THE SPECTATOR, WITH HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE, AND EXPLANATORY NOTES. A NEW EDITION, IN EIGHT VOLUMES. VOL. VII. LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. RICHARDSON AND CO.; G. OFFER; T. TEGG; 1823. No 474. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 3, 1712. Asperitas agrestis, et inconcinna. HOR. 1 Ep. xviii. 6. Rude, rustic, and inelegant. " MR. SPECTATOR, BEING of the number of those that have lately retired from the centre of business and pleasure, my uneasiness in the country where I am, arises rather from the society than the solitude of it. To be obliged to receive and return visits from, and to, a circle of neighbours, who, through diversity of age or inclination, can neither be entertaining nor serviceable to us, is a vile loss of time, and a slavery from which a man should deliver himself, if possible: for why must I lose the remaining part of my life, because they have thrown away the former part of theirs? It is to me an insupportable affliction, to be tormented with the narrations of a set of people, who are warm in their expressions of the quick relish of that pleasure which their dogs and horses have a more delicate taste of. I do also in my heart detest and abhor that damnable doctrine and position of the |