bear me affirm, that many of those raving incohe. rent pieces which are often spread among us under odd chimerical titles, are rather the offsprings of a distempered brain, than works of humour.

False Humour differs from the True, as a monkey does from a man.

First of all, He is exceedingly given to little apish tricks and buffooneries.

Secondly, He so much delights in mimicry, that it is all one to him whether he exposes by it vice and folly, luxury and avarice; or, on the contrary, virtue and wisdom, pain and poverty.

Thirdly, He is wonderfully unlucky, insomuch that he will bite the hand that feeds him, and endeavour to ridicule both friends and foes indifferently. For having but small talents, he must be merry where he can, not where he should.

It is indeed much easier to describe what is not humour, than what is; and very difficult to define it otherwise than as Cowley has done wit, by negatives. Were I to give my own notions of it, I would deliver them after Plato's manner, in a kind of allegory-and by supposing Humour to be a person, deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the following genealogy. Truth was the founder of the family, and the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was the father of Wit, who married a lady of colla- Fourthly, Being entirely void of reason, he purteral line called Mirth, by whom he had issue Hu-sues no point either of morality or instruction, but is mour. Humour therefore being the youngest of this ludicrous only for the sake of being so. illustrious family, and descended from parents of such different dispositions, is very various and un-representations, his ridicule is always personal, and equal in his temper; sometimes you see him putting aimed at the vicious man or the writer-not at the on grave looks and a solemn habit, sometimes airy vice, or the writing. in his behaviour and fantastic in his dress; insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a judge, and as jocular as a merry-andrew. But as he has a great deal of the mother in his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh.

But since there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world; to the end that well-meaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, I would desire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage, and to examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely allied to Truth, and lineally descended from Good Sense; if not, they may conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewise distinguish him by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he seldom gets his company to join with him. For as True Humour generally looks serious, while every body laughs about him; False Humour is always laughing, whilst every body about him looks serious. I shall only add, if he has not in him a mixture of both parents, that is, if he would pass for the offspring of Wit without Mirth, or Mirth without Wit, you may conclude him to be altogether spurious and a cheat.

Fifthly, Being incapable of any thing but mock

I have here only pointed at the whole species of false humorists; but as one of my principal designs in this paper is to beat down that malignant spirit which discovers itself in the writings of the present age, I shall not scruple, for the future, to single out any of the small wits that infest the world with such compositions as are ill-natured, immoral, and absurd. This is the only exception which I shall make to the general rule I have prescribed myself, of attacking multitudes, since every honest man ought to look upon himself as in a natural state of war with the libeller and lampooner, and to annoy them wherever they fall in his way. This is but retaliating upɔn them and treating them as they treat others.-C.

No. 36.] WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 1711.

Immania monstra

Perferimus

VIRO. En. iii. 583.
Things the most out of nature we endure

I SHALL not put myself to any farther pains for this day's entertainment, than barely to publish the letters and titles of petitions from the playhouse, with the minutes I have made upon the latter for my conduct in relation to them.

Drury-lane, April the 9th. "Upon reading the project which is set forth in one of your late papers, of making an alliance between all the bulls, bears elephants, and lions which are separately exposed to public view in the cities of London and Westminster; together with the other wonders, shows, and monsters whereof you made respective mention in the said speculation-we, the chief actors of this playhouse, met and sat upon the said design. It is with great delight that we expect the

The impostor of whom I am speaking, descends originally from Falsehood, who was the mother of Nonsense, who was brought to bed of a son called Frenzy, who married one of the daughters of Folly, commonly known by the name of Laughter, on whom he begot that monstrous infant of which I have here been speaking. I shall set down at length the genealogical table of False Humour, and, at the same time, place under it the genealogy of True Humour, that the reader may at one view behold their different pedigree and re-execution of this work and in order to contribute lations:

Falsehood
Nonsense.

Frenzy Laughter.
Faise Humour.

Truth.
Good Sense.

