TENDIT APOLLO.

HOR. OD. II. x. 19.

OBSERVING that you have thoughts of creating certain officers under you, for the inspection of several petty enormities which you yourself can not attend to; and finding daily abfurdities hung out upon the fign-pofts of this city, to the great fcandal of foreigners, as well as thofe of our own country, who are curious fpectators of the fame, I do humbly propofe that you would be pleafed to make me your fuperintendant of all fuch figures and devices as are or fhall be made ufe of on this occafion; with full powers to rectify or expunge whatever I fhall find irregular or defective. For want of fuch an officer, there is nothing like found literature and good fenfe to be met with in thofe objects, that are every where thrufting themselves out to the eye, and endeavouring to become vifible. Our ftreets are filled with blue boars, black swans, and red lions; not to mention flying pigs and hogs in armour, with many other creatures more extraordinary than any in the defarts of Afric. Strange! that one who has all the birds and beafts in nature to choofe out of, fhould live at the fign of an Ens Rati

onis !

My first task therefore fhould be, like that of Hercules, to clear the city from monsters. In the second place I would forbid, that creatures of jarring and incongruous natures fhould be joined to gether in the fame fign; fuch as the Bell and the Neat's-tongue, the Dog and Gridiron. The Fox and Goofe may be

fuppofed to have met, but what has the Fox and Seven Stars to do together? And when did the Lamb and Dolphin ever meet, except upon a fign-poft ? As for the Cat and Fiddle, there is a conceit in it; and therefore I do not intend that any thing I have here faid fhould affect it. I muft however obferve to you upon this fubject, that it is ufual for a young tradefman, at his first fetting-up, to add to his own fign that of the mafter whom he ferved; as the husband, after marriage, gives a place to his miftrefs's arms in his own coat. This I take to have given rife to many of thofe abfurditics which are committed over our heads; and, as I am informed, firft occafioned the three Nuns and a Hare, which we fee fo frequently join ed together. I would therefore eftablish certain rules, for the determining how far one tradefman may give the fign of another; and in what cafes he may be allowed to quarter it with his own.

In the third place, I would enjoin every fhop to make ufe of a fign which bears fome affinity to the wares in which it deals. What can be more inconfiftent, than to fee a Bawd at the fign of the Angel, or a Tailor at the Lion? A Cook fhould not live at the Boot, nor a Shoe-maker at the Roafted Pig; and yet, for want of this regulation, I have feen a Goat fet up before the door of a perfumer, and the French King's Head at a Sword-cutler's.

An ingenious foreigner obferves, that feveral of thofe gentlemen who value themselves upon their families, and overlook fuch as are bred to trade, bear the tools of their forefathers in their coats of arms, I will not examine how true this is in fact, but though it may not be neceffary for pofterity thus to fet up the fign of their forefathers, I think it highly proper for those who actually profefs the trade, to fhew fome fuch marks of it before their doors.

When the name gives an occafion for

an

an ingenious fign-poft, I would likewife advite the owner to take that opportunity of letting the world know who he is. It would have been ridiculous for the ingenious Mrs. Salmon to have lived at the fign of the Trout; for which reafon fhe has erected before her houfe the figure of the fish that is her namefake. Mr. Bell has likewife diftinguished himself by a device of the fame nature and here, Sir, I must beg leave to obferve to you, that this particular figure of a bell has given occafion to feveral pieces of wit in this kind. A man of your reading must know, that 'Abel Dragger gained great applaufe by it in the time of Ben Jonfon. Our apocryphal heathen God is alfo reprefented by this figure; which, in conjunction with the dragon, makes a very handfome picture in feveral of our freets. As for the Bell-favage, which is the fign of a favage man ftanding by a bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old romance translated out of the French; which gives an account of a very beautiful woman who was found in a wilderness, and is called in the French, La belle Sauvage; and is every where tranflated by our countrymen the Bell-Savage. This piece of philofophy will, I hope, convince you that I have made fign-pofts my ftudy, and confequently qualified myfelf for the employment which I folicit at your hands. But before I conclude my letter, I mult communicate to you another remark which I have made upon the fubject with which I am now entertaining you, namely, that I can give a fhrewd guefs at the humour of the inhabitant by the fign that hangs before his door. A furly choleric fellow generally makes choice of a Bear; as men of milder difpofitions frequently live at the Lamb. Seeing a Punch-bowl painted upon a fign near Charing Crofs, and very curiously garnished, with a couple of angels hovering over it and squeez

HAVING heard that this nation is

a great encourager of ingenuity, I have brought with me a rope-dancer that was caught in one of the woods belonging to the Great Mogul. He is by birth a monkey; but fwings upon a rope, takes a pipe of tobacco, and drinks a glafs of ale, like any reafonable crea

ture.

He gives great fatisfaction to the quality; and if they will make a fubfcription for him, I will fend for a brother of his out of Holland that is a very good tumbler; and alfo for another of the fame family whom I defign for my Merry-Andrew, as being an excellent mimic, and the greateft droll in the country where he now is. I hope to have this entertainment in a readiness for the next winter; and doubt not but it will pleafe more than the opera or puppet-fhow. I will not fay that a monkey is a better man than fome of the operaheroes; but certainly he is a better reprefentative of a man, than the most ar tificial compofition of wood and wire. If you will be pleased to give me a good word in your paper, you fhall be every night a fpectator at my fhow for nothing.

I am, &c.

C

HOR. SAT. I. x. 23.

