poised after dinner. I walk till I have perspired • five ounce and four scruples; and when I dif• cover, by my chair, that I am fo far reduced, ' I fall to my books, and study away three ounces • more: As for the remaining parts of the pound, I keep no account of them. I do not dine and 'fup by the clock, but by my chair, for when that • informs me my pound of food is exhausted, I * conclude myself to be hungry, and lay in another ' with all diligence. In my days of abstinence I lose a pound and an half, and on folemn fafts am two pounds lighter than on other days in the ، year. 'I allow myself, one night with another, a quar• ter of a pound of fleep within a few grains more • or less; and if upon my rifing I find that I have ⚫ not confumed my whole quantity, I take out ⚫ the rest in my chair. Upen an exact calculation • of what I expended and received the last year, ' which I always register in a book, I find the ' medium to be two hundred weight, so that I ⚫ cannot difcover that I am impaired one ounce ⚫ in my health during a whole twelvemonth. And yet, Sir, notwithstanding this my great care to < ballast myself equally every day, and to keep my body in its proper poife, so it is that I find my * felf in a fick and languishing condition. My complexion is grown very fallow, my pulse low, and my body hydropical. Let me therefore beg you, Sir, to confider me as your patient, and to ' give me more certain rules to walk by than those I have already observed, and you will very much • oblige. 'Your humble servant, This letter puts me in mind of an Italian epitaph written on the monument of a Valetudinarian; "Stavo ben, ma per star Meglio, sto qui:" which it is impossible to translate. The fear of death often proves mortal, and fets people on methods to save their lives, which infallibly destroy them. This is a reflection made by some historians, upon observing that there are many more thoufands killed in a flight than in a battle; and may be applied to those multitudes of imaginary fick perfons that break their constitutions by phyfic, and throw themselves into the arms of death, by endeavouring to escape it. This method is not only dangerous, but below the practice of a reasonable creature. To confult the preservation of life, as the only end of it, to make our health our business, to engage in no action that is not part of a regimen, or course of phyfic; are purposes so abject, fo mean, so unworthy human nature, that a generous foul would rather die than Fubmit to them. Besides, that a continual anxiety 'for life vitiates all the relishes of it, and casts a the preservation of life should be only a fecondary concern, and the direction of it our principal. If we have this frame of mind, we shall take the best means to preferve life, without being over solicitous about the event; and shall arrive at that point of felicity which Martial has mentioned as the perfection of happiness, of neither fearing nor wishing for death. In answer to the gentleman, who tempers his health by ounces and by fcruples, and, instead of complying with those natural folicitations of hunger and thirst, drowsiness or love of exercise, governs himself by the prescriptions of his chair, I shall tell him a short fable. Jupiter, says the Mythologift, to reward the piety of a certain countryman, promised to give him whatsoever he would afk: the countryman defired that he might have the management of the weather in his own estate: he obtained his request, and immediately diftributed rain, snow, and funshine among his several fields, as he thought the nature of the foil required. At the end of the year, when he expected to fee a more than ordinary crop, his harvest fell infinitely short of that of his neighbours; upon which, fays the fable, he defired Jupiter to take the weather again into his own hands, or that otherwse he should utterly ruin himself. W HEN I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster-abbey; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the folemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not difagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the church-yard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tomb-ftones and infcriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing elfe of the buried person, but that he was born upon one gloom over the whole face of nature; as it is im-day, and died upon another: the whole history of possible we should take delight in any thing that we are every moment afraid of lofing. I do not mean, by what I have here faid, that I think any one to blame for taking due care of their health. On the contrary, as chearfulness of mind, and capacity for business, are in a great measure Die eflects of a well-temper'd conftitution, a man cannot be at too much pains to cultivate and preferve it. But this care, which we are prompted to. not only by common fenfe, but by duty and in tinet, hould never engage us in groundless fors, melancholy apprehenfions, and imaginary tempers, which are natural to every man who more anxious to live than how to live, In short, his life being comprehenddd in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of fatire upon the departed persons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of feveral perfons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have founding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head. Γλυύκόν τε Μέδίνια τε Θερσιλοχόν τε. Ном. Glaucumque Glaucumque, Medontaque, Therfilochumque. VIRG. The life of these men is finely described in Holy Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering earth that some time or other had a place in the compofition of an human body, Upon this I began to confider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and foldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the fame common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undiftinguished in the fame promiscuous heap of matter. After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mortality, as it were in the lump; I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of the monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that if it were poffible for the dead perfon to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively modeft, that they deliver the character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood But to return to our fubject. I have left the repofitory of our English kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and difinal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations; but for my own part, though I am always