Wit- -Mirth.

Humour.

I might extend the allegory, by mentioning several of the children of False Humour, who are more in number than the sands of the sea, and might in particular enumerate the many sons and daughters which he has begot in this island. But as this would be a very invidious task, I shall only observe in general, that

to it, we have given warning to all our ghosts to get their livelihoods where they can, and not to appear among us after day-break of the 16th instant. We are resolved to take this opportunity to part with every thing which does not contribute to the representation of human life; and shall make a free gift of all animated utensils to your projector. The hangings you formerly mentioned are run away; as are likewise a set of chairs, each of which was met upon two legs going through the Rose tavern at two this morning. We hope, Sir, you will give proper notice to the town that we are endeavouring at these regulations; and that we intend for the future to show no monsters, but men who are converted into such by their own industry and affectation. If you will please to be at the house to-night, yo. 1 will see

and other loose papers, was enclosed in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque works that I ever saw, and made up of scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarines, trees, shells, and a thousand other odd figures in china-ware. In the midst of the room was a little japan table, with a quire of gilt paper upon it, and on the paper a silver snuff-box made in the shape of a little book. I found there were several other counterfeit books upon the upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served only to fill up the numbers like fagots in the muster of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such a mixed kind of furniture, as seemed very suitable both to the lady and the scholar, and did not know at first whether I should fancy myself in a grotto or in a library.

for two or three years, and being unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a resolution never to venture upon a second. She has no children to take care of, and leaves the management of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. But as the mind natu rally sinks into a kind of lethargy, and falls asleep, that is not agitated by some favourite pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the passion of her sex into a love of books and retirement. She converses chiefly with men (as she has often said herself), but it is only in their writings, and admits of very few male visitants, except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure, and without scandal. As her reading has lain very much among romances, it has given her a very particular turn of thinking, and discovers itself even in her house, her gardens, and her furniture. Sir Roger has enter tained me an hour together with a description of her

Upon my looking into the books, I found there were some few which the lady had bought for her own use, but that most of them had been got toge-country-seat, which is situated in a kind of wilderther, either because she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them. Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow:

Ogleby's Virgil.
Dryden's Juvenal.
Cassandra.
Cleopatra.

Astræa.

Sir Isaac Newton's Works.

ness, about a hundred miles distant from London, and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks about her are shaped into artificial grottos covered with woodbines and jessamines. The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with cages of turtles. The springs are made to run among pebbles, and by that means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collected into a beautiful lake that is inhabited by a couple of swans, and empties itself by a little rivulet which runs

The Grand Cyrus; with a pin stuck in one of the through a green meadow, and is known in the famiddle leaves.

Pembroke's Arcadia.

mily by the name of The Purling Stream. The knight likewise tells me, that this lady preserves her

Locke on Human Understanding, with a paper of game better than any of the gentlemen in the patches in it.

A Spelling-book.

A Dictionary for the explanation of hard words.
Sherlock upon Death.

The fifteen Comforts of Matrimony.

Sir William Temple's Essays.

Father Malebranche's Search after Truth, translated into English.

A book of Novels.

The Academy of Compliments.
Culpepper's Midwifery.

The Ladies' Calling.

country, not (says Sir Roger) that she sets so great a value upon her partridges and pheasants, as upon her larks and nightingales. For she says that every bird which is killed in her ground, will spoil a concert, and that she shall certainly miss him the next

year.

When I think how oddly this lady is improved by learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments which she has formed to herself, how much more valuable does she appear than those of her sex, who employ themselves in diversions that are less reasonable, though more in fashion? What iminprovements would a woman have made, who is so susceptible of impressions from what she reads, had she been guided by such books as have a tendency to enlighten the understanding and rectify the pas

Tales in Verse by Mr. Durfey bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down several places.

All the Classic Authors in Wood.

A set of Elzevirs by the same Hand.

