King, Father, Royal Dane. Oh answer me. Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws I do not therefore find fault with the artifices above mentioned, when they are introduced with skill, and accompanied by proportionable sentiments and expressions in the writing. being upbraided by her for having slain her lover), in the height of his passion and resentment kills her. If any thing could extenuate so brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the sentiments of nature, reason, or manhood, could take place in him. However, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as his passion is wrought to its height, he follows his sister the whole length of the stage, and forbears killing her till they are both withdrawn behind the scenes. I must confess, had he murdered her before the audience, the indecency might have been greater; but as it is, it appears very unnatural, 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. For the moving of pity, our principal machine is the handkerchief; and indeed, in our common tragedies, we should not know very often that the persons are in distress by any thing they say, if they It may not be unacceptable to the reader to see did not from time to time apply their handkerchiefs how Sophocles has conducted a tragedy under the to their eyes. Far be it from me to think of banish-like delicate circumstances. Orestes was under the ing this instrument of sorrow from the stage; I same condition with Hamlet in Shakspeare, his know a tragedy could not subsist without it; all that mother having murdered his father, and taken posI would contend for, is to keep it from being mis-session of his kingdom in conspiracy with her adulapplied. In a word, I would have the actor's tongue terer. That young prince, therefore, being detersympathise with his eyes, mined to revenge his father's death upon those who A disconsolate mother, with a child in her hand, filled his throne, conveys himself by a beautiful has frequently drawn compassion from the audience, stratagem into his mother's apartment, with a resoand has therefore gained a place in several trage-lution to kill her. But because such a spectacle dies. A modern writer, that observed how this had would have been too shocking to the audience, this took in other plays, being resolved to double the dreadful resolution is executed behind the scenes: distress, and melt his audience twice as much as the mother is heard calling out to her son for mercy; those before him had done, brought a princess upon and the son answering her, that she showed no the stage with a little boy in one hand, and a girl mercy to his father; after which she shrieks out in the other. This too had a very good effect. A that she is wounded, and by what follows we find third poet being resolved to outwrite all his prede- that she is slain. I do not remember that in any of cessors, a few years ago introduced three children our plays there are speeches made behind the with great success: and as I am informed, a young scenes, though there are other instances of this nagentleman, who is fully determined to break the ture to be met with in those of the ancients: and I most obdurate hearts, has a tragedy by him, where believe my reader will agree with me, that there is the first person that appears upon the stage is an something infinitely more affecting in this dreadful afflicted widow in her mourning weeds, with half-a-dialogue between the mother and her son behind the dozen fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about the figure of Charity. Thus several incidents that are beautiful in a good writer, become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one. But among all our methods of moving pity or terror, there is none so absurd and barbarous, and which more exposes us to the contempt and ridicule of our neighbours, than that dreadful butchering of one another, which is so very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in seeing men stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled, is certainly the sign of a cruel temper: and as this is often practised before the British audience, several French critics, who think these are grateful spectacles to us, take occasion from them to represent us as a people that delight in blood. It is indeed very odd, to see our stage strewed with carcases in the last scenes of a tragedy, and to observe in the wardrobe of the playhouse several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for poison, and many other instruments of death. Murders and executions are always transacted behind the scenes in the French theatre; which in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilised 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. I 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, scenes, than could have been in any thing transacted before the audience. Orestes immediately after meets the usurper at the entrance of his palace; and by a very happy thought of the poet, avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that he should live some time in his present bitterness of soul before he would dispatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part of the 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 afterward established 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, ROSCOMMON The French have therefore refined too much upon Horace's rule, who never designed to banish all kinds of death from the stage; but only such as had too much horror in them, and which would have a better effect upon the audience when transacted behind the scenes. I would therefore recommend to my countrymen the practice of the ancient poets, who were very sparing of their public executions, and rather chose to perform them behind the scenes, if it could be done with as great an effect upon the audience. At the same time I mast observe, that though the devoted persons of the tragedy were seldom slain before the audience, which has gene rally something ridiculous in it, their bodies were often produced after their death, which has always something melancholy or terrifying: so that the killing on the stage does not seem to have been avoided only as an indecency, but also as an improbability. Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet; Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus; Medea must not draw her murd`ring knife, I hate to see, and never can believe.-RosCOMMON, think at present the whole race of them is extinct in our own country. About the time that several of our sex were taker 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 been thought unfit for his place, that could have made so awkward an excuse. As I love to see every thing that is new, I once prevailed upon my friend Will Honeycomb to carry me along with him to one of these travelled ladies, desiring him, at the 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, I have now gone through the several dramatic in- had put on her best looks, and painted herself for ventions which are made use of by the ignorant our reception. Her hair appeared in a very nice poets to supply the place of tragedy, and by the disorder, as the night-gown which was thrown upon skilful to improve it; some of which I would wish her shoulders was ruffled with great care. For my entirely rejected, and the rest to be used with cau- part, I am so shocked with every thing which looks tion. It would be an endless task to consider co-immodest in the fair sex, that I could not forbear medy in the same light, and to mention the innu- taking off my eye from her when she moved in bed, merable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise and was in the greatest confusion imaginable every a laugh. Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a time she stirred a leg or an arm. As the coquettes long one, seldom fail of this effect. In ordinary who introduced this custom grew old they left it off comedies, a broad and a narrow-brimmed hat are by degrees, well knowing that a woman of threescore different characters. Sometimes the wit of the scene may kick and tumble her heart out without making lies in a shoulder-belt, and sometimes in a pair of any impression. whiskers. A lover running about the stage with his head peeping out of a barrel, was thought a very good jest in King Charles the Second's time; and invented by one of the first wits of that age. because ridicule 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 cousequence a much greater indulgence to be allowed them.-C. No. 45.] SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1711. But Natio comoda est.-Juv Sat. iii. 100. I and honourable peace, though at the same time 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 shail we be exposed to! For the prevention of these great evils I could heartily wish that there was an act of parlia ment for prohibiting the importation of French fopperies. 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-bred countrywomen 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 handmaids, I cannot tell; but I The comedy of "The Comical Revenge; or, Love in a Tub, by Sir George Etheridge, 1664 Sempronia is at present the most professed admirer of the French nation, but is so modest as to admit her visitants no farther than her toilet. It is a very odd sight that beautiful creature inakes, 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 woman and her visitants! What sprightly transitions does she make from an opera or a sermon to an ivory comb or a pincushion! 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 gaiety and airiness of temper which are natural to most of the sex. It should be ing 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 tonight." Not long after, calling out to a young baronet by his name, who sat three seats before me, she asked him whether Macbeth's wife was still alive; and before he could give an answer, fell a talking of the ghost of Banquo. 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. This pretty childishness of behaviour is one of the most refined parts of coquetry, and is not to be attained in perfection by ladies 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 ridiculous in attempting it. selves 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 challenging it, he was ordered by those merry gentlemen who had before 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 conjuror-Childermas-day, saltseller, housedog, screech-owl, cricket-Mr. Thomas Incle of London, in the good ship called the Achilles-Yarico- -Egrescitque medendo-Ghosts-The Lady's Library-Lion by trade a tailor-Dromedary called Bucephalus-Equipage the lady's summum bonumCharles Lillie to be taken notice of-Short face a relief to envy-Redundancies in the three profesA very ingenious French author tells us, that the sions-King Latinus a recruit-Jew devouring a ladies of the court of France in his time thought it ham of bacon-Westminster-abbey-Grand Cairoill-breeding, and a kind of female pedantry, to pro- Procrastination-April fools-Blue boars, red lions, nounce a hard word right; for which reason they hogs in armour-Enter a king and two fiddlers solus took frequent occasion to use hard words, that they-Admission into the Ugly club-Beauty how immight show a politeness in murdering them. He provable-Families of true and false humour-The farther adds, that a lady of some quality at court hav-parrot's school-mistress-Face half Pict half British ing accidentally made use of a hard word in a proper-No man to be a hero of a tragedy under six footplace, and pronounced it right, the whole assembly was out of countenance for her. Club of sighers-Letters from flower-pots, elbowchairs, tapestry-figures, lion, thunder- -The bell rings to the puppet-show-Old woman with a beard married to a smock-faced boy-My next coat to be turned up with blue-Fable of tongs and gridiron Flower dyers-The soldier's prayer-Thank ye for nothing, says the gallipot-Pactolus in stockings with golden clocks to them-Bamboos, cudgels, drum-sticks-Slip of my landlady's eldest daughter I must however be so just to own, that there are many ladies who have travelled several thousands of miles without being the worse for it, and have brought home with them all the modesty, discretion, and good sense that they went abroad with. As, on the contrary, there are great numbers of travelled ladies who have lived all their days within the smoke of London. I have known a woman that never was-The black mare with a star in her forehead-The out of the parish of St. James's, betray as many foreign fopperies in her carriage, as she could have gleaned in half the countries of Europe.