T TATE, HE club of which I am a member, is very luckily composed of fuch persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed as it were out of the most confpicuous classes of mankind; by this means I am furnished with the greatest variety of hints and materials, and know every thing that passes in the different quarters and divisions, not only of this great city, but of the whole kingdom. My readers too have the fatis faction to find that there is no rank or degree among them who have not their representative in this club, and that there is always fomebody present who will take care of their respective interests, that nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringement of their just right and privileges. I last night fat very late in company with this select body of friends, who entertained me with several remarks which they and others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the various success which they had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the foftest manner he could, that there were fome ladies (but for your comfort, says Will, they are not those of the most wit) that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera and the puppet-show; that fome of them were likewise very much surprised, that I should think such serious points as the drefs and equipage of persons of quality, proper subjects for raillery. He was going on when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up short, and told him, that the papers he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their wives and daughters were the better for them; and farther added, that the whole city thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of particular intrigues and cuckoldoms. In short, fays Sir Andrew, if you avoid that foolish beaten road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper muft needs be of general use. Upon this my friend the Templar told Sir Andrew, that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner; that the city had always been the province for fatire; and that the wits of king Charles's time jested upon nothing elseduring his whole reign, He then shewed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the flate and court had never been accounted too facred for ridicule, how great foever the perfons might be that patronized them. But after all, fays he, I think your raillery has made too great an excurfion, in attacking several persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can shew me any precedent for your behaviour in that particular. My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said nothing all this while, began his speech with a pish! and told us, that he wondered to fee fo inany men of sense so very ferious upon fooleries. Let our good friend, says he, attack every one that deserves it; I would only advise you, Mr. Specta tor, applying himself to me, to take care how you meddle with country squires; they are the ornaments of the English nation; men of good heads and found bodies! and let me tell you, fome of them take it ill of you, that you mention foxhunters with fo little respect, Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this cafion. What he said was only to commend my prudence in not touching upon the army, and advised me to continue to act difcreetly in that point. By this time I found every subject of my speculations was taken away from me, by one or other of the club; and began to think myself in the condition of the good man that had one wife who took dislike to his grey hairs, and another to his black, 'till by their picking out what each of thent had an aversion to, they left his head altogether bald and naked. While I was thus musing with myself, my wor thy friend the clergyman, who, very luckily for me was at the club that night, undertook my cause. He told us, that he wondered any order of persons should think themselves too confiderable to be advised; that it was not quality, but innocence, which exempted men from reproof; that vice and folly ought to be attacked wherever they could be met with, and especially when they were placed in high and confpicuous stations of life. He further added, that my paper would only ferve to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly exposed those who are already depressed, and in fome measure turned into ridicule by the meanness of their conditions and circumstances. He afterwards proceeded to take notice of the great use this paper might be of to the public, by reprehending those vices which are too trivial for the chastisement of the law, and too fantastical for the cognifance of the pulpit. He then advised me to profecute my undertaking with chearfulnefs, and affured me, that whoever might be difpleased with me, I should be approved by all those whose praises do honour to the persons on whom they are bestowed. The whole club pays a particular deference to the discourse of this gentleman, and are drawn into what he says, as much by the candid ingenuous manner with which he delivers himself, as by the strength of argument and force of reason which he makes use of. Will Honeycomb immediately agreed, that what he had faid was right; and that for his part, he would not insist upon the quarter which he had demanded for the ladies. Sir Andrew gave up the city with the fame frankness. The Templar would not stand out; and was followed by Sir Roger and the Captain; who all agreed that I should be at liberty to carry the war into what quarter I pleated; provided I continued to combat with criminals in a body, and to afsfault the yice