the Ichneumon never feeds upon the Eggs he has broken, nor any other Way finds his Account in them. Were it not for the inceffant Labours of this induftrious Animal, Egypt, fays the Hiftorian, would be over-run with Crocodiles; for the Egyptians are fo far from deftroying those pernicious Creatures, that they worship them as Gods.

IF we look into the Behaviour of ordinary Partizans, we shall find them far from resembling this difinterested Animal, and rather acting after the Example of the wild Tartars, who are ambitious of destroying a Man of the most extraordinary Parts and Accomplishments, as thinking that upon his Decease the fame Talents, what-ever Poft they qualified him for, enter of Course into his Destroyer.

AS in the whole Train of my Speculations, I have endeavoured as much as I am able to extinguish that pernicious Spirit of Paffion and Prejudice, which rages with the fame Violence in all Parties, I am still the more defirous of doing fome Good in this Particular, because I obferve that the Spirit of Party reigns more in the Country than in the Town. It here contracts a kind of Brutality and ruftick Fierceness, to which Men of a politer Converfation are wholly Strangers. It extends it felf even to the Return of the Bow and the Hat; and at the fame Time that the Heads of Parties preferve towards one another an outward Shew of good Breeding, and keep up a perpetual Intercourfe of Civilities, their Tools that are difperfed in thefe outlying Parts will not fo much as mingle together at a Cock-match. This Humour fills the Country with feveral periodical Meetings of Whig Joc keys and Tory Foxhunters; not to mention the innumerable Curfes, Frowns, and Whispers it produces at a Quarter-Seffions.

I do not know whether I have obferved in any of my former Papers, that my Friends Sir ROGER DE COVERLEY and Sir ANDREW FREEPORT are of different Principles, the firft of them inclined to the landed and the other to the money'd Intereft. This Humour is fo moderate in each of them, that it proceeds no farther than to an agreeable Rallery, which very often diverts the reft of the Club. I find however that the Knight is a much stronger Tory in the Country than in Town, which,

as

as he has told me in my Ear, is abfolutely neceffary for the keeping up his Intereft. In all our Journey from London to his Houfe we did not fo much as bait at a Whig-Inn; or if by chance the Coachman ftopped at a wrong Place, one of Sir ROGER's Servants would ride up to his Mafter fall Speed, and whifper to him that the Mafter of the Houfe was against fuch an one in the laft Election. This often betrayed us into hard Beds and bad Cheer; for we were not fo inquifitive about the Inn as the Inn-keeper; and provided our Landlord's Principles were found, did not take any Notice of the Stalenefs of his Provifions. This I found ftill the more inconvenient, because the better the Hoft was, the worfe generally were his Accommodations; the Fellow knowing very well, that those who were his Friends would take up with coarse Diet and an hard Lodging. For thefe Reafons, all the while I was upon the Road I dreaded entering into an House of any one that Sir ROGER had applauded for an honeft

Man.

SINCE my Stay at Sir ROGER's in the Country, I daily find more Inftances of this narrow Party-Humour. Being upon the Bowling-green at a Neighbouring MarketTown the other Day, (for that is the Place where the Gentlemen of one Side meet once a Week) I observed a Stranger among them of a better Prefence and genteeler Behaviour than ordinary; but was much furprized, that notwithstanding he was a very fair Better, no Body would' take him up. But upon Enquiry I found, that he was one who had given a difagreeable Vote in a former Parlia ment, for which Reafon there was not a Man upon that Bowling-green who would have fo much Correfpondence with him as to win his Money of him.

AMONG other Inftances of this Nature, I must not omit one which concerns my felf. Will. Wimble was the other Day relating feveral ftrange Stories that he had picked up no Body knows where of a certain great Man; and upon my ftaring at him, as one that was furprized to hear fuch things in the Country, which had never been fo much as whispered in the Town, Will. ftopped fhort in the Thread of his Difcourfe, and after Dinner asked my Friend Sir ROGER in his Ear if he was fure that I was not a Fanatick.

VOL. II.

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IT

IT gives me a ferious Concern, to fee fuch a Spirit of Diffention in the Country; not only as it deftroys Virtue and common Senfe, and renders us in a manner Barbarians towards one another, but as it perpetuates our Animofities, widens our Breaches, and tranfmits our present Paffions and Prejudices to our Pofterity. For my own part, I am fometimes afraid that I discover the Seeds of a Civil War in these our Divisions; and therefore cannot but bewail, as in their first Principles, the Miseries and Calamities of our Children. C

N° 127.

Thursday, July 26.

Quantum eft in rebus inane?

