persons, and are merry in proportion as it sets off their particular charms.

18. One lady is never further moved than to a smile or a simper, because nothing else shews her dimples to so much advantage; another who has a fine set of teeth, runs into a broad grin; while a third, who is admired for a well turned neck and graceful chest, calls up all her beauties to view by breaking into violent and repeated peals of laughter.

19. I would not be understood to impose gravity or too great a reserve on the fair sex. Let them laugh at a feather; but let them declare openly, that it is a feather which occasions their mirth. I must confess, that laughter becomes the young, the gay, and the handsome: but a whisper is unbecoming at all ages, and in both sexes: nor ought it ever to be practised, except in the round gallery of St. _Paul's_, or in the famous whispering place in _Gloucester_ cathedral, where two whisperers hear each other at the distance of five-and-twenty yards.

_I am, Sir,

Your humble Servant._

_Beauty_.

1. Though the danger of disappointment is always in proportion to the height of expectation, yet I this day claim the attention of the ladies, and profess to teach an art by which all may obtain what has hitherto been deemed the prerogative of a few: an art by which their predominant passion may be gratified, and their conquest not only extended, but secured; "The art of being PRETTY."

2. But though my subject may interest the ladies, it may, perhaps, offend those profound moralists who have long since determined, that beauty ought rather to be despised than desired; that, like strength, it is a mere natural excellence, the effect that causes wholly out of our power, and not intended either as the pledge of happiness or the distinction of merit.

3. To these gentlemen I shall remark, that beauty is among those qualities which no effort of human wit could ever bring into contempt: it is therefore to be wished at least, that beauty was in some degree dependent upon sentiment and manners, that so high a privilege might not be possessed by the unworthy, and that human reason might no longer suffer the mortification of those who are compelled to adore an idol, which differs from a stone or log only by the skill of the artificer: and if they cannot themselves behold beauty with indifference, they must, surely, approve an attempt to shew that it merits their regard.

4. I shall, however, principally consider that species of beauty which is expressed in the countenance; for this alone is peculiar to human beings, and is not less complicated than their nature. In the countenance there are but two requisites to perfect beauty, which are wholly produced by external causes, colour and proportion: and it will appear, that even in common estimation these are not the chief; but that though there may be beauty without them, yet there cannot be beauty without something more.

5. The finest features, ranged in the most exact symmetry, and heightened by the most blooming complexion, must be animated before they can strike; and when they are animated, will generally excite the same passions which they express. If they are fixed in the dead calm of insensibility, they will be examined without emotion; and if they do not express kindness, they will be beheld without love.

6. Looks of contempt, disdain, or malevolence, will be reflected, as from a mirror, by every countenance on which they are turned; and if a wanton aspect excites desire; it is but like that of a savage for his prey, which cannot be gratified without the destruction of its object.

7. Among particular graces, the dimple has always been allowed the pre-eminence, and the reason is evident; dimples are produced by a smile, and a smile is an expression of complacency; so the contraction of the brows into a frown, as it is an indication of a contrary temper, has always been deemed a capital defect.

8. The lover is generally at a loss to define the beauty, by which his passion was suddenly and irresistibly determined to a particular object; but this could never happen, if it depended upon any known rule of proportion, upon the shape and disposition of the features, or the colour of the skin: he tells you that it is something which he cannot fully express, something not fixed in any part, but diffused over the whole; he calls it a sweetness, a softness, a placid sensibility, or gives it some other appellation which connects beauty with sentiment, and expresses a charm which is not peculiar to any set of features, but is perhaps possible to all.

9. This beauty, however, does not always consist in smiles, but varies as expressions of meekness and kindness vary with their objects: it is extremely forcible in the silent complaint of patient sufferance, the tender solicitude of friendship, and the glow of filial obedience; and in tears, whether of joy, of pity, or of grief, it is almost irresistible.

10. This is the charm which captivates without the aid of nature, and without which her utmost bounty is ineffectual. But it cannot be assumed as a mask to conceal insensibility or malevolence; it must be the genuine effect of corresponding sentiments, or it will impress upon the countenance a new and more disgusting deformity, affectation: it will produce the grin, the simper, the stare, the languish, the pout, and innumerable other grimaces, that render folly ridiculous, and change pity to contempt.