-C. No. 46.] MONDAY, APRIL 23, 1711. barber's pole-Will Honeycomb's coat-pocketCaesar's behaviour and my own in parallel circumstances-Poem in patch-work-Nulli gravi est percussus Achilles-The female conventicler-The ogle-master. The reading of this paper made the whole coffeehouse very merry; some of them concluded it was Ovid. Met. 1. i. ver 9. written by a madman, and others by somebody that The jarring seeds of ill-concerted things. had been taking notes out of the Spectator. One WHEN I want materials for this paper, it is my who had the appearance of a very substantial citi custom to go abroad in quest of game; and when I zen, told us, with several political winks and nods, meet any proper subject, I take the first opportunity that he wished there was no more in the paper than of setting down a hint of it upon paper. At the what was expressed in it: that for his part, he looked same time, I look into the letters of my correspond- upon the dromedary, the gridiron, and the barber's ents, and if I find any thing suggested in them that pole, to signify something more than what was may afford matter of speculation, I likewise enter a usually meant by those words: and that he thought minute of it in my collection of materials. By this the coffee-man could not do better than to carry the means I frequently carry about me a whole sheetful paper to one of the secretaries of state. He farther of hints, that would look like a rhapsody of non-added, that he did not like the name of the outland sense to anybody but myself. There is nothing in ish man with the golden clock in his stockings. A them but obscurity and confusion, raving and incon-young Oxford scholar, who chanced to be with his sistency. In short, they are my speculations in the first principles, that (like the world in its chaos) are void of all light, distinction, and order. 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 them uncle at the coffee-house, 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 all his works, after some very curious observations kind of match, and lighted my pipe with it. My upon laughter, concludes thus: The passion of profound silence, together with the steadiness of my laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising countenance, and the gravity of my behaviour during from some sudden conception of some eminency in this whole transaction, raised a very loud laugh on ourselves, by comparison with the infirmities of all sides of me; but as I had escaped all suspicion others, or with our own formerly: for nen laugh at of being the author, I was very well satisfied, and the follies of themselves past, when they come sudapplying myself to my pipe and the Postman, took no denly to remembrance, except they bring with them farther notice of any thing that had passed about me. any present dishonour." 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 untouched were such provisions as I had made for his future entertainment. But as I have been unluckily prevented by this accident, I shall only give him the letters which related to the two last hints. The first of them I should not have published, were not informed that there is many a husband who suffers very much in his private affairs by the indiscreet zeal of such a partner as is herealter mentioned; to whom I may apply the bar. barous inscription quoted by the Bishop of Salisbury in his travels : Dum nimia pia est facta est impia. "Through too much piety she became impious." "SIR, 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 look into the bottom of this matter, we 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 retinue, whom the rest of the courtiers are always breaking their jests upon. "I am one of those unhappy men that are plagued with a gospel gossip, so common among dissenters The Dutch, who are more famous for their indus. especially friends). Lectures in the morning, try and application than for wit and humour, hang church-meetings at noon, and preparation-sermons up in several of their streets what they call the sign at night, take up so much of her time, it is very rare of the Gaper, that is, the head of an idiot dressed in she knows what we have for dinner, unless when the a cap and bells, and gaping in a most immoderate preacher is to be at it. With him come a tribe, all manner. This is a standing jest at Amsterdam. brothers and sisters it seems; while others, really Thus every one diverts himself with some person such, are deemed no relations. If at any time I or other that is below him in point of understandhave her company alone, she is a mere sermon pop-ing, and triumphs in the superiority of his genius, gun, repeating and discharging texts, proofs, and applications so perpetually, 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 sufferers, plead your pity and speedy relief; otherwise I 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, relative to the ogling-master, runs thus: "MR. SPECTATOR, "I am an Irish gentleman 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 oglingmaster. 