mean time we hope old age has not inclined | fashion came up. I have followed it thus far you in favour of our antagonists; for I do assure you sir, we are all your high admirers, though none more than, 'Sir, yours, &c. No. 109.] Thursday, July 16, 1713. Ovid. Amor. Lib. 1. Eleg. v. 14. Yet still she strove her naked charms to hide. I HAVE received many letters from persons of all conditions, in reference to my late discourse concerning the tucker. Some of them are filled with reproaches and invectives. A lady who subscribes herself Teraminta, bids me in a very pert manner mind my own affairs, and not pretend to meddle with their linen; for that they do not dress for an old fellow, who cannot see them without a pair of spectacles. Another, who calls herself Bubnelia, vents her passion in scurrilous terms; an old ninnyhammer, a dotard, a nincompoop, is the best language she can afford me. Florella, indeed, expostulates with me upon the subject, and only complains that she is forced to return a pair of stays which were made in the extremity of the fashion, that she might not be thought to encourage peeping. But if on the one side I have been used ill, (the common fate of all reformers) I have on the other side received great applauses and acknowledgments for what I have done, in having put a seasonable stop to this unaccountable humour of stripping, that was got among our British ladies. As I would much rather the world should know what is said to my praise, than to my disadvantage, I shall suppress what has been written to me by those who have reviled me on this occasion, and only publish those letters which approve my proceedings. 'SIR, 'I am to give you thanks in the name of half a dozen superannuated beauties, for your paper of the sixth instant. We all of us pass for women of fifty, and a man of your sense knows how many additional years are always to be thrown into female computations of this nature. We are very sensible that several young flirts about town had a design to cast us out of the fashionable world, and to leave us in the lurch by some of their late refinements, Two or three of them have been heard to say, that they would kill every old woman about town. In order to it, they began to throw off their clothes as fast as they could, and have played all those pranks which you have so seasonably taken notice of. We were forced to uncover, after them, being unwilling to give out so soon, and be regarded as veterans in the beau monde. Some of us have already caught our deaths by it. For my own part, I have not been without a cold ever since this foolish with the hazard of my life; and how much your humble servants and sisters.' I am very well pleased with this approbation of my good sisters. I must confess I have always looked on the tucker to be the decus et tutamen, the ornament and defence, of the female neck. My good old lady, the lady Lizard, condemned this fashion from the beginning, and has observed to me, with some concern, that her sex at the same time they are letting down their stays, are tucking up their petticoats, which grow shorter and shorter every day. The leg discovers itself in proportion with the neck. But I may possibly take another occasion of handling this extremity, it being my design to keep a watcbful eye over every part of the female sex, and to regulate them from head to foot. In the mean time I shall fill up my paper with a letter which comes to me from another of my obliged correspondents. DEAR GUARDEE, 'This comes to you from one of those untuckered ladies whom you were so sharp upon on Monday was se'nnight. I think myself mightily beholden to you for the reprehension you then gave us. You must know I am a famous olive beauty. But though this com. plexion makes a very good face when there are a couple of black sparkling eyes set in it, it makes but a very indifferent neck. Your fair women, therefore, thought of this fashion to insult the olives and the brunetts. They know very well, that a neck of ivory does not make so fine a show as one of alabaster. It is for this reason, Mr. Ironside, that they are so liberal in their discoveries. We know very well, that a woman of the whitest neck in the world, is to you no more than a woman of snow; but Ovid, in Mr. Duke's translation of him, seems to look upon it with another eye, when he talks of Corinna, and mentions all artificial whitenings. Could you examine | Lee's Alexander discovers him to be a Cartesian many of these ladies who present you with such in the first page of Edipus: beautiful snowy chests, you would find they are not all of a piece. Good father Nestor, do not let us alone until you have shortened our necks, and reduced them to their ancient THE candour which Horace shows in the motto of my paper, is that which distinguishes a critic from a caviller. He declares that he is not offended with those little faults in a poetical composition, which may be imputed to inadvertency, or to the imperfection of human nature. The truth of it is, there can be no more a perfect work in the world, than a perfect man. To say of a celebrated piece, that there are faults in it, is in effect to say no more, than that the author of it was a man. For this reason I consider every critic that attacks an author in high reputation, as the slave in the Roman triumph, who was to call out to the conqueror, 'Remember, sir, that you are a man.' I speak this in relation to the following letter, which criticises the works of a great poet, whose very faults have more beauty in them than the most elaborate compositions of many more correct writers. The remarks are very curious and just, and introduced by a compliment to the work of an author, who I am sure would not care for being praised at the expense of another's reputation. I must therefore desire my correspondent to excuse me, if I do not publish either the preface or conclusion of his letter, but only the critical part of it. 