'SIR, Echold a ripe and melting maid Bound 'prentice to the wanton trade: importance, ex preffed without any air of gravity. I SIR, To the Spectator. TAKE the freedom of afking your advice in behalf of a young country kinfwoman of mine who is lately come to town, and under my care for her education. She is very pretty, but you can't imagine how unformed a creature it is. She comes to my hands just as nature left her, half finished, and without any acquired improvements. When I look on her I ⚫ often think of the Belle Sauvage mentioned in one of your papers. Dear Mr. Spectator, help me to make her comprehend the visible graces of fpeech, and the dumb eloquence of motion; for fhe is at present a perfect stranger to both. She knows no way to exprefs herself but by her tongue, and that always to fignify her meaning. Her eyes ferve her yet only to fee with, • and she is utterly a foreigner to the language of looks and glances. In this I fancy you could help her better than any body. I have beftowed two months in teaching her to figh when he is not concerned, and to fmile when fhe is not pleased; and am afhamed to own fhe makes little or no improvement. Then she is no more able now to walk, than fhe was to go fat a year old. By walking you will eafily know "I mean that regular but cafy motion, which gives our perfons fo irrififtible a grace as if we moved to mufic, and is a kind of difengaged figure, or, if I may fo fpeak, recitative dancing. But the want of this I cannot blame in her, for I find fhe has no ear, and means nothing by walking but to change her place. I could pardon too her blushing, if the knew how to carry herself in it, and if it did not manifeftly injure her complexion. They tell me you are a perfon who have feen I am, B EING employed by Celimene to make up and fend to you her letter, I make bold to recommend the cafe therein mentioned to your ⚫ confideration, because she and I happen to differ a little in our notions. I, who am a rough. man, am afraid the young girl is in a fair way to be spoiled; therefore pray, Mr. Spectator, let us have your opinion of this fine thing called Fine-Breeding; for I am afraid it differs too much from that plain thing called GoodBreeding. Your most humble fervant." The general mistake among us in the educating our children, is, that in our daughters we take care of their perfons and neglect their minds; in our fons, we are fo intent upon adorning their minds, that we wholly neglect their bodies. It is from this that you fhall fee a young lady cele brated and admired in all the affemblies about town, when her elder brother is afraid to come that we frequently obferve a man's life is half fpent before he is taken notice of; and a woman in the prime of her years is out of fashion and other occafion, and at present stick to the girl neglected. The boy I fhall confider upon fome and I am the more inclined to this, because I have feveral letters which complain to me that my female readers have not understood me fome days last past, and take themfelves to be unconcerned in the prefent turn of my writings. When is capable of forming one fimple notion of any a girl is fafely brought from her nurfe, before the thing in life, the is delivered to the hands of her dancing-mafter; and with a collar round her neck, the pretty wild thing is taught a fantastical gravity of behaviour, and forced to a parti cular way of holding her head, heaving her breaft, and moving with her whole body; and all this under pain of never having an hufband, if fhe fteps, looks, or moves awry. This gives the young lady wonderful workings of imagination, what is to pafs between her and this husband that fhe is every moment told of, and for whom she feems to be educated. Thus her fancy is engaged. to turn all her endeavours to the ornament of her perfon, as what muft determine her good and ill in this life; and the naturally thinks, if the is tail enough, the is wife enough for any thing for which her education makes her think he is defigned. To make her an agreeable perfon is the main purpose of her parents; to that is all their cofts, to that is all their care directed: and from this general folly of parents we owe our prefent numerous race of coquettes. Thefe reflections puzzle me, when I think of giving my advice on the fubject of managing the wild thing mentioned in the letter of my correfpondent. But fure there is a middle way to be followed; the management of a young lady's perfon is not to be over-looked, but the erudition of her mind is much more to be regarded. According as this is managed, you will fee the mind follow the appetites of the body, or the body exprefs the vir tues of the mind. N° 67. THURSDAY, MAY 17. LUCIAN, in one of his dialogues, introduces a philofopher chiding his friend for his being a lover of dancing, and a frequenter of balls. The other undertakes the defence of his favourite diverfion, which, he says, was at first invented by the goddess Rhea, and preferved the life of Jupiter himself, from the cruelty of his father Saturn. He proceeds to fhew, that it had been approved by the greatest men in all ages; that Homer calls Merion a Fine Dancer; and fays, that the graceful mien and great agility which he had acquired by that exercife, diftinguifhed him above the reft in the armies, both of Greeks and Trojans. 