TH

-

-Virg.

HOUGH you have considered virtuous Love in most of its Distresses, I do not remember that you have given us any Dissertation upon the Absence of Lovers, or laid down any Methods how they should support themselves under those long Separations which they are sometimes forced to undergo. I am at present in this unhappy Circumstance, having parted with the best of Husbands, who is abroad in the Service of his Country, and may not possibly return for some Years, His warm and generous Affection while we were together, with the Tenderness which he expressed to me at parting, made his Absence almost insupport able. I think of him every Moment of the Day, and meet him every Night in my Dreams. Every thing I see puts me in mind of him, I apply my self with more than ordinary Diligence to the Care of his Family and his Estate; but this, instead of relieving me, gives me but so many Occasions of wishing for his Return. I frequent the Rooms where I used to converse with him, and not meeting him there, sit down in his Chair and fall a weeping. I love to read the Books he de lighted in, and to converse with the Persons whom he esteem'd, I visit his Picture an hundred times a Day, and place my self over against it whole Hours together. I pass a great Part of my Time in the Walks where I used to lean upon his Arm, and recollect in my Mind the Discourses which have there passed between us: I look over the several Prospects and Points of View which we used to survey together, fix my Eye upon the Objects which he has made me take Notice of, and call to mind a thousand agreeable Remarks which he has made on those Occasions. write to him by every Conveyance, and, contrary to other People, am always in good Humour when an

I

East

No. 241. East Wind blows, because it seldom fails of bringing Thursday, me a Letter from him. Let me intreat you, Sir, to Dec. 6, give me your Advice upon this Occasion, and to let me know how I may relieve my self in this my Widowhood,

1711

I am, Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

ASTERIA,

Absence is what the Poets call Death in Love, and has given Occasion to abundance of beautiful Com plaints in those Authors, who have treated of this Passion in Verse, Ovid's Epistles are full of them. Otway's Monímia talks very tenderly upon this Subject

It was not kind

To leave me, like a Turtle, here alone,
To droop and mourn the Absence of my Mate.
When thou art from me every Place is desart,
And I methinks am savage and forlorn,

Thy Presence only 'tis can make me blessed,
Heal my unquiet Mind, and tune my Soul.

The Consolations of Lovers on these Occasions are very extraordinary. Besides those mentioned by Astería, there are many other Motives of Comfort, which are made use of by absent Lovers,

I remember in one of Scudery's Romances, a couple of honourable Lovers agreed at their Parting to set aside one half Hour in the Day to think of each other during a tedious Absence. The Romance tells us, that they both of them punctually observed the time thus agreed upon; and that whatever Company or Business they were engaged in, they left it abruptly as soon as the Clock warned them to retire. The Romance further adds, That the Lovers expected the Return of this stated Hour with as much Impatience, as if it had been a real Assignation, and enjoy'd an imaginary Happiness, almost as pleasing to them as what they would have found from a real Meeting. It was an inexpressible Satisfaction to these divided Lovers to be assured that each was at the same time employed in the same kind

of

of Contemplation, and making equal Returns of Tender No. 241. ness and Affection.

1711,

Thursday If I may be allowed to mention a more Serious Ex- Dec. 6, pedient for the alleviating of Absence, I shall take Notice of one which I have known two Persons practise, who joined Religion to that Elegance of Sentiments with which the Passion of Love generally inspires its Votaries. This was, at the Return of such an Hour to offer up a certain Prayer for each other, which they had agreed upon before their Parting. The Husband, I who is a Man that makes a Figure in the polite World, as well as in his own Family, has often told me that I he could not have supported an Absence of three Years without this Expedient.

