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 enloudest applause and approbation. But the letters rolled, do infinite mischief to those who are so unlucky as to fall into their hands. 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 of my correspondents will represent this affair in a more lively manner than any discourse of my own; I shall therefore 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 are rational, others sensitive and vegetative actors, and others wholly in animate. I shall not place these as I have named them, but as they have There are, besides the above-mentioned, innumerable retainers to physic 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 cockleshell-merchants and spider-precedence in the opinion of their audiences. catchers. When I consider how each of these professions are crowded 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 choose 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 money 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, though he starves upon physic; 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-skulled; 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, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked with hands; but on the contrary flourishes by multitudes, and gives employment to all its professors. Fleets of merchant-men 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 tropics.-C. No. 22.] MONDAY, MARCH 26, 1711. I hate to see, and never can believe.-RoscoMMON. "MR. SPECTATOR, "Your having been so humble as to take notice of the epistles of other animals, imboldens me, who am the wild boar that was killed by Mrs. Tofts, 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 myself to satisfaction in the part above-mentioned.. That of a lion is too great a character for one that never trod the stage before but upon two legs. As to 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 a hand. I must confess I had but just put on my brutality; and Camilla's charms were such, that beholding her erect mien, hearing her charming voice, and astonished with her graceful motion, I could not keep up my assumed fierceness, but died like a man. "I am, Sir, your most humble admirer, "THOMAS PRONE." "MR. SPECTATOR, "This is to let you understand, that the playhouse 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 Emperor of the Moon; I have twice performed the third chair in an English opera: and have rehearsed the pump in The Fortune-Hunters. 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, "MR. SPECTATOR, "WILLIAM SCREENE." "Understanding that Mr Screene 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 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. Screene 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, "SIR, Drury-lane, March 24, 1710-11. "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 Shakspeare: 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 human nature, that, in such incidents, passion gets the better of reason; and all we can think to combat 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 myself, who have long taken pains in personating the passions, I have to-night acted only an appetite. The part I played 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. am ashamed to tell you that I pleased very much, and this was introduced as a madness; but sure it was not human madness, for a mule or an ass may have been as dry as ever I was in my life. "I am, Sir, your most obedient "and humble servant." 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 masque.—R. No. 23.] TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1711. VIRG. En. ix. 420 THERE is nothing that more betrays a base unge nerous spirit than the giving of secret stabs to a man's reputation; lampoons and satires, that are written with wit and spirit, are like poisoned 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 Iman is vicious into the bargain, he is one of the most mischievous creatures that can enter into a civil society. His satire will then chiefly fall upon those who ought to be the most exempt from it. Virtue, merit, and every thing that is praiseworthy, will be made the subject of ridicule and buffoonery. It is impossible to enumerate the evils which arise froin these arrows that fly in the dark; and I know no 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 I 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 Louis 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? 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 confessed, that a lampoon or a satire 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 money, or even life itself, 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 critics have considered The words were no sooner out of my mouth, when it. That excellent man entertaining his friends, a a serjeant knocked me down, and asked me if I had little before he drank the bowl of poison, with a disa mind to mutiny, in talking things nobody under-course on the immortality of the soul, at his enterstood. 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 be. held him merry at his appearance), you will merit the thanks of Your friend, "THE KING OF LATIUM." ADVERTISEMENT. ing upon it says that he does not believe any, the most comic 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. It has been observed by many writers, that Socrates was so little moved at this piece of buffoonery, that he was several times pre The following indorsement at the top of this paper, No. 23, is in a set of the Spectator, in 12mo, of the edition in 1712, lived at the time of the original publication: which contains some MS. notes by a Spanish merchant, who "The character of Dr. Swift." This was Mr. Blundell's opinion; and whether it was wellgrounded, ill-grounded, or ungrounded, probably he was not singular in the thought. The intimacy between Swift, Steele, and Addison. was now over; and that they were about this time estranged, appears from Swift's own testimony, dated March 16, 1710-11. sant at its being acted upon the stage, and never ex- tinguishing themselves by a spirit of raillery and pressed the least resentment of it. But with submission, I think the remark I have here made shews us, that this unworthy treatment made an impression upon his mind, though he had been too wise to discover it. When Julius Cæsar was lampooned by Catullus, he invited him to supper, and treated him with such a generous civility, that he made the poet his friend ever after. 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 abbey that should fall, which he accordingly conferred 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. 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 linen, 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 money 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 satirist for the future, ordered his tongue to be cut out, and both his hands to be chopped off. Aretine* 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 boast that he laid the Sophi of Persia under contribution. satire: 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 illnatured one; for as the latter 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, 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 them put up their heads, they would be pelting them down again with stones. Children,' says one of the frogs, you never consider, that though this may be play to you, it is death to us.'" As this week is in a manner set apart and dedicated to serious thoughts, I shall indulge myself in such speculations as may not be altogether unsuitable to the season; and in the mean time, as the settling in ourselves 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 overlooked by divines, because they are but few who can be guilty of it.