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Mr. Spectator,

AM the perfon that lately advertised I would give ten fhillings more than the current price for the ticket No. 132 in the lottery now drawing; which is a fecret I have communicated to fome friends, who rally me inceffantly upon that account. You must know I have but one ticket, for which reafon, and a certain dream I have lately had more than once, I was refolved it thould be the number I moft approved. I am fo pofitive I have pitched upon the great lot, that I could almoft lay all I am worth of it. My vifions are fo frequent and frong upon this occafion, that I have not only poffeffed the lot, but difpofed of the money which in all probability it will fell for This morning in particular, 1 fet up an equipage which I look upon to be the gayeft in the town; the liveries are very rich, but not gaudy. I fhould be very glad to fee a fpeculation or two upon lottery fubjects, in which you will oblige all people concerned, and in parti

cular

Your moft humble fervant, George Golling." P. S. Dear Spec. if I get the 12,000 pound, I will make thee a handfome present.'

After having wished my correfpondent good luck, and thanked him for his intended kindnefs, I hall for this time difmifs the fubject of the lottery, and only obferve that the greatest part of mankind are in fome degree guilty of my friend Goiling's extravagance. We are apt to rely upon future profpects, and become really expenfive while we are only rich in poffibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our poffeffions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are. We out-run our prefent income, as not doubting to difburfe ourselves out of the profits of fome future place, project or reverfion that we have in view. It is through this temper of mind, which is fo common among as, that we fee tradefmen break, who have met with no misfortunes in their bufinefs; and men of estates reduced to poverty, who have never fuffered from loffes or repairs, tenants, taxes, or law-fuits. In fhort, it is this foolish fanguine temper, this depending upon contingent futurities, that occafions romantic generofity, chimerical grandeur, fenfelefs oftentation, and generally ends in beggary and ruin. The man who will live above his prefent circumftances, is in great danger of living in a lirtle time much beneath them, or as the Italian proverb runs, The man who lives by hope will die by hun

Uno ore omnes omnia

Bona dicere, & laudare fortunas meas,
Qui gnatum haberem tali ingenio præditum.
Ter. Andr. Act. 1. Sc. 1.

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All men agreed in complimenting me, and applauded my good fortune in being the father of fo towardly a fon.

I in the of a room with a

Stood the other day, and beheld a father

family of children about him; and methought I could obferve in his countenance different motions of delight, as he turned towards the one and the other of them. The man is a perfon moderate in his defigns for their preferment and welfare; and as he has an eafy fortune, he is not folicitous to make a great one. His eldeft fon is a child of a very towardly difpofition, and as much as the father loves him, I dare fay he will never be a knave to improve his fortune. I do not know any man who has a juster relish of life than the perfon I am fpeaking of, or keeps a better guard against the terrors of want, or the hopes of gain. It is ufual in a crowd of children, for the parent to name out of his own flock all the great officers of the kingdom. There is fomething fo very furprifing in the parts of a child of a man's own, that there is nothing too great to be expected from his endowments, I know a good woman who has but three fons, and there is, the fays, nothing fhe expects with more certainty, than that the thall fee one of them a bishop, the other a judge, and the third a court phyfician. The humour is, that any thing which can happen to any man's child is expected by every man for his own. But my friend, whom I was going to fpeak of, does not flatter himself with fuch vain expectations, but has his eye more upon the vir tue and difpofition of his children, than their advancement or wealth. Good habits are what will certainly improve a man's fortune and reputation; but on the other fide, affluence of fortune will not as probably produce good affections of the mind.

It is very natural for a man of a kind difpofition, to amufe himfelf with the promifes his imagination makes to him of the future condition of his children, and to represent to himfelf the figure they fhall bear in the world after he has left it. When his profpects of this kind are agreeable, his fondnefs gives as it were a longer date to his own life; and the furvivorship of a worthy man in his fon is a pleafure fcarce inferior to the hopes of the continuance of his own life. That man is happy who can believe of his fon, that he will efcape the follies and indifcretions of which he himfelf was guilty, and purfue and improve every thing that was valuable in him. The continuance of his virtue is much more to be regarded than that of his life; but it is the moft lamentable of all reflexions, to think that the heir of a fortune is fuch a one as will be a firanger to his friends, alienated from the fame interefts, and

man's

a pro

a promoter of every thing which he himfelf difapproved. An eftate in poffeffion of fuch a fucceffor to a good man, is worfe than laid wafte; and the family, of which he is the head, is in a more deplorable condition than that of being extinct.

