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'Sir, your most obedient Servant,

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"S. P."

"I am a lad of about fourteen. I find a mighty pleasure in learning. I have been at the Latin school four years. I don't know I ever played truant, or neglected any task my master set me in my life. I think on what I read in school as I go home at noon and night, and so intently, that I have often gone half a mile out of my way, not minding whither I went. Our maid tells me she often hears me talk Latin in my sleep, and I dream two or three nights in a week I am reading Juvenal and Homer. My master seems as well pleased with my performances as any boy's in the same class. I think, if I know my own mind, I would choose rather to be a scholar than a prince without learning. I have a very good, affectionate father; but though very rich, yet so mighty near, that he thinks much of the charges of my education. He often tells me he believes my schooling will ruin him; that I cost him God knows what in books. I tremble to tell him I want one. I am forced to keep my pocket-money, and lay it out for a book now and then, that he don't know of. He has ordered my master to buy no more books for me, but says he will buy them himself. I asked him for Horace t'other day, and he told me in a passion he did not believe I was fit for it, but only my master had a mind to make him think I had got a great way in my learning. I am sometimes a month behind other boys in getting the books my master gives orders for. All the boys in the school, but have the classic ruthors in usum Delphini, gilt and lettered on the back. My father is often reckoning up how long I have been at school, and tells me he fears I do little good. My father's carriage so discourages me, that he makes me grow dull and melancholy. My master wonders what is the matter with me; I am afraid to tell him; for he is a man that likes to encourage learning, and would be apt to chide my father, and, not knowing his temper, may make him worse. Sir, if you have any love for learning, I beg you would give me some instructions in this case, and persuade parents to encourage their children when they find them diligent and desirous of learning. I have heard some parents say, they would do anything for their children, if they would but mind their learning: I would be glad to be in their place. Dear Sir, pardon my boldness. If you will but consider and pity my case, I will pray for your prosperity as long as I live.

"Your humble Servant, "JAMES DISCIPULUS." "London, March 2, 1711." T.

No. 331.] THURSDAY, MARCH 20, 1711-12.
-Stolidam præbet tibi vellere barbem.-
PERS., Sat. ii, 28.

Holds out his foolish beard for thee to pluck. WHEN I was last with my friend Sir Roger in Westminster-abbey, I observed that he stood longer than ordinary before the bust of a venerable old man. I was at a loss to guess the reason of it; when, after some time, he pointed to the figure, and asked me if I did not think that our forefath ers looked much wiser in their beards than we do without them? "For my part," says he, "when I am walking in my gallery in the country, and see my ancestors, who many of them died before

them as so many old patriarchs, and, at the same time, looking upon myself as an idle smock-faced young fellow. I love to see your Abrahams, your Isaacs, and your Jacobs, as we have them in old pieces of tapestry, with beards below their gir dles, that cover half the hangings." The knight added, "if I would recommend beards in one of my papers, and endeavor to restore human faces to their ancient dignity, that, upon a month's warning, he would undertake to lead up the fashion himself in a pair of whiskers."

I smiled at my friend's fancy; but, after we parted, could not forbear reflecting on the metamorphosis our faces have undergone in this particular.

The beard, conformable to the notion of my friend Sir Roger, was for many ages looked upon as the type of wisdom. Lucian more than once rallies the philosophers of his time, who endeavored to rival one another in beards; and represents a learned man who stood for a professorship in philosophy, as unqualified for it by the shortness of his beard.

Ælian, in his account of Zoilus, the pretended critic, who wrote against Homer and Plato, and thought himself wiser than all who had gone before him, tells us that this Zoilus had a very long beard that hung down upon his breast, but no hair upon his head, which he always kept close shaved, regarding, it seems, the hairs of his head as so many suckers, which, if they had been suffered to grow, might have drawn away the nourishment from his chin, and by that means have starved his beard.

I have read somewhere, that one of the popes refused to accept an edition of a saint's works, which were presented to him, because the saint, in his effigies before the book, was drawn without a beard.

We see by these instances what homage the world has formerly paid to beards; and that a barber was not then allowed to make those depreda tions on the faces of the learned, which have been permitted him of late years.

Accordingly several wise nations have been so extremely jealous of the least ruffle offered to their beards, that they seem to have fixed the point of honor principally in that part. The Spaniards were wonderfully tender in this particular. Don Quevedo, in his third vision on the last judgment, has carried the humor very far, when he tells us that one of his vain-glorious countrymen after having received sentence, was taken into custody by a couple of evil spirits; but that his guides happening to disorder his mustachios, they were forced to recompense them with a pair of curling. irons, before they could get him to file off.

