Scene I am in, but meerly as a Spectator

THE SPECTATOR

A NEW EDITION

REPRODUCING THE ORIGINAL TEXT BOTH AS FIRST ISSUED

AND AS CORRECTED BY ITS AUTHORS

WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND INDEX

BY

HENRY MORLEY

PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. I.

1891

[advertisement]

EACH IN THREE VOLS., PRICE 10s. 6d.

CHARLES KNIGHT'S SHAKSPERE.

NAPIER'S HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR. With Maps and Plans.

LONGFELLOW'S WORKS--Poems--Prose--Dante.

BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. With Illustrations.

MOTLEY'S RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC.

BYRON'S POETICAL WORKS.

INTRODUCTION

When Richard Steele, in number 555 of his 'Spectator', signed its last

paper and named those who had most helped him

'to keep up the spirit of so long and approved a performance,'

he gave chief honour to one who had on his page, as in his heart, no

name but Friend. This was

'the gentleman of whose assistance I formerly boasted in the Preface

and concluding Leaf of my 'Tatlers'. I am indeed much more proud of

his long-continued Friendship, than I should be of the fame of being

thought the author of any writings which he himself is capable of

producing. I remember when I finished the 'Tender Husband', I told him

there was nothing I so ardently wished, as that we might some time or

other publish a work, written by us both, which should bear the name

of THE MONUMENT, in Memory of our Friendship.'

Why he refers to such a wish, his next words show. The seven volumes of

the 'Spectator', then complete, were to his mind The Monument, and of

the Friendship it commemorates he wrote,

'I heartily wish what I have done here were as honorary to that sacred

name as learning, wit, and humanity render those pieces which I have

taught the reader how to distinguish for his.'

So wrote Steele; and the 'Spectator' will bear witness how religiously

his friendship was returned. In number 453, when, paraphrasing David's

Hymn on Gratitude, the 'rising soul' of Addison surveyed the mercies of

his God, was it not Steele whom he felt near to him at the Mercy-seat as

he wrote

Thy bounteous hand with worldly bliss

Has made my cup run o'er,

And in a kind and faithful Friend

Has doubled all my store?

The _Spectator_, Steele-and-Addison's _Spectator_, is a monument

befitting the most memorable friendship in our history. Steele was its

projector, founder, editor, and he was writer of that part of it which

took the widest grasp upon the hearts of men. His sympathies were with

all England. Defoe and he, with eyes upon the future, were the truest

leaders of their time. It was the firm hand of his friend Steele that

helped Addison up to the place in literature which became him. It was

Steele who caused the nice critical taste which Addison might have spent

only in accordance with the fleeting fashions of his time, to be

inspired with all Addison's religious earnestness, and to be enlivened

with the free play of that sportive humour, delicately whimsical and

gaily wise, which made his conversation the delight of the few men with

whom he sat at ease. It was Steele who drew his friend towards the days

to come, and made his gifts the wealth of a whole people. Steele said in

one of the later numbers of his _Spectator_, No. 532, to which he

prefixed a motto that assigned to himself only the part of whetstone to

the wit of others,

'I claim to myself the merit of having extorted excellent productions

from a person of the greatest abilities, who would not have let them

appear by any other means.'

There were those who argued that he was too careless of his own fame in

unselfish labour for the exaltation of his friend, and, no doubt, his

rare generosity of temper has been often misinterpreted. But for that

Addison is not answerable. And why should Steele have defined his own

merits? He knew his countrymen, and was in too genuine accord with the

spirit of a time then distant but now come, to doubt that, when he was

dead, his whole life's work would speak truth for him to posterity.

The friendship of which this work is the monument remained unbroken from

boyhood until death. Addison and Steele were schoolboys together at the

Charterhouse. Addison was a dean's son, and a private boarder; Steele,

fatherless, and a boy on the foundation. They were of like age. The

register of Steele's baptism, corroborated by the entry made on his

admission to the Charterhouse (which also implies that he was baptized

on the day of his birth) is March 12, 1671, Old Style; New Style, 1672.

Addison was born on May-day, 1672. Thus there was a difference of only

seven weeks.

Steele's father according to the register, also named Richard, was an

attorney in Dublin. Steele seems to draw from experience--although he is

not writing as of himself or bound to any truth of personal detail--when

in No. 181 of the 'Tatler' he speaks of his father as having died when

he was not quite five years of age, and of his mother as 'a very

beautiful woman, of a noble spirit.' The first Duke of Ormond is

referred to by Steele in his Dedication to the 'Lying Lover' as the

patron of his infancy; and it was by this nobleman that a place was

found for him, when in his thirteenth year, among the foundation boys at

the Charterhouse, where he first met with Joseph Addison. Addison, who

was at school at Lichfield in 1683-4-5, went to the Charterhouse in

1686, and left in 1687, when he was entered of Queen's College, Oxford.

Steele went to Oxford two years later, matriculating at Christ Church,

March 13, 1689-90, the year in which Addison was elected a Demy of

Magdalene. A letter of introduction from Steele, dated April 2, 1711,

refers to the administration of the will of 'my uncle Gascoigne, to

whose bounty I owe a liberal education.' This only representative of the

family ties into which Steele was born, an 'uncle' whose surname is not

that of Steele's mother before marriage, appears, therefore, to have

died just before or at the time when the 'Spectator' undertook to

publish a sheetful of thoughts every morning, and--Addison here speaking

for him--looked forward to

'leaving his country, when he was summoned out of it, with the secret

satisfaction of thinking that he had not lived in vain.'

To Steele's warm heart Addison's friendship stood for all home blessings

he had missed. The sister's playful grace, the brother's love, the

mother's sympathy and simple faith in God, the father's guidance, where

were these for Steele, if not in his friend Addison?

Addison's father was a dean; his mother was the sister of a bishop; and

his ambition as a schoolboy, or his father's ambition for him, was only

that he should be one day a prosperous and pious dignitary of the

Church. But there was in him, as in Steele, the genius which shaped

their lives to its own uses, and made them both what they are to us now.

Joseph Addison was born into a home which the steadfast labour of his

father, Lancelot, had made prosperous and happy. Lancelot Addison had

earned success. His father, Joseph's grandfather, had been also a

clergyman, but he was one of those Westmoreland clergy of whose

simplicity and poverty many a joke has been made. Lancelot got his

education as a poor child in the Appleby Grammar School; but he made his

own way when at College; was too avowed a Royalist to satisfy the

Commonwealth, and got, for his zeal, at the Restoration, small reward in

a chaplaincy to the garrison at Dunkirk. This was changed, for the

worse, to a position of the same sort at Tangier, where he remained

eight years. He lost that office by misadventure, and would have been

left destitute if Mr. Joseph Williamson had not given him a living of

£120 a-year at Milston in Wiltshire. Upon this Lancelot Addison married

Jane Gulstone, who was the daughter of a Doctor of Divinity, and whose

brother became Bishop of Bristol. In the little Wiltshire parsonage

Joseph Addison and his younger brothers and sisters were born. The

essayist was named Joseph after his father's patron, afterwards Sir

Joseph Williamson, a friend high in office. While the children grew, the

father worked. He showed his ability and loyalty in books on West

Barbary, and Mahomet, and the State of the Jews; and he became one of

the King's chaplains in ordinary at a time when his patron Joseph

Williamson was Secretary of State. Joseph Addison was then but three

years old. Soon afterwards the busy father became Archdeacon of

Salisbury, and he was made Dean of Lichfield in 1683, when his boy

Joseph had reached the age of 11. When Archdeacon of Salisbury, the Rev.

Lancelot Addison sent Joseph to school at Salisbury; and when his father

became Dean of Lichfield, Joseph was sent to school at Lichfield, as

before said, in the years 1683-4-5. And then he was sent as a private

pupil to the Charterhouse. The friendship he there formed with Steele

was ratified by the approval of the Dean. The desolate boy with the warm

heart, bright intellect, and noble aspirations, was carried home by his

friend, at holiday times, into the Lichfield Deanery, where, Steele

wrote afterwards to Congreve in a Dedication of the 'Drummer',

'were things of this nature to be exposed to public view, I could show

under the Dean's own hand, in the warmest terms, his blessing on the

friendship between his son and me; nor had he a child who did not

prefer me in the first place of kindness and esteem, as their father

loved me like one of them.'

Addison had two brothers, of whom one traded and became Governor of Fort

George in India, and the other became, like himself, a Fellow of

Magdalene College, Oxford. Of his three sisters two died young, the

other married twice, her first husband being a French refugee minister

who became a Prebendary of Westminster. Of this sister of Addison's,

Swift said she was 'a sort of wit, very like him. I was not fond of her.'

In the latter years of the seventeenth century, when Steele and Addison

were students at Oxford, most English writers were submissive to the new

strength of the critical genius of France. But the English nation had

then newly accomplished the great Revolution that secured its liberties,

was thinking for itself, and calling forth the energies of writers who

spoke for the people and looked to the people for approval and support.

A new period was then opening, of popular influence on English

literature. They were the young days of the influence now full grown,

then slowly getting strength and winning the best minds away from an

imported Latin style adapted to the taste of patrons who sought credit

for nice critical discrimination. In 1690 Addison had been three years,

Steele one year, at Oxford. Boileau was then living, fifty-four years

old; and Western Europe was submissive to his sway as the great monarch

of literary criticism. Boileau was still living when Steele published

his 'Tatler', and died in the year of the establishment of the

'Spectator'. Boileau, a true-hearted man, of genius and sense, advanced

his countrymen from the nice weighing of words by the Précieuses and the

grammarians, and by the French Academy, child of the intercourse between

those ladies and gentlemen. He brought ridicule on the inane politeness

of a style then in its decrepitude, and bade the writers of his time

find models in the Latin writers who, like Virgil and Horace, had

brought natural thought and speech to their perfection. In the preceding

labour for the rectifying of the language, preference had been given to

French words of Latin origin. French being one of those languages in

which Latin is the chief constituent, this was but a fair following of

the desire to make it run pure from its source.

If the English critics who, in Charles the Second's time, submitted to

French law, had seen its spirit, instead of paying blind obedience to

the letter, they also would have looked back to the chief source of

their language. Finding this to be not Latin but Saxon, they would have

sought to give it strength and harmony, by doing then what, in the

course of nature, we have learnt again to do, now that the patronage of

literature has gone from the cultivated noble who appreciates in much

accordance with the fashion of his time, and passed into the holding of

the English people. Addison and Steele lived in the transition time

between these periods. They were born into one of them and--Steele

immediately, Addison through Steele's influence upon him--they were

trusty guides into the other. Thus the 'Spectator' is not merely the

best example of their skill. It represents also, perhaps best

represents, a wholesome Revolution in our Literature. The essential

character of English Literature was no more changed than characters of

Englishmen were altered by the Declaration of Right which Prince William

of Orange had accepted with the English Crown, when Addison had lately

left and Steele was leaving Charterhouse for Oxford. Yet change there

was, and Steele saw to the heart of it, even in his College days.

Oxford, in times not long past, had inclined to faith in divine right of

kings. Addison's father, a church dignitary who had been a Royalist

during the Civil War, laid stress upon obedience to authority in Church

and State. When modern literature was discussed or studied at Oxford

there would be the strongest disposition to maintain the commonly

accepted authority of French critics, who were really men of great

ability, correcting bad taste in their predecessors, and conciliating

scholars by their own devout acceptance of the purest Latin authors as

the types of a good style or proper method in the treatment of a

subject. Young Addison found nothing new to him in the temper of his

University, and was influenced, as in his youth every one must and

should be, by the prevalent tone of opinion in cultivated men. But he

had, and felt that he had, wit and genius of his own. His sensitive mind

was simply and thoroughly religious, generous in its instincts, and

strengthened in its nobler part by close communion with the mind of his

friend Steele.

May we not think of the two friends together in a College chamber,

Addison of slender frame, with features wanting neither in dignity nor

in refinement, Steele of robust make, with the radiant 'short face' of

the 'Spectator', by right of which he claimed for that worthy his

admission to the Ugly Club. Addison reads Dryden, in praise of whom he

wrote his earliest known verse; or reads endeavours of his own, which

his friend Steele warmly applauds. They dream together of the future;

Addison sage, but speculative, and Steele practical, if rash. Each is

disposed to find God in the ways of life, and both avoid that outward

show of irreligion, which, after the recent Civil Wars, remains yet

common in the country, as reaction from an ostentatious piety which laid

on burdens of restraint; a natural reaction which had been intensified

by the base influence of a profligate King. Addison, bred among the

preachers, has a little of the preacher's abstract tone, when talk

between the friends draws them at times into direct expression of the

sacred sense of life which made them one.

Apart also from the mere accidents of his childhood, a speculative turn

in Addison is naturally stronger than in Steele. He relishes analysis of

thought. Steele came as a boy from the rough world of shame and sorrow;

his great, kindly heart is most open to the realities of life, the state

and prospects of his country, direct personal sympathies; actual wrongs,

actual remedies. Addison is sensitive, and has among strangers the

reserve of speech and aspect which will pass often for coldness and

pride, but is, indeed, the shape taken by modesty in thoughtful men

whose instinct it is to speculate and analyze, and who become

self-conscious, not through conceit, but because they cannot help

turning their speculations also on themselves. Steele wholly comes out

of himself as his heart hastens to meet his friend. He lives in his

surroundings, and, in friendly intercourse, fixes his whole thought on

the worth of his companion. Never abating a jot of his ideal of a true

and perfect life, or ceasing to uphold the good because he cannot live

to the full height of his own argument, he is too frank to conceal the

least or greatest of his own shortcomings. Delight and strength of a

friendship like that between Steele and Addison are to be found, as many

find them, in the charm and use of a compact where characters differ so

much that one lays open as it were a fresh world to the other, and each

draws from the other aid of forces which the friendship makes his own.

But the deep foundations of this friendship were laid in the religious

earnestness that was alike in both; and in religious earnestness are

laid also the foundations of this book, its Monument.

Both Addison and Steele wrote verse at College. From each of them we

have a poem written at nearly the same age: Addison's in April, 1694,

Steele's early in 1695. Addison drew from literature a metrical 'Account

of the Greatest English Poets.' Steele drew from life the grief of

England at the death of William's Queen, which happened on the 28th of

December, 1694.

Addison, writing in that year, and at the age of about 23, for a College

friend,

A short account of all the Muse-possest,

That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times

Have spent their noble rage in British rhymes,

was so far under the influence of French critical authority, as accepted

by most cultivators of polite literature at Oxford and wherever

authority was much respected, that from 'An Account of the Greatest

English Poets' he omitted Shakespeare. Of Chaucer he then knew no better

than to say, what might have been said in France, that

... age has rusted what the Poet writ,

Worn out his language, and obscured his wit:

In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain,

And tries to make his readers laugh in vain.

Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetic rage,

In ancient tales amused a barb'rous age;

But now the mystic tale, that pleased of yore,

Can charm an understanding age no more.

It cost Addison some trouble to break loose from the critical cobweb of

an age of periwigs and patches, that accounted itself 'understanding,'

and the grand epoch of our Elizabethan literature, 'barbarous.' Rymer,

one of his critics, had said, that

'in the neighing of an horse, or in the growling of a mastiff, there

is a meaning, there is as lively expression, and, may I say, more

humanity than many times in the tragical flights of Shakespeare.'

Addison, with a genius of his own helped to free movement by the

sympathies of Steele, did break through the cobwebs of the critics; but

he carried off a little of their web upon his wings. We see it when in

the 'Spectator' he meets the prejudices of an 'understanding age,' and

partly satisfies his own, by finding reason for his admiration of 'Chevy

Chase' and the 'Babes in the Wood', in their great similarity to works

of Virgil. We see it also in some of the criticisms which accompany his

admirable working out of the resolve to justify his true natural

admiration of the poetry of Milton, by showing that 'Paradise Lost' was

planned after the manner of the ancients, and supreme even in its

obedience to the laws of Aristotle. In his 'Spectator' papers on

Imagination he but half escapes from the conventions of his time, which

detested the wildness of a mountain pass, thought Salisbury Plain one of

the finest prospects in England, planned parks with circles and straight

lines of trees, despised our old cathedrals for their 'Gothic' art, and

saw perfection in the Roman architecture, and the round dome of St.

Paul's. Yet in these and all such papers of his we find that Addison had

broken through the weaker prejudices of the day, opposing them with

sound natural thought of his own. Among cultivated readers, lesser

moulders of opinion, there can be no doubt that his genius was only the

more serviceable in amendment of the tastes of his own time, for

friendly understanding and a partial sharing of ideas for which it gave

itself no little credit.

It is noticeable, however, that in his Account of the Greatest English

Poets, young Addison gave a fifth part of the piece to expression of the

admiration he felt even then for Milton. That his appreciation became

critical, and, although limited, based on a sense of poetry which

brought him near to Milton, Addison proved in the 'Spectator' by his

eighteen Saturday papers upon 'Paradise Lost'. But it was from the

religious side that he first entered into the perception of its

grandeur. His sympathy with its high purpose caused him to praise, in

the same pages that commended 'Paradise Lost' to his countrymen, another

'epic,' Blackmore's 'Creation', a dull metrical treatise against

atheism, as a work which deserved to be looked upon as

'one of the most useful and noble productions of our English verse.

The reader,' he added, of a piece which shared certainly with

Salisbury Plain the charms of flatness and extent of space, 'the

reader cannot but be pleased to find the depths of philosophy

enlivened with all the charms of poetry, and to see so great a

strength of reason amidst so beautiful a redundancy of the

imagination.'

The same strong sympathy with Blackmore's purpose in it blinded Dr.

Johnson also to the failure of this poem, which is Blackmore's best.

From its religious side, then, it may be that Addison, when a student at

Oxford, first took his impressions of the poetry of Milton. At Oxford he

accepted the opinion of France on Milton's art, but honestly declared,

in spite of that, unchecked enthusiasm:

Whate'er his pen describes I more than see,

Whilst every verse, arrayed in majesty,

Bold and sublime, my whole attention draws,

And seems above the critic's nicer laws.

This chief place among English poets Addison assigned to Milton, with

his mind fresh from the influences of a father who had openly contemned

the Commonwealth, and by whom he had been trained so to regard Milton's

service of it that of this he wrote:

Oh, had the Poet ne'er profaned his pen,

To varnish o'er the guilt of faithless men;

His other works might have deserved applause

But now the language can't support the cause,

While the clean current, tho' serene and bright,

Betrays a bottom odious to the sight.

If we turn now to the verse written by Steele in his young Oxford days,

and within twelve months of the date of Addison's lines upon English

poets, we have what Steele called 'The Procession.' It is the procession

of those who followed to the grave the good Queen Mary, dead of

small-pox, at the age of 32. Steele shared his friend Addison's delight

in Milton, and had not, indeed, got beyond the sixth number of the

'Tatler' before he compared the natural beauty and innocence of Milton's

Adam and Eve with Dryden's treatment of their love. But the one man for

whom Steele felt most enthusiasm was not to be sought through books, he

was a living moulder of the future of the nation. Eagerly intent upon

King William, the hero of the Revolution that secured our liberties, the

young patriot found in him also the hero of his verse. Keen sense of the

realities about him into which Steele had been born, spoke through the

very first lines of this poem:

The days of man are doom'd to pain and strife,

Quiet and ease are foreign to our life;

No satisfaction is, below, sincere,

Pleasure itself has something that's severe.

Britain had rejoiced in the high fortune of King William, and now a

mourning world attended his wife to the tomb. The poor were her first

and deepest mourners, poor from many causes; and then Steele pictured,

with warm sympathy, form after form of human suffering. Among those

mourning poor were mothers who, in the despair of want, would have

stabbed infants sobbing for their food,

But in the thought they stopp'd, their locks they tore,

Threw down the steel, and cruelly forbore.

The innocents their parents' love forgive,

Smile at their fate, nor know they are to live.

To the mysteries of such distress the dead queen penetrated, by her

'cunning to be good.' After the poor, marched the House of Commons in

the funeral procession. Steele gave only two lines to it:

With dread concern, the awful Senate came,

Their grief, as all their passions, is the same.

The next Assembly dissipates our fears,

The stately, mourning throng of British Peers.

A factious intemperance then characterized debates of the Commons, while

the House of Lords stood in the front of the Revolution, and secured the

permanency of its best issues. Steele describes, as they pass, Ormond,

Somers, Villars, who leads the horse of the dead queen, that 'heaves

into big sighs when he would neigh'--the verse has in it crudity as well

as warmth of youth--and then follow the funeral chariot, the jewelled

mourners, and the ladies of the court,

Their clouded beauties speak man's gaudy strife,

The glittering miseries of human life.

I yet see, Steele adds, this queen passing to her coronation in the

place whither she now is carried to her grave. On the way, through

acclamations of her people, to receive her crown,

She unconcerned and careless all the while

Rewards their loud applauses with a smile,

With easy Majesty and humble State

Smiles at the trifle Power, and knows its date.

But now

What hands commit the beauteous, good, and just,

The dearer part of William, to the dust?

In her his vital heat, his glory lies,

In her the Monarch lived, in her he dies.

...

No form of state makes the Great Man forego

The task due to her love and to his woe;

Since his kind frame can't the large suffering bear

In pity to his People, he's not here:

For to the mighty loss we now receive

The next affliction were to see him grieve.

If we look from these serious strains of their youth to the literary

expression of the gayer side of character in the two friends, we find

Addison sheltering his taste for playful writing behind a Roman Wall of

hexameter. For among his Latin poems in the Oxford 'Musæ Anglicanæ' are

eighty or ninety lines of resonant Latin verse upon 'Machinæ

Gesticulantes, 'anglice' A Puppet-show.' Steele, taking life as he found

it, and expressing mirth in his own way of conversation, wrote an

English comedy, and took the word of a College friend that it was

valueless. There were two paths in life then open to an English writer.

One was the smooth and level way of patronage; the other a rough up-hill

track for men who struggled in the service of the people. The way of

patronage was honourable. The age had been made so very discerning by

the Romans and the French that a true understanding of the beauties of

literature was confined to the select few who had been taught what to

admire. Fine writing was beyond the rude appreciation of the multitude.

Had, therefore, the reading public been much larger than it was, men of

fastidious taste, who paid as much deference to polite opinion as

Addison did in his youth, could have expected only audience fit but few,

and would have been without encouragement to the pursuit of letters

unless patronage rewarded merit. The other way had charms only for the

stout-hearted pioneer who foresaw where the road was to be made that now

is the great highway of our literature. Addison went out into the world

by the way of his time; Steele by the way of ours.

Addison, after the campaign of 1695, offered to the King the homage of a

paper of verses on the capture of Namur, and presented them through Sir

John Somers, then Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. To Lord Somers he sent

with them a flattering dedicatory address. Somers, who was esteemed a

man of taste, was not unwilling to 'receive the present of a muse

unknown.' He asked Addison to call upon him, and became his patron.

Charles Montagu, afterwards Earl of Halifax, critic and wit himself,

shone also among the statesmen who were known patrons of letters. Also

to him, who was a prince of patrons 'fed with soft dedication all day

long,' Addison introduced himself. To him, in 1697, as it was part of

his public fame to be a Latin scholar, Addison, also a skilful Latinist,

addressed, in Latin, a paper of verses on the Peace of Ryswick. With

Somers and Montagu for patrons, the young man of genius who wished to

thrive might fairly commit himself to the service of the Church, for

which he had been bred by his father; but Addison's tact and refinement

promised to be serviceable to the State, and so it was that, as Steele

tells us, Montagu made Addison a layman.

'His arguments were founded upon the general pravity and corruption of

men of business, who wanted liberal education. And I remember, as if I

had read the letter yesterday, that my Lord ended with a compliment,

that, however he might be represented as no friend to the Church, he

never would do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of

it.'

To the good offices of Montagu and Somers, Addison was indebted,

therefore, in 1699, for a travelling allowance of £300 a year. The grant

was for his support while qualifying himself on the continent by study

of modern languages, and otherwise, for diplomatic service. It dropped

at the King's death, in the spring of 1702, and Addison was cast upon

his own resources; but he throve, and lived to become an Under-Secretary

of State in days that made Prior an Ambassador, and rewarded with

official incomes Congreve, Rowe, Hughes, Philips, Stepney, and others.

Throughout his honourable career prudence dictated to Addison more or

less of dependence on the friendship of the strong. An honest friend of

the popular cause, he was more ready to sell than give his pen to it;

although the utmost reward would at no time have tempted him to throw

his conscience into the bargain. The good word of Halifax obtained him

from Godolphin, in 1704, the Government order for a poem on the Battle

of Blenheim, with immediate earnest of payment for it in the office of a

Commissioner of Appeal in the Excise worth £200 a year. For this

substantial reason Addison wrote the 'Campaign'; and upon its success,

he obtained the further reward of an Irish Under-secretaryship.

The 'Campaign' is not a great poem. Reams of 'Campaigns' would not have

made Addison's name, what it now is, a household word among his

countrymen. The 'Remarks on several Parts of Italy, &c.,' in which

Addison followed up the success of his 'Campaign' with notes of foreign

travel, represent him visiting Italy as 'Virgil's Italy,' the land of

the great writers in Latin, and finding scenery or customs of the people

eloquent of them at every turn. He crammed his pages with quotation from

Virgil and Horace, Ovid and Tibullus, Propertius, Lucan, Juvenal and

Martial, Lucretius, Statius, Claudian, Silius Italicus, Ausonius,

Seneca, Phædrus, and gave even to his 'understanding age' an overdose of

its own physic for all ills of literature. He could not see a pyramid of

jugglers standing on each other's shoulders, without observing how it

explained a passage in Claudian which shows that the Venetians were not

the inventors of this trick. But Addison's short original accounts of

cities and states that he saw are pleasant as well as sensible, and here

and there, as in the space he gives to a report of St. Anthony's sermon

to the fishes, or his short account of a visit to the opera at Venice,

there are indications of the humour that was veiled, not crushed, under

a sense of classical propriety. In his account of the political state of

Naples and in other passages, there is mild suggestion also of the love

of liberty, a part of the fine nature of Addison which had been slightly

warmed by contact with the generous enthusiasm of Steele. In his

poetical letter to Halifax written during his travels Addison gave the

sum of his prose volume when he told how he felt himself

... on classic ground.

For here the Muse so oft her harp hath strung,

That not a mountain rears its head unsung;

Renown'd in verse each shady thicket grows,

And ev'ry stream in heav'nly numbers flows.

But he was writing to a statesman of the Revolution, who was his

political patron, just then out of office, and propriety suggested such

personal compliment as calling the Boyne a Tiber, and Halifax an

improvement upon Virgil; while his heart was in the closing emphasis,

also proper to the occasion, which dwelt on the liberty that gives their

smile to the barren rocks and bleak mountains of Britannia's isle, while

for Italy, rich in the unexhausted stores of nature, proud Oppression in

her valleys reigns, and tyranny usurps her happy plains. Addison's were

formal raptures, and he knew them to be so, when he wrote,

I bridle in my struggling Muse with pain,

That longs to launch into a bolder strain.

Richard Steele was not content with learning to be bold. Eager, at that

turning point of her national life, to serve England with strength of

arm, at least, if not with the good brains which he was neither

encouraged nor disposed to value highly, Steele's patriotism impelled

him to make his start in the world, not by the way of patronage, but by

enlisting himself as a private in the Coldstream Guards. By so doing he

knew that he offended a relation, and lost a bequest. As he said of

himself afterwards,

'when he mounted a war-horse, with a great sword in his hand, and

planted himself behind King William III against Louis XIV, he lost the

succession to a very good estate in the county of Wexford, in Ireland,

from the same humour which he has preserved, ever since, of preferring

the state of his mind to that of his fortune.'

Steele entered the Duke of Ormond's regiment, and had reasons for

enlistment. James Butler, the first Duke, whom his father served, had

sent him to the Charterhouse. That first Duke had been Chancellor of the

University at Oxford, and when he died, on the 21st of July, 1688, nine

months before Steele entered to Christchurch, his grandson, another

James Butler, succeeded to the Dukedom. This second Duke of Ormond was

also placed by the University of Oxford in his grandfather's office of

Chancellor. He went with King William to Holland in 1691, shared the

defeat of William in the battle of Steinkirk in August, 1692, and was

taken prisoner in July, 1693, when King William was defeated at Landen.

These defeats encouraged the friends of the Stuarts, and in 1694,

Bristol, Exeter and Boston adhered to King James. Troops were raised in

the North of England to assist his cause. In 1696 there was the

conspiracy of Sir George Barclay to seize William on the 15th of

February. Captain Charnock, one of the conspirators, had been a Fellow

of Magdalene. On the 23rd of February the plot was laid before

Parliament. There was high excitement throughout the country. Loyal

Associations were formed. The Chancellor of the University of Oxford was

a fellow-soldier of the King's, and desired to draw strength to his

regiment from the enthusiasm of the time. Steele's heart was with the

cause of the Revolution, and he owed also to the Ormonds a kind of

family allegiance. What was more natural than that he should be among

those young Oxford men who were tempted to enlist in the Chancellor's

own regiment for the defence of liberty? Lord Cutts, the Colonel of the

Regiment, made Steele his Secretary, and got him an Ensign's commission.

It was then that he wrote his first book, the 'Christian Hero', of which

the modest account given by Steele himself long afterwards, when put on

his defence by the injurious violence of faction, is as follows:

'He first became an author when an Ensign of the Guards, a way of life

exposed to much irregularity; and being thoroughly convinced of many

things, of which he often repented, and which he more often repeated,

he writ, for his own private use, a little book called the 'Christian

Hero', with a design principally to fix upon his own mind a strong

impression of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger

propensity towards unwarrantable pleasures. This secret admiration was

too weak; he therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a

standing testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world (that is

to say, of his acquaintance) upon him in a new light, would make him

ashamed of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and

living so contrary a life.'

Among his brother soldiers, and fresh from the Oxford worship of old

classical models, the religious feeling that accompanies all true

refinement, and that was indeed part of the English nature in him as in

Addison, prompted Steele to write this book, in which he opposed to the

fashionable classicism of his day a sound reflection that the heroism of

Cato or Brutus had far less in it of true strength, and far less

adaptation to the needs of life, than the unfashionable Christian

Heroism set forth by the Sermon on the Mount.

According to the second title of this book it is 'an Argument, proving

that no Principles but those of Religion are sufficient to make a Great

Man.' It is addressed to Lord Cutts in a dedication dated from the

Tower-Yard, March 23, 1701, and is in four chapters, of which the first

treats of the heroism of the ancient world, the second connects man with

his Creator, by the Bible Story and the Life and Death of Christ, the

third defines the Christian as set forth by the character and teaching

of St. Paul, applying the definition practically to the daily life of

Steele's own time. In the last chapter he descends from the

consideration of those bright incentives to a higher life, and treats of

the ordinary passions and interests of men, the common springs of action

(of which, he says, the chief are Fame and Conscience) which he declares

to be best used and improved when joined with religion; and here all

culminates in a final strain of patriotism, closing with the character

of King William, 'that of a glorious captain, and (what he much more

values than the most splendid titles) that of a sincere and honest man.'

This was the character of William which, when, in days of meaner public

strife, Steele quoted it years afterwards in the _Spectator_, he broke

off painfully and abruptly with a

... Fuit Ilium, et ingens

Gloria.

Steele's 'Christian Hero' obtained many readers. Its fifth edition was

appended to the first collection of the 'Tatler' into volumes, at the

time of the establishment of the 'Spectator'. The old bent of the

English mind was strong in Steele, and he gave unostentatiously a lively

wit to the true service of religion, without having spoken or written to

the last day of his life a word of mere religious cant. One officer

thrust a duel on him for his zeal in seeking to make peace between him

and another comrade. Steele, as an officer, then, or soon afterwards,

made a Captain of Fusiliers, could not refuse to fight, but stood on the

defensive; yet in parrying a thrust his sword pierced his antagonist,

and the danger in which he lay quickened that abiding detestation of the

practice of duelling, which caused Steele to attack it in his plays, in

his 'Tatler', in his 'Spectator', with persistent energy.

Of the 'Christian Hero' his companions felt, and he himself saw, that

the book was too didactic. It was indeed plain truth out of Steele's

heart, but an air of superiority, freely allowed only to the

professional man teaching rules of his own art, belongs to a too

didactic manner. Nothing was more repugnant to Steele's nature than the

sense of this. He had defined the Christian as 'one who is always a

benefactor, with the mien of a receiver.' And that was his own

character, which was, to a fault, more ready to give than to receive,

more prompt to ascribe honour to others than to claim it for himself. To

right himself, Steele wrote a light-hearted comedy, 'The Funeral', or

'Grief à la Mode'; but at the core even of that lay the great

earnestness of his censure against the mockery and mummery of grief that

should be sacred; and he blended with this, in the character of Lawyer

Puzzle, a protest against mockery of truth and justice by the

intricacies of the law. The liveliness of this comedy made Steele

popular with the wits; and the inevitable touches of the author's

patriotism brought on him also the notice of the Whigs. Party men might,

perhaps, already feel something of the unbending independence that was

in Steele himself, as in this play he made old Lord Brumpton teach it to

his son:

'But be them honest, firm, impartial;

Let neither love, nor hate, nor faction move thee;

Distinguish words from things, and men from crimes.'

King William, perhaps, had he lived, could fairly have recognized in

Steele the social form of that sound mind which in Defoe was solitary.

In a later day it was to Steele a proud recollection that his name, to

be provided for, 'was in the last table-book ever worn by the glorious

and immortal William III.'

The 'Funeral', first acted with great success in 1702, was followed in

the next year by 'The Tender Husband', to which Addison contributed some

touches, for which Addison wrote a Prologue, and which Steele dedicated

to Addison, who would 'be surprised,' he said, 'in the midst of a daily

and familiar conversation, with an address which bears so distant an air

as a public dedication.' Addison and his friend were then thirty-one

years old. Close friends when boys, they are close friends now in the

prime of manhood. It was after they had blended wits over the writing of

this comedy that Steele expressed his wish for a work, written by both,

which should serve as THE MONUMENT to their most happy friendship. When

Addison and Steele were amused together with the writing of this comedy,

Addison, having lost his immediate prospect of political employment, and

his salary too, by King William's death in the preceding year, had come

home from his travels. On his way home he had received, in September, at

the Hague, news of his father's death. He wrote from the Hague, to Mr.

Wyche,

'At my first arrival I received the news of my father's death, and

ever since have been engaged in so much noise and company, that it was

impossible for me to think of rhyming in it.'

As his father's eldest son, he had, on his return to England, family

affairs to arrange, and probably some money to receive. Though attached

to a party that lost power at the accession of Queen Anne, and waiting

for new employment, Addison--who had declined the Duke of Somerset's

over-condescending offer of a hundred a year and all expenses as

travelling tutor to his son, the Marquis of Hertford--was able, while

lodging poorly in the Haymarket, to associate in London with the men by

whose friendship he hoped to rise, and was, with Steele, admitted into

the select society of wits, and men of fashion who affected wit and took

wits for their comrades, in the Kitcat Club. When in 1704 Marlborough's

victory at Blenheim revived the Whig influence, the suggestion of

Halifax to Lord Treasurer Godolphin caused Addison to be applied to for

his poem of the 'Campaign'. It was after the appearance of this poem

that Steele's play was printed, with the dedication to his friend, in

which he said,

'I look upon my intimacy with you as one of the most valuable

enjoyments of my life. At the same time I make the town no ill

compliment for their kind acceptance of this comedy, in acknowledging

that it has so far raised my opinion of it, as to make me think it no

improper memorial of an inviolable Friendship. I should not offer it

to you as such, had I not been very careful to avoid everything that

might look ill-natured, immoral, or prejudicial to what the better

part of mankind hold sacred and honourable.'

This was the common ground between the friends. Collier's 'Short View of

the Profaneness and Immorality of the English Stage' had been published

in 1698; it attacked a real evil, if not always in the right way, and

Congreve's reply to it had been a failure. Steele's comedies with all

their gaiety and humour were wholly free from the garnish of oaths and

unwholesome expletives which his contemporaries seemed to think

essential to stage emphasis. Each comedy of his was based on

seriousness, as all sound English wit has been since there have been

writers in England. The gay manner did not conceal all the earnest

thoughts that might jar with the humour of the town; and thus Steele was

able to claim, by right of his third play, 'the honour of being the only

English dramatist who had had a piece damned for its piety.'

This was the 'Lying Lover', produced in 1704, an adaptation from

Corneille in which we must allow that Steele's earnestness in upholding

truth and right did cause him to spoil the comedy. The play was

afterwards re-adapted by Foote as the 'Liar', and in its last form, with

another change or two, has been revived at times with great success. It

is worth while to note how Steele dealt with the story of this piece.

Its original is a play by Alarcon, which Corneille at first supposed to

have been a play by Lope de Vega. Alarcon, or, to give him his full

style, Don Juan Ruiz de Alarcon y Mendoza, was a Mexican-born Spaniard

of a noble family which had distinguished itself in Mexico from the time

of the conquest, and took its name of Alarcon from a village in New

Castile. The poet was a humpbacked dwarf, a thorough, but rather

haughty, Spanish gentleman, poet and wit, who wrote in an unusually pure

Spanish style; a man of the world, too, who came to Spain in or about

the year 1622, and held the very well-paid office of reporter to the

Royal Council of the Indies. When Alarcon, in 1634, was chosen by the

Court to write a festival drama, and, at the same time, publishing the

second part of his dramatic works, vehemently reclaimed plays for which,

under disguised names, some of his contemporaries had taken credit to

themselves, there was an angry combination against him, in which Lope de

Vega, Gongora, and Quevedo were found taking part. All that Alarcon

wrote was thoroughly his own, but editors of the 17th century boldly

passed over his claims to honour, and distributed his best works among

plays of other famous writers, chiefly those of Rojas and Lope de Vega.

This was what deceived Corneille, and caused him to believe and say that

Alarcon's 'la Verdad sospechosa', on which, in 1642, he founded his

'Menteur', was a work of Lope de Vega's. Afterwards Corneille learnt how

there had been in this matter lying among editors. He gave to Alarcon

the honour due, and thenceforth it is chiefly by this play that Alarcon

has been remembered out of Spain. In Spain, when in 1852 Don Juan

Hartzenbusch edited Alarcon's comedies for the Biblioteca de Autores

Españoles, he had to remark on the unjust neglect of that good author in

Spain also, where the poets and men of letters had long wished in vain

for a complete edition of his works. Lope de Vega, it may be added, was

really the author of a sequel to 'la Verdad sospechosa', which Corneille

adapted also as a sequel to his 'Menteur', but it was even poorer than

such sequels usually are.

The 'Lying Lover' in Alarcon's play is a Don Garcia fresh from his

studies in Salamanca, and Steele's Latine first appears there as a

Tristan, the gracioso of old Spanish comedy. The two ladies are a

Jacinta and Lucrecia. Alarcon has in his light and graceful play no less

than three heavy fathers, of a Spanish type, one of whom, the father of

Lucrecia, brings about Don Garcia's punishment by threatening to kill

him if he will not marry his daughter; and so the Liar is punished for

his romancing by a marriage with the girl he does not care for, and not

marrying the girl he loves.

Corneille was merciful, and in the fifth act bred in his 'Menteur' a new

fancy for Lucrece, so that the marriage at cross purposes was rather

agreeable to him.

Steele, in adapting the 'Menteur' as his 'Lying Lover', altered the

close in sharp accordance with that 'just regard to a reforming age,'

which caused him (adapting a line in his 'Procession' then unprinted) to

write in his Prologue to it, 'Pleasure must still have something that's

severe.' Having translated Corneille's translations of Garcia and

Tristan (Dorante and Cliton) into Young Bookwit and Latine, he

transformed the servant into a college friend, mumming as servant

because, since 'a prating servant is necessary in intrigues,' the two

had 'cast lots who should be the other's footman for the present

expedition.' Then he adapted the French couplets into pleasant prose

comedy, giving with a light touch the romancing of feats of war and of

an entertainment on the river, but at last he turned desperately

serious, and sent his Young Bookwit to Newgate on a charge of killing

the gentleman--here called Lovemore--who was at last to win the hand of

the lady whom the Liar loved. In his last act, opening in Newgate,

Steele started with blank verse, and although Lovemore of course was not

dead, and Young Bookwit got at last more than a shadow of a promise of

the other lady in reward for his repentance, the changes in construction

of the play took it beyond the bounds of comedy, and were, in fact,

excellent morality but not good art. And this is what Steele means when

he says that he had his play damned for its piety.

With that strong regard for the drama which cannot well be wanting to

the man who has an artist's vivid sense of life, Steele never withdrew

his good will from the players, never neglected to praise a good play,

and, I may add, took every fair occasion of suggesting to the town the

subtlety of Shakespeare's genius. But he now ceased to write comedies,

until towards the close of his life he produced with a remarkable

success his other play, the 'Conscious Lovers'. And of that, by the way,

Fielding made his Parson Adams say that 'Cato' and the 'Conscious

Lovers' were the only plays he ever heard of, fit for a Christian to

read, 'and, I must own, in the latter there are some things almost

solemn enough for a sermon.'

Perhaps it was about this time that Addison wrote his comedy of the

'Drummer', which had been long in his possession when Steele, who had

become a partner in the management of Drury Lane Theatre, drew it from

obscurity, suggested a few changes in it, and produced it--not openly as

Addison's--upon the stage. The published edition of it was recommended

also by a preface from Steele in which he says that he liked this

author's play the better

'for the want of those studied similies and repartees which we, who

have writ before him, have thrown into our plays, to indulge and gain

upon a false taste that has prevailed for many years in the British

theatre. I believe the author would have condescended to fall into

this way a little more than he has, had he before the writing of it

been often present at theatrical representations. I was confirmed in

my thoughts of the play by the opinion of better judges to whom it was

communicated, who observed that the scenes were drawn after Molière's

manner, and that an easy and natural vein of humour ran through the

whole. I do not question but the reader will discover this, and see

many beauties that escaped the audience; the touches being too

delicate for every taste in a popular assembly. My brother-sharers'

(in the Drury Lane patent) 'were of opinion, at the first reading of

it, that it was like a picture in which the strokes were not strong

enough to appear at a distance. As it is not in the common way of

writing, the approbation was at first doubtful, but has risen every

time it has been acted, and has given an opportunity in several of its

parts for as just and good actions as ever I saw on the stage.'

Addison's comedy was not produced till 1715, the year after his

unsuccessful attempt to revive the 'Spectator', which produced what is

called the eighth volume of that work. The play, not known to be his,

was so ill spoken of that he kept the authorship a secret to the last,

and Tickell omitted it from the collection of his patron's works. But

Steele knew what was due to his friend, and in 1722 manfully republished

the piece as Addison's, with a dedication to Congreve and censure of

Tickell for suppressing it. If it be true that the 'Drummer' made no

figure on the stage though excellently acted, 'when I observe this,'

said Steele, 'I say a much harder thing of this than of the comedy.'

Addison's Drummer is a gentleman who, to forward his suit to a soldier's

widow, masquerades as the drumbeating ghost of her husband in her

country house, and terrifies a self-confident, free-thinking town

exquisite, another suitor, who believes himself brought face to face

with the spirit world, in which he professes that he can't believe. 'For

my part, child, I have made myself easy in those points.' The character

of a free-thinking exquisite is drawn from life without exaggeration,

but with more than a touch of the bitter contempt Addison felt for the

atheistic coxcomb, with whom he was too ready to confound the sincere

questioner of orthodox opinion. The only passages of his in the

'Spectator' that border on intolerance are those in which he deals with

the free-thinker; but it should not be forgotten that the commonest type

of free-thinker in Queen Anne's time was not a thoughtful man who

battled openly with doubt and made an independent search for truth, but

an idler who repudiated thought and formed his character upon tradition

of the Court of Charles the Second. And throughout the 'Spectator' we

may find a Christian under-tone in Addison's intolerance of infidelity,

which is entirely wanting when the moralist is Eustace Budgell. Two or

three persons in the comedy of the 'Drummer' give opportunity for good

character-painting in the actor, and on a healthy stage, before an

audience able to discriminate light touches of humour and to enjoy

unstrained although well-marked expression of varieties of character,

the 'Drummer' would not fail to be a welcome entertainment.

But our sketch now stands at the year 1705, when Steele had ceased for a

time to write comedies. Addison's 'Campaign' had brought him fame, and

perhaps helped him to pay, as he now did, his College debts, with

interest. His 'Remarks on Italy', now published, were, as Tickell says,

'at first but indifferently relished by the bulk of readers;' and his

'Drummer' probably was written and locked in his desk. There were now

such days of intercourse as Steele looked back to when with undying

friendship he wrote in the preface to that edition of the 'Drummer'

produced by him after Addison's death:

'He was above all men in that talent we call humour, and enjoyed it in

such perfection, that I have often reflected, after a night spent with

him apart from all the world, that I had had the pleasure of

conversing with an intimate acquaintance of Terence and Catullus, who

had all their wit and nature, heightened with humour more exquisite

and delightful than any other man ever possessed.' And again in the

same Preface, Steele dwelt upon 'that smiling mirth, that delicate

satire and genteel raillery, which appeared in Mr. Addison when he was

free from that remarkable bashfulness which is a cloak that hides and

muffles merit; and his abilities were covered only by modesty, which

doubles the beauties which are seen, and gives credit and esteem to

all that are concealed.'

Addison had the self-consciousness of a sensitive and speculative mind.

This, with a shy manner among those with whom he was not intimate,

passed for cold self-assertion. The 'little senate' of his intimate

friends was drawn to him by its knowledge of the real warmth of his

nature. And his friendships, like his religion, influenced his judgment.

His geniality that wore a philosophic cloak before the world, caused him

to abandon himself in the 'Spectator', even more unreservedly than

Steele would have done, to iterated efforts for the help of a friend

like Ambrose Philips, whose poems to eminent babies, 'little subject,

little wit,' gave rise to the name of Namby-pamby. Addison's quietness

with strangers was against a rapid widening of his circle of familiar

friends, and must have made the great-hearted friendship of Steele as

much to him as his could be to Steele. In very truth it 'doubled all his

store.' Steele's heart was open to enjoyment of all kindly intercourse

with men. In after years, as expression of thought in the literature of

nations gained freedom and sincerity, two types of literature were

formed from the types of mind which Addison and Steele may be said to

have in some measure represented. Each sought advance towards a better

light, one part by dwelling on the individual duties and

responsibilities of man, and his relation to the infinite; the other by

especial study of man's social ties and liberties, and his relation to

the commonwealth of which he is a member. Goethe, for instance, inclined

to one study; Schiller to the other; and every free mind will incline

probably to one or other of these centres of opinion. Addison was a cold

politician because he was most himself when analyzing principles of

thought, and humours, passions, duties of the individual. Steele, on the

contrary, braved ruin for his convictions as a politician, because his

social nature turned his earnestness into concern for the well-being of

his country, and he lived in times when it was not yet certain that the

newly-secured liberties were also finally secured. The party was strong

that desired to re-establish ancient tyrannies, and the Queen herself

was hardly on the side of freedom.

In 1706, the date of the union between England and Scotland, Whig

influence had been strengthened by the elections of the preceding year,

and Addison was, early in 1706, made Under-Secretary of State to Sir

Charles Hedges, a Tory, who was superseded before the end of the year by

Marlborough's son-in-law, the Earl of Sunderland, a Whig under whom

Addison, of course, remained in office, and who was, thenceforth, his

active patron. In the same year the opera of _Rosamond_ was produced,

with Addison's libretto. It was but the third, or indeed the second,

year of operas in England, for we can hardly reckon as forming a year of

opera the Italian intermezzi and interludes of singing and dancing,

performed under Clayton's direction, at York Buildings, in 1703. In

1705, Clayton's _Arsinoe_, adapted and translated from the Italian, was

produced at Drury Lane. Buononcini's _Camilla_ was given at the house in

the Haymarket, and sung in two languages, the heroine's part being in

English and the hero's in Italian. Thomas Clayton, a second-rate

musician, but a man with literary tastes, who had been introducer of the

opera to London, argued that the words of an opera should be not only

English, but the best of English, and that English music ought to

illustrate good home-grown literature. Addison and Steele agreed

heartily in this. Addison was persuaded to write words for an opera by

Clayton--his _Rosamond_--and Steele was persuaded afterwards to

speculate in some sort of partnership with Clayton's efforts to set

English poetry to music in the entertainments at York Buildings, though

his friend Hughes warned him candidly that Clayton was not much of a

musician. _Rosamond_ was a failure of Clayton's and not a success of

Addison's. There is poor jesting got by the poet from a comic Sir

Trusty, who keeps Rosamond's bower, and has a scolding wife. But there

is a happy compliment to Marlborough in giving to King Henry a vision at

Woodstock of the glory to come for England, and in a scenic realization

of it by the rising of Blenheim Palace, the nation's gift to

Marlborough, upon the scene of the Fair Rosamond story. Indeed there can

be no doubt that it was for the sake of the scene at Woodstock, and the

opportunity thus to be made, that Rosamond was chosen for the subject of

the opera. Addison made Queen Eleanor give Rosamond a narcotic instead

of a poison, and thus he achieved the desired happy ending to an opera.

Believe your Rosamond alive.

'King.' O happy day! O pleasing view!

My Queen forgives--

'Queen.' --My lord is true.

'King.' No more I'll change.

'Queen.' No more I'll grieve.

'Both.' But ever thus united live.

That is to say, for three days, the extent of the life of the opera. But

the literary Under-Secretary had saved his political dignity with the

stage tribute to Marlborough, which backed the closet praise in the

'Campaign.'

In May, 1707, Steele received the office of Gazetteer, until then worth

£60, but presently endowed by Harley with a salary of £300 a-year. At

about the same time he was made one of the gentlemen ushers to Queen

Anne's husband, Prince George of Denmark. In the same year Steele

married. Of his most private life before this date little is known. He

had been married to a lady from Barbadoes, who died in a few months.

From days referred to in the 'Christian Hero' he derived a daughter of

whom he took fatherly care. In 1707 Steele, aged about 35, married Miss

(or, as ladies come of age were then called, Mrs.) Mary Scurlock, aged

29. It was a marriage of affection on both sides. Steele had from his

first wife an estate in Barbadoes, which produced, after payment of the

interest on its encumbrances, £670 a-year. His appointment as Gazetteer,

less the £45 tax on it, was worth £255 a-year, and his appointment on

the Prince Consort's household another hundred. Thus the income upon

which Steele married was rather more than a thousand a-year, and Miss

Scurlock's mother had an estate of about £330 a-year. Mary Scurlock had

been a friend of Steele's first wife, for before marriage she recalls

Steele to her mother's mind by saying, 'It is the survivor of the person

to whose funeral I went in my illness.'

'Let us make our regards to each other,' Steele wrote just before

marriage, 'mutual and unchangeable, that whilst the world around us is

enchanted with the false satisfactions of vagrant desires, our persons

may be shrines to each other, and sacred to conjugal faith, unreserved

confidence, and heavenly society.'

There remains also a prayer written by Steele before first taking the

sacrament with his wife, after marriage. There are also letters and

little notes written by Steele to his wife, treasured by her love, and

printed by a remorseless antiquary, blind to the sentence in one of the

first of them:

'I beg of you to shew my letters to no one living, but let us be

contented with one another's thoughts upon our words and actions,

without the intervention of other people, who cannot judge of so

delicate a circumstance as the commerce between man and wife.'

But they are printed for the frivolous to laugh at and the wise to

honour. They show that even in his most thoughtless or most anxious

moments the social wit, the busy patriot, remembered his 'dear Prue,'

and was her lover to the end. Soon after marriage, Steele took his wife

to a boarding-school in the suburbs, where they saw a young lady for

whom Steele showed an affection that caused Mrs. Steele to ask, whether

she was not his daughter. He said that she was. 'Then,' said Mrs.

Steele, 'I beg she may be mine too.' Thenceforth she lived in their home

as Miss Ousley, and was treated as a daughter by Steele's wife. Surely

this was a woman who deserved the love that never swerved from her. True

husband and true friend, he playfully called Addison her rival. In the

_Spectator_ there is a paper of Steele's (No. 142) representing some of

his own love-letters as telling what a man said and should be able to

say of his wife after forty years of marriage. Seven years after

marriage he signs himself, 'Yours more than you can imagine, or I

express.' He dedicates to her a volume of the _Lady's Library_, and

writes of her ministrations to him:

'if there are such beings as guardian angels, thus are they employed.

I will no more believe one of them more good in its inclinations than

I can conceive it more charming in its form than my wife.'

In the year before her death he was signing his letters with 'God bless

you!' and 'Dear Prue, eternally yours.' That Steele made it a duty of

his literary life to contend against the frivolous and vicious ridicule

of the ties of marriage common in his day, and to maintain their sacred

honour and their happiness, readers of the 'Spectator' cannot fail to

find.

Steele, on his marriage in 1707, took a house in Bury Street, St.

James's, and in the following year went to a house at Hampton, which he

called in jest the Hovel. Addison had lent him a thousand pounds for

costs of furnishing and other immediate needs. This was repaid within a

year, and when, at the same time, his wife's mother was proposing a

settlement of her money beneficial to himself, Steele replied that he

was far from desiring, if he should survive his wife, 'to turn the

current of the estate out of the channel it would have been in, had I

never come into the family.' Liberal always of his own to others, he was

sometimes without a guinea, and perplexed by debt. But he defrauded no

man. When he followed his Prue to the grave he was in no man's debt,

though he left all his countrymen his debtors, and he left more than

their mother's fortune to his two surviving children. One died of

consumption a year afterwards, the other married one of the Welsh

Judges, afterwards Lord Trevor.

The friendship--equal friendship--between Steele and Addison was as

unbroken as the love between Steele and his wife. Petty tales may have

been invented or misread. In days of malicious personality Steele braved

the worst of party spite, and little enough even slander found to throw

against him. Nobody in their lifetime doubted the equal strength and

sincerity of the relationship between the two friends. Steele was no

follower of Addison's. Throughout life he went his own way, leading

rather than following; first as a playwright; first in conception and

execution of the scheme of the 'Tatler', 'Spectator', and 'Guardian';

following his own sense of duty against Addison's sense of expediency in

passing from the 'Guardian' to the 'Englishman', and so to energetic

movement upon perilous paths as a political writer, whose whole heart

was with what he took to be the people's cause.

