mnours in man, that I did not know out of what animals to fetch them. Male fouls are diversified with so many characters, that the world has not variety of materials fufficient to furaish: out their different tempers and inclinations. The creation, with allits animals and elements, would not be large enough to supply their several extravagancies.

INSTEAD therefore of pursuing the thought of Simonides, I shall observe that as he has exposed the vicious part of women from the doctrine of pre-existence, some of the ancient philosophers have, in a manner, fatirized the vicious part of the human species in general, froin a notion of the soul's post-existence, if I may so call it ; and that, as Simonides describes brutes entering into the composition of women, others have represented human souls as entering into brutes. This is commonly termed the doctrine of transmigration, which supposes that human fouls, upon their leaving the body, become the souls of such kinds of brutes as they most resemble in their manners; or to give an account of it, as Mr. Dryden has described it in his translation of Pythagoras his speech in the fifteenth book of Ovid, where that philosopher dissuades his hearers from eating flesh:

Thus all things are but alter'd, nothing dies,
And here and there th' unbody'd spirit flies:
By time, or force, or sickness dispossesid,
And lodges where it lights, 'in bird or beast,
Or hunts without tillready limbs it find,
And aftuates those according to their kind:
From tenement to tenement is tofs'd:
The foul is still the same, the figure only loft

THEN let not piely be put to flight,
To please the taste of glutton appetite ;
But suffer inmate fouls secure to dwell,
Left from their seats your parents jou expel ;;
With rabid hunger feed upon your kind,
Or from a beasi dislodge a brother's mind..

PL 4T 1, in the vili:n of Erus: this Arinenbang.which I may possibly make the subject of a future speculation, ret. O2

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cords some beautiful transmigrations; as that the foul of Orpheus, who was musical, melancholy, and a woman. hater, entered into a swan ; the foul of Ajax, which was all wrath and fierceness, into a lion; the soul of Agamemnon, that was rapacious and imperial, into an eagle; and the soul of Thersites, who was a inimick and a buffoon, into a monkey.

MR CONGREVE, in a prologue to one of his comedies, has touched upon this doctrine with great humour.

Thus Aristotle foul of old that was,
May now be damn'd to animate an ass;
Or in this very house, for ought we know,
Is doing painful penance in some beau.

I SHALL fill up this

paper
with some letters which

my last Tuesday's speculation has produced. My following cor-, respondents will shew, what I there obferved, that the fpeçulation of that day affects only the lower part of the fex.

From my house in the Strand, October 30, 1711.

Mr SPECTATOR,
TPON reading your Tuefday's paper, I find by fe-

veral fyınptoms in my coostitution that I am a Bee. My shop, or, if you please to call it fo, my cell, is in the great hive of females which goes by the name of the New-Exchange ; where I am daily employed in gathering together a little stock of gain from the finest flowers about the town, I mean the ladies and the beausa I have a numerous fwarm of children, to whom I give

the best education I am able: but Sir, it is my misfortunc « to be married to a drone, who lives upon what I get,

without bringing any thing into the common stocka « Now Sir, as on the one hand I take care not to be

have myself towards hiin like a wafp, fo likewise į I would not have him look upon me as an humble-bee ; • for which reason I do all I can to put him upon laying up • provisions for a bad day, and frequently represent to • him the fatal effects his sloth and negligence may bring upon us in our old age. I must beg that you will join

( with

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with me in your good advice upon this occasion, and you: will-for ever oblige

Tour humble servant,

MELISSA.

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SIR,

Picadilly, betober 31, 1711. AM joiced in wedlock for my sins to one of those fil. lies who are described in the old poet with that hard!

name you gave us the other day. She has a flowing mane, and a skin as soft as silk :- but, Sir, she passes half her life at her glass, and alinost ruins me in ribbons.

For my own part, I am a plain handicraft man,. 6 and in danger of breaking by her laziness and expensiveness. Pray, master, tell me in your next paper, So whether I may not expect of her so much drudgery as to“- take care of her family, and curry her hide in case of rom-- fufal..

Your loving friend.

Barnaby Brittle.

Mr SPECȚATOR;

Cheapsides October 30. AM mightily pleased with the humour of the cat, bet fo-kind as to enlarge upon that subject.