When I vifit the agreeable feat of my honoured friend Ruricola, and walk from room to room revolving many pleafing occurrences, and the expreffions of many juft fentiments, I have heard him utter, and fee his booby heir in pain while he is doing the honours of his houfe to the friend of his father, the heavinefs it gives one is not to be expreffed. Want of genius is not to be imputed to any man, but want of humanity is a man's own fault. The fon of Ruricola (whofe life was one continued feries of worthy actions and gentleman-like inclinations) is the companion of drunken clowns, and knows no fenfe of praife but in the flattery he receives from his own fervants; his pleafures are mean and inordinate, his language bafe and filthy, his behaviour rough and abfurd. Is this creature to be accounted the fucceffor of a man of virtue, wit, and breeding? At the fame time that I have this melancholy profpect at the house where I mifs my old friend, I can go to a gentleman's not far off it, where he has a daughter, who is the picture both of his body and mind, but both improved with the beauty and modefty peculiar to her fex. It is the who fupplies the lofs of her father to the world; the without his name or fortune is the truer memorial of him, than her brother who fucceeds him in both. Such an offspring as the eldeft fon of my friend perpetuates his father in the fame manner as the appearance of his ghoft would: it is indeed Ruricola, but it is Ruricola grown frightful.

I know not to what to attribute the brutal turn which this young man has taken, except it may be to a certain feverity and diftance which hfs father used towards him, and might, perhaps, have occafioned a diflike to thofe modes of life which were not made amiable to him by freedom and affability.

We may promife ourselves that no fuch excrefcence will appear in the family uf the Cornelii, where the father lives with his fons like their eldest brother, and the fons converfe with him as if they did it for no other reafon but that he is the wifeft man of their acquaintance. As the Cornelii are eminent traders, their good correfpondence with each other is ufeful to all that know them, as well as to themselves; and their friendship, good-will, and kind offices, are difpofed of jointly as well as their fortune, fo that no one ever obliged one of them, who had not the obligation multiplied in returns from them

all.

It is the most beautiful object the eyes of man can behold, to fee a man of worth and his fon live in an intire unreferved correfpondence. The mutual kindness and affection between them give an inexpreffible fatisfaction to all who know them. It is a fublime pleafure which increafes by the participation. It is as facred as friendship, as pleafurable as love, and as joyful as religion, This ftate of mind does not only diffipate forrow, which would be extreme without it, but enlarges pleasures which would otherwife be contemptile. The most indifferent thing has its force and beauty when it is fpoke by a kind father, and

an infignificant triffe has its weight when offered by a dutiful child. I know not how to exprefs it, but I think I may call it a tranfplanted felflove. All the enjoyments and fufferings which a man meets with are regarded only as they concern him in the relation he has to another. A man's very honour receives a new value to him, when he thinks that when he is in his grave, it will be had in remembrance that fuch an action was done by fuch a one's father. Such confiderations fweeten the old man's evening, and his foliloquy delights him when he can fay to himself, No man can tell my child his father was eihter unmerciful and unjuft: My fon fhall meet many a man who shall fay to him, I was obliged to thy father, and be my child a friend to his child for ever.

It is not in the power of all men to leave illuftrious names or great fortunes to their pofterity, but they can very much conduce to their having induftry, probity, valour, and juftice: it is in every man's power to leave his fon the honour of defcending from a virtuous man, and add the bleffings of heaven to whatever he leaves him. I fhall end this rhapfody with a letter to an excellent young man of my acquaintance, who has lately loft a worthy father.

'Dear Sir,

I

tune.

