SIR,

The Monopoly of Punns in this University has been an immemorial

Privilege of the Johnians; and we can't help resenting the late

Invasion of our ancient Right as to that Particular, by a little

Pretender to Clenching in a neighbouring College, who in an

Application to you by way of Letter, a while ago, styled himself

Philobrune. Dear Sir, as you are by Character a profest Well-wisher to

Speculation, you will excuse a Remark which this Gentleman's Passion

for the Brunette has suggested to a Brother Theorist; 'tis an Offer

towards a mechanical Account of his Lapse to Punning, for he belongs

to a Set of Mortals who value themselves upon an uncommon Mastery in

the more humane and polite Part of Letters. A Conquest by one of this

Species of Females gives a very odd Turn to the Intellectuals of the

captivated Person, and very different from that way of thinking which

a Triumph from the Eyes of another more emphatically of the fair Sex,

does generally occasion. It fills the Imagination with an Assemblage

of such Ideas and Pictures as are hardly any thing but Shade, such as

Night, the Devil, &c. These Portraitures very near over-power the

Light of the Understanding, almost benight the Faculties, and give

that melancholy Tincture to the most sanguine Complexion, which this

Gentleman calls an Inclination to be in a Brown-study, and is usually

attended with worse Consequences in case of a Repulse. During this

Twilight of Intellects, the Patient is extremely apt, as Love is the

most witty Passion in Nature, to offer at some pert Sallies now and

then, by way of Flourish, upon the amiable Enchantress, and

unfortunately stumbles upon that Mongrel miscreated (to speak in

Miltonic) kind of Wit, vulgarly termed, the Punn. It would not be much

amiss to consult Dr. T--W--[2] (who is certainly a very able

Projector, and whose system of Divinity and spiritual Mechanicks

obtains very much among the better Part of our Under-Graduates)

whether a general Intermarriage, enjoyned by Parliament, between this

Sisterhood of the Olive Beauties, and the Fraternity of the People

call'd Quakers, would not be a very serviceable Expedient, and abate

that Overflow of Light which shines within them so powerfully, that it

dazzles their Eyes, and dances them into a thousand Vagaries of Error

and Enthusiasm. These Reflections may impart some Light towards a

Discovery of the Origin of Punning among us, and the Foundation of its

prevailing so long in this famous Body. Tis notorious from the

Instance under Consideration, that it must be owing chiefly to the use

of brown Juggs, muddy Belch, and the Fumes of a certain memorable

Place of Rendezvous with us at Meals, known by the Name of Staincoat

Hole: For the Atmosphere of the Kitchen, like the Tail of a Comet,

predominates least about the Fire, but resides behind and fills the

fragrant Receptacle above-mentioned. Besides, 'tis farther observable

that the delicate Spirits among us, who declare against these nauseous

proceedings, sip Tea, and put up for Critic and Amour, profess

likewise an equal Abhorrency for Punning, the ancient innocent

Diversion of this Society. After all, Sir, tho' it may appear

something absurd, that I seem to approach you with the Air of an

Advocate for Punning, (you who have justified your Censures of the

Practice in a set Dissertation upon that Subject;) yet, I'm confident,

you'll think it abundantly atoned for by observing, that this humbler

Exercise may be as instrumental in diverting us from any innovating

Schemes and Hypothesis in Wit. as dwelling upon honest Orthodox Logic

would be in securing us from Heresie in Religion. Had Mr. W--n's [3]

Researches been confined within the Bounds of Ramus or Crackanthorp,

that learned News-monger might have acquiesced in what the holy

Oracles pronounce upon the Deluge, like other Christians; and had the

surprising Mr. L--y[4] been content with the Employment of refining

upon Shakespear's Points and Quibbles, (for which he must be allowed

to have a superlative Genius) and now and then penning a Catch or a

Ditty, instead of inditing Odes, and Sonnets, the Gentlemen of the Bon

Goust in the Pit would never have been put to all that Grimace in

damning the Frippery of State, the Poverty and Languor of Thought, the

unnatural Wit, and inartificial Structure of his Dramas.

I am, SIR,

Your very humble Servant,

Peter de Quir.

[Footnote 1: This letter was by John Henley, commonly called Orator

Henley. The paper is without signature in first issue or reprint, but

the few introductory lines, doubtless, are by Steele. John Henley was at

this time but 20 years old. He was born at Melton Mowbray in 1692, and

entered St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1709. After obtaining his

degree he was invited to take charge of the Grammar School in his native

place, and raised it from decay. He published Esther, a poem; went to

London; introduced action into pulpit oratory; missing preferment, gave

lectures and orations, religious on Sundays, and political on

Wednesdays; was described by Pope in the Dunciad as the Zany of his age,

and represented by Hogarth upon a scaffold with a monkey by his side

saying Amen. He edited a paper of nonsense called the Hip Doctor, and

once attracted to his oratory an audience of shoemakers by announcing

that he would teach a new and short way of making shoes; his way being

to cut off the tops of boots. He died in 1756.]

