Bufhes; and the Husband believing it a Deer, threw his Javelin and kill'd her. This Hiltory painted on a Fan, which I prefented to a Lady, gave Occafion to my growing poetical.

;

Come gentle Air! th' Eolian Shepherd said,
While Procris panted in the fecret Shade
Come gentle Air! the fairer Delia cries,
While at her Feet her Swain expiring lies.
Lo the glad Gales o'er all her Beauties ftray,
Breath on her Lips, and in her Bofom play.
In Delia's Hand this Toy is fatal found,
Nor did that fabled Dart more furely wound.
Both Gifts deftructive to the Givers prove,
Alike both Lovers fall by thofe they love:
Yet guiltless too this bright Deftroyer lives,
At Random wounds, nor knows the Wound fhe gives!
She views the Story with attentive Eyes,
And pities Procris, while her Lover dies.

No. 528.

එම එසේ ම ඒ ඒ එම එම එම එම එම එම

Wednesday, November 5.

Dum potuit, folita gemitum virtute repressit., Ovid:

Mr. SPECTATOR,

I

WHO now write to you am a Woman loaded with Injuries, and the Aggravation of my Misfortune is, that they are fuch which are overlooked by the gene• rality of Mankind, and though the most afflicting imaginable, not regarded as fuch in the general Senfe of the • World. I have hid my Vexation from all Mankind; but • have now taken Pen, Ink, and Paper, and am refolv'd to unbofom myself to you, and lay before you what grieves me and all the Sex. You have very often men. ⚫. tioned particular Hardships done to this or that Lady; but, methinks, you have not in any one Speculation directly pointed at the partial Freedom Men take, the un• reasonable Confinement Women are obliged to, in the

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only Circumftance in which we are neceffarily to have a • Commerce with them, that of Love. The Cafe of Celibacy is the great Evil of our Nation; and the Indulgence ⚫ of the vicious Conduct of Men in that State, with the Ridicule to which Women are expofed, though ever so virtuous, if long unmarried, is the Root of the greatest irregularities of this Nation. To fhew you, Sir, that tho' you never have given us the Catalogue of a Lady's Library as you promifed, we read good Books of our own chufing, I fhall infert on this Occafion a Paragraph or two out of Echard's Roman Hiftory. In the 44th Page of the fecond Volume the Author obferves, that Auguftus, upon his Return to Rome at the end of a War, received Complaints that too great a Number of the young Men of Quality were unmarried. The Emperor thereupon affembled the whole Equeftrian Order; and having feparated the Married from the Single, did parti'cular Honours to the former, but he told the latter, that

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is to fay, Mr. SPECTATOR, he told the Batchelors, "That their Lives and Actions had been fo peculiar, that "he knew not by what Name to call 'em ; not by that

of Men, for they performed nothing that was manly; "not by that of Citizens, for the City might perish not"withftanding their Care; nor by that of Romans, for they

defigned to extirpate the Roman Name." Then pro⚫ceeding to fhew his tender Care and hearty Affection for his People, he further told them, "That their Course of "Life was of fuch pernicious Confequence to the Glory "and Grandeur of the Roman Nation, that he could not "chufe but tell them, that all other Crimes put together "could not equalize theirs: For they were guilty of Mur"der, in not fuffering those to be born which fhould pro"ceed from them; of Impiety, in caufing the Names and "Honours of their Ancestors to cease; and of Sacrilege, "in destroying their Kind, which proceed from the im"mortal Gods, and human Nature, the principal Thing "confecrated to 'em: Therefore in this Respect they dif"folved theGovernment, in difobeying its Laws, betray"ed their Country, by making it barren and waste; nay "and demolished theirCity, in depriving it of Inhabitants. "And he was fenfible that all this proceeded not from any "kind of Virtue or Abftinence, but from a Looseness and 66 Wantonness,