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 flying ogle fit for the ring; which I teach in the dusk of the evening, or in any hour of the day, by darkening one of my windows. I have a manuscript by me called The Complete Ogler, which I shall make ready to show on any occasion. In the mean time, I beg you will publish the substance of this letter in an advertisement, and you will very much oblige, C. 66 Your, &c." 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 above-mentioned 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. 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 Pottages; 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 understanding, 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 every body takes it into his head to make as many fools as he can. In proportion as there are more follies discovered, so there is more laughter on this day than on any other in the whole year. A neigh I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men."-C. bour 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 No. 48.] WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 1711. every one of her children upon some sleeveless errand, as she terms it. Her eldest son went to buy a halfpenny-worth of inkle at a shoemaker's; the Per multas aditum sibi sæpe figuras eldest daughter was dispatched half a mile to see a Mr correspondents take it ill if I do not, from monster; and in short the whole family of innocent time to time, let them know I have received their children made April fools. Nay, my landlady her-letters. The most effectual way will be to publish self did not escape him. This empty fellow has laughed upon these conceits ever since. This art of wit is well enough, when confined 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 tl.em. 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 some of them that are upon important subjects; which I shall introduce with a letter of my own that I writ a fortnight ago to a fraternity who thought fit to make me an honorary member. To the President and Fellows of the Ugly Club. "MAY IT PLEASE YOUR DEFORMITIES. "I have received the notification of the honour you have done me, in admitting me into your society. I acknowledge my want of merit, and for that reason shall endeavour at all times to make up my own failures, by introducing and recommending to the club persons of more undoubted qualifications than I can pretend to. I shall next week come down in the stage-coach, in order to take my seat at the board; and shall bring with me a candidate of each sex. The persons I shall present to you, are an old beau and a modern Pict. If they are not so eminently gifted by nature as our assembly expects, give me leave to say their acquired ugliness is greater than any that has ever yet appeared before you. The beau has varied his dress every day in his life for these thirty years past, and still added to the deformity he was born with. The Pict has still greater merit towards us, and has, ever since she came to years of discretion, deserted the handsome party, and taken all possible pains to acquire the face in which I shall present her to your consideration and favour. "I am, Gentlemen, "Your most obliged humble servant, "THE SPECTATOR." "P.S. I desire to know whether you admit people of quality." April 17. particular sort of men who are such provokers of mirth in conversation, that it is impossible for a club "MR. SPECTATOR, or merry meeting to subsist without them-I mean "To show you there are among us of the vain those honest gentlemen that are always exposed to weak sex, some that have honesty and fortitude the wit and raillery of their well-wishers and compa- enough to dare to be ugly, and willing to be thought nions; that are pelted by men, women, and children, so, I apply myself to you, to beg your interest and friends and foes, and in a word, stand as butts in recommendation to the ugly club. If my own word conversation, for every one to shoot at that pleases. will not be taken (though in this case a woman's I know several of these butts who are men of wit and may), I can bring credible witnesses of my qualifi sense, though by some odd turn of humour, some un-cations for their company, whether they insist upon lucky cast in their person or behaviour, they have always the misfortune to make the company merry. The truth of it is, a man is not qualified for a butt, who has not a good deal of wit and vivacity, even in the ridiculous side of his character. A stupid butt is only fit for the conversation of ordinary people men of wit require one that will give them play, and bestir himself in the absurd part of his behaviour. A butt with these accomplishments frequently gets the laugh on his side, and turns the ridicule upon him that attacks him. Sir John Falstaff was a hero of this species, and gives a good description of himself in his capacity of a butt, after the following manner: "Men of all sorts," says that merry knight, "take a pride to gird at me. The brain of man is not able to invent any thing that tends to laughter more than I invent, or is invented on me. hair, forehead, eyes, cheeks, or chin; to which I must add, that find it easier to lean to my left side than to my right. I hope I am in all respects agreeable; and for humour and mirth, I will keep up to the president himself. All the favour I will pretend to is, that as I am the first woman who has appeared desirous of good company and agreeable conversation, I may take, and keep, the upper end of the table. And indeed I think they want a carver, which I can be, after as ugly a manner as they could wish. I desire your thoughts of my claim as soon as you can. Add to my features the length of my face, which is a full half-yard; though I never knew the reason of it till you gave one for the shortness of yours. If I knew a name ugly enough to belong to the above described face, I would fegn one; but, to my wispeakable misfortune, my name is the only |