and those who met her could immediately draw their Swords for her.  I hope, Sir, you will provide for the future, that Women may stick to their Faces for doing any future Mischief and not allow any but direct Traders in Beauty to expose more than the fore Part of the Neck, unless you please to allow this After-Game to those who are very defective in the Charms of the Countenance.  I can say, to my Sorrow, the present Practice is very unfair, when to look back is Death; and it may be said of our Beauties, as a great Poet did of Bullets,

    ‘They kill and wound like Parthians as they fly.’

  I submit this to your Animadversion; and am, for the little while I
  have left,

  Your humble Servant, the languishing Philanthus.

  P. S. Suppose you mended my Letter, and made a Simile about the
  Porcupine, but I submit that also.

T.

* * * * *

No. 438.  Wednesday, July 23, 1712.  Steele.

  ’—­Animum rege qui nisi paret
  Imperat—­’

  Hor.

It is a very common Expression, That such a one is very good-natur’d, but very passionate.  The Expression indeed is very good-natur’d, to allow passionate People so much Quarter:  But I think a passionate Man deserves the least Indulgence Imaginable.  It is said, it is soon over; that is, all the Mischief he does is quickly dispatch’d, which, I think, is no great Recommendation to Favour.  I have known one of these good-natur’d passionate Men say in a mix’d Company even to his own Wife or Child, such Things as the most inveterate Enemy of his Family would not have spoke, even in Imagination.  It is certain that quick Sensibility is inseparable from a ready Understanding; but why should not that good Understanding call to it self all its Force on such Occasions, to master that sudden Inclination to Anger.  One of the greatest Souls now in the World [1] is the most subject by Nature to Anger, and yet so famous from a Conquest of himself this Way, that he is the known Example when you talk of Temper and Command of a Man’s Self.  To contain the Spirit of Anger, is the worthiest Discipline we can put our selves to.  When a Man has made any Progress this way, a frivolous Fellow in a Passion, is to him as contemptible as a froward Child.  It ought to be the Study of every Man, for his own Quiet and Peace.  When he stands combustible and ready to flame upon every thing that touches him, Life is as uneasie to himself as it is to all about him. Syncropius leads, of all Men living, the most ridiculous Life; he is ever offending, and begging Pardon.  If his Man enters the Room without what he sent for, That Blockhead, begins he—­Gentlemen, I ask your Pardon, but Servants now a-days—­The wrong Plates are laid, they are thrown into the Middle of the Room; his Wife stands by in Pain for him, which he sees in her Face, and answers as if he had heard all she was thinking; Why, what the Devil!  Why don’t you take Care to give Orders in these things? His Friends sit down to a tasteless Plenty of every thing, every Minute expecting new Insults from his impertinent Passions.  In a Word, to eat with, or visit Syncropius, is no other than going to see him exercise his Family, exercise their Patience, and his own Anger.