love, and our treaty is at prefent a little in fufpence, ⚫ until fome circumstances are cleared. There is a charge against him among the women, and the cafe is this: it is alledged, that a certain endowed female would have appropriated herself to, and confolidated herself with a church, which my divine now enjoys; (or, which is the fame thing, did proftitute herfelf to her friend's doing this for her :) that my ecclefiaftic, to obtain the 6 one, did engage himself to take off the other that lay on hand; but that on his fuccefs in the spiritual, he again renounced the carnal.

I put this clofely to him, and taxed him with difingenuity. He to clear himself made the fubfequent defence, and that in the moft folemn manner poffible. That he was applied to, and inftigated to accept of a benefice: that a conditional offer thereof was indeed made him at first, but with difdain by him rejected: that when nothing, as they eafily perceived, of this nature could bring him to their purpofe, affurance of his being intirely unengaged beforehand, and fafe from all their after-expectations (the only ftratagem left to draw him in) was given him: that pursuant to this the donation ⚫itfelf was without delay, before feveral reputable witneffes, tendered to him gratis, with the open profeffion of not the leaft reserve, or moft minute condition; but that yet immediately after induction, his infidious introducer, (or her crafty procurer, which you will) in• dustriously spread the report which had reached my ears, not only in the neighbourhood of that faid church, but in London, in the univerfity, in mine and his own country, and wherever else it might probably obviate his application to any other woman, and fo confine him to this alone: and in a word, that as he " never did make any previous offer of his fervice, or the leaft ftep to her affection; fo on his difcovery of these defigns thus laid to trick him, he could not but afterwards, in juftice to himself, vindicate both his inno- . cence and freedom by keeping his proper diftance.

This is his apology, and I think I shall be satisfied ⚫ with it. But I cannot conclude my tedious epiftle without recommending to you not only to refume your former • chastisement,

* chastisement; but to add to your criminals the fimonia cal ladies, who seduce the fácred order into the difficulty of either breaking a mercenary troth made to them whom they ought not to deceive, or by breaking or keeping it offending against him whom they cannot * deceive. Your affiftance and labours of this fort would be of great benefit, and your fpeedy thoughts on this fubject would be very feasonable to,

४

Malo Venufinam, quàm te, Cornelia, mater
Gracchorum, fi cum magnis virtutibus affers
Grande fupercilium, & numeras in dote triumphos.
Tolle tuum, precor, Annibalem, villumque Syphacem
In caftris; & cum totâ Carthagine migra.

Juv. Sat. 6. ver 166;

Some country-girl, fcarce to a curtsy bred,
Wou'd I much rather than Cornelia wed,
If fupercilious, haughty, proud, and vain,
She brought her father's triumphs in her train.
Away with all your Carthaginian ftate;
Let yanquifh'd Hannibal without doors wait,
Too burly and too big to pass my narrow gate.

I

}

DRYDEN.

T is obferved, that a man improves more by reading the ftory of a perfon eminent for prudence and virtue, than by the finest rules and precepts of morality. In the fame manner a representation of those calamities and misfortunes which a weak man fuffers from' wrong meafures, and ill-concerted schemes of life, is apt to make a deeper impreffion upon our minds, than the wifeft maxims and inftructions that can be given us, for avoiding the like VOL. IV.

I

follies

follies and indifcretions in our own private conduct. It is for this reason that I lay before my reader the following letter, and leave it with him to make his own use of it, without adding any reflexions of my own upon the subject matter.

< Mr. Spectator,

upon

Aving carefully perused a letter fent you by Jofiah Fribble, Efq; with your fubfequent difcourfe pin-money, I do prefume to trouble you with an account of my own cafe, which I look upon to be no lefs deplorable than that of 'fquire Fribble. I am a 'perfon of no extraction, having begun the world with • a fmall parcel of rufty iron, and was for fome years commonly known by the name of Jack Anvil. I have naturally a very happy genius for getting money, infomuch that by the age of five and twenty I had fcraped together four thousand two hundred pounds, five fhillings and a few odd pence. I then launched out into confiderable business, and became a bold trader both by fea and land, which in a few years raised me a very confiderable fortune. For thefe my good fervices I was knighted in the thirty-fifth year of my age, and lived with great dignity among my city neighbours by the name of Sir John Anvil. Being in my temper very ambitious, I was now bent upon making a family, and accordingly refolved that my defcendents fhould have a dafh of good blood in their veins. In order to this I • made love to the lady Mary Oddly, an indigent young • woman of quality. To cut fhort the marriage-treaty, I threw her a carte blanche, as our news-papers call it, defiring her to write upon it her own terms. was very concife in her demands, infifting only that the difpofal of my fortune and the regulation of my family fhould be intirely in her hands. Her father and brothers appeared exceedingly averfe to this match, and • would not fee me for fome time; but at prefent are so • well reconciled, that they dine with me almost every day, and have borrowed confiderable fums of me; which my lady Mary very often twits me with, when she would fhew me how kind her relations are to me.