Clelia which opened of itself in the place that sions, as well as to those which are of little more

describes two lovers in a bower.

Baker's Chronicle.

Advice to a Daughter.

The New Atalantis, with a Key to it.

Mr. Steele's Christian Hero.

use than to divert the imagination?

But the manner of a lady's employing herself usefully in reading, shall be the subject of another paper, in which I design to recommend such particular books as may be proper for the improvement And as this is a subject of very nice nature, I shall desire my correspoudents to give me their thoughts upon it.-C.

A Prayer-book with a bottle of Hungary Water of the sex.
:
by the side of it.

Dr. Sacheverell's Speech.

Fielding's Trial,

Seneca's Morals.

No. 38.] FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 1711.
Cupias non placuisse nimis.-MART.
One would not please too much.

A LATE conversation which I fell into, gave me an opportunity of of serving a great deal of beauty in a very handsome woman, and as much wit in an ingenious man, turned into deformity in the one, and absurdity in the other, by the mere force of affectation. The fair one had something in her person (upon which her thoughts were fixed,) that she at tempted to show to advantage in every look, word

and gesture. The gentleman was as diligent to do justice to his fine parts as the lady to her beauteous form. You might see his imagination on the stretch to find out something uncommon, and what they call bright, to entertain her, while she writhed herself into as many different postures to engage him. When she laughed, her lips were to sever at a greater distance than ordinary, to show her teeth; her fan was to point to something at a distance, that in the reach she may discover the roundness of her arm; then she is utterly mistaken in what she saw, falls back, smiles at her own folly, and is so wholly discomposed, that her tucker is to be adjusted, her bosom exposed, and the whole woman put into new airs and graces. While she was doing all this, the gallant had time to think of something very pleasant to say next to her, or to make some unkind observation on some other lady to feed her vanity. These unhappy effects of affectation naturally led me to look into that strange state of mind which so generally discolours the behaviour of most people we meet with.

them, but lose their force in proportion to our endeavour to make them such.

When our consciousness turns upon the main design of life, and our thoughts are employed upon the chief purpose either in business or pleasure, we shall never betray an affectation, for we cannot be guilty of it: but when we give the passion for praise an unbridled liberty, our pleasure in little perfections robs us of what is due to us for great virtues, and worthy qualities. How many excellent speeches and honest actions are lost, for want of being indifferent where we ought? Men are oppressed with regard to their way of speaking and acting, instead of having their thoughts bent upon what they should do or say; and by that means bury a capacity for great things, by their fear of failing in indifferent things. This, perhaps, cannot be called affectation; but it has some tincture of it, at least so far, as that their fear of erring in a thing of no consequence, argues they would be too much pleased in performing it.

It is only from a thorough disregard to himself in such particulars, that a man can act with a laudable The learned Dr. Burnet, in his Theory of the sufficiency; his heart is fixed upon one point in Earth, takes occasion to observe, that every thought view; and he commits no errors, because he thinks is attended with a consciousness and representative-nothing an error but what deviates from that intention. ness; the mind has nothing presented to it but what The wild havoc affectation makes in that part of is immediately followed by a reflection of conscience, the world which should be most polite, is visible which tells you whether that which was so presented wherever we turn our eyes: it pushes men not only is graceful or unbecoming. This act of the mind into impertinencies in conversation, but also in their discovers itself in the gesture, by a proper behaviour premeditated speeches. At the bar it torments the in those whose consciousness goes no farther than to bench, whose business it is to cut off all superfluidirect them in the just progress of their present ties in what is spoken before it by the practitioner; state or action; but betrays an interruption in every as well as several little pieces of injustice which second thought, when the consciousness is employed arise from the law itself. I have seen it make a in too fondly approving a man's own conceptions; which sort of consciousness is what we call affectation. As the love of praise is implanted in our bosoms as a strong incentive to worthy actions, it is a very difficult task to get above a desire of it for things that should be wholly indifferent. Women, whose hearts are fixed upon the pleasure they have in the consciousness that they are the objects of love and admiration, are ever changing the air of their countenances, and altering the attitude of their bodies, to strike the hearts of their beholders with new sense of their beauty. The dressing part of our sex, whose minds are the same with the sillier part of the other, are exactly in the like uneasy condition to be regarded for a well tied cravat, a hat cocked with an uncommon briskness, a very well chosen coat, or other instances of merit, which they are impatient to see unobserved.