Know no part of life more impertinent than the office of adminiftering confolation: I will not enter into it. for I cannot but applaud your grief. The virtuous principles you had from that excellent man, whom you have loft, have wrought in you as they ought, to make a youth of three and twenty incapable of comfort upon coming into poffeffion of a great forI doubt not but you will honour his memory by a modeft enjoyment of his eftate; and fcorn to triumph over his grave, by employing in riot, excefs, and debauchery, what he purchafed with fo much industry, prudence, and wifdom. This is the true way to thew the fenfe you have of the lofs, and to take away the diftrefs of others upon the occafion. You cannot recall your father by your grief, but you may revive him to his friends by your conduct.'

N° 193. THURSDAY, OCT. II. Ingentem foribus domus alta fuperbis Mané falutentum totis vomit adibus undam.

Virg. Georg. 2. ver. 461. His Lordship's palace, from its ftately doors, A flood of levee hunting mortals pours.

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HEN we look round us, and behold the trange variety of faces and perfons which fill the streets with business and hurry, it is no unpleafant amufement to make gueffes at their different purfuits, and judge by their countenances what it is that fo anxioufly engages their prefent attention. Of all this bufy crowd, there are none who would give a man inclined to fuch inquiries better diverfion for, his thoughts, than thofe whom we call good courtiers, and fuch as were affiduous at the levees of great men. worthies are got into a habit of being fervile with an air, and enjoy a certain vanity in being known for understanding how the world paffes. In the pleasure of this they can rife early, go abroad Heek and well-dreffed, with no other hope or I i 2 purpofe

4

Thefe

purpose, but to make a bow to a man in courtfavour, and be thought, by fome infignificant fmile of his, not a little engaged in his interests and fortunes. It is wondrous, that a man can get over the natural exiftence and poffeffion of his own mind fo far, as to take delight either in paying or receiving fuch cold and repeated civilities. But what maintains the humour is, that outward fhow is what most men purfue, rather than real happiness. Thus both the idol and idolater equally impose upon themfelves in pleafing their imaginations this way. But as there are very many of her Majefty's good fubjects, who are extremely uneafy at their own feats in the country, where all from the skies to the center of the earth is their own, and have a mighty longing to fhine in courts, or to be part ners in the power of the world; I fay, for the benefit of thefe, and others who hanker after being in the whisper with great men, and vexing their neighbours with the changes they would be capable of making in the appearance at a country feffions, it would not methinks be amifs to give an account of that market for preferment, a great man's levée.

For ought I know, this commerce between the mighty and their flaves, very juftly reprefented, might do fo much good, as to incline the great to regard business rather than oftentation; and make the little know the ufe of their time. too well, to spend it in vain applications and addreffes.

The famous doctor in Moorfields, who gained fo much reputation for his horary predictions, is faid to have had in his parlour different ropes to little bells which hung in the room above ftairs, where the doctor thought fit to be oraculous. If a girl had been deceived by her lover one bell was pulled; and if a peasant had loft a cow the fervant rung another. This method was kept in respect to all other paffions and concerns, and the skilful waiter below fifted the inquirer, and gave the Doctor notice accordingly. The levee of a great man is laid after the fame manner, and twenty whispers, falfe alarms, and private intimations, pafs backward and forward from the porter, the valet, and the patron himfelf, before the gaping crew, who are to pay their court, are gathered together: when the scene is ready, the doors fly open and discover his lordfhip.

There are feveral ways of making his first appearance. You may be either half dreffed, and washing yourself, which is indeed the most ftately; but this way of opening is peculiar to military men, in whom there is.fomething grace ful in expofing themselves naked; but the politicians, or civil officers, have ufually affected to be more reserved, and preferve a certain chastity of deportment. Whether it be hieroglyphical or not, this difference in the military and civil lift, I will not fay, but have ever understood the fact to be, that the clofe minifter is buttoned up, and the brave officer open-breafted on thefe

occafions.

