No. 178. Seven of Clock on Thursday Evening. The Colonel Monday, whom you charged me to see no more, is in Town, Sept, 24, 1711. T No. 179, I Martha Housewife. Tuesday, September 25, Centuriae seniorum agitant expertia frugis, MAY cast my Readers under two general Divisions, the Mercurial and the Saturnine. The first are the gay part of my Disciples, who require Speculations of Wit and Humour; the others are those of a more solemn and sober Turn, who find no Pleasure but in Papers of Morality and sound Sense; the former call every thing that is Serious Stupid. The latter look upon every thing as Impertinent that is Ludicrous. Were I always Grave one half of my Readers would fall off from me: Were I always Merry I should lose the other. I make it therefore my endeavour to find out Entertain ments of both kinds, and by that means perhaps consult the good of both more than I should do, did I always write to the particular Taste of either. As they neither of them know what I proceed upon, the sprightly Reader, who takes up my Paper in order to be diverted, very often finds himself engaged unawares in a serious and profitable Course of thinking; as on the contrary the Thoughtful Man, who perhaps may hope to find some thing Solid, and full of deep Reflection, is very often insensibly betrayed into a Fit of Mirth, In a word, the Reader sits down to my Entertainment without knowing his Bill of Fare, and has therefore at least the Pleasure of hoping there may be a Dish to his Palate. I must confess, were I left to my self, I should rather aim at Instructing than Diverting; but if we will be use ful to the World, we must take it as we find it. Authors of professed Severity discourage the looser part of Mankind from having any thing to do with their Writings. A Man must have Virtue in him, before he will enter upon the Reading of a Seneca or an Epictetus. The 1711, very Title of a Moral Treatise has something in it No. 179. Austere and Shocking to the Careless and Inconsiderate, Tuesday, For this reason several unthinking Persons fall in Sept. 25, my way, who would give no attention to Lectures delivered with a Religious Seriousness or a Philosophic Gravity, They are insnared into Sentiments of Wisdom and Virtue when they do not think of it; and if by that means they arrive only at such a degree of Considera tion as may dispose them to listen to more studied and elaborate Discourses, I shall not think my Speculations useless. I might likewise observe, that the Gloominess in which sometimes the Minds of the best Men are involved, very often stands in need of such little incite ments to Mirth and Laughter, as are apt to disperse Melancholy, and put our Faculties in good Humour, To which some will add, that the British Climate, more than any other, makes Entertainments of this nature in a manner necessary, If what I have here said does not recommend, it will at least excuse, the Variety of my Speculations. I would not willingly Laugh but in order to Instruct, or if I sometimes fail in this Point, when my Mirth ceases to be Instructive, it shall never cease to be Innocent. A Scrupulous Conduct in this Particular has, perhaps, more Merit in it than the generality of Readers imagine; did they know how many Thoughts occur in a point of Humour, which a discreet Author in Modesty suppresses; how many Stroaks of Railery present themselves, which could not fail to please the ordinary Taste of Mankind, but are stifled in their Birth by reason of some remote Tendency which they carry in them to corrupt the Minds of those who read them; did they know how many glances of Ill-nature are industriously avoided for fear of doing Injury to the Reputation of another, they would be apt to think kindly of those Writers who en deavour to make themselves diverting without being Immoral. One may apply to these Authors that Passage 5 in Waller, Poets lose half the Praise they would have got, As No. 179. As nothing is more easie than to be a Wit with all the Tuesday, above-mentioned Liberties, it requires some Genius and Sept. 25, Invention to appear such without them. 1711 What I have here said is not only in regard to the Publick, but with an Eye to my particular Correspondent who has sent me the following Letter, which I have castrated in some places upon these Considerations. 