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palace where he had slain his father, whose murder he would revenge in the very same place where it was committed. By this means the poet observes that decency, which Horace afterwards establishIed by a rule, of forbearing to commit parricides or unnatural murders before the audience.

'Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet.'
Ars Poet. ver. 185.
'Let not Medea draw her murd'ring knife,
And spill her children's blood upon the stage.'
Roscommon.

death. Murders and executions are always | before he would despatch him, and by ortransacted behind the scenes in the French dering him to retire into that part of the theatre; which in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilized people: but as there are no exceptions to this rule on the French stage, it leads them into absurdities almost as ridiculous as that which falls under our present censure. remember in the famous play of Corneille, written upon the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii; the fierce young hero who had overcome the Curiatii one after another, (instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being upbraided by her for having slain her lover) in the height of his passion and resentment kills her. If The French have, therefore, refined too any thing could extenuate so brutal an ac- much upon Horace's rule, who never detion, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, signed to banish all kinds of death from the before the sentiments of nature, reason, or stage: but only such as had too much hormanhood could take place in him. How-ror in them, and which would have a better ever, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as effect upon the audience when transacted his passion is wrought to its height, he behind the scenes. I would therefore refollows his sister to the whole length of the commend to my countrymen the practice of stage, and forbears killing her till they are the ancient poets, who were very sparing of both withdrawn behind the scenes. I must their public executions, and rather chose to confess, had he murdered her before the perform them behind the scenes, if it could audience, the indecency might have been be done with as great an effect upon the augreater; but as it is, it appears very unna-dience. At the same time I must observe, tural, and looks like killing in cold blood. To give my opinion upon this case, the fact ought not to have been represented, but to have been told, if there was any occasion for it.

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that though the devoted persons of the
tragedy were seldom slain before the au
dience, which has generally something ridi-
culous in it, their bodies were often pro
duced after their death, which has always
in it something melancholy or terrifying;
so that the killing on the stage does not
seem to have been avoided only as an inde
cency, but also as an improbability.

'Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet;
Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus;
Ant in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem,
Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulis odi.'
Hor. Ars Poet.

'Medea must not draw her murd'ring knife,
Nor Atreus there his horrid feast prepare:
Cadmus and Progne's metamorphoses,
(She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake ;)
And whatsoever contradicts my sense,

I hate to see, and never can believe.'-Roscommon.

It may not be unacceptable to the reader to see how Sophocles has conducted a tragedy under the like delicate circumstances. Orestes was in the same condition with Hamlet in Shakspeare, his mother having murdered his father, and taken possession of his kingdom in conspiracy with her adulterer. That young prince, therefore, being determined to revenge his father's death upon those who filled his throne, conveys himself by a beautiful stratagem into his mother's apartment, with a resolution to kill her. But because such a spectacle would nave been too shocking to the audience, this dreadful resolution is executed behind the dramatic inventions which are made use I have now gone through the several scenes: the mother is heard calling out to of by the ignorant poets to supply the place her son for mercy; and the son answering of tragedy, and by the skilful to improve her, that she showed no mercy to his father; after which she shrieks out she is it; some of which I could wish entirely rewounded, and by what follows we find that she is slain. I do not remember that in any of our plays there are speeches made behind the scenes, though there are other instances of this nature to be met with in those of the ancients: and I believe my reader will agree with me, that there is something infinitely more affecting in this dreadful dialogue between the mother and her son behind the scenes, than could have been in any thing transacted before the audience. Orestes immediately after meets the usurper at the entrance of his paace; and by a very happy thought of the poet avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that he should live * The comedy of The Comical Revenge, or Love in some time in his present bitterness of soul | Tub, by Sir George Etheridge.

jected, and the rest to be used with caution. It would be an endless task to consider comedy in the same light, and to mention the innumerable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise a laugh. Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a long one, seldom fail of this effect. In ordinary comedies, a broad and a narrow_brimmed the wit of the scene lies in a shoulder belt, hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of the scene lies in a shoulder belt, and sometimes in a pair of whiskers. A head peeping out of a barrel, was thought lover running about the stage, with his a very good jest in King Charles the Second's time; and invented by one of the

first wits of that age. But because ridicule | which looks immodest in the fair sex, that is not so delicate as compassion, and because the objects that make us laugh are infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by consequence a much greater indulgence to be allowed them. C.