[Footnote 2: Percy suggests very doubtfully that this may mean Thomas

Woolston, who was bom in 1669, educated at Sidney College, Cambridge,

published, in 1705, The Old Apology for the Truth against the Jews and

Gentiles revived, and afterwards was imprisoned and fined for levity in

discussing sacred subjects. The text points to a medical theory of

intermarriage. There was a Thomas Winston, of Clare Hall, Cambridge, who

travelled over the continent, took degrees at Basle and Padua, returned

to take his M.D. at Cambridge, and settled in London in 1607.]

[Footnote 3: William Whiston, born 1667, educated at Tamworth School and

Clare Hall, Cambridge, became a Fellow in 1693, and then Chaplain to

Bishop Moore. In 1696 he published his New Theory of the Earth, which

divided attention with Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth already

mentioned. In 1700 Whiston was invited to Cambridge, to act as deputy to

Sir Isaac Newton, whom he succeeded in 1703 as Lucasian Professor. For

holding some unorthodox opinions as to the doctrines of the early

Christians, he was, in 1710, deprived of his Professorship, and banished

from the University. He was a pious and learned man, who, although he

was denied the Sacrament, did not suffer himself to be driven out of the

Church of England till 1747. At last he established a small congregation

in his own house in accordance with his own notion of primitive

Christianity. He lived till 1752.]

[Footnote 4: No L--y of that time has written plays that are remembered.

The John Lacy whom Charles II. admired so much that he had his picture

painted in three of his characters, died in 1681, leaving four comedies

and an alteration of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. He was a

handsome man: first dancing-master, then quarter-master, then an admired

comedian. Henley would hardly have used a blank in referring to a

well-known writer who died thirty years before. There was another John

Lacy advertising in the Post Boy, Aug. 3, 1714, The Steeleids, or the

Trial of Wits, a Poem in three cantos, with a motto:

Then will I say, swelled with poetic rage,

That I, John Lacy, have reformed the age.]

* * * * *

No. 397. Thursday, June 5, 1712. Addison.

'--Dolor ipse disertum

Fecerat--'

Ovid.

As the Stoick Philosophers discard all Passions in general, they will

not allow a Wise Man so much as to pity the Afflictions of another. If

thou seest thy Friend in Trouble, says Epictetus, thou mayst put on a

Look of Sorrow, and condole with him, but take care that thy Sorrow be

not real. [1] The more rigid of this Sect would not comply so far as to

shew even such an outward Appearance of Grief, but when one told them of

any Calamity that had befallen even the nearest of their Acquaintance,

would immediately reply, What is that to me? If you aggravated the

Circumstances of the Affliction, and shewed how one Misfortune was

followed by another, the Answer was still, All this may be true, but

what is it to me?

For my own part, I am of Opinion, Compassion does not only refine and

civilize Humane Nature, but has something in it more pleasing and

agreeable than what can be met with in such an indolent Happiness, such

an Indifference to Mankind as that in which the Stoicks placed their

Wisdom. As Love is the most delightful Passion, Pity is nothing else but

Love softned by a degree of Sorrow: In short, it is a kind of pleasing

Anguish, as well as generous Sympathy, that knits Mankind together, and

blends them in the same common Lot.

Those who have laid down Rules for Rhetorick or Poetry, advise the

Writer to work himself up, if possible, to the Pitch of Sorrow which he

endeavours to produce in others. There are none therefore who stir up

Pity so much as those who indite their own Sufferings. Grief has a

natural Eloquence belonging to it, and breaks out in more moving

Sentiments than be supplied by the finest Imagination. Nature on this

Occasion dictates a thousand passionate things which cannot be supplied

by Art.

It is for this Reason that the short Speeches, or Sentences which we

often meet with in Histories, make a deeper Impression on the Mind of

the Reader, than the most laboured Strokes in a well-written Tragedy.

Truth and Matter of Fact sets the Person actually before us in the one,

whom Fiction places at a greater Distance from us in the other. I do not

remember to have seen any Ancient or Modern Story more affecting than a

Letter of Ann of Bologne, Wife to King Henry the Eighth, and Mother to

Queen Elizabeth, which is still extant in the Cotton Library, as written

by her own Hand.

Shakespear himself could not have made her talk in a Strain so suitable

to her Condition and Character. One sees in it the Expostulations of a

slighted Lover, the Resentments of an injured Woman, and the Sorrows of

an imprisoned Queen. I need not acquaint my Reader that this Princess

was then under Prosecution for Disloyalty to the King's Bed, and that

she was afterwards publickly beheaded upon the same Account, though this

Prosecution was believed by many to proceed, as she her self intimates,

rather from the King's Love to Jane Seymour than from any actual Crime

in Ann of Bologne.

Queen Ann Boleyn's last Letter to King Henry.

[Cotton Libr. Otho C. 10.]