'Sir, Having lately seen your Discourse upon a Match of Grinning, I cannot forbear giving you an account of a Whistling Match, which, with many others, I was entertained with about three Years since at the Bath. The Prize was a Guinea, to be conferred upon the ablest Whistler, that is, on him who could Whistle clearest, and go through his Tune without Laughing, to which at the same time he was provoked by the Antick Postures of a Merry Andrew, who was to stand upon the Stage and play his Tricks in the Eye of the Performer. There were three Competitors for the Ring. The first was a Plow-man of a very promising Aspect; his Features were steady, and his Muscles composed in so inflexible a stupidity, that upon his first appearance every one gave the Guinea for lost. The Pickled Herring however found the way to shake him, for upon his Whistling a Country Jigg this unlucky Wagg danced to it with such a variety of Distortions and Grimaces, that the Country Man could not forbear smiling upon him, and by that means spoiled his Whistle and lost the Prize. The next that mounted the Stage was an Under Citizen of the Bath, a Person remarkable among the inferior People of that Place for his great Wisdom and his broad Band. He contracted his Mouth with much Gravity, and, that he might dispose his Mind to be more serious than ordinary, begun the Tune of the Children in the Wood, and went through part of it with good Success, when on a sudden the Wit at his Elbow, who had appeared wonderfully grave and atten tive for some time, gave him a touch upon the left Shoulder, and stared him in the Face with so bewitch ing a Grinn, that the Whistler relaxed his Fibres into 1711 a kind of Simper, and at length burst out into an open No. 179. Laugh. The third who entered the Lists was a Foot Tuesday, man, who in defiance of the Merry Andrew, and all Sept. 25, * his Arts, whistled a Scotch Tune and an Italian Sonata, with so setled a Countenance, that he bore away the Prize, to the great Admiration of some Hundreds of Persons, who, as well as my self, were present at this Tryal of Skill Now, Sir, I humbly conceive, whatever you have determined of the Grinners, the Whistlers dought to be encouraged, not only as their Art is practised without Distortion, but as it improves Country › Musick, promotes Gravity, and teaches ordinary People to keep their Countenances, if they see any thing ridiculous in their Betters; besides that it seems an En tertainment very particularly adapted to the Bath, as it is usual for a Rider to Whistle to his Horse when he I would make his Waters pass, Postcript. I am, Sir, &c. After having dispatched these two important Points of Grinning and Whistling, I hope you will oblige the I World with some Reflections upon Yawning, as I have I seen it practised on a Twelfth Night, among other = Christmas Gambols, at the House of a very worthy Gentleman, who always entertains his Tenants at that I time of the Year. They Yawn for a Cheshire Cheese, and begin about Mid-night, when the whole Company is disposed to be drowsie. He that Yawns widest, and at the same time so naturally as to produce the most Yawns among his Spectators, carries home the Cheese, If you handle this Subject as you ought, I question not I but your Paper will set half the Kingdom a Yawning, tho' I dare promise you it will never make any Body fall asleep,' Wednesday No. 180, No 180. Wednes [STEELE] day, Sept, 26, 1711 Wednesday, September 26. -Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.-Hor. THE forbear inserting it, the it HE following Letter has so much Weight and good relates to an hardened Sinner, whom I have very little Hopes of reforming, viz. Lewis XIV. of France. 'Mr. SPECTATOR, Amidst the Variety of Subjects of which you have treated, I could wish it had fallen in your Way to ex pose the Vanity of Conquests. This Thought would naturally lead one to the French King, who has been generally esteemed the greatest Conquerour of our Age, till her Majesty's Armies had torn from him so many of his Countries, and deprived him of the Fruit of all his former Victories, For my own Part, if I were to draw his Picture, I should be for taking him no lower than to the Peace of Reswick, just at the End of his Triumphs, and before his Reverse of Fortune; and even then I should not forbear thinking his Ambition had been vain and unprofitable to himself and his People. As for himself, it is certain he can have gained nothing by his Conquests, if they have not rendered him Master of more Subjects, more Riches, or greater Power. What I shall be able to offer upon these Heads, I resolve to submit to your Consideration. To begin then with his Increase of Subjects. From the Time he came of Age, and has been a Manager for himself, all the People he had acquired were such only as he had reduced by his Wars, and were left in his Possession by the Peace; he had conquered not above one Third Part of Flanders, and consequently no more than one Third Part of the Inhabitants of that Province, About 100 Years ago the Houses in that Country were all numbered, and by a just Computation the In habitants of all sorts could not then exceed 750000 Souls, And if any Man will consider the Desolation by almost perpetual Wars, the numerous Armies that have lived almost ever since at Discretion upon the People |