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The nation is a company of players. THERE is nothing which I desire more than a safe and honourable peace, though at the same time I am very apprehensive of many ill consequences that may attend it. I do not mean in regard to our politics, but to our manners. What an inundation of ribands and brocades will break in upon us? What peals of laughter and impertinence shall we be exposed to? For the prevention of those great evils, I could heartily wish that there was an act of parliament for prohibiting the importation of French fopperies.

I could not forbear taking off my eye from her when she moved in bed, and was in the greatest confusion imaginable every time she stirred a leg, or an arm. As the coquettes who introduced this custom grew old, they left it off by degrees; well knowing that a woman of threescore may kick and tumble her heart out, without making any impression.

Sempronia is at present the most professed admirer of the French nation, but is so modest as to admit her visitants no further than her toilet. It is a very odd sight that beautiful creature makes, when she is talking politics, with her tresses flowing about her shoulders, and examining that face in the glass, which does such execution upon all the male standers-by. How prettily does she divide her discourse between her women and her visitants! What sprightly transitions does she make from an opera or a sermon, to an ivory comb or a pin-cushion! How have I been pleased to see her interrupted in an account of her travels, by a message to her footman; and holding her tongue in the midst of a moral reflection, by applying the tip of it to a patch.

There is nothing which exposes a woman to greater dangers, than that gayety and airiness of temper, which are natural to most of the sex. It should be therefore the concern of every wise and virtuous

generating into levity. On the contrary, the whole discourse and behaviour of the French is to make the sex more fantastical, or (as they are pleased to term it) more awakened, than is consistent either with virtue or discretion. To speak loud in public assemblies, to let every one hear you talk of things that should only be mentioned in private, or in whisper, are looked upon as parts of a refined education. At the same time, a blush is unfashionable, and silence more ill-bred than any thing that can be spoken. In short, discretion and modesty, which in all other ages and countries have been regarded as the greatest ornaments of the fair sex, are considered as the ingredients of narrow conversation and family behaviour.

The female inhabitants of our island have already received very strong impressions from this ludicrous nation, though by the length of the war (as there is no evil which has not some good attending it) they are pretty well worn out and forgotten. I remember the time when some of our well-woman to keep this sprightliness from debred country-women kept their valet de chambre; because, forsooth, a man was much more handy about them than one of their own sex. I myself have seen one of these male Abigails tripping about the room with a looking-glass in his hand, and combing his lady's hair a whole morning together. Whether or no there was any truth in the story of a lady's being got with child by one of these her hand-maids, I cannot tell; but I think at present the whole race of them is extinct in our own country. About the time that several of our sex were taken into this kind of service, the ladies likewise brought up the fashion of receiving visits in their beds. It was then looked upon as a piece of ill-breeding for a woman to refuse to see a man because she was not stirring; and a porter would have Some years ago I was at the tragedy of been thought unfit for his place, that could Macbeth, and unfortunately placed myself have made so awkward an excuse. As I under a woman of quality that is since dead; love to see every thing that is new, I once who as I found by the 'noise she made was prevailed upon my friend Will Honey-newly returned from France. A little be comb to carry me along with him to one of fore the rising of the curtain, she broke out these travelled ladies, desiring him at the into a loud soliloquy, 'When will the dear same time to present me as a foreigner who could not speak English, that so I might not be obliged to bear a part in the discourse. The lady, though willing to appear undrest, had put on her best looks, and painted herself for our reception. Her hair appeared in a very nice disorder, as the night-gown which was thrown upon her shoulders was ruffled with great care. For my part, I am so shocked with every thing

witches enter?' and immediately upon their first appearance, asked a lady that sat three boxes from her on her right hand, if those witches were not charming creatures. A little after, as Betterton was in one of the finest speeches of the play, she shook her fan at another lady, who sat as far on her left hand, and told her with a whisper that might be heard all over the pit, We must not expect to see Balloon to-night.' Not

long after, calling out to a young baronet | confusion, raving and inconsistency. In by his name, who sat three seats before short, they are my speculations in the me, she asked him whether Macbeth's wife first principles, that (like the world in its was still alive; and before he could give an chaos) are void of all light, distinction, and answer, fell a talking of the ghost of Ban- order. quo. She had by this time formed a little audience to herself, and fixed the attention of all about her. But as I had a mind to hear the play, I got out of the sphere of her impertinence, and planted myself in one of the remotest corners of the pit.

