• flies up ftairs to her husband, who was then at work, < and defires him to leave his loom for that evening, and come and drink with a friend of his and hers below. The man received this chearful invitation as bad hufbands fometimes do, and after a crofs word or two, ⚫ told her he would not come. His wife with tenderness • renewed her importunity, and at length faid to him, My love! I have within these few months, unknown to you, fcraped together as much money as has bought us a ticket in the lottery, and now here is Mrs. Quick come to tell me, that it is come up this morning a five "hundred pound prize." The husband replies immediately, "You lie, you flut, you have no ticket, for I "have fold it." The poor woman upon this faints

away in a fit, recovers, and is now run distracted. As "The had no defign to defraud her husband, but was willing only to participate in his good fortune, every one pities her, but thinks her husband's punishment but juft. This, fir, is matter of fact, and would, if the perfons and circumftances were greater, in a well-wrought play be called, "Beautiful Diftrefs." I have only sketch⚫ed it out with chalk, and know a good hand can make a moving picture with worse materials.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

'Sir, &c.'

I AM what the world calls a warm fellow, and by good fuccefs in trade I have raised myself to a capacity of making fome figure in the world; but no matter for that. I have now under my guardianship a couple of nieces who will certainly make me run mad; • which you will not wonder at, when I tell you they are female virtuofos, and during the three years and a half • that I have had them under iny care, they never in the leaft inclined their thoughts towards any one fingle part of the character of a notable woman. Whilft they fhould have been confidering the proper ingredients for a fack-poffet, you should hear a difpute concerning the magnetic virtue of the load-ftone, or perhaps the preffure of the atmosphere: their language is peculiar to themfelves, and they fcorn to exprefs themselves on the meaneft trifle with words that are not of a Latin

'derivation. But this were supportable still, would they 'fuffer me to enjoy an uninterrupted ignorance; but ⚫ unless I fall in with their abstracted ideas of things, as 6 they call them, I must not expect to fmoke one pipe in quiet. In a late fit of the gout I complained of the pain of that diftemper, when my niece Kitty begged leave to affure me, that whatever I might think, feve⚫ral great philofophers, both ancient and modern, were of opinion, that both pleasure and pain were imaginary diftinctions, and that there was no fuch thing as either in rerum natura. I have often heard them affirm, ' that the fire was not hot; and one day when I, with the authority of an old fellow, defired one of them · to put my blue cloke on my knees, fhe answered, Sir, I will reach the cloke; but take notice, I do not do it as allowing your defcription; for it might as 'well be called yellow as blue; for colour is nothing 'but the various infractions of the rays of the fun. Mils Molly told me one day, that to say snow was white, is allowing a vulgar error; for as it contains a great quantity of nitrous particles, it might more reasonably 'be fuppofed to be black. In short, the young huffys would perfuade me, that to believe one's eyes is a fure way to be deceived; and have often advised me, by no means, to truft any thing fo fallible as my fenfes. 'What I have to beg of you now is, to turn one fpecu⚫lation to the due regulation of female literature, fo far at least, as to make it confiftent with the quiet of such whofe fate it is to be liable to its infults; and to tell us the difference between a gentleman that should 'make cheese-cakes and raise paste, and a lady that reads Locke, and understands the mathematics. In ' which you will extremely oblige

N° 243.

Saturday, December 8.

Formam quidem ipfam, Marce fili, & tanquam faciem honefti vides: quæ fi oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores (ut ait Plato) excitaret fapientiæ. TULL. Offic.

You fee, my fon Marcus, the very fhape and countenance, as it were, of virtue; which if it could be made the object of fight, would (as Plato fays) excite in us a wonderful love of wifdom.

I DO not remember to have read any difcourfe writ

ten exprefly upon the beauty and lovelinefs of virtue, without confidering it as a duty, and as the means of making us happy both now and hereafter. I defign therefore this fpeculation as an effay upon that fubject, in which I fhall confider virtue no farther than as it is in itself of an amiable nature, after having premifed, that I understand by the word virtue fuch a general notion as is affixed to it by the writers of morality, and which by deyout men generally goes under the name of religion, and by men of the world under the name of honour.

