that upon my going to sleep 1 fell into the following dream.

'I saw a town of this island, which shall be nameless, invested on every side, and the inhabitants of it so straitened as to cry for quarter. The general refused any other terms than those granted to the abovementioned town of Hensberg, namely, that the married women might come out with what they could bring along with them. Immediately the city gates flew open, and a female procession appeared, multitudes of the sex following one another in a row, and staggering under their respective burdens. I took my stand upon an eminence in the enemy's camp, which was appointed for the general rendezvous of these female carriers, being very desirous to look into their several ladings. The first of them had a huge sack upon her shoulders, which she set down with great care; upon the opening of it, when I expected to have seen her husband shot out of it, I found it was filled with china-ware. The next appeared in a more decent figure, carrying a handsome young fellow upon her back; I could not forbear commending the young woman for her conjugal affection, when, to my great surprise, I found that she had left the good man at home, and brought away her gallant. I saw the third at some distance, with a little withered face peeping over her shoulder, whom I could not suspect for any but her spouse, till, upon her setting him down, I heard her call him dear pug, and found him to be her favourite monkey. A fourth brought a huge bale of cards along with her: and the fifth a Bologna lap-dog; for her husband, it seems, being a very burly man, she

thought it would be less trouble for her to bring away little Cupid. The next was the wife of a rich usurer, laden with a bag of gold; she told us that her spouse was very old, and by the course of nature could not expect to live long; and that to show her tender regard for him, she had saved that which the poor man loved better than his life. The next came towards us with her son upon her back, who, we were told, was the greatest rake in the place, but so much the mother's darling, that she left her husband behind, with a large family of hopeful sons and daughters, for the sake of this graceless youth.

'It would be endless to mention the several persons, with their several loads that appeared to me in this strange vision. All the place about me was covered with packs of ribands, brocades, embroidery, and ten thousand other materials, sufficient to have furnished a whole street of toyshops. One of the women, having a husband who was none of the heaviest, was bringing him off upon her shoulders, at the same time that she carried a great bundle of Flanders lace under her arm, but finding herself so overloaden that she could not save both of them, she dropped the good man, and brought away the bundle. In short, I found but one husband among this great mountain of baggage, who was a lively cobbler that kicked and spurred all the while his wife was carrying him on, and as it was said, he had scarce passed a day in his life without giving her the discipline of the strap.

'I can not conclude my letter, dear Spec, without telling thee one very odd whim in this my dream. I saw, methought, a dozen women, em

ployed in bringing off one man; I could not guess who it should be, till upon his nearer approach, I discovered thy short phiz. The women all declared that it was for the sake of thy works, and not thy person that they brought thee off, and that it was on condition that thou shouldst continue the Spectator. If thou thinkest this dream will make a tolerable one it is at thy service from, dear Spec,

Thine, sleeping and waking,
6 WILL HONEYCOMB.

The ladies will see, by this letter, what I havé often told them that Will is one of those oldfashioned men of wit and pleasure of the town, that shows his parts by raillery on marriage, and one who has often tried his fortune that way without success. I can not however dismiss this letter, without observing, that the true story on which it is built does honour to the sex, and that in order to abuse them, the writer is obliged to have recourse to dream and fiction.

ADDISON.

0.

No. 500. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3,

-Huc natas adjice septem

Et totidem juvenes; et mox generosque nurusque :
Quærite nune, habeat quam nostra superbia causam.

Seven are my daughters, of a form divine,
With seven fair sons, an indefective line.
Go, fools, consider this, and ask the cause

From which my pride its strong presumption draws.

SIR,

OVID.

CROXAL.

You who are so well acquainted with the story of Socrates, must have read how, upon his making a discourse concerning love, he pressed his point with so much success, that all the bachelors in his audience took a resolution to marry by the first opportunity, and that all the married men immediately took horse and galloped home to their wives. I am apt to think your dis courses, in which you have drawn so many agreeable pictures of marriage, have had a very good effect this way in England. We are obliged to you at least for having taken off that senseless ridicule, which for many years the witlings of the town have turned upon their fathers and mothers. For my own part, I was born in wedlock, and I don't care who knows it; for which reason, among many others, I should look upon myself as a most insufferable coxcomb, did I endeavour to maintain that cuckoldom was insepable from marriage, or to make use of husband and wife as terms of reproach. Nay, sir, I will go one step further, and declare to you before the whole world, that I am a married man, and

at the same time I have so much assurance as not to be ashamed of what I have done.

Among the several pleasures that accompany this state of life, and which you have described in your former papers, there are two you have

not taken notice of, and which are seldom cast into the account by those who write on this subject. You must have observed, in your speculations on human nature, that nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion; and this I think myself amply possessed of, as I am the father of a family. I am perpetually taken up in giving out orders, in prescribing duties, in hearing parties, in administering justice, and in distributing rewards and punishments. To speak in the language of the Centurion, I say unto one, go, and he goeth: and to another, come, and he cometh; and to my servant, do this, and he doeth it.' In short, sir, 1 look upon my family as a patriarchal sovereignty, in which I am myself both king and priest. All great governments are nothing else but clusters of these little private royalties, and therefore I consider the masters of families as small deputy governors, presiding over the several little parcels and divisions of their fellow-subjects. As I take great pleasure in the administration of my government in particular, so I look upon myself not only as a more useful, but as a much and happier man than any bachelor in England of my rank and condition.

There is another accidental advantage in marriage, which has likewise fallen to my share; 1 mean the having a multitude of children. These I can not but regard as very great blessings.