11. By some, indeed, this species of hypocrisy has been practised with such skill as to deceive superficial observers, though it can deceive even those but for a moment.--Looks which do not correspond with the heart, cannot be assumed without labour, nor continued without pain; the motive to relinquish them must, therefore, soon preponderate, and the aspect and apparel of the visit will be laid by together; the smiles and languishments of art will vanish, and the fierceness of rage, or the gloom of discontent, will either obscure or destroy all the elegance of symmetry and complexion.

12. The artificial aspect is, indeed, as wretched a substitute for the expression of sentiment; as the smear of paint for the blushes of health: it is not only equally transient, and equally liable to dejection; but as paint leaves the countenance yet more withered and ghastly, the passions burst out with move violence after restraint, the features become more distorted and excite more determined aversion.

13. Beauty, therefore, depends principally upon the mind, and, consequently, may be influenced by education. It has been remarked, that the predominant passion may generally be discovered in the countenance; because the muscles by which it is expressed, being almost perpetually contracted, lose their tone, and never totally relax; so that the expression remains when the passion is suspended; thus an angry, a disdainful, a subtle and a suspicious temper, is displayed in characters that are almost universally understood.

14. It is equally true of the pleasing and the softer passions, that they leave their signatures upon the countenance when they cease to act: the prevalence of these passions, therefore, produces a mechanical effect upon the aspect, and gives a turn and cast to the features which makes a more favorable and forcible impression upon the mind of others, than any charm produced by mere external causes.

15. Neither does the beauty which depends upon temper and sentiment, equally endanger the possessor: "It is," to use an eastern metaphor, "like the towers of a city, not only an ornament, but a defence;" if it excites desire, it at once controls and refines it; it represses with awe, it softens with delicacy, and it wins to imitation. The love of reason and virtue is mingled with the love of beauty; because this beauty is little more than the emanation of intellectual excellence, which is not an object of corporeal appetite.

16. As it excites a purer passion, it also more forcibly engages to fidelity: every man finds himself more powerfully restrained from giving pain to goodness than to beauty; and every look of a countenance in which they are blended, in which beauty is the expression of goodness, is a silent reproach of the first irregular wish: and the purpose immediately appears to be disingenious and cruel, by which the tender hope of ineffable affection would be disappointed, the placid confidence of unsuspected simplicity abased, and the peace even of virtue endangered by the most sordid infidelity, and the breach of the strongest obligations.

17. But the hope of the hypocrite must perish. When the fictitious beauty has laid by her smiles, when the lustre of her eyes and the bloom of her cheeks have lost their influence with their novelty; what remains but a tyrant divested of power, who will never be seen without a mixture of indignation and disdain? The only desire which this object could gratify, will be transferred to another, not only without reluctance, but with triumph.

18. As resentment will succeed to disappointment, a desire to mortify will succeed to a desire to please; and the husband may be urged to solicit a mistress, merely by a remembrance of the beauty of his wife, which lasted only till she was known.

Let it therefore be remembered, that none can be disciples of the Graces, but in the school of Virtue; and that those who wish to be lovely, must learn early to be good.

19. A FRIEND of mine has two daughters, whom I will call _Lætitia_ and _Daphne_. The former is one of the greatest beauties of the age in which she lives; the latter no way remarkable for any charms in her person. Upon this one circumstance of their outward form, the good and ill of their life seem to turn. _Lætitia_ has not from her very childhood heard any thing else but commendations of her features and complexion, by which means she is no other than nature made her, a very beautiful outside.

20. The consciousness of her charms has rendered her insupportably vain and insolent towards all who have to do with her. _Daphne_, who was almost twenty before one civil thing had ever been said to her, found herself obliged to acquire some accomplishments to make up for the want of those attractions which she saw in her sister.

21. Poor _Daphne_ was seldom submitted to in a debate wherein she was concerned; her discourse had nothing to recommend it but the good sense of it, and she was always under a necessity to have very well considered what she was to say before she uttered it; while _Lætitia_ was listened to with partiality, and approbation sat in the countenances of those she conversed with, before she communicated what she had to say.