Perf

T is our Cuftom at Sir ROGER's, upon the coming in of the Poft to fit about a Pot of Coffee, and hear the old Knight read Dyer's Letter; which he does with his Spectacles upon his Nofe, and in an audible Voice, fmiling very often at thofe little Strokes of Satyr, which are fo frequent in the Writings of that Author. I afterwards communicate to the Knight fuch Packets as I receive under the Quality of SPECTATOR. The following Letter chancing to please him more than ordinary, I fhall publifh it at his Request,

Mr. SPECTATOR,

YOU have diverted the Town almoft a whole Month You at the Expence of the Country, it is now high time that you fhould give the Country their Revenge. Since your withdrawing from this Place, the fair Sex are run into great Extravagancies. Their Petticoats, which began to heave and well before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous Concave, and rife every Day more and more; In fhort, Sir, fince our Women know themselves to be out of the Eye of the SPECTA TOR, they will be kept within no Compafs, You prai fed them a little too foon, for the Modefty of their HeadDreffes: for as the Humour of a fick Perfen is often dri

ven out of one Limb into another, their Superfluity of Ornaments, inftead of being entirely Banished, feems ⚫ only fallen from their Heads upon their lower Parts, What they have loft in Heighth they make up in Breadth, and contrary to all Rules of Architecture widen the Foundations at the fame time that they shorten the Superstructure. Were they, like Spanish Jennets, to impregnate by the Wind, they could not have thought on a more proper Invention, But as we do not yet hear any particular Ufe in this Petticoat, or that it contains any thing more than what was fuppofed to be in those of fcantier Make, we are wonderfully at a Lofs about ⚫ it.

THE Women give out, in Defence of these wide Bottoms, that they are Airy, and very proper for the Seafon; but this I look upon to be only a Pretence, and a Piece of Art, for it is well known we have not had a more moderate Summer these many Years, fo that it is * certain the Heat they complain of cannot be in the Weather; Befides, I would fain ask thefe tender-conftitutioned Ladies, why they fhould require more Cooling than their Mothers before them,

• I find feveral Speculative Perfons are of Opinion that our Sex has of late Years been very Saucy, and that the Hoop Petticoat is made use of to keep us at a Distance, It is most certain that a Woman's Honour cannot be better entrenched than after this manner, in Circle with in Circle, amidst fuch a Variety of Out-works and Lines ' of Circumvallation. A Female who is thus invested in Whale - Bone is fufficiently fecured against the Approaches of an ill-bred Fellow, who might as well think of Sir George Etheridge's way of making Love in a Tub, as in the midst of fo many Hoops,

AMONG thefe various Conjectures, there are Men ⚫ of Superftitious Tempers, who look upon the HoopPetticoat as a kind of Prodigy, Some will have it that it portends the Downfall of the French King, and ob ferve that the Farthingale appeared in England a little before the Ruin of the Spanish Monarchy, Others are of Opinion that it foretells Battel and Blood-fhed, and believe it of the fame Prognoftication as the Tail of a Blazing Star. For my part, I am apt to think it is a Sign

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that

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that Multitudes are coming into the World, rather than going out of it.

THE first time I faw a Lady dreffed in one of these Petticoats, I could not forbear blaming her in my own Thoughts for walking abroad when fhe was fo near her Time, but foon recovered my felf out of my Error, when I found all the Modifh Part of the Sex as far gone as her felf. It is generally thought fome crafty Women have thus betrayed their Companions into Hoops, that they might make them acceffary to their own Concealments, and by that means efcape the Censure of the World; as wary Generals have fometimes dreffed two or three Dozen of their Friends in their own Habit, that they might not draw upon themfelves any particu lar Attacks from the Enemy. The ftrutting Petticoat 'fmooths all Diftinctions, levels the Mother with the Daughter, and fets Maids and Matrons, Wives and Widows, upon the fame Bottom. In the mean while, I cannot but be troubled to fee fo many well-fhaped innocent Virgins bloated up, and waddling up and down like big-bellied Women.

SHOULD this Fashion get among the ordinary People our publick Ways would be fo crouded that we fhould want Street-room. Several Congregations of the beft Fashion find themselves already very much ftreightned, and if the Mode encrease I wifh it may not drive many ordinary Women into Meetings and • Conventicles. Should our Sex at the fame time take it into their Heads to wear Trunk Breeches (as who knows what their Indignation at this Female Treatment may drive them to) a Man and his Wife would fill a whole Pew.

YOU know, Sir, it is recorded of Alexander the Great, that in his Indian Expedition he buried feveral • Suits of Armour which by his Directions were made much too big for any of his Soldiers, in order to give Pofterity an extraordinary Idea of him, and make them believe he had commanded an Army of Giants. I am perfuaded that if one of the prefent Petticoats happens *to be hung up in any Repofitory of Curiofities, it will lead into the fame Error the Generations that lie fome Removes from us; unless we can believe our Pofterity

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