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No. XLI. TUESDAY, APRIL 17.

-Tu non inventa reperta es.

OVID.

So found, is worse than loft.

ADDISON.

COMPASSION for the gentleman who writes the following letter, fhould not prevail upon me to fall upon the fair fex, if it were not that I find they are frequently fairer than they ought to be. Such impoftures are not to be tolerated in civil fociety; and I think his misfortune ought to be made public, as a warning for other men always to examine into what they admire.

Sir,

SUPPOSING you to be a perfon of general know

ledge, I make my application to you on a very particular occafion. I have a great mind to be rid of my wife, and hope, when you confider my cafe, you will be of opinion I have very just pretenfions to a divorce. I am a merc man of the town, and have very little improvement, but what I have got 'from plays. I remember in The Silent Woman, the learned Dr. Cutberd, or Dr. Otter, I forget which, makes one of the caufes of feparation to be Error Perfonce, when a man marries a woman, and finds her not to be the fame woman whom he intended to marry, but another. If that be law, it is, I prefume, exactly my cafe. For you are to know, Mr. Spectator, that there are women who do not let their husbands fee their faces till they are married.

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Not to keep you in fufpenfe, I mean plainly that part of the fex who paint. They are fome of them fo exquifitely fkilful this way, that give them but a tolerable pair of eyes to fet up with, and they will make bofom, lips, cheeks, and eyebrows, by their own industry. As for my dear, never man was fo 'enamoured as I was of her fair forehead, neck, and

arms,

arms, as well as the bright jet of her hair; but to my great aftonishment I find they were all the effects of art; her fkin is fo tarnished with this practice, that when the firft wakes in a morning, fhe fcarce feems young enough to be the mother of her whom I carried to bed the night before. I fhall take the liberty to part with her by the first opportunity, unless her father will make her portion fuitable to her real, not her affumed, countenance. This I thought fit to let • him and her know by your means. I am, Sir,

• Your most obedient,

humble fervant.'

I cannot tell what the law, or the parents of the lady, will do for this injured gentleman, but must allow he has very much juftice on his fide. I have indeed very long obferved this evil, and diftinguished thofe of our women who wear their own, from those in borrowed complexions, by the Picts and the British. There does not need any great difcernment to judge which are which. The British have a lively animated afpect; the Picts, though never fo beautiful, have dead uninformed countenances. The mufcles of a real face fometimes fwell with foft paffion, fudden furprife, and are flushed with agreeable confufions, according as the objects before them, or the ideas prefented to them, affect their imagination. But the Picts behold all things with the fame air, whether they are joyful or fad; the fame fixed infenfibility appears upon all occafions. A Pict, though the takes all that pains to invite the approach of lovers, is obliged to keep them at a certain distance; a figh in a languishing lover, if fetched too near her, would diffolve a feature; and a kifs fnatched by a forward one, might transfer the complexion of the miftrefs to the admirer. It is hard to fpeak of thefe falfe fair ones, without faying fomething uncomplaifant, but I would only recommend to them to confider how they like coming into a

room

room new-painted; they may affure themfelves, the near approach of a lady who uses this practice is much more offenfive.

Will Honeycomb told us, one day,, an adventure he once had with a Pict. This lady had wit, as well as beauty, at will; and made it her bufinefs to gain hearts, for no other reafon but to rally the torments of her lovers. She would make great advances to infnare men, but without any manner of fcruple break off when there was no provocation. Her ill-nature and vanity made my friend very eafily proof against the charms of her wit and converfation; but her beauteous form, instead of being blemished by her falfhood and inconftancy, every day increafed upon him, and the had new attractions every time he faw her. When the obferved Will irrevocably her flave, fhe began to ufe him as fuch, and after many fteps towards fuch a cruelty, the at laft utterly banished him. The unhappy lover ftrove in vain, by servile epiftles, to revoke his doom; till at length he was forced to the laft refuge, a round fum of money to her maid. This corrupt attendant placed him early in the morning behind the hangings in her miftrefs's dreffing-room. He food very conveniently to obferve, without being feen. The Pict begins the face the defigned to wear that day, and I have heard him proteft the had worked a full half hour before he knew her to be the fame woman. As foon as he faw the dawn of that complexion, for which he had fo long languifhed, he thought fit to break from his concealment, repeating that of Cowley:

Th' adorning Thee with so much art,

Is but a barb'rous skill;

'Tis like the pois'ning of a dart,
Too apt before to kill.

