Neither muft I forget a letter which I received rear 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 ftyle. On the other hand, I have great reason to believe, from feveral angry letters which have been fent to me, by difappointed lovers, that my advice has been of very fignal fervice to the fair fex, who, according to the old proverb, were forewarned, forearmed.' One of thefe gentlemen tells me, that he would have given me an hundred pounds, rather than I fhould have published that paper, for that his miftrefs, who had promifed to explain herself to him about the beginning of May, upon reading that difcourfe told him that the would give him her anfwer in June.' Thyrfis acquaints me, that when he defired Sylvia to take a walk in the fields, fhe told him, The SPECTATOR had forbidden her.' Another of my correfpondents, who writes himfelf Mat Meager, coniplains, that whereas he conftantly ufed to breakfast with his mistress upon chocolate, going to wait upon her the firft of May he found his ufual treat very much changed for the worfe, and has been forced to feed ever fince upon green tea. As I begun this critical feafon with a caveat to the ladies, I shall conclude it with a congratulation, and do moft heartily wish them joy of their happy deliver ance. They may now reflect with pleasure on the dangers they have efcaped, and look back with as much fatisfaction on the perils that threatened them, as their great grandmothers did formerly on the burning plough fhares, after having paffed through the ordeal trial. The inftigations of the fpring are now abated. The nightingale gives over her love-laboured fong,' as Milton phrases it, the bloffoms are fallen, and the beds of flowers fwept away by the scythe 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 crab. Nothing is more dangerous, than too much confidence and fecurity. The Trojans, who stood upon their guard all the while the Grecians lay before their city, when they fancied the fiege was raised, and the danger paft, were the very next night burnt in their beds. I must also observe, that as in fome climates there is a perpetual spring, fo in fome female conftitutions there is a perpetual May: thefe are a kind of Valetudinarians in chastity, whom I would continue in a conftant diet. I cannot think thefe wholly out of danger, until they have looked upon the other fex at least five years through a pair of fpectacles. WILL HONEYCOMB has often affured me, that it is much easier to steal one of this fpecies, when the has paffed her grand climacteric, 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 lait made his fortune by running away with. her grandmother. . But as I do not defign this fpeculation for the Ever-greens of the fex, I fhall again apply myfelf 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 thofe beautiful lines: -Long fhe flourish'd, Grew fweet to fenfe, and lovely to the eye: Cropt this fair rofe, and rifled all its sweetness, On the contrary, he 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 fweetnefs about her: Imuft, however, defire thefe laft to confider, how fhameful it would be for a general, who has made a fuccefsful campaign, to be furprised in his winter quarters: it would be no lefs difhonourable for a lady to lofe, in any other month of the year, what he has been at the pains to preferve in May There is no charm in the female fex, that can supply the place of virtue. Without innocence, beauty is unlovely, and quality contemptible, good-breeding degene rates into wantonnefs, and wit into impudence. It is obferved, that all the virtues are reprefented both by 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 overpowered by temptations it is fufficient for me to have warned them against it, as they may be led aftray by inftinct. I defire this paper may be read with more than ordinary attention, at all tea-tables within the cities of London and Westminster.' X. N° 396. Wednesday, June 4. Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton*. HAVING AVING a great deal of bufinefs upon my hards 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 gentleman of Cambridge, who ftyles himself Peter de Quir. Ih ve 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 laft difcovered feveral conceits in it: I would not therefore have n y reader difcouraged, if he does not take them at the first pe rufal. To Mr. SPECTATOR. From St. John's College, Cambridge, Feb. 3. 1712. • SIR, THE monopoly of puns in this univerfity has been an immemorial privilege of the Johnians; and we cannot help refenting the late invafion of our * A barbarous verfe, invented by the Logicians. 6. 6. ancient right as to that particular, by a little pretender to clenching in a neighbouring college, who in an application to you by way of letter, a while ago, ftyled himself Philobrune. Dear fit, as you are by character a profefled well-wither to fpeculation, you will excufe a remark which this gentleman's paffion for the Brunette has fuggefted to a brother theorift: it is an offer towards a mechanical account of his lapfe to "punning, for he belongs to a fet of mortals who value themselves upon an uncommon mastery in the more humane and polite part 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, almost benight the faculties, and give that melancholy tincture to the molt fanguine complexion, which this gentleman calls an inclination to be in a brown-ftudy, 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 paflion in nature, to offer at fome pert fallies now and then,、 by way of flourish upon the amiable inchantrefs, and unfortunately fumbles upon that mongrel mifcreat⚫ed (to speak in Miltonic) kind of wit, vulgarly term•ed the pun. It would not be much amifs to confult • Dr TW (who is certainly a very able projector, and whofe fyftem of divinity and fpiritual mechanics obtains very much among the better part : of our under-graduates) whether a general inter-marriage enjoined by parliament, between this fifterhood i of the olive-beauties, and the fraternity of the peo-ple called quakers, would not be a very ferviceable expedient, and abate that overflow of light which fhines within them fo powerfully, that it daz-zles their eyes, and dances them into a thoufandi vagaries of error and enthufiafin.. These reflections ་ 6+ 6 6.. may impart fome light towards a difcovery of the origin of punning among us, and the foundation of its prevailing fo long in this famous body. It is notorious from the inftance under confideration, that it must be owing chiefly to the ufe of brown jugs, muddy belch, and the fumes of a certain memorable place of rendezvous with us at meals, known by the name of Staincoat Hole: for the atmosphere of the kitchen, like the tail of a comet, predominates leat about the fire, but refides behind and fills the fragrant receptacle above-mentioned. Befides, it is farther obfervable, that the delicate fpirits among us, who de*clare against these naufeous proceedings, fip tea, and put up for critic and amour, profefs likewife an equal abhorrence for punning, the ancient innocent ⚫ diverfion of this fociety. After all, fir, though it may appear fomething abfurd, that I feem to approach you with the air of an advocate for punning, (you whe have juftified your cenfures of the practice in a set differtation upon that fubject;) yet I am confident, you will think it abundantly atoned for by obferving, that this humbler exercise may be as inftrumental in diverting us from any innovating schemes and hypothefis in wit, as dwelling upon honeft orthodox logic would be in fecuring us from herefy in religion. Had Mr. W n's researches been confined within the bounds of Ramus or Crackenthorp, that learned newsmonger might have acquiefced in what the holy ora ⚫cles pronounced upon the deluge, like other chriftians; and had the furprising Mr. Ly been con• tent with the employment of refining upon Shakefpeare's points and quibbles, (for which he must be allowed to have a fuperlative genius) and now and then penning a catch or a ditty, instead of indicting ⚫odes, and fonnets, the gentlemen of the Bon Goût in the pit would never have been put to all that grimace in damning the frippery of ftate, the poverty and languor of thought, the unnatural wit, and inartificial ⚫tructure of his dramas. · ⚫ I am, Sir, 6 Your very humble fervant, PETER DE QUIR |