The Spectator Volume Iii Part 60

_Mr_. SPECTATOR,

'You will oblige a languis.h.i.+ng Lover, if you will please to print the enclosed Verses in your next Paper. If you remember the _Metamorphosis_, you know _Procris_, the fond Wife of _Cephalus_, is said to have made her Husband, who delighted in the Sports of the Wood, a Present of an unerring Javelin. In process of time he was so much in the Forest, that his Lady suspected he was pursuing some Nymph, under the pretence of following a Chace more innocent. Under this Suspicion she hid herself among the Trees, to observe his Motions. While she lay conceal'd, her Husband, tired with the Labour of Hunting, came within her hearing. As he was fainting with Heat, he cried out, _Aura veni; Oh charming Air approach_.

'The unfortunate Wife, taking the Word _Air_ to be the name of a Woman, began to move among the Bushes; and the Husband believing it a Deer, threw his Javelin and kill'd her. This History painted on a Fan, which I presented to a Lady, gave occasion to my growing poetical.

'Come gentle Air! th'_ aeolian _Shepherd said, While_ Procris _panted in the secret Shade; Come gentle Air! the fairer_ Delia _cries, While at her Feet her Swain expiring lies.

Lo the glad Gales o'er all her Beauties stray, Breathe on her Lips, and in her Bosom play.

In_ Delia's _Hand this Toy is fatal found, Nor did that fabled Dart more surely wound.

Both Gifts destructive to the Givers prove, Alike both Lovers fall by those they love: Yet guiltless too this bright Destroyer lives, At random wounds, nor knows the Wound she gives.

She views the Story with attentive Eyes, And pities_ Procris, _while her Lover dies.'

[Footnote 1: This second letter and the verses were from Pope.]

No. 528. Wednesday, November 5, 1712. Steele.

'Dum potuit solite gemitum virtute repressit.'

Ovid.

_Mr_. SPECTATOR,

'I who now write to you, am a Woman loaded with Injuries, and the Aggravation of my Misfortune is, that they are such which are overlooked by the Generality of Mankind, and tho' the most afflicting imaginable, not regarded as such in the general Sense of the World. I have hid my Vexation from all Mankind; but have now taken Pen, Ink, and Paper, and am resolv'd to unbosom my self to you, and lay before you what grieves me and all the s.e.x. You have very often mentioned particular Hards.h.i.+ps done to this or that Lady; but, methinks, you have not in any one Speculation directly pointed at the partial Freedom Men take, the unreasonable Confinement Women are obliged to, in the only Circ.u.mstance in which we are necessarily to have a Commerce with them, that of Love. The Case of Celibacy is the great Evil of our Nation; and the Indulgence of the vicious Conduct of Men in that State, with the Ridicule to which Women are exposed, though ever so virtuous, if long unmarried, is the Root of the greatest Irregularities of this Nation. To shew you, Sir, that tho' you never have given us the Catalogue of a Lady's Library as you promised, we read good Books of our own chusing, I shall insert on this occasion a Paragraph or two out of _Echard's Roman History_. In the 44th Page of the second Volume the Author observes, that _Augustus_, upon his Return to _Rome_ at the end of a War, received Complaints that too great a Number of the young Men of Quality were unmarried. The Emperor thereupon a.s.sembled the whole _Equestrian_ Order; and having separated the Married from the Single, did particular Honours to the former, but he told the latter, that is to say, Mr. SPECTATOR, he told the Batchelors,

"That their Lives and Actions had been so peculiar, that he knew not by what Name to call 'em; not by that of Men, for they performed nothing that was manly; not by that of Citizens, for the City might perish notwithstanding their Care; nor by that of _Romans_, for they designed to extirpate the _Roman_ Name."

Then proceeding to shew his tender Care and hearty Affection for his People, he further told them,

"That their Course of Life was of such pernicious Consequence to the Glory and Grandeur of the _Roman_ Nation, that he could not chuse but tell them, that all other Crimes put together could not equalize theirs: For they were guilty of Murder, in not suffering those to be born which should proceed from them; of Impiety, in causing the Names and Honours of their Ancestors to cease; and of Sacrilege, in destroying their Kind, which proceeded from the immortal G.o.ds, and Human Nature, the princ.i.p.al thing consecrated to 'em: Therefore in this Respect they dissolved the Government, in disobeying its Laws; betrayed their Country, by making it barren and waste; nay and demolished their City, in depriving it of Inhabitants. And he was sensible that all this proceeded not from any kind of Virtue or Abstinence, but from a Looseness and Wantonness, which ought never to be encouraged in any Civil Government."