'Among the rest, I observed one, which, I 'think, they call Hunt the Squirrel, in which while the woman flies the man purfues her; but as foon as the turns, he runs away, and 'fhe is obliged to follow. The moral of this dance does, I think, very ' aptly recommend modesty and difcretion to the 'female fex. But as the beft inftitutions are liable to cor'ruptions, fo, Sir, I must acquaint you, that very great abufes are crept into this entertain6 ment. I was amazed to fee my girl handed by, and handing, young fellows with so much familiarity; and I could not have thought it had been in the child. They very often made ufe ' of a most impudent and lascivious fep called Setting, which I know not how to defcribe to you, but by telling you that it is the very reverse of back to back. At laft an impudent young dog bid the fiddlers play a dance called Moll Pately, and after having made two or three capers, < ran to his partner, locked his arms in hers, and whisked her round cleverly above ground in such a manner, that I, who fat upon one of the lowest benches, faw further above her shoe than I can think fit to acquaint you with. I 'could no longer endure these enormities; wherefore, juft as my girl was going to be made a whirligig, I ran in, feized on the child, and carried her home. He adds, that Pyrrhus gained more reputation by inventing the dance which is called after his name, than by all his other actions: that the Lacedæmonians, who were the braveft people in Greece, gave great encouragement to this diverfion, and made their Hormus, a dance much refembling the French Brawl, famous over all Afia: that there were ftill extant fome Theffalian ftatues erected to the honour of their best dancers and that he wondered how his brother philofopher could declare himself against the opinions of thofe two perfons, whom he profeffed fo much to admire, Homer and Hefiod; the latter of which compares valour and dancing toge- Sir, I am not yet old enough to be a fool. I ther; and fays, That the gods have bestowed 'fuppofe this diverfion might be at first invent• fortitude on fome men, and on others a difpo-ed to keep up a good understanding between fition for dancing.' Laftly, he puts him in mind that Socrates, who, in the judgment of Apollo, was the wifeft of men, was not only a profeffed admirer of this exercife in others, but learned it himself when he was an old man. The morofe philofopher is fo much affected by these, and fome other authorities, that he becomes a convert to his friend, and defires he would take him with him when he went to his next ball. young men and women, and fo far I am not againit it; but I fhall never allow of these things. I know not what you will fay to this cafe at prefent, but am fure that, had you been with me, you would have seen matter of great fpeculation. I am, Sir, yours, &c.' I must confefs I am afraid that my correfpondent had too much reafon to be a little out of humour at the treatment of his daughter; but I I love to shelter myself under the examples of conclude that he would have been much more great men; and I think, I have sufficiently fhew- fo, had he seen one of those kiffing dances in ed that it is not below the dignity of thefe my which Will. Honeycomb affures me they are oblifpeculations to take notice of the following let-ged to dwell almost a minute on the fair one's ter, which, I fuppofe, is fent me by fome fubftantial tradesman about Change. · SIR, I AM a man in years, and by an honeft induftry in the world have acquired enough to give my children a liberal education, though 'I was an utter stranger to it myself. My eldeft daughter, a girl of fixteen, has for fome ' time been under the tuition of Monfieur Ri'gadoon, a dancing-master in the city; and I • was prevailed upon by her and her mother to • go last night to one of his balls. I muft own to you, Sir, that having never been at any fuch ' place before, I was very much pleafed and furprifed with that part of his entertainment which he called French Dancing. There were feveral lips, or they will be too quick for the mufic, and dance quite out of time. I am not able however to give my final fentence against this diverfion; and am of Mr. Cowley's opinion, that fo much of dancing, at least, as belongs to the behaviour and an handsome carriage of the body, is extremely useful, if not ab. folutely neceffary. We generally form fuch ideas of people at first fight, as we are hardly ever perfuaded to lay afide afterwards: for this reafon, a man would wish to have nothing difagreeable or uncomely in his ap-' proaches, and to be able to enter a room with a good grace. I might add, that a moderate knowledge in the little rules of good-breeding gives a man fome affurance, and makes him easy in all companies. M For quired much time and little capacity. I have feen half the Æneid turned into Latin rhymes by one of the Beaux-Efprits of that dark age; who fays in his preface to it, that the Æneid wanted nothing but the sweets of rhyme to make it the moft perfect work in its kind. I have likewife Teen an hymn in hexameters to the Virgin Mary, which filled a whole book, though it confifted but of the eight following words. Tot, tibi, funt, Virgo, dotes, quot, fidera, Calo. Thou haft as many virtues, O Virgin, as there are ftars in Heaven. The poet rung the changes upon thefe eight feveral words, and by that means made his verses almost as numerous as the virtues and the ftars which they celebrated. It is no wonder that men who had so much time upon their hands, did not only refore all the antiquated, pieces of falfe wit, but enriched the world with inventions