[No. 37. Thursday, April 12, 1711. Addison.]

Some months ago, my friend Sir Roger, being in the country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain lady whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, and as it contained matters of consequence, desired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited {15} upon her ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into her lady's library, till such time as she was in a readiness to receive me. The very sound of "a lady's library" gave me a great curiosity to see it; and as it was some time before the lady came {20} to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her books, which were ranged together in a very beautiful order. At the end of the folios, which were finely bound and gilt, were great jars of china placed one above another in a very noble piece of architecture. The quartos {5} were separated from the octavos by a pile of smaller vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, colours, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden frame that they looked like one continued pillar indented with the {10} finest strokes of sculpture and stained with the greatest variety of dyes.

That part of the library which was designed for the reception of plays and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was enclosed in a kind of square, consisting of one of the {15} prettiest grotesque works that ever I saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarins, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china ware. In the midst of the room was a little japan table, with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a silver snuff box {20} made in the shape of a little book. I found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the number, like fagots[31] in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixed kind of furniture {25} as seemed very suitable both to the lady and the scholar, and did not know, at first, whether I should fancy myself in a grotto or in a library.

Upon my looking into the books, I found there were some few which the lady had bought for her own use; but that most of them had been got together, either because {5} she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them. Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow:

Ogilby's Virgil.

Dryden's Juvenal. {10}

Cassandra.

Cleopatra.

Astraea.

Sir Isaac Newton's Works.

The Grand Cyrus, with a pin stuck in one of the {15} middle leaves.

Pembroke's Arcadia.

Locke of Human Understanding, with a paper of patches in it.

A spelling book. {20}

A dictionary for the explanation of hard words.

Sherlock upon Death.

The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony.

Sir William Temple's Essays.

Father Malebranche's Search after Truth, translated {25} into English.

A book of novels.

The Academy of Compliments.

Culpepper's Midwifery.

The Ladies' Calling.

Tales in Verse, by Mr. D'Urfey; bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places.

All the classic authors in wood.

A set of Elzevirs by the same hand. {5}

Clelia, which opened of itself in the place that describes two lovers in a bower.

Baker's Chronicle.

Advice to a Daughter.

The New Atalantis, with a key to it. {10}

Mr. Steele's Christian Hero.

A prayer-book; with a bottle of Hungary water by the side of it.

Dr. Sacheverell's Speech.

Fielding's Trial. {15}

Seneca's Morals.

Taylor's Holy Living and Dying.

La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances.

I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these and several other authors, when Leonora entered, and {20} upon my presenting her with the letter from the knight, told me, with an unspeakable grace, that she hoped Sir Roger was in good health. I answered, "Yes," for I hate long speeches, and after a bow or two retired.

Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is still {25} a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two or three years, and being unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a resolution never to venture upon a second. She has no children to take care of, and leaves the management of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind of lethargy, and falls asleep, that[32] is not agitated by some favourite pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the passions of her sex into a love of books and retirement. She converses {5} chiefly with men,—as she has often said herself,—but it is only in their writings; and admits of very few male visitants except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure and without scandal.

As her reading has lain very much among romances, {10} it has given her a very particular turn of thinking, and discovers itself even in her house, her gardens, and her furniture. Sir Roger has entertained me an hour together with a description of her country seat, which is situated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred miles distant {15} from London, and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks about her are shaped into artificial grottoes covered with woodbines and jessamines. The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with cages of turtles.[33] The springs are made to run among pebbles, {20} and by that means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collected into a beautiful lake that is inhabited by a couple of swans, and empties itself by a little rivulet which runs through a green meadow, and is known in the family by the name of the Purling Stream. {25}

The knight likewise tells me that this lady preserves her game better than any of the gentlemen in the country. "Not," says Sir Roger, "that she sets so great a value upon her partridges and pheasants, as upon her larks and nightingales; for she says that every bird which is killed in her ground will spoil a consort,[34] and that she shall certainly miss him the next year."

When I think how oddly this lady is improved by {5} learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments which she has formed to herself, how much more valuable does she appear than those of her sex who employ themselves in diversions that are less reasonable, though more in {10} fashion. What improvements would a woman have made, who is so susceptible of impressions from what she reads, had she been guided to such books as have a tendency to enlighten the understanding and rectify the passions, as well as to those which are of little more use {15} than to divert the imagination.

But the manner of a lady's employing herself usefully in reading shall be the subject of another paper, in which I design to recommend such particular books as may be proper for the improvement of the sex. And as this is a {20} subject of a very nice nature, I shall desire my correspondents to give me their thoughts upon it.

C.