When Swift had been writing to Addison that he thought Steele 'the

vilest of mankind,' in writing of this to Swift, Steele complained that

the 'Examiner',--in which Swift had a busy hand,--said Addison had

'bridled him in point of politics,' adding,

'This was ill hinted both in relation to him and me. I know no party;

but the truth of the question is what I will support as well as I can,

when any man I honour is attacked.'

John Forster, whose keen insight into the essentials of literature led

him to write an essay upon each of the two great founders of the latest

period of English literature, Defoe and Steele, has pointed out in his

masterly essay upon Steele that Swift denies having spoken of Steele as

bridled by his friend, and does so in a way that frankly admits Steele's

right to be jealous of the imputation. Mr. Forster justly adds that

throughout Swift's intimate speech to Stella,

'whether his humours be sarcastic or polite, the friendship of Steele

and Addison is for ever suggesting some annoyance to himself, some

mortification, some regret, but never once the doubt that it was not

intimate and sincere, or that into it entered anything inconsistent

with a perfect equality.'

Six months after Addison's death Steele wrote (in No. 12 of the

'Theatre', and I am again quoting facts cited by John Forster),

'that there never was a more strict friendship than between himself

and Addison, nor had they ever any difference but what proceeded from

their different way of pursuing the same thing; the one waited and

stemmed the torrent, while the other too often plunged into it; but

though they thus had lived for some years past, shunning each other,

they still preserved the most passionate concern for their mutual

welfare; and when they met they were as unreserved as boys, and talked

of the greatest affairs, upon which they saw where they differed,

without pressing (what they knew impossible) to convert each other.'

As to the substance or worth of what thus divided them, Steele only adds

the significant expression of his hope that, if his family is the worse,

his country may be the better, 'for the mortification _he_ has

undergone.'

Such, then, was the Friendship of which the 'Spectator' is the abiding

Monument. The 'Spectator' was a modified continuation of the 'Tatler',

and the 'Tatler' was suggested by a portion of Defoe's 'Review'. The

'Spectator' belongs to the first days of a period when the people at

large extended their reading power into departments of knowledge

formerly unsought by them, and their favour was found generally to be

more desirable than that of the most princely patron. This period should

date from the day in 1703 when the key turned upon Defoe in Newgate, the

year of the production of Steele's 'Tender Husband', and the time when

Addison was in Holland on the way home from his continental travels.

Defoe was then forty-two years old, Addison and Steele being about

eleven years younger.

In the following year, 1704, the year of Blenheim--Defoe issued, on the

19th of February, No. 1 of 'A Weekly Review of the Affairs of France:

Purg'd from the Errors and Partiality of 'News-Writers' and

'Petty-Statesmen', of all Sides,' and in the introductory sketch of its

plan, said:

'After our Serious Matters are over, we shall at the end of every

Paper, Present you with a little Diversion, as anything occurs to make

the World Merry; and whether Friend or Foe, one Party or another, if

anything happens so scandalous as to require an open Reproof, the

World may meet with it there.'

Here is the first 'little Diversion'; the germ of 'Tatlers' and

'Spectators' which in after years amused and edified the town.

'Mercure Scandale:

or,

ADVICE from the Scandalous CLUB. 'Translated out of French'.

This Society is a Corporation long since established in 'Paris', and

we cannot compleat our Advices from 'France', without entertaining the

World with everything we meet with from that Country.

And, tho Corresponding with the Queens Enemies is prohibited; yet

since the Matter will be so honest, as only to tell the World of what

everybody will own to be scandalous, we reckon we shall be welcome.

This Corporation has been set up some months, and opend their first

Sessions about last 'Bartholomew' Fair; but having not yet obtaind a

Patent, they have never, till now, made their Resolves publick.

The Business of this Society is to censure the Actions of Men, not of

Parties, and in particular, those Actions which are made publick so by

their Authors, as to be, in their own Nature, an Appeal to the general

Approbation.

They do not design to expose Persons but things; and of them, none but

such as more than ordinarily deserve it; they who would not be censurd

by this Assembly, are desired to act with caution enough, not to fall

under their Hands; for they resolve to treat Vice, and Villanous

Actions, with the utmost Severity.

The First considerable Matter that came before this Society, was about

'Bartholomew' Fair; but the Debates being long, they were at last

adjourned to the next Fair, when we suppose it will be decided; so

being not willing to trouble the World with anything twice over, we

refer that to next 'August'.

On the 10th of September last, there was a long Hearing, before the

Club, of a Fellow that said he had killd the Duke of 'Bavaria'. Now as

David punishd the Man that said he had killd King 'Saul', whether it

was so or no, twas thought this Fellow ought to be delivered up to

Justice, tho the Duke of 'Bavaria' was alive.

Upon the whole, twas voted a scandalous Thing, That News. Writers

shoud kill Kings and Princes, and bring them to life again at

pleasure; and to make an Example of this Fellow, he was dismissd, upon

Condition he should go to the Queens-bench once a Day, and bear

Fuller, his Brother of the Faculty, company two hours for fourteen

Days together; which cruel Punishment was executed with the utmost

Severity.

The Club has had a great deal of trouble about the News-Writers, who

have been continually brought before them for their ridiculous

Stories, and imposing upon Mankind; and tho the Proceedings have been

pretty tedious, we must give you the trouble of a few of them in our

next.

The addition to the heading, 'Translated out of French,' appears only in

No. 1, and the first title 'Mercure Scandale' (adopted from a French

book published about 1681) having been much criticized for its grammar

and on other grounds, was dropped in No. 18. Thenceforth Defoe's

pleasant comment upon passing follies appeared under the single head of

'Advice from the Scandalous Club.' Still the verbal Critics exercised

their wits upon the title.

'We have been so often on the Defence of our Title,' says Defoe, in

No. 38, 'that the world begins to think Our Society wants

Employment ... If Scandalous must signify nothing but Personal

Scandal, respecting the Subject of which it is predicated; we desire

those gentlemen to answer for us how 'Post-Man' or 'Post-Boy' can

signify a News-Paper, the Post Man or Post Boy being in all my reading

properly and strictly applicable, not to the Paper, but to the Person

bringing or carrying the News? Mercury also is, if I understand it, by

a Transmutation of Meaning, from a God turned into a Book--From hence

our Club thinks they have not fair Play, in being deny'd the Privilege

of making an Allegory as well as other People.'

In No. 46 Defoe made, in one change more, a whimsical half concession of

a syllable, by putting a sign of contraction in its place, and

thenceforth calling this part of his Review, Advice from the Scandal

Club. Nothing can be more evident than the family likeness between this

forefather of the 'Tatler' and 'Spectator' and its more familiar

descendants. There is a trick of voice common to all, and some papers of

Defoe's might have been written for the 'Spectator'. Take the little

allegory, for instance, in No. 45, which tells of a desponding young

Lady brought before the Society, as found by Rosamond's Pond in the Park

in a strange condition, taken by the mob for a lunatic, and whose

clothes were all out of fashion, but whose face, when it was seen,

astonished the whole society by its extraordinary sweetness and majesty.

She told how she had been brought to despair, and her name proved to

be--Modesty. In letters, questions, and comments also which might be

taken from Defoe's Monthly Supplementary Journal to the Advice from the

Scandal Club, we catch a likeness to the spirit of the 'Tatler' and

'Spectator' now and then exact. Some censured Defoe for not confining

himself to the weightier part of his purpose in establishing the

'Review'. He replied, in the Introduction to his first Monthly

Supplement, that many men

'care but for a little reading at a time,' and said, 'thus we wheedle

them in, if it may be allow'd that Expression, to the Knowledge of the

World, who rather than take more Pains, would be content with their

Ignorance, and search into nothing.'

Single-minded, quick-witted, and prompt to act on the first suggestion

of a higher point of usefulness to which he might attain, Steele saw the

mind of the people ready for a new sort of relation to its writers, and

he followed the lead of Defoe. But though he turned from the more

frivolous temper of the enfeebled playhouse audience, to commune in free

air with the country at large, he took fresh care for the restraint of

his deep earnestness within the bounds of a cheerful, unpretending

influence. Drop by drop it should fall, and its strength lie in its

persistence. He would bring what wit he had out of the playhouse, and

speak his mind, like Defoe, to the people themselves every post-day. But

he would affect no pedantry of moralizing, he would appeal to no

passions, he would profess himself only 'a Tatler.' Might he not use, he

thought, modestly distrustful of the charm of his own mind, some of the

news obtained by virtue of the office of Gazetteer that Harley had given

him, to bring weight and acceptance to writing of his which he valued

only for the use to which it could be put. For, as he himself truly says

in the 'Tatler',

'wit, if a man had it, unless it be directed to some useful end, is

but a wanton, frivolous quality; all that one should value himself

upon in this kind is that he had some honourable intention in it.'

Swift, not then a deserter to the Tories, was a friend of Steele's, who,

when the first 'Tatler' appeared, had been amusing the town at the

expense of John Partridge, astrologer and almanac-maker, with

'Predictions for the year 1708,' professing to be written by Isaac

Bickerstaff, Esq. The first prediction was of the death of Partridge,

'on the 29th of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging fever.'

Swift answered himself, and also published in due time

'The Accomplishment of the first of Mr. Bickerstaff's Predictions:

being an account of the death of Mr. Partridge, the almanack-maker,

upon the 29th instant.'

Other wits kept up the joke, and, in his next year's almanac (that for

1709), Partridge advertised that,

'whereas it has been industriously given out by Isaac Bickerstaff,

Esq., and others, to prevent the sale of this year's almanack, that

John Partridge is dead, this may inform all his loving countrymen that

he is still living, in health, and they are knaves that reported it

otherwise.'

Steele gave additional lightness to the touch of his 'Tatler', which

first appeared on the 12th of April, 1709, by writing in the name of

Isaac Bickerstaff, and carrying on the jest, that was to his serious

mind a blow dealt against prevailing superstition. Referring in his

first 'Tatler' to this advertisement of Partridge's, he said of it,

'I have in another place, and in a paper by itself, sufficiently

convinced this man that he is dead; and if he has any shame, I do not

doubt but that by this time he owns it to all his acquaintance. For

though the legs and arms and whole body of that man may still appear

and perform their animal functions, yet since, as I have elsewhere

observed, his art is gone, the man is gone.'

To Steele, indeed, the truth was absolute, that a man is but what he can

do.

In this spirit, then, Steele began the 'Tatler', simply considering that

his paper was to be published 'for the use of the good people of

England,' and professing at the outset that he was an author writing for

the public, who expected from the public payment for his work, and that

he preferred this course to gambling for the patronage of men in office.

Having pleasantly shown the sordid spirit that underlies the

mountebank's sublime professions of disinterestedness,

'we have a contempt,' he says, 'for such paltry barterers, and have

therefore all along informed the public that we intend to give them

our advices for our own sakes, and are labouring to make our

lucubrations come to some price in money, for our more convenient

support in the service of the public. It is certain that many other

schemes have been proposed to me, as a friend offered to show me in a

treatise he had writ, which he called, "The whole Art of Life; or, The

Introduction to Great Men, illustrated in a Pack of Cards." But being

a novice at all manner of play, I declined the offer.'

Addison took these cards, and played an honest game with them

successfully. When, at the end of 1708, the Earl of Sunderland,

Marlborough's son-in-law, lost his secretaryship, Addison lost his place

as under-secretary; but he did not object to go to Ireland as chief

secretary to Lord Wharton, the new Lord-lieutenant, an active party man,

a leader on the turf with reputation for indulgence after business hours

according to the fashion of the court of Charles II.

Lord Wharton took to Ireland Clayton to write him musical

entertainments, and a train of parasites of quality. He was a great

borough-monger, and is said at one critical time to have returned thirty

members. He had no difficulty, therefore, in finding Addison a seat, and

made him in that year, 1709, M.P. for Malmesbury. Addison only once

attempted to speak in the House of Commons, and then, embarrassed by

encouraging applause that welcomed him he stammered and sat down. But

when, having laid his political cards down for a time, and at ease in

his own home, pen in hand, he brought his sound mind and quick humour to

the aid of his friend Steele, he came with him into direct relation with

the English people. Addison never gave posterity a chance of knowing

what was in him till, following Steele's lead, he wrote those papers in

'Tatler', 'Spectator', and 'Guardian', wherein alone his genius abides

with us, and will abide with English readers to the end. The 'Tatler',

the 'Spectator', and the 'Guardian' were, all of them, Steele's, begun

and ended by him at his sole discretion. In these three journals Steele

was answerable for 510 papers; Addison for 369. Swift wrote two papers,

and sent about a dozen fragments. Congreve wrote one article in the

'Tatler'; Pope wrote thrice for the 'Spectator', and eight times for the

'Guardian'. Addison, who was in Ireland when the 'Tatler' first

appeared, only guessed the authorship by an expression in an early

number; and it was not until eighty numbers had been issued, and the

character of the new paper was formed and established, that Addison, on

his return to London, joined the friend who, with his usual complete

absence of the vanity of self-assertion, finally ascribed to the ally he

dearly loved, the honours of success.

It was the kind of success Steele had desired--a widely-diffused

influence for good. The 'Tatlers' were penny papers published three

times a week, and issued also for another halfpenny with a blank

half-sheet for transmission by post, when any written scraps of the

day's gossip that friend might send to friend could be included. It was

through these, and the daily 'Spectators' which succeeded them, that the

people of England really learnt to read. The few leaves of sound reason

and fancy were but a light tax on uncultivated powers of attention.

Exquisite grace and true kindliness, here associated with familiar ways

and common incidents of everyday life, gave many an honest man fresh

sense of the best happiness that lies in common duties honestly

performed, and a fresh energy, free as Christianity itself from

malice--for so both Steele and Addison meant that it should be--in

opposing themselves to the frivolities and small frauds on the

conscience by which manliness is undermined.

A pamphlet by John Gay--'The Present State of Wit, in a Letter to a

Friend in the Country'--was dated May 3, 1711, about two months after

the 'Spectator' had replaced the 'Tatler'. And thus Gay represents the

best talk of the town about these papers:

"Before I proceed further in the account of our weekly papers, it will

be necessary to inform you that at the beginning of the winter, to the

infinite surprise of all the Town, Mr. Steele flung up his 'Tatler',

and instead of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, subscribed himself Richard

Steele to the last of those papers, after a handsome compliment to the

Town for their kind acceptance of his endeavours to divert them.

The chief reason he thought fit to give for his leaving off writing

was, that having been so long looked on in all public places and

companies as the Author of those papers, he found that his most

intimate friends and acquaintance were in pain to speak or act before

him.

The Town was very far from being satisfied with this reason, and most

people judged the true cause to be, either

That he was quite spent, and wanted matter to continue his

undertaking any longer; or

That he laid it down as a sort of submission to, and composition

with, the Government for some past offences; or, lastly,

That he had a mind to vary his Shape, and appear again in some new

light.

However that were, his disappearance seemed to be bewailed as some

general calamity. Every one wanted so agreeable an amusement, and the

Coffee-houses began to be sensible that the Esquire's 'Lucubrations'

alone had brought them more customers than all their other newspapers

put together.

It must indeed be confessed that never man threw up his pen, under

stronger temptations to have employed it longer. His reputation was at

a greater height, than I believe ever any living author's was before

him. It is reasonable to suppose that his gains were proportionably

considerable. Every one read him with pleasure and good-will; and the

Tories, in respect to his other good qualities, had almost forgiven

his unaccountable imprudence in declaring against them.

Lastly, it was highly improbable that, if he threw off a Character,

the ideas of which were so strongly impressed in every one's mind,

however finely he might write in any new form, that he should meet

with the same reception.

To give you my own thoughts of this gentleman's writings I shall, in

the first place, observe, that there is a noble difference between him

and all the rest of our gallant and polite authors. The latter have

endeavoured to please the Age by falling in with them, and encouraging

them in their fashionable vices and false notions of things. It would

have been a jest, some time since, for a man to have asserted that

anything witty could be said in praise of a married state, or that

Devotion and Virtue were any way necessary to the character of a Fine

Gentleman. 'Bickerstaff' ventured to tell the Town that they were a

parcel of fops, fools, and coquettes; but in such a manner as even

pleased them, and made them more than half inclined to believe that he

spoke truth.

Instead of complying with the false sentiments or vicious tastes of

the Age--either in morality, criticism, or good breeding--he has

boldly assured them that they were altogether in the wrong; and

commanded them, with an authority which perfectly well became him, to

surrender themselves to his arguments for Virtue and Good Sense.

It is incredible to conceive the effect his writings have had on the

Town; how many thousand follies they have either quite banished or

given a very great check to; how much countenance they have added to

Virtue and Religion; how many people they have rendered happy, by

shewing them it was their own fault if they were not so; and, lastly,

how entirely they have convinced our young fops and young fellows of

the value and advantages of Learning.

He has indeed rescued it out of the hands of pedants and fools, and

discovered the true method of making it amiable and lovely to all

mankind. In the dress he gives it, it is a most welcome guest at

tea-tables and assemblies, and is relished and caressed by the

merchants on the Change. Accordingly there is not a Lady at Court, nor

a Banker in Lombard Street, who is not verily persuaded that Captain

Steele is the greatest scholar and best Casuist of any man in England.

Lastly, his writings have set all our Wits and men of letters on a new

way of thinking, of which they had little or no notion before: and,

although we cannot say that any of them have come up to the beauties

of the original, I think we may venture to affirm, that every one of

them writes and thinks much more justly than they did some time since.

The vast variety of subjects which Mr. Steele has treated of, in so

different manners, and yet all so perfectly well, made the World

believe that it was impossible they should all come from the same

hand. This set every one upon guessing who was the Esquire's friend?

and most people at first fancied it must be Doctor Swift; but it is

now no longer a secret, that his only great and constant assistant was

Mr. Addison.

This is that excellent friend to whom Mr. Steele owes so much; and who

refuses to have his name set before those pieces, which the greatest

pens in England would be proud to own. Indeed, they could hardly add

to this Gentleman's reputation: whose works in Latin and English

poetry long since convinced the World, that he was the greatest Master

in Europe in those two languages.

I am assured, from good hands, that all the visions, and other tracts

of that way of writing, with a very great number of the most exquisite

pieces of wit and raillery through the 'Lucubrations' are entirely of

this Gentleman's composing: which may, in some measure, account for

that different Genius, which appears in the winter papers, from those

of the summer; at which time, as the 'Examiner' often hinted, this

friend of Mr. Steele was in Ireland.

Mr. Steele confesses in his last Volume of the 'Tatlers' that he is

obliged to Dr. Swift for his 'Town Shower', and the 'Description of

the Morn', with some other hints received from him in private

conversation.

I have also heard that several of those 'Letters', which came as from

unknown hands, were written by Mr. Henley: which is an answer to your

query, 'Who those friends are whom Mr. Steele speaks of in his last

'Tatler?''

But to proceed with my account of our other papers. The expiration of

'Bickerstaff's Lucubrations' was attended with much the same

consequences as the death of Meliboeus's 'Ox' in Virgil: as the latter

engendered swarms of bees, the former immediately produced whole

swarms of little satirical scribblers.

One of these authors called himself the 'Growler', and assured us

that, to make amends for Mr. Steele's silence, he was resolved to

'growl' at us weekly, as long as we should think fit to give him any

encouragement. Another Gentleman, with more modesty, called his paper

the 'Whisperer'; and a third, to please the Ladies, christened his the

'Tell tale'.

At the same-time came out several 'Tatlers'; each of which, with equal

truth and wit, assured us that he was the genuine 'Isaac Bickerstaff'.

It may be observed that when the 'Esquire' laid down his pen; though

he could not but foresee that several scribblers would soon snatch it

up, which he might (one would think) easily have prevented: he scorned

to take any further care about it, but left the field fairly open to

any worthy successor. Immediately, some of our Wits were for forming

themselves into a Club, headed by one Mr. Harrison, and trying how

they could shoot in this Bow of Ulysses; but soon found that this sort

of writing requires so fine and particular a manner of thinking, with

so exact a knowledge of the World, as must make them utterly despair

of success.

They seemed indeed at first to think that what was only the garnish of

the former 'Tatlers', was that which recommended them; and not those

Substantial Entertainments which they everywhere abound in. According

they were continually talking of their 'Maid', 'Night Cap',

'Spectacles', and Charles Lillie. However there were, now and then,

some faint endeavours at Humour and sparks of Wit: which the Town, for

want of better entertainment, was content to hunt after through a heap

of impertinences; but even those are, at present, become wholly

invisible and quite swallowed up in the blaze of the 'Spectator'.

You may remember, I told you before, that one cause assigned for the

laying down the 'Tatler' was, Want of Matter; and, indeed, this was

the prevailing opinion in Town: when we were surprised all at once by

a paper called the 'Spectator', which was promised to be continued

every day; and was written in so excellent a style, with so nice a

judgment, and such a noble profusion of wit and humour, that it was

not difficult to determine it could come from no other hands but those

which had penned the 'Lucubrations'.

This immediately alarmed these gentlemen, who, as it is said Mr.

Steele phrases it, had 'the Censorship in Commission.' They found the

new 'Spectator' came on like a torrent, and swept away all before him.

They despaired ever to equal him in wit, humour, or learning; which

had been their true and certain way of opposing him: and therefore

rather chose to fall on the Author; and to call out for help to all

good Christians, by assuring them again and again that they were the

First, Original, True, and undisputed 'Isaac Bickerstaff'.

Meanwhile, the 'Spectator', whom we regard as our Shelter from that

flood of false wit and impertinence which was breaking in upon us, is

in every one's hands; and a constant for our morning conversation at

tea-tables and coffee-houses. We had at first, indeed, no manner of

notion how a diurnal paper could be continued in the spirit and style

of our present 'Spectators': but, to our no small surprise, we find

them still rising upon us, and can only wonder from whence so

prodigious a run of Wit and Learning can proceed; since some of our

best judges seem to think that they have hitherto, in general,

outshone even the 'Esquire's' first 'Tatlers'.

Most people fancy, from their frequency, that they must be composed by

a Society: I withal assign the first places to Mr. Steele and his

Friend.

So far John Gay, whose discussion of the 'Tatlers' and 'Spectators'

appeared when only fifty-five numbers of the 'Spectator' had been

published.

There was high strife of faction; and there was real peril to the

country by a possible turn of affairs after Queen Anne's death, that

another Stuart restoration, in the name of divine right of kings, would

leave rights of the people to be reconquered in civil war. The chiefs of

either party were appealing to the people, and engaging all the wit they

could secure to fight on their side in the war of pamphlets. Steele's

heart was in the momentous issue. Both he and Addison had it in mind

while they were blending their calm playfulness with all the clamour of

the press. The spirit in which these friends worked, young Pope must

have felt; for after Addison had helped him in his first approach to

fame by giving honour in the 'Spectator' to his 'Essay on Criticism,'

and when he was thankful for that service, he contributed to the

'Spectator' his 'Messiah.' Such offering clearly showed how Pope

interpreted the labour of the essayists.

In the fens of Lincolnshire the antiquary Maurice Johnson collected his

neighbours of Spalding.

'Taking care,' it is said, 'not to alarm the country gentlemen by any

premature mention of antiquities, he endeavoured at first to allure

them into the more flowery paths of literature. In 1709 a few of them

were brought together every post-day at the coffee-house in the Abbey

Yard; and after one of the party had read aloud the last published

number of the 'Tatler', they proceeded to talk over the subject among

themselves.'

Even in distant Perthshire

'the gentlemen met after church on Sunday to discuss the news of the

week; the 'Spectators' were read as regularly as the 'Journal'.'

So the political draught of bitterness came sweetened with the wisdom of

good-humour. The good-humour of the essayists touched with a light and

kindly hand every form of affectation, and placed every-day life in the

light in which it would be seen by a natural and honest man. A sense of

the essentials of life was assumed everywhere for the reader, who was

asked only to smile charitably at its vanities. Steele looked through

all shams to the natural heart of the Englishman, appealed to that, and

found it easily enough, even under the disguise of the young gentleman

cited in the 77th 'Tatler',

'so ambitious to be thought worse than he is that in his degree of

understanding he sets up for a free-thinker, and talks atheistically

in coffee-houses all day, though every morning and evening, it can be

proved upon him, he regularly at home says his prayers.'

But as public events led nearer to the prospect of a Jacobite triumph

that would have again brought Englishmen against each other sword to

sword, there was no voice of warning more fearless than Richard

Steele's. He changed the 'Spectator' for the 'Guardian', that was to be,

in its plan, more free to guard the people's rights, and, standing

forward more distinctly as a politician, he became member for

Stockbridge. In place of the 'Guardian', which he had dropped when he

felt the plan of that journal unequal to the right and full expression

of his mind, Steele took for a periodical the name of 'Englishman', and

under that name fought, with then unexampled abstinence from

personality, against the principles upheld by Swift in his 'Examiner'.

Then, when the Peace of Utrecht alarmed English patriots, Steele in a

bold pamphlet on 'The Crisis' expressed his dread of arbitrary power and

a Jacobite succession with a boldness that cost him his seat in

Parliament, as he had before sacrificed to plain speaking his place of

Gazetteer.

Of the later history of Steele and Addison a few words will suffice.

This is not an account of their lives, but an endeavour to show why

Englishmen must always have a living interest in the 'Spectator', their

joint production. Steele's 'Spectator' ended with the seventh volume.

The members of the Club were all disposed of, and the journal formally

wound up; but by the suggestion of a future ceremony of opening the

'Spectator's' mouth, a way was made for Addison, whenever he pleased, to

connect with the famous series an attempt of his own for its revival. A

year and a half later Addison made this attempt, producing his new

journal with the old name and, as far as his contributions went, not

less than the old wit and earnestness, three times a week instead of

daily. But he kept it alive only until the completion of one volume.

Addison had not Steele's popular tact as an editor. He preached, and he

suffered drier men to preach, while in his jest he now and then wrote

what he seems to have been unwilling to acknowledge. His eighth volume

contains excellent matter, but the subjects are not always well chosen

or varied judiciously, and one understands why the 'Spectator' took a

firmer hold upon society when the two friends in the full strength of

their life, aged about forty, worked together and embraced between them

a wide range of human thought and feeling. It should be remembered also

that Queen Anne died while Addison's eighth volume was appearing, and

the change in the Whig position brought him other occupation of his time.

In April, 1713, in the interval between the completion of the true

'Spectator' and the appearance of the supplementary volume, Addison's

tragedy of 'Cato', planned at College; begun during his foreign travels,

retouched in England, and at last completed, was produced at Drury Lane.

Addison had not considered it a stage play, but when it was urged that

the time was proper for animating the public with the sentiments of

Cato, he assented to its production. Apart from its real merit the play

had the advantage of being applauded by the Whigs, who saw in it a Whig

political ideal, and by the Tories, who desired to show that they were

as warm friends of liberty as any Whig could be.

Upon the death of Queen Anne Addison acted for a short time as secretary

to the Regency, and when George I. appointed Addison's patron, the Earl

of Sunderland, to the Lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, Sunderland took

Addison with him as chief secretary. Sunderland resigned in ten months,

and thus Addison's secretaryship came to an end in August, 1716. Addison

was also employed to meet the Rebellion of 1715 by writing the

'Freeholder'. He wrote under this title fifty-five papers, which were

published twice a week between December, 1715, and June, 1716; and he

was rewarded with the post of Commissioner for Trade and Colonies. In

August, 1716, he married the Countess Dowager of Warwick, mother to the

young Earl of Warwick, of whose education he seems to have had some

charge in 1708. Addison settled upon the Countess £4000 in lieu of an

estate which she gave up for his sake. Henceforth he lived chiefly at

Holland House. In April, 1717, Lord Sunderland became Secretary of

State, and still mindful of Marlborough's illustrious supporter, he made

Addison his colleague. Eleven months later, ill health obliged Addison

to resign the seals; and his death followed, June 17, 1719, at the age

of 47.

Steele's political difficulties ended at the death of Queen Anne. The

return of the Whigs to power on the accession of George I. brought him

the office of Surveyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court; he was

also first in the Commission of the peace for Middlesex, and was made

one of the deputy lieutenants of the county. At the request of the

managers Steele's name was included in the new patent required at Drury

Lane by the royal company of comedians upon the accession of a new

sovereign. Steele also was returned as M.P. for Boroughbridge, in

Yorkshire, was writer of the Address to the king presented by the

Lord-lieutenant and the deputy lieutenants of Middlesex, and being

knighted on that occasion, with two other of the deputies, became in the

spring of the year, 1714, Sir Richard Steele. Very few weeks after the

death of his wife, in December, 1718, Sunderland, at a time when he had

Addison for colleague, brought in a bill for preventing any future

creations of peers, except when an existing peerage should become

extinct. Steele, who looked upon this as an infringement alike of the

privileges of the crown and of the rights of the subject, opposed the

bill in Parliament, and started in March, 1719, a paper called the

'Plebeian', in which he argued against a measure tending, he said, to

the formation of an oligarchy. Addison replied in the 'Old Whig', and

this, which occurred within a year of the close of Addison's life, was

the main subject of political difference between them. The bill,

strongly opposed, was dropped for that session, and reintroduced (after

Addison's death) in the December following, to be thrown out by the

House of Commons.

Steele's argument against the government brought on him the hostility of

the Duke of Newcastle, then Lord Chamberlain; and it was partly to

defend himself and his brother patentees against hostile action

threatened by the Duke, that Steele, in January, 1720, started his paper

called the 'Theatre'. But he was dispossessed of his government of the

theatre, to which a salary of £600 a-year had been attached, and

suffered by the persecution of the court until Walpole's return to

power. Steele was then restored to his office, and in the following

year, 1722, produced his most successful comedy, 'The Conscious Lovers'.

After this time his health declined; his spirits were depressed. He left

London for Bath. His only surviving son, Eugene, born while the

'Spectator' was being issued, and to whom Prince Eugene had stood

godfather, died at the age of eleven or twelve in November, 1723. The

younger also of his two daughters was marked for death by consumption.

He was broken in health and fortune when, in 1726, he had an attack of

palsy which was the prelude to his death. He died Sept. 1, 1729, at

Carmarthen, where he had been boarding with a mercer who was his agent

and receiver of rents. There is a pleasant record that

'he retained his cheerful sweetness of temper to the last; and would

often be carried out, of a summer's evening, where the country lads

and lasses were assembled at their rural sports,--and, with his

pencil, gave an order on his agent, the mercer, for a new gown to the

best dancer.'

Two editions of the 'Spectator', the tenth and eleventh, were published

by Tonson in the year of Steele's death. These and the next edition,

dated 1739, were without the translations of the mottos, which appear,

however, in the edition of 1744. Notes were first added by Dr. Percy,

the editor of the 'Reliques of Ancient Poetry', and Dr. Calder. Dr. John

Calder, a native of Aberdeen, bred to the dissenting ministry, was for

some time keeper of Dr. Williams's Library in Redcross Street. He was a

candidate for the office given to Dr. Abraham Rees, of editor and

general super-intendent of the new issue of Chambers's Cyclopædia,

undertaken by the booksellers in 1776, and he supplied to it some new

articles. The Duke of Northumberland warmly patronized Dr. Calder, and

made him his companion in London and at Alnwick Castle as Private

Literary Secretary. Dr. Thomas Percy, who had constituted himself cousin

and retainer to the Percy of Northumberland, obtained his bishopric of

Dromore in 1782, in the following year lost his only son, and suffered

from that failure in eyesight, which resulted in a total blindness.

Having become intimately acquainted with Dr. Calder when at

Northumberland House and Alnwick, Percy intrusted to him the notes he

had collected for illustrating the 'Tatler', 'Spectator', and

'Guardian'. These were after-wards used, with additions by Dr. Calder,

in the various editions of those works, especially in the six-volume

edition of the 'Tatler', published by John Nichols in 1786, where

Percy's notes have a P. attached to them, and Dr. Calder's are signed

'Annotator.' The 'Tatler' was annotated fully, and the annotated

'Tatler' has supplied some pieces of information given in the present

edition of the 'Spectator'. Percy actually edited two volumes for R.

Tonson in 1764, but the work was stopped by the death of the bookseller,

and the other six were added to them in 1789. They were slightly

annotated, both as regards the number and the value of the notes; but

Percy and Calder lived when 'Spectator' traditions were yet fresh, and

oral information was accessible as to points of personal allusion or as

to the authorship of a few papers or letters which but for them might

have remained anonymous. Their notes are those of which the substance

has run through all subsequent editions. Little, if anything, was added

to them by Bisset or Chalmers; the energies of those editors having been

chiefly directed to the preserving or multiplying of corruptions of the

text. Percy, when telling Tonson that he had completed two volumes of

the 'Spectator', said that he had corrected 'innumerable corruptions'

which had then crept in, and could have come only by misprint. Since

that time not only have misprints been preserved and multiplied, but

punctuation has been deliberately modernized, to the destruction of the

freshness of the original style, and editors of another 'understanding

age' have also taken upon themselves by many a little touch to correct

Addison's style or grammar.

This volume reprints for the first time in the present century the text

of the 'Spectator' as its authors left it. A good recent edition

contains in the first 18 papers, which are a fair sample of the whole,

88 petty variations from the proper text (at that rate, in the whole

work more than 3000) apart from the recasting of the punctuation, which

is counted as a defect only in two instances, where it has changed the

sense. Chalmers's text, of 1817, was hardly better, and about two-thirds

of the whole number of corruptions had already appeared in Bisset's

edition of 1793, from which they were transferred. Thus Bisset as well

as Chalmers in the Dedication to Vol. I. turned the 'polite _parts_ of

learning' into the 'polite _arts_ of learning,' and when the silent

gentleman tells us that many to whom his person is well known speak of

him 'very currently by Mr. What-d'ye-call him,' Bisset before Chalmers

rounded the sentence into 'very correctly by _the appellation_ of Mr.

What-d'ye-call him.' But it seems to have been Chalmers who first

undertook to correct, in the next paper, Addison's grammar, by turning

'have laughed _to have seen_' into 'have laughed _to see_' and

transformed a treaty '_with_ London and Wise,'--a firm now of historical

repute,--for the supply of flowers to the opera, into a treaty

'_between_ London and Wise,' which most people would take to be a very

different matter. If the present edition has its own share of misprints

and oversights, at least it inherits none; and it contains no wilful

alteration of the text.

The papers as they first appeared in the daily issue of a penny (and

after the stamp was imposed two-penny) folio half-sheet, have been

closely compared with the first issue in guinea octavos, for which they

were revised, and with the last edition that appeared before the death

of Steele. The original text is here given precisely as it was left

after revision by its authors; and there is shown at the same time the

amount and character of the revision.

Sentences added in the reprint are placed between square brackets [ ],

without any appended note.

Sentences omitted, or words altered, are shown by bracketing the revised

version, and giving the text as it stood in the original daily issue

within corresponding brackets as a foot-note.[1]

Thus the reader has here both the original texts of the 'Spectator'. The

Essays, as revised by their authors for permanent use, form the main

text of the present volume.

But if the words or passages in brackets be omitted; the words or

passages in corresponding foot-notes,--where there are such

foot-notes,--being substituted for them; the text becomes throughout

that of the 'Spectator' as it first came out in daily numbers.

As the few differences between good spelling in Queen Anne's time and

good spelling now are never of a kind to obscure the sense of a word, or

lessen the enjoyment of the reader, it has been thought better to make

the reproduction perfect, and thus show not only what Steele and Addison

wrote, but how they spelt, while restoring to their style the proper

harmony of their own methods of punctuating, and their way of sometimes

getting emphasis by turning to account the use of capitals, which in

their hands was not wholly conventional.

The original folio numbers have been followed also in the use of

_italics_ [_shown between underscored thus_] and other little details of

the disposition of the type; for example, in the reproduction of those

rows of single inverted commas, which distinguish what a correspondent

called the parts 'laced down the side with little c's.' [This last

detail of formatting has not been reproduced in this file. Text Ed.]

The translation of the mottos and Latin quotations, which Steele and

Addison deliberately abstained from giving, and which, as they were

since added, impede and sometimes confound and contradict the text, are

here placed in a body at the end, for those who want them. Again and

again the essayists indulge in banter on the mystery of the Latin and

Greek mottos; and what confusion must enter into the mind of the unwary

reader who finds Pope's Homer quoted at the head of a 'Spectator' long

before Addison's word of applause to the young poet's 'Essay on

Criticism.' The mottos then are placed in an Appendix.

There is a short Appendix also of advertisements taken from the original

number of the 'Spectator', and a few others, where they seem to

illustrate some point in the text, will be found among the notes.

In the large number of notes here added to a revision of those

bequeathed to us by Percy and Calder, the object has been to give

information which may contribute to some nearer acquaintance with the

writers of the book, and enjoyment of allusions to past manners and

events.

Finally, from the 'General Index to the Spectators, &c.,' published as a

separate volume in 1760, there has been taken what was serviceable, and

additions have been made to it with a desire to secure for this edition

of the 'Spectator' the advantages of being handy for reference as well

as true to the real text.

H. M.

[Footnote 1: "Sentences omitted, or words altered;" not, of course, the

immaterial variations of spelling into which compositors slipped in the

printing office. In the 'Athenaeum' of May 12, 1877, is an answer to

misapprehensions on this head by the editor of a Clarendon Press volume

of 'Selections from Addison'.]

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

JOHN LORD SOMMERS,

BARON OF EVESHAM. [1]

My LORD,

I should not act the Part of an impartial Spectator, if I Dedicated the

following Papers to one who is not of the most consummate and most

acknowledged Merit.

None but a person of a finished Character can be the proper Patron of a

Work, which endeavours to Cultivate and Polish Human Life, by promoting

Virtue and Knowledge, and by recommending whatsoever may be either

Useful or Ornamental to Society.

I know that the Homage I now pay You, is offering a kind of Violence to

one who is as solicitous to shun Applause, as he is assiduous to deserve

it. But, my Lord, this is perhaps the only Particular in which your

Prudence will be always disappointed.

While Justice, Candour, Equanimity, a Zeal for the Good of your Country,

and the most persuasive Eloquence in bringing over others to it, are

valuable Distinctions, You are not to expect that the Publick will so

far comply with your Inclinations, as to forbear celebrating such

extraordinary Qualities. It is in vain that You have endeavoured to

conceal your Share of Merit, in the many National Services which You

have effected. Do what You will, the present Age will be talking of your

Virtues, tho' Posterity alone will do them Justice.

Other Men pass through Oppositions and contending Interests in the ways

of Ambition, but Your Great Abilities have been invited to Power, and

importuned to accept of Advancement. Nor is it strange that this should

happen to your Lordship, who could bring into the Service of Your

Sovereign the Arts and Policies of Ancient 'Greece' and 'Rome'; as well

as the most exact knowledge of our own Constitution in particular, and

of the interests of 'Europe' in general; to which I must also add, a

certain Dignity in Yourself, that (to say the least of it) has been

always equal to those great Honours which have been conferred upon You.

It is very well known how much the Church owed to You in the most

dangerous Day it ever saw, that of the Arraignment of its Prelates; and

how far the Civil Power, in the Late and present Reign, has been

indebted to your Counsels and Wisdom.

But to enumerate the great Advantages which the publick has received

from your Administration, would be a more proper Work for an History,

than an Address of this Nature.

Your Lordship appears as great in your Private Life, as in the most

Important Offices which You have born. I would therefore rather chuse to

speak of the Pleasure You afford all who are admitted into your

Conversation, of Your Elegant Taste in all the Polite Parts of Learning,

of Your great Humanity and Complacency of Manners, and of the surprising

Influence which is peculiar to You in making every one who Converses

with your Lordship prefer You to himself, without thinking the less

meanly of his own Talents. But if I should take notice of all that might

be observed in your Lordship, I should have nothing new to say upon any

other Character of Distinction.

I am,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's

Most Obedient,

Most Devoted

Humble Servant,

THE SPECTATOR.

[Footnote 1: In 1695, when a student at Oxford, aged 23, Joseph Addison

had dedicated 'to the Right Honourable Sir George Somers, Lord Keeper of

the Great Seal,' a poem written in honour of King William III. after his

capture of Namur in sight of the whole French Army under Villeroi. This

was Addison's first bid for success in Literature; and the twenty-seven

lines in which he then asked Somers to 'receive the present of a Muse

unknown,' were honourably meant to be what Dr. Johnson called 'a kind of

rhyming introduction to Lord Somers.' If you, he said to Somers then--

'If you, well pleas'd, shall smile upon my lays,

Secure of fame, my voice I'll boldly raise,

For next to what you write, is what you praise.'

Somers did smile, and at once held out to Addison his helping hand.

Mindful of this, and of substantial friendship during the last seventeen

years, Addison joined Steele in dedicating to his earliest patron the

first volume of the Essays which include his best security of fame.

At that time, John Somers, aged 61, and retired from political life, was

weak in health and high in honours earned by desert only. He was the son

of an attorney at Worcester, rich enough to give him a liberal education

at his City Grammar School and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was

entered as a Gentleman Commoner. He left the University, without taking

a degree, to practise law. Having a strong bent towards Literature as

well as a keen, manly interest in the vital questions which concerned

the liberties of England under Charles the Second, he distinguished

himself by political tracts which maintained constitutional rights. He

rose at the bar to honour and popularity, especially after his pleading

as junior counsel for Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Six

Bishops, Lloyd, Turner, Lake, Ken, White, and Trelawney, who signed the

petition against the King's order for reading in all churches a

Declaration for Liberty of Conscience, which they said 'was founded upon

such a dispensing power as hath been often declared illegal in

Parliament.' Somers earned the gratitude of a people openly and loudly

triumphing in the acquittal of the Seven Bishops. He was active also in

co-operation with those who were planning the expulsion of the Stuarts

and the bringing over of the Prince of Orange. During the Interregnum

he, and at the same time also Charles Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax,

first entered Parliament. He was at the conference with the Lords upon

the question of declaring the Throne vacant. As Chairman of the

Committee appointed for the purpose, it was Somers who drew up the

Declaration of Right, which, in placing the Prince and Princess of

Orange on the throne, set forth the grounds of the Revolution and

asserted against royal encroachment the ancient rights and liberties of

England. For these services and for his rare ability as a constitutional

lawyer, King William, in the first year of his reign, made Somers

Solicitor-General. In 1692 he became Attorney-General as Sir John

Somers, and soon afterwards, in March 1692-3, the Great Seal, which had

been four years in Commission, was delivered to his keeping, with a

patent entitling him to a pension of £2000 a year from the day he

quitted office. He was then also sworn in as Privy Councillor. In April

1697 Somers as Lord Keeper delivered up the Great Seal, and received it

back with the higher title of Lord Chancellor. He was at the same time

created Baron Somers of Evesham; Crown property was also given to him to

support his dignity. One use that he made of his influence was to

procure young Addison a pension, that he might be forwarded in service

of the State. Party spirit among his political opponents ran high

against Somers. At the close of 1699 they had a majority in the Commons,

and deprived him of office, but they failed before the Lords in an

impeachment against him. In Queen Anne's reign, between 1708 and 1710,

the constitutional statesman, long infirm of health, who had been in

retirement serving Science as President of the Royal Society, was

serving the State as President of the Council. But in 1712, when Addison

addressed to him this Dedication of the first Volume of the first

reprint of 'the Spectator', he had withdrawn from public life, and four

years afterwards he died of a stroke of apoplexy.

Of Somers as a patron Lord Macaulay wrote:

'He had traversed the whole vast range of polite literature, ancient

and modern. He was at once a munificent and a severely judicious

patron of genius and learning. Locke owed opulence to Somers. By

Somers Addison was drawn forth from a cell in a college. In distant

countries the name of Somers was mentioned with respect and gratitude

by great scholars and poets who had never seen his face. He was the

benefactor of Leclerc. He was the friend of Filicaja. Neither

political nor religious differences prevented him from extending his

powerful protection to merit. Hickes, the fiercest and most intolerant

of all the non-jurors, obtained, by the influence of Somers,

permission to study Teutonic antiquities in freedom and safety.

Vertue, a Strict Roman Catholic, was raised, by the discriminating and

liberal patronage of Somers, from poverty and obscurity to the first

rank among the engravers of the age.']

* * * * *

No. 1. Thursday, March 1, 1711. Addison.

'Non fumum ex fulgore, sed ex fumo dare lucem

Cogitat, ut speciosa dehinc miracula promat.'

Hor.

I have observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure 'till

he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or

cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of

the like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an

Author. To gratify this Curiosity, which is so natural to a Reader, I

design this Paper, and my next, as Prefatory Discourses to my following

Writings, and shall give some Account in them of the several persons

that are engaged in this Work. As the chief trouble of Compiling,

Digesting, and Correcting will fall to my Share, I must do myself the

Justice to open the Work with my own History.

I was born to a small Hereditary Estate, which [according to the

tradition of the village where it lies, [1]] was bounded by the same

Hedges and Ditches in _William_ the Conqueror's Time that it is at

present, and has been delivered down from Father to Son whole and

entire, without the Loss or Acquisition of a single Field or Meadow,

during the Space of six hundred Years. There [runs [2]] a Story in the

Family, that when my Mother was gone with Child of me about three

Months, she dreamt that she was brought to Bed of a Judge. Whether this

might proceed from a Law-suit which was then depending in the Family, or

my Father's being a Justice of the Peace, I cannot determine; for I am

not so vain as to think it presaged any Dignity that I should arrive at

in my future Life, though that was the Interpretation which the

Neighbourhood put upon it. The Gravity of my Behaviour at my very first

Appearance in the World, and all the Time that I sucked, seemed to

favour my Mother's Dream: For, as she has often told me, I threw away my

Rattle before I was two Months old, and would not make use of my Coral

till they had taken away the Bells from it.

As for the rest of my Infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I

shall pass it over in Silence. I find that, during my Nonage, I had the

reputation of a very sullen Youth, but was always a Favourite of my

School-master, who used to say, _that my parts were solid, and would

wear well_. I had not been long at the University, before I

distinguished myself by a most profound Silence: For, during the Space

of eight Years, excepting in the publick Exercises of the College, I

scarce uttered the Quantity of an hundred Words; and indeed do not

remember that I ever spoke three Sentences together in my whole Life.

Whilst I was in this Learned Body, I applied myself with so much

Diligence to my Studies, that there are very few celebrated Books,

either in the Learned or the Modern Tongues, which I am not acquainted

with.

Upon the Death of my Father I was resolved to travel into Foreign

Countries, and therefore left the University, with the Character of an

odd unaccountable Fellow, that had a great deal of Learning, if I would

but show it. An insatiable Thirst after Knowledge carried me into all

the Countries of _Europe_, [in which [3]] there was any thing new or

strange to be seen; nay, to such a Degree was my curiosity raised, that

having read the controversies of some great Men concerning the

Antiquities of _Egypt_, I made a Voyage to _Grand Cairo_, on purpose to

take the Measure of a Pyramid; and, as soon as I had set my self right

in that Particular, returned to my Native Country with great

Satisfaction. [4]

I have passed my latter Years in this City, where I am frequently seen

in most publick Places, tho' there are not above half a dozen of my

select Friends that know me; of whom my next Paper shall give a more

particular Account. There is no place of [general [5]] Resort wherein I

do not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my Head

into a Round of Politicians at _Will's_ [6] and listning with great

Attention to the Narratives that are made in those little Circular

Audiences. Sometimes I smoak a Pipe at _Child's_; [7] and, while I seem

attentive to nothing but the _Post-Man_, [8] over-hear the Conversation

of every Table in the Room. I appear on _Sunday_ nights at _St. James's_

Coffee House, [9] and sometimes join the little Committee of Politicks

in the Inner-Room, as one who comes there to hear and improve. My Face

is likewise very well known at the _Grecian_, [10] the _Cocoa-Tree_,

[11] and in the Theaters both of _Drury Lane_ and the _Hay-Market_. [12]

I have been taken for a Merchant upon the _Exchange_ for above these ten

Years, and sometimes pass for a _Jew_ in the Assembly of Stock-jobbers

at _Jonathan's_. [13] In short, where-ever I see a Cluster of People, I

always mix with them, tho' I never open my Lips but in my own Club.

Thus I live in the World, rather as a Spectator of Mankind, than as one

of the Species; by which means I have made my self a Speculative

Statesman, Soldier, Merchant, and Artizan, without ever medling with any

Practical Part in Life. I am very well versed in the Theory of an

Husband, or a Father, and can discern the Errors in the Oeconomy,

Business, and Diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in

them; as Standers-by discover Blots, which are apt to escape those who

are in the Game. I never espoused any Party with Violence, and am

resolved to observe an exact Neutrality between the Whigs and Tories,

unless I shall be forc'd to declare myself by the Hostilities of either

side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my Life as a Looker-on,

which is the Character I intend to preserve in this Paper.

I have given the Reader just so much of my History and Character, as to

let him see I am not altogether unqualified for the Business I have

undertaken. As for other Particulars in my Life and Adventures, I shall

insert them in following Papers, as I shall see occasion. In the mean

time, when I consider how much I have seen, read, and heard, I begin to

blame my own Taciturnity; and since I have neither Time nor Inclination

to communicate the Fulness of my Heart in Speech, I am resolved to do it

in Writing; and to Print my self out, if possible, before I Die. I have

been often told by my Friends that it is Pity so many useful Discoveries

which I have made, should be in the Possession of a Silent Man. For this

Reason therefore, I shall publish a Sheet full of Thoughts every

Morning, for the Benefit of my Contemporaries; and if I can any way

contribute to the Diversion or Improvement of the Country in which I

live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret

Satisfaction of thinking that I have not Lived in vain.

There are three very material Points which I have not spoken to in this

Paper, and which, for several important Reasons, I must keep to my self,

at least for some Time: I mean, an Account of my Name, my Age, and my

Lodgings. I must confess I would gratify my Reader in any thing that is

reasonable; but as for these three Particulars, though I am sensible

they might tend very much to the Embellishment of my Paper, I cannot yet

come to a Resolution of communicating them to the Publick. They would

indeed draw me out of that Obscurity which I have enjoyed for many

Years, and expose me in Publick Places to several Salutes and

Civilities, which have been always very disagreeable to me; for the

greatest [pain] I can suffer, [is [14]] the being talked to, and being

stared at. It is for this Reason likewise, that I keep my Complexion and

Dress, as very great Secrets; tho' it is not impossible, but I may make

Discoveries of both in the Progress of the Work I have undertaken.

After having been thus particular upon my self, I shall in to-Morrow's

Paper give an Account of those Gentlemen who are concerned with me in

this Work. For, as I have before intimated, a Plan of it is laid and

concerted (as all other Matters of Importance are) in a Club. However,

as my Friends have engaged me to stand in the Front, those who have a

mind to correspond with me, may direct their Letters _To the Spectator_,

at Mr. _Buckley's_, in _Little Britain_ [15]. For I must further

acquaint the Reader, that tho' our Club meets only on _Tuesdays_ and

_Thursdays_, we have appointed a Committee to sit every Night, for the

Inspection of all such Papers as may contribute to the Advancement of

the Public Weal.

C. [16]

[Footnote 1: I find by the writings of the family,]

[Footnote 2: goes]

[Footnote 3: where]

[Footnote 4: This is said to allude to a description of the Pyramids of

Egypt, by John Greaves, a Persian scholar and Savilian Professor of

Astronomy at Oxford, who studied the principle of weights and measures

in the Roman Foot and the Denarius, and whose visit to the Pyramids in

1638, by aid of his patron Laud, was described in his 'Pyramidographia.'

That work had been published in 1646, sixty-five years before the

appearance of the 'Spectator', and Greaves died in 1652. But in 1706

appeared a tract, ascribed to him by its title-page, and popular enough

to have been reprinted in 1727 and 1745, entitled, 'The Origine and

Antiquity of our English Weights and Measures discovered by their near

agreement with such Standards that are now found in one of the Egyptian

Pyramids.' It based its arguments on measurements in the

'Pyramidographia,' and gave to Professor Greaves, in Addison's time, the

same position with regard to Egypt that has been taken in our time by

the Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, Professor Piazzi Smyth.]

[Footnote 5: publick]

[Footnote 6: 'Will's' Coffee House, which had been known successively as

the 'Red Cow' and the 'Rose' before it took a permanent name from Will

Urwin, its proprietor, was the corner house on the north side of Russell

Street, at the end of Bow Street, now No. 21. Dryden's use of this

Coffee House caused the wits of the town to resort there, and after

Dryden's death, in 1700, it remained for some years the Wits' Coffee

House. There the strong interest in current politics took chiefly the

form of satire, epigram, or entertaining narrative. Its credit was

already declining in the days of the 'Spectator'; wit going out and

card-play coming in.]

[Footnote 7: 'Child's' Coffee House was in St. Paul's Churchyard.

Neighbourhood to the Cathedral and Doctors' Commons made it a place of

resort for the Clergy. The College of Physicians had been first

established in Linacre's House, No. 5, Knightrider Street, Doctors'

Commons, whence it had removed to Amen Corner, and thence in 1674 to the

adjacent Warwick Lane. The Royal Society, until its removal in 1711 to

Crane Court, Fleet Street, had its rooms further east, at Gresham

College. Physicians, therefore, and philosophers, as well as the clergy,

used 'Child's' as a convenient place of resort.]

[Footnote 8: The 'Postman', established and edited by M. Fonvive, a

learned and grave French Protestant, who was said to make £600 a year by

it, was a penny paper in the highest repute, Fonvive having secured for

his weekly chronicle of foreign news a good correspondence in Italy,

Spain, Portugal, Germany, Flanders, Holland. John Dunton, the

bookseller, in his 'Life and Errors,' published in 1705, thus

characterized the chief newspapers of the day:

'the 'Observator' is best to towel the Jacks, the 'Review' is best to

promote peace, the 'Flying Post' is best for the Scotch news, the

'Postboy' is best for the English and Spanish news, the 'Daily

Courant' is the best critic, the 'English Post' is the best collector,

the 'London Gazette' has the best authority, and the 'Postman' is the

best for everything.']

[Footnote 9: 'St. James's' Coffee House was the last house but one on

the south-west corner of St. James's Street; closed about 1806. On its

site is now a pile of buildings looking down Pall Mall. Near St. James's

Palace, it was a place of resort for Whig officers of the Guards and men

of fashion. It was famous also in Queen Anne's reign, and long after, as

the house most favoured Whig statesmen and members of Parliament, who

could there privately discuss their party tactics.]