of their own. It was to this age that we owe the production of anagrams, which is nothing else but a tranfmutation of one word into another, or the turning of the fame set of letters into different words; which may change night into day, or black into white, If chance, who is the goddess that prefides over thefe forts of compofition, shall fo direct. I're member a witty author, in allufion to this kind of writing, calls his rival, who, it feems, was diftorted and had his limbs fet in places that did not properly belong to them, The anagram of a man. When the anagramift takes a name to work upon, he confiders it at firft as a mine not broken up, which will not fhew the treasure it contains till he shall have spent many hours in the fearch of it; for it is his business to find out one word that conceals itself in another, and to examine the let ters in all the variety of stations in which they can poffibly be ranged. I have heard of a gentleman, who, when this kind of wit was in fashion, 'endeavoured to gain his mistress's heart by it. She was one of the finest women of her age, and known by the name of the lady Mary Boon. The lover not being able to make any thing of Mary, by certain liberties indulged to this kind of writing, converted it into Moll: and after having shut himfelf up for half a year, with indefatigable industry produced an anagram. Upon the prefenting it to his mistress, who was a little vexed in her heart to fee herself degraded into Mell Boon, he told him, to his infinite furprise, that he had miftaken her furname, for that it was not Boon but Bohun. Effufus labor -Ibi omnis The lover was thunder-ftruck with his misfortune infomuch that in a little time after he lost his fenfes, which indeed had been very much impaired by ⚫ that continual application he had given to his anagram. The acroftic was probably invented about the -fame time with the anagram, though it is impoffible to decide whether the inventor of the one or the other were the greater blockhead. The fimple acroftic is nothing but the name or title of a person or thing made out of the initial letters of feveral verfes, and by that means written, after the manner of the Chinese, in a perpendicular line. But befides these there are Compound acrostics, when the principal letters ftand two or three deep. I have teen foms of them where the verfes have not بداية only been edged by a name at each extremity, but have had the fame name running down like a feam through the middle of the poem. There is another near relation of the anagrams and acrostics, which is commonly called a chronogram. This kind of wit appears very often on many modern medals, efpecially thofe of Germa ny, when they reprefent in the infcription the year in which they were coined. Thus we fee on a medal of Guftavus Adolphus the following words, CHRISTVS DUX ERGO TRIVMPHVS. If you take the pains to pick the figures out of the feveral words, and range them, in their proper order. you will find they amount to MDCXVVVII, or 1627, the year in which the medal was stamped ; for as fome of the letters diftinguish themfelves from the reft, and over-top their fellows, they are to be confidered in a double capacity, both as letters and as figures. Your laborious German wits will turn over a whole dictionary for one of these ingenious devices. A man would think they were fearching after an apt claffical term, but instead of that they are looking out a word that has an L, an M, or a D in it. When therefore we meet with any of thefe infcriptions, we are not fo much to look in 'em for the thought, as for the year of the Lord. The Bouts Rimez were the favourites of the French nation for a whole age together, and that at a time when it abounded in wit and learning. They were a lift of words that rhyme to one another, drawn up by another hand, and given to a poet, who was to make a poem to the rhymes in the fame order that they were placed upon the lift; the more uncommon the rhymes were, the more extraordinary was the genius of the poet that could accommodate his verses to them. I do not know any greater instance of the decay of wit and learning among the French, which generally follows the decienfion of Empire, than the endeavouring to restore this foolish kind of wit. If the reader will be at the trouble to fee examples of it, let him look into the new Mercure Galant; where the author every month gives a lift of rhymes to be filled up by the ingenious, in order to be communicated to the public in the Mercure for the fucceeding month. That for the month of No vember laft, which now lies before me, is as follows. had made use of the four following rhymes, Amaryllis, Phillis, Marne, Arne, defiring him to give me his opinion of it. He told me immediately, that my verfes were good for nothing. And upon my aking his reafon, he faid, because the rhymes are too common; and for that reafon easy to be put into verfe. Marry, fays I, if it be fo, I am very well rewarded for all the pains I have been at. But by Monfieur Gombaud's leave, notwithstanding the feverity of the criticifm, the verfes were good.' Vid. MENAGIANA. Thus far the learned Menage, whom I have tranflated word for word, The firft occafion of thefe Bouts Rimez made them in fome manner excufable, as they were talks which the French ladies used to impofe on their lovers. But when a grave author, like him abovementioned tasked himself, could there be any thing more ridiculous? Or would not one be apt to believe that