without hurting the perfon.. This debate, which was held for the good of mankind, put me in mind of that which the Ro man triumvirate were formerly engaged in, for their destruction. Every man at first stood hard for his friend, 'till they found that by this means they should fpoil their proscription; and at length, making a facrifice of all their acquaintance and relations, furnished out a very decent execution. Having thus taken my resolutions to march on boldly in the cause of virtue and good sense, and to annoy there adversaries in whatever degree or rank of men they may be found; I shall be deaf for the future to all the remonftrances that shall be made to me on this account. If Punch grows extravagant, I shall reprimand him very freely if the stage becomes a nursery of folly and impertinence, I shall not be afraid to animadvert upon it, In short, if I meet with any thing in city, court, or country, that shocks modesty or good-manners, I shall use my utmost endeavours to make an example of it. I must however intreat every particular perfon, who does me the honour to be a reader of this paper, never to think himself, or any one of his friends or enemies, aimed at in what is faid: for I promise him, never to draw a faulty character which does not fit at least a thousand people; or to publish a single paper, that is not written in the spirit of benevolence, and with a love to mankind. N° 35. TUESDAY, APRIL 10. Rifu inepto res ineptior nulla eft. Nothing fo foolish as the laugh of fools. A C MONG all kinds of writing, there is none in which authors are more apt to miscarry than in works of humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel. It is not an imagination that teems with monsters, an head that is filled with extravagant conceptions, which is capable of furnishing the world with diversions of this nature; and yet if we look into the productions of several writers, who fet up for men of humour, what wild irregular fancies, what natural distortions of thought, do we meet with? If they speak nonfenfe, they believe they are talking humour; and when they have drawn together a scheme of absurd inconsistent ideas, they are not able to read it over to themselves without laughing. These poor gentlemen endeavour to gain themselves the reputation of wits and humourists, by fuch monstrous conceits as almost qualify them for Bedlam; not confidering that humour should always lie under the check of reason, and that it requires the direction of the nicest judgment, by so much more as it indulges itself in the most boundless freedoms. There is a kind of nature that is to be observed in this fort of compositions, as well as in all other; and a certain regularity of thought which must difcover the writer to be a man of fense, at the fame time that he appears altogether given up to caprice. For my part, when I read the delirious mirth of an unskilful author, I cannot be fo barbarous as to divert myself with it, but am rather apt to pity the man, than to laugh at any thing he writes. The deceafed Mr. Shadwell, who had himself a preat deal of the talent which I am treating of, represents an empty rake, in one of his plays, as very much furprized to hear one say that breakint of windows was not humour: and I question not but several Erglish readers will be as much startled to hear me affirm, that many of those ra ving incoherent pieces, which are often spread among us, under odd chimerical titles, are rather the offsprings of a distempered brain, than works of humour. It is indeed much easier to describe what is not humour, than what is; and very difficult to define it otherwife than, as Cowley has done wit, by negatives. Were I to give my own notions of it, I would deliver them after Plato's manner, in a kind of allegory, and by supposing humour to be a person, deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the following genealogy. Truth was the founder of the family, and the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was the father of Wit, married a lady of a collateral line called Mirth, by whom he had issue Humour, Humour therefore being the youngest of this illustrious family, and descended from parents of fuch different difpofitions, is very various and unequal in his temper; sometimes you see him putting on grave looks and a folemn habit, sometimes airy in his behaviour and fantastic in his dress; infomuch that at different times he appears as ferious as a judge, and as jocular as a Merry-Andrew. But as he has a great deal of the mother in his conftitution, whatever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh. But fince there is an impostor abroad, who takes upon him the name of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world; to the end that well-meaning persons may not be impofed upon by cheats, I would defire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage, and to examine him strictly, whether or no he be remotely allied to the Truth, and lineally descended from Good Senfe; if not, they may conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewife diftinguish hím by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he feldom gets his company to join with him. For as True Humour generally looks ferious, while every body laughs about him. False Humour is always laughing, whilst every body about him looks serious. I shall only add, if he has not in him a mixture of both parents, that is, if he would pass for the offspring of Wit without Mirth, or Mirth without Wit, you may conclude him to be altogether spurious, and a cheat. The impostor