chant; notwithstanding that the poor girl, to incline him to commiserate her condition, told him that she was with child by him: but he only made use of that information, to rise in his demands upon the purchaser.'"

I was so touched with this story (which I think should be always a counterpart to the Ephesian matron) that I left the room with tears in my eyes, which a woman of Arietta's good sense did, I am sure, take for greater applause than any compliments I could make her.-R.

girls of the neighborhood sitting about the fire with my landlady's daughters, and telling stories of spirits and apparitions. Upon my opening the door the young women broke off their discourse, but my landlady's daughters telling them that it was nobody but the gentleman (for that is the name which I go by in the neighborhood, as well as in the family), they went on without minding me. I seated myself by the candle that stood on a table at one end of the room; and pretending to read a book that I took out of my pocket, heard several dreadful stories of ghosts, as pale as ashes, that had stood at the feet of a bed, or walked over a

Veteres avias tibi de pulmone revello.

PERS., Sat. v, 92.

I root th' old woman from thy trembling heart.

Ar my coming to London, it was some time before I could settle myself in a house to my liking. I was forced to quit my first lodgings, by reason of an officious landlady, that would be asking me every morning how I had slept. I then fell into an honest family, and lived very happily for above a week; when my landlord, who was a jolly, goodnatured man, took it into his head that I wanted company, and therefore would frequently come into my chamber, to keep me from being alone. This I bore for two or three days; but telling me one day that he was afraid I was melancholy, I thought it was high time for me to be gone, and accordingly took new lodgings that very night. About a week after, I found my jolly landlord, who, as I said before, was an honest, hearty man, had put me into an advertisement in the Daily Courant, in the following words: "Whereas a melancholy man left his lodgings on Thursday last, in the afternoon, and was afterward seen going to ward Islington: if any one can give notice of him to R. B., fishmonger in the Strand, he shall be very well rewarded for his pains." As I am the best man in the world to keep my own counsel, and my landlord the fishmonger not knowing my name, this accident of my life was never discovered to this very day.

was

I am now settled with a widow woman, who has a great many children, and complies with my humor in everything. I do not remember that we have exchanged a word together these five years; my coffee comes into my chamber every morning without asking for it; if I want fire I point to my chimney, if water, to my basin; upon which my landlady nods, as much as to say, she takes my meaning, and immediately obeys my signals. She has likewise modeled her family so well, that when her little boy offers to pull me by the coat prattle in face, his eldest sister immediately calls him off, and bids him not to disturb the gentleman. At my first entering into the family, I troubled with the civility of their rising up to me every time I came into the room; but my landlady observing that upon these occasions I always cried Pish, and went out again, has forbidden any such ceremony to be used in the house; so that at present I walk into the kitchen or parlor, without being taken notice of, or giving any interruption to the business or discourse of the family. The maid will ask her mistress (though I am by) whether the gentleman is ready to go to dinner, as the mistress (who is indeed an excellent housewife) scolds at the servants as heartily before my face as behind my back. In short, I move up and down the house, and enter into all companies with the same liberty as a cat, or any other domestic animal, and am as little suspected of telling anything that I hear or see.