the author played booty, and did not make his lift of rhymes till he had finished his poem? I fhall only add, that this piece of falfe wit has been finely ridiculed by Monfieur Sarafin, in a poem intituled, La Defaite des Bouts-Rimex, The Rout of the Bouts-Rimez. I must fubjoin to this last kind of wit the double rhymes, which are ufed in doggrel poetry, and generally applauded by ignorant readers. If the thought of the couplet in fuch compofitions is good, the rhyme adds little to it; and if bad, it will not be in the power of the rhyme, to recommend it. I am afraid that great numbers of thofe who admire the incomparable Hudibras, do it more on account of thefe doggrel rhymes, than of the parts that really deferve admiration. I am fure I have heard the and Pulpit, drum ecclefiaftic, Was beat with fist instead of a stick There was an ancient fage philofopher Who had read Alexander Rofs overmore frequently quoted, than the finest pieces of wit in the whole poem. N° 61: THURSDAY, MAY 10. Non equidem ftudeo, bullatis ut mibi nugis 'Tis not indeed my talent to engage In lofty trifles, or to fwell my page With wind and noise. T C of fome of the greatest authors in the Greek tongue. Cicero has fprinkled several of his works with puns, and in his book, where he lays down the rules of oratory, quotes abundance of fayings as pieces of wit, which alfo upon examination. prove arrant puns. But the age in which the Pun chiefly flourished, was the reign of King James the Firft. That learned monarch was himself a tolerable punfter, and made very few bishops or privy-counfellors that had not fome time, or other fignalized themselves by a clinch, or a Conundrum. It was therefore in this age that the pun appeared with pomp and dignity, It had before been admitted into merry fpeeches and ludicrous compofitions, but was now delivered with great gravity from the pulpit, or pronounced in the most folemn manner at the council-table. The greatest authors, in their most serious works, made. frequent ufe of puns. The fermons of Bishop. Andrews, and the tragedies of Shakespear, are full of them. The finner was punned into re pentance by the former; -as in the latter nothing is more ufual than to fee a hero weeping and quibbling for a dozen lines together. I must add to thefe great authorities, which feem to have given a kind of sanction to this piece of falfe wit, that all the writers of rhetoric have treated of punning with very great refpect, and divided the several kinds of it into hard names, that are reckoned among the figures of speech, and recommended as ornaments in difcourfe. I remember a country schoolmaster of my acquaintance told me once, that he had been in company with a gentleman whom he looked upon to be the greatest paragrammatift among the moderns. Upon inquiry, I found my learned friend had dined that day with Mr. Swan, the famous punfter; and defiring him to give me fome account of Mr. Swan's converfation, he told me that he generally talked in the Paranomafia, that he fometimes gave into the Ploce, but that in his humble opinion he fhined moft in the Antanaclafis. I must not here omit, that a famous University of this land was formerly very much infefted with puns; but whether or no this might not arife from the fens and marshes in which it was fituated, and which are now drained, I must leave to the deter mination of more skilful naturalists, After this fhort hiftory of punning, one would wonder how it fhould be fo entirely banished out. PERS. Sat, v. 19. of the learned world as it is at prefent; especially fince it had found a place in the writings of the moft ancient polite authors. To account for this we must confider, that the first race of authors, who were the great heroes in writing, were deftitute of all rules and arts of criticism and for that reafon, though they excel later writers in greatnefs of genius, they fall fhort of them in accuracy and correctnefs. The moderns cannot reach their beauties, but can avoid their imperfections, When the world was furnished with these authors of the first eminence, there grew up another fet of writers, who gained themfelves a reputation by the remarks which they made on the works of thofe who preceded them. It was one of the cmployments of thefe fecondary authors to diftinguish the feveral kinds of wit by terms of art, and to confider them as more or lefs perfect, according as they were founded in truth. It is no wonder therefore, that even fuch authors as Ifocrates, Plato, and Cicero, fhould have fuch little blemishes as are not to be met with in authors of a much inferior character, who have written fince thofe DRYDEN. HERE is no kind of falfe wit which has been fo recommended by the practife of all ages, as that which confifts in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of Punhing. It is indeed impoffible to kill a weed, which the foil has a natural difpofition to produce. The feeds of punning are in the minds of all men; and though they may be fubdued by reafon, re-. flection, and good fenfe, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest genius that is not broken and cultivated by the rules of art. Imitation is natural to us, and when it does not raife the mind to poetry, painting, mufic, or other more noble arts, it often breaks out in puns and quibbles. Ariftotle, in the eleventh chapter of his book of rhetoric, defcribes two or three kinds of puns, which he calls paragrams, among the beauties of good writing, and