very fine, and struts in a laced coat, and is the admiration of feamftreffes who are under age in town. Ever 'fince I have had fome knowledge of the matter, I have ' debarred my prentice from pen, ink and paper. But the other day he bespoke fome cravats of me: I went out of the shop, and left his mistress to put them up into a 'band-box in order to be fent to him when his man called. When I came into the fhop again, I took occafion to fend her away, and found in the bottom of the box written thefe words, Why would you ruin a harmless creature that loves you? then in the lid, There is no refifiing, Strephon: I fearched a little farther, and found in the ' rim of the box, At eleven o'clock at night come in an hackney-coach at the end of our freet. This was enough to alarm me: I fent away the things, and took my meafures accordingly. An hour or two before the appointed 'time I examined my young lady, and found her trunk stuffed with impertinent letters, and an old feroll of parchment in Latin, which her lover had fent her as a fettle'ment of fifty pounds a year: among other things there was alfo the beft lace I had in my fhop to make hint a prefent for cravats. I was very glad of this last circumftance, becaufe I could very confcientiously fwear against him that he had enticed my fervant away, and was her accomplice in robbing me: I procured a warrant against him accordingly. Every thing was now pre pared, and the tender hour of love approaching; I, who had acted for myself in my youth the fame fenfeless part, knew how to manage accordingly; therefore, after hav ing locked up my maid, and not being fo much unlike her ' in height and shape, as in a huddled way not to pass for her, I delivered the bundle defigned to be carried off to 'her lover's man, who came with the fignal to receive them. Thus I followed after to the coach, where, when I faw his mafter take them in, I cried out, Thieves! thieves! and the constable with his attendants feized my < expecting lover. I kept myself unobferved till I faw the croud fufficiently increased, and then appeared to declare the goods to be mine; and had the fatisfaction to fee my man of mode put into the Round-house, with the ftollen wares by him to be produced in evidence against him the next inorning. This matter is notoriously known to be be fact; and I have been contented to fave my prentice, and take a year's rent of this mortified lover, not to appear farther in the matter. This was fome penance; but, Sir, is this enough for a villany of much more pernicious confequence than the trifles for which he was to have been indicted? Should not you, and all men of any parts or honour, put things upon fo right a foot, as that fuch a rafcal fhould not laugh at the imputation of what he was really guilty, and dread being accused of that for which he was arrested? In a word, Sir, it is in the power of you, and fuch as I hope you are, to make it as infamous to rob a poor creature of her honour as her clothes. I leave this to. your confideration, only take leave (which I cannot do without fighing) to reinark to you, that if this had been the fenfe of mankind thirty years ago, I fhould have avoided a life fpent in poverty and fhame. I am, SIR, Your most humble fervant, Mr SPECTATOR, Alice Threadneedle. Round-houfe, Sept. 9. I AM a man of pleasure about town, but by the ftupidity of a dull rogue of a juftice of peace, and an infolent conftable, upon the oath of an old harridan, am imprifoned here for theft, when I defigned only fornication. The midnight magiftrate, as he conveyed me a" long, had you in his mouth, and faid, this would make a " pure ftory for the SPECTATOR. I hope, Sir, you won't pretend to wit, and take the part of dull rogues of businefs. The world is fo altered of late years, that there was not a man who would knock down a watchman in my behalf, but I was carried off with as much triumph as if I had been a pick-pocket. At this rate, there is an end of all the wit and humour in the world. The time was when all the honeft whore-mafters in the neighbourhood would have rofe against the cuckolds to my refcue. If fornication is to be fcandalous, half the fine things that have been writ by moft of the wits of the laft age may be burnt by the common haugman. Harkee, Mr SPEC, do do not be queer; after having done fome things pretty. well, don't begin to write at that rate that no gentle< man can read thee. Be true to love, and burn your Seneca. You do not expect me to write my name fron hence, but I am. No 183. Your unknown humble, &c... Saturday, September 29, Ιδμεν ψευδία πολλα λέγειν ετυμοσιν όμοια, Sometimes fair truth in fiction we difquife, F ABLES were the first pieces of wit that made their appearance in the world, and have been fill highly valued not only in times of the gresteft fimplicity, but among the most polite ages of mankind. Jotham's fable of the trees is the oldeft that is extant, and as beautiful as any. which have been made fince that time. Nathan's fable of the poor man and his lamb, is likewife more antient than any that is extant, befides the above. mentioned, had fo good an effect, as to convey inftruction to the ear of a king without offending it, and to bring the man after God's own. heart to a right fenfe of his guilt and his duty. We find Efop in the moft diftant ages of Greece; and if