been conjured into the Red sea for disturbing peo ple's rest, and drawing their curtains at midnightwith many other old women's fables of the like nature. As one spirit raised another, I observed that at the end of every story the whole company closed their ranks, and crowded about the fire. I took notice in particular of a little boy, who was so attentive to every story, that I am mistaken if he ventures to go to bed by himself this twelvemonth. Indeed they talked so long, that the imaginations of the whole assembly were manifestly crazed, and, I am sure, will be the worse for it as long as they live. I heard one of the girls, that had looked upon me over her shoulder, asking the company how long I had been in the room, and whether 1 did not look paler than I used to do. This put me under some apprehension that I should be forced to explain myself, if I did not retire; for which reason I took the candle into my hand, and went up into my chamber, not without wondering at this unaccountable weakness in reasonable creatures, that they should love to astonish and terrify one another. Were I a father, I should take a particular care to preserve my children from these little horrors of imagination, which they are apt to contract when they are young, and are not able to shake off when they are in years. I have known a soldier that has entered a breach, affrighted at his own shadow, and look pale upon a little scratching at his door, who the day before had marched up against a battery of cannon. There are instances of persons who have been terrified even to distraction at the figure of a tree, or the shaking of a bulrush. The truth of it is, I look upon a sound imagination as the greatest blessing of life, next to a clear judgment and a good conscience. In the meantime, since there are very few whose minds are not more or less subject to these dreadful thoughts and apprehensions, we ought to arm ourselves against them by the dictates of reason and religion, "to pull the old woman out of our hearts" (as Persius expresses it in the motto of and extinguish those impertinent notions which we imbibed at a time that we were not able to judge of their absurdity. Or, if we believe, as many wise and good men have done, that there are such phantoms and apparitions as those I have been speaking of, let us endeavor to establish to ourselves an interest in him who holds the reins of the whole creation in his hands, and moderates them after such a manner, that it is impossible for one being to break loose upon another, without his knowledge and permission.

For my own part, I am apt to join in the opinion with those who believe that all the regions of nature swarm with spirits; and that we have multitudes of spectators on all our actions, when we think ourselves most alone; but instead of terrifying myself with such a notion, I am wonderfully pleased to think that I am always engaged with such an innumerable society in searching out the

wonders of the creation, and joining in the same concert of praise and adoration.

Milton has finely described this mixed communion of men and spirits in Paradise; and had doubtless his eye upon a verse in old Hesiod, which is almost word for word the same with his third line in the following passage:

Nor think. though men were none,
That heav'n would want spectators, God want praise;
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep;
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night. How often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices, to the midnight air,

Sole, or responsive each to other's note,
Singing their great Creator? Oft in bands,
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds,
In full harmonic number join'd, their songs
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heaven.
C.

PARAD. LOST, iv, 675.

Dic mihi, si fueris tu leo, qualis eris?-MART.
Were you a lion, how would you behave?

THERE is nothing that of late years has afforded matter of greater amusement to the town than Signior Nicolini's combat with a lion in the Haymarket, which has been very often exhibited to the general satisfaction of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom of Great Britain. Upon the first rumor of this intended combat, it was confidently affirmed, and is still believed by many in both galleries, that there would be a tame lion sent from the tower every opera night, in order to be killed by Hydaspes: this report, though altogether groundless, so universally prevailed in the upper regions of the play-house, that some of the most refined politicians in these parts of the audience gave it out in a whisper, that the lion was a cousin-german of the tiger who made his appearance in King William's days, and that the stage would be supplied with lions at the public expense during the whole session. Many likewise were the conjectures of the treatment which this lion was to meet with from the hands of Signior Nicolini; some supposed that he was to subdue him in recitativo, as Orpheus used to serve the wild beasts in his time, and afterward to knock him on the head; some fancied that the lion would not pretend to lay his paws upon the hero, by reason of the received opinion, that a lion will not hurt a virgin. Several, who pretended to have seen the opera in Italy, had informed their friends, that the lion was to act a part in high Dutch, and roar twice or thrice to a thorough bass, before he fell at the feet of Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that was so variously reported, I have made it my business to examine whether this pretended lion is really the savage he appears to be, or only a counterfeit.

But before I communicate my discoveries, I must acquaint the reader, that upon my walking behind the scenes last winter, as I was thinking on something else, I accidentally jostled against a monstrous animal that extremely startled me, and upon my nearer survey of it, appeared to be a lion rampant. The lion, seeing me very much surprised, told me, in a gentle voice, that I might come by him if I pleased: "for," says he, "I do not intend to hurt anybody." I thanked him very kindly, and passed oy him; and in a little time after, saw him leap upon the stage, and act his part with very great applause. It has been observed by several, that the lion has changed his manner of acting twice or thrice since his first appearance;

a mild and peaceable man in his profession. If the former was too furious, this was too sheepish for his part; inasmuch, that after a short modest walk upon the stage, he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, without grappling with him, and giving him an opportunity of showing his variety of Italian trips. It is said, indeed, that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-color doublet: but this was only to make work for himself, in his private character of a tailor. I must not omit, that it was this second lion who treated me with so much humanity behind the scenes.

