No 611. fome of your papers, how much they are in the wrongI have been married near five years, and do not know that in all that time I ever went abroad without my husband's leave and approbation. I am obliged, through the importunities of feveral of my relations, to go abroad ⚫oftener than fuits my temper. Then it is, I labour under infupportable agonies. That man, or rather monfter, haunts every place I go to. Bafe villain! by reafon I will not admit his naufeous wicked vifits and appointments, he strives all the ways he can to ruin me. He left me deftitute of friend or money, nor ever thought me worth inquiring after, till he unfortunately happened to fee me in a front-box, sparkling with jewels. Then his paffion returned. Then the hypocrite pre• tended to be a penitent. Then he practifed all those arts that helped before to undo me. I am not to be deceived a fecond time by him. I hate and abhor his odious paffion; and, as he plainly perceives it, either out of fpite or diverfion, he makes it his bufinefs to expofe me. I never fail feeing him in all public company, where he is always moft induftriously spiteful. He hath, in short, told all his acquaintance of our unhappy affair; they tell theirs; fo that it is no fecret among his companions, which are numerous. They to whom he tells it, think, they have a title to be very familiar. If they bow to me, and I out of good manners return it, then I am pestered with freedoms that are no ways agreeable to myfelf or company. If I turn my eyes from them, or feem displeased, they four upon it, and whifper the next perfon; he his next, till I have at last the eyes of the whole company upon me. Nay, they report abomi⚫nable falfehoods, under that mistaken notion,' She that "will grant favours to one man, will to a hundred.' . I beg you will let those who are guilty know, how ungenerous this way of proceeding is. I am fure he will • know himself the perfon aimed at, and perhaps put a ftop to the infolence of others. Curfed is the fate of unhappy women! that men may boast and glory in thofe things that we must think of with fhame and horror! • You have the art of making such odious cuftoms appear ⚫ deteftable. For my fake, and I am fure, for the fake of feveral others, who dare not own it, but, like me, lie • under under the fame misfortunes, make it as infamous for a man to boast of favours, or expofe our fex, as it is to take the lie or a box on the ear, and not refent it. Your conftant reader, and admirer, LESBIA.' 'P. S. I AM the more impatient under this misfortune, having received fresh provocation, laft Wednesday in the Abbey.' I ENTIRELY agree with the amiable and unfortunate: Lesbia, that an infult upon a woman in her circumftances, is as infamous in a man, as a tame behaviour when the lie or a buffet is given; which truth I fhall beg leave of her to illuftrate by the following obfervation. IT is a mark of cowardice paffively to forbear refenting an affront, the refenting of which would lead a man into danger; it is no less a fign of cowardice to affront a creature, that hath not power to avenge itself. Whatever name therefore this ungenerous man may bestow on the helpless lady he hath injured, I fhall not fcruple to give him in return for it, the apellation of coward. A MAN, that can fo far defcend from his dignity, as to ftrike a lady, can never recover his reputation with either fex, because no provocation is thought strong enough to justify fuch treatment from the powerful towards the weak. In the circumstances, in which poor Lesbia is fituated, fhe can appeal to no man whatfoever to avenge an infult, more grievous than a blow. If she could open her mouth, the bafe man knows, that a husband, a brother, a generous friend, would die to fee her righted. A GENEROUS mind, however enraged against an enemy, feels its refentment fink and vanish away, when the object of its wrath falls into its power. An estranged friend, filled with jealoufy and discontent towards a bofom-acquaintance, is apt to overflow with tenderness and remorfe, when a creature that was once dear to him, undergoes any misfortune. What name then shall we give to his ingratitude, "who (forgetting the favours he folicited with eagerness, and received with rapture) can in R 2 fult fult the miferies that he himself caufed, and make sport with the pain to which he owes his greatest pleasure ? There is but one being in the creation whofe province it is to practise upon the imbecillities of frail creatures, and triumph in the woes which his own artifices brought about; and we well know, those who follow his example, will receive his reward. LEAVING my fair correfpondent to the direction of her own wisdom and modefty; and her enemy, and his mean accomplices, to the compunction of their own hearts; I fhall conclude this paper with a memorable instance of revenge, taken by a Spanish lady upon a guilty lover, which may ferve to fhew what violent effects are wrought by the most tender paffion, when foured into hatred; and