odd appearance when they were mustered together in an army. There were men whose bodies were stuck full of darts, and women whose eyes were burning-glasses; men who had hearts of fire, and women that had breasts of snow. It would be endless to describe several monsters of the like nature that composed this great army; which immediately fell asunder, and divided itself into two parts, the one half throwing themselves behind the banners of TRUTH, and the others behind those of FALSEHOOD. The goddess of FALSEHOOD was of a gigantic stature, and advanced some paces before the front of her army; but as the dazzling light which flowed from TRUTH began to shine upon her, she faded insensibly; insomuch that in a little space she looked rather like an huge phantom than a real substance. At length, as the goddess of TRUTH approached still nearer to her, she fell away en tirely, and vanished amidst the brightness of her presence; so that there did not remain the least trace or im pression of her figure in the place where she had been seen. As at the rising of the sun the constellations grow thin, and the stars go out one after another, till the whole hemisphere is extinguished; such was the vanishing of the godess; and not only of the goddess herself, but of the whole army that attended her, which sympathized with their leader, and shrunk into nothing in proportion as the goddess disappeared. At the same time the whole temple sunk, the fish betook themselves to the streams, and the wild beasts to the woods, the fountains recovered their murmers, the birds their voices, the trees their leaves, the flowers their scents, and the whole face of nature its true and genuine appearance. Though I still continued asleep, I fancied myself as it were awakened out of a dream, when I saw this region of prodigies restored to woods and rivers, fields and meadows. Upon the removal of that wild scene of wonders, which had very much disturbed my imagination, I took a full survey of the persons of WIT and TRUTH; for indeed it was impossible to look upon the first without seeing the other at the same time. There was behind them a strong compact body of figures. The genius of HEROIC POETRY appeared with a sword in her hand, and a laurel on her head. TRAGEDY was crowned with cypress, and co vered with robes dipped in blood. SATIRE had smiles in her look, and a dagger under ker garment. RHETORIC was known by her thunderbolt; and COMEDY by her mask. After several other figures, EPIGRAM marched up in the rear, who had been posted there at the beginning of the expedition, that he might not revolt to the enemy, whom he was suspected to favour in his heart. I was very much awed and delighted with the appearance of the god of WIT; there was something so amiable and yet so piercing in his looks, as inspired me at once with love and terror. As I was gazing on him, to my unspeakable joy he took a quiver of arrows from his shoulder, in order to make me a present of it: but as I was reaching out my hand to receive it of him, I knocked it against a chair, and by that means waked. NO. 64.-MONDAY, MAY 14. 1711. [BY STEELE.] Hic vivimus ambitiosa Paupertate omnes The face of wealth in poverty we wear. ON FASHION. C. JUV. SAT. iii. 183. THE most improper things we commit in the conduct of our lives, we are led into by the force of fashion. Instances might be given, in which a prevailing custom makes us act against the rules of nature, law, and common sense: but at present I shall confine my consideration to the effect it has upon mens minds, by looking into our behaviour when it is the fashion to go into mourning. The custom of representing the grief we have for the loss of the dead by our habits, certainly had its rise from the real sorrow of such as were too much distressed to take the proper care they ought of their dress. By degrees it prevailed, that such as had this inward oppression upon their minds made an apology for not joining with the rest of the world in their ordinary diversions, by a dress suited to their condition. This therefore was at first assumed by such only 242 as were under real distress: to whom it was a relief that they had nothing about them so light and gay as to be irksome to the gloom and melancholy of their inward reflections, or that might misrepresent them to others. In process of time this laudable distinction of the sorrowful was lost, and mourning is now worn by heirs and widows. You see nothing but magnificence and solemnity in the equipage of the relict, and an air of release from servitude in the pomp of a son who has lost a wealthy father. This fashion of sorrow is now become a generous part of the ceremonial between princes and sovereigns, who in the language of all nations are styled brothers to each other, and put on the purple upon the death of any potentate with whom they live in amity. Courtiers, and all who wish themselves such, are immediately seized with grief. from head to foot upon this disaster to their prince: so that one may know by the very buckles of a gentleman usher what degree of friendship any deceased monarch maintained with the court to which he belongs. A good courtier's habit and behaviour is hieroglyphical on these occasions: he deals much in