C MADAM, WHAT happened the other day gives me a lively image of the inconsistency of human passsions and inclinations. We pursue what we are denied, and place our affections on what is absent, though we neglected it when present. As long as you refused my love, your refusal did so strongly excite my passion, that I had not once the leisure to think of recalling my reason to aid me against the design upon your virtue. But when that virtue began to comply in my favour, my reason made an effort over my love, and let me see the baseness of my behaviour in attempting a woman of honour. I own to you, it was not without the most violent struggle that I gained this victory over myself; nay, I will confess my shame, and acknowledge, I could not have prevailed but by flight. However, madam, I beg that you will believe a moment's weakness has not destroyed the esteem I had for you, which was confirmed by so many years of obstinate virtue. You have reason to rejoice that this did not happen within the observation of one of the young fellows, who would have exposed your weakness, and gloried in his own brutish inclinations. 'I am, MADAM, "Your most devoted humble servant.' "Isabella, with the help of her husband, returned the following answer : 'SIR, I CANNOT but account myself a very happy woman, in having a man for a lover that can write so well, and give so good a turn to a disappointment. Another excellence you have above all other pretenders I ever heard of; on occasions where the most reasonable men lose all their reason, you have yours most powerful. We are each of us to thank our genius, that the passion of one abated in proportion as that of the other grew violent. Does it not yet come into your head to imagine, that I knew my compliance was the greatest cruelty I could be guilty of towards you? In return for your long and faithful passion, I must let you know that you are old enough to become a little more gravity; but if you will leave me, and coquet it any where else, may your mistress yield. T ' ISABELLA.' No. 319. THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 1711-12. Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo? HOR. EPIST. i. 1. 90. Say while they change on thus, what chains can bind FRANCIS. I HAVE endeavoured in the course of my papers to do justice to the age, and have taken care as much as possible to keep myself a neuter between both sexes. I have neither spared the ladies out of complaisance, nor the men out of partiality; but notwithstanding the great integrity with which I have acted in this particular, I find myself taxed with an inclination to favour my own half of the species. Whether it be that the women afford a more fruitful field for speculation, or whether they run more in my head than the men, I cannot tell; but I shall set down the charge as it is laid against me in the following letter. "MR. SPECTATOR, "I ALWAYS make one among a company of young females, who peruse your speculations every morning. I am at present commissioned by our whole assembly to let you know, that we fear you are a little inclined to be partial towards your own sex. We must, however, acknowledge, with all due gratitude, that in some cases you have given us our revenge on the men, and done us justice. We could not easily have forgiven you several strokes in the dissection of the coquette's heart, if had not, you much about the same time, made a sacrifice to us of a beau's scull. "You may, however, Sir, please to remember, that not long since you attacked our hoods and commodes in such a manner, as, to use your own expression, made very many of us ashamed to show our heads. We must, therefore, beg leave to represent to you, that we are in hopes, if will please to make a due inquiry, the men in all ages would be found to have been little less whimsical in adorning that part than ourselves. The different forms of their wigs, together with the various cocks of their hats, all flatter us in this opinion. you "I had an humble servant last summer, who, the first time he declared himself, was in a full-bottomed wig; but the day after, to my no small surprise, he accosted me in a thin natural one. I received him, at this our second interview, as a perfect stranger, but was extremely confounded when his speech discovered who he was. I resolved, therefore, to fix his face in my memory for the future; but, as I was walking in the park the same evening, he appeared to me in one of those wigs that I think call a night-cap, which had altered him more effectually than before. He afterwards played a couple of black you riding wigs upon me with the same success, and, in short, assumed a new face almost every day in the first month of his courtship. "I observed, afterwards, that the variety of cocks into which he moulded his hat, had not a little contributed to his impositions upon me. "Yet, as if all these ways were not sufficient to distinguish their heads, you must doubtless, Sir, have observed, that great numbers of young fellows have, for several months last past, taken upon them to wear feathers. "We hope, therefore, that these may, with as much justice, be called Indian princes, as you have styled a woman in a coloured hood, an Indian queen; and that you will, in due time, take these airy gentlemen into consideration. you would put "We the more earnestly beg that a stop to this practice, since it has already lost us one of the most agreeable members of our society, who, after having refused several good estates, and two titles, was lured from us last week by a mixed feather. "I am ordered to present you with the respects of our whole company, and am, SIR, "Your very humble servant, 66 DORINDA. "Note. The person wearing the feather, though our friend took him for an officer in the guards, has proved to be an errant linen-draper *' I am not now at leisure to give my opinion upon the hat and feather: however, to wipe off the present imputation, and gratify my female corre * Only an ensign in the train-bands. Spect. in folio. spondent, I shall here print a letter which I lately received from a man of mode, who seems to have a very extraordinary genius in his way. 66 SIR, “I PRESUME I need not inform you, that among men of dress it is a common phrase to say, Mr. Such-a-one has struck a bold stroke;' by which we understand, that he is the first man who has had courage enough to lead up a fashion. Accordingly, when our tailors take measure of us, they always demand, whether we will have a plain suit or strike a bold stroke? I think I may without vanity say, that I have struck some of the boldest and most successful strokes of any man in Great Britain. I was the first that struck the long pocket about two years since; I was likewise the author of the frosted button, which when I saw the town come readily into, being resolved to strike while the iron was hot, I produced much about the same time the scallop flap, the knotted cravat, and made a fair push for the silver-clocked stocking. "A few months after, I brought up the modish jacket, or the coat with close sleeves. I struck this at first in a plain doily; but that failing, I struck it a second time in blue camlet, and repeated the stroke in several kinds of cloth, till at last it took effect. There are two or three young fellows at the other end of the town who have always their eye upon me, and answer me stroke for stroke. I was once so unwary as to mention my fancy in relation to a new-fashioned surtout before one of these gentlemen, who was disingenuous enough to steal my thought, and by that means prevented my intended stroke. "I have a design this spring to make very considerable innovations in the waistcoat; and have al |