'SIR, * 'Our tragedy writers have been notoriously defective in giving proper sentiments to the persons they introduce. Nothing is more common than to hear a heathen talking of angels and devils, the joys of heaven, and the pains of hell, according to the Christian system. "The sun's sick too, • Shortly he'll be an earth" As Dryden's Cleomenes is acquainted with the Copernican hypothesis two thousand years before its invention. "I am pleas'd with my own work; Jove was not more 'I have now Mr. Dryden's Don Sebastian before me, in which I find frequent allusions to ancient history, and the old mythology of the heathen. It is not very natural to suppose a king of Portugal would be borrowing thoughts out of Ovid's Metamorphoses when he talked even to those of his own court; but to allude to these Roman fables when he talks to an emperor of Barbary, seems very extraordinary. But observe how he defies him out of the classics, in the following lines: "Why didst not thou engage me man to man, ، Almeyda at the same time is more booklearned than Don Sebastian. She plays a hydra upon the emperor that is full as good as the Gorgon. "O that I had the fruitful heads of hydra, 'She afterwards, in allusion to Hercules, bids him " lay down the lion's skin, and take the distaff;" and in the following speech utters her passion still more learnedly. "Nol were we join'd, even tho' it were in death, 'The emperor of Barbary shows himself acquainted with the Roman poets as well as either of his prisoners, and answers the foregoing speech in the same classic strain: "Serpent, I will engender poison with thee; 'Ovid seems to have been Muley Molock's favorite author, witness the lines that follow : "She still inexorable, still imperious And loud, as if, like Bacchus, born in thander." 'I shall conclude my remarks on his part with that poetical complaint of his being in love, and leave my reader to consider how prettily it would sound in the mouth of an emperor of Morocco : "The god of love once more nas shot his fires Into my soul, and my whole heart receives him." 'Muley Zeydan is as ingenious a man as his brother Muley Molock; as where he hints at the story of Castor and Pollux : "May we ne'er meet! For like the twins of Leda, when I mount, 'As for the mufti, we will suppose that he was bred up a scholar, and not only versed in the law of Mahomet, but acquainted with all kinds of polite learning. For this reason he is not at all surprised when Dorax calls him a Phaëton in one place, and in another tells him he is like Archimedes. 'The mufti afterwards mentions Ximenes, Albornoz, and cardinal Wolsey by name. The poet seems to think he may make every person in his play know as much as himself, and talk as well as he could have done on the same occasion. At least I believe every reader will agree with me, that the above-mentioned sentiments, to which I might have added several others, would have been better suited to the court of Augustus, than that of Muley Molock. I grant they are beautiful in themselves, and much more so in that noble language which was peculiar to this great poet. I only observe that they are improper for the persons who make use of them. Dryden is, indeed, generally wrong in his sentiments. Let any one read the dialogue between Octavia and Cleopatra, and he will be amazed to hear a Roman lady's mouth filled with such obscene raillery. If the virtuous Octavia departs from her character, the loose Dolabella is no less inconsistent with himself, when, all of sudden, he drops the pagan, and talks in the sentiments of revealed religion. _ " Heaven has but Our sorrow for our sins, and then delights 'I might show several faults of the same nature in the celebrated Aureng Zebe. The impropriety of thoughts in the speeches of the great mogul and his empress has been generally censured. Take the sentiments out of the shining dress of words, and they would be too coarse for a scene in Billingsgate. Bat here, some captain of the land or fleet, I AM very much concerned when I see young gentlemen of fortune and quality so wholly set upon pleasures and diversions, that they neglect all those improvements in wisdom and knowledge which may make them easy to themselves, and useful to the world. The greatest part of our British youth lose their figure, and grow out of fashion by that time they are five-and-twenty. As soon as the natural gayety and amiableness of the young man wears off, they have nothing left to recommend them, but lie by the rest of their lives among the lumber and refuse of the species. It sometimes happens, indeed, that for want of applying themselves in due time to the pursuits of knowledge, they take up a book in their declining years, and grow very hopeful scholars by that time they are threescore. I must, therefore, earnestly press my readers, who are in the flower of their youth, to labour at those accomplishments which may set off their persons when their bloon is gone, and to lay in timely provisions for manhood and old age. In short, I would advise the youth of fifteen to be dressing up every day the man of fifty, or to consider how to make himself venerable at threescore. Young men, who are naturally ambitious, would do well to observe how the greatest men of antiquity made it their ambition to excel all their contemporaries in knowledge. Julius Cæsar and Alexander, the most celebrated instances of human greatness, took a particular care to distinguish themselves by their skill in the arts and sciences. We have still extant several remains of the former, which justify the character given of him by the learned men of his own age. As for the latter, it is a known saying of his, 'that he was more obliged to Aristotle, who had instructed him, than to Philip, who had given him life and empire. There is a letter of his recorded by Plutarch, and Aulus Gelius, which he wrote to Aristotle upon hearing that he had published those lectures he had given him in private. This letter was written in the following words, at a time when he was in the height of his Persian conquests. 