The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a country gentleman, who does it for his diversion, but desires his name may be concealed. He says very handsomely in his own excuse, that he does not act from gain, that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it; and that it is better to pass away an evening in this manner, than in gaming and in drinking: but at the same time says, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, that if his name should be known, the ill-natured world might call him, "the ass in the lion's skin." This gentleman's temper is made out of such a happy mixture of the mild and the choleric, that he outdoes both his predecessors, and has drawn together greater audiences than have been known in the memory of man.

I must not conclude my narrative, without taking notice of a groundless less report that has been raised to a gentleman's disadvantage, of whom I must declare myself an admirer; namely, that Signior Nicolini and the lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one another, and smoking a pipe together behind the scenes; by which their common enemies would insinuate, that it is but a sham combat which they represent upon the stage: but upon inquiry I find, that if any such correspondence has passed between them, it was not till the combat was over, when the lion was to be looked upon as dead, according to the received rules of the drama. Beside, this is what is practiced every day in Westminster-hall, where nothing is more usual than to see a couple of lawyers, who have been tearing each other to pieces in the court, embracing one another as soon as they are out of it.

I would not be thought, in any part of this relation, to reflect upon Signior Nicolini, who in acting this part only complies with the wretched taste of his audience; he knows very well, that the lion has many more admirers than himself; as they say of the famous equestrian statue on the Pont Nouf at Paris, that more people go to see the horse, than the king who sits upon it. On the contrary, it gives me a just indignation to see a person whose action gives new majosty to kings, resolution to heroes, and softness to lovers, thus sinking from the greatness of his behavior, and degraded into the character of the London 'Prentice. I have often wished, that our tragedians would copy after this great master of action. Could they make the same use of their arms and legs, and inform their faces with as significant looks and passions, how glorious would an English tragedy appear with that action which is capable of giving dignity to the forced thoughts, cold conceits, and unnatural expressions of an Italian opera! In the meantime, I have related this combat of the lion, to show what are at present the reigning entertainments of the politer part of Great Britain.

Audiences have often been reproached by writers for the coarseness of their taste, but our present grievance does not seem to be the want of a good taste, but of common sense.-C.

Wretch that thou art! put off this monstrous shape.

I was reflecting this morning upon the spirit and humor of the public diversions five-andtwenty years ago, and those of the present time; and lamented to myself, that though in those days they neglected their morality, they kept up their good sense; but that the beau monde, at present, is only grown more childish, not more innocent, than the former. While I was in this train of thought, an odd fellow, whose face I have often seen at the playhouse, gave me the following letter with these words: "Sir, the Lion presents his humble service to you, and desired me to give this into your hands."

"From my Den in the Haymarket, March 15. "SIR,

"I have read all your papers, and have stifled my resentment against your reflections upon operas, until that of this day, wherein you plainly insinuate, that Signior Nicolini and myself have a correspondence more familiar than is consistent with the valor of his character, or the fierceness of mine. I desire you would, for your own sake, forbear such intimations for the future; and must say it is a great piece of ill-nature in you, to show so great an esteem for a foreigner, and to discourage a Lion that is your own countryman.

"I take notice of your fable of the lion and man, but am so equally concerned in that matter, that I shall not be offended to whichsoever of the animals the superiority is given. You have misrepresented me, in saying that I am a country gentleman, who act only for my diversion; whereas, had I still the same woods to range in which I once had wher. I was a fox-hunter, I should not resign my manhood for a maintenance; and assure you, as low as my circumstances are at present, I am so much a man of honor, that I would scorn to be any beast for bread, but a lion.

