_SIR_,
Why will you apply to my Father for my Love? I cannot help it if he
will give you my Person; but I assure you it is not in his Power, nor
even in my own, to give you my Heart. Dear Sir, do but consider the
ill Consequence of such a Match; you are Fifty-five, I Twenty-one. You
are a Man of Business, and mightily conversant in Arithmetick and
making Calculations; be pleased therefore to consider what Proportion
your Spirits bear to mine; and when you have made a just Estimate of
the necessary Decay on one Side, and the Redundance on the other, you
will act accordingly. This perhaps is such Language as you may not
expect from a young Lady; but my Happiness is at Stake, and I must
talk plainly. I mortally hate you; and so, as you and my Father agree,
you may take me or leave me: But if you will be so good as never to
see me more, you will for ever oblige,
_SIR,
Your most humble Servant,_
HENRIETTA.
_Mr._ SPECTATOR, [2]
There are so many Artifices and Modes of false Wit, and such a
Variety of Humour discovers it self among its Votaries, that it would
be impossible to exhaust so fertile a Subject, if you would think fit
to resume it. The following Instances may, if you think fit, be added
by Way of Appendix to your Discourses on that Subject.
That Feat of Poetical Activity mentioned by _Horace_, of an Author
who could compose two hundred Verses while he stood upon one Leg, [3]
has been imitated (as I have heard) by a modern Writer; who priding
himself on the Hurry of his Invention, thought it no small Addition to
his Fame to have each Piece minuted with the exact Number of Hours or
Days it cost him in the Composition. He could taste no Praise till he
had acquainted you in how short Space of Time he had deserved it; and
was not so much led to an Ostentation of his Art, as of his Dispatch.
--Accipe si vis,
Accipe jam tabulas; detur nobis locus, hora,
Custodes: videamus uter plus scribere possit.
Hor.
This was the whole of his Ambition; and therefore I cannot but think
the Flights of this rapid Author very proper to be opposed to those
laborious Nothings which you have observed were the Delight of the
_German_ Wits, and in which they so happily got rid of such a tedious
Quantity of their Time.
I have known a Gentleman of another Turn of Humour, who, despising
the Name of an Author, never printed his Works, but contracted his
Talent, and by the help of a very fine Diamond which he wore on his
little Finger, was a considerable Poet upon Glass. He had a very good
Epigrammatick Wit; and there was not a Parlour or Tavern Window where
he visited or dined for some Years, which did not receive some
Sketches or Memorials of it. It was his Misfortune at last to lose his
Genius and his Ring to a Sharper at Play; and he has not attempted to
make a Verse since.
But of all Contractions or Expedients for Wit, I admire that of an
ingenious Projector whose Book I have seen. [4] This Virtuoso being a
Mathematician, has, according to his Taste, thrown the Art of Poetry
into a short Problem, and contrived Tables by which any one without
knowing a Word of Grammar or Sense, may, to his great Comfort, be able
to compose or rather to erect _Latin_ Verses. His Tables are a kind of
Poetical Logarithms, which being divided into several Squares, and all
inscribed with so many incoherent Words, appear to the Eye somewhat
like a Fortune-telling Screen. What a Joy must it be to the unlearned
Operator to find that these Words, being carefully collected and writ
down in Order according to the Problem, start of themselves into
Hexameter and Pentameter Verses? A Friend of mine, who is a Student in
Astrology, meeting with this Book, performed the Operation, by the
Rules there set down; he shewed his Verses to the next of his
Acquaintance, who happened to understand _Latin_; and being informed
they described a Tempest of Wind, very luckily prefixed them, together
with a Translation, to an Almanack he was just then printing, and was
supposed to have foretold the last great Storm. [5]
I think the only Improvement beyond this, would be that which the
late Duke of _Buckingham_ mentioned to a stupid Pretender to Poetry,
as the Project of a _Dutch_ Mechanick, _viz_. a Mill to make Verses.
This being the most compendious Method of all which have yet been
proposed, may deserve the Thoughts of our modern Virtuosi who are
employed in new Discoveries for the publick Good: and it may be worth
the while to consider, whether in an Island where few are content
without being thought Wits, it will not be a common Benefit, that Wit
as well as Labour should be made cheap.
_I am, SIR, Your humble Servant, &c._
_Mr._ SPECTATOR,
I often dine at a Gentleman's House, where there are two young
Ladies, in themselves very agreeable, but very cold in their
Behaviour, because they understand me for a Person that is to break my
Mind, as the Phrase is, very suddenly to one of them. But I take this
Way to acquaint them, that I am not in Love with either of them, in
Hopes they will use me with that agreeable Freedom and Indifference
which they do all the rest of the World, and not to drink to one
another [only,] but sometimes cast a kind Look, with their Service to,
_SIR, Your humble Servant._
_Mr._ SPECTATOR,
I am a young Gentleman, and take it for a Piece of Good-breeding to
pull off my Hat when I see any thing particularly charming in any
Woman, whether I know her or not. I take care that there is nothing
ludicrous or arch in my Manner, as if I were to betray a Woman into a
Salutation by Way of Jest or Humour; and yet except I am acquainted
with her, I find she ever takes it for a Rule, that she is to look
upon this Civility and Homage I pay to her supposed Merit, as an
Impertinence or Forwardness which she is to observe and neglect. I
wish, Sir, you would settle the Business of salutation; and please to
inform me how I shall resist the sudden Impulse I have to be civil to
what gives an Idea of Merit; or tell these Creatures how to behave
themselves in Return to the Esteem I have for them. My Affairs are
such, that your Decision will be a Favour to me, if it be only to save
the unnecessary Expence of wearing out my Hat so fast as I do at
present.
There are some that do know me, and wont bow to me.
_I am, SIR,
Yours,_
T.D.