[191] Published in 1674. "The Whole Duty of Man" has been attributed to various authors; but probably it was written by Richard Allestree.
[192] This article is often ascribed to Swift; but looking to the date at the head of it, such a theory seems disproved by Steele's letter to Swift of October 8: "I wonder you do not write sometimes to me" (see note to No. 81). The article cannot have been held over for any time by Steele, because of the allusions in it to the Queenhithe election; this was a matter respecting which Steele had written in the preceding number, whereas Swift could not have heard of it in Dublin.
[194] They were obliged by the statutes of these colleges to keep to Aristotle for their texts (Nichols).
[195] See the account of the Queenhithe election in No. 73.
From _Thursday, Sept. 29_, to _Saturday, Oct. 1, 1709_
I am called off from public dissertations by a domestic affair of great importance, which is no less than the disposal of my sister Jenny for life. The girl is a girl of great merit, and pleasing conversation; but I being born of my father's first wife, and she of his third, she converses with me rather like a daughter than a sister. I have indeed told her, that if she kept her honour, and behaved herself in such manner as became the Bickerstaffs, I would get her an agreeable man for her husband; which was a promise I made her after reading a passage in Pliny's Epistles.[197] That polite author had been employed to find out a consort for his friend's daughter, and gives the following character of the man he had pitched upon:
"Aciliano plurimum vigoris et industriæ quanqum in maxima verecundia: est illi facies liberalis, multo sanguine, multo rubore, suffusa: est ingenua totius corporis pulchritudo, et quidum senatorius decor, quæ ego nequaquam arbitror negligenda: debet enim hoc castitati puellarum quasi præmium dari."
"Acilianus (for that was the gentleman's name) is a man of extraordinary vigour and industry, accompanied with the greatest modesty. He has very much of the gentleman, with a lively colour, and flush of health in his aspect. His whole person is finely turned, and speaks him a man of quality: which are qualifications that, I think, ought by no means to be overlooked, and should be bestowed on a daughter as the reward of her chastity."