a very regular account of it; for which reason I
hope you will pardon me that I so abruptly subscribe
myself,
"Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
"T. B.

"I forgot to tell you, that Albina, who has six votaries in this club, is one of your readers."-R.

puppet-зhow was not a suitable entertainment for Alexander the Great; and that it might be introduced more properly, if we suppose the conqueror touched upon that part of India which is said to be inhabited by the pygmies. But this objection was looked upon as frivolous, and the proposal immediately overruled. Our projector farther added, that after the reconciliation of these two kings, they might invite one another to dinner, and either of them entertain his guest with the German artist, Mr. Pinkethman's heathen gods, or any of the like diversions which shall then chance to be in vogue.

strange animals in town, whether birds or beasts, they may be either let loose among the woods, or driven across the stage by some of the country people of Asia. In the last great battle, Pinkethman is to personate King Porus upon an elephant, and is to be encountered by Powell, representing Alexander the Great, upon a dromedary, which nevertheless Mr. Powell is desired to call by the name of Bucephalus. Upon the close of this great decisive battle, No. 31.] THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 1711. when the two kings are thoroughly reconciled, to Sit mihi fas audita loqui VIRG. Æn. vi. 266. show the mutual friendship and good correspondence What I have heard, permit me to relate. that reigns between them, they both of them go toLAST night, upon my going into a coffee-house gether to a puppet-show, in which the ingenious Mr. not far from the Haymarket Theatre, I diverted my-Powell, junior, may have an opportunity of display. self for above half-an-hour with overhearing the dis-ing his whole art of machinery, for the diversion of course of one, who, by the shabbiness of his dress, two monarchs. Some at the table urged, that a the extravagance of his conceptions, and the hurry of his speech, I discovered to be of that species who are generally distinguished by the title of projectors. This gentleman, for I found he was treated as such by his audience, was entertaining a whole table of listeners with the project of an opera, which he told us had not cost him above two or three mornings in the contrivance, and which he was ready to put in execution provided he might find his account in it. He said, that he had observed the great trouble and inconvenience which ladies were at, in travelling up and down the several shows that are exhibited in different quarters of the town. The dancing monkeys are in one place; the puppet-show in another; the opera in a third; not to mention the lions, that are almost a whole day's journey from the politer part of the town. By this means people of figure are forced to lose half the winter after their coming to town, before they have seen all the strange sights about it. In order to remedy this great inconvenience, our projector drew out of his pocket the scheme of an opera, entitled, The Expedition of Alexander the Great; in which he had disposed all the remarkable shows about town among the scenes and decorations of his piece. The thought, he confessed, was not originally his own, but that he had taken the hint of it from several performances which he had seen upon our stage; in one of which there was a raree-show; in another a ladder-dance; and in others a posture-man, a moving picture, with many curiosities of the like nature.

This expedition of Alexander opens with his consulting the oracle of Delphos, in which the dumb conjuror who has been visited by so many persons of quality of late years, is to be introduced as telling his fortune. At the same time Clinch of Barnet is represented in another corner of the temple, as ringing the bells of Delphos, for joy of his arrival. The tent of Darius is to be peopled by the ingenious Mrs. Salmon, where Alexander is to fall in love with a piece of wax-work, that represents the beautiful Statira. When Alexander comes into that country, in which Quintus Curtius tells us the dogs were so exceeding fierce that they would not lose their hold, though they were cut to pieces limb by limb, and that they would hang upon their prey by their teeth when they had nothing but a mouth left, there is to be a scene of Hockley in the Hole, in which is to be represented all the diversions of that place, the bullbaiting only excepted, which cannot possibly be exhibited in the theatre, by reason of the lowness of the roof. The several woods in Asia, which Alexander must be supposed to pass through, will give the audience a sight of monkeys dancing upon ropes, with many other pleasantries of that ludicrous species. At the same time, if there chance to be any

This project was received with very great applause by the whole table. Upon which the undertaker told us, that he had not yet communicated to us above half his design; for that Alexander being a Greek, it was his intention that the whole opera should be acted in that language, which was a tongue he was sure would wonderfully please the ladies, especially when it was a little raised and rounded by the Ionic dialect; and could not but be acceptable to the whole audience, because there are fewer of them who understand Greek than Italian. The only difficulty that remained, was how to get performers, unless we could persuade some gentlemen of the universities to learn to sing, in order to qualify themselves for the stage; but this objection soon vanished when the projector informed us that the Greeks were at present the only musicians in the Turkish empire, and that it would be very easy for our factory at Smyrna to furnish us every year with a colony of musicians, by the opportunity of the Turkey fleet; besides, says he, if we want any single voice for any lower part in the opera, Lawrence can learn to speak Greek, as well as he does Italian, in a fortnight's time.

