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 Classic Authors in wood.

describes two lovers in a bower.

Baker's Chronicle.

Advice to a Daughter.

The New Atalantis, with a Key to it.

Mr. Steele's Christian Hero.

A Prayer Book : with a bottle of Hungary-water by the side of it.

Dr. Sacheverell's Speech.

Fielding's Trial.
Seneca's Morals.

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 several other authors, when Leonora entered, and upon my presenting her with a letter from the knight, told me, with an unspeakable grace, that she hoped Sir 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 resolution never to venture upon a second. She has no children to take care of, and leaves the management of her estate to my good friend Sir Roger. But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind of lethargy, and falls asleep, that is not agitated by some favourite pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has turned all the passion of her sex into a love of books and retirement. She converses chiefly with men (as she has often said herself), but it is only in their writings; and admits of very few male visitants, except my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleasure, and without scandal. As her reading has Jain 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 entertained me an hour together with a description of her country seat, which is situated 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 grottos covered with woodbines 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 collected 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 likewise tells me, that this ⚫ lady preserves her game better than any of the gentlemen in the country, not (says Sir Roger) that she sets so great a value upon her partridges and pheasants, as upon her larks and nightingales. For she says that every bird which is killed in 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 she has formed to herself, how much more valuable does she appear than those of

more use than to divert the imagination?

But the manner of a lady's employing hersel usefully in reading, shall be the subject of anothe paper, in which I design to recommend such par ticular books as may be proper for the improvement of the sex. And as this is a subject of= very nice nature, I shall desire my correspondenta to give me their thoughts upon it.

A LATE conversation which I fell into, gave me an opportunity of observing a great deal of beauty in a very handsome woman, and as much wit in ar ingenious man, turned into deformity in the one and absurdity in the other, by the mere force of affectation. The fair one had something in he person upon which her thoughts were fixed, thas she attempted to show to advantage in every look word, and gesture. The gentleman was as diligens to do justice to his fine parts, as the lady to her beauteous form. You might see his imagination on the stretch to find out something uncommon and what they call bright, to entertain her, while she writhed herself into as many different postures to engage him. When she laughed, her lips were to sever at a greater distance than ordinary to show her teeth; her fan was to point to something at a distance, that in the reach she might discover the roundness of her arm; then she is utterly mis taken in what she saw, falls back, smiles at he own folly, and is so wholly discomposed, that her tucker is to be adjusted, her bosom exposed, an the whole woman put into new airs and graces While she was doing all this, the gallant bad tim to think of something very pleasant to say next to her, or make some unkind observation on som other lady to feed her vanity. These unhappy effects of affectation naturally led me to look into that strange state of mind which so generally discolours the behaviour of most people we meet with.

The learned Dr. Burnet, in his Theory of the Earth, takes occasion to observe, that every thought is attended with consciousness and representativeness; the mind has nothing presented to it bur what is immediately followed by a reflection of conscience, which tells you whether that which was so presented is graceful or unbecoming. This act of the mind discovers itself in the gesture, by a proper behaviour in those whose consciousness goes no further than to direct them in the just progres of their present state or action; but betrays an interruption in every second thought, when the consciousness is employed in too fondly approving a man's own conceptions; which sort of consciog ness is what we call affectation.

As the love of praise is implanted in our bosom as a strong incentive to worthy actions, it is a very difficult task to get above a desire of it for things that should be wholly indifferent. Women, whose

The pleasure they have in the are the objects of love and hanging the air of their counthe attitude of their bodies, of their beholders with new - The dressing part of our he same with the sillier part | ctly in the like uneasy condior a well-tied cravat, an hat mmon briskness, a very wellnstances of merit, which they mobserved.

ctation, arising from an ills, is not so much to be wone and trivial minds as these: reign in characters of worth what you cannot but lament, ignation. It creeps into the nas well as that of the coxee a man of sense look about cover an itching inclination to Traps for a little incense, even nion he values in nothing but is safe against this weakness? Der he is guilty of it or not? clear of such a light fondness ake all possible care to throw pon occasions that are not in but as it appears, we hope for Of this nature are all graces ress, and bodily deportment, be winning and attractive if em, but lose their force in provour to make them such.