whispers, and you may see he dresses according to the best intelligence. The general affectation among men of appearing greater than they are, makes the whole world run into the habit of the court. You see the lady, who the day before was as various as a rainbow, upon the time appointed for beginning to mourn, as dark as a cloud. This humour does not prevail only on those whose fortunes can support any change in their equipage, nor on those only whose incomes demand the wantonness of new appear. ances; but on such also who have just enough to clothe them. An old acquaintance of mine, of ninety pounds ayear, who has naturally the vanity of being a man of fashion deep at his heart, is very much put to it to bear the mortality of princes. He made a new black suit upon the death of the King of Spain, he turned it for the King of Portugal, and he now keeps his chamber while it is scouring for the Emperor. He is a good economist in his extravagance, and makes only a fresh black button upon his iron gray suit for any potentate of small territories; he indeed adds his crape hat-band for a prince whose exploits he has admired in the Gazette. But whatever com pliments may be made on these occasions, the true mourners are the mercers, silk-men, lace-men, and milliners. A prince of a merciful and royal disposition would reflect with great anxiety upon the prospect of his death, if he considered what numbers would be reduced to misery by that accident only; he would think it of moment enough to direct, that in the notification of his departure, the honour done to him might be restrained to those of the household of the prince to whom it should be signified. He would think a general mourning to be in a less degree the same ceremony which is practised in barbarous nations, of killing their slaves to attend the obsequies of their kings. I had been wonderfully at a loss for many months together to guess at the character of a man who came now and then to our coffee house: he ever ended a newspaper with this reflection, "Well, I see all the foreign princes are in good health." If you asked, "Pray, Sir, what says the Post man from Vienna? he answered, "Make us thankful, the German princes are all well.” What does he say from Barcelona?" He does not speak but that the country agrees very well with the new Queen." After very much inquiry, I found this man of universal loyalty was a wholesale-dealer in silk's and ribands his way is, it seems, if he hires a weaver or workman, to have it inserted in his articles, "That all this shall be well and truly performed, provided no foreign potentate shall depart this life within the time abovementioned," It happens in all public mournings, that the many trades which depend upon our habits, arę, during that folly, either pinched with present want, or terrified with the apparent approach of it. All the atonement which men can make for wanton expences (which is a sort of insulting the scarcity under which others labour) is, that the superfluities of the wealthy give supplies to the necessities of the poor; but instead of any other good arising from the affectation of being in courtly habits of mourning, all order seems to be destroyed by it; and the true honour which one court does to another on that occasion loses its force and efficacy. When a foreign minister beholds the court of a nation (which flourishes in riches and plenty) lay aside, upon the loss of his master, all marks of splendour and magnificence, though the head of such a joyful people, he will conceive a greater idea of the honour done to his master, than when he sees the generality of the people in the same habit. When one is afraid to ask the wife of a tradesman whom she has lost of her family, and after some preparation endeavours to know whom she mourns for; how ridiculous is it to hear her explain herself, "That we have lost one of the house of Austria!" Princes are elevated so highly above the rest of mankind, that it is a presumptuous distinction to take a part in honours done to their memories, except we have authority for it, by being related in a particular manner to the court which pays the veneration to their friendship, and seems to express on such an occasion the sense of the uncertainty of human life in general, by assuming the habit of sorrow, though in the full possession of triumph and loyalty. No. 65.—TUESDAY, MAY 15. 1711. [BY STEELE.] DEMETRI teque TIGELLI Dicipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras. R. HOR. I. SAT. X. 90. DEMETRIUS and TIGELLIUS, know your place; ON THE COMEDY OF THE MAN OF MOde. AFTER having at large explained what wit is, and described the false appearances of it, all that labour seems to be an useless inquiry, without some time be spent in considering the application of it. The seat of wit, when one speaks as a man of the town and the world, is the playhouse: I shall therefore fill this paper with reflec tions upon the use of it in that place. The application of wit in the theatre has as strong an effect upon the manners of our gentlemen, as the taste of it has upon the writings of our authors. It may, perhaps, look like a very presumptuous work, though not foreign from the duty of a SPECTATOR, to tax the writings of such as |