By what I have said, we may conclude, men and women were made as counterparts to one another, that the pains and anxieties of the husband might be relieved by the sprightliness and good humor of the wife. When these are rightly tempered, care and cheerfulness go hand in hand; and the family, like a S ship that is duly trimmed, wants neither sail nor ballast.

Natural historians observe (for while I am in the country, I must fetch my allusions from thence) that only the male birds have voices; that their songs begin a little before breeding-time, and end a little after : that while the hen is covering her eggs, the male generally takes his stand upon a neighboring bough within her hearing: and by that means amuses and diverts her with his songs during the whole time of her sitting.

This contract among birds lasts no longer than till a brood of young ones arises from it: so that in the feathered kind, the cares and fatigues of the married state, if I may so call it, lie principally upon the female. On the contrary, as, in our species, the man and the woman are joined together for life, and the main burden rests upon the former, nature has given all the little arts of soothing and blandishment to the female, that she may cheer and animate her companion in a constant and assiduous application to the making a provision for his family, and the educating of their common children. This however is not to be taken so strictly, as if the same duties were not often reciprocal, and incumbent on both parties; but only to set forth what seems to have been the general intention of nature, in the different inclinations and endowments which are bestowed on the different sexes.

But whatever was the reason that man and woman

were made with this variety of temper, if we observe the conduct of the fair sex, we find that they choose rather to associate themselves with a person who resembles them in that light and volatile humor which is natural to them, than to such as are qualified to moderate and counterbalance it. It has been an old complaint, that the coxcomb carries it with them before the man of sense. When we see a fellow loud and talkative, full of insipid life and laughter, we may venture to pronounce him a female favorite. Noise and flutter are such accomplishments as they cannot withstand. To be short, the passion of an ordinary woman for a man is nothing else than self-love diverted upon another object. She would have the lover a woman in everything but the sex. I do not know a finer piece of satire on this part of womankind, than those lines of Mr. Dryden:

Our thoughtless sex is caught by outward form,
And empty noise; and loves itself in man.

This is a source of infinite calamities to the sex, as it frequently joins them to men who, in their own thoughts, are as fine creatures as themselves; or if they chance to be good-humored, serve only to dissipate their fortunes, inflame their follies, and aggravate their indiscretions.

The same female levity is no less fatal to them after marriage than before. It represents to their imaginations the faithful, prudent husband, as an honest, tractable, and domestic animal; and turns their thoughts upon the fine, gay gentleman that laughs, sings, and dresses so much more agreeably.

As this irregular vivacity of temper leads astray the hearts of ordinary women in the choice of their lovers and the treatment of their husbands, it operates with the same pernicious influence toward their chil

dren, who are taught to accomplish themselves in all those sublime perfections that appear captivating in the eye of their mother. She admires in her son what she loved in her gallant; and by that means contributes all she can to perpetuate herself in a worthless progeny.

The younger Faustina was a lively instance of this sort of women. Notwithstanding she was married to Marcus Aurelius, one of the greatest, wisest, and best of the Roman emperors, she thought a common gladiator much the prettier gentleman; and had taken such care to accomplish her son Commodus according to her own notions of a fine man, that when he ascended the throne of his father, he became the most foolish and abandoned tyrant that ever was placed at the head of the Roman empire, signalizing himself in nothing but the fighting of prizes, and knocking out men's brains. As he had no taste of

true glory, we see him in several medals and statues, which are still extant of him, equipped like a Hercules, with a club and a lion's skin.

The

I have been led into this speculation by the characters I have heard of a country gentleman and his lady, who do not live many miles from Sir Roger. wife is an old coquette that is always hankering after the diversions of the town; the husband a morose rustic, that frowns and frets at the name of it. The wife is overrun with affectation, the husband sunk Ral into brutality. The lady cannot bear the noise of the larks and nightingales, hates your tedious summerdays, and is sick at the sight of shady woods and purling streams; the husband wonders how any one can be pleased with the fooleries of plays and operas, and rails from morning till night at essenced fops and tawdry courtiers. The children are educated in these different notions of their parents. The sons follow

their father about his grounds, while the daughters read volumes of love-letters and romances to their mother. By this means it comes to pass that the girls look upon their father as a clown, and the boys think their mother no better than she should be.

How different are the lives of Aristus and Aspasia ! The innocent vivacity of the one is tempered and composed by the cheerful gravity of the other. The wife grows wise by the discourses of the husband, and the husband good-humored by the conversations of the wife. Aristus would not be so amiable were it not for his Aspasia, nor Aspasia so much esteemed were it not for her Aristus. Their virtues are blended in their children, and diffuse through the whole family a perpetual spirit of benevolence, complacency, and satisfaction.-C.

No. 133.]

THURSDAY, AUGUST 2, 1711.

Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus

Tam chari capitis?-HOR. 1 Od. xxiv, 1.

Such was his worth, our loss is such,

We cannot love too well, or grieve too much.

OLDISWORTH.

THERE is a sort of delight, which is alternately mixed with terror and sorrow in the contemplation of death. The soul has its curiosity more than ordinarily awakened, when it turns its thoughts upon the conduct of such who have behaved themselves with an equal, a resigned, a cheerful, a generous, or heroic temper in that extremity. We are affected with these respective manners of behavior, as we secretly believe the part of the dying person imitated by ourselves, or such as we imagine ourselves more particularly capable of. Men of exalted minds march before us

men.

like princes, and are to the ordinary race of mankind rather subjects of their admiration than example. However, there are no ideas strike more forcibly upon our imaginations, than those which are raised from reflections upon the exits of great and excellent Innocent men who have suffered as criminals, though they were benefactors to human society, seem to be persons of the highest distinction, among the vastly greater number of human race, the dead. When the iniquity of the times brought Socrates to his execution, how great and wonderful is it to behold him, unsupported by anything but the testimony of his own conscience and conjectures of hereafter, receive the poison with an air of warmth and goodhumor, and, as if going on an agreeable journey, bespeak some deity to make it fortunate!

When Phocion's good actions had met with the like reward from his country, and he was led to death with many other of his friends, they bewailing their fate, he walking composedly toward the place of his execution, how gracefully does he support his illustrious character to the very last instant! One of the rabble spitting at him as he passed, with his usual authority he called to know if no one was ready to teach this fellow how to behave himself. When a poor-spirited creature that died at the same time for his crimes, bemoaned himself unmanfully, he rebuked him with this question, "Is it no consolation to such a man as thou art to die with Phocion?" At the instant when he was to die, they asked what commands he had for his son: he answered, "To forget this injury of the Athenians." Niocles, his friend, under the same sentence, desired he might drink the potion before him: Phocion said "because he never had denied him anything, he would not even this, the most difficult request he had ever made."