[Footnote 10: The 'Grecian' Coffee House was in Devereux Court, Strand,

and named from a Greek, Constantine, who kept it. Close to the Temple,

it was a place of resort for the lawyers. Constantine's Greek had

tempted also Greek scholars to the house, learned Professors and Fellows

of the Royal Society. Here, it is said, two friends quarrelled so

bitterly over a Greek accent that they went out into Devereux Court and

fought a duel, in which one was killed on the spot.]

[Footnote 11: The 'Cocoa Tree' was a Chocolate House in St. James's

Street, used by Tory statesmen and men of fashion as exclusively as 'St.

James's' Coffee House, in the same street, was used by Whigs of the same

class. It afterwards became a Tory club.]

[Footnote 12: Drury Lane had a theatre in Shakespeare's time, 'the

Phoenix,' called also 'the Cockpit.' It was destroyed in 1617 by a

Puritan mob, re-built, and occupied again till the stoppage of

stage-plays in 1648. In that theatre Marlowe's 'Jew of Malta,'

Massinger's 'New Way to Pay Old Debts,' and other pieces of good

literature, were first produced. Its players under James I. were 'the

Queen's servants.' In 1656 Davenant broke through the restriction upon

stage-plays, and took actors and musicians to 'the Cockpit,' from

Aldersgate Street. After the Restoration, Davenant having obtained a

patent, occupied, in Portugal Row, the Lincoln's Inn Theatre, and

afterwards one on the site of Dorset House, west of Whitefriars, the

last theatre to which people went in boats. Sir William Davenant, under

the patronage of the Duke of York, called his the Duke's Players. Thomas

Killigrew then had 'the Cockpit' in Drury Lane, his company being that

of the King's Players, and it was Killigrew who, dissatisfied with the

old 'Cockpit,' opened, in 1663, the first 'Drury Lane Theatre', nearly

upon the site now occupied by D.L. No. 4. The original theatre, burnt in

1671-2, was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren, and opened in 1674 with a

Prologue by Dryden. That (D.L. No. 2) was the house visited by 'the

Spectator'. It required rebuilding in 1741 (D.L. No. 3); and was burnt

down, and again rebuilt, in 1809, as we now have it (D.L. No. 4). There

was no Covent Garden Theatre till after 'the Spectator's' time, in 1733,

when that house was first opened by Rich, the harlequin, under the

patent granted to the Duke's Company.

In 1711 the other great house was the theatre in the Haymarket, recently

built by Sir John Vanbrugh, author of 'The Provoked Wife,' and architect

of Blenheim. This 'Haymarket Theatre', on the site of that known as 'Her

Majesty's,' was designed and opened by Vanbrugh in 1706, thirty persons

of quality having subscribed a hundred pounds each towards the cost of

it. He and Congreve were to write the plays, and Betterton was to take

charge of their performance. The speculation was a failure; partly

because the fields and meadows of the west end of the town cut off the

poorer playgoers of the City, who could not afford coach-hire; partly

because the house was too large, and its architecture swallowed up the

voices of the actors. Vanbrugh and Congreve opened their grand west-end

theatre with concession to the new taste of the fashionable for Italian

Opera. They began with a translated opera set to Italian music, which

ran only for three nights. Sir John Vanbrugh then produced his comedy of

'The Confederacy,' with less success than it deserved. In a few months

Congreve abandoned his share in the undertaking. Vanbrugh proceeded to

adapt for his new house three plays of Molière. Then Vanbrugh, still

failing, let the Haymarket to Mr. Owen Swiney, a trusted agent of the

manager of 'Drury Lane', who was to allow him to draw what actors he

pleased from 'Drury Lane' and divide profits. The recruited actors in

the 'Haymarket' had better success. The secret league between the two

theatres was broken. In 1707 the 'Haymarket' was supported by a

subscription headed by Lord Halifax. But presently a new joint patentee

brought energy into the counsels of 'Drury Lane'. Amicable restoration

was made to the Theatre Royal of the actors under Swiney at the

'Haymarket'; and to compensate Swiney for his loss of profit, it was

agreed that while 'Drury Lane' confined itself to the acting of plays,

he should profit by the new taste for Italian music, and devote the

house in the 'Haymarket' to opera. Swiney was content. The famous singer

Nicolini had come over, and the town was impatient to hear him. This

compact held for a short time. It was broken then by quarrels behind the

scenes. In 1709 Wilks, Dogget, Cibber, and Mrs. Oldfield treated with

Swiney to be sharers with him in the 'Haymarket' as heads of a dramatic

company. They contracted the width of the theatre, brought down its

enormously high ceiling, thus made the words of the plays audible, and

had the town to themselves, till a lawyer, Mr. William Collier, M.P. for

Truro, in spite of the counter-attraction of the trial of Sacheverell,

obtained a license to open 'Drury Lane', and produced an actress who

drew money to Charles Shadwell's comedy, 'The Fair Quaker of Deal.' At

the close of the season Collier agreed with Swiney and his

actor-colleagues to give up to them 'Drury Lane' with its actors, take

in exchange the 'Haymarket' with its singers, and be sole Director of

the Opera; the actors to pay Collier two hundred a year for the use of

his license, and to close their house on the Wednesdays when an opera

was played.

This was the relative position of 'Drury Lane' and the 'Haymarket'

theatres when the 'Spectator' first appeared. 'Drury Lane' had entered

upon a long season of greater prosperity than it had enjoyed for thirty

years before. Collier, not finding the 'Haymarket' as prosperous as it

was fashionable, was planning a change of place with Swiney, and he so

contrived, by lawyer's wit and court influence, that in the winter

following 1711 Collier was at Drury Lane with a new license for himself,

Wilks, Dogget, and Cibber; while Swiney, transferred to the Opera, was

suffering a ruin that caused him to go abroad, and be for twenty years

afterwards an exile from his country.]

[Footnote 13: 'Jonathan's' Coffee House, in Change Alley, was the place

of resort for stock-jobbers. It was to 'Garraway's', also in Change

Alley, that people of quality on business in the City, or the wealthy

and reputable citizens, preferred to go.]

[Footnote 14: pains ... are.]

[Footnote 15: 'The Spectator' in its first daily issue was 'Printed for

'Sam. Buckley', at the 'Dolphin' in 'Little Britain'; and sold by 'A.

Baldwin' in 'Warwick Lane'.']

[Footnote 16: The initials appended to the papers in their daily issue

were placed, in a corner of the page, after the printer's name.]

* * * * *

No. 2. Friday, March 2, 1711. Steele.

... Ast Alii sex

Et plures uno conclamant ore.

Juv.

The first of our Society is a Gentleman of _Worcestershire_, of antient

Descent, a Baronet, his Name Sir ROGER DE COVERLY. [1] His great

Grandfather was Inventor of that famous Country-Dance which is call'd

after him. All who know that Shire are very well acquainted with the

Parts and Merits of Sir ROGER. He is a Gentleman that is very singular

in his Behaviour, but his Singularities proceed from his good Sense, and

are Contradictions to the Manners of the World, only as he thinks the

World is in the wrong. However, this Humour creates him no Enemies, for

he does nothing with Sourness or Obstinacy; and his being unconfined to

Modes and Forms, makes him but the readier and more capable to please

and oblige all who know him. When he is in town he lives in _Soho

Square_: [2] It is said, he keeps himself a Batchelour by reason he was

crossed in Love by a perverse beautiful Widow of the next County to him.

Before this Disappointment, Sir ROGER was what you call a fine

Gentleman, had often supped with my Lord _Rochester_ [3] and Sir _George

Etherege_, [4] fought a Duel upon his first coming to Town, and kick'd

Bully _Dawson_ [5] in a publick Coffee-house for calling him Youngster.

But being ill-used by the above-mentioned Widow, he was very serious for

a Year and a half; and tho' his Temper being naturally jovial, he at

last got over it, he grew careless of himself and never dressed

afterwards; he continues to wear a Coat and Doublet of the same Cut that

were in Fashion at the Time of his Repulse, which, in his merry Humours,

he tells us, has been in and out twelve Times since he first wore it.

'Tis said Sir ROGER grew humble in his Desires after he had forgot this

cruel Beauty, insomuch that it is reported he has frequently offended in

Point of Chastity with Beggars and Gypsies: but this is look'd upon by

his Friends rather as Matter of Raillery than Truth. He is now in his

Fifty-sixth Year, cheerful, gay, and hearty, keeps a good House in both

Town and Country; a great Lover of Mankind; but there is such a mirthful

Cast in his Behaviour, that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His

Tenants grow rich, his Servants look satisfied, all the young Women

profess Love to him, and the young Men are glad of his Company: When he

comes into a House he calls the Servants by their Names, and talks all

the way Up Stairs to a Visit. I must not omit that Sir ROGER is a

Justice of the _Quorum_; that he fills the chair at a Quarter-Session

with great Abilities, and three Months ago, gained universal Applause by

explaining a Passage in the Game-Act.

The Gentleman next in Esteem and Authority among us, is another

Batchelour, who is a Member of the _Inner Temple_: a Man of great

Probity, Wit, and Understanding; but he has chosen his Place of

Residence rather to obey the Direction of an old humoursome Father, than

in pursuit of his own Inclinations. He was plac'd there to study the

Laws of the Land, and is the most learned of any of the House in those

of the Stage. _Aristotle_ and _Longinus_ are much better understood by

him than _Littleton_ or _Cooke_. The Father sends up every Post

Questions relating to Marriage-Articles, Leases, and Tenures, in the

Neighbourhood; all which Questions he agrees with an Attorney to answer

and take care of in the Lump. He is studying the Passions themselves,

when he should be inquiring into the Debates among Men which arise from

them. He knows the Argument of each of the Orations of _Demosthenes_ and

_Tully_, but not one Case in the Reports of our own Courts. No one ever

took him for a Fool, but none, except his intimate Friends, know he has

a great deal of Wit. This Turn makes him at once both disinterested and

agreeable: As few of his Thoughts are drawn from Business, they are most

of them fit for Conversation. His Taste of Books is a little too just

for the Age he lives in; he has read all, but Approves of very few. His

Familiarity with the Customs, Manners, Actions, and Writings of the

Antients, makes him a very delicate Observer of what occurs to him in

the present World. He is an excellent Critick, and the Time of the Play

is his Hour of Business; exactly at five he passes through _New Inn_,

crosses through _Russel Court_; and takes a turn at _Will's_ till the

play begins; he has his shoes rubb'd and his Perriwig powder'd at the

Barber's as you go into the Rose [6]--It is for the Good of the Audience

when he is at a Play, for the Actors have an Ambition to please him.

The Person of next Consideration is Sir ANDREW FREEPORT, a Merchant of

great Eminence in the City of _London_: A Person of indefatigable

Industry, strong Reason, and great Experience. His Notions of Trade are

noble and generous, and (as every rich Man has usually some sly Way of

Jesting, which would make no great Figure were he not a rich Man) he

calls the Sea the _British Common_. He is acquainted with Commerce in

all its Parts, and will tell you that it is a stupid and barbarous Way

to extend Dominion by Arms; for true Power is to be got by Arts and

Industry. He will often argue, that if this Part of our Trade were well

cultivated, we should gain from one Nation; and if another, from

another. I have heard him prove that Diligence makes more lasting

Acquisitions than Valour, and that Sloth has ruin'd more Nations than

the Sword. He abounds in several frugal Maxims, amongst which the

greatest Favourite is, 'A Penny saved is a Penny got.' A General Trader

of good Sense is pleasanter Company than a general Scholar; and Sir

ANDREW having a natural unaffected Eloquence, the Perspicuity of his

Discourse gives the same Pleasure that Wit would in another Man. He has

made his Fortunes himself; and says that _England_ may be richer than

other Kingdoms, by as plain Methods as he himself is richer than other

Men; tho' at the same Time I can say this of him, that there is not a

point in the Compass, but blows home a Ship in which he is an Owner.

Next to Sir ANDREW in the Club-room sits Captain SENTRY, [7] a Gentleman

of great Courage, good Understanding, but Invincible Modesty. He is one

of those that deserve very well, but are very awkward at putting their

Talents within the Observation of such as should take notice of them. He

was some Years a Captain, and behaved himself with great Gallantry in

several Engagements, and at several Sieges; but having a small Estate of

his own, and being next Heir to Sir ROGER, he has quitted a Way of Life

in which no Man can rise suitably to his Merit, who is not something of

a Courtier, as well as a Soldier. I have heard him often lament, that in

a Profession where Merit is placed in so conspicuous a View, Impudence

should get the better of Modesty. When he has talked to this Purpose, I

never heard him make a sour Expression, but frankly confess that he left

the World, because he was not fit for it. A strict Honesty and an even

regular Behaviour, are in themselves Obstacles to him that must press

through Crowds who endeavour at the same End with himself, the Favour of

a Commander. He will, however, in this Way of Talk, excuse Generals, for

not disposing according to Men's Desert, or enquiring into it: For, says

he, that great Man who has a Mind to help me, has as many to break

through to come at me, as I have to come at him: Therefore he will

conclude, that the Man who would make a Figure, especially in a military

Way, must get over all false Modesty, and assist his Patron against the

Importunity of other Pretenders, by a proper Assurance in his own

Vindication. He says it is a civil Cowardice to be backward in asserting

what you ought to expect, as it is a military Fear to be slow in

attacking when it is your Duty. With this Candour does the Gentleman

speak of himself and others. The same Frankness runs through all his

Conversation. The military Part of his Life has furnished him with many

Adventures, in the Relation of which he is very agreeable to the

Company; for he is never over-bearing, though accustomed to command Men

in the utmost Degree below him; nor ever too obsequious, from an Habit

of obeying Men highly above him.

But that our Society may not appear a Set of Humourists unacquainted

with the Gallantries and Pleasures of the Age, we have among us the

gallant WILL. HONEYCOMB, [8] a Gentleman who, according to his Years,

should be in the Decline of his Life, but having ever been very careful

of his Person, and always had a very easy Fortune, Time has made but

very little Impression, either by Wrinkles on his Forehead, or Traces in

his Brain. His Person is well turned, and of a good Height. He is very

ready at that sort of Discourse with which Men usually entertain Women.

He has all his Life dressed very well, and remembers Habits as others do

Men. He can smile when one speaks to him, and laughs easily. He knows

the History of every Mode, and can inform you from which of the French

King's Wenches our Wives and Daughters had this Manner of curling their

Hair, that Way of placing their Hoods; whose Frailty was covered by such

a Sort of Petticoat, and whose Vanity to show her Foot made that Part of

the Dress so short in such a Year. In a Word, all his Conversation and

Knowledge has been in the female World: As other Men of his Age will

take Notice to you what such a Minister said upon such and such an

Occasion, he will tell you when the Duke of _Monmouth_ danced at Court

such a Woman was then smitten, another was taken with him at the Head of

his Troop in the _Park_. In all these important Relations, he has ever

about the same Time received a kind Glance, or a Blow of a Fan, from

some celebrated Beauty, Mother of the present Lord such-a-one. If you

speak of a young Commoner that said a lively thing in the House, he

starts up,

'He has good Blood in his Veins, _Tom Mirabell_ begot him, the Rogue

cheated me in that Affair; that young Fellow's Mother used me more

like a Dog than any Woman I ever made Advances to.'

This Way of Talking of his, very much enlivens the Conversation among us

of a more sedate Turn; and I find there is not one of the Company but

myself, who rarely speak at all, but speaks of him as of that Sort of

Man, who is usually called a well-bred fine Gentleman. To conclude his

Character, where Women are not concerned, he is an honest worthy Man.

I cannot tell whether I am to account him whom I am next to speak of, as

one of our Company; for he visits us but seldom, but when he does, it

adds to every Man else a new Enjoyment of himself. He is a Clergyman, a

very philosophick Man, of general Learning, great Sanctity of Life, and

the most exact good Breeding. He has the Misfortune to be of a very weak

Constitution, and consequently cannot accept of such Cares and Business

as Preferments in his Function would oblige him to: He is therefore

among Divines what a Chamber-Counsellor is among Lawyers. The Probity of

his Mind, and the Integrity of his Life, create him Followers, as being

eloquent or loud advances others. He seldom introduces the Subject he

speaks upon; but we are so far gone in Years, that he observes when he

is among us, an Earnestness to have him fall on some divine Topick,

which he always treats with much Authority, as one who has no Interests

in this World, as one who is hastening to the Object of all his Wishes,

and conceives Hope from his Decays and Infirmities. These are my

ordinary Companions.

R. [9]

[Footnote 1: The character of Sir Roger de Coverley is said to have been

drawn from Sir John Pakington, of Worcestershire, a Tory, whose name,

family, and politics are represented by a statesman of the present time.

The name, on this its first appearance in the 'Spectator', is spelt

Coverly; also in the first reprint.]

[Footnote 2: 'Soho Square' was then a new and most fashionable part of

the town. It was built in 1681. The Duke of Monmouth lived in the centre

house, facing the statue. Originally the square was called King Square.

Pennant mentions, on Pegg's authority, a tradition that, on the death of

Monmouth, his admirers changed the name to Soho, the word of the day at

the field of Sedgemoor. But the ground upon which the Square stands was

called Soho as early as the year 1632. 'So ho' was the old call in

hunting when a hare was found.]

[Footnote 3: John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, b. 1648, d. 1680. His

licentious wit made him a favourite of Charles II. His strength was

exhausted by licentious living at the age of one and thirty. His chief

work is a poem upon 'Nothing.' He died repentant of his wasted life, in

which, as he told Burnet, he had 'for five years been continually

drunk,' or so much affected by frequent drunkenness as in no instance to

be master of himself.]

[Footnote 4: Sir George Etherege, b. 1636, d. 1694. 'Gentle George' and

'Easy Etherege,' a wit and friend of the wits of the Restoration. He

bought his knighthood to enable him to marry a rich widow who required a

title, and died of a broken neck, by tumbling down-stairs when he was

drunk and lighting guests to their apartments. His three comedies, 'The

Comical Revenge,' 'She Would if she Could,' and 'The Man of Mode, or Sir

Fopling Flutter,' excellent embodiments of the court humour of his time,

were collected and printed in 8vo in 1704, and reprinted, with addition

of five poems, in 1715.]

[Footnote 5: Bully Dawson, a swaggering sharper of Whitefriars, is said

to have been sketched by Shadwell in the Captain Hackum of his comedy

called 'The Squire of Alsatia.']

[Footnote 6: The 'Rose' Tavern was on the east side of Brydges Street,

near Drury Lane Theatre, much favoured by the looser sort of play-goers.

Garrick, when he enlarged the Theatre, made the 'Rose' Tavern a part of

it.]

[Footnote 7: Captain Sentry was by some supposed to have been drawn from

Colonel Kempenfelt, the father of the Admiral who went down with the

'Royal George'.]

[Footnote 8: Will. Honeycomb was by some found in a Colonel Cleland.]

[Footnote 9: Steele's signature was R till No. 91; then T, and

occasionally R, till No. 134; then always T.

Addison signed C till No. 85, when he first used L; and was L or C till

No. 265, then L, till he first used I in No. 372. Once or twice using L,

he was I till No. 405, which he signed O, and by this letter he held,

except for a return to C (with a single use of O), from 433 to 477.]

* * * * *

No. 3. Saturday, March 3, 1711. Addison.

'Quoi quisque ferè studio devinctus adhæret:

Aut quibus in rebus multùm sumus antè morati:

Atque in quâ ratione fuit contenta magis mens;

In somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire.'

Lucr. L. 4.

In one of my late Rambles, or rather Speculations, I looked into the

great Hall where the Bank [1] is kept, and was not a little pleased to

see the Directors, Secretaries, and Clerks, with all the other Members

of that wealthy Corporation, ranged in their several Stations, according

to the Parts they act in that just and regular Oeconomy. This revived in

my Memory the many Discourses which I had both read and heard,

concerning the Decay of Publick Credit, with the Methods of restoring

it, and which, in my Opinion, have always been defective, because they

have always been made with an Eye to separate Interests and Party

Principles.

The Thoughts of the Day gave my Mind Employment for the whole Night, so

that I fell insensibly into a kind of Methodical Dream, which disposed

all my Contemplations into a Vision or Allegory, or what else the Reader

shall please to call it.

Methoughts I returned to the Great Hall, where I had been the Morning

before, but to my Surprize, instead of the Company that I left there, I

saw, towards the Upper-end of the Hall, a beautiful Virgin seated on a

Throne of Gold. Her Name (as they told me) was _Publick Credit_. The

Walls, instead of being adorned with Pictures and Maps, were hung with

many Acts of Parliament written in Golden Letters. At the Upper end of

the Hall was the _Magna Charta_, [2] with the Act of Uniformity [3] on

the right Hand, and the Act of Toleration [4] on the left. At the Lower

end of the Hall was the Act of Settlement, [5] which was placed full in

the Eye of the Virgin that sat upon the Throne. Both the Sides of the

Hall were covered with such Acts of Parliament as had been made for the

Establishment of Publick Funds. The Lady seemed to set an unspeakable

Value upon these several Pieces of Furniture, insomuch that she often

refreshed her Eye with them, and often smiled with a Secret Pleasure, as

she looked upon them; but at the same time showed a very particular

Uneasiness, if she saw any thing approaching that might hurt them. She

appeared indeed infinitely timorous in all her Behaviour: And, whether

it was from the Delicacy of her Constitution, or that she was troubled

with the Vapours, as I was afterwards told by one who I found was none

of her Well-wishers, she changed Colour, and startled at everything she

heard. She was likewise (as I afterwards found) a greater Valetudinarian

than any I had ever met with, even in her own Sex, and subject to such

Momentary Consumptions, that in the twinkling of an Eye, she would fall

away from the most florid Complexion, and the most healthful State of

Body, and wither into a Skeleton. Her Recoveries were often as sudden as

her Decays, insomuch that she would revive in a Moment out of a wasting

Distemper, into a Habit of the highest Health and Vigour.

I had very soon an Opportunity of observing these quick Turns and

Changes in her Constitution. There sat at her Feet a Couple of

Secretaries, who received every Hour Letters from all Parts of the

World; which the one or the other of them was perpetually reading to

her; and according to the News she heard, to which she was exceedingly

attentive, she changed Colour, and discovered many Symptoms of Health or

Sickness.

Behind the Throne was a prodigious Heap of Bags of Mony, which were

piled upon one another so high that they touched the Ceiling. The Floor

on her right Hand, and on her left, was covered with vast Sums of Gold

that rose up in Pyramids on either side of her: But this I did not so

much wonder at, when I heard, upon Enquiry, that she had the same Virtue

in her Touch, which the Poets tell us a 'Lydian' King was formerly

possessed of; and that she could convert whatever she pleased into that

precious Metal.

After a little Dizziness, and confused Hurry of Thought, which a Man

often meets with in a Dream, methoughts the Hall was alarm'd, the Doors

flew open, and there entered half a dozen of the most hideous Phantoms

that I had ever seen (even in a Dream) before that Time. They came in

two by two, though match'd in the most dissociable Manner, and mingled

together in a kind of Dance. It would be tedious to describe their

Habits and Persons; for which Reason I shall only inform my Reader that

the first Couple were Tyranny and Anarchy, the second were Bigotry and

Atheism, the third the Genius of a Common-Wealth, and a young Man of

about twenty-two Years of Age, [6] whose Name I could not learn. He had

a Sword in his right Hand, which in the Dance he often brandished at the

Act of Settlement; and a Citizen, who stood by me, whispered in my Ear,

that he saw a Spunge in his left Hand. The Dance of so many jarring

Natures put me in mind of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, in the 'Rehearsal',

[7] that danced together for no other end but to eclipse one another.

The Reader will easily suppose, by what has been before said, that the

Lady on the Throne would have been almost frightened to Distraction, had

she seen but any one of these Spectres; what then must have been her

Condition when she saw them all in a Body? She fainted and dyed away at

the sight.

'Et neq; jam color est misto candore rubori;

Nec Vigor, et Vires, et quæ modò visa placebant;

Nec Corpus remanet ...'

Ov. 'Met.' Lib. 3.

There was as great a Change in the Hill of Mony Bags, and the Heaps of

Mony, the former shrinking, and falling into so many empty Bags, that I

now found not above a tenth part of them had been filled with Mony. The

rest that took up the same Space, and made the same Figure as the Bags

that were really filled with Mony, had been blown up with Air, and

called into my Memory the Bags full of Wind, which Homer tells us his

Hero received as a present from Æolus. The great Heaps of Gold, on

either side of the Throne, now appeared to be only Heaps of Paper, or

little Piles of notched Sticks, bound up together in Bundles, like

Bath-Faggots.

Whilst I was lamenting this sudden Desolation that had been made before

me, the whole Scene vanished: In the Room of the frightful Spectres,

there now entered a second Dance of Apparitions very agreeably matched

together, and made up of very amiable Phantoms. The first Pair was

Liberty, with Monarchy at her right Hand: The Second was Moderation

leading in Religion; and the third a Person whom I had never seen, [8]

with the genius of _Great Britain_. At their first Entrance the

Lady reviv'd, the Bags swell'd to their former Bulk, the Piles of

Faggots and Heaps of Paper changed into Pyramids of Guineas: [9] And for

my own part I was so transported with Joy, that I awaked, tho' I must

confess I would fain have fallen asleep again to have closed my Vision,

if I could have done it.

[Footnote 1: The Bank of England was then only 17 years old. It was

founded in 1694, and grew out of a loan of £1,200,000 for the public

service, for which the lenders--so low was the public credit--were to

have 8 per cent. interest, four thousand a year for expense of

management, and a charter for 10 years, afterwards renewed from time to

time, as the 'Governor and Company of the Bank of England.']

[Footnote 2: Magna Charta Libertatum, the Great Charter of Liberties

obtained by the barons of King John, June 16, 1215, not only asserted

rights of the subject against despotic power of the king, but included

among them right of insurrection against royal authority unlawfully

exerted.]

[Footnote 3: The Act of Uniformity, passed May 19, 1662, withheld

promotion in the Church from all who had not received episcopal

ordination, and required of all clergy assent to the contents of the

Prayer Book on pain of being deprived of their spiritual promotion. It

forbade all changes in matters of belief otherwise than by the king in

Parliament. While it barred the unconstitutional exercise of a

dispensing power by the king, and kept the settlement of its faith out

of the hands of the clergy and in those of the people, it was so

contrived also according to the temper of the majority that it served as

a test act for the English Hierarchy, and cast out of the Church, as

Nonconformists, those best members of its Puritan clergy, about two

thousand in number, whose faith was sincere enough to make them

sacrifice their livings to their sense of truth.]

[Footnote 4: The Act of Toleration, with which Addison balances the Act

of Uniformity, was passed in the first year of William and Mary, and

confirmed in the 10th year of Queen Anne, the year in which this Essay

was written. By it all persons dissenting from the Church of England,

except Roman Catholics and persons denying the Trinity, were relieved

from such acts against Nonconformity as restrained their religious

liberty and right of public worship, on condition that they took the

oaths of allegiance and supremacy, subscribed a declaration against

transubstantiation, and, if dissenting ministers, subscribed also to

certain of the Thirty-Nine Articles.]

[Footnote 5: The Act of Settlement was that which, at the Revolution,

excluded the Stuarts and settled the succession to the throne of princes

who have since governed England upon the principle there laid down, not

of divine right, but of an original contract between prince and people,

the breaking of which by the prince may lawfully entail forfeiture of

the crown.]

[Footnote 6: James Stuart, son of James II, born June 10, 1688, was

then in the 23rd year of his age.]

[Footnote 7: The 'Rehearsal' was a witty burlesque upon the heroic

dramas of Davenant, Dryden, and others, written by George Villiers, duke

of Buckingham, the Zimri of Dryden's 'Absalom and Achitophel,' 'that

life of pleasure and that soul of whim,' who, after running through a

fortune of £50,000 a year, died, says Pope, 'in the worst inn's worst

room.' His 'Rehearsal', written in 1663-4, was first acted in 1671. In

the last act the poet Bayes, who is showing and explaining a Rehearsal

of his play to Smith and Johnson, introduces an Eclipse which, as he

explains, being nothing else but an interposition, &c.

'Well, Sir, then what do I, but make the earth, sun, and moon, come

out upon the stage, and dance the hey' ... 'Come, come out, eclipse,

to the tune of 'Tom Tyler'.'

[Enter Luna.]

'Luna': Orbis, O Orbis! Come to me, thou little rogue, Orbis.

[Enter the Earth.]

'Orb.' Who calls Terra-firma pray?

...

[Enter Sol, to the tune of Robin Hood, &c.]

While they dance Bayes cries, mightily taken with his device,

'Now the Earth's before the Moon; now the Moon's before

the Sun: there's the Eclipse again.']

[Footnote 8: The elector of Hanover, who, in 1714, became King George I.]

[Footnote 9: In the year after the foundation of the Bank of England,

Mr. Charles Montague,--made in 1700 Baron and by George I., Earl of

Halifax, then (in 1695) Chancellor of the Exchequer,--restored the

silver currency to a just standard. The process of recoinage caused for

a time scarcity of coin and stoppage of trade. The paper of the Bank of

England fell to 20 per cent. discount. Montague then collected and paid

public debts from taxes imposed for the purpose and invented (in 1696),

to relieve the want of currency, the issue of Exchequer bills. Public

credit revived, the Bank capital increased, the currency sufficed, and.

says Earl Russell in his Essay on the English Government and

Constitution,

'from this time loans were made of a vast increasing amount with great

facility, and generally at a low interest, by which the nation were

enabled to resist their enemies. The French wondered at the prodigious

efforts that were made by so small a power, and the abundance with

which money was poured into its treasury... Books were written,

projects drawn up, edicts prepared, which were to give to France the

same facilities as her rival; every plan that fiscal ingenuity could

strike out, every calculation that laborious arithmetic could form,

was proposed, and tried, and found wanting; and for this simple

reason, that in all their projects drawn up in imitation of England,

one little element was omitted, _videlicet_, her free constitution.'

That is what Addison means by his allegory.]

* * * * *

No. 4. Monday, March 5, 1711. Steele.

... Egregii Mortalem altique silenti!

Hor.

An Author, when he first appears in the World, is very apt to believe it

has nothing to think of but his Performances. With a good Share of this

Vanity in my Heart, I made it my Business these three Days to listen

after my own Fame; and, as I have sometimes met with Circumstances which

did not displease me, I have been encountered by others which gave me

much Mortification. It is incredible to think how empty I have in this

time observed some Part of the Species to be, what mere Blanks they are

when they first come abroad in the Morning, how utterly they are at a

Stand, until they are set a going by some Paragraph in a News-Paper:

Such Persons are very acceptable to a young Author, for they desire no

more [in anything] but to be new, to be agreeable. If I found

Consolation among such, I was as much disquieted by the Incapacity of

others. These are Mortals who have a certain Curiosity without Power of

Reflection, and perused my Papers like Spectators rather than Readers.

But there is so little Pleasure in Enquiries that so nearly concern our

selves (it being the worst Way in the World to Fame, to be too anxious

about it), that upon the whole I resolv'd for the future to go on in my

ordinary Way; and without too much Fear or Hope about the Business of

Reputation, to be very careful of the Design of my Actions, but very

negligent of the Consequences of them.

It is an endless and frivolous Pursuit to act by any other Rule than the

Care of satisfying our own Minds in what we do. One would think a silent

Man, who concerned himself with no one breathing, should be very liable

to Misinterpretations; and yet I remember I was once taken up for a

Jesuit, for no other reason but my profound Taciturnity. It is from this

Misfortune, that to be out of Harm's Way, I have ever since affected

Crowds. He who comes into Assemblies only to gratify his Curiosity, and

not to make a Figure, enjoys the Pleasures of Retirement in a more

exquisite Degree, than he possibly could in his Closet; the Lover, the

Ambitious, and the Miser, are followed thither by a worse Crowd than any

they can withdraw from. To be exempt from the Passions with which others

are tormented, is the only pleasing Solitude. I can very justly say with

the antient Sage, 'I am never less alone than when alone'. As I am

insignificant to the Company in publick Places, and as it is visible I

do not come thither as most do, to shew my self; I gratify the Vanity of

all who pretend to make an Appearance, and often have as kind Looks from

well-dressed Gentlemen and Ladies, as a Poet would bestow upon one of

his Audience. There are so many Gratifications attend this publick sort

of Obscurity, that some little Distastes I daily receive have lost their

Anguish; and I [did the other day, [1]] without the least Displeasure

overhear one say of me,

'That strange Fellow,'

and another answer,

'I have known the Fellow's Face for these twelve Years, and so must

you; but I believe you are the first ever asked who he was.'

There are, I must confess, many to whom my Person is as well known as

that of their nearest Relations, who give themselves no further Trouble

about calling me by my Name or Quality, but speak of me very currently

by Mr 'what-d-ye-call-him'.

To make up for these trivial Disadvantages, I have the high Satisfaction

of beholding all Nature with an unprejudiced Eye; and having nothing to

do with Men's Passions or Interests, I can with the greater Sagacity

consider their Talents, Manners, Failings, and Merits.

It is remarkable, that those who want any one Sense, possess the others

with greater Force and Vivacity. Thus my Want of, or rather Resignation

of Speech, gives me all the Advantages of a dumb Man. I have, methinks,

a more than ordinary Penetration in Seeing; and flatter my self that I

have looked into the Highest and Lowest of Mankind, and make shrewd

Guesses, without being admitted to their Conversation, at the inmost

Thoughts and Reflections of all whom I behold. It is from hence that

good or ill Fortune has no manner of Force towards affecting my

Judgment. I see Men flourishing in Courts, and languishing in Jayls,

without being prejudiced from their Circumstances to their Favour or

Disadvantage; but from their inward Manner of bearing their Condition,

often pity the Prosperous and admire the Unhappy.

Those who converse with the Dumb, know from the Turn of their Eyes and

the Changes of their Countenance their Sentiments of the Objects before

them. I have indulged my Silence to such an Extravagance, that the few

who are intimate with me, answer my Smiles with concurrent Sentences,

and argue to the very Point I shak'd my Head at without my speaking.

WILL. HONEYCOMB was very entertaining the other Night at a Play to a

Gentleman who sat on his right Hand, while I was at his Left. The

Gentleman believed WILL. was talking to himself, when upon my looking

with great Approbation at a [young thing [2]] in a Box before us, he

said,

'I am quite of another Opinion: She has, I will allow, a very pleasing

Aspect, but, methinks, that Simplicity in her Countenance is rather

childish than innocent.'

When I observed her a second time, he said,

'I grant her Dress is very becoming, but perhaps the Merit of Choice

is owing to her Mother; for though,' continued he, 'I allow a Beauty

to be as much to be commended for the Elegance of her Dress, as a Wit

for that of his Language; yet if she has stolen the Colour of her

Ribbands from another, or had Advice about her Trimmings, I shall not

allow her the Praise of Dress, any more than I would call a Plagiary

an Author.'

When I threw my Eye towards the next Woman to her, WILL. spoke what I

looked, [according to his romantic imagination,] in the following Manner.

'Behold, you who dare, that charming Virgin. Behold the Beauty of her

Person chastised by the Innocence of her Thoughts. Chastity,

Good-Nature, and Affability, are the Graces that play in her

Countenance; she knows she is handsome, but she knows she is good.

Conscious Beauty adorned with conscious Virtue! What a Spirit is there

in those Eyes! What a Bloom in that Person! How is the whole Woman

expressed in her Appearance! Her Air has the Beauty of Motion, and her

Look the Force of Language.'

It was Prudence to turn away my Eyes from this Object, and therefore I

turned them to the thoughtless Creatures who make up the Lump of that

Sex, and move a knowing Eye no more than the Portraitures of

insignificant People by ordinary Painters, which are but Pictures of

Pictures.

Thus the working of my own Mind, is the general Entertainment of my

Life; I never enter into the Commerce of Discourse with any but my

particular Friends, and not in Publick even with them. Such an Habit has

perhaps raised in me uncommon Reflections; but this Effect I cannot

communicate but by my Writings. As my Pleasures are almost wholly

confined to those of the Sight, I take it for a peculiar Happiness that

I have always had an easy and familiar Admittance to the fair Sex. If I

never praised or flattered, I never belyed or contradicted them. As

these compose half the World, and are by the just Complaisance and

Gallantry of our Nation the more powerful Part of our People, I shall

dedicate a considerable Share of these my Speculations to their Service,

and shall lead the young through all the becoming Duties of Virginity,

Marriage, and Widowhood. When it is a Woman's Day, in my Works, I shall

endeavour at a Stile and Air suitable to their Understanding. When I say

this, I must be understood to mean, that I shall not lower but exalt the

Subjects I treat upon. Discourse for their Entertainment, is not to be

debased but refined. A Man may appear learned without talking Sentences;

as in his ordinary Gesture he discovers he can dance, tho' he does not

cut Capers. In a Word, I shall take it for the greatest Glory of my

Work, if among reasonable Women this Paper may furnish _Tea-Table Talk_.

In order to it, I shall treat on Matters which relate to Females as they

are concern'd to approach or fly from the other Sex, or as they are tyed

to them by Blood, Interest, or Affection. Upon this Occasion I think it

but reasonable to declare, that whatever Skill I may have in

Speculation, I shall never betray what the Eyes of Lovers say to each

other in my Presence. At the same Time I shall not think my self obliged

by this Promise, to conceal any false Protestations which I observe made

by Glances in publick Assemblies; but endeavour to make both Sexes

appear in their Conduct what they are in their Hearts. By this Means

Love, during the Time of my Speculations, shall be carried on with the

same Sincerity as any other Affair of less Consideration. As this is the

greatest Concern, Men shall be from henceforth liable to the greatest

Reproach for Misbehaviour in it. Falsehood in Love shall hereafter bear

a blacker Aspect than Infidelity in Friendship or Villany in Business.

For this great and good End, all Breaches against that noble Passion,

the Cement of Society, shall be severely examined. But this and all

other Matters loosely hinted at now and in my former Papers, shall have

their proper Place in my following Discourses: The present writing is

only to admonish the World, that they shall not find me an idle but a

very busy Spectator.

[Footnote 1: can]

[Footnote 2: blooming Beauty]

* * * * *

No. 5. Tuesday, March 6, 1711. Addison.

'Spectatum admissi risum teneatis?'

Hor.

An Opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its Decorations,

as its only Design is to gratify the Senses, and keep up an indolent

Attention in the Audience. Common Sense however requires that there

should be nothing in the Scenes and Machines which may appear Childish

and Absurd. How would the Wits of King _Charles's_ time have laughed to

have seen _Nicolini_ exposed to a Tempest in Robes of Ermin, and sailing

in an open Boat upon a Sea of Paste-Board? What a Field of Raillery

would they have been let into, had they been entertain'd with painted

Dragons spitting Wild-fire, enchanted Chariots drawn by _Flanders_

Mares, and real Cascades in artificial Land-skips? A little Skill in

Criticism would inform us that Shadows and Realities ought not to be

mix'd together in the same Piece; and that Scenes, which are designed as

the Representations of Nature, should be filled with Resemblances, and

not with the Things themselves. If one would represent a wide Champain

Country filled with Herds and Flocks, it would be ridiculous to draw the

Country only upon the Scenes, and to crowd several Parts of the Stage

with Sheep and Oxen. This is joining together Inconsistencies, and

making the Decoration partly Real, and partly Imaginary. I would

recommend what I have here said, to the Directors, as well as to the

Admirers, of our Modern Opera.

As I was walking [in] the Streets about a Fortnight ago, I saw an

ordinary Fellow carrying a Cage full of little Birds upon his Shoulder;

and as I was wondering with my self what Use he would put them to, he

was met very luckily by an Acquaintance, who had the same Curiosity.

Upon his asking him what he had upon his Shoulder, he told him, that he

had been buying Sparrows for the Opera. Sparrows for the Opera, says his

Friend, licking his lips, what are they to be roasted? No, no, says the

other, they are to enter towards the end of the first Act, and to fly

about the Stage.

This strange Dialogue awakened my Curiosity so far that I immediately

bought the Opera, by which means I perceived the Sparrows were to act

the part of Singing Birds in a delightful Grove: though, upon a nearer

Enquiry I found the Sparrows put the same Trick upon the Audience, that

Sir _Martin Mar-all_ [1] practised upon his Mistress; for, though they

flew in Sight, the Musick proceeded from a Consort of Flagellets and

Bird-calls which was planted behind the Scenes. At the same time I made

this Discovery, I found by the Discourse of the Actors, that there were

great Designs on foot for the Improvement of the Opera; that it had been

proposed to break down a part of the Wall, and to surprize the Audience

with a Party of an hundred Horse, and that there was actually a Project

of bringing the _New River_ into the House, to be employed in Jetteaus

and Water-works. This Project, as I have since heard, is post-poned

'till the Summer-Season; when it is thought the Coolness that proceeds

from Fountains and Cascades will be more acceptable and refreshing to

People of Quality. In the mean time, to find out a more agreeable

Entertainment for the Winter-Season, the Opera of _Rinaldo_ [2] is

filled with Thunder and Lightning, Illuminations, and Fireworks; which

the Audience may look upon without catching Cold, and indeed without

much Danger of being burnt; for there are several Engines filled with

Water, and ready to play at a Minute's Warning, in case any such

Accident should happen. However, as I have a very great Friendship for

the Owner of this Theater, I hope that he has been wise enough to

_insure_ his House before he would let this Opera be acted in it.

It is no wonder, that those Scenes should be very surprizing, which were

contrived by two Poets of different Nations, and raised by two Magicians

of different Sexes. _Armida_ (as we are told in the Argument) was an

_Amazonian_ Enchantress, and poor Seignior _Cassani_ (as we learn from

the _Persons represented_) a Christian Conjuror (_Mago Christiano_). I

must confess I am very much puzzled to find how an _Amazon_ should be

versed in the Black Art, or how a [good] Christian [for such is the part

of the magician] should deal with the Devil.

To consider the Poets after the Conjurers, I shall give you a Taste of

the _Italian_, from the first Lines of his Preface.

'Eccoti, benigno Lettore, un Parto di poche Sere, che se ben nato di

Notte, non è però aborto di Tenebre, mà si farà conoscere Figlio

d'Apollo con qualche Raggio di Parnasso.

Behold, gentle Reader, the Birth of a few Evenings, which, tho' it be

the Offspring of the Night, is not the Abortive of Darkness, but will

make it self known to be the Son of Apollo, with a certain Ray of

Parnassus.'

He afterwards proceeds to call Minheer _Hendel_, [3] the _Orpheus_ of

our Age, and to acquaint us, in the same Sublimity of Stile, that he

Composed this Opera in a Fortnight. Such are the Wits, to whose Tastes

we so ambitiously conform our selves. The Truth of it is, the finest

Writers among the Modern _Italians_ express themselves in such a florid

form of Words, and such tedious Circumlocutions, as are used by none but

Pedants in our own Country; and at the same time, fill their Writings

with such poor Imaginations and Conceits, as our Youths are ashamed of,

before they have been Two Years at the University. Some may be apt to

think that it is the difference of Genius which produces this difference

in the Works of the two Nations; but to show there is nothing in this,

if we look into the Writings of the old _Italians_, such as _Cicero_ and

_Virgil_, we shall find that the _English_ Writers, in their way of

thinking and expressing themselves, resemble those Authors much more

than the modern _Italians_ pretend to do. And as for the Poet himself

from whom the Dreams of this Opera are taken, I must entirely agree with

Monsieur _Boileau_, that one Verse in _Virgil_ is worth all the

_Clincant_ or Tinsel of _Tasso_.

But to return to the Sparrows; there have been so many Flights of them

let loose in this Opera, that it is feared the House will never get rid

of them; and that in other Plays, they may make their Entrance in very

wrong and improper Scenes, so as to be seen flying in a Lady's

Bed-Chamber, or perching upon a King's Throne; besides the

Inconveniences which the Heads of the Audience may sometimes suffer from

them. I am credibly informed, that there was once a Design of casting

into an Opera the Story of _Whittington_ and his Cat, and that in order

to it, there had been got together a great Quantity of Mice; but Mr.

_Rich_, the Proprietor of the Play-House, very prudently considered that

it would be impossible for the Cat to kill them all, and that

consequently the Princes of his Stage might be as much infested with

Mice, as the Prince of the Island was before the Cat's arrival upon it;

for which Reason he would not permit it to be Acted in his House. And

indeed I cannot blame him; for, as he said very well upon that Occasion,

I do not hear that any of the Performers in our Opera, pretend to equal

the famous Pied Piper, who made all the Mice of a great Town in

_Germany_ [4] follow his Musick, and by that means cleared the Place of

those little Noxious Animals.

Before I dismiss this Paper, I must inform my Reader, that I hear there

is a Treaty on Foot with _London_ and _Wise_ [5] (who will be appointed

Gardeners of the Play-House,) to furnish the Opera of _Rinaldo_ and

_Armida_ with an Orange-Grove; and that the next time it is Acted, the

Singing Birds will be Personated by Tom-Tits: The undertakers being

resolved to spare neither Pains nor Mony, for the Gratification of the

Audience.

C.

[Footnote 1: Dryden's play of 'Sir Martin Mar-all' was produced in 1666.

It was entered at Stationers' Hall as by the duke of Newcastle, but

Dryden finished it. In Act 5 the foolish Sir Martin appears at a window

with a lute, as if playing and singing to Millicent, his mistress, while

his man Warner plays and sings. Absorbed in looking at the lady, Sir

Martin foolishly goes on opening and shutting his mouth and fumbling on

the lute after the man's song, a version of Voiture's 'L'Amour sous sa

Loi', is done. To which Millicent says,

'A pretty-humoured song--but stay, methinks he plays and sings still,

and yet we cannot hear him--Play louder, Sir Martin, that we may have

the Fruits on't.']

[Footnote 2: Handel had been met in Hanover by English noblemen who

invited him to England, and their invitation was accepted by permission

of the elector, afterwards George I., to whom he was then Chapel-master.

Immediately upon Handel's arrival in England, in 1710, Aaron Hill, who

was directing the Haymarket Theatre, bespoke of him an opera, the

subject being of Hill's own devising and sketching, on the story of

Rinaldo and Armida in Tasso's 'Jerusalem Delivered'. G. Rossi wrote the

Italian words. 'Rinaldo', brought out in 1711, on the 24th of February,

had a run of fifteen nights, and is accounted one of the best of the 35

operas composed by Handel for the English stage. Two airs in it, 'Cara

sposa' and 'Lascia ch'io pianga' (the latter still admired as one of the

purest expressions of his genius), made a great impression. In the same

season the Haymarket produced 'Hamlet' as an opera by Gasparini, called

'Ambleto', with an overture that had four movements ending in a jig. But

as was Gasparini so was Handel in the ears of Addison and Steele. They

recognized in music only the sensual pleasure that it gave, and the

words set to music for the opera, whatever the composer, were then, as

they have since been, almost without exception, insults to the

intellect.]

[Footnote 3: Addison's spelling, which is as good as ours, represents

what was the true and then usual pronunciation of the name of Haendel.]

[Footnote 4: The Pied Piper of Hamelin (i.e. Hameln).

'Hamelin town's in Brunswick,

By famous Hanover city;

The river Weser, deep and wide,

Washes its wall on the southern side.'

The old story has been annexed to English literature by the genius of

Robert Browning.]

[Footnote 5: Evelyn, in the preface to his translation of Quintinye's

'Complete Gardener' (1701), says that the nursery of Messrs. London and

Wise far surpassed all the others in England put together. It exceeded

100 acres in extent. George London was chief gardener first to William

and Mary, then to Queen Anne. London and Wise's nursery belonged at this

time to a gardener named Swinhoe, but kept the name in which it had

become famous.]

* * * * *

No. 6. Wednesday, March 7, 1711. Steele.

'Credebant hoc grande Nefas, et Morte piandum,

Si Juvenis Vetulo non assurrexerat ...'

Juv.

I know no Evil under the Sun so great as the Abuse of the Understanding,

and yet there is no one Vice more common. It has diffus'd itself through

both Sexes, and all Qualities of Mankind; and there is hardly that

Person to be found, who is not more concerned for the Reputation of Wit

and Sense, than Honesty and Virtue. But this unhappy Affectation of

being Wise rather than Honest, Witty than Good-natur'd, is the Source of

most of the ill Habits of Life. Such false Impressions are owing to the

abandon'd Writings of Men of Wit, and the awkward Imitation of the rest

of Mankind.

For this Reason, Sir ROGER was saying last Night, that he was of Opinion

that none but Men of fine Parts deserve to be hanged. The Reflections of

such Men are so delicate upon all Occurrences which they are concern'd

in, that they should be expos'd to more than ordinary Infamy and

Punishment, for offending against such quick Admonitions as their own

Souls give them, and blunting the fine Edge of their Minds in such a

Manner, that they are no more shock'd at Vice and Folly, than Men of

slower Capacities. There is no greater Monster in Being, than a very ill

Man of great Parts: He lives like a Man in a Palsy, with one Side of him

dead. While perhaps he enjoys the Satisfaction of Luxury, of Wealth, of

Ambition, he has lost the Taste of Good-will, of Friendship, of

Innocence. _Scarecrow_, the Beggar in _Lincoln's-Inn-Fields_, who

disabled himself in his Right Leg, and asks Alms all Day to get himself

a warm Supper and a Trull at Night, is not half so despicable a Wretch

as such a Man of Sense. The Beggar has no Relish above Sensations; he

finds Rest more agreeable than Motion; and while he has a warm Fire and

his Doxy, never reflects that he deserves to be whipped. Every Man who

terminates his Satisfaction and Enjoyments within the Supply of his own

Necessities and Passions, is, says Sir Roger, in my Eye as poor a Rogue

as _Scarecrow_. But, continued he, for the loss of publick and private

Virtue we are beholden to your Men of Parts forsooth; it is with them no

matter what is done, so it is done with an Air. But to me who am so

whimsical in a corrupt Age as to act according to Nature and Reason, a

selfish Man in the most shining Circumstance and Equipage, appears in

the same Condition with the Fellow above-mentioned, but more

contemptible in Proportion to what more he robs the Publick of and

enjoys above him. I lay it down therefore for a Rule, That the whole Man

is to move together; that every Action of any Importance is to have a

Prospect of publick Good; and that the general Tendency of our

indifferent Actions ought to be agreeable to the Dictates of Reason, of

Religion, of good Breeding; without this, a Man, as I have before

hinted, is hopping instead of walking, he is not in his entire and

proper Motion.

While the honest Knight was thus bewildering himself in good Starts, I

look'd intentively upon him, which made him I thought collect his Mind a

little. What I aim at, says he, is, to represent, That I am of Opinion,

to polish our Understandings and neglect our Manners is of all things

the most inexcusable. Reason should govern Passion, but instead of that,

you see, it is often subservient to it; and, as unaccountable as one

would think it, a wise Man is not always a good Man. This Degeneracy is

not only the Guilt of particular Persons, but also at some times of a

whole People; and perhaps it may appear upon Examination, that the most

polite Ages are the least virtuous. This may be attributed to the Folly

of admitting Wit and Learning as Merit in themselves, without

considering the Application of them. By this Means it becomes a Rule not

so much to regard what we do, as how we do it. But this false Beauty

will not pass upon Men of honest Minds and true Taste. Sir _Richard

Blackmore_ says, with as much good Sense as Virtue, _It is a mighty

Dishonour and Shame to employ excellent Faculties and abundance of Wit,

to humour and please Men in their Vices and Follies. The great Enemy of

Mankind, notwithstanding his Wit and Angelick Faculties, is the most

odious Being in the whole Creation_. He goes on soon after to say very

generously, That he undertook the writing of his Poem _to rescue the

Muses out of the Hands of Ravishers, to restore them to their sweet and

chaste Mansions, and to engage them in an _Employment suitable to their

Dignity_. [1] This certainly ought to be the Purpose of every man who

appears in Publick; and whoever does not proceed upon that Foundation,

injures his Country as fast as he succeeds in his Studies. When Modesty

ceases to be the chief Ornament of one Sex, and Integrity of the other,

Society is upon a wrong Basis, and we shall be ever after without Rules

to guide our Judgment in what is really becoming and ornamental. Nature

and Reason direct one thing, Passion and Humour another: To follow the

Dictates of the two latter, is going into a Road that is both endless

and intricate; when we pursue the other, our Passage is delightful, and

what we aim at easily attainable.

I do not doubt but _England_ is at present as polite a Nation as any in

the World; but any Man who thinks can easily see, that the Affectation

of being gay and in fashion has very near eaten up our good Sense and

our Religion. Is there anything so just, as that Mode and Gallantry

should be built upon exerting ourselves in what is proper and agreeable

to the Institutions of Justice and Piety among us? And yet is there

anything more common, than that we run in perfect Contradiction to them?

All which is supported by no other Pretension, than that it is done with

what we call a good Grace.

Nothing ought to be held laudable or becoming, but what Nature it self

should prompt us to think so. Respect to all kind of Superiours is

founded methinks upon Instinct; and yet what is so ridiculous as Age? I

make this abrupt Transition to the Mention of this Vice more than any

other, in order to introduce a little Story, which I think a pretty

Instance that the most polite Age is in danger of being the most

vicious.

'It happen'd at _Athens_, during a publick Representation of some Play

exhibited in honour of the Common-wealth that an old Gentleman came

too late for a Place suitable to his Age and Quality. Many of the

young Gentlemen who observed the Difficulty and Confusion he was in,

made Signs to him that they would accommodate him if he came where

they sate: The good Man bustled through the Crowd accordingly; but

when he came to the Seats to which he was invited, the Jest was to sit

close, and expose him, as he stood out of Countenance, to the whole

Audience. The Frolick went round all the Athenian Benches. But on

those Occasions there were also particular Places assigned for

Foreigners: When the good Man skulked towards the Boxes appointed for

the _Lacedemonians_, that honest People, more virtuous than polite,

rose up all to a Man, and with the greatest Respect received him among

them. The _Athenians_ being suddenly touched with a Sense of the

_Spartan_ Virtue, and their own Degeneracy, gave a Thunder of

Applause; and the old Man cry'd out, _The_ Athenians _understand what

is good, but the_ Lacedemonians _practise it_.'