The projector having thus settled matters to the good-liking of all that heard him, he left his seat at the table, and planted himself before the fire, where I had uninckily taken my stand for the convenience of overhearing what he said. Whether he had observed me to be more attentive than ordinary, I cannot tell, but he had not stood by me above a quarter of a minute, but he turned short upon me on a sudden, and catching me by a button of my coat, attacked me very abruptly after the following manner. Besides, Sir, I have heard of a very extraordinary genius for music that lives in Switzlerland, who has so strong a spring in his fingers, that he can make the board of an organ sound like a drum, and if I could but procure a subscription of about ten thousand pounds every winter I would undertake to fetch him over, and oblige him by articles to set every thing that should be sung upon the English stage." After this he looked full in my face, expecting I would make an answer, when, by good luck, a gen

tleman that had entered the coffee-house since the projector applied himself to me, hearing him talk of his Swiss compositions, cried out in a kind of laugh, "Is our music then to receive farther improvements from Switzerland ?" This alarmed the projector, who immediately let go my button, and turned about to answer him. I took the opportunity of the diver sion which seemed to be made in favour of me, and laying down my penny upon the bar, retired with some precipitation.-C.

No. 32. FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1711.
Nil illi larva aut tragicis opus esse cothurnis.
HOR. I Sat. v. 64.

He wants no tragic vizor to increase
His natural deformity of face.

THE late discourse concerning the statutes of the Ugly Club, having been so well received at Oxford, that, contrary to the strict rules of the society, they have been so partial as to take my own testimonial, and admit me into that select body; I could not restrain the vanity of publishing to the world the honour which is done me. It is no small satisfaction that I have given occasion for the President's shewing both his invention and reading to such advantage as my correspondent reports he did: but it is not to be doubted there were many very proper hums and pauses in his harangue, which lose their ugliness in the narration, and which my correspondent (begging his pardon) has no very good talent at representing. I very much approve of the contempt the society has of beauty. Nothing ought to be laudable in a man, in which his will is not concerned; therefore our society can follow nature, and where she has thought fit, as it were, to mock herself, we can do so too, and be merry upon the occasion.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

you first advance, viz. That our faces are not of our own choosing, people had been transported beyond all good breeding, and hurried themselves into unaccountable and fatal extravagances; as, how many impartial looking-glasses had been censured and calumniated, nay, and sometimes shivered into ten thousand splinters, only for a fair representation of the truth? How many bead-strings and garters had been made accessary and actually forfeited, only because folks must needs quarrel with their own shadows? And who,' continues he, but is deeply sensible, that one great source of the uneasiness and misery of human life, especially amongst those of distinction, arises from nothing in the world else, but too severe a contemplation of an indefeasible con texture of our external parts, or certain natural and invincible dispositions to be fat or lean?-when a little more of Mr. Spectator's philosophy would take off all this. In the mean time let them observe, that there is not one of their grievances of this sort, but perhaps, in some ages of the world, has been highly in vogue, and may be so again; nay, in some country or another, ten to one is so at this day. My Lady Ample is the most miserable woman in the world, purely of her own making. She even grudges herself meat and drink, for fear she should thrive by them; and is constantly crying out, In a quarter of a year more I shall be quite out of all manner of shape! Now the lady's misfortune seems to be only this, that she is planted in a wrong soil; for go but to the other side of the water, it is a jest at Haerlem to talk of a shape under eighteen stone. These wise traders regulate their beauties as they do their butter, by the pound; and Miss Cross, when she first arrived in the Low Countries, was not computed to be so handsome as Madam Van Brisket by near half a ton. On the other hand, there is 'Squire Lath, a proper gentleman of 1,500l. per annum, as well as of unblamable life and conversation; yet would I not be the esquire for half his estate; for if it was as much more, he would freely part with it all for a pair of legs to his mind. Whereas, in the reign of our first Edward of glorious memory, nothing more modish than a brace of your fine taper