There are no Particulars dwelt upon that let us into the Conduct of these young Worthies, whom this great Emperor treated with so much Justice and Indignation; but any one who observes what pa.s.ses in this Town, may very well frame to himself a Notion of their Riots and Debaucheries all Night, and their apparent Preparations for them all Day. It is not to be doubted but these _Romans_ never pa.s.sed any of their Time innocently but when they were asleep, and never slept but when they were weary and heavy with Excesses, and slept only to prepare themselves for the Repet.i.tion of them. If you did your Duty as a SPECTATOR, you would carefully examine into the Number of Births, Marriages, and Burials; and when you had deducted out of your Deaths all such as went out of the World without marrying, then cast up the number of both s.e.xes born within such a Term of Years last past, you might from the single People departed make some useful Inferences or Guesses how many there are left unmarried, and raise some useful Scheme for the Amendment of the Age in that particular. I have not Patience to proceed gravely on this abominable Libertinism; for I cannot but reflect, as I am writing to you, upon a certain lascivious Manner which all our young Gentlemen use in publick, and examine our Eyes with a Petulancy in their own, which is a downright Affront to Modesty. A disdainful Look on such an Occasion is return'd with a Countenance rebuked, but by averting their Eyes from the Woman of Honour and Decency to some flippant Creature, who will, as the Phrase is, be kinder. I must set down things as they come into my Head, without standing upon Order. Ten thousand to one but the gay Gentleman who stared, at the same time is an House-keeper; for you must know they have got into a Humour of late of being very regular in their Sins, and a young Fellow shall keep his four Maids and three Footmen with the greatest Gravity imaginable. There are no less than six of these venerable House-keepers of my Acquaintance. This Humour among young Men of Condition is imitated by all the World below them, and a general Dissolution of Manners arises from the one Source of Libertinism, without Shame or Reprehension in the Male Youth. It is from this one Fountain that so many Beautiful helpless young Women are sacrific'd and given up to Lewdness, Shame, Poverty and Disease. It is to this also that so many excellent young Women, who might be Patterns of conjugal Affection and Parents of a worthy Race, pine under unhappy Pa.s.sions for such as have not Attention enough to observe, or Virtue enough to prefer them to their common Wenches. Now, _Mr_. SPECTATOR, I must be free to own to you, that I my self suffer a tasteless insipid Being, from a Consideration I have for a Man who would not, as he has said in my hearing, resign his Liberty, as he calls it, for all the Beauty and Wealth the whole s.e.x is possessed of. Such Calamities as these would not happen, if it could possibly be brought about, that by fining Batchelors as Papists Convict, or the like, they were distinguished to their disadvantage from the rest of the World, who fall in with the Measures of Civil Society. Lest you should think I speak this as being, according to the senseless rude Phrase, a malicious old Maid, I shall acquaint you I am a Woman of Condition not now three and twenty, and have had Proposals from at least ten different Men, and the greater Number of them have upon the Upshot refused me. Something or other is always amiss when the Lover takes to some new Wench: A Settlement is easily excepted against; and there is very little Recourse to avoid the vicious Part of our Youth, but throwing one's self away upon some lifeless Blockhead, who tho' he is without Vice, is also without Virtue. Now-a-days we must be contented if we can get Creatures which are not bad, good are not to be expected. Mr. SPECTATOR, I sat near you the other Day, and think I did not displease you Spectatorial Eyesight; which I shall be a better Judge of when I see whether you take notice of these Evils your own way, or print this Memorial dictated from the disdainful heavy Heart of,

_SIR_,

_Your most obedient humble Servant_,

Rachael Welladay.

T.

No. 529. Thursday, November 6, 1712. Addison.

'Singula quaeque loc.u.m teneant sort.i.ta decenter.'

Hor.

Upon the hearing of several late Disputes concerning Rank and Precedence, I could not forbear amusing my self with some Observations, which I have made upon the Learned World, as to this great Particular.

