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No. 475. Jewels and Estate, adding, that he was resolved to do
Thursday, nothing in a Matter of such consequence without my
Sept, 4,

1712,

Approbation. Finding he would have an Answer, I told
him, if he could get the Lady's Consent, he had mine.
This is about the Tenth Match which, to my Knowledge,
WILL has consulted his Friends upon, without ever open-
ing his Mind to the Party herself.

have been engaged in this Subject by the following
Letter, which comes to me from some notable young
Female Scribe, who, by the Contents of it, seems to have
carried Matters so far, that she is ripe for asking Advice;
but as I would not lose her Good-will, nor forfeit the
Reputation which I have with her for Wisdom, I shall
only communicate the Letter to the Publick, without re
turning any Answer to it

'Mr. SPECTATOR,

Now, Sir, the Thing is this: Mr. Shapely is the prettiest
Gentleman about Town. He is very tall, but not too tall
neither. He dances like an Angel. His Mouth is made
I don't know how, but 'tis the prettiest that I ever saw in
my Life. He is always laughing, for he has an infinite
Deal of Wit. If you did but see how he rolls his Stockings!
He has a thousand pretty Fancies, and I am sure, if you
saw him, you would like him. He is a very good Scholar,
and can talk Latin as fast as English. I wish you could
but see him dance. Now you must understand poor Mr.
Shapely has no Estate; but how can he help that, you
know? And yet my Friends are so unreasonable as to be
always teizing me about him, because he has no Estate,
But, I am sure, he has that that is better than an Estate;
for he is a good-natured, ingenious, modest, civil, tall,
well-bred, handsome Man, and I am obliged to him for
his Civilities ever since I saw him. I forgot to tell you
that he has black Eyes, and looks upon me now and then
as if he had Tears in them, And yet my Friends are so
unreasonable, that they would have me be uncivil to him.
I have a good Portion which they cannot hinder me of,
and I shall be Fourteen on the 29th Day of August next,
and am therefore willing to settle in the World as soon as
I can, and so is Mr. Shapely. But every Body I advise

with here is poor Mr. Shapely's Enemy, I desire there No. 475. fore you will give me your Advice, for I know you are Thursday, Sept, 4, a wise Man, and if you advise me well, I am resolved 1712. to follow it I heartily wish you could see him dance,

and am,

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AMONG my daily Papers which I bestow on the

Publick, there are some which are written with Regularity and Method, and others that run out into the Wildness of those Compositions which go by the Name of Essays. As for the first, I have the whole Scheme of the Discourse in my Mind before I set Pen to Paper. In the other Kind of Writing, it is sufficient that I have several Thoughts on a Subject, without troubling my self to range them in such Order, that they may seem to grow out of one another, and be disposed under the proper Heads, Seneca and Montaigne are Patterns for Writing in this last Kind, as Tully and Aristotle excel in the other. When I read an Author of Genius who writes without Method, I fancy my self in a Wood that abounds with a great many noble Objects, rising among one another in the greatest Confusion and Disorder. When I read a methodical discourse, I am in a regular Plantation, and can place my self in its several Centers, so as to take a View of all the Lines and Walks that are struck from them. You may ramble in the one a whole Day together, and every Moment discover something or other that is new to you; but when you have done you will have but a confused imperfect Notion of the Place: In the other, your Eye commands the whole Prospect, and gives you

such

No. 476.
Friday,
Sept. 5,
712.

such an Idea of it as is not easily worn out of the Memory,

Irregularity and Want of Method are only supportable in Men of great Learning or Genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore chuse to throw down their Pearls in Heaps before the Reader, rather than be at the Pains of stringing them.

Method is of Advantage to a Work, both in respect to the Writer and the Reader. In regard to the first, it is a great Help to his Invention. When a Man has plann'd his Discourse, he finds a great many Thoughts rising out of every Head, that do not offer themselves upon the general Survey of a Subject. His Thoughts are at the same Time more intelligible, and better discover their Drift and Meaning, when they are placed in their proper Lights, and follow one another in a regular Series, than when they are thrown together without Order and Connexion. There is always an Obscurity in Confusion, and the same Sentence that wou'd have enlightened the Reader in one Part of a Discourse, perplexes him in another. For the same Reason likewise every Thought in a methodical Discourse shews it self in its greatest Beauty, as the several Figures in a Piece of Painting receive new Grace from their Disposition in the Picture. The Advantages of a Reader from a methodical Discourse, are correspondent with those of the Writer, He com

prehends every Thing easily, takes it in with Pleasure, and retains it long.