usness turns upon the main de-thoughts are employed upon either in business or pleasure, y an affectation, for we cannot when we give the passion for liberty, our pleasure in little of what is due to us for great qualities. How many excellent t actions are lost, for want of here we ought? Men are op■ to their way of speaking and aving their thoughts bent upon Ho or say; and by that means great things, by their fear of things. This, perhaps, cannot n; but it has some tincture of that their fear of erring in a ence, argues they would be too rforming it.

It might be borne even here, but it often ascends the pulpit itself; and the declaimer, in that sacred place, is frequently so impertinently witty, speaks of the last day itself with so many quaint phrases, that there is no man who understands raillery, but must resolve to sin no more. Nay, you may behold him sometimes in prayer, for a proper delivery of the great truths he is to utter, humble himself with so very well-turned phrase, and mention his own unworthiness in a way so very becoming, that the air of the pretty gentleman is preserved, under the lowliness of the preacher.

I shall end this with a short letter I writ the other day to a very witty man, overrun with the fault I am speaking of:

'I SPENT Some time with you the other day, and must take the liberty of a friend to tell you of the unsufferable affectation you are guilty of in all you say and do. When I gave you an hint of it, you asked me whether a man is to be cold to what his friends think of him? No, but praise is not to be the entertainment of every moment. He that hopes for it must be able to suspend the possession of it till proper periods of life, or death itself. If you would not rather be commended than be praiseworthy, contemn little merits; and allow no man to be so free with you, as to praise you to your face. Your vanity by this means will want its food. At the same time your passion for esteem will be more fully gratified; men will praise you in their actions: where you now receive one compliment you will then receive twenty civilities. Till then you will never have of either, further than,

affectation makes in that part of nould be most polite, is visible Our eyes: it pushes men not only in conversation, but also in their

Ches. At the bar it torments the ness it is to cut off all superspoken before it by the practiseveral little pieces of injustice the law itself. I have seen it From the purpose before a judge, at the bar himself, so close and that with all the pomp of elower, he never spoke a word too

-ly Lord Chancellor Cowper.

I shall take notice, in this and in other following papers, of some particular parts in it that seem liable to exception.

Aristotle observes, that the Iambic verse in the Greek tongue was the most proper for tragedy: because at the same time that it lifted up the discourse from prose, it was that which approached nearer to it than any other kind of verse. For,' says he, we may observe that men in ordinary discourse very often speak iambies, without taking notice of it. We may make the same observation of our English blank verse, which often enters into our common discourse, though we do not attend to it, and is such a due medium between thyme and prose, that it seems wonderfully adapted to tragedy. I am therefore very much offended when I see a play in rhyme, which is as absurd in English, as a tragedy of hexameters would have been in Greek or Latin. The solecism is, I think, still greater in those plays that have some scenes in rhyme and some in blank verse, which are to be looked upon as two several languages; or where we see some particular similies dignified with rhyme, at the same time that every thing about them lies in blank verse. I would not, however, debar the poet from concluding his tragedy, or, if he pleases, every act of it, with two or three couplets, which may have the same eflect as an air in the Italian opera after a long recitativo, and give the actor a graceful exit. Besides that we see a diversity of numbers in some parts of the old tragedy, in order to hinder the ear from being tired with the same continued modulation of voice. For the same reason I do not dislike the speeches in our English tragedy that close with an hemistich, or half verse, notwithstanding the person who speaks after it begins a new verse, without filling up the preceding one; nor with abrupt pauses and breakings off in the middle of a verse, when they humour any passion that is expressed by it.