ferious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature, in her deep and solemn scenes, with the fame pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those objects, which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate defire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I fee kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and difputes, I reflect with forrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and fome fix hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shali all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together. once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, No 27. SATURDAY, MARCH 31. I found there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed indeed that the present war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of perfons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean. I could not but be very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honour to the living as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a nation from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perufal of men of learning and genius before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesly Shovel's monument has very often given me great offence; instead of the brave rough English admiral, which was the diftinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is reprefented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long perriwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to the monument; forinstead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the fervice of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honour. The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, shew an infinitely greater tafte of antiquity and politenef. in their buildings, and works of this nature, than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their admirais, which have been erected at the public expence, represent them like themselves; and are adorned with roftral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful feftoons of fea-weed, thells, and coral. Ut nox longa, quibus mentitur amica, diosque IMITATED. Long as to him, who works for debt, the day; T HERE is scarce a thinking man in the world, who is involved in the business of it, but lives under a fecret impatience of the hurry and fatique he fuffers, and has formed a resolution to fix himself, one time or other, in fuch a state as is suitable to theend of his beng, You hear men every day in conversation profess that all the honour, power, and riches, which they propose to themfelves, cannot give fatisfaction enough to reward them for half the anxi ty they undergo in the pursuit or poffeffion of them. While men are in this temper, which happens very frequently, Low inconfifient are they with themselves! They ar wearied with the toil they bear, but cannot f thi their hearts to relinquish it; retirement is what they want, but they cannot betake themselves to it: while they pant after shade and covert, they still affect to appear in the most glittering scenes of life; but fure this is but just as reasonable as if a man should call for more lights, when he has a mind to go to fleep. - Since then it is certain that our own hearts 'deceive us in the love of the world, and that we cannot command ourselves enough to refign it, though we every day with ourselves difengaged from its allurements; let us not stand upon a formal taking of leave, but wean ourselves from them, while we are in the midst of them. It is certainly the general intention of the greater part of mankind to accomplish this work, and live according to their own approbation, as foon as they possibly can; but fince the duration of life is so uncertain, and that has been a common topic of difcourse ever since there was such a thing as life itself, how is it poffible that we should defer a moment the beginning to live according to the rules of reafon? The man of business has ever fome one point to carry, and then he tells himself he'll bid'adieu to all the vanity of ambition; the man of pleasure refolves to take his leave at least, and part civilly with his mistress; but the ambitious man is entangled every moment in a fresh pursuit, and the lover sees new charms in the object he fancied he could abandon. It is therefore a fantastical way of thinking, when we promise ourselves an alteration in our conduct from change of place, and difference of circumstances; the same paffions will attend us wherever we are till they are conquered; and we can never live to our fatisfaction in the deepest retirement, unless we are capable of living so in fome measure amidst the noise and business of the world. I have ever thought men were better known, by what could be observed of them from a perusal of their private letters, than any other way. My friend the clergyman, the other day, upon serious discourse with him concerning the danger of procrastination, gave me the following letters from persons with whom he lives in great friendship and intimacy, according to the good breeding and good sense of his character. The first is from a man of business, who is his convert; the fecond from one of whom he conceives good hopes; the third from one who is in no state at all, but carried one way and another by starts. Know not with what words to express to you the sense I have of the high obligation you have laid upon me, in the penance you enjoined me of doing fome good or other to a perion of worth every day I live. The station I am in fur knowledge I am the better man, from the influ 'ence aud authority you have over. • Sir, 6 'SIR, I • Your most obliged and R. O.' AM intirely convinced of the truth of what you were pleased to fay to me, when I was last with you alone. You told me then of the filly way I was in; but you told me so, as I faw you loved me, otherwife I could not obey your commands in letting you know my thoughts so fincerely as I do at present. "J know the crea"ture for whom I resign so much of my charac"ter," is all that you faid of her; but then the trißer has something in her so undesigning and ' harmless, that her guilt in one kind disappears by the comparison of her innocence in another. Will you, virtuous men, allow no alteration of of' fences? Must dear Chloe be called by the hard name you pious people give to common women? 