R.

[Footnote 1: Richard Blackmore, born about 1650, d. 1729, had been

knighted in 1697, when he was made physician in ordinary to King

William. He was a thorough Whig, earnestly religious, and given to the

production of heroic poems. Steele shared his principles and honoured

his sincerity. When this essay was written, Blackmore was finishing his

best poem, the 'Creation', in seven Books, designed to prove from nature

the existence of a God. It had a long and earnest preface of

expostulation with the atheism and mocking spirit that were the legacy

to his time of the Court of the Restoration. The citations in the text

express the purport of what Blackmore had written in his then

unpublished but expected work, but do not quote from it literally.]

* * * * *

No. 7. Thursday, March 8, 1711. Addison.

'Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, Sagas,

Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides?'

Hor.

Going Yesterday to Dine with an old Acquaintance, I had the Misfortune

to find his whole Family very much dejected. Upon asking him the

Occasion of it, he told me that his Wife had dreamt a strange Dream the

Night before, which they were afraid portended some Misfortune to

themselves or to their Children. At her coming into the Room, I observed

a settled Melancholy in her Countenance, which I should have been

troubled for, had I not heard from whence it proceeded. We were no

sooner sat down, but, after having looked upon me a little while,

'My dear', says she, turning to her husband, 'you may now see the

Stranger that was in the Candle last Night'.

Soon after this, as they began to talk of Family Affairs, a little Boy

at the lower end of the Table told her, that he was to go into Join-hand

on _Thursday_:

'Thursday,' says she, 'no, Child, if it please God, you shall not

begin upon Childermas-day; tell your Writing-Master that Friday will

be soon enough'.

I was reflecting with my self on the Odness of her Fancy, and wondering

that any body would establish it as a Rule to lose a Day in every Week.

In the midst of these my Musings she desired me to reach her a little

Salt upon the Point of my Knife, which I did in such a Trepidation and

hurry of Obedience, that I let it drop by the way; at which she

immediately startled, and said it fell towards her. Upon this I looked

very blank; and, observing the Concern of the whole Table, began to

consider my self, with some Confusion, as a Person that had brought a

Disaster upon the Family. The Lady however recovering her self, after a

little space, said to her Husband with a Sigh,

'My Dear, Misfortunes never come Single'.

My Friend, I found, acted but an under Part at his Table, and

being a Man of more Goodnature than Understanding, thinks himself

obliged to fall in with all the Passions and Humours of his Yoke-fellow:

'Do not you remember, Child', says she, 'that the Pidgeon-House fell

the very Afternoon that our careless Wench spilt the Salt upon the

Table?'

'Yes', says he, 'my Dear, and the next Post brought us an Account of

the Battel of Almanza'. [1]

The Reader may guess at the figure I made, after having done all this

Mischief. I dispatched my Dinner as soon as I could, with my usual

Taciturnity; when, to my utter Confusion, the Lady seeing me [quitting

[2]] my Knife and Fork, and laying them across one another upon my

Plate, desired me that I would humour her so far as to take them out of

that Figure, and place them side by side. What the Absurdity was which I

had committed I did not know, but I suppose there was some traditionary

Superstition in it; and therefore, in obedience to the Lady of the

House, I disposed of my Knife and Fork in two parallel Lines, which is

the figure I shall always lay them in for the future, though I do not

know any Reason for it.

It is not difficult for a Man to see that a Person has conceived an

Aversion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the Lady's Looks,

that she regarded me as a very odd kind of Fellow, with an unfortunate

Aspect: For which Reason I took my leave immediately after Dinner, and

withdrew to my own Lodgings. Upon my Return home, I fell into a profound

Contemplation on the Evils that attend these superstitious Follies of

Mankind; how they subject us to imaginary Afflictions, and additional

Sorrows, that do not properly come within our Lot. As if the natural

Calamities of Life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most

indifferent Circumstances into Misfortunes, and suffer as much from

trifling Accidents, as from real Evils. I have known the shooting of a

Star spoil a Night's Rest; and have seen a Man in Love grow pale and

lose his Appetite, upon the plucking of a Merry-thought. A Screech-Owl

at Midnight has alarmed a Family, more than a Band of Robbers; nay, the

Voice of a Cricket hath struck more Terrour, than the Roaring of a Lion.

There is nothing so inconsiderable [which [3]] may not appear dreadful

to an Imagination that is filled with Omens and Prognosticks. A Rusty

Nail, or a Crooked Pin, shoot up into Prodigies.

I remember I was once in a mixt Assembly, that was full of Noise and

Mirth, when on a sudden an old Woman unluckily observed there were

thirteen of us in Company. This Remark struck a pannick Terror into

several [who [4]] were present, insomuch that one or two of the Ladies

were going to leave the Room; but a Friend of mine, taking notice that

one of our female Companions was big with Child, affirm'd there were

fourteen in the Room, and that, instead of portending one of the Company

should die, it plainly foretold one of them should be born. Had not my

Friend found this Expedient to break the Omen, I question not but half

the Women in the Company would have fallen sick that very Night.

An old Maid, that is troubled with the Vapours, produces infinite

Disturbances of this kind among her Friends and Neighbours. I know a

Maiden Aunt, of a great Family, who is one of these Antiquated _Sybils_,

that forebodes and prophesies from one end of the Year to the other. She

is always seeing Apparitions, and hearing Death-Watches; and was the

other Day almost frighted out of her Wits by the great House-Dog, that

howled in the Stable at a time when she lay ill of the Tooth-ach. Such

an extravagant Cast of Mind engages Multitudes of People, not only in

impertinent Terrors, but in supernumerary Duties of Life, and arises

from that Fear and Ignorance which are natural to the Soul of Man. The

Horrour with which we entertain the Thoughts of Death (or indeed of any

future Evil), and the Uncertainty of its Approach, fill a melancholy

Mind with innumerable Apprehensions and Suspicions, and consequently

dispose it to the Observation of such groundless Prodigies and

Predictions. For as it is the chief Concern of Wise-Men, to retrench the

Evils of Life by the Reasonings of Philosophy; it is the Employment of

Fools, to multiply them by the Sentiments of Superstition.

For my own part, I should be very much troubled were I endowed with this

Divining Quality, though it should inform me truly of every thing that

can befall me. I would not anticipate the Relish of any Happiness, nor

feel the Weight of any Misery, before it actually arrives.

I know but one way of fortifying my Soul against these gloomy Presages

and Terrours of Mind, and that is, by securing to my self the Friendship

and Protection of that Being, who disposes of Events, and governs

Futurity. He sees, at one View, the whole Thread of my Existence, not

only that Part of it which I have already passed through, but that which

runs forward into all the Depths of Eternity. When I lay me down to

Sleep, I recommend my self to his Care; when I awake, I give my self up

to his Direction. Amidst all the Evils that threaten me, I will look up

to him for Help, and question not but he will either avert them, or turn

them to my Advantage. Though I know neither the Time nor the Manner of

the Death I am to die, I am not at all sollicitous about it, because I

am sure that he knows them both, and that he will not fail to comfort

and support me under them.

C.

[Footnote 1: Fought April 25 (O.S. 14), 1707, between the English, under

Lord Galway, a Frenchman, with Portuguese, Dutch, and Spanish allies,

and a superior force of French and Spaniards, under an Englishman, the

Duke of Berwick, natural son of James II. Deserted by many of the

foreign troops, the English were defeated.]

[Footnote 2: cleaning]

[Footnote 3: that]

[Footnote 4: that]

* * * * *

No. 8. Friday, March 9, 1711. Addison.

'At _Venus_ obscuro gradientes ære sepsit,

Et multo Nebulae circum Dea fudit amictu,

Cernere ne quis eos ...'

Virg.

I shall here communicate to the World a couple of Letters, which I

believe will give the Reader as good an Entertainment as any that I am

able to furnish [him [1]] with, and therefore shall make no Apology for

them.

'To the SPECTATOR, &c.

SIR,

I am one of the Directors of the Society for the Reformation of

Manners, and therefore think myself a proper Person for your

Correspondence. I have thoroughly examined the present State of

Religion in _Great-Britain_, and am able to acquaint you with the

predominant Vice of every Market-Town in the whole Island. I can tell

you the Progress that Virtue has made in all our Cities, Boroughs, and

Corporations; and know as well the evil Practices that are committed

in _Berwick_ or _Exeter_, as what is done in my own Family. In a Word,

Sir, I have my Correspondents in the remotest Parts of the Nation, who

send me up punctual Accounts from time to time of all the little

Irregularities that fall under their Notice in their several Districts

and Divisions.

I am no less acquainted with the particular Quarters and Regions of

this great Town, than with the different Parts and Distributions of

the whole Nation. I can describe every Parish by its Impieties, and

can tell you in which of our Streets Lewdness prevails, which Gaming

has taken the Possession of, and where Drunkenness has got the better

of them both. When I am disposed to raise a Fine for the Poor, I know

the Lanes and Allies that are inhabited by common Swearers. When I

would encourage the Hospital of _Bridewell_, and improve the Hempen

Manufacture, I am very well acquainted with all the Haunts and Resorts

of Female Night-walkers.

After this short Account of my self, I must let you know, that the

Design of this Paper is to give you Information of a certain irregular

Assembly which I think falls very properly under your Observation,

especially since the Persons it is composed of are Criminals too

considerable for the Animadversions of our Society. I mean, Sir, the

Midnight Masque, which has of late been frequently held in one of the

most conspicuous Parts of the Town, and which I hear will be continued

with Additions and Improvements. As all the Persons who compose this

lawless Assembly are masqued, we dare not attack any of them in _our

Way_, lest we should send a Woman of Quality to _Bridewell_, or a Peer

of _Great-Britain_ to the _Counter_: Besides, that their Numbers are

so very great, that I am afraid they would be able to rout our whole

Fraternity, tho' we were accompanied with all our Guard of Constables.

Both these Reasons which secure them from our Authority, make them

obnoxious to yours; as both their Disguise and their Numbers will give

no particular Person Reason to think himself affronted by you.

If we are rightly inform'd, the Rules that are observed by this new

Society are wonderfully contriv'd for the Advancement of Cuckoldom.

The Women either come by themselves, or are introduced by Friends, who

are obliged to quit them upon their first Entrance, to the

Conversation of any Body that addresses himself to them. There are

several Rooms where the Parties may retire, and, if they please, show

their Faces by Consent. Whispers, Squeezes, Nods, and Embraces, are

the innocent Freedoms of the Place. In short, the whole Design of this

libidinous Assembly seems to terminate in Assignations and Intrigues;

and I hope you will take effectual Methods, by your publick Advice and

Admonitions, to prevent such a promiscuous Multitude of both Sexes

from meeting together in so clandestine a Manner.'

I am,

Your humble Servant,

And Fellow Labourer,

T. B.

Not long after the Perusal of this Letter I received another upon the

same Subject; which by the Date and Stile of it, I take to be written by

some young Templer.

Middle Temple, 1710-11.

SIR,

When a Man has been guilty of any Vice or Folly, I think the best

Attonement he can make for it is to warn others not to fall into the

like. In order to this I must acquaint you, that some Time in

_February_ last I went to the Tuesday's Masquerade. Upon my first

going in I was attacked by half a Dozen female Quakers, who seemed

willing to adopt me for a Brother; but, upon a nearer Examination, I

found they were a Sisterhood of Coquets, disguised in that precise

Habit. I was soon after taken out to dance, and, as I fancied, by a

Woman of the first Quality, for she was very tall, and moved

gracefully. As soon as the Minuet was over, we ogled one another

through our Masques; and as I am very well read in _Waller_, I

repeated to her the four following Verses out of his poem to

_Vandike_.

'The heedless Lover does not know

Whose Eyes they are that wound him so;

But confounded with thy Art,

Enquires her Name that has his Heart.'

I pronounced these Words with such a languishing Air, that I had some

Reason to conclude I had made a Conquest. She told me that she hoped

my Face was not akin to my Tongue; and looking upon her Watch, I

accidentally discovered the Figure of a Coronet on the back Part of

it. I was so transported with the Thought of such an Amour, that I

plied her from one Room to another with all the Gallantries I could

invent; and at length brought things to so happy an Issue, that she

gave me a private Meeting the next Day, without Page or Footman, Coach

or Equipage. My Heart danced in Raptures; but I had not lived in this

golden Dream above three Days, before I found good Reason to wish that

I had continued true to my Landress. I have since heard by a very

great Accident, that this fine Lady does not live far from

_Covent-Garden_, and that I am not the first Cully whom she has passed

herself upon for a Countess.

Thus, Sir, you see how I have mistaken a _Cloud_ for a _Juno_; and if

you can make any use of this Adventure for the Benefit of those who

may possibly be as vain young Coxcombs as my self, I do most heartily

give you Leave.'

I am,

Sir,

Your most humble admirer,

B. L.

I design to visit the next Masquerade my self, in the same Habit I wore

at _Grand Cairo_; [2] and till then shall suspend my Judgment of this

Midnight Entertainment.

C.

[Footnote 1: them]

[Footnote 2: See [Spectator] No. 1.]

* * * * *

No. 9. Saturday, March 10, 1711. Addison.

Tigris agit rabidâ cum tigride pacem

Perpetuam, sævis inter se convenit ursis.

Juv.

Man is said to be a Sociable Animal, and, as an Instance of it, we may

observe, that we take all Occasions and Pretences of forming ourselves

into those little Nocturnal Assemblies, which are commonly known by the

name of 'Clubs'. When a Sett of Men find themselves agree in any

Particular, tho' never so trivial, they establish themselves into a kind

of Fraternity, and meet once or twice a Week, upon the Account of such a

Fantastick-Resemblance. I know a considerable Market-town, in which

there was a Club of Fat-Men, that did not come together (as you may well

suppose) to entertain one another with Sprightliness and Wit, but to

keep one another in Countenance: The Room, where the Club met, was

something of the largest, and had two Entrances, the one by a Door of a

moderate Size, and the other by a Pair of Folding-Doors. If a Candidate

for this Corpulent Club could make his Entrance through the first he was

looked upon as unqualified; but if he stuck in the Passage, and could

not force his Way through it, the Folding-Doors were immediately thrown

open for his Reception, and he was saluted as a Brother. I have heard

that this Club, though it consisted but of fifteen Persons, weighed

above three Tun.

In Opposition to this Society, there sprung up another composed of

Scare-Crows and Skeletons, who being very meagre and envious, did all

they could to thwart the Designs of their Bulky Brethren, whom they

represented as Men of Dangerous Principles; till at length they worked

them out of the Favour of the People, and consequently out of the

Magistracy. These Factions tore the Corporation in Pieces for several

Years, till at length they came to this Accommodation; that the two

Bailiffs of the Town should be annually chosen out of the two Clubs; by

which Means the principal Magistrates are at this Day coupled like

Rabbets, one fat and one lean.

Every one has heard of the Club, or rather the Confederacy, of the

'Kings'. This grand Alliance was formed a little after the Return of

King 'Charles' the Second, and admitted into it Men of all Qualities and

Professions, provided they agreed in this Sir-name of 'King', which, as

they imagined, sufficiently declared the Owners of it to be altogether

untainted with Republican and Anti-Monarchical Principles.

A Christian Name has likewise been often used as a Badge of Distinction,

and made the Occasion of a Club. That of the 'Georges', which used to

meet at the Sign of the 'George', on St. 'George's' day, and swear

'Before George', is still fresh in every one's Memory.

There are at present in several Parts of this City what they call

'Street-Clubs', in which the chief Inhabitants of the Street converse

together every Night. I remember, upon my enquiring after Lodgings in

'Ormond-Street', the Landlord, to recommend that Quarter of the Town,

told me there was at that time a very good Club in it; he also told me,

upon further Discourse with him, that two or three noisy Country

Squires, who were settled there the Year before, had considerably sunk

the Price of House-Rent; and that the Club (to prevent the like

Inconveniencies for the future) had thoughts of taking every House that

became vacant into their own Hands, till they had found a Tenant for it,

of a Sociable Nature and good Conversation.

The 'Hum-Drum' Club, of which I was formerly an unworthy Member, was

made up of very honest Gentlemen, of peaceable Dispositions, that used

to sit together, smoak their Pipes, and say nothing 'till Midnight. The

'Mum' Club (as I am informed) is an Institution of the same Nature, and

as great an Enemy to Noise.

After these two innocent Societies, I cannot forbear mentioning a very

mischievous one, that was erected in the Reign of King 'Charles' the

Second: I mean 'the Club of Duellists', in which none was to be admitted

that had not fought his Man. The President of it was said to have killed

half a dozen in single Combat; and as for the other Members, they took

their Seats according to the number of their Slain. There was likewise a

Side-Table for such as had only drawn Blood, and shown a laudable

Ambition of taking the first Opportunity to qualify themselves for the

first Table. This Club, consisting only of Men of Honour, did not

continue long, most of the Members of it being put to the Sword, or

hanged, a little after its Institution.

Our Modern celebrated Clubs are founded upon Eating and Drinking, which

are Points wherein most Men agree, and in which the Learned and

Illiterate, the Dull and the Airy, the Philosopher and the Buffoon, can

all of them bear a Part. The 'Kit-Cat' [1] it self is said to have taken

its Original from a Mutton-Pye. The 'Beef-Steak' [2] and October [3]

Clubs, are neither of them averse to Eating and Drinking, if we may form

a Judgment of them from their respective Titles.

When Men are thus knit together, by Love of Society, not a Spirit of

Faction, and do not meet to censure or annoy those that are absent, but

to enjoy one another: When they are thus combined for their own

Improvement, or for the Good of others, or at least to relax themselves

from the Business of the Day, by an innocent and chearful Conversation,

there may be something very useful in these little Institutions and

Establishments.

I cannot forbear concluding this Paper with a Scheme of Laws that I met

with upon a Wall in a little Ale-house: How I came thither I may inform

my Reader at a more convenient time. These Laws were enacted by a Knot

of Artizans and Mechanicks, who used to meet every Night; and as there

is something in them, which gives us a pretty Picture of low Life, I

shall transcribe them Word for Word.

'RULES to be observed in the Two-penny Club, erected in this Place,

for the Preservation of Friendship and good Neighbourhood.'

I. Every Member at his first coming in shall lay down his Two Pence.

II. Every Member shall fill his Pipe out of his own Box.

III. If any Member absents himself he shall forfeit a Penny for the

Use of the Club, unless in case of Sickness or Imprisonment.

IV. If any Member swears or curses, his Neighbour may give him a Kick

upon the Shins.

V. If any Member tells Stories in the Club that are not true, he

shall forfeit for every third Lie an Half-Penny.

VI. If any Member strikes another wrongfully, he shall pay his Club

for him.

VII. If any Member brings his Wife into the Club, he shall pay for

whatever she drinks or smoaks.

VIII If any Member's Wife comes to fetch him Home from the Club, she

shall speak to him without the Door.

IX. If any Member calls another Cuckold, he shall be turned out of

the Club.

X. None shall be admitted into the Club that is of the same Trade

with any Member of it.

XI. None of the Club shall have his Cloaths or Shoes made or mended,

but by a Brother Member.

XII. No Non-juror shall be capable of being a Member.

The Morality of this little Club is guarded by such wholesome Laws and

Penalties, that I question not but my Reader will be as well pleased

with them, as he would have been with the 'Leges Convivales' of _Ben.

Johnson_, [4] the Regulations of an old _Roman_ Club cited by _Lipsius_,

or the rules of a _Symposium_ in an ancient _Greek_ author.

C.

[Footnote 1: The 'Kit-Cat' Club met at a famous Mutton-Pie house in

Shire Lane, by Temple Bar. The house was kept by Christopher Cat, after

whom his pies were called Kit-Cats. The club originated in the

hospitality of Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, who, once a week, was host

at the house in Shire Lane to a gathering of writers. In an occasional

poem on the Kit-Cat Club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, Jacob is

read backwards into Bocaj, and we are told

One Night in Seven at this convenient Seat

Indulgent Bocaj did the Muses treat;

Their Drink was gen'rous Wine and Kit-Cat's Pyes their Meat.

Hence did th' Assembly's Title first arise,

And Kit-Cat Wits spring first from Kit-Cat's Pyes.

About the year 1700 this gathering of wits produced a club in which the

great Whig chiefs were associated with foremost Whig writers, Tonson

being Secretary. It was as much literary as political, and its 'toasting

glasses,' each inscribed with lines to a reigning beauty, caused

Arbuthnot to derive its name from 'its pell mell pack of toasts'

'Of old Cats and young Kits.'

Tonson built a room for the Club at Barn Elms to which each member gave

his portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was himself a member. The

pictures were on a new-sized canvas adapted to the height of the walls,

whence the name 'kit-cat' came to be applied generally to three-quarter

length portraits.]

[Footnote 2: The 'Beef-Steak' Club, founded in Queen Anne's time, first

of its name, took a gridiron for badge, and had cheery Dick Estcourt the

actor for its providore. It met at a tavern in the Old Jewry that had

old repute for broiled steaks and 'the true British quintessence of malt

and hops.']

[Footnote 3: The 'October' Club was of a hundred and fifty Tory squires,

Parliament men, who met at the Bell Tavern, in King Street, Westminster,

and there nourished patriotism with October ale. The portrait of Queen

Anne that used to hang in its Club room is now in the Town

Council-chamber at Salisbury.]

[Footnote 4: In Four and Twenty Latin sentences engraven in marble over

the chimney, in the Apollo or Old Devil Tavern at Temple Bar; that being

his club room.]

* * * * *

No. 10. Monday, March 12, 1711. Addison.

'Non aliter quàm qui adverso vix flumine lembum

Remigiis subigit: si brachia fortè remisit,

Atque illum in præceps prono rapit alveus amni.'

Virg.

It is with much Satisfaction that I hear this great City inquiring Day

by Day after these my Papers, and receiving my Morning Lectures with a

becoming Seriousness and Attention. My Publisher tells me, that there

are already Three Thousand of them distributed every Day: So that if I

allow Twenty Readers to every Paper, which I look upon as a modest

Computation, I may reckon about Threescore thousand Disciples in

_London_ and _Westminster_, who I hope will take care to distinguish

themselves from the thoughtless Herd of their ignorant and unattentive

Brethren. Since I have raised to myself so great an Audience, I shall

spare no Pains to make their Instruction agreeable, and their Diversion

useful. For which Reasons I shall endeavour to enliven Morality with

Wit, and to temper Wit with Morality, that my Readers may, if possible,

both Ways find their account in the Speculation of the Day. And to the

End that their Virtue and Discretion may not be short transient

intermitting Starts of Thought, I have resolved to refresh their

Memories from Day to Day, till I have recovered them out of that

desperate State of Vice and Folly, into which the Age is fallen. The

Mind that lies fallow but a single Day, sprouts up in Follies that are

only to be killed by a constant and assiduous Culture. It was said of

_Socrates_, that he brought Philosophy down from Heaven, to inhabit

among Men; and I shall be ambitious to have it said of me, that I have

brought Philosophy out of Closets and Libraries, Schools and Colleges,

to dwell in Clubs and Assemblies, at Tea-tables, and in Coffee-houses.

I would therefore in a very particular Manner recommend these my

Speculations to all well-regulated Families, that set apart an Hour in

every Morning for Tea and Bread and Butter; and would earnestly advise

them for their Good to order this Paper to be punctually served up, and

to be looked upon as a Part of the Tea Equipage.

Sir _Francis Bacon_ observes, that a well-written Book, compared with

its Rivals and Antagonists, is like _Moses's_ Serpent, that immediately

swallow'd up and devoured those of the _Ægyptians_. I shall not be so

vain as to think, that where the SPECTATOR appears, the other publick

Prints will vanish; but shall leave it to my Readers Consideration,

whether, Is it not much better to be let into the Knowledge of

ones-self, than to hear what passes in _Muscovy_ or _Poland_; and to

amuse our selves with such Writings as tend to the wearing out of

Ignorance, Passion, and Prejudice, than such as naturally conduce to

inflame Hatreds, and make Enmities irreconcileable.

In the next Place, I would recommend this Paper to the daily Perusal of

those Gentlemen whom I cannot but consider as my good Brothers and

Allies, I mean the Fraternity of Spectators who live in the World

without having any thing to do in it; and either by the Affluence of

their Fortunes, or Laziness of their Dispositions, have no other

Business with the rest of Mankind but to look upon them. Under this

Class of Men are comprehended all contemplative Tradesmen, titular

Physicians, Fellows of the Royal Society, Templers that are not given to

be contentious, and Statesmen that are out of business. In short, every

one that considers the World as a Theatre, and desires to form a right

Judgment of those who are the Actors on it.

There is another Set of Men that I must likewise lay a Claim to, whom I

have lately called the Blanks of Society, as being altogether

unfurnish'd with Ideas, till the Business and Conversation of the Day

has supplied them. I have often considered these poor Souls with an Eye

of great Commiseration, when I have heard them asking the first Man they

have met with, whether there was any News stirring? and by that Means

gathering together Materials for thinking. These needy Persons do not

know what to talk of, till about twelve a Clock in the Morning; for by

that Time they are pretty good Judges of the Weather, know which Way the

Wind sits, and whether the Dutch Mail be come in. As they lie at the

Mercy of the first Man they meet, and are grave or impertinent all the

Day long, according to the Notions which they have imbibed in the

Morning, I would earnestly entreat them not to stir out of their

Chambers till they have read this Paper, and do promise them that I will

daily instil into them such sound and wholesome Sentiments, as shall

have a good Effect on their Conversation for the ensuing twelve Hours.

But there are none to whom this Paper will be more useful than to the

female World. I have often thought there has not been sufficient Pains

taken in finding out proper Employments and Diversions for the Fair

ones. Their Amusements seem contrived for them rather as they are Women,

than as they are reasonable Creatures; and are more adapted to the Sex,

than to the Species. The Toilet is their great Scene of Business, and

the right adjusting of their Hair the principal Employment of their

Lives. The sorting of a Suit of Ribbons is reckoned a very good

Morning's Work; and if they make an Excursion to a Mercer's or a

Toy-shop, so great a Fatigue makes them unfit for any thing else all the

Day after. Their more serious Occupations are Sowing and Embroidery, and

their greatest Drudgery the Preparation of Jellies and Sweetmeats. This,

I say, is the State of ordinary Women; tho' I know there are Multitudes

of those of a more elevated Life and Conversation, that move in an

exalted Sphere of Knowledge and Virtue, that join all the Beauties of

the Mind to the Ornaments of Dress, and inspire a kind of Awe and

Respect, as well as Love, into their Male-Beholders. I hope to encrease

the Number of these by publishing this daily Paper, which I shall always

endeavour to make an innocent if not an improving Entertainment, and by

that Means at least divert the Minds of my female Readers from greater

Trifles. At the same Time, as I would fain give some finishing Touches

to those which are already the most beautiful Pieces in humane Nature, I

shall endeavour to point out all those Imperfections that are the

Blemishes, as well as those Virtues which are the Embellishments, of the

Sex. In the mean while I hope these my gentle Readers, who have so much

Time on their Hands, will not grudge throwing away a Quarter of an Hour

in a Day on this Paper, since they may do it without any Hindrance to

Business.

I know several of my Friends and Well-wishers are in great Pain for me,

lest I should not be able to keep up the Spirit of a Paper which I

oblige myself to furnish every Day: But to make them easy in this

Particular, I will promise them faithfully to give it over as soon as I

grow dull. This I know will be Matter of great Raillery to the small

Wits; who will frequently put me in mind of my Promise, desire me to

keep my Word, assure me that it is high Time to give over, with many

other little Pleasantries of the like Nature, which men of a little

smart Genius cannot forbear throwing out against their best Friends,

when they have such a Handle given them of being witty. But let them

remember, that I do hereby enter my Caveat against this Piece of

Raillery.

C.

* * * * *

No. 11. Tuesday, March 13, 1711. Steele.

'Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.'

Juv.

Arietta is visited by all Persons of both Sexes, who may have any

Pretence to Wit and Gallantry. She is in that time of Life which is

neither affected with the Follies of Youth or Infirmities of Age; and

her Conversation is so mixed with Gaiety and Prudence, that she is

agreeable both to the Young and the Old. Her Behaviour is very frank,

without being in the least blameable; and as she is out of the Tract of

any amorous or ambitious Pursuits of her own, her Visitants entertain

her with Accounts of themselves very freely, whether they concern their

Passions or their Interests. I made her a Visit this Afternoon, having

been formerly introduced to the Honour of her Acquaintance, by my friend

_Will. Honeycomb_, who has prevailed upon her to admit me sometimes into

her Assembly, as a civil, inoffensive Man. I found her accompanied with

one Person only, a Common-Place Talker, who, upon my Entrance, rose, and

after a very slight Civility sat down again; then turning to _Arietta_,

pursued his Discourse, which I found was upon the old Topick, of

Constancy in Love. He went on with great Facility in repeating what he

talks every Day of his Life; and, with the Ornaments of insignificant

Laughs and Gestures, enforced his Arguments by Quotations out of Plays

and Songs, which allude to the Perjuries of the Fair, and the general

Levity of Women. Methought he strove to shine more than ordinarily in

his Talkative Way, that he might insult my Silence, and distinguish

himself before a Woman of _Arietta's_ Taste and Understanding. She had

often an Inclination to interrupt him, but could find no Opportunity,

'till the Larum ceased of its self; which it did not 'till he had

repeated and murdered the celebrated Story of the _Ephesian_ Matron. [1]

_Arietta_ seemed to regard this Piece of Raillery as an Outrage done to

her Sex; as indeed I have always observed that Women, whether out of a

nicer Regard to their Honour, or what other Reason I cannot tell, are

more sensibly touched with those general Aspersions, which are cast upon

their Sex, than Men are by what is said of theirs.

When she had a little recovered her self from the serious Anger she was

in, she replied in the following manner.

Sir, when I consider, how perfectly new all you have said on this

Subject is, and that the Story you have given us is not quite two

thousand Years Old, I cannot but think it a Piece of Presumption to

dispute with you: But your Quotations put me in Mind of the Fable of

the Lion and the Man. The Man walking with that noble Animal, showed

him, in the Ostentation of Human Superiority, a Sign of a Man killing

a Lion. Upon which the Lion said very justly, _We Lions are none of us

Painters, else we could show a hundred Men killed by Lions, for one

Lion killed by a Man_. You Men are Writers, and can represent us Women

as Unbecoming as you please in your Works, while we are unable to

return the Injury. You have twice or thrice observed in your

Discourse, that Hypocrisy is the very Foundation of our Education; and

that an Ability to dissemble our affections, is a professed Part of

our Breeding. These, and such other Reflections, are sprinkled up and

down the Writings of all Ages, by Authors, who leave behind them

Memorials of their Resentment against the Scorn of particular Women,

in Invectives against the whole Sex. Such a Writer, I doubt not, was

the celebrated _Petronius_, who invented the pleasant Aggravations of

the Frailty of the _Ephesian_ Lady; but when we consider this Question

between the Sexes, which has been either a Point of Dispute or

Raillery ever since there were Men and Women, let us take Facts from

plain People, and from such as have not either Ambition or Capacity to

embellish their Narrations with any Beauties of Imagination. I was the

other Day amusing myself with _Ligon's_ Account of _Barbadoes_; and,

in Answer to your well-wrought Tale, I will give you (as it dwells

upon my Memory) out of that honest Traveller, in his fifty fifth page,

the History of _Inkle_ and _Yarico_. [2]

Mr. _Thomas Inkle_ of _London_, aged twenty Years, embarked in the

_Downs_, on the good Ship called the 'Achilles', bound for the _West

Indies_, on the 16th of June 1647, in order to improve his Fortune by

Trade and Merchandize. Our Adventurer was the third Son of an eminent

Citizen, who had taken particular Care to instill into his Mind an

early Love of Gain, by making him a perfect Master of Numbers, and

consequently giving him a quick View of Loss and Advantage, and

preventing the natural Impulses of his Passions, by Prepossession

towards his Interests. With a Mind thus turned, young _Inkle_ had a

Person every way agreeable, a ruddy Vigour in his Countenance,

Strength in his Limbs, with Ringlets of fair Hair loosely flowing on

his Shoulders. It happened, in the Course of the Voyage, that the

_Achilles_, in some Distress, put into a Creek on the Main of

_America_, in search of Provisions. The Youth, who is the Hero of my

Story, among others, went ashore on this Occasion. From their first

Landing they were observed by a Party of _Indians_, who hid themselves

in the Woods for that Purpose. The _English_ unadvisedly marched a

great distance from the Shore into the Country, and were intercepted

by the Natives, who slew the greatest Number of them. Our Adventurer

escaped among others, by flying into a Forest. Upon his coming into a

remote and pathless Part of the Wood, he threw himself [tired and]

breathless on a little Hillock, when an _Indian_ Maid rushed from

a Thicket behind him: After the first Surprize, they appeared mutually

agreeable to each other. If the _European_ was highly charmed

with the Limbs, Features, and wild Graces of the Naked

_American_; the _American_ was no less taken with the Dress,

Complexion, and Shape of an _European_, covered from Head to

Foot. The _Indian_ grew immediately enamoured of him, and

consequently sollicitous for his Preservation: She therefore conveyed

him to a Cave, where she gave him a Delicious Repast of Fruits, and

led him to a Stream to slake his Thirst. In the midst of these good

Offices, she would sometimes play with his Hair, and delight in the

Opposition of its Colour to that of her Fingers: Then open his Bosome,

then laugh at him for covering it. She was, it seems, a Person of

Distinction, for she every day came to him in a different Dress, of

the most beautiful Shells, Bugles, and Bredes. She likewise brought

him a great many Spoils, which her other Lovers had presented to her;

so that his Cave was richly adorned with all the spotted Skins of

Beasts, and most Party-coloured Feathers of Fowls, which that World

afforded. To make his Confinement more tolerable, she would carry him

in the Dusk of the Evening, or by the favour of Moon-light, to

unfrequented Groves, and Solitudes, and show him where to lye down in

Safety, and sleep amidst the Falls of Waters, and Melody of

Nightingales. Her Part was to watch and hold him in her Arms, for fear

of her Country-men, and wake on Occasions to consult his Safety. In

this manner did the Lovers pass away their Time, till they had learn'd

a Language of their own, in which the Voyager communicated to his

Mistress, how happy he should be to have her in his Country, where she

should be Cloathed in such Silks as his Wastecoat was made of, and be

carried in Houses drawn by Horses, without being exposed to Wind or

Weather. All this he promised her the Enjoyment of, without such Fears

and Alarms as they were there tormented with. In this tender

Correspondence these Lovers lived for several Months, when

_Yarico_, instructed by her Lover, discovered a Vessel on the

Coast, to which she made Signals, and in the Night, with the utmost

Joy and Satisfaction accompanied him to a Ships-Crew of his

Country-Men, bound for _Barbadoes_. When a Vessel from the Main

arrives in that Island, it seems the Planters come down to the Shoar,

where there is an immediate Market of the _Indians_ and other Slaves,

as with us of Horses and Oxen.

To be short, Mr. _Thomas Inkle_, now coming into _English_

Territories, began seriously to reflect upon his loss of Time, and to

weigh with himself how many Days Interest of his Mony he had lost

during his Stay with _Yarico_. This Thought made the Young Man very

pensive, and careful what Account he should be able to give his

Friends of his Voyage. Upon which Considerations, the prudent and

frugal young Man sold _Yarico_ to a _Barbadian_ Merchant;

notwithstanding that the poor Girl, to incline him to commiserate her

Condition, told him that she was with Child by him: But he only made

use of that Information, to rise in his Demands upon the Purchaser.

I was so touch'd with this Story, (which I think should be always a

Counterpart to the _Ephesian_ Matron) that I left the Room with Tears in

my Eyes; which a Woman of _Arietta's_ good Sense, did, I am sure, take

for greater Applause, than any Compliments I could make her.

R.

[Footnote 1: Told in the prose 'Satyricon' ascribed to Petronius, whom

Nero called his Arbiter of Elegance. The tale was known in the Middle

Ages from the stories of the 'Seven Wise Masters.' She went down into

the vault with her husband's corpse, resolved to weep to death or die of

famine; but was tempted to share the supper of a soldier who was

watching seven bodies hanging upon trees, and that very night, in the

grave of her husband and in her funeral garments, married her new and

stranger guest.]

[Footnote 2: 'A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes. By

Richard Ligon, Gent.,' fol. 1673. The first edition had appeared in

1657. Steele's beautiful story is elaborated from the following short

passage in the page he cites. After telling that he had an Indian slave

woman 'of excellent shape and colour,' who would not be wooed by any

means to wear clothes, Mr. Ligon says:

'This _Indian_ dwelling near the Sea Coast, upon the Main, an

_English_ ship put in to a Bay, and sent some of her Men a shoar, to

try what victuals or water they could find, for in some distress they

were: But the _Indians_ perceiving them to go up so far into the

Country, as they were sure they could not make a safe retreat,

intercepted them in their return, and fell upon them, chasing them

into a Wood, and being dispersed there, some were taken, and some

kill'd: But a young man amongst them straggling from the rest, was met

by this _Indian_ maid, who upon the first sight fell in love with him,

and hid him close from her Countrymen (the _Indians_) in a Cave, and

there fed him, till they could safely go down to the shoar, where the

ship lay at anchor, expecting the return of their friends. But at

last, seeing them upon the shoar, sent the long-Boat for them, took

them aboard, and brought them away. But the youth, when he came ashoar

in the _Barbadoes_, forgot the kindness of the poor maid, that had

ventured her life for his safety, and sold her for a slave, who was as

free born as he: And so poor _Yarico_ for her love, lost her liberty.']

* * * * *

No. 12. Wednesday, March 14, 1711. Addison.

... Veteres avias tibi de pulmone revello.

Per.

At my coming to _London_, it was some time before I could settle my self

in a House to my likeing. I was forced to quit my first Lodgings, by

reason of an officious Land-lady, that would be asking every Morning how

I had slept. I then fell into an honest Family, and lived very happily

for above a Week; when my Land-lord, who was a jolly good-natur'd Man,

took it into his head that I wanted Company, and therefore would

frequently come into my Chamber to keep me from being alone. This I bore

for Two or Three Days; but telling me one Day that he was afraid I was

melancholy, I thought it was high time for me to be gone, and

accordingly took new Lodgings that very Night. About a Week after, I

found my jolly Land-lord, who, as I said before was an honest hearty

Man, had put me into an Advertisement of the 'Daily Courant', in the

following Words.

'_Whereas a melancholy Man left his Lodgings on Thursday last in the

Afternoon, and was afterwards seen going towards Islington; If any one

can give Notice of him to_ R. B., Fishmonger in the_ Strand, _he shall

be very well rewarded for his Pains._'

As I am the best Man in the World to keep my own Counsel, and my

Land-lord the Fishmonger not knowing my Name, this Accident of my Life

was never discovered to this very Day.

I am now settled with a Widow-woman, who has a great many Children, and

complies with my Humour in everything. I do not remember that we have

exchang'd a Word together these Five Years; my Coffee comes into my

Chamber every Morning without asking for it; if I want Fire I point to

my Chimney, if Water, to my Bason: Upon which my Land-lady nods, as much

as to say she takes my Meaning, and immediately obeys my Signals. She

has likewise model'd her Family so well, that when her little Boy offers

to pull me by the Coat or prattle in my Face, his eldest Sister

immediately calls him off and bids him not disturb the Gentleman. At my

first entering into the Family, I was troubled with the Civility of

their rising up to me every time I came into the Room; but my Land-lady

observing, that upon these Occasions I always cried Pish and went out

again, has forbidden any such Ceremony to be used in the House; so that

at present I walk into the Kitchin or Parlour without being taken notice

of, or giving any Interruption to the Business or Discourse of the

Family. The Maid will ask her Mistress (tho' I am by) whether the

Gentleman is ready to go to Dinner, as the Mistress (who is indeed an

excellent Housewife) scolds at the Servants as heartily before my Face

as behind my Back. In short, I move up and down the House and enter into

all Companies, with the same Liberty as a Cat or any other domestick

Animal, and am as little suspected of telling anything that I hear or

see.

I remember last Winter there were several young Girls of the

Neighbourhood sitting about the Fire with my Land-lady's Daughters, and

telling Stories of Spirits and Apparitions. Upon my opening the Door the

young Women broke off their Discourse, but my Land-lady's Daughters

telling them that it was no Body but the Gentleman (for that is the Name

which I go by in the Neighbourhood as well as in the Family), they went

on without minding me. I seated myself by the Candle that stood on a

Table at one End of the Room; and pretending to read a Book that I took

out of my Pocket, heard several dreadful Stories of Ghosts as pale as

Ashes that had stood at the Feet of a Bed, or walked over a Churchyard

by Moonlight: And of others that had been conjured into the _Red-Sea_,

for disturbing People's Rest, and drawing their Curtains at Midnight;

with many other old Women's Fables of the like Nature. As one Spirit

raised another, I observed that at the End of every Story the whole

Company closed their Ranks and crouded about the Fire: I took Notice in

particular of a little Boy, who was so attentive to every Story, that I

am mistaken if he ventures to go to bed by himself this Twelvemonth.

Indeed they talked so long, that the Imaginations of the whole Assembly

were manifestly crazed, and I am sure will be the worse for it as long

as they live. I heard one of the Girls, that had looked upon me over her

Shoulder, asking the Company how long I had been in the Room, and

whether I did not look paler than I used to do. This put me under some

Apprehensions that I should be forced to explain my self if I did not

retire; for which Reason I took the Candle in my Hand, and went up into

my Chamber, not without wondering at this unaccountable Weakness in

reasonable Creatures, [that they should [1]] love to astonish and

terrify one another.

Were I a Father, I should take a particular Care to preserve my Children

from these little Horrours of Imagination, which they are apt to

contract when they are young, and are not able to shake off when they

are in Years. I have known a Soldier that has enter'd a Breach,

affrighted at his own Shadow; and look pale upon a little scratching at

his Door, who the Day before had march'd up against a Battery of Cannon.

There are Instances of Persons, who have been terrify'd, even to

Distraction, at the Figure of a Tree or the shaking of a Bull-rush. The

Truth of it is, I look upon a sound Imagination as the greatest Blessing

of Life, next to a clear Judgment and a good Conscience. In the mean

Time, since there are very few whose Minds are not more or less subject

to these dreadful Thoughts and Apprehensions, we ought to arm our selves

against them by the Dictates of Reason and Religion, _to pull the old

Woman out of our Hearts_ (as _Persius_ expresses it in the Motto of my

Paper), and extinguish those impertinent Notions which we imbibed at a

Time that we were not able to judge of their Absurdity. Or if we

believe, as many wise and good Men have done, that there are such

Phantoms and Apparitions as those I have been speaking of, let us

endeavour to establish to our selves an Interest in him who holds the

Reins of the whole Creation in his Hand, and moderates them after such a

Manner, that it is impossible for one Being to break loose upon another

without his Knowledge and Permission.

For my own Part, I am apt to join in Opinion with those who believe that

all the Regions of Nature swarm with Spirits; and that we have

Multitudes of Spectators on all our Actions, when we think our selves

most alone: But instead of terrifying my self with such a Notion, I am

wonderfully pleased to think that I am always engaged with such an

innumerable Society in searching out the Wonders of the Creation, and

joining in the same Consort of Praise and Adoration.

Milton [2] has finely described this mixed Communion of Men and Spirits

in Paradise; and had doubtless his Eye upon a Verse in old _Hesiod_, [3]

which is almost Word for Word the same with his third Line in the

following Passage.

'Nor think, though Men were none,

That Heav'n would want Spectators, God want praise:

Millions of spiritual Creatures walk the Earth

Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep;

All these with ceaseless Praise his Works behold

Both Day and Night. How often from the Steep

Of echoing Hill or Thicket, have we heard

Celestial Voices to the midnight Air,

Sole, or responsive each to others Note,

Singing their great Creator: Oft in bands,

While they keep Watch, or nightly Rounding walk,

With heav'nly Touch of instrumental Sounds,

In full harmonick Number join'd, their Songs

Divide the Night, and lift our Thoughts to Heav'n.'

C.

[Footnote 1: who]

[Footnote 2: 'Paradise Lost', B. IV., lines 675-688.]

[Footnote 3: In Bk. I. of the 'Works and Days,' description of the

Golden Age, when the good after death

Yet still held state on earth, and guardians were

Of all best mortals still surviving there,

Observ'd works just and unjust, clad in air,

And gliding undiscovered everywhere.

'Chapman's Translation'.]

* * * * *

No. 13. Thursday, March 15, 1711. Addison.

'Dic mi hi si fueris tu leo qualis eris?'

Mart.

There is nothing that of late Years has afforded Matter of greater

Amusement to the Town than Signior _Nicolini's_ Combat with a Lion in

the _Hay-Market_ [1] which has been very often exhibited to the general

Satisfaction of most of the Nobility and Gentry in the Kingdom of _Great

Britain_. Upon the first Rumour of this intended Combat, it was

confidently affirmed, and is still believed by many in both Galleries,

that there would be a tame Lion sent from the Tower every Opera Night,

in order to be killed by _Hydaspes_; this Report, tho' altogether

groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper Regions of the

Play-House, that some of the most refined Politicians in those Parts of

the Audience, gave it out in Whisper, that the Lion was a Cousin-German

of the Tyger who made his Appearance in King _William's_ days, and that

the Stage would be supplied with Lions at the public Expence, during the

whole Session. Many likewise were the Conjectures of the Treatment which

this Lion was to meet with from the hands of Signior _Nicolini_; some

supposed that he was to Subdue him in _Recitativo_, as _Orpheus_ used to

serve the wild Beasts in his time, and afterwards to knock him on the

head; some fancied that the Lion would not pretend to lay his Paws upon

the Hero, by Reason of the received Opinion, that a Lion will not hurt a

Virgin. Several, who pretended to have seen the Opera in _Italy_, had

informed their Friends, that the Lion was to act a part in _High Dutch_,

and roar twice or thrice to a thorough Base, before he fell at the Feet

of _Hydaspes_. To clear up a Matter that was so variously reported, I

have made it my Business to examine whether this pretended Lion is

really the Savage he appears to be, or only a Counterfeit.

But before I communicate my Discoveries, I must acquaint the Reader,

that upon my walking behind the Scenes last Winter, as I was thinking on

something else, I accidentally jostled against a monstrous Animal that

extreamly startled me, and, upon my nearer Survey of it, appeared to be

a Lion-Rampant. The Lion, seeing me very much surprized, told me, in a

gentle Voice, that I might come by him if I pleased: 'For' (says he) 'I

do not intend to hurt anybody'. I thanked him very kindly, and passed by

him. And in a little time after saw him leap upon the Stage, and act his

Part with very great Applause. It has been observed by several, that the

Lion has changed his manner of Acting twice or thrice since his first

Appearance; which will not seem strange, when I acquaint my Reader that

the Lion has been changed upon the Audience three several times. The

first Lion was a Candle-snuffer, who being a Fellow of a testy,

cholerick Temper over-did his Part, and would not suffer himself to be

killed so easily as he ought to have done; besides, it was observ'd of

him, that he grew more surly every time he came out of the Lion; and

having dropt some Words in ordinary Conversation, as if he had not

fought his best, and that he suffered himself to be thrown upon his Back

in the Scuffle, and that he would wrestle with Mr 'Nicolini' for what he

pleased, out of his Lion's Skin, it was thought proper to discard him:

And it is verily believed to this Day, that had he been brought upon the

Stage another time, he would certainly have done Mischief. Besides, it

was objected against the first Lion, that he reared himself so high upon

his hinder Paws, and walked in so erect a Posture, that he looked more

like an old Man than a Lion. The second Lion was a Taylor by Trade, who

belonged to the Play-House, and had the Character of a mild and

peaceable Man in his Profession. If the former was too furious, this was

too sheepish, for his Part; insomuch that after a short modest Walk upon

the Stage, he would fall at the first Touch of 'Hydaspes', without

grappling with him, and giving him an Opportunity of showing his Variety

of 'Italian' Tripps: It is said, indeed, that he once gave him a Ripp in

his flesh-colour Doublet, but this was only to make work for himself, in

his private Character of a Taylor. I must not omit that it was this

second Lion [who [2]] treated me with so much Humanity behind the

Scenes. The Acting Lion at present is, as I am informed, a Country

Gentleman, who does it for his Diversion, but desires his Name may be

concealed. He says very handsomely in his own Excuse, that he does not

Act for Gain, that he indulges an innocent Pleasure in it, and that it

is better to pass away an Evening in this manner, than in Gaming and

Drinking: But at the same time says, with a very agreeable Raillery upon

himself, that if his name should be known, the ill-natured World might

call him, _The Ass in the Lion's skin_. This Gentleman's Temper is made

out of such a happy Mixture of the Mild and the Cholerick, that he

out-does both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater Audiences

than have been known in the Memory of Man.

I must not conclude my Narrative, without taking Notice of a groundless

Report that has been raised, to a Gentleman's Disadvantage, of whom I

must declare my self an Admirer; namely, that Signior _Nicolini_ and the

Lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one another, and smoking a Pipe

together, behind the Scenes; by which their common Enemies would

insinuate, it is but a sham Combat which they represent upon the Stage:

But upon Enquiry I find, that if any such Correspondence has passed

between them, it was not till the Combat was over, when the Lion was to

be looked upon as dead, according to the received Rules of the _Drama_.

Besides, this is what is practised every day in _Westminster-Hall_,

where nothing is more usual than to see a Couple of Lawyers, who have

been rearing each other to pieces in the Court, embracing one another as

soon as they are out of it.

I would not be thought, in any part of this Relation, to reflect upon

Signior _Nicolini_, who, in Acting this Part only complies with the

wretched Taste of his Audience; he knows very well, that the Lion has

many more Admirers than himself; as they say of the famous _Equestrian_

Statue on the _Pont-Neuf_ at _Paris_, that more People go to see the

Horse, than the King who sits upon it. On the contrary, it gives me a

just Indignation, to see a Person whose Action gives new Majesty to

Kings, Resolution to Heroes, and Softness to Lovers, thus sinking from

the Greatness of his Behaviour, and degraded into the Character of the

_London_ Prentice. I have often wished that our Tragoedians would copy

after this great Master in Action. Could they make the same use of their

Arms and Legs, and inform their Faces with as significant Looks and

Passions, how glorious would an _English_ Tragedy appear with that

Action which is capable of giving a Dignity to the forced Thoughts, cold

Conceits, and unnatural Expressions of an _Italian_ Opera. In the mean

time, I have related this Combat of the Lion, to show what are at

present the reigning Entertainments of the Politer Part of _Great

Britain_.

Audiences have often been reproached by Writers for the Coarseness of

their Taste, but our present Grievance does not seem to be the Want of a

good Taste, but of Common Sense.

C.

[Footnote 1: The famous Neapolitan actor and singer, Cavalier Nicolino

Grimaldi, commonly called Nicolini, had made his first appearance in an

opera called 'Pyrrhus and Demetrius,' which was the last attempt to

combine English with Italian. His voice was a soprano, but afterwards

descended into a fine contralto, and he seems to have been the finest

actor of his day. Prices of seats at the opera were raised on his coming

from 7s. 6d. to 10s. for pit and boxes, and from 10s. 6d. to 15s. for

boxes on the stage. When this paper was written he had appeared also in

a new opera on 'Almahide,' and proceeded to those encounters with the

lion in the opera of _Hydaspes_, by a Roman composer, Francesco Mancini,

first produced May 23, 1710, which the _Spectator_ has made memorable.

It had been performed 21 times in 1710, and was now reproduced and

repeated four times. Nicolini, as Hydaspes in this opera, thrown naked

into an amphitheatre to be devoured by a lion, is so inspired with

courage by the presence of his mistress among the spectators that (says

Mr Sutherland Edwards in his 'History of the Opera')

'after appealing to the monster in a minor key, and telling him that

he may tear his bosom, but cannot touch his heart, he attacks him in

the relative major, and strangles him.']

[Footnote 2: that]

* * * * *

No. 14. Friday, March 16, 1711. Steele.

... Teque his, Infelix, exue monstris.

Ovid.

I was reflecting this Morning upon the Spirit and Humour of the publick

Diversions Five and twenty Years ago, and those of the present Time; and

lamented to my self, that though in those Days they neglected their

Morality, they kept up their Good Sense; but that the _beau Monde_, at

present, is only grown more childish, not more innocent, than the

former. While I was in this Train of Thought, an odd Fellow, whose Face

I have often seen at the Play-house, gave me the following Letter with

these words, Sir, _The Lyon presents his humble Service to you, and

desired me to give this into your own Hands._

From my Den in the Hay-market, March 15.

SIR

'I have read all your Papers, and have stifled my Resentment against

your Reflections upon Operas, till that of this Day, wherein you

plainly insinuate, that Signior _Grimaldi_ and my self have a

Correspondence more friendly than is consistent with the Valour of his

Character, or the Fierceness of mine. I desire you would, for your own

Sake, forbear such Intimations for the future; and must say it is a

great Piece of Ill-nature in you, to show so great an Esteem for a

Foreigner, and to discourage a _Lyon_ that is your own Country-man.

I take notice of your Fable of the Lyon and Man, but am so equally

concerned in that Matter, that I shall not be offended to which soever

of the Animals the Superiority is given. You have misrepresented me,

in saying that I am a Country-Gentleman, who act only for my

Diversion; whereas, had I still the same Woods to range in which I

once had when I was a Fox-hunter, I should not resign my Manhood for a

Maintenance; and assure you, as low as my Circumstances are at

present, I am so much a Man of Honour, that I would scorn to be any

Beast for Bread but a Lyon.

Yours, &c.

I had no sooner ended this, than one of my Land-lady's Children brought

me in several others, with some of which I shall make up my present

Paper, they all having a Tendency to the same Subject, _viz_. the

Elegance of our present Diversions.

Covent Garden, March 13.

SIR,

'I Have been for twenty Years Under-Sexton of this Parish of _St.

Paul's, Covent-Garden_, and have not missed tolling in to Prayers six

times in all those Years; which Office I have performed to my great

Satisfaction, till this Fortnight last past, during which Time I find

my Congregation take the Warning of my Bell, Morning and Evening, to

go to a Puppett-show set forth by one _Powell_, under the _Piazzas_.

