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formed for a tragedian, and, when he pleases, deserves
the admiration of the best judges: as I doubt not but he
will in the Conquest of Mexico, which is acted for his
own benefit, to-morrow night.
C.

No. 41.] Tuesday, April 17, 1711.

Tu non inventa reperta es.

Ovid. Met. i. 654.
Addison.

of the lady will do for this injured gentleman, but must allow he has very much justice on his side. I have indeed very long observed this evil, and distinguished those of our women who wear their own, from those in borrowed complexions, by the Picts and the British. There does not need any great discernment to judge which are So found, is worse than lost. which. The British have a lively animated COMPASSION for the gentleman who aspect; the Picts, though never so beautiful, writes the following letter, should not pre-have dead uninformed countenances. The vail upon me to fall upon the fair-sex, if it muscles of a real face sometimes swell with were not that I find they are frequently soft passion, sudden surprise, and are flushfairer than they ought to be. Such impos-ed with agreeable confusions, according as tures are not to be tolerated in civil society, and I think his misfortune ought to be made public, as a warning for other men always to examine into what they admire.

'SIR,--Supposing you to be a person of general knowledge, I make my application to you on a very particular occasion. I have a great mind to be rid of my wife, and hope, when you consider my case, you will be of opinion I have very just pretensions to a divorce. I am a mere man of the town, and have very little improvement, but what I have got from plays. I remember in The Silent Woman, the learned Dr. Cutberd, or Dr. Otter, (I forget which) makes one of the causes of separation to be Error Personæ, when a man marries a woman,

and finds her not to be the same woman

the objects before them, or the ideas presented to them, affect their imagination. But the Picts behold all things with the same air, whether they are joyful or sad; the same fixed insensibility appears upon all occasions. A Pict, though she takes all that pains to invite the approach of lovers, is obliged to keep them at a certain distance; a sigh in a languishing lover, if fetched too near her, would dissolve a feamight transfer the complexion of the misture; and a kiss snatched by a forward one, tress to the admirer. It is hard to speak of thing uncomplaisant, but I would only rethese false fair ones, without saying somecommend to them to consider how they like coming into a room new painted; they may assure themselves the near approach of a lady who uses this practice is much more

offensive.

whom he intended to marry, but another. If that be law, it is, I presume, exactly my case. For you are to know, Mr. Spectator, Will Honeycomb told us, one day, an adthat there are women who do not let their venture he once had with a Pict. This husbands see their faces till they are mar-made it her business to gain hearts, for no lady had wit, as well as beauty, at will; and ried.

Not to keep you in suspense, I mean other reason but to rally the torments of plainly that part of the sex who paint. her lovers. She would make great adThey are some of them so exquisitely skil-vances to ensnare men, but without any ful this way, that give them but a tolerable manner of scruple break off when there was pair of eyes to set up with, and they will make bosom, lips, cheeks, and eye-brows, by their own industry. As for my dear, never was a man so enamoured as I was of her fair forehead, neck, and arms, as well as the bright jet of her hair; but, to my great astonishment, I find they were all the effect of art. Her skin is so tarnished with this practice, that when she first wakes in a morning, she scarce seems young enough bed the night before. I shall take the liberty to part with her by the first opportunity, unless her father will make her portion suitable to her real, not her assumed countenance. This I thought fit to let him and her know by your means. I am, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant.'

to be the mother of her whom I carried to

I cannot tell what the law, or the parents

* Epicone, or The Silent Woman, a comedy by Ben Jonson. It is much to be regretted that this fine comedy has for several years been totally neglected by the managers of our theatres. Unless the public taste has greatly declined from what it was, this excellent performance would certainly be more acceptable than the flippant vulgar nonsense with which we are so often annoyed from the pens of some of our modern dramatists.

