will not shock you with a Description of it. I was so startled at the
Sight that my Sleep immediately left me, and I found my self awake, at
leisure to consider of a Dream which seems too extraordinary to be
without a Meaning. I am, Madam, with the greatest Passion,
Your most Obedient,
most Humble Servant, &c.

X.

[Footnote 1: [the same time]]

[Footnote 2: [dreadful]]

* * * * *

No. 302. Friday, February 15, 1712. Steele.

Lachrymaeque decorae,
Gratior et pulchro veniens in corpore Virtus.

Vir. AEn. 5.

I read what I give for the Entertainment of this Day with a great deal
of Pleasure, and publish it just as it came to my Hands. I shall be very
glad to find there are many guessed at for Emilia.

Mr. SPECTATOR, [1]

If this Paper has the good Fortune to be honoured with a Place in your
Writings, I shall be the more pleased, because the Character of Emilia
is not an imaginary but a real one. I have industriously obscured the
whole by the Addition of one or two Circumstances of no Consequence,
that the Person it is drawn from might still be concealed; and that
the Writer of it might not be in the least suspected, and for [other
[2]] Reasons, I chuse not to give it the Form of a Letter: But if,
besides the Faults of the Composition, there be any thing in it more
proper for a Correspondent than the SPECTATOR himself to write, I
submit it to your better Judgment, to receive any other Model you
think fit.
I am, SIR,
Your very humble Servant.

There is nothing which gives one so pleasing a Prospect of human
Nature, as the Contemplation of Wisdom and Beauty: The latter is the
peculiar Portion of that Sex which is therefore called Fair; but the
happy Concurrence of both these Excellencies in the same Person, is
a Character too celestial to be frequently met with. Beauty is an
over-weaning self-sufficient thing, careless of providing it self
any more substantial Ornaments; nay so little does it consult its
own Interests, that it too often defeats it self by betraying that
Innocence which renders it lovely and desirable. As therefore Virtue
makes a beautiful Woman appear more beautiful, so Beauty makes a
virtuous Woman really more virtuous. Whilst I am considering these
two Perfections gloriously united in one Person, I cannot help