"Yours, etc.”

this parish of St. Paul's Covent garden, and have not missed tolling in to prayers six times in all those years; which office I have performed to my great satisfaction, until this fortnight last past during which time I find my congregation take the warning of my bell, morning and evening, to go to a puppet-show set forth by one Powell, under the Piazzas. By this means I have not only lost my two customers, whom I used to place for sixpence a-piece over against Mrs. Rachael Eyebright, but Mrs. Rachael herself is gone thither also. There now appear among us none but a few ordinary people, who come to church only to say their prayers, so that I have no work worth speaking of but on Sundays. I have placed my son at the Piazzas, to acquaint the ladies that the bell rings for the church, and that it stands on the other side of the garden! but they only laugh at the child.

"I desire you would lay this before all the whole world, that I may not be made such a tool for the future, and that Punchinello may choose hours less canonical. As things are now, Mr. Powell has a full congregation, while we have a very thin house; which if you can remedy, you will very much oblige, "Sir, yours, etc."

The following epistle, I find, is from the under. taker of the masquerade:

"STR,

"I have observed the rules of my mask so care fully (in not inquiring into persons) that I cannot tell whether you were one of the company or not last Tuesday; but if you were not, and still de sign to come, I desire you would, for your own entertainment, please to admonish the town, that all persons indifferently are not fit for this sort of diversion. I could wish, Sir, you could make them understand that it is a kind of acting to go in masquerade, and a man should be able to say or do things proper for the dress in which he appears. We have now and then rakes in the habit of Roman senators, and grave politicians in the dress of rakes. The misfortune of the thing is, that people dress themselves in what they have a mind to be, and not what they are fit for. There is not a girl in town, but let her have her will in going to a mask, and she shall dress as a shepherdess, But let me beg of them to read the Arcadia, or some other good romance, before they appear in any such character at my house. The last day we presented, everybody was so rashly habited, that when they came to speak to each other, a nymph with a crook had not a word to say but in the pert style of the pit bawdry; and a man in the habit of a philosopher was speechless, till an occasion offered of expressing himself in the refuse of the tyring rooms. We had a judge that danced a minuet with a quaker for his partner, while halfa-dozen harlequins stood by as spectators; a Turk drank me off two bottles of wine, and a Jew eat me up half a ham of bacon. If I can bring my design to bear, and make the maskers preserve their character in my assemblies, I hope you will allow there is a foundation laid for more elegant and improving gallantries than any the town at present affords, and consequently, that you will give your approbation to the endeavors of, Sir, "Your most obedient, humble servant."

I am very glad the following epistle obliges me to mention Mr. Powell a second time in the same paper; for indeed there cannot be too great encouragement given to his skill in motions, provided he is under proper restrictions.

SIR, "The opera at the Haymarket, and that under

the little Piazza in Covent-garden, being at

present the two leading diversions of the town, and Mr. Powell professing in his advertisements to set up Whittington and his Cat against Rinaldo and Armida, my curiosity led me the beginning of last week to view both these performances, and make my observations upon them.

"First, therefore, I cannot but observe that Mr. Powell wisely forbearing to give his company a bill of fare beforehand, every scene is new and unexpected; whereas it is certain, that the undertakers of the Haymarket, having raised too great an expectation in their printed opera, very much disappoint their audience on the stage.

"The King of Jerusalem is obliged to come from the city on foot, instead of being drawn in a triumphant chariot by white horses, as my operabook had promised me; and thus while I expected Armida's dragons should rush forward toward Argentes, I found the hero was obliged to go to Armida, and hand her out of her coach. We had also but a very short allowance of thunder and lightning; though I cannot in this place omit doing justice to the boy who had the direction of the two painted dragons, and made them spit fire and smoke. He flashed out his rosin in such just proportions, and in such due time, that I could not forbear conceiving hopes of his being one day a most excellent player. I saw, indeed, but two things wanting to render his whole action complete, I mean the keeping his head a little lower, and hiding his candle.

"I observe that Mr. Powell and the undertakers of the opera had both the same thought, and I think much about the same time, of introducing animals on their several stages though indeed, with very different success. The sparrows and chaffinches at the Haymarket fly as yet very irregularly over the stage; and instead of perching on the trees, and performing their parts, these young actors either get into the galleries, or put out the candles; whereas Mr. Powell has so well disciplined his pig, that in the first scene he and Punch dance a minuet together. I am informed, however that Mr. Powell resolves to excel his adversaries in their own way; and introduces larks in his next opera of Susannah, or Innocence Betrayed, which will be exhibited next week, with a pair of new Elders.