By this Means, I have not only lost my two Customers, whom I used to

place for six Pence a Piece over against Mrs _Rachel Eyebright_, but

Mrs _Rachel_ herself is gone thither also. There now appear among us

none but a few ordinary People, who come to Church only to say their

Prayers, so that I have no Work worth speaking of but on _Sundays_. I

have placed my Son at the _Piazzas_, to acquaint the Ladies that the

Bell rings for Church, and that it stands on the other side of the

_Garden_; but they only laugh at the Child.

I desire you would lay this before all the World, that I may not be

made such a Tool for the Future, and that Punchinello may chuse Hours

less canonical. As things are now, Mr _Powell_ has a full

Congregation, while we have a very thin House; which if you can

Remedy, you will very much oblige,

Sir, Yours, &c.'

The following Epistle I find is from the Undertaker of the Masquerade. [1]

SIR,

'I Have observed the Rules of my Masque so carefully (in not enquiring

into Persons), that I cannot tell whether you were one of the Company

or not last _Tuesday_; but if you were not and still design to come, I

desire you would, for your own Entertainment, please to admonish the

Town, that all Persons indifferently are not fit for this Sort of

Diversion. I could wish, Sir, you could make them understand, that it

is a kind of acting to go in Masquerade, and a Man should be able to

say or do things proper for the Dress in which he appears. We have now

and then Rakes in the Habit of Roman Senators, and grave Politicians

in the Dress of Rakes. The Misfortune of the thing is, that People

dress themselves in what they have a Mind to be, and not what they are

fit for. There is not a Girl in the Town, but let her have her Will in

going to a Masque, and she shall dress as a Shepherdess. But let me

beg of them to read the Arcadia, or some other good Romance, before

they appear in any such Character at my House. The last Day we

presented, every Body was so rashly habited, that when they came to

speak to each other, a Nymph with a Crook had not a Word to say but in

the pert Stile of the Pit Bawdry; and a Man in the Habit of a

Philosopher was speechless, till an occasion offered of expressing

himself in the Refuse of the Tyring-Rooms. We had a Judge that danced

a Minuet, with a Quaker for his Partner, while half a dozen Harlequins

stood by as Spectators: A _Turk_ drank me off two Bottles of Wine, and

a _Jew_ eat me up half a Ham of Bacon. If I can bring my Design to

bear, and make the Maskers preserve their Characters in my Assemblies,

I hope you will allow there is a Foundation laid for more elegant and

improving Gallantries than any the Town at present affords; and

consequently that you will give your Approbation to the Endeavours of,

Sir, Your most obedient humble servant.'

I am very glad the following Epistle obliges me to mention Mr _Powell_ a

second Time in the same Paper; for indeed there cannot be too great

Encouragement given to his Skill in Motions, provided he is under proper

Restrictions.

SIR,

'The Opera at the _Hay-Market_, and that under the little _Piazza_ in

_Covent-Garden_, being at present the Two leading Diversions of the

Town; and Mr _Powell_ professing in his Advertisements to set up

_Whittington and his Cat_ against _Rinaldo and Armida_, my Curiosity

led me the Beginning of last Week to view both these Performances, and

make my Observations upon them.

First therefore, I cannot but observe that Mr _Powell_ wisely

forbearing to give his Company a Bill of Fare before-hand, every Scene

is new and unexpected; whereas it is certain, that the Undertakers of

the _Hay-Market_, having raised too great an Expectation in their

printed Opera, very much disappointed their Audience on the Stage.

The King of _Jerusalem_ is obliged to come from the City on foot,

instead of being drawn in a triumphant Chariot by white Horses, as my

Opera-Book had promised me; and thus, while I expected _Armida's_

Dragons should rush forward towards _Argantes_, I found the Hero was

obliged to go to _Armida_, and hand her out of her Coach. We had also

but a very short Allowance of Thunder and Lightning; tho' I cannot in

this Place omit doing Justice to the Boy who had the Direction of the

Two painted Dragons, and made them spit Fire and Smoke: He flash'd out

his Rosin in such just Proportions, and in such due Time, that I could

not forbear conceiving Hopes of his being one Day a most excellent

Player. I saw, indeed, but Two things wanting to render his whole

Action compleat, I mean the keeping his Head a little lower, and

hiding his Candle.

I observe that Mr _Powell_ and the Undertakers had both the same

Thought, and I think, much about the same time, of introducing Animals

on their several Stages, though indeed with very different Success.

The Sparrows and Chaffinches at the _Hay-Market_ fly as yet very

irregularly over the Stage; and instead of perching on the Trees and

performing their Parts, these young Actors either get into the

Galleries or put out the Candles; whereas Mr _Powell_ has so well

disciplined his Pig, that in the first Scene he and Punch dance a

Minuet together. I am informed however, that Mr _Powell_ resolves to

excell his Adversaries in their own Way; and introduce Larks in his

next Opera of _Susanna_, or _Innocence betrayed_, which will be

exhibited next Week with a Pair of new Elders.' [2]

The Moral of Mr _Powell's_ Drama is violated I confess by Punch's

national Reflections on the _French_, and King _Harry's_ laying his

Leg upon his Queen's Lap in too ludicrous a manner before so great an

Assembly.

As to the Mechanism and Scenary, every thing, indeed, was uniform,

and of a Piece, and the Scenes were managed very dexterously; which

calls on me to take Notice, that at the _Hay-Market_ the Undertakers

forgetting to change their Side-Scenes, we were presented with a

Prospect of the Ocean in the midst of a delightful Grove; and tho' the

Gentlemen on the Stage had very much contributed to the Beauty of the

Grove, by walking up and down between the Trees, I must own I was not

a little astonished to see a well-dressed young Fellow in a

full-bottomed Wigg, appear in the Midst of the Sea, and without any

visible Concern taking Snuff.

I shall only observe one thing further, in which both Dramas agree;

which is, that by the Squeak of their Voices the Heroes of each are

Eunuchs; and as the Wit in both Pieces are equal, I must prefer the

Performance of Mr _Powell_, because it is in our own Language.

I am, &c.'

[Footnote 1: Masquerades took rank as a leading pleasure of the town

under the management of John James Heidegger, son of a Zurich clergyman,

who came to England in 1708, at the age of 50, as a Swiss negotiator. He

entered as a private in the Guards, and attached himself to the service

of the fashionable world, which called him 'the Swiss Count,' and

readily accepted him as leader. In 1709 he made five hundred guineas by

furnishing the spectacle for Motteux's opera of 'Tomyris, Queen of

Scythia'. When these papers were written he was thriving upon the

Masquerades, which he brought into fashion and made so much a rage of

the town that moralists and satirists protested, and the clergy preached

against them. A sermon preached against them by the Bishop of London,

January 6th, 1724, led to an order that no more should take place than

the six subscribed for at the beginning of the month. Nevertheless they

held their ground afterwards by connivance of the government. In 1728,

Heidegger was called in to nurse the Opera, which throve by his bold

puffing. He died, in 1749, at the age of 90, claiming chief honour to

the Swiss for ingenuity.

'I was born,' he said, 'a Swiss, and came to England without a

farthing, where I have found means to gain, £5000 a-year,--and to

spend it. Now I defy the ablest Englishman to go to Switzerland and

either gain that income or spend it there.']

[Footnote 2: The 'History of Susanna' had been an established puppet

play for more than two generations. An old copy of verses on Bartholomew

Fair in the year 1665, describing the penny and twopenny puppet plays,

or, as they had been called in and since Queen Elizabeth's time,

'motions,' says

"Their Sights are so rich, is able to bewitch

The heart of a very fine man-a;

Here's 'Patient Grisel' here, and 'Fair Rosamond' there,

And 'the History of Susanna.'"

Pepys tells of the crowd waiting, in 1667, to see Lady Castlemaine come

out from the puppet play of 'Patient Grisel.'

The Powell mentioned in this essay was a deformed cripple whose

Puppet-Show, called Punch's Theatre, owed its pre-eminence to his own

power of satire. This he delivered chiefly through Punch, the clown of

the puppets, who appeared in all plays with so little respect to

dramatic rule that Steele in the Tatler (for May 17, 1709) represents a

correspondent at Bath, telling how, of two ladies, Prudentia and

Florimel, who would lead the fashion, Prudentia caused Eve in the

Puppet-Show of 'the Creation of the World' to be

'made the most like Florimel that ever was seen,'

and

'when we came to Noah's Flood in the show, Punch and his wife were

introduced dancing in the ark.'

Of the fanatics called French Prophets, who used to assemble in

Moorfields in Queen Anne's reign, Lord Chesterfield remembered that

'the then Ministry, who loved a little persecution well enough, was,

however, so wise as not to disturb their madness, and only ordered one

Powell, the master of a famous Puppet-Show, to make Punch turn

Prophet; which he did so well, that it soon put an end to the prophets

and their prophecies. The obscure Dr Sacheverell's fortune was made by

a parliamentary prosecution' (from Feb. 27 to March 23, 1709-10) 'much

about the same time the French Prophets were totally extinguished by a

Puppet-Show'

(Misc. Works, ed. Maty., Vol. II, p. 523, 555).

This was the Powell who played in Covent Garden during the time of

week-day evening service, and who, taking up Addison's joke against the

opera from No. 5 of the 'Spectator', produced 'Whittington and his Cat'

as a rival to 'Rinaldo and Armida'. [See also a note to No. 31.]]

* * * * *

ADVERTISEMENT.

On the first of April will be performed at the Play-house in the

Hay-market, an Opera call'd 'The Cruelty of Atreus'.

N.B. The Scene wherein Thyestes eats his own Children, is to be

performed by the famous Mr Psalmanazar, [1] lately

arrived from Formosa; The whole Supper

being set to Kettle-drums.

R.

[Footnote 1: George Psalmanazar, who never told his real name and

precise birthplace, was an impostor from Languedoc, and 31 years old in

1711. He had been educated in a Jesuit college, where he heard stories

of the Jesuit missions in Japan and Formosa, which suggested to him how

he might thrive abroad as an interesting native. He enlisted as a

soldier, and had in his character of Japanese only a small notoriety

until, at Sluys, a dishonest young chaplain of Brigadier Lauder's Scotch

regiment, saw through the trick and favoured it, that he might recommend

himself to the Bishop of London for promotion. He professed to have

converted Psalmanazar, baptized him, with the Brigadier for godfather,

got his discharge from the regiment, and launched him upon London under

the patronage of Bishop Compton. Here Psalmanazar, who on his arrival

was between nineteen and twenty years old, became famous in the

religious world. He supported his fraud by invention of a language and

letters, and of a Formosan religion. To oblige the Bishop he translated

the church catechism into 'Formosan,' and he published in 1704 'an

historical and geographical Description of Formosa,' of which a second

edition appeared in the following year. It contained numerous plates of

imaginary scenes and persons. His gross and puerile absurdities in print

and conversation--such as his statements that the Formosans sacrificed

eighteen thousand male infants every year, and that the Japanese studied

Greek as a learned tongue,--excited a distrust that would have been

fatal to the success of his fraud, even with the credulous, if he had

not forced himself to give colour to his story by acting the savage in

men's eyes. But he must really, it was thought, be a savage who fed upon

roots, herbs, and raw flesh. He made, however, so little by the

imposture, that he at last confessed himself a cheat, and got his living

as a well-conducted bookseller's hack for many years before his death,

in 1763, aged 84. In 1711, when this jest was penned, he had not yet

publicly eaten his own children, i.e. swallowed his words and declared

his writings forgeries. In 1716 there was a subscription of £20 or £30 a

year raised for him as a Formosan convert. It was in 1728 that he began

to write that formal confession of his fraud, which he left for

publication after his death, and whereby he made his great public

appearance as Thyestes.

This jest against Psalmanazar was expunged from the first reprint of the

_Spectator_ in 1712, and did not reappear in the lifetime of Steele

or Addison, or until long after it had been amply justified.]

* * * * *

No. 15. Saturday, March 17, 1711. Addison.

'Parva leves capiunt animos ...'

Ovid.

When I was in _France_, I used to gaze with great Astonishment at the

Splendid Equipages and Party-coloured Habits, of that Fantastick Nation.

I was one Day in particular contemplating a Lady that sate in a Coach

adorned with gilded _Cupids_, and finely painted with the Loves of

_Venus_ and _Adonis_. The Coach was drawn by six milk-white Horses, and

loaden behind with the same Number of powder'd Foot-men. Just before the

Lady were a Couple of beautiful Pages, that were stuck among the

Harness, and by their gay Dresses, and smiling Features, looked like the

elder Brothers of the little Boys that were carved and painted in every

Corner of the Coach.

The Lady was the unfortunate _Cleanthe_, who afterwards gave an Occasion

to a pretty melancholy Novel. She had, for several Years, received the

Addresses of a Gentleman, whom, after a long and intimate Acquaintance,

she forsook, upon the Account of this shining Equipage which had been

offered to her by one of great Riches, but a Crazy Constitution. The

Circumstances in which I saw her, were, it seems, the Disguises only of

a broken Heart, and a kind of Pageantry to cover Distress; for in two

Months after, she was carried to her Grave with the same Pomp and

Magnificence: being sent thither partly by the Loss of one Lover, and

partly by the Possession of another.

I have often reflected with my self on this unaccountable Humour in

Woman-kind, of being smitten with every thing that is showy and

superficial; and on the numberless Evils that befall the Sex, from this

light, fantastical Disposition. I my self remember a young Lady that was

very warmly sollicited by a Couple of importunate Rivals, who, for

several Months together, did all they could to recommend themselves, by

Complacency of Behaviour, and Agreeableness of Conversation. At length,

when the Competition was doubtful, and the Lady undetermined in her

Choice, one of the young Lovers very luckily bethought himself of adding

a supernumerary Lace to his Liveries, which had so good an Effect that

he married her the very Week after.

The usual Conversation of ordinary Women, very much cherishes this

Natural Weakness of being taken with Outside and Appearance. Talk of a

new-married Couple, and you immediately hear whether they keep their

Coach and six, or eat in Plate: Mention the Name of an absent Lady, and

it is ten to one but you learn something of her Gown and Petticoat. A

Ball is a great Help to Discourse, and a Birth-Day furnishes

Conversation for a Twelve-month after. A Furbelow of precious Stones, an

Hat buttoned with a Diamond, a Brocade Waistcoat or Petticoat, are

standing Topicks. In short, they consider only the Drapery of the

Species, and never cast away a Thought on those Ornaments of the Mind,

that make Persons Illustrious in themselves, and Useful to others. When

Women are thus perpetually dazling one anothers Imaginations, and

filling their Heads with nothing but Colours, it is no Wonder that they

are more attentive to the superficial Parts of Life, than the solid and

substantial Blessings of it. A Girl, who has been trained up in this

kind of Conversation, is in danger of every Embroidered Coat that comes

in her Way. A Pair of fringed Gloves may be her Ruin. In a word, Lace

and Ribbons, Silver and Gold Galloons, with the like glittering

Gew-Gaws, are so many Lures to Women of weak Minds or low Educations,

and, when artificially displayed, are able to fetch down the most airy

Coquet from the wildest of her Flights and Rambles.

True Happiness is of a retired Nature, and an Enemy to Pomp and Noise;

it arises, in the first place, from the Enjoyment of ones self; and, in

the next, from the Friendship and Conversation of a few select

Companions. It loves Shade and Solitude, and naturally haunts Groves and

Fountains, Fields and Meadows: In short, it feels every thing it wants

within itself, and receives no Addition from Multitudes of Witnesses and

Spectators. On the contrary, false Happiness loves to be in a Crowd, and

to draw the Eyes of the World upon her. She does not receive any

Satisfaction from the Applauses which she gives her self, but from the

Admiration which she raises in others. She flourishes in Courts and

Palaces, Theatres and Assemblies, and has no Existence but when she is

looked upon.

_Aurelia_, tho' a Woman of Great Quality, delights in the Privacy of a

Country Life, and passes away a great part of her Time in her own Walks

and Gardens. Her Husband, who is her Bosom Friend and Companion in her

Solitudes, has been in Love with her ever since he knew her. They both

abound with good Sense, consummate Virtue, and a mutual Esteem; and are

a perpetual Entertainment to one another. Their Family is under so

regular an Oeconomy, in its Hours of Devotion and Repast, Employment and

Diversion, that it looks like a little Common-Wealth within it self.

They often go into Company, that they may return with the greater

Delight to one another; and sometimes live in Town not to enjoy it so

properly as to grow weary of it, that they may renew in themselves the

Relish of a Country Life. By this means they are Happy in each other,

beloved by their Children, adored by their Servants, and are become the

Envy, or rather the Delight, of all that know them.

How different to this is the Life of _Fulvia_! she considers her Husband

as her Steward, and looks upon Discretion and good House-Wifery, as

little domestick Virtues, unbecoming a Woman of Quality. She thinks Life

lost in her own Family, and fancies herself out of the World, when she

is not in the Ring, the Play-House, or the Drawing-Room: She lives in a

perpetual Motion of Body and Restlessness of Thought, and is never easie

in any one Place, when she thinks there is more Company in another. The

missing of an Opera the first Night, would be more afflicting to her

than the Death of a Child. She pities all the valuable Part of her own

Sex, and calls every Woman of a prudent modest retired Life, a

poor-spirited, unpolished Creature. What a Mortification would it be to

_Fulvia_, if she knew that her setting her self to View, is but exposing

her self, and that she grows Contemptible by being Conspicuous.

I cannot conclude my Paper, without observing that _Virgil_ has very

finely touched upon this Female Passion for Dress and Show, in the

Character of _Camilla_; who, tho' she seems to have shaken off all the

other Weaknesses of her Sex, is still described as a Woman in this

Particular. The Poet tells us, that, after having made a great Slaughter

of the Enemy, she unfortunately cast her Eye on a _Trojan_ [who[1]] wore

an embroidered Tunick, a beautiful Coat of Mail, with a Mantle of the

finest Purple. _A Golden Bow_, says he, _Hung upon his Shoulder; his

Garment was buckled with a Golden Clasp, and his Head was covered with

an Helmet of the same shining Mettle_. The _Amazon_ immediately singled

out this well-dressed Warrior, being seized with a Woman's Longing for

the pretty Trappings that he was adorned with:

'... Totumque incauta per agmen

Fæmineo prædæ et spoliorum ardebat amore.'

This heedless Pursuit after these glittering Trifles, the Poet (by a

nice concealed Moral) represents to have been the Destruction of his

Female Hero.

C.

[Footnote 1: that]

* * * * *

No. 16 Monday, March 19. Addison

Quid verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum.

Hor.

I have receiv'd a Letter, desiring me to be very satyrical upon the

little Muff that is now in Fashion; another informs me of a Pair of

silver Garters buckled below the Knee, that have been lately seen at the

Rainbow Coffee-house in _Fleet-street_; [1] a third sends me an heavy

Complaint against fringed Gloves. To be brief, there is scarce an

Ornament of either Sex which one or other of my Correspondents has not

inveighed against with some Bitterness, and recommended to my

Observation. I must therefore, once for all inform my Readers, that it

is not my Intention to sink the Dignity of this my Paper with

Reflections upon Red-heels or Top-knots, but rather to enter into the

Passions of Mankind, and to correct those depraved Sentiments that give

Birth to all those little Extravagancies which appear in their outward

Dress and Behaviour. Foppish and fantastick Ornaments are only

Indications of Vice, not criminal in themselves. Extinguish Vanity in

the Mind, and you naturally retrench the little Superfluities of

Garniture and Equipage. The Blossoms will fall of themselves, when the

Root that nourishes them is destroyed.

I shall therefore, as I have said, apply my Remedies to the first Seeds

and Principles of an affected Dress, without descending to the Dress it

self; though at the same time I must own, that I have Thoughts of

creating an Officer under me to be entituled, _The Censor of small

Wares_, and of allotting him one Day in a Week for the Execution of such

his Office. An Operator of this Nature might act under me with the same

Regard as a Surgeon to a Physician; the one might be employ'd in healing

those Blotches and Tumours which break out in the Body, while the other

is sweetning the Blood and rectifying the Constitution. To speak truly,

the young People of both Sexes are so wonderfully apt to shoot out into

long Swords or sweeping Trains, bushy Head-dresses or full-bottom'd

Perriwigs, with several other Incumbrances of Dress, that they stand in

need of being pruned very frequently [lest they should [2]] be oppressed

with Ornaments, and over-run with the Luxuriency of their Habits. I am

much in doubt, whether I should give the Preference to a Quaker that is

trimmed close and almost cut to the Quick, or to a Beau that is loaden

with such a Redundance of Excrescencies. I must therefore desire my

Correspondents to let me know how they approve my Project, and whether

they think the erecting of such a petty Censorship may not turn to the

Emolument of the Publick; for I would not do any thing of this Nature

rashly and without Advice.

There is another Set of Correspondents to whom I must address my self,

in the second Place; I mean such as fill their Letters with private

Scandal, and black Accounts of particular Persons and Families. The

world is so full of Ill-nature, that I have Lampoons sent me by People

[who [3]] cannot spell, and Satyrs compos'd by those who scarce know how

to write. By the last Post in particular I receiv'd a Packet of Scandal

that is not legible; and have a whole Bundle of Letters in Womens Hands

that are full of Blots and Calumnies, insomuch that when I see the Name

_Caelia, Phillis, Pastora_, or the like, at the Bottom of a Scrawl, I

conclude on course that it brings me some Account of a fallen Virgin, a

faithless Wife, or an amorous Widow. I must therefore inform these my

Correspondents, that it is not my Design to be a Publisher of Intreagues

and Cuckoldoms, or to bring little infamous Stories out of their present

lurking Holes into broad Day light. If I attack the Vicious, I shall

only set upon them in a Body: and will not be provoked by the worst

Usage that I can receive from others, to make an Example of any

particular Criminal. In short, I have so much of a Drawcansir[4] in me,

that I shall pass over a single Foe to charge whole Armies. It is not

_Lais_ or _Silenus_, but the Harlot and the Drunkard, whom I shall

endeavour to expose; and shall consider the Crime as it appears in a

Species, not as it is circumstanced in an Individual. I think it was

_Caligula_ who wished the whole City of _Rome_ had but one Neck, that he

might behead them at a Blow. I shall do out of Humanity what that

Emperor would have done in the Cruelty of his Temper, and aim every

Stroak at a collective Body of Offenders. At the same Time I am very

sensible, that nothing spreads a Paper like private Calumny and

Defamation; but as my Speculations are not under this Necessity, they

are not exposed to this Temptation.

In the next Place I must apply my self to my Party-Correspondents, who

are continually teazing me to take Notice of one anothers Proceedings.

How often am I asked by both Sides, if it is possible for me to be an

unconcerned Spectator of the Rogueries that are committed by the Party

which is opposite to him that writes the Letter. About two Days since I

was reproached with an old Grecian Law, that forbids any Man to stand as

a Neuter or a Looker-on in the Divisions of his Country. However, as I

am very sensible [my [5]] Paper would lose its whole Effect, should it

run into the Outrages of a Party, I shall take Care to keep clear of

every thing [which [6]] looks that Way. If I can any way asswage private

Inflammations, or allay publick Ferments, I shall apply my self to it

with my utmost Endeavours; but will never let my Heart reproach me with

having done any thing towards [encreasing [7]] those Feuds and

Animosities that extinguish Religion, deface Government, and make a

Nation miserable.

What I have said under the three foregoing Heads, will, I am afraid,

very much retrench the Number of my Correspondents: I shall therefore

acquaint my Reader, that if he has started any Hint which he is not able

to pursue, if he has met with any surprizing Story which he does not

know how to tell, if he has discovered any epidemical Vice which has

escaped my Observation, or has heard of any uncommon Virtue which he

would desire to publish; in short, if he has any Materials that can

furnish out an innocent Diversion, I shall promise him my best

Assistance in the working of them up for a publick Entertainment.

This Paper my Reader will find was intended for an answer to a Multitude

of Correspondents; but I hope he will pardon me if I single out one of

them in particular, who has made me so very humble a Request, that I

cannot forbear complying with it.

To the SPECTATOR.

March 15, 1710-11.

SIR,

'I Am at present so unfortunate, as to have nothing to do but to mind

my own Business; and therefore beg of you that you will be pleased to

put me into some small Post under you. I observe that you have

appointed your Printer and Publisher to receive Letters and

Advertisements for the City of _London_, and shall think my self very

much honoured by you, if you will appoint me to take in Letters and

Advertisements for the City of _Westminster_ and the Dutchy of

_Lancaster_. Tho' I cannot promise to fill such an Employment with

sufficient Abilities, I will endeavour to make up with Industry and

Fidelity what I want in Parts and Genius. I am,

Sir,

Your most obedient servant,

Charles Lillie.'

C.

[Footnote 1: The _Rainbow_, near the Inner Temple Gate, in Fleet Street,

was the second Coffee-house opened in London. It was opened about 1656,

by a barber named James Farr, part of the house still being occupied by

the bookseller's shop which had been there for at least twenty years

before. Farr also, at first, combined his coffee trade with the business

of barber, which he had been carrying on under the same roof. Farr was

made rich by his Coffee-house, which soon monopolized the _Rainbow_. Its

repute was high in the _Spectator's_ time; and afterwards, when

coffee-houses became taverns, it lived on as a reputable tavern till the

present day.]

[Footnote 2: that they may not]

[Footnote 3: that]

[Footnote 4: _Drawcansir_ in the Duke of Buckingham's _Rehearsal_

parodies the heroic drama of the Restoration, as by turning the lines in

Dryden's 'Tyrannic Love,'

Spite of myself, I'll stay, fight, love, despair;

And all this I can do, because I dare,

into

I drink, I huff, I strut, look big and stare;

And all this I can do, because I dare.

When, in the last act, a Battle is fought between Foot and great

Hobby-Horses

'At last, Drawcansir comes in and Kills them all on both Sides,'

explaining himself in lines that begin,

Others may boast a single man to kill;

But I the blood of thousands daily spill.]

[Footnote 5: that my]

[Footnote 6: that]

[Footnote 7: the encreasing]

* * * * *

No. 17. Tuesday, March 20, 1711. Steele.

'... Tetrum ante Omnia vultum.'

Juv.

Since our Persons are not of our own Making, when they are such as

appear Defective or Uncomely, it is, methinks, an honest and laudable

Fortitude to dare to be Ugly; at least to keep our selves from being

abashed with a Consciousness of Imperfections which we cannot help, and

in which there is no Guilt. I would not defend an haggard Beau, for

passing away much time at a Glass, and giving Softnesses and Languishing

Graces to Deformity. All I intend is, that we ought to be contented with

our Countenance and Shape, so far, as never to give our selves an

uneasie Reflection on that Subject. It is to the ordinary People, who

are not accustomed to make very proper Remarks on any Occasion, matter

of great Jest, if a Man enters with a prominent Pair of Shoulders into

an Assembly, or is distinguished by an Expansion of Mouth, or Obliquity

of Aspect. It is happy for a Man, that has any of these Oddnesses about

him, if he can be as merry upon himself, as others are apt to be upon

that Occasion: When he can possess himself with such a Chearfulness,

Women and Children, who were at first frighted at him, will afterwards

be as much pleased with him. As it is barbarous in others to railly him

for natural Defects, it is extreamly agreeable when he can Jest upon

himself for them.

Madam _Maintenon's_ first Husband was an Hero in this Kind, and has

drawn many Pleasantries from the Irregularity of his Shape, which he

describes as very much resembling the Letter Z. [1] He diverts himself

likewise by representing to his Reader the Make of an Engine and Pully,

with which he used to take off his Hat. When there happens to be any

thing ridiculous in a Visage, and the Owner of it thinks it an Aspect of

Dignity, he must be of very great Quality to be exempt from Raillery:

The best Expedient therefore is to be pleasant upon himself. Prince

_Harry_ and _Falstaffe_, in _Shakespear_, have carried the Ridicule upon

Fat and Lean as far as it will go. _Falstaffe_ is Humourously called

_Woolsack_, _Bed-presser_, and _Hill of Flesh_; Harry a _Starveling_, an

_Elves-Skin_, a _Sheath_, a _Bowcase_, and a _Tuck_. There is, in

several incidents of the Conversation between them, the Jest still kept

up upon the Person. Great Tenderness and Sensibility in this Point is

one of the greatest Weaknesses of Self-love; for my own part, I am a

little unhappy in the Mold of my Face, which is not quite so long as it

is broad: Whether this might not partly arise from my opening my Mouth

much seldomer than other People, and by Consequence not so much

lengthning the Fibres of my Visage, I am not at leisure to determine.

However it be, I have been often put out of Countenance by the Shortness

of my Face, and was formerly at great Pains in concealing it by wearing

a Periwigg with an high Foretop, and letting my Beard grow. But now I

have thoroughly got over this Delicacy, and could be contented it were

much shorter, provided it might qualify me for a Member of the Merry

Club, which the following Letter gives me an Account of. I have received

it from _Oxford_, and as it abounds with the Spirit of Mirth and good

Humour, which is natural to that Place, I shall set it down Word for

Word as it came to me.

'Most Profound Sir,

Having been very well entertained, in the last of your Speculations

that I have yet seen, by your Specimen upon Clubs, which I therefore

hope you will continue, I shall take the Liberty to furnish you with a

brief Account of such a one as perhaps you have not seen in all your

Travels, unless it was your Fortune to touch upon some of the woody

Parts of the _African_ Continent, in your Voyage to or from _Grand

Cairo_. There have arose in this University (long since you left us

without saying any thing) several of these inferior Hebdomadal

Societies, as _the Punning Club_, _the Witty Club_, and amongst the

rest, the _Handsom Club_; as a Burlesque upon which, a certain merry

Species, that seem to have come into the World in Masquerade, for some

Years last past have associated themselves together, and assumed the

name of the _Ugly Club_: This ill-favoured Fraternity consists of a

President and twelve Fellows; the Choice of which is not confin'd by

Patent to any particular Foundation (as _St. John's_ Men would have

the World believe, and have therefore erected a separate Society

within themselves) but Liberty is left to elect from any School in

_Great Britain_, provided the Candidates be within the Rules of the

Club, as set forth in a Table entituled _The Act of Deformity_. A

Clause or two of which I shall transmit to you.

I. That no Person whatsoever shall be admitted without a visible

Quearity in his Aspect, or peculiar Cast of Countenance; of which the

President and Officers for the time being are to determine, and the

President to have the casting Voice.

II. That a singular Regard be had, upon Examination, to the Gibbosity

of the Gentlemen that offer themselves, as Founders Kinsmen, or to the

Obliquity of their Figure, in what sort soever.

III. That if the Quantity of any Man's Nose be eminently

miscalculated, whether as to Length or Breadth, he shall have a just

Pretence to be elected.

_Lastly_, That if there shall be two or more Competitors for the same

Vacancy, _caeteris paribus_, he that has the thickest Skin to have the

Preference.

Every fresh Member, upon his first Night, is to entertain the Company

with a Dish of Codfish, and a Speech in praise of _Æsop_; [2] whose

portraiture they have in full Proportion, or rather Disproportion,

over the Chimney; and their Design is, as soon as their Funds are

sufficient, to purchase the Heads of _Thersites, Duns Scotus, Scarron,

Hudibras_, and the old Gentleman in _Oldham_, [3] with all the

celebrated ill Faces of Antiquity, as Furniture for the Club Room.

As they have always been profess'd Admirers of the other Sex, so they

unanimously declare that they will give all possible Encouragement to

such as will take the Benefit of the Statute, tho' none yet have

appeared to do it.

The worthy President, who is their most devoted Champion, has lately

shown me two Copies of Verses composed by a Gentleman of his Society;

the first, a Congratulatory Ode inscrib'd to Mrs. _Touchwood_, upon

the loss of her two Fore-teeth; the other, a Panegyrick upon Mrs.

_Andirons_ left Shoulder. Mrs. _Vizard_ (he says) since the Small Pox,

is grown tolerably ugly, and a top Toast in the Club; but I never hear

him so lavish of his fine things, as upon old _Nell Trot_, who

constantly officiates at their Table; her he even adores, and extolls

as the very Counterpart of Mother _Shipton_; in short, _Nell_ (says

he) is one of the Extraordinary Works of Nature; but as for

Complexion, Shape, and Features, so valued by others, they are all

meer Outside and Symmetry, which is his Aversion. Give me leave to

add, that the President is a facetious, pleasant Gentleman, and never

more so, than when he has got (as he calls 'em) his dear Mummers about

him; and he often protests it does him good to meet a Fellow with a

right genuine Grimmace in his Air, (which is so agreeable in the

generality of the _French_ Nation;) and as an Instance of his

Sincerity in this particular, he gave me a sight of a List in his

Pocket-book of all of this Class, who for these five Years have fallen

under his Observation, with himself at the Head of 'em, and in the

Rear (as one of a promising and improving Aspect),

Sir, Your Obliged and Humble Servant,

Alexander Carbuncle.' [Sidenote: Oxford, March 12, 1710.]

R.

[Footnote 1: Abbé Paul Scarron, the burlesque writer, high in court

favour, was deformed from birth, and at the age of 27 lost the use of

all his limbs. In 1651, when 41 years old, Scarron married Frances

d'Aubigné, afterwards Madame de Maintenon; her age was then 16, and she

lived with Scarron until his death, which occurred when she was 25 years

old and left her very poor. Scarron's comparison of himself to the

letter Z is in his address 'To the Reader who has Never seen Me,'

prefixed to his 'Relation Véritable de tout ce qui s'est passé en

l'autre Monde, au combat des Parques et des Poëtes, sur la Mort de

Voiture.' This was illustrated with a burlesque plate representing

himself as seen from the back of his chair, and surrounded by a

wondering and mocking world. His back, he said, was turned to the

public, because the convex of his back is more convenient than the

concave of his stomach for receiving the inscription of his name and

age.]

[Footnote 2: The Life of Æsop, ascribed to Planudes Maximus, a monk of

Constantinople in the fourteenth century, and usually prefixed to the

Fables, says that he was 'the most deformed of all men of his age, for

he had a pointed head, flat nostrils, a short neck, thick lips, was

black, pot-bellied, bow-legged, and hump-backed; perhaps even uglier

than Homer's Thersites.']

[Footnote 3: The description of Thersites in the second book of the

Iliad is thus translated by Professor Blackie:

'The most

Ill-favoured wight was he, I ween, of all the Grecian host.

With hideous squint the railer leered: on one foot he was lame;

Forward before his narrow chest his hunching shoulders came;

Slanting and sharp his forehead rose, with shreds of meagre hair.'

Controversies between the Scotists and Thomists, followers of the

teaching of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, caused Thomist perversion of

the name of Duns into its use as Dunce and tradition of the subtle

Doctor's extreme personal ugliness. Doctor Subtilis was translated The

Lath Doctor.

Scarron we have just spoken of. Hudibras's outward gifts are described

in Part I., Canto i., lines 240-296 of the poem.

'His beard

In cut and dye so like a tile

A sudden view it would beguile:

The upper part thereof was whey;

The nether, orange mix'd with grey.

This hairy meteor, &c.'

The 'old Gentleman in _Oldham_' is Loyola, as described in Oldham's

third satire on the Jesuits, when

'Summon'd together, all th' officious band

The orders of their bedrid, chief attend.'

Raised on his pillow he greets them, and, says Oldham,

'Like Delphic Hag of old, by Fiend possest,

He swells, wild Frenzy heaves his panting breast,

His bristling hairs stick up, his eyeballs glow,

And from his mouth long strakes of drivel flow.']

* * * * *

No. 18. Wednesday, March 21, 1711. Addison.

Equitis quoque jam migravit ab aure voluptas

Omnis ad incertos oculos et gaudia vana.

Hor.

It is my Design in this Paper to deliver down to Posterity a faithful

Account of the Italian Opera, and of the gradual Progress which it has

made upon the English Stage: For there is no Question but our great

Grand-children will be very curious to know the Reason why their

Fore-fathers used to sit together like an Audience of Foreigners in

their own Country, and to hear whole Plays acted before them in a Tongue

which they did not understand.

'Arsinoe' [1] was the first Opera that gave us a Taste of Italian

Musick. The great Success this Opera met with, produced some Attempts of

forming Pieces upon Italian Plans, [which [2]] should give a more

natural and reasonable Entertainment than what can be met with in the

elaborate Trifles of that Nation. This alarm'd the Poetasters and

Fidlers of the Town, who were used to deal in a more ordinary Kind of

Ware; and therefore laid down an establish'd Rule, which is receiv'd as

such to this [Day, [3]] 'That nothing is capable of being well set to

Musick, that is not Nonsense.'

This Maxim was no sooner receiv'd, but we immediately fell to

translating the Italian Operas; and as there was no great Danger of

hurting the Sense of those extraordinary Pieces, our Authors would often

make Words of their own [which[ 4]] were entirely foreign to the Meaning

of the Passages [they [5]] pretended to translate; their chief Care

being to make the Numbers of the English Verse answer to those of the

Italian, that both of them might go to the same Tune. Thus the famous

Song in 'Camilla',

'Barbara si t' intendo, &c.'

Barbarous Woman, yes, I know your Meaning,

which expresses the Resentments of an angry Lover, was translated into

that English lamentation:

'Frail are a Lovers Hopes, &c.'

And it was pleasant enough to see the most refined Persons of the

British Nation dying away and languishing to Notes that were filled with

a Spirit of Rage and Indignation. It happen'd also very frequently,

where the Sense was rightly translated, the necessary Transposition of

Words [which [6]] were drawn out of the Phrase of one Tongue into that

of another, made the Musick appear very absurd in one Tongue that was

very natural in the other. I remember an Italian verse that ran thus

Word for Word,

'And turned my Rage, into Pity;'

which the English for Rhime sake translated,

'And into Pity turn'd my Rage.'

By this Means the soft Notes that were adapted to Pity in the Italian,

fell upon the word Rage in the English; and the angry Sounds that were

turn'd to Rage in the Original, were made to express Pity in the

Translation. It oftentimes happen'd likewise, that the finest Notes in

the Air fell upon the most insignificant Words in the Sentence. I have

known the Word 'And' pursu'd through the whole Gamut, have been

entertained with many a melodious 'The', and have heard the most

beautiful Graces Quavers and Divisions bestowed upon 'Then, For,' and

'From;' to the eternal Honour of our English Particles. [7]

The next Step to our Refinement, was the introducing of Italian Actors

into our Opera; who sung their Parts in their own Language, at the same

Time that our Countrymen perform'd theirs in our native Tongue. The King

or Hero of the Play generally spoke in Italian, and his Slaves answered

him in English: The Lover frequently made his Court, and gained the

Heart of his Princess in a Language which she did not understand. One

would have thought it very difficult to have carry'd on Dialogues after

this Manner, without an Interpreter between the Persons that convers'd

together; but this was the State of the English Stage for about three

Years.

At length the Audience grew tir'd of understanding Half the Opera, and

therefore to ease themselves Entirely of the Fatigue of Thinking, have

so order'd it at Present that the whole Opera is performed in an unknown

Tongue. We no longer understand the Language of our own Stage; insomuch

that I have often been afraid, when I have seen our Italian Performers

chattering in the Vehemence of Action, that they have been calling us

Names, and abusing us among themselves; but I hope, since we do put such

an entire Confidence in them, they will not talk against us before our

Faces, though they may do it with the same Safety as if it [were [8]]

behind our Backs. In the mean Time I cannot forbear thinking how

naturally an Historian, who writes Two or Three hundred Years hence, and

does not know the Taste of his wise Fore-fathers, will make the

following Reflection, 'In the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century, the

Italian Tongue was so well understood in _England_, that Operas were

acted on the publick Stage in that Language.'

One scarce knows how to be serious in the Confutation of an Absurdity

that shews itself at the first Sight. It does not want any great Measure

of Sense to see the Ridicule of this monstrous Practice; but what makes

it the more astonishing, it is not the Taste of the Rabble, but of

Persons of the greatest Politeness, which has establish'd it.

If the Italians have a Genius for Musick above the English, the English

have a Genius for other Performances of a much higher Nature, and

capable of giving the Mind a much nobler Entertainment. Would one think

it was possible (at a Time when an Author lived that was able to write

the 'Phædra' and 'Hippolitus') [9] for a People to be so stupidly fond

of the Italian Opera, as scarce to give a Third Days Hearing to that

admirable Tragedy? Musick is certainly a very agreeable Entertainment,

but if it would take the entire Possession of our Ears, if it would make

us incapable of hearing Sense, if it would exclude Arts that have a much

greater Tendency to the Refinement of humane Nature: I must confess I

would allow it no better Quarter than 'Plato' has done, who banishes it

out of his Common-wealth.

At present, our Notions of Musick are so very uncertain, that we do not

know what it is we like, only, in general, we are transported with any

thing that is not English: so if it be of a foreign Growth, let it be

Italian, French, or High-Dutch, it is the same thing. In short, our

English Musick is quite rooted out, and nothing yet planted in its

stead.

When a Royal Palace is burnt to the Ground, every Man is at Liberty to

present his Plan for a new one; and tho' it be but indifferently put

together, it may furnish several Hints that may be of Use to a good

Architect. I shall take the same Liberty in a following Paper, of giving

my Opinion upon the Subject of Musick, which I shall lay down only in a

problematical Manner to be considered by those who are Masters in the

Art.

C.

[Footnote 1: 'Arsinoe' was produced at Drury Lane in 1705, with Mrs.

Tofts in the chief character, and her Italian rival, Margarita de

l'Epine, singing Italian songs before and after the Opera. The drama was

an Italian opera translated into English, and set to new music by Thomas

Clayton, formerly band master to William III. No. 20 of the Spectator

and other numbers from time to time advertised 'The Passion of Sappho,

and Feast of Alexander: Set to Musick by Mr. Thomas Clayton, as it is

performed at his house in 'York Buildings.' It was the same Clayton who

set to music Addison's unsuccessful opera of 'Rosamond', written as an

experiment in substituting homegrown literature for the fashionable

nonsense illustrated by Italian music. Thomas Clayton's music to

'Rosamond' was described as 'a jargon of sounds.' 'Camilla', composed by

Marco Antonio Buononcini, and said to contain beautiful music, was

produced at Sir John Vanbrugh's Haymarket opera in 1705, and sung half

in English, half in Italian; Mrs. Tofts singing the part of the

Amazonian heroine in English, and Valentini that of the hero in Italian.]

[Footnote 2: that]

[Footnote 3: very day]

[Footnote 4: that]

[Footnote 5: which they]

[Footnote 6: that]

[Footnote 7: It was fifty years after this that Churchill wrote of

Mossop in the 'Rosciad,'

'In monosyllables his thunders roll,

He, she, it, and, we, ye, they, fright the soul.']

[Footnote 8: was]

[Footnote 9: The Tragedy of 'Phædra and Hippolitus', acted without

success in 1707, was the one play written by Mr. Edmund Smith, a

merchant's son who had been educated at Westminster School and Christ

Church, Oxford, and who had ended a dissolute life at the age of 42 (in

1710), very shortly before this paper was written. Addison's regard for

the play is warmed by friendship for the unhappy writer. He had, indeed,

written the Prologue to it, and struck therein also his note of war

against the follies of Italian Opera.

'Had Valentini, musically coy,

Shunned Phædra's Arms, and scorn'd the puffer'd Joy,

It had not momed your Wonder to have seen

An Eunich fly from an enamour'd Queen;

How would it please, should she in English speak,

And could Hippolitus reply in Greek!'

The Epilogue to this play was by Prior. Edmund Smith's relation to

Addison is shown by the fact that, in dedicating the printed edition of

his Phædra and Hippolitus to Lord Halifax, he speaks of Addison's lines

on the Peace of Ryswick as 'the best Latin Poem since the Æneid.']

* * * * *

No. 19. Thursday, March 22, 1711. Steele.

'Dii benefecerunt, inopis me quodque pusilli

Finxerunt animi, rarî et perpauca loquentis.'

Hor.

Observing one Person behold another, who was an utter Stranger to him,

with a Cast of his Eye which, methought, expressed an Emotion of Heart

very different from what could be raised by an Object so agreeable as

the Gentleman he looked at, I began to consider, not without some secret

Sorrow, the Condition of an Envious Man. Some have fancied that Envy has

a certain Magical Force in it, and that the Eyes of the Envious have by

their Fascination blasted the Enjoyments of the Happy. Sir _Francis

Bacon_ says, [1] Some have been so curious as to remark the Times and

Seasons when the Stroke of an Envious Eye is most effectually

pernicious, and have observed that it has been when the Person envied

has been in any Circumstance of Glory and Triumph. At such a time the

Mind of the Prosperous Man goes, as it were, abroad, among things

without him, and is more exposed to the Malignity. But I shall not dwell

upon Speculations so abstracted as this, or repeat the many excellent

Things which one might collect out of Authors upon this miserable

Affection; but keeping in the road of common Life, consider the Envious

Man with relation to these three Heads, His Pains, His Reliefs, and His

Happiness.

The Envious Man is in Pain upon all Occasions which ought to give him

Pleasure. The Relish of his Life is inverted, and the Objects which

administer the highest Satisfaction to those who are exempt from this

Passion, give the quickest Pangs to Persons who are subject to it. All

the Perfections of their Fellow-Creatures are odious: Youth, Beauty,

Valour and Wisdom are Provocations of their Displeasure. What a Wretched

and Apostate State is this! To be offended with Excellence, and to hate

a Man because we Approve him! The Condition of the Envious Man is the

most Emphatically miserable; he is not only incapable of rejoicing in

another's Merit or Success, but lives in a World wherein all Mankind are

in a Plot against his Quiet, by studying their own Happiness and

Advantage. _Will. Prosper_ is an honest Tale-bearer, he makes it his

business to join in Conversation with Envious Men. He points to such an

handsom Young Fellow, and whispers that he is secretly married to a

Great Fortune: When they doubt, he adds Circumstances to prove it; and

never fails to aggravate their Distress, by assuring 'em that to his

knowledge he has an Uncle will leave him some Thousands. _Will._ has

many Arts of this kind to torture this sort of Temper, and delights in

it. When he finds them change colour, and say faintly They wish such a

Piece of News is true, he has the Malice to speak some good or other of

every Man of their Acquaintance.

The Reliefs of the Envious Man are those little Blemishes and

Imperfections, that discover themselves in an Illustrious Character. It

is matter of great Consolation to an Envious Person, when a Man of Known

Honour does a thing Unworthy himself: Or when any Action which was well

executed, upon better Information appears so alter'd in its

Circumstances, that the Fame of it is divided among many, instead of

being attributed to One. This is a secret Satisfaction to these

Malignants; for the Person whom they before could not but admire, they

fancy is nearer their own Condition as soon as his Merit is shared among

others. I remember some Years ago there came out an Excellent Poem,

without the Name of the Author. The little Wits, who were incapable of

Writing it, began to pull in Pieces the supposed Writer. When that would

not do, they took great Pains to suppress the Opinion that it was his.

That again failed. The next Refuge was to say it was overlook'd by one

Man, and many Pages wholly written by another. An honest Fellow, who

sate among a Cluster of them in debate on this Subject, cryed out,

'Gentlemen, if you are sure none of you yourselves had an hand in it,

you are but where you were, whoever writ it.'

But the most usual Succour to the Envious, in cases of nameless Merit in

this kind, is to keep the Property, if possible, unfixed, and by that

means to hinder the Reputation of it from falling upon any particular

Person. You see an Envious Man clear up his Countenance, if in the

Relation of any Man's Great Happiness in one Point, you mention his

Uneasiness in another. When he hears such a one is very rich he turns

Pale, but recovers when you add that he has many Children. In a Word,

the only sure Way to an Envious Man's Favour, is not to deserve it.

But if we consider the Envious Man in Delight, it is like reading the

Seat of a Giant in a Romance; the Magnificence of his House consists in

the many Limbs of Men whom he has slain. If any who promised themselves

Success in any Uncommon Undertaking miscarry in the Attempt, or he that

aimed at what would have been Useful and Laudable, meets with Contempt

and Derision, the Envious Man, under the Colour of hating Vainglory, can

smile with an inward Wantonness of Heart at the ill Effect it may have

upon an honest Ambition for the future.

Having throughly considered the Nature of this Passion, I have made it

my Study how to avoid the Envy that may acrue to me from these my

Speculations; and if I am not mistaken in my self, I think I have a

Genius to escape it. Upon hearing in a Coffee-house one of my Papers

commended, I immediately apprehended the Envy that would spring from

that Applause; and therefore gave a Description of my Face the next Day;

[2] being resolved as I grow in Reputation for Wit, to resign my

Pretensions to Beauty. This, I hope, may give some Ease to those unhappy

Gentlemen, who do me the Honour to torment themselves upon the Account

of this my Paper. As their Case is very deplorable, and deserves

Compassion, I shall sometimes be dull, in Pity to them, and will from

time to time administer Consolations to them by further Discoveries of

my Person. In the meanwhile, if any one says the _Spectator_ has Wit, it

may be some Relief to them, to think that he does not show it in

Company. And if any one praises his Morality they may comfort themselves

by considering that his Face is none of the longest.

R.

[Footnote 1:

We see likewise, the Scripture calleth Envy an Evil Eye: And the

Astrologers call the evil influences of the stars, Evil Aspects; so

that still there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the act of envy, an

ejaculation or irradiation of the eye. Nay some have been so curious

as to note that the times when the stroke or percussion of an envious

eye doth most hurt, are, when the party envied is beheld in glory or

triumph; for that sets an edge upon Envy; And besides, at such times,

the spirits of the persons envied do come forth most into the outward

parts, and so meet the blow.

'Bacon's Essays: IX. Of Envy'.]

[Footnote 2: In No. 17.]

* * * * *

No. 20.] Friday, March 23, 1711. [Steele.

[Greek: Kynos ommat' ech_on ...]

Hom.

Among the other hardy Undertakings which I have proposed to my self,

that of the Correction of Impudence is what I have very much at Heart.

This in a particular Manner is my Province as SPECTATOR; for it is

generally an Offence committed by the Eyes, and that against such as the

Offenders would perhaps never have an Opportunity of injuring any other

Way. The following Letter is a Complaint of a Young Lady, who sets forth

a Trespass of this Kind with that Command of herself as befits Beauty

and Innocence, and yet with so much Spirit as sufficiently expresses her

Indignation. The whole Transaction is performed with the Eyes; and the

Crime is no less than employing them in such a Manner, as to divert the

Eyes of others from the best use they can make of them, even looking up

to Heaven.

'SIR,

There never was (I believe) an acceptable Man, but had some awkward

Imitators. Ever since the SPECTATOR appear'd, have I remarked a kind

of Men, whom I choose to call _Starers_, that without any Regard to

Time, Place, or Modesty, disturb a large Company with their

impertinent Eyes. Spectators make up a proper Assembly for a

Puppet-Show or a Bear-Garden; but devout Supplicants and attentive

Hearers, are the Audience one ought to expect in Churches. I am, Sir,

Member of a small pious congregation near one of the North Gates of

this City; much the greater Part of us indeed are Females, and used to

behave our selves in a regular attentive Manner, till very lately one

whole Isle has been disturbed with one of these monstrous _Starers_:

He's the Head taller than any one in the Church; but for the greater

Advantage of exposing himself, stands upon a Hassock, and commands the

whole Congregation, to the great Annoyance of the devoutest part of

the Auditory; for what with Blushing, Confusion, and Vexation, we can

neither mind the Prayers nor Sermon. Your Animadversion upon this

Insolence would be a great favour to,

Sir,

Your most humble servant,

S. C.

I have frequently seen of this Sort of Fellows; and do not think there

can be a greater Aggravation of an Offence, than that it is committed

where the Criminal is protected by the Sacredness of the Place which he

violates. Many Reflections of this Sort might be very justly made upon

this Kind of Behaviour, but a _Starer_ is not usually a Person to be

convinced by the Reason of the thing; and a Fellow that is capable of

showing an impudent Front before a whole Congregation, and can bear

being a publick Spectacle, is not so easily rebuked as to amend by

Admonitions. If therefore my Correspondent does not inform me, that

within Seven Days after this Date the Barbarian does not at least stand

upon his own Legs only, without an Eminence, my friend WILL. PROSPER has

promised to take an Hassock opposite to him, and stare against him in

Defence of the Ladies. I have given him Directions, according to the

most exact Rules of Opticks, to place himself in such a Manner that he

shall meet his Eyes wherever he throws them: I have Hopes that when

WILL. confronts him, and all the Ladies, in whose Behalf he engages him,

cast kind Looks and Wishes of Success at their Champion, he will have

some Shame, and feel a little of the Pain he has so often put others to,

of being out of Countenance.

It has indeed been Time out of Mind generally remarked, and as often

lamented, that this Family of _Starers_ have infested publick

Assemblies: And I know no other Way to obviate so great an Evil, except,

in the Case of fixing their Eyes upon Women, some Male Friend will take

the Part of such as are under the Oppression of Impudence, and encounter

the Eyes of the _Starers_ wherever they meet them. While we suffer our

Women to be thus impudently attacked, they have no Defence, but in the

End to cast yielding Glances at the _Starers_: And in this Case, a Man

who has no Sense of Shame has the same Advantage over his Mistress, as

he who has no Regard for his own Life has over his Adversary. While the

Generality of the World are fetter'd by Rules, and move by proper and

just Methods, he who has no Respect to any of them, carries away the

Reward due to that Propriety of Behaviour, with no other Merit but that

of having neglected it.

I take an impudent Fellow to be a sort of Out-law in Good-Breeding, and

therefore what is said of him no Nation or Person can be concerned for:

For this Reason one may be free upon him. I have put my self to great

Pains in considering this prevailing Quality which we call Impudence,

and have taken Notice that it exerts it self in a different Manner,

according to the different Soils wherein such Subjects of these

Dominions as are Masters of it were born. Impudence in an Englishman is

sullen and insolent, in a Scotchman it is untractable and rapacious, in

an Irishman absurd and fawning: As the Course of the World now runs, the

impudent Englishman behaves like a surly Landlord, the Scot, like an

ill-received Guest, and the Irishman, like a Stranger who knows he is

not welcome. There is seldom anything entertaining either in the

Impudence of a South or North Briton; but that of an Irishman is always

comick. A true and genuine Impudence is ever the Effect of Ignorance,

without the least Sense of it. The best and most successful _Starers_

now in this Town are of that Nation: They have usually the Advantage of

the Stature mentioned in the above Letter of my Correspondent, and

generally take their Stands in the Eye of Women of Fortune; insomuch

that I have known one of them, three Months after he came from Plough,

with a tolerable good Air lead out a Woman from a Play, which one of our

own Breed, after four years at _Oxford_ and two at the _Temple_, would

have been afraid to look at.