no provocation. Her ill nature and vanity the charms of her wit and conversation; but made my friend very easily proof against her beauteous form, instead of being blemished by her falsehood and inconstancy, every day increased upon him, and she had new attractions every time he saw her. When she observed Will irrevocably her slave, she began to use him as such, and she at last utterly banished him. The unafter many steps towards such a cruelty, happy lover strove in vain, by servile epistles, to revoke his doom, till at length he was forced to the last refuge, a round sum of money to her maid. This corrupt at tendant placed him early in the morning behind the hangings in her mistress's dressing-room. He stood very conveniently to observe, without being seen. The Pict begins the face she designed to wear that day, and I have heard him protest she had worked a full half hour before he knew her to be the same woman. As soon as he saw the dawn of that complexion for which he had so long languished, he thought fit break from his concealment, repeating that verse of Cowley:

to

"'Th' adorning thee with so much art,

Is but a barbarous skill;

"Tis like the pois'ning of a dart,

Too apt before to kill.'

The Pict stood before him in the utmost confusion with the prettiest smirk imaginable on the finished side of her face, pale as ashes on the other. Honeycomb seized all her galley-pots and washes, and carried off his handkerchief full of brushes, scraps of Spanish wool, and phials of unguents. The lady went into the country: the lover was

cured.

Such is the shout, the long applauding note, At Quin's high plume, or Oldfield's petticoat Or when from court a birth-day suit bestow'd Sinks the lost actor in the tawdry load. Booth entershark! the universal peal! But has he spoken-Not a syllableWhat shook the stage, and made the people stare? Cato's long wig, flowr'd gown, and lacker'd chair. Pope. ARISTOTLE has observed, that ordinary writers in tragedy endeavour to raise terror and pity in their audience, not by proper dresses and decorations of the stage. There sentiments and expressions, but by the It is certain no faith ought to be kept the English theatre. When the author has is something of this kind very ridiculous in with cheats, and an oath made to a Pict is of itself void. I would therefore exhort all a mind to terrify us, it thunders; when he the British ladies to single them out, nor do would make us melancholy, the stage is I know any but Lindamira who should be darkened. But among all our tragic artiexempt from discovery; for her own comfices, I am the most offended at those which plexion is so delicate that she ought to be are made use of to inspire us with magnifiallowed the covering it with paint, as a cent ideas of the persons that speak. The punishment for choosing to be the worst ordinary method of making a hero, is to piece of art extant, instead of the master-clap a huge plume of feathers upon his piece of nature. As for my part, who have head, which rises so very high, that there no expectations from women, and consider is often a greater length from his chin to them only as they are part of the species, I the top of his head, than to the sole of his do not half so much fear offending a beauty foot. One would believe, that we thought a as a woman of sense; I shall therefore pro- This very much embarrasses the actor, pro-great man and a tall man the same thing duce several faces which have been in pub- who is forced to hold his neck extremely lic these many years, and never appeared. It will be a very pretty entertainment in the playhouse, (when I have abolished this custom) to see so many ladies, when they first lay it down, incog. in their own faces.

stiff and steady all the while he speaks; and notwithstanding any anxieties which he pretends for his mistress, his country, or his friends, one may see by his action, that In the mean time, as a pattern for im- his greatest care and concern is to keep the proving their charms, let the sex study the plume of feathers from falling off his head. agreeable Statira. Her features are enFor my own part, when I see a man utterlivened with the cheerfulness of her mind, ing his complaints under such a mountain and good humour gives an alacrity to her of feathers, I am apt to look upon him raeyes. She is graceful without affecting anther as an unfortunate lunatic than a disair, and unconcerned without appearing careless. Her having no manner of art in her mind, makes her want none in her

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tressed hero. As these superfluous ornaments upon the head make a great man, a princess generally receives her grandeur from those additional incumbrances that fall into her tail; I mean the broad sweeping train that follows her in all her motions, and finds constant employment for a boy who stands behind her to open and spread it to advantage. I do not know how others are affected at this sight, but I must confess, my eyes are wholly taken up with the page's part; and as for the queen, I am not so attentive to any thing she speaks, as to the right adjusting of her train, lest it should chance to trip up her heels, or incommode her, as she walks to and fro upon the stage. It is, in my opinion, a very odd spectacle, to see a queen venting her passion in a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the two persons act on the stage at the same time are very different. The princess is afraid lest she should incur the displeasure of the king her father, or lose the hero her lover, whilst her attendant is only concerned lest she should entangle her feet in her petticoat.