About a week since there happened to me a very odd accident, by reason of one of these my papers of minutes which I had accidentally dropped at Lloyd's coffee-house, where the auctions are usually kept. Before I missed it, there were a cluster of people who had found it, and were diverting themselves with it at one end of the coffee-house. It had raised so much laughter among them before I had observed what they were about, that I had not the courage to own it. The boy of the coffee-house, when they had done with it, carried it about in his hand, asking every body if they had dropped a written paper; but nobody chal

This pretty childishness of behaviour is one of the most refined parts of coquetry, and is not to be attained in perfection by ìadies that do not travel for their improvement. A natural and unconstrained behaviour has something in it so agreeable, that it is no wonder to see people endeavouring after it. But at the same time it is so very hard to hit, when it is not born with us, that people often make themselves ridicu-lenging it, he was ordered by those merry lous in attempting it.

A very ingenious French author tells us, that the ladies of the court of France, in his time, thought it ill-breeding, and a kind of female pedantry, to pronounce a hard word right: for which reason they took frequent occasion to use hard words, that they might show a politeness in murdering them. He further adds, that a lady of some quality at court having accidently made use of a hard word in a proper place, and pronounced it right, the whole assembly was out of countenance for her.

gentlemen who had perused it, to get up into the auction pulpit, and read it to the whole room, that if any one would own it, they might. The boy accordingly mounted the pulpit, and with a very audible voice read as follows:

MINUTES.

Sir Roger de Coverley's country-seat-Yes, for I hate long speeches-Query, if a good Christian may be a conjurer-Childermas-day, saltseller, house-dog, screechowl, cricket-Mr. Thomas Inkle of LonI must however be so just as to own that don, in the good ship called the Achilles. there are many ladies who have travelled Yarico-Egrescitque medendo-Ghostsseveral thousands of miles without being The Lady's Library-Lion by trade a taithe worse for it, and have brought home lor--Dromedary called Bucephalus-Equiwith them all the modesty, discretion, and page the lady's summum bonum-Charles good sense, that they went abroad with. Lillie to be taken notice of Short face a As on the contrary, there are great num-relief to envy--Redundancies in the three bers of travelled ladies who have lived all professions-King Latinus a recruit-Jew their days within the smoke of London. I devouring a ham of bacon-Westminsterhave known a woman that never was out of abbey--Grand Cairo--Procrastinationthe parish of St. James's betray as many foreign fopperies in her carriage, as she could have gleaned up in half the countries of Europe. C.

No.46.]

April fools-Blue boars, red lions, hogs in armour-Enter a King and two Fiddlers solus-Admission into the Ugly Club-Beauty how improveable-Families of true and false humour-The parrot's schoolmistress-Face half Pict half British-No Monday, April 23, 1711. man to be a hero of a tragedy under six feet-Club of sighers-Letters from flowerNon bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. pots, elbow-chairs, tapestry, figures, lion, Ovid, Met. Lib. i. ver. 8. thunder-The bell rings to the puppetThe jarring seeds of ill-concerted things. show-Old woman with a beard married WHEN I want materials for this paper, to a smock-faced boy-My next coat to be it is my custom to go abroad in quest of turned up with blue-Fable of tongs and game; and when I meet any proper sub-gridiron--Flower dyers--The Soldier's ject, I take the first opportunity of setting prayer-Thank ye for nothing, says the down a hint upon paper. At the same galley-pot-Pactolus in stockings with goltime I look into the letters of my corres- den clocks to them-Bamboos, cudgels, pondents, and if I find any thing suggested drum-sticks-Slip of my lady's eldest in them that may afford matter of specula-daughter-The black mare with a star in tion, I likewise enter a minute of it in my her forehead-The barber's pole-Will collection of materials. By this means I Honeycomb's coat-pocket-Cæsar's behafrequently carry about me a whole sheet-viour and my own in parallel circumstances ful of hints, that would look like a rhap--Poem in patch-work-Nulli gravis esi sody of nonsense to any body but myself. percussus Achilles-The female conventi There is nothing in them but obscurity and cler-The ogle-master.

sermon pop-gun, repeating and discharg-
ing texts, proofs, and applications, so per-
petually, that however weary I may go to
bed, the noise in my head will not let me
sleep till towards morning. The misery
of my case, and great numbers of such suf-
ferers, plead your pity and speedy relief;
otherwise must expect, in a little time, to
be lectured, preached, and prayed into
want, unless the happiness of being sooner
talked to death prevent it. I am, &c.
'R. G.'

