MR.SPECTATOR, IN fome of your papers you were pleaf ed to give the public a very diverting account of feveral clubs and nocturnal affemblies; but I am a member of a fociety which has wholly efcaped your notice, I mean a club of Sheromaps. We take each a hackneycoach, and meet once a week in a large upper chamber, which we hire by the year for that purpofe; our landlord and his family, who are quiet people, conftantly contriving to be abroad on our club-night. We are no fooner come together, than we throw off all that modeity and refervednefs with which our fex are obliged to disguise themselves in public places. I am not able to exprefs the pleasure we enjoy from ten at night until four in the morning, in being as rude as you men can be for your lives. As our play runs high, the room is immediately filled with broken fans, torn petticoats, lappets, or, head-dreffes, flounces, furbelows, garters, and working aprons. I had forgot to tell you at first, that befides the coaches we come in ourselves, there is one which ftands always empty to carry off our dead men, for fo we call all thofe fragments and tatters with which the room is ftrewed, and which we pack up together in bundles and put into the aforefaid coach: it is no finall diverfion for us to meet the next night at some member's chamber, where every one is to pick out what belonged to her from this confufed bundle of filks, ftuffs, laces, and ribbons. I have hitherto given you an account of our diverfion on ordinary club-nights; but muft acquaint you further, that once a month we demolish a prude, that is, we get fome queer formal creature in among us, and unrig her in an inftant. Our last month's prude was fo armed and fortified in whalebone and buckram, that we had much ado to come at her; but you would have died with laughing to have feen how the fober aukward thing looked when she was forced out of her intrenchments. In short, Sir, it is impoffible to give you a true notion of our iport, unless you would come one night amongst us; and though it be directly against the rules of our fociety to admit 419 a male vifitant, we repofe fo much con- P.S. We shall demolish a prude next offer, I do not at prefent find in myself Though I thank Kitty for her kind any inclination to venture my perfon with her and her romping companions. I should regard myfelf as a fecond Clodius, intruding on the myfterious rites of the Bona Dea, and fhould apprehend being demolished as much as the prude. gentleman, whofe tafte I find is much The following letter comes from a too delicate to endure the least advance towards romping. I may perhaps hereafter improve upon the hint he has given me, and make it the subject of a whole Spectator; in the mean time take it as it follows in his own words. MR. SPECTATOR, IT is my misfortune to be in love with a young creature who is daily committing faults, which though they give me the utmost uneafinefs, I know not how to reprove her for, or even acquaint her with. She is pretty, dreffes well, is rich, and good-humoured; but either wholly neglects, or has no notion of that which polite people have agreed to diftinguish by the name of Delicacy. After our return from a walk the other day, the threw herself into an elbowchair, and profeffed before a large company, that the was all over in a sweat. She told me this afternoon, that her ftomach aked; and was complaining yesterday at dinner of fomething that ftuck in her teeth.' I treated her with I am, Sir, yours, &c. I N° CCXVIII. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9. QUID DE QUOQUE VIRO, ET CUI DICAS, SEPE CAVETO. ----HAVE A CARE OF WHOM YOU TALK, TO WHOM, AND WHAT, AND WHERE. Happened the other day, as my way is, to troll into a little coffee-houfe beyond Aldgate; and as I fat there, two or three very plain fenfible men were talking of the Spectator. One faid, that he had that morning drawn the great benefit-ticket; another wished he had, but a third thaked his head and faid, it was pity that the writer of that paper was fuch a fort of man, that it was no great matter whether he had it or no. He is, it feems,' faid the good man, the most extravagant creature in the world; has run through vaft fums, and yet been in continual want; a man, for all he talks fo well of œconomy, unfit for any of the offices of life by reafon of his profufenefs. It would be an unhappy thing to be his wife, his child, or his friend; and yet he talks as well of thofe duties of life as any one. Much reflection has brought me to fo eafy a contempt for every thing which is falfe, that this heavy accufation gave me no manner of uneafinefs; but at the fame time it threw me into deep thought upon the fubject of fame in general; and I could not but pity fuch as were fo weak, as to value what the common people fay out of their own talkative temper to the advantage or diminution of thofe whom POOLY. they mention, without being moved either by malice or good-will. It will be too long to expatiate upon the fenfe all mankind have of