"Your making public the late trouble I gave you, you will find to have been the occasion of this. Who should I meet at the coffee-house door the other night, but my old friend Mr. President? I saw somewhat had pleased him; and as soon as he had cast his eye upon me, 'Oho, doctor, rare news from London,' says he; the Spectator has made honour-supporters; and his majesty, without an inch of calf, able mention of the club (man,) and published to managed affairs in peace or war as laudably as the the world his sincere desire to be a member, with a bravest and most politic of his ancestors; and was recommendatory description of his phiz; and though as terrible to his neighbours under the royal name cur constitution has made no particular provision for of Longshanks, as Coeur de Lion to the Saracens short faces, yet his being an extraordinary case, I before him. If we look farther back into history, we believe we shall find a hole for him to creep in at; shall find that Alexander the Great wore his head a for I assure you he is not against the canon; and if little over his left shoulder, and then not a soul his sides are as compact as his joles, he need not dis- stirred out till he had adjusted his neck-bone: the guise himself to make one of us.' I presently called whole nobility addressed the prince and each other for the paper, to see how you looked in print; and obliquely, and all matters of importance were conafter we had regaled ourselves awhile upon the plea- certed and carried on in the Macedonian court, with sant image of our proselyte, Mr. President told me their polls on one side. For about the first century I should be his stranger at the next night's club; nothing made more noise in the world than Roman where we were no sooner come, and pipes brought, but noses, and then not a word of them till they revived Mr. President began an harangue upon your intro- again in eighty-eight. Nor is it o very long since duction to my epistle, setting forth with no less vo- Richard the Third set up half the backs of the nalubility of speech than strength of reason, That a tion; and high shoulders, as well as high noses, were speculation of this nature was what had been long the top of the fashion. But to come to ourselves, and much wanted! and that he doubted not but it gentlemen, though I find by my quinçennial obser would be of inestimable value to the public, in recon-vations, that we shall never get ladies enough to make ciling even of bodies and souls; in composing and quieting the minds of men under all corporeal redundancies, deficiencies, and irregularities whatsoever; and making every one sit down content in his own carcass, though it were not perhaps so mathematically put together as he could wish.' And again, How that for want of a due consideration of what

*

a party in our own country, yet might we meet with better success among some of our allies. And what think you if our board sat for a Dutch piece? Truly I am of opinion, that as odd as we appear in flesh

whom Dryden, in the plates to his translation of Virgil, bad • On the accession of King William III., in compliment to reas always represented with a Roman nose.

and blood, we should be no such strange things in insupportably vain and insolent towards all who have mezzo-tinto. But this project may rest till our number is complete; and this being our election night, give me leave to propose Mr. Spectator. You see his inclinations and perhaps we may not have his fellow.'

"I found most of them (as is usual in all such cases) were prepared; but one of the seniors (whom, by-the-bye, Mr. President had taken all this pains to bring over) sat still, and cocking his chin, which seemed only to be levelled at his nose, very gravely declared, That in case he had had sufficient know ledge of you, no man should have been more willing to have served you; but that he, for his own part, had always had regard to his own conscience, as well as other people's merit; and that he did not know but that you might be a handsome fellow; for, as for your own certificate, it was every body's bu-arts to please; Daphne, despairing of any inclinasiness to speak for themselves.' Mr. President immediately retorted, A handsome fellow! why he is a wit, Sir, and you know the proverb;' and to ease the old gentleman of his scruples cried, That for matter of merit it was all one, you might wear a mask.' This threw him into a pause, and he looked desirous of three days to consider on it; but Mr. President improved the thought, and followed him up with an old story, That wits were privileged to wear what masks they pleased in all ages; and that a vizard had been the constant crown of their labours, which was generally presented them by the hand of some satyr, and sometimes by Apollo himself:' for the truth of which he appealed to the frontispiece of several books, and particularly to the English Juve na!, to which he referred him; and only added, That such authors were the Larvati or Larva donati of the ancients.' This cleared up all, and in the conclusion you were chose probationer; and Mr. President put round your health as such, protesting, That though indeed he talked of a vizard, he did not believe all the while you had any more occasion for it than the cat-a-mountain;' so that all you have to do now is to pay your fees, which are here very reasonable, if you are not imposed upon; and you may style yourself Informis Societatis Socius: which I am desired to acquaint you with; and upon the same I beg you to accept of the congratulations of, "Sir, your obliged humble servant, Oxford, March 21.

