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 battle, Pinkethman is to personate King Porus upon an elephant, and is to be encountered by Powell, 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 battle, when the two kings are thoroughly reconciled, to show 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. ing his whole art of machinery, for the diversion of 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 pygmies. But this objection was looked upon as frivolous, and the proposal immediately overruled. Our projector farther 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, or any of the like diversions which shall then chance to be in vogue. No. 31.] THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1711. Sit mihi fas audita loqui- VIRG. Æn. vi. 266. What I have heard, permit me to relate. LAST night, upon my going into a coffee-house not far from the Haymarket Theatre, I diverted my-Powell, junior, may have an opportunity of display. 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 listeners 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 the several shows that are exhibited in different quarters of the town. The dancing monkeys 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 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 raree-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 of 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 his fortune. At the same time Clinch 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, 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 lose their hold, though 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, in which is to be represented all the diversions of that place, the bullbaiting 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 monkeys dancing upon ropes, with many other pleasantries of that ludicrous species. At the same time, if there chance to be any This project was received 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 Ionic dialect; and could not but be acceptable 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, ar 1 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 overhearing 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 music that lives in Switzlerland, 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 pounds 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 gen tleman that had entered the coffee-house since the Projector applied himself to me, hearing him talk of his Swiss compositions, cried out in a kind of laugh, "Is our music then to receive farther improvements from Switzerland ?" 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. No. 32. FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1711. He wants no tragic vizor to increase 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. 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 extravagances; 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 bead-strings and garters had been made accessary and actually forfeited, only because folks must needs quarrel with their own shadows? And who,' continues he, but is deeply seusible, 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 con texture of our external parts, or certain natural and little more of Mr. Spectator's philosophy would take invincible dispositions to be fat or lean?-when a off all this. In the mean time let them observe, that there is 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 another, 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 herself 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 lady's misfortune seems to be only this, that she is planted in a wrong soil; for go but to the other side of the water, it is a jest at Haerlem 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 handsome as Madam Van Brisket by near half a ton. On the other hand, there is 'Squire Lath, a proper gentleman of 1,500l. per annum, as "Your making public the late trouble I gave you, well as of unblamable life and conversation; yet you will find to have been the occasion of this. would I not be the esquire for half his estate; for if Who should I meet at the coffee-house door the other it was as much more, he would freely part with it night, but my old friend Mr. President? I saw all for a pair of legs to his mind. Whereas, in the somewhat had pleased him; and as soon as he had reign of our first Edward of glorious memory, nocast his eye upon me, Oho, doctor, rare news from thing more modish than a brace of your fine taper London,' says he; the Spectator has made honour- supporters; and his majesty, without an inch of calf, able mention of the club (man,) and published to managed affairs in peace or war as laudably as the the world his sincere desire to be a member, with a bravest and most politic of his ancestors; and was recommendatory description of his phiz; and though as terrible to his neighbours under the royal name cur constitution has made no particular provision for of Longshanks, as Coeur de Lion to the Saracens short faces, yet his being an extraordinary case, I before him. If we look farther back into history, we believe we shall find a hole for him to creep in at; shall find that Alexander the Great wore his head a for I assure you he is not against the canon; and if little over his left shoulder, and then not a soul his sides are as compact as his joles, he need not dis- stirred out till he had adjusted his neck-bone; the guise himself to make one of us.' I presently called whole nobility addressed the prince and each other for the paper, to see how you looked in print; and obliquely, and all matters of importance were conafter we had regaled ourselves awhile upon the plea-certed and carried on in the Macedonian court, with sant image of our proselyte, Mr. President told me their polls on one side. For about the first century I should be his stranger at the next night's club; nothing made more noise in the world than Roman where we were no sooner come, and pipes brought, but noses, and then not a word of them till they revived Mr. President began an harangue upon your intro- again in eighty-eight. Nor is it o very long since duction to my epistle, setting forth with