I cannot tell how to account for it, but these People have usually the

Preference to our own Fools, in the Opinion of the sillier Part of

Womankind. Perhaps it is that an English Coxcomb is seldom so obsequious

as an Irish one; and when the Design of pleasing is visible, an

Absurdity in the Way toward it is easily forgiven.

But those who are downright impudent, and go on without Reflection that

they are such, are more to be tolerated, than a Set of Fellows among us

who profess Impudence with an Air of Humour, and think to carry off the

most inexcusable of all Faults in the World, with no other Apology than

saying in a gay Tone, _I put an impudent Face upon the Matter_. No, no

Man shall be allowed the Advantages of Impudence, who is conscious that

he is such: If he knows he is impudent, he may as well be otherwise; and

it shall be expected that he blush, when he sees he makes another do it:

For nothing can attone for the want of Modesty, without which Beauty is

ungraceful, and Wit detestable.

R.

* * * * *

No. 21. Saturday, March 24, 1711. [1] Addison.

'Locus est et phiribus Umbris.'

Hor.

I am sometimes very much troubled, when I reflect upon the three great

Professions of Divinity, Law, and Physick; how they are each of them

over-burdened with Practitioners, and filled with Multitudes of

Ingenious Gentlemen that starve one another.

We may divide the Clergy into Generals, Field-Officers, and Subalterns.

Among the first we may reckon Bishops, Deans, and Arch-Deacons. Among

the second are Doctors of Divinity, Prebendaries, and all that wear

Scarfs. The rest are comprehended under the Subalterns. As for the first

Class, our Constitution preserves it from any Redundancy of Incumbents,

notwithstanding Competitors are numberless. Upon a strict Calculation,

it is found that there has been a great Exceeding of late Years in the

Second Division, several Brevets having been granted for the converting

of Subalterns into Scarf-Officers; insomuch that within my Memory the

price of Lute-string is raised above two Pence in a Yard. As for the

Subalterns, they are not to be numbred. Should our Clergy once enter

into the corrupt Practice of the Laity, by the splitting of their

Free-holds, they would be able to carry most of the Elections in

_England_.

The Body of the Law is no less encumbered with superfluous Members, that

are like _Virgil's_ Army, which he tells us was so crouded, [2] many of

them had not Room to use their Weapons. This prodigious Society of Men

may be divided into the Litigious and Peaceable. Under the first are

comprehended all those who are carried down in Coach-fulls to

_Westminster-Hall_ every Morning in Term-time. _Martial's_ description

of this Species of Lawyers is full of Humour:

'Iras et verba locant.'

Men that hire out their Words and Anger; that are more or less

passionate according as they are paid for it, and allow their Client a

quantity of Wrath proportionable to the Fee which they receive from him.

I must, however, observe to the Reader, that above three Parts of those

whom I reckon among the Litigious, are such as are only quarrelsome in

their Hearts, and have no Opportunity of showing their Passion at the

Bar. Nevertheless, as they do not know what Strifes may arise, they

appear at the Hall every Day, that they may show themselves in a

Readiness to enter the Lists, whenever there shall be Occasion for them.

The Peaceable Lawyers are, in the first place, many of the Benchers of

the several Inns of Court, who seem to be the Dignitaries of the Law,

and are endowed with those Qualifications of Mind that accomplish a Man

rather for a Ruler, than a Pleader. These Men live peaceably in their

Habitations, Eating once a Day, and Dancing once a Year, [3] for the

Honour of their Respective Societies.

Another numberless Branch of Peaceable Lawyers, are those young Men who

being placed at the Inns of Court in order to study the Laws of their

Country, frequent the Play-House more than _Westminster-Hall_, and are

seen in all publick Assemblies, except in a Court of Justice. I shall

say nothing of those Silent and Busie Multitudes that are employed

within Doors in the drawing up of Writings and Conveyances; nor of those

greater Numbers that palliate their want of Business with a Pretence to

such Chamber-Practice.

If, in the third place, we look into the Profession of Physick, we shall

find a most formidable Body of Men: The Sight of them is enough to make

a Man serious, for we may lay it down as a Maxim, that When a Nation

abounds in Physicians, it grows thin of People. Sir _William Temple_ is

very much puzzled to find a Reason why the Northern Hive, as he calls

it, does not send out such prodigious Swarms, and over-run the World

with _Goths_ and _Vandals, as it did formerly; [4] but had that

Excellent Author observed that there were no Students in Physick among

the Subjects of _Thor_ and _Woden_, and that this Science very much

flourishes in the North at present, he might have found a better

Solution for this Difficulty, than any of those he has made use of. This

Body of Men, in our own Country, may be described like the _British_

Army in _Cæsar's_ time: Some of them slay in Chariots, and some on Foot.

If the Infantry do less Execution than the Charioteers, it is, because

they cannot be carried so soon into all Quarters of the Town, and

dispatch so much Business in so short a Time. Besides this Body of

Regular Troops, there are Stragglers, who, without being duly listed and

enrolled, do infinite Mischief to those who are so unlucky as to fall

into their Hands.

There are, besides the above-mentioned, innumerable Retainers to

Physick, who, for want of other Patients, amuse themselves with the

stifling of Cats in an Air Pump, cutting up Dogs alive, or impaling of

Insects upon the point of a Needle for Microscopical Observations;

besides those that are employed in the gathering of Weeds, and the Chase

of Butterflies: Not to mention the Cockle-shell-Merchants and

Spider-catchers.

When I consider how each of these Professions are crouded with

Multitudes that seek their Livelihood in them, and how many Men of Merit

there are in each of them, who may be rather said to be of the Science,

than the Profession; I very much wonder at the Humour of Parents, who

will not rather chuse to place their Sons in a way of Life where an

honest Industry cannot but thrive, than in Stations where the greatest

Probity, Learning and Good Sense may miscarry. How many Men are

Country-Curates, that might have made themselves Aldermen of _London_ by

a right Improvement of a smaller Sum of Mony than what is usually laid

out upon a learned Education? A sober, frugal Person, of slender Parts

and a slow Apprehension, might have thrived in Trade, tho' he starves

upon Physick; as a Man would be well enough pleased to buy Silks of one,

whom he would not venture to feel his Pulse. _Vagellius_ is careful,

studious and obliging, but withal a little thick-skull'd; he has not a

single Client, but might have had abundance of Customers. The Misfortune

is, that Parents take a Liking to a particular Profession, and therefore

desire their Sons may be of it. Whereas, in so great an Affair of Life,

they should consider the Genius and Abilities of their Children, more

than their own Inclinations.

It is the great Advantage of a trading Nation, that there are very few

in it so dull and heavy, who may not be placed in Stations of Life which

may give them an Opportunity of making their Fortunes. A well-regulated

Commerce is not, like Law, Physick or Divinity, to be overstocked with

Hands; but, on the contrary, flourishes by Multitudes, and gives

Employment to all its Professors. Fleets of Merchantmen are so many

Squadrons of floating Shops, that vend our Wares and Manufactures in all

the Markets of the World, and find out Chapmen under both the Tropicks.

C.

[Footnote 1: At this time, and until the establishment of New Style,

from 1752, the legal year began in England on the 25th of March, while

legally in Scotland, and by common usage throughout the whole kingdom,

the customary year began on the 1st of January. The _Spectator_

dated its years, according to custom, from the first of January; and so

wrote its first date March 1, 1711. But we have seen letters in it dated

in a way often adopted to avoid confusion (1710-11) which gave both the

legal and the customary reckoning. March 24 being the last day of the

legal year 1710, in the following papers, until December 31, the year is

1711 both by law and custom. Then again until March 24, while usage will

be recognizing a new year, 1712, it will be still for England (but not

for Scotland) 1711 to the lawyers. The reform initiated by Pope Gregory

XIII. in 1582, and not accepted for England and Ireland until 1751, had

been adopted by Scotland from the 1st of January, 1600.

[This reform was necessary to make up for the inadequate shortness of

the previous calendar (relative to the solar year), which had resulted

in some months' discrepancy by the eighteenth century.]]

[Footnote 2: [that]

[Footnote 3: In Dugdale's 'Origines Juridiciales' we read how in the

Middle Temple, on All Saints' Day, when the judges and serjeants who had

belonged to the Inn were feasted,

'the music being begun, the Master of the Revels was twice called. At

the second call, the Reader with the white staff advanced, and began

to lead the measures, followed by the barristers and students in

order; and when one measure was ended, the Reader at the cupboard

called for another.']

[Footnote 4: See Sir W. Temple's Essay on Heroic Virtue, Section 4.

'This part of Scythia, in its whole Northern extent, I take to have

been the vast Hive out of which issued so many mighty swarms of

barbarous nations,' &c. And again, 'Each of these countries was like a

mighty hive, which, by the vigour of propagation and health of

climate, growing too full of people, threw out some new swarm at

certain periods of time, that took wing and sought out some new abode,

expelling or subduing the old inhabitants, and seating themselves in

their rooms, if they liked the conditions of place and commodities of

life they met with; if not, going on till they found some other more

agreeable to their present humours and dispositions.' He attributes

their successes and their rapid propagation to the greater vigour of

life in the northern climates; and the only reason he gives for the

absence of like effects during the continued presence of like causes

is, that Christianity abated their enthusiasm and allayed 'the

restless humour of perpetual wars and actions.']

* * * * *

No. 22. Monday, March 26, 1711. Steele.

'Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.'

Hor.

The word _Spectator_ being most usually understood as one of the

Audience at Publick Representations in our Theatres, I seldom fail of

many Letters relating to Plays and Operas. But, indeed, there are such

monstrous things done in both, that if one had not been an Eye-witness

of them, one could not believe that such Matters had really been

exhibited. There is very little which concerns human Life, or is a

Picture of Nature, that is regarded by the greater Part of the Company.

The Understanding is dismissed from our Entertainments. Our Mirth is the

Laughter of Fools, and our Admiration the Wonder of Idiots; else such

improbable, monstrous, and incoherent Dreams could not go off as they

do, not only without the utmost Scorn and Contempt, but even with the

loudest Applause and Approbation. But the Letters of my Correspondents

will represent this Affair in a more lively Manner than any Discourse of

my own; I [shall therefore [1] ] give them to my Reader with only this

Preparation, that they all come from Players, [and that the business of

Playing is now so managed that you are not to be surprised when I say]

one or two of [them [2]] are rational, others sensitive and vegetative

Actors, and others wholly inanimate. I shall not place these as I have

named them, but as they have Precedence in the Opinion of their

Audiences.

"Mr. SPECTATOR,

Your having been so humble as to take Notice of the Epistles of other

Animals, emboldens me, who am the wild Boar that was killed by Mrs.

_Tofts_, [3] to represent to you, That I think I was hardly used

in not having the Part of the Lion in 'Hydaspes' given to me. It

would have been but a natural Step for me to have personated that

noble Creature, after having behaved my self to Satisfaction in the

Part above-mention'd: But that of a Lion, is too great a Character for

one that never trod the Stage before but upon two Legs. As for the

little Resistance which I made, I hope it may be excused, when it is

considered that the Dart was thrown at me by so fair an Hand. I must

confess I had but just put on my Brutality; and _Camilla's_

charms were such, that b-holding her erect Mien, hearing her charming

Voice, and astonished with her graceful Motion, I could not keep up to

my assumed Fierceness, but died like a Man.

I am Sir,

Your most humble Servan.,

Thomas Prone."

"Mr. SPECTATOR,

This is to let you understand, that the Play-House is a Representation

of the World in nothing so much as in this Particular, That no one

rises in it according to his Merit. I have acted several Parts of

Household-stuff with great Applause for many Years: I am one of the

Men in the Hangings in the _Emperour of the Moon_; [4] I have

twice performed the third Chair in an English Opera; and have

rehearsed the Pump in the _Fortune-Hunters_. [5] I am now grown

old, and hope you will recommend me so effectually, as that I may say

something before I go off the Stage: In which you will do a great Act

of Charity to

Your most humble servant,

William Serene."

"Mr. SPECTATOR,

Understanding that Mr. _Serene_ has writ to you, and desired to

be raised from dumb and still Parts; I desire, if you give him Motion

or Speech, that you would advance me in my Way, and let me keep on in

what I humbly presume I am a Master, to wit, in representing human and

still Life together. I have several times acted one of the finest

Flower-pots in the same Opera wherein Mr. _Serene_ is a Chair;

therefore, upon his promotion, request that I may succeed him in the

Hangings, with my Hand in the Orange-Trees.

Your humble servant,

Ralph Simple."

"Drury Lane, March 24, 1710-11.

SIR,

I saw your Friend the Templar this Evening in the Pit, and thought he

looked very little pleased with the Representation of the mad Scene of

the _Pilgrim_. I wish, Sir, you would do us the Favour to animadvert

frequently upon the false Taste the Town is in, with Relation to Plays

as well as Operas. It certainly requires a Degree of Understanding to

play justly; but such is our Condition, that we are to suspend our

Reason to perform our Parts. As to Scenes of Madness, you know, Sir,

there are noble Instances of this Kind in _Shakespear_; but then it is

the Disturbance of a noble Mind, from generous and humane Resentments:

It is like that Grief which we have for the decease of our Friends: It

is no Diminution, but a Recommendation of humane Nature, that in such

Incidents Passion gets the better of Reason; and all we can think to

comfort ourselves, is impotent against half what we feel. I will not

mention that we had an Idiot in the Scene, and all the Sense it is

represented to have, is that of Lust. As for my self, who have long

taken Pains in personating the Passions, I have to Night acted only an

Appetite: The part I play'd is Thirst, but it is represented as

written rather by a Drayman than a Poet. I come in with a Tub about

me, that Tub hung with Quart-pots; with a full Gallon at my Mouth. [6]

I am ashamed to tell you that I pleased very much, and this was

introduced as a Madness; but sure it was not humane Madness, for a

Mule or an [ass [7]] may have been as dry as ever I was in my Life.

I am, Sir,

Your most obedient And humble servant."

"From the Savoy in the Strand.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

If you can read it with dry Eyes, I give you this trouble to acquaint

you, that I am the unfortunate King _Latinus_, and believe I am the

first Prince that dated from this Palace since _John_ of _Gaunt_. Such

is the Uncertainty of all human Greatness, that I who lately never

moved without a Guard, am now pressed as a common Soldier, and am to

sail with the first fair Wind against my Brother _Lewis_ of _France_.

It is a very hard thing to put off a Character which one has appeared

in with Applause: This I experienced since the Loss of my Diadem; for,

upon quarrelling with another Recruit, I spoke my Indignation out of

my Part in _recitativo:_

... Most audacious Slave,

Dar'st thou an angry Monarch's Fury brave? [8]

The Words were no sooner out of my Mouth, when a Serjeant knock'd me

down, and ask'd me if I had a Mind to Mutiny, in talking things no

Body understood. You see, Sir, my unhappy Circumstances; and if by

your Mediation you can procure a Subsidy for a Prince (who never

failed to make all that beheld him merry at his Appearance) you will

merit the Thanks of

Your friend,

The King of _Latium_."

[Footnote 1: therefore shall]

[Footnote 2: whom]

[Footnote 3: In the opera of 'Camilla':

Camilla: That Dorindas my Name.

Linco: Well, I knowt, Ill take care.

Camilla: And my Life scarce of late--

Linco: You need not repeat.

Prenesto: Help me! oh help me!

[A wild Boar struck by Prenesto.]

Huntsman: Lets try to assist him.

Linco: Ye Gods, what Alarm!

Huntsman: Quick run to his aid.

[Enter Prenesto: The Boar pursuing him.]

Prenesto: O Heavns! who defends me?

Camilla: My Arm.

[She throws a Dart, and kills the Boar.]

Linco: Dorinda of nothing afraid,

Shes sprightly and gay, a valiant Maid,

And as bright as the Day.

Camilla: Take Courage, Hunter, the Savage is dead.

Katherine Tofts, the daughter of a person in the family of Bishop

Burnet, had great natural charms of voice, person, and manner. Playing

with Nicolini, singing English to his Italian, she was the first of our

'prime donne' in Italian Opera. Mrs. Tofts had made much money when

in 1709 she quitted the stage with disordered intellect; her voice being

then unbroken, and her beauty in the height of its bloom. Having

recovered health, she married Mr. Joseph Smith, a rich patron of arts

and collector of books and engravings, with whom she went to Venice,

when he was sent thither as English Consul. Her madness afterwards

returned, she lived, therefore, says Sir J. Hawkins,

'sequestered from the world in a remote part of the house, and had a

large garden to range in, in which she would frequently walk, singing

and giving way to that innocent frenzy which had seized her in the

earlier part of her life.'

She identified herself with the great princesses whose loves and sorrows

she had represented in her youth, and died about the year 1760.]

[Footnote 4: The 'Emperor of the Moon' is a farce, from the French,

by Mrs. Aphra Behn, first acted in London in 1687. It was originally

Italian, and had run 80 nights in Paris as 'Harlequin I'Empereur dans

le Monde de la Lune'. In Act II. sc. 3,

'The Front of the Scene is only a Curtain or Hangings to be drawn up

at Pleasure.'

Various gay masqueraders, interrupted by return of the Doctor, are

carried by Scaramouch behind the curtain. The Doctor enters in wrath,

vowing he has heard fiddles. Presently the curtain is drawn up and

discovers where Scaramouch has

'plac'd them all in the Hanging in which they make the Figures, where

they stand without Motion in Postures.'

Scaramouch professes that the noise was made by putting up this piece of

Tapestry,

'the best in Italy for the Rareness of the Figures, sir.'

While the Doctor is admiring the new tapestry, said to have been sent

him as a gift, Harlequin, who is

'placed on a Tree in the Hangings, hits him on the 'Head with his

Truncheon.'

The place of a particular figure in the picture, with a hand on a tree,

is that supposed to be aspired to by the 'Spectator's' next

correspondent.]

[Footnote 5: 'The Fortune Hunters, or Two Fools Well Met,' a Comedy

first produced in 1685, was the only work of James Carlile, a player who

quitted the stage to serve King William III. in the Irish Wars, and was

killed at the battle of Aghrim. The crowning joke of the second Act of

'the Fortune Hunters' is the return at night of Mr. Spruce, an Exchange

man, drunk and musical, to the garden-door of his house, when Mrs.

Spruce is just taking leave of young Wealthy. Wealthy hides behind the

pump. The drunken husband, who has been in a gutter, goes to the pump to

clean himself, and seizes a man's arm instead of a pump-handle. He works

it as a pump-handle, and complains that 'the pump's dry;' upon which

Young Wealthy empties a bottle of orange-flower water into his face.]

[Footnote 6: In the third act of Fletcher's comedy of the 'Pilgrim',

Pedro, the Pilgrim, a noble gentleman, has shown to him the interior of

a Spanish mad-house, and discovers in it his mistress Alinda, who,

disguised in a boy's dress, was found in the town the night before a

little crazed, distracted, and so sent thither. The scene here shows

various shapes of madness,

Some of pity

That it would make ye melt to see their passions,

And some as light again.

One is an English madman who cries, 'Give me some drink,'

Fill me a thousand pots and froth 'em, froth 'em!

Upon which a keeper says:

Those English are so malt-mad, there's no meddling with 'em.

When they've a fruitful year of barley there,

All the whole Island's thus.

We read in the text how they had produced on the stage of Drury Lane

that madman on the previous Saturday night; this Essay appearing on the

breakfast tables upon Monday morning.]

[Footnote 7: horse]

[Footnote 8: King Latinus to Turnus in Act II., sc. 10, of the opera of

'Camilla'. Posterity will never know in whose person 'Latinus, king of

Latium and of the Volscians,' abdicated his crown at the opera to take

the Queen of England's shilling. It is the only character to which, in

the opera book, no name of a performer is attached. It is a part of

sixty or seventy lines in tyrant's vein; but all recitative. The King of

Latium was not once called upon for a song.]

* * * * *

ADVERTISEMENT.

For the Good of the Publick.

Within two Doors of the Masquerade lives an eminent Italian Chirurgeon,

arriv'd from the Carnaval at Venice,

of great Experience in private Cures.

Accommodations are provided,

and Persons admitted in their masquing Habits.

He has cur'd since his coming thither, in less than a Fortnight,

Four Scaramouches,

a Mountebank Doctor,

Two Turkish Bassas,

Three Nuns,

and a Morris Dancer.

'Venienti occurrite morbo.'

N. B. Any Person may agree by the Great,

and be kept in Repair by the Year.

The Doctor draws Teeth without pulling off your Mask.

R.

* * * * *

No. 23. Tuesday, March 27, 1711 [1] Addison.

Savit atrox Volscens, nec teli conspicit usquam

Auctorem nec quo se ardens immittere possit.

Vir.

There is nothing that more betrays a base, ungenerous Spirit, than the

giving of secret Stabs to a Man's Reputation. Lampoons and Satyrs, that

are written with Wit and Spirit, are like poison'd Darts, which not only

inflict a Wound, but make it incurable. For this Reason I am very much

troubled when I see the Talents of Humour and Ridicule in the Possession

of an ill-natured Man. There cannot be a greater Gratification to a

barbarous and inhuman Wit, than to stir up Sorrow in the Heart of a

private Person, to raise Uneasiness among near Relations, and to expose

whole Families to Derision, at the same time that he remains unseen and

undiscovered. If, besides the Accomplishments of being Witty and

Ill-natured, a Man is vicious into the bargain, he is one of the most

mischievous Creatures that can enter into a Civil Society. His Satyr

will then chiefly fall upon those who ought to be the most exempt from

it. Virtue, Merit, and every thing that is Praise-worthy, will be made

the Subject of Ridicule and Buffoonry. It is impossible to enumerate the

Evils which arise from these Arrows that fly in the dark, and I know no

other Excuse that is or can be made for them, than that the Wounds they

give are only Imaginary, and produce nothing more than a secret Shame or

Sorrow in the Mind of the suffering Person. It must indeed be confess'd,

that a Lampoon or a Satyr do not carry in them Robbery or Murder; but at

the same time, how many are there that would not rather lose a

considerable Sum of Mony, or even Life it self, than be set up as a Mark

of Infamy and Derision? And in this Case a Man should consider, that an

Injury is not to be measured by the Notions of him that gives, but of

him that receives it.

Those who can put the best Countenance upon the Outrages of this nature

which are offered them, are not without their secret Anguish. I have

often observed a Passage in _Socrates's_ Behaviour at his Death, in a

Light wherein none of the Criticks have considered it. That excellent

Man, entertaining his Friends a little before he drank the Bowl of

Poison with a Discourse on the Immortality of the Soul, at his entering

upon it says, that he does not believe any the most Comick Genius can

censure him for talking upon such a Subject at such a Time. This

passage, I think, evidently glances upon _Aristophanes_, who writ a

Comedy on purpose to ridicule the Discourses of that Divine Philosopher:

[2] It has been observed by many Writers, that _Socrates_ was so little

moved at this piece of Buffoonry, that he was several times present at

its being acted upon the Stage, and never expressed the least Resentment

of it. But, with Submission, I think the Remark I have here made shows

us, that this unworthy Treatment made an impression upon his Mind,

though he had been too wise to discover it.

When _Julius Caesar_ was Lampoon'd by _Catullus_, he invited him to a

Supper, and treated him with such a generous Civility, that he made the

Poet his friend ever after. [3] Cardinal _Mazarine_ gave the same kind

of Treatment to the learned _Quillet_, who had reflected upon his

Eminence in a famous Latin Poem. The Cardinal sent for him, and, after

some kind Expostulations upon what he had written, assured him of his

Esteem, and dismissed him with a Promise of the next good Abby that

should fall, which he accordingly conferr'd upon him in a few Months

after. This had so good an Effect upon the Author, that he dedicated the

second Edition of his Book to the Cardinal, after having expunged the

Passages which had given him offence. [4]

_Sextus Quintus_ was not of so generous and forgiving a Temper. Upon his

being made Pope, the statue of _Pasquin_ was one Night dressed in a very

dirty Shirt, with an Excuse written under it, that he was forced to wear

foul Linnen, because his Laundress was made a Princess. This was a

Reflection upon the Pope's Sister, who, before the Promotion of her

Brother, was in those mean Circumstances that _Pasquin_ represented her.

As this Pasquinade made a great noise in _Rome_, the Pope offered a

Considerable Sum of Mony to any Person that should discover the Author

of it. The Author, relying upon his Holiness's Generosity, as also on

some private Overtures which he had received from him, made the

Discovery himself; upon which the Pope gave him the Reward he had

promised, but at the same time, to disable the Satyrist for the future,

ordered his Tongue to be cut out, and both his Hands to be chopped off.

[5] _Aretine_ [6] is too trite an instance. Every

one knows that all the Kings of Europe were his tributaries. Nay, there

is a Letter of his extant, in which he makes his Boasts that he had laid

the Sophi of _Persia_ under Contribution.

Though in the various Examples which I have here drawn together, these

several great Men behaved themselves very differently towards the Wits

of the Age who had reproached them, they all of them plainly showed that

they were very sensible of their Reproaches, and consequently that they

received them as very great Injuries. For my own part, I would never

trust a Man that I thought was capable of giving these secret Wounds,

and cannot but think that he would hurt the Person, whose Reputation he

thus assaults, in his Body or in his Fortune, could he do it with the

same Security. There is indeed something very barbarous and inhuman in

the ordinary Scriblers of Lampoons. An Innocent young Lady shall be

exposed, for an unhappy Feature. A Father of a Family turn'd to

Ridicule, for some domestick Calamity. A Wife be made uneasy all her

Life, for a misinterpreted Word or Action. Nay, a good, a temperate, and

a just Man, shall be put out of Countenance, by the Representation of

those Qualities that should do him Honour. So pernicious a thing is Wit,

when it is not tempered with Virtue and Humanity.

I have indeed heard of heedless, inconsiderate Writers, that without any

Malice have sacrificed the Reputation of their Friends and Acquaintance

to a certain Levity of Temper, and a silly Ambition of distinguishing

themselves by a Spirit of Raillery and Satyr: As if it were not

infinitely more honourable to be a Good-natured Man than a Wit. Where

there is this little petulant Humour in an Author, he is often very

mischievous without designing to be so. For which Reason I always lay it

down as a Rule, that an indiscreet Man is more hurtful than an

ill-natured one; for as the former will only attack his Enemies, and

those he wishes ill to, the other injures indifferently both Friends and

Foes. I cannot forbear, on this occasion, transcribing a Fable out of

Sir _Roger l'Estrange_, [7] which accidentally lies before me.

'A company of Waggish Boys were watching of Frogs at the side of a

Pond, and still as any of 'em put up their Heads, they'd be pelting

them down again with Stones. _Children_ (says one of the Frogs), _you

never consider that though this may be Play to you, 'tis Death to us_.'

As this Week is in a manner set apart and dedicated to Serious Thoughts,

[8] I shall indulge my self in such Speculations as may not be

altogether unsuitable to the Season; and in the mean time, as the

settling in our selves a Charitable Frame of Mind is a Work very proper

for the Time, I have in this Paper endeavoured to expose that particular

Breach of Charity which has been generally over-looked by Divines,

because they are but few who can be guilty of it.

C.

[Footnote 1: At the top of this paper in a 12mo copy of the _Spectator_,

published in 17l2, and annotated by a contemporary Spanish merchant, is

written, 'The character of Dr Swift.' This proves that the writer of the

note had an ill opinion of Dr Swift and a weak sense of the purport of

what he read. Swift, of course, understood what he read. At this time he

was fretting under the sense of a chill in friendship between himself

and Addison, but was enjoying his _Spectators_. A week before this date,

on the 16th of March, he wrote,

'Have you seen the 'Spectators' yet, a paper that comes out every

day? It is written by Mr. Steele, who seems to have gathered new life

and have a new fund of wit; it is in the same nature as his

'Tatlers', and they have all of them had something pretty. I

believe Addison and he club.'

Then he adds a complaint of the chill in their friendship. A month after

the date of this paper Swift wrote in his journal,

'The 'Spectator' is written by Steele with Addison's help; 'tis

often very pretty.'

Later in the year, in June and September, he records dinner and supper

with his friends of old time, and says of Addison,

'I yet know no man half so agreeable to me as he is.']

[Footnote 2: 'Plato's Phaedon', § 40. The ridicule of Socrates in

'The Clouds' of Aristophanes includes the accusation that he

displaced Zeus and put in his place Dinos,--Rotation. When Socrates, at

the point of death, assents to the request that he should show grounds

for his faith

'that when the man is dead, the soul exists and retains thought and

power,' Plato represents him as suggesting: Not the sharpest censor

'could say that in now discussing such matters, I am dealing with what

does not concern me.']

[Footnote 3: The bitter attack upon Cæsar and his parasite Mamurra was

notwithdrawn, but remains to us as No. 29 of the Poems of Catullus. The

doubtful authority for Cæsar's answer to it is the statement in the Life

of Julius Cæsar by Suetonius that, on the day of its appearance,

Catullus apologized and was invited to supper; Cæsar abiding also by his

old familiar friendship with the poet's father. This is the attack said

to be referred to in one of Cicero's letters to Atticus (the last of Bk.

XIII.), in which he tells how Cæsar was

'after the eighth hour in the bath; then he heard _De Mamurrâ_;

did not change countenance; was anointed; lay down; took an emetic.']

[Footnote 4: Claude Quillet published a Latin poem in four books,

entitled '_Callipædia_, seu de pulchræ prolis habendâ ratione,' at

Leyden, under the name of Calvidius Lætus, in 1655. In discussing unions

harmonious and inharmonious he digressed into an invective against

marriages of Powers, when not in accordance with certain conditions; and

complained that France entered into such unions prolific only of ill,

witness her gift of sovereign power to a Sicilian stranger.

'Trinacriis devectus ab oris advena.'

Mazarin, though born at Rome, was of Sicilian family. In the second

edition, published at Paris in 1656, dedicated to the cardinal Mazarin, the

passages complained of were omitted for the reason and with the result told

in the text; the poet getting 'une jolie Abbaye de 400 pistoles,' which he

enjoyed until his death (aged 59) in 1661.]

[Footnote 5: Pasquino is the name of a torso, perhaps of Menelaus

supporting the dead body of Patroclus, in the Piazza di Pasquino in

Rome, at the corner of the Braschi Palace. To this modern Romans affixed

their scoffs at persons or laws open to ridicule or censure. The name of

the statue is accounted for by the tradition that there was in Rome, at

the beginning of the 16th century, a cobbler or tailor named Pasquino,

whose humour for sharp satire made his stall a place of common resort

for the idle, who would jest together at the passers-by. After

Pasquino's death his stall was removed, and in digging up its floor

there was found the broken statue of a gladiator. In this, when it was

set up, the gossips who still gathered there to exercise their wit,

declared that Pasquino lived again. There was a statue opposite to it

called Marforio--perhaps because it had been brought from the Forum of

Mars--with which the statue of Pasquin used to hold witty conversation;

questions affixed to one receiving soon afterwards salted answers on the

other. It was in answer to Marforio's question, Why he wore a dirty

shirt? that Pasquin's statue gave the answer cited in the text, when, in

1585, Pope Sixtus V. had brought to Rome, and lodged there in great

state, his sister Camilla, who had been a laundress and was married to a

carpenter. The Pope's bait for catching the offender was promise of life

and a thousand doubloons if he declared himself, death on the gallows if

his name were disclosed by another.]

[Footnote 6: The satirist Pietro d'Arezzo (Aretino), the most famous

among twenty of the name, was in his youth banished from Arezzo for

satire of the Indulgence trade of Leo XI. But he throve instead of

suffering by his audacity of bitterness, and rose to honour as the

Scourge of Princes, _il Flagello de' Principi_. Under Clement VII.

he was at Rome in the Pope's service. Francis I of France gave him a

gold chain. Emperor Charles V gave him a pension of 200 scudi. He died

in 1557, aged 66, called by himself and his compatriots, though his wit

often was beastly, Aretino 'the divine.']

[Footnote 7: From the 'Fables of Æsop and other eminent Mythologists,

with 'Morals and Reflections. By Sir Roger l'Estrange.' The vol.

contains Fables of Æsop, Barlandus, Anianus, Abstemius, Poggio the

Florentine, Miscellany from a Common School Book, and a Supplement of

Fables out of several authors, in which last section is that of the Boys

and Frogs, which Addison has copied out verbatim. Sir R. l'Estrange had

died in 1704, aged 88.]

[Footnote 8: Easter Day in 1711 fell on the 1st of April.]

* * * * *

No. 24. Wednesday, March 28, 1711. Steele.

Accurrit quidam notus mihi nomine tantum;

Arreptaque manu, Quid agis dulcissime rerum?

Hor.

There are in this Town a great Number of insignificant People, who are

by no means fit for the better sort of Conversation, and yet have an

impertinent Ambition of appearing with those to whom they are not

welcome. If you walk in the _Park_, one of them will certainly joyn with

you, though you are in Company with Ladies; if you drink a Bottle, they

will find your Haunts. What makes [such Fellows [1]] the more burdensome

is, that they neither offend nor please so far as to be taken Notice of

for either. It is, I presume, for this Reason that my Correspondents are

willing by my Means to be rid of them. The two following Letters are

writ by Persons who suffer by such Impertinence. A worthy old

Batchelour, who sets in for his Dose of Claret every Night at such an

Hour, is teized by a Swarm of them; who because they are sure of Room

and good Fire, have taken it in their Heads to keep a sort of Club in

his Company; tho' the sober Gentleman himself is an utter Enemy to such

Meetings.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

'The Aversion I for some Years have had to Clubs in general, gave me a

perfect Relish for your Speculation on that Subject; but I have since

been extremely mortified, by the malicious World's ranking me amongst

the Supporters of such impertinent Assemblies. I beg Leave to state my

Case fairly; and that done, I shall expect Redress from your judicious

Pen.

I am, Sir, a Batchelour of some standing, and a Traveller; my

Business, to consult my own Humour, which I gratify without

controuling other People's; I have a Room and a whole Bed to myself;

and I have a Dog, a Fiddle, and a Gun; they please me, and injure no

Creature alive. My chief Meal is a Supper, which I always make at a

Tavern. I am constant to an Hour, and not ill-humour'd; for which

Reasons, tho' I invite no Body, I have no sooner supp'd, than I have a

Crowd about me of that sort of good Company that know not whither else

to go. It is true every Man pays his Share, yet as they are Intruders,

I have an undoubted Right to be the only Speaker, or at least the

loudest; which I maintain, and that to the great Emolument of my

Audience. I sometimes tell them their own in pretty free Language; and

sometimes divert them with merry Tales, according as I am in Humour. I

am one of those who live in Taverns to a great Age, by a sort of

regular Intemperance; I never go to Bed drunk, but always flustered; I

wear away very gently; am apt to be peevish, but never angry. Mr.

SPECTATOR, if you have kept various Company, you know there is in

every Tavern in Town some old Humourist or other, who is Master of the

House as much as he that keeps it. The Drawers are all in Awe of him;

and all the Customers who frequent his Company, yield him a sort of

comical Obedience. I do not know but I may be such a Fellow as this my

self. But I appeal to you, whether this is to be called a Club,

because so many Impertinents will break in upon me, and come without

Appointment? 'Clinch of Barnet' [2] has a nightly Meeting, and shows

to every one that will come in and pay; but then he is the only Actor.

Why should People miscall things?

If his is allowed to be a Consort, why mayn't mine be a Lecture?

However, Sir, I submit it to you, and am,

Sir,

Your most obedient, Etc.

Tho. Kimbow.'

* * *

Good Sir,

'You and I were press'd against each other last Winter in a Crowd, in

which uneasy Posture we suffer'd together for almost Half an Hour. I

thank you for all your Civilities ever since, in being of my

Acquaintance wherever you meet me. But the other Day you pulled off

your Hat to me in the _Park_, when I was walking with my Mistress: She

did not like your Air, and said she wonder'd what strange Fellows I

was acquainted with. Dear Sir, consider it is as much as my Life is

Worth, if she should think we were intimate; therefore I earnestly

intreat you for the Future to take no Manner of Notice of,

Sir,

Your obliged humble Servant,

Will. Fashion.'

[A like [3]] Impertinence is also very troublesome to the superior and

more intelligent Part of the fair Sex. It is, it seems, a great

Inconvenience, that those of the meanest Capacities will pretend to make

Visits, tho' indeed they are qualify'd rather to add to the Furniture of

the House (by filling an empty Chair) than to the Conversation they come

into when they visit. A Friend of mine hopes for Redress in this Case,

by the Publication of her Letter in my Paper; which she thinks those she

would be rid of will take to themselves. It seems to be written with an

Eye to one of those pert giddy unthinking Girls, who, upon the

Recommendation only of an agreeable Person and a fashionable Air, take

themselves to be upon a Level with Women of the greatest Merit.

Madam,

'I take this Way to acquaint you with what common Rules and Forms

would never permit me to tell you otherwise; to wit, that you and I,

tho' Equals in Quality and Fortune, are by no Means suitable

Companions. You are, 'tis true, very pretty, can dance, and make a

very good Figure in a publick Assembly; but alass, Madam, you must go

no further; Distance and Silence are your best Recommendations;

therefore let me beg of you never to make me any more Visits. You come

in a literal Sense to see one, for you have nothing to say. I do not

say this that I would by any Means lose your Acquaintance; but I would

keep it up with the Strictest Forms of good Breeding. Let us pay

Visits, but never see one another: If you will be so good as to deny

your self always to me, I shall return the Obligation by giving the

same Orders to my Servants. When Accident makes us meet at a third

Place, we may mutually lament the Misfortune of never finding one

another at home, go in the same Party to a Benefit-Play, and smile at

each other and put down Glasses as we pass in our Coaches. Thus we may

enjoy as much of each others Friendship as we are capable: For there

are some People who are to be known only by Sight, with which sort of

Friendship I hope you will always honour,

Madam,

Your most obedient humble Servant,

Mary Tuesday.

P.S. I subscribe my self by the Name of the Day I keep, that my

supernumerary Friends may know who I am.

[Footnote 1: these People]

[Footnote 2: Clinch of Barnet, whose place of performance was at the

corner of Bartholomew Lane, behind the Royal Exchange, imitated,

according to his own advertisement,

'the Horses, the Huntsmen and a Pack of Hounds, a Sham Doctor, an old

Woman, the Bells, the Flute, the Double Curtell (or bassoon) and the

Organ,--all with his own Natural Voice, to the greatest perfection.'

The price of admission was a shilling.]

[Footnote 3: This]

* * * * *

ADVERTISEMENT.

To prevent all Mistakes that may happen

among Gentlemen of the other End of the Town,

who come but once a Week to St. _James's_ Coffee-house,

either by miscalling the Servants,

or requiring such things from them

as are not properly within their respective Provinces;

this is to give Notice,

that _Kidney,_ Keeper of the Book-Debts of the outlying Customers,

and Observer of those who go off without paying,

having resigned that Employment,

is succeeded by _John Sowton_;

to whose Place of Enterer of Messages and first Coffee-Grinder,

_William Bird_ is promoted;

and _Samuel Burdock_ comes as Shooe-Cleaner

in the Room of the said _Bird_.

R.

* * * * *

No. 25. Thursday, March 29, 1711. Addison.

... Ægrescitque medendo.

Vir.

The following Letter will explain it self, and needs no Apology.

SIR,

'I am one of that sickly Tribe who are commonly known by the Name of

_Valetudinarians_, and do confess to you, that I first contracted this

ill Habit of Body, or rather of Mind, by the Study of Physick. I no

sooner began to peruse Books of this Nature, but I found my Pulse was

irregular, and scarce ever read the Account of any Disease that I did

not fancy my self afflicted with. Dr. _Sydenham's_ learned Treatise of

Fevers [1] threw me into a lingring Hectick, which hung upon me all

the while I was reading that excellent Piece. I then applied my self

to the Study of several Authors, who have written upon Phthisical

Distempers, and by that means fell into a Consumption, till at length,

growing very fat, I was in a manner shamed out of that Imagination.

Not long after this I found in my self all the Symptoms of the Gout,

except Pain, but was cured of it by a Treatise upon the Gravel,

written by a very Ingenious Author, who (as it is usual for Physicians

to convert one Distemper into another) eased me of the Gout by giving

me the Stone. I at length studied my self into a Complication of

Distempers; but accidentally taking into my Hand that Ingenious

Discourse written by _Sanctorius_, [2] I was resolved to direct my

self by a Scheme of Rules, which I had collected from his

Observations. The Learned World are very well acquainted with that

Gentleman's Invention; who, for the better carrying on of his

Experiments, contrived a certain Mathematical Chair, which was so

Artifically hung upon Springs, that it would weigh any thing as well

as a Pair of Scales. By this means he discovered how many Ounces of

his Food pass'd by Perspiration, what quantity of it was turned into

Nourishment, and how much went away by the other Channels and

Distributions of Nature.

Having provided myself with this Chair, I used to Study, Eat, Drink,

and Sleep in it; insomuch that I may be said, for these three last

Years, to have lived in a Pair of Scales. I compute my self, when I am

in full Health, to be precisely Two Hundred Weight, falling short of

it about a Pound after a Day's Fast, and exceeding it as much after a

very full Meal; so that it is my continual Employment, to trim the

Ballance between these two Volatile Pounds in my Constitution. In my

ordinary Meals I fetch my self up to two Hundred Weight and [a half

pound [3]]; and if after having dined I find my self fall short of it,

I drink just so much Small Beer, or eat such a quantity of Bread, as

is sufficient to make me weight. In my greatest Excesses I do not

transgress more than the other half Pound; which, for my Healths sake,

I do the first _Monday_ in every Month. As soon as I find my self duly

poised after Dinner, I walk till I have perspired five Ounces and four

Scruples; and when I discover, by my Chair, that I am so far reduced,

I fall to my Books, and Study away three Ounces more. As for the

remaining Parts of the Pound, I keep no account of them. I do not dine

and sup by the Clock, but by my Chair, for when that informs me my

Pound of Food is exhausted I conclude my self to be hungry, and lay in

another with all Diligence. In my Days of Abstinence I lose a Pound

and an half, and on solemn Fasts am two Pound lighter than on other

Days in the Year.

I allow my self, one Night with another, a Quarter of a Pound of Sleep

within a few Grains more or less; and if upon my rising I find that I

have not consumed my whole quantity, I take out the rest in my Chair.

Upon an exact Calculation of what I expended and received the last

Year, which I always register in a Book, I find the Medium to be two

hundred weight, so that I cannot discover that I am impaired one Ounce

in my Health during a whole Twelvemonth. And yet, Sir, notwithstanding

this my great care to ballast my self equally every Day, and to keep

my Body in its proper Poise, so it is that I find my self in a sick

and languishing Condition. My Complexion is grown very sallow, my

Pulse low, and my Body Hydropical. Let me therefore beg you, Sir, to

consider me as your Patient, and to give me more certain Rules to walk

by than those I have already observed, and you will very much oblige

_Your Humble Servant_.'

This Letter puts me in mind of an _Italian_ Epitaph written on the

Monument of a Valetudinarian; 'Stavo ben, ma per star Meglio, sto

qui': Which it is impossible to translate. [4] The Fear of Death often

proves mortal, and sets People on Methods to save their Lives, which

infallibly destroy them. This is a Reflection made by some Historians,

upon observing that there are many more thousands killed in a Flight

than in a Battel, and may be applied to those Multitudes of Imaginary

Sick Persons that break their Constitutions by Physick, and throw

themselves into the Arms of Death, by endeavouring to escape it. This

Method is not only dangerous, but below the Practice of a Reasonable

Creature. To consult the Preservation of Life, as the only End of it, To

make our Health our Business, To engage in no Action that is not part of

a Regimen, or course of Physick, are Purposes so abject, so mean, so

unworthy human Nature, that a generous Soul would rather die than submit

to them. Besides that a continual Anxiety for Life vitiates all the

Relishes of it, and casts a Gloom over the whole Face of Nature; as it

is impossible we should take Delight in any thing that we are every

Moment afraid of losing.

I do not mean, by what I have here said, that I think any one to blame

for taking due Care of their Health. On the contrary, as Cheerfulness of

Mind, and Capacity for Business, are in a great measure the Effects of a

well-tempered Constitution, a Man cannot be at too much Pains to

cultivate and preserve it. But this Care, which we are prompted to, not

only by common Sense, but by Duty and Instinct, should never engage us

in groundless Fears, melancholly Apprehensions and imaginary Distempers,

which are natural to every Man who is more anxious to live than how to

live. In short, the Preservation of Life should be only a secondary

Concern, and the Direction of it our Principal. If we have this Frame of

Mind, we shall take the best Means to preserve Life, without being

over-sollicitous about the Event; and shall arrive at that Point of

Felicity which _Martial_ has mentioned as the Perfection of Happiness,

of neither fearing nor wishing for Death.

In answer to the Gentleman, who tempers his Health by Ounces and by

Scruples, and instead of complying with those natural Sollicitations of

Hunger and Thirst, Drowsiness or Love of Exercise, governs himself by

the Prescriptions of his Chair, I shall tell him a short Fable.

_Jupiter_, says the Mythologist, to reward the Piety of a certain

Country-man, promised to give him whatever he would ask. The Country-man

desired that he might have the Management of the Weather in his own

Estate: He obtained his Request, and immediately distributed Rain, Snow,

and Sunshine, among his several Fields, as he thought the Nature of the

Soil required. At the end of the Year, when he expected to see a more

than ordinary Crop, his Harvest fell infinitely short of that of his

Neighbours: Upon which (says the fable) he desired _Jupiter_ to take the

Weather again into his own Hands, or that otherwise he should utterly

ruin himself.

C.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Thomas Sydenham died in 1689, aged 65. He was the

friend of Boyle and Locke, and has sometimes been called the English

Hippocrates; though brethren of an older school endeavoured, but in

vain, to banish him as a heretic out of the College of Physicians. His

'Methodus Curandi Febres' was first published in 1666.]

[Footnote 2: Sanctorius, a Professor of Medicine at Padua, who died in

1636, aged 75, was the first to discover the insensible perspiration,

and he discriminated the amount of loss by it in experiments upon

himself by means of his Statical Chair. His observations were published

at Venice in 1614, in his 'Ars de Static Medicind', and led to the

increased use of Sudorifics. A translation of Sanctorius by Dr. John

Quincy appeared in 1712, the year after the publication of this essay.

The 'Art of Static Medicine' was also translated into French by M. Le

Breton, in 1722. Dr. John Quincy became well known as the author of a

'Complete Dispensatory' (1719, &c.).]

[Footnote 3: an half]

[Footnote 4: The old English reading is:

'I was well; I would be better; and here I am.']

* * * * *

No. 26. Friday, March 30, 1711. Addison.

'Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas

Regumque turres, O beate Sexti,

Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam.

Jam te premet nox, fabulæque manes,

Et domus exilis Plutonia.'

Hor.

When I am in a serious Humour, I very often walk by my self in

_Westminster_ Abbey; where the Gloominess of the Place, and the Use to

which it is applied, with the Solemnity of the Building, and the

Condition of the People who lye in it, are apt to fill the Mind with a

kind of Melancholy, or rather Thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable.

I Yesterday pass'd a whole Afternoon in the Church-yard, the Cloysters,

and the Church, amusing myself with the Tomb-stones and Inscriptions

that I met with in those several Regions of the Dead. Most of them

recorded nothing else of the buried Person, but that he was born upon

one Day and died upon another: The whole History of his Life, being

comprehended in those two Circumstances, that are common to all Mankind.

I could not but look upon these Registers of Existence, whether of Brass

or Marble, as a kind of Satyr upon the departed Persons; who had left no

other Memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They

put me in mind of several Persons mentioned in the Battles of Heroic

Poems, who have sounding Names given them, for no other Reason but that

they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on

the Head.

[Greek: Glaukon te, Medónta te, Thersilochón te]--Hom.

_Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque_.--Virg.

The Life of these Men is finely described in Holy Writ by _the Path of

an Arrow_ which is immediately closed up and lost. Upon my going into

the Church, I entertain'd my self with the digging of a Grave; and saw

in every Shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the Fragment of a Bone or

Skull intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering Earth that some time or

other had a Place in the Composition of an humane Body. Upon this, I

began to consider with my self, what innumerable Multitudes of People

lay confus'd together under the Pavement of that ancient Cathedral; how

Men and Women, Friends and Enemies, Priests and Soldiers, Monks and

Prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in

the same common Mass; how Beauty, Strength, and Youth, with Old-age,

Weakness, and Deformity, lay undistinguish'd in the same promiscuous

Heap of Matter.

After having thus surveyed this great Magazine of Mortality, as it were

in the Lump, I examined it more particularly by the Accounts which I

found on several of the Monuments [which [1]] are raised in every

Quarter of that ancient Fabrick. Some of them were covered with such

extravagant Epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead Person to

be acquainted with them, he would blush at the Praises which his Friends

[have [2]] bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively modest,

that they deliver the Character of the Person departed in Greek or

Hebrew, and by that Means are not understood once in a Twelve-month. In

the poetical Quarter, I found there were Poets [who [3]] had no

Monuments, and Monuments [which [4]] had no Poets. I observed indeed

that the present War [5] had filled the Church with many of these

uninhabited Monuments, which had been erected to the Memory of Persons

whose Bodies were perhaps buried in the Plains of _Blenheim_, or in

the Bosom of the Ocean.

I could not but be very much delighted with several modern Epitaphs,

which are written with great Elegance of Expression and Justness of

Thought, and therefore do Honour to the Living as well as to the Dead.

As a Foreigner is very apt to conceive an Idea of the Ignorance or

Politeness of a Nation from the Turn of their publick Monuments and

Inscriptions, they should be submitted to the Perusal of Men of Learning

and Genius before they are put in Execution. Sir _Cloudesly

Shovel's_ Monument has very often given me great Offence: Instead of

the brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing Character

of that plain gallant Man, [6] he is represented on his Tomb by the

Figure of a Beau, dress'd in a long Perriwig, and reposing himself upon

Velvet Cushions under a Canopy of State, The Inscription is answerable

to the Monument; for, instead of celebrating the many remarkable Actions

he had performed in the service of his Country, it acquaints us only

with the Manner of his Death, in which it was impossible for him to reap

any Honour. The _Dutch_, whom we are apt to despise for want of

Genius, shew an infinitely greater Taste of Antiquity and Politeness in

their Buildings and Works of this Nature, than what we meet with in

those of our own Country. The Monuments of their Admirals, which have

been erected at the publick Expence, represent them like themselves; and

are adorned with rostral Crowns and naval Ornaments, with beautiful

Festoons of [Seaweed], Shells, and Coral.

But to return to our Subject. I have left the Repository of our English

Kings for the Contemplation of another Day, when I shall find my Mind

disposed for so serious an Amusement. I know that Entertainments of this

Nature, are apt to raise dark and dismal Thoughts in timorous Minds and

gloomy Imaginations; but for my own Part, though I am always serious, I

do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can, therefore, take a View

of Nature in her deep and solemn Scenes, with the same Pleasure as in

her most gay and delightful ones. By this Means I can improve my self

with those Objects, which others consider with Terror. When I look upon

the Tombs of the Great, every Emotion of Envy dies in me; when I read

the Epitaphs of the Beautiful, every inordinate Desire goes out; when I

meet with the Grief of Parents upon a Tombstone, my Heart melts with

Compassion; when I see the Tomb of the Parents themselves, I consider

the Vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: When I see

Kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival Wits placed

Side by Side, or the holy Men that divided the World with their Contests

and Disputes, I reflect with Sorrow and Astonishment on the little

Competitions, Factions and Debates of Mankind. When I read the several

Dates of the Tombs, of some that dy'd Yesterday, and some six hundred

Years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be

Contemporaries, and make our Appearance together.

C.

[Footnote 1: that]

[Footnote 2: had]

[Footnote 3: that]

[Footnote 4: that]

[Footnote 5: At the close of the reign of William III. the exiled James

II died, and France proclaimed his son as King of England. William III

thus was enabled to take England with him into the European War of the

Spanish Succession. The accession of Queen Anne did not check the

movement, and, on the 4th of May, 1702, war was declared against France

and Spain by England, the Empire, and Holland. The war then begun had

lasted throughout the Queen's reign, and continued, after the writing of

the _Spectator_ Essays, until the signing of the Peace of Utrecht

on the 11th of April, 1713, which was not a year and a half before the

Queen's death, on the 1st of August, 1714. In this war Marlborough had

among his victories, Blenheim, 1704, Ramilies, 1706, Oudenarde, 1708,

Malplaquet, 1709. At sea Sir George Rooke had defeated the French fleet

off Vigo, in October, 1702, and in a bloody battle off Malaga, in

August, 1704, after his capture of Gibraltar.]

[Footnote 6: Sir Cloudesly Shovel, a brave man of humble birth, who,

from a cabin boy, became, through merit, an admiral, died by the wreck

of his fleet on the Scilly Islands as he was returning from an

unsuccessful attack on Toulon. His body was cast on the shore, robbed of

a ring by some fishermen, and buried in the sand. The ring discovering

his quality, he was disinterred, and brought home for burial in

Westminster Abbey.]

* * * * *

No. 27. Saturday, March 31, 1711. Steele.

'Ut nox longa, quibus Mentitur arnica, diesque

Longa videtur opus debentibus, ut piger Annus

Pupillis, quos dura premit Custodia matrum,

Sic mihi Tarda fluunt ingrataque Tempora, quæ spem

Consiliumque morantur agendi Gnaviter, id quod

Æquè pauperibus prodest, Locupletibus aquè,

Æquè neglectum pueris senibusque nocebit.'

Hor.