We are told, that an ancient tragic poet, to move the pity of his audience for his exiled kings and distressed heroes, used to

A good poet will give the reader a more lively idea of an army or a battle in a description, than if he actually saw them

make the actors represent them in dresses and clothes that were thread-bare and decayed. This artifice for moving pity, seems as ill-contrived as that we have been speak-drawn up in squadrons and battalions, or ing of, to inspire us with a great idea of the persons introduced upon the stage. In short, I would have our conceptions raised by the dignity of thought and sublimity of expression, rather than by a train of robes or a plume of feathers.

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engaged in the confusion of a fight. Our
minds should be opened to great concep-
tions, and inflamed with glorious sentiments
by what the actor speaks more than by
what he appears. Can all the trappings
or equipage of a king or hero, give Brutus
half that pomp and majesty which he re
ceives from a few lines in Shakspeare?
C.

Hæ tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.
Virg. Æn. vi. 853.

Another mechanical method of making great men, and adding dignity to kings and queens, is to accompany them with halberds and battle-axes. Two or three shifters of scenes, with the two candle-snuffers, make up a complete body of guards upon the En-No. 43.] Thursday, April 19, 1711. glish stage; and by the addition of a few porters dressed in red coats, can represent above a dozen legions. I have sometimes seen a couple of armies drawn up together upon the stage, when the poet has been disposed to do honour to his generals. It is impossible for the reader's imagination to multiply twenty men into such prodigious multitudes, or to fancy that two or three hundred thousand soldiers are fighting in a room of forty or fifty yards in compass. Incidents of such a nature should be told, not represented,

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Be these thy arts, to bid contention cease,
Chain up stern war, and give the nations peace;
O'er subject lands extend thy gentle sway,
And teach with iron rod the haughty to obey.

THERE are crowds of men whose great misfortune it is that they were not bound to mechanic arts or trades; it being absolutely necessary for them to be led by some continual task or employment. These are such as we commonly call dull fellows; persons, who for want of something to do, out of a certain vacancy of thought, rather than curiosity, are ever meddling with things for which they are unfit. I cannot give you a notion of them better, than by presenting you with a letter from a gentleman, who belongs to a society of this order of men, residing at Oxford.

I should, therefore, in this particular, recommend to my countrymen the example of the French stage, where the kings and queens always appear unattended, and leave their guards behind the scenes. I should likewise be glad if we imitated the French_in_banishing from our stage the noise of drums, trumpets, and huzzas; which is sometimes so very great, that when there is a battle in the Haymarket theatre, one may hear it as far as Charing-be carried on in such assemblies. I shall,

cross.

I have here only touched upon those particulars which are made use of to raise and aggrandize the persons of a tragedy; and shall show, in another paper, the several expedients which are practised by authors of a vulgar genius to move terror, pity, or admiration, in their hearers.

'Oxford, April 13, 1711, 4 o'clock in the morning. 'SIR,-In some of your late speculations, I find some sketches towards a history of clubs; but you seem to me to show them in somewhat too ludicrous a light. I have well weighed that matter, and think, that the most important negociations may best

therefore, for the good of mankind (which I trust you and I are equally concerned for propose an institution of that nature for ex ample sake.

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'I must confess that the design and transactions of too many clubs are trifling, and manifestly of no consequence to the natior or public weal. Those I will give you up. The tailor and the painter often contri- | But you must do me then the justice to own, bute to the success of a tragedy more than that nothing can be more useful or laudathe poet. Scenes affect ordinary minds as ble, than the scheme we go upon. To much as speeches; and our actors are very avoid nicknames and witticisms, we cal sensible, that a well-dressed play has some- ourselves the Hebdomadal Meeting. Our times brought them as full audiences as a president continues for a year at least, ang well-written one. The Italians have a very, sometimes four or five; we are all grave, good phrase to express this art of imposing serious, designing men, in our way: we upon the spectators by appearances; they think it our duty, as far as in us lies, tċ call it theFourberia della scena.' The take care the constitution receives no harm knavery or trickish part of the drama.' But -Ne quid detrimenti res capiat publica.— however the show and outside of the tragedy To censure doctrines or facts, persons or may work upon the vulgar, the more un- things, which we do not like; to settle the derstanding part of the audience immedi-nation at home, and carry on the war ately see through it, and despise it. abroad, where and in what manner we see

fit. If other people are not of our opinion, | to their inquiries, which dull fellows do not we cannot help that. It were better they make for information, but for exercise. I were. Moreover, we now and then con- do not know but this may be a very good descend to direct, in some measure, the little affairs of our own university.