no less vo- Richard the Third set up half the backs of the nalubility of speech than strength of reason, That a tion; and high shoulders, as well as high noses, were speculation of this nature was what had been long the top of the fashion. But to come to ourselves, and much wanted! and that he doubted not but it gentlemen, though I find by my quingennial obser would be of inestimable value to the public, in recon-vations, that we shall never get ladies enough to make ciling even of bodies and souls; in composing and a party in our own country, yet might we meet with quieting the minds of men under all corporeal redun- better success among some of our allies. And what dancies, deficiencies, and irregularities whatsoever; think you if our board sat for a Dutch piece? Truly and making every one sit down content in his own I am of opinion, that as odd as we appear in flesh carcass, 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 "MR. SPECTATOR, whom Dryden, in the plates to his translation of Virgil, bad On the accession of King William III., in compliment to neas always represented with a Roman nose. She re and blood, we should be no such strange things in | insupportably vain and insolent towards all who have mezzo-tinto. But this project may rest till our num- to do with her. Daphne, who was almost twenty ber is complete; and this being our election night, before one civil thing had ever been said to her, give me leave to propose Mr. Spectator. You see found herself obliged to acquire some accombis inclinations and perhaps we may not have his plishments to make up for the want of those attrac fellow.' tions which she saw in her sister. Poor Daphne "I found most of them (as is usual in all such was seldom submitted to in a debate wherein she cases) were prepared; but one of the seniors (whom, was concerned; her discourse had nothing to recomby-the-bye, Mr. President had taken all this pains to mend it but the good sense of it, and she was always bring over) sat still, and cocking his chin, which under a necessity to have very well considered what seemed only to be levelled at his nose, very gravely she was to say before she uttered it; while Lætitia declared, That in case he had had sufficient know-was listened to with partiality, and approbation sat ledge of you, no man should have been more willing on the countenances of those she conversed with, beto have served you; but that he, for his own part, fore she coinmunicated what she had to say. These had always had regard to his own conscience, as causes have produced suitable effects, and Lætitia is well as other people's merit; and that he did not as insipid a companion as Daphne is an agreeable know but that you might be a handsome fellow; for, one. Lætitia, confident of favour, has studied no as for your own certificate, it was every body's bu-arts to please; Daphne, despairing of any inclinasiness to speak for themselves.' Mr. President im- tion towards her person, has depended only on her mediately retorted, A handsome fellow! why he is merit. Lætitia has always something in her air that a wit, Sir, and you know the proverb;' and to ease is sullen, grave, and disconsolate. Daphne has a the old gentleman of his scruples cried, That for countenance that is cheerful, open, and unconcerned. matter of merit it was all one, you might wear a A young gentleman saw Lætitia this winter at a play, mask.' This threw him into a pause, and he looked and became her captive. His fortune was such, that desirous of three days to consider on it; but Mr. he wanted very little introduction to speak his sentiPresident improved the thought, and followed him ments to her father. The lover was admitted with up with an old story, That wits were privileged to the utmost freedom into the family, where a conwear what masks they pleased in all ages; and that strained behaviour, severe looks, and distant civili. a vizard had been the constant crown of their labours, ties, were the highest favours he could obtain of Læ. which was generally presented them by the hand of titia; while Daphne used him with the good hesome satyr, and sometimes by Apollo himself:' for mour, familiarity, and innocence of a sister: insothe truth of which he appealed to the frontispiece of much that he would often say to her, "Dear Daphne, several books, and particularly to the English Juve wert thou but as handsome as Lætitia—” ual, to which he referred him; and only added, ceived such language with that ingenuousness and That such authors were the Larvati or Larva do- pleasing mirth which is natural to a woman without nati of the ancients.' This cleared up all, and in design. He still sighed in vain for Lætitia, but the conclusion you were chose probationer; and Mr. found certain relief in the agreeable conversation of President put round your health as such, protesting, Daphne. At length, heartily tired with the haughty That though indeed he talked of a vizard, he did impertinence of Lætitia, and charmed with the renot believe all the while you had any more occasion peated instances of good humour he had observed in for it than the cat-a-mountain;' so that all you have Daphne, he one day told the latter that he had someto do now is to pay your fees, which are here very thing to say to her he hoped she would be pleased reasonable, if you are not imposed upon; and you with-" Faith, Daphne," continued he, "I am in may style yourself Informis Societatis Socius: which love with thee, aud despise thy sister sincerely." I am desired to acquaint you with; and upon the The manner of his declaring himself gave his missame I beg you to accept of the congratulations of, tress occasion for a very hearty laughter." Nay," Sir, your obliged humble servant, says he, "I knew you would laugh at me, but I will "Oxford, March 21. ask your father." He did so; the father received R. this intelligence with no less joy than surprise, 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 for a great while, as this con quest 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 ourselves for the imperfections of our person, it is equally below us to value ourselves 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 professed beauties, who are a people almost as insufferable as the professed wits. "Monsieur St. Evremond 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 turned upon a very obvious re mark, 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 pre No. 33.] 