Strada in one of his Prolusions gives an Account of a chimerical Correspondence between two Friends, by the Help of a certain Loadstone, which had such Vertue in it, that if it touched two several Needles, when one of the Needles so touched begun to move, the other, tho' at never so great a Distance, moved at the same Time, and in the same Manner. He tells us, That the two Friends, being each of them possessed of one of these Needles, made a kind of a Dial-plate, inscribing it with the four and twenty Letters, in the same manner as the Hours of the Day are marked upon the ordinary Dial-plate. They then fix'd one of the Needles on each of these Plates in such a manner that it could move round without Impediment, so as to touch any of the four and twenty Letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant Countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their Closets at a certain Hour of the Day, and to converse with one another by Means of this their Invention. Accordingly when they were some hundred Miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his Closet at the Time appointed, and immediately cast his Eye upon his Dial-plate. If he had a mind to write any thing to his Friend, he directed his Needle to every Letter that formed the Words which he had Occasion for, making a little Pause at the End of every Word or Sentence to avoid Confusion. The Friend, in the mean

1711

No. 241, while, saw his own Sympathetick Needle moving of Thursday, itself to every Letter which that of his Correspondent Dec. 6, pointed at. By this Means they talked together across a whole Continent, and conveyed their Thoughts to one another in an Instant over Cities or Mountains, Seas or Desarts.

If Monsieur Scudery, or any other Writer of Romance, had introduced a Necromancer, who is generally in the Train of a Knight-Errant, making a Present to two Lovers of a Couple of these above-mentioned Needles, the Reader would not have been a little pleased to have seen them corresponding with one another, when they were guarded by Spies and Watches, or separated by Castles and Adventures,

In the mean while, if ever this Invention should be revived or put in Practice, I would propose that upon the Lover's Dial-plate there should be written not only the four and twenty Letters, but several entire Words which have always a Place in passionate Epistles, as Flames, Darts, Die, Languish, Absence, Cupid, Heart, Eyes, Hang, Drown, and the like. This would very much abridge the Lover's Pains in this way of writing a Letter, as it would enable him to express the most useful and significant Words with a single Touch of the Needle,

No. 242,

[STEELE.]

Friday, December 7,

Creditur, ex medio quía res arcessit, habere
Sudoris minimum-

'Mr. SPECTATOR,

YOUR

-Hor,

C

OUR Speculations do not so generally prevail_over Men's Manners as I could wish. A former Paper of yours, concerning the Misbehaviour of People, who are necessarily in each other's Company in travel ling, ought to have been a lasting Admonition against Transgressions of that kind: But I had the Fate of your Quaker, in meeting with a rude Fellow in a Stage Coach, who entertain'd two or three Women of us (for there was no Man besides himself) with Language

Language as indecent as ever was heard upon the No. 242.
Water, The impertinent Observations which the Friday,
Dec, 7,
Coxcomb made upon our Shame and Confusion, were 1711.
such, that it is an unspeakable Grief to reflect upon
them. As much as you have declaimed against
Duelling, I hope you will do us the Justice to declare,
that if the Brute has Courage enough to send to the
Place where he saw us all alight together to get rid
of him, there is not one of us but has a Lover who

shall avenge the Insult It would certainly be worth
your Consideration, to look into the frequent Mis
fortunes of this kind, to which the Modest and Innocent
are expos'd, by the licentious Behaviour of such, as are
as much Strangers to good Breeding as to Virtue,
Could we avoid hearing what we do not approve, as
easily as we can seeing what is disagreeable, there
were some Consolation; but since, in a Box at a Play,
in an Assembly of Ladies, or even in a Pew at Church,
it is in the Power of a gross Coxcomb to utter what a
Woman cannot avoid hearing, how miserable is her
Condition who comes within the Power of such Im
pertinents? and how necessary is it to repeat Invectives
against such a Behaviour? If the Licentious had not
utterly forgot what it is to be modest, they would know,
that offended Modesty labours under one of the greatest
Sufferings to which human Life can be exposed.
one of these Brutes could reflect thus much, though
they want Shame, they would be moved, by their Pity,
to abhor an impudent Behaviour in the Presence of
the Chaste and Innocent. If you will oblige us with
a Spectator on this Subject, and procure it to be pasted
against every Stage-Coach in Great Britain as the Law
of the Journey, you will highly oblige the whole Sex,
for which you have professed so great an Esteem; and,
in particular, the two Ladies, my late Fellow-Sufferers,
and,

Sir,

Your most Humble Servant,

Rebecca Ridinghood.'

If

'Mr.