However that is, I humbly conceive the bufinefs of a levee is to receive the acknowledgments of a multitude, that a man is wife, bounteous, valiant and powerful. When the first fhot of eyes is made, it is wonderful to obferve how much fubmiffion the patron's modefty can bear, and how much fervitude the client's fpirit can defcend to. In the vaft multiplicity of bufinefs,

and the crowd about him, my lord's parts are ufually fo great, that to the afstonishment of the whole affembly, he has fomething to say to every man there, and that fo fuitable to his capacity as any man may judge that it is not without talents that men can arrive at great employments. I have known a great man ask a flag-officer, which way was the wind, a commander of horse the present price of oats, and a stock-jobber at what difcount fuch a fund was, with as much eafe as if he had been bred to each of those seve ral ways of life. Now this is extremely obliging; for at the fame time that the patron informs himfelf of matters, he gives the perfon of whom he inquires, an opportunity to exert himself. What adds to the pomp of those interviews is, that it is performed with the greatest filence and order imaginable. The patron is usually in the midst of the room, and fome humble person gives him a whifper, which his lordship answers aloud, "It is well. Yes, I am of your opinion. Pray "inform yourself further, you may be fure of my

part in it." This happy man is difmiffed; and my lord can turn himself to a business of a quite different nature, and off-hand gives as good an answer as any great man is obliged to. For the chief point is to keep in generals, and if there be any thing offered that is particular, to be in hafte.

But we are now in the height of the affair, and my lord's creatures have all had their whispers round to keep up the farce of the thing, and the dumb fhow is become more general. He cafts his eye to that corner, and there to Mr. Such-a-one; to the other, "and when did you "come to town?" And perhaps just before he nods to another; and enters with him, "but, "Sir, I am glad to fee you, now I think of it." Each of thofe are happy for the next four and twenty hours; and those who bow in ranks undiftinguished, and by dozens at a time, think they have very good profpects if they may hope to arrive at fuch notices half a year hence.

The fatirift fays, there is feldom common fenfe in high fortune; and one would think to behold a leeve, that the great were not only infatuated with their ftation, but also that they believed all below were feized too; elfe how is it poffible they could think of impofing upon, themfelves and others in such a degree, as to fet up a levee for any thing but a direct farce? But fuch is the weaknefs of our nature, that when men are a little exalted in their condition, they immediately conceive they have additional fenfes, and their capacities enlarged not only above other men, but above human comprehenfion itself. Thus it is ordinary to see a great man attend one liftening, bow to one at a distance, and to call to a third at the fame inftant. A girl in new ribbands is not more taken with herfelf, nor does fhe betray more apparent coquetries, than even a wife man in fuch a circumstance of courtship. I do not know any thing that I ever thought fo very diftafteful as the affectation which is recorded of Cæfar, to wit, that he would dictate to three feveral writers at the fame time. This was an ambition below the greatnefs and candour of his mind. He indeed (if any man had pretenfions to greater faculties than any other mortal) was the perfon: but fuch a way of acting is childish, and inconfiftent with the manner of our being. And it appears from the very nature of things, that there cannot be any thing effectually

No 195. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13.
Νήπιοι, εδ ̓ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντός,
Οὐδ ̓ ὅσον ἐν μαλάχη τε δὲ ἀσφοδέλῳ μεγ' ὄνειας.
HES. Oper, & Dier. lib. 1. ver. 40%
Fools, not to know that half exceeds the whole,
Nor the great bleffings of a frugal board.

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HERE is a ftory in the Arabian Nights Tales of a king who had leng languifhed under an ill habit of body, and had taken abundance of remedies to no purpose. At length, fays the fable, a physician cured him by the following method: he took an hollow ball of wood, and filled it with feveral drugs; after which he clofed it up fo artificially that nothing appeared, He likewife tock a mall, and after having hol lowed the handle and that part which ftrikes the ball, he inclofed in them feveral drugs after the fame manner as in the ball itself. He then ordered the fultan, who was his patient, to exercife himself early in the morning with thefe rightly prepared inftruments, until fuch time as he fhould fweat: when, as the ftory goes, the virtue of the medicaments perfpiring through the wood, had fo good an influence on the fultan's conftitution, that they cured him of an indifpofition which all the compofitions he had taken inwardly had not been able to remove. This caftern allegory is finely contrived to fhew us how beneficial bodily labour is to health, and that exercife is the most effectual phyfic. I have defcribed in my hundred and fifteenth paper, from the general structure and mechanism of an human body, how abfolutely neceffary exercise is for its prefervation: I fhall in this place recommend another great prefervative of health, which in many cafes produces the fame effects as exercife, and may in fome measure fupply its place, where opportunities of exercife are wanting. The prefervative I am speaking of is temperance, which has thofe particular advantages above all other means of health, that it may be practifed by all ranks and conditions, at any feafon, or in any place. It is a kind of regimen into which every man may put limfelf, without interruption to bufinefs, expence of money, or lofs of time. If exercife throws offall fuperfluities, temperance prevents them; if exercise clears the veffels, temperance neither fatiates nor overftrains them; if exercife raifes proper ferments in the humours, and promotes the circulation of the blood, temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigour; if exercise diffipates a growing diftemper, temperance ftarves it.