of whom I am speaking, descends originally from Falshood, who was the mother of Nonsense, who was brought to bed of a fon called Frenzy, who married one of the daughters of Folly, commonly known by the name of Laughter, on whom he begot that monstrous infant of which I have been here speaking. I shall fet down at length the genealogical table of False Humour, and, at the fame time, place under it the genealogy of True Humour, that the reader may at one view behold their different pedigrees and relations. might in particular enumerate the many fons and daughters which he has begot in this island. But as this would be a very invidious task, I shall only observe in general, that False Humour differs from the True, as a monkey does from a man. First of all, He is exceedingly given to little apish tricks and buffoonries. Secondly, He so much delights in mimickry, that it is all one to him whether he expofes by it vice and folly, luxury and avarice; or on the contrary, virtue and wisdom, pain and po verty. Thirdly, He is wonderfully unlucky, infomuch that he will bite the hand that feeds him, and endeavour to ridicule both friends and foes indifferently. For having but small talents, he must be merry where he can, not where he should. Fourthly, Being intirely void of reason, he purfues no point either of morality or instruction, but is ludicrous only for the fake of being fo. Fifthly, Being incapable of any thing but mock-reprefentations, his ridicule is always personal, and aimed at the vicious man, or the writer; not at the vice, or at the writing. I have here only pointed at the whole species of false humourists; but as one of my principal defigns to this paper is to beat down that malignant spirit, which discovers itself in the writings of the present age, I shall not fcruple, for the future, to fingle out any of the small wits, that infest the world with fuch compofitions as are ill-natured, immoral, and abfurd. This is the only exception which I shall make to the general rule I have prescribed myself, of attacking Multitudes: fince every honest man ought to look upon himself as in a natural state of war with the libeller and lampooner, and to annoy them wherever they fall in his way. This is but retaliating upon them, and treating them as they treat others, N° 36. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, --------Immania monftra Perferimus.------- C VIRG, Æn. iii. 583, Things the most out of nature we endure. Shall not put myself to any farther pains for this day's entertainment, than barely to publish the letters and titles of petitions from the playhouse, with the minutes I have made upon the latter for my conduct in relation to them. UP 'Drury-Lane, April the gth. ' animated utenfils to your projector. The hangings you formerly mentioned are run away; as ' are likewise a set of chairs, cach of which was 'met upon two legs going through the Rofe ta'vern at two this morning. We hope, Sir, you ' will give proper notice to the town that we are ' endeavouring at these regulations; and that we 'intend for the future to shew no monsters, but ' men who are converted into fuch by their own ' industry and affectation. If you will please to be at the house to-night, you will see me do my ' endeavour to shew some unnatural appearances ' which are in vogue among the polite and wellbred, I am to represent, in the character of a fine lady dancing, all the distortions which are 'frequently taken for graces in mien and gesture. This, Sir, is a specimen of the method we shall 'take to expose the monsters which come within the notice of a regular theatre; and we defire nothing more gross may be admitted by you • spectators for the future. We have cashiered ' three companies of theatrical guards, and design ' our kings shall for the future make love, and fit ' in council, without an army; and wait only your directions whether you will have them reinforce King Porus, or join the troops of Ma'çedon. Mr. Penkethman refolves to confult his 'Pantheon of heathen gods in oppofition to the ' oracle of Delphos, and doubts not but he shall turn the fortunes of Porus, when he perfonates him. I am defired by the company to inform 'you, that they submit it to your cenfures; and ' fhall have you in greater veneration than Her'cules was in of old, if you can drive monsters ' from the theatre; and think your merit will be as much greater than his, as to convince is more 'than to conquer, I am, Sir. SIR, W Your most obedient servant, T. D. HEN I acquaint you with the great and unexpected vicissitudes of my fortune, I doubt not but I shall obtain your pity and favour. I have for many years last past been ' thunderer to the play-house; and have not only ' made as much noise out of the clouds as any predecessor of mine in the theatre that ever bore 'that character, but also have defcended and 'spoke on the stage as the bold thunder in the Re hearsal. When they got me down thus low, 'they thought fit to degrade me further, and make ' me a ghost. I was contented with this for 'these two last winters; but they carry their tyranny still further, and not satisfied that I am banished from above ground, they have given ' me to understand that I am wholly to depart 'their dominions, and take from me even my 'defire of you is, that if your undertaker thinks 'fit to use fire-arms, as other authors have done, ' in the time of Alexander, I may be a cannon against Porus, or else provide for me in the burning of Persepolis, or what other method you shall think fit. PON reading the project which is fet forth in one of your late