Verily, Mr. Spectator, we are much offended at the act for importing French wines. A bottle or two of good solid edifying port at honest George's, made a night cheerful, and threw off reserve. But this plaguy French claret will not only cost us more money, but do us less good. Had we been aware of it before it had gone too far, I must tell you, we would have petitioned to be heard upon that subject. But let that pass.

I must let you know likewise, good sir, that we look upon a certain northern prince's march, in conjunction with infidels, to be palpably against our good-will and liking; and, for all monsieur Palmquist, a most dangerous innovation: and we are by no means yet sure, that some people are not at the bottom of it. At least my own private letters leave room for a politician, well versed in matters of this nature, to suspect as much, as a penetrating friend of mine tells me.

'We think we have at least done the business with the malcontents in Hungary, and shall clap up a peace there.

way of accounting for what we frequently see, to wit, that dull fellows prove very good men of business. Business relieves them from their own natural heaviness, by furnishing them with what to do; whereas business to mercurial men, is an interruption from their real existence and happiness. Though the dull part of mankind are harmless in their amusements, it were to be wished they had no vacant time, because they usually undertake something that makes their wants conspicuous, by their manner of supplying them. You shall seldom find a dull fellow of good education, but if he happens to have any leisure upon his hands, will turn his head to one of those two amusements for all fools of eminence, politics or poetry. The former of these arts is the study of all dull people in general; but when dulness is lodged in a person of a quick animal life, it generally exerts itself in poetry. One might here mention a few military writers, who give great entertainment to the age, by reason that the stupidity of their heads is quickened by the alacrity of their hearts. This constitution in a dull fellow, gives vigour to nonsense, and makes the puddle boil, which would otherwise stagnate. The British Prince, that celebrated poem, which was written in the reign of King Charles the

"What the neutrality army is to do, or what the army in Flanders, and what two or three other princes, is not yet fully determined among us; and we wait impa-Second, and deservedly called by the wits tiently for the coming in of the next Dyer, who you must know is our authentic intelligence, our Aristotle in politics. And, indeed, it is but fit there should be some dernier resort, the absolute decider of all controversies.

"We were lately informed that the gallant trained-bands had patrolled all night long about the streets of London. We indeed could not imagine any occasion for it, we guessed not a tittle on it aforehand, we were in nothing of the secret; and that city tradesmen, or their apprentices, should do duty or work through the holidays, we thought absolutely impossible. But Dyer being positive in it, and some letters from other people, who had talked with some who had it from those who should know, giving some countenance to it, the chairman reported from the committee appointed to examine into that affair, that it was possible there might be something in it. I have much more to say to you, but my two good friends and neighbours, Dominic and Slyboots, are just come in, and the coffee is ready. I am, in the meantime, Mr. Spectator, your admirer and humble servant,

'ABRAHAM FROTH."

You may observe the turn of their minds tends only to novelty, and not satisfaction in any thing. It would be disappointment to them, to come to certainty in any thing, for that would gravel them, and put an end

of that age incomparable, was the effect of such a happy genius as we are speaking of. From among many other distichs no less to be quoted on this account, I cannot but recite the two following lines:

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A painted vest Prince Voltager had on,
Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won.'*

Here, if the poet had not been vivacious, as well as stupid, he could not, in the warmth and hurry of nonsense, have been capable of forgetting that neither Prince Voltager, nor his grandfather, could strip a naked man of his doublet; but a fool of a colder constitution would have stayed to have flayed the Pict, and made buff of his skin, for the wearing of the conqueror.