If we look into the history of our own nation, we shall find that the beard flourished in the Saxon heptarchy, but was very much discouraged under the Norma.. line. It shot out, however, from time to time, in several reigns under different shapes. The last effort it made seems to have been in Queen Mary's days, as the curious reader may find, if he pleases to peruse the figures of Cardinal Pole and Bishop Gardiner; though, at the same time, I think it may be questioned, if zeal against popery has not induced our Protestant painters to extend the beards of these two persecutors beyond their natural dimensions, in order to make them appear the more terrible.

I find but few beards worth taking notice of in the reign of King James the First.

During the civil wars there appeared one, which makes too great a figure in story to be passed over in silence, I mean that of the redoubted Hudibras,

an account of which Butler has transmitted to dreamt he would have merited any reputation by posterity in the following lines: his activity.

His tawny beard was th' equal grace
Both of his wisdom and his face;
In cut and dye so like a tile,
A sudden view it would beguile;
The upper part thereof was whey,
The nether orange mixt with gray.

The whisker continued for some time among us after the extirpation of beards; but this is a subject which I shall not here enter upon, having discussed it at large in a distinct treatise, which I keep by me in manuscript, upon the mustachio. If my friend Sir Roger's project of introducing beards should take effect, I fear the luxury of the present age would make it a very expensive fashion. There is no question but the beaux would soon provide themselves with false ones of the lightest colors, and the most immoderate lengths. A fair beard of the tapestry size, which Sir Roger seems to approve, could not come under twenty guineas. The famous golden beard of Esculapius would hardly be more valuable than one made in the extravagance of the fashion.

Beside, we are not certain that the ladies would not come into the mode, when they take the air on horseback. They already appear in hats and feathers, coats and periwigs: and I see no reason why we may not suppose that they would have their riding-beards on the same occasion.

I may give the moral of this discourse in another paper.-X.

No. 332.] FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1712.
-Minus aptus acutis

Naribus horum hominum-HOR. 1 Sat. iii, 29. He cannot bear the raillery of the age.-CREECH. "DEAR SHORT FACE,

"IN your speculation of Wednesday last, you have given us some account of that worthy society of brutes, the Mohocks; wherein you have particularly specified the ingenious performances of the lion tippers, the dancing-masters, and the tumblers: but as you acknowledged you had not then a perfect history of the whole club, you might very easily omit one of the most notable species of it, the sweaters, which may be reckoned a sort of dancing-masters too. It is, it seems, the custom for half a dozen, or more, of these well-disposed savages, as soon as they have inclosed the persons upon whom they design the favor of a sweat, to whip out their swords, and holding them parallel to the horizon, they describe a sort of magic circle round about him with the points. As soon as this piece of conjuration is performed, and the patient without doubt already beginning to wax warm, to forward the operation, that member of the circle toward whom he is so rude as to turn his back first, runs his sword directly into that part of the patient whereon school-boys are punished; and as it is very natural to imagine this will soon make him tack about to some other point, every gentleman does himself the same justice as often as he receives the affront. After this jig has gone two or three times round, and the patient is thought to have sweat sufficiently, he is very handsomely rubbed down by some attendants, who carry with them instruments for that purpose, and so discharged. This relation I had from a friend of mine, who has lately been under this discipline. He tells me he had the honor to dance before the emperor himself, not without the applause and acclamations both of his imperial majesty and the whole ring; though I dare say, either I, nor any of his acquaintance, ever