Since I am upon this subject, I must observe that our English poets have succeeded much better in the style, than in the sentiments of their tragedies. Their language is very often noble and sonorous, but the sense either very trifling, or very common. On the contrary, in the ancient tragedies, and indeed in those of Corneille and Racine, though the expressions are very great, it is the thought that bears them up and swells them. For my own part, I prefer a noble sentiment that is depressed with homely language, infinitely before a vulgar one that is blown up with all the sound and energy of expression. Whether this defect in our tragedies may arise from want of genius, knowledge, or experience in the writers, or from their compliance with the vicious taste of their readers, who are better judges of the language than of the sentiments, and consequently relish the one more than the other, I cannot determine. But I believe it might rectify the conduct both of the one and of the other, if the writer laid down the whole contexture of his dialogue in plain English, before he turned it into blank verse; and if the reader, after the perusal of a scene, would consider the naked thought of every speech in it, when divested of all its tragic ornaments. By this means, without be ing Imposed upon by words, we may judge impartially of the thought, and consider whether it be natural or great enough for the person that utters it, whether it deserves to shine in such a blaze of eloquence, or show itself in such a variety of lights as are generally made use of by the writers of our English tragedy.

I must in the next place observe, that when our

thoughts are great and just, they are often ob scured by the sounding phrases, hard metaphors and forced expressions in which they are clothed Shakspeare is often very faulty in this particular. There is a fine observation in Aristotle to this purpose, which I have never seen quoted. The expression,' says he, ought to be very much laboured in the unactive parts of the fable, as in descriptions, similitudes, narrations, and the like; in which the opinions, manners, and passions of men are not represented! for these (namely, the opinions, manners, and passions) are apt to be obscured by pompous phrases and elaborate expressions.' Horace, who copied most of his criticisms after Anstotle, seems to have had his eye on the foregoing rule, in the following verses:

Et tragicus plerumque dolet sermone pedestra
Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exul uterqite,
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba,
Si curat cor spectantis tetigisse querela

Ars Poet. ver. 95.

Among our modern English poets, there is none who was better turned for tragedy than Lee, if, instead of favouring the impetuosity of his genius he had restrained it, and kept it within its proper bounds. His thoughts are wonderfully suited to tragedy, but frequently lost in such a cloud of words, that it is hard to see the beauty of them. There is an infinite tire in his works, but so involved in smoke, that it does not appear in half its lustre. He frequently succeeds in the passionate parts of the tragedy, but more particularly where be slackens his efforts, and eases the style of those epithets and metaphors, in which he so much abounds. What can be more natural, more soft, or more passionate, than that line in Statira's speech, where she describes the charms of Alexander's conversation?

Then he would talk-Good gods! how he would talk!"

That unexpected break in the line, and turning the description of his manner of talking into an admiration of it, is inexpressibly beautiful, and wonderfully suited to the fond character of the person that speaks it. There is a simplicity in the words, that outshines the utmost pride of expression.

Otway has followed nature in the language of his tragedy, and therefore shines in the passionate parts, more than any of our English poets. As there is something familiar and domestic in the fable of his tragedy, more than in those of any other poet, he has little pomp, but great force in his expressions. For which reason, though he has admirably succeeded in the tender and melting part of his tragedies, he sometimes falls into too great a familiarity of phrase in those parts, which by Aristotle's rule ought to have been raised and supported by the dignity of expression.

It has been observed by others, that this poet has founded his tragedy of Venice Preserved on so wrong a plot, that the greatest characters in it are those of rebels and traitors. Had the hero of his play discovered the same good qualities in the defence of his country, that he showed for its ruin and subversion, the audience could not enough pity and admire him; but as he is now represented, we can only say of him what the Roman historian says