R.

"A. C."

No. 33.] SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1711.

Fervidus tecum puer, et solutis
Gratiæ zonis, properentque nymphæ,
Et parum comis sine te juventus,

Mercuriusque.-HOR. I Od. xxx. 5.
The graces with their zones unloos'd;
The nymphs, with beauties all expos'd,
From every spring, and every plain;
Thy powerful, hot, and winged boy;
And youth, that's dull without thy joy:

And Mercury, compose thy train.-CREECH.

A FRIEND of mine has two daughters, whom I will call Lætitia and Daphne; the former is one of the greatest beauties of the age in which she lives, the latter no way remarkable for any charms in her person. Upon this one circumstance of their outward form, the good and ill of their life seems to turn. Lætitia has not, from her very childhood, heard any thing else but commendations of her features and complexion, by which means she is no other than nature made her, a very beautiful outside. The consciousness of her charms has rendered her

to do with her. Daphne, who was almost twenty before one civil thing had ever been said to her, found herself obliged to acquire some accomplishments to make up for the want of those attrac tions which she saw in her sister. Poor Daphne was seldom submitted to in a debate wherein she was concerned; her discourse had nothing to recommend it but the good sense of it, and she was always under a necessity to have very well considered what she was to say before she uttered it; while Lætitia was listened to with partiality, and approbation sat on the countenances of those she conversed with, before she communicated what she had to say. These causes have produced suitable effects, and Lætitia is as insipid a companion as Daphne is an agreeable one. Lætitia, confident of favour, has studied no tion towards her person, has depended only on her merit. Lætitia has always something in her air that is sullen, grave, and disconsolate. Daphne has a countenance that is cheerful, open, and unconcerned. A young gentleman saw Lætitia this winter at a play, and became her captive. His fortune was such, that he wanted very little introduction to speak his sentiments to her father. The lover was admitted with the utmost freedom into the family, where a constrained behaviour, severe looks, and distant civili. ties, were the highest favours he could obtain of Læ. titia; while Daphne used him with the good humour, familiarity, and innocence of a sister: insomuch that he would often say to her, "Dear Daphne, wert thou but as handsome as Lætitia-" She received such language with that ingenuousness and pleasing mirth which is natural to a woman without design. He still sighed in vain for Lætitia, but found certain relief in the agreeable conversation of Daphne. At length, heartily tired with the haughty impertinence of Lætitia, and charmed with the repeated instances of good humour he had observed in Daphne, he one day told the latter that he had some thing to say to her he hoped she would be pleased with "Faith, Daphne," continued he, “I am in love with thee, and despise thy sister sincerely." The manner of his declaring himself gave his mistress occasion for a very hearty laughter.-" Nay," says he, "I knew you would laugh at me, but I will ask your father." He did so; the father received this intelligence with no less joy than surprise, and was very glad he had now no care left but for his beauty, which he thought he could carry to market at his leisure. I do not know any thing that has pleased me so much for a great while, as this con quest of my friend Daphne's. All her acquaintance congratulate her upon her chance-medley, and laugh at that premeditating murderer her sister. As it is an argument of a light mind, to think the worse of ourselves for the imperfections of our person, it is equally below us to value ourselves upon the advantages of them. The female world seem to be almost incorrigibly gone astray in this particular; for which reason I shall recommend the following extract out of a friend's letter to the professed beauties, who are a people almost as insufferable as the professed wits.