"I can assure you, Mr. Spectator, I was very near being qualified to have given you a faithful and painful account of this walking bagnio, if I may so call it, myself. Going the other night along Fleet-street, and having, out of curiosity, just entered into discourse with a wandering fe male who was traveling the same way, a couple of fellows advanced toward us, drew their swords, and cried out to each other, 'A sweat! a sweat!' Whereupon, suspecting they were some of the ringleaders of the bagnio, I also drew my sword, and demanded a parley; but finding none would be granted me, and perceiving others behind them filing off with great diligence to take me in flank, I began to sweat for fear of being forced to it but very luckily betaking myself to a pair of heels, which I had good reason to believe would do me justice, I instantly got possession of a very snug corner in a neighboring alley that lay in my rear; which post I maintained for above half an hour with great firmness and resolution, though not letting this success so far overcome me as to make me unmindful of the circumspection that was necessary to be observed upon my advancing again toward the street; by which prudence and good management I made a handsome and orderly retreat, having suffered no other damage in this action than the loss of my baggage, and the dislocation of one of my shoe heels, which last I am just now informed is in a fair way of recovery. These sweaters, by what I can learn from my friend, and by as near a view as I was able to take of them myself, seem to me to have at present but a rude kind of discipline among them. It is probable, if you would take a little pains with them, they might be brought into better order. But I'll leave this to your own discretion; and will only add, that if you think it worth while to insert this by way of caution to those who have a mind to preserve their skins whole from this sort of cupping, and tell them at the same time the hazard of treating with night-walkers, you will per haps oblige others, as well as

"Your very humble Servant,

"JACK LIGHTFOOT.”

"P. S. My friend will have me acquaint you. that though he would not willingly detract from the merit of that extraordinary strokesman, Mr. Sprightly, yet it is his real opinion, that some of those fellows who are employed as rubbers to this new-fashioned baguio, have struck as bold strokes as ever he did in his life.

"I had sent this four-and-twenty hours sooner, if I had not had the misfortune of being in a great doubt about the orthography of the word bagnio. I consulted several dictionaries, but found no relief: at last having recourse both to the bagnio in Newgate-street, and to that in Chancery-lane, and finding the original manuscripts upon the sign-posts of each to agree literally with my own spelling, I returned home full of satisfaction, in order to dispatch this epistle." MR SPECTATOR,

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"As you have taken most of the circumstances of human life into your consideration, we the underwritten thought it not improper for us also to represent to you our condition. We are three ladies who live in the country, and the greatest improve ment we make is by reading. We have taken a small journal of our lives, and find it extremely opposite to your last Tuesday's speculation. We rise by seven, and pass the beginning of each day in devotion, and looking into those affairs that

fall within the occurrences of a retired life; in the afternoon we sometimes enjoy the good company of some friend or neighbor, or else work or read: at night we retire to our chambers, and take leave of each other for the whole night at ten o'clock. We take particular care never to be sick of a Saturday. Mr. Spectator, we are all very good maids, but ambitious of characters which we think more laudable, that of being very good wives. If any of your correspondents inquire for a spouse for an honest country gentleman, whose estate is not dipped, and wants a wife that can save half his revenue, and yet make a better figure than any of his neighbors of the same estate, with finer-bred women, you shall have farther notice from,

T.

"Sir, your courteous Readers,

"MARTHA BUSIE,
"DEBORAH THRIFTY,
"ALICE EARLY."

No. 333.] SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1711-12. -vocat in certamina divos.-VIRG.

He calls embattled deities to arms. ·

We are now entering upon the sixth book of Paradise Lost, in which the poet describes the battle of the angels; having raised his reader's expectation, and prepared him for it by several passages in the preceding books. I omitted quoting these passages in my observations on the former books, having purposely reserved them for the opening of this, the subject of which gave occasion to them. The Author's imagination was so inflamed with this great scene of action, that wherever he speaks of it, he rises, if possible, above himself. Thus, where he mentions Satan in the beginning of his poem:

-Him the Almighty Power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,

Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.

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It required great pregnancy of invention, and strength of imagination to fill this battle with such circumstances as should raise and astonish the mind of the reader; and at the same time an exactness of judgment, to avoid everything that might appear light or trivial. Those who look into Homer are surprised to find his battles still rising one above another, and improving in horror to the conclusion of the Iliad. Milton's fight of angels is wrought up with the same beauty. It is ushered in with such signs of wrath as are suitable to Omnipotence incensed. The first engagement is carried on under a cope of fire, occasioned by the flights of innumerable burning darts and arrows which are discharged from either host. The second onset is still more terrible, as it is filled with those artificial thunders, which seem to make the victory doubtful, and produce a kind of consternation even in the good angels. This is followed by the tearing up of mountains and promontories; till in the last place the Messiah comes forth in the fullness of majesty and terror. The pomp of his appearance, amidst the roarings of his thunders, the flashes of his lightnings, and the noise of his chariot-wheels, is described with the utmost flights of human imagination.

There is nothing in the first and last day's engagement which does not appear natural, and agreeable enough to the ideas most readers would conceive of a fight between two armies of angels.