6 I keep the folemn promise I made you in writing ' to you the state of my mind, after your kind ad' monition; and will endeavour to get the better of this fondness, which makes me so much her humble servant, that I am almost ashamed to fub• scribe myself yours, • SIR, T T. D.' HERE is no ftate of life so anxious as that of a man who does not live according to the • dictates of his own reason. It would feem odd ' to you, when I affure you that my love of retirement first of all brought me to court; but this will be no riddle, when I acquaint you that I placed myself here with a design of getting fo • much money as might enable me to purchase a handsome retreat in the country. At present my circumstances enable me, and my duty prompts me, to pass away the remaining part of my life in fuch a retirement as I at first proposed to myself; but to my great misfortune I have intirely lost the relish of it, and should now return to the country ' with greater reluctance than I at first came to court, ، I am so unhappy, as to know that what I am fond ' of are trifles, and that what I neglect is of the • greatest importance: in short, I find a contest in my own mind between reason and fashion. Ire' member you once told me, that I might live in the world and out of it at the fame time. me beg of you to explain this paradox more at • large to me, that I may conform my life, if poffible, both to my duty and my inclination, I am, Your most humble fervant, ⚫ nishes me with daily opportunities of this kind; No 28. MONDAY, APRIL 2. and the noble principle with which you have inspired me, of benevolence to all I have to deal • with, quickens my application in every thing I undertake. When I relieve merit from difcountenance, when I assist a friendless perfon, when I produce concealed worth, I am difpleased with • myself, for having defigned to leave the world in order to be virtuous. I am forty you decline the • occafions which the condition I am in might af• ford me of enlarging your fortures; but know I contribute more to your fatisfaction, when I ac I -Neque femper arcum Tendit Apollo. Let ، R. Β.' HOR. Od. II. x. 19. Nor does Apollo always bend his bow. Shall here present my reader with a letter from a projector, concerning a new office which he thinks may very much contribute to the embellifbment of the city, and to the driving barbarity out of our fireets. I confider it is a fatire upon projectors in general, and a lively picture of the whole art of modern criticifm. SIR, crea Bserving that you have thoughts of ting certain officers under you, for the inspection of several petty enormities which you • yourself cannot attend to; and finding daily ab✔ furdities hung out upon the sign-posts of this ci to the great scandal of foreigners, as well as those * of our own country, who are curious spectators of 'the fame; I do humbly propose that you would be pleased to make me your fuperintendant of all fach figures and devices as are or shall be made ufe ' of on this occafion; with full powers to rectify or expunge whatever I shall find irregular or defective. For want of fuch an officer, there is nothing like found literature and good sense to be met with in those objects, that are every where thrusting • themselves out to the eye, and endeavouring to become visible. Our treets are filled with blue boars, black swans, and red lions; not to mention • Aying pigs and hogs in armour, with many other creatures more extraordinary than any in the deferts of Afric. Strange! that one who has all • the birds and beasts in nature to choose out of, • should live at the fign of an Ens Rationis! • My first task therefore should be, like that of Hercules, to clear the city from monsters. In the • second place Iwould forbid, that creatures of jarring and incongruous natures should be joined together in the same sign; such as the Bell and the Neat'stongue, the Dog and Gridiron. The Fox and Goofe may be supposed to have met, but what has the Fox and Seven Stars to do together? And ' when did the Lamb and Dolphin ever meet, ex'cept upon a sign post? 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 * should affect it. I must however observe to you upon this subject, that it is usual for a young tradesman, at his first setting-up, to add to his ⚫ own fign that of the master whom he served; as ⚫ the husband, after marriage, gives a place to his mistress's arms in his own coat. This I take to ⚫ have given rife to many of those absurdities which ⚫ are committed over our heads; and, as I am informed, first occafioned the Three Nuns and a • Hare, which we see so frequently joined together. I would therefore establish certain rules, ' for the determining how far one tradesman 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 shop • to make use of a fign which bears some affinity to the wares in which it deals. What can be • more inconsistent, than to see a Bawd at the fign of the Angel, or a Tailor at the Lion? A Cook • should not live at the Boot, nor a Shoe-maker at the Roasted Pig; and yet, før want of this regulation, I have seen a Goat fet up before the door of a perfumer, and the French king's head at a fword cutler's. • An ingenious foreigner observes, that several • of those gentlemen who value thenselves upon • their families, and overlook such 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 ne. • cessary for posterity thus to set up the sign of their forefathers, I think it highly proper for those who actually profess the trace, to thew fome fuch marks of it before their doors. • When the name gives an occafion for an ingenious fign-post, I would likewise advise the owner to take that opportunity of letting the world know who he is. It would have been ridi'culous for the ingenious Mrs. Salmon to have 'lived at the sign of the trout; for which reafon • she has erected before her house the figure of the 6 fith that is her name-fake. Mr. Bell has likewife diftinguished himself by a device of the fame na. 