No. 489. Elements, and recovering them out of their Confusion, 1712. Great Painters do not only give us Landskips of Gardens, Groves, and Meadows, but very often employ their Pencils upon Sea-Pieces: I could wish you would follow their Example. If this small Sketch may deserve a Place among your Works, I shall accompany it with a Divine Ode, made by a Gentleman upon the Conclusion of his Travels.. L How are thy Servants blest, O Lord! Eternal Wisdom is their Guide, Their Help Omnipotence. IL In foreign Realms, and Lands remote, Through burning Climes I pass'd unhurt, Confusion dwelt in ev'ry Face, And Fear in ev'ry Heart When Waves on Waves, and Gulphs in Gulphs, O'ercame the Pilot's Art. VL Yet then from all my Griefs, O Lord, VIL For tho' in dreadful Whirles we hung I knew Thou wert not slow to hear, VIII. The Storm was laid, the Winds retir'd, The Sea, that roar'd at Thy Command, IX. In Midst of Dangers, Fears and Death, And praise Thee for Thy Mercies past, X My Life, if Thou preserv'st my Life, And Death, if Death must be my Doom, No. 490, [STEELE] I HAVE very long entertained an Ambition to make the Word Wife the most agreeable and delightful Name in Nature. If it be not so in it self, all the wiser Part of Mankind from the beginning of the World to this Day No. 489. Saturday, Sept. 20, 1712. 1712. No. 490. Day has consented in an Error: But our Unhappiness in Monday, England has been, that a few loose Men of Genius for Sept. 22, Pleasure, have turned it all to the Gratification of ungoverned Desires, in Despite of good Sense, Form, and Order; when, in Truth, any Satisfaction beyond the Boundaries of Reason, is but a Step towards Madness and Folly. But is the Sense of Joy and Accomplishment of Desire no Way to be indulged or attained? and have we Appetites given us to be at all gratify'd? Yes certainly, Marriage is an Institution calculated for a constant Scene of as much Delight as our Being is capable of. Two Persons who have chosen each other out of all the Species, with Design to be each other's mutual Comfort and Entertain ment, have in that Action bound themselves to be good humour'd, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with Respect to each other's Frailties and Perfections, to the End of their Lives. The Wiser of the Two (and it always happens one of them is such) will, for her or his own Sake, keep Things from Outrage with the utmost Sanctity. When this Union is thus preserv'd (as I have often said) the most indifferent Circumstance administers Delight. Their_Condition is an endless Source of new Gratifications. The marry'd Man can say, If I am unacceptable to all the World beside, there is one, whom I entirely love, that will receive me with Joy and Transport, and think her self obliged to double her Kindness and Caresses of me from the Gloom with which she sees me overcast, I need not dissemble the Sorrow of my Heart to be agreeable there, that very Sorrow quickens her Affection. This Passion towards each other, when once well fixed, enters into the very Constitution, and the Kindness flows as easily and silently as the Blood in the Veins. When this Affection is enjoyed in the most sublime Degree, unskilful Eyes see nothing of it; but when it is subject to be changed, and has an Allay in it that may make it end in Distaste, it is apt to break into Rage, or overflow into Fondness, before the Rest of the World. Uxander and Viramira are amorous and young, and have been married these two Years; yet do they so much distinguish each other in Company, that in your Con versation 1712. versation with the dear Things you are still put to a Sort No. 490, of Cross-Purposes. Whenever you address your self Monday, in ordinary Discourse to Viramíra, she turns her Head Sept. 22, another Way, and the Answer is made to the dear Uxander: If you tell a merry Tale, the Application is still directed to her Dear; and when she should commend you, she says to him, as if he had spoke it, That is, my Dear, so pretty-This puts me in Mind of what I have somewhere read in the admired Memoirs of the famous Cervantes, where, while honest Sancho Pança is putting some necessary humble Question concerning Rozinante, his Supper, or his Lodgings, the Knight of the sorrowful Countenance is ever improving the harmless lowly Hints of his Squire to the poetical Conceit, Rapture, and Flight, in Contemplation of the dear Dulcinea of his Affections. On the other side, Dictamnus and Moría are ever squabbling, and you may observe them all the Time they are in Company in a State of Impatience. As Uxander and Viramira wish you all gone, that they may be at Freedom for Dalliance, Dictamnus and Moria wait your Absence, that they may speak their harsh Interpretations on each other's Words and Actions during the Time you were with them. It is certain that the greater Part of the Evils attending this Condition of Life arises from Fashion Prejudice in this Case is turned the wrong Way, and instead of expecting more Happiness than we shall meet with in it, we are laughed into a Prepossession, that we shall be disappointed if we hope for lasting Satisfactions, With all Persons who have made good Sense the Rule of Action, Marriage is describ'd as the State capable of the highest humane Felicity. Tully has Epistles_full of affectionate Pleasure, when he writes to his Wife or speaks of his Children. But above all the Hints of this Kind I have met with in Writers of ancient Date, I am pleased with an Epigram of Martial, in Honour of the Beauty of his Wife Cleopatra. Commentators say it was written the Day after his Wedding-Night When his Spouse was retired to the Bathing-room in the Heat of the Day, he, it seems, came in upon her when she was just going into the Water. To her Beauty and Carriage on No. 490, this Occasion we owe the following Epigram, which I Monday, shewed my Friend WILL HONEYCOMB in French, who has Sept. 22, translated it as follows, without understanding the Original I expect it will please the English better than the Latin Reader. 1712. When my bright Consort, now nor Wife nor Maid Fled to the Streams, the Streams my Fair betray'd, My Friend would not allow that this luscious Account could be given of a Wife, and therefore used the Word Consort, which, he learnedly said, would serve for a Mistress as well, and give a more gentlemanly Turn to the Epigram. But, under Favour of him and all other such fine Gentlemen, I cannot be perswaded but that the Passion a Bridegroom has for a virtuous young Woman, will, by little and little, grow into Friendship, and then it is ascended to an higher Pleasure than it was in its first Fervour. Without this happens, he is a very unfortunate Man who has enter'd into this State, and left the Habitudes of Life he might have enjoy'd with a faithful Friend. But when the Wife proves capable of filling serious as well as joyous Hours, she brings Happiness unknown to Friendship it self. Spencer speaks of each Kind of Love with great Justice, and attributes the highest Praise to Friendship; and indeed there is no disputing that Point, but by making that Friendship take Place between two married Persons. Hard is the Doubt, and difficult to deem, When all three Kinds of Love together meet, Methinks the gentle Heart should most assured bind. For |