The second day's engagement is apt to startle an imagination which has not been raised and qualified for such a description, by the reading of the ancient poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold thought in our author, to ascribe the first use of artillery to the rebel angels. But as such a pernicious invention may

We have likewise several noble hints of it in be well supposed to have proceeded from such the infernal conference:

O prince! O chief of many-throned powers,
That led th' embattled seraphim to war,
Too well I see, and rue the dire event,
That with sad overthrow and foul defeat
Hath lost us heav'n; and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low.
But see! the angry victor has recall'd
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of heav'n. The sulphurous hail
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid
The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of heav'n receiv'd us falling: and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning, and impetuous rage,
Perhaps has spent his shafts, and ceases now

To bellow through the vast and boundless deep. There are several other very sublime images on the same subject in the first book, as also in the

second:

What when we fled amain, pursued and struck
With heav'n's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us: this hell then seem'd
A refuge from those wounds.-

authors, so it enters very probably into the thoughts of that being, who is all along described as aspiring to the majesty of his Maker. Such engines were the only instruments he could have made use of to imitate those thunders, that in all poetry both sacred and profane, are represented as the arms of the Almighty. The tearing up the hills was not altogether so daring a thought as the former. We are, in some measure, prepared for such an incident by the description of the giants' war, which we meet with among the ancient poets. What still made this circumstance the more proper for the poet's use, is the opinion of many learned men, that the fable of the giants' war which makes so great a noise in antiquity and gave birth to the sublimest description in Hesiod's works, was an allegory founded upon this very tradition of a fight between the good and bad angels.

It may, perhaps, be worth while to consider with what judgment Milton, in this narration, has avoided everything that is mean and trivial In short, the poet never mentions anything of in the descriptions of the Latin and Greek poets; this battle, but in such images of greatness and and at the same time improved every great hint terror as are suitable to the subject. Among which he met with in their works upon this subseveral others I cannot forbear quoting that pas-ject. Homer, in that passage which Longinus has sage where the Power, who is described as pre-celebrated for its sublimeness, and which Virgil eiding over the chaos, speaks in the second and Ovid have copied after him, tells us that the Look: giants threw Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion

success, receiving in his dream a sword from the
hand of the prophet Jeremiah. The following
passage, where Satan is described as wounded by
the sword of Michael, is in imitation of Homer.
The griding sword with discontinuous wound

Pass'd through him, but th' ethereal substance clos'd,
Not long divisible; and from the gash

A stream of nectarous humor issuing flow'd
Sanguine (such as celestial spirits may bleed),
And all his armor stain'd.

upon Ossa. He adds an epithet to Pelion, which very much swells the idea, by bringing up to the reader's imagination all the woods that grew pon it. There is further a greater beauty in his singling out by name these three remarkable mountains so well known to the Greeks. This last is such a beauty, as the scene of Milton's war could not possibly furnish him with. Claudiau, in his fragment upon the giant's war, has given full scope to that wildness of imagination which was natural to him. He tells us that the giants Homer tells in the same manner, that upon Diotore up whole islands by the roots, and threw them medes wounding the gods, there flowed from the at the gods. He describes one of them in parti-wound an ichor, or pure kind of blood, which was cular, taking up Lemnos in his arms, and whirl-not bred from mortal viands: and that, though ing it to the skies, with all Vulcan's shop in the the pain was exquisitely great, the wound socn midst of it. Another tears up Mount Ida, with closed up and healed in those beings who are the river Enipeus, which ran down the sides of vested with immortality. it; but the poet, not content to describe him with this mountain upon his shoulders, tells us that the river flowed down his back as he held it up in that posture. It is visible to every judicious reader that such ideas savor more of the burlesque than of the sublime. They proceed from a wantonness of imagination, and rather divert the mind Milton has taken everything that is sublime in these several passages, and composes out of them the following great image:

than astonish it.

From their foundations loos'ning to and fro,
They pluck'd the seated hills, with all their load,
Rocks, waters, woods, and by the shaggy tops
Uplifting bore them in their hands.

We have the full majesty of Homer, in this short description, improved by the imagination of Claudian without its puerilities.

I need not point out the description of the fallen angels seeing the promontories hanging over their heads in such a dreadful manner, with the other numberless beauties in this book, which are so conspicuous, that they cannot escape the notice of the most ordinary reader.