'ture: and here, Sir, I must beg leave to observe to you, that this particular figure of a bell has given 'occasion to several pieces of wit in this kind. A man of your reading must know, that Abel Drugger gained great applause by it in the time of Ben Jonfon. Our apocryphal heathen God is also represented by this figure; which, in conjunction with the dragon, makes a very handsome picture • in several of our streets. As for the bell savage, ' which is the fign of a savage man standing by a • bell, I was formerly very much puzzled upon the 'conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the read. ing 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 translated by our countrymen the Bell-Savage. • This piece of philosophy will, I hope, convince you that I have made sign-posts mystudy, and con. sequently qualified myself for the employment • which I folicit at your hands. But before I con. ⚫ clude my letter, I must communicate to you ano• ther remark which I have made upon the subject ' with which I am now entertaining you, namely, that I can give a shrewd guess 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 punchbowl painted upon a fign near Charing-Cross, and very curioufly garnished, with a couple of angels ' hovering over it, and squeezing a lemon into it, I • had the curiofity to ask after the master of the house, and found, upon inquiry, as I had guessed by the little agrémens upon his fign, that he was ، a Frenchman. I know, Sir, it is not requifite for me to enlarge upon these hints to a gentleman • of your great abilities; so humbly recommending • myself to your favour and patronage. I remain, &c. I shall add to the foregoing letter, another which came to me by the fame penny-poft. From my own apartment near Charing-Cross. Honoured Sir, H AVING 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 swings upon a rope, • takes a pipe of tobacco, and drinks a glass of ale, like any reafonable creature. He gives great fa. tisfaction 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 same family whom I • design for my Merry-Andrew, as being an excellent mimic, and the greatest droil in the country where he now is. I hope to have this entertainment in a readiness for the next winter; and • doube not but it will please more than the opera • or puppet show. I will not say that a monkey • is a better man than some of the opera-heroes; but certainly he is a better representative of a man, than the most artificial compofition of F wood T HERE is nothing that has more startled our English audience, than the Italian Recitativo at its first entrance upon the stage. People were wonderfully surprised to hear generals finging the word of command, and ladies delivering messages in musie. Our countrymen could not forbear laughing when they heard a lover chanting out a billet-doux, and even the fuperfcription of a letter set 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 defert, or a princess in her closet, to speak any thing accompanied with mufical instruments. 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 music being more natural, than the paffing from a song to plain and ordinary speaking, which was the common method in Purcell's operas. The only fault I find in our present practice is 'the making use 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 speech is altogether different from that of every other people; as we may fee even in the Welch and Scotch, who border so near upon us. By the tone or ac cent, I do not mean the pronunciation of each particular word, but the found of the whole sentence, Thus it is very common for an English gentleman, when he hears a French tragedy, to complain that the actors of all them speak in a tone; and therefore he very wifely prefers his own countrymen, not confidering that a foreigner complains of the fame tone in an English actor. For this reafon, the recitative music, in every language, should be as different as the tone or accent of each language; for otherwise, 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 conversation, or, to speak more properly, are only the accents of their language made more musical and tuneful. Thus the notes of interrogation, or admiration, in the Italian mutio, if one may fo call them, which rosemble their accents in difcourse on fuch occaHons, 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 flage, and expecting to fee the hero knock down his ineffenger, when he has been asking him a question; or fan sying that he quarrels with his friend, when he only bids him good-morrow. : I am therefore humbly of opinion, that an English compofer should not follow the Italian reci tative too fervilely, but make use of many gentle deviations from it, in compliance with his own native language. He may copy out of it all the lul ling softness and Dying Falls, as Shakespear calls. them, but should still remember that he ought to accommodate himself to an English audience; and by humouring the tone of our voices in ordinary conversation, have the fame regard to the accent of his own language, as those perfons had to theirs whom he professes to imitate. It is observed that several of the finging birds of our own country learn to sweeten their voices, and mellow the harshness of their natural notes, by practifing under those that come from warmer climates. In the same manner I would allow the Italian opera to lead our English musicas muchas may grace and foften it, but never intirely to annihilate and destroy it. Let the infusion be as strong as you please, but still 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 taste of harmony, has been formed upor those sounds which every country abounds with in thort, that music is of a relative nature, and what is harmony to one car, may be diffonance to another. The fame obfervations which I have made upon the recitative part of music, may be applied to at our fongs and airs in general, Signior Baptist Lully acted like a man of sense in this particular. He found the French music extremely defective and very often barbarous; how ever, knowing the genius of the people, the hu mour of their language, and the prejudiced ears he had to deal with, he did not pretend to extirpate the French music, and plant the Italian in its stead; but only to cultivate and civilize it with innumerable graces and modulations which he borrow'd from the Italian. By this means, the French mufic is now perfect in its kind; and when you fay it is not so good as the Italian, you only mean that it does not pleafe you so well; for there is scarce a Frenchman who would not wonder to hear you give the Italian such a preference. The music of the French is indeed very properly adapted to their pronunciation and accent, as their whole opera wonderfully favours the genius of such a gay airy people. The chorufses 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, so prevails with them, that I have sometimes known the performer on the stage do no more in a celebrated song, than the clerk of a parish-church, who ferves only to raife the pfalm, and is afterwards drowned in the mufic of the congregation. Every actor that comes on the stage is a beau. The queens and heroines are so painted, that they appear as ruddy and cherry-cheek'd as milk-maids. The shepherds are all embroider'd, and acquit themselves in a ball better than our English dancingmasters. I have seen a couple of rivers appear in red stockings; and Alpheus, instead of having his head covered with fedge and bull-rushes, making |