22. These causes have produced suitable effects, and _Lætitia_ is as insipid a companion as _Daphne_ is an agreeable one. _Lætitia_, confident of favour, has studied no arts to please: _Daphne_, despairing of any inclination towards her person, has depended only on her merit. _Lætitia_ has always something in her air that is sullen, grave and disconsolate.

23. _Daphne_ has a countenance that appears cheerful, open and unconcerned. A young gentleman saw _Lætitia_ this winter at play, and became her captive. His fortune was such, that he wanted very little introduction to speak his sentiments to her father. The lover was admitted with the utmost freedom into the family, where a constrained behaviour, severe looks, and distant civilities were the highest favours he could obtain from _Lætitia_; while _Daphne_ used him with the good humour, familiarity, and innocence of a sister.

24. Insomuch that he would often say to her, _Dear Daphne, wert thou but as handsome as Lætitia!_--She received such language with that ingenious and pleasing mirth, which is natural to a woman without design. He still sighed in vain for _Lætitia_ but found certain relief in the agreeable conversation of _Daphne_. At length, heartily tired with the haughty impertinence of _Lætitia_, and charmed with repeated instances of good humour he had observed in _Daphne_, he one day told the latter, that he had something to say to her he hoped she would be pleased with.

25. ----_Faith Daphne_, continued he, _I am in love with thee, and despise thy sister sincerely_. The manner of his declaring himself gave his mistress occasion for a very hearty laughter.--_Nay_, says he, _I knew you would laugh at me, but I'll ask your father_. He did so; the father received his intelligence with no less joy than surprize, and was very glad he had now no care left but for his beauty, which he thought he would carry to market at his leisure.

26. I do not know any thing that has pleased me so much a great while, as this conquest of my friend _Daphne's_. All her acquaintance congratulate her upon her chance medley, and laugh at that premeditating murderer, her sister. As it is an argument of a light mind, to think the worse of ourselves for the imperfections of our persons, it is equally below us to value ourselves upon the advantages of them.

27. The female world seems to be almost incorrigibly gone astray in this particular; for which reason, I shall recommend the following extract out of a friend's letter to the profess'd beauties, who are a people almost as insufferable as the profess'd wits.

'Monsier St. _Evrement_ has concluded one of his essays with affirming, that the last sighs of a handsome woman are not so much for the loss of her life, as her beauty.

28. 'Perhaps this raillery is pursued too far, yet it is turned upon a very obvious remark, that woman's strongest passion is for her own beauty, and that she values it as her favourite distinction. From hence it is that all hearts, which intend to improve or preserve it, meet with so general a reception among the sex.

29. To say nothing Of many false helps, and contraband wares of beauty, which are daily vended in this great mart, there is not a maiden gentlewoman, of a good family, in any county of _South Britain_, who has not heard of the virtues of may-dew, or is unfurnished with some receipt or other in favour of her complexion; and I have known a physician of learning and sense, after eight years study in the university and a course of travels into most countries of _Europe_, owe the first raising of his fortune to a cosmetic wash.

30. 'This has given me occasion to consider how so universal a disposition in womankind, which springs from a laudable motive, the desire of pleasing, and proceeds upon an opinion, not altogether groundless, that nature may be helped by art, may be turned to their advantage. And, methinks, it would be an acceptable service to take them out of the hands of quacks and pretenders, and to prevent their imposing upon themselves, by discovering to them the true secret and art of improving beauty.

31. 'In order to do this, before I touch upon it directly, it will be necessary to lay down a few preliminary maxims, _viz._

That no woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more she can be witty only by the help of speech.

That pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the small-pox.

That no woman is capable of being beautiful, who is not incapable of being false.

And, that what would be odious in a friend, is deformity in a mistress.

32 'From these few principles thus laid down, it will be easy to prove that the true art of assisting beauty consists in embellishing the whole person by the proper ornaments of virtuous and commendable qualities. By this help alone it is, that those who are the favourite work of nature, or, as Mr. _Dryden_ expresses it, the porcelain clay of human kind, become animated, and are in a capacity of exerting their charms: and those who seem to have been neglected by her, like models wrought in haste, are capable, in a great measure, of finishing what she has left imperfect.