we look into the very beginnings of the commonwealth of Rome, we fee a mutiny among the common people appeafed by a fable of the belly and the limbs, which was indeed very proper to gain the attention of an incenfed rabble, at a timewhen, perhaps, they would have torn to pieces any man who had preached the fame doctrine to them in an open and direct manner. As fables took their birth in the very infancy of learning, they never flourified more than when learning was at its greateft height. To juftify this affer tion, I fhall put my reader in mind of Horace, the greateft wit and, critic in the. Auguf an age; and of Boileau, the moft correct poet among the moderns: not to mention La Fontaine, who, by this way of writing, is come more. into vogue than any other author of our times. ΤΗΣ THE fables I have here mentioned are raised altogether upon brutes and vegetables, with fome of our own species mixt among them, when the moral hath fo required. But befides this kind of fable, there is another in which the actors are paffions, virtues, vices, and other imaginary per❤ fons of the like nature. Some of the antient critics will have it, that the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer are fables of this nature, and that the feveral names of the gods and heroes are nothing elfe but the affections of the mind in a vifible fhape and character. Thus they tell us, that Achilles, in the first Iliad, reprefents anger, or the irafcible part of human nature; that upon drawing his fword against his fuperior in a full affembly, Pallas is only another name for reason, which checks and advises him upon that occafion; and at her firft appearance touches him upon the head, that part of the man being looked upon as the feat of reafon. And thus of the reft of the poein. As for the Odyffey, I think it is plain that Horace confidered it as one of these allegorical fables, by the moral which he has given us of feveral parts of it. The greatest Italian wits have applied themselves to the writing of this latter kind of fables; as Spencer's Fairy-Queen is one continued series of them, from the beginning to the end of that admirable work. If we look into the fineft profe authors of antiquity, fuch as Cicero, Plato, Xenophon, and many others, we shall find that this was likeways their favourite kind of fable. I fhall only farther observe upon it, that the first of this fort that made any confiderable figure in the world, was that of Hercules meeting with Pleasure and Virtue; which was invented by Prodicus, who lived before Socrates, and in the firft dawning of philofophy. He ufed to travel. through Greece by virtue of this fable, which procured him a kind reception in all the market towns, where he never failed telling it as foon as he had gathered an audi ence about him. AFTER this fhort preface, which I have made up of fùch materials as my memory does at present suggest to me, before I prefent my reader with a fable of this kind, which I defign as the entertainment of the prefent paper, I must in a few words open the occafion of it. In the account which Plato gives us of the converfation and and behaviour of Socrates the morning he was to die, he tells the following circumftance. WHEN Socrates his fetters were knocked off (as was ufual to be done on the day that the condemned perfon was to be executed) being feated in the midst of his disciples, and laying one of his legs over the other, in a very unconcerned pofture, he began to rub it where it had been galled by the iron; and whether it was to fhew the indifference with which he entertained the thoughts of his approaching death, or, after his ufual manner, to take every occafion of philofophizing upon fome ufeful fubject, he obferved the pleasure of that fenfation which now arofe in thole very parts of his leg, that just before had been fo much pained by the fetter. Upon this he reflected on the nature of pleasure and pain in general, and how constantly they fucceed one another. To this he added, that if a man of a good genius for a fable were to represent the nature of pleasure and pain in that way of writing, he would probably join them together after fuch a manner, that it would be impoffible for the one to come into, any płace without being followed by the other. IT is poffible, that if Plato had thought it proper at fucli a time to describe Socrates launching out into a difcourfe which was not of a piece with the bufinefs of the day, he would have enlarged upon this hint, and have drawn it out into fome beautiful allegory or fable. But fince he has not done it, I fhall attempt to write one myself in the fpirit of that divine author... THERE were two families which from the beginning of the world, were as oppofite to each other as light and darkness. The one of them lived in heaven, the other in hell. The youngest defcendant of the firft family was Pleafure, who was the daughter of Happiness, who was the child of Virtue, who was the offspring of the gods. Thefe, as I faid before, had their habitation in heaven. The youngest of the oppofite fumity was Pain, who was the for of Mifery, who was the child of Kice, who was the offSpring of the furies. The habitation of this race of beings was in hell. THE middle fation of nature between these two appofite extremes was the earth, which was inhabited by crea tures |