66

"Monsieur St. Evremond has concluded one of his essays with affirming, that the last sighs of a handsome woman are not so much for the loss of her life, as of her beauty. Perhaps this raillery is pursued too far, yet it is turned upon a very obvious re mark, that woman's strongest passion is for her own beauty, and that she values it as her favourite dis tinction. From hence it is that all arts which pre

teud to improve or preserve it, meet with so general pressions he felt upon seeing her at her first creaa reception among the sex. To say nothing of many tion, he does not represent her like a Grecian Venus, false helps and contraband wares of beauty which by her shape or features, but by the lustre of her are daily vended in this great mart, there is not a mind which shone in them, and gave them their maiden gentlewoman of good family in any county power of charming: of South Britain, who has not heard of the virtues of May-dew, or is unfurnished with some receipt or other in favour of her complexion; and I have known a physician of learning and sense, after eight years' study in the university, and a course of travels into most countries of Europe, owe the first raising

of his fortunes to a cosmetic wash.

"This has given me occasion to consider how so universal a disposition in womankind, which springs from a laudable motive-the desire of pleasing-and proceeds upon an opinion not altogether groundlessthat nature may be helped by art-may be turned to their advantage. And, methinks, it would be an acceptable service to take them out of the hands of quacks and pretenders, and to prevent their imposing upon themselves, by discovering to them the true secret and art of improving beauty.

"In order to this, before I touch upon it directly, it will be necessary to lay down a few preliminary maxims, viz. :

"That no woman can be handsome by the force of features alone, any more than she can be witty only by the help of speech.

"That pride destroys all symmetry and grace, and affectation is a more terrible enemy to fine faces than the small-pox.

"That no woman is capable of being beautiful, who is not incapable of being false.

"And, That what would be odious in a friend is deformity in a mistress.

"From these few principles, thus laid down, it will be easy to prove, that the true art of assisting beauty consists in embellishing the whole person by the proper ornaments of virtuous and commendable qualities. By this help alone it is, that those who are the favourite work of nature, or, as Mr. Dryden expresses it, the porcelain clay of human kind, become animated, and are in a capacity of exerting their charms; and those who seem to have been neglected by her, like models wrought in haste, are capable in a great measure of finishing what she has left imperfect.

Grace was in all her steps, heav'n in her eye, In all her gestures dignity and love! "Without this irradiating power, the proudest fair one ought to know, whatever her glass may tell her to the contrary, that her most perfect features are uninformed and dead.

"I cannot better close this moral than by a short epitaph written by Ben Jonson with a spirit which nothing could inspire but such an object as I have been describing:

No. 34.1 MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1711. parcit

Cognatis maculis similis fera

Juv. Sat. xv. 159. From spotted skins the leopard does refrain.-TATE. THE club of which I am a member, is very luckily composed of such persons as are engaged in different ways of life, and deputed as it were out of the most conspicuous 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 satisfaction to find that there is no rank or degree among them who have not their representative in this club, and that there is always somebody present who will take care of their respective interests, that nothing may be written or published to the prejudice or infringement of their just rights and privileges.

I last night sat 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 suc. cess which they had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest manner he could, that there were some 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 some of them were likewise very much surprised, that I should think such serious points as the dress and equipage of persons of quality proper subjects for raillery.

"It is, methinks, a low and degrading idea of that sex, which was created to refine the joys and soften the cares of humanity by the most agreeable paricipation, to consider them merely as objects of sight. This is abridging them of their natural extent of power, to put them upon a level with their pictures at Kneller's. How much nobler is the contemplation of beauty heightened by virtue, and commanding our esteem and love while it draws our observation! How faint and spiritless are the He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport charms of a coquette, when compared with the real took him up short, and told him, that the papers he loveliness of Sophronia's innocence, piety, good-hinted at, had done great good in the city, and that humour, and truth; virtues which add a new softness all their wives and daughters were the better for to her sex, and even beautify her beauty! That agreeableness which must otherwise have appeared no longer in the modest virgin, is now preserved in the tender mother, the prudent friend, and the faithful wife. Colours artfully spread upon canvas may entertain the eye, but not affect the heart; and she who takes no care to add to the natural graces of her person any excellent qualities, may be allowed still to amuse, as a picture, but not to triumph as a beauty.

When Adam is introduced by Milton, describing Eve in Paradise, and relating to the angel the im

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," says 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 must needs be of general use."

Upon this, my friend the Templar told Sir An drew, that he wondered to hear a man of his sense