This apparent affectation, arising from an ill-governed consciousness, is not so much to be wondered at in such loose and trivial minds as these: but

man run from the purpose before a judge, who was, when at the bar himself, so close and logical a pleader, that with all the pomp of eloquence in his his power, he never spoke a word too much.*

It might be borne even here, but it often ascends the pulpit itself; and the declaimer in that sacred place is frequently so impertinently witty, speaks of the last day itself with so many quaint phrases, that there is no man who understands raillery, but must resolve to sin no more. Nay, you may behold him sometimes in prayer, for a proper delivery of the great truths he is to utter, humble himself with so very well-turned phrase, and mention his own unwor thiness in a way so very becoming, that the air of the pretty gentleman is preserved, under the lowness of the preacher.

I shall end this with a short letter I writ the other day to a very witty man, overrun with the fault I am speaking of:

"DEAR SIR,

when we see it reign in characters of worth and must take the liberty of a friend to tell you of the "I spent some time with you the other day, and distinction, it is what you cannot but lament, not unsufferable affectation you are guilty of in all you without some indignation. It creeps into the heart say and do. When I gave you a hint of it, you of the wise man as well as that of the coxcomb. asked me whether a man is to be cold to what his When you see a man of sense look about for ap- friends think of him? No, but praise is not to be plause, and discover an itching inclination to be the entertainment of every moment. He that hopes commended; lay traps for a little incense, even from for it must be able to suspend the possession of it those whose opinion he values in nothing but his till proper periods of life, or death itself. If you own favour; who is safe against this weakness? or would not rather be commended than be praisewho knows whether he is guilty of it or not? The best way to get clear of such a light fondness for be so free with you, as to praise you to your face. worthy, contemn little merits; and allow no man to applause, is to take all possible care to throw off the Your vanity by this means will want its food. At love of it upon occasions that are not in themselves the same time your passion for esteem will be more laudable, but as it appears we hope for no praise from fully gratified; men will praise you in their actions: them. Of this nature are all graces in men's persons, dress, and bodily deportment, which will naturally be winning and attractive if we think not of Cowper.

• This seems to be intended as a compliment to Chancellor

IMITATED.

Much do I suffer, much, to keep in peace This jealous, waspish, wrong-head'd rhyming race.-POPE. As a perfect tragedy is the noblest production of human nature, so it is capable of giving the mind one of the most delightful and most improving entertainments. A virtuous man (says Seneca) struggling with misfortunes, is such a spectacle as gods might look upon with pleasure; and such a pleasure it is which one meets with in the representation of a well-written tragedy. Diversions of this kind wear out of our thoughts every thing that is mean and little. They cherish and cultivate that humanity which is the ornament of our nature. They soften insolence, soothe affliction, and subdue the mind to the dispensations of Providence.

It is no wonder, therefore, that in all the polite nations of the world, this part of the drama has met with public encouragement.

The modern tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome in the intricacy and disposition of the fable; but, what a Christian writer would be ashamed to own, falls infinitely short of it in the moral part of the performance.

This I may show more at large hereafter and in the mean time, that I may contribute something towards the improvement of the English tragedy, I shall take notice, in this and in other following papers, of some particular parts in it that seem liable to exception.

new verse, without filling up the preceding one; nor with abrupt pauses and breakings off in the middle of a verse, when they humour any passion that is expressed by it.