may deter the young and unwary from unlawful love. The story, however romantic it may appear, I have heard affirmed for a truth. Nor many years ago an English gentleman, who in a rencounter by night in the streets of Madrid had the miffortune to kill his man, fled into a church-porch for fanctuary. Leaning against the door, he was furprised to find it open, and a glimmering light in the church. He had the courage to advance towards the light; but was terribly startled at the fight of a woman in white, who afcended from a grave with a bloody knife in her hand. The phantom marched up to him, and asked him what he did there. He told her the truth without referve, believing that he had met a ghost: upon which she spoke to him in the following manner: Stranger, thou art in my power; 'I am a murderer as thou art. Know then, that I am a nun of a noble family. A base perjured man undid me, ' and boasted of it. I foon had him difpatched; but not · content with the murder, I have bribed the fexton to let me enter his grave, and have now plucked out his falfe heart from his body; and thus I ufe a traitor's ‹ heart.' At these words fhe tore it in pieces, and trampled it under her feet. 6 No. 612. Wednesday, October 27. Murranum hic, atavos et avorum antiqua fonantem Nomina, per regesque actum genus omne Latinos, Præcipitem fcopulo, atque ingentis turbine faxi Excutit, effundit que folo. Virg. Æn. 12. v. 529, Murranus, boafting of his blood that Springs Dryden. T is highly laudable to pay respect to men who are defcended from worthy ancestors, not only out of grati tude to those who have done good to mankind, but as it is an encouragement to others to follow their example. But this is an honour to be received, not demanded, by the defcendants of great men; and they who are apt to remind us of their ancestors, only put us upon making comparisons to their own disadvantage. There is fome pretence for boafting of wit, beauty, ftrength, or wealth, because the communication of them may give pleasure or profit to others; but we can have no merit, nor ought we to claim any refpect, because our fathers acted well whether we would or no. THE following letter ridicules the folly I have mentioned, in a new, and, I think, not difagreeable light. • Mr SPECTATOR, ERE the genealogy of every family preferved, W there would probably be no man valued or defpifed on account of his birth. There is fcarce a beggar in the streets, who would not find himfelf lineally defcended from fome great man; nor any one of the highest title, who would not difcover feveral bafe and indigent perfons among his ancestors. It would be a pleafant entertainment to fee one pedigree of men appear together under the fame characters they bore when they acted their respective parts among the living. Suppofe therefore a gentleman, full of his illuftrious family, fhould, in the fame manner as Virgil makes Æneas look over his defcendants, fee the whole line of his progenitors pafs in a review before his eyes, with how many varying paffions would he behold fhepherds and fol'diers, ftatefmen and artificers, princes and beggars, 'walk in the proceffion of five thousand years! How would his heart fink or flutter at the several sports of fortune in a fcene fo diverfified with rags and purple, handicraft 'tools and fceptres, enfigns of dignity and emblems of difgrace; and how would his fears and apprehenfions, his tranfports and mortifications, fucceed one another, as the line of his genealogy appeared bright or obfcure? IN most of the pedigrees hung up in old manfion-houfes, you are fure to find the firft in the catalogue a great ftatefman, or a foldier with an honourable commiffion. The honeft artificer that begot him, and all his frugal ' ancestors before him, are torn off from the top of the register; and you are not left to imagine, that the no*ble founder of the family ever had a father. Were we to trace many boasted lines farther backwards, we should lose them in a mob of tradesmen, or a croud of ruftics, without hope of feeing them emerge again: not unlike 'the old Appian way, which after having run many miles in length, lofes itself in a bog. 'I LATELY made a vifit to an old country-gentleman, 'who is very far gone in this fort of family-madnefs. I ' found him in his ftudy perufing an old register of his family, which he had juft then difcovered, as it was branched out in the form of a tree, upon a fkin of parch'ment. Having the honour to have fome of his blood in my veins, he permitted me to caft my eye over the boughs of this venerable plant; and asked my advice in the reforming of fome of the fuperfluous branches. WE paffed flightly over three or four of our immediate forefathers, whom we knew by tradition, but were foon ftopped by an alderman of London, who, I perceived, made my kinfman's heart go pit a pat. His confufion increased, when he found the alderman's father to be a grafier; but he recovered his fright, upon feeing justice of the quorum at the end of his titles. |