'Alexander to Aristotle, greeting. 'You have not done well to publish your books of Select Knowledge; for what is there now in which I can surpass others, if those things which I have been instructed in are communicated to every body? For my own part, I declare to you, I would rather excel others in knowledge than power. Farewell.' We see hy this letter, that the love of conder's soul. Knowledge is, indeed, that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another. It finishes one half of the human soul. It makes being pleasant to us, fills the mind with entertaining views, and administers to it a perpetual series of gratifications. It gives ease to solitude, and gracefulness to retirement. It fills a public station with suitable abilities, and adds a lustre to those who are in possession of them. quest was but the second ambition in Alexan-self long life, neither hast asked riches fo. Learning, by which I mean all useful know ledge, whether speculative or practical, is, in popular and mixt governments, the natural source of wealth and honour. If we look into most of the reigns from the conquest, we shall find that the favourites of each reign have been those who have raised themselves. The greatest men are generally the growth of that particular age in which they flourish. A superior capacity for business, and a more extensive knowledge, are the steps by which a new man often mounts to favour, and outshines the rest of his contemporaries. But when men are actually born to titles, it is almost impossible that they should fail of receiving an additional greatness, if they take care to accomplish themselves for it. The story of Solomon's choice does not only instruct us in that point of history, but furnishes out a very fine moral to us, namely, that he who applies his heart to wisdom, does at the same time take the most proper method for gaining long life, riches, and reputation, which are very often not only the rewards, but the effects of wisdom. As it is very suitable to my present subject, I shall first of all quote this passage in the words of sacred writ, and afterwards mention an allegory, in which this whole passage is represented by a famous French poet: not questioning but it will be very pleasing to such of iny readers as have a taste of fine writing. 'In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon said, Thou hast showed unto thy servant David my father great mercy, according as he walked before thee in truth and in righteousness, and in uprightness of heart with thee, and thou hast kept for him this great kindness, that thou hast given him a son to sit on his throne, as it is this day. And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child; I know not how to go out or come in. Give, therefore, thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people? And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thy thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine ene. mies, but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment: Behold I have done according to thy words: Lo, I have given thee a wise and understanding heart, so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee. And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches and honour, so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days. And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as thy father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days, And Solomon awoke, and behold it was a dream.' The French poet has shadowed this story in an allegory, of which he seems to have taken the hint from the fable of the three goddesses appearing to Paris, or rather from the vision of Hercules, recorded by Xenophon, where Pleasure and Virtue are represented as real persons making their court to the hero with all their several charms and allurements. Health, Wealth, Victory, and Honour are introduced successively in their proper emblems and characters, each of them spreading her temptations, and recommending herself to the young monarch's choice. Wisdom enters the last, and so captivates him with her appearance, that he gives himself up to her. Upon which she informs him, that those who appeared before her were nothing else but her equipage: and that since he had placed his heart upon Wisdom; Health, Wealth, Victory, and Honour, should always wait on her as her handmaids. No. 112.] Monday, July 20, 1713. udam NIN Hor. Lab. 3. Od. ii. 23. Scorns the base earth, and crowd below; Creech. THE philosophers of king Charles his reign were busy in finding out the art of flying. The famous bishop Wilkins was so confident of success in it, that he says he does not question but in the next age it will be as usual to hear a man call for his wings when he is going a journey, as it is now to call for his boots. The humour so prevailed among the virtuosos of this reign, that they were actually making parties to go up to the moon together, and were more put to it in their thoughts how to meet with accommodations