—C, No. 24.] WEDNESDAY, MARCH 28, 1711. Accurrit quidam notus mihi nomine tantum: Comes up a fop (I knew him but by fame), THERE are in this town a great number of insig. nificant 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 join with you, though you are in company with ladies; if you drink a bottle, they will find your haunts. What makes such fellows 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 bachelor, who sets in for his dose of claret every night, at such an hour, is teased 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 kis company, though the sober gentleman himself is an utter enemy to such meetings. "MR. SPECTATOR, 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 ordi"The aversion I for some years have had to clubs nary scribblers of lampoons An innocent young in general, gave me a perfect relish for your speculady shall be exposed for an unhappy feature; a lation on that subject; but I have since been exfather of a family turned to ridicule for some domes-tremely mortified by the malicious world's ranking tic calamity; a wife made uneasy all her life for a me amongst the supporters of such impertinent asmisinterpreted word or action; nay, a good, a tem-semblies. I beg leave to state my case fairly; and perate, and a just man shall be put out of counte- that done, I shall expect redress from your judicious nance 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 dis • Peter Aretine Infamous for his writings, died in 1556. pen. "I am, Sir, a bachelor of some standing, and a traveller; my business, to consult my own good humour, which I gratify without controlling 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. constant to an hour, and not ill-humoured; for I am which reasons, though I invite nobody, I have no sooner supped, 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 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 concert, why may not mine be a lecture? However, Sir, I subinit it to you, and am, Sir, your most obedient servant, &c. "GOOD SIR, "THOMAS KIMBOW." "You and I were pressed against each other last winter in a crowd, in which uneasy posture we suffered together for almost half an hour. I thank you for all your civilities ever since, in being of my ac quaintance wherever you meet me. But the other day you pulled your hat off to me in the Park, when I was walking with my mistress. She did not like your air, and said she wondered what strange fellows I was acquainted with. Dear Sir, consider it 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 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, though indeed they are qualified rather to add to the furniture of the house (by filling an empty chair,) than to the conversation they enter 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, though equals in quality and fortune, are by no means suitable companions. You are, it is true, very pretty, can dance, and make a very good figure in a public assembly; but, alas, Madam, you must go no farther; 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 yourself 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 other's friendship as we are capable of: 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 myself by the name of the day I keep, that my supernumerary friends may know who I am." 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 from them as are not properly within their respective by miscalling the servants, or requiring such things 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 shoe-cleaner in the room of the said Bird.-R. "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 physic. 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 myself afflicted with. Dr. Sydenham's learned treatise of fevers threw me into a lingering hectic, which hung upon me all the while I was reading that excellent piece. I then applied myself to the study of several authors who have written upon phthisical distempers, and by that means fell into a consump tion; till at length, growing very fat, I was in a manner shamed out of that imagination. Not long after this I found in myself 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 myself into a com plication of distempers; but, accidentally taking into my hand that ingenious discourse written by Mr. Tickell, in his preface to Addison's Works, says, that in his dedication of The Drummer to Mr. Congreve. "Addison never had a regular pulse," which Steele questions 32 Sanctorius, I was resolved to direct myself by a a battle; and may be applied to those multitudes of scheme of rules, which I had collected from his ob- imaginary sick persons that break their constitutions servations. The learned world are very well ac- by physic, and throw themselves into the arms of quainted with that gentleman's invention; who, for death by endeavouring to escape it. This method is the better carrying on his experiments, contrived a not only dangerous, but below the practice of a certain mathematical chair, which was so artificially reasonable creature. To consult the preservation of hung upon springs, that it would weigh any thing as life, as the only end of it-to make our health our well as a pair of scales. By this means he dis-business-to engage in no action that is not part of a covered how many ounces of his food passed by per- regimen, or course of physic-are purposes so abject, spiration, what quantity of it was turned into nou-so mean, so unworthy human nature, that a generous rishment, and how much went away by the other soul would rather die than submit to them. Besides, channels and distributions of nature. 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, melancholy 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-solicitous 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. "Having provided myself with this chair, I used to study, eat, drink, and sleep in it; insomuch that I may be said, for these last three years, to have lived in a pair of scales. I compute myself, 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 balance between these two volatile pounds in my constitution. In my ordinary meals I fetch myself up to two hundred weight and half a pound; and if, after having dined, I find myself fall short of it, I arink 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 health's sake, I do the first Monday in every month. As soon as I find myself 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 myself to be hungry, and lay in another with all diligence. In my days of abstinence I lose a pound and a half, and on solemn fasts am two pounds lighter than on the other days of the year. "I allow myself, 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 cunce in my health during a whole twelvemonth And yet, Sir, notwithstanding this my great care to ballast myself equally every day, and to keep my body in its proper poise, so it is, that I find myself 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.* 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 The following translation, however, may give an English reader some idea of the Italian epitaph: "I was well, but try ing to be better, I am here." In answer to the gentleman, who tempers his health by ounces and by scruples, and instead of complying with those natural solicitations of hunger and thirst, drowsiness, or love of exercise, governs himself by the prescriptions of his chair, I shall tell him a short table. Jupiter, says the mythologist, to reward the piety of a certain countryman, promised to give him whatever he would ask. The countryman 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. No. 26.] FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1711. With equal foot, rich friend, impartial fate |