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or any inward grief, in the person he looks at; but one of these Oglers can see a studied indifference, a concealed love, or a smothered resentment, in the very glances that are made to hide those dispositions of thought. The naturalists tell us, that the rattlesnake will fix himself under a tree where he sees a squirrel playing; and when he has once got the exchange of a glance from the pretty wanton, will give it such a sudden stroke on its imagination, that though it may play from bough to bough, and strive to avert its eyes from it for some time, yet it comes nearer and nearer by little intervals of looking another way, until it drops into the jaws of the animal, which it knew gazed at it for no other reason but to ruin it. I did not believe this piece of philosophy until that night I was just now speaking of; but I then saw the same thing pass between an Ogler and a Coquette. Mirtillo, the most learned of the former, had for some time discontinued to visit Flavia, no less eminent among the latter. They industriously avoided all places where they might probably meet, but chance brought them together to the play-house, and seated them in a direct line over-against each other, she in a front box, he in the pit next the stage. As soon as Flavia had received the looks of the whole crowd below her with that air of insensibility, which is necessary at the first entrance, she began to look round her, and saw the vagabond Mirtillo, who had so long absented himself from her circle; and when she first discovered him, she looked upon him with that glance, which in the language of Oglers is called the Scornful, but immediately turned her observation another way, and returned upon him with the Indifferent. This gave Mirtillo no small resentment; but he used her accordingly. He took care to be ready for her next glance. She found his eyes

full in the Indolent, with his lips crumpled up, in the posture of one whistling. Her anger at this usage immediately appeared in every muscle of her face; and after many emotions, which glistened in her eyes, she cast them round the whole house, and gave them softness in the face of every man she had ever seen before. After she thought she had reduced all she saw to her obedience, the play began, and ended their dialogue. As soon as the first act was over, she stood up with a visage full of dissembled alacrity and pleasure, with which she overlooked the audience, and at last came to him; he was then placed in a side-way, with his hat slouched over his eyes, and gazing at a wench in the sidebox, as talking of that gipsy to the gentleman who sat by him. But as she fixed upon him, he turned suddenly with a full face upon her, and, with all the respect imaginable, made her the most obsequious bow in the presence of the whole theatre. This gave her a pleasure not to be concealed; and she made him the recovering, or second courtsy, with a smile that spoke a perfect reconciliation. Between the ensuing acts, they talked to each other with gestures and glances so significant, that they ridiculed the whole house in this silent speech, and made an appointment that Mirtillo should lead her to her coach.

The peculiar language of one eye, as it differs from another, as much as the tone of one voice from another, and the fascination or enchantment, which is lodged in the optic nerves of the persons concerned in these dialogues, is, I must confess, too nice a subject for one who is not an adept in these speculations; but I shall, for the good and safety of the fair sex, call my learned friend Sir William Read to my assistance, and, by the help of his observations on this organ, acquaint them when

the eye is to be believed, and when distrusted. On the contrary, I shall conceal the true meaning of the looks of ladies, and indulge in them all the art they can acquire in the management of their glances all which is but too little against creatures who triumph in falsehood, and begin to forswear with their eyes, when their tongues can be no longer believed.

ADVERTISEMENT.

* A very clean well-behaved young gentleman, who is in a very good way in Cornhill, has writ to me the following lines; and seems in some passages of his letter, which I omit, to lay it very much to heart, that I have not spoken of a supernatural beauty whom he sighs for, and complains to in most elaborate language. Alas! What can a Monitor do? All mankind live in romance.

"MR. BICKERSTAFF,

"Royal Exchange, March 11.

"Some time since, you were pleased to mention the beauties in the New Exchange and Westminsterhall, and in my judgment were not very impartial; for if you were pleased to allow there was one Goddess in the New Exchange, and two Shepherdesses in Westminster-hall*, you very well might say, there was and is at present one Angel in the Royal Exchange and I humbly beg the favour of you to let justice be done her, by inserting this in your next Tatler; which will make her my good Angel, and me your most humble servant,

See Tatler, No. 139.

A. B."

N° 146. THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1709-10.

Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quia
Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris.
Nam pro jucundis aptissima quæque dabunt Dü,
Carior est illis homo, quam sibi. Nos animorum
Impulsu, et cæca magnâque cupidine ducti,
Conjugium petimus, partumque uxoris ; at illis
Notum, qui pueri, qualisque futura sit uxor.

Juv. Sat. x. 347 & seq.

Intrust thy fortune to the Powers above;
Leave them to manage for thee, and to grant
What their unerring wisdom sees thee want:
In goodness as in greatness they excel;
Ah! that we lov'd ourselves but half so well!
We, blindly by our headstrong passions led,
Are hot for action, and desire to wed;
Then wish for heirs, but to the gods alone
Our future offspring and our wives are known.

DRYDEN

From my own Apartment, March 15.

AMONG the various sets of correspondents who apply to me for advice, and send up their cases from all parts of Great Britain, there are none who are more importunate with me, and whom I am more inclined to answer, than the Complainers. One of them dates his letter to me from the banks of a purling stream, where he used to ruminate in solitude upon the divine Clarissa, and where he is now looking about for a convenient leap, which he tells me he is resolved to take, unless I support him under the loss of that charming perjured woman. Poor Lavinia presses as much for consolation on the

other side, and is reduced to such an extremity of despair by the inconstancy of Philander, that she tells me she writes her letter with her pen in one hand, and her garter in the other. A gentleman of an antient family in Norfolk is almost out of his wits upon the account of a greyhound, that, after having been his inseparable companion for ten years, is at last run mad. Another, who I believe is serious, complains to me, in a very moving manner, of the loss of a wife; and another, in terms still more moving, of a purse of money that was taken from him on Bagshot-heath, and which, he tells me, would not have troubled him, if he had given it to the poor. In short, there is scarce a calamity in human life that has not produced me a letter.

It is indeed wonderful to consider, how men are able to raise afflictions to themselves out of every thing. Lands and houses, sheep and oxen, can convey happiness and misery into the hearts of reasonable creatures. Nay, I have known a muff, a scarf, or a tippet, become a solid blessing or misfortune. A lap-dog has broke the hearts of thousands. Flavia, who had buried five children and two husbands, was never able to get over the loss of her parrot. How often has a divine creature been thrown into a fit by a neglect at a ball or an assembly! Mopsa has kept her chamber ever since the last masquerade, and is in greater danger of her life upon being left out of it, than Clarinda from the violent cold which she caught at it. Nor are these dear creatures the only sufferers by such imaginary calamities. Many an author has been dejected at the censure of one whom he ever looked upon as an idiot and many an hero-cast into a fit of melancholy, because the rabble have not hooted at him as he passed through the streets. Theron places all his happiness in a running horse, Suffenus in a

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