She

She had

6 no

no portion, as I told you before; but what she wanted in fortune, she makes up in fpirit. She at first changed my name to Sir John Envil, and at prefent writes herfelf Mary Enville. I have had fome children by her, whom she has christened with the firnames of her family, in order, as fhe tells me, to wear out the homelinefs of their parentage by the father's fide. Our eldest fon is the honourable Oddly Enville, Efq; and our eldest daughter Harriot Enville. Upon her firft coming into' my family, fhe turned off a parcel of very careful fervants, who had been long with me, and introduced in their ftead a couple of black-a-moors, and three or four very genteel fellows in laced liveries, befides her Frenchwoman, who is perpetually making a noife in the houfe in a language which no body understands, except my lady Mary. She next fet herself to reform every room of my houfe, having glazed all my chimney-pieces with looking-glaffes, and planted every corner with fuch heaps' of china, that I am obliged to move about my own house with the greatest caution and circumfpection, for fear of hurting fome of our brittle furniture. She makes an illumination once a week with wax-candles in one of the largest rooms, in order, as fhe phrafes it, to fee company. At which time fhe always defires me to be abroad, or to confine myself to the cock-loft, that I may not difgrace her among her vifitants of quality. Her footmen, as I told you before, are fuch beaus that I do not much care for asking them queftions ; when I do, they answer me with a faucy frown, and fay that every thing which I find fault with, was done by my lady Mary's order. She tells me that the intends they fhall wear fwords with their next liveries, having lately obferved the footmen of two or three perfons of quality hanging behind the coach with fwords by their • fides.

6

As foon as the firft honey-moon was over, I reprefented to her the unreasonablenefs of thofe daily innovations which the made in my family; but she told me I was no longer to confider myself as Sir John Anvil, but as her husband; and added with a frown, that I did not feem to know who he was. I was furprifed to be treated thus, after fuch familiarities as had paffed be

etween us. But he has fince given me to know, that whatever freedoms fhe may fometimes indulge me in, fhe expects in general to be treated with the refpect that is due to her birth and quality. Our children have been trained up from their infancy with fo many accounts of their mother's family, that they know the • ftories of all the great men and women it has produced. Their mother tells them, that fuch an one commanded in fuch a fea-engagement, that their great grandfather had a horfe fhot under him at Edge-hill, that their uncle was at the fiege of Buda, and that her mother danced in a ball at court with the duke of Monmouth; with abundance of fiddle-faddle of the fame nature. I was the other day a little out of countenance at a question of my little daughter Harriot, who asked me with a great deal of innocence, why I never told them of the generals and admirals that had been in my family. As for my eldest fon Oddly, he has been fo fpirited up by his mother, that if he does not mend his manners I shall go near to difinherit him. He drew his fword upon me before he was nine years old, and told me that he expected to be used like a gentleman; upon my offering to correct him for his infolence, my lady Mary stept in between us, and told me, that I ought to confider there was fome difference between his mother and mine. She is perpetually finding out the features of her own relations in every one of my children, though by thế way I have a little chub-faced boy as like me as he can ftare, if I durft fay fo; but what moft angers me, when the fees me playing with any of them upon my knee, fhe has begged me more than once to converfe with the children as little as poffible, that they may not learn aukward tricks.

" any

of my

• You must farther know, fince I am opening my heart to you, that the thinks herself my fuperior in fenfe, as much as fhe is in quality, and therefore treats me like a plain well-meaning man, who does not know the world. She dictates to me in my own bufinefs, fets me right in point of trade, and if I difagree with her about any of my fhips at fea, wonders that I will dispute with her, when I know very well that her great grandfather was a flag-officer.