NO. 32.-FRIDAY, APRIL 6. 1711.

[BY STEELE.]

Nil illi larva aut tragicis opus esse cothurnis. HOR. I. SAT. 64. He wants no tragic vizard to increase

His natural deformity of face.

ON DEFORMITY.

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.

MR SPECTATOR,

Who

"YOUR making public the late trouble I gave you,. you will find to have been the occasion of this. should I meet at the coffee-house door the other night but my old friend Mr President? I saw somewhat had pleased him; and as soon as he had cast his eye upon me,

Oho, Doctor, rare news from London (says he): the SPECTATOR has made honourable mention of the club (man), and published to the world his sincere desire to be a member, with a recommendatory description of his phiz: and though our constitution has made

no particular provision for short faces, yet his being an extraordinary case, I believe we shall find a hole for him to creep in at; for I assure you he is not against the canon and if his sides are as compact as his joles, he need not disguise himself to make one of us.' I presently called for the paper, (NO 1.) to see how you looked in print; and after we had regaled ourselves a while upon the pleasant image of our proselyte, Mr President told me I should be his stranger at the next night's club where we were no sooner come, and pipes brought, but Mr President began an harangue upon your introduction to my epistle, setting forth with no less volubility of speech than strength of reason, That a speculation of this nature was what had been long and much wanted; and that he doubted not but it would be of inestimable value to the public, in reconciling even of bodies and souls; in composing and quieting the minds of men under all corporal redundancies, deficiencies, and irre gularities whatsoever; and make every one sit down content in his own carcase, 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 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 extravagancies; 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 head-strings and garters had been made accessary, and actually forfeited, only because folks must needs quarrel with their own shadows? and who (con. tinues he) but is deeply sensible 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 contexture of our external parts, or certain natu ral and invincible dispositions to be fat or lean? when a little more of Mr SPECTATOR's philosophy would take off all this; and 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 other, 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 Haarlem 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 tun. On the other hand, there is Squire LATH, a proper gentleman of fifteen hundred pounds per annum, as well as of an unblameable life and conversation; yet would not I be the Squire for half his estate; for if it was as much more, he would freely part with it all for a pair of legs to his mind: whereas in the reign of our first King EDWARD of glorious memory, nothing more modish than a brace of your fine taper supporters; and his majesty, without an inch of calf, managed affairs in peace and war as laudably as the bravest and most polite of his ancestors; and was as terrible to his neighbours under the royal name of LONGSHANKS, as COEUR DE LION to the Saracens before him. If we look farther back into history, we shall find that ALEXANDER the Great wore his head a little over the left shoulder; and then not a soul stirred out till he had adjusted his neck bone, the whole nobility addressed the prince and each other obliquely, and all matters of importance were concerted and carried on in the Macedonian court with their polls on one side. For about the first century nothing made more noise in the world than Roman noses, and then not a word of them till they revived again in eightyeight. Nor is it so very long since RICHARD III. set up half the backs of the nation; and high shoulders, as well as high noses, were the top of the fashion. Bat to come to ourselves, gentlemen, though I find by my quinquennial observations that we shall never get ladies enough to make a party in our own country, yet might

we meet with better success among some of our allies. And what think you if our board sat for a Dutch piece? Truly I am of opinion, that as odd as we appear in flesh and blood, we should be no such strange things in mezzotinto. But this project may rest till our number is complete; and this being our election night, give me leave to propose Mr SPECTATOR. You see his inclinations, and perhaps we may not have his fellow.'

"I found most of them (as is usual in all such cases) were prepared; but one of the seniors (whom by the bye Mr President had taken all this pains to bring over) sat still, and cocking his chin, which seemed only to be levelled at his nose, very gravely declared, That in case he had had sufficient knowledge of you, no man should have been more willing to have served you; but that he, for his part, had always had regard to his own conscience, as well as other people's merit; and he did not know but that you might be a handsome fellow ; for, as for your own certificate, it was every body's business to speak for themselves.' Mr President immediately-retorted, A handsome fellow! why he is a wit, Sir, and you know the proverb;' and to ease the old gentleman of his scruples, cried, That for matter of merit it was all one, you might wear a mask.' This threw him into a pause, and he looked desirous of three days to consider on it; but Mr President improved the thought, and followed him up with an old story, That wits were privileged to wear what masks they pleasedin all ages; and that a vizard had been the constant crown of their labours, which was generally presented them by the hand of some satyr, and sometimes of APOLLO himself. For the truth of which he appealed to the frontispiece of several books, and particularly to the English JUVENAL, to which he referred him; and only added, That such authors were the Larvati or Larva donati of the ancients.' This cleared up all; and in the conclusion you were chosen probationer; and Mr President put round your health as such, protesting, That though indeed he talked of a vizard, he did not believe all the while you had any more occasion for it than the cat a mountain;' so that all you have to do now is to pay your fees, which are here very reasonable, if you

are not imposed upon; and you may style yourself Informis Societatis Socius which I am desired to acquaint you with; and, upon the same, I beg you to accept of the congratulation of, Sir,

Oxford, March 21.

Your obliged, humble servant,

A. C."

A FRIEND of mine has two daughters, whom I will call LETITIA 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 lives seem to turn. LETITIA 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 insupportably vain and insolent towards all who have to do with her. DAPHNE, who was almost twenty before one civil thing had ever been said to her, found herself obliged to acquire some accomplishments to make up for the want of those attractions which she saw in her sister. PoorDAPHNE was seldom submitted to in a debate where.