zen. "MR SPECTATOR, "It is now almost three months since I was in town about some business, and the hurry of it being over, took coach one afternoon, and drove to see a relation, who married about six years ago a wealthy citiI found her at home, but her husband gone to the exchange, and expected back within an hour at the farthest. After the usual salutations of kindness, and an hundred questions about friends in the country, we sat down to piquet, played two or three games, and drank tea. I should have told you that this was my second time of seeing her since marriage: but before she lived at the same town where I went to school; so that the plea of a relation, added to the innocence of my youth, prevailed upon her good-humor to indulge me in a freedom of conversation as often, and oftener than the strict discipline of the school would allow of. You may easily imagine after such an acquaintance we might be exceeding merry without any offence, as in calling to mind how many inventions I had been put to in deluding the master, how many hands forged for excuses, how many times been sick in perfect health; for I was then never sick but at school, and only then because out of her company. We had whiled away three hours after this manner, when I found it past five: and not expecting her husband would return till late, rose up, told her I should go early next morning for the country: she kindly answered she was afraid it would be long before she saw me again; so I took my leave and parted. Now, Sir, I had not been got home a fortnight, when I received a letter from a neighbor of theirs, that ever since that fatal afternoon the lady had been most inhumanly treated, and the husband publicly stormed that he was made a member of too numerous a society. He had, it seems, listened most of the ? time my cousin and I were together. As jealous ears always her double, so he heard enough to make him mad; and as jealous eyes always see through magnifying glasses, so he was certain it could not be I whom he had seen, a beardless stripling, but fancied he saw a gay gentleman of the Temple, ten years older than myself; and for that reason, I presume, durst not come in, nor take any notice when I went out. He is perpetually asking his wife if she does not think the time long (as she said she should) till she see her cousin again. Pray, sir, what can be done in this case I have writ to him to assure him I was at his house all that afternoon expecting to see him: his answer is, 'tis only a trick of her's, and that he neither can nor will believe me. The parting kiss I find mightily nettles him and confirms him in all his errors. Ben Johnson, as I remember, makes a foreigner in one of his comedies admire the desperate valor of the bold English, who let out their wives to all encounters. The general custom of salutation should excuse the favor done me, or you should lay down rules when such distinctions are to be given or omitted. You cannot imagine, sir, how troubled I am for this unhappy lady's misfortune, and I beg you would insert this letter, that the husband may reflect upon this accident coolly. It is no small matter, the ease of a virtuous woman for her whole life I know she will conform to any regularities (though more strict than the common rules of our country require) to which his particular temper shall incline him to oblige her. This accident puts me in mind how generously Pisistratus the Athenian tyrant behaved himself on a like occasion, when he was instigated by his wife to put to death a young gentleman, because, being passionately fond of his daughter, he kissed her in public as he met her in the street: What, said he, shall we do to those who are our enemiess, VLO. IX. : C if we do thus to those who are our friends? I will not trouble you much longer, but am exceedingly concerned lest this accident may cause a virtuous lady to lead a miserable life with a husband, who has no grounds for his jealousy but what I have faithfully related, and ought to be reckoned none. 'Tis to be feared too, if at last he sees his mistake, yet people will be as slow and unwilling in disbelieving scandal, as they are quick and forward in believing it. I shall endeavor to enliven this plain and honest letter with Ovid's relation about Cybele's image. The ship wherein it was aboard was stranded at the mouth of the Tyber, and the men were unable to move it, till Claudia, a virgin, but suspected of unchastity, by a slight pull hauled it in. The story is told in the fourth book of the Fasti. "Parent of gods, began the weeping fair, "She spoke, and touch'd the cord with glad surprise, "Follow'd in triumph, and adorn'd her guide; "Your very humble servant, "MR. SPECTATOR, "PHILAGNOTES." "You will oblige a languishing lover if you will please to print the inclosed verses in your next paper. 1 If you remember the Metamorphosis, you know Procris, the fond wife of Cephalus, is said to have made her husband, who delighted in the sports of the wood, a present of an unerring javelin. In process of time he was so much in the forest, that his lady suspected he was pursuing some nymph, under the pretence of following a chace more innocent. Under this suspicion, she hid herself among the trees to observe his motions. While she lay concealed, her husband, tired with the labor of hunting, came within her hearing. As he was fainting with heat, he cried out, Aura veni! Oh charming air approach ! "The unfortunate wife, taking the word air to be the name of a woman, began to move among the bushes; and the husband, believing it a deer, threw his javelin and killed her. This history, painted on a fan, which I presented to a lady, gave occasion to my growing poetical. "Come gentle air! th' Æolian shepherd said, "While Procris panted in the secret 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 stray, "Breathe on her lips, and in her bosom play. "In Delia's hand this toy is fatal found, "Nor did that fabled dart more surely wound. "Both gifts destructive to the givers prove, "Alike both lovers fall by those they love! "Yet guiltless too this bright destroyer lives, "At random wounds, nor knows the wound she gives. "She views the story with attentive eyes, "And pities Procris, while her lover dies." (a) No. 528. WEDNESDAY, November 5, 1712. BY STEELE. Dum potuit, solita genitum virtute repressit. OVID. Met. 1. 9. v. 163. With wonted fortitude she bore the smart, And not a groan confess'd her burning heart. GAY. "MR. SPECTATor, "I WHO now write to you am a woman loaded with injuries; and the aggravation of my misfortune is, that they are such which are overlooked by the generality of mankind, and tho' the most afflicting imaginable, not regarded as such in the general sense of the world. I have hid my vexation from all mankind; but have now taken pen, ink, and paper, and am resolved to unbosom myself to you, and lay before you what grieves me and all the sex. You have very often mentioned 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 unreasonable confinement women are obliged to, in the only circumstance in which we are necessarily to have a commerce with them, that of love. case 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 exposed, though ever so virtuous, if long unmarried, is the root of the greatest irregularities of this nation. To show you, sir, that though you never have given us the catalogue of a lady's library, as you promised, we read good books of our own choosing, I shall insert on this occasion a paragraph or two out of Echard's The |