By the Learned World I here mean at large, all those who are any way concerned in Works of Literature, whether in the Writing, Printing or Repeating Part. To begin with the Writers; I have observed that the Author of a _Folio_, in all Companies and Conversations, sets himself above the Author of a _Quarto_; the Author of a _Quarto_ above the Author of an _Octavo_; and so on, by a gradual Descent and Subordination, to an Author in _Twenty Fours_. This Distinction is so well observed, that in an a.s.sembly of the Learned, I have seen a _Folio_ Writer place himself in an Elbow-Chair, when the Author of a _Duo-decimo_ has, out of a just Deference to his superior Quality, seated himself upon a Squabb. In a word, Authors are usually ranged in Company after the same manner as their Works are upon a Shelf.

The most minute Pocket-Author hath beneath him the Writers of all Pamphlets, or Works that are only st.i.tched. As for the Pamphleteer, he takes place of none but of the Authors of single Sheets, and of that Fraternity who publish their Labours on certain Days, or on every Day of the Week. I do not find that the Precedency among the Individuals, in this latter Cla.s.s of Writers, is yet settled.

For my own part, I have had so strict a regard to the Ceremonial which prevails in the Learned World, that I never presumed to take place of a Pamphleteer till my daily Papers were gathered into those two first Volumes, which have already appeared. After which, I naturally jumped over the Heads not only of all Pamphleteers, but of every _Octavo_ Writer in _Great Britain_, that had written but one Book. I am also informed by my Bookseller, that six _Octavo's_ have at all times been look'd upon as an Equivalent to a _Folio_, which I take notice of the rather, because I would not have the Learned World surprized, if after the Publication of half a dozen Volumes I take my Place accordingly.

When my scattered Forces are thus rallied, and reduced into regular Bodies, I flatter my self that I shall make no despicable Figure at the Head of them.

Whether these Rules, which have been received time out of Mind in the Common-Wealth of Letters, were not originally established with an Eye to our Paper Manufacture, I shall leave to the Discussion of others, and shall only remark further in this place, that all Printers and Booksellers take the Wall of one another, according to the abovementioned Merits of the Authors to whom they respectively belong.

I come now to that point of Precedency which is settled among the three Learned Professions, by the Wisdom of our Laws. I need not here take Notice of the Rank which is allotted to every Doctor in each of these Professions, who are all of them, though not so high as Knights, yet a Degree above Squires; this last Order of Men being the illiterate Body of the Nation, are consequently thrown together into a Cla.s.s below the three Learned Professions. I mention this for the sake of several Rural 'Squires, whose Reading does not rise so high as to _the Present State of England_, and who are often apt to usurp that Precedency which by the Laws of their Country is not due to them. Their Want of Learning, which has planted them in this Station, may in some measure extenuate their Misdemeanour; and our Professors ought to pardon them when they offend in this Particular, considering that they are in a State of Ignorance, or, as we usually say, do not know their Right Hand from their Left.

There is another Tribe of Persons who are Retainers to the Learned World, and who regulate themselves upon all Occasions by several Laws peculiar to their Body. I mean the Players or Actors of both s.e.xes.

Among these it is a standing and uncontroverted Principle, that a Tragedian always takes place of a Comedian; and 'tis very well known the merry Drolls who make us laugh are always placed at the lower End of the Table, and in every Entertainment give way to the Dignity of the Buskin.

It is a Stage Maxim, _Once a King, and always a King_. For this Reason it would be thought very absurd in Mr. Bullock, notwithstanding the Height and Gracefulness of his Person, to sit at the Right Hand of an Hero, tho' he were but five Foot high. The same Distinction is observed among the Ladies of the Theatre. Queens and Heroines preserve their Rank in private Conversation, while those who are Waiting-Women and Maids of Honour upon the Stage, keep their Distance also behind the Scenes.

I shall only add, that by a Parity of Reason, all Writers of Tragedy look upon it as their due to be seated, served, or saluted before Comick Writers: Those who deal in Tragi-Comedy usually taking their Seats between the Authors of either Side. There has been a long Dispute for Precedency between the Tragick and Heroick Poets. _Aristotle_ would have the latter yield the _Pas_ to the former, but Mr. _Dryden_ and many others would never submit to this Decision. Burlesque Writers pay the same Deference to the Heroick, as Comick Writers to their Serious Brothers in the Drama.

By this short Table of Laws, Order is kept up, and Distinction preserved in the whole Republick of Letters.