Mr. SPECTATOR, We are all very good Maids, but are ambitious of Characters which we think more laudable, that of being very good Wives.  If any of your Correspondents enquire for a Spouse for an honest Country Gentleman, whose Estate is not dipped, and wants a Wife that can save half his Revenue, and yet make a better Figure than any of his Neighbours of the same Estate, with finer bred Women, you shall have further notice from, SIR, Your courteous Readers, Martha Busie.  Deborah Thrifty.  Alice Early. [1]

[Footnote 1:  To this number there is added after a repeated advertisement of the Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff in 4 vols. 8vo, a repetition in Italic type of the advertisement of the Boarding School on Mile-end Green (ending at the words render them accomplish’d) to which a conspicuous place was given, with original additions by Steele, in No. 314.]

* * * * *

No. 333.  Saturday, March 22, 1712.  Addison.

 —­vocat in Certamina Divos.

  Virg.

We are now entering upon the Sixth Book of Paradise Lost, in which the Poet describes the Battel of Angels; having raised his Readers Expectation, and prepared him for it by several Passages in the preceding Books.  I omitted quoting these Passages in my Observations on the former Books, having purposely reserved them for the opening of this, the Subject of which gave occasion to them.  The Authors Imagination was so inflam’d with this great Scene of Action, that wherever he speaks of it, he rises, if possible, above himself.  Thus where he mentions Satan in the Beginning of his Poem: 

 —­Him the Almighty Power
  Hurl’d headlong flaming from th’ Ethereal Sky,
  With hideous ruin and combustion, down
  To bottomless Perdition, there to dwell
  In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
  Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to Arms.

We have likewise several noble Hints of it in the Infernal Conference.

  O Prince!  O Chief of many throned Powers,
  That led th’ imbattel’d Seraphim to War,
  Too well I see and rue the dire Event,
  That with sad Overthrow and foul Defeat
  Hath lost us Heavn, and all this mighty Host
  In horrible Destruction laid thus low. 
  But see I the angry Victor has recalled
  His Ministers of Vengeance and Pursuit,
  Back to the Gates of Heavn:  The sulphurous Hail
  Shot after us in Storm, overblown, hath laid
  The fiery Surge, that from the Precipice
  Of Heaven receiv’d us falling:  and the Thunder,
  Winged with red Lightning and impetuous Rage,
  Perhaps hath spent his Shafts, and ceases now
  To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.

There are several other very sublime Images on the same Subject in the First Book, as also in the Second.

  What when we fled amain, pursued and strook
  With Heavns afflicting Thunder, and besought
  The Deep to shelter us; this Hell then seem’d
  A Refuge from those Wounds—­