Causeless jealousy in Britomartis, v. 6, 14, in its

restlessness.

"Like as a wayward child, whose sounder sleep
Is broken with some fearful dream's affright,
With froward will doth set himself to weep,
Ne can be still'd for all his nurse's might,
But kicks and squalls, and shrieks for fell despite;
Now scratching her, and her loose locks misusing,
'Now seeking darkness, and now seeking light;
Then craving suck, and then the suck refusing:
Such was this lady's loves in her love's fond accusing."

Curiosity occasioned by jealousy, upon occasion of her lover's absence. Ibid. Stan. 8, 9.

" Then as she look'd long, at last she spy'd
One coming towards her with hasty speed,
Well ween'd she then, ere him she plain descry'd,
That it was one sent from her love indeed:
Whereat her heart was fill'd with hope and dread,
Ne would she stay till he in place could come,
But ran to meet him forth to know his tiding's somme:
Even in the door him meeting, she begun.
• And where is he, thy lord, and how far hence?
Declare at once; and hath he lost or won?" "

Care and his house are described thus, iv. 6, 33, 34,

35.

"Not far away, nor meet for any guest,
They spy'd a little cottage, like some poor man's nest.

34.

"There entering in, they found the good man's self,
Full busily unto his work ybent,
Who was so weel a wretched wearish elf,
With hollow eyes and rawbone cheeks far spent
As if he had in prison long been pent.
Full black and griesly did his face appear,
Besmear'd with smoke that nigh his eye-sight blent,
With rugged beard and hoary shaggy heare,

The which he never wont to comb, or comely shear,

1

i

:

35.

"Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent,
No better had he, ne for better cared;
His blistered hands amongst the cinders brent,
And fingers filthy with long nails prepared,
Right fit to rend the food on which he fared.
His name was Care; a blacksmith by his trade,
That neither day nor night from working spared,
But to small purpose iron wedges made:

These be unquiet thoughts that careful minds invade.”

Homer's epithets were much admired by antiquity see what great justness and variety there are in these epithets of the trees in the forest, where the Redcross Knight lost Truth. B. i. Cant. i. Stan. 8, 9.

"The sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall,
The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry.
The builder-oak, sole king of forests all,
The aspine good for staves, the cypress funeral.

9.

"The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors,
And poet's sage; the fir that weepeth still,
The willow worn of forlorn paramours,

The

are of force enough to suppress our thoughts of them. If a man who has endeavoured to amuse his company with improbabilities could but look into their minds, he would find that they imagine he lightly esteems of their sense when he thinks to impose upon them, and that he is less esteemed by them for his attempt in doing so. His endeavour to glory at their expence becomes a ground of quarrel, and the scorn and indifference with which they entertain it begins the immediate punishment: and indeed (if we should even go no further) silence, or a negligent indifference, has a deeper way of wounding than opposition, because opposition proceeds from an anger that has a sort of generous sentiment for the adversary mingling along with it, while it shows that there is some esteem in your mind for him: in short, that you think him worth while to contest with. But silence, or a negligent indifference, proceeds from anger, mixed with a scorn that shows another he is thought by you too contemptible to be regarded.

The other method which the world has taken for correcting this practice of false surprize, is to overshoot such talkers in their own bow, or to raise the story with further degrees of impossibility, and set up for a voucher to them in such a manner as must let them see they stand detected. Thus I have heard a discourse was once managed upon the effects of fear. One of the company had given an account how it had turned his friend's hair grey in a night, while the terrors of a shipwreck encompassed him. Another, taking the hint from hence, began upon his own knowledge to enlarge his instances of the like nature to such a number, that it was not probable he could ever have met with them: and as he still grounded these upon different causes for the sake of variety, it might seem at last, from his share

of the conversation, almost impossible that any one who can feel the passion of fear should all his life escape so common an effect of it. By this time some of the company grew negligent, or desirous to contradict him; but one rebuked the rest with an appearance of severity, and, with the known old story in his head, assured them he did not scruple to believe that the fear of any thing can make a man's hair grey, since he knew one whose perriwig had suffered so by it. Thus he stopped the talk, and made them easy. Thus is the same method taken to bring us to shame, which we fondly take to increase our character. It is indeed a kind of mimicry, by which another puts on our air of conversation to show us to ourselves. He seems to look ridiculous before you, that you may remember how near a resemblance you bear to him, or that you may know that he will not lie under the imputation of believing you. Then it is that you are struck dumb immediately with a conscientious shame for what you have been saying. Then it is that you are inwardly grieved at the sentiments which you cannot but perceive others entertain concerning you. In short, you are against yourself; the laugh of the company runs against you; the censuring world is obliged to you for that triumph which you have allowed them at your own expence; and truth, which you have injured, has a near way of being revenged on you, when by the bare repetition of your story you be come a frrequent diversion for the public.

MR. SPECTATOR,

THE other day, walking in Pancras churchyard, I thought of your paper wherein you mention epitaphs, and am of opinion this has a thought in it worth being communicated to your readers.

"Here innocence and beauty lies, whose breath
Was snatch'd by early, not untimely, death.
Hence did she go, just as she did begin
Sorrow to know, before she knew to sin.
Death, that does sin and sorrow thus prevent,
Is the next blessing to a life well spent."

I am, Sir,

Your servant.'

No 539. TUESDAY, NOV. 18, 1712.

Heteroclita sunto.

QUE GENUS.

Be they heteroclites.

" MR. SPECTATOR,

I AM a young widow of good fortune and family, and just come to town; where I find I have clusters of pretty fellows come already to visit me, some dying with hopes, others with fears, though they never saw me. Now, what I would beg of you would be to know whether I may venture to use these pert fellows with the same freedom as I did my country acquaintance. I desire your leave to use them as to me shall seem meet, without imputation of a jilt; for since I make declaration that not one of them shall have me, I think I ought to be allowed the liberty of insulting those who have the vanity to believe it is in their power to make me break that resolution. There are schools for learning to use foils, frequen ed by those who never design to fight; and this useless way of aiming at the heart, without design to wound it on either side,