produces inftances of them out quired much time and little capacity. I have feen half the Æneid turned into Latin rhymes by one of the Beaux-Efprits of that dark age; who fays in his preface to it, that the Æneid wanted nothing but the fweets of rhyme to make it the moft perfect work in its kind. I have likewife Teen an hymn in hexameters to the Virgin Mary, which filled a whole book, though it confifted but of the eight following words. Tot, tibi, funt, Virgo, dotes, quot, fidera, Calo. Thou haft as many virtues, O Virgin, as there are ftars in Heaven. The poet rung the changes upon these eight several words, and by that means made his verfes almoft as numerous as the virtues and the ftars which they celebrated. It is no wonder that men who had fo much time upon their hands, did not only refore all the antiquated, pieces of falfe wit, but enriched the world with inventions of their own. It was to this age that we owe the production of anagrams, which is nothing else but a tranfmutation of one word into another, or the turning of the same set of letters into different words; which may change night into day, or black into white, If chance, who is the goddefs that prefides over thefe forts of compofition, shall fo direct. I're member a witty author, in allufion to this kind of writing, calls his rival, who, it feems, was diftorted and had his limbs fet in places that did not properly belong to them, The anagram of a When the anagramift takes a name to work upon, he confiders it at firft as a mine not broken up, which will not fhew the treasure it contains till he fhall have spent many hours in the fearch of it; for it is his bufinefs to find out one word that conceals itself in another, and to examine the let ters in all the variety of stations in which they can poffibly be ranged. I have heard of a gentleman, who, when this kind of wit was in fashion, 'endeavoured to gain his mistress's heart by it. She was one of the finest women of her age, and known by the name of the lady Mary Boon. The lover not being able to make any thing of Mary, by certain liberties indulged to this kind of writing, converted it into Moll: and after having fhut himfelf up for half a year, with indefatigable industry produced an anagram. Upon the prefenting it to his mistress, who was a little vexed in her heart to see herself degraded into Mell Boon, he told him, to his infinite furprise, that he had miftaken her furname, for that it was not Boon but Bohun. Effufus labor Ibi omnis The lover was thunder-ftruck with his misfortune infomuch that in a little time after he loft his fenfes, which indeed had been very much impaired by that continual application he had given to his anagram. The acroftic was probably invented about the -fame time with the anagram, though it is impoffible to decide whether the inventor of the one or the other were the greater blockhead. The fimple acroftic is nothing but the name or title of a perfon or thing made out of the initial letters of feveral verfes, and by that means written, after the manner of the Chinese, in a perpendicular line. But befides these there are Compound acroftics, when the principal letters ftand two or three deep. I have teen fome of them where the verfes have not only been edged by a name at each extremity, but have had the fame name running down like a feam through the middle of the poem. There is another near relation of the anagrams and acroftics, which is commonly called a chronogram. This kind of wit appears very often on many modern medals, efpecially thofe of Germany, when they reprefent in the infcription the year in which they were coined. Thus we fee on a medal of Guftavus Adolphus the following words, CHRISTVS DUX ERGO TRIVMPHVS. If you take the pains to pick the figures out of the feveral words, and range them, in their proper order. you will find they amount to MDCXVVVII, or 1627, the year in which the medal was stamped for as fome of the letters diftinguish themfelves from the reft, and over-top their fellows, they are to be confidered in a double capacity, both as letters and as figures. Your laborious German wits will turn over a whole dictionary for one of these ingenious devices. A man would think they were fearching after an apt claffical term, but instead of that they are looking out a word that has an L, an M, or a Din it. When therefore we meet with any of thefe infcriptions, we are not fo much to look in 'em for the thought, as for the year of the Lord. The Bouts Rimez were the favourites of the French nation for a whole age together, and that at a time when it abounded in wit and learning. They were a lift of words that rhyme to one another, drawn up by another hand, and given to a poet, who was to make a poem to the rhymes in the fame order that they were placed upon the lift; the more uncommon the rhymes were, the more extraordinary was the genius of the poet that could accommodate his verfes to them. I do not know any greater inftance of the decay of wit and learning among the French, which generally follows the decienfion of Empire, than the endeavouring to restore this foolish kind of wit. If the reader will be at the trouble to fee examples of it, let him look into the new Mercure Galant; where the author every month gives a lift of rhymes to be filled up by the ingenious, in order to be communicated to the public in the Mercure for the fucceeding month. That for the month of No vember laft, which now lies before me, is as follows. |