’believed, that if a Man were permitted to make all the ballads, he
  need not care who should make the laws of a nation’?

Andrew Fletcher, who could not have known any of Elizabeth’s statesmen, was yet alive when this paper was written.]

[Footnote 2:  Heautontimoroumenos, Act ii. sc. 2.]

[Footnote 3:  Dogget had been acting a few nights before in the Country Wake.  The part of Hob was his own in every sense, he being the author of the farce, which afterwards was made into a very popular ballad opera called Flora, or Hob in the Well.]

* * * * *

No. 503.  Tuesday, October 7, 1712.  Steele.

  ‘Deleo omnes dehinc ex animo Mulieres.’

  Ter.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,

’You have often mention’d with great Vehemence and Indignation the Misbehaviour of People at Church; but I am at present to talk to you on that Subject, and complain to you of one, whom at the same time I know not what to accuse of, except it be looking too well there, and diverting the Eyes of the Congregation to that one Object.  However I have this to say, that she might have stay’d at her own Parish, and not come to perplex those who are otherwise intent upon their Duty.

’Last Sunday was Seven-night I went into a Church not far from London-Bridge; but I wish I had been contented to go to my own Parish, I am sure it had been better for me:  I say, I went to Church thither, and got into a Pew very near the Pulpit.  I had hardly been accommodated with a Seat, before there entered into the Isle a young Lady in the very Bloom of Youth and Beauty, and dressed in the most elegant manner imaginable.  Her Form was such, that it engaged the Eyes of the whole Congregation in an Instant, and mine among the rest.  Tho’ we were all thus fixed upon her, she was not in the least out of Countenance, or under the least Disorder, tho’ unattended by any one, and not seeming to know particularly where to place her self.  However, she had not in the least a confident Aspect, but moved on with the most graceful Modesty, every one making Way till she came to a Seat just over-against that in which I was placed.  The Deputy of the Ward sat in that Pew, and she stood opposite to him; and at a Glance into the Seat, tho’ she did not appear the least acquainted with the Gentleman, was let in, with a Confusion that spoke much Admiration at the Novelty of the Thing.  The Service immediately began, and she compos’d her self for it with an Air of so much Goodness and Sweetness, that the Confession which she uttered so as to be heard where I sat, appeared an Act of Humiliation more than she had Occasion for.  The Truth is, her Beauty had something so innocent, and yet so sublime, that we all gazed upon her like a Phantom.  None of the Pictures which we behold of the best Italian Painters,