66 "A. C." SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1711. Fervidus tecum puer, et solutis Mercuriusque.-HOR. 1 Od. xxx. 5. And Mercury, compose thy train.-CREECH. 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 tend to improve or preserve it. meet with so general pressions he felt upon seeing her at her first creaa reception among the sex. To say nothing of many tion, he does not represent her like a Grecian Venus, false helps and contraband wares of beauty which by her shape or features, but by the lustre of her are daily vended in this great mart, there is not a mind which shone in them, and gave them their maiden gentlewoman of good family in any county power of charming : 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 cosmetic 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 groundlessthat nature may be helped by art-may be turned 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 easy 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, 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. Grace was in all her steps, heav'n 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 uninformed and dead. "I cannot better close this moral than by a short epitaph written by Ben Jonson with a spirit which nothing could inspire but such an object as I have been describing: No. 31.1 MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1711. Cognatis maculis similis fera- Juv. Sat. xv. 159. THE club of which I am a member, very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed 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 somebody 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 entertained me with several remarks which they and others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the various suc. cess 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 surprised, that I should think such serious points as the dress and equipage of persons of quality proper subjects for raillery. "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 par.icipation, to consider them merely 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 heightened by virtue, and commanding our esteem and love while it draws our observation! How faint and spiritless are the He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport charms of a coquette, when compared with the real took him up short, and told him, that the papers he loveliness of Sophronia's innocence, piety, good-hinted at, had done great good in the city, and that humour, and truth; virtues which add a new softness all their wives and daughters were the better for to her sex, and even beautify her beauty! That agreeableness which must otherwise have appeared no longer in the modest virgin, is now preserved 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 excellent 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 im them; and farther 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 read of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of gene ral use." Upon this, my friend the Templar told Sir An drew, that he wondered to hear a man of his sense 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. talk after that manner; that the city had always been | tinued to combat with criminals in a body, and to the province for satire; 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 soever the persons might be that patronised 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 Coverley, 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 myself in the condition of the good man that had one wife who took a dislike to his grey hair, 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. Having thus taken my resolutions 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 remonstances that shall be made to me on this account. If Punch grows 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, entreat 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 of mankind.—Ĉ. No. 35.] TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1711 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 excel. It is not an imagination that teems with monsters, a head that is filled with extravagant While I was thus musing with myself, my worthy friend the clergyman, 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 advised. That it was not quality, but innocence, which ex-conceptions, which is capable of furnishing the world empted men from reproof. That vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and conspicuous stations of life. He farther added, that my paper would only serve to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly exposed those who are already depressed, and in some measure turned into ridicule, by the meanness of their conditions and circumstances. He afterward proceeded to take notice of the great use this paper might be of to the public, 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 cheerfulness, 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 pay a particular deference to the discourse of this gentleman, and are drawn into what he says as much by the candid 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 th. war into what quarter I pleased; provided I con 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 humorists, by such monstrous conceits as almost qualify them for Bedlam ; not considering that humour should always lie under the check of reason, and that it requires the direction of the nicest judgment, by so much the more as it indulges itself 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 cer. tain regularity of thought which 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 myself with it, but am rather apt to pity the man, than 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 surprised to hear one say, that breaking of windows was not humour; and I question not but several English readers will be as much startled to |