There are indeed so many wonderful strokes of poetry in this book, and such a variety of sublime deas, that it would have been impossible to have ven them a place within the bounds of this paper. Beside that I find it in a great measure done to my hand at the end of my Lord Roscommon's Essay on Translated Poetry. I shall refer my reader thither for some of the master-strokes of the sixth book of Paradise Lost, though at the same time there are many others which that noble author has not taken notice of.

Milton, notwithstanding the sublime genius he was master of, has in this book drawn to his assistance all the helps he could meet with among the ancient poets. The sword of Michael, which makes so great a havoc among the bad angels, was given him, we are told, out of the armory of God:

-But the sword

Of Michael from the armory of God

Was giv'n him, temper'd so that neither keen
Nor solid might resist that edge: it met
The sword of Satan, with steep force to smite
Descending, and in half cut sheer-

furious Moloch flying from the battle, and bellowI question not but Milton, in his description of his ing with the wound he had received, had his eye on Mars in the Iliad: who upon his being wounded, is represented as retiring out of the fight, and making an outery louder than that of a whole that the Greeks and Trojans, who were engaged in a army when it begins the charge. Homer adds. general battle, were terrified on each side with the bellowing of this wounded deity. The reader will easily observe how Milton has kept all the horror of this image, without running into the ridicule of it:

-Where the might of Gabriel fought,
And with fierce ensigns piere'd the deep array
Of Moloch, furious king! who him defi'd,
And at his chariot-wheels to drag him bound,
Threaten'd, nor from the Holy One of heav'n
Refrain'd his tongue blasphemous: but anon
Down cloven to the waist, with shatter'd armus
And uncouth pain fled bellowing.-

Milton has likewise raised his description in this book with many images taken out of the poetical parts of Scripture. The Messiah's chariot, as I have before taken notice, is formed upon a vision of Ezekiel, who, as Grotius observes, has very much in him of Homer's spirt in the poetical parts of his prophesy.

The following lines in that glorious commission which is given the Messiah to extirpate the host of rebel angels, is drawn from a sublime passage in the Psalms:

Go then, thou mightiest, in thy Father's might,
Ascend my chariot, guide the rapid wheels
That shake heav'n's basis; bring forth all my war,
My bow, my thunder, my almighty arms
Gird on, and sword on thy puissant thigh.

The reader will easily discover many other strokes of the same nature.

There is no question but Milton had heated his imagination with the fight of the gods in Homer, before he entered upon this engagement of the angels. Homer there gives us a scene of men, heroes, and gods, mixed together in battle. Mars animates the contending armies, and lifts up his voice in such a manner, that it is heard distinctly amidst all the shouts and confusion of the fight. Jupiter at the same time thunders over their heads while Neptune raises such a tempest, that the whole field of battle, and all the tops of the mountains, shake about them. The poet tell us, that Pluto himself, whose habitation was in the very center of the earth, was so affrighted at the shock, that he leaped from his throne. Homer afterward describes Vulcan as pouring down a storm of fire upon the river Xanthus, and Minerva as throwing a rock at Mars; who he tells us, covered

This passage is a copy of that in Virgil, wherein the poet tells us, that the Sword of Eneas, which was given him by a deity, broke into pieces the sword of Turnus which came from a mortal forge. As the moral in this place is divine, so by the way we may observe, that the bestowing on a man who is favored by heaven such an allegorical weapon is very conformable to the old eastern way of thinking. Not only Homer has made use of it, but we find the Jewish hero in the Book of Maccabees, who had fought the bat-seven acres in his fall. tles of the chosen people with so much glory and As Homer has introduced into the battle of the

gods everything that is great and terrible in nature, Milton has filled his fight of good and bad angels with all the like circumstances of horror. The shout of armies, the rattling of brazen chariots, the hurling of rocks and mountains, the earthquake, the fire, the thunder, are all of them employed to lift up the reader's imagination, and give him a suitable idea of so great an action. With what art has the poet represented the whole body of the earth trembling, even before it was created!

All heav'n resounded; and had earth been then,
All earth had to its center shook.-

another view; and they will tell you, it is evident from plain and infallible rules, why this man with those beautiful features, and a well-fashioned person, is not so agreeable as he who sits by him without any of those advantages. When we read, we do it without any exerted act of memory that presents the shape of the letters; but habit makes us do it mechanically, without staying, like children, to recollect and join those letters. A man who has not had the regard of his gesture in any part of his education, will find himself unable to act with freedom before new company, as a child that is but now learning, would be to read without hesitation. It is for the advancement of the pleasure we receive in being agreeable to each other in ordinary life, that one would wish

In how sublime and just a manner does he afterward describe the whole heaven shaking under the wheels of the Messiah's chariot, with that ex-dancing were generally understood as conducive, ception to the throne of God!