The second letter, relating to the ogling master, runs thus:

The reading of this paper made the ner, unless when the preacher is to be at it. whole coffee-house very merry; some of With him come a tribe, all brothers and them concluded it was written by a mad-sisters it seems; while others really such, man; and others by somebody that had been are deemed no relations. If at any time I taking notes out of the Spectator. One have her company alone, she is a mere who had the appearance of a very substantial citizen, told us, with several political winks and nods, that he wished there was no more in the paper than was expressed in it that for his part, he looked upon the dromedary, the gridiron, and the barber's pole to signify something more than what was usually meant by those words: and that he thought the coffee-man could not do better than to carry the paper to one of the secretaries of state. He further added, that he did not like the name of the outlandish man with the golden clock in his stockings. A young Oxford scholar, who chanced to be with his uncle at the coffeehouse, discovered to us who this Pactolus was; and by that means turned the whole scheme of this worthy citizen into ridicule. While they were making their several conjectures upon this innocent paper, I reached out my arm to the boy as he was coming out of the pulpit, to give it me; which he did accordingly. This drew the eyes of the whole company upon me; but after having cast a cursory glance over it, and shook my head twice or thrice at the reading of it, I twisted it into a kind of match, and lighted my pipe with it. My profound silence, together with the steadiness of my countenance, and the gravity of my behaviour during this whole transaction, raised a very loud laugh on all sides of me; but as I had escaped all suspicion of being the author, I was very well satisfied, and applying myself to my pipe and the Postman, took no further notice of any thing that had passed about me.

'MR. SPECTATOR, ---I am an Irish gen tleman that have travelled many years for my improvement; during which time I have accomplished myself in the whole art of ogling, as it is at present_practised in the polite nations of Europe. Being thus qualified, I intend, by the advice of my friends, to set up for an ogling-master. I teach the church-ogle in the morning, and the play-house_ogle by candle-light. I have also brought over with me a new flyhave also brought over with me a new flying ogle fit for the ring; which I teach in the dusk of the evening, or in any hour of I have a manuscript by me called The the day, by darkening one of my windows. Complete Ogler, which I shall be ready to show you on any occasion. In the mean time beg you will publish the substance of this letter in an advertisement, and you will C. very much oblige, Yours, &c.'.

No. 47.] Tuesday, April 24, 1711.

Ride si sapis
Laugh, if you are wise.

Mart.

My reader will find, that I have already made use of above half the contents of the foregoing paper: and will easily suppose, that those subjects which are yet untouch- MR. HOBBS,* in his Discourse of Human ed, were such provisions as I had made for Nature, which, in my humble opinion, is his future entertainment. But as I have much the best of all his works, after some been unluckily prevented by this accident, very curious observations upon laughter, I shall only give him the letters which re- concludes thus: "The passion of laughter lated to the two last hints. The first of is nothing else but sudden glory arising" them I should not have published, were I from some sudden conception of some eminot informed that there is many a hus-nency in ourselves, by comparison with band who suffers very much in his private the infirmity of others, or with our own affairs by the indiscreet zeal of such a part- formerly; for men laugh at the follies of ner as is hereafter mentioned; to whom I may apply the barbarous inscription quoted by the Bishop of Salisbury in his travels; "Dum nimis pia est facta est impia:? Through too much piety she became impious.

'SIR,---I am one of those unhappy men that are plagued with a gospel-gossip, so common among dissenters (especially friends.) Lectures in the morning, churchmeetings at noon, and preparation sermons at night, take up so much of her time, it is very rare she knows what we have for din

themselves past, when they come suddenly to remembrance, except they bring with them any present dishonour.'