"The moral of Mr. Powell's drama is violated, I confess, by Punch's national reflections on the French, and King Harry's laying his leg upon the Queen's lap, in too ludicrous a manner, before so great an assembly.

"As to the mechanism and scenery, everything, indeed, was uniform, and of a piece, and the scenes were managed very dextrously; which calls on me to take notice, that at the Haymarket, the undertakers forgetting to change the sidescenes, we were presented with the prospect of the ocean in the midst of a delightful grove; and though the gentlemen on the stage had very much contributed to the beauty of the grove, by walking up and down between the trees, I must own I was not a little astonished to see a well-dressed young fellow in a full-bottomed wig, appear in the midst of the sea, and without any visible concern taking snuff.

"I shall only observe one thing farther, in which both dramas agree; which is, that by the squeak of their voices the heroes of each are eunuchs; and as the wit in both pieces is equal, I must prefer the performance of Mr. Powell, because it is in our own language.

"I am, etc."

R.

No. 15]

SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1710-11

Parva leves capiunt animos - OVID, Ars. Am., i, 159.
Light minds are pleased with trifles.

WHEN I was in France, I used to gaze with great astonishment at the splendid equipages and partycolored habits of that fantastic nation. I was one day in particular contemplating a lady that sat in a coach adorned with gilded Cupids, and finely painted with the loves of Venus and Adonis. The coach was drawn by six milk-white horses, and loaded behind with the same number of powdered footmen. Just before the lady were a couple of beautiful pages, that were stuck among the harness, and by their gay dresses and smiling features, looked like the elder brothers of the little boys that were carved and painted in every corner of the coach.

The lady was the unfortunate Cleanthe, who af terward gave an occasion to a pretty melancholy novel. She had, for several years, received the addresses of a gentleman, whom, after a long and intimate acquaintance, she forsook, upon the account of this shining equipage, which had been offered to her by one of great riches, but a crazy constitution. The circumstances in which I saw her, were, it seems, the disguises only of a broken heart, and a kind of pageantry to cover dis, tress for in two months after she was carried to her grave with the same pomp and magnificence, being sent thither partly by the loss of one lover, and partly by the possession of another.

I have often reflected with myself on this unaccountable humor in womankind, of being smitten with everything that is showy and superficial; and on the numberless evils that befall the sex, from this light fantastical disposition. I myself remember a young lady that was very warmly solicited by a couple of importunate rivals, who, for several months together, did all they could to recommend themselves, by complacency of behavior and agreeableness of conversation. At length, when the competition was doubtful, and the lady undetermined in her choice, one of the young lovers very luckily bethought himself of adding a supernumerary lace to his liveries, which had so good an effect, that he married her the very week after.

In

The usual conversation of ordinary women very much cherishes this natural weakness of being taken with outside and appearance. Talk of a new-married couple, and you immediately hear whether they keep their coach and six, or eat in plate. Mention the name of an absent lady, and it is ten to one but you learn something of her gown and petticoat. A ball is a great help to discourse, and a birth-day furnishes conversation for a twelvemonth after. A furbelow of precious stones, a hat buttoned with a diamond, a brocade waistcoat or petticoat, are standing topics. short, they consider onl only the drapery apery of the species, and never cast away a thought on those orifaments of the mind that make persons illustrious in themselves, and useful to others. When women are thus perpetually dazzling one another's imaginations, and filling their heads with nothing but colors, it is no wonder that they are more attentive to the superficial parts of life than the solid and substantial blessings of it. A girl who has been trained up in this kind of conversation is in danger of every embroidered coat that comes in her way. A pair of fringed gloves may be her ruin. In a word, lace and ribbons, silver and gold galloons, with the like glittering gewgaws, are so many lures to women of weak minds and low education, and, when artificially displayed, are able o fetch down the most airy