most every thing which corrupts the soul decays the body. The beauties of the face and mind are generally destroyed by the same means. This consideration should have a particular weight with the female world, who were designed to please the eye and attract the regards of the other half of the species. Now there is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vigils of the cardtable, and those cutting passions which naturally attend them. Hollow eyes, haggard looks, and pale complexions, are the natural indications of a female gamester. Her morning sleeps are not able to repair her midnight watchings. I have known a woman carried off half-dead from bassette; and have many a time grieved to see a person of quality gliding by me in her chair at two o'clock in the morning, and looking like a spectre amidst a glare of flambeaux. In short, I never knew a thorough-paced female gamester hold her beauty two winters together. But there is still another case in which the body is more endangered than in the former. All playdebts must be paid in specie, or by an equivalent. The man that plays beyond his income pawns his estate; the woman must find out something else to mortgage, when her pin-money is gone. The husband has his lands to dispose of, the wife her person. Now when the female body is once dipped, if the creditor be very importunate, I leave my reader to consider the consequences. No 121. THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1713. Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iræque leonum. VIRG. An. vii. 15. Hence to our ear the roar of lions came. ROARINGS OF THE LION. OLD NESTOR, EVER since the first notice you gave of the erection of that useful monument of yours in Button's coffee-house, I have had a restless ambition to imitate the renowned London Prentice, and boldly venture my hand down the throat of your lion. The subject of this letter is the relation of a club whereof I am member, and which has made a considerable noise of late, I mean the Silent club. The year of our institution is 1694, the number of members twelve, and the place of our meeting is Dumb's-alley, in Holborn. We look upon ourselves as the relics of the old Pythagoreans, and have this maxim in common with them, which is the foundation of our design, that "Talking spoils company." The president of our society is one who was born deaf and dumb, and owes that blessing to nature, which in the rest of us is owing to industry alone. I find upon inquiry, that the greater part of us are married men, and such whose wives are remarkably loud at home. Hither we fly for refuge, and enjoy at once the two greatest and most valuable blessings, company and retirement. When that eminent relation of yours, the Spectator, publish most every thing which corrupts the soul decays the body. The beauties of the face and mind are generally destroyed by the same means. This consideration should have a particular weight with the female world, who were designed to please the eye and attract the regards of the other half of the species. Now there is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vigils of the cardtable, and those cutting passions which naturally attend them. Hollow eyes, haggard looks, and pale complexions, are the natural indications of a female gamester. Her morning sleeps are not able to repair her midnight watchings. I have known a woman carried off half-dead from bassette; and have many a time grieved to see a person of quality gliding by me in her chair at two o'clock in the morning, and looking like a spectre amidst a glare of flambeaux. In short, I never knew a thorough-paced female gamester hold her beauty two winters together. But there is still another case in which the body is more endangered than in the former. All playdebts must be paid in specie, or by an equivalent. The man that plays beyond his income pawns his estate; the woman must find out something else to mortgage, when her pin-money is gone. The husband has his lands to dispose of, the wife her person. Now when the female body is once dipped, if the creditor be very importunate, I leave my reader to consider the consequences. N° 121. THURSDAY, JULY 30, 1713. Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iræque leonum. VIRG. Æn. vii. 15. Hence to our ear the roar of lions came. ROARINGS OF THE LION. OLD NESTOR, EVER since the first notice you gave of the erection of that useful monument of yours in Button's coffee-house, I have had a restless ambition to imitate the renowned London Prentice, and boldly venture my hand down the throat of your lion. The subject of this letter is the relation of a club whereof I am member, and which has made a considerable noise of late, I mean the Silent club. The year of our institution is 1694, the number of members twelve, and the place of our meeting is Dumb's-alley, in Holborn. We look upon ourselves as the relics of the old Pythagoreans, and have this maxim in common with them, which is the foundation of our design, that "Talking spoils company." The president of our society is one who was born deaf and dumb, and owes that blessing to nature, which in the rest of us is owing to industry alone. I find upon inquiry, that the greater part of us are married men, and such whose wives are remarkably loud at home. Hither we fly for refuge, and enjoy at once the two greatest and most valuable blessings, company and retirement. When that eminent relation of yours, the Spectator, publish ed his weekly papers, and gave us that remarkable account of his silence (for you must know, though we do not read, yet we inspect all such useful essays) we seemed unanimous to invite him to partake our secrecy, but it was unluckily objected, that he had just then published a discourse of his at his own club, and had not arrived to that happy inactivity of the tongue, which we expected from a man of his understanding. You will wonder, perhaps, how we managed this debate; but it will be easily accounted for, when I tell you that our fingers are as nimble, and as infallible interpreters of our thoughts, as other men's tongues are; yet even this mechanic eloquence is only allowed upon the weightiest occasions. We admire the wise institutions of the Turks, and other Eastern nations, where all commands are performed by officious mutes; and we wonder that the polite courts of Christendom should come so far short of the majesty of barbarians. Ben Jonson has gained an eternai reputation among us by his play called The Silent Woman. Every member here is another Morose* while the club is sitting, but at home may talk as much and as fast as his family occasions require, without breach of statute. The advantages we find from this quaker-like assembly are many. We consider, that the understanding of a man is liable to mistakes, and his will fond of contradictions; that disputes, which are of no weight in themselves, are often very considerable in their effects. The disuse of the tongue is the only effectual remedy against these. All party concerns, all private scandal, all insults over another man's weaker reasons, must there be lost, * The name of a character in the Silent Woman, |