To bring these observations to some use

* Absurd as these lines are, they found an apologist in the late Edward King, esq. who, in his Munimenta Antiqua, after alluding to the practice of tattooing being prevalent amongst the Britons, Picts, and other northern nations, continues-" The figures thus mark ed, however, were as indelible as they were honourable and they were even badges of their chieftains; insomuch that it is not quite impossible to make sense of those lines, so elegantly censured in the Spectator, for their burlesque nonsense:

'A painted vest Prince Voltager had on,

Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won were so barbarous that, like the Scythians, they deemed For amongst a people, such as the ancient Britons, who the skulls of their enemies an ornament to their horsetrappings, it is not absolutely impossible to suppose that the skin of a poor painted Pict, as well as the skin of a Wolf, might be worn as a trophy!"

Munimenta Antiqua, vol. i. p. 186

Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cearments? Why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again? What may this mean?
That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous ?

ful purpose of life, what I would propose should be, that we imitated those wise nations wherein every man learns some handicraft-work.-Would it not employ a beau, prettily enough, if, instead of eternally playing with a snuff-box, he spent some part of his time in making one? Such a method as this would very much conduce I do not therefore find fault with the artito the public emolument, by making every fices above mentioned, when they are inman living good for something; for there troduced with skill, and accompanied by would then be no one member of human proportionable sentiment and expressions society, but would have some little pre-in the writing. tension for some degree in it; like him who came to Will's coffee-house, upon the merit of having writ a posy of a ring. R.

No.44.] Friday, April 20, 1711.

For the moving of pity, our principle machine is the handkerchief: and indeed in our common tragedies, we should not know very often that the persons are in distress by any thing they say, if they did not from time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Far be it from me to think of banishing this instrument of sorrow from Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 153. the stage; I know a tragedy could not subsist without it: all that I would contend for, is to keep it from being misapplied. In a word, I would have the actor's tongue sympathize with his eyes.

Tu quid ego, et populus mecum desideret, audi.

Now hear what every auditor expects.

Roscommon.

A disconsolate mother, with a child in her hand, has frequently drawn compassion from the audience, and has therefore gained a place in several tragedies. A modern writer, that observed how this had took in other plays, being resolved to double the distress, and melt his audience twice as much as those before him had done, brought a princess upon the stage with a little boy in one hand, and a girl in the other. This too had a very good effect. A third poet being resolved to outwrite all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced three children with great success: and, as I am informed, a young gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts, has a tragedy by him, where the first person that appears upon the stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning weeds, with half a dozen fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about the figure of Charity. Thus several incidents that are beautiful in a good writer, become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one.

AMONG the several artifices which are put in practice by the poets to fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the descending of a god, or the rising of a ghost, at the vanishing of a devil, or at the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell introduced into several tragedies with good effect; and have seen the whole assembly in a very great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost, especially when he appears in a bloody shirt. A spectre has very often saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage, or rose through a cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the sounding of the clock in Venice Preserved, makes the hearts of the whole audience quake; and conveys a stronger terror to the mind than it is possible for words to do. The appearance of the ghost in Hamlet is a masBut among all our methods of moving ter-piece in its kind, and wrought up with pity or terror, there is none so absurd and all the circumstances that can create either barbarous, and what more exposes us to attention or horror. The mind of the rea- the contempt and ridicule of our neighder is wonderfully prepared for his recep-bours, than that dreadful butchering of one tion by the discourses that precede it. His dumb behaviour at his first entrance, strikes the imagination very strongly; but every time he enters, he is still more terrifying. Who can read the speech with which young Hamlet accosts him, without trembling.

Hor. Look, my lord, it comes !

'Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd;
Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell;
Be thy intents wicked or charitable ;
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, Father, Royal Dane.-Oh! answer me.
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell

another, which is very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in seeing men stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled, is certainly the sign of a cruel temper: and as this is often practised before the British audience, several French critics, who think these are grateful spectacles to us, take occasion from them to represent us a people that delight in blood. It is indeed very odd to see our stage strewed with carcases in the last scenes of a tragedy; and to cbserve in the wardrobe of the playhouse several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for poison, and many other instruments of

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