According to this author, therefore, when we hear a man laugh excessively, instead of saying he is very merry, we ought to tell him he is very proud. And indeed, if we

*Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury. "He is commonly represented," says Granger, "as a sceptic in religion, and a dogmatist in philosophy; but he was a dog. matist in both. The main principles of his Leviathan are as little founded in moral or evangelical truth, as the rules he has laid down for squaring the circle are in mathematical demonstration." He died in 1679, at the advanced age of 92.

as many fools as he can. In proportion as there are more follies discovered, so there is more laughter raised on this day than on any other in the whole year. A neighbour of mine, who is a haberdasher by trade, and a very shallow conceited fellow, makes his boast that for these ten years successively he has not made less than a hundred April fools. My landlady had a falling out with him about a fortnight ago, for sending every one of her children upon some sleeveless errand, as she terms it. Her eldest son went to buy a half-penny

look into the bottom of this matter, we | every body takes it into his head to make shall meet with many observations to confirm us in this opinion. Every one laughs at somebody that is in an inferior state of folly to himself. It was formerly the custom for every great house in England to Keep a tame fool dressed in petticoats, that the heir of the family might have an opportunity of joking upon him, and diverting himself with his absurdities. For the same reason, idiots are still in request in most of the courts of Germany, where there is not a prince of any great magnificence, who has not two or three dressed, distinguished, undisputed fools in his reti-worth of inkle at a shoemaker's; the eld nue, whom the rest of the courtiers are always breaking their jests upon.

The Dutch, who are more famous for their industry and application, than for wit and humour, hang up in several of their streets what they call the sign of the Gaper, that is, the head of an idiot dressed in a cap and bells, and gaping in a most immoderate manner. This is a standing jest at Amsterdam.

Thus every one diverts himself with some person or other that is below him in point of understanding, and triumphs in the superiority of his genius, whilst he has such objects of derision before his eyes. Mr. Dennis has very well expressed this in a couple of humorous lines, which are part of a translation of a satire in Monsieur Boileau:

'Thus one fool lolls his tongue out at another, And shakes his empty noddle at his brother.' Mr. Hobbs's reflection gives us the reason why the insignificant people abovementioned are stirrers-up of laughter among men of a gross taste: but as the more understanding part of mankind do not find their risibility affected by such ordinary objects, it may be worth the while to examine into the several provocatives of laughter, in men of superior sense and knowledge.

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In the first place I must observe, that there is a set of merry drolls, whom the common people of all countries admire, and seem to love so well, that they could eat them;' according to the old proverb: I mean those circumforaneous wits whom every nation calls by the name of that dish of meat which it loves best: in Holland they are termed Pickled Herrings; in France, Jean Pottage; in Italy, Macaronies; and in Great Britain, Jack Puddings. These merry wags, from whatsoever food they receive their titles, that they may make their audiences laugh, always appear in a fool's coat, and commit such blunders and mistakes in every step they take, and every word they utter, as those who listen to them would be ashamed of.

But this little triumph of the understand ing under the disguise of laughter, is no where more visible than in that custom which prevails every where among us on the first day of the present month, when

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est daughter was despatched half a mile to see a monster, and, in short, the whole family of innocent children made April fools. Nay, my landlady herself did not escape him. This empty fellow has laughed upon these conceits ever since.

This art of wit is well enough, when con fined to one day in a twelvemonth: but there is an ingenious tribe of men sprung up of late years, who are for making April fools every day in the year. These gentlemen are commonly distinguished by the name of Biters: a race of men that are perpetually employed in laughing at those mistakes which are of their own production.

Thus we see, in proportion as one man is more refined than another, he chooses his fool out of a lower or higher class of mankind, or to speak in a more philosophical language, that secret elation or pride of heart, which is generally called laughter, arises in him, from his comparing himself with an object below him, whether it so happens that it be a natural or an artificial fool. It is, indeed, very possible, that the persons we laugh at may in the main of their characters be much wiser men than ourselves; but if they would have us laugh at them, they must fall short of us in those respects which stir up this passion.

I am afraid I shall appear too abstracted in my speculations, if I show, that when a man of wit makes us laugh, it is by betraying some oddness or infirmity in his own character, or in the representation which he makes of others; and that when we laugh at a brute, or even at an inanimate thing, it is at some action or incident that bears a remote analogy to any blunder or absurdity in reasonable creatures.

But to come into common life: I shall pass by the consideration of those stage coxcombs that are able to shake a whole audience, and take notice of a particular sort of men who are such provokers of mirth in conversation, that it is impossible for a club or merry meeting to subsist without them; I mean those honest gentlemen that are always exposed to the wit and raillery of their well-wishers and companions; that are pelted by men, women, and children, friends and foes, and, in a word, stand as butts in conversation, for every

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