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.
by your Reproofs, especially if you inform them, that it is not Courage for half a score Fellows, mad with Wine and Lust, to set upon two or three soberer than themselves; and that the Manners of Indian Savages are no becoming Accomplishments to an English fine Gentleman.  Such of them as have been Bullies and Scowrers of a long standing, and are grown Veterans in this kind of Service, are, I fear, too hardned to receive any Impressions from your Admonitions.  But I beg you would recommend to their Perusal your ninth Speculation:  They may there be taught to take warning from the Club of Duellists; and be put in mind, that the common Fate of those Men of Honour was to be hang’d.

  I am, SIR,

  Your most humble Servant,

  Philanthropos

  March the 10th, 1711-12.

The following Letter is of a quite contrary nature; but I add it here, that the Reader may observe at the same View, how amiable Ignorance may be when it is shewn in its Simplicities, and how detestable in Barbarities.  It is written by an honest Countryman to his Mistress, and came to the Hands of a Lady of good Sense wrapped about a Thread-Paper, who has long kept it by her as an Image of artless Love.

  To her I very much respect, Mrs. Margaret Clark.

Lovely, and oh that I could write loving Mrs. Margaret Clark, I pray you let Affection excuse Presumption.  Having been so happy as to enjoy the Sight of your sweet Countenance and comely Body, sometimes when I had occasion to buy Treacle or Liquorish Powder at the Apothecary’s Shop, I am so enamoured with you, that I can no more keep close my flaming Desire to become your Servant.  And I am the more bold now to write to your sweet self, because I am now my own Man, and may match where I please; for my Father is taken away, and now I am come to my Living, which is Ten Yard Land, and a House; and there is never a Yard of Land in our Field but it is as well worth ten Pound a Year, as a Thief is worth a Halter; and all my Brothers and Sisters are provided for:  Besides I have good Houshold-stuff, though I say it, both Brass and Pewter, Linnens and Woollens; and though my House be thatched, yet, if you and I match, it shall go hard but I will have one half of it slated.  If you think well of this Motion, I will wait upon you as soon as my new Cloaths is made and Hay Harvest is in.  I could, though I say it, have good—­

The rest is torn off; [3] and Posterity must be contented to know, that Mrs. Margaret Clark was very pretty, but are left in the dark as to the Name of her Lover.

T.

[Footnote 1: 

  [Saevis inter se convenit Ursis.

Juv.]]

[Footnote 2:  Gay tells also in his Trivia that the Mohocks rolled women in hogs-heads down Snow hill.  Swift wrote of the Mohocks, at this time, in his Journal to Stella,

  Grub-street papers about them fly like lightning, and a list printed
  of near eighty put into several prisons, and all a lie, and I begin to
  think there is no truth, or very little, in the whole story.

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The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.