Yours till death,

Josiah Henpeck.

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P.S. --You must know I am married to a Grimalkin

SIR,
Wapping, Oftober 31.-17113-

" VER since your Spectator of Tuesday laft came in-EYE

to our family, my husband is pleased to call me his 6. Oceana, because the foolish' old poet that you have • translated says, that the fouls of some women are made 6 of sea-water. This, it seems, has encouraged my lauce • box to be witty upon me.

When I am angry, he cries, Pr’ythee, my dear, be calm ; when I chide one of my • servants, Pr’ythes, child, do not bluster. He had tije • impudence about an hour ago to tell me, that he was a -Sea-faring man, and must expect to divide his life between 1

"stormade

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are

o form and fun-shine. When I bestir myself with any fpi. • rit in my family, it is high fea in his house; and when • I sit still without doing any thing, his affairs forsootlı

wind-bound. When I ask him whether it rains, he " makes answer, it is no matter, fo that it be fair weather r within doors. In short, Sir, I cannot fpeak my mind • freely to him, but I either (well or rage, or do fomething " that is not fit for a civil woman to hear. Pray, MR SPECTATOR,

since you are so sharp upon other women, let us know what materials your wife is made of, if you have

I fuppofe you would make us a parcel of poor• Ipirited tame insipid creatures ; but, Sir, I would have

you to know, we have as good pallions in us as yourself, " and that a woinan was never designed to be a milk-fop. L

MARTHA TEMPEST.

one.

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No 212.

Friday, November 2.

Eripe turpi
Colla jugo, liler, liber fum, dic age-

Hor. Sat. 7. 1. 2. v. 92.

Loose thy neck from this ignoble chain
And boldly say thou’rt free.

CREECH.

MR SPECTATOR,
1

Never look upon my dear wife, but I think of the

happiness Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY enjoys, in having fuch a friend as you to expose in proper colours the cruelty and perverseness of his mistress. I have very of ten wished you visited in our family, and were acquaint

ed with my spoufe ; she would afford you for some • months at least matter enough for one fpectator a week. * Since we are not fo happy as to be of your acquaintance,

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tion ;

that lady ever pretended to. We had not been a month married, when she found in me a certain pain to give offence, and an indolence that made me bear little in

conveniences rather than dispute about thein. From this ? observation it foon came to that pass, that if I offered

to go abroad, she would get between me and the door, kiss me, and say she could not part with me; and then down again Isat. In a day or two after this first pleasant step towards confining me, she declared to me, that I was

all the world to her, and she thought she ought to be r all the world to me. It, said she, my dear loves me as

much as I love him, he wiļl never be tired of my como pany. This declaration was followed by my being denied to all my acquaintance; and it very soon came to that pass, that, to give an answer at the door, before my face, the servants would ask her whether I was within or not; and she would anfwer, no, with great fondness, and tell

I was a good dear. I will not enumerate more little circumstances to give you a livelier sense of my condi.

but tell you in general, that from such steps as these at first, I now live the life of a prisoner of state : my letters are opened, and I have not the ufe of

pen, ink, and paper, but in her presence. I never go abroad,

except lhe foinetimes takes me with her in her coach to ( take the air, if it may be called so, when we drive, as

we generally do, with the glasses up. I have overheard my

servants lament my condition, but they dare not bring me messages without her knowledge, because they doubt my resolation to stand by them. In the midst of this

inlipid way of life, an old acquaintance of mine, Tom . Meggot, who is a favourite with her, and allowed to

v'sit ine in her company, because he sings prettily, has roused me to rebel, and conveyed his intelligence to me in the following inanner. My wife is a great pretender

to music, and very ignorant of it; but far gone in the 's Italian taste. To goes to Armstrong the famous fine

( writer of music, and desires him to put this fentence of ✓ Tully in the scale of an Italian air, and write out for my spouse from hini.

An ille mihi liber cui niulier impperat? Cui leges imponit, præfcribit, jubet, vetat, quod i videtur ? Qui nihil imperanti negare, nihil recusare audet ? Poscit? dandum eft. Vocat ? veniendum. Eji.

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