an. The Cavaliers defy the
Roundhead Committee, and the day may come says one of them, when
those that suffer for their consciences and honour may be rewarded.
Nobody who heard this from the stage in the days of Charles II. could
feel that the day had come. Its comic Irishman kept the Committee on the
stage, and in Queen Anne's time the thorough Tory still relished the
stage caricature of the maintainers of the Commonwealth in Mr. Day with
his greed, hypocrisy, and private incontinence; his wife, who had been
cookmaid to a gentleman, but takes all the State matters on herself; and
their empty son Abel, who knows Parliament-men and Sequestrators, and
whose profound contemplations are caused by the constervation of his
spirits for the nations good.]

* * * * *

No. 336. Wednesday, March 26, 1712. Steele.

--Clament periisse pudorem
Cuncti pene patres, ea cum reprehendere coner,
Quae gravis AEsopus, quae doctus Roscius egit:
Vel quia nil rectum, nisi quod placuit sibi, ducunt;
Vel quia turpe putant parere minoribus, et, quae
Imberbes didicere, senes perdenda fateri.

Hor.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

As you are the daily Endeavourer to promote Learning and good Sense,
I think myself obliged to suggest to your Consideration whatever may
promote or prejudice them.. There is an Evil which has prevailed from
Generation to Generation, which grey Hairs and tyrannical Custom
continue to support; I hope your Spectatorial Authority will give a
seasonable Check to the Spread of the Infection; I mean old Mens
overbearing the strongest Sense of their Juniors by the mere Force of
Seniority; so that for a young Man in the Bloom of Life and Vigour of
Age to give a reasonable Contradiction to his Elders, is esteemed an
unpardonable Insolence, and regarded as a reversing the Decrees of
Nature. I am a young Man, I confess, yet I honour the grey Head as
much as any one; however, when in Company with old Men, I hear them
speak obscurely, or reason preposterously (into which Absurdities,
Prejudice, Pride, or Interest, will sometimes throw the wisest) I
count it no Crime to rectifie their Reasoning, unless Conscience must
truckle to Ceremony, and Truth fall a Sacrifice to Complaisance. The
strongest Arguments are enervated, and the brightest Evidence
disappears, before those tremendous Reasonings and dazling Discoveries
o