Italian leaves, the nimble French aspen always in motion, the Greek and Latin ever-greens, the Spanish myrtle, the English oak, the Scotch thistle, the Irish shambrogue, the prickly German and Dutch holly, the Polish and Russian nettle, besides a vast number of exotics imported from Asia, Africa, and America. I saw several barren plants, which bore only leaves, without any hopes of flower or fruit. The leaves of some were fragrant and well-shaped, and others ill-scented and irregular. I wondered at a set of old whimsical botanists, who spent their whole lives in the contemplation of some withered Egyptian, Coptic, Armenian, or Chinese leaves; while others made it their business to collect, in voluminous herbals, all the several leaves of some one tree. The flowers afford a most diverting entertainment, in a wonderful variety of figures, colours, and scents; however, most of them withered soon, or at least are but annuals. Some professed florists make them their constant study and employment, and despise all fruit; and now and then a few fanciful people spend all their time in the cultivation of a single tulip, or a carnation. But the most agreeable amusement seems to be the well choosing, mixing, and binding together these flowers in pleasing nosegays, to present to ladies. The scent of Italian flowers is observed, like their other perfumes, to be too strong, and to hurt the brain; that of the French with glaring gaudy colours, yet faint and languid: German and northern flowers have little or no smell, or sometimes an unpleasant one. The ancients had a secret to give a lasting beauty, colour, and sweetness, to some of their choice flowers, which flourish to this day, and which few of the moderns can effect. These are becoming enough and agreeable in their seaons, and do often handsomely adorn an entertainment: but an over-fondness of them seems to be a disease. It rarely happens to find a plant vigorous enough to have (like an orange-tree) at once beautiful and shining leaves, fragrant flowers, and delicious, nourishing fruit. DEAR SPEC, Sir, yours, &c. August 6, 1712 'You have given us, in your Spectator of Saturday last, a very excellent discourse upon the force of custom, and its wonderful efficacy in making every thing pleasant to us. I cannot deny but that I received above two-pennyworth of instruction from your paper, and in the general was very well pleased with it; but I am, without a compliment, sincerely troubled that I cannot exactly be of your opinion, that it makes every thing pleasing to us. In short, I have the honour to be yoked to a young lady, who is, in plain English, for her standing, a very eminent scold. She began to break her mind, very freely, both to me and to her servants, about two months after our nuptials; and, though I have been accustomed to this humour of hers these three years, yet I do not know what's the matter with me, but I am no more delighted with it than I was at the very first. I have advised with her relations about her, and they all tell me that her mother and her grandmother before her were both taken much after the same manner; so that, since it runs in the blood, I have but small hopes of her recovery. I should be glad to have a little of your advice in this matter. I would not willingly trouble you to contrive how it may be a pleasure to me; if you will but put me in a way that I may bear it with indifference, I shall rest satisfied. Dear Spec, Your very humble servant. 'P. S. I must do the poor girl the justice to let you know, that this match was none of her own choosing (or indeed of mine either); in consideration of which I avoid giving her the least provocation; and indeed we live better together than usually folks do who hated one another when they were first joined. To evade the sin against parents, or at least to extenuate it, my dear rails at my father and mother, and I curse hers for making the match.' Mr. SPECTATOR, August 8, 1712. 'I LIKE the theme you lately gave out extremely, and should be as glad to handle it as any man living. But I find myself no better qualified to write about money than about my wife; for, to tell you a secret, which I desire may go no farther, I am master of neither of those subjects. 'Mr. SPECTATOR, Yours, PILL GARLICK.' 'I DESIRE you will print this in italic, so as it may be generally taken notice of. It is designed only to admonish all persons, who speak either at the bar, pulpit, or any public assembly whatsoever, how they discover their ignorance in the use of similies. There are, in the pulpit itself, as well as in other places, such gross abuses in this kind, that I give this warning to all I know. I shall bring them for the future before your spectatorial authority. On Sunday last, one, who shall be nameless, reproving several of his congregation for standing at prayers, was pleased to say, "One would think, like the elephant, you had no knees." Now I myself saw an elephant, in Bartholomew fair, kneel down to take on his back the ingenious Mr. William Penkethman. T. Your most humble servant.' N° 456. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1712. De quo libelli in celeberrimis locis proponuntur, buic ne perire quidem tacitè conceditur. TULL. The man whose conduct is publicly arraigned, is not suffered even to be undone quietly. OTWAY, in his tragedy of Venice Preserved, has described the misery of a man whose effects are in the hands of the law, with great spirit. The bitterness of being the scorn and laughter of base minds, the anguish of being insulted by men hardened beyond the sense of shame or pity, and the injury of a man's fortune being wasted, under pretence of justice, are excellently aggravated in the following speech of Pierre to Jaffier: "I pass'd this very moment by thy doors, Nothing indeed can be more unhappy than the condition of bankruptcy. The calamity which hap pens to us by ill fortune, or by the injury of others, has in it some consolation; but what arises from our own misbehaviour, or error, is the state of the most exquisite sorrow. When a man considers not only an ample fortune, but even the very necessaries of life, his pretence to food itself, at the mercy of his creditors, he cannot but look upon himself in the state of the dead, with his case thus much worse, that the last office is performed by his adversaries instead of his friends. From this hour the cruel world does not only take possession of his whole fortune, but even of every thing else which had no relation to it. All his indifferent actions have new interpretations put upon them; and those whom he has favoured in his former life, discharge themselves of their obligations to him, by joining in the reproaches of his enemies. It is almost incredible that it should be so; but it is too often seen that there is a pride mixed with the impatience of the creditor; and there are who would rather recover their own by the downfall of a prosperous man, than be discharged to the common satisfaction of themselves and their creditors. The wretched man, who was lately master of abundance, is now under the direction of others; and the wisdom, economy, good sense, and skill in human life before, by reason of his present misfortune, are of no use to him in the disposition of any thing. The incapacity of an infant or a lunatic. is designed for his provision and accommodation; but that of a bankrupt, without any mitigation in respect of the accidents by which it arrived, is calculated for his utter ruin, except there be a remainder ample enough, after the discharge of his creditors, to bear also the expence of rewarding those by whose means the effect of all this labour was transferred from him. This man is to look on and see others giving directions upon what terms and con |