fame, and the inexpreffible pleasure which there is in the approbation of worthy men, to all who are capable of worthy actions; but methinks one may divide the general word Fame into three different fpecies, as it regards the different orders of mankind who have any thing to do with it. Fame, therefore, may be divided into glory, which refpects the hero; reputa tion, which is preferved by every gen tleman; and credit, which must be fupported by every tradefman. Thefe poffeffions in fame are dearer than life to thofe characters of men, or rather are the life of these characters. Glory, while the hero purfues great and noble enterprizes, is impregnable; and all the aflailants of his renown do but fhew their pain and impatience of it's brightness, without throwing the leaft fhade upon it. If the foundation of an high name be virtue and fervice, all that is offered againft it is but rumour, which is too fhort-lived to ftand up in competition with glory, which is everlasting. Reputation, which is the portion of every man who would live with the elegant and knowing part of mankind, is 25 as stable as glory, if it be well founded; and the common caufe of human fociety is thought concerned when we hear a man of good behaviour calumniated : befides which, according to a prevailing custom amongst us, every man has his defence in his own arm: and reproach is foon checked, put out of countenance, and overtaken by disgrace. The most unhappy of all men, and the most exposed to the malignity and wantonness of the common voice, is the trader. Credit is undone in whispers. The tradefman's wound is received from one who is more private and more cruel than the ruffian with the lanthorn and dagger. The manner of repeating a man's name; as- Mr. Cafh, Oh! do you leave your money at his fhop? -Why, do you know Mr. Searoom? He is indeed a general merchant.' I fay, I have feen, from the iteration of a man's name, hiding one thought of him, and explaining what you hide, by faying fomething to his advantage when you fpeak, a merchant hurt in his credit; and him who every day he lived, literally added to the value of his native country, undone by one who was only a burden and a blemish to it. Since every body who knows the world is fenfible of this great evil, how careful ought a man to be in his language of a merchant! It may poffibly be in the power of a very fhallow creature to lay the ruin of the beft family in the moft opulent city; and the more fo, the more highly he deferves of his country; that is to fay, the farther he places his wealth out of his hands, to draw home that of another climate. In this cafe an ill word may change plenty into want, and by a rafh fentence a free and generous fortune may in a few days be reduced to beggary. How little does a giddy prater imagine, that an idle phrafe to the disfavour of a merchant may be as pernicious in the confequence, as the forgery of a deed to bar an inheritance would be to a gentleman! Land ftands where it did before a gentleman was calumniated, and the ftate of a great action is just as it was before calumny was offered to diminish it; there is time, place, and occafion, expected to unravel all that is contrived against thofe characters; but the trader who is ready only for probable demands upon him, can have no armour against the inquifitive, the malicious, and the envious, who are prepared to fill the cry to his dishonour. Fire and fword are flow engines of deftruction, in comparifon of the babbler in the cafe of the merchant. For this reafon I thought it an imitable piece of humanity of a gentleman of my acquaintance, who had great variety of affairs, and used to talk with warmth enough againft gentlemen by whom he thought himself ill dealt with; but he would never let any thing be urged against a merchant, with whom he had any difference, except in a court of juftice. He ufed to fay, that to fpeak ill of a merchant, was to begin his fuit with judgment and execution. One cannot, I think, fay more on this occafion, than to repeat, that the merit of the merchant is above that of all other fubjects; for while he is untouched in his credit, his hand-writing is a more portable coin for the fervice of his fellow-citizens, and his word the gold of Ophir to the country wherein he refides. N° CCXIX. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10. T Τ VIX EA NOSTRA VOCO OVID. MET. LIB, XIII. VER. 141. THESE I SCARCE CALL OUR OWN. HERE are but few men who are not ambitious of diftinguishing themselves in the nation or country where they live, and of growing confiderable among thofe with whom they converfe. There is a kind of grandeur and refpect, which the meanest and most infignificant part of mankind endeavour to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The pooreft mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his fet of admirers, and delights in that fuperiority which he enjoys over thofe who are in fome refpects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the foul of man, |