Hypocrify itself does great honour, or rather juftice, to religion, and tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The hypocrite would not be at fo much pains to put on the appearance of virtue, if he did not know it was the moft proper and effectual means to gain the love and efteem of mankind.

We learn from Hierocles, it was a common faying among the heathens, that the wife man hates no body, but only loves the virtuous.

Tuily has a very beautiful gradation of thoughts to fhew how amiable virtue is. We love a virtuous man, fays he, who lives in the remoteft parts of the earth, though we are altogether out of the reach of his virtue, and can receive from it no manner of benefit; nay, one who died feveral ages ago, raises a fecret fondness and benevolence for him in our minds, when we read his

ftory nay what is ftill more, one who has been the enemy of our country, provided his wars were regulated by juftice and humanity, as in the inftance of Pyrrhus, whom Tully mentions on this occafion in oppofition to Hannibal. Such is the natural beauty and loveliness of virtue !

Stoicifm, which was the pedantry of virtue, afcribes all good qualifications, of what kind foever, to the virtuous man. Accordingly Cato, in the character Tully has left of him, carries matters fo far, that he would not allow any one but a virtuous man to be handsome. This indeed looks more like a philofophical rant than the real opinion of a wife man; yet this was what Cato very ferioufly maintained. In fhort, the Stoics thought they could not fufficiently reprefent the excellence of virtue, if they did not comprehend in the notion of it all poffible perfections; and therefore did not only fuppofe, that it was tranfcendently beautiful in itself, but that it made the very body amiable, and banished every kind of deformity from the perfon in whom it refided.

It is a common obfervation, that the most abandoned to all fenfe of goodness, are apt to with those who are related to them of a different character; and it is very obfervable, that none are more ftruck with the charms of virtue in the fair fex, than those who by their very admiration of it are carried to a defire of ruining it.

A virtuous mind in a fair body is indeed a fine picture in a good light, and therefore it is no wonder that it makes the beautiful fex all over charms.

As virtue in general is of an amiable and lovely nature, there are fome particular kinds of it which are more fo than others, and thefe are fuch as difpofe us to do good to mankind. Temperance and abftinence, faith and devotion, are in themfelves perhaps as laudable as any other virtues; but those which make a man popular and beloved, are juftice, charity, munificence, and, in fhort, all the good qualities that render us beneficial to each other. For which reafon even an extravagant man, who has nothing else to recommend him but a falfe generofity, is often more beloved and efteemed than a perfon of a much more finished character, who is defective in this particular.

The two great ornaments of virtue, which fhew her in the most advantageous views, and make her altogether lovely, are chearfulness and good-nature. These generally go together, as a man cannot be agreeable to others who is not eafy within himself. They are both very requifitè in a virtuous mind, to keep out melancholy from the many ferious thoughts it is engaged in, and to hinder its natural hatred of vice from fouring into severity and cenforiousness.

If virtue is of this amiable nature, what can we think of those who can look upon it with an eye of hatred and ill-will, or can fuffer their averfion for a party to blot out all the merit of the person who is engaged in it? A man must be exceffively ftupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes that there is no virtue but on his own fide, and that there are not men as honeft as himself who may differ from him in political principles. Men may oppofe one another in fome particulars, but ought not to carry their hatred to thofe qualities which are of so amiable a nature in themselves, and have nothing to do with the points in difpute. Men of virtue, though of different interefts, ought to confider themselves as more nearly united with one another, than with the vicious part of mankind, who embark with them in the fame civil concerns. We should bear the fame love towards a man of honour, who is a living antagonift, which Tully tells us in the fore-mentioned paffage every one naturally does to an ene my that is dead. In fhort, we fhould efteem virtue though in a foe, and abhor vice though in a friend.

I fpeak this with an eye to thofe cruel treatments which men of all fides are apt to give the characters of those who do not agree with them. How many perfons of undoubted probity, and exemplary virtue, on either fide, are blackened and defamed? how many men of honour expofed to public obloquy and reproach? Those therefore who are either the inftruments or abettors in' fuch infernal dealings, ought to be looked upon as perfons who make ufe of religion to promote their caufe, not of their caufe to promote religion.

C.