-Under his burning wheels

The steadfast empyrean shook throughout,
All but the throne itself of God.

Notwithstanding the Messiah appears clothed with so much terror and majesty, the poet has still found means to make his readers conceive an idea of him beyond what he himself is able to describe:

Yet half his strength he put not forth, but check'd
His thunder in mid volley; for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of heaven.

In a word, Milton's genius, which was so great in itself, and so strengthened by all the helps of learning, appears in this book every way equal to the subject, which was the most sublime that could enter into the thoughts of a poet. As he knew all the arts of affecting the mind, he has given it certain resting places, and opportunities of recovering itself from time to time; several speeches, reflections, similitudes, and the like reliefs, being interspersed to diversify his narration, and ease the attention of the reader.

L.

No. 334.] MONDAY, MARCH 24, 1711-12. -Voluisti, in suo genere, unumquemque nostrum quasi quendam esse Roscium, dixistique non tam ea quæ recta essent probari, quam quæ prava sunt fastidiis adhæres cere. Cic. de Gestu.

You would have each of us be a kind of Roscius in his way; and you have said that fastidious men are not so much pleased with what is right, as disgusted at what is wrong.

Ir is very natural to take for our whole lives a light impression of a thing, which at first fell into contempt with us for want of consideration. The real use of a certain qualification (which the wiser part of mankind look upon as at best an indifferent thing, and generally a frivolous circumstance) shows the ill consequence of such prepossessions. What I mean, is the art, skill, accomplishment, or whatever you will call it, of dancing. I knew a gentleman of great abilities, who bewailed the want of his education to the end of a very honorable life. He observed that there was not occasion for the common use of great talents; that they are but seldom in demand; and that these very great talents were often rendered useless to a man for want of small attainments. A good mien (a becoming motion, gesture, and aspect) is natural to some men; but even these would be highly more graceful in their carriage, if what they do from the force of nature were confirmed and heightened from the force of reason. To one who has not at all considered it, to mention the force of reason on such a subject will appear fantastical; but when you have a little attended to it, an assembly of men will have quite

as it really is, to a proper deportment in matters that appear the most remote from it. A man of learning and sense is distinguished from others as he is such, though he never runs upon points too difficult for the rest of the world; in like manner the reaching out of the arm, and the most ordinary motion, discovers whether a man ever learnt to know what is the true harmony and composure of his limbs and countenance. Whoever has seen Booth, in the character of Pyrrhus, march to his throne to receive Orestes, is convinced that majestic and great conceptions are expressed in the very step; but, perhaps, though no other man could perform that incident as well as he does, he himself would do it with a yet greater elevation were he a dancer. This is so dangerous a subject to treat with gravity, that I shall not at present enter into it any further: but the author of the following letter has treated it in the essay he speaks of in such a manner, that I am beholden to him for a resolution, that I will never hereafter think meanly of anything, till I have heard what they who have another opinion of it have to say

in its defense.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"Since there are scarce any of the arts and sciences that have not been recommended to the

World by the pens of some of the professors, masters, or lovers of them, whereby the useful ness, excellence, and benefit arising from them, both as to the speculative and practical part, have been made public, to the great advantage and improvement of such arts and sciences; why should dancing, an art celebrated by the ancients in so extraordinary a manner, be totally neglected by the moderns, and left destitute of any pen to recommend its various excellences and substantial merit to mankind?

"The low ebb to which dancing is now fallen, is altogether owing to this silence. The art is esteemed only as an amusing trifle; it lies altogether uncultivated, and is unhappily fallen under the imputation of illiterate and mechanic. As Terence, in one of his prologues, complains of the rope-dancers drawing all the spectators from his play; so we may well say, that capering and tumbling is now preferred to, and supplies the place of, just and regular dancing on our theaters. It is, therefore, in my opinion, high time that some one should come in to its assistance, and relieve it from the many gross and growing errors that have crept into it, and overcast its real beauties; and, to set dancing in its true light, would show the usefulness and elegance of it, with the pleasure and instruction produced from it; and also lay down some fundamental rules, that might so tend to the improvement of its professors, and information of the spectators, that the first might be the better able to perform, and the latter rendered

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