becoming and ornamental.

Nature and reason direct one

thing, passion and humor another. To follow the dictates of these two latter, is going into a road that is both endless and intricate; when we pursue the other, our passage is delightful, and what we aim at easily attainable.

2

I do not doubt but England is at present as polite a nation as any in the world; but any man who thinks, can easily see that the affectation of being gay and in fashion has very near1 eaten up our good sense and our religion. Is there anything so just, as that mode and gallantry should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper and agreeable to the institutions of justice and piety among us? And yet is there anything more common, than that we run in perfect contradiction to them? All which is supported by no other pretension than that it is done with what we call a good grace.

Nothing ought to be held laudable, or becoming, but what nature itself should prompt us to think so. Respect to all kind of superiors is founded, methinks, upon instinct; and yet what is so ridiculous as age? I make this abrupt transition to the mention of this vice1 more than any other, in order to introduce a little story, which I think a pretty instance 5 that the most polite age is in danger of being the most vicious.

It happened at Athens, during a public representation of some play exhibited in honor of the commonwealth, that an old gentleman came too late for a place suitable to his age and quality. Many of the young gentlemen who observed the difficulty and confusion he was in, made signs to him that they would accommodate him if he came where they sat. The good man bustled through the crowd accordingly; but when he came to the seats to which he was invited, the jest was to sit close and expose him, as he stood out of countenance, to the whole audience. The

frolic went round all the Athenian benches. But on those occasions there were also particular places assigned for foreigners. When the good man skulked towards the boxes appointed for the Lacedemonians, that honest people, more virtuous than polite, rose up all1 to a man, and with the greatest respect received him among them. The Athenians being suddenly touched with a sense of the Spartan virtue and their own degeneracy, gave a thunder of applause; and the old man cried out, "The Athenians understand what is good, but the Lacedemonians practise it.”

1 All rose up.

R.

IV.

SIR ROGER AND THE CLUB MAKE CONCESSIONS TO THE

SPECTATOR.

[Spectator No. 34. Monday, April 9, 1711. Addison.]

Cognatis maculis similis fera

-Parcit

JUVENAL.

THE club of which I am a member is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed as it were out of the most conspicuous classes of mankind. By this means I am furnished with the greatest variety of hints and materials, and know everything that passes in the different quarters and divisions, not only of this great city, but of the whole kingdom. My readers, too, have the satisfaction to find that there is no rank or degree among them who have not their3 representative in this club, and that there is always somebody present who will take care of their respective interests, that nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringement of their just rights and privileges.

I last night sat very late in company with this select body of friends, who entertained me with several remarks which they and others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the various success which they 5 had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest manner he could, that there were some ladies (" But for your comfort," says Will, "they are not those of the most wit") that were

6

offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera1 and the puppet-show; 1 that some of them were likewise very much surprised that I should think such serious points as the dress and equipage of persons of quality, proper subjects for raillery.2

He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up short, and told him that the papers he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their wives and daughters were the better for them; and further added, that the whole city thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of particular intrigues. "In short," says Sir Andrew, "if you avoid that foolish beaten road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of general use.

Upon this my friend the Templar told Sir Andrew" that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner; that the city had always been the province for satire; and that the wits of King Charles's time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign." He then shewed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal," Boileau,7 and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the stage and court had never been accounted too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons might be that patronized them. "But after all," says he, "I think your raillery has made too great an excursion, in attacking several persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe

8

1See Spectator Nos. 5, 13, 14, 18, 22, 29, and 31. Morley's edition has interesting notes.

2 See Spectator No. 16.

3 The citizens'.

* See Spectator Nos. 8, 16, 19, 20, 21.

5 Charles II.

8

How long was that?

All wrote satires. See biographical dictionaries or encyclopædias. Spectator No. 21.

wards.

See, also, No. 49, which was written after

you can show me any precedent for your behavior in that particular."

My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said nothing all this while, began his speech with a "Pish!" and told us that he wondered to see so many men of sense so very serious upon fooleries. "Let our good friend," says he, attack every one that deserves it; I would only

66

advise you, Mr. Spectator" (applying himself to me), "to take care how you meddle with country squires. They are the ornaments of the English nation; men of good heads and sound bodies! and, let me tell you, some of them take it ill of you that you mention fox-hunters with so little respect.

99 1

Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this occasion. What he said was only to commend my prudence in not touching upon the army, and advised me to continue to act discreetly in that point.

By this time I found every subject of my speculations was taken away from me, by one or other of the club, and began to think myself in the condition of the good man that had one wife who took a dislike to his grey hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what each of them had an aversion to, they left his head altogether bald and naked.

While I was thus musing with myself, my worthy friend the clergyman, who, very luckily for me, was at the club that night, undertook my cause. He told us that he wondered any order of persons should think themselves too considerable to be advised. That it was not quality, but innocence, which exempted men from reproof. That vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and conspicuous stations of life. He further added, that my paper would only serve to aggravate the pains of poverty,

1Spectator No. 474. In Sir Roger's criticism there is something of anticipation, since, of course, No. 474 had not yet appeared.