THE

HERE is nothing that has more ftartled our English audience, than the Italian Recitativo at it's first entrance upon the ftage. People were wonderfully furprised to hear generals finging the word of command, and ladies deli vering meffages in mufic. Our countrymen could not forbear laughing when they heard a lover chanting out a billetdoux, and even the fuperfcription of a letter fet to a tune. The famous blunder in an old play of Enter a king ' and two fiddlers folus,' was now no longer an abfurdity; when it was impoffible for a hero in a defart, or a princefs in her clofet, to fpeak any thing unaccompanied with mufical inftru

ments.

But however this Italian method of acting in Recitativo might appear at first hearing, I cannot but think it much more just than that which prevailed in our English opera before this innovation; the tranfition from an air to recitative mufic being more natural, than the paffing from a fong to plain and ordinary peaking, which was the common method in Purcell's operas.

The only fault I find in our prefent practice is the making ufe of the Italian Recitativo with English words.

To go to the bottom of this matter, I must obferve, that the tone, or, as the French call it, the accent of every nation in their ordinary fpeech is altogether different from that of every other people; as we may fee even in the Welsh and Scotch, who border fo near upon

For this reafon, the recitative rufic, in every language, fhould be as different as the tone or accent of each language; for otherwife, what may properly exprefs a paffion in one language, will not do it in another. Every one who has been long in Italy knows very well, that the cadences in the Recitativo bear a remote affinity to the tone of their voices in ordinary converfation, or, to fpeak more properly, are only the accents of their language made more mufical and tuneful.

Thus the notes of interrogation, or admiration, if the Italian music, if one may fo call them, which refemble their accents in difcourfe on fuch occafions, are not unlike the ordinary tones of an English voice when we are angry: infomuch that I have often feen our audiences extremely mistaken as to what has been doing upon the stage, and expecting to fee the hero knock down his meffenger, when he has been asking him a queftion; or fancying that he quarrels with his friend, when he only bids him good-morrow.

For this reafon the Italian artists cannot agree with our English musicians, in admiring Purcell's compofitions, and thinking his tunes fo wonderfully adapted to his words; because both nations do not always exprefs the fame paffions by the fame founds.

I am therefore humbly of opinion, that an English compofer fhould not follow the Italian recitative too fervilely, but make ufe of many gentle deviations from it, in compliance with his own native language. He may copy out of it all the lulling foftnefs and Dying Falls, as Shakespeare calls them, but should still remember that he ought to accommodate himfelf to an English audience; and by humouring the tone of our voices in ordinary converfation, have the fame regard to the accent of his own language, as thofe perfons had to their's whom he profelles to imitate.

It

It is obferved that several of the finging birds of our own country learn to fweeten their voices, and mellow the harthness of their natural notes, by practifing under thofe that come from warmer climates. In the fame manner I would allow the Italian opera to lend our English mufic as much as may grace and foften it, but never intirely to annihilate and destroy it. Let the infufion be as ftrong as you please, but ftill let the fubject-matter of it be English. A composer should fit his music to the genius of the people, and confider that the delicacy of hearing, and tafte of harmony, has been formed upon those founds which every country abounds with: in fhort, that mufic is of a relative nature, and what is harmony to one ear, may be diffonance to another.

The fame obfervations which I have made upon the recitative part of mufic, may be applied to all our fongs and airs in general.

Signior Baptift Lully acted like a man of fenfe in this particular. He found the French mufic extremely defective, and very often barbarous: however, knowing the genius of the people, the humour of their language, and the prejudiced ears he had to deal with, he did not pretend to extirpate the French mufic and plant the Italian in it's ftead; but only to cultivate and civilize it with innumerable graces and modulations which he borrowed from the Italian. By this means, the French mufic is now perfect in it's kind; and when you fay it is not fo good as the Italian, you only mean that it does not pleafe you fo well; for there is scarce a Frenchman who would not wonder to hear you give the Italian fuch a preference. The mufic of the French is indeed very properly adapted to their pronunciation and accent, as their whole opera wonderfully favours the genius of fuch a gay airy people. The chorus in which that opera abounds gives the parterre frequent opportunities of joining in concert with the stage.

This inclination of the audience to fing along with the actors, fo prevails with them, that I have sometimes known the performer on the ftage do no more in a celebrated fong, than the clerk of a parish-church, who ferves only to raise the pfalm, and is afterwards drowned in the mufic of the congregation. Every actor that comes on the ftage is a beau. The queens and heroines are fo painted, that they appear as ruddy and cherrycheeked as milk-maids. The fhepherds are all embroidered, and acquit themfelves in a ball better than our English dancing-mafters. I have feen a couple of rivers appear in red ftockings; and Alpheus, instead of having his head covered with fedge and bull-rushes, making love in a fair full-bottomed periwig, and a plume of feathers; but with a voice fo full of shakes and quavers, that I should have thought the murmurs of a country brook the much more agreeable mufic.

I remember the laft opera I saw in that merry nation, was the Rape of Proferpine, where Pluto, to make the more tempting figure, put himself in'a French equipage, and brings Afcalaphus along with him as his valet de chambre. This is what we call folly and impertinence; but what the French look upon as gay and polite.

I fhall add no more to what I have here offered, than that music, architecture, and painting, as well as poetry and oratory, are to deduce their laws and rules from the general fenfe and taste of mankind, and not from the principles of those arts themfelves; or in other words, the tafte is not to conform to the art, but the art to the taite. Mufic is not defigned to please only chromatic ears, but all that are capable of diftinguishing harsh from difagreeable notes. A man of an ordinary ear is a judge whether a paffion is expreffed in proper founds, and whether the melody of those founds be more or less pleasing.

C

N° XXX.