The Pict ftood before him in the utmost confufion' with the prettieft fimirk imaginable on the finished fide of her face, pale as afhes on the other. Honeycomb feized all her gallypots and wafhes, and carried off his handkerchief full of brushes, fcraps of Spanish wool,

and

and phials of unguents. The lady went into the country, the lover was cured.

It is certain no faith ought to be kept with cheats, and an oath made to a Pict is of itself void. I would therefore exhort all the British ladies to fingle them out, nor do I know any but Lindamira who should be exempt from difcovery; for her own complexion is fo delicate, that the ought to be allowed the covering it with paint, as a punishment for choofing to be the worst piece of art extant, instead of the masterpiece of nature. As for my

part, who have no expectations from women, and confider them only as they are part of the fpecies, I do not half fo much fear offending a beauty as a woman of fenfe; I fhall therefore produce feveral faces which have been in public this many years, and never appeared. It will be a very pretty entertainment in the play-house, when I have abolished this cuftom, to fee fo many ladies, when they firft lay it down, incog. in their own face.

In the mean time, as a pattern for improving their charms, let the sex study the agreeable Statira. Her features are enlivened with the chearfulness of her mind, and good-humour gives an alacrity to her eyes. She is graceful without affecting an air, and unconcerned without appearing careless. Her having no manner of art in her mind, makes her want none in her perfon.

How like is this lady, and how unlike is a Pict, to that defcription Dr. Donne gives of his mistress ?

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Her pure and eloquent blood

Spoke in her cheeks, and fo diftinctly wrought,
That one would almoft fay her body thought.

• ADVERTISEMENT.

A young gentlewoman of about nineteen years of age (bred in the family of a perfon of quality lately deceased) who paints the finest flesh-colour, wants a place,

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place, and is to be heard of at the houfe of Mynheer Grotefque, a Dutch Painter in Barbican.

N. B. She is alfo well-fkilled in the drapery-part, and puts on hoods, and mixes ribbons fo as to fuit the ⚫ colours of the face with great art and fuccefs.'

R.

No. XLII. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18.

Garganum mugire putes nemus, aut mare Tufcum;
Tanto cum ftrepitu ludi spectantur, & artes,
Divitiæque peregrine; quibus oblitus actor
Cum ftetit in fcena, concurrit dextera lævæ.
Dixit adhuc aliquid? Nil fanè. Quid placet ergo?
Lana Tarentino violas imitata veneno.

IMITATED.

Loud as the wolves, on Orca's ftormy steep,
Howl to the roarings of the northern deep:
Such is the fhout, the long-applauding note,
At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat;
Or when from court a birth-day fuit beftow'd
Sinks the loft, actor in the tawdry load.
Booth enters-hark! the univerfal peal!-
But has he fpoken ?-Not a fyllable.-

What fhook the ftage, and made the people ftare?
Cato's long wig, flow'r'd gown, and lacquer'd chair.

HOR.

POPE.

ARISTOTLE has obferved, that ordinary writers in tragedy endeavour to raife terror and pity in their audience, not by proper fentiments and expreffions, but by the dreffes and decorations of the stage. There is fomething of this kind very ridiculous in the English theatre. When the author has a mind to terrify us, it thunders; when he would make us melancholy, the ftage is darkened. But among all our tragic artifices, I am the moft offended at those which are made ufe of to infpire us with magnificent ideas

of

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