Method is not less requisite in ordinary Conversation than in Writing, provided a Man would talk to make himself understood. I, who hear a thousand Coffee-house Debates every Day, am very sensible of this Want of Method in the Thoughts of my honest Countrymen, There is not one Dispute in ten which is managed in those Schools of Politicks, where, after the three first Sentences, the Question is not entirely lost. Our Dis putants put me in Mind of the Cuttle Fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the Water about him till he becomes invisible. The Man who does not know how to methodize his Thoughts, has always, to borrow a Phrase from the Dispensary, a barren Super

fluity of Words; the Fruit is lost amidst the Exuberance No. 476. of Leaves.

Friday, Tom Puzzle is one of the most eminent immethodical Sept. 5, 1712. Disputants of any that has fallen under my Observation. Tom has read enough to make him very impertinent; his Knowledge is sufficient to raise Doubts, but not to clear them. It is Pity that he has so much Learning, or that he has not a great Deal more. With these Qualifica tions Tom sets up for a Free-thinker, finds a great many Things to blame in the Constitution of his Country, and gives shrewd Intimations that he does not believe another World. In short, Puzzle is an Atheist as much as his Parts will give him Leave. He has got about half a Dozen commonplace Topicks, into which he never fails to turn the Con versation, whatever was the Occasion of it: Tho' the Matter in Debate be about Doway or Denain, it is ten to one but half his Discourse runs upon the Unreasonable ness of Bigottry and Priestcraft. This makes Mr. Puzzle the Admiration of all those who have less Sense than himself, and the Contempt of all those who have more, There is none in Town whom Tom dreads so much as my Friend Will Dry. Will, who is acquainted with Tom's Logick, when he finds him running off the Ques tion, cuts him short with a What then? We allow all this to be true, but what is it to our present Purpose? I have known Tom eloquent Half an Hour together, and triumphing as he thought, in the Superiority of the Argu ment, when he has been nonplus'd on a sudden by Mr. Dry's desiring him to tell the Company what it was that he endeavoured to prove. In short, Dry is a Man of a clear methodical Head but few Words, and gains the same Advantage over Puzzle, that a small Body of regular Troops would gain over a numberless undisci plined Militia.

C

Saturday

No. 477.

No. 477.
Saturday, [ADDISON.]
Sept. 6,
1712.

'Sir,

Saturday, September 6.

-An me ludit amabilis

Insania? Audire & videor píos

Errare per lucos, amoenae

Quos & aquae subeunt & aurae.-Hor.

HAVING lately read your Essay on the Pleasures of

the Imagination, I was so taken with your Thoughts upon some of our English Gardens, that I cannot forbear troubling you with a Letter upon that Subject. I am one, you must know, who am looked upon as an Humorist in Gardening, I have several Acres about my House, which I call my Garden, and which a skillful Gardener would not know what to call. It is a Confusion of Kitchin and Parterre, Orchard and Flower Garden, which lie so mixt and interwoven with one another, that if a Foreigner who had seen nothing of our Country should be conveyed into my Garden at his first landing, he would look upon it as a natural Wilderness, and one of the uncultivated Parts of our Country. My Flowers grow up in several Parts of the Garden in the greatest Luxuriancy and Profusion. I am so far from being fond of any par ticular one, by reason of its Rarity, that if I meet with any one in a Field which pleases me, I give it a Place in my Garden. By this Means, when a Stranger walks with me, he is surprized to see several large Spots of Ground covered with ten thousand different Colours, and has often singled out Flowers that he might have met with under a common Hedge, in a Field, or in a Meadow, as some of the greatest Beauties of the Place. The only Method I observe in this Particular, is to range in the same Quarter the Products of the same Season, that they may make their Appearance together, and compose a Picture of the greatest Variety. There is the same Irregularity in my Planta tions, which run into as great a Wildness as their Natures will permit. I take in none that do not naturally rejoyce in the Soil, and am pleased when I am walking in a Labyrinth of my own raising, not to know whether the next Tree I shall meet with is an Apple or an Oak, an Elm or a Pear-tree. My Kitchin has likewise its par

ticular

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