There is scarce a thinking Man in the World, who is involved in the

Business of it, but lives under a secret Impatience of the Hurry and

Fatigue he suffers, and has formed a Resolution to fix himself, one time

or other, in such a State as is suitable to the End of his Being. You

hear Men every Day in Conversation profess, that all the Honour, Power,

and Riches which they propose to themselves, cannot give Satisfaction

enough to reward them for half the Anxiety they undergo in the Pursuit,

or Possession of them. While Men are in this Temper (which happens very

frequently) how inconsistent are they with themselves? They are wearied

with the Toil they bear, but cannot find in their Hearts to relinquish

it; Retirement is what they want, but they cannot betake themselves to

it; While they pant after Shade and Covert, they still affect to appear

in the most glittering Scenes of Life: But sure this is but just as

reasonable as if a Man should call for more Lights, when he has a mind

to go to Sleep.

Since then it is certain that our own Hearts deceive us in the Love of

the World, and that we cannot command our selves enough to resign it,

tho' we every Day wish our selves disengaged from its Allurements; let

us not stand upon a Formal taking of Leave, but wean our selves from

them, while we are in the midst of them.

It is certainly the general Intention of the greater Part of Mankind to

accomplish this Work, and live according to their own Approbation, as

soon as they possibly can: But since the Duration of Life is so

incertain, and that has been a common Topick of Discourse ever since

there was such a thing as Life it self, how is it possible that we

should defer a Moment the beginning to Live according to the Rules of

Reason?

The Man of Business has ever some one Point to carry, and then he tells

himself he'll bid adieu to all the Vanity of Ambition: The Man of

Pleasure resolves to take his leave at least, and part civilly with his

Mistress: But the Ambitious Man is entangled every Moment in a fresh

Pursuit, and the Lover sees new Charms in the Object he fancy'd he could

abandon. It is, therefore, a fantastical way of thinking, when we

promise our selves an Alteration in our Conduct from change of Place,

and difference of Circumstances; the same Passions will attend us

where-ever we are, till they are Conquered, and we can never live to our

Satisfaction in the deepest Retirement, unless we are capable of living

so in some measure amidst the Noise and Business of the World.

I have ever thought Men were better known, by what could be observed of

them from a Perusal of their private Letters, than any other way. My

Friend, the Clergyman, [1] the other Day, upon serious Discourse with

him concerning the Danger of Procrastination, gave me the following

Letters from Persons with whom he lives in great Friendship and

Intimacy, according to the good Breeding and good Sense of his

Character. The first is from a Man of Business, who is his Convert; The

second from one of whom he conceives good Hopes; The third from one who

is in no State at all, but carried one way and another by starts.

SIR,

'I know not with what Words to express to you the Sense I have of the

high Obligation you have laid upon me, in the Penance you enjoined me

of doing some Good or other, to a Person of Worth, every Day I live.

The Station I am in furnishes me with daily Opportunities of this

kind: and the Noble Principle with which you have inspired me, of

Benevolence to all I have to deal with, quickens my Application in

every thing I undertake. When I relieve Merit from Discountenance,

when I assist a Friendless Person, when I produce conceal'd Worth, I

am displeas'd with my self, for having design'd to leave the World in

order to be Virtuous. I am sorry you decline the Occasions which the

Condition I am in might afford me of enlarging your Fortunes; but know

I contribute more to your Satisfaction, when I acknowledge I am the

better Man, from the Influence and Authority you have over,

SIR,

Your most Oblig'd and Most Humble, Servant,

R. O.'

* * *

SIR,

'I am intirely convinced of the Truth of what you were pleas'd to say

to me, when I was last with you alone. You told me then of the silly

way I was in; but you told me so, as I saw you loved me, otherwise I

could not obey your Commands in letting you know my Thoughts so

sincerely as I do at present. I know _the Creature for whom I resign

so much of my Character_ is all that you said of her; but then the

Trifler has something in her so undesigning and harmless, that her

Guilt in one kind disappears by the Comparison of her Innocence in

another. Will you, Virtuous Men, allow no alteration of Offences? Must

Dear [Chloe [2]] be called by the hard Name you pious People give to

common Women? I keep the solemn Promise I made you, in writing to you

the State of my Mind, after your kind Admonition; and will endeavour

to get the better of this Fondness, which makes me so much her humble

Servant, that I am almost asham'd to Subscribe my self

Yours,

T. D.'

* * *

SIR,

'There is no State of Life so Anxious as that of a Man who does not

live according to the Dictates of his own Reason. It will seem odd to

you, when I assure you that my Love of Retirement first of all brought

me to Court; but this will be no Riddle, when I acquaint you that I

placed my self here with a Design of getting so much Mony as might

enable me to Purchase a handsome Retreat in the Country. At present my

Circumstances enable me, and my Duty prompts me, to pass away the

remaining Part of my Life in such a Retirement as I at first proposed

to my self; but to my great Misfortune I have intirely lost the Relish

of it, and shou'd now return to the Country with greater Reluctance

than I at first came to Court. I am so unhappy, as to know that what I

am fond of are Trifles, and that what I neglect is of the greatest

Importance: In short, I find a Contest in my own Mind between Reason

and Fashion. I remember you once told me, that I might live in the

World, and out of it, at the same time. Let me beg of you to explain

this Paradox more at large to me, that I may conform my Life, if

possible, both to my Duty and my Inclination.

I am,

Your most humble Servant,

R.B.'

R.

[Footnote 1: See the close of No. 2.]

[Footnote 2: blank left]

* * * * *

No. 28. Monday, April 2, 1711. Addison.

'... Neque semper arcum

Tendit Apollo.'

Hor.

I shall here present my Reader with a Letter from a Projector,

concerning a new Office which he thinks may very much contribute to the

Embellishment of the City, and to the driving Barbarity out of our

Streets. [I consider it as a Satyr upon Projectors in general, and a

lively Picture of the whole Art of Modern Criticism. [1]]

SIR,

'Observing that you have Thoughts of creating certain Officers under

you for the Inspection of several petty Enormities which you your self

cannot attend to; and finding daily Absurdities hung out upon the

Sign-Posts of this City, [2] to the great Scandal of Foreigners, as

well as those of our own Country, who are curious Spectators of the

same: I do humbly propose, that you would be pleased to make me your

Superintendant of all such Figures and Devices, as are or shall be

made use of on this Occasion; with full Powers to rectify or expunge

whatever I shall find irregular or defective. For want of such an

Officer, there is nothing like sound Literature and good Sense to be

met with in those Objects, that are everywhere thrusting themselves

out to the Eye, and endeavouring to become visible. Our streets are

filled with blue Boars, black Swans, and red Lions; not to mention

flying Pigs, and Hogs in Armour, with many other Creatures more

extraordinary than any in the desarts of _Africk._ Strange! that one

who has all the Birds and Beasts in Nature to chuse out of, should

live at the Sign of an _Ens Rationis!_

My first Task, therefore, should be, like that of _Hercules_, to clear

the City from Monsters. In the second Place, I would forbid, that

Creatures of jarring and incongruous Natures should be joined together

in the same Sign; such as the Bell and the Neats-tongue, the Dog and

Gridiron. The Fox and Goose may be supposed to have met, but what has

the Fox and the Seven Stars to do together? and when did the Lamb [3]

and Dolphin ever meet, except upon a Sign-Post? As for the Cat and

Fiddle, there is a Conceit in it, and therefore, I do not intend that

anything I have here said should affect it. I must however observe to

you upon this Subject, that it is usual for a young Tradesman, at his

first setting up, to add to his own Sign that of the Master whom he

serv'd; as the Husband, after Marriage, gives a Place to his

Mistress's Arms in his own Coat. This I take to have given Rise to

many of those Absurdities which are committed over our Heads, and, as

I am inform'd, first occasioned the three Nuns and a Hare, which we

see so frequently joined together. I would, therefore, establish

certain Rules, for the determining how far one Tradesman may _give_

the Sign of another, and in what Cases he may be allowed to quarter it

with his own.

In the third place, I would enjoin every Shop to make use of a Sign

which bears some Affinity to the Wares in which it deals. What can be

more inconsistent, than to see a Bawd at the Sign of the Angel, or a

Taylor at the Lion? A Cook should not live at the Boot, nor a

Shoemaker at the roasted Pig; and yet, for want of this Regulation, I

have seen a Goat set up before the Door of a Perfumer, and the French

King's Head at a Sword-Cutler's.

An ingenious Foreigner observes, that several of those Gentlemen who

value themselves upon their Families, and overlook such as are bred to

Trade, bear the Tools of their Fore-fathers in their Coats of Arms. I

will not examine how true this is in Fact: But though it may not be

necessary for Posterity thus to set up the Sign of their Fore-fathers;

I think it highly proper for those who actually profess the Trade, to

shew some such Marks of it before their Doors.

When the Name gives an Occasion for an ingenious Sign-post, I would

likewise advise the Owner to take that Opportunity of letting the

World know who he is. It would have been ridiculous for the ingenious

Mrs. _Salmon_ [4] to have lived at the Sign of the Trout; for which

Reason she has erected before her House the Figure of the Fish that is

her Namesake. Mr. _Bell_ has likewise distinguished himself by a

Device of the same Nature: And here, Sir, I must beg Leave to observe

to you, that this particular Figure of a Bell has given Occasion to

several Pieces of Wit in this Kind. A Man of your Reading must know,

that _Abel Drugger_ gained great Applause by it in the Time of _Ben

Johnson_ [5]. Our Apocryphal Heathen God [6] is also represented by

this Figure; which, in conjunction with the Dragon, make a very

handsome picture in several of our Streets. As for the Bell-Savage,

which is the Sign of a savage Man standing by a Bell, I was formerly

very much puzzled upon the Conceit of it, till I accidentally fell

into the reading of an old Romance translated out of the French; which

gives an Account of a very beautiful Woman who was found in a

Wilderness, and is called in the French _la_ _belle Sauvage_; and is

everywhere translated by our Countrymen the Bell-Savage. This Piece of

Philology will, I hope, convince you that I have made Sign posts my

Study, and consequently qualified my self for the Employment which I

sollicit at your Hands. But before I conclude my Letter, I must

communicate to you another Remark, which I have made upon the Subject

with which I am now entertaining you, namely, that I can give a shrewd

Guess at the Humour of the Inhabitant by the Sign that hangs before

his Door. A surly cholerick Fellow generally makes Choice of a Bear;

as Men of milder Dispositions, frequently live at the Lamb. Seeing a

Punch-Bowl painted upon a Sign near _Charing Cross_, and very

curiously garnished, with a couple of Angels hovering over it and

squeezing a Lemmon into it, I had the Curiosity to ask after the

Master of the House, and found upon Inquiry, as I had guessed by the

little _Agréemens_ upon his Sign, that he was a Frenchman. I know,

Sir, it is not requisite for me to enlarge upon these Hints to a

Gentleman of your great Abilities; so humbly recommending my self to

your Favour and Patronage,

I remain, &c.

I shall add to the foregoing Letter, another which came to me by the

same Penny-Post.

From my own Apartment near Charing-Cross.

Honoured Sir,

'Having heard that this Nation is a great Encourager of Ingenuity, I

have brought with me a Rope-dancer that was caught in one of the Woods

belonging to the Great _Mogul_. He is by Birth a Monkey; but swings

upon a Rope, takes a pipe of Tobacco, and drinks a Glass of Ale, like

any reasonable Creature. He gives great Satisfaction to the Quality;

and if they will make a Subscription for him, I will send for a

Brother of his out of _Holland_, that is a very good Tumbler, and also

for another of the same Family, whom I design for my Merry-Andrew, as

being an excellent mimick, and the greatest Drole in the Country where

he now is. I hope to have this Entertainment in a Readiness for the

next Winter; and doubt not but it will please more than the Opera or

Puppet-Show. I will not say that a Monkey is a better Man than some of

the Opera Heroes; but certainly he is a better Representative of a

Man, than the most artificial Composition of Wood and Wire. If you

will be pleased to give me a good Word in your paper, you shall be

every Night a Spectator at my Show for nothing.

I am, &c.

C.

[Footnote 1: It is as follows.]

[Footnote 2: In the 'Spectator's' time numbering of houses was so rare

that in Hatton's 'New View of London', published in 1708, special

mention is made of the fact that

'in Prescott Street, Goodman's Fields, instead of signs the houses are

distinguished by numbers, as the staircases in the Inns of Court and

Chancery.']

[Footnote 3: sheep]

[Footnote 4: The sign before her Waxwork Exhibition, in Fleet Street,

near Temple Bar, was 'the Golden Salmon.' She had very recently removed

to this house from her old establishment in St. Martin's le Grand.]

[Footnote 5: Ben Jonson's Alchemist having taken gold from Abel Drugger,

the Tobacco Man, for the device of a sign--'a good lucky one, a thriving

sign'--will give him nothing so commonplace as a sign copied from the

constellation he was born under, but says:

'Subtle'. He shall have 'a bel', that's 'Abel';

And by it standing one whose name is 'Dee'

In a 'rug' grown, there's 'D' and 'rug', that's 'Drug':

And right anenst him a dog snarling 'er',

There's 'Drugger', Abel Drugger. That's his sign.

And here's now mystery and hieroglyphic.

'Face'. Abel, thou art made.

'Drugger'. Sir, I do thank his worship.]

[Footnote 6: Bel, in the apocryphal addition to the Book of Daniel,

called 'the 'History of the Destruction of Bel and the Dragon.']

* * * * *

No. 29. Tuesday, April 3, 1711 Addison

... Sermo linguâ concinnus utrâque

Suavior: ut Chio nota si commista Falerni est.

Hor.

There is nothing that [has] more startled our _English_ Audience, than

the _Italian Recitativo_ at its first Entrance upon the Stage. People

were wonderfully surprized to hear Generals singing the Word of Command,

and Ladies delivering Messages in Musick. Our Country-men could not

forbear laughing when they heard a Lover chanting out a Billet-doux, and

even the Superscription of a Letter set to a Tune. The Famous Blunder in

an old Play of _Enter a King and two Fidlers Solus_, was now no longer

an Absurdity, when it was impossible for a Hero in a Desart, or a

Princess in her Closet, to speak anything unaccompanied with Musical

Instruments.

But however this _Italian_ method of acting in _Recitativo_ might appear

at first hearing, I cannot but think it much more just than that which

prevailed in our _English_ Opera before this Innovation: The Transition

from an Air to Recitative Musick being more natural than the passing

from a Song to plain and ordinary Speaking, which was the common Method

in _Purcell's_ Operas.

The only Fault I find in our present Practice, is the making use of

_Italian Recitative_ with _English_ Words.

To go to the Bottom of this Matter, I must observe, that the Tone, or

(as the _French_ call it) the Accent of every Nation in their ordinary

Speech is altogether different from that of every other People, as we

may see even in the _Welsh_ and _Scotch_, [who [1]] border so near upon

us. By the Tone or Accent, I do not mean the Pronunciation of each

particular Word, but the Sound of the whole Sentence. Thus it is very

common for an _English_ Gentleman, when he hears a _French_ Tragedy, to

complain that the Actors all of them speak in a Tone; and therefore he

very wisely prefers his own Country-men, not considering that a

Foreigner complains of the same Tone in an _English_ Actor.

For this Reason, the Recitative Musick in every Language, should be as

different as the Tone or Accent of each Language; for otherwise, what

may properly express a Passion in one Language, will not do it in

another. Every one who has been long in _Italy_ knows very well, that

the Cadences in the _Recitativo_ bear a remote Affinity to the Tone of

their Voices in ordinary Conversation, or to speak more properly, are

only the Accents of their Language made more Musical and Tuneful.

Thus the Notes of Interrogation, or Admiration, in the _Italian_ Musick

(if one may so call them) which resemble their Accents in Discourse on

such Occasions, are not unlike the ordinary Tones of an _English_ Voice

when we are angry; insomuch that I have often seen our Audiences

extreamly mistaken as to what has been doing upon the Stage, and

expecting to see the Hero knock down his Messenger, when he has been

[asking [2]] him a Question, or fancying that he quarrels with his

Friend, when he only bids him Good-morrow.

For this Reason the _Italian_ Artists cannot agree with our _English_

Musicians in admiring _Purcell's_ Compositions, [3] and thinking his

Tunes so wonderfully adapted to his Words, because both Nations do not

always express the same Passions by the same Sounds.

I am therefore humbly of Opinion, that an _English_ Composer should not

follow the _Italian_ Recitative too servilely, but make use of many

gentle Deviations from it, in Compliance with his own Native Language.

He may Copy out of it all the lulling Softness and _Dying Falls_ (as

_Shakespear_ calls them), but should still remember that he ought to

accommodate himself to an _English_ Audience, and by humouring the Tone

of our Voices in ordinary Conversation, have the same Regard to the

Accent of his own Language, as those Persons had to theirs whom he

professes to imitate. It is observed, that several of the singing Birds

of our own Country learn to sweeten their Voices, and mellow the

Harshness of their natural Notes, by practising under those that come

from warmer Climates. In the same manner, I would allow the _Italian_

Opera to lend our _English_ Musick as much as may grace and soften it,

but never entirely to annihilate and destroy it. Let the Infusion be as

strong as you please, but still let the Subject Matter of it be

_English_.

A Composer should fit his Musick to the Genius of the People, and

consider that the Delicacy of Hearing, and Taste of Harmony, has been

formed upon those Sounds which every Country abounds with: In short,

that Musick is of a Relative Nature, and what is Harmony to one Ear, may

be Dissonance to another.

The same Observations which I have made upon the Recitative part of

Musick may be applied to all our Songs and Airs in general.

Signior _Baptist Lully_ [4] acted like a Man of Sense in this

Particular. He found the _French_ Musick extreamly defective, and very

often barbarous: However, knowing the Genius of the People, the Humour

of their Language, and the prejudiced Ears [he [5]] had to deal with he

did not pretend to extirpate the _French_ Musick, and plant the

_Italian_ in its stead; but only to Cultivate and Civilize it with

innumerable Graces and Modulations which he borrow'd from the _Italian_.

By this means the _French_ Musick is now perfect in its kind; and when

you say it is not so good as the _Italian_, you only mean that it does

not please you so well; for there is [scarce [6]] a _Frenchman_ who

would not wonder to hear you give the _Italian_ such a Preference. The

Musick of the _French_ is indeed very properly adapted to their

Pronunciation and Accent, as their whole Opera wonderfully favours the

Genius of such a gay airy People. The Chorus in which that Opera

abounds, gives the Parterre frequent Opportunities of joining in Consort

with the Stage. This Inclination of the Audience to Sing along with the

Actors, so prevails with them, that I have sometimes known the Performer

on the Stage do no more in a Celebrated Song, than the Clerk of a Parish

Church, who serves only to raise the Psalm, and is afterwards drown'd in

the Musick of the Congregation. Every Actor that comes on the Stage is a

Beau. The Queens and Heroines are so Painted, that they appear as Ruddy

and Cherry-cheek'd as Milk-maids. The Shepherds are all Embroider'd, and

acquit themselves in a Ball better than our _English_ Dancing Masters. I

have seen a couple of Rivers appear in red Stockings; and _Alpheus_,

instead of having his Head covered with Sedge and Bull-Rushes, making

Love in a fair full-bottomed Perriwig, and a Plume of Feathers; but with

a Voice so full of Shakes and Quavers that I should have thought the

Murmurs of a Country Brook the much more agreeable Musick.

I remember the last Opera I saw in that merry Nation was the Rape of

_Proserpine_, where _Pluto_, to make the more tempting Figure, puts

himself in a _French_ Equipage, and brings _Ascalaphus_ along with him

as his _Valet de Chambre_. This is what we call Folly and Impertinence;

but what the _French_ look upon as Gay and Polite.

I shall add no more to what I have here offer'd, than that Musick,

Architecture, and Painting, as well as Poetry, and Oratory, are to

deduce their Laws and Rules from the general Sense and Taste of Mankind,

and not from the Principles of those Arts themselves; or, in other

Words, the Taste is not to conform to the Art, but the Art to the Taste.

Music is not design'd to please only Chromatick Ears, but all that are

capable ef distinguishing harsh from disagreeable Notes. A Man of an

ordinary Ear is a Judge whether a Passion is express'd in proper Sounds,

and whether the Melody of those Sounds be more or less pleasing. [7]

C.

[Footnote 1: that]

[Footnote 2: only asking]

[Footnote 3: Henry Purcell died of consumption in 1695, aged 37.

'He was,' says Mr. Hullah, in his Lectures on the History of Modern

Music, 'the first Englishman to demonstrate the possibility of a

national opera. No Englishman of the last century succeeded in

following Purcell's lead into this domain of art; none, indeed, would

seem to have understood in what his excellence consisted, or how his

success was attained. His dramatic music exhibits the same qualities

which had already made the success of Lulli. ... For some years after

Purcell's death his compositions, of whatever kind, were the chief, if

not the only, music heard in England. His reign might have lasted

longer, but for the advent of a musician who, though not perhaps more

highly gifted, had enjoyed immeasurably greater opportunities of

cultivating his gifts,'

Handel, who had also the advantage of being born thirty years later.]

[Footnote 4: John Baptist Lulli, a Florentine, died in 1687, aged 53. In

his youth he was an under-scullion in the kitchen of Madame de

Montpensier, niece to Louis XIV. The discovery of his musical genius led

to his becoming the King's Superintendent of Music, and one of the most

influential composers that has ever lived. He composed the occasional

music for Molière's comedies, besides about twenty lyric tragedies;

which succeeded beyond all others in France, not only because of his

dramatic genius, which enabled him to give to the persons of these

operas a musical language fitted to their characters and expressive of

the situations in which they were placed; but also, says Mr. Hullah,

because

'Lulli being the first modern composer who caught the French ear, was

the means, to a great extent, of forming the modern French taste.'

His operas kept the stage for more than a century.]

[Footnote 5: that he]

[Footnote 6: not]

* * * * *

No. 30. [1] Wednesday, April 4, 1711. Steele.

'Si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore Focisque

Nil est Jucundum; vivas in amore Jocisque.'

Hor.

One common Calamity makes Men extremely affect each other, tho' they

differ in every other Particular. The Passion of Love is the most

general Concern among Men; and I am glad to hear by my last Advices from

_Oxford_, that there are a Set of Sighers in that University, who have

erected themselves into a Society in honour of that tender Passion.

These Gentlemen are of that Sort of Inamoratos, who are not so very much

lost to common Sense, but that they understand the Folly they are guilty

of; and for that Reason separate themselves from all other Company,

because they will enjoy the Pleasure of talking incoherently, without

being ridiculous to any but each other. When a Man comes into the Club,

he is not obliged to make any Introduction to his Discourse, but at

once, as he is seating himself in his Chair, speaks in the Thread of his

own Thoughts, 'She gave me a very obliging Glance, She Never look'd so

well in her Life as this Evening,' or the like Reflection, without

Regard to any other Members of the Society; for in this Assembly they do

not meet to talk to each other, but every Man claims the full Liberty of

talking to himself. Instead of Snuff-boxes and Canes, which are the

usual Helps to Discourse with other young Fellows, these have each some

Piece of Ribbon, a broken Fan, or an old Girdle, which they play with

while they talk of the fair Person remember'd by each respective Token.

According to the Representation of the Matter from my Letters, the

Company appear like so many Players rehearsing behind the Scenes; one is

sighing and lamenting his Destiny in beseeching Terms, another declaring

he will break his Chain, and another in dumb-Show, striving to express

his Passion by his Gesture. It is very ordinary in the Assembly for one

of a sudden to rise and make a Discourse concerning his Passion in

general, and describe the Temper of his Mind in such a Manner, as that

the whole Company shall join in the Description, and feel the Force of

it. In this Case, if any Man has declared the Violence of his Flame in

more pathetick Terms, he is made President for that Night, out of

respect to his superior Passion.

We had some Years ago in this Town a Set of People who met and dressed

like Lovers, and were distinguished by the Name of the _Fringe-Glove

Club_; but they were Persons of such moderate Intellects even before

they were impaired by their Passion, that their Irregularities could not

furnish sufficient Variety of Folly to afford daily new Impertinencies;

by which Means that Institution dropp'd. These Fellows could express

their Passion in nothing but their Dress; but the _Oxonians_ are

Fantastical now they are Lovers, in proportion to their Learning and

Understanding before they became such. The Thoughts of the ancient Poets

on this agreeable Phrenzy, are translated in honour of some modern

Beauty; and _Chloris_ is won to Day, by the same Compliment that was

made to _Lesbia_ a thousand Years ago. But as far as I can learn, the

Patron of the Club is the renowned Don _Quixote_. The Adventures of that

gentle Knight are frequently mention'd in the Society, under the colour

of Laughing at the Passion and themselves: But at the same Time, tho'

they are sensible of the Extravagancies of that unhappy Warrior, they do

not observe, that to turn all the Reading of the best and wisest

Writings into Rhapsodies of Love, is a Phrenzy no less diverting than

that of the aforesaid accomplish'd _Spaniard_. A Gentleman who, I hope,

will continue his Correspondence, is lately admitted into the

Fraternity, and sent me the following Letter.

SIR,

'Since I find you take Notice of Clubs, I beg Leave to give you an

Account of one in _Oxford_, which you have no where mention'd, and

perhaps never heard of. We distinguish our selves by the Title of the

_Amorous Club_, are all Votaries of _Cupid_, and Admirers of the Fair

Sex. The Reason that we are so little known in the World, is the

Secrecy which we are obliged to live under in the University. Our

Constitution runs counter to that of the Place wherein we live: For in

Love there are no Doctors, and we all profess so high Passion, that we

admit of no Graduates in it. Our Presidentship is bestow'd according

to the Dignity of Passion; our Number is unlimited; and our Statutes

are like those of the Druids, recorded in our own Breasts only, and

explained by the Majority of the Company. A Mistress, and a Poem in

her Praise, will introduce any Candidate: Without the latter no one

can be admitted; for he that is not in love enough to rhime, is

unqualified for our Society. To speak disrespectfully of any Woman, is

Expulsion from our gentle Society. As we are at present all of us

Gown-men, instead of duelling when we are Rivals, we drink together

the Health of our Mistress. The Manner of doing this sometimes indeed

creates Debates; on such Occasions we have Recourse to the Rules of

Love among the Antients.

'Naevia sex Cyathis, septem Justina bibatur.'

This Method of a Glass to every Letter of her Name, occasioned the

other Night a Dispute of some Warmth. A young Student, who is in Love

with Mrs. _Elizabeth Dimple_, was so unreasonable as to begin her

Health under the Name of _Elizabetha_; which so exasperated the Club,

that by common Consent we retrenched it to _Betty_. We look upon a Man

as no Company, that does not sigh five times in a Quarter of an Hour;

and look upon a Member as very absurd, that is so much himself as to

make a direct Answer to a Question. In fine, the whole Assembly is

made up of absent Men, that is, of such Persons as have lost their

Locality, and whose Minds and Bodies never keep Company with one

another. As I am an unfortunate Member of this distracted Society, you

cannot expect a very regular Account of it; for which Reason, I hope

you will pardon me that I so abruptly subscribe my self,

Sir,

Your most obedient,

humble Servant,

T. B.

I forgot to tell you, that _Albina_, who has six Votaries in this

Club, is one of your Readers.'

R.

[Footnote 1: To this number of the Spectator was added in the original

daily issue an announcement of six places at which were to be sold

'Compleat Setts of this Paper for the Month of March.']

* * * * *

No. 31. Thursday, April 5, 1711. Addison.

'Sit mihi fas audita loqui!'

Vir.

Last Night, upon my going into a Coffee-House not far from the

_Hay-Market_ Theatre, I diverted my self for above half an Hour with

overhearing the Discourse of one, who, by the Shabbiness of his Dress,

the Extravagance of his Conceptions, and the Hurry of his Speech, I

discovered to be of that Species who are generally distinguished by the

Title of Projectors. This Gentleman, for I found he was treated as such

by his Audience, was entertaining a whole Table of Listners with the

Project of an Opera, which he told us had not cost him above two or

three Mornings in the Contrivance, and which he was ready to put in

Execution, provided he might find his Account in it. He said, that he

had observed the great Trouble and Inconvenience which Ladies were at,

in travelling up and down to the several Shows that are exhibited in

different Quarters of the Town. The dancing Monkies are in one place;

the Puppet-Show in another; the Opera in a third; not to mention the

Lions, that are almost a whole Day's Journey from the Politer Part of

the Town. By this means People of Figure are forced to lose half the

Winter after their coming to Town, before they have seen all the strange

Sights about it. In order to remedy this great Inconvenience, our

Projector drew out of his Pocket the Scheme of an Opera, Entitled, _The

Expedition of Alexander the Great_; in which he had disposed of all the

remarkable Shows about Town, among the Scenes and Decorations of his

Piece. The Thought, he confessed, was not originally his own, but that

he had taken the Hint of it from several Performances which he had seen

upon our Stage: In one of which there was a Rary-Show; in another, a

Ladder-dance; and in others a Posture-man, a moving Picture, with many

Curiosities of the like nature.

This _Expedition of Alexander_ opens with his consulting the oracle at

_Delphos_, in which the dumb Conjuror, who has been visited by so many

Persons of Quality of late Years, is to be introduced as telling him his

Fortune; At the same time _Clench_ of _Barnet_ is represented in another

Corner of the Temple, as ringing the Bells of _Delphos_, for joy of his

arrival. The Tent of _Darius_ is to be Peopled by the Ingenious Mrs.

_Salmon_, [1] where Alexander is to fall in Love with a Piece of

Wax-Work, that represents the beautiful _Statira_. When Alexander comes

into that Country, in which _Quintus Curtius_ tells us the Dogs were so

exceeding fierce that they would not loose their hold, tho' they were

cut to pieces Limb by Limb, and that they would hang upon their Prey by

their Teeth when they had nothing but a Mouth left, there is to be a

scene of _Hockley in the Hole_, [2] in which is to be represented all

the Diversions of that Place, the Bull-baiting only excepted, which

cannot possibly be exhibited in the Theatre, by Reason of the Lowness of

the Roof. The several Woods in _Asia_, which _Alexander_ must be

supposed to pass through, will give the Audience a Sight of Monkies

dancing upon Ropes, with many other Pleasantries of that ludicrous

Species. At the same time, if there chance to be any Strange Animals in

Town, whether Birds or Beasts, they may be either let loose among the

Woods, or driven across the Stage by some of the Country People of

_Asia_. In the last great Battel, Pinkethman [3] is to personate King

_Porus_ upon an _Elephant_, and is to be encountered by _Powell_ [4]

representing _Alexander_ the Great upon a Dromedary, which nevertheless

Mr. _Powell_ is desired to call by the Name of _Bucephalus_. Upon the

Close of this great decisive Battel, when the two Kings are thoroughly

reconciled, to shew the mutual Friendship and good Correspondence that

reigns between them, they both of them go together to a Puppet-Show, in

which the ingenious Mr. _Powell, junior_ [5] may have an Opportunity of

displaying his whole Art of Machinery, for the Diversion of the two

Monarchs. Some at the Table urged that a Puppet-Show was not a suitable

Entertainment for _Alexander_ the Great; and that it might be introduced

more properly, if we suppose the Conqueror touched upon that part of

_India_ which is said to be inhabited by the Pigmies. But this Objection

was looked upon as frivolous, and the Proposal immediately over-ruled.

Our Projector further added, that after the Reconciliation of these two

Kings they might invite one another to Dinner, and either of them

entertain his Guest with the _German Artist_, Mr. _Pinkethman's_ Heathen

Gods, [6] or any of the like Diversions, which shall then chance to be

in vogue.

This Project was receiv'd with very great Applause by the whole Table.

Upon which the Undertaker told us, that he had not yet communicated to

us above half his Design; for that _Alexander_ being a _Greek_, it was

his Intention that the whole Opera should be acted in that Language,

which was a Tongue he was sure would wonderfully please the Ladies,

especially when it was a little raised and rounded by the _Ionick_

Dialect; and could not but be [acceptable [8]] to the whole Audience,

because there are fewer of them who understand _Greek_ than _Italian_.

The only Difficulty that remained, was, how to get Performers, unless we

could persuade some Gentlemen of the Universities to learn to sing, in

order to qualify themselves for the Stage; but this Objection soon

vanished, when the Projector informed us that the _Greeks_ were at

present the only Musicians in the _Turkish_ Empire, and that it would be

very easy for our Factory at _Smyrna_ to furnish us every Year with a

Colony of Musicians, by the Opportunity of the _Turkey_ Fleet; besides,

says he, if we want any single Voice for any lower Part in the Opera,

_Lawrence_ can learn to speak _Greek_, as well as he does _Italian_, in

a Fortnight's time.

The Projector having thus settled Matters, to the good liking of all

that heard him, he left his Seat at the Table, and planted himself

before the Fire, where I had unluckily taken my Stand for the

Convenience of over-hearing what he said. Whether he had observed me to

be more attentive than ordinary, I cannot tell, but he had not stood by

me above a Quarter of a Minute, but he turned short upon me on a sudden,

and catching me by a Button of my Coat, attacked me very abruptly after

the following manner.

Besides, Sir, I have heard of a very extraordinary Genius for Musick

that lives in _Switzerland_, who has so strong a Spring in his

Fingers, that he can make the Board of an Organ sound like a Drum, and

if I could but procure a Subscription of about Ten Thousand Pound

every Winter, I would undertake to fetch him over, and oblige him by

Articles to set every thing that should be sung upon the _English_

Stage.

After this he looked full in my Face, expecting I would make an Answer,

when by good Luck, a Gentleman that had entered the Coffee-house since

the Projector applied himself to me, hearing him talk of his _Swiss_

Compositions, cry'd out with a kind of Laugh,

Is our Musick then to receive further Improvements from _Switzerland!_

[8]

This alarmed the Projector, who immediately let go my Button, and turned

about to answer him. I took the Opportunity of the Diversion, which

seemed to be made in favour of me, and laying down my Penny upon the

Bar, retired with some Precipitation.

C.

[Footnote 1: An advertisement of Mrs. Salmon's wax-work in the 'Tatler'

for Nov. 30, 1710, specifies among other attractions the Turkish

Seraglio in wax-work, the Fatal Sisters that spin, reel, and cut the

thread of man's life, 'an Old Woman flying from Time, who shakes his

head and hour-glass with sorrow at seeing age so unwilling to die.

Nothing but life can exceed the motions of the heads, hands, eyes, &c.,

of these figures, &c.']

[Footnote 2: Hockley-in-the-Hole, memorable for its Bear Garden, was on

the outskirt of the town, by Clerkenwell Green; with Mutton Lane on the

East and the fields on the West. By Town's End Lane (called Coppice Row

since the levelling of the coppice-crowned knoll over which it ran)

through Pickled-Egg Walk (now Crawford's Passage) one came to

Hockley-in-the-Hole or Hockley Hole, now Ray Street. The leveller has

been at work upon the eminences that surrounded it. In Hockley Hole,

dealers in rags and old iron congregated. This gave it the name of Rag

Street, euphonized into Ray Street since 1774. In the _Spectator's_

time its Bear Garden, upon the site of which there are now metal works,

was a famous resort of the lowest classes. 'You must go to

Hockley-in-the-Hole, child, to learn valour,' says Mr. Peachum to Filch

in the _Beggar's Opera_.]

[Footnote 3: William Penkethman was a low comedian dear to the gallery

at Drury Lane as 'Pinkey,' very popular also as a Booth Manager at

Bartholomew Fair. Though a sour critic described him as 'the Flower of

Bartholomew Fair and the Idol of the Rabble; a Fellow that overdoes

everything, and spoils many a Part with his own Stuff,' the _Spectator_

has in another paper given honourable fame to his skill as a comedian.

Here there is but the whimsical suggestion of a favourite showman and

low comedian mounted on an elephant to play King Porus.]

[Footnote 4: George Powell, who in 1711 and 1712 appeared in such

characters as Falstaff, Lear, and Cortez in 'the Indian Emperor,' now

and then also played the part of the favourite stage hero, Alexander the

Great in Lee's _Rival Queens_. He was a good actor, spoilt by

intemperance, who came on the stage sometimes warm with Nantz brandy,

and courted his heroines so furiously that Sir John Vanbrugh said they

were almost in danger of being conquered on the spot. His last new part

of any note was in 1713, Portius in Addison's Cato. He lived on for a

few wretched years, lost to the public, but much sought by sheriff's

officers.]

[Footnote 5: 'Powell junior' of the Puppet Show (see note [Footnote 2 of

No. 14], p. 59, _ante_) was a more prosperous man than his namesake of

Drury Lane. In De Foe's 'Groans of Great Britain,' published in 1813, we

read:

'I was the other Day at a Coffee-House when the following

Advertisement was thrown in.--_At_ Punch's _Theatre in the Little

Piazza, Covent-Garden, this present Evening will be performed an

Entertainment, called,_ The History of Sir Richard Whittington,

_shewing his Rise from a Scullion to be Lord-Mayor of London, with the

Comical Humours of Old Madge, the jolly Chamber-Maid, and the

Representation of the Sea, and the Court of Great Britain, concluding

with the Court of Aldermen, and_ Whittington _Lord-Mayor, honoured

with the Presence of K. Hen. VIII. and his Queen Anna Bullen, with

other diverting Decorations proper to the Play, beginning at 6

o'clock_. Note, _No money to be returned after the Entertainment is

begun._ Boxes, 2s. Pit, 1s. _Vivat Regina_.

On enquiring into the Matter, I find this has long been a noble

Diversion of our Quality and Gentry; and that Mr. Powell, by

Subscriptions and full Houses, has gathered such Wealth as is ten

times sufficient to buy all the Poets in England; that he seldom goes

out without his Chair, and thrives on this incredible Folly to that

degree, that, were he a Freeman, he might hope that some future

Puppet-Show might celebrate his being Lord Mayor, as he has done Sir

R. Whittington.']

[Footnote 6:

'Mr. Penkethman's Wonderful Invention call'd the Pantheon: or, the

Temple of the Heathen Gods. The Work of several Years, and great

Expense, is now perfected; being a most surprising and magnificent

Machine, consisting of 5 several curious Pictures, the Painting and

contrivance whereof is beyond Expression Admirable. The Figures, which

are above 100, and move their Heads, Legs, Arms, and Fingers, so

exactly to what they perform, and setting one Foot before another,

like living Creatures, that it justly deserves to be esteem'd the

greatest Wonder of the Age. To be seen from 10 in the Morning till 10

at Night, in the Little Piazza, Covent Garden, in the same House where

Punch's Opera is. Price 1s. 6d., 1s., and the lowest, 6d.'

This Advertisement was published in 46 and a few following numbers of

the _Spectator_.]

[Footnote 7: wonderfully acceptable]

[Footnote 8: The satire is against Heidegger. See note [Footnote 1 of

No. 14], p. 56, _ante_.]

* * * * *

No. 32. Friday, April 6, 1711. Steele.

'Nil illi larvâ aut tragicis opus esse Cothurnis.'

Hor.

The late Discourse concerning the Statutes of the _Ugly-Club_,

having been so well received at _Oxford_, that, contrary to the

strict Rules of the Society, they have been so partial as to take my own

Testimonial, and admit me into that select Body; I could not restrain

the Vanity of publishing to the World the Honour which is done me. It is

no small Satisfaction, that I have given Occasion for the President's

shewing both his Invention and Reading to such Advantage as my

Correspondent reports he did: But it is not to be doubted there were

many very proper Hums and Pauses in his Harangue, which lose their

Ugliness in the Narration, and which my Correspondent (begging his

Pardon) has no very good Talent at representing. I very much approve of

the Contempt the Society has of Beauty: Nothing ought to be laudable in

a Man, in which his Will is not concerned; therefore our Society can

follow Nature, and where she has thought fit, as it were, to mock

herself, we can do so too, and be merry upon the Occasion.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

'Your making publick the late Trouble I gave you, you will find to

have been the Occasion of this: Who should I meet at the Coffee-house

Door t'other Night, but my old Friend Mr. President? I saw somewhat

had pleased him; and as soon as he had cast his Eye upon me,

"Oho, Doctor, rare News from _London_, (says he); the SPECTATOR has

made honourable Mention of the Club (Man) and published to the World

his sincere Desire to be a Member, with a recommendatory Description

of his Phiz: And tho' our Constitution has made no particular

Provision for short Faces, yet, his being an extraordinary Case, I

believe we shall find an Hole for him to creep in at; for I assure

you he is not against the Canon; and if his Sides are as compact as

his Joles, he need not disguise himself to make one of us."

I presently called for the Paper to see how you looked in Print; and

after we had regaled our selves a while upon the pleasant Image of our

Proselite, Mr. President told me I should be his Stranger at the next

Night's Club: Where we were no sooner come, and Pipes brought, but Mr.

President began an Harangue upon your Introduction to my Epistle;

setting forth with no less Volubility of Speech than Strength of

Reason, "That a Speculation of this Nature was what had been long and

much wanted; and that he doubted not but it would be of inestimable

Value to the Publick, in reconciling even of Bodies and Souls; in

composing and quieting the Minds of Men under all corporal

Redundancies, Deficiencies, and Irregularities whatsoever; and making

every one sit down content in his own Carcase, though it were not

perhaps so mathematically put together as he could wish." And again,

"How that for want of a due Consideration of what you first advance,

_viz._ that our Faces are not of our own choosing, People had been

transported beyond all good Breeding, and hurried themselves into

unaccountable and fatal Extravagancies: As, how many impartial

Looking-Glasses had been censured and calumniated, nay, and sometimes

shivered into ten thousand Splinters, only for a fair Representation

of the Truth? How many Headstrings and Garters had been made

accessory, and actually forfeited, only because Folks must needs

quarrel with their own Shadows? And who (continues he) but is deeply

sensible, that one great Source of the Uneasiness and Misery of human

Life, especially amongst those of Distinction, arises from nothing in

the World else, but too severe a Contemplation of an indefeasible

Contexture of our external Parts, or certain natural and invincible

Disposition to be fat or lean? When a little more of Mr. SPECTATOR'S

Philosophy would take off all this; and in the mean time let them

observe, that there's not one of their Grievances of this Sort, but

perhaps in some Ages of the World has been highly in vogue; and may be

so again, nay, in some Country or other ten to one is so at this Day.

My Lady _Ample_ is the most miserable Woman in the World, purely of

her own making: She even grudges her self Meat and Drink, for fear she

should thrive by them; and is constantly crying out, In a Quarter of a

Year more I shall be quite out of all manner of Shape! Now [the[1]]

Lady's Misfortune seems to be only this, that she is planted in a

wrong Soil; for, go but t'other Side of the Water, it's a Jest at

_Harlem_ to talk of a Shape under eighteen Stone. These wise Traders

regulate their Beauties as they do their Butter, by the Pound; and

Miss _Cross_, when she first arrived in the _Low-Countries_, was not

computed to be so handsom as Madam _Van Brisket_ by near half a Tun.

On the other hand, there's 'Squire _Lath_, a proper Gentleman of

Fifteen hundred Pound _per Annum_, as well as of an unblameable Life

and Conversation; yet would not I be the Esquire for half his Estate;

for if it was as much more, he'd freely pare with it all for a pair of

Legs to his Mind: Whereas in the Reign of our first King _Edward_ of

glorious Memory, nothing more modish than a Brace of your fine taper

Supporters; and his Majesty without an Inch of Calf, managed Affairs

in Peace and War as laudably as the bravest and most politick of his

Ancestors; and was as terrible to his Neighbours under the Royal Name

of _Long-shanks_, as _Coeur de Lion_ to the _Saracens_ before him. If

we look farther back into History we shall find, that _Alexander_ the

Great wore his Head a little over the left Shoulder; and then not a

Soul stirred out 'till he had adjusted his Neck-bone; the whole

Nobility addressed the Prince and each other obliquely, and all

Matters of Importance were concerted and carried on in the

_Macedonian_ Court with their Polls on one Side. For about the first

Century nothing made more Noise in the World than _Roman_ Noses, and

then not a Word of them till they revived again in Eighty eight. [2]

Nor is it so very long since _Richard_ the Third set up half the Backs

of the Nation; and high Shoulders, as well as high Noses, were the Top

of the Fashion. But to come to our selves, Gentlemen, tho' I find by

my quinquennial Observations that we shall never get Ladies enough to

make a Party in our own Country, yet might we meet with better Success

among some of our Allies. And what think you if our Board sate for a

_Dutch_ Piece? Truly I am of Opinion, that as odd as we appear in

Flesh and Blood, we should be no such strange Things in Metzo-Tinto.

But this Project may rest 'till our Number is compleat; and this being

our Election Night, give me leave to propose Mr. SPECTATOR: You see

his Inclinations, and perhaps we may not have his Fellow."

I found most of them (as it is usual in all such Cases) were prepared;

but one of the Seniors (whom by the by Mr. President had taken all

this Pains to bring over) sate still, and cocking his Chin, which

seemed only to be levelled at his Nose, very gravely declared,

"That in case he had had sufficient Knowledge of you, no Man should

have been more willing to have served you; but that he, for his

part, had always had regard to his own Conscience, as well as other

Peoples Merit; and he did not know but that you might be a handsome

Fellow; for as for your own Certificate, it was every Body's

Business to speak for themselves."

Mr. President immediately retorted,

"A handsome Fellow! why he is a Wit (Sir) and you know the Proverb;"

and to ease the old Gentleman of his Scruples, cried,

"That for Matter of Merit it was all one, you might wear a Mask."

This threw him into a Pause, and he looked, desirous of three Days to

consider on it; but Mr. President improved the Thought, and followed

him up with an old Story,

"That Wits were privileged to wear what Masks they pleased in all

Ages; and that a Vizard had been the constant Crown of their

Labours, which was generally presented them by the Hand of some

Satyr, and sometimes of _Apollo_ himself:"

For the Truth of which he appealed to the Frontispiece of several

Books, and particularly to the _English Juvenal_, [3] to which he

referred him; and only added,

"That such Authors were the _Larvati_ [4] or _Larvâ donati_ of the

Ancients."

This cleared up all, and in the Conclusion you were chose Probationer;

and Mr. President put round your Health as such, protesting,

"That tho' indeed he talked of a Vizard, he did not believe all the

while you had any more Occasion for it than the Cat-a-mountain;"

so that all you have to do now is to pay your Fees, which here are

very reasonable if you are not imposed upon; and you may stile your

self _Informis Societatis Socius_: Which I am desired to acquaint you

with; and upon the same I beg you to accept of the Congratulation of,

SIR,

Your oblig'd humble Servant,

R. A. C.

Oxford March 21.

[Footnote 1: this]

[Footnote 2: At the coming of William III.]

[Footnote 3: The third edition of Dryden's Satires of Juvenal and

Persius, published in 1702, was the first 'adorn'd with Sculptures.' The

Frontispiece represents at full length Juvenal receiving a mask of Satyr

from Apollo's hand, and hovered over by a Cupid who will bind the Head

to its Vizard with a Laurel Crown.]

[Footnote 4: Larvati were bewitched persons; from Larva, of which the

original meaning is a ghost or spectre; the derived meanings are, a Mask

and a Skeleton.]

* * * * *

No. 33 Saturday, April 7, 1711. Steele.

'Fervidus tecum Puer, et solutis

Gratiæ zonis, properentque Nymphæ,

Et parum comis sine te Juventas,

Mercuriusque.'

Hor. 'ad Venerem.'

A friend of mine has two Daughters, whom I will call _Lætitia_ and

_Daphne_; The Former is one of the Greatest Beauties of the Age in which

she lives, the Latter no way remarkable for any Charms in her Person.

Upon this one Circumstance of their Outward Form, the Good and Ill of

their Life seems to turn. _Lætitia_ has not, from her very Childhood,

heard any thing else but Commendations of her Features and Complexion,

by which means she is no other than Nature made her, a very beautiful

Outside. The Consciousness of her Charms has rendered her insupportably

Vain and Insolent, towards all who have to do with her. _Daphne_, who

was almost Twenty before one civil Thing had ever been said to her,

found her self obliged to acquire some Accomplishments to make up for

the want of those Attractions which she saw in her Sister. Poor _Daphne_

was seldom submitted to in a Debate wherein she was concerned; her

Discourse had nothing to recommend it but the good Sense of it, and she

was always under a Necessity to have very well considered what she was

to say before she uttered it; while _Lætitia_ was listened to with

Partiality, and Approbation sate in the Countenances of those she

conversed with, before she communicated what she had to say. These

Causes have produced suitable Effects, and _Lætitia_ is as insipid a

Companion, as _Daphne_ is an agreeable one. _Lætitia_, confident of

Favour, has studied no Arts to please; _Daphne_, despairing of any

Inclination towards her Person, has depended only on her Merit.

_Lætitia_ has always something in her Air that is sullen, grave and

disconsolate. _Daphne_ has a Countenance that appears chearful, open and

unconcerned. A young Gentleman saw _Lætitia_ this Winter at a Play, and

became her Captive. His Fortune was such, that he wanted very little

Introduction to speak his Sentiments to her Father. The Lover was

admitted with the utmost Freedom into the Family, where a constrained

Behaviour, severe Looks, and distant Civilities, were the highest

Favours he could obtain of _Lætitia_; while _Daphne_ used him with the

good Humour, Familiarity, and Innocence of a Sister: Insomuch that he

would often say to her, _Dear_ Daphne; _wert thou but as Handsome as

Lætitia!_--She received such Language with that ingenuous and pleasing

Mirth, which is natural to a Woman without Design. He still Sighed in

vain for _Lætitia_, but found certain Relief in the agreeable

Conversation of _Daphne_. At length, heartily tired with the haughty

Impertinence of _Lætitia_, and charmed with repeated Instances of good

Humour he had observed in _Daphne_, he one Day told the latter, that he

had something to say to her he hoped she would be pleased with.--_Faith

Daphne,_ continued he, _I am in Love with thee, and despise thy Sister

sincerely_. The Manner of his declaring himself gave his Mistress

occasion for a very hearty Laughter.--_Nay,_ says he, _I knew you would

Laugh at me, but I'll ask your Father._ He did so; the Father received

his Intelligence with no less Joy than Surprize, and was very glad he

had now no Care left but for his _Beauty_, which he thought he could

carry to Market at his Leisure. I do not know any thing that has pleased

me so much a great while, as this Conquest of my Friend _Daphne's_. All

her Acquaintance congratulate her upon her Chance. Medley, and laugh at

that premeditating Murderer her Sister. As it is an Argument of a light

Mind, to think the worse of our selves for the Imperfections of our

Persons, it is equally below us to value our selves upon the Advantages

of them. The Female World seem to be almost incorrigibly gone astray in

this Particular; for which Reason, I shall recommend the following

Extract out of a Friend's Letter to the Profess'd Beauties, who are a

People almost as unsufferable as the Profess'd Wits.

Monsieur St. _Evremont_ [1] has concluded one of his Essays, with

affirming that the last Sighs of a Handsome Woman are not so much for

the loss of her Life, as of her Beauty. Perhaps this Raillery is

pursued too far, yet it is turn'd upon a very obvious Remark, that

Woman's strongest Passion is for her own Beauty, and that she values

it as her Favourite Distinction. From hence it is that all Arts, which

pretend to improve or preserve it, meet with so general a Reception

among the Sex. To say nothing of many False Helps and Contraband Wares

of Beauty, which are daily vended in this great Mart, there is not a

Maiden-Gentlewoman, of a good Family in any County of _South-Britain_,

who has not heard of the Virtues of _May_-Dew, or is unfurnished with

some Receipt or other in Favour of her Complexion; and I have known a

Physician of Learning and Sense, after Eight Years Study in the

University, and a Course of Travels into most Countries of _Europe_,

owe the first raising of his Fortunes to a Cosmetick Wash.

This has given me Occasion to consider how so Universal a Disposition

in Womankind, which springs from a laudable Motive, the Desire of

Pleasing, and proceeds upon an Opinion, not altogether groundless,

that Nature may be helped by Art, may be turn'd to their Advantage.

And, methinks, it would be an acceptable Service to take them out of

the Hands of Quacks and Pretenders, and to prevent their imposing upon

themselves, by discovering to them the true Secret and Art of

improving Beauty.

In order to this, before I touch upon it directly, it will be

necessary to lay down a few Preliminary Maxims, _viz_.

That no Woman can be Handsome by the Force of Features alone, any

more than she can be Witty only by the Help of Speech.

That Pride destroys all Symmetry and Grace, and Affectation is a

more terrible Enemy to fine Faces than the Small-Pox.

That no Woman is capable of being Beautiful, who is not incapable of

being False.

And, That what would be Odious in a Friend, is Deformity in a

Mistress.

From these few Principles, thus laid down, it will be easie to prove,

that the true Art of assisting Beauty consists in Embellishing the

whole Person by the proper Ornaments of virtuous and commendable

Qualities. By this Help alone it is that those who are the Favourite

Work of Nature, or, as Mr. _Dryden_ expresses it, the Porcelain Clay

of human Kind [2], become animated, and are in a Capacity of exerting

their Charms: And those who seem to have been neglected by her, like

Models wrought in haste, are capable, in a great measure, of finishing

what She has left imperfect.

It is, methinks, a low and degrading Idea of that Sex, which was

created to refine the Joys, and soften the Cares of Humanity, by the

most agreeable Participation, to consider them meerly as Objects of

Sight. This is abridging them of their natural Extent of Power, to put

them upon a Level with their Pictures at _Kneller's_. How much nobler

is the Contemplation of Beauty heighten'd by Virtue, and commanding

our Esteem and Love, while it draws our Observation? How faint and

spiritless are the Charms of a Coquet, when compar'd with the real

Loveliness of _Sophronia's_ Innocence, Piety, good Humour and Truth;

Virtues which add a new Softness to her Sex, and even beautify her

Beauty! That Agreeableness, which must otherwise have appeared no

longer in the modest Virgin, is now preserv'd in the tender Mother,

the prudent Friend, and the faithful Wife. Colours, artfully spread

upon Canvas, may entertain the Eye, but not affect the Heart; and she,

who takes no care to add to the natural Graces of her Person any

excelling Qualities, may be allowed still to amuse, as a Picture, but

not to triumph as a Beauty.

When _Adam_ is introduced by _Milton_ describing _Eve_ in Paradise,

and relating to the Angel the Impressions he felt upon seeing her at

her first Creation, he does not represent her like a _Grecian Venus_

by her Shape or Features, but by the Lustre of her Mind which shone in

them, and gave them their Power of charming.