of tragedy are possessed with they represent a virtuous or Stress, they ought not to leave elivered him out of his trouumph over his enemies. This led into by a ridiculous doccism, that they are obliged to of rewards and punishments, xecution of poetical justice. that established this rule I sure it has no foundation in in the practice of the ancients. and evil happen alike to all e grave; and as the principal s to raise commiseration and f the audience, we shall defeat e always make virtue and insuccessful. Whatever crosses s a good man suffers in the 7, they will make but a small ninds, when we know that in arrive at the end of his wishes we see him engaged in the ns, we are apt to comfort ourare sure he will find his way hat his grief, how great soever t, will soon terminate in gladon the ancient writers of tra1 their plays, as they are dealt by making virtue sometimes les miserable, as they found it they made choice of, or as it udience in the most agreeable considers the tragedies that ter of these kinds, and observes, ended unhappily had always and carried away the prize in I of the stage, from those that error and commiseration leave a the mind; and fix the audience mposure of thought, as is much lightful than any little transient satisfaction. Accordingly we our English tragedies have sucthe favourites of the audience amities, than those in which they out of them. The best plays of Orphan, Venice Preserved, Alex

ander the Great, Theodosius, All for Love, Oedipus, Oroonoko, Othello, &c. King Lear is an admirable tragedy of the same kind, as Shakspeare wrote it; but as it is reformed according to the chimerical notion of poetical justice, in my humble opinion it has lost half its beauty. At the same time I must allow, that there are very noble tragedies, which have been framed upon the other plan, and have ended happily; as indeed most of the good tragedies, which have been written since the starting of the above-mentioned criticism, have taken this turn: as The Mourning Bride, Tamerlane, Ulysses, Phædra and Hippolitus, with most of Mr. Dryden's. I must also allow, that many of Shakspeare's, and several of the celebrated tragedies of antiquity, are cast in the same form. I do not therefore dispute against this way of writing tragedies, but against the criticism that would establish this as the only method; and by that means would very much cramp the English tragedy, and perhaps give a wrong bent to the genius of our writers,

The tragi-comedy, which is the product of the English theatre, is one of the most monstrous inventions that ever entered into a poet's thoughts. An author might as well think of weaving the adventures of Eneas and Hudibras into one poem, as of writing such a motley piece of mirth and sorrow. But the absurdity of these performances is so very visible, that I shall not insist upon it.

The same objections which are made to tragicomedy, may in some measure be applied to all tragedies that have a double plot in them; which are likewise more frequent upon the English stage than upon any other: for though the grief of the audience, in such performances, be not changed into another passion, as in tragi-comedies, it is diverted upon another object, which weakens their concern for the principal action, and breaks the tide of sorrow, by throwing it into different channels. This inconvenience, however, may in a great measure be cured, if not wholly removed, by the skilful choice of an under-plot, which may bear such a near relation to the principal design, as to contribute towards the completion of it, and be concluded by the same catastrophe.

There is also another particular, which may be reckoned among the blemishes, or rather the false beauties of our English tragedy: I mean those particular speeches which are commonly known by the name of Rants. The warm and passionate parts of a tragedy, are always the most taking with the audience; for which reason we often see the players pronouncing, in all the violence of action, several parts of the tragedy which the author writ with great temper, and designed that they should have been so acted. I have seen Powell very often raise himself a loud clap by this artifice. The poets that were acquainted with this secret, have given frequent occasion for such emotions in the actor, by adding vehemence to words where there was no passion, or inflaming a real passion into fustian. This hath filled the mouths of our heroes with bombast; and given them such sentiments, as proceed rather from a swelling than a greatness of mind. Unnatural exclamations, curses, vows, blasphemies, a defiance of mankind, and an outraging of the gods, frequently pass upon the audience for towering thoughts, and have accordingly met with infinite applause.

I shall here add a remark, which I am afraid our tragic writers may make an ill use of. As our heroes are generally lovers, their swelling and blustering upon the stage very much recommends them to the fair part of their audience. The ladies are

1

wonderfully pleased to see a man insulting kings, or affronting the gods, in one scene, and throwing himself at the feet of his mistress in another. Let him behave himself insolently towards the men, and abjectly towards the fair one, and it is ten to one but he proves a favourite of the boxes. Dryden and Lee, in several of their tragedies, have practised this secret with good success.

But to show how a rant pleases beyond the most just and natural thought that is not pronounced with vehemence, I would desire the reader, when he sees the tragedy of Oedipus, to observe how quietly the hero is dismissed at the end of the third act, after having pronounced the following lines, in which the thought is very natural, and apt to move compassion:

To you, good gods, I make my last appeal;

Or clear my virtues, or my crimes reveal.

