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Ovid

-Quod nunc ratis eft, impetus antè fuit. "Tis reafon now, 'twas appetite before.

B

EWARE of the Ides of March, said the Roman Augur to Julius Cæfar: Beware of the month of May fays the British Spectator to his fair countrywomen. The caution of the firft was unhappily neg#lected, and Cafar's confidence coft him his life. I am apt to flatter myfelf that my pretty. readers had much more regard to the advice I gave, them, fince I have yet received very few accounts of any notorious trips made in the last month.

But tho' 1 hope for the beft, I fhall not pronounce too pofitively on this point, 'till I have feen forty weeks. well over, at which period of time, as my good friend Sir ROGER has often told me, he has more bufinefs as a justice of peace, among the diffolute young people in the country, than at any other feafon of the year.

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Neither muft I forget a letter which I received near a fortnight fince from a lady, who, it feems, could hold out no longer, telling me fhe looked upon the month as then out, for that she had all along reckoned by the new ftile.

On the other hand, I have great reafon to believe, from feveral angry letters which have been fent to me by difapointed lovers, that my advice has been of very fignal fervice to the fair fex, who, according to the old proverb, were Forewarn'd forearm'd.

One of these gentlemen tells me, that he would have given me an hundred pounds, rather than I should have publish'd that paper, for that his mistress, who had promifed to explain herself to him about the beginning of May, upon reading that difcourfe told him that he would give him her answer in June.

Thyrfis acquaints me, that when he defired Sylvia to take a walk in the fields, she told him The Spectator bad forbidden ber.

Another of my correfpondents, who writes himself Mat Meager, complains, that whereas he conftantly used to breakfast with his mistrefs upon chocolate, going to wait upon her the first of May he found his ufual treat very much changed for the worse, and has been forced to feed ever fince upon green tea.

As I begun this critical feason with a caveat to the ladies, I fhall conclude it with a congratulation, and do moft heartily with the joy of their happy delive

rance.

They may now reflect with pleasure on the dangers they have escaped, and look back with as much fatisfaction on the perils that threatened them, as their great-grandmothers did formerly on the burning ploughhares, after having paffed through the ordeal trial. The inftigations of the fpring are now abated. The nightingale gives over her love-labour'd fong, as Milton phrafes it, the bloffoms are fallen, and the beds of flowers fwept away by the fcythe of the mower.

I fhall now allow my fair readers to return to their romances and chocolate, provided they make use of them with moderation, 'till about the middle of the month, when the fun fhall have made fome progrefs in

the

the Crab. Nothing is more dangerous, than too much confidence and fecurity. The Trojans, who ftood upon their guard all the while the Grecians lay before their city, when they fancied the fiege was raifed, and the danger paft, were the very next night burnt in their beds. I must also observe, that as in some climates there is perpetual Spring, fo in fome female conftitutions there is a perpetual May: These are a kind of Valetudinarians in chastity, whom I would continue in a constant diet. I cannot think these wholly out of danger, 'till they have looked upon the other fex at least five years through a pair of Spectacles. WILL HONEYCOMB has often affured me, that 'tis much easier to steal one of this fpecies, when the had paffed her grand climateric, than to carry off an icy girl on this fide five and twenty; and that a rake of his acquaintance, who had in vain endeavoured to gain the affections of a young lady of fifteen, had at last made his fortune by running away with her grandmother.

But as I do not defign this fpeculation for the Evergreens of the fex, I fhall again apply myself to those who would willingly liften to the dictates of reafon and virtue, and can now hear me in cold blood. If there are any who have forfeited their innocence, they must now confider themselves under that melancholy view, in which Chamont regards his fifter, in those beautiful lines.

Long fhe flourish'd,

Grew feet to fenfe, and lovely to the eye:
'Till at the laft a cruel Spoiler came,

Cropt this fair rofe, and rifled all its sweetness,
Then caft it like a loathfom weed away.

On the contrary, fhe who has obferved the timely cautions I gave her, and lived up to the rules of modefty, will now flourish like a rofe in June, with all her virgin blushes and sweetness about her: I muft, however defire these last to confider, how fhameful it would be for a general, who has made a fuccefsful campaign, to be furpriz'd in his winter quarters: It would be no lefs difhonourable for a lady to lofe, in any other month of the year, what she has been at the pains to preferve in May.

A 5

There

There is no charm in the female fex, that can fupply the place of virtue. Without innocence, beauty is unlovely, and quality contemptible, good-breeding degenerates into wantonnefs, and wit into impudence. It is obferved, that all the virtues are reprefented by both painters and ftatuaries under female fhapes, but if any one of them has a more particular title to that fex, it is modefty. I fhall leave it to the divines to guard them against the oppofite vice, as they may be overpower'd by temptations: It is fufficient for me to have warned them against it, as they may be led aftray by instinct.

I defire this paper may be read with more than ordinary attention, at all tea-tables within the cities of London and Weftminster.

X

טר א

N° 396

Wednesday, June 4.

Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton".

H

'AVING a great deal of bufinefs upon my

hands

at prefent I fhall beg the reader's leave to prefent him with a letter that I received about half a year ago from a gentlemen of Cambridge, who ftiles himself Peter de Quir. I have kept it by me fome months, and though I did not know at first what to make of it, upon my reading it over very frequently I have at last difcovered feveral conceits in it: I would not therefore have my reader difcouraged if he does not take them at the first perufal.

To the SPECTATOR.

From St. John's College Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1712. SIR,

T

HE monopoly of puns in this univerfity has been an immemorial privilege of the Jabnians; and we can't help refenting the late invafion of our

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'antient right as to that particular, by a little preten'der to clenching in a neighbouring college, who in an application to you by way of letter, a while ago, ftiled himfelf Philobrune. Dear Sir, as you are by character a profeft well-wisher to fpeculation, you will • excufe a remark which this gentleman's paffion for the Brunette has fuggefted to a brother theorist: 'tis an offer towards a mechanical account of his lapfe to punning, for he belongs to a fet of mortals who value themfelves upon an uncommon maftery in ⚫ the more humane and polite parts of letters. A conqueft by one of this fpecies of females gives a very odd turn to the intellectuals of the captivated perfon, and very different from that way of thinking which a triumph from the eyes of another, more emphatically of the fair fex, does generally occafion. It fills the imagination with an affemblage of fuch ideas and pictures as are hardly any thing but fhade, fuch as night, the devil, &c. Thefe portraitures very near overpower the light of the understanding, almoft be⚫ night the faculties, and give that melancholy tinctureto the most fanguine complexion, which this gentle⚫ man calls an inclination to be in a brown-study, and is ufually attended with worfe confequences, in cafe of a repulfe. During this twilight of intellects, the patient is extremely apt, as love is the moft witty paffion in nature, to offer at fome pert fallies now and then, by way of flourish, upon the amiable in chantrefs, and unfortunately ftumbles upon that mungrel mifcreated (to fpeak in Miltonic) kind of wit, vul-garly termed the pun. It would not be much amifs to confult Dr. T—— W- (who is certainly a very able projector, and whofe fyftem of divinity and fpi• ritual mechanics obtains very much among the bet ter part of our under-graduates) whether a general inter-marriage, injoined by parliament, between this fifterhood of the olive beauties, and the fraternity of the people called quakers, would not be a very ferviceable expedient, and abate that overflow of light. which fhines within them fo powerfully, that it dazzles their eyes, and dances them into a thoufand vagaries of error and enthufiafm. These reflexions.

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