_Grace was in all her Steps, Heaven in her Eye,

In all her Gestures Dignity and Love._

Without this irradiating Power the proudest Fair One ought to know,

whatever her Glass may tell her to the contrary, that her most perfect

Features are Uninform'd and Dead.

I cannot better close this Moral, than by a short Epitaph written by

_Ben Johnson_, with a Spirit which nothing could inspire but such an

Object as I have been describing.

Underneath this Stone doth lie

As much Virtue as cou'd die,

Which when alive did Vigour give

To as much Beauty as cou'd live. [3]

I am, Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

R. B.

R.

[Footnote 1: Charles de St. Denis, Sieur de St. Evremond, died in 1703,

aged 95, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His military and

diplomatic career in France was closed in 1661, when his condemnations

of Mazarin, although the Cardinal was then dead, obliged him to fly from

the wrath of the French Court to Holland and afterwards to England,

where Charles II granted him a pension of £300 a-year. At Charles's

death the pension lapsed, and St. Evremond declined the post of cabinet

secretary to James II. After the Revolution he had William III for

friend, and when, at last, he was invited back, in his old age, to

France, he chose to stay and die among his English friends. In a second

volume of 'Miscellany Essays by Monsieur de St. Evremont,' done into

English by Mr. Brown (1694), an Essay 'Of the Pleasure that Women take

in their Beauty' ends (p. 135) with the thought quoted by Steele.]

[Footnote 2: In 'Don Sebastian, King of Portugal,' act I, says Muley

Moloch, Emperor of Barbary,

Ay; There look like the Workmanship of Heav'n:

This is the Porcelain Clay of Human Kind.]

[Footnote 3: The lines are in the Epitaph 'on Elizabeth L.H.'

'One name was Elizabeth,

The other, let it sleep in death.'

But Steele, quoting from memory, altered the words to his purpose. Ben

Johnson's lines were:

'Underneath this stone doth lie,

As much Beauty as could die,

Which in Life did Harbour give

To more Virture than doth live.']

* * * * *

No. 34. Monday, April 9, 1711 Addison.

'... parcit

Cognatis maculis similis fera ...'

Juv.

The Club of which I am a Member, is very luckily composed of such

persons as are engaged in different Ways of Life, and disputed as it

were out of the most conspicuous Classes of Mankind: By this Means I am

furnished with the greatest Variety of Hints and Materials, and know

every thing that passes in the different Quarters and Divisions, not

only of this great City, but of the whole Kingdom. My Readers too have

the Satisfaction to find, that there is no Rank or Degree among them who

have not their Representative in this Club, and that there is always

some Body present who will take Care of their respective Interests, that

nothing may be written or published to the Prejudice or Infringement of

their just Rights and Privileges.

I last Night sat very late in company with this select Body of Friends,

who entertain'd me with several Remarks which they and others had made

upon these my Speculations, as also with the various Success which they

had met with among their several Ranks and Degrees of Readers. WILL.

HONEYCOMB told me, in the softest Manner he could, That there were some

Ladies (but for your Comfort, says WILL., they are not those of the most

Wit) that were offended at the Liberties I had taken with the Opera and

the Puppet-Show: That some of them were likewise very much surpriz'd,

that I should think such serious Points as the Dress and Equipage of

Persons of Quality, proper Subjects for Raillery.

He was going on, when Sir ANDREW FREEPORT took him up short, and told

him, That the Papers he hinted at had done great Good in the City, and

that all their Wives and Daughters were the better for them: And further

added, That the whole City thought themselves very much obliged to me

for declaring my generous Intentions to scourge Vice and Folly as they

appear in a Multitude, without condescending to be a Publisher of

particular Intrigues and Cuckoldoms. In short, says Sir ANDREW, if you

avoid that foolish beaten Road of falling upon Aldermen and Citizens,

and employ your Pen upon the Vanity and Luxury of Courts, your Paper

must needs be of general Use.

Upon this my Friend the TEMPLAR told Sir ANDREW, That he wondered to

hear a Man of his Sense talk after that Manner; that the City had always

been the Province for Satyr; and that the Wits of King _Charles's_ Time

jested upon nothing else during his whole Reign. He then shewed, by the

Examples of _Horace, Juvenal, Boileau_, and the best Writers of every

Age, that the Follies of the Stage and Court had never been accounted

too sacred for Ridicule, how great so-ever the Persons might be that

patronized them. But after all, says he, I think your Raillery has made

too great an Excursion, in attacking several Persons of the Inns of

Court; and I do not believe you can shew me any Precedent for your

Behaviour in that Particular.

My good Friend Sir ROGER DE COVERL[E]Y, who had said nothing all this

while, began his Speech with a Pish! and told us. That he wondered to

see so many Men of Sense so very serious upon Fooleries. Let our good

Friend, says he, attack every one that deserves it: I would only advise

you, Mr. SPECTATOR, applying himself to me, to take Care how you meddle

with Country Squires: They are the Ornaments of the _English_ Nation;

Men of good Heads and sound Bodies! and let me tell you, some of them

take it ill of you that you mention Fox-hunters with so little Respect.

Captain SENTRY spoke very sparingly on this Occasion. What he said was

only to commend my Prudence in not touching upon the Army, and advised

me to continue to act discreetly in that Point.

By this Time I found every subject of my Speculations was taken away

from me by one or other of the Club; and began to think my self in the

Condition of the good Man that had one Wife who took a Dislike to his

grey Hairs, and another to his black, till by their picking out what

each of them had an Aversion to, they left his Head altogether bald and

naked.

While I was thus musing with my self, my worthy Friend the Clergy-man,

who, very luckily for me, was at the Club that Night, undertook my

Cause. He told us, That he wondered any Order of Persons should think

themselves too considerable to be advis'd: That it was not Quality, but

Innocence which exempted Men from Reproof; That Vice and Folly ought to

be attacked where-ever they could be met with, and especially when they

were placed in high and conspicuous Stations of Life. He further added,

That my Paper would only serve to aggravate the Pains of Poverty, if it

chiefly expos'd those who are already depressed, and in some measure

turn'd into Ridicule, by the Meanness of their Conditions and

Circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take Notice of the great Use

this Paper might be of to the Publick, by reprehending those Vices which

are too trivial for the Chastisement of the Law, and too fantastical for

the Cognizance of the Pulpit. He then advised me to prosecute my

Undertaking with Chearfulness; and assured me, that whoever might be

displeased with me, I should be approved by all those whose Praises do

Honour to the Persons on whom they are bestowed.

The whole Club pays a particular Deference to the Discourse of this

Gentleman, and are drawn into what he says as much by the candid and

ingenuous Manner with which he delivers himself, as by the Strength of

Argument and Force of Reason which he makes use of. WILL. HONEYCOMB

immediately agreed, that what he had said was right; and that for his

Part, he would not insist upon the Quarter which he had demanded for the

Ladies. Sir ANDREW gave up the City with the same Frankness. The TEMPLAR

would not stand out; and was followed by Sir ROGER and the CAPTAIN: Who

all agreed that I should be at Liberty to carry the War into what

Quarter I pleased; provided I continued to combat with Criminals in a

Body, and to assault the Vice without hurting the Person.

This Debate, which was held for the Good of Mankind, put me in Mind of

that which the _Roman_ Triumvirate were formerly engaged in, for their

Destruction. Every Man at first stood hard for his Friend, till they

found that by this Means they should spoil their Proscription: And at

length, making a Sacrifice of all their Acquaintance and Relations,

furnished out a very decent Execution.

Having thus taken my Resolution to march on boldly in the Cause of

Virtue and good Sense, and to annoy their Adversaries in whatever Degree

or Rank of Men they may be found: I shall be deaf for the future to all

the Remonstrances that shall be made to me on this Account. If _Punch_

grow extravagant, I shall reprimand him very freely: If the Stage

becomes a Nursery of Folly and Impertinence, I shall not be afraid to

animadvert upon it. In short, If I meet with any thing in City, Court,

or Country, that shocks Modesty or good Manners, I shall use my utmost

Endeavours to make an Example of it. I must however intreat every

particular Person, who does me the Honour to be a Reader of this Paper,

never to think himself, or any one of his Friends or Enemies, aimed at

in what is said: For I promise him, never to draw a faulty Character

which does not fit at least a Thousand People; or to publish a single

Paper, that is not written in the Spirit of Benevolence and with a Love

to Mankind.

C.

* * * * *

No. 35. Tuesday, April 10, 1711. Addison.

'Risu inepto res ineptior milla est.'

Mart.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt

to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are

more ambitious to excell. It is not an Imagination that teems with

Monsters, an Head that is filled with extravagant Conceptions, which is

capable of furnishing the World with Diversions of this nature; and yet

if we look into the Productions of several Writers, who set up for Men

of Humour, what wild irregular Fancies, what unnatural Distortions of

Thought, do we meet with? If they speak Nonsense, they believe they are

talking Humour; and when they have drawn together a Scheme of absurd,

inconsistent Ideas, they are not able to read it over to themselves

without laughing. These poor Gentlemen endeavour to gain themselves the

Reputation of Wits and Humourists, by such monstrous Conceits as almost

qualify them for _Bedlam;_ not considering that Humour should always lye

under the Check of Reason, and that it requires the Direction of the

nicest Judgment, by so much the more as it indulges it self in the most

boundless Freedoms. There is a kind of Nature that is to be observed in

this sort of Compositions, as well as in all other, and a certain

Regularity of Thought [which [1]] must discover the Writer to be a Man

of Sense, at the same time that he appears altogether given up to

Caprice: For my part, when I read the delirious Mirth of an unskilful

Author, I cannot be so barbarous as to divert my self with it, but am

rather apt to pity the Man, than to laugh at any thing he writes.

The deceased Mr. _Shadwell_, who had himself a great deal of the Talent,

which I am treating of, represents an empty Rake, in one of his Plays,

as very much surprized to hear one say that breaking of Windows was not

Humour;[2] and I question not but several _English_ Readers will be as

much startled to hear me affirm, that many of those raving incoherent

Pieces, which are often spread among us, under odd Chimerical Titles,

are rather the Offsprings of a Distempered Brain, than Works of Humour.

It is indeed much easier to describe what is not Humour, than what is;

and very difficult to define it otherwise than as _Cowley_ has done Wit,

by Negatives. Were I to give my own Notions of it, I would deliver them

after _Plato's_ manner, in a kind of Allegory, and by supposing Humour

to be a Person, deduce to him all his Qualifications, according to the

following Genealogy. TRUTH was the Founder of the Family, and the Father

of GOOD SENSE. GOOD SENSE was the Father of WIT, who married a Lady of a

Collateral Line called MIRTH, by whom he had Issue HUMOUR. HUMOUR

therefore being the youngest of this Illustrious Family, and descended

from Parents of such different Dispositions, is very various and unequal

in his Temper; sometimes you see him putting on grave Looks and a solemn

Habit, sometimes airy in his Behaviour and fantastick in his Dress:

Insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a Judge, and

as jocular as a _Merry-Andrew_. But as he has a great deal of the Mother

in his Constitution, whatever Mood he is in, he never fails to make his

Company laugh.

But since there [is an Impostor [3]] abroad, who [takes upon him [4]]

the Name of this young Gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in

the World; to the end that well-meaning Persons may not be imposed upon

by [Cheats [5]], I would desire my Readers, when they meet with [this

Pretender [6]], to look into his Parentage, and to examine him strictly,

whether or no he be remotely allied to TRUTH, and lineally descended

from GOOD SENSE; if not, they may conclude him a Counterfeit. They may

likewise distinguish him by a loud and excessive Laughter, in which he

seldom gets his Company to join with him. For, as TRUE HUMOUR generally

looks serious, whilst every Body laughs [about him [7]]; FALSE HUMOUR is

always laughing, whilst every Body about him looks serious. I shall only

add, if he has not in him a Mixture of both Parents, that is, if he

would pass for the Offspring of WIT without MIRTH, or MIRTH without WIT,

you may conclude him to be altogether Spurious, and a Cheat.

The Impostor, of whom I am speaking, descends Originally from FALSEHOOD,

who was the Mother of NONSENSE, who was brought to Bed of a Son called

FRENZY, who Married one of the Daughters of FOLLY, commonly known by the

Name of LAUGHTER, on whom he begot that Monstrous Infant of which I have

been here speaking. I shall set down at length the Genealogical Table of

FALSE HUMOUR, and, at the same time, place under it the Genealogy of

TRUE HUMOUR, that the Reader may at one View behold their different

Pedigrees and Relations.

FALSEHOOD. TRUTH.

| |

NONSENSE. GOOD SENSE.

| |

FRENZY.=LAUGHTER. WIT.=MIRTH.

| |

FALSE HUMOUR. HUMOUR.

I might extend the Allegory, by mentioning several of the Children of

FALSE HUMOUR, who are more in Number than the Sands of the Sea, and

might in particular enumerate the many Sons and Daughters which he has

begot in this Island. But as this would be a very invidious Task, I

shall only observe in general, that FALSE HUMOUR differs from the TRUE,

as a Monkey does from a Man.

_First_ of all, He is exceedingly given to little Apish Tricks and

Buffooneries.

_Secondly_, He so much delights in Mimickry, that it is all one to him

whether he exposes by it Vice and Folly, Luxury and Avarice; or, on

the contrary, Virtue and Wisdom, Pain and Poverty.

_Thirdly_, He is wonderfully unlucky, insomuch that he will bite the

Hand that feeds him, and endeavour to ridicule both Friends and Foes

indifferently. For having but small Talents, he must be merry where he

can, not where he _should_.

_Fourthly_, Being entirely void of Reason, he pursues no Point either

of Morality or Instruction, but is ludicrous only for the sake of

being so.

_Fifthly_, Being incapable of any thing but Mock-Representations, his

Ridicule is always Personal, and aimed at the Vicious Man, or the

Writer; not at the Vice, or at the Writing.

I have here only pointed at the whole Species of False Humourists; but

as one of my principal Designs in this Paper is to beat down that

malignant Spirit, which discovers it self in the Writings of the present

Age, I shall not scruple, for the future, to single out any of the small

Wits, that infest the World with such Compositions as are ill-natured,

immoral and absurd. This is the only Exception which I shall make to the

general Rule I have prescribed my self, of _attacking Multitudes_: Since

every honest Man ought to look upon himself as in a Natural State of War

with the Libeller and Lampooner, and to annoy them where-ever they fall

in his way. This is but retaliating upon them, and treating them as they

treat others.

C.

[Footnote 1: that]

[Footnote 2: Wit, in the town sense, is talked of to satiety in

Shadwell's plays; and window-breaking by the street rioters called

'Scowrers,' who are the heroes of an entire play of his, named after

them, is represented to the life by a street scene in the third act of

his 'Woman Captain.']

[Footnote 3: are several Impostors]

[Footnote 4: take upon them]

[Footnote 5: Counterfeits]

[Footnote 6: any of these Pretenders]

[Footnote 7: that is about him]

* * * * *

No. 36. Wednesday, April 11, 1711. Steele.

'... Immania monstra

Perferimus ...'

Virg.

I shall not put my self to any further Pains for this Day's

Entertainment, than barely to publish the Letters and Titles of

Petitions from the Play-house, with the Minutes I have made upon the

Latter for my Conduct in relation to them.

Drury-Lane, April [1] the 9th.

'Upon reading the Project which is set forth in one of your late

Papers, [2] of making an Alliance between all the Bulls, Bears,

Elephants, and Lions, which are separately exposed to publick View in

the Cities of _London_ and _Westminster_; together with the other

Wonders, Shows, and Monsters, whereof you made respective Mention in

the said Speculation; We, the chief Actors of this Playhouse, met and

sat upon the said Design. It is with great Delight that We expect the

Execution of this Work; and in order to contribute to it, We have

given Warning to all our Ghosts to get their Livelihoods where they

can, and not to appear among us after Day-break of the 16th Instant.

We are resolved to take this Opportunity to part with every thing

which does not contribute to the Representation of humane Life; and

shall make a free Gift of all animated Utensils to your Projector. The

Hangings you formerly mentioned are run away; as are likewise a Set of

Chairs, each of which was met upon two Legs going through the _Rose_

Tavern at Two this Morning. We hope, Sir, you will give proper Notice

to the Town that we are endeavouring at these Regulations; and that we

intend for the future to show no Monsters, but Men who are converted

into such by their own Industry and Affectation. If you will please to

be at the House to-night, you will see me do my Endeavour to show some

unnatural Appearances which are in vogue among the Polite and

Well-bred. I am to represent, in the Character of a fine Lady Dancing,

all the Distortions which are frequently taken for Graces in Mien and

Gesture. This, Sir, is a Specimen of the Method we shall take to

expose the Monsters which come within the Notice of a regular Theatre;

and we desire nothing more gross may be admitted by you Spectators for

the future. We have cashiered three Companies of Theatrical Guards,

and design our Kings shall for the future make Love and sit in Council

without an Army: and wait only your Direction, whether you will have

them reinforce King _Porus_ or join the Troops of _Macedon_. Mr.

_Penkethman_ resolves to consult his _Pantheon_ of Heathen Gods in

Opposition to the Oracle of _Delphos_, and doubts not but he shall

turn the Fortunes of _Porus_ when he personates him. I am desired by

the Company to inform you, that they submit to your Censures; and

shall have you in greater Veneration than _Hercules_ was in of old, if

you can drive Monsters from the Theatre; and think your Merit will be

as much greater than his, as to convince is more than to conquer.

I am, Sir, Your most obedient Servant, T.D.

SIR, When I acquaint you with the great and unexpected Vicissitudes of

my Fortune, I doubt not but I shall obtain your Pity and Favour. I

have for many Years last past been Thunderer to the Play-house; and

have not only made as much Noise out of the Clouds as any Predecessor

of mine in the Theatre that ever bore that Character, but also have

descended and spoke on the Stage as the bold Thunder in _The

Rehearsal_ [1]

When they got me down thus low, they thought fit to degrade me

further, and make me a Ghost. I was contented with this for these two

last Winters; but they carry their Tyranny still further, and not

satisfied that I am banished from above Ground, they have given me to

understand that I am wholly to depart their Dominions, and taken from

me even my subterraneous Employment. Now, Sir, what I desire of you

is, that if your Undertaker thinks fit to use Fire-Arms (as other

Authors have done) in the Time of _Alexander_, I may be a Cannon

against _Porus_, or else provide for me in the Burning of

_Persepolis_, or what other Method you shall think fit.

Salmoneus of Covent-Garden.'

The Petition of all the Devils of the Play-house in behalf of themselves

and Families, setting forth their Expulsion from thence, with

Certificates of their good Life and Conversation, and praying Relief.

_The Merit of this Petition referred to Mr._ Chr. Rich, _who made them

Devils._

The Petition of the Grave-digger in 'Hamlet', to command the Pioneers in

the Expedition of _Alexander_.

_Granted._

The Petition of _William Bullock_, to be _Hephestion_ to _Penkethman the

Great_. [4]

_Granted._

* * * * *

The caricature here, and in following lines, is of a passage in Sir

Robert Stapylton's 'Slighted Maid': 'I am the Evening, dark as

Night,' &c.

In the 'Spectator's' time the Rehearsal was an acted play, in which

Penkethman had the part of the gentleman Usher, and Bullock was one

of the two Kings of Brentford; Thunder was Johnson, who played also

the Grave-digger in Hamlet and other reputable parts.

* * * * *

[Footnote 1: 'March' was written by an oversight left in the first reprint

uncorrected.]

[Footnote 2: No. 31.]

[Footnote 3: Mr. Bayes, the poet, in the Duke of Buckingham's

'Rehearsal', after showing how he has planned a Thunder and Lightning

Prologue for his play, says,

Come out, Thunder and Lightning.

[Enter Thunder and Lightning.]

'Thun'. I am the bold 'Thunder'.

'Bayes'. Mr. Cartwright, prithee speak that a little louder, and

with a hoarse voice. I am the bold Thunder: pshaw! Speak

it me in a voice that thunders it out indeed: I am the

bold 'Thunder'.

'Thun'. I am the bold 'Thunder'.

'Light'. The brisk Lightning, I.']

[Footnote 4: William Bullock was a good and popular comedian, whom some

preferred to Penkethman, because he spoke no more than was set down for

him, and did not overact his parts. He was now with Penkethman, now with

Cibber and others, joint-manager of a theatrical booth at Bartholomew

Fair. When this essay was written Bullock and Penkethman were acting

together in a play called 'Injured Love', produced at Drury Lane on the

7th of April, Bullock as 'Sir Bookish Outside,' Penkethman as 'Tipple,'

a Servant. Penkethman, Bullock and Dogget were in those days Macbeth's

three witches. Bullock had a son on the stage capable of courtly parts,

who really had played Hephestion in 'the Rival Queens', in a theatre

opened by Penkethman at Greenwich in the preceding summer.]

* * * * *

ADVERTISEMENT.

_A Widow Gentlewoman, wellborn both by Father and Mother's Side,

being the Daughter of_ Thomas Prater, _once an eminent

Practitioner in the Law, and of_ Letitia Tattle, _a Family well

known in all Parts of this Kingdom, having been reduc'd by

Misfortunes to wait on several great Persons, and for some time to

be Teacher at a Boarding-School of young Ladies; giveth Notice to

the Publick, That she hath lately taken a House near_ Bloomsbury-

Square, _commodiously situated next the Fields in a good Air;

where she teaches all sorts of Birds of the loquacious Kinds, as

Parrots, Starlings, Magpies, and others, to imitate human Voices

in greater Perfection than ever yet was practis'd. They are not

only instructed to pronounce Words distinctly, and in a proper

Tone and Accent, but to speak the Language with great Purity and

Volubility of Tongue, together with all the fashionable Phrases

and Compliments now in use either at Tea-Tables or visiting Days.

Those that have good Voices may be taught to sing the newest

Opera-Airs, and, if requir'd, to speak either_ Italian _or_

French, _paying something extraordinary above the common Rates.

They whose Friends are not able to pay the full Prices may be

taken as Half-boarders. She teaches such as are design'd for the

Diversion of the Publick, and to act in enchanted Woods on the

Theatres, by the Great. As she has often observ'd with much

Concern how indecent an Education is usually given these innocent

Creatures, which in some Measure is owing to their being plac'd in

Rooms next the Street, where, to the great Offence of chaste and

tender Ears, they learn Ribaldry, obscene Songs, and immodest

Expressions from Passengers and idle People, and also to cry Fish

and Card-matches, with other useless Parts of Learning to Birds

who have rich Friends, she has fitted up proper and neat

Apartments for them in the back Part of her said House; where she

suffers none to approach them but her self, and a Servant Maid who

is deaf and dumb, and whom she provided on purpose to prepare

their Food and cleanse their Cages; having found by long

Experience how hard a thing it is for those to keep Silence who

have the Use of Speech, and the Dangers her Scholars are expos'd

to by the strong Impressions that are made by harsh Sounds and

vulgar Dialects. In short, if they are Birds of any Parts or

Capacity, she will undertake to render them so accomplish'd in the

Compass of a Twelve-month, that they shall be fit Conversation for

such Ladies as love to chuse their Friends and Companions out of

this Species_.

R.

* * * * *

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

... Non illa colo calathisve Minervæ

Foemineas assueta manus ...

Virg.

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 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 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_ were separated from the _Octavos_ by a Pile of smaller

Vessels, which rose in a [delightful[1]] 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 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 prettiest

Grotesque Works that ever I saw, and made up of Scaramouches, Lions,

Monkies, Mandarines, 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 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 in the muster of a Regiment. I was

wonderfully pleased with such a mixt kind of Furniture, as seemed very

suitable both to the Lady and the Scholar, and did not know at first

whether I should fancy my self 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 she had heard them praised, or because she had

seen the Authors of them. Among several that I examin'd, I very well

remember these that follow. [2]

_Ogleby's Virgil_.

_Dryden's Juvenal_.

_Cassandra_.

_Cleopatra_.

_Astraea_.

_Sir Isaac Newton's_ Works.

The _Grand Cyrus:_ With a Pin stuck in one of the middle Leaves.

_Pembroke's Arcadia_.

_Locke_ of Human Understanding: With a Paper of Patches in it.

A Spelling-Book.

A Dictionary for the Explanation of hard Words.

_Sherlock_ upon Death.

The fifteen Comforts of Matrimony.

Sir _William Temptle's_ Essays.

Father _Malbranche's_ Search after Truth, translated into _English_.

A Book of Novels.

The Academy of Compliments.

_Culpepper's_ Midwifry.

The Ladies Calling.

Tales in Verse by Mr. _Durfey_: Bound in Red Leather, gilt on the

Back, and doubled down in several Places.

All the Classick Authors in Wood.

A set of _Elzevers_ by the same Hand.

_Clelia_: Which opened of it self 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.

Mr. _Steel's_ Christian Heroe.

A Prayer Book: With a Bottle of _Hungary_ Water by the side of it.

Dr. _Sacheverell's_ Speech.

_Fielding's_ Tryal.

_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_ entred, and 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 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 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 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, it

has given her a very particular Turn of Thinking, and discovers it self

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 from _London_, and looks like a little Enchanted Palace. The

Rocks about her are shaped into Artificial Grottoes covered with

Wood-Bines and Jessamines. The Woods are cut into shady Walks, twisted

into Bowers, and filled with Cages of Turtles. The Springs are made to

run among Pebbles, and by that means taught to Murmur very agreeably.

They are likewise collected into a Beatiful Lake that is Inhabited by a

Couple of Swans, and empties it self by a litte Rivulet which runs

through a Green Meadow, and is known in the Family by the Name of _The

Purling Stream_. 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, and that she shall

certainly miss him the next Year.

When I think how odly this Lady is improved by Learning, I look upon her

with a Mixture of Admiration and Pity. Amidst these Innocent

Entertainments which she has formed to her self, how much more Valuable

does she appear than those of her Sex, [who [3]] employ themselves in

Diversions that are less Reasonable, tho' more in 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 than to divert the

Imagination?

But the manner of a Lady's Employing her self 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 Subject of a very nice Nature, I shall desire my

Correspondents to give me their Thoughts upon it.

C.

[Footnote 1: very delightful]

[Footnote 2: John Ogilby, or Ogilvy, who died in 1676, aged 76, was

originally a dancing-master, then Deputy Master of the Revels in Dublin;

then, after the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion, a student of Latin and

Greek in Cambridge. Finally, he settled down as a cosmographer. He

produced translations of both Virgil and Homer into English verse. His

'Virgil', published in 1649, was handsomely printed and the first which

gave the entire works in English, nearly half a century before Dryden's

which appeared in 1697.

The translation of 'Juvenal' and 'Persius' by Dryden, with help of his

two sons, and of Congreve, Creech, Tate, and others, was first published

in 1693. Dryden translated Satires 1, 3, 6, 10, and 16 of Juvenal, and

the whole of Persius. His Essay on Satire was prefixed.

'Cassandra' and 'Cleopatra' were romances from the French of Gautier de

Costes, Seigneur de la Calprenède, who died in 1663. He published

'Cassandra' in 10 volumes in 1642, 'Cleopatra' in 12 volumes in 1656,

besides other romances. The custom was to publish these romances a

volume at a time. A pretty and rich widow smitten with the 'Cleopatra'

while it was appearing, married La Calprenède upon condition that he

finished it, and his promise to do so was formally inserted in the

marriage contract. The English translations of these French Romances

were always in folio. 'Cassandra', translated by Sir Charles Cotterell,

was published in 1652; 'Cleopatra' in 1668, translated by Robert

Loveday. 'Astraea' was a pastoral Romance of the days of Henri IV. by

Honoré D'Urfe, which had been translated by John Pyper in 1620, and was

again translated by a Person 'of Quality' in 1657. It was of the same

school as Sir Philip Sydney's 'Arcadia', first published after his death

by his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke, in 1590, and from her, for

whom, indeed, it had been written, called the Countess of Pembroke's

Arcadia.

Sir Isaac Newton was living in the 'Spectator's' time. He died in 1727,

aged 85. John Locke had died in 1704. His 'Essay on the Human

Understanding' was first published in 1690. Sir William Temple had died

in 1699, aged 71.

The 'Grand Cyrus', by Magdeleine de Scudéri, was the most famous of the

French Romances of its day. The authoress, who died in 1701, aged 94,

was called the Sappho of her time. Cardinal Mazarin left her a pension

by his will, and she had a pension of two thousand livres from the king.

Her 'Grand Cyrus', published in 10 volumes in 1650, was translated (in

one volume, folio) in 1653. 'Clelia', presently afterwards included in

the list of Leonora's books, was another very popular romance by the

same authoress, published in 10 volumes, a few years later, immediately

translated into English by John Davies, and printed in the usual folio

form.

Dr. William Sherlock, who after some scruple about taking the oaths to

King William, did so, and was made Dean of St. Paul's, published his

very popular 'Practical Discourse concerning Death', in 1689. He died in

1707.

Father Nicolas Malebranche, in the 'Spectator's' time, was living in

enjoyment of his reputation as one of the best French writers and

philosophers. The foundations of his fame had been laid by his

'Recherche de la Vérité', of which the first volume appeared in 1673. An

English translation of it, by Thomas Taylor, was published (in folio) in

1694. He died in 1715, Aged 77.

Thomas D'Urfey was a licentious writer of plays and songs, whose tunes

Charles II. would hum as he leant on their writer's shoulder. His 'New

Poems, with Songs' appeared in 1690. He died in 1723, aged 95.

The 'New Atalantis' was a scandalous book by Mary de la Riviere Manley,

a daughter of Sir Roger Manley, governor of Guernsey. She began her

career as the victim of a false marriage, deserted and left to support

herself; became a busy writer and a woman of intrigue, who was living in

the 'Spectator's' time, and died in 1724, in the house of Alderman

Barber, with whom she was then living. Her 'New Atalantis', published in

1709, was entitled 'Secret Memoirs and Manners of several Persons of

Quality of both sexes, from the New Atalantis, an Island in the

Mediterranean.' Under feigned names it especially attacked members of

Whig families, and led to proceedings for libel.

La Ferte was a dancing master of the days of the 'Spectator', who in

Nos. 52 and 54 advertised his School

'in Compton Street, Soho, over against St. Ann's Church Back-door,'

adding that, 'at the desire of several gentlemen in the City,' he

taught dancing on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the neighhourhood of the

Royal Exchange.]

[Footnote 3: that]

* * * * *

No. 38. Friday, April 13, 1711. Steele.

'Cupias non placuisse nimis.'

Mart.

A Late Conversation which I fell into, gave me an Opportunity of

observing a great deal of Beauty in a very handsome Woman, and as much

Wit in an ingenious Man, turned into Deformity in the one, and Absurdity

in the other, by the meer Force of Affectation. The Fair One had

something in her Person upon which her Thoughts were fixed, that she

attempted to shew to Advantage in every Look, Word, and Gesture. The

Gentleman was as diligent to do Justice to his fine Parts, as the Lady

to her beauteous Form: You might see his Imagination on the Stretch to

find out something uncommon, and what they call bright, to entertain

her; while she writhed her self into as many different Postures to

engage him. When she laughed, her Lips were to sever at a greater

Distance than ordinary to shew her Teeth: Her Fan was to point to

somewhat at a Distance, that in the Reach she may discover the Roundness

of her Arm; then she is utterly mistaken in what she saw, falls back,

smiles at her own Folly, and is so wholly discomposed, that her Tucker

is to be adjusted, her Bosom exposed, and the whole Woman put into new

Airs and Graces. While she was doing all this, the Gallant had Time to

think of something very pleasant to say next to her, or make some unkind

Observation on some other Lady to feed her Vanity. These unhappy Effects

of Affectation, naturally led me to look into that strange State of Mind

which so generally discolours the Behaviour of most People we meet with.

The learned Dr. _Burnet_, [1] in his Theory of the Earth, takes Occasion

to observe, That every Thought is attended with Consciousness and

Representativeness; the Mind has nothing presented to it but what is

immediately followed by a Reflection or Conscience, which tells you

whether that which was so presented is graceful or unbecoming. This Act

of the Mind discovers it self in the Gesture, by a proper Behaviour in

those whose Consciousness goes no further than to direct them in the

just Progress of their present Thought or Action; but betrays an

Interruption in every second Thought, when the Consciousness is employed

in too fondly approving a Man's own Conceptions; which sort of

Consciousness is what we call Affectation.

As the Love of Praise is implanted in our Bosoms as a strong Incentive

to worthy Actions, it is a very difficult Task to get above a Desire of

it for things that should be wholly indifferent. Women, whose Hearts are

fixed upon the Pleasure they have in the Consciousness that they are the

Objects of Love and Admiration, are ever changing the Air of their

Countenances, and altering the Attitude of their Bodies, to strike the

Hearts of their Beholders with new Sense of their Beauty. The dressing

Part of our Sex, whose Minds are the same with the sillyer Part of the

other, are exactly in the like uneasy Condition to be regarded for a

well-tied Cravat, an Hat cocked with an unusual Briskness, a very

well-chosen Coat, or other Instances of Merit, which they are impatient

to see unobserved.

But this apparent Affectation, arising from an ill-governed

Consciousness, is not so much to be wonder'd at in such loose and

trivial Minds as these: But when you see it reign in Characters of Worth

and Distinction, it is what you cannot but lament, not without some

Indignation. It creeps into the Heart of the wise Man, as well as that

of the Coxcomb. When you see a Man of Sense look about for Applause, and

discover an itching Inclination to be commended; lay Traps for a little

Incense, even from those whose Opinion he values in nothing but his own

Favour; Who is safe against this Weakness? or who knows whether he is

guilty of it or not? The best Way to get clear of such a light Fondness

for Applause, is to take all possible Care to throw off the Love of it

upon Occasions that are not in themselves laudable; but, as it appears,

we hope for no Praise from them. Of this Nature are all Graces in Mens

Persons, Dress and bodily Deportment; which will naturally be winning

and attractive if we think not of them, but lose their Force in

proportion to our Endeavour to make them such.

When our Consciousness turns upon the main Design of Life, and our

Thoughts are employed upon the chief Purpose either in Business or

Pleasure, we shall never betray an Affectation, for we cannot be guilty

of it: But when we give the Passion for Praise an unbridled Liberty, our

Pleasure in little Perfections, robs us of what is due to us for great

Virtues and worthy Qualities. How many excellent Speeches and honest

Actions are lost, for want of being indifferent where we ought? Men are

oppressed with regard to their Way of speaking and acting; instead of

having their Thought bent upon what they should do or say, and by that

Means bury a Capacity for great things, by their fear of failing in

indifferent things. This, perhaps, cannot be called Affectation; but it

has some Tincture of it, at least so far, as that their Fear of erring

in a thing of no Consequence, argues they would be too much pleased in

performing it.

It is only from a thorough Disregard to himself in such Particulars,

that a Man can act with a laudable Sufficiency: His Heart is fixed upon

one Point in view; and he commits no Errors, because he thinks nothing

an Error but what deviates from that Intention.

The wild Havock Affectation makes in that Part of the World which should

be most polite, is visible where ever we turn our Eyes: It pushes Men

not only into Impertinencies in Conversation, but also in their

premeditated Speeches. At the Bar it torments the Bench, whose Business

it is to cut off all Superfluities in what is spoken before it by the

Practitioner; as well as several little Pieces of Injustice which arise

from the Law it self. I have seen it make a Man run from the Purpose

before a Judge, who was, when at the Bar himself, so close and logical a

Pleader, that with all the Pomp of Eloquence in his Power, he never

spoke a Word too much. [2]

It might be born even here, but it often ascends the Pulpit it self; and

the Declaimer, in that sacred Place, is frequently so impertinently

witty, speaks of the last Day it self with so many quaint Phrases, that

there is no Man who understands Raillery, but must resolve to sin no

more: Nay, you may behold him sometimes in Prayer for a proper Delivery

of the great Truths he is to utter, humble himself with so very well

turned Phrase, and mention his own Unworthiness in a Way so very

becoming, that the Air of the pretty Gentleman is preserved, under the

Lowliness of the Preacher.

I shall end this with a short Letter I writ the other Day to a very

witty Man, over-run with the Fault I am speaking of.

Dear SIR,

'I Spent some Time with you the other Day, and must take the Liberty

of a Friend to tell you of the unsufferable Affectation you are guilty

of in all you say and do. When I gave you an Hint of it, you asked me

whether a Man is to be cold to what his Friends think of him? No; but

Praise is not to be the Entertainment of every Moment: He that hopes

for it must be able to suspend the Possession of it till proper

Periods of Life, or Death it self. If you would not rather be

commended than be Praiseworthy, contemn little Merits; and allow no

Man to be so free with you, as to praise you to your Face. Your Vanity

by this Means will want its Food. At the same time your Passion for

Esteem will be more fully gratified; Men will praise you in their

Actions: Where you now receive one Compliment, you will then receive

twenty Civilities. Till then you will never have of either, further

than

SIR,

Your humble Servant.'

R.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Thomas Burnet, who produced in 1681 the 'Telluris

Theoria Sacra,' translated in 1690 as 'the Sacred Theory of the Earth,'

was living in the 'Spectator's' time. He died in 1715, aged 80. He was

for 30 years Master of the Charter-house, and set himself against James

II. in refusing to admit a Roman Catholic as a Poor Brother. Burnet's

Theory, a romance that passed for science in its day, was opposed in

1696 by Whiston in his 'New Theory of the Earth' (one all for Fire, the

other all for Water), and the new Romance was Science even in the eyes

of Locke. Addison, from Oxford in 1699, addressed a Latin ode to Burnet.]

[Footnote 2: Lord Cowper.]

* * * * *

No. 39. Saturday, April 14, 1711. Addison.

'Multa fero, ut placem genus irritabile vatum,

Cum scribo.'

Hor.

As a perfect Tragedy is the Noblest Production of Human Nature, so it is

capable of giving the Mind one of the most delightful and most improving

Entertainments. A virtuous Man (says _Seneca_) struggling with

Misfortunes, is such a Spectacle as Gods might look upon with Pleasure:

[1] And such a Pleasure it is which one meets with in the Representation

of a well-written Tragedy. Diversions of this kind wear out of our

Thoughts every thing that is mean and little. They cherish and cultivate

that Humanity which is the Ornament of our Nature. They soften

Insolence, sooth Affliction, and subdue the Mind to the Dispensations of

Providence.

It is no Wonder therefore that in all the polite Nations of the World,

this part of the _Drama_ has met with publick Encouragement.

The modern Tragedy excels that of _Greece_ and _Rome_, in the Intricacy

and Disposition of the Fable; but, what a Christian Writer would be

ashamed to own, falls infinitely short of it in the Moral Part of the

Performance.

This I [may [2]] shew more at large hereafter; and in the mean time,

that I may contribute something towards the Improvement of the _English_

Tragedy, I shall take notice, in this and in other following Papers, of

some particular Parts in it that seem liable to Exception.

_Aristotle_ [3] observes, that the _Iambick_ Verse in the _Greek_ Tongue

was the most proper for Tragedy: Because at the same time that it lifted

up the Discourse from Prose, it was that which approached nearer to it

than any other kind of Verse. For, says he, we may observe that Men in

Ordinary Discourse very often speak _Iambicks_, without taking notice of

it. We may make the same Observation of our _English_ Blank Verse, which

often enters into our Common Discourse, though we do not attend to it,

and is such a due Medium between Rhyme and Prose, that it seems

wonderfully adapted to Tragedy. I am therefore very much offended when I

see a Play in Rhyme, which is as absurd in _English_, as a Tragedy of

_Hexameters_ would have been in _Greek_ or _Latin_. The Solaecism is, I

think, still greater, in those Plays that have some Scenes in Rhyme and

some in Blank Verse, which are to be looked upon as two several

Languages; or where we see some particular Similies dignifyed with

Rhyme, at the same time that everything about them lyes in Blank Verse.

I would not however debar the Poet from concluding his Tragedy, or, if

he pleases, every Act of it, with two or three Couplets, which may have

the same Effect as an Air in the _Italian_ Opera after a long

_Recitativo_, and give the Actor a graceful _Exit_. Besides that we see

a Diversity of Numbers in some Parts of the Old Tragedy, in order to

hinder the Ear from being tired with the same continued Modulation of

Voice. For the same Reason I do not dislike the Speeches in our

_English_ Tragedy that close with an _Hemistick_, or half Verse,

notwithstanding the Person who speaks after it begins a new Verse,

without filling up the preceding one; Nor with abrupt Pauses and

Breakings-off in the middle of a Verse, when they humour any Passion

that is expressed by it.

Since I am upon this Subject, I must observe that our _English_ Poets

have succeeded much better in the Style, than in the Sentiments of their

Tragedies. Their Language is very often Noble and Sonorous, but the

Sense either very trifling or very common. On the contrary, in the

Ancient Tragedies, and indeed in those of _Corneille_ and _Racine_ [4]

tho' the Expressions are very great, it is the Thought that bears them

up and swells them. For my own part, I prefer a noble Sentiment that is

depressed with homely Language, infinitely before a vulgar one that is

blown up with all the Sound and Energy of Expression. Whether this

Defect in our Tragedies may arise from Want of Genius, Knowledge, or

Experience in the Writers, or from their Compliance with the vicious

Taste of their Readers, who are better Judges of the Language than of

the Sentiments, and consequently relish the one more than the other, I

cannot determine. But I believe it might rectify the Conduct both of the

one and of the other, if the Writer laid down the whole Contexture of

his Dialogue in plain _English_, before he turned it into Blank Verse;

and if the Reader, after the Perusal of a Scene, would consider the

naked Thought of every Speech in it, when divested of all its Tragick

Ornaments. By this means, without being imposed upon by Words, we may

judge impartially of the Thought, and consider whether it be natural or

great enough for the Person that utters it, whether it deserves to shine

in such a Blaze of Eloquence, or shew itself in such a Variety of Lights

as are generally made use of by the Writers of our _English_ Tragedy.

I must in the next place observe, that when our Thoughts are great and

just, they are often obscured by the sounding Phrases, hard Metaphors,

and forced Expressions in which they are cloathed. _Shakespear_ is often

very Faulty in this Particular. There is a fine Observation in

_Aristotle_ to this purpose, which I have never seen quoted. The

Expression, says he, ought to be very much laboured in the unactive

Parts of the Fable, as in Descriptions, Similitudes, Narrations, and the

like; in which the Opinions, Manners and Passions of Men are not

represented; for these (namely the Opinions, Manners and Passions) are

apt to be obscured by Pompous Phrases, and Elaborate Expressions. [5]

_Horace_, who copied most of his Criticisms after _Aristotle_, seems to

have had his Eye on the foregoing Rule in the following Verses:

Et Tragicus plerumque dolet Sermone pedestri,

Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque,

Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,

Si curat cor Spectantis tetigisse querelâ.

Tragedians too lay by their State, to grieve_.

Peleus _and_ Telephus, _Exit'd and Poor,

Forget their Swelling and Gigantick Words.

(Ld. ROSCOMMON.)

Among our Modern _English_ Poets, there is none who was better turned

for Tragedy than _Lee_; [6] if instead of favouring the Impetuosity of

his Genius, he had restrained it, and kept it within its proper Bounds.

His Thoughts are wonderfully suited to Tragedy, but frequently lost in

such a Cloud of Words, that it is hard to see the Beauty of them: There

is an infinite Fire in his Works, but so involved in Smoak, that it does

not appear in half its Lustre. He frequently succeeds in the Passionate

Parts of the Tragedy, but more particularly where he slackens his

Efforts, and eases the Style of those Epithets and Metaphors, in which

he so much abounds. What can be more Natural, more Soft, or more

Passionate, than that Line in _Statira's_ Speech, where she describes

the Charms of _Alexander's_ Conversation?

_Then he would talk: Good Gods! how he would talk!_

That unexpected Break in the Line, and turning the Description of his

Manner of Talking into an Admiration of it, is inexpressibly Beautiful,

and wonderfully suited, to the fond Character of the Person that speaks

it. There is a Simplicity in the Words, that outshines the utmost Pride

of Expression.

_Otway_ [7] has followed Nature in the Language of his Tragedy, and

therefore shines in the Passionate Parts, more than any of our _English_

Poets. As there is something Familiar and Domestick in the Fable of his

Tragedy, more than in those of any other Poet, he has little Pomp, but

great Force in his Expressions. For which Reason, though he has

admirably succeeded in the tender and melting Part of his Tragedies, he

sometimes falls into too great a Familiarity of Phrase in those Parts,

which, by _Aristotle's_ Rule, ought to have been raised and supported by

the Dignity of Expression.

It has been observed by others, that this Poet has founded his Tragedy

of _Venice Preserved_ on so wrong a Plot, that the greatest Characters

in it are those of Rebels and Traitors. Had the Hero of his Play

discovered the same good Qualities in the Defence of his Country, that

he showed for its Ruin and Subversion, the Audience could not enough

pity and admire him: But as he is now represented, we can only say of

him what the _Roman_ Historian says of _Catiline_, that his Fall would

have been Glorious (_si pro Patriâ sic concidisset_) had he so fallen in

the Service of his Country.

C.

[Footnote 1: From Seneca on Providence:

"'De Providentiâ', sive Quare Bonis Viris Mala Accidant cum sit

Providentia' § 2,

'Ecce spectaculum dignum, ad quod respiciat intentus operi suo Deus:

ecce par Deo dignum, vir fortis cum malâ fortunâ compositus, utique si

et provocavit."

So also Minutius Felix, 'Adversus Gentes:'

"Quam pulchrum spectaculum Deo, cum Christianus cum dolore

congueditur? cum adversus minas, et supplicia, et tormenta componitur?

cum libertatem suam adversus reges ac Principes erigit."

Epictetus also bids the endangered man remember that he has been sent by

God as an athlete into the arena.]

[Footnote 2: shall]

[Footnote 3: 'Poetics', Part I. § 7. Also in the 'Rhetoric', bk III. ch.

i.]

[Footnote 4: These chiefs of the French tragic drama died, Corneille in

1684, and his brother Thomas in 1708; Racine in 1699.]

[Footnote 5: It is the last sentence in Part III. of the 'Poetics'.]

[Footnote 6: Nathaniel Lee died in 1692 of injury received during a

drunken frolic. Disappointed of a fellowship at Cambridge, he turned

actor; failed upon the stage, but prospered as a writer for it. His

career as a dramatist began with 'Nero', in 1675, and he wrote in all

eleven plays. His most successful play was the 'Rival Queens', or the

Death of Alexander the Great, produced in 1677. Next to it in success,

and superior in merit, was his 'Theodosius', or the Force of Love,

produced in 1680. He took part with Dryden in writing the very

successful adaptation of 'OEdipus', produced in 1679, as an English

Tragedy based upon Sophocles and Seneca. During two years of his life

Lee was a lunatic in Bedlam.]

[Footnote 7: Thomas Otway died of want in 1685, at the age of 34. Like

Lee, he left college for the stage, attempted as an actor, then turned

dramatist, and produced his first tragedy, 'Alcibiades', in 1675, the

year in which Lee produced also his first tragedy, 'Nero'. Otway's

second play, 'Don Carlos', was very successful, but his best were, the

'Orphan', produced in 1680, remarkable for its departure from the kings

and queens of tragedy for pathos founded upon incidents in middle life,

and 'Venice Preserved', produced in 1682.]

* * * * *

No. 40. Monday, April 16, 1711. Addison.

'Ac ne forte putes, me, que facere ipse recusem,

Cum recte tractant alii, laudare maligne;

Ille per extentum funem mihi fosse videtur

Ire Poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit,

Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet,

Ut magus; et modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis.'

Hor.

The _English_ Writers of Tragedy are possessed with a Notion, that when

they represent a virtuous or innocent Person in Distress, they ought not

to leave him till they have delivered him out of his Troubles, or made

him triumph over his Enemies. This Error they have been led into by a

ridiculous Doctrine in modern Criticism, that they are obliged to an

equal Distribution of Rewards and Punishments, and an impartial

Execution of poetical Justice. Who were the first that established this

Rule I know not; but I am sure it has no Foundation in Nature, in

Reason, or in the Practice of the Ancients. We find that Good and Evil

happen alike to all Men on this side the Grave; and as the principal

Design of Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and Terror in the Minds of

the Audience, we shall defeat this great End, if we always make Virtue

and Innocence happy and successful. Whatever Crosses and Disappointments

a good Man suffers in the Body of the Tragedy, they will make but small

Impression on our Minds, when we know that in the last Act he is to

arrive at the End of his Wishes and Desires. When we see him engaged in

the Depth of his Afflictions, we are apt to comfort our selves, because

we are sure he will find his Way out of them: and that his Grief, how

great soever it may be at present, will soon terminate in Gladness. For

this Reason the ancient Writers of Tragedy treated Men in their Plays,

as they are dealt with in the World, by making Virtue sometimes happy

and sometimes miserable, as they found it in the Fable which they made

choice of, or as it might affect their Audience in the most agreeable

Manner. _Aristotle_ considers the Tragedies that were written in either

of these Kinds, and observes, That those which ended unhappily had

always pleased the People, and carried away the Prize in the publick

Disputes of the Stage, from those that ended happily. [1] Terror and

Commiseration leave a pleasing Anguish in the Mind; and fix the Audience

in such a serious Composure of Thought as is much more lasting and

delightful than any little transient Starts of Joy and Satisfaction.

Accordingly, we find, that more of our English Tragedies have succeeded,

in which the Favourites of the Audience sink under their Calamities,

than those in which they recover themselves out of them. The best Plays

of this Kind are 'The Orphan', 'Venice Preserved', 'Alexander the

Great', 'Theodosius', 'All for Love', 'OEdipus', 'Oroonoko', 'Othello',

[2] &c. 'King Lear' is an admirable Tragedy of the same Kind, as

'Shakespear' wrote it; but as it is reformed according to the chymerical

Notion of Poetical Justice, in my humble Opinion it has lost half its

Beauty. At the same time I must allow, that there are very noble

Tragedies which have been framed upon the other Plan, and have ended

happily; as indeed most of the good Tragedies, which have been written

since the starting of the above-mentioned Criticism, have taken this

Turn: As 'The Mourning Bride', 'Tamerlane', 'Ulysses', 'Phædra' and

'Hippolitus', with most of Mr. _Dryden's_. [3] I must also allow, that

many of _Shakespear's_, and several of the celebrated Tragedies of

Antiquity, are cast in the same Form. I do not therefore dispute against

this Way of writing Tragedies, but against the Criticism that would

establish this as the only Method; and by that Means would very much

cramp the _English_ Tragedy, and perhaps give a wrong Bent to the Genius

of our Writers.

The Tragi-Comedy, which is the Product of the _English_ Theatre, is one

of the most monstrous Inventions that ever entered into a Poet's

Thoughts. An Author might as well think of weaving the Adventures of

_Æneas_ and _Hudibras_ into one Poem, as of writing such a motly Piece

of Mirth and Sorrow. But the Absurdity of these Performances is so very

visible, that I shall not insist upon it.

The same Objections which are made to Tragi-Comedy, may in some Measure

be applied to all Tragedies that have a double Plot in them; which are

likewise more frequent upon the _English_ Stage, than upon any other:

For though the Grief of the Audience, in such Performances, be not

changed into another Passion, as in Tragi-Comedies; it is diverted upon

another Object, which weakens their Concern for the principal Action,

and breaks the Tide of Sorrow, by throwing it into different Channels.

This Inconvenience, however, may in a great Measure be cured, if not

wholly removed, by the skilful Choice of an Under-Plot, which may bear

such a near Relation to the principal Design, as to contribute towards

the Completion of it, and be concluded by the same Catastrophe.

There is also another Particular, which may be reckoned among the

Blemishes, or rather the false Beauties, of our _English_ Tragedy: I

mean those particular Speeches, which are commonly known by the Name of

_Rants_. The warm and passionate Parts of a Tragedy, are always the most

taking with the Audience; for which Reason we often see the Players

pronouncing, in all the Violence of Action, several Parts of the Tragedy

which the Author writ with great Temper, and designed that they should

have been so acted. I have seen _Powell_ very often raise himself a loud

Clap by this Artifice. The Poets that were acquainted with this Secret,

have given frequent Occasion for such Emotions in the Actor, by adding

Vehemence to Words where there was no Passion, or inflaming a real

Passion into Fustian. This hath filled the Mouths of our Heroes with

Bombast; and given them such Sentiments, as proceed rather from a

Swelling than a Greatness of Mind. Unnatural Exclamations, Curses, Vows,

Blasphemies, a Defiance of Mankind, and an Outraging of the Gods,

frequently pass upon the Audience for tow'ring Thoughts, and have

accordingly met with infinite Applause.

I shall here add a Remark, which I am afraid our Tragick Writers may

make an ill use of. As our Heroes are generally Lovers, their Swelling

and Blustring upon the Stage very much recommends them to the fair Part

of their Audience. The Ladies are wonderfully pleased to see a Man

insulting Kings, or affronting the Gods, in one Scene, and throwing

himself at the Feet of his Mistress in another. Let him behave himself

insolently towards the Men, and abjectly towards the Fair One, and it is

ten to one but he proves a Favourite of the Boxes. _Dryden_ and _Lee_,

in several of their Tragedies, have practised this Secret with good

Success.

But to shew how a Rant pleases beyond the most just and natural Thought

that is not pronounced with Vehemence, I would desire the Reader when he

sees the Tragedy of _OEdipus_, to observe how quietly the Hero is

dismissed at the End of the third Act, after having pronounced the

following Lines, in which the Thought is very natural, and apt to move

Compassion;

'To you, good Gods, I make my last Appeal;

Or clear my Virtues, or my Crimes reveal.

If in the Maze of Fate I blindly run,

And backward trod those Paths I sought to shun;

Impute my Errors to your own Decree:

My Hands are guilty, but my Heart is free.'

Let us then observe with what Thunder-claps of Applause he leaves the

Stage, after the Impieties and Execrations at the End of the fourth Act;

[4] and you will wonder to see an Audience so cursed and so pleased at

the same time;

'O that as oft have at Athens seen,--

[Where, by the Way, there was no Stage till many Years after OEdipus.]

... The Stage arise, and the big Clouds descend;

So now, in very Deed, I might behold

This pond'rous Globe, and all yen marble Roof,

Meet like the Hands of Jove, and crush Mankind.

For all the Elements, &c.'

[Footnote 1: Here Aristotle is not quite accurately quoted. What he says