If in the maze of fate I blindly run,
And backward tread those paths I sought to shun;

Impute my errors to your own decree:

My hands are guilty, but my heart is free."

Let us then observe with what thunder-claps of applause he leaves the stage, after the impieties and execrations at the end of the fourth act; and you will wonder to see an audience so cursed and so pleased at the same time.

O that, as oft I have at Athens seen, [Where, by the way, there was no stage till many

years after Oedipus].

The stage arise, and the big clouds descend;
So now, in very deed, I might behold
This pond'rous globe, and all yon marble roof,
Meet like the hands of Jove, and crush mankind:
For all the elements,' &c.

*SUPPOSING you to be a person of general knowledge, I make my application to you on a very particular occasion. I have a great mind to be rid of my wife, and hope, when you consider my case, you will be of opinion I have very just pretensions to a divorce. I am a mere man of the town, and have very little improvement, but what I have got from plays. I remember in the Silent Woman, the learned Dr. Cutberd, or Dr. Otter, (forget which) makes one of the causes of separation to be Error Persona, when a man marries a woman, and finds

her not to be the same woman whom he intended to marry, but another. If that be law, it is, I presume, exactly my case. For you are to know, Mr. Spectator, that there are women who do not let their husbands see their faces till they are married,

'Not to keep you in suspense, I mean plainly that part of the sex who paint. They are some of them so exquisitely skilful this way, that give them but a tolerable pair of eyes to set up with, and they will make bosom, lips, cheeks, and eye-brows, by their own industry. As for my dear, never was man so enamoured as I was of her fair forehead, neck, and arms, as well as the bright jet of her hair; but to my great astonishment I find they were all the effect of art. Her skin is so tarnished with this practice, that when she first wakes in a morning, she scarce seems young enough to be the mother of her whom I carried to bed the night before. I shall take the liberty to part with her by the first opportunity, unless her father will make her portion suitable to her real, not her assumed counte nance. This I thought fit to let him and her know by your means.

'I am, SIR,

'Your most obedient, humble servant,'

I cannot tell what the law, or the parents of the lady will do for this injured gentleman, but must allow he has very much justice on his side. I have indeed very long observed this evil, and dis tinguished those of our women who wear their own, from those in borrowed complexions, by the Picts and the British, There does not need any great discernent to judge which are which. The British have a lively animated aspect; the Picts, though never so beautiful, have dead uninformed countenances. The muscles of a real face some times swell with soft passion, sudden surprise, and are flushed with agreeable confusions, according as the objects before them, or the ideas presented to them, affect their imagination. But the Picts behold all things with the same air, whether they are joyful or sad; the same fixed insensibility appears upon all occasions. A Pict, though she takes all that pains to invite the approach of lovers, is obliged to keep them at a certain dis tance; a sigh in a languishing lover, if fetched too near her, would dissolve a feature; and a kiss snatched by a forward one, might transfer the complexion of the mistress to the admirer. It is hard to speak of these false fair ones, without saying something uncomplaisant, but I would only recommend to them to consider how they like coming into a room new painted; they may assure themselves, the near approach of a lady who uses this practice is much more offensive.

Will Honeycomb told us one day an adventure he once had with a Pict. This lady had wit, as well as beauty, at will; and made it her business to gain hearts, for no other reason but to rally the torments of her lovers. She would make great advances to insnare men, but without any manner of scruple break off when there was no provoca tion. Her ill-nature and vanity made my friend very easily proof against the charms of her wit and conversation: but her beauteous form, instead of being blemished by her falsehood and inconstancy, every day increased upon him, and she had new attractions every time he saw her. When she observed Will irrevocably her slave, she began to use him as such, and after many steps towards such a cruelty, she at last utterly banished him. The unhappy lover strove in vain, by servile epistles, to revoke bis doom; till at length he was forced