The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,418 pages of information about The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3.

The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 3,418 pages of information about The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,

I have for some Years indulged a Passion for a young Lady of Age and Quality suitable to my own, but very much superior in Fortune.  It is the Fashion with Parents (how justly I leave you to judge) to make all Regards give way to the Article of Wealth.  From this one Consideration it is that I have concealed the ardent Love I have for her; but I am beholden to the Force of my Love for many Advantages which I reaped from it towards the better Conduct of my Life.  A certain Complacency to all the World, a strong Desire to oblige where-ever it lay in my Power, and a circumspect Behaviour in all my Words and Actions, have rendered me more particularly acceptable to all my Friends and Acquaintance.  Love has had the same good Effect upon my Fortune; and I have encreased in Riches in proportion to my Advancement in those Arts which make a man agreeable and amiable.  There is a certain Sympathy which will tell my Mistress from these Circumstances, that it is I who writ this for her Reading, if you will please to insert it.  There is not a downright Enmity, but a great Coldness between our Parents; so that if either of us declared any kind Sentiment for each other, her Friends would be very backward to lay an Obligation upon our Family, and mine to receive it from hers.  Under these delicate Circumstances it is no easie Matter to act with Safety.  I have no Reason to fancy my Mistress has any Regard for me, but from a very disinterested Value which I have for her.  If from any Hint in any future Paper of yours she gives me the least Encouragement, I doubt not but I shall surmount all other Difficulties; and inspired by so noble a Motive for the Care of my Fortune, as the Belief she is to be concerned in it, I will not despair of receiving her one Day from her Fathers own Hand.

  I am, SIR,
  Your most obedient humble Servant,
  Clytander.

  To his Worship the SPECTATOR,

  The humble Petition of Anthony Title-Page, Stationer, in the Centre of
  Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields,

Sheweth, That your Petitioner and his Fore-Fathers have been Sellers of Books for Time immemorial; That your Petitioners Ancestor, Crouchback Title-Page, was the first of that Vocation in Britain; who keeping his Station (in fair Weather) at the Corner of Lothbury, was by way of Eminency called the Stationer, a Name which from him all succeeding Booksellers have affected to bear:  That the Station of your Petitioner and his Father has been in the Place of his present Settlement ever since that Square has been built:  That your Petitioner has formerly had the Honour of your Worships Custom, and hopes you never had Reason to complain of your Penny-worths; that particularly he sold you your first Lilly’s Grammar, and at the same Time a Wits Commonwealth almost as good as new:  Moreover, that your first rudimental Essays in Spectatorship were made in your Petitioners Shop, where you often
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Project Gutenberg
The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.