Wantounefs, which ought never to be encouraged in any civil Government." • There are no Particulars dwelt upon that let us into the Conduct of these young • Worthies, whom this great Emperor treated with fo much Juftice and Indignation; but any one who ob⚫ ferves what paffes in this Town, may very well frame < to himself a Notion of their Riots and Debaucheries all Night, and their apparent Preparations for them all Day. It is not to be doubted but these Romans never paffed any of their Time innocently but when they were afleep, and never flept but when they were weary and heavy ' with Exceffes, and flept only to prepare themselves for the Repetition of them. If you did your Duty as a SPECTATOR, you would carefully examine into the • Number of Births, Marriages, and Burials; and when you had deducted out of your Deaths all fuch as went out of the World without marrying, then caft up the • Number of both Sexes born within fuch a Term of Years laft paft, you might from the finglePeople departed make fome ufeful Inferences or Gueffes how many there are left • unmarried, and raise fome ufeful Scheme for the Amendment of the Age in that Particular. I have not Patience to proceed gravely on this abominable Libertinifm; for I cannot but reflect, as I am writing to you, upon a cer⚫tain lafcivious manner which all our young Gentlemen ufe in Publick, and examine ourEyes with a Petulancy in their own, which is a downright affront to Modefty. A ⚫ difdainful Look on fuch an Occasion is return'd with a ⚫ Countenance rébuked, but by averting their Eyes from the Women of Honour and Decency to fome flippant 'Creature, who will, as the Phrase is, be kinder. I must fet down Things as they come into my Head, without standing upon Order. Ten thousand to one but the gay 'Gentleman who stared, at the fame Time is an Housekeeper; for you must know they have got into a Humour of late of being very regular in their Sins, and a young Fellow fhall keep his four Maids and three Footmen with the greatest Gravity imaginable. There are no less than fix of these venerable House-keepers of my Acquaintance. This Humour among young Men of Con'dition is imitated by all the World below them, and a general Diffolution of Manners arifes from the one

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Source of Libertinism, without Shame or Reprehenfion in the Male Youth. It is from this one Fountain that fo many beautiful helpless young Women are sacrific'd and given up to Lewdness, Shame, Poverty and Difeafe. It is to this alfo that fo many excellent young Women, who might be Patterns of conjugal Affection and Parents of a worthy Race, pine under unhappy Paffions for fuch as have not Attention enough to obferve, or Virtue cough to prefer them to their common Wenches. Now, Mr. SPECTATOR, I must be free to own to you, that I myself suffer a tastelefs infipid Being, from a Confideration I have for a Man who would not, as he has faid in my hearing, refign his Liberty, as he calls it, for all the Beauty and Wealth the whole Sex is poffeffed of. Such Calamities as thefe would not happen, if it could poffibly be brought about, that by fining Batchelors as Papifts Convict, or the like, they were diftinguished to their Difadvantage from the reft of the World, who fall in with the Measures of civil Society. Left you should think I fpeak this as being, according to the fenfeless rude Phrafe, a malicious old Maid, I fhall acquaint 6 you I am a Woman of Condition not now three and twenty, and have had Propofals from at least ten different Men, and the greater Number of them have upon the Upfhot refufed me. Something or other is always amifs when the Lover takes to fome new Wench: A Settlement is eafily excepted against; and there is very little Recourfe to avoid the vicious Part of our Youth, but throwing one's felf away upon fome lifelefs Blockhead, who though he is without Vice, is also without Virtue. Now-a-days we must be contented if we can get Creatures which are not bad, good are not to be expected. Mr. SPECTATOR, I fat 6 near you the other Day, and think I did not displease your Spectatorial Eye-fight; which I fhall be a better judge of when I fee whether you take Notice of these Evils your own Way, or print this Memorial dictated from the difdainful heavy Heart of,

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I

SIR, Your moft obedient humble Servant,
Rachael Welladay.

Thursday,

No. 529. Thursday, November 6.

Singula quæque locum teneant fortita decenter.

Hor.'

PON the hearing of feveral late Difputes concern

UPON

amufing myfelf with fome Obfervations, which I have made upon the learned World, as to this great Particular. By the learned World I here mean at large, all those who are any way concerned in Works of Literature, whether in the Writing, Printing or Repeating Part. To begin with the Writers; I have obferved that the Author of a Folio, in all Companies and Converfations, fets himself above the Author of a Quarto; the Author of a Quarto above the Author of an O&avo; and so on, by a gradual Defcent and Subordination, to an Author in Twenty-Fours. This Diftinction is fo well obferved, that in an Affembly of the Learned, I have feen a Folio Writer place himself in an Elbow-chair, when the Author of a Duodecimo has, out of a just Deference to his fuperior Quality, feated himself upon a Squab. In a Word, Authors are ufually ranged in Company after the fame Manner as their Works are upon a Shelf..

THE moft eminent Pocket-Authors hath beneath him the Writers of all Pamphlets, or Works that are only ftitched. As for the Pamphleteer, he takes place of none but of the Authors of fingle Sheets, and of that Fraternity who publish their Labours on certain Days, or on every Day of the Week. I do not find that the Precedency among the Individuals, in this latter Class of Writers, is yet fettled.

FOR my own part, I have had fo ftrict a regard to the Ceremonial which prevails in the learned World, that I never prefumed to take place of a Pamphleteer till my daily Papers were gathered into thofe two firft Volumes, which have already appeared. After which, I natu

rally