L.

[Footnote 1:  [his]]

[Footnote 2:  A journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter, A.D. 1697.  By Henry Maundrell, M.A.  It was published at Oxford in 1703, and was in a new edition in 1707.  It reached a seventh edition in 1749.  Maundrell was a Fellow of Exter College, which he left to take the appointment of chaplain to the English factory at Aleppo.  The brief account of his journey is in the form of a diary, and the passage quoted is under the date, March 15, when they were two days journey from Tripoli.  The stream he identifies with the Adonis was called, he says, by Turks Ibrahim Pasha.  It is near Gibyle, called by the Greeks Byblus, a place once famous for the birth and temple of Adonis.  The extract from Paradise Lost and the passage from Maundrell were interpolated in the first reprint of the Spectator.]

[Footnote 3:  See note to No. 279.  Charles Perrault made himself a lasting name by his Fairy Tales, a charming embodiment of French nursery traditions.  The four volumes of his Paraliele des Anciens et des Modernes 1692-6, included the good general idea of human progress, but worked it out badly, dealing irreverently with Plato as well as Homer and Pindar, and exalting among the moderns not only Moliere and Corneille, but also Chapelain, Scuderi, and Quinault, whom he called the greatest lyrical and dramatic poet that France ever had.  The battle had begun with a debate in the Academy:  Racine having ironically complimented Perrault on the ingenuity with which he had elevated little men above the ancients in his poem (published 1687), le Siecle de Louis le Grand.  Fontenelle touched the matter lightly, as Perraults ally, in his Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes but afterwards drew back, saying, I do not belong to the party which claims me for its chief.  The leaders on the respective sides, unequally matched, were Perrault and Boileau.]

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No. 304.  Monday, February 18, 1712.  Steele.

  Vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni.

  Virg.

The Circumstances of my Correspondent, whose Letter I now insert, are so frequent, that I cannot want Compassion so much as to forbear laying it before the Town.  There is something so mean and inhuman in a direct Smithfield Bargain for Children, that if this Lover carries his Point, and observes the Rules he pretends to follow, I do not only wish him Success, but also that it may animate others to follow his Example.  I know not one Motive relating to this Life which would produce so many honourable and worthy Actions, as the Hopes of obtaining a Woman of Merit:  There would ten thousand Ways of Industry and honest Ambition be pursued by young Men, who believed that the Persons admired had Value enough for their Passion to attend the Event of their good Fortune in all their Applications, in order to make their Circumstances fall in with the Duties they owe to themselves, their Families, and their Country; All these Relations a Man should think of who intends to go into the State of Marriage, and expects to make it a State of Pleasure and Satisfaction.