Since I am upon this subject, I must observe that
our English poets have succeeded much better in the
style than in the sentiment of their tragedies. Their
language is very often noble and sonorous, but the
sense either very trifling or very common. On the
contrary, in the ancient tragedies, and indeed in
those of Corneille and Racine, though the expressions
are very great, it is the thought that bears them up
and swells them. For my own part, I prefer a noble
sentiment that is depressed with homely language,
infinitely before a vulgar one that is blown up with
all the sound and energy of expression. Whether
this defect in our tragedies may arise from want of
genius, knowledge, or experience in the writers, or
from their compliance with the vicious taste of their
readers, who are better judges of the language than
of the sentiments, and consequently relish the one
more than the other, I cannot determine. But I be-
lieve it might rectify the conduct both of the one and
of the other, if the writer laid down the whole con-
texture of his dialogue in plain English, before he
turned it into blank verse: and if the reader, after
the perusal of a scene, would consider the naked
thought of every speech in it, when divested of all
its tragic ornaments. By this means, without being
imposed upon by words, we may judge impartially
of the thought, and consider whether it be natural of
great enough for the person that utters it, whether it
deserves to shine in such a blaze of eloquence, or
show itself in such a variety of lights as are generally
made use of by the writers of our English tragedy.
I must in the next place observe, that when our
thoughts are great and just, they are often obscured
by the sounding phrases, hard metaphors, and forced
expressions in which they are clothed. Shakspeare
is often very faulty in this particular. There is a
fine observation in Aristotle to this purpose, which I
have never seen quoted. The expression, says he,
ought to be very much laboured in the unactive parts
of the fable, as in descriptions, similitudes, narra-
tions, and the like; in which the opinions, manners,
and passions of men are not represented; for these
(namely, the opinions, manners, and passions) are
apt to be obscured by pompous phrases and elaborate
expressions. Horace, who copied most of his cri-
ticisms after Aristotle, seems to have had his eye on
the foregoing rule, in the following verses :—

Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestri:
Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterque.
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,
Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querela.

HOR. Ars. Poet. ver. 95.

Aristotle observes, that the Iambic verse in the Greek tongue was the most proper for tragedy; because at the same time that it lifted up the discourse from prose, it was that which approached nearer to it than any other kind of verse. "For," says he, "we may observe that men in ordinary discourse very often speak iambics without taking notice of it." We may make the same observation of our English blank verse, which often enters into our common discourse, though we do not attend to it, and is such a due medium between rhyme and prose, that it seems wonderfully adapted to tragedy. I am therefore very much offended when I see a play in rhyme; which is as absurd in English, as a tragedy of hexameters would have been in Greek or Latin. The solecism is, I think, still greater in those plays that Tragedians, too, lay by their state to grieve: have some scenes in rhyme and some in blank verse, Peleus and Telephus, exil'd and poor, which are to be looked upon as two several lan- Forget their swelling and gigantic words.-RosCOMMON. guages; or where we see some particular similes Among our modern English poets, there is none dignified with rhyme at the same time that every who has a better turn for tragedy than Lee; if, inthing about them lies in blank verse. I would not stead of favouring the impetuosity of his genius, he however debar the poet from concluding his tragedy, had restrained it, and kept it within its proper or, if he pleases, every act of it, with two or three bounds. His thoughts are wonderfully suited to couplets, which may have the same effect as an air tragedy, but frequently lost in such a cloud of words in the Italian opera alter a long recitativo, and give that it is hard to see the beauty of them. There is the actor a graceful exit. Besides that, we see a an infinite fire in his works, but so involved in smoke diversity of numbers in some parts of the old tragedy that it does not appear in half its lustre. He frein order to hinder the ear from being tired with the quently succeeds in the passionate parts of the trasame continued modulation of voice. For the same gedy, but more particularly where he slackens his reason I do not dislike the speeches in our English efforts, and eases the style of those epithets and metragedy that close with a hemistic, or half verse, not-taphors in which he so much abounds. What can withstanding the person who speaks after it begins a be more natural, more soft, or m re passionate, than