33. 'It is, methinks, a low and degrading idea of that sex, which was created to refine the joys, and soften the cares of humanity, by the most agreeable participation, to consider them merely as objects of sight.--This is abridging them of their natural extent of power to put them upon a level with their pictures at the pantheon. How much nobler is the contemplation of beauty heightened by virtue, and commanding our esteem and love, while it draws our observation?

34. 'How faint and spiritless are the charms of a coquette, when compared with the real loveliness of _Sophronia's_ innocence, piety, good-humour, and truth; virtues which add a new softness to her sex, and even beautify her beauty! That agreeableness, which must otherwise have appeared no longer in the modest virgin, is now preserved in the tender mother, the prudent friend and faithful wife'.

35. 'Colours artfully spread upon canvas may entertain the eye, but not affect the heart; and she, who takes no care to add to the natural graces of her person, any excelling qualities, may be allowed still to amuse as a picture, but not to triumph as a beauty.

'When _Adam_ is introduced by _Milton_ describing _Eve_ in Paradise, and relating to the angel the impressions he felt upon seeing her at her first creation, he does not represent her like a _Grecian Venus_, by her shape of features, but by the lustre of her mind which shone in them, and gave them their power of charming.

36.

Grace was in all her steps, Heav'n in her eye,
In all her gestures dignity and love:

'Without this irradiating power, the proudest fair-one ought to know, whatever her glass may tell her to the contrary, that her most perfect features are uninformed and dead.

'I cannot better close this moral, than by a short epitaph, written by _Ben Johnson_ with a spirit which nothing could inspire, but such an object as I have been describing.

'Underneath this stone doth lie,
As much virtue as could die;
Which when alive did vigour give
To as much beauty as could live.'

_I am, Sir_

_Your most humble Servant_,

R.B.

SPECTATOR, Vol. I. No.33.

_Honour_.

1. Every principle that is a motive to good actions, ought to be encouraged, since men are of so different a make, that the same principle does not work equally upon all minds. What some men are prompted to by conscience, duty, or religion, which are only different names for the same thing, others are prompted to by honour.

2. The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by great examples, or a refined education. This paper, therefore, is chiefly designed for those who by means of any of these advantages, are, or ought to be, actuated by this glorious principle.

3. 'But as nothing is more pernicious than a principle or action, when it is misunderstood, I shall consider honour with respect to three sorts of men. First of all, with regard to those who have a right notion of it. Secondly, with regard to those who have a mistaken notion of it. And thirdly, with regard to those who treat it as chimerical, and turn it into ridicule.

4. 'In the first place, true honour, though it be a different principle from religion, is that which produces the same effects. The lines of action, though drawn from different parts, terminate in the same point. Religion embraces virtue as it is enjoined by the laws of God: Honour, as it is graceful and ornamental to human nature.

5. 'The religious man _fears_, the man of honor _scorns_ to do an ill action. The former considers vice as something that is beneath him, the other as something that is offensive to the Divine Being. The one as what is _unbecoming_, the other as what _forbidden_. Thus _Seneca_ speaks in the natural and genuine language of a man of honor, when he declares that were there no God to see or punish vice, he would not commit it, because it is of so mean, so base, and so vile a nature.

6. 'I shall conclude this head with the description of honor in the part of young _Juba_.

Honour's a sacred tie, the law of kings,
The noble mind's distinguishing perfection,
That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her,
And imitates her actions where she is not.
It ought not to be sported with.-- CATO.

7. 'In the second place we are to consider those who have mistaken notions of honor, and these are such as establish any thing to themselves for a point of honor which is contrary either to the laws of God, or of their country; who think it is more honourable to revenge than to forgive an injury; who make no scruple of telling a lie, but would put any man to death that accuses them of it: who are more careful to guard their reputation by their courage than by their virtue.

8. 'True fortitude is indeed so becoming in human nature, that he who wants it scarce deserves the name of a man; but we find several who so much abuse this notion that they place the whole idea of honor in a kind of brutal courage; by which means we have had many among us who have called themselves men of honour, that would have been a disgrace to a gibbet.

9. In a word, the man who sacrifices any duty of a reasonable creature to a prevailing mode of fashion, who looks upon any thing as honourable that is displeasing to his Maker, or destructive to society, who thinks himself obliged by this principle to the practice of some virtues and not of others, is by no means to be reckoned among true men of honor.