by the way, than how to get thither. Every one knows the story of the great lady who at the same time was building • The duchess of Newcastle objected to bishop Wilkins, the want of baiting places in the way to his new world; the bishop este ed his surprise that this objection should be made by a lady who had been all her life employed in building castles in the air. 169 eastles in the air for their reception. I always to do more business in threescore and ten years, leave such trite quotations to my reader's pri- then they could do in a thousand by the mevate recollection. For which reason, also, Ithods now in use. I therefore recommend myshall forbear extracting out of authors several self and art to your patronage, and am instances of particular persons who have ar'Your most humble servant. rived at some perfection in this art, and exhibited specimens of it before multitudes of beholders. Instead of this I shall present my reader with the following letter from an artist, who is now taken up with this invention, and conceals his true name under that of Dædalus. MR. IRONSIDE, 'Knowing that you are a great encourager of ingenuity, I think fit to acquaint you, that I have made a considerable progress in the art of flying. I flutter about my room two or three hours in a morning, and when my wings are on, can go above a hundred yards at a hop, step, and jump. I can fly already as well as a turkey-cock, and improve every day. If I proceed as I have begun, I intend to give the world a proof of my proficiency in this art. Upon the next public thanksgiving day it is my design to sit astride the dragon upon Bow steeple, from whence, after the first discharge of the Tower guns, I intend to mount into the air, fly over Fleet-street, and pitch upon the May-pole in the Strand. From thence, by a gradual descent, I shall make the best of my way for St. James's-park, and light upon the ground near Rosamond's-pond. This I doubt not will convince the world that I am no pretender; but before I set out, I shall desire to have a patent for making of wings, and that none shall presume to fly, under pain of death, with wings of any other man's making. I intend to work for the court myself, and will have journeymen under me to furnish the rest of the nation. I likewise desire, that I may have the sole teaching of persons of quality, in which I shall spare neither time nor pains until I have made them as expert as myself. I will fly with the women upon my back for the first fortnight. I shall appear at the next masquerade dressed up in my feathers and plumage like an Indian prince, that the quality may see how pretty they will look in their travelling habits. You know, sir, there is an unaccountable prejudice to projectors of all kinds, for which reason when I talk of practising to fly, silly people think me an owl for my pains; but, sir, you know better things. I need not enumerate to you the benefits which will accrue to the public from this invention; as how the roads of England will be saved when we travel through these new highways, and how all family accounts will be lessened in the article of coaches and horses. I need not mention posts and packet-boats, with many other conveniences of life, which will be supplied this way. In short, sir, when mankind are in possession of this art, they will be able Y I have fully considered the project of these our modern Dædalists, and am resolved so far to discourage it, as to prevent any person from flying in my time. It would fill the world with innumerable immoralities, and give such occasions for intrigues as people cannot meet with who have nothing but legs to carry them. You should have a couple of lovers make a midnight assignation upon the top of the monument, and see the cupola of St. Paul's covered with both sexes like the outside of a pigeon-house. Nothing would be more frequent than to see a beau flying in at a garret window, or a gallant giving chace to his mistress, like a hawk after a lark. There would be no walking in a shady wood without springing a covey of toasts. The poor husband could not dream what was doing over his head. If he were jealous, indeed, he might clip his wife's wings, but what would this avail when there were flocks of whoremasters perpetually hovering over his house? What concern would the father of a family be in all the time his daughter was upon the wing? Every heiress must have an old woman flying at her heels. In short, the whole air would be full of this kind of gibier, as the French call it. I do allow, with my correspondent, that there would be much more business done than there is at present. However, should he apply for such a patent as he speaks of, I question not but there would be more petitions out of the city against it, than ever yet appeared against any other monopoly whatsoever. Every tradesman that cannot keep his wife a coach, could keep her a pair of wings, and there is no doubt but she would be every morning and evening taking the air with them. I have here only considered the ill consequences of this invention in the influence it would have on love affairs. I have many more objections to make on other accounts; but these I shall defer publishing until I see my friend astride the dragon. No. 113.] Tuesday, July 21, 1713. Amphora cœpit Institui, currente rotâ, cur urceus exit? Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 21. When you begin with so much pomp and show, I LAST night received a letter from an honest citizen, who it seems is in his honey-moon. It is written by a plain man on a plain subject, but has an air of good sense and natural honesty in it, which may perhaps please the |