Phyfic, for the most part, is nothing else but the fubftitute of exercife and temperance. Medicines are indeed abfolutely neceffary in acute di lempers, that cannot wait the flow operations of thefe two great inftruments of health; but did

men live in an habitual courfe of exercife and temperance, there would be but little occafion for them. Accordingly we find that thofe parts of the world are the moft healthy, where they fubfift by the chace; and that men lived longeft when their lives were employed in hunting, and when they had little food befides what they caught. Bliftering, cupping, bleeding are feldom of ufe but to the idle and intemperate; .as all thofe inward applications which are fo much in practice among us, are for the meft part no

thing else but expedients to make luxury confiftent with health. The apothecary is perpetually employed in countermining the cook and the vintner. It is faid of Diogenes, that meeting a young man who was going to a feaft, he took him up in the street and carried him home to his friends, as one who was running into imminent danger, had he not prevented him. What would that philofopher have faid, had he been prefent at the gluttony of a modern meal? Would not he have thought the mafter of a family mad, and have begged his fervants to tie down his hands, had he feen him devour fowl, fish and flesh; fwallow oil and vinegar, wines and spices; throw down fallads of twenty different herbs, fauces of an hundred ingredients, confections and fruits of numberlefs fweets and flavours? What unnatural motions and counterferments must fuch a medley of intemperance produce in the body? For my part, when I behold a fashionable table fet out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I fee gouts and dropfies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes.

Nature delights in the most plain and fimple diet. Every animal but man keeps to one difh. Herbs are the food of this fpecies, fifh of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon every thing that comes in his way, not the smallest fruit or excrefcence of the earth, scarce a berry or mushroom can escape him.

It is impoffible to lay down any determinate rule for temperance, becaufe what is luxury in one may be temperance in another; but there are few that have lived any time in the world, who are not judges of their own conftitutions, fo far as to know what kinds and what proportitions of food do beft agree with them. Were I to confider my readers as my patients, and to prcfcribe fuch a kind of temperance as is accomodated to all perfons, and fuch as is particularly fuitable to our climate and way of living, I would copy the following rules of a very eminent phyfician. Make your whole repaft out of one dish. If you indulge in a fecond, avoid drinking any thing ftrong, until you have finished your meal; at the fame time abftain from all fauces, or at leaft fuch as are not the most plain and fimple. A man could not well be guilty of gluttony, if he ftuck to thiefe few obvious and eafy rules. In the first cafe, there would be no variety of tastes to folicit his palate and occafion excefs; nor in the fecond, any artificial provocatives to relieve fatiety, and create a falfe appetite. Were I to prefcribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a faying quoted by Sir William Temple; "the first glafs for myself, the fecond for my "friends, the third for good. humour, and the "fourth for mine enemies." But because it is impoffible for one who lives in the world to diet himself always in fo philofophical a manner, I think every man fhould have his days of abftinence, according as his conftitution will permit. Thefe are great reliefs to nature, as they qualify her for ftruggling with hunger and thirst, whenever any distemper or duty of life may put her upon fuch difficulties; and at the fame time give an opportunity of extricating herfelf from her oppreffions, and recovering the several tones and fprings of her diftended veffels. Befides that abftinence well timed often kills a fickness in embryo, and deftroys the firft feeds of an indifpoftion. It is obferved by two or three ancient

authors,