papers, of making an alliance between all the bulls, bears, ele-fubterraneous employment. Now, Sir, what I phants, and lions, which are separately expo'ed to public view in the cities of London and • Westminster; together with the other wonders, shows, and monsters, whereof you made respective mention in the faid speculation; We, the chief actors of this play-house, met and fat upon the faid defign. It is with great delight, that we 4 expect the execution of this work; and in order to contribute to it, we have given warning to all SALMONEUS of Covent-Garden." our ghofts to get their livelihoods where they their expulfion from thence, with certificates of can, and not to appear among us after daybreak of the 16th inftant. We are refolved to take this opportunity to part with every thing which does not contribute to the representation of human life; and shall make a free gift of all The petition of all the devils of the play-house in behalf of themfelves and families, fetting forth their good life and conversation, and praying relief. The merit of this petition referred to Mr. Chr. Rich, who made them devils, The The petition of the grave-digger in Hamlet, to command the pioneers in the expedition of Alex ander. Granted. rected to a certain lady whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, and, as it contained matters of consequence, defired me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accordingly I waited upon The petition of William Bullock, to be He- her ladyship pretty early in the morning, and was phestion to Penkethman the Great. Granted, ADVERTISEMENT. A widow gentlewoman, well born both by fa'ther and mother's fide, being the daughter of Thomas Prater, once an eminent practitioner in ' the law, and of Letitia Tattle, a family well ' known in all parts of this kingdom, having 'been reduced by misfortunes to wait on several great perfons, and for some time to be teacher at a boarding-school of young ladies, giveth no'tice to the public, that she hath lately taken a house near Bloomsbury-Square, commodioufly ' situated next the fields in a good air; where the teaches all forts of birds of the loquacious kinds, as parrots, starlings, magpies, and others, to • imitate human voices in greater perfection than ever yet was practised. They are not only in'structed to pronounce words distinctly, and in a proper tone and accent, but to speak the language with great purity and volubility of tongue, together with all the fashionable phrases and ' compliments now in use either at tea-tables or visiting-days. Those that have good voices may ⚫ be taught to fing the newest opera-airs, and, if ' required, to speak either Italian or French, pay'ing fomething extraordinary above the common rates. They whose friends are not able to pay ⚫ the full prices may be taken as half-boarders, She teaches fuch as are designed for the diversion ' of the public, and to act in enchanted woods on ⚫ the theatres, by the great. As she has often ob' served with much concern how indecent an education is usually given these innocent creatures • which in some measure is owing to their being placed in rooms next the street, where, to the 'great offence of chaste and tender ears, they learn ribaldry, obscene fongs, and immodest expref. fions from passengers, and idle people, as also ⚫ to cry fish, and card-matches, with other useless parts of learning to birds who have rich friends; • sme has fitted up proper and neat apartments for ' them in the back part of her faid house; where she suffers none to approach them but herself, and a servant-maid who is deaf and dumb, and 'whom she provided on purpose to prepare their • food and cleanse their cages; having found by long experience how hard a thing it is for those ⚫ to keep filence who have the use of speech, and the dangers her scholars are exposed to by the • strong impressions that are made by harsh sounds ، and vulgar dialects. In short, if they are birds ' of any parts or capacity, the will undertake to * render them so accomplished in the compass of a twelve-month, that they shall be fit convería tion for such ladies as love to choose their friends and companions out of this species.' defired by her woman to walk into her lady's li- Upon my looking into the books, I found there were some few which the lady had bought for her own use, but that most of them had been got together, either because she had heard them praised, or because she had seen the authors of them. Among several that I examined, I very well remember these that follow : Sherlock upon Death. The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. Sir William Temple's Essays. Father Malbranche's Search after Truth, tranf lated into English. A Book of Novels. The Academy of Compliments. Culpepper's Midwifery. The Ladies Calling, Tales in Verse, by Mr. Durfey, bound in red leather, gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places. All the Claffic Authors in wood. A fet of Elzevirs by the fame hand. (lelia: which opened of itself in the place that defcribes two lovers in a bower. Baker's Chronicle, Advice to a daughter, The New Atalantis, with a key to it. A prayer Book; with a bottle of Hungary wa ter by the fide of it. Dr. Sacheverell's Speech. Fielding's Trial. Taylor's Holy Living and dying. La Ferte's Instructions for Country Dances. I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these, and feveral other authors, when Leonora entered, and upon my presenting her with the letter from the knight, told me, with an unspeakable grace, that the hoped Sor Roger was in good health: I answered Yes, for I hate long speeches, and after a bow or two retired. Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is still a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for two or three years, and, being unfortunate in her first marriage, has taken a refolution never to venture upon a fecond. She has no children to take care of, and leaves the management of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. Eut as the mind naturally finks into a kind of lethargy, and falls asleep, that is not agitated by fome favourite pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the paffions of her sex into a love of books and retirement. She converses chiefly with men, as she has often faid herself, but it is only in their writings; and admits of very few male-vifitants, except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure, and without scandal. As her reading has lain very much among romances, it has given her a very particular turn of thinking, and discovers itself even in her house, her gardens, and her furniture. Sir Roger has enterta ned me an hour together with a defcription of her country-feat, which is fituated in a kind of wilderness, about an hundred miles distant from London, and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks about her are shaped into artificial grottoes covered with wood-bines and jessamines. The woods are cut into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with cages of turtles. The springs are made to run among pebbles, and by that means taught to murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collesed into a beautiful lake, that is inhabited by a couple of swans, and empties itself by a little rivulet which runs through a green meadow, and is known in the family by the name of The Purling Stream. The knight likewife tells me, that this lady preferves her game better than any of the gentlemen in the country, not, says Sir Roger, that she sets fo great a value upon her partridges and pheasants, as upon her laiks and nightingales. For the fays that every bird which is killed upon her ground, will spoil a concert, and that she shall certainly miss him the next year. When I think how oddly this lady is improved by learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments which the has formed to herself, how much more valuable does the appear than those of her fex, who employ themselves in diversions that are lefs reasonable, though more in fashion ? What improvements would a woman have made, who is so fufceptible of impressions from what the reads, had the been guided to fuch books as have a tendency to enlighten the understanding and rectify the passions, as well as to those which are of little more use than to divert the imagination? But the manner of a lady's employing herself ufefully in reading shall be the fubject of another paper, in which I design to recommend such particular books as may be proper for the improvement of the fex, And as this is a fubject of a very nice nature, I shall defire my correspondents to give me their thoughts upon it. No. 38. FRIDAY, APRIL 13. One wou'd not please too much. A C MART Late conversation which I fell into, gave me beauty in a very handsome woman, and as much an opportunity of obferving a great deal of the one, and abfurdity in the other, by the mere wit in an ingenious man, turned into deformity in force of affectation. The fair one had fomething in her person upon which her thoughts were fixed, that the attempted to shew to advantage in every look, word, and gesture. The gentleman was as diligent to do justice to his fine parts, as the lady tion on the stretch to find out fomething uncomto her beauteous form: you might fee his imaginawhile the writhed herself into as many different mon, and what they call bright, to entertain her; postures to engage him. When the laughed, her lips were to fever at a greater distance than ordinary, to shew her teeth; her fan was to point to fomewhat at a distance, that in the reach the utterly mistaken in what the faw, falls back, smiles may discover the roundness of her arm; then she is that her tucker is to be adjusted, her bofom expofat her own folly, and is so wholly discomposed, ed, and the whole woman put into new airs and had time to think of fomething very pleasant to graces, While she was doing all this, the gallant say next to her, or make fome unkind observation happy effects of affectation, naturally led me to on fome other lady to feed her vanity. These unlook into that strange state of mind, which so generally discolours the behaviour of most people we meet with. earth, takes occafion to observe, that every thought The learned Dr. Burnet, in his theory of the is attended with confciousness and representativenefs; the mind has nothing presented to it but what is immediately follow'd by a reflection or confcience, which tells you whether that which act of the mind difcovers itself in the gesture, by a was so presented is graceful or unbecoming. This proper behaviour in these whose consciousness goes of their present thought or action; but betrays an no further than to direct them in the just progrefs interruption in every second thought, when the confciousness is employed in too fondly approving a man's own conceptions; which fort of confcioufness is what we call affectation. As the love of praise is implanted in our befoms as a strong incentive to worthy actions, it is a things that should